Let's have some fun

Here are the photos from the Darby over the weekend. In the first one we are headed through cone #2.



Here we are headed through cone #18...



And here we are headed through gate A of obstacle #20---> the water hazard....



The course was just about 1 km in length. There were four obstacles #1, #6, #11 and #20, with 3 gates A, B & C, everything else was cones. Knocking a ball down off the cone is a 10 second penalty. You are judged on speed, but also precision since you don't want to knock any balls down.

So there are the pictures and here is the fun part. Tell me what you see me doing wrong?  Each picture has at least one or two things that I know of. You can click on them to enlarge them too.  

Please try to keep it down to a loud roar!  It's supposed to be fun, remember?

Wahooo!

Sorry for making everyone wait....  The Darby was a lot of fun. I received the pic's in my inbox and will be posting them with all the info about the event. Right now I am sunburned, tired and there was a full moon out the past few nights.

When we got to the restaurant for dinner on Saturday night, the guy took one look at us and asked, "Two seniors?"  Watch it mister! He's lucky I was too tired to really say much, so if I am a little cranky, now you know why.  Need I say more? 

Kat did really well and I am proud of him. I got a few pointers on what I need to work on, (all me!) and we met a great group of people.  I will post what I can as soon as I can. For now though- I love my pony! He Rocks! 

Ready, set.....

Holy Crap! The Darby is still a week away and there is still a lot to do.  A lot of things have come together and a lot of them are still in the works.  Wouldn't ya know it?
Needed to get some paperwork straightened out, a trip to the store to pick up some stuff and come home to sorta make a list and jeez, there is still a lot needed and needing to be done...  What to do, what to do???? 

Harness up and go for a drive. Check to make sure the traces, the shafts and all the adjustments that were made- are going to actually work...  The shafts are excellent. The cart rides a little differently, but with the new harness- Kat's job is a LOT easier!  The shafts are also a tad wider, giving him more room to bend and move between them without them jabbing him in the ribs. His pivots and turns- much cleaner! Although he did get frustrated and threw in a small rear last night, a grumble at him and stopping for a minute to regroup- life was good again. 

The traces, the tugs and a couple of the straps all needed two more holes added. Perfect. The shafts got a quick coat of paint where they had been adjusted... And for all of the preparation that goes into these things, although we all want to go in, win big and leave them wondering what happened- I admit, it would be fun!- I don't expect that to happen.  If we walk part of the course, we walk part of the course.

Kat has done a lot since April when I first put him to the cart. He has come a long, long way.  And back when everyone was comparing him to Totillas from the WEG on the other blog, if that were to happen with him, I am not selling my pony, ever!   Somebody wants my pony they get us both and the whole family too. 

At least until he blows up again and I get hurt...

JUST KIDDING!

He's a keeper. 

Falling into place

Since I am feeling rather ambitious today, I will post here as well.  Things are slowly coming together and I for one can really appreciate that.

Remember back when Kat had his meltdown at the park, part of the harness broke and it all turned to crap? Well I had ordered my new harness and everything pretty much fit except the traces. They were about a foot too long. Since the cart shafts were a tad too short, I figured I would address that first, then deal with fitting the traces to the pony.

Our neighbor is a welder and we dropped the cart off with him last weekend. I only seem to have weekends to work the little man, we got our workout in and so sending the cart off for adjustments was no problem since it would be sitting around during the week anyways...

Yesterday on the way home from work I was thinking. I didn't know when to expect my cart back. I needed to call and inquire about it...  when I went out back to feed- there it was waiting for me. Wahoo! I called the neighbor, thanked him for the work, let him know I won't get to try it until this weekend to see that the adjustments are going to work, but let me know what I owe and I will get him paid.

Before sending the cart off, I put the harness on Kat again to check everything, measure everything and make sure it was all going to work.  The tugs needed to come down a bit- 2 holes punched on either side, and since the tugs were now lower and where they needed to be, the straps that keep the shafts down and secured from flipping up also needed a couple extra holes in them as well.   Hopefully everything is right where it needs to be now.  The holes have been punched, the harness oiled again...

Then Kat go his first pair of shoes on the fronts this morning and I am hoping we are ready for the Darby next weekend.  There is no cantering allowed for training level and he needs to learn to carry two people in the cart before then, so it will be interesting to see how things go between now and then. 

