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Treasure Hill Farm’s Spring schooling jumper show

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Spring has been late in arriving here in New England so our trail/distance riding is behind schedule.  As a result, we have decided to defer some of our endurance goals for this season and will likely wait until August to do our first endurance event at Pine Tree in Maine.  Instead of a distance focus, we are going to put more effort into our eventing goals and Treasure Hill Farm’s Spring schooling jumper show was a low-key way to kick that off.

Warm-ups were in the indoor arena while the actual classes were held in the outdoor arena.  Everyone wore Mystic Pony Club shirts, and used their Mystic Pony Club saddle pads and ear nets to help advertise for Pony Club.

Amanda rode in the ground poles class.  Her first round was on a lead line with Anna.  The class was placed according to time to complete the round and Amanda was 5th of 5.  Since it was a schooling show, for a small fee you can re-do a round and Amanda elected to ride a second time without Anna in the arena.  It went very well and I suspect Amanda will be unlikely to consent to a lead line class ever again.

Alex and Vicki both started with the 12″ cross rails class.  This class was placed based on the time to complete the course.  Vicki placed 2nd of 5 and Alex was 3rd of 5.  Alex was definitely a little timid in his first round and a little behind on his timing.  He was nervous that Dakota was going  to spook at things in the arena, however, since that didn’t occur, he was much more confident in the second class.

Alex and Vicki both rode in the 18″ cross rails class.  Vicki took 1st and Alex was 2nd of 9 entries.  Both of them improved over their first round and Alex in particular had a huge smile as he exited the arean.

Alex was content with his 2 classes, however, Vicki decided to give the 2′ class a try.  She had 1 refusal which she feels was more her fault for looking down at the jump.  She placed 3rd of 4 in this class, but was still very happy with the ride.

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No Child Left Behind

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It’s been a while since we posted, but that doesn’t mean nothing has been going on.  This year, we are participating in the Green Bean Endurance Challenge.  We are the only team that is a full family (I think) and our team name is “No Child Left Behind”.

Since we have 7 horses and plan to ride a lot of miles this year, we have been working on getting in slow conditioning miles rides.  The weather hasn’t been very cooperative, but today was decent, so we saddled up 5 mounts and headed out.  We rode for just under 2 hours and only covered about 7.5 miles.  The goal wasn’t speed, but rather restoring fitness that has been lost through the winter.

I rode Mojo, Anna rode Dakota, Alex rode Teddy, Vicki rode Duchess, and Amanda rode Huey.  Amira and Devil stayed home for this outing.  As I mentioned last fall, we are going to be riding in shoes this year.  So far, Mojo and Teddy are both shod all the way around and Devil has front shoes.  I’ll be honest, I’m really impressed with how much nicer Teddy moves in shoes over boots.  I am working on spreading out the herd’s shoeing schedule so all 7 are not due at the same time.  The move to shoes from boots (after 12 years riding without shoes) is a big shift for our family and has come due to a number of reasons.

First, is quality of the boots.  I have given my honest feedback to the boot companies.  I have seen a decline in the quality of a number of boot products and I’m frustrated with the constant wondering what will fail next.

Second is cost.  Yes, I am a dealer for multiple boot companies which means I get boots at a discount.  However, I also don’t pay labor for the shoeing.  Based on the decline in quality, we are wearing out boots faster than in years past.  That coupled with the increased cost of the hoof boots means it is now cheaper for our family to ride shod horses over booted horses.  This wouldn’t be the case if we were paying for my labor expense associated with shoeing.  For perspective, I recently found a receipt for a pair of Epics we purchased in 2006 for $102.  Those same boots today, purchased from the same retailer, would cost $199.82!  I’m not sure what all is driving the cost of boots up, but it is driving me away from using the product.

The last factor is convenience.  Let’s be honest.  Booting gets tedious.  It’s really nice to pick out a hoof and ride without having to pound boots on all the hooves.

Due to all the rain, we crossed plenty of water.  The creek running near the entrance of Pachaug turned into a water-crossing training site.  It was between 2.5-3′ deep and everyone went through it (some a few times).  Here’s a short video of the kids crossing the creek.  Enjoy the pictures from our ride!

