Dear Winter...You suck

I think Reily and I both feel this way, but for two very different reasons.

I hate winter because winter means cold.  Cold means big bulky layers of clothing.  Bulky clothes mean awkward, imprecise riding.  Awkward, imprecise riding means I get sad.  Also I hate cold wind.  Also I hate getting up in the pitch dark because I can't even see where I'm throwing the hay.  Also I hate static electricity because it means I can't kiss pony noses without shocking us both and consequently making them hate me.

Reily hates winter because winter means draw reins and lots of boring flat work.  Draw reins mean he has to learn to carry himself correctly in the canter without making me hold him up.  Self carriage means hard work.  And lets face it, horses hate hard work.

Our contact and aids have gotten continually better.  He's doing well with turn on the forehand and walk pirouettes.  We're still working on getting his turn on the haunches up to par and I need to start working on haunches in with him.  He's doing well going on the bit consistantly at the walk and trot but he's still resistant in the canter.  I don't want to yank his head down and be heavy handed with him, and I definitely don't want him to think it's ok to only go on the bit at the canter if he makes me hold up his entire front end.  So, draw reins it is.  We'll still do plenty of trail riding, hacking, and hill work so life doesn't get too boring but I've decided that essentially every ride we flat will be in his dressage saddle (good for us both to get more practice in it) with draw reins.

According to Reily, life officially sucks.  But we'll both be better for it.

The beast

Guess who's got 4 hooves, red hair, and is a complete beast............ REILY IS!!!!!

That's right, you heard me, Reily is a total baller.  This is probably only his 3rd or 4th XC schooling and this horse just upstaged about every other greeny I know.  Hell he upstaged my own horse who I've been riding for 8 years and can't seem to get past Novice.  You guys heard me praising his very first XC schooling where he trotted right over the ditch but this is absolutely amazing.

The weather was unseasonally nice, close to 70, so even though he was super fuzzy we took him over to Green Hill to have some fun.  We warmed up on top of the hill then started with a few simple logs and coops which he cleared in fine fashion.  Then I figured it was nice out and we hadn't brought Boo cause Ben wanted to walk with Oscar, the new puppy, so I didn't have any reason to cut the fun short.  We went on to jump bike racks, tiger traps, trakners, a hogs back, roll tops and boxes, the ditch, the ditch and brush (!!!!!!!), the cabins (both the Beg. Novice and Novice one!!!!!), and an up and down bank.  Talk about excited and proud!  That doesn't even begin to explain how I felt.  I never got the chance to compete Scotty in eventing before I retired him, so this is the first horse I've ever ridden who is just completely fearless XC.  It's the most amazing feeling ever.  This horse is going to go places, I just hope I can keep up with his talent!!

Oscar the Wylde man

Just a little guy

We got a puppy!!!!!!!!  This was completely unplanned and honestly it wasn't even my fault.  Some friends had a Halloween bonfire on the 27th and when we got there we walked into a crowd of canines because almost everyone had brought their dog/s.  But the very first thing I saw was the cutest little puppy ever.  I was sort of confused because I didn't recognize him as any of our friends' dog but I quickly learned that the friends who were hosting the party were fostering him for the Roanoke Valley SPCA and he was available for adoption after the foster term was over.  RVSPCA won't adopt them out until they're 10 weeks and he was only 9.  As much as we all know I love puppies I really wasn't even thinking about getting him.  I was DD for the night though and by the time 12:45 rolled around and Ben was still having a good time I knew I needed a nap or I was never going to make the 45 min drive home.  So the puppy and I took the warmest, cuddliest nap together for an hour or 2 until everything was winding down.



Puppy ball



Let me be clear about it now.  The boyfriend had already started warming up to the puppy himself and he's not much of a dog guy, infact he's pretty predominantly a cat guy.  By the time we were ready to go home he'd decided "It can't hurt anything to take him for a week and see if he and Maddie [my dog] get along and he's not scared of the horses and stuff".  We were having a bonfire at our house the following weekend and our friends would be coming down for that anyways.  So we drove home with an exhausted and confused little pup, a drunk and happy boy, and a weary but happy me.  I knew if we got another animal I would be blamed for the acquisition.  That's why I want it to be known I made the boyfriend make the final decision and he's the one you want to point the finger at.

But I can't complain, we already love him.  He had to go back with our friends to the SPCA to get his booster shots and get neutered then we got to pick him up today :)  We named him Oscar, we're guessing he's a pit bull/rhodesian ridgeback mix, but there's really no telling.  All I know is he's the cutest, he's going to be a big boy (yay!) and he LOVES to cuddle!

Happy Anniversary to us



First ride on Nov. 12, 2011



Reily came home one year ago today, and what a year it's been!  This horse is just spoiled rotten.  He get's oil on his food, tons of cookie stretches, and all the loving he can stand.  Even when he's a turd it's impossible to stay mad at him for long.  He gives you those big sad eyes and a gap-toothed grin and you just have to give in.

Reily has turned out to be the coolest horse I could have asked for!  Scotty was the best first horse I could ever have because he already knew his job, took care of me, let me do anything I wanted, and jumped everything I pointed him at.  He's never been a fancy horse, he's got sort of awkard confirmation, a great big head and it's impossible for him to produce a collected canter.  But when you're a kid, none of that matters to you because all you want to do is run like the wind and jump everything in your path and that was Scotty's forte.  I was so incredibly lucky to have him as my first horse and that's why he's got a home with me until the end of his days.  He more than earned his happy retirement.  But Reily is going to give him a real run for his money.  Not only is Reily fearless and forward, but he's got that extra bit of athleticism and poise that makes him quite a fancy horse.  And with that big, bold blaze and puppy-dog personality he's already attracting fans (like he did at the BCHA show).  Sometimes I feel like "geez, it's been a year, why haven't I gotten him further in his training?!" then I get sort of discouraged about it.  But considering that:

1) I have a full-time job that involves a desk 8+ hours a day (well, not this second, but for a majority of the last year).

2) That job required extensive overtime for 4 months, add on daylight savings time and you get a poor neglected horse who only gets ridden twice a week and a really grumpy rider who wants more saddle time.

3) I'm an amature, this is my first horse straight off the track, and I've had less than a handful of lessons with him.

