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@that-equestrian @speculation4 @bay0vero-blog @ronniesquirrel @codedstrife94 

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This is Rory! He belongs to one of my best friends so far in college. Her name is Annika and she events him at training level. Hes a percheron/tb and he is an absolute doll. Ive ridden him about 6 or 7 times now, and Ive jumped him once (around 2'6-2'9"). For fall break, Annika has been out of town and has put me in charge of his care and excersize. I cant sleep so Im going to write about my fall break experiences with Rory (I have a show tomorrow and so I’m forcing myself to lay down way earlier than usual. It feels like Im going to bed at 7:00 when in reality its 10:40).

Thursday: After my jump lesson on thursday, I got on Rory and took him for a light hack out in one of the fields on our property. Pretty basic and a very short ride since it was late and getting dark.

Friday: I headed out to the barn around 3:45 to go ride Rory. It has been weirdly peaceful without my roommate here, although I love her to pieces. I feel like I can finally have alone time where I can relax and take care of myself. The barn has been helping me feel refreshed lately and I love it. When I got to the barn, I groomed Rory and tacked him up. While I was tacking a friend from my showteam came and started tacking up her quarterhorse mare Red. She asked if I wanted to go explore the trails with her and I said of course! We have trails that stretch for miles behind the property, including many open fields and hills for riding. We walked around a bit and then did some trot work up and down the trails. We did some uphill canterwork and trotted through the falling leaves with Megan and Red, laughing and talking. Megan took the picture of me in the field with the striped sleeved polo that I posted above. The scenery is just gorgeous! After a while Megan said that she had to go back to her dorm because she had to leave right away for her train ride. I still had to give Rory a nice gallop. He is usually a big lazy beast, but he was very forward today and needed to let it out. We found this long trail that led into a field with great footing. With the fall leaves falling and the crows cawing, it just felt so beautiful. I let him go and off we went. He is such a powerful and magnificent animal. Letting him gallop through this scenery and feel his power underneath me and the wind around me was one of the most uniquely beautiful experiences Ive had in my life. Something about it just made it special. After the gallop set, we walked the trails to cool out, and then walked to the indoor arena. I gave Rory a nice currying and plenty of earscratches and peppermints. He is the definition of a gentle giant. I saw some of my friends at the barn and we hung out and went to get hot chocolate after our rides. It was a great day.

Saturday: So, this was today. I had told Annika that I would take Rory for a really awesome/fantastic/earth-shattering trot set while she was away. I decided to do just that. I made a playlist on my phone for the trotset and wore a pair of my kerrits breeches with the side pocket for my music. I tacked up the big beast and we went to the xc field area behind the hay barn. It has a steep hill which is perfect for our excersize routine. With the music playing, we trotted around the field and up and down the hill in both directions for a set amount of time. He was still very fresh today, so I decided to do a little canter work. We went to the trails behind the turnouts, where I found an area that is great for flatting. We did some canter work and then we went for a nice uphill gallop along the cornfield. It was perfect - I had Magnets by Disclosure & Lorde playing right at that moment. There is a house above the hill on the otherside of the valley-like area, and the people kept waving at me and calling ou to me from afar. They seemed friendly, but I was worried that I had wandered off the trail for some reason, so we turned around and headed back. We walked out along the path behind the turnouts and then in the outdoor arena. We had a nice talk with the owner of a horse at our barn named Mashi, and she gave me a huge treat for Rory. He got another currying sesh and that delicious smelling treat. I am in a horse show tomorrow, and I have to get up at 5. After the show, my mom is taking me home for two days. I havent been home since before school started! Hopefully I can ride Rory on tuesday because Annika wont be back yet. I am also trying out a lease horse on Tuesday! His name is Zipper and hes a bay paint. I will make sure to blog about the show and zipper. Sorry for the lack of blogging!

- Abby

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Catalpa Corner Horse Trials - August 1st and 2nd

know this entry is a little late, but Ive had a lot going on! Catalpa was such a fun experience. Since Sketch and I were on the road for several days, I’ll split this entry up accordingly.

