Nothing overly exciting about today's meeting. Mostly it was getting to know each other and getting organized. We did discuss horse breeds and parts of a horse. During the school year, we are just going to meet once a month with a goal of learning more about horses and getting everyone's demonstration speeches out of the way. Once summer comes we'll meet more frequently and actually use our horses. That will be the fun part.
The first meeting of the year for Ghost Riders 4-H horse club was held today. We've doubled in size since last year, but since I had told the 4-H office last season that I was only willing to be a leader for Kid 3 and Kid 4 (due to time constraints), that wasn't too hard to accomplish. The new additions this year include a former student at West View Horsemanship and her friend.
Nothing overly exciting about today's meeting. Mostly it was getting to know each other and getting organized. We did discuss horse breeds and parts of a horse. During the school year, we are just going to meet once a month with a goal of learning more about horses and getting everyone's demonstration speeches out of the way. Once summer comes we'll meet more frequently and actually use our horses. That will be the fun part.
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The state 4-H horse show was nearly blown away with the high winds on Saturday. Valentine was really nervous-show jitters, wind, new place, all alone without her horse buddies, a nearby parade with police sirens blaring-any or all of these things could have set her off. I spoke with some other contestants that had similar problems with their horses. In spite of those challenges, Kid 3 and Valentine managed to pull off a 2nd place finish in her demonstration speech on "How to Groom a Horse." They didn't place in the trail event, but I still think it was a great experience for the two of them. It was their first time at State and gave them a starting point to build on next year. One of my long-time riding students was also at State with her pony. She made the nicest Facebook post afterwards: Had fun at state! Didn't place but we gave it our all! I'd say we did pretty great !(: we may not have placed good but he's sure a champion in my eyes! He's such a trooper! Being able to make it to state has always been my dream! And being able to make it with Brownie is just amazing... A few years ago I never thought we would be where we are today !! ... And a HUUUGEE thanks to Julie Kimpel for helping us reach our goals and dreams and for helping us get to who we are today !! Thank you !!(: It is super rewarding to help others achieve their goals! Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures from state--someone who shall remain nameless fell asleep with my phone on Friday night so it never got plugged in, but here are a few from my adventures with my sister and niece and nephew. We played in Salt Lake City, went to Jackson, WY (I recommend the trout at Cafe Genevieve), went to the Rexburg town picnic, hiked to Wind Caves, spent the day in Yellowstone-btw, the Boiling River is my new favorite hot pot, rode horses, and went floating on the Snake River. Saturday morning found us at the fair grounds bright and early to get Katniss fed and shined up for the round robin show. Kid 3 did a great job of working with all of the animals, even though I knew she wasn't really comfortable handling the pigs and steers. It was a great experience for her to build upon in the future.
Afterwards, we switched gears to prep Xoe for the auction. (Also, I had to squeeze in taking the van to get a flat tire fixed!) We thought we had plenty of time until one of the organizers came by and asked if Kid 3 was ready to go in the round pen to demo Xoe as a pre-show for prospective buyers. None of the 4-H kids had known that was coming, but they all rose to the occasion. One drawback to the event was that the BLM hadn't done all of their normal advertising. We only had 8 bidders for both the nine 4-H trained horses and the wild stock the BLM had brought. There were two kids whose horses never even got bid on while in the ring. I felt especially terrible for the one young girl who so clearly loved her little horse. That horse was probably the most kid-friendly animal there, but was not as flashy-looking as some of the others and so got overlooked. On the plus side, both of those animals did get adopted after the auction was over. With so few bidders, most of the mustangs went for the minimum bid price of $125. We were lucky and got a little more than that for Xoe. All of the winners got a great deal for the price. As the auctioneer pointed out repeatedly, the 8-10 weeks of training that each of the 4-H mustangs received would typically cost at least $1000. The owners ended up with gentled animals for the same price they would have paid to get a wild one. Heck of a deal! Xoe ended up going to a young lady who had some money burning a hole in her pocket after selling her 4-H lamb at the market auction that was held Saturday morning. She's new to horses, but apparently has extended family nearby that can help her learn. I received a call from the girl's grandma on Monday morning. She wanted to know more about Xoe and her training, so I directed her to the blog for more info. The grandma told me the Xoe will now be called Hazel (which I think is nice!) and that everyone in the family already loves their new horse. She was really impressed when she learned Kid 3 had done the bulk of the training and commented how friendly and well-trained Hazel is. It was really nice to hear how Xoe, I mean Hazel! is doing. So happy she got a good home. Thanks to the BLM for sharing all of the photos below. Yesterday's Mustang competition went great. It was clear that all of the kids had worked hard with their horses all summer, even though some had extra hardships. One girl showed one handed-she was in a sling recovering from shoulder surgery. Another girl broke her jaw the night before the show; she's scheduled for surgery on Monday. Kid 3 received honorable mention along with two other girls for being the youngest competitors. They each were given a bucket filled with grooming supplies. Today was the goat show. Kid 4 won grand champion for quality (of the animal compared to the standard for the breed). He carried his ribbons and trophy with him all afternoon! Kid 3 won the grand championship for showmanship in the dairy goat show. She advances to the round robin competition in the morning. The round robin takes the championship showmen from each of the large livestock classes (dairy cows, beef cattle, pigs, sheep, dairy goat and meat goat) and has them rotate through showing each of the breeds. All of them are shown slightly differently, so the kids have to go around the barn asking the other competitors how to show their animals before the show starts. Check out the video below of Kid 4 riding a calf in tonight's rodeo! At 2:30 pm tomorrow (Saturday, August 16), it will be be time to auction off the mustangs. We will be sad to see Xoe go, but we are excited about new opportunities for her with her new owner! Kid 3 & Xoe will be strutting their stuff at 4 pm at the Madison County Fair today at the Wild Horse In-hand Trail Competition. Kid 3 has been working hard on bathing and beautifying Xoe this morning.
