♣Ambitious♣

I've personally found that I end up liking most of the products I buy horse-wise. Even the cheapo items handle my abuse pretty well, but, while I like most items, there are only a select few that I absolutely love . These gloves are one of the select few (and my half chaps are and a I would do a review but they were discontinued). I never really thought about wearing gloves at home until I suffered, er, I mean, took those lessons with Miss E. Now that I'm actually riding on contact and have steady weight on my hands, that one area on my ring finger has been torn up quite a bit. The skin isn't like it used to be, and I still actually have discoloration from last summer (whoa, it's been a year already). On Instagram, I happen to follow a lot of companies, one of which is Noble Outfitters. They repost pictures of people who use their items. They, along with another biggish account that I follow, were going crazy over these Perfect Fit gloves that they sell. I was needi...

I am so happy with how this weekend ended. I almost didn't want it to end! It was going so well! The medal, unfortunately, didn't run today, so the girl who didn't qualify wasn't able to get her points, but, the way that the medal is described in the rulebook might allow her to ride in the final. I schooled during a break and Baby went over everything. She stopped at one fence, and I'm not really sure why she did. We had a nice distance to it, then she just slid to a stop (perhaps she was practicing her reining). Everything else was fine. Funny story, one of the lines was the the same from yesterday, except it was one stride longer. Baby is notorious for going slow, but I would like to put some emphasis on how short she can make her stride. The line was set for seven. She made it in nine. Not bad for a HUS horse. Junior Eq. wasn't bad at all. I had one stop in my first course. I had been feeling a bit queasy since Friday. My nausea was partly due to my actua...

Yes, I can say with certainty that I did qualify for the medal finals! I'm so excited! The course had some bumps in it. I missed my strides in the line, then got a weird distance to the second fence in an oxer to oxer rollback (yes, there was an oxer to oxer rollback). Neither of those looked pretty equitation wise, but we got over everything. I was a bit worried in the morning because Baby just wasn't going well. She was rushing on the flat and over fences, and I was struggling to stay with her. There was another schooling break a couple of divisions before the medal and Junior Eq., so I schooled then, and she was still fast. Izzy highly offered to watch me school and help out. I went around and over a couple jumps, and she was still running, so Izzy had me stop for a minute to relax and then had me do just a line. My strides were off, but that was because Baby went through it much slower and more relaxed. I came back to Izzy and she had Mr do a bending line which was amazing...

It is almost 11 o'clock at night. I should be getting ready for bed right now, but the lesson tonight was so late that I couldn't get to sleep if I wanted to. I'm just not tired, even after two hours of riding. In today's lesson after warm-up we played "The Game". There are actually two games that we have at my barn; one is the game that I came up with before I rode in the advanced group, and it was a terrible game. The game that we played today was actually a game that I found on the second episode of "Along for the Ride". It's simple, really. There are three rounds, and for each round everyone does the same course, and they are judged by the others in the ring and given a score out of 10. If you have a refusal, go off course, or knock down a fence, it's an automatic 0 for that round. Loser has to put the jumps away. We did two rounds instead of three, but that was the only rule change. Baby was a bit uppity today. She wasn'...

Welp, here is a nice, informational post with three exercises that might help you (actually, any rider) out a bit. I don't suggest that you attempt these the first time without a qualified trainer or on a horse that isn't completely trained (unless you're a professional and know what you're doing, in that case, have at it). Three movements not found in Dressage tests that you should be doing!! There are plenty of classical movements that have, over time, been forgotten about in competitive 'D'ressage. After discussions with a few members here in PM- it seemed like a good idea to pick a few of the most useful ones and make a thread. 'D'ressage tests were created to do precisely that: TEST a pair. The movements are not laid out in an order or a fashion that is conducive to schooling them. What's more- there are plenty of variations on the same movements, or even separate movements that have been left out altogether... sadly, this leads a ...

ROOTD I got to ride Chess again today! Whoop whoop! The group lesson was moved to the morning this week, which I can't do because of work, so Miss S was going to give me a half hour private. It turned into over an hour of intense work. Miss S told me that I could warm-up before the lesson, so I got to the barn early and set to work. I put on the saddle with the girth loose and got his halter on. I decided to do some groundwork first because, apparently, doing groundwork right before you ride is beneficial. I have to find the article again though. The link has disappeared from my grasp. We walked all the way around the arena first, then I did some backing and yielding of the hindquarters. After that, I did a bunch of transitions from the walk to the trot and back down and back up. He was responding really well. The only issue was with the back up. He kept wanting to move his hip to the right . . . ? When he was a baby, he had surgery in his left stifle, which might be a reason...