"Stuffed" Maddy

I am heading home to visit my nephew, Weston, in Minnesota. He is almost three months old already. I made him a "stuffed" Maddy as a little gift. It turned out really cute. Of course I asked a friend who stopped over what he thought and his response was "Is that a llama?" Ugh. Have a great week everyone. I am off to enjoy a little vacation.

Edwards' Mistress

I have always been a big John Edwards fan, so when news of his affair surfaced, I was saddened and stunned. I was hoping he would be Attorney General someday and eventually President. So I was reading about his mistress, Rielle Hunter, and found out she used to be teenage equestrienne Lisa Druck of Ocala, Florida. Her father was James Druck, a lawyer who was implicated in the "Horse Mafia Scam." He and Tommy "the Sandman" Burns electrocuted horses for their owners to collect the insurance money. One of their first victims was the horse Lisa rode, Henry the Hawk. Druck showed Burns how to electrocute Lisa's horse using a stripped extension cord and a wall socket. It is some pretty sick stuff. I think I read somewhere they killed 50 horses and 36 people were implicated in the scam. Some connected to the case are also believed to have murdered candy heiress, Helen Brach. Her body was never found. Like I said...some really bad people. I first heard of the "Horse Mafia" back in 2007 and I did a post on it. So to escape her past....Lisa became Rielle, but seems she still found her way back into a sordid life.

Theresa Demarest

I met this amazing woman about a year ago, Theresa Demarest. She is a singer song writer who dabbled a bit in making movies. She did a wonderful movie called "A Herd of Two," about becoming a horse owner for the first time and turning to natural horsemanship to train her young mare. I emailed her and talked about her movie and next thing you know, I am helping her with her Keiko's Dream...Keiko's Legacy movie. We are both learning from each other as we go along in this journey of film making. She took a little break from the film today and brought me out to meet Tehya, her baby. Theresa is so dedicated and driven with her music and films and she is that way with her mare, Tehya. Theresa worked through all the ups and downs of training a young, hot, saddlebred-arabian cross. There is a beautiful scene in "A Herd of Two" where Theresa sings as she walks to the pasture and Tehya comes bounding over the hill and runs to be with her. It truly is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Unfortunately Tehya injured her stifle and it is questionable if Theresa will ever be able to ride her. Despite the frustration, she embraces the simple things they can do together...short walks hunting for apple trees and just simply spending time grooming and pampering her. I just love seeing people that are dedicated to there animals. I enjoyed strolling along with them and seeing the caring and compassion. Today the little herd expanded and we became a herd of three.

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Jewell from 20 Meter Circle of Life. Kaci from All Horse Stuff, invited her to Templeton to do a little trail riding this morning. Abu her athletic Arabian took a personal day today, so Jewell rode "Pantz" the lovely Appaloosa mare. This is the first blogger buddy I have met in person. We had a great ride and fun to dish about our other horse friends out in the blog world. Thanks for coming out Jewell...hope we see much more of you. Maddy did pretty well today, wasn't as soft as I would like, but we will keep working on that. She has dropped some weight and for the past two weeks I have been working on her nutrition. I am having her brought in at night so she is not competing for hay, adding Moorglo, and adding some oats to her beet pulp. Still not seeing much of a difference, but really want to put about 200 pounds on her. I want a nice fat quarter horse.

To bit or not to bit

It's all about the gear! I go from saddle shopping to bridle shopping. I am riding and riding some more, I couldn't ask for a better summer. I have great riding partners on the trail and when working in the arena, I am seeing a lot of progress. I basically am doing Clinton Anderson drills and patterns in the arena, which entails lots of hind quarter yielding in various forms and lots of bending and flexing. She has gotten very soft and responsive to my seat and legs. I have been thinking a lot about transitioning her to a bit, but wondering why I need to. She is so soft with the halter, I am considering trying a bitless bridle or bosal at some point. Two years ago, I never would have dreamed of riding out on the property let alone trails without a bit, but her training with the rope halter has made her so soft. I have some people telling me not to give up on the idea of a bit. Maybe a bit and bridle will give me better results??? Just wondering what my fellow bloggers think about bit or no bit?

Hard to Fit

I have been saddle shopping for some time. I tested quite a few Circle Y flex trees and they just didn't seem to work. I finally bought a Flex Curve and measured Maddy's back and sent the tracing to a saddle expert in Missouri. Apparently I have a hard to fit horse. She is very steep and narrow and I will be very limited in my saddle choices. I have been advised that a flex panel saddle is the only type of saddle that will work on her back. So I started looking and there is not a lot to choose from. There seems to be about four companies, Ortho Flex, Amera Flex, Timberline, and RL Watson. They are pretty spending, ranging from $1500 to $5000. The distributors for all companies are few and far between. Fortunately most have demo programs, which I will take advantage of before I buy. I am busy reading and looking and hopefully I will find my endurance saddle by the end of summer. I have a feeling this is going to be a lengthy process.

Dead Boa Boots

I am pretty disappointed. Clinton Anderson "endorsed" these boots, they looked cool, they were easy to put on....."sigh." It was too good to be true. It took only four rides for the Boa Boots to break, both on the same ride. As we were crossing the creek, I lost the first one and went back to look for it. I saw it bobbing in the water, the wires broken. An hour later, I see a black thing whiz off to the side of me and there went the second one. Its wires broken as well. Lucky for me, they have a 90 day warranty. I have friends that swear by the Cavallos and a friends that loves the Old Mac G-2's. Anyone out there have a horse boot that they prefer? I would love to hear from you. Here is a photo of Me and Maddy enjoying the trails, oblivious to the impending demise of our Boa Boots. Photo courtesy of Kacy over at All Horse Stuff.