4) Trips, weddings, pony health scares and generally life can really mess up your riding plans.

So keeping all of that in mind I'm not quite as sad about our progress.  He's still come leaps and bounds from where he was last November!  And in a way I'm glad it's been slow progress, seeing as how he's only 4 I don't want to rush into doing the big stuff so it means we can take our merry time getting there so that when he turns 5 for real (April 4th!) I'll feel more confident about asking more of him.  He has definietly grown more but I expect he's just about done now.  Hopefully next year we can do a lot more lessons and showing :)  Here's to many more wonderful years together

Worst day of my life

So for the last 5 days I've been up at my trainers place farm sitting for her and her boyfriend while they went to the beach.  I took Boo and Reily up there with me so I could ride them the whole time and utilize her wonderful sand arena to get Reily ready for his show last Saturday.  I got up there Wednesday night and they left Thursday morning.  While they were gone I was taking care of all the animals and also riding several of her horses for her.

Wouldn't you know it, while I was riding the second horse for the day I saw several of her horses in an adjacent pasture come running out of the shade of the woods and it looked like they were just playing and I didn't think much of it.  After finish the horse I was on I took care of him and headed out to his pasture, which happens to be the same one where the horses were running earlier.  I had brought out the halter for the next horse, Cannon, who is this massive 18+ hand warmblood (draft/TB cross) and coincidentally who I was planning to work next.  But when I got out there Cannon was still acting like a maniac and when he finally got close to me and the other horses I saw why and my heart started beating about a million miles an hour... a 2 foot long piece of old barbed wire was wrapped around his right hind leg.  In addition there was one pesky horse fly buzzing around and on the entire farm there is only one horse who absolutely loses it's mind over flies, and of course that's Cannon.  I manage to get his halter on but with his butt going bonkers about the horse fly there was no way I could get the barbed wire.  In a stroke of luck he was stomping and kicking so much that he actually untangled himself and the wire fell off.  I kicked it to the fence so none of the other horses could do anything stupid and tried to keep Cannon under control enough to get him back to the barn.  Now imagine me, all of 5'3" trying to hold a frantic 18+ hand 1,250 lb horse walking across 2 fields back to the barn being chased by a killer horse fly.  I can't jump high to save my life, but my feet grew springs and somehow I managed to jump up high enough to stun that horse fly and finally get Cannon under control.

I knew it was bad but I couldn't really evaluate it until I got him up to the barn and see how extensive the damage was.  Once I got him up I looked all over his legs and he had several minor scrapes and cuts on both hind legs but on his right hind he had a good 3 inch gash straight through the skin to the tendon.  I called Pat right away and she called the vet and explained the situation to them and told them it was an emergency.  After a couple of hours they got there and stitched him up and said it wasn't good, but it wasn't the worst they'd ever had.  We decided to leave him on the farm but if at any point it started to look like something I couldn't or didn't feel comfortable handling I'd haul him up to the VT vet school and they'd take over his care.  He was on a ridiculously large amount of antibiotics 2x/day, I had to change his dressings 1x/day cold hosing for 20 minutes each time then re-wrapping him, he could be hand grazed a couple times a day but only enough to stretch his legs not to the point of exercise, and otherwise he was confined to stall rest.  I was glad that Pat trusted me enough to take care of him, but it was a less than ideal situation.

Well if I thought that was bad, things were about to get much, much worse.  My trainer and her boyfriend got home late Sunday night and on Monday morning I was supposed to go with Pat to look at a pony several hours away.  We were planning to leave around 9, but my phone rang at 7 and it was my boyfriend.  Now, he had been taking care of Scotty and Napoleon for me while I was gone and you always worry when someone taking care of your animals has to call.  I picked up the phone and by his tone of voice I immediately knew something was wrong.  He said, "Hey, I was just feeding Scotty and he's fine, but I'm kinda worried about Napoleon"... instant panic mode
"What do you mean, what's he doing?!"
"Well he's just coughing a lot. I don't know he doesn't seem normal." This is coming from a boy who knows next to nothing about horses so my mind and heart are racing.
"Coughing how, explain it to me"
"I don't know, just coughing and drooling a lot and there's some funky stuff coming out of his nose."
"SHIT!!!! It sounds like he's choking!!! Did he eat anything?!"
"I didn't feed him anything, but there's all these piles of goo or drool or something"
I had already jumped out of bed and was literally throwing everything into my bag.  We hung up and I was running down the stairs and telling Pat I had to leave while I was flying out the door.  They helped me get everything in my truck and load the horses right away.  I called my vet and told her I had to get her to go to the house immediately but she said I had to find someone to hold him because she couldn't tube him by herself.  I had to call the neighbors who, thankfully, are home most of the time and they agreed to help hold him.  Because I was driving the truck and trailer I knew it would take me at least an hour to get home.

When I got home I just parked the truck and left Boo and Reily on for the time being to go check Napoleon.  I was literally in tears.  She had him tubed but wasn't getting anything out.  She said she was hitting the blockage a few inches from his stomach so it was far down but definitely stuck.  He looked so broken, he was sweaty and exhausted and completely lethargic.  She pulled the tube back out and said to give him a few minutes.  I just sat there holding his head and crying and apologizing to him.  My vet said she didn't feel comfortable tubing him again because she'd done it 4 times but wasn't making any progress and the last time she got blood back from this esophagus.  She said she was using the softest tube she had but was afraid that if it was bleeding, tubing him again might cause it to rupture and then we'd lose him for sure.  I don't have the money to spend right now but losing Napoleon is NOT an option.  He's not that old yet and I've had him for 20 years, I love this little pony more than anything else in the world.  She called Tech and got a quote on doing a scope and ultrasound, it would start at $250 and I'd have to decide how far to take it from there.  I couldn't not take him.  So we grabbed the big horses off the trailer, threw them in the field took out all the hay and put Napoleon in the trailer and I turned around and got straight back on the road heading to Blacksburg.  Needless to say, if anyone looked at me on the road that day I'm sure they would have thought I was a suicide case.  I cried the entire way to Blacksburg. 

