Day 167

Brie never ceases to amaze me.

I passed off Harry to my mom today to work on since I was having no luck getting him to gait yesterday, but I'll talk about him later. Brie is insane! Here I am, all worried about riding her because she hasn't been in a while and her leg was stocked up this morning. It was so relaxing to really brush her and scrub at her elbows and what not and to put lineament on her hock and ankle in the back. She looked like she was happy to go.

Then I got on.

I knew from the minute she started swishing her tail that it wouldn't be a relaxing ride.

All I wanted to do was walk her around the arena, you know, take it easy on her. But nope, she was almost literally rearing to go. So after struggling with her, dismounting, longeing, remounting, and repeating, I just let her go.

We cantered for a while in a huge circle about half of the arena. My better judgement told me this was a bad move with her arthritis, but Brie was telling me, "LET ME GO ALREADY DAMMIT!" So we went. To say that she was in one of her fast modes today would be an understatement. We rode with Allison today for probably our last ride before she changes barns. I'm thinking maybe that's why she was a little goofy, but then again my mom said she was pretty crazy for her ride yesterday, so who knows.

Harry was also in a bad mood today because of the fruit basket. In the beginning he tried to buck my mom off. He really doesn't like that thing. But he looked better in his corto today! Even though we're supposed to be doing largo more, I didn't really get to watch it because Brie was always zooming past him. I do know that we have to do more circle work with Harry in order for him to really think about doing everything at once.

While we were out walking around, Harry started dancing but this time his back feet were keeping up with the front and Allison said "I think he's Fino-ing!" So it's not just us who think that he can do it. If only we had a different trainer to help us out, I'm sure Harry could be a Fino horse. But for right now, we're just gonna try to get him to largo for Nationals. We'll see what the winter brings.

Equestrian Team Summer Day 4

Oh man. I got in trouble today.

Yes sir, I had to ride without stirrups. But let's start from the top.

I get there and ride Tommy again this week. Fine by me! I feel much better in my trot and the canter is beautiful. I really feel like I'm getting the hang of this. I get him to trot over the poles only hesitating once. I feel like I got this.

Then she sets up the little X jump. I'm like "Yes! She thinks I can start jumping!!"

And it goes downhill from there.

There was just something not clicking with me and jumping. I still have a little bit of a hard time with the whole two-point idea, so I'm trying my best. I get over the two poles she lays out before the X jump, go over those and kind of freak, hoping the horse will go into overdrive and do it on his own.

Well he doesn't. More than once, we pop over the fence. I nail it down to not having balance in my two point because, guess what, I'm standing! I couldn't help it. Then I'd topple over, lose my balance, and hang on his neck so he couldn't go over the baby X.

After like 5 tries I never manage to fix this, it's not clicking that I need to SIT MY BUTT DOWN and finally Stacy's just like, "Okay, out on the rail. Drop your stirrups." And in my brain I'm like, "oh crap, wait how do I do this while trotting??" And try to walk and she yells, "STOP TRYING TO WALK, TROT AND DROP YOUR STIRRUPS!" So I fling them off (prolly shouldn't have) and immediately start falling from one side to the other side of the horse. I really feel like I'm gonna topple over and all I hear is her yelling, "POST! POST!" I try my hardest, I think I posted once. I hear her go, "Oh man. Okay, walk. Yeah, you'll be doing that every week now."

Great. I had to cling on for dear life with my little thighs for about 10 seconds and I couldn't feel them afterwards. How am I gonna do this for a good portion of the lesson for the next few weeks!??!

I'll really have to suck it up. All I have to keep thinking is that I'll be able to jump after this. =]

Day 166

Soooo beautiful out today.

I took a bunch of pictures on my new DSLR, but I'll post all of those tomorrow as I'm sure there will be more!

So taking into account Paul's advice of more largo and double reins, that's exactly what I did today.

Boy do we have some work ahead of us. Harry is awful at largo-ing. He doesn't gait, all he does is pace and skip and is unsure of his step. Honestly, I don't understand how it's any different, it's the same walking pattern just faster. Who knows what goes through their minds.

