Photos and video from Schooling SHow

Heather and Bentley ready to warmup.

After the walk-trot class, Bentley standing nicely... for about 5 seconds!

Thats enough standing nicely, I see something interesting and want to party! - Bentley before he fullpassed nearly the entire ring.

Oh boy, he sure is getting excited here! I am on board now

Look how happy he looks to have been able to show off his `stuff``

Waiting for our next round.

Discovering the leaves are much tastier than the grass.

Heather in the walk-trot class.  He gets a little excited by her forward riding and starts cantering, but settles in nicely.  Still learning how to hold his frame and Heather is learning to keep her hands steadier.

More of Heather in walk trot class, still a little unsure if hes a bit sore here or just trying to get the bit and hold it (heathers hands arent as steady as he is used to) or maybe a bit of both.  He stops very nicely!

Other direction of walk trot class.  He has a very nice trot along the far side of the ring and holds frame almost consistently!  The pair certainly improved as they went along.

Sarah in the first jumping class, 5 jumps hunter.  This is the start of when we noticed the `Bob`  Hes so darn excited to jump, took it a BIT too fast (meaning wayy too fast) haha.

Sarah in the 2nd jumping class, 8 jumps hunter.  You can see in the trot here hes starting to bob a bit more.  It wasnt easy keeping him straight down the lines, we had very little practice or even training for jumping, so I was happy with him and cant blame him for the excitement.

Photos from Cayuse Canter

Finally got around to this.

Sable looks all pretty and ready to go for tomorrow (ride day 1)

Our Friday night dinner.

Sun setting on the vetting area Friday night.

I'm No Angel and Angel ready to hit the trail.

Solstice riding Angel.

Linda on I'm No Angel (Sable)

And theyyyy're off!

Kind of a cool shot of the action at vetting area from my cool quiet spot in the shade.

I was bored while Sable was grazing so I added a new sport to OCTRAs portfolio - Horse Decorating

Sable practically falls asleep in her food bucket after day 2 (and total of 56 miles)

Perfect background for such a pretty lady!

Jess celebrates her completion.

Oh hi there!  Are you here to give me treats?

Monty enjoying his watermelon.

Sable would you like watermelon? - Sarah

Hmmm, this looks more like people food than horse food, thanks for the offer but I will pass. - Sable

Earl napping on his fence.

Earl DID take a bite from the watermelon.  I dont think he was convinced it was better than carrots though.

Jess and Monty sharing a bite.

Back at home, Sable enjoys the grazing paddock.

The best grass is at the bottom of the hill.

Or maybe its at the top.

Bentley also gets let out to graze and for grain dinner.

He must have been shaking or something, I love his mane here haha.

Nom Nom Nom!

So photogenic.

Theres a cute look!

"Is your food better than mine?  Lets switch!"

Crisper napping on the straw bale.

Oh did I wake you?

Yeeeee!

I had planned on posting the photos and videos I had accumulated over the last few weeks of the horses, but work was extra exciting today and I have a limited time at the computer.

It was exciting because I got to drive the new BMW 7 series, which has recently been remodelled and isn't available until the fall.  It also isn't even in production yet, so this is literally the only one of these cars in all of North America.  Ok well I didn't really drive it much, just through the restricted section from our gate to our hangar, and was so nervous I couldn't enjoy it as much as I should have.  But still.  This is a very nice car, and has a lot of cool technology associated with it. 

I cant share photos with you yet until the official launch.  Rest assured, I did take a picture and I will post it July 22nd.

:)

That is all.

And now, the positives of our schooling show

Although there was a lot that went wrong for our team at the show, there were a lot of things that went right.

1) Bentley was great about being groomed for the show.  He has been afraid of wet sponges in the past, so we didn't traumatize him by giving him a real bath.  However, he did let us go over his whole body scrubbing at his stains with a damp sponge and a lot of cowboy magic.  He did get nervous once or twice, but seemed to settle pretty quickly.  He was also generally very quiet while we braided his mane.  He doesn't like to stand still... ever... but somehow he must have known this was a special occasion. 

