What we've been up to....

So, these picutres of my boy - our oldest Curly gelding - were taken two weekends ago when I decided it was a good idea to ride and train all my horses. I get so caught up with riding Traveler and keeping him in training for competitions, that some of the younger horses are a little neglected. With great aspirations I saddled up and rode for 7 hours on Saturday switching horses and helping my kids ride, ground driving, jumping etc. Let me tell you, I could NOT get out of bed on Sunday morning. Ooops - what was I thinking. Thankfully, theses picures don't reflect the level of exhaustion I felt later on in the day.

I have been working with this gelding (Khatmoondhu) on and off all summer. I am proud to say that I broke him to ride, myself, and he is an absolute great horse. He's fun, starting to be more responsive and not flighty at all. We worked over trot poles and did a little cross-rail and he took it all in stride. What a good boy. He has started in having official lessons with our dressage instructor and I am really looking forward to seeing what he will be able to accomplish.

In the picture below you can tell we are working on our headset. He doesn't quite know where I want him to hold his head - (really, just not straight out and up like a giraffe.)

Seeing how far I have come with Traveler, their dad, I am really excited to discover what his sons are capable of achieving. Traveler only started his training when he was 8 - and it was a bit of a steep learning curve for him and me - to start a horse at a young age, from the ground up, is a really exciting prospect.

And now I have to update you all on my big boy, Traveler. I actually get emotional when I think about what we were able to do this last weekend. I started my 2-day intense training sessions, again, to work on dressage and jumping with a world class eventing trainer. At the end of the second day we were completing some really technical, tight jumping patterns that required Traveler to jump a 3'6" oxer, canter three strides, and almost turn on his hunches to hit another fence 6 strides away at a canter. And then keep going, doing the same thing for about 8 fences.

Doing this really tight and precise canter work is really hard for Traveler (and me), but he is coming along.

I guess the emotional part comes when you ask your horse to do some really hard work and they respond and give it all they have and you have this amazing connection which is almost telepathic - it's only taken us 4 years to get it.

The really neat part - because in Eventing Traveler is an absolute anomaly - he's short (compared to their horses), he's a Curly (and noboby knows what kind of horse that is) and he's a stallion - is that Traveler is really proving himself, and the Curly breed. Where before we might have been "dismissed" - he is getting noticed.

Some of the really advanced riders came in during our riding session and I overhead them talking to the instructor - one said,"is that little horse jumping those jumps?" And the instructor told them to watch because Traveler can jump like nobody's business. And so we proceeded to do our "round" with this critical audience and they were taken aback at the end - because, yes indeed, this "little" horse can jump. Like a powerhouse.

At the end of the lesson the instructor told me that when Traveler and I can really get our canter work down - we are going to be jumping huge!

I am so proud of Traveler - this has been (and will continually be) a long work in progress, but every now and then it's really nice to get some great feedback from some really good riders. (It kinda evens out those times you leave the lesson in tears of frustration.)