Keeneland! Must mean Spring is here!

One of the best treasures in Lexington is Keeneland and all the beautiful horse farms in Kentucky.  Lexington is a well planned city where they have protected the farms from urban sprawl.  It's just minutes away in any direction before you pass mares and foals in the fields.   Just beautiful....

I've been trying to capture some of the beauty of the area and expanding my visual art into videography.  My expensive cameras are capable of recording high definition video - in fact, these cameras are capable of creating full blown movies.  So I want to see what I can do with it.  The hard part is that these cameras cannot auto focus when filming movie clips - I have to focus by hand.  That takes practice!  But the benefit is that I can control the exposure and do some very creative things with the light.  I like to think my inner Steven Spielberg can come out...

All my clips I purposely keep short, for the short attention span of people these days.  Here's is one of a napping foal at one of the farms where we were doing some work...



And this one is about a foal who was born prematurely.  He's owned by the people who own Eclipse award winner She Be Wild.  He's by Arch out of Trappings (She Be Wild's dam) which makes him a 1/2 to She Be Wild as well as making him 3/4's to Breeders Cup Champion and the only horse to ever beat Zenyatta, Blame!



This next one is just for fun with Amos.  Matt and I were experimenting once again.  We attached a camera to my truck with a fisheye lens on it.  Then we took Amos and drove by many landmarks in downtown Lexington (UK campus, Transylvania campus, Mary Todd Lincoln home, Rupp arena, Red Mile, etc).  It's longer than most my videos - over 3 minutes...



Lastly, this one is my most favorite...  It's all the activities that go on at Keeneland in the mornings.



ok - this one really is my last.  If you liked the pony in the Keeneland video - you can learn a little more about him in this short clip...


I hope you enjoyed the videos!

The Road To The Horse

Yesterday was a soggy, rainy day.  I couldn't ride and we couldn't take photos...  or could we!   Thanks to Fran Jurga posting on Facebook about The Road To The Horse as well as another FB friend Marti McGinnis (owner of HappyArt), I felt the urge to go.  So I dragged Matt out to the Kentucky Horse Park.  He had no idea what this was all about.

We ran into a few friends and clients with their families.  It was going to turn into a fun filled afternoon!

The only trainer of the four in the competition that we were familiar with was Dan James of Double Dan Horsemanship.  We had met Dan James at the Steeplechase last year where he performed a demo.  I  had never seen anything like it!  He and his horses were incredible!  Here's a photo from his demo at the Steeplechase.



Here is Dan during the Road To The Horse...  His horse (everyone had an unbroke 3 yr old gelding) was difficult and probably needed a slower pace for learning things.  He gave a lot of double barrel kicks in protest.  Dan pretty much had to lead him through the entire obstacle course that he had written on his shirt so he wouldn't miss anything.

I soon learned the other trainers were amazing as well!

Probably the trainer with the most PR was Obbie Schlom.  Obbie is an 18 yr old girl with the wisdom of an 81 yr old horse trainer.  She's incredibly mature for her age and amazing in her talents as a trainer.  Watch her videos and friend her on facebook!  You just have to love a girl whose personal ride is a mule...

The other US competitor was Sarah Winters.  Some of you may be familiar with her Dad, Richard Winters.  He has a show on HRTV and offers his own horsemanship clinics as well.  Sarah was excellent!  I think I liked her training style the best although I have to say I liked all of them.  Her horse performed very well!

Her horse was such a curious thing and wanted to smell and eat most everything he came across during the obstacle course.  But he did everything except going up on the platform.  Also, she was the only trainer to ride using a halter instead of a bridle.

Lastly, was the eventual winner.  Guy McLean from Australia was amazing!  He was great with his horse, added a lot of humor for the audience and he built up his horse's confidence as the ride went on.  I loved it!  So did the crowd and the judges. 

The order of finish for the competition was 1st place, Guy McLean; 2nd place Obbie Schlom; 3rd place, Sarah Winters; 4th place, Dan James.  But everyone was a winner, especially the horses and it was a treat for all of us in the audience to see such excellent horsemanship!

As a final note, and to end on a bit of equine humor...  please watch Guy McLean on his A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. horse Spinabbey  (the Seabiscuit part and the show jumping are my faves)...

As Requested... Video!

 I bartered with Matt.  I'll video tape his golf swing if he video tapes me riding Ollie...  Ollie and I are still very green but we pretty much did nothing for most of 2012.  This is our last video at work as a reference.

Ollie's biggest issues are fidgeting a lot, keeping his focus on what we are doing and accepting contact with the reins.  We've only been working on moving in the gait that I've asked for (he likes to go up in gait) and keeping a round frame.  So here is a short video of us where I can see a lot of improvement and I can also see that we have a lot to do yet.

If anything, we're much more comfortable with each other!  I just love this guy so much....