We wish you a merry counter canter and a happy square halt!

Have you ever just felt like the Holidays are going to suck the life out of your riding but its a really nice break?



Honestly I have been riding and working on my riding and reading up on my riding and posting on the boards about my riding and buying new stuff for my riding and dreaming about my riding and then well it is Thanksgiving/Christmas/New year and repeat, buuuu--- uuuut this year I just feel like taking some time to do the dang thing. Yep. Meals and all, tree and decor.

Seriously, this has nothing to do with my new status as a mother ( eye roll ). No really. Okay maybe a little teeny tiny stocking at the end of my non-existing-military issued imaginary chimney has something to do with it.

Instead, this year, I put the brakes on the whole rush towards I dunno what and decided it was time for a little break :)

If it goes anything like my riding I will have to take a few lessons in turkey basting, and probably forget to drop my heels while baking santas cookies.

Dashing through the snow, on a one horse open sleigh? Is he behind the verticle you ask?

Be happy if he has a bridle that fits I reply.

And just what in the North Pole is a jingle horse? (giddyup jingle horse pick up your feet)

Speaking of picking up your feet have you been on the boards lately? All of that new stuff going on there!? JUUUST kidding. Its still right were you left it mid mud slinging at anyone who can actually ride the jingle into their horses vs the shuffle into their buffalo.




So I have a new vid even if it is a bit choppy. My camera gal was too busy to really do it in the end and had to deal with kidlets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e9Vmrr4KCg


I will leave you with this. My daughter just got a new rocking horse from her Auntie from the west. It neighs and makes sounds. The first thing she did was try and check its teeth... Good girl.

Ain't that a kick in the head...

After a fried onion and a baked chicken I ate myself full enough to start thinking too deeply for any good to come of it.

I started to think about what it I would actually do with all of this useless knowledge about leg yields and transitions if I ever decided to give up on my riding endeavors.

At three thousand visits someone has to be reading this so I ask this of you. Imagine if I decided to give my career the attention it deserves and I climbed the ladder up to the big high rises where I picture a far more likable boss.  I’m crossing the road fully dressed the part (I picture myself very thin in this scene), and as I go to step across the lines in the roadway suddenly I see a cavetti and feel that bounce the horse gives going over those manmade hazards (albeit effective) that they are.

Would it all be worth it? Naaah.

 I imagine that there a quite a few people overseas reading these and thinking, “Oh that fattish American, how can she ride in that unfashionable riding attire and crooked helmet?”

Well the boots are on order for the second time… So there.

Now onto business. I’ve been training with a new trainer for a couple of months. She is German and like a real German from Germany unlike my half breed German self that only really means I have big bones, feet, and have a forehead that just keeps going.

My seat is getting the overhaul it needs, and we are working towards some real sitting trot this round… Instead of that bouncing awful forcing it to work sitting trot that I was doing before.

 

Things are looking up. Really up and I don’t have much else to say. I want to wait to do an updated vid because honestly we are in that in between stage where I hate everything I tape because I know better.

 

I KNOW BETTER!

Trade those ponies in for flying monkeys! Olympic fever brings out those fun riders who missed it by THIIIIIIIIIIIIIII(inpute the inches to the moon)SSS much. :D

We all know the Olympics brings out the patriot in all of use right? Right?
Well not really... There are plenty of woman who have the brain of a bathroom stall handwritten message to that (beep) Jessica. I know at times the green monster has made me think things, even say things that I am not proud of.... But you do grow out of these things (we hope), or at least we do grow out of being unable to stop continue to dig our grave after we notice everyone else in the room has stopped eating, or maybe even have lost their appetites over your tirade about how you could do it SOOO much better and just what is everyone including the judges, venue coordinater, spokes person, contenders, audience, that guy that cleans out the porta potty smoking because the sport that you once loved (50 years ago or even 5 minutes before you started your last period), is now completely abusive, impracticle (like thats ever changed) and just. plain. wrong.

