Help a Sister Out: Half Pad Problems

My guiding principle #1 on half pads is that they are a primarily trendy item and as long as they don't make your saddle fit worse, it doesn't much matter what type you're using. When Courage was scarily attempting jumping, we used an ogilvy half pad, because they're all the rage in that ring and I like being on trend. 

sheep represent

Then we switched over to dressage. DQs are big on dead sheep, so I snagged a mattes correction pad with shims for like $90 and have just rolled with it. Sans rolls. Ha! #halfpadnerdjoke

I have never noticed Courage care AT ALL about what half pad I put on his back, so in keeping with guiding principle #1, I haven't messed with it. Arguably, I could ride him without one and see what happens, but my brain just likes a little something extra in there because I don't trust myself enough as a judge of saddle fit and I feel better knowing there's some margin for error. (Noted: Courage is an EXCELLENT judge of saddle fit and as you would expect, lets me know when things are sub-optimal, so this is probably frivolous. You're just going to have to accept my human frailty on this point.)

so classic

HOWEVER, whilst tacking up the other day, I was futzing (it's a word??? who knew) with my much-used-shimmable-mattes and noticed that one of the shim pockets is creating a ridge of pressure under the panels of my saddle. I tried adjusting the pocket and screwing with the velcro, but it looks like the pad is just old enough that it's not going to cooperate with me. AKA, it's fine if I have shims in it (probably?), but since I don't, it's not quite laying flat, which means it might be causing me problems, which means it's in violation of principle #1.

And see, we're asking Courage to do hard stuff like lift his back and while he does settle in and do it eventually, it's a learning curve, it's going slowly, and my trainer has commented that he doesn't quiiiiiiite want to give in and lift through his withers. That's probably mostly a training thing, but if my half pad was stabbing me in the back, I'd hesitate too.

so. what to do.

hair hair everywhere and it's covered in dust ewwwwww

I rode Courage this past weekend in his jump ogilvy pad under his dressage saddle, which to me is a very non-flattering look. Of course, I'm also anti-winter-fuzzies, so basically this entire picture is just nails on a chalkboard to me.

If you separate out how I felt about the dust+hair combo (SO GROSS MUST CLIP OMG), I actually had a really superb ride. Which is interesting.

This brings us to options.

1) The mattes problem is all in my head. Carry on with what we have and assume it won't cripple the princess. This is obviously a stupid idea and is pre-discarded. I'm just listing it here so you know I considered it.

2) Use jump ogilvy. Carry on like it's not aesthetic hell. This is obviously a temporary idea. It needs to end. The sooner, the better.

3) Acquire an non-shimmable, non-corrective mattes pad. This eliminates the pressure ridge problem by not having pockets. We stay on-trend for the dressage ring. The major drawback is that this is the $230 answer to the $90 question. Or the $210 answer, if we go without rear trim. Thoughts on rear trim?

hmmmm rolls

4) Be enough of a nerd to know that Blueberry (yes, THE Blueberry) has actually eschewed sheepskin in favor of space age gel. His particular model is lined with sheepskin, which is $ more and seems hard to clean, but there's also an option that's cheaper and simple to clean that would just disappear under my saddle. In addition, the non-sheepskin option would potentially be the $100 answer to the $90 problem, so that's something. There's even a $50 knockoff I could almost justify instead, but if I'm changing brands, I want to get the nicest thing and evaluate it on it's own merits, not sort of half ass it and then be pissed it doesn't work.

it's definitely a look.

5) Explore other options. I mean, I'm actually really interested in the Invictus half pad innovations--if the rumors are true (and I've handled one, so I believe them), the pad essentially eliminates pressure points by distributing weight, which is basically what we're trying to do anyways. I'd buy one RIGHTNOW, but this is the $280 answer to the $90 problem. If you're keeping track, that's by far the most expensive option we've considered so far. It's also not particularly attractive, but I guess that's neither here nor there if it actually does what it claims.

the sadly unattractive invictus

6) Go ogilvy/ecogold/equifit routes. This is another one I'm just listing for your benefit. I've had the first two and handled the third. I kinda lump them all in the same heap. They're fine, but they're not on-trend enough in my ring to satisfy guiding principle #1 and I'm not excited about them.

equifit pretties

Ideally, someone will pipe up and say "hey give me $100 and I will give you this invictus half pad", but that seems like wildly unrealistic speculation at this juncture. Talk to me blog land--what are your half pad solutions/opinions/ideas? What else should I be considering? Do you deeply hate one of the options listed?

