Dressage News

I freely admit that we did dressage today because I was too tired to think about setting jumps. That's a little sad, but it is hard when you have to set jumps, reset anything knocked over, then disassemble and put them away all by your onesies and you're short on time.

Anywhoodle. We stuck to the warmup plan and things went brilliantly.

How brilliantly? At one point, I let Izzy go to stretchy trot. She made two laps around the sizeable arena on the buckle and stayed completely in balance. No running on the forehand, no falling forward. It was incredible.

You may see pictures tomorrow...

Things I Hate About Pasture Board

As I've mentioned before, Izzy lives out in a big, green, grassy field by herself. She's on a dry lot at night, but out for about 12 hours every day. She has friends on both sides, and by most account is living an ideal horsey life, right down to the number of cookies consumed in the cross ties every day.

Happy pony in pasture. (Halter only on for photo, no worries).

There are many advantages to a pasture kept horse. For Izzy, those advantages are this:

-Calmer

-Clean hoof wall

-Happy

-Cheap

-Calmer

Mostly, she's gone from being a not-very-spooky horse to being the horse that never spooks at all. Also, I don't even have to lunge her. Those are all nice things.

On the other hand, nobody ever talks about the darker side of pasture board. I miss most of the bad stuff-since Izzy is alone, I don't have to worry about idiot horse beating her and fights and cuts and stuff. I still get to deal with this kind of excitement:

1) BUGS. For some reason, just the presence of irrigated pasture brings bugs. Lots of them. We have flies (not so bad), gnats (nasty bastards that burrow into her skin and ears), mosquitoes (even nastier bastards who are eating her alive) and various and sundry other yuck creatures, who suck blood in varying amounts. GROSS. Plus, they hardly limit their blood sucking to horses. No, these sanguinarians suck the life out of all living creatures, myself included. I know you're all yelling "fly spray!" and "fly sheet!"

Well folks, there are limits to the abilities of fly spray, even the really nice stuff, and the pony princess cannot wear sheets, especially in summer heat. Period.

2) Food. Because Izzy can eat all day, well, she does. Ms. Mare is as fat as a tick (ha! another bug!) and there's no really great way to limit food intake. I don't trust grazing muzzles for unsupervised use, and due to Izzy's ulceric issues, I don't want her dry lotted for much more than she already is. Food intake is good for her, but she does eat a lot. Conversely, I have friends who keep their horses at a different barn in a group pasture and their mares always look way too thin to me. Sucks to be low mare on the totem pole, huh? Nature isn't kind.

3) Distance. A pasture big enough to keep a horse or a group of horses in is big enough to be a pain to walk through. Yes, in an ideal world, Izzy would whinny and gallop up and meet me at the gate. I'm always jealous of those of you whose horses do that, but Izzy isn't that kind of girl. (Neither am I, really.) She's always happy to come with me, but she knows that I come to her. I blame this on her stupid leopard appy bf who I hated--he had this attitude and she hasn't gotten over it since their relationship ended.

4) Weather. Although Izzy has a super nice run in shed all to herself, obviously she can't eat while under it, so she only uses it in truly inclement weather.

That means she's always out (not wearing a sheet) in whatever we get. Rain, snow, bugs, wind, lightening, there she is. I know she's a horse and can deal with it, but some days I really miss a nice, dry, clean stall.

5) Water. The thing about irrigated pasture in this part of the world is that they have to actually irrigate it.

This is where I live. It's gorgeous. It's cool. It has great weather.

There is precious little water.

We combat that by collecting the melting snow in reservoirs, then sending it through an impressive canal system to farms all around the valley. They then "flood irrigate" their farm land and pastures.

That is just what it sounds like: 4-6 inches of standing water on top of soil. With my horse. Awesome. Now, admittedly, Izzy is on her dry lot for this process, which occurs about every two weeks, but the earth being what it is (not flat), that gets partially flooded, too. Izzy is not the kind of girl who can just stand in the 20'x30' dry area, so her hooves get totally soaked and soft. And sore. Yay...

So there you go. Pasture boarding has it's upsides (have I mentioned cheap?), but there's plenty to hate, too.

The Joy Never Ends...

My life is going along just swimmingly. I had grand plans to write about how I rode Izzy really forward in dressage tack today and OMG WE HAD WHITE FOAMY GOODNESS, but two things came up:

1) By the time I got to my camera, the ponymare had swallowed said foam

2) This. Ellie is a long time blog reader and even longer time friend of mine. We rode together as kids. I admit, I hated at first because I was so ridiculously jealous that she had a horse and I just rode the schoolie (hey, I was 9). We made it past that, but our situations had been oddly reversed.

