Yikes.

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.

little pony update!

Time for a update on the little pony! a while ago (3-4 months?) I got into the habit of ground driving her more regularly, but then winter came, and I stopped   but recently, I found her old buggy hidden away in the falling down shed…

super old, and look at all that rust! but… ideas started to form.

and… now she is back in work! hehe. before I used the buggy again, I wanted to clean/sand/re-paint it for sure. and odvi I needed to work with pony a bit… but Lilliput has been great! and I sanded the buggy, then started re-painting. while the buggy was originally black, I wanted something a little more fun! like red. so I had my mom and sister pick up two cans of spray paint for me. two cans should have covered the buggy. right? NOPE. turns out, two cans is NOT enough. I actually needed five cans. but It’s finely done. and looks a lot better. And the wheels also got a fresh coat of paint lol.

 

unfortunately, the innertube of one of the wheels is broken… so I have to fix that. but other then that, it’s ready to go! as for Lilliput, she’s been awesome lately. she has never been a huge fan of her driving bridle… so I’m switching some things up, to see if she likes it better. she has a bitless bridle, but she’s uncontrollable in it. lol… and then she has her driving bridle, with a bit. but she does not like the blinders on her driving bridle… or the bit for that matter 🙂 so I pulled the check pieces off her driving bridle (they had the blinkers on them) and put the check pieces from her bitless on the driving bridle instead. then I took the nose band from her BL bridle, (lets start calling them D bridle and BL bridle) and put in on the D bridle… the nose band from the BL bridle has the side pull, so I used “bit converters” aka Maren’s homemade bit converters made out of bailers twine. To connect the bit with the side pull. Haha.

It’s not like I plan on showing her or anything… so it works?!

and bingo! She goes great in it. The other day I gave just the BL one last try, but, alas, I got dragged all over the place. Last Tuesday, I used just the D bridle with the bit. But she was super sensitive, and since I can’t go *kick kick* I want something that lets her pull into my hands a bit so that I’m not constantly clucking. It didn’t work that way with the bit, and with the BL it was waaaayyyyyy to much pulling into my hands. But with the converters, perfect! She’s pulling lightly into my hands, stops and goes super easy, and without the blinkers she doesn’t fuss with her head much.

So hopefully, I’ll be able to fix that innertube soon… and attached the pony to the cart!! I’m getting quite excited.🥳

Pc taken before Bridle switch. 🙂

but. Of course, we happen to have a major problem… Lilliput’s harness has started falling apart on me. #whenyoudon’tcleanyourtackfor3years

Ugh. The girth broke awhile back(she never used it though, she needed a COB sized girth. 😳 Yes she’s super fat) while I was cleaning it I might add. I was scrubbing the buckle, and POP! The leather snapped and the buckle flew across the room. And just the other day, when I was ground driving the pony, we were heading towards the barn, the all of a sudden, one of the rein terrets (I think that’s what it’s caled?) popped off! What?!? So… now I somehow need to find her a new harness. I feel fine ground driving in this one, worse case scenario something brakes and we stop. But I wouldn’t feel comfortable attaching a buggy with me in it into this harness… a new harness is now a must. Depending on how nice a one I want… they can range from $100(awful cheap things) to $6,000(super fancy show ones) I found a couple possibilities, but everything seems to be in the US… so I’d have to pay the price change to Canadian, then extra shipping, then duty. Which limits my searching to somewhere in Canada. I’ve found a couple harness stores, but everything is $600-2,500. Waaaayyy out of my price range. ($100-250 lol)  the only cheaper option I’ve found is a Tough 1 miniature driving harness, which I’ve heard some VERY bad reviews about, some unknown brand off of Amazon… or a harness from a tack store that doesn’t say the brand of the harness. Or I could spend $650, and get a “nice” harness, but I don’t have the money to buy something like that. Especially since she won’t be showing. I just need a good quality harness to fit a 9.1ish hh pony that is under preferably under $200,  $300 MAX if it’s pretty😁. (I’d be splitting the cost with my sister lol) any ideas where to look? There’d be much appreciated!😁

 

 

My sister is naughty.

Yeah, ok. Maybe that’s a weird title for a blog post, maybe something like how my sister is spending all my money, or something simpler like how I ended up wth all this stuff. Pick any of the three. They are all unfortunately acurate and true. it all started with blankets. While we were away having fun in California, Rasty shredded up Lilliput’s one and only winter blanket. Clearly we immediately decided to get her another, perhaps in pink. Then the tack store that carries some of my favourite blankets had a sale on. Too much to resist. We ordered a blanket for Lill, one for Rasty, and one for Tanta. Unfortunately. None of them fit. I don’t know why? We got our horses regular sizes, so by all means they should have fit! Or at the very least not hung a foot off. I had grabbed a leather hole punch that was on sale when we got the blankets, so that was the one bonus. I guess we’ll end up shipping back the blankets.

 

This is where Brianna actually started to get naughty. The blankets weren’t that bad. We did actually need them. The breeches however? Nope. Did not need. TWO pairs of breeches? I definitely did NOT need. Apparently, according to my sister, both the pairs of breeches I got are lovely. I… couldn’t actually say. Why? Because one; I didn’t actually really look at them, And two; I forget what they even look like. I think one pair is… white? Green? Tan? I know not. And three; my sister cornered my at 1am when I wasn’t thinking straight and somehow convinced me that it was a AWESOME idea to spend  $320 On these breeches, and since then I’ve basically forgotten that I ordered them, because… I didn’t? I got cornered in the middle of the night and threatened into buying these breeches so that Brianna would have someone to share the cost of shipping her breeches to us with. Yeah. I’m regretting it slightly. Hopefully these breeches will fit me? Because I have no idea what size Brianna ordered me. 😬

Did I mention that I’m training my horse to go bridleless? He’s loving it btw.

Luckily, that is all the damage my poor bank account has suffered so far. Unluckily, Brianna is currently trying to force me into buying New stirrups, saddle pad, brown riding gloves, TWO new show jackets, stirrup leathers, a SECOND dressage bridle (because I totally need two? When I only have one horse?) a SADDLE. And Soooooo much more. She’s been the most crazy about the show jackets, but I’m against having three of them. If you need more convincing on the fact that I’m not making this up, look at the text she sent me tonight trying to get me to buy a pair of gloves I think are ugly.

I love the #spendallmarens$$$. NOT. How much longer can I put up with this before she drives me over the edge and I dump her phone in the manure pile? I really don’t know. Probably not much longer. Please wish me luck.

Alright. Manure pile… here I come.