Yesterday's bit of tack work really bummed me out. So I threw it away and started over.
I am so much happier with the results!
I took my time and it really paid off. I am finally figuring out when the leather is too thick and when it is too thin. I think I found my perfect happy medium with this noseband! Woo Hoo!
Also, I have been working with the pounce wheel and am finally figuring it out. First of all, you don't need to put all of your weight and then some onto it. I don't know why I thought I had to be so strong? I lightened up and it helped out a ton! Also, I realized that I was holding it at an angle, which I think was contributing to my non-straight lines. As you can see, much better!
And (wait for it....) KEEPERS! I think my first attempt at a keeper turned out great! I think it might be too thick, but I am still pretty happy with it. It really does improve the overall look for the bridle.
And even though it isn't that neat, I have finally figured out how to bend my buckles without breaking them! Overall, I am very please with my new noseband :).
With every success comes failure. At least that is the way it is looking around here...
Once I got my halters figured out and under control, bridles are now proving to be a problem. I started my first one yesterday. My pounce wheel does not like me. I can't figure out how to practice with it without just ruining a bunch of leather lace. But, I definitely need some practice. Then, even though I KNOW where the buckles go on a bridle, somehow when I was attaching the headstall to my noseband, it got twisted around! So now my stitching is messy and my noseband buckle goes the wrong way. I haven't decided if I want to give up and start over or just go with it and use this bridle for practice. Either way, hopefully I will have a nice, correctly finished one soon!
I was recently introduced to something on Blab called "PIF". I have seen the movie Pay It Forward, but it is neat to see that it is happening in everyday life :).
Well, I was lucky enough to be PIFed! I was so pleasantly surprised! I was actually quite shocked...in a good way ;). I had three things on my wish list and got one of them within a week or two.
So, here he is:
A Salinero body!!! I have been wanting one of these guys for a while now, and I finally have one! He is a lot prettier that I would have expected. I love his dark bay color and his face marking. Although, he will be customized so he won't be like this forever. In the mean time, he is going to make a great head for bridles!
Most open shows always start with "In Hand" classes, before moving on to riding. The first classes are always halter, then moving onto showmanship.
AQHA showmanship rules state:
-Judged strictly on the exhibitor’s ability to fit and show a horse at halter
-The horse is merely a prop to demonstrate the ability and preparation of the exhibitor
-The ideal showmanship performance consist of a poised, confident, neatly attired exhibitor leading a well-groomed and conditioned horse that quickly and efficiently performs the requested pattern with promptness, smoothness and precision
-Showmanship is not a halter class on the horses confirmation and should not be judged as such
When judged, half of the points go to performance, and the other half go to the appearance of the handler and horse (as in condition of the horse, not conformation). So it is more important that your horse and handle have a good turn out (looks) than your horse's actual build. For rules on appearance, you can go here!
With that in mind, here are some pictures from the showmanship classes. Again, I apologize for my camera's lack of cooperation.
The pattern looked like this:
First, the horse and handle halt at Cone A and wait for the judge to nod, signaling he is ready for you to begin. The horse should be standing square, patient, and alert, while the handler is paying attention to the judge and waiting for the nod.
My friend Allie with her horse Spot.
Once the judge nods, the pattern should be started. For this specific pattern, you should walk from Cone A to Cone B.
"The exhibitor should perform the work accurately, precisely, smoothly, and with a reasonable amount of speed. Increasing speed of the work increases the degree of difficulty, however, accuracy and precision should nit be sacfriced for speed"
"The horse should be led directly to & away from the judge as described in the pattern. The should track freely and briskly in the prescribed gait the horses head and neck should be in line with its body"
"The horse should lead, stop, turn and set up willingly, briskly & readily with minimal or audible cueing"
At Cone B, the horse should perform a 360 degree turn.
"On turns greater than 90 degrees, the ideal turn consists of the horse pivoting on the right hind leg while stepping across the right front leg with the left front leg. They should be penalized if their horse performs a pivot on the left hind leg, but an exhibitor whose horse performs a pivot more correctly should receive more credit"
After the turn, the horse should trot from Cone B to Cone C. (see quotes from the "Walk" part of the pattern)
At Cone C, the handler should halt the horse and square him up for inspection.
"The stop should be straight, prompt, smooth and responsive with the horse’s body remaining straight"
"The horse should be set up quickly with the feet squarely underneath the body. The exhibitor does not have to reset a horses that stops square"
After the judges inspection, the handler should pull the horse to the left 90 degrees and walk to the line up. Ideally, the horse should pivot tot he left, too. But, VERY few horses at the show were able to.
"When turning the horse 90 degrees or less the horse should be turned to the left."
I really liked this horse and decided to video his pattern. He ended up winning the class, so this is what it should look like:
1,000 Pageviews? Wow, you guys are good! For only having my blog up for a little over a month, that is at least 20 views a day!
In order to show my appreciation of your support, I may be giving some halters away... ;).
If you saw my post from yesterday, I will have lots of horse show pictures coming soon! Unfortunately, I found out my new camera does not like the indoors. Some pictures are blurry or dark or both, so it may take me a mintute to go through all 700 of them and pick our the good ones. But, I promise those will be coming soon!
In the meantime, here is me at age 7 with my very first horse, Velvet, a PMU rescue! I had him from a few months old (we still had to feed him milk 3 times a day!) until he was about 3 or 4 years old. I knew nothing about horses when I picked him out. At the time I had been riding for about 2 years, but was only learning how to ride, not any horse education. I bought him because he would be black and he sure was. He was so big and beatiful and had such a great heart. To let me run around his legs and climb over his back and walk him around like a dog...that took patience from a foal his age. When he turned three we took him to an old trainer down the road who said told me he was a Tennesse Walker and would never ride like I wanted to. Since I was only allowed to have one horse at a time, we sold him. Looking back now, I really wish I would have kept him. He was such a great horse; so very special.
When I had my show horses, I dreaded winter. I don’t like riding in a bunch of layers, my horses were always a muddy mess, and I never had motivation to ride every day like I had to. But, like everything else, things are so different with Sonny.
I still don’t like the cold and the mud, but this winter was my best “horsie winter” yet. Although I didn’t get to ride much, (I only got on him enough times to fit on one hand) I feel like Sonny and I made huge improvements. As always, we played a lot on the ground; Boring stuff like improving our phases and getting more responsive.
More than anything I am really excited on how much our relationship improved over the winter. It always feels so…wrong to me, but the best way to improve our relationship is to do nothing. Sounds funny, right? How can doing nothing get anything accomplished? The more undemanding time I spend with Sonny the more our relationship improves. Because the weather was so nasty this winter and I was so unmotivated, for the first time ever, being lazy actually benefited me :). Not that we didn’t have a great relationship before, but there is a huge difference from the fall to now.
Sonny's pasture pal, Max.
This may sound boring, but I couldn’t be happier with our winter accomplishments. So now that it is warm and sunny (probably not for long), now we can work on other things. It was 62 degrees yesterday so I busted out my saddle and got on. Sonny was so great! We didn’t do much since he hasn’t been ridden in forever, but he was very responsive and had a great attitude. Hopefully our better relationship status will continue to benefit us this year with riding! AND... he didn't look to bad either! I was expecting him to gain a bunch of weight and lose a bunch of muscle and be hairy and gross once winter was over. But, he looks pretty good to me!
Here are my goals for Sonny and I this yearL
1) Ride more (but still put our relationship first!).
2) Work on riding with a bridle.
3) AND work on riding without a bridle haha!
4) Work on stretching better (more for him, not be…we could both do better)
Now that the weather is nice, hopefully we can get a lot more accomplished!
