New Beginnings...

It's been some time since my last blog, and I guess that's because so much has happened during that time. Blizzards resulting in 54 inches of snow (for Washington D.C., that is absolutely ridiculous), the last semester of school (well, almost...darn you summer session!) and change...LOTS of change! My change was not always good change. Around March, my family made the final decision to move to North Carolina after my last summer class was complete in June. Both my parents work from home and I would be a college graduate. Because of my horses and lack of employment, I also made the decision to move to NC with them, so that I could have a slightly easier (well, financially that is) way of life as well and removing myself from other toxic personal situations and trying to further my riding career with a higher education.

Unfortunately, this meant saying goodbye to some people that I loved. To make this story shorter and less tearful, I was forced to say goodbye to an equine friend and partner of 5 yrs. that I never thought would have to end. The other person was a close friend and mother figure to me that took my new exciting news rather poorly and since then we have not spoken for reasons that do not need to be explained but at the moment cannot be forgiven. This was a very upsetting and dark time (specifically the month of May). Depression set in which affected my school work, riding, social life and family life. With the help of my family and those closest to me, they helped me pull myself out of my stuper and get back on the track to moving forward.

Now, with one more week of classes until I'm an official college graduate and two weeks until I take my two handsome boys to their new beautiful home in NC, I look back on the events of the year so far and marvel at how I've grown and the lessons I have learned through these sometimes brutally painful experiences. Hopefully, I can take these lessons and use them to better my new everyday life!

I have a couple promises to make myself with these changes...1) I will continue to learn and absorb everything about dressage and becoming a better rider and horsewoman overall, 2) I will go into my new business profession with an open mind willing to learn and listen to others with the thought of "communication" always in the back of my mind, 3) to try and forgive those who wrong me a little quicker in order to make my life less stressful and 4) write in this darn blog a little bit more!

Until next time! (when I will hopefully be writing more about my horses than my moral lessons ;-))

Good-bye Jono. You'll always be my "Big Jo"

2010 New Years Goals

2010 Goals for the ponies (& myself!)

• DJ - compete and successfully achieve two 60% at 3rd level to finish off my USDF Bronze medal
• Buddy - to continue to improve his 2nd level with sites set on 3rd and 4th level in the near future
• Jono - to continue to be a superstar in everything he does, to qualify for both GAIG's and BLMs as a 2nd level Adult Amatuer (a bonus would be to win a Dover Medal along the way :) )
• Me - to lose 12 more lbs (already lost 10!!); continue my education with an open mind and heart; to stay relaxed, loose and patient in all of my riding; and to be the best person I can be (on and off the ponies!)
• Everyone - to stay safe, sound, and happy in this New Year!

Wrap-Up of 2009

Good gracious! I have not written in quite some time...and needless to say it was a good but hectic ending to 2009. Since we last left off, my "tick twins" have officially overcome their illnesses and are back into the swing of regular work. I figure since each horse has had a little change in their lives I'll address each one as we go along...

Buddy has been body clipped once (right before winter) and will most likely be clipped again in the following weeks. His hair grows amazingly fast, affectionaly called "mountain hair" since he did originate in the mountain country of Tennessee and moved to the mountains of VA before settling in the DC metropolitan area. His work on second level is steadily impoving with more balance in his gaits and confidence in himself. He did give me New Years gift...a large bloody lower eye lid resembling the size and shape of a lemon. We don't call him "BooBoo" for nothing! Luckily, it was just some superficial scrapings which should heal up in no time.

DJ is currently loving life. Since we diagnosed his cushings early in the year and started treatment, he has gotten back his zest for life and the twinkle in his eye that captured my heart at our first meeting :) DJ also has a new friend, a leasee! Granted I never expected anyone to be able to ride let alone lease my beastie until he was around the ripe old age of 25, but he surprised me by becoming the perfect schoolmaster. Coming off of a hiatus due to establishing a family, my leasee is back and ready for action. She originally owned a rather large PSG warmblood, so making the transition to the 14.3 3rd level sensitive Arabian has proved to be educating! I love watching the lessons because both rider and pony love the work. My leasee is learning again and little man is enjoying the life of a semi-retired schoolmaster!

