Monday, November 29, 2010

Mare Power!

The NCHA Futurity is underway with the 2nd round of the Open completed last night. It took a culmulative score of 430 for the top 80 to advance to the Semis on Dec 10.

Top 22

A quick look at the top 12 horses after 2 go rounds and you see why I choose the title I did for this entry. Check out those mamas!

* Justa Smart Peanut- earner of $ 350.000!
* San Starlight- offspring earnings $ 930.000!
* Smart Lookin Hi Brow $216.000, Derby Champ. (sister to WR This Cats Smart etc)
* Quintan Blue $455.000!! Derby, Super Stakes Champ etc.
* Dual N At Noon $ 115.000 Derby reserve champ
* Desires Smart Lena, sister to stud Desires Little Rex $287.000, 1st dam Desire Some Freckles $ 205.000
* Dually Poo $91.000, sister to Hicapoo $ 450.000, Futurity, Derby Champ etc.
* Absolutely Stunning $106.000 mother of Iced Out etc, 1st dam Autumn Boon $260.000 offspring:$978.000!!
* KD Shorty $232.000
* Dances In The Sand $80.000
* Miss Echo Wood $64.000 offspring: $508.000
* Tap Olena $502.000!!! Super Stakes, Augusta Futurity etc.

And the list goes on and on, Playboys Ruby, Bet Yer Boons, Play Peek A Boon, Smart Moria etc.......

Also, Justa Smart Peanut, Quintan Blue & Miss Echo Wood each have 2 offspring in the semis!

The Peeka Peps join in on the fun today when the 1st round of the Non-Pro starts. Ashley Flynn will put her Peps Blue Cat through the test in the second bunch.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Timber Trouble


Got the new horse tried and tested yesterday. Really cool customer! Nothing seems to faze him and I really tried to rock his boat. He´s been off for I don´t know how long and I needed to find out how he´d react to new things, fleight or fight, that sorta thing. He took most everything as I had hoped and is soooo gentle!










Needs to build some muscle though to carry himself better, he was a bit wobbly and unbalanced. That was expected though as he doesn´t know anything. Just been pulling a buggy and people stealing rides on his back.




With his awsome mind though, I think he will pick it right up and develop into a very nice family horse.



Got some pics of the girls too. Cat & Polly now runs together and they both seem to thrive. Brady is off for a bit as I work with the new horse, Timber and with the fillies.

Cat a is really fun horse and I can´t wait to start her. So much personality and life in her feet. She reared as she likes to do and stood there on her hindlegs for what seemed like a minute. Got some carriage to her! Polly looks great and is looking more and more like her sires second dam (both sides), Royal Blue Boon, pretty cool.

Royal Blue Boon Polly


Cat



Gizmo & Ida stuck on a few too!











Ida & Felicia using Fiffilina for ponyrides at the local christmas market.

Some more Cat & Polly



Brady´s looking majestic



Avenir

Jup, gotta have a blaze to hang with us!

Thursday, November 25, 2010

New horse

No, no not mine, but we got a new one stabled in the barn. A 10 yo standardbred gelding. A friend of the family has been looking for a been there, done that type of horse. A trusty mount and something the entire family can ride. I´m gonna feel him out a little and see what kind of fellow we´re dealing with. From first impression though, he seems as kind and gentle as can be.

He´s never raced and are by all accounts a pleasure to drive and handle. Will get some pics up tomorrow or during the weekend.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Weekend Clinic

As you know I spent this weekend in Rättvik holding a Hackamore clinic. It was a two day deal split between a theory session followed by a "hands on" portion both day´s. We covered the history and makeup of the bosal, it´s construction from the core to the nr of plaits in the cheeks and what differences there are in materials, stiffness etc. We got in to function, nosebutton length, shape, swell etc. And finally got to the handling of the reins part with the "bump & realese".

I hope I didn´t bore you all to death with all the details, but to me it´s important to know the how´s and why´s of a piece of equipment to fully be able to apply & handle it the way it´s designed to work.