Until today.

Red horses seem to be falling out of the sky. Solo's Mom got one (her second, lol) and now Ellie has a red mare all her own.

Meet Penny Lane.

Exciting News Part Deux

Oh boy. It's not quite as cool as Solo's Mom's Big News (capitalized for a reason), but it's still cool.

I so have a job(-ish thing) with my eventing trainer. Wheeee!!! Izzy and I are moving (temporarily) to her base camp barn from Nov 1 through May. The link is here (but you have to swear not to stalk me in a creepy way). I confess, I've never actually been out there, but it has a reasonably good reputation, and where we'll be doing our own turnout and such, I'm sure it will be fine.

On the other hand, I'll probably go out and oogle it soon. Oooooh. Bouncy bouncy so exciting.

PS Had a great lesson today. Sorry, no pictures other than this:

Izzy munching a variety of weeds while waiting for our friend with a trailer to have her lesson.

September Goals

I was delaying writing this post. I wanted Andrea's story to stay front and center for a while and I wasn't really sure what to set as goals with my potentially exciting job-ish-thing on the horizon. However, I decided that I really do know what I need to work on, so there's no reason to avoid setting new goals.

August Goals:

1) Continue lunging/ground driving Izzy to confirm her ground manners, as per current work.

Conclusion: Semi success. I have basically dropped lunging for now because I feel that riding is in general, more productive. That said, she's been doing really well at this stuff if/when I ask for it.

2) Begin riding. 50-70% of undersaddle time done without stirrups. Use full seat breeches and dressage saddle.

Conclusion: Success! I have the bulging thigh muscles to prove it. I felt like it really helped me regain confidence and balance in a hurry. Also, it hurt like h*ll.

3) Stirrups on jump saddle and lots of two point in all three gaits. Might trot over poles, but no jumping until September.

Conclusion: Fail, actually. We did tons of two point, but started jumping about two weeks after getting the go ahead to ride, and even had a muy exciting jumping lesson!

All in all, I was pleased with August. We went from this:

Me watching someone else ride the Wondermare

To this:

Me confidently jumping the Wondermare over low verticals. Yay!!

So, that brings us to September. (In all fairness, the above shot was taken this month, but I figured it illustrated my point best.)

1) Change the warm up. I have found that Izzy actually does best when we start with a forward walk, moving off both legs and starting to loosen up her shoulders with some turns on the haunches. Then we go into a very forward trot on a loose rein, then move into a forward canter on a loose rein. I picked up contact as we come back into trot, and BOOM. That is an amazing feeling. Keep this up. See what (if anything) needs to be added/changed.

2) Keep that forward. I always seem to lose this somehow, and it is so incredibly critical to a successful ride. I need to ride very forward and get comfortable with it.

3) Canter. For some reason, this gait and I always disagree in a jump saddle. I need to work on sitting it without pumping my upper body and getting in two point without touching my rumpus to the saddle.

Hm... can you tell I've spent 80% of my riding time the past week in jump tack? No worries, I think we're having a dressage lesson next week. (And we -are- having a jump lesson tomorrow!)

On A Lighter Note

Izzy and I had a jump day Saturday. I set a vertical and an oxer perpendicular to each other so we could focus on making turns after the jump, which distracts my brain. Both were about 2' tall.

Oh, and my beloved alma mater's football team was playing their season opener that night, so of course, we dressed for the occasion.

George Morris would be appalled at my distraction from the natural beauty of the horse(which Izzy has in spades), but hey, I can't afford to ride with him anyways.

We did a brief warm up focusing first on keeping Izzy forward, then on moving off both legs, then accepting a little contact.

Ok.

Pause to think, then time to start jumping.

It's amazing how much my riding has changed just because of my stirrup length. Well, that and going forward. I'm confident and relaxed when jumping, instead of nearly having a nervous meltdown in front of the fence.

Off we go!!

This isn't the best moment to take a picture, but I like what it shows of us: eyes up, ears pricked, going forward.

Jumping pony!!

Mostly we just stayed at this height--I need to get completely comfortable before moving up too much. Besides, we have plenty to work on. Specifically, I tend to develop a nice canter, then totally let her drop behind my leg on the approach for NO REASON AT ALL. Oddly, when I keep her forward, we have a much better approach and a really good jump.

