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!!

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

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 ;)

No hoof, no horse... no kidding

So Reily (and Boo and Scotty) got his little tootsies done on the 11th, but after having stood out in the cold with our farrier for 2+ hours holding the horses it was just too miserable to suit up and ride so the boys got off lucky.  Sunday was worse... even colder and wind like a tornado so they lucked out again.  Monday I worked late and Tuesday was wet.  Wednesday finally rolled around and I was so excited to get home in time to jump on for a few minutes.  I went to get him out of the feild and as I put his halter on and started to turn him towards the gate I saw him take an odd step... something I'd seen him do that morning but written off because there was some gravel under his hoof then and I thought he just caught one sharp edge.

With knitted brows I took him out of the feild and trotted him in hand on the grass, nothing.  Ok, maybe I was seeing things.  We walked across the driveway and I didn't see any more off steps but I could see, and hear, that his stride was just the very tiniest bit shorter.  Hmm, now what?  I tried pulling him in tight circles in both directions, nothing.  Well, I figured the only way to find out if I was crazy or I'd actually seen something was to get on and try him under tack.  So we tacked up and walked in the yard just fine, ok so lets try the trot... still normal.  Moment of truth, we started down the driveway and everything seemed fine walking straigh across, but once we got a little ways down on the shoulder we had a 10 yard stretch of all gravel to go across.  Sure enough, that's when I got my answer, he was off.  Granted it wasn't bad, it was just there, ever so slightly, but it was there.  So right around we turned and back home we went with a big :'( face for me.  Bless his heart he was trying to do everything I asked but he was trying so hard I couldn't even figure out where it was coming from.  No heat, no hot nails, nothing.  So I called my farrier and after explaining everything, he figured that he must have cut his soles just a little too close.  So we went through a bute regimen for 5 days to give him some time for his soles to harden up.  Lucky, lucky Boo, he got to take up all the slack and carry me around for both of them!

Reily has great feet but I guess we're still figuring out what his feet need, it was only his second time after all.  But we got a little lucky between rain and snow (did winter finally come... and go again already? Calling for 67 DEGREES TOMORROW!!) the ground stayed soft for him and when I finally got to ride him yesterday he was 99% sound.  We went for a hack down off the road and had just a couple off steps (none on the gravel, but a couple on the pavement) in that whole time.  Tonight we hacked up the mountain (he'll have those buns of steel in no time!) and did two easy laps around the loop.  We w/t/c and even jumped some tiny logs, all sound.  I even trotted him on the gravel driveway on the way back home and he felt smooth.  Hopefully tomorrow he'll be absolutely 100%... I'll let you know!

"I'm all alone, there's no one here beside me..."

Trotting around the neighbor's field

This is the extended trot that he volunteers when he gets
nervous. It feels MASSIVE under saddle, but once we
can harness it, we'll rock some dressage test!

Up to this point Reily has had a baby sitter of some kind on each of his rides off the property.  But since we can't build a riding ring yet and there's no real flat places on the property to do "ring work" I usually ride Boo about a half mile down the road to a neighbor's property where he has a nice flat, large, unused field and is kind enough to allow me to use it as a riding ring.  So my boyfriend has helped me out by riding Boo with me so we could take Reily down there to see it and ride around in it a few times with company.  Well today was the big day, his first ride off the property all by his lonesome.  He was just a little nervous, had his head up and was just a little bit quicker than usual, but never offered any truely bad behavior.  Never bolted, never bucked, in fact he never even yelled for the other horses, which is typical of young horses new to showing and/or new to being seperated from all other horses.  So I was very proud of him.  He did bulge through his shoulder some, especially if we were headed in the direction of home, but nothing awful.  Here's a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfA4Ehwnq9Q&context=C3de2787ADOEgsToPDskLZ7Rss25kqW3FoEnbL-UuO) of his first time riding alone.  Sorry the image quality is so poor, my old camera might take decent photos but it's real low quality when it comes to video capture.  All in all very proud of him :)

Just cantering along, he's got a big, ground covering stride!

Ringing in a New Year

So I know that people are sort of split over the issue of this year... either the world will end or there will just be excessive hype like in 2000 ("Holy Christ, the Y2K bug will infect us all!") but Dec. 23, 2012 will dawn and it will turn out to have been just another yesterday.  But here in VA it's been strangely mild for a majority of the time thus far this winter.  Blame global warming, blame the upcoming apocolypse, blame whoever you want, but I'm thanking Mother Nature or God, whoever's taking care of the temperature these days because I got to ride my horses on New Years Eve and it was almost 60 degrees!