I think you all did great by the way. It´s a bit challenging to have a clinic for a weekend and cream in maybe 4 years of slow, steady progress. But I hope you all take it for what it is, a general overview to get the overall picture and learn the philosophy of how to handle the reins and bosal corectly and from there go back and ask for baby steps and let the horse learn at his own pace.

Saturday started out great. Drove 350 km (200 miles) to Rättvik in a semi snowy, slushy morning and arrived at Mimmi´s barn where Brady was to be stalled over night. Molly, the filly Mimmi and Stefan bought from us earlier were also in the clinic although limited to groundwork. We then drove convoy up to the arena were the clinic were to be held, a sort of junior agricultural college. The arena had lecture halls where we set up for the theory part of the day. It was well attended and although we´d limited the riders to 10, there were several who showed up for the lecture part only. Back in the arena we started from the ground with some basic flexing, backing and weight shifting exercises . We then graduated to some basics in the saddle. Stopping, backing, turning etc all the while thinking about how we handle the reins. Without steady pulls, only tap, tap, tap when asking and likewise using our legs and body to enhance our requests. I think all of you got the picture and made great progress.

Brady did great and was a valauble asset in showing how it´s supposed to look and I think gave people an clearer image of what we´re after than if I just stood in on the ground, explaining something in words only.

We slowly worked in a drill I´m proud to say I "stole" from Les Vogt, namely his 5 easy pieces. It´s the most logical and valuable exercise I know to get full control of our horses body parts. It gives you a tool to control the neck, shoulders, ribs and hindquarters. You can make it as advanced or as newbie as you like by upping or lowering your demands, rewarding the slightest try or for more advanced horses demanding near perfection. But don´t forget, you´re in a hackamore, use the bump & realese! it´s easy to restort to pulling or dragging if your horse gets stuck. More leg should in most cases do the trick and save you from getting a horse heavy in the bosal.

Got a real treat from Mimmis husband, Stefan when we got back to the house late Saturday night. Dinner was on the table, a delicious Porter steak of Moose! Sauna hot and ready after dinner and a glas of single malt. Thank you, Stefan!
After the sauna I felt like someone whacked me in the head with a sledgehammer and I barely made it to bed!

Sunday was wierd! Brady was stalled next to Molly and another mare over night. They got along great! A little to great actually. He´s never been stalled next to a mare before and it showed Sunday! He was sooooo in love and couldn´t focus on anything besides Molly and another filly in the arena on sunday. We did spend the morning in the classroom first though, revisited some bosal and hackamore issues and than moved along to bits. Man, I could talk for hours about this stuff! We had limited time though, thankfully! So we skimmed the basics on how a snaffle works, a signal bit, why tounge relief actually isn´t any relief at all etc. We covered a bunch of different ports & mouthpieces you may run in to and the correlation between the spade and the horses mouth anatomy. We had a horse skull handy wich was great and really helps visualize the points I was trying to make.

Back in the arena we again covered the 5 easy pieces and then we took a quick look at how to narrow the hands, hold the reins etc when it´s time to move onto riding on one hand. How to slip rein and bump the nose when squaw reining or use the free hand to reach down and bump.

Back to Brady. He was in a FOUL mood! Adgitated, iritable and just not there mentally. He kept searching for Molly and had to have full control of her wherabouts at all times. Oh, he did what I asked but always under protest, switching his tail, throwing his head around and not in the soft, quiet and pleasing frame of mind from the day before. When circling and working on downward transitions things got really cowboy and he lit into buckin in a leadchange. And he BUCKED! High, Wide & Handsome, as Chief Rojas would put it. Burried his head and went kickin and hopping there for a while. I lost a stirrup, my hat and a good deal of my pride there, but we weathered the storm and I rode him through it and made him work some as a thank you!

Well, atleast the crowd got some bang for their buck I reckon!

