OTTB Charm

Yep, it is a full week after Halloween, and about 10 days since this show happened, but I am just now blogging about it because life. And better late than never, right??? So every year, for the final show that my barn puts on, they make it a Halloween show! The highlight of the day is a costume contest and high jump class. I prepared Banner and I's costume at least a month in advance, but we will get to that in a moment! To kick the day off, we just popped around a couple 2'9" courses. With only a week in between our Karen O'Connor clinic, and this show, he was definitely a bit more on the tired side. Not so much so that I felt bad entering him, but he just was ever so slightly less thrilled about everything than his normal self. We had quite a nice warmup and he was feeling pretty forward and solid, so we headed over to the ring and went in. Jump one, two and three felt really smooth, but the line from #3 to #4 was a bending 6 stride into jumps #4 &...

So, as you may have gathered from the title, I did in fact make it to the Karen O'Connor clinic this past weekend (yes I'm very late on this post...we just won't talk about that). Spoiler alert, it was amazing . Epic water shot (I've always wanted one of these) Day one was SJ work. We were in the BN group, and Banner was wonderfully bored with everything we did. Karen honed in really quickly on what everyone needed to work on, and we were no exception. Her first, and biggest note for me was that I need to get the impulsion from Banner sooner, but be a better manager, because he can quickly go from impulsion to impulsive.  Banner and I only did each exercise once, which can easily feel like you got overlooked, but I know from watching Karen several other times, that if you only do it one time, that means you did it right. I felt like we got some good notes and work, and I honestly felt awfully proud & happy that she didn't feel the need to dril...

So at the end of my last post, I mentioned giving Banner a few  well deserved days off. I fully intended to give him like 4-5 days off and then launch into some work. LOL. He got nearly 2 weeks off. But we did stay semi-productive in that time - I bribed him into still liking my presence with many, many  cookies, he had a chiropractic adjustment by our vet (and wow did that make a difference!!), and he got his fall vaccines & teeth floated. Phew. I do actually ride sometimes though First: His chiropractor appointment. Banner has this strange tendency under saddle to hold his hindquarters to the right, and fairly significantly to the right at that! Apparently this has been common for him for a very long time, since I mentioned it to a trainer who hadn't ridden him since May of 2017 , and even she was like "oh yeah, he still does that annoying thing with his haunches?". Instantly, when I realized this was an ongoing issue with him (not just a me problem or an ou...

This weekend, our local barn hosted their first ever true schooling HT. It was a 2-day show, with dressage & SJ on Saturday, and XC on Sunday. Banner and I signed up to do the Beginner Novice! Our dressage test was mid-morning, and there was a storm threatening all day on Saturday. It was definitely brisk, and it was getting to a few of the horses, but Banner came out true to his unicorn status and warmed up like a champ. We are working on improving his transitions, and he gave me some of his best yet to date. His downwards tend to be a bit abrupt, and his upwards tend to start in the front with his back legs struggling to catch up, but on Saturday we got most of our transitions in great form - fluid and smooth! He stayed relaxed and rhythmic in our test and gave me some great work. Our upward canter transitions could have been better, and our free walk could have been stretchier, but I was pleased with our test, and excited about the fact that I still think we have so mu...

Yesterday, I said goodbye to Wonder. I haven't had enough time for 3 horses, and something had to give. I had been toying with the idea of selling him for a little while, but hadn't really fully committed. I lightly marketed him on ISO Facebook posts, but didn't really expect much, if anything, to come out of it. Luckily, I was wrong! The perfect home just happened to come up within a week of me beginning to market him. My all-time favorite photo with him A family reached out to me, interested in him for their 15yo daughter. She loves thoroughbreds, but their current horse is needing to be retired. She can get anxious over fences, so she needs a horse that doesn't feed off of her anxiety. I was happy to have them out to see Wonder, but I really wasn't sure how he would be with someone that young, and with some anxiety when jumping. It turns out that he is a perfect  match for her. He is steady and quiet in all the ways she needs him to be, but he listens and ...