I warmed him up longeing (which was fabulous by the way) and got on for some flexing. He was super while with the double reins on. Then we walked a little bit to warm up and started straight for a largo. Well he skipped pretty much across the entire arena, so we went out into the round pen. I thought he was gaiting and calming down in there when my mom told me that he was still pacing. So we went back into the arena to practice smaller circles and go over the board to hear if he was gaiting or not, and he wasn't. By this time he'd already been (attempting) flying around in a largo and failing, hot and gross, so we did a corto around the arena once, over the board, and went outside for a nice relaxing walk around then a cool bath.

This might take a while. I can't believe he doesn't know how to do this! It's just like power-walking but he isn't getting it! So tomorrow I think my mom's gonna ride him with the fruit basket on and see how he goes with that.

Brie was limping today, probably because she's been cooped up and unridden for a week, so my mom just tried to get her to slow down, because even though she was limping she was all GO GO GO! I put lineament on her arthritic leg after she rode. Hopefully she feels better tomorrow.

And Nina was perfect, as usual.

I have some exciting news! But I'll wait for a week or so to see if it plays out, and then I'll tell you =]

Illinois State Fair!!

Just a heads up, this is gonna be a long one. Hope you make it through it!
I usually like to do posts in present tense like it was the day, but I'm gonna reflect on this one.

Harry did amazingly getting in the trailer both coming and going, which is something we were all kind of worried about. Seems like he's getting the hang of going places! The show was Friday and Saturday, and I decided to enter him in both performance and pleasure classes. I normally wouldn't have done pleasure classes with Harry, but I figured it would be good experience for him to get used to more time in the show ring. Plus the classes were cheap, so even if I didn't do all that well, he'd be getting exposure.

Friday were the performance classes. My brother had two and my mom had one and I had three. I rode against each of them at some point. My mom got 4th on Harry in the class she rode him in and I got honorable mentions and a 7th. My brother got 5th on Nina and my mom got 2nd in the trainer's class.

That day, we had a cake for the judge. While we were eating, I took the opportunity to ask her what she was looking for. She basically just told me consistency in the gait, which I found out later both by other people's conversations with her and how she was placing horses that it meant ONLY consistency in the gait, nothing to do with headset or even overall manners, which I think is COMPLETE bull. But whatever.

Harry was having a difficult time getting warmed up on Friday. He kept skipping around anxiously and not wanting to work. I found out that Paco had "rode the crap out of him" on Wednesday and it was supposed to be a surprise to help us win, but I don't know what kind of bit he used or anything and that had me really upset. I like Paco and all, and I really don't have a problem with him riding Harry whenever, I'd just like to have known, you know? I'm not sure what I could've done, but I still would've like to have known.

Every time Harry came into the show ring, he skipped right in front of the judge. I was trying to be loose on the reins, but he would then try to take off with me instead of doing his usual lovely corto and when I'd try to pull him back to speed he'd skip again. This went on for every class I had both Friday and Saturday until the last class, but I'll get to that.

Friday comes and goes, Jane visits with John and we find out that Paco will be hitching a ride with someone to visit on Saturday. We have a great time with one of the trainers, Paul, who is stalled next to us. Once upon a time, I ranted about a certain Randy, who seems to win every class. But after being stalled next to him as well, he and his family seemed to have gone complete 180 from ignoring us to being super friendly. After having the time to watch him and his horses in the some classes I wasn't in, I hate to admit that he's actually really good. I have to give him credit -- his family does everything. The other barns bring people to clean the stalls and help tack up, but he owns, trains, and did all of the cleaning while counseling his clients.

I have a certain nemesis who I won't even name, but she always beats me in every class I'm in (except for that one time Brie won 3rd place), and she's a client of Randy's. It just annoys the heck out of me that she just pulls up in the middle of the day, not sweating, in her show clothes, hops on her horse that Randy's prepared, and wins.

Saturday comes the pleasure classes. I have on in the afternoon and get honorable mention again. Harry skips a whole ton in the largo because I'm pushing him for speed which is what the pleasure class wants. It's very hard because I can't hold him back enough without him skipping in the corto for there to be a noticeable difference in speed between the two gaits. Then on top of it, there's a little gait on one wall of the arena that you KNOW you're not supposed to go through while horses are in there. Well we're going into the lineup and I'm doing my final lap around and some lady comes waltzing through it into the arena, spooking Harry halfway across the arena in one swoop (I don't know if the judge saw), so I turn my head and yell at the woman. The indecency of some people!