Chatting and warming up

We decided to go ahead and take Boo and Reily over to the equestrian park again since we really don't know how many more of these nice days we're going to get.  I invited one of my old 4-H friends to come ride Boo so we could exercise them in the ring together at the same time and see how Reily would take it.  He always wanted to drift towards wherever Boo was in the ring but if I put my leg on him he listened and kept straight like an old pro.

Just going for a trot

Of course, it was nice when we got there but shortly after we had warmed up the wind started to pick up and the sun disappeard behind the clouds so it started to get a little more chilly.  We were lucky because we were riding but my poor boyfriend definitely got cold standing there playing camera man.   Up to this point I'd only done about 90% walking and hill climbing with Reily and about 10% trot work, but he stayed perfectly calm and listening to me even when the wind really picked up.  What a good baby!  He wasn't rushing at all so just for kicks I asked him for a canter to see how he'd respond.  He picked up his right lead right off the bat, he was fast, but not running away just fast.  That doesn't bother me one bit though, it was just his first time, he's got no substantial top line, and he's not totally balanced in his new job, so going a little fast probably helped him feel more stablized at first.  Lucky me, my boyfriend got a video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7cz2DAfeXA&context=C329ad3bADOEgsToPDskKIhWJOPIZWjgVv6EZm-lrw. I just love his trot, it's big and forward, and one of these days I'll think to take a picture of his hoof prints, because his over reach (hence why he's only wearing 1 bell boot, he ripped the other one right off and we were waiting to receive the replacement still) is at least a whole hoof length in front of his front foot fall!  I can't wait to start building his top line and teaching him to go on contact.  He has great extension when you ask for it!

Horses vs. Mountain Goats

Yep, it's official my Thoroughbreds are actually mountain goats disguised as horses.  One of my very good friends, who coincidentally owned Scotty back when he was a young'en, was in town for the holidays and I was lucky enough to have the day off of work because of the holidays, so she came over to meet Reily and go for a trail ride.  Now I've always really admired that she's gotten out there and done a lot of really cool things in her life, one of which includes being a TB exercise rider at tracks both here in the States and over in France for a time.  So she was looking forward to meeting Reily and I was really excited to get her opinion of him in person.  We chatted while we groomed and tacked up Boo and Reily then we headed out for a nice long trail ride.  We didn't want to take Reily on the road yet and we had her dog with us too and it was her pup's first time around horses in general and therefore her very first time running along on a trail ride so we didn't want her near the road either.  So instead of heading down the driveway we headed up the back of the property to the mountains that our farm butts up against.  There are plenty of old logging trails up there and they range from nearly flat to VERY steep.  The longest trail you can follow goes over the mountain and comes out the other side at a house owned by an old family friend who has always allowed me to come out at her house and then zig zag back down the side of the mountain on her driveway which eventually comes back out on the road that leads to our driveway.  However to get across the very top of the mountain there's only one choice of trail... and you guessed it, that trail is about a quarter mile climb up a 60 or so degree incline, then a nice resting spot before another slightly shorter, less steep climb. No joke.  Boo and I use this mountain on a somewhat regular basis to keep him fit and do conditioning for Horse Trials but I was pessimistic about whether Reily was going to be able to handle this, or if it was fair to ask it of him.  In the end we decided we'd just make as many stops as we needed to on the way up and concluded that it would be good for his butt muscles to make the climb, so up we went!

And wouldn't you know it, those two scrambled right up that path like they'd been doing it all their lives.  Well, Boo has for a long time, but I was impressed that Reily only needed one short breather on the first climb and went right through the second just fine.  He was a total champ about the experience all together!  There are a few tight paths where you have to squeeze through single file, including one spot where a vine hangs down right at the horses' chest level and you have to walk them up far enough to grab hold of it and hold it up out of the way for them while you walk under it.  Now that's something he's definitely never done before but it was all just no big deal with him.  He's so laid back and he thinks things through before tackling the issue.  I love him and I love his very good brain!

We got over the mountain and started down the driveway.  When we were still a little ways off the road we cut off into the woods again, avoiding the road as mentioned, coming out on our driveway and walked them back home that way.  We had a great time and when we got home my friend and I played musical horses so she could ride Reily for a minute and feel how me moved.  I was glad to hear that she felt he has a lot of potential.  Afterwards we finished cooling them out, untacked and groomed them down.  The boys were happy to get end of ride treats, and we were happy to hand them out liberally after such a good ride!

Road trip anyone?!

Two things: 1) I bought a new horse trailer... one dubbed "Reily sized" by my hysterical boyfriend, 2) It's a new toy so I had to play with it!



