nootka
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Hi,
We arrived on Friday at around 10:00 a.m. (show began at noon and we had class #1) Got measured and all was great there.
Saw Keith, susanne, and Daryl (Big Dogs & Little Horses on the Forum) had pulled in with the ever fabulous Mr. Mingus, and greeted them as we hurried off to prepare for the first class.
Mouse was first in the ring w/Model Geldings and he took a third I believe out of 5? Don't remember as I was in such a hurry and distracted. He was second under both judges in Open Sr. Geldings 32-34" but then he took a first in Amateur Geldings under and he also took a Reserve Grand Champion Gelding. Ended the "day" of showing on a high note for me. Given that I have NOT worked him other than to condition him for jumping, I am pretty pleased. He's also been on pasture for about 12 hours per day and tends to bloat since he likes to crib. So I put him in his stall to relax and wait for Sunday's Supreme Halter classes and his a.m. debut in Hunter.
We then bathed Lark for the day of Mare classes on Saturday, and got her all detailed by razoring, blending the clip job on her face, and sanding hooves.
Leia and none other than Kody himself were in attendance and stalled right next door to us!
For all I've read about Kody, spending time around him in person has made me a definite FAN. His momma's no slouch, either. Leia was so helpful and fun to be around. The love she has for her sweet and spunky little gelding is really amazing. I got to meet Leia's mom as well, and she's wonderful and sweet.
We'd meant to get photos of Mouse, Kody and Mingus, three very notable geldings who are proof that just because you "take 'em off" it does not mean they will be any less spirited and certainly none of them are marshmallows!
I'll let susanne report on Mingus' classes, at least the results. His "Over" classes were after Mouse's and so we watched them happily. Mingus has it down but his squirminess kind of got the better of him. He was very excited and keyed up, much like the jr. stallions that would show on Sunday. But when he was asked to show, he stood very well and susanne has him placing his feet like a champ. He resembles to me a miniature version of an Anglo-Arab. He even held his tail proudly arched from his body. Also, don't let susanne even whisper "fat" and Mingus in the same sentence. He is in near perfect condition and you can tell he FEELS it. He competed in solid color and with his gleaming bay coat he was hard to beat. We even got to see him in Liberty! After the catch, he reared with much enthusiasm and showmanship. What a ham. And he has a new "accessory" one which Mouse really approves of! Susanne will share details, of that I'm sure.
Once the show was over for the day, we retreated to the grassy field behind the barns and the shade from the evergreens. Mt. Rainier was alight from the afternoon sun, and with all the great people to chat and visit with, we unwound from all the show stress and excitement. We set up a single jump for Mingus to check out and after a few hijinks, he cleared it even at the top setting. He's quite an athlete and once he gets into a performance career, I can see he'll have even more to look forward to.
Got to talk with Equuisize (Nancy), and really "meet" her, she is great and so cute!
Saturday the mare classes were early, so we got Lark out and cleaned her up and headed off. She was first in every class! I was so much in shock because she had not done very well at her first show of the year, but she's gotten past the growth spurt and filled out and now looks so beautiful and expressive. Lark took the Jr. Mare Championship as well as the Amateur Championship. I was sad that they'd run out of neck ribbons on Friday during Mouse's classes since we would have had quite a pile. They had one Grand Champ ribbon for Lark, though, and it was great to have a horse of my breeding and training wearing it. There were some beautiful mares out there, too. Also Lark has been living on the pasture and just being a horse, so again I felt very honored to get what we got by virtue of her beauty. Now I had a problem, though: two horses in the Amateur Supreme Halter Horse class on Sunday and one to go in the Supreme Halter Horse class previous to THAT (the top three from each gender compete for this honor and I've NEVER gotten one before this, though I've been in the running a few times). Luckily I had some pretty good handlers to help out in the form of Crabby Chickens!
Here is Lark as she looked just after winning her mare classes/championship:
This photo does not quite do her justice as her personality and attitude tend to be part of her aura, but she's matured through her "odd" yearling phase just wonderfully.
