More plans

Somehow December came and went and I only posted twice.  I was busy though making this:



Totally a joint effort with Aimee and Alyssa, thank goodness for good friends willing to play in a snow storm!
I still haven't gotten a response from Practical Horseman, but fingers and toes are crossed.  I mean seriously, how cool would it be to get the Martins way out here in the wild wild west.  Joking...but not really.

yep, not totally joking

Anyways, I mentioned 'more plans.'  How does Kentucky in October sound???  Hopefully some of you are guessing correctly.  I just submitted my application to be one of the 500 trainers for the 2016 Thoroughbred Makeover!  

Double thumbs up

So yeah, more fingers and more toes crossed that I get accepted, then the search is on for a suitable horse (with plans to sell him (or her) at the Makeover).  AANNDDD then, I'm thinking a totally epic meetup with east coast bloggers!

Hopefully the new horse will also be amazing at selfies

What is life without plans, dreams, goals, and friends?

Jan Byyny Clinic Day 1

Way back in May Prisoner and I did a clinic with Jan Byyny.  By the end of it she was pretty much my hero.  I was able to watch the other groups and listen to what she had to say.  She was humble yet confident with her opinion and ideas.  She talked about watching other top riders and really trying to pick apart what she liked in their riding so that she could incorporate it into her own.  After introductions and such we started with flatwork warm up.  I always go into a clinic looking for new tools that I can add to my riding, and what was the first thing she said?  "I will hopefully give you tools you can continue to work on after the clinic is over."  We warmed up in the walk/trot/canter with the same things.  Getting the horse listening.  We used the whole arena and worked on a simple version of shoulder in to the left and right (or inside and outside of the loop we were on).  It really showed me how much stiffer off the right leg Prisoner is.  This went  on for quite a while with her just calling out left right left left right turn right left etc etc.  Prisoner did quite well and she talked about how much she liked him.

Second time over this corner, nbd

 Then we moved onto two caveletti set on a curve about 3 or 4 canter strides apart.  Prisoner tried to rush and then got better, we did it a few times in a row until he settled.  As we stopped and waited for the next rider to go Jan walked over to me.  What she said about blew me out of the saddle, this woman had been watching me ride for 15 minutes and had me pegged.  "I can tell you 100 times that you are a great rider, but until you believe it yourself you will struggle, so believe it, because you are."  Say what!?  Ok time to stop with the self doubt.  Obviously easier said than done, but I'm working on it.

My cute pony

 Then we moved on to jumping jumps and stringing courses together.

First time over the corner, he popped me out of the tack

Prep phase

 He was doing quite well, impressing with his beautiful jumping.  Then we came to this oxer:

Yep, not scary

 and at the last moment he threw in his now signature rear/bolt sideways move.  Before I could even chastise myself Jan hollered across the arena, "you rode that fine, just come around again."  So I did and he stopped again.  She had walked over by that point and had me come back with a very slow and powerful trot and over it he went.  I did it several times in a row until he was feeling honest again.  We discussed how we need to keep him slow until his brain catches up to his body's talent so that he doesn't get scared.  She also laughingly said he used his sassiness (which she liked) for evil.  She said I was riding him fine and that his talent would make working through the quirks worth it.

Looking like an xc horse here

 We continued on and did a few different courses.  The idea for the rest of the lesson being that we would keep a mix of trotting and cantering throughout the course so that he wouldn't get too rushy.

Hello knees

 Funny story, while I was watching the clinic before mine, Jan looks me in the eyes and says, "we've met before."  Woah, yes we have.  I told her about working for a couple trainers back east and being stabled near her at Red Hills.  Seriously guys, we said maybe five words at the show, and maybe I held a horse for her or carried water or something.  What a memory.  She said it was so nice to see me again, and then said the same thing after the clinic was over.  Did I mention that she is amazing?

Taking flight under Jan's watchful eye

Throwing it back

I had to laugh.  I complained about a race owner not paying for three months yesterday morning and less than an hour after posting the owner called Eugene and apologized and sent a check, it should be here soon.  So as the saying goes I threw something out there and it got thrown right on back.  Now if the half pad would get thrown back;)

I continue to move forward on the school front.

The next thing I need to move forward on is getting CPR certified so that I can get hired at the hospital.  What!? A regular paycheck!?

*News alert here, Hawley Bennet-Awad is coming to clinic here in May!!!!!  Diva is totally going to be there!

Can't wait to get dressed up, maybe Diva will refrain from sneezing!

And because I still have no new riding pictures or video, lets dream about riding on the beach:

And the Clinic

First of all go check out The Life of Riley, epic contest over there, Diva and Mojito are so entered.  This is a great blog about the cutest of cute OTTB's, seriously, his nose, I want to kiss it!

Let me start out the clinic post by saying that Courage and Diva are two of the most unflappable OTTB's I have ever been around.  There is calm and then there is unload horse, bridle, get on, random loose arabian goes running past lead rope flapping, meh whatever calm.  Win! *I got on Diva from an overturned bucket, this was quite the feat on a 17hh horse.

After the loose horse was caught we ambled on over to join the lesson

Before the lesson got too far underway we paused to sign a release form.  Win number 2, OTTB stood perfectly still.  After that it was back to work.

Stand still and chat? No prob!

By work I mean walking on a soft rein, trotting on a soft rein and cantering on a (you got it) soft rein.  I had gone to the clinic a bit worried about being on the nube horse of the group; nope.  Turns out the two of us (sprinklerbandit and I) were light years ahead of the other two participants.

Head started a bit high

But it quickly came down

In fact we were the only ones who got to trot/walk a course of cross rails.  Diva was great.

Like a boss

Looks like a postcard

The only issue in the first part of the lesson was a super uncoordinated canter that I believe was due in part to uneven footing and in part to being a little sore from her pasture hopping shenanigans.  After the clinician asked me about why my usually solid lower leg was flailing around (I had no good answer other than that on cloud 9 where I was residing on my calm princess I had forgotten that there were indeed legs attached to my body), I put my heels back down.  The other thing she had me do was sit down at the canter and really make Diva carry me instead of cruising around in two point.

But I like galloping position pictures better

I had to keep squashing my 'I've only ridden crazy horses for so many years' self preservation response, Diva was stupendous, nary an ear flick at other horses.  Even when one horse continued to aim for/narrowly avoid us while they cantered, she just stood with a hind leg cocked.  In case you noticed the mention of walking a cross rail course above, here is the explanation.  I set out across the field to the first cross rail when suddenly the trucks and trailers for the next group started pulling in.  Diva was all, 'woah, jumps on hold, check out these new rigs, who is in them, what are they doing, am I still the best, does this rider make my butt look big, yeah yeah whatever forget the cross rail what if there is a cute gelding over there.....'  finally I got her attention back and we walked around the course, trotting seemed to add too much to her lack of concentration.

First poles for the lesson

and then the camera died so no walking xrail shots (I think this is a good thing)

After that we headed to the back field where we had to go through a sort of ditch, Ohemgee!  Diva thought that we had found the edge of the earth, after all three of the others made it through there we were still not stepping in.  The ever patient clinician hung out with us and with lots of kind words and coaxing Diva made it across.  I was impressed that she walked all the way across and didn't go leaping through.  Out in the big field things were still pretty chill, but Diva's baby brain had had about enough so again following our tireless clinician we walked around a course of baby logs and called it a day.  Back through the ditch no problem and back to the trailer without on jig step.

Just standin' around

Again let me mention not quite all fun and games.  It took half an hour to get Miss Priss back in the trailer.  It reinforced what we had discussed in the lesson, Diva needs a go button.  Riding at home where there are minimal distractions I hadn't yet discovered this deficit, but put us in a new spot where maybe she doesn't want to listen and we literally get stuck like a mule.  Yeah for projects.