After he quieted down some we got back to work. The last portion of yesterday´s clinic we tried to go over some basics regarding cow handling and cowwork. To me, everything I do horseback I do to enable us to work a cow in one way or the other. Sure pretty circles, spinning and the like might look good, but I´m teaching my horse control and using his agility to be able to work a cow, period. It may be roping, sorting, herdwork, fencework or even cutting. But without the cow as a venue to work my horse, most of the manuvers to me lack meaning. So with time running short we had to rush it there alittle at the end and I had the participants mirror each other, using the bump & realese to stop, draw back and turn. One simulated the cow and the other reacted to what the first was doing. Always a complete stop, draw and using the pull to your hip in the turn to get out of your horses way.

There, a little run through of my weekend! I had a great time and really hope all you who participated got something out of it. The one thing I regret is that I wish I had had more time to spend with each and every one of you. Now I kinda left the people who I thought had the hang of it alone to run of and help somewhere else. I know there are details I could´ve helped the more accomplished with also but it is what it is...

Anyway, Thank You all for having me up there and I´d sincerely like feedback and thoughts & ideas on how I could make it better.

/Martin "Buckin Bob" Langels

Friday, November 19, 2010

Weekend

About ready to call it a day at the office. Working on a bunch of pics for a calendar. My eyes are hurtin after staring at the screen all day and I´ve got little fuzzy things jumping up and down in front of them.

Getting ready for this weekends clinic too. Gonna load up the pony a bit after 6am tomorrow and hope I don´t forget to many of the things needed for a awaystay with horse. Should be lots of fun although I´ll miss the gang back home. I´ve got my birthday coming up too tomorow. Feels ok to be busy with the clinic thing and not having to host a bunch of people in the mess back home, though it would´ve been nice to celebrate with Annelie and the kids.

The weather may not cooperate tomorrow. It´s supposed to snow on the drive up to Rättvik and might take me 5-6 hours to get there. Not ideal for hauling.

We´ll start working on the basics during the clinic Saturday and take it from there. All depending on the folk attending, but hopefully we´ll get into some more detail and advanced stuff Sunday. Might play with a rope too if they´re up for it...

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Update

Not much happening on the home front. Gettin up at 5, dragging our feet to the barn in the pitch black cold. Feeding & letting the horses out. Muckin out some stalls if there´s time, hurrying home to wake the kiddos, get them fed and ready for school. Hitting the shower while gulping down your own breakfast, jumping into your socks and hopefully remembering the kids when you speed out of the yard heading for the ferry taking you to the mainland and the office.

Oh yeah, the dog hopefully loaded in the back...

The mutt by the way likes cake! He apparently thought it was ok to stand on the kitchen table gulping down my fathersday cake on Sunday!

Home around 6pm, finish stall-muckin duty and maybe have time to ride Brady, work with a filly or two and oversee Ida riding her Elton. Dinner fixing (Annelies doing mostly, thank god) and then get the brats ready for bed, crash on the couch for a bit before heading back to the barn feeding and lights out at 10pm, phew! Wonder why I´m tired this time of year? Thank god for weekends! We definately need more of those!

Polly is weaned by the way and is doing really well. Cat is getting better and better also but has sustained some trauma to the extensor tendon aswell as the pastern she sprained earlier. I don´t think it´s major but still something to keep our eyes on.

Gearing up for the clinic next weekend. People seem to look forward to it and so am I. Gonna be fun and if I can help some folks out, great!

The cowhide, Rosie is now 4 strands of very unevenly cut string! It was a bit to moist when I cut it I think and I had a hard time getting evenly cut strands. Will probably cut the tamales and use the good parts for the bosal projects and scrap the reata plans for now. No use braiding a reata that couldn´t hold a mouse!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Old pics

Winters here (again) and we´ll see for how long this time. The usual snow-chaos with people out driving who shouldn´t be etc. Looked through some old pics today and stumbled onto theese.