Xoe managed to get an owie on her ear this morning. My suspicion is that Jasper reached over the fence and bit her. In any case, I was in Idaho Falls at an appointment and got a panicked call from Kid 3 that Xoe was bleeding all over the place, her face was black with blood, and flies were swarming her face. I got Kid 3 calmed down and by the time I returned home, she had Xoe pretty well cleaned up and had applied fly spray. Xoe does have a good scrap, but I think it will be ok. In other news, the Madison County Fair has officially started. We took all our animals over last night. It was actually easier than it has been in the past simply because we are not showing as many critters this year. Kid 1 opted to be a junior leader, so she doesn't have her own goat. Kid 3 opted to not bring her rabbits this year and, due to the limited number of chicken coops, we only brought Buster the Rooster. Remember back when the dairy cow 4-H club came over to meet the horses? I let them choose which of my horses I should bring to the fair. They opted for Faith and Honey Jo and even though those are the only two on display at the fair, their club put together posters for each one of my horses and another about me and my family. It looks awesome! I knew they were going to be doing something, but I was really impressed with how it turned out. Thank you! In the last week we've taken Xoe to the Fremont County Fair, the Madison County 4-H horse show and last night's Ranch Rodeo at the Madison fairgrounds. This is what I have to say. XOE IS GOING TO MAKE AN AWESOME HORSE. Xoe is only 8-10 months old, but she keeps her cool more than many older horses I've worked with. At the Fremont County Fair, they were giving kids rides in a fire truck and an ambulance. Periodically the driver would turn on the sirens and flashing lights. Xoe just gazed on curiously, very relaxed and totally unfazed. She stood quietly tied to the trailer all day at the horse show. After the trail class ended, we snuck into the arena and Kid 3 walked her through obstacles she had never seen before. She hadn't even seen any other horses on the course since she was tied up on the far side of the trailer across the parking lot while the class was being held. She has never crossed a bridge before, but had no fear--in fact, on the video you can see that she stops and nibbles on a few leaves that were caught on top of the bridge. No problem whatsoever! Last night was Kid 3's assigned demonstration speech time for the 4-H fair. We had to take Valentine since her talk was on "How to Groom a Horse", so we loaded up Xoe too. The ranch rodeo just happened to be at the same time, same place. It was really good, because at an adjacent trailer, some kids and their dad were practicing roping dummy cows. Xoe just stood and watched. If I wasn't maxed out on the number of horses we already have, I'd be really tempted to bid for her myself. Someone is going to get a terrific animal! Come watch Xoe and Kid 3 strut their stuff tomorrow, August 14 @ 4pm at the In-hand Competition at the Madison County Fairgrounds. The auction will be held this Saturday, August 16 at 2:30 pm, same place. See you there! Saturday's 4-H horse show was a blast. Kid 3 and Valentine performed best in the trail class where their 2nd place finish qualified them for the Eastern Idaho State Fair 4-H horse show. Kid 3's western horsemanship class was pretty competitive, but she knocked herself out of the running when Valentine picked up the wrong lead. (A lead just means which leg goes forward first. In general, if you are circling to the left, you want the horse's left leg going first. Circling to the right means the right leg good first.) Kid 3 recognized the wrong lead, but due to lack of show experience, wasn't sure how to handle it, so she just allowed Valentine to lope on instead of correcting it. You will lose points if the judge sees your horse on the wrong lead, but you'll lose even more if you don't fix it. Kid 3 & Kid 4 both made the same mistake in their halter class. All livestock in-hand classes implement a "quarter system," but the system varies between types of animals. The quarter system is simply where the handler stands next to their animal relative to the position of the judge. The idea is two-fold: first to keep the judge and competitors safe from an unruly critter, and second, to allow the judge the best possible view of your animal and yourself. Our family has been showing dairy goats at the fair for quite a few years now. Under pressure, the kids got the quarter systems mixed up and started showing "goat" instead of "horse." It's hard to get points when you are "showing" the wrong animal! I'm super excited to take Kid 3 down to the state fair. I felt like the show was a very positive learning experience for all of us and I think we are poised to perform even better at next year's show! Keep watch for my next post to see what Xoe did at the fair. ;) This was actually from this morning. Kid 3 didn't get up in time to eat breakfast before coming out to ride. Kid 1 very nicely made her a bacon and egg sandwich and then delivered it out to the field. It's hard to see in the pic, but Kid 3 is actually holding one of my nice kitchen plates with her meal on it. Talk about a breakfast to go!
