Clover Ledge Farm

I had not been planning to bring Ellie to this show , but an email had gone out to members a few days prior that entries were a bit low.  So in order to support the club, we headed out to Pineland Farm the morning of August 10, for what promised to be a gorgeous summer day!  All photos that I am in were purchased from the show photographer! dis iz dum, where iz fun jumps? why you do dis, mom Ellie, probably definitely I always think these types of shows are going to be fine, but at the end of every single one of them, I always remember why I should stick with dressage and eventing haha.  That is not to say there is anything wrong with open shows or the club that runs them; this is just not the type of showing we do well at because she's not a "show horse". but she likes to pose! The show was held at a gorgeous facility that boasts both large indoor and outdoor arenas.  They chose to have the show indoors with warm-up outside, which is fine, but Ellie was ...

While my focus with Ellie is dressage and eventing, I do want to someday try some Morgan shows with her, therefore she needs to know how to conduct herself in a big ring with other horses.  There are plenty of little Maine Horse Association shows around (including a bunch at the same venue where we do some of our dressage shows at the Hollis Equestrian Park), but I have not yet wanted to spend $20-30 a class to have her be a pain in the ass haha since most of the shows are rated A and B. After several successful dressage outings, I finally I felt comfortable bringing her to an open show but then it was a matter of which one do we try? It worked out perfectly to bring her to a little show at our local fairgrounds on the last Sunday of the fair.  We have no dressage shows in July, so this was a cheap and close to home way to gain experience for her.  The horse show has always been only open to 4-H kids in the past, but this year they affiliated with MHA and held a Class D...

The FEA Fall Finale was held on September 14, 2013 at the Hollis Equestrian Park.  Dreamy was fantastic as usual, showing in several disciplines: in-hand, hunt seat, and sidesaddle!  It was the first time we tried sidesaddle at a show besides the dressage test we did back in August. 1st NEHC Pleasure Horse/Pony - sidesaddle (out of 3 entries) 2nd Hunter Type Horse in Hand (out of 3) 2nd Hunter Pleasure Horse (out of 7!!!) 2nd Ladies Pleasure Horse - sidesaddle (out of 5) 2nd Standardbred In Hand (out of 4) 3rd English Horse In Hand (out of 6) 3rd MHA Medallion Pleasure - sidesaddle (out of 4) 4th Adult Equitation (out of 4 - had a bobble in the canter) 4th MHA Pleasure Horse (out of 4 - another canter bobble, I think she was getting tired) 5th Hunter Pleasure Championship (out of 6)

This past weekend, June 23, I attended the Friesian Events Association Benefit Horse Show.  I like this show for many reasons, most of all because this organization donates money from their shows to different causes.  This year the show was to benefit a woman from NY who recently was in a bad carriage driving accident and has tons of medical bills.  They were able to donate a total of $2000 to her!!  WOW!  Of course, it also helps that it was held close (30 minutes) from home and is run by several of my wonderful horse show friends!! Dreamy and I did very well and had a great day!  I am proud of her for holding her own in the open classes, which unless they are specifically a hunter class, we compete against hunt seat, saddleseat, and western riders.  It was rainy in the morning and then SUPER HOT the rest of the day!  Blah!!  I love the heat, but this was a little much.  The show grounds don't have a lick of shade, so it was a bit ex...

Our second show of the year was the ASAM Dunegrass Living Class Show on May 12, 2013. It is a double judged show, which is always kind of fun!  More ribbons!  LOL!!  Dreamy was super good, but sadly the judges continually pinned the shuffling four beat peanut rollers whose riders yanked them around with big kimberwickes.   SIGH   The ring was a huge mud pit along the rail, so riders in my large classes rode about ten feet off the rail.  It was impossible to go between horses and the rail because not only was there not quite enough space, but also because the footing was horrible.  So of course, my free moving hunter needed to pass on the inside, which meant we were pretty much making a 20 m. circle in the middle of the 100x200 ring.    It was frustrating to ride a good round with perfect leads and manners, but because the "hunters" in my classes were really western horses with English tack on, we looked terrible.  The horses that pinn...

