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.

Flying Changes

Monday was a federal holiday so I was able to ride instead of work. I had no real plan on what to work on. Payin', the super fun horse I primarily ride, tried his best with me. I, however, was so clueless on what to work on and as a result our ride was rather hodgepodge.

Generally I have an idea of what we need to be focusing on be it working of the left leg, smooth downward transition, relaxation of the back. And in working on those things, Payin' will show me other areas that we need some more polish for the next ride. But on Monday, I basically just badgered Payin’ around the arena trying to find something wrong that we could work on. Eventually I settled on flying lead changes but by that time, Payin’ was tired and had thought we had done enough.

I think Payin’ should have his flying changes finished by now but he doesn’t. They’re there but not polished. Take him around a course of jumps and he’ll give them to you. Ask for them when you’re just out and about and he’ll sort of do them. I guess the main reason is he feels there needs to be a reason to change.

And they’re not particularly easy for him. For Rigel, a very compact well balanced little horse, they came naturally. But for over 16 hh not naturally balanced Payin’, with his string bean physique, trying to get all four legs switched and coordinated in a fraction of a second is not as easy. He can do them for sure. But when you ask for them in the arena across a diagonal, he gains air to switch by going faster and as a 6 going on 7 year old, those days should be past. It’s just convincing him that there are other ways to do it is the problem.

This is a partnership!

I just watched this video and I had to share it. This is what real horse people are like. Nothing comes between us and our horses.

Horse Disciplines Explained

This is going to fly way over the heads of most of you. But for those horsey people, you will know exactly what I'm talking about. I found this on another blog that was borrowed from a website. Read and enjoy and try not to laugh too much.

A little humor for us horse people

Assigned to Blog

The is the first of several blogs for the next few weeks. I have to admit that I do not blog; I do not frequent blogs. Personally speaking I think they are a waste of time. They are just areas for people to spew their ideas that no one else really cares about, wasting space on the Internet. Granted, yes, the Internet can't really be filled up, but you get what I'm saying. And of course, I just spent a whole paragraph on my first blog soap box. I did that to prove a point you know.

So by now I'm sure you're asking yourself why you're here and why you should be reading this? I don't know. Go away and find something else more interesting. Are you still there? Well if you really want to know this will eventually morph into a blog for my portfolio as evidenced by the URL name. But for now, I'll just talk about my real passion. Horses.

I'm sure all those who know me right now are rolling their eyes saying, oh goodness, there really is nothing else she's interested in is there. To that, I have to answer, absolutely correct!

Now that I think about it, why talk when I can ride. If you need me, I'll be at the stables.