Highland Browbands -- review!

I know I'm late to the game with the whole tack bling thing. To be fair, I'm late to the party with all the fancy tack. Until recently, I only had one bridle (and a back up cheapie in case of emergency), one saddle, one girth and the bare minimum amount of saddle pads (review to come on some custom ones I had made soon, too -- who am I?). After selling some tack, and getting some upgrades, I thought that since Riley actually has a dressage saddle to wear, we should probably think about outfitting him in some swanky head wear.

I've done some poking around based on reviews many of you have posted in the blog world, but one company kept popping up that I had never heard of.. Highland Browbands.

After Rolex their social media presence took off and I started to see little ads for them everywhere. They have a nice selection of various styles of headbands (including a shallow "V", which I much prefer to the more exaggerated versions) and each item is fully customize-able with pretty, pretty crystals!

Just a handful of their colors.

Highland also makes rider accessories, jewelry to match your browband and stock pins. They hosted a demo sale of all the items they brought to Rolex and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to see what they were all about. For $25 the risk seemed marginal, so I placed my order and waited the estimated 10 days for shipping (which was also free -- they have promo codes listed under the "ambassador" tab on their site). Deals, deals, deals guys, I'm all about 'em.

I placed the order on a Tuesday and my item arrived on Thursday. For reference they are in Eugene, OR and I am in Philadelphia, PA. Each step of the transaction was met with quick emails to let me know my order was received, processed and shipped (along with a tracking #). I was astounded at the speed of shipping, and my item came beautifully wrapped in tissue paper, with a few business cards and a hand written thank you note. If there's one thing I'm really big on, it's personalized correspondence, so this little note made my day!

Even nicer in person.

I was pretty thrilled with the overall quality of the leather. It was soft and supple, and although obviously a demo model (there was a little wear on the inside from a horse's face), it was clean and otherwise perfect. I got extremely lucky that they happened to have exactly Riley's colors in their demo sale!!!

I couldn't wait to try it on Riley expect for the small fact that I don't have a dressage bridle... Womp, Womp. What better reason to head off to the local consignment tack shop and dig through their loot!? I headed off to Maryland Saddlery and poked around until I found the perfect bridle -- their selection was particularly great that day and if anyone needs a cob size dressage bridle they had soooo many lovely ones. Alas, Riley has a big head. We found a suitable bridle (with gorgeous Thinline reins -- and a fancy browband that wouldn't look great on Riley) that was in nearly perfect condition. Better yet, I had a bunch of credit at the shop so my purchase was FREE! I scooted off to the barn to play dress up. Riley was less than amused... lest you believe that I am any good at taking photos:

It's nap time, right?

You've got to be kidding me Mom.

The SO was very patient and kind with horse wrangling and Riley was less than cooperative and more or less refused to stand still/put his ears forward (despite crinkling wrappers).

Phew, so dapper.

We did get him to stand long enough to snap a few shots and get a good representation of the bridle and browband together and guys... why did I wait so long to do this? Riley looks SOOO handsome. I was a little worried about the browband overwhelming his face. I think it's a tricky balance with blaze-faces... plain faced horses really look fantastic in bling, the more the better. but I'm not so sure with horses that already have a lot going on.

Seriously, how good does he look? *don't worry, the buckle on the flash is never usually near his mouth, I just threw it on for the photos

Gentle "V' on his forehead. I like the design only barely touches the top of his blaze.

Overall, my experience with Highland Browbands was terrific. I would recommend them in a heartbeat. With prices starting at $25 for stock items and custom orders around $50, you can hardly beat the value! And, as if they weren't cool enough, they also have a small consignment section of tack/horse gear AND...

WAIT...

FOR...

IT...

Unicorn iphone cases.

I'm just going to leave that here.

You can find Highland online at:
http://www.highlandbrowbands.com/
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Now or Never (Q1 goals)

What having dinner with your trainer looks like

In the spirit of holding myself accountable I set some goals on paper last night with Emily. I explained to her what I was hoping to accomplish for the year and we pulled up the calendar and made some notes. Obviously the list pictured above highlights A LOT of events, but it gives us something to strive for every month. Now that we actually have a fabulous ring, I can truly make plans for us!

2016 Q1 Goals:

• Leg Riley back up - conditioning on hills, flat work and jumping
• Look at competition schedule and decide on a first outing
• Jimmy Wofford Clinic (on Riley's birthday no less!)
• Lesson weekly with Emily and once a month with an outside trainer
• Work up to 4 days of riding with Riley (Flat x 2, condition day, jump day)
• Ride a sale horse for every one ride on Riley to build my fitness and skill (the pony counts)
• XC school (Boyd's?)
• Sign up for MCTA and TIP for year end awards (I think this creates a fun incentive for us to do our very best!)
• Monthly conformation shots

I think these are ambitious but attainable goals. I'm extremely lucky to have the opportunity to ride lots of different horses who all have something to teach me. And, as much as I'll get something out of riding them, I'm also able to trade in sweat equity for training rides on Riley.

Boot camp starts this weekend!

You ready Riley?

Spring forward -- and a lengthy update!

Finally!

The clocks have gone forward, the days are longer and dare I say it, the weather is warming up. Which can only mean one thing...

Spring Mud Season

Yep, all the snow and ice we've had lying around is quickly melting into little estuaries and streams around the farm. There are giant mud pits around the gates and water troughs, but I don't care... I'm completely over winter and I'll take a muddy mess over frozen hands and toes and constant wind burn on my face. The new farm appears to have decent drainage and thankfully the owners know exactly just how muddy the property gets so we're not freaking out that the horses are making a mess.

Gearing up, so to speak.

While winter beats on mercilessly in the Northeast, I've been starting to think about the year ahead for Riley and I. I have come up some some short-term goals but they are all contingent upon various things falling into place! Looking ahead for the next 4-6 weeks they look something like this:

*Leg Riley back up -- he's been on vacation for roughly 2 months and was ridden very lightly in November. We'll start road walking and hacking followed by some trot interval stuff before I ask him for anything proper.
*Move to new farm -- that's happening soon, so the transition period maybe interesting to say the least (more on this in a minute)
*Look at some clinics/shows to knock the dust off (tentatively, we are thinking maybe the end of April as a rough goal for a baby HT)
*Train him on the Equineciser (sp?) to work on a baseline of fitness even if the weather is bad -- this is going to be a very cool addition to his schedule!
*Re-introduce the Pessoa to help with his topline. He goes pretty well in this regardless, but I want him to have at least a little work under his belt before I ask him to work 'hard'.
*Get Riley's front shoes put back on at his next trim.

Treats go here.

DVTCA Schooling HT at Carousel Horse Park 8/24/2014

Phew! What a whirlwind weekend.

I'll start with Saturday as that was our prep day for the show. I was determined to have a really good jump school with Emily to feel tuned up for the show. Earlier in the week we had tried putting Riley back in a regular full cheek snaffle and he was dull and heavy in it, so back to the Dr. Bristol which he loves and is light and forward in.

She set up a classic exercise, trot in over an X one stride to a vertical, one stride to a slightly bigger vertical. We worked on maintaining a consistent tempo without him zooming around (he's getting quite keen to the jumps these days*). Emily threatened to punish me if I didn't start releasing properly and I took her seriously and rode like a normal person for once. We threw in a canter circle after the jumps and added a jump or two to make a little course (including a liverpool!)

Some highlights!

Actually releasing!

Our first time over the liverpool together!

Adding in the vertical after the line and the liverpool.

Olde Hope Evening Shade III Schooling Trial (full report) -- lots of photos and silly blabber to follow.

Olde Hope is a wonderful venue not too far from us in Maryland close to Fair Hill and St. Augustine (I know, we are spoiled in Area II). They have a very friendly atmosphere and it's really designed to help inexperienced horses/riders get a real feel for eventing in a very comfortable environment. They run a lovely little series in the summer that hosts the events in the afternoons which makes for a much less rushed prep day!

He's always happy to get in the trailer!

We arrived to the barn with plenty of time to got our boys ready (Emily even has time to ride one of her other horses while I pulled Riley's mane and combed out his tail -- ooh and trimmed the top with clippers to look like more of an event pony). He got a thorough bath where I tried my best to get his sock white again and since I had plenty of time I decided to BRAID! I be fair, it's been at least 20 years since I've braided, but he's a great sport and I only had to re-do his forelock once since he had no idea what the heck I was doing fooling around between his ears. I wrapped his tail with an ace bandage to try to tame it a little and he spent the remaining time in his stall trying to rub it off -- butthead. We headed out right on time and picked up some adult beverages on the way to keep our helper (Emily's bf) happy and to hopefully celebrate after our ride!
We checked in and went off to walk our courses. I was terribly nervous about the giant teepee that was directly next to the first jump on the stadium course! Everything was really inviting (and very small), there were a few fences on stadium that I was a bit worried about including a mock brick wall and two gates. Both stadium and XC are on hilly terrain which was definitely a bit of a problem as many horses were slipping. The XC course was pretty interesting with a bank option (which I took!) and a few looky jumps, but I knew we were ready!

St. Augustine Schooling HT -- Recap

Full disclosure: I probably had lofty goals for how things would go (ie, don't fall off, don't get eliminated and have a great time). We accomplished two of the three goals, but what I realized after the show was that we did as well as we could have given where we are with our training. That said, I am always impressed with my fellow blog friends (ahem, Sarah Rune) that are willing to share the good, bad and the ugly with their young horses, after all... we have to start somewhere, right?

All bathed and ready to make his debut

St. Augustine Pony Club is a lovely facility. Everything is set up in a way to be very horse friendly, especially for young horses and/or green riders. It was clear that this was the first event for most people in our area (not surprising after our down right horrible winter) because when we arrived, every single horse was screaming it's head off. Tension was pretty high in the air, but we arrived with lots of time to let our horses settle. We were also really fortunate to have ride times that were far enough apart so that Emily could help me warm up for each division without worrying about her own times.