Options and Career Choices

So my daughter is in Grade 8 and trying to plan her courses for high school, because you know what you want to be at 13, right. Is it every girls dream to have a career with horses when you are 13 and why are there no courses in high school that could possibly prepare you for this career path? except maybe biology and gym, but they don't call it gym anymore. So in all my wisdom I have been trying to prepare my kids that a life with horses, while quite fulfilling mentally and relaxing in some ways, is really quite difficult, unsafe and wrought with financial frustations. Having informed them of this I will still support them in any way that I can, lucky for me I have also had the support of my own Mom and Dad [in my horse habit as opposed to horse career] so I know how important it is.

Brooke has been riding off and on for many years but she has ridden well trained horses up til this point, I don't think this is a bad thing but it doesn't really prepare her for a life with horses either. So when my parents decided to get their last home bred colt trained they thought it would be a good idea for Brooke to be the one who rides him. On the other hand, we, my parents and I , also felt that my daughter, while a good rider, could really use some more training herself to help her recognize signs the horse is giving, to help her be safe. If you have ever seen a person hurt while riding you will understand what I say when I say I would really like to never see a person hurt while riding, or at anyother time either. So began my quest to find someone who would work with her and help her to understand what she is doing, what she is asking, how she is asking and whether or not the answer the horse gives her is the right one and is it time to stop asking or to keep the pressure on etc etc etc.... So many questions.

While I have been somewhat skeptical about some of the "Natural Horsemanship" techniques and trainers, I decided to give it a try and see what happened. Apparently, much of this type of training happens on the ground. After the horse had been with the trainer for a month or so we went for visit and were given a demonstration of what the horse was able to do at this point. Tim Fortune, of Extra Mile Ranch, is our trainer and he said that the little horse actually knew quite a bit or picked it up relatively quick, we were happy to hear that he had retained quite a bit of his training from the last trainer but he had a few areas that still needed work. Brooke had a few lessons with him, all of these were learning things from the ground with her most recent lesson including riding. The lessons are very informative, much like having your own personal clinic. He tacked up and rode right along with her, demonstrating what he wanted her to do and talking her through it. The girl couldn't stop smiling, anyone having a teenage daughter can tell you this is not an easy feat.

The ground training is a huge part of the learning curve and fortunately Tim gives good analogies to go along with it. It can be frustrating watching, but also very informative. The lessons are 2 hours long, which is a long time to stand and watch someone else have training so I frequently go on little walks around the barn, play with the kittens and even mucked out stalls just to keep myself busy. Today while I was walking around I stopped to have a chat with Sara, a girl who I thought worked for Tim. In actual fact what she was doing was going to horse school! Opportunities for students to further their education and learn about the horse industry are out there, even if you have no previous experience at all, all you have to do is search around for the one that suits you.

I would still like for my children to choose a different path, even if it is just to support their horse habit but parents don't always know what is best, I guess.

Riding Pepper

Monday night, it is hot, very very hot. Walk into the barn, there are fans everywhere, trying to make the horses more comfortable and I want to do what? Yup, that is right, I want to go riding. Well, actually, it is more that I need to go riding cause after paying for 2 months of training you want to find out what is going on with your horse. I haven't even opened her stall door and I am sweating.

Brush, clean hooves, saddle pad, saddle, bridle and I guess it is time. No wait, lunge first, Okay now it is time. Thankfully there is a step. Make it into the saddle, okay, now what? Again thankfully, Harvey is there telling me what to do.

We start out at a walk, this is okay, lay the reins on her neck to turn her, if she doesn't turn right away apply some taps with the same leg to make her move in the direction I want. Keep my hand in front, not back towards me. Don't let the reins slide through your hand, oh ya. Don't let her decide which direction you are going, if she thinks you need to left then go right. Now trot. Heh, no problem, no head shaking, no bum bumping, what is this? A willing horse. Yahoo. She just wants to do what you want, or so it seems. Harvey says that when ever I am ready I can lope if I want to but Heck it is hot so I think maybe I can save loping for another day, when it is not sooo hot. ;) Pepper deserves a nice cool bath and she gets one.

Thursday morning.
How can it possibly be hotter than Monday night? Harvey couldn't be here today but that is okay.

