So this post has been sitting on my desktop for about three weeks. I still can't gather all the pictures I wanted to post, but I figured I would post anyways.... 2013 has gone by so fast... so since I really lacked on posting this year.... here is my year in a nutshell!
Trips- Argentina/Utah/Oregon
Bryan and I had a few trips this
year. We started off in January going with my parents to Argentina. My parents
flew us first class and Bryan and I were nicely spoiled in our sleeper cabin –
boy is that the way to travel long distance. We were gone for a total of 9 days
and enjoyed every moment of it. We visited Argentina and did a short trip to
Brazil to see the Iguazu Falls – which were SO amazing!!!! I am kicking myself
since I don’t have many photos from that trip. Grrrr. We also did a few trips
to watch Utah Football, and surprisingly I enjoyed all of them! One of the
trips we made it to the Utah/BYU game and it was a crazy game ending in all the
Utah fans chanting on the way out… pretty dang cool.
New Horse Trainer / facility / farrier / vet!
At the beginning of the year I
changed horse trainers and subsequently riding facilities, farriers and vet! It was
a big change for me and I have to admit I was a little nervous coming into a
facility where I didn’t really know anyone. Now looking back at this past year
I wouldn’t have it any other way. Lauren has really transformed the way I ride
and approach training my horses. She always provides fresh new ideas regarding
training exercises and I am so grateful for the rider I have become. Her attitude and approach to problems has been
super refreshing and she has become a great friend along the way. Sabine has
also been a huge part of this past year in helping me acquire my new horse Jax
and helping me practice in the sandbox. The move to Raintree Ranch has been
awesome, and the support system we have in place in amazing! This next year is
going to ROCK!!!!
sorry Lauren- just had to put this one on here! bahahah
Horse Clinics/Expo
I was lucky enough to go to two
Hawley Bennett clinic’s and a Greg Best clinic! I learned a ton in such a short
amount of time. Zalsa was a total champ! Got to do a Daniel Stewart clinic for
the first time this year, which was amazing! And I got to ride at Horse Expo
this year on Vicky’s wonderful dressage horse Vinnie. I had a few lessons with
Sabine prior to Expo since I had never ridden him before. I learned how to
properly queue for half pass, flying changes and at Expo I did my first canter pirouette!
horse expo on Vinnie
Greg Best clinic on Zalsa
2 Hawley Bennett clinics on Zalsa!
Horse Shows (spring)
Had a bit of a rocky start with Zalsa this
spring. I got a new trainer and subsequently learned that while jumping I needed to let go of
Zalsa’s face so that she could really jump properly and use her neck over the
fences. Unfortunately for me the first show was a bit bumpy as we were still
ironing out the kinks! Zalsa was also getting fitter with me riding her more and subsequently our dressage was still a little messy - however I was SLOWLY learning to ride with more leg than hand... probably slower than Lauren would have liked, but I was getting here.... The remainder of the spring season was great and we
finished up at May Woodside at training level in 4th!
Hiking in Tahoe
I am gone a LOT of weekends with the horses and so one of the weekends that I was home Bryan and I decided to do a little day trip up to Tahoe and hike! We had a ton of fun and poor little kumo was totally pooped the next day. I got a call from my Mom because she thought there was something wrong with him because he was walking all funny... poor guy was sore!
Horse growing feet/ new horse
Over summer I started schooling some of the prelim and it felt awesome, but the
schooling got cut short when Zalsa freakishly broke her breastcollar which
subsequently hit her in the face scaring the crap out of her, and knocking me
off… still not entirely sure what happened, but the schooling was done for her
and I. About July time frame she wasn’t moving entirely forward enough like she
normally does and we did some diagnostic lameness exams to see what was going
on… she wasn’t lame per say- just not the forward crazy mare I was used to. She
was starting to pin her ears while cantering and jumping was not the excited
craz brained mare while jumping. I knew something was up- we blocked her feet
and she blocked positive. Back to the drawing board on the angle and shoes. At
this point her feet were so short from me requesting the farrier to adjust the
angles that I needed to just give her time off to grow some foot. Unfortunately
for me- she has like the SLOWEST growing feet ever! Which meant I was side
lined. I was keeping myself busy riding other horses at the barn for whoever
was out of town at the time and looking for a lease horse. I
was even getting to jump Sabine’s dressage horse some- which was TOTALLY
awesome! And then the unexpected happens…. of course when you aren’t looking to
buy a horse, the total dream horse gets dropped in your lap. Sabine is friends
with this woman in the Netherlands who is a dressage broker. She is actually
the broker that sold Totalis to Edward Gal. Anyhow she acquired this jumper
when making an exchange with another broker, and saw on Sabine’s facebook that
someone was jumping her dressage horse. She contacted Sabine if she knew of
anyone interested in a jumper who could also do dressage. I immediately fell in
love with the videos I received a few days later. And low and behold Kaiti and
I drove down to LAX on Sept 12th to pick him up.
