That Horse

Man this month has been nothing short of insane. But here is the story of Merlot's first horse show! 

Storms a brewin

June 10th was a league dressage show at a local barn in town. J still has Mr. Merlot at her house for various reasons and was planning on doing this show so I signed us both up and she loaded the trailer! I believe Merlot has been to some rodeos (to hangout at the trailer) and trail rides, but that is about it. J pulled up to the show around 9 and our ride times began at 10. I signed us both in, and tacked him up quickly and just hopped on. 

Normally when I work with him I lunge him first, not really as exercise but more for groundwork. He isn't one to get tired and that isn't by any means my goal when I throw him on the lunge. Sometimes he has some snorts and scoots to get out but that is few and far between these days. J prefers her horses to immediately start working (aka trotting) when she sends them out, but I prefer a horse to relax and walk. I personally do this because I don't want a horse to feel like the lunge line is always hard work and punishment (not implying that J does). Lately on the lunge I send him out and just have him walk a few laps and focus on my body and vocal language. I digress..

Back to the story- I walked Merlot around the trailer parking area to get a feel for his mood. He was alert and paying attention, but also fairly relaxed and stopping to steal some snacks. I was super pleased with this behavior. He definitely was looky but far from spooky. Because he is green I underestimate myself and get nervous sometimes when it comes to riding. Really he is a fantastic horse and I have nothing to be worried about. 

We walked to the grass warm up arena and I hopped on. J wanted me to immediately start with some trot work to get him focused on working and not looking for things to spook at. I prefer to walk around but I can't argue that walking around wouldn't give myself time to psych out. Trotting was good for both of us mentally. He was fairly rhythmic and wasn't reaching for the contact like at home, but I was pleased. The warm up was right next to a large cross country field and the venue was also hosting an open cross country schooling that morning. Merlot definitely got nervous when he saw horses galloping and jumping huge fences next to him but I did some figures to keep him distracted. Thank goodness they were running behind, it gave me extra time to warm up. 

Towards the end of our warm up we stood facing the dressage court and he was pretty relaxed and even rested a hind leg. He was alert coming out of the arena and definitely showed off his green behavior when he refused to enter the arena to do our test. We got a horse to lead us in and he was fine, minus some spooking at flowers on the letters. Once in the sandbox he wasn't very spooky. Don't get me wrong, the test was...unattractive but is pretty accurate to where we are training wise right now. I've never practiced the test on him (but c'mon it's intro..) and I really was using the show for exposure not because we are ready to kill the competitors at dressage. The test had nice moments and looked better than it felt to ride. He didn't want to stay at a consistent tempo or steer but listened to my whoah and go very promptly. 

Intro B was just a few tests after Intro A and he seemed like he was ok with this whole dress up and ride in an empty arena nonsense. Mentally he was getting over it and I again had to follow a horse in the arena (yeah I could have booted and gotten mean with him but my goal was for a positive experience and getting led into an arena at a schooling show is nbd in my eyes). This test felt worse, mostly because our steering was really gone. Merlot was all "wat r circles" and "I ignore your leg aids for turning because instead I'm wondering whats up with all those horses running and jumping". Again, not necessarily bad behavior or hot and spooky but really better than how I expected him to act. 

I also signed us up for a ground pole jumper division (they held a jumper show after dressage around 12:30) for more exposure. There was about an hour break between my dressage and ground poles so I hopped off and took him back to the trailer. His ground manners were absolutely fantastic and he acted like an old gentleman who has done this a time or two when I was leading him around. It was mostly the whole "riding in new places" that was weird for him. 

He stood fine at the trailer while J and I ate lunch and drank victory beers. Much to my unfortunate luck, right when we needed to get on for the "jumping", it started storming. Nearly everyone was eventers and a little rain doesn't stop their fun so the show continued. The storm only lasted about half an hour and put a pause on the show. I hopped on after the showers slowed. The rain and wind really amped Merlot up though. 

