Halloween in Malad

Preston and I went up to Malad over the Halloween weekend. We didn't do anything too Halloweeny, but we did go on a trail ride!

Me riding Linda

Preston in front of the bustling metropolis Malad.
Preston's Dad, David

Mule Drive

On October 23, 2008 Preston and I celebrated our 1 year dating anniversary by spending the day together. I went to work with him and his friend Ike, took us for a chariot ride pulled by Sage the mule. We went off-roading and had to hold on to the chariot for dear life! As we raced up and down hills and through the sagebrush, I kept thinking of scenes from the movie Ben-Hur... They call the chariot the "Roman Rumbler."

Sage, Preston, and Ike. Talk about mule power!

Preston and Buckaroo

Preston competing on "Buckaroo" at the Utah Arabian horse show in September.

Photo courtesy of Pam Olsen Photography.
Here are a couple of pictures I took while he was warming up in the outdoor arena.
If Preston's horses do something good, he gives them a little pat on the rump. Buckaroo must have done something special.

Jazmine and I Competing at the World Show

All photo's courtesy of All Things Digital Photography.

I got my pictures from Ava! Enjoy!

Here I am competing on Jazmine in the Out-of-State World Grand Championship. I was the highest placing female and got 4th place. Jazmine and I competing in English Pleasure World Grand Championship. Look at her HUGE reach with her front legs! (The judges like that.)I won reserve (second place) in the English World Grand Championship! I had placed 4th in the qualifying English Pleasure Hunt seat class, so she had improved a lot throughout the week!
The victory lap is a lot of fun, I hope this won't be my last time doing it!

Here I am competing in the Open 3-Year-Olds World Grand Championship. This is such a competitive event, before I went in I was praying I would at least place in the top ten. This event was during the last night of the show, Saturday night. I went in and had the best ride I had had on her all week and I ended up getting 9th! I was so excited to place. The biggest trainers in the breed were in there and all the politics to go along with it. Again I was the highest and only placing female in the class. Her tail set was high, she was almost 100% consistent and she shook her little head off. She's such a fun show horse.
I competed in 7 events at the world show on a horse I trained myself and placed in the top ten of every class. Many of those classes she competed against horses that were much older and more experienced than she was. She also beat a lot of well-known trainers as well. Over-all it was an awesome show and I was very pleased with her performance. We even had a guy offer to buy her right as I came out of the English Pleasure Championship.

General Conference

Trying to get Preston to cooperate and take a picture...

Little kissy on the cheeky! I absolutely love this picture. I absolutely love this boy.

Awww. There we go.

2008 Show & Celebration - Preparing for the Show to Start

After months of training and preparation, and blood, sweat, and tears, we finally were able to head out to Missouri for the World Show. The 2008 Show and Celebration was held in Ava, Missouri again this year (as always.) It took us about two days to arrive at the show grounds in Missouri from Wallsburg.

We brought two rigs, our Chevy dually hauled our 4-horse trailer and Lacey's mother's mini International diesel hauled her 4-horse trailer. We hauled a total of six horses. 5 were owned by Stephen's Fox Trotters and 1 we hauled out for a youth rider that is a good friend of ours. We brought Touch, Pizzazz, Tuffy, Majestic, and Jazmine. In our Chevy there was Dan, Bryce, and I, and in Nancy's rig there was Nancy, Lacey, and Kamille.

Both horse trailers have living quarters in the front of them and that is where some of us stayed for the 2 weeks. We also rented an RV and had it set up out in front of our stalls when we got there. Bryce and Dallin stayed in our horse trailer's living quarters, Julia, Kamille, Lacey, and I slept in the RV, and Nancy slept in her trailer. Dan and Stephen slept at a hotel in Springfield. Stephen, Julia, and Dallin all flew in the day the show started.

This year Stephen bought new stalls. He bought them because we liked that they were bigger, they had cross-ties in front of them, the location was great, we could plug our RV's and trailers in front of the stalls, and they were over-all much nicer. At the Missouri Fox Trotter show grounds, you don't rent stalls, you buy them. So, Stephen's Fox Trotters owns five little patches of land out in Booger County Missouri.

Here I am outside of our new stalls. It finally stopped raining for a minute..Here is a short video clip of the front of our stalls.

Here are our trailers all set up in a half circle in front of our stalls..

Sometimes we just loose our minds for a second cause we are in muddy, muggy, miserable Missouri for too long...
Julia sometimes likes to strangle Bryce.

Jazmine chillin-out in her stall...
Lacey's mother, Nancy, is one of the most talented and creative ladies I know. Not only is she an incredible artist, she also sews clothes. She custom makes all of our show clothes. Kamille wanted a purple outfit made and Nancy didn't quite have it finished before the show, so she brought her sewing machine with her and finished it! She's amazing!


Here is Jazmine in the cross-ties in front of our stalls.
Stayed tuned for more pictures and show results...

2008 Show & Celebration

These two pictures pretty much sum up the trip...

Just kidding. I will post the rest of the pictures and give you a full account of the trip later.