Off topic,

Chilly is good, as we near the end of my 'lease' were starting to do the advertising, and test rides that come with putting a horse up for sale.  I'm a bit sad about it, but I knew going in that this was not a horse I could purchase, and that we would have fun together this summer but go our separate ways in the end.

We had a person come and try her out last week.  It was hard having someone pick your pony apart and watching her ride, but Chilly handled herself wonderfully, and was excellent and I was so pleased with how she behaved with a strange rider on her back.

We're talking about putting Lucy back to work and I think she's 50/50 on that idea, I moved her to a new pasture today and after I turned her loose, I tried to catch her again to fix her halter and she casualty walked quickly away, I think she liked the new grass more than me!

In other RA related news, one of my side effects of my drugs has been extreme hair loss/thinning of all of my hair.  On one hand it means I only shave my legs about every two weeks in the summer, on the other, my hair on my head is desperately thin and you can see my scalp all over. When I put my hair up in a pony tail I have a hard time finding elastics small enough, and my pony tail is much thinner than the thickness of a person's baby finger (think about the thickness of a pencil, and that is all of my hair).

My brother is getting married in October and my biggest worry is how my hair (or lack of) was going to look in all of his photos.  Apparently my mom was thinking the same thing, last night she picked me up at work and we spent just over 2 hours at a hairdresser/wig shop.

And we came home with a hair piece.  I wasn't sure about the entire process but I love the final look.  Its so easy to put on, just 4 little hair clips, and it looks like my hair!  The girls at work will know is different, but everyone else was so used to seeing me in ball hats they just thought I got my hair highlighted and better shaped.

still dealing with teeth

And I feel as crappy about it as Chilly does.  Shes really sensitive about loosing her baby caps, and although we are seeing the teeth come out (usually in her feed dish) there are still some causing her issues.  Our dentist was seriously injured this spring shortly after she did Chilly's teeth last time (mid May), and is unable to work but told us that waiting it out is the best bet at this point.  Pulling on caps that aren't quite ready to come loose might cause more damage then letting them come off on their own.

So I've been riding her only in a bosal (I did put her in a bit for the show but she wasn't happy by the end of the day)  and we've been doing really good.  I have lots of body control but I just couldn't get her to give her face to me and break at the poll.  So D thought about it for a week, then showed up at the barn with his idea, put her back in the side pull, and use a running martingale to help her figure out what we wanted.  It took less than a minute for her to go from "I have no idea what these people want" to "OH I GET IT! Nose IN!"  Total breakthrough moment. I rode her like that for 20 min, only occasionally having to lift my hands up so that the martingale came into effect, but only as a reminder.  We then took it off and put the show bosal on and the lesson transitioned extremely well.

I'm not a big one for short cuts but this was a bit more of a step back with a reminder, and so much less stress than the fight I was bound to get into trying to do things the 'right way'.

2 shows in as many weeks!

And  I was exhausted which is why I`m just getting to writing this now.  Oh and my computer that got fixed wasn't really fixed which means I'm going to have to look at getting a computer sooner rather than later.

So riding Chilly in the bosal is going well, at our last show last weekend we even did trail in it which although our pattern kinda sucked (pattern was way too tight and the poles set way too close together) she was much happier doing all of the obsticals and we even got to within a foot of hooking up the gate to close it.

Our show on PEI went really well, we won high point green horse for both days but didn't get the award due to us not being members of the club (only a ribbon so it wasn't like we missed out on a blanket or anything).  She was really good in all of her classes, and if we missed out on a first place ribbon it was usually my fault!  (not setting her up right, not doing a straight line, you know important stuff when doing patterns).

We ended up going into the showmanship stake class, I wasn't real sure if we should but thought, hey its something we've been working on all winter.  So the pattern was trot to the middle of the pen, walk a small circle to the left, jog a square to the left, jog to the judge 1 and 1/2 turns then set up for inspection.  Once completed 1/2 turn, back 4 steps 1/2 turn walk away.  The bad part was that there were no cones, just the judge and an empty arena.

And we rocked it!  We could have been smoother, but I was so happy with our 4th ever showmanship pattern at a show.  And out of 6 horses we came in 3rd!  The two girls that beat us drill showmanship all the time and are all of 15 and skinny well dressed girls.  We did however manage to beat everyone else who all show AQHA (and usually win there).

I had to laugh though, after our green pattern the next class (in which I screwed up by trotting a crooked line) the judge came up to me and pointed out that I needed to have my right hand further down the lead shank, because I was sliding it up and down which is frowned upon.  She said (and I quote!) "your mare is broke enough you don't need to hold on that close to her face now".  I smiled and nodded but almost laughed and told her we had just finished our 5th ever showmanship class!

Anyways I'm working on trusting Chilly more with more slack in the shank and its coming.  Our next show at the end of the month will have 5 showmanship classes spread over the two days (more showmanship than riding actually) so its something I`m really going to work on.

Our next show was a crap show, the judge hadn`t judged in over 20 years so we just went for the experience.  We should have won showmanship but didn`t, and we broke in the pleasure class, but won it.

However it was a good learning experience for Chilly she had a hard morning, after each class she couldn't understand why she couldn't go to a stall to relax, and had to stay outside standing around.  By the afternoon she was more than willing to stand next to the older horses with a foot resting and almost half asleep.  (Don`t worry we did go to the trailer several times for breaks and water but between classes she need to learn to wait)

And I finally showed her english!  Only our 3rd time in the english saddle, she couldn't have cared less but there was no way I was getting a real trot out of her.  She`s proven that she can do the all-around when pressed but shes no english horse.

Its funny though, although she reminds me all the time of her mom Lucy, riding her english is when I really feel it.  So much like her mom, I have to remind myself that its not Lucy.