Goals for 2013

I know that setting goals should be a positive time, looking foreword to the future, and for us horse people, show season!  However last year at this time I was in a much different situation than I am now.  I had just brought Lucas home from my old bosses training barn where he was to be sold, thinking that we could give "us" another chance.  Even reading though the old posts, its hard to see where it went wrong, it just wasn't right for either of us.

His new owner loves and appreciates him.  And in the end that's what matters now.  I'm happy riding Oscar, hes given me confidence back, and let me realize that the issues I was having with Lucas were not all my fault, and that I can actually ride reasonably well!

So onto the goals for 2012 to see how I did!

1) To loose the weight that has been holding back my riding. Now that my joints are better, becoming a fitter rider will only help my balance and skill on a horse.
Well that didn't go so well although I have made a good start on it this year.

2) To stop listening to the voice in my head telling me that I'm not good enough, that Lucas is going to spook, that I'm going to fall off... any and all of it must stop!

Yeah so not such a good goal with Lucas but I haven't heard that voice in my head for about 2 months now.  Its kind of funny, that's not something I think about on a regular basis anymore but I thought about it all of the time when I was riding Lucas.

3) To give up my crutch of a bit, the twisted wire. I'm a good enough rider, and Lucas is broke enough that we really don't need it.
Again something that I don't even use now that I'm not riding Lucas. 

4) To ride in a pattern class at every show (as long as it doesn't require dropping your irons, and if the English one does than I have to show horsemanship)
Yeah only got to one show and only did showmanship at it.

5) To trust in Lucas so that he can trust in me. I can do it at a show, its time to do it at home.
Again only got to one show and only did showmanship

6) To do a trail class with Lucas (with me in the saddle) although I will be ok if we do not complete every obstacle.
See above. (4 & 5)

7) To apply for my AQHA Amateur card. Its been more than 5 years since I last accepted money to show/train a horse or judge a show. I need to accept that an Amateur is what I am now and it is ok to compete at that level!
Done and sent in, should have my Amateur card in my hand in the next couple of weeks,

So onward and foreword for 2013!

1) Ride different horses.  Even if its just the kids horses, more saddle time on different horses will make me more confidant.

2) Try to continue to ride Oscar at least twice a week.

3) Take more pictures of the horses and try to get someone to take photos of me on the horses.

4) Try to get to 2 horse shows this summer and show!

5) To loose 20 pounds before show season. (May)

6) To have more "wow look what we just did" moments weather at home or at shows

7) To keep on top of my finances, If I want to seriously start looking for a new horse in 2014 I need to have a decent size budget to do that with.  Most of Lucas' money went to fixing my car, and paying off loans not so much saving for a new horse.

Good news on the RA front

I went and saw Dr. O on Friday.  Got some good news in regard to my blood tests.  She told me that my blood results were the best she has seen from me in the entire time she has been seeing me.  I also get to cut out on a pill which has never really agreed with me.  All of that is good news.  She was also really positive about my change to gluten free, which so far is really showing some benefits.

I do think that the new drugs and the chiropractor are both helping me feel better than I have in a very long time.  At times when I feel like I'm having a hard day, this blog has been great about allowing me to remember how bad it was a couple of years ago, and see the progress I've made in battling this illness.

Stallions, and breeding season.

So in about a month we will be starting breeding season at the farm, my most favorite time of the year!

Our first mare (who was breed to Chevy, Chilly's sire) isn't due until the end of January but from the looks of it we are praying that she makes it past January 1st!  The other 3 mares are breed to foal around the end of March and all are doing well.  (One is breed to Chevy, one is Chevy's dam breed to No Doubt I'm Lazy, and the new Potential Investment mare is breed to Special Invitation (APHA).   It will be fun to see how all 4 of the babies compare to each other as they grow up.

Both Chevy and Rusty got lunged with saddles on today, vacation is over!  Over the next 2-3 months they are going to have a lot of visitors as people wanting to breed start looking for a stud.  The extreme issues that local breeders have had with getting shipped semen over the border and to our remote area means that having stallions that are quality animals with quality bloodlines is a big draw to locals who want to breed their mare.