THANK GOD, when we got there and they got the scope down his throat they found that whatever the reason (maybe he finally relaxed enough in the trailer to pass it the rest of the way down, maybe he finally coughed it loose, there's no telling) the blockage was gone.  They also found and took pictures of the laceration that was causing the blood in the tube.  They did the ultra sound as well and found a bit more fluid then normal (for his age some fluid is normal) so it was apparent he had aspirated some as well.  With the scope, ultrasound, blood work, floating for his teeth, and meds (almost $200 alone!!) I walked away with a $700 vet bill but my treasured pony was in one piece and would live to be fuzzy for another day.  It was more than worth it.

Poor little Napoleon is on 4 weeks (holy shit!) of stall rest plus 2 antibiotics, 1 anti-inflammatory, 1 pain killer, 1 dental rinse and a limited diet for at least the next 2 weeks.  So in a way I'm happy that I'm jobless right now, despite the vet bill that happened at arguably the worst time possible.  He has to get medications and feedings every 4-6 hours a day for the next 14 days so I'm very, very glad I'll be home to take the best possible care of him.

However, my brother's wedding is this coming weekend... horses have the worst timing ever.  Thank goodness for good friends!

BCHA=cheap fun

The Botetourt County Horseman's Association hosts a show at Green Hill Park every year.  Now, what I love about this show- 1) It's actually got jumper classes, an annoyingly scarce occurance at GHPEC shows for some stupid reason; 2) It has incredibly affordable classes, typically $8 or $9.

Maxin' and relaxin' in the in-gate crowd

I still haven't found a job but I felt like Reily was getting REALLY bored with the same old, same old at home.  I'd been doing some odd jobs/ horse work to make a little extra money and felt it was worth the $27 to take Reily to the show and let him do something new and exciting.  Boo-who got to stay home because there was no excuse to spend the extra money.

So Reily went and we had him entered in 3 classes at 3 different heights (2'-2'3"; 2'3"-2'6"; and 2'6"-2'9").  The course was not entirely to my liking because it just had a really rangy feel.  It was really a hunter course set-up with an added narrow on one end of the ring so for the "jumper" course it was a ton of single fences, no lines, bending lines, related distances or anything and I just felt like it was lacking in the educational department.  Essentially you jumped either the in or out of a hunter line, went around to the other end of the ring jumping the in/out of another line, and so on and so forth.  The only change up was that (and this was again really poor planning) the narrow fence was added in for the jumper course and it came directly after the only oxer in the ring... who does that?  Anyways, due to the course design it meant you jumped big over this oxer then made and almost 90 degree turn to the narrow, landed then make another 90 degree turn to get turned back towards the final jump.  Did I mention that the oxer was headed straight for the in-gate...yeah, poor course planning.

I figured something new is better than nothing and since the course was the same for all the jumper classes I figured if we had real issues in one class we had 2 more chances to school it.  And it proved to have some educational merit after all.

In the first class (2'-2'3") I tried to stay as out of his way as possible I wanted him to make the decisions on where to take off but if he was hesitating I'd give him a little squeeze and he responded immediately.  Since I care more about his training then I do about some silly ribbon we made big wide turns to help him (and me) regroup as needed.  He got almost all of his lead changes naturally which I was so happy about!  If he was on the wrong lead and felt unbalanced he'd swap.  We had a big steering issue after the oxer at 7 to the narrow at 8.  As I was ranting about earlier the oxer was right before the narrow and headed straight for the in-gate.  So when he jumped 7 he was staring straight at the in-gate and not listening to me so once I finally got him turned in the right direction we met the narrow fence really crooked.  Thankfully it was so small for him it didn't matter so with a little cluck and squeeze of the heels he popped right over anyways.  He earned himself a 2nd place ribbon even with the great big turns we made and the turning issue.  Reily's got big, ground covering strides but it really goes to show you, good training is a hell of a lot better than reckless riding, tearing around the course ruining any good you may have ever done at home or in lessons.  And unfortunately I see that a LOT from the people who show at Green Hill.

The second class (2'3"-2'6") was the same course but this time we weren't so lucky.  Now that the jumps were a bit bigger he jumped the oxer with even more enthusiasm and I just didn't sit up and take enough.  So this time we meant the narrow at about a 45+ degree angle, and of course hindsight is 20/20 and if I could do it over I would have just circled him and presented it straight rather than asking something outrageous of him.  If he was already at, say, training level then it wouldn't be such a stretch to ask him to jump it as such an extreme angle, but he's a little green bean still and this was only his 3rd show.  Bad riding and pilot error this time, but after a correct approach he went over just fine.  Even with the faults and time he still got 6th.

His last class (2'6"-2'9") I was determined to make it work at that turn.  So coming down to the oxer I actually bridged my reins and asked for a big whoa on the landing.  We made a good, all be it, tight turn to the narrow and I made a big fuss over him because that was my only real goal for that class, for him to learn that if I asked for a whoa I meant listen now, not later.  We did pull a rail at 9 because I cut the turn a little too tight and sort of buried him at the base.  But I couldn't care less about that because I was just happy we made that turn.  He earned himself a 4th in this class.

Teaching while Reily naps

I also helped school a couple girls and their horses which was great fun cause I love seeing that my input is actually improving the way they go.  It makes me feel like a real trainer ;)  Reily just stood around with me while I raised and changed jump poles and some little girl came over asking if she could hold him for me.  I was sort of baffled but the way she was asking I think she thought something might happen if I was holding him and doing that at the same time.  I'm not sure what made her think that because Reily was napping and being perfect the whole time.  I was like "He's fine, but if you want to, sure" and handed her his reins while he dozed away.  Then she looked at him harder and was like, "Hey, this is that horse that I really liked in that jumper class.  He was so cute!".  I just chuckled cause I thought it was adorable Reily was already collecting fans.  He can't help that he's so handsome and wonderful.

All-in-all, great success!!!

Mini XC

We don't have much in the way of jumps/poles etc. at home but we make do with what he have.  Since I still had Pat's (amazing!) camera and the girls had been exercising the boys for me while I was gone I felt comfortable the boys were fit enough to do some makeshift XC schooling last night.  I have a few trees and PVC pipes to use as poles, a couple of barrels and I repurposed the compost "house" to make a coop jump.  The weather was fabulous and the boyfriend agreed to take pics for us.

