ONE WEEK !!!

This time next week we will be just about to hit the road..its just before 5am!!!
So why am I up and already on the computer??? Work/deadline is the simple answer. We have until this weekend to get our design together enough for our 3D computer renders to start on the model which in the end will be animation of the casino design. As our deadline is 1st of October which of course too is the weekend of WEG, which I have tickets for!
It always seem to be sods law that if I have competitions or something planned..work will have deadline right at the same point. Balancing the two,three and sometimes four or more things is a full time job in its self.
So early starts and working weekends has been the normal for a while now.
So since I last wrote this is how things have paned out.
Toby had his body worked on my Dr. Willard on Wednesday, his poll,left shoulder,left side rib cage and left stifle were in need of some work. I had ridden him early before Bob arrived and then I could ride him on Thursday evening. The weather had finally broken yey and it was a pleasure to ride in the late hours which has still been hotter than hell till now..He felt so much better and through, and had real swing to his movement and better in the poll. Monday needed to catch back up with Dr. Willard and he was going to come out and check if he needed more manipulations.
Friday while a lot of area V where off at Feather Creek, we headed out to show jump in the morning, jacked up the fences and off we went. He jumped really well and we got good spots and even canter.
Saturday off to Torra Vista Stables in Celina, this is a dressage barn that holds rider test on a regular basis with Dressage judge Clare Morrow. I had forgotten quite how many traffic lights on HWY 380 there are and I think we caught every single buggering one on red!! So didn't get as much warm up as I would have liked but still we did a decent test scoring a 34. Getting to work with the judge and hear their comments is brill. She was complementary about my test riding except for my serpentine which needed some work and we could get at least another point or 2 out of the move and some work on our haunches in and extend walk..
All good stuff plus it was another new place for Toby to see and work at, super indoor arena and really nice people to allow crazy Event Rider to come and ride an USEA test.
Sunday back to the track at Normandy for canter sets...it was prefect morning with a great breeze and Toby was on his toes and ready to go.
I had notice the week before in our foot tracks that left hind was leaving a bit of a drag mark, this week no sign of it so Dr. Willard work on him had fixed that.
Monday our day..well Toby's.. I was busy with work and also with getting things ready like Health certificate which means pulling blood for the parvo. test you need for GA. Also, trip to Dover saddlery as Toby's happy mouth mullen mouth we do dressage in broke! So good excuse to wiz over and cruse the store, I'm lucky that our office is only 10 minutes at most from dover!
So here we are Tuesday morning!!
Will be riding before Dr. Willard is back out this morning to check on Toby see if he needs some more work and take his bloody. Then Wednesday late afternoon have a lesson with Mary Darcy which will be our last tune up before we leave on the flat work.
Need to get in touch with Heather/Mike for a jump/xc lesson sometime this weekend!!
Sounds like Feather Creek was fun and i know my friends had great rides out there so hope rest of you that went did too..
Back to work now!!

Two Weeks!!!

last two weeks have been a bit hectic and i've started writing about 5 times..so here's the last two weekends and more!

After the weekend before last being so busy with work and only just fitting in getting to ride.

Last weekend made up for all that as I was able to have Friday off from work thanks to all the hours I had worked over the weekend. One good thing about the firm I work with they allow for you to flex your time.

So first off Friday Mike Robins the equine dentist who I had to postpone twice finally came out to do the horses Teeth. Toby was up first so he would have most time to get over the calming drugs before my dressage lesson with Mary Darcy at 12! Yep busy day!!!

The last month or so notice Toby had been grinding his teeth when we had been show jumping and just recently doing flat work. At Heritage Park he had done some in the our test too, so time to fix that and I had learnt after a couple of months when I first got him that he did this when he got nervous or excited or worried. He does it with his front teeth and its because he is missing a top tooth on one side!! Looks a bit like one of those old boxer photographs when you lift his top lip up!!LOL! Due to this missing tooth the teeth below have nothing to wear on and just keeps growing. So Mike gets out a horse version of some of those drill you might see your own dentist use but I sure would not want that in my mouth. But as normal Toby is “Mr. Best patience” and Mike has his front teeth all flat and even then on to his back teeth in no time. Next up is Jeri who is also very patient about those sort of things too, that one of the reason I love having horses with Quarter Horse Blood in them . Only thing with Jeri she is a big girl and has a big head which she likes for you to help hold it up..that why I had big biceps when we did Dressage!!! After Jeri is was going to be her Filly Chloe’s first time having her teeth done but she got a rain check as she had some caps due to come off in 30 days or so and Mike would have had to come back and messed about again as she needs her wolf teeth pulled too. I’m in the process on braking her in (when I have time) but don’t plan now to get on her until after Fall Season and Toby takes a well earned brake. I like to give him about a month sometimes more off.

