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Most Definitely Fantastic - Sorrel's Training Journal

2K views 30 replies 2 participants last post by  SorrelHorse 
#1 ·
Well, I'm here again, finally going to try and really commit to this journal for my own benefit as well as maybe someone else's, who might end up in the same position as me some day. ^^​

A little background about me.

I grew up with a heavy reining and cowhorse background. I was born at the barn, did the leadline and peewee things and rode my ponies and all of that. My Mom trained under the same person before I was born, and I trained under her during my lifetime as well. She is incredible, someone who really gets the job done. Doesn't put up with any BS, straight to the point, and very honest. She does whatever she can to help her students. I owe her so much. She's helped me get to the point where I could start my own colts and start training a lot more independently.

Even though I grew up reining and chasing cows, my passion is with the barrel horses. I like to incorporate a lot of the reining foundation and reining work into the barrel horses, and get them broke to the point where they are willing, calm, but responsive and with a lot of power behind them.

My two main kids right now are Ruger and Selena. Ruger is named Exclusive Gunshow, by Exclusively a Pistol out of Bucks Sandance Mccue. Selena is named Leana Little by Lean With Me (Smart Little Lena) out of Chexintheexpresslane.

Selena is a miracle story. Her mom Chexintheexpresslane had an accident before she was born. They could either put her down and kill her unborn foal, or keep her alive in the sling just long enough to save Selena. They chose the latter. When she was born she was a bottle baby, and then moved to a three day eventing barn who was willing to take her to a surrogate mother. She was short enough to walk underneath her Mom's belly, and was allowed to have free run of the farm. She was like a dog. She ran up to every car that came in the driveway and greeted them. She would follow anyone around who was there. It's a miracle she is alive, and after she was started in reining and won some money she came to me and I started her on barrels. She is only 13.3hh but she is extremely powerful. She currently lives with a couple of the other barrel horses at the barn, and she laps them when they run together. I raced against one of the biggest barrel racers in the area and she held her own neck and neck until the end. She is extremely athletic and I don't know what I would do without her.

Ruger is a little less exciting. He is my four year old prospect. We traded one of our reining fillies for him in hopes of just having a trail horse for my Mom, but it became pretty obvious this horse had more to him.He is 15.2hh, a TON of horsepower. I've never ridden a horse with that much in the hind end. He's a dork, very ding-dong ish, but he's an absolute love and wants to please and loves to do work.

I am also competing for my final year in Oregon High School Equestrian. It is a wonderful program allowing Equestrian to be just like any other high school sport. We have jumping, dressage, equitation, working rancher, reining, roping, daubing, saddle seat, trail, showmanship, in hand trail and all of the gaming events. I like my horses in this environment because it rounds them. Even though this is my last year, I will be allowing my horses to be used by my younger friends in this association. This year, Selena and I will be competing in Working Rancher, Reining, Western Horsemanship (Western equitation), Barrels, Team Biwrangle, Team Penning, and Keyhole

I have various horses as well that I ride and train, so i will update about them throughout this journal. I enjoy my job and my lifestyle and wouldn't change it for the world.
 
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#2 ·
So I'm really frustrated. I haven't been able to ride since Monday, where I normally ride every weekday. I am leaving for Portland in the morning and will be gone until Sunday which will be annoying, because that means the horses will have a week off and they tend to get a little hot.

Oh well, hoping for the best.
 
#4 ·
It's one of the girls who rides at Toni's...if you PM me on facebook I'll tell you but I don't want to say her name on an open forum just in case she doesn't want me to! Lolol

Yeah they changed it last year to Western Horsemanship. :lol:

Andd that's because my team only has two people....Lol
 
#6 ·
Butte Falls! We didn't have a team my freshman year and I lived too far away to economically co-op, so I made my own! We had three our first year, only me last year, and we had four at the beginning of this year but...Teenage drama killed it. LOL
 
#8 ·
Yeah...I don't know if it's going to exist after I graduate though, the other girl on the team is a senior too. It's expensive and not a lot of people up there are serious enough to put in the time...
 
#9 ·
That's too bad :( It really is a great program. And too bad you can't ride on another team!! We had a girl from Saint Mary's ride on our team. You would've had SO much fun on a bigger team with more to do. Did you ever get to do drill or any of the other team events?
I had the opposite problem my first two years. Crater's team was so big it was hard to get any help!! lol
 
#10 ·
I have done all the team events except canadian flags and drill...I was kinda upset about the drill part but I got a little bit of drill experience elsewhere so I'll live. lol
 
#15 ·
I guess I could probably update huh?


