Plantation ST--BN

I think it's safe to say Plantation was a complete bust. I cried after my dressage. I cried after my stadium. I didn't even get to do my xcountry, so that should have been reason enough to cry. The stadium was really disorganized, the people were unhelpful, and I didn't have fun. Long before I loaded Red to head home, I was done with eventing. But to start from the beginning....

We pulled out of the barn at 6:15 after Red put up a pissy fit about getting on the trailer. I don't know where that came from. He's always been an excellent loader. I guess his roller coaster ride down to school in Pottstown disagreed with him more than I realized. I finally put the shank on him, gave him a few good wallops with it, then handed Hubby the lunge line to get behind him and he got on. I don't put up with temper tantrums for anything, and certainly not when I'm on a schedule. The drive down was really pleasant. The roads were in great shape, nice and wide and straight, and it was really easy to find.

We had to wait for a few minutes for the parking attendant to get to us, then we had to wait for a few more minutes while he argued with a couple of snobby girls trying to reserve two spots for their friends trailers to pull in beside them. The attendant was like, "There are 180 horses coming in. They'll park where I tell them to." "whinewhinewhine." "Get out of the way." "whinewhine." Then the people we pulled in beside couldn't get their trailer parked straight to save their lives, but we're little so we dealt. The woman was nice and chatted with us a little bit after my bad stadium round, and the people on our other side liked our dogs, but other than that everyone around us kept to themselves.

We took the dogs with us to go walk the xcountry course around 10:15, thinking we had more than enough time to get back to warm up from my dressage at 11:30. I had some serious trepidations about some of the fences; I realized how poor our schooling was compared to these real, really bright and elaborate jumps and I didn't think Red would cope well.

We got back to the trailer at 11 with nothing prepared or unpacked, so it was a crazy rush to get Red tacked and me changed and headed over to the dressage ring. I had time to make one trot circle around the warm up ring, then walked over to the show ring, made about three circles while the rider before me finished her test, trotted twice around the ring, and that was my warmup. It's a testament to how much Red has changed that he held it together as much as he did and didn't A) take off with me, B) refuse to go into the ring, or C) spook at every single thing possible. Regardless, our transistions were sloppy, our bending was nonexistent, and he was rushy and on the forehand the whole time. Somehow, we came out with a 39 which I still think is amazing. It wasn't even the lowest score in our division.

I was soooooo disappointed and frustrated when I walked out because I knew it was my own fault that I completely blew it. I was really counting on doing a great test that I KNOW we're capable of to carry us through any of Red's sillies in jumping. So much for that.

We regrouped, had lunch, then headed up for stadium and xcountry an hour early. I wasn't going to miss warm up this time. When we got up there, there were already several people in warm up, and they were asking if anyone was ready to go. Uhhh, don't we get to walk the course. It was literally an hour before they were even supposed to start the BN division, so I figured there'd be a map of the course and we'd get to walk it. I guess not. Maybe I'm just a spoiled hunter princess after all? Is this the norm? Really confusing.

Red was surprisingly really good for the warm up. He was a little strong trotting, but he didn't get upset with all the other horses round him and handled himself alot better than most of the other horses when he got passed. His canter was AMAZING and he was really going along in a groove. We went over the crossrail twice, then once each of the vertical and an oxer. He jumped great. No hesitation, no crazies, no over-exagerrated ten feet above the jump.

They were going out of order in the ring, so I walked up to ask the girl if I could get in line to go. There was one rider just going on course, and one girl in front of me. I kept Red walking, but I should have put his butt right back into the warm up and cantered around some more. His brain wandered off while we were waiting and he was hard to get back into gear when we got into the ring.

He took a long look at the gate under the first jump, but went over it willingly. He took an even longer look at the second jump with the gate and thought about running out, but I gave him a good tug and a snap on the shoulder and he went over. It was a right turn with a long trip practically into the trees to get a straight approach to the third--a simple oxer. He went over that fine, then it was a bending line to a stone wall. For. Get. It. He ran out three times and we were excused. I was having a hard time getting him lined back up straight to it without giving him alot of room to look at it. I should have cleared my head, thought ahead, circled, and made a much better re-approach. I think I blew it for us as much as he did.

I got out of the ring and immediately started crying. I was SO disappointed. Stadium should have been a flipping breeze for us. It was an easy course, easy fences, and nothing Red hadn't seen before. Including the stone wall. Hubby tried to talk me into seeing if I could still go xcountry, but my head wasn't in it, and I didn't want to get Red out there with me not thinking we could do it and him needing to be told we could and just having a confidence blowing ride that would carry over to our next event. Though, at that point, I was so bummed and frustrated and just wrecked that I had zero intentions of ever doing another event ever again.

