Burg 'n Berg

New Coach

2011-01-12T22:22:00.000-08:00

Change is good. The changes that take place aren't always amazing, but change itself is a good thing because as it shakes up routine, it keeps you from stagnating and forces you to alter you way of thinking. Changing coaches, I've gone from someone who's very well known for having students who fly around the jumper rings like bats out of hell to someone who's more focused on long-term and foundational work than show results: bonding and understanding, over high scoring. That's not to say his students don't win, there's just a different focus.

Pam Yerxa is a fantastic coach. She wants results, and pushes you to get them. And honestly, you get them.

The guy I'm riding under now is more my speed, however, as I'm more focused on the learning stages over the showing stages.

I just need to work less than 50 hour weeks now so I can get time for a regular lesson schedule...

B.

Gun-shy moment.

2010-10-21T18:11:00.001-07:00

It's finally happened: she laid down in her stall while I was in it.

I pulled her up, because it was out of character and I reacted thinking she was sick. Nope, turns out rocketing around the arena wore her out, and she just needed a little lie-down.

There are no words. I am so mad at me.

She's really careful around people, and really careful with me: I got baby-steps and scooping shoulders to keep me in my seat. She didn't have any reason to be that kind to me, and was a really needed lesson in trust. Best teacher I've ever had.

Yet she was never comfortable enough to lie down in a prone position when anyone other than Ned was near. It became a mild obsession.

Last night, after a week off, we spent a good half-hour rocketing around, playing and sassing each other. My arms nearly fell off while grooming her out. Her lip hung low and she swayed on her feet while I was brushing her. She moved off for a moment, so I moved out of the way so she could get a drink and she dropped down and made herself comfy.

I shat my pants and pulled her back up.

*sigh*

I teared up. I'm not ashamed to admit that, it was like I'd won a lottery, hit a massive milestone, and taken over a small country all in one grand moment.

But dammit if I didn't pull her back up... I could have sat down with her and cuddled my horse, for the first time ever, and I was worried she had a stomach ache and ruined a moment I've been waiting and barely dared to hope for since meeting her.

...

F*ck.

B n B

Not too shabby for 20

2010-07-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

My beautiful mare is 20-years-old now. I celebrated her birthday by bringing her a big bunch of stemmed carrots and a few apples. Had plans to go for a ride and give her her head for a "little run" up the back hill but weather didn't cooperate. I don't think she minded too much. First sunny day after that I went out just for a visit and spent some time just for the photo opportunity. I swear she's the most amazing creature on this planet, and I don't think I'd be here still without her.

See? She comes to see me at the gate... it's almost like she loves me back now, and wants to see me as much as I want to see her. <3

Quiet days...

2010-05-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

There aren't really any words to describe the feeling of standing in a paddock, looking at the sun rising, and having your horse, silent behind you, step up to rest her forhead against your back... nor when you go to greet them and they place their head in your hands just to stand there with you and trust you.

Riding may be our one real chance at experiencing freedom, but what do you call the quiet moments on the ground, where you are just two friends sharing a breath of peace?

I have the best addiction.

Her name is Burgie.

B

Horse Bloggers Meme

2010-02-01T09:12:00.000-08:00

(I love these things!!)

So we all love horses. First of all give us the name, age, gender, breed, height and markings of one of your horses. This can be a horse you ride, a horse you own or one you owned.

Name: Burgie
Age: 19
Gender: Mare
Breed: Thoroughbred
Height: 15.2 HH
Markings: Cookie-bitten star and stripe, jagged socks on back legs, and white coronet around front left ankle.

We need a visual of that horse. How about a picture standing still and a little description or story to go with it.

She's enjoying her quiet stall time in the evening. See that expression? It's hard to get photos of her with her ears forward. That sheet on her back used to be bright white, tan and brown... now it's brown...

Now that we have seen a pic how about one of clip clop being ridden. Tell us about the picture.

I had only been riding for... about a month or so, so I think it was taken in October around Thanksgiving when a friend of mine was in town. The three of us went out to the barn I bought her at for me to introduce them and do a pony ride. I'm not one to share normally, but she was up for it. One of the friends took this photo for me, and I keep a cropped photo of only her in my wallet for "proud owner" useage to weird people out/counter the "look at my human baby" incidents.

Show us a head shot and a short story of a time with your horse. Doesn't have to be related to the picture.