Well, the first meet is this weekend.

Ruger will not be competing.

Selena has been working excellent patterns and pieces at home but occasionally she'll get frazzled in the big arena we show in so I'm hoping she keeps her cool. I am also letting my other team mate run her in Figure 8 and Poles, so that'll be interesting. I finally got her to find Selena's gas pedal, aka Mach 5, but the turning still eludes her....So it'll be interesting to say the least.

I'm still not confident that I've fixed the problem of Selena fizzling between the first and second barrel either, but we'll see on that as well. I'm going to definitely be using the crop or over and under when we get down there. Going into the first barrel and coming out of the second she really hauls, it's just between the first two she gets stuck. Also keyhole. So long as she keeps focused she should absolutely smoke it. You'd think it would be easy, but it tends to not be on a pushy horse like her.

Destiny is doing well but Brittney is not keeping up with her like she should. There's no way she's going to get the counter canter or flying change down in time (That our western horsemanship pattern requires) even though the mare knows how to do it. I'm a little worried about it but oh well.

Wish us luck guys, may or may not update before the weekend.
 
#17 ·
Aright guys so back from meet #1

First off I just want to acknowledge that I am VERY proud of Selena. Her past experiences have been very inconsistent, one minute she does great the next she doesn't, fine in the warmup awful in the arena, but this time it really all just came together and flowed.

Working Rancher was an awesome way to start the day. She was working really good in the warmup so I went in and she just worked. I don't even know what to say. The pattern was simple enough.

http://www.ohset.com/patterns/scoreworkranch.pdf

She came flying in like a freight train to be honest. The judge barely had time to nod because I knew she was coming in and I wanted to let her go before she got too worked up. I let her come in like a rundown, and for a second I thought she might not stop O.O But I said whoa and didn't even have to touch her mouth, she just planted her butt and slid...It felt awesome. Awesome rollback, awesome circle with a beautiful stop after I threw my rope. She relaxed, opened the gate smoothly, had some HYPER cows which I expected her to short circuit but she just remained calm while we cut out our two, attentive, tracking them all the way like a pro.

Dragging the log though, that was our main issue. I took the rope and dallied, was ready to go, start walking and hit the end of the rope...and suddenly we aren't moving. Oh my GOD was that log heavy! Poor Selena was really unsure about that one. I did my best to help her. We had drug logs before but that was way heavier than it should of been, even people on more experienced and larger horses had one hell of a time with it. We ended up dragging it in too small a loop and almost tipping the barrel, having to back her out of the bales and pull it farther away then back in, but we still scored a 5 for the effort. Next time we know and we'll be prepared, I'm just glad I wasn't the only one who had trouble with it.

We placed 4th, which isn't a top 3 obviously but it still puts me in a good position if I can get her used to pulling heavier things to get better for next time.

Western Horsemanship scared the living daylights out of me. I get in there, having not looked at the dimensions for the pattern, and it. was. tiny. I knew Selena could handle it but there was NO room for error. In this one she did get a little chargey and pushy, but we nailed the circles and flying change and one of only a few who got a flawless counter canter. I placed fifth, with legitimately only five points between first and fifth. That's the smallest number possible...And I know we can do better. I'll have to push a little more for higher placings these next two meets if I want to go to state in it but I don't think we'll have too much of a problem.

http://www.ohset.com/patterns/scorehorseman.pdf

Reining was FABULOUS! Her spins were smooth, the judge actually told me they were some of the best spins she'd ever seen. She DID try and pick up the wrong lead, but she quite literally only made it half a stride before I fixed it. Don't even think the judge noticed to be honest. Circles were perfect, loose rein, relaxed, very slow and then VERY fast. She felt so good we hauled butt in our large fast circles. She came right back down though with no effort on my part, flawless changes, good stops, nice rollbacks, backup could have used a little more energy but hey that's her weakest point. Paced second!

I don't even want to talk about barrels or keyhole. :rofl: I knew she was going to throw a fit as soon as I pulled her out of her stall that morning. I think she was sore from the day before actually, but she stalled out of the first barrel and jumped up and my stirrups went out the window! O.O Ran the rest with one hand on the horn and barely made it out alive when she decided to fire like a rocket all of the sudden.

Keyhole would of been great except I didn't pull my head out of my *** long enough to trust her. I sat way too early, not trusting her to rate, and sure enough she rated and turn...right over the neck of the painted line and ran it over. No time for me. :/ But she did her job and listened to me, I just have to focus next time.

