Rain again!

Friday morning brings rains again. ugh. Horses are staying in for the day. Looks like more on the way too. sigh...

Jump Crew

Had a most excellent jump crew show up this morning to help move the jumps. SaraBeth and Lauren were here early, so we got started with our map and David, the tractor operator. About an hour later, Taylor shows up to help.. and later than that Samantha! So we were able to get everything in order and the new course/exercises look fantastic.
BIG THANKS to those that helped!!!

Christmas Barn Party

This year's Christmas barn party was a hit as usual. Nice weather (whew! it was close) and good friends make it a grand time. A few former students, all grown up, surprised us with a visit so it was fun to catch up.

No barn party would be complete without Deb wearing one of her many Christmas hats! This one pretty funny. Lori showed up with a reindeer one as well.
Horses enjoyed their usual bran mash - a great thank you for the year of service!

Saturday rain

Big rains Saturday morning left us wet and muddy. No turn out for the horses today. No lessons either, the arenas are standing water.

Jump crew!

Monday morning... 10:30... we have a plan to change around the jump arena. If you want to join in and help, it will go faster! Good way to learn some course design and distances too!

More Pine Hill

 Samantha piloted Topper around a great stadium round.

 SaraBeth had Daphne looking like she's done it all before - even tho it was her first time ever!

And Kim just plain enjoyed the heck out of Hank!

Pine Hill pic's in..

 Juan Carlos and Apollo looked terrific on the stadium phase.

 Kate said Louie rode like a cross country machine! He looks like it here.

Lauren was all concentration with Wiley in stadium for a nice and clean round.

Pine Hill

December first was the winter Pine Hill schooling horse trials this year. Was a hard weekend to do this as we had such rotten weather the week before and no one was able to ride AND, it was Thanksgiving weekend. But several of the competitors competed with mixed results. 

Rosa had the best dressage test for her to date! But was eliminated in the stadium. 

JuanCarlos came from college to hop on Apollo at Novice level and had a tense dressage test... only to jump all phases clean and come with a 4th place. 

Kate and Louie weren't great in the dressage, had a rail down in stadium but cross country went like a dream and she placed well for her first time out at training level. 

Lauren tried Wiley at Novice for the first time, not so great a dressage test, but the stadium went textbook good and cross country clean with a few time faults. She came away with a ribbon at this new level as well.

 Samantha took Topper and did Goldilocks division. Nice dressage test and clean jumping left her in 4th place. Cross country was going well, when someone mounted on course jumped out of the woods towards Topper and scared him - Sam fell off and the jump judge told her she had to walk in. Found out later she could have got back on and finished - she only had one more fence to go! 

SaraBeth took Daphne for her first go. Dressage was not great as expected, but the staduim jumped around great and cross country started well too. Until the water, Daphne wanted no part of that one. Had SaraBeth known the rules, she could have chosen to the the log option (this was an option fence) and continued, but as it was, they were eliminated at the water. 

Grace and Strider went at Beginner Novice and looked great. They got around without any problems.
Kim brought Hank for some fun. Schooled on Saturday over some cross country jumps. Showed in some dressage tests on Sunday. They had good scores and good times!

Nasty cold

Saturday morning is nasty cold. Temperatures are in the 20's with the wind blowing. Horses in the barn are surprisingly quiet... think they don't EVEN want to go out in that stuff. So they are staying in another day - out of the wind and snuggled down in their blankets.
A few cold weather hints for those of you unfamiliar with this kind of cold....
If you find the water faucets dripping - - - leave it! It's to keep the pipes from freezing.
Be sure you check your horses blanket fit. Can't believe how many blankets that have been destroyed by bad people not putting them on correctly and fitting them to the horse. This morning, there was no less than 6 horses with blankets in some sort of disarray.
And there is ice forming on top of the water cups today. You horse owners - or even the stall cleaners - would be kind of you if you broke open the ice to allow the horses to drink easily. Some horses will do it on their own, some not. They were all broken open this morning, but ice will reform during the day today as it will not get above freezing.