Author: Amanda C

Oh Henny. Bless your poor sweet little dum-dum heart.

After our stadium lesson on Saturday, Trainer wanted to take the opportunity to lunge Henry down a bank and over a jump on a bank. This is because of our fairly tragic XC school the Wednesday before, where Henry seriously just COULD NOT figure out the big down bank with the log on top. His mind was completely blown, and he kept tapping his way down the bank with his front feet, then pushing off and leaping straight out. It was not good. He’s jumped a ton of down banks in his life, but there’s something about the log being on top of the drop that seems to be completely throwing his brain for a loop. At that point it was decided that we should come back another day with a lunge line and let him go down every big log-topped bank we could find, over and over, until he figured it out on his own.

Of course, there was rain in the forecast and we weren’t sure if we’d be able to make it back to our XC schooling venue before the show this weekend, so we took advantage of the nice weather after our lesson to school him down the little bank at her place. We pulled a jump out of the arena so that we could build up the question for him (jump on top of the bank) from just the bank by itself, to bank with poles in front, to crossrail, to vertical.

I didn’t get video of the first attempts, because I was too busy going back and forth to the jump to add or take elements away while Trainer lunged him. First we started with just the banks alone, which still.. he was trying to tap and slide his way down this tiny bank. Finally he dropped down it normally, so we added a crossrail in front. That totally blew his mind and he crashed his way down several times in a row.

I don’t know what the mental block was for him, but it took quite a few tries before he realized to jump across, and then down. Over and over he went until he finally got it, then we built it up a little more.

Poor Henry, the little hamsters in his brain were running as fast as they could.

But once he understood the question, and how to just… jump down the damn thing… he was totally fine. He jumped it several times with the larger vertical and then I hopped on and trotted him down it once with a crossrail in front, with many pets and much celebration.

So, we were right. He totally DID NOT understand the question at all, and essentially climbing over/sliding down was for some reason what he thought the right answer was. This little mini-lesson seemed to finally make it click for him a bit.

Granted, that’s one teeny tiny bank with a little stadium jump over top of it. Much different from this thing:

We both agreed that he definitely still needs to go out there and jump down the bigger banks with the logs on top, so we’re going to try to do that on Friday.

This horse has always been such a savant when it comes to XC, it honestly never occurred to me that he would have a big mental block about this. Poor guy. Hopefully we’re on the right track now, though!

Warning: there is some Bobby involved in this post. Is the title about Henry or is it about Bobby? I’ll let you decide.

Originally I wasn’t planning on having another jump lesson this past weekend. We had one the Saturday before, and then we XC schooled on Wednesday, and since I was still getting over the flu all week I didn’t ride much aside from those lessons. But Bobby basically begged me to tag along with him (he’s obsessed), and lord knows I always need more jump lessons, so I hauled Henry over to Bobby’s barn and then we carpooled from there. IE Bobby drove. Because, no shit, I am so tired of driving back and forth down that same 60+ mile stretch of highway.

Bobby and I were both kind of tired and run down, so we were relieved when Trainer took mercy on us and said that once we did it right, we could be done. Granted, with me, you never really know if that’ll be attempt #1 or attempt number #15. Consistent, I am not.

We warmed up and Henry was absolutely raring to go. Like… cantering in place. We hopped over a little vertical each way before we started courses and Henry literally took off an entire stride away from the jump, which caused fits of laughter from Bobby and Trainer (thanks guys, always helpful). At that point I chunked my whip. Then we did a little short course and again, I didn’t have much control over where we took off from. At that point I chunked my spurs. I honestly think Henry was still a little offended from the taps on the butt that he received on Wednesday. He’s a delicate flower like that, especially when it comes to getting in “trouble”. He always remembers. Once I ditched the whip and spurs he became much more reasonable.

Then Trainer put the jumps up a little and gave us a full course. First Henry and I stood and watched Bobby go:

And I gotta say, it was probably one of the best courses I’ve ever seen Bobby do. Their stadium has come a really long way in the past year or so. White boy found rhythm. He even nailed it on the first try. Then it was my turn and somehow the stars aligned and I actually managed a decent effort on the first try too.

I felt like a total sack of potatoes up there, still really drained from being sick all week, but Henry packed me around and listened to my input, and I only made a couple of questionable decisions. For me, that was a fairly solid first attempt. Trainer was like “Oh My God, you guys can ride now!”. I thought she was going to retire on the spot. Yeah I know, what are the odds that both of us actually got it pretty right on the first try? We’ll see if that actually carries over to the show this weekend. I would not bet money on it, but hey maybe? Henry was so proud of himself he literally clicked his heels together over this jump:

 

After the lesson we took Henry out to the XC field to lunge him down the bank, but… that’s, uh, a story for tomorrow…

Guess who’s TEN today?!?! The one and only He’salmostsweet.

Ten seems like such a legit age. He’s definitely not a baby anymore, and he’s not green. He’s totally a REAL horse. Like… he can wear a flash now without having a temper tantrum. Progress.

Granted, every day is still like the very first day he’s ever worn boots, as he frog-walks his way out of the crossties… (never change, Henny. Never change.)

It’s hard to believe that I’ve technically had him since he was 6… we’ve had so many fun adventures. I owe him a lot, and every day he teaches me something.

This little weirdo of a horse definitely earned his way past “short term resale” and into the family. I hope we’re still only at the beginning of our journey, and here’s to many more birthdays!

