Cupid and I went and fancy pranced today, or attempted to. The Pony Club arranged a clinic with one of the local professionals and because I joined as an adult member we were allowed to attend! Despite being the greenest in the ring and the ones with very little formal training, I’m proud of my little mare and how she tried for me! 

Our day started at 6:30 where I woke up and regretted life. It was the weekend, I should be relaxing and not going to embarrass myself at a clinic. After laying in bed for a few minutes I finally got the motivation to get up and get ready for the day. 

The ponies were awake and excited to see me. Then Cupid realized that along with the feed buckets I was holding my grooming supplies. Little Miss Sassypants seemed very proud of her decision to lay down last night and become one with her pee spots. Grey horses are always the best to get presentation ready! After 30 minutes of working on the stains I decided to call it quits and hope the tack covered the remaining “color”. Spoiler, it didn’t completely but we survived. 

Getting Cupid onto the trailer was an experience. At the initial attempt she decided to duck her head, turn tail and run. Nothing like watching your horse run from the trailer into the neighbors back yard. After catching the little monster we put her chain on and with some convincing, mostly from my trainer, we got her loaded and headed over to the facilities. 

We successfully completed our first Pony Club safety check, as an adult it’s interesting to say the least. Someone comes over and checks all your tack and safety equipment, then clears you to mount your horse. From there I hopped on and went to go walk around while waiting on the clinician. She arrived and there was a quick Q&A with all the riders where we covered the background experience of our horses, our experience level, and what our goals were. I’m fairly sure that answering that my goal for Cupid is just to solidify our foundation was not the right answer but it is the honest truth. 

We took a pathway to the dressage arena, then started the lesson. During the clinic we covered lots of trot work, including transitions and half halts. It was fascinating hearing how this clinician viewed half halts, less of a halt/preparation for the next movement and more of a rebalancing act, and I think Cupid actually responded extremely well to her method. It involved much more use of the corners than I’m used to and took a bit of work to get used to but I’m really looking forward to using it more during our rides!

While our trot work was fairly decent, just needed a lot of motivation, our canter work left a lot to be desired. For the first lap I unfortunately didn’t maintain our communication and we quickly lost implusion and broke gait. Our second lap was much better on Cupids part but I was still a hot mess. I worked on maintaining my outside leg and unfortunately collapsed my shoulders forward which threw Cupid off. With some work I did get better, but this is clearly one of the big things I need to work on. 

Overall, I loved the clinic and can’t wait to work with this trainer again. She was extremely positive about Cupid and our lack of experience, and she broke everything down into understandable details regarding the how and why of what I needed to do as a rider. My biggest takeaway is that I need to remember that Cupid is a large pony with short legs, when lessoning with larger horses I can’t compare her to horses with larger legs and she’ll never feel like a larger horse. She’s my little grey monster pony who tries her heart out for me with every move she makes. 

Finally, sorry for the lack of pictures. They just didn’t happen today.

If there's one thing I've learned from owning a grey horse it's that no horse is ever 100% clean. Every brush stroke adds dirt and removes it at the same time. Because of this I try to clean my brushes regularly. This not only allows my horse to stay cleaner but also gives me the chance to organize my grooming tools, or which I have far too many. While cleaning my brushes I decided it might be fun to share with you what's in my grooming box!

The following are some of my favorite grooming products that I keep in my everyday grooming box.

To start with, my grooming tote is a pink Little Giant Duratote I bought from Jeffers Equine. The plastic makes it easy to clean and it has held up very well through several drops and kicks. Both sides of the tote are the same size which allows me to stuff all my various grooming products in without having anything fall out.

The next critical products in my grooming box are my everyday sprays. The first is Endure Sweat Resistant Fly Spray. Because Florida is extremely hot and buggy I need something that will not sweat off my horses and will not wash off in the rain. So far I have been very impressed with Endure. The roller ball contains fly spray for face applications and around the occasional cut. The pink bottle contains Healthy HairCare Hair Moisturizer. This product has been a life saver for Cupid's mane and tail, and I can't wait to see how it helps Foxy's skimpy tail and thin mane.