For those wondering, a Darby is sort of like the CDE's only there is no dressage portion. From the ADCS website-

"A Darby is a short competition featuring cones and hazards in a continuous course, driven just for the times. No fancy dress, no dressage test, just seeing how well you can get through a series of short cones setups and through three sets of gates in a couple of hazards. There is a single setting for cones, one for minis and another for everybody else. We will make you work a bit, however, as the idea is to split the group in half, with the first going through the course while the folks in the second man the scoring and judging, then reversing the process. If you haven't done one before, don't worry, we'll show you how it is done that morning. After all, this is for fun and even after it is all over, you are welcome to go back through the course to see how much better you can do the second time."

So much for his first outing being a simple pleasure class, going around the ring.  He's pretty bored with that though so this may make him appreciate the simple stuff a little more.  The weather is supposed to be cooler up there too. How awesome is that?

Whew!

I know it has been a while since I have posted anything here. Two weeks in fact.  Kat is coming along nicely and actually slacking off a bit since he is getting bored going around and around the back pasture/arena. Even throwing cones, buckets and poles out there as obstacles to go through and around, is just not that thrilling for him anymore. He is getting lazy in his work and I really have to push him to get anything out of him.
So Sunday I took him around the arena a few times, we went both directions through the poles in the "L" shape, wove through the buckets and when he was actually a bit tired, I stopped him by the gate to open it up.  One of the mares is right there by the gate and although she clearly does not like him, he thinks he has a chance with her.  He stayed where I left him, while I opened the gate and waited until I told him to move on before going through it.  He tried stopping in front of her stall and with a reminder of him having a job to do, we headed for the driveway gates.

Out the driveway and we headed down the street. There are only three houses on our side of the street. Two on the other side. I figured this would be a good time to walk along behind the cart and go see what he is going to do. The neighbor has some dogs that usually come running out to the fence and bark. I was hoping they would, but they waited until we were almost past before showing up. He stopped to see what the commotion was and decided to poop. Of course he thinks he can't do two things at once so I had to try convincing him he can. 

The neighbor on the corner has about 4 horses in their pasture. All of them came running to see what in the world we were. Kat decided he was all important and started huffing himself up and showing off.  He again got a few reminders of the job at hand and he needed to behave no matter what was going on. We made it to the corner, waited for a car to pass, then made a nice turn around and headed back. another few small reminders of his job and he settled right in, walking along to go home.

He did really well in that he did not get antsy because we were going home. Since the sun was getting hot I needed to rinse us both off and call it good. As we were coming down the street to our driveway, a truck went by and actually stopped to watch us.  Kind of fun, since there aren't too many people in our neighborhood that drive. I know of three actually... 

I need to get Pal back to work and I also need to make replacements for my shaft poles since he stepped on and bent the PVC pipe from the last pair.  I also may hop on and ride him a few times in between too.  The TB mare is getting her feet done on Friday and then she will be ready to go.  I may have to find another harness for her or just stick to ground driving for a while.  Kat needs his feet done and we are entering a Darby competition up north next month.  There's a fun drive the day before and I hope it all goes well. 

What a bust?

Over the weekend I was going to try to get pictures for both blogs, this one and TWGH. I brought Kat out to drive him Saturday night and just as I was putting him to the cart the wind kicked up. It was a strange wind that you couldn't really tell which direction it was blowing in from. Out to the South and East, the skies were dark and looking like we could get some rain. Which we did.

There was also a bunch of lightning going on. Both the flash type and the bolts striking the ground or whatever it was hitting. Which made me think climbing into a metal cart in a lightning storm was NOT a good idea. I don't care if it has rubber tires on it... I already had the shafts through the tugs and the traces hooked.  My cones were all out and the storm was headed our way.  So much for doing anything with the horses.

Last week I had tried the nylon harness on the TB mare to see if it was going to fit and what adjustments if any, needed to be made... What a joke! No pictures, but it won't work for her.  The saddle fit, one hole to adjust larger on both sides, but not any more. The crupper fit, but not the breeching, the breastcollar might work but the strap over the neck is too short and the traces definitely won't. Since they are attached... yeah, not happening.

Then came the bridle. I am so glad this mare is patient and tolerant beyond everything.  The bit adjustments were on the last hole as long as they go. The buckles to adjust the blinders were let down and by the time the bit was positioned where it should be? The top of the blinders were low enough she could look over them. The metal piece that is supposed to hold them out to the sides, was laying on her forehead. She sighed and gave me a look as if to say, Seriously??? This is a joke, right?

Sunday night I headed out to work Pal. Something in the neighbors oleander bush next to the fence in the corner, was out to get him. He knew it was there, something was going to jump out and when it did, he would be eaten.  Which also caused him to forget how to lunge.  He would blast around past the bush, then whip his butt around to the outside and stop to face me and the killer in the plant.  I managed to get some pictures of him moving before getting out a whip and putting a stop to his game.



