Horses are Also Amazing

First, I want to say congratulations to my wonderful barn owner, who got her final USDF silver medal score this weekend! Also, it was her first weekend showing Prix St. Georges. Amazing. I am so excited for her. She works incredibly hard. I am pretty sure I will never ride PSG and I have a lot of admiration for people who can ride dressage at that level. I surely don't have it in me.

My ride yesterday on Lex was hilarious. I wish someone had taped it so we could set it to circus music. She was SO good, and just wanted to streeeeeeeeeeeeetch her head all the way to the ground. I swear she was leaving nose prints in the ring sand. Maybe she was hoping to nab a stray blade of grass!

Dramatic re-enactment of her frame under saddle.

I was delighted that she wanted to trot around like that all day, because she's using her back and this way she'll learn to carry herself well and we have a shot of not having a lifetime of pulling on each other. I like a horse with a sensitive mouth, and I like leaving the reins alone as much as I can. I'm glad we're on the same page.

BUT! It is hard to ride like that! Because while she is stretching, she's kind of careening all over the place. She has a tendency to wander in off the rail at the best of times, and responds well when I move her back out with my seat and legs. However, when the horse's head and neck has disappeared and I have to work very, very hard to balance myself so that I'm not disturbing her balance, while also trying to make sure we're in a steady pace AND staying somewhere in the vicinity of the rail, it pretty much takes every ounce of concentration I have to deal. It must have looked hilarious because the mare was trotting around with her nose on the ground and her ears pricked, licking and chewing on the bit, happy as a clam. Meanwhile, her apparently barely-competent jockey is trying to control every muscle so I don't mess anything up and stay relaxed so I don't add any tension to a very nice ride.

You guys. I think I need to start doing yoga or something.

After the trotting fun, we went out into the field to try a little canter. She was totally game on the left lead, but we still don't have a right lead. We had it the first two times I cantered her, and then it disappeared. We're getting a lesson on Thursday from Chris so hopefully he can help us figure that out, or tell me to stop trying to canter for awhile, or something.

I almost forgot! Before I got on Lex, Duchess wandered into the ring. I can't decide if she was jealous or delighted that I wasn't riding her!

Checking the footing?

I love my girls. And speaking of my girls, Mom sent me a cute picture of Rocket, who is four weeks old today. Already!

Squiggle Star Realness.

No riding today - it's Lex's contractually-obligated day off, and I pulled Duchess out to ride her but she really needs her feet done and I couldn't do it until she gets them worked on.

So instead, I spent some time with this little dude!

I am the best.

This is Bubba, a very old Paso pony who is staying with us this summer. He has the most insane winter coat I've ever seen and was dying to drop some of it. I spent a good hour de-fuzzing him. Those fiberglass grooming blocks are miraculous, I tell you. I probably got 75% of the winter coat off. There were bales of it on the floor of the wash stall. He's so sweet, and only started to fidget in the last couple minutes. I love old horses, y'all. They're my favorite. Maybe someday I'll have a retirement farm for the oldies.

Today was the first day of the summer semester, and I bet it's going to be intense. Cross your fingers that my students are cooperative and that the line at the break to run reasons for absences by me isn't indicative of how the whole semester is going to go.

And now, my kitten is trying to eat my hand, so I'm going to stop typing and start defending myself. I hope everyone's week is off to a good start.

Horses are Heartbreakers

I want to write another post about how great Lex is, and tell you about the cute ride I had on Finn, but I don't think I can do that without first acknowledging the intense pain that L. Williams is going through as she has come to the unthinkable conclusion that putting her beloved horse, Carlos, down is the right thing to do for him. He's only 14. I can't even imagine. L. is my hero for knowing what he needs, getting him the veterinary care he required, and listening when the vets told her what she surely didn't want to hear. I heard once that we have to know the difference between when we are keeping a suffering animal alive for their sake or our sake, and that when we realize we're doing it for our sake, it's time to stop. I hope that when the time comes for me to have to make these kinds of decisions for Lex and Rocket, that I will have the grace and courage that she does.

