I'm Back!

Hi Everyone,
Sorry I've been gone so long, it's been a busy couple of months. I moved to Temecula,ca and have been working my butt off since I've been there! Upon arriving at my new home, I received two sales horses, Oliver and Joey. I just recently found Oliver a home with the most amazing people and am so very happy. I'm still working on finding Joey a home, I do have to admit, its going to be a little harder to find Joey a home because he is only four and has not started jumping yet, but I am going to start on that this week! Wish me luck : ). Another awesome thing that has occurred since moving out to Temecula, John got me a horse that I will be able to do the Grand Prix's on! I'm so very excited and we have been working really hard. I went to my second show on him last weekend and got one fifth place and two first place ribbons! We're going to do two more county shows at four foot height on Toto and then in July, we are going to an A rated show and will hopefully kick ass at 4 and 4'3"! One thing that has been really hard since moving out here is obtaining clients. In the horse business, you receive clients because of word of mouth and it's definitely hard if you don't know anyone in your area. I have a game plan now so hopefully I will start procuring new clients in the Temecula area. Wish me luck!

Totally Random

Have any of you heard of Judge My Ride?
If not, it's a website that judges the form of rider and horse. I understand this is a great tool for all you equitation/hunter riders out there, but I just don't understand why you jumper riders out there are sending in your pics/videos in to get judged?!?!?!? Honestly, it seems to me if you are a "jumper" and are sending in pics/ videos of yourself, you really are not a jumper rider. To me, if you are a true jumper rider, meaning that's all you do, it doesn't matter what you look like, as long as you help your horse jump great and that you get the job done.On another random, but related topic, I really don't agree with every trainers' philosophy that you have to bring young riders up through hunters, then equitation, and then finally jumpers. I don't think hunters and equitation prepares our young riders for the quite difficult task of grand prix jumping. hunters and equitation teaches our riders today to sit still, smile for the camera, and look pretty. While that's perfectly acceptable for those two disciplines, a jumper has to be fighting to get over every single fence in that show ring, and another HUGE thing you must learn to do which is EXTREMELY difficult, is to get your horse to travel from his hawks/back end. that is where all the power comes from and that is what allows your horse to jump those huge fences. Most americans have never heard of this in their lives! I know i was never taught this in all the barns i've been in throughout the years. Only when I started training with John, did I learn that I couldn't just let my horse be all strung out and on his front end, that I had to get them on their hawks in order to jump those 5 foot fences. And now what I know to look for, its so easy to see that almost all americans' horses are strung out and not on their back ends, and the germans on the other hand, have their horses so nicely framed and on their hind ends and they have so much power that they don't have to run at every fence. they just canter nicely with power! I'm going to put two videos for you to watch and hopefully you'll see what i've explained. the first video will be a german rider and the second will be an american rider. enjoy : )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyduGUDoDg8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXdW2MoKetw

WOW, what a week!

Its been a crazy week! I don't even know where to start...
I guess I'll start with the good news we received today, 
In one month, Myself and my business is officially moving to Temecula!
My mom signed the papers today, I'm so very excited to get out of the barns I'm at right now,
to get away from all of the ridiculous drama!
I think moving there will give me so much more of an opportunity for my business to boom!
Here in Silverado I have a great lessons business, but I would love to focus more on training young horses and selling them. Speaking of that, I've hopefully found Diego a good home; He's going to be taken on trial for 30 days. That's all for now, have a great night!

Hello World! I'm here to stay!

Today was a fantastic day, had a great jumping session on Diego and Gemini. Finally, (hopefully) got past my mental block with oxers!!! I'm so happy/proud of myself for sticking with it, not giving up, and persevering! After Norco, I rode 3 more horses and gave a jumping lesson. I ended my day with a nice, relaxing trail ride with one of my clients, we rode to the top of a hill just as the sun was setting; it was absolutely gorgeous and a great way to end my very busy day. Tomorrow, I'm bringing one of my young students to Norco with me where she is going to get a chance to jump her first jumping course! I am so excited for her, will tell you all about it tomorrow. Hope everyone has a fantastic Friday night! 
Lots of love,
 Miska

Awesome Day!!!