Lark competed in the yearling Futurity hosted by the Evergreen Miniature Horse Club, and took a second to one of the most beautiful miniature fillies I have seen. I don't know her full name, but this mare is the epitome of Arabian. I mean it, I don't usually say that, but she IS as close to a miniature Arabian as I've seen. If I can find a way for you to see her, I'll do it. She is an Arenosa-bred Over filly and a beautiful chestnut with the most beautiful face marking. *sigh* If I found one like that under 34", I would move heaven and earth to have it. It will be interesting to see how much we end up getting for our Futurity win, but I definitely did NOT mind losing to such a beauty as that.
And so Saturday was going beautifully. I bathed and clipped and razored Kyan for the jr. stallion classes in the a.m. on Sunday. I filmed a few classes and did a few miscellaneous favors for Leia and Kody (man, what this girl does all by herself, for the most part. It awes me.), including helping with Liberty. Again, I'll let Leia give the details on his Liberty class, but his music was perfection both for his run and his attitude! He needed little help to put on a show and the catch was entertaining, too.
So here's where things took a BAD turn. We drove to Kim's from the show (about a 40-minute drive) and needed to fuel up. Our truck is a diesel so we have to be careful to buy it while the stations that have it are open, sometimes pretty limited in small towns. About a quarter mile after we filled up, however, the truck began to sputter and shake, and white smoke poured out of it. It threatened to die before we made it the last half mile or so to Kim's house. We were perplexed but suspected that the wrong fuel had been put in. Bingo. When we pulled in, and opened the fuel door, the smell of gasoline was quite strong. :no: Now here we were without a vehicle, and possibly a destroyed engine. At the very least, it was going to need a lot of work to pump out the 28 gallons of supreme unleaded that was in it, and purge the fuel lines, replace the filters and refill with diesel. I sort of panicked, but Mark and Kim reassured us that they would do whatever was necessary to make sure it turned out ok as far as getting the horses and us home, and back to the show on Sunday.
Sunday a.m. we went to the show in Kim's trusty Explorer, leaving Martin and the kids at Kim's with Mark and Mathew. Mathew watched the boys while Mark and Martin slaved away over the ailing truck, and ran for parts and called for advice (the truck could not be driven at all).
Mouse was going in the ring first for Hunter, and I was fairly nervous about it, so I wanted him to eat and have time to warm up prior. Leia helped me a lot with getting his tail braided as we were late arriving. She also ran him over the warmup jumps a few times and schooled him a bit. I had no idea what to expect, but was hopeful. When we were called (second in the cue), good old Mouse got a look at the first jump, a "brick wall" of painted cardboard squares, and said "Unh-uh! NO WAY is Mouse going to do anything other than run AROUND that tacky pile of paper!" *LMAO* I was embarassed but not surprised. I had not jumped him over anything that resembled that fence, though we've jumped just about everything else. He was sort of in a "mood" and maybe he was feeling my distress over the truck, and he'd refused a few times in the warmup ring, too. Ah, well. We DQ'ed without a chance to try any of the other jumps and so we know what we need to work on for next time. And there WILL BE a next time! Mouse's new jumping bridle/shetland halter will be put to more use than just this once where we gave it a very inauspicious maiden run.
Kyan's classes went pretty well even though I was feeling pretty dismal. I honestly don't remember most of his placings because I was so distracted. I love that truck a lot and was worried that the engine had been ruined (yeah, it's just a "thing", but it seems to be the last thing we need right now the expense of an engine replacement as well as the loss of use of our main vehicle). He did take some top placings even though I had a tough time getting him to show himself and hold still. He was only in Stallion foals of current year 30" and under and Amateur stallions but he behaved himself in the Champion judgeoff but didn't get anything against the older guys.
I didn't get any photos of him all cleaned up, either, since we didn't have enough "personnel" available to handle and take pics, etc. He is a beauty, though. He is even better than I thought he would be. He reminds me of Mouse at that age, but more refined and with nicer action. Mouse had better be a good boy, or I will keep Kyan and send him down the road (just kidding, Mousey is here to stay). Kyan has recently discovered what that "fifth leg" is for, though, so he was screaming for all he was worth. Someone made the comment that all the babies in the ring (there were four weanling stallions) were screaming for mom, but old Kyan was yelling for "girls" of any kind, as he's been weaned for a month now! *LOL* I am very proud of this little man!
