Cowboy Country HDT 6/4-6/5/16 - Marathon

I've been SO BUSY this week.... running around trying to catch up with work, and house stuff, and then having to go spend the weekend at a family reunion. I feel like I'm a half dead zombie. To top it off, I've been really struggling to come to terms with the shooting in Orlando this past weekend. I feel like I'm grappling underwater and I can't even catch my breath.

But I finally have an update on the marathon at Cowboy Country! Sorry it took ages. I've been feeling so completely spent and overwhelmed that I needed a little bit of process time before I could sit down and write. Not about the show of course - the show was really good! 

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After having a good dinner with Dr. G and crashing for the night, I dragged my sorry carcass out of her super comfy guest bed and headed to the barn for our morning ritual of stall cleaning, feeding, and handwalking. O was not eating still - she is just the worst about eating when at shows. She lives on her Ulcergard and her Pro CMC, but she just likes to stand around and stare at everything instead of eat. She'll nibble delicately here and there, and she'll eat grass, and then when we get home she'll ravenously dive into her haybag like she's starving (which she probably is, after not having eaten much all weekend) - but at the show, she's just terrible about her food. I had walked the entire course the night before, including all four of our hazards - and they were easily the hardest and most complicated ones O has ever done. They were tight, they were solid, and they were complicated. I chose to do several of the tighter turns, as I thought this mare was capable of handling them, and when we do move up to Prelim she'll need to have some experience with those tighter turns. She may not ever win the dressage, but by god she'll be tough to beat in the marathon with a little more practice.

After getting O's boots out and ready, I wandered up towards the office. Since B2 couldn't come this time, I recruited fellow blogger Stephanie from Hand Gallop to come and help! Originally, she had mentioned that she would like to come and watch, and I told her that if she brought her helmet I would give her a ride. As luck had it, B2's poor pup had bloat surgery and she had to stay home with him, which left me with no navigator. I asked Stephanie if she wanted to jump in and give it a whirl, and she said yes!

As I was walking up to the office, I heard a voice calling my name, and turned to see Stephanie driving up in her car. We skipped off together to the office to sign a release form, then trotted back to the barn to see O and stuff her with cookies. I took Stephanie over to my carriage and did my best to give her a brief crash course on navigating, and how to use your weight to counterbalance the carriage. The two most important things, I told her, were to keep your weight on the inside of turns, and to keep your weight on the uphill side of the carriage. Oh yeah, and watch out for branches. And mud. Oh yeah and did I mention there are big rocks and ditches in this course? Oh yeah and whatever you do don't fall off!

As we hitched up, Stephanie and I continued to chat about how to hang on, what to do in turns, how to handle terrain, and the like. We were so busy chatting it up that I completely forgot about going to our safety check. At HDTs and CDEs (and probably ADTs, but I've never been to one), there is a mandatory safety check before each section, where someone inspects your harness and carriage and equipment to make sure you are properly hitched and your gear is in good safe order. This is obviously super important, and I'm glad they put an emphasis on it. If you miss your safety check, you are eliminated - that is how important it is, and they do mark it down. The horse before me had just trotted off on course, when I suddenly when, oh god! My safety check! Crap! I told Stephanie to hang on, and told the starter I'd be RIGHT BACK, and we took off for the safety check. Naturally, the guy there wanted to ask what breed she is and the like - I must have looked like I was in a hurry though, as he didn't hold us too long, and as soon as we were done we trotted right back to the start line to head out on course. I thought I heard the starter say she was starting us at 10:19, our actual go time, but I was not correct - this will come back later.

Warming up

The actual course maps are here, if you're interested. But they probably won't make a lot of sense! Training level only did hazards 1, 3, 4, and 5 - hazard 2 was for Prelim and above. Our course was 4.4 KM, and was through a whole lot of wooded, hilly terrain. There were some HUGE giant washed out ruts, and some big giant rocks, but for the most part the footing was 10,000 times better than the swamp at Pine Hill. I felt that I still would have a lot of horse at the end of the course.


Off we flew through the woods, bumping over the giant ruts and cruising up and down the hills. Stephanie went into this course totally blind - usually you walk the course with your navigator, so you both know the route, but since we did not have time for that this go around she just hang to hold on tight! I did my best to call out some of the things we were doing so she could prepare, but half the time I think I was probably talking quietly to myself instead of being helpful. I talk to O a lot too while we are underway.



The first hazard was the most simple - just some turns through the trees, a good warmup for Stephanie to get a feel of the turns. In these pictures, you'll see my helmet cover blew off somewhere early in the course - looks kind of funny flopping down over the back of my helmet!

Here goes nothing!

Turn mare turn!

She is the best at tight turns

Well done mare! Well done Stephanie!

The other set of professional photos we got was from the next hazard, called the Rattlesnake. It was easily the most complicated thing I had ever set eyes on! These hazards are permanent, and get decorated differently every year. 

I had decided to stair-step the first element, which you'll see in the helmet cam video. We did it carefully and were successful, although we did scrap a wheel on the way out. It was tight in there! 

This is my favorite picture of O from the whole season!!

Exiting!

We powered along to and through the next hazard, The Fort, which was another permanent fixture on course. It's SO COOL. I don't know who originally built it, but it was just amazing and I have video of it too!

The Fort!

It's a bit grainy since it was a video that Dr. G sent to me, but you can still see how she handled it! Unfortunately, my helmet cam had died by this time, so you only will get to see the first two hazards.

The final hazard, Cactus Jack, O handled in supreme style, although she did slow down and walk through the more complicated parts. That's all right... we will add speed as she gets stronger and more confident! She was exceptionally clever about her footing this weekend as well, slowing down and looking at the footing when it was a bit questionable, chosing her own path, and being extremely speedy when the going was good.

And when I say speedy I mean... way too speed. WAAAAY too speedy! Our speed time was 19 minutes flat, and our optimum time was 21 minutes - we have a 3 minute window to come in. There is a 300 meter mark where you must continue your forward motion once you cross it (no stopping or circling or whatnot), and as we reached that mark I looked at my watch.... yeah, we were at 15 minutes. Oh man how were we going to kill four entire minutes!? We slowwwwly walked up the hill... slowwwwwwly.... slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwly.... the finish line was approaching..... we slowwwwwwly wandered towards it... and barely crossed over it with just 12 seconds over the speed time!




O cooled out super fast and was cleared by the vet with compliments on her fitness.  Unfortunately for us, while I thought I had started on time, we actually started 30 seconds past our set start time. They are strict on this (as they should be), and I was penalized heavily for it, knocking us down to 4th. I can tell you something though, I'll NEVER do that again! Only takes one time of making a big costly rookie mistake. I won't forget it ever again!


I could not have done it without Stephanie's fine help as a navigator. She did wonderfully for her first time ever being on a carriage!! And I also couldn't have done it without Dr. G, who let me crash at her house all weekend and fed me and cheered me on. Thank you guys so much!!



Here's the helmet cam footage. It's a little hard to hear, but if you turn up the volume, you can hear me talking to both O and Stephanie:






What a weekend! What a mare!



I checked the rulebook recently to see what the official rule on pregnant mares is for the ADS, and they have a strict 4 month cutoff. I think that is perfectly reasonable, but because of it, this means Cowboy Country was O's last show until the babe is weaned. Our show season in Texas goes totally dead until about September/October, which is too late in the year for that cutoff. From here on out, O will rest and be merry, and Dylan will take over as primary show horse. I feel really good about the whole thing - I was able to do what I set out to do, get this mare full blast through her show season until she could not technically show any longer due to the rules, then let her rest. What a luxury it is, to have a fine show mare that I can breed and then pull out of my show string, not because she is crippled or old or not useful anymore, but because she is a fine, sound, strong mare and I just so happen to have a fine, sound, strong stallion that I not only have full access too, but who I want to be fully focused on while I have him. I have the luxury to choose which of my two fine, strong, sound show horses I would like to show most at the moment. What a lucky person I am.

Catch-Up Post: Driving, Lessons, Vetwork, Kicking Addictions, and More

Let's try to break this massive thing down some, shall we? When I last left you guys, I had a very nice dressage session in the Happy Mouth,  a nice 3 mile light conditioning drive, and an uneventful lunge. That brings us to...

Sunday the 8th:

Another uneventful lunging day. I've pretty much canned the chambon at this point as it is only effective when she is super relaxed. As soon as she gets a little spiced up, she braces against it, and it just doesn't do anything except rub her chest while she zooms around with her head in the air. Kind of the opposite of effective. She was quite quiet today, in no small part thanks to the fact that she went galloping like a wild animal around her pen shortly before I got her out to work her. This usually makes a HUGE difference for her, as otherwise she gets the squealy bucks on the lunge when she canters. Lunging time is work time, not run-like-a-maniac time, so when run-like-a-maniac time happens pre-lunge, it is for the best.

Monday the 9th:

We had an AWESOME drive on Monday. She was just so *there* with her snaffle, and so very pleased by it that she was super ultra mega compliant. She is such a funny case... when she is pleased, she will do ANYTHING you ask, with ease. When something irks her, AKA a bit she doesn't like, she will fuss and fight and be a general hellion nonstop until you do something about it. We only drove for about 20 minutes, because she was just *that good* that I saw no reason to continue. Perfect 40m circles, and 20m circles, and looping serpentines and changes of direction, and lovely quiet transitions. What more can you ask for!

What are you looking at

Tuesday the 10th:

The mares had a vet appointment at 9am with Dr. H to get their Coggins, Rabies, and fecals done, and to give Pmare the pre-foaling once over. Dr. H took one look at P as she stepped off the trailer and went, "so when is she due? Tomorrow?" She is SO HUGE! We weren't even there for 15 minutes... maybe even more like 10. O got her Rabies, and I took P's home with me to administer with her pre-foaling vax. Both mares had completely clean fecals, so the plan for Pmare is to not deworm her again until the day she foals. I'm a deworming minimalist and only go based on what fecals tell me, plus hitting for tapes and encysted strongyles. O has had a clean fecal for almost 2 years now, and while P had strongyles when I got her back from the bad lessee, we eliminated those quickly and she has had clean fecals for almost a year now. 

The plan for P: give her final Prodigy shot on the 15th (which I did), give her full set of shots early to mid-March, and start watching her. 320 days is March 24th (she'll be officially full term at that point). 340 days is April 13th. She could in theory go all the way to May if she really felt like it but I highly doubt she'll make it that far! She is extremely happy at the moment - very comfortable, totally happy in her job of eating and eating some more, and looks great.

So shiny!

80 degrees.... warm, dirty, and sleepy.

Give me a cookie or the gate gets taken down!

Wednesday the 11th:

Today was another conditioning day - slowly ramping it up to 4 trotting miles today. It's easy work for her, and for Training level HDTs/CDEs we don't need to be terribly fit, but I think it is important to break up dressage-type work and be able to trot down the road on a loose rein. She was a lovely girl, and it was a super nice day, warm with a very light breeze and not much happening out on the road (always a good thing).


Thursday the 12th:
I was going to do a dressage day, but I had signed up to trailer to Denton and take a lesson on Saturday, so I decided I needed to do something lighter and then give her Friday off. We opted for another lunge, which was very short and sweet - she was quiet and amicable, which are my two favorite flavors! No need to do any more than a short lunge, if she was perfect.

I decided I like driving enough that I am actually letting the top of her tail grow out instead of pulling it! She has a horrible tail but I am pretty good as disguising it, being the Tailmasta and all.

Friday the 13th:
O had her day off, which was perfect seeing as I worked all day long and didn't get to the barn to feed until dark. I hadn't even cleaned my harness yet for my lesson in the morning! The evening took a turn for the weird when I tried to leave and go home (to have a nice dinner date with Future Hubs for Valentine's Day) and realized my keys were gone. My phone was dead, it was pitch black out, and my keys were not in their usual place - the spot I always put them so that they don't fall out of my pocket and get lost around the barn. A really frantic and fruitless search led me nowhere for two hours - the keys were just NOWHERE to be found. I was almost out of ideas when suddenly it occurred to me that the neighbor's puppy had stolen my driving cones last week and had hidden them in the neighbor's garage. Could it be possible that the puppy had stolen my keys? Turns out, yep.... the puppy had taken my keys, gone all the way back to her house, and hid them in her garage.
Friday the 13th certainly lived up to its reputation.


Saturday the 14th:
Valentine's Day went awfully well if you ask me! I was up early to clean my harness (finally), let the horses eat breakfast and their alf, loaded up the beast, and headed out. O is silent on the trailer and well behaved, but she never touches so much as a mouthful of food when underway, so I try to stuff her full of hay before and after trailer rides, as well as give Ulcergard and Pro CMC if we're going to be away for any period of time. She'd be eaten from mouth to butthole with ulcers if I didn't stay on top of it, I can tell you that much.... so I tend to be pretty overboard with it. Better safe than sorry I figure.
I've spent an awful lot of time trying to make O a solid citizen, as everyone here has seen, but I sometimes still worry that she'll act like a fool whenever we go somewhere new and do something totally different. I've only ever driven her in *her* cart, and at home, aside from the times we went to WD for those fall shows - and she had been to WD a billion times before. This time, we were going to a brand new indoor, using someone else's cart. Would she be a total idiot? Freak out and spook? Kill us all?
Turns out, I didn't need to be worried at all. She walked in like she owned the place, stood placidly in the crossties for tacking, and waited for us while we chatted. G decided to long line her first, just to see where she was (I told him to treat us like rank beginners!). We started with some softening exercises, getting her to yield and drop her head. She picked it up pretty immediately, and would drop her nose right to the ground and stay there, as you can see:

I long lined her for a few minutes, and G has me shorten and lengthen her stride at the walk, as well as place her in several different spots (lengthened out, at the vertical, behind the vertical, bent left, bent right, etc) to help her learn that she is to go out wherever the bit is and stay there. After this, we took her back in the barn, hooked her up, and took her back into the arena. We both took turns driving her, and worked on moving laterally in both directions, spiraling in and out on circles, trying to achieve parking one wheel and getting her to move the cart around it on a pivot. You guys have actually seen me do this a lot, if you've watched any of our videos over the past few months - it was something I guess I was intuitively doing already. I use it almost every drive, especially to the right - she likes to lock up and be stiffer to the right, so I always make sure to spend time parking my right wheel and pivoting around it. I had to laugh when I realized what we were going to be doing to help her be more supple, and told him I already do it a lot, and that it really does help! As it always does, it suppled her up considerably, and before long she was doing lovely little circles in both directions. He had me stop and back her up, which is something I have worked on in the past but stopped doing recently because she was starting to halt and then automatically back up (do not want!!). I had her go back a few steps, and then gave the reins to him so that he could show me how he wanted it to go more efficiently. That was when O decided to show a little more of her um, personality... which I had warned him about when explaining her quirks. She didn't understand his cues (I just taught them differently, so she knows my cues), and he clucked at her a few times. She is CRAZY sensitive to clucks, and then are a go forward cue to her, so when she felt his backwards pressure on the reins but a forward going cluck, she checked out, did the violent headshake, and tries to bull forward away from the pressure. After that, she would not give him one step backwards to save her life - he could have pulled on her til he tore her mouth off and she would not have given him one step.
G looked at me and went "wow, somebody really did a number on her!" You're telling me G... you're telling me.
We moved back off to do some more circles, and O was decidedly more agitated and a bit jiggy. I told him about how this is kind of the way she is - you push her a little bit, then back off and do something simple, and push her a little bit, and back off and do something simple. If she gets too frazzled or upset, which she does sometimes, I always go back to something she understands and chill her out, otherwise you'll just never get anywhere with her. Escalate and de-escalate. He clapped me on the shoulder and told me I was a good smart horsewoman, and that I had the right idea. We finished on a good note, and I definitely have some homework to work on!

They were awesome enough to take me out to lunch, and we had a great time. Back at the barn, G had me jump in the cart to work with him on a really nice Morgan, on a lot of the same principles - lateral work, suppleness, parking the wheel, lengthening and shortening. The Morgan was like driving a little hot rod - SO forward and strong but so fun. We also took him out into the field behind the property, where there were a number of roundbales set up like a cones course. They looked so narrow to me - how in the heck could we even fit through those?? You had to be accurate and you had to get it right. G taught me about driving the water hook of the saddle, which is the part where the overcheck hooks to, if you were to use an overcheck. That is pretty close to the area where your legs would be if they were on either side of your saddle, so he had me think of that as my legs and to steer that part of the horse instead of just the head and neck. (Oh wait duh, you do that in riding too...) If you steer the horse and you put that water hook right in the center of the two cones/roundbales, you'll clear them every time, even on super tight turns where it seems impossible. And he was right... we were flying around that field whipping between the roundbales, clean on every one. I had my go, and even though I brushed a few whisps of hay on a few bales, I was totally surprised to find that I was dead on almost all of the time, even at speed. It was awesome!

The golden loopy swirly hook in the center of the saddle.... yea, drive that part.

It was a great time, and I have another lesson set up in the near future. And have my homework to work on too!


Sunday-Tuesday:
The temps dropped and the rain came in. O had a few well-deserved days off while I worked and froze my tush off. I got off my habit of trying to do one driving-related thing every day, so I am back on that as of today! P got her final Prodigy shot on Sunday.... now the countdown to her full set of shots begins, and then THE BABY COMES!

Pmare, shedding... and sagging. Big time. That's her entire winter coat right there... that's all she ever grows!

Wednesday the 18th:
O got back to work today with a very nice lunge. We did our suppling exercises pre-work like we did with G on Saturday, and I was pleased to find that she retained all of that and immediately complied. I also went ahead and roached her mane again today - this will give her two months to grow a nice new roach in. It was getting sort of out of control, and a roach only really stays nice for about half a year (with regular trimming of course) before it starts to flop around and look stupid. O's was definitely at that point, so off it went. Poor thing looks like a funny looking orange mule, but it will grow back... hopefully sooner than later.

Meet my new mule!

As a bonus, somewhere mid-week last week:
Sometime last week - can't remember which day it was - I was poking my belly and feeling really irritated with the weight I have gained since I moved to TX. I'm not *fat*, not by any means, but I'm not the tiny little stick that I was when I moved here. I realized some time ago that I was drinking a HUGE amount of soda, every day. Like, a ridiculous amount. I was highly addicted and didn't want to stop, because that's how addiction works. Soda isn't exactly heroin or anything, but you get pretty hooked on it and then make up excuses as to why you don't need to quit it. I don't even know what the last straw was, or if there was a last straw, but I decided I just needed to *stop.* So... I did. I just quit soda, cold turkey. I'm not going to lie, I wanted to just flat out die the first day. I think I must have been living in a state of constant dehydration from all the soda though, because I plowed through almost 2 gallons of water the first day, and the second day as well. My body seems to have leveled off a bit, but I probably looked ridiculous as I stood there chugging my 5L giant bottle of water like a camel at an oasis. I was really goddamn thirsty.
Future Hubs says I look thinner already. I don't know about that, but I feel a little bit better. I'm past the hump of craving soda, and have just been drinking water instead. I'm not going to 100% say no to soda forever - like if I go to the movies, I'm getting a giant bucket of popcorn and a big soda, because MOVIES - but I'm not going to slip back into old habits, because I just don't want to. It really is as simple as that, it's just a mind game. I just decided that I don't drink soda anymore, and voila... I don't drink it anymore.

I'm also working heavily on my bad calf, and I think I have some answers. I first thought it was Achilles tendon, but with more experimentation and stretching, I actually think it is more muscle related instead (which is a relief). I think I just limped on this leg for so long that everything in the calf shortened in response. A LOT of stretching has been helpful, but I have to do it every single day, or else I feel it shorten right back up and lose flexibility. Massage and theraplate has helped as well, but not as much as the stretching. I have some KT tape on it today, and I actually think it has alleviated a fair amount of the pain, although it seems to limit my movement a bit. Next up to try: foam rolling, although I feel like that is going to be hella painful.

Damnit though, I want to ride. I want this to be better. So therefore, I'm going to fix it, because I decided so.

Note angry red interior. And Toy Story PJs.

Phew!! I think I am finally caught up!

Here For A Good Time

I feel like I've been this little ray of positivity lately. All I've been writing about is what a good time I've been having driving. But it's the truth! No fuss, no drama, no misery, no great things to lament, except maybe the fact that work keeps me from driving *quite* as many days a week as I'd like. If that's my only real complaint about life, I think I'm doing just fine!

I suppose if I HAD to get picky about something that isn't great, it is O's tendency on the lunge line to get stuck in right bend, forever. She shares Gogo's crookedness - left foot is slightly more upright than the right, slight asymmetry in the opposing hind. She's just kind of built in a slight curve (lots of them are that way). My bodyworker is great, but I haven't really seen improvements with the bending issue. I am trying to see if I can get a different dentist out next month, because I haven't been very happy with any of the dental work I've had done on any of my horses, but seeing as she does this in just a halter as well I don't think it's related. It does not help that *I* sit crookedly as well, but I haven't actually ridden her since June (I know, crazy right? I've just been driving!). I look back at ALL my pictures of her lunging, and she has always had this crookedness.

Yep... Queen Counterbend. 

BUT. I have two good weapons in my arsenal that help straighten her out...

Trotting over raised poles is SO helpful. These are giant clunky ones, so she really has to pay attention to where her feet are. It really helps her lengthen her topline and loosen her back and neck up. 

And she HATES this one, but it is very effective to run the lunge line through the bit back up to her surcingle. She usually only needs this done on the left side; she is quite bendy on the right.

End result: pooped out sweaty gymnasticized horse.

 I think, though, that I'll put away the lunging equipment for awhile. Long lining is SO much more useful for this kind of thing.


AND the other thing that is useful for this kind of thing is actually driving! Same as with riding, I don't think you can actually really fix your driving problems anywhere but when you're actually driving. You can help them, definitely, but until you get into that exact scenario where something is really a problem and you fix it there, it isn't solved.

We had two REALLY GREAT drives this week. She just keeps getting better and better! And it helps that I'm getting better too - figuring out how exactly to bend and hold her, and give where I need to give. It's highlighting my weaknesses when I am riding as well - they're the same when I am driving, and now I notice them!
(These following pictures are from last week - I took some commenter advice and removed her shadow roll!) 

 

 In the cart, I feel like I can really push her forward without consequence. When riding, she is quick to zoom off at a thousand miles an hour, but when driving she doesn't do this. She was moving quite slow in these pictures; this week, I experimented with pushing her on a bit, and found that she became a lot steadier in her contact. Again, that's a DUH moment - it's the same when riding!

It took me entirely too long to realize that your half-halting aids are the same as well while you are driving. This little piece of information clicking in my head made me suddenly realize that I DO have every ability to correctly bend my horse in both directions! Whadda ya know.


We also took a very successful 5 mile drive down the road this week. This was her first time alone with blinders, and not surprisingly she was a bit spooky and balky on the way out. She is that way when riding as well, so it wasn't a surprise. The good news is that now that I've experienced a dramatic spook from her, I'm ready for them and I can feel them coming. Her spooks since then have all been typical for her, a big start and then an immediate continuation along like nothing happened. She was balky on the way out, and then was nice and forward on the way back.... not ideal. (This is why I need to practice carrying my whip at home!) HOWEVER, on the way back, she gave me this AMAZING feel in my hands, so light and electric and forward. She felt incredible! She just gets better and better!



Tomorrow I am going to volunteer at our local fall ADS sanctioned pleasure show, so that I can be a sponge and absorb as much as I can. I'm excited!

Likes and Dislikes

We're having a great week down here in Texas. The weather is hot but not blazing, my extreme work schedule has finally lightened a bit (I like to set it up where I bust my butt for a stretch, then rest for a stretch), and we're enjoying ourselves tremendously. Things are SO fun when your horse actually enjoys what they are doing!

On Tuesday, I decided to have a little fun with O, and stuck her on the lunge line to let her jump some of the XC jumps out in the field. I thought it would be fun for her, a nice little change in our routine. I was surprised to find that I was completely wrong... she did NOT enjoy it whatsoever. Some days I feel like she thinks jumping is great fun, and some days I feel like she absolutely hates it. On this day, I lunged her to warmup, and she galloped around me like a maniac for a few minutes, absolutely crazed. When she finally settled, I let her go to the first jump... and she about pulled me off my feet trying to go around it. Four, five, six attempts... she fought me with all her power, trying to NOT go over the jump. Finally I chased her over it, and she jumped out of her skin over it. We went over it a few more times successfully, and then moved onto a second jump.... where we had the exact same set of refusals. We did end up going over the second jump successfully several times, but by this point she was completely lathered in anxiety sweat. We hadn't even been going over the jumps for more than five minutes. I decided to stop there, reward her for being a good compliant girl even though she was clearly unhappy with the entire process.When we finished, she gave a huge sigh and dropped her head, almost saying "oh thank god we're done with that crap."

This mare makes no apologies for who she is. She likes what she likes, she hates what she hates, and she is going to tell you exactly what she thinks about all of it. While I am a pretty firm believer that you can train just about any horse to do just about anything, you can't help but respect that. She is willing to go straight to hard work for me in a different sport, so it's not about just being lazy or belligerent. She is just completely cut and dried clear about the things she doesn't like. 

And one thing she DOES like is motoring on down the road! On Wednesday, S rode her big yellow horse and I drove O down the road. This was her first time going out with another horse while driving, and she also had her blinders on. I wasn't sure if she would totally lose it if she could hear the other horse but not see him, but she actually was very pleasant to drive with the blinders on. She could hear the other horse and was happy to have him near, but wasn't looking for him. Usually when we ride out, O loves to be right up his butt the entire time, but when driving out with the blinders she was happy to walk along at a good clip. We trotted for a ways, walked for a ways, and had an excellent time - we were out for around 2 hours of fun.

GPS of our drive!

She wasn't winded or tired in any way. But that tail is a sad story... she's not rubbing it, it's just sort of sunbleached and crappy and scruffy at the top. The rest of her coat looks fantastic... her tail is just pathetic. I am Tailmasta no longer :(

Today we did some flatwork/dressage type work in the field! We worked on moving forward and still taking a steady contact (her contact gets a little wobbly the more forward she goes), suppling side to side, and bending properly. I had a total duh moment with the bend - if you hold the outside rein and bend via the inside rein instead of just using your inside rein, she actually bends properly! DUH! I knew that, that's not anything new, but I just didn't make that connection in my head until now. And as you can see, the result looks pretty decent!:

I have some video of it, if it ends up being not terribly boring after I finish editing. Currently it is mostly walk and VERY boring.