You may notice that we are jumping this at a slight angle. It's not because we're actually practicing that. No, for some reason, this teeny tiny little midget oxer kept distracting me on the approach and at the last second, I'd look down at it. Izzy never stopped or went out, but we kept having funny jumps until I fixed it.

Still, look at the picture. Yes, Izzy is just cantering across it. (I suspect it will be 3' ish before she actually has to jump). However... I look mostly balanced. My leg is pretty under me. It's about 60% better than last time I posted a picture. I'm actually quite proud of it.

Plus, thanks to copious amounts of running, my arse is starting to look not-as-bad in breeches.

Finally, a video!! First: I actually debated posting this, because it's not great. It's actually 2/3 sloppy. However, in the interest of documenting our progress, here it is. The first jump I think she was behind me. The second one I got left behind and forgot my core, so that wasn't pretty. The last one is ok.

Yep. We are improving.

Taking Time for Andrea and Gogo

Last November, one of my good blogger friends was near the end with her mare. Andrea of Eventing A Gogo stepped up and raised money and support for Brooke and Denali. I remember staring at the "donate" button and thinking, "Christmas is coming and I'm barely employed. What can I possibly give?"

At the same time, I knew I had to do something. If it was my horse that was on the brink, every little bit would mean something to me, and I wanted Brooke to know that whatever happened, there was a whole community of horse people to love and support her.

None of us thought even for a moment that Andrea herself would be in the same position in just a few months. Gogo's injury, carefully rehabbed for two years by the most meticulous and caring owner imaginable, continues to get worse. Andrea wants the best for her and won't condemn her to a life of pain, regardless of how much she just wants to hang on to her beloved mare.

My thoughts and prayers are with them, which is why I'm working with Brooke, Monica, and Stacey to set up something for Andrea. If you can, give a little to Gogo and Andrea. The paypal address is rehabdenali@yahoo.com . We're working on plans for what specifically to do for them, and we welcome your input.

Gogo and Andrea in happier times.

An Exciting Idea

Izzy and I had a fabulous(!!!) jump ride this morning, but that's not actually what I'm here to talk about. Instead, we're talking barns and trainers.

Specifically, my eventing trainer who I LOVE, is actually spending the winter in my town, instead of her home base which is two hours away or her usual winter in sunny AZ. I am beyond excited about this and was hoping to get in on some lessons and make serious progress with Izzy.

Then I found out that she's actually going to base her operations out of a barn on the opposite side of the valley from me, which is fine if we're just finagling a trailer ride once or twice a month. However...

I saw this as a golden opportunity. Her working students are back in school and most of her clientele have actual jobs. That means... hm... she might need help around the barn, which would be a fabulous learning opportunity for the quasi-employed me. I emailed about it (since I deal better with text rejection instead of verbal), and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! I get to be her stall cleaner! Ok, officially, she said she would have room for someone with my talents, I believe.

Problem: Izzy is on the opposite side of the valley.

Sooo. Either I move her to the trainer's base barn for 6 months, which is about $100/month more or I leave her there and do with her what I can.

Pros to moving:

Trainer on site

Lessons on site

Conditioning on site

Learning oodles

Cons to moving:

Temporary

Expensive

We LOOOVE our current barn

Obviously, this is all still up in the air. If I'm going to be at trainer's barn 1x a week, there is zero reason to move Izzy and pay extra. If I'm going to be there 5x a week, it would be stupid not to move her for the time being. Those details will have to be worked out...

Big decisions. It's insane to leave a barn we're completely happy at, but it's also insane to pass up a chance like this. Wish us luck (and money!)

Time Off

Due to Izzy working harder than she had in probably 9 weeks at our jumping lesson, I gave her Saturday and Sunday off.

It was too nice of weather to not do any pony stuff, though, so I went and watched Nanakorobi Yaoki's lesson.

Yeah, for having a cheapie camera, I'd say I take pretty nice pictures.

Also... I may be about 8 inches taller than her, but look how long her leg is relative to mine. Sad when the universe is this unfair.

Ha!

Anyways, post lesson, we did pony baths. We got the mares show clean, if not quite George Morris clean. No worries--both of us are way too fat and poor to ride with GM ever anyways.

Shiny clean bay mare.