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WGHA Fall Fest

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It was a warm and humid Fall day today.  Alex and Vicki spent some time at Horse Power Farm working on cross country jumping with Duchess and Dakota.  They learned about correctly riding step-ups and step-downs and then did some course work.  Ann is great at pinpointing little things that will make a significant improvement and tweaking that without getting bogged down.  Duchess was significantly over jumping a jump that frightened her and then challenged Vicki with a few other things, but in the end, they had a good day.

Here are some videos:

Vicki and Duchess part 1

Vicki and Duchess part 2

Vicki and Duchess part 3

Alex and Dakota part 1

Alex and Dakota part 2

After the lessons, we dropped off the horses at home and then headed out to the West Greenwich Horsemen’s Association Fall Fest.  It is a fun potluck dinner and annual awards banquet for the summer hunter pace series.

A part of the Fall Fest is a pumpkin competition.  This year, there were 6 entries.  Amanda and Vicki both put a lot of time into their entries and tied for 2nd.  The voting is silent ballot by all members present.  The Pirate Ship won this year.

This year, Alex, Vicki, and Amanda won the Junior division in the series and came home with customized jackets and ribbons almost as big as Amanda.

 

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Save Pachaug!

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Pachaug State Forest is being considered to become home to a new State Police gun range.  While I am a big fan of guns, I am not a fan of the negative impact this new training range would have on the largest piece of forest left in the state.  This morning, NEATO held a trail ride to help fund-raise in opposition to the gun range.  Anna was feeling a little under the weather and opted out of the saddle time.  So I took Mojo, Alex on Dakota, Vicki on Duchess, and Amanda on Huey and we did a 14 mile loop through the woods.  I was a great fall morning with temps at 40F when we were loading the horses on the trailer.  We met up with friends and Jennifer Broome joined our clan for the ride on her Nakota, Tex.  This was also Amanda’s longest ride ever (by mileage, not time).  She and Huey may be ready for a limited distance endurance ride (25 miles) next year.

 

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A weekend of triathlon and ponies

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It was a typical busy weekend for the family.  Saturday morning started out early with the “Proud to Tri” youth triathlon for Alex and Vicki.  It was held at Harkness Park and included an open water swim in the ocean.  The temps were in the upper 40s when we got up but the kids weren’t cold once things got going.  They have been practicing throughout the summer with the Nutmeg Youth Triathlon Team and this was the final event of the season.  The swim was 200 yds, 4 miles on the bike, and a 1.5 mile run.  They both had a good time at the race.

Saturday afternoon, Alexis and Christina came over to spend the night with Vicki and do a trail ride.  Christina brought her horse, Fiona, and Alexis borrowed Mojo.  Alex joined us on Dakota and I was riding Teddy.  Mojo has been getting treated for Lyme for the past 2 weeks and been in a stall with only riding for exercise.  As a result, he was being quite unruly on the trails, so Alexis and I switched mounts after the first mile.  Teddy was a rock star and has turned out to be one of the more reliable loaner horses for trail riding.  The group rode 6 miles and it was a great success for Christina and Fiona in particular, as it was their first trail ride together.

Sunday morning started with chores and loading horses onto the trailer to head out for lessons at Horse Power Farm.  I rode Mojo for my lesson and then Alex rode Dakota and Vicki rode Duchess.  All three of us had outstanding rides and a lot of fun!

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Run and Ride

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This morning I ran the Griswold Sunflower 6k road race at Buttonwoods Farm.  At only 2.5 miles from the house, it doesn’t get much more local than that.  Before I talk about the results, I want to give an update from my May post “Primal Diet and Fitness“.  If you didn’t read it, or don’t remember it, please go back and take a look.  It has been almost 3 months since that post.  I have continued to follow the Primal diet and training approach for endurance sports.  My weight loss steadied out with my new weight at 164 lbs; I lost 21 lbs.  I may still lose a little more, but I feel great and I definitely feel that I have found a sustainable eating plan.  On the training front, I have continued to limit my heart rate to 140 bpm in my marathon run training.  I am not worried about a specific speed goal.  On Thursday of this week, I did 16 miles in 3:00.  It was my longest run to date and my heart rate did creep up in the heat.  However, I wasn’t crippled from the run and recovered quickly.

