They Never Said It Would Be Easy...

Another full day spent at the barn. When I arrived at the barn Sophie was laying down. My heart stopped for a minute, and dropped to the bottom of my stomach. I slid her door open and she nickered at me and rose to her feet. She looked bright eyed and perky, searching me for treats. I set about getting my gear out of the trailer so that I could keep an eye on her and once she realized treats were not coming she started eating what was left of her hay. But coming to the front of the stall each time I came in.

I filled her apple/carrot/molasses bucket with some water and held it up for her to taste. She *loved* it. The apples floated and the funniest thing I've seen a horse do is bob for apples. After she got an apple I went to work grooming her and tacking her up for today's longe session. Her snazzy lavender dressage boots from TOTD came today and she looks great in them. We longed for 20 minutes and I brushed her again while replacing her water bucket with her "treat" bucket. After I was done brushing her I cleaned the rest of my tack. Yesterday I did two saddles and lots of bridles, today I did two saddles and bridles.

Once I was done Kim and Hayley were there, tacking up their horses, so I gave Sophie back her regular bucket and dumped out what was left of the water in the treat bucket (she fished everything out but drank a lot of water in the process). Then I went to watch Kim and Hayley ride, since they were riding their Grand Prix horses.

It was very interesting and really drove home the fact that you can't settle for good enough when schooling. Sometimes it was hard to watch because a passage or pirouette I would have been very happy with meant that the horse had to be corrected and asked to do it again. But, the horse recognized that it wasn't good enough and did do better the next time. I'm definitely too gentle of a rider for Grand Prix. I'm hoping to lose that once I get started again, because it's not doing the horse any favors by allowing it to "kind of" do what it's asked to, not in the long run.

On the Mend...

Sophie is on the mend. She got her full rations yesterday and was doing fine when I went to see her last night. She was fed while I was there and it took her all of five minutes to finish her pound of pellets. I took a few pictures of her and braided her mane a couple of different ways for more pictures. I'll try to get those up today and post in the blog tomorrow. For now I have baby pictures! Rest of the pictures can be seen here...http://www.jesterjigger.com/pictureshorses/2008/2008babyjune27.html

Worse than an Appaloosa...

This morning the phone rang at 8:00. It was Kim, calling to say that Sophie was colicking. She was very calm and assured on the phone, so I didn't panic, but I did scrub my teeth as fast as I could and then get dressed to head out to the barn. I made it to the barn and went straight to Sophie's stall. She was laying on the floor of her stall, listless. You could tell she wasn't feeling well, especially since everyone else around her was munching their hay and she was curled up on the floor. She wasn't rolling or thrashing, thought she would stretch out on her side and reach out with her neck every few minutes. My mom showed up after I'd been there for about 15 minutes, for moral support.

Bill came over with a tube and a bucket and I haltered Sophie. After it was fastened I stood back and tugged on the lead, fortunately she stood right up. Bill gave her a couple of shots and then proceeded to stick the tube up her nose. She did not like that, she didn't physically struggle much really, but she was preventing the tube from proceeding. At one point he told her she was "worse than an Appaloosa". (If you'd like to see pictures of a real dressage Appaloosa click here http://ararabella.blogspot.com/2008/07/amazingness-and-dressage-appaloosa.html )

He finally did get the tube to her stomach and held up the bucket so that the electrolyte/water mixture would flow through the tube into her stomach. After he was done Sophie never layed down again, but instead perked up and started snuffling around her stall for hay or grain...food of any kind. She was watching me intently and I decided to give her a good grooming. After I was done we wandered the farm a bit, looking around, and checked on Sophie again. She was still looking good though, so we decided to leave after talking to Kim and Hayley for a while and doing one more check on Sophie.

I went back at 5:30 to check her again. She was very bright eyed and alert, happy to see me, and had finished her bran mash with vigour. She was happily munching on hay and Kim stopped by to tell me everything that had happened since we left in the morning. Unfortunately, she still hasn't pooped, but she still looked good and her gum color was much better. Bill is going to check her again when he gets back tonight as well.

Longeing Still...

I still don't have a saddle but today Sophie and I worked on longeing again. She did very well. She's much lighter in responding to rein pressure just on the ground, I really think it'll make a big improvement in her under saddle work. My goal is 10 minutes each side, but I think that's too much for her, she was definitely tiring by the time we were done with the other side, so if I'm going to do it back to back days I'll only do 7 minutes per side, at least for the first few times and slowly up it from there. I brushed her three times today but she deserved it.

I also took pictures of the baby, I tend to do it every 10 days so it was time. He is much more curious now, he would keep approaching me and I touched him a couple of times. He didn't like it each time I went to leave, but didn't really care when I went up on the little hill to sit in the shade.

