Virginia State 4-H Horse Show Championship 2012

We have not fallen off the face of the earth for the last week but it sure does feel like it.  As a lot of you know, E has been working hard with her horse Pep this summer.  She has had her sights on the State Show and really wanted to do well.  Unfortunately, Pep had other plans.  On Monday Pep went lame while E was riding her.  She has a hoof issue from a previous injury which started acting up.  No amount of soaking, pain meds. or antibiotics was going to fix her in time.  The two choices E had were 1. not go or 2. take Hank.

 She decided on taking Hank.  The problem was, Hank is a hunter horse and E rides western.  The only time she has ridden hunter was at a 2 week beginning jumping clinic she went to 3 years ago.   So, with just 2 days of practice we went to the show.  (Plus, Hank had only had 1 day off from the endurance ride.)

 V's clothes sort of fit and there we were.  The first class was Showmanship on Thursday night.  Hank has never been shown in a showmanship class before.  His first one was against 50 other hunter  horses.  It involved backing, 180 degree pivot, trotting around  a cone, standing for inspection, 90 degree turn and trotting off.   Hank acted like he had done it all of his life.  E and Hank pulled off a 12th place finish.

 Friday we got some visitors.  Grandma, Aunt L and V all came to the show.  We haven't seen V since she went off to college last month.  It was nice to get to visit with her a little.

 E had 2 classes on Friday.  She started with Hunter Pleasure in the coliseum.  I thought Hank did great.  He looked good, went at a steady speed and picked up his leads right.

 We were very hopeful for a high placing and he really looked good in the line up.

 They ended up with 6th place. E's first ribbon with Hank.

 Next came the trail class preliminary.  There were 76 hunters with senior riders (ages 14-18) signed up for the class.   

 They had to open and close a gate,

and back through 2 poles.  E got Hank to do and excellent job and they made the finials with 16 others for the next day.
Of course, E had to watch all of the classes Pep would have been in and constantly laminated the fact that they would have done so well in them.  To which I constantly replied, "Be thankful for what you have."

Big South Fork Endurance Ride, Part Two

When we got the the vet check this is what riders with good crews had,

 nice dry tents to stand under had people to take care of their horses while they rested.

 This is what those of us without a crew looked like, standing under a tree to try and stay a little dry while our rain ponchos were on the saddles and the horses were eating for all they were worth.  By the way, the tree didn't help.

 It started raining just as we went through the check and never let up until the end of the ride.

 We sloshed through bogs and mud and rocks and boulders and crossed back over the river. (That's Lilly and Nana behind us.  Nana made sure with the vets that her horse was OK to continue.)

 I had J stop at the far bank to see if the horses wanted to drink and Jessica did about lay down but I saw what she was doing and hollered at J to keep her going and ran Hank past her to egg her on.  It all worked and we kept her from going down for what good it did.  We were already pretty soaked and then there was another water crossing where the water went halfway up their sides.  We were knee deep (our knees not the horse's) before we knew it and our feet got soaked.

 Some of the scenery was great but when you're in a race it is really difficult to take out a camera and get good pictures.  There were some steep climbs but not as long of ones as at Virginia Highlands.  The last 5 miles was a fairly level gravel road and we took off.  The horses really made up a lot of time there.  We finished in 5:20 minutes of riding time, 30 minutes faster than Virginia Highlands.  Jessica finished 15th and Hank was 16th out of 32 starting with 28 completing.

 A 5 hour drive, no sleep, riding 5 1/2 hours soaking wet and look, I got a tee shirt!

 We got home to discover it didn't rain a drop here.

 The horses enjoyed their roll in the dirt.

 Jessica was no worse for the wear and high tailed it away.

Hank took a more sedate stroll back to the other horses.
Anyone up for the Sandhills Stampede next month?  We could always use a good crew.

Big South Fork Endurance Ride, Part One

J and I just returned from our second endurance ride in 2 weeks.  I know, a lot of people do two 50 mile rides in 2 days, but hey, this was still big for us.   It started with a 5 hour trailer ride to Tennessee.   The horses hauled well and J is #1 at driving so no problems getting there. 

