Month: January 2018

Henry is not what you would call a naturally talented galloper. That beautiful, fluid, effortless gait that thoroughbreds have been bred for, selectively, for centuries… he does not have it. He’s naturally a bit high-highed, and the faster he goes, the more it looks like a wild flinging of legs that’s mostly just going in circles instead of forward. Bless him, because in his mind he is SO FAST.

He also doesn’t have much desire to gallop. It’s not at all surprising that he never made it past the training track to a real race. Not long after I got him I managed to track down his breeder to see if she remembered him… her words were “Oh yeah, that portly little bay colt. The only damn thing he ever ran to was the feed bucket.”. Yep, she was definitely thinking of the right colt. Henry is generally a quiet horse, but when he does have some excess energy to expel, he tends to get stuck going up and down instead of forward. He may have taken after his stakes-winning sire in mannerisms, but definitely not in gallop.

This hasn’t been a problem in his eventing career, since we’re at the lower levels. When we moved up to Training we both kind of had to learn how to hustle a bit… 470mpm is fast enough to require some conscious effort on my part. I’ve learned to be very aware of the path I take and the ground I cover, not taking any more steps than I absolutely have to. We land and we turn, or we land and immediately go forward again… no dawdling or taking a scenic route.

Thus far he’s had no problem making the time at Training, except for Texas Rose where we took a long route option. Prelim speed would definitely be a lot harder for him though. His stride is shorter and relatively bouncy… not the long, efficient, ground covering gallop that you’d look for in an upper level horse. Luckily we have no upper level aspirations, so it’s not a problem.

One of the unexpected side effects from our foxhunting adventure is a marked improvement in Henry’s gallop. We spent most of the beginning of that day hustling our butts off to stay in the middle of the pack. Henry would go just as fast as needed to in order to keep up with the other horses, but he never really settled into a nice smooth open gallop. Finally on one of the longer stretches, about an hour and half into the hunt, Trainer’s horse went blowing past Henry like he was standing still (um yes, her horse was actually a real racehorse) and another little mare came up quickly beside him. I don’t know exactly what triggered it in that moment, but Henry decided to dig in.

His stride suddenly felt like it doubled in length, and it seemed like his belly got lower to the ground. He decided he was done getting passed, and he started moving those little legs like he’s never done before. He finally found a real gallop.

At the end of all of our conditioning rides I usually let him have a short little gallop stretch if the ground isn’t too hard. Before that foxhunting day, he would definitely speed up and go for a little breeze, but it was still mostly just a lot of leg flinging. Since that foxhunting day, every time I let him out he lengthens his stride and those little legs start flying like a quarter horse in an all out sprint. Something finally clicked in Henry, whether it was simply the desire to go faster or just figuring out how to do so. He’s still not FAST, but he’s definitely faster, and his gallop is a lot more fluid.

At almost 11 years old, guess he’s a wee bit late for his racing career, but I’m interested to see if I feel any difference next time we come out of the start box.

Aside from Henry being a total moron in the trailer on Saturday, last week brought another interesting trailer-related event. A giant bird flew directly into my truck while I was hauling. Let me set the stage.

It was late afternoon last Wednesday, and Henry and I were headed to our dressage lesson. It’s not very far, about 20 minutes door to door, and the route takes us down some kinda twisty farm roads but overall it’s an easy drive. There’s one stretch, only about a mile and half long, that has a couple of steep hills in addition to curves. The speed limit on that road is 45mph, and there I was, chugging up the steepest hill around 40mph.

As I came to the crest of the hill the road curved to the right, and at that moment I saw a giant hawk on the opposite shoulder, picking up something that looked quite dead. Another car was coming from the other direction, so the hawk hurriedly flew sideways to get across that lane before the car could get there. Clearly he had not spotted me yet, and in the process of getting out of the way of the other car, he flew directly into the grill of my truck. That bird was big enough to make a really loud THUNK, and I saw him tumble down onto the side of the road as we passed by. I think it’s pretty safe to say I killed the hawk.

Of all the things I’ve hit in my life, I felt pretty bad about that hawk. Granted, there was nothing I could have done. Even if I’d slammed my brakes on and turned Henry onto his head, I still would have hit him. Not to mention… he’s a damn bird… go UP, you idiot. Or the opposite direction, into the woods. Why do you have to commit suicide on MY truck? Now I’m a hawk murderer.

Luckily it was a clean thunk, no dent or feathers or blood. Still though, it was weird.

Out of all the things that happen pretty much every time I haul – some idiot speeding to get around me and then going slower than I was, or someone riding so close to my ass that I can’t even see their car, or someone hurrying to pass me and then slamming their brakes on and turning – this was a first. I wouldn’t mind if it was the last.

