So Studious!

So now it was time to think about the future. I had decided after Regionals to give Halo the Summer off for the most part (I’m not going to lie…I needed a break too!) .  I wanted to let her grow up, and planned to get her started as a true 4yo (in May of 2016). So I decided to focus on just giving her new experiences, such as hauling into a schooling show for just two quick classes and going home. Or being tied to the trailer and just eating hay. Or getting clipped, calmly, with no drugs on board. Easy stuff that she would need to know to survive life as a horse.

 

So I heard about a tiny schooling show series right down the road from me (like literally a mile away) at the local fairgrounds. You could get a stall, or work off the trailer. I decided it would be good for Halo to just work off the trailer as I hoped at some point to be able to haul her in to dressage shows for just a few hours around my ride time, and haul out following my ride so that we didn’t have to do an overnight stall every time when she was finally being shown under saddle. I asked Gavin if he would haul us there, and he agreed. Halo was wound up in the ring (she didn’t love the other horses walking behind her outside the arena) but we did OK in our showmanship and halter classes and ended up with a couple ribbons and some free wormer we won for our effortsJ

 

They are just silly .10c ribbons, but they felt good because, ribbons!

It was a fun, stress free learning experience for us both, and she was so good following her classes as Gavin walked her around the fairgrounds she’d never seen before. It was fun seeing them walking around and Gavin talking to her like his buddyJ

 

Halo had only once been tied to the trailer before. Gavin took her out for her hand walk one night over the winter when I had to stay late at work. He took her down the driveway and across the paved road to check the mail, and then tied her to the trailer while he put her food in her stall. She’d never done this before, but apparently it went fine, because the trailer and my horse were in one piece when I got home. So after this little “incident” (I about had a panic attack!) I decided that was something I should probably work on. So we did a bit of that as well. She still got a little excited when she saw another horse and I was worried she’d hurt herself, so I untied her. So I think this is something we will have to revisit some more when we have time this Summer.

 

This whole trailer tying thing—not so bad!

Previously, when it was time to clip her for shows, I’d have my friend come give her dormosedan a few days prior to the day I planned to show, and clipped her extra close and let it grow out so it was perfect length when time came to show her. Halo is actually pretty good about my clipping her. She is a bit touchy about the legs, but doesn’t mind her face, or bridle path at all. She HATES her ears clipped. So this summer I made sure to work  on that as well. I think this is something I’m going to make a daily thing this Summer as well. When I groom her, I’ll just plan to throw the clippers in every time too. So it becomes old hat. I think that is just a good thing to do with anything they aren’t good at. Make it part of the daily routine.

Halo says: “Drugs are bad, mmmkay?”

Anyhow, the next decision to make was who was going to start her. I had a whole boatload of talented friends who also happened to be trainers. The thing about my girl is that she is super sensitive and holds a grudge, but she’s also really brave and happy to do something for you—especially if you make her think it’s her idea;) But the biggest thing for me was someone who was both brave and bold, but also tactful and willing to work outside the box. Miss P suggested a trainer that she knew of that combined natural horsemanship and dressage and I knew I’d found the perfect fit! Let’s just call him “The Guru” (he’ll think this is funny, I’m certain).

 

So to start it off, I decided we needed to haul to him and take a lesson. My horse wasn’t ready to ride yet, so we planned a ground session at the farm he works at and had Gavin haul us out there (fun fact: I’ve been riding nearly 20 years, but I’ve never hauled a horse, despite owning my own trailer for 15 of those 20 years…). We had a great ground lesson, learning a lot about the horse and a ton about myself (always a good sign of a lesson). I became aware how often I was allowing Halo to be in charge. Even just working around things, or something as small as stepping backward or away from her when she got in my space was telling her she was the boss mare. And she was. She was very respectful about her position in our herd, but she was most definitely in charge (darn it!). At the end of the session The Guru even gave The Guy a mini lesson on the same stuff.

