Wowza, it’s been awhile since I last blogged! I’m really not sure where to start. If you follow me on Instagram (Maren_Eventing) then you probably aren’t too far behind on what’s been going on around here (spoiler if you aren’t on Insta, absolutely nothing.).
Brianna got some amazing pictures of my Ollie🥰
Obviously, I haven’t really been doing anything Lately because of Covid, and therefore don’t have a lot too update anyone on, but My coach opened back up for lessons earlier this month! I had a fabulous jump lesson* a week or two (who can keep track anymore?) ago, and I have another one booked for tomorrow as long as the weather corporates.
* social distancing style of course!
all the jumps got repainted and look AMAZING! Plus this fancy for sale sign one is new! Of course my little wonder pony didn’t even look at it even though we hadn’t had a serious jump school in months!! (Ok now I know I’m starting to gush about how awesome Ollie is but like… look at his adorable knees too🤩)
I think I’ll just stick a bunch more pictures from My last lesson and leave it at that for today… I really want to start blogging more again, but it almost feels like I need to do some massive update on what’s happened in the past 6 or so months? No way that’s actually going to happen so I’m just going to pretend I’ve been blogging and try too start up again. Maybe I’ll do a lesson recap sometime in the next week or so after my lesson tomorrow.
He’s like the cutest super pony everMy blog has decided it won’t let me add any videos unfortunately… pictures will have to do for now!Bit of an awkward jump in… this was a skinny one stride to a vertical one stride to another skinnyAs you can see we barley made it over this one…And we finished over this one! I’m not really sure when I decided that 3’5” triple bars looked jumpable but… it didn’t look that scary cantering up to it!
This post is going to be big and a random bunch of stuff, but please bare with me. First off, lesson yesterday! My coach started off by setting up a zigzag bounce that looked like this;
The black lines are jumps, and the green line is how you jump through it. (All bounces)
which we trotted through with the poles on the ground. We cantered through, Then coach put two of them up into jumps. Once we’d done that we repeated in the other way, then coach put the remaining two poles up into jumps and we cantered through.
Annddd… I made a bit of a mess of it. But we went through again and it was good. And we went through it the other direction as well.
We’d been doing this bounce, then around to another bounce besides the barrel jump. We switched things up through so that instead of the second bounce we would do the Barrel/Tarp jump. Ollie didn’t realize that, he still thought we were jumping the bounce (my fault.) so when he say the tarp he just stopped. Also, tarps are the one thing that Ollie seems to be scared of.
Ollie- “whaaaaa-”Ollie- “oh, ok.”
once the “drama” had been resolved, we jumped it off of left rein.
Ollie- “still not sure bout this thing…”Ollie- “Hmm… I’ll keep my eye on it.”
then it turned into a little course; yellow upright, stone wall, bounce, yellow upright going the other way, barrels, FORGET COURSE! (But It should have been triple combination, into the indoor and out over the blue polka dot to red upright line.)
Coach raised the two line sides, the stone wall, and the second two jumps in the triple combination up to (😳) three foot. (coach also laughed and said that Entry would now look easy. Not sure that will happen but what ever lol) and after a walk break we went and did that.
Weee!!!🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳 can I say how much I love my pony?!? Bc I don’t think I say it enough! He was totally opening up his stride and giving me his all! And the striding was actually tight for him on the last line. (Hence the rail) which is a new thing for us! Hehe. (Can u tell how pleased I am that I’ve now survived TWO courses at 3’?)
Should I be apologizing for the very large amount of media in this post? Probably. #notsorry
on to the next order of business, Lilliput! She’s been doing great in her ground driving! And I finely got new tires for her buggy…. can you see where this is going?
The princess also got shaved about a week or so ago. It’s definitely easier to brush her;) and I think she likes not being so hot.
I’ve had her pull her buggy a couple times recently, either with me leading by her head, or standing behind the buggy and walking along with the reins to give her an idea of leading by herself. (not sure if that’s the right way to train or not… maybe don’t do it? Worked for me though.) so today when I took her over to my coach’s arena, and she was being SO GOOD! I just couldn’t resist hopping in. I only went around once, I didn’t want to over do anything:) but I did get to ride down coach’s driveway and then up mine.
SO FUN!
(sorry, Video is sideways.)
I’m veerrrryyy tempted to put more photos, but I’m trying to tell myself that I’ve already posted so many.
also, I’ve now got an Instagram! although I have no idea how to use it… so please go check it out at Poniesandpotter! And questions for anyone who have a blog and Instagram, how to you get your Instagram feed to show at the bottom of your blog? Right now I’m thinking It’s wizardry. (Hey! Maybe I should just send a letter to Dumbledore and ask him.)
Ha! We all knew I’d sneak one more picture in here somewhere.
I normally think of myself as having fairly good impulse control. (For eventers that is, what’s amazing control for horse riders is probably average control for sane people) but… the other day I stumbled upon a BEAUTIFUL creation. It was a rich chocolatey brown, with light cream padding, sparkling gold browband, a fancy noseband… it was so pretty. You can imagine my horror when I realized it only came in Cob. No way will Ollie fit into a Cob sized Bridle. He’s either a Horse size, or sometimes even a Warmblood.