After that class, Paul comes up to me and my parents and makes a super generous offer -- he wants to take Harry with him when he leaves Springfield down to St. Louis to train him for a month for free. Then we would meet up at Nationals in Memphis, I would show him and then take him home. After much conversation, we decide not to. I'm still very torn about it. On one hand, it would give us a huge help because Harry would be ridden every day by a real trainer (not counting Ray who doesn't really work, or Andre who just broke him), Paul could figure out his problems, and address them. Then on the other hand, I don't want to be like my nemesis. I take pride in saying that I've gotten him this far. It's only his first year of showing and if he's qualified for Nationals that's certainly an achievement! Then there's the problem of his shoeing. Our farrier (who is currently MIA) was doing a particular job. But then any farrier could maybe see it and pick up where he left off. I feel like I'll be battling with this up until Springfield, but I can't go back and change what happened now.

Onto the night classes. These are the Stakes classes where I could win money. My mom was in one with Nina and I was in two with Harry. I rode against the horse in the neighboring stall, Entrenador and my friend Allison. Entrenador is a 3 year old stallion and I was kind of miffed when he beat me both times! But then I have to remember that Colin trained him for Allison before he left the state.

Both classes were huge. I made the cut in the first one and got honorable mention while Allison got 7th. The second class was the one I really thought I'd do well in. I had Harry collected, he wasn't skipping and his largo speed was perfect. But I didn't make the cut in that one. Later someone told me that the judge didn't even look at me the whole class, which is like what the heck, how could you already have passed judgment on me from the class before?! There was a huge difference in his gait and everything between the two and to not even be looked at is very upsetting.

But such is life. This is why I want to be a judge.

One thing that we all thought was hilarious was when Paco rode Tormenta, a horse that Ray considers to be garbage, against Ray on a horse he considers to be amazing, in a Stakes class, on a whim, and BEAT HIM. Paco's not even a trainer, he's the help around the barn, and he beat Ray on a horse that is supposed to be insane. What a kick =]

At the end of the day, I'm happy with Harry's final performance. Even though it was the last class and he wasn't looked at, the improvement from the first class on Friday made me extremely proud. I left with some final advice from Paul -- stop cortoing and LARGO LARGO LARGO until he gets it down pat. I have 8 rides between now and Nationals, so I'll leave the collection until the last 4, maybe 3 rides. Something else I want to work on and perfect -- longeing! It shames me to not have longed him because I was scared he'd embarrass me by running out. So we're going to work on listening to me on the longe line, not stopping when he feels like it, and largoing our butts off.

A final note: after seeing the gaits, performances, and placing of the horses in performance classes, I've decided I'm going to put Brie in performance next year. She's had her arthritis shot, which may have been part of the problem later in her show career and seems to have really calmed down with her age, even going out on trail rides. I hope there will be a couple of fun shows around the area that I can haul her too in the fall for some practice. But after watching my nemesis's horse win class after class, that horse is really no different in performance and appearance from Brie. I would love to kick her butt. All I'd have to worry about is actually making it through the class without her refusing to move and trying to run over the judge. It's a chance I'm willing to take.

Day 165

Sunday

If every day were like today, weather-wise, I'd be in heaven. It was the PERFECT day for riding. The sun was shining, the breeze was blowing. It was just the right temperature. We let all of them outside to run around before we rode, and my goal was to play with Harry in the field, but I think I ended up scaring him a little bit while I chased him around. Oops.

Of course because Harry had nice rides the last couple times we've been out, he had to act like a complete brat yesterday.

We all know the cause though -- the dreadful fruit basket (rear end collector). My mom rode him first with the fruit basket because she wanted to, well, collect him more for the show this weekend. 

While I rode Brie, who was a speed demon today, Mom was getting tossed around by Harry. It's bad enough that he has a horrible habit of getting angry when he's separated from Nina or even Brie who has made it clear that she doesn't like him, but with the added stress of the fruit basket he was extra bratty to her. He gave her a little bit of a hard time while we were in the indoor, but we were with a bunch of horses. Brie was just cruising around the arena like it was a racetrack when I saw my mom go in the outdoor arena. I followed her out a little while after, only to find her fighting with Harry, trying to keep him from spinning around and running back into the barn where all the action was at. I decided to push him along with Brie and he got angry, spun around and bucked and my mom almost fell off. She told me by then that was the third buck and she got off of him because he was clearly getting ready to rear after that and longed him around some traffic cones (which equally freaked him out). She got back on him and rode him back inside (which is what he wanted) and then worked him in there. 

