Clover Ledge Farm

For our first horse trial of the year, I felt dropping down a level to Advanced Elementary was a solid decision. Babette agreed with me, and after several positive jump lessons through the spring, I felt confident and ready for the Course Brook schooling event in Massachusetts.  Basically, the jumps are four inches shorter than Beginner Novice (2'3' instead of 2'7") and we had to ride BN Test A instead of BN Test B. The four inches don't seem like a lot, but my trepidation of Ellie's stopping behavior is still there. I am not scared or nervous, but it stresses me out when I do everything right and she will still choose to stop. Granted, there are times I forget to give after a half halt on the approach or forget to put my leg on, but there are definitely plenty of times when she just stops despite the fact I am doing everything "right". Getting to Course Brook is a three hour haul, but I have now been there enough that the drive is not that bad. I act...

Ten days after the April 22 dressage show at HBF, we were back for their second show! It felt like a lot of showing after a winter off, but it also was good to test where we were so early on. Plus, these shows are so laid back and ho-hum for us, since it is our lesson barn, it is always good to practice tests in the ring where we lesson! We had run through First 2 earlier that week in our lesson and Beth really liked how I rode that test better than First 1. This was especially true in the canter work, as you lengthen the stride and then circle 15 m. in First 1 but you do the opposite in First 2. For where we are right now, cantering the 15 m. circle and THEN asking for the lengthening seems to help Ellie balance and develop her medium canter much more than how it is asked for in First 1. I know we are not ready quite yet for the canter loops of First 3, but to me it didn't matter which of the other First level tests we rode. So as Beth is the show secretary haha, she just had me r...

While Rejoice and I were busy playing jumper pony, Ellie and I had been concentrating on our dressage lessons during the late winter and early spring. It felt good to come back from a pretty laidback winter and not to have lost any training; in fact, I think Ellie's winter break did her a world of good. It felt as though she had matured a ton and was ready to be a First Level horse. She is coming nine this year and I think it is my favorite age so far! this was March but pretty representative of our winter rides Beth and I agreed it would be a good idea to knock off the rust and get the first 2021 show under our belt, so I entered the little schooling show her barn held during April school vacation. It ended up being freezing cold and spitting sn*w (which is better than the rain that was forecasted I suppose lol), so the weather wasn't exactly ideal and fun, but it was worth getting into the big outside ring and riding First 1 to see where we were at. We had not ridden this tes...

Whew! That was a whole lotta posts in a short amount of time! All caught up with 2020 and now we are moving forward! is this not the CUTEST photo of my youngest riding Rejoice back in January?? I never really wrote any goals for 2021, but they are pretty simple: Keep the ponies happy and healthy Ellie: Have multiple solid experiences at BN level Maybe have Babette take Ellie N by fall Confident in all First Level movements by end of 2021 Rejoice: Continue to have fun outings when we can! Dreamy: Keep her comfortable, sound, and in good weight (she was looking a bit elderly/unsound this winter to me so she is back on Equioxx) this was my favorite Bernie meme even better is that Janet Foy made it her FB profile pic hahaha I gave Ellie most of the winter off and just did some toodling around in the sn*w here and there. I felt as though we had grown SO much in 2020 that we both needed a little down time to digest it all. Babette was in Aiken anyway and I did not want to take dressage lesso...

Despite the fact 2020 was a year of cancelled shows and lots of horse show changes, I am still pleased with the fact Ellie was able to qualify for a few year end awards. Rejoice even got into the act with one of her own! Ellie Maine Horse Association First Level Champion  62.2414% Family Pleasure Horse Program (Most Hours Award) Maine Dressage Society First Level AA, 3rd place 62.2414% Western Maine Dressage Society First Level AA, Reserve Champion  62.2414% (no pic because I have not received the ribbon yet) American Morgan Horse Association Bronze Medal in Dressage *While they suspended the Open Competition in 2020, they still awarded medallions. For a bronze in dressage, we had to earn  8 scores for Training or First level tests completed in at least 5 shows with at least 4 different judges. At least 2 scores must be from First level. All scores must be 60% or higher. Rejoice Maine Horse Association Family Pleasure Horse Program (25 or More Hours Award)