Biwrangle was awesome, Selena ran smokin' but my only partner option was Brittney whose horse is old and not as far along, and she's not an experienced rider so we got slowed down. It's okay though, we were still 13th, and it was fun anyway just letting my pony run.

Oh and funny story about team penning.

We went on ahead and did it even though there was only two of us and we had so much fun. :rofl: Selena had a hay day. The cows were nuts and there was no way we were getting any, so at the 30 second buzzer I just took a random cow and worked it like a cowhorse. :lol: :lol:

Hey, Selena doesn't get to play with cows that often and I haven't gotten to work a cow like that in almost two years! :lol: It was so much fun. I had time to circle the cow both directions before the buzzer told us to get out of the arena. :D The gate people and the crowd all thought it was funny, and it gave my horse a lot of time to play. We did almost get two cows, but Selena overshot the first one and the second one Selena stayed right up on it but we were haulin' butt and Brittney just didn't get to the other side of the pen fast enough and the cow ran right out. That's okay though, it was so much fun just to go and play and let my horse do what she was meant to do.

If I had the resources, Selena would quit everything else and become a reined cowhorse. I mean, really, that is her talent and her forte. With very little exposure she has whipped out some major moves and has just a ton of cow in her.

I can't wait until next month when we get to do this all again. :lol: I'll put up some pics soon.
 
#18 ·
I'm soo glad you guys had fun:) I'm a little jealous. I never did working rancher. But we also never had cows to sort! Looking back, it looks like such a fun event!!!! Don't stress too much about your placings, other people will make mistakes in the next two meets. You still have a great shot at going to state!!
 
#19 ·
I'm really confident that I'll at least go in reining, there aren't a lot of strong reiners this year and Selena is super solid and correct. I'm going to shoot for two events at least, but hopefully three.

Oh and I'm sitting second for versatility right now with two timed events and three performance. Hoping I can clean up the timed events and get that award for first.
 
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#20 ·
We weren't super good at keeping videos this year. Mom still doesn't know how to work a camera. I've got a few more but I need to cut out some of the dark or irrelevant parts and upload them.

Here's our warmup before the games though.



Now picture time:

Warming up before grand entry. Selena was being a real pill, acting like she'd never carried a flag before.



Putting the "green yarn monster" on Selena's head.



Lol after finding out our headstall was actually PONY SIZED! O.O Oh lord we are so lucky we ordered more and the extra one was actually horse sized and had a bit on it already...five minutes before we started o.o





Brittney getting ready on Destiny



Warmup again







Our trots were almost directly in sync o.o



In the line at grand entry



At the games Saturday night





Selena snuggling Destiny







More to come in a second
 
#21 ·
Brittney and Destiny



Brittney and Destiny, with a blur of a Selena lol



Brittney and Destiny



These ones are blurry, Mom's hand isn't that good sometimes, but loping Selena



Getting ready to turn that cone. ^^





Lettin' her go.





Making friends, and finding Selena's "twinsy" :lol:



Twinsy butts



Andd that's all because we're lame and didn't get good pictures :lol: Next time we'll get better ones.
 
#22 ·
Those are so cute! You guys were gaming saturday night? Geesh, they must have changed up the day order too! Looks like fun, that bay could totally pass as her twinsy! Oh, and I'm super excited for you. I hope you get versatility! That would be awesome! Didn't you say one of your friends was gonna do poles on her? How'd that go?
 
#23 ·
Lol no we didn't do gaming, but we did the athlete games like the musical ribbons and egg and spoon race just for fun...I don't know how recent of a development those games are or if you had them when you were competing or not! LOL. Friday is drill, driving, hunt seat eq over fences, and saddle seat now with grand entry. Saturday is the rest of the performance classes and the games, then sunday is the gaming.

Yeahh we decided to not let her use Selena because it was getting a little painful to watch her ride o.o Selena is just way too much horse for her.
 
#25 ·
Yep it's a lot of fun! I got into a real race with a girl from South over the last ribbon when we played musical ribbons (Like musical chairs)

We actually came running into it together almost collided but I got the ribbon, then Selena was so jiggy from running that she jumped sideways away from it and we had to run around the arena AGAIN. Did the exact same thing, almost slid into each other, but this time the other girl won. Dang it :( Next time. At the third meet we even do games bareback. :lol:



My sophomore year we did the dollar bill race bareback and I won for $50 :lol: :lol:
 
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