Yes, it is Friday and yes, I am VERY glad. Not that I worked all that hard this week. I was off on Wednesday....if only every work week was four days. Oh, and with the same amount of $$ coming in. It's my blog...I can fantasize if I want to.
Had some pretty great horse time this week. To begin with, my fence was completed last Friday. So what do we do Friday night? Bring the horses home for a visit of course. We brought them home and introduced them to their new deluxe space. I don't think I have mentioned this before but Rio and Doc are not turned out together where we board. When the ladies are in heat, Doc will oblige and try to mount if he can. This is most likely due to his late in life gelding. He is never mean or agressive about it, but some of our barn mates took offense that their mares were potentially getting more then they are...(oooh, did I really say that?) So now when he is turned out, he has to be by himself. I mention this bit of background to give you an idea as to what transpired almost immediately when we put Rio and Doc together. Rio shamelessly threw herself at Doc and he proceeded to do what nature programmed him to do. We were actually a bit amused but then realized the neighbors with kids might not be. Since there really wasn't much we could do other than separate them, we let it be and hoped things would slow down.
Its not like the horses went at it ALL the time. No, they would graze a little, heat up a little, graze a little...you get the point. Just when I thought they were over it...boom, there was Doc up in the air yet again. Horse porn in its finest form...sigh. I just hoped the neighbors weren't at their windows at that particular time. What did they expect when they moved to the country?
We kept the horses home until Monday. We got the chance to ride around the neighborhood some on Friday. No major incidents or mishaps.
On Saturday, we joined the Rocky Fork Hunt Club for a Hunter Pace at Longhill Farm. We decided to join the "moderate" speed group, thinking if we jogged most of the way we would be okay. It was a gorgeous day and a tremendous turnout. There were over 100 riders. Our friends, (real fox hunters) joined us as well. They went in the fast group. Here is Rio waiting to get all dressed up for our ride.
There were 22 teams in our "moderate" group. The optimum time was 30 or 40 minutes to run the entire course..doesn't really matter which since we were SO far off the time. We mostly trotted but cantered along the way as well. Apparently still not fast enough. You know we spend all of our time trying to slow our horses down when we are training...its tough to speed them up for this type of thing. Rio's lope is about as "fast" as Doc's current trot. We are thinking we need to be in the "slow" group next pace. Also, many of the other horses are long-legged, fast movers..not like our slow-going quarter horses.
I think we came in last...sigh.
Karen and Holly on the other hand, came in second in the fast group. 
Here they are after the ride. Holly is on the left and Karen on the right.
The next pace with this group--Rocky Fork Hunt Club in on September 13th. More information is available on their website.
On Monday, we took a lesson with Terry Myers. Terry is a well known Western trainer who has trained many, many winning horses. His place is located in Ostrander--about 20 minutes or so from us. Brenda and I got there at 7pm and didn't leave until after 9pm.
Rio was a bit hopped up as there were scary cows with big horns out in the fields. Terry said next time we come, he will put the cows in the arena with Rio and that will get her used to them in no time. Oh, and I won't be on her for that exercise!
It was not one of our better evenings horse behavior-wise. At least not for me. Rio did not listen very well. Terry told me I was to "hyper" and was signaling her to go faster. He encouraged me to slow my breathing and to breath "out loud". Now, really I don't think I am hyper in the least...scared maybe but not hyper. Maybe I am a bit type A, although not compared to some type A's I know. Brenda says maybe he can tell something about a person right when he first meets them. hum....
He DID point out that I was in her mouth too much (duh) and gave me pointers on pulling up instead of back. VERY helpful. I have been really struggling with the whole mouth thing and would agree that I use my reins way too much. He said she was rather "sticky"...meaning she was leaning on my leg and was not as responsive to me as she should be. Well, yeah...she was in a terrible mood that night.
Brenda had the opposite problem as Doc didn't want to go much. She really had to keep alot of leg on him to keep him trotting. Terry gave her some good information and pointers too. He focuses alot on your seat and how the rider is using her aids. I really didn't listen much to what he was telling her since I was sort of mad at Rio, but it seemed as if it was helping. We definitely plan on going back for more lessons. Terry also spends time training the rider at first rather than the horse. This will be very helpful as we continue to progress. Frankly, I have no idea if I am a bad rider or a halfway decent one. I just know I stay on most of the time. Maybe I look really stupid doing it...how would you know unless you take some lessons?
Just when you think we could not possibly cram any more horse stuff into one week, we had a clinic on Wednesday with Kerry Kuhn. An all day clinic focused on riding and horse behavior with a very, very good clinician...heaven! We first met Kerry during the Best of America ride at Smoke Rise last year. We then met up with him again for another BOABH ride. This one was at Midwest Trail Ride in Indiana. I posted about Brenda's great experience working with Kerry during that time. Brenda had just bought Doc and was having all sorts of problems on the trail. Particularly with crossing any type of water. Kerry lives in Kansas, but was going to be in Ohio for another clinic so we arranged to have him come to our boarding barn to conduct a clinic. There were four clinic participants in addition to us.
We spent the morning working on ground work. Mostly lunging and keeping the horses out of our space. The participants were all levels of riders. I would say that Brenda and I were the most experienced (well, we have been to the most clinics for sure). People had different things they needed to work on and different goals for the day. Most of what I worked on was staying out of Rio's mouth and working on more response to my legs. 
It was a day well spent. We started at 10am and did not finish until well after 5pm. Kerry has a very direct manner and spent a ton of time working with each individual. Kathy from Smoke Rise helped out and provided great training along the way. She also has a kind manner and a way with horses. We are going to ride with her again at Smoke Rise in October.
Kerry travels the country with the Best of America by Horseback group. You can see the show on RFD-TV. Kerry also conducts a variety of clinics and participates in horse expos. This week he is in Illinois for a colt starting contest that is part of the Illinois Horse Fest. Best of luck, Kerry!
Having fun at the clinic! Notice Laura's footwear!
1 comment:
Hi Beth, looks like you had a good week. I enjoy reading your blog. I'll have to come a photograph one of these events sometime.
Talk to you later.
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