NER Standards & Ratings/ HM in photos

Discussing warmup
Longe
They were everywhere
Good boy!

super quick weekend recap

I had an amazing weekend! My first lesson in a month had me a bit nervous for some reason...I've developed a weird psychosis about riding in front of National Examiners (thank you, Pony Club). But I couldn't pass on a free lesson with Sali Gear at the Northeast Region Standards and Ratings Clinic, so we threw baby horse in the Neilmobile and off we went...so so glad we did!

Baby horse was an absolute angel in his warmup (adjustable and non-explosive despite the beautiful peacocks everywhere) and his grid. At one point I thought I'd let him be done but that was not in the cards- Sali made the grid bigger! He got a little overfaced but once he got his confidence back he jumped really well, and I didn't feel the horrible position issues I worked on last month as badly as before. SO EXCITED to get that kind of lesson again. He jumped well, he flatted well, in a group, in a strange place, in a big arena with no walls, in front of a NE. This horse is going places people!

The other best part of the day was teaching some fabulous longeing to some fabulous C candidates and getting to switch onto the two red mares who were in my lesson. One switch was a little more successful than the other but I felt like I got a good read on both of them. I always want more time when I get to work on other people's horses, but anyway, it was great to get back into discussing rides with a NE and the whole strange horse scan/diagnose/treat mode of thinking. Made Auntie Caitlin proud I hope! I video of some grids but my computer won't load it from the camera. But anyway, there will be pictures later! Mom snapped some shots of the peacocks when she wasn't chasing them out of the ring (new job title: Peacock Wrangler...sounds like a reality TV show).

Always,
Marina

#last day of high school

That's right. It's my last day of high school. Well, more or less. I have a biochem final on Tuesday, but that doesn't count. I'm feeling very ready (possibly more ready than I really am) to leave the halls of HHS in the hands of the underclassmen.

What does this mean? For starters, it means I need to get my act together and write a speech for graduation. The advisor neither understands nor accepts "but I'm riding and teaching this weekend" as an excuse for why she has not yet seen a draft. Graduation speeches are weird, though. We're leaving behind high school. We'll all still be living with our parents tomorrow. There's not really a Stargate to adulthood that appears when they hand you your diploma. If there was, I'm pretty sure I'd run the other way. So anyhow, that's my challenge for the weekend.

This weekend should be an exciting one, though! Sali Gear is coming up to teach at the Northeast Region's Standards and Ratings Clinic and I get to do the demo lunging...which means? That's right, free HA lunge prep session for me! Hopefully I don't need my ass kicked too badly. I don't longe much outside Pony Club, first because Neil is a little angel and doesn't need to be longed that much. A lot of the people I work horses for aren't into conventional groundwork and prefer to call it "circling game-" rope halter, bridle, carrot stick, whip.... not that different. Speaking of which, this month has been really great (and crazy) in that I've had the opportunity to ride a lot of horses for a lot of people. Nothing I love better than getting paid to make ponies feel better. Tucker can now do a halt transition without flying into reverse. Lizzy can canter without crowhopping. Cutter can stretch down and not lose his mind. Nub...well, Nub is on a walk program until he loses a few more pounds.

And my own horse! Finally the front field is dry enough to ride in consistently and he is SO much happier to work outside because a) he has a lot more room and b) I use my outside aids better. His canter transitions are getting more and more solid and his balance in the canter has come a long way this spring. I'm still working out what I'll be doing with him this summer (depends on where I can get what for a job) but I am so excited to take him to Vermont in the fall. And GMHA is revamping their courses just for me, Tremaine Cooper style!

In other news, the Mitchell Scholarship will be making it $6,000 easier for me to pay for college, so shoutout to the Mitchell Institute, my last (LAST) concert at HHS was last night and ended with a very nice Dave Matthews jam from the reunited Senior band, All-State was last weekend (also a blast), and I got to stop by Springpoint to see Aly and Caitlin after. How's that for a run-on sentence? Although Houlton is a very frustrating place to live some (okay, most) of the time, there's too much to be excited about right now. Starting with graduation. Next Thursday.

Cheers!

Marina

it's been too long

It's been too long since my last post, but I have a host of good excuses, so you'll have to forgive me.

reason #1

My horse got sick (in the middle of AP exam week). Aly, whose diva greatness we all know, love, and appreciate, picked up a random virus, decided she didn't like it, and had to go to New England Equine in Dover, NH. Literally, she's been there for a week of ultrasounding, belly taps, CBCs, bloodwork, PCR labs, you name it; the official diagnosis remains "some random virus." That said, she had a 104 degree fever and a couple days of acting colicky because of it earlier in the week, so she had to go. She is now all better, after spending the week in isolation because of the unknown nature of her lovely virus and the low white blood cell count she presented with. The good news is, she was tested for everything horrible and it wasn't any of those, and once she was on IV fluids for a couple of days, she bounced back to her normal self. Weirdly, she didn't actually have a 'real' colic; that is, no impaction, no hormones, no gas, no twisted gut, not even a little peritonitis. My guess it the funky virus/fever combo just had her feeling uncomfortable.

