This weeks lesson report is getting split into two parts… mainly because I have a lot of pictures and some video to share, and also because there was just A LOT of info coming at me and I don’t want this to turn into a crazy long post.

It’s been two weeks since my last lesson, which was my first lesson with my new trainer. Unfortunately last weekend it rained so we missed our lesson day. In those two weeks I’ve been trying really hard to work on the main points from lesson one, particularly SITTING UP. Honestly, this has been the focus of my entire 22 year riding career – I am Quasimodo by nature. And if someone isn’t always telling me to sit up, hell if I ever remember. The struggle is real.

I hopped on for my lesson, walked around for a few minutes (sitting up!), then started trotting. I got very few comments during my trot work, which I have figured out is a good thing because nothing gets by this guy. I still have to constantly remind myself to sit up and look up and put my thumbs on top. Eq rider, I am not. Henry felt better though too… we’ve got a slower tempo but with a bigger step, and he was actually bending his body around my leg. We did lots of changes of direction, some sitting trot and a few leg yields.

 After a quick walk break we moved on to the canter. If I didn’t get a lot of comments during the trot work, it’s because I got All The Comments during the canter work. I’ll summarize and say that they’re mainly about finding exactly the right rhythm, slowing the tempo but increasing the stride, and keeping him more connected. That’s a lot of work, especially to the right. He tends to carry his hind end too far to the inside in the right lead, which makes everything a little wonky and almost sideways sometimes. More leg, straight shoulders (I tend to be a little crooked too) and just very steady hands and still upper body. That’s really easy to say but not really easy to do. Honestly it’s exhausting. Still, we did manage to get some good canter work in there.

Then we focused on the lead changes.

Henry does pretty easy changes, but he does want to speed up a little bit and get heavy in my hand for a couple strides afterward. Trainer wants seamless changes so that the corners are smoother and they don’t interrupt our rhythm or make tight turns difficult. Off we went on a figure eight exercise. The first couple times were kind of a fail… apparently I like to just lean my upper body all over the place like a drunken monkey (Trainer was too polite to use those exact words but that’s basically what he meant). Henry got all the changes but he also got a bit quicker and pulled. Sooo we talked about it.

And then off I went to try a little harder at doing a lot less. This is a difficult concept for me and always has been a constant struggle in my riding. Sitting there and letting things happen does not come naturally to my personality. So I tried my figure eight exercise again, this time just sitting up perfectly square and being very still and doing absolutely nothing but changing the bend of his body with my legs and a softly supporting outside rein. Much better this time. 3 out of 4 perfect smooth easy changes with no change of tempo. Sometimes it’s so simple that it’s incredibly difficult.

I wanted a trainer with a whole lot of attention to detail and I certainly got one. It’s hard, it’s challenging, and I’m loving every minute of it. Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2 – the jumping!

Good news first: there were lots of fun things happening this weekend. Friday after work I went and rode, although kept it short because it was so hot. After that I went to happy hour with some horse friends and had some queso and fajitas and a lovely blue margarita. Fridays are the best.

Saturday was a rare day off with the SO, so we got up and watched the Tour de France time trials, then loaded up the dogs and went off to Bull Creek for some hiking. It was quite a climb up the steepest part of the hill but totally worth it for the view.

 

Afterward we went and hung out on a dog-friendly patio and had a late lunch, then home to shower and chill for a few hours. Then we got re-dressed and headed to my favorite part of the downtown Austin area, South Congress. There’s so many cool restaurants and shops on this street, I can entertain myself all day. Plus the city view is awesome.

We ate, we drank, we had some really amazing desserts at Snack Bar, and we were home by 11pm. Total win.

Sunday morning I got up early for a lesson, AND my friend came out to take pictures/video! So I finally have lots of new media to share. I’m going to break that off into a seperate post though because there was SO MUCH, it’d be a whole ‘nother novel if I tried to fit in all in here.

Now, on to the not-so-good part of the weekend, and why I’m slowly going nuts. There is a pretty contagious virus going around central Texas called Vesicular Stomatitis. It effects mostly cows and horses but also sheep, goats, etc. The virus itself in most cases isn’t a huge deal… the animal usually gets lesions and blisters on the lips, gums, tongue and basically feels like crap for about a week, then it passes and they’re fine. The reason it’s a real problem is that when it shows up in cattle it looks a lot like Foot and Mouth. Obviously this is really bad if you’re trying to sell or ship cattle, hence why the Texas Animal Health Commission monitors cases very closely. If you have an animal show up with it, the property is quarantined for 21 days AFTER the last infected horse is healed. When you figure theres a 2-8 day incubation period, it can be spread by flies/mosquitoes as well as nose to nose contact, then a 7-10 infection period… that can potentially be a pretty good amount of time in quarantine. For all of these reasons, obviously I’d really like to keep it out of our barn.

