Hanging in there...

... or rather, hanging onto!
Today was quite the ride! Thanks to the wind and people doing whatever, the curly horse lost it's usual calm demeanor and got considerably jumpy. It started already on the way to the outdoor riding ring that she seemed to feel a bit insecure. When I tried to mount, she got scared, jumped aside and galloped forward, with me not really up but hanging onto her side. It was.. interesting.
I learned a great deal.. a) western saddles rock! even without a perfectly tight girth, they don't slide of the horse (provided they fit well) b) I'm not likely to fall off, no matter what, and I do manage some athletic climbing on a jumpy galloping horse. :) c) western saddles are hard and unusual usage can lead to bruises.

The rest of the riding went very well though. As did the past days and I've got the feeling that the horse and I are getting better and better and finally are forming a 'team'! It's also becoming more and more fun to train and trail ride lately.

Spring riding!

It's been a while since I managed to post about us and this will be yet again a rather short post.
Riding or no riding, that was the question lately! Mostly I ended up riding and training lots, however, the few 'free' days I had over the last weekend ended up cleaning the stable instead of riding. Though it didn't train the horse, it surely trained me. :) And after all, it's a noble task to get everything clean and in order. Nevertheless, I've been looking forward to riding and yesterday I finally managed again and ended up with a 1 1/2 hour ride. First it was a lot of training and then a nice short trail ride. I like to end any training/ride with a trail ride, no matter how 'short' it is. Today, after work, there wasn't much time left and I got to the stable wondering if I get to ride at all, but when I arrived, the others there urged me to join them. So I sprinted to get the horse from the pasture, brushed her in no time and was ready in time for a short, bareback trail ride with a group of people and their non-curly horses. Before we went on the ride, the others examined the curly and said, she had grown again. I probably looked quite confused and took a closer look and .. doh!.. she did grow more!!! I hadn't really noticed.. probably because I see her every day. But they were right. My 'smaller sized' curly is growing into a rather 'large' horse! :P I wonder how huge she's going to be. Getting on without a saddle is slowly turning into gymnastics, hihi.

Sadly, I don't really get to take many pictures at the moment and didn't find enough time to post any. I hope I can post more in the future so that you all can see the horse too and not just hear about her.

Oh What A Night! :)

Tonight was a blast.  Kaelyn got to practice some around the world on Honey tonight as well as work on trusting her and herself.  She got to work on her balance too which was a plus.  Even Cynthia and Mike got on to try some around the world.  I too got to do some around the world and enjoy miss Honey's trust that her and I have built up.  Did some stretches with her to help her back, abdominals, and lumbo-sacral joint.  She also got a pedicure ;) such a spoiled happy girl.  Miss Kai was very kissy and lovey tonight as well.
-Bethany

Comfy

Love this mare!

Stretch! or as Mike says "chillaxing"

Around the World

Kai kisses!

Fun

The past few days I've been trying to keep up the riding experience during April and managed to ride almost every day. As before, it's lots of fun.
It's the first year, that I can acctually ride this much. The horse is becoming more and more trained with increased stamina and starts to have fun galloping. Having a rather tricky (as in dominant) horse, she's not always easy to convince to do something and has her own opinion of many things. But the more I ride, the better it works and the more fun we have. I usually start with some schooling in the outdoor riding ring and then continue with a short trail ride. Today, there was a lot of noise at the stable and she got very anxious as she couldn't figure out what the noise was (some machines cutting wood and other work stuff). So I changed my plan of a pure long trail ride to schooling and then a shorter trail ride. It was great weather, the sun was shining and it was fun training and afterwards riding through the forest. It's very relaxing and invigorating at the same time to go out riding on a beautiful day without any worries or work related stress.
I hope everyone else had a great weekend with good riding times as well!

Curly Horse Senior Project

Complete!

Well I can finally say that I have done it!  My senior project based around the Curly Horse breed in complete.  If anyone is interested in a copy I will gladly send you one.  This project has been a lot of fun and I have expanded my knowledge so much by doing it.  This is something that I am truly passionate about.  Unfortunately the paper is much too long for me to post on this blog, but if you would like a copy feel free to email me at bhannahp@comcast.net and I will very gladly send you one.  Thank you all for your support and help in this endeavor!

~Bethany

What a Perfect Day!

What a view.

With all of this heat and direct sunlight its been too hot to ride here.  This morning was mellow enough to get out and spend some time in the saddle though.  Thank goodness!  Took Honey out on the trail outback through the woods to see just how many trees came down on the pathway.  Come to find out that we had to bushwhack most of the way due to the trees and large branches covering large sections of the trail.  Honey was a champ and with a little reminder to slow down and look where her feet were going we made it from one end to the other, no problem. She even got a good hosing down.

This is her "of thank goodness we are done" face.

After our hose off.

What a character

I also spent some time working with Kai again this morning.  We have been doing lots of round penning and some work on giving to halter pressure for leading.  She's starting to become more patient and willing to work with me on the halter pressure.  She has also found her sassy spunk and really enjoys kicking up her heals when she runs.  Kai is still itchy as we haven't been able to get all of her winter coat off yet and so she's been rubbing on the fence rails and knocking a few down.

Talent.

Overall it has been an amazing couple of weeks and the weather has finally improved to melt the snow and clear off the outdoor riding ring.  Here's to a summer of working horses and having fun! :)

~Honey & Bethany

April!

First of all,  congrats to Cyndi and everyone else who took part in the April event.

I would like to recount a bit of how it went for us (the curly and me).

 Well, it started off with awful weather. It changed between rain, snow, icy rain, sunshine every two minutes and thus it was impossible to ride as there's no indoor riding ring, just outdoor.
The second week however really rocked. I managed to ride 1 1/2 hours on average a day and I must admit I've never ridden this much in a week before. My horse was started under saddle gently last summer and though I rode her more or less regularly, never as much as this month, especially the second week. I also used to do a lot of groundwork, but this event changed it all! I started riding a lot, I rode almost every day, I even dragged myself to the stable after work despite being exhausted already just to get in another half an hour of riding. :) And it was a lot of fun!!! I found a good mixture of training and trail rides with a priority on training as we're still both in the learning process and need to work on getting better.

Anyway, to sum it up: the event got me really started on riding and enjoying it much more than before, despite the horse's spring issues (bucking, being generally uncooperate, being more interested in grass etc.). And I do hope that I can keep it up the coming month whenever the weather allows riding.

A big thank you to Denise for getting us all off our butts and onto the horses this early in the year and coming up with great ideas!

WINNER of the April Mini Derby!!

To keep our RAC team motivated, 30 day mini challenges are planned through out the year. For the month of April it was something new!

The APRIL MINI DERBY

The Goal & Mission of the Derby:

The RAC team had to keep track of  their time under saddle/driving and for each hour they rode/drove, they received 4 points. They had to post their points online within 7 days of each ride to qualify those points. To keep the riders motivated, the leader board (standing) was posted each morning to show placings to date.

The WINNER of this Derby was:  Cyndi Morin and her Curly Gelding Sunny!! CONGRATULATIONS CYNDI!!