This one looks kind of dark but clicking on it brings it up bigger with more light.



Heading towards the oleander....



Yep, I had left my buckets and poles out too. Another driving obstacle.



You can see here, he is looking at the oleander and still has and ear on me. That bush really had him on edge. Even after walking him up to the corner and making him stand there, he still though something was going to get him.



All it took was the whip popping a few times behind his butt and a miracle happened. He remembered how to go around on the lunge line and to keep moving. No crowding towards the center, no egg shaped circles, his brain returned and he started to work. He also started to sweat. Which is something he seems to be strongly against doing.



When he finally settled down and started to work, It was time to put the bridle on, attach the lines and ground drive. He walked off with no hesitation, no questioning glances, just leaned into the bridle and walked off. Lots of circles, big and small, stop, wait, then walk some more.



Things were going well so I decided to kick it up a notch. I brought in my shaft poles for training. What they consist of is a piece of heavy 1" rope with a snap on one end, run through a long piece of 1" PVC pipe. The other end has a knot in it to keep the PVC pipe up by the snap.  They are a good weight and teach the horse how to move between the shafts, make noise behind them as the ends slide along through the dirt and are relatively cheap to make. As well as being easy to replace if things go wrong.

Like they did for us.

Twice.

At first I brought the pipe/shafts in and adjusted things so that I could hold the rein as well as hold on to the shafts and drag them around as we went. Let the horse hear the noise and understand it is not going to hurt them.  Adjust the rein in the hand through your fingers on top of the shaft, so that you can drop the shaft, but still hold onto the rein, if need be. You can always come back by and pick up the shaft again. If you have a helper that can walk along beside you with the shafts- even better, but many times most of us don't.

Pal seemed unfazed by the sound so I ran the shafts through the tugs on each side and snapped them to the ring on the breastcollar.  I let him stand there for a little bit before asking him to walk on.  A few laps around and a couple of turns into our work and Pal blew up. He started to trot ahead, then added in some bucking and the rodeo was on. He pulled the lines through my hands and took off across the arena. He ran to the corner to stand next to the WB

I walked up to him, led him out of the corner and asked him to stop and stand. I let him settle down and waited for him to relax.  Once he did, I checked everything to make sure nothing had broken, everything was still fastened and in place where it should be. I kept talking to him the whole time. Telling him how he just needed to relax and nothing was going to hurt him. Haaaa!

We started walking again, he was doing fine. I praised him. A few laps around and he put his head down. When he did, the ring on the saddle that the overcheck snaps to- BROKE!  The snap flipped up over his head and smacked him right in the forehead. He was not amused.  He started to buck again and threw a tantrum. 

This time I kept a hold of the lines and brought him around in a circle to the right as if doing long line work. He was still jumping and diving, but slowing down and decreasing the intensity with each jump.  **This is when longer lines than the actual reins are a safety issue. The horse can kick and you stay out of range.**

I almost had him stopped when he decided he wasn't done yet. He bucked a few more times and spun around to face me. As the shafts swung around behind him he looked at me with bugged out eyes.  His back hoof came down on one of the shafts and he bent the PVC pipe, which rattled him a little.  He kept his head though and settled down to stand there.  I took the shafts off of him and long lined him a little more before calling it good for the day. 

***As far as the horses blowing up, throwing tantrums and having a fit- it is better that they do it now and learn to trust that you will always get them through things. They can also learn to work through their tantrums. It's a lot like the young horses bucking the first few times they wear a saddle on their backs.  I prefer this than if they hold it all in, waiting until they are put to the cart.  Kat had his share of minor fits and gave me signs along the way, he just waited for the epic one and picked that day at the horsepark...  It can be fun, but can also be incredibly dangerous at the same time. The best any of us can do is try to lessen the chances of danger as we go. *** 

PSA and another great deal

Too good to pass up!

Big Dee's has their Troxel brand Sport Helmets- ON SALE! (who doesn't love those words?) for $22.50

A lot of the driving competitions around here, require anyone in or on a cart to wear a helmet, regardless of their age. No exceptions. Granted they are only available in black or white, but you can get a colored cover for an additional $3.50.

Isn't your brain worth it?

They also have ground driving lines for $17.50 For those of you just getting started, this is not a bad deal and since you can use them for ground driving horses you will later ride- not a large outlay of cash.

*** I forgot to add this- sale is good through September 15th.***