Horse Show Videos!

Here are a couple videos from the hunter schooling show E and I attended at Chagrin Valley Farms!

This is one of Johnny's trips in the 2ft hunters. He was such a good boy! This is the first time we've completed a "real" hunter course with flowers, bushes, boxes and gates :) He didn't look at anything and we even cantered two consecutive lines, although his jump on the out of the first outside line is pretty wonky...he was cross-cantering though so that would be why it got so ugly! We (unbelievable) got 8th out of 10 horses...I have NO idea how that happened since we technically broke gait and trotted, but it was a schooling show and we weren't the only ones who trotted fences so maybe he just trotted them better? lol I have no idea!



This next video is E and my lovely 23 year old hunter mare Emmy (reg. USHJA as "In Vogue") in their Adult Equitation class. They got 2nd with this round and were Reserve Champion of the day :))



Peace.Love.Ponies.

Horse Show!

Emmy and Johnny went to Chagrin Valley Farms today to show in their hunter schooling show. E showed Emmy in the Adults and I put Johnny in just two over fences classes of the Limit Rider (not that I'm really a limit rider...but its a schooling show so no one really minds a green horse in there). After a shaky warm up, E and Emmy went into their classes. Emmy pulled a 5th in her warm up...which was really quite the warm up o.0 and after some tears at the outgate and words of encouragement at the ingate, E went back into the ring strong and layed down two more really nice trips of Emmy. Chagrin added Equitation over fences to their prize list for almost every division, (which is really awesome!) so E went in that too. Emmy was super fantastic that they had a good round with just one minor late lead change behind. When the results came back Emmy was 3rd in her first trip, 2nd in the second trip and second in the Equitation. All week E and I have been working on flatting and I told E ahead of time that Emmy would win the hack if she let her and rode her right. It must have completely come together because lo and behold, the did win the hack and were 2nd in Eq. on the flat, making Emmy the Reserve Champion in her division!!

Johnny went next and after a super quick warm up in the show ring we went into our 2' class. Johnny was such a good boy in the first trip...he jumped everything and kept going forward...this is the first time we've ever gotten around a REAL course with flowers, bushes and boxes without stopping. I let him choose his gait and he often close to canter down the lines. For our second trip, I kept him cantering and we cantered the diagonal line followed by the outside line. Wouldn't you know that he actually GOT A RIBBON?? We got 8th out of 10 horses!!! Over all it was a super awesome show!

Peace.Love.Ponies.

CVF Pictures

As promised...here are some photos from the show...links to the YouTube videos soon to follow!

Showing off our ribbons!

A blurry Johnny wearing his blue! (below)

Love.

Sleepy baby! He was soooo tired...and yes, that is my girth that he's laying on. I saddled him up and ran to the office to see what split I was in, came back and he was passed out! Turns out that I was riding in the second group, so I just went in, undid the girth, lifted the saddle off and just left the girth for when he got up. He didn't even flinch.

My boyfriend surpised me!

Peace.Love.Ponies.

Johnny plays in the hunters!

Yesterday my friend L and I packed up our stuff and our horses and headed out to Chagrin Valley Farms for their hunter show. We decided only to show on Sunday (Academy day) since neither of our horses was really ready for the Saturday show. Since Johnny's only gone over fences twice at a show (both times with stops...the very first time we schooled great and then couldn't even make it around the course) I decided to shoot low...low level class with low expectations of him. My biggest mistake in the beginning of his show career was thinking that he was going to come out of the field and be kind of competitive. Thinking back on the Chagrin Classic and the Kiwanis Show, each time Johnny had a stop to a jump was because he was looking at the people around the ring and not at the jump in front of him. I knew that the big plexiglass "wall of windows" at CVF was going to be a potential problem for him, but I also knew that he's gotten to the point where he's not greenly over-jumping fences any more, so when picking a division I knew I wanted something that was going to make him put out a tensie bit of effort, without being so big that if his mind went ADD we were going to get a stop too it. In the end, I went with (dun, dun, dun....) walk/trot/canter 18" hahaha. It sounds so silly but it was the perfect class for him. Trotting wasn't penalized, nor was cantering, so tracking to the left we could canter, and to the right we could trot if he didn't land the lead (which he hasn't been lately -.-) and it wouldn't be a problem. It turned out to be the perfect idea!

