GREAT NEWS!!!

AMAZING NEWS GUYS!!!!! I GET TO RIDE GATSBY ON TUESDAY!!!! 

Haha, can you tell how excited I am??? It will have been 5 weeks since I have ridden him and man, oh man have I missed it. Not that I haven't enjoyed every single minute of our hand walks, because I have, but there is something magical about sitting on his back. He is such a special beyond special horse to me and I am so excited that we are back on track to move forward in our partnership. 

Having said that, we have definitely renewed some sort of bond over the last 4 weeks of his rehab. See, last December I made the decision to move him to a 24/7 pasture at our barn and he has been living out there with one of the BO's mares ever since and they have grown quite attached to each other. Prior to the move, Gatsby would always walk up to the gate to see me when I arrived, even if he had just been fed his dinner. Since the move, not so much. It's not that he doesn't seem happy to see me, it's just that he clearly has another love now. This might sound totally cheesy and superficial but the fact that he has gone back to his old habits has made me smile quite a bit recently. There is just nothing like seeing him waiting for me at the gate, excited for our next adventure.

In Kanye news, the swelling has gone down almost completely in his sheath area so I think we have nothing to worry about, which is great. I am planning on making this a major training weekend for him. I don't want to over face him but I do want to set some solid work to make the transition to under saddle as easy as possible. Saturday we will do some long lining, just walking around the field that we take our normal walks on and Sunday......I am going to pony him off one of our other horses!!! Super excited for that. I think he will do just fine but, you never know:)

xoxo, Elena

A Little Bit of Catching Up

Sorry for the quiet week guys! Between my rehab pony, being sick and one of the busiest weeks of the year at work I didn't actually have too much to write about. Gatsby is plugging away at his weeks of handwalking, we are actually down to the final one! *hopefully* Our vet is coming out on Wednesday for vaccinations and is going to check on the leg to see if we are good to move forward with tack walking. Fingers crossed!!!

Cutest thing ever.

Kanye has been doing well also. I got a little nervous over the weekend because his sheath area seemed very swollen from the gelding. It's been a bit of a struggle to get him trotting for 30 minutes a day as he does not know how to lunge and me chasing him around his pasture doesn't get much except for a confused look. I called the vet and he said not to worry but to try to get him moving more and give him a little bute until the swelling goes down. I finally succeed in figuring out how to get him to move...just get all the horses in the neighboring pasture as far away as possible so he thinks they are leaving...even then he's not too crazy though. I tried tying a plastic bag to my lunge whip but he couldn't have cared less. He is going to be BOMB. PROOF. On Saturday we were fixing some of the fencing in his pasture and were drilling holes and hammering nails and he stood there with his nose on my shoulder the whole time. LOVE HIM!

Baby trying to figure out what lunging is

Hope you all had a fun Halloween! I didn't do anything because I was so sick but I am SUPER excited that it is November because now my favorite holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) are on their way! George and I are going to New York City for a long weekend on the 15th and his parents arrive the following weekend so lots to look forward to over here!

Oh my god so cute. Just wish Gatsby could be in it too!

xoxo,
Elena

P.S. Don't forget to enter SprinklerBandits' awesome contest here! Who doesn't want a bright colored pair of boots!?!?!

Stud colt no more...

So little baby Yeezy got gelded today. My vet said he was very well behaved and should recover great. He also had his shoes pulled and feet trimmed over the weekend and the farrier said he was great to work with. I haven't worked with too many babies but he does seem to be one of the more easy going ones I have met. On Saturday George and I took Kanye and Sirius for a walk around our property and I was really amazing at how well they both behaved. Sirius has expressed some fear towards horses in the past but this time around he was really good and curious about Kanye but not overly excited or intrusive into his space. Kanye also was amazingly calm especially considering he walked through our farming area, past the goats, chickens and swans, up the driveway and chilled out in front of the house and around all the cars. So far he is a super baby and I am crossing my fingers nothing changes!

His recovery plan from the gelding procedure involves lunging for 10 minutes twice a day so this week is going to be a little bit of a struggle for me trying to fit everything in. I'm going to have to walk Gatsby in the mornings or else I will be home too late to do anything with Kanye but getting them both out in the morning will require some VERY early waking up on my part. No big deal though, it won't be for too long and it's worth it for some extra time with my boys.


Tonight, I am off to see the original Kanye with one of my best friends down in LA!!! Very excited.

xoxo,
Elena

Sunshine Award!

Thank you Lauren for nominating us for the Sunshine Award! Very exciting as it is my first award!!!

The Sunshine Award is for people who “positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere.” The nominee must do the following: thank the person who nominated her, nominate ten bloggers of her own, answer the ten questions given to her, and post them and the Sunshine Award button to her blog.

