RIP Regal Affaire

The day I fell in love First day home at my farm

With big brother Rocky going to turnout

 2 yo one of our first outings

  First Clinic where we jumped 3'6" approx 4 yo

 Our last show together at Training level NJHP

 

Its been almost a week since we lost the first baby I raised, Regal Affaire. It has just been too difficult to put into words that he's goofy face, fluffy forelock, soft eye and velvet nose no longer welcomes me in the barn each morning. My heart breaks for Suzi who has been building her partnership with him for nearly a year. He changed my life in so many ways, taught me lessons and gave me reasons to keep going when my world felt upside down. We love you Regal and you will be missed.

Life in the fast lane

Yet again I have been completely lax on this blog. I have been in high gear building the barn, managing contractors and the like. Things are coming along, we moved all the horses over May 15^th. Tomorrow the floors will be poured and the Amish are expected back on Friday to finish up the wood work.

Regal made his move to Training, with a great dressage test in the pouring rain on grass, his score was 27.7 and we scored mostly 8s with a couple of 9s. He was clean XC but unimpressed with stadium pulling 3 rails at all the easier fences, jumped the hard fences well, I can only hope that as he continues to move up and get move impressed with his job this habit will resolve itself. In the meantime I will continue to work on strength and developing the best possible uphill canter to make stadium as easy as possible.

Training horses is coming along well, right now my challenge is finding time to sleep and then ride everyone, but it is going well and all the horses and riders are making good progress. Lily is starting baby jumps. I am really focusing on her canter and head shyness right now. I think she will be slow to mature but, watch out for her when she does! i have enjoyed having some time to school Spiderman again and of course the baby OTTB parade has been fun!

Peri is going for her Pony Club rating this weekend and we will look to move her to Beginner Novice in July.  As the end of the school year rolls around I suspect my teenagers will get into the full swing of show season. Amanda is graduating *sniff* she grew up so fast and will be heading with scholarships to Monmouth in the fall. She will be missed but we are all happy that she will be close enough to come home frequently. 

About 3 runs from being done moving horses and everyone's stuff from the old barn to the new, my truck started making awful noises and I was barely able to drive. Thankfully I was not going fast and was able to pull over with Regal and Lily in tow and get some assistance from friends to get the horses home safe. Turns out my bearings were unhappy, so while in the shop with Kyle and Jim the truck got all new breaks. I hope she is happy as my purse was not...Now if I could only give her a bath we'd be good as new.

The barn has been busy we are welcoming many new boarders and students to the new location and I recently sold Top Position, but he will stay with us as a boarder. This of course means I was free to find another horse to bring in to train and compete. My lovely calm bay gelding was replaced with a red headed mare. She and I got along rather well on our meeting and I am looking forward to turning La Rouge into a top eventer. For those of you that don’t know me, my first horse was a little spitfire red mare called Scolly Square. So this is really just coming full circle just bigger and my training tool box has many more tools.

Barn and horse update

Dear Reader,

Life is busy. Construction has started on the new barn, very excited to see the area getting cleared, its funny how you look at piece of land and think “oh that won’t be too bad to clear” then you see it all on the ground in giant piles, it’s a lot. The guys at Aaron Excavating, http://www.aaronenviro.com have been great and  Roy has been nothing short of awesome in all steps of the process. I cannot say enough good things about them. Without further ado, photos of the destruction: 

I also signed off on the final barn plans this week, so as soon as the site is ready the barn builders will be coming in to get started, they assure me we should be done by the end of April, I can only hope winter finally goes away so they can get in and going. 

This past Sunday Ceara, Peri and I headed down to a dressage show at the NJ Horse Park, both girls rode well. We know that accuracy and a steadier connection to the bridle needs to be improved, but their efforts were rewarded with 1sts and 2nds and we had a really nice first outing. If only every show could be so low key and easy!

My own riding on Regal has been not as frequent, I have been enjoying getting Lilly going, we are having a bit of a set back as her teeth are in horrible shape and very sharp. It is causing her a lot of discomfort and some naughty behavior, so I am excited for her to get that taken care of on April 1^st. She is really a lovely mare and I am so excited to be able to train her and watch Elizabeth enjoy her (when she is being a good girl!). Regal and I had a mini jump school in the snow the other weekend, it was a lot of fun to knock the rust off and I was so impressed with his adjustability to the fences. I am trying to sneak in a jump lesson on Easter Sunday so hopefully I will have more to report back on. Meanwhile I need to tackle his wild mane, which is currently detracting from his devilish good looks...bad mommy,

Other than being frazzled from living between 2 locations, managing the barn project, getting the horses ridden and organizing 2 breedings for the Spring life is really happy, feeling so energized and grateful for such a wonderful group of clients and sponsors that are helping me reach my goals.

