A Time For Thanks

Thanksgiving is over and we had a wonderful weekend. The holiday season reminds me that I have so much to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family and we are extremely close - even though we live so far apart from each other. I have a beautiful daughter who has such a loving heart. I have such great friends, the best, and my job is fantastic and will only get better once I get my certification (my exam is December 4 & 5th - wish me luck!) and of course, my loving husband who puts up with my crankiness and my very expensive horse hobby. Speaking of horse hobbies - I am extremely thankful for having Art. Everyday is such a wonderful adventure with him. To work so hard with a horse and then have him still run up to the gate to see you when you arrive at the ranch, well that is a very special horse. I love him very much. I'm very blessed.

I Quit

Well, actually it was yesterday. This was the weekend of our "big" futurity and horse show that I attend and show every year. Art has been acting a bit more rambunctious than usual and I was trying hard not to get too anxious about his temperament at the show. I ended up not entering him in the futurity and I originally planned at the beginning of the year because I just felt he wasn't up to that standard yet, but I did enter him in the walk/trot and SPB classes. But here I am, sitting at home, typing away at the computer instead of at the show showing my horse. What happened? Well enough to make me depressed, unhappy with my club and APHA as a whole and hopeful for Art as a 3 year old. This is basically what happened:

Our first class wasn't scheduled until after 3pm on Friday. With that in mind, I went ahead and volunteered to steward the futurity because they couldn't find anyone else (wanted to try to give back the Club). Well it ended up that Art didn't get out of his stall all day and the futurity didn't end until 1:30pm - with my class scheduled to begin at 2:30 pm. I had one hour to prep him and he came out of his stall bug eyed and hollering for every horse in site. I did what I could, but he was so anxious and insecure that no amount of riding was going to take the edge off - so away we went in our first class with him, high headed and barely containable. He shouldn't have been shown. I ended up last under both judges and to make matters worse, he wouldn't stand still in lineup - he was just half-crazed. I took him back to my trailer and switched to a western saddle and went off to ride him down a bit. It took awhile, but he finally calmed down and would walk and only hollered every other lap. I wore him out, I wore myself out and I wore Dave out watching us.

The next day my strategy was to ride him several times during the day to get him calm enough to show. It wasn't working, he was tired, but still anxious about the other horses - not scared, just wanted to qawk at every single horse in his vacinty. He was wearing me out. I then decided it wasn't worth it for me to wear his legs out for a stupid SPB class of two. I decided to scratch him from the show and take him home. I wanted one last time in the warm up arena with other horses just to get him out there. He eventually relaxed enough to walk and trot without being too upset, but he just would lope correctly - even picking up the wrong lead most of the time.

I took Art home and put him away and thought about my actions, what I could have done differently, should I have just stayed and got him showed - did I make the right decision. I'm still thinking about that last one because I'm sure that my class is getting read to go in as I type. The one thing that hurt the most was other people's reaction to my quitting. While some said I was doing the right thing and there was always next year, a few made me feel bad, including this especially nasty Vet who has a superiority complex. I'm not too fond of this woman and she made me feel pretty bad about myself and about Art. I'm also unhappy with my club for their disregard of the SPB classes. I never felt more of a second class citizen then I did at this show.

I still love Art and have high hopes for him. Still working on his AQHA papers and once they are in place, I may never go back to a APHA show. I'm thinking instead of going to a big Open show series that they have in Phoenix every month instead while waiting for his QH papers. More competition and more acceptance for Art. Sounds like I quit more than the show this weekend, I'm pretty sure I'm quitting APHA too.

