2-a-Days

So, does anyone else remember the football show on MTV called 2-a-days? Ya know, where the highschool quarterback dates the head cheerleader and the biggest drama is how their relationship is going to survive after college and very little of it actually has to do with football practice? Yeah, that has NOTHING to do with how my life has been lately. :) But I thought it'd be fun to reminisce about that show cause I kinda liked it (MTV is my secret addiction).

Anyway, P has been working a full load with fairly steady 2-a-day rides. He is feeling good, and lets me know that on a regular basis. Most of my time is spent in trot sets, with a bit of canter, but still asking him to move forward into the contact and not straight sideways at 100 miles an hour.

I did hop on him bareback for his #2 ride on Saturday and had a lovely lope around the field. Now, for me, riding bareback is what I used to do. Much of my time growing up riding, I was too lazy to haul out essentials such as a saddle, so I made do by hopping on in the middle of the pasture and starting my 'ride' from there - so hopping on P to have a nice ride didn't seem to different to me... but according to John, riding the Diddy with "no place to put my feet" was a death sentence, and he was not going to have any part of it. Even when I just wanted to show him how nice and calm P was being! :)

Yesterday I hauled P over to Kim and Chuck's for a jump school where he was surprisingly well behaved and jumped quite nicely. He then made a return visit to the realm of up/down lessons with Sydney. How I love that my horse can go from fire-breathing dragon to school-horse in a matter of hours. :)

Pics of our school horse to come!

Woo Wee - Feeling good ponee....

So I'm a dork. :)

But just wanted to drop a quick entry in and say that I love you all, because with my pony feeling as good as he did this morning, I may be in trouble!

Nice calm little meek P-man has decided he feels GOOD, and wants to show me the new ways he can move his body around. Fun for him! Not so fun for me... :) But really, I'm very excited to really put him through the paces tonight and see how he feels, since all we did this morning was a bit of a hack. Gotta love sprucing the hold man's hocks up!

Will let you know how the ride goes!

Back on the Straight and Narrow

All I pay my psychiatrist is the cost of feed and hay, and he'll listen to me any day. ~Author Unknown

This week has been interesting... emotions ranging from tears on Thursday night (mixed in with some very threatening dagger eyes towards John) to very excited and optimistic about the future this morning.

Here's the tale...

Prophet's got Thoroughbred feet. Yes it's true. I've complained on here enough about it that everyone should know about that now, right? Well, he also used to be absolutely fine for the farrier, a quality that's taken a downhill turn the last year. SSOOO, Wednesday morning, he was sound (minus one shoe), and the vet watched him jog up for his pre-season check up -- suggested that after 5 years of doing very little maintenance, that we should go ahead and help out his aging joints with a minor injection-able. OK, cool - schedule that for Saturday morning.

Farrier then comes and resets all 4 - slightly gimpy when she leaves but she says we'll see what he looks like. Thursday = LAME, Friday = LAME. No call back from her, so I call a wonderful farrier who drives out. No hot nail, but they can't figure it out. Have to reschedule the hocks because those can't get done unless he's sound up front. UGH...

Other farrier drives back out, does some voodoo with Sole-Guard, and Viola! pony is once again sound. Rode him Sunday (he was back to being very full of himself), and got his hocks done yesterday!

He now gets a couple of days off and then back at it full force. The fall season is scheduled to crank up here in just under 3 weeks and then we'll be off to the races until December! Very excited about what we have coming up for sure!

Back on Solid Ground....

I'm back from the whirlwind weekend trade show - and so glad to be home! I do enjoy the trade shows just because I get to see all the new horse products and long for things I'll never be able to afford - grand time, eh?

But now I'm back and today the pony gets his fall vet visit for teeth/jog-up/general look over and also the farrier comes to put his feet back together. Hopefully all s in order for a quick trip over to the jumper show this weekend to see how much work we have to do leading up to 5-points in a little over 3 weeks.

Ta-Da!

So, still some things that need to be worked out -- BUT C-Horse Eventing now has a website! Check it out at chorseeventing.com!

"I wonder if you have all your shoes on?...."

NOPE! Of course you don't... After all, your name is Prophet, and you lose shoes like they're going out of style.