My final thought of the day is to go ahead and get those flying monkeys and put THEM in fluffy's stall MKAY? Cause you've elevated to witch while the rest of us still wanna see the best go against the best and dream lollypop dreams of ever getting "there" so you can hate us too ;)

Some updated shots of my pony!

Hopefully Ill have some new horses to add to the roster... I recently got to ride some pretty awesome Connemaras and we have a Percheron coming in YAY!

Making the grade! What? No papers? Gaps! No brand?

I am sooo soo soo behind this video is about 6 months ago and prob 20 pounds too sadly enough!

Since the hubby has come home we have caught up on eating in a big way !

Anyway I do believe that the picture above is NOT a rider sizing up his competition, but rather one who is trying to see where everybody is at???

I feel like dressage SHOULD be like this. See those horses to the rear? Pretend they are the 100 billion dollar FEI perfect pony owners. You can A. Focus so much on that, that you get left in the starting gate. B. Focus enough on it so that you get left behind. Or you CAN do what the great Big Red did and run your own race!

All about that these days.

I promised I would ride what could be ridden and a LOVELY addition to my blog was Bella. A mare trained by her teenage owner primarily, and mostly in western disciplines. We did a video of her first ride EVER in dressage and left in UNCUT for your enjoyment.

She is a grade mare, and 5 years old.

Just friggin fall off already!! It's a bird, it's a train, NO it's the anti-trainer!!

There is a point in dressage where no matter how well you ride, or how lovely your horse is you will wonder if you will make it through the session without hitting the dirt, and even more so THAT other point will come where you think that maybe it would be better if the broncing began, and the dirt eating commenced, at least you would have had a ride end badly because you couldn’t stay on the 8 seconds rather than everyone including your horse, the trainer, that guy cutting the grass, but even more importantly yourself realize that you had no clue what you were doing, have no clue what you are doing, and probably for a long while WON’T have a clue what you are doing and so you really ended on a “What now?” kind of note.

Later while re-riding in your dreams and grinding your teeth into your pillow you will wake up for that midnight summers eve pee to simplify it all into one very dreaded thing…  “Your seat needs lots, lots, and lots of work.”

If you have hit that point, or are at that point, or have been at that point, or even if are currently in the mad house BECAUSE of that point then we are all on the same page… And I truly believe that NOW is where dressage truly begins.

We can only hope our horse survives the journey!

My sabbatical from blogging has been because I have been on the high and low crazy train and assuming that we were just ZOOMING along with our final act before my next blog a shock and awe where I report my amazing climb to whatever it is we were climbing to… Instead it actually has been a slippery slope full of suddenly realizing I am in new territory with the horse and without a trainer. VERY quickly I resolved to figure it out… Very quickly we started doing lovely work and new stuff… BUT once it became not so new and we needed to make it consistent… ( crickets )

Can you say beginners luck rubs off really fast when you are bouncing on an animal the size of a mini-coopers back ten times real fast?

Try it.

I’ll wait.

You see doing a new movement once, twice, even a few days worth is usually okay because you put your best foot forward and the horse is usually still willing…. "Alright crazy 5.30 pm lady who is always in a hurry I'll try it .. What the hay!" BUT once they figure it is a little easier to be crooked in that there shoulder in, and a little quick and flat at that there lengthening, and maybe just maybe lots of breaking and lots and lots of ignoring half halts is the way to go because you really have no leg do you DO YOU? TA TA TADA! You now are not realizing what kind of things you are ANTI-training. Dun dun DUUUUUUUN… Phantom of the opera music because the twist on this post-apocalyptic horror show is that YOU are the ANTI-TRAINER!

I will post some of the older videos just to update, but remember this is post-anti-dressage where I taught some movements, got them pretty solid, and then proceeded undo all of the other things in the course of a week… Or two… Or three.

Vidoes

Photos.

Stalk on your own time! My first petition attempt! Carolina Gold the drug!

So before we get down to the actual riding I had a stalker for like a whole day!