Teach Me Tuesday: Equine Professionalism

A common denominator for people who make their living with horses is that their schedule is at least in part set by thousand pound animals who sometimes have nothing better to do than screw up your carefully laid plans. True confession: sometimes my horse is the one doing the screwing and to everyone else whose appointment was behind or cancelled, I apologize.

also this picture is awesome

That's why I accept it when a call back is slow or an appointment is late and it's why I generally put up with things I would NEVER be ok with in the non-horsey world.

But at the same time, good business practices apply across all worlds and if I'm paying good money for a service, I want to actually receive the service.

and now he gets lunged hard before every farrier appointment

So where do you draw the line? What levels of tardiness, non-communication, or other less-savory business practices do you put up with in the horse world that you would not accept from a normal business person?

25 Questions, Now With My Answers

Cathryn at That Red Mare started a fun blog hop to let us get to know our favorite bloggers a little better. I've loved reading everyone else's answers, so I'm having a whirl.

1. Mares or Geldings? Why?
100% geldings. I did mares. Never. Again.

she was a pretty thing

I agree that a good mare can be a good horse, but do you know what is so much easier to get than a good mare? A GOOD GELDING.

2. Green-broke or Fully Broke?
Oh, fully broke ALL.THE.WAY. I'm poor and will start with greenies for the rest of my life, but I am oh so happy when they start acting broke.

3. Would you own a "hotter" breed (ie. Arabian, Trakhener, etc).
I have a rule against Arabians. I can't afford Trakheners. My favorite Arabian quote came from an old school vet. An Arabian owner asked if a procedure could cause brain damage to his horse. Vet responded "Could you even tell?"

Ahem. I do have friends who have Arabs and they seem to love them. That is great. For them.

4. What was your "dream horse" growing up?
Oh, totally an Arabian.

this arabian

5. What kind of bit(s) do you use and why?
It depends on the day. I collect bits constantly and love rotating them and playing with them. Right now, Courage goes in a sprenger kk ultra eggbutt, a knock off of that bit, and an ancient old single jointed d that's thicker than my thumb. Fun fact: he likes the last one best.

6. Helmets or no helmets?
Helmet. Every time, every ride.

except on very rare, very special, very supervised occasions

7. Favorite horse color?
Oh my. I love a good chestnut. The right shade of bay. I'm very pro buckskin. A dark, dappled palomino. A dapple grey as long as someone else keeps it clean. Anything with chrome.

8. Least favorite horse color?
I don't like blue eyes or cremello/dilutes. I don't like my horses to have chrome on their bodies, but heads is ok.

9. Dressage or Jumping?
Depends on the ears you're looking through. If in doubt, dressage.

no doubt

10. How many years have you been riding?
I rode in lessons from 9-17, then break for college. Now riding again and well past college, but not doing that math for you.

11. Spurs/whip or no spurs/whip?
I like spurs OR a whip, personal preference for spurs. Imo, if the critter needs both, I don't want to be riding it. Or doing that sport. Especially with that horse.

12. Your first fall?
I honestly don't even remember. I started riding on a 25+ year old morgan gelding who jumped 5' in a previous life and then gave lessons. He had a wicked dirty stop and it caught me off guard lots of times.

also came off this creature a lot, but i loved her

13. When was the last time you rode and what did you do?
Yesterday. We toodled. It's a very important part of our training plan. TOODLING. Look it up.

14. Most expensive piece of tack you own?
ummmmm. Dressage saddle, if you count the upgrades? It still clocks in at barely over 1k. I day dream about French saddles, but they aren't happening for a long, long time.

mmmm sparkles

15. How old were you when you started riding?
The ripe old age of 9.

16. Leather or Nylon halters?
Leather for me, the happy absent boarder. Nylon for day to day/barn help use.

17. Leather or Synthetic saddles?
My first saddle was a wintec that I saved up for and bought when I was a kid. I loved it very much. I finally sold it because I loved leather more than sentiment and I haven't looked back.

