Green Horse Days

Ah, baby horses. One day you're all "THIS ONE IS THE SECOND COMING OF CORTES C" and the next day you're like "GLUE FACTORY FOR YOU."

Haha. Kidding.

I'm not actually upset with Mo at all (and if I was, Tracy or Aimee or someone would just come get him, ha). He was just being a normal green horse in our jump school on Friday--his final school before his first show. I am entirely without media evidence, so enjoy review pics of his cutie pie self.

In his previous school, the questions got a lot harder, and he did more than he had ever done. So it would make sense to me that he'd be a little nervous about what we might throw at him in this lesson. He warmed up great--really relaxed and soft in the bridle. Our jump warmup involved trotting a crossrail, halting in a straight line, and then executing a turn on the forehand before heading back to the jump and doing the same thing.

M: You're going to say he doesn't know turn on the forehand.
Me: No I'm not. I know you know he doesn't know how to do turn on the forehand.
M: No time like the present!
Me: Word.

The first one we did off the left leg, because he tends to be more accepting of my left leg in general. He did a pretty good job for his first try! He got some nice crossover steps and then a pretty good transition into the trot. Lots of pats for that effort.

M: The first time I asked [young horse] to do that, he reared straight up.
Me: Nice.

Mo never felt like he was going to rear--he CAN rear (stay tuned), but he's a bit more likely to root down on you instead. It's annoying, but it's safer for all the "I won't ride rearing horses people." (I'm a weirdo--I'll ride a horse who rears, as long as he doesn't flip, which some of them do and some of them don't. And you can kinda tell.) The second time I asked him off my right leg, and he was like, "eff you, lady," so I giggled at him, got one good step, and trotted back over the x. He did a pretty good job, and there's our flat ride homework for the week. I've taught a great many green horses to do a turn on the forehand against the fence--one horse I rode last year was only to do direction-changes via a turn on the forehand--so I'm sure Mo and I can get this down just fine.

The next step was to trot a fence coming off the rail on a short diagonal, and then (trotting or cantering) loop around trot a second fence off the rail on a short diagonal the other way--so you'd leave the rail at B, basically, and whichever direction you were going you'd see a vertical. This was meant to be a pretty straightforward effort for him, but he was clearly a bit worried about it, so we just did it over and over again until he found it easy. The verticals were probably 2'3", so he had to pay some attention to his feet but didn't need to be worried.

Then M added two more verticals on the other long side, and I was just supposed to jump them individually as well. We trotted most things, cantered occasionally if we were in a rhythm, but most of my job was to be bossy about pace while also riding relaxation into him. I counted my strides in a soft, soothing tone (which helped my body language be softer and more soothing, and hence relaxed the stripey-faced one). The only trouble we ran into was that he wanted to lurch left after one of them, so M set out two blocks for us to go through. We missed them the first time, but got them every time after that. In fact, I think it made the jump go better and he started looking for the boxes to go through, because he is a clever lad.

After we did those a few times, we added in the skinny cross rail down center line. It was pretty easy for him and we didn't have to worry about pace before or after.

The whole school took a good while, mostly just repeating jumps while I insisted that we stay in a relaxed rhythm. "Be the professional," and "it's your bit so he can't take it" were the things M said that stuck with me. I think maybe the ride looked a little worse than it felt, because M was concerned that I might be worried. I assured her that I was not, and that it just felt like a jump school on a green horse. She agreed, and we were both pleased that there were no stops or run-outs at all (NO MORE RUN-OUTS EVER). Also, on his walk breaks between sets, he was calm and happy to walk around on a loose rein, which a lot of horses won't be when they're a little nervous.

Then the lesson was over and M told me to go for a walk around the fence line because he needs to practice being outside the ring as much as possible over the next month before his first baby horse trials in May (intro level, because we're badass and can only handle tripping hazards out in the open right now I think). So she went to open the gate, and he was wiggling and being really rude, and she sent me to walk back up the long side and halt three times on our way back down to the gate. That took time to sort out because he kept stepping backwards. I didn't touch him with my legs or hands, and if I said "woah" he'd stop. He's so weird. When we finally got him to stand still, I walked out through the gate and turned to start our walk around the outside of the ring. Something told me to loop a finger under the neck strap JUST as he started to take three big leaps forward. We exchanged words over that issue, but when we turned the corner towards the driveway, he was like "FUCK THIS NOISE" and really lost his marbles. Bucking, rearing, running sideways, trying to leap forward. So I got him to the point that I could jump off before I fell off (not that I felt close to falling off--the Antares really is magical).

