What is everyone’s take on asking judges about your performance? As a Jr. Ex. showing pleasure and equitation, I like to ask the judges what he/she liked/didnt like/ and what i could improve on my performance. Do you think this is appropriate? Some judges have been happy to answer my questions and even look through their cards, while some just scowl and give me an answer like “more consistant”.

Also, I only ask after i am done showing. ;]

Hello Morgan World!!!

  I’m kind of new to this Above Level thing.  I have a 15 year old Morgan mare who is my world.  Recently she has become a showmanship master.  I always use to show her showmanship in Saddleseat attire, but I’m thinking her Saddleseat days are becoming numbered.  I want to switch her over to western showmanship, but I’m not sure how Morgans show in western showmanship.  She parks out like a champ, but when i try to square her up, like all other western horses, she gets confused.  Do all Morgans park out, regardless of show attire?  Should I make her park out for western showmanship, or teach her how to square up?  Any advise is helpful.  Thanks everybody.

Hey folks, I just want to remind all viewers and posters on this blog that it’s purpose is as a Morgan Horse Show blog. Retailers and other equine businesses are welcome to advertise on this site, but posting an advertisement to the blogroll is not acceptable. This will be considered spam and will be deleted. I understand that the recent posts of this nature have been in reaction to questions posted by users. If you would like to comment on these posts you are welcome, but I don’t consider standalone posts to be conducive to the type of discussion this blog is intended for.

If you have any questions feel free to email me admin@abovelevel.com

Thanks again,

-Erin

I have gone to a lot of open shows recently and there is a lot of variety of classes so I was wondering what classes people would find interesting that we dont have now at the morgan A rated shows. These are a few that I have competed in and enjoyed:

Ranch Horse Trail

Halter- Western (I know we have sport horse and in hand, but not any western)

Showmanship 18 & Over

Equitation 18 & Over (with or without patterns, sometimes they are seperated)

I cant think of any others off the top of my head, I am sure there are more, but I just wanted to see what everyone thought…. Thanks

~Jessica

Hello all Morgan enthusiasts!

My name is Caralee Conklin, and I am currently the President of the AMHA Youth Council. The AMHA is an international organization of young people who have a common interest in the Morgan horse, America’s oldest breed. With youth members in the United States, Canada, and all over the world, AMHAY offers a variety of programs that challenge members to become involved, to learn, and to develop competence in all areas of the horse industry.

As our AMHA National Convention draws closer, I am posting on all Morgan fan message boards to raise awareness of our fundraising requirements. To offset hotel and meeting room costs, each AMHAY Regional Director is required to raise $250, and each AMHAY Executive Officer is required to raise $300. These costs do not cover travel expenses, and are a requirement with the AMHAY Officer contract.

With the tentative deadline for raising these funds set at January 10th, please be on the lookout for youth members asking for contributions. Even a small handout will help them reach their goal!

The AMHAY Council has grown exponentially from four members present at the convention two years ago, to having active Regional Directors for almost every region, and a multitude of Regional Representatives! We have developed new youth programming, re-organized the board to provide more participation opportunities, and we are looking forward to working at the Grand Nationals with the University of Oklahoma on a philanthropy to benefit cancer patients!

The 2009 AMHA Convention is especially important to the Youth Council. We are currently seeking representatives from Region 7 and Region 8. We hope that our presence in Sacramento will make it easier for youth from these regions to become directly involved!

So please help the AMHAY Council continue to be an important part of the AMHA Convention. We want to continue working towards the goals we have set for ourselves as we begin the new year!

See you at convention!

Caralee Conklin

AMHA Youth Council President 2007-2009

2006 AMHA Youth of the Year

cconklin@ufl.edu

http://www.morganhorse.com/youth/

PS Please repost this on any and all Morgan message boards to get the word out! Thanks!

I just wanted to let you all know of a change that we have made on the blog regarding commenting. Due to the number of people that are commenting under “anonymous” or variations thereof, we are now requiring people be a registered user in order to write a comment on any of the posts. I think this format will make it easier to follow which comments belong to which users.

If you are having problems registering or with your password, please email me at blackeyebeth@gmail.com and I will help you get logged onto AboveLevel.com.

It is great to see people starting introduce themselves on the Forums. I hope some new friendships are made through this and the PM feature.

One thing that might help keep it rolling and make it easier for people to use is to use the “Add Topic” button to write your introduction. Believe me, I know the switch is confusing (just ask my husband how many times he had to go through it with me!) but it is easy once you do it.

To do this, follow these steps. First go to the Forums via the button in the middle column under the Log In. When you get to the Forums page, scroll down and click on “Let Me Introduce Myself…”. When that page pops up look to the right for the “Add Topic” button. Click on that and a page appears for you to write your Introduction. By doing it this way other individuals can then reply to your Introduction (say “Hi” or “I know you!!”, or something like that). This also allows the list of all the “Introductions” to appear when the “Let Me Introduce Myself…” forum is selected.

I hope this isn’t clear as mud. If it is, comment here and I will try to clarify it better. If you have already added your Intro in a reply, not to worry. I will fix it later today.

I again want to thank everybody for all the great support AboveLevel.com has received. It is overwhelming and very much appreciated. The discussion has been informative and relatively civil. It does seem that the vast majority of you have taken the view of “agreeing to disagree” and welcome all the different view points.

I want to let you know of the changes that we are implementing. As many of you know, we have set up “Forums” and will be working on getting new topics areas that are appropriate for that feature (i.e. classifieds, technical questions, non-horse topics, etc.) However, I would like to keep as much discussion on the main blog pages as possible.

As you may have noticed we have upgraded the “Recent Comments” feature. We now have link available which displays the title of the Post that has the most recent comments. The name of the person commenting and the date/time of the comment is also included. We hope this helps you see all the days activity with one click (click on the “Recent Comment” link above if you don’t understand this explanation!)

There has also been discussion regarding “anonymous” comments on posts. Since we have increased our user registration to over 450 individuals, we are now removing the option of comment as “Anonymous”. In order to post or comment from now on, users will be required to register and log onto the blog, or fill out the name and email address fields. Using your own name as your user name or signing your post or comment with your real name is optional.

I hope you find these changes helpful and, as always, let us know if other problems or suggestions you may have.

Wow Beth you must be so proud of what this blog has become!  I know I am on here every day, and I usually frequent the site more than once a day.  Now that more and more other bloggers are doing the same there are alot more comments and interaction.  But now say I am not on until the evening, there are alot more “recent comments” than you can list, so if I want to see what anyone has made new comments about it would take a lengthy amount of time to go through.  Is there a way to change that section on the home page to something like “todays comments” and maybe link it to another page, this would show just what you have now but all the comments for the day?  And it would free up some space on the home page for you to do something else.  Just a suggestion.  Have a great day everyone! =)  Michele

Over the last few days I have been thinking about ways to improve AboveLevel.com to make it a more helpful resource for the Morgan Community.  Just recently we have added protection for usernames so that 2 people cannot comment using the same name and cause confusion among the other blog users (if anyone is having a problem commenting with the new design, please feel free to email me).   It was mentioned in one comment that navigating the various posts and comments is not as user-friendly as it could be so we are presently working on ways to improve that aspect.  Being able to communicate directly with one another in a less formal manner has also been suggested.

 Because there as so many different ways to improve AboveLevel.com, I would really like to hear from the users as to what they would like to see.  Would things such as a chat-room, message forum, personal homepages or a consolidation of horses, tack and show clothes on one page be welcome?  ANY and ALL ideas will be considered.  We want to make this a gathering place for everybody, so your help in designing a more useful blog is very, very welcome. 

 If you do have ANY suggestions or thoughts (I want to know what is and isn’t working!) please comment on this post or email me directly at blackeyebeth@gmail.com.