18. What "grip" of reins do you like?
I'm really not a rein snob. I have average size hands and can let my open fingers slip any material or thickness. My preference at the moment is for rubber-lined leather reins and I really want to get some with stops, but I also don't want to shell out for new reins. I also love nunn finer soft grip reins, all my PS reins, and the occasional laced rein.

19. English or Western?
English to work, western to toodle. Mostly because I have zero affinity for western saddles and don't really understand how to get in them, stay in them, or get out of them.

plus fun to have a different look

20. How many horses do you currently own/lease?
Own 1. That is the best number for me. My obsessive energy gets confused when it goes in more than one direction.

21. Do you board your horse? Self-care/full board? Home board?
Board with mostly-full-care. Sometimes work off some of board. I've done self care (not a fan). I used to think I wanted my own place, but I really love all the amenities of boarding without having to take care of them, so who knows. I think my best boarding experience was working off board at a private farm with no crazy people. That was amazing.

22. Have you ever had to put down a horse that you loved?

23. How many saddlepads do you have?
NOT A FAIR QUESTION PRECIOUS.

24. Slant-load trailer or straight haul?
I don't have a trailer. Courage loads well in most slants. Haven't tried him in a straight load because none of my hauling friends have one.

25. Why do you ride?
Riding gives me direction, channels my passion, teaches me life lessons, and gives me something to connect to. When everything else is out of control, riding centers me. 

Gotta do something with all that crazy to keep normal people from seeing it.

Why Horses

I have a problem that I suspect most of you share: horse obsession. It colors my waking hours--how soon can I get to the barn, could I ride here, why isn't this golf course a cross country course, do you think they're calculating the year end points right? It's not that I can't focus on my job and my non-horse life and be a productive human being, because I certainly do all those things.

It's just the thing that drives me to be better, try harder, do more, and most importantly, always keep on learning.

I come by sportsball honestly

But why? Why do I (from a totally non-horsey background) have that equine fire?

I distinctly remember that as a little girl, my favorite color was pink. My favorite animal was pigs. Because pigs were pink. Obviously.

Then one unforgettably traumatic day, I got a book on pigs from the library. In fact, very few varieties of pigs are pink. They're mottled and multi colored and ugly and I found myself sitting on my bed (in my room with pink walls and a Beauty and the Beast mural), trying to pick a favorite animal. There were no poignant pink animals left, so I had to find a new criteria.

living the dream

I remember sitting there, not more than five years old, and saying to myself, "Well, I want something I can ride."

Thankfully, that translated as horses to my young mind instead of camels or elephants or reindeer or the like.

And here I am, decades later.

Why do horses captivate my imagination and dreams and plans so thoroughly? Why didn't I ever "age out of it"? 

I don't know, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Let's face it--the rest of you are here with me. How did you get here, anyways?

Never Apologize: Phone Photography for the Horse Blogger

took this. on my phone. 

I'm kind of known for going on and on about how it's ok to be an amateur and we shouldn't expect to be professional riders when we just plain aren't.

But that doesn't just apply to riding.

I always think it's kind of funny when people post pictures of their horses and then say "It's just a crappy phone photo".

Hello.

best ears. yes edited.

1) It's 2015. My crappy phone photos are FREAKING AMAZING compared to what a picture from a "real" camera would have been even ten years ago.

2) No one (not even me or Wendy) has a professional photographer follow them around and shoot their every move. Most of our pictures (well, mine) are going to be screen shots from a video or ears pics on my phone or headshots of my horse standing still.

3) You can actually take pretty damn good phone pictures if you put a little work into it.

I mean. I'm not an expert. Or an artist. Or a photographer. I'm not educated about photography and the truth is, aside from Lauren's fantastic series on taking horse pictures, I'm not likely to ever take a class.