I led him back to the ring and got back on. We schooled walk/halt transitions for awhile, and by that time M was coming back up with the horse she was going to ride. She was like, "sooooo you're back in the ring?" and I told her about how his brain fell out and rolled down the hill into the woods like a marble. With her eyeballs on me (always makes me feel better to know someone can call 911 immediately), I headed out to try again. This time he was much much better, and I surprised M pleasantly by not just circling the outside of the ring, but going on our whole planned walk. She was like, "Go Jess!" And I was all, "HE IS GOING TO GO ON THIS HACK AND HE IS GOING TO ENJOY HIMSELF GODDAMMIT." But after another minute or so, I was patting his neck and talking to him and generally letting him know that we do not have to stress about being outside of the ring. It can be our happy place, too, and he'll learn to like it.

Saturday I didn't want to stress him out, so I just walked him around in the ring for about 15 minutes. I'm pretty sure he was asleep. I didn't think it would help to do anything he'd find challenging at all, because Sunday was Show Day and the only thing I needed to make the show work was a relaxed horse. To be continued.

Coil the Spring

JUST as I get this written, I'm on the verge of having a show recap for you (if all goes well--I'm writing this on Saturday night), as well as Mo's Friday jump school and a surprise tack ho moment. I'm having a very different problem than what I had over the winter, that's for sure.

Red got to go to M's for a jump school on Wednesday. It was... not the chill ride that I'd had on Mo on Monday, but no one died or left the ring bleeding so all is well.

JUMPING?!

First of all, everyone who has seen him lately has commented on how great he looks. I'm pretty proud of that. I thought he looked pretty good over the winter, but he is STUNNING now--his coat looks great, he's muscling up, and he's developing a topline. And I think he'll just keep getting better. In other good news, he was in general acting much more civilized at Mary's. Oh, and she had huge puddles in the ring from all the rain the night before. Red does not like to get his tootsies wet, so I led him through one time and then the rest of the ride he had to wtc through them like they weren't there. And really, it was a non-issue. I was pretty stoked about that.

We did all the same jumps Mo did last time, but he's just a very different ride. Mo needs a little leg just as he sets his shoulder against the fence, but that's it. Keep the arms soft, keep your eye where it belongs, and you'll be fine (plus or minus a couple baby wiggles). Red, on the other hand, coils his spring against your hand, and M had to get me used to dealing with the way he wants to be ridden. The good news is, she has a horse just like him so she's used to it. The bad news is, she doesn't really like that ride, ha!

Here's how it works, basically: if you have a spring, and you want to coil it tighter, you can't just put pressure on it from one end or the other. You have to have some degree of pressure on both ends. So Red needs the leg set to just the right dial, and you HAVE TO keep your rein contact EXACTLY the same until he's in the air. And then land and be ready to ride so he doesn't root the reins out of your hands and run. The waterford will do for now, but I can see us in a running martingale and/or a bigger bit at some point, because he is a ton of horse to put together. On the other hand, I think he'll be easier to ride as the jumps go up. We'll see.

Schooling at home--I'm pleased with his frame here.

We had a bunch of stops, all because of some mistake I made in the degree of pressure on his sides or in his mouth (usually not enough). This kind of thing annoys me, but it's part of learning, and we didn't have any bloody run-outs. Victory. The one thing I'll whine about is that three or four strides out, he takes over, which makes it hard to keep everything exactly the same. I think we'll be able to fix this (and sometimes when the jumps go up it helps). I know he was ridden a little wild before I got him, and he's settled down a lot in general, so we are gonna have to see what happens.

The last thing I needed to fix is that when he started to launch those three strides away, my "don't get ahead of him" instinct led me to lean back, and that worked like bracing against him, so he'd just jump flat across the fence with no bascule and make the landing really gross. It went better if I actually leaned forward the tiniest bit when he did that, so I was just staying with him. Then he could jump around the fence because we were on the same page and he wasn't having to jump against me. If that makes sense. It sounds so obvious now when I'm typing it out, but on a horse I don't know super well when it comes to jumping and who's quite a lot to put together anyway, it felt like calculus.

Still got a ways to go on the same frame in the canter but he'll get there.

I'm not sure M loves Red as much as I do, but I'm hoping we can make a lot of progress this summer. It'll be good for me. And as tricky and sensitive as he is, he isn't dangerous, so I'm more than willing to work this out. Besides, I love the old dummy.

Our homework is mostly on the flat, getting more gears in the canter. But I'm also going to put a jump up at home and fix this problem before I'm getting hollered at about it again, so that next time M sees Red we have new problems instead of the same ones. Right? Right.

Rock and Roll

It must be spring, because the jump schools are coming faster now than I can keep up with writing them. I have an article in the data analysis process, so I'm a little tied up at the times I normally can write (which is rare enough anyway). I'll do my best to stick with it, though, because each lesson feels like a big leap forward right now.

Mo had another jump school on Monday, Red had one on Wednesday, and Mo will have another one on Friday. And then Mo goes to a baby jumper show on Sunday to trot around the puddle jumpers and be the cutest horse on the premises.

Not from the school, but cutest ever.
Also, the Edgewood breastcollar clearly doesn't fit, ha.
I guess Red can have it back.

I'll focus on Mo's lesson today and write a separate post for Red, because they were very different lessons even though the jumps were the same.

This time, only the warmup fence started as a cross rail. After two passes over it, it became a vertical, but two holes lower than pictured below--both verticals went up to what you see after he'd jumped them twice and the oxers stayed the same size the whole time. He started out perfect. I trotted this vertical and the next one a couple of times, and then M had me trot a little course. I was still meant to trot the liverpool (rails down) and the skinny (cross rail). We got through that fine, but I HAVE to be careful about my eye. When it's a vertical, keep your eye on the top rail.

When we schooled last week, I thought to myself, "Gee, maybe next month we'll jump the rocks!!"

Nah. When M is around, there's no dilly dallying. We don't rush horses, but there was no reason Mo couldn't jump the rocks today. Feeling only slightly nauseated, I found the neck strap with my pinky and approached this one. He should have had a stop the first time, but because I occasionally suck a lot, it turned into a run out. Do you want to make M mad? Be me and have a run out. She gets on my case HARD about it. After I got him over the jump (no further problems with stops or run outs the rest of the lesson) and did another set, she said, "I want you to know that that was my grumpy voice." I said, "Oh, I know." I need to ride better. If M let me get away with dumb beginnerish mistakes, I'd never improve. I love her. 

Rock of death

If one rock is bad, you'd think two rocks would be worse, but nope.
Hopped over it the first time, albeit with some baby wiggles.

 Note: I think that this is sometimes where peoples' gender biases can come into play. Plenty of people love a curmudgeonly old man coach. Myself included--Chris is definitely a curmudgeon. It makes them feel like they've accomplished something when they get praise from such a person (legit) and it seems to be a rite of passage for a bunch of people, like we're all getting our own version of Jack LeGoff. All of that is fine, but if you like a cranky old guy coach, you should also appreciate a cranky lady coach. M is the most badass person I know, and while she's a very very kind and generous person, she does not let the riders who she knows are serious make stupid mistakes. Adult amateurs who just want to plunk around Novice on their sweet middle-aged packers? She's not going to be snarky at them EVER. But young riders and people like me who are clearly very invested in success are gonna get the "get the hell out there and get it done" lesson. THANK. GOD. As Denny Emerson said, a trainer like that is more valuable to your riding than diamonds and rubies.

The liverpool went up to a crossrail oxer. Speaking of timing and finding your eye, when it was just an open ditch, she told me to look where the horse's feet should land. Once it got bumped up to an oxer, I was to look at the back rail like normal.

Mo could not give two shits about the liverpool.

We trotted and cantered the liverpool each time, but stuck with trotting the skinny just because I didn't want to show him the run out, and we do not yet own the canter. I think the height of the skinny was about the same as the other verticals, but the dead-on accuracy required to jump it on a very green horse made it ride a little bigger, and he rubbed it out of the cups the first time. I just had him under-powered in my attempt to get in the middle of it. I'm unconcerned.

Things I was happy about: We cantered everything except the skinny, and while it took me some circles to get the canter organized at times, we DID get it together eventually; we only had one issue with evasion; the trot work was on point; he had to become a better horse by virtue of making up for a mistake or two on my part; we were relaxed; my arms stayed soft in front of the jumps.

