First Specialties Practice!!!! 11/29

Ok I finally was able to roll out of bed and function enough to post! Man am I sore or what!!!! So my day was insane yesterday! Holy Cow! So I had grooming at 7 and my partner and I each received a horse but only one was for Vaulting and it was Rebel #52. At least it was the 1st ride so I knew we wouldn't trot much. I was able to groom pretty quick and then carried at least 4 more saddles and bridles out to my teammates. Since I had liberty right after my ride I went into the Tack room and checked out my horse for liberty. I had JERICHO #107!!!! I was sooooo excited! He is like one of the best Liberty horses out there. Then we mounted and rode them down to the arenas and dismounted and took of the saddles again for our Vaulting horse. My partner put our vaulting equipment on while I put Rebel's saddle away. Then we headed into the arena after we changed into our tennis shoes. I gave my partner a leg up and then our instructor showed us how to help the second rider up. I was in the back. It feels really weird riding with a second person but it was super fun too! I saw a bunch of girls, new and old trying to kneel so I did and I did it! But then they said only returning Blue Vaulters should be trying tricks. Oops haha at least I wasn't the only one. It was super fun though! Then we circled and trotted a little. Our class started by 8:30 so we only had about a 20 minute ride but we will get faster so we will get to ride more. Luckily for me, Jericho was already in vaulting with no equipment on so I just took him out of there, gave him water and put my wire on his neck. I was so glad I didn't have to unsaddle another horse haha. Then I had one of my teammates hold him while I checked in. Then we headed into the arena. I tried to vault up and Jericho bit my butt. OW! That really hurt so I had a teammate hold his head while I tried again. Nope. So then I had her give me a leg up. Then I was watching WestiesGirl get a leg up and she got too much momentum and went all the way over! It was so funny and her horse looked soooo bored hahaha. So we headed out on the rail and warmed up a little bit then they called us into the middle. We discussed wire work, lifting, and how the class would work. Lifting for jumps is really hard! Plus they want to see air under our buts. Oh man. So we trotted and circled then tried a Thread so they could watch us individually Jericho was prancing and rearing in the corner waiting to go. Man he is AMAZING!!! He is a fox trotter so he is gaited so he is SO SMOOTH! Every gate just floats into the next one. He also responds better to the wire than he does to the bridle. If only we were jumping cause he charges the jumps. He is one of the few horses who loves liberty. Then they split the class in two so we could lope. Jericho's lope is like flying but I had to make sure I wasn't leading or he would take off. I barely used the reins minus stopping LOL. It was an amazing ride and I never wanted it to end. We were dismissed early to unsaddle and when I was done I had to run to batons! 3 back to back classes is a lot of work. Batons was fun but kind of boring because I have a friend in White who had been coaching me haha. But it was still a great class and I learned a few new tricks. We did Pancake, Figure 8, Finger twirls + tosses, Dead stick toss, dead stick turn around, and partner tosses. It was super fun. Then I finally had an hour break and got some food and water. Then I went up to the Auditorium and had my Colorado Stampede instructor look over a few diagrams that had been giving me fits and I had 5 to fix. Not bad. Then I watched my sister's BL4 ride. White Ropes practiced at 12 so I ran over there after. I got to call one of the flat loop routines!!! Then we just practiced Specialties. I worked on Texas skip and drag hop. After ropes I helped my friend with some diagramming and headed to help Blue Ropes at 3. It was super fun being the older roper. A lot of them can spin the loop really well and I see a lot of good ropers coming along. WesternaireForever is finally keeping her thumb down ;) So while I was helping Danielle yelled,"Really!" I was like what!? I had no clue what she was yelling at me about! Then she said pointing to my vaulting partner she already has toe dances! Then I just start laughing. She was like I get you've been giving her pointers but come on! LOL she was totally being silly and joking with me. It was great. So then she called a couple ropers over and had them try out for big ropes. They Passed!!! So I began teaching them how to spin the 15 and 20ft ropes. They both got it!!!!! I was kind of sad I didn't get to help the other kids but I like teaching how to do the big ropes. It's a lot harder than it looks :) So overall it was a really good practice and then I got to go home :) I'm SO SORE but it was totally worth it :)

No Pain, No Gain 11/22

Today was awesome! So I'm starting to make some new friends on my team so that's great! I got A. C. Some traumatic memories coming back. I'm proud to say I groomed him and saddled him all by myself. It took a lot of patience but I got him done :) bridling was a piece of cake. The ride was very productive even though we didn't do much. We worked on leg cues with some column movements. A lot of our team isn't very good at them so we pulled into the middle. They has us stand up in the stirrups and worked on rotating our hips in order to improve our foot position. It really hurts. Then keeping standing we had to drop our stirrups and keep ourselves up with our thighs core and knees. OMG owww! So then we had to go to the rail at a trot like this and AC does not have the smoothest trot ever. We had to go around like 8 times before they let us pick up our stirrups and sit down. Then we lopes in 8/4/2 then the ride was over. We literally stood for 30 minutes of it but it was really educational and is gonna improve our riding. Diagramming went well. We took a sequence test and turned in our diagram. Ten headed right into sloppy copies. Man they push us. We got 17 done in like 20 minutes. Then they went over some no no's for diagramming. Every team is a little different. Stampede doesn't let you trace over the pencil arrows with color they want the arrows to be just plain color. Oops I'm going to have to redo the three it just turned in. Lol so then I hung out with Westernaires forever trick roped with her a little and worked on my diagrams. I headed home and did diagrams for five hours and they are all done!!!! I will check them tomorrow because I probably made a mistake but that was my day :)

Guess The Horse #21

So nobody guessed on last week :(  But it was Jericho #107

So your riddle for this week is I am a quarter horse mare. I am 8 years old and have a brand on my left flank. I am a "chocolate" palomino (darker face). My number is between 5 - 10. Who am I?

BRRR!!!!!!! New Specialties 2014

Oh my goodness was it COLD today or what!!!! BRRRRRRRR!!!! I'm still frozen I think. I arrived at 7 to help the Tenderfeet catch and groom. I didn't get to stay long because I had a meeting for Liberty. I am on Blue Liberty 2!!!! Our abbreviation is BL2. So basically

BL1 - Red Division (Rides on Base Saturday)
BL2 - Returning Blue Liberty and AAA
BL3 - AA

BL4 - AA renters and A owners

That's for this year at least anyway :) So we turned in forms, and talked about the goals of the class, details for move ups, wires, signing out horses, and how unsaddling works and such. It was a lot of really good information. Then I watched Varsity at 9 and headed to my batons meeting at 10. We turned in forms and got measured for batons. I'm about 28 inches so I'm gonna try and buy that as soon as possible. Then I headed over to my Blue Vaulting meeting. There are 106 of us so we had to stand in the Blue. That was SO COLD. At least at my other meetings we had been in the classrooms so it was nice and warm. Basically it re stated everything I had already learned in my other meetings. Plus I also have a ton of friends on White Vaulting so I knew most of it. I already have my pads and stuff too. That one took the longest by far. Then it was time to wait around till 4 for ropes. So I headed to the volunteer. The snow was really starting to fall harder and it was getting even colder. My friends and I huddled under a blanket and watched Nighthorse. Then my friend came and told me White Ropes was cancelled. :( I was so upset. My ONLY class for the day and it was cancelled. But honestly it would have been miserable to rope in. It was now a full blizzard white out and all. I stayed and watched Crimson and am now at home thawing out my frozen body hahaha. It was soooooo cold. I can't wait to actually have my first practices with my new teams. Gonna be fun!!!

Friday Night Grooming 11/14

Tonight was awesome!!!! I finally got to do something at grooming. So my friend and I went and got jade and then socialized with the tenderfeet. Then they lined up. I had signed out Nugget #39. A nice gentle sweet horse. So I got two kids!!!! Finally!! Then another rider didn't get one so I let her take one of mine so I got to do one on one. That was amazing :) it was amazing finally getting to teach and show some tendertfeet the ways of a Westernaire. She picked everything up so quick and was amazing with the feet. Nugget cooperated so well!!!!! Overall it was a good night. Then the wranglers got hot cocoa and cookies. Yum!!!

First Ride with COLORADO STAMPEDE!!!

Holy crap is all I have to say. What a day. So it started out kind of rough with two injuries which I'm not going to describe for privacy but anyway I had to check in at 7 to groom and started to socialize with my new team. They all seem pretty nice and friendly. So I got Patches #104 yay!!! I was super happy cause she was great at show. So I had to have help taking her fly mask off but after that she was great. I was done on time but definitely slower than my normal and my team got in trouble for taking so long. We will work on it. So we rode down and checked tack and got started right away. Bandit ended up throwing a girl in my class but she got back on after my instructor worked with Bandit for a little. He was amazing after that. All the horses were super hyped up today. We mostly worked on drill work so our instructors could get a feel for where we were at. We have a lot of work to do but it wasn't terrible as far as team work. We seemed to work really well together so I am super stoked about that. As far as my personal ride that's another story so we lope A LOT! Which I loved just not with Patches, she pop - tarted me the entire ride making it super hard to keep my butt in the saddle and I almost fell twice. I lost my stirrups a ton too. I am SO SORE today from it. Especially my back. Otherwise I LOVED my first ride with Stampede and can't wait till next week. We had diagramming directly after our ride so I had to nearly run over there to make it. We just sat down and started a sequence test. I finished but barely cause I got there a little late. Then we were all given 3 packets, one was our drill notes (we are gonna have 45 total diagrams), one was a grading rubric, and the other was a timeline for the year. Then we had to grade a diagram provided to us by our instructors so that we got a feel for how they graded. Then we started sloppy copies and we got 3 done in 7 minutes. That was it for the class. The announced who passed the 1st sequence and 8 did the first try. 1 was me!!!! I'm starting the year out good! one of our teammates was nice enough to make us bracelets and we went into the fort to take photos for the monitors so they could learn our names. My classes for the day were done but I stayed anyway. I finished my diagrams, bought a new flag boot that is bejeweled from someone who makes them, and 2 liberty wires. I also watched Nighthorse for as long as I could without crying and then the New White Star team, man that was weird. I also saw WesternairesForever in Legionnaires on A.C. she looked good. My day ended with watching Glory Riders, Blue Rangers, and Mustangs. Pretty good day but I am exhausted!!!!! I can't wait till next ride when we move up to 15 - 20 diagrams. I also start Blue Vaulting, Batons, and Liberty next weekend. I don't know if White Ropes is practicing or not. Sorry it took so long to get this post out I was just soooooooo tired.

Friday Night Grooming 11/7

So I went and helped out with the T10 and T8 grooming class on Friday, well you can't test unless your in Red Division so that was a huge bummer. So my friend and I brought Jade up and gave her the grain. We also filled up the Clorox bottles with 50% bleach and 50% water. Then we helped the kids find their horses. Once they were done with feet there wasn't much for us to do. I was helping with Summer's feet. She puts all her weight on the foot you are trying to pick so I was literally supporting all her weight holding her knee while the tenderfoot picked the foot. When we finished the front I gently released her foot but she wasn't ready for it and freaked out a little. She was just being a bratty mare. So once her feet were finally taken care of I went and helped the girl with Casper. She gets grain before she bridles in the mornings when we ride so now she thinks she always gets grain before bridling so she was not happy. She was thrashing her head around and smacked the poor girl in the nose. She took it so well. So we tried again with me holding her head. I felt her pull back and yelled LET GO! but she wasn't fast enough and I got smacked on the side of my head... OW. So then we gave up and let her bridle Ashley instead. After that excitement Levi look like he could be colicing so we pulled him and gave him a look over. Our caretaker said his sounds were great and his refill time was excellent. He was just kicking at his belly a lot so we decided to keep him up in sick bay. So my friend and I got to help fill up his water and get him settled in. Then Candy looked like her tumor might have come back in her foot so we had to get her stall ready as well. After that we got to go update the white bored in the tack room so that was fun. Then the tenderfeet were done and we swept out the tack room and left. I was SUPER tired.

Guess The Horse #20

So the answer to the last riddle was Dodger #6 

This week's riddle is.... I am a all around great horse. I typically do AAA up to Precisionnettes/Varsity but I've done some Tenderfoot rides and AA shows. I have 4 very tall white stockings and a thick blaze. I am gated horse (fox trotter)  making me very smooth. I also have a "triangle" on my side. I am a 19 year old gelding. My number is between 105 - 110

Promotions 2014!!!

Well today didn't go exactly as planned. But it still was super fun and I am so excited for the new year. I arrived early and helped the tenderfeet groom. I groomed 4 horses in the morning and rode nugget down to the arenas. I was so nervous but 9:45 finally rolled around. I then went down to the livestock building and met with my team. I bumped into Westernairesforever who moved to legionnaires congrats! Then my team dragged me away and we went to the stands. Then we listen to the announcer tell us which numbers went to which rooms. And we were given our numbers. The big red 64 sat in the corner. I looked around and immediately too many people have my number so I knew I had not made Nighthorse. I then went up to the conference room sat down and was with at least four other of my white star teammates. Then my new instructor said welcome to Colorado Stampede!!!!!!! After my moments of depression and grief for not making red division I realize how excited I was to have gotten my second choice team. 5 girls including me went to stampede. Pops WesternaireLover went to Blue Rangers by herself, and WestiesGirl went to Shadow. Then I spent the next two hours riding my friends horses. Man that was amazing. Then I helped with unsaddling. They rolled for the first time so that went well. Now I am home studying my 28 maneuver sequence. Let's Go Stampede!!!!!!