Monday, February 14, 2011

It's Going to Be a Couple of Busy Months

The store continues to keep me busy, which is a good thing. I am taking two six week classes starting this week, one on still photography and one on video editing. The ball room dance class is still on going and we are a host of a class on old neon signs in March. And then there is our industry trade show...

We still have been able to get some riding in, however. We were able to ride both days of the last two weekends. We have been working on the same things, loping with speed and control being the main focus, and getting more softness and suppleness. Yesterday, we did another of our ten-minute-lopes and Jessie's speed is much better and her steering is also improving. Ranae and I also did some side-by-side loping and, where this has gotten both horses chargy and bothered, they have improved quite a bit.

Saturday we went out to the city farm and took advantage of the good weather and the long rides to get some conditioning in. The horses had a hoof trim on Thursday and because they are barefoot we expected them to be a bit more "ouchy". Both did really well.

Much of the rest of the weekend was doing yard clean-up. Not nearly as much fun as being around the horses. Sunday morning a neighbor that was having some respect issues with her horse came by and I got to try my hand at using my techniques on a horse who had not been exposed to them before. We spent about an hour and the horse learned a lot and so did I. Jessie has me spoiled.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Time to Turn to Social Media

They say there is power in social media. Let's see.

I HAD an opportunity to get a ticket to Road to the Horse in TN to see three of the best horseman in the country (well, one best and two pretty good). Tickets are scarce. The event has been sold out for months, but a friend of a friend had one extra ticket. In their efforts to prevent scalping, the RTTH people require each ticket to be registered to the person in the seat. We've been trying for three weeks to get a name change on her ticket to no avail. This is a terrible business model where a company sees their customers as either criminals or insignificant. I can completely understand the need to curb scalping, BUT there MUST be a system in place where one who is in legal possession of a ticket be allowed to transfer that ticket to someone else. What if a person breaks a leg or dies? Does that seat then just go empty? The Road to the Horse people got THEIR money. It just should not be this difficult unless the people you are dealing with don't care or are incompetent.