Ribbons & 2010 show season planning

So I loved christmas since my Year End award ribbons finally showed up and my Reserve Champion Sash from state!! I will add pictures at the end of this post. Cherokee is progressing very well and we've got some basic showmanship down. I haven't gotten to work with her all that much since it's been so rainy and boggy which bums me out but that's rainy season. I have also been speaking with one of my horsey friends and I am thinking of joining PtHA. I had the idea last year to join this year BUT now I am not sure since I am planning on showing at Gold N Grand. So if I do join PtHA I will probably end up having to drop a couple of my Hunter shows. However! I do have a job interview tomorrow so if I get this new job I might have a little extra cash around to attened some more shows. I want to get an idea of where PtHA congress & world is held and how much everything is going to cost and if I have a real shot of doing well in this association. D is not the best mover but we could kill in showmanship, Eq, and Hunter Hack along with other fence classes but I want to make sure that if I put the money out it will be worth it. I will have to be real nit picky about the shows I attened so that is where I am at show wise at this point in time. Ok Ribbon Picture time! (the first two ribbons on the right are the new ribbons, the very first one is for CSHA region 2 Year End Rider. Then to the left of that is the 2009 CSHA Region 2 Year End English Allround rider) The Sash is for CSHA 2009 Show Of Champions Open W/T reserve Championship title.

Showmanship with Cherokee

So today we started with some lunging since it seems that Cherokee works a lot better once we worked a little of that extra energy out of her system. We had a lot of construction going on near our house (PG&E cutting back some branches) so we had a couple of issues with standing still BUT that's understandable with falling branches. We worked on walking and stopping without me having to pull her to a stop. She's doing very well but sometimes I bump into her shoulder when we stop (which is an issue I had with D so I am wondering if maybe I am at fault there). She's getting really good at halting right when I do. We also worked on setting up and she did pretty well with letting me pick up and move her feet around. After that I worked on getting her to drop her head so that I don't have a giraff in the ring lol. Overall a very good day for all the scary things that were going on.

Day 1 & 2 Working with Cherokee

I didn't get a chance to post how cherokee did yesterday so I am just adding it in here today. I worked on a couple of parelli games with her because there are things that I like about parelli but there are also a lot of things about parelli I am not sure I agree with. Anyways, She did well with the Friendly and yoyo games. She wasn't too sure about me touching her legs but I knew she's at least been clipped before and by the end of the session was letting me touch and pick up her feet. I worked with her on walk/trot/canter commands in the round pen and she did very well. She's very in-tune with my body language and positioning. I like her movement, I would go as far as to say it's better than D's. Really low knee action and flicky in the front, she's a little fast in the back but with training I am sure she would be a caute little mover.

Today:
Started with the friendly game and she did great, She did move around a little while I was playing with her back legs but overall not bad at all. She got the yoyo game pretty much perfectly! I would bearly give the rope a wiggle and she backed away like a champ. Did more round pen work and I don't believe she knows the difference between walk,trot, canter, and whoa yet but she does them all. Also when I bend over while she is trotting and say whoa she stopps so I am proud of her. I tied her up and spent about 20minutes brushing her, cleaning her feet, pulling her mane and what not and she did a great job! I want to try taking her into the area tomorrow and lunging her on a lug rope and seeing how she does. That is all the update I have for right now. I also think if the lung rope goes well. We will work on some de-spooking training.

2010 Show season Cost(s)

I spent about an hour last night calculating out how much the 2010 show season is going to cost me. Excluding CSHA State and GNG (Gold N Grand) it totals out to about $2,335.05 for the whole year (doing 18 shows). I know GNG is going to bump that up at least another 3 or 4 hundred bucks and state will add another $200.00 so I might hit the $3,000 point by the time ALL the shows have been added up. I'll make a list of the shows and the dates once I get a little more information on that. I am also hoping/planning on getting a nice western show saddle off of eBay to have around for when I do find those Eng/West show series.

On a side note: My neighbor and best friend's little paint filly is turning four next April. Being that he has little horse knowledge and I have been talking about wanting a new horse to work with he said I could work with her. Her name is Cheerokee after her mom who is Apache. She's a CAUTE little thing and my hope is that if I work with her the rest of this month and all of Decemeber I can pop her into a halter and showmanship class at the NCAA series in January since they have a Novice Horse catagory, maybe a ridden class or two if she's doing well but I'm not going to rush things since there are a ton of shows to pick from next year.

Last note: Check out my profile for a link to the HorseForum! It's a great site with a lot of fun horsey people to talk to and TONS of topics to talk horse about!

CSHA region 18 buckle - Year End Banquet.

I've given D a little over a month off to just be a horse and hangout in the field. I am going to start conditioning him for next years show season after Thanks Giving. I am so fare planning on doing the NCAA buckle series BUT I'm also not 100% sure either because you have to ride Engish and western to qualify for the buckle. Well you don't have to but if there is someone who does ride both then you don't have a shot at winning. I am working on a budget so I can see how much showing this year is going to cost me. I am also going to be competeing in Amature classes this year so I will be getting my Amature card. I hope this doesn't sound like a show off but mom told me "I am tired of buckles that say OPEN on them" lol so I told her I would do Amature this year. I will be posting a list of shows sometime next month or maybe in January once I have a list of shows I plan on attending. Our region is having their Year End Award Ceremony on December 5th this year. I am very excited to see what they will be handing out, I will do my best to take a ton of pictures. I also finally got the CSHA Region 18 buckle that D & I won back in August. It's smaller but VERY pretty, Oh and Bailie will no longer be showing D. Enjoy the pictures!

