Trail Ride

It was hot today, around 81 at 2pm, so Brownie wasn’t too excited about going on a ride. I took it kind of slow, only one longer lope on the grassy part of James Road.
Later it seemed like he was lame, but didn’t really slowed down on the way back. I had him walk and it seemed to go away.
I have to watch this and also told Stephanie about it.
When I came back from the ride I noticed I had left the door to the feed room open and Stephanie’s horses were enjoying a bale of hay and had gone into the big bucket of grain. Fortunately they didn’t cause too much damage and chaos, maybe because Brownie wasn’t amongst them…

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Fencing

I didn’t ride the horse today, but took my whole family to help me clean his pen and build the electric fence that’s supposed to keep in inside the pasture and prevent him from breaking the wooden fence surrounding it.
We didn’t quite have enough posts and nothing for the gate, but got everything done that we could with what we had.
I’ll just have to buy some more supplies before my little chaos pony can go back out again.

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Tosohatchee State Preserve

I didn’t ride Brownie all week because we were in New Orleans, but before I even got back home Stephanie called and asked if I was up for a trail ride in Christmas on Saturday.
Of course I was!
So we met in the morning, loaded up three horses – Pattie for Stephanie, Roy for Bailey and Brownie for me – and went to a park with miles and mile of nice grassy and sandy trails.
We rode through a huge variety of landscapes: jungle, swamp, pine forest, and flatwood prairie just to name the most common.
And even though we let the horses run real fast once and had to ride through mud and water, I didn’t lose a single easy boot.
After the ride the horses got to eat some grass before we went back home.
It was a fun ride and so nice to be carried and being out in the jungle instead of all the walking in New Orleans (that was a lot of fun also, but very different).

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Arena

I rode in the arena again today while my parents cleaned up Brownie’s pen. I let the fence stop the horse which worked ok and did some rollbacks along the fence to simulate the cow.
I didn’t have too much time, so I kept it short, only 30 minutes, but it was fun.
Before we left my dad rode Brownie for a little bit. Brownie behaved very well – as usual – and my dad really enjoyed the short ride.

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Spaziergang zu viert

Fuer meine Eltern war es heute der erste Tag in Florida und da sie Brownie noch gar nicht kannten war dann auch direkt Zeit, sie vorzustellen. Ich wollte nun natuerlich auch nicht vom hohen Ross auf sie hinunter schauen, aber trotzdem etwas mit Brownie machen, wenn wir schon mal da waren und so haben wir dann einfach alle zusammen einen schoenen Spaziergang im Dschungel gemacht und ich konnte ihnen mein Ausreitgelaende zeigen.
Sie waren ganz beeindruckt, wie brav Brownie ist und was fuer ein nettes Pferdchen und natuerlich auch von der Landschaft, denn etwas Vergleichbares haben sie vorher auch noch nie “live” gesehen.

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How Now Brown Cow

Unter diesem selbstausgedachten Shownamen werde ich Brownie im April zum Working Cow Horse Turnier anmelden.

Wenn wir bis dahin so einigermassen Reining koennen. Heute am ersten Uebungstag hatten wir da noch so unsere Probleme, denn ich bin ja seit Ewigkeiten fast nur im Gelaende geritten.

Aber zum Glueck gibt es ja Buecher, in denen man alles uebers Westernreiten nachlesen kann und natuerlich Stephanie, die jede Menge Ahnung hat und fest zugesagt mir bei dieser Aufgabe zu helfen!

Working Cow Horse

Driving home from the barn last night I was thinking about which new thing I could try this weekend when my phone rang.
It was Stephanie who invited me to go to Sarasota with her to watch a working cow horse show. I’ve never been to such a show before and going places with her always turns out to be fun, so I immediately agreed and Jon also did as soon as I got home and told him.

Jon and I, Laura and her two little girls, and Stephanie and her neighbor’s girl Bailey drove for 2 1/2 hours all the way across the state of Florida the next morning to see the horses and riders in action. Fortunately her sweet grandmother – the one we’d gone to the dinner show with last weekend – let us borrow her mini van so we could all ride together.

