15. If you could say something to any one horse, what would you say?

This is a weird prompt.

One thing I would love would be to have the time to say goodbye to the special horses in my life who disappeared before I knew they would be leaving me. It's hard to miss them and not know what became of them.

14. Your dream barn/farm

Ok, best topic ever.

Features: (with intermittent photos)

- Dutch doors/doors to the outside to allow the horses to pick if they want to be in or out. I would also love the building to be insulated and have ceiling fans if possible. Good lighting is also a must.

- Auto waterers in stalls and outside - I HATE carrying buckets. You get wet and gross in the summer, cold and dump water everywhere in the winter.. plus they freeze, get black bucket rot, get bent handles, are never easy to hang and, if you do get the electric ones for winter, hold the possibility of BURNING YOUR DAMN BARN DOWN. I hate buckets.

- Long overhang over the dutch doors to provide shelter for the dry lot, as well as to keep hay covered and dry during wet seasons. This will also keep all but the most persistent rain out of my dutch door stalls and hopefully protect the building and possibly leaky dutch doors from the worst of the wind and drifting snow.

- Access to pasture, and pasture with safe fencing. Call me the safety mom, but I'm tired of horse injuries involving fences, which happen often at my current barn. Lots of people love the white PVC fencing, but I prefer the blackwood fences popular down south, especially as my itchy mares would figure out that those PVC posts pop out in no time. Add into this request gates that make sense and electric fencing that is effective but doesn't do shit like electrify gates, ground itself randomly while leaving 90% of your pasture without power... etc. I hate getting shocked by electric fences, but I also hate watching horses contort themselves between the wires if the fence isn't on.

- Large stalls for pony comfort. As Foxie loves to lay down, I want her to have plenty of space to get comfy, and make it easier for her to get up and lay down.

- Hay feeders in stalls, some sort of slow feeder outside. I hate wasting hay - watching Foxie drag hers out into her stall and then lay on it makes me furious. Bailey will spin hers into her shavings if she's anxious. Hay is too expensive for that, so I'm a big slow feeder person. Plus, it promotes happy tummies and horses who don't get bored and break things.

- A wash stall that is well lit and has cold and hot water. Call me a princess, but being at a barn where hot water has to be made with a hot pot or prepared and brought along has made me  value the ability to clean wounds and horses in cooler weather. A wash stall set up like this also gives my vet a prime working surface and make life a lot easier.

- Hay and grain storage shut off from the horses. Not only do I hate it when horses escape and nearly kill themselves eating all of the grain, but I also hand mix my feed currently. Having an area to be able to scoop one scoop here and one there would make it a ton easier than mixing (especially when my Ultium freezes... again.....) and allow me to supplement to my heart's content. I also want some space to store hay especially for the winter, but prefer if the bulk of the hay stay in another building where there is less of a fire risk, and the bales will be less likely to gather rodent inhabitants. External hay storage is also a biggie, as I'd love to buy hay for winter and not need to scrap and settle when I run out like so many people do. Having the space will save me money in the long run.

That's just the start of it too!

13. A picture of your worst riding

Oh, dear god.

Here's some video, instead:

And something more recent....

Ooofda. 

12. Favorite horse color

Like most horse people, I tried to be opinionated about color... but I never succeeded. Like many riders, I love a beautiful dapple grey, but hate that they turn white as they age. Black horses, another obsession of many, fade in the sun. I hated how plain Foxie was when I first got her, but I've grown to appreciate what is under the hair coat; the beautiful soft eye, the delicate features...

I also own two things that I didn't think I was into - a redhead with WHITE. Ew. I hate white legs, they are never clean. For showing, I love horses without white markings, because they are so easy to groom. Foxie looked resplendent in the show ring, usually after spending the night laying in her own poo. Curry out the chunks and go - no complaints!

SO...

I have to say my favorite color of horse is BAY, closely followed by Chestnut, especially if there is flaxen involved.  Bays come in so many shades - black bay, brown bay, red bay, golden bay... 

Fox also went from a lovely slightly golden bay in summer to a lovely dark brown bay in winter, and is super fun to clip because of it. 

Besides, who can resist that mare?!

11. Find a sale horse online that you want to buy

Um, Ok.

Judge me all you will, but I am 110% thrilled with my current horse, who I was in the process of purchasing this time last year. Bailey is a wonderful horse - she's big, beautiful and has lovely, eye-catching gaits. She is also a nice horse to handle, and really seems interested in people. When I met her for the first time, she came when called, yielded politely to pressure asking her to back up and move away and was personable and came off as quite intelligent. She handled her first trailer ride to her Pre-purchase exam like a champ and my vet was very impressed with her gaits, which is saying something as she does breed warmbloods herself!

So... does wanting my own horse count? I've looked at ads and just am not seeing anything - or I like them and then watch the video and say.... nope. 

So yes, I'll take another one of these, please!

10. How do your family and friends feel about your riding?

I kind of live and breathe my sport, and it's been that way as long as I have been able to make it so. My parents are legitimately the best show parents on the planet - even though I am "grown up" my mom is there making sure we look pretty and my dad is still the head horse holder and whisperer. They let me live in their house rent free so I can keep my horses - seriously, they're the best. My mom seems to genuinely enjoy her time with the horses, though Bailey occasionally makes her nervous. My dad is actually on his way to hold the beasties for the farrier right now...

