3'4" Baby!

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

The bridle I bought Naughtie arrived from Ebay this week. Really nice black leather, no identifying marks as far as brand but a decent bridle for the $17 I paid. So Naughtie has her own bridle now, she doesn't have to share with Miss or Kaye. I also decided that I'm going to show her in pink this summer. I've always wanted to put a horse in pink, but I feel bad doing that to my gelding. And Naughtie actually looks very pretty in a pale pink. I picked up a pink pad from Luster's Friday night. And I found pink laces to go on my black Tipperary vest. I also bid on a pair of pink rubber reins on Ebay, they should be arriving any day I think. Bonnie hates the pink, but oh well I think it's pretty!

The plan is to go to the South Farm Combined Test on May 2nd. I'm going to take Miss beginner novice. Which means we NEED to work on the canter. If she's allowed Astrid is going to take Kaye in either intro or very green, which ever she feels comfortable. If Toni doesn't let Astrid ride I think I might see if I can take Naughtie as well in beginner novice. And then the plan will be to go to the South Farm Horse Trial Fourth of July weekend. Ideally I'd like to take Miss, but we're still waiting to see how she does once the weather gets warmer. If her breathing isn't good again this year, I'll try Naughtie there. I don't think she'll have any problems going beginner novice.

I left work an hour early Friday. I needed to go to the bank before they closed plus I wanted to go ride. Put Naughtie's new pink pad on her, and she looked fabulous! Anyways we warmed up on the flat and then Bonnie had us go over the cross bar. Just from the one jumping lesson the week before she was already jumping better. We did that a few times to warm up and then we jumped the oxer. I'll try and describe how the two fences were set up. They were both in the middle of the arena, about half a dozen strides apart. The one was the cross bar and the other was an oxer. I jumped the cross bar going towards the end of the arena and then did a figure 8 and cut in the middle to jump the oxer going towards the other end of the arena. Bonnie then added a bark rail to turn the cross bar into another oxer and we just kept jumping the both of them on a figure 8. Anyway I lost count of how many times we jumped. By the end of the lesson both oxers were about 2'8" with a 3' spread. Not to shabby. Naughtie was really jumping well. Looks like the plan is going to be lots of gymnastics with her and lots of big, wide oxers.

Saturday morning we had all the kids out. Rachel came out and brought a friend Julia. I rode Naughtie in a group lesson with Rachel/Miss, Julia/Fanny and Astrid/Kaye. The same two jumps we did Friday night only they were both little cross bars. Jumped one individually a few times and then did both cross bars in a row. Jumped that a few times and then Bonnie set up a third cross bar as an in and out. We did single fence followed by in and out. We each jumped that three times and then reversed so it was in and out followed by single fence. Julia had to bow out after that because Bonnie turned the second fence in the in and out into an oxer. Fanny just can't jump that much anymore, even though she really was having some fun. I went through first. And let me tell you it wasn't very pretty. Bonnie always tells us to come back to the trot so I was trying to get Naughtie to trot after the single fence and I didn't get the trot until like a stride before the double. So we just didn't have the impulsion to get through it well. She kinda climbed over the oxer. Now Bonnie tells me that I can canter the exercise. So much easier the next time through. After Rachel and I both did the exercise a few times Bonnie turned the first fence of the double into an oxer. Again the first time through wasn't the best. I really needed to push Naughtie in between but we got better. Eventually Bonnie turned the single fence into an oxer and raised the in and out a bit. I went through that a few times and then called it quits. Naughtie was getting tired and I just can't carry her through that kind of stuff. She's really not all that fit yet. Astrid got on her then and rode a bit. She jumped her over a few cross bars. But Astrid was afraid she was going to do something and was grabbing the mare with her legs. So of course Naughtie says "ok let's go." And Astrid got scared. I think they'll be a good match after Naugtie has settled in a little more and Astrid gets over her fears.

I went back and measured the fences later that night and it turns out the in and out oxers were 3'4"!! Woohoo Baby! Bonnie laughs at me because I always want to go and measure how high I jumped. But I'm just curious to know what we did. Plus I have to be able to document it on here. It pretty amazing. Usually I'm ok jumping single big fences. Or small combinations. But I freak out about jumping big combinations, and by big I mean anything over 2'. Even with Miss I freak out about that. But with Naughtie I never even thought about it. I just jumped.

Sunday I was out to the barn again. I had to strip out X's stall and put three new bags of bedding in it. It's little expensive to use the Best Cob stuff, but it's really working quite well for him. And now he's going out in the arena at night with his mares, he's not in his stall as much. We got Jade's old stall cleaned and moved Buster in there. And then cleaned Buster's stall to move Mystic. And now Mystic's stall needs to dry. It's like soup in there. He somehow managed to overfill his waterer big time. And it leaked everywhere! Once that dries some so we can strip it out, we'll move M & M in there so we can open his stall out into the pasture and let the outside horses use it for water.

Tammy and Tammy came out for another lesson. I was planning to just work Naughtie on the flat. She needs a bit of a refresher about things like moving off my legs and all that. We did a lot of work on a smaller circle, really making her get her hindquarters underneath her and come down onto the bit. And we got a lovely canter in each direction. She picked up the canter right away, and lightened up on her her forehand beautifully. She's really making progress just in the last week. Since we've been jumping the last two days I was just going to end there. But Tammy wanted to jump a little and Bonnie said it was ok, so we did a few cross bars. Nothing too big. Although towards the end Bonnie did put up a little oxer (about 2'4") I have to say Repo was so cute when he jumped. He hasn't jumped an oxer in probably a year and a half or so. Actually he hasn't done much jumping at all lately. He cleared the jump by a good foot. Really good weekend all around. I'll get in my lesson Friday night this week, I had wanted to start riding another night during the week. But that's not going to happen since Michael decided he wanted to alternate work schedules. Would have been nice if I'd been asked what I want to do. Monday was the first day I had to work the 8:30 - 5:00 shift. I left at 6:45 in the morning and didn't get home until 7:10. By then I don't have energy to do anything, let alone ride a horse. This sucks!

Easter next week, so Sunday will be a short day at the barn. But it means dinner at Aunt Sandy's, yay! And only two more weeks till Rolex, can't wait!

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