But in 2015, the technology is available, accessible, and cheap.

thank you burst mode

90% of the photos on my blog are shot on my phone (iphone 5s). 85% of them are then run through a photo editor (also on my phone) in a sequence that takes under a minute. Here are some (REALLY REALLY) basic guidelines:

1) timing is your friend. You know that awkward moment in the trot where it looks like the horse only has two legs? No one wants to see that. Most phones have a "burst mode" option. On my phone, you literally hold down the camera button and get like 47 photos. Choose the one that doesn't suck. Delete the rest. Magic.

from this

OR. (this is best if someone is taking pictures of you and their timing maybe isn't fantastic or the lighting is less than ideal.) Have them take a video. Pause. Screenshot. Voila! Exactly the moment you wanted.

2) Cropping is your friend. You know how to make a shitty off center picture into reasonably decent blog fodder? CROP THAT BITCH.

to this

Seriously. You don't even need an app for that. Center the horse (more or less) in the frame. Zoom in as much as possible without pixelating the image.

BAM.

Your photo is 75% better already. It took you less than 10 seconds.

emphasis by Redheadlins

Noted: I generally leave a little more space in front of the horse than behind if the horse is going forward. I leave more sky if the sky is pretty or more grass if the footing is nice. If both sky and footing are unremarkable, there's no reason for them to be in the picture. Just highlight what you want to emphasize.

Also noted: instagram likes square pictures. Blogger likes rectangles. On my more motivated days, I make different edits for different mediums. That is not every day.

what my phone looks like before edits

3) Apps are nice. I started with "afterlight" (go to the app store. It's either free or 99 cents). It's a fantastic basic editing program. There are four settings I use all the time--contrast (more or less), saturation (BRIGHT COLORS Y'ALL), brightness (summer in Idaho is a bitch), and... that other one.

There are plenty of other options, but these are just simple, basic things that can drastically improve the visual impact of your photos and take almost no time.

If you're all fancy and cool, you can get pricier apps. I just upgraded to "phototoaster" ($2.99 in the app store) and it has all kinds of bells and whistles and widgets. Part of me knows I'm not technical enough to capitalize on all this, but the other part is determined to make it happen.

kitten <3

If you're on an android platform, I hear rave reviews of Pixlr.

There are roughly a billion photo editing apps out there and you can get REALLY FREAKING FANCY if you want to. I'll admit I got phototoaster after reading this article. While there are some great tips there, that person works a HELL of a lot harder than I do at photo editing. Also they sound like they have a clue about art, which I definitely do not.

yup. phone. 

I mean, if photos aren't your jam, I totally understand. I'll never pretend to have the art chops that Niamh and Lauren do.

But I see no need to apologize for a phone picture. They can be pretty rocking with just a very little amount of work.

Teach Me Tuesday: Liniment

Only the best for my little guy

It's time for Teach Me Tuesday! There are many aspects of the horse industry that are simply lost on me. I'm not saying they're right or wrong or good or bad, I just don't understand them and I would like to.

This week, I want to know about liniment. I see lots of bloggers talk about it. I know it has widespread use throughout disciplines in the horse industry. I know lots of people like it. I assume that horses don't mind it, but I have nothing to base that on other than an assumption that if horses didn't like it, than well-meaning owners wouldn't use it.

Does this face need liniment? Does liniment go on faces?

Here's the thing. I grew up in a nice barn that was focused on horse care and training, but rarely touched on the finer points of life. To this day as a mid-twenties sometime-competitor, I have never used liniment. I occasionally pick it up off the shelf at the tack store and say "Hey, other bloggers like this", but I never progress to actually purchasing it because the whole thing is a big question mark to me.

I literally do not know what it is for or why people use it or what it is.

Do you use liniment? Why? Would it be beneficial to Courage if I were to actually buy myself some and start using it? What does it do?

Ammy Hour: Meet Sarah!!

It's that time of year again!! Let's celebrate the hard working adult amateurs that are the backbone of equestrians sport. They pay the trainers, the show fees, the board, and the rest of the dues. They are a remarkable set of people with big challenges to overcome. Here's how Sarah from Eventing in Color hands life in the irons:

D'aww

1) You’re at dinner with work colleagues. How do you introduce yourself?
 Hi, I'm Sarah. I have a husband, 2 dogs, and a horse. No, no kids. Yes, I do ride my horse. What color, you ask? He's bay, meaning brown with black legs and hair.


