BASTIAN!!!!

I finally made it out to Wolf Creek Stables to see my awesome, wonderful, chestnutty, perfect boy. My friend Samantha was visiting for a few days so it worked out perfectly, I had someone to drag along with me :)

His Summer Job Housing is quite nice. Nice roomy box stall, wonderful ventilation, water buckets that are scrubbed cleaner than most of my dinner dishes, and nightly turnout. He is one fat, sleek, happy boy.

So after much treat-feeding and a somewhat excessive amount of brushing by both myself and Samantha, we made our way to the outdoor. The outdoor at Wolf Creek is huge and filled with lovely lovely hunter jumps, which Bastian has been trucking over with wee little children. And by lovely I mean scary, lots of flowers, brush, rolltops, pine boughs and such. I'm intimidated by jumps that aren't A) under 2' and B)just a rail. But Bastian honestly doesn't care, he only cares when I care. If he looks at a fence out of inexperience all I have to do is say, "yes we are jumping this" and he says "okay!" If I sense his hesitency and answer with my own, then he says, "ah mom, if you don't think we should do this then lets not...." So jumping is more of a mental ride for me, I have to keep my head in the game 100%.

Anyway, after simply enjoying the wonderful walk/trot/canter on MY BASTIAN, we started trotting over a few cross rails, then we started trotting the scary stuff. He was so perfect! He didn't look at anything and just kinda hopped over everything. Then we started to get fancy and we cantered all those scary fences :) I was so pleased with him and he was going so well, that I decided to jumpt two more fences that he had not yet done with any of Tawny's students. One was a tiny rolltop, but pretty wide. I would say wider than it was tall and a 2'3" vertical that was set up on one side of the arena.

He was PERFECT!! He barely looked at the rolltop and jumped the 2'3" vertical like he'd been doing it all his life, I was so pleased with him. He's actually being a bit lazy and I need to engage him more with my leg, but I'll take the slower lazy Bastian for now until I get my jumping legs back. I'm anxious to get back out and ride him again :) Samantha was fabulous and snapped several great pics with her phone camera, a real feat considering that jumping photos are hard to time anyway!

Aint he cute!!! It was so wonderful and I am so dying to show again that I decided to try and take him to the schooling Combined Test at South Farm on October 1, we're going to do the Baby-Beginner Novice division so we have to do Beg. Novice Test A and then a 2' jumping course. South Farm puts on a nice show, so I'm super excited to go!

Also coming up on my schedule is the District Horse Show, this is my first year as the new manager...wish me luck! I'm thinking I have most of it under control, just a few things that might be iffy.....Once its over (September 11) I can really focus on me and my Bastian and our first ever Combined Test :)

Team BEC

Just because I forced Bastian to get a summer job does not mean that I abandoned my oh-so-wonderful barn-mates. Its one thing to have a horse and ride and take lessons, but it quite another thing when you have an awesome group of people to hang out with, show with and laugh and cry with. My group of people is Team BEC (Bauer Equestrian Center). And so I still hang out with them at horse shows and try to keep with new boarders who come to live with us or new horses that come in for training, which is tough when I'm only going out twice a week.

This past weekend, the team headed out to Grand Haven Stables in Jefferson, Ohio to compete in the NODA Dressage and NODA Dressage Encore show on Saturday and Sunday. We were originally taking 8 horses, but one of them wasn't quite feeling up to snuff, so Kristin decided to not stress her anymore by taking her to show and let her just chill at the barn. She was actually very disappointed when they didn't load her onto the trailer to go, Zoe thinks that she should be going everywhere and everyone should be focusing on her, lol. So we went with just 7 horses instead...

Competing in their first show ever was little Chloe and BEC's My Guardian Angle, a 7 year old appy pony. They showed on Saturday and Sunday in Intro A and B. They were awesome!! Chloe came home with two fifth places, a third and a second. It was both her first show and the pony's and they did awesome.

BEC's owner, Cindy took her young Holsteiner mare, Shae (Madame X) hoping to get her final qualifing score at Training level. While Cindy is a veteran shower, this is Shae's first year showing and its been filled with learning experiences for her. After finally deciding that the judges probably aren't going to eat her, she is starting to learn how to focus and stay on task in the dressage ring. Cindy's first test was dramatic and expressive, as in Shae expressed how much she didn't want to be a good little pony, but Cindy kept her together and finished the test, their next test on Saturday was more more calm cool and collected and they were able to earn a blue ribbon :) On Sunday Shae was in her groove and Cindy scored a 68%, taking home a red ribbon just one point behind first place and more importantly, with a qualifying score for AA Training Level. This will definitely be a pair to watch at regionals!

Wendy took her Oldenburg mare, Chloe, {Unexpected}, and competed in Training Level also with Wendy riding her in one class each day and Kristin showing her in one class each day. Wendy and Chloe did great, their best test was on Sunday where Wendy kept her focused on the task at hand and put in a fluent, accurate test. Kristin and Chloe are qualified for Regionals in the Open division at Training as well.

Elizabeth, aka Pablo, took her Anglo-Trakehner mare Lilly (Tiger Lilly) and competed at First Level. Elizabeth is going off to college in the fall and so this was her last show with us for quite some time. I'm going to miss you Pablo! Horse shows just won't be the same with out you, and you had better be planning on coming to Bastian and I's first event next year....or else! I will also miss braiding Lilly's mane, it was my favorite mane to braid :)

Kristin rode three other client's horses at the show: WWA Colino in Training and First Level, she achieved the necessary qualifying score for Training Level with him. She also rode a cute little chestnut (with a blaze!) mare named Cosmopolitan. It was Cosmos first ever horse show and she was very well behaved earning a first place in her first ever Training Level class. And finally, Kristin earned a qualifying score with Isaac (Irressistable Isaac) at 3rd Level. He had two wonderful tests and Isaac has the funniest personality of any horse I have ever known!

All in all it was wonderfully fun weekend and I cannot wait until Bastian and I (and hopefully Bugsy!) are ready to show next year. I love my barn buddies and I love grooming and supporting and cheering, but I love showing and its tough to be there surrounded by people doing exactly what I want to be doing and knowing that its going to be two more months until I really get to start playing the game again.

If you want to see all the awesome pictures we have of this past weekend, check out either: http://steinequine.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Victory-Canter/111440258890812?sk=wall#!/pages/Stein-Equines/229007107140048

A couple of fun more personal notes:
1) I finally got a new car, a cute little Kia Sportage that gets way better gas mileage than my dorky old truck, so I get to actually see my horse when he gets back from his deployment to the Hunter world! lol

2)I'm visiting my brother and his Family in NC right now and on the way down we drove through Bastian, VA. How cool is that?? My horse has a whole town named after him :)