The one and only time I ever attended Rolex was in 2001. It was actually the first event I ever went to, having grown up in h/j land. It was a big part of the reason why I decided to be a working student for an eventer after high school; I remember just being completely blown away by the sport (and the horse park, and Lexington in general). Giltedge won that year, but I fell in love with the fiery little Jacob Two Two and eventing itself.

And yet, I haven’t ever been able to make it back to Rolex. I was just too damn poor for most of my 20’s (plus severely airplane-averse), and for the last couple years pretty much every spare penny has gone to my show budget. But since this year is a more relaxed year for us, and certainly very flexible, maybe it’s finally time to go back.

I’ve already looked at tickets and am thinking about flying into Nashville and then driving down with Hillary. Here’s what I really need to know to get my planning started:

• Who else is thinking of going?
• Things I must see/do/eat/drink?
• Stuff I should bring?
• People I must meet?
• Shenanigans and debauchery that I must participate in?

You know… all the important stuff. Let’s plan!

We were lucky enough to have some seriously nice weather here in Texas between Christmas and New Years. Temps were mostly in the 70’s and it alternated between sunny and overcast. It climbed up into the 80’s a few days, and one day it stayed down in the 50’s, but still – it did not suck. What did suck was how sweaty and gross my ridiculously hairy horse got on those 80 degree days.

I did Henry’s Irish clip in October, and pretty much all of that hair had grown back with a vengeance. Like, no kidding, his clipped part was hairier than an un-clipped Halo. For a horse that already has a heat tolerance issue, this meant it was time for haircut #2. I toyed with the idea of giving him his usual hunter clip (leaving the legs and a saddle patch) because it looks better, but I’ve actually really liked how the Irish clip has worked for us so far this season. Yes, it’s a little goofy looking, but it keeps his back and hind end warmer and requires less aggressive blanketing. Practical Me doesn’t often win out, but she did this time.

It looks especially goofy because his unclipped part is SO HAIRY  (we’re talking 3″ butt and leg hairs when he’s all fluffed up), and because of, well… his ears.

He will let me clip all the way up to the base of his ears with no complaint, but even a draft horse dose of tranqs plus a twitch (I know this from previous experience) aren’t enough to take the fight out of him when it comes to his ears. I have no interest in clipping the hair out of the inside of his ears, but it’d be nice to get all that (gross curly) hair off the backs/sides. Alas, I decided a long time ago that it’s just not worth the fight with this horse. If Henny wants his hairy squirrel ears that badly, he can keep them.

We like to say that the hair is required to keep the hamster in his brain warm. Or maybe all that hair keeps his brain from falling out of his ear. Either way, we can all agree that this is exactly why ear bonnets are a life necessity. Just stick a pretty little hat over them and nobody ever has to know about the mess underneath.

After last week’s fairly shitty solo jump school at home, I was in dire need of another jumping lesson.

Not gonna lie, I was having one of those “oh god, did I ruin my horse in one ride” mini panic attacks. Short version of what happened a week before: I just could not get my canter right, which made all of my distances total shit (as in, I missed really badly several times in a row), which finally made Henry mad enough to stop. While I definitely deserved it, I still tapped him twice on the butt for stopping at a little 3′ vertical. His job is to jump the jumps as long as it’s safe to do so, and he could have, he’d just gotten tired of my monkey riding. Fair enough, I had that coming, but you still have to do your job even when I don’t do mine.

After that he came unglued enough to where I had to drop my whip completely, because he was cantering in place and wanting to run THROUGH everything. Apparently I seriously hurt his feelings with two butt taps. Duly noted. A few days later I went out and cantered a couple of jumps on a circle until all seemed fairly okay, but he was still kinda grumpy in general. Feelings, he has so many of them.

So naturally I spent all week internally freaking out about having ruined my perfect saintly horse. That’s normal, right? When we got to Trainer’s place on Friday I filled her in on what had happened the weekend before. She just kind of giggled at our ridiculousness (I know I’m crazy, this is not news to me) and set up a vertical with canter poles to help address our rhythm issue. After hopping through it both ways and steadily raising the height (while she said the word “balance” approximately 1500 times) things were clicking again.

Since we seemed pretty much back to normal by that point (Henny grudge: over), she put the jumps up to 3’3″-3’6″ and made a course for us.

Other than the fact that I really could not make myself wait to the base of the barrel vertical when I didn’t see the distance, it was actually fine. At some point I will learn that just because it’s bigger, I don’t have to attack it when I don’t see anything. But uh… at least I’m not pulling all the way to the base? Maybe eventually I’ll find the middle ground. Maybe. Let’s just take this as a small victory.

The good news is, Henny was very very rideable and totally back to his normal self, thank god. I didn’t ruin him, I just pissed him off and we had to visit Trainer for some relationship counseling (aka reminding me how to ride). Crisis averted. Ah, the life and times of an amateur horse…

Part of my job at work involves putting together metrics, and while I loathe the data gathering process, I love the finished product. The same applies here. 2016 was my 3rd year of blogging, and every year I’ve thrown together some basic infographics. To me it’s more “for fun” than anything else, since I don’t really use the numbers for anything, but it’s interesting to see what was popular and how the years compare to each other. I thought 2015 was going to be a really hard year to top, but somehow 2016 managed to rally in the last few months and surge ahead.