Red cooled out in zero time and even though he was sweaty, he wasn't breathing hard in the slightest, and he was cool by the time we got down the hill. I sponged him down anyway and Hubby walked him for a few laps, then we let him go back to his hay while we loaded everything up. The one miracle of the day was that he stood at the trailer like a superstar. He didn't neigh a single time. He didn't test the rope a single time. He didn't try to wander around. He didn't try to kick the horse next to us. This is seriously a first. I have always had to get him a stall at shows in the past because he breaks his halters when he ties to the trailer.

"I'm a good pony now."

I, uh..."calmed down" a little once we got back on the road, though I was still SO disappointed at what a waste it had been. $90 for what? The worst dressage test we've done since the very first run through? Three stadium jumps? A three and a half hour drive each way? But Hubby and I had a long talk on the way home, and Hubby is the best because he knows how to bitch about things to make me feel better while still being constructive on my part and helping me look objectively at the whole day.

So our future plans are still on course, just slightly dropped down. Next Sunday is a Hunter Pace in Cohocton NY. I'll ride Bobby to keep his sale moving along and to get him some xcountry type jump exposure. Hubby will ride Red. There's another one July 24th. I'll ride Red and try to get him over some of the bigger jumps, and hopefully we can scrounge up another english saddle for Hubby to take Bobby over the small jumps if he hasn't been sold by then. July 30th is an unrecognized HT in Dansville NY. I'm going to enter both Bobby and Red in the Intro/Elem level for it. We'll see where we go from there I guess.

Ride times!

Tentative ride times for Plantation went up last night!! I'm riding when it's going to be nice and hot, but it's actually really good timing for our drive. We're not going to have to get up at 3am, and hopefully we won't be getting hope super late either.

Dressage: 11:30, Ring 1
Stadium: 1:36
Cross Country: 1:48

I'm starting to get nervous now that we're getting this much closer. Puuhhl-eaeeze jump the scary jumps, Red!!

Today I only rode for about fifteen minutes. I did two circles each direction of both trot and canter, then went right on to the dressage test. His only mistake test-wise was coming back to the trot too soon after the 20m circle of canter to the left. I made him do three canter circles in a row just to get him to stop anticipating, then moved on. We had to stop halfway through our 20m circle to the right at trot to make sure the Belgians raking the field across from us were not, in fact, going to come charging over and eat us. One can never be too sure of these things. Fortunately, they turned around and trotted very noisily off away from us. He finished the rest of the test well. Actually, the best yet.

I gave him a bath and gave both him and Bobby a huge load of hay since it was disguistingly hot and humid again, and I didn't want them out. When I went in to spray Bobby's legs with fly spray, I noticed a rather large lump on his belly.

He didn't care about me squeezing it and poking it. I think it's just a really nast fly bite. There are some mutant-ass flies down here, and he's a very typical very thin-skinned Thoroughbred that would get spoltchy over a house fly bite.

Only two more days......

Stood Up

So for those anticipating the farrier success story, prepare to be disappointed. The asshole never even showed. I called him twice and left a message and he never got back to me. Good thing I got to the barn so early to wait for him. Needless to say, he won't be doing my horses anymore. It's not like I called a day before and told you I needed you to come out pronto. I gave him NINE DAYS notice. I'm not even thats pleased with how Red's feet look. Of course, now I have to go through the pain and suffering of finding a new farrier.

I gave Red his jump school anyway. I started off with a two stride line with one fence as a big crossrail and the other as a 2'4 vertical. Red gave it a long look coming up to it, but not in a hesitating way--more like, "Do I need to jump both of those at once or not?"  He decided two strides was enough to take it as two seperate jumps (uh, hello.) and did it really nicely. We did it once more to the right, then twice to the left before I set the crossrail up to a 2'7 vertical. He rode that really, really nicely, too.

I switched the jumps over to an oxer with the 2'4 front rail, 2'7 back rail, and a 3' spread.

Just like the bending line I was doing awhile back, it was really hard to get the right striding coming up off the rail. We were coming up to it with way too much room to take off from a long spot, but adding the extra stride to get in closer was getting us almost on top of the jump. I let Red figure out what he wanted to do and just kept steady leg on. Surprisingly, he picked the short spot and saved our asses all three times we went over it. He didn't touch the rails a single time though.

While we were going around, the crack split off of his foot and left a not-tender-at-all spot on his hoof.

He wasn't off on it today either, so I guess we're in the clear. It almost looks now like he blew an abcess, but seeing the crack before, I don't think that was it at all. I think it was from stomping his feet at the flies.

Bobby had a lesson this afternoon. I got some video for his sales page, and a few pictures. CL's daughter actually did pretty decently this time around. Maybe because her mom was pissed at her for some reason and she couldn't get away with as much whining and bitching as she usually does.

