Help needed from my fellow bloggers

I am and have been trying to sell this handsome little bugger to a good home where he will be loved and worked with but i havnt done much buying and selling of horses so my knowledge in the matter is fairly limited. I posted him on Kijiji (canadian craigslist) and had two responses one lady offering me less than half my asking price as she was buying it for her 8 year old son to start....(yeah right lady) and the other wanted photos of his whithers and chest which she never responded further than that.

Any tips on what the add should look like? Where should i post him... and a reasonable price for him?

He is 1.5 years old, can be registered. Is gelded and up to date on all shots/worming/ferrier, loads like a champ (better than my 7 year old) and is a sweet calm quite guy who needs to go to a home that can afford him first of all and has the time to start him properly.

I need him to sell fairly soon.... but i will hold on to him if the right home doesnt come along.

Any and all advice is more than welcome!

I was lost but now i am found..... promise

Hey everyone! I hope all is well with you and your making huge strides towards your goals and i cant wait to get caught up on everyone show season. I clearly have some updates to get posted because so much has changed over the past year.

I still of course have the magnificent G, we have become very much of a team and i finally trust him. Im not scared of him anymore his antics dont make me nervous and we are able to go through anything together he is perfect for me in so many ways... the biggest one is hes taught me not to give up just because things get hard. I had a bit of a melt down and was looking at selling him we were not making any progress.... i paid for him to work with my coach for a month and they looked amazing it was very disheartening that i couldnt get that with my horse. I eventually came to my senses and kept him of course.

While in training with my former coach she took him to 2 jumper shows just to get him the experience, the first show he did amazing in i think out of 8 he got 6 firsts 1 third and 1 second... the second show was outdoors and a little more stressful so he definitly did not do as well. I have a few videos of the first show that i will try to get posted here shortly.

G and i are on the move again to a new dressage barn that opened up in my area, things blew up majorly at my old barn and i didnt want to deal with the manipulation and drama that ensued so i left for a friends place in the country to take some time to just enjoy my horse and let him be a horse which was probably the best thing i could have ever done for him.

I also aquired a yearling, he was brought to my old barn as a companion to the owners new baby. He was gorgeous and they where just letting him go to waste saying confirmationally he was not sound calling him Guesome Grimly. The barn owner wanted my Wintec all purpose so i traded for the little guy he is a Pintabian rescue who is now called Ace which is short for Accidental Aquisition. He is for sale to a good home that is going to take him to his full potential i mean hes stunning sound and can be registered. So for now until i find a good home for him he is staying at my friends place hanging out putting on some weight and being a horse.

I have also met an amazing guy (i know i know they are all amazing at the begining) but he is the man of my dreams and i am potentially looking at packing up my whole life and moving away from Canada down to the US to be with him... we will see how that all goes though.

Have a great remainder of the week everyone.

Blogging Vacation, Dressage lesson #23

aahhh sorry!!! I have been so crazy busy the last little bit with the 3 jobs and all!! I hope everyone has been great i will need to get caught up on my blog lists as soon as i can find some time.... my boss put a bit of a kibosh on us using work computers to do personal stuff so i had to "lay low" for a little bit.

G is doing great he had his feet done on friday and had a nice 30 minute massage as well.

I had Dressage lesson #23 i guess last night and i am so sore its not even funny. It was 30 minutes of fighting with a very athletic horse who refused to do serpentines to lengthen his trot and to canter on a circle by the end of it i was exhausted my entire body ached and G was dripping sweat i wish i had a video because even my dressage coach was blown away by his behavior... im thinking its because im winning he almost respects me im almost the boss hes giving it one last effort to try to gain control again..... im hoping thats the case. Either way we ended the lesson lunging him until he got his little brain focused. Im going to lunge him again tomorrow when im out to feed the horses. This change in weather is messing with the herd big time.

I got some more good news recently, i start with a personal trainer next week... he is one of the best in western canada and has worked with jockeys previously. So he built me a diet and a work out schedule to get me where i need to be physically to compete as far as i want too.

My weeks are going to be riding 4days a week, running 3 days a week and gym 3 days a week with a very strict and lean diet.

Fair warning i may be crabby.

Lesson #20 Dressage

First im going to start off with a quick weekend recap....

FINALLY i got canter in both directions... WITH NO BUCKS... we stuck to a 20M circle defined by pylons because i cant keep him from dropping in without visual aids still. We also slowed down and got perfect leg yeilds to the right and left on the normal wall... the scarey wall not so much.

Now on to the lesson;

We did a lot of work with Trot poles there were about 3 sets of trot poles set up around the arena and we would have to do a circle over 3 once in the middle once on the small end and once on the bigger end. Then we would cut accross the diagonal going over a set then accross another diagonal going over another set. G tried to cheat a little on the circle by attempting to bulge out and cut the circle by the trot poles but with a lot of work and even more leg on we managed to get it.

We then did the circle exercise at the canter... I started out going clockwise got him into a canter (no bucks or kicking out) and it was a bit of a struggle to get him to go over the canter poles but we managed to get 3x and it was time to change direction.. which is when i started to psyc myself out thinking the new direction was his bad way... HAH in all the concentrating i didnt notice that the first way we went was his bad side... so when i asked for the canter we effortlessly went over the canter poles 3x on the other side. He got lots of pats and loving for this and i had a big grin on my face.

After that he was gung ho about the canter i had to keep bringing him back to a trot because all he wanted to do was canter... he would do it any time i put some leg on with his ears back listening to me so i know he was trying to anticipate what i was going to ask him to do so he didnt get into any trouble for that i just asked him nicely to bring it back and we carried on.

We did a bit of leg yeilding to the wall from the quarter line in both directions and shoulders in(? i think) along the long wall in both directions, which he did try to get fast and trot off but he was much more behaved than the last time we did it in a lesson.

