I've Been Jumping...

Sooo...I had my first jump lesson today, with Karin, the trainer I used in late winter this year... It was, to say the least, interesting.

First off, not sure if I TOTALLY have advertised this, but since July I've had Daisy trimmed with a natural trimmer. I'm LOVING the entire natural trimming process, and Daisy *seemed* and felt, like she was doing really well with it. This week Monday, the trimmer came again, and it turns out Daisy is foundering *very*, very slightly in all 4 feet. She has a small orange tinge on one part of the white-line of her hoof. The trimmer said that since she's on so little grass to begin with, she'd be fine, and just keep an eye on it and if it got worse to take her off grass altogether. He also noticed that she has very slight thrush in her right hooves; it's not advanced, but it's there. As he advised, I'm spraying Daisy's hooves daily now with a mixture of tea tree oil and organic apple cider vineger, which is supposed to help. Sounds like an odd mixture, but (this is a little silly) I have personal experience with organic apple cider vinegar killing off warts, so I think it will work.

Anyway, with all the things I've read about shoeing and farrier's trimming vs. natural trimming, I don't think I could EVER go back to shoeing, lets put that straight. Besides the fact that Daisy nearly killed the farrier multiple times (through excessive rearing during shoeing), shoeing is just wrong. Read up on it, there is a WEALTH of knowledge out there about natural trimming, and it's amazing.

Karin started out the lesson asking me to trot, and change directions at the trot, and asked me why I put galloping boots on Daisy's legs. I said I did because she tends to hit her legs together when I ride, and she responded "So to protect her, right?" and I said yes. Then she asked why I wear half-chaps, and the answer was for protection. So than she asked me why I could go around expecting my horse to work for me while she is in constant pain because she doesn't have shoes on. She wondered how I could possibly put my horse through so much pain when she obviously shouldn't be barefoot and favors her right side.
Those words stung. Bad. I'm a teenager, alright? Not to make excuses, but I'm still young and have experience, but not THAT much, and I try really hard to do the best I can for Daisy. I honestly believed (AND STILL DO) that shoes are WRONG. So Karin berated me for quite a while, which was horrible. Worse than anything, because she's older than me (duh). She has an amazing reputation as being a great riding instructor. She's had years of knowledge. Somehow, I knew that whatever I said, she'd counter, and I wouldn't be able to convince her. It's something that she just wouldn't understand, I know it. So I kept my mouth shut, in a kind of silent disagreement. I didn't agree with anything she said. In all honestly, I felt like crap. It stunk having to listen to her talk, and not figure out HOW to make her understand!
Finally, she seemed to realize I wasn't agreeing with what she said, and she said that in the end it was my choice what I did with my horse, but that I should know that Daisy was in pain and "off" to her right.
We started working for real, which was slightly awkward because I was now very aware of how Daisy's trot would die when we'd turn to change direction at the trot and change when on the right diagonal. She had me work on two-point, which I STINK at because I rarely do it at home as I ride western and rarely english, and just don't do two-point (standing in the stirrups, heels dropped down, leaning almost horizontal over the horse's back and shoulders). We trotted around, and she worked on improving my two-point.
Then she set up this course:
All the cavalettis were at full height. (lines start out magenta, than black, then (although it's hard to tell) maroon.) I would start out the course at a right lead canter, and after the first cavaletti, switch to left lead. I got lost the first two times, as I apparently have a terrible sense of direction...Daisy was, as usual, flat over the jumps in the beginning, but when she got into it and knocked a pole, she started picking up her feet more, and jumping better. At this point, however, Daisy has to go faster to jump better; eventually she was fast cantering, almost galloping, around the ring for the jumps, popping over each one...unfortunately, again no video, just my little diagram... :-/...
I felt pretty dumb jumping...I felt like Daisy was out of control galloping, and though she felt like she was jumping rounded and not flat, her speed was embaressing (I thought). Plus I felt like I was jumping badly. I saw a video of us jumping that Jean took on her phone, however, and we didn't look too bad! In fact...we looked GOOD! Creepy, huh?!

Towards the end, Daisy started to refuse the oxer (two cavalettis side-by-side) and after MUCH smacking with the crop to no avail, Karin got out the lunge whip. That was kinda freaky, because I KNEW she'd hit Daisy, but I wasn't sure how Daisy would react...Daisy shot forward when the whip hit her legs, but she wasn't hard to balance on, and we went over the oxer. Karin had to smack her with the whip 2 more times as she tried to refuse, before we ended with her going over without needing the whip.

Karin still tried to drill the shoe deal into my head again as we finished up...I just sat silent again.

She did give me some pretty cool info on Daisy's past owners, however...Apparently, Daisy used to be really bad at shows because she'd whinny and scream to the mare she was stabled with over the ring fence (I'm assuming her mother)...Ironic, considering other horses mean NOTHING, zip, zero, zilch to Daisy now; they can't motivate her, they don't comfort her, she doesn't feed off them, NOTHING. :P

Sooo, in all, it was worth the money, cool lesson...besides the terrible shoe-talk part. I need to honestly look into Old Mac's G2's...I'm NOT shoeing! NO WAY. Just need to get down and get those boots!

