Awards Banquet

Last Friday, was the annual awards banquet for the local schooling show series I participate in. It is always a fun night to spend with your horse show buddies celebrating the end of a successful show season.

This year I won quite a few awards. Satin was Grand Champion in the Western Speed Division. Let me remind you that she is 22 years old, making her the oldest horse in the division. Needless to say, I was quite proud of this accomplishment and my supposedly "senior" horse, who is constantly showing everyone that age is just a number!

Me and Satin's trophies = She received the perpetual for being grand champion, as well as, a first place trophy.

My other awards were earned by the ever handsome JB. He was third for the year in Open Model, which was a huge accomplishment as he competes against mostly QHs and Paints. He also received third in Beginner Western. He was the only Standardbred in this division and only started western training about two months before the show season began. Due to his achievements in these two divisions, he also won the trophy for High Point Standardbred in Open Classes. There are two Standardbred divisions at this local show series (both of which JB was champion in with his owner Helene), so this award goes to the Standardbred that acquires the most point in the non-Standardbred, or Open, divisions.

Helene and I with all of JB's awards

I was quite proud of both of my wonderful show ponies this season. They both gave me what has probably been my best show season so far. I am so grateful to everyone who helped make this possible. First and foremost, my fabulous trainer Renee, whose patience, knowledge, and dedication are what gave me the skill and ability to bring home these trophies. Also, a big thank you to Helene for lending me the ever wonderful JB and Jill, for giving me Satin, the best thing that's ever been mine and my partner through it all. I also can not go without thanking my family and friends who always support me, Daryl who ships us to every show, and my barn crew for being there for every early morning class, late night prep, and everything in between. It's been a great year and I can't wait to see what next year brings for us.

Me and all 5 of my trophies

Me and my show team with all of our trophies. Love these girls

Last Show of the Season

Last Sunday we had the last show of the season for the local schooling show series I compete in with both Satin and JB. Satin was in the lead for Grand in Speed for year end by 6 points, so she had a title to defend. JB was just a few points off getting reserve behind tough competition in both Model and Beginner Western, so the pressure was on.

Satin was up first in the speed division. We went in for the barrels and she was totally asleep, basically cantering the pattern. Luckily her good turns made up for lack of speed and she managed a 2nd. I borrowed a western version of a crop for the next class which was poles. I never actually need to use a crop on Satin, just flashing it past her eye a few times is usually enough. This is what I did as I ran up the poles and she kicked in to gear. She cut the turn around the first pole too tight and the footing was a bit soft from the rain earlier in the week, causing her to almost fall. I thought her front end lost traction, but I saw from the video her back end actually sunk under her and what I felt in the front was her scrambling to catch herself. The one thing I love about my mare though is she will do anything to save us both. One time during a lesson she tripped doing a lead change and went down on both front legs and her shoulder and managed to get herself back up and keep me aboard then keep going.

Anyway, when she recovered we just stood there for a few seconds. I wasn't sure what to do and whether or not I should keep going. That is when Satin said, "Mom I'm ready to keep going". So I trusted my mare and completed my pattern, though conservatively. The other great thing about my mare is she is very smart and careful. She is not the kind of crazy horse that will keep running hurt. If something was wrong she would let me know, so when she said let's finish, I said okay. She managed a fourth in that class.

My father was ringside that day, as both my parents always are. He has not seen me fall or almost fall since I was 5 so he freaked out about. As I exited the ring he was frenzied, insisting I get off the horse right away and that she was dragging her back foot. Now my mare is 22 and has some arthritis and those of you with senior horses with arthritis now, they often will drag their back toes a bit while walking and some even while trotting. So this slight toe drag is completely normal for my mare, which my father did not understand. I let him cause me to second guess myself, but I know my horse and I will never let that happen again. I got off felt her legs and flexed them, all normal. A friend of mine walked up the ring just then and I had her get on and trot her around for me to see and she trotted nice and forward. She was quite eager, even breaking into the canter. Then I got on and felt her trot, still 100% sound and normal.

My next and final class was keyhole so I practiced a rollback and both her turn and canter felt perfect, so I decided to trust my own judgement and knowledge of my horse and continue on. I ran her slightly conservatively, in fear too quick a turn may slip her up again. Her turn was beautiful and she earned a 3rd. These placings were just enough to keep her in Grand for year end awards by 2 points. Not too bad for a supposedly "senior" mare.

Next up, I had JB in Model. He placed exceptionally well against some stiff competition. A new gelding came who I happened to know from my old farm. This gelding and his sire are champion halter horses in Palomino and QH. JB placed 3rd in that class to that gelding and another that has been champion at CJHA the past few years. In the Open class he placed 6th out of about 12, which was excellent. He held on to his 3rd for the year end awards.

