Month: September 2014

Last night was my first dressage lesson in about 10 years. My feelings toward it have not changed but it’s something that has to be done. So, I sucked it up with only a minimal (for me) amount of whining.

After a little warmup we started by trotting on a circle over a fan of groundpoles in both directions. That really helped give me and Henry the feeling of lifting and pushing with the inside hind. Similar to this diagram but a little tighter spaced and another pole or two. Great exercise. I need this in my life all the time.

Then we got to work. First I rode my test through once (for Saturday it’s BN Test A, which I didn’t actually bother to fully learn before my lesson because pfffft preperation smesheration. Sorry Lisa.) then we talked about things to improve and I rode it through again. It was much better the second time but there were still a few movements (mostly the medium walk-free walk-medium walk, the trot to canter transition and canter circle to the right, and the last turn up centerline) that needed a lot of work. We spent some time on just those specific movements, with much improvement. Putting it together is still pretty difficult and I definitely have my work cut out for me on Saturday. It’s amazing how much harder it is to do things in a 20m x 40m space. I feel much better prepared though and have tons of things to work on over the next few months. The good moments were enough to give me hope for both of us.

My brain was super fried when I was done, so as soon as I got off I jotted down some notes in my phone lest I forget. These were the main points that stuck with me.

– Don’t be afraid to be bold when coming down centerline. Make an entrance.
– Half halt. No really: half halt.
– Tempo tempo tempo. Even and calm, don’t rush.
– On the 20m trot circles think “leg yield”. It helps shape his body around the circle.
– Light easy aids into canter, don’t be in a hurry.
– Always be thinking one movement ahead and BE ACCURATE.
– Make sure to have an obvious change of rein length from medium walk to free walk and back to medium.
– Trust the free walk, open hips and thighs to follow the motion and breathe.
– To the right when he falls heavy on his inside shoulder, lift the inside hand and my own shoulder (we both lean this way).
– Horse needs more shoulder fore work in general.
– Make sure to give plenty of outside rein when making turns onto centerline to allow him to really bend through the turn.
– Halt at X. Hey idiot self, X was back there! Every… damn… time. They really should mark that with spray paint or something. Just sayin. A big red X would help me a lot. Or maybe just a stop sign?

Not a bad collection of notes for a little over half an hour of lesson. Obviously we have work to do!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be sitting in the corner rocking back and forth in fetal position until my brain recovers, which quite honestly could be never.

Stories from the Saddle‘s first blog hop topic is a good one: Why do you do what you do?

Before I get into what I do and why, I feel like I should probably recount all the things I’ve done so that you understand more about where I’m coming from. I started riding in a Pony Club barn, but since I didn’t have my own horse I wasn’t actually in Pony Club. Still, it was mainly an eventing barn. I only took lessons once a week for two years before we moved away, so really I was just a beginner kid on lesson horses learning how to ride and jump.

When we moved to Texas I called all the barns in the phone book (ah, the good ol’ days) that said they offered lessons and left a message. Only one of those called me back so tada – that’s where I started riding. It was a h/j barn so that’s what I did. I started in the hunters but moved pretty quickly over to the jumpers, which was definitely my preference.

Then after high school I went to be a working student at an eventing barn (partly because those are the barns with more working student opportunities, and party because I felt ready to learn something new). I came back from that experience with a lot of enthusiasm for my new sport and kept at it for a few years afterward.

A couple horses later I found myself with a pretty nice young horse off the track who showed an aptitude for hunters, so back I went into that. It only took a couple years though for me to get majorly burned out. That horse was sold and I went as opposite as possible – a little QH with some reining experience. I had a good time with her just learning to ride western and remembering how to have fun again, then eventually sold her and bought another TB. At that time I also had my young mare, who was bred to be a hunter (I bred her in the midst of my hunter phase). But not long after getting her started I remembered that I actually hated the hunters (sorry) and leased a jumper as well. Once I was back in the jumper ring I knew that’s where I was happiest. At one point Sadie was actually for sale. Then we figured out that she too was happier as a jumper so I decided to keep her.

I bought Henry specifically looking for a jumper. I have zero desire to do the hunters (only exception being hunter derbies) ever again. I also have a major hatred for dressage. Tons of respect for it, it’s super hard, but I just find it as dull as humanly possible. It’s really the only thing that keeps eventing from being my perfect sport.

The point of all this rambling is to illustrate that I don’t really have a sport. I’ve always been a wanderer I suppose… I do whatever a) suits the horse b) suits my mood at the time c) looks fun. If you made me claim one it’d definitely be jumpers first and foremost. Mainly because it’s so technical but still fun and so much of it (at least past a certain level) depends on rider skill. Even though you’re competing against other people, in a way it always feels like you’re competing against yourself. Making better decisions, better turns, thinking ahead to where you can save time, always trying to make your round as fast and clean as possible. That appeals to me a lot more than having the fanciest horse who jumps or moves the best and trying to find 8 jumps, and to be honest I’m very bothered by the measures taken to get a lot of top hunters to the ring these days. I just can’t get on board with that.

