Mightybobbymagee: The Racehorse. Part I

Since I'm out of state and Bobby is on another week-long vacation, I thought I'd take the opportunity to share with you all the "wonderful" year that my floppy-eared Thoroughbred made a fool out of himself on the New York racing circuit.

For those that have followed the blog for awhile, last year I did a "Bobby: The Lifetime Movie" post explaining our history together. The long and short of it is: Bobby was produced by the college I attended to be one of our racehorses. He was an absolute monster once he got to Finger Lakes to go into work with our trainer, and he was sold before we ever raced him ourselves. Look for the neck strap in his first couple of races. If I remember correctly, rearing was his favorite trick back then.

bobby on the left with his trainer. my old co-worker on the right on spa princess.
at saratoga, september 2008.

Bobby's first race was at Aqueduct 11/23/08 where he finished fourth. 

View chart.

He raced in yellow and maroon silks, and he's always easy to find right out of the gate because he was awful at breaking.

It was actually a really good finish for Bobby, especially for his first race. He broke slow, trailed the field, and then snuck right up the inside along the rail to rally. He just didn't have enough to catch the pack of three in front of him. 

breezing at saratoga. note the blinkers, houghton bit, and dressage whip.
steering and control were not bobby's strong points.

His second race was a month later. He raced at Aqueduct his entire career, except in his final start.

View chart.

He broke on the far outside in this race and was ridden right along to get into better contention. It either didn't pay off or it backfired, as Bobby never fired and came home in seventh out of a field of ten. 

He was back at it three weeks later with a new jockey. 

View chart.

Once again, he broke poorly and ended up starting behind everyone else. He was ridden hard into the stretch where he lugged in to the rail, and while there was no chance of catching the winner, he managed to get into the thick of things to barely hold on for third.

I'm going to break this up into two parts so it doesn't get too media heavy. Also, it gives me two posts while I'm gone instead of one. Winning!

Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow!

Red Pony: Two Years Later

Today marks two years since I had to have Red put to sleep (God, is there no easier way to say that?). The passing of time doesn't make it any easier.

this horse was obsessed with licking things.

no, really.

it was a sickness.

I still compare every horse to him even though no horse will ever live up to his standards.

He was a midget, and my legs hung past his belly even when my stirrups were shortened for jumping, but he was beautifully put together, and he never felt small underneath me. While his flat work was never going to wow anyone, he was absolutely spring-loaded when it came to jumping. He was the first horse I ever jumped 4' on, and even at that height, he didn't seem to be putting any effort in. While he had fun running out and refusing, and he never listened to me about an approach, he brought his knees to his eyeballs every time and you could tell there was nothing else he'd rather be doing.

ain't no thing.

He was opinionated. He liked to pick fights just to see what he could get away with. He rarely picked up his right lead. His favorite treats were watermelon Sour Patch Kids. He liked to suck the cheese off Doritos and spit the chip back out when he was done.

red knew all about posing.

He didn't get along with very many horses, but he loved to hang out with people. He used to lay down if tacked up on cement, and I can't count how many pairs of crossties or halters he broke. He loved to jump out of paddocks, especially if he knew you were watching.

he loved playing tag.
(and more than once jumped over that 6' paddock fence you see in the background
because someone got brought in for dinner before him. the original drama queen.)

He trail rode. He did barrels. He loved going swimming. He let us rope off of him and stood like a statue while I untangled him after invariably roping his leg. He did hunters, jumpers, and eventing. He packed people around double. He threw me more times than every other horse I've ridden combined. He loved to take off with me.

tiny pony ears ignoring the nonsense going on behind him.

In the end, how could another horse ever live up to him? The trainer that broke him out and raced him as a two and three year old vividly recalled him three years after he left his barn: "Oh, Mr Personality? How could any of us forget him?"

There will never be another pair of ears I'd rather look through.

spooking at mud. because why not?

The best at posing?

Well, I don't think we'll go that far, but we trailed Bobby up to the house for Christmas pictures this morning and he actually deigned to put his ears forward for most of the pictures! We got a couple of inches of snow last night, but it stayed warm enough that the roads were cleared to perfection in no time. The light was pretty awful, but Hubby and I are leaving for IL for a week tomorrow and today was our last chance to get them.

Without further ado rambling, here are some of the best:

i borrowed spyder's bridle because neither my hackamore or micklem are pretty.

the whole fam damily

we went through literally an entire bag of peppermints in an hour.

my brilliant "plug in the horse" idea failed.
i wasn't going to trailer him over in the dark though.

so cute!

oh, bobby. even when posing you look so dumb.

cantering around the back yard

past the apple trees

derp.

by the oak tree

I will have posts while I'm gone! I'm actually kind of a prepared blogger at the moment.

Kind of.

The Worst at Posing

As I was wandering out of the barn this morning, I stopped to snap a picture of Sunny and Brody who are stalled next to each other in the courtyard.

because they're like twinsies

Then I took a head shot of both and the lighting worked so well with them being in their dark stalls that I figured I'd stick Brody on the cross ties quickly (since he needs lots of cross tie time), and then put Bobby in Brody's stall to finally get a couple of good head shots of Bobby.

see? super cute with super lighting.