After that, we tacked up for our western division. Usually JB's owner H rides her classes before mine so the edge is off by the time we get to warm up. They had changed classes around to fit everything in so now she was riding after me. JB was pretty quiet though, but required a little more warm up then usual. Unfortunately, I did not get to give him as good of a warm up as I would have liked as I had to communicate back and forth with the ring steward to see where they were in the ring H shows in and if classes could be held as promised due to the switch.

Anyway, I had him going pretty nicely by the time they were ready to start with Horsemanship. It was a pretty simple pattern, so I was quite confident. The entire pattern rode beautifully until the very end. The last part of the pattern was to jog to the last cone, stop, and back 4 steps. Unfortunately for us, it just so happened that the last cone was placed right next to the board for the trail class, which JB is deathly afraid of. He refused to trot all the way to the cone and stopped about 4 or 5 strides before it and backed himself the 4 steps. This cost us a few points, but we still managed a 2nd. In pleasure he rode pretty well, but did speed up at times, and placed 4th. We earned back our title of Command champion (a class we have won almost every show this year). It was down to 3 of us, one of which being my friend K, who I battle for first with every show. The judge has us backing up and asked for a reverse. I was the only one to reverse and keep backing as is proper procedure. The trail class was a failure as JB was once again afraid of half the obstacles, so he was 6th. He again held his place in 3rd for the year end.

It was not the best show of the season for me or either of my mounts, but it was still a good end to the season as they held their positions for year ends. I am quite proud of both Satin and JB and could not have asked for two better show horses. They both gave me a great season filled with many wins and championships. Satin proved once again she has still has plenty of years left in her and "senior horse" has a very loose definition. JB was excellent for his first ever western show season with this past winter being the first time he was ever ridden western. Looking forward to a little break for all of us and exciting season in 2012.

Weekend of Horse Showing

This weekend was filled with back to back horse shows. On Saturday I had the Jersey Bred Show with JB and H, of course. There used to be a multitude of breeds showing off their Jersey Bred horses in breed classes at this show. This year the Standardbreds were the only ones left and it was the last year of the show. Since we were the only breed participating the SPHO-NJ decided to open the show up to all Standardbreds with only the Jersey Bred's taking home the money.

Between myself and H, JB was entered in 11 classes and took home 9 blue ribbons, 1 red, and a green. JB and I were 2nd in Model to my friend R's stallion. We took first of eight in a cross country pleasure class of both English and Western riders. We also won both of our western pleasure classes. He was very much in the western zone. He was also a bit itchy and fidgety earning us a 6th in the command from not being able to stand still. He and H were first in all of their classes which included English Pleasure, Jumping, and Driving.

On Sunday I had my normal local schooling show with both Satin and JB. Satin was very good and ended up Grand Champion in the Speed division. Her barrel pattern was just about perfect and keyhole was absolutely perfect. Poles, which is usually her best event, was not so great. She ran up then sucked back as we turned to weave down the poles, then tried to dive right at the pole. I managed to pull her out and get down the poles, but she sucked back as usual when we hit the last 2 poles going up and she basically walked around the end turn before taking off for home. I don't know what was up with that, but we still managed to take 2nd so it ended up alright.

We had some issues with a last minute judge change. We found out after the judge never showed for speed that he was in the hospital. We were lucky to get 2 last minute replacements. There is a father - daughter team that sells tack at all the shows. Luckily, the daughter happens to be a judge and agreed to judge the model and showmanship to keep the ring going until our other judge arrived an hour later to judge the riding. We were 2nd in the Geldings class and 4th in the open class out of 14 horses. I was quite pleased.

JB was very good in the riding. We were 4th in horsemanship, with what I thought was a decent pattern on our part, but not our best. He earned 3rd in pleasure and 2nd in command, with the class coming down to my friend K and I get again. Both of us looked at each other like "Oh God, not this again" after last shows back up contest. JB was quite itchy and fidgety yet again though so it didn't take long for us to get out for him moving in an attempt to itch at the halt. He was 5th in trail as expected, since he is afraid of half the obstacles.

Right now JB is holding 3rd for the year in both of our divisions, only a few points away from being reserve and Satin is holding Grand in the speed. Here's hoping for equally good performances at the last show of the season in October!

Updates: Satin

First and foremost is of course my wonderful mare, Satin. She is still as feisty and young at heart as ever. We are a little more than half way through our show season now and she has been perfect. At our last show, which was last weekend she ran 3 absolutely perfect patterns. Her barrel turns couldn't have been tighter or smoother, her poles run was just about flawless, and her rollback in keyhole was right out of her reining horse days. The only thing that could have made it better was if she gave it a little more speed. She ran, but not as fast as she could, but I was still very happy with her. Other than our usual show series we have also done a gymkhana at a local fair and team penning.

We have also begun expanding our repertoire to (drum roll, please) ...... English. Yes, you heard me right! As you all know I have ridden english a few times on my horse and friends' horses. I even took an English lesson back in the fall, but between lack of tack and a fall over a jump, Satin and I took a bit of a hiatus from our english riding. I decided to give it a second try though and approached my trainer with the idea of an english pleasure lesson. Well that one english pleasure lesson has become a series of English lessons. My trainer has this very subtle way of getting me to do these things LOL. At the end of my lesson she will say something like "Next week when we jump, we will try this." etc. I think she is also secretly turning my pony into a hunter as she has not been slow enough for english pleasure these days LOL.

So far, so good though! Our last two lessons, Satin has been perfect and I have been trying my best to keep up with her :). My eq over fences needs work, but we are both still green to this whole English / jumping thing and with R's help we will be pros in no time. In our last lesson we jumped a mini course including a roll top and a hay bale jump. I'm quite proud of my little barrel pony.

In other Satin news, we moved to a new barn in mid-July. For reasons that are just way too much to get into we moved to the barn right next door. All of our friends moved with us though, and everyone at the new barn is very nice. We love it so far.

At the time of the move, because things were not crazy enough, Satin got a swollen leg. She has had this one or twice before but it did not respond to my usual treatment of hosing, walking, and wrapping. It started on a lesson day so I took to her R for evaluation. We walked and trotted her for a bit, cold hosed the leg, and R did a standing wrap. She also had not been finishing all of her grain for 2 or 3 days before this. She never spiked a fever but her temp fluctuated from low normal to high normal to mid range, etc. After 2 days with no change in swelling R suggested a vet visit. R is not one to sound the alarm unnecessarily so I did as suggested.

The vet tested her for lymes and suggested a hosing, furazone leg sweat, walking, and bute regimen. She also started her on doxy, an antibiotic for tick related diseases. Within two days, the leg swelling was down and once she was settled in her eating returned to normal, as well. The lymes test came back negative but she remained on the doxy for 10 days anyway. Whatever it was it seemed we caught it quickly and she is now back to her normal healthy self.

Some recent photos:

May Show

I have been swamped with the end of the semester aka end of college so am a little behind on my updates. Last time we left off it was shortly before the May horse show, so that is where I will pick up.

This was the first time Satin was showing in the hackamore and she LOVES it. She was awesome. We had a fabulous barrel run, all her turns were perfect. They made the pattern much smaller by having a much shorter run home so we got a 17! We had a great poles run except she cut the last turn a little tight as she tends to do and we took out the last pole, so we got a 26 plus 5. Keyhole was interesting. I took her into the warm up ring to practice roll backs and wanted to start with the staircase excercise Renee taught us as usual, but she was so hyped up she started hopping and doing intense roll backs instantly. We got in the ring and she was good to go, took off like a nut. She was so excited that when she got through the keyhole she got a little lost and didnt know where she wanted to go. I planned to roll back left, but instead she dove left then right so I had to pull her around right to get her back in action which cost us a little time. It happens though so what can you do. I was still very happy with her overall performance and like her in the hackamore.

My handsome JB aka BF was a rockstar! He was 2nd on model geldings again and 4th in open model again too. More importantly, we were grand champion in beginner western!!!! The division was much smaller this time, but JB was also much better since the lesson, though he did not got as slow at the show as he did in the lesson, but we are getting there. We won the horsemanship class and command and were 2nd in horsemanship and trail, though trail still needs a lot of work. I was quite proud of him. We are going to another western show this weekend where he will be doing halter, showmanship for the first time and pleasure. His owner H will even be making her western debut on him so it should be fun.

2 Great Lessons!

I had two back to back and very good lessons this week. As you all know by now I absolutely love my trainer, the fabulous R. She has taught me so much and every time I am at her farm I learn so much. She knows about basically everything horse related, its amazing.

Anyway, so on Tuesday I had a lesson on Try. We are pretty used to each other now, so each lesson we get better and better. On Tuesday we did a lot of work with transitions going from trot to canter, canter to trot, trot to jog, jog to trot, to walk, etc. We also worked on trot / canter with his head down, framed up, using his back. He did very well. Then at the end we did some work on roll backs. It went along with our transition work: cantering down stopping, turning on the haunches, canter again, repeat. It was basically a slow version of a rollback as he is still green and working up to it. At the end we did some faster ones with him hand galloping, doing an almost sliding stop, and roll back. He was awesome! I told R I want him to be a reining horse. LOL

