Harness

Hot off the tack desk is this pleasure harness . This was a custom order and is on its way to its owner.

I have another I am working on when I have down time on orders that is brown and fits the Breyer Cleveland bay. 

Getting to be a (small) part of hobby history

As many of you have already seen Joanie Berkwitz just released the first Ceramic version of Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig 's Vtoo sculpture . Her work on this piece is simply amazing ! 

Look at all of the incredibly intricate details and that pose ! 

 A few months back I was contacted by Joanie she asked me if I could make in hand bridles for these gals . What an honor ! I have had some really cool commissions in the past but to be asked to be a small part of this venture was incredibly awesome !  

Then she sent me these pictures and told me that I could keep her after using her to make the bridles  .

Squeee !!! isn't she lovely !!! 

So incredibly generous ! 

 Here are some close ups of the bridle 

I can only hope that my work does this piece justice 

If you would like to have a ceramic Vtoo in your collection act fast because there will only be a few . 

She is available for bids here Chocolate Squirrel .

A huge thank you to Jaonie for allowing me to use her pictures .

 And a Ginormous thank you to Joanie and Sarah for letting me be a part of this amazing piece of true art. 

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Jewel Heist Live Part 2 ~ English

If you follow me on facebook you know that I had a BIG tack ooops a few weeks back that resulted in some over sized saddles . One of these I was going to use for my D'Arry Mozart resin in English performance. Alas I just haven't had the time to make him a bridle.  Maybe once the replacement saddles are done I can find a place to squeeze it in some where . 

This left me with just the one English performance horse Rory.

Rory in the over fences class .

Rory is a D'Arry Rembrandt resin paint by D'Arry . She has been my star English horse for years and has I think the count yesterday was 33 English performance NAN cards .

 Arena Trail

Rory continued her winning ways with a first in arena trail doing ground poles ...

 Natural Trail 

Another first in Natural trail ( She needs and will be getting a new trail ) 

 

English Pleasure

She was second in English Pleasure . 

 

 

 Dressage

Second in Dressage with her Dressage lesson .

 

Games

She earned another second in games doing musical stalls.

 

 Other English 

And a first in other with a little fox hunting set up . 

 This gave her all the points she needed to be English Performance Champion.

The reserve Champion Honors went to Bella's Josh .

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe Bella made all of her own tack too. 

I did show a little more in workmanship and halter but not enough for a full post . 

I was lucky enough to win a Highlander in the raffle along with a cute CM by Lauren , a Lori B. Pony Pouch, and the blu ray of Secretariat.  

This concludes my coverage of JHL 2014 . 

A big THANK YOU to Lauren Hoeffer For holding Jewel Heist this year .

 

Jewel Heist Live ~ Show Report Part 1

This year I finally got to go to Jewel Heist . I have tried to get to this show for years but the Universe seem to have objections to my attending.

I had taken about a 2 year hiatus from showing and went to the March Mini Madness show guns a blazing and just about stressed my self to death . So for JHL I decided to scale back ha ! While showing was as stress fee as it has ever been preparing for the show wasn't. Rather than spend the appropriate amount of time preparing for the show I was working on my order back log till the week before . It wasn't exactly procrastination it was an effort to clear the back log before spending time getting ready .

I had a huge list of things to do to get ready for the show Number 1 on my list was paint my Working for Chexs ( Bueno ) resin . He was going to be bay .... Rabicano .

I was successful and he did do well 3 rd in his halter class and 1st in workmanship .

The bigger problem was the #2 thing on my list I wanted to show  him in performance ... I didn't have a saddle for him . I got him finished on Thursday and we were leaving for the show on Friday .

So like and true hard core performance junkie I got up early on Friday and started his saddle . While I do not normally do 3 and 4 hour tack sessions I worked almost non stop for 6 hours and got the saddle mostly done then pack my stuff along with what was needed to finish the saddle and the bridle parts . We loaded Roy's car and headed for Phoenix .

Once there we unloaded and went to check out Bass Pro Shop . That place is AMAZING !! I found a tiny bit of tack making stuff and then we headed to the tackle box section where we found the perfect tack box for me . And of course my awesome Hubbie got it for me .  We went to a very yummy Dinner at Cracker Barrel and it was back to the hotel where I stayed up until 11 trying to finish the saddle . In the end I finished the saddle when I got up in the morning and decided if I couldn't get the bridle done I would borrow one .

The show got off to a slow start due to the performance judge not showing up . But once things got going the were going pretty well . I skipped other performance this go round since I didn't have anything prepared and opted to just show in English and Western.

During other I tacked my English horse and my Proxy English horses and put a couple of OFs in halter . Once English started I figured if I wanted to show Bueno in that new bridle I better get to it . While successfully showing in English I did Manage to get Bueno's head stall done and took out a pair of may sales reins and Viola ! new bridle .

Here are some of the day's Western performance pictures .

Cheeky Monkey Doing Cutting 

  The Judge Really Didn't care for My reined Cow horse set up.

 I think I need a Different cow.

 Kowalski doing Reining

 She did not favor Pirate doing arena trail either.

 But she really liked Eeyore .

 Finally in natural trail he managed a NAN Card .

 In games she loved pirates rescue race set up.

  Afternoon Delight was second in Western Pleasure .

 And poor pirate was 6th due to no hat for the cowboy .. You see the cowboy was a trade and he was shown with a hat in the pictures, but alas there was no hat when I recieved him . So I will have to find him a hat .

  In other western Pirate was 3rd with a Western Dressage set up .

              In the end Pirate was overall Reserve Champion not a bad show day .

Tomorrow English !