Lunge Line Refresher

Hey everyone! Okay, took me about 3 tries to figure out a title. Seriously, why are there so many ways to write lunge? There is longe, long line, lunge, etc. Geesh!

Anyway, not much of an update. I went out with the little BIL Saturday when he went to feed the princess to check on mr Tuff Tuff. He and Skip were out grazing, the princess was in the barn row of course, lol. She seems to be very sensitive, about rain and bugs at least.

So they came up to see us though, and of course Stormy was very excited to be getting fed. She was running them all off and made me a bit nervous because there is not much room at all in that shed row, plus there is a tractor in there. Skip got knocked against that trying to get away. Not cool. I dont know if itd be better to just block it off in front of the tractor or what, so they can only come into the barn one way, you know? I know I dont like the way it is now though!

Anyway, he put her in the stall to feed her and I played with Tuff outside a bit. Making him pick up his feet and STAND there because I am messing with him, not just walk off and do whatever he wants once I put his foot down. He learned that pretty quick. And did very well picking his feet up. Although I did notice one of his fronts is already chipping up in the front. -_- Too much to ask for Daisy's rock hard hooves I guess. Oh well, he's young, maybe he has to grow into them, haha.

After that I brought him back into the row and clipped him to the lead rope tied on the post. He's still shedding so I attacked that, then brushed his icky mane and tail out. They feel really greasy. Overdue for a bath! Also got him all War Painted up. (fly repellant, looks like a bar of deoderant haha, works REALLY well)

He kept wanting to move forward and stick his head over the stall door to see Stormy, and I want him to be still and stand right where I put him. Of course a foot moved is fine, but after I put him back and told him WOAH, he would move up there again and stick his head over. I must have moved him back at LEAST 7 or 8 times before he figured out it was easier to just stand still, lol. Genius! ;) After he did that I let him go.

The BIL was done feeding and let the princess out. I then saw the lunge whip in there and asked if they still had the lunge line out there. He said they did, so I got that and decided to see how well he would do on there, its been awhile. He was perfect of course! :) That picture up top is from my phone, and no he wasn't pinning his years, its the blasted gnats!! I'm sure he was in the process of flapping them around, lol. They were on the ATTACK, I had a hard time keeping them out of my mouth and eyes. SO ANNOYING. I'm glad the horses have the barn to get away from them, for some reason they won't go in there. Weird.

This is another I took (its really hard to lunge a lazy horse and take pictures!) and it looks so weird. I don't know if he was about to stop on me or what, lol. Very awkward! Anyway, I can see his neck needs to have another growth spurt, lol, I love a nice long neck! Of course his is def adequate.

Anywho, we walked a bit, and did about a circle of trot each way only because it was SLOPPY out there. I swear we might need to start driving boats around with all this rain. Then I practiced a bit of setting up and let him go. He's a good boy.

So thats it! If it ever stops raining I want to get out and ride my Daisy May again. Maybe we will try putting the solid pole across after she does some good cross-pole jumps! :-D (and after I get some more energy out of her!!)

Comment Mess-Up

Okay, I don't know if anyone has tried to comment recently and had a problem with it, but I changed a setting yesterday and apparently it doesn't work with my current layout (I couldn't leave a comment when I tried) SO, its back up now, sorry!

P.S. For your viewing pleasure, we have the husband and his dog Bowser, doing Daisy and I's jump. He says I am jealous cause they did better....whatEVER! ;)

Jump, Jump (Video!)

Weee!

Hey everyone! I finally got the video edited for yall, there were like 5 different ones (the husband apparently was getting ate up by mosquitoes and thinking I was done, so kept turning the camera off, thats how he missed our best jump too!!) and it took a while to get the good stuff, and edit out the boring stuff. And I'm at work, so I have interruptions! The nerve! ;)

Again, excuse my atrocious position and be gentle with us! lol, this is the first time I've jumped in YEARS and even then I only did single or double jumps every once and awhile, never a course. None of us on the IHSA team were in the jumping classes, so we didn't focus on it much. PLUS she is SO PLUGGY and it took all I had to keep her going and get her over, that was where all my focus was, not my position unfortunately! So with practice we will both be SO much better! I'm excited. :) (Though I heard the rain is moving in AGAIN for the next 3-4 days, grrr)

So get ready to hear a lot of crop smacking (which doesn't seem to phase her), conversations about hot dogs, and my annoying voice saying high pitched GOOD GIRL's a million times! (goofy Rusty makes an appearance as well) It's nearly 6 minutes, sorry guys, you can fast forward through it if you want!



Seriously, after watching it for the tenth...or maybe 18th time, I think she goes so slow up to it to begin with mostly because she's not real sure what she's doing, lol, and also to make sure I really want her to go over it. Its so funny! I mean, her ears are always forward like okay, I see it, I see it...are you sureeee?? lol.

Towards the end you might notice a little hop in the pasture, lol, well that cracked me UP! Okay, there was like, a crater, I guess is the best way to describe it, there. It was VERY shallow, and VERY short, nothing for her to have a problem with, just a divot in the ground, but she decided to hop it! HILARIOUS! I guess she was really into it and enjoying herself, haha. She did it as calm and nonchalant as you please.

