I almost let it go - but then I remembered that I hadn't mentioned about my latest coach/student torture lesson. You know to the mild mannered student when you meet Brianne you think - what a wonderful coach, but I think in her past life she was a Dominatrix. Thursday's lesson originally got bumped due to my boss being in town, then Friday we had a wind storm kick up that from no where, and would have blown me off Ozzy. So we postponed it until Saturday morning.
Saturday morning, was a nicely warm morning, everyone was happy and pleasant, my coach was smiling... I saddled up Oz and off we went to warm up. Then smiling she tied up my stirrups and off we went for 3 laps going each way. Sitting trot - which as nice as Oz is to ride - he is AWFUL to sit a trot to!!! So once my thighs, butt and girly parts were significantly screaming in pain - I got my stirrups back - only to have my reins taken away. Now at a walk this wasn't so bad, and even at a trot - not terribly bad - but to two point without stirrups - was hell! I swear she knows when I start thinking all cocky, like hey maybe I can actually ride well, and then she throws that at me and its a humbling fall to the beginning all over again. Poor Oz was so patient with this out of shape middle aged woman flopping all over his back. Then FINALLY we got our reins back also and worked on lengthing the trot and also sitting and turning him tightly. Almost felt like it was a turn on the haunches at the end of the length wise serpentine.
We finished off with a couple of jumps both ways. But we worked mostly on flat work again. Stressed poor Ozzy's brain, and stressed my poor thighs (I think today is the first day and its Monday that I feel no pain). But again, we end each lesson feeling like I have accomplished something new, or atleast that it finally sunk in. I love jumping but I'm seeing where the flat lessons are definately a huge benefit to us when we start jumping again. But I'm also really loving the feeling of him when he goes beautifully on the bit. So dressage is also in our next year.
November and December will be hard months to keep up with a full riding schedule. I had wanted to ride a minimum of 3 days a week, but when its black outside, AND freezing cold, AND blowing either snow or wind its hard to get motivated to ride in those conditions. Top that with Christmas parties and other winter events, it does leave one frusterated... but anxious for the new year to come and us to get back on schedule. But the thought of taking a full month off is even more depressing and something I don't want to do even slightly.
I am looking forward to hitting spring, fit, in shape and a strong team.
From The Manure Pile
After our lesson the four of us headed up to the Armstrong Valley Auctions, more for entertainment and socializing then looking for something to purchase. Now I understand what an auction is, and I know that a local farm auction in mind November is not going to be full of 10 - 15k horses. Thats just not going to happen. But what gets my goat is these people that drop the horse off with no information on it at all.... instead of having you go through the expense of hauling the horse down, and paying the auction house their commission, why not just take it straight to the meat buyer directly. In most cases I believe they will even pick up. After all if there is NO information on your horse, not a breed, age, general information - where else do you think its going to go?!!
And for those of you that do stay with your horses and provide information - you know breeding is ONLY going to get you so far!!! Guess what well bred parents can still produce P.O.S (piece of sh**) babies. So if your horse can ride - then either you or pay someone to ride them in. If your telling people that the horse is bomb proof to ride, but your leading it in - people are going to wonder why.
AND PEOPLE BRUSHING YOUR HORSE IS NOT HARD - I can count EASILY of how many horses went through the sale clean and fully brushed out. And I can count those horses on one hand. I don't care if your only selling stock off the ranch - it takes what 2 minutes to run a brush through a tail and clean out the burrs - and maybe 5 minutes to wipe off the horse crap from its legs. Food is also fairly important to selling a horse..... there were a number of them there that frankly looked like skeltons! If you can't afford to feed your horse, then yes the auction is a good place to get rid of them, but if you should also know a couple of months ahead of time that you aren't going to be able to feed them - so find them an auction immediately or sell them for a couple of hundred dollars to the meat man - at least there they will see a meal a day! Also if your horse has an obvious injury, which two very nice looking horses did - deal with it up front, I suspect both those horses could have gone on to bigger bids if the people in the stadium were told why the obvious injury was there. Possibly as simple as a bang on the head, or something cosmetically broken, or anything that could be simply explained away, by not referring to what EVERYONE is seeing, just makes people wonder why are they not mentioning it.
And finally if you are BUYING a horse from an auction - YOU ARE NOT RESCUEING THEM!!!! I'm getting so sick and tired of seeing ads reading that so and so rescued this horse and is now trying to sell them to a new home... knowing full way I watched them purchase the horse for a tenth of what they are currently trying to sell them for. And they claim to rescue from the auction.
According to dictionary.reference.com the following means to rescue:
res⋅cue /ˈrɛskyu/
verb, -cued, -cu⋅ing, noun
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