My other favorite hobby

Happy Friday everyone!!  Today, I want to tell you about my other favorite hobby that I dabble in every now and then.  I absolutely love photography.  It's something that I have always loved and really enjoy doing.  So, I thought I would share some of my favorite pictures from over the years.  I have been lucky enough to own a really good camera, so I don't take all of the credit as my job is made easier by a fine product.  However, I do not ever alter my photographs with any sort of software to make it look better.  Yes, I may crop them to focus on the subject, but other than that, the pictures are pure.  So, enjoy, have a wonderful weekend, and GO CATS!!!

These are from today of Smokey and Lacy.  Hey, since I can't do anything productive, I might as well fool around and take pictures.

This makes me smile.  Smokey says "Lacy, this is too easy". 

 Pretty dapples

Yes, I know, he is muddy....

Okay, now for some of my other favorites.  

Laine Ashker and Anthony Patch, Rolex 2011

At Donamire Farm.

My dog, Wrigley.

Last winter in Lexington (2011)

Rolex a few years ago.

2011 AEC's Intermediate, I think.

2011 AEC's Beginner Novice.

My friend Karol and her OTTB, Rex.

And, my current favorite subject, the Smokey!



You HAVE to see it to believe it!

Well, my little horse continues to amaze me.  I don't think I need to repost the koala picture to show how shocked I was today, but luckily I can actually show you pictures of what made my face look like that!!  Now, remember boys and girls, this is pretty much his first real attempt at jumping these fences, or any sort of jumping at all.  Lacy did the cross rail to a little vertical the other day, but he hasn't been over anything else at all...ever....I swear.....okay, just look at the darn pictures now.

Weeeee!!!  I have to make sure I clear it!!

First attempt at this vertical-I mean, are you kidding me?????!!!!



Did I, like, miss the memo that this horse was so talented??

Ok, I get it...someone switched out my horse for another one, right?? 

Seriously????  Seriously???



Wait, what?  Where am I?  What just happened?  I have to keep pinching myself to believe that this whole thing hasn't been some crazy fantasy I have made up in my head.  Actually, that's not too far from the truth.  I have envisioned great things for this horse, whether I am involved or not, and this just makes everything that much more realistic.  Okay, hold for the very loud girlie scream and additional jumping up and down like I did when I saw New Kids On The Block in concert..EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! 

Because koalas are just cute, that's why!

Hi Everyone!!  It's been a few days since I have blogged, so let me catch you up on things.  First of all, I am headed to the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow to make sure my arm is still all lined up.  In my head, he will say "It's a miracle!!  You don't need to wear a cast anymore!!!"; reality is that I will probably be in a cast for another 3 weeks.  Oh, joy.  So, that puts us sometime in the beginning of April.  Which takes us to the next news update.  I kind of expected that I would not be able to ride in the originally planned first show of the season:  the Paul Frazier Memorial Combined Test.  It's on March 31st at the Horse Park, and even with Lacy keeping my horse on target, it was going to be a stretch to think that I could get my cast off AND be ready to show in less than a week.  So, tomorrow will pretty much confirm that I won't be showing...but just because I can't ride doesn't mean a perfectly prepared certain horse should sit out as well.  Luckily, Lacy has agreed to show Smokey for me, and I'm thrilled!! 

My original plan was to show him in the Intro Dressage Tests, moving up to doing Intro Test C (which introduces the canter).  Now, by the end of last year, he was super bored with just doing walk/trot stuff, but I wanted to start the season off fairly slow.  You can imagine my shock when Lacy suggested doing the Starter CT!!  This was pretty much how I think my face looked:

Now, I have lunged him over little fences, and I know he can jump, but really hadn't even considered that he would be ready for jumping at a show until later this year.  But hey, if Lacy was game for it, I think that would be pretty cool.  Last week, she has been working on keeping Smokey's mind working-changing things up a little bit with ground poles, etc.  He tends to get so focused and "worried" about one thing, so changing things up made sense and seemed to keep him thinking.  And yesterday, he was wonderful for her.  Really workmanlike, calm and willing.  Today, he was good but slightly moody, so a bit more warm up was necessary before introducing him to a little vertical.  First time over, he hit the fence with his hind feet, which is actually not a bad thing.  In judging hunters, we "prefer" that if they hit the fence, they hit the rail with their hind legs because it has less of a chance of interfering with the horse on landing and getting tangled up in their feet.  Second time over, he made sure to clear it!  He thought he was pretty hot stuff!! 