I think I'll write about Lex and Finn tomorrow. For now, if you need to cheer yourselves up, go enter the cool stationery giveaway at She Moved to Texas. I think Lex would love to have some classy letterhead so she could write to the Annoyed Pony Association in style.

I'm going to go snuggle with this face tomorrow and think about all the horses who've taught me something. I probably took some of them for granted, but I hope I've grown up enough now that I know better.

Adorable Horse Faces, Gross Horse Skin

Man, a few days back in Florida and I'm already exhausted. I think the first summer term is gonna be tough, and I haven't even started teaching yet.

I know I promised some more Rocket training videos for anyone who's interested, and I have them on the computer, I just haven't had the time to upload them to YouTube yet. I'll put them up as their own post sometime soon.

Lex has been perfect since I got back. I'm going to ride her again tomorrow and then give her Monday off. Thursday we just walked and trotted around in the ring (blech) a little while so I could check that she remembers where the gears are. Yesterday we added in some lunging before I got on, not to tire her out but because Chris, the trainer who's going to be helping us out starting next week, and Sharon both said that I should lunge her to help her find her balance. She was good about it, though she doesn't seem to understand lunging to the right as well as she does to the left. After a few minutes of that, I got on and she was just awesome with transitions, trot circles, and changes of direction. After a quiet and lovely ride, we walked all around the field on a loose rein. Great, great ride for my baby OTTB! It didn't even occur to her to get quick.

"I can't even stay awake on the cross-ties."

Today, same story: a few minutes of lunging (we need to work on this at the canter, because her balance is really poor) and then I got on. She was fabulous. We walked and trotted around the ring on the buckle, and then went out into the field to canter a bit. Until her balance gets better, I don't think it's fair to canter her in the ring. She picked up the left lead but not the right, which I'm not worried about right now. I'm sure with some help on the ground and work on balance and learning what the aids mean, she'll get there. Then she got a Fungasol bath, because she's got a couple of little rain rot patches, and I will be super bummed out if it spreads. It's hard to avoid rain rot down here, but I'm going to do my very best to keep her skin healthy. Rain rot is so gross. Baron lost most of the hair on his hindquarters last year, and half the school horses at my other job already have it.

Speaking of school horses and rain rot, I'm going to start working with a three year old warmblood gelding who lives at the riding school. He's not in the lesson program, obviously, but he belongs to my boss. He is THE CUTEST. His name is Finn. Unfortunately, his rain rot is AWFUL, but we'll get it cleared up.

"I am hard to take pictures of because I want to be in your pocket!"

The bad thing about rain rot is that you have to remove the scabs, which a) hurts the horse, and b) removes a whole bunch of the hair. Lesson ponies with big bald spots are less cute. But if you don't treat it, especially in a constantly-damp environment like Florida, the horse can get secondary bacterial infections like staph. It sucks. Cross your fingers that I can nip Lex's in the bud! I got her a fly mask. I'm not sure she likes it.

"Is this... funny to you?"

I haven't ridden Duchess again since I got back and I probably won't be able to again until Tuesday. Hopefully I can find a routine for the next six weeks that involves getting to ride her.

Mom sent me some pictures of Rocket today! Hooray.

"I need shade, Ma."

I miss that little face!

 So, skin issues aside, all things are pretty quiet on the home front. What's your favorite rain rot preventive/treatment?

Thoroughbred Mare Realness

Y'all, before I write about horses, I have to congratulate myself for getting through that epic road trip alone (well, with only the dogs for company, but they mostly slept the whole time and were not interested in the license plate game). I did the drive in thirteen hours yesterday, which is a personal best. The minute I got home, I fed the animals and then drove myself to get an enormous pile of enchiladas, which I devoured before passing out.

I miss this little girl already, though!

I'm feeling much more refreshed today because I got to scurry out to the barn early to see Lex! I really felt like I was home when I got to snuggle with Ms. Ponynose.

