Here's the video, finally!

Here is the video of Ally practicing huntseat. Keep in mind this is her third time ever doing huntseat, but overall I think she shows a lot of promise and I'm very excited! You can't even tell she's shorter with me on her, LOL.

Ally's video!

So who's going to Congress?

How about you guys? How many of you are going to Congress? If so, what are you showing in, what do you have showing, or what are you going to watch?

Will any of you be there the days my horses are showing? If so, I would love to meet you!

My schedule is:

A Blazing Impulse Green Western Pleasure October 13 8:00am
Forever N Always Novice Amateur Hunter Under Saddle Oct 20 afternoon
A Blazing Impulse Junior Western Pleasure Oct 20 afternoon immediately following Nov Am HUS
Forever N Always Novice Amateur Equitation Oct 21 afternoon
Twenty Four Karat Chip Open Western Longe Line Oct 23 8:00am

That's my busy schedule, assuming of course I still follow through with the plan of showing Ally!

How about ya'll??
~Amy

2009 Congress Ad

I had about two hours to whip this up, and here we go!

Will be in the Congress edition of gohorseshow.com and will be our Congress flyers. Sorry it's so small, that's as big as blogger would allow. :( Click on it for a semi-larger version.. full sized will be in gohorseshow.com's GoMag!

Photo Shoot!

Had a little photo shoot with Chance (A Chance For Romance), Ally (Forever N Always) and I for Congress ads today. Thought I would share my favorite shots. Also some of Clash just for good measure... Sendy's (Southern Sensations) awesome yearling. :)













~Amy

More Congress Thoughts...

So after my excellent ride on Ally last night... I can't squelch the the tempting thought that is taking over my mind... novice amateur HUS at Congress. The more I think about it, I think, why not? This is probably my last year in the novice in the HUS. If I'm going to start showing my HUS stallion, Chance, plus work on getting qualified next year, I will be pointed out by the end of the year. Part of me wants to hold off to "retain" that status for one more year... but the rest of me says, I need to work on my goals of Chance and getting qualified. Therefore, this would make this the last year I am ever eligible for novice HUS at the Congress... so shouldn't I take advantage?

Here are the pros and the cons, so far I'd say they are evenly spilt with with pros having a slight advantage. I'll begin with the cons.

Cons:
I just bought this mare. We have not had time to establish a "relationship" yet, nor do I know how she behaves a the shows.
She has only been to a few shows in her life.
She is green at the HUS, all of her training has been WP. Therefore, we need to work on moving her up into the bridle and getting a nice, slow legged long trot, where as now she just wants to jog and speed up her jog, as all of her training has been strictly jogging for WP.
I will have to focus extra hard on preparing her for the HUS, so her WP might go backwards.
I only have less than a month to prepare and organize getting her to Congress, where we will be a late entry.
I will have to spend a lot more time at Congress than I had anticipated. The original plan was to just fly in for a couple days for Mocha's green WP class, then fly back for his JR WP and Tator's longe line class. This would keep me from freezing TOO much, losing TOO much sleep, and getting sick.
She is 15.2 hands.

Pros:
I just bought the mare, but we are getting along fantastically and I have already have had some of the best rides of my life on her. She is push button and super easy.
She may be smaller but she has a KILLER canter, and is going to be a lot more consistant and uniform of a package than a lot of the bigger horses, especially in the novice HUS.
Although we only have a month to prepare, the only real thing we need to work on is collecting her at the long trot. This is one of my strong suits and we've already made progress in a couple days, much less a month. As far as training issues go, it could be a LOT worse.
If we can get through the class, she should really be at least top ten quality, so I can go out in my last year of novice am HUS with a bang.
We could also possibly do the novice am equitation there, so long as there is no lead change. It would make the trip more worth it, than for just one class.
It would be excellent practice for getting me ready to show Chance at the big shows in the amateur next year.
I have a couple shows I can take her to before Congress to see how she takes them.

Honestly, the biggest con to me and the only thing that is making me hesitant, is that she's only been to a few horse shows, and now Congress? I don't want to rush it and freak her or myself out, nor put myself at risk if she doesn't take it well. However, I would be getting her there a week and a half before her class so if she's going to adjust, that seems like enough time, and plenty of time to get her in the Celeste or Coliseum every day, and ride her in all the traffic. There are two and three year old horses there that surely have no more experience than she has, and it would be their first Congress as well.

