I have been missing in action

I do apologize for not adding anything to my blog for sooooo long. I will be updating and adding Ms. Lat's 2009 Year End Awards. (the big girl is really awesome) Hope to blog with you soon.

Showing season is coming to an end!

Ms. Lat and I have had a wonderful show season. She has continued to improve and I am still trying to keep up with her. Ms. Lat and I did qualify for the Championship show this year BUT unfortunately we will not be attending because of family obligations. Oh well better luck next year. 2009 has been an extremely difficult year and I am so pleased that "My Girl" has been one of my few pleasures. If it was not for her I think I would have lost my marbles. Thank goodness for GREAT Ponies.

We had a great time at the Standardbred Nationals and we did well considering the classes were large. We are working hard on our canter and improving and doing many, many transitions.

We will be doing some paces and a few more dressage shows before we finish for the year. I suppose it is time to wrap up this miserable year and start looking to the future. 2010 is just around the corner, time for me to think about our new goal.

What about those people that don't move up?

Well I guess I should not have asked that question because when I showed on Saturday, the comment at the bottom of the test was you should move up to Training. My problem however is we do not have a right lead yet, but we are working on it.

I was really proud of my girl this past week, on Tuesday she got a 2ND, 2-3Rd's and a 4Th. On Saturday she had 2 63.5 in intro A & B and won both classes and on Sunday we came home with two 2Nd's and a 5Th. Fortunately we have the next two weekends off and will be doing some lessons and practicing our canter.

In the last month my girl started to jump and is doing well but I think we will back off of that for a while until be get the canter. The right lead is coming but it may take us a few trys, we will get it. Wish us luck.

Ms. Lat is a "Beauty Queen", what a GOOD Girl!

Tuesday night Ms. Lat and I went to the little schooling show not far from our farm. Monday night I was on the farm all by myself and I decided that if I was showing Tuesday night perhaps I should have "My girl" go over some rails and perhaps a cross rail or two. I placed all of the rails (5) that I have on the back of the pickup and some small barrels to use as standards, and setup the rails and cross rail. I then went to tack up Ms. Lat, after some warm up around the track with some leg yields, serpentine and transitions, we then went to the ring.

We approached the 3 rails set as a cavaletti and in "Lat's" mind I was asking her to step into a big hole but I have found that if we do not want to go over the rails we can walk in between them. That did the trick and the "Big Girl" then walk right over and we approached the cross rails but she decided that those rails were far to scary and she was not getting within 4 feet. Knowing that turning away was not an option I decided that I would get off and we would go over the rails with mom leading her. Hurray for Lat, it worked.

Tuesday night, we headed off to the show. I decided to show in three classes, a walk/trot, cross rails, and a walk/trot and canter individually. My girl was a sweetheart, right over the cross rails and just a very good canter. We ended up doing another class, a hunter hack and "The Big Girl" came through again.

We pinned in each class, 2ND, 2-3Rd's and a 4Th out of about 8-12 in each class. I am just beside myself with her willingness to try and to do so well, she is just the best mare.

We are off to do dressage this weekend. I hope we are as lucky. Everyone should have a Standardbred! A wonderfully versatile breed!

Our Canter is coming!

Lat and I have been working hard on our right lead going to the left. The beauty queen is doing quite well, she is actually starting to understand what I am asking. Going the other direction we are just working on slowing down and collecting but to the left we are working hard on picking up that lead.

Tomorrow's plan is to Pop over a few cross rails and to concentrate on all of our dressage stuff such as rounding, transitions, etc. Tuesday we will be going to a small schooling show again and I think I will take her over fences. She seems to enjoy it and it is just plain FUN.

After tuesday it is time to concentrate on our dressage test because we will have two shows this weekend. During my down time I am going to take the advice of the Confessions of a Struggling Dressage Rider and do some of the excercises she suggested on the Ball.

If you are in New Jersey please come the the Horse Park of NJ the weekend of August 29 & 30. The 29th is the ReRun, Inc.'s Eighth Annual Charity Horse Show (which is an open show and there is dressage also) and the 30th will be the Standardbred National Show. The afternoon of the 29th will be the Battle of the Breeds, which will be Standardbreds against Throughbred, this will be lots of fun, please come and join us.

What do you think of Riders that refuse to move up?

I was at a little schooling show the other day for a Throughbred charity. There were classes for beginner riders as well as beginner horses. One of the classes that was offered was a W/T/C class but you only had to canter in the lead of your choice individually. I clearly saw the class as a class for horses that were just beginning to canter, however not everyone saw it the way I did.

The horses that pinned 1st, 2nd, and 3rd where clearly accomplished in their ability to canter. When the class was warming up those three horses were cantering in both direction and jumping over fences.

I also was at a dressage show not so long ago and the top horse recieved an 85% in Intro and the horse that came in 2nd has been doing endurance for the last 4 years and can obviously do higher level test.

Why do people choose to stay in a divison or class when they are clearly over qualified. Perhaps it is just me and I am missing something. I always feel that showing is a place where you have the ability to compete against others so that you can see where you should concentrate and improve.

Please let me know what you think!

What do you think?