Oh the weather outside is frightful.....

Well, it seems winter has finally settled in for the long haul. We've had snow, ice, rain, the dreaded "wintery mix"....water troughs need to be de-iced on a daily basis, fans are down heated buckets are up. While I love the holidays, I absolutely hate the cold! I am one of those people who would rather be drenched in their own sweat all day long then freezing to death; sunny and 85, that's what I'm talking about!

This time of year, since I don't have an indoor arena, my riding time can sometimes come to a screeching halt. Currently, my arena is a frozen sheet of icy sandy daggers. The ground in my back field seems to thaw more so than the arena, it gets the longest amount of sun exposure during the day, so the ponies get to spend some time outside of the arena, which is great for them! Hacking out, strengthening through trot sets, it's all great stuff for the winter! 2013 wasn't a huge competition year for me as I retired Gandy, my long time competition partner, and had a lot of babies coming up that just weren't really ready. So I will use winter as an opportunity I work on our dressage and strengthening through consistent flat work so that everyone is strong and ready to go in the spring! 

I also hope to get the babies off the farm as much as possible! I am lucky that I have 2 wonderful indoor arena's all within 15 min from my farm that I have been invited to use. So lessons don't necessarily need to be rescheduled for bad weather, and all training doesn't need to die off. There are also several wonderful winter schooling show series all within about an hour from us. From hunter shows to dressage shows, there are plenty of opportunities to get the babies out in a relaxed and controlled environment before spring time!

The only other fun thing going on is that another local trainer and I have dabbled with the idea of acquiring a stallion. She has a lot of experience in the breedin world, as well as the facility to house and stand a stallion, and I have the guts to get up there and compete him! We both love the TB mind and athleticism, and have a few bloodlines in mind that we'd like to hopefully get our hands on for sport horse breeding purposes. 

Other than that not much new since the last blog........hey, 3 in one year, that's a new record :)

Cheers!

Natasha the Standardbred

I am a professional trainer on the eastern shore of MD, specializing in retraining OTTBs for new careers in eventing and the hunter rings. I was recently approached by a "first time horse buyer who fell in love with a standardbred mare." I try to keep a very open mind about all breeds and their abilities, but when she told me they had never owned horses and had just purchased a Standardbred mare, who by the way was still at the track barn, for their 8 year old daughter who had been taking lessons for about a year, I was beyond slightly hesitant. She explained to me that they would like the mare to do local showing and essentially just be their family horse. They had wanted to take on a horse that would otherwise perhaps ended up in a bad situation ad when they met her they just "fell in love". While i don't think that anything off any track is appropriate for an 8 year old child, after speaking with the Mother it was clear they were going to purchase the mare either way and even if she didn't work for them they would provide her with a forever home, I decided to accept the challenge.

We picked up the mare, Natasha, from her training barn yesterday afternoon in-between crazy storms. She walked quietly out of her stall, and just stood there starring inquisitively at me. I was shocked- she was lovely! And as I started to look around at all the other heads sticking out from the stalls I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were all lovely! Like I said before, I try not to be breed biased, but we all know what we picture if someone says "standardbred".......plain bay with a "jug head"......none of these fit that description! There were of course many bays, a few chestnuts, and even a big grey- almost all of which had beautiful heads! (I even tried to take a 3 year old home with me, however the trainer said she was doing to well to retire and had to run again Monday night.) I found myself saying out loud over and over again "wow, they're so pretty!" I had to wonder if the trainer was getting offended by my repeating of the comment, but I just couldn't help myself! They were all fat, shiny, dappled, happy, refined headed Standardbreds!

Natasha, who is 4 years old and had a lack luster racing career, walked quietly down the aisle way, took one last look around, and hopped into the trailer to head to my farm. When we got there, she walked off the trailer as quietly as she had walked on, marched into the barn, and happily went into her new stall and started munching hay like she'd been there forever. She had a small scrape on her ankle that the trainer said was a couple weeks old, so I wanted to clean it up. Keep in mind I'm used to taking TBs off the track, chain over the nose, nervous, unsettled, pacing their stalls- not Natasha the Standardbred! She marched into the wash stall on a loose lead, let me scrub her wound and clip it! She then quietly stood while I clipped her fetlocks, muzzle, and ears......UNHEARD OF!! After that I put her away for the night.

Today will be her first day of training to be a riding horse! She is a trotter, not a pacer, so that in itself is helpful! She seems so good natured and quiet that I think she will be of the easiest horses I've ever worked with! I would love to do weekly updates on her progress while she is here, I'm already very much impressed with her- who would have guessed it!