Much Needed ZB Update

I haaaaate blog posts that start out by apologizing for not blogging, so I refuse to do that to you guys. 

HOWEVER. 

Things have been happening. 

always toodling

blogger meet up!

riding lessons!

definitely my latest zany idea in progress

Plus the weather here has been to-die-for (too soon?) and so my evenings have been out doing all the things vs staring at my laptop typing away. 

There's a lot going on. Most of it doesn't belong here. 

WHAT R ON ZB

But some of it does. ZB continues to be the loveliest lady no matter what I cook up any given day. I can throw frisbees off her, hack out alone in the rain, or take trips and come home knowing that she's still going to whinny at me and be foot perfect to play with. 

I mean. She definitely has her things. 

yeah i'm growing out her mane

In a last ditch attempt to make me focus, my trainer has started semi-mandating weekly lessons because otherwise she knows I just fuck around and screw things up. Which like. She's right. And it's true. And I like lessons. And lort knows I need the help. 

Plus I don't actually have any lesson media (sorry!), but GODDAMN little lady is coming along nicely when I remember to sit up and ride. I even had a moment of being like "LETS GO TO A SHOW" right up until I remembered how much work that is. 

also my corgi stole the mrs pastures and just strolled past me like this
BRB DYING

Some days we work hard and put in the time with ground work and dressage and concentrated "training".

But a lot of days, I need to just not.

oh and a new photo editor

I hang out and breathe her horsey smell. Play with her mane. Groom her gleaming coat. Watch her munch on her favorite weeds and marvel that a creature like this is here with me.

Some things are good. Some things are not good. 

But we're here. 

Together.

Some Things About Blogging

I've seen several posts lately about the dos and don'ts of blogging. It's interesting, I guess. See, I read it a little differently--we're all here for different reasons and to achieve different goals. I cannot presume to tell you what to do to write a good blog.

I can tell you what I do and why.

1) I'm very personal and honest about what I'm going through with horses.
I started blogging years ago. I'd just gotten my first horse. I was an adult ammy student with a tight budget and almost no local horse friends. I figured there had to be other people like me, so I googled "horse blog" and started reading. And writing. And here I am.

For the record: this is a completely fabulous idea. I have met so many amazing people and forged some incredible friendships and the impact it has had on my actual life is stunning. Ex: met Roxie's mom through the blog. She sourced ZB for me. WUT. ZB IS BECAUSE OF BLOGGING. (Oh and I wanted a ZB because Karen and Roxie's mom let me ride their horses. And we all knew each other because of blogging.)

and sass

[Talking about the ways online bloggers became amazing real life friends would 1) take forever and 2) be extremely personal so I'll probably leave off on that right now, but just know there are incredible people all around us.]

Because my goal is to connect with other horse people, my style is a little different. I don't give a flying f*** if I'm an influencer. I find brand ambassadors in poor taste. I'm not worried about SEO and metrics and building a brand. I'm here for the people, not the money.

I'm not here to shit on the people who are--more power to them. Just not my jam.

2) I LOVE PICTURES. 
Given the prevalence of readily available media anymore, a picture is probably worth like 53 words, but they still matter. I hate to throw walls of text at people. I have a cute horse and a smart phone and boom. Y'all get more ZB pictures than you know what to do with.

recently i stole a camera

3) I make it easy to comment. 
Real talk: I love comments. Partly because it tells me I'm actually hitting my goal of connecting with other humans, partly because I'm vain.

Here's the thing though: I can only remember like one thing at a time. If I'm reading a post and someone says something I want to comment on, I write that comment in my head, but then the topic changes and I forget the comment because I'm reading and then it changes again and I forget I had a comment, and then I'm on something else entirely and by the time I get to the comments, I don't remember what I was thinking anyways.

Maybe y'all are hella better about that than me. Much respect if so. I try to keep things simple and stick to one topic. Plus I allow anonymous comments. And I'm sorry wordpress people but if you require a wordpress account to post a comment, I can't do it.

my ambition level every day

4) I keep things about my one horse. 
I only have the attention span for one horse, so that's pretty easy. If you want lifestyle advice and breezy socialite thrills, you're probably not going to find that here. I don't art. I barely craft. My skincare routine is take a shower. I blog for horses, so I write about horses and if you don't like horses, this is a very odd place for you to be.