 After we unloaded and let the horses settle in we went for our pre ride vet check.  Jessica passed with all A's.  I'm not too sure she appreciated getting her number put on however.

 Hank passed too but drew the usual questions about all of his lumps.  "No, they are not hives.'  "No, I don't know what they are." "He's had them since we got him 3 years ago."  "No, they don't seem to bother him."
We set up as usual, horses tied to the trailer with us sleeping inside.  This is not an ideal arrangement especially with a horse that jerks at the hay net, rubs her head a lot and clinks her halter snap on the fender all night. (not naming any names)  At 1 AM my watch alarm went off.  It's a cheep watch with lots of buttons.  I think I must have set the alarm when I checked the time with the light button earlier.  Then it started to pour down rain with thunder and lightning.  And finally a truck alarm started going off.  Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep.

 The morning dawned misty and humid.  We got saddled (J could use some crew help) and all of our supplies ready.

 J has started lunging Jessica before he gets on at these rides because she has been known to take some bucking fits.  If he lunges her first it seems to help.   We started the ride right behind the fast pack then got passed by 2 riders that were right on Hank's tail.

 Over the next few miles we passed about 10 riders.  The trails were well groomed for the most part but lots of rocks in places and some large sandstone boulders to cross.  

 Then came the river crossing.  J was very nervous about this.  His last experience on an endurance ride with crossing a pond ended up with him drenched when Jessica decided to lay down in the middle of it.  It was right before the river when we came up on a Grandmother/Granddaughter pair.  Nana's horse had taken a bad step and was lame and her stirrup had broken.  Nothing she had with her would fix the problem  She asked if we had any duct tape, and yes, as a matter of fact, I did have some with me.  While she was fixing her stirrup she explained their problem.  Lilly, her granddaughter, was only 13 and needed to ride with a sponsor.  If Nana's horse was lame Lilly wouldn't be able to finish without her.  After asking our names, she asked if we would sponsor Lilly which eventually meant just letting her ride with us.  She had been doing endurance rides since she was 8 and had actually been on more rides than we have so we didn't think it would be a  problem.

This crossing was pretty uneventful.  Both horses and Lilly walked across no problem.   Then about ten minutes past the river here comes Nana flying up the trail.  Apparently, she couldn't hold her horse back by itself and it wasn't lame anymore, so she took back over with Lilly.  
Find out about the half way vet check and return trip tomorrow.

Fridays Fences #49

Saw this little fellow on our fence this week. 

He's a change of pace from the cattle, horses and goats around here.
Check out more Friday Fences HERE.

Photo Contest

I've been harping on E to take some pictures for the photo contest they have in conjunction with the State Horse Show.  This is what she came up with this week.

It was the heat of the day and the horses were all under the pine trees.

She ended up with a lot of pictures of the cattle too.

I thought if she could get the horses when there up here that would look nice.

Tack Review

Well, I broke down and bought J a new saddle pad a while back before the endurance ride. 

 I had done a little bit of internet research and learned about these Toklat Cool Back saddle pads.  Plus Endurance Granny  had recommended them.

 Then, low and behold, I found one at our local tack store.  And I mean one, no color or shape choice.  But it was what I was looking for so I bought it.  It is very thick and fluffy and light weight.  Plus, it doesn't absorb every ounce of sweat like his old one did.

 It replaced this pad I got for Christmas when I was 18.  Let's just say we got the good out of it.   I noticed one day when I helped J unsaddle Jessica that the pad weighed as much as the saddle (not good when you are trying to eliminate excess weight for an endurance ride).  That, plus the mouse holes finally lead to it's replacement.  So far so good with the Cool Back pad.  It did well through the 30 mile ride and is going on another one this weekend.  Oh, and it's machine wash and dry.

If I got him to change saddle pads can the riding tights be far behind?

Separation

As the kids are getting older and the weather is getting drier, the goats are going off in separate groups more often. 

 Today they were in 5 different fields.

 J rounded up the group above the road,

 got them with the ones in the bull lot and arena field,

and sent them off to get with the ones in the hollow.   There is never a shortage of little annoying jobs to do.