2) But what you really meant to say was this:
Asking me to work late in fall or spring is not going to work for me because there are limited hours of sunlight and I need it to ride!


3) Tell us about your horse: 
Bohemian is an 8-year old thoroughbred ex-racehorse who was used in production of the HBO TV series "Luck". He's tall, dark, and handsome. Very laid back personality and loves to cuddle. He's extremely smart and hard working and a brave yet careful jumper.

And hugs!!

4) How did you meet him/her?
I adopted him in April 2012. We met in a box stall for about 5 minutes, then I signed the paperwork. The first time I saw him move was as he was being walked to the trailer. Yes, I do know how crazy that is.


5) What have you done together?
We've done a fair number of small, local schooling shows, a couple of XC schoolings, and we completed two horse trials this year. Also, lots of cuddling, trail riding, and learning to go bareback.


6) Where are you going together?
We are looking to move up to BN next year, and continue on from there. I'm in no hurry, and have no lofty competition goals. I just want us both to have fun and be safe.

Addicted to cute

7) How do you finance the addiction?
Well, both my husband and I work full-time, and we constantly communicate and re-confirm our financial priorities with each other. The horse is up there with our mortgage and insurance in terms of monthly cost, but both have agreed that enjoying life by spending money on a pet and hobby is worth it for us.


8) How often do you ride?
Generally 4 to 5 rides per week. I ride 3 evenings a week and at least one weekend day.

Plus being sassy

9) What’s the single biggest thing that helps you achieve your goals?
Having modest, attainable goals. Which is a double-edged sword because sometimes you achieve them...but you don't feel very accomplished. But having realistic expectations and focusing on effort rather than results helps us to get the most out of every opportunity.





10) If there was one thing you could say to people getting ready to join the ranks of riding (or re-riding) adults, what would it be?
Firstly, it's not too late to try a new type of riding. I grew up doing saddleseat and switched to eventing as an adult. Getting lessons and learning new disciplines has been a wonderful enrichment to my horsey-life. Secondly, get the support of your significant other from the get-go. It's crucial. Thirdly, don't buy el-cheapo tall boots. Just don't.


11) Bottom Line:
We are so blessed to have horses in our life - be grateful every day for what you have, and be open to the universe bringing you horses or trainers or friends that you didn't expect to have into your life. It's all for a reason. Enjoy!



Many thanks to Sarah for participating!! She and Hemie are a fun team to keep up with and she is very honest about their struggles and successes together. I'm rooting for them!

Are you an adult amateur with a story to share? Do you know someone who should be featured? Contact me through the comments or via and email! I'm always looking for interesting people willing to share how they make it work while balancing horses and all that other stuff we have to do.

Tough Questions

While Cuna spends his time recovering, I have plenty of time to think. I keep running back over this year. It's been a horrible year for him. I wonder what I would have changed to make it better, and the answer is always the same.

There's nothing I could have done for him.

That bothers me. All of us hate to see our beloved creatures hurt. To see the extent of what Cuna has gone through this year in the course of just being a normal horse, I have to question what I'm asking him to do.





Everything I've asked of him, he's done before. His care has been excellent, start to finish. He's always tried his heart out for me, whether it was a dressage lesson or keeping up with a horse a third his age while he tied up in the hills.

I'm at the point of wondering when enough is enough. I have watched my beloved Cuna Matata be crippled to the point of not walking not once, but twice, both times for no apparent cause.

Maybe I'm overreacting to unrelated incidents because I have too much time on my hands. Or maybe, Cuna's trying to tell me something. He came into my life when I needed him most, and changed me into the rider that I am today. For the first time in years, I came out this spring and was relaxed and confident on horseback. All the credit goes to him on that score.

In a meta sense, it feels like he came to me for that very reason. He carried me through things I thought I would never overcome, and now he's telling me that he needs to rest. I don't want to emotionally overreact, but I also want to listen to him.

