NTW Romp in the Willows 9/26/15

Well, that was not our best show ever. 

I mean, it wasn't *bad* per se - but O is in raging, flaming, out of control heat right now, and therefore things were a bit... interesting. 

I've had O long enough to know that when she gets hormonal, she doesn't play the game. As a super hormonal female, I highly sympathize with this problem - I myself have a super short fuse when hormonal, and am prone to totally irrational random outbursts of either yelling or crying. I totally get her problem. As such, I keep her on hormones during the show season for the most part. If I want her to have a level head at shows, I have to keep her on her Estrumate shots. 

When we moved, one of the things I forgot at the old house was my bottle of Estrumate in the fridge. I also forgot all of my show clothes, including the Gold medal that Gogo and I earned. When we gave our notice, our landlady found new tenants with super speed, and ushered us out as fast as possible. She then decided to cut off all contact with us when we tried to get our deposit and stuff back. Apparently what happened was that someone broke into the garage after we moved out,  and stole the landlady's lawn equipment that came with the house. She blamed us (after three years of praising us for being pretty fantastic reliable tenants), and cut off all contact with us. Which is mostly just a side story but, my Estrumate did get left behind in the fridge, and I didn't get it back. Since most of the show season was in the toilet anyway, I forgot about it. 

Until this past week. When I noticed O humping the fence closest to Dylan. A lot.



The Romp is different from the other games days in that it is largely held outside of the arena. The first class was an timed obstacle course in the arena which had several components - a bridge crossing, a flag alley, a mailbox and letter pickup, a little circle that you had to park your wheel in and turn, a backing corridor, and a set of boards that you had to drive one wheel between (that was about 6" wide). We had gotten the course on paper in an email beforehand, but there were no dimensions included - and in my mind's eye I grossly underestimated EVERYTHING. Everything was narrow, and tiny, and difficult. O has many strengths, but fine finessing of exact distances is not really one of them. She powered into the arena at high speed - and to her credit, every time we are at this venue she knows that we are going into the arena to haul ass - and fairly flew over the bridge. When we got to the go-between boards, I totally steered her right off of them, and had to turn around and try again. Being in raging heat, O's temper was VERY short, and it snapped the second I veered her around to try again. We made it through the boards, but barely. When we got into the backing corridor, which you had to drive into and then back out of, she sulled up. And we all know what happens when she sulls up... she will brace herself against everything you ask and will just. Not. Do. It. It took me ages to get her to back up... AGES. She would not do it. It didn't matter how much I sweet talked her, or even just outright pulled on her. She let me pull her nose all the way down to her chest almost - and still, she braced against me with her mouth wide open and would not move. I managed to somehow get her backwards far enough to go to the next few obstacles - the flag alley, the letter pickup and the mailbox dropoff - but when we got to the little circle, all bets were off. She totally smashed through the thing the first go around, and then stopped dead and would not move to go back to try again. This is all stuff I've been through with her before, many times. I tapped and tapped and tapped with my whip, but she was solidly sulled up, and just stood there bracing and refusing to move, aside from the occasional rear-flail. Eventually I just decided that I valued my life and I didn't need to complete the obstacle, and I just proceeded back to the exit over the bridge once again. We did end up finishing fourth in that class, which was kind of a miracle, but it was clearly not our day.

I trotted her from the obstacle course all the way out to the big field, where the cones course was set up. It was a long, winding course, and O really had her big Hauling Ass trot on. We always do really well in cones, as long as I don't steer her into anything - she is fast and can turn tightly. I almost missed the second set of cones - I flew right past them, thinking a different set of cones was actually them, and had to snake around and come back - but the rest of the course flowed well. O was trucking - REALLY trucking - and I had a pretty tight hold on her the entire go of it. To my surprise, even though we nearly missed that set of cones and had to wind all the way back around to get them, which certainly added some seconds to our course, we smoked everyone and came in first by several solid seconds. Good job mare!

SO HORMONAL CAN'T HANDLE IT SHOULD I START CRYING BOLTING OR BUCKING 

After a lunch break, we harnessed back up and headed out to do the final class, a cross country course which had three checkpoints where we would have to retrieve a ribbon. By this time, O had spent nearly all of her energy on acting totally frantic all morning, so she was tired and didn't have a lot of gas in the tank. She is super pleasant to drive out places - her best feature is the ability to put her on autopilot, point her in any direction you choose, and then sit back and relax while she going along under her own steam. I didn't have much in the way of go, so she puttered along at a semi-fast speed, certainly not Hauling Ass but not dragging either. The course was a few miles long and up and down these big huge bumpy hills - it wasn't terrible for a big beast like O, but all of those poor little minis had to do the same course. I'm sure they were all exhausted at the end of it. We weren't terribly fast and finished third - O was a very good girl though, which was the more important thing.

The total times were added up, and I think we finished fourth overall. It was definitely an off day for us. Not our best showing - not horrible, by any means, but just not quite up to what we usually are capable of. These shows are just fun shows, they don't really count for much (aside from Horse of the Year points for NTW, which we were in the running for but are now solidly knocked out), but still.


Ah well. I have sympathy for her hormonal state. I get that way too, after all. When we got home, I turned her out and she promptly galloped off, kicked P in the face, slammed into the fence closest to Dylan, and started peeing on herself. Mares.....