We put him in a fly sheet to try and keep the stains off overnight, and for the most part he kept it on.  He did manage to find something sharp(ish) in the stall to tear a hole in the side of it, and get a nice long scrape on his side too (but didn't go through skin, just raised with some missing fur)  He also decided since he couldn't give us something to do in the morning by cleaning poo stains off his body, he would treat us to an extra icky face.  His whole face was covered in poo (even in the creases of his eyelids) resulting in a nice dark brown head and a light gray body. 

Doesn't he look pretty in his fly sheet?

2) Even though Heathers hands were blistered from trying to hold him in during practise, they did very well at the walk-trot class.  In fact, they placed 4th out of 9.  This was when he was first showing the slightest hint of possibly being lame again, so although that part sucked, he is a pretty enough mover to place well even though he isn't 100%.  Gets me excited to see how he will do when hes on top of his game, hes such a pretty mover.

3) We didn't do so well in the jumping (2nd or 3rd to last) as he was starting to show it more noticeably.  I hopped on him since heather's hands were too sore and took him around the 2 18" courses.  I was happy with how he did, he was not in very good form and wanted to go fast, BUT I was able to bring him back to the trot or collected canter between most of the fences which was the goal.  I cant blame him for being excited, he loves to jump and hasn't been allowed to in the last 2 months.  Besides, he doesn't have to be slow and huntery for eventing or endurance!  Fast is fine by me!  Poor guy though wont be jumping for quite some time with leg soreness :(  Sorry boy, we will have to find other fun things to do in the meantime.

4) I was happy with how I did in the jumping, I think my equitation has improved as captured in this photo Michelle took of us.

5) The show ended up being FREE!  My favourite word.


More pictures and video will come, they havent been uploaded yet from my camera.

Unintentional sports of Horseback riding

Trying to keep a positive spin on a rough weekend here. Let me give you a bit of background: my sister was set in to ride Bentley in his first on-property schooling show.  Here's a fun way to say all the things that didn't go our way.  Other sports you can add to your resume are:

Rowing - The strength you get in your upper body down to your hips when your horse doesn't want to stop and can't seem to hear you yelling "woah" through the wind in his ears.  Also, the blisters you get on your hands if they are not properly calloused (or gloved).  This was Heather's sport.

Diving - When you catch enough air to complete at least one beautiful somersault headfirst in the air above your horse`s ears and stick the landing to your butt several metres in front of your horse.  This was my sport.

Soccer - The sport you go back to when your horse decides he isn't done being lame yet.  This is Bentley`s sport.

Golf - What Lee would much rather see me do.

Galloping off into the sunset

First off, let me start with my regular Wednesday lesson.  It went as usual, except when we finished, Margie pointed out that Bentley looks like he has some bowing in his back tendons.  She said that it looked like it was caused from trauma, there were 2 little scuffs on his legs about the same height that looked like he hit them on something.  Apparently these types of injuries are common with steeplechasers who catch their legs on the down part of the jump... but we haven't exactly been steeplechasing recently!

I do remember seeing these scuffs for the last month when he was lame, but didn't think much of them as there was no heat and they didn't look fresh.  Plus it looked like all the lameness was coming from his front.  Marg assured me that it clearly isn't bothering him (although its hard and a bit swollen in front) and it reduces once we have warmed up.  So we don't have to stop riding, even got the go-ahead to do small jumps.

Right now we are sweating them out by applying goo on it daily, and wrapping it in plastic.  I have to admit, it worked really well, noticed a difference just after one night!  I know its not a problem for him as hes moving great, but we don't want to get to our first OCTRA ride and have the vet say "OMG BOWED TENDON" and prevent us from starting.  The hardness is breaking up and the legs are almost back to straight form.