Saddle up and now what? It is so much easier when Harvey is there to tell me what to do. Why do I feel so incompetent by myself? The message Harvey left with Molly was to be sure to lunge first and whenever I was ready I could go ahead and lope her. Yup okay, lunging done, but heck it is sooo hot, I don't really think I should lope her, better wait for cooler day.;) Another nice cool bath for my good girl.

We will see what the weather brings next week. :)

Lessons Learned?

Struck out this morning all by myself. It was kind of nice, just listening to my country music, singing away, nobody there to tell me I couldn't sing. The weather had calmed down a bit this morning, not the 33 C weather it had been earlier this week, thank God, but it was still really nice outside.

I wasn't really sure what Pepper would be like this week, she was super crabby last week. Her head was way up in the air and she wasn't the least bit interested in me at all, I must say my feelings were a teeny bit hurt. Last week I got to see Harvey riding a 3 year old mare, and man was she nice. So I was slightly impressed when I walked up to her stall this morning and her ears pricked forward and she moved toward me. I thought to myself, "this is my horse, my friendly loving little mare that I have been missing." I guess she plays with her water bowl a bit and makes it run over, little trouble maker. I don't mind a bit, so long as she is happy.

Last week I was surprised to see that she was still rather fat, I thought that she would be slim and trim after not seeing her for 2 1/2 weeks but apparently when you are that fat it takes a while to get in shape. Pleasantly surprised was I too actually see a change in her condition this week from last. She actually looked like she had gotten taller. Harvey advised me it was an optical illusion as her tummy no longer sticks out past her hips, ahem, she appears taller. [Maybe it would work for me too, no, wait, I don't need to be taller. Right.]

So we calmly walked out to the ring, she is only being ridden outside so that she won't freak out when she comes home and has to be ridden outside. He lunged her around the ring only a few times and then he hopped, literally, on to her. She has been quite resistant to holding her head in position, we also had that problem with her at home. Apparently she is quite clumsy as a result of trying to lope with her head up. She needs reminders to bring her head into collection. She is actually trotting with energy, backing up reasonably well and SURPRISE she can lope! I don't know if she was hiding it from me or if she actually didn't know she could do it but she can. She mostly picks up the right lead and is starting to respond to neck reining. She does still resist but so long as you perservere and wait for her to figure it out, she does.

I was happy with this trip even though it was a quick one, I got too see some major improvements in my mare. I also got to give her a lovely warm bath and lots of kisses and hugs when no one was looking. She now walks on a lead better than she did, apparently that was a lesson in itself, a hard lesson. Note to self- Do not let your horse walk too close, other people don't like it. There are so many things that need to be fixed when you spoil your horse. Life lessons I guess.

One week down, one to go

So it has been a week. I have been very good about missing my girl. I worked an extra day and I spent some time with her Mom. I watched Brooke ride Stellar and have been trimming Lacey's hooves.

Did you know that quarter horses are renowned for having tiny "teacup" feet? I didn't for the longest time and do you know why? Because I have quarterhorses with feet that would put a Clydesdale to shame. When I say that I have been trimming Lacey's hooves I mean that for days I have been trimming Lacey's hooves. I sometimes get the farrier to trim her feet, to give myself a break. I am now able to, after a couple of years of practicing, trim 2 of her hooves at a time. It isn't pretty though. I huff and puff, my face turns red and sweat drips into places unknown. I only hope that somebody doesn't slip into the barn someday and take my picture while I am down on my hands and knees with my butt half hanging out of my pants cause I sure as shit won't be able to get up off the floor and break the camera in time to save myself.

Anyhoo, I called Harvey to see how he is making out and so far it doesn't sound too bad. He has her in a curb bit already cause " she is way to old to still be in a snaffle". Apparently she has some issues to deal with due to the fact that I have been too easy on her, "let her get away with stuff". She is going left and right. He says she is mature enough to handle the training now so that is at least positive and he thinks by next week [when I am allowed to go and see her] that she will be thinking that she needs to just do what I say so she can get finished. We may even be far enough along for me to take her to a clinic in June. Maybe. But I do not want to mess up anything so we will see.

I never really thought it would bother me so much to take her to school, but I do miss her. Well I guess I will have to make do with her brother for now, look out Jack here I come.

My Ride on BJ

I posted this on the JL Discussion Board as well but thought I may as well post it on my own blog too. There is a thread on the JL board where you can post about your last ride, I have enjoyed reading these posts. I realized that I too could participate in this particular thread since I had recently had a little ride on a very cute sorrel gelding named "BJ" at Stevens' Training Center.