By noon Toby and I were over at Lynne’s (she kind enough to arrange for Mary to come for a day and teach in her arena) ready for our lesson with Mary. It was pretty hot by then so we would do about 10 minutes of work and brake in the shade for 5 and walk over what movement we had done or about to do. Giving Toby and myself time to cool some!!! f that’s at all at the moment with this Texas heat!!

Toby was working well and seemed so much happier with his teeth floated and his front teeth nice and flat. We concentrated on mostly on the moves that are in the B test we will be doing at AECs, so mostly shoulder in and haunches in and then the loops in canter and transitions. Each time I ride with Mary I’m so impressed how she is able to get the best out of both me and my horse sometimes with just the smallest of changes to my positions or use of aids or Toby’s position. We always leave feeling like we have improved but have homework to do ready for next lesson. It was a great tune up and totally worth being out there in the heat! Also, after Heritage park and going back to my normal dressage bridle and the way he went he went in it. Totally decided that he is far happier and better head carriage in the Michlem bridle .

Saturday we were off to Gold chip for a Jump lesson with Mike Huber and get to play with some of his new XC fences …yippee!

We started off with some training level fences in the arena with related distances and bending lines consecrating in riding the right canter and keeping our lines between fences. Canter quality and balance in SJ has been a bit of an issue with us . Toby is not the easiest horses to ride and it’s taken a lot of hard work and patience over the years to have what we have now. He also not the carefulness as far as keeping poles up but besides a little phase he went through coming back from his trailer accident he will always try to jump what in front of him even if his rider is doing a crap job of getting him to that fence.

Saying that if the jump is big and impressive so is his jump, sometimes I think he really cant be bothered with smaller fences and knocks them down just because!! The other thing he does which I’m sure many of you have seen, is clear the fence with ease then kick out with one back foot and knock the pole down! It’s his way of telling be I’m too much in his face! It use to be if I had my leg too far back on the jump (bad habit on my part) he’s now pretty much fixed me of that!

Then we were off into the XC field so try out some new fences and combinations of fences. One lines was pretty tricky especially when you have not walked it and first time we didn’t get the line out of the water over the skinny to the corner and my reins were too long..I think Toby would have carried on and try to jump it but I aired on the safety side and pulled away, last time we got the line to a corner wrong ended in me dislocating my shoulder!!! The second time we came through was bang on the money even if Toby decided to jump the wider part of the corner. All in all it was a great tune up and hope to get one more in before we head of to GA.

Sunday up way to early again this time off to Quail Run to do their schooling CT, Jan was kind enough to extend the divisions to Intermediate and her dressage arena in the pecan grove. Which had some issues well just two but the trees seemed to have been planted in just the right spots for Intermediate test B!

Not one of our best test but on hard ground and me getting one of the simple changes in the wrong place it was worth the outing.

Even more so the Show Jumping course that had been set up and then me and Lynne went round and put them up higher and wider. Not an easy course and all three of us had some issues, Joni and Ransom were the other test pilots! Mine a normal leaving the poles up!!! But we were just a bit fast for my liking with Toby still thinking we were still doing XC.

Jan allowed another round and we all improved. The course was a good test and tones of fun for us to ride.I think the spectators enjoy watching us doing the bigger fences too.

Monday day of rest for both of us from riding, for me it was off to Life Time fitness and another mile of lap swimming. I try and swim at least 3 times a week swimming, I do just over 60 laps which is roughly a mile of freestyle(crawl as we call it in UK). It’s the best thing for my shoulder(I’ve dislocated them both) and for my knees too(again through injuries) its great way to keep fit plus I love swimming.

Tuesday a hack and some flat work..

Wednesday and Thursday Toby had as rest as I had to Alabama for work.

So Friday was another day of hacking under the trees and some flat work in the arena.

