Joined two More CSHA programs

So I have officially joined CSHA region 2's TRAP (trail Riders Award Program) and Horsemastership. TRAP is where I go on trail rides and log my hours. When I get to 1000hrs I get a plaque then a large plaque at 3000hrs and at 5000hrs I get a personal buckle. My goal is to have at least 800hrs before the end of the year. So this program never really shows but since you can win things I thought it would be fun to share. Now horsemastership involves a riding, grooming, and written horse test. We practice tillt he show of Champions in October and that will be the day we show. So no showing for horsemastership as of yet. I know that if you get state Champion you win a Silver Buckle so we will see how this goes. The catagory I will be competeing in is Senior English I which is a flat pattern and a jumping pattern. English II is only flat English they also have Western, Gymkhana and then an English Western combined. I have also started writing article for our regions English Western program in our newsletters. That is all I have to update right now, in my next blog I want to make a list of the shows I have left for the season. The only show I am nervous about right now is the Shasta Fair, I have not shown there before and I am more nervous about the people than anything else. If you get first place you get $45.00 so that's nice. Especially since the entery free was only $7.00. Ok have a great weekend and happy riding everyone!

For those who want to learn more about TRAP or any other CSHA Programs Feel Free to Visit the links below:
TRAP
http://www.geocities.com/cshatrap/index.html
Horsemastership
http://www.californiastatehorsemen.com/Horsemastership/horsemastership.htm
English Western
http://www.californiastatehorsemen.com/english/english-western.htm
CSHA Main Web Page
http://www.californiastatehorsemen.com/

Horse Show Results From Sunday

So Sunday was the second show of the CSHA Region 18 buckle series. It was a ton of fun but REALLY hot, it was 102 and with my Hunt jacket on it felt more like 150 lol. Ok so here is how we placed: (there was a small number of people at the show b/c there was a big QH show going on the same weekend).

Halter Geldings: 2nd out of 6
Showmanship Open: 1st out of 2
Showmanship Ammy: 1st out of 2
English pleasure w/t Open: 3rd out of 5
English Pleasure Open: 2nd out of 4
English EQ Open: 1st out of 4
English EQ Ammy: 1st out of 3
Eng/West Country Pleasure Open: 1st out of 3
Hunter Hack Open: 2nd out of 2
Hunter Hack Ammy: 1st out of 2

Then Bailie:

English Pleasure w/t 10&Under: 1st out of 1
English EQ w/t 10&Under: 1st out of 1
Eng/west w/t 10&under: 1st out of 1

(yeah, so it was a bummer that she had no one to ride against but it was good practice for her because they combined the 14-17 and ammy w/t classes so she got to ride with other people.)

So at the end of the day we were waiting for them to annouce the Daily high points and Bailie won the 10&Under high point. I won the Open and Amature high point, I was no expecting the Amature high point I just love showmanship, hunter hack, and Eq classes. THEN it happened, there is always that one girl (well... I should say rider) that will try to ruien your day or will have something horrible to say about you and/or your horse. So this is what happened to me:
*girl approaches announcers booth and says:
Girl:"I think you have it wrong, I should have won Open high point. I won all my undersaddle classes."
Announcer:"You won them all accept Eq yes, but Dartanion also entered in showmanship and halter which you did not. So she got some extra points there."
Girl:"That's not fare. My horse doesn't know showmanship, that should not count."
Annoucer:" Hun, even if they hadn't entered Showmanship and halter they would have beat you by 3 points."

Girl storms off*

The high point prize was an engraved wooden brush so it's not like we were riding for anything that you couldn't buy at a local tack store. I get bummed when I don't win high point BUT I also know that I have some things I can go home and work on to become better. I hope Bailie will always have good sportsmanship. If she EVER says anything snooty or snobbish to someone while showing under me (my horse or not) she is getting off right then and there and she will be done for the day. I will also probably 'stop' her from showing at the next show until she can prove to me she can show good sportsmanship. Other than that here are some pics from the day!

This is Bailie in her EQ class.

Dartanion & I Hunter Hack

. Bailie after she finished all her classes.

Dartanion & I In our EQ class.

Just wanted to show off D

I took this picture of all the Ribbons Dartanion has won with our new camera. Just wanted to share them with everyone! D has worked super hard for every one of these :D.
Totaling Over 163 Ribbons

Just wanted to show off D

Showmanship Pivot practice

So lately our weakest point in showmanship is our pivots and D has a habit of backing at an angle but that will be a lot easier for me to fix than this pivoting issue. I now know that I am pulling and pushing D off of his pivoting foot while we are pivoting. I had someone just watch his pivot leg while I concentrated on making a nice circle around him and he stuck his pivot perfectly. So I just need to trust him and just walk into my pivots. Now my problem is that he 'bows' when we are pivoting appose to keeping his body nice and straight. I am going to work on walking more to his shoulder tonight in hops that this will help him move his whole body away from me appose to just his neck then his shoulder. Ok I know not a very exciting up date but there is a show this weekend and I will be taking videos and pictures :D.

