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USPS for the win – the Devoucoux arrived on Saturday. I may or may not have been outside in the driveway stalking the mailman. I may or may not have opened the box IN the driveway because I couldn’t handle myself. Whatever. She’s beautiful.

 

I’m really pleased with the condition, it’s in good shape and the panels literally look brand new, there’s nary a scratch or rub on them. As soon as I pulled it out of the box I stuck it in the car and went to the barn to try it out. It fits Henry pretty well and I find it SUPER comfortable. My leg seemed to just fall exactly where it was supposed to go, no effort required, and I really love the narrower twist. I did a quick ride in it and Henry felt great – dunno if it’s the saddle or the chiro or both but he gave me two stretchy trot circles. So far so good… I think it’s a keeper. I’ve never had a monoflap before so I was really surprised by how light it is, and I love the leather. Now I can’t wait for the dressage shaped Ogilvy and calfskin leathers to come so it’s appropriately outfitted. Yes this means I’ll have a lot of stuff for sale soon!

I ended up working on Sunday morning and wasn’t planning on riding, but peer pressure won out and I ran out to the barn to beat the cold front. Of course, as soon as I got on and started trotting the wind really picked up and so did a lovely freezing cold drizzle. Princess Henry was NOT amused. I wasn’t amused either, I’d been riding in t-shirts all week. I did a quick 10 minute warm-up and then hopped him over a few fences before running back into the barn where it was warm(er) and giving him lots of cookies for being a good sport. It was not beautiful course work by any means but he was a trooper and stayed rideable (even in just his sidepull) despite being mad and cold and rained on, so we’ll call it a win.

You should really watch the video all the way through the very end to see the surprise. Thanks Bobby.

Henry Feb 22 from amanda chance on Vimeo.

I also Harry Potter-fied my schooling pad, because I just felt like I had to do something to make dressage more fun. Ironing is about as crafty as I get, so this was manageable.

Otherwise it was just a typical weekend of spin, food, and a little bit of much needed down time. And guess what: ONE WEEK TIL EUROPE!

PS – my horse is a derp.

Henry had his first chiropractor visit last night. This is the year of “address any and all possible issues”, so I’m throwing everything at him. He’s only got a few days left on his ulcer treatment (which I really need to update on here – woops), he’s been on Pentosan for 6 months now, and now body work.

Honestly, I was expecting him to be a chiropractic mess. He’s kind of a tight horse anyway that doesn’t have a ton of elasticity, so I just assumed he might have some skeletal issues.

He did have a few issues, but nothing really major. He had a rib out on each side – the second to last rib on the left and the last rib on the right. Dr Jack had me feel them and yeah, no kidding, you could easily tell. After the adjustment he had me feel again and there was a definite change.

Most of his soreness was located in his loin area – no surprise to me at all considering that he has a bit of a hard time crossing his hind legs in the under saddle work and really stetching down through his topline. The symptoms lined up with the findings.

He was just slightly out in his poll and about midway down his neck. Otherwise he was pretty good. It was interesting to me that every spot Dr. Jack found, and his explanation for how I would see that manifest under saddle, lined up. He nailed Henry’s tendency to waterski a bit with his hind end in the left lead canter… everything in the hind end was getting pulled to one side with his mis-alignment, which would make it hard for him to step up through his body and push off on that side.

We will see if I feel any difference today. I at least feel better knowing that he’s getting every opportunity to feel as good as possible. Which reminds me, time to fill our next Pentosan prescription.

In other news, my Devoucoux was released from customs last night. USPS must have heard me whining.

In even more news, I have started an epic stirrup showdown – two different models of MDC (the S Flex and the Sport Classic) versus my Royal Riders. Yes there will be a very thorough review post. Yes a friend has also volunteered to try them out and write up her thoughts on them versus her Herm Sprenger irons. There will be much evaluation happening.

We shall see which ones come out on top! First up – the Sport Classic.

 

DHL!

I knew it was going to a while to get my saddle. I knew DHL sucked. None of this is news to me – I expected it. I wasn’t even surprised when my tracking number didn’t work for the first few days and DHL’s answer was “we don’t know, ask this other branch of DHL”. Thaaaaanks… fantastic customer service. Glad y’all are on the ball.

But even though I knew in advance that they sucked, it doesn’t mean I’m not going to whine about it sitting in Germany for week doing absolutely nothing. For real:

February 13, 2015 , 12:31 pm	Processed Through Sort Facility	GERMANY
February 6, 2015 , 6:19 am	Processed Through Sort Facility	GERMANY
February 4, 2015 , 1:37 pm	Acceptance	GERMANY

Yep, it came in on the 6th and went out on the 13th. This gives me so many sads. My poor little Devoucoux just sat there in it’s box for an entire week, in the dark, feeling unloved. It’s going to need therapy when it finally gets here.

Where is it now, you ask, 15 days into it’s journey? In the US! Now it’s officially in the hands of the USPS, another fine establishment that I have oh so much faith in. Could be a couple more days, could be a couple more weeks… who really knows? But it’s in San Francisco. Because Germany to San Francisco to Texas is the most logical route.

February 15, 2015 , 7:28 am

Processed Through Sort Facility

ISC SAN FRANCISCO (USPS)

To add another level of complexity (now I’m annoyed with YOU, USPS) I get this message yesterday

February 18, 2015 , 10:41 am	Processed Through Sort Facility	ISC SAN FRANCISCO (USPS)
Your item has been processed through our sort facility in ISC SAN FRANCISCO (USPS) at 10:41 am on February 18, 2015.
	Inbound Into Customs

Inbound into customs? 3 days after it’s processed into customs? WTF does that even mean? I give up.

