Back to Buddy

Over the past few months I've felt like I've been neglecting Buddy.  First when he pulled his shoe and went lame there wasn't a lot I could do with him.  Once he got the shoe back on I was getting ready to show Tia and had to spend most of my time getting her ready.  Now with McKenna here I've been more focused on the new pony. 

Luckily Amy's back from summer break and wants to part lease Buddy again this fall.  She's been out a few times over the past two weeks and has been getting Buddy back into shape.  I told her that he's been out of work, but she didn't seem to mind taking it slow with him. 

I did manage to ride him twice this week, once just a flat hack inside and yesterday we jumped a bit in the outdoor.  I switched him back to the slow twist from the pelham since Amy's never ridden in a pelham and he seems much happier.  The two times I've ridden he's been soft in my hand and stretching down into the contact.  I think the pelham will be our big bit for when he's naughty and we'll stick with the slow twist for every day use.

I got my baseline for the Two Point Challenge on Buddy during our inside hack.  2:53, not great but it's a start.  I dont' know how much two pointing I'll be able to do on McKenna so hopefully the challenge will force me to ride Bud more to work on it!

McKenna has started to show her 5yr old OTTB self.  She's been a little ADD and high, but not necessarily bad.  She'll look at things and tends to focus more on what's going on around her rather than me. She hasn't spooked at anything, including the donkeys and the mechanical cow our barn owners use as a roping dummy. The old trainer had her on a magnesium supplement that they said helped her focus, so I'm going to order some of it and see.


Baby's first time in the outdoor arena

Power and Speed

The show yesterday didn't go quite as planned, but it was still a great show!  We took four horses and six riders, the biggest showing from our barn/the college team in years.  Friday night the girls all came out to the barn to clean/clip/do manes on the horses, clean tack, and get everything ready.  Jen and I ended up helping clip/pull manes on a couple horses that were naughty but for the most part everyone got their own stuff done.  Amy is a former pony clubber and loves cleaning tack so she took apart both my hunter and  fig. 8 bridles to clean, did my saddle, martingale, girth and my leather open front and hind ankle boots!  I told her she's the best groom ever!

Saturday dawned cloudy and rainy but we pulled out at 6:30 and got to the show with no problems.  It was dry at that point and everyone hurried to tack up to school.  As we were getting ready, the sky opened up and poured for about 15 minutes. Luckily I had one of Buddy's clean rain sheets in the trailer (I store my winter blanket in the trailer during the summer) so I threw it on him as we walked to the ring.  Amy got on first to school and I took shelter under an awning by the announcer's booth.  Buddy looked good in warm up, as did the other horses from the barn. We didn't time it right, and I only had about 5 minutes to school after we switched, but I schooled the lines with him and we were good.

Amy and Buddy, Jen, Anne and Blue, and Ella and Hunter

Amy did a 2' hunter class with him as a schooling round and it went ok.  Buddy wasn't impressed with the fences, and they had a couple awkward distances but ended up 5th. Bud then got an hour or so break before my 2'6" eq classes.  I was planning on doing the eq and mini medal but I was the only one in the medal and they need 3 to run the class so they cancelled it. I was pretty bummed out about it, but there will be other shows.  Our eq round was decent, he was a little tired and we opted to make the lines a short 5 strides instead of trying to run at the 4 (which they were set).  We got a 3rd which I was happy with.

Tired pony is tired...and says "Please don't make me go again"

Buddy then got another couple hours break while they did the 3' hunters and had a lunch break. The jumpers were supposed to start at 2:30 but everyone was there so they started about 1:45 instead.  We didn't do another warm-up, just trotted Buddy around a bit. Amy did two rounds with him, a timed first round and a table 2b.  The first round wasn't great, had a couple rails down and they weren't in sync.  The second round was a lot better and they got a 1st. 

We switched again and I took him in a power and speed class.  My goal was to keep it together for the first round so we could do the jump off.  He was very tired by this point, and about 3/4ths of the way thru I had to go to my crop at one of the fences.  It was the first in a diagonal line, and we were veering slightly left of center to the second fence, so I yanked him back to the middle and went to my crop again.  Luckily that woke him up a bit and we had a nice pace going into our last fence/start of the jump off.  The first two fences in the jump off were a line, and again I knew we didn't have it in us to do the 4 strides, so we balanced for the 5 then turned up the speed.  We had a bending line after that to a really tight rollback to a slightly easier rollback.  I was thinking the whole time "hands up, sit, sit, sit, leg!" He really dug in around the turns and while it wasn't the prettiest round it was the fastest!  We ended the day there, both Jen and I agreed that we weren't going to have pony for the take-your-own-line class.

The other girls from the barn did great too.  Everyone came home with a blue and one of the girls, Anne and Blue won the 2'6" pre-child/adult champion!  It was even better since it was Blue's first show.  I asked the announcer if they were doing champions for jumpers and he said no, but if they were Buddy would have been the .75m champion. 

Like She Never Left

Zoe's eye looked fine yesterday; you  almost couldn't tell she had stitches. 

Still slightly swollen above the eye.  She gets another day of bute for that.

I lunged her a bit before getting on as it was really windy and I figured she'd be a little high after no work for 6 weeks. She felt great!  She was a little forward and didn't want to pay attention to me but settled to work once I made her.  I took her over a cross rail and it was like she had jumped it yesterday.  No problems!  I decided to be brave and took her over an 18" vertical with new, bright flowers in the flower box.  She did give it a little look, and jumped it big but there was no hesitation and she was good on the off side.  I quit with that since she was so good and she's out of shape.

We did just the vertical, not the oxer.

Today the two new girls on the college team came out and tried her.  Both loved her and rode her well, so I think they'll each half lease her and ride 2-3 days a week.  I know Zoe's owner will be happy about that.

 

Not to be out done, Buddy somehow scraped up his face in his stall.  I washed it off and put some ointment on it.  Amy flatted him today and said he felt fine so hopefully the shoes did the trick.  We are also trying to figure out what classes each of us will do in a show on the 18th.  Amy really wants to do the jumpers, but she hasn't been schooling him 2'6" which is the lowest jumper class they offer.  Right now she's entered in the 2' hunters and Jen told her if she can prove herself in lessons this week she'll let her switch.  I'm for sure going to do the 2'6" eq and mini medal and depending on what Amy does maybe a 2'6" jumper class.  Each of us will do 2 or 3 classes so poor pony won't be too exhausted by the end of the day.

 

Silly boy

Enjoying life

This past week the weather has been great!  It's still a little cold in the morning but its been warming up into the 60s.  And now that the time changed its light till after 7 so I've been spending most of my evening at the barn.

On Sunday Amy had a lesson on Buddy, and while he was a bit of a pill for her, they ended well.  She's still trying to get used to him as he's almost the complete opposite of what she had been riding.  He was fussy with his head, but that's because she needs to relax and let go; trust that he 's not going to run away or do something naughty.  I can see a lot of myself in her when I first started riding Buddy.  The locked elbows, not sitting down and pushing him forward...makes me realize just how far we've come.  She has another lesson today that I should be able to watch.

I'm leaving Friday for 10 days down in sunny CA.  I've managed to convince my dad to drive the 2.5hrs out to Thermal with me on Sunday to watch the Thermal Million Grand Prix.  I'm so excited!!! We are leaving first thing Sunday morning so we can watch some of the hunters before the main event. I'm going to try and take lots of pics.