NaBloPoMo 18-21 and Lund bridle

Day 18: Your grooming routine

I am not the world’s best groomer. I used to be more into grooming, but since Amber stays pretty clean and only likes to be scratched, I’m a little meh on grooming lol. I don’t have any special brushes. If Amber seems particularly itchy I’ll grab her generic rubber curry and give her a good scratch, but most days I take her stiff-bristled plastic brush and she lurves that thing. It’s kind of a two for one – gets out the itch and flicks away a lot of dust. She’s dirt colored but not sand colored, so she usually looks ashy on one side.

If I really want to get her semi-non-dust-ridden I will use a soft plastic flicker brush and then two natural brushes in each hand – one horsehair and one goat hair. I’ll work in sequence with both arms, the horsehair first and goat hair as a finisher, and the quick strokes but soft bristles seem to bring up the worst of the sand dust and bring up the oils in her coat. (Somedays tho that dust just does NOT come out lol). I really never pick her feet. She doesn’t step in her poop, does not appreciate smelling like poop or pee, and the sand is dry and not going to pack in her feet unless it’s super wet and cold. Which it generally isn’t in Vegas. However, since it is so dry here, after a ride I will liberally coat the underside of her hooves and her heels with rainmaker – she has amazing feet that have never needed any special treatment, but since we use sand for bedding and that’s drying, she needs the moisture rainmaker offers. I can only use it on her coronary band though. If I put the Rainmaker over the nails, her feet will be too soft and she’ll pull her shoes.

Her face is either the first or last thing I’ll groom, and generally with only the horsehair or goat hair brushes. I give her many nose kisses when brushing her face. She gives me the mare glare, but she secretly loves the kisses lol. I do put Mane & Tail detangler in her mane and it seems to help it grow but to also keep it from getting in knots and her being able to pull it out easier. Other than that, I throw the tack on and go.

Lots more currying is involved when she’s shedding, but most days, that’s it.

Day 19: A discipline you’ve never done that you want to do

Well, I’m going to say top of my list is eventing. I may be doing a bit of dressage and mini jumping, but I’ve never even schooled xc or properly schooled jumps, so I feel that I have yet to do it! And so excited that Amber and I can now jump into eventing with all six feet!

The other discipline I really want to try is endurance actually. Riding all day on horseback with somewhere to go and a keen horse? I think that’d be awesome. Now, me needing to get in shape for that….eehhhhh that’s something else entirely lol. But I think endurance would actually be a lot of fun. Very difficult and challenging, but when in college I went on a trail riding trip with my class and was assigned the one-eyed Quarab mare. If you think that’s a combination…well, it was lol. But I’ll tell you that mare was so sure-footed, despite the fact that she decided to Man from Snowy River jump this huge log on a downhill slope and petrified me at the time lol. But man, she wanted to go, and she could go and go and go all day. It was that Arab in her for sure. So having that experience, I think endurance on a similar horse would be a lot of fun.

Day 20: Your favorite horse show

This is a hard one! I’ve loved all my shows with Amber, but I have to say my favorite show was a little bitty show in North Texas I believe. I was riding a seasoned show mare that I’d been practicing on, Chica Whiz (LOVE that mare) and I was about to loose my head with nerves before going into the show pen. I even drank a beer before hand and that helped lol. But Chica was calm as could be, and it was a canter-in reining pattern that I’d never done before, so I started off timid. Chica went in there like “okay, if you want to go that slow” and just gave me this amazing boost of confidence. So I said “okay Chica let’s go!” And she took off. We did three amazing sliding stops, our spins were pretty good, and I felt confident in the circles. It was just such an awesome feeling for her to give me such confidence that we were going to slay my own expectations. And we did! No win, but sooooo close to my goal of 70 – a 69.5. She was such a great mare and taught me so much about horse personalities.

Day 21: Your perfect schooling outfit

I love these! My perfect schooling outfit are my Ovation Aqua-X breeches, my Kerrits shirts and the sleeves, my Ovation schooling helmet and my Ariat paddock boots and Harwich half chaps. I wear that combination all summer and love it. My breeches and shirts will differ for the winter, but since it’s my perfect schooling outfit, I should move somewhere where it’s summer all year long. Yup, I like the sound of that lol.

And now the Lund bridle! I think it looks FABULOUS. I can’t wait to ride with it! Everything is so soft but definitely sturdy and I thought the raised and laced reins would be stiff – not out of the box! The lace is a little squeaky, but with how soft everything is and how I plan to darken them, I think they’ll be perfect!