shameless plug

The holiday season is fast approaching, and I am taking saddle pad orders already. If you are interested in ordering a painted saddle pad, I would so love if you ordered it sooner rather than later. I am also doing commissioned Christmas ornaments this year, like this one:

Ornaments are about 3.5" tall and they are $30 each plus shipping.

Photos of saddle pads are on my Facebook page (click here).

Whirlwind Weekend!

I am so glad it's Friday. This weekend is going to rock because on Sunday we have the bestest hunter pace EVER, and even though it's going to rain I am still going to love every second. Monday we have the event, and thankfully the weather looks good for that! Kenny is going to come and support me, too, which of course I am thrilled about.

Aside from the Equine Affaire news, I spent all week prepping for the event on Monday. I have mostly been doing dressage schools. Wednesday's ride was quite rough; Lucy wasn't naughty in a dangerous way, but she didn't pay one second of attention to me. It was frustrating and not pretty to say the least, but on Thursday, things came together and we had a super ride. Lauren rode today and reported that she was very good.

After work, I went to the barn and cleaned allll my tack. I brought home a pile of dirty, disgusting horsey laundry to do, too. Sheesh, good thing I am a bit type A!

I plan on riding her in the kimberwicke for the hunter pace, especially since it's going to be 55 and rainy. Can you say rocket horse? Yeah, I will need some brakes for that I think! Then of course I will need the snaffle for dressage on Monday and the kimberwicke for the jumping phases.

Today during my lunch hour I filled out all of the EA paperwork, which there was a LOT of. All sorts of rules, regulations, and I even had to fill out a list of people who had my approval to handle and/or ride Lucy. I feel pretty confident about this whole thing. I like organization and I feel reassured that the people running EA seem to have their ducks in a row.

my horse needs an assistant

Because seriously, her calender of events and appearances is getting out of control!

So first, GREAT NEWS! We were accepted into Todd Minikus' Equine Affaire clinic! I am over the moon about this. I cannot WAIT!

So our calender for October/November is:

Sunday 10/7: Tyrone Farm Hunter Pace
Monday 10/8 (Columbus Day): Valinor Farm Schooling Trials (Elementary)
Thursday 10/18 - Sunday 10/21: Brent Graef Horsemanship Clinic (Lucy is being used by someone else)
Sunday 10/28: Pilot Point Show (Lauren is taking Lucy - it will be a blast especially with the Knock Down 'n Out class!)
Sunday 11/4: Myopia Hunter Pace (this one is a maybe)
Friday 11/9: Todd Minikus Clinic at Equine Affaire

And then I think we will all take a well-deserved vacation from doing anything.

Regarding Equine Affaire, I have to get a health certificate for Lucy because she is going to a large equine gathering, and that's the rule. So I called my vet today to schedule an appointment. I asked what they check for this health certificate, and they said they do "an overall visual inspection and take the horses temperature."

Ok, that's cool. So then I asked how much this cost, and with the farm call, it was just shy of $100.

$100 to LOOK at the horse and stick the thermometer up her rear end. Ohhhh, horses.

Maddy is having the vet out to do a WNV booster on her horse next week, so I decided to see if they could squeeze me in also. Well, for the same cost as my vet was going to charge, I am getting the health certificate, the farm call, AND a WNV/EEE booster. I love my vet's practice and they are absolutely the people I will call for most things, but for this routine boring "look at the horse and check off a box" type of stuff, I don't think it really matters who does the paperwork.

So I feel better.

thinking ahead

I had a great ride on Thursday. Lucy warmed up nice and long/low on a loose rein, but when I picked up some contact she got a bit self-righteous about it and gave me the mare face. Below is a video that shows the progression in just a few short minutes from "hell no" to "I'll consider it" to "ok that sounds good!" I think this video, which is unedited, shows her growing up big time. After working on the flat, we jumped around a bit and I was really pleased that she was able to keep it together to canter up the little step into the ring and then go straight to a jump just a few strides out. I like to keep her thinking about what is coming next so that she doesn't lose focus. You can see her wanting to get silly after the pile of logs, but I kept my leg on her and didn't let her pull the reins out of my hands (hence the head tossing), and looked forward to the next challenge (in this case the step). Once she realised it wasn't play time and she needed to pay attention, she was good to go!



Lucy might be used for a clinic in October that focuses a lot on groundwork, so before tomorrow's wedding I am going to tune her up a bit on the ground and we will incorporate some groundwork into each of our rides from now til then. Here's some video from today, first of her getting some energy out in the indoor and then of going through some basic groundwork:



Next weekend, we have a hunter pace on Sunday and then I signed up for Valinor Farm's fall schooling horse trials on Columbus Day (Monday Sept. 8). I can't wait! We are going to do Elementary again and I just hope we have a safe and solid day. I don't expect ribbons but I do expect to complete all three phases. We need to do some brushing up on our dressage test and the hunter pace will act as an XC school to get us in gear.

last night's trail ride

 I had a super ride last night. Lucy and I left around 5pm and jumped all the little redneck jumps I built out in the woods, zipping through the trails and in general having a blast. Then we explored the trails a bit on the buckle. Lately she has been more bloodhound than horse, walking along the trails with her nose on the ground, sniffing everything. It cracks me up! I don't know what she's smelling but it must be very interesting.