I had to get someone to hold him for me while I got on and he was still extremely jumpy. Because there were no jumps in the grass warm up ring they had open schooling of the show arena before each division. I made the mistake of going in and attempting to school with the other horses. This arena is about the size of a full court and there were probably ten other people attempting to school at the same time. And because it was the ground poles division, there was a slew of beginners who weren't polite about steering and getting close to us. Poor Merlot was terrified of all these horses coming at him and politely asked to just not horse. I made him stand and take the abuse of all the horses that wanted to eat him. Of course I got tons of dirty looks for having "that horse" at the show. Whatever, its not like a bunch of people haven't been in my place before. Gotta start somewhere.

I wanted to know if he would be spooky towards the bright jumper standards so I could plan my attack (because everyone knows how seriously you need to plan a ground poles trip lol). I just had him go through the course once at a walk and exited the arena of terror. We headed back to the grass warm up just to stay away from the chaos. At this point homeboy was feeling insecure and I had to hold his hand. I was admittedly a little nervous with his behavior (I mean..I did break my foot falling off him in the dumbest way last year) but tried to stay calm and supportive. As we waited for the juniors to do their rounds I kept him busy by just walking around. He was on high alert and sometimes refused to turn. I mostly just let him go where he wanted as long as he stayed reasonable and walked politely. A few girls that had just trailered in were beginning to warm up their horses with some quick cantering. This made Merlot nervous again but he got through it. 

When he seemed to be more relaxed we would take a few minutes to stop and he would rest a foot and be mostly ok with the situation. As soon as he became nervous again we went back to walking and I think the regularity of me guiding him through the scary day helped him out. It was time for our round and poor dude did not want to leave the warmup. The ring steward was kind of being a bitch and wanted to skip over me (obviously need to take her job seriously at a schooling show..) and kept yelling my number saying it was my turn. She was only twenty feet away from me. Luckily some innocent bystanders were nice and were basically like "yo lady calm your tits her horse is scared just give him a few minutes its a schooling show" (not really but that's what I would like to imagine). 

An older gentleman came in the ring to escort us and Merlot tried halfheartedly to escape the terrifying human coming towards him. Luckily as soon as he walked forward he realized the man was a nice hooman probably harboring cookies somewhere and following was safe. He was actually relatively calm in the arena when it was just us by ourselves. He wasn't spooked by noises or the whistle but was definitely slightly on edge. I asked for a trot and pointed at the brightly colored sticks and he was like "yeah sure whatever I'll go over things but I'm going to periscope up to monitor small children on fat ponies that might attack". He did have one random NOPE moment with a decent spook in an unrelated spot in the arena. I stopped and patted him and we moved forward pleasantly. We trotted nearly the entire thing and I was happy that he gave no fucks about the "jumps". I gave him big pats and he almost seemed relieved when we crossed the finish flags and the crowd encouragingly hollered. I hopped off right there in the arena and gave him a big hug where I could feel him release nearly all his tension. 

 Cringing watching this..

We had done the thing! Immediately after getting off he returned to old pro at the horse show status and I had a big smile plastered on my face as I took him back to the trailer. 

The whole "jumping" phase was kind of a shit storm because of the weather and poor warm up but I'm really glad we both were pushed outside of our comfort zones and successfully completed our first show together! We even managed to get a second place at Intro A! (I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious lol) I'm super proud of how Mr Green Bean performed and am excited to come back in July! 

Danielle Thomason Clinic Day 1

So I was super nervous for my first clinic ever, but it was SO MUCH FUN! And I hurt so bad omg. Here is my short recap from Saturday.

I was scheduled to ride at 10, and because my shit was most definitely not together, I arrived at 8:45 to clean tack and make Evita super presentable. Right after her I was supposed to ride Riesling, but I retired him last week. I didn't want to be out clinic money so I instead decided to ride my mom's horse, Vermont. If you saw my clinic prep post you'll know how confident I felt about this. I was able to have my mom come around 9 am to get him ready so I could just do a quick swap after riding Evita. 

I got her looking nearly show ready and hopped on. Danielle vaguely saw me ride Riesling at the show in Jerome, ID two years ago. However, she is very familiar with Evita and I believe showed her and rode her prior to the last owner. She commented that she was disappointed how she lost so much muscling before we got her. Immediately she had me ask for a more forward march and more engagement in the walk while lowering her poll and lifting her shoulders. 

We moved on to trot work where Danielle had me really work hard on emphasizing E to lift her shoulders and belly and get her working over her back and through her hind end. 

