Life as a ...games rider:)

So...Midsouth regional Games Rally was just owned by the Splatter Painted Ponies:):) Nationals here we come!:)

Life as a...snow hater....

         So...after too many days of snow, I get home from school to find, not to my surprise, more.freakin.snow. Just what Nashville and my mothers driving abilities needed...great. Exactly one hour after it started snowing, we couldn't even begin to make out way back to out house from Bellevue, a simple, 30 drive on flatish roads. Heck even the interstate was backed up!
                  However, my mothers driving isn't why I hate snow (it actually gives me an hours worth of laughs when I talk about her driving). Snow makes my ponies frisky, and when snow is packed in there shoes so much it looks like they are rocking back and forth, frisky isn't a good thing. Leads to bowed tendons and all other crap we don't want. Plus it's generally slippery with ice.
                         Not only are my ponies risking injury by being stupid, but I can;t ride my ponies either which saddens me. I just can' wait for summer. Don't get me wrong, I love sledding as much as the next person, but I hate the snows effects on a horse person such as myself. Although I will say it is quite pretty and watching the ponies in it is quite entertaining:)
                             -Love,
                                     the Mare, the Pony, and me<3 :)

                                  

Life as a... Winter weather hater:P

Here we go again:P more of this crappy winter weather that prevents me from riding yet another few days. It's cold, windy, frozen, and wet; everything that makes bad riding weather combined into one season. Who.freakin.knew:P

Life as a... Steelers fan:)

So, while lacking a good start, the steelers are gonna pull through and win it...
But aside from that, the best buy commercial was officially the best. Along with the budwiser commercial:)
Sorry packers fans!!;)

Life as a...rider:)

After finally dragging myself out of bed to go out to the barn, I hauled the pony, the mare, and Roff ( my sisters pony) out to Walnut Trace for a day of games, jumping, and dressage.

     ~  Ride numero uno-Ralah

               For those of you who don't know, Ralah is a Walnut Trace Farm mare that I am currently riding, competing, and trying to sell. Sometimes, her head is on straight, other times she can't even figure out what the word sane means. Today we went out to jump for the first time in two weeks...suicide attempt? I think yes. However, to my suprise she was a perfect angle. Got her leads, spots, and was balanced through turns without trying to dislocate my arms!

        ~ Splatter Painted Ponies? How about Splatter Minded Ponies

                 After a good little while without practicing with the team we finally get together. Hoping for the best we dive into practice with guns blazin' only to find ponies with anything but focus. No, it was not a bad practice, but with the wind blowing and the cold weather we spent more time settling the ponies than we did actually practicing. On the plus side of things, Patchie Pony was nice and speedy unlike usually, I myself was more accurate, and Abra was getting nearly perfect bending lines:)
        ~ The mare, a good dressage day? Unheard of!
                   After many many many bad dressage rides everything that the mare knows but doesn't think she knows has clicked. The mare, my 5 year old hormonal percheron X TB X appaloosa, has never been one to be light on her feet or felt the need to put any effort in when it comes to dressage. However, today she was actually amazing. For the first time I enjoyed doing dressage on her more than doing dressage on the pony. She has come from bucking every other stride at the canter to a perfect transition leading to a balanced, with using her back and flexing, canter. Thought we would never get there? Who's wrong now:)

        

Life as a...games rider:)

Well, as the weather here vets colder and the snow starts to fall we load up the pony to head over to games practice. For those of you who don't know, I am on a games team
Called the splatter painted ponies, with a couple of my friends. Our games practices are generally very funny to watch, almost like watching america's funniest home videos. For example, while doing a running vault me and Claire have both not only gotten on the horse, but went over the horse... Basically we jumped off, jumped on, and slid over the other side, talented right? Yeah that's what we though ... Other times we have slow motion falls, like the time I was practicing touching the ground from my ponies back (something we have to be able to do) and let's put it this way, I did a handstand against the side of my pony. And after all of these hilarious moments, it still gets funnier, like when our ponies get tired of doing games Like when they decide the want to go up to the barn with, or without, us.


As you will see at the end of this video...

Eventing schedule 2011:)

After a hard weathered winter and wayyyyy more than needed time off for the horses we are finally getting back into the stress of showing:) To start the season off the pony will be running his last novice at Chattahoochee hills on April 9-10 and the mare will be running her last beg nov at River Glen on April 9-10. Big possibility we will be heading over to Poplar Place on May 6-8 for area III champs where I would take the pony novice and Ralah ( the other mare) her last beg nov. At the end of May we are heading up to KHP for May Daze where the mare will run her first novice, along with Ralah, and here we go... The pony will run his first training!!:) the progress he had made in a year is amazing and let's not forget he is only 13.2:) After that we will probably take some time off of showing until the beginning of August when we will hit River Glen agAin:) and for September we will be head over to my favorite place for the AECs, chat hills!
Well this show season is gonna be amazing so wish me luck and hope to see you there!!
- love the mare, the pony, and me:)