10 Days Until We Leave for Regionals!

Yesterday was the first body clipping day of the winter since the Regional Championships are in less than two weeks! The BHB hates getting his legs clipped, so another epic battle of wills (and carrot bribery) took place. I’d like to think I won since the legs did all end up being fully clipped, but the BHB may have won a bit of an edge since they aren’t the prettiest. We’ll be battling it out again next month.

Freshly body clipped! I miss his richly red colored coat already!

The past few weeks have been pretty easy on the BHB— lots of jumping and trails interspersed with dressage sessions a few times a week. Cross-training is great for a horse’s mindset, especially one bred to be versatile. Mark has been really enjoying the variety and has ended up putting even more effort into his dressage work. I’m sure the cooler weather has had a positive effect on his work ethic too!

We can’t wait to go compete in the extremely large (580+ horse) Regionals competition in Kentucky. Until then, we’re working on some of the areas we tend to have issues in. Today we did a bit of drilling on simple lead changes and adding energy into our lateral trot work, as those currently our biggest downfalls. We’ve also been working quite a bit in counter-canter and on getting great 10m circles.

I’m a bit worried about our second level freestyle still since the choreography is very difficult, but the judges should really reward us if we can do it well. The stickiest area right now is the medium trot to travers since the BHB doesn’t always want to come back from a big trot. Our class time for this is after 7pm on Friday, so I’m also really worried that the BHB will decide he’s done for the day after his 11:30am first level freestyle class and not bring his A-game to this one. I haven’t figured out how to prepare for this yet!

The BHB had a vet appointment today to get his health certification to travel to KY, along with a teeth floating and his fall shots (since he doesn’t typically have much of a reaction to them). My father is getting my trailer and his truck ready to haul to Kentucky, since my trailer is currently with him at the farm. My poor trailer is in dire need of re-painting and some other cosmetic upgrades, so be on the lookout for an ugly trailer with some rust! At least everything else is great shape on the trailer—except the tack room skylight is quite leaky despite multiple attempts at re-caulking. And well, the BHB decided to customize the rubber padding around the front slot when he was younger =/.

Teeth Floating Time!

And the drugged exhaustion after. He needed his stall to hold his head up :)

You can lease the BHB!

I decided it was time to start getting myself financially in a better position, so I’m going to be offering my awesome horse for partial lease (or possibly a shorter term full lease to the right person) after the National Finals in November. Since Mark loves to work almost every day, I don’t want to just cut down the training/lessons to save money. I’d rather find someone to share him with who wants to have the opportunity to ride a super fun horse—be it an adult amateur who wants to learn high level lateral work or an ambitious junior who wants a back-up FEI Junior horse.

Mark is currently the perfect lower level horse and is always fun to ride—he does dressage (is a master at the lateral work), easily jumps around 3' courses, and loves going out on trails or foxhunting. I think he would probably enjoy doing lower level eventing again since he's matured so much mentally and in jumping. His lead changes started getting a bit funky (mentally for him), so we threw them on the back burner since I'm showing at lower levels this winter and they were making him anxious in the counter canter. I'm sure they will be put right back into order once he starts working on them again. I could see Mark taking advantage of someone who lacks authority (he’s a very smart cookie with a little bit of a pony streak), so no timid beginners for this beastie. He really needs someone that isn't afraid to whack him when he deserves it. He prefers people who set very high standards for his behavior that can be mentally challenging for him to meet. 

He’s the perfect size for most women at just a hair under 16hh. He has had tiny people and not so tiny (me L) ride him, and everyone seems to fit him well. He’s like the adult version of a pony, so people who adore ponies but find them too small will adore him! He’s super safe and extremely laid back in any situation except meal time. He is a diehard lifetime cribber, but he wears a collar 24/7 to keep his destruction at a minimum.

The only terms of his partial lease would that it would be “free” as long as he was kept on-site in partial training with our current trainer--which would include one lesson/week. Showing privileges available since he’s such a great little show horse and traveler. Expenses that would be split include: board, training, farrier, and his insurance. You are more than welcome to use my tack—a Custom dressage saddle, 3 bridles with another handful of bits you can rotate, and a jump saddle that doesn’t fit him very well.

The BHB is up for any challenge!

Please contact me if interested! toni.rogers@gmail.com is the best way to reach me. 

Regional Championships are Approaching!

I saw the entry list for Regionals today, and WOW there are lots of entries! Just as I expected there would be. My first level Adult Amateur class has 68 entries!!! It’s going to be even bigger than the ~50 competitors I competed against in my classes last year.

The BHB better be amped up, because it looks like he’s one of two horses that are entered into 4 championship classes (based on my brief scan of the enormous entry list). Hopefully stuffing him full of alfalfa, carrots, sugar cubes, and cookies will help keep him energetic through the weekend. At least he's not going to be entered in any extra classes at this show. I’m sure the cooler weather there will help some too with energy levels.

We have the 2 freestyle classes on Friday (with 23 and 9 entries), Second level AA on Saturday (with 40 entries), and will finish off the weekend with the giant (68 entry) First level AA class on Sunday. 