But this curious clue may have led us to a closer idea of what exactly happened to him a little over a month ago.  As I said, something had to have happened out in the field as one day he was his beautiful dressage-y self, the next dead lame at the trot.  At that time, he was in a field with the bullies, one of which had abscess which led us to believe pulled muscle or also abscess.  The field also has some junk and stumps in it including an old bath tub and unusable water trough (ok let those groans out now).  So I am guessing he may have got chased away from the food by bullies, and either tried to jump the tub/trough and caught legs, or somehow managed to get stuck in one of these?  The front may have been lame from compensating, or maybe pulled something funny when he was doing this to his back legs.  Horses provide such interesting puzzles to decode!

Long and the short of it, hes back in great form, we are fixing up some cosmetic problems, and we are training for Bentley's debut ride at Coate's Creek.

Last night, for the first time, I allowed and encouraged a gallop out of him.  I know I know I know... I shouldn't do this until we have mastered the canter, but I honestly think it really helped our canter training.  Here is my reasoning:

He gets so excited when we canter, it starts as a gallop anyway.  So what I did was ask him to canter, and gently after that got into my 2-point and gave another kick for the gallop (even though he was already doing it) just so he would know what that meant.  I was trying to work with what he gave me.  After we had galloped the once, I worked on refining it and ended up with great transitions between canter and gallop and back down, in fact our canter was much better once I had clearly defined the lines.  After that, even our trot to canter transitions were much improved as he wouldn't take off, I stayed relaxed (since I knew he wasn't going to be a wild maniac) and we had some beautiful gaits around the plateau, including a very nice speed of gallop, easy to control and maintain (did 1/2 mile easily after having trotted and cantered a lot before)

After our lesson on Wednesday, Linda had made a comment as to what great shape he was in (less the ugly legs) and that in her opinion he was more than ready for 2 x 15 mile rides, and may already be in better shape than a lot of the horses that do far more in distance and speed.  I kind of shrugged it off because we haven't been working on him long enough to think hes superhero fit, but our ride last night proved me wrong and her right. 

After our gallops and walks and happy canters, I was so pleased with his behaviour that I let him pick what gait he wanted to do.  I said "Bentley, at 8:15 we are cooling out, what do you want to do?"  And he led me through a beautiful series of trots and canters for about 4 miles straight.  I don't think he wanted to stop at 8:15 either, he was ready to keep going between the 2 gaits, but we still had lots to do that night and the ever-suffering Lee was getting bored of watching us from his camping chair.

Still unsure what his heartrates are, we need to get a monitor for him, but I think we will be aiming for the faster speeds and a grade 1 on our set speeds next month with this kind of energy!

Here is the GPS of our ride (i must have hit the stop button and missed at least 1 mile however) including our cool out - which put us at over 7mph.

http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/196333729

So what I learned last night (which I have learned several times over now but still manage to forget) is that I just have to trust him and let him do his thing.  If I let him do the things that I think are crazy but he's begging to do, hes actually more sane than trying to hold him back.  What a great guy!  I can't wait to see what he wants to try next!

Busy busy!

Sorry for not posting recently.  That is sort of a summer thing, if I am not working, I am out riding.  Wow has the weather ever been good for riding these last 2 weeks.  Hot, but that's better than thunderstorms (although by this point, I am ready for a good night of rain... just please keep it at night so I can still take advantage of all the days!)

Bentley has been doing well.  We had our first lesson with Marg since he was lame (back to last Wednesday now) and he was good... mostly.  Of course he was fresh and excited to be back in work, he threw in a lot of happy hops and speedy flat canters when we got to the canter stage, but considering he had almost a month off and hes just young, he was good.  The prescription from Marg is lots of canter work, and to intersperse it throughout our rider rather than doing our usual walk for 15 mins, trot for 15 minutes, canter both directions, ok we are done.  He just is so darn happy to go fast, I need to make it less of a big deal to canter, so frequent short canters have been on the menu since.  We did this last night and after a few wild runs around the plateau, we settled into a not so terrifying canter and he seemed happy to do it.  Getting through those first runs however was tough, hes like juggernaut from X-Men, just puts his head down and can crash through anything, picking up speed the whole way.