Things I wasn't happy about to work on: letting the damn horse run out CANNOT HAPPEN AGAIN; getting our lines straighter; not letting my concern that he'll spook at the rocks result in him spooking at the rocks; not asking so many questions during the lesson that I drive M crazy (Chris loved it, M hates it).

So all in all, I'm pretty thrilled with Mo yet again. This was basically a beginner novice school. We are in no way ready to go jump around at BN, but having done this will be confidence building for the 18" classes on Sunday for sure. The main takeaway is that I just have to ride like I know what I'm doing and Mo will fill in the rest. I think I rode better than I had in the last lesson, but the day I get to be Bill Steinkraus is the day I hang up my half chaps and end on a high note. There's always another steeple to chase.

Let the Jumps Come to You

Mo and I had our first jump school of the year on Friday, and it really could not have gone better. 

It started out great before he even saw the tack, because he walked right up to me in the field and stood to be haltered. For Mr. Head Shy, this is news. I knocked the worst of the dirt off (oh, Virginia spring, how muddy you are) and headed up to the ring. By the time M got up there, we had a good trot going. Just like last lesson, she was thrilled with his trot work. As I continued warming up using some of our exercises from the last lesson, she set up some cross rails--two regular cross rails, two cross rail oxers, a skinny cross rail, and then she just put rails beside the liverpool. She had me walk across the liverpool a couple times (no problem, this horse does not give two shits about the liverpool) and then trot his first cross rail of the year. 

He was PERFECT. 

I'm going to give myself a little credit here: last fall when we were jumping him, I would sometimes get a little nervous (not fearful, just like, "don't fuck up your baby horse" nerves). But on Friday I was like "oh whatever he's the perfect creature" and we just trotted around all over the ring all chill. Even the skinny was no big deal--once he got his eye on it, he was like "cool guys" and hopped right on over. I stayed calm, he stayed calm, yay for everyone being calm.

As we trotted over stuff, if he landed cantering, M had me school the canter and then go find a jump out of it. Because both Mo and I were thinking more about jumping than cantering, the canter was really great. Far from perfect, certainly not in any kind of frame, but I could steer, and that is good news.

After we had a couple good jumps over everything each way, M popped all the cross rails up to verticals or oxers (except the skinny and the liverpool). We trotted one jump and then cantered everything once each way. I just found the next jump from whatever lead he landed on, there was always something there. I'm sad that I don't have any pictures of the jumping, but I got some of the jumps themselves (surreptitiously, while M was schooling a client horse and the client/friend was standing there watching).

Wee baby verticals, but my horse does not care what's under them.

 Mo really was perfect from start to finish. I, however, did that thing I do when I'm out of practice and chased my eye. When I've got 100 jumps under my belt this spring I'll be okay (and I have THREE jump lessons this week so that'll happen quick). But I don't want to teach him to launch and then jump flat, because if I let him, he jumps great, all round and knees up. I don't have to ask for it, it's just there. But in the meantime, I have to make like a hunter rider and let the jumps come to me. That is hard!

He doesn't care about the scary rocks next to the jumps either.

 After the ride was great, too. I went on a walk around the property by myself, and he was chill and seemed to really enjoy himself. That's been a tough thing for us, and there's more to do there, paths we haven't taken yet. But he's gonna be a pro at hacking out by the time summer hits.

It's only like 2' but I'm so proud of him that it might as well be 4'.

 I wrote a goals post two months ago, and I think we're getting there. We ditched lunging last week, and after this jump school, we decided it was time to hang up the standing martingale. It could come back, or a running (I hate running martingales, for what they do to the rubber on the reins if nothing else). The canter is coming along, especially in the steering department.

Liverpool schmiverpool.
I know horses who won't go near these things.

So all in all, couldn't be more thrilled with the beast. I was having dinner with M's family on Saturday and her husband asked if I'd ridden Mo that day. "Yup." "Well? How was he?" "Perfect as always." M: "Yup. He's basically perfect." She also said on Friday that I could sell him right now and buy a new car, but who wants a new car when you could have a baby horse who hops over a 2' oxer out of a canter like NBD on his first jump school in months? Not me, yo.

An oxer with a dragon-hiding rock next to it.

He's a genius and I love him. We're really building a great bond.

Upcoming: Our jump school recap from today, my insane but really fun weekend, and Red and Sugar updates (short version: I adore them both).

Gimme Some Sugar

So I've been seriously holding out on you all and you should definitely not forgive me, except for the fact that I'm about to overwhelm you with cuteness and you will get over your outrage immediately.

As you recall, I have the world's cutest nephew, and he is OBSESSED with horses.

<3

So my mom and I have been thinking about getting him a pony for awhile, but there was absolutely no rush on it. If the right pony came along for the right price and we had a stall, we'd go for it. Otherwise, we could sit chilly. He's only two, after all.

Well, as it turns out, the woman who owns the barn where I boarded Lex in Ohio was doing a fire sale on all of her lesson horses, including one I quite liked when I was there. So--and bonus points for you if you'd already put this together--I sent Tracy over to have one more look at her. (If you aren't already a huge fan of Tracy, I'm questioning your judgment. She's an A+ human being and horsewoman.)

The short version is, Tracy told me everything I needed to know about the pros and cons of the pony, and Mom and I decided we could handle the cons and liked all the pros. So now we have a pony! Sugar arrived last night and is now a happy member of the Clawson family.

In case you haven't read Tracy's adorable post yet, Sugar is a 10 year old POA mare who has been used in a lesson program and for birthday parties since essentially the dawn of time. She has a couple habits that come from being a lesson pony, but we can fix those. She's a good girl.

She hopped right off the trailer and put her head down to eat grass. I let her hang out for a minute before we approached the barn. The other horses were like "whaaaaaaaaat is thaaaaaaaaaaat??!!"

Someone left that one in the dryer too long!

We put her next to Ink, my old man. He was pretty obsessed with her. I have a feeling he nickered at her all night.

"The Easter Bunny brought me the pony I asked for!"

She calmly took in her surroundings, found the water and hay, and clearly laid down to sleep last night as she was covered in shavings this morning.

My brother and his wife brought the kids over to meet her. He brought Logan to the barn straight away, and Logan was all: "She needs more water! She needs more hay! Can she come out? She needs an apple." Then we had to go in and eat dinner. He wolfed his food down and insisted on going right back out. Because the adults hadn't even had a chance to take a bite, we had him draw her a picture while he waited.

Who wouldn't want a purple sword-wielding dragon wearing a crown as a welcome gift?

So we finally let the kid go out and see his pony again (he doesn't know she's his yet and won't for another year or so probably). He noted correctly that she needed to be brushed, but we figured it would be best to let her settle in before we let the kid have at her. 

She was very interested in him, though.

This morning, we let her out with Ink. He pestered her for awhile, and she'd just trot away and eat grass. Eventually he got over it and it's been heads down grazing ever since. 

So now we have a medium pony, who's going to be ridden around bareback by 5'8" me sometimes, by the pony club kids sometimes, by lesson kids sometimes, and by Logan whenever possible. We are just thrilled to have her, and I think she's gonna love being at our house (until the grazing muzzle, which might have to happen until spring is over).

Nothing is more fun than a new pony, so expect a lot of pony obsession over here for awhile.

Color Inside the Lines

Last week I didn't see my horses at all, because I was in Florida moving the rest of my stuff out. It all went fine (except when I thought my cat had run away and I spent two hours sobbing and looking for him and then had a headache the entire next day). I'm sad, though. I loved living there and I hope to move back someday. It's a hard place to keep a horse but if I had a real grownup job with money I could make it work.

I did get to see Duchess though!
This is an old pic from when I used to ride her.
She looks a little too thin for my taste right now.

Anyway, I got back late Saturday night, and even though I was so tired I just wanted to lie down, I got on both horses on Sunday. Red was his usual good boy self. Mo was a little tense and rushed, but he'd had a week off and it was hella windy so I forgive him. I did have to ride him for quite some time to work him down to earth, but that's not a big deal for a baby TB.

On Monday I took a fabulous flat lesson on Mo. He was just really stellar. No one was around to take any pictures or anything (I never want to ask M--I need her eyes on the moment-to-moment, and she was sitting on a horse anyway). So you'll just have to trust me that he was a total rockstar.

First of all, M kept saying that he looks fabulous, and he really does. His coat is shiny, he's fat ("he can stay fat like that through training level. When you go prelim he'll need to be fitter." Gulp. "But that won't happen for a couple years?" "Ohhhhh you never know." Another gulp. Ha).