Then she gave him to me. By then he was just all hunky-dory about being inside again so he was good, but still....this is turning out to be a major problem, this separation anxiety. Any tips on helping us get him over this problem? 

Day 164

Harry pulled some fishtailing on me today while lunging. I hope it doesn't turn into his bad habit again, I was happy to finally be over that with him.

Also, I learned that lunging is spelled longeing. Show how good of a speller I am!

But aside from the fishtailing, he was pretty good. I'd like to work more with him outside once Nationals are over because even though it's kind of cute that he's so attached to Nina, it's really not good when he starts freaking out and trying to yank me in her direction, even when we're in the indoor arena.

We had a good ride, his gait was as good as last weekend. A little more work on the largo tomorrow and we'll be set for the State Fair next weekend! All I can complain about was that at the end when we came in from walking around outside, he started to get antsy when I wanted him to reverse to the left and started pulling me around to the right because Nina had already gone into the wash rack outside the arena and he wanted to follow her. I managed to just get him calm enough to go into a left flex and decided to end it at that. Always end on a good note, even if it's not what you expected. =]

Equestrian Team Summer Day 3 + Farrier visit

I'll start off with my ride today.

Keeping in mind every critique I got last week, I had such a good lesson today! I remembered to make sure I wasn't sickling my ankles either because I did that last week and it hurt to walk up until yesterday because of muscle aches. I trotted a whole lot, which is great because that's what I've been having difficulty with and Stacy said that she thinks she found the perfect match for me to stick with for a while. His name is Tommy and he's an adorable little pony-Appaloosa-palomino looking thing. He's super sweet too and just my size! I have to admit it's more than an adjustment going from the little Pasos to those huge Thoroughbreds! So we had a good ride, worked a lot on trotting and keeping my legs looking as nice as my upper, keeping my heels DOWN dammit and trotted over some poles. Stacy says she won't put me over jumps until my legs quiet down but that if I keep improving like I have from last week to this week that I'll be over jumps in no time, so I can't wait for that =]


Yesterday the farrier came out and was already halfway done with Harry by the time we got there without any tranquilizer. We ended up drugging all of them, and gave Nina enough for a Clydesdale! She was good this time and didn't fight, but my brother and I had to stand next to her and pet her and make sure she didn't see the farrier because otherwise she might've woken up from being tranq'd. We managed to get all their ears clipped, but Nina was awake enough to fight us with that one and break the clip (again) on her leather halter. That's going back to the shoemaker this weekend!

I can't wait to head out tomorrow, it's our last practice before the State Fair and I hope they work well with their new pedicures!

Equestrian Team Summer Day 2

*I can still say my legs are sore and bruised today, Sunday.

Friday

So I haven't had a lesson in about a month. This was basically like a first lesson all over again.

I got on this massive horse (but they really all look massive compared to the Pasos) named Alex and went in the super huge arena. Stacy once again reminded me to think of my legs since my hands and core seem to be down pat and it's my legs that are all floppy once I start trotting.

At least I got my diagonals right! I like horses with long strides at a trot, it's easier to see diagonals at.

And again, to all of you people who ride regular gaited horses, you deserve so much credit. It hurts to lift my leg to move it forward to walk after all that posting.

I'm also not used to having to have to much contact on the reins and keeping them short with a horse with such a long neck is a little unbalancing, so I kept falling forward trying to reach for the reins, then losing balance, then losing reins, then repeat the cycle again. I felt beautiful taking a canter and Stacy said I looked awesome until I started forgetting about keeping contact and Alex started to go faster. My downward transition to a trot was atrocious and it took an entire lap around the arena before I composed myself.

In short, I felt horrible.

But then she explained it like this: I need to be like a boxer and keep my weight down to be able to take anything up top, which I then converted to a dancer's analogy: you can't do a triple pirouette if you have a high center of gravity, it's just not possible. You need to stay low to maintain that balance. And then it clicked! But then the lesson was over. So I have that for next time.