I last rode on Tuesday. I took my daughter to a riding lesson at this reining trainer's barn, when she was done he asked if Katie, my other daughter would like to ride and when she said no he asked me. I said yes.

I was nervous but not for long, nervous energy turned to extreme excitement/pleasure. I had forgotten what it is like to ride a really well trained horse. Oh my. My face was sore from smiling.

I started at a walk, leaning my reins on his neck for turns so quick and smooth, a slight squeeze to go into a jog. I wasn't expecting such a bumpy jog/trot. The trainer yelled out, "He's a whole lot smoother at the lope!" So after basically years, I had my first real good lope, around and around. I think the trainer was a little surprised I loped right away and so he quickly yells out, "If you're gonna stop make sure you say "whoa" before you pull on the reins so he doesn't stop too fast" Okay. I whisper"whoa" and just start to pick the rein up, he is already stopped. A horse that stops at the suggestion, ahhhhh.

The trainer says, "Get a real good feel of what he rides like cause this is what your horse is gonna be like." Can't wait.

Lesson with Harvey

The sun is just coming up, shining on the pond and making the grass glitter as I walk across it to feed the horses. The air is clean and fresh, a dog barks, the lone goose is resting, watching my dog and I as we pass him. Actually more watching my dog than me as he likes to round up the geese when he sees them, me, well, not so much, not really into running.

I am a bit early today as I need to get back to the house and get Brooke up to go for a lesson with Harvey. Usually getting her up is a chore, getting her up on a saturday almost impossible but when I yell up, "Hey Brooke do you want to get ready and go for another lesson with Harvey?" there is a moment of silence and then "What should I wear?". No groaning and moaning, her feet hit the floor and she is ready before me. Unusual. Katie opted to go to Kara's and spend some time playing with her at her spot on the lake.

It was a nice drive, we passed the time singing with radio, Tim Horton's breakfast and of course a "French Vanilla". At one point she says her tummy is bothering her, nerves, I remember them well. We get to the barn and Harvey is just walking out with a lovely palamino gelding. "Grab the last horse on your left, throw this saddle on him."

Now normally, Brooke getting a horse ready is an hour long affair but she is improving, I only got one horse brushed and stall cleaned before she was ready. What a nice horse, really nicely muscled gelding and I forgot to ask what his name was and so did Brooke.

So Harvey is riding the pretty palamino, Brooke is riding the dark sorrel and Molly[Harvey's wife] is riding a grey stallion. Let me tell you something about this stallion, he is beautiful and not just a little bit, I know that my camera is in the car, surely I can get up there and get the camera before she is done riding. [I think Pepper would really like for him to be the father of her baby someday.]


I climb up the hill, ran through the alley, found my camera, ran back through the alley and down the hill, sat down, turned on the camera, low battery, I am hoping it will last long enough to get a few pics. Hit the button to take the picture and the camera shut down, not even off, not even closed, just quit working totally. Lucky for me I happened to see Katie's camera in the back seat pouch when I was up there to get my camera so I ran up the hill [did I mention that I don't really run?], through the alley, grabbed the camera, ran back through the alley and back down the hill just in time for Molly to get off the beautiful grey stallion "Lizard". Never got his pic but no matter, I was really here to watch Brooke and try to remember a few of the things that Harvey is trying to help her with.

So he gets her to walk around for a bit and then jog/trot and finally loping, loping and more loping. Circles please. Lots of circles.

Things we need to practice:

Sitting straight in the saddle;
You can tell she leans because the saddle horn shifts to one side or the other. This is not good because the horse is constantly trying to get himself back under you and it is easier for you to correct him as apposed to taking a header over his shoulder. Good to know.

Be a little more aggressive when turning;
If he doesn't turn when you lean the rein on his neck, apply leg pressure. You apply the opposite leg to the direction you are turning ex., left leg pressure to go right. Apply pressure not kicking. Kicking does bad things he said there were 2 of them and I already can't remember what one of them was but the other was it would cause a problem and you just don't need that.

Sit up straight with legs back more;
Brooke sits back too much in the saddle, with her legs at the girth or forward. Her legs need to be a little more back so that she isn't cuing at the girth. So shifting her pelvis and trying to keep her legs under herself is our goal

If he doesn't stay still when you 'whoa' then back him up and whoa again, if he doesn't stay still when you 'whoa' then back him up and whoa again until he stands still when you 'whoa'.