On a slightly unrelated-but-actually-related note: I've written about this before, but I am getting a little bit tired of the politics behind these fun shows. They are supposed to be just that - rinky dink little fun shows. When I first went to one last fall, I won pretty much everything, which was really fantastic and super fun for our first go. The organizer of them had a lame horse then, but she went well out of her way to make sure I knew that she had the best horse in the club and that I just had a lucky break - I would not be so lucky the next time around. A few months later, she asked if I would help organize the fun shows, because "we have the two best horses in the club!" which I thought was an odd qualification. I mean, she didn't really know me, she didn't know whether or not I would actually be useful or helpful. I helped her for a bit, and then she dropped the bomb: if I was helping, I could not show. Well, I *wanted* to show, I didn't want to sit on the sidelines - I wouldn't have agreed to help in the first place had I know. So I did my best to graciously back out, and while I'm pretty sure they were angry with me, they only grumbled for a minute before moving on without me. Since I was told that I couldn't show if I helped to organize the shows, I was surprised to see that the organizer herself was showing anyway at the first fun show. Not surprisingly, she won a lot of the classes and was Champion. At this show, she was once again showing even though she was the organizer, and once again she won most everything and was Champion again. The local club keeps track of points, and the horse with the most points at the end of the year wins a huge trophy and the honor of being Horse of the Year. Our ongoing joke was that the organizer (who was used to regluarly winning Horse of the Year herself) felt threatened by the noob (me), and decided to try and take me out of the points by finding a way to keep me from showing. When that didn't work, she decided she was going to show herself anyway. It's honestly just a joke, but sometimes it feels strongly rooted in reality. 

Maybe this is just because I come from the bigger circuits, but this stuff just isn't allowed anywhere else. The organizers design and set the courses, and can easily custom make them well suited to their own horses' strengths, not to mention the fact that they know the ins and outs of every inch of the courses - whereas the rest of the competitors don't have a chance to see the courses until the day of the show. And because we all know that they are going to win everything anyway, it seems kind of pointless to even bother going sometimes. This show was clearly not our show, and we got beaten fair and square, but I can't help but feel that there is an awful lot of unfairness going on outside of that. I don't mind getting beaten fairly, if someone had the better horse that day, but when things feel rigged it just... doesn't make it very fun. There were even people shouting "rigged!" during the awards ceremony, several times - it was meant in jest but I surely wasn't the only one who felt it was more rooted in truth than not. 

I wish they'd hire a proper organizer for these things. But, that costs money. If they'd hire a separate organizer though, we could all get our butts whooped fairly, or win fairly. I don't mean to sound whiny about it either, I just... I dunno. I like everyone on a level playing field. I like the best person to win because they were the best that day. I don't like it when things are seedy.

Maybe it's just me though.

MEGAEPIC MeadowCreek XC Schooling 1/25/14

What happens when you get a bunch of bloggers together and set them loose on a XC course? A completely megafantastic time, that's what!!

JenJ from Wyvern Oaks, Lauren from She Moved to Texas, and I all decided a few weeks ago that we were going to an upcoming XC schooling at MeadowCreek Park (MCP). (Mostly it was Jen going, "so clear your schedule because we're going to MeadowCreek!" How could I say no to that!) It's about equidistant between the three of us to MCP, and they were having an open schooling weekend anyway, so we decided we all needed to go! Lauren had XC schooling on her 30 Before 30 list, I had a small red freight train that needed some zooming schooling, and Jen had an adorable green bean Haffie that needed some more XC experience.... it was a perfect situation!

We all arrived at around 10 and the festivities began. I hadn't met Lauren before but I've known Jen for awhile - I hadn't seen her since I went with her to try Oberon though, so it had been awhile and it was awesome to see her again! Lauren was on Red, Jen's Feerless War Pony, and Jen was of course on Paddy, who is even more adorable in real life than in pictures. It was chilly to start with in the morning, but soon warmed up to a very pleasant 60 or so degrees. MCP had gotten some snow (!!) two days before, and there was still some snow left on the jumps and on the ground when we got there. (SNOW. In central Texas.) 

(The S word)

O was very zen while we tacked and readied to go, as usual. I had a ton of people walk by and tell me how awesome her clip was. (And how nice and shiny she is!)

Once up, we spent a few minutes trotting and cantering around to warmup. O spent several minutes Hauling Ass cantering around to stretch out. There is no riding this mare down - she literally does NOT get tired, ever - so mostly our warmup is just a reminder that there doesn't need to be any serious misbehavior going on. I'm happy to report that we have changes though! Not when I ask for them (yet), but when she's cantering around and we switch the bend/direction, she swaps leads. Interestingly, she's quickest to change from her right lead (her favorite lead) to the left (definitely not favorite lead), but slow to switch back from the left to the right. 

I opted to try the hackamore instead of a bit. Riding her XC in a snaffle is just a joke, and I'd rather not haul on her mouth. Riding her in the pelham is quite a lot better (same mouthpiece, same ability to go on the snaffle and then have some brakes when I need them), but I wanted to see what would happen if I could totally get out of her mouth. Her poor form I think is mostly due to a) her overly enthusiastic response to being presented to a jump (RUN NOW RUN FASTER OH CRAP BAD SPOT FLAIL), and b) me hanging onto her face so much in order to keep her from running and flailing that I have no real ability to just give her her head and let her take it without curling up into a ball. Other things, like greenness/balance come into play definitely, but I'd say that the large majority of all of our problems stem from her belligerence. I use that term in an endearing kind of way, as it makes her very brave and bold, but there is a certain degree of difficulty to her wanting to do things her way, and to hell with you if you disagree! 

We warmed up over a little coop in the first field that we were in, and the first thing O did was refuse it (twice). I haven't jumped her in literally about two months, so I *slightly* forgive her for this, but Paddy and Red played jump standards for a minute so I could get her over it. The first few jumps were UGLY but we got over. When we moved into the main field things quickly improved and she started REALLY jumping well. The hackamore was a really good idea - the combo of getting out of her face and having a shadow roll (so she has to put her head down to look at things) was very helpful. Not to mention for some reason I was riding halfway decent myself - it helps when you can get out of your horse's way! (I'm really, really, really rusty and my left ankle doesn't really bend anymore, but oh well! I look less horrible than I thought I would and I think with some more practice I might be back to where I was before. I just need to lean less, stay over my center of gravity more, keep that leg steady and let the release happen naturally instead of leaning to make it happen. Happy to see that my lower leg is pretty strong and stable all things considered... I suppose that's what happens when you ride a zippy little red horse and you need to be able to stick like velcro!) 