I try to write a blog that I like to read. I'm not much for detailed training wrap ups (except when I am), but I know some people LOVE those and read every detail.

I used to be a really good blogger--I had a solid mix of personal and topical posts and I posted every day and did all the things. Now I'm kind of an average blogger who's doing well if I get two posts out a week. The way I do things isn't the one true only or right way to do them.

It works for me. What works for you?

How to Get a Zoëbird of Your Very Own

(Spoiler Alert: You can't. I have the only one.)

SMOOSH

For realsies though if you read about ZB all the time and you're like "well damn I want a [horse] who is fun every day and who meshes with my personality real well. How do I get what SB has?"

Then this is your guide. (Again. Remember. Original ZB is off the table so it's sloppy seconds for you.) (PS I just pictured ZB on a table and it was really funny. SMOOSH CRASH.)

by courage has opinions

1) Be realistic about your abilities + budget + goals. 

I cannot stress this enough. If you want to run advanced eventing, do you have the mental and physical fitness, expendable income, and flexible schedule to allow it? And if the answer to those questions is "yeah maybe not", then what do you want? In the next 1-5 years. Realistically.

See, I kept picking up whatever just fell into my lap, which in my price range tended to be the the OTTB or OTTB cross. Which like. That can go well. But it can also go poorly. Right now, I'm chasing some non-horse goals that are important to me. I want to pursue dressage but I also want to straight up have fun and I need a horse that doesn't have to be ridden every day.

Rather than looking for that diamond-in-the-rough calm, straightforward OTTB, it was time to set parameters that matched my goals.

2) RUTHLESSLY EXCLUDE.

This is such a simple principle but DAMN it changes the way you look at things. See, I had a very specific list of what I wanted.

Then I didn't look at anything that was excluded by the list. Period end of story.

 i mean can you even with that face

Obviously, the list has to be realistic. I'm boarding with a trainer who is FANTASTIC with young horses, so I was willing to take on something pretty green and therefore spend my money on better quality for my price range.

Instead of looking at everything with a pulse, I screened out the horses that were not what I want so that what I ended up with was exactly what I wanted.

It's so simple.

3) Source through people who understand what you want. 

There are so many different types of horses and jobs for them and people tend to pick one focus and craft their skills and horses around that. That's why you buy event horses from eventers. That is a good thing. Let it work for you. I talked to people who were doing what I wanted to do and asked them to work their sources.

ride roxiecorn bareback through the fields?
sign. me. up.

Roxie's mom ultimately found ZB for me, but Leah ran down a promising candidate and the other front runner was sourced by a local lady who consistently produces calm, correct, fun horses. I definitely made some fun connections along the way.

Again, it's just so much easier to find what you're looking for when you're talking to people who speak the same language. "Kid safe" means different things to a rough stock operator and an ammy dressage lady.

You can't have ZB. You can use the process I used and find your own version.

Life's too short for horses you don't love.

Sagebrush Over Satin

I'm not feeling it on the horse showing front right now. I'm just not. I love riding Zoëbird at home and I'm excited about doing a series of clinics with her and I'm thrilled that I'm able to keep her in part training and that's all well and good.

But like. Nothing about a horse show sounds fun to me right now.

Oh and I've been watching Westerns lately and like.

godless. watch it.

I live in the west. And I have a ranch bred horse.

And that is a literal thing I can actually do.

SO WE'RE DOING IT. (Soon. Snow melting off the mountains as we speak.)

guys she's not even trying yet

Don't get me wrong here--ZB is a talented, good-minded, hard-working lady and the progress she makes in her dressage training every day is phenomenal. And yeah long term I want to get my bronze medal on her.

This isn't me abandoning those goals.

A huge part of getting Zoë to me was finding a horse that I could just flat have fun on. And y'know.

Whether it's our first outside right lead canter....



Or just hanging out with friends on a gorgeous day...



She makes me smile every day.

It's not a sayonara to horse showing. We'll get back to it. There are just so many other fun things to do right now.

I'd be silly not to.

On Why

I think a lot about the why of horses in my life. They've been a constant since I was quite young, despite never having property or much in the way of horsey friends.

Why?

What incited the passion? What stokes the flame?

