Horse hunting is hard!!

... And tiring, and time consuming but also super super addictive!! So, I've officially been horse hunting for 14 months (a year and two months, nearly three actually!) and still haven't found the right horse shaped creature :( There have been several very promising potentials though! But unfortunately they've all fallen through in one way or another (an injury that wasn't mentioned in the ad, under or over selling by the owner, or owners deciding to hang onto their ponies instead of selling them!) But by now I think I'm slightly qualified to run you through a brief list of some of the various perils of horse hunting!

"Smiles!"

For one, there aren't really any horses coming up for sale at the moment either. The amount of time I've spent scrolling through the same horse groups on Facebook, the listings on Horsezone and searching through gumtree, is embarrassing to say the least. Oh, and my phone battery isn't exactly my friend either "What do you mean you're out of charge again, it's only been like 4 hours on nonstop use wtf!?" oops.

"Talk to the tail"

The actual ads that owners write are another thing. The extraordinary amount of poorly written ads lacking basic spelling, grammar and punctuation, to the ones that don't include any information about the horse in question, or worse a combination of both, "Horze 4 sale. Pm 4 detils. Nice tipe Will b gon qickly". I mean they could be selling an awesome horse, but there is nothing about the ad that makes someone want to enquire about that horse! If anything it gives off a somewhat suspicious vibe that makes potential buyers want to stay clear away, just slightly counter productive if you ask me!

"No thanks."

 And a major pet peeve of mine, is when owners/sellers don't reply to messages, or take like 5 million years to reply. I mean if I've taken the time to send you a message asking about your horse, I'm obviously interested in him/her, and you're a) throwing away a potential home, and b) wasting my time. It's understandable if there are extraordinary circumstances (family emergency, accident, etc.) Otherwise don't do it! Even if you're busy and can't talk at the time, just a quick message to let me know that you've received my message and you'll get back to be later, would suffice.

Oh, and do I even need to mention the scammers out there?

"Um, scammers will not be tolerated."

And through all of this I've come to the conclusion I have a love-hate relationship with horse hunting, on one hand its entertaining and addictively fun (is it a word? Who knows, but now it is :P) but on the other is frustrating and pain staking! But I also know that *eventually* I will find the right horse creature, and the search and wait will have been worth it! Patience is a virtue kids!!

I'm Back!! + Updates and Recent Shenanigans!

So, it's been over 6 months since I last updated you guys, and this blog! #oops

Many, many things have happened since then (as you might have imagined!) so I'll try my best to fill you in on everything!

  

You listening? Because Cola is!

 

 I'll start with where I left off, in my last post (to be specific, the 9th of December, 2014) I was still on crutches with my injured leg!! Well, thankfully it healed enough for me to leave the sticks of  death behind (known to most normal people as crutches)! Unfortunately the swelling, pain and resulting lump in my leg didn't depart for 2+ months, which kinda sucked but I still rode anyway, because lets be honest some swelling and pain wasn't stopping me riding :') I did end up having to go to an acupuncturist in my area for a few sessions to get rid of it completely but the bonus was he also did some work on my back which was very helpful!

 

Do you guys think my photo taking skills have improved? Hahaha I think I'm kidding my self lol!!

 

Fast forward a few months (or majority of the year, because I have a boring life), to the end of May and Midge started getting sent back down to lessons! *celebrates* It was only after months and months of begging the managers and my instructor, but it paid of and I rode him for the first time in an arena for over two (or is it three) years! We had some interesting times, which included him llama-ing his was around and spooking a the fairies, but my instructor 'R' saw something and decided to let him stay, much to my celebration! He's been working super, super well and surprising all of us I think, and in only a few short lessons I made the decision to ride him in the ODE Glenworth was holding... I don't know why but I look back on it and laugh ;')

 

The ODE was um... interesting, to say the least. We had a pretty frazzled warm up, he wasn't used to seeing so many people around but he did listen to sum extent, if only it had carried on in our jumping round. The jumps were tiny (20-30cm, maybe 40cm for one or two) but we still managed to get disqualified on the second jump, the judge 'M' knew Midge, and his ways and let me finish the course so he wouldn't pick up bad habits, but to be honest that was probably a mistake *laughs*. The poor thing got so worked up and nervous/scared, we made it over the first two jumps and then half bolted the 3a and ran out on 3b, and the rest of the course consisted of him over jumping, spooking and bolting. I did make it out alive however, and had to stop him into a fence and jump off and walk him around, well out of other peoples way (while watching the course being set back up ;)

 

Both of us: "oh my god not again"

What even is this, I don't know and I'm sorry for burning your eyes with the horrible riding.

 

Then after an hour break, I was called to do my dressage test. There was not one single moment during the test that he was relaxed in any way shape or form, and I'm pretty sure all the parents felt sorry for me, jokes on them though I was laughing my head off and enjoying the experience (while making a rather long list of things to work on next lesson!) in short, we nearly squished several people just trying to walk to the arena, had a huge tantrum over walking into the arena because "the judges table is obviously very, very, VERY, scary", and then proceeded to nearly crash through the hot tape, nearly squish the judges and their table and be the entertainment for the day! He did have one or two moments where he did listen although they were rare, and I do think he did try really hard, I just kinda chucked him in the deep end! We didn't place (obviously) although I'm pretty sure majority of my marks for dressage were because she felt sorry for me!! Ahh, it was an interesting experience but I honestly enjoyed it so much, and was super good learning day! One of my highlights from the day was nearly getting dumped on the table in front of the judges *laughs hysterically*

My super awesome friend 'H' took some great photos that really captured our test as well!

 

"Nope"

*disclaimer* please excuse all riding, especially here I was trying to stop him taking off

My face = explains everything

He then became very apologetic and very cute 

Fave photo ever, excuse my fave though!

 

Funnily enough our next lesson, was the best I've ever had on him, so he must have learnt something (or he just felt really bad)!

 

And finally onto the horse creature buying thing! It's back and in fully swing!! I nearly went to see two really horses, one stockhorse x tb and the other pure stockhorse, but they both sold before I got to them which was a little sad :( but then I was given the opportunity to lease a friends horse while she was away for 5 months, that didn't end up working either because of timing and such! However, my old instructor 'K' has said she's going to be selling her tb in the next few months and she thinks he'd be perfect for me so we'll see how that works out!

 

Had the pleasure of taking photos of those lovely drafts in work, on a farm stay this holidays!

 

2015 has been a really crazy year so far, and its even crazier to think we're over halfway through it! I've had some really good times, but also some bad ones, and some sad ones one of which was when one of my favourite staff members/managers/friends left Glenworth suddenly and no proper good byes happened :/ Such is life I guess, and on the upside I started to talking to some pretty cool people that I'd known for a while but never really talked much 'H' and 'J' you know who you are, and ily very much thanks for just being there and being you <3

 

And I promise I won't let this blog get so neglected again! I've gotten my writing juices back and I'm ready to write (she says as she types this at 1:21 in the morning, when she should probably be sleeping but you know...)