And finally, I'm trying to figure out what to do for pictures tomorrow. There's a barrel show just 30 minutes away, but the only problem with it is that it's indoors and I hate taking pictures indoors. But, on the other hand, it might be good practice. So we'll see how I feel tomorrow. I want to go see Sophie too, though I'd really like to hit up a dressage show. Doesn't look like that's going to happen this weekend though, I don't want to drive an hour and a half by myself and Craig can't go because of his eye surgery, so I'll be sticking closer to home this weekend.

More Pics and a Sophie Update...

My mom and I went to the barn today and I longed Sophie as well as gave my mom a tour of the new horses. We checked on the kittens and I helped Hayley bring the baby in from the pasture before the storm hit.

Sophie was surprisingly good considering a big storm was coming and it started raining a little while we were working. Hayley was riding one of her barrel horses and left before we were done. Sophie was a little upset by that, but she worked through it like a champ and was going very nicely by the end of the session. I'm going to try to get out again tomorrow. Between updating the website and re-starting school and a couple of bad rain storms I haven't been out for a while. It was nice to be out there again though!

I'm trying to figure out where to go this weekend to take some new pics, there's a dressage show over an hour away and a barrel show that's just 30 minutes away. I just looked up the arena and they have a Cowboy Mounted Shooting competition there in a couple of weeks that I think would be a lot of fun to photograph too.

Anyway, here are some Stake and Bend pictures from the Fredericktown Wednesday Night Show last week. More are on my website, http://www.jesterjigger.com/, there are two pages of them.

Trends...I have them...

Some teasing from my barn owner and her daughter led me to realize that I have a trend. My last five horses have been dark bays. Different breeds, but, dark bays. I even have evidence!

Tony the Pony-grade pony that seemed to have a lot of Morgan blood, he was my first pony and we sold him a year or two after he last went to fair because we had four horses at the time.

Boss King Ebony Son-Morgan gelding, he was 15 when we bought him and my sister took him to the fair two years after I did, we then sold him to be another little girl's first horse.

Jester Jigger-Appendix QH and love of my life, I've owned him for 14 years now. He's the most incredible horse ever, he was injured over the winter and went to live with my parents to recover. He still has a slight hitch to his trot which may or may not be improved through regular work. However, we've downsized to one horse so he'll just stay in retirement because we wouldn't be able to move two horses when we move and Jessie's perfectly content hanging out in the pasture.

Wimpy's Master Jake-breeding stock Paint gelding, I owned him for 7 years. He was supposed to be my husband's trail horse, but he never had time to ride so we decided it was silly to keep him around when he could be with someone that had time for him.

AR Arabella-Trakehner/Arabian mare, my new horse, I've only had her a couple of months but so far things are going great, and of course, I'll be posting updates as we progress!

Favorite Arabian Mare of the Week...

Sophie can't be offended because this girl is a purebred Arabian. Plus, I think the reason I liked her so much was because she looks like Sophie. I took a lot of pictures of this girl, but unfortunately, have no way of contacting the owner so that she can have them. I'm almost to the point of considering printing business cards with my website address so that people at the show can contact *me* if they want their pics.

The only thing I know about this girl is she's 4 years old, and Polish bred. She was a sweetheart though, and a good girl. And of course, I have many more pictures than just these, the rest can be seen here: http://www.jesterjigger.com/pictureshorses/2008/2008arabfavoritejune14.html

I like this picture because her owner is the woman in purple and she looks like she's just bursting with pride. Not that I can blame her, I would be too if she was my horse!

Some More Pictures from the Arab Show...

Just some more pictures from the Arab show. These were from Sport Horse Under Saddle. The stunning bay with three socks is a stallion. The rest of the pictures can be seen here: http://www.jesterjigger.com/pictureshorses/2008/2008arabundersaddle.html I only have one set of Arab show pictures left, and that's the pictures I took of my favorite horse there. I'll probably post those tomorrow.

Just for Fun I Thought I'd Torture Myself...

So yesterday I decided to overhaul my website. I worked on it all day and it's looking pretty good, but most of the links don't work. It's slow going as I have to reformat every page (and there were over 175 pages!) and then update the menu bar into a better form of organization. So, if you want to check it out, feel free, though most of the links don't work yet, so you've been warned. In case you haven't figured it out by now, my website address is http://www.jesterjigger.com/ hopefully I'll get it mostly finished up today. A good part of yesterday was spent moving the html pages into folders and then deciding on a new layout/color scheme.

Down on the Farm...

This is my sister's horse, Lou. DH and I went to my parents farm a couple of days ago to replace fence. While there I snapped this picture of my sister's horse...

And a full body shot with a more normal face. She's an Appendix QH, 7 years old, I think her sire is Indian Artifacts.