Now, Jono being the utter superstar that he is, has had a busy end of the year. Since this was a year of education for the two of us, I enrolled him in as many clinics as I possibly could. At the beginning of the year we started with Donna Gatchell, a local professional who worked on making us lighter on the forehand with lots of second and even third level work! Next was our clinic at the beginning of November was with another local professional, frenchman Pascal Martin. After some doubtful facial expressions, he started to work with Jo and ended up pleasantly surprised by his talent and work ethic. Again, lightness was the key. But the season finale, and probably the best clinic I have ever attended, was the Lendon Gray clinic at Sprieser Sporthorse in Marshall, VA at the beginning of December. It was FANTASTIC!!! I did participate in the same event last year with Buddy which left my ego bruised and beaten but at least I came out with some positive moments and exercises. This year it was the complete opposite. She immediately expressed her love for my big fella and throughout the clinic used terms like "fantastic", "cute", "athletic" and "amazing" to describe his work. She polished up our second level and told us to "keep going and keep proving people wrong!" The unfortunate end to 2009 was the discovery of Jono's newly learned vice, cribbing. At first, the vet and I agreed that maybe he had ulcers. So, Gastro-guard was used for the first 7 days which really seemed to do the trick. This led to 28 more days of the ridiculously expensive paste. Unfortuntely, by the second week, this method was not working as well as we had hoped so we finished off the rest of the dosing and are now attempting new methods to discourage this new irritating habit...feed change, alfalfa cubes, a hay net to make him eat slower as well as occupy him, and then the dreaded Miracle Collar (duhn, duhn, duhn!). Lets hope that next time I blog, there will be some improvements!

So overall, it was a decent way to end a rather blah year. There is so much planned and anticipated in for 2010 but for right now....I'm just goin to tell you to read the next blog :)

Another One!

As a follow up to my last entry...Buddy was diagnosed with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. This is easily treatable with LOTS of antibiotics and some good old fashioned down time, as long as the fevers stay at bay. I could handle this. I mean, yeah, its disappointing when his 2nd level work was turning out to be really good but what can you do at this point? Well, on Monday I got a call from the vet. I had forgotten that we had done a tick tighter on Jo as a precautionary since DJ had already gotten one earlier this year and we were waiting for Buddy's to come back from Texas. Anyways, the results were in. Jono has Lymes! Can you believe it? I was shocked! I mean this is also a very treatable diagnosis but still! So, now I have 1 with Cushings, 1 with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and the newest one is Lymes. Gotta love horses!

Sick Pony

So, three weeks ago I took Buddy to a horse show in Lexington. Granted he did extremely well in his debut at Second Level (64% & 66%!!!) but that is not the point. At the show, he was very quiet and just picked around at his food, highly unusual for this horse. We kept an eye on him but he ate his grain, drank water and had normal stool so we figured he just wanted to go home. Anyways, we get him home and I give him 4 days off for being such a star that weekend. Time for his ride on Friday...what a grouch!!! He was pissy, agitated, harsh in his mouth, tight in his back and overall unpleasant to ride. Needless to say, I was a little agitated myself. I got off and did some ground work which wasn't much better. He just had no intentions of working. I figured, mentally maybe he needed a little longer break so I gave him the weekend off. All the fun stuff started on Monday....

Monday's ride was at least more pleasant than Friday's. I had a horse with a much better frame of mind and willingness to try anything but something was still off. It was very similar to riding a horse with a giant neck brace on. His circles were piecey, his laterals were super flat and simple changes were virtually impossible. This wasn't like him either. I got off cleaned him up and turned him out but a little voice kept saying something was not right. Later that night, I spoke with my trainer and she suggested that he was sore from the two needles he got on Monday. (Oh yeah! Buddy also had a break out on his face of some sort so the vet came and gave him an antihistamine as well as a steroid in order to help the healing process.) I decided to give him some more time off and went down Tuesday to rub him down with lineament and give him some Bute. When I got there on Tuesday, he looked very lethargic but still tried to eat and be himself. I gave him the rub down and proceeded to go on with my normal activities and went to go ride another horse. Something just kept nagging at me while I was riding, so just for preventative measures I got off the horse I was riding and went to take Buddy's temperature. I took it three times because I thought I was pushing the wrong buttons or was reading it incorrectly...i wasn't...it was 105.6!!!! I rushed him into the wash stall and called the vet....

