Month: April 2012

After 7 months and several hundred dollars in vet bills later, Gus is back to doing what he loves to do best.  He was a pleasure to ride today up at Twin Towers.  We did some galloping and jumped some fences of all levels.  Though the competitor in me wants to check the “preliminary” box for the May Daze Horse Trials, the horsewoman in me has decided to play it safe until he is a bit fitter and do Training Level at his first show of the season.  He felt sound and was extremely happy to be there.  It was a beautiful day for my first trip back out on Gus.

Aragon did some more schooling today too.  If all goes well, Jessica and Aragon will be galloping cross country in just a few weeks.  He looked fantastic and jumped around like a cross country veteran.

Next weekend we will be heading to Twin Towers to attend the Stillwater Pony Club’s Hunter Show.  We will be taking several horses and riders to this first show of the DLSC season.

We have room for 1-2 more students if anyone is interested in signing up .  All entries and forms need to be in to me as soon as possible.  All pre-entries will be postmarked tomorrow.  Late entries will be accepted for $3 more per class.  Contact Joy if you are interested in riding in the show.

 

 

Mckinley was a big boy today.  He is now jumping up to 2’7 verticals and solid fences of 2’3″ or so.  We did hay bales, barrels, the liverpool, the “castle” with a flower box on top, and every other “scary” jump I could find.  I think he’s well on his way to putting in a great starter cross country course in May.

Gus is looking fantastic and feeling even better.   We are up to 45 minute rides, and the minutes of cantering increase daily.  He is still sound and is handling the jump height increases with ease.  Tomorrow he will go cross country schooling for the first time since we did our last show at Flying Cross in September.  I am looking forward to doing a few gallop sets and some beginner novice-training level fences.  We will see how it goes.  My entry form for May Daze is still sitting on the table…..waiting to see if I will check the “training level” or “preliminary” box.

Rhyland is doing well after his last 4 days off.  Gregg Neumann was out today to work on the whole barn, and I wanted Rhyland to have a little time off after the clinic last weekend.  He has been a little muscle sore from all of the work we have been doing, and he is now ready to get back to work.  Gregg thought he looked great, and tomorrow he will do some light dressage work.

 

Yesterday was a great, although extremely windy, day for schooling.  All three horses were well behaved and got right down to the business of jumping.  We are about one week away from the closing date for Greater Dayton Horse Trials, and everyone is looking ready to show.

Sorry, Kelli.  I didn’t get any pictures of Cavalier this time.

This week has been great for all three of my horses.  Gus is back to jumping some bigger fences as of last Thursday.  He is sound and seems ready to move on to some bigger and better things.  This week I hope to get him out galloping for the first time since last September.

This last month I have been working really hard on getting Rhyland to accept contact and direction over fences.  I took him to the clinic with Robin Walker this weekend.  Robin like him a lot, although he did use words like “jerk” and some other choice words to describe some of his behaviors.  He did, however, give me a fantastic exercise with poles that changed Rhyland’s behavior for the better.   He jumped like a champ on “stadium day”.  Today he did equally well during the xc portion of the clinic.  He did banks, water, drops into water, ditches, baby trakheners, half coffins, and the list goes on.  I’m looking forward to a fun season with him!

McKinley started the week off by having to be stuck in his stall.  He pulled a shoe on Sunday, and he couldn’t get it back on until Wednesday night.  I hadn’t jumped him since the early part of the week before.  We took him up to Twin Towers on Friday for his first trip to xc school.  He was way more excited than I thought he would be, and I ended up not getting to jump him over anything.  Needless to say, I was a bit concerned about the Robin Walker clinic.   McKinley was a superstar all weekend long.  Robin liked him a lot and kept telling me how nice he was going to be.    He schooled xc like he’d done it his whole life.  He jumped in and out of the water, did ditches, cantered up and down the big hill over fences at the base and so much more.  He is fearless and easy to ride in comparison to Rhyland.  It was extremely fun to think about the summer we are going to have.

Both bay boys were well behaved around the barn and standing alone in the trailer while the other was ridden.   I am sore from head to toe from the 4 hours of xc schooling today, and I am looking forward to my own bed tonight.

Thank you, Julie and Elizabeth for driving down to Flying Cross today to help make this whole cross country adventure possible.