You can see I'm clearly still leaning at her and not giving her NEARLY enough of her head to actually stretch out and get over the jumps with good form, but it is vastly improved compared to before. It is very, very hard to give the horse some rein and let them roll along when they are this strong and enthusiastic. Seriously, she feels like riding a freight train with no brakes. She may need to have her martingale put back on, but I'm not keen to do that with the hackamore - that's an awful lot of leverage if she throws her head around, and I think she'll hit the brakes and have a meltdown if she hits it too hard. I may have to abandon eventer-land for a bit and put a standing martingale on. 

You'll see in the video what exactly I'm talking about in terms of getting a little too strong in front of the fence - and the difference in her jump when she just lowers her head a stride or two our and looks at it instead of charging at it with her head in the air. 

Thanks SO MUCH to Lauren for the awesome video! Check out the adorable canter through the water... if only I could get her to cruise around on a loopy rein like that all the time. If I let her have that much freedom we'd be doing a lot more of the galloping scene.... I didn't ask for that by the way, she just needed to blow off steam so I loosened up on her for a minute and she was OFF. (The martingale has a lot on the way of brakes but we still had a very hard time pulling up at the far end of the field after that....)

All three horses were AWESOME. They were all game, brave, and forward. I'll let the other two tell their stories of schooling, but let's just say a certain red horse (that was not mine) got the award for best blooper of the day after cantering through the water jump...


We finished up with our hilarious ditch session - Paddy did not want to do the bigger coffins so Jen and I got off and schooled over them in hand. I think O would have done them under saddle, but she was getting mentally tired and I didn't want to push it. Going through the water AND to a jump at the same time was a hard concept for her to process. She had a few runouts there before finally putting two and two together, but that was about the end of her mental capacity for the day, and we did the little ditch a few times before taking a nice long hack home.


After the ditch we also played musical ponies!! First I got on the Feerless War Pony and took him for a spin...

Then I got to ride the Haffington in all his mighty cuteness!

Lauren rode both Red and Paddy too. And Jen rode all three of them!!

(Note to self.... find a smaller headstall to make the hackamore actually FIT. I had to punch extra holes and it still didn't sit high enough!)

I jumped Paddy around over a few little things (AHH SO CUTE SO WIDE SO SQUEEZY) and it was awesome. He's going to be so great. O was a perfect lady for Jen and she walked her around on a long rein with no stirrups. That makes me feel REALLY good... this is the first person I've had on O besides myself since I've had her, and even though I was pretty sure she'd be fine, you never really know what's going to happen. She was perfect for her!

Very, very impressed and pleased with my little red bullet train. We have a long way to go, but we've already come so far. I'll have a post soon about our 2014 goals!

All in all, we had SUCH a fun day. I hope to do it again with these lovely ladies soon!!!!!!!!

Red Mares Can't Jump

Hmmm. I may have a small problem on my hands. I have an athletic, talented red mare who is a total ATV, goes anywhere and does anything, loves to run through the water, is totally brave, is a pretty mover, and can go forever without tiring. Primo eventer material, right? Only, there is one problem... her form over fences. It just.... isn't good. At all.

I had seen videos of her freejumping as a youngster, and I had written about her not-so-great form before. I was really hoping that she would improve with time, with schoolings, with grids, with knocking into some solid XC fences a few times. I thought she was doing well. 

Then I got to see the pics from the schooling show.... wow. Her form was AWFUL. Here's the VERY best one, where she kind of looks like a halfway normal horse (but this was partway over the jump... the picture taken right before it had one front leg underneath her and a knee hanging badly):

(That's the one I purchased. The rest of them I hope to never think about again!)

Hmmmm. Well, I thought, it must be me, I'm restricting her in the front.... so how about I lunge her over some XC obstacles and see how she does with that?

That was a mediocre experiment at best. She flopped, flailed, and smashed into them repeatedly. She hung knees, twisted in the air, and in general just made a total mess of herself. The bigger they got, the worse the form was. 

Sigh. That is slightly depressing. She is built to do it.... but she's just not great at it. She's not AWFUL.... but she is seriously inefficient with her legs/body. If she doesn't learn to get out of her own way, it is only a matter of time before she seriously hangs a leg.

Here's the thing though... I'm disappointed in her form, but I'm not entirely upset. Why? Because she is so talented in SO many other fields, and will be SO good at so many other things! I haven't 100% decided to give up on making her into an event horse - she is such a cute mover, definitely enjoys galloping and jumping, and can't be beat in terms of bravery. I am a serious believer in not giving up on something, and that if you put in the miles the rewards will come. With more work on the canter, and more work through grids... who knows? Maybe she'll transform! But, maybe she won't. I don't really know. 

What else do you do with an athletic little red mare who loves to run fast and turn sharp and go go go go go?

These are all things I bet she would be GREAT at. She loves to chase cows - I bet if I practiced roping some more we could do some breakaway stuff. (I don't really think it is totally ethical though... so likely not.) She thinks running barrels is the most fun thing ever! Once she gets going she will be SUPER at it. She would also be fantastic at poles, and we have barrels and poles to play with! We're not going to do the Tevis of course, but some LDs would be easy to condition for at this rate, considering how fit she already is - and who knows, maybe a 50 would be doable! Combined driving is what I REALLY think this mare would be awesome at, and what I have ALWAYS wanted to try - it's like eventing without the jumping part! Any sort of carriage sport is ridiculously expensive to get into though... I hope we can take some lessons, but as for right now I will have to stick with the ground driving. I have a client who competed in combined driving, and she told me I can come be her navigator next year!

The problem is that I have this overriding guilt about deliberately *not* aiming for the AECs when they are RIGHT here in Texas. They will only be here for two more years, and then they will go off somewhere else. If I wait, I will lose precious time. 

Wait. Wait, I have a very small mare here who wants to try her hand at being an eventer!

(Can you find the bot fly in the picture that was making her so upset?) 

Same as O, I bought her as a sale horse, and she will sell if I find the right home... but would she not be ADORABLE as an eventer? I wish she was a hand taller, but still!

This could all work out after all!!!

Curragh Schooling HT 10/6/13

Well, I'd say that went well, wouldn't you? :)

We had a pretty awesome weekend if you couldn't tell from the picture! After a not-great flatwork session on Friday (mostly she just was mentally disconnected and in need of her shot, which she then got!), I wasn't entirely sure of how the weekend would go. It's not that she was *bad* per se on Friday, she was just locked up in her back, distracted, and fussy. I finally had to trot her down the road away from her friends, and we got some halfway decent work done, but it wasn't really the fantastic final dressage school I was hoping for before the show. Oh well, it is what it is!

Saturday we headed out in the morning to go school XC. A cold front blew through just as I was feeding breakfast, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees - we were FREEZING! Of course it would do this the day we had to go schooling, right? O had already been over the whole course the last time we went there to school, but I wasn't about to give up an opportunity to school some more! I opted to go in the Happy Mouth snaffle, which was not quite enough in the way of brakes, but she did listen for the most part and is getting more responsive every day. Her evolution of bitting/headgear has gone from a slow or tight twist + running martingale + neck stretcher (yes, all at the same time) all the way down to just a Happy Mouth mullen mouth and no martingale at all even when jumping, which is pretty impressive in and of itself. She did super well in the Happy Mouth pelham the last time I schooled XC, so I am going to invest in one of those as well, but I'd rather do most everything in the snaffle. I fully believe that these sorts of issues all boil down to training and balance versus the illusion of control (honestly, are you REALLY going to stop your galloping beast if they REALLY want to run away with you?), but with a headstrong redhead, it does help to have a little 'excuse me hello are you listening?' reminder once in awhile. 

Out on course, O was a little.... enthusiastic. She went zooming around the Elementary course with joyful glee and a bit too much in the way of zoomy speed (ok, way too much speed), but she jumped everything cleanly and smoothly, the ditch included. After we were finished with the little Elementary course (which is in its own little fenced off field away from the other XC courses - it's perfect for starters!), we headed out onto the bigger XC courses, which are across the property. I spent some time galloping around at high speed, just to blow off some steam, and jumped a few things here and there. She did have one little awkward runout at a trakehner that we approached at a funny angle, but she admittedly had been spooky at trakehners before and had not actually done one until now. After our first little run-around, she popped over it safely. For the most part, she is seriously game - she'll tackle just about everything I put in front of her, and even if there is a question the first time, she'll always do it the second time. Aside from our one very horrible jump school at WD that was linked to her chest boo-boo, she has only refused two fences in our short little jumping career together, that being one of them. That ain't half bad for a green bean! I could barely get Gogo around XC at all when we first started out, so this is pretty awesome for me. Gogo was very looky at fences, whereas O doesn't seem to really look enough.... she doesn't really care what the jump looks like, it's a jump and she's going! 

We did have a lengthy talk about getting rushy to fences. There was a BN jump made of railroad ties that she was over confidence towards, and the last three strides out she was locking on and bolting towards the fence. I can't fault her enthusiasm, but I told her in no uncertain terms that her technique left a lot to be desired. After a few passes back and forth - and some I-Mean-Business halts and transitions - she curbed the enthusiasm and started paying more attention to her rhythm. We finished with some awesome schooling through the water - she still won't jump down the downbank into the water (mostly she just hasn't ever done downbanks so she has no idea what to do yet... she'll get it!), but she did figure out that cantering through the water and jumping up the bank out of the water was tons of fun. She LOVES to go splashing through the water!

Back at home, it was cold enough that the horses stayed in their sheets. (I opted out of that giant 78" for a smaller Rambo 75" that S had.... time for some new blankets, I have a tiny horse!) A huge storm randomly blew in as we were readying for dinner, and we decided when the lightning and thunder started that we had better put them up in stalls for the night. I'm not big on stalling obviously, but in this case it was warranted. It poured for at least an hour solid - I'm glad we brought them in!!

And then, it was finally time for the show! I was a very mean mommy and gave her a bath first thing in the morning.... I couldn't help it, she was just too dirty and I couldn't handle it! Some more general tidying, fixing up of her whiskers and mane, and some time on the Theraplate, and we were ready to roll! We had a chance to walk our stadium before we got on, which was nice - my ride times were 1:21 for dressage, 1:50 for stadium, and 2:20 for XC. Not a lot of time in-between!

Our dressage was about as abysmal as I expected. She was hot and a bit tense going into it, which didn't help matters, but as expected, our first set of trotwork was fine and scored well with 7's. Our first canter? She exploded forward on the wrong lead and tried to go running off down the long side. I managed to somehow turn and get a few strides on the correct lead, somehow, but it was not good. After that disaster, she of course fired up and the test continued to fall apart from there. The rest of the trotwork was bad, just bad! The second canter she at least went right up into and managed to sort of stay cantering for most of it, but it was still so bad that the scribe actually wrote tense twice in the comments section! We had a solid set of 5's for ALL of the movements from the first canter on. We kind of redeemed ourselves with walkwork, sort of, but it was generally just a mess. I know the judge personally, so at the end of the test I laughed and told her and the scribe that I should have warned them about the canter ahead of time, but they laughed too and told me I did a good job trying to keep the cork on the whole thing. We scored a 43.0 - officially the worst dressage score I've ever gotten in my life - but I knew it was going to be about that bad, so I felt that it was a fair score. Everybody else scored about as poorly - either we all sucked, or the judge scored us very hard (she is notorious for that). Or, more likely, both things played a factor!

I'm not worried... the canter takes time. We literally just started to really work on it this week - it will come!

Our stadium was most impressive part in my opinion! I got a look at the course they had set for us and had to do a double take - was that REALLY for the Elementary folks? It was a full course of verticals and oxers (not a single crossrail... come on!), complete with tons of flowers, gates, rolltops, rollbacks and even a broken line! They were also bigger than I expected for Elementary (although they were still obviously TINY). It was far, FAR more than I have ever done with her in terms of stadium work. She warmed up well and jumped some of the bigger warmup jumps with ease, so I went into it thinking that we would probably have some green moments but it would generally go well if I just went around and trotted the thing. But, would she listen? Would she trot, or would she get the zooms and take off? Would she lose her mind?

See for yourself!