Thursday

After work on thursday, Sketch and I had a quiet jump lesson before we trailered to my trainers barn to spend the night before we left for Iowa. My trainer's backyard is the expansive xc course for the the barn she has her horses at, which is right next door. Sketch settled in nicely at Winsom (the name of the barn) and we had italian beef on the barn patio outside before I went back to my trainers house and slept on an air mattress in the living room. Yeah, thursday was totally not exciting at all.

Friday

My trainer's dog Maya woke me up around at around 8 AM with her tongue. Gross. Soon my trainer and I headed to Winsom where she helped me pack everything into the trailer. In a twist of fate, she was not going to be able to come to the show with her horse, due to her other horse injuring himself. I was to go to Iowa with her trainer, who I've known for years, and other riders from Winsom who I've known as well. So we figured it would be alright. 

After we put standing wraps on Sketch, we loaded him into the trailer along with the other horses and we were off. The four hour car ride was entertaining, since there was always a conversation going. I kept excitedly checking the gps on my phone to see where we were but every time I checked we were still in Illinois. As we entered Iowa, we went to the World's Largest Truck Stop, where we got gas and food and checked on the horses. Sketch had kicked off his back wraps completely! That takes some skill. Anyways, enough with this boring info. We did actually arrive at Catalpa Corner, believe it or not. After unpacking, I walked my xc course which wore me out even before we schooled (there were so many hills!) When we did school, Sketch was very curious about where he was. He started out by taking off when I asked him for a quiet trot, but when he realized that he was fine he returned to his lazy self. We had a nice schooling and I was super excited for the next day. We took care of the horses before getting dinner and heading to the hotel. I actually went to bed at 9:30, which is probably the earliest I've gone to bed in years. I needed rest for the next day!!

Saturday

Even though my dressage wasn’t until 2:00 on saturday, I got up nice and early with the rest of the winsom team and headed to the show grounds to tend to the horses and help my team mates. I ended up running small errands in the golf cart and bathing Sketch most of the morning. When the time came, we headed out for our dressage ride. It went extremely well, and we ended up getting one of our best scores, which was somewhere in the 31 range. After dressage, I was in 9th place out of 19 people. My XC run was at 4:00, although the xc times had been pushed back significantly due to a rider fall that blocked the novice path in the morning for almost an hour. I wasn’t too worried about xc, especially since we were only doing starter. We have competed BN and novice CT, but since this kind of event was a first for us both, we decided it would be best to stick to starter. We headed to the warm up ring, and Sketch started whinnying loudly as we walked over there. He never really figured out how to complete a whinny like a normal horse, so he just made one monotone screeching sound that made me and everyone within the vicinity laugh. Our warmup went very well, and I got one picture of me in the xc warm up ring haha. So here it is...

As you can see, I scrubbed the heck out of his tail and made it super white. He’s showing it off. Anyways, after a successful warm up, I was called to the start box to await my countdown.

Little did I know that I was about to embark on the most dysfunctional (but still fun) xc runs of my life thus far. After our “have a great ride” cue, I pushed the lazy pony out of the box and headed through our path. As we approached the first fence at a consistent speed, he lurched forward and took the starter coop as if it were a novice table. I was actually pretty happy about this, because at least he was willing. But suddenly..there was corn. Corn everywhere. Stalks of corn surrounded us on both sides, and Sketch lost his mind. He started wiggling and fishtailing like a hamster having a grand mal seizure. I managed to square him up for our third fence which he hopped over. Once he landed, he realized that he had landed in gravel. Surrounded by more corn. This was too much for his greenie brain. He reared out of the gravel at a halt while snorting at his surroundings. I was practically peeing my pants with laughter. I managed to get him to canter out of that area, leaving the corn behind. As soon as we left the general vicinity of corn-world, Sketch locked on our next fence and we had a smooth ride to our next three jumps. At our last fence, I asked him to go forward more. He responded with a sassy pre-jump buck, which caused the jump judge to laugh along with me. Soon, we approached the tunnel. I wanted to give him the experience of going through it, and he went through it surprisingly well.

