Year: 2014

What a doozy. For as awesome as last weekend was, this one was basically the opposite.

To kick things off on Friday, I decided to do my baseline time for 2Pointober. Since I’m a cyclist and my legs are basically the only strong part of me (not that you would ever know from my equitation), I felt pretty confident that I could get a good time. I even acquired a witness so there would be no doubt about the legitimacy of my time. And because I’m the stupidest stubbornest person in the world, I didn’t just go until I was tired, I went until my legs were quivering and my feet were numb and I could not hold myself up any longer. It’s called a challenge for a reason right?

The only problem with that approach was that the next morning I was basically crippled. My body was trashed from the waist down. Butt, quads, hamstrings, calves – all destroyed. On any other day it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but that particular day was the first cyclocross race of the season and I had a 3:00pm start. Crap. I tried stretching, I tried massage, I tried riding around on my bike for a while in an easy gear. Nothing loosened my legs up at all. As long as I didn’t really exert any force on the pedal or have to run/jump, I was fine. Unfortunately ‘cross is nothing BUT exertion and running and jumping. I came out of the start pretty strong but by the end of the first lap when we had to dismount and climb up a pretty steep hill, my legs gave me the middle finger and I pretty much just watched the rest of the field pass me one by one. I ended up finishing a miserable 21st out of 32… my worst EVER. Although I suppose I made out better than the poor girl who got wrecked at the start and separated her shoulder.

And just as a nice cherry on top: my exercise induced asthma, which really only kicks in during bike races, was at full force. My chest hurt so bad and I’ve had a pretty gross sounding cough ever since. We won’t even talk about what I’m coughing up. On the bright side – at least the rest of my body now hurt just as much as my legs. Saturday night was just painful.

Sunday morning I had plans for a jumping lesson, then I was gonna jet down to Pine Hill (about a 1.5hr drive) to cheer on some friends at an event. Unfortunately I had the worst jumping lesson I think I’ve ever had in my life, and my legs felt fairly okay so I can’t even blame it on that. I’ll spare you the details but basically I crashed my poor horse into two different giant oxers because I just could not get my shit together and make a good decision. I have no idea why Henry even tried to jump them, except that obviously he must be made of solid gold. So I did what any self-respecting ammy would do and hid in the washrack crying, blubbering something about how my horse trusted me and I let him down and was going to ruin him. I cry very very rarely but when I do it’s always a hysterical mess. And because I did that for so long I ended up being too late to really make it to the event, so I just went back out to day 2 of the cyclocross races and cheered on my teammates there instead. I just kept my shades on so no one could see my bloodshot eyes or my shame.

What an utter shit show of a weekend, and it’s no one’s fault but my own.

But on the plus side, my leg already felt more solid on Sunday. Woot 2 point! Stupid stupid 2 point…

Oh, and don’t forget to go enter Viva Carlos’ 1000th post giveaway!

 

 

 

I love all of Viva Carlos‘ 10 questions posts. They’re brilliant.

1. Is there something you don’t like about your riding? Lots. Mostly my hunchy shoulders and amazing ability to lean.
2. Does your horse buck? Ha! No. He tries to sometimes but it’s just a head twisty, dolphin leap type maneuver. I don’t think his hind end has actually ever made it off the ground when he thinks he’s “bucking”.
3. Is your horse head shy? No, but he doesn’t want his ears clipped even under sedation. I oblige him by buying him a million ear bonnets and pretending the ear hair isn’t there.
4. Favorite barn chore to do? Feeding. I like being neighed at… who doesn’t?
5. How many times do you ride a week? Usually 5, sometimes only 4.
6. Who is your favorite pro rider? Joe Fargis.
7. If one pro rider could train you for one day who would it be? Same, Joe Fargis.
8. Favorite Facial Marking? A star and snip.
9. Leg Markings or No Leg Markings? No leg markings. I don’t mind a couple little white socks but chrome is a) annoying to keep clean b) visually tricky if it’s not totally even. Plus I always have thought that if a horse is beautiful in a plain brown wrapper, that’s how you know it’s truly beautiful. Too many people can’t see past chrome.
10. Ever broken anything falling off? Tail bone, ribs, elbow.

Also, Frank arrived on Wednesday night and the bridle lot arrived yesterday. It was all a little thirsty so they got a good conditioning and I put together the bridle pieces I like most and think will fit the best. We’ll find out tonight! I opted for the padded comfort crown and the rubber lined reins.

And apparently we won a gift certificate for a set of FlexSleeves at the eventing derby last weekend. Anyone used these before? They’re basically like compression socks for horses which made me giggle. But… maybe? They’re meant to be used in place of standing wraps. We shall see. For free I’ll happily try them.

 

When a friend is coming to town and says “We should go XC schooling!” it’s really not much of a decision. Especially when the destination is my favorite place for XC… Pine Hill. So much like XC school #1, this one was pretty last minute and unplanned, but that didn’t make it any less fun.

We started out jumping the BN fences but after a few they just felt pretty unchallenging, so I switched over to the Novice course. Henry is a rockstar. I’m really just kind of blown away with how good he is about XC. Never would have expected it from this horse, honestly… he’s not what you would normally imagine an eventer to be. But he just seems to really love it and is so willing.

And stills, for those who don’t want to watch video. 😉

 

For reals. Where did this pony come from and how is he so amazing?

Ok, drunken is probably too strong of a word but let me set the stage for you here.