 

At the end of the session Halo was feeling very smart, and Gavin and I had our heads full of instructions from our lessons, so imagine my surprise when I looked up and saw The Guru laying over Halo’s back, and Halo walking around in a circle like it was no big deal. I was so shocked and pleased, that I didn’t even get a picture. But I assure you—it happened! J

Championship Mindset

So here we are, already a year since we were last at Region V Sport Horse Championships! I can’t believe how fast a year went by! So last year at Regionals our age group (2 year old fillies) was small, but competitive. This year, since Halo is a 3yo we had to step up and show against the big girls (aged mares), which means we would potentially be showing against mares who were working the upper levels of dressage and actively showing at open dressage and hunter shows. What this also means is said mares are going to, by default, generally be more fit than Halo.

 

Since Halo isn’t under saddle yet, and because I don’t believe in working them into the ground as babies, she really only got light lunging, usually with no side reins as her work. So needless to say, she was NOT fit going into Regionals. Also, she was currently butt high!

 

I have to say, all that hauling to schooling shows, and doing Regionals and Nationals last year really paid off in a big way as far as her settling into a new place quickly and happily. It was HOT at the show. Like we hauled in and it was 90* and my poor Princess got sweaty on her 10 minute haul to the show grounds. Oh, did I not mention that we have one of the top show grounds in the state for Dressage shows right in our backyard? I didn’t? Well let me just let that sink in, hehe!

 

So we get to the show, I unload Halo into her (enormous) stall and bed the crap out of it with fresh shavings (I pre-bought two bags since she is grey, and a pig), hung up her slow feed hay net, filled two buckets with water (one of which she drained in a matter of 30 mins or so), and proceeded to unload my tack trunk and other belongings from the trailer. I opted to leave my hay in the trailer, as my stall was on the end of the aisle, which sloped down and made it hard to have a nice place to set the hay. It worked out ok though, because I just left it in the parked trailer and packed a new net every feeding time and packed it over in my car.

 

So anyways, she did her usual rear up and look over the wall antics, then settled right into her hay net.

 

So I went on over to the show office to get signed up for my classes. So the cool thing about this show, is it is a qualifying show, and then championships in concurrence. So you can haul into one show, in essence and qualify for regionals (or not) and then show in the regionals classes (or not). So I went ahead and entered her for just the Sport Horse Celebration classes for now, hoping we’d qualify for Regionals since we’d not shown at any other shows this year. I entered her in Arabian Mares Sport Horse In Hand Hunter Type ATH and Arabian Mares Sport Horse In Hand Hunter Type Open, as well as Arabian Mares Sport Horse In Hand Dressage Type ATH and Arabian Mares Sport Horse In Hand Dressage Type Open.

 

If you’ve never watched a sport horse in hand class at an Arabian show, it is somewhat molded after the DSHB shows where they show young horses in hand and get graded on their suitability toward competition types, as well as conformation. At the arab shows, they have two types—hunter and dressage type—and often people will cross enter their horses (most just because they can) which is what I did because as a young horse not under saddle yet, I’m always interested to see what the individual judges (depending the type, the judge will be a judge whom has judged at open dressage or hunter shows, so has a preference for that type of horse) think my girl is suited to.

 

I’ve attached a video below of one of my goes for a dressage judge. This particular go was not great, it was our last go of the day and she was tired and bored. You’ll see me lengthen my stride across the flat side of the trot portion and she just sort of lagged behind me. I should’ve tapped her with the whip once if I was smart!

 

When I run her for the hunter judge, I try to keep her head low her gait slower and less animated, and her disposition as calm as I can. When I run her for a dressage judge, I generally try to get her a tad hyped up first as they like to see a bit more fire and Halo tends to be lazy behind, so that helps her track up under herself.  It’s also just good solid training in general, asking them to move their body parts, rate their speed, be polite, and stand quietly for a good look.