Boo was good.  He had his usual cheeky, tantrum moments but no refusals or major bucking fits.  He's such a funny horse.  He's rarely a joy the whole time you're riding, but when he's good he's very fun to ride.  Not to blow my own horn (especially since it only took what, like 8 years?!) but he's really a pretty well trained horse.  He's decenlty adjustable and good to the aids, but damned if he doesn't make you work for every second of it.  He can be such a pain in the ass, but he's made me a lot better rider for it!

Reily was also great.  He had never seen a lot of this stuff before.  Barrels, the PVC poles, and skinny jumps were all new for him.  Pardon my disgusting equiation in some of these pics.  It's awful but sometimes he would jump so big he'd jump me out of the tack and other times I was pinching a lot with my knees and just got way ahead of him, subsequently crawling up his neck.  Sixteen days without riding and my eq went to sh*t  :'(  What matters most to me is making sure I don't catch him in the mouth so honestly as long as I'm not doing that I can live with myself while I get back in the swing.  Riding through some of his big leaps was hysterical, but looking through the pictures is even more hilarious!  He's such a good boy though, he'll really go anywhere you point him and it's great for him to do tons of stuff at this level.  I want him to learn where to take off while the jumps are little like this so that, later on, when we get to the bigger stuff and I get him to a fence funny he can save both of our butts.  So as funny as it is to see pictures like this one... where he took off WAAAYY long, I want him to learn that if that happens here's what he'll have to do to still safely get us to the other side.

It was a great night of riding :)

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The Bad: I got laid off from my job and unemployment is barely going to cover my bills.  And since this happened a week before my trip it's far to late to cancel.  Sadly, we'll have to cut back and be more selective with some of our touring choices :'(

The Good: I was really starting to hate my life there.  The environment was unfriendly and growing more uncomfortable by the week, so I'm actually relieved in a way.  I can chalk this up to a lesson learned, start looking for a new job before getting stuck in this situation!  At least while I job search I'll be at home all day so I can ride and study for my CPA exams a LOT in the mean time.

The Ugly: Poor boyfriend will have to be buying most all of the groceries and probably more than his half of rent until I get another job.


As anxious as I feel about all of it, everything is already lined up and booked for the trip, boyfriend is taking care of the ponies and a couple of friends have agreed to come out and exercise the horses a few days each week so they don't go completely idle while I'm away.



These cuties always cheer me up

 Until next time, I'll be surfing job postings :/

Look out Europe...

Lock up your kids and practice your emergency evacuation procedures... because Celeste and Susanna are coming back!!!!!!!!

That's right folks, I'm excited to announce that it's official, one of my best friends and I will be returning to the motherland.  Two summers ago I flew over to meet her in Spain and we traveled for two weeks within Spain/the Balaraic Islands.  She's doing the same oper job again this summer and her parents offered to pay half my plane ticket again if I can adventure with her again this summer!   This time we'll be meeting in Dublin, Ireland traveling to the west side of the island than around the lower rim before flying to England.  There we'll spend a couple days with her relatives in Cheltenham then go to London (right after the Olympics and right before the Paralympics) before taking the chunnell train to Belgium.  In Belgium we'll go first to Bruges were we'll get to meet up with my best friend Isa (who I haven't seen in something like 8 years!!!!)  then ride back to Brussells with Isa and spend the night there before I fly out the next morning.  Susanna will continue on with the epic adventure through Germany and Italy before returning the Spain and then home to the good old US of A.  I'm so excited I can hardly believe it!!!!!!

RVHS

So I had considered showing Boo in a couple of the little, unrecognized jumper classes but after adding up all the fees, even for those little dinky classes, it just wasn't worth the cost.  However, one of the major benefits of living close to the venue (which is the Salem Civic Center)  is that we can pack up, trailer over, school in the groomed arenas, utlilize the fancy jumps and just go home.  So that's the route we chose.  The boyfriend, wonderful as always, tagged along to hold ponies and take pictures because he's just that awesome.

I rode Boo first, flatted him and then did a bit of jumping doing some single fences, lines, bending lines and finishing with a couple little made up courses.  He was good.... as long as I rode.  Predicably I did not ride a few times and he thoroughly embarrassed me in front of anyone who was watching (hopefully just a few random people I'll never see again) and certainly scared the living shit out of one of the horse show officals who thought maybe, I "really should just let it go".  Umm, thanks but I know my shit-headed horse and if I was doing my job, trust me, I can make him do his, despite that you apparently think he's dangerous.  He's not that dangerous.  He's just an ass.  And I really can ride, I just wasn't right that second.  Thoroughly embarrassed and moving on.  Otherwise Boo was good.  His one ridiculous habit... being TERRIFIED to walk over the hard plastic things they run over the wiring to protect it from being run over by cars, golf carts, hooves, etc.  He jumped them. Every. Single. Time.

Reily on the other hand was a total champ (about the plastic covers and riding) per his usual self.   We did quite a bit of flatwork to start which he was very good during.  He was however, extremely excited to jump, to the point that when I set up some trot poles to work over he decided he wasn't entirely sure what I wanted so the best thing to do would be to jump across 3 of the 4 poles instead of trot through them.  Needlesstosay I was completely caught off guard and the boyfriend managed to capture this amazing moment on film.  Luckily for Reily we did get to jumping after some good flat work.  He was great for that as well.  Height doesn't seem to be any issue for him, which is great, but his technique is still very green (to be expected) so that will be an ongoing process.  We jumped some x-rails, some verticals and finished jumping in a figure-8 pattern over a nice square oxer.  This exercise was great for him because it helps him with landing on the correct lead or changing leads as needed, to keep a steady tempo and be adjustable.  Overall I was VERY pleased with how he handled himself!!  Even though I purposely schooled him in a ring that was on the edge of the grounds there was still a lot to look at and take in.  Noises, sounds, smells, traffic, none of it really phased him :)

After Reily was done and walked out I rode him, while the boyfriend led Boo-butt, and we went for a slow, meandering walk through the show grounds between all the temporary stabling, vendors, schooling and show rings.  He was alert but never put a step wrong.  He's such a cutie he even caught the eye of a little girl walking around with her parents and he let her pet his nose before heading back to the trailer.  Boo was very good walking around too, which I'm not sure I've ever done with him before so I was happy with him as well.  All in all, a successful day :)

Like a BOSS

That's right, Reily is a BAMF!  Want to know why?  Because he completed his first Horse Trials yesterday!!!  Yaaaaaaaayyyyyy!!!!!!!