Yep :D

Long story short er… Well actually long story long… A discussion was going on about yet another drug in Hunter land that USEF has jumped on but really unable to test for immediately, and I decided that a petition should be put together for the judges to review their pinning SOME of the slowest fattest most un-athletic animals you have ever seen a junior rider spur spur spur around the arena at half mast.

Yes I know there are some great horses… Yada yada yada, and I absolutely love lots of the top Hunters, but I am more attracted to the flashy sassy lookin ones… So that is that.

My last hunter ended up going onto to be a childrens hunter and when I went to visit her at the BNT she was HUGE fat and incredibly unsound due to the current “trends”.

People think this is a dressage vs. hunter thing but I have only done dressage a few short (maybe 5) years, and don’t get me started on THOSE issues.

I can go on and on about Arab, Hunters, AQHA, APHA, APHC, Dressage, and just about any other sport being that I have been a member and owner/shower of all of it…. Well most all of it…. No eventing, or racing so… There is that.

I enjoy dressage currently… But my loyalty is with horses in general. Sue me.

I won’t go into my personal experience with horses being drugged, and I really, really don’t feel like sharing why it bothers me so much… (not incriminating no, but enough to make me nauseous for being younger and not really saying as much as my now older and wiser (or more unable to mind my own darn businessesier) self would have done)

Since I have done contentions for property claims and injuries that would translate over easily to petitions, right? Er… sure.

Anywho… (If you want to see it here it is)

 http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-the-usage-of-none/

Are people really drugging that much you ask? Well personal experiences aside the USEF felt it was an issue enough to address it by name (Carolina Gold).

I am absolutely not a lawyer, and I think my IQ is fairly average maybe lower, but if it got people talking about better ways to get away from the drugging… So be it. If one owner rethought their trainer’s push to drug… Great! It could take off and end up with 1000 signatures or flop at about 50 maybe even less (which it is at about 30 right now I think…)

If it went absolutely nowhere and my non-english speaking 4^th cousin was the only one to sign accidentally and send me a message that said, “Ohh is no bueno this thing about the horses on drugs? What drugs are they on? You know Alfredo started the pot?” It would be no big deal. I would have tried… Hence petitions just being that “a formal written request” … Some are just floating messages and rants that people typed when they were tired, weary, and maybe even a little drunk (shifty eyes) ;D

But 30 (so far) people agreeing with anything in the horse world is a miracle in my opinion.

So back to the stalker…. Ellen something or other… I’ll call her Ellen Notsogenerous. She quickly starts attacking my lead of the “charge”. Charge is a big word. Charge makes me think of Braveheart…

I was thinking more like first time amateur petition attempt for the purpose of feeling like maybe just maybe I did my part, but okay. She began to ask me if I was listening to the forums and making assumptions… If you know me at all you are laughing right. About… Now. I often feel like the forums have nothing but three caged loons with an infinite amount of email addresses… Why three? Because three disciplines duh…

Either that or one with multiple personalities, but the idea that anything said on there is taken into my truth and fact chamber is a bit… Um silly milly billy nilly if you willy.

Anyway, after me basically saying, nice to know, move on … Um ya, it’s a petition and you obviously don’t have to sign it… Well (checks watch) we all have more things to fill out the day I hope… She then came to my blog (thanks for the traffic!) and then proceeded to tell me some would say my riding was worse then drugs…

EEEEERRRTTTT! That was my attempt at a car brakes sound.

So, let me get this right Mrs. Notsogenerous… Can I call you Elly? Okay, Elly, so in your estimation my ammy riding in a regular snaffle on my TB in a saddle I spent eons looking for to make sure it fit, without spurs or whip (just not using any right now currently, but still) is more abusive then an inhibitor injected into the veins of a horse 13 minutes before being spurred by his probably not very good ammy rider (she needed drugs right?) towards a 3-4 ft fence without its full senses?

My answer?

Delete!

This is not coth, and it is sure as helky helk helk not a public forum. It is MY little crazy world where I will take almost anything but more insanity then even I myself can dish out… And that is quite the load madear!

Sell your crazy elsewhere… If you have read my blog even a little you will see we are all stocked up here!

