Johnny and Pilgrim Updates

Pilgrim:

Pilgrim is starting his second month at the trainers. So far he is doing great and I couldn't be happier with his progress. The only negative is he will never be perfect, and will always be a challenge to ride. So after a long talk both with my trainer and with the hubby, we decided to keep him there for another month to continue his training and so I could learn to ride him better during lessons. I am looking forward to these and hope we can find a way to get along better. My trainer feels he has unlimited potential, but due to his age and difficulty accepting combinations of aides, he will probably top out between 2nd and 4th level. Heck, I'm just excited that I might be able to ride him without it being a major disaster! I'll try to get some new video of him up soon.

Johnny:

Johnny and I have been working really hard and have had several smaller breakthroughs and several big ones! I think of any horse I have ridden, I am learning the most riding him. He is so blatantly honest with me when I'm riding it's very easy to tell when I'm doing it right and when I'm doing it wrong. Suddenly everything is really clicking into place and making sense to me! He is becoming softer and more steady in the contact and having less head throw/resistance moments. We have started working on developing the canter....and wow is that going to be nice!
He's done so well, that I actually let one of our high school students ride him for me yesterday. I had them do some simple flat work (he looked amazing, and was so forward! I actually had a tear in my eye, I was such a proud horse mommy!) and then had her send him over some small cavalleti jumps. While a little wiggly at first to the jump, he was honest going over them and on the last one even got excited and took her straight to it, gave a nice jump over it and cantered beautifully away! I was so excited. I had been wanting to start adding in some fence work, but I have injured my knee and can't 2-point like at all. So it's been postponed until my knee is healed. I was beyond thrilled when Victoria asked to ride him. Unfortunately I was so entranced in watching him and coaching her, that I got no videos or pictures, but my hubby got some video of me riding him the day before, so I will try to get those uploaded and posted soon.

4-H Show

The youth Show Team members competed at ETRC last Saturday at their annual 4-H Show they host. This was Dwight's first show of the season and he showed Billy. Faith gave Chip the day off (since he just showed the weekend before at the dressage show) and devoted her time to Junie. 

Cowboy Dwight

4

McKenzie shows Annie for the first time!

Caitlyn, Lora Grace, Faith and Hannah all getting ready for their classes. Lora Grace's horse Skippers Lady Lark  loves to be "one of the girls!"

Addison showed on Lulu and Dwight on Billy in Walk Only. Addison took 2nd and Dwight took 3rd in a class of 12!

Dwight took 1st in Western Walk/Jog!

Good Job Dwight!

Faith and Junie looking good. Faith showed against all High Schoolers!

Cantering to 1st Place!

I even showed in the Bill Payers Special (for trainers, parents, coaches, etc) on one of my students horses Annie! She just got done with her training and this is her 1st show ever!

All the other riders were on gaited horses....totally not fair when they made me canter with NO STIRRUPS! Annie was good though. 

Hunter Hack

What a pretty team!

Addison and Faith

A good day!

Trailer Trade

We have traded our trailer out for a different one. I was really hesitant about wanting to do so, since I loved having a fully enclosed trailer, but I have to say I really love the new one. It's a 3 horse slant load, step up, bumper pull trailer with dressing room. It's actually lighter than our other trailer was to pull and all the horses seem to really like it. Even Johnny Cash loads right into it! We haven't put Pilgrim in it yet, won't until he comes home from my trainers ....which I have decided to keep him there for another month for me to take lessons on him and keep in training. I'm sure he will like it too. He likes being able to see out!

Penrose Show

Faith competed yesterday in her first Dressage and Combined Training show. It was hosted by CDCTS the local group dressage club that we belong to at Penrose Farms. It is a beautiful facility...definitely drool worthy. Despite the stormy weather we woke up to, it cleared out and ended up being a beautiful day for the show. Faith had entered Green as Grass Combined Training which was Intro Test A and 18" fences. She also entered Intro Test C. She really enjoyed the Dressage and is going to focus on doing more of that with Chip throughout the year. We had a fall in jumping, and while she still plans on jumping and it didn't freak her out, she knows Chip struggles with it and for the Dressage and CT shows she is just going to do the Dressage part. She will keep jumping Chip at the Hunter shows where he seems to be more comfortable over fences. I am also continuing to work Johnny and while due to a knee injury I am unable to do any fence work with him, I am confident he is going to be a stellar mount for her next year. Somehow she still got 3rd out of 4 in the Combined Training, she was in 1st after the dressage portion with a 34.6

Here is Faith's Intro Test C. Faith took 2nd with a score of 65.5%. We definitely saw things to work on and the judge gave us some great comments, but considering it's her first time doing this we were thrilled. She was the youngest competitor there all day and in this class the next youngest was 16 or 17. She got a little lost in the full size arena. Her Intro A test was in this arena but made smaller. She actually gets a little off course and then catches herself. The judge allowed her to re-do the movement so she could score it correctly, but it gave her an error on the test and a 2 point deduction. Come to find out if she hadn't had the 2 point deduction she would have come in 1st! I couldn't have been happier! I am so proud of her and all the hard work she has put in. 

The Difference a Day Can Make

I planned on not posting another video until at least next week, but my awesome hubby was at the farm with me today and I wanted to show off our mad riding skills to him. He took some pics and video while we worked. It was amazing the difference already and the improvements we had. I am beyond excited. It really helped he started respecting the half halts today. With the improvements I see I am going to start setting some goals. I'm going work our butts off and shoot for trying to show him at Intro level in June!

Faith's Lesson

Faith got to have a lesson with my trainer on her pony Mars. After getting a feel for each other on the flat they got to do some jumping. Here is her doing a 3' crossrail. Rock it kiddo!

Pilgrim at Trainers

Pilgrim managed to survive the trip to the trainers and has started going to work. While it's just the first week and she says they are still working and figuring each other out so don't expect much....I have to say I was really motivated and excited by how well she did with him. He is still putting up a constant fight to everything but they are working through it. She has discovered that he lacks both straight and forward, and he is really tricky to ride since you have to pretty much get both at the same time, where as some horses if you get just get one then you can work on the other. Not so much with Pilgrim. His other big problem is he thinks about stuff and talks himself into being upset. He will go along fine, and then suddenly freak out even though nothing has changed. Hopefully this will help him. He's kind of a big baby, and while both my trainer and I agree that he will never be easy to ride, this might make him more manageable. It was kind of funny that about 3/4 of the way through her ride he made this loud groan that pretty much sounded like him saying "Arrggg.....I can't get away with ANYTHING!!!!" So funny. Then he just snorted and went back to work.

Here he is: