Lessons and Beauty Palors

Kind of an odd combination but its with two different horses!!
I had a great lesson with Mystic on Wednesday. We havent had one in over a month before it due to injuries and such so it was nice to start again! We worked a lot of getting him to carry himself and in return getting off his forehand more. Also talked about my position and how I turn my toes out (I think its a jumping thing? anyways Alanna and I had talked about us both doing it just the day before my lesson!). I knew I did it but didnt realize how freaking hard it is to fix it! Old habits truly are hard to break! Especially while riding! We did get some good trot work in and worked a lot on our down transitions from trot to walk and getting him to not fall into them. Let me tell you it is actually hard to ride! Mostly because I am out of shape and have chicken arms anyways but still! The best moment is when we were working on our leg yields (which seemed to improve after our balancing work of course!). We did a leg yield from the center line to the wall and went straight of our leg yield into a shoulder in that Mary (our trainer) said she would have given a 7. I mean a 7?! We have only worked on shoulder in one lesson before this one. Im SO happy with him!
Even though I got another taste of how much we still have to work on I always feel like it is very do able after our lessons. As long as all keeps going well we are hoping to debut at 1st level in March at our first league show! I CANNOT WAIT!!

When I first got her out after all day with her blanket off

Sky on the other hand (who has been quite attention neglected recently) had a little spa day. I had taken her blanket off this morning because it was actually sunny and she took the opportunity to completely cover herself in mud. Thanks Sky... So I got her out and brushed her up real good, combed her mane and tail (which is beyond disgusting and needs a serious intervention before it turns brown permanently), and trimmed both her mane and tail. She hates having her mane pulled and the only time I have had it nice is when we had to sedate her for the farrier so I used it to my advantage and pulled it. Since then it has grown a solid 6 inches and tripled in thickness! Tomorrow I am thinking about hauling her across the road to a barn I work at and seeing how she looks on the lunge line in the arena. Then I will clean her up even more and maybe get some decent pictures of her while it is light outside.

All brushed out with her long mane

And all chopped off!! And her annoyed face because she wanted dinner!

Its Official!

 I have been sub-leasing a stall, where Mystic is at now (Which also happen to be the best barn ever and we never ever wanted to have to leave!), from my best friend knowing that she would be getting another horse once she found one and we would have to leave until a stall opened back up (which isnt very often because no one ever leaves because it is like I said the best barn ever!). Well one of the boarders just sold her house and is moving to Washington and gave her notice at the barn! So Mystic is now officially a PERMANENT resident of Never Done Farms :) YAY!

Real man status

I went out and rode the pony today and he was awesome! I cant wait to get back to our lesson schedule. It seems like something has interfered with it for the last couple months and we dont have much more time to nail down first level before show season starts! He really has been constantly improving and I can really feel it every time I ride him! He was pretty forward at first which was really nice. By the end of our hour ride he was a little more relaxed but very light in the bridle and super responsive. We worked on our leg yields a little and hope that Mary sees improvement in our lesson on Wednesday! Hopefully I can get our lesson taped. Even though we havent had a lesson in a couple weeks I still feel like we have improved a lot since our last lesson that we taped so I figure it will still be nice to see how much better we have gotten!

He looks handsome in purple if you ask me :)

Wearing Tolos hand me downs!

Stall rest = Equivilent to feeding him crack

Mystic has now been stuck in his stall for a month. That is a month with no grass, no room to run and be irritated by fellow pasture mates, and no muddy spots to roll in. I mean how is a guy supposed to stay sane when he is stuck in a stall all day with no toys to play with and limited amounts of hay to prevent him from becoming an umpalumpa (not sure of the spelling on that?!)! All of this because he tried to rip his bottom teeth out on his blanket bar. So because of all of that he is not allowed to graze or have any kind of toy that he could loosen up his teeth more. He also cant have regular buckets because we dont want him biting down on hard things so he also has rubber water and grain tubs. Oh what a high maintenance guy he is!
Ok so to the title of this post (all that was setting the scene for you). He is seriously losing his sanity! I feel so bad having to leave him inside but then again I am saving him from being toothless at age 5, so.... I dont feel bad for too long! While in his stall he finds every surface to rub his butt on, rubs his teeth on the wall, and bangs the door with his legs. Then when you halter him and tie him up to groom him/tack him up he moves his butt around everywhere, unties himself (its actually pretty funny because I taught him to stay in his stall even with the door open so he unties himself then pokes his head out the door, making sure everything else is inside the stall and looks at me all proud of himself!), and tries to rub his lips all over you asking for cookies. Although he is quite entertaining it does get annoying after a little bit! But you cant get mad because he is just so funny and has the best personality about it! Then of course you go to ride him and he is Mr. Lazy and acts like you have ridden him for 3 hours already! That may be an exaggeration but he isnt naughty at all like you would expect any horse to be after being stuck in a stall. He was being a goof tonight about my jacket that I tried to hang on a hook but missed and was laying in the corner of the arena. He was looking at it like it was a great white shark ready to swallow him whole! He definitely keeps us laughing all the time.