 

We call showing in hand, showing on the triangle, or running the triangle, because essentially that’s what we are doing. You start at the point of the triangle and stand your horse up in “open stance” so the judge can do their walk around judging any conformational faults. They check tack (halter for yearlings and two year olds, bridle with hunter or dressage legal bit for 3 and up) as well. Open stance is just a way of standing up your horse so that their feet nearest the judge are at an open angle, and the ones furthest are closer together in angle, so that all 4 legs are visible. If you know your horse and practice right, you can learn to stand them up so that their faults aren’t quite so glaring, but for the most part, the judges are pretty savvy to that sort of thing.

 

The next portion when you are excused to the triangle for judging is to walk off clockwise straight away from the judge, then you make a turn to go to the flat side of the triangle where you extend the walk (can be difficult with a young horse because they like to go faster, as opposed to stretching out and lengthening the stride), then you turn the corner and come straight back to the judge. As you come around the point of the triangle again, you do the same thing, only at the trot and at a longer distance. Some handlers like to bust around the corners at the trot so as not to lose momentum, I personally like to slow around the corner and regroup for a straight line, and build the extended trot along the length, the hardest part is getting them back to you around the last turn. You won’t lose any points for letting your horse blow this turn a bit. It’s better to have a nice trot, than a good turn. I like to have both because, well, we are little and we can.

 

So anyways, now that you’ve seen a properly (while not ideally) executed pattern, you can try it on your own!

 

So our placings on Friday at the Celebration were 2^nd in Hunter Type ATH, 3^rd Hunter Type Open, 4^th in Dressage Type Open and 6^th in Dressage Type ATH (this was our last go, from the video above and she was just feeling downright lazy).

 

So this qualified us for Regionals in all 4 classes, as all we had to do was beat two horses in each class.

 

Unfortunately this meant we had to just hang out until Sunday for our regionals classes! So in the meantime, we took walks, lunged, grazed, chilled, got a bath, and had lots and lots and lots of hay and water.

 

So Sunday rolls around and my awesome friends Coral and Kat (who also happens to be my awesome coach/cheerleader/braider/hairdresser) plus my lovely mommy were on hand to help. We got Princess all ready to go and went up to the arena to get our show on. Of course while we were waiting Halo managed to scratch one of her dressage braids out with her rear foot. Seriously. Like it looked ridiculous and we were next. So Coral was awesome and managed to fold it back up and throw my (blue) hair tie in to fix it (note to self: keep matching bands up at arena JIC). I went into my dressage type goes (we just did one after the next) totally frazzled, but managed good triangles (the last one, Open, felt meh because she broke to a canter). Then ran over to the hunter arena, braided her tail, switched bridles (yay 3yo baby horse—did this in the wide open with no issues) and ran our two patterns in there.

 

We hung out the rest of the day checking for results and generally just enjoying spending time with friends. Gavin came to pick us up, but we hadn’t gotten our placings (and therefore ribbons) yet so we just hung out, had a nice lunch. Did I mention that the previously discussed very nice dressage farm 10 minutes from home also has one of the best cook shacks I’ve ever been to at a show? I mean, a bacon, swiss, avocado burger? At a horse show? With a fountain and music in the background and covered porch to eat on? You can people and horse watch, shop the vendors and eat all from a cool, shady spot. It’s top notch.

 

Anyhow, as I’m picking up my lunch, a fellow competitor who happens to share my name AND have a cute grey mare we competed against in hand tells me congrats. I’m like thanks! For what? Oh, you didn’t know? You won. I was like, oh I won like, 2^nd or???

 

No you guys. We freaking won the OPEN dressage type. In that class, many of the other mares were run by the trainers and hired handlers. We beat some REALLY nice mares. REALLY nice. The judge from that class was the dressage type judge that would be judging at Nationals (wayyy over in North Carolina this year, sadly) so that was like DOUBLE cool. Now the classes weren’t as large as they are in years when the National show is on the west coast rotation (somewhere between 7 and 10 horses), but it was still a huge accomplishment. Even cooler? We went Reserve Champion in the ATH, and Top 5 (3^rd & 5^th) in the two hunter type classes! I mean, I was over the moon excited.

