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 Herzmond and Sara |
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Competition Blog Manny and Harry April 20th 2009: Manny at Twin River
Sara writes: Last week was the event at Twin Rivers Ranch in Paso Robles CA. This is a beautiful event with wonderful courses. My dad and I had 5 horses between us, so we were planning for a busy week. Twin Rivers is a 2 day drive for us. We overnight in Bishop, CA at a lovely fairgrounds. The horses all traveled well and the trip was uneventful. The wind was howling when we arrived at the Ranch and we saw riders out hacking and they were wearing goggles to protect their eyes from the blowing sand. I was prepared for a fast trip to Walmart if the wind didn't subside. The wind did stop and the tempurature climbed into the 90s for the rest of the week. The horses didn't seem to notice the weather change and we all had some good schools before the show started. Manny is very new to eventing and really even to being outside of an arena. I was looking forward to seeing how he would handle the atmosphere of a big event. I would say, for a newby, that he handled the dressage warmup well, almost too well, as one of the judge's remarks was "a little lazy at times". Overall the test was even and steady and focused. I was very pleased that he was so professional. Show jumping was next for us. He got scared once in warm up when another horse nearly ran into us. I just jumped a couple of fences and then walked around until our turn. I made sure than Manny got a quick tour of the course after the bell, but before we crossed the start line. There were a few themed jumps that he had never seen before and I wanted him to take a look before he had to actually jump over them. He did pull one rail, but for the most part he held a good steady rhythm and was confident around the course. Cross country was going to be the biggest test. He did not like the little kids bombing around warm on their little ponies. That really on edge. He started on course not really "on course" in his brain. It took a bit of encouragement on my part get him going. He learned as we went and got into a flow, until we got to the water, when he went into neutral and stood staring at his reflection in the water. I finally back him into the water and then he just stood there. He finally got going again and finished the course. He had a very good school and when all was said and done I think he felt like he had done something special. We are home now for about a month. I have several schooling opportunities planned for him and an unrec. event derby. He will be a much more experience horse when he leaves the start box at our next event.
March 15th 2009: Manny and the Monster Ditch Sara writes: Manny arrived in Idaho after several days on the shipper's van. He was a great traveller and ate and drank well. The next day he was perky and looking for something to do. He brought along some of his usual hay from Texas, but we would have to change him over to our local alfalfa hay. I thought that we could add a bit of alfalfa to his grass hay each day and make the change over a week or 10 days. Well, that didn't work. Once he tried out the alfalfa hay he just used the grass as a pillow. He was due for a re-shoe and since we had the farrier at our farm the next day, I asked him to take a look at Manny's feet. He said, "we need to get some rads of these feet". We like to get radiographs of all the horses feet sooner or later anyway, so we arranged for that to happen asap. The vet and farrier consulted and Manny got new shoes and reshaped feet. He had too much heel on one front and not enough on the other. He will have a wedge pad for a few weeks and then another reset will hopefully do the trick. We needed to give him some time to adjust to the new angles of his front feet, so he was just hacking for the first week. This did give him some time to get to know the lay of the land, ie: which hiding places go with which cat and where the dogs sleep. He also got a close up look at the Canada Geese that roost on the hay barn. We are finally off and running with his training. He must have been absent when the dressage teacher taught "whoa" because he doesn't have that skill set. It's getting better day by day. Last week he was a demo horse for a USEA Instuctor certification workshop. He got to do some show jumping and some cross country jumping. He was introduced to his first ditch and after giving it a good looking over he gave it a huge jump. It seems like we are off to a good start and I want Manny to have a good experience with me, so we take our time and build his skill and confidence. I am looking forward to taking him on the road with my other two horses!
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