New Pics

I just got an email today from the Professional photographer, Charles Brooks Photgraphy. Here are a few of my faves!!! Acacia is so gorgeous!!!!

I've died and gone to Heaven!!

You guys will NOT believe this, but Acacia's blog WILL continue! I received a phone call from the people who adopted her and they want her to come back up to me to finish her TRAINING!!! I could not have DREAMED of a better home for Acacia!!!! Either that or I am going to go back to Cali and work with her. Either way I couldn't be more grateful, excited, thrilled and happy that Acacia is at the WORLD'S Greatest Home with these kind folks!!!!!

Beautiful Disaster

So I am back and so thankful!! OK, let's start at the beginning of Friday which was our in hand. Acacia ROCKED IT! The only thing she didn't do was trot around the cones. LMAO! Lazy girl. She nailed everything else beautiful though. The trailer, she ground tied, we nailed every obstacle! I was so proud of her! Then we lined up in front of the judges, one of which was Ken McNabb!!! And they scored her body conditioning. So we wait for the scores to come out and she has almost perfect scores in everything except the trotting and her Body conditioning they thought she was too trim. Well, compared to the other horses she was quite lean. I was pretty upset so I ended up talking to the BLM people about it and they reassured me that ALL the mustangs from the 3 Sisters area are lean and trim. But, still it was disappointing. I also talked to and met all the other trainers (I'm a social butterfly) and I asked them how there mares were to break. Their answer? EASY!! I was thinking "COME ON! Mine was tough! She was a spitfire! A bucker, rearer, striker, it took us a week and half to gentle her LMAO" And the other trainers are saying "Oh I was on her back in 3 days LMFAO!!! Oh Well, it's the luck of the draw. They all agreed and joked with me about having the "tough one." She was also the only 3 Sisters mustang their so I had no one else to compare her with.

On Saturday, we were second to go in the ring for the riding portion and a minute before I'm to go in the officials tell me that my hackamore is SEVERELY Discouraged. They say they do NOT like mechanical hackamores, so I try to explain to them that it is an "S" hackamore, not a mechanical and apparently it doesn't matter. So I take off her bridle and end up riding her in her halter. She did fine, but I refused to canter in the course. I had my reins snapped to the halter and her lead rope still attached too. It was way too dangerous to go cantering around in, I was worried that the snaps were going to pop off the rope halter. *Sigh* it was a tough decision but it had to be done. IT also blew my "At best" routine because I couldn't run her around at the lope... She did well all things considering. The judges and the BLM Heads were BEYOND impressed that I sacrificed my run to ride her in a halter... They also ALL came up to me and told me they felt that Acacia had THE best ground manners and training out of all the horses...

IT was no surprise we didn't make it into the top 10, it was sad, but I wasn't going to her or myself hurt by trying to win, by running around in a halter. LOL!

So before the finals they paraded us around the ring and introduced us to the crowd and freaking JOHN LYONS was there. I got to meet, talk to him, shake his hand EVERYTHING! Dream come true! All the horses in the finals did AMAZING!!!! IT was so fun and such an amazing experience to be apart of of. I feel as though I really made some lasting friends as EVERY TRAINER was super nice, down to earth and there for the same goal!!!!!

Auction time I was number 20 to go, a super sweet family adopted Acacia and I couldn't be happier. Though I was sad to know that I wouldn't see her again, the family was PERFECT for her!!!! All in all I will be doing this again. It was the rush of a lifetime! And I've also learned what I will do different for next time. I also have lots more pictured I'll be posting up here too!!

Time for BIG Thanks!!! To S&D who did Acacia's FAMOUS mane and tail. (The EMM photographer LOVED us! Everyone was coming up to us and commenting on her mane and tail, including all the judges and the BLM!) To Mr. S&D for driving to and from safely, To my family I love you all more than anything, Thank you for beleiving in us! To J I love you. And Acacia, I will love you for the rest of my life. Please never forget me as I will cherish you forever!!!

OK, here is some disturbing news. SOMEONE or Someones, complained to the BLM about this blog. I found that to be a backbiting, shady and cruel thing to do. I posted about Acacia and our experiences exactly as they happened. I wanted everyone to feel as though they were standing beside us through all of our trials. It was obviously someone who has read it and has a chip on their shoulder or likes to cause trouble and not another trainer. I opened up all of our wins and losses and the fact that I heard that from the BLM was extremely distressing. THANKFULLY, the BLM, said they have people ALL the time at these events that will complain about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING for no reason, but it was NOT a good end to an already rough and emotional weekend.

