I was just given the cutest horse sign ever. When showing this to my partner his quick and witty response was “I didn’t know I was on the market even.” Hah! Thanks Lyndsay! It’s adorable! 🙂
Send in your favorite horse sign or saying as this would make a fun collections to publish to all the fans. You can send your favorites to https://blog.horsegirltv.com/?page_id=1668 and thanks for sharing!
HorseGirlTV® had a wonderful time with one of our partners, Absorbine, shooting a webisode at the Bit of Britain pavilion. The weather and event was beautiful. While the organization, layout and planning wasn’t perfect, they did the best job with what they had and it seemed like most of the spectators were having a wonderful time. Here’s a few more pictures (in addition to our slider photos above) from the WEG experience.
We got to meet Emily Bates from Bates Australia, makers of the Bates and Isabell saddles and it was a wonderfully educating experience. She was such a lovely person!
While at the Bates booth at the trade center, Angelea was approached by the great lady who had bought Angelea’s very first FEI horse, Highlight, many years ago. Highlight went on to a great career with Karen and lived many more years having sadly passed about a year ago. It wasn’t without many tears that Angelea met Karen in person as they’d shared a friendship and love of Highlight throughout Karen’s time with him.
Angelea signed some autographs for fans. She was able to meet a variety of fans at WEG and so wonderful to capture a few photos with some of the younger fans present at the event as well.
What would such an elite event be without brilliant artwork.
Interesting horse show ball. There were some of these scattered throughout the grounds with several at tall as an average sized person. What an interesting idea!
It wasn’t so much the artwork that was brilliantly interesting but the fact they had to put a sign on the art as to deter patrons from playing on it. Hah!
We watched some reining, dressage and cross country and each stadium was beautifully appointed.
Of course a trip to Kentucky without trying a mint julep was impossible.
This was an amazing waterfall welcome from Alltech.
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Here’s a clip from our view of the cross country.
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The holidays are officially here and at HorseGirlTV this means trying out great new holiday homemade horse treats. Here are a few of our homemade favorites!
Pumpkin Surprise: You’ll enjoy watching your horse with his treat as much as he’ll enjoy eating it! Take a small pumpkin, cut off top and remove all insides (but sure to get all seeds). Fill it with grain, pears, carrots, peppermints, apples, bananas or whatever fruit you have on hand. Replace the top and serve to your horse.
Oatmeal Cookies:
2 cups dry oatmeal, ½ cup grated carrots, 3 Tablespoons Molasses, ½ cup brown sugar
Combine all ingredients. Add enough water to make mixture soft. Form cookies and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown.
Peppermint Surprise:
1 cup molasses, 1 cup dry oatmeal or oats, ½ cup chopped carrots, 1 diced apple, 4 peppermints – crushed, 1 Tablespoon sugar
Mix and serve.
We’re still as excited about our J&N Structures (http://www.jandnstructures.com/) stable as the day it arrived and was installed in a mere 3 hours but it was in need of a tiny bit of TLC so we had it pressure washed recently and it’s almost as good a new. Once the weather dries out a bit, we’ll get a new coat of stain on it to continue to protect it.
I smile almost every time I look at the stable thinking how great of construction, ease of use and how thankful I am to get to work with such amazing craftman in the equestrian industry!
The day after Christmas we had a fabulous dusting of snow. Hansel was able to get out in it for a bit and wander around but it fast became icy so it was an inside keep warm kind of day. Snow is beautiful when you’re sitting in a ski lodge or in front of the fire with a good book and while our Attwood Equestrian Surfaces GGT custom blend dressage court is mostly all-weather, we do have to draw the line at riding on it when it’s packed with snow so we did have 1 day off.
Yesterday the sun came out enough to melt down the snow on the court and 20 meter lunge circle so we could get back out and ride.
It did make for nice photos especially the front gate drive path covered in white!
Mary Ellen from Durham, North Carolina emailed in and asked, “Hey Angelea! I was wondering if you would recommend any specific winter riding breech? I am going to get some once it gets closer to winter, but I’d like your opinion on which winter breeches I should get.”
I thought this best to answer via the blog since we can share it with everyone and fall is fast approaching. I’ve personally never found breeches made for winter wear all that comfy. They have seemed bulky and as if they interfered with the close contact so I ride in FITS and the Anky TC breeches all year round. I do wear a longer coat when grooming and tacking then usually warm up my horse with a fleece blanket on which I conveniently tuck over my legs as well. Once you and your horse are warmed up I don’t think you really need special winter breeches.
Here’s a picture of the FITS that I like:
You can buy these online at http://shop.horsegirltv.com
And here’s the Anky TC breeches:
You can buy these online at http://shop.ankyusa.com.
Lindsay from Houston, Texas emailed in and asked me, “What are some fun games to play on and off your horse, with your horse?” I thought this too neat of a question to simply reply only to her so I’m blogging about it to share with everyone. I was a young girl in 4-H near Houston, Texas myself and my 4-H group would play lots of fun games at the end of our horse shows. My two favorites were egg and spoon and ride-a-buck.
The egg and spoon just requires spoons, eggs, yourself and your horse. We rode it like a simple Western Pleasure class with an announcer asking the riders to walk, jog and lope our horses in both directions. You get on your horse, someone hands you the spoon and you put an egg on it. From there you neck rein your horse with one hand and hold your spoon with the egg on it in the other and start the class walking, jogging and loping around the arena as the announcer calls it. The top 6 people left with the egg still on their spoon go into the finals round and 1st through 6th place are awarded to these riders in which more difficult tasks are added such a backing up, roll backs at the walk, small circles, etc. This one is quite fun, a bit messy but really enjoyable for the participants and audience alike.
Another huge crowd pleaser and a game where you see some really creative riding is the ride-a-buck. Ride-a-buck, each person gets on their horse (usually bareback) and they sit on a dollar bill. Again this is judged as a Western Pleasure class and riders are asked to walk, jog and lope in both directions and later on backing up, circles and such. The funniest version of this event was when a friend of mine was literally laying on her horses back to keep the dollar bill attached as when the bill falls out you’re out of the competition. The last person left with the dollar under them wins and usually they receive the pot of all the $1 from the other riders.
They are both great fun and work really well with smooth gated AQHA horses which are popular in 4-H! Thanks for the question Lindsay and thanks for watching the HorseGirlTV® series!
Here’s me and my horse “Honey” with my childhood BFF Brent and “Sugar” and his brother Dan and “Cre Cre” at our local riding ring practicing for our 4-H events. We couldn’t afford polo wraps and I loved that look so I would take vet wrap and put it in my horses legs in blue and white and by the end of our ride the would be down around her pasterns every time. The silly things we did as kids! 😉
We were honored recently to host internationally licensed dressage trainer, Geoff Butler here for a clinic at the farm. Geoff is a great person, talented rider/trainer and a great sales agent based in Holland. Considering it is December, the weather was surprisingly coorperative. Everyone that rode with Geoff this time around is looking forward riding with him again in June when he returns!
What a welcoming sign the night before the clinic. A beautiful sunset across the arena…
For those of you that might not be familiar with Geoff, here’s his bio…
My name’s Geoff Butler and I’m an Australian dressage rider and trainer that has been based in Europe for the last 11 years. Seven of those years were spent working full time in the stable of Anky van Grunsven and Sjef Janssen in Holland. During this time I learned a huge amount in regards to the training and management of sport horses and riders.
I’ve also been fortunate to have worked and trained with other successful riders here in Europe such as Wim Verwimp, International Grand Prix rider and trainer from Belgium and Ferdi Eilberg, a renowned German trainer based in the UK. Currently I’m training with Nicole Werner who is also the trainer of Edward Gal.
In Australia one of my biggest influences was Richard Weis. Richard Weis applies the Alexander Technique to riding. The Alexander Technique is a method that teaches people body awareness, and how do use their bodies in the most efficient and balanced way. I studied this method full time at the Melbourne Alexander Technique school.
For the last year I have been successfully running my own company called Unique Sport Horses www.uniquesporthorses.com. My work within the company consists of training and competing horses ranging from youngsters up until FEI level, training motivated riders of all different levels and horse sales.
I am a qualified riding instructor having attained my International Trainers license here in Holland and I enjoy teaching riders and horses of all different levels and backgrounds. My own background in horses and riding is quite diverse. As a teenager I rode showjumpers and even did track work with racehorses. I feel that this combined with the experience and insight I’ve gained by working with some of the best and most successful dressage trainers has given me a broad and varied base of knowledge.
Thanks to the recommendation of Mike McEntire (http://www.mcentirereining.com/) for this great new DVD that just arrived. It’s called “REINING the Fundamentals of Judging” from NRHA and I can’t wait to watch it. Mike had an older copy he was kind enough to sit down with me and watch a bit of so I could get the basic idea of what perfect maneuvers are.
It covers the definition of reining, maneuver scoring, penalty application and scoring live runs. You can buy it for $64.95 from the NRHA website.
Can’t wait to start watching it tonight and absorbing the info! I hear they have a pretty neat judges program as well!
I’m continuing with my series on fun ways to transform traditional horse show tail gate and concession eating experiences into a health conscious and even gourmet encounters. I’ve been playing with cutting out as much refined sugar from my diet as possible and seeing that almost everything has sugar or high fructose corn syrup of some sort that’s a bit challenging. This recipe is my cobbler recipe replacing the sugar for honey. When replacing sugar with honey it’s best to use a tad less because honey is naturally sweeter. I do like the dough to be a bit more crisp than this recipe turned out so I might experiment next time with adding some room temp melted butter to the actual dough.
You’ll need a few basic ingredients that you’ll likely have around the house already. In regards to honey, I hear if you eat honey local to your region it can help with any allergies you might have come springtime. So we stock up when possible at the local fruit stands.
Working with frozen fruit is easy but show season is typically spring and summer when lots of great local fresh fruits abound so I prefer to bake with fresh fruit and in this case, local fruit stand peaches and blueberries.
Now I’m not suggesting to go out and spend money on a toaster oven if you don’t already have one but back in the day living at the stable with just the viewing room to prepare food I ended up purchasing a convection toaster oven which does come in handy on hot summer months when I don’t want to pre-heat the full sized oven (which in the summer is almost never) and save a bit on the energy usage as well. I have this toaster oven and it has worked great for me the last 4 years! So pre-heat your oven to 375F.
I put the stick of butter in my baking dish and let it melt inside the preheating oven. Below are the basic ingredients you’ll need.
1 stick (4 ounces) butter, melted
3/4 cup honey
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, cubed
1 cup blueberries
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt topping with the honey and blend well. Stir in the milk and vanilla until blended. Pour the batter over the melted butter in your baking dish. Toss the peaches and blueberries in and dash the top with 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. Bake for approximately 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. The top will be browned and the cake will begin to pull away from the sides of the pan slightly.
Now for horse show prep, I like to bake in a dish that comes with its own cover and will sit well in the cooler. This is usually an arrival night dessert after a long day of traveling or will keep well until lunch or dinner the next day too.
Enjoy and success in your competitions!