At the horse park for the first time, acting like an old pro



So Boo and Reily went for their first (mini) road trip today.  Here in VA it was an unseasonal, but splendid 55 degrees in December, no better way to spend such a beautiful day then take your fellas over to play at the horse park, so that's exactly what we did!  There was only one other person there taking a lesson so we walked the boys all around the park first so Reily could check it all out.  Boo was bored and tried to eat as much free grass as he could possibly consume because this place was all old news to him.  Once we'd sniffed everything just for kicks we headed back to the trailer and I tacked up and rode Boo first.  He was a very good boy and I switched his saddle but left him partially tacked, then we walked them both down to a ring to play lead Reily over some poles on the ground and over some tiny, tiny, tiny cross rails to see how he'd react.  Unfazed, he trotted right over everything, picking up his feet and licking and chewing (a sign that horses display when they're thinking and processing information, so a good sign!) after each "question".  We went back and tacked him up and I rode him a bit in the ring where he was a super star!  When we were done we put a bridle on Boo and my boyfriend rode Boo and I rode Reily and we took them for a mini trail ride through the cross country jump field at the equestrian park.  They were both absolute dolls, walking through creeks, up and down hills, and sniffing all kinds of cross country fences.  I have to say, I really think I hit the jackpot with this horse.  What a champ and at only 3 years old he's got so much more to give!

Boring is good

Well normally boring isn't good, but in this case boring is good.  In fact, boring might even be great!  Why, you might ask, is boring great??  Boring is great because Reily had his first ride off the track today!  And for a 3 year old horse, straight off the track with two weeks of "let down" time (time off from racing or any other work) at the track and a third week of let down at home that is a phenomenal report to give!  It's phenomenal because a "boring" ride means that nothing happened, no crazy bolting, no rearing, no bucking, nothing.



Little anxious to start

 

OTTB's tend to have this awful reputation for being "crazy" or "wild" or even just plain "out of control".  My response... FALSE.  There are some, yes, there will always be those exceptions, but I think if people really look, they'll find that those hard to handle horses are the exception not the rule.  And Reily proved to be just another example today.  He was a gentleman in every way.  Race horses never have to stand and let people climb on them, trainers give jockeys and exercise riders a "leg up" and essentially help the rider jump on their back while on the move, but he stood still and let me mount on the first try.  Most people assume race horses are either in a stall or running flat out as fast as they can, as if there is no middle ground, but they actually get regular exercise almost every day where, just like riding horses they must warm up.  This warm up consists of traveling at the walk and trot on the far outside headed clockwise around the race track.  Once they are warmed up they will head towards the middle of the track or the rail and canter, gallop, breeze, etc. in a counter clockwise path.  So yes, race horses think fast and forward, but it's not all that they know, and at first Reily was a bit tight in anticipation of me asking for a gallop, but within five minutes he realized all I wanted to do was walk so that's all he did.  We marched around the field with the other horses in it for about 15 minutes and then called it quits.



Maxin' and relaxin' (Boo is the one watching in the
background, Scotty is the one in the middle and
Napoleon the super pony is on the far right)



He did so well for his first ride and I'm super proud of him.  Some people suggest at least 6 weeks of let down time before riding them, but since we'll only be walking I don't think it'll hurt him to start now.  We'll spend at least the first month just walking and power walking around the property.  Gotta build up those butt muscles and coordination on hills.  He'll be a mountain goat in no time!

A pat for a good baby.  I'm so happy that Reily has a good brain in his head.  The exact opposite of Boo who earned his name for being scared of everything including his own shadow when I first got him.  But Boo still takes a lot of "aluminum courage" aka spur persuasion, from time to time.

If only we could all be lightweights

Reily didn't used to be Reily, he used to be "Angel" short for his Jockey Club registered name "Sometimes An Angel".  But now Reily is Reily, or soon to be known as "Slow Your Roll" on the show scene because I just think that's a more badass better show name for a gelding then Angel... maybe he didn't like the track because the other horses made fun of him for being a boy and being called Angel.  That's my theory anyways.  Either way, he is now going to be Reily aka Slow Your Roll the badass three day eventer!

The sexy, sexy rig.

Have you ever made a 10 hour round trip drive in one day.  After you did that, did you really feel like doing it all over again five days later... yeah, neither did I.  And with a truck and trailer no less.  Luckily I had my Dad's heavy duty (but gas guzzling) truck, my absolutely amazing trainer's 2 horse trailer, and the greatest boyfriend in the entire world to sleep in the truck keep me company.  So I got everything ready on Friday night, we left the house at 6am, we stopped for gas about 15,000 times and eventually made it to Laurel Park Racetrack in Maryland just after 11am.  The big surprise was that when we got out of the truck we were greeted by a film crew.  No legitimately.  They were actually filming to make the "advice" book written by Kim Clark, the founder of Thoroughbred Placement and Rescue (TPR, which is the group I got Reily from), into a DVD and since they were at the track that day and we were picking Reily up that day they asked if they could film us.  My answer,  "Anything to help out Thoroughbreds, so sure!".  And so that's Reily and I's film debut, I'll have to remember to buy a copy when it's done!

