FRHA Show in Ocala, April

One of the brightest spots this whole weekend was seeing Christine Ramage show a reiner for the very first time! About two months ago Christine purchased "Lark's Peppy Step" from McCullough's and jumped in. This was her debut weekend and it was sweet! She rode into the Green 1 Class with just a few signs of outward nerves and had close to a perfect ride. She marked a 69 with a 1 point late lead change penalty. Other than that she spun, circled and stopped beautifully...even her lead changes were great other than one being late. We are so proud of you Christine...way to go...and we are proud of Lark who spent so much time here. Its nice to see her work well for you!! Congratulations!
Saturday went well for the kids! Kyndall and Danielle were first and second in the 13 and Under and Lucas was second in the 14 to 18. Lucas was showing three horses, Danielle was showing two horses, and Kyndall had her three year here for the weekend besides her show horse so they all did a lot of riding! Good job to all of you for working so hard and riding well all weekend!
Burl and Karen both had nice rides this weekend in the Green Classes. Karen really stepped up Sunday morning with a beautiful ride! Way to go!
Ginger just keeps knocking on the door at the top of the Rookie Class. Awesome spins and stops both days!! Good job Ginger!
Steven Duchac had another great weekend on Bohdi! Second place both days in the Rookie Professional Class with very stiff competition! Steven's wife Anne was making her own noise at a Dressage Show on Sunday where she won every class she entered! That is really exciting!! The hard work those two put in on their horses is really showing!
I was real happy to get some more money won on Dually for Ronnie and Cathy of Sandy Creek Performance Horses! We won the Novice Horse Open on Sunday so for the third show in row Dually has shown well and got a nice paycheck!
Finally, it was really fun to see Kyndall riding her three year old, Funny Face around again this weekend. Saturday night after the show we spent some time working together and Kyndall really got some good work out of her. Its really been fun for me to pick out a two year old just for Kyndall and see her come along in her training to the point where Kyndall can get her shown. The other part that makes it all fun is that Funny Face is by Dually that I spoke of earlier. They are real nice horses and its fun to see them blossom!
Keep up the good work everyone! Brad

April Clinic at the Ranch!!

Just a quick one about the clinic yesterday! We had eight riders and they all did a fantastic job! Several of the riders were seasoned veterans and several were brand new to riding reiners.

First of all let me talk about Kassidy Long. This was the third time this week I had the good fortune of coaching her since she was on spring break. Kassidy is 15 and has been taking lessons with me for close to two years and is a regular at my Jacksonville clinics. She has never kept a horse in training so she does all the work on her own horses at home.

Kassidy has become a great example of how I like to see someone ride. The way she sits and keeps her upper body in position and uses such soft quiet hands is awesome. The 4 year old mare she is riding has made a huge transition in a very short time all due to Cassidy's skill and obvious effort. Way to go Kassidy... you are destined to be a star!!!

Well I am not going to talk about every person that was here and several of them are good at everything they do so I was not surprized. But... there were three absolute beginners to the reining style of riding that did an excellent job! Steve and Sharon Hansen and Bobbie Miller. First of all Steve found out that his horse had some reining skills like spinning and lead changing that just need to be honed a little bit but the ground work is all there... that was fun. Bobbie was riding a reiner, our lesson horse, for the second time ever and really did such a nice job all day. She rides well already and is going to add the reining skills to what she already knows. She hopes to get a reiner of her own and jump in!

Finally our most improved rider of the day was Sharon Hansen. Last week Sharon bought Chic's Chilli from JB Burney and has only ridden him three times on the trail. At the beginning of the day she was having some trouble getting Chilli to work well for her but after some private time with Natalie, our apprentice, and then fitting back in with the group she was galloping all over the place with the rest of us!
She loped and changed leads both ways...spun beautifully...and even fenced Chilli with several little stops! Really it was exciting to see the progress made in one day!! Way to go Sharon... we hope to see a lot more of you and Steve!

Thanks to all of you for coming out... it was a fun day for me!

SFRHA... Sarasota...Great Turnout!

Sarasota was the place to show reiners this weekend and the South Florida people must know how to spread the word! They had a great turn out and a very nice show! The ground at Triple J is so good its just plain enjoyable to ride there. Danielle Cohen was the only rider from our group that showed and she did an excellent job with her two horses. We are working on getting both horses to be steady and consistent and that was definitely accomplished! Danielle was in full recovery mode this weekend after breaking ribs two weeks ago. Saturday was a practice day and that all went well. On Sunday Danielle placed 1st and 2nd in the Youth 13 and Under with scores of 70 and 69 1/2. She had very nice circles and spins and had beautiful stops on both horses. Way to go Danielle!
Well, I hope you all have a great Easter with your families!! Brad