 

It’s funny, for all the success we’d had (even SHN Reserve National Champion) the win in this class at our little Regional show sort of felt like a landmark. We hadn’t ever WON a class, and now my baby horse was a National Reserve Champion, Regional Champion, 2x Regional Reserve Champion and 2x Regional Top V. I mean, that’s truly not bad for a 3yo. And totally worth every cent and minute we spent getting it done.

 

The best part? Save for ONE open class at our first Regionals…we did it on our own. With Kat there to guide us, of course. I’ve certainly had my meltdown moments…but boy have they been worth it. I love this little horse. Went back to the stall, loaded up the Regional Champion Princess Punky Pants, and off we went…ten minutes to home ;)

Give Me A Shot

So my ultimate goal with Halo is to someday have a great trail horse that I can also show in dressage, or western trail, or haul to team penning events or whatever else it is I so choose to do that day. Basically a good minded horse, that is also pretty. To do so, you need to get said horse used to many things.

 

 At her first home she learned the basics from birth, some clipping, grooming, being led and tied and just basically handled.

 

When I moved her, she got used to being out with new, bigger, more dominant horses. She learned how to lead politely, and not run me over when something was scary. She learned about scary things like garden hoses (going to eat her), BBQ grills (might jump at her), and straight load trailers(who cares, sure I’ll get on). She learned about fireworks (the place was within ear and eyeshot of a huge reservation where they have a large group of fireworks stands and nightly displays).

 

When she went to Cascade she got to learn about kids who run, ride bikes and bounce balls (these were scary at first, and eventually she became a grumpy old woman about them). About kids toys sitting in random new places (arenas, near the hot walker etc), and about how it’s not a big deal to leave the fenced in area and go on a walk down the road. Even when dogs bark at you. (this took some strength accomplish safely a few times!)

 

When I moved her to be at home with me, she learned about goats, and mini donkeys (these seemed to be things to chase). She learned about fierce wind and thunder storms (she doesn’t care at all about these things). She learned about teenagers hanging out in the barn and doing crazy stuff with their horses (which was cool because sometimes she got treats out of the deal). She learned about getting tied to a trailer (oops, accidentally actually…Gavin thought he’d just tie her up one night while he fed her).

 

The coolest thing she’s learned while living here though, is courtesy of my best friend, and next door neighbor Sarah. Sarah has three horses with whom she competes in barrels, western dressage and mounted shooting. She is equally good at all of them, but I think she really enjoys the mounted shooting. So she rents the house next door on 20+/- acres but she can’t keep her horses there (that’s a whole other story) so she boards them about 15 mins away. But because mounted shooting is a hard sport to practice in a public arena, she hauls her horses to her house and uses the pasture to practice in. Because of this Halo has become nearly totally broke to gunfire (I can’t tell you for sure if that is the case if I were to say, fire from her back…but alas). Here is a video of her reaction to said gunfire.

 

This was taken after I decided that day I needed to practice running her in the bridle for Sport Horse Regionals which was coming up quickly. Yes, I waiting until 2 weeks prior to the show to run her in a bridle for the first time (2 year olds are allowed to be shown in a halter, so that’s all I’ve ever practiced in!) Here are some photos of her looking very concerned about it. Also, the photo of her in the field is the same day as the gunfire, and she is looking after a herd of bike riders who rode by during a bike race. She was totally non-plussed by them….but don’t ask her to stand like that if they ride by on the road while we are out walking!!!

Also as a bonus, here she is two weeks out from Regionals...a good two inches higher in the rear..of course!

Here We Go Spook – De – Spook!

So since there was no western rotation of Nationals this year, I decided Halo needed to get out and do something that will make her work her mind before we tried to go to Regionals again. So we signed up for a de-spooking clinic at Highpoint Equestrian Center.

 

Some of the obstacles were to walk over a mattress, to get used to an umbrella, or a water box, or walking over a tarp and poles with empty plastic bottles in it. There were also poles setup where the horse had to walk through pool noodles, shredded plastic, poles with balloons on them.  They also had to wear and/or drag a tarp.

