Stream of consciousness?

First, I am sure most of the equine & blogger community has heard about the barn fire at Boyd Martin's place. Words cannot describe how heartbroken everyone connected to that tragedy must me. So sad and a good reason to hug your horse today. Eventing Nation has additional coverage and also ways to help with the relief funds.


Denny Emerson is donating half of his royalties from his new book "How Good Riders Get Good" to help with the recovery.  Click on the link below to buy the book and help:



















***


Hampton has been going pretty well this week. He has been a bit foot sore up front, so I have only been riding every other day. I am sure it is because everything is sopping wet and his feet got a little soft. He seemed a lot better when I rode him on Sunday. Yesterday I decided to attempt to have fun like a normal person and I went fishing in a gorgeous state park about an hour away. It was fun and relaxing. And cheap! And the company was good. *wink wink*


Noah will be staying yet another month, which is great because I am just now starting to make some good progress with him (after starting totally over). Tomorrow we are going to ride in the big ring and work more on steering. We worked on trailer loading for a bit yesterday and he walks right on now! This is the horse that would not load at all 2 months ago. I also worked with Hampton and he self-loaded for the first time!


I have tomorrow off so I plan on working Zippy and Marisol as well as the big boys. Busy day! 


Well this was a scattered post. lol. We shall see what tomorrow brings. With 4 horses to work, I am sure some good blog fodder will result. :)

So you want to be an eventer. [fear]

For several years I have wanted to try eventing but have not really had the horse for it. Now that it is becoming obvious that I DO have a horse for it (although he needs to grow up a little bit more), the idea of eventing is starting to become a reality for me.

This both excites and scares the crap out of me.

I know this is a few years away as I of course intend to start at Beginner Novice (or below!), but the idea of galloping. Like, REALLY galloping ... well, it terrifies me. There. I said it.

Yes, I can hand gallop. I can enjoy a nice romp in an open field. But when I watch the Rolex riders ... they are not going for a romp. Even some of the Training level riders (a level I think I could reach with Hampton someday), are cooking around the course.

I am not afraid of my horse taking off. I am afraid he will trip and fall down. That is my fear. It's not the speed, it's that I am afraid of him tripping at a gallop. Weird? I'm not scared of jumping - but I do have a healthy respect for it. And I am certainly confident with the dressage phase. I did ride hunter jumpers in college so stadium jumping doesn't make me super nervous either. In general, I feel pretty prepared to start out at the very lower levels of this awesome sport. But ... what if we get good enough that we need to start galloping?

... Yup, I'm a dweeb.

Shout outs!!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging for some plugs and shout-outs ...

• Ashley over at a Process of Learning is hosting a really cool giveaway. Check it out!

• Stacy over at Behind the Bit is also hosting a giveaway contest for Ultrashield GreenGel.

• My new favorite website/blog - Eventing Nation - also has frequent promotions, video clips and updates from the eventing world and the horse world in general.

• Catherine Haddad wrote a great blog recently about teaching and learning. Read it here.

<<< ---- This is one of my favorite books. I use it many times each week!

• LOL catz ... enough said.

• Every Sunday, the Postsecret website updates with new secrets. This is truly one of the most moving websites I have ever encountered.

• For those with a more twisted, sick sense of humor, don't forget:
Texts from Last Night

F My Life

And for those who enjoy e-books, check out the following links:

Up, open, active

Hampton has been giving me some great work all week. I'm not sure if it's because the horses have been having some time out in the grass field, or because I upped his grain slightly (he's looking a bit thin to me again) ... but the boy has has energy to spare!

Yesterday was 85+ degrees and I thought for sure I would be having to push him along. Oh no. Some horses took off in the pasture and Hampton does a little scoot and head shake to express his opinion. Um - ok? I was only going to trail ride but if he had that much energy then we shall work. Boy did I get some excellent shoulder-ins, good leg yields and he was up, open and active. Which I LOVE - especially for a 4 year old. This is different from above the bit. He was on the bit, with the poll at the highest point, nose slightly in front of the vertical. And he was forward and working. We even touched a bit on haunches in (I'm still figuring out the best way to teach him this, it seems difficult for him. Or I am just not communicating well enough what I want) We did eventually go out on a short trail ride which was windy (thankfully) and lovely.

