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.
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!). 
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.
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.)
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