Life is Good

GUESS who got a new western saddle on Friday!?!?! ME! Sooo, let me tell you about it :)
Last Friday, Daisy was picked up to be driven about 1 1/2 hours to a place just outside of Buffalo, New York. Her traveling companion was a pretty boy named Jan (stands for January something-or-another (idk)). She trailered up pretty well; she paused for a minute because she wasn't sure of what to think of Jan's whinnying and stamping as he was already in the trailer, but she loaded pretty quick and they got along; she didn't bite him (That's a plus). I rode down with Jean and with Jan's owner, sharing fun horse stories and plans for the season...

Once we got there we took around; those are the horse pasture's at Jean's dad's place (who owned the tack shop).

The tack shop.

More horse pastures :)

We unloaded Jan and brought him into his new place.

Jan took the trip down with Daisy to visit the "Equine Correctional Facility" part of the property :-P. Jan has a rearing problem that just didn't stop, so now he found himself in a new place :). Ironically, Daisy spent a month at the Correctional Facility as well. Jean originally got Daisy because her old owner became afraid of her. Jean didn't have time to ride Daisy, so Daisy went to Jean's dad's place for a tune-up. Turned out, she didn't need much of a tune-up, because she only spent a month there.

Jan quickly met his stable mate in his stall. There were some very pretty horses in the barn; it's very cozy there, and pretty cool looking.

Like these two pretty horses that were across the aisle (I know, look like Jan and his new "friend").

After settling Jan into his new place, we headed to the tack shop. It's small, but filled literally to the ceiling with stuff: English and western saddles and bridles, halters, lead ropes, saddle pads, gifts, consignment stuff and new. The first saddle he showed me was this one. I didn't like it originally; it looked boring (I know, I'm so...picky:-P). However, I tried it on Daisy, and it fit her, so we headed to the round pen to try it out while riding and make sure it was good.

His round pen was AWESOME. It was indoor, and sanded. The walls were high, with just some windows, and there was a place where you could sit up high and look down onto the ring. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture of the ring because of lighting. But that's not the point. I got in that saddle and I fell in love (*sniff*). It was SO comfortable. And it fit Daisy. And it fit me like a glove. SO well. It was so comfortable, not to big or too little, and just wonderful. It was handmade by a private person (company?), not a big retailer. The leather is in GREAT condition. It's old, so it's heavy, but it was great. So of course I bought it. For $400. Which, according to Jean and her dad, is VERY cheap considering how much that saddle probably cost when it was brand new (Think a couple thousand dollars here). Jean's dad looked sad to see it go, lol, and said that if it had fit him he would have kept it for himself.

Saddle in the trailer, we loaded Daisy back up for the ride back, her alone that time.

Of course, she got a couple treats. (Man, I love my horse.)

I know, blurred picture...we drove back home.

With a beautiful new saddle.

Tomorrow the Yautzy Road Yahoos are riding and walking in a parade nearby. I'm so excited!

Hopefully I'll let you know how it goes by tomorrow night...hopefully. :)

LONG Time No Post!

Hello, People! I'm very very sorry I haven't posted...I have SO much to say, but I really just didn't feel like writing it all...a shame, really, because I'm going to write it now...

So...where do I begin? I'm sticking with just Daisy stuff and may be updating people at my other blog, so at least I don't have that much to say regarding Daisy.

Last time I posted it was our anniversary...since then, we've been riding only English or bareback (withthe bareback pad and without) through the woods. I did ride a I think 5 mile block around some different roads awhile back, which was cool...it was about an hour ride, but it was a "big deal" for me...it seems a lot longer. And it's HILLY! We passed some horses along the way that Daisy so kindly whinnied to, and continued along. The first BIG thing I have to say is that Daisy can do a right lead canter now! I KNOW, right?! RIGHT lead! It's a miracle! Back in January I posted (sorry the writing is hard to read, I still had the old template) about taking a lesson with Karin and trying to get Daisy to pick up her right lead. She had me trying to force Daisy to pick up her right lead, but she wouldn't do it. In February, I started trying myself to get Daisy to do right lead. I'd side pass her to the right, and make her "launch" into a canter from that position, because it sets the horse up for the canter stride. I'd learned that way back when I took regular lessons with my first riding teacher. Daisy didn't really do the right lead, even when I did that in the ring. I'd started doing it on the road, as I mentioned here. I took Daisy to a mounted 4H meeting at the end of April at Jean's house, at the same time that she got her shots, and WOW I need to tell you, she did AMAZING! I easily got her to right-lead canter in a circle, around and around. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, she'll pick her right-lead up by choice! Even if she doesn't, though, I can get her to do it so easily...hopefully, when we got to the pleasure show on May 31st we'll be good with our leads! :D The game show we went to, by the way, was great. I still didn't (and don't) have a western saddle, so we rode English, but Daisy and I both had a ball; we did a ton of barrel racing, and Daisy is amazing at keyhole! She shoots down through the barrels, gets barely inside, flips around and shoots back out; very impressive. Can't wait to do a game show with her! :D

