Winter in Idaho

Idaho has been unseasonally warm these past months. It is now the middle of December and only just have we had a decent snow storm. I am not pleased! I admantly declare that I don't belong in cold weather climates.

Luckily I have an indoor arena to ride in but that doesn't mean it's not cold. That means riding with double or even triple the layers. It's not too bad when I'm riding because I always warm up very fast when I'm on a horse but the feet are always cold. Word of warning, never jump off a horse with cold toes! It hurts, it's as simple as that. And I invariably always forget that I should try to make my landing as soft as possible.

Rigel and I doing some no stirrup work

Just the wrong timing

Last week was Thanksgiving break but sadly now it's over. I had great plans at the beginning of the week.

You see, my trainer is originally from Los Angeles, which is where I was headed for break. She was going to go back and do some riding with her trainer and said I should meet her there. She had asked Mickey (her trainer) and I guess he told her, oh yeah, bring Rachel and I'll have her ride some of my horses. (WOW!) That is big, incase you don't know. Mickey is a grand prix level trainer - grand prix! That's huge and here he is allowing me to come out and ride some of his horses and even offering to give me a lesson. I was ecstatic to say the least, and incredibly intimidated. So I lugged my saddle and riding clothes across a few states so that I could ride at Mikey's barn while I was there. To make it short. It didn't happen

Basically the timing was off even though ironically it couldn't have been better. This was my first time in a long time in LA and it just so happened that it was when my trainer would be there as well. But it just didn't work out. I didn't have completely reliable transportation to get me there and back to my hotel and LA is a very big city!

Oh well, I guess I'll have to wait until next time if there is one. Maybe not with Mickey but perhaps with another high level trainer. Until then I'll have to wait till I can get back out to the stable. I haven't been out there for almost two weeks and I think I'm getting a headache. It's definitely time to get my horsey fix.

Finding a Sugar Daddy

To give a little background, my trainer owns a mare who she is thinking about breeding. While I don't have any real say in the matter, she has shown me the stallions who she is considering breeding her mare too. Below are the candidates in no particular order.

Cielo B

Yeager GF

Navarone

Personally I'm voting for Yeager but we'll see. Which one do you prefer?

I fell down the rabbit hole

I hope that everyone out there has some passion that they love.  That they have something they can do where nothing else matters but that exact moment.  There's what horses are for me.  

This weekend I got sucked in the vortex of all that is equine.  I had great plans on Saturday to do a quick fling out to the horses (quick in horse terms means three hours total).  I even canceled my lesson with my trainer because I thought I wouldn't have enough tie.  What I was worried about was not giving enough hours to finish my homework.  Most importantly was to drill some calculus problems so that I could somehow understand how the chain rule consistently works. 

So I went out to Alohomora with a solid commitment to do a quick schooling on Payin and then put the nose back to the grindstone.  Of course, that was before I was offered to ride DaHunk, a horse I adore but rarely get to ride, and a trail ride.  Needless to say, six hours later and I still hadn't gotten to the homework.  Let's just say there was slight stress afterwards, but for those six hours, it was bliss. 

Below is DaHunk:

Questions Answered Continued

• Do you compete?
  
  

Yes!  I have only recently started competing since moving to Idaho.  Before I have not had access to horses where I could take them to a competition but I have been able to with several horses here. 

• What kind of competitions? 
  
  

I am an eventing junkie!  I have just recently been exposed to it since moving to Idaho, but I love it!  It combines the difficulty of dressage, the thrill of stadium jumping, and the YAHOO-ness of cross-country.  As my previous "Horse Disciplines explained" said, Eventers truly are the only people who can ride.  ;)  I have to add that I will also go to Hunter/Jumper shows and Dressage shows. 

• Where do you compete?
  
  

Idaho is sadly, sadly lacking in competitions, at least this part of Idaho.  Take it that we're primarily a honkey dory ye-ha awestern state and English competitions are few and far between.  I have to trailer to the Utah valley area, Hailey, or Boise area for shows. 

• What breed of horses do you compete with?
  
  

It's all about Thoroughbreds!  As mentioned before I don't own my own horses.  The woman who I ride for takes Thoroughbreds from off the track and retrains them. I must admit that I am partial to Thoroughbreds but I cannot claim a favorite breed since there are so many great ones out there!

• What are your goals?
  
  

Oh goodness - I want to become good!  Many people (mostly Western riding folk) ask why I pay a trainer and take lessons when I already "know" how to ride.  Their psychology is much different than English riding people.  The reason why us English riders always take lessons is because we know there is always something more to learn, and frankly speaking, you need a trainer to learn it.  There is only so much you can learn by yourself in a round pen; eventually you're going to need someone on the ground who knows more than you do.  Because I have many, many goals concerning horses, I'm going to narrow this down to what are my goals in my horse riding.  I want to be able to get on any horse and be able to ride him/her.  In terms of competition goals, I want to be able to jump grand prix level.  In Eventing I want to be able to ride in Prelim.  In dressage, I want to be able to train using Piaffe's and Tempi Changes, and all that amazing stuff.  This video shows tempi changes, followed by passage, piaffe, and then extended trot.

Questions Answered

I have been trying to figure out what exactly this blog is about. One of my classmates was very helpful in giving me questions to address. There were a lot of questions so I’ll post just a few at a time.

• What kind of riding?
  

I do mostly English type riding. There are two main types of horseback riding: western and English. This site explains the difference between English and Western riding relatively well.

• How did you learn?
  

Horses have always been my passion and since I've lived many places, I'd had the opportunity to ride from many different horse riding instructors. When I was very young I would go trail riding (Western) with my Grandpa in the mountains in Idaho. However as I began to grow older, I wanted something more between whatever horse I was riding and I. That led me to search out English riding, which focuses on greater contact and communication between the horse and the rider. In addition to living in Europe where any reputable horse stable teaches English, I was able to start learning English style horse riding and have loved it ever since.

• Are you affiliated with any trainers in the area?
  

There are two horse-riding stables in my area, Alohomora Farm LLC. and Red Rock Stables. I am able to ride horses at both places but I typically hang around Alohomora. My trainer is Meredith Harvey. She is a very knowledgeable trainer who is so far one of my favorites. She's mostly a Hunter/Jumper trainer with some background in Dressage.

• If you don't own a horse then how do you ride?
  

I have sadly never owned a horse. My parents were great as I was growing up always allow me opportunities to ride through lessons at horse riding stables. If you add up how many years I've been riding you'd think I should be very good, however add in long stints with no horsey contact and the real time in actual training and it's not a lot. Plus by the time I would become great for one trainer, we would move and the next trainer would have her own ideas about how I should ride and take me back to basics. Think of the progress as three steps forward, two and a half back. But by this time, I've gotten relatively decent. I am able to ride other people's horses who want me to keep their horses schooled and fresh.