On Monday, I'm riding Daisy in a cross-country jump schooling with Oliver and Phoenix and Karin...Yeah...I'm crazy....we'll see how it goes. I'll try REALLY hard to get some video! :)

Sunday Still's Challenge: Happiness is...

I actually did take pictures to use for a different "Happiness is..." subject, and now my camera won't upload them... :(

So, I improvised.

My horse trainer, Jean, does eventing herself. The past 3 years she's gone eventing with her English Thoroughbred, Bubba. Unfortunately, Bubba has been retired from eventing this year. These are some pictures from the archives from the last 3 years.

Happiness is horse events.

Anything involving horses, sign me up!

You get those funny moments while taking up; Bubba is quite an interesting horse, to say the least. The King of all kings. :P

Jean and Bubba; Stuart Dressage 2008

Cross Country; GVH 2009; Last Event Bubba was in.

And then, of course, there's meeting all the adorable horses in the trailers around ours... It was hard to resist these ponies; I ended up going up and petting them. Sooo sweet. :)

And then, of course, there's those horses that are walking around that are sooo beautiful they take your breath away...that's one of the best parts; watching all those gorgeous horses.

Check out other people's view on Happiness at Sunday Stills!

Sunday Stills Challenge: Signs of Fall (and also Macro Monday 9/28/09)

I will admit that this week, my entrants were pretty lame...Fall has barely arrived at our house, so there aren't that many "signs of fall" around....I will admit that I went to the archives for the first two shots, taken last year because they are much prettier and more "fall-like" than the ones I took this week...

This is what it really looks like...not very pretty.

These next few are also my entrants for Macro Monday this week...

Now, I have my own personal "sign of fall"...for those (FEW) of you that read my blog regularly, do you notice anything different about my pony? (Besides the fact that she's whinnying adorably at the camera, AND looking at it?)

Her coat is darker...it gets almost liver chestnut in the fall, like her mother (though I've never seen pictures of her mother, that's what I'm told she looks like).

For more signs of fall around blogland, check out Sunday Stills!
Or maybe even join! It's a great way to make yourself get out with your camera and snap pics...although, don't take my word for it, because evidently I'm pretty bad at taking my camera out a lot to get good pics...this week I waited until today to get the pics :P :).

Game Show Pictures and First Ever Hunterpace

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Hello!
These are the promised pictures from the game show 2 weekends ago; sorry it took so long, time flies so fast! :P The last pic I look really grouchy in that "I'm unaware that a picture is being taken" sort of way...I am actually happy, I just don't look it :P Anyway, that shows how I generally sit when waiting for a class; it feels SOOO good, it stretches your legs :P

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This past Saturday, Jean and I went to our first Hunter pace...Unfortunately, I have NO pictures of it whatsoever...sorry! It was a blast, though. Jean rode Bubba, and I rode Daisy. We each had red saddle pads, white long sleeved shirts on with red polos overtop. We tacked at her place and took the 2-horse trailer over to the grounds (very close by). We registered, finished bridling, and got on. We started out at 10:32 am and Daisy was excited. As soon as we went over the first jump and started galloping, she was gone. That's it. NO MORE walking the entire way; she wouldn't have it. If Jean walked, Daisy 'jigged' behind Bubba. It was CRAZY! The second jump, Daisy tried to run-out to the left, and ran smack into Bubba; I kept cantering, turned her, and drove her at it again and she popped over. For us, it was a high jump...not sure how high, though. Nothing over 2'6". We continued along; she tried to run-out the third jump, I made her go over, and after that, she didn't really try to get away anymore. On the fourth jump, a pretty high jump for our standards, I smacked her to keep her from running out and the crop broke! The handle was dangling from the crop, and as I went over, the handle swung back and hit me between the knuckles. Ouch!! We entered woods for a bit, and crossed a stream...unfortunately, it was really banged up from all the horses crossing, so Daisy almost didn't want to go because the footing was terrible...Continuing on, my legs were BURNING because during gallops Jean had me standing in the saddle to work on balance...ouch again! lol...my right calf is still sore when I walk down stairs :P. At one point, we galloped up this REALLY steep hill along the edge of a cornfield, and Daisy got so into it (I think it bugged her that Bubba was leading) that she shot past just as Jean called out that there was another turn; figures. I had to gallop past and regain control so I could turn around! :P
Toward the end, Daisy was REALLY fiesty, and she saw Bubba go over two jumps in a row made of barrels...I didn't plan on going to over because I didn't think I could handle her, but too late, she turned toward them, cantered, and we were over them :P. It was SUPER fun, she jumped sooo high! (It feels like it, anyway). Right after, Daisy got a burst of energy and took off with me at a gallop...had to wait until the field turned before she slowed down! CRAZY horse. And that with a Kimberwick bit! We also went over a tire jump very successfully...I think I'm doing a lot better with looking UP instead of down at the jump, which is a bad habit I have. :)

We learned a few things at the hunterpace. First, it was WAY different then we thought (longer, hilly-er, etc), second, your knees KILL afterward, and third, once Daisy does one, she'll be so hyper at the end you'd think she could do it a few more times! In the end, we finished in 1 hour 19 minutes...silly us picked on of the faster divisions, so we didn't even place because we were slow :P. We learned a lot this time. First of all, the hunter paceLOL

Very fun experience though...we will probably go back next year. :)