PRELIM?

Mo's trot work was on point yesterday. He's still a green bean and will be for awhile, and he whined a tiny bit about the contact, but we were able to move beyond just "get him to give to the bit" to "keep that feel and go do something else." So we did lots of changes of direction, lots of w/t transitions (he's not ready to stay on the bit through the transition yet).

And we started properly introducing him to leg yields. I liked this exercise and so did he. We started out on a 12m trot circle ("ride the outside edge of your horse around to make it smaller"). The circle would be too small for him to stay on in balance, but he did have to maintain an energized trot and softness in the bridle. Then when it was time to leg yield, I'd just put a little more in the outside stirrup and a little opening outside rein and just think "make the circle bigger." Any more than that was too much, I found. If I tried to ask for the leg-yield with my inside leg timed as you would on a broke horse, he'd get tense and invert. "No no, that's not it. He has to stay in his shape--he has to color inside the lines." That was a brilliant little phrase, because we got it every single time after that. He was even crossing over, because my stripey-face is a genius.

We had some discussions about bend, but nothing serious. He likes to lean on my right leg a bit when going right, so M said something she used to say a lot when I rode Lex: "Make a place for your inside leg by moving his barrel over." That works pretty well, but I have a right-side problem. I sit off to the right a little, especially when cantering Mo. I hang on the right rein. My right leg is just less useful. I don't know what to do about it other than be aware of when I'm crooked and try to fix it. I don't know what the weakness is in my body that's causing it but I'll figure it out eventually and get to the root of the problem. The good news is, Mo was being so fantastic that we COULD think and talk about my equitation. That's super encouraging.

The canter work was pretty good, too, and I made it harder for him at first. He was galloping around like a racehorse and feeling the tiniest bit frantic--and this was after a few attempts to get the right lead. Mary told me to put his canter "at the edge of walk." For whatever reason, this let me relax and sink down onto his back a little more, and then his canter got really soft and nice. We're getting there with the canter. I think it still stresses us both out, but I think the only way beyond this thicket is through. I don't want him to start worrying about our rides, but we can't avoid the canter forever either. I didn't buy him to be a walk/trot horse. That said, I don't know that we'll canter every day until it's a less stressful experience for him. He's a worrier.

So that was all good, but the best part of the ride for me was the very end, when M insisted that we go for a walk outside the ring. Historically, this has not been Mo's best event. But even if he's going to be a show jumper, he's going to have to be ridden in the open. Those bridle paths in Wellington aren't going to hack down themselves, right? I expected at least a little drama based on the last time we tried this a couple weeks ago, but you know what? He acted like we do this every day, and that it's his favorite part of the ride. I don't know what changed, but it was a totally pleasant and fun experience. There will be lots more hacking out in the future.

I rode him again today and he was just as good as yesterday, though I have this gut instinct that he was worrying about the canter. We did it anyway, and I did my best to stay relaxed and let go. We got about a circle of a canter I quite liked and then called it quits for the day and went for a little walk back to the barn. All in all, it was a success.

I rode Red after work last night and thought he felt a little unlike himself. I decided it was most likely that the footing in my ring at home is pretty hard due to lack of rain, and that I'd see how he felt today if we actually got the forecasted rain. We did, and he DID feel better. Maybe the old man will need front shoes for the summer, we'll see. He's so cool. There are a few things to work on with his flatwork still--he feels a little inconsistent to me in his bend and contact, but all in due time. I'm just thrilled that he's stretching over his topline and engaging. I want him all muscley and ready to jump!

So that's the news with my boys. I have a jump school on the books for Mo on Friday. I CANNOT WAIT. We need to break up the flatwork a little bit and I just miss jumping. Plus I need to see how the Royal Rider stirrups do over fences. I've heard they're no help at all in anchoring the ol' leg and that they make some people go to their knees. We'll see, I guess!

Never. Chase. Points.

In my "welcome back to riding" post from the other day,  I mentioned that I won't be likely to point-chase on Mo, in part because of who he is (a baby still, thrives from having a break, stresses out when he feels too pressured--things that may change when he is a grown up, but that's the horse I have today). And in one of my over-used parantheticals, I issued my decree: NEVER CHASE POINTS. Lauren asked me to elaborate.

I don't have any pics for this post, so here are some critters I love.

 This is Duchess.

 It's not as though point-chasing has never occurred to me. I love horse showing. LOVE. If I had the budget, I would live at horse shows and compete as much as possible. I thrive on the environment, I'm competitive but not to the point that I MUST win, and I love seeing beautiful horses and tack and riders all spit-shined and ready to rock it.

Almost ready for his show career.

 But perhaps I need to back up a second. Let's remember that I'm a jumper rider in my heart of hearts. That has two implications: 1. I don't really know a lot about points in any other discipline, though I have to assume that the set-ups are somewhat similar.  2. The way we try to win any given class is different than how other folks try to win. (NOTE: I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT DRUGGING HERE. Topic for a different day.) When dressage folks and hunters try to win, they're putting in their best test that day, and it is subjectively measured. Of course, dressage horses and show hunters are athletes, and in addition to elegance, they must be accurate and powerful. But I think in those two disciplines, riders are going to be at least somewhat less likely to make the horse absolutely crazy in one class, as jumper riders trying to beat the clock can do. Eventers lie somewhere in the middle, as they must start with a dressage score, but they can of course push the horse very hard over fences if they're trying to win.

I miss my Lexi.

 So here's my philosophy on winning, as a jumper rider and former eventer: Don't try.

Okay, what I really mean is, don't try 95%-ish of the time. I will try to win when these three, and all of these three, conditions are met: 1. It is a money class (which I haven't ridden in in a LONG time, having been horseless for a good seven years and in greenie world for the last few); 2. I'm actually positioned to win if I do things right (meaning there aren't 15 other horses in the jump off who could easily kick my ass); 3. Trying to win will not result in frying my horse's brain; in other words, he can cope with the pressure.

This horse's brain fries at the slightest provocation.

That does not mean that I don't care about pulling rails or time faults, because I REALLY DO. I always prepare to ride clean and inside the time, and I typically pull that off. And sometimes I win because other people made more mistakes than I did that day. And sometimes I don't win even though the horse's performance put me over the moon with happiness. It doesn't matter. It's not worth trying to win, because it isn't worth galloping recklessly around a course and taking huge risks that could demoralize or fluster my horse or get one of us hurt. And I know y'all know what I mean, you've seen plenty of those riders.

Another nutty horse I used to ride. She's an eventer now.

Those kinds of "I have to win this 3'6" jumper class!!!!" rounds just kill me, because they violate the first rule of horsemanship: The horse always comes first. Always. Always.

Now, don't get me wrong, I make rider errors that piss the horse off or confuse him or whatever, as do we all. I'm not saying "be perfect or don't ride." I'm saying that don't throw your education and horse sense to the wind the minute you get your sights set on a blue ribbon.

Ella wants all the points if points = toys.

Further, there are entire horse shows that I won't go to because I don't think it's worth it if you AREN'T going to be competitive (Upperville, for instance, which is less than an hour from my house and I have a really nice show jumper, but we won't be going, because he is not an Upperville horse and I haven't shown in a good 18 months). That doesn't mean YOU shouldn't. If you want to do Dressage at Devon just because and you know you're not going to win anyway, that's fine. I just don't, because I don't have any real money, and that's just how I've organized my life.

Back when I was pretending to be a dressage rider, double bridle and all.
This horse wasn't gonna win any year-end awards, as he reared in half his tests.
Still got his rider a silver medal, though.

So if you draw the line from "don't try to win" to "never chase points," you see that it's quite direct. I can't chase points if I'm not trying to win. And I can't chase points if there are some horse shows I'm not going to go to. Points require being in the ring A LOT. That's great! I love being in the ring a lot. But it means being in the ring a lot on the same horse, and here's the thing: not all horses can or should handle that. And even if they can--if you're getting near the high point award on your horse, and you decide to chase points, remember that someone could likely outspend you by going to shows on your circuit that you can't afford to go to, can't get the time off work or it just isn't in the budget, and all of a sudden you've outspent your means and maybe worn out your horse (and perhaps yourself) and... you're not in the top.

Do points = peppermintses?

So. There you have it. That's why I don't chase points. That doesn't mean you shouldn't, and if you get a high point award, you will receive my hearty and sincere congratulations, because I trust that we are all doing our best to make good decisions for ourselves and our horses.

Forget points. Chase naps.