Bobby.

Ok, I want to clear up the issue I've been having with Bobby. I guess my posts make it sound like he's just lah-di-dahing around all strung out and pokey and happy and I'm trying to strangle him into the dreaded "frame". Not so.

Here's an example of what Bobby looks like on a "good" head in the air day:

bobby's "i'm only being half a dickhead" pose.

Here's what he looks like when I first get on and we're just walking around doing absolutely nothing:

no offense to arabians. imagine nose and head pointed straight
up like this, but in motion, and you'll have grasped the idea.

double the length of this horse's neck and it's also a good example.
but he does this even at the walk on a loose rein.

Now, I am NOT trying to achieve this:

Or even at this point in his training, this:

I'm not a complete idiot. I know he's green. I know he needs a lot more muscle before he's ready for real dressage work that involves a lovely headset. I know he's not completely balanced, or fit, or strong, or ready for hard work yet. I just started riding him again at the end of December guys. It's early February. I'm not expecting a miracle to have occured by now.

BUT, I do expect some cooperation on his part. I know--because I have ridden it--that he's capable of performing some really nice stretchy work. I also know that he can carry himself in a bit of a frame (and I'm loathe to use that word because it can be taken wrong) for awhile. Not the whole ride certainly, and really not even more than a circle or two, but he can do it.

Now, I'm not totally willing to just say he's a dick head and likes to make things hard on me until the last ten minutes of a ride and it just magically clicks on about the time we're getting ready to be done. Keep in mind that I have literally known this horse his whole life--from birth until now. I know every little quirk and injury he's had from paddock injuries (he ran through a fence as a yearling and has a little white scar on his RH), to hereditary issues (his dam is known for her babies having stifle issues).

not to mention he's just kind of dumb.

He's not a mean horse with bad intentions. He doesn't go into a ride thinking, "How can I piss Mom off today? I love it!" So I'm going to pin my efforts on the physical. Things that are going to get picked apart until there is no possible way they're to blame:

1. Saddle Fit. I'll have BO and both BMs give their opinions of both my dressage saddle and the jumping saddle I've been using. I'm extremely confident in their credentials to do this. They're not professional saddle fitters, but they've been around thousands of horses and I have complete faith they'll be able to give me some really good feed back.
2. Teeth. He's getting all his vet work done next month, which includes a float, but I'll tell BO next time the vet comes out for anything to have her take a peak in his mouth. She's out relatively often so hopefully this can get check soon.
3. Chiro. Ok, I know for a fact this is partially to blame. He needs his neck and probably hips sorted out more than just my stretching and massaging can help. This is also on the March vet list. Unfortunately, I just don't have the money to get it done until then. I'll keep plugging away on massages and carrot stretches and leg stretches, but he needs to get adjusted.
4. Bit. He goes in a copper egg butt. He doesn't like a plain dee at all. I don't know why, but he throws a huge fussy fit whenever I've tried it (Red used to go in it for his western tack so it sometimes got thrown on Bobby when we needed an extra bridle). He doesn't really seem that busy with his mouth when he's doing the whole Head In Face schtick, so I'm not inclined to blame it on that. I'll try a couple others that BO has though, just to cross it off the list.

I'm open to other suggestions of things to check out. Obviously this isn't going to be an overnight thing that makes me go "Tah dah!" I don't want you guys to think I'm getting pissed about him not going around with his head perfectly aligned with the vertical, a big overstep, a relaxed back, and second level dressage movements performed at a thought. I'm upset because he's not working with me at all, and I know he's capable of doing more than just dicking around with his nose in the clouds. All I want is a relaxed partner that will work with me when I ask him to do simple things--like not knock me out with his head.

I hope that explains things a little better. Please keep this all in the back of your head whenever I start venting about what a shitty ride we had. And please keep in mind that some of the things that work for your horse(s) will not work for mine. It doesn't mean I'm not trying.

bobby's sire: where 100% of the asshole gene comes from.

Success of a different kind.

Random fact about me: I love to cook. I am also a very good cook--with the single exception of pizza crust. Until last night.

ready to go in the oven.

No matter what recipe I've used, my dough always turns out too heavy. It rises really nicely, but it's just been way too dense. No matter how long it got left to cook, it was never done enough and there was always a gooey, doughy type of finish to it. Yesterday, I finally pulled out Betty to see what she had to suggest. Betty knows what's up. My dough was soft and springy and rolled out be-yoo-tifully.

after getting cooked for five minutes, ready for toppings.