I am sure there were other things he said but I just can't remember them at this point. Maybe tomorrow.

We had a good drive home, picked up some electric fence and a few Harvey's burgers. Good drive, managed not to get a ticket but did not look forward to telling Katie I was using her camera........

Our Equine Affaire Experience

Anxiously I waited for the bus to drop the kids off. This was the day, we, Brooke, Sharon and I, were heading off on our trip. It had been planned for months. The maps were printed, gas topped off, bags packed, medications packed, snacks and drinks, we were ready.

A tearful good-bye to my youngest along with one more check over the bus drop off at Nana's and we were off.

Yay, I thought, we were going to make to it the border in daylight. That was my plan. Last time we went across the border, it was the first time I had driven across and it was raining, dark, foggy and for some reason I was scared out of my wits. This time we were going to make it in daylight. We only stopped once, to get a Harvey's burger for dinner. That was a treat and it didn't take long as we went through the drive through, only about 15 minutes.

About 15 minutes from the border we noticed that we needed to turn the lights on, it was dark, it was raining and again for some reason I was terrified going across the border. Had we left just 1/2 hour earlier we would have had daylight. We had no problems other than an idiot driver cutting us off as we wavered back and forth along the road trying to decide where we supposed to be. The lanes are not well defined. We crossed, knew this time that we needed to go to the right to avoid oncoming traffic, again, no lanes but also not much in the way of traffic.

For some reason there was no neon sign pointing the way to Equine Affaire, so we had to wing it and head west on I90. Took the wrong turn for the inn we had picked out and ended up staying at an Econo Lodge, which surprisingly was very comfortable.

The rest of the trip was good other than I forgot or lost the trip tick and still don't know where I packed it. I did have driving directions from mapquest and the navigation system[NS] in Mom's van. Kind of funny thing happened, mapquest and NS do not follow the same route. It seems to kind of make the NS a little frustrated when you don't turn the way she says, we had fun with that a little bit.

Still fighting with the NS we found our Inn, forgot my US credit card. No problem though, I had given it too the lady over the phone and though she wasn't supposed to, she let us stay.

Rested for a while, decided to check out the pool. Too bad I didn't check before hand, the pool is closed til middle of May but we were still allowed to use the whirlpool. Yahoo.

Really good, amazingly good, breakfast included in our stay. Scrambled eggs, bacon, waffles, yogurt, fruit, cereal, muffins, toast, bagel and juice or coffee.

We watched Chris Cox the first and second day, he is an exceptional clinician. The first day he talked about getting the horse to lower his head. Teaching the horse to find his headset and establishing a cue for it. The next day I thought we were going to be watching him deal with a bucking horse but no, that was on the day we were leaving so we watched him help a couple horses with lead changes. Following the clinic he gave a reining demonstration on his horse, Pepto, that left Sharon and I with tears running down our cheeks. I know, I know. Brooke was slightly embarrassed.

We also got to see a little bit of John Lyons, he explained a few exercises to help with speed control and also introduced his sons Josh and Michael. I didn't even know he had 2 sons. We got to see Jana and their new baby Ryder, what a sweet little fella. They are a very family oriented business. Nice people.

Stacy Westfall discussed improving steering and teaching neck reining. She gave a good exercise to practice involving cones. She is a good clinician as well.

The shopping was phenominal but not really inexpensive, just so much to choose from.

We really enjoyed the Pfizer Fantasia show on Friday night. A hitch of 8 haflingers entertained us at the beginning along with the OhioDrill Team. John Lyons brought in Preacher and Charlie, Tommy Garland riding a Texas Longhorn Steer, Aaron ? doing a reining demonstration, Dutch Warmblood doing a dressage demonstration, a lady riding an Andalusian doing some kind of dance with a stick, very good but I can't remember what it is called, something like garrocha?? The Donnert brothers juggling on horseback, the Icelandic riders, a team of 4 welsh ponies demonstrating their cart racing around obstacles, a family did some mounted shooting and trick riding and finally one of the Donnert brothers did a skit with an appaloosa horse "Chief Bear Paw" the 4th[amazing].

There were so many things to see and I only saw a handful. I guess we will have to go back next year. Maybe next year I will have a better idea of how to go across the border.