We moved on to a little bit of lateral work, which E excels at. Danielle was aware of the last owner having issues with changes and knew that when I started cantering her when I first started leasing her she was very on the forehand and plowed into the ground. 

We worked on some exercises to get her to fill up my outside rein and have her body supple before asking for the canter. While I didn't feel as prepared for the transition as I do when I lesson with CJ, I followed her instructions to canter and it was surprisingly not the train wreck I expected with the not perfect transition. 

E gets super stiff in her body at the canter and doesn't push from behind. We worked on getting her to stay connected, have bend in her ribcage, and take a bigger stride. Interestingly, when I first started riding her she would nearly run away with me at the canter. The past few weeks however she has been prone to breaking. I was told this is because it is hard for her to use her body and carry herself. 

We ended the lesson when E wouldn't break and maintained bend and lightness in her mouth. It took a lot of work from me to keep her together and she was quite tired but still wanted to try really hard for me. We were both exhausted but felt pretty accomplished. I jumped off E and handed her to my trainer to hand walk her in the upper arena and immediately jumped on Vermont.

Mind you, this was Vermont's second ride this year. He is incredibly crooked and tense since his last ride was before I broke my foot last year. Luckily, Danielle also had him in her barn for two ish months when his old owners tried to sell him and before I scooped him up for the stellar deal. 

We agreed that he is extremely out of shape and is trying to hard because he has no confidence in himself. We only walked and trotted and focused on forward and straight. When he was straight and seeking the connection he got rewarded heavily. He seemed to remember what this whole riding thing was all about and started to settle down. For whatever reason (needs chiropractor tbh), when we go for a downward transition he throws his haunches to the left. 

We spent nearly the entire lesson working on transitions. When the trot was straight and forward we would slow it down until he started to throw his haunches left (almost to a walk). It was a slow and probably extremely boring lesson to watch but near the end we did almost get a straight transition. 

To break up the transitions, in the middle of the lesson we introduced some poles. There was just two widely set at an unrelated distance. The goal was to keep him engaged and happy and straight over the poles. He perked up a lot at the poles and nearly tried jumping them the first time through. Quickly we got forward, straight, connected, and a steady tempo. We rewarded him heavily. 

We moved back to transitions to end the lesson and he was starting to gain more confidence and remain straight. Compared to how stiff and tight he felt when I first got on, his back was swinging and he was happily relaxed at the end. I was super proud of him. 

CJ's property is situated in the foothills and there is a nice incline on the sides of the areans. Danielle wanted me to get both horses fitness up by walking the hill a few times a day. After my lesson on Vermont, Danielle had me take him up the hill. 

Remember, unconfident, underfit TB who can be silly? Yeah here he came to the party. Walking up was NBD but walking down the hill he couldn't go straight and wanted to side step because he is weak. This defeated the whole purpose so I pushed him to stay straight and he realized it was too hard and his brain started leaving. He was threatening to rear and just overall couldn't horse. Thank god CJ came to my rescue and ponied us up and back down the hill. I'll be leading him up and down the hill until he decides it is NBD then I'll try under saddle again. Don't want to die. 

By this point it had been nearly 3 hours since I first got on Evita. I was exhausted and tired. Luckily my mom was there and helped me liniment the horses and put them away. Holy crap had I just got my butt kicked, but honestly it was really fun and rewarding! 

All Ponies, All the Time

I've been doing so much riding lately, it is awesome! I've had 6 lessons on Evita now. Evita has shown up to 3rd level (1 test) and was giving her owner (my old friend!) issues with changes. She didn't really want to sell her but she wanted to develop her personal future in dressage, so she sold her back to my trainer. 

Praying this is just ugly growing phase, at least he is sweet

My trainer actually was her breeder. Tina (Oldenburg who is retired and lives at my house) is her mom and her sire is Cowerslain Nomination, a shire. She is 15 years old and I am leasing her to learn on. My trainer will be breeding her next month, but I'll be able to ride her in between. She is very well trained but that doesn't make her easy at all. 

She is also extremely wide. I've been neglecting my yoga and my gym workouts are mostly cardio, so I managed to pull something in my groin. I went to get on for my lesson yesterday and was struggling to get on. Walking around was ok, but as soon as we went to trot I felt like I was being stabbed with a hot knife. 

