I'm Here I Promise!

Don't worry guys I am still here! I have just been super, super busy between interning, riding, showing, etc, etc. But, today I had an absolutely fantastic lesson so I had to come on and write about it.

We went over to our fabulous trainer R's farm as usual and once again had our lesson partners back. We did a lot of figure eight work to warm up at the jog, trot, collected and extended canter and combination of them all with halt, walk, and trot transitions in between. Then I decided to through the flying changes into the mix after a few simple ones for warm up and she was PERFECT. She got her changes in both directions first shot, perfectly. No rushing, no cutting sideways across the ring, no forgetting to swap the back. They were textbook perfect changes which usually on the first try she forgets the back or what not, but we were both perfectly in sync and they were flawless. I was very happy especially because we haven't practiced our changes in a while.

The rest of the lesson went along just as great as it started. We had done our warm up in the indoor where it was a bit cooler and moved outside so L could do a course and we had more room for pattern work or whatever R had in store for us. She decided to have us run the barrel pattern around invisible barrels LOL. She didn't have any barrels over there so we just had to pretend. It was a little hard at first especially with crossrails kind of in our way, but then we figured out the right approach. The practice runs of the pattern went great. Her turns were AWESOME. They were all tight and smooth, no getting stuck or having to dig herself out as R says. Both R and I were very happy with the way she ran the pattern by the last couple of tries. We ran both her good and bad way to strengthen both. R said my focus was much better as was my position. So I ready to go and looking forward to the show Sunday!

In other news, the internship is going well. I really like it. I get to do a little of everything, photos, writing, editing, research,etc. I have 3 article ideas she sent me to work on right now. My photo website is up and I am shooting a dressage show on Saturday. So I have a very busy weekend ahead. I promise to fill you guys in on it asap.

Some Show Pics

Grand Champions!

So if you could not tell from the title of this post the horse show went great. Satin and I were grand champions in speed!!!! We didn't show pleasure this time as I mentioned before because when its hot like that it is too long a day to keep the poor mare there waiting between divisions. We had a good show in the morning, she got to go home, and I returned to the show to help out and take pictures. So we both were much happier and had a great day. I watched the tape the next day and her barrel run was just perfect, her turns were absolutley awesome! So proud of my girl!

Our great lesson on Wednesday helped with our success. Our wonderful trainer R gave us some barrel excercises that really helped make our turns perfect. She had me count my strides out loud all the way to the barrel which was placed a few feet off the wall, then I had to circle around it canter to the next wall stop, rollback, and do the same thing in the opposite direction. We worked on sitting back and dricing with my seat, and getting tight turns without getting "stuck". We did some rollback practice without the barrel in between and got her listening and going in the direction I wanted so at the show we both went the same way this time LOL.

Busy, busy, busy

Last week I started my internship with Horse News and it is going really well. I am getting to do and experience a lot. I got to read through and edit the newest edition before it went to print, write a few articles, edit press releases, and take photos of a show. Also my photography website is up and running! Hoping to get some photo shoots soon. I am scheduled to shoot a dressage show at the end of the month already.

Last week was very hot so I rode bareback under the trees most of the week. We had some fun rides despite the intense heat. This week we are in show prep mode for our next show Sunday. I think we will just be doing games instead of games and pleasure as it is supposed to be very hot and last time we stood there in the heat all day between divisions we were both very cranky LOL. Today the princess is getting her feet done and tomorrow we have a lesson so we will be ready to go for sunday.

There is a short update for now. Will post more later this week.