2013 Goals..... a little late haha!

Haha I totally forgot to post my goals for the year.... I have to go to bed so I'm just going to be real quick.  I have some pictures to post tomorrow though so make sure to check back.

Well last year was.... difficult and I didn't really meet any of my goals.  I rode Chrome and had fun with him and was safe.  Those were the two most important ones.  So I'm not even going to go into the old ones, but I will be carrying over some of them and adding some new ones for the new year.  Here they are!

2013 Goals

1. Start my Paddock Paradise 
Notice I say start... that's because it will probably be a long, ongoing process as I get the money to invest more and more into it.  If you don't know what paddock paradise is check out my earlier post here - http://rdxhorses.blogspot.com/2013/02/paddock-paradise.html. 

2. Teach Chrome to longe and ground drive.
Chrome is almost four so I figure by now his legs can hold up to some longeing.  :)  I want to teach him to longe so we can practice vocal cues, going forward with energy and also ground driving.  I finally got my round pen set up so I should be able to start working on this soon.  :)

3. Ride Chrome more and get him in shape (Do Couch to 5k).
I have to get Chrome in better shape.  To see why and also to learn more about the Couch to 5k program go to my earlier post here - http://rdxhorses.blogspot.com/2013/02/locking-stifle-or-stringhalt.html.

4. Buy a new horse trailer and get Chrome comfortable hauling.





I need a new horse trailer!  The one I have right now is a very old, Thoroughbred style trailer that is narrow, but very tall.  Someone took the center divider out before I got it so it only safely hold one horse.  That is very frustrating especially when we had to move them to our new home one at a time.  It took like six hours to get them all moved.  Chrome is also nervous of this trailer and doesn't like it at all.  It's so old it doesn't have trailer brakes or good suspension so I know the ride has to be rough and loud.  So yeah... I need a new trailer.  I just wish I had the money to go buy a new, fancy one right now instead of having to scour sale ads.  Keep your fingers crossed we find something finally!

5. Build some CTR obstacles and practice on them.


Since Chrome will be old enough to compete in competitive trails rides in a little over a year I probably need to start doing some prep work!!  I would like to build my own obstacles to work on.  We will see if I find the time and money....

6. Tame Led Zeppelin and get him gelded.

Now that we are getting settled in our new home with neighbors that are further away and won't be bothered by braying I am going to pen Zep up and get him tamed.  It's impossible to work with him out in the pasture with the other horses because they get in the way and he has too much room to run off.  I'm also planning to get him gelded.  Part of the reason we haven't is because of money, but now that my husband has a really good job that shouldn't be a problem soon.  The other reason I haven't is fear....  Zep will turn six years old this year and I've heard that donkeys can be more difficult to geld.  Something about bigger blood vessels that have to be sewn up or they can bleed to death....  I want him to be tame enough that if there is a problem I'll be able to see it before something happens....  yeah so I'm just nervous about it.

7. Work on Faran's confidence.

This one is more for my husband.  I haven't really written much about it on the blog, but Faran and I do NOT get along at all..... we basically ignore each other.  I feed him and check him for injuries daily, but that's the extent of our interactions (well other than me taking pictures of him).  I'll explain more later if any of you are interested. 

8. Take dressage lessons again (with Chrome if he's ready or on a school horse if he's not).
Now that I'm back in my hometown I want to start taking dressage lessons with my old trainer again!  If I can get the basics on Chrome well enough before the end of the year I'll start taking lessons on him, if not I'll just ride a lesson horse.  I can't wait!

9.  Get Chrome landing heel first.
I haven't talked about Chrome's hooves in a while, but he still mostly lands toe first so I want to learn more about hooves and figure out what I need to be doing to get him landing heel first.  I'll write more on this later.

Anyway I really need to hit the hay, so I'll talk to you all later.  :D  Oh and I'm trying to get caught up on everyone's blogs, but it's taking a while, so let me know if I missed yours. 

My Future Competitive Trail Horse . . . (long post/video!)

I LOVE this picture! Sorry about the lines, but this is one of my new favorites. :)
Doesn't he look all gangly and long legged again? I'm hoping it's a growth spurt.

It was a cold, windy day so guess what I decided to do! I chose the obstacle from the Competitive Trail Ride that gave all of the horses the biggest problem and decided to see how Chrome would do with it. :) The white bags with hay that they had to put in front of the saddle while they rode around was the biggest problem. One horse even panicked and bolted away from his owner. Now, guess how Chrome did . . . sorry, you'll have to check out the video and pictures below. ;D

First I brought him up, groomed him and put his surcingle on so I'd have something to tie the bags to. I filled one white trash bag with crumpled packing paper and one with a ton of plastic grocery bags. They don't sound quite like hay, but still an interesting sound. Anyway while he was tied up he was being so impatient and bratty. Probably because of the cold breeze and all of the equipment across the road building a house.

Pawing . . .

. . . playing with his rope . . .