So, let me tell you my agenda. Today I went to a horse show without riding Daisy, but I'll tell you about that in a minute. On Friday I'm leaving school a little early and Jean is kindly going to trailer Daisy down to just outside of Buffalo, New York (About a 1 1/2 hour drive)(Along with another horse to drop off for training) to her Dad's farm. He has a tack shop there, and we will spend time trying on western saddles for Daisy, as I can't just trust that a saddle off the Internet will fit her. I'm REALLY excited because I miss riding Western! It sounds crazy, but I haven't sat in a western saddle since last fall, at our last game show!!! That's MONTHS ago! Daisy was also kept in Jean's dad's herd for some time, so it'll be cool to see the place. :) Then we'll drive back and I'm pretty sure we'll keep her at Jean's house for the weekend. On Memorial day, Monday, May 25th, our 4H club is riding in a parade! That's going to be really cool, too. We're going to a parade in a small town near us, it's a quiet parade so it'll be good for our first time. We'll probably have 6-7 riders on horseback, and the rest of our club walking and holding a banner with our club name. (We are the Yautzy Road Yahoos... :-P) We're all wearing red, and riding with red saddle pads (red is officially our club color). It's going to be SO cool! I've wanted to do a parade with Daisy for awhile because I'm sure she'll do great. I love riding horses in situations where it could potentially be stressful, but we can work through it. I love the feeling of, in a way, "training" a horse to be "bomb-proof"...does that make sense? Like, the more experience, the better. :)
Then I will either trailer Daisy home for the week, or board her at Jean's (not decided yet)...We'll go to a pleasure show on Sunday, May 31st, probably riding western pleasure, and rackin' up points in Command class, which we rock at :P (and Trail class!!!!!!!)

Today I went to a horse show riding Scout, the new lesson pony Jean bought a few months ago. Remember him? He was a sick pony when she got him. Now he's a show pony! I could have ridden Daisy in the show, but I just didn't want to trailer her, and I didn't have a saddle, and we have the parade next week anyway. So I wasn't going to go at all, until Jean offered Scout this week. He's never been shown anywhere so Jean said it'd be good to have an experienced rider (verses one of the beginner lesson students). I rode Scout in a mounted meeting yesterday for the first time, and today in the show! It was a games show. He was GREAT! Jean recently purchased an 8 horse trailer, so we trailered 5 horses to the show, with one of our club members bringing another, and we all wore red and had a great time...Oliver got in a little accident with Bonita (who he's been riding and doing AMAZING with) so he ended up riding Bella once...Scout and I did keyhole as our first class(his first ever class) and we rode walk/trot (he's canter is minimal; he wasn't really ever taught to canter). We one first place! :D He was very good at the show, just excited in the beginning, and then he calmed down. Then we did pole bending, but he did two strides of canter (got a little too into it :-P) and we were disqualified. That's ok, though, we still got good pictures :-P. Unfortunately, the rest of the show ended up canceled because of severe thunder showers (I know, it looks so nice and sunny in the pictures! Hard to imagine that it started pouring :-/)

So that was today's experience...even though we only did two classes, it was a lot of fun; just riding around the grounds with the rest of the YRYs is always fun :). It was our first show as a group, and it was great! Can't wait for more! (We have mounted meetings weekly now; I'll probably "bum" a horse off people at Jean's barn for them, though, because I'm not trailering Daisy each week!)

Sorry this was so long and overdue...I've probably lost my readers by now. :)