With my focus on distance, I haven’t done any speed work at all.  In fact, a sprint triathlon in June is the only other time I have truly tested my speed in the past 4 months.  So today’s 6k race was a little bit of a question mark in my mind; I really didn’t know what kind of pace I could sustain.

It turns out, I was able to run the race in 26:21 for a 7:04 min/mile pace.  That was good enough for 18th out of 566 runners and 3rd (out of 30) in the men’s 40-49 age group.  I can live with that!

After I came home and had some breakfast (I don’t eat before running), we loaded up the trailer with 5 horses and headed to Arcadia in RI.  Today I rode Mojo, Anna rode Dakota, Vicki rode Duchess, Alex rode Teddy, and Amanda rode Huey.  This was a switch up ride for Alex and Anna to test out some things and the first time we have taken Duchess out for a trail ride at a different location.  All the horses behaved for the most part.  Mojo won the “Most Typical Arab” award for his spook at a butterfly flying across the trail.  We didn’t ride too hard and did 10.5 miles in 2:30.  When we got home, it was time to put some steaks on the grill and call it a day.  The weather was great and we made the most of it.

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2017 New London County 4-H Fair

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Last weekend was fair weekend.  Friday evening was move in night.  We took 5 rabbits (all we have remaining at this point) and items for the exhibit hall.  We also moved a full trailer load of jumps to the fairgrounds in preparation for the Horse Expo on Saturday.  Due to low participation numbers, the horse show was removed from the NLC 4-H fair a few years ago and New London combined with other counties in a state 4-H horse show.  Ever since, the horse kids haven’t had a way to participate with their animals at the fair.  Last year, I came up with the idea of a Horse Expo where the kids participate in a various classes and clinics throughout the day.  It was a non-competitive event that allowed the horse project kids to spend time with their peers similar to how the youth do in the goat and cow barn.  It was a great success and the kids had fun.  Each Club took a period of time to host a class; the classes included a showmanship clinic, jumping demo, costume class, trail clinic, and gymkhana class. Vicki and Duchess and Alex and Dakota all had a good time at the fair.

Saturday was also rabbit showing.  Alex and Vicki both participated with their Dutch bunnies.  Vicki got 1st in Jr Showmanship, Alex got 4th in Sr Showmanship, and Vicki’s Rhinelander (Winter Rose) won Best in Show Pet Division.

On Sunday, Vicki and Amanda participated in the Rabbit Hopping competition with their Rhinelanders (Winter Rose and Pretty Paw).  This is a fun activity and the girls let others use their rabbits to learn about hopping.  Winter Rose had the first and second fastest runs through the jump course.

Alex participated in the Robotics Competition.

The weather was great and the kids had a good time.  Alex won Best in Show with his Lego Technic tractor (the 3rd year in a row?).

There was one development through the weekend which was a little harder to accept.  It’s no secret, kids grow up.  On the way to the fair Sunday morning,  we played music from Vicki’s phone.  Her playlist had definite signs that she has developed her own identity, which is fine.  Vicki spent a lot of time hanging out with her “friends” which seemed to include more guys than in years past.

All-in-all, it was a good weekend.

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Playing Catch Up

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Summers are always busy and as the kids get older, that becomes an understatement.  It’s been over a month since we have posted, so I’m going to lump a lot of different happenings from the last 5+ weeks into a single post.

The kids finished up the school year and are ready to move on.  This was the first year back in public Vicki was 1 of 3 6th graders at Griswold Middle School who were tested to skip 7th grade Math.  None of them passed the test with a high enough score to actually skip 7th grade Math, but Vicki was close.  She finished the school year with all A’s.  Alex (who is now 14!) has decided to start his freshman year of high school at Griswold High School in the fall. 

We have been riding a lot. All 3 kids did Pony Club camp. Alex took Dakota, Vicki on Duchess,  and Amanda on Huey. All 3 learned a lot and had fun. Here are some videos from camp.

Amanda and Huey

Alex and Dakota

Vicki and Duchess
We did another hunter pace and in general, things have been busy with horses. Here are a few pictures. 