Ellie finally became a foxhunter! She was such a star and thought it was the most exciting trail ride of her life haha. It included new horses to meet, hounds that looked like fun to meet,  three deer jumping into our path, going fast through the fields, and then getting to eat grass at the holds while wearing her bridle. She took it all in stride and with a maturity I wasn't sure would ever happen LOL! This was a perfect culmination of a year of growing up and learning how to work as a team. We had SO MUCH FUN! I hope to do a few more fox hunts this fall in 2021! before we headed out we are way in the back haha Ellie is on the far left!

Through September, I felt as though Ellie and I had overcome most of our major challenges. This is not to say things were suddenly perfect, and I certainly did stupid things like forget to put my leg on at times, but Babette had helped me learn how to balance her before a jump so 1. Ellie stopped fussing and could SEE the jump and 2. I could put my leg on because she wasn't rushing at the fence. I stopped allowing myself to be fooled by the fact she would take me to the fence and feel so forward and then surprisingly grind to a stop. It wasn't a true forward and it was too unbalanced. I learned how to set the canter pace and use leg to ask her to go forward at the base. It sounds so much easier when I write it out, but honestly it took me some time as a rider to really iron this out with Ellie. So, with that newfound confidence, we entered the Fall XC Derby at Rest & Be Thankful (RABT), the farm where we take our jumping lessons. I was excited to give BN another try on a co...

By mid September, Ellie and I had started to get ourselves together. It wasn't perfect, but it felt so much better to have put in the time, sweat, and tears to begin to move past our issues with stopping. I felt really discouraged for most of the summer, so moving through that was huge. Of course, my rides at Green Acres and Esprit in August had still contained stops, but our lessons were where we really showed improvement.  when you ask your small child to take a photo of you on your horse and he wants a selfie, too  I took Ellie down one day to the farm where Babette was based out of for years called Gathering Farm (she is now at a new barn because Gathering sold over the winter). It was an opportunity to take a lesson over fences in a new place, so while it wasn't totally like a show, it was nice to jump in that environment. And can I just say that Hamilton, MA is such beautiful horse country! It is home to Myopia Hunt as well as many other lovely barns like Ledyard Farm. B...

This was the event where Babette was to ride Ellie to give her (and I) confidence around show jump and XC. It was super weird for me to have my horse at an event but not be her rider! But I was so excited for this and knew it would be good for me to see. I also literally had just gotten a new saddle that week before this show and LOVED IT so much. So Babette was the first one to compete in it haha.  Ellie was great in the huge and chaotic dressage warm up. Babette rode her conservatively, which was fine. She never really got her over her back though (not an issue since she was there to jump the mare and not get some outstanding dressage score) and that meant her free walk was non existent haha. But it didn't matter as they put in a respectable test and were sitting 4th out of a BN division of 11 riders. The SJ and XC courses all looked good to me, except honestly there was one fence on XC I was really glad Babette was going to be dealing with instead of me. The farm has a random sm...

After the mostly successful but still a lot of refusals event at Green Acres two weeks earlier, I decided to take Ellie out to a local 2-phase for another experience over fences. I knew we could get eliminated, but the point was to get her out and get her over everything for my own confidence. And when I put my leg on I had to mean it.  Dressage was status quo with a 36.67 and the comment nicely forward but needs to be more supple, tight today . It is not a great indoor in which to do a calm dressage test, so we had some tension issues we normally do not have. But whatever, I was here to jump not worry about a dressage score. still cute above the kick boards on each long side are stalls all the horses are left inside and it is noisy Ellie is just short enough she cannot see anything over the walls but she hears and reacts to everything. T his is not just an Ellie issue - lots of riders are not fond of riding tests in this indoor (they do have an outdoor but don't use it for small a...