Modus Operatus

Art is a funny guy. He's a two year and they have their moments of shear and utter loonancy. He also has his moment's of sheer brillance. I have to take Art as he is right now since I'm not interested in pushing him too hard as a 2 year old. He's coming together wonderfully, don't get me wrong, but I still have to put up with Art's "M.O." Art is a gawker. He loves to look at everything the first 15 minutes we work. Oh, I could yank and pull on him and turn him in circles and do everything under the sun to get him to pay attention to me, but that stuff doesn't work. He just likes to look at everything for a while and when he's seen it all, he gets to work. And work he does. Our first show was a couple of weeks ago and it was just a little local show, but I really wanted to ride him in a couple of classes. I even only brought my english saddle to ride so I wouldn't chicken out and not switch prior to a class. So here we are, me and Art, walking around the show grounds. I'm talking to Art, telling him to relax and take it easy and this is Art: "Oh my gosh, look at that, no wait, look at that! Holy crap, did you see that??!! I don't ever think I've seen anything like that before. Wait, what was THAT!!!!!! I let him go through his spastic ritual of looking at everything, all wide eyed and alert and then we slowly got to bending and flexing and trotting and loping. By the time our class came around, he was all warmed up and ready. We came away from that show with firsts and seconds in all our classes. And yes, this was an open show, but it was a show with a lot of seasoned open horses. He's just my baby...a baby with ADD, but my baby. And I love him...

It's Been How Long??!!!!

OK, so I haven't written anything in a while - changing jobs will do that to you. But I'm happy to report that Art and I are doing great! I found a really great job with a law firm in town - I'm back to being a legal assistant and I love it! But it really keeps me busy - too busy to blog all the time.

Art is doing fantastic. He went to the trainers for 30 days and got a headset. I now have him going all Hunt Seat, all the time. So much for the western clothes I bought at the beginning of the year. LOL! Art is progressing as well as you can expect any two year to - he has good days and bad days - good weeks and bad weeks. One month he was just lousy, but he has flashes of brillence that keeps me hopeful of our destination goals (hint: it's the title of my blog ;) He could still use about a hand worth of growth in order to really look like a HUS horse, in my opinion, but everyone else seems to think he is growing just fine.

On another positive note, I am still working on getting his AQHA papers and am down to two horses - his dam and granddam. Now if I could find the time to contact the breeder for signatures, we'd be all set to show QH next year. Yay!

We have an open show this weekend that I would like to try to get him showed (shown?) at. We went to one last month and he was a bit, um, unsettled to ride in the english saddle, so we just walked around. This time we're hauling him over by himself (we finally bought a trailer - yay!!) and I'm going to get him there in plenty of time to wear him out a bit for walk/trot.

Wish us luck!

Houston, we have a jog...

Art’s 2nd and 3rd ride was this last Friday and Saturday. I decided I wanted to do a back to back session on Art to see how he handled a little pressure. Of course, he was a knucklehead on Friday when he absolutely did not want me to mount him from the ground (something I hadn’t done yet). So I pushed him around the round pen a lap or six at a lope and tried again. Still wouldn’t stand, so I pulled the stool over to mount him that way (I was getting on one way or another). He then started to do the aggietwottle with the stool, so again he went around the pen, loping. He was huffing just a bit when I pulled him back in, pulled the stool over to him and hopped on before he had a chance to do something. I just didn’t want him exhausted and hot on a cold night. He then walked off just fine and was a really good boy as I proceeded to guide him around at the walk, turning and whoaing as we went. We did a couple of circles and then that was it – all done.

The next day he started off being worried about me mounting, so I asked Sherry to hold him while I mounted from the ground and couple of times. He settled in and we took off at a walk. He was being so good that I thought I would go ahead and ask for the jog. I clicked and bumped him with my legs a bit and he popped out right into a jog for me – just like that we were jogging, and boy was it nice. He really has some pretty gaits on him and they feel great in the saddle too. We came back down to the walk and tried it the other way – again no issues and right into a jog. He did break this way and I bumped him back into the jog.

After this Saturday session, Art got tied to the arena with the other 2 year olds to think about everything. It was here that I introduced Art to the snaffle, so he chewed on that for a bit too – LOL.