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Amanda’s First Hunter Pace

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On May 18th, Amanda turned 7.  She has been making great strides with her riding skills and ability to ride on the trails for longer periods of time.  After years of staying with a babysitter or a friend while the rest of the family rides a hunter pace, Amanda finally graduated to riding with us.  Today was her first hunter pace with WGHA in Arcadia WMA in RI.  So it was Rob on Mojo, Anna on Teddy, Alex on Dakota, Vicki on Devil, and Amanda on Huey.

We covered 9.8 miles according to my GPS at a 5.0 mph average speed for a total ride time of 1:56.  The ideal time for the Hilltopper division was 1:46, so Anna and I didn’t place, however, the kids managed to take 1st in the Junior Division!

Amanda was all smiles during the ride.  WGHA hunter paces are held in a state forest, so there are no typical cross country jumps, only cavalettis spread throughout the course.  The plan was I would do some jumping on Mojo and Vicki would jump on Devil.  However, after a few of the jumps, Amanda started yelling out “Mom, I’m going to jump too!”.  Of course, Anna yelled back, “Amanda, go around  the jumps.”  I was leading, so the next thing I hear from Amanda is “Nope! I going to do it!”  And she did.  Amanda and Huey jumped somewhere between 5-10 jumps over the rest of the course.  And she is hooked.

Eventually, Alex decided to give a jump a go with Dakota.  However, Alex was riding with saddle bags attached to the front of the saddle.  When they went over the jump, the bags flapped and slapped Dakota on the neck, causing him to start crow hopping. That just caused more saddle bag flopping and more bucking.  Alex held on for a while, but Dakota was too scared and sent Alex flying.  He didn’t get seriously injured, but he was definitely sore from the fall.  We took a short break and then everyone mounted back up and continued the ride.  When I asked Alex later if he would prefer to ride a horse that is a better jumper, he simply replied, “No, I just want to ride Kota.”  There is no denying the bound he has with that pony.

It’s definitely a unique thing that all 5 of us enjoy riding and get to share it at events like this.

We wrapped up the day with pizza and a movie.  If you haven’t seen “A Dog’s Purpose” you should watch it.  Warning, it’s a tear-jerker.

I made a short video during the ride, but I think it’s about time to invest in a GoPro.  I heard Father’s Day was coming up…

The video can be seen on YouTube.

Here are some pictures from the day.

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Not every ride is perfect

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80+F on Easter?  In CT? That is definitely horse riding weather. After doing a few small projects around the farm this morning, the family went on an afternoon trail ride from home.  We only rode for about 5 miles in 1:20, but there were some important lessons learned.

Amanda is building her confidence and endurance in the saddle on the trails.  She did the whole ride today without any leadline assistance, including 4 small water crossings which are usually a challenge for her on Huey.  She didn’t have any problem handling the trotting.

Vicki rode Duchess.  This is only her second time out on the trails with Duchess and they are making progress.  Today she rode in a bitless bridle and that definitely helped.  It’s definitely different having a mare back in the herd.  Duchess isn’t completely comfortable with all the boys yet and she will threaten to kick or bite any horse that enters her space.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of motorcycles out today as well and in the first encounter, Huey ended up too close and Duchess kicked him, hitting Amanda’s foot.  It didn’t actually hurt Amanda, just scared her.  That also rattled Vicki a little.  Later in the ride, Duchess threatened to kick Dakota when he rode up too close on her butt and it made Vicki really upset.  She decided to get off and walk for a while (about a half mile) and then mounted back up when she had calmed down.  While it may not seem like much, it was an important lesson for Vicki about backing off when her emotions run too high and calming down to handle the situation.

Overall, the ride was a success.  No one got thrown.  No one got hurt.

When we got back home, Vicki stayed on Duchess and joined Mojo and I in the front pasture for a little jumping.  This was the first time Vicki has gotten to taken Duchess over anything other than ground poles.  We didn’t work too long and we kept everything low, but they did very well together.  Vicki has learned to control her canter speed and in the bitless bridle, they seem to be getting along better.  I didn’t have much opportunity to take pictures because I was jumping Mojo (who was a rock star!) but I did shoot a short video clip of Vicki trying a simple approach at the canter.  Despite the challenges on the trail, after over 2 hours of saddle time, she was all smiles as we headed in to the barn.