Yesterday, I had my bi-weekly lesson on Satin, along with our friend L and her mare Lexie, our lesson partners. Now I have to give the back story to what we worked on in this particular lesson. When running in speed events I have been using the regular tom thumb I use for everything else. I have noticed when looking at show pictures whenever I ask her to turn or slow down she open her mouth in a way that looks like I am really pulling on her which I am definitely not. R figured it had to do with the way the bit breaks, and that it might be pushing into the top of her mouth. This made sense to me, so I did a little further investigation. I talked to some barrel people I know and found none of them use this bit for speed. One of them even told me its one of the worst bit options for a speed horse. I asked around and got several suggestions then went back to R. She dug through her supplies and found two western bits she thought were worth trying. One had a similar mouth piece to the tom thumb but a different shank and the other was not a broken bit it was one piece, but jointed with a roller. Then I mentioned that my friend J who gave me the wonderful Satin used to ride her in a hackamore, which is what I used when I first got her. R's response was "Well then let's try that too". A little more digging produced a hackamore, the perfect size for my little mare. R instructed me to go home and do a little speed work with these at home and let her know what I thought worked best.

Well that was late Saturday and Sunday I went on a beach ride (which I will write about later) so Monday Satin got off, which left me Tuesday for bit trial. So I had R's 2 bits, plus my friend K's barrel bit, and the hackamore to try. I warmed up and did a barrel dash and keyhole run in the hackamore with my friend K observing. Then I went through each of the other three bits doing the same. Keyhole, on the rollback, is where she does it the mouth opening the most, so it was my best tell. Out of all the options the hackamore was the best. No mouth opening at all.

So yesterday I went to the lesson with the hackamore to learn the best way to use it. Satin loves it! She was awesome! She was nice and forward and raring to go. We did a lot of transition work especially canter to halt to canter and jog to halt to jog. R was trying to help us get used to the hackamore and figure out the best way to use it. Afterwards we did some pattern work involving serpentines, a roll back, and backing up. She was so hyper so the beginning was a bit sloppy. BUT, I intended to just to simple changes through the halt and after we did the pattern once she was do flying changes at each spot where I planned to simple and doing them perfectly. She was even doing them on a straight line without being asked just cnatering down the ring to do a rollback. We both have to get a little more used to the hackamore, but it is definitely our new favorite toy. R thinks she will be quite speedy wearing that at the next show. I am looking forward to it!

1st Show Results!

Sunday as I said in earlier posts was our first show of the season and it was fabulous!

Of course, I must start with my wonderful little mare, Satin. We did the speed and she was AMAZING. She was so on! We went into the ring and she was hopping up and down like 3-year-old, raring to go. I love seeing my "senior" mare excited and wanting to run. She ran all of her patterns perfectly and got great times, plus I was even holding her a bit because it was muddy in the arena. I couldn't have been any happier with her. We were reserve champions, 2nd in all of our classes. K and Satin's paddock mate, Jewel were grand. Jewel is faster than Satin, so a loss to them is basically a win to me.

Now onto the handsome JB, aka boyfriend. JB, who as you all know is a Standardbred, took 2nd in a class of 5 in model geldings and 4th in a class of 8 in open model. His stunning good looks paying off as usual. In his first ever western pleasure show, with only 5 western rides under his belt, we took 5th in the beginner horsemanship our of 11 and 2nd in the command class out of 10! We did not pin in pleasure as he was a bit fast or trail since he decided the board was still a little too scary. He was very hyper that day. His owner had ridden a few classes on him and he gave him quite a warm up and he was still raring to go. I was still very happy with him and quite proud, especially for his western show. We are going to keep working at it and I have no doubts he will be racking up even more ribbons as the show season continues. My friend H, who owns him, as offered to bring him down to R so I can take a lesson with her and get her help. We are also looking into more show options for him. :)

Here are some pictures from the show:

Show Season Has Arrived!

Show Season is officially here! We are exactly 6 days from the first show of the season! This season Satin and I will once again be showing in the speed division. She has been geared up and ready to go all week. She has been very hyper, which is a good thing for speed. Also, our flawless lead changes are back! It seems our chiropractic worked because our last lesson went great! Satin was a rockstar! We have another lesson this week so looking forward to that and some show prep. We need to work on our rollbacks again. We practiced the other day, and she did well. We just hadn't done them all winter before that.

So back to show season. Anyway, I am also showing my friend's horse I refer to as boyfriend in model (which he is already a rockstar in) and beginner western. It will be his western debut and I am pretty excited about it.

My last two lessons on Try went good as well, especially the last one. We did some work on patterns (figure eights, pole bending, etc) and simple lead changes. We are both getting better and better each time. His owner got him a new saddle so I am trying to get the hang of that. All horse people know breaking in new leather, especially tack, stinks. We have our next lesson tomorrow so looking forward to that.

Here is hoping to good weather on show day!