She was AWESOME. She took an awkward spot to the first when she spent a little too much time looking at the gate (she had never seen one before!), but she listened to everything I asked. She cantered some of the fences quietly, came back to the trot when I asked, and generally just floated around like she owned it. GOOD GIRL. Her form over these little speedbumps leaves a lot to be desired, and I really need to give her some more freedom to extend her neck, but these things will improve with time.

I especially like that last one... you can see how she locks on about three strides out and wants to just GO. Slow down there, wild animal!


Right after stadium was over, we went on down to the XC. As I expected, she cruised around the course foot-perfect - and she even maintained her composure and quietness for most of it! Coming home, from fence 8 to 9, she decided to get her butt in gear and take off towards it. I told her in no uncertain terms that this was not acceptable, and she shook her head as hard as she could all the way to the base of the fence. Still, we made it quietly enough, and she did the final fence of the course quietly. She was SUPER.

We completed on our dressage score of 43.0 for a second place finish!!!! :) Boy that feels good!


My big news is happening shortly.... I'll finally let you all in on it tomorrow! ;)

Womp womp!

Well... phooey. Our first scheduled schooling HT of the season - of ever! - was supposed to be the weekend of the 21st-22nd. The schooling HT at WD that we were going to do got cancelled, and I opted to just school at the Curragh show instead of actually show (only because of the dressage test at that show... Intro C is super complicated for that level and has canter work, which I didn't think she was ready for... seriously, the test is more complicated than all the BN and N tests put together!!). The Curragh school went great, and I was feeling confident that we were going to head off to the Lazy Dog show and have a great first experience - the courses were a piece of cake, the dressage test was just Intro A, and all was going to be chill and fine.
And then, I found out today that the show had been cancelled.
BOOOOOOO.

Ah well, nothing to be done about it. I'm glad I went and looked at the NTEA calendar again, because that isn't the only change on there.... tons of things have been switched around!! I forget about the difference between schooling shows and recognized shows.... the recognized ones are for the most part set in stone, and are usually held at the same times every year. The schooling shows get cancelled, get added in, get moved and get altered all the time, and that's just how it is. Our new/altered calendar looks something like this:

September:
Sept 7th: Curragh Open Schooling
Sept 21st-22nd: Lazy Dog Ranch Open Schooling & Schooling HT (Schooling Sat, HT Sun) CANCELLED
Sept 22nd: Curragh Schooling Dressage Show (MAYBE Intro A & B?)

October:

Oct 5th-6th: Curragh Open Schooling & Schooling HT (Schooling Sat, HT Sun)

Oct 19th-20th: Quail Run Open Schooling & Schooling HT (Schooling Sat, HT Sun) MOVED TO NOV

Oct 19th: Dallas Dressage Schooling Dressage Show (MAYBE)
Oct 26th: 5th Annual Brazos Valley Hunt Fun Show & Trail Ride Challenge

November:

Nov 2nd-3rd: Quail Run Open Schooling & Schooling HT (Schooling Sat, HT Sun)

Nov 4th: Curragh Schooling Dressage Show (MAYBE)

Nov 9th-10th: Texas Rose HT (MAYBE, but it's a BIG maybe! Not likely!)

Nov 16th-17th: Greenwood Farm Open Schooling & CT (Schooling Sat, CT Sun)

Nov 23rd-24th: Meadow Creek Park HT (MAYBE but not likely)

December:

Dec 7th: Las Colinas Schooling Dressage Show

This also means I need to contact Dr. H and switch up her hormones... not totally sure of what our plan of action is going to be, but something will need to be done!



We've had a good week following our XC school - a nice flatwork/hack session the day after the school, a day off on Monday, an intense flatwork session on Tuesday and another intense flatwork session plus a XC school on Wednesday (and today a deserved day off).

(That pumpkin cider..... SO GOOD.)

Here's a comparison video of O at the rope arena in July, and at the rope arena on Tuesday... don't mind me flopping around like a dying fish in the western saddle, check out how she is finally getting the idea of stretching out and taking the contact! (Notice how much she was flinging her head around in the first video - she was wearing a tie-down as well. Second video, no tie-down, no nothing except a snaffle and no noseband!)

Yesterday was a great ride too - I spent an hour doing flatwork at WD in my jump tack before heading out to the XC course. She doesn't feel as free in her back in my jump saddle as she does in my dressage saddle.... for all intents and purposes it fits her well, but I think she's not as fond of the firmer foam panels on that saddle versus the cushy wool panels on the dressage saddle. She was fine, she didn't do anything wrong and certainly behaved well.... she jumps well in it, she stretches out and gallops great in it... she just isn't as elastic in her back when we're flatting.
After her preliminary workout, we went out onto the XC course to play a little. I had her in her mullen mouth snaffle, not the pelham, so I wasn't totally sure if we'd have brakes... but we did! That hour of "hey there lady listen to my half-halt" helped a lot in that. Ideally I want to get her to where I can run her in a snaffle XC if at all possible.... XC is exciting though, it's hard to blame her! The girl LOVES to jump.... even fences that are spooky to start, she'll slow down, sniff them, and then walk right over. On the second approach, and every approach thereafter, she's dragging me to them. This obviously won't work for bigger fences that you can't step over, but for right now it serves as a confidence builder. I want to try and make sure she never learns how to run around them... she needs to think there is only one way to get past the jump, and that is OVER IT! She did several logs, coops, little benches and of course the water, which she runs through with enthusiasm every time. Her form is improving too - sometimes her green-ness gets in the way of her enthusiasm and she goes flailing over things with legs in every direction. That just takes time, and she is showing continual improvement. Even if we can't do our little schooling HT this month, she'll be more than ready for the Curragh show next month, Intro Test C be damned. We can do it!

Beat the Heat

Ughhhh. I am so over summer. All of my northern friends are going on about how lovely and brisk the weather has been, making me long for the crispness of the New England autumn that I used to know and love. Fall in Texas mostly just sucks.... no pretty colors, no wonderful crisp chill, no brilliant blue sky, no scarves and coats and boots and gloves, no pumpkin spice anything. The ONLY good thing about impending fall is that maybe, if we're lucky, the temperatures will lower into the 80's by the end of the month.. but that's mostly just wishful thinking. It was still 100+ degrees today, has been 100+ degrees all week, and looks like it will continue to be 100+ degrees for at least the next few weeks. 

