Exciting News!!!

Hey guys, so you may have seen the post earlier saying I had some exciting news, well here it is! I am being asked to train another persons horse! I am officially a horse trainer!! So here how it goes, a friend of our was talking to my mom, and my mom told them about how well I have trained Chuck these past few months, and lately his son has been having trouble with their 4 year old named Copper. I know Copper, but not very well, I can see having a few problems with general respect because I was at their house a few times when he was a yearling and a 2-year old, (he is now 4 years old, has had some training done last year, and the people who owned him also owned Navajo) and he was very mouthy, and got in your space, a little of that can be expected from them, but not as much as what was happening, I don't believe I will be getting paid, but the experience itself is enough of a payment, and the help I will give to Randi and Copper! I won't be really taking videos or many many pictures, but will update you on the progress, we still have to work out dates because they have a very busy family and 3 boys, a military dad, cubscouts and all kinds of sports and everything in their lives, so it will be hard to find tons of time, thats why you have to make the time well worth it :)

My Sister Riding Chuck

Hey guys, heres the video of my step sister (not roni) riding Chuck, this was her first time actually riding a horse by herself, so she did very well for her very first ride, she was even able to stop Chuck without the reins, I didn't start her on leg ques yet, those are a little complicated for the very first ride you take lol especially when all other times even sitting on a horse were in a saddle,  she may even begin to take riding lessons at High Bridge too!

Sunday Riding

    Hey guys, so yesterday was super fun, we went to my grandmas house and messed with the horses, and I had to drive my dads jeep over there, I only killed it twice lol I say for only having drivin it 3 times I was pretty happy stupid clutch is so touchy! So we went down to the farm and went out and caught the horses. I decided I would work with Pearl, she hasn't been worked with at all since labor day, and even then we just rode her for a little bit, she hasn't had an ground work done at all, so I decided to work with her on lunging, she goes okay until you ask for a direction change, then she gets disrespectful and rears, charges and invades your space. and even in this case its the persons fault, nobody ever taught her any different than that before we got her, she learned from her old owners when they lunge her, she can make them stop by giving release... we haven't done any ground work with her, and by the time I was done working with her she was going around nice and calm :) So I will make a shortend version of the 45 min video of working with her for you guys, and do a voice over to explain what I was doing to solve the problem.

    After that I got Chuck out to work with him, he did super good, after a little while my step sister came down, and she has never actually ridden a horse by herself, and I let her ride Chuck, her very first non leading around ride, she rode bareback and was even able to get Chuck to stop without using her hands at all!!! See guys tons of beginners rely on reins, bits and force, I will continue working with her, I havn't started teaching her leg cues yet, but that will come next! I will post the video of her riding Chuck tonight, so...
If a first time rider, riding bareback can stop a horse without the reins whats stopping you??? 
Also I have some exciting news, but that will have to wait until I have more time to write tonight, remember THINK LIKE A HORSE!!!

Spring Break going to the Barn!

Hey guys, so sorry for being so late about this, but here is a little of what I did over spring break, so, the first weekend we just hung out, because it was a little chilly, then we went riding on Monday, we made an obstical course again :) then we hung out some more, then on Thursday, we went riding again, we didn't do any obstical courses, we just rode and had a good time, then on Saturday we had our barn day, we came in and signed our paperwork for the new year, then we all had a grooming contest, I helped some little kids, one of them was new to our barn, her name was Caroline :) Here is the picture of Basil the horse we groomed :)

 

After that we messed around in the arena, we did some neat exercises with centering, and did a little bible study, then we got 3 of the horses out Snickers, Cinnamon, and Basil. We did more with centering with Cinnamon and Basil, Basil was for the little kids cause she is smaller and the little saddle fits her best, and Cinnamon was for the older kids. Snickers got tacked up for vaulting and everybody got to take a turn on him and we got to practice on him. Some of the kids also practiced on the vaulting barrel too!

So the barn was upgraded, and thats why we didn't have lessons over the winter, but we start lessons up again on April 12th. Here are some more pictures from the barn, all that their used to be were 2 sets of cross ties (not any of the ones in the pictures, a small tack room, and 3 box stalls, but one used to be used for all the tack we had that didn't fit in the tack room. Now there is still a little bit left to do with windows and the two new box stalls, but now there is 7 new sets of cross ties, 2 new box stalls, a wash stall, a new tack room with heating and AC, and a lounge room with a bathroom and heating and AC, along with new lighting all throughout the barn! The windows really open up the whole space, the walls are open to the arena, and it makes the barn look a lot bigger than it really is! Here are some pictures!

The wash stall

The area from the lounge room...

people and some of the cross ties

some of the horses in the cross ties

a cute sign in the barn :)

the arena from the old end of the barn again

the vaulting barrel in front of the not so good mirror lol :)

Basil walking around waiting to give little kids a ride :)

Someone on Cinnamon, and Basil sitting in the backround

along the wall by the cross ties looking into the arena

So then we went riding again on Sunday, and turns out Chuck needs a new girth this happend twice!!!! so thats why we ride bareback for a little while... :)

 

Also we went to western edge, but the video isn't done yet so sorry! We did a little tack haul, so look forward to that!