Why do I, an otherwise reasonable, responsible adult person who isn't given to flights of fancy, spend my time and my money and my energy on a wildly impractical, giant, fragile flight animal?

I've always just assumed it was correlated with being a marginalized member of society, infatuated with mastering the power and nobility and elegance of horses. Or something.

Except see, anyone who spends more than a couple hours around horses knows that those reasons have precious little to do with reality. Nothing takes the shine off abstract ideas of "nobility" like a horse spooking at it's own fart.

SMOOSH

In the last year, I've become fascinated by horses as a mirror of our true selves. They aren't distracted by pomp and circumstance. They're pure, reactive creatures. They respond to what we carry with us. We may lie to ourselves, but we cannot lie to our horses.

They see through a pretender.

They speak a simple language that has no words, but holds all the meaning in the world.

If we let them, they will teach us.

That's not to assign magical qualities to a barnyard animal. Horses are biologically a prey animal. They stay alive by being aware of what passes around them, living in the moment, understanding the universal language of living creatures, and reacting appropriately.

In a world where most of us live in highly artificial environments and never need to interact with a another species unless we actively seek it out, horses bring a psychological grounding. No hiding behind a keyboard or burying our meaning in words--we speak a common language where every muscle twitch is a unique volume. It goes beyond mechanically demanding obedience in a series of schooling exercises.

Each horse is an individual and the dialect can vary from speaker to speaker, but the elements are the same. That's why books on horsemanship written thousands of years ago still carry weight today. Humans might be taller, horses more specially bred, but neither one has really changed.

Without uttering a syllable, a horse speaks truth about our deepest selves.

That clarity demands that we reflect on who we are.

Change.

Grow.

The best of them teach us to be the best version of ourselves.

For me, that's why.

Training the Not-Hot Horse: Again

Courage challenged me every day and left me with a huge amount of baggage, but one thing I credit to him is the leaps and bounds forward I made as a thinking horseman. I don't mean technical riding skills and the "looking pretty" polish that wins the show ring, but the day-to-day intelligence, flexibility, and introspection that makes a horseman.

Now I have a horse that is decidedly not-Courage. I can't get over how relatively easy she is to work with, but at the same time, the skills that Courage brought me are the skills that are going to shape Zoë. While she is a horse that would let me "get away with" more, I think she is going to be that much better of a horse because I can be more educated in how I approach her.

definitely not courage

For example. Zoëbird is a baby. She's nearly doubled in size in the last few months. She's still growing. And yeah, sometimes she's not real sure where all her legs are going. In the present, I want to help develop her body awareness and teach her to carry her front end. In the future, I would like her to jump small courses safely.

such a cute lil buffalo

In pursuit of that, we do cavaletti from time to time. Because Zoëbird is her own sort of lady and not mindlessly hot, I've had to adapt how I work with her. She's very intelligent and doesn't require many repetitions to figure something out, which is good, because her idea of a good time is not just running for an hour.

However. Sometimes you introduce multiple cavaletti in a row and you get something that looks like this:

I R TRIPPIN MUM
(video here if interested)

We worked on it a couple different ways and things just weren't improving consistently. I rewarded good tries with immediate breaks. Kept her trotting if things weren't right. Kept things calm and simple.

It just wasn't her day.

But you know what? The next day, I set cavaletti again (snow was sliding off the roof and I didn't want to ride. sue me). (And yeah, ZS ZB gives the amount of shits you would expect. It's my brain that's the problem.)

The little lady had thought things through and her very first pass, she slowed her cadence, lifted her shoulders, and freakin' cavaletti'ed like a champion.

VERRY CAREFUL TROTTIN

This weekend, I got my first lesson on Zoë since she started training. I'm riding consistently on my own and I verbally check in with the trainer after pretty much every ride, but I'm not able to be present for them and I haven't have the time for a lesson until now. My rides look like what you'd expect from an ammy rider on a sweet but clueless baby mare (video here if you're super interested).