. . . giraffe impression . . .

. . . listening to Faran neigh . . .

. . . playing with his surcingle . . .

. . . giving me adorable looks . . .

. . . more pawing . . .

. . . and he did eventually settle down and stand still so we could go for our walk.

Still feeling frisky he trotted down the ditch . . .

. . . gathered himself for a big jump across the ditch . . .

. . . and gave a dorky, clumsy bounce across the ditch. Silly boy.

I really wish the mailbox hadn't been in the way for this one. He's so gorgeous!
Look how far forward that rear leg is just below the mailbox. :)
The boy can reach under himself.

Then we went for a couple of trots in front of the house so hubby could take pictures. He was getting some great long strides where all four feet would actually leave the ground. Normally he's too lazy to put that much effort in hehe.

Does he have chunky haunches for a two year old? And a non existent gaskin lol.

After trotting we worked on walking through puddles since we've gone all summer without any puddles. He's always been great with them, but normally I'm walking through them too but because I was wearing my sneakers I was skirting the puddle. I think he thought that meant he was supposed to as well. He did go through them though and we even played yoyo, walking forward and backward through the puddle. He tried to bite me once (brat!), but I kept calm, verbally scolded him and just kept on as if it never happened. If he'd made contact with my skin I probably would have smacked him on the shoulder with my hand or bumped him in the teeth with my fist (gently), but he didn't so I let it go. :) Here's the video.


Then we went for a short walk. He did very well listening to me even though he wanted to be a brat around the neighbor's horses. When we came back to the house we worked with the bags. Check out the video. If you don't have a fast internet connection you can look below for snapshots of the video. :)


I look horrible in the video. I dress down on my days off lol. I'm having trouble adjusting to the cold again. So please ignore me. Here are the snapshots.

Introducing the bags.

He stood with his front feet on the pedestal while I tied one bag to his surcingle. Then when I asked him to come forward he actually put his rear hooves on it for I think the second time. :)

This is the first time that he stood with both rear hooves on the pedestal.
He would have stayed there all day if I'd kept clicking lol.

In the video I joked that he was really butt high here haha.
However the pedestal isn't what we were working on so we moved on.

He repeatedly looked back at it. He didn't seem scared, just a tiny bit worried.

He doesn't look stressed to you does he? And he's only two and a half! :D I love him.

He didn't want to trot with them, so I pushed him away and waved my arms at him, so he did trot for me. I wasn't really chasing him, just using my energy to push him away. He stayed calm the whole time. :)

Then I asked him to stand next to the pedestal and I hopped up to lay across his back. This is maybe the fifth time I've done this and I never stay on for even a minute. He did so great!

A hug for all of his hard effort. :)

Standing calmly (watching the other horses eat persimmons without him awww) while I take the bags off.

So I practiced swinging it over his back from the ground and over his head.
When I went to pull the bags back over his head it hung up on his ear!

He followed me like, mom help me! He never panicked or tried to shake his head or anything. He just walked to me and let me take it off of his ear (while laughing hysterically). :D

I'm so happy with my boy. Even though he was bratty toward me in the beginning because of the sudden change in the weather he calmed down and listened well in the end. And he did so well with the trash bags. I knew he'd be good with them, but I expected at least a tiny spook. I mean those adult horses who trail ride up mountains and across huge rivers were completely panicked by those white bags. I'm impressed with my brave boy.

The rest of the competition trail ride pictures . . .

Okay, here are the rest of the pictures. They aren't great quality because of the time of day, but they're still fun. :)

Getting her number put on. This pony, Shotgun, was twenty years old and absolutely adorable!

This roan is gorgeous! I didn't catch her name, but she's four and inexperienced.

Coaxing Shotgun to cross the bridge, which he did eventually.

Shotgun has an awesome trot!

I was happy to see someone riding bitless . . . although I think mechanical hackamores can be just as harsh in the wrong hands.

Shotgun carrying the bags of leaves. Boy these bags sure caused some drama. There was even a horse who got loose when his owner pushed the matter instead of bowing out of this obstacles. Fortunately the area was fenced so the horse was caught easily.

I like how chunky this horse is, but he looked tense . . . not just in this photo.

Look at his cute little tongue. :)

I think one of the hardest obstacles, at least for the humans, was having to use a stick to pick up a hat . . .

Definitely an obstacle where having a tall horse was a disadvantage.

She hated her bit.

Much happier with her halter on. :)

One of my favorite pictures from the day.

My favorite picture of the day. :) The woman said to hold on tight and when the little girl squeezed with all her might she pretended like she couldn't breathe. So cute!

I tried to get at least one picture of all seventeen entrants and one on each obstacle, but the horses were going on the course together so I couldn't manage to get all of them. We had to stay behind a certain line too and I couldn't see some of the obstacles. A bunch of the pictures didn't turn out because of branches in the way, too bright sun, etc. Oh well. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about what we need to work on. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.