This past (very hot) weekend was spent in Ganaraska, I was crewing for Linda at the Cayuse Canter ride.  Saturday seemed to be a very rough day for everyone.  The heat seemed especially bad and pulses were pretty high.  Linda got a grade 2 because she was one beat off grade one.  That's one of the better results of the day, several riders fell off including Michelle off Leena who took the ambulance out of the ride and returned with a broken arm.  Very disappointing since it was her first ride back on Leena since their accident at Aprilfest.  Also, 2 horses got thumps which according to the vets, they hadn't seen this in at least 4-5 years (so 2 to happen at one ride is a BIG deal)  Lots of pulls from metabolic and lameness.  Carol also voluntarily pulled from the 50 although they had passed vetting as Star was not eating.  Saturday I also ended up crewing for an extra person, Carmen, who had come with 2 horses on her own, and her mare wouldn't pulse down in camp unless her gelding buddy was right beside her.  Too much separation anxiety!  So I felt about just as worn as the riders by the end of the day.

Sunday was a lot better ride for most.  Some of the people who weren't able to ride or complete on Saturday went back out for the 12 mile.  Carol did this too and said Star was such a pleasure to ride, a short relaxed ride got everyones spirits back up!  I also think it was cooler, and pulses were lower, no falls, overall just better luck.  We know Linda got a Grade 1, but we didn't stick around for the awards in favour of getting home for dinner.  Camp looked pretty quiet as we left and suspect that everyone else was ready to call it a weekend too.

Monday I went to wonderland with Joe and his friends, along with Lee and our friend Steve.  Joe's friends had went ahead and committed us to fast passes ($50 each) which kind of irked us that they would presume we had an extra $50 lying around on top of the entry costs to wonderland.  This soon faded as we waltzed to the front of all the lines, jealous kids looking on from the long lines that come from hot long weekends.  We went on pretty much everything immediately, but after 8 or so rides, I wasn't feeling so well.  I had been drinking water but my body temperature kept rising.  I was feeling nauseous on the rides, and on Behemoth I actually worried I would be sick.  The ride felt fine with the air, but when we were sitting in the sun waiting to pull back in the station, I could barely keep my eyes open and my (very unhealthy) breakfast down and literally had to lay my head down on the lap restraints.  Joe's friend Andrew had passed on the last few rides and had found a shady spot to lay, so I joined him while the rest went on Behemoth again.  At that point, Lee joined us (forgot to mention, he doesn't like rollercoasters so he separated from us at the beginning of the day and went to the water park).  Also about that time I started feeling cold.  Really really cold.

I knew I needed food, but we couldn't make it out of the park.  Steve thankfully got me a $15 wonderland sub.  Perhaps that was the worst part of having heat stroke.... the prices!  After about an hour and a half of nibbling, napping in the shade, and kicking geese, I was feeling better enough to get a poutine and replenish some of the salts I clearly needed.  Yes, I said kicking geese.  They kept getting way too close to us, kicking distance from being seated really, and nothing was scaring them away.  To be honest, it was a lot of fun, felt like kicking a pillow (don't worry, no goose or human was hurt as a result).  Steve tried his hand at kicking a goose and accidentally kicked it right into a lady who screamed and ran away.  So funny!

Anyway, after I was feeling a bit better, I was more diligent about keeping myself safe.  We went and got splashed by timberwolf falls, went to the water park, and then had an early trip home.  I felt great and wanted to go on more rides, but I think Steve and Lee had enough of the heat, looking tired and my understanding of what happened earlier in the day, I accepted this decision (although it was hard to pass up more rides!)