We crossed the two wooden bridges to get over to the boat launch, but instead of going in the water we continued past it and trotted toward the sports fields, where I like to have a little hand gallop around the perimetre of the practice areas. I didn't think about there being practice now that school has started up again, and the whole place was packed with minivans and small children running around. Unfortunately I couldn't go back the way I came because it's a very small one-way road and I didn't want to come face-to-face with a car so we had to walk past a bunch of kids who were waiting for a practice to begin. There must have been 25 kids and of course they all swarmed Lucy. Lucy is usually really good about this type of thing, probably a product of being handled so much at the track, and so I let them pet her with about 15 warnings to watch their feet. They were all so excited and they asked lots of questions (Lucy's name, how old she was, what she ate, how much she weighed, how fast she ran...typical kid questions). Lucy stood like a rock and let them stroke her face, neck, and shoulders. She was nothing short of a superb OTTB ambassador. The moms were thrilled with her bell boots (which is a common thing, and I think it's so funny) and the dads were mostly interested in my eventing vest lol. One of them asked if it was a kevlar vest.

On the way home we took a tour of a little neighbourhood that is really cute. It's right off the trails and I like taking Lucy down there so she can stay comfortable with cars passing her, because we never ride on the road at this current barn. A few cars passed her and she was fine about it, and then at two different houses, big dogs came running at us from the yards, barking and growling. That really scares the crap out of me because I have no idea if there's an electric fence underground that will stop the dog, or if it is going to keep on coming and attack us. Really scary! I was much more freaked out about it than Lucy was - she just calmly watched them run at us and didn't even flinch! Luckily both dogs stopped short of the street - they must have had electric fences.

When we got back to the barn, we jumped a pile of logs in the XC area, jumped up the step into the ring, jumped a few little jumps in the ring (some bending lines and a roll back) and called it a night. She was SUPER.

a quick lunge to test soundness...

...ended up being a lesson about manners and listening!!

On the upside, she was totally, completely, 100% sound.

On the downside, the cool weather and a few easy days had her high as a kite.

Here, have some really fun video stills!

This first one is obviously of inexcusable behaviour, and it has been a LONG time since she pulled a stunt like this, but it was a very quick up and down, back to work. She didn't offer to do it again and I made it VERY clear that I didn't think it was cute or funny.

Channeling her inner Stephen Colbert, Lucy says, "I just wanna DANCE!"
WHAT A FRESH HORSE.
[And yes I am lunging in a white button down work shirt and a skirt.
This is the reality for a rough boarder who works full time.]

Her other really cool move was deciding that trotting in circles is for BABIES, and she needed to jump a jump. I had her on a 15m circle that went in front of this little barrel with some guide poles. We had been working on this path for about ten minutes with no problems, well, minus the war horse move pictured above, which I quickly dealt with. During one of her trips around the circle, she deliberately aimed for the jump and jumped it sideways, so across the length of the barrel and over both poles!!

After that little trick, I put her on a 10m circle and we readdressed listening, manners, and personal space.

SO FRESH.

Sunday snuggle session

Lucy got her feet done today and when I rode a few hours later, she was very sore :( I could tell as soon as she picked up the trot that she was ouchy. I am 99.999% sure it's a foot soreness issue because she was reaching out just fine through the shoulder but when she put her RF foot down, there was a second of hesitation and a head bob. Poor girl.

Instead of the jumping session that I had planned, we had a snuggle session.

handmade is better

Being artistic can sometimes be a curse. While I am crafty and capable of making things myself a lot, sometimes I wish I just let myself buy things! I have wanted a stall sign for Lucy's stall door for ages. I was going to order one online and then I looked at the photos and thought, "but I can MAKE one!"

So in all my spare time (ha, ha), I made this:

I bought the plaque at a craft store, found a font online that I liked, sketched out the text, and went to town with a Dremel tool.

the swirly bits were the worst parts!!

After I finished with the Dremel tool, I sanded the whole thing down to get the extra pencil lines off of it, then stained it with a really beautiful rich wood stain. I am really pleased with how it came out!

Lucy is spoiled

I have been getting 10lbs of carrots a week from a local farm. Lucy gets
carrots with her breakfast and dinner, and for photo taking purposes
she even got to stuff her face with them straight from the bag.

She thinks this totally rocks.

She got her tootsies done today. About 6 months ago I started her on a hoof supplement. I actually really hate buying supplements, even though SmartPak owns my soul, so I tried to fix her feet without adding yet another supplement. I tried painting her feet with hoof hardeners and all sorts of conditioners and still her feet looked like crap. She was losing shoes left and right. At one point despite being on a 6wk schedule, the farrier was regularly coming out to re-shoe her at 3.5 and 4 weeks because she couldn't keep shoes on her feet. The hoof wall was crumbling around the nails and the foot was falling apart. It was really bad. Finally I realised that I had no other options but to try a hoof supplement, so I added one to her SmartPak (and that monthly bill is over $70...UGH) and crossed my fingers that it was going to help.

So before she started the supplement, the farrier would compare her feet to soft cake. When he hammered the nail into her foot, the foot hardly resisted the nail. He barely had to tap the nail with his hammer to get it in, which is a bad sign. You want a hard foot to drive the nail into so that the nail stays put!

Today, my farrier exclaimed, "wow, this foot is actually making me work today!" What he meant is that her hooves have hardened up so much since starting the supplement that they were much more difficult to nail into. This is great news!

Her feet LOOK much better, too. She is growing nice heel, something that has always been a challenge. You can actually see lines on her hooves that signify big changes. These changes are moving barns (back in January) and starting the supplement. They're easier to see in the second photo.

2 years

Today is my two year wedding anniversary. I can't believe it has been that long since I married my best friend. For an anniversary gift, Kenny had two large canvas prints made from photos I had taken of Lucy, which I thought was just the greatest thing ever!

Here are a few images from my trash-the-dress session with Lucy, from back in 2010: