I should preface this post by saying that I’m really picky about breeches. The fit has to be perfect, the fabric has to be perfect, they have to wear well, they have to be comfortable, they have to be flattering, they have to wash well, they have to be attractive and they have to hold up to a lot of abuse.

Over the years I’ve tried so many brands it’s ridiculous: SmartPak, TS, Pikeur, Ovation, Grand Prix, TuffRider, Equine Couture, Kerrits, Tredstep, Ariat, Tropical Rider, Animo, Riding Sport, Trainer’s Choice, Goode Rider, etc etc. Most never made it out of the dressing room. The vast majority of those that did were either taken back or resold.

The top three?

Animo, TS, Pikeur. I consider TS and Pikeur to be pretty interchangeable for me. I might like the Pikeur a little more but I like the price tag and colors of the TS better, so in my mind they equal out. However the Animo are head and shoulders (and torso) above the rest.

I know what you’re thinking… “$400 breeches are not happening”. Give me a minute to make my case.

My oldest pair of Animo breeches are my navy ones, which are now almost 3 years old. First, I bought them on sale for around $250… still pricey, but let’s keep talking. They are BY FAR my most worn breeches – honestly I wear them probably twice as much as any of my TS. It’s fair to say they’ve seen a lot of action by now. I’ve shown in them, I’ve fallen in them, I’ve mucked stalls in them… you name it, they’ve done it. Literally the only wear they show is some pilling of the fabric behind the knee, which mostly occurred when I spent several months riding in too-tall boots that rubbed the back of my knee area.

Other than that, they still look just as good as the day I bought them. The stitching is all still flawless, the buttons are firmly attached and the zipper has given me no problems. The fabric has not changed since day 1. No fading, no thinning. I also can wear them probably 3-4 times between washings (in the machine!) – stop saying ew and hear me out. The fabric does not hold moisture or any kind of scent. They don’t smell like a dead animal after a particularly sweaty day. I can also take a wet rag and just wipe the fabric down to get rid of any dirt that’s showing. Literally – I wet the rag that I also use to clean my horse’s bit and wipe off my thighs. It happens. And it works. The best thing though? They don’t show moisture. This is great if you’re like me and have a pretty raging case of swamp ass in the summer. Being able to go somewhere after the barn without looking like you peed yourself? Awesome.

The fit is fantastic. They’re the most flattering breeches I own and also the most comfortable. The cut of the knee area is genius and I absolutely love the sock bottom. Far superior to velcro in every way. My favorite feature though is also the one I was originally the most skeptical about: the silicone knee patches. If you need grip, those things are unparalleled. I used to have a jumper that literally felt like being strapped to the back of a coked up deer sometimes. If I wasn’t wearing the Animos I would add a little sticky spray to prevent being launched into orbit, but I found that with the silicone patches I didn’t need it. I never felt “stuck” to the horse, but if a time came where I needed some extra grip, they provided it. They’ve helped me out on a couple of particularly naughty horses as well.

So what’s a gal (or dude) to do if (s)he wants Animo but doesn’t have the money to drop on retail price? My advice – shop sales and shop used. Pretty much every Animo vendor I know has regular sales or periodic end of season clearances. Mine have all been purchased for under $250. My tan ones that I use for showing were a whopping $111 during a Selwood Equine sale. No that’s not a typo. They can be very affordable if you know where to look and are patient.

For the sake of curiosity, let’s do some math. Let’s just say that you pay $300 (on the high side of sale price) for a pair of Animo. You then wear said breeches twice a week every week for, let’s say, 5 years (I feel like that’s being conservative on the life span). That’s 58cents per wear. My $110 Grand Prix breeches lasted a year and a half, at around 1 wear per week because I didn’t love them that much, before they sprung a hole. That’s $1.41 per wear. Which one is really the better deal? Quality costs money but a) it’s far more enjoyable on a daily basis b) it’s cheaper in the end.

I’ve discovered that Animo has so thoroughly spoiled me that I find a lot of breeches totally intolerable now, with my main complaint being the fabric. The only other brand I own is TS and that’s largely because the fit is so good for me and they’re comfortable. They still aren’t Animo but they work. Eventually I’d like to empty my closet of everything else and fill it only with Animo. That’s how obsessed I am. It will happen eventually, one sale at a time.

Last week was a long and busy one at work, so I was pretty darn happy when Friday rolled around. Even better: they had Amy’s Ice Cream come in the afternoon for free sundaes! Not gonna lie, it was totally the highlight of my week. A scoop of Belgian chocolate and a scoop of Mexican vanilla with heath bar, oreos, m&m’s and hot fudge on the top. Yes, I’m trying to lose weight right now. No we’re not going to talk about it. Free ice cream doesn’t count.

Plus when I got home I found that my Interrupters album had come. It’s their debut album and I’ve been waiting a year for it to be released so I was pretty darn excited to find the LP and CD sitting on my doorstep. If you’re into punk or ska you should check them out… Tim Timebomb from Rancid co-produced the album and he’s in at least one of the tracks. You can listen to it here.

This weekend my lesson was on Saturday. I rolled out of bed at 6:30 Saturday morning and was delighted to find that a cold front had blown through. Look at what the temperature was when I got to the barn. In August. In Texas. Unbelievable. I was actually a little cold.

The lesson was pretty good. I kept my head straight this week but kept having to be reminded to keep my thumbs on top. One bad habit at a time I suppose. Lead changes were better though!

After several warmup jumps we had a pretty simple exercise that went something like this:

Jump 1 was about 2’6″, jumps 2 and 4 were 2’9″-3″ and jump 3 was a pretty good sized 3’3″ oxer with width to match. The turns weren’t super tight but there wasn’t a ton of extra room either. To get a good approach to 3 I had to jump 2 at an angle and go around a jump that was a few strides after it. The first time through I was good at 1 and 2 but I TOTALLY botched 3. I didn’t see any spot whatsoever so I did the (not at all) intelligent thing and whoaed like hell. How or why Henry actually jumped that fence I have no idea, but it was pretty much from a quarter stride spot with a barely cantering pace and me staring straight down at it. We landed in a big ugly heap, but he went and he made it across the jump without a problem. Generally he is not the type of horse to perform epic ass saves, especially at bigger (to us right now) oxers with zero momentum, so I was pretty amazed that he did it at all. I 100% thought he was going to stop. Trainer said “Good for your horse”. I agree… I was very proud of him for that. We finished the exercise without a problem then came back and did it again near perfectly and called it quits for the day.

I have to admit, I was way more proud of my horse’s epic ass save than I was about the fact that we did it correctly the second time. He showed a lot of maturity and good-hearted “ammy-proof” qualities with that one. He got a nice liniment bath and lots of booty scratches.

Saturday afternoon was filled with non-horsey activities, and I was so tired on Sunday I didn’t drag myself out to the barn until mid-morning. We managed a short easy hack followed by a long walk around the property then I grazed him for a while. He was mesmerized by Trainer’s horses on the automatic walker.

Then I started watching Sherlock on Netflix. Because of course I needed another nerdy obsession. Guess what I’ll be doing tonight while SO is at pinball?

 

This week really wasn’t all that interesting. Monday I had zero motivation so I just threw Henry’s hackamore on and went for a gallop around the property. At one point he decided that he felt terribly naughty and tried to buck me off. Of course, not real bucks, just little Henry wannabe bucks. He did manage to get his head between his knees to the point where I had a momentary concern about him flinging the hackamore right off his head. Other than that it was mostly just hilarious.

On Wednesday his new figure 8 bridle came. Let me tell you how obsessive I am about fitting a bridle… my friend came to hang out and take pics, and about half of the pictures she took are me adjusting the bridle. Pretty sure I spent longer doing that than I did actually riding the horse.

See? OCD level: high. Henry got so bored he fell asleep.

But I did actually get ON the horse finally and we did a simple hack. I wanted to make sure the new bridle fit before I oiled it, so the reins were super stiff and making me nuts. I’m a little sad that the quality of this Ovation is not nearly as nice as my old one, but it’s decent. Just needs major oiling.

 

Yesterday’s ride was much of the same thing, although we hopped over a few jumps just to see how I felt about the bridle over fences. Opinion is still up in the air.

Otherwise, for a July recap: a lot has happened.

1) New barn

2) New trainer

3) Played around with different bridles/bits

4) Got back to jumping regularly after spending June doing mostly flatwork

No horse shows and nothing that interesting… it’s just too hot. I tentatively have two shows planned for September and then we’ll see about the rest of the fall after that. Assuming of course that the VS thing doesn’t totally blow up and cause problems.

I also may or may not have ordered a second Ogilvy pad and I’m so excited. Happy almost birthday to me. I always give myself the best presents. 😉

I am really sad to hear that L at Viva Carlos isn’t going to be doing blog hops anymore. I think they’re so fun and I haven’t gotten to do nearly enough of them.

This week the challenge was: I want a pictorial tour of your closet. Not your riding clothes, but your equivalent of the crazy cat lady ugly cat sweater (I went through this phase when I was ages 8-11! Probably why I had no friends!) 

Honestly I really don’t have a lot of horsey themed clothes, and the ones I’ve kept are ones I really like. I tend to do a mass clothing purge every year or so, and if I don’t like it and wear it, it doesn’t survive.

But what I did notice while I was rifling through my closet was my overabundance of just downright NERDY shirts. Lion King (x2), Dr Who (x3), Transformers, old movies (x2), comic books and classic novels anyone???

I can’t believe I’m almost 31 years old, this is a little embarrassing but it made me chuckle so I had to take a picture. And no I will not get rid of a single one. Why?

I also have 3 The Gaslight Anthem shirts, a Rancid shirt and a The Interrupters shirt if anyone is feeling particularly fangirl-ish. We won’t even talk about the STACK of race shirts I have from various 5ks, 10k’s, half marathons, triathlons and bike races.

This makes me feel like my horsey shirt collection is severely lacking. Obviously I need more.

But thanks VC for making me rummage through my closet. It’s been a while and it was fun.

Alright, time for the fun part. If you suffered through yesterday’s recap of the flatwork portion in Part One you deserve a cookie. Instead you get to read Part Two. Sorry.

Our warmup fence was a little green astroturf covered coop, about 2’6″. We were to canter this off the left then off the right, etc etc repeatedly until something good happened. The first time over I got reprimanded for chicken wings, which I definitely find myself doing sometimes on this horse. I needed to make sure I was moving my hands forward in the release, not just laying my body down on top of them. I also was still turning my head in the air – I DON’T KNOW WHY I DO THIS but I’ve been tying to stop for years. Seriously, why is my head on a swivel? If I don’t 100% concentrate, it never stays straight. And of course subsequently my body doesn’t stay straight either. So – sit up, hands forward, head straight.

My friend Amy was both photographer and videographer so she did the best she could. I tried to cut out all the excess.

We cantered that jump a few more times with marginal success so we got to graduate to a different jump, a big oxer crossrail. The center was still little so no big deal although it looked a little impressive visually when you were cantering up to it. Off we went again jumping it off both directions repeatedly. A theme started to emerge here… jumping off the right never went quite as easily. Remember what I said yesterday about him carrying his haunches to the right? That of course translates into crooked horse and crooked approach to the jumps. So, I had to focus on controlling those wayward haunches.

It also became apparent that I’m making a twofold error in my adjustments.

1) I’m waiting too late after the jump to re-establish my pace and balance. This should happen before the corner, not in it. Once I’m in the corner I should just be maintaining, because it’s too late to still be trying to get my rhythm and balance back. Yes this is common knowledge, but it’s a really bad habit of mine to wait until the corner and I really need to be more aware of it.

2) When I do make an adjustment I should always use my seat first. Henry is pretty sensitive and needs very little aid to make these minor adjustments, so it’s very rare that I ever need to use a lot of leg or hand when jumping this horse. When I do, it usually creates an over-adjustment. So always try just the seat first.

We got those things ironed out a bit better and actually had a few really lovely jumps in a row, earning several “good”s. Those are hard to come by.

Then we moved over to the white box with a pole over it, which was maybe 3′. In trainer’s words “still a tiny jump” (easy to say when you’re a  six-time Bolivian National Champion, former president of the Bolivian National Federation of Equestrian Sports and member of the Bolivian National Olympic committee, I suppose) but I’m just a peon and it looks a little bit on the bigger side to me when I’m on what is still a pretty green horse. And of course since it looked a little big to me, the first thing I did was try to attack it. Because that helps.

Trainer immediately nixed that behavior and had me practice waiting, waiting, waiting and just sitting up and supporting the horse all the way to the base – something my Certified Leaner self is not good at. We also practiced landing and immediately making a turn rather than continuing straight ahead, without me letting my body get crooked in the air in the process. This tied in what we’d practiced earlier about getting him back before the corner to ensure better turns. We did it, and it actually wasn’t heinous, and by that point Henry was breathing pretty hard so we quit while we were ahead.

Baby steps, y’all. Baby steps. I’m so excited about this type of work, I really thrive on the little details and I think this is what we really need to start moving up to the next level. I’m getting so much out of these lessons!