All in all, these were two very productive sessions and I’m pretty happy. I think he is coming along great and there is no need for me to work him under saddle more than two times a week this month. Maybe next month we’ll go to 3 days a week and see how he does mentally and physically.

Oh and I’m so tickled with his jog that I bought a really nice pleasure shirt and show pad off of Ebay this weekend. The shirt is black & green and the pad is black & white. Now I just need chaps and a nice hat and we’ll be set for some open shows in the summer (if Art and God be willing…)

Art's First Ride

As of Saturday, January 10th, Art started his under saddle training and we walked around the round pen one way and then the other. Whoa is not an automatic for Art, so before we do any trotting, I’m going to do a little bit of driving to help remind him what that word means. I’ve started many horses under saddle and I can’t tell you how much I don’t enjoy it anymore. I’m to the point that I’m hoping that Art is the last horse that I will start from scratch. I just don’t like how slow of pace this part of training is. I appreciate the fact that it needs to be slow so that Art will learn without fear or intimidation and so that he will adjust to having someone aboard – I just really want to blink my eyes and be 90 days into our training. I like the part where you are past the point where they decide they no longer want to cooperate (and this will eventually happen between 30-60 days) and when you are finally confident that they no longer have any extreme silliness in them. This is when I can get to work and start working on side passing, pivoting, roll backs, and other training that will continue to get him more and more broke.

Of course, this all takes time too, but there is something extremely satisfying about a young horse moving away from your leg the first time. Kind of like a light bulb going off and you know that they know what you are asking of them.

I’m still extremely excited about Art and our future show adventures, but really about being there as he grows and learns and becomes the fantastic all-around horse I know that he is destined to become. I am really excited to see what Mark thinks of him. I know that 30 days isn’t much, but it will be enough for him to evaluate him so I can decide if he will start in Western Pleasure or Hunter under Saddle. This is all a very exciting time for me and Art.

OK - it's been awhile...

So it’s been quite awhile since I’ve updated this blog and I’m going to blame the weather. Actually, I’ve really been kind of burnt out on the whole thing – showing, preparing to show, thinking about showing and blogging about showing. I even had those creeping feelings of selling Art and getting a reiner. That feeling comes about every 6 months it seems, but I’ve been able to overcome it again. You see, everytime I start searching Dreamhorse for something better than Art, I can’t find it. They might be different than Art and have something different to offer, but they aren’t better. I just need to keep that in mind every time I get the “reining bug.”

My next dilemma is showing Art at APHA shows. I started to feel that we have no place at these shows. They are not “solid” friendly. I came to that realization when I began to practice showmanship with Art. As soon as he started to get it, I started to realize that there isn’t a showmanship class for solids at our shows. Arrrggghhh! So then I started to plan on showing him only at AQHA shows once he gets his papers. Unfortunately, I don’t know when that will be and we don’t have a trailer to take off on our own yet. So now I have redirected myself back to APHA shows and can live with the fact that we will only have 4 classes to show in (unless we do the speed events). Hopefully the other two SPB’s will continue to show in 2009.

Another reason I am starting to look forward to show season with Art is that Sherry gave us a one month training with Mark Kuhlwein. I am so stoked about this as even one month with a pro can be a great thing to boost the training on any horse. I am going to continue to get Art going under saddle (we’ve accomplished one half times around the round pen) and when he goes to Mark’s in March, Art will hopefully have a walk, trot and canter going under saddle.

I also hope that Art puts on a couple more inches because he is not quite the height that I was hoping for at this age. I was really hoping he’d be at least 15’2 when he hit his 2 year old year, but he does look like he’s starting to sprout a little more, plus he just looks like he’s going to be a tall boy. Here’s keeping our fingers crossed.

Last but not least, we were not able to afford to go to the Tucson show due to financial restraints. So no Ultimate Yearling Award for Art. Oh well, I hope to be able to afford to go to a few shows at the end of next year, plus open schooling shows throughout the year. We’ll see….