Home Again

Romeo spent Christmas season with me in Memphis so that I could ride him over break. Yesterday, I loaded the dog in the truck, hooked up the trailers and went out to go get Romes. He was supposed to leave last week but he lost a shoe in the mud. Well, we fixed that so we were rearing to go!

What do I get out of the pasture? A 3-shoed horse. Fortunately, this time I found the shoe, and my farrier was at my TB's barn shoeing him. I threw Romeo in the trailer and trucked over to the other barn. James had his shoe back on in a matter of moments!

Hmmm...what could possibly be missing?

So off we went back to Mississippi. Beezie was a great co-pilot...until she fell asleep.

We arrived in MS last night around 6:30.

Today, we had an open ride day at the MS Horse Park. I had a fabulous dressage school on Heath, and he was actually getting round and really working from behind. Today was my first time schooling Heath in Romeo's dressage saddle. It seemed to fit him quite well.

I then hopped on little Romeo and walked and trotted him around the big ring. He was great too!

Standing in front of my little trailer. I love it so!!

He seemed pretty happy to be in a new place :)

All in all, a great weekend/Monday/Tuesday! Everybody was well behaved and everyone seemed to have a good time. I love taking little field trips and wish I got to more often! Hope everyone else had a great long weekend!

Life is Rough

Sleepy Ponies. 

Enjoy the cuteness :)

 

Romes after dressage at Poplar Place HT

Johnny after the A/Os at Brownland Farms

Self-preservation

All I ask from Romeo and Johnny is that they try not to get sick or hurt when I leave town. It's all I ask. If I had a dollar for every time one of my horses walked up to me bleeding, three-legged, or swollen, I would be a millionaire. I feel like it is a horse's life dream to get as many nicks and scrapes as possible. (Does everyone else feel this way too? Very frustrating!) Usually it's just Johnny I have to worry about. He has limited braking capacities and has no idea where his feet go when he is not being ridden. He now gets bubble-wrapped for turnout, and that has helped the situation a lot.

Example A: Muddy footing, galloping, and sliding into the fence, attempting to jump over, getting stuck, and retreating backwards through the broken fence. That's my boy. I buy real winners.

"Oh...did I do this?"
GUILTY!

You would think that wild horses would have some sort of self-preservation thing in their head to keep them from getting beaten up so often...and therefore our domesticated horses would as well.

It seems that this beautiful weekend Romeo thought it would be a good idea to be the wild stallion of his herd and not only assist in breaking a mare out of her pasture, but then not let anyone else get near her. Apparently, there was some brawling involved. Fortunately, it was all superficial.

As close as a black(ish) horse can get to a "black eye"

I am just glad his eye was closed whenever that happened...Just a few other scrapes on the inside of his LF and a 4in scrape on the underside of his head. Lovely! Gave him the day off because well a) he just looked kind of pitiful and b) I am supposed to be writing a paper on Contagious Equine Metritis.

Now about that paper...

Eventing 101

Don't forget your XC course.

As I walked my first cross country course ever, my trainer told me the first fence would be "inviting." HAHAHA. Yeah...any other XC course but this one. I swear that the first fence was 3'. (Also side note: how is BN beginner?!! It is by no means tiny!) A rolled coop lifted off the ground with flowers and decaying pumpkins underneath. All I could think was "Oh my God I'm not even going to make it past the first fence."

Now, you see the big grey horse in my previous post. He is not my eventer. No, no. He is my hunter and I keep him with my hunter trainer whom I love dearly. I am eventing Romeo, my 14'3 Blue Roan QH that is probably somewhere around 18 years old. And all I can think of is the fact that the first jump is going to look as big as my pony.

Well he jumped it. And I was so excited that I went off course. Kidding..kind of. I was however so overwhelmed that I forgot a jump. I was going like REALLY fast (to me) and jumping BIG solid XC fences and therefore I was so scared/happy/freaked out/joyous, I just forgot.

I forgot the jump after this one...

But it didn't matter...because by the time the jump judge stopped me a few jumps later, I had already stopped so hard at the first water that I nearly went off the front of my horse.

Enter problem 2: Romeo was PETRIFIED of water.

The venue was kind enough to let me school after my "technical," as I was the second to last horse on course for the day. It took 30 minutes to put him in the water.

Now...everyone says they learn new stuff about their animals every day.

Well. I thought I knew just about everything about my horse. I've had him for over 10 years for goodness sakes. But I learned something new. When my horse shuts down mentally because he is afraid, he flies backwards at about 15 mph. Which is a LOT faster than you'd think.

Our best flying backwards moves are, or used to be, in front of water and ditches. My horse is entirely too smart to think that water or ditches are a good idea...and I have a hard time disagreeing with him because I DON'T disagree. I think his feelings are perfectly sound! But with lots of work, and lots of help, he went into the water on the first try with no hesitiation just a short 8 months later :)

Most imporant of all...

I hate wearing my hair behind my ears. There, I said it. I think it looks horrible...but I do it anyways during the dressage portion. A lot of people at events ask me why I wear my hair over my ears (well during SJ and XC). I never have much of a good explanation besides the fact that I am a hunter barbie. I think it feels nice, looks nice, and most importantly, looks nice.

My name is Reagan. I'm 21 and am a student at Mississippi State University, where I am majoring in Animal and Dairy Science (aka pre-vet). The only english barn near MSU is an eventing barn.

Let's back up about 10 years. I was 11, and desperately wanted a pony. The only sale horse in our entire barn (that we could afford) was a feedlot horse who had "jumped" out of his feedlot and therefore they thought would like to jump. I use the term "jump" lightly because he didn't even make it out in one piece. He got a nail stuck in his side and came to the barn on antibiotics.

I leased him for that summer, and we definitely had a love/hate relationship. I loved him when he wasn't bucking me off every other time I rode him. He also had some food anger issues because he was a) in a feedlot and b) starved at some time...which I consider a feat for anyone to do because he gets fat just looking at food.

Meet Romeo (Bulletproof):

Okay...how cute is that. I was little...and I was little for a long time. I showed him on the A circuit...kind of successfully (not entirely) in short stirrup, eq, and pre-children's until 2005. I put changes on him, took him fox hunting, did jumpers, and a bunch of other stuff. He always tried hard for me...but then I grew. I'm 5'7'' and he is 14.3 on a good day. I eventually leased him out in 2007, and in 2008 I "retired him."

In 2006, I got a "speshul" thoroughbred named Johnny. Note: I did not want a grey horse or a thoroughbred. I got a grey thoroughbred. He needs his hand held frequently, but he is incredibly athletic. He has a great dressage background, but I had to completely erase all his knowledge of jumping and start from scratch. So basically...his brain is a little short-circuited. He will go in the ring and be perfect (I do the A/Os for anyone who knows what that is), or he will go in and have a nervous meltdown...which must judges don't appreciate.

as a 3 y/o

as an 11 y/o