Don't stop goin', goin' south

Was chilly, but not Cold AF like KY was.

I think this was our third December trip to Aiken and we made the best of five days of course. Hampton hauled great and after a settling hack on Monday after our arrival, we hauled about 15 min away on Tuesday to an equestrian neighborhood where we had a lesson with Alex Gerding in the neighborhood community ring.

Can I have a neighborhood dressage arena please?

Anyhoo, we lessoned with Alex and then on Thursday with KE who was also new to me and I REALLY enjoyed her lesson of really digging into the basics.

Lesson time

We hit up the Stable View schooling show on Wednesday where I ran through my new 4th level freestyle basically for the first time in an arena. *cringe* I couldn't hear the music but even so it went really well and scored a 69%.

Tack cleaning haha

Friday we spent time just floating around Jumping Branch where we did some poles, a little bounce, some "galloping" and played in the water complex. I love Aiken because I can let Hampton really open up out in the fields as the footing is such nice sand instead of muddy ruts and holes like Kentucky fields.

Bad video grab of Hamp jumping out of water haha.

Saturday we did the recognized Stable View show and Hampton was FRESH and TIGHT. He hasn't been like that in years. I was a little unprepared but the freestyle went fine and scored a 67%. When I went to do 4-1, he had gotten even tighter and basically drug me around. I could barely touch his sides. In fact he kicked down a board during a flying change.

Usually Hampton is naughty maybe once a year and I think that was the day. hahaha. 

Stable View: Photo by Meghan Benge
Not pictured: Me absolutely fighting for my life lol

We of course hit up the good food spots and shopping. Hitchcock Woods is still closed from hurricane damage so that was a bummer.

It is really a pleasure to show Hampton at 4th level which is not easy but it does not put pressure on him anymore. He feels happy and possibly a little too fit. I just have one more 4th level freestyle score to get for my silver freestyle bar.

For now, we keep working. The hardest part is staying motivated.

You come away with a great little story

 

There's a hair on your Porkchop

Hampton has been doing great - still in full work although he is furry and feral. He is loving being naked and as dirty as possible. Naturally, I have plans to clip him next week and of course the temps immediately drop and he will need a blanket. 

But we have a trip to Aiken planned in December which I am very excited about. Although, we will need to take a different route to get there as the main roads through the mountains ... don't exist anymore. Always an hot mess adventure.

**

I guess the "big" update I have is that after Regionals I decided to retire Hampton from the "Big Tour." I had planned this before Regionals. He has earned me two Gold medals and a trip to Regionals so frankly he doesn't need to do the I2 and Grand Prix levels anymore. 

From Regionals after our solid I2.
Photographer L. Dean captured me paying the Porkchop toll haha.

I have always said I would stop pushing when Hampton said No. Well, over the years I have realized Hampton isn't really going to tell me No. He would do it anyway, because I asked. But he has ALWAYS struggled at the top of the sport. We have had good tests, yes. But the majority have been a struggle. He was out of his scope, and so was I. Perhaps a better rider could have helped him more, made him better. But that's not the situation.

There's just no reason to keep pushing him at that level. He has done more than most horses will ever do, and more than I ever EVER dreamed possible when I bought him as a 2 year old.

He will be 18 next year and he still feels really great. I know in the back of my mind it is time to start looking for the next horse. I waffle between getting a baby, or possibly an OTTB and try my hand at RRP. I struggle with how I would afford two horses. 

Photo by Three Redheads and a Moose

I struggle more with how I am ever going to find another horse that lives up to the standard Hampton has set.

But for now, I am going to enjoy Hampton at the levels he feels comfortable at. 

Plus, I still have a couple more freestyle medals to grab up if I can.

Regionals wrap up

 

We survived the USDF Region 2 Regional Championships! It was very nice having it so close to home and therefore I only ended up having to stay over two nights.

On Thursday we went for a light school where I checked in on the buttons. The theme this year was Wizard of Oz and everyone's decorations were really cute.