More soon,

Chelsea

2013

Let’s take my lack of writing as a sign that I have been super busy, because I have, there are a lot of big changes in the works (don’t worry all good things). My office job gave me a promotion and moved me to the European hours (10PM to 8AM) which is nice as it gives me more time at the barn on Sunday. But with the barn being busy and some other things in life dragging me in 3 different directions, Regal has been spending some time with my dressage trainer. This is allowing him to work more consistently than I can give him right now. I miss him like crazy in my day to day schedule but he seems happy and is coming along really well. Not to mention his new turnout buddies and he are having a competition on who can destroy their blankets the most, that new Amigo Bravo I got him, it looks like it went through a paper shredder. *sigh* On the home barn front I can confidently say Digger is making some real progress., we have gotten a new level of acceptance of the bit and his weekly treks up the trail seem to be helping in his muscle and over all happiness. As a result I got to see him jump with Ceara for the first time with no over jumping, that was awesome to see. Now if her ankle would only heal we can get back on track! Quest, who I am riding once a week is looking and going the best I have seen him. He is really coming into a higher connection that you see in an upper level horse. Lateral work is also really hitting new highs. Though as Elizabeth found out this past weekend if you are in a hurry that all goes to hell in a pretty hand basket J Lilly, Elizabeth’s new baby, who arrived from Timberridge Sporthorses in Canada a little over a month ago is coming along well, she is very smart and often reminds me of Regal when he was 3 years old. I Suspect I will be climbing on her back in Feb for the first time. Besame is also reaching new levels in her work, being in the indoor is really helping her balance more in the canter and she is loving her cavaletti work.

Looking ahead this year Besame and Noor will both be bred (I will do a post about the stallion once the contracts have been signed). Both mares will keep in work until they can’t anymore due to bellies. I am not putting any solid goals at them since they are both maiden mares but I would like to see them both get to a few local shows and XC schoolings. Rafiki will embark on his eventing career and either stick around or be sold. Regal will start the year off at Training level, I am looking at a few clinics in Feb and March in Maryland and VA to kick us off, and then I am aiming to end the season with a few prelims under our belt. Regal will also debut in some USDF shows with Marion this year, very exciting for the big boy. Lilly will go BN and maybe even Novice this year. Quest will be looking for a full time leassor or be sold this year. I would like to see Marbles partner with someone to show in dressage and eventing, he is way too nice to stay home.

On an semi-related front, someone wants to buy my trailer, so I am currently in talks with someone to buy a 4 horse trailer, very exciting!

Students, what are your goals for 2013? I have some in mind for all of you but I want to hear your own goals first. Times to road map our year…

Young Horses

Today was a baby day. I did my first ride on Regal who had Wednesday off, he was fresh and in a bit of a mood to fight so it was a day or relaxing and just going back to the basics. Regal has had a slow transition to self carriage and really has gotten in beautifully this fall, however when he is a bit naughty the first place he goes is hallow and heavy at time, today was one of those days. So I skipped the up work, got him streaching down into the trot with lots of transitions from the seat and breath. We were able to get some good turn on the forehand and haunches before calling it a day.

Next was Dubai. Dubai is a new OTTB who came into my life recently. I had these great plans to get on and just go for a walk. So I brought him in from turnout and he immediately poops three times and can barely stand still. He now looks much bigger then his relaxed self. I push ahead dancing around him getting a dressage saddle on adjusting the bridle. Reto suggested treats and suddenly wasn't so thrilled to be riding Aston in the same ring as me. Once we were off the cross ties and out to the ring he was a ham. Even stood by the mounting block. We worked on breaks, steering and bending. He even was unexcited when a horse broke out of a paddock and Aston came trotting up behind him. He is a very quick learner. I will need spurs for the next ride. Steering is still not always accurate but we stop on an exhale and doesn't feel like a block of concrete in his mouth, success! Very excited to see what this boy can do next year.

Tomorrow is more riding, teaching, we were going to school cross country but the rain for the last two days has left everything too wet.