Doing some quick micro blogging during the show 🙂 Friday I got in first, got our stalls unlocked and put out shavings while trying to calm my spaniel down from his worried mania. I guess my springer (my buddy for the weekend) forgot what shows are like since it’s been so long. He kept wanting to go back to the car… Sorry buddy, were here all weekend – but I digress! Lunged Simon for a bit but could only trot…
I had a bit of an epiphany last night, but it seems silly now that I sit here and write it down. In the interest of sharing and learning and all things bloggy – I’ll write it down anyway. So we’re working on our flat work. Last time I reported, my trainer basically told me that I had to make my horse work. Stop dropping his shoulders in the corners. Be “mean” if he doesn’t listen when I ask him…
It should be no secret to y’all that my horse and I have some work to do on the flat. How he is easier to jump than he is to hack is a mystery to me for sure! After the last show when I didn’t even try to do the under saddle classes, I knew it was time to get down to business on improving this situation. When my friend was visiting, she flatted Simon and made him look like…
One of the perks of having a good buddy that is a pro equestrian, is getting no holes barred yearly evaluations of your beloved ponykins. Â I wasn’t sure what she would originally think of Mr. Simon pants because she is not always a super huge fan of Thoroughbreds. Â It’s not that they are bad horses, but she’s surrounded by the top hunter/jumper horses in the world and that’s pretty much warmblood nation. Â Even us OTTB aficionados can admit there are…
After four beautiful rounds of jumping this past weekend, my trainer informed me that I needed to do the under saddle classes as well. Simon and I hate flatting. People say that it’s the race horse in him, but he never really raced and the truth is he’s almost as bad schooling at home as he is in the ring. I just don’t think he’s quite figured out what under saddle classes are all about.
My goal for this show was to have a calmer Simon (and a calmer me!) throughout the entire experience, and I am thrilled to say that we blew past that goal and ended up reserve champion in the 2’3″ Equitation!  Wut wut! That’s the high level overview.  If you want to skip the rest of the words of this post and just look at pretty pictures, that’s totally fine by me 🙂 We’ll start with schooling on Friday.  I headed over…
This is the week of lessons ramping up to the horse show. Â Usually I do one group lesson and one training ride for Simon per week, but on a horse show week I’ll swap a training ride for a lesson. Â That combined with my usual weekend lesson means a group jumping lesson every other day until we go to the show to school on Friday. Â That much instruction means we have to improve… right? Â Right?!? Heading to Sunday’s lesson I…
My horse has put me on the equine sex offenders list, and I’m not very sure I can argue with him. Here’s my confession… in 18 years of riding horses I have never cleaned a sheath.  I know, I know… you may cast your stones at me.  You may call me an awful horse owner…. but it’s true. See, the place I learned to ride taught me excellent horse care.  I could muck a stall and cold hose a leg before…