The European Princess Thoroughbred

every princess sparkles!! 

Does anyone else remember when I did a Teach Me Tuesday on those funky dressage wraps a few months back? Blog reader Liidia explained that they are designed to spread pressure very evenly and eliminate any possible pressure spots. It's apparently a European thing, but it seems to be catching on here.

Fascinating.

Of course, I promptly bought a set.

Now before you're all "OMG SB YOU ARE THE WORST" (which I am, but that's immaterial), know that I sucked it up and bought knock offs. Of course everyone wants the Eskadron liners, but they're $50 for a set and that's a lot to spend on something you don't know how to use.

So instead, I bought the Roma knock offs, which are not nearly as cool, but can be had for $20 shipped. (And yes, that is a link to horseloverz, and no, I do not recommend buying from them. I did it and I regret it.)

ew

At any rate. I got my knock offs, ran out to the barn, put them on, and yeah...

There is obviously a technique to this that I needed help with. Let's face it: those look like bad standing bandages, and that's super insulting to someone who actually wraps GOOD standing bandages.

Ouch. Mega embarrassing.

Needless to say, I took them off, stuck them in my trunk, and pretended they didn't exist until I could talk a fancy friend into coming out to teach me how to use them.

kind of a princess

Before we can go farther, let me explain something: Courage is SUPER weird about his back legs. He used to completely shut down and not be able to move if he had hind boots on. The one time I tried putting full-height XC boots on his back legs, I had to take them off because he kicked the wall so hard I thought he'd hurt himself.

justification for an extensive wrap collection

When I wrap his hind legs (in polos to ride--lord knows you can't leave this animal alone with hind bandages), he wrap-dances so hard that I have to warn spectators to stay back so they don't get kicked. When I put his hind Back on Track polos on, his hooves come nearly belly high. It's bad.

After the first ten or so steps, he's capable of walking like a normal horse again, but he does this every.single.time. I wrap his hind legs. Oh, and he's so narrow behind that I wrap/boot his hind legs for every.single.ride to prevent turning them into hamburger.

note added thickness of liners

With that in mind, my friend came out to teach me how to use the liners. As per the usual, we wrapped him in his stall. As per the usual, I warned her to stand WELL BACK as I lead him off so no one got clobbered.

As per the usual, I leg him forward with a wary eye on his hind legs.

AND OMG.

YOU GUYS.

drumroll please....

HE WALKED OFF LIKE A TOTALLY NORMAL HORSE.

For serious. Not even a hint of wrap dance. Just stepped forward, tracking up, calm and smooth as can be.

I never thought I'd see the day. For real.

so fancy

We went ahead and rode him, and he felt absolutely fabulous (which is starting to be his normal, omg), but about every three minutes, I just started laughing.

Who knew my little cheapie OTTB was secretly a European princess horse.

Rainbow sparkles, Kittens, and Unicorns

Arabians have best ribbons. Helps to be kick ass.

There's been a lot of overwhelming sadness going around the world lately. There have been some good things too though: You know about my rainbow sparkle prize bush and my rainbow reins.

Well, in light of the recent court ruling, C4 put their rainbow belts 50% off AND I found a rainbow sparkle hat at a friend's horse show (and also got to play with her neck ribbons). Our color is rainbow, apparently. Wear it proud.

BURNINATING THE CAT TREE

And then. Since I'm done horse showing for a while, it was finally time for my little kitten to come home. Blog world, meet TROGDOR. The Burninator.

Because obviously.

(Our old cat is named Azuzu. +5 if you catch the reference.)

Trogdor burrito!

AND THEN.

In keeping with mythical animal sightings, I didn't get a good picture of the unicorn... it wasn't far away and blurry, but I was too startled and too close to shoot well with my phone. All I can show you is this...

Barn Visit in Pictures

Step one: tie wet horse in stall with cooler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step two: hang blanket to dry in tackroom

Step three: get goodies out of my awesome trunk

Step four: leg protection!

Step five: admire how awesome horse looks

Step six: ride

Step seven: gratuitous sexy ass shots

STOP LOOKIN AT MI BUM

When Things Don't Go According to Plan

Not like poles. Poles are pretty freaking linear.

Horse training is not a linear process.

Horse training is not a linear process.

Horse training is not a linear process.

Horse training is not a linear process.

Horse training is not a linear process.

I think I need that tattooed on something I look at on a regular basis. Not my forehead, because who sees that anyways?

Look at us floating through trot poles

Sigh. I wrote up this bubbly happy training post about how Courage is going really well on the flat and I can feel progress every ride and we can trot and canter through lines of poles and jump single fences and all is well. 

And then I set up a perfectly logical trot in grid. 4 poles, 9' to a crossrail, 18' to a little vertical, 9' to a placing poles. Or thereabouts. 

The best at launching over placing poles.

And yeah, epic fail. In case you doubted his scope, I can assure you that my little man is capable of clearing both an 18" vertical and the placing pole set after it in a single bound. Multiple times in a row. 

Since I wasn't doubting his scope at all (let's face it people, the horse hasn't even had to try yet), I was not thrilled. Especially since I couldn't really make it better. We knocked the vertical down to poles and got the back side slightly more combobulated, but it was never what you'd call good and his brain was perilously close to just fleeing the scene altogether.

No, I don't know why this placing pole is ok.

So we finished up with something else and called it a day. 

I've pretty well been in a funk since then, despite two days off and a pretty kickass ride (with no poles) on Monday. 

Don't misunderstand me here--I'm not mad at Courage or blaming him or even upset with our program (such as it is). I know it's green horse stuff. I know we'll work through it (or not. And then just never do grids, which I guess isn't the end of the world either. It's not like we're aiming to be competitive grid jumpers). 

I have wanted these so so long. Finally mine, argyle polos.

I know all that. I'm just frustrated right now.

I tried making myself feel better by playing with racehorses, but I just got hit in the face so hard that I couldn't see straight. 

So then I thought I'd try retail therapy. 

That helped a little.

Making the bitching wait time worth it

Then this happened... I think I feel a lot better now. 

So I don't know where I'm at. My inner traditionalist screams that it is impossible to have a jumper who can't do grids, which are the very foundation all of decent jumper training. 

My modernist side reminds me that we must tailor the training to the horse, not the horse to the training. 

My rational brain keeps chanting "NOT A LINEAR PROCESS" and whatever's left is like "STFU I GOT A DAMN COOKIE MONSTER BONNET."