It poofed right up after it's brief first time in the oven, then browned be-yoo-tifully for its final fifteen in to create absolute deliciousness.

ziti pizza: the most delicious way to get ten billion calories in one sitting.

The bottom of the crust was just crunchy enough, the rest of it was light and airy. Consensus? Best crust ever. Thank you, Betty.

now that i'm not starving, that makes me feel a little sick. lol.
but look at the crust. yummm.

I was so pumped. Pizza crust, consider yourself conquered.

also, we got snow. yay!

Good, but not great.

In case you guys live under a rock that doesn't have wifi (as if such a thing exists), this makes me LOL so hard. For those who haven't stumbled across it yet, you're welcome. For those who have, you're also welcome.

babez! picasso and lily.

Robert got his feet done first thing yesterday. Some of Levi the Farrier's remarks:

• "Wow. That came off easily."
• "These are some awfully impressive ears, Bob."
• "Isn't your mom lucky she has you for your whole life, Bob? lololol."
• "He's got a really shiny coat for February." (My currying arm thanked him.)

Oh, Robert. His intelligence may have been poked fun at a few times as well. He got tossed back out while I got Jade ready.

trying out hunter digs. i think we'll stick to this combo.

She warmed up pretty well, if still distracted by horses outside. I looked up some of her racing charts. No surprise she raced in blinkers. Maybe I should borrow a pair... Then we moved on to jumping. And I did a little self-filming so you won't be waiting in anticipation until the weekend. Yay! Poor quality video!

Disclaimer: This is...seventh? eighth? time she's jumped in her whole life. She has never jumped the picket fence before. This is my second time jumping her. She is green as grass, and therefore we are looking at potential here, folks. Personally, I think she's still quite fancy, if also incredibly crooked. Next ride, I'll be using an aresenal of poles to help a sister out.

After her first time over the picket fence, she had a bit of a wench moment where she was snatching the bit and throwing her inside shoulder to the ground. We took a brief hiatus to work through that, then got back to work. She did the next time over really nicely, then had another temper tantrum that I didn't want to rise to meet so we walked it out and finished on a very squiggly note--but she went over so I didn't want to press the issue and make jumping not fun.

cutest naked donkey ever.

I had my hopes set on a kick ass dressage school with Bobby, but my expectations fell flat. He's really easy to tell the difference when he's hollowing out his back and sticking his head in the air and when he's just sticking his head in the air for the fun of it. He alternated between both today, depending on how much of a dick he was feeling like. I was getting really....not frustrated, but just really let down about the whole thing when Sue brought her baby (coming 4yo) in to longe.

We stayed on the far side of the arena behind the jumps and I put him on a circle at the walk. I kept a pretty loose rein, but I was still working with him. Very, very slowly, he started to stretch out, and then stretch down, and then relax, and then give me his best stretchy free walk ever. It only took twenty minutes after thirty minutes of warm up work to get.

I'm going to have to really figure this horse out before the season starts so I can warm him up on the right note. Straight into trot work for awhile and then start real warm up? Find a quiet spot to walk for twenty minutes before heading over to the warm up ring? No warm up ring at all?

As frustrating and disappointing as some of these rides are, I'm actually getting really excited! Only two more months until our first schooling!

Jumping Jade

Sarah and I explored some new territory on Bobby and Blackberry. We also randomly met up with BM on a back road we were on and she told us a new way to go for next weekend. Blackberry was afraid of the cows, and ducks, and barking beagles, and sticks on the ground. Bobby tripped on a rock and went from clop-clop to clop-clink, so he's getting new feet this Tuesday instead of next week. We were out for an hour and a half, ninety-five percent walking, and both boys still got sweaty from a good workout.

we have some hills that are pretty bad ass.

bobby thought the cows were interesting, but no big deal.

blackberry thought the cows were serial quarter horse killers.

No video or pictures of Jumping Jade! Sorry!! Next weekend, I swear!

She was a way more relaxed on the longe today, but I still kept her on it for awhile with lots of w/t transistions. When I got on her, she wanted to be a little silly, but I changed directions every dozen strides or so, so she had to listen to me non-stop and that really settled her down to a great rhythm. I trotted her for about twenty five minutes (My legs were crying by the time I got done with both ponies. I'm such a weakling.), then we headed for a the xrail.