I told you they were filming! How embarrassing, I started
wrapping backwards! I guess I had stage fright :(

Anyways, we went ahead and bubble wrapped the chestnut monster who had already been given a half dose of Ace (a mild sedative) to help keep him from stressing too much on the 5 hour ride home.  He may be big, but that Ace hit him like a drunken sailor, what a lightweight!  In a cute way though.  So off we strode to load up, after only a mild hesitation he walked right on, we closed up and scooted on down the road, because we had another 5 hours before home and at that point we were racing to beat the daylight.  In the end we didn't succeed (thanks to the slowest KFC EVER, and the insanely frequent gas stops), because it was dusk when we pulled into the farm.

Now if there's anything that I wasn't mentally prepared for when we got him home it would be his balance.  They'd warned me that he wasn't going to be very sure footed coming straight off the track.  You see, race tracks in America are the most perfectly groomed places you'll ever see.  By that I mean that everything, literally, EVERYTHING is grated to be as flat as flat can get.  So OTTB's tend to be clumsy the first time they experience hills or any kind of rolling terrain.  Well I thought I was prepared for clumsy... I was wrong.  By the time we got home the Ace had completely worn off and he was very excited about this new developement.  In his excitement he managed to trip himself, not once, but twice, because at home there's almost nothing but hills.  Before he could fall on his face anymore, we put him in his stall and locked the run-in that surrounded the stall so that when we let my other horses loose they could see but not reach him.  Unfortunately it wasn't the other horses who really wanted to get to him, it was Reily who really wanted to get to the other horses!  His legs are so long it looked like he could almost climb right over the stall door and walk out.  So rather then wait and see if that happened we did something I never would have imagined I would do the first night... we locked my poor Shetland, Napoleon, in the run-in area right outside his stall so that he had company.  Luckily, Napoleon's a trooper and he was happy enough to stay with him all night since he had as much hay and water as he wanted and the other boys couldn't run him off of it.  So that's how they were this morning when I got to the barn to check on them.  Scotty (QH) and Boo (TB) outside the run-in staring in, Napoleon still munching away on hay inside the run-in, and Reily standing with his chest pressed against the stall door desperatly trying to reach Napoleon to convince him they should be best friends.

It all started with Facebook...

Actually it was this exact picture that I saw.

No seriously, it really did start with Facebook.  I happened to be on my account, checking my notifications when I noticed a picture of a really good looking chestnut on the stalker feed newsfeed.  It just happended to catch my eye because I really liked his confirmation and his big blaze.  Hell, I even liked his "crazy eye" as I affectionately refer to his wall eye (a common occurence in horses where more white shows around the outer rim of the eye ball then in other eyes) he has on his left, but not his right.  The picture was posted by an eventing barn called Mayadinya Farm that I'm a "fan" of, along with this caption:

"This nice, three-year-old thoroughbred gelding is unhappy at the racetrack and is available to an approved home only for a $500 donation to a TB rescue organization. He is 16.2 hands, has raced eight times and demonstrated that he doesn't want to win and probably never will, and is getting grumpy in his job. He has no vices and no behavioral issues, he is sound, and he has been well taken care of at a good stable, but he just doesn't want to be a racehorse. Please e-mail mayadinya@gmail.com if you are interested in him."

Well I surely wasn't in the market to get another horse.  I already had 3 others, my retired Quarter Horse jumper, my other Thoroughbred who I event, and my priceless Shetland pony who I've had since I was four.  I was living in town with my boyfriend and already paying to board them at a man's property a few miles down the road, lord knows I didn't need to add another boarding fee to my expenses, not to mention farrier costs, extra feed, and winter hay supplies.  So what did I do... I emailed them of course!

In all fairness I was only mildly interested in finding out what he had done and what they thought he was capable of.  However, they were really just posting for a friend and kindly referred me to her.  One thing led to another and before I knew it I was in way over my head, taking a vacation day and making the 5 hour trek up to Laurel, Maryland with my trainer to see him at the track where he was still being kept.  Before the day was out I'd written a check and as my trainer and I were driving home I sat there wondering to myself "Oh sh**, what did I just get myself into!"

We go to pick him up next weekend. I can't wait! Let the shenanigans begin!

This blog is dedicated to chonicling my journey with Reily, my new ex-racehorse (commonly referred to as an OTTB [off track Thoroughbred]).