The next image is some of my everyday hoof products. Because Cupid has a bit of a reoccurring thrush problem I always have a bottle or two of Thrush Buster handy. While most people might use Hooflex for hooves I find it works amazing to keep chestnuts moisturized and clean looking. It does cause a bit of a greasy look to the hair around the chestnuts but my mares look less feral since I started applying this every few days.

The next product pictured is Life Data Farrier's Finish. I love using this as a disinfectant and conditioner on hooves. It helps keep thrush at bay and makes hooves look amazing. While this is expensive the bottle seems to last a long time. The final product is Iodine. I keep this on hand at all times for cuts, scrapes, or other funny ailments that might pop up from time to time on legs.

The first curry, and a personal favorite of my horses, is the Oster Fine Curry Comb. Both mares love this curry on their faces and it is amazing at pulling up dandruff on thick winter coats. The second curry is also by Oster, their Coarse Curry Comb, which is great for breaking up dirt and on winter coats. I also enjoy using this curry during baths around shedding season. The third curry is by far my favorite, the Epona Shed Flower. Shedding season with Cupid never seemed to end. She was a furry, shedding beast for far too long and the shed flower was greatly appreciated. The teeth pulled all the loose hair out gently, and the flower shape is comfortable to hold. The fourth and final curry comb is a standard rubber curry comb. I do have a smaller size to fit my smaller hands.

My hoof pick collection might seem small but don't worry, I have plenty of backups in my tack trunk at home. With how often I lose these things I make sure to buy them in bulk. My favorite hoof pick is the SmartPak Hoof Pick Brush with Grip. This hoof pick feels right in my hand and sturdy enough to pick out packed dirt with ease. The brush has held up through several years of use and cleans up nicely. The second hoof pick that I always keep in my box is the Tail Tamer's Coated Steel Hoof Pick, this is a smaller hoof pick that I use when it has been dry out and there is not a lot of debris packed in the hoof. Another item that I keep with my hoof pick collection is a hoof cleaning brush, when applying thrush products I always make sure to brush out the hoof with this brush to ensure all the sand and dirt is removed. This also works great as a water brush to truly clean the hoof.

The next two items are pretty self explanatory, a pair of hair cutting scissors and a wide tooth comb from the dollar store. The scissors work well when I need to cut length off a mane or bang tails, and because they were cheap I don't need to worry about them getting wet.

As every horseman knows, good brushes are worth their weight in gold. I keep four brushes in my grooming box. The first is the Wahl Stiff Body Brush, this is a nice hard brush with medium bristles that I use for everyday grooming. The next is the Wahl Soft Body Brush, which is a soft brush that brings out a nice shine. The third brush is Foxy's favorite, the Wahl Face Brush. Fox will stand completely still and drop her head to her knees so I can brush her blaze with this brush. The fourth brush is my favorite during extremely dirty days or for a dusty winter coat, it's the Epona Fancy Dandy Flower Flick Brush. This is very comfortable in my hand and has longer bristles than the stiff body brush above.

The final items I keep in my grooming box are the Wahl Sweat Scraper, the Epona Tiger Tongue, and pet grooming gloves that I bought off Amazon for shedding season. The horses love the gloves and the tiger tongue and will lean into both of them for a deeper scratching.

So there you have it! My grooming items in my long running fight to keep that grey mare clean! What's in your grooming box?

My 2019 riding goals are fairly basic and not very detailed. As always, I just want to focus on where life takes us and what the mares tell me they want to do.

1) Get them successfully settled into their new home!
The mares will be moving out to my parents place after the shed is extended to accommodate them. I hope to help them through this transition so they can settle down comfortably and enjoy their new home. I expect there will be large learning curve going from boarding to self care so I look forward to conquering this with them!

2) Take both mares out on the trails.
The new home will have trails and a shared riding arena. I can't wait to take the girls out on the trails and go exploring with them! We already have a few friends to go riding with so I anticipate this being fairly easy to achieve once they settle in.

3) Work on the Intro and Training Dressage movements
I would love to continue my dressage education, but because of the pending move I am not sure if  we will have the resources available to work with a trainer but I do plan on working on bending and transitions with my girls.

Overall, these are not overly ambitious goals but I wanted to set the bar low since I will be asking the girls to completely adjust to their new home and living schedule.