Horse Show Results from Yesterday

I personally think the show yesterday went fantastically! There was a $45.00 all day fee so I entered Halter for the hell of it (trust me D is not a halter horse LOL) then I did all of my normal classes. I'll just post the results and get that over with.

Halter Geldings 6&Over 2nd out of 4
Halter Color 2nd out of 6
Halter Open 3rd out of 6
Showmanship 18&Over 3rd out of 5
Showmanship Open 2nd out of 5
English pleasure w/t 18&Over 3rd out of 5
English pleasure 18&Over 3rd out of 5
English Pleasure Open 3rd out of 5
English EQ w/t 18&Over 1st out of 4
English EQ 18&Over 1st out of 4
English EQ Open 1st out of 4
Hunter Hack 2' 1st out of 2
Hunters 2' 1st out of 3
Hunters 2'3" 1st out of 3

SO over all a VERY good day! I learnt that in showmanship I really need to work on getting his pivot faster. I need to work on not dropping my eye while in showmanship over all. I need to work on getting him to back straight AND he get's really sluggest in the ring while backing and will not move off of me very well. So showmanship needs a lot of work but the judge did not have any comments about my EQ or fences and as far as flat goes D is about a 6ish mover and when I really move him out then I can get 8 movements but he dropps back to a 6 when we canter so unfortunatly nothing I can do to fix that but I love him anyways :D. We won English 18&Over high point and English Open high point and English Overall daily high point *woot* good job D! I will get pics asap I just need the photo dude to post the picutres. Oh and the 2'3" class was not very far because those jumps were NO WAY IN he double hocky sticks 2'3" they were more 2'6" but since D & I school 3' at home they were not a problem for him but it sucked for the other riders because you could see them drop their eye and go "OMG! huge!" in their heads and I thought to say something but figured it would probably be better not to. I mean they had a course that went from a large jump to a smaller jump and then they had ground poles on both sides on some fences so not a very Jumping savvy show managment.

How my Niece did:

English Pleasure w/t 13&Under 3rd out of 4
English EQ w/t 13&Under 2nd out of 4

Dartanions Awards & Accomplishments

2009 AWARDS
March 15th 2009 CSHA region 2 Daily High Point Winners
April 10th 2009 CSHA Region 2 Daily High Point Winners
May 10th 2009 CSHA Region 2 Daily High Point Winners

2008 AWARDS
3rd at California State Show of Champions
CSHA REgion 2 2008 Year End English 18-34 Champions
CSHA Region 2 2008 Year End English Overall 18-34 Champions
CSHA Region 2 2008 Year End Overall Champions
August 3rd 2008 CSHA Daily High Point Winner
July 13th 2008 CSHA Daily High Point Winner
May 18th 2008 CSHA Daily High Point Winner
April 27th 2008 CSHA Daily High Point Winner
CSHA OPEN SilverBuckle Series Winner

2007 AWARDS
4th at California State Show of Champions
CSHA Region 2 2007 14-17 Year End English Flat Champions
CSHA Region 2 2007 14-17 Year End English Overall Champions
CSHA Region 2 2007 Year End English Overall Champions
April 15th 2007 CSHA Daily High Point Winner
June 16th 2007 CHSA Daily High Point Winner
July 8th 2007 CSHA Daily High Point Winner
August 12th 2007 CSHA Daily High Point Winner
CSHA 14-17 Silver Buckle Series Winner
Woodland Stallion Station:
July 15th 2007 Daily High Point Winner
August 13th 2007 Daily High Point Winner

First Post - Horse Show On Monthersday -

5/8/09

A Little About Me
I will do my best to not make this first posting a book but I wont lie I can not make any promises. I have been riding since I was 3 years old, and started to ride alone when I was 6 1/2 I more remember being about 7 though. I've ridden at four different riding schools and done English riding at all of them. I have a real passion for jumping, I have a long term goal of some day competeing in the Olympics for showjumping OR 3day eventing. Of course I learnt at 14 that this will be hard since I am not the richest person around, however that doesn't keep that from being a dream of mine. I have owned about 4 horses... well 3 horses and a Pony. My first horse was my Pony who was a white Welsh Pony named 'Valcore' who really gave me a run for my money and was your typical naughty pony. We ended up having to sell him when we switched barns because we learnt that we were paying about $20.00 more for riding lessons than my friends because we actually bought Valcore when my trainer (at the time) wanted to buy him and was very pissed that we had. So that ended promptly.

My next riding school was called 'Full House Farms' I don't remember a whole lot from this barn other than when we went on trail rides we had to go up and down there SUPER steep hills and it was at their summer camp that I got to canter in my 'beginner' group. I believe we switched barns again but I do not know why and I started talking lessons with a girl named Erin (Pictured left, at age 7 riding Woody). Once again no big story here other than while I had advanced in my riding I Had a horse buck with me and I caught my leg on the side of the arena. OH it hurt so badly and I started to cry (I'm about 8 or 9 now) my mom & trainer thought the buck has scared me and told me to keep riding. Well my leg swelled UP and over my tall riding boot about an hour and a half later. So mom took me to the hospital where they cut my beautiful boot off (yeah, I know I'm pathetic lol) and it turned out nothing was broken but I had torn the muscles from my left hip down to my ankle and had to stop riding for over a year (that was torchure!).

After that year (maybe a little over because I am 13 now) I found a new trainer who actually let me tack up my own horse and basically taught me to become independent. I got to my second horse here 'Jewels Faith' a 10yr old OTTB who was 16H(Pictured right AFTER, we moved North). She was a hanf full! She liked to rush jumps and one day when we were working over a puny little 2' box she had never jumped before she jumped and landed back feet first then front feet and just stood there (so I am told she landed like this). I use to ride her bearback A LOT so I thank that Psyco mare for giving me the seat I have today. Oh and the first 6 months I owned her I didn't have a saddle so I fell off a couple of times since I was use to schooling horses and not ex-racers lol.

(I left out a bunch of show details just because oh my gosh this would become a book! lol I will just tell you there were a lot! lol mostly Hunters and Jumpers.)

Finally we moved from the Bay area farther up North where my mom could get the Alpacas she's always wanted. When we moved up here we had 11 acres to play with so mom said I could get another horse. This is where I got Dartanion (aka D) who is my current show horse (more on him later) Mom also tried to buy herself a horse named Artax (Buckskin pictured left) who was 14.3H and an arab QH cross who I think was 98% arab and 2% QH because boy was he flighty! He bucked me off once and I had to go to the hospital because I couldn't remember the actual fall all I remember (to this day) was he bucked and then I was sitting up and trying to stand lol. We ended up selling him because he was too much horse for mom (I also think she was worried about him bucking me off again). After we sold him we bought a 1yr old PMU Beglum QH cross I named Balthazar (Pictured Left). I had always wanted a draft so I finally had one! Long story short (I am 17 at this point) I did all the ground work and de-spoking with him I could. I wanted him to be another show horse with D (I had stopped showing Jewels because she just got too high and (IMO) ring sour to show anymore (she was 16 now). I backed him all by myself (My first time without a trainer watching me every step of the way) and after I had about 20days on him I took him to a show to actually show this time (not just tie to the trailer) and we entered a w/t Pleasure class and ended up getting 3rd out of 7 horses! oh I was stoked. THEN, we noticed his was gettin knock knees and showing wasn't helping. Our vet said he would be better off as a trail horse so we sold him to a nice family who enjoyed doing trail trials. We just sold Jewels about 4 or 5 months ago and now I only have and show my black & white 16H Tobiano gelding Dartanion.

Today

NOW let's talk about present day! I am 20 years old and by no means think I am a trainer, it would be fun to have my own training stables one day but for now I am enjoying learning everything lol. So this Sunday will be the Third show of a 4 show silverbuckle series I have entered. I am a California State Horsemens Association (CSHA) member (of region 2). This Year I am competeing in Open and 18&Over. The year before was Open and the year before that was 14-17. We have won the Open and 18&Over English High Points at both the previous shows and the OVerall English at both as well. My boyfriends niece will be showing Dartanion in 10&Under she has been riding for about 5 months now and we are hoping she will qualifiy for California State Show of Champions.

(quick side note)

When I bought Dartanion he was NOT a show horse and he did not even know English. He was used as a cow horse before we bought him and they were selling him because he was 'useless' ha! Where we have currently moved to I concider the worst place to move to if you are an English rider. There is 100% Gymkhanas and rodeos when I first started showing up there I was lucky to have 3 other English riders at shows (now there are about 8 in each class YAY). SO Dartanion did not know his leads, how to collect and actually use himself. He didn't know showmanship (well I didn't either but we have been learning for about a year now) and did not know how to Jump. We changed all that so I will skip all the details there lol. Now he is one big English pleasure machine!

(ok back on topic)

Lately I have been working with my boyfriends Niece (Bailie) and she is one pretty rider! the only problem is she can never seem to get the right diagonal while posting the trot. Verbally she can tell me how you tell if you are on the right diagonal or not perfectly every time. She can tell me if other riders are on the right diagonal but SHE can't get it *pulls out hair* so I decided to get a little 'mean trainer' (once again I do not think I am a trainer but it's easyer to just let a 9yr old call me that or 'aunty' whatever right?) and so I tell her if she can't get the right diagonal once today I will make her show without her irons. Then magically she got the correct diagonal every time!!! she even switched onto the right one when she started on the wrong one! *jumps for joy* so I am thinking that maybe she just wasn't trying or maybe didn't care if she had the right diagonal or not she was just happy to be on a horse. So hopfully we will get all of our right diagonals this weekend at the show. This will also be the first weekend she will have to do a w/t pattern for her EQ class. We have done patterns before and she did alright for 9 so I will use the pattern they had at the last show and see how she does memorizing it and that will determine if she enters that class or not. Since this is already so long I will end up here for today :D Thank You for reading! you are a star!!!

(Dartanion & I With our First Daily High Point Win Together competeing in 14-17 English All around.)