I got some updates that sounded promising on the truck. The unleaded was siphoned out and had been repeated with some fresh diesel to help dilute it.
So we concentrated on the Supreme Halter classes, and though I'd left my show halters (thank you, Tracy G (Flyin G Farm on the Forum), for loaning me the one that looked so beautiful on little Kyan, and congrats on your wins.) in the truck, we found ones that Kim had to fit the two Supreme Halter candidates. Lark's was especially fetching though it would have looked as fine on Mouse!
Lark went in for the Supreme Halter Horse, Under (Open), and she was outclassed by the stallion in the lineup (I don't remember his name, but he was a very stunning bay pinto). I was not a bit disappointed to be in the elite group of three competing for this title, though.
So we went for our final class: Amateur Supreme Halter Horse, Under. Mouse was handled very well by Hilary of Crabby Chicken Ranch. I didn't even have time to look as Lark was having foot tug of war with me on placement. When they announced the winner, it was "Raftered Hearts Raven's Lark" (her mom is in the avatar, and her sire is Crabby Chicken's gorgeous and obviously prepotent stallion, aAprina in Pharaoh's Freeanda, or "Falcon")!!!! We raced up to collect our Supreme Halter neck ribbon and got our pictures taken then trotted out victoriously! I forgot about that broken truck for a while, that's for sure! Lark's sister Rio has been cleaning up at shows this Spring and Summer, too, so she got a little closer to getting out of that shadow! I am excitedly awaiting Lark's full sibling in 2007 and a half sibling, too, by Kyan's dam.
I ordered a few pics of Lark from the show photographers, Pangraf Productions, and will share those when they arrive.
We also visited with countryrose, and she's always so nice, enjoyable to talk with.
We managed to cram ALL our junk and ourselves back into Kim's poor groaning Explorer and hauled the trailer back to Kim's, where the horses were turned out into their pastures for some well earned R&R while the men slaved over the truck some more. All that was left to get some more parts when the dealership opened on Monday.
I, however, took my son's car and drove home w/the little boys and left my horses behind at the Crabby Chicken B&B.
The truck is on its way home as I type this, under its own power and towing our trailer full of beautiful minis, so hurray for that. A happy ending, considering, and for sure an eventful weekend!
Hope everyone else made it home in one piece, and have rested up.
Thanks for reading, if you're still awake!
Liz M.
We arrived on Friday at around 10:00 a.m. (show began at noon and we had class #1) Got measured and all was great there.
Saw Keith, susanne, and Daryl (Big Dogs & Little Horses on the Forum) had pulled in with the ever fabulous Mr. Mingus, and greeted them as we hurried off to prepare for the first class.
Mouse was first in the ring w/Model Geldings and he took a third I believe out of 5? Don't remember as I was in such a hurry and distracted. He was second under both judges in Open Sr. Geldings 32-34" but then he took a first in Amateur Geldings under and he also took a Reserve Grand Champion Gelding. Ended the "day" of showing on a high note for me. Given that I have NOT worked him other than to condition him for jumping, I am pretty pleased. He's also been on pasture for about 12 hours per day and tends to bloat since he likes to crib. So I put him in his stall to relax and wait for Sunday's Supreme Halter classes and his a.m. debut in Hunter.
We then bathed Lark for the day of Mare classes on Saturday, and got her all detailed by razoring, blending the clip job on her face, and sanding hooves.
Leia and none other than Kody himself were in attendance and stalled right next door to us!
For all I've read about Kody, spending time around him in person has made me a definite FAN. His momma's no slouch, either. Leia was so helpful and fun to be around. The love she has for her sweet and spunky little gelding is really amazing. I got to meet Leia's mom as well, and she's wonderful and sweet.
We'd meant to get photos of Mouse, Kody and Mingus, three very notable geldings who are proof that just because you "take 'em off" it does not mean they will be any less spirited and certainly none of them are marshmallows!