 

So we get there, and my filly is full of herself, prancing and whipping her head around looking at everything. If there is anything I’ve learned about this filly, it is that anything goes, as long as she has food. So I usually let her graze a tiny bit anywhere new, and that seems to reassure her. So we did that.

 

Then we went over to sign up for the clinic. I tied her to the hitching post (eek, I was a little nervous here!) and left Halo in the very novice hands of my boyfriend. He of course thinks I’m being silly for worrying that she will pull back and slip on the concrete and mangle herself, but any of my fellow equestrian worrywarts will fully understand.

 

So anyway, I run inside, sign all the forms and take a quick peak at the obstacles and instantly my heart starts racing. Small dark arena? Multiple horses? Stuff everywhere?! Just about the time my eyes were welling up with tears and my heart was getting ready to climb up my throat I mentally thought, “Okay, time to quit being such a baby. Your horse has a good brain, she will either be fine, or the trainer will take her and help you. Quit being a baby!” And so I went outside and got my baby horse. We walked in the arena with a very slight snort\, and big round Arabian eyes (you know, the kind that look like their brain could fall out of them at any moment?).

 

So anyways, we go stand in the corner of the arena (our very wary Arabian butt facing the railing behind which people were standing, constantly tucking tail and considering scooting) and listen to Tom, the trainer, explain that we are to take obstacles one at a time, leave safe spacing between everyone, and be vigilant of other horses in the arena so that there aren’t any wrecks.

 

Then he turns us loose. So I decide my first order of business is to walk around the arena and look at stuff. I immediately walk up to a balloon on the ground and kick it thinking it would spook her and get her to realize this was no ordinary walk in the park. Instead the toe of my boot popped it, and she didn’t even blink, just kept walking.

 

Wait. What? Um, okay. So we went ahead and walked up to the pool noodles on the ground and walked through those. Squeaky sounds commence. Aaaaand here it comes! Nothing. Just walked on through.

 

Soooo… did my horse’s brain ACTUALLY fall out her eyes and she now has the brain of the 30 year old paint a few pastures over orrrr…??

 

So I decided to try something a bit harder. Let’s go through the “car wash” (a sort of doorway that has strips of clear tarp hanging down that looks like a car wash). We weren’t THRILLED with this. She really didn’t mind putting her head and neck through, but anything rear of her withers was an excuse to spook. Clearly some patterns were showing (we don’t like things where we can’t see them). I took her through a few times until we were decidedly less flinch and moved on.



Halo says, well I can totally put my head through!

The next obstacle we tried was the jump standards with balloons taped to them so when you walk through they brushed your horses sides. She didn’t love it and went a bit quicker than I would’ve liked, so we concentrated on that for a bit. Eventually I was able to walk her through, AND back her through with very little flinch.

 

Then we went to walk through the empty pop bottles on top of a tarp. Nothing.

 

Then we went to walk over the high visibility orange plastic emergency/snow fence laid on the ground. It sounds crackly and even I hated walking on it. While she attempted to avoid it, she didn’t really care about it either.

Bridge was easy. Umbrella was a non-event (we wore it, we stepped on it… you know whateverrrr…). Walking over the mattress was a little exciting, she went to walk over it like it was a bridge and realized as she stepped on it that it was NOT solid. So we sort of launched off of it. After that it took a few times to get her over it without getting worried.

 

Raindrops aren’t falling on my head!

Then came our one sticking point. The one I was most convinced she was going to avoid. And avoid she did. The water box. We worked that thing for like 10 minutes before Tom came over and worked her through. Once she went she was quite calm about it. It was clearly a stubborn “I don’t want to get wet, wahhhh” Thing, as opposed to an “Oh boy, that’s awfully scary” thing. I was able to get her through a few times more.

 

Then since time wasn’t up yet, I upped the ante and went ahead and threw the tarp over her and walked her through the pool noodles. Nothing.

 

And lastly was the noise portion. We were to walk our horses around near the speakers where they played car horns, semi air brakes, clapping/cheering, dogs barking etc. None of these phased her.

 

Then came time for the flashing light and smoke machine. This was a little worrisome and probably the most reaction I got all day, but eventually it wan’t an issue either.