Unfortunately D and C do live cover which can be dangerous for the stud, mare, and humans that are involved.  But again, finding a vet that is competent to do AI in mares can also be difficult.  I have heard of a vet who dropped several thousands of dollars worth of frozen semen into hot water to defrost them, like you do with bull semen..... killed all of it. 

Oscar's mom is home

And I'm kind of sad to have to share him, but shes such a good kid.  She showed up at the barn just as I was putting on Oscars saddle last night and I figured she would want to ride, but she said she just needed some barn time and to spend some time with him.  So I rode him for 15 min and then she got on for another 10 and jogged him around.  Shes going out tonight to ride which is good because I'm going to bed early!

Its been a week of about 95% gluten free.  I'm still trying to read the packaging on everything and I'm sure there is stuff that I'm missing.  Tonight my mom cooked a ham, and I had already eaten some before I thought to wonder weather or not it was gluten free. 

48 hours of Gluten free

And I'm feeling really good.  I guess you get used to how you feel and figure that is normal.  No more bloating, gas, and running to the bath room.  They kept telling me it was side effects from the drugs (at last count I was on over 10 of them plus vitamins and supplements)

I got to go for a bit of a ride last night, it was -7 plus windchill (which sucks any heat left in the indoor to the outside!).  But with the long underwear, and the down jacket it wasn't too bad.  We didn't do too much because of the cold but had some nice jogging work, and I felt like he was being really good about keeping his shoulders level while we did some changes in direction and schooling figures.  We were riding with a friend who was testing out the new lesson pony so we only loped one direction once, but he was good like always, we're really starting to figure each other out.  He doesn't get into his 'hoppy' lope any more but we are defiantly not ready to show yet.

Oscar's owner comes home tomorrow so I won't have sole custody anymore!  I'm a little sad but I'll go back to working Chilly for a couple of weeks as shes ready for a little bit of grown up work before it gets too cold. 

Going Gluten Free

Well saw the family doctor today he thought that my digestive issue might be something serious. So I have an appointment with a new specialist, but until then I have to try going gluten free. So far not too bad, cereal was my big worry but the first gluten free one I tried was really good. Anyone have good tips or tricks?

I am so accident prone

So I took my saddle home yesterday, cleaned it up, and used a spray conditioner/protector to help the leather.  Everything was going good until about half an hour later when I realized that my eye was really itchy.  I went to take my contact out and my entire eye was red.  We think that I either got some spay into my eye, or some was left on my hand.  So I did get it flushed out quickly and tossed the contacts I had in and it is much better today.  Only me.

I did get another ride in today and had a bunch of fun with Oscar, doing some bending and leg yielding.We did lope some (on our own) and even attempted and succeeded in doing a flying lead change, on purpose!

Week day ride

Had a bit of a quick ride tonight on Oscar.  I set up a row of poles in the center of the ring and practiced serpentines over and around the poles. It was good that kept both of us thinking and good practice of keeping his shoulders up though the turns without me nagging him.  I also did shallow loops (m x f) and having the poles in the middle made me stick to a "size" of my shallow loops and not cheat.

Then we used the cones that were set up around the arena and made up some quick walk/trot patterns with turns on the haunch and forehand to work on my one handed riding.  If my plan is to show horsemanship this summer at a show or two we need this time between lessons to work on finessing our one hand work with patterns.

I did manage to ride in a t-shirt tonight (it was 8 degrees!)  But I'm staring to miss the kids to ride with, it does get a little lonely riding on your own all the time.  Being the only person who rides year round can be satisfying but sad at the same time.

Ethics or the lack of

A couple of issues have come up over the past couple of weeks that have made me question the ethics of the horse industry. 

I'm only going to slightly touch on the abuse, its there, realize it, and do your best to look after your horse, because the breed associations don't seem to want to.

 And I'm not just talking about starving horses or beating them, I'm talking about the underhanded abuse that is done to get a horse in the show ring.  The bosal rubs, raw mouths, and spur marks.  I am very thankful that my BNT that I trained with wouldn't let anything like that happen to a horse in his care. (Heck we were horrified when one of the kids got new boots that rubbed the hair off on her HUS gelding!  She wasn't allowed to go to the next show as punishment!)