We hauled in Saturday night and didn't get a chance to school until almost 11:30pm when the jumpers finally wrapped up. L and I rode in the warm up ring and Johnny jumped a meduim sized cross-rail, low vertical, and then maybe a 2'3" vertical (all with flower boxes under them) without ever even looking at them...a BIG step up from when I am used to with Emmy! We cantered in to all of these jumps off the left and he was absolutly perfect! He wasn't even trying over the 2'3" fence, and just sailed over it, right out of stride...also a big step up from where we started! He still tends to jump more "up" than "across" the jumps, but maybe some work over low oxers will help tune that up a bit and teach him to reach a little more.

Sunday morning, L and I got up early to school in the show ring. Johnny was pretty tense going in and inspected the "wall o' windows" with great curiosity. It was actually really funny because he just stood there watching people walk back and forth and following them with his head. He's a smart boy though. After a few good sniffs and a long, comtemplative stare, he decided that the windows were just fine with him and so we went along on our merry way. We stratigically schooled at the 2ft height because I wanted him to go into his class and be like "oh! this is easier than we practiced!" He was pretty good...he stopped once at the out of a line and got in BIG trouble for it for two reasons. First of all, it was a dirty stop. Down right dirty. He trotted right up to it with his ears perked, happy as a clam and then SLAMMED on the breaks and did the dirty "duck and cover" spin that Emmy was so famous for.  Second of all, the jump was seriously small enough for him to walk over. There weren't any flowers, nothing scary that he might spook at...just plain white poles in a semi-empty arena. I was like "oh HELL no..." caught him with a left bearing rein, right opening rein, and a jab to the side with my left leg. I seriously think that my quick reaction to it really surprised him, because he stopped mid-spin and bounced a little with his front legs. And then just to make myself perfectly clear, he got a good slap behind my leg with my hand and he KNEW he was in trouble then. He bounced again and when I turned him back towards it he lept into a canter and sailed across it like "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I was just kidding...really!" On the back side I let him canter through the corner and then slowed him quietly to a stop so that he wouldn't learn to run away from it. When he was still, I stroked his neck and made a BIG fuss about what a good boy he was. I must have gotten my point across, because he didn't even think about stopping again for the rest of the day. He's old enough now and has enough mileage schooling that its really just unacceptable for him to stop at a stick on the ground and I believe that I made that perfectly clear today. Mind you, I am the first to stop and assess things when there is a legitimate reason for him to be stopping, like if he's a little unsound or the jumps are scary or he's maybe getting pushed a little too far to fast, but thats definetly not the case here at all. He was really just being rude.

After our schooling, he got to head back to his stall to munch hay while L showed her horse in the 2ft Adults. They did really well...2nd in the Warm Up, and 4th in their first and second trips. Then it was Johnny's turn. My goal for the day was for him to just get around the course quietly...I stuck with my low expectation plan and just wanted a clean, decisive ride, and thats exactly what he gave me. Both trips were really great and he only looked at the window once around the first turn, but I quickly got his attention back and we had two nice, quiet, clean rides. I was very pleased! When the placings came out, we got the icing on the cake! 2nd in the first trip and 1st in the second trip out of a 5 other horses (the division got split into A and B groups...so we placed out of the 5 in our split...eleven total in the division.) I was so proud of him! He wore his blue ribbon on his bridle all the way back to his stall and got showered in kisses and cookies!  I'm so proud of him! We're going to try to get to most of the winter schooling shows so that both horses can get some more mileage. It was a great show day!

Pictures coming soon!