Then it was poor Ms. Izzy's turn. She hates water and baths of all varieties, so she was a little more challenging to deal with. Fortunately for her, it was roughly 1,000,000,000 degrees f outside, so the cold water didn't feel -that- bad.

Look how shiny!! She's still my fatty mare, but we're working on it.

Speaking of--Saturday was my birthday and Izzy had the day off. Instead of riding, I went for a six mile run with the fuzzies. Yes. Six. That means I actually can run my goal distance for this year, which is 10k. Now I just want to do it faster and more often.

We're so cute...

Poor mare has no idea that Jimmy's Wofford's gymnastics book is on it's way in the mail. Soon I will jump her legs off again.

Jumping Lesson, Take 2

Izzy and I had a jumping lesson this morning. I didn't mention it before because I didn't even know I was riding until 9pm last night.

It. Was. Awesome.

Unfortunately, no pictures were taken. It's surprisingly hard to round up a trailer ride for a horse at 11am on Friday with zero notice, not to mention find a photographer. Here's the best I can do:

Yes, a paint drawing of the arena. Be impressed.

The three straight lines represent the three little crossrails in the arena. The section marked 'water' was were apparently the irrigation got a little too enthusiastic and left us with a full scale water hazard. In retrospect, I shouldn't have made it the same color as the jumps. Oh well.

I had Stephanie ride Izzy to start out. I wanted to see a couple things. 1) Izzy being forward and happy and having a good experience. 2) Izzy's repsonse to Stephanie. I wasn't too concerned about this, but Izzy doesn't always respond well to different people, so I wanted to make sure her system would work for Ms. Mare. 3) Heck, I love seeing people ride my horse.

As predicted, Steph hopped on and rode Izzy around like she'd been doing it all her life. She'd canter by with one hand on the reins, explaining what she was doing and why and how it worked. Izzy looked better than I have probably ever seen her. Forward, bold, happy, confident. She even went in and out of the water a few times. Izzy always slowed to a walk, but trooped right through. Stephanie actually applauded that - she liked that Izzy was willing but concerned about the footing. "I don't like horses that don't think," she said.

Then it was my turn. We talked about position. She liked my shorter stirrups and had me stand straight up in them both to find my balance and to redistribute my weight into my feet. As she pointed out, "if 60% of your weight is in your feet, gravity dictates you cannot fall off unless your horse does a cartwheel."

True.

She had me ride Izzy on a loose rein and very forward. She wanted her out in front of my leg (deeerrr...) but pointed out that on a nice moving horse like Izzy, you might as well show it off. Plus, "a horse can't buck you off at a full speed gallop. They can buck you off standing still, but not while they're moving."

Also true.

We started jumping the center jump. It was a teeny little crossrail. She pointed out, "If you approach the jump and are thinking about the jump, you need to circle. What you should be thinking about is what you're going to do after the jump-the turn, the transition." After she watched me anticipate the jump a little with my upper body, she added, "focus on what the horse's hind legs will be doing after the jump." It seemed like an odd idea, but it worked really well. When I rode in to the jump and focused on our turn and Izzy's engaged hind legs after the jump... magically, it was perfect. It made me sit up just a hair and everything went better.

Using that information, we then did a little course of the three jumps. It started out a little rough.

Stephanie stopped me. "The pace is your responsibility," she told me, "the jumps are hers. You have to ask your self two question: 1) Can I go faster? 2) Can I stop?" Her point was, coming in to the first jump, it was all I could do to keep Izzy in canter, so no, I couldn't go faster, and that was why the jump sucked.

We tried again. I got Izzy into a nice, forward canter...

And it was perfect. She even gave me a flying change after fence #2. We jumped through it once more, and called it a day.

My major take aways from this lesson were:

1) Weight in my feet. 60%. Re adjust as necessary, but it needs to become natural.

2) Until you have forward, you have nothing. GO FORWARD. I need to get a bit out of my comfort zone here, but Izzy looks fabulous when I do.

3) Focus on the hind legs after the jump.

Summarizing like that, it's all so basic sounding. Sometimes you just have to keep learning it, I guess.

Funny thing: we were talking about nerves, and I mentioned that I actually feel more calm and relaxed now than I did before my accident. "Sometimes you just need a break," Stephanie said.

"I had three."

She laughed. "I was thinking something more like a camping trip."

PS Many, many, many thanks to our awesome and gracious western trainer who trailered us out to a lesson on ridiculously short notice, sat through the whole thing, and talked it over on the way home. She is great.