Clover Ledge Farm

So, Dreamy seems to be all recuperated from her COPD flare-up. Poor girl. She pretty much got a full week off from work. I figured why rush things? I started her back lightly this past Sunday, and we just went on a short trail ride. I figured I would be less apt to overdo it on the trail than the "ring." (Use of the word ring is to be taken lightly...I STILL HAVE NO RING!!!! Grrrr...) For some reason, the "ring" makes my inner Puritan work ethic come out and I want to DO DRESSAGE! Work, work, work! :)

So I rode her two other nights this week as well. She was fine. I did WTC and lots of transitions. I probably gave her extended walk breaks, but again, why rush it? I rather NOT overwork her lungs and just see what she can handle. I plan to ride each day over the long weekend and then give her a few days off....Tuesday and Wednesday. Easy work at the end of the week because we have a busy weekend for Sept. 6-7. Saturday we are marshaling races at the Cornish Trotting …

OK, I have a lot to blog about, my first.....I was scanning through pics of a recent event and was APPALLED by many of the riders positions. Now I know that a photo is only a moment in time and you cannot judge someone only by a photo.....but still! SCARY stuff.....and here are the worst two.

No wonder people are dying in eventing....good grief.

If anyone is interested, I am selling STB patches. Each patch is a 4.75" oval on white twill with black embroidery. Cost is $6 per patch. All proceeds will help defray costs of trucking to NJ for the National STB show.
ALL Checks will be held until cleared. So unless you are having your patches shipped, it is cash and carry.
If you would like to have a patch shipped to you, the shipping costs are as follows:
up to 10 patches = $1.00
10-20 patches = $2.00
20+ patches = $3.00
Email me at moonstonefarm29@roadrunner.com for more info, how to send a check, etc.

A good friend of mine decided to get a new license plate the other day. I think what she chose is absolutely brillant.

She has had M-HOCKY on her UMaine license plate for many years. (Poor girl doesn't realize that she is cheering for the wrong team......GO UNH WILDCATS!!!!!! LOL!!!!)
So she sent me a pic of the new plate. How COOL IS THAT????? Not only does it show her love for the breed and her own STB gelding, but it also promotes the UMares too! :) I have been thinking of getting 8HOOVES on my trailer plate. Maybe I need to get LUV STB instead! :) Though I do wonder what Sparky would think. Morgans were my first love after all.

On Sunday Dreamy coughed twice at the show. I tried to pretend it was nothing (especially because she does sometimes cough when in a dusty ring all day), but I had that awful gut feeling that her COPD was acting up.

Dreamy has been treated for COPD for almost 5 years now....nearly as long as I have owned her. For the last 3 years I have been able to maintain her without any flareups. I soak her hay, give her 24/7 turnout with access to her stall, and feed her a product called Wind.

Well, because of the GD'ed moldy hay in my barn (plus the fact that I tried to feed her a couple of flakes...soaked...out of one of the bales I thought looked/smelled OK) she started with the coughing and high respiratory rate. BIG SIGH. I should have known better with the hay, but with only about 15 bales left of last year's hay I figured I ought to start feeding out the new stuff. Most of it is unsuitable and completely covered in mold. But I was able to find some bales that really did seem OK. NOPE…

I FINALLY had a lesson!!! :) My instructor Judy had her ring footing redone, so I had to take a few weeks off. Of course, I was unable to bring Dreamy (see top post for more info on why) so I called to re-schedule it on Monday. Judy offered to let me ride her sale mare Violet. I figured it would be a good learning experience for me.

And boy, not only was it a good learning experience, but also a VERY humbling one. :) Riding a Second Level horse after being on an green/Intro/Training level horse for a couple years really makes it obvious where you are lacking! It was great to ride Violet, don't get me wrong.....even if it was a bit frustrating. I know in my brain what I need to do, but my body just does not cooperate. This lesson reaffirmed how much I don't know about dressage. :D

Violet is a very sweet mare. She is a 8 (or maybe 7?) yo gray TB/Percheron cross and Judy has had for a 3 years or so. She knows nothing about Violet's prior life. Judy was told she was broke under …

We competed at the SPHO-ME Endless Summer Open Horse Show on August 17, 2008 at Cumberland Fairgrounds. The biggest reason it was a good day was because the sun shone ALL DAY LONG and it was actually a bit hot!!!! :)

Results:
1st Open 2-Gait Pleasure, Sr.
1st Pole Bending, Sr.
2nd Open Showmanship
2nd Open 2-Gait Equitation, Sr.
2nd Roadster Under Saddle
2nd Open Barrels, Sr.
2nd Open Trail class
2ndStandardbred 2-Gait Pleasure, Sr.
3rd Hunter over Fences

Dreamy was good except she was VERY forward and lost her halt. LOL! For some reason she always loses her halt around any track....be it while marshaling a race at Scarborough Downs or while showing when there are horses jogging at Cumberland. She is never dangerous and always obedient, so I felt safe. But my goodness, she gets so REVVED up! She is not nervous but not at all like her usual mellow self...but more like "Dreamy-on-a-major-caffeine-overload." GEESH! :P
We did not place in STB in Hand, because well....she was really naughty …

I kept forgetting to post this last week, but apparently the canter is BACK! Dreamy had found a nice canter earlier in July and then we lost it again. Well, it came back on Thursday and Friday! YAY! There was no rushing, galloping, or general crankiness. I asked and she did it.