My friends have only known me as a horse person - this may sound weird but I haven't held on to a lot of childhood friends, so they really have only known me as an equestrian. As they are still speaking to me, I would say they've accepted the pony children. My siblings still probably think I'm weird but they are at least vaguely supportive so I cannot complain. No one in my life is saying "don't ride!" so I'm a happy girl.

So... yeah. 

Trainerless

I haven't blogged in a while - being an adult ammy has proven to be harder than I ever imagined. I figured I had mastered the blogging while working my butt off concept during college, but alas, I am still learning. My commute is about an hour either way and while I do, as a result, spend a ton of time sitting on my butt, I also don't get to blog or spend as much down time doing things other than riding and laundry.

I have, however been riding. I'll start at the beginning of recently, I guess, as it's been quite some time since I've blogged.

Bailey went to her first show at Roekbe's Run this month. In prep, we took a jump lesson or two with Edee, my trainer, and participated in clinics with Lucinda Green and Jane Braddock. We also schooled the Roekbe's Run cross country course. Bailey was pretty good on Friday when we arrived at Roebke's, and seemed to be enjoying watching people arrive (we got there early) and was only a little nervous and spooky when we schooled around the dressage rings and in the warm up

.

Over night, apparently, she was awful and stall walked herself into a lather, and still had quite an edge on her the next day. She wanted OUT of that stall, thank you very much, but was a handful to hold. She did settle and nap a little bit around noon, but turned most of the day. Our dressage test warm up went pretty well, but as it had been raining a good part of the day and the grass ring was very slick and muddy, as was warm up. We went down the center line doing a Llama impression, spooked at a camera person who was admittedly dressed to spook, and had a looky, spooky test. She did stay in the ring, and had a few seconds of nice work, so I'm pretty pleased with her.

Before show jumping she was being super belligerent and was basically shoving people over and being super rude. I understand that she is stressed, but I was quite unhappy with her manners, and laid down some discipline. She reared up a bit, slipped, and flopped over in the grass like the graceful creature she is, and I was pretty thoroughly freaked out. My lovely trainer, Edee, did say later that my horse was being very rude, but I'm still a bit shocked at how pissed off and irrational I was being. She doused me in calming essential oils and packed me off to walk show jumping. Apparently I knocked some ego out of her because she was lovely in the warm up and put in a nice quiet round in the show jumping. She was a bit leery of the bright standards and fence fillers, but jumped each fence and left the rails in the cups. We did do some trotting, so we had 2 seconds of time. 

I legitimately wept with pride after her show jumping round - I am so very proud of how confident she felt by the end of that course, and how lovely of a ride she gave me. At that point, I decided that Bailey was just going to need to grow up on her own and that there was nothing I could do to stop her from stall walking short of tying her up, so I sprayed on some Sore-No-More and wrapped her in standing wraps, and let her do her thing. The standing wraps at least protected her from any further dings from spinning, and she did settle eventually - she was wearing some shavings the next morning, so she did sleep a bit. I walked XC by myself and felt pretty confident going into day 3 of the show - its also nice to realized that while your horse is being a freak, she gets her brain back when you are in the irons. 

Sunday was more eventful  that I would have liked - Edee's intermediate horse was injured after punching through a base board on a corner and getting his hind foot stuck under the jump, and I spent my day ignoring my horse for the most part while I did my best to help her with her other two rides. When it was Bailey's turn to run XC she settled quickly under saddle and while she felt tired, was jumping well and cantering along like a million bucks. Bailey went into the box and seemed to know Something Was Up, and headed out on to course at a trot. The first two fences were bogies all day, but I rode my plan and we got over both, and cantered on. By fence 4 I knew we would need to overtake the rider in front of me, and tried to pass her. She didn't slow down and let us get clear, and trotted a few strides behind us into the woods for jump 8. I wasn't riding with 100% attention and Bailey was distracted by the horse behind us, and we picked up a stop. I was shocked that the girl behind me jumped it as we were turning away, but we jumped it on try #2 and cantered past her. Bailey took me home over the rest of the jumps, and seemed to really enjoy herself. We had another two seconds of time, but I'm not worried about her ability to make time at this point. 

All in all, I am, in retrospect, thrilled with her, and feel that I really could have saved her the stop on XC if I had been focused. If I ever need to overtake someone again, I will handle it much better, and hopefully the jump judges will, too. 

Bailey had a few days off coming home, and we did an easy flat on Tuesday in prep for our lesson Wednesday. Unfortunately, Edee was in an accident on Tuesday evening, so no lesson on Wednesday or training for a while. I worked on dressage again on Thursday, as I feel that keeping her focused is our biggest issue for the next show - I'd love to be able to ride at least a few strides that look halfway decent. I also tried to start teaching her flying changes, but it really doesn't make sense to her yet. We jumped Saturday morning and Bailey was very good - we had a vertical set up at 2'9 that she was clearing well, but didn't leave it in the cups every time. Big fences don't feel very different than little ones, but they are good for my brain, as I see them and either over ride or stop riding all together. 

Sunday brought a heat wave a la last summer (SO. Hot. SO. Humid) so the girls just had baths on Monday. Today I'm planning a dressage ride with Bailey and will hopefully get a ride in on Foxie, as well. She also got ridden Saturday morning, but not for very long as my barn owner needed to move my trailer, etc, etc. She was very sassy that morning, so she apparently needs more work ;)

I might even start blogging again. Maybe.

A, BB and Fox