After we came back from the trail ride, I set up a small jump. :) First just a cross rail, and then a vertical! Ok, he did knock it down a couple of times. But it seems if I put something different under the jump, he will jump it like a champ. After a few times over, he gets bored and stops putting in the effort. We did get some lovely little jumps (it was maybe a 2 foot vertical if that). He was calm about the entire thing, which was my goal. I think we are ready to start hauling away for some more formal jumping lessons! yay!

I am also making plans to go on an overnight trail ride. Perhaps to Brown County State Park? I really think Hampton needs to haul to a new place and have a relaxing time and not have it be a busy horse show. Ok. The real truth is that we BOTH need that. haha. The only thing that worries me is that the park doesn't have stalls. Your horse will need to spend the night tied to something ( your trailer, a picket line, whatever). I love Hampton, but I DO NOT TRUST HIM to remain tied all night. He will untie himself and all the horses around him. Because that he now he rolls. lol. Ideas?

EHV-1 virus

The equine world is abuzz with talk about another outbreak of this horrible virus.

The English farm at Findlay.

A year after I graduated from the University of Findlay equestrian program, this virus slammed the English barn. It killed 12 horses in about 4 days. Read another article here. There were so many sick horses, the staff and students (only juniors and seniors were even allowed in the barn), were tying the sick horses to the ceiling with baling twine in the large indoor arena. This is so that when they went down, they were more easily moved. A couple of the horses that died were favorites of mine when I was a student there.

I believe it was traced to a young horse that came in for the Young Horse class who was infected and/or shedding the virus. More than 120 horses developed a fever (about 140 lived on that farm alone).

I'm thankful right now that I live in the Midwest - where we are likely pretty safe from the current outbreak. But you can never be too careful. The majority of the horses at our farm don't go anywhere. Hampton is one of a handful that go to shows and trail rides.

It's a good idea to take your horse's temp for a week to establish what his or her healthy baseline temp is, so you can quickly spot a fever. That's my plan for the next 5 days or so. Everyone should do it.

It's all in the preparation

When you have a young horse in his first show season, there is a certain amount of experimentation that needs to happen in order to determine what sort of preparation is best for that horse before trotting down the center line (or to the first fence, whatever is your fancy).

I think most of our issues from this weekend were a result of bad prep on my part.

At the February show, I took Hampton out, showed him, put him back in his stall. Rinse and repeat for two more tests. At this weekend's show, I took him out, showed him and stayed out (in the warm-up) since there was only 3 rides in between our tests. He never did really relax. I think he is one who needs to school, be put back in his stall and then brought back out to show. Then put back away again before each class. He comes out more relaxed every time. This also gives him a chance to pee and get a drink - both essential to Hampton's happiness. :)

So I am going to try that strategy next time and see if I get a more relaxed horse. I don't have a show in mind yet but hopefully we will get to one in June.

How do you all prep your horses - especially the green beans - for shows?

A timeline of a horse show. :)

7 a.m.: Get to barn, fetch horse from pasture. Throw him in stall to eat his breakfast.

7:15 a.m.: Off to hook up trailer. Get trailer hitched and pull up to driveway. Discover a tire is flat. WTF!!!!

7:16 a.m.: Limp up the road to nearest gas station to put air in tire.

7:30 a.m.: back at farm, load up last minute things. Start to braid the horse.

8:15 a.m. Finish braiding said beast.

8:30 a.m.: Load horse, hit the road.

9:40 a.m.: Arrive at show. Wow. LOTS of horse trailers here this time. Find a good place to park. Unload horse, throw him in stall with hay and water. He was a bit sweaty coming off the trailer.

... So my friend/groom/reader and I spent most of the morning just watching and relaxing. I felt it would be good for Hampton to spend some time in his stall without me bothering him. Also I wanted to get a feel for how the combined tests and event derbys were run.

