The Weblog - One family's journey from normal to horse-people.

August 04, 2008 Horse destroys public bathroom

It sounds like the set up for a joke. So this guy tries to take his horse into a public restroom…

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the rider may not have been fit to be driving either a vehicle, or a horse!

August 03, 2008 PWHA Aug 2008: Novice Horse over fences equitation

The judge placed her 4th out of 4. The other riders must have been fantastic because I’m not seeing much here that explains that kind of placing.

August 03, 2008 PWHA Aug show in pictures

If a picture is worth 1000 words, what is 18 pictures (with captions) in an embedded slide show worth? (The slide show runs quickly, and I can’t slow it down. You might want to hit pause immediately and manually click your way through.)

July 31, 2008 Do you want an $80,000 rocking horse?

The Ridemaster Pro simulates a real 15.2hh medium build horse. It allows the rider to ride to the screen in real-time. The horse is perfectly schooled and capable of doing advanced movements such as medium trot, medium canter, lateral work and rein back. The neck is moveable and the leg aids are detected by ‘on the girth’ and ‘behind the girth’ sensors. All movements are mathematically correct

And you’ll never need to muck it’s stall!

Link

June 27, 2008 Show Dad duty is expensive

I’d make some snarky comment about the parent spending $10,000 a year on his pre-teens hockey career, but since I have a $4000 saddle that was custom made in England being delivered today, I probably should just stay quiet.

Although in my defense, this saddle will work as both a hunter and dressage saddle, and will also last her the rest of her life so long as she doesn’t exceed 5′6″. If she does grow that much, the resale value on the saddle will be full value for the next several years at least, and maybe even better since it will be available immediately and the lead time typically runs 45-90 days.

BTW, $4000 is not particularly expensive for a saddle. Delaney has been showing me ads for $8000 saddles that are supposed to make me feel good about this one! In theory I’m saving money by not needing to buy her seperate hunter and dressage saddles. At least that is what she keeps telling me.

I should also note that about $1000 of the saddle funds came directly from Delaney. she has been saving Christmas, birthday, and horseshue proceeds for two years to help pay for her new saddle. Grandpa also pitched in to help. If you’d like to help feel free to buy a horseshue, or 50 horseshues

June 19, 2008 4H District 2008

Finally, the long awaited 4H District post. There were some issues with scoring and we just got the trail results this week. This trail run was good enough for 3rd place. Sorry about the low angle, I had to leave to coach a baseball game and Michelle apparently can’t see over the fence.

Skip and Delaney also took 6th place is GAYP. It was about 5000 degrees out that day and they decided to scratch Equitation and take a break before trail.

June 01, 2008 Jump!

Last week Delaney jumped at a small show at the farm where we board. It went so well she decided she wanted to jump an open hunter show we were attending today. Michelle was so nervous she couldn’t watch. She didn’t see it until she watched the video when we got home. I’d say this is not too bad for a horse that just 4 weeks ago we were advised to sell because he would never be up to what Delaney wants to accomplish. It’s amazing what good nutrition and good farrier care will do for a horse. More on that in a separate post though.

The show was double judged, and this video is from the Novice Horse Over Fences Equitation class. She got 1st place from one judge and 2nd place from the other. She also got Grand Champion from one judge, and Reserve Champion from another.

May 25, 2008 VAHA Show - May 25, 2008

Skip and Delaney continue the trend of doing really well in trail, and not quite as well at walking around in circles. We suspect one or both of them gets bored in the flat classes and loses focus. It’s something to work on. This trail ride though was good enough for first place.

May 24, 2008 First Competitive Class Over Fences

There was a casual schooling show at the barn where we board today. On the spur of the moment, Delaney decided to enter a class over fences. Delaney has jumped for years, on expensive Andalusian schooling horses. With Skip, not so much. I had baseball coach duties today so I wasn’t at the show. You know I would have captured live video of Delaney’s first competitive jumping experience.

Michelle got this one picture.

April 27, 2008 First VAHA show of the year

Today’s forecast, 72 and partly sunny. Today’s actual, 59, breezy, and wet. I dressed for the forecast and spent most of the day shivering, so I have no visuals for you. It was too cold to deal with the camera. Skip was tense during warm ups. This is two shows in a row. He’s been on Red Cell for a couple of months to deal with some still unexplained anemia, although his blood work is fine now. We are going to talk to the Vet about working him off the Red Cell. They don’t call it go-go juice for nothing. Skip seems to have a lot of nervous energy at shows, and the Red Cell is the only thing that has changed in his diet or routine.

So we went into 12U Walk-Trot and 12U Equitation just hoping they came through it without any issues. They got 3rd in Walk-Trot, which might say more about the other horses than it does about Skip. They were looking great in Equitation, probably on the verge of winning it when Skip lost it. Delaney felt the energy and tension building in him and when she couldn’t get him focused back on task quickly she removed herself from the competition by moving to the center of the ring. Both the judge and photographer went over to check on her after the class and both complimented her on doing the mature and responsible thing. I’ve been to dozens of horse shows and I’ve never seen a kid do that. I’m not sure if I’ve seen an adult do it. I’ve seen kids end up in the center after the horse removed them from the saddle, and I’ve seen kids and adults sent to the center when the ring steward decided they had no control over the horse and were a hazard to the other riders, not to mention themselves.

So she has that going for her. Of course, she wasn’t particularly happy about it at the time

After lunch, we decided to do trail-in-hand to see how Skip reacted. They pretty much aced the trail. So she tacked up and did 12U trail under saddle and again killed it. You wouldn’t know it was the same horse that was tense and worked up only 90 minutes earlier. They took the blue ribbon in both trail classes. And then to top it off, when they totaled up the overall points she was 12U Reserve Champion for the day.

I’m thinking maybe we should stick to trail and dressage. Skip seems to like being the center of attention when he is competing Seriously, we do need figure this out. We are running out of things to test for and still don’t know why his red blood cell count was low in the first place. It’s not parasites, it’s not ulcers. We are waiting on the results of a tick panel, but I think that is a long shot at best. There is no evidence of a physical issue that is causing him pain. The Vet has been out 4 or 5 times now. I’m thinking it’s time to wean him off the Red Cell and see what happens. Maybe the anemia was just a one time weird thing. Maybe he had an injury that we never detected. If his cell count drops again we can revisit it.