Body clipping is on the schedule for 2 weeks before Regionals. The BHB would probably be a fluffy pony by Regionals if he wasn't clipped. He doesn't have much extra hair right now, but he can put on a Shetland-thick winter coat practically overnight! 

I'm a bit bummed about missing the IDHSNA annual breed show this year since it looks like it will be awesome. Mark could finally be able to compete in the hunter classes he dreams of doing with all the other chunky-built horses! It's the weekend before National Finals this year and in New Jersey, so I decided it would be way too much travelling for Mark to do. We'll go out and represent the breed in highly competitive dressage instead :). I'm still planning on having him attend breed inspections if they're close this year and on a weekend we're not off competing at a championship show. They're supposed to be in roughly a month, and last I heard they have yet to settle on a date or location for them.

Regional Championships Entered!

We're Ready for Championships!

The BHB's entry has been sent in for the Region 2 Championships at the Kentucky Horse Park in a month! It is going to be an enormous show as both of my regular classes (first and second level) have at least 50 people qualified to compete, my first level one has around 90! The qualification list for this show is astonishingly enormous, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were 500+ competitors at this show! It will definitely be the largest dressage show I've ever competed at... it may even be the largest horse show in any discipline! I entered him the the max number of classes possible to enter a horse at a Championship-- 4 classes! Two regular level classes (first and second level) and freestyles for those two level. 

After introducing some jumping back into the BHB's routine, I've had some wonderful forward rides on him. It ends up that he didn't need the vacation from riding as he was miserable and pacing the fence 4 of the 5 days he had off (I was told after I put him back into work), but I think he did need some more variety added back into his routine. I'm dying to take him out foxhunting, but after sending in a very large check with my Regional Championship entry, he's lucky he's not being bubble wrapped for the next two months! I told Heather yesterday that even if we qualify in all 4 classes for Nationals, we may have to eliminate at least one because of the cost to enter all classes (plus the $350 stabling and the likely $350 tack stall we will probably need-- or share if I'm lucky enough to find someone to split it with). For tack and feed for 4-5 days (and the bikes we take instead of a renting a golf cart), it's really almost necessary to get a tack stall to put it all in. Or else we're stacking around 3 bales of hay, a bucket of feed, all our tack, grooming tools, rider clothing, and more in the aisle way for that many days.

Second level freestyle

I forgot to share our second level freestyle now that the choreography and music timing is all worked out. This is a really exciting freestyle for me since it has so much potential to be awesome if we can really master the movements. The BHB gets a bit excited in the medium trot and doesn't always want to easily come back to do the travers right after, but we're working on it! There was originally a 3/4 turn on the haunches in the middle of the walk section, but I think eliminating it helps the BHB have a more relaxed walk. His amazing walk has not been so great in the show ring lately, so it might be a smart thing to do. The laziness shown in this video is why the BHB is currently on vacation and I'm crossing my fingers for cooler weather at Regionals!

Step 1 for Preparing for the Championship Season: Vacation

The BHB's current mental state

The last thing I expected to do six weeks out from Regional championships was give the BHB an entire week's vacation. Why did I feel it was necessary? Instead of his usual dragging me down centerline, the last two shows (two consecutive weekends) he's balked when I point him to go down centerline, even going so far as to spin around and try bolting once we made it to C. His freestyles this weekend were sluggish and I worked way harder than I should have. Why such a big change?! I went through all the possibilities and came up with 3 possible reasons why this was happening:

1. It was HOT at both shows! The temperatures during our rides ranged from around 85-103 degrees, with most ranging in the mid-upper 90s! Yet, I still couldn't rule out any other reasons on such a short timeline to Regionals.
2. Our cross-training routine has been overhauled since we moved to work with Heather. Instead of the 1-2 days of jumping and 1-2 days of hacking in a field weekly, the BHB has been doing 5 days of straight dressage in an arena. So maybe he's a bit bored getting drilled with dressage work. He's bred to be a cart-pulling, foxhunting, farming, jumping horse-- so I could see him getting bored with just one job to do! I'm planning on getting him out foxhunting some this winter after Nationals since I think we both miss it. We're working with Heather to implement more jumping and out of arena work into his regular schedule. I'm glad he's so solid in the dressage levels we're at, so drilling is not necessary. We just need to keep his fitness levels at least on par to his current state. Jumping should even benefit us in some of our weaker areas!
3. The BHB has been going 5+ days a week of dressage since March. He probably wants to spend some time focusing on ruling his jobless pony friends in the pasture ;). Everyone needs mental and physical vacations sometimes so they don't get burnt out on work. Heck, I need to go spend some time in the tropics this winter with the way my work schedule is looking! But that's not happening unless the BHB's budget is cut way down :(. 

So that's why the BHB has been on vacation since September 1st. I'm planning to jump and hack him outside the ring this weekend if it doesn't rain as much as predicted. Next week we'll add a couple intense dressage rides back in, interspersed with jumping and hacking sessions. After that, we'll do 3-4 days a week of dressage before Regionals, being careful to keep the BHB fresh and eager to show off his dressage skills. We've declared for Nationals in all 4 classes classes we're competing at Regionals, so hopefully that will be on our schedule too!