Eventing would be my second choice. I will say that above a certain level I think it’s just crazy stupid. I have a hell of a lot of respect for fences that don’t fall down and my interest wanes past Training level. But I think of all the horse sports eventers generally tend to have the best sportsmanship, best horsemanship, and best general all around base of knowledge. Sure they’re a little yahoo sometimes and good god someone teach them to use a hairnet properly (jk I love you guys. But really: hairnet) but at the end of the day they’re the crowd I like to hang out with most. Their sport is one of the hardest but also one of the most fun. I mean come on – who doesn’t want to gallop around and jump fences out in a field? Just take that pesky dressage crap out. 😉

Considering the massive amount of rain we got last week, I was pretty sure that the weekend was a lost cause for riding. And on Saturday I was right… we spent an hour handwalking (the turnouts have been too wet for over a week) and grazing and grooming, but that was about it. The dogs had quite a fun time hunting mice though.

 

I also got a pretty awesome haul of new One Horse Designs shirts in the mail on Saturday. Ordered on Wednesday, arrived on Saturday! Can’t beat that. I love them. In fact, I’m wearing one right now (the blue one with the horse head).

By Sunday everything miraculously dried out and the footing was perfect in all the rings and fields. Turnouts are still pretty wet, so Henry hadn’t been turned out in over a week and hadn’t been ridden since our XC school last weekend, but I just got right on. He was exactly the same as he always is… there’s a lot to be said for a horse that can sit for a while and not be a nut. How I got lucky enough to own two of those is anyone’s guess.

We did practice a little dressage test. Why? Because I think I’ve decided I’m gonna go ahead and try to do the eventing derby this weekend. Why the hell not. The hunter derby is a maybe… I probably won’t decide on that one until the day of. I did discover that our ability to dressage is worse than I thought, so I have a dressage lesson tomorrow. My least favorite thing in the world. Yippee. But it has to be done.

After my ride I joined in the group of eventers at the barn to watch Sylvester (one of the very few horse movies I hadn’t seen yet) and talk a little about eventing in general. Let me tell you, there are many worse ways to while away a Sunday afternoon.

This morning I have jury duty. Ugh.

As we all know from my incessant whining, the show last weekend was rained out and rescheduled for this weekend. Due to another deluge of rain it was rained out again and moved to November 8. Score. That works much better for me since the TB benefit show that I wanted to go to was also scheduled for this weekend. That too was rained out but rescheduled for next weekend. Double score.

So now it looks like both shows are once again do-able, of course barring any further rain or other complications (knocking furiously on wood).

Here’s the rub: I now have no idea what to enter at the TB show next weekend. The great thing is, they have a crap ton of options. The bad thing is, well… they have a crap ton of options.

Originally my plan was to enter the little hunter derby and a couple of jumper classes. Now that we’ve gone XC schooling I feel like the eventing derby could also be a viable option. The highest classes at this show are 2’6″ and the biggest eventing derby is Beginner Novice. It’s BN Test A and then a course of 10-14 combined stadium and XC obstacles. Pretty basic. The hunter derby is 2’3″ with 2’6″ options. Also very basic. There are only two 2’6″ jumper classes. They have dressage classes too. So… what the heck to do? I feel like I could do the eventing derby (at BN) and the hunter derby and be ok. Timing wise it would work out fine and he’d definitely have enough left in the tank to hop around a little hunter derby. Or I could do just the eventing derby and leave it at that. Or just the hunter derby and the jumper classes, since I’m not 100% confident he’d get through XC without a stop and we definitely haven’t worked on dressage at all. On the other hand this is very much a tiny schooling show and I wouldn’t be that upset if he did have a greenie moment, and the XC looks to be very straightforward.  Commence new incessant whining: I dunno what to doooooo.

Does Henry want to play eventer pony?

Or hunter derby pony?

Or jumper pony?

Or a combination of those?

We’d probably have a better chance at good ribbons (if I actually rode decently, which is always a big if) in the hunter derby and jumpers, but I don’t really care about ribbons. I just want it to be fun and for my horse to have a positive worthwhile experience. But is it too soon for the eventing derby, with only one XC school under his girth? Hmmm…

Now that I’m home (yay) and back to work (boo) I finally have time to write about the Georgia trip. As with all road trips and horsey adventures there was plenty of stuff happening to write about, but I’ll try to keep it as short as possible.