It was Saturday evening. I’d had a great day at the horse show, came home to find a pretty amazing offer from a custom coat company in my messages, had set up a badass lunch/dinner (linner? lupper? dunch?) of cheese and crackers and fruit and pepper jelly and trail mix, and my SO had brought home a new limited edition ice cream flavor that I’d been trying to find for a month. You could say I was riding high on life. Add in a couple of Angry Orchards, give me a computer, put me on ebay, and well… I can’t really be blamed for what occurred thereafter.

So there I was, contemplating how the day had gone and how Henry really seemed to just click with all of this. I thought maybe we could actually give this eventing thing a little bit of a go. And I thought of how annoying it was to try to ride the dressage test in my very very forward CWD… it’s just not built for that. So off I went perusing the internet browsing saddles, just kinda getting an idea of what might work and how much I was really looking at having to spend to find something decent and suitable. There was zero intention here of buying anything, mostly just thinking ahead and figuring maybe later in the winter or in the spring.

Then I stumbled across a Frank Baines Capriole. When I evented back in the day I distinctly remember sitting in a FB Capriole a few times and loving it. This one was made around that time and also looked like a promising fit for Henry. So, with my cider in one hand, giggling to myself, I made a super lowball offer that I never in a million years thought they would take. I went to bed thinking about how indignant that poor person would probably be when they saw my offer.

Guess what was waiting for me in my email the next morning? “Congratulations, you bought this item!” WHAT? Really?!?!?! I’m ok with it because I feel like I got a fantastic deal, but it was definitely unexpected. Everyone say hello to Frank. Frank Baines.

Not long after the initial shock/excitement wore off I realized I have absolutely no accessories for this thing. No girth, no extra leathers, no extra stirrups, no pads to fit it, and no black bridles. Guess what I did for most of the day on Sunday?

The girth and stirrups were pretty easy to nab for cheap from a quick cruise through ETT on facebook. Since this was an unplanned purchase I’m trying to keep everything as cheap as possible without actually being gross or heinous, which is hard for a picky person. My plan is to start with this stuff and if I actually keep doing this and like it, I’ll upgrade next year. Finding a bridle proved much tougher. I had a pretty low price point in mind but I’m really really picky about bridles and I hate web reins. Why do most dressage bridles come with those awful things? Then yesterday morning I was perusing eBay again (not intoxicated this time) and found a bridle and bridle parts lot. I again made an offer and again – it was accepted. Score! So now I have these goodies headed my way. I figure I’ll pick and choose which stuff to keep and sell off the rest.

I still have to buy leathers and a pad, although I think I’ve decided on which pad I want. I didn’t really realize quite what I was getting into here when I gleefully pushed that “Make Offer” button, did I?

There’s a lesson to be learned here: don’t drink and eBay. But if you do, make sure you’re getting a rockin good deal.

 

This post is part 2 of our weekend show adventure. In yesterday’s part 1 I covered our eventing derby. Originally I had entered both the BN eventing derby and the hunter derby. I really considered the hunter derby my back up plan, in case the eventing derby was a disaster or if I just felt like he needed to get in the ring again. However on Friday a friend of mine from the barn, Kristina, decided along with our trainer that her horse wasn’t quite ready to go to the show. She had only signed up for an Intro dressage test, so I offered to let her ride Henry for it instead if she wanted to. Her horse is kind of tough and I know she has felt frustrated lately. I think most of us can understand how demoralizing tough/green horses can be sometimes, and I figured she deserved to still be able to horse show and have a good time. So she hopped on Henry on Friday evening to see if he would work for her and they seemed to get along just fine. As long as you’re light with your hands and leg he’s a pretty simple horse, and I trusted him to be well behaved enough for her.

So I scratched the hunter derby and we switched her dressage entry over to my horse. About half an hour before her test we tacked him up with her dressage saddle, tossed her on, and off she went. She too opted for a very basic short warm up since space was so limited, and she mainly just walked around with a little bit of trotting until it was time for her test.

I don’t have pictures but I did take video… however not sure if she’d be comfortable with me sharing it here so you get stills instead. They went in and she did a really good job, especially considering she’d only ridden him once before and for about 10 minutes! He was a little bit too keen after the first halt and picked up a canter step, but once she got a couple movements into the test they both seemed to take a deep breath and settle in. They ended up with a 61% which was good enough for 3^rd! She seemed very happy with him and said she had a blast, so I was delighted. I get a lot of joy out of seeing my horse bring someone else a little bit of happiness. I offered to let her take lessons on him sometimes and take him to more dressage shows at Intro and Training level if she wants to. I think he’s a great horse to get her confidence built back up and have a little bit of fun on, to offer some relief from her tougher greener horse. And it’s good for him to be ridden by someone else sometimes anyway.

After we were done and back at the trailer (and Henry’d had about two dozen cookies) some other mutual friends of ours, a husband and wife, came up to chat. In addition to riding, the husband has a real penchant for in-hand work and the little versatility trail course that was set up at the show was too much for him to resist. I handed Henry over and let them go play around over the trail obstacles. By this point Henry was giving me the eye like “What is this, musical pony?” but he gamely went through the weave poles, the tightly stacked hay bales, the cross of poles on the ground, the curtain of garden hoses, the teeter totter, and the pool noodles. This horse is just too much.

By the time he was back at the trailer again Henry was feeling like he was tired of amusing us and ready to go home for his nap, so we settled our bills, grabbed our ribbons, and headed home. He was just such a superstar from start to finish and did every single thing we asked of him, no matter how silly. He might not be super fancy or super athletic or super flashy but this boy is worth his weight in gold. You just can’t beat that brain.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the thing I bought on Saturday night, and all the other little things I’ve subsequently had to buy because of it…