Round We Go

    
     You can't beat free, right? I'm beginning to think that should be my motto with horses. (Especially since both horses were free to begin with.) The free thing of the day is a corral/roundpen. Now its not your typical round-pen. No, this one is quite different. But the point is that is works! We built it out of this green fencing and fence posts that someone had given to us. (that where the free bit comes in) We built it pretty big. Small enough that I can free lunge the horses and big enough that you can ride in it.
     We had our first experience using it this morning. I lunged both the horses in it and did we have a fun time. Who knew a makeshift round-pen could be so much fun! Mya was of course the hyper one. She had to get out some galloped circles first. Though by the end she was a very responsive horse. I was impressed. All our groundwork on the line paid off. We were both having a lot of fun. Lady was a little different. Her favorite gait is the walk. If you add a lot of pressure you can get her to trot but cantering is nearly impossible. (though we did get a few strides) Lady is kind of cute though. I was joking that she was on The Biggest Loser for Horses. She's a bit fat and didn't want to work. Her trot is so funny. She is definitely not a fancy mover. Cute, but by no means fancy.  Still it was cool to see what she would do. Both horses were fun to work with. Mya is definitely my girl though, and she paid way more attention to me than Lady did. Lady still needs some work.

Mya was being adorable and following me around.

A Package for the Ponies

     There is nothing quite like getting a package in the mail. Surely I'm not the only one who gets excited when they see that brown box sitting on your porch. Some one should give the postal service an award for delivering excitement everywhere they go. lol. Anyways, Since I got another horse I needed to order some stuff. With my horses I prefer that each horse has its own set of brushes. I had most of the brushes I needed. I'd been buying Mya new brushes, so Lady could have her old set. But they're were still a couple I needed.
     But first I can't order horse stuff without getting something for Mya. She's my girl, right? Ya, I probably spoil her a little. She deserves it though. Mya is a sweetheart for putting up with me. Love that horse. Anyways, I've been upgrading her brushes. I've been wanting one of the Oster curry combs. I've used that type before at my lesson barn and I really liked them. So I ordered her one of those and while I was at it I saw the soft brush of the same brand. Mya could really use a bigger soft brush so I went ahead and got one of those too.

     I think hoof picks have a way of either destroying themselves or vanishing. Hoof picks are just magical like that. (its a good thing they're cheap though!) Thus Lady needed a new one. The other brush Lady needed was a mane and tail brush. A couple of months ago I got one of the real kind for Mya, and I absolutely love it. No more combs for us! Seriously the things are amazing. Why did I not buy one before? So Mya has one but Lady needed one too. That's probably the thing I'm most excited about for Lady. I don't know why but I seriously love the things.

     Lady also needed a grooming box or tote to put all her brushes in. Oddly enough I couldn't find one at Wal-Mart. I saw a tote on this website where I ordered all this stuff. Figured I'd just order that one while I was at it. I think it will work just fine.

    
     I've talked about it before in previous posts, but when I got Lady she came with a bosal/hackamore. That is what the previous owners had ridden her in. Well I tried the bosal on her and it was just too big. It had also rubbed some of the hair off her nose. I decided to get her a snaffle bit instead. I ordered her a really gentle one just to see how she'll take it. I don't think she's had a bit in her mouth for several years.

 

     Now I'm just hoping it will stop raining and I get get back out to playing with my ponies. Hope everyone is having a great week!

Friends

     After having Lady for a week or so I decided it was finally time for her to meet Mya. I was a little nervous about it. I was more worried about Mya. I wasn't sure how she would react to having another horse around. It turns out that I had nothing to be concerned about. Mya and Lady took an instant liking to each other. I think Mya likes having a friend. Now Henry on the other hand (that is my goat) is a different story. Lady does not like him at all. She promptly kicked him. (Henry deserved it though) So Henry avoids Lady and just sticks close to Mya. Mya is actually a little protective of him. She's keeping an eye out to make sure Lady doesn't kick him again. I personally think the whole situation is a little funny. But I am glad that Mya is getting along well with Lady.