She likes her seasonal home set-up (outdoors in summer, stalls in the winter). This was taken at a friends property out in the country on the day I cantered my first fenceline. That was when that I realized why some people refuse to ride indoors--what a rush!

Horse have any bad habits?

She's girthy, and is ticklish. She will bite you if you are not paying attention while grooming or tacking her up. Will. Bite. You. I warn everyone, and yet they're always surprised to find their shirt or crops in her mouth (she aims).

A picture of your horse in action (ridden or not)

Ridden by a friend at the year-end Novice Circuit show at Spruce Meadows in 2008. She's shinier now. *love*

Five things your horse likes

1. Apples
2. Carrots
3. Jumping
4. Snoozing
5. Being fed other treats/grasses

Five things your horse dislikes
1. People standing close to her head
2. Random people touching her at all
3. Having a blanket put on/adjusted
4. Ponies
5. Having her socks washed

Random picture of your horse and the story behind it.

Burgie getting her teeth done. Grant MacKinnon, equine dentist, did a pretty good job. I'm pretty sure she'll try to eat him next time anyways, and I still notice a definite issue with her bending to the right... but she's eating happily, so I'm still a fan. =)

A picture of when you first got your horse.

This was after a good friend of mine had spent months helping her re-grow a lot of her fur. This was the day I met her, when I took her outside to just spend a few hours munching the grass along the fence line of one of the outdoor arenas...
; )

Give your horse a kiss and tag a few friends

Discovering Epona, and "Anyone else who wants to do it" (let me know if you got it from me, please).

Holy crap, the blog worked...

2010-01-09T17:52:00.000-08:00

Two of her previous owners found me via her blog. I am presently filled with glee.

Wicked, I'd love to meet any of you!

Anyways... apparently she's terrified of the donkey-bear-pony. It's a very short pony that looks like someone successfully bred a small donkey to a small bear. I'm sure the pony is adorable in the summer time, but for now, it's haired up enough to look like a prop from the Adams Family show. She balked and outright refused to go within ten feet of the pony.

In her stall, she relaxed until she realized the pony had followed her out and promptly glued herself to the far side of the stall until the pony was taken back outside.

B&B

[Update: Burgie's first jumping-owner from over a decade ago turned up for (Burg's) 21st birthday, spoiled her with treats and took her for a little ride. Is anyone else out there?]

Rude landing

2009-12-09T15:24:00.000-08:00

I fell off.

But totally pulled a ninja and landed on my feet.

It was spectacular.

I, of course, got right back on and re-did that failed jump five more times. Badly, but did it.

Peace,

Berg and Burg

Leaner, leaner, I'm a wiener...

2009-11-23T11:22:00.000-08:00

Burgie and I have been jumping. Yes, I, the crank who spent the better part of three years making fun of the "frippy english riders and their frippy english postures" am now developing my own frippy english posture and jumping my marvelous mare.

And she loves it.

Except for circle jumps.

I'm a leaner.

I lean in the car while turning corners, I lean in truckbeds to keep my balance, and I lean on my bike to make corners zip quicker. I lean. I also apparently lean while riding. That's also a bad thing when you're doing circle jumps. I want to say "I hate them," but I don't. I hate that I can't seem to stay balanced upright while turning in circle jumps. I lean, and my Burgie moves the other way, carefully, trying to keep me in the saddle while we jump around tight corners. This results in us jumping off to the side of the jump, instead of the middle. This then results in me feeling like I need to lean further to help her turn sharper, and, of course, she goes out further and hesitates getting closer to the jumps.

Thus, I've decided to work on that. It's my project.

I can do it. If I work at it.

She can do it, because she's a professional, a veteran, and is simply amazing.

Peace,

Berg and Burg

Us, from the summer time. Her back's gone way back up now.

My turn to be a geriatric mare

2009-09-14T05:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm 21 now... legal to drink everywhere in the world... well, everywhere that it's legal for a person/woman to drink...

I woke up at 5 a.m., that magic time that causes flashbacks to that evil summer of "the internshit," and spent the morning running around trying to get ready to be at the University early. I left my home at 5:30 for the half-hour drive to Mount Royal (I live well into the prairie/foothills area), parking at 6 on the dot.

Why? To try to grab a parking pass.

They put the passes up for grabs a month early this year, both by sales in the parking office, and through the internet. I was told that by 9 a.m. that day, all passes were sold. I had lost internet a week before the notification went out about the upcoming availability.