 

Top 10 Posts of 2016

1. Thoughts on Jersey Fresh (5,767 – this one got picked up by EN so no surprise)
2. Blowing the Whistle (3,391)
3. So You Think You Want to Breed Your Mare? (3,067)
4. Fair Hill Part 3: The Thing We’re All Talking About (2,964)
5. Black Friday Sales (1,653)
6. Passing Judgment (1,042)
7. Keeping Secrets (1,015)
8. Review: Lorenzini Stirrups (988)
9. The Great Half Pad Debate (969)
10. Return Policies: Where to Draw the Line? (931)

So basically, everyone likes controversy and sales. Interestingly, the lowest viewed posts tend to be show recaps and lesson/schooling recaps. Am I really bad at writing about them or is it just that uninteresting?

Top Commenter

Karen is so much better at commenting than I am.

Many thanks to everyone for following along with Henry and me this year, and for all of your support. Here’s to 2017! 

Is there anything you’d like to see more of here? Less of? Specific topics you think I should cover? Feel free to leave me some feedback below, or use the form on my contact page (in the menu bar above) to email me directly!

This post took me a lot longer to write than all of the other posts this week put together. I was all gung-ho to set these very specific, measurable, ambitious goals so that I can charge headlong into 2017. Then I sat there for a while and reflected on what my real challenges were in 2016… did the goals I had written down address that? Would they help drive me to fix the areas I really needed to work on?

Trainer said it quite well at our last XC school… I had gotten very frustrated at my inability to do something perfectly and started to just shut down mentally, and she took me aside for a lecture that was a combination of “suck it up buttercup” and “you can do this” where she called me Type A. For some reason that part stuck in my head and I kind of laughed at that on the drive home. I’ve never been accused of being a Type A personality ever in my life. Those people are super high strung workaholics that are mega organized and get anxious about everything, right?

Eh, turns out no, it’s not quite that simple. I started looking into it and while my general personality is only a little Type A, when it comes to riding, I’m about as severely Type A as they come. Super competitive, super intense, and never satisfied with anything. My biggest struggle this past year was letting go of my own mistakes and trying not to overanalyze or put too much pressure on myself. No one can ruin my own good time like I can. Therefore what’s my biggest problem? ME.

So with that revelation in mind, I scrapped almost all of my original goals and started again. 2017 is to be the year of “chill the hell out and have fun with it”. I’m not aiming for anything super ambitious, I’m not setting out an intricate show plan or worrying about qualifications or scores or points or any of that stuff. This year I’m fixing my brain (I am my own worst enemy) and working on having confidence in myself.

Complete at least 4 Training horse trials – schooling or recognized, whatever. I don’t care how I place or what our score ends up being (that’s a lie, I care a lot, but I’m trying to convince myself not to care) I just want to complete and put a deposit in the confidence bank.

Score under 35 in dressage at Training – it would be nice to get a respectable dressage score, even if I don’t finish on it.

Take at least one lesson a month – I’m hoping we’re back on track with this now, but it’s still worth writing down.

Attend another course/seminar related to the Young Event Horse program – I had so much geeked-out fun at Fair Hill, I really want to continue that education.

Get Baby Horse registered, inspected, and microchipped with RPSI – This is all fairly obvious stuff for a baby, but it’s a milestone, so here it is.

Get Baby Horse lifetime recorded with USEF – This is kind of a reminder to myself, because if you do the USEF lifetime recording the same year they’re born, it’s $35. If you wait til they’re 3 or older, it’s $200. He may or may not ever actually need to be USEF recorded, but for $35 let’s do it.

Chill the eff out, you psycho – ha, j/k. But really, dial it back like 12 notches in general.

 

Finish half marathon under 2:40 – I feel pretty confident that 2:40 is doable… I did it in 2:15ish in 2013, but I’m also definitely nowhere near as fit now as I was then (at the peak of my triathlon “career”). 2:30 would be the stretch goal, but I’d be satisfied with 2:40.

Keep running 3x a week – even after the half is over, I want to keep running just to keep my fitness level up. It’s helped a lot.

Work on my core strength – The rest of my lower half has gotten so much stronger from running, but my core is definitely still lacking. If I want my dressage to get better, I need to work on that.

Take a non-horse related vacation – Chicago in the summer, maybe?

 

Look at me, over here ready to chill out and relax in 2017…

but I’m gonna try not to do it like that.

 

 

P.S. If anyone has some Christmas money burning a hole in their pocket, Riding Warehouse has 20% off sitewide through the 2nd! Time to stock up on Henry’s favorite rock salt and some new clipper blades. Even the sale stuff is 20% off! Hope no one’s 2017 goals included “control my spending”…