PHH Horse Show, Extreme Cowboy Race & a Wedding, could it get any better?

Last weekend was pretty intense, but I suppose that's the norm for this summer! On Saturday we had our second Partridge Horse Hill show and we had a fantastic turnout. Thank you to everyone who came out and we hope to see you on Saturday October 3rd for our final one.

Our horse shows includes walk/trot classes for novice riders or horses, hunter over fences, jumper classes, obstacle classes, and speed events to round out the day. Every first place got a bag of homemade molasses cookies to go along with their ribbon - thank you the Canadian Horse Defense Coalition! Thank you Alexandra for judging!

Champion and Reserve champions had a selection of prizes to choose from include a snazzy silver Western show halter, a bridle bag (thank you Greenhawk!), free saddle fitting (thank you Canterbury Outpost Saddlery!), earrings, polos, fly masks, leather halter, and more.

Showing Tips:

• Arrive early and take advantage of the fact that we let riders warm up in the show ring for the hour before the classes start
• Practice being calm and precise while in the warm up ring
• Focus on slow and right instead of fast and wrong
• Smile, breathe, and have fun!

Extreme Cowboy Racing on Sunday

On Sunday I went to the Marmora Extreme Cowboy Race. It was Cupid & Kahleesi's 2nd race and it was way different than our first one at Campbellford fair. There were a lot more people, so in my Pro division we had 14 very good riders and horses. Maya also came with Nillina to ride in the Youth division, she was 3rd in her first cowboy race, and then 5th in the finals.

It was really nice to see all of the excellent riders showing off their skills. This judge really valued correct bend and flexion. He was marking in a way that rewarded precision more than speed. 

Cupid was up first and he was so much more relaxed this race than last time. In Campbellford he was so panicked by the horses pulling carts in the show ring beside us that he couldn't concentrate at all. This race he actually did a lot of things really well and managed 11th in the tough competition. We still need to work on some things and find more relaxation in the ring, but he is definitely coming along. 

Kahleesi was her usual super awesome self and did most things really well, but overall we still need to work on better bend and flexion. She managed to get 8th in the first round so we just barely made it to finals (they take the top 8 to do a 2nd course). We improved in our 2nd round except for a big spook at the tractor, and managed a 6th place. 

I was very happy with both my horse's progress. 

Tips for Extreme Cowboy that I picked up this past Sunday:

• Practice riding with one hand
• Practice with odd decorations such as a rope gate with scarecrows on either end
• Practice stopping on bridges and picking up things (don't be in a hurry to get across)
• Practice strange obstacles like putting your hooves into a kiddie pool filled with little balls, or a mattress wrapped in a tarp
• Make sure your horse stands still while getting on after a ground tie for the best marks
• Double check your tack before you ride - the hackamore or bit might not be allowed
• Find a nice cowgirl/cowboy to show you how to rope!

Watch our video of our races!

After the show I got cleaned up and enjoyed my friend's wedding - congratulations Allison and Keith! It was an amazingly beautiful wedding. 

Monday was an exciting day because Esther Johnson and I figured out a routine for Kahleesi for when we show in Kentucky (We are also luckily sponsored by Equine Choice products and Cavallo hoof boots!). I am looking forward to Kentucky, it's going to be here before I know it!

The first Horse Agility and Obstacle Challenge Show from the Natural Horsemanship Association (NHA)

On Saturday May 30^th, Natures Run Equestrian hosted the first horse agility and obstacle challenge show by the NHA. A lot of work went into the show and the show series – deciding on classes, judging criteria, obstacles, organization, etc. The NHA really wants to promote a fun and supportive place to show horses using different obstacles.

Partridge Horse Hill (PHH) took a group to the show. The morning started with a bit of glitch when I slept in past my alarm, and then one of the two horse trailers popped a tire! Somehow we managed to arrive at the show before it started, our optimistic and resilient attitudes shined through as we were still full of positive thoughts throughout the day. 

The day started beautiful and sunny, and the horse agility classes got to compete outdoors in lovely weather – except at the end when the rain started. Luckily NRE has an indoor arena so we were able to move everything indoors after the first Essentials class and continue with the show.

I was very proud of the PHH students and their success. They were very supportive of each other. Kim brought Shawna, Yvonne with Allure, and Laurie with Cheyenne all for their first offsite show – it was also Allure and Cheyenne’s first offsite show. They all participated in the starter and first level of Horse Agility which are friendly introductory classes. Then they rode in the Essentials division for the obstacle challenge which is a walk/trot division. Everyone was very nervous but the nerves settled after a 1^st place for Kim in the first class, 2^nd for Laurie, and Yvonne finished up with reserve champion. All that hard work and practicing paid off.

I brought three of my off the track Thoroughbreds to the show – Kahleesi and Cupid are the two I bought only about 3 months ago for the Retired Racehorse Project TB Makeover for Kentucky. This was Cupid’s first horse show and Kahleesi’s second show. I also brought Thetis who is my Parelli certified Level 3 horse. Despite Cupid and Kahleesi being very inexperienced I still entered by horses in the most advanced classes because of my level – we did Intermediate (for Cupid & Kahleesi not Thetis), Advanced, Liberty (two classes), and the Extreme division. I also took Thetis in one Exciting class (Finesse) so that I could try a class with no bridle.

In the intermediate we competed against other people and I was very happy at how my horses excelled and completed tasks like a pivot on the pedestal and sideways over the pole with relative ease. I was so proud of my horses and how calm they were in the ring. This was a milestone because Cupid and Kahleesi at the trade show in April were very tense and upset in the ring by themselves, and during the show they showed me just how far they've come in their training and now are completely different horses.

Even when it started to rain and everyone was hiding indoors or in their trailers (so no horses were around the ring) they were still very calm and connected to me which made me so proud. One of the things I’ve been using to build the motivation are treats. I don’t use them as a bribe, but when they do something well I give them one cookie (I use roughage chunks that are a health tasty treat). This helps give them another reason to try extra hard. 

 

For the most advanced classes of the day I was the only one entered (Advanced, Liberty, and Extreme division). This was a bit odd to compete against myself using my 3 horses, but it was the experience my horses needed. Cupid and Kahleesi have a lot to learn before Kentucky and it was great they could have a good show experience.

Because the show was running late I offered to drop my classes from 10 obstacles to 5, and reduce my gamblers choice from 3 min to 1min to help speed things up – which kept my horse’s experience short and sweet. As you can expect I was both champion and reserve champion of that division, and 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd in my classes.

This raised an interesting reflection – was it wrong or right for me to compete in classes where it was only me entered?

Keep in mind there was another class with only 3 people, and one other class with only 1 person (some people left because of the rain) that did run.

My thoughts are that I had paid to trailer my horses there, had supported everyone else, waited my turn, and shortened my classes to make it quick, so it was reasonable to want to do my classes too- but what do you think?

In any event I was proud that my horses could complete the most advanced classes despite their inexperience, and thankful for the chance to give them show experience offsite. 

For liberty I left the halters on Kahleesi and Cupid because it was their first time, but my goal for the last NHA show is to feel confident taking the halter off so we are completely at liberty (instead of just no lead rope).

A quick tip:

- Remember your horse needs a pay cheque. Think 'why is my horse showing up to work?' This doesn't have to be food, but food can certainly help when used properly to build that extra motivation. 

Watch the video of highlights from the show:

Survey Results and Priorities for 2015

It’s important to get feedback from clients, and at PHH we take that seriously. Maybe it’s the nurse in me that wants to continuously evaluate, assess, plan, and strive for improvement, but whatever the reason I know it’s important to me and our farm.

Now I can’t work miracles, and I’m not millionaire (big bummer right?) – so the next best thing is to get everyone’s feedback and input to prioritize the things we can change. That’s what we had in mind when we launched our 2014 feedback survey in early November.

We have the results back – and I want to say a big thank you to the many people who responded. We had a variety of responses from lesson students, summer camp clients and boarders. It’s great to have the variety of people responding so that we know each area of our clients are represented.

I want to share with you some of the key themes that came from the survey, and what we’re going to do about it:

The biggest thing that most people agreed on is that

•       You want bigger paddocks & less mud

We want to thank you for your patience on this. We know it’s an issue. We did a lot of scraping this year…. And the paddocks looked beautiful for all of a day or two, and then it rained and we were back to mud. Scraping regularly didn’t work and we know we have to do more than that. We didn’t do more than that this year because we didn’t know where the arena was going and what will be destroyed and levelled with the construction.

Now we know where the arena is going and what is happening to the paddocks.

We’re going to do what we can. We have drawn up plans to drastically change the farm. Literally not one paddock or arena is staying the same.

We’ve already started some of this fencing work… if you were up last week you would have seen some changes and if you come this weekend you’ll see even more work is being done. Until it’s all frozen and we can’t do anything, we’ll keep making improvements!