Thus, I did not get a parking spot.

Mare and I jumped in a real lesson the other day. First lesson ever. I feel both glad, for having been trained by a professional, and a little sad, for having given up rejecting lesson offers.

Building's still not open, and it's 6:41... sitting outside on a cold slab of concrete. Happy Birthday to me...

~Berg.

New girth-cover = love

2009-06-24T00:10:00.000-07:00

I got her a cover, finally, for her leather girth... and a new bit to replace the one that was tried on Sage (he destroyed the plastic bits... it was plastic carnage...).

Best effin' ride in a long time. Cantered all over the place. She was totally peaceable today...

So late, coherency isn't high... ugh... so effin' late...

To everyone else out there trying to sleep, or about to: I wish you sweet dreams.

B

Herd dynamics

2009-05-11T18:04:00.000-07:00

My mare has chosen the newest herd-mate, Sage (chestnut QH, looks like his favourite roundbale) as her pasture pal... Ned is frustrated with her interest in the new guy, naturally, but seems to have given up on wooing her to his favour... and by wooing, I mean biting patches of fur off of her ass... Sage isn't our horse, he's the newest pet of the family who's boarding our animals, but he seems more than happy to share grass patches with my mare, nose to nose, for the time they're allowed in the field together...

She also seems to have taken a very keen interest in the cattle in the property nextdoor... I'm weirded out...

Sunshine...

2009-04-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

grassy hills, carrots, apple slices... yeah, I think they're having fun now...

We've moved my mare out of the performance barn, and out to a proper field. Starting them out in a paddock, to make sure they wean onto grass without any problems, the two of them are looking pretty good...

Really late Easter Greetings...

2009-04-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

... honestly? I think she enjoyed it...

Purely to show off...

2009-03-09T13:16:00.001-07:00

We're vain like that...

Hmm... yeah, got nothin... will post photos from first bareback halter-reined ride later... and video if I have one... damn she's cute. =)

Cuter on the left....

2009-03-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

Just to show her off... with a resident barn-brat...

Squealy

2009-02-08T19:41:00.000-08:00

She certainly has an opinion.

A pony in the paddock next to her came over to me today to make friendly gestures, and she squealed and kind of kicked at the fence.

Funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Probably normal for anyone who really knows horses, but do keep in mind that this is new to me...

Then he tried being nosey, so she really squealed and actually bucked. He jumped back with a "WTF!?" look on his face. It was hilarious, but so bad.

I love that mare.

"Someone" made an asnine comment about long tails at just the wrong time... maresy suddenly looks like a 3-year-old with her tail trimmed up to her hocks, and her whiskers all clipped off. "Someone" was speechless.

*smirk*

Burg 'n' Berg

Old and new

2009-01-25T18:23:00.001-08:00

Photos!

That was then....

Note the darkness along her face, as being the skin under her fur. Note that damn saddle on her back too, as being the evil one. This was almost a year ago, before I bought her (I got this from a friend).

And, as of late August 2008, this is now...

November, standing with the lady who rode her to exercise her... third place was pretty good, it was the end of the year and they only had one issue in the entire day...

Winter Break, early 2009. Yeah, she's a gorgeous thing... =)

Little blog, big world

2009-01-20T11:06:00.000-08:00

Yeah... no idea what to talk about with these... just that it needed to get out that an older TB mare found a good home (that I know of, maybe my home is terrible with all that spoiling that goes on)...

I suppose the point of this blog is reconnection, and new connection, for the sake of our favourite pets and partners. I wonder, some days, if any of Miss Burgoo's former owners would find this and repond, say "Hey, I had her when she was (X) years old, when she was (age) and (temperment)..." I wonder too, if the people who own her foal, if he's still alive, could find this. (Update: June 8/11:: I've found two, including the one who trained her to jump--the blog worked)

She's being cute right now, whickering really quietly when I sit in her stall with her... it's such an adorable, endearing thing to hear such an affectionate sound from such an intelligent, amazing creature.

B 'n B

Poofy tail on a TB?

2009-01-10T14:11:00.001-08:00

Wow, she's shiny when she runs... and seems to enjoy it a hell of a lot more now that her tail's out of the 'Godawful-stinky-tape-club-contraption' (otherwise called "tail wrap," or abbreviated to GSTCC), which... yeah, I let someone bind it up for the winter because a friend who was riding her thought it might help her tail grow out from the post-parasite state it was in... a little scraggly...

