Month: August 2015

I’m trying to find something to say about this day that doesn’t sound like whining or sour grapes. That could prove to be a little difficult, honestly.

It started well… we rolled out of the barn around 7am and arrived at our destination in west Texas well before noon. We were one of the first groups to arrive so we had lots of room and time to unload and set up out stabling area. AND, since our group was the first to send in our entries, we got the best stalls/spot on the property. Major score.

After settling in we tacked up the horses and took them out to stretch their legs. The facility has a trail running all the way around the perimeter of the property, so we had a nice little light trail ride and then put them away.

Bobby and I both had volunteered to do our dressage on Friday evening to help speed things along on Saturday, so we pretty much sat around the rest of the afternoon and played the waiting game. Finally 6pm rolled around and I hopped on to head to the warmup.

Our dressage at home has been kind of tense and crappy the past couple weeks, for some reason he’s been in canter-canter-canter mode, so I was really just focused on coaxing Henry through the test without him getting upset. Our warmup was mostly walking and halting and trotting and walking and halting and leg yields. That tactic has worked really well for me, almost like boring him to death a little bit so that he settles.

As soon as we started trotting around the outside of the dressage ring he screamed once for Halo, and I got a little concerned for a second. But he went in and honestly tried super hard to be a good boy. He was a bit tense throughout, his little mouth was chomping at times, and the trot-canter transitions & halt were of course not good (they never are), but otherwise I was super pleased with him. Not our best effort but certainly not our worst. Fairly steady, at least, with no major loss of rhythm or disobedience.

When I saw that the score was a 38 I wasn’t very happy – our worst ever. When I got the test itself and read the comments, I was even less happy. When I saw that we ended up 12th of 14, behind horses that were explosive, had their noses way behind the vertical, and/or were flipping their heads the whole time, I might have had a bit of a moment. We got the same score as a horse who did all of it’s canter work traveling completely sideways and barely kept all 4 feet on the ground. I kept watching the video and reading her scores/comments, trying to see what she was seeing, and 75% of the time I just couldn’t.

Comment on this turn: unbalanced

Comment for this canter circle: heavy on forehand

Comment for this canter-trot transition: crooked

I sent the video and the scores/comments to my dressage trainer at home and he at least validated my feelings by saying “That’s bullshit”. I guess sometimes the judge just really doesn’t like you, and this was our day.

That said, I really could not have been happier with Henry. I felt like he showed a lot of maturity to keep himself together even though he was tense and nervous. A few months ago that would not have been the case. He did everything I asked him to do, when I asked him to do it. The pieces will get better as we go along, and I thank the judge for her opinion, but this score sheet is going in the trash. I don’t disagree with the score I got, we all know how subjective the actual numbers are, but I definitely disagree with where we ended up in the pack as compared to some of the other tests I saw.

Tomorrow – on to the fun stuff! And a bit of redemption…

Because after the last 5 things, it wasn’t long before 5 more things showed up on the need list. Most of which are Riding Warehouse’s fault, as usual. I get those emails that are like “See what’s new at Riding Warehouse!” and I’m like “That sounds like a great idea, please show me what’s new, this will be super! Clicky-clicky!” and we end up with more posts like this. To my credit, I only bought one of the 5 things on the last list. Granted, I tried to buy another but it was sold out. Details.

1. Kastel Denmark sunshirt in yellow. Because last time everything was navy, and because my life needs more  yellow, and because Kastel is my absolute favorite.
2. Ovation Fashionista H belt in navy. Ok, more navy, I know. But the price is right, it’s cute, and we’re going to pretend like the H stands for Henry. The only way this belt could be improved was if the horse was a unicorn.
3. Tuffrider neon peach breeches. I can’t really explain this one, except to say that I’m in a really big peach/coral phase right now and I feel like these would go well with my plethora of navy things.  Don’t judge me.
4. This brown CWD dressage saddle. Go ahead, look it in the eyes and tell it you don’t love it. Can’t, can you? I dig the brown dressage tack.

5. Which means you’re gonna need this to go with it – PS of Sweden’s newest model, the Get Set. Word is that they will eventually offer interchangeable nosepieces for it, too. Oh the possibilities.

After you’re done either drooling over everything or questioning my taste/judgment, don’t forget to go check out the Unicorn Contest. As of right now I have no entries. Zero, zilch, nada. So I guess Bobby and I get to keep all that awesome stuff for ourselves instead of give it away!

The end of August in Texas is still basically mid-summer for us, so it’s still hot as hell here. There are very few recognized horse trials in the summer because of that, but the one we’re going to this weekend has a pretty good way to work around it:

Basically everything happens either before noon or after 6pm. Because no one wants to ride in 100 degree heat with 50% humidity. No one. But at 10am it should only be about 80 (granted, with around 70% humidity) and at 6pm is should be about 90 (with more like 35% humidity), both of which are better than 100 degrees in the mid-afternoon sun in West Texas where there’s not much shade.

I’ll be bringing a lot of ice, ice packs, and fans.

I will also try to keep our warm-ups under 15 minutes. Mostly walking before dressage, and just a quick canter and a couple jumps before Stadium and XC. This will be Henry’s second Novice and the rumor is that the courses will be set soft (and the XC speed is only 350mpm) so I just want him to hop around and get more confident at the level. We only need 3 more completions to qualify for the N3DE next year, so that takes a lot of pressure off. I’ll go with the same plan I had at Greenwood and Texas Rose with the dressage: calm and quiet, even if it means leaving points on the table. He’s still easily frazzled by dressage and Novice Test B doesn’t flow so well for us, so this will be our standard tactic for a while to come. I would not mind getting back another dressage test with comments like “lazy” and “needs more forward”. For this horse that’s a win.

Coats are waived so I’m gonna go pick up a purple sunshirt to wear in honor of my mom. It’ll match Henry’s purple braids.

It’s been a long 12 weeks since Texas Rose, I’m beyond ready to get this fall season on the road! Corona this weekend, AEC in 4 weeks, Greenwood 2 weeks after that, and then wrapping up 3 weeks later on Halloween at Pine Hill. Let’s do this. Also, Bobby is moving up to Novice this weekend because peer pressure totally works. And he’s going to kick everyone’s ass, as usual, including mine.

Normally I really hate doing how-to posts because it makes me feel like a little bit of a douchebag, but since several people asked, I’ll show you my process for a tail makeover.

Henry’s tail started out sunbleached, almost touching the ground, and pretty unkempt:

If he was a hunter I would have dyed it and left it alone. If he was a jumper I would have dyed it and banged it a few inches. Since he’s an eventer I dyed it, banged it about 6″, and trimmed the top.

What you’ll need:

• scissors and/or clippers
• hair dye (see more about that below)
• a plastic grocery bag
• vet wrap
• clothes you don’t mind getting trashed

I started off by trimming the top of his tail. There are a lot of ways to do this, my method of choice just being one of many, but it’s the one I’m most comfortable with and it works for me. A lot of people swear that pulling a tail is the only way to go – I’m not one of them. I will never pull a horse’s tail. So that leaves either the scissor method or the clipper method. I feel like I have a little more control with clippers, so that’s what I use. How far down the tail you go is up to you – some go quite a ways down the tail bone, but I personally just go the point of the rump, which ends up being about 6 inches. I pretty much do exactly what’s shown in the video linked above, making sure to go slow and be very deliberate about what I’m shaving off. Remember – you’re only trimming the hair on the sides, never ever ever the hair on the top.

With that done, it’s time to dye. You could bang it first if you wanted to, but I prefer to do it afterward when the tail is totally detangled and brushed out so you get a tidier cut.

Which hair dye to use has a lot to do with personal preference. My favorite is Clairol, either in Natural Darkest Brown or Natural Soft Black. If you get a very dark, blue-black color it will look a bit TOO dark and unnatural. Some people prefer to use dye specifically formulated for ethnic hair, but I’ve never had a problem with the Clairol taking and holding well, and it’s easy to find, so I’ve just stuck with it.

When you’re dying a tail, make sure that you’re either wearing black or something you don’t mind getting dye all over. Maybe other people out there are neater than I, but it’s inevitable that I get some on myself somewhere. Usually several somewheres. Also – fly spray your horse first. The last thing you want when you’re trying to dye a tail is to have them trying to fling it around all over the place.

Before I get started I put a nice generous coating of conditioner (Vaseline or something similar would work too, but I just use some of the conditioner that comes in the dye kit) on the sides of the rump near where the tail sits and above the dock. You don’t want any dye seeping onto the hair on the rump and making dark spots. If your horse has white on it’s hind legs and you don’t trust yourself to be tidy with the dye (I wouldn’t), put a layer of conditioner on those too.

This is what I call The Point of No Return. Once you start putting dye on the tail you can’t let go of it until it’s bagged. So before you start, make sure your hair is tied back out of your face and make sure you have all of your supplies handy. Put on the gloves included with the dye kit, follow the instructions for mixing, and apply the dye to the tail. I typically start at the top and work my way down so that I have more control over the tail as it gets coated (you DO NOT want the horse getting its tail loose from your grasp and whacking you in the face or itself in the body with a tail that is covered in dye!). This is a pretty simple process, just do your best to get full coverage. You can always go back later and touch it up.