Had an awesome day today! I officially own my first sales horse, who's name I changed from Waldo to Diego  : ). Tacked him up with him being ground tied, hopped on him and he was a totally different horse today! Diego was sooo calm and such a good boy, jumped him over a x-rail and little vertical and he was amazing. After riding Diego, i vaulted onto Gemini and had a pretty good jumping session, I'm moving closer and closer to destroying the mind block I have against oxers. 


Another great part of my day was giving lessons to Julia and Ava. Julia rode at four is improving so much every week. She trotted successfully without holding onto the horn. Then Ava had a lesson on Rivers our old ex-race horse. She decided to take the plunge and ride in the big arena and we ended up jumping! I'm so happy to have these talented kids in my life! Watch out world, these kids are going to rule the horse community some day. : ) Hope all of you have a fantastic night, I can't wait for tomorrow!!

My first sales horse

I had an amazing jumping session today, jumped three oxers ranging from 3'3" to 4'6"! I jumped the 3'3" and 4' oxer with not many problems (only a couple stops) and then my trainer asks me to do something that most people would think is impossible, but it's apart of my everyday training. He asked me to jump a vertical to an oxer at an "impossible" 90 degree turn in three strides. The vertical I jumped easily, but going to that big oxer I kept psyching myself out and kept stopping. After every stop, my trainer would talk and pushed just the right buttons on me to make me really mad and determined to jump that big oxer no matter what. I finished off my lesson jumping the vertical to the oxer two times! Success!!


Back to the main topic of the story...that horse I wrote about yesterday, he's going to be my very first sales horse!!! I'm so very excited to get to work with this very sweet and talented horse. I'm going to ride him again tomorrow and I'll be sure to tell you how it goes. That's all for today, I don't really feel like writing a huge article. Have a grand and mystical night.
 Love, Miska.

Confidence is here to stay...hopefully

It's amazing how confidence has everything to do with your mind...your mind most of the time is your enemy when it comes to confidence. It was funny because something so simple boosted my confidence entirely today. I showed up at the barn where I keep my jumper around 9 and of course my trainer was running late, as usual...while waiting, I figured i would try out one of his new horses that just arrived a few days ago to see if I could possibly make any money off the horse. Having seen the horse bucking and spooking like crazy with a rider two days ago, i knew he had major psychological issues. I took him out of his stall, and he immediately tensed up waiting for something bad to happen, i just walked along like I didn't notice anything and pretty soon he relaxed. I led him to the round pen where i started lunging him. Let's pause for a second so I can elaborate on something a little more; whenever I refer to the word lunge, i don't mean just running the horse around. when I lunge a horse I am working on getting the horse to fully pay attention to me, getting the horse relaxed, and at the end, for the horse to lick his lips and follow me around of his own free will. You might be familiar with this lunging technique, it's typically known as the natural horsemanship technique. This is the ONLY thing I use from natural horsemanship because I don't believe in the anything else the natural horsemanship people teach. Anyways, back to my story...after about ten minutes, I was able to get the horse to stop, face me, and follow me around all the while licking his lips. yay! success!!! At the point, I decided I would tack him up and try to ride him. Walking him around the arena with so many scary things all around, the horse would spook and then tense, waiting for me, the rider, to punish him. At that moment, i truly felt so very sorry for the life this horse has had to live. From then on, whenever I felt him tense up, i would pet him over and over and praise him with a "good boy" and a "you're okay" ; the more I said those things, the more he would relax. After about 20 minutes of just walking I started trotting and then cantering. He spooked a couple times at the canter and the poor horse thought I was going to punish him so he would try to buck as a defense mechanism; again, I would praise and praise him, and again, he calmed down and did not try to buck anymore. Riding this horse and accomplishing that much in an hour and a half boosted my confidence so much that I was able to jump those darn oxers correctly and  with extreme confidence . I hope everyone can take something away from this story...I know I definitely learned a lot today, about how much my mind/confidence affects my jumping and whenever I feel like I can't jump a certain jump, I'll just remind myself of this day and hopefully, my dormant confidence will rise and continue to rise to the point where it's always there, ready to use for any and every situation! : )