I also have to give a shout out to the LOVELY LOVELY blog reader who recognized me at the food stand! This is the first time I have been "recognized in the wild" and it was so sweet. It really made my day. *hugs*

Friday morning was the I2 AA championship and we were the very first ride down centerline at 8 a.m. During warmup a rainbow even made an appearance for a few minutes. Hamp warmed up great and felt fresh and energetic.

Overall, I think it was probably the BEST I2 we have EVER done, even though when I went to start the line of ones, he stole a change from me at the start and I lost the rhythm. We recovered though, but it was an expensive mistake. We finished with a 58% and third place in the class. It rained on our awards but it was still really fun and the other ladies in the class were all really lovely and had lovely horses so I was pretty proud of Hampton to hold his own in such company.

Saturday morning I took Hampton out on a light walk and 5-min jog just to stretch his back and legs after standing in a stall all night. The horse park is absolutely gorgeous at 7:30 a.m. It's during these rides is where I find the true reason why I do this. It has nothing to do with scores or ribbons.

Our Grand Prix freestyle wasn't until 4:30 p.m. and by that time it was rather toasty out. And that afternoon Hampton actually LIED DOWN in his stall. In the 15 years I have been showing this horse, I have NOT ONCE seen him lie down in the stall at a show, much less during the day where he has "things to supervise." He was quite sleepy.

Our warm up was ... ok. He was behind the leg and we ended up having great moments in the warmup but once I entered the show arena and dropped my whip, I knew I was in trouble.

I broke my own damn rule and begged him the entire way. I was growling, pony club kicking in discreet spots. But he ended up missing in the twos and the ones, and in general just being more downhill than usual. I could tell he was tired. By the end, he was huffing and puffing as well. We did our best. It was not our best freestyle, but not the worst either. The judges gave us a 58%. Which, I felt was fair. 

I unfortunately did not meet my goal of getting a 60% at regionals. A bummer, but thems the brakes. Even still, Hampton held his own and the cheering of people during our awards gallop yelling "Go Porkchop" was THE BEST. 

Got myself a big ol' bobcat

More adventures await!

Please picture me in the weeds, before I learned civility

Summary of the past few weeks!

By the time you read this, we will be at the Kentucky Horse Park for the USDF Region 2 Regionals. I had considered imposing on Leah and going to Region 4, but since this one is SO CLOSE to home I really couldn't justify driving to St. Louis. Except Leah is awesome. 

Plot twist: It is looking likely we will be impacted by the remnants of a hurricane. Cool! 

1. Photos!

I am all about the Wenglish look

I had a professional photo shoot done with Hampton to celebrate 15 years with this beast. It was SO FUN and it has been way too long since I have had any cute pro photos done.

Photos by the awesome Three Redheads and a Moose!

2. We did a schooling show

We popped over bright and early to a friend's farm to participate in a schooling show/CT show. They were kind enough to fit in the DQs first thing in the morning. Hampton and I went through the I2 since we haven't done that test since May. It went ok, and I was able see where my weaknesses were.

A BIG hole in my own training is that I do not ride in a standard arena enough. Our indoor at home is just a tad too wide. I need to practice test riding way more than I do.

3. We beat up some cows

A week before Regionals, we participated in an evening cow-sorting clinic. Hampton remembered the cows from last year. We helped bring the cows from the pasture into the arena, pushed them around a bit and then did some two-person sorting.

"Fuck around and find out" - Hampton, to the cow probably

Once we started the sorting, Hampton's true personality came out. He was BLOODTHIRSTY for these cows and absolutely loved herding them and bossing them around. I had to hang on to the pommel of my saddle several times as he spun, cut sideways and launched at the cows with his ears flattened. I think he would prefer to switch careers. Cows are his element and he was drunk on power. lol. I guess horses either have this cow-y instinct or they don't. Hampton perhaps has some cow horses in his heritage somewhere? 

We rode until sunset. It was lovely.

Let's hope this hurricane doesn't beat us up too badly this weekend at Regionals. We are competing in the I2 and Grand Prix freestyle championship classes. I expect to get completely annihilated, but my goals are organized, clean tests. If I can get a 60 in either test that will be an accomplishment at this level.

Here we go!