We did the "Green" division which consisted of Intro Test C for dressage, a 2' show jumping course with lots of oxers and filler, and max 2'3" XC fences.  He was definitely more calm at this show but because he and Boo where in back-to-back divisions it got very hectic very quickly. 

He warmed up decently for dressage, we're still not to the point where he'll accept steady, consistent contact but I was happy he would take a few strides on the bit, then his head would go up and his nose would go out, then he'd come back down and take contact, and so on.  But I felt like he was as calm and forward as I was going to get him for his second show and felt good about where he was at mentally when we stepped into the ring.  Our first halt was much better than last time, I saluted and we trotted off to C tracking right, and just as I'm turning the corner... "LOOSE HORSE! LOOSE HORSE! Heads up at the dressage rings, loose horse headed your way!!!".  I was concentrating so hard on his test I was confused why everyone was screaming, including the judge who got out of her car and was frantically screaming at me to halt.  Chill peeps, Reily and I got this, we ride in the field at home all the time with the other boys running around loose, he's not going to gallop away with me.  Well the renegade did come straight down to the dressage rings and was trotting around enjoying his freedom outside the arena fence, but Reily just stared and then we walked around in little circles until the little Houdini found his barn buddy and was caught.  Good news is, Reily kept his head like an old pro.  Bad news, it COMPLETELY broke our concentration and though I (thankfully) remembered his test when we were allowed to start again, I just couldn't regain his attention the way I'd had it before.  So our test left much to be desired, but I don't blame him for that.  This is horses, sh*t is gonna happen, it just by chance happened during our test, no reason to really sweat it.

The weather was nice but threatening rain all day and, go figure, it held off until right before Reily's stadium round.  That was really inopportune because the stadium warm up was on turf with rather long grass and it got slippery pretty quick.  Reily only has front shoes right now and no stud holes, not that I have any studs to use anyways, but it just made for a less confidence building warm up because he was having a hard time keeping his feet under him.  The actual show jumping course was in an arena with all-weather footing so I was glad for that at least.  We went in and had a decent round.  Unfortunately I didn't use enough leg and he wasn't entirely paying attention so we had a refusal at fence two and when we came back around we got there funny and pulled a rail.  Otherwise his round was good.  He was definitely a little strong but I think it was mostly the atmosphere causing that.

The rain had slowed almost to a stop by the time we walked out to XC and luckily I knew that BREA had just cut the grass on the various XC paths so I felt more confident about the footing not being too slippery for him out there.  He was raring to go and even though it was really a rather long track, even for his level, the optimum time was VERY generous, almost even excessive.  We trotted a bit cantered most of it and by the time I was one away from home we still had about 1min 30secs left so I actually walked him down the steepest hill to the final jump so I knew we wouldn't slip any going down and to give him a little breather too.  Unfortunately, I'm obviously no Buck "Runs 11 Horses Each Weekend" Davidson out of shape because after riding 3 exhasting phases on Boo and 2 slightly less exhausting phases on Reily my legs were tired as crap and I was just sort of on autopilot, enjoying the breeze and not paying attention and Reily, surprisingly, ran out on the 3rd jump from home.  He wasn't scared he was just checking to make sure I was still awake up there... I wasn't  :(  It was totally my fault but I was definitely caught off guard.  But hey, there's no day dreaming allowed, especially on XC, no matter how trustworthy the horse.  Touche Reily, touche.  Other than that silly mistake XC was great.  Almost all of his fences were just little logs and I think there might have been one mulch mound and a tiny little baby hanging log with a fake ditch underneath.  All very straightforward and inviting fences.  A perfect introduction to the joy of HTs  :)

My little boy’s growing up!

So we’ve been riding a lot lately but I just haven’t had anything super significant to write about so pardon our absence.  Tax season is ALMOST over, so soon I’ll be able to do an awful lot more with my boys and this blog, just bear with us a few more weeks!

Though tax season can pretty much kiss my butt, my boss was at least willing to let me off of my mandatory half day on Saturday morning as long as I made up the 4 hours Saturday night or Sunday, so I got to take Reily and Boo to their first show of the season, and Reily’s first show EVER!!  If you’re reading this you probably already knew about it because I’ve been blabbering about how excited I was to anyone who would listen (and even to some who wouldn’t!) for weeks, I know, I’m shameless.  But I was just so EXCITED! Reily’s first ever show, what could even be any more exciting?!  Exactly J

Well I had Reily entered in the tiniest Combined Test (CT) division they offer and that’s “Cross Rails”.  A CT consists of a dressage test and either a stadium jumping round or a cross country run, but not both or it would be considered a Horse Trials (HT) when all three phases are present.  Dressage consists of a preset test for each division where the horse and rider must perform a pattern of movements and actions at certain parts of the ring for a judge who scores each movement from 1-10 where 1 is not completed and 10 is perfect.  The second phase for this particular CT was stadium jumping.  His CT was made up of dressage test “Intro A”, a simple little walk/trot test, and a stadium jumping course of 7 fences which were all cross rails of 18” or less.  Boo was in the CT division called “Beginner Novice” with a walk/trot/canter test and stadium height of 2’6”.

Well thanks to Boo being a butt and running off up the driveway this morning (because he didn’t want to get on the trailer) we were running a wee bit behind and Reily was scheduled to be the 3^rd horse in dressage so his test was at 8:12.  I was totally baffled when we pulled into the horse park at least 15 minutes behind schedule only to find that we were the first people there!   The only other people on the grounds were the show secretary and her daughter.   So we got the boys off the trailer and tied them up and I went over to check in and pick up their numbers and papers.  Reily stomped a superb half circle into the grass as we got tacked up, and I fully admit I was a little bummed that he was already so anxious when there were only a few trailers trickling in and unloading.   Such is life.