Horse shows (fall)
Even though Jax has shown at 1.3meters
(4’3”) he had previously never seem a cross country jump so the fall season
started off with lots of schooling for me. It was perfect timing since Lauren
had just had Lacey and was just starting to get her new horse Diego going. I
thought Zalsa was a forward horse…. I didn’t know what a forward horse was
until I sat on Jax… he definitely isn’t impressed with the dressage and he is
very subdued, however when he sees the fences he turns into this wonderfully
athletic light on your feet – MONSTER that wants more and more…. Hahaha. I love
him! We started off with training level HC at woodside and only did dressage
and stadium. Definitely wasn’t prepared for the usually subdued dressage to go
more like the crazed monster I get while jumping…. Anyhow lesson learned… lots
of lunging before dressage. Stadium went very well and I was happy for his
first time out. Then we had our first official HT, fresno in October. Jax was a
bit better in the dressage, he likes to trick me being sleepy in his stall and
then coming out breathing fire, but we managed to keep it all together. Stadium he decided that because we were only
doing novice that the fences were too small and his bit was too light and we
ended up blowing through out course. Definitely needed a little more bit-since
he was previously training by two taller gentleman, my upper body strength just
wasn’t cutting it…. Anyhow we get to cross country… first fence is away from
the warm up arena and stabling and apparently had a scary jump judge so he
tries to run back “home”. BAHAHAHA… rest of course went well except the afore
mentioned lack of upper body strength and soft bit, which resulted in lots of
circles on course. But we made it – no ribbon, but we made it through the
finish flags together. Was proud of him at the end of day for being able to
gallop around the course without being terrified we were away from “home”. Net
stop- Galway. My Mom flew down for this show and I was happy to have her for
all three of my phases! Long 10+ hour haul getting down to the show grounds a
few days early, which means Jax has a little extra time to settle. Dressage-
still felt a bit strong, but was getting better about my half halts and was
able to let go of his face some… stadium was on the same day, and the dressage
scores hadn’t been posted yet… so on to stadium, which again being novice is
tiny for Jax, but this time I had a little bit of bit, ahhaha, to help me keep
him a little more backed off. Went clean! Yay! Later that afternoon I find out
I got a 28.5 in dressage and with my clean stadium I am now in first! YAHOO!!!
Saturday was spent drooling over all the FEI division that were running cross
country. Sunday comes and its cross country day for us. A little nervous – ok
actually a LOT nervous – siting in first is really nice, but also terrifying
that I will blow it. Anyhow the course was very straight forward and the other
thing I was worried about was fence #2 which was after a turn away from the
stabling and the warm up. Well at the end of the day we ended up making it
around double clean. It wasn’t the prettiest round, but we accomplished first
place, and I was super happy to be ending my show season on such a wonderful
high note J
Thanksgiving/Christmas
We had Bryan’s family in town for
Thanksgiving. Which meant we had …. Let me count…. Thirteen people in the
house! This is a record for us. We borrowed some blow up mattresses from my
parents and we ended up with everyone in beds. I was amazed! It is always great
to have his family in town! The highlight was definitely Thanksgiving dinner.
Everyone had a little part they were responsible for and it turned out pretty
amazing, beside the fact that we totally forgot about the ham…. My poor mom
went a few days earlier to get the ham, and we totally forgot about it in the
fridge, and to make matters worse my Mom wasn’t able to come over on thanksgiving
because her neck was giving her problems L
The Thanksgiving weekend ended with what was suppose to be sky diving for Keven
(bryan’s older brother)… They arrived around noon and around 3 were finally
loaded onto the plane…. However once everyone was on board the pilot decided he
didn’t like the sound of the engine and ordered everyone off…. Jessica had
planned this for months so it was a little disappointing for all of them to
miss out.
Kumo and Z - so cute!
Christmas was done at my parents this year
which entailed the usual luminaries on Christmas eve accompanied by Chinese
food, yum! Bryan and I got some cool presents but I have to say my favorites
were my new head phones from bryan… yes that is right head phones…. I am that
excited about them because I can’t seem to wear those dang ear buds since they
hurt my ears and they ALWAYS fall out! Well bryan got me this cool bose head
phones they are like ear buds but don’t hurt your ears…. They are hard to
explain but so cool! I also got an awesome new camera from my parents which
then lead to me going out to the barn on Christmas to try it out!
Laurens new website
Last but not least I got a little creative and helped Lauren develop a new website for her business. I had a TOTAL blast designing it and maintaining it.... Check it out!
http://www.laurenlopiccoloequestrian.com/