Clinic recap: Stop being so sexy

The clinic was at a LOVELY private farm near Lexington

Once again I have fallen behind on things! #boxofshame

Hamp and I went to a LS clinic back in August. As usual, Lauren had all the right prescriptions for the little issues we have. Most notably, making the trot half pass level. Hampton has always been ... well, rein lame in the trot half pass. There's really no other way to describe it.

Turns out, Hampton is not Valegro. If I had too much bend and too much sideways, he physically just cannot do it and becomes unlevel. So, Lauren told me to "paso fino" sidways. Keeping him very upright, and just a tick of bend. "Stop making it sexy."

And that did the trick! As long as I don't overbend, and keep him feeling upright, he remains level. Is it a 10 half pass? No. But I will take a 6 or 6.5 happily thank you much.

The other thing we did was try a Finesse bridle.

Big honkin' pads on the crown piece

Handsome

This thing looked pretty odd from up in the saddle, and I am really not a believer in "miracle equipment." My motto is "suck less" and I feel most training issues are probably a rider issue or failure in communication. But I will say that Hampton DID remain more up in the bridle with the finesse bridle, and quieter in the mouth. 

Unfortunately these bad boys are insanely expensive ($700+ for a double bridle) so I dunno. I doubt I will actually buy one. It's just too expensive. I have looked into other ways to pad up the crown piece though. 

Anyway, it was a great clinic and Hampton did great especially in the heat (it was 90+ that weekend). 

Cows were moo-ing in the distance.
Hampton's bloodthirsty obsession with cows will be addressed in a future blog.
Standby.

Nice knowin' ya, Tubes.

Obi watching Tiger King lol

July was a brutally hot month here in KY, and Hampton had a very easy month for the most part. The first week of July I was slightly out of commission because I finally made the choice to have a bilateral salpingectomy. 

Translation: My fallopian tubes were completely removed.

The primary reason I did this was to hopefully reduce my chances of ovarian cancer.  It seems there is quite a bit of science out now suggesting many ovarian cancers actually start in the fallopian tubes.  I have a mutation in the CHECK2 gene, and my sister has ovarian cancer. In addition, my dad died from prostate cancer. Fun fact, my sister also has this gene mutation. And it appears my father likely also did.

The bonus reason I did this is F*** THE PATRIARCHY. 

I will admit I was slightly nervous because I had never had general anesthesia before, nor have I ever been officially cut open for any reason. Thankfully this surgery was laparoscopic and I went home the same day.

Before drugs: Pre-op

They put two trocars (yes, like a bloated cow) on the sides of my abdomen, and a third little incision by my belly button. They disconnected the plumbing and sent my tubes off to pathology. They were completely normal thankfully! And my doctor said I had pristine ovaries. My plan is to keep those puppies at least until I am 50 WITH CLOSE MONITORING. I also have the boobs checked every 6 months via mammograms and MRI. 

After drugs: Post- op lol

I will say this procedure was a piece of cake. They gave me great drugs including Versed before heading to the OR (LOVED THIS), plenty of zofran, pepsid, Decadron and some Toradol for pain. I was very adamant that I can handle pain but not nausea. I don't remember shit until I woke up in a PACU area. I rated my pain at a 2. It basically felt like someone scratched me. They did send me home with some pain meds but I never took a single pain pill, not even Ibuprofen. I had surgery on a Friday and Sunday morning I was back doing barn chores, and back on Hampton (walking only) by Monday!

The incisions were tender and sore but nothing unbearable and I could easily function and sleep. I did have some low pelvic pain at times, maybe scar tissue forming? Also, TMI warning, they do turn you into a popsicle and stick a sponge stick through your cervix to "manipulate the uterus" so I am guessing some of the pain may have been from that. lol. Probably the most annoying part was the gas pains from getting pumped full of gas during the procedure. The pains and cramps would spread over my shoulders sometimes. I went on "colic" walks for a couple days after and that did help. haha.

One week later I could walk, trot and canter comfortably again. Sitting trot took a few more days though haha.

Overall 10/10 stars for this procedure lol. 