I have a feeling that creating a balanced 3-beat "dressage worthy" canter will take a few more of these setbacks. I have been so used to progressing this year that I wrongly assumed the canter would follow a similarly linear training pattern. NOPE. It has literally been 5 steps forward, 3 steps back. Now we seem to have taken a few more steps forward.

At first it was simply CANTER. I did not care what it looked like, I just wanted her to learn the cue to canter and simply that it was OK to canter. I worked on eliminating her tendency to start pacing 30 mph when I asked to canter....and simply go from the trot to the canter. Then we worked on tempo and rhythm. Suddenly in July she began to relax and come…

I have been lurking around Ebay looking for a Smurf patch or button. If you are not in the know about why I am suddenly interested in Smurfs, click here: http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=159720&highlight=smurf
So, I finally found a Smurf button.....and bought it for only $4.50!
Now, where to put it.....on my XC saddle pad or helmet cover???? :)

Wow this is fabulous. I want to ride like Dr. Kilmke!!!!!!! Yeah, right. The odds of that are as high as Dreamy moving like Ahlerich.

This was filmed at the National Horse Show in 1987. Dr. Klimke is riding his horse Ahlerich in the Madison Square Garden.

So, it has rained 19 out of the last 20 days. It is incredibly frustrating to have THIS MUCH rain. Why is rain bad? Well, let's see...I have only ridden a handful of times in the past 3 weeks. I like to ride at least 4-5 times a week and that just ain't happening when every single day is either a thunderstorm or it is absolutely down pouring. I am at a point where I would ride if it were just plain old "raining" but that does not seem to happen. It is all about extremes I guess.Last Friday I discovered to my HORROR that nearly all the 300+ bales of first crop we have in the barn are MOLDY! :O I cried for about 3 hours, then I got angry. We store the hay in 2 big open bays on the left side of the barn. There is no hay loft. The big doors (front and back) are always open. Yes it has been rainy but to me that did not seem to be a good excuse for hay to mold. Luckily we still have about 30 bales from last year (I wanted to be extra safe and not run out) and none of that …

We had a great time at Hidden Brook Farm this past Saturday. I have had no time to write about it since I have been SO busy getting ready to start school on August 26. YIKES that is coming sooner than I would like!!

Anyway, Dreamy was great at the show. We ended up second in Intro B with a 71.5%. All 7s with a couple of 8s. There were seven riders in my division and the first place winner beat me by .5% (she got a 72%). Best part is she is a professional on a very nice Dutch mare. :D
Then we ended up 2nd out of 4 in Training 1 with a 58.975%. That was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!! My goal to score above a 55% was met! The judge really liked Dreamy and told me she had a ton of potential and once she figured out the canter would be a "very lovely dressage horse." That was fantastic. We even had to do the tests in an indoor, complete with mirrors EVERYWHERE. Dreamy has never been in an indoor except one other time. She was rather worried about the mirrors and the rain pounding the steel r…

I have finally decided that my Bates Caprilli just does not fit Dreamy correctly. :( I sort of knew the panels were not right, but I think I was in denial. After all that work of selling the County and getting the Bates...UGGGG. There is plenty of wither clearance with the Bates so it looked like it should fit. But it is those damn CAIR panels, I just know it! Now that the muscles have actually started to atrophy, I am 100% sure the saddle is not right. If it were a wool stuffed saddle I could just get a fitter to fix it. But the CAIR panels are air filled foam, so no go. They are what they are. But my horse must be comfortable, so we start THE SADDLE SEARCH again.

On Friday afternoon (8/1) I received two saddles from Trumbull Mountain in VT. One is a Duett Fidelio and the other a Thornhill Vienna 2. The Duett costs twice as much as the Thornhill and of course it is the one that I like best! LOL! I rode in the Duett on Friday and LOVED it. I had sent wither tracings and …

In Blackwater Woods
Mary Oliver

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is,

is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

I was tagged by Now That's A TROT! to write a "Six Things I Am Proud Of" meme. Never heard the word "meme" before, but I figured I might as well run with it! LOL! I am proud of the way I take care of my horses. My farm is not state-of-the-art nor is it even very new (the barn is over 100 years old, though the stalls themselves are only 5 years old), but it is safe and clean. I am very particular about how I feed, bed, turn out, and groom my horses. They get the very best farriery and veterinary care. Basically my horses have a better life than most humans.I am proud I stuck by my Morgan Sparky. She was in bad shape when I first got her back in 1993, both physically and mentally. In the last fifteen years she has become such a fabulous horse. I stuck by her despite her limitations and when she could no longer jump. I trained her to drive myself after we had to stop eventing. Giving up on her was not an option. Trading her in for a "better" horse that c…