Monday: I worked a half day then went straight to airport to make my 2:00 flight. I landed in Altanta around 5 and my friend Michelle (who is leasing my mare Sadie) met me at the airport. She is basically the whole reason I was there… she bought a broodmare and a foal from Rising Star Farm and had driven down there to haul them home to Texas. I had to fly in since I couldn’t miss work on Monday morning, but she didn’t want to make the return trip alone with two horses. So – Michelle picked me up from the airport and off we headed toward Rome to RSF. The super fun part was getting her giant truck and trailer out of the airport parking lot. Pretty sure it was the highlight of all the parking attendants’ day. We arrived at RSF within a couple hours, petted a few ponies, then settled in for the night.

Tuesday: We were down at the barn by mid morning, ready to ride. First I hopped on Encore, an RSF sale horse by Figaro B. He’s a super cool greenie with nice gaits and a huge step. Then I got on Valentino, which y’all already saw pictures of. Pretty much made my day week month. Michelle rode him a bit as well and instantly fell in love too… Valentino definitely gained another member of his fan club. It’s really hard not to love that boy. Then we headed out for lunch and came back to start getting the trailer ready to haul a mare and baby. The configuration made it a bit tough but after a couple hours of tinkering around we finally came up with something that would work.

Wednesday: Up and at ’em early, getting things ready for the sBs inspection. The Belgian judges arrived at the farm around 9am to start doing paperwork, then the inspection began around 10. There were a few mares and several babies to inspect. Somehow I got roped into handling all of RSF’s mares, which I did not really have appropriate footwear for. But we got it done, got the babies branded, and had Mare and Baby (should say here – Baby did not belong to Mare so that added a level of difficulty to the whole thing) in the trailer by 2pm. Baby had never been in a trailer before so we were just trying to get going and get on the road ASAP to make it to our layover location in Mississippi before dark. There was no time for lunch so when we stopped for gas in Alabama we loaded up on armfulls of crap and just went to town in the most unhealthy of manners. Side note: when you stop at a random truck stop in Alabama, you see a pretty epic mullet.

We ended up missing a turn and it took a while (and a lot of masterful driving skills by Michelle) to get turned around, so we made it to our layover spot just after dark. Luckily the horses were relatively happy and in good shape, so they came off the trailer and settled into their stalls with little fuss. Baby was a bit perturbed at first but came around after a few minutes and was great. Poor thing had a pretty rough day. We fed the horses, cleaned out the trailer, and trudged wearily into the house (thank god for horsey bed and breakfasts, especially adorable ones) to collapse in bed.

Thursday: This was our biggest day of driving, with about 525 miles on the docket. We were a little worried about getting baby back in the trailer but she’s a champion and walked right on with only a little hesitation/bribery. We were on the road by 6:50. Not sure if any of you have ever driven I-20 across MS and LA, but man… those roads are awful. Poor baby probably got her brains rattled out. As soon as we crossed into TX the road smoothed out and we stopped in Tyler around noon to give them water, more hay, and grab lunch. By now it was pretty hot so we also sponged water on them and gave them cookies.

We didn’t get very far outside of Tyler before the sky got awfully black and then opened up with pretty spectacular force. It was raining so hard that it was difficult to see too far in front of us. We plugged slowly along to Buffalo then stopped for gas and checked on the horses. They seemed pretty content, and the rain let up a bit while we were stopped, so we continued on our way. Again we didn’t get too far before it opened up on us again. The entire rest of the way to Austin was on and off storms with periods of super heavy rain. At one point in the town of Hearne we couldn’t even drive in the right hand lane because it was under so much water. Boating, anyone?

There was a brief reprieve for about half an hour, but the closer we got to Austin the darker and more ominous it looked. We were about half an hour away from my barn (their next layover location) when we hit another crazy wall of rain. There was standing water everywhere. Slowly but surely we made our way through it and somehow managed to time it so that we made it to the barn and unloaded the horses before the next wave hit. Baby was a little more upset and wide eyed as the storm came rolling in but again she handled it pretty darn well, all things considered. Mare of course just seemed thrilled to be eyeball deep in hay with lots of cookies and a nice dry stall, so she didn’t much care about the rest of it.

I had to go back to work this morning so Michelle is on her own to make the 6ish hour trek back to where she lives. I think by now Mare and Baby are ready to be home! We had a good time though and she’s got a super nice new broodmare and filly to add to her breeding program. Extra congrats to Baby’s daddy Diabolo D’Esquelmes who has made it into round 3 of the 5yo YJC Midwestern League Finals this weekend in KY with two-for-two clear rounds so far! Go DD go!

Michelle got tons of inspection pictures with her nice camera so hopefully I’ll have lots of pretty mare and baby pictures for y’all sometime next week. Happy Friday!