In light of my post the other day about clarity in decisions regarding the vet, I guess I wanted to go a step further. How do you know when it's time to let a horse retire? If you haven't retired one yet, what signs do you think you'd be looking for? What does equine retirement mean to you?

Critical Information

Modeling the crossties

I think most of you know Jen from Wyvern Oaks. She faced the horse owner's nightmare situation with the passing of the beloved Oberon this past weekend.

The situation got me thinking. I don't have the luxury of keeping Cuna at home, so if something happens to him, the odds are quite good that I won't be the first one on the scene. I adore my old man horse, so I've been making a point of very explicitly spelling out my wishes in case worst comes to worst and I'm not around or somehow out of contact.

J, our boarding buddy, is the first one who needs to know. She and her family are generally first on the scene and I've been quite pleased with the level of care they provide. In addition to being upfront and explicit about what I do and do not want done to Cuna, I have provided an emergency backup number to reach me at in case my phone is out of service or on the fritz.

Making faces for the camera

In addition, I have gone over the same information with my husband (also my emergency backup). That way, if I am unreachable, he can make decisions for me and know that they are exactly what I wanted.

These aren't fun conversations. It's easy to want to gloss over information to hide from our emotions, but it's so important to be sure that this information is out there before it becomes an issue.

It's easy to forget that my standard of care is not the same as everyone else's. In order to make sure my horse is taken care of, I have to take responsibility to get the information to the right people so they have it if they ever need it.

Herd life

I don't anticipate having these problems and I'm pretty well addicted to my phone, but I always want to overcommunicate this information to make sure that no matter what happens, Cuna gets the best care possible.

Ammy Hour: Meet Carly!!

It's time for another round of Ammy Hour, wherein we meet the coolest and most hardworking people in the horse industry--the adult ammies who make it all happen on a budget. This week, we meet Carly of Poor Woman Showing. She's always been one of my favorite reads--if you think her horse stories are fun, you should look up he account of the incident with the Christmas lights. I was rolling. At any rate, here's Carly! 

 

1) You’re at dinner with work colleagues. How do you introduce yourself?

You should all know who I am because it's printed on the paper in front of you. However, if you're an illiterate farmer, I am your local Farm Bureau secretary. All in favor of skipping this meeting and going straight for the complimentary food, say, "Aye"

2) But what you really meant to say was this:

You should really be paying me for this job.

3) Tell us about your horse:

MightyBobbyMagee, or Bobby, is an 8yo. OTTB who has a rather suprising aptitude for eventing given the fact that he often gazes at you with his classically vacant expression.

4) How did you meet him/her?

Bobby was bred at my alumnus SUNY Cobleskill for our Thoroughbred program. Because of his excellent temperment, he was excluded from the yearling sales and kept to be a training dummy for some of our equestrian classes. He was eventually syndicated and raced for two and a half years before being donated back to the program. I bought him in December of 2010, but I've known him since day one.

5) What have you done together?

We have competed through the stadium phase of Novice in eventing. A thrown shoe ended our season with an early retirement on cross country in our first attempt at that level. Overall, I try to keep things interesting for both of us. I would consider Bobby an eventer that just so happens to participate in such malarkey as skijoring , ponying questionably obedient horses out on trails, and learning to drive once the weather is nice enough.

6) Where are you going together?

This year I'm playing with the idea of moving up to Training in the fall. My end goal is to compete at Preliminary. I think Bobby will probably max out at that level, and since I currently have to flex my mental muscles to not pee my breeches when leaving the start box at any level (It gets better as I start jumping, really.), I don't see myself wanting to go any higher.

 

 

7) How do you finance the addiction?

My fiancee finances my addiction. It's far from the ideal situation it sounds like. I battle both bi-polar disorder and anxiety--I have for most of my life--so interacting with people can be challenging for me. The infamous "Hubby" and I have been together for years, and it's a situation that works well for us, though it  probably wouldn't work for many other couples.

8) How often do you ride?

I try to ride at least four times a week, more in the summer when we're showing, and noticably less in winter when I don't feel like driving thirty miles in snow and ice and generally miserable conditions.

9) What’s the single biggest thing that helps you achieve your goals?