She is something else, this kooky red beast!

The Blargs

After my last "take that, winter!" post, I admit that I have lost all further steam and motivation to continue my screw-you-winter antics. There is only so much a girl can handle.

I really don't do winter well. The entire reason I bailed from beautiful New England and went to Texas was the fact that I just could NOT handle even ONE more second of freezing cold miserable winter, and I HAD to get away. Those of you that were around for the Great Sojourn to Texas (or maybe more like the Exodus to Texas) will remember the moment I cursed winter all to hell and said that I would never live in the snowy cold North ever again. The DAY before I was scheduled to leave Connecticut for the move to Texas, I crashed my rig on the side of the mountain:

It was 15 degrees and it took us 4 hours to get it off the mountainside. The next day, I bolted and never looked back.

Texas, for the most part, has really reasonable winters. Sure, we get a bad ice storm here and there, and once in awhile you'll have some ice on the trough... hell, it even snows once a year here. But the rest of the days are usually in the 60's and 70's with plentiful sunshine. Two winters ago, we even had bluebonnets in February, and we had GORGEOUS weather in the 70's with green green grass and tons of flowers all the way from January to May. It was the BEST WINTER EVER.

This winter? I don't have a clue what is going on. We've had our fair share of the polar vortexes, and have seen more ice and snow storms in this single winter combined than I've seen in all the rest of my winters here. Everything is miserable, grey, wet, and cold. It just SUCKS.

We are on day 8 now of chilly temps and totally grey, misty skies. I know that those of you up North are going, "psh that's nothing," but hey, I MOVED here because of the weather. I suffer from REALLY bad seasonal depression, which is 100% dependent on the sun, so when I don't see the sun for literally 8 days, I pretty much want to crawl into a hole and die. If I don't see the sun for even just a couple of days, I get really mopey. 8 days? I just want to die and I hate everything. I DON'T WANT TO BE IN THIS SUCKY WORLD ANYMORE IT SUCKS SO BAD LIFE IS POINTLESS AHHH. Which makes me a lot of fun to be around.

And it's not going to get better for several more days. Tomorrow? In the 20's-30's, with an ice-sleet mix. Awesome.

Luckily for both O and myself, our next endurance ride is NEXT SATURDAY! She really needs some let down time before the ride, so she's having this week off in order to come out fresh and raring to go on Saturday. Considering how hateful and grumpy I am right now, it's probably for the best that I don't get on anyway...! This week, she is getting time on the Theraplate every day and the rest of the time off. She is not particularly amused by this, as the Theraplate was moved to the other side of the barn and now feels 'cramped' and closed in. At least once every session, she goes rocketing backwards off of it for no particular reason, and she no longer will eat when she is standing on it (she won't eat when she is concerned/nervous/alert/worried). It doesn't help that Tre usually is panicking and screaming every time O is out of her sight, which upsets O further... mares.

The day before a show, I *can't* ride my horse, simply because I get my nerves all wrapped up and nit-pick and tick off my horse. I see people schooling in the ring, and I just *can't* get on, I don't want to change anything or tire my horse or risk anything.... I just get too freaked out. Not unlike that, on Friday I suddenly realized that my next ride was just one week away, and I shut everything down. Can't ride, can't do anything, can't risk anything, can't have a tired horse, can't have a fatigued horse, what if she steps on a rock, what if she is worn out, what if she then overdoes it at the ride, what if what if! Better to just give her the rest and get everything sorted and in order - I would rather have a strong and hot horse versus a horse that is going to be too fatigued. Fatigued horses get injured, and I'm not about to risk that.

I feel better prepared for this ride, but I still feel like I didn't do enough conditioning. Will I ever feel like I do enough conditioning? 

More importantly, will the sun ever come back out so I stop feeling so horrible about life?