Oh, joy. Well, after P was so good last week in the sandbox after not working on anything Dressage related, I had decided that maybe I NEVER needed to practice anything resembling the big 'D'.

This weekend, I took the opportunity to go run around the cross country course for a bit. He was FANTASTIC. Could not have been a better horse (minus one reminder right at the beginning of the ride that he does have a brain, and yes, it is connected to the rest of his body). He breezed over the preliminary questions and felt wonderful - and I was thinking maybe I just shouldn't ever jump him either, since we haven't been over a jump in at least a couple of weeks. Just as I was pulling up to finish, I felt a funny step. Several steps later, another funny step. I looked over to my ground person (and student extraordinaire), Sarah, and said, "I think we are missing a shoe".

Of course he was, and off his bad foot too. I have no idea where he pulled it, as the footing is a bit funny in places in that field, but nothing too worrisome. Oh well, back to buying stock in Duct Tape and Vet Wrap while I wait for my farrier to give me a ring back. I do believe something needs to change in his feet management for sure!

But I'm still very happy with how he felt -- actually it's more like SUPER excited/relieved/ecstatic/etc... but I'll keep those feelings to myself, and say "yes, he was quite good."

:)

Until next time when "As the shoe falls saga" continues...

Ciao, ciao!

Sunshine on my window....

Makes me happy la la LA la...

Ok, so I don't remember the rest of the song, but oh well. But the theme is HAPPY sunshine (mixed with a couple of very timely rain showers to keep the footing good!).

This week has been good to get Prophet back into full workout mode. I've been (and will be) swamped with lesson in the evenings after work, so my workouts have been in the morning - of which both P and I appreciate! He's been very good, although we are back to square one with the saddles as I'm waiting for the saddlefitter to take a look at the monoflap to see if there's hope, or if I'm going to need to order yet ANOTHER one.

Oh how I long for the monoflap, but can I say HOW MUCH P-man's back had blossomed? The trusty Pessoa has seen it all, and used to be so wide I had to use a Ultra ThinLine cotton pad with full shims, PLUS a Fleeceworks sheepskin pad to fill in the space -- now the darned thing fits him close with JUST an Ultra ThinLine. He has grown grown grown some muscle! Guess all that long-and-low work has done him some good.

Something exciting is I got some really good photographs from Amy Flood of Freedom's Flight Photography (from the Becky Holder Clinic back in December 2008). Here are some of my favorites...

Sucess Sucess Sucess

The C-Horse event team went out and definitely represented once again this weekend (and no, it wasn't just about the ribbons for sure).

The weekend started off on Friday night where I had intended to run home and quickly ride before a night out, but as I pulled into the driveway, dark clouds, flashes of lightning, and a distant rumble told me otherwise. Oh, well -- P-man can wing the First Level tests right? I had actually not even cantered him this week, working on just getting forward in his trot work, and keeping moving thru, even when he was tense.

So out on the town I went, with John and some GREAT people I worked with at my last job. A wonderful kick-off to the weekend for sure.

Saturday morning rolled around and luckily with a 11:15 ride time, I didn't have to pull out at the butt-crack of dawn by any means. Upon arrival a the fairgrounds, P decided that it was his job to remind me how slack I'd been in his work schedule the last week, leading to quite a long 'tune-up' warm-up session. But he went in the covered arena (VERY scary for sure!) and pulled off some great tests (First 1 and 2), brining home the blue for both with mid-sixty scores. Not too bad, eh?

Next up was Maggie on Whiley, who placed 5th in several very large flat classes. After a slip in one of the w/t/c goes, Whiley showed signs of a bit of stinging, so she graciously put her horse first and withdrew from the last two classes and went back to the stables to take care of her horse. This morning she was rewarded as he was very sound, and gave her a bit of a ride for the jumping. She listened to my rambling, and rode each class exactly how I wanted her too, even though it meant not placing the highest. She did place 5th (hope she likes pink!) in the large flat class (her first long-stirrup division ever!) GGGGOOOO Maggie! Me threatening Maggie that I'm gonna make her lift weights :)
Everyone came home safe, and learned something -- I guess that's all we can ask for, right?

Until the next ride....