 

Interestingly, the worst part of the day was when I tied her to the arena wall to eat our boxed lunch that was provided. HELLLLOOO hole to China!

 

When all was said and done, we hopped right on the trailer and had an uneventful ride home. And she was happy to have some grassJ

Move N Scratchin

So now our National Champion Bratface Princess Punky Pants is starting to become a big girl. It was about this time that I realized that while the barn she was at took great care of her, I really wanted more control over how she was cared for.

So we went house hunting.

I posted on my facebook wall asking people if they knew any horse property for rent. We had a fairly small budget, so were likely not going to find anything, but I figured it was worth a shot.

Then I got a PM from a friend of a friend (we were facebook friends and she’d seen my post). She told me her tenant had just moved out, and they were trying to rent their place out but it was currently in the midst of renovations so it was a hard property to show/rent in that condition. SO we went and saw it. At night. With a thunder storm going on. Perfect house hunting conditions right? She was right, the home was mid-reno and it was basically a shell. It was hard to see what it would look like when it was done, but we have vision and we trusted their taste.

Plus, the home was on an 11 acre lot, with a 12 stall barn w/wash rack and tack room, plenty of trailer parking and a 4 car detached garage/shop for all of G’s tools/cars/stuff/Christmas decorations. We would share the barn/acreage with the landlord but have the house/shop/yard to ourselves. Seemed like a great deal, so we agreed despite the fact that the place wouldn’t be ready for move in until after our current lease was up. We made arrangements to stay with my parents for 2 weeks and were allowed to move stuff into the shop at the new house in the meantime. 

So we were finally going to live on horse property! It was so nice to be able to go check on and snuggle my horse whenever I wanted to. She had a nice warm stall (which she did not appreciate because she HATES being stalled), buddies (goats and two other Arabian horses) as well as pasture to keep her belly full and brain occupied.

I loved having her at home finally, where I could monitor what she was eating, choose what hay I wanted, keep her stall and paddock picked and dry, and generally just spoil her.

Unfortunately it was unusually wet and warm the winter of 2014 when we moved in, and about a month after moving in she got scratches.

If you've never waited for a horse to dry in 30* weather, you do not know boredom or impatience like I. Yes, she's wearing a towel on her head.

Now, if you are a horse person and you’ve never dealt with scratches—lucky you. I had been fortunate enough not to have come across this nightmare previously, despite having lived in WA since the beginning of my horse “career” and having had horses who lived in much muddier situations. I always thought that it was only something horses whose owners were neglectful got. I scoffed at people who told me what a pain it was, mentally thinking “Well clearly you don’t take good enough care of your horse.” Yeah, not so. Or, "clearly your property is gross." Also, not so.

I fed Halo the best of the best feed, she got groomed daily, brushed her legs, wore a (multiple) nice clean blankets, had a dry, clean stall (I am OCD about stall cleaning), and her boots/bell boots washed every time I used them.  The property itself was beautiful and the owners of the place are wonderful, diligent and neat people. But sadly, she is grey (and I found out the hard way, lighter colored horses are more susceptible to it), and enjoys standing in mud puddles grazing. So she started to get scratches, and because I wasn’t expecting it, and because I brushed her with a brush every day and picked up her hooves to pick them out by the actual hoof, not her leg, I didn’t feel the scabs starting to form until they were quite extensive.

Unfortunately for me, my horse hates enclosed spaces, water and any sort of picking at scabs, which of course makes trying to treat scratches an absolute nightmare. If you’ve never seen scratches and want an idea of what it’s like, picture thousands of little scabs all over the horses legs, sort of like rain rot on the legs. They itch, and sting, and pulling them off and treating them with shampoo, and medication and keeping the horse dry are the only way to treat them. The thing that will drive you the most nuts is that when you pick a scab off that opens up a sore which can let more bacteria in and start the infection process all over again.