Luckily I live close to my body worker (who also does Ries) and she squeezed me in last night. I put off seeing her for so long. Especially with my broken foot, I was so crooked. I learned my lesson and as I continue to push myself in and out of the saddle, seeing her needs to be more of a priority. 

The two goofs who aren't getting ridden are Czoltar (obvi) and Ries. I'm starting Ries slow back into work since he has had so much time off. I also finally broke out my BOT blanket I bought six months ago. He is super sound and ready to work so I'm going to start under saddle next week. 

More fun pony adventures in the coming week! I'm on spring break now so I'll be getting a lot more blog posts up. 

Viva Carlos Blog Hop: Naivete

What horse related or equestrian related piece of knowledge did you believe was true for an extended period of time that turned out to not be true?

I guess it's time I air my dirty laundry of stupid horse knowledge that isn't real. 

I basically though Ries was the best most majykal hunter

When I first started riding "hunters" I was taught to see-saw to no end. "Get his head down! See-saw!". Also, slack in the reins was a good thing. Oh and to lunge a horse that wouldn't "get his head down" while under saddle, I was taught to take a western bridle, run the reins under the chest, bring them up and over the top of the withers, and tie them in a knot. Then lunge them until the sun sets. 

This poor dude suffered my see-sawing and poor lunging skills

Luckily, my new dressage knowledge doesn't leave me like a hopeless freak. And seeing A rated hunters ride (instead of the unrated circuit I showed on as a kid) with contact, makes me happy that hunter rider's aren't actually dumb, I was just taught to be a dumb one. 

Such a saint, hes still a happy pony today! I'll have to write more about him!

And my last ungodly stupid knowledge was related to bits. I was taught the more breaks in the bit the more severe it was. So basically, Waterfords were of the devil. When I first worked at a tack store here in Idaho, I cringed so hard at the first girl who bought one. I didn't understand why everyone wasn't buying a single jointed snaffle. Sorry girl I gave dirty looks to who bought that Waterford (in fact, this was Alyssa, and I was MORTIFIED when I found out that I was the stupidest judgmental Californian-turned Idahoan that existed when we became friends). 

Mr. Grumpy Gills

Ries wants cookies-not hugs

So I believe I can convince BF to come out once a week to take pics! wohoo! 

The walk has improved a lot in the past few days. We start very forward and on the bit. I still want to work on stretching down into the contact. Yesterday we tried adding spiral in and out at the walk. I haven't done this before and actually found it to be a great exercise. It required us to maintain bed while also being straight in the shoulders (he likes to dive in), and we struggled the most at having forward energy in this exercise.  

In order not to over nag him in the walk I worked on myself at the same time. I tried to keep an open hip, following seat, and following elbows. The more I relaxed into the position the better our walk became. 

In the trot I really wanted to focus on a low stretchy trot while maintaining contact. We weren't able to get very long and low but we maintained contact and rhythm the whole time. I thought he was reaching a lot more but you can see in the pics he isn't stretching as well as he could. I'm taking this at baby steps because his reaction is to drop on the forehand and speed forward (very flat) when I ask for a lower frame. I am hoping little encouragements will help him understand to stretch down and out, stretching his topline and lifting his ribcage. 

Sass

He was very sassy this ride ad tried to use his energy to go up/explode. He responded very well to me reminding him that we use our energy to go forward and was mostly well behaved. He is a big anticipator and during a canter transition tried to leap in the air (lol his baby leap is kind of pathetic). I wasn't too worried about a pretty transition because we haven't cantered in a few weeks. As suspected, he balled up and was doing the weird dolphin canter. I lengthened my reins and squeezed him forward. He relaxed and was able to open up his stride. It is my goal in the next few rides to have a more appropriate canter transition and start out more relaxed and forward. Poor guy gets very sensitive as the work gets more complicated. 

Back to basics

Yikes. Ries is feeling better. 

But as much as we look like crap in this pictures we felt like crap too! Ries was super antsy since he hasn't been able to get turnout due to inclement weather. So I tried to keep his head in the game but he decided it would be more fun to be short-strided and hollow. We managed to get a little work done in the walk but the rest of the time I just tried to get him to use up some energy. 

He gave me a nice buck instead of a canter transition so that was fun. As much as I hate to show you these crappy iphone pictures I need to document the suckage. Enjoy a good laugh. 

