OFFICAL LEVEL 2 GRADUATE

WOOOOOHOOOOO!!! I PASSED!!

Kaila-
Thank you very much for your Freestyle audition. The assessment team has viewed your audition and it was a pleasure. We appreciate the opportunity to be a part of your horsemanship journey. Congratulations!! Your Freestyle savvy is level 2! Great job!

As you start to think about level 3 you need to be sure that you are practicing perfectly. Do the simple things with excellence. You cannot overdo indirect and direct rein. Study the Safe Ride DVD in the Success Series for the specifics. Natural Rider would be another great place for you to focus to be progressive.

Thanks again for your dedication to your horse and to the Parelli program. We look forward to viewing your future success. Have fun and keep it natural!

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Sincerely,

Kristi S. Smith
Parelli Assessment Team
www.parelli.com
(800)642-3335

I am so glad that I sent it off! It was totally worth it! I need to stop beating myself down so bad and just go ahead and do things because I am getting great results! Now I know it will be a long while before I test for my Level 3, but I'm going to work my ass off to get there by hopefully this time next year!

To Send Or Not To Send?

I really debated on sending in my Freestyle Audition video, Blue was FANASTIC for it but I know we could have done better. But I didn’t want to be one of those people that just kept saying “Just one more time!”. Blue didn’t deserve that, he was awesome so I sent it off, the least they could do would be fail me and then I would be in the same boat as I am now, so I clicked the send button in my email and off it goes!

Robert was out today to trim Chance’s feet again, he was really good for three of the four feet, we couldn’t figure out why he was being so bad for one foot until I found a cut! It was on the inside of his leg around the fetlock, so it would have been resting in the cradle for the trim, no wonder he kept trying to pull the foot away! All in all my boy was a good pony for his trim.

Freestyle Filming

Another trip to the indoor for Blue and Dessi, both horses loaded up onto the trailer like perfect angels. Didn’t take long for either of them to settle, not a whole lot was going on in the barn, so the quiet was good. We could really focus on the task at hand, which of course was filming my Level 2 Freestyle Audition! Once I was finally happy with how Blue was behaving we did kind of a trail run and he was fantastic! Gave him a break and did some fun stuff then took a deep breath and filmed out audition. So here it is:

We've Got Progress!

Well today when I was brushing Kallie I took a peek at her udder (have been doing this for what seems like ages) and was quite excited and happy. So I of course go and get my camera and start snapping away, got to document this in the event I ever decide to breed the beast again! I’d like to have something to go by for her development! And maybe I am just slightly udder obsessed lol.

Mmmm Apple Flavour!

Today was time for another dose of deworming for everyone. I did Blue first and I just rubbed him all over then played with his mouth some before sticking the tube of wormed in and he was excellent! No huge fight at all! I was so proud of my boy! And of course Kallie and Chance were great to do as normal, Chance didn’t want to be caught at first but quickly got over that.

Off To The Indoor

Another trip to the indoor, this time we thought we would take Dessi instead of Tia. It took a little convincing to get Dessi on the trailer which was understandable seeing as the only trailer rides she has ever been on is when she moves to a new home and they are generally 3+ hour trailer rides!! But once she got on off we went, it didn’t take long for either Blue or Dessi to settle in, we had to wait a little bit for some people to finish up in the ring.

Blue and I did a lot of online work first, practicing all the stuff we did to test for our Level ½ Online and then we worked on practicing our freestyle tasks. He was really good, a bit sticky with the sideways so I got off a few times to remind him from the ground and he got better and better. I also rode with the carrot stick for real, and he was awesome! We did walk, trot and canter both directions and I was easily able to keep him on the rail, no diving into the center! He was yet again my super star!

Spring Trail Ride

Finally the snow was gone enough for Anna and I to hit the trails! It was a beautiful day, warm and almost sunny! We tacked Blue and Tia up and head out on the main trail that we usually follow as it is the one with the least hills and we figured it wouldn’t be washed out as bad as the other trails. Both Blue and Tia was fantastic! We did lots of walking to warm them up then some trotting and we could tell the both wanted to go for a good run free of mud and muck! So we let them go and boy did they have fun! I think Blue feels that if he runs fast enough he might be able to fly! Even Tia enjoyed a good gallop through the woods. They would slow down relatively easy as well but you could tell that they would happily run for ages!