So I got the vet involved, started with betadine shampoo with warm water, then rinsed with cold water, and then dried REALLY well and applied silvadene which is actually a human grade burn cream and is a super-healing salve. It does a good job drying out the scabs and allowing them to close out and fall off without opening up new sores so as to keep the bacteria out. I first had to keep her in all day/night for several days which was a total nightmare. She kicked her stall, and reared and chest bumped the door. We had to close the top of both her interior and exterior door which REALLY pissed her off.

Halo really appreciated her hand walks, and I enjoyed them as well. They taught me to be brave and trust that she was going to be a good girl. Plus it was quiet and calming.

Eventually though she was able to go back outside, but I still had to clean and treat every night. And one point the silvadene stopped working, so I switched to castile soap at night, drying really well and putting on fungasol gel from Absorbine. I started putting that on the lower parts of her legs every morning, and was able to start spot treating her, instead of having to slather it on all over.

Eventually it dried up and I was finally able to relax after I fed her at night, and what a relief that was. I would never wish scratches on my worst enemy! This year she has been at a different facility all winter so have not yet had to deal with it, but hoping that the (really nice!) gravel paddocks that the awesome barn owners added over summer, the pasture management, combined with me knowing off the bat not to let it get out of control will help it from happening again.

What really sucks is scratches is not a thing you can just rid the property of and can be at no fault to the property owner. It lives in the soil, and if your horse is susceptible it will happen no matter what.

 

At this point I'm really enjoying working with this little punky. She is finally growing up and it is SO. FUN.

 

Learning Curve

So now Halo is 2.5, and really needing some new stuff to keep her little mind busy. We started doing some lunging in side reins, some laying over her back, some side reins, some ground driving.


She is a good girl and really enjoys working and learning new stuff and that makes me really happy. Nothing is worse than a horse that hates working or hates their job. It makes your life and their life miserable.

 This was my first time laying over his back. 

So one of the things she really needed work on was desensitizing to all sorts of things. Dogs, kids, cars, bikes, balls. You name it. The cool thing was this barn was a family barn and the owners have 4 young children so there is always something happening. 

One particularly good day one of the owners kiddos was down at the barn and wanted to groom the "baby oonicorn" (Baby Unicorn=Halo). So I let her go ahead and brush her, Halo was very unsure but super well behaved.

Brushing the baby oonicorn (she says it OOH nicorn lol).

 

We also worked on seeing new things. So the farm has a beef cow herd and they milk the mommas too, so the calves get bottle fed half formula/half milk which means they have to be in stalls. So Halo was very intrigued by this and had to stop and investigate.

 

 Why, hello tiny, weird horse.

 

We also started working on getting pads, girths, bridles etc on. She seemed to really enjoy all the new stuff I was throwing at her, as evidenced by this photo:)

  So my mom got me some new accessories--what do you think? I think they are fun to wear, and I look very fashionable!

 

And a few photos of her with her pulled mane following Nationals. I love love her with a pulled mane. :)

 

  Because cute.

 

National Recognition

So Regionals went ok! Halo was so chill and so well received (she received fantastic scores) that I decided I should look forward. The fun part about the Arabian Sport Horse portion of the registry, is that it is A. The only breed registry that offers a separate designation for sport horses (Dressage, Hunter, Jumper, Eventing, Carriage Driving, and Endurance) and that B. The National show has an East Coast/West Coast rotation.

This might seem a little foreign for most other registries, Dressage Championships along with most breed National shows happen at a "central" location (usually Oklahoma, Texas, Kentucky etc) but the Sport Horse being such a popular division has warranted a rotational Nationals, which actually allows people who would otherwise be unable, to travel to a National show at least once every other year.

So in 2014, the year we went Reserve at Region V, Nationals was on the West Coast in Nampa, ID at the ID Horse Park. This was a lucky break for Halo and I, as our coach Kat DeVol and one of her other clients Darsie and her horse Phil were planning on making the trek. With a bit of planning and a LOT of scrounging and saving, both Darsie and I were able to make plans to be there.