I was still memorizing the correct movements for his test as we warmed up for dressage when the secretary came over the loud speaker saying one of the first two horses had some issues so now I was essentially being bumped up.  That was irritating but I knew I had until my originally scheduled time so we just kept warming up.   He wasn’t calming down much so we ended up in the ring 2 minutes early anyways and got through his test, with lot of tension, without any errors (yay, I remembered his pattern correctly!) but it took us an unfortunate 3 tries to get a true halt, and even then it was less then straight since his little booty swung out to the right once we got all four feet stopped.  We left the ring more relaxed then we entered it and that’s really all I could ask for his first time!

After a quick course walk of the jump course for both Reily and Boo we switched his tack and warmed him up for a few minutes on the flat then over some tiny cross rails before entering the ring for his first ever jumping round.   I know I’m biased but I think the video that my boyfriend got of his round is by far one of the absolute cutest things I’ve ever seen!  Decide for yourself (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dfZ8le2eCg).  Even though we took off quite long at jump 5 (the yellow jump) I love that he made his own decision there!  As an event horse I want him to be brave and bold enough to think for himself because we’ll get to jumps funny sometimes and I love that he was confident enough to say “hey I’m pretty close too this and too close to feel comfortable putting in another stride, we’ll just jump it from here” then continue on unfazed!  The last jump had some brick walls out beside the standards that were supposed to go in later for the Novice divisions but for his division had been placed out to the sides of the jump almost like wings.  He got rather distracted looking at the walls for a second and got quite close the cross rail before he was paying attention again but got over it fine.  Considering he could walk over it I wasn’t concerned.  It was more cute because after he finished I wanted him to canter (which we did but on the wrong lead) just to get used to ending that way and as we were finishing that canter circle he was dragging me back toward the last cross rail like “I’m sorry I was looking at the other things, I got it this time, lets jump it again, I’ll show you!” but we would have gotten eliminated for jumping it again after our round was over so I had to pull him right to make sure we didn’t do that.  He finished the day getting to take home his first ever ribbon (6^th) and was a very happy camper.  So proud of my 3yo gangly little (big) baby!!

The voice in the sky...

Otherwise known as the speaker system at horse shows, is unfortunately somewhat akin to that same voice in the sky that calls the races at a track.  Why it took my boyfriend blatantly saying that for me to make the connection is a wonder to us both.  But needless to say, Reily made that connection very quickly.  We weren’t actually going to a show, but we did want to take him to the horse park during the local winter fun show yesterday just to see how he would handle the atmosphere.  We were meeting a few friends there and planning to all go cross country schooling out on the hill while the show was going on.  The good news was that the boys loaded up perfect and we were headed down the road ahead of time.  The bad news was that it randomly started raining on/off the whole way to the park.  It wasn’t a hard rain, but it wasn’t a fine mist, it was like a steady little patter of rain.

When we arrived we tried to park by Ring 3 because it’s farther away from the main area.  The rain was still coming down and unfortunately for us, Ring 1 was the main show ring, Ring 2 was the main warm-up ring and Ring 3 had been turned into some sort of Jousting arena… not good.  Don’t get me wrong it was super cool to watch these people gallop their horses through the 3 contraptions that held the “doughnuts” that they try and spear with their lance, but it wasn’t very fun to have to take poor Reily off the trailer to hear the voice in the sky then see horses flat out galloping around this arena.  Poor fella!  He was definitely stressing!  We got Boo off and my boyfriend let him graze a bit while I walked Reily around to try and calm him some and let him figure out where all the noise and commotion was coming from.  It took extra long to get him groomed (if you could call it that… I think I just created more mud then anything) and tacked up because he just couldn’t stand still.  But he’ll have to learn to get over those nerves so I just kept moving with him and told him to suck it up!

By the time we got him and Boo tacked and I climbed on he was still very much on his toes but no longer exploding with energy.  My boyfriend and Boo moseyed on nice and slow the way they like because there was no keeping up with Reily.  I was circling continually so we didn’t leave them too far behind as we headed past all the trailers and ponies to get to the cross country field.  Luckily it finally stopped raining on our way out there.  We met my friends at the top of the cross country course (calm ponies are much easier and quicker to tack up) and started schooling the little stuff.  Reily did almost all of the “Green” level jumps including logs, coops, banks up/down, steps up/down, even the tiny little trakner!  He was such a champ!  We did some individual stuff and then a little course of 3-4 in a row and he was much more under control and listening.

He was obviously having a total blast running and jumping and hanging out with the 7 other riders and horses!  Since he was being so good I got bold and decided to get a lead over the ditch just to see how he would react.  I haven’t really worked him over any “ground pole ditches” so I figured if it was too much for him we would just walk away and come back to it in the future once I’ve had more time to work him over the ground pole practice first.  So my friend used her wonder pony to give us as lead and I kept Reily just a few strides behind her and, I sh*t you not, he trotted right over!!!  Never looked, never spooked, and never balked, nothing!!  He just trotted right over and trotted right away with the happiest little ears you’ve ever seen!  I can’t even use enough exclamation points to express how excited I was.  After riding Boo for so many years and jumping this same ditch a gazillion and one times he still thinks that it’s his mortal enemy and jumps it like a freak EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!  And Reily just went on over it like it was old news.  He’s by far the coolest horse ever!  He was much happier out there on cross country and after just a few more little jumps we headed back to the main park.

When we got back he was totally nonchalant about all the noise and chaos.  I even went ahead and schooled him in the warm-up ring where he was a total star.  There were crazy beginners and crazy horse running around all willy-nilly but he kept it completely together.  After switching ponies and getting Boo ridden as well we packed the boys up and headed home for a well deserved rest.  My boys are the greatest!  Just wish we could have gotten some photos or video but the aforementioned rain made that a no-go.  Next time!

A preview...

Reily's first lesson, Pat was very impressed with the
quality of his walk-canter transitions and gaits

"A preview of what?" you might ask.  Fair question.  A preview of what Reily is really going to be able to do once we get him fit, filled out, and fine tuned.  You're probably thinking, "That's rather random, where did that come from?".  I'm glad you asked!

