Category: Uncategorized

Yep, it’s time… all this extra stuff I’ve got lying around needs to find a new home. The usual spiel: prices don’t include shipping, I take Paypal, if you have any questions either comment or message me!

Luc Childeric DAC dressage saddle, monoflap, medium tree 17.5″ – SOLD

Professional’s Choice XC Boots size Medium, brand new in the bag SOLD

Girths

• Camelot leather anatomic jump girth size 54, used once – $30 SOLD
• Toklat contoured fleece dressage girth size 26 – $25 pending
• Shires leather dressage girth, size 26 used once size – SOLD
• Ovation Airform dressage girth size, size 24 – SOLD

Equiline show coat, navy with golden yellow piping size IT42 (US 6) – SOLD

 

Breeches – working on a list, but all are size 30. Let me know if you want the list. 

 

Navy DSB fleece lined dressage boots – M fronts, L hinds. Some wear (more on the fronts than the hinds) but still in good shape – SOLD

Ovation 3 point breastplate with navy elastic, horse size – SOLD

Cheltenham gag bit with rope cheeks size 5.5″ – $30

Clip-on running attachment, horse size. Never used. $15

 

Last Wednesday when I picked Henry up from camp, Trainer hopped on him first to show me what she’s been doing with him and talk me through what I need to work on. On one hand I love watching her ride him, because she gets better results than I do. On the other hand, when I watch her ride him I can’t help but think “The odds of me reproducing this at home are slim to none”. Especially with the dressage work.

Dressage is obviously not my forte – I come from a hunter/jumper background, one filled with green horse after green horse. We’re officially at the point in Henry’s flatwork education where I’m floundering a bit… his level of education has caught up to mine. And, as Trainer noted, he’s really good at convincing me to take the pressure off of him, which means we’ve plateaued a bit. He’s improved so much, and he’s to the point where he can take some pressure, work through it, and come out the other side having learned something instead of just shutting down. I have to figure out how to ride this particular horse I’ve got at the moment.

Sitting there watching her do canter/walk transitions and counter canter loops (neither of which he knew how to do when I dropped him off a week and a half prior) I felt 51% determination and 49% dejection. The learning curve for dressage is so steep for me, at times it feels almost hopeless, and I get frustrated. I’m not a quitter, but this… this is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling defeated. Sometimes I long for the days in Jumperland where the flatwork part of the job was so much simpler.

Then Trainer reminded me how much better and stronger Henry has gotten. In my head he’s still the mess of a horse I got two and a half years ago, or the powder keg I was sitting on last year that I couldn’t canter in dressage warm-up. There was a time when any little bit of contact made him put his nose on his chest. Or when just breathing a little too hard sent him spurting into canter. We started out with a big deficit, so it’s gonna take longer and be harder to climb our way out of it. There’s a lot I don’t know and there’s a lot I’m not good at. But day by day, ride by ride, we’re gonna keep trying, even if I feel like screaming on the inside. I know there’s a decent dressage horse lurking in there, and I feel like I owe it to him to cultivate that.

At least until they give us a form of eventing where dressage is optional…

I dunno what my deal has been lately, but I just can’t get my brain in the game. It’s like I know what I should be doing, but my brain won’t stay present long enough to let my body know what to do.  This is obviously very frustrating.

I had this problem at Coconino both in dressage (when I forgot my damn test) and in stadium (when I knew I should turn and just… didn’t…). Really no clue what my damn deal is lately.

Last night’s lesson was no different. I always knew what I should do, but actually remembering to execute it was an entirely different matter. I just kept spacing out. A couple times I even totally forgot where I was going (seriously, they weren’t long courses) and turned the wrong way. Like… cantered up to the fence thinking of turning one way, and then turning the other way instead, 2 seconds later. What’s the deal, brain?

Short of swallowing an entire bottle of Adderall (kidding, obviously. Unless you can do that…), what do y’all do when it seems like your brain is just totally checking out on you? This is getting super annoying. I swear I’m not THIS dumb all the time… (shut up, Bobby).

I’ve been drooling over lots of tall boots lately, mostly ones that are well beyond my budget (because I dunno, champagne taste, story of my life?). That was mistake #1. When I remarked to Friend that I really liked the Tucci Marilyn’s (mistake #2), she was quick to point out that I could customize them. Like, what about a navy top? Two of my favorite words – customize and navy.

Off I went to Photoshop, trying to decide if I liked how that would look. Mistake #3, because now I’m googly-eyed in love with these things.

So on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “kinda need” and 10 being “OMG RIGHT NOW” (there’s no choice for “don’t need” because obviously that’s a stupid choice)…

how badly do I need these?

 

 

 

In spring/early summer I had a lot of people asking me about Henry’s conditioning schedule. I wavered a lot about whether or not to share this, because I think that something like a conditioning schedule can be a pretty personalized thing and what it should look like varies a lot from horse to horse, level to level, sport to sport, or even month to month. I’m sharing it, BUT with the huge bold red letter disclaimer: This is just what we did.

This was June’s schedule, which is pretty typical of what our normal spring/fall schedule looks like these days. Rides get shorter later in the summer when it’s a million degrees, and when the ground is bad (ie too muddy or too hard/cracked) the gallops pretty much go out the window. Right now our schedule looks pretty much nothing like this, but next month things will ramp back up to more of a full “competition season” schedule.

Some notes:

• With that schedule Henry was very fit, probably over-fit for his level. I try to err on the over-fit side due to his respiratory issue, and especially in prepping him for AZ since I wasn’t sure how he’d handle the high altitude.
• Before an event there’s a bit of a ramp down in the schedule.
• Everywhere that says “walk” = forward, marching, on the aids. Not ambling around on a loose rein.
• “3 x 4” means 3 sets of 4 minutes each.
• “long trot” means no walking or breaks, just a solid chunk of trot.
• The speed of the gallop sets depends on where we are in our schedule, but usually somewhere between 400-450mpm.
• Road Hack is mostly forward walk with some trotting.
• Dressage rides are usually about 45min with very little walking.
• This is not set in stone… if something comes up things get shuffled around, or if we need to work more on one particular thing, days can be substituted (for instance, now we’re going to be doing 3 days a week of dressage, one jump day, and one or two conditioning days – so switching from a conditioning-heavy schedule to a dressage-heavy schedule). The calendar is really just a guideline to make sure we stay on track and fit everything in.