Working cow horse is a combination of reining, the western dressage, and cutting, the part they actually get a cow involved.
As we missed the morning shows with the pros and just got to see the intermediate and green classes the cutting was pretty basic. They “just” had to keep the calf on one side of the arena and not let it get past the horse without touching it.
It was great seeing the horses paying attention to the cattle’s movement and working with the riders.

The reining part with all the sliding stops, spins, lead changes and speed control was very interesting and fun to watch, too and it actually got me motivated to go and try to get in a show like that with Brownie, too. I think it would be a great new experience and Stephanie agreed to drive little Brownie and me and help me with the cow work.

Now I have a good reason to work Brownie in the arena more.
Neither Brownie nor me really knows how to spin or slide as impressively as those quarter horses, but in the green horse/green rider class not everybody does and there were some in that class who were bouncing around on their horses, so I would at least not get last place.
The show and the whole day were really nice and I enjoyed it a lot.

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Im Dschungel

Habe es heute endlich mal wieder geschafft, einen etwas längeren Ausritt unternommen um mal nachzuschauen, wie gut die Wege im Dschungel abgetrocknet sind. Wo Brownie vor kurzem das Wasser noch bis zu den Knien stand erinnert nur noch ein bisschen Matsch an das Wassertreten unserer Herbstausritte.
Alle Wege sind trocken und gut zu reiten.
Es war aber auch sehr warm heute, sodass Brownie mit seinem Winterfell klatschnass geschwitzt war als ich wieder zum Stall kam. Zum Glück war es aber auch so warm, dass ich ihn problemlos mit dem Gartenschlauch abduschen konnte, was er auch sehr genossen hat.

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Sick Day

Ashley and I didn’t work long today – we actually quit at 10:30 because she had another appointment – so I thought I could go on a long trail ride.
Unfortunately when I started driving I also started to feel very tired and a little sick. I went there anyway and saddled Brownie, deciding to do the poop cleaning later when I’d feel better. But the opposite thing happened. As I was riding I felt worse and worse and after 1/2 mile I just wanted to go home and sleep, so I turned around. It was even hard unsaddling the horse and putting him back into his pen.
When I finally came home I just fell into the bed and slept for an hour or so. My stomach is still not feeling very good and I just hope I’ll be better tomorrow.

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Abflug

Das kommt davon, wenn man den Schlüssel zum Sattelschrank zu Hause liegen lässt: Dann muss man sich eben mit dem behelfen was man trotzdem hat und das war heute in meinem Fall ein Halfter und Führstrick von Stephanie.
Also bin ich nach dem Ausmisten mit Brownie spazieren gegangen, damit er ein bisschen raus kommt. In letzter Zeit hat er rausgefunden wie er sein Tor aus den Angeln drücken kann. Es wird Zeit, dass wir einen Elektrozaun kaufen damit er wieder auf die Weide darf!
Jedenfalls habe ich ihn heute ausgeführt und auf dem Rückweg wollte ich dann eigentlich ohne Sattel zum Stall zurück reiten.
Leider hat Brownie sich aber als wir schon fast wieder da waren vor einem alten Reifen, der auf dem Randstreifen lag, erschreckt und ist zur Seite gesprungen. Da konnte ich mich so ohne Sattel und Zaumzeug nicht mehr halten und lag auf der Straße.
Ich war zuerst wütend auf ihn, aber im Prinzip konnte er ja auch nichts dafür. Mit Sattel wäre der Mini-Hüpfer auch kein Problem gewesen.
Ich bin dann zu Fuß zum Stall zurück gegangen und habe mir fest vorgenommen, beim nächsten Mal an den Schlüssel zu denken!

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Hal Scott Trail Ride & Endre

Shelly is joining the army and off for base training next week, so we loaded the horses in Stephanie’s big trailer and hauled them to the fairly close Hal Scott Regional Park & Preserve for a last farewell trail ride.


We were a party of four girls, four horses and one dog: Stephanie rode her older mare Patty and brought along a neighbor, Susan who I had not met before riding her thoroughbred mix JD. Shelly rode Stephanie’s other mare, Patty’s sister Bita and my Brownie had to carry me of course. Stephanie’s australian shephard Joseph is just a perfectly behaved dog and you barely notice him at all on a trail ride.


