THIS WEEKEND....

This weekend Cearra was a rock star…and “people” have gotten on our last nerve! Odds are if you are reading this entry you A) are of a “fan” of theses adventures or B) are thinking about coming to see Cearra. To those who fall into Group A – THANK YOU. To those who fall into Group B – for the love of all that is holy and good PLEASE READ THE FRIKKEN BLOG! Seriously! All the information about Cearra is here! The good, the bad and the ugly…it is ALL IN WRITING!

What Cearra IS:

• ·         She is “advanced green broke” meaning she works well on the lead line and knows lots of cool groundwork exercises.
• ·         Takes the saddle and bit well.
• ·         Had had quite a few rides in the arena on the trial.
• ·         She walks, trots, lopes, stops, backs up, yields her hindquarters, yields her forequarters, cues off seat/leg nicely and laterally flexes.
• ·         She is BEGINNING to work on vertical flexion and lateral movement.
• ·         She loads up in the trailer well. She stands nicely for the farrier.
• ·         She has really nice bloodlines too!

That is what you get for $3500.00!

What Cearra NEEDS:

• ·         She need more miles under her hooves.
• ·         She needs more group rides.
• ·         She needs some conditioning and muscle.
• ·         She needs a calm, consistent leader who is confident and kind.

That is what she needs and why she is only $3500.00!

If you are looking for the following:

• ·         A “finished” horse.
• ·         A horse that you can just hop on a go without any warm-up on the ground.
• ·         A “dead broke” horse.
• ·         A “Husband” or “Kid” horse.
• ·         A horse you can enter the show pen, trail trials or work cattle on RIGHT now

Then…you need to move on. Period. It is ALL IN THIS JOURNAL! Even in this market finding ALL that for $3500.00 is tough. Any questions? Really, we are just about done dealing with people who do so little “homework”, who blatantly LIE about what their skills are, what their needs/expectations are and who waste valuable time. We provide LOTS of pictures, videos and information. If YOU come out and have either lied (that is a deal killer) or don’t see the horse you “want” it is your own damn fault.

Okay….now that THE RANT is done…

05/13/2017 - PRACTICE: The session went well! Here is the review posted on the Golden States Horsemanship Club forum: “Wow...what a great practice!

We had a bit of everything to work with.Young horse (not yet 3) to trailer loading! Body language, Body position. Riding with softness, feel and timing! Groundwork and a variety of different levels and different needs! We rode the Wrangler off our jeans! Patterns. Cones. Transitions, Lateral work and more.

Just...wow.

Pretty tired but a great day!

Cearra: Our mare worked on:

• ·         Groundwork – Preflight Check Exercises: Yield HQ, Yield FQ, Lateral Flexion, Backing Up.
• ·         Ground School Circles (the 5 in 1 exercise)
• ·         Forward/Backward Transitions.
• ·         Rollbacks Along the Fence.
• ·         Ground School Circles Under Saddle (the 5 in 1 exercise)
• ·         Serpentine (at the cones walk/trot).
• ·         Cloverleaf Pattern (walk/trot)
• ·         Ride the Corners.
• ·         Transitions – all three gaits.
• ·         Dealing with “new-to-her” horses.

Overall she did really well. Everyone had a productive session!

05/14/2017 – MOTHER’S DAY RIDE & SHOWING CEARRA

We were contacted on Friday by a potential buyer on Friday (this person could not respond to text or emails or…sigh…really even read the blog…whatever). They were lloking at a 3+ hour drive. So we sent them EVERYTHING we had on Cearra, repeatedly said “advanced green broke” and “you will need to put more miles, conditioning and training on her to “finish” her off and so on.

Sigh. They still want to come see her even though they are less than clear as to what they are looking for. Remember…she is $3500.00. She is what she is. We have answered the few questions they had. Supposedly they “read the blog and watched the videos” and they were going to be at the arena by 12:30pm.

When Possible Buyer shows up TWO HOURS LATE they say very little. If fact getting ANY real information for them is tough. Okay, so we do about 10 minutes of ground work to show what the horse can do and to warm her up. We did NOTHING but groom her before these folks arrived. Potential Buyers say nothing during the warm-up (this is ALWAYS a red flag to us). Sigh. They has ZERO interest in doing any ground work. Okay (red flag #2 right there for us). So Cearra gets her bridle on and rides really nicely. Listens to seat and leg, very little rein contact, transitions well...all the basics because ADVANCED GREEN BROKE! We hop off to allow the Potential Buyer (who showed up with a trailer by the way and had to ask how I turned her because he could not see/tell what I was doing - sigh) to ride the horse. The Potential Buyers opts out and say "we wanted a horse that was more broke, just want to get on and go." WHAT THE FLYING F&$K! Are you kidding me? Not only did you waste your time and my time but you did not event respect the horse to let her show you want she could do!

She was a frikken $3500.00 rock star. Period.

(NOTE TO SELF: I think it is time to be a bit harsher with these folks from now on. If you cannot prove that you actually read the information provided we will not make an appointment with "you'. Sanity and time have to be preserved and valued.)

So I get back on and ride her some more. Get my WINS over yesterday’s performance and I call it done (I had Ronan to work with next). Cearra basically reviewed all the skills from yesterday. Retention is a beautiful thing. Very proud of her.

What’s next? This week is nuts. We have a few other interested parties. We will see how it goes. Hoping to train a bit when I get home in the evenings (tough because of the new job and school but will do my best). Other than that it is one ride at a time.