After the tunnel, we headed towards our next fence which was skirted by, you guessed it - corn. He ducked left and we ran out on the silly little starter log. We went back around and jumped it fluidly, but I could tell that little Sketch was losing energy. This was definitely the most hilly and extensive xc run he had ever done. I pushed him over the last few jumps with the finish in sight. We did end up making it and surviving, just so you know.

Is this even a jump? lol Sketch thinks so. After xc we had moved down the ranks in terms of placements, but I didn’t really care. This was all about getting experience for Sketchy! When we got back to the barn, I gave him a shower and fed him the apple I snagged from the breakfast buffet at the hotel. He worked really hard and I was very proud of him. I couldn’t wait for stadium the next day!

Sunday

We got up early once again on Sunday morning and headed to the show grounds. Since my ride wasn’t until later in the day, I watched my team mates ride and took photos of the other riders with my camera. Here’s one of my favorite pictures that I took of my Winsom teammate Caitlyn and her horse Patty.

Soon, it was my turn to ride. Sketch and I had a good warm up. They decided to run my division by first come first serve, so Steve had me up at the front ready to go first, which I did. Our stadium ride was very smooth. Sketch was not looky or spooky at all. Usually he does not respect jumps under 2′6″, and crawls across them or knocks them down with his back end, even with added half halts and leg. I was surprised when he actually cleared all of his fences and respected them! I didn’t get any photos of my stadium ride, but after our ride Sketch and I hung out around the arena. We went for a long walk in the shade while we waited for the other riders to go. Once everyone went, we all congregated to get our placements. I was surprised to come home with a very beautiful 8th place ribbon! I was very proud of Sketch. I think this is the most unique ribbon that I have. On a side note, throughout that weekend I got 30+ comments on how cute he was. Sketch, don’t let this inflate your ego.

After the show, we packed up for another long car trip home. I was very happy with how the show went! We trailered Sketch back to winsom. Since we didn’t want to have to make him endure another trailering trip back to Double J, Sketch stayed at Winsom overnight and I stayed at my trainer’s house on the air mattress in the living room again.

Monday

Well, monday doesn’t really need much of an entry. But when I packed up in the morning and headed outside to my trainer’s truck, I was so happy to see Sketch poking his head out of the trailer. He flipped his head at me and I went to give him a pat on the nose.

We headed home to Double J, where Sketch got to rest in his stall and I finally got to go take a nap in my own bed. It was a great weekend!

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I have a ton of entries to post...so bear with me. Im going to try getting better at posting these on time.

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Leaving for Catalpa Corner Horse Trials tonight!

Im headed to my trainer's house with Sketch to prepare to trailor out to Iowa tomorrow! Im super excited to go. I will try to keep you updated :)

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Bareback hack - 7/26/15 I went to the barn for an evening hack last sunday with a group of my barn friends. It was Sketch and I, Ali and and her tb Quinn, Liz and her qh Hampton, and Maggie and her welsh pony Rolo. We decided to let ourselves have a relaxing ride and hacked around outside as the sun went down (and the bugs came out). I decided to ride Sketch in a halter & lead for his first time and he was very responsive, partly because of how much he favors my leg cues over anything else. The whole time I was riding him I couldn't help but smile thinking that he would have never been able to do this just months ago. He used to be 100x more lethargic and unresponsive than he is now, and he has learned to respect his rider a lot more. The slow stifle build-up we did this winter and the discovery of his thyroid disorder plus subsequent medication has helped him feel better and more active in his hind end. He feels more comfortable engaging his body because his stifles no longer hurt. Last winter pretty much consisted of trotting him on the bit to build his topline and stifle. We barely did anything besides trot during our hacks just to strengthen his legs. The improvement is so drastic. As sassy as the cowkicking is, he never would have been able to do it before because it would have felt painful. Now, he can kick away and be a brat baby because he feels fine and dandy. To continue on, Maggie took beautiful pictures of our ride, which you can see above! After we rode, we rinsed off the horses and grazed them before Ali and I headed to tropical snow with her 8 week old GSD puppy Sammi! Sammi is a cuteness overload, I totally need to post a picture of her on here. Anyways, thanks for reading! - Abby

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Schooling 7/11/15

I know this is over a week late, but I had written about my schooling and the show I was in and decided to post what I had written (although I did elaborate).

