THURSDAY MARCH 28, 2019
All photos actual footage from this day.
6:45 am: Cat alarm goes off.
On my chest begging to be fed IMMEDIATELY.
7:00 am: Actual alarm goes off.
7:45 am: Test Hunter's blood sugar. Feed cat alarm cats, give Hunter insulin.
8:00 am: Leave house for the barn
8:30 am: Arrive at barn. Feed 4 more cats. Clean 7 stalls, feed horses, set hay, grain and water.
9:45 am: Bring horses in. (our barn is night turn out all year). Also bring Hampton in.
10:00 am: Tack up Hampton. Feed him treats.
Not enough treats dispensed to start this pony ride maam.
10:15 am: On to ride the Porkchop. Today was a mash-up ride of forward and back, some canter piros, tempis, and really defining the half halts in the trot.
Thats better
11:00 am: Done riding. Untack, feed more treats, make Hampton some lunch. 11:15 am: Put Hampton back in his field. Leave barn.
11:45 am: Drive for Postmates for extra cash. 12:30 am: Get rear ended while on a Postmates run. Minor damage to the car MY DAD gave me. Accident was not my fault, hopefully the other driver's insurance will cover repairs. Try not to freak out about it.
FML
1:15 pm: Go home. Tired of driving around. Eat lunch and check Hunter's blood sugar again.
2:00 pm: Sign in to work remote.
2-10:30 pm. Work.
8:00 pm: Feed fat lazy creatures the cats. Another insulin shot for Hunter.
10:30 pm: Sign off work. Check cat's blood sugar one last time to make sure he won't try to die overnight.
11:00 pm: Crawl into bed. Watch some YouTube. Go down weird rabbit holes. 11:30 pm ish? SLEEP.
Royale hasn't been on this blog too much because he has been developing with Liz the past year and a half or so. But he is still around and he is doing great!
Since Hampton was out sick from school, I threw Royale on the trailer for my lesson with JK last week.
I have not ridden him in more than a year, so I figured this might be an adventure.
Jen and Conner joined us and we hit the road! Note: Jen wrote her own recap on her blog but I will add that every time I see them, this pair improves. I know it might seem like you are stuck sometimes, but if you make a little but of progress each day, after 30 days you have accomplished something!
So the first part of the lesson was ... entertainment for everyone watching.
Basically the first 30 minutes of my lesson went like this:
"Oh good Karen. Yes, good job staying in the middle."
"Wow he is spectacular"
"Do you want a running martingale"
"Oh he is being a turd"
"That is a lot of monkey business"
"This is clearly not Karen's first horse. She has ridden a few"
"I don't trust a lot of riders with horses like this, but I trust Karen" - this was in reference to horses who run through the shoulder and nearly plow into the audience
"Yep. This is behavioral"
"You have a great ability to stay in the middle no matter what the horse does"
Royale is a fun ride, but only if you are used to that type of horse. I rode horses like him all through my teen years and even before so his antics don't bother me or scare me, but he is certainly a challenge to get his brain. There was spooking, skittering, throwing his head upside down, bouncing off the contact, ignoring my leg, ignoring me all together, charging through the outside shoulder and dropping his back. This is absolutely not a reflection of the training Liz has done, this is all Royale and his brain.
BUT. After 30 minutes, it's like his brain come back. And THEN I was able to do some nice work with him! You just have to stick it out for a bit. ha!
We worked a lot on canter transitions, and how he really seems to appreciate it when you organize the trot, then canter. He likes to throw his hind legs out into space, pretty much anywhere but under him, so the organization really helped.
Liz has done a great job of developing him especially his ability to go out to the contact, and keep a steady tempo. He is going to be a really nice horse, but he is a mental ride. The interesting thing about Royale is that while he can spook at his environment, he is not ONE BIT worried about his rider. I was riding the fur off him, manhandling, kicking, ANYTHING to get his attention and not once did he offer to rear, buck, or do anything to get rid of me.
He is SO much better about accepting the leg these days. Now he needs to learn to be sharper on the aids, which was hard to do when you couldn't touch him or he would fly off into the sunset.
A fun lesson and good for Royale to have a different rider and off the property ride coming into show season. I rattled his cage pretty good, hopefully I did not ruin him for Liz!
Here's a few short clips. Didn't get any of his drama except very mild spooking but you can see how nice he is developing. Some good moments! You can see anytime I ask him to get off my leg his head comes up and his back drops. Not the right answer but he will get there!
He also did some of this while I was visiting
Loading on the trailer was a different story. I was about to donate him to science, but just like under saddle he eventually gives up and walks right on and stands.
Sadly, a lunge line was our only fatality from the day. A victim of my trailer loading discussions with Royale. womp womp
In case you wondered what the guts of a lunge line look like
Annnnd then we got stuck in a massive traffic jam on I-65 on the way home. Jen and I did not go crazy, although the boys had a party in the trailer as it was a catastrophe in there when we got home haha.
Advice: Always get gas, soda, junk food, candy before you hit the road! That saved us ha.
A fun weekend but I was happy to get back to Porkchop! It's almost time to enter the first show of the season. How is it show season already?!?!
Last week I was all set to farm sit for BFF Liz for 3ish days up in Indiana. I had plans to drag Hampton along with me, and go take a lesson from JK while up there since I would be close enough to a one-day haul in.
My plan was to leave Thursday morning.
Guess who had a 104 degree fever Wednesday afternoon?
I does not feel good
I had crosstied him and he just looked ... funky. Hamp is a stoic guy but man when he doesn't feel well it is written ALL OVER HIS FACE. I checked his temp. 104.
I gave him banamine and thought maybe it was a reaction to his recent vaccines and I would make the call in the morning. I alerted my vet who agreed with my plan of action. On Thursday morning his temp was down to 101 something but he wasn't really eating his breakfast so that made my decision very easy. I would just leave him home.
He never showed any other symptoms. Just sort of ran a fever off and on the entire weekend.
By Sunday he was 99.7 and has stayed there.
Much happier when I went out to the barn on Sunday
I looked in every nook and cranny for signs of a tick bite (like I ever pried open his butt cheeks. Total violation). I never found anything. So not sure if this was another spell of anaplasmosis, something viral, reaction to vaccines, a combination, or some random immune response to something. Thankfully no other horses got sick. He's on a round of antibiotics just in case it is tick-borne. The deer tick - the one who carries the bacteria - is most active late fall to early spring, so we fit within the time frame.
But otherwise he seems no worse for wear. We went on a light hack Monday and he seemed just fine.
Plus, with Hampton calling in sick to work I went ahead and stole Royale back from Liz to take to my lesson instead!
It's been a year since I have ridden in any type of clinic. The last one was the Kasey clinic last April - so it was a treat for me to have two days of instruction from Kim Schisler Sosobee, who is a lovely trainer who came up from Georgia.
I have not had lessons from her before, and I was delighted at her thoughtful coaching, and how everything she said aligned with my program and the instruction from my other coaches.
She was very positive, yet firm with what she was looking for. I could tell she had a great empathy for the horses. She complimented Hampton many times on his honest nature, work ethic and his willingness to do what I asked. (Obviously everyone who meets Hampton is charmed by him!)
The indoor
And she worked us.
I LOVE when I get my ass worked off at a clinic. And Hampton totally rose to the occasion - working his butt off too and never getting tired or cranky.
We focused quite a bit on bringing his hind legs closer together. He really steps wide in specific movements - namely turn on the haunches, canter piros and even in the half passes he needs to keep his legs closed (heh), instead of going so wide behind.
Back in Third level. A turn on the haunches, you can see him stepping wide here with his right hind. The left turn is even worse
She also said that his little "dolphin" evasion is one she has never seen. When something gets difficult for him, he tries so hard to find a way to mechanically do what I want but struggles with his body so he has learned to do this humpy dolphin/rocking horse move in the canter. Hard to describe but it has dinged us many times in the ring because I am not sure what to do with it.
Wide behind
Her answer? Go forward! (duh)
He got pretty squirrely in the changes, and that's because we were working on the 2s on the Friday before the clinic and he's still in the stage where that makes him anticipate and want to take over. And when he takes over, I can't really prep him so he gets croup-high and crooked.
Some points I took away:
Make the half pass feel "taller"
SHORTEN MY REINS
Think piaffe feeling in TOH to keep legs together
If anticipating the changes, just canter straight for a while
Make him wait. But stay straight
Think medium canter into the bit - especially if he gets stuck
Shoulder fore on the short sides
Ride 10m circles and push into outside rein to help throughness
SHORTEN MY REINS
Hands forward
Across the diagonal and flying change to the counter canter lead
SHORTEN MY REINS
The clinic was hosted by another local rider, who happens to also be my dentist,
and who has built herself a STUNNING farm.
Overall a wonderful clinic. I felt like she made a difference in both of us and I have great homework coming into spring. I would definitely ride with her again!
I am so sorry for my utter lack of media. #bloggerfail
But to make up for it, check out this video of the tack room in this barn.
Want to take up in the aisle? Just swing the door around!