Dreamy and I kicked off the 2013 show season with the American Saddlebred Association of Maine's (ASAM) 8th annual Long Horn Fun Festival Horse Show on April 28, 2013.  As a high school English teacher and the prom advisor, I was out super late on April 27 for our prom, so perhaps attending a horse show all the following day was not my smartest move.  But, hey, whatever.  I had everything packed and ready to go on Saturday morning before prom preparation began, and I waited to bathe Dreamy first thing on Sunday morning.  (She was thrilled - LOL!).  I did not bother to braid, which irked my inner George Morris, but there was no way that was happening.  It takes me forever to braid, since I only know how to do the sewn-in button braids, and I was already running on very little sleep.  And because I have decided to not show in-hand this year, it really did not matter anyway.  She was clean with a neat, pulled mane and it was fine. Because I arrive...

Six banquets and a hunt ball later....the mares won several year end awards for 2012!  Yay!  I did not attend two of the banquets due to time and money constraints (NEHC and SPHO-NJ). I already wrote about the Maine Horse Association banquet .  But I figured I might as well just do one blog post about the rest.  I only keep track of this for my own purposes, and writing up six different posts just seems, well, too much like bragging.  :-( Reva Maine Horse Association - Champion Standardbred In Hand - Champion Standardbred 2-Gait Pleasure - Champion Open Introductory Level dressage - Retired the Standardbred Challenge Trophy Southern Maine Dressage - Champion Introductory A - 70.33% average score - Third Introductory B - 70.633% average score Maine Dressage Society - Champion Introductory Level - 70.25% median score - High Point Standardbred HOY (certificate and medal) - High Point SPHO-ME trophy (saddle pad) New England Horseman's Council - ...

The 2012 year end points for the Maine Horse Association were posted the other day and I am very proud of Reva!  She won four championships!!  Hard work pays off! And congrats to my horse friends Shelly, Katie, and Tania for doing so well!!  Yay!!  :-)

Our sixth Maine Horse Association affiliated show was on July 29, 2012.  It was a benefit show for the  Friesian Events Association .  It was a soggy and wet day, but we had fun, as usual!  I am lucky to have a great group of horse show friends.  My grandfather and father both showed up to watch, which was really neat!  Reva was a very good mare... Champion Junior Pleasure Horse Reserve Champion Adult Equitation, Open Reserve Champion STB 2-Gait Pleasure 1st STB In Hand  1st Adult Equitation, Open 1st Junior Pleasure Horse 3rd STB 2-Gait Pleasure We won cute canvas bags (left) as trophies, which means I have four!  LOL! I am very proud with the mare's progress this year.  Due to time and finances, I might not be competing in any more MHA shows this year.  While it is a bummer because I do enjoy the shows and the people, I feel really good about how well we have done in MHA this year.   The profession...

Normally, I would do a separate entry for each of these four shows, but now that I am behind in my blogging, I admit I don't remember many specific details to write about!  ;-P  Plus, things were pretty much the same at each show.  Reva has been outstanding so far this year and I am really proud of her!   Our first Maine Horse Association (MHA) affiliated show this year was back in May .  We have since done four more... Downeast Horse Congress - June 15-17 This is one of my favorite shows!  This year I was the dressage manager, so it was a bit more work than normal, but it was still a lot of fun.  We had lots of laughs and good times.  Reva was very tense in her first few classes and we had a few bucks, but the second and third day she was much better (and probably tired!!)  We couldn't seem to pull a blue, so it was a "bridesmaid" kind of weekend, but for a young (still sorta green) horse competing with much more seasoned horses, I was v...

Reva and I competed at the Dunegrass Living Classic show on May 13 and had a great time!  We started our show career a year ago at this show (though it used to be called the Ocean Communities Classic before it had a sponsor change).  This show is run by the American Saddlebred Association of Maine (ASAM), but it is Maine Horse Association (MHA) pointed.  It is a fun show in that it is double judged, so not only do you get double points but also double ribbons!  So while we only entered six classes, we came home with TWELVE ribbons!  That makes a ribbon whore like myself quite happy!  LOL!  ;-D Overall, it was a wonderful day!  Though I ended up bathing Reva that morning before we left for the show, and accidentally I used her Eqyss Microtek Medicated Shampoo (she has intermittent skin issues) instead of the Vetrolin shampoo I normally use for showing.  Whoops!  She did not come out as "clean" as I had hoped, so I spent some time be...