I'm sooo Horse-sick!

[Chickerdoodle13]

I'm due to finish this semester at college in two weeks and I can't stop day dreaming about working with my horses again! I've been home a few times this semester and every time I'm home, it gets harder to leave them! It's really difficult for me to be away for such long periods of time because it's difficult to pick up where I left off. My dad works with them while I'm away, but we had such a rough winter this year that he didn't get as much time with them as he wanted.

Last weekend our 3 year old was being so sweet. She's really come a long way manners wise and I can't wait to start more work with her. Every time I talk to my dad he gets more and more attached. For a while there he wanted to sell her and now he says he would still consider it but his price keeps getting higher and higher LOL. I have a feeling we'll be sending her out for training and keeping her for ourselves

Anyone else ready for horse season, or getting started with their training for this season?

 

[ducks4you]

My youngest DD, who works 20-30 hours/week in ADDITION to her full load (last semester) at the U of I is DDYYYIIINNNGGG to see the end of school, too.Yes, I know what you're feeling. Remember, that your grades and GPA are written in stone, so keep up the hard work.
(I went back for teacher certification and have one Bachelors, but 232 hours of coursework. I can sympathize!!)
We're training for NEXT season--no national events scheduled this year. Only REAL anniversary of the Civil War in 2010 is the Confederate surrender----super boring. Got a small event this weekend, and we already joined another group's one day, spring warm up in March. Next month we trail-ride for a week in SD, then a "Guard" event in June, one in July, 2 small events in August, and the last small event for the year is in September. (That March warm-up told me that the SB wasn't going to work out.)
We've been cleaning/oiling/stripping and replacing worn-out CW tack. We're doing some sewing and patching of uniforms. We've been working on ground manners and doing ground training with our 4 year olds.
ALL of our training is geared towards finishing our 4 year old KMH and our 4 year old QH to be ready for the 2011 season. We suspect that we'll be going to 2 National Events in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

How neat!

My first thing to do when I get home is to clean tack! All of it needs a good cleaning. Some of the pieces have been sitting in the barn for the winter and they need a very in depth cleaning! LOL Plus, there's nothing better than clean tack!

My goals for this summer are to get my mare loading on the trailer, get a good stop on her, and teach her to stand while mounting. I'll have to rework some of her round penning because I'm sure she's rusty after the winter! She has some pretty nice ground manners though. She'll walk ahead of you sometimes, but that is quickly fixed with some back up exercises. The people who had her before us just let her walk all over them. She's so easy to teach, it just amazes me that they let a good horse go to waste for so many years! They also claimed she was nasty towards them, but I think that's mostly because she didn't have any respect for them! She's the sweetest thing now.

The baby I'm a little intimidated to work with by myself because she still has the baby mentality and can be somewhat unpredictable because of it. We're working on her ground manners, but every once in awhile she'll just get it in her mind to run around you with the lead rope bucking. It's usually when she sees grass and thinks "Oh! Play!". We most likely won't be doing any saddle training until she's four or older, but she'll get some good groundwork this summer. The other horses are teaching her some good manners though. She's no longer nippy and not nearly as pushy as she was. Again, another case of previous owners not working with their horses!

I've got one more year of college and then I'll be moving back home. Unfortunately I'll probably be wrapped up with work (Here's to hoping!) but at least I'll be able to see them on a regular basis!

 

[michickenwrangler]

I'm conditioning for my first competitive trail ride, which is Memorial Day weekend. It's the Grand Island Ride in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. base camp is near Lake Michigan and the trail goes north from there to Lake Superior. I LOVE the trails up there, the forests are very primeval with huge pines and rolling hills like the Appalachians. You can hear wolves howl at night and I almost ran over some Bigfoot hunters in '08 when I did that ride.

The whole course--Lake Michigan to Superior and back again is 100 miles and was a qualifying ride for the WEG in 2006. I was actually at that ride, only riding in the 25 mile division, but still. I only plan on doing 25 miles this year too. When I went in 2006, I got to meet and rub elbows with some previous world champions like Valerie Kanavy (PM me for that encounter, you'll find out why it has to be a PM when you do )

Izzie and I have done that trail 3 times before and I did it one additional time on my bay Arab when I still had her.

The only bad thing is, in Michigan's UP, even on Memorial Day, you can't count on good weather! In 2008, the high was only about 40 degrees that day. When I did that ride in 2001, it snowed!