Month: September 2014

Fall as in the season… not fall as in from atop the horse. Hopefully.

I’ve been dickering over the fall horse show schedule for a while. It briefly seemed like the VS outbreak might derail everyone’s plans, but knock on wood, it seems to have slowed down a lot in the last month. So, with three main criteria in mind – cost, fun, confidence – I finally made a plan. It’s a sorta weird and diverse plan, but I think it’ll work for us.

Sept 13 Jumper show. This show is held at my barn so it’s a given for me. Unfortunately our local show circuit doesn’t have a lot to choose from as far as jumper divisions go… there’s a 2’6″-2’9″ division and a 3′-3’3″ division. We’re schooling 3’3″ in lessons but I don’t think we’re ready to show that height yet, so 2’6″-2’9″ it is. A little on the smaller side of what I’d prefer, but on the other hand Henry IS still a pretty green horse, so the miles are helpful no matter how we get them. And knowing me I’ll probably do something really stupid anyway so the smaller height will be appreciated.

Sept 20 benefit show. I’m going to be out of town for the Mon-Thurs leading up to this so maybe not an ideal prep, but I can’t pass up a show that benefits an OTTB rescue. Henry really should be good to go if I can find someone to hack him a time or two while I’m gone… he doesn’t really get wild or bad with time off. This show is offering a little bit of everything but nothing over 2’6″, so I think I’m going to enter the hunter derby and the 2’6″ jumpers. Again on the small side, BUT I think I’m going to use this show as the first time Henry doesn’t get to school in the ring and see the jumps before he has to go in for the class. All spring we went to multi-day shows where we were able to get in the ring and school the day before. Might as well test him “cold” at a show where the classes are cheap and it’s all for fun anyway, that way if it’s a disaster I’m not that upset.

Here’s where things get a little less set in stone, but this is what I’m hoping to have happen:

Oct 18 Eventing Derby. I really want the late fall and winter to be fun and low-pressure for both of us, so I’m choosing to stray off my normal path and mix it up a bit. I’ve heard good things about this venue as far as it being pretty “first timer/greenie” friendly, therefore this seems like a good intro to eventing for Henry. Plus I really want to take advantage of having a cool eventing trainer and eventing peeps at my barn, so after I’m done with my two jumper shows I’ll start wandering into some of their lessons too. I’ve evented (ok, a decade ago) but I’ve never done an eventing derby, so this will be new to me too. Aside from that pesky dressage part (kill me now) it looks pretty fun. We’ll probably just keep it easy and enter BN since the whole thing is new to him and it’s been such a long time for me.

Dec 7 Event. Yup, the full shebang. I really don’t care if we’re competitive at all, I just want to finish. But I’m hoping that this will help make him more confident, more bold, and prevent him from getting bored with the sometimes monotonous day-in-day-out jumper lifestyle, plus help my riding. We’ll most likely stick to BN again because a) a confident horse is the main goal b) solid things start to freak me out over a certain height, and that height is roughly Novice. I evented through Training before but that was back when I was young enough to not care so much about the fences not falling down when I messed up. Self-preservation, I has it.

In case you’re keeping track: yes that’s hunters, jumpers and eventing all in one season. Because why the heck not? Hope you’re happy, eventers… dark side, here I come (to dip my toe very delicately into your business, then go running back to jumperland in the spring where dressage tests are not required).

Of course now that I’ve put it in writing I’ve probably cursed myself for sure.

It’s twofer Wednesday!

First, 10 Questions from L. of Viva Carlos:

1. Is your horse spooky or bombproof? There’s definitely a spook in there, but for the most part he’s got a good brain. Maybe a 4 on a 10 scale.
2. Does your horse have a long or short stride? Average.
3. Describe your current barn in 3 words? Educational, fun, diverse

4. If you could switch barns, would you? Nope. See above photo.
5. Favorite brand of breeches? Animo and Aztec Diamond
6. How many blue ribbons do you have? No freakin clue. I started showing 20 years ago and have either given or thrown away the vast majority of my ribbons… I just don’t keep track of them. “Lots” is the best I can do.
7. How many saddle pads do you own? A couple half pads and 6 or 7 baby pads, plus a shaped hunter show pad.
8. Is your horse your phone background/lock screen? Yes, lock screen
9. Do you go trail riding often? No real trails in the riding vicinity but we take walks around the property or hack out in the fields more often than not.
10. Favorite horsey movie? Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit, no doubt. It’s about a jumping horse so basically there’s no contest here for me. Seabiscuit and War Horse would tie for second.

And B at Auf der Autobahn is running a blog hop about what’s in your tack trunk! She asked us to “share your equipment essentials, from protective boots to bridles, saddles and saddle pads, breastplates to bits!”. Can’t resist that. Unfortunately I don’t just have a tack trunk. I have a tack locker, a tack trunk, the trunk of my car, the backseat of my car, the guest bedroom, and a Rubbermaid bin. So… ahem… we’ll just pick the top 3 spots.

My favorite (and least embarrassing) is my big locker/closet at the barn. My saddle (CWD) is obviously the biggest item in there with my Ogilvy and girth/breastplate on top, but I’ve also got my XC vest, the hackamore bridle, the Mark Todd bridle, my bathing bucket, my grooming bucket, Ovation and GPA helmets, a couple Rubbermaid drawers and my clipper bag (has my Lister body clippers and Andis “everyday” clippers plus all my extra blades and accessories). And umm… yeah that’s two 3lb buckets of treats. Spoiled pony. The left Rubbermaid drawer has polos and fly bonnets, the right one has boots (two sets of open front and hind ankle and one full set of galloping boots) and tack cleaning stuff. I can’t wait for my PS of Sweden bridle to come and join the mix. I do have plans to move one of my home Rubbermaid tubs to the bottom but just haven’t done it yet.

My show trunk, which lives in the garage with SO’s ’56 Mercury. There’s mostly just random stuff in here… DMSO, sticky spray, liniment, my quarter mark stencil, whip, the Ariat Heritage gloves that I HATE, random stuff you need at shows, etc.

And Henry’s wardrobe. Or the trunk of my car. Whichever. There’s a turnout sheet (Amigo), turnout blanket (Schneiders), two coolers (old school wool Newmarket and irish knit), a quarter sheet (wool of course), Sadie’s Nibblenet and some human clothes/rain gear in there too. I have nowhere in my house to put this stuff soooo it’s just lived here since spring.

This weekend at the barn I was accosted with one of the biggest dangers known to man… someone trying to give you a puppy. It took every ounce of restraint I had, but I was able to walk away from her (after taking a few pictures and sending them to the SO of course). The key is to not make direct eye contact… it’s a known fact that puppy eyes steal your soul. We already have two dogs, a 9yo and a 7yo, so it really probably isn’t the right time to add a puppy into the mix. Boy she was cute though and I was super tempted.

Otherwise it was a pretty typical weekend. Saturday morning was a semi-long flatwork session, and Henry was really superb. I think he likes his new shoes. When I got on Sunday morning for my lesson he was feeling a bit tired though (the humidity was pretty high). Because of that we kept the flatwork as brief as possible then went right to work. Our o/f warmup was a simple figure eight over a small vertical, jumping it at an angle.

The first time over we were a bit too bold with our pace, but once I compressed the canter a little it worked out really well. Henry’s always pretty game to jump on an angle. After that we did more of a square figure eight… the goal being to get the horse very straight over the jump even off a quite short (the turn was only about 2 strides away from the jump) approach.

That also went pretty well, although now I was whoa-ing a little too much instead of continuing to come forward out of the turn, which made for a couple really deep distances.

Then we strung a course together. Same vertical went up to about 3′, jumping off the right lead. Then left turn to an airy oxer (about 3’3″), back to the first vertical again, right turn to the outside in-and-out which was a forward one stride, around to a vertical to vertical short two-stride.

Again I started too slow, which made the one stride pretty gappy. For some reason I was having a heck of a time holding onto my right rein and it completely slipped through my hand coming into the two stride. I also biffed the distance so between those two things I abandoned ship instead of trying to jump out. I had the same problem the second attempt… it’s like I start out too conservative with the pace, then build as we go. And having a very short two stride right after a pretty forward one stride really pointed that out. Tricky course design, Trainer… very tricky. Finally we did manage to get it right, so we ended on that note. I will say that we really nailed that single oxer every time, which is pretty amazing for me because normally I’m of the “big single oxer in the middle of nowhere – I shall change my mind 9000 times on the approach and end up totally eating it!” type. Henry gets a bucket of cookies for being super game the whole time, even with my mistakes, and even though the jumps were on the big side for him, and even though he was tired. Good po-neigh.

After that he got a nice cool bath and a long graze. I also spent some time this weekend trying to figure out our fall schedule. Basically so far I’ve got a jumper show (low stuff, I don’t think he’s quite ready to show in the higher division offered at our local shows), a hunter derby, an eventing derby, and a schooling horse trial. We shall never be bored!

Since I’m off today I’m headed out again… we’ll see how tired he feels. Hope everyone else is enjoying a long weekend too!