Month: November 2017

I haven’t been able to participate in Clover Ledge Farm‘s NaBloPoMo prompts so far this month because I already had so much other stuff scheduled, but I’m gonna try to swing in here at the end and do a couple. Better late and incomplete than never, right? Plus I’m working hard on putting that annual Black Friday sales list together for you guys so I can post it tomorrow. Hope you’re ready to set your wallets on fire.

Anyway, today’s NaBloPoMo is “The Importance of Riding in My Life”… and like many of you, riding is absolutely critical for me. My world has revolved around horses and riding for such a long time, I don’t think there’s any other way that I could (or would want to) live. I eat, sleep, breathe this stuff, and spend most of my time thinking about it or reading about it or writing about it. One track mind? Definitely. Obsessed? Yeah probably.

I’ve tried to take a break from riding a couple of times… it doesn’t go so well. Apparently I have a pretty obsessive personality in general, and I don’t do well when my mind isn’t super occupied with something. On the first “break” (which ended up being, like… a month a half…) I threw myself into cooking. Like a lot. All the time. I bought so many cookbooks and made so many trips to the grocery store. The second “break” was when I first leased Sadie to Michelle – the plan was to get all the horses off my bills for a year or so and pay off all my debt. That was a cute plan. With nothing else to do, I threw myself 110% into triathlons and crit racing. For real, I was working out 2x a day just to keep myself busy and my mind occupied, and even then I ended up borderline crazy in the head. I was skinny, I was fit, and I was busy, but I wasn’t happy. Luckily that horseless period only lasted six months before I bought Henry.

I am definitely not myself when I’m not riding all the time. I just seem lost, like I’m floating around without a purpose, and I have nothing “fun” to give me that little reprieve from the stresses of real life. My stress and anxiety level starts to go up, and I find myself feeling uncertain about pretty much everything. Riding is definitely more than a hobby for me. It’s fun, sure, but also it gives me something to strive toward, and it keeps me grounded.

I’m also one of those people that needs their own horse, rather than just riding a bunch of others. I really enjoy building a relationship with a particular horse, growing over time, and bringing them along. I get an incredible amount of satisfaction out of that. Horses are so fantastic in that they never want anything from you (except maybe cookies) yet they’re willing to give you everything in return. And the truly great thing is that no matter how long you ride, there is always more to learn. Horses keep us humble. They show us our strengths and weaknesses. They teach us how to win, and they show us how to lose. They teach us what it’s like to persevere, and what it really means to have courage. And yes, sometimes horses break our hearts, but they also know how to fill them up like nothing else really can.

Not to mention that I really do have so very little in common with non-horse people. All of my best friends are my horse friends, and they’re the only ones that truly get me. Non-horse people just never seem to quite understand what makes us tick, or why we do the (usually completely insane) things we do. Plus, like, for real I cannot sit there and hold a conversation about Pinterest or Stitch Fix or whatever celebrity-du-jour for more than 30 seconds. It’s just not important to me, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.

So really, riding is of the utmost importance in my life. Hobby, therapy, family, purpose, sport, interpersonal relationships… you name it and horses & riding are “it” for me. I can’t even imagine a reality in which I didn’t have horses and riding in my life… it sounds horrible.

Am I the only one that’s like “oh thank god, cross country”? Not that we’re super great at XC either, but after stadium day I was looking forward to something that I was a little less shit at.

As we started warming up Ashley was on us right away with some of the same things from the day before – move the horse around, play with opening and then shortening the stride using seat and leg, keep them straight in the shoulders, etc. She still wanted to see the horses stay in the outside rein, and she wanted quicker and easier adjustments to the size of the stride and the balance of the horse.

I didn’t know it at the time, but a couple weeks ago at Texas Rose they had someone (or a couple someone’s, I dunno) out there on XC judging us for the Charles Owen Technical Merit Award. I had no idea, so when they emailed my score sheet I was like wtf is this. On one hand it was pretty cool to get some comments, but on the other hand there was literally no context given as far as what a good score is, and you don’t see anyone else’s score so you have no idea where you stack up in comparison. All of our scores were between 7.5 and 8, but like… I have no idea what that actually means. Really most of the takeaway that I got was that they told me to shorten my stirrups (which I meant to do before XC and totally forgot) and that we looked competent (LOL). I like the idea of the technical merit award but without any context the scores are kind of useless. I did remember to shorten my stirrups for XC day of the clinic though, so… thanks?

We went through a couple little warmup courses, which were fairly uneventful. Mostly feedback about keeping the balance and not letting the shoulders drift around turns and keeping the horse straight. I in particular really have to be there with a strong leg when I half halt from the seat so that my horse keeps coming forward instead of getting too up and down. Then we moved on to a little course, the toughest line of which was chevrons to the water, because it didn’t line up well and the approach was wonky. You basically had to come straight after the chevron, then rock them back, square the turn, hang a right, and then you had about two strides before jumping into the water to get them straight. I think I got yelled at once for letting him get too long and not keeping the power in the canter, which… that’s significantly less than stadium. I think I even got a few “good”s. Hell hath frozen over.

From there we moved on down the field to a combination that was a chevron, bending line to a faux-corner (made of stadium jumps). That got thrown into a couple of courses, riding it each way. It was a little bit of a forward distance when we jumped the corner second, but a whoaing distance when we jumped the corner first. That line worked out okay for me both ways, but we had to redo another bending line of smaller fences (ahem… twice) when I didn’t do an adequate job of changing the balance with my seat and leg in the middle of the line. Again, I need to be a bit more clear and effective, and not be afraid of really CHANGING the canter around, without going to my hands to do it.

After that we jumped the coffin line backwards, which rode really weird, but Henry is a champ so he powered through it like no big deal. The rest of the group had a lot of trouble here, I think because their horses are just a little lookier in general, which made the distances come up weird. Henry is definitely an easier ride in those situations.

Overall it was a good day, and I got some stuff to work on that I think will really help us in some of the combinations that we see at Training. I really appreciated that at the end Ashley went through all of us individually and recapped for us, telling us what we really need to focus on when we go home. It was a good review, especially considering my brain was reeling from everything that was thrown at it. So we will work on those things, and hopefully by the time we see Ashley again we will suck at least a little bit less.

Yeah, it does feel like we JUST did a clinic with Ashley. It was a little over a month ago actually, but the clinic was such a great success that Trainer brought her in again. Word on the street is that we’re going to try to bring her in on a pretty regular basis, which would be great. I think. My brain is still trying to reconcile everything that happened to it this weekend.

At the last clinic I took a private stadium lesson with Ashley on Friday and then let Trainer ride Henry in the clinic so she could get her “big jumps” post-baby balls back. This time it was all me in the clinic itself, starting with stadium on Saturday.

It’s no secret that stadium is our worst phase at the moment. As I’ve gotten better at the XC ride, I’ve gotten worse at the stadium ride, and I’m pretty sure I just live on the strugglebus right now. My eye has gotten a lot better, but my ability to be effective has gone on vacation somewhere and I dunno when it’s coming back. Soon, I hope. I miss it terribly. The horse needs a much better ride from me as the jumps go up, and right now he’s just not getting it. So I was 1 part excited for stadium day with Ashley, because she is the level of buttkicking that we really need, but also like 3 parts seriously dreading it, because I knew it would be tough. Especially when she started with “Okay, it’s off season! Time to get serious!”. Well shit, it felt pretty serious last time!

Some of the takeaways were the same as before, which isn’t surprising considering it’s only been a month. I really have to keep the POWER in his canter, and I have to do a better job of supporting him more with my leg and seat. My reaction time also has to be quicker, and my aids have to be more clear. Ashley said (and is 100% correct) that I suffer a little bit from paralysis up there… I tend to just sit and wait for it to be over, which is about as unhelpful as possible, and makes Henry end up really stuck in his lower back, therefore not good with his hind end. I really need to RIDE more, not be afraid to change the canter or the shape or the balance, not be afraid to move my body around and move his body around. I also need to be sure to really support him off the ground with my leg, pressing him up and across the fence. My patented maneuver is to abandon him and freeze up in the last stride, which again… about as unhelpful as possible.

I also need to get better about riding from my seat and leg FIRST, not my hand. She emphasized always PUSHING the horse forward into the whoa or the re-balance, and keeping them always connected in the outside rein. Like seriously, if I had a dollar for every time I heard the words “OUTSIDE REIN” and “KICK” all weekend, across all the lessons, I would be buying myself a pretty bangin Christmas present. Pulling on the inside rein and not using enough leg were common themes. We also practiced riding deep and powerful to low wide oxers to improve the horse’s shape across the fence.

Ashley said I really need someone around all the time to remind me to keep moving and changing things around, which I totally agree would help me a lot. Too bad I ride alone 99.9% of the time. Too bad I have literally 3 jumps in my field. Too bad I don’t jump very much in general. I’m going to sit down this week and re-examine my normal ride schedule and put more jump schools in there over the winter. Also gonna try to find some jumper classes over the next few months, so I can give myself some more practice in the ring. The horse doesn’t need it so much, but clearly I do. We’ll keep doing lessons whenever we can, too, obviously… I just continuously find myself wishing that I lived somewhere where all of this was a little easier and more convenient. Living is Austin isn’t helping my situation.

But at the end of the day, all of those things are just excuses, so I need to find a way to get it done anyway. I need to build some more jumps, fix my broken ones, and get creative with my schedule to make more jump schools and lessons possible. I need to focus more and I need to ride better. I owe it to my poor saintly horse, who is probably pretty tired of packing my paralyzed monkey ass around stadium. Guessing he’d appreciate a little help on my part.

However, I think the best part of Stadium Day was our potluck Thanksgiving dinner. Trainer’s husband fried up some turkeys and everyone brought sides to share. I ate so much that I kind of wanted to throw up, but I regret nothing because it was all so friggin good. Plus everything is better when you drown your feelings of inadequacy in gravy and stuff them inside of a dinner roll!

CATS, am I right?

The good news is, Grem is still really cute. The bad news is, she grew into her ears. I know, it’s a bummer, I miss those big bat ears. Her tail sure is FLUFFY now though so I guess it balances out.

I’ll be honest, the SO was not that happy with me when I showed up with a cat. He didn’t say as much, but his face gave him away. Neither of us have ever been cat people, and we had sure never talked about getting one. More dogs, yes. Always more dogs. But a cat??? Now, though… NOW he’s that guy that’s seriously obsessed with his cat. OBSESSED.

I won’t even tell you how many toys he’s bought her. I can’t, honestly, because they’re all under the couches and coffee table. She’s a hoarder deluxe.

Any initial hesitation Grem had about the dogs is completely gone now. She quickly conquered them and now rules them with an iron paw, spreading fear and terrorizing her subjects on a daily basis.

For real though, the corgi is LEGIT terrified of her. He won’t cross the living room without first looking both ways to see if he can spot the cat, which he inevitably always fails at, and ends up getting divebombed by her anyway. You’ve never seen a corgi run so fast in your life.

Delia, on the other hand, is her best playmate. It would figure that the biggest dog (she’s a GSD mix) would be the one who likes her the most. Those two will play for hours, and Delia is really careful not to step on her or bite her, even when Grem has affixed herself to Delia’s face. Stewie just tries to stay away from her in general… it didn’t take him long to figure out that she’s sharp and pointy at literally every end.

She is still in that full-fledged psychotic kitten phase, where her only two settings are Sleep and Spaz. She’s awfully cute when she’s sleeping. She’s less cute when she’s galloping laps around the house, springboarding off of furniture, dogs, and people, inevitably trying to literally climb the walls in the process. She can jump up on pretty much everything now, and has learned how to climb curtains and window screens.

She has this pretty cute habit of letting out a loud, throaty “MEEEEWWW” right before she does something terribly naughty… makes it kinda hard to get mad at her. There have been a few casualties of her insanity along the way, though.

But she’s also really sweet when she wants to be, and pretty “into” people. She will plop herself in your lap and demand cheek rubs, or try to cuddle your face at what is inevitably the most inopportune time. Again… pretty hard to get mad at her when she’s so damn cute.

Despite not being cat people she has managed to win us both over, and added a lot of humor to the house.

I do kinda feel sorry for the corgi though.

I gave Henry Monday off, then headed out on Tuesday with the intention of doing a long stretchy trot in the field. Except somewhere between pulling into the driveway and getting out of my truck, I lost any tiny amount of motivation I had and instead decided that it had been way too long since we used our trusty neck rope. How about a tackless hack instead? We could go for a long walk and add some trot in there, and Henry and I would both get a change of pace.

So I pulled him out, brushed him off, picked his feet, grabbed his neck rope and an Ogilvy pad (aka my bareback pad) out of the tack room, put on my helmet, and off we went. First we wandered down the driveway towards the front pasture, then looped back up the side road toward the chicken coop. One of the barn workers was in there feeding the chickens, and when he saw me pass by, his eyes bugged out and he said “You ain’t got NOTHIN on?? YOU CRAZY!”. Direct quote. I just kinda laughed at him and said “You might be right!” and went off on our merry way to the field (where Henry was super, btw, and never put a hoof out of place).

I started thinking about it though, as we kept walking. Is it nuts to ride a pretty fit TB event horse around in the wide open with nothing but a neck rope? Maybe. Probably. I can’t think of another horse I would do it on. But I trust Henry a lot, and we’ve spent a long time building up our relationship to this point. I’ve had him for almost four years. We’ve done A LOT together. I know him inside and out, and he knows me inside and out. I can pretty much always guess how he’s going to react to something. I would also like to think that he trusts me just as much as I trust him. I think he knows that I won’t put him in an unfair situation, and I think he respects my authority as “leader” (most of the time, anyway). I’ve been really careful and deliberate about cultivating that part of our relationship over the years. I want him to always feel confident in what I’m asking him to do, and it’s really important to me that he trusts me.

I ride him bridleless with some kind of semi-regularity, every few months or so, and he is as predictable as any living breathing thing can be. Also, running off just is not something that he would ever do. Of all the things that are in Henny’s repertoire, running for no specific reason just is NOT one of them. Stop and graze with no warning, almost chunking me over his head? Yes. Spook at something and relocate 10′ sideways in the blink of an eye? Sure. But I’m almost as likely to fall off from those things with tack as I am without it. I know for a fact that he just isn’t going to take off in the field and leave me physically unable to stop him. If I fall off otherwise, then oh well, I fall off. Just like I might do on any other given day anyway.

 

I really do enjoy our little tackless fun days, and they present a great opportunity to work on riding only from my seat and leg. Let’s be honest, it’s pretty neat to do figure 8’s of 10 meter circles in the middle of a giant field with no tack on. We spend a whole lot of time doing hard serious work, so it’s nice to just have a little bit of relaxed, no pressure, pure fun sometimes. Most of all though I’m just super appreciative to have a horse that can gallop around XC like a total badass on Sunday and then trot around the field with no tack on Tuesday. Horses like that don’t come along often, and I’m going to enjoy mine as much as I can for as long as I can. If that means I’m crazy… I’m okay with that.