When you’re finished applying the dye, it’s time to wrap up the tail. Before you start any of this, make sure your horse is okay with a plastic bag on it’s butt. None of mine have ever minded, but ya know… I’d feel bad if one of y’all died while dying. Take the bottom part of the tail and shove it into the plastic bag, tying a secure double knot at the top around the tail bone.

Some just leave it like this while the dye sets but I like for it to be extra secure, so I also take a roll of vet wrap and wrap over the knotted part of the bag, then all the way up the tail. That helps keep everything in place even if the horse starts swishing.

Let the dye set for however long it says in the instructions. I personally tend to err on the side of too long as opposed to not long enough. Usually that ends up being the perfect amount of time to pull/trim the mane, clip the fetlocks and bridlepath, and give Instagram a quick perusal.

After it has set, take all the wrappings out and rinse the tail until the water runs clear. Some people like to shampoo at this stage – I do not. I usually don’t shampoo for at least a few days after, but I’m not sure that it actually matters, it’s just how I do things. I rinse the tail and apply a good liberal coating of the conditioner that came in the dye kit, using the opportunity to work out all the knots and tangles with my fingers. Then I give it another good rinse, double check for any missed spots, and let it dry. Keep whatever left over dye you have and you can use it over the next couple days if you need to touch up anything… sometimes it’s hard to see missed spots until it’s all dry.

Once it’s dry it’s time to bang. Make sure everything is totally brushed out first, and then figure out how short you want to go. Typically if you have a horse that is built a little downhill (like mine) or tends to travel a bit on the forehand (like mine), you want to keep it a touch longer. A longer tail helps balance out a slightly front-heavy horse… or so they say. I’ll go with it. You also want to consider how high your horse’s natural tail carriage is.

My particular horse is pretty busy with his tail and tends to carry it a little bit “up”, so if I banged his tail at mid-cannon it would look very short when he was in motion. With all of that in mind, I banged his just above the fetlock, so that when he’s in motion it falls about mid-cannon. The finished product looks like this:

As I said in the beginning, this is just my particular process that I’ve developed over the years after a lot of trial and error. Feel free to experiment and use/do whatever works best for you, but hopefully this helps get you started!

Henry is the one growing, and it’s causing my wallet a lot of pain.

As many of you might recall, Henry lost quite a bit of weight last year at our previous barn, which is what prompted the move to our current place.

Since the move he’s really blossomed, putting on a ton of weight and muscle. His girth is 5 holes tighter and he’s rounded out so much that’s he’s starting to look like an applebooty. I’m pretty thrilled, because he looks and feels amazing and at this point I think his condition is perfect. Of course, there are other things impacted by the massive change in condition. It started a couple weeks ago when I went to put on his fancy PS of Sweden breastplate and had to basically crush his windpipe to clip it across his chest. A month prior I had to let it out several holes but this time there were no more holes left. Crap, he’s outgrown his cob. I guess that makes sense, since his chest has pretty much doubled in size from when I bought it. So I ordered a full, pulled out the backup breastplate to use in the mean time, grumbled a little, and got over it.

Then we had a couple of dressage rides in a row where he really tensed up any time I sat the trot and had some icky canter work. After the second bad ride I tossed my beloved Devoucoux up on him to check the fit and wow… there’s no denying it doesn’t fit at all anymore. The hollows that he used to have on either side of his wither are gone, and he’s significantly flatter from side to side across his back. My jumping saddle, which I was having to pad up six ways to Sunday before, is a pretty perfect fit now. So… at least there’s that. Because CWD = ❤ Unfortunately there is no denying that the Devoucoux is definitely pinching and sitting funny, and I can’t ride him in it anymore. Cue me feeling really really stupid for not thinking to check that before now.

Here we are a month before AEC and I’m basically dressage saddle-less. So now what? I can have the Dev repaneled, but it’s $900 and I don’t particularly trust them to get it done right or in a timely manner. The only viable option for me is to sell it and then try to find something else. That pains me greatly because I love the hell out of that saddle for me, but Henry has filled out in such a way that there’s just no making it work for him. I took pictures of it and officially listed it for sale last weekend. I’m hoping that it sells before AEC and that several vendors show up there with used saddles for me to try. But for now… it looks like we’re doing all our dressage work in my super forward CWD.

Henry is not allowed to change shape ever again after this, and every horse after him must be built the same. Saddle shopping is the worst. I have no idea what I want, no idea what will work for him, no idea what will work for me, and nowhere closeby that has lots of consignment saddles I can happily trial my way through. Ugh.