The Anky Spanky era, the rant, & Edward's new ride (no not the vampire!)!

I am sooo behind… I have two videos… And a partridge in a pear tree… But this below was started a while ago so…

BC

Before camera…

 fade backwards in time... 

The rain is driving me to insanity! The boards are boring because they are more normal than usual and the crazier folk who take up about 40% of my entertainment quota are probably in the nice sunny weather riding their dang horses…

Q111   1aq      1          q2wsazsza       1          `111q

Okay the above “`Q111           1aq      1          q2wsazsza       1          `111q” was my 10 month old daughter :D

Love that girl :D

I committed cotherside recently it’s a form of forum suicide… I do this regularly so no need for counseling sites to be posted.

 Anywho, it started with this lovely video

Edward Gal the former rider of Totilas… Riding Romanov and up and comer :) 

Of course it was posted as a “look at this lovely ride” post but then quickly slinked in the tittering meanderers…

Tisk tisk tisk, you think THAT is lovely? He is being ruined, and the tail tells a story, and the hooves are not nearly as shiney whenever Edward rides him, sniff, sniff, oh please someone tell me when did this flingy footed circus movement become popular? Anyone? The old days were soooo (fill in the blank), the klapsical book on my desk says, (mutter mutter mutter)…

I still dunno why I have to argue with anyone when I call Edward the top rider in the world… His highest scores ever says so and any other sport has no trouble calling a spade a spade even if they don’t like the team, player, sponsors, the sport itself…

But, whatev.

So after the picking and pecking had gone on long enough to make me start to get a little batty I posted this:

Its entirely incredible!

The same folks who will tell you how simple it is to ride GP and how most of the top riders are doing it wrong, will also come on here and mystify the new dressage rider into believing that there is a majical way to do even the basics and how incredibly difficult the lower levels are... Its not easy... But it is just horse riding for goodness.

Simple horse riding turns into a mythological thing where you need a Pegasus to perform a leg yield.

It takes years in cothland to develop a horse for simple contact... YEARS and YEARS if they are below the age of ohhh I dunno 8...


No matter that the Europeans ride a horse in light contact from the first ride... Here you MUST jog around with loose reins and then build up towards the moment where you can touch your horses face like you are losing yours and your horses contact virginity... Having trouble? You must not be majical enough.

If your horse is refusing to go forward? He must be made for jumpers... Don't bring your dressage hating prejudice horse here! Dressage and forward are synonymous don't you know! And no other discipline needs proper training like we do.

No matter that he wasn't even doing training level.. He MUST need a job change because he must have sniffed out it was that ole nutty dressage riding he'd heard about and he wants NONE of it and 'knows" that when you take the slightest bit of rein up... That that leads to collection.. He says no thank you because he needs to jump or be a trail horse. Yes send your well bred purpose horse to do trails because it wouldnt be that he needs a new trainer/rider/owner/alfalfa flake...

Edward Gal? He must need lessons from me about connection... In about 20 years he can then do a piaffe... From the ground with a baroque pony and I'll finally be able to afford his clinic when he comes to town.

Rant over...

So I think it boils down to this… I call it the “Anky Spanky” The average rider disillusioned and attempting to make a social dressage knowledge climb because of the dirt found on various top riders (being that we are in a mobile video age) that otherwise would have remained buried deep. Good and bad in some cases.

I am a horse fan plain and simple. If you are hurting a horse and I am there to see it I will most likely roll my neck around and holler in that order, however I am not entirely sure that the aforementioned rider is exactly putting the choke hold on her horses as often as is assumed… I reserve my judgment.

Anywho, the Anky Spanky is an era where people feel that finding ‘fault’ with top riders somehow licenses THEM to not only comment on the abuse, or unfortunate training methods, BUT ALSO every other bit of dressage riding under the sun… BAR NONE!

 

Who cares if we are ammy riders still doing the 20-ish oblong meter cirle sorta square… We now suddenly can advise on Grand Prix work!

 BOOOOOO no name internet arm chair riders... Just boo!