It occurs to me now that I should have done a contest to see who could guess the actual arrival date.  Winner gets a bottle of Xanax? C’mon USPS, prove me wrong for once!

Knowing my luck it’ll show up the day before I leave for Europe, because fate is a cruel mistress. To add insult to injury, my latest package from PS of Sweden will be here tomorrow. It left Sweden yesterday.

As an aside – I’m likely going to be selling my Frank Baines, assuming the Devoucoux works for us. I have a lot of accessories that I don’t need anymore either (as in – almost 2 whole extra bridles, a girth, a couple special pads, leathers, and irons)… does it appeal to you more as a buyer to have lots of accessories come with a saddle? Personally I’d rather lump it all together and get rid of it all at once rather than parse it out, even if it means getting less total money in the end, but I’m not sure if offering it as a package deal is going to be more or less appealing to buyers.

I admit that I was nervous for my dressage lesson on Saturday. Big sticks and technical courses? No worries. A 20 x 40 empty rectangle? OH MY GOD. Yep, I know, my psyche makes total sense. In my defense I haven’t had a dressage lesson in like 2 1/2 months, plus this was my first time riding with Martin the dressage man extraordinaire. What if he thought I was an idiot? Ok, well, he would probably know within 30 seconds that I was in fact an idiot, but what if he thought I was a hopeless idiot??? I got to the barn with a little extra time to spare so I could get on early, re-acquaint myself with the dressage saddle (no the Devoucoux isn’t here yet), see if I could remember how to sit up, and get Henry thinking forward. As soon as I got on I kinda wished I’d grabbed my spurs, but otherwise he warmed up ok. Martin arrived, we talked briefly about Henry’s history, my history, what I thought our weak points were, and what we were trying to accomplish. Then he put us to work.

Turns out I’m kind of in love with Martin. Here’s the thing: some trainers just don’t “get” all horses. And with Henry (as with a lot of TB’s) it’s really really important that you understand how he thinks, because it’s 90% mental with him. He tries really hard but he also has to feel like you’re being fair, he has to keep his confidence at all times, and you can’t ask too much of him at once – he will implode. He’s really just getting started with this dressage stuff and he’s simply not there yet with a lot of things, so there’s a fine line between teaching him something and making him frustrated. Martin immediately spotted that line, and while he took us right up to it several times, he never pushed us over it. Mistakes were no big deal, perfection was not required, he just had to make a solid effort. Henry stayed relaxed the whole time, we had a couple of “a-ha” moments, and I had a better horse at the end. Was it a dramatic, amazing, night and day difference? Of course not. These things take time. A lot of time. But we made some baby steps and I have good homework.

The first thing he honed in on was how Henry really hasn’t released his back/hind end and truly gotten himself engaged from behind. As he stated “He looks lovely going around on a 20 meter circle but in the lateral work you can see it”. Bingo. This has been our struggle. So we worked on a few exercises to get him to start thinking about really crossing those hind legs over and engaging the hind end. We got a few good steps as we went along, which is I think as much progress as you can ask for in a 45 minute time frame. Martin also immediately honed in on some of my own issues: “don’t turn your toe out” (my h/j trainers spent all of the 90’s trying to get my toe out and my calf on – stop messing with my head, dressage), “open your shoulders”, and “heels down, let your leg drape” (I swear I’ve ridden before). He also asked if I’ve ever ridden Henry in a spur. Cue sheepish “um… yes… I didn’t think to grab them today…”

 

I think my favorite exercise was cantering a square. I could really feel Henry step up under himself and “jump” in the canter stride on the square turns, which was very cool. We also did some half turns on the forehand at the walk, which was difficult for both of us but after a few tries he started to get it and crossed over quite well for a few steps behind. Overall Martin was very complimentary of him and said he liked how pleasant he looked, he especially liked his canter, and said I’d done a good job with him. That warmed the cackles of my cold dark heart.

The extra awesome thing is that Brandy’s hubby got lots of video! And you can actually hear Martin pretty clearly if you turn up the volume, so it’s like having a mini-lesson all over again. When I put all the clips together it was too big to load on Vimeo so I had to break them up.

Martin Lesson 1 from amanda chance on Vimeo.

Martin lesson 2 from amanda chance on Vimeo.

Martin lesson 3 from amanda chance on Vimeo.

Sunday we went for a fun gallop out in the front hay field. Today unfortunately it’s rainy, so we’ll see what the week brings depending on how much rain we get.

Happy Friday the 13th, Happy Day before Valentine’s Day, and Happy Birthday to the one and only He’salmostsweet aka Happenstance aka Henrypants!

And all the outtakes

 

 

We celebrated last night with treats for the ponies and cupcakes for the humans. Henry, as you can imagine, was thrilled with my hat idea. Pretty sure he’s plotting his revenge as we speak. For his “birthday ride” (since I can’t go out today) I picked his favorite thing and jumped him in his side pull, just a few fences but I put them up around 3′, and he was super. God he just goes so well in that thing. Then we went for a walk down the road with his buddy Auto and I stuffed him full of the rest of his Carat Cake when we were done. He thinks those are DELICIOUS.

I’m barnsitting this weekend but have a dressage lesson on Saturday. Is it weird that dressage lessons make me nervous and pretty much nothing else does? Scary scary dressage.