I'll let susanne report on Mingus' classes, at least the results. His "Over" classes were after Mouse's and so we watched them happily. Mingus has it down but his squirminess kind of got the better of him. He was very excited and keyed up, much like the jr. stallions that would show on Sunday. But when he was asked to show, he stood very well and susanne has him placing his feet like a champ. He resembles to me a miniature version of an Anglo-Arab. He even held his tail proudly arched from his body. Also, don't let susanne even whisper "fat" and Mingus in the same sentence. He is in near perfect condition and you can tell he FEELS it. He competed in solid color and with his gleaming bay coat he was hard to beat. We even got to see him in Liberty! After the catch, he reared with much enthusiasm and showmanship. What a ham. And he has a new "accessory" one which Mouse really approves of! Susanne will share details, of that I'm sure.
Once the show was over for the day, we retreated to the grassy field behind the barns and the shade from the evergreens. Mt. Rainier was alight from the afternoon sun, and with all the great people to chat and visit with, we unwound from all the show stress and excitement. We set up a single jump for Mingus to check out and after a few hijinks, he cleared it even at the top setting. He's quite an athlete and once he gets into a performance career, I can see he'll have even more to look forward to.
Got to talk with Equuisize (Nancy), and really "meet" her, she is great and so cute!
Saturday the mare classes were early, so we got Lark out and cleaned her up and headed off. She was first in every class! I was so much in shock because she had not done very well at her first show of the year, but she's gotten past the growth spurt and filled out and now looks so beautiful and expressive. Lark took the Jr. Mare Championship as well as the Amateur Championship. I was sad that they'd run out of neck ribbons on Friday during Mouse's classes since we would have had quite a pile. They had one Grand Champ ribbon for Lark, though, and it was great to have a horse of my breeding and training wearing it. There were some beautiful mares out there, too. Also Lark has been living on the pasture and just being a horse, so again I felt very honored to get what we got by virtue of her beauty. Now I had a problem, though: two horses in the Amateur Supreme Halter Horse class on Sunday and one to go in the Supreme Halter Horse class previous to THAT (the top three from each gender compete for this honor and I've NEVER gotten one before this, though I've been in the running a few times). Luckily I had some pretty good handlers to help out in the form of Crabby Chickens!
Here is Lark as she looked just after winning her mare classes/championship:
This photo does not quite do her justice as her personality and attitude tend to be part of her aura, but she's matured through her "odd" yearling phase just wonderfully.
Lark competed in the yearling Futurity hosted by the Evergreen Miniature Horse Club, and took a second to one of the most beautiful miniature fillies I have seen. I don't know her full name, but this mare is the epitome of Arabian. I mean it, I don't usually say that, but she IS as close to a miniature Arabian as I've seen. If I can find a way for you to see her, I'll do it. She is an Arenosa-bred Over filly and a beautiful chestnut with the most beautiful face marking. *sigh* If I found one like that under 34", I would move heaven and earth to have it. It will be interesting to see how much we end up getting for our Futurity win, but I definitely did NOT mind losing to such a beauty as that.
And so Saturday was going beautifully. I bathed and clipped and razored Kyan for the jr. stallion classes in the a.m. on Sunday. I filmed a few classes and did a few miscellaneous favors for Leia and Kody (man, what this girl does all by herself, for the most part. It awes me.), including helping with Liberty. Again, I'll let Leia give the details on his Liberty class, but his music was perfection both for his run and his attitude! He needed little help to put on a show and the catch was entertaining, too.
So here's where things took a BAD turn. We drove to Kim's from the show (about a 40-minute drive) and needed to fuel up. Our truck is a diesel so we have to be careful to buy it while the stations that have it are open, sometimes pretty limited in small towns. About a quarter mile after we filled up, however, the truck began to sputter and shake, and white smoke poured out of it. It threatened to die before we made it the last half mile or so to Kim's house. We were perplexed but suspected that the wrong fuel had been put in. Bingo. When we pulled in, and opened the fuel door, the smell of gasoline was quite strong. :no: Now here we were without a vehicle, and possibly a destroyed engine. At the very least, it was going to need a lot of work to pump out the 28 gallons of supreme unleaded that was in it, and purge the fuel lines, replace the filters and refill with diesel. I sort of panicked, but Mark and Kim reassured us that they would do whatever was necessary to make sure it turned out ok as far as getting the horses and us home, and back to the show on Sunday.