Anyways.

Since the show was at my trainers barn, my trainer’s trainer (yeah I know) Steve let us come up and school around the day before the show started. Of course since it was 7/11/15, my barn friends and I made multiple trips to 7-11 under false identities and pseudonyms. I only scored one slurpee because I’m too unforgettable.

After all of that, we went to my trainers barn and rode. Sketch and I had a really great school. Sketch was very awake and responsive for our XC run, and we had a completely clean xc school. I have this bad habit of riding into my right spur upon landing after the first jump of the day. Only the first jump. Of course I did this on the first fence and Sketch’s adverse reaction was to go on one of his classic bucking fits where he starts to nosedive into the ground as he hops around like an angry toddler. I nosedived with him but we eventually came up for air. After that, the rest of our xc was great! I had been having a problem with giving him his neck over larger and wider xc fences, and I drastically improved on this during my ride. We schooled a few of the training level fences on the property with no problem, and I was very proud of him. Last year at this exact same annual show, it was Sketch’s first time being asked to jump logs and weird things in a field. He was only a month and a half or so under saddle. I could barely muscle the lazy baby over tiny starter fences last year, so this was a great improvement. My friend Jess used my camera during schooling to take pictures of me over a few fences. They turned out really well!

^ Here’s us in 2014 at the exact same annual show a year before, stumbling over starter fences. He was so wiggly, spooky, and under motivated. We had countless run outs and near face plants. He had no idea what he was doing and refused to move forward.

^ And here’s a picture Jess took of us schooling before the show this year! He can effectively use his body and feels confident when he jumps now. He enjoys being in the xc field. This was a four jump coffin combination which ended in a large training rolling pin fence after this door, which he cleared with ease. He has shown so much improvement in just a year!

So, I’m very proud of that aspect of our schooling! After our xc school we headed in for stadium schooling, which went alright. As soon as we step into a fenced in area (as in, not an exciting xc field), Sketch’s laziness peaks. He has a hard time respecting non-solid fences, but has gotten a lot better at finding comfortable distances and picking up his backend more consistently. While we schooled mini-courses given to us, Steve informed us that knocking a rail would earn us 10 pushups. Sure enough, down go 2 rails in my 6 jump course. Lovely. I was forced off my horse to do girl pushups on the wet grass.

^ At first, I was apparently doing “pushups” like this. I don’t know how this is physically possibly, but it was obviously so disgusting to watch that they told me to do girl pushups instead.

^Notice Sketch moving farther and farther away to the right. He wanted nothing to do with this scene.

After that humiliation, I got back on and decided that no matter how lazy this horse is, I was going to make sure we didn’t have any more rails. That’s when Steve decided to give us a really weird course. We were to jump an oxer downhill, and then make a sharp turn into a one-stride line to the final vertical in the line. I honestly did not know if my greenie could do that turn without rails. I put those negative thoughts out of my mind and went for it. I rode it correctly and gave Sketch just the amount of encouragement he needed. We sliced the turn perfectly and made the jump clear!

Here we are, successfully jumping it. Eq is a mess but hey, it’s all okay.

Wow, I sure got carried away writing this. Until next time,

- Abby

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An (in)formal introductions

I guess I’ll start by introducing myself. I’m Abby, and I’m an 18-year-old eventer with a pony named Sketch. Sketch is my pride and joy. I started training him when he was 10 days under saddle, and he has come so far in just a year and four months. Every ride is a blessing and an accomplishment with this horse. He is the laziest thing you’ll ever meet, partly due to his thyroid condition but mostly because he is the most bullheaded and stubborn cutie you will ever meet.

Anyways, I’m going to start off by saying that canterpole94 has really inspired me to make this account. I love writing and taking notes, and seeing her posts inspired me to create an account of my own. I do have a main tumblr that I use, but you’re going to have to request the url to that if you really want it. I’m reluctant to flat-out share with nice and normal people the blog that illustrates my truly off-putting personality. But anyways, I’ll start with writing some background.

