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!!