The ride was fun, great company and an awesome, exiting, breathtaking gallop within the sandy horse-friendly trails along the Econlockhatchee River and flat-wood prairie.



Back at the barn we met Gwen, a new boarder and went to Canaveral Groves with her to pick up her shagya arabian mare Endre, a horse with the best endurance bloodlines. She’s 6 years old and Gwen is just breaking her right now. She bought her only 3 weeks ago, so she hasn’t been on any trails yet but is definitely interested.

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MORE PICTURES HERE

Mixy & Ruby

Stephanie brought two of her horses over from Michigan. They are appaloosas, too as all the other horses in the barn and they’ll both be 3 years old this spring. Today I saw them for the first time when I came to the barn to clean Brownie’s pen and ride him for an hour.
I rode Brownie for an hour on the neighbor’s property, because I was just too lazy to put the easy boots on and didn’t really want to have him walk on the road.I kept riding all over that 4 acre place that is mostly cleared of the jungle.
When I got back Stephanie was there and some people who just bought Mixy, so there’s really just one more horse right now. We’ll have another boarder this weekend though.
With the two horses she’d also brought 44 bales of hay from Michigan because it’s much cheaper there and as we’ll be going to use the trailer tomorrow to go on a trail ride we had to take 34 of these bales out and stack them in the feed and tack room. That was a strenuous piece of work, but we got it done all by ourselves!

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Statistik Reiten 2008

Gerittene Strecke und Geschwindigkeit

Gerittene Meilen bis zum 16.12.: 491.09 Meilen (790.33 km)
Januar: 45.03 Meilen (-) / 72.48 km; Geschw. 15:42/mile (langsamer)
Februar: 36.03 Meilen (-) / 57.98 km; Geschw.: 15:57/mile (schneller)
März: 25.43 Meilen (-) / 40.93 km; Geschw.: 14:55/mile (schneller)
April: 49.88 Meilen (+) / 80.27 km; Geschw.: 19:28/mile
Mai: 46.62 Meilen / 75.03 km; Geschw.: 19:56/mile (langsamer)
Juni: 49.98 Meilen / 80.44 km; Geschw.: 13:53/mile
Juli: 35.59 Meilen (+) / 38.1 km; Geschw.: 19:10/mile (langsamer)
August: 29.78 Meilen (-) / 47.93 km; Geschw.: 14:42/mile (langsamer)
September: 33.07 Meilen (-) / 53.22 km; Geschw.: 18:20/mile (langsamer)
Oktober: 32.74 Meilen / 52.69 km; Geschw.: 14:01/mile (langsamer)
November: 56.26 Meilen / 90.54 km; Geschw. 16:44/mile (langsamer)
Dezember:


Bestzeiten im Training
0-1 Meile: 0.63 miles 10:23 (16:29/mile) 4 August, 2007
1-2 Meilen: 1.63 miles 19:50 (12:10/mile) 13 September, 2007
2-3 Meilen: 2.92 miles 33:58 (11:38/mile) 10 Dezember, 2006
3-4 Meilen: 3.81 miles 40:11 (10:32/mile) 11 Dezember, 2007
4-5 Meilen: 4.64 miles 45:59 (9:55/mile) 21 August, 2007
5-6 Meilen: 5.04 miles 50:10 (9:57/mile) 12 September, 2007
6-7 Meilen: 6.81 miles 1:01:37 (9:02/mile) 23 November, 2008
7-8 Meilen: 7.07 miles 1:07:13 (9:30/mile) 10 Oktober, 2007
8-9 Meilen: 8.20 miles 1:43:28 (12:37/mile) 27 Oktober, 2008
9-10 Meilen: 9.38 miles 1:40:06 (10:40/mile) 18 September, 2007
10-11 Meilen: 10.35 miles 1:45:32 (10:12/mile) 29 Oktober, 2007
11-12 Meilen
12-13 Meilen: 12.73 miles 2:29:09 (11:43/mile) 11 November, 2007
13-14 Meilen
14-15 Meilen
15-16 Meilen
16-17 Meilen: 16.32 miles 4:55:40 (18:07/mile) 16 September, 2006

2008 Goals

In 2008 I want to keep riding Brownie at least three times a week. This ideally includes riding in the arena at least once a week.
I also need to clean up his pen every other day.

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