My coach then asked if we wanted to do a few trot poles up to a little fence and immediatly my head started going into over drive and i got a little panicked... but i agreed and said as long as it was just troting up we were game for what ever. G did amazing all i had to do was direct him to it and keep myself balanced and he had no issues it felt amazing. We only did a little cross rail 2-3x then i walked him out and gave him tons of loving. We have come so far in our lessons i was so proud of both of us.

Last night after my lesson i reflected a little on where i was last year... around this time last year i was terrified to ride him he reduced me to tears a few times and i was contemplating that maybe he was in fact way to much horse for a greenie like me, But now we are doing little cross rails, our canter is coming along i have ridden through a rear, kicking out, bucking and bolting. I am so proud of where we are we are turning into such a great team! I am so blessed to have an amazing friend who knew i could do it from day one and pushed me through all my excuses and my fears.... and now im so lucky to be at a barn surrounded by supportive people who can see us going places and help encourage and cheer us on every step of the way.

I truly am blessed in the little horse world i am building. Including this blog i appreciate every single post you guys make <3

Tuesday- Off
Wednesday- Maybe a trainer ride
Thursday- Lesson w/ Jump coach
Friday- Off

Weekend Recap #2

This weekend was extremely busy and i am so tired and sore... but i think i managed to figure out how to fix some of my pictures so i am going to try to get caught up on some picture posting for everyone.

Friday i had to work both jobs so i was not able to make it out to the barn.

Saturday i was up at the crack of dawn to go and help out with the barn chores which was pretty simple other than being freezing cold. I didnt get a ride in since i had to run to Ikea to pick up some new bins for the feed room as well as pick up some feed for G since he is now inside and gets custom feed in the evenings. So currently i have him on Beet pulp, ground flax meal (human grade), Sweet feed and apple eh multivitamin..which will be getting changed to hoffmans once i run out. G already seems much happier minus the horse in the stall next to him hating everything about him lol.

Sunday i went out bright and early before work to drop off all the feed that i had picked up for G as well as the bins and helped put the horses out. Then it was off to Job #2. After work i was lucky enough to stop off at the barn to put a quick ride on G....and he was fantastic it was exactly what we needed right now just a good relaxing easy ride with no spooking no bucking... I can tell that he is much happier being in the barn just with how he responded to my aids.. i was even able to get him to leg yeild down the long wall without him getting to crooked or fast. I tried for a little bit of a canter he went into the canter quite nicely so i figured we would try a figure 8 at the canter to see if he would change leads or if he would try to stay on the same lead.... which he attempted to do and it was a very unorganized and unbalanced canter so we went to work on the leg yeilds. He did great though he was trying so hard and got tons of loving before i had to leave.


Im still working on getting the pictures up... blogger now isnt giving me the option to upload... wtf....

Change of plans

Last night i went out with the intention of having a lesson i was really rushed so i didnt have time to lunge him. Just before the ride i spent some time catching up with my coach and letting her know what has been going on with G. I walked him out and did a little trotting and we started in the lesson.

She had me doing circles at one end of the arena then every other time when we reached C we would head down the center line halt then go in the opposite direction. G had a nice bend in both directions but was bulging out against my leg and when i would put leg on he would start getting fast and grab onto the bit.

N pointed out that a lot of the fears that i had previously overcomb are starting to come back my position is suffereing im hunching forward and collapsing in my chest instead of sitting up straight. She also felt i was reaching for my stirrups and felt they should be shorter (obviously contrary to what my dressage coach says).

So we discussed her putting a few rides on G to help strengthen his canter leads and maybe help to teach him to move off the leg. So she ended up getting on him for the majority of my "lesson" and it became a trainer ride. She immediatly pointed out that he is a thinker i need to make sure that either the work im doing with him is complex so he is not allowed to get "bored" and start doing what he wants instead of what i want.

She showed me when it was good to allow things to slow down.. like with leg yeilding, i was having a hard time getting him to leg yeild facing the long walls because he would try to do what im asking but would either end up backing, walking into the wall or getting fast and ignoring my leg. She told me to not be afraid to use my whip, she would allow him to go a few steps then stop to let him think about it and to praise him, if he backed he got a tap with the whip if he walked into the wall he got a tap but 2 or 3 steps of the leg yeild he got lots of praise.

There was a small cross rail set up in the arena and everytime she went past it G would almost try to set himself up for the jump so we thought we would see what would happen if she took him over it... He was great picked up the right leads every time didnt hit the fence, didnt try to slow down or stop or refuse.

I have some vidoes but im still having some issues with my youtube account and struggling to get the videos up. After she was done riding him i got back on and we did a little bit of walk trot since he was nice and relaxed. We also worked on some patience... standing without pawing or trying to walk off without my cue.

I was quite happy that he was starting to be brought in last night because it hit -23C last night and G was nice and comfy in his stall. Tomorrow ill be out to learn all the barn chores and in what order they want them done so im hoping to be able to lunge him and get a bit of a ride in.

Friday-Off
Saturday- Lunge/light ride
Sunday- Off
Monday- Dressage lesson

Could i love this barn any more?

I got some great news this morning... well good news for me... The girl who was doing the barn chores on Sundays is no longer able to do it... so my barn manager asked me to do it!! So pumped!

What that means is a discount on board for me!!! Not only that but the arrangement i worked out with T the barn owner is G will be coming in every night and turned out every morning as well as getting custom feed... typically $500... however because i am doing barn chores i will get all that for my paddock rate which is $330.... no more waiting for him to dry off... no more turning him out in -30... no more haveing to wander out to the feild to find him....

Not gonna lie... this is going to be the best year yet <3