The Long Hard Road Out of Hell...

Is almost over.... Well this is my last entry til I come back from the Challenge. Am I nervous? You bet your sweet ass I am! With the time we've had I couldn't ask for a nicer mare. She'll go far in any direction, I know she will. Her and I have traveled through one hell of a journey. We've bled, been bruised, sore, scared and more, all together. It's slowly breaking my heart as I write this post, I don't think we'll be bringing Acacia back with us, as I already have 4 horses of my own. I'm terrified of who will adopt her and hope they love her as much as I do and always will. I will never forget her and the journey we've spent together. You can't go through this much with an animal and not fall so desperately in love with them. Here's a few more pictures and then I'll post when we get back. Thank you to my family, all of my dear friends, and Acacia. I could never have done this without any of you....

Looking Sharp

So The BLM inspector came out today to check Acacia over, make sure everything was on the up and up. She was really quite impressed and said Acacia looked really nice. She has done the EMM 3 times so she was great to talk with. She asked me one question that made me chuckle a little bit, she said "So have you taught her to bow or do any neat tricks?" To which I replied, "Um, no, she is a RIDING HORSE, not a trick pony." I know those kinds of tricks are really liked by the spectators and judges, but c'mon now. LMAO! She also said that people like it if you can stand on the back of your horse. *HEADDESK* Lord help me! LMFAO!!! All in all though it was a super great visit and she was a terrific lady with a lot of great advice.

Great Weekend!!!!!!

Acacia is on a roll, she has her W/T/C down with ease. She is side passing and turning much better, she even knows her flying lead changes! PHEW! How did it get fixed??? Well we had to take a few steps back first. I needed to gain her respect, I mean REAL respect from the ground up. That was done by lunging her both ways, making her back up on cue, staying out of my space and moving all 4 corners of her body when they were asked to moved. Then once it was time to ride it was all about making her supple in her neck and making her do A LOT of rollbacks, always keeping her going. Although there were a few bronco protesting moments when asked to accelerate, she figured out that it wasn't going to work anymore. Forward was her only release from the pressure. And it worked like a charm. Big thanks to J.R. and Chance!!!

Night Of my Life

She OFFICIALLY WALKS, TROTS and CANTERS!!! BOTH WAYS! In a BOSAL! I am on cloud 9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I never want to come down :):):)

Drained

It was over 90 degrees here today and man it was humid too! Ugh, I'm so beyond drained from all of this and Acacia's feeling it. I'm running out of time and she is still pulling her stopping crap and it's just getting to me. Relaxing isn't something I'm good at, but I try and stay relaxed and try to make our lessons fun, but I just don't think she's having fun... She's being ridden in a hackamore and I barely tap her with the crop I just want FORWARD! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH I'm going crazy!!! I know I've done the best I can with the time we've had, because I'm SURE the other trainers have gone through this rebellious mustang phase LOL!!!!! Anywho...

The great thing about today was the vet came out to get us our health certificate and he's a hard man to please!! He LOVED HER!!!! We were shocked! He said has NEVER found a mustang he has ever liked except her! He said her conformation was AMAZING and I should take a picture of it LMFAO! I felt quite a gush of pride, especially when he commented on how well her ground manners were and how well she accepted new things! I just couldn't believe it. I wanted him to put that stuff in writing!!! He also said she has been the first horse out of the last 5,000 that he was really impressed with and she is a mustang to boot! WAHOOO for mustangs everywhere!!!

Good Day Bad day

UGH, I have had one hell of a day. My emotions have been all over the place and with good reason. So, A trainer friend of mine wanted to come out and ride Acacia, no problem. She is a good rider with a relaxed hand and nice seat. OH Everything started out so nice, Acacia was doing so well! She was almost perfect!! Acacia, as I've mentioned, has liked to stop at gates whenever she feels like it to irritate me LOL, so anyway, she was doing that to my friend and she was lightly getting after her with the crop and Acacia, everything was fine until Acacia really slammed on her brakes and my friend got pissed and hauled off and whacked her. Hard. Well naturally Acacia took off cantering down the arena wall and my friend fell off and hurt her back. I had to call the aid cars to come and get her. 100% rider error *sigh*. She'd fractured her back before and as a safety precaution we had to call 911 to make sure she OK. They took away and she's doing fine, she was cracking jokes with me the whole time! We were laughing about the hottie firemen, and she was joking about the fact, she couldn't get back on. She was so embarrased and felt horrible that she fell off and I'm like "HEY! How do you think I feel? I feel terrible it happened!" Her and I always joke to eachother about when we fall off. LMAO! She's a champ!