Look What you Made me Do

 

The back says "Down Bad Crying at the Ring"

I went on a wild goose chase trying to find a drop noseband to replace the one that broke during my ride on Friday. I went to two local tack stores, not a drop noseband in sight. There wasn't enough time for an Amazon delivery.

The Kentucky Horse Park is always so magical.

No one had one I could borrow that would work with my bridle. So I threw the double bridle in the trailer and figured I could use that if I didn't figure something out.

We hauled into the Kentucky Horse Park early Saturday morning. Then literally baked in the sun until 2 p.m. when I got on to "warm up." And by "warm up" I mean try not to die of heat stroke in the 95 degree sun on white sand. On a horse who is an impaired sweater. I never did find a drop noseband, so I would have to show in the double which notoriously does not go super well sometimes because Hampton gets both backed off AND heavy in it in the showring and that is not good.

And yes I left the tails at home. Absolutely not doing that in 95 degrees.

This was probably the least warm up I have ever done. I literally did a canter pirouette each direction, walked. Did a line of 3s, walked. Then the steward shouted I could go early. I did about 5 seconds of passage and went in the ring. 

... and surprisingly things went decent. I had a bobble or two in our circle of 2s, and the piaffe could have had more fire. He didn't dive down and shut off until the very last centerline. And it was likely I quit riding well. I also tried to change up the extended trot/half pass sequence and got a little ahead of my music. But overall, not a disaster. And both of us handled the heat very well, which was my number 1 priority.

Zoom

I was not unhappy with the test, but felt it was not clean enough for the score.

I was wrong.

66%+

USDF Gold Freestyle Bar

Photo: L. Dean

And Qualified for Regionals.

Never. Give. Up.

***

I was set to ride again on Sunday at 2 p.m. but after debating all morning, I decided to scratch. I hate wasting money, but there was no big reason to make Hampton get that hot again. The water coming out of the spigots at the barns was HOT. It was absolutely rude. If it had been cool out I would have gone in for the practice. But my gut said just scratch, so I did.

This Is Me Trying

I have fallen behind on Blog world!

After our Freestyle in the Rolex area didn't really go that great, I entered two days of Freestyles in Indiana (this would have been early June). I made a couple of adjustments in warm up, and Saturday I had THE BEST Freestyle of my life. Hampton was ON IT. He was on my aids, did great piaffe/passage, hit all our marks and changes. I was smiling during the test because all the stars aligned.

Both of our faces say it all.

I am sure you know where this is going. Still didn't get the score. A 62%. The judge really cut me off at the knees for artistic marks. I guess she isn't a GenX fan. Quite disappointing but it truly was one of the most fun rides I can remember to date.

The next day we unfortunately had two judges - including the same one from Saturday. So while the new judge gave us a 65, the other judge from Saturday really nailed us with a 59 (in a freestyle ... woof!), which gave us a score of 63. This time our ride was also really good, but just not with the spark it had the day before.

Once again, I go home without this ONE LAST $&%($&%* FREESTYLE SCORE.

Now instead of being hard on myself, I was stubborn and pissed.

And entered another show at the KY horse park at the end of June.

Obi photo just because.

Temperatures were a blazing 95 degrees and our rides were at 2 p.m.

And then, on Friday before we left for the show, my noseband broke. 

F.M.L.

... to be continued.

The Art of the Unbothered

Hamp and I took a Friday evening off and decided to try our Grand Prix freestyle at the Kentucky Horse Park. Frankly, an opportunity to show in the Rolex arena should never be turned down. Haha.

Behaving at the trailer.

We had a relaxing afternoon getting ready. Got there in plenty of time. Human and horse were very relaxed. I had caffeine and food in my stomach. Absolutely an ideal lead-up to a show.

Hamp warmed up great, absolutely no problems. Weather was gorgeous.

Sprucing up the Porkchop

We went in the ring and ... just ... things went to shit.

Right out of the halt I do a canter half pass zig zag. MISSED THE CHANGE at the change of bend and was ummm half passing on the wrong lead? I guess that's what you call it? Just right off the bat nothing went right. Missed a bunch of ones, screwed up the twos on a circle. Passage way too trot like. 