Reily and I had our first ever lesson on Sunday with my trainer, Pat.  I'll briefly fill you in on Pat.  Pat is the most knowledgeable, sweetest, most positive, and all around most wonderful person ever.  Admittedly she doesn't do or teach eventing, but I could care less.  She's ridden her whole life, did IHSA in college, owned, taught at, and ran a massive hunter/jumper barn right outside of NYC for 30+ years with her husband doing lessons and showing on the A-circuit.  She's a USEF "R" judge and has done everything from breaking babies to perfecting those ridiculously high dollar show hunters and ponies.  I'm so lucky to get to exercise horses for her and she's improved my riding so much!  Pat came with me the first time I went to MD to look at Reily, and I was so happy to have her professional opinion before I handed over a check, and thankfully my instinct and her expertise have proved to be 100% correct, Reily is going to be a really nice horse!

 We had a LONG lesson, probably at least an hour and a half, which explains why little Reily was getting quite tired towards the end.  We worked a lot on keeping him in the same steady, working rythym at the trot and canter (something I have to be more concious of at home, even when hacking) and on getting him to yield from my leg aids rather than bulging through them.  Unfortunately he's just so big and strong that until we can get him really responsive to my legs there are times (like when he's on a turn, headed back towards all the other horses and he doesn't want to continue turning away from them so we drift WAYYY out like a race car) when he just steam rolls through my leg aids despite the fact that my little legs are working furiously to try and contain that big body.  We worked him on a nice, extra large circle each way and spent the last 10-20 minutes doing ground poles and eventually setting up a small gymnastic and getting him through both ways.  You wouldn't know he was tired at all if he was heading back towards Boo but he was super sluggish jumping away from Boo.  So we jumped the good way eventually bumping up the second element to a baby vertical, then changed it back to a crossrail and got him over it and cantering away on the hard direction and called it quits on that high note.  He was such a good sport, especially because this was, admittedly, a much more organized session then we typically do at home, no day dreaming allowed.

Boo-man being a champ and letting me work on my own
strength (or lack there of) regimen. Gotta get back in shape!

Boo was a good boy today too!  I don't quite feel stable enough on Reily's big strides to work consistenly without stirrups on him, only short spurts where I drop my stirrups for a minute then pick them back up.  So poor Boo-boo has been having to put up with almost all the no stirrup work lately.  I'm grotesquely out of shape thanks to winter and tax season, but I'm forcing myself to work without stirrups a little longer each time I ride him.  He's such a sweetheart he just keeps moving on.  Unfortunately I'm not the only one out of shape, Boo's rides have definetly not been as regular now that I have Reily, but Reily is just learning and really needs the consistency.  Luckily Boo might not be in great shape but he doesn't forget everything he knows, so we work on knocking a little rust off each ride and try to keep him hacking enough to build his endurance and muscle tone back up to snuff.  Once we have his muscle tone built up it will be much easier to get him off his forehand and balanced back on his hind end.  Then we won't feel like we're going to nose dive into XC jumps like it did on Sunday.  Without that balance and muscle he just wants to get more and more downhill as we approach fences rather then staying up in the front end and balanced for a safe take off.  The great news is that daylight savings has come!!!!  So now I should have enough light to get home and ride BOTH of them almost every day.  That is of course as long as I can go back to dragging myself out of bed in the moonlight, that parts not so easy.  But if I'm going to leave work in time to ride, I've got to get in the office extra early :(

Tax season ends April 18th!

Multi-tasking

I have to do this update, if for no other reason but my sheer admiration for Reily.  Yesterday it was cold, very cold, and not just comparatively because of this freakishly mild winter, I mean it was low 40's with a wind chill in the low 30's.  Now the wind wasn't continuous but it was pretty darn persistent, I'd say it was blowing at least 85% of the time.  So needless to say I wasn't looking forward to riding in this weather, but I couldn't think of a good enough excuse to worm out of getting him worked, we'd used up his "get out of work free" card on Saturday when one of my college friends was back in town.  Unfortunately there just wasn't enough time after having to work a half day in the morning for my friend to come out to the house and meet the ponies/see the property/hang out/catch up and still get the boys ridden before it got dark.  Sadly, Saturday was pretty nice and we got stuck with the weather Sunday but I had to get him ridden regardless.

I figured if we were going to have to ride we should go for a hack on the mountain, hoping the trees would act as a bit of a wind block for us.  But I knew that the last time we went over the mountain poor Reily had a really hard time getting under the vine that hangs down over one part of the trail and through all the saplings and underbrush that have been growing up on another stretch of the trail.  I'd been meaning to take a folding saw with me for ages so I could clear those areas but hadn't had a weekend free to do it, so I decided that yesterday was the day and there's no better way to keep yourself warm than to do manual labor.  Well I bundled up and put my western saddle on Reily and packed a small, folding hand saw and an extra lead rope and off we rode.

When we got to the top of the mountain and reached the part where the hanging vine was I climbed off and clipped the lead rope through his bit under his chin and walked him over to a small tree just a couple feet behind me and loose tied him while I cut the vine multiple times to get it out of the path and (hopefully) keep it from growing back.  He stood wonderfully for those few minutes (I think he was more than happy to have a minute to catch his breath after the steep climbs) but as I untied him and walked down the path to where the underbrush started I was apprehensive about how much I'd be able to get done.  After all, he's only 3  and just over 4 months off the track, and this wasn't just one or two little things to cut down, this was 0.5-3" saplings growing up in tight quarters over at least a 50 yard stretch of trail.  I really wanted to get a solid 4-5ft wide walkway cut out so neither the horses or I had to worry about getting smacked in the face with limbs and cobwebs anymore.  I resolved to work for as long as Reily could take it and assumed from the start that it was going to take multiple trips to get this done.  Boy was I mistaken.



Simply for your viewing pleasure, pictures
of Reily as a 2yo, sent to me by his former
owner (who's proved to be a real gem!)



You know how everyone says if you assume the worst the outcome can only get better?  Well this was a classic example.  We spent, at the very least, 45 mins on the 50 yard stretch and Reily was the most perfect gentleman, you'd have thought he was an 18yo, life long ranch horse.  He stood tied to small trees about half the time and the other half of the time, when a small tree wasn't close or handy, he stood ground tied right behind me and never put a foot wrong.  WHO IS THIS HORSE?!? I mean seriously, who would ever expect a 3yo of any breed to be so patient, but considering he's a 3yo OTTB, it seems like a physically impossible feat!  Granted there were a couple times he walked around the tree once or twice while he was tied and towards the end he showed his boredom by doing the cutest little nose nudges on my back.  He would softly bump me asking if we could get going, but I couldn't possibly consider either of those a bad behavior.  He was absolutely perfect, despite the cold, the wind, the fact that he hadn't been ridden in a couple days, and even despite the fact that I had my dog with us and she was running around all over the woods making noise where he couldn't see her!!