I'm an extremely competitive person, and the sorest loser you'll ever meet. There's nothing that gets me more motivated than someone telling me, "No way."

10) If there was one thing you could say to people getting ready to join the ranks of riding (or re-riding) adults, what would it be? 

What took you so long?!

11) Bottom line:
Make sure you enjoy your horse first and foremost. Everyone gets into fights with their partners, but if you dread swinging your leg over him or her, what's the point? I struggled for a long time connecting with Bobby after losing my last horse, but I had so much history with him, I knew we just had to find some equal ground. Now I'm just as happy plodding along on a trail ride with friends than I am when he's pulling me around a cross country course. It's all about being teammates.

Many thanks to Carly for participating!! Remember to check out her blog (if you haven't already) here. There are so many different ways for adult ammies to be involved with horses after the parents are done paying bills.

Want to participate? Know someone who should? Contact me through the contact page on this blog or in the comments section!

Honesty and Horsemanship

By C.W. Anderson

Growing up, I had more access to books than real horses, so I spent hours and hours reading. I lived and breathed C.W. Anderson and Marguerite Henry and a host of others. From them, I gleaned some of my most basic riding principles: "Always the rider, never the horse." I internalized it so deeply that I didn't even realize how much it affected me.

When I was struggling with Izzy, I kept beating myself up. "I'm not good enough", "I'm just bad at this", "I'm too out of shape", whatever. It had to be my fault, every time. Part of selling her was letting go of that and realizing that while I have my shortcomings, she also had hers. It wasn't that I needed to just get better--it was that it was never going to work for us.

Cuna really was the one who let me see that I actually can ride and I've mostly moved on. As I was reading today, I ran across a quote that just resonated with me.

"One of the most common mistakes I see riders make is to accept total responsibility for a refusal. It is the rider’s responsibility to remember the course, compete at the ­appropriate level for the horse’s experience and training, approach in a rhythm and not ask for impossible angles or efforts. The rest is up to the horse. The horse’s response cannot be to say to his rider, “You blinked. I can’t jump when you blink. I can’t work under these conditions!” Oh, no. The fact that you needed three-sixteenths of an ounce more pressure with your reins or that your heels could have been down ­another five ­degrees has nothing to do with it. He knows how to jump. You arranged an ­obstacle in his path, and his job is to jump—first time, every time." 
-god (aka Jimmy Wofford), whole article here.

The stunning Izzy mare

I realize there is a balance here. The horse must be taught, but to acknowledge that the horse also has responsibilities is just freeing for me. I know I'm not the only one who struggles with that, "Is it me? What am I doing wrong?" when the truth is, there are two sides to every discussion.

I'm going to stand on my happy horse soapbox for a minute here and just say that this sport is entirely too dangerous and expensive to not love every second. Really. Especially if you're an ammy owner type who just has one horse to ride most of the time, it's not worth it to fight it out with an animal you don't enjoy. 

Cutest horse ever. Even lets me dress him.

You doubt? I am all mushy goo goo over a certain 18 year old OTTB gelding who is the sweetest, crankiest, most mean bastard horse I know. And I'm not a mushy goo goo person. Just ask Rinsie.

Here's what I'm trying to say: we need to be the best riders we can be and not blame our horses for out shortcomings. We need to couple that with an understanding that horses aren't perfect. They have personalities. Not every horse is a match for every rider and that is ok.

Cuna is the walking definition of a schoolmaster and he understands his job. The reason I can jump a giant oxer with no reins on him is because he knows that if he's pointed at a fence, he is to jump it. When I make mistakes, he points them out to me, but he's never mean, dirty, or scary. Because Cuna holds up his end of the deal, CW Anderson's mantra rings true: it is always me, never him (usually).

If you're struggling with a horse that tests your limits as a rider and that you don't look forward to seeing every.single.day, consider that maybe, just maybe, you should look for your very own Cuna instead of blame yourself for what just won't work.

I know I'm not the only one out there who has worked through this and I love connecting with other people on this issue. Anyone else have a Cuna? Think they need one? Walking through the process now?

PS Original Cuna is not available.