Oh, and I didn't tell you the most exciting part of this week.  Smokey has flying lead changes already built in, like an upgrade on your car!!  Which has proven to be helpful while Lacy is still working out his tendency to take the right lead when going to the left.  But how cool is that?  I had all intentions of getting a video for you all to see (in case you think I'm full of crap), but we had a technology FAIL yesterday and the camera didn't work.  You will just have to wait and see, maybe this week.

So, it seems to me that Smokey will be headed to his first combined test!!  And it also seems to me that I grossly underestimate the ability of my little horse.  This week, my friend Erica talked about how you should ride hard-not like whips and spurs and all, but riding with the support your horse needs.  I definitely need to work on riding like my horse has no limits, and riding like I have no limits either.  Smokey's possibilities are endless, and Lacy has proved that to me.  When I set limitations on him, he can only reach those limitations, and not be the great horse I want him to be.  And something else important that I heard my client, Allison Springer say this weekend.  You have to ride each day as a new chance for greatness, regardless of what happened yesterday.  Allow your horse to be great and believe that he will be great for you on that day no matter how good or bad he was yesterday, or last week or last year.  Believe in him.  Believe in yourself. 

Hopefully pictures of a jumping horse will appear on here this week.  And don't forget to fill out your March Madness brackets before Tuesday's games start.  Go Big Blue!  Speaking of brackets, I have a cool idea that I'm going to need some of my fellow eventers' help with for another blog.  Let me know if you want to help!

Kristen

Barn Therapy: A Vacation From Your Problems

Wow, there is so much going on right now that I don't know where to start!!  It has been a whirl-wind couple of weeks, and to say the least, I'm a bit stressed out from all of it.  I was prepared to write about all the things that have stressed me out lately, but I actually figured out what my problem is tonight at the barn.  So, I will spare you the details of all of the things that have happened and instead wow you with my brilliant insight.  Ready? 

So, prior to my fall and resulting broken arm, one of my favorite ways to get away from the stress of the day was to ride my horse.  No, actually, I didn't even have to ride.  Just being at the barn-grooming my horse, cleaning stalls, and just talking to all of the other boarders.  I think the barn has something therapeutic about it, sort of like a safe place where you can go where everybody knows your name....and they're always glad you came!!  OK enough cheesy TV show theme songs.  Seriously, being out there allowed me to put all of my troubles behind me and just concentrate on one thing-being with my horse and taking care of him.  After being flooded with so many things to do in a day's work, it's nice to have a couple hours a day to just concentrate on one thing and one thing only-and my one thing is a big grey Thoroughbred. 

Since I am sitting the bench for a few more weeks, there aren't many things that I can do with 1 hand(picking a hoof...pulling a mane..even cleaning tack...not gonna happen!).  Therefore, many of my friends have chipped in to help feed and take care of Smokey for me.  Since Lacy was riding today and the weather was nice enough, I thought it would be a good day to go out and get Smokey all groomed up before she got to the barn.  It was then that I realized exactly what I was missing!!  Call it an "Ah-ha" moment, hopefully not the first or last one in my life.  In the last week, I haven't been out there much because of my busy schedule and my injury.  And it has affected me in the worst way.  The barn atmosphere has been a huge part of my life in that it helped me to de-stress from a tough day's work.  Not having an outlet for your daily stress can be over-whelming, leading to a complete overload of your brain.  And when your brain is overloaded, just like your car's engine, it will completely shut down so that you cannot have a coherent thought on even the smallest of decisions (blue socks or black socks...or white socks...or navy socks...AHH!).  More importantly, even the smallest of issues seem like they are 100 times bigger when you are stressed out. 

Being at the barn helps to connect to other people with similar interests and helps to put things in perspective.  Sharing your stories of a tough day at work, problems with family, or just listening to the daily sounds at the barn is therapeutic for a majority of us equestrians, whether we realize it or not.  Believe me, if we didn't have our horses and the barn to go to after a tough day, a lot more therapists would be a lot richer!! 

So, no matter what your limitations are (for me, obviously its this purple reminder on my arm), remember to keep doing the things that help you to gain some perspective and give yourself a "vacation from your problems" (quote from What About Bob?...one of my favorite movies).  I realized today that I needed to have that "vacation" as often as possible.  It doesn't have to be a long "vacation", but take a little down time out of every day for your brain.  I know where I will be headed tomorrow...and I will just have to get some help in pulling my horse's mane.  Any volunteers?