When I'm thinking about this subject, and when I lean towards the chickening out side - not enough time, not an experienced enough horse, too long to be gone from home, too cold, too wet, too nervous, too much work and stress... I think about the possible reward, and how long I've been waiting for a horse like this to show... as well as possibly my last opportunity, ever, to show in the novice am HUS at Congress.

Carrie Underwood's song "Wasted" always runs through my mind during situations like this...:

I don't wanna spend my life jaded
Waiting to wake up one day and find
That I've let all these years go by
Wasted

I don't wanna' keep on wishing, missing
The still of the morning, the color of the night
I ain't spending no more time
Wasted

It always gives me a boost to "buck up", and take the leap, instead of always wondering what could have been.

What would you do?

~Amy

P.S. I'm going to try to get a video of her today and put it online!

The rides that take your breath away...

...one of those happened for me tonight. I had one of the best rides of my life tonight on my new mare, Ally. If this is a sign of things to come, I can't wait. I'm just in love with this mare. She's so push button... we worked on hunter under saddle, western pleasure, equitation, and horsemanship. She would move out wonderfully for HUS with some clucks and kisses and would slow right back down to WP if I just closed my legs and said "easy". We did some horsemanship patterns, with slow circles and big fast circles... we'd lope a beautiful slow circle then I'd just cluck to her and she'd immediately extend out for the fast circle without any hesitation. The best part is, this is a relatively green mare. If she is this natural, and this great already, oh boy, I cannot WAIT for our future together.

I don't think anything feels better than riding a fluid, responsive horse. Just sitting up there along for the ride while my horse obeyed every cue... you couldn't wipe the grin off my face. After riding, I gave her a baking soda bath to help soothe the heat hives she broke out in after her transition from cool northern WI to 90+ degree FL :(, pressure washed those stockings with the hose which is a multiple time per day job (the downfall to my being a "lover of chrome"), conditioned her beautiful tail, and fly sprayed her to keep those pesky mosquitoes off of her, of which she is apparently not used to as well! Poor Miss Ally is going to have to adjust to being a FL girl... lucky for her she doesn't have to deal with it long, since our first cold front is supposed to arrive next week, already! Next, we had our second showmanship lesson. Just the second lesson and she went from having no idea how to trot in hand yesterday, to trotting off right when I cluck and stopping on a time when I say "whoa". She's also pivoting 1/4 of a turn, and learning how to move her feet back and forth to set up.

Then, I gave her scratches while I hand grazed her during a beautiful Florida sunset, while the breeze blew in that wonderful air of my favorite time of year, fall.

Corny as it may be, does it get any better than that?? :-D

~Amy

The Height Debate.

So, in my quest to find the perfect all-around mare, I found Ally. She's only been here since the beginning of the week, and I am in love! There is only one "less than perfect" quality to her, that being that she is 15.2 hands. Oh, if only she'd of been an inch or two bigger! Granted, she is only a four year old so there is still some potential for oh.. say... half an inch or so to gain? ;-) I bought Ally for a western all-around horse. WP is her strong suit, and I want to add horsemanship, western riding, trail, showmanship, and equitation. However, when I get this mare here, I see that she could be excellent legged for the huntseat as well! Could it be, I found my "all-in-one" horse, that can do BOTH the english and western events? I suppose, that depends on the judging at any given time... whether they prefer the height or the moves. She really is amazing legged and soft... she'd be a GREAT one in the HUS if she was only a couple inches taller.

So, I decided to take on the challenge. I will begin showing Ally, all 15.2 hands of her, in the hunter under saddle in addition to western events. The worst we can do is lose, but she is SO great legged that I'm willing to bet that over half the judges out there will judge her fairly. The other bonus is that I'm pretty short, at 5"3, so I don't make her look dwarfed.

So here goes nothing... I will try showing Ally in the HUS this weekend at a Venice, FL show (if I get her papers in time), and then the HQHA futurity in Unadilla, GA next weekend. Depending on how she goes at those shows, I can't say I'm not keeping a late Congress entry for the Novice Am HUS in my thoughts... :-X But we'll cross that bridge when we get there!

Did I say I'm in LOVE with this mare? She is so pretty with her dishy, blazed, almost arab looking face, her flashy rabicano frosting all over her body, tall stockings and skunk tail... and she is a SWEETHEART. Now that she has settled in, we are becoming the best of friends. She had her first showmanship lesson last night, I can't wait for that, boy will she have the eye appeal for that. I'm in LOVE... and if I can get her doing EVERTHING, that will be icing on the cake! I'm so excited for our future, I might have finally found the all-around horse of my dreams.




Stay tuned!
~Amy