Monday 18 August 2008

I have been playing with some actions that I obtained recently and just havent had time to look at them until now, I still want to do a lot of experimenting but I shot a photo of this sunflower this morning and the back of the flower last evening. Here is my color pen sketch version and below is the original and the rear view. This popped up in the field that we reseeded right by the gate, unfortunately it is the only one and with our beautiful weather recently the sky is this lovely blue, no filters on the original photo (I dont use UV or Polarizing filters). I liked this a lot and am looking forward to spending more time experimenting with them.

Larry has been focused on getting our blue roan paint filly into the show ring. She was all geared up for the Pinto and Paint world shows two years ago and then had to be withdrawn because she had a lump under her throat and it had burst and the vets told us it was strangles, so that was the end of her two debutes and then she just went through the gawky stage and hasnt looked good enough until now. She is 4 years old now so has pretty much finished growing and I would love to get a few points on her before we decide to make a riding horse or brood mare of her. He has been working her every day with a bit of help from me and the girl that helps us at lunch time.

After he had finished lunging her, she is quite sassy and has a mischievious streak in her LOL, she is also pretty tall probably about 16 hands. I looped the lead rope through her halter and jumped on her bareback in the roundpen and got her walking and trotting in both directions!!! She has only had someone on her back for a few minutes at a time about 6 or 7 times in her life!

She has a beautiful easy floating trot and is really smooth. So if we can get her fattened up a bit, (she has come down in weight a bit this summer and is certainly not thin but she is not at the weight she needs to be to show at halter) we may take her to the Pinto show in September too and if I can get her working reasonably under saddle I might ride in the walk trot class with her. She has the advantage that she has already had all the exposure to shows and halter training and it is not new to her, whereas Dream and Blaze are still growing and two months ago had only ever had a halter on them and no other work done on them at all.

So the above pic is of Larry in the roundpen free lunging her. I would also love to have Cayenne ready for a walk trot class in September but she doesnt have the qualifying white markings to allow her to compete in the regular registry and is catagorised as a "breeding stock". The breeding stock do the same or similar classes to the Pintos or Paints but they compete on their own not against the spotted horses. We have had a few ladies recently who have breeding stock horses and they have been trying to promote them at shows (breeding stock is a paint and pinto breeder's nightmare because they dont have the spots and are therefore not valuable which I think is a crock!!) So Cayenne will help bring up numbers in those classes and make them worth more points and also maybe people will start looking at them in a different light.

Oh well if that all hasnt confused you LOL then I will call it a night. I am really enjoying the riding and think I am getting the passion back a bit, although it is still hard to motivate myself, maybe this is what I need to get me going. When I am riding it is so exhilerating.

I have a new visitor to my blog, Megan, who I would like to welcome, and I hope that she will start one of her own and share pictures as I know she does do a bit of photography too. Megan I left a reply in my comments on the one you posted to, I hope you saw it.

Hope you all had a great weekend. (((((Hugs))))))

Lori