Sketch

I had been wanting to do a sketch of one of the racehorses, Aggie, for awhile now. Her owner's birthday was today so I decided that now was as good of a time as any. Her owner said no presents for his birthday, so I called it a "gift for him and his wife" when I gave it to him/them.

So here it is:

I wasn't sure if it was good enough for a gift, but my fiancé approved and he's extremely picky about things like this. Good enough I guess. I put it in a frame with a piece of her tail that I braided and tied with string that matched the color of their silks. I made the piece of the tail the shape of a cancer awareness ribbon since Aggie's namesake had passed away from cancer. (Wish I'd taken a picture of it in the frame.)

Both our owner and his wife genuinely seemed to love it! They're great people and are so wonderful to work for, it made my day to see how happy the sketch made them!

Aggie. I think you can tell it's her in the sketch.  Maybe.   

Oh, the joy!

I haven't had much time for Gunner, our pony-horse at the track, lately and was feeling pretty guilty for not riding him. The fiancé and I have been so busy that we haven't even had time to use him to pony. Here's this super nice horse, just sitting there. Yeah, definite guilt trip.

Quick video from his first show. I tried to upload a better video that shows him when he isn't tired and how well he really moves, but couldn't get it to work. I'll try again today.

So today when a friend asked if I wanted to haul out to Horse Lovers Park to ride, I decided it would be a perfect opportunity to get some saddle time in on The Big Gun. I've missed riding him!

One to remember: Scherzi

I was reminiscing about Scherzi today and decided she more than deserved a write-up in my blog. Anyone who worked with this mare loved her. She was a complete pleasure to have in the barn and will always be an amazing horse!

Scherzi enjoying turnout in El Paso.

Scherzi is by Brahms out of Happy Scene, a Dehere mare. Our owner had claimed her out of Golden Gate for $5,000. Scherzi already had four wins out of seven starts and then also won the day the owner claimed her. I think she had around $30,000 in earnings by the time we got her.

Hell-horse revisited

Big B, the horse from my post Making the best of what you have, has begun to make a liar out of me. He's being so good and I'm beginning to like him. I'm not totally there yet, but it's a start. I definitely have a deep respect for his talent.

This is from a couple of weeks ago. He has filled out a lot since then.

After his previous mishaps Ty, my fiancé, said we really need to make a point of paying extra attention to him. So we try to pet him every time we walk by his stall. We let him graze as often as we can. I make sure to love on him for a few minutes before I start tacking him and really take my time. It seems to be working.

I realize this is just normal routine with saddle horses. Having twelve horses at the track,  Ty and I have to really focus on not just going through the motions. We get really busy. Babying a horse that acts like he wants to kill me or himself doesn't normally land on the top of my priority list. It's worth it though.

Big B now has his head out of the stall most of the time and is actually looking for attention. He hardly did before. He doesn't weave any more. When he is out on the track, he is more forward and seems to enjoy being there. I don't feel like he is going to bite or kick when I go into his stall, though I still don't let my guard completely down.

It's pretty gratifying to watch him progress physically too. Big B is getting stronger fast. Today he went like a champ! He really came under himself and stayed loose over his back, very uphill. His movement has always been really good, but it's getting to the amazing level fast!

All in all, both Ty and I are very happy with how quick he is progressing. Fingers crossed that he keeps improving at this pace.

A horse I adore

It's funny how there are certain horses that you just want to ride. Correct that: HAVE to ride or it'll drive you insane.

Me and Woody last year.

Woody came to our barn October-ish of 2012. He was such a friendly horse with a great attitude and I instantly adored him. I watched, practically drooling, as my fiancé rode him all last year.

Total blogger fail, reusing a picture, but I wanted to show why I was drooling and couldn't access my pics of him.

I wanted to ride him SO BAD, but I figured he was probably just a little too much for me to handle and it was probably better for the horse if my fiancé kept riding him. Then the meet was over here and his owner wanted to bring him back to Golden Gate for the summer (he lives in that area and enjoys watching his horses run in person whenever possible). We ended up getting him back in Phoenix, as the owner had said we would.

Yesterday, I was watching my fiancé track him AGAIN and decided I could do okay on him. Due to a tragic experience with a moronic shoer (not ours), he is just coming back from a layoff and is only jogging right now anyway. So, I asked the "boss-man" if he thought I could track him. He said yes without even hesitating. Woohoo!

So, I have to interrupt my story really quick to explain how I feel about tracking racehorses. It's not necessarily my favorite thing to do. I don't mind being on the horse, I'm not scared of falling off. Getting run off with, though I don't love it, doesn't really scare me as long as they aren't rank about it. It's the things I can't control.

A picture from when I was learning to gallop. Not sure what the hell I was doing....

There are very good riders at the track. There are also some very bad ones. There are also some very crazy horses. Combine the psycho horses and the bad riders out there and anything can happen. That's the part that freaks me out. Put me on a track with just a few other horses and I'm fine. Add fifty horses and so begins my hyperventilation stage. The hardest part for me is just getting on. I think too much. I've seen too many bad wrecks. I worry too much about what can go wrong. Literally, my hands are shaking by the time I get legged up. On a good note, once I'm on their back, I'm fine. So, If I actually ask to track a horse, you know I must REALLY like them.

Today I tacked up the horse my fiancé was going to take and then I tacked up Woody so we could get them out at the same time (sorry I didn't get any pictures, my photographer was on a horse). It was weird, I didn't get nervous at all. For some reason I just felt like I would be okay on Woody. No matter what happened.

How Ty reminds me to put the blinkers on.

He walked to the track with his ears forward on a loose rein. Totally relaxed.

I've learned a lot about riding just from watching good riders. Trying to immitate what they do has gotten me a long ways. My fiancé had been riding him with a long cross (longer reins, into contact, with the reins crossing between your hands). It's not hard when you're sitting down (racetrack term for posting). Doing it while standing up makes it a little harder because you can't use the contact for balance like when they are pulling you around with shorter reins. The main problem with this is if they throw their head up and try to take off, you're scrambling for the reins or you fall back and hit them in the mouth. A long cross is all good when you're in shape, have good balance, and are confident in your skills. Me, the balance part is okay. The other two, not so much. In any case, if that's how my fiancé rides him, I'm going to also. I'm competive that way.

Woody galloping out after working.

Fortunately, Woody was AWESOME! Since we are letting him gain strength by carrying himself instead of holding him together, there were a couple of times his head came up. Not very bad, but just enough and just quick enough for me to lose contact for a couple of strides. Thank goodness for having all those dressage lessons of sending horses forward into the connection being hammered into my head. When he did it, I just put my leg on and he went forward dropping his head back into a nice contact without me having to shorten/adjust my reins. Woody did the last lap staying loose over his top line and using himself well. He got into a really nice rhythm! I didn't have to do much other than soften him a little bit here and there.

We pulled up and he just stood there while I watched our other horse go for a minute. Then he walked off of the track and back to the barn like a perfect gentleman. (One of the worst parts about galloping can be just getting them to and from the track.)

In the whole scheme of things, jogging a horse a couple of laps isn't a big deal. For me, it was since it was Woody. I think I would have been heartbroken if I hadn't gotten along with him. Why it should even matter, I don't know. Maybe it's because I like him so much or because I needed to prove something to myself. It probably doesn't really matter why. What matters is that riding him completely made my day!

For some reason getting on Woody today felt like it brought me back to the rider I used to be. The one that had confidence in her ability and complete faith in her horse.

See how loveable he is?

The bad part: now I want him for a dressage horse even more than I already did. Crap!