Saturday was an early start and off over to Lynne’s with Shelly too, as Lynne had a gymnastics exercise for us all to play with. One of my favorite things is grid work, it reminds me of being in the Pony Club and all the jump training I did with the Show Jumping team for my local club. Loved doing the jumping shots with no reins and often no stirrups too…But we kept our reins and mostly our stirrups this time. It was defiantly good for all of our horses and we decided Saturday will be gymnastic day from now on if we don’t have a event.

I like working with my friends, we all help each other out everyone is allowed to make comment and shout at each other for our faults and good moments too..

Sunday early …packed Toby and the ice chest into the trailer and we were off to Normandy Farm’s North property were they have a track. Jo has always been a great supporter for many of us Eventers especially the Young Rider Teams too, to go over and do our canter sets at her place. It is such a great treasure when the ground is too hard to canter and you are still trying to keep your horse fit especially at Intermediate level.

Toby is an ex-Quarter horse Race horse and no the first race horse I have given a new career too (had several ex0-TB race horses back home)..

One thing about Ex-Race horses they never forget the “track’, and Toby is no different. Not sure who he thought he was racing. Maybe the huge male Hare that ran along with us before cutting in front and disappearing in the long grass in a split second!. But our canter sets were a tad faster than the 400-450 we were supposed to be doing !! The first 5 minute set didn’t take much out of him and at the end of the second he had only just broken a sweet but third he was working it but finishes with lots of steam.

Lucky for us the clouds kept the sun hidden the whole time but even at 7am its still bleedying hot…roll on Autumn and make it snappy.

Good luck to all that are off to Feather creek this coming weekend and the forecast is for cooler weather and I hope it turns out cooler than they forecast. We has decided not to run there for several reason but will be back there in the Spring to try out their new Intermediate course.

Saturday we will be off to one of the dressage stables to do a Ride a Test on the test we will be doing at the AECs.

Two weeks tonight we will be packed and ready for a very early morning start to GA…bugger where did that time go!!

Five weeks and counting

I'm sure like everyone else, dealing with riding in Texas in August HEAT..is no fun even if you ride at dawn its still nasty,sweaty and dusty. So thanks goodness for the cool front and the rain we got yesterday in our area. It made Jumping this morning way more bearable.
So how is my plan going? Not quite as plan but then that's par for course.
Between the HEAT and work, getting Toby exercised and working on getting better scores is still a focus. So this week we mostly stayed in the arena working on square halt with all feet esp. that left back which either wants to do some ballerina toes pointing thing out the back or just rest up their like a dog on the porch! Also, the unending perfect shoulder and hunches in or we just hacked under the shade of the trees.
No need for canter sets this week..too hot, ground too hard and Toby had already done plenty Monday evening when he and the other two went galloping round the feild like idiots because of a Wild Turkey passing through!!!LOL very scary turkey!!
This weekend we should have been off to Dressage clinic. However, due to the heat they did not have enough riders for both days and then Sunday I have too much work for deadline that goes to China to get over to take part. So phewie!!!
So went over to Lynne's to hack and jumping early as consolations, jumping always makes the days feel better.
So looking at the AECs entries website there is a load of people taking advantage of the early bird $100 off special. Even the likes of Phillip Dutton, Karen O'Connor and more are already in the line up. only reason i say those two names as they are riding in the same OI division as I am!!! It will be interesting to see quiet how well my part "Cow horse" does. I also saw some more familiar names Jacob and Emma from our Young rider pool and Becky Roper.
I know there is a good size group from this area going, lets see if we can show the two coasts just how serious we are about our eventing and our partying too!!!
Next weekend is Quail Runs Schooling CT, and Jan who is Fabulous for holding these schooling events is allowing me to do Intermediate tests which will really be our warm up outing before AECs..As another work deadline does not allow for me going to Feather Creek. So hope our hard work on the flat will show up in our test next weekend, I'm also going to be using the Micklem Bridle to do my test in. I've done a few other schooling shows in it and got good results, at Heritage park i changed back to normal bridle and not so good. So give it another run.
Also, next week hope to go XC schooling with Goldchip, hope we get some more rain and cooler weather. Toby gets his teeth done this week and then a good check over and chiro tune up with the vet next week too.
But for this weekend like last have to work most of it...so cheers for now and I'll catch up again next week. Sam