Some Riding Videos

Hey guys, heres some of the other videos from spring break hope you like them!!!

          

  Heres the bit warmer videos the first is how what you do beforehand, and putting it on the bit, and then seeing if it actually worked! 

 

Riding Tackless!

Hey guys, so tonight was the first time Chuck and I rode COMPLETLY TACKLESS! No neck rope, no halter, nothing :) he did awesome :) I'm so happy, I will do a post tomorrow with quite a few more videos and a small "tack haul". So look forward to that, but here is the video of our first completly tackless ride :)

Most horses can go barefoot!

This right here is a very good suportive article that horses can go barefoot, it doesn't matter what type of horse you have, even if they work all day, on hard surfaces, its just people who don't know the damages that shoes can do to the hoof walls, and when they finally take the shoes off their horse is sore for awhile (just like if we took off shoes and tried to go about everyday things), so they go and put shoes back on anyways when all they needed to do was let their horse adjust to a more natural lifestyle!
http://thesoulofahorse.com/blog/houston-police-horses-all-barefoot/

Thursday Night Riding Fun

Hey guys, so sorry for not posting, but things have been busy! So Thursday night was an awesome night, and It really made me proud :) (almost to the point of happy tears) So we decided we wanted to ride the horses up, so we went out in search of them, and I being my klutzy self fell into a fence and now my arm has a nice bruise and scratch. So then after slowly making our way across the field through many many water holes/mud holes, we finally got to the horses. I walked up to Chuck thinking okay, I guess I really didn't need to bring out the brush for you, but then got a look at his other side lol glad I brought a curry with me :)

 

After we brushed them off, I gave Roni a leg up and then made an attempt to get on Chuck, at first he wouldn't stand by the fence and it was my fault too, because the fence I tried to stand on was falling apart, so I don't blame him because I was nervous, so I tried backing him up a few times and that wasn't working, so I decided to do a little ground work, I had him go around me four times, and then tried again and he stood perfectly :) So we started riding up and if you were following Roni's or my blogs you would have known Jack had a buddy sour/bolting problem which left me and roni in the dirt/mud multiple times last winter, and some of those were even with a saddle. Well all the other horses freaked out at something or got excited and decided they needed to come up from behind and blow by us at a gallop, to say the least Jack got a little excited and tried to go for a gallop too.  At first Roni froze up for a second, suprised, then she tried to stop him normally, that wasn't working so I yelled one rein stop to her, and she did it, and got him back under control. He spun in circles for a little bit and she got him calmed down. We continued on our way and the horses decided they should run again, and again she got him under control. I would also like to mention that she was riding him in a halter AND bareback!  :) I will say RONI IM SO SO SO PROUD OF YOU!!! 

I can't wait to see where you will go with Jack :) he has improved so much.  After that we brought them up to the yard to ride, Roni just worked with Jack on ground work, I tacked Chuck up english, and let my little sister ride around for a little bit and then hopped on myself and rode for a bit, it was dark by the time we went back up to my grandmas but it was an amazing night! SO PROUD OF YOU RONI!!

Heres 2 videos from thursday night, the first is our search for the horses, the second is when we caught them, goomed, mounted and rode back :)

Today riding...

Hey everybody, so today was a AMAZING DAY! We woke up and Nick came downstairs, and we messed around with paracord for a little bit, and I FINALLY got my "bucking" strap made for my english saddle, you can buy them on Chicks (Here) and so spending $14 plus the $7 shipping, not exactly the thing I really wanted to do, so I got my clip and made it, and in the pic the ends arn't cut yet, so thats why they are there. also they are in my 2 favorite colors :)

After that Nick took us to the farm, because nobody was around there today, and we got Chuck and Jack out and rode around. I rode Chuck in the curb again, and I will be doing a video on all the bits we have here in the next few weeks, and telling you about them, when to use them, and how they work. Chucks is actually a copper coated curb bit, so he likes the taste of it more, I am saving up some money to buy his new bit for him too.  Also Im super excited, and even though I can't really use it much for another 9 months my helmet/hat finally shipped and it will be here tomorrow night! I will show you guys what it looks like when I get it :) But anyways... Chuck is getting his leg ques down really good now, he had to be reminded a bit at first, because we did no ground work at all today, and they havn't been ridden or worked in awhile, just groomed and feed lol so he had some pent up energy, which wasn't bad, he didn't get punished, we just worked through it, and by the end of our ride time, I hadn't toutched the reins in almost 15 mins, so Im supper happy with that. Then we groomed them and put them away, and locked everybody up in the yard by the barn, and went into town and bought 6 tubes of wormer because it was worming time again, so we went down and wormed them, and it all went very good except for Pearl, shes very head shy, she kept shaking her head, but we just started massageing her face and her mouth and then she took it all just fine, then we fed the horses and opened the gate  and had a snowball fight on the way back up, and then went home, the temp was AMAZING today, but everythings melting, so I got bored on the way home and stuck my hand out the window, and it turned out kinda funny....