A little more exciting news is I got a new truck to haul my trailer with next season. It's a 1993 1500 Chevy Suaburban, the gas makes me cry but I am planning on using it strictly for shows.

California State Championships... One big mess up

If you didn't catch from the title our show didn't go well (for many a reason). Our first Showmanship class Friday was 18-34 and once again an easy pattern. Trot from cone A to Cone B halt preform a 450 degree turn. Walk to the judge, det up for inspection, preform a 270 and walk away. So we TOTALLY messed up our first class/pattern. We were first in order to go and his trot off and halt was nice but he stepped out of his pivot and took at least 30 seconds to swuare up!! (my fault) and then did his 270 okish. So we ended up with 3rd out of 4 in that class. The we had 10 people in Open so I really wanted to nail our pattern. I worked on his pivot outside of the ring. He steped out again and I gave him a smack on the shoulder and seemed to wake up and remember we were showing. Everything was pretty much perfect. We had a 2 second square up and he slightly stepped out of his pivot but over all way better. We ended up as Second out of ten!!!! HAHA Reserve Showmanship Open Champion! I'll take it! Saterday I had no events to show is so I rode around the show grounds with my new friend Lyssette and her horse Carlos. Then spent four ours braiding D for Sunday. I had a lot of help from my new friends David and Preston (but that's another story). Then Sunday rolls around and I got out to warm up and D was a little sucked back over the jumps but after some warming up he was doing good. I leave the warm-up ring to start the show and they raise the jumps. So I know I'm in trouble because D's probably going to look at every single one and behold he pretty much did. I was so mad, I've officially decided that from now on I am wearing spurs when we jump :D that simple. This is how we did:
2'6" Open Hunters 2nd out of 3
2'6" Eq over fences 3rd otu of 3 (our worst class, I sucked)
2'6" Jumpers Pity 3rd out of 3 (went off course >.<)
2'6" Hunter Hack 3rd out of 4 (shocked we even got that)

So I'm pretty much screwed but I had also signed up for the w/t championship as well so I figured I would sick around for that :P. I go back to the stall to change from my saffle bit to my kimberwick and find that it's missing?!?! Our neighbors hadn't been very neighborly all weekend. They filled up my friends muck bucket without bumping it out and had moved our hose around without our permission, normally we don't mine these things if you just ask us first. So I worked with D on dropping his head with the D-ring snaffle and he was actually a VERY good boy I was so proud of him. Our judge was a little screwy on the flat placings though. Here is how we did:
w/t Open Pleasure: 5th out of 10 (kool! not bad for D)
English Pleasure Open: 5th out of 8 (again very cool)
w/t Open Eq: 5th out of 10 (ok not complaining)
English Open Eq: 5th out of 8 (Here is where I got upset because we were asked to drop out iorns and the woman who got first only dropped er inside iorn and the second place rider would drop his stirrups only when he was in front of the judge?! I don't think I should get first or anything but I was thinking 3rd!)
English Open HUS: 7th out of 10 (pretty much what I expected lol.)
English Open Bridle Path Hack: 8th out of 8 (total BS run because the woman who got first almost fell off her horse mounting up and he spooked at the mounting block??)

So we ended up getting 3rd out of 3 for allaround but I honestly don't like how they did state this year. They advertised that state Champions would win a trophie saddle and at the show annouced that only flat champions would have a shot at winning a saddle(thanx for the heads up). Then they ran out of saddles so I think there was one or two people who only got a buckle? THEN instead of seperating the flat and overall champions they made it to where if you entered allround you also entered the flat so whoever got champion and reserve allround won the flat as well which was also reall BS. So I am not sure if I will be back next year, I would like to come because I've been told it's going to be a rancho murietta(SP) and THAT would be a fun place to show at. I'm also planning on doing Gold N Grand next year if I can save up the money so we shall see. There is another show at the end of this month I was thinking about going too put I wont have the money (I bet) so I am just thinking of calling it a season and just relaxing till Januaryish because I haven't won the NCAA buckle before and I would like to win that before I write off a couple of shows around here.

Tehama Fair - Red Bluff Fair Grounds

So, I was planning on using the Tehama Fair to kind of get an idea of what I might place as when I went to state (At least for showmanship). I heard that there were 17 people in our pleasure class so I knew we were not going to place there, my baby just doesn't have the long sweepy movement judges love. There were also 17 people in our eq class so I was thinking I at least had a shot in placing there. Here are the results:
Showmanship Open 4th out of 10
English Pleasure Open: Didn't place :(
English Eq Open: Didn't place :'(

Now I know exactly what went wrong in my eq class. D was already being a speed demon that day *pulls out hair* I'm thinking of lunging him now before we ride because he's been rather speedy at a lot of shows recently. Anyways he decided it would a good idea to halt (while we were cantering) right in front of the judge. Proceded to rear and then buck a couple of times. I'm excited I staied on but after the class the judge approached me and said "I had you around 2nd if that incedent hadn't have happened" so I was pretty much ready to flip my lid lol. I got over it though because you can't win em all and stuff happens. I was very excited and proud of Showmanship though! The pattern was pretty easy. Trot from cone A to cone B then Walk from cone B to the judge. Set-up for inspection, do a 270 pivot and walk away.