12:30 p.m.: Start grooming beast.

1 p.m.: Off to lunge the horse. He was an idiot on the lunge. Great. Super tense, some screaming ... But did eventually start to calm down. I realize he might be a little too fit for a young dressage horse. We lunged for nearly 40 minutes and he wasn't even out of breath in the slightest. I decide to just get on as I know I can get his mind working better under saddle.

1:45 p.m.: Aboard the horsie. We spend maybe 15 minutes just walking to see if he will RELAX. Works maybe a little. The hunter pace begins and we are informed that those participants will be galloping directly through our warm-up ring - including a log jump obstacle. This freaks out a few people, but the horses never even blinked.

I love Triple Creek Farm.

2 p.m.: Still trying to relax the horse. He is tense, wiggly and is bucking through canter transitions. A classic sign he is super super stiff right behind the saddle. Turn on the haunches helps him some and starts to get him somewhat more obedient.

2:30 p.m. We go in the ring for Training Level test 3. Right off the back horse spooks at a terrifying hay bale in the field next to the ring. Judge is kind and lets up work that out before ringing the bell. Off we go.

2:40 p.m.: Our test begins ... there is much spooking (not at the hay bale). One side of the ring butts up against the side of the barn and so when we rode by, the sand would hit the siding and Hampton was most offended. This resulted in a 3 for our first trot loop. Yes, a 3. And a comment of "disobedience." Everything seems like a hot mess. So much so that now I am laughing. I am surprised I did not get a -2 for use of voice. :) End of test - judge kindly smiles and me and says that was a very "tactful" ride. I am grateful for her kindness and understanding. We manage to pull off a 61% and 3rd place.

There were some lovely moments ...

3:15: Next text Training Level 1. The spooking went away but now horse is irritated (I later discover he really, really had to pee). There was much squirming and BUCKING at the canter transitions. Good grief. Also, my reader loses her place. Thankfully I had the test memorized and continue on. Again, I am laughing at what a hot mess this has turned out to be. This test earned us a lovely 59%. Oh Hampton! :)

3:20: Put horse back in stall. He pees like a race horse. I take a break and decide to scratch out last test and decide I will just school him instead. I get my scores and find I have earned 8's on rider position and seat!! This makes my day!!

4:30 p.m.: Hop back on horse to school. He is of course relaxed, no bucking, and obedient. :) I am happy with this as I wanted his last ride to be a good one. I start eyeing a cross rail set up in the warm up ring for the jumping people. ... I wonder over there .... I will just trot him up to it and see what happens ...

4:35 p.m.: Hampton jumps his very first cross rail under saddle. At a show. In the middle of a field. I am BEAMING now. We pop over it a few more times. One time he did a little happy buck after. He LOVES this. I now eye the cross country area ...

4:40 p.m.: We "school" just a bit of cross country. At the walk! We walked over the bank and over a few logs. :)

4:45 p.m.: I look out over all this beautiful jumps. At the beautiful farm. At my naughty but beautiful horse and realize just how lucky I am. I also feel an irresistable desire to try this eventing thing ...

4:50 p.m.: I trot back to the barn as the skies are now black and there is thunder. We quickly pack the trailer, unbraid the horse, load the trailer and load the horse just as a massive torrential downpour hits.

6 p.m. Home safe. I turn horse out and he GALLOPS out to his friends. I guess he wasn't tired. But I sure was!!!

Photos from the show!

Well, I am exhausted so I will save my write up for tomorrow. But I will say that as usual, it was an adventure. :) No blue ribbons and no super awesome scores but  a really fun day and some hilarity. :)

Here are some photos for now:

yeah baby!

After giving Hampton Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off ... I rode him lightly this evening. And he was SO ON. The canter was back. He was up in the poll and right there for me. So I quit after 10 minutes hoping that same horse will come with me to the show tomorrow. So it's a go!! Can't wait! (Please let the storms stay away ...)

.... to be continued!

No freaking out needed

You guys are 100% right. Giving him time off before a show isn't going to affect his performance on show day and infact just might make it better. So that is what I am going to do. I may lightly lunge him Friday evening just to make sure he isn't officially lame (if that's the case obviously we won't go to the show). Frankly I am the one who needs to practice for the show - not him! :) And I have Zippy and Marisol to practice my tests on tomorrow and Friday. It won't be perfect but I can at least ride the pattern. I doubt I would have ridden Hampton today anyway since this sudden hot weather has everyone acting rather blah (I'm not complaining!! It's just that we aren't used to it yet)

So today was the perfect spa day for the big H. I clipped his legs, trimmed his mane and gave him a good bath and scrubbing. I also washed his filthy tail. I think I'll wash the tail again on Friday for good measure. It's so nice to enjoy those few minutes when your horse is clean and shiny and smells like V05 ... and then they roll. *sigh*

And now I must go shower. Clipping horsie + lots of sweat = very gross human.

Edited to add: Just got my ride times for this weekend. Our first test isn't until 2:17 p.m. Sweet Jesus a horse show I can take my time at!! Plenty of time to get there and school. YAY!!

Dang it!

"Treat?"

So Hampton's right leg/hock/stifle? is bothering him again. Damn it! I hope I didn't push him too far on Friday. His canter that evening was fan-freaking-tastic. So the point where I started to ask for canter-walk transitions and just a tad more collection. I was smiling the entire time!

Saturday we did only trot work and a trail ride. Sunday we did ground poles on the lunge, a little piaffe work in hand and some fun free jumping on the lunge line for fun. Monday he had the day off. Which brings us to today. He was working just fine - I wanted to go back to easy basics today and school Training Level Test 1 a bit.  We also did a few leg yields at the trot. Many circles. The right lead canter was still lovely, and the left lead wasn't to the point of "oh shit I need to call the chiro" bad ... but it was stiff. And he wanted to drop the inside shoulder (not like him). During one downward transition (to the trot) he even took a really stiff/lame step with the right hind as he switched gaits. *sigh* Oh Hampton. So while our ride was good, and our run through of the test was acceptable ... now I'm not sure what to do. Do I give him another day off the week of a show? Do I keep working him lightly? ahhhh!!! I know tomorrow he will spend some time in his magnetic hock boots ... and I guess I'll work him lightly and see where it goes. A back massage is probably in order.

Aboard Noah

Noah the giant also is making progress - as slow as it is sometimes. Today I rode him off the lunge line and with no ground person for the first time ever. And he was totally fine. Steering needs more work, but he's coming along. I am loving the hot weather. It makes for cooperative young horses. heh heh. Tomorrow I'll climb back on him and see if we can trot. He is likely going back home at the end of the month so I supposed he should be at least walk-trotting under saddle. He just needed so much handling and ground work to start with. And I think that's more important.

Hoping everyone's ponies are well behaved and healthy! :)

Who am I with my horse?

I took Baxter home yesterday morning. :( On a good note, he was a peach to haul and hopped right on my trailer.) I will miss him though and all the fun upper level work I could practice with him. :) He is now living at the big farm where I take lessons so I will still be able to see him and even ride him on occation.

It's back to serious work for Hampton this week in prep for our May 14 show. I'm breaking out my 101 Dressage Exercises book for guidance.

And on an interesting note, I came across this website recently. I took the personality assessment quiz and ended up with a tie between a Healer and a Shaman. I can relate to qualities of both, so I think it's pretty spot on. Check it out - which one are you?

Here's part of the Shaman description:

How they see the world. As connected and as One. That everything happens for a reason and there are no absolutes, no either/or. 

 How they are toward others. Balanced. Enjoy the company of others but also appreciate solitude. Seen by others as calm, wise, pleasant to be with. Enjoy being “in service” to others. 

 How they see horses. As partners. As different but equal in terms of deserving a voice, a choice. Advocate for horse. Horses drawn to steady, calming ways. “Horse Whisperer.” 

