LOTS going on... Wow.

Thursday morning I had to SI again (*sigh*) and it went ok. I felt better about it than I usually do; I got a VERY firm grip on comma splices. It's hard because I'm trying to learn the material fast enough so that I can turn around and teach it five minutes later. I am definitely going to say NO to SI-ing next semester. I actually said no this semester too, but I got scheduled for it anyways.

I spent all Thurs. afternoon doing homework and then went out to the barn late afternoon. I took Grady out the XC course (he walks out quite nicely now, or atleast he has been lately) and rode him in one of the big open fields. He is SO much happier out there, he just went right to work. He's very forward, very solid, very responsive, and actually quite eager to work. We worked on transitions and simple changes for a bit, and then I let him gallop a few laps around the field. After the gallop I brought him back to trot and worked on stretchy chewy circles. The concept has finally seemed to *click* with him, and I was very pleased.

When I got back Jill and Tess had just gotten there. Jill wanted me to come riding with them so she asked Patty (barn owner) if I could ride one of her horses. So I got to ride Walter, a 7 year old prelim event horse that is the EASIEST horse I think I've ever ridden. It was very disorienting to get on a horse and have him autimatically go on the bit without even having to ask him. It was actually quite bizarre, but he was very fun to ride. We went out and went for a nice gallop.

Yesterday I rode Isis early and she was pretty good. Then I had a XC lesson on Sackett and it was AWESOME!!! We are starting to jump higher jumps and harder questions, and it's actually going really well. I pretty much did all Novice fences and a few of the easier Training fences. Rocky had me jump the hardest Novice jump Birchbury has. It's on an incline going into the woods, it's a skinny with a tree on both sides, and it's a very intimidating looking jump. Or I guess it's supposed to be, but I didn't think it looked very scary. Anyways, I jumped it perfectly the first time! I find that the hardest XC jumps for me are "square" roll tops where the top is flat. It's really hard to find the distances to those... But Rocky said that that's normal and that it's hard for most people.

Then I brought Grady over to Lindsay's and had an excellent lesson on him. We worked on getting a firmer connection to the left and smoother transitions. Our work was actually really nice. I discovered that my connection is much steadier going to the left if I lower my right hand. Isn't it weird how dumb little things like that can make SO much of a difference??!! Lindsay was also very impressed with his sudden improvement in stretchy chewy circles... She said that all the ones we did were worthy of atleast a score of 8!

THEN I rode Julia and had a great ride. First we worked on lengthening the trot, but the word extending is probably more accurate. We were doing WAY more than a lengthen. Then we worked on cantering and keeping her body straight. She has a tendency to push her haunches to the inside (something typical of more advanced dressage horses) so I had to really work on getting her straight. I was having a heck of a time until I started just *thinking* about riding a half-pass. Not actually DOING a half pass, but thinking about it. Suddenly she got straight! At the end we worked on leg yields and they were the most beautiful and excellent feeling leg yields I have ever ridden. Yay!! Lindsay was also very pleased with them.

Bad boy!!

It rained all day tuesday. Not just rain, but thunder and lightning and wind. I got up at 6 to ride Isis (I was planning on being at the barn by 7), but it started to storm shortly after, so I didn't ride her. SO I cleaned my riding boots and Isis' bridle - And watched Dinosaur. Yep, I did. I like Disney movies, always have, always will.

I rode Grady that evening. He was AWFUL. Just awful. I had to ride in the indoor. Birchbury's indoor is very large, open, and bright, but it's just not the same as riding outside. He pulled his typical stunt of picking a corner to be "scared of." I do a pretty good job of curbing that behavior now, so when he figured out that he wasn't winning he decided to buck, rear, and run sideways instead. This sort of behavior is pretty typical if he doesn't want to go somewhere. It's the same behavior he pulls going out to the XC sometimes. But this was BAD. We battled for probably a good half hour. Eventually he came around and went forward without balking at the corner, but over all it was just not a good ride. But I'm glad that I "won."

I rode Isis yesterday morning and she was ok, but the footing was pretty bad after the rain. It was either too deep or too slippery, so the quality of our work wasn't as good as I would have liked it to be.

I had a jumping lesson on Grady and that went pretty well. It was in the indoor since the footing was so bad outside, and we did the dreaded "circle exercise." Grady was quite confused by it and was NOT very smooth, but he was pretty well behaved the whole time. The exercise is where you have four ground poles and/or jumps equally spaced on a circle. Sound easy? IT'S NOT!! It's hard enough on Sackett because I have to think so hard to get the striding equal and the distances correct. On Grady it was next to impossible. Thankfully, Rocky didn't even have me worry about striding; it was just my job to ride a circle and let Grady figure it out. We had jumps where he took off WAY too long, jumps that he came in so tight he had to take launching bunny hops, and several jumps where he simply crashed through them. He was completely bamboozled by the exercise, and he was having a very hard time both mentally and physically... And that's good! It's VERY tiring (for both of us) and by the end of the lesson I could tell that he was really struggling. It's so hard because you're constantly turning at the same time you're trying to jump. It's great for him!

I've been doing LOTS of homework. I'm swamped... SO I'm off to do more!

Web Design!

I'm getting more and more excited about web design. I think it's the perfect supplement and back up to my riding career. I have tons of fun doing it and my creative juices can run - no drawing needed! (I suck at drawing) I'm looking into more advanced online web design degrees that I could possibly persue while I persue my dressage career. So exciting!

I didn't have a jumping lesson this morning, but I still rode Sackett. I went out to the XC course and worked on dressage. When I jump him I don't care about having a dressage head set, and I have a feeling that nobody else who rides him does either... So when I asked for it it was a bit of a struggle to start. But he came around fairly quickly and we had some really nice, steady, consistent, on-the-bit work. He has a really fun canter, it's very floaty.

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I am very tired. Just worn out... Just from being so busy. On Thurs. I had a lesson on Julia and it went really well, I had some brilliant medium trots. Then I rode Grady out on the XC course. I was so proud of him, he marched right out there without misbehaving at all! The ride went VERY well too, he was very forward and responsive. I rode Isis early yesterday and she was pretty good. I had an AWESOME XC jumping lesson on Sackett. Rocky said that my jumping on Sackett has improved alot since I've started jumping Grady. She thinks that's because I have to be extremely tight and secure (so I wont die) on Grady, so my leg and seat have to be extremely solid and I have to be very motivated to get over the jump. That solidness has translated over to Sackett, and my jumping has improved by quite a bit. I even jumped a few Training level fences, all with great success. Then I had a lesson with Lindsay on Grady. He wasn't naughty persay, but to quote Lindsay, "Our dressage sucked." It was just not good. He wasn't forward and he was constantly trying to bow out his right shoulder. I was supposed to ride Julia again, but Lindsay said to ride Grady AGAIN instead. So I did... And I'm very glad I did. I got on his case right away about being forward, and the quality of his work was much better and his body was much straighter. We even had an "ah ha!" moment! I was having trouble getting him to smoothly transition from the canter to trot in the left lead, so Lindsay had me go into a "leg yield along the wall" position while I asked for the downward transition. This got his right shoulder underneath him and made the transition very smooth. I can't wait to work on it again!

Odd...

The slideshow does not appear to be working. *rips out hair* I am so sick of this!!!

Slide Show

Agh! No Photoshop!

I came up to the computer lab all geared to work on my banner strip for this blog and *gasp* no Photoshop!! How can the computer lab not have Photoshop?? The computers in the Academic Support Center do, but funnily enough (I know funnily isn't a word) you can't use it unless you're doing homework. So the one place I CAN goof around is the one place that DOESN'T have Photoshop. I also made a slide show on Photobucket, but I am having a heck of a time figuring out how to get the slide show onto this blog as a feature. I figured out how to SHARE the slide show and put it into a post (I just posted it today), but I can't figure out how to put it in that slideshow thing in the Layout tab. If anyone has any brilliant suggestions I'd love to hear them!

I am LOVING my web design class. Once I have my current web design project published I'll put the link up here so you guys can see my work. Have I mentioned that I am going to be making Pferde Farm a website as my "big" web design project? I am so excited!! I've already been brain storming like wild.

My jumping lesson on Grady was AWESOME today!! Grady is finally starting to get over it and just JUMP. Before he would jump nicely, then when Rocky would switch up the program (like adding a new jump) he would put up a fight. We'd fight through it once, then he'd be cool. Then it would happen again the NEXT time we switched it up. But today he was really quite good the entire time. There were a few jumps where you could tell he was questioning or hesitant, but he never once refused. At the end we jumped a nice little course and I was praising him like he'd just jumped a clear round at the Rolex!

Breast Cancer Benefit Show

This weekend I went to a breast cancer benefit schooling show. The proceeds went to Laurie Nelson, a local dressage trainer with breast cancer and no insurance. Jo, Kaitlyn and I rode while Lindsay coached. It was an exhausting weekend! I worked all day saturday and then went straight from the library to Birchbury. I had Grady loaded and ready to go a bit after 6:30 at made the long journey to the barn the show was being held at. It was about an hour and 45 minutes and it was basically dark when I got there. I brought Grady into the barn and started searching for my stall when all ofasudden I heard galloping hooves and the barn was flooded with horses. Evidently that barn lets all the horses in at once and they find their stalls. Grady and I were caught in the middle of it and I am SO lucky that Grady didn't freak out and that none of the horses attacked us! When an employee came in we were still surrounded by stampeding horses and I just started yelling "help!!!" It's always nice to have something get your adrenaline pumping.

The others had gotten there only a bit earlier and were just finishing up riding in the show ring to get the feel for it. (Side note: On Saturday Lindsay brought her filly to an Oldenburg inspection. Her filly got premium and was the highest scoring horse at the inspection!) I took Grady out and walked him around the arena a bit, but I didn't want to ride since it was pitch black and getting pretty late. I live close enough to the facility that I spent the night at home. On my drive I stopped to get gas and as I was filling up an all out brawl started by the gas station. Cars honking and screeching, girls and guys screaming, swearing, punching, drinking, kicking, slamming... I put in fourth of a tank and got out of there!!

The show went (I think) very well. Grady was 100% well behaved the whole time. He never once spooked or pulled any sort of tricks. Thanks again Lindsay!!! I didn't get any pictures because no one was taking any and I didn't have any parents there to take them for me. But anyhoo, Grady's first test was *ok*. It was actually fairly smooth, but there were certainly things that I could pin point that we needed to improve. It was doing this awful cold drizzle the entire day and the warm up arena was very slick. Grady kept slipping so my warm up for my first test wasn't very comprehensive (although Grady was well behaved!) and my warm up for my second test basically didn't happen. I got on him while the rider before me was doing her test and went in cold turkey - he did well though.

The judge was scoring VERY low. There were only a few people that got above 60%. I got a 59% on my Training 2 test and third place. I got a 57% on my T4 class and WON!!! I think that's very sad that I won with 57%, and there were 8 people in the class. Lindsay saw both my tests and said that if I had had a test like that at a rated show that I would have scored much higher! Both of my tests were fairly good and I was pretty happy with them. There are three things that I need to work on: Keeping a more consistent contact (Grady has gone from pulling on the reins to be a little too soft! Now he has to PUSH to the bit), snappier upward and downward canter transitions (these are generally pretty good at home, but they weren't as sharp in a strange place with no warm up), and not screwing up my halts!! I totally messed up on my last halt and it was so utterly embaressing. He halted very evenly but I thought he was crooked so I bumped him a bit to try and even out his legs and of course he took a huge step. I've decided that when we halt at shows I am not going to worry about straightness after we've gotten the halt!! The halt we get is the halt we'll have - That way I don't risk messing up a perfectly good halt with my stupidity.

The day was a BLAST though. Both Jo and Kaitlyn did very well, and it was very fun to see them ride at the show. Jo is the barn manager at Pferde and Kaitlyn is her daughter. They are both pretty new to dressage so I think they did VERY well. They got some 2nds and 3rds and were scored just as horribly as I was.

During the middle of the day we had a fairly long break between classes so since we were freezing our buns off we decided to sit in the office. I told Lindsay about my chinchilla Jupiter and how he does is girlfriend pink fuzzy slippers... She found this to be quite hilarious and wants videos, so you might be seeing some X rated pink fuzzy slipper videos soon! Lindsay is the queen of burping so she was trying to teach me how to birp, something I've never been able to do very well at all. I downed Dr. Pepper and only had a few small, inaudible birps. No window rattling ones like Lindsay can do. *sigh*

We also watched some equ classes and Lindsay and I chatted about training with Conrad Schumacher. She hopes to go to Chicago for a few days in Oct. to train with him and asked if I would like to come with. I wouldn't be able to ride with him (you have to be invited to), but if I go I would get a chance to have Lindsay introduce me and recomend me for lessons so it would be worth the trip. I'd love to go, I just have to get my work covered!! He's going to be back in Nov. so maybe I could ride then? We'll see. Update you more on this later.

Busy Again!!

My brain has been on over drive this past week. I have been going none stop all day, every day from about 6 in the morning till midnight. I'm tired and when I get this way I think my brain starts to malfunction. I can't remember simple things.

Yesterday was quite a busy day. I rode Sackett first in a jumping lesson and that went pretty well. I still get a little thrown by larger courses of jumps, I need to get a better feel for taking each jump at a time without getting psyched about the next one. A course will start out very organized and then it will get sloppier and sloppier as we go! Rocky seemed to be happy with our work for the day, but I felt like I could have done better.

Then I rode Grady over at Lindsay's. I love it over there, it is so much fun. I tried Bev's Albion saddle on Grady and it seemed to fit him pretty well. I've had a heck of a time finding a decent fitting saddle for Grady. If I decide to buy this one it will be my 4th saddle for him, but I think it's the best fitting one I've tried so far. I am going to ride in it today and tomorrow and see if he seems to like it with a few days of use. The lesson went pretty good... He tried to pull a few fast ones but we worked through them. I am so thankful I have someone who is helping me with his issues!

I rode Julia next... She is tons of fun to ride. It's so nice to be on a big, flashy, well trained,horse - and she actually behaves!! Maybe someday Grady will get there, but he's not there yet. I think Lindsay was impressed with how well we do together because Julia is NOT an easy horse to ride. She's well trained and knows enough that your cues have to be dead on to get the correct results... Plus she's just a, well, a b****y mare!! I am so happy I get to (finally) ride an upper level horse that I really click with.

I rode Isis in the late afternoon. She was very good and we worked on more transitions. I upped the difficulty a few notches and I was very pleased with how she responded.

Videos of Isis and I

Well I finally got my act together and got some videos of Isis for you guys. Actually, I had my dad video tape me because I wanted to see how Isis's lengthenings/ leg yields/ and medium trot were coming along. As you'll see in the videos, her gaits aren't that great - particularly her canter. I love her to death, but she just doesn't have any brilliance in that canter!! her leg yields are functionally correct, but also not brilliant. When I watch Grady leg yield in the mirrors in the indoor his inside leg literally crosses a good two feet over his outside, but isis just kind of steps across. *shrug* Anyways, enjoy! Please ignore how utterly retarded I sound. Infact, turn your sound off!!!

I had another jumping lesson on Grady today. Lynn joined us with her baby horse Natalie, an awesome Oldenburg. We started with a grid (eventually built up to two feet) and then added additional fences on. Grady was a bit thrown off by the "turn/jump/turn/jump" thing because so far he's just had to work through a grid... There was one jump with white (OMG!!!!) poles that he found scary every time. I rode him hard towards that fence and he'd be fighting the whole way over!! Rocky said that I have to be like cement to get him over those fences. Lynn was laughing at me because of how "cementy" I was!! She was like "there was ALOT of 'grrrr!!' in that ride!!"

You'll see two simple changes, a canter lengthening, and a trot lengthening in this video.

You'll see two leg yields to the right

You will see some medium trots across the diagnol and then a leg yield to the left (my tricky one)

Another leg yield to the left