WUT R LESSON MUM

It was so valuable to me to have my trainer stand there and put the disjointed thoughts I've had about our rides into coherent sentences that make sense and then give me strategies to address our weaknesses. For example, I've noticed that Zoë sort of goes NEEEROOOOOOOOM down the long side with mirrors, but when we come back on the other side, she piddles around and I can barely keep her going. I've been trying to kick her forward in the slow moments and slow my posting when we're zooming with ah "mixed results".

not related but stinking adorable

Trainer said right off the bat: "Your horse doesn't have good natural rhythm so you need to post definitively and SET THE RHYTHM FOR HER."

Oh.

Yeah that's a good idea.

It super worked too. Huh. Trainers are magic.

Because see. Courage was a horse with a very light touch--he'd baaaaaarely take a contact and overreact to every tiny thing. Zoë is intelligent and sensitive and lovely (and I adore her), but learning to ride her is a whole new world. On her, I can pick up the reins and have a little contact. I can post definitively. I can actually think about what my body is doing and work on myself (even now!) because her default is to slow down and take a break.

so lovely

And again--I am not the anti-Courage committee. That horse taught me a lot of things, but riding him was and had to be very intuitive and instinctual because there was not time to think in the saddle.

I understand intellectually that I need to ride with my fingers closed, thumbs up, and elbows mobile. I can explain biologically that there is a tendon running through my arm that is locked when my hands are flat and mobile when my thumbs are up. I KNOW that open fingers just mean useless reins bouncing on the horse's mouth and closed fingers with mobile elbows is the route to steady, soft contact.

I know those things.

MUM R NOT SUPER GUD AT LERNIN

But when trotting my nice little mare (who doesn't even go on the bit yet), trainer got us to a place with good balance for a few strides and in those strides, I actually felt the reason why all those things mattered. It's hard to explain. I'm not saying we became dressage pros or magically better, but just her limited acceptance of the contact was still light years better than I've been on in a while and it was this sort of blinding flash of like OH I GET IT NOW.

And then it was gone, because that's the nature of things right now, but like.

Just that one moment was enough to excite me.

Zoë is going to keep teaching me about how to learn, but the places she will take me?

Cannot. Wait.

What a stellar lady.

very tired. can wait.

2017 Goal Wrap Up

I'll confess to not even doing goal wrap ups some years because the results were not good. Ha. This year, I tried to check in periodically so hopefully we'll see some actual progress. Here goes!

Courage Goals:
1) Starting in February, keep him in work 3x a week--lunging, riding, groundwork.
Success! Definitely more grit than grace at the beginning, but yay for hitting bare minimums.

2) As circumstances permit, pro training (lesson or pro ride) 4x a month.
Ehhhhh let's go with "circumstances did not permit" and call this a success too. I took some lessons on him and he had some trainer rides.

3) 5 off-property excursions: trail ride, clinic, lesson, horse show, or just hanging out with friends.
My records indicate that we left home 3 times--twice hanging out with friends and once to hang out at a show. Plus one time when he moved to his new home. Yeah I'm counting it.

Horse Goals:
4) Get acclimated to riding second level movements whether on Courage or on school horses.
That definitely did not happen. I did ride two horses (one time each) that were capable of second level movements, but I am in no way acclimated to them. Rats.

5) Audit at least three different clinicians.
Well technically I audited one new clinician, loved her, got a new horse, and then rode with her. Since the point of this goal was to develop another trainer to work with, I'm calling it a success.

6) Attend (either as volunteer or competitor) at least three dressage shows.
BOOM.

Well okay I did not compete at horse show one, but I definitely showed up and volunteered and groomed so it counts.


7) Ride 10 other horses in a non-toodling capacity.
I kept a list. I rode:
1) Cocoa - adorable painty mare
2) Nikki - cool second level friesian cross
3) Bowie - fancy warmblood gelding
4) Royal - super cool OTTB dressage horse
5) Hampton - the one and only
6) Roxie - but of course
7) Zoëbird - YAY

I'm 70% there. That's not terrible.

Meta Goals:
8) Attend 1-2 top level equine sporting events (advanced eventing, grand prix dressage or jumping)
CAN YOU SAY ROLEX (aka now not-rolex)? I also hit USDF regionals and watched the FEI tests, so this one is in the bag.

9) Train for and complete either a 10k or half marathon, body-permitting.
Ha. Well. I ran the Beat the Blerch half marathon, then trained for and ran the Beer and Brats 10k. Then I got a stupid injury that I've been recuperating from, but this goal is officially HULK SMASHED.