To make this a little shorter, the vet came out, Banamine was administered, a large dose of antibiotics were taken, another bath was had and many minutes were spent under three very large fans. His temp finally settled at 100.8...whew! A CBC was done and a tick panel was sent out to Texas. The next morning (Wednesday), the vet visited us again to check on the poor boy. His temp was much better but now he had diarrhea. his blood work came back with elevated rates meaning he had somthing tick related...oh joy! His back legs were swollen as well so now those had to be tended too! More antibiotics were given and then the vet gave her probable diagnosis...PHF...Potomas Horse Fever! Oi! Great...that's what the breakout on his face was, a tick bite!

Well, yesterday he looked good but not much improvement from the day before. He will still be on antibiotics until Saturday so he just has to stay calm, quiet and relaxed so as not to trigger any laminitis or bring back his fever. So, keep your fingers crossed for this poor pony! But I will say that Buddy has really enjoyed his one-on-one attention from me and all the extra lovings he's been getting from people at the barn too!

1st Blog!!!

Hello Everyone!

Well since this is the first blog for CBC Sporthorses I figure for now I'll just give you guys a preview at what my kids are doing as well as some other lucky ponies that I've been given the opportunity ride and enjoy!

DJ - my little Arabian with a total Napoleon complex...oh how I love him! He is a total alpha male so things have to be done on his terms. His third level work is coming along so well I just wish his darn flying changes weren't so lethal! We had a lesson with my trainer today (Cindy Hutchison of Locust Grove, VA) and she adores him almost as much as I do. He was so stellar in his lesson we were able to get amazing collected canter work with no explosions and some really nice canter half-pass without the over exuberant flying at the end. Goodness, we are just going to work our butts off over the winter and that Bronze Medal will be ours next year, I can feel it!

Buddy - the goofball...my poor black horse is so lovely to look at yet so aggravating to ride! I took him to a show last weekend in Lexington and it was his debut at second level. The first test of the weekend was a little rough. Needless to say, his mother was a little nervous and the scored reflected it. After some recollection of the nerves and repeatedly reviewing the first test on the camcorder, the second test was a 64%! Not bad, seeing as how he really started working on second level movements a couple weeks before the show. The last test was by far the best with a 66%!! I was elated! I come home and give him a couple days off to reward him for his stellar performance at the show. When I went back to ride him again, it was as if I had brought an entirely different horse home from Lexington. We had forgetten how to circle let alone bend or have flexion in any direction and god-forbid I ask for a walk-canter transition, that was just speaking Greek! This really is frustrating seeing as how he was so good the previous weekend, but I guess I just chalk it up to a bad day and keep on plugging along so next season he will knock every one's socks off!

Jo - my over sized teddy bear...the horse that holds such a special place in my heart because everyone said he couldn't do it! But after a GAIG/USDF Region 1 Reserve Championship and a CBLM Reserve Championship, I guess they believe in him now! With such a powerful presence he demands the attention of everyone around him. He is showing 2nd level now and working on his third. After a couple schooling shows this year, I know next year is going to be his year! It will be our first outing together as an Adult Amateur pair but I have a good feeling about it. We're also going to try our hand again at the musical freestyles without Jono's personal additions to the program...I'm thinking something with heavy drums :) Keep your fingers crossed!

And now for a bit on the one's that aren't mine but I get to play with them anyways!

Raad - the little stallion that could...when you hear the words Arabian stallion in the same sentence, high strung, hot and flighty come to mind. Well, this anything but what this guy is. He is by far one of the sweetest, calmest and most intelligent horses I have had the pleasure to work with. Although his start has been a rocky one, he definitely knows the basics. Between me and his owner we will have him going in the show ring confident and correctly in no time! I think big things are in store for this handsome man for 2010!

Tessa - slightly out-of-shape...I have known this mare since she was bought by her owner as a 3yr old. Now she is 10 and has been a mother, a trail horse, and the bang around. It is time for her to come back and the show the world just how wonderful she really is. Coming from the noble Andalusians and athletic Thoroughbreds, she was born to be in the show ring. After a couple months of conditioning we should have her back and running in tip top shape in no time! Look out show ring, here she comes!!!