Two Weeks and Counting!

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Two weeks to go until Lost Hounds! Woot! Can you tell I'm excited? I had a couple of great lessons with Kaye this weekend. I'm really trying to think when I ride her and not just freeze up and hope to get around. I think I'm improving, Really I feel like I've come such a long way.


Anyways, I had to feed for Tom while he's at the Eastern Classic with Dalal. Luckily his horses are easy. Only three there and the boy stayed in last night. Dumped feed, brought Ivan and Amira in, topped off water tubs and tossed out some hay, and then kicked them all out for the day. Then it was off to Bonnie's for the day. Heather got there shortly after I did with Ari and Elena. So I tacked up Fanny for them and gave Elena a lesson while everyone else cleaned the arena. I'm really pretty proud of Elena, she's come a long way the couple of months she's been coming out. Ari's the one who really wants to ride. Elena was kinda scared of the horses at first. She's only stay on Fanny for maybe five minutes. Today she rode for about 20 minutes, went both directions and asked if she could ride with her hands on her hips! Just two weeks ago she wouldn't take her hands off the saddle no matter how much we begged (and bribed her) too. That was really a big moment for her. She's still only walking, not ready to try a trot yet. But she's come such a long way already, she'll get there eventually. After Elena was done, Ari got on for a lunge lesson from Bonnie. While she was riding Rachel came with her Mom so we starting getting our horses tacked up. Katie brings Tru in to ride with us and Bonnie has Astrid tack up Naughtie. This could be interesting.

The line of fences down the middle of the arena was still set up from my lesson last Sunday. Bonnie turned one of the verticals into a crossbar and we started by jumping that one fence, stopping at the wall and then continuing on. Did that a bit and then it was jump the crossbar, halt at the wall, turn on the haunches, back over the crossbar, halt at the wall. Do that a few times and then progress to jumping the first fence and then half circle to the fourth fence. Eventually we did three fences, turning the first and last into verticals and the middle one into an oxer with the barrel in the middle. I was super proud of Astrid because she jumped the whole exercise with Naughtie. Now she only jumped the fences as crossbars and trotted the whole thing. But still that's a hard exercise and she really did a good job with Naughtie. I told her she definitely got a gold star. To finish off the day Bonnie had me bring the sawhorse and blue outdoor carpet. We replaced the last vertical with the sawhorse/carpet and Rachel and I jumped that. We did a figure 8 starting and ending with the sawhorse. All in all it was a pretty good day.

Of course I could have done without Katie in the group. At one point she almost jumped on top of Kaye and I. We had just jumped the one fence and were halting at the rail. Next thing I know she jumps the fences and comes to a stop right next to me. Our stirrups were practically touching! Another time Astrid had called the jump and Katie just ignores her and goes over it instead. She always hogs the rail, making everyone else go around her. Eventually Bonnie had to give us a jumping order. Me, then Rachel, then Astrid and finally Katie.

Victoria had a mini meltdown when she was told that she couldn't ride Kaye. Of course she didn't want to ride Naughtie even though she's always complaining that she wants to ride different horses. I was almost to the point of telling her she wasn't going to ride then when she finally got on the horse. She just would not understand that I'm taking Kaye to a show in two weeks, therefore she's mine horse until then. I don't need Victoria or anyone else on her screwing things up between now and then.

Sunday Rachel came out again and we went outside for a little bit of cross country schooling. Bonnie and I cleaned up around the log at the bottom of the driveway. We then emptied the water trough from the arena and flipped it upside down on the grass about half way up the driveway. The sawhorse/blue carpet was put in the outdoor ring. We also put two blue barrels on their side at the other end of the ring. The old purple picnic table was set on it's side at the top of the driveway and finally we carried a small log over to the giant water puddle in the middle of the driveway.

Well Katie of course showed up when she heard we were going to school cross country, even though she hadn't been invited. So we all tacked up. I just have to say that I find it hysterical that Katie hurried up and brought her horse in as soon as I went with Bonnie to fix the jumps. She had to hurry up and get the cross ties before I could. I really thought of kicking her out of them since she wasn't invited to school with us, but I was nice instead. I used my new (to me at least) overgirth on Kaye, and I rode in my vest. Partly to make my mother happy, but also because I need to ride in it a few times and get used to it again.

We headed down to the log to start with and jumped that several times. Then we headed up to the water trough. I wasn't so sure about it coming down the first time and we had a stop. Completely my fault. Turned around and tried it again. Kaye of course was just like hold on and went flying over it. Jumped it a few times and then we had to give Rachel and Airy a lead over it. Bonnie eventually had to put an upright barrel next to it as a standard for Rachel and Katie. So then we head down to the bottom and jump the log and then up to the trough. Kaye and I come trotting up the driveway, I try to steer her to the water trough, she however sees the barrel next to it which was maybe a foot higher and goes "Goody the fence is bigger!" and she jumps the barrel. I was pretty much just holding on. Bonnie has us cross the driveway and do the sawhorse. Of course I have problems, even though I jumped it the day before I freak out a bit because it's outside now. Takes us a couple of times but we finally go over it. Of course by that time Kaye was a bit fed up with me stopping her and so she flew over it. She must have cleared it by at least a foot. We head back down to the start and tell Rachel and Katie to go. When it's my turn again, we got he first three jumps nicely and then do the barrels followed by the picnic table. I was a little nervous about the picnic table but I just held on and went with Kaye. Of course she got so into it that we overshot the water and had to turn back. In the end we jumped everything and I felt very comfortable with it all. So good day schooling.

0 comments: