Wellington!

Hi everyone!

First of all I apologize for not keeping this blog up to date. We didn't have internet at the condo in till Saturday but unfortunately my computer wouldn't connect :-/
Here is a recap of the past couple of days for those wanting to catch up

Day 1: Friday January 4th 2013
We (as in me and my room mate Jenny who I will introduce later with her permission!) arrived at Hampton Green Farm for the first day of the Winter Intensive Training Program.
After feeding and doing some basic barn chores we all headed to the Global Dressage showgrounds to join the participants of the Robert Dover Horsemastership Clinic in their workout with Bob Gutowitz which was great but painful!
My lesson consisted of working out some major glitches in my riding position to make me more effective. It made me realize how much my riding really affects Tee and the way he acts.
In the afternoon we all joined the riders of the RDHMC program for a lecture with Dr. Deb Bennett on a very interesting subject about "the bird and the thread". 
After that lecture we immediately went to another lecture by a local farrier, also very informative!

Day 2: Saturday January 5th 2013
 Day 2 began much like day 1; Barn, chores and a workout with Bob. After the workout we stayed at the Global Dressage show grounds to watch some of the young horse show that was going on. While there we saw some of the young horses getting schooled in free jumping, a few of the handlers came over in between horses to talk to us and answer any questions we had.
In my lesson we worked on my position some more, adding to what progress we made the day before. 
I started to be able to use an effective outside rein to help balance Tee's shoulders from falling to the outside (more prominent to the right), we also did some shoulder-fore to help balance. We put all this to the test when Lendon told me to ride 4 feet off the wall to see if I could keep him straight with his shoulders directly in front of him. 
We had another lecture with Dr. Deb Bennett, the subject this time was raising the base of the neck and coiling the loins, A.K.A collection. 
In the evening Fred and Kim Boyer the owners of Hampton Green Farm hosted an amazing dinner party in honor of Dressage4Kids, the food was delicious and so was the ice cream bar. It was great to meet new people and spend some time with the other WIT members.

Day 3 Sunday January 6th 2013
Sunday was a pretty basic day, it mostly consisted of lessons.
In our lesson we worked to solidify our goals from the past 2 lessons.
Lendon asked us to start working on some Renver. Tee found this confusing and he got quite uptight and upset but we were able to work threw it and make some progress. 

Day 4 Monday January 7th 2013

Monday was a fantastic day!
During our lesson everything started to fall into place and really start working, it was one of the softest most consistent rides to date which is something to be said for Tee :-) He was much straighter and balanced and seamed to really enjoy himself.

Monday's lecture was given by Mary Beth Gordon who is from Purina.
I've always been intrigued by horse feeding programs and how we don't always know exactly what we are putting into our horses.
Each of us got a Purina bag that had a few educational things in it such as: a weight tape, scale, body condition scoring sheet and a few other things. For the first part of the lecture we were asked to get an approximate weight of our horses using the weight tape and to guesstimate a body condition score.
After everyone finished their evaluation and wrote the numbers down, we weighed out our horse's grain and Mary Beth told us her recommendations for the horse's feeding program and also what she thought about their body condition. Some feeding plans were changed dramatically and some not at all. Mary Beth also spoke about a new product called Hydration Hay; if you ship your horse a lot, go to a lot of shows or your worried your horse isn't hydrated properly it would be worth looking in to!!  
Over all it was a VERY informative and interesting lecture.  

Day 5 Tuesday January 8th 2013

Tuesday is our day off this week. I stayed around the condo for most of the day to finish unpacking and organizing.



I promise to keep this blog more active! Look for a new update tomorrow evening!
Thank you so much to everyone who has helped us get here.

Special thanks to some of my sponsors:   

 RLC Engineering in Hallowell, ME

Lorraine Mercier  of Livermore Falls, ME

Marcia Mitchell of Hinsdale, MA

Mercier Excavation of Livermore Falls, ME

Jesse Farrar of Sumner, ME

Dr. Stephanie Heikkinen of Jay, ME