Winter Accomplishment!

My winter accomplishment has been met. When i bought Orion i was told I would never be able to ride him without a bit. That was majorly wrong! I rode him for most of the summer without a bit. Now, this winter, I have started riding Orion with just a bale twine wrapped around his nose. Today, I was able to ride him around the paddock at a walk and trot! It was great! we did rollbacks, turns, lateral flexing, all with only a string around his neck!

Royal Equine!

YAY! Royal Equine is officially mine! Royal Equine Training business cards are coming out soon!
Royal Equine is named after Orion, Orions Crown Royal (who'd of guessed). He was the inspiration for this wonderful business idea! Royal Equine is in business! I am really excited! The business cards are personalized pictures of Lenanna with the barn cat, Fluffy, on her back. All horses will be accepted into training after a quick assessment in which I ride the horse for a quick session am make sure they are safe. Horses can be kept at your place, mine or the Tutt's after getting the okay from Beth.
Also available are lesson which anyone can take. We can use my horse or yours. I teach both Western or English beginner through intermediate. Once again horses must be previously assessed. I teach using a lot of natural horsemanship and expect my students to have intrest or a background in this type of training itself.

Orion to the States

One thing that I have to prepare myself for is moving Orion to the lower 48s. He will have to be hauled by strangers at least until Washington where he may have to be turned over to another horsey trasportation company. From there he will go to Montana where we will meet. All the while, I will be having to scout out the local stables and find the best deal for him. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, but I cannot find very much horsey transportation to the states. Mostly it is unprofessonal people who are making a random trip down to the states with horses.
Once I get Orion down there I have to buy a truck and trailer for school. It is a requirement. I must have a horse, and transportation to and from the school. Now how redneck is that?

States

I know I have been writing a lot about going down to the states for a summer job, but it would be a dream come true if I am actually able to go to the states to train horses! I have narrowed it down to two states, Maine or Colorado. I have heard back from two of seven or eight places. 1 has said maybe and the other one said no. The stable that said yes is called Andersen Stables in CO. It is a high class stable that shows paint horses. Maine is always available to me, but I really want to take O'Man. I don't think he would do well if I left him alone for three months, and he really doesn't like others riding him so I feel that I can't lease him out. What do I do?

Riding!

YAY! I rode for the first time in over a month yesterday! It was awesome! I rode both horses, Lenanna and Orion, And even though I stuck to a walk it still made my day. Sadly enough, I am already going stirr crazy from the cold. To make matters worse, I am not able to do ANYTHING physical because of surgery! The only difference I feel is that I sleep alot and get a rare pain in my stomach when I work to hard. I guess I shouldn't be complaning. Enerything went smoothly and I am alive! I really just want everything to go back to normal.

Yeasterday I got both horses out for the first time in a VEEERRRRYYYY long time. I took them down to the arena where they galloped around. Lenanna was very happy to get out and raced and bucked! It was pretty fun to watch and even Orion had fun! Snow was flying for a half and hour or so before i took them out and let them dig for some grass! It was a fun day!

Thanksgiving

I was Thankful this year. I was thankful that I had just gotten out of surgery and everything went well... and also that I couldn't load up on a ton of food in those 2 days. It wasn't very fun but I was able to go wish the horses happy Thanksgiving. Orion was happy to see me, Lenanna was just happy to see the treat I brought her. I now know who's loading up on the feed!

Website... blog thingy!

I have made a website strictly dedicated to promoting my horse training business, Royal Equine.
My website address is: www.homeralaskahorses.webs.com It is not finished so pages may be empty.
So far I have a good group of horses coming in for training next spring. I currently have three plus my two. I have Buzz, Fleet and Justice coming in. Buzz and Fleet will hopefully go to the Tutt's and Justice will come here to my place for training now that I have my large roundpen finished. Justice is a 10 year old Arab gelding who acts nothing like the breed. He is study and faithful on tyhe trail, yet a little reluctant in the arena. He is currently for sale. He would make a great mount for an advanced beginner or an advanced rider.

Orion

YAY! He's grown! He is on the tall side of 14.3 now! I know he will make 15 hands! HE'S ALMOST THERE!!!!! I was able to go see him again and visit while he ate dinner. He was pretty happy to see me and followed me around like a puppy. He even got in trouble with Annie, another horse, because he followed me into her stall. I'm really happy to see he's doing well. Maybe he'll be able to hold his own against the pony this year!

Orion

I was finally able to see Orion for the first time in two weeks today! He was so happy to see me and followed me into the barn from the pasture. I spent twenty minutes grooming him while he ate a snack before the herd came in an tried to get his hay. After that i have to spend more time defending him than brushing him. Finally i threw everyone hay and they were content long enough to finish brushing him. With the surgery happening just 1 week ago i have another 5 where i cannot do much and another few after that when I can start riding lightly and getting back in the groove. I can't wait!

Out of commission for a while! :-(

Monday night I went into the hospital feeling pains in my abdomen. All day I had been feeling the pain, but it got worse after I almost hit a pheasant while driving to the Bay Club to work. The pain worsened after that, and I ended leaving work early and going to the hospital. The doctors though it to be acute appendicitis but after opening me up they found a pool of and discovered that I had a an ovarian cyst that had burst. They fixed me up and finally sent me home late Wednesday with the instruction of staying home for the next few days, no lifting anything, and not much movement besides a little walking! Bummer!

