With a great team, and thanks to many people helping, we had a great show at the " horse around days" expo.

Monica got her husband to ride Pan Tau, and the two looked great. Amelia rode Dagjeir, and well...the pictures will speak for themselves, they all looked great!

They not only rode well, but helped setting up the booth, helped tearing it down, cleaned the stalls, grazed horses, just all the things that need to be done, they did it all!

It was fun, and could not have been done without everyone pitching in!

Thank you!

Chandra has been riding Olga almost daily.The front pasture has been set up with a pace course, so the girls learn at what speed they canter, as I take their time with a stop watch.

And there are some cross country jumps moved in.

On Saturday's Amelia Tritz catches the boat and comes to ride Dagjeir and Pan Tau to get used to them for the upcoming breed expo in Mount Vernon.
You can see more about the Expo here.

A neighbor asked if I could teach a friend's daughter of hers, who was going to spent some time on the islands for summer vacation.
Jill was to stay with me from North Carolina, and since she's a hunter /jumper, loves horses, we agreed she'd go to a 3 day event.
Jill was a great help around the farm, and took to dressage like a fish to water.
Cross country she soon mastered too, a little harder to learn to sit up over certain jumps when all your life you've been told to sit forward.
But Jill is persistent, and determined to do it right!
We had a lot of fun, and when the time came to go to the horse trials, she was ready!
She did a great dressage test, especially since this was her first time, and scored a 40.5 and was tied for 7th.
That afternoon she had her cross country course.
She did great, the water was optional, but she went through it!
She had one refusal, no time faults. In fact, she was the closes to optimum time!
Then Sunday came the final test, the stadium jumping.
They jumped clear, but were too slow. she had 9 time faults, and dropped to 8th place.
She did get a huge ribbon, and to finish at your first 3 day is no small feat!
Results can be seen here.
On Monday Jill had to go home, and she was very sad an Akhal-Teke did not fit in her suitcase, although she tried.....

Time for our yearly trek to Canada, to the event camp at Chase, except for I'll be taking pictures, and little did Monica know, that when she visited in April, that she'd be riding Pan Tau for me at Chase.
Not only did she ride my stallion, she had to drive us there, and help me with all the things I could not do!

For Dagjeir Laurel Brock came from Kansas. I sold her Misha 2 years ago, and Laurel had mentioned she wanted to event.
Laurel had never done cross country, and came a week early to get acquainted with Dagjeir and jumping.

We got ready for the trip, and as usual, Chase was an unforgettable experience.
Again, Monica did a great write up, to be found at this link here.

Little did I know that 2 days after the horse trials I would break my leg....
Helping my vet castrate my 2 year old, he jumped up during the operation, and fell down crushing my leg.
I broke the tibia and fibula, so.. time to get creative and get my horses exercised after all....

I'm signed up for the first horse trials of the year with 2 horses, but Pan Tau strained a muscle running in the pasture, So I will only take Dagjeir and make sure PT is completely healed.
I only rode Dagjeir once, since he's my busy lesson horse, but we had a great dressage ride, and he jumps great with my students, so I felt confident we'd do ok.
We are entered for Novice division this year.
Dressage was our best score yet. We did a lovely test, but I went off course once and got 2 points!
Still we were at 35.5 points, and close to the top!
Jumping was in the afternoon, and we had a clear round. Not only did we go clear, we had a steady rhythm, he was light in the aids, he did his job superbly!
Cross country on Sunday and the excitement was on! It is a big difference, Beginner Novice to Novice, there were 2 water elements, a big ditch with a down hill landing, the ditch was optional. I had decided to jump the ditch, after all, that is what cross country is all about! If I'd have a refusal, I'd do the option log instead....
The water complexes are always unsure. Dagjeir prefers to taste the water first before going in....but with a speed of 400 meters per minute, such luxuries are not permitted!
We rode in the early afternoon. At the start box, the person in front of us had 3 refusals at the first jump and got eliminated! It was in clear sight, and Dagjer was sure that little mare had good reasons for her balking....so when our turn came, he was pretty careful of that tiger in the woods....we came to the coop, and he jumped from stand still!?!
Well, it wasn't pretty, but now we were on our way, Dagjeir now more relaxed, yep, his rider hadn't lost her mind after all, I was not steering him into doom, and we sailed over the next couple of jumps.
Up came the coop in front of the water, and he didn't suck back, so far so good!
We trotted to the edge, and he trotted right in! This is an improvement for us! Back to canter we went thru the water and jumped out over a log.
We weren't even half way yet and having fun!
We had some straight lanes to canter and I let him go, we had some time to make up! We came upon a coop and again he suddenly was not sure it was save, slowed down at the last minute and almost jumped from a stand still!
We came to the log with the steep hill behind it, so I took him to a trot to let him see the situation, jumped it perfectly, down the steep hill, and on to the ditch!
I made sure I was sitting up, rains long, legs on, and sure enough, he jumped it fine, but I could feel his head go down and look under us to see what is was we jumped!
Next came the 2nd water complex, we had gone thru it from the opposite direction last fall when we competed here, but I don't think he'd remember.
This time we slowed down to a trot, and he never hesitated. Made the bend to the left coming out off the water and out over the coop.
At this point Dagjeir got his bearings, and knew where "home" was, and got a little sticky....the last jump was coming up, but he said, hey mom, the trailer is over there, don't worry, I'll show you.....arghhhh, I had to circle to get his attention, and we jumped the last coop and raced to the finish line!
I was happy. We had no jump faults but 13 time faults. We finished 9th overall.
Good for our first Novice ride, next time all we need is more speed!

Grass is growing fast, days are getting warm, time to cool off!

Breeding has begun, and life is good!

We had a visitor from the Seattle area, Monica Bretherton. We hid it off right away, went for a trail ride and jumped logs on the trails, and when we came back swapped horses in the arena and she rode Pan Tau some.

She wrote a very nice story about the fundraising I do and the horses. You can find it here.

We went to our first clinic and schooling show!
We went to NWEC in Rainier, WA for 2 days of cross country clinic and 2 days of schooling shows.
It still freezes at night, and on the way down we stopped at the tack store, unloaded and got fitted for a stabling sheet so he'd be warm.
Sure is fun to shop with your horse!
Traffic was terrible and we arrived late.
I have never taken a stallion to a "show", and not sure how he'd behave away from home, but other that the big announcement he made unloading out of the trailer, ( he stopped half way, looked around and made this huge hinny like sound only stallions do, to let the world know he has arrived) he was well behaved like any other horse there. I never needed a chain, hand grazed him on a nylon halter like a pony, I was very happy!
Although getting late, after setting up camp and grazing some, I saddled up and went for a ride to explore the premises. I'm glad I did, I think he enjoyed exploring too.
The next day we had our first cross country clinic. Pan Tau jumped everything, a little clumsy sometimes, but he always made good effort and was happy to oblige.
The next day we did the same clinic, and he jumped a lot better. In fact, he takes it all so nonchalantly, I almost wished he made a little fuss, so I know he is registering what we are doing.
The best compliments we got is "he looks like a TB from the old days"!
Then on Saturday the schooling shows started. I had signed up for a bunch. It was raining, the footing was terrible, the dressage ring was on uneven ground and full of big rocks. But, it was a good experience for us, as he tried to always look around, with little spurts of concentration on what we were doing.
The next test went better where he stayed concentrated longer. A good experience for me, this will give me an idea how long to warm him up for when we will go to an event.
The jump rounds were fun, and he always went clear. And we signed up for hunt pace classes. They were the best, a 3 mile course along the cross country course, with jumps optional. We got two second places in the hunt class, being the closest to optimum time.
I was thrilled, because you had to follow the course, but it was up to you what you jumped, and we always jumped from the bank into the water and out!
He was so level headed and dependable, what a great start for the season!
I was more than pleased, and it was well worth spending the nights freezing in the horse trailer.

I plan on having a busy show schedule this year, and Pan Tau has never gone to a show as far as I've been told.
So we are hard at work and he is coming along nicely.
We do lots of trail rides, along the road, riding by horses in pastures and alpaca's and he is always very well behaved.

We've had one more snow storm, and finally a nice day.

The horses are more playful when it's sunny.