Good News / Silver Buckle Update

Anyone who's visited my website lately knows that I'm advertising for lessons, and besides Cameron, who trades working for me five days a week for lessons, I hadn't had a client until now. But, last week a very nice woman named Cheryl called me, and told me she needed help with her 8yo grade paint gelding who was just not listening to her under saddle (or on the ground, come to find out.) and a six month old paint colt she'd bought for herself and her daughter to raise with help of a trainer. I took the job, as it was all problems I felt confident I could fix. We had our first lesson today, which was three hours, because of a consultation and then actually working with her horses, I charge $45.00 an hour, which includes a traveling charge becauseI go to their facility to work (meaning I came home with $135.00 which was awesome for just one day.).

The first thing I noticed with the gelding is that he's got some attitude issues. He'll set there and give you that "Well, I'm not open for business, and I'm sure as heck not going to do what you want me to do, I'd rather kick you instead." look. Well, needless to say, he changed his mind about doing what I wanted him to do real quick, so as soon as I was satisfied with him on the ground, when he was listening to me, that is. I had Cheryl saddle him, and after changing the way she was saddling him up a bit, I had her get on him in the arena, which is where they were having problems. First thing that happens is he gets this real irritated look on his face, the ears go back, and then he refuses to move. When she gets him to move, he won't hardly trot, and when he does, his head shoots up and he'll trot a few paces, then come to a dead stop. When I asked her to canter him, she said she'd very seldomly was able to get him to canter and when she did, he liked to pitch a few bucks, so I went ahead and got on him at this point, all the while talking to her about what we need to change as far as her riding goes, it could DEFINETLY use some improvement. Well, he is also an ex-ranch horse, and I'm super familiar with what it takes to move them, and I had some real light spurs on. Wouldn't you know, I got on him and once I worked him through the first few bucks at a canter, we had a fantastic first ride and session. I got so much accomplished with him just in one lesson, and the owner's jaw was just dropped, and she just kept thanking me. By the time we were done today, he was moving out by vocal commands alone, he was responding to whoa, and he was getting very soft in the face, bending and giving at the poll very well. I was very happy because his lead changes are awesome and he was just working very well for me. And get this, the horse that almost killed himself getting loaded in a trailer was loaded in under 30 minutes, without pain or stress. We talked about what we needed to work on with him and she said she'd like to do about six two hour lessons a month, so I'll be making some decent money just from her. But, I really think I'll be able to help them make a very nice horse. He's got the basis there, he just needs some fine tuning. But the really cool thing is, I had an audience today, and there are other people at the barn interested in my help. Their little colt is super easy, just needs some basic ground work and they want to show him in some open shows, which I'll be helping them with too.

Just wanted to share about that. Oh, I'm not sure if I told anyone, but I enrolled in college as an equine science major, and later on I may be transfering to vet school, but that depends on how my business is going here, but a lot of my internship activity is going to be based in breeding and medical. I'm really excited about it and I start August 20th. Umm, the new horses that I got are doing well, we got the older AQHA mare's feet on the right path to getting figured out, she'll probably only be broodmare sound, but, her babies will pay for her, and she can tote around some of my cousins here. The two paints are fitting up very well for halter, we have our first show on August 19th with them. We've been riding Nardy like crazy, but she somehow managed to clip herself while in her stall, and she has a gash that tore off a little section of the hoof wall (a little smaller than a quarter in size.) And I've been treating her so we can get her back in training ASAP, because she is doing so wonderfully, and I may have a nice little reining horse in the future. She's really pulled herself together and is just going to be a very nice horse for me in the years to come.

Scotch is doing really well too, I need to get some pictures, and he's shedding once again, which I thought we were done with, but, I'm getting my little vacuum soon, so maybe that will help. He's being a good boy though, like always.

Wow, sounds like everything is going great for you!! That new client sounds pretty good. My daughter used to get training at our barn which was very handy, and we loved the girl, but she moved away and we haven't found anyone who will come to us yet. That is a service many people appreciate, and for lots of horses, I think the combination of having a trainer ride the horse and the client taking lessons at the same time works very well for the older already trained horse who is just having problems. Many times the problem is the rider so by involving them right away in the solution, you can fix the horse sooner.
And your new school opportunity sounds fantastic!! I'm so excited for you. This will be a major you can really use, since it sounds like you will always have a career in some way with horses . Good luck. It will be stressful, but you are a strong girl.

Very cool for you. I just got a trainer in my barn and hope to bring a buck or two in for a change..

The vacuum is great.. Still need to work on the inside out though. The vac will only keep him clean. And, that is important with a show horse.. But, that is really all it will do for you. Make sure you get a good one. That really spendy, ugly huge thing is the best one.. Not much fun to pack around.. Still need enough suction to suck all that dirt and hair off though. And, that is how they work and what they do.. Get some oil in there so the skin is nice and moisturized.. Or, you are just spinning your wheels.

BlueJay, I'm feeding the crap out of Scotch, all the right stuff. He's getting two fat supplements on top of oil for his hair coat, but it's just him. I think he has insane hair folicles or something, lol... I mean, he's shedding AGAIN. Why would he be shedding again? He's under lights. I am happy about one thing in particular, I switched my diet over to a more high energy, fatty, growth diet for my weanling and two yearlings, and the results are just awesome. I'm feeding what I used to feed, and it costs a little more, but I couldn't be happier with the results, in just a week Scotch has put on weight and Chance is really starting to fill out now too. That little paint filly has got a very nice chest on her. The other nice thing about it is that my three that I'm fitting for halter are running a little warmer than normal because of the feed change, and I'm getting fantastic sweats off of them, I actually got foam off of Scotch for the first time in I don't know how long yesterday. I'm just rubbing the crap out of him right now though, trying to get all the hair off, same with my weanling paint, Lucky (who by the way is just about the sweetest thing in the world.) he's just shedding off his baby coat after a good round of worming, and I'm loving what's underneath, I don't have fuzz, lol. But, I do think the vacuum will help, because remember, I have plain ol dirt stalls, and no barn, lol.

Stockman, It really is going really well lately. My facilities are under construction right now, or I'd be offering halter training and possibly some problem horse training here, right now. Which would really help me money wise, but, I have to be patient because it will probably take another year for our set up to be complete. It was looking really good until we had five more horses come on our property (one is boarded.) and we had to use every lick of spare panels we could, lol. We don't have enough gates actually, but I think that's going to be taken care of today. We finally got my round pen taken down, and moved, where we started dumping our manure, which has seriously turned into some awesome footing. We're still needing to complete our cover for our barn, and just get some stuff built out there extra, I have a very nice wash rack, it needs to be concreted in now, and we're also building a tack room and putting a nice patio set out where I recently landscaped. What we have works very well for us, it just needed some polishing up before I wanted clients out. Sorry, I ramlbled, lol. Anyways, I am very excited about school and I know it will be challenging because all of my classes except math are AP classes, but, it will help me in the long run and definetly is the degree I will get the most use of, not to mention that it's one of the best equine science programs in the nation. The way that I'm working with the lessons is working perfectly for the family I work with now, which is what they need, and what I need, because I make in one day here what most people have to work over three days, at eight hours a day to make, not to mention that she is helping me build my client base and is a great reference. What I'm hoping to eventually have, actually, is a full board / training facility where I will profit from boarding horses, lessons, training, and my breeding stallion. I think that to be really competitive in the industry in AZ, you have to offer it all, because there are so many who's who people here, Al Dunning, Brandi Lyons, and not to mention a bunch of arabian people that run it all. But, I'm happy to say that I've found my place with all of them