So, thanks to the perfect gentleman we cleared the entire stretch of the trail that had grown up and we moved on further down the logging road to finish off the last few obstacles (cleaning up the footing around some fallen logs, cutting off problematic limbs, etc. so we could safely use them as jumps) of the day.  When we finished those I remounted and we went on our way, following the neighbors switchback driveway all the way down the mountain until we could cut through the woods and back to our own driveway. We were gone for almost 2 hours.

This TB can do it all!! What a WONDERFUL boy!!

Weather whiplash

I guess I spoke too soon.  On Wednesday it was nice despite the fact that it rained on us the last 5 minutes of our ride.  Thursday was not only stellar weather but a stellar ride because Reily was sound!  We went on a nice, long trail ride climbing over the top of the mountain (see post Horses vs. Mountain Goats) then taking a slow winding ride on the switchbacks down the other side all the way back home.  Needless to say it was a great hour ride, but it was also almost pitch dark by the time we got home.  No matter, Reily not only handled doing the whole thing alone like it was old news, he handled the dark without being the slightest bit fazed.  We heard some deer off in the woods, he looked that way with ears pricked but just kept on walking with those big, rhythmic, swinging steps.  Some neighbors' dog threw a fit about us going past their house, again he looked but totally kept his cool.  I truly cannot praise this horse's brain enough!

Well the nice weather abruptly ended on Friday morning.  I heard that further south it was like a monsoon, but I'm not sure which is worse, because up here it was mid 50's in the morning and clear skies.  Then throughout the day it flip-flopped at least 3-4 times between all out downpours and then clear skies.  In fact, at one point it was perfectly sunny and dropping bucketfuls of rain simultaneously.  Very aggravating and once again the ground was SOAKED through.  Then the wind picked up making it almost impossible to even get their blankets on for an extra layer to ward off the chill before they tried to blow away while attempting to get everyone buckled in!

Reily getting his feet picked while Boo plays the role
of the "run away"

Saturday the wind had slowed only a fraction by morning.  The sun was out but you wouldn't have known it thanks to the wind chill. It continued like that all day.  My boyfriend and I spent the day like couch potatoes except when we had to go out into the tornado winds to check ponies or something else pressing.  It was pretty miserable over all.

Warming up Boo in the ring

I may not have gone to church to do it, but I was thanking the lord for Sunday by going out and enjoying it!  The wind finally let off and the sun came out and other than the occasional, short but brisk wind gust it was a gorgeous late February day so we took the fellas over to the horse park to play a bit.  I groomed and tacked up the boys and warmed up Boo in the ring (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4jehqyieNQ&context=C385cbe1ADOEgsToPDskLZ7Rss25kqW3FoEnbL-UuO) before helping my boyfriend climb up on Reily and heading up to the XC course to jump a few elements.  Boo was very good, only a couple stops that came from me not sitting up and waiting.  He was tired out when we finished and Reily was a little hot and "just wanted to run" according to my boyfriend so we played musical ponies on top of the XC course and switched saddles so he could cool Boo out and have the slower ride.

Well he really wasn't joking, Reily was feeling great and having a blast being out in the big open field so I trotted him to the far end of the course then turned him around and let him start off trotting and then let him go into a canter and eventually a gallop and we went across the entire top of the hill (a good 1/2 to 3/4 mile) and he was just LOVING IT!  Happy little ears, and when he really opened up his stride and got rolling it was the best feeling ever, he wasn't running away just floating across the turf, eating up the distance.  I foresee us doing a lot of trotting on course at the lower levels or else we'll end up getting penalized for coming home too quick!  I can't wait to get the daylight back and start riding him 5-6 days a week, he's going to be a XC machine!  Since we were up there and plenty warmed up we popped over a few tiny logs on the ground also.  I so wish we'd gotten video of it because it had to be hysterical to watch.  These were so small he could have easily stepped over them but the first two times we trotted up and he deer hopped over the log with such a big thrust he totally jumped me out of the tack.  When we landed he happily cantered away with this adorable little, "Neat mom, I like doing this new stuff!" look on his face and my boyfriend and I were both laughing like crazy.  After that we moved on to a different log on the ground and he was already starting to get better and began jumping across rather then just up, picking up his knees and hind end well.  We even went over to a bank and did a tinsey-tiny step up (which was nothing to him, with those long legs it hardly seemed like he was even changing terrain) and then walked over to the down side and after only a mild hesitation ("Mom, why do you want me to walk off this if we just walked on?") he did the tiniest drop down like it was nothing.  We did that a couple more times until he was happily popping up and straight back down in the happiest little expression ever.  Reily and I both had such a blast out on the XC course!

We took the boys back down and took care of Boo then let him out in the round pen so he could graze for a few while Reily did a few minutes of ring work.  The hardest part about not having a proper ring at home is trying to make progress on his contact.  When we adopted him they warned me he might be a bit hard mouthed at first because his exercise rider at the track used to sort of bully him around a bit and hang on his mouth when he took him out to work him.  So I want to be able to ride him on a looser rein and allow him to reach for the contact himself to learn that I'm never going to yank on his mouth, but without a ring it's very hard to give him this loose of a rein at home without running the risk of him bulging through my leg aids and heading back home whenever he feels like it.  I was very happy to work with him in the ring for a few minutes and see some improvement despite the fact that we can only work on it but so much at home.  I was giving him a very loose rein (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLXpAJAsWGQ&context=C385cbe1ADOEgsToPDskLZ7Rss25kqW3FoEnbL-UuO; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAoMTYfk-zU&feature=related) but he reached down towards the bit several times on his own!  Small victories, yes!!

Happy pony after a fun day!

Daylight savings time ends on March 11, only 13 more days! I mean... not that I'm counting or anything ;)