Now, it was not cheap. I spent well over $2000 to get Halo there for ONE class. So if our class didn't go well, I was basically throwing that money down the toilet (insert positive comment about how the experience was worth it here--and by the way, it was).

So. We made the 10 hour drive to Nampa. Left REALLY early. Did I mention my horse had only been hauled about 5 times, and NEVER more than 20 mins at a time. So she hops right on the trailer, and off we go. We stopped to pick up Darsie and Phil and on our way.

On the road again!!

So after a very long, boring, uneventful, but still nerve-wracking (oh, did I mention both me and Darsie are hyper-anxious about our horses...like bad?) trip, we made it! We got all set up and both horses went right to eating and drinking like good little ponies.

Halo settled right in. It was quite hot when we got there, but it was cooling down very fast (Nampa is sort of desert-like).

The next day I took Halo for a walk around the grounds, had a nice lunge and then grazed a bit to help her settle. Did I mention my one class was on Friday and it was Tuesday we hauled in? (Darsie's horse is under saddle and his riding classes began Weds afternoon so we wanted to give him plenty of time to settle). 

Early morning Philbert with an IG philter.

 

We had lots of time to walk around and see the sights. Which turned out to be great for our confidence and trust in each other. We had a few lessons in hand from Kat, just to really tweak and perfect our running style.

 We did some grazing (in our fancy sparkle bell boots of course).

 We watched some horses go out in the dressage rings. We call this "contemplating our future".

Here Halo and I are waiting our turns at the little ring they have for letting horses move around a bit. Sort of a free lunging ring. It is a really nice thing to have at a long show like this.

 

We also spent a lot of time in our stall, just chilling. It was so hot and we had not anticipated the horrible flies (apparently late summer is when they hatch, and the warm weather helped them to come out). We were told to get big box fans (Wally World, here we come!), which would help with the heat, and also help keep the flies out of our stalls. Halo was not sure about the fan at first, but quickly realized it was quite refreshing.

 

Not entirely certain, but I think she might've believed she was a super model...??

Now onto the results. Darsie and Phil had some absolutely FANTASTIC rides in huge classes, and came away with two National Top Tens, one of which was actually a 3rd in a very large, very competitive Sport Horse Show Hack class.

Phil, Darsie and our coach Kat DeVol after Darsie's 2nd Top 10.

 

As stated before, Halo and I only had one class. So it was sort of a do or die sort of situation for us. If we screwed up, or the judges didn't like her, or whatever, we would be on our way home with our tails tucked.

 

We got all braided up and cleaned (we ended up forgoing the bath because Halo was terrified of the wash racks, and they were concrete floors so I was worried she would hurt herself) off, we headed up to the ring. Only to be told it would be another 45 minutes before our class because they were running behind. Of course, my horse had grease on her face, and hoof oil on her feet, so now I had to put her back in her shavings loaded stall. Cue meltdown. Seriously. I was so ready to just get out there and do the thing that I totally melted down when I was told I would have to wait our turn. 

Here's hoping we don't see this before our Nationals class!

 

One of my old trainers was there and very kindly offered to show her for me, I think she took my meltdown as nerves (and rightfully so!) I didn't even blink, I said no I am determined to do this! Our good friend Todd patted me on the back and told me that it was fine, we would just clean her back up when the time came. And the time came. And we cleaned her up. And Kat raced up to get me in my class, and then had to run down to the dressage rings to help Darsie and Lindsey (our classes were going at the same time). So I was on my own for the results. Oh, except for some AWESOME barn friends who drove all the way out JUST to watch our class and turn around and go home!

 

 And the results are in....2014 Reserve National Champion 2yo Arabian Fillies Sport Horse In Hand!!!

 

I think the thing that made me the most proud is we actually were first on one card and tied for third on the other. So the Hunter and Dressage judges both liked her very similarly. That, and we beat the very nice filly who beat us at Region V, along with SO many other nice, nice fillies. PLUS the winner was from Al-Marah who have very nice horses and always clean up in hand. AND I was, I believe, the ONLY amateur handler. Which means I was the only non - professional (trainer) showing my horse.

 

What a show!