Couple of schooling photos

I love how happy he is here. His attitude and mindset have really improved over the summer!
And look at that, I am reasonably straight in the saddle.
Holy shit, there may be hope for us.

This summer has been all about going back to basics and filling in a BUNCH of holes. 

As a result, Hampton has become much more ridable and some of our major issues are starting to fade away.

The rein lameness is SO much better. It will still mildly show up in left half pass at times, but it's almost always when I go into it without an honest connection, and/or have too much bend.

Our changes are MUCH improved we the left to right change is still late sometimes, but much better than it was. He is much more on my aids and there is less anticipating. I think it will get cleaned up very soon. Chip away. Chip away.

Our connection issues are still being addressed, but we are getting there. 

He is such a good boy.

We have been starting to focus in on canter pirouettes and Hampton has shown INCREDIBLE talent for these. They make perfect sense to him, even though I have no idea what I am doing.

I won't drill these since they come easy to him.

No Corgis were harmed here.
A+ for Hampton and being straight!

 I am so pleased with Hampton's progress this summer. We haven't shown as much as I had planned to, but that's ok. We needed a "development year." There were a lot of holes and major issues with connection and suppleness. 

But I think we will head back out into the big sandbox very soon. I would think our scores will improve but I've learned not to be cocky about that, especially after we went home after the show in May licking our wounds. haha. 

Next week my good friend is coming to visit and bringing her pony. We have a lesson planned and lots of trail riding. And drinking. Mostly drinking.

"To be a champion, I think you have to see the big picture. It's not about winning and losing; it's about every day hard work and about thriving on a challenge. It's about embracing the pain that you'll experience at the end of a race and not being afraid. I think people think too hard and get afraid of a certain challenge."

Crawling back out

I'm slowly emerging from my haze of grief from the loss of Grover. His death and the whole experience of euthanasia affected me more than I thought it would. I still have this low-grade queasy feeling in my stomach, but otherwise I am feeling better each day. I know I did the right thing.

Plus, Hampton has been wonderful this week. Leave it to the Porkchop to really cheer me up. :)

Hopefully I'll be inspired to write more dressage/Hamper posts soon.

Goodbye

Grover

2003(?) - July 29, 2015

Clinic report with Lainey Ashker!

Rolex rider and all around cool chic Lainey Ashker came to our farm for a clinic this weekend. There was a dressage spot open, so I took it.

I have found clinics with the eventing crowd to be very relaxed and not as "judgemental" as some with the pure dressage crowd. Plus, Lainey has ridden through I-1 in pure dressage, training the horse herself. So I knew she would understand what I was going through.

Why yes I did buy a pair of baby blue breeches. 

I know there was a big ordeal surrounding her and her accident at Rolex in 2008. Frankly, after meeting her and taking a lesson from her I can only conclude that people are cruel, especially on the internet. Well, duh, but I think this gal was really put through the ringer.

I found her professional, enthusiastic and quite positive.

Here are some things we worked on with Hampton:

* Sharper off the leg in transitions. Think walk to medium canter.
* Down the quarter line, shoulder in ... leg yield to the rail maintaining the positioning.
This made him BOUNCE in the canter. He really started to up the RPMs and jump up to me in the wither. Probably because I had him on my outside rein and his hind leg jumping under, duh.
* Trot serpentine with half-steps at the centerline
* Cleaning up that left to right flying change. I think we are right on the edge of a breakthrough here. We had some good changes and the light started going off in my head. He needs to boing in the canter, and I need to quit taking so much time to prepare. It is confusing to him. My aids need to be black and white for the change, and a tap with the whip if needed. Right to left change is confirmed and quite nice.
* True canter in ranvers positioning. This was hard as f*ck, and we did make mistakes, but I loved the fact that Hampton let me ride him. So what if you screw it up. He was trying, and he was NOT dropping my aids. That is a huge, huge improvement.
* Many many walk, canter, walk transitions. Alternating which lead I pick up. This is making it even more clear to him the aids for each lead. He has to be sharp and quick.
*Trot half passes. We had a left half pass from rail to just pass the centerline that was SOUND. No rein lameness! I almost cried, I really did. It is the first sound left half pass in probably a year?! Right trot half pass was also quite lovely. Canter half passes super.


She is for sure a clinician who will work your butt off! But at no point was I ever over faced, nor did my horse ever become frustrated.