Here are the questions:

1. Mares or Geldings? Geldings! I don't actually have a strong preference but seeing as Gatsby and Kanye are both geldings (or soon to be) I figured I should choose that. However, a couple of my favorite upper-level eventers (Gin N' Juice and Andromaque) are mares so I am not too biased.
2. English or Western? English. I sort of dabbled in Western when I was first starting to ride but it never really piqued my interest. 
3. Do you prefer “younger” or “older” horses? Hard to say but I think younger. I obviously love Gatsby and even though he is 17 he doesn't come off any older than 7. I think it's a lot of fun to work with younger horses but I wouldn't say no to sitting on a schoolmaster every once in a while!
4. Have you trained a horse from ground zero? Not quite. My first horse, Belle, was a homebred but while I did work with her a lot throughout the whole training process, I was DEFINITELY not the one who trained her. Gatsby was very green when I got him but had been off the track for a while already and had already started jumping. Kanye will be my first! Although, he does have a lot of groundwork covered already and has technically already been broken.
5. Do you prefer riding or groundwork? Riding for sure. Although I am enjoying some serious time on the ground with my boys lately I would definitely prefer to be riding them.
6. Do you board your horse or keep it at home? 50/50. Gatsby is boarded at an AMAZING facility in Santa Barbara and Kanye is chilling at home while he grows up.
7. Do you do all natural things or just commercial stuff?(in sense of products) I think I mostly use commercial just because it's what I know but I am not opposed to natural. In fact, I see a homeopathic doctor myself and years back I had her do a work-up on Gatsby to try and get some more weight on him.
8. All tacked up or bareback? 50/50. I love riding in my tack and galloping and jumping and feeling totally secure but I also love jumping on bareback, I feel much more connected with Gatsby and I actually feel like our dressage work is better than with a saddle.
9. Equestrian role model? Tiana Coudray. I have had the pleasure of meeting her many times as we evented in the same Area when she was based in the US and she also was good friends with my trainer and some of the other girls at my barn. She is such a nice person and man that girl can RIDE! She is a beautiful rider and her current mount, Ringwood Magister, is probably my favorite upper-level horse.
10. What’s your one, main goal, while being in the horses world? Realistically? I would love to compete at an FEI level event one day, hopefully with Gatsby. In fantasy world? Rolex Kentucky, DUH!

Thanks again Lauren, this was super fun!!

And now, on to my nominees (many of whom I'm sure have already been nominated).

• Chasing the Dream
• The Process of Learning
• On A Steel Horse
• Pacific Coast Eventing
• Sprinkler Bandit
• The Jumping Percheron
• The Polka-Dot Periodical - the one that got me into blogging!!!
• The Reeling
• Viva Carlos
• Alchemy Eventing

Welcome Home Kanye!

As I'm sure you have seen from my Instagram posts (if you follow me), Baby Yeezy made it home safely on Saturday morning. According to the shipper he was very well behaved and he came off the trailer to his new home with no issue. Yay!!! I'm not going to lie, because all of this happened so quickly and I didn't get to meet the shipper or hand over the cash directly to his previous owner, I had quite a few fears of being ripped off and ending up with no money and no horse. Luckily, everything went VERY smoothly and both the shipper and the dealer I went through to purchase him were absolutely AMAZING and I would strongly recommend both of them.

Back to baby; like I said, he was great coming off the trailer and, although definitely very surprised by his new surroundings, walked to his new pasture calmly like a champ. He literally has done a complete 180 in terms of living situation so I could not be happier with how he handled things. He went from living at the busy backside of a racetrack to living in a pasture 24/7 on a ranch with some other horses to keep him company. The first thing he did in his new home was take a walk around and explore before settling down to munch some hay.

For now he is separated from the other 3 horses by a fence and hey were up in the hills when he arrived so he got some nice time to get used to his new home before being harassed by them. Unfortunately, when they did show up he was quite interested in them and when they chose to leave again, threw quite a fit. In order to restore some calm and to force them to actually get to know each other I shut them in their paddock as well. They still have plenty of space to roam around but not access to the hills and trails that they usually do.

All in all, I think it was a successful homecoming although he did throw a hind shoe when he was pining over the other horses. Seeing as I was planning on pulling at least the hinds anyway I'm not too bothered except that I don't yet know when the farrier can come out. He seems to be doing fine though and doesn't seem sore even though it was definitely not a clean pull.

In other news, Gatsby is doing as well as I could hope. He still has a little bit of edema surrounding the injury but that is to be expected. We move up to 15 minute walks this week. I know, super exciting!

xoxo,
Elena

TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow morning I will be crashing all your Instagram feeds with adorable photos of Kanye.

Not this Kanye but he's pretty amazing also...

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

xoxo, Elena

Spoiled Ponies

Still waiting on Gatsby's Ice Horse Tendon boots to ship.

Decided Kanye has to be just as spoiled as Gatsby. At least as much as I can reasonably afford. That means nice leather halter with a name plate and SmartPaks. I chatted with one of their reps today and he will be getting SmartVite Thrive. Looks pretty good to me. He doesn't need much as he won't be in work but I do want to make sure he has all the nutrients he needs to grow up to be a healthy pony.

When he is all done growing and I have saved some more he will get one of these http://www.smartpakequine.com/blue-ribbon-custom-day-sheet-2518p?ProductID=2109670636&cm_sp=wishlist-_-add-_-na in my colors. I know it is a lot for just a sheet but I have one for Gatsby that was a Christmas present when I first got him and I LOVE it. I really only use it at shows but I just think he looks so smart and handsome in it.

xoxo, Elena