Where I still havent found my winter gloves..

11/25

But yet I still rode. Yay! Ries has been awesome. Very forward! I immediately noticed he is struggling with balancing and carrying himself. His topline has decreased so we will be working on that first to get back in shape. 

Apologize for shitty iPhone pictures. Better than no pictures? My bf is not gifted at taking horse pictures yet. No pretty trot pics, sads. 

I was super pleased with his attitude. He is really wanting to get back into riding fun. Hopefully I'll scrounge up some money and be able to start lessons again here soon. Getting a little more in shape first wouldn't be bad though. 

In other news, for the past few months I've been using Jamberry nails. They are wraps that you heat up and stick on your nails. Surprisingly, they can last up to a month with no chips or falling off! (I may or may not have tested this theory last month..) 

I'm not selling or advertising for them, I just really like them and found they work great with equestrian hands! I work the front desk at my job and they tolerate that well too. 

I live on a little (10 acre) farm now and with winter here, there has been a lot of mice in my house! I decided it would be best to get some barn cats (at least that was my excuse hehe). So I have three new family members! The oldest is a grey cat (that blends in with the blankets) named Noodles. The two kittens are little girls named Salt and Pepper (my bf is so creative in the name department *rolls eyes*). 

Anyways, that is about it for now. This week we will battle the cold and just try lots of long and low trot to get that topline back up. 

Cute sleepy kitty to brighten up your Tuesday!

Salt

End of a Hiatus

Life. I dont know how else to describe where Ive been or why I stopped blogging.

Moving on, Riesling and I competed at a show last weekend. Friday when we arrived he immediately started his weird rearing at the walk and head shaking.

But giess what? I finally have an answer. Riesling can't stand the bugs. Really horse? Oh well, atleast this meant we got a game plan for the weekend. Basically dip him in insecticide, hide out in indoor until previous rider walks out of show arena, book it over, and trot in. 

This seemed to work very well. Ries and I took home a 1st, 3 2nds, Reserve Champion, and TIP High Point. Wohoo! I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to compete my horse. 

This was my first away show (ever). It was super fun being able to swim at the hotel after a long show day. Again, I just feel so blessed. Here are some random pony pictures until I get the professional pictures. 

I suck at goals.

 2nd Quarter Goals Review

Which is ok. I know I didn't work hard enough towards my goals and looking back I can realize that I went an ENTIRE QUARTER without doing shit. Well I did a little shit. So lets talk about what happened in 2nd Quarter.

Make every ride a lesson. I feel pretty confident I completed this one. In fact, I worked my horse so much that he was bodysore for the show. /fail.

Do all of my workouts. Jokes. I did NONE of the workouts. Damnit.

Jump I did manage to jump on my own without the holding hands of SB for once. Yay.

Show WOHOO I did this guys! And I rocked it!

Limit My Spending Hahahahahaha major jokes. Damn Mary's. I was doing so well, too! Kinda. I'm a liar. I'm not even putting this on my goals list for next quarter because I want all the things always and who am I to deny myself that happiness?

Use my planner daily. Ugh. I'm actually going to try to suck less at this. This weekend when I clean my house I'll dig it out and start actually planning crap. Like blog posts. What a concept.

Overall progress: 3/6. 50%

3rd Quarter Goals

 Horse Goals:

Sell shit. If I ain't using it, I'm selling it. SO I can buy more stuff, of course.

Get in a routine. After the vacation and horse show I'm basically out of my riding groove. I need to get back into it.

More pictures. For y'all.

Show da Poney Yeah. Going to bribe him with a lot of cookies.

Me Goals:

Eat Better I've been trying but realistically to implement this goal I need to plan my meals better.

DO THE F&*(#&$(* WORKOUTS It isn't fair to Ponykins to be a fatass while he is fit. 

Use my planner 

Actually blog for once. Like plan dat shit out. Can you tell I'm happy it is friday while I am writing this? 

Alright. So I'm adding 2 more goals to each list. Hoping to exceed 50% this go around.   

Throwback Thursday

Circa 2011. Right when I got my Pessoa saddle and wasn't a total puss about jumping. P.S. I hope you all enjoy my super awesome face in all of these lol.