1st Ride!

     Lady got her first ride today! Well her first ride since I've had her. She's obviously been ridden before. I wasn't sure how she would react. I hadn't seen her ridden before. But she did great. Lady was a pro. Saddling was no problem at all. The amusing part was when I put the bosal she came with on her. It was a little big. It was almost falling off her nose. She seems to have a smaller head than the typical horse. But it'll have to work until I order the bit I want for her. I prefer to ride with a bit. I just don't really like the way this bosal pulls on her face and nose. I can see where it has rubbed some of her hair off in the past. So I will definitely be seeing how she responds to a snaffle bit. For you first ride I didn't ride her for very long. We just did a couple of laps around the small pasture. I was pleasantly surprised. She seems to be a easy going but fun horse to ride. I can't wait to take her out for a trail ride. Maybe we'll try that later in the week. But first her next step of training is to introduce her to Mya. I'm anxious to see how they will get along. I hope they like each other because I really want to take the two of them on a trail ride together..

Isn't she cute with her tack on?

A Different Horse

     I'm starting to realize that after having Mya for two years I really trained her to do a lot. We have worked through a lot of problems in the those two years. Because I have this new horse I am noticing just how much of the stuff I did with Mya I am going to have to do with this horse. Its funny that I find myself comparing the two horse. Mya is more relaxed on the ground. Lady picks up her feet better. Mya lunges better. Lady is quicker to learn backing up. I suppose the lesson I need to learn here is that each horse is different. Lady has a very different personality than Mya. I shouldn't expect Lady to act like Mya or have the same manners. She hasn't learned them yet! But I am confident she will learn them. We will just have to work on it.
     Speaking of lunging, we had an interesting experience with that. It was actually pretty funny. I'm outside doing some groundwork with Lady, and we were practicing things like backing up and leg yields. She was doing pretty good with that so I was like lets give lunging a try. Now Mya when I first got her would lunge but all she would do was gallop madly around in circles. She wouldn't lunge calmly for anything. (I have since then cured her of that and she is actually pretty good at it now.) So I wasn't exactly sure what to expect about Lady. Lady. Won't. Lunge. I tried to send her out on a circle and she didn't have a clue what to do! This horse has never been taught to lunge. So the next 20 minutes was spend just trying to get one decent circle each way. Which we did accomplish but it took awhile. I was pretty surprised that this horse had never been taught that before. But guess what she'll be learning!

Make that Two: Meet Lady!

     This past week has been a bit of an adventure. (and a little crazy!)

 I suppose the story's true beginning is about a month ago...

Back when I wrote the blog post about spending the day with my farrier I noticed that they had gotten a new horse. It was a cute smaller horse, probably a pony, that someone had given to them for free. We thought that was really neat, and my mom and I were asking about it. They said that they were going to resell it to somebody else.

Well that got us to thinking about how we might like a second horse.

I talked to the farrier about that the horse that they had just gotten and they said it probably wasn't a good match for us. (we wanted a really gentle and dead broke horse) They ended up selling that horse to someone else anyway.

 But in the process, we asked them to keep an eye out for a horse for us.

Now around a week ago I get a call from them saying they had indeed found us a horse.

I was of course very, very excited.

The people that owned the horse wanted to give it away free to a good home. They already had too many horses on their small pasture. So we called this person up who had the horse an arranged a time to come look at it.

It pretty much rained and drizzled the whole time we were looking at the horse so we didn't stay long. I didn't get much of a chance to do anything with it. Really the only things I learned from that first visit was that she would pick up her feet good and that she was a bit fat. I don't know a ton about horse shopping so I just called my farrier back and asked them what they thought of the horse. They told me that it was a great deal and that I should get the horse. They even offered to let me use their trailer to pick it up since I don't have one of my own. So trusting my farrier's judgement we called the owner back and said we would take the horse.

     The day we went out there to get it was an adventure in itself.