We will continue to have ‘sacrifice’ paddocks to preserve grass during vulnerable times otherwise the grass doesn’t get a chance to grow. What we are changing is making fewer paddocks so that they will be larger grass sections, and we plan to better utilize the back field, dividing it into two so the paddocks become very long and have a lot more space. We are going to look at a paddock paradise system to create more ‘tracks’ that force horses to have to travel longer distances to get to their grass or hay so they have to move more. We are going to go from 4 fields sharing the back pasture to only 2 paddocks sharing that space so you can imagine they will have a lot more. The grass ring will become a paddock, and part of the front lawn will become some pasture. It’s going to be a lot more fun for the horses.   

We will look at mud solutions for the sacrifice paddocks including grading. These things cost mega $ (like upwards of $30,000 to do 4 paddocks), so we will focus on fencing and more space for 2015 and may not get to installing tiles or concrete slabs until 2016 (we want to research it and do it right the first time… not cheap & wrong). I am very excited to reveal our paddock redesign in spring and this should be completed by the summer or soon after the arena building.

• ·        You want a heated viewing room – you’re going to get it. Once the arena goes up we will look at building a heated viewing room before the next winter. This will likely not be central heating, but will have some form of easy to use heat for the winter.
•      You want more obstacles: Yes! We are completely redesigning our obstacle ring and are moving it to the sand ring and surrounding area with a hill so we can build ‘stairs’, we’ve already built a new balance beam, bridge, and teeter and already have wood purchased to build a water splash box, brush box, and a turn around. If you have any ideas for obstacles please pass along  - or if you want to build any obstacles for us, please let us know and we’ll happily supply all materials!
•      You want the barnyard/barn to be kept tidy and all students to respect the equipment: we really appreciate that you want to help keep the farm tidy… it is seemingly a constant battle to keep garbage picked up, feed bins put back, etc. We have already posted a reminder checklist in the barn, requested our daily helpers to help with keeping things tidy and will do our best to keep reminding all clients and visitors to do their part to help keeps things tidy. I also recently went through the barn back to front and completely tidied it all up and we installed new blanket hooks and saddle racks to help keep it tidy while tacking up. We encourage you to work together to help keep the farm tidy, or let us know if you notice anyone not understanding how to keep it all organized.
•      You still want an outdoor round pen: We’ve looked at the design and we’re going to keep the round pen in the general area where it is, but it will be redone and shifted a little. The fencing will be installed professionally, and we will plan for this space to be used as part of the neighbouring paddock when not in use. We will also add sand to improve the footing in the pen once it has been rebuilt in its slightly different location.
•      You want the shelter in paddock 2 to become a hay & storage shelter: okay! We will plan to move it nearby for that purpose, it will also help to keep the barn area tidier because the wheelbarrow, etc can be stored in there.
•      You want.... lessons, trails, summer camp, horse shows, more cowboy events, trailering services to our clinics/events, the Halloween poker run, and horse agility – you got it! Look for dates being posted in the new year. Summer camp is already available and lessons and trails are continuing.
•      You want even bigger lockers – okay! These will be among the first things to go in the new indoor arena once built (after footing and lights).
•      You want an online webcam to watch the horses in their paddocks from home – we already have cameras that watch the horses (but they also watch the barn, entrances, etc) and we will look into either making this footage available to you, or installing more cameras that are dedicated to just the paddocks for watching.
• ·        Some of you want more professional looking jumps: We’re going to start with getting a better paint job on the jumps we have now and hope you like it. Look for this to happen in spring/summer.
• ·        Some of you want a 'real' washroom: We’re going to investigate costs and look at options. No promises here yet J

You also gave us a lot of valuable comments and suggestions – we are looking at them all. Some of the feedback included that we need to remember to be on time, have clear goals in lessons, and maintain tidiness in the farm. You also gave us many more positive comments about how much you enjoyed our services, our coaches, the variety, and general comments about loving our farm – thank you so much for both the positive & constructive criticism.

Even though the survey is now complete, please don’t hesitate to give us feedback or share your suggestions. We want to continually do better and your ideas matter.

We also want to encourage clients to keep communicating their goals and learning needs to staff to make sure you are learning what matters most to you. Please also tell your instructor if you enjoy a lesson or activity, and on the flip side also let them know if you don’t enjoy something. We are experts at reading horses, but not necessarily people… please leave the guess work out of it and tell us what you’re thinking!

We’re posting this so you can see how we plan to put your suggestions into practice. It’s part of our commitment to you. We think what we’ve planned is realistic and we can accomplish in 2015, but please keep in mind sometimes things can change and may shift our timelines or priorities…. Or who knows, maybe we’ll end up buying a bigger farm :)

Thank you again for all of your input, we hope you like what we’ve got planned for 2015!