Let's go let's go!

 I think she was happy to see me, too. Might be all in my imagination, but she was in an excellent mood this morning, all happy and relaxed and totally perfect. Clearly, the week off didn't hurt her at all. We started with some groundwork, and she was great. I am going to start lunging her for real tomorrow, though, not because she needs to get any energy out before I get on her, but because it'll help her balance. She's such a good girl, though. She was quiet and lovely today, and I didn't pick up the reins at all. We stayed in the ring because I was alone and the other horses were being dingbats in the field where I usually ride, but she was really, really good. Did I say that already?

The cutest ever.

And then my day got even better, because at long last, I got to ride my precious, beautiful Duchess!

Thanks, Tack of the Day, for some cute Nunn Finer brushing boots for the little lady to prevent another accident!

Look at that face. She is the sweetest, loveliest horse around. I wish I had the money to take her to shows, because I think she could show the hunter ring a thing or two.

I can also stand loose in the field while Jess takes photos!

Duchess did dressage through second or third level but just doesn't like it. Before she cut her leg and had to go on her six-week hiatus from riding, we were really getting somewhere with her balance over a short course of tiny jumps. We're going to have to work ourselves back up there, but she was SO much fun to ride today. Duchess is forward but not quick, and she never does anything naughty, stupid, silly, or unpredictable. She was a great confidence builder for me when I started riding again. We didn't do a lot today because I want to bring her back slowly and not worry her old-lady joints and because she needs her feet done. I did let her jump a teeny-tiny little log from the trot and she was super proud of herself. I'm looking forward to doing some trot sets with her soon so I can do them in two-point and work on my fitness. Yay?

I'm glad Rocket is a filly. I freaking love mares. No shade to geldings, of course! I'm just lucky to have a set of good girls right now.

Jumping Lessons!

I'm still hanging out in Virginia with the dogs and Rocket, but I hate being away from Lex. My barn owner texted me yesterday to tell me the weather in Florida is perfect for riding right now, too. Ugh.

Yesterday managed to make up for some of the Lex-missing because I got to go to my old h/j barn and jump around on a couple horses. My mom went too, and we got to ride together for the first time in a long time!

I am really awful at blogging because I keep forgetting to take pictures of the horses I ride. I will try to be better about this going forward. I do have video of them showing with their owner, Dorrie, though! So hopefully that will suffice.

The first horse I rode is G-Man, and he is just a saint. He's a jumper, but you'd never know it from the way he goes on the flat. Dorrie does a nice job of bringing young horses like him along, and he showed in the hunter ring for a little while because that's the most sane way to start a horse - this is also what I'll be doing with Lex eventually. Here is Dorrie riding G-Man at a show last year.

G-Man is a lovely ride. He's sane and doesn't make any unexpected moves. He also doesn't over-jump. It helps, too, that he's tall, because nothing really looks big from up there. Dorrie had me get the feel of him over a couple smaller jumps, then set one up to about 3'6" (she said I just needed to remember that I could do it, and I think she's right about that) and then we did some lines with the goal of riding them quietly. The main thing I have to work on is seeing my spots again. As often happens when people take a break from real jumping, I can only see the long ones right now. I'll get it back. By the end of the ride, things were going better. I just have to wait and let the jumps come to me. I focused on my breathing on the way in to each jump and I think that helped, because I wasn't scrambling around trying to organize the canter.

The next horse I rode is a mare named Luna ("Silver Belle," if you're nasty). I've known Luna for a looooooong time. Dorrie bought her at the end of her four year old year, I believe, and I was working for her then. She's thirteen now. I did a lot of early flat schooling with this mare and some of the early jumping. She's super fancy and lots of fun, as well as the most comfortable horse I've ever been on. Once you find the rhythm, she stays in it forever. Inertia can be kind of a problem for her, because if you want her to change gaits she's like "eh, I'm cool with this," so she goes in a pelham to make the downward transition possible. Before Dorrie got her, Luna had a bad start. Her previous owners were showing her in hunter classes when she was a three-year-old and they'd kick her for lead changes. Three year old horses are not balanced enough to swap leads, so she developed a lot of anxiety about it. Sometimes, while jumping, she can kind of gallop around the end of the ring because she's tense about the lead change, but I think Dorrie handles her really well. They pretty much win everything.

