BEGIN COUNTDOWN..........

Next week Farrah returns to recognized competition with a full format N3D!  We have in-barn inspections on Thursday November 1st at 1pm, then the fun begins with jogs, dressage, steeplechase practice, XC walks, roads and tracks!  I am pretty excited to have Farrah and Lauren competing, can you tell??

Now, we just have to keep her highness bubble wrapped until then!

CAN WE HAVE ANY MORE FUN THAN THIS????

I really do feel like I own the wonder pony.  Such a rockstar this weekend.  Farrah's dressage could have been better (35) but I only recently turned the reins over to Lauren.  Now Lauren knows how I feel when I go into the dressage ring....Farrah knows you won't get after her in the 'competition' ring and she can get a little strong for super great scores.  But she is so fantastic she pulls a good score anyway, while still having what I call "Farrah fun".

When you can rock SJ and XC like this mare, we can spend some time working on dressage for those 'great scores'.  Lauren and Farrah are entered in the N3D in early November, and then they move up to Training at FHP.  This weekend, Farrah and Lauren ran in the 3-phase Training Division, where they were 2nd.  Her farm-mate, Cindy, beat her in dressage but had a few time xc (Farrah, are you listening???  You need to be steady like Cindy!!).  The rest of the farm kicked some serious booty too, winning Novice (Nataly) and Tadpole (Mattie).

Such an exciting season coming up....the little three year old was quiet and awesome with me riding her (and a half connemara homebred to boot) and Anneke (my 9 year old daughter) made her show debut on her connemara pony Lucy....woo hoo Black Dog Farm!


Mia with her eyes closed :)

We will have to wait until the professional photographer sends me pictures of Anneke on the adorable Lucy pony for proof that they did stay in the dressage arena and made it around 18" in good form ;)

When the whole farm ROCKS

I have been so very busy apprenticing for my Dressage TD license that I haven't been able to ride much, let alone compete.  I decided that if Farrah and I are going to be ready to run a N3D in November, I'd better at least get the horse out, even if I can't be in the irons.

I had Lauren compete Farrah this weekend at the Rocking Horse Modified Show (due to footing improvements and re-seeding, the normal 3-phase was changed to an optimum time only XC with no watches allowed).  Not only did Farrah place first in the Novice, her barn mate Dhitto was second and another barn mate Monty was third.  Can we say that totally rocked?  Lauren also took out Cindy at Training and going slow, finished 3rd.  Suffice to say everyone came back from that outing really happy.  I got text updates throughout the day as I was at the Fox Lea Dressage Concours, apprenticing with Carol Bulmer.  While that was fun, I would have been a lot happier riding around at XC!

I am so excited for the fall show season....I know Farrah is going really well and so are the rest of the residents at the farm....now if only Isaac would blow out of here so we could finally dry out a little.

SHE'S BACK!!!

I have been remiss in updating everyone on the Farrah pony.  I suppose I could go on and on about how life and kids and the farm and husband and the young horses get in the way of my keeping the blog current, but I won't bore you with those details ;)

I bought a new saddle for Farrah in May, after homeopathic ulcer treatment was successful.  Who knew having poor saddle fit could manifest itself in so many issues!  I bought a demo Borne saddle called the Velocity.  I have one word for it:  AMAZING!

Farrah loves this saddle, as does one of my other horses, Mia (it is not wide enough for the Lucy pony).  The saddle keeps me in better position, allows Farrah to use her shoulders well and VIOLA!  Happy jumping pony once again.

I am grateful this fantastic little horse let me know when things were NQR with her without turning into some total demon horse.  While my earlier postings may have made it sound like she was a monster pony, Farrah feeling bad made her surly and she tried very hard to let us know she was not happy, without actually making an effort to really get rid of you.  Having watched less athletic horses joyfully buck their riders off, I appreciate that Farrah had the good humor to act up enough to let us know we needed to look for an issue, without ever getting mean about it.

Since treatment and her new saddle, Farrah has been XC schooling in Ocala and she is qualified for the N3D at Rocking Horse in November.  The plan is for her to run the N3D and then two weeks later, move back up to Training at the Ocala Fall Horse Trials.  That is, if someone doesn't snatch her up first.

So Farrah has been sidelined with ulcers.  Luckily they have cleared up and she is back to being mostly herself:  I am used to her normal red-headed ways.  When she started trying to bite my legs (while I was mounted) and kick out, rear and buck, we knew something was wrong with her!  Even for her, that behavior was a bit much. 

While Farrah regains some fitness and is reminded that we still have dressage to work on, I began riding my daughter's pony.  Obviously I needed a new pony to ride, and Lucy was available (my daughter's walk trot pony, 13.3 hands).  Now, this is a great quiet pony at the walk.  Out of the walk, think energizer bunny on stimulants. 

Lucy is also 14 years old, has had 4 foals and is not quite sure why life now involves "real work".  Toting a kid (or two) around is not real work.  Dressage is abhored and jumping a course can be somewhat entertaining for spectators (she won't refuse, but it is often not a completely straight line from A to B).  Dressage was not going to be her strong suit, but she is brave and can jump.  To prove dressage is NOT a word Lucy likes, even after repeated lessons we proceeded to score a 42 and 45 at BN!  Ouch.  Submission is an interesting concept for Lucy....we will have to work on that.

Lucy has now finished two recognized competitions this spring, finishing 7th out of 14 at Rocking Horse and 11th out of 17 at Ocala.  I am showing her in the open BN and we have managed to finish on our dressage score, with a few xc time penalties at Ocala.

The stadium for both shows was interesting.  I almost fell off after crossing the timers at Rocking Horse (Lucy likes to shake sometimes, like a dog when wet, and she did that to me after the last fence, at the canter!).  In Ocala, I put in FOUR strides to the two stride (and this pony can have a horse stride to her canter, but I can't remember what I was doing, but certainly riding her to the fence was not IT at that part of the course).  I rode the remainder of the course much better, thanked Lucy for ignoring the lack of rider concentration and then on to XC.

Lucky for me the end result (time penalties) didn't change our overall position as I got lost on course at Ocala.  I walked it three times, so you would think that wouldn't be a problem.  I recall jumping fence four, turning, and heard the announcer say something about my long way to the barrels.  Since I was cantering aimlessly about, looking for fence five, I then remembered where the barrels were actually located and galloped on to them.

Lucy jumped the jumps well and forgave me for getting her lost.  Now on to my three year old (a connemara cross) while I hand over the reins to a teenager (for Lucy competition) and we get Farrah going again.

Kick on!

And so the season comes to an end.

My thought that this season could be salvaged after our last successful xc schooling was not to be.  I retired Farrah at Training Level at Rocking Horse after fence 12, as she had an uncharacteristic two refusals and was not responding well to the task at hand.  We finished on a good note (the bounce bank) and retired.  Farrah's willingness to work deteriorated to not wanting to clear even 2' (a mere two weeks later) and after a full lameness work up we realized she has ulcers.  Farrah is now looking at almost completing her ulcer treatment and I will soon find out if she is interested in coming back to work.  I sure hope so, as her temper tantrums are of epic legend (rearing in cross ties, not loading, due to ulcer pain) and I will not miss them AT ALL.

This means I need a pony to ride.  I do own a full sized horse, but since I prefer to fall from insignificant heights, that put Lucy in the limelight.  After a month, Lucy is progressing in dressage, albeit slowly.  Lucy, also a pony, is a 13.3 to 14 hand connemara pony mare who is also 14 years old.  To date, Lucy's life involved being started rather late (5) and then having babies.  I imported her from Canada at 7, and Lucy foaled a rather cute bay filly for me in 2009.  Other than that, Lucy's main job is to be quiet enough for my eight year old daughter.  Most of their rides are sans saddle or bridle and occur at the walk.  You can imagine Lucy's mortified look when I put a dressage saddle on her for a lesson with Bill Woods.  I am trying to recall his exact words when he saw us first at the trot.....I think they were mostly geared to not embarassing anyone at our first show.  (Which we did, I will admit it....Dressage score of 45 at Beginner Novice!!!)

At this point, Lucy is actually looking like she is willing to go along with the dressage and we are aiming for a sub-40 performance.  We show in two weeks, so time will tell.  In addition to Lucy in Beginner Novice, I gamely entered my 3 year old in the FEH class.  I should have just late entered, as entering any young horse has been a downfall of mine.  Sure enough, Mia tried to slide to a stop in a field, didn't stop, and took out the fence with her face.  Multiple stitches later and the flap of skin midway between her eyes and her nose is back in place.  The stitches come out the DAY of the class, so we will see if she is a scratch or not.  I do believe Mia will no longer act like a rhino when it comes to the fencing, but what a terrible way to figure out that head first into the fencing is a really Bad Idea.

When the mistakes are all YOU.

So, apparently the freight train feel when we gallop at tables is caused by yours truly.  Farrah obviously plays in to it, (I think she likes to antagonize me) but it is her rider that is creating the bulk of the problems. 

I managed to show Mike Huber that the pony is athletic, not by wowing him with our brilliance but rather burying Farrah to the base of a number of wide training level obstacles.  Which she packed me over anyway, to her credit.  His comment was "Well, she will really go from anywhere, even if her front feet are in the jump". 

I can still get that deer in the headlights look to some of the fences.  Large gallop tables are my usual culprit.  Apparently, I approach them like this:  /:O

And then I push Farrah past any distance that might have been there.  As Huber put it, I am gunning her at nothing.  Why Farrah is choosing to still jump them at this point is beyond me.  So Mike worked on getting me calmed down, and things went much better after that.

Our lesson finished with us jumping with ease the large training tables and the corner and also riding through a preliminary coffin line.  It really is all me and the pony is just fine.  At this point, I am glad she is putting up with MY learning curve.  We head to Longwood on Saturday for a final school prior Rocking Horse III.