She slowed a bit, but I gave her a cluck and she popped over without fuss. Once she realized that was the game we were playing, she trotted up to it, jumped over, and cantered off. You can count the number of times this horse has jumped on two hands, this was her third or fourth time in the outdoor with yesterday being a disaster, it was my first time jumping her, and she was completely unfazed and totally professional about the whole thing. We went over about a dozen times from both directions, then walked around on the buckle to cool out. If she's not gone by April, I'm totally taking her cross country schooling.

Go Patriots!

Just wanted to get my allegiance out there before tomorrow. I hate the Giants. I really wanted the 49ers to get in.

The plan today was to make a sales video for Jade, but that never happened. I took her up and stuck her on the longe. She flipped shit. The two horses that get turned out in the paddock next to the arena were being nosy bastards and bucking and running around for her. She had zero focus until Hubby chased them away and locked off that part of the paddock. She finally settled down enough for me to feel comfortable taking her off the line. I started off with no draw reins, but she was still way too concerned with Tyler and Simon to listen to me about anything.

I put the draw reins on and tried again. Better, but still all wound up. I ended up just sticking her on the longe for awhile longer and doing lots of transitions until she was calm and paying attention to me. I stopped there and put her away for tomorrow. BM upped her grain because she thought she was too skinny. I heartily disagree. Yeah, she's a little awkward looking right now, but she's last raced in November and came off the track mid-December. She's going through that stage. She needs to drop the racehorse muscle and build up the riding horse muscles. It's not a pretty phase, but extra grain is not going to help. It's certainly not helping her brain. I told BM to drop it back down, so we'll see what I have to work with mid-week.

Bobby had a more intense jump school today, since Thursday was more of a "pop over a few things a few times" sort of day. He was also wound up and was pulling my arms out as we started jumping. The weather did get a little colder today--down the low forties from the mid-fifties. It's crazy that it's February and my horse is wearing his sheet instead of a heavy blanket.

wow, carly. good equitation! coughcough

We did the xrail and a vertical with the scary pipe under it several times a piece with zero issues (besides several Red-like efforts over the jumps).

uhh....bobby really likes to use his neck over fences.

look at those cute knees!

Then we did the single barrel. The first two times, he said "No, thank you". It's hard keeping a naturally crooked and bordering stupid horse straight just trotting along. Add a skinny fence in, and it gets downright tricky. But after only two run-outs, I got him straight and forward at the same time and he popped right over twice.

oh, you're actually going to go over?? ok!

Then we went work on the coop. This time, I was gung-ho to get over it and was keeping him straight at it, I wasn't strangling him, and I was saying gogogo with my legs. I even added a smack with my crop! But Bobby was not down. He finally did a donkey launch and got over after five or six refusals.

He got lots of praise, then we tried again. Same thing. He started getting really worked up about it, so I gave him a break to walk around and reset his brain, then I let him check out the coop again.

I finally got him over it again, then he had a couple more minor nervous runouts, including a "Ok, I'll jump it! No, I can't!" moment.

Clearly, he doesn't have any physical issues going over it. It's only 2'6 and he's a big horse. But it got into his little brain that this coop meant death. I was able to finish off on a super note when he went over the calmest yet, then I brought his right back around to, kept him going forward but talking to him and keeping a really light rein, and he went over with no fuss. Good pony!

That's what's up.

Olivia rode Jade yesterday for the first time. Her assesment: She's very business-like, doesn't really understand affection, is very focused and surprisingly pleasant under saddle, and does not know how to canter in the indoor. Overall, she liked her.

I took her up to the outdoor to ride today since she seemed so unfazed by it when we were up there briefly Tuesday. I stuck her on the longe and she could have cared less. The videos are her as soon as we got up there. She had no crazies to get out--just interested in the other horses in the paddocks.

I took her on a tour of the arena once, letting her investigate the coop (whatev), the jumps in the corner (so?), and the bridge (yeah, I'll step on this, but let's go do something). She warmed up great. She wanted to watch the horses, but if I gave her a little cluck, she'd get right back to work.

Jade sort of on the bridge, now with pulled mane.

