It is amazing how fast the year 2011 has flown by and now year 2012 is nearly upon us. I am one step closer to achieving my degree from OSU, and therefore, closer to marrying the man of my dreams :) I have decided that we are going to have a little fun with the blog now, and we are going to do a little bio on each of our horses that are currently here at Rockin' Shamrock Ranch. Back when I first created the blog, I gave a quick run down on each horse, and now I am going to go in depth on each horse, and will even bring back a few familiar faces, and horses that I rode for extended periods of time for people.
So our first entry in the "Biography of our Horses" section will be...
CASTLEBAR FRIDAY
O'Malley as he is known around the barn, is a coming 13 year old Bay Irish Sport Horse gelding, He stands right at 17 hands tall. I imported O'Malley as a 7 year old from Ireland, in January of 2006 and he has been a blessing to my life for the past 6 years. After arriving in the states, O'Malley and I did our first event at Holly Hill in the Open Training division, we had an okay dressage, a good show jumping, and a very educational cross country round. He was amazing, until jumping into the main field, and suddenly there were tons of people, and that was it and he wanted no part of the people. Our next outing was a success compared to our first outing. Greenwood was next on the list, and our dressage, since we had another month to prepare, was remarkably better, show jumping great again, and he ran around cross country clean. Since, we were improving by leaps and bounds, we decided to go ahead and bump up to Prelim, at Crosstar. Dressage was good, and then cross country was next. After starting out the cross country well, I fell at the water, as O'Malley decided to leave the stride out to the hanging rail, and then stop at the bank, I did NOT get wet :) however, I did leave the show with a prize, a broken thumb. By the time I was home, I had called the vet, who I had planned on fixing my hand, until we realized that it was completely shattered, and surgery it was. After, my trainer rode O'Malley all summer, as I was off from surgery, and then at Young Riders with Vince, we came out in the fall, and had success at Greenwood, and Holly Hill. Both at Training level.
Spring of 2007 came and we started out our year at Training, O'Malley won the dressage, and held on to the lead after a perfect show jumping. However, again it was not our show, and he injured himself in warm up for cross country. After a month off, and slow rehab of a torn hamstring, O'Malley came back out at Briar Fox placing 6th. He had a very successful fall season after a very success summer of 2007.
Spring of 2008 we decided to go east for some early spring shows, catching Poplar Place and Pine Top, both at Training level, and both with super results!! 5th at Poplar, and 6th at Pine Top. Holly Hill in April, we would move back up to Prelim again, and this time would have good results. He ran Prelim at Holly Hill, Greenwood, Mill Creek, Briar Fox (which he won) Maui Jim, Plantation, the AEC's and Greenwood again for the area Championships.
2009 brought good results again for O'Malley and I runs at Prelim at Holly Hill, his first CIC* at Greenwood.
2010 O'Malley came out at Holly Hill again in the Prelim, and we got about half way around the course, when I realized, that I had no breaks left... So decided that I wanted to go home in one piece I walked off the course, so we reevaluated our breaks, and moved back to Training. He ran Training at Greenwood, had a win at Briar Fox, and a great outing at the Colorado Horse Park, and then for the fall we took a break from competing and worked on getting better.
2011 we came out with a vengeance for wanting it all again. O'Malley competing at Feather Creek, Mill Creek, Texas Rose, and Holly Hill, and he placed at every single event. O'Malley and I will be moving back up to Prelim at the beginning of 2012, and will be looking forward to Intermediate hopefully spring of 2013.
O'Malley around the barn is the fun, lovable, giant teddy bear. Everyone can ride him, and he loves attention. He absolutely loves food of any sort, and his all time favorite treat has to be applesauce. Yes, my horse eats applesauce, and eats it right out of the container. He has never met a stranger, and will give kisses to anyone who stops long enough at his stall. In the field, O'Malley is near the top of the pecking order, and his best friend would have to be Harry.
I hope to one day take O'Malley Advanced, and he would then be the first horse that I would have produced to the top level by myself. I have been the only one to ever compete O'Malley and I hope that never changes. I hope that our success will soon land us some very valuable sponsors, who want to be a part of the great horses' career. I have pledged to doing things right by O'Malley and if we ever, need to, we will drop back down the levels, to get it right.
