For Sale: Ricochet

Ricochet, aka Tiki.
Registered Jockey Club name:  Roy's Legacy:  Tiki's pedigree

Please contact me at dakotawyatt2002@yahoo.com for more information, or to schedule a showing

Tiki is my heart horse.  I HATE to sell him, but here he is.  I KNOW someone braver than me can do GREAT things with him, whether it's in the "straight jumper" ring in the Junior/A/O jumpers, OR in the Eventing world, Prelim+.  I'm just not brave enough to ever do more than Training, and he has so much more jump and heart than that.  Circumstances warrant a sale right now ... I hope he can find someone else that will love his beautiful little red butt as much as I do.

10 year old gorgeous chestnut Thoroughbred.  NO vices.  I mean NONE.  Willing to give you whatever you ask of him.  No spook, no bad attitude, will try his heart out.  Super brave to the jumps, no issues with fillers or oxers, etc.  VERY adjustable.  He does have a good, clean change.  In my schooling videos, I tend to ask for simple just because. I have had his hocks injected once, but not again.  I am the one that got him off the track back in August of 2008.  I have done 100% of his retraining by myself.  He loves trails, both alone and with friends.  I have done several hunter paces with him; he can go from full out race horse gallop back to mosey on a loose rein.  He is voice command enough that I have flat out galloped him in a field in his halter; just say WHOA and sit back and he comes RIGHT back to you.  Currently, he eats Triple Crown Senior, plenty of hay, and gets a monthly Adequan injection.  No other maintenance.

He will currently pack my butt around the 1.0m jumpers and the Novice eventing ring.  I was set to debut at Training this year, but a lack of funds has prevented that debut.  He successfully schools Training, and Prelim; he LOVES running xc.  I've done a LOT of hunter type training with him, so he jumps around nice and steady with a good rhythm vs. running at the jumps.  Super light, doesn't need a big bit or lots of hardware.  Absolute bottom dollar price is $8,000.  I'm moving to California on June 27th, and need to sell him NOW.  He's sound, kind, quick, careful, brave, and bold.  He can take a joke.  NOT a stopper; he's never run out at a fence.  Here's a few videos and pics:

Feb 2013 Poplar dressage video
This test is the only competition footage I have of him.  It was a good test, scored in the low 40's; it was the rider's first ever test, and she rode it like an equitation test!  The low 40 score reflected the lack of overall forward; she was focused so much on quiet and relaxed, she didn't quite push him into the bridle a whole bunch.
Schooling at home; back in Dec of '12

Jump course
I didn't initially post this video because my severe lack of an ability to find a distance really makes me cringe; not to mention the extra 40 lbs that is VERY obvious, eek!  But it shows how well Tiki can jump despite his pilot, and it shows he does indeed have flying changes.  I just prefer to do simple changes at home!

Long flatwork video. About half way through is when he settles in really well.

First time he's ever SEEN this jump

Training level corner

Ditch that's full of water

First time over this Novice level table; he'd never laid eyes on it

Novice 2 stride

3'3 vertical

Training level trakehner

Easy hop off the banks

Prelim table

Prelim cabin

And ... jump:)

No where else I'd rather be than on my boy!

Saturday I got to ride with ... honorary little sis Nicole!  Woo Hoo!  She came home for a visit from NY, yay!  I headed out to Joyce's after a long day teaching, and Tiki man was a fresh little butt head lol:)  He ALWAYS is when riding with his mare ... in the cold ... late ... on a Saturday.  At least when LR rides him on the weekends, it's normally sometime before 2:00pm.  I set up a simple outside line, 2 inside diagonal singles, and a single on the other outside.  I tried to make it "scary".  Barrel, 2 poles above it, ground line poles, and 3 cones lined up in front of the groundlines on both sides.  It stood 3'.

I tried to have some productive flat work, and I feel like I did ok.  He was SO fresh, he got swappy at the canter, and I had a TOTAL lightbulb moment!  Because he was already swappy and swishy, I decided to ask for a change.  Totally unassuming, cantered up the diagonal ... and just stepped out.  Didn't anticipate, didn't wrench my hips to the outside, just looked in my new direction and thought about moving his hips over.  BOOM!  Clean change with absolutely NO change in rhythm or anything!  Good for us:)

I put together a few courses, first time through adding a stride in the line, and he was just lovely.  Jumped great, did his changes, stayed lovely and quiet, and waited on me to tell him what to do.  Other than feeling my leg slip back a few times, my position felt pretty good and solid.  When I cantered him into the big vertical, he didn't even look at it funny, just jumped right over, no issue!  He's so brave, I'm very proud of him.  I really want to haul out to Calimar on March 10 and ride with Mary Bess so we can school around a T level xc course and see how things go.  Sat, it was FREAKING COLD, the coldest it's been that I've ridden in at all.  By the end of the ride, my nose, ears, fingers, and toes were freezing:)  LR rode him and jumped on Sunday, and said he was lovely.  Tomorrow I will do a good dressage school ... Friday it's supposed to be cold and rainy so may not be able to ride then, but I will try if the weather cooperates.  Next week, I will get in a ride during Mon-Wed ... I've started my Insanity workouts again in prep for our Spring Break trip to the west coast.  Exercise breeds motivation, and I'm definitely on an exercise kick again!!:)

Less than a month!

My little rock star and his LR:)

Tiki's big Poplar Place debut is coming up in about 3 weeks!  Very excited, can't wait to see Muffin and LR in action "for real".