 What they want from a horse. Whatever the horse is able to give given who they are their situation and their history. Will ask of a horse and then wait to see the response. Expectations are minimal – take what is offered by the horse and work forward from that point. 

 As a riding student. Have a special connection with whatever horse they ride. No matter riding ability have a calm, open, curious presence when learning. Will be less inclined to choose mechanical aids for riding (crops, whips, spurs, some bits, biting devices). Uncanny ability to calm horses in any environment with no obvious effort or technique – just their presence. 

As a competitor. Less drawn to competition than other archetypes. If compete has the ability to stay calm and focused. Enjoys the challenge of competition in partnership with horse. Results not so important. 

 Riding discipline drawn to. Shamans have such a deep connection to horses they can step into almost any discipline and create a profound relationship with the horse. 

 Horses they are drawn to. Horses of all kinds are drawn to the Shaman and most Shamans appreciate all kinds of horses. 

 Horses they should to avoid. None. A shaman is a gift for any horse to have in their life. 

Greatest Strength. Way of knowing intuitively and through wisdom how to connect and form a true partnership with horses where the horses have choice. 

 Greatest liability. Not being understood or accepted by others who still see horses through a dominance/submission paradigm. 

 

Ramdom noms

Well that little virus I had on Sunday turned into something rather nasty. Monday was horrid and yesterday both of my eyes became infected. Isn't that exciting? So Hampton has had a few days off. I went out to the farm today just to spend time with him, but figured I could use one more day off to let myself recover. Plus I hate riding in my glasses and I can't wear my contacts until my left eye is a little less angry and goopy.

So here is a random video of Hampton mowing around the farm this morning. I didn't add music to this one because there is something about the sound of a horse munching away that is so soothing to me. I am sure you all can relate. :)

Also, I realize that letting him loose with his lead rope dragging is not really safe, but he doesn't freak out when he steps on it and he is always supervised when I allow him this freedom. Ok there's my disclaimer. :)

Lesson report

So since Friday I have had a nasty sore throat and have been losing my voice. Sunday I woke up with 2 earaches and a stuffy nose, too. Great. However, I was so looking forward to loading Hampton up on the new trailer and taking a lesson that I sucked it up. Anyhoo ...

He was a little reluctant to load at first. He's not scared, he just plants his feet. He's never been on a trailer with a divider before, so I let him check things out. And he eventually sauntered on.

"I guess this trailer will do ..."

We arrived at the big dressage farm and Hampton was a champ! The more places I take him the better he gets. I think he hollered maybe 5 times the entire time we were there. A big improvement from our last lesson when he thought he should be a stallion and yell constantly.

The actual lesson was great. He started out distracted (one of the big doors was open, and it wasn't last time we were there), but with work his brain settled and he was fabulous. My instructor was most impressed with his upward canter transitions and his overall canter - saying you can't ask a 4 year old to be much better than that. :) This meant a lot to me as the canter is where we have struggled most. I wish I had gotten video! 

We did many leg yields away from the wall, and lots of "almost walk, then trot" exercises which I do a lot with him anyway. We also worked on trot lengthenings and holy. cow. I do not have mirrors at home so I had no idea that how much he has really improved on those. We can't make it all the way across the diagonal yet without Hampton losing his balance, but yeah there are some GREAT moments there. 

He was such a good boy. I am so so proud of him. Although when we left he was a turd about getting back on the trailer. Ugh. So my instructor helped me work with him on my own (no encouragement from people outside the trailer) but making his life a living hell outside the trailer and letting him rest if he decided to come in. It took maybe 10 minutes but he decided to come in finally. :) That is something I need to work on. I mean this is really only the 4th or 5th trip he has ever made in a trailer. 

What Hampton thinks of his green and pink boots!

I feel pretty prepared for the May 14 CAF show. Lots of practice the next 2 weeks for sure. :)

I am so jealous of everyone who went to Rolex. It looked like so much fun. Perhaps next year for me.

And now back to relaxin on the couch nursing myself back to health. *cough* *sniffle*