Wrapping up at the J-6

IMG_1817-3, originally uploaded by torri_g.

Time to wrap up this week of pictures and tales from the J-6. I have tons of favorites and love all of the pictures of my girls, but this random shot photo is my most favorite one. I think it sums up what a full day of riding in the J-6 event will do to all of the riders regardless of their age. This little guy rode his heart out at the event, and when he needed rest his very loyal horse made sure he got some.

I hope that everyone has had a great week, and that there is a wonderful, restful weekend waiting for all of us.

Cheyenne at the J-6

IMG_1739, originally uploaded by torri_g.

Cheyenne rode Pi for the J-6 riding event this past Saturday. Pi is a gaited horse and her and Chey have a lot in common...they both have attitude! I don't mean that in a bad way either by the way. If it is possible for a horse to love a person then Pi loves Cheyenne and in turn Cheyenne completely loves Pi. They are a perfect match.
Chey won 2 first place, 2 second place, 1 third place, and also won the high point division champion ribbon. Cheyenne was very much all about supporting her sisters and the other riders on Saturday, and I'm very proud of her for that. Oh yeah and all of the ribbons that she brought home too.

Paige at the J-6

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I know that she isn't on a horse in this picture, but this is one of my favorites of Paige from this past Saturday. I mean look at her...just perfectly comfortable looking standing inside the practice arena, watching everyone warm up.
Paige being my complicated young woman is actually off of the horse because the huge crowd made her very nervous and upset. Which lead to it all getting her in brain, which lead to her horse Bob feeling her anxiety, which lead to Bob being fairly hyper. I was very proud of her though because she got off of the horse and talked to Dad, and talked to Mom and spent some time just watching and getting her mind settled. I took time to talk to their teacher/coach and then she spent extra time talking and calming our Miss Paige down. It is funny to me that Paige who doesn't let many people in finds great comfort with her teacher. Which was truly a
blessing on Saturday.
Paige won 2 third place, and two fourth place ribbons. She had one time thrown out because of the back end of Bob crossing the timer plain, which disqualified that time for the ride. I think Paige enjoyed the comfort and encouragement from her sisters, her teacher, and Todd and I enough to not let that one ride set back get her down though. Her teacher was very proud of her for getting back up on Bob and riding though, and for pushing through the whole day. I think everyone needs to look out though because now Paige knows what she needs to do to prepare herself for the next riding event.

Stephanie at the J-6

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As promised I am back and going to start oldest to youngest with posting pictures and tales of how they did.

The events were the Clover leaf barrels, washington poles, hour glass, gated keyhole, and cow barrel. Stephanie rode Valentine for all of her events on Saturday. If you rated horse on an alphabetic system Valentine would be about a "J" for needed skill level. Stephanie is the only one with enough consistent ability to put on Valentine for the whole day. Plus Valentine gets a bit of an attitude with the other girls every now and then because she isn't quiet a finished horse.

Miss Stephanie brought home 2 second place, 1 fourth place, and 2 fifth place ribbons on Saturday. Turns out Steph was more about the equitation on the horse during the even than being about the speed. Their teacher/coach is now hoping and planning on getting her ready for fall and English riding events where all that equitation will pay off well.
Funny thing about my Miss Stephanie is that her favorite ribbons are the fifth place one's because they are pink! I have to give my girl credit though, when it came to sitting in the saddle and looking almost perfect at all points in time form wise...she nailed it!

3 G Girls

3 G Girls, originally uploaded by torri_g.

The girls rode in their first J-6 riding event this past Saturday, and oh what a great day it was! Being Mom I could not have been more proud of my girls than what I was Saturday, and not just because they brought home a ton of ribbons. Their support of each other over the course of the day, their support of the other competitors, and just watching how much they have grown in ability over the course of the last year. WOW is about all I have for that.
The flip side of it was the photographer in me was in pure joy overload with all of the beautiful horses to photograph. Over the course of this week I will post favorite pictures of each of my girls and share how each on of them did, and of course post some of my just favorite pictures of other horses and riders.

Horse Training 101

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Wednesday started the girls and Kisses training. The girls were taught how to view the horse and look for any conformational flaws or trouble areas. They quickly learned how to spot training flaws and their first training issue to work on is working with the lunge line with Kisses. Everything is fine with the lunge line till you actually get it to close to her hind quarters, then she kicks. There was a correction to her age because she is 7 and not 4. Overall her submissive training for things like backing up, lowering her head, lifting her hoofs, and moving to the side were all very good. The girls have tons of reading material, and even some dvd's to watch over the course of the next 5 weeks.

They have also set up with their riding teacher Redhead to come out to the property and do some waste management for her during this time period or other odds and ends jobs. We are going to be heading out there tomorrow for a day filled with nothing but horses and work actually since Friday proved to be a difficult day to get Paige's riding lesson in. You know the scene from the Scorpion King in the desert with the sand storm? Or from any western set in the old west with the dust storms? Well we had that happen yesterday. This was no little dust devil that came up it was full blown sand blast your face dust storm followed by torrential down pouring of rain! So tomorrow Paige will go for her lesson, and while she is doing that the other two are going to put in some time working and then they will all get their next lesson on working with Kisses. Sounds like a great way to end the weekend to me.

Kisses

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For the next six weeks the girls get to say that they have a horse. This is Kisses a very beautiful 4 year old Quarter horse. Yesterday they got to learn about what it takes to load a horse on a trailer and get them out safely. Over the course of the next 6 weeks they are going to learn about feeding, care, training and about everything else that there is to learn. Paige will be learning the most since she will be spending 4 days a week with the horse but Steph and Chey are going to be over also when their schedules allow them time. They were happy that they were allowed to rename the horse because she had a not so great name. Thought was if it makes them blush to even try to say it, then it really needs to be changed.

There will be better pictures of Kisses coming in the following weeks. I only had my cell phone available since I was part of the crew for loading and unloading.

Get Back Up

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Riding lessons for Paige and Cheyenne on Tuesdays is about to get renamed "Tossing" Tuesday or something similar to that. In the last two weeks they have made sure that my lungs are working fine and I can attempt to gasp in all of the air in Arizona.

Let me start with Cheyenne and last week. Since she started lessons she has done great except for whenever the horse makes a miss step in the arena, then her fear of falling would kick in and keep her from doing real well. Never fear though Cheyenne came up with a solution to that and last week I heard the words come out of her mouth to her teacher..."Push me off of the horse!" Yes when asked what she could do to help Chey get over her fear, Chey asked her to push her off of the horse! Hmm...yeah something not real right about that. They talked back and forth and then suddenly my cell phone rang with a call that I had to take, but keeping an ear on the back and forth conversation about being pushed off of the horse. Probably a good thing that I had my back to what happened next because Chey won and she got pushed off of the horse! Now not a mean push, it was a push of measured control, or at least that is what I keep telling their teacher. Cheyenne just went with the fall in a huge way! Scraped up arm, small bruise on thigh, some tears and then a funny thing...a determination to get back up on the horse and ride, oh and ride she did. There have been no fear of falling looks on her face since. She sent pictures of her battles scars to her friends and told them all what she did because she is very proud of herself for having the guts to do it. Side note to all of this is their teacher who I think is just wonderful, called several times that day to make sure Chey was alright, and several times in between the lessons to check. I think she may have some emotional scaring from the whole thing last week but of course Paige had to add to it this week.

Paige's was not a "push me off" thing, it was an "Oh Crap!" thing. I'm going to back up just a little bit with Paige for a minute. In one of her first lessons the horse got spooked and she had to do what their teacher calls the "Emergency Exit" off of him, and she did it perfectly. Even better was she did that move without even having been taught it by the teacher yet. So yesterday and her falling really just came out of the blue because she knows how to get off that horse without having to hit the ground. Their teacher is spending time introducing them to all kinds of riding right now and bareback has been the lesson the last couple of weeks. They do half of their lesson in saddle and then bareback. Paige loves the bareback riding. I can see her face light up as soon as she hears the words it is time to take the saddle off. Paige loves being close this horse and bareback gives her that connection that she loves. Bad thing about bareback if you are the second lesson of the day, the horse is getting really slick! All was going well till getting the horse up to a trot and doing leg muscle building by doing posting while bareback. One slip of Paige's grip with her legs, one bounce to many over trot polls and Paige was unseated. She tried like mad to get settled in her seat again but it was to late. She went from slipping up top to being kind of on the side of the horse, to the ground under the horse in less time than it takes to blink an eye. Paige did hit hard on the ground but immediate fear was they had been in trot mode when this happened and she was laying under the horse. Ever see a 1200 pound, 16 hand horse stop on a dime? Well, I did yesterday...and not only did he stop on a dime he self backed two steps with look of fear that I'm sure was greater than anyone else's out there. Paige on the other hand wasn't wearing a look of fear...she was laughing! She got up and let all of us know that she was fine, and then spent some personal time face to face with the horse telling him he did nothing wrong it had been her mistake, and thank you for not stepping on me. Then she got a boost back on the horse and went right back to what she had been doing.

Right now today thinking about these two and the fact that they keep pointing out that they have raised the bar for falling has me worried about lessons on Saturday with Stephanie, but we will go and will keep going. I am starting to think that come lesson days I might need some medication to help keep me calm and breathing though because yesterday there were words like learning to do jumps and barrel racing! Oh my!

When the horse puts you in time out!

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Paige and Cheyenne had riding lessons this morning and I am completely blown away by their progress! Chey with only three lessons has just about caught up with her sisters, and Paige stepped it up a couple extra notches today too. Bob...who is the lesson horse...did have to let Paige know one time that she wasn't as in control as she thought she was. Instructor had Paige drop the reigns and do nothing but use leg to control Bob and the first couple of tries led right back to the same area of the arena...the GATE! See Bob by this point in time would have loved for the lessons to be over and since Paige wasn't using enough leg he picked his own direction and what he wanted to see done. The exercise was great for Paige though because she finally got the legs going and made Bob do what she wanted him to do.
Both girls were introduced to show maneuvers today and I can say that parking the horse on the bridge looked very difficult but both girls got it done. Paige was happy about being able to get to take Bob up to a cantor today with no lead line today, which was a huge deal for her.

Tomorrow Ms. Steph gets to go for her lesson and I can't wait to see the look on her face with how much her sisters stepped up the game today for lessons.

Close up

image, originally uploaded by torri_g.

What happens when you take to many pictures of one horse? Well, the horse that isn't getting their picture taken comes over and shoves you in the middle of your back through the fence around the arena. She got my attention and I made her happy by shooting a couple pictures of her. Then she wandered off to a different area of the paddock. All I will have to do is remember to point the camera at her a couple of times each lesson and hopefully I won't get pushed from behind again.

I hope that everyone has a great Thursday!

Flowers for Tuesday

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Keeping it short and simple here this morning since I have to head off to riding lessons with Binky Sue here soon. Did want to make sure to at least post a photo again today though.

I hope that everyone enjoys a wonderful Tuesday!

Riding lessons

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Today was the girls first day of riding lessons! They have a great teacher and Sweetpea and Binky Sue were thrilled to get started. Little Bug will be starting just a little later because her Mom is a big mean Mom. I'm happy that we didn't have anyone falling off of the horse today, but we did have one fall while trying to get on the horse. Watching one try to put the saddle on the horse was very funny and I'm not sure the horse will ever really trust her to get that saddle on without lots of help. We have next lessons set for this week and very much looking forward to it.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Saturday and that there is lots of laughter for you today.