His beautiful and big stocking :)

He also got his stocking hung, finally. I got it made last week but I was gone over the weekend and it wasnt dry before I left so I didnt get to hang it until today. But it sure looks good and there is plenty of room for lots of goodies from Santa :)

Not so good picture but I was alone. It is proof though :)

How many 4 year olds...

Can you ride bareback and bridleless (just a rope around his neck) at the walk, trot, and canter going where you want to go?! Im sure it is very few considering a ton of people I know wont even ride their horses bareback! I wasnt planning hoping on tonight as I thought I was going to do it this afternoon but I didnt have time. So I hoped on him with just a halter to walk him around while Alanna rode Rhythm. As we walked around I decided (one of my brilliant spontaneous moments!) that we could try our hand at walking around with just a rope around his neck. He was SUPER good! And then Alanna of course had to make a comment about how she cant wait to see if I could still steer him at the canter and ya de da de da. Basically a challenge and we all know I cant let that go! So of course I said... GAME ON! We waited until she was done with Rhythm in case our steering did malfunction we wouldnt cause any issues. Then we trotted around a little bit testing our brakes, which are great, and our steering, for the most part we are pretty spot on, and picked up the canter! He quietly cantered on the circle I wanted and did down transitions to my voice and was SUPER good! I was so impressed as it was the first time I have ever done any bridleless work with him. It really shows me how much he can listen to my legs. Next weekend before our barn Christmas party I am going to get Alanna to video tape us doing it for proof! Im so proud of my pony :)

Ready to be back

I am SO ready to be back and riding my pony! Now that school is out for a month and he is healing nicely and can still be ridden while he is healing it is the perfect ending to the year! Its crazy to think how much I miss him even just not going to see him one day. Horses truely are apart of our major highs and major lows. I wouldnt trade them for anything, because even thought the major lows can really make me feel down in the dumps... if I didnt have to deal with them I wouldnt get all the good times either. I cannot wait to start showing again next year! I went and found some dressage shows (eventing ones are not up yet, the schooling shows at least) that I am  hoping to go to along with League Championships, I just dont know the date yet. Hopefully we can qualify at first level. Our leg yields have gotten better since his auntie Mary schooling day so hopefully we can keep it up! Now that we are back to normal we can get back to our much needed lessons also. He really is coming along nicely. Even after weeks off he comes back to work like normal, maybe just a little more forward but who am I to complain about that?!

He makes that look good :)

Having fun after being cooped up with no work for too long

Sadly his arena privileges got revoked after he kicked and broke a mirror..

 

On another note... I have found a stallion that I want a foal out of one day. Mystic will need a sibling someday :) He is GORGEOUS and actually does dressage (and well from what I have seen, not updated sadly..) which is hard to find in the Gypsy world, or seems to be hard at least. A bonus is he rare color, I wish they had video of him and more recent info on how he did this year but wow. He is gorgeous!

Austin- some mares future hubby for me :) 

Im a major slacker

Yup... thats me. The combination or school (finals are next week), work, the weather, me being sick, and my injury prone horses I havent been riding much. I did ride Mystic on Thursday and he was pretty good considering but I always feel like we lose a lot on our breaks, which we do, even though I know it will all come back! It hard to get motivated when it is freezing cold and you have no one to ride with! Now that school is almost out for the month, I have finals Monday-Wednesday then im done, I really need to kick it in gear and start riding again. Both for him and me! I am just as out of riding shape as he is! When I rode on Thursday I kept having major cough attacks (lucky me... im sick again) and it made it a not real enjoyable evening. So today I am just going to lunge him. But he also needs his hair done again and im sure he would love a roll in the arena also. I will try to get more pictures of the boy today :)