As the lines began to blur between what defined an amateur from a professional at the FEI level, our National Governing Body recognized that our industry and the shows could not thrive without the ongoing income brought in by the vast majority of its membership, the amateurs. Therefore, it was time to create not one but multiple amateur divisions for hunters and jumpers that were determined by the height and size of the fences as well as the horses. Riders loved these classes so much that they grew until they ultimately had to be split at many shows where there were literally hundreds of riders in the division. As the years went by, horses became more and more expensive, professionals were living very well off of the amateurs who had always paid large sums to train them as well as compete their top horses toward team competitions. But the amateurs also began to recognize that, given the chance, the training, the confidence and the same great horses being ridden by their pro’s, they might actually have a chance to ride for a team spot and go for that Olympic Dream themselves. And that was the beginning of the next new era. It was always the amateurs, for the most part, who held the purse strings. But now they also began to believe they had an equal right to use their money to bankroll their own careers and dreams. And here is where I will state what I have said for years: I have known professionals who could barley sit the trot and had little if any feel but they were smart, thought they were great, and actually produced some quite outstanding results during their careers. I have also known amateurs who could ride fantastic but nobody ever let them in on the secret, so they stayed in their little arenas and never rose to the occasion to become what they should have. We are all literally making this whole thing up, this movie we call our life, as we are going along. In every breath, as we breathe in and breathe out, we are defining outwardly to the universe who we see ourselves as; hopefully the grandest version of who we imagine ourselves to be, whether amateur or professional. Training in riding is not supposed to be of less quality because of one’s status, professional or amateur. It is not dictated by the quality of the horse although the results in competition most definitely will be affected by the quality and ability of the horse as well as the talent and training of both horse and rider. Recently, there has been quite an uproar over the raising of a qualifying score from 60% to 63% in lower levels for Freestyles. Although I was no longer officially on the Dressage Sport Committee, I was still apparently on the list and received many letters from angry riders who said they felt betrayed by the organization which depends upon their money as their backbone and yet won’t allow these people who simply want to ride their “back yard, home trained, horses which are receiving scores below 63%” into the classes. The judges and members of the committee responded to the very upset riders by saying that they understood their points but that 63% is just barely a score representing “Satisfactory”. It is not “fairly good” but rather only a little better than “Sufficient”. It does not require a super horse or a 40 hour training week to aspire toward a result of Satisfactory and I believe that it is incumbent on everyone who wishes to sit on and put a piece of metal into a horse’s mouth that they learn to ride well enough and communicate with their horse proficiently enough to produce that 63+%. Off to bed again but I will be posting more about issues affecting Amateurs tomorrow. I do hope that these 2 posts will open up a larger conversation and I am happy to respond to all questions and comments, even the ones from those who strongly disagree with me. ___ I get his point. And appreciate what he is trying to say.
But I get this feeling that his overall point is that yes, you CAN get a 63 even on a backyard horse, even on a 6 mover. You just need to ride better and work harder.
I get it but ... also I feel a little talked down to. As if I'm not working hard already. I cannot change my horse's conformation, Mr. Dover.
I intend to bust my ass and get my 63 at PSG AND I-1 this year. In fact I'm going to get ballsy and say this year I think we can get a 65 at PSG. But please don't imply that many of us are not riding well enough, or working hard enough. And that's why we can't reach those scores.
Back in November I started going to pilates twice a week. A good friend teaches locally, and I thought not only would I be supporting her business but maybe I would learn something.
By no means am I a gym rat, or workout fanatic or crazy marathon runner.
But I sort of get it now. After every session of pilates I feel so much better. I feel loose, happy and strong. And hungry. haha.
I noticed a difference in my riding almost immediately.
And after several months, there are pretty significant changes I am noticing.
For example, my right foot. It has pointed OUT for ... oh I dunno ... more than 20 years. It is a left over habit from my hunter jumper days.
Look at my right foot. LOOK AT IT.
While it is not perfectly straight yet, it now points forward without having to think about it.
My shoulders have "wings" and that has been pretty much my whole life. This will take a long time to fix, but now I can think "plug your shoulders in" and instantly my core engages and Hampton lifts his withers.
Great photo of my shoulder "wings"
Keeping my shoulders plugged in
My left wrist also has a tendency to curl and flop for whatever reason. Now I can think "point your knuckles to his ears" and that fixes that problem. (thumbs on top though!)
My seat has gotten stronger, and I have developed a "suction cup" feeling especially in the canter that really creates much more jump. It's gross but you have to think suction cup the horse into your hoo-hah. Sorry for that visual.
I am also MUCH more aware of where my body parts are. Especially my sit bones, and how I am turning them and weighting each one. This is made a difference in keeping the rest of me straighter, and therefore Hampton straighter.
Human has been riding better lately. Hmmm.
My core is probably the strongest it has ever been in my LIFE. Which has helped with my lower back. It has made me hips straighter, my hip flexors more loose (minimal seizing up these days!), and even my toes have benefited! #workthosetoes
So while I think I will still have to start running again to up my cardio, I have found pilates to be challenging, rewarding and a major benefit to my riding. I think I'll keep it up!
Although when you find the pilates movements that makes your tempi changes straight please let me know.