She also told me that what I'm doing with the Pasos, with the whole collection and the double reins, they don't do with an English horse until they're like a level 5 dressage horse (is that really true???), so it's kind of like I'm going backwards with focusing this much on my legs.

That, and I never trot. I won't let the trot be my downfall! I already know that I'm most likely going to miss the team's first competition because it's the same weekend I'll be at Nationals (if we go), so I have a little more time. Hopefully my balance will improve in the next couple of weeks and I can start the little jumps again and Stacy might override the paperwork to put me into a jumping class instead of just staying on the flat, because when I'm walking or at a canter, I can pretty much handle it, it's just this darn trot that's throwing me off.

Days 162 & 163

Saturday

Back from vacation! I've missed Brie, Nina, and Harry so much. I haven't ridden in two weeks!

Before we went to the barn, we went to John and Jane's barbeque at the yacht club and grabbed some lunch because by the time we all woke up and got out there it was already 1pm! I met up with Annie and her new boyfriend and cousins and we all just hung around for a couple of hours until we left and went to the barn.

I was expecting quite a handful today, especially when mom said that I should ride Harry first so she could tinker around with a new bit that we're trying on Nina. I gathered up Harry after giving everyone much love and brought him out into the round pen. As soon as I let him off the line, he ran around like a maniac! I was happy he was getting it out of his system here instead of while I would be on him. After he started slowing down, I hooked him back onto the line and lunged him some more and he was responding super well to just my voice commands and didn't really try to give me any crap, so I brought him back in, cleaned and tacked him up, and into the arena we went!

I was also anticipating that he'd be a little berserk when I would flex him because he has been lately before we left, but with just a little kick and throwing my weight backwards, he gave in very quickly and stopped trying to start spinning around to throw me off. 

I was super super super surprised on how amazingly he worked today! He responded so well to everything I asked him and had a perfect board and wonderfully slow walk and cute little largo. I can only hope that he'll stay that way until Nationals are over and he'll get a nice break going into winter.  We went to go walk around outside a little bit by ourselves, but he seems like he doesn't have a lot of confidence to go very far from the barn by himself, as whenever he reached a certain distance from it (about 30 feet), he'd spin around and start heading back, not even in a hurried way, just kind of saying "Nope, not going any further". We'll have to work on that.

The bit my mom tried to use on Nina didn't work out too well, so we're going to try a different one tomorrow. We're trying to get her head to come down more, and with our last show before Nationals coming up in two weeks, we don't have that much time to work with!

After all of this, we were all sweaty and icky and still had to go back by John for dinner and the fireworks show he puts on every year, so we took Paco (who was also going back), and ran to Wal-Mart. I'm not sure what happened, but I do know that I went in with breeches and tall boots and came out with a pair of shorts and child sized flip flops and headed to a lovely fireworks show and dinner of cake (the real food was all eaten by the time we got there...830pm!). In all, it was a nice first day back =]


Sunday

So since Harry was so wonderful yesterday, especially after a two week break, I REALLY expected him to be horrible today. Wrong! I think that a break was really all he needed, he might've been starting to get burned out, because he worked beautifully today too! I even got him to go all around the property (except for by the pond. It might suck him in, you know) by himself! To say that I'm proud is a huge understatement. I hope he keeps it up for Nationals! I might even put him in Pleasure classes for fun at the State Fair just to see if we'll get some blue ribbons if he keeps up this wonderful attitude!

Nina's bit adventures didn't go so well today either, but we've seemed to have settled on a simple Mylar snaffle and a tie-down. With only another weekend's practice until the State Fair, I would start focusing more on working on dropping her head for Nationals instead of short fixes. We've done everything we could think of, it's just been an ongoing problem since she's been broke to ride. If you have any head-setting/dropping suggestions, please tell me!

Brie's leg was a little swollen today, but my brother warmed her up while I rode Harry and she was walking fine by the time I got to her. We all went for a nice walk around the property and she seemed to enjoy it a lot. We even ventured out onto the little side street next to the property, much to my dismay. I was freaking out getting there, but had to pull it together and act like I wasn't scared that way Brie wouldn't flip over on the asphalt and run away. There's nothing to really be scared of, not very many cars drive there, but all I could see was that one scene from The Horse Whisperer.

Thursday we're going out to meet the farrier again for shoeing. Hopefully the tranquilizer will work on Nina this time!