A Visit from Santa Horse

If Jessica thinks it's early for lights, I wonder what she thinks of our early visit from Santa Cowboy and his ReinDexter?

It's a good thing they work for carrots, or they would never put up with this humiliation. But as long as the carrots and hay keep coming, they are remarkably good sports. Cowboy is an incredible ham and really turns it on for the camera. Dexter is usually agreeable, but I did figure out how to use the fill flash, and that had him a bit edgy. Cowboy is willing to put up with the flash as long as he looks good in the end.

Before I get too far into this, that was an "owl" in my driveway last night, not an "own"...

It was nice to see the sunshine today, and I got to not only clean paddocks, but actually ride my horse. Still bareback, but he was moving very nicely. Got the extended trot back, and the right lead is improving. He'll pick it up now with minimum fussing, and stays in it for a reasonable length of time. Maybe after the holidays I can put the saddle back on again.

Got word from Parelli today that we have officially achieved Level 3 On-Line! We filmed the audition in May, then it took a while to get around to transferring the clip to a VHS tape, which I promptly taped over because my VCR, which I haven't used in ages, is apparently broken. Then Laura and I had to figure out how to transfer the video from the camcorder to the computer, and then edit it so that it was compressed enough to upload to YouTube. That learning experience was worth a YouTube video all by itself. But we achieved it in September. After all that, I wasn't really all that happy with the audition as I felt Cowboy looked totally bored and disinterested, and I didn't want to get after him because, after all, we are supposed to look like we are in total harmony. Plus I hated the music I had selected (well, I actually love the music but it was a very poor choice for this purpose). So I put off submitting the audition until a couple weeks ago because I wasn't sure it was going to pass muster. I was quite surprised to find that we not only passed, but we were rated at Level 4 in five areas, including Relationship, Rapport, Exuberance (!), Squeeze Game and Draw. We also had a lot of checks in the Level 3++ and Level 3+ columns. The only area we were rated a straight Level 3 was in Assertiveness. So apparently I should have gotten after him a bit anyway. Anyway, I guess they didn't think he looked as bored as I thought he did, and I'm especially happy with those Level 4s in Relationship and Rapport. So we still have to submit auditions for Freestyle (riding) and Liberty, but now I'm really encouraged that at least we're on the right track.

Here's the link to the audition:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmPjssZgQ1A

I need to remind myself to dress better next time, and lose about 50 pounds...

I think that's it for now. Back to work tomorrow.