What kind of weird stuff has happened to you guys before while hauling? Ever smack right into a damn hawk?

Normally the vast majority of our XC schooling adventures take place at Pine Hill, or sometimes MeadowCreek. Neither of those facilities is particularly close to me – both are two hours, just in different directions – but they’re definitely the closest. Everything else is 3.5 hours or more, which makes it a bit more of a production. Sometimes a change of scenery, and jumps, is important though, especially for schooling. You can only jump through the same water complex so many times before you’re not getting a whole lot out of it anymore. So this past weekend we got up early, loaded up, and hit the highway to head north to Willow Draw near Fort Worth.

I loaded Henry up on omeprazole and gave him a nice fat haynet full of alfalfa, but apparently I need Regumate or something for his grump ass. He decided that he needed to out-estrogen the mare he was riding with (who never so much as even moved a muscle or made an ugly face at him at any point) and spent a lot of the time kicking and being a general turd. I have no idea why he sometimes does this. He did it in Bobby’s trailer while hauling with Halo a few times, albeit sporadically. Other times he rides with other horses just fine, so I thought maybe it was something about Bobby’s trailer (or Halo) that he was taking occasional objection to. Apparently not. I just own the most marish gelding on the planet. He rides like an angel in my trailer, and in fact had just been in mine a few days before to go to our dressage lesson. That day he kept his head buried in the hay net and I never heard a peep from him, which is his typical hauling demeanor. Guess maybe he just wants his own private chariot? I don’t know wtf his problem was on Saturday, but we got there and he had a fat left hind from all the kicking. Luckily he looked sound, so I decided to get on and see how he felt, and if anything he felt… great. Let the XC schooling commence.

One thing I was really wanting to work on was combinations. Lately we’ve jumped a lot of height, but nothing has been particularly technical. We have no problem galloping down to a big fence anymore, but we haven’t been able to practice much terrain or adjustability in combinations. And pretty much the very first combination we did proved why we needed the practice. It was a small N table, right turn to a half coffin, house to ditch. On the first attempt Henry landed from the table and totally flipped me the bird on the half halt and fought me the whole way down to the house, which… didn’t work. On the second attempt I had to get a bit more aggressive with the half halt than I would like, but he listened and jumped through it well both directions. After that he was much more obedient about whoaing when I said whoa, dammit.

We headed over to the first water complex, initially jumping just one down bank into the water by itself, then cantering out and coming back to the other down bank with a rollback in the water to a small bending line out of the water. I wasn’t sure how he’d be about jumping down into water, even as recently as last year he could be weird about it sometimes, and I for sure thought there was no way we’d make a good roll back to the bending line. That took a lot of organization and control. He really surprised me though, first by jumping down into the water pretty much textbook

and then by making the downbank to bending line rollback feel easy. I was able to just close my left leg as we were landing and he turned right around.

His typical down bank style has always been to take a flying leap off the damn thing, so I was particularly happy that he took a couple trot steps right at the base and balanced himself before dropping nicely down. It seems that he’s taking the time to think about them more, rather than just flinging himself off into space. We’ve been trying to get him to do that for literally years. Those flying banshee leaps start getting you into trouble when banks are part of a tricky combination, so I’m encouraged that the inclination seems to be lessening.

Then we went over to the stone tables and weldon’s walls, jumping the N ones first, then the T ones. These are gallop fences, Henny’s specialty. Easy peasy.

After that we went over to the combinations at the mounds, which I was really excited for. Their mounds are steep, with fences at the very top, and then Training and Prelim have bending lines to a corner at the bottom. It’s a very legit question for the level. I thought we might have an issue here. And we did, but it was with my inability to ride up the mound correctly, not with the jumps themselves or the downhill bending line to the corner. Derp. Henry had no issue with any of it. Once I got the idea of where was the right place to half-halt and where was the right place to push, everything rode great.

We hopped over the trakehner on our way over to the other water, which I’m pretty sure Henry doesn’t even register as anything more than a hanging log anymore. When we got to the other water we made a little course taking the N route through first (which was just cantering through the water and out over a coop), then looping back to a small bank down into the water, then coming back through the Training route, which was a log vertical, 6 bending strides up the island, two strides across to a drop back down into the water. Another really legit question for Training. The first couple times through I just wasn’t aggressive enough, and we kinda creeeepppttt through the combination. Henry humored me, because he is Henry, but it wasn’t smooth. Finally I remembered to use my damn leg and ta-da, just like that the distances all worked out great and the thing jumped super.

We also kept cantering up the hill and jumped the very skinny Prelim log that has a hell of a downhill landing, which he was great about.

Overall I’m super happy with how he’s feeling on XC right now. He’s getting a little bit smarter and more clever, and looking really confident. I need to be faster and more assertive with my half-halts in some of the combinations, and I need to be more supportive with my leg in the ones that naturally back him off. So basically… ride better and smarter. Got it. Here’s the full video if anyone is so inclined… the gif maker was giving me trouble today:

He kicked a little bit more in the trailer on the way home, and I iced and poulticed it Saturday night. It looked better yesterday but still kinda puffy, so I iced and poulticed again. We’ll see how it looks today. He’s still sound, so I’m thinking (and hoping) that he just whacked the crap out of it but didn’t do any real damage.

Horses. 🙄

I don’t really have a particular occasion for this giveaway except that I have a few things I’d stashed away specifically to give away and a new year seems like as good a time as any. We’re gonna call this the Friends of Presto giveaway! You can gain entries by following certain Instagram or facebook pages (details on that below) belonging to just a few of the companies that are near and dear to us (because if I did them all there we’d be here all day), or by leaving a blog comment. Trying to keep it simple.

The prize package is small but mighty… the winner will get a hand dyed purple ombre lead rope from KJ Creations, a 2018 Presto calendar, and a $10 Riding Warehouse gift card!

It’s got his birthday marked, of course

Entering is super easy, you can do as many or as few of these as you’d like:

• follow Ponyforapony on Instagram
• follow KJCreations on Instagram
• follow Riding Warehouse on Instagram
• follow Lund Saddlery on Instagram
• check out Usandro Tilia Derlenn’s new facebook page (extra point if you “like” his page, and another extra point if you comment on a photo! for real, I spent a long time setting it up, humor me here…)
• leave a comment on this blog post telling me at least one subject that you’d like to see me write about in 2018

I think a lot of you probably already follow most of those companies so it could be as simple as just logging the entries on the form. Go here to do that (if you don’t do this part, I can’t see them!) :

a Rafflecopter giveaway

That’s it! The contest ends next Friday, so be sure to get those entries logged before then. Good luck!

Am I the only one who’s bank account starts looking a little ragged in January?

Christmas is always a bit of a blow. Especially because my job doesn’t do end of year bonuses, they do profit sharing, which (if we get it at all) comes at the end of January. Ya know… after you need it. Christmas has always been there though, and always makes a dent in the wallet. Not exactly unexpected. Yet somehow over the last few years the stars have aligned in such a way that A LOT of my other expenses seem to hit somewhere in December or January too.

First there’s the truck and trailer registration renewals – both due in December. With that comes the truck inspection, and I usually tack on an oil change while I’m in there because let’s face it, I put so many miles on that truck that I basically always need one. So kiss a couple hundred bucks goodbye here (assuming the inspection doesn’t find a problem that requires even more money to fix).

Then of course there are all the membership fees. USEA, USEF, and GHCTA for me. I did USEA in November, hoping to get a jump on the pain, but I haven’t done USEF or GHCTA yet. Bye $95 to USEA (membership plus $10 study donation). USEF and GHCTA can wait a little longer because for real I just don’t even want to think about giving more money away right now.

There’s also my USRider membership… I’ve never actually had to use USRider’s services yet, but I haul a lot, I usually haul alone, and I have an old trailer. I feel much better having it. Go ahead and tack on another $150 that’s due by February.

Henry’s insurance needed to be done, so I’m currently waiting on the invoice for that. I got a pretty good rate thanks to Blue Bridle, but still. There goes hundreds more dollars.

His shots, coggins, and teeth are due in January too. And technically his SI injection, but he feels pretty good right now so I’m opting to play it out and see if all the strengthening exercises we’ve been doing can help him go a bit longer between injections. Shots/coggins/teeth are expensive enough on their own, so throw a few hundred more into the fire. Oh, and I’m going to ask for an Adequan prescription, so yeah, add a few hundred more.

And just because I was already feeling light-headed, Henry has decided to very suddenly present with ulcer symptoms. Like for real, this horse had zero symptoms a few weeks ago. Then he had two minor “colic” episodes right after breakfast within one week of each other, decided he was girthy, and started grinding his teeth. I’m not shitting you, all that happened at once. Of course, he is the world’s least stoic horse, so all I can guess is that he’s just started feeling ulcery but clearly he thinks he’s dying. Because drama queen. And we all know how much ulcer meds are, right? Yeah… bye-bye to even more hundreds upon hundreds of dollars.

Plus the cat just got spayed and the corgi got his teeth cleaned. I’m thankful that our small animal vet is very cheap, because that ended up only being a few hundred for both. Still, though. Byeeeeeeee money.

Oh right, guess who’s due for shoes in 2 weeks? What’s another $150 at this point?

January sucks. I’m not doing this right at all.