They are about 10 years old and I had Annelie drive her old drafthorse Gullbarr through the snow. This guy was a pretty decent racehorse in his day and made some $35.000 on the track.









Annelie snapped some of me too, driving with a 6 year old Ben in my lap!!



we were cuter back then...especially wearing my grampas old hat.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Molly & Rosie


Waved goodbye to Molly this afternoon. Was alittle sad to see her go but she´s going to a good home and a good situation. Mimmi and Molly will get along great no doubt but still, You alway´s wonder how they would feel under saddle...


After soaking the hide and drying it a little to get the right moisture content and get it more cuttable, Rosie the cowhide is now a 1 inch wide & 98 feet long strip!






Will cut it down to 4 strands 1/4" wide and get to braiding after stretching out some kinks & my shoulder stops aching.

4C


Got the fillies branded finally! They´d been prepared for a couple of day´s, drytesting with the iron, clippers etc. Gotta take the ferry over to the breeding facility to borrow some liquid nitro. Last year we transported the stuff in a thermos with the cap on really tight. Well, halfway home the preassure buildup just had the cork explode in a loud pop! Wise from last years experience I let the cork remain semi-open and drove like crazy instead. The nitro vaporizes when in contact with air, so to have enough for cooling the iron I had to drive somewhat heavy footed.

The fillies didn´t even flinch when I rubbed the branding area down with some alcohol and then applied the Iron. About 15 sec for the first filly and 18-20 sec for the second. The brand appears really quick just after branding, then goes away only to reappear in a month or so when the clipped areas hair starts growing out again. The freezing of the hair follicles kills the pigment and the regrowth comes out white, or atleast that´s the plan...

Friday, November 5, 2010

Justa Bita Pep


I purchased Justa Bita Pep almost three years ago with the plan of having her foal in the US, rebreed her and ship the horse, foal and "tummy" over here later that year. I really liked the looks of her and the mares breeding with Bad Peppy Lena, Poco Tivio and some running blood on the bottom looked intrigueing. I couldn´t have asked for a better start and I´m soo pleased with her. Both as an individual and as a producer.

Just "stole" this pic of P.J, or Pistolero as he´s called now, from Styrbjörn & Mona. He´s been on cows for about 2 weeks now and they sound very pleased with him! He´s such a nice and pleasant horse to be around and work with and I´m really proud of him and the way he handles himself.
Ima Peppy Pistolero


Peppy has really given us some great foals. Pistolero above and the yearling filly Sweet Lil Angel are both by a Smart Little Pistol stud with some Dry Doc and Royal Silver King on the bottom. Sweet Lil Angel resembles her brother very much in everything except colour, she might even be a tad better than Pistolero!
Sweet Lil Angel


This years filly "Polly" looks to be something else too! Gorgeous and with a ton of potential and a really bright future. She´s got integrety though and lets you know her opinion at times. I went another route here though as I wanted some Peptoboonsmal/Royal Blue Boon in there too. I found Peeka Pep. A Peptoboonsmal son who was injured as a youngster and never got a chance to show. Hall of Fame trainer Tommy Marwin thought enough of him though to keep him and stand him at stud. What I really like is the Pepto-Smart Little Lena cross and the fact he´s double bred Royal Blue Boon. This gives little Polly two crosses to Peppy San Badger, two crosses to Smart Little Lena, two crosses to Royal Blue Boon up really close on on her papers. To me, that´s something to build on.
Polly

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Rosie the cow soontobereata!

This here is Rosie, the hide that I hopefully will turn in to 4 strands of rawhide one of these days. She´s resting on the workbench awaiting her new life as a reata.


Gave Brady another workout on Norsten the cutting machine today. Not as good as the other day and he felt abit gimpy and was sloppier in his stops and turns. I had to get after him some too initially.












Finished of with some throws on the dummy.



Ida and her friend Felica tortured the ponies today also. Braids, ribbons and tared hoofs, poor creatures!