The Madison Country 4-H horse show starts at 8 am tomorrow. We spent the day prepping animals for fair. Valentine and Faith both got baths-many thanks to my riding lesson students M.P. and Z.S. who helped scrub the mud off the critters. Kid 1 supervised bathing the Valentine and then trimmed up both horses to get them pretty for the show.
Kid 1 also helped get the goats bathed and then helped Kid 4 body clip Betty, while Kid 3 and I did the same for Katniss. We worked steadily on these animals from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. Then we took Xoe over to the Fremont County fair in St. Anthony just to get her some exposure to other environments before her big competition next Wednesday. There were lots of other animals and even a fire truck and an ambulance giving kids rides and turning on their sirens. Xoe was totally chill with it all! I was really pleased with her. Hope to see you at the horse show tomorrow! Xoe's big accomplishments this week were learning to load in the trailer, circle driving, and discovering the electric fence. We haven't yet taught her to "send" (walk in by herself while the handler stands at the back of the trailer), but she does walk right in after you, which is very nice. So far, we've only backed her out, so she doesn't yet realize that turning around and walking out normally is even an option. I like backing horses out for a couple reasons. One is that we had a 2-horse straight load for many years. With that style trailer, backing out is the horse's only option since there is no room to turn around. For horses that have never had to take that step down into the unknown, backing out is very difficult. I once trained a horse for someone where the horse had never had to back out of a trailer. The first time I took her somewhere, she was too frightened to back out. It took me quite a while to convince her that it was ok. When we returned to my place, she still didn't want to back out, so rather than getting into a power struggle with her, I simply parked in the middle of my fenced pasture, untied her and opened all the doors wide. She stood in that trailer most of the day. It wasn't until suppertime that she finally got up the nerve to back out. Once she had done it on her own, future trailer trips went smoothly. She just needed that confidence booster. The second reason is just that it is a challenge for the horse. Horses have very poor depth perception and, if their head is straight, they can't see directly behind their tail or directly under their nose. They try to judge the depth of something by raising and lowering their head. They adapt for those blind spots by tipping their head from side to side. Backing off a trailer is an act of faith and trust, just because they really can't see where they are stepping or how big of a drop off that step is. It truly is a leap of faith, a step into the darkness for them. The horse needs to/learns to trust their handler through situations like that. Circle driving is a great exercise because it teaches/improves the horse's ability to lead well and to "latch on" to the handler. The horse learns to move with you. It really helps reduce any tendency of the horse to pull back when asked to go forward. And finally, Xoe's been having way to much fun playing with the fencing right outside her pen. That particular section of fence is not electrified (on purpose, since it is right next to the yard and I don't want to shock all the little kids that come here). I wanted Xoe to learn some respect for fences, so I turned her loose in the main horse pen, which does have electricity flowing through the back section. The first thing Xoe did was to try to nibble the grass outside the fence. It didn't take long for her to get zapped! She ran and bucked and stayed away for a while, but the grass was too much of a temptation. The video below shows her second attempt. Is it bad to admit that we watched the above clip several times? ;) A little late with this post--summer is flying by for me and with the gorgeous weather, I'd rather be out playing with my kids, horses, and in the garden than sitting in front of the computer! Kid 3 had dance camp most of last week, so she didn't have a lot of time to work with Xoe again. It worked okay, though, because she needed some help in getting Xoe to lunge respectfully. Xoe thought the cue to go forward on the circle meant charge-sideways-and-drag-your-handler-with-you-across-the-field. Kid 3 didn't have the physical strength to stop Xoe, so I spent some time working with her. Xoe has improved greatly, but still regresses occasionally. That will disappear with continued exposure. Kid 1 stepped in to help out one day as well by giving Xoe her first bath. Xoe danced around some, but it was pretty much a non-event. She was pretty chill about the whole experience. You are welcome to watch the attached video of the first few moments of her exposure to the hose, but don't expect any fireworks! |
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