Relationship Counseling

After having such a bad day yesterday, I wanted to make sure Frankie hadn’t decided he was going to shun my requests for good. Josh set up a few jumps all at 4′+ with a warm up vertical. I warmed up quickly and got right to business. He was still a little weird to ride. Not sore, not ADD, not being bad, just not my horse. I was just letting him be—to the warm up vertical he just wasn’t there. One time there was either going to be a long distance or a tight... Read More

Valinor Farms Horse Trials: Frankie’s not a Mudder

Even though there was supposed to be a hurricane/tropical storm/super crappy rain we decided to make the trek to our next event. This was our first go at no stabling. 3:30am wake-up call and loaded and on the road with Frankie at 5:00am. It was raining—not just raining, it was pouring. It was miserable. Everyone was soaked, including Frankie. DRESSAGE: Our dressage test was pretty good. I had about 45 minutes to warm up, and he sure needed it. We would have done way better,... Read More

Schooling Water – Take 2

The place with the dry water assured me that they had re-filled the water complex, so I thought it would be a good idea to try to get Frankie through some new water before our event. Luckily, as they said, it was filled. Surprisingly, Frankie walked right in. Good boy. He trotted and cantered right in too! He jumped out both at a bank and a very small vertical. We tried jumping in, at the trot and he put on the brakes. Dirty even. BAD FRANKIE! But, he did then jump over... Read More

Blase’ Ride

Absolutely beautiful outside today. I decided that I would ride outside. Frankie seemed all business today while getting groomed and tacked up. I was happy because I don’t think I was up for fighting with his ADD today. The outdoor it was. I wanted to work on straightness, halts, and lengthening at the trot. Frankie was ready to go. The flies were bad so he didn’t want to walk and I couldn’t blame him. So up into the trot almost immediately. I went off... Read More

Halt Damnit!

I was able to get a ride in over lunch today. I was pretty happy and I knew Josh would be happy that I would arrive home before 9pm. Frankie was acting like a knob. Couldn’t stand still, chewing on EVERYTHING; he had ADD on crack. I was interested to see how the ride was going to be as I planned on it being a short one. Something I learned a long time ago is never plan on a short ride… I had two main goals for today’s ride. 1. Straight center line trot 2.... Read More

Dressage is Fun?

Me and Frankie had a day off on Monday. Well, I still had to work. But we didn’t ride yesterday. I was interested to see if he was going to be up for working since we had a 5 1/2 hour ride home on Sunday after the event and didn’t unload until after 10pm. However, Frankie proved to be not only resilient, but a true partner in this whole thing. I think he appreciated the day off, but was happy to get working again. Even with food waiting for him. De Gauge, loose... Read More

Great Vista Horse Trials: Another One Down

Great Vista Horse Trials: Training Level Eventing Kristine/Frankie Highlight Video *Bigger, and in HD* It was a long drive, about 5 hours. Frankie was happy to get off the trailer we were happy to get out of the truck. We stayed in a seedy hotel/motel, but actually slept. So both me and Frankie were well rested. DRESSAGE This time I was prepared. Josh helped in making sure I had enough warm up time. After getting tacked up, I realized I had an hour of warm up time. Then the... Read More

Frankie’s been Reading…

I almost didn’t ride today. When I got to the barn the farrier was still working on him. It was hot, really hot and humid. I didn’t think two days off before the event was a great idea. But, I also didn’t want to wait forever and force me and Frankie to work hard in the heat. I went down to the barn after the farrier left and Frankie seemed very alert. After two horses were taken out of the barn he started bucking and squealing in his stall. Not because... Read More

Woohoo – going to school water, or so I thought.

Loaded up for an hour plus trip north to a barn that has a cross country course with water. I had been in contact with the barn via email trying to plan a day to get there and school before my first event with a REAL water obstacle. I’ve been in contact with this barn for over two weeks now to set up a time for me to come school the water obstacle. The picture on their website looked fantastic. Our trip today was scheduled earlier this week. We had a plan, we prepared,... Read More

Perfect Test

Okay, so I rode in the million degree heat today. I rode inside and wasn’t planning on riding long. But, Frankie had other ideas. I had the De Gauge on and Frankie, at first was pretending he liked the feeling when he had his head raised as high as he could. I was starting to think that he was retarded. But, then he started softening. Once he finally kept his head down, he decided that transitions were to be done when he chose. He would do an upward transition at a... Read More

30 Minute Exercise Ride

It was hot, really hot. I considered not riding, but since he had Monday off and will have Saturday off for traveling I felt it was necessary to at least get him some exercise. I put the De Gauge on with the running attachment. I didn’t want to work inside because there was at least a breeze outside. We did forward trot with a few transitions to the walk. Serpentine’s, figure eights, circles of varying sizes, single trot poles, and lengthening was our routine for... Read More

Kent School Horse Trials: Our First Event – Officially

Frankie was well rested, had a nice stall with lots of bedding. I, on the other hand, was exhausted after trying to sleep in the truck. That didn’t work at all. After a measly 1-3 hours of fake sleep, I was off. DRESSAGE: I had planned to warm Frankie up for AT LEAST a half hour before our ride time. I knew he needed that for us to get a decent score. He isn’t relaxed, soft, round, or even really paying attention until at least a half hour in. 10 minutes. That’s... Read More

Testing 1…2…3…

Getting ready for the event. Primarily we need to work on dressage. Well, actually we need to work on water, banks, and ditches. Since the later three aren’t available to work on…it’s dressage. I decided to go gadget free. Just the loose ring. We worked inside. Of course, it took about 30 minutes to get Frankie loose, relaxed, and focusing. He was so good! Our transitions, not too shabby. His head wasn’t in the clouds, he was relaxed, soft, and even... Read More

Tension Builds

It was raining today which was okay since I needed to work on the dressage test once again. We warmed up for about 15 minutes then got to work on the test. First run was pretty good, but I questioned if I actually remembered it correctly. I checked my notes, and I made one mistake on a working trot to medium walk transition. I just did the transition one letter too soon. Second run was pretty good, but the working canter to working trot transition was good, unfortunately the... Read More