I wasn't aware that somethig was wrong with her nt having a thick, lush length of tail poofing off of her behind, but apparently it's abslutely necessary. So I let the lady riding her braid it and put it up in a wrap.

I came in a week after having given my consent, and this.... this THING, this weird stringy multicoloured, baby oil-infused, vet-wrapped and duct taped beaning club was hanging off of her tail.

... all 'm saying is that my mare can give a wickedly mean look when you laugh at her. Especially if she's already embarrassed. I have no idea how she behaved towards the other lady after she'd had it done, but she went out of her way to be cranky whenever prompted.

It was doomed from the beginning: I'm a fiddly person. If someone has a knot of jewellery or something like that sitting unsightly in their room, I untangle them. I have a pair of tweezers specifically for my leather girth.. Magazines askew on a table? Not when I can stack them, so that gigantic, stinky, multicoloured hulking (8 inch long, by 2 inch diameter) club she kept smacking herself, and myself with, was immediately the largest thorn in my side throughout December.

It lasted somewhere under a month until I discovered that it was breaking more hairs than it was helping. Snip snip and off it came.

In all, it wasn't in long enough to actually work, but the only poofing of the tail that I saw was where the hairs had snapped from her swishing her tail-club.

I think I'll just go with what the books and other barn-people say if I ever feel the compulsion to try to get her to grow a puffier tail, and just leave it alone for a year or two... or just not try for something that isn't likely to happen.

She's suddenly so much friendlier now, for some reason...

Burg 'n Berg

H'llo there.

2008-12-27T22:45:00.000-08:00

I'm a 20-year-olwoman with an 18-year-old mare.

This mare started her life on a track, winning some small races until she was used once for brooding at 3. Miss Burgoo was then sold as a roping horse, ended up barrel racing, then competing hunter and jumper courses and a myriad of other things through her life. She's 18 now, chestnut, Thorougbred and a mare... giving her a bit of an opinion.

The little lady stands at 15.3 HH and only the freckling of white hairs over her flanks lets you know she's not four. Miss Attitude doesn't STEP out of a trailer, she DANCES out, so sucks to you if you don't feel like moving at her speed. Her "fairy foot" speedy trot is faster than most horses canters, and in a group, she will try to take the lead, regardless of whether that's "acceptable" or not.

Burgie is a keen sweetheart, and seems to enjoy a challenge, though, our views on what's challenging just might be different... and seems to prefer a trot over slower paces. Her stamina, push and saintly patience made it easy to fall in love with the little sweetheart...

Off my ass at age 1, I'm a grouch. Reading, self-taught, at a second-grade level by the age of four, I love mental stimulation, and have a passion for writing. Due to having once been very physically sick as a child, I've developed a healthy, functioning dislike for the youth of my species, and a deep and endless love for horses and dogs because of their compassion, and heart.

Now known as "Bergie" or "Bergesca," I'm in my third year of a Communications degree, Majoring in Journalism. (When I initially grabbed her off of the former owner, I thought they were kidding when they told me her name was "Burgie," so when I read "Miss Burgoo" on her papers after... Heh, whoops. Oh well, I don't change names...)

If I can help someone without hurting myself, I will. 'Good enough' should never be acceptable when something can easily be better, and I really do like my sleep. Fully rested, I'll work until whatever needs to be done has been accomplished... ten points if you can guess which of us is smarter...

(hint: the redhead)

When I saw Miss Burgoo for the first time, she was dusty, tired and had thinner fur on her face, shoulders, withers, and thighs, and had bandages wrapped around a gash on her left hind leg. Her tail had been rubbed short from a recent bout of parasites, and she was 300-350 lbs underweight according to the barn managers opinion...

That was in late August... with a better feeding program, careful work, and bucketloads of love, she gleams like copper out in the sun and prances like a filly. She's strong, smart, and a cuddle-bomb when in a good mood, and constantly shows that she enjoys having fun.

I'm a photographer, and a broadcaster at heart and skill, and she's a flying dream come true.

We're Burg and Berg, and we're gonna be around for a long time.

And with any luck and much patience, so will this blog... actually, luck and patience has nothing to do with it... if I'm not-lazy, maybe it'll be fine... maybe...