Home Again

Monday, June 29, 2009

Saturday was a busy day for me. Tom and Mary Ann were in Saratoga for the weekend so I was feeding his horses. Got his horses fed early so I could be out to Bonnie's about 7 or so. Miss had an appointment with a vet at 9 for a chiropractic check up so we had to leave by 8. Got all the horses fed at both places and on the road on time. Katie and Astrid both wanted to go with us, so they piled in the back of the truck. We found the vet clinic just in time for Miss' appointment. She was a mess all over. Her pelvis was twisted about three different ways. And then because she was compensating for that, her whole back was out of whack. He worked on her for about an hour, stretching her, and popping things back in place. As he worked you could see her relax and get more comfortable. When he finished I jogged her up and down the drive again, man was she moving better already. She climbed right up on the trailer, no hesitation at all on her part. He gave us some exercises to do with her at home, getting her to stretch through her back and lift her back up. When we got her home, I walked her in the arena for about 10 minutes. Of course Kaye had to come out with us. Miss was almost overstepping at the walk, which she hasn't done in a long time. She was in heat, and squatting and teasing Kaye, another thing she hasn't been able to do in a long time. I am amazed by the change in her already.

So after we got Miss settled in, Rachel and Beth came out for our lesson. I tacked Kaye up in the dressage saddle since we were going to work on dressage anyway. Plus I still wanted to go over my saddle with the Passier stuff after the soaking it got at Lost Hounds. So I got Kaye ready, Rachel had Airy and then Astrid joined us with Naughtie and Katie with Tru as well. We warm up and then rode some dressage tests. I rode the beginner novice test A once, and man was it good! Better even than I rode at the show. Then we ran through beginner novice test B a couple of times. It went pretty well, except Kaye started to get pissy at the end. She wanted to jump! So Bonnie had me change saddles. Which was a pain since I had to use the 16 1/2 which is just a tad too small for comfort. Bonnie set up a little course for us. We started out over the little crossbar in the middle. Kaye jumped it once and then she was not happy with that small of a jump. Eventually the jumps were raised. We ended up jumping the middle fence as a 2' oxer both ways, a 2'5" vertical and then a skinny that was about 2'8". Kaye had a blast and so did I. :) Katie actually did all the exercises as well and she only had two stops. That was a pretty good day for her as well. And she didn't get in my way to much, so yay for not annoying me!


In other news Spider was supposed to get gelded this week. Notice I said supposed to. Bonnie took him over to Tammy's on Wednesday, and both he and Titus were to get snipped. Well there were some complications with Titus. He started bleeding and they had to get him outside and finish it with him on the ground. He's okay now, but it ended up taking so long that they never got to Spider. So Spidey still has all his little manly bits. Titus came over to our barn to recover on Thursday. And so we've been having some fun training him. We taught him how to lunge and how to step over poles on the ground. We also taught him to step over the scary blue tarp. And then Sunday we saddle broke him. He was so good for it. I lunged him both directions first and then Bonnie brought out the pony saddle. We put that on him and just loosely did up the girth. Walked him around a bit, tightened the girth some. Walked some more and then tightened the girth a bit more. I lunged him then with the saddle. The only thing he did was a little cow kick when I went to lunge him, but he wasn't anywhere near me, and that was it. He was so good. Afterwards he went into the barn and was untacked in the aisle like the big horses. He's really liking all the attention he's getting. We put him back in his stall and he just looked at us like "hey where are you going? Aren't we going to learn something else now?" So cute. I wish he didn't have to go back to Tammy's.


Sunday I headed over to Crooked Creek Horse Park to see Nikki ride. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, Tom was in Saratoga, otherwise I would have had a horse to ride. I got there just as Nikki was tacking up for the Open Western Pleasure. And she was going in the class in sidesaddle. She had a sidesaddle on trial and she was thinking about buying it, but she wanted to ride in a class in it first. And since the show didn't have a sidesaddle class she had to go in a regular western pleasure class in it. Image was being a snot, he was feeling pretty good. Actually though, even with him being a brat, Nikki still had a better ride than the other two in the class. Unfortunately the judge had no idea what to do with her in sidesaddle. So she ended up third. Really a shame because the woman on the quarter horse who was in second was two handing her horse every chance she got. She should have been disqualified, that's illegal!


Loping the first direction



In the line up

Apparently the judge really liked Courtney because he placed her ahead of Nikki in a couple other classes and then Nikki came back to win the Adult Western Equitation. She ended up not going in the Arabian Western Pleasure classes on Sunday as she was also working for C & G, helping Jody get horses ready for the other riders. I had a good time getting to spend the day with Nikki and catching up on things. I hadn't had a chance to talk to her about her week working for Gordon Potts in Fort Worth yet, so I got to hear all about that, including about the job he offered her. Lucky her, she gets to work with horses full time now. She'll be travelling to about one show a month with Gordon and then working for Jody and C & G Ranch. I'll admit it, I'm jealous. I'd love to be able to quit me job and be with horses all day. Well, maybe someday I'll be able to.

0 comments: