Nighthorse 12/26

Westernaires was cancelled it wasn't safe for horse trailers or any cars to be on the roads. I was excited to start Kaleidoscope and it would've been nice to be able to do diagrams without school. I also wanted to know my final score for flag. Oh well saftey comes first 

Calling Flag!!!!!

Wow. Yesterday was absolute insanity! I actually made it to all my classes which was huge! I had training and we took our Final for Flag, received a homework assignment, the Kaleidoscope sequence, and did our walk throughs. I was 1-1 for the first drill and CP for the second one. I GOT TO CALL! I was so excited. I really want to go to Royal and getting to call their drill was amazing. I felt good on the final and then headed to Batons. We worked on some elbow and wrist twirls which was so fun! It was nice having a challenge and something new to learn. I went and signed out Stretch and moved his pad. Because of the mud we walked the horses to the Volunteer. I tightened his cinch twice on the way down. I mounted up and did my exercises with him in the center. I had a flag dad tighten it again after warm ups were over. We lined up the first drill and in we went! It was the best drill we rode the whole year. Because I was focused on calling I didn't focus on Stretch as much and that seemed to help. It went so well! The second drill was good but it definitely was not our best. Stretch did okay as CP. He wasn't sure why everyone else was running and he wasn't. We cooled them off and I raced to ropes. I'm finally getting Step Through which is great! I want to master that and darn Jump the Honda before I go to red ropes so I can try and learn the 60ft so I can preform that at annual. I've got a mission again!!! I decided not to JI which was a good thing. I relaxed a little at 2 before I signed out my horse for Liberty. I had summer. She did really good! She tried to dodge the first few jumps but I had my reins on so I was able to steer her towards the jump better. Once she learned it wasn't worth dodging she did every jump like a pro! I was bummed we didn't do the drill but it was great to do jumps again. I took care of Summer and raced to Vaulting. My partner and I rode Ringo because her leaser couldn't have the horse out that late. He did so good! We rode the butt vaulting position and I did tricks for the second drill. It went really well! We have some areas to work on but we have a few months before show season. We unsaddled and my day was done!

Horse Training...

I hate the cold. Horse training was cancelled tonight because it is going to be too cold to work them. Its what's best for the horses but its still sad. Oh well there is always next week.

Mustang Training!

OMG!!!!! I asked to bring Stretch back into Mustang Training and they said yes! I'm so ridiculously happy! I think it's going to really help him and I to learn some more. I'll be sure to post and tell you how our first class goes on Thursday. I'm hoping I'll get to be an official trainer before I graduate so this is like a dream come true! We are also going to look at getting him a new pad because the other one almost fell completely off last ride :/

I Can't Horse Today....

Base team weekends are so nice and relaxing in comparison to specialties, oh my lord. I helped find horses in the morning because my sister rode early. It started snowing pretty hard so going inside for classroom was a relief. There was no t-shirt on my desk so I was point this drill. I got 100% on Quiz 3! We went out back to do our walk throughs. I was GPA 4 point. It went okay and the second drill I was 1-8. Then we went back inside. Nighthorse then handed out candy and it was so fun to see the kid's faces light up. I signed out Stretch and he was so much calmer than last week. We put cool out blankets on the horses and all of them were to small for him so it just looked silly. I worked Stretch in the middle and it really helped! He was so responsive and his stops were so much better. We actually clicked some more! I was so happy! There was one moment where a horse charged and if stretch hand't moved I would've got collided into. I also got Stretch into a flying left lead change which was huge! I was so proud! Overall so much improvement from last week for me and as a team. This coming Saturday will be our final for Flag so we only get to ride it one more time. Juniors was cancelled so I got to watch Crimson and Royal. Not a bad day but it was snowy and cold.

Falling down...down...down

So sorry for the delay! I've been super busy. But last Saturday had it's ups and downs. I had all back to back classes from 9-4 and a conflict so I didn't go to batons. I had training first thing in the morning. For the walk through I was 4-1 and GPA 1 point. I was so excited to be in first four. The walkthroughs weren't awful and I DIDN'T FALL!!!! LOL it was super funny. Then we got our scores back. I got a 97% on Quiz 2. I missed one question and I have passed all 3 sequences so I didn't have to take one. I also only had one correction. Very easy day as far as classroom went. I felt good about Quiz 3 as well. So then I raced to Vaulting. My partner and I decided to try more tricks on her horse. He would buck if I held kneel too long. But I put my knees further apart and he stopped. I just needed to remove some pressure on his spine. So we tried one leg hang. That horse has no spine so you just slip everywhere. I slid off upside down but we were at a walk. It was an actually slow motion fall lol. It was so muddy though. I got Stretch from a JI and headed to Nighthorse. The second I was mounted in the arena he took off. I one rein stopped him and it was all okay. The first drill was interesting shall we say. Stretch not having breaks made my life difficult. Plus our caller got a little confused but she tried so hard. I was proud of her. I got another scare when we started the second drill and I was a point. As I turned into my GPA stretch overshot so I pulled back and he turned instead... I only had one rein. I was in a bad location so I called a halt ho. Then a few moments later Stretch unclipped them again but i was in the quadrant so my teammates helped me fix them again. Riding point wasn't too bad. It requires more effort than people think. I really got to watch the drills though. They were scary at some points. It's hard to believe we only have two more rides to work with this drill. Our Flag final is on the 19th. At 1 was ropes. It was too muddy to get good practice in so we tried our best. I wasn't paying attention to my mouth and had to run a lap for saying can't. Guess what!? I wiped out lol. I baseball slid in the mud. The only thing that was really hurt was my pride. I changed Bandannas and JI'd for T7. I got Stretch! The weather drastically changed and it got SO COLD! I felt so bad for the little kids. I had signed out my liberty horse earlier and my teammates took him to the white for me. I had Dodger! We warmed up and my instructor told another girl and I that we were calling. I was #2 of 1st pair for the first drill. It wasn't great. Dodger did fairly well though. We ran out of time so I'll get to call at our next ride. I'm kind of glad I'll get another chance to study some more. I unsaddled him and sent him home. I was chilled to the bone and hadn't eaten all day. I crashed early that night that's for sure.