What is the major problem with it still being 100 degrees at this time of year? It is no longer possible for me to get up and ride before it is time to head off to work - it is too dark in the early mornings. That means I have to ride in the blazing heat every day, and some days I just don't even have time to ride at all. Being able to organize my own schedule generally means that I avoid that situation - I slot in riding time every day if at all possible, or at least enough time for a good grooming session at mealtimes - but time with the business unfortunately has to trump time in the saddle some days. This week I didn't get to log the saddle time that I had wanted, but I still managed to squeeze in a few very productive and very awesome rides. Part of the challenge of building a business is also building in proper time for myself - something I'll be working on harder from now on for sure. 

A few very great flatwork sessions have left me really feeling like O is finally really understanding what a half-halt is for. As she gets stronger, she is starting to balance herself from front to back better, and can rate herself reasonably well. Her old habit was to go as fast as she possibly could, then slow down, then speed up, go sideways, raise her head, root as hard as she could, bolt off, stop responding to leg or rein aids, and so on. Part of it was sheer belligerence and a "can't make me" attitude, but the other part was that she was truthfully just totally unbalanced, and found it easier to plow along on her forehand, snowballing faster and faster out of control, rather than take some responsibility for her hiney and actually use it. Now, she is finally getting to the point where she takes a half-halt and stretches out to the contact further with each one, rating herself and becoming more balanced from front to back. She isn't totally balanced 100% of the time of course, but she is really starting to get it. She always starts out speeding along, but she generally winds down in short order and gets to work. One of the nice things about her is the fact that she comes out the same every single day, no matter if she has worked her tail off the day before or done nothing for a few days. She is simple in that while she is hot to start out, you can just hop right on no matter where you are and walk off on a long rein. You always know that she is going to be the same, no matter where she is. 

Such was the case today as well - we headed out to Curragh for another XC school! Curragh is an equestrian center that is only 10 minutes down the road from us, which is super nice. They have a whole XC course through Training as well as a little separate Elementary course that is in a fenced off area all by itself (that's obviously not me riding but you can see what the little course looks like). It is perfect for a green horse - it is small, fully fenced in, and with just enough interesting stuff on course to give a green horse good exposure without frightening it. There is a little log on a hill, a tiny little brush, a little painted house, and a tiny ditch, along with several other small jumps. My goal for the day was to get O around the Elementary course in full, all pieced together - her first 'real' XC course! 

I decided for the day to switch up her bit, and went with a Happy Mouth mullen mouth pelham. She is going like gangbusters in her Happy Mouth mullen mouth eggbutt on the flat, so I decided to give the pelham a try. With the pelham, I can ride off the snaffle until I need a little 'excuse me hello' from the curb, and I already knew she loved the mouthpiece before I even put it in, so it was well worth a try. I wasn't disappointed by my choice - she LOVED it! I had plenty of control when I needed it, and was able to loosen up my curb rein and do some proper flatwork as well. Don't laugh at me, but I did use a flash with the pelham... and my curb rein had martingale stops, just because I didn't have another pair of reins around that didn't have them!! (For the most part, you all know that I am strict about proper equipment and etiquette... but I broke my rule for this one!)

Even with her few little green mistakes (hmmm, that house is kind of funny looking... should I stop? No? Well, ok, I will walk over it. That is a weird ditch, should I stop? No? Ok, let's go.), she was great. Rate-able, game, controlled and willing, she did the entire course twice without stopping, and once she had been over the ditch and the red house, she didn't look again. This horse is going to force me to be better over fences for sure... when I get everything perfect, she jumps very well, but when I don't give her enough freedom, she is quick to fling her head up and jump like a stag. It is up to me to be better for her sake!

After she jumped around the little course, we went out onto the bigger course with the rest of the group and hacked around for awhile. I let her stretch her legs and gallop on for a bit, then popped over a few of the smaller BN sized jumps without having her look at them beforehand. She even did a decent sized BN-N rolltop, although she did stop and look at it the first time. I probably could have legged her harder and gotten her over it the first time, but all she really needed to do was pause and think about it for a second, and then she popped over it twice more with no further problems. No need to rush at this point... better to let her think about it instead of force her to go and flail over it and scare herself. It was the biggest I've jumped her yet. We also cantered through the water a few times, and even jumped out of the water via a little bank - the first bank she has done. She was, uh... enthusiastic cantering into the water... meaning she basically took the last stride to launch herself in like Superwoman. We came cantering out to a round of applause by another group going by.

SHE'S A BEAST. 

End of August Recap; September Goals!

It's September!! That means that rain, cooler weather, and the fall show season are all on their way! It's actually thundering and pouring outside right now.... I can't remember the last time it rained. I love it!

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August Goals:

1) Continue basic dressage work - walk/trot/canter on the bit, emphasis on stretching and quietness, taking a contact solidly!
 Success! I feel like this past month has finally started the turnaround for her in terms of really "getting" the idea of stretching out over her back and reaching out to take a contact. She's not there 100% of the time by any means, and we don't quite have the magic formula yet for how to get her there (it varies during rides, sometimes she is ready to stretch right off the bat and sometimes it takes an hour to get her there), but she is really getting it and we get to that point every single ride now. She has been doing the best in the famous blue bit, so well in fact that I decided to get another one exactly like it (except it isn't blue, sadly!) so that I could put it on her dressage bridle and keep riding her in the blue bit with the western bridle (it ties with latigo instead of a buckle so it's a pain to undo and put on to another bridle) whenever I choose to put western tack on her. I've been riding A LOT with the barrel saddle... dunno why, but we've been getting some great work done in that. I think she really likes the distribution of weight over a large area, but she also does very well in the dressage saddle... mostly I have been lazy and not wanting to change out of my jeans into my britches! She no longer rides in the neck stretcher or the martingale or any of the bigger bits that I had been playing around with - everything has been just in a simple snaffle, except for the slow twist when we go out schooling XC off property. S has a short shank pelham with the same Happy Mouth mullen mouth mouthpiece (how many times can I say mouth in one phrase?), which I think would be great to try - it's a mouthpiece she loves and I can ride her off the snaffle until I need a little extra in the way of braking with the curb. I just need to practice holding two sets of reins again.... it's been a LONG time since I needed two sets of reins for anything!

