Time for me to play armchair psychologist for a minute. Seriously though, think about it, for your riding AND your life:
"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, or say, or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company.....a team.....a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.....I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes."
-Charles Swindoll
Lauren and Dudley
Lauren Snider and The Provost
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Our Erie Adventure
Our recent trip to the Erie Horse Trials was anything but boring! We took Snoopy and Cheddars. Snoops did his second training, and Scott and Cheddars were making their first attempt at training. We left early Friday morning and the trip up was uneventful, although Scott did try to teach me the fine art of drafting off a tractor-trailer to improve gas mileage. Looking at the back of the same semi gets really old after about an hour! This was Snoop's first long trip and he was not amused. Cheds thinks road trips are fun, but every time we stopped Snoop had that wide-eyed, "When do I get to get off this trailer?!!" look on his face. They both bounced off the trailer and seemed none the worse for the trip.
The Erie show grounds are beautiful! Nothing too fancy, but just gorgeous land! The show staff seemed quite surprised that we made the trek from KY and treated us like royalty the entire time we were there. The eventing community in Erie seems very tight knit, but everyone was very welcoming to us "outsiders." You can definitely tell the organizers have been at this for awhile as everything runs like a well-oiled machine. I think scores were posted in World Record time! We rode in the afternoon and then went out to walk xc. That's when things started to get interesting. There are a lot of woods and we got very frustrated, getting lost several times, but eventually we found our way. I went up there looking for an old-school xc course and boy did I get it! This was definitely not the same boring coop-table-coop-water-coop routine we get at the KHP! The jumps were big and after the first 3 fences, the questions just kept coming. It rained quite a bit so the footing was a bit muddy.
I'll let the pics speak for themselves! Check out the slide to the left-it was STRAIGHT UP to the logs on top! The goal for snoopy at this event was to improve on his tense dressage from Penny Oaks and we did just that. He was excellent and ended up 4th after dressage. He would have been 3rd, but his idiot mother (yours truly) made an error early in the test! He improved on his PO score by 7pts! Scott and I rode back to back and this was exactly the scenario Cheddars didn't need! He was very rotten in his test, only worried about where Snoopy was. It's a shame because on his best day he should beat Snoops! Scott did a good job of just keeping him in the arena.
Saturday was laid back as we only did dressage. They had a wonderful pig and corn roast that evening free to all competitors and volunteers. Sunday morning brought us to xc, and with more rain Sat night, the footing had deteriorated some, but I thought it was safe. Snoopy put in a fabulous double clear to move to 3rd! Cheddars also finished clean, but with some time. We were on course at the same time, but Scott said it was the best xc ride he'd ever had! The old red-head really rose to the occasion. Snoops was not very confident about the footing in warm-up so I had to do a lot more jumping than I normally would to help build his confidence. It seemed to do the trick as he was foot-perfect on course!
It down-poured again before the Training SJ and it was quite slick. We had to get our rounds in in between storms! Snoopy had what I believe to be his best SJ round ever, but with 2 rails down. He just wasn't getting off the ground like he normally does, but was very honest and rideable. He had the first down and that was probably due to not enough help from his pilot! He also caught the first part of the triple with a hind foot and I can only chalk that up to footing. The distance in was perfect and he jumped out of it great. Unfortunately those 2 rails cost us a 3rd place ribbon and we dropped to 6th. I am very proud of my pony though!
Cheddars had a very difficult time with the footing, and after sliding on take-off and crashing through fence one, his confidence was pretty much shot. He jumped 2 and 3, but 4 was a big oxer downhill and he said "no thanks". It's unfortunate because he always show jumps clean, but we're not mad at him. He doesn't have hind shoes, so obviously no studs. We'll rethink that next time. Overall the trip was a succcess!
Now on to the good stuff! Hotels up there are kind of far away and very expensive, so we decided to pitch a tent. There's a campground about 1 1/2 miles from the show so we thought we'd give it a go. The place was interesting to say the least, and a little scary. Think "Cabin Fever" meets the 1950's. Scott kept messing with me and trying to scare me all weekend. I was just waiting for the guy with the butcher knife to slash through our tent. I'm not really a camping kinda girl, but whatever it takes for me to be able to afford to show I'll do it. It stormed on us one night and I thought a tornado was gonna whisk us away. We're not in Kansas anymore Toto! I'll let the pics tell the rest of the story.
You can view pics of the horses at www.brantgamma.exposuremanager.com Go to events and then to the Erie Horse Trials. Riders are listed alphabetically. Snider and Snyder.
See you after KY CLASSIQUE! Go Eventing!
The Erie show grounds are beautiful! Nothing too fancy, but just gorgeous land! The show staff seemed quite surprised that we made the trek from KY and treated us like royalty the entire time we were there. The eventing community in Erie seems very tight knit, but everyone was very welcoming to us "outsiders." You can definitely tell the organizers have been at this for awhile as everything runs like a well-oiled machine. I think scores were posted in World Record time! We rode in the afternoon and then went out to walk xc. That's when things started to get interesting. There are a lot of woods and we got very frustrated, getting lost several times, but eventually we found our way. I went up there looking for an old-school xc course and boy did I get it! This was definitely not the same boring coop-table-coop-water-coop routine we get at the KHP! The jumps were big and after the first 3 fences, the questions just kept coming. It rained quite a bit so the footing was a bit muddy.
I'll let the pics speak for themselves! Check out the slide to the left-it was STRAIGHT UP to the logs on top! The goal for snoopy at this event was to improve on his tense dressage from Penny Oaks and we did just that. He was excellent and ended up 4th after dressage. He would have been 3rd, but his idiot mother (yours truly) made an error early in the test! He improved on his PO score by 7pts! Scott and I rode back to back and this was exactly the scenario Cheddars didn't need! He was very rotten in his test, only worried about where Snoopy was. It's a shame because on his best day he should beat Snoops! Scott did a good job of just keeping him in the arena.
Saturday was laid back as we only did dressage. They had a wonderful pig and corn roast that evening free to all competitors and volunteers. Sunday morning brought us to xc, and with more rain Sat night, the footing had deteriorated some, but I thought it was safe. Snoopy put in a fabulous double clear to move to 3rd! Cheddars also finished clean, but with some time. We were on course at the same time, but Scott said it was the best xc ride he'd ever had! The old red-head really rose to the occasion. Snoops was not very confident about the footing in warm-up so I had to do a lot more jumping than I normally would to help build his confidence. It seemed to do the trick as he was foot-perfect on course!
It down-poured again before the Training SJ and it was quite slick. We had to get our rounds in in between storms! Snoopy had what I believe to be his best SJ round ever, but with 2 rails down. He just wasn't getting off the ground like he normally does, but was very honest and rideable. He had the first down and that was probably due to not enough help from his pilot! He also caught the first part of the triple with a hind foot and I can only chalk that up to footing. The distance in was perfect and he jumped out of it great. Unfortunately those 2 rails cost us a 3rd place ribbon and we dropped to 6th. I am very proud of my pony though!
Cheddars had a very difficult time with the footing, and after sliding on take-off and crashing through fence one, his confidence was pretty much shot. He jumped 2 and 3, but 4 was a big oxer downhill and he said "no thanks". It's unfortunate because he always show jumps clean, but we're not mad at him. He doesn't have hind shoes, so obviously no studs. We'll rethink that next time. Overall the trip was a succcess!
Now on to the good stuff! Hotels up there are kind of far away and very expensive, so we decided to pitch a tent. There's a campground about 1 1/2 miles from the show so we thought we'd give it a go. The place was interesting to say the least, and a little scary. Think "Cabin Fever" meets the 1950's. Scott kept messing with me and trying to scare me all weekend. I was just waiting for the guy with the butcher knife to slash through our tent. I'm not really a camping kinda girl, but whatever it takes for me to be able to afford to show I'll do it. It stormed on us one night and I thought a tornado was gonna whisk us away. We're not in Kansas anymore Toto! I'll let the pics tell the rest of the story.
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| Our lovely shower facilities! |
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| Scott chillin' by the tent. |
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| Pic of Snoop in his stall just cuz he's cute! |
See you after KY CLASSIQUE! Go Eventing!
Monday, August 8, 2011
Help Send Snoopy to the Midsouth Training 3-Day!!!