We even managed a canter! We only went to the right so that we could end on a good note and not get too anxious about it. She picked up the correct lead every single time, did a big loop of the arena, then came back to the trot by herself. She did it twice without issue, then stumbled the third time on her depart and did a few little baby rears/jumps with her front legs. All I had to do was say, "Heyyyy, Jade," and pull her back and she trotted off unfazed. We cantered one more lap and finished early.

She must have been the bomb to gallop on the track. She knows her job to a tee and she's totally content and secure in being worked wherever.

robert tacked up for a jump school.

I dragged a couple things out for a baby jump school on Robert. I set up one big crossrail that would have made Aimee and Izzy proud, then stuck a pole in a foot-in-diameter culvert pipe thingy that he deemed jumpable. We had a lot of issues with culvert pipe thingies during the hunter pace we went on last year, so I was not surprised that he needed a lot of coaxing to even walk over it with me on the ground. Who knows what monsters lurk inside such things?! However, once I got on, all he needed was a litte tap tap to figure things out at the walk, and was game to jump it at the trot and canter.

We worked on lead changes over the cross rail. Approach from the left, land and head to the right. From the right, land and head to the left. And so on. He was pretty fab. A few times he missed the changes behind, but I brought him back to the trot and he picked up the correct lead right away.

Then, I decided to man up (sort of) and attempt the 2'6 coop. Olivia put it perfectly: "I don't have a problem jumping cross country fences, but solid fences don't belong in the arena." So true. Something about it just makes them scray for me. Also, the last time we jumped a coop, Bobby dumped me on my ass. After I trotted him up to it and gave him zero direction or encouragement about five times, I finally gave myself a mental punch in the dome and said, "Alright, moron. You're doing a most excellent job of training this horse to stop. Get him over." I didn't hold his mouth to his chest, I did give him a squeeze, and he did go over. In fact, he went over great. No huge over-jumping, no rushing, totally fine. Tah dah! "Thankyouthankyouthankyou" and a big hug and pats later, we mosied down to the trails to cool out (of which I tried to post a video a hundred times, but Blogger says no).

Gahhh.

sunrise yesterday.

As I'm sure it was most everywhere, yesterday's weather was awesome. High fifties, sunny, no freezing wind. I rode in a t-shirt. On the last day of January. Hellz to the yeah.

I took him up to the outdoor and stuck him on the longe for a few minutes since he was making very angry faces at me as I was getting him ready (I would have been mad at me, too, if I'd been left in!), but he seemed happy to be out and in someplace new and just doped along. We had a so-so warm up with lots of looking around on Bobby's part. It was only his second time up there, and it went much better than the last time, so I didn't fuss with him much.

The main goal was to let him canter in a big area. This did not work out in my favor. I've always prided myself in being a good sitting trott-er--really the only thing I've never had to struggle with--but I cannot ride this friggin' horse's canter. It's too big! My legs go swinging around in cirlces, I lose my stirrups, I'm launched thirty feet out of the saddle, and I can't stop my body from flying in all directions. He was happy to be able to stretch his legs and I'm sure it made him look fancy, but Holy Jesus, I was a hot mess. I finally got semi sorted out by shortening my stirrups a bit, getting into a light seat, and waging battle on my lower leg to keep it in place.

I'm sure it would have been easier if he was going slower, but I didn't want to choke him back. Also, I'm sure he wasn't going that fast anyway. I guess it's just got to be terrible for it to get even kind of good? I can't imagine it getting any worse at this point! I'm going to try to coerce Hubby out this weekend to get video so we can all laugh and cry together. I would never want to hold back my humiliations from you!

I did the dirty deed with Jade today. I put draw reins on her. It was like sticking a big pacificer in her mouth. She was totally content with them on, did some fabuloso bending circles, was consistent and relaxed over the cavaletti, was happier to move forward instead of getting sticky and behind my leg, and just a generally nice horse to ride for the first time. She was clearly galloped in draw reins at some point in her life, and probably for quite some time.

We walked up to the outdoor after our ride to grab my longe line. She marched right up there, took a tour of the arena, let me grab the line off the fence without even looking at it, then decided my fat ass was not getting carried back down the hill. Probably a smart choice. Reins and draw reins in one hand and a tangled longe line in the other was not exactly setting us up for success her first time down a big hill with a rider on her back.

BO complimented me on her banged tail done correctly (I can't stand scraggly tails), aaand....she said if I got her sold, I'd get commission. So someone buy her. Pronto. She's actually starting to become semi pleasant.