2) Jump schooling - work on gymnastics, small courses, things in the arena - just getting her rolling, quiet and confident! Also go to some XC schools, but keep it low key!
Success! Since she did end up getting a nice two-week vacation, we didn't jump nearly as much as I thought we would, but for the time that she was working she had some great jump schools. She jumped around XC at Greenwood like a champ, even handling some slightly bigger fences with no issues. (Meaning like, BN fences.... but that's a start!) Her most recent jump school had her jumping a one stride and a three stride line, a few verticals, and even some canter fences. Aside from still not having the greatest brakes when she gets hot, she is really doing well. We have more XC and jump schools in our near future!

3) Keep to our monthly calendar!
I'd call it a partway success - I did opt to give her that vacation instead of keep grilling her with the schedule I had set up. But it was the right thing to do and she deserved it - I believe in taking brakes to mentally and physically chill out before and after important training/showing events!

4) Continue to dork around with hoof protection options - how best to help this mare with traction and comfort! 
Success! It has really just been in the past month that she has really started to get comfortable on rougher terrain without any protection. I ride her now without boots just as much as I ride her with them - the positive changes in feet have been absolutely incredible. She is now outfitted with Cavallos all around, Simples up front and Sports behind, but honestly I have mostly just either been riding with only the Simples/Sports up front sometimes and barefoot the rest of the time. The Simples don't rub her at ALL (scored them used for cheapo so they were already broken in) which is great, as they fit best without the pastern wraps. They are slightly heavier than the Sports, but both are lighter than a set of steel shoes anyway so there you are! It has only really been a few months of change, so everything should continue to just keep getting better and better and better from here!

5) Keep playing with barrels, and conditioning work.... because you never know, maybe we'll play around with some limited distance stuff and some barrels too ;)
We did some of this stuff, not as much as we could have, but I spent most of my time focusing on dressage/jumping things instead... that is what is in the immediate future after all! We'll play around with this more when we have some more downtime, but now is the time to focus on the upcoming tasks at hand. 

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Our September goals are largely the same, with a few big additions....


September Goals:

1) Continue basic dressage work - walk/trot/canter on the bit, emphasis on stretching and quietness, taking a contact solidly! As always a work in progress! 

2) Jump schooling - work on gymnastics, small courses, cantering fences, slightly bigger fences and more XC schoolings!

3) Keep to our monthly calendar! 

4) Get organized - what do I need for showing? Dust off show clothes/tack and inspect everything!

5) Survive our first schooling show! Get through with a good positive experience no matter what the score!

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Yes, that's right! September brings OUR FIRST SHOW! This will be the first time I have set foot in a show ring as a competitor since our ill-fated AECs in 2009. I feel completely out of the loop and like a total noob. We're going to go XC schooling at Curragh on the 7th but we're not going to show there on the 8th - there is a show on the 22nd at Lazy Dog that is smaller and is probably a better first one to shoot for. The Curragh show has a w-t-c test and a longer/bigger elementary course than the Lazy Dog show does (tiny, shorter, w-t only test). There is another Curragh show next month that we'll shoot for instead, but this month we'll keep it simple and small.

It's still raining.... a perfect day to relax and figure out exactly what needs to be done to prep for showing later in the month!!

Who Needs Brakes?

(The short answer to that is that I need them. I need brakes. I need them, a lot. More on that shortly.)

 I'm still trying to recover from being repeatedly overheated and working a lot, so this post is a bit slow to come, but we've had a very eventful week, in a good way! It has been blazing hot outside, but we're making due.... summer is almost over! Or well, summer is slowly approaching the end. Or well, summer is maybe half over by now. Or well, summer maybe will stop being so miserable by October, hopefully....

I gave O last Tuesday off, and on Wednesday I busted my butt working in the heat all morning. I was roasting by the time I finished with clients (around 1pm), but I wanted to at least go for a light hack, so I headed off to the barn, since I was already out in that area anyway. When I got there, S suggested going for a nice long trail ride. It was 106 out and I was feeling overheated, but hey, why not?

About an hour into it, I started to feel pretty lousy. I had been drinking water all day long, but I had just been too overheated for too long that day. When the trails were in the shade or when there was a breeze, it wasn't so bad, but when the air was still and the sun was beating down on us, it raised the temp by about 15 degrees. I also made the terrible mistake of bringing Monster Dog along - she's always by my side on the trails, but I should have just left her home that day. Honestly, since I had no idea we were going to trailer out anywhere and I had no idea how hot it really was, I wasn't able to make that judgement in time to leave her. We stopped and watered her every time we caught a path down to the lake (which was regularly) but it was still just too hot for her. Around the same time that I started feeling crappy, Monster Dog flopped down in the shade of a big mesquite and refused to walk another step until she had taken a rest and had some more water. It was time to head back.

Poor Mooey....

But, we all made it back in one piece. After putting the horses up for the night, I promptly went home and crashed on the couch, totally exhausted and sun-sick. If you've never truly been sun-sick, I don't wish it on any of you. At best, you just feel dizzy, weak, thirsty and hot. At worst, you black out, puke on yourself, get tunnel vision, and fall over unconscious. And then you die, but I haven't reached the dying part yet, thankfully.