Sure there are accidents, and sometimes tack doesn't fit right, but take the time to let the injury heal, don't cover it with make up to get the horse in the show ring.

Both Oscar and Lucas have had their tails 'done'.  Lucas' was done via injections.  He had most
of his movement back, but couldn't lift his tail up when he was excited. Oscars tail has been broken in multiple places.  Of course its possible that he could have broken it as a youngster (Sophie, my friends foal did come out of the mare with a kink in the bottom of her tail, vets told her that a kink in the bottom is common).  How much do you have to hate a horse to break its tail multiple times?  He can use it a fair bit now, but like Lucas, he doesn't have full use.

The new "Novice" rules for AQHA. 

Personally in 2013 I can enter the show ring again as an amateur ( and a Novice at that!)  Most likely I will show novice in the riding classes if I have a chance to show AQHA again.  I will not show novice in halter.  Been there done that got the T-shirt.

Recently they changed the rules, now only your past 3 years worth of points count to your novice eligibility.  So you could be a youth would champion in western pleasure, sit out your college years and come back as a novice in Amateur.  Sure there is the Rookie division, but you can only stay in that until you get 10 points.

Although nothing has been finalized yet, it seems like AQHA is trying to keep the top layer of exhibitors happy and to hell with the rest of them.  I think what really gets me is the people on the pleasure horse forum who were so excited to go back to novice.  They had 100's or even 1000's of points in the events they wanted to show novice in, but there new horse 'wasn't competitive yet', or 'the new trail patterns are too hard'. 

I've been on the fence myself about showing novice or not, but with only 1.5 points to my name let alone my lack of loping skills at this point makes my arguments almost non relevant when compared to the people who seem to want to "go back novice".

Trainer ethics, or the lack of.

A local trainer has now been though 3 local barns (all within 2 hours of each other) and has left nothing but burnt bridges, used up client credit cards (he was using a clients CC given to him for horse show expenses to purchase feed for his entire barn), abused horses (were talking way worse that what I mentioned above) lawsuits, and illegal horse paper transactions.

This year one of his students won a top 10 at congress and another built him a 15 stall barn.

I don't get it.  How do this people not see the mess and run as fast as they can from him? 


All of this boils down to one thing. 

How much is the blue ribbon worth? 

Pictures of Lucas and his new owner

Comments

I think I finally managed to turn off that stupid word verification thing for comments.  If I haven't can someone comment and tell me how to?

I'm stewing on a post on ethics in the horse industry but its slow forming into words... Its coming from some changes in the AQHA show formats, abuse at the national and local level, and bad big (and small) trainers.

Not much going on here, other than that.  Oscar's owner is coming home in 2 weeks so we're looking foreword to seeing her again.

Lesson #3

First off I have to say that my Mom finished her Masters in Education today!  

Well we had lesson number 3 this morning, both horses were full of it from not being able to run and play outside to much so we both had to lunge a bit longer than usual.  Once we got on D had us practice some backing and haunch turns to get the horses moving off our legs, and had me and Oscar doing a couple of spins as well.  So we warmed up jogging around and working on picking our horses shoulders up again and moving there hips around.  Then we trotted though and over some poles that D set up for us.  Then we worked on our loping.  D had set up the poles so that we could lope 20 m circles and go though the poles to work on our steering and straightness. 

Once we had worked on all of that D, had us do a mini trail course we backed though one set of poles, 90 turn on the haunch for another set of poles, 90 then jog around all of the poles to jog over a set of raised poles.  We did ok, but Oscar really picked his legs up to get over the poles which was bouncy, but we did it!

Today I really felt like I was having some good loping moments.  I remembered to sit tall and keep my hips loose.  I'm still sure that it still doesn't look good, but we're figuring it out. 

My big things to remember are to keep my body loose and keep Oscars nose up and to the inside so he can't swap leads on me!

Totally got schooled last night by Oscar

Took him out to lunge him and this is what happened.  He rolled a couple of times then got up and let me untangle him the lungline from his head and we finished our exercise.  The frozen ground outside isn't letting them roll or play much.