Will winter ever end?

It's very difficult to train your horses during a monsoon. Not only is the footing standing in inches of water, but your tack gets sticky and your breeches get leather stains. So once again, the rain prevented me from riding any of my horses yesterday. Instead, I had to give myself a swift kick in the butt to go ride Luna, my training project for a client of mine. I've been working with her since mid-November and she's doing well, but she has quite the attitude. Normally I'm very lenient with young horses and their fussy nature. Bailey likes to give me a run for my money during the first 10 to 15 minutes of our rides, but normally I can just canter her around a few laps and then get down to 'real' work. Luna, however, will fight you tooth and nail for every second of your ride. Some days are better than others, but all of them come with their quirks. Now I know why they hired me to break her...Unfortunately her temper tantrums are nothing over the top. They're never dangerous or threatening...just really annoying and unproductive. Yesterday, for the first time since sitting on her in her stall all those months ago, I actually had to get after her a bit with a crop. She's lived there every day of her life for the last 4 years, and yet somehow every little thing in the arena was traumatizing. Finally I stopped treating her like a baby and raised my expectations a bit. After a few rounds, we finally ended on what I thought was a pretty decent note. Maybe I'm finally getting some respect in that little mare brain of hers!

Since the weather hasn't been cooperating, I still don't have any fun photos for you to look at. Sorry! Hopefully today I can get some things accomplished.

I did get to ride on Thursday evening, which was spent schooling Patrick and Bella up for the spring shows. I've been attempting to re-perfect my hunter seat, and finding it really difficult to do. Patrick naturally goes a little on his forehand, despite having a decently uphill build. This is what really convinced me to turn him into a hunter. However, I can't ride in a light hunter seat, one that is so favored in the ring today, and still get him to the jumps correctly. I have to sit and elevate him to the jumps. So now I'm spending my rides on him trying to figure out how to ride him correctly (which takes a bit of work) and still make it look like I'm not doing anything at all. Oh, the drama.

Bella has been schooling really well lately, but we're both crooked. We have the same weak side, and mine is unfortunately emphasized by barn chores: I always clean stalls/rake/shovel on the same side. So now we're slightly crooked, which makes riding to the right really uncomfortable. Talk about frustrating. So we're going to grin and bear it for now, long enough to survive Culpeper, and then head down to Middleburg for a dressage lesson and see if two pairs of experienced eyes can help us out.

Patrick is going to the Howard County Horse Show Opener on April 17th, provided I can find someone to work for me in the morning. Work really gets in the way of living, I've decided. I know this is something that every adult realizes and copes with, but it doesn't work for me.

I'm going to be successful doing what I love, and I WILL continue to love it.

On that note, I've created my business card and I just emailed my advertisement to the local equine paper. After a LOT of swearing at Microsoft Word and Adobe, I finally created (then forwarded to Nathan to perfect...) my advertisement. Now I just have to right a check for $255.00 per month it's run, and we're good to go. Holy cow, that's a lot of money. It better work.

So if anyone knows someone looking for board, lessons, or training in the area, please tell them to support their local poor up-and-coming professional and give me a chance!

Once I'm on my computer (I'm typing from Nathan's) I'll load the picture of my ad and card:) I'm pretty proud of myself!

Take care!

I'm Baaack!

I know I've said that a few times before, but I think this time I mean it!

I am going to try to take things in a new direction though, which probably means you'll get a lot of my soap box gripes here soon. I've decided to blog about my experiences as an up and coming professional in the equine industry. That was sort of an underlying theme before, but I've (almost) officially renounced my amateur status and declared professional.

There are a number of reasons why. Some of which I can't discuss publicly because the wicked witch of the west that caused the decision may find out about this and stop paying me money. That would be bad. Very bad.

Anyways, for the last few weeks I've been getting things in order so that I can begin advertising my facility and hopefully acquire a few clients. I designed my own logo and business card (hooray for not being TOTALLY technologically illiterate!) and two nights ago I created an ad to run in the local equine monthly magazine. One thing I've learned so far that is a real hindrance, it takes money to make money. That causes a lot of problems. So I'm still working at the eventing barn as the figurehead manager, but I'm secretly hoping that I get some clients pretty quickly so that I can just work at my own place full time.

This is just a quickie "get you up to speed" entry. I need to get some pictures and whatnot of everything, because late this winter I acquired another sale horse project, fresh off Charlestown Racetrack:) She's turning into a real doll, so I'm super excited to get her going. She's a coming 7 year old 17.1hh redheaded mare, which sounds like a total beast, but she's a real sweetheart. I hope she makes a quick turnaround, but that all depends on how big she can jump. She has a shoulder the size of Maryland itself, so I'm hoping she might be at least a Low A/O prospect, not that I could compete her in it anymore...

If this weekend is nice, it'll be one of photo and video updates!

Lastly, I've reserved stalls for the April Culpeper show in roughly two weeks. I'm taking Bella and Bailey, mostly just to get out there and do something fun. Bailey really needs to get off the farm, and Bella is just fun:) Patrick was originally supposed to go with Amanda, but her and her mother decided that it wasn't worth the hassle of getting him there, much to my dismay. I really need to get him out doing something and get him SOLD! I thought about bringing him on his own, but it doesn't make sense for me to pay that kind of money to show him at something of that size. So instead, I'm going to campaign him in the local county circuit and see how he does. Oh, another change...he's now a hunter. So I've been practicing my 'hunter perch' again, and finding it significantly more difficult now that I know how to ride correctly. There really is a skill there that no one in the hunter/eq ring actually teaches. I think you have to ride the jumpers to learn how to ride the hunters correctly.

I think that's backwards from Mr. Morris' original intentions for the hunter ring...*cough cough* But then again, I've never liked him or his philosophies and I'm disgusted that college's base their equitation programs off of his cacamamey bullshit. That's a soap box right there. Sorry.

Anyways, look forward to hearing from me a little more frequently than never!

How IS everyone???