Equine highs and lows of 2009?

High for me was taking my horse over his very first Training Level cross country jump. We have done more since then, but that first one was awesome.

Low for me was.....well I didn't have one with my horse. A friend of mine almost lost her mare to colic, but she pulled through after all. Other friends had horses pass away. But no real horse lows for me this year.

So, no low for 2009. Hopefully there won't be one in 2010 either.

Lows:

My old pony passed away suddenly at the age of 22. I've only had him 2 years, but he taught me so much, and it was really hard. We still don't know exactly what got him, I think it may have been his heart.

Left my barn. The people there were crazy, but the property was nice. I'll miss that.

Quit Pony Club, after some unpleasant experiences.

Highs:

Met my new trainer. She's already changed my life so much, and is really helping me out horse wise.

Got my new horse, a 4 y/o tb named Angus. He's a sweetie.

Jumped 3ft over the summer, XC. Never jumped that high in the ring, pony liked fields more I guess.

Did well at my first few shows.

Left my old barn. Found a new barn near the beach, where the people aren't insane. And they let me bring my barn cat :)

Low: All the crap I went through with my old lease horse's owner. That made my year hell.

Highs: Telling said person to get stuffed in August. It was a really hard thing to do since I'd had this horse for 18 months and was training him before I started leasing him. I'm really glad I did though.

The best high of the year though was buying my 3 year old a couple weeks after I got rid of my old horse.

Well I had a Great year with the horses, Highs were all the success that we had training and all the great people and relationships that came with it. I had some awesome trail rides. Horses were all healthy this year, we are bringing back an old skinny stallion we aquired this year and he is doing wonderful.

Only lows would be not having enough time in the day to get my personal horse advanced as much as I would like to by now and a friend loosing their old horse (Red) recently to colic. That is always ruff.

It has really been a wonderful and blessed year though. ( Thanks to God )

Highs - training my mustang gelding was a good feeling, and jumping 3'9" (not on the mustang lol!). I felt so triumphant when I jumped that LOL!!! I guess another high is that I'm shopping for my next (and hopefully) forever horse.

I'd say my lows were when my parents got a divorce this spring, we had to move our horse's from place to place just to be able to afford continuing keeping them. I learned the real expenses involved in boarding, as we had always kept our horses at home before. I could tell it was very stressful on them, particularly my sister's Arab, because she started losing weight and looked "aged" in the face. I think it actually strengthened the bond between my horse's and I though because the only thing that remained constant in their lives as they moved was me. Then the ultimate low this year was this fall when financially I was forced to sell all three of my horses.

Good: My horse is finally extremely light in the bridle. With about 10 minutes of transition warm up we turn, bend, transition, and even half pass with hardly any contact.

Bad: She has had bad hives on and off for the past month and a half. BUT we got a blood test done and found out she's positively allergic to 13 things including 7 hays cats, sheep, oak, flies. And we have TONS of oaks at our stables and her hives are worst in fall, when the oaks lose their leaves and acorn and such. So it all makes sense now and we have bought a desensitization kit for her so everything should be just dandy from now on!

Low - Stan (my connemara and pony of a life time) being unable to come back into work last january. He slipped at a show in august 08 and put a very large hole in his suspensory tendon. Vet was hopeful he would be able to but come last January his leg was not well enough to take the pressure when we tried and he went lame again, He was found to have an additional hole in his check ligament when we scanned again to find out why he went lame. Vet then became very doubtful that a 19 yearold pony could recover from that injury and told me to prepare to have a very pretty field ornament, I was so upset for weeks that the mere mention of riding had me in floods of tears. I decided to give him a year off (so in total he will have had 19 months off), totaly off, turned away in the field and checked twice a day to make sure he was ok and to feed him some supliments but that was It. touch wood he seems to be sound now even after a mad 10 mins in the field.

It did mean we missed the entire show season though and most of the winter dressage. But I am going to try again to bring him back into work this january or february (when the weather improves because we are snowed in at the moment)

High - being offered the ride on 4 stunning horses for the season! Perticularly when I was offered the ride on Danny a gorgeous section D gelding. I was just standing at the ring edge of a local show having taken an old veteran pony down for the inhands. A lady came to tell the judge that she would not be bringing her horse into his final class or into the championship (he had already won 2 classes) as she had injured her back. The steward suggested that as I was there (i was known to the steward), had my show stuff and a reasonable rider that she let me take him in. I got all of 10 mins to change and get on the horse to learn how to ride him. After getting changed (from inhand gear to ridden gear and the trek back to the lorry) I only had time for a walk trot and canter on each rein (no gallop) before I had to go into the class. Well he won his class and then went champion.

The owner offered me the ride for the season as soon as we came out of the class. I didnt come down from the clouds for weeks!

Best: Finding my project pony, who has taught me more about being a true rider then any other horse or trainer.

Worse: Falling, cracked my helmet, and the cracked piece got jammed into my forehead. I have a nice scar there now.

I was looking to purchase a nice appendix horse for a project, instead of my current project pony, but we had a falling out. I was devastated at the time, but I believe it was for the best now.

My highs were: MARCH: when i purchased my show horse

SUMMER: just training him by myself

SEPTEMBER: my fair. We KICKED SOME BUTTTTT!!!!!!!! We place 1st in both Hunt and Western Showmanship. I received Grand Champion in Western Pleasure and also received the Presidential Equestrian Trophy.

All in all at fair

6-1st

2 or 3-2nds

4-3rds

3-4ths

2-5ths

and 1-6th

The 4th 5th and 6th places were in the Open shows that we did during the fair. The others were during the actual fair.

The lows were becoming stuck during my training. I felt so horrible sometimes like Destin and I weren't going anywhere. I'd cry a lot because I was so frustrated. It wasn't him. It was me. I finally got so low I got a trainer. She made it so much better. If not for her I'd still be in that dark hole going round in circles. Hopefully, I'll never go back to that place again.

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