10) Do core workouts 1-2x a week ALL YEAR LONG (body permitting).
0/10 epic fail here
I can't even go with "body not permitting". It's mostly just that I super hate core workouts.

Official goal count: 7.7/10. THATS PASSING, Y'ALL.

a passing frolic

I do like the process of breaking up goals by specific horse, general equestrian, and personal--it definitely mitigated the effect of epic fails on one front dragging down the whole list.

2017 Year In Review

I love year in review posts. They're fun to read and putting them together reminds me just how much changed over the course of the year. This year changed more than most, but I think everyone is ending up in a better place. I know I am.

JANUARY

welcome to my personal hell

Hm a review of January postings reminds me it was a shit month full of post-car-accident recovery for me and lunging for Courage. 

There was definitely some epic-level shopping, including one of the more entertaining saddle-buying interludes I've ever had.

I did finally get back in the saddle at the end of the month. Mixed results (the SB code for "almost unmitigated failure).

FEBRUARY 

More of the same--recovery is a slow stupid bitch so I did a write up of vienna reins, which are actually pretty magical.

I also wrote a pretty in-depth defense of draw reins, which tells you exactly how shitty of a horseman I felt like every time I felt like every time I put them on. (Hint: very shitty. But also I am still alive. Trade offs.)

MARCH

I was totally going to post one of the last fabulous pictures of Courage jumping, but the most important post this month was talking about life lessons learned from pain and suffering and horses.

I didn't know it when I wrote the post, but it was the preamble to a lot of important events this year.

APRIL

It's funny--I wasn't blogging a lot this year, but the things I did write hold a lot more weight I think. In Trouble in Paradise, I talk about the challenge of dealing with a tempestuous horse like Courage and in Reality Bites, I try to come to terms with fitting him into my rapidly-evolving life.

I definitely took advantage of riding other horses and trying new things.

MAY

Well most importantly, May was my ROLEX WRAP UP BLOG POSTS.

In non-Rolex news, my life was in the shitter and every dime was going to exciting vet bills to see if we could find a physical reason for why Courage hated being a sporthorse so much. (Answer: ehhhhhh not really.)

BUT THEN THERE WAS A ROXIECORN

And a premonition rumination.

JUNE

This is possibly the least posts I've made in a month since starting this blog over eight years ago (!!). In Well This Sucks, I acknowledged the factoid that the year had been building towards: I couldn't keep up with Courage any more.

And then I took the best piece of advice I've received all year and wrote Ruthlessly Exclude: The Journey.

JULY

July was a month of transitions--Courage landed an upgrade with an amazing human whose goals are more aligned with his. I continued to Ruthless Exclude.

And I found my Zoebird. 

I've basically been gushing about her ever since.

AUGUST

So many new adventures! I had to get ZB all new things, because nothing I owned fit her. We went on her first trail ride and it was awesome. I contemplated the cool things about baby horses who don't have baggage.

Most importantly, I was having so much fun.

SEPTEMBER

Apparently I was quite dramatic--started the month by memorably calling Alyssa a tiny penguin, then gave blogland a scare. Then I got it out of my system by running 13.1 miles for no very good reason.

I definitely wrote some training posts about Zoebird, but the most important thing was realizing just how much she changed my goals.

OCTOBER

I can't look at posts from this month without thinking about everything else going on in my life. I wrote Perspectives to deal with that a little bit. I also asked what made a nice horse.

In quick succession, Zoe had her first canter, first clinic, and I had my first fall off of her.

NOVEMBER

November brought a lot of ammy problems but more interestingly, Zoebird's first real opinion.

I think the biggest (ha ha) realization this month was just how much a baby mare can grow in a short amount of time.

DECEMBER

This has been a mixed month--Zoe and I are putting in the hours to build a solid partnership. Some of that is what you'd think (riding) and some of it is just the day to day "getting to know you" stuff.

As we head into the new year, Zoe is rocking a saddle that fits, a regular program with a trainer, and hopefully an owner who can get (and keep!) her shit together.


2017 was (again) not the year I expected on any level. Any year that ends one Zoebird richer is not a year I can complain about though. I'd say "I'm coming for you, 2018", but the truth is that I'll be over here toodling bareback on my baby mare and anything after that is gravy.