Brandt and Traven

Last Saturday some friends, Brandt and Traven came over to ride the horses. Traven rode Orion while Brandt rode Lenanna. They spend three hourse running around. It was snowy out and I froze to the bone for the most part... until they decided that it would be fun to run me over. It was pretty cute to watch the brothers attempt to ride my horses, and my horses did really well, taking the abuse. Hopefully next spring they'll will be back!

Snow!

The horses enjoyed a run through the new snow on Saturday. Lenanna and Sirrocco where galloping everywhere kicking up their heels while Orion enjoyed the first of his new food source, hay! After a while the wind picked up and most of the snow was blown away. But hopefully it will warm up soon enough and we will be able to ride without freezing!

Jobs, anyone?

Right now I have begun to look for horse jobs outside of Alaska for next summer. After riding and training at Meadowview I have decided that working at a stable would not only be a fun job and good pay, but it would also be great experience and help me to be better qualified for college in Dillon, Montana. I have been looking at several states and have found a few places that have offered to take me in. It would be really fun to go but my big delema is where should I go and what do I do with MY horses?

MY HORSES AREN'T FAT!

There is no such thing as feeding too much hay in the late fall! Lately i have had a few comments about how obease my horses are, but judging by how fit and strong they are going to come out in the spring, i would say they're perfect! Lenanna weighs about 1,070 lbs right now which if she were in mid-summer i would say she was huge, but intead she comes out at about 960-985lbs and the last 2-3 ribs can barely be felt. Many horse owners try to keep a horse that weighs 1000 lbs in mid summer at 1000 lbs throughout the year, but they have to pump so much food into that animal, and they still come out skinnier.

Letting a horse beef up before winter really helps with their system as well. That what they do in the wild and i think that it would be wrong to mess up the natural way completely.

Homer Horses!

So I finally finished my applications and sent them into 2 schools, Dillon & Bozeman, MT. At one of these two places (hopefully Dillon) I will further my horsey knowledge and continue on to become a FULL TIME trainer!!!! For now i am happy training several horses around Homer. At the moment I am training 2 percerons, a caspian pony and a arab. The work is hard and the horses' training ranges from several trail rides in a month to not even knowing how to lead (one of the big ones, of course) My personal favorite is Buzz, a 18.3 hh perc who i believe was abused at one point in his life. He is frightened by lound people but i a big softly and tries hard to please his handler. He towers over me even though i stand 5.7 he weighs over 1 ton and in VERY intimidating!!!!!! He is pastured with Fleet, a spoiled, adorable, little 13hh (at max) caspian pony. Together they make the cutest pair as they exlore their pen. Seeing as Buzz is a scaredy cat, he will only venture as far a Fleet will and he throws the biggest fit i have ever seen when left alone without his pony friend.I have know ridden Buzz several times and he proves to be a fearless horse undersaddle only! After finding out a bit about him i now believe that he was shown in 1rst of 2nd level dressage in Texas, where he was shipped up with Fleet. He was trained completly English and has no idea what a horn or split reins are. He is slowly coming along and i can see a lot of potential in him but it will just take time.

Horse training/buying

All of a sudden I have had o so many people contact me about training horses or helping them find a horse to buy. They ask me what is the #1 thing to look for and I say temperament! People believe that a good horse is trained and maybe that's true but one of the best horses I've ever known i bought untrained. Lenanna was a 5 year old broodmare who couldn't of have anymore than 20 rides on her. She was young and green but her temperament was so great that she was one of the easiest horses to work with. Yes she still has her problems but that okay with me. To me it doesn't matter how trained your horses is, they have to have the temperament and williness to work to make them exeptional horses. Buying a horse that has been trained professionally for 5 years but has no intention to learn or make a ride pleasent will be no fun for anyone. Where as a horse who wants to learn will create the other hafl needed to make up a strong team, compeditive or pleasure.

To buy or not to buy?

This next year i will be packing up my life and moving to Montana for college. I will be taking Orion down there with me. The cost of that would be anywhere from $1700-$3000 + food. When I get him there I will be having to buy a truck, trailer and hopefully a new horse. But that is the delemma, to buy a horse or to lease one. I'm going to have all these expenses and will need an older horse that i can ride hard and put it through its paces. Orion will be fun to have down there but I will need another horse seeing that he will only be 4. If anyone has a horse or knows of a horse that could attent college 2010 let me know! it would be great to have a friend's horse!

Reber Trail

Two days ago we attempted to ride from Hillside pl into town using the mud trail which connects directly to Reber Trail. I rode Orion and Shannon Reid rode Lenanna (Shannon is hopefully going to become Lenanna's faithful rider for the years that i am away at college). So we set out in hopes of a dry and fun trail ride, which is what we got. Orion was a fearless leader and led Lenanna and Shannon threw almost everything. He walked calmly back down West Hill directly on the white road line. Lenanna did not prance most of the way and did very good for Shannon, to the point I stopped glancing over my shoulder! It was a very enjoyable ride!

Orion Update

Today, for the second time, I hauled my horses by myself. It was nerve racking at first but once i got going I found that it really could be lots of fun. I took Orion to the park, where i dressed him up in his new English get up and rode his around the arena. We started but doing a nice long warm up then getting serious and doing a reining patteren for next years shows (why i was in an English saddle when I did this I don't know) and then continued with fine tuning Orions transition from a canter down to a trot. He did really great and when i asked for a leg yield sidways at a canter he did it! I was so happy that we called it a day! so i loaded him up into our NEW trailer (which is amazing) and headed for home!