Home Again!

Well, we are home from the Brian Sabo clinic!

I had an awesome time. Pandora was excellent, I am pretty sure her rushing is gone (and at the very least I have the tools to deal with it if it comes back), and we're both pretty tired but happy. It was a lot of trailer riding for her - 40 minutes to my friend's house, 2.5 hours to stabling, then each day it was a half hour to the actual clinic site.

I learned so much and I will definitely write up a full clinic report. I am SO lucky because the lady I went with (who is wonderfully fun to hang out with) called a friend, who came and videotaped our entire clinic sessions! So, if all goes well, in a week or two I should have a DVD of my whole ride, plus Brian's comments, plus interesting rides from the other people.

It was a very successful weekend. I cannot BELIEVE how much Pandora ate. She very impressively consumed almost an entire huge bale of our barn's orchard grass/timothy mix, plus a few flakes a day of the orchard grass that they feed where we were stabled. Holy cow that mare can put down the food. And water. It's hard to keep her buckets full, which I suppose is a good problem to have.

I also made my first solo trailer trip! I know, I'm 19, I should've done it long ago, but when my mom's involved with horses too, we tend to travel together. I even lined up the truck and trailer on the first try, and tonight I managed to back the trailer into our slightly difficult spot even with a car parked in the way!

Pandora, of course, informed me that she was starving and dove immediately into her big pile of hay. What a pig.

Anyway - I'm going to kick back for the rest of the evening. More tomorrow or the next day!

All Ready!

Well, everything is ready to head out tomorrow.

Trailer loaded with a nice fresh hay bag. My bag's packed. Food's in the fridge waiting to go in the cooler. Pandora got a bath tonight, though bathing a bay horse is so easy it hardly counts - just spray her down with the attach-to-the-hose-shampooer thing, then rinse. I scrubbed her socks with whitening shampoo, but compared to bathing McKinna, it was a snap.

Farrier job on Tuesday - sore on gravel yesterday - much better today, thankfully. I had a really nice ride in the arena. I actually felt like I was getting somewhere with lateral work. I warmed up without my whip, so it was slower-paced than usual, but calmer. Grabbed the whip to do a few turns on the forehand in each direction, then I asked for a TOF in motion - slow down, walk the hind legs around the forelegs while still taking small steps, then walk away forward. Hard for her, but by the end of the ride she was doing it without ducking through the outside rein. Progress.

Got some nice canter, too. I had to chase her a little because I think she got tired and wanted to quit, so then I had to work to get her to relax and slow down a little without breaking to the trot.

We are slowly working on stretchy circles. Nothing fancy - just more the concept of, "You can stretch down without speeding up or completely bending to the outside."

Cooled down out in the field. I did a lot of walking out there yesterday since she was striding short at the trot but fine at the walk. It was really beautiful out there tonight, late evening sunset. Very nice and warm.

Pandora's got something weird going on with her coat, especially on her back and haunches on the left side. Like her summer coat is shedding out, but you can see her black skin through the thin fur instead of seeing her winter coat growing in. A few tiny lumps here and there, fly bites I'm guessing - they could either be causing it or maybe they're just now visible because of the thinned fur. Maybe she's having an allergic reaction to something, but we haven't changed anything in recent history. I'll keep an eye on it for awhile and hopefully nothing's changing, she's just shedding out weird and the winter fur will grow in fine.

She had a bot fly following her today, stupid thing. I found a couple little eggs on her knees and got rid of them.

Alright, time for bed. Don't ride till Saturday, so we're in no rush and I don't even have to leave the house until 9:30 or so.

I can't even tell you how excited I am for this clinic. A little apprehensive, because I just don't school hard for 2 hours at a time ever, but I think we can handle it. I'm hoping to take a lot away from the weekend, and of course I will come back with a full report. No promises on pictures, because neither of my official photographers will be there.

Hope everyone has a happy weekend.

Quick Update

Hi guys - I am busily getting ready for this weekend. I leave with a friend on Friday at about noon for the Brian Sabo clinic in Redmond, which I am VERY excited for. But it's a lot to get ready for, even just a two-day jaunt. Pack the clothes, empty the horse trailer, repack the horse trailer, make sure everything's clean, buy and pack food, grab food for the horse, evict those little bitty bee/wasp/buzzy-thing nests from the trailer tack room . . .

Everything has been going well at the new barn. It's still lovely and quiet and have I mentioned the hay?

I've had some pretty good schooling sessions with Pandora. I still feel stuck a lot of times on dressage, but a lot of that is my problem not hers - it's just a lack of practical experience. We'll keep working our way forward until I take some lessons anyway, I don't think we're doing anything wrong; we're just slowly stepping along, working things out for ourselves.

I've done a few nice gallops out in the field. Yesterday I was reminded why I ride. After a long morning helping out at a Pony Club mock rally, my boyfriend Jon and I drove out to the barn. We were talking about friends I think, and not getting along with people, or some similarly deep topic. A few moments of silence passed, and then he asked what I was thinking. "Oh," I said, "I'm just trying to figure out if I should go through the grid today or just do flatwork, or maybe change the grid up . . ."

Yup. Give me five seconds and my mind's back on the horses.

"Don't you ever get tired of it?"
Now this I had to actually think about.
"Yeah. All the time, actually. I get discouraged, or bored, or just tired. I don't want to go out, I don't want to ride. Most of the time, I just do it anyway, because in the long term it's what I want and need to do. Sure, if I miss a ride here or there, it's not a big deal...but if I didn't make that choice every day, I'd never get anywhere."
I thought some more.
"Like today. I don't feel like riding right now. I'm tired, and I'd really like to just come out here and longe her for 15 minutes and leave. But I'm going to ride, because I need to."

So I hopped on. We spent 10 minutes on flatwork in the arena. She was good, quite good - mellow, responsive, relaxed. So we headed out to the field, where I did some trotting, cantering, and galloping. Pandora was excellent out there too! Big, ground-covering trot. Easy, relaxed canter, just plunking along at a calm speed until I asked her to open up, and then coming right back to me. (McKinna was hollering for her off and on for the whole ride, by the way. Pandora ignored her for the most part.) Jon got some really cool pictures, which I will steal from him and put up on the blog ASAP. Since she was so good for that, I decided to hop her through the grid once or twice in the outdoor arena, then call it done for the day.

She was perfect going through the grid. Mellow but forward, relaxed, not trying to rush at all. Jon took video. I went through twice and hopped off.

The whole ride lasted about 20 minutes, but we worked pretty hard for most of it. It was a good workout.

By the end, I couldn't wipe the grin off my face. As I untacked, I enthused to my patient boyfriend about how good the ride was, how rateable she was outside, how much better she went through the grid now than at that bad lesson a couple weeks ago, etc. At last I concluded - "So that's why I ride every day. Because even if I'm tired of it, most of the time I come out of it glad I decided to get up there."

I went from being in a tired, crappy mood to being tired but cheerful and really pleased with my horse. It was a good day. Not only was she good for me in general, it was also the first day I'd taken her up to the main barn (maybe 1/5 mile away from the pasture) without taking McKinna up too. Pandora and McKinna both handled themselves quite well.

So that's how things are going. My ride today was pretty good too, just a half hour before the farrier came out. It's been lots of checkups lately - the vet came out on Friday to check teeth and do vaccinations while she was out. Pandora was actually in perfect shape, even though it's been a year since her teeth have been done, so I scored a lower vet bill. McKinna needed done. Poor thing, she always looks so pathetic when she's sedated. I also bought a tube of banamine to have on hand.

Very, very excited for the clinic this weekend. Fingers crossed it's worth the money!

Speaking of money - dang, internet shopping is dangerous. I got a pair of Dublin Aristocrats for $37 on sale at Bit of Britain. SERIOUSLY. Tall boots. For less than $40. I also got a polo for my mom and me to share. And a few weeks ago, I got a pair of Ariat Icebergs - a winter boot, but a tall boot, so I can ride in them. I am SO excited. They're all fleecy and warm and insulated. I have had cold toes every winter, because my Ariat work boots aren't insulated or super waterproof, and my rubber boots are definitely not insulated. For the first time, I'll have warm toes!

Anyway. I've put a bit of a moratorium on internet shopping for myself, as the return to school means a drop in work hours. The money inflow comes down, but the board payment does not. Sigh.

Hope all is well, and I'll check back in a day or two with some pictures before I head off to the clinic. Then I will hopefully return with a successful, happy clinic report!



PS, here is a video of us lolloping through Grid Therapy v. 1.2. Very calm and relaxed, no? I need to shorten my stirrups for jumping, but the fences were so low it didn't really matter.




Look at that stretch down at the end. "I'm TIRED, are we done yet?" Like I really worked her that hard. 20 minutes, give me a break.

Picture Time!

The new barn is still as wonderful as ever. The barn owner dragged and watered the outdoor - which apparently nobody else ever uses, but it's RIGHT next to our separate little barn where the two girls are - AND she says I can set up fences and leave them up out there. Score!

Since Pandora apparently has some lingering "OMGGOFAST" grid issues, I have decided to carefully and methodically do some Grid Therapy, much like the Dressage Judge therapy I do every once in awhile. Last night I set up the beginnings of the grid - just four trot poles to an X with a landing pole. We went through it twice at the end of the ride, nice and easy, and she was completely relaxed. This I expected, because honestly that simple of a grid she should be able to do in her sleep.

Each day I'm going to add one more level of complexity to the grid until she's calmly jumping trot-poles to X, one stride to a vertical, two strides to an oxer (if I can fit all that in the arena). I'm also going to set up the grid outside in the big field. If she can calmly go forth in that situation, the rating will be a piece of cake.

Speaking of the big field, I went to check it out last night. A boarder said to watch out for the holes out there, and indeed there are some holes in the field, but highly visible ones with piles of dirt, and most of them are clustered in one area so quite easy to avoid. I did some trotting, cantering, and galloping out there, and it went well. I had to remind her with a modified pulley rein (set outside hand on tight rein, gentle tugs up and in with the inside rein instead of the short sharp yanks you use in an emergency) to stay OFF of her left shoulder. Other than that, we still have all the gears, though I didn't go super fast.

I'm looking forward to being able to practice a little galloping, as well as doing some trot sets. Not that she really NEEDS trot sets to go novice, but, you know, eventually. In the future.

And without further ado, pictures!

Here are their two stalls. Both horses are actually in the stalls, you just can't see them because they have their heads more or less permanently shoved into their piles of excellent hay.

Here they are venturing forth from the pasture. Without fail, when they see us, they come to the gate. There are benefits to having spent the entire summer feeding your horses their grain only when you bring them in from the pasture.

McKinna after her post-ride rinse. No warm water, but apparently that is in the works. At any rate, it is SO NICE to have a designated wash area complete with mats, drainage, and a tie post!

Grid Therapy, version 1.0. Easy peasy.

We painted all of that stuff ourselves! You can hardly see the last trot pole, it is a very nice greenish-grey color striped with beige. It's nice to have brightly colored poles now instead of plain wooden ones, and they are much nicer on the hands to carry.

I have a video of us plunking through the grid, but we're having uploading issues. I'll try to get it up later.

Settling In

Well, we moved the girls on Sunday afternoon. It was pretty low-key, actually - strip the stalls, load up all the equipment, then stick 'em on the trailer with some hay bags and we're off to the new barn.

They settled in quickly and calmly, which we expected - they both have been calm in temporary stabling situations at shows and clinics, and this wasn't much different. In fact, it was easier, because they were together! (They also had piles of the barn's fantastic orchard grass/timothy hay, so they shoved their noses straight in.) The only sign of nervousness was the way Pandora followed McKinna. They are stalled next to each other, and each stall opens out to a large run. Whenever McKinna went outside, Pandora spun around and walked quickly outside. When she came in, Pandora came in. Kinda cute.

We left them with that for the day, and I PROMISE I took some pictures, I will upload them when I get home tonight.

Yesterday they went out in the (big, nice, OMG) pasture, though they were quite ready to come in when we arrived. Nervous a little, maybe? They were a bit 'up' all evening. We longed them separately, one in the indoor and one in the outdoor, which caused a bit of hollering, but in all they weren't totally nutty. We then tacked up and went for a nice brief ride in the indoor arena, for which both mares behaved admirably well.

We met a lady who trains several boarders' horses. She is extremely nice, and is going to be my new trail-riding buddy! Apparently, there are some trails at the back of the property, but she didn't want to take horses out by herself and of course I wouldn't either, so this is a nice situation. I'll probably take McKinna out first, since I believe she has a bit more 'real' trail experience. Ideally I'll be riding both girls out there on a pretty regular basis, as to me trail riding is an excellent way to condition for eventing.

I am so happy with this barn. It's quiet, everyone we've met has been very friendly and outgoing (especially the barn owner), the horses have super nice hay in front of them at all times....it's just lovely so far. We walked their pasture on Sunday, and other than a strand of barbed wire across the top of most of the fenceline (not something I like), it's great. Very big. Extremely varied terrain - some people might like manicured pastures, but remember I'm an eventer, and while I don't want my horses to be hurting themselves dealing with ridiculous conditions, I want them to be able to figure out elevation changes, trees, banks, etc on their own. There's a creek bed, dry at the moment, with a nice crossing point and a little trail. Lots of trees for shade, plus a little run-in shed. I also plan to do some riding in there, which I have permission to do, because it'll be a great mini-trail ride and I think there's actually enough space that I can do some cantering. Failing that, trotting for sure.

We started setting up our little tack room last night. Our horses are at the upper barn, which is about 30 feet from the main barn - it has three stalls, a tack room, and some other storage space. Ours are the only two horses up there right now, so it feels a little like our own private barn ;-)

I am excited to go out to the barn each evening now. This is the first time we've done full care, and I've got to say, I am already loving not having to muck stalls. It's not that I think it's below me - heck, it's the best way to warm up in the wintertime! - it's just, when you can show up and immediately tack up and ride instead of mucking stalls, cleaning water buckets, picking the paddock, etc....you have a lot more energy to ride. The time we spend at the barn seems shorter because we don't have to do chores. (Maybe with less chores I will start cleaning my tack after every ride, eh?)

Pictures up this evening. Things on Pandora are pretty much back on track, by the way - I think everyone was right and we just had a couple bad days. I had a great ride last night with lots of obedient lateral work, which I think is the key to suppling and strengthening her. There's several different places at the new barn that I can get out and ride her outside, so I will be practicing calm half-halts while cantering in the open again. If I can find a big enough open area in their pasture, I will also start working up to being able to jump a grid calmly outside, starting with just a trot pole and building up from there.

I'll let you guys know how it goes.