Friday, September 25, 2009

September Gymkhana

Our first show of the season was last Saturday and it well for our kids. Paul has been voted on to the board for the club and volunteered to help get the arena ready ahead of time, this along with the fact that I help run the booth where we take money and record times on show days, means we are starting to see some of the things that go on behind the scenes which isn't so fun. We are trying really hard not to let this affect our attitudes...

Malachi and Amigo have worked together most of the summer which was evident! Their times are still improving and the patterns were very clean for the most part. One of the things that Malachi learned this show was that when you are going faster and you need to stop in a certain area you need to let the horse know earlier. He blew through the back of the chalk keyhole because of this. Other than that they did great!



Lorna rode both of her horses. Lorna worked really hard with Sierra all summer and I could see a major difference. They seemed more comfortable with one another and the patterns went really well. Lorna is extremely hard on herself though so she is not thrilled with their times even though they improved most of them. They received high points in their division because they were consistent. Lorna's going to work on letting Sierra go a little more so they can get a bit more speed but stay controlled.



Lorna's new horse, Studmuffin, did remarkably well considering he had never done any of these pattern before and had never been in an arena to our knowledge. He listened well to what Lorna wanted and by the end was starting to anticipate what Lorna was going to ask of him. One thing Lorna has found is that he works better with spurs. She's able to get him to turn obstacles with very little pressure and the turns are better. Spurs aren't really used to kick the horse with, generally you use them to put pressure either with your right or left leg. When you use your right leg the horse understands you want to go to the left. Some people may use them to kick their horse hard but any tool can be abused. Lorna doesn't need them when she's out trail riding Studmuffin but will be using them for gymkhana so she doesn't have to pull on the reins and bit so much.

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