Year: 2014

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!

 

 

With the farrier. As in, now he recognizes him on sight and stares at him lovingly with stars in his eyes the entire time he’s there.

Why, you ask? Cookies. I counted and he got no less than EIGHT cookies off the farrier by making his super irresistable “You give me cookie now, yes???” face. Farrier also talks to him, fly sprays him, rubs him, and tells him how fabulous he is. I guess I can’t blame him for being in love. But really, when Henry started licking the back of Farrier’s neck and laying his head on his back with his eyes close in pure bliss (while Farrier said “Umm… buddy…”), I came undone in hysterical fits of laughter. He loves him a lot like this:

Want to see what that looks like? Well, minus the laying his head on his back part, because I was laughing too hard to take pictures of that.

 

On a more exciting note, my Aztec Diamond stuff arrived yesterday! Will do a full review next week after I’ve gotten a few rides and a wash or two in.

 

 

 

I’m sure everyone has seen this goofy video by now about what your helmet choice says about you.

 

Look… I love my Speed Air, I really do.

And I know this is supposed to be a joke.

But I dunno y’all…

I just don’t get it.

I don’t understand what she’s trying to say about me.