I have no idea what happened. We got a generous 61%.

Of course I went back to the trailer and HATED MYSELF for about 20 minutes. Shouldn't be doing this. Definitely not good enough to go to Regionals. We don't belong at this level. Sloppy. Out of our scope. Absolutely shit test. I am wasting my money.

But then I remembered some advice I heard in Wisconsin.

"You have to not let it bother you."

I think this might be one of the most important characteristics of the top riders. Because they "fail" just as much as anyone. Except they keep going. They are unbothered by crappy tests and bad scores. Of course they go home and work on the weak points, but one has to remain unbothered.

I haven't quite mastered the art yet. But for now, we move forward!

Picture of Sylvester and Obi demonstrating how to be unbothered.

Cheese and Dancing

Beautiful Wisconsin

I really enjoy new-to-me shows and facilities and decided to head on up to Wisconsin last weekend for Dressage at Sorensen Park. It is a bit of a haul from KY, but making Aiken trips has really broken me in to longer hauls and it doesn't bother me much anymore. Hampton seems to handle it fine as well. We did break the Wednesday trip up by making a pit stop in Indiana to impose jump on the trailer with the BFF.

Thursday

It was really nice to have Thursday as just a relaxing schooling day. Hamp and I got a tune-up from one of our favorite Indy trainers, and got some of the best passage I have ever felt. Can I replicate that without her on the ground? No. No I cannot.

So the couple that runs this facility is a very nice, older couple. They were LOVELY and very very kind. But also, the music for the freestyles was a CD boombox plugged into speakers. Did I have a burnt CD with my music? That is a negative. I believe the rules state you SHOULD have one, but I have been emailing my music for several years now. I did not think of it.

So off we went on a wild goose chase. We ended up at Best Buy where I purchased a portable CD drive/burner to plug into my work computer. I am ASHAMED to admit I had forgotten how to burn a CD. I am a Napster kid for F's sake. But after about an hour we did figure it out and rushed to give the CD over for the soundcheck. It worked! 

Show arena

We went to a cute bar inside a former bank for dinner. The cheese curds in Wisconsin are life changing. I will never be able to eat kentucky cheese curds again.

Friday

Friday morning was our freestyle and as I passed the sound guy, he warned me that after I raised my hand he would press play but it takes a minute for the music to play. This is what happened Thursday night during our sound check. So I made a plan on the fly to raise my hand about 5 meters before I usually do. That should give time for the delay to happen.

Good memories! I saw Phish at this venue back in the day!

Well, I raised my hand and the music played IMMEDIATELY. Unfortunately, I was not able to catch back up and was behind my music until almost the walk tour. This was my error, I SHOULD have just stopped and waited for the music at P, which is where I normally raise my hand at the canter.

And because I was rushed, the one's got all funky and the trot half passes were total shit. This was not Hampton's fault, he was like "oh shit lady ok ok ok I am going!"

Professional photos by Melissa Franke

We scored a 64% and some change, just short of the 65 I need for the Gold bar. Story of my life: Good, but not good enough.

After showing all morning we took off and got pedicures in Lake Geneva. What a gorgeous little town! 

Double pirouettes in the freestyle

View from dinner on Lake Geneva

Saturday

I chose to do an I-2 test on Saturday since I still need one more score for Regionals. Hampton warmed up great, but during the test he sort of puttered out. He was very obedient but I lost the energy and the piaffe and passage was pretty weak. But, this time we were good enough and scored a 62% and some change. I will take it! Punched that ticket to Regionals!

Hampton trying so hard for me

Nerd alert

The drive home was thankfully uneventful until I went to unhitch my trailer and the damn coupler would not let go of the ball. At 10 p.m. Major props to the barn owner who rescued me, otherwise I was going to drag the trailer back to my condo. hahaha. no.

I would 10/10 go to this show again. The stalls were nice (with mats), plenty of lush grass for grazing, great food choices, nice footing and pleasant show staff. 

My hair has long ago said F off bitch. You can't control me.

Thank you Sorensen Park! 

Now to try and get that last freestyle score ....

... saw this on the road.