The Grease Monkey in Breeches and Jubilee's Success

Why yes, that was me this afternoon, kneeling in the mud with a dead tractor, which I did resuscitate by disassembling the starter, unjamming it, and then reassembling and attaching it back onto the tractor. You may now call me The Grease Monkey in Breeches.

The arena footing should be looking pretty good by the weekend so hopefully we'll be able to do some riding.  Today was spent over at the neighbor's indoor arena with Fergie, Jubilee, and Billy.  Fergie is preparing for her first dressage show, and Billy is teaching his owner about some of the new things he has learned here in the last couple months about reining.

Other than the tractor finally starting, the highlight of my day was seeing Jubilee and her owner ride together.  The three of us have been working together for several years, doing lots of preparation and ground work while we waited for Jubilee to mature enough mentally and physically to be ready for riding.  Just this summer she's really been ready to get to work and has come along incredibly quickly.  Currently she is walking, trotting, cantering, and knows her leads.  She backs nicely, turns nicely and goes over all the trail obstacles in the arena quietly.  She is trailriding as well, and loves to come out and work.  Until today she had mostly just done this with me, and occasionally my working student.  My saddle fit Jubilee, me, and my student, but not Cynthia.  It was a bit disheartening to see the horse making such progress and not have Cynthia doing it as well, but we were headed the right direction by ordering a custom saddle that was exactly what they needed.  This is the first saddle that Cynthia has ever had that really fit HER properly, and it also fits Jubilee perfectly.  It is an Allegeny trail saddle, and they are quite reasonably priced.  www.trailridingsaddles.com      We worked with Jen at Happy Horse Tack in Fort Collins to get it.

Total, Cynthia and I have been working with Jubilee for about 6 years, since she was a long yearling and Cynthia bought her planning to invest quite a bit of time, emotion, and money into her.  Today all the years of effort came together, all the training, all the frustration, all the waiting, finally all the puzzle pieces settled into place and the last part arrived this afternoon - the fitted saddle. 

It is incredible to see the investment she has made in her horse pay off.  Cynthia rode around in the arena, walking and trotting in lovely balance with Jubilee, correctly getting her diagonals, with her leg hanging precisely and effortlessly in the correct position because she finally has a saddle that doesn't interfere with her balance.  There was a lot of smiling, giggling, cheering, and one very quiet happy arabian mare in the arena today.  It only gets better from here!

“It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed.” - Harvey S. Firestone

THE MAN IN THE ARENA
                   Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic" Theodore Roosevelt
                   delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.