Lou and Jessie (my horse who is recovering from a stifle injury)...he's an Appendix QH, 19 years old (I've owned him for 14 years).

And a couple of just Jessie. He's doing a lot better. I think he's ready to start back under saddle and work on strengthening that leg, but he'll never be able to do more than Training Level or First Level. So we're going to leave him with my parents to hang out in the pasture.


He's fat and happy though. And bossing Lou around because he's feeling good. When he left to be boarded with me last summer he was letting Lou boss him around. Then he moved back in March after having hock/stifle injections last fall and despite the stifle injury he took over bossing Lou around, I think it's because he's feeling so good from the hock injections still.

The rest of the pictures can be seen here http://www.jesterjigger.com/2008jessieloujune18.html Enjoy!

Second lesson on Kupkake...with pictures!

I had my second lesson on Kupkake today. It was great. We only trotted but I learned a lot. The rest of the pictures can be seen here http://www.jesterjigger.com/2008lesson20june.html though I have a good sampling here in the blog.

This was the second time I'd ridden this horse. He's an Arab/Percheron gelding, 8 years old, and completely trained by my instructor. He's showing Third Level now, I think. Prior to riding this horse and one lesson on another Third Level horse last week I've mainly been doing Training/First/schooling some Second Level movements. I'm still waiting for the saddle to come in for my mare, so my instructor offered lessons on her horses while I wait. He was incredibly easy to ride considering his experience versus my experience. I was still having trouble getting my leg far enough forward for the shoulder in at the trot, but did much better with it my second lesson than I did my first.

Trotting

Shoulder In

More Shoulder In

Half Pass

Half Pass

Extended Trot

The big impression left on me after this lesson was the importance of rideability. Jessie had rideability, just about anyone could ride him if they had half an idea of how to ride and that was demonstrated with both Amanda and Emily. I hope that someday Sophie is as rideable as Kupkake, and Jessie, though better trained than both ;-).

My big problem with half pass is keeping my shoulders even. I keep letting my outside shoulder creep too far forward. Overall I was really glad that Craig could come and take pictures. We had a great lesson, and after, I had a longeing lesson with Sophie. It was a very productive day, even though I ended up spending another 5 hours at the barn. But I love hanging out at the barn, I just wish I wasn't moving next year, I want to stay here forever and keep taking lessons.

No Purple Templates...

I tried to find a purple based template because the pink is kind of overpowering, but there wasn't one. I've decided that Sophie's color is purple. Hence the purple halter and the purple dressage whip. I now have lavender gloves, dressage boots, and saddle pad. But no purple template to match. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to edit it myself and change it to purple.

I took some more baby pictures a couple of days ago, rest of the pictures can be seen here (http://www.jesterjigger.com/pictureshorses/2008/2008babyjune16.html). Hope you enjoy!

Half Passing for Dummies...

Today I rode Kupkake. It was soooo much fun. We started out with some shoulder in, where I had to try it at the walk first so that I could get my inside leg far enough forward. Then I was able to do it at the trot. After that we worked on leg yielding, then added some travers and renvers. It was amazing how easy travers and renvers, he was so responsive to my leg.

After that we tried half passing and I started out with his haunches way too far over to the left, it was just hard for me to get it through my head that his nose needed to point toward the goal and then bend from there. But we got it eventually and were soon half passing from the centerline to 3/4 down the side. After that we tried it at the canter and that didn't go as well, but Kim said he isn't confirmed in canter half pass yet, but it was still fun to try.

The last thing we worked on was extended trot. We tried five or six times and one time was really good while the others were just so so (I think one was pretty good, lol). It was a lot of fun though. I found that it's much easier for me to half halt when tracking left, probably because I'm right handed. I also noticed that I was a lot more tired today, but I think that's due to the 8 miles I did yesterday.

So, that was my lesson. I have another on Kupkake Friday morning. Hopefully we'll be able to pick up close to where we left off (ie, that it won't take me so long to get my inside leg far enough forward to give him something to bend around). Today I didn't ride Sophie, we just worked on showmanship for a little while and I gave her a good brushing/fly spraying after my lesson.

Pics from an Arab show...

I have a riding lesson tonight, on Kim's Third Level Arab/Percheron gelding. I'm pretty excited, he's supposed to be really easy to do lateral work on. I did ride Sophie bareback again last night, she was a good girl, but a little worried about the lawn mower so I didn't ride too long. It'd be different if I had a saddle because I could work on a lot of circles/serpentines at the trot to really get her mind on me, but I have yet to trot her bareback yet. I was thinking about heading to the barn early enough before my lesson to ride her bareback again.

Anyway, on to the pictures. You can see more of the pictures at http://www.jesterjigger.com/.