It felt amazing to ride my boy this week.  It was SO hard to watch and NOT be riding schooling last weekend, but at the same time it is ALMOST as fun watching my boy:)

Monday I just spun him on the longe line both ways to make sure he was all good from his big day on Sunday.  He looked perfect and fresh, with nary a head bobble at all.

Tuesday I walked hills in draw reins.  Carried a dressage whip and made him march up, then halted and backed a few times backwards up the hill as I made my way down.  Did something a little different; After walking up the hill 3 times, I then trotted up and down 3 times.  I've actually never just trotted up and down the hills.  If you've never done it, trotting down a steep hill is HARD!  Lots of leg, lots of balance, and some good hard work.

I got on for a quick 5 minutes to force my student's horse into the water!

Thursday I jumped, whoo hoo!  Set up a super simple outside/inside/outside/inside.  One of the outsides was a tall crossrail bounce, the 2 insides were the coop and the cavaletti oxer, and the other outside was a square 2'6 tall, 3' wide oxer.  I simply lined them up along the center of the ring so that I had a nice long approach to each jump.  Tacked up in the 'wonder bit', and warmed up with a little bit of lengthening and shortening of the trot.  He felt super actually.  Kept my leg on and continuously sent him forward, but I worked on staying super quiet with my body.  Warmed up by trotting the coop back and forth and he was completely perfect.  I consciously softened my left hand and paid attention like crazy to that left shoulder.  I'm satisfied he was dead straight each time.  I began by halting straight then continuing on, just to keep him slow and soft.  I trotted the bounce and fought the urge to DO too much.  I HATE bounces lol!  As he jumped the jumps I concentrated like crazy on my position.  Ended up just going and going and going.  I concentrated on that rhythm, that left shoulder, and MY position.  He was GREAT.  My distances were all acceptable, he popped off a few easy and clean lead changes, and he stayed pretty huntery throughout.

Compare knees here to knees of the big jumps:)

All in all, a successful jump school, it felt great.  He felt very adjustable throughout and he was pretty careful about not touching any poles.  I felt pretty good myself; I think I stayed with him well and didn't interfere at all which is really all you can ask for!

Tomorrow LR is going to do some dressage boot camp.  Next week I plan to jump at least once and do hills in the draw reins at least once.  A dressage school of course.  That's all I'm committing to; anything else will be a bonus!

Couldn't have been any better ...

LR and proud mama!

As I went to sleep last night, the patter of rain hit my roof ... WHAT???  RAIN???  Where's The Fruitbat???  We put off until today to give the footing plenty of time to dry out.  Woke up to soggy grass and wet roads, but there was never a question as to whether we were going!  Upon arriving at Calimar, it was pretty overcast, but the footing seemed pretty solid.  The great thing about that farm is the terrain is very rolling with an awesome clay base, so the rain really rolls right off.  There was water in all the ditches, but everything seemed jumpable.

Tiki warmed up well, and we did the same warm-up out of the ring we pretty much always do.  Lincoln logs to single hanging log to funky log.  He did his usual lock on and powered out of the ring first.  Marty built a new N table jump made out of split logs; Tiki jumped it like a frigging rock star:

Made our way to the ditch and he actually slammed on the breaks upon seeing the water flowing through.  After a re-present, he jumped it in his typical stuttering way which was oddly reassuring to me considering that's EXACTLY how he jumps them with me!  At least I know his 'ditchiness' isn't 100% me;)

Made our way to "mid field", and gave LR her first downhill task, again over a NEW jump!

She rode it beautifully and he jumped it like a heat seeking missle.  Had her hop up and down the banks for the first time, plus tackle the train jump.  He doesn't even think about those now.

Also threw the corner jump in there, and this time there was no awkward putter to a stop.

This is the bigger side; last time he did the smaller side:)

Headed over to the water complex area, and in the interest of wanting him to do some of the bigger stuff, I didn't have her do any of the coop jumps; I KNOW he will jump those.  I wanted to challenge him and see how far her comfort zone extended.  Didn't even touch the BN cabin, went straight to the N one.

See why this young lady's nick name is "Lovely Rider?";)

Then decided why not go ahead and tackle the Prelim cabin ... might as well!

After that, it was the double barrel jump that I wanted to try this go round; I'd already decided to tackle this one next time we were out:

Um, scope to spare?

Had her JUST do a quick canter pass through the water; no sense in using him up schooling stuff she won't have to worry about at the HT.  On the way back to the front side of the field, we planned to jump back into the stadium arena so we could walk it out and untack.  There is this table thing ... I've been eyeballing it since the first time I ever went, wanting to jump it but never being brave enough.  I'd already decided LR was going to jump it.  However, on the way over there, we encountered the trakehner.  The trakehner is large ... it's over a ditch ... I've wanted to do THAT for a while too, but never quite been brave enough.  LR said she was game.  Picked up a nice rolling canter (after standing around for awhile), he got to the perfect spot ... and stopped pretty violently.  He was right on top of it before realizing it had that ditch underneath.  She came at it twice more and he was looking like *maybe* he'd do it each time, but losing heart at the last minute.  I told her to stick him on takeoff ... so she did.

I then made her do it again while it was still fresh in his mind:)

We then finished it up with the huge table thing I've been eyeballing ...

I cannot even express how proud I am.  They will soar through the course at Poplar, I KNOW it.  Tiki has really grown up ... he showed his amazing heart and talent today and it nearly brought me to tears:)  I KNOW he can rock it out at Training, can't wait to do it!  What a horse; I am the luckiest girl in the world:):D