Lesson 11/30

 I've been doing weekly jump lessons on a lesson horse at a local barn for a few months now. While sometimes the lessons get canceled for various reasons, I generally do them at least twice a month if not all four. 

I think I explained in an earlier post why I was taking these lessons with lesson horses rather than my own but I'll reiterate. Basically, I love jumping, haven't done it in years, suck at it, and want my green horses to not have such a green rider over fences. 

  

This guy, Bing, dumped me the first two lessons I had on him. And in the words of the assistant trainer "don't be a crappy rider and you won't fall off", I guess I am no longer that crappy because I haven't fallen off since (knock on wood). 

Anyway, back to this lesson. It had been three weeks since I rode last (I did ride Mae once but we just walked for 20 min) and I was a little nervous about riding like a sack of potatoes. Much to my horror, I did in fact ride like a sack of potatoes. This is how it went:

The girl I ride with is almost always late due to work troubles (but trainer doesn't care and I don't really either) so I had about 15 min to warm up on my own. Bing is an ex-eventer so he knows how to do flatwork. But with all the jumping kids on him he likes to pretend he doesn't know. I try and convince him to stretch down over his back and start to get an inkling by the time the other girl shows up. 

SG (jumper trainer) had us start by doing a four loop serpentine but we were in the smaller ring and I just couldn't so I did a three loop and no one noticed. She wanted me to work on getting him to bend and stay in my outside rein. It worked pretty nicely and SG then had us resume on the rail while holding a two point for ta few laps. Surprisingly, my two point game was solid and I held it like a boss. We immediately went up into canter at the two point and while Bing broke to trot a few times because he is a lazy mofo, we did manage to keep up a decent pace.

During the last lesson, I magically found a perfect rein hold that allowed me to keep him up in his poll and my upper body up as well. I tried to get this again but probably because I was so out of shape it ended up with me just balancing on his mouth with my hands (poop). 

Lol my paint skills suck

We moved on to jumping a cavaletti (green) in the middle of the arena and I couldn't get a good pace, but it was small enough he went over anyway. For whatever reason though, I was totally a statue and could not move with him for the life of me. I'd get popped out of the tack and then fall down on his neck and just couldn't. I apologized to trainer and told her idk wtf my body was doing. She said it was ok and to keep breathing and follow with my elbows. 

The course then turned twisty turny and the cavelleti went up to an oxer. We then made a right hand turn over the red vertical (about 2'9" yay!). I lost all my power in the right hand turn to the vertical and had a blow out. Womp womp. SG brought it down to a cross rail anticipating I was having some mental issues (I was) and that made it much easier and smoother for me. At this time my right ankle was starting to collapse in on me. I couldn't figure out why but when we continued the course and I made the left hand turn I only got half way to the purple vertical before I had to pull him to a stop. 

I apologized profusely to SG and told her I didn't know what was up but my ankle was breaking on me and it felt like knives. I took a little bit of a walk break and knew I couldn't keep riding. I decided instead to just drop my right stirrup (lol) and finish my course. When I told SG she kind of gave me a blank stare and I have a feeling this is what she wanted to say "Micaylah you are already riding like shit and now you want to ride with only one stirrup?!?!" but she just said ok wearily and let me try it. 

  

The purple was a super hard fence to come up to because in the middle on that short side of the arena was the opening to the indoor in which there was a lesson happening. Bing did not like this and kept bulging to the inside, not helping me set him up to get a good approach to the fence. SG told me I onlny needed one stride of straightness and just apply leg. This fence was only about 2'6 (which is still big for me) and sure enough I had my one stride of straightness and he went over. 

Because I'm really dumb I totally forgot about continuing the line and just went past the other vertical. Even with one stirrup I actually rode pretty decent! SG was thrilled. My lesson buddy did the course again and SG wanted me to do it again as well. I thought maybe lowering my stirrups a hole would help my ankle from collapsing and after I dropped the right one hole SG gloriously enlightened me. "You just put it up a hole. " "No I went down." "Oh..well it is still shorter than the left" "hirosehioresiohri I KNEW IT!" "....why didn't you ask me to look at them?" "..pride." And that is probably why my ankle was collapsing was because I was riding with my stirrup two holes shorter on the right. I is smart. 

My ankle still wanted to collapse but the angle of the collapse wasn't nearly as acute and therefore less painful. I went around the course with all the fences up and totally nailed the last vertical! I was thrilled and gave Bing a big pat. I nailed my flatwork, started jumping like a bump on a log, but ended up redeeming myself! I was super exhausted after this lesson and haven't been able to walk since. Omg so sore (but yay building muscle!).

Goings on.

 

I know, I know my blog has been kind of off the radar and super depressing and boring lately. But that is kind of how my life is going. My semester is starting to wrap up and mentally I'm getting back to a new normal.  

I'm staying in my once a week jump lessons and those have been going well. I haven't been riding my own horses like at all. They still get plenty of love and attention and get turned out all the time though-don't worry. But now that I'm slowly getting to a better place mentally I can bring my horses back into the mix and really work hard on my riding goals. 

 

As I'm sure you all saw (because I went with L and shes way better than I am and already posted) I went to the Friday of Breeder's Cup. That was super fun and I want to get more involved in spectating large equestrian events. 