Enter: me becoming a complete horse hypochondriac. Henry lives in a constant cloud of Pyranha. I check him every single day for any signs of lesions. Yes, even the inside of his mouth. He’s thrilled about it. It goes a lot like this…

Get Henry out of his stall. Inspect every centimeter of his mouth, inside and out. Freak out at his lip coloring (the rim of his lips are naturally speckly). Decide that’s normal. Freak out at the thing on his gum. Oh, that’s chewed up cookie. Stand there and stare at him for a minute, trying to decide if he’s lethargic or just completely bored with me being a crazy person. OH MY GOD THERE’S A FLY ON HIM, KILL IT KIIILLLL IIIITTTTT!!!

Repeat every day.

Luckily my barn is being as proactive about it as possible. The grooms check every horse before they take it out of the stall, they’re spraying all the barns twice a day with super duty insecticide, we have flyers posted up around the barn, etc. But I can’t help but feel like we’re kind of all screwed since it’s spread so easily by flies and mosquitoes, and in a wet Texas summer there’s just no possible way to keep them all out. We’ll see what happens. In the mean time, if you need me I’ll have my face in my horse’s mouth. Happy freakin’ Monday!

The other day on facebook BellEqui added tons of new color sample photos for custom jackets. I have to admit, I sat there for a few minutes totally gobsmacked by the options. There are So. Many. I couldn’t even wrap my head around where to start. Honestly, I STILL haven’t wrapped my head around all of this. I could handle it when the only body color options were gray, black, navy and red with about 40ish possible collar colors. But now? Basically every color of the rainbow.

So for a fun Friday exercise… if you were building your DREAM show jacket, what colors would you pick? Body color, lapel color, and even piping if you so choose – all of the colors can be used for any part of the jacket. The standard black, gray, navy, red are still available too. Ultra conservative or ultra flashy… you decide.

I warned you there were a lot. Didn’t believe me did you?

For me I’m thinking…

1) navy with cornflower blue collar and white piping

2) dark chocolate brown with french blue collar and ivory piping

3) for a fun one – dark purple with black collar and gray piping. Because you only live once so why the hell not.

Ready – go!

 

I rode my first stallion at the age of 14 (what better mount than a 3yo stallion for a lesson kid?) and have been around them off and on my whole life. Some better than others, but for the most part I’ve always gotten along well with the boys. I worked at a breeding farm and have always been really interested in the breeding industry so along the way I’ve been truly fortunate to get the chance to handle/sit on/meet some of the nicest stallions in the country.

Valentino Z – forever my favorite boy

Kinnaras

Cielo B

Cartier R

Diabolo D’Esquelmes

Obviously I’m not the rider on these boys in their “grown up” pictures. 😉 This is just a handful of the boys I’ve been lucky enough to meet and work with over the years. Sonntagskind is a total lamb, as is Sea Accounts, and I completely fell in love with Cascani and Justice at October Hill. Shine probably has one of the best dispositions I’ve ever seen on a horse, and while I obsessively stalked As Always for years I have no idea where he is now. Figaro B, Concorde B, Deja Blue B – all stunning. I would have gladly put Baron Van Gogh in my pocket and taken him home from the stallion testing in 2009. And so on and so on… there’s so many nice stallions and I’m obviously a sucker for the boys. Don’t tell all the others but no one will ever take the place of my favorite squishable, Valentino.

Who is your favorite stallion?

 

 

Well I finally decided last week that the Micklem just isn’t the answer for Henry. He was a little bit better in it in some ways but worse in it in other ways, so I just couldn’t pull the trigger on buying him one. I decided to go with the figure 8 instead. After tearing up the internet for two days trying to find a figure 8 noseband that would go on my monocrown bridle and still kinda match but not be super expensive I totally gave up. Then I decided to go look at everything the local tack shop and Dover had in the store… grand total of 6 options (why you no has jumper bridles?), none of which were both the price and quality that I wanted. So again I gave up and just came home and ordered an Ovation bridle online. I’ve had a few of that brand already and I think for $135 (yay internet deals) with rubber reins they just can’t be beat. Therefore Henry does have a new bridle on route, just not a Micklem. Maybe someday we’ll upgrade to a really fancy figure 8 bridle but for now this one will do perfectly.

I have nothing particularly exciting to report on the riding front right now. Monday we just flatted in the ring and then went out on a long trail ride around the property with a barn friend. Yesterday we flatted for a bit then I jumped a few fences on a circle, trying to both remember and execute all the things I need to work on. Sometimes I even succeeded. Henry was pretty sweaty after that (god it’s hot) so again we went on a walk around the property. When I came in to untack him there was no one else in the barn so I just pulled everything off him then slipped around the corner into the tack room to grab cookies and fly spray. I turned back around to this:

Also, remember how on Monday I talked about those awesome Peruvian made Jenny Krauss belts I saw at the horse show? Remember how I patted myself on the back for not buying one? Yeah… about that…

So I started googling/ebaying and found out that there are a few sellers out there from Peru selling them around or under $30ish bucks. $30ish bucks is a lot different than $65 bucks. I mean, I could get TWO! (See how my logic works?)

Unfortunately since I just bought I bridle (and may or may not have fairly immediate plans for a new Ogilvy cover- shhhh) I’m trying out this weird thing called self control and only allowing myself to buy ONE. The problem is I like lots of them, so I figured I’d get y’alls opinion. I narrowed it down to three finalists: