Let there be trailer!

Guess what is sitting in my driveway at this exact moment in time? Guess what is shiny and brand spankin new? My new horse trailer! And when I say new, I really mean new! It is a 2012 Exiss two horse straight load...warmblood sized. So 7 foot 6 inches tall, super wide. Nice tack room up front too. Never been a horse in it yet. BAHAHAH :D So very excited! My very first horse trailer! And to make it better, I was approved for financing all on my own- no co-signer. So it is well and truly all my own. I can't wait to haul Joe around in it. I want to take him to winter wooly horse shows, and trail rides, and the fairgrounds, and all sorts of fun places.

Although I have been bad and haven't been good about riding Joe enough for the past few weeks. I have been letting my fence building get in the way. Shame, shame. But really I was working every available second on getting the fence done. I rented a bobcat with a huge drill auger to drill fence post holes. Then sank posts, cemented my corners and braced them. Then ran line through and tensioned it up nice. Well, that is only the front small paddock square that is all done like that. The long back section has the holes dug, but the posts aren't set yet. I went and did a whopping three posts this morning before my trailer sales place called me and let me know I was approved, so off I went. I shouldn't have waited this long to set those posts though...because it has rained a lot. The dirt I have to fill the holes is wet and muddy and mucky gross. Does not make it fun, and I don't know how effective it will be at really setting in those posts. We will see. But in any case, I need to get on getting that fence done. Jett, evil as he is, has taken to breaking out of the main pasture fence and running on the neighbors property. My creepy neighbor. Great. So he has lost a lot of turnout privileges, the snotty booger. But yes, the fence is still a work in progress. Although I am pretty proud of my mama and I for doing this all ourselves. And my boyfriend, who has been wonderfully helpful with drilling holes and setting posts...in the middle of the night in the rain, before my deadline to return the bobcat... haha. Which in turn gave me a cold.

But anyways, fence is still going up, and now I have a beautiful new Exiss trailer in my driveway. Let us see where the first place will be that I haul my big beasty!

Jett's Trotting Adventure

It only will let me fit one video at a time in a post, so here is another vid. This is me riding Jett. This is his first trotting ride under saddle. Well, "under saddle" since I was bareback. We tend to do these things on a whim, my buddy and I. It mostly goes like...."well I will mess around with him today, oh wow he is being pretty good today, hey Kelsey do you want to try trotting him today? Eh sure why not! Climb on!" Hence the bareback. But he was an excellent boy for his very first actually trotting work. I mean, he had taken a few baby strides before, but this was his first ride where he was actually asked to trot out and keep going. We unfortunately did not get video of Jett's first canter. We were preoccupied with me not getting killed in the process, even though it turned out we were worried for nothing!

Oh my. You wouldn't believe the ridiculous amount of time it is taking for this video to upload.

Mr Joe and Mr Jett

Hey look, finally at long last a video of me riding Joe! And let me tell you, I haven't had a chance to SEE myself ride in a long long time, and I am slightly horrified. Please be kind. I had no idea I had such a bad habit of leaning forward, and by god! What is that awful rocking I am doing in the canter? So since seeing this video, I am attempting to make a serious effort to lean BACK.
It has been too long since my last update, oops. But nothing too different has been happening. Have been riding Joe- and he is fabulous of course. I like to play with what he knows and can do. We can now do halt-canters both ways pretty consistently. I have been practicing a lot of haunches in/shoulders in. Both at the walk and the trot. I still struggle a lot with sitting his trot, but once I thought SIT BACK, it is much easier to do, although still not easy by any means. I have used him a few times to pony Jett, who is progressing quite a bit in his training, despite not being worked very often or regularly. Which is great news.
Speaking of Jett, he is coming along. We can now walk/trot him under saddle. Not the best steering at the trot still, but he is forward and goes when you tell him, comes back down to a walk or a halt in an instant. His trot is just a little too forward, he rushes too fast. But it will come. And quite exciting, I rode him in his first canter under saddle last week! It was a little nerve-wracking...We lunged him in a canter both ways and he had some scooting- jumpy bucky moments. But hey, what the heck I thought, its now or never! He is short! So we kept him on the lunge line and cantered both ways. No incidents! He picked up the canter and went along quietly! No hunching, not even a thought of bucking or getting silly! Great success! Going the the right though is very rocky and awkward. He is very very one-sided. He counter bends a LOT going that way, so the canter is very difficult. He does it trotting too, just not so badly. So I think it is time to introduce him to side reins while lunging. Lets straighten that booger out! And last time my buddy and I rode together, we took Jett outside, and after the huge evil bot fly chasing him and stinging poor Jett was over, we rode Joe and Jett together down Beasely road. I ponied Jett off Joe. The boys did fabulous! So Jett's first outing went lovely. No spooking or sillyness.
Now today I am going to take Joe on a trail ride. A slightly more real trail ride! Something that isn't riding down apaved road! YAY! My neighbor told me I can take Joe through their gate and ride on their back 50 acres, much of which is field. Oh so I am excited! I can really take Joe out for real! So that is todays plan.
And speaking of taking Joe out, I am now in the market for a horse trailer, at long last. I got approved for a loan and now only need to find one that would be approved and is in my budget. Tricky thing is it needs to be small and lightweight enough for our rather very small rig to haul, but big enough for hugemongous Joe to fit in. So I am looking at two horse slants. Found a couple promising ones so far; need to go out and start checking them out now. Exciting!! Then I can start hauling Joe to real trail rides, horse camping, little shows at the fairgrounds, the beach...wherever I want!