For one I woke up that morning feeling sick. I woke up with a migraine which is like the worst possible way to get them. But knowing me I was like I am not going to miss my first chance to pick up and trailer a horse. Not gonna happen. So I just tried to eat some food and took some tylonal and just prayed that I would survive. (I somewhat regretted my decision to go after the second time I threw up but whatever..)

After a rather, er, interesting hour long car ride we finally got there. (the things I do for horses amazes me... lol) We pulled up their driveway and parked the trailer. I was glad to see that they already had the horse out. I had never loaded a horse before so I wasn't too sure about the whole thing. We were all just hoping the horse would be easy to load. I was quite pleased to see that it did. It walked right into the trailer no problem.

The owners told us that they rode the horse in a hackamore (it was actually more like a bosal) and they gave us the horse's one. And that was about it.

We got back in the truck and drove home. The mare did great the whole drive. I was impressed.

Once we got home I just unloaded her and walked her over to my small paddock area. Its just a smaller pen which has the stall/shelter in it.

I had put Mya out in the front pasture the night before so they were separated by a pasture. I wanted to give the new horse time to settle in before I introduced the two.

So that is where it stayed for the first two days. Yesterday I let the new horse into the small pasture to the right of the paddock. It was amusing to watch her trot around it. This horse has more personality than I originally thought.

After much deliberation, we've decided to name her Lady.

Lady is a 14 year old quarter horse mare. She is shorter than Mya and fatter. I still haven't introduced them yet. I'll probably to that some time next week. For now I'm just working with Lady and trying to settle her in.

We have her on somewhat of a trial basis. The farrier told me that if we ended up not liking her that they would want her. But for now we are just getting to know her.

I am anticipating the next sunny day so that I can ride her. Its been raining every day since we got the horse.

 I am hoping that she will turn out to be a great horse. I really hope she is as dead broke as I've been told. But for now I have been having fun getting to know a new horse. I'm curious to see where this will go..

Meet Lady

Its Showtime!

I've been meaning to write up this post for a week, but until now I just hadn't gotten around to it. So here goes it.. :D
Like the title suggests I went to a show. Yep, a horse show. And not just to watch. I finally got to compete! The barn where I have taken riding lessons hosted a schooling show. I heard about it and knew I just had to do it. It was my first time competing english and only the second show I've ever done. I must say I absolutely loved doing it. I was a little nervous that morning and watching the classes before me. The show started at 11a.m but my classes didn't start until 2. But when I was finally able to go tack up Night and get on her all the nervousness went away. Once I was actually on her back I was completely relaxed. Which is a little amazing I suppose. But its true. I was just feeling relaxed and excited. I was happy to be there and couldn't wait to get into the ring. Anyways, I rode Night and we were entered into 4 classes. Walk/Trot Equitation, Walk/Trot Pleasure, Walk/Trot over Poles, and Walk/Trot Pattern. I think we did the best in Walk/Trot Equitation. That class just felt like the most consistent. Though I think we did pretty well in all our classes. In the equitation class there were about 12 riders. It was a pretty big class. Night did wonderful and I was really proud of her. I was very happy when we placed 3rd.

 Our next class was the Pleasure one. We did good in this one too. Our only thing with this one is that it had a ton of riders as well and we accidentally got stuck between some of them and had to work our way out. But we figured it out in the end and it worked. We also placed 3rd again. The next class was basically the same except that there were poles that you were supposed to do two point over at the trot. Working on doing two point over poles was relatively new for us so considering that I think we did really well. We once again placed 3rd.

 And then our last class consisted of a pattern. The pattern had you walking, trotting, and back up. With of course some lines and circles around cones in there. Kinda funny, I think this was our worst class. For some reason Night decided she wouldn't trot in a straight line, and I had a hard time getting the correct diagonal. The funny bit is that we placed 2nd. Everyone did worse than I did. lol.
So over all I ended up placing in all four of my classes, and I took home three 3rd place ribbons and one 2nd. It was an awesome day. I had so much fun. I was so proud of Night. She did really great and we worked well together. She really is a great horse. I loved being able to compete in my first english show and I don't think it will be my last.