As you all know this sport is expensive and it has been especially hard for us to fund all of our fall events that are so close together. The goal for the end of the season is to get Snoops to the training 3 day at Midsouth in October. In order to make this happen I had to get creative and decided to put together a nice raffle. The tickets are $10 and the prize includes dinner for two at TGI Friday's, a $50 gift card to Lowes, a $50 gift card to Target, and a $25 gas card. If you're interested in buying tickets please contact me via email or phone. Info is in my profile and on our website. Thanks!
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\Penny Oaks HT
We took two horses to the Penny Oaks HT at the Hoosier Horse Park in Indiana this weekend. I rode Snoopy in his first Training and Brooke rode my husband's horse Cheddars in her first novice. It was a very successful and fun weekend! Snoopy has been very relaxed in the dressage at the last few shows and I have been able to get him a lot more up, which resulted in a 29 at his last event, but for some reason this weekend he was very wound up. I just couldn't get the relaxation I needed to get a good score. He was obedient, but very tight and tense and the marks and comments reflected that. I was a bit disappointed in us, but hopefully he will improve on that score at Erie in two weeks. The cross country asked a lot of questions including a full coffin, up-down bank in one stride to a 3 stride turn to a roll top, coop on a bending line to a corner, etc..., but I thought it was very fair. Snoopy was awesome and exceeded all my expectations for his first training attempt. He was more bold than he'd ever been and very trusting. It was the most fun I've had on xc in a long time! He easily jumped double clear, although was quite strong at the end. I definitely needed more brakes! He was very brave in the show jumping as well, but again quite strong. He easily jumped clean, but had 2 time penalties because I had to fight him to listen at times. He finished 5th and I couldn't be more proud of my baby!! He's quite proud of himself too!
Brooke rode Cheddar's in her first recognized event which was also her first Novice level event and she did a fantastic job! Cheddars is a great horse, but he has his quirks and he has severe separation anxiety at shows which can make him very difficult to handle in the warm-ups. Brooke put him to work and had a lovely test to score a 33 and put her in 7th out of 22 horses after dressage! This was despite that fact that he was screaming for Snoopy all the way through his test! They had great clean XC and SJ rounds to finish the weekend in 6th place! Way to go!
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| Snoopy SJ Photo courtesy of Xpress Foto |
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| Snoopy XC Photo courtesy of Xpress Foto |
Brooke rode Cheddar's in her first recognized event which was also her first Novice level event and she did a fantastic job! Cheddars is a great horse, but he has his quirks and he has severe separation anxiety at shows which can make him very difficult to handle in the warm-ups. Brooke put him to work and had a lovely test to score a 33 and put her in 7th out of 22 horses after dressage! This was despite that fact that he was screaming for Snoopy all the way through his test! They had great clean XC and SJ rounds to finish the weekend in 6th place! Way to go!
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| Brooke SJ photo courtesy of Xpress Foto |
We had a blast and I also had a new experience that I have to mention: Mini Bikes!!!! Brooke's dad Johnny brought up his two mini bikes for us to ride around during the event, and I have to admit I was very apprehensive about giving it a go! I felt like maybe I should put my helmet and xc vest on before I even attempted it, but it was actually quite easy and tons of fun! I did stall out on the xc by myself, but somehow managed to figure out how to get it started again. Special thanks to Johnny and Brooke's friend Nathan who were incredibly helpful all weekend. Thanks guys!
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| Snoopy and Cheddars photo courtesy of Scott Snyder PS Sorry about the bad photo-Snoopy was in no mood to stand still for his photo shoot! |
Until next time.........GO EVENTING!
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Fall 2011 Calendar
You all probably know how I feel about plans at this point, but there comes a time when you at least have to make an effort to plan, be optimistic, and hope everything works out the way it's supposed to. So here is the "plan" for the remainder of the season. Obviously, it is always subject to change and we may add to it, but I think it's pretty set in stone.
Aug 6-7 Penny Oaks
Aug 20-21 Erie
Sept 2-4 KY Classique
Sept. 30-Oct 2 Jumpstart
Oct. 19-23 Midsouth
Aug 6-7 Penny Oaks
Aug 20-21 Erie
Sept 2-4 KY Classique
Sept. 30-Oct 2 Jumpstart
Oct. 19-23 Midsouth
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