Oh, and that fat and happy princess is an OTTB! I love Luna. I wish I could take her home with me.

Jumping Luna was similar to jumping G-Man as far as what Dorrie was asking of me: wait for the jump, get the canter early and then just hang out. We only jumped a few jumps but she was really perfect about the whole thing, and since I know Luna really well, we gelled more quickly. I've known what buttons to push on her for nine years. Both of these horses are super nice. Dorrie knows how to pick 'em and she schools them beautifully.

Rocket is doing great! She has figured out the difference between butt scratches and being asked to yield to pressure, we can move her haunches or her shoulders anywhere we need to put them, and she also backs up really well. This is helpful because her dam is such a noodle that sometimes we have to move Rocket away from her to put her halter on. I don't have much to compare her to in terms of foal development or training, but of course I think she is perfect in every way. I'm sure gonna miss her! I'm leaving Wednesday morning so I'll just have to soak up as much time with her as I can.

Anyone else take any cool lessons this weekend?

Rocket is Home!

Y'all, Rocket is the cutest thing in the world. We brought her home on Thursday and she has settled in really well! (Her dam is another story for another post - the short version is, she's so obsessed with Grayson that she will actually run away from her filly to get to him. They aren't turned out together, but last night we had to bring the geldings in before the girls, and Somara lost her mind. Ugh.)

My neck is too short!

My legs are too long!

 We worked with Rocket last night, teaching her to yield to pressure, and she did GREAT! Except when we worked on getting her to move off pressure on her hindquarters, because she loves having her butt scratched so much that she just leeeeeeeeeans into it.

Bonding?

 Seriously. She weighs 250 pounds (she gained 120 pounds in two and a half weeks) and she just curls her body toward me and puts all her weight on my hand, while trying to chew on me with her mouth because that's how horses show each other affection. It's hilarious and a bummer, because we're gonna have to stop giving her butt scratches. My plan is to not touch her hindquarters at all for awhile until the area is sensitized again. If that doesn't work, we'll figure something else out.

 I have several videos from before she left Mountaintop Ranch, but I'll have to wait until I'm back in Florida and on a better Internet connection before I upload them.

This hotel has good service.

 Right now she and her dam are spending their nights in the foal stall, or, as I've been calling it, the nursery. They're getting a mare and foal feed but I'm not sure how much Rocket is actually getting. She can't get her nose on the ground that easily so she can't really eat out of a ground feeder, but yesterday since she was lying down at feeding time we just put her food on the ground for her. She's so cute.

Dirt is also yummy.

And in honor of Derby Day, here are a couple of pictures of my personal favorite ex-racehorse that Lovely Barn Mate S sent me on Thursday. I miss the little red mare!

I love that forehead.

No photos, please. I haven't had my coffee.

Anyone else going to watch the Derby? Who are you rooting for?

Road Trippin' and Baby Preparations

Only one more sleep til Rocket!

The trip up to Virginia was great. My co-pilots were excellent.

Eddie, the alert one. This doggie is the love of my life but he keeps me on my toes!

Ella, my old girl and the best dog in the world. She keeps us all calm.

The drive was smooth, no problem, and we got here in 14 hours. I was fine until I got out of the car and then I collapsed.

This morning, though, I had a nice view when I took the dogs out.

My parents' back yard. I love that cherry tree. This photo really doesn't do it justice.

Mom and I had a crazy morning running around to get things ready for the girls to come home tomorrow. We bought 15 bales of straw, even though my parents don't use straw bedding, because apparently it's better for the little ones. I've never had a foal before, so that's news to me.

Luxury accommodations!