So later tonight S&D thought it would be a good idea to take the girls, including Acacia down to the creek to relax and cool off. OH I needed that so bad. I hate seeing people fall off, it stresses me out, I'm a worry wart. So we took the horses down there and I hopped on Acacia, first time ever bareback and we were sitting in the creek. I had never seen Acacia so damn relaxed! She for surely likes being outdoors MUCH better than she likes being in the arena. AMEN to that! It was terrific end to a horrible start of a day. I'm grateful my friend ended up being OK, but dang she made Acacia look like a STAR!!!!!!

I have a MULE!!!

So Acacia has decided that she is done with all of it. And to prove it, she has decided to started throwing her head down as if she's going to buck. I smack her behind my leg with my crop to encourage her to go forward and she throws her head down more, or tries to flip it up. Now to me, threatening to buck or rear is as good as rearing or bucking itself. So I have to nip that crap in the bud.

So yesterday I throw my English saddle on her thinking OK, if she does buck I won't have anything to really get caught on so we try that. She STILL is tossing her head around and threatening me. She won't step out forward she is just being a spaz! Now let's keep ion mind that the bit I'm using is RUBBER 100% pure rubber, if a horse chomped hard enough they could probably break it. She does the same thing in my Bosal too.

OK, on to today, I give her the benefit of the doubt and try riding her with out gadgets and she starts up again. Everytime I ask her for a trot she flips her head around or throws it down. So, I took away her damn head, and I loved it!!!! I rigged it up so everytime she threw her head down she hit herself in the mouth. For the first time I had a BLAST riding her. It was so chaotic and such a battle, but damn it was fun. She would side pass, and back up and stop immediately, not because I was asking her too, but because she was so pissed I took her head away. Too bad baby but I'm not going to get hurt this close to competition, you want to throw your head around then you don't get it!!!! I would have her walk forward and suddenly she'd stop and try to turn around or do anything to evade going forward. I swear it was a Battle Royale today just to get her to move and damn I had fun. It was challenging and it reminded me of why I love training.

I was in no mood to lose and neither was she, I would ask her trot and then smack her with the crop and she'd go then slam on her breaks again and we'd start all over with the battle of moving forward, I'd back her fast, or spin her around to use her own methods against her. She is just STUBBORN! She hasn't figured out that fighting me is harder than just working LOL!! So I use a little reverse psychology, she thinks she's going to back up or turn around to evade me, then I make her do it more. Ahhhhh we're a mess, but we're having fun!!!! I'm sure there are more little battles to come, but the war is far from over!!!! LOL!!

Mani Pedi!!!!

This weekend Acacia got her first trim and I'll be damned if she wasn't better than most of our other horses LOL!! She really didn't care, she didn't test, push, get scared, nothing. My shoer was a little tired after he did her though, because her feet are so strong and tough. He was very impressed by how she did so well and complimented my work on her. UGH if he only knew the half of it.

So we are a week and half away from going and I'm in meltdown phase. It's hot here and I'm irritable because we are so not where we should be. We're so far behind and the stress in getting to me. An almost complete mustang is NOT how I wanted to be represented. I'm well aware of my talents in training, but I hate the fact that I am a month down from everyone else and guess what? The judges aren't going to give a crap either! They will not care I had pneumonia, and that I got tossed into a wall.

She does so much RIGHT I just need to her to canter now. She's so lazy that's it's hard to get her there. She'll take a few strides than break down. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I don't even know what to feel anymore. I'm doing the best I can but, damn. This has not played out how it was supposed to and I'm feeling the heat. Mostly the heat of my own brain. The pressure I put on myself!

Although I've just had a thought on what to do. Tomorrow I'm going to take her on a trail ride and get her cantering up some hills. Get her more comfortable with it. Steady and Strong.

Here's our strengths. In hand she's a dream. Her condition is beautiful! She walks and trots LOVELY! Neck reins, spins on her hind end, almost side passes. She'll follow me anywhere!!! So we're A-OK there. OK, OK, I'm calmer now. We can only do the best we can at this point. Ugh, if I blow this, be SURE there will be a NEXT time LOL!!!!! I won't go down like that!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA Thanks guys, for your support, listening and advice!!!!! I love you all! My friends, family, my J, S&D and Mr. S&D. Mom, Dad, bro. I know I'm making you all nuts, but this wouldn't have happened without all of your help!!!