Johnny and the Brecksville Horse Show

Yesterday Johnny and I competed in the Brecksville Horse Show along side my best friend C and her Quarter Horse mare "Abbie." The morning started off with quite a few mishaps. First of all, I woke up a tad late to misting rain outside my window. Since this show is held on grass, my first thought was "oh great...the ground is going to be muddy and slippery." Second, as I was driving to the barn C called me to say that her alarm hadn't gone off this morning, and that she was running close to an hour late. So much for making our warm up 2ft class....but it was still misting and so I decided that it was no big deal, better to just take our time and not rush. Since we didn't have to pre-enter for this show, missing classes wasnt a huge deal. Johnny was waiting in the barn along side a very impaient Emmy who has been chosen to stay in with Johnny to keep him company (the horses go out at night when its cooler, so Johnny had to stay in to keep clean.) Braiding him was another fiasco...he hates it. He will stand for hours in the crossties for anything other than braiding, and its not that he just jigs...he WALKs back and forth or if you tie him up he just bounches his head up and down in protest. Poor John. I try my hardest not to get mad at him, because I know that this is all new to him, but after the 5th time of him shaking the same braid out of my hand, my patience begins to run a little low. I manage to only really yell at him once, which I have to say he deserved, and I think he got the point, because he stood very well after that.

We arrived at the show ten minutes before the start at 9am (my first class was supposed to be at 9) Since we had decided to scratch the first class, there was no rush for anything, so we opened up the trailer and went to register. Johnny was entered in the 18" schooling over fences in the hunter ring and open walk/trot english pleasure and english equitation in the main ring. I gave him a nice hack around the show ground early, and he was very quiet. E and his mom showed up just as I was getting ready for my pleasure class in the main ring. It was nice of them to come and watch :) I told them not to expect any ribbons today...the classes were large and filled with nice Quarter Horses and Arabians. My class was called to the ring with 16 horses in it...Quarter Horses and Paints and Arabians all filed in before us...nice pleasure horses too. At the in gate, I gathered my reins and asked John to trot.

We trotted into the arena, flanked by box seats, booths, tents and tarps. There were flowers around the announcers stand in the middle of the ring, music playing and people everywhere, but for the first time ever Johnny held his composure. He stretched his neck down, flung his legs out and trotted around the arena at an even pace, bending into his corners and keeping his lips quiet around the bit (he likes to flap his lower lip when he's nervous...it's actually quite humerous...) We walk and trotted both directions of the ring and were called to the line up where the judge came down and one by one, asked us to please back up our horses. "Great" I thought. "Johnny's favorite thing to do...NOT" but when she came up to us, I put my leg on, wiggled the reins and to my surprise he dropped his nose and backed right up! I was so pleased with him that I broke my own composure and gave him a big pat and a scratch right there in the show ring. So what if the judge had just seem me drop my reins to congradulate him? We weren't going to place against these horses anyway. The show was COSCA rated and they were all here getting points for the year end championships. John and I had our own personal best ride...last place (6th in the ribbons) out of 16 horses would be a HUGE accomplishment if we could even pull that off. The announcer clicked on over the loud speaker. "Thank you class number 12, open walk/trot english pleasure sponsered by...." she carried on to announce the class sponsers and the presentors of todays ribbons and throphy. "In first place, winner of the rosette and trophy we would like to congratulate number 932..."

No one stepped forward.

"Walk The Line, owned and shown by Kate Hanneman..."

Wait. Oh my god thats US! I hope that the photographer got a picture of my face when I realized that Johnny and I had just beat some of the best walk/trot pleasure horses in the state. I was somewhere between laughing and crying while the ring master presented us with a big blue ribbon and an engraved pewter plate. Even with Emmy I had never even PLACED at this horse show against the trained pleasure horses...let alone WON it. I was so proud of Johnny!! The Standardbred kicked pleasure horse butt!!!

Our jumping warm up went awesome as well. It was not judged, but Johnny and I cantered over almost the entire course. C told me that he looked like a million bucks out there, cantering down the lines like a "real" horse haha. Again I was so proud of him! After that it was back to the main ring for equitation, where Johnny again performed like a super star, winning that class as well!!!

I couldn't have asked for a better day with him! Afterwards I went to the consession stand and bought him a little box full of plain donoughts as a reward. Him and Abbie shared them with joy! I think he slept almost the whole trailer ride back, I kept turning around to look at his silhouette through the back window and the tips of his ears were barely visible.
Being a champion must be hard work.

Peace.Love.Ponies.