Sunday a.m. we went to the show in Kim's trusty Explorer, leaving Martin and the kids at Kim's with Mark and Mathew. Mathew watched the boys while Mark and Martin slaved away over the ailing truck, and ran for parts and called for advice (the truck could not be driven at all).
Mouse was going in the ring first for Hunter, and I was fairly nervous about it, so I wanted him to eat and have time to warm up prior. Leia helped me a lot with getting his tail braided as we were late arriving. She also ran him over the warmup jumps a few times and schooled him a bit. I had no idea what to expect, but was hopeful. When we were called (second in the cue), good old Mouse got a look at the first jump, a "brick wall" of painted cardboard squares, and said "Unh-uh! NO WAY is Mouse going to do anything other than run AROUND that tacky pile of paper!" *LMAO* I was embarassed but not surprised. I had not jumped him over anything that resembled that fence, though we've jumped just about everything else. He was sort of in a "mood" and maybe he was feeling my distress over the truck, and he'd refused a few times in the warmup ring, too. Ah, well. We DQ'ed without a chance to try any of the other jumps and so we know what we need to work on for next time. And there WILL BE a next time! Mouse's new jumping bridle/shetland halter will be put to more use than just this once where we gave it a very inauspicious maiden run.
Kyan's classes went pretty well even though I was feeling pretty dismal. I honestly don't remember most of his placings because I was so distracted. I love that truck a lot and was worried that the engine had been ruined (yeah, it's just a "thing", but it seems to be the last thing we need right now the expense of an engine replacement as well as the loss of use of our main vehicle). He did take some top placings even though I had a tough time getting him to show himself and hold still. He was only in Stallion foals of current year 30" and under and Amateur stallions but he behaved himself in the Champion judgeoff but didn't get anything against the older guys.
I got some updates that sounded promising on the truck. The unleaded was siphoned out and had been repeated with some fresh diesel to help dilute it.
So we concentrated on the Supreme Halter classes, and though I'd left my show halters (thank you, Tracy G (Flyin G Farm on the Forum), for loaning me the one that looked so beautiful on little Kyan, and congrats on your wins.) in the truck, we found ones that Kim had to fit the two Supreme Halter candidates. Lark's was especially fetching though it would have looked as fine on Mouse!
Lark went in for the Supreme Halter Horse, Under (Open), and she was outclassed by the stallion in the lineup (I don't remember his name, but he was a very stunning bay pinto). I was not a bit disappointed to be in the elite group of three competing for this title, though.
So we went for our final class: Amateur Supreme Halter Horse, Under. Mouse was handled very well by Hilary of Crabby Chicken Ranch. I didn't even have time to look as Lark was having foot tug of war with me on placement. When they announced the winner, it was "Raftered Hearts Raven's Lark" (her mom is in the avatar, and her sire is Crabby Chicken's gorgeous and obviously prepotent stallion, aAprina in Pharaoh's Freeanda, or "Falcon")!!!! We raced up to collect our Supreme Halter neck ribbon and got our pictures taken then trotted out victoriously! I forgot about that broken truck for a while, that's for sure! Lark's sister Rio has been cleaning up at shows this Spring and Summer, too, so she got a little closer to getting out of that shadow! I am excitedly awaiting Lark's full sibling in 2007 and a half sibling, too, by Kyan's dam.
I ordered a few pics of Lark from the show photographers, Pangraf Productions, and will share those when they arrive.
We also visited with countryrose, and she's always so nice, enjoyable to talk with.
We managed to cram ALL our junk and ourselves back into Kim's poor groaning Explorer and hauled the trailer back to Kim's, where the horses were turned out into their pastures for some well earned R&R while the men slaved over the truck some more. All that was left to get some more parts when the dealership opened on Monday.
I, however, took my son's car and drove home w/the little boys and left my horses behind at the Crabby Chicken B&B.
The truck is on its way home as I type this, under its own power and towing our trailer full of beautiful minis, so hurray for that. A happy ending, considering, and for sure an eventful weekend!
Hope everyone else made it home in one piece, and have rested up.
Thanks for reading, if you're still awake!
Liz M.