Today, I made up some really ghetto dressage letters that I wrote out on computer paper and then duct taped to wire hangers. I measured out the small arena and did the dressage test twice with Red. He was reluctant to pick up the trot at A after the free walk across the arena, and he kept anticipating every single move so that he was going into his transitions too early. It was so ridiculously hot (96 at 10:30am), I worked on the problem spots right in the middle of the test instead of going back and starting the whole thing over. Tomorrow, the spurs come out.

Bobby got out of work since I was ready to die of heat stroke, but I gave him a bath. He was grazing at the gate when I was done with Red, totally ready to come in. He was sweaty and buggy, so he was actually really good for his bath. (Red got one after his ride, too.) They both got doused in bug spray so they wouldn't stomp too much in their stalls, and huge piles of hay.

Now for story time. Ridiculous story time. I got to the barn at 9:30. I put both horses out in the field then brought in their grain. I had left enough yesterday for last night and this morning because I was waiting for my supplements to get here. Imagine my surprise that when I started to stack the grain to see that both Bobby and Red still had their AM bags of grain! So I brought them back in to eat their breakfast and the whole barn started screaming their heads off. Apparently NO ONE got fed this morning! The BO is well known for being a total forgetful looney at times--like leaving horses tied to stalls even after he's done with stalls, skipping water buckets that need to get filled, forgetting to put shavings in, etc. But how hard is it to remember that there are fifteen horses that get grain every single morning. Oh. My. Gosh.

Road Ready

Sunday, Hubby and I stopped by the barn to turn the ponies out and give Red another quick Microtek bath to try to clear his funkiness up. His neck still looks about the same, but his legs are starting to clean up. We finally bought the wheel bearing that needed to be replaced with the money from CL, and Hubby got the wheel put back on. We spent all Sunday afternoon getting the trailer back in shape. It now has a new tire to replace the one that was wearing down, greased bearings, a new spare, all the electric works, and we ghetto rigged a pad over the back of the door so no more pony butt rubs....using left over linoleum from the kitchen. Ok, so we're poor and we act like rednecks. I actually happen to be a rather respectable person regardless. Just don't look inside my trailer.

Today, I had a decent ride on Bobby again. He was being kind of a princess about the flies by kicking his belly a bunch of times, but I finally got him focused and moving out. I went over the trot poles a few times and he was super, super good at those, then trotted over the baby crossrail twice in each direction. He was kind of sticky picking up his right lead after landing in that direction, so I decided to work on the canter for awhile.

We only went to the right since it was hot and buggy, but it was a good school. He started off doing his retarded head tilt and trying to figure out being on the right lead both in the front and behind consistently, but I worked on the tug-shove with my reins and legs and after a few laps, he was moving along alot more rhythmically and we were even getting a teeny bit of bend! Saturday, CL's trainer said that he looked like he was stretching out alot more and his topline was definitely getting stronger. It's nice to hear that I can sometimes do things right every now and then.

Red got the day off. He's going to get a monster jump school tomorrow when the farrier fixes his foot. Note I said WHEN, not IF. His foot WILL be fixed!!! (knock on wood.)

Comprimising

I decided to stay out of the arena with Red until the farrier comes out Tuesday, but he still needs to keep up with his work, so I took him out to the gallop path across the road. We did a lap in each direction at the trot, then two each direction at the canter, finishing each lap with a gallop. I'll have to ask BO how many acres the field it goes around is so that I can see how long we're going. Regardless, he's going to be one fit mamba jahamba by next Sunday--probably more fit than any other BN horse. But that's how we roll.

The first lap around at the walk, Red spooked at a squirrel going through the hedgerow and nearly had me off. If he hadn't stopped mid-spin, I would have tumbled right over his shoulder. I lost my left stirrup and landed right on his neck. We didn't have any other mishaps after, though. In fact, we got compliments from the peanut gallery. Stacey, a woman that was out trotting her semi-retired show jumper, was done just as we were finishing off our last gallop. She said he looked incredible and you could tell how much he liked to work. Then, when I was giving him his fungus bath, CL's friend came over and said how smooth he goes and how I wasn't moving on him at all (Well, CL's friend, that's just called good riding, and lots of practice on nutty Thoroughbreds.).

Bobby did have a lesson today at 10am, aaaaaand...........wait for it..................I got paid for it!! Fucking finally. We agreed on $10 a ride and she'll pay me at the end of every month. She handed me a $50 bill today. Uh, hell yeah. $50 more to get to Plantation. Screw the four bills that are not getting paid this week, and the lack of groceries in the fridge. Hubby works from 5am-9pm, so he doesn't get to bitch about not getting fed, and he knows some things get sacrificed for ponies. Ok. Alot of things.

Bobby was a rockstar for his lesson, as per usual. He walked around with CL's daughter having no stirrups or reins, and she was on the lunge line for awhile (About time. She really needs it.).

