♣Ambitious♣

The sit is iffy. Tuesday was gymnastics day, and if there's anything Baby loves, it's gymnastics. We're not particularly good at them — the whole stumbling over the ground poles is one of our characteristics — but they're fun. I like them too, so I was happy to do some gymnastics for once in a long time. I'm still trying to relax, and it's going better. I'm actually using my legs, although I still don't have complete control over them. Baby is listening better to them. I trot her a lot, not really asking much of her, just her ambling, I-guess-I'll-do-this-instead-of-eating trot. She was really nice about her left lead, except when she got near Skye and wanted to kick her, but otherwise, she was great, and she was great to the right. The gymnastic was good every time we went through it. We had to move inside since it was getting dark (ugh, winter), and Miss S had me do a bending line. We had one stop because apparently the hay has now replaced the c...

I guess that's what it could be called. I took a little five minute "assessment ride" on Zoey, and when I say five minutes, I literally mean five minutes (okay, it could have been seven). I had to clean the pasture, and my sister was picking me up at 1:00, so getting on at 12:52 didn't give me much time. Of course, when I go to tack Zoey up, I realized that her bridle was at the other barn, and I was feeling lazy today, so I just rode her in the halter. ROOTD hella off point I got on her in the indoor then started my walk up to the small outdoor by the other barn. Zoey was just out of it, head in the clouds, back looking swayed, eyes wild, ya know, your average g-raffe. We get in the arena after having our tack choices questioned, and she was not relaxed at all and just wanted to go, so I just started trotting her around. We started to the right. She was uppity and not wanting to stay on the rail. I tried to use my legs more than the reins (reins meaning lea...

It's easier said than done. My focus during yesterday's lesson was to keep my hands quiet and work on a longer rein. I got the whole long rein thing down, but I couldn't relax all that much. My shoulders were still pretty forward, and my hands kept going down. It's a work in progress. We didn't do much flatwork (which honestly doesn't help me relax all that much because I appreciate my flatwork time very much), but the jumps started small. I had a handful of good fences. Unfortunately, I am now ducking over the jumps. My two point on the flat is actually much better, but doing it over a jump is seemingly impossible. Our first course was okay, far from impressive, but it was both forward and calm. I may or may not have taken out a fence with my foot. The second course was disappointing. I tried some rollbacks, which weren't good, then we had five stops. It was starting to get dark, so we went inside and did a zig-zag of jumps, which I insisted on trotting...

I'm back on Baby (yay!), and I've discovered that her favorite treats are Ritz Crackers and sugar cubes. She's a carb vacuum, but she's cute, so she gets all the cubes and crackers she can eat. I had two rides last week, but they were both horrible, so no post, but today wasn't too bad, so I'm going ahead and typing. She was somewhat antsy today, but not horrible. We were able to get out to the big arena for once in forever, and we have a brand new set up with 10 fences. I personally set up a beautiful wide oxer with the yellow boxes as a filler. It's a flawless fence, and it has a long approach, which I love. She was fine to walk and trot, and we set up a "box" of two diagonal lines in the center. We trot and cantered through those a bit and she was pretty good, but I was just ew. I'm trying to put my correct two point into action, but I'm still too tense to the fences. I just do what comes naturally (i.e. toes down, knee pinched, crotch...

I am a big fan of small and upcoming businesses. They tend to have more out of the box products at bargain prices. Sure, I gamble with quality, but sometimes it's totally worth it. The Tiff-Annie Blue breeches from Annie's Equestrienne were very much worth it. I have two pairs of basic schooling breeches, so I thought I might as well go outside the box a bit with my third pair. Blue isn't my favorite color, but Tiffany Blue is the one shade that can grace any horse or rider (don't try to argue, it's true, it will always be true). Plus, these breeches had a dove gray full seat on 'em. I couldn't resist. I placed my order. Of course, I ordered them right as their shipments had stopped; the Kleppers, founders of the company, were going through stock and putting together new designs for the fall line. Nothing was to be shipped until the 29th of June. So I waited, and I waited, but, finally, $85 and nine days later, my breeches arrived (and...

Heads up, this is just a dream I had that I thought was kinda funny, so, if you’re in the mood for a laugh or need a reason to question my sanity, here ya go! So, I’m me, riding horses and stuff, but I’m in a slightly better position with my riding career. I have a bunch of sponsors, a nice warmblood gelding (bay with chrome, hot damn), and I’ve just qualified for a big junior jump off on some tropical island. It had a lot of prize money, but only five people qualified (including Tori Colvin). My sponsors must have had a lot of money because they paid for all of my expenses for the entire trip. Airfare, gas, food, everything was all taken care of. We flew to Florida, then took a cruise ship to the island, and, mind you, my horse was with me the entire time, living in the lap of luxury. We stayed at this super fancy hotel and everything. It was awesome. me horse me sponsor Jump off day comes, and I’m super psyched cause I’ve got a good chance at this. The ve...