Wassup?

[Angharad]

Here's a place to record your day-to-day equestrian doings, musings, and adventures.

[carol machulski]

Unfortunately I did not get to Piber but I did see the tack room w/o the expected dust! Each horse has 2 saddles and pads. There was a display of different pads used in performances. The various bits and each horse's bridle were also displayed.I'm sure there was tack such as reins and other equine equipment that was stored in the floor trunks. The stalls are all box stalls as you can imagine. They are built of some very hard dark wood up to about shoulder height on me and the bars and attachments are, it seems, copper and steel. A sure deterent to cribbing! Near the back of each stall is a tiled niche about 2.5 ft in height and about 18 inches in width which contains the waterer. It looked real classy!  The aisle though was not that wide and so I don't think they tack up on cross ties in the aisle.  In some of the stalls you could see the edge of what appeared to be rubber mats but bedding wasn't shavings. It looked like wood pellets. The tour was only about an hour long and began with a brief history of the school and the facility as part of the Hofburg Palace. So another thing off my bucket list! It seems to get a little shorter each year! LOL! 

[Angharad]

[Angharad]

Hi Angharad    Yesterday I picked up my ride times and the Intro classes are big! Since Max and I have only been a team since the end of March, I think we do well on lesson, but on today's lesson he was a bit gimpy on his right front leg. So while all the necessary arrangements have been made, right now it may be that we won't be going. Have to wait and see. 

So sorry to hear about Max's gimpiness, Carol. I hope it is resolved in time for the show. If it's not, I'll cross my fingers for the next one.

[There wasn't a way to reply to you directly (the thread was too long), so I'm replying here. ]

[Angharad]

Two days ago, a group of people came together, working as a team, in an attempt to save a mare in labor and her foal. Unfortunately, they lost the foal. Today the same group of people introduced the mare who had lost her foal to a foal who had lost her mom.... This picture is taken an hour after the introduction. It speaks for itself.

 

[carol machulski]

'Ysterday was a sunny but breezy day which turned hot rather quickly. We lunged Max to check for lameness and he was sound. Max is a quiet horse and we showed him his first dressage ring after we took him off the trailer. The judge's remarks showed 2 areas that really need improvement: lack of energy and poor circle shapes. The circle shapes are I think the result of not having a dressage ring to practice in. Max is a lazy horse and I should have insisted more on him moving forward. Nevertherless we were awarded a third in test A (class size 7), a fifth in test B (class size 9) and a third in test C (class size 7) for our efforts. The judge commented on our bit being not allowed in a rated show and I acknowledged this but since this was a schooling show we were able to use it. I am pleased with how things went but I was really tired afterward.  

[carol machulski]

Nathan is back! Now Max is lame!  So at last Sunday's dressage clinic at which my trainer was the presenter, I rode Nathan. Our focus was on bending, flexing and moving forward while doing both. Immediately when I asked Nathan bent around my inside leg, he got round and kept up a forward walk.  We were done! LOL! Nathan was on a mission because he would not stand still except if someone held his bridle. There were 7 of us in the group. For me and certainly for Nathan who hadn't done this since March, it was review and practice. When we transitioned upward and downward through the trot and canter, we lost some of each element at times but overall we did some good work. It was an hour and a half clinic but I was done (read exhausted) after an hour. Not Nathan! He power walked when I refused to do anything else. Today on  lesson he was quieter but  remembered what we'd worked on sunday. He's bothered by shady  areas as his eye sight is not so good and so we worked in the sunny areas and only took breaks in the shade.     

[Angharad]

You're on a mount merry-go-round, Carol! :>) I'm sorry Max is lame--he sounds like a good boy, if a bit underwhelmed by the prospect of hard work. But I'm glad Nathan has power walked back into your life. It seems he was more than ready to work after his time off!

Sounds like good work at the clinic, and at the show as well, considering. 

[carol machulski]

Hold that thought! Three weeks after the clinic I was introduced to a 9yo Warmblood mare 15.3hands who tends to leap into her canters. Del Cielo aka Delci is very willing to work in a frame and to rest on the bit and take me around the ring but I'm intimidated by the transition to the canter with her. I'm riding her now for two weeks and  I'm having problems with left lead canter, but working on it. Still haven't found a place with a dressage ring and a school horse to take a few lessons on before the next show. So now I'm not sure who I'll be riding in the next show.   

[Angharad]

So how'd things work out?

[carol machulski]

Hi..I've had trouble logging in, but after I posted that message, I was back to riding Max and we did the Sept 16th show. It went well. We even earned a 1st place ribbon for test C but only because the other riders were so poor and the ones that could have beat me had scratched.

Don't know if I'll be riding Delci again. I understand that she's for sale.

[Angharad]

Good job, Carol, regardless of who scratched and who didn't. :>)

I do wish you could luck into the right horse for you, and have a few years of uninterrupted partnership. It's hard to move up in the rankings when you're forced to play musical horses.

[carol machulski]

I understand that and I thought I'd found a longterm partner with Coffee, but after his meltdown he never really came back. I understand from my trainer who still has students at that facility, Coffee spooks at a lot of things which he didn't before and is tense a lot. On a lighter note, I rode a camel at a fair on Long Island a week ago.

It was a bit like riding a horse except for mounting, where you sit (the  hump is right in the middle of the back) and how his body moves yours. Now I've ridden in addition to horses, an elephant and a camel.