So.

I don’t exactly remember how old I was when I started riding, but I used to mess around on the horses near my Grandmother’s house in NC when I was strange and lanky 8-year-old

I pulled this picture out from the depths of hell and I almost regret it. Moving on…

I flopped between barns trying to find the “right fit” until I eventually found it at a young age. I’ve been at my barn ever since then! No honestly I haven’t left at all! I literally sleep here! Help!

Alright so the first horse I leased was a mare named Kiley. I loved this horse like no tomorrow. She was the biggest mare/brat in the world, but I was just so in love with her. It took me a while to figure her out. She was a tough ride because of how picky and particular she was. She would throw you off if you sat on her a certain way or asked her for things in a way that she didn’t like. Her attitude was out of this world and my falling skills were improving. By that I mean I could literally land in gymnastics poses with my hands up waiting for a 0-10 rating due to the amount of practice I received. Kiley, I thank you for that.

I was with Kiley for a while before we started to show. In my little kid mind, I decided that the showname “Dancing with Shadows” was perfect and exactly what I wanted to show her under. (I really don’t know why.) Once we started showing, my trainer and I realized that Kiley was not cut out for this. She would throw me off at almost every show and appeared very unhappy. She became increasingly unhappy the more we jumped and the higher we went. The vet checked her out and noticed that her hip was being irritated when she jumped, and that it was just part of the way she was built. He advised that she retire from jumping. I was very upset and distraught. Soon enough, my trainer had me try out a new horse. Her name was Peaches.

Peaches is the cutest/fugliest appy I’ve ever met. Although the switch from Kiley was tough, Peaches was an experienced mare who brought me under her wing and helped build my confidence back up. I was with Peaches for over two years! She kickstarted my passion for eventing. She was my best friend and a great buddy for me to have (I still ride her sometimes now too!) I never could decide on a solid showname for her, so I seemed to change it every season. First from Peaches’n’Creme, then to Game Over, and finally to Princess Peach.

(We took the best matching selfies ever.)

Peaches and I worked hard together for years until one day in April of 2014 she came up mysteriously lame. After a trip to the vet and an ultrasound, it was determined that Peaches had a bowed tendon that would take almost a year to heal. I was devastated and very worried about her. I loved this horse so much. She had become my world. I was also informed that the injury would leave her with permanent damage to her leg that would prohibit her from moving up and going higher like we had been working towards. After getting this news, I didn’t know what to do. I was already signed up for two shows at the time I learned about her injury. I decided to put my big girl pants and brave face on, and I took two random school horses to the shows. I couldn’t get my mind of Peach!

Just a few weeks later, my trainer told me that she had a surprise for me. When I walked into the barn, I found her riding the cutest pony I’d ever seen. His name was Sketch. My trainer was sweating her ass off and appeared dismayed. Since my trainer is one of the most accomplished and talented riders I know, I was shocked when I saw her being worn out by this pony. That’s when I knew it would be tough. And that’s also when she told me that he was my new project pony whether I liked it or not, since I needed something for the summer. Oh and that’s also when she told me that he was around 10 days under saddle. Great.

I rode him the next day, and ended up taking him over his first jump. (Which I did get a picture of!)

After that ride, we were inseparable. I took him to his first show that weekend and he surprised everyone! We did hunters, jumpers, and evented that year. I showed him almost every weekend to get him experience. It was the hardest summer of my life but boy was it worth it!

(Sketch and I at IDCTA champs last september at Fields and Fences)

Sketch and I have been together ever since that first fateful ride. I can honestly say that I have never had this much love and connection with a horse before in my life. To everyone reading this, if you ever get the opportunity to train your horse from the ground up, take it! It is the most rewarding thing I have ever done and I think all equestrians should experience this at some point.

But anyways, Sketch and I are in the midst of our second show season together. We have a USEA event in Iowa coming up that we are prepping for, as well as our midwest mini event championships. We also hope to do more jumpers this summer too just for fun! Thanks for checking out my page and sharing my journey with me.

Until next time,

Abby