So I think our trot poles were placed a bit too far away for her slow pokey stride. What do yall think? And I'm not sure if our pole before the jump was in the right spot either. I heard it should be 9ft away? But our jump is so teeny right now, mabye it should be closer.

Anyway, shutting up now. Constructive help is always welcome! (but you have to stop laughing at us first!! ;) )

The proud mama! The husband cut off her legs...but I think we look GREAT!
I love her color right now.

Who Said Fat QH Mares Cant Jump??

Because I need to have a talk with them, and show them a video!!

So this entry is dedicated to my friend in2paints who gave me her beautiful lynn palm! I told you I'd get you a video of us jumping in it!! :-)

I can NOT even describe how happy, excited, and proud I am of my Daisy May! I mean, you love your horses, and you know they are great. But, sometimes they just surprise you and amaze you! TODAY was Daisy's day for doing that.

So to begin with she was a bit hesitant, lol. She was missing all the trot poles, and not doing so well over them either. Then we got that better, and she didn't want to go over the jump! She kept just going off to the side, lol, but a few slaps with the crop and we got over it! (thank God for that crop!!) Well, she walked it with her front legs and hopped with her back! Took me TOTALLY by surprise, haha, so of course I was way behind and pulling on her mouth. But I had her in the bitless so of course she didn't mind much.

But then I really started waking her up with the crop before hand and she started getting it!! About 3 tries in she did a GREAT one and of COURSE the husband had stopped filming!! GEEZE! Oh well, lol. We never did do QUITE that good again, but the last jump was pretty close.

She stayed CALM and happy about it all, and I couldn't have asked for ANYTHING better!

So anyway it is nearly 10 at night and I'm tired and at home, so I will have to wait to show you the videos and expound a bit more tomorrow. But here are a few stills to hold ya over!

Jump, jump! Okay, I know my back looks terrible and my heel is too far in the stirrup, but look how cute Daisy is!! (we got a bit crooked to this one, lol)

Speaking of cute, enlarge it and look at her ears!

So until tomorrow!

Bestest Friends

Hey everyone! Sorry I have been SO BORING as of late. (IT HAS NOT STOPPED RAINING!!) I just wanted to get on real quick and say things are going well and not much has been going on.

Good news though! Like I was predicting, Tuff, Skip and the new princess are all doing VERY well with each other. As you can see from these pictures:

ahhh, this is the life, me n my boys ;)

Seriously, they are grazing like that nearly every time I see them! So funny and so cute. I did notice a bite mark on Tuffs side (just the hair snipped off). Thats good that she is keeping him in line! Someone needs to!

I swear, looking at Tuff, I don't know how he is going to make it to the 'white' phase of graying out, he is just 2 and is almost there already! As for his height, still nothing impressive there. Actually I'm kinda getting worried. I haven't sticked him in awhile, but I don't know that he has even passed 14 hands yet! GEESH! I never thought I'd have to worry about him being too short to ride by adults. Seriously. Well he has some time still, I guess. But I am not real optimistic.

Okay, for the BAD NEWS. First of all, the farrier came out and did the horses last week, and of course it worked out where I was not there (working, o yeah) and of course Tuff was a TOTAL hiney apparently. So much so that they had to TWITCH HIM!! >:( Durn horse! Wish I had been there, you know how you are always sure you could have done something to make them behave?? Yeah, totally my thoughts. Anyway, he just wouldn't stand still, didn't want him near him, etc. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense on one hand, because he was NOTHING like that the first time he got his feet done, and then on the other hand this was only his 2nd time being trimmed and I haven't been working with him a lot lately, etc. Oh and yeah, I wasn't there. :-)

So anyway, now the REALLY bad news.

The little BIL finally named the new pretty grey mare.

Wait for it...

It's really quite bad...

Prepare yourselves...

No, really PREPARE YOURSELVES!!

Stormy.

STORMY!! I knew it was going to be bad!! I just KNEW IT!! :tries to calm down: Okay, okay. It could have been worse, I admit, he said he almost called her Storm. Eye yi yi. And he will not be moved on it. Believe me I TRIED. So there you have it. I have a seriously hard time even referring to her by that name. It won't come out of my mouth!!! GREY MARE is better!! Okay, I forgot, I'm supposed to be calming down. Okay, phew.

Anyway, back to the first bad news. That day (yesterday) that I took the above pics I picked up his feet, yada yada, moved him around, etc. NO PROBLEM. And they look great. I mean, he had his head down and was grazing and STILL he didn't ever offer to pull back or move or anything, picked them up nicely and held them. I mean, seriously, HORSE. Why weren't you like that when it COUNTED!?! :sigh: Hopefully he will be his good self the next time around. (and I will have him better prepared!)

On the other side, Skip, who was a pain last time, was an angel this time. Naturally. -_-

Oh, and in unrelated news, I found another blog with my name! Well, almost, and she has a chestnut QH named Daisy as well! WHAT ARE THE ODDS?? Well, pretty good actually, but anyway...here it is! Riding Miss Daisy

Enter The Princess

Well exciting news here! We have a new arrival! And man is she UGLY! Wait until you see her. I don't know what they were thinking. They got her from an auction house, so...

But I'll let yall be the judge! I am tentatively calling her 'Belle' at this point, because that is what popped into my head first. But her new owner, the little BIL, does not like it, so who knows what her name will be. I'm not holding my breath for anything near as good as that, from his previous choices of names for his dogs, etc. (the husband wants to call her BellA, but I dunno...I'm rereading the Twilight series right now, so that may be why I think it doesn't fit, lol)

Here she is!!

Kisses!!

Notice the huge clump of grass falling, lol, our ground is sooo weettt
Also notice how tall the little BIL is, lol, she is a good 15 hands, so she will need to get to growing a bit more for him!

As you can tell, I was fibbing when I said she was ugly, lol. And as you can also tell I really enjoy taking pictures of her, lol. She is just so pretty I can't help myself. Its hard to get a 'bad' picture of her. It would have been better if it hadn't been so overcast, though.

So a little info! And I mean little, lol, since we don't know a whole lot about her. She is 3, a registered QH, although she has Appendix papers. Her dam is half TB, her grand dam, full. And you can def see that little bit reflected in her! I think her head is very Thoroughbredey to me, its that blocky type, you know? But it is very small. We haven't had this slim and elegant looking of a horse around in a long time, and we are all smitten with her.

She is broke, so they say. Apparently they have been riding her quite a bit. And the little BIL rode her a little bit at the horse sale in the little pen she was being held in.

So there is a horse sale the first of the month about an hour away from us, that the father in law likes to go to. His work has been really good lately, and since the little BIL lost that mare he was taking care of, they decided to bring this little girl home. They got her for a smokin price too. Guess how much?? If I owned her I know I wouldn't take less then 1500, although I know the market is bad.

They paid $500 for her. I know. And she has some decent lines too. Check it out, her grand sire is a son of Peppy San Badger and won over 28k in cutting money, and is a Millon Dollar Reining sire. His get have made $469,719 in NRHA events, and $262,945 in NCHA events. Cool, huh??
Here is her pedigree, it will have pics of her daddy (who is VERY PRETTY himself) and her grand sire. Yeah, her name really is Docscockylilcutter. Sigh.

As far as I can tell her TB side is nothing to talk about, but I don't know much about TBs. I can't find anything about her dams side either, just some Leo and Doc Bar. Who she has on her sires side as well. Her daddy is at stud here in Alabama, but I don't think he has done anything but sire babies.

So she is bred to be a cutter, but looks like a pleasure horse to me! Lol, she looks like she will be smooth as butter, if I'm any judge. Though her pasterns are a little longer then I'd like. I've just heard about unsoundness issues, but I doubt she will be working hard enough to worry about it. I bet her hardest job will be truckin down a trail, lol. She does still have a lot of growing to do, I bet she will really fill out.

She is very good getting into a trailer, standing in one, and getting out (though she did sort of leap out and then imediately start chuggin down grass, lol) and seems to be a sweet girl. She is a bit more 'alert' then I think will be necessary for the little BIL, but we shall see once they start riding her. She was a bit spooky when she first got there, but seemed to settle down. She did well with Tuff and Skip. They were a bit scared of her though, especially Tuff. His mama and Rusty have put the fear of God into him! Skip was more brave and that got him a kick in the leg, which he asked for it, she warned him 2 times to stay away from her hiney before nailing him. But he was okay.

It was kind of funny because she would start following them because she wanted to be near them and they would take off trotting because they thought she was chasing them! And shes like, "wait up guysss!!" LOL, but after a few hours they settled down, and she is like their big sister now, it seems like. Shes really just a baby herself, although she is so much bigger then them. I wish they would put the fast track on their growing! (BTW, Tuff turned 2 last Wed!!)

I'll have to watch them together more to know for sure. But I think they will all be fine. We moved them up to the top pasture near our house (and the road, which I like, gets them used to all the car noises, we live near a 4wheeler park, so there are lots of scary noisy things that go by!) and where Tuff was born. A bit of grass up there, so thats good. Tuff needs to put some weight on.

Here is a video of her right not long after we got her off the trailer.



I will definitely keep yall updated on her progress. I really hope she is going to be a good horse. And I may finally have someone to ride with!! :)

Here is a vid of us trying to take the horses to the pasture, and then finding out that the FIL can't get the gate open, lol. I'm leading Skip and Lee has Tuff. 'Belle' also managed to get away from Jesse, but you don't see it on there. She got her foot under the rope while grazing (he wasn't paying very good attention to her) and then he couldn't get it unwrapped and she started pulling so he let her go. She trotted about a bit then she walked right back up to him so he could get her, lol.


So, that is all for now! Until later...

Video!

Here is my bro and I riding from last Sunday. Notice the lovely part where they start talking about my 'getting bucked off'. Thanks little brother -_-'.

You'll also get to see Dixie's drunk walk, lol.

Horsey Riding