Anyone have any Cob sized Ponies that need a BEAUTIFUL new bridle?
after I’d gotten over the shock of not being able to purchase it, I found out that they come in Pink! In some ways, the pink is even prettier. All the buckles on it are ROSE GOLD and it has the nicest shade of Light pink padding on the nose, complete with Pink crystals on the browband 🤩 annnnnnddd it comes in Brown OR black, with sizing Cob and Horse. Need. The only thing that’s holding me back from buying it is A) I do NOT need it. I have a wonderful solo equine Dressage bridle which I adore. And B) pink has honestly never been my favourite colour. It’s just so beautiful tho… I’m trying to get Brianna to get one. (I think I have her convinced) The pink would go SO awesome with her pink/purple Jin’s!
Brianna’s stirrups look like this, except the purple is on the top and the pink is on the fills.
And the bridle in pink looks like this;
Tanta would look so cute in this thing.
my favourite is still the brown with cream padding. It’s so pretty! Would it be wrong for me to buy it just so that I could hang it in my room and stare at it all day? Ok fine. I won’t do that. But I could definitely see myself buying it if it came in Horse size. I also stumbled across the pink beauty in brown, and it’s super gorgeous as well. I’m thinking it would look good the the chestnut mare we currently have boarding here… maybe I can talk her owner into buying it.
❤️❤️
truefully, I just love to hoard Bridles. It’s my one weakness. Other things? Yes, I want them. But I won’t just buy them bc they are pretty. But… bridles? MY ONE WEAKNESS. It’s terrible. I do not need more brides. Like I said before, I have my AMAZING Solo Sion for Dressage (they don’t make the Sion anymore, but they do have lots of other awesome bridles!) I have my Micklem for jumping, and This one that I got on sale for $20 and use If I’m showing Hunters. No need for more bridles. But… we’ll see.
Meet Marigold (aka Goldy) she’s one of Daisy’s puppies, who are all reaching the six week mark today! It’s crazy how big they are getting. Goldy will be staying and will be my pup💕🌼(I’ll post more pictures soon, don’t worry)
and now for a Ollie update. he got his first set of Shoes on last Thursday, and seems to be loving them. He isn’t stiff in his hind end at all and I can definitely notice a difference in his canter. In my lesson a couple days ago coach set up a two stride-one stride, and you’ll never guess it, but I had to hold him back to get the striding. Like omg. That has N E V E R happened before. It has never even come CLOSE to happening. But I have video proof.
I think he likes the shoes. Anyways, this post is dragging on so I’ll wrap things up. I have a jumper show coming up this Saturday, so hopefully that will go well!
Mr. Fancy pants here just completed one of his first flying changes.
Seriously. All this snow is getting on my nerves! At first, it was nice. And I loved it. Then it was ok. Then it got a little annoying. And currently it’s driving me mad.
fresh snow is AWESOME. Day old snow is NOT. It snowed Saturday night/Sunday morning… and was lovely! All fluffy! And PERFECT snowball snow! However, last night it went down to -6 and all the snow turned to ice😑 yay. we cannot scoop the paddocks, since the snow/ice it covering it. But I must say that the paddock looks awful… it’s not that it’s full of poo or anything, it’s just all mucked up. And looks awful.
This picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s wayyyy worse in person.
blah.
do to the -6 weather, all the water buckets have also been freezing overnight (and in the day… since its highs of -1)
lovely. now my gloves are soaking wet.
also… we have lots of hidden ice patches, so you have to watch where you step.
but the MOST ANNOYING thing is this, we don’t really have any hills on our property… so no sledding. well… the only “hill” that would work is… umm… the manure pile. and we did not want to sled on that. definitely not. so no sledding. we did try to find other hills! but no luck. since the sleds were out already though, I thought we could try a bit of “despooking” hahahaha.
umm… mom? what this thing on my neck?I better be getting cookies for this…
haha. he did not care at all. he WOULD like the snow to disappear like me though. or fresh snow, so that he can get a new snowman.
Rest in peace dear snowman…
he would also like more cookies.
I want another cookie mommy.come on! look at how cute I am!give me more cookies already!
that’s all for today! hopefully this snow either melts soon or we get fresh stuff!
I’ve drafted sooo many posts then never got around to finishing them. And then it’s too late to post them. So this is draft number 17. And I’m hoping I will actually get around to publishing it…?
I haven’t been doing much lately. I’m starting to get our mini horse back in shape so that she can pull her buggy again. She was pulling it a couple years ago but then pulled her suspensory ligament… so she was on stall rest/rehab for while there. but she’s doing better and I’ve been ground driving her😁
As you can see she’s adorable! and very well behaved too!! Besides from ground driving the pony, I haven’t been doing much. I read a couple books… and I’m making an effort to ride more. I really did not ride much over the holidays and its showing in my “super crazy” horse who refuses to bend. 😒 since I have a jump show coming up mid February I REALLY need to work on my jumping. I’ve probably jumped three times since christmas. and nothing over the 2’3” mark… since I’m planning on starting at 2’6” courses I need to work on it. desperately. I’m not sure if I’m going up to 2’9”… or 3′. but regardless I need more practice.
actually… that jump might have been 2’6”?
sorry this picture is really bad quality
all this free time has left me with too much time to window shop. and spend money I DO NOT have. (also big question, new stirrup leathers or books??)
This is just going to be a really short post… but I’m working on 16 others! (haha lol) Maybe one of them will survive the chopping block.
this pic is almost a year old… buuuttttttt Ollie is so cute.
Ponies and Potter 