Thursday morning I woke up bright and early (for no particular reason at all, seeing as I had nowhere to be that day), and decided that I better get my butt going if I wanted to ride before the heat of the day! I outfitted the red beast in her western garb and gave her a nice warmup before starting some patterning on the barrels. At this point, it's not about teaching her the pattern anymore - darn mare already has it figured out and wants to go as fast as she possibly can through the pattern. Great, I love your enthusiasm, but really, we're not ready for warp speed yet! I did let her canter the first barrel a few times, which went well, but if I'm actually going to do this occasionally then I need to focus on giving her a better ride. Obviously I'm NOT a barrel person and she's not a barrel horse - this is just for fun! - but she deserves a good ride anyway. I sit like a total noob in a western saddle for whatever reason, and I can't quite figure out why. For the life of me I just can't sit when we're cantering, I just bounce around! I'm a halfway decent jock, I can't figure out what exactly it is about a western saddle that throws me all off. I stick like a centaur when I'm bareback or in any other tack... just not in a western saddle. WHY!?

Despite me being a monkey up there, she did exceptionally well. She REALLY likes playing on the barrels... if she fails as an eventer, we all know what she can be instead!

On Friday, I worked again all morning, but had weekend plans to take O up to Greenwood for another XC school. Since our last school went SO very wrong, I really wanted to get her over some little jumps the day before just to make sure that her head was back in the game and that it wasn't going to be a waste of my time on Saturday. She had been really excellent all week, so I decided to trailer her over to the ranch and take her over a little tiny course of x-rails, just to see what she'd do - if she'd be game or not. The weather was decent that morning, but of course by the time I got her over to the farm, it was over 100 degrees again (and the arena is in the sun). Well, you do what you gotta do!

I needn't have worried. She was SO game - a little too game, even! - to everything I pointed her at. We kept it simple, with little crossrails and poles, but she wanted more. I used her little three-piece snaffle again, and for the first time didn't use a martingale. The excellent Kat had recently sent me her neckstrap to try, and I made very good use of it. In order to just keep out of her way while she gets back into over-fences mode, I just lightly held her neckstrap with one hand and let her figure it all out. She was fresh as a daisy and bounced around over everything without a moment's hesitation in excellent form. That's what I like to see!

Note the lathered sweat... she looks pooped. I was even more pooped than she was.... even a 30 minute ride in that heat was oppressive. 

And finally, it was SATURDAY! I got my sorry, sorry butt out of bed at 3am in order to get to the barn to clean stalls before we all headed as a group over to Greenwood. I decided that my plan for the day would be to trailer O over to the other barn, turn her out with some hay while I was busy cleaning stalls, and then would load up and take her straight from there to the schooling grounds. This quickly dissolved into disaster... when I got there, the only place to put her was in an outside stall with a run, so I did that. She munched her hay for a little while until I had to turn out the horses on either side of her. She stopped eating, started looking around in a concerned way.... and then her eyes fell upon the farm's resident potbellied pig. Whenever the horses get turned out, the old pig shows up to look for dropped grain scraps in the empty stalls, and makes herself known by her many shuffles and grunts and squeals. At the mere sight of her, O lost her cool and started ramming into the walls in an effort to escape. Usually I am one to let a horse figure out a situation on their own, but there was the very real possibility of her killing herself all in the name of a pig, so I moved her to an inside stall. This was no better - she stood immobile in the stall, totally ignoring her hay, lathered in sweat and rolling her eyes around. I don't know if she has spent much (if any) time in a stall in her entire life, so this wasn't really an ideal situation either. Finally, I had a chance to turn her out into a small run, and she finally relaxed *a little*, munching on some hay on and off inbetween bouts of trembling and staring at the other horses in the distance. I'm super, super, super, SUPER neurotic and weird about horses eating - anytime they are not eating when there is food in front of them, I am totally freaking out. EAT FOOD, DO YOU HAVE ULCERS, WHY ARE YOU NOT EATING, YOU ARE GOING TO GET ULCERS IF YOU DON'T HAVE THEM ALREADY, FOR GOD'S SAKE WHY ARE YOU NOT EATING. Mostly I think she was just too on edge to even think about food, but it didn't help me with MY ulcers. (Thankfully I thought to give her a dose of Ulcergard before I left the home barn!) She loaded on the trailer prancing in place with her tail over her back - the pig showed up again as we were leaving, of course. Good lord, let's just get out of here!!

We made it to the schooling in one piece, and O settled in for a snack while I registered. It didn't take long before the group all headed out, us included.... but would she behave?

I needn't have worried. She was absolutely excellent. No brake still, half the time, but excellent. She jumped everything I pointed her at with enthusiasm and great form, thanks in large part due to my removal of her martingale. Whenever she'd toss her head and hit the martingale, she would royally tick herself off, and would throw down the landing gear early, slam her face into mine, freak out, hit the brakes, etc... the martingale was doing what it was supposed to do, she was just not reacting appropriately. It did keep her from throwing her head for the most part through. Unfortunately without it, the head tossing did return to some extent, but only when we were stopping and her royal highness didn't want to stop. Boy when she gets to plowing down into the contact and running off, good luck with stopping.... just not going to happen sometimes unless you a) one-rein stop or b) find something to run her into. Half of the time, she is light and responsive and listening, and voila! Easy halts, easy transitions. But the other half of the time, she'll be going along nicely, and then upshift in gears and zoom off at high speed - that is when your brakes fail. I rode her in the slow twist, and had halfway decent brakes with that, but I still feel like she hides behind it half the time and definitely don't want to encourage that habit at ALL. She also plays with the bit when she's bored, which is extremely annoying. Clackity clackity clack... she's done it from day one and it drives me NUTS! I banished the clacking when I had her in the mullen mouth, but with anything with joints or metal, she's clacking. She doesn't do it when she's working, just when we're standing there or milling around..... UGH so annoying. I hate when they make annoying mouth sounds, it drives me nuts!

She jumped everything I pointed her at, including some BN-sized logs, with gusto. And she trotted and cantered through the water with glee - she was practically dragging me to the water complex, she loved it! Shoulda gotten a video but alas, my phone was dying!

Beauty....

.... and the Beast, playing the clack-clack game.

But, she does look SEXY!

Back at home, she of course set to stuffing her face, drinking deeply, and acting like none of this has ever happened. That's my girl, don't freak your mother out now!

She had a deserved day off yesterday, and will either have a light hack today or another day off, and either a light hack or a flatwork school tomorrow. It's 100+ degrees out there right now, so I'm not exactly running out the door just yet....!