Busy Weekend!

This past weekend was fairly busy but still fun (with one not so fun component). Saturday was the second clinic my BHF (best horse friend) performed for the county 4-H horse group and this one consisted of warm-ups, groundwork, minor showmanship review, western pleasure, horsemanship and some minor playing around with a few trail obstacles. There were four girls for the majority of the clinic and six in the beginning, a small but good sized group to get a lot of work done.

My BHF emphasized the warm-ups and groundwork heavily. She has a routine of flexing, lunging, and maneuvering the fore-hand, ribs, and hips. It's a very systematic approach to see where your horse is at and how it is responding to you. The kids worked on that and then we moved onto the showmanship review which simply consisted of a pattern to practice since all of the girls were there for the Wednesday session.

I brought Bogey along and participated in the groundwork, warm-up exercises thinking that once it came time for the riding my BHF would want to use Bogey and not tire out her three year old. Nope, it ended up being me riding the Bogey horse and she rode her horse the entire time. It was unexpected but fun to work on my own horse and help out.

The group of 4-H'ers were clearly divided into a more advanced group and and younger group just learning the basics of showing. BHF took the more advanced group and worked on collection and advanced maneuvers to enhance their pleasure horses and I got to work with the younger girls! It was so much fun teaching the lesson. I do wish I could have heard all that BHF said to the others as she has great ideas that she sometimes forgets to tell me since we spend so much horse time together, but it was really fun working with the two girls and their ponies.

We first worked on hand position, body position and queuing for the western pleasure class. Then we moved onto riding our horses gaits, one had a pony with a bouncy trot and we remedied her seat by sitting deeper, bringing her legs beneath her and not "chair sitting" and counting with the rhythm of her horse's gait. There was immediate progress with both girls and you could see their ponies relax and slow down when they sat properly, that was so much fun to see and be a part of! We also played a variation of red-light/green-light to work on transitions, did a few horsemanship patterns and critiqued each-other (the two are sisters so it was handy for them to learn that skill to help each other out), and finally played a little follow the leader.

The two girls had the most adorable western pleasure ponies. One was about 12 hands the other just under 14 and they had the prettiest lopes I have ever seen on a pony! It was amazing! Their parents really hit a jackpot with those well broke, beautiful moving ponies!

At the end of the pleasure/horsemanship clinic my girls challenged the older girls to a horsemanship pattern and they won! They did the pattern so beautifully and had great position! That was so much fun to see!

After the clinic I rode Bogey around a little more since most of what he did was just stand there with me on his back and I found him to be very hesitant to lope off. He was not lame but was very uncomfortable going into the lope and would not hold it. Oh, no - here we go again with the leg issues! BHF saw the issue too so it was not all in my head. After the clinic I took him home and washed him, banded him and buted him. He's so funny with the bute - he gets so sleepy. I've never had a horse react like that, they always hype up - but he takes a nap!

Sunday was our second horse show and I was planning on simply doing showmanship and going home because of the leg issues. He was completely sound at the trot just hesitant at the lope and seemed ouchy. The pattern was the old school way of doing a showmanship class with a very old-fashioned judge. We lined up and one by one he asked us to walk forward, set-up, pivot and trot back to the line-up. So boring, and does not show anything or clearly define the class. He also wanted a snappy set up and perfect placement of the hooves. Well, that's Bogey's weakest part, the set up. He has the nasty habit of cocking a hind foot (it is getting better) and setting up a little slower. Well, the Bogey horse was especially slow because of the bute and his busy previous week making him extra tired, and he cocked a foot for half of the set-up for inspection. I did fix it, but we blew the simple pattern. Our pivots and trot offs are always rocking though so that was nice!

We got fifth place out of five, so we did take home a ribbon and had our names called, but it's just fun being out there and all dressed up. Speaking of dressed up, as I was getting Bogey ready by the trailer some tourists came by (our fairgrounds doubles as a camping ground) and asked if they could take a picture of him since he was the most beautiful horse they had ever seen. How cute is that! He stood all proud with his ears up for the picture - it was pretty cute! Bonus points for my show grooming routine!

Today, I did worked with Bogey a bit to see if the hesitation was still there and it was only slightly. We did some groundwork, desensitization and then showmanship work. I cold hosed his legs off afterward and we'll see how they look tomorrow. He is on a joint supplement, but I'm going to look into some alternative therapies such as the Back on Track leg wraps and maybe even magnetic therapy.

My BHF also suggested he might have been sore from his pull back episode from Wednesday, so hopefully the issue is behind us since it was not as bad today. (He always is a little hesitant on his left lead lope since his right hind has more arthritic changes and degeneration.) Oh, horses!

Final happy plug, Bogey and I are listed on the qualifying website for our 2nd place showmanship win in our open show series! Yay, Bogey aka "A Chip Off the Tee"!