My parents knocked out the wall between two stalls to make a bigger stall for the mare and foal, so now they have a 12'x24' stall to hang out in. All that's left to do is to hang the water buckets. I want to see how high I need to hang them once the filly is in the stall and I can see how tall she is.

After a brief break in which Mom went to a meeting in another town and I finished grading one class's finals - I am a champion - I got a chance to ride TJ! Since he was about to leave when I fired up this blog, I haven't written about him much. TJ is an odd horse. He's both enormous, about 17.2hh with a super wide barrel, and gaited. I don't have any experience at all with gaited horses, but the trick to him was to teach him to listen to my seat and trot when I post. He's 12, and when he was given to my mom last year, he had very little training or handling, but he is the sweetest horse in the whole world. He isn't athletic and has a lot of trouble balancing himself. He tends to fall on his inside shoulder and can't connect well from the back end to the front end. Sometimes riding him feels like sitting on two people in a horse costume - just not a lot of communication going on there. He'll do one gait in the back and another in the front. Getting him to be through over his topline and load the back end is just about impossible. So when he was with me, I focused on getting him to learn to listen to my seat and just relax under saddle. We did groundwork for weeks before I really rode him and continued to do groundwork for weeks after that. He's a good boy, and wants to please, but he's incredibly spooky and has no balance, so he's not the most confidence-inspiring ride. But he sure is cute!

Shiny!

Today we just worked on getting a quiet walk, trot, and canter around the ring - even the end he was nervous about - with minimal interference from the reins. He'll get bracey and tense with too much contact, but he can develop a nice big swinging gait if he's allowed to. I had a lot of fun with him!

Then I snuggled with my favorite old man, Ink. This guy is 31, same as me, and I've had him since we were both 9. He was a back yard horse that my parents picked up for a couple hundred bucks, and he packed my mom, me, and then my high school best friend Vicki around lots of novice and training level events in the 90s. He's awesome. He'd jump if his legs were falling off. He hated dressage, and he wasn't especially scopey, but he had all the heart in the world. That's why he earned a home for life with us. We'd never have sold him, and now that he's nearing the end of his life, he's happy as a clam.

Look at all that white on his sweet old face.

I promise to get a better picture of him tomorrow. We were so busy I didn't have a lot of time for pictures today. I did spend A LOT of time using a grooming block on Ink to get all the gross hair out. I pulled tons of oily, scurfy hair off him today. I'm gonna give him a bath tomorrow if I can, and hopefully pull his mane and get him looking fly again.

Pretty is as pretty does, kids.

And this old guy is Grayson, a 22-year-old OTTB. Grayson, unfortunately, fulfills a lot of the old stereotypes about TBs. He's hot, he's nuts, he's talented, he's grouchy. He doesn't really like people very much, although he isn't mean. He just kind of doesn't care about people, unlike Ink and TJ, who love humans. Grayson is perfectly sound and I'm itching to get back on him sometime, but he hasn't been ridden in years and it would probably be kind of a kamikaze mission. Maybe next time I'm up. He's fun to ride and really well trained, but he has a screw loose. We sent him to one of my favorite pros about fifteen years ago and she was like, "He's an amazing jumper who is terrified to jump. I don't know what to do with him." But because my mom knew that something horrible might happen to him if she sold him, she just pulled his shoes and let him keep Ink company in the retirement home. He's got a great life, and he LOVES Somara.

The day Somara arrived. Check out that studly neck!

Grayson didn't get a big grooming day today, because I was so focused on peeling the layers off Ink. I'll get to him tomorrow or the next day. He'd probably be just as happy if I left him alone.

I'm pretty exhausted from all the excitement, so I'm gonna try to sleep. I got several Rocket videos from my mom today, but I think I'll save them for a rainy day because I want to take the best parts of each video and edit them together. In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures.

She likes to put her foot on that spot just because she can. We have several pics like this.

She also LOOOOOVES butt scratches.

 Oh, and she apparently jumped a little feed trough just for fun, and she adores jumping on and off the trailer. My little eventer in the making!