The weather cooled off, so I stopped riding.

Doesn't that make perfect sense? If it's under 85 or not raining, it must not be fun to ride in! It's been high sixties/low seventies the past two days with clear skies and a good breeze. Yesterday, I had a good excuse. It was my birthday and my dad (who lives in CA) and brother (who lives in IL) were out to visit and they're not particularly horse saavy. We went out to the barn first so I could redo Red's foot and turn them out, then we went out to eat and visited Reptiland. It was surprising not as corny as I thought it would be, but that might have been because I didn't have to pay the $14/person admission. The great thing about divorced parents? They try to out-buy you.

We went fishing after that out by my house, but even though you could SEE the fish and drop the worms directly in front of them, they weren't interested. My brother pulled in a shirt with two crawdads in it, and that was the only catch of the day. Hubby was able to get off early and go out to dinner with us, then we snuck into their hotel to go swimming. All in all, a pretty fun day.

Red's new dressage pad!

Showing off my buffness with my new medical armband!

This morning was a total insanity run. I felt like I was sooo hungover, which would have been a good excuse if I ever drank. I went out first thing and bought grain and Microtek for Red's latest effort in trying to get out of Plantation--fungus up his neck, chest, and down both front legs.

I came home quick and made up the bags, then headed out to the barn. I didn't pull in until almost 11, and the ponies.were. pissed. They both dragged me out to the pasture and took off bucking and squealing. Sorry, boys. Maybe if the BO could just chuck you out himself when he's there cleaning stalls, it wouldn't be such a big deal! Grr. I brought Red back in after bringing in the grain and various other shit I had with me, and scrubbed him down.

He only tolerated standing in the crossties for so long while he "soaked" because I was sneaking him some of Bobby's alfalfa cubes. This was my first time using Microtek, and I hope it works as well as it says because that's stuff ain't cheap! I also poured waaaay too much in my bucket, then forgot how easily it came out and poured too much on my sponge. Oh, well. Hopefully I remember tomorrow.

I painted his feet with hoof dressing and just swiped some turpentine on the crack since I'm going through vet wrap like crazy and it doesn't seem to be doing anything. Bill the Farrier is coming out first thing Tuesday morning, and if he can't get it straightened out right quick, I switching farriers. Red has never, ever had a single issue with his feet and now he's squaring off his toes when he gets worked and interfering behind. Sounds like lousy trimming to me.

I brought Bobby in for a good groom since he was looking a little rough. His coat is really dry and he's got a teeeeeny bit of the same thing as Red where his saddle sits. I brought home my brushes and soaked them with Dawn and bleach for a few hours so that I can start clean with Bobby and seperate my brushes. If I had a few more, I'd do that to start with. I'll bathe him with the shampoo tomorrow, too, but today he got off easy.

I think Bobby's getting used for a lesson tomorrow, but God forbid CL tells me. I'm nervous about riding Red, but I know he needs to get schooled. Maybe I'll just do some walking around the field with him.

Bobby gets the day's gold star

Another early morning at the barn. Only 80 at 8am! Woo hoo! Coolest mroning yet. There was also a little breeze, so I managed not to die after riding both horses. Truly a miracle.

I threw Red out on pasture while I got Bobby ready, then rode him for about twenty minutes at the walk and trot. He was a superstar. Really responsive and ready to work. He was doing his classic Derby (Timothy Murphy, a wonderfully retarded TB I learned to gallop on at school) pose with his head on sideways a few times, but I gave my inside rein a tug each time he did it and shoved him over with my inside leg and he straightened out. He was also bending at both the walk and trot really, really well. We went over a ground pole a couple of times, then picked up the canter. I only did one full lap of the arena and a 20 meter circle each direction, but he picked up both leads correctly the first time and didn't need much urging to do so. I finished off with a quick hop over the baby x-rail once each direction, then gave him tons of pats and a hose off before he went out.

Red, my once wild stallion, was a total PLUG today. He got his foot wrapped again and I gave him a really quick w/t warmup.

He DID NOT want to go faster than a sloooooooow western pleasure jog when we where supposed to be trotting, and my hand was starting to hurt from using it as my crop, so I jumped off and grabbed the real thing. Well, hellooo Mr. I-guess-I-can-trot-after-all. We did one 20 meter circle to the left at canter, then moved on to the right. He did not want to pick up the right lead and I could feel the depart better yesterday for some reason. He'd go to lift his left shoulder to canter on the left lead and I immediately brought him back down again. I finally got him to pick up his right lead on the rail going straight instead of in the corner. That won't go well for the dressage test, but at least it's a place to start. I only canter him one 20m circle to the right after he got it because  I didn't want to overtax his footsie. Hopefully I can get Bill the Farrier out tomorrow. I hosed him down, too, then rewrapped his foot with turpentine and sent him on his way back outside.