As much as that sucks, a lot of really great people were really awesome for me when they didn't have to be, starting with Caitlin, who hauled her down and stayed with her while they ran initial tests. Next, the extern, who, when I showed up at Dover at 10:30 PM Tuesday night and accosted her in the parking lot ('Do you work here?'), let me in and found me Aly's intern. Then there's the rest of the staff at Dover, who were really great and let me see my horse, even though it meant little plastic booties, latex gloves and a blue gown thing. My employers, all of whom were very understanding about letting me leave, and of course, my mom, for accepting "I'll make it happen" as a solution for how I'm going to pay her back the vet bill. Last but not least, Dolores, my car, for not dying even when the right front tire tried to fall off on the way home, and for going above the speed limit even though that's starting to get to be a bit of a challenge for her.

reason #2

New job! I'm now doing morning chores and some other miscellaneous awesome stuff for Kathy at Hogan Farm. It's great timing, first because I really needed to find a second "real" job, and also because she's very flexible about how crazy my end-of-senior-year life is getting to be. Plus, Sara, Champ (Blondie), and Cluey are very excited to see my smiling face when I come to feed them in the morning. So staying busy with that and

reason #3

Boston trip! Band and chorus went to Boston this weekend, and I went with them, phone in hand in case I got a call from the vets at Dover, but regardless. The actual performance at the festival was less exciting than the rest of it (watched my first Harry Potter movie ever on the bus ride down, life changing experience right there). We stopped at Six Flags yesterday, where I rode my first rollercoaster. It ranks right below my stadium round at Snowfields last year for times when I thought I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. I'm pretty sure the children seated behind me learned a new collection of words not to say in front of their mothers. But there's one for the bucket list, accomplished.

So, until I have ten minutes off again, here's to people coming through for you when they don't have to, horses who beat a sense of humor into us with two by four, and the day, far, far, away, when I will get ten hours of sleep at night. Cheers!

happy working student post #home

It's been a heck of a week.

Since my last post, I've ridden a bunch of horses, gained a bridle for Neil, begun the process of fixing my jumping position, packed it all up, left Springpoint (and Posh), spent three hours alternately sitting and standing up to clap at a scholarship dinner, ridden at a dressage show (first of my life, somehow), packed it all up again, arrived back in H-town, dropped off my horse, and done two loads of laundry. In the meantime, Mary King double-won Rolex (I didn't know you could do that).

Since when was coming home this much work?

Starting at the beginning of last week, I had some self-inflicted ups and downs. Peggy Paine, Caitlin's mom and my other mother away from home, brought out her best therapist voice (ride the plan you have today- yeah, it's a mantra now) in a lesson where my mind was in how-the-f$%^-will-I-make-this-work land and not in the ring. Not to go terribly off-topic, but my mare is at Springpoint Farm for another week, sound, and schooling first level. She needs a rider to lease and love her, and she needs Troy to keep doing her feet. And I really need not to be paying that set of bills anymore. But moving on.

Neil had a great field trip to Snowfields with Teen on Wednesday: flatwork in one of the rings (no explosions, yay!) and then a nice hack in the woods. He's a total pro, best baby horse ever, and I am working very hard on my bad marriage with the right rein to try and fix it permanently. I also had some really nice rides on Ben. It's awesome to ride a trained horse over fences and work on my position, but it's also a great feeling to just ride a horse on the flat and make it feel better. He's a little superstar and I'm going to have to come back and steal him. And his plaid boots. Obviously. I got a trip to Gritty's and leftover cheesecake for breakfast, and like 18,000 boxes of Peeps.

And then there was today: Neil's first show (ever) and my first non-rally dressage show experience. We had a nice lonely warmup up in the sand ring at Puckerbrush and then a very quiet test in the indoor. Baby horse pulled a very stellar 70% in Intro C, so we called it quits while we were ahead. While we were loading him up my mom noticed a nice split in my right front trailer tire- thank god for the crew from Someday Farm who lent us a yellow Trailer-aid jack so we could put the spare on. Let's all breathe a sigh of relief that baby didn't blow while we were on 95.

Neil is now happily chilling out at Horseplay Farm (very amped to go back to his big field tomorrow I should think) and I am in my own bed with the internet (luxury!). It's weird being home in so many ways- living with my parents again instead of on my own, driving my stick shift car again, and mostly missing the awesome people I just spent three weeks with. I will sorely miss spending 85 hours a week at the barn, one or two lessons every day, and my alternate family of Paines and company (speaking of which, I still have Uncle John's - I think - sweatshirt from that Easter brunch hike around Fort Williams) and Cody, and Gena, and Bud, and the boarders, and, and, and.... I can't wait to come back. I've been so horribly spoiled that this last month of school will be a bit of a struggle, but it's nice to have my mom paying for groceries again.

So, back in South Canada. The show goes on.