Also, Henny, now that you’re TEN, can you please stop pretending to spook at the same round bale that we walk past every day? I mean… really… it’s food. Don’t tell me you’re scared of food. No one who’s seen your belly would ever believe that.

What can I say, I just really love a good contest. Want to win a $50 gift card to Riding Warehouse or Luxe EQ? Of course you do. Read on!

In 2015 when Merlin was born we did something similar to this… whoever guessed closest to his foaling date/time won. And then of course there was the “gender reveal” with the fetal sexing for Lissa and Sadie. But this time we’re upping the ante! First of all, we’ve got 3 mares this time. Second of all, we’ve got a few more criteria:

– Foaling Date
– Foaling Time (doesn’t have to be to the minute accurate, just to the hour is fine – ie 2AM)
– Gender
– Color
– Face Markings
– Leg Markings (again doesn’t have to be specific – “one sock”, “none”, “four socks”, etc will work)

Everything you guess correctly will earn points. 10 points each for foaling date and time, and then 5 points each for gender, color, face markings, and leg markings… so each foal can potentially net you up to 40 points. Spread that over 3 mares and you’ve got a chance to rack up some points even if you don’t get a few things right. I’m hoping that helps level the playing field a bit from just guessing foaling date/time.

Submit your entries via a comment here on this post or you can message them to me on the blog’s facebook page. Just make sure you leave a link or an email address so I can contact you if you win! You don’t have to guess every category, but obviously the more you fill in, the more potential points you get. I’ll keep it all in a spreadsheet and add it up as we go along. Entries should look something like this, for example:

Sadie – 3/15, 8pm, colt, blood bay, no face marking, one sock
Lissa – 3/25, 2am, colt, chestnut, blaze, three socks
Laken – 4/1, 11pm, filly, dark bay, stripe, four socks

Easy peasy. Here’s their info:

Sadie and Lissa were obviously already fetal sexed (both as colts), so we have an idea of what gender their babies might be. However, fetal sexing is not totally accurate, so feel free to bet against the vet if you’d like. Laken’s fetal sexing appointment was inconclusive. Due dates are based on 340 days gestation. I’ve included pictures of all 3 combinations below and whatever info is important so you can make your best guesses.

SADIE

What we know: In foal to Mighty Magic. Fetal sexed as a colt. Due 3/17. Foal guaranteed to be bay or brown.

LISSA

What we know: In foal to Emerald van’t Ruytershof. Fetal sexed as a colt. Due 3/17.

LAKEN

What we know: In foal to Balou du Rouet. Laken was born chestnut. Due 4/3.

 

Entries close on 2/28! The contest winner will be revealed after the last foal is born. Obviously I have no idea exactly when that’ll be, so you’ll just have to stay tuned.

And yes, I’m mostly doing this to distract myself from going completely crazy with anxiety/anticipation over the next month. Help a sister out and enter.

For a few weeks now it’s been on my calendar to take yesterday off for XC schooling. Trainer always teaches at the “local” (ie 2 hours from me) venue on Wednesdays, but since it’s often hard for me to get off work during the week, I rarely partake. But I have 32 vacation days to use this year, which will be damn near impossible, so I’m going to start taking a Wednesday every month or so. Even though I’ve been sick, I didn’t want to back out of my plan, so I loaded up and away we went.

I’m not really sick anymore, but I’m still super weak and get tired incredibly fast. I had to rest in the middle of tacking up, and was pouring sweat. Why was it almost 90 in February? By the time I got on I was already exhausted. We decided to keep it very short/simple and just head back to the Irish bank, the only element we’ve really had trouble with. As soon as I picked up my reins to warm up, Henry was raring to go. He knows what we do at this place.

After I was done getting dragged around the field warming up, we walked back into the woods, hopped over a few small fences, and then started breaking down the Irish bank.

First we walked up onto the Irish bank and just walked down the shorter drop repeatedly. Here’s where I should back up and say that down banks have always been Henry’s one Achilles heel on XC. The only 20 on his entire record is from a down bank at his very first show. He’s never really understood how to drop down them. Instead, he decided early on that the solution is to leap.

He’s gotten a bit better about the overdramatic leaping over time (and god have we ever worked on it ad nauseum) but he’s still never really properly dropped down a bank in his life.

It hasn’t really caused an issue before and I think we all figured that over time as he got less green, he’d figure it out. But this stupid Irish bank at Pine Hill really brings the problem front and center… I don’t know if it’s the fact that there’s an up bank and then immediately a down, or if it’s just the fact that the down bank is so huge, or the fact that there’s a log on top, but he does not like this thing. He really doesn’t want to jump off of it at all, and when he does, he kind of scrapes his feet down over the log and then pushes off, leaping WAY out. It’s incredibly awkward.

Even as we built it up slowly for him yesterday, from walking off the short one, to trotting off the short one, to putting the whole thing together (a million times) it became really clear that he just does not understand the question. He doesn’t understand and he’s not confident. Honestly, he’s never understood down banks, he’s just gotten by up to this point because no question he’s faced has been very big or complicated. We’ve found a pretty big gaping hole.

So next time we’re going to just go out and lunge him over all the down banks, especially all the big ones with logs on top (which seem to especially throw his brain for a loop) and see if he can figure it out on his own, without a rider in the equation. Poor Henny. His hamsters just can’t compute this one. On the plus side, I was super happy with how good his gallop felt, especially to the right. That weird 4 beat, lateral crap is gone.

And yes, I almost died yesterday in the heat. I was soaked with sweat and totally drained by the time we were done. Never get the flu. I do not recommend.