Other large things that have been happening is that I'm now 2 weekends in to the USDF "L" program. If you have even a chance to audit I would highly recommend it. I'm not fooling anyone by saying I'm an active candidate to graduate (have to have 3 scores at 3rd level) but the first half of the program is "good" for 5 years so it is a major goal of mine to graduate entirely from the program. I have access to some really nicely trained horses so this isn't too far of a stretch if I work really hard on getting riding in whenever possible. 

My goals for the rest of the year include catching up on reading blogs (I'm refusing to skip ahead because I'm no cheater lol), catching up on writing my own posts, and getting back into regular riding. Winter is coming and I'm refusing to let the threat of bad weather to ruin my chances of riding.

Last Pictures

 

Sometime last year on one of my local facebook pages a lady had offered an equine photography package at a discounted price to grow her business. We set up a date and then I broke my foot. That kind of killed the plans until spring for my glorious photos. I found out in spring I would be moving to a nicer place that would make for better photos so then we held off even further. Between busy schedules we finally made it work, about a week before Riesling passed. At that time I knew that goodbye was coming close and will always treasure these photos. 

Side note: kind of want to pay someone to photoshop my jamberry back on my pointer finger in this pic.

 

Overall I've been coping better but it took me some time before I could even look at these photos. They are beautiful but they make my heart hurt. 

Blanket Weather

Idk wtf hes doing with his hind legs but that isn't how he normally stands lol

Pats for good babeh!

While Merlot is significantly older than Czoltar, his lack of consistent training  always make me question how they each will respond to something "new".

For example: because I've had Czoltar nearly his whole life and have maintained his farrier care hes nearly reliable to be trimmed and isn't too fussy. On the other hand, because I just got Merlot and finally brought him home, his past farrier care has not been regular his whole life. So when the farrier came out to trim him, he acted like Z did at 6 months old and was a spooky hot mess. 

For the most part, my training with Z has been pretty lax. In a large part because I'm so busy, but also because he only turned 2 in June. I want him to just worry about being a horse while he grows up, but I have worked to make him easy to catch, easy to halter, easy to lead, and easy to load. Besides that, there isn't much more I would want him to be able to do as a 2 y/o. Since hes largely just been turned out on pasture his whole life until we moved to the new RWF, I've never worried about a blanket. But now that hes in the barn and goes out every day for group turnout, I thought getting him desensitized to a blanket would only be beneficial for his future training. 

Merlot on the other hand spent most of his life (to my understanding) in a dry lot with no blanket or no cover. Hes a tough little dude. But hes always been on the ribby side and I want him to be a healthy weight and not have to spend all my money feeding him to keep his weight up. 

So last week when I knew it would be cold at night, I brought out Riesling's old blankets (because I'm too lazy to measure them to buy their own) to try them on the boys. Because Merlot is broke to ride, I thought he would be good to put a blanket on, but hes also been super spooky so I wasn't 100% sure. Like a champ, he snorted at the trash bag containing the blanket, snorted at the blanket, but stood like a rock for me to put it on and let out a long sigh after everything was adjusted to fit. 

I decided for Czoltar's first meeting with the blanket I'd try it on in his paddock where he would be more comfortable rather than the cross ties. He also snorted at the blanket and was a little noodly to rub it on his shoulders but really he was behaving pretty well. I was able to drape the blanket folded up on his back and he didn't seem to mind. As soon as I began unfolding the blanket and pulling it across his back though, he went bug eyed and "ran" forward (mostly like a strong power walk). I had my BF holding him for me at the time (I know I'm mean) and advised him to just walk him in circles until he relaxed. This happened rather quick and then I began to buckle the chest straps and rub my hands on top of the blanket all over him. He rushed forward to avoid the pressure again, but after a seconds of walking determined everything was ok. 

Because it was Riesling's though, it was swimming on him and I didn't feel like it would be safe to keep on him so I began to pull it off his hind end towards his shoulders. Rush forward, circle, rinse, repeat. Once it was off I rubbed the blanket over him again and despite his bug eyes he stood to take his torture. Really a rather uneventful first meeting to the blanket despite how I made it sound.

Smaller rain sheets are now on order for both boys! No more nekky ponies in winter!

Review: Equifit Hanging Boot Organizer

Terrible quality because my iPhone doesn't like to function

Price: $34.95
Purchased From: Riding Warehouse

Initial Thoughts:

When I first saw this online I thought it was a cool idea compared to getting a janky over the door shoe organizer and for $35 was worth a shot. There are 24 mesh pockets with elastic tops and it fits 12 pairs of boots. Or so it says, I wanted to test the claim and see how many I could actually stuff in there.

Final Thoughts:

The organizer seems durable and hangs from two metal loops. I think its kind of a dumb design but I'm not sure if I could personally come up with better. It does get the job done. I screwed some screws in my door for my tack room and hang it off of that.

The bottom row holds a set of 4 Dalmar cross country boots. I don't think these boots would double up well. Above that I have a set of Equifit open fronts and you can see I stacked the ankle boots on top of the fronts and that fits well. Medium DSBs can fit a pair per pocket but large or extra large requires each boot to have their own pocket. I currently have 11 pairs of boots shoved in there with 6 more empty pockets (which is good because I have more boots hiding somewhere). Overall this can hold more than 12 pairs if you are a hoarder like me. I think for the price this is a really great way to store boots. If I had a bigger door I'd probably buy 2 of these and hang them side by side that's how much I like this.

What storage items do you have for your tack room that you love?