I know we are right on the edge of climbing over this annoying hump we have been facing for the past year. It has been all about the connection, suppleness and obedience to the aids. The "tricks" are there. PSG won't happen this year, but I'm feeling good about hitting the FEI ring in 2016!

If you ever get the chance to clinic with Lainey, I would highly recommend her. For both eventers and dressage people, too. She was excellent with the flat work. And she treated everyone with enthusiasm and respect. I didn't get to stick around for jumping, but I bet she was much the same!

And I do apologize for lack of photos. My lesson was at 7 am. Only the hard-cores were up that early, and they were too busy getting things set up to take photos of me. :( Sad Karen.

My Strange Addiction: Breyerfest

Long-time readers will remember I have written about my "other" hobby before: Model Horses.

You can read more here:

Model Horses: Live Shows
Links (in case you want to join the madness)
Overview

If you are a model horse collector, there is no doubt you are aware of the biggest bat shit crazy model horse convention in the world. Breyerfest.

My poor little brother, me and my sister at Breyerfest .... uhhh, mid 90s?
A LONG time ago. Bless my mother's heart for taking us.

It is held every year at the Kentucky Horse Park and rabid, model-horse crazy children, teens and insane women flock all over the park and the Clarion North hotel for 3 days.

The activities at the KHP are great of course. There are a lot of activities geared toward the kiddos. The indoor arena is packed full of booths and shopping. The Altech arena has a couple of rooms that currently are the location for the live shows. The Breyerfest open live show is widely known as one of the most competitive shows in the country. My sister and I showed there I think back in 2002 or 2003 and got our butts handed to us.

But anyway, typically the horse park is steaming hot, and overrun with screaming children and long lines. I don't like any of those factors, so Breyerfest for me these days means heading to the Clarion North hotel (used to be the Holiday Inn). It is my favorite thing about Breyerfest.

One room just had a shitload of Breyers on their bed.

The hotel walls are covered in posters advertising models and what room they are in. Guests leave their doors open and you can walk door-to-door shopping for your holy grail or just browsing. In the evenings it turns into total madness as there are so many people you can barely get down the hallways. I saw a couple of rooms that had a line formed outside of them.

You see all sorts of people. And I do mean all kinds.

One of the live show champions. STUNNING workmanship on this custom, even a piece
of grass hanging out of his mouth!

In one of the larger conference rooms, there is also an Artisan's Gallery which features artists displaying and selling their work, as well as a display of the Breyerfest Live show champions. Some really gorgeous work is always in this gallery. I actually ended up buying a custom this year that I could not resist. Bad Karen.

Gorgeous custom Peter Stone Morgan in buckskin. He is so pretty in person!
I see him as a pleasure driving or saddle seat horse.
Ganna need more tack!

I also scored a great deal on a Totilas! Woohoo! By by paycheck!

If you ever get the chance, go to Breyerfest at least once. There is always something else for "real horses" going on at the KHP, too, if you get sick of loud children.

And since I now have two new models to add to my skimpy collection ... perhaps it is time to think about getting back into the hobby ...

ZBH: Everyday Fails Blog Hop

I like to keep it real on this blog. It's about to get REALLY real, people. Because thanks to Nicole, I am joining in on this Fail Blog Hop. I usually do a "bloopers" post at the end of the year with plenty of fails, so there may be some repetition but oh well. A good fail is a good fail.

Enjoy.

(Not Hampton) ... yeah this is how I used to ride. "Oh Let me me just pull my horse's head down
and hold it there. That'll work!"

Hampton was super easy to start under saddle. Except for just this one day. haha

This is how Hampton and I used to canter! Have mercy.

Oh how can I forget the constant pig rooting in canter transitions as a 3 year old!

Not really a fail photo, but it was a few minutes after he had slipped and fallen down on me.
At the walk.

The time I put a tie-dye blanket on Hampters. HAHAHA. win!

Hampton (not dead)

My horse hangs his knees? No clue what you are talking about

I have a bad habit of jumping ahead? WHAT! Nonsense.

As you can see, both of us are just better at dressage.

No, seriously.

But we suck at dressage, too, sometimes. I think this was supposed to be a canter to walk
transition?

Croup high kicking out. Classic Hampton move.

Hamps made up a new movement

:)

Lady's Story: The End

Lady Snuffleupagus April 26, 1999 to July 13, 2015