Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Rebecca Farm Event, XC Schooling, and the horrible Longe Line Exercise.



Jessi and I made it to Rebecca Farm, located in Kalispell, Montana, just fine. We had lots of fun watching the horses go, hanging out, playing around and got back safe in the old brown car much to the surprise of my friend Gabi.

Some quick things:

-Wow, Montana is really hot.

-We were given a one person tent when we asked for, and thought, we were getting a two person tent. Jessi kindly let me sleep in it, and took the back seat of the car the first night. We were very tired and had a hard time falling asleep. Then, at 2:30am, it started pouring and there was thunder and lightning. I know how to count how far away lightning is, and I knew Jessi would tell me if I should get in the car or not. As it turns out, I was sleeping through it by the time it got to be seven miles away, and Jessi never had to call me in. All was fine, and this is story is also known as “That one time I slept in a tent with my dog in a thunderstorm.” Luckily the family we were staying with lent us really big tent, and we slept comfortably in it for the rest of the trip.

-Advanced, 3***, CCI/CIC fences are really big. Intermediate fences are big. Some training fences look like they command some respect.

On to the rest of life, and not just fun vacation times. 

Cooper has gone home. His sales video is made so hopefully his owner can move him along quickly. I had fun riding him while he was here. By the way, I totally put a Ratatat song in his video. Matches his trot perfectly. 

Ami went XC schooling at Stanton. We’ll be doing a beginner novice event there next month so we went to see the fences and school them. She was very happy and excited! Tom put verticals up in the water, one going in, one going out, and Ami seemed to really like that and have fun with it. Every time we went down to the water she seemed get more enthusiastic.

We had a good ride today, she was nice and soft, but the exercise was hard. Tom snapped a longe line to my inside stirrup, stood in one place, and I got to practice riding truly round circles. It’s harder than it looks, especially at the end of a big arena with no markers. I felt like my thighs were steering her more than my calves, which was interesting. I almost wish I could have tried at the canter, but walk and trot was hard enough.

Tommy and Jack are going well. Tommy gets a bit cantankerous about growing up and developing a work ethic, but basically every ride he gets better faster. It’s been nice learning the intricacies of inside vs outside leg on him, because it really matters with him. And those aids really are intricate. Jack has been being ridden off the line in the small pen, and today went in a much larger pen back on the longe line. He is learning where his feet are more, and feels more balanced underneath me. He is three and already my leg can’t really wrap around his barrel.


Just a few of the advanced/3*** fences I was talking about




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