Reflections Of A Wonderful Year!

Now that the competition season has wound down, it has been awhile since I have posted any updates! I am vowing to be more dilligent with it!  I have been taking the last couple of months to reflect on the past year.  So much has happened and changed, and I am so thankful for all of it.  It has definitely been a year that has made all of the blood, sweat and tears over the last 6 or so years, completely worth it!  I got married, made a good sale, bought Kaz, I am training and teaching full time to a group of amazing people, and I had an awesome eventing season with Scooby!  He even qualified for the American Eventing Championships in only his first two outings at Prelim!  What an amazing guy!  Prelim always seemed like a dream and to be able to accomplish that on my own, with a horse that I started from scratch, feels amazing!  We have lots to work on, but I am embracing it all!  I just want to get better and better!

Below is an update on the ponies that I actually started writing weeks ago!

  I have been enjoying the break, but the horses are still in consistent training.  Typically, Scooby takes about a two month break in the winter, without any work at all.  This year is quite different!  While I have cut out all conditioning and a 6 day training schedule, I am maintaining four days (3 days of flat and one jumping).  I feel like we have so much to work on that taking a long break just is not realistic.  I think Scooby is happier this way also.  He is a worker and gets incredibly jealous when I work other horses and not him!  Hopefully, by keeping him in training and jumping, he will go to his first horse trials in the spring a little less of a fireball than normal!  He was a BEAST at Fair Hill last April.  Dressage went just fine, but as soon as he was geared up to Show Jump, he was tough to say the least!  He then came out Sunday for Cross Country just as beastly as he was for Saturday's Show Jumping.  He was an eager, tough ride ALL weekend.  I can do without that!  Hopefully this way, we come out competitive right from the start!!  That would be awesome!

I decided in October that I will be keeping Kaz until the Spring/Summer before I put him up for sale!  I am sooo excited to compete him alongside of Scooby!  He has been doing amazingly well and I have always said that when I find something that I truly enjoy and feel has the talent to do very well in the sport, along with exceptionally desirable attributes when it does come time to sell, I will hang on to them and put the extra time and money in.  I am more excited about Kaz than any other resale horse that I have had since Scooby (and you can see what happened with Scooby...he was never put up for sale!!!).  He has the goods and I can't wait to show them off!!  His flatwork is going quite well.  All of the fundamentals are rock solid.  I am just ironing out the fine details right now.  I am still working to fine tune the trot to canter transititons.  They are pretty good, but attention to detail is so crucial for the Dressage test.  I am also working on his free walk-medium walk, without getting any stiffening through the change.  He tends to still get the tiniest bit heavy and inconsistent with it, but definitely not bad.  I just want it smoother.  I am very picky, but in a good way =)

His jumping has been incredibly impressive!  He is probably my best natural jumper since Caesar.  He is very careful and I really LOVE that!  After doing a Hunter Pace in November, where he jumped several Beginner Novice fences, a Novice drop, and a small drop into water, I can't wait to get his Beginner Novice entry ready for Morven!!!  It is very exciting to think about having two of my own horses competing competitively in recognized competitions in 2012!  April can not come fast enough!  My full tentative competition schedule will be posted to my website very soon!

                                      Ohh the things we do to Scooby!

I was totally drained in November, but I am now super energized and ready for 2012!!!