Well, Bobby proved once again how me he SUCKS at posing. It's like he's the head of the Anti-posing Brigade. I could barely get him to lift his head from Brody's hay (of course, Bobby had his own hay in his stall), and when he did, he didn't want to put his ears forward or look at me.

"not participating, thanks."

I finally got him to pay attention to the peppermint wrapper, but even then...

"lolz, no i won't stick my head out any more than this!"

It doesn't help that he has one of the most unattractive heads ever, a bleached out forelock, and a large brown mule nose. Things really have to be perfect to make him look like a noble Thoroughbred.

not noble at all. especially with the hay stuck to his nose.

I did ride today. Sarah and I went up to the outdoor and splashed around in the mud for nearly an hour jumping and flatting. Bobby was a jumping fool, and while not nailing every distance, he wasn't rushing the fences or flying backwards, so I'll take it. The fences were super low from where I had them set for Spyder forever ago and I didn't bother changing them.

I did attempt to do the blue barrel standing on-end with wings. He was game enough, but drifted left both times we did it, tapping the left wing with a hind foot and bringing it down. I don't think it helped that he wasn't forward enough, or that I just sat there and didn't steer or try to keep him straight.

But he didn't run out or stop, so I called it good for the day. His flat work after all the jumping (and we did a lot of it) was stellar. That is, it was stellar after I handed Sarah the whip back that she had borrowed from me. She gave it back when she started cooling out Memphis, and Bobby flipped shit though I did nothing with it. Once I gave it back, he was fine. Whatevs, drama queen.

Even though it was in the high fifties today and I was toweling Bobby dry, it's going to drop down to the low twenties tomorrow and for all of next week. Stupid weather, I hate you.

about as good as bobby gets at posing.

Another Pony!

Have you ever had one of those days when you've woken up and known right away that your brain has crept out of your head overnight for a little vacay? Well I hope you enjoy your sombrero and margarita, Brain, because I didn't enjoy having to drive back to my house for my boots and half chaps, or slamming my knee into my car, or almost catching the microwave on fire by heating the spoon in my bowl of chili, or almost breaking the dog's foot by trampling over her. It has not been a good day so far, Brain!

On the plus side, this now resides in the barn:

not nearly as cute as AP, but still pretty cute. 

But first a Bobby ride recap.

I woke Bobby up from his morning nap when I got to the barn, and I had him pulled out of his stall, groomed, and feet trimmed (again) when I realized my boots and half chaps were still at my house. I dug through lockers for a spare pair, but in a barn full of wispy teenagers, none fit my size 11 foot. So Bobby got put back away while I ran home to grab them before getting dragged back out again and tacked up. He was not happy to be on the receiving end of such foul treatment, but half a bag of carrots mostly put him to rights.

He was dead lazy when I got on, but with copious amounts of leg, he started walking like he was alive and his trot and canter were loose and forward. I grabbed a whip to work on our lateral work, which was of course much cause for angst. I ignored him and the whip and carried on like it was a normal ride. He kind of, sort of got over me carrying it, but he had Much Sass for the first fifteen minutes.

The plus side of carrying the whip is that his lateral work really does improve and he's super sharp off the leg; I don't even ever actually use the stupid thing. His leg yields were like melty rubber (that's a good thing, by the way), and his trot--when not making snarky faces or tossing his head--was totes dreamy.

I finished him off with a beast of a canter. We didn't even go very long, but I really pushed him UP and made him SIT. Gosh, this horse can be so dreamy when going correctly. His canter has so much natural jump to it that when he's off his forehand and pushing from behind, you feel like you're getting air with every stride. Of course, I was gasping with the effort of using legs and seat and core and ignoring my reins (Hackamore, you are the best thing to ever happen to us.) and by the time we were done, I literally thought I was going to puke.

Then it was time for Palomino Pony, alias "Brody" (gag.). Brody is a baby pony from the same farm as Adorable Pony. BO keeps saying she needs to new lesson horses and then ends up with this green as grass tiny ponies. Brody is just under horse size, but still. He is GREEN. No clue how to pick his feet up. BM had to teach him to cross tie. Doesn't know how to longe. And, apparently, doesn't know how to ride.

BO said that the woman she got him from said he had been ridden "two or three times." Ridden translates into "sat on." I brought him to the indoor with a lesson so BO could watch him go and we spent about five minutes trying to go in a circle on the line before his dinosaur snorting got us kicked out for disturbing the other horses. I took him up to the round pen and let him loose.

I had to chase him to get him to move faster than a dead sloth, and even that was barely accomplished. After awhile, I decided he was so dead I would just get on him and walk him around. I bellied up on him a couple of times while he ignored me before swinging my leg over. He continued to ignore me.

boring enough to do an ear shot.

I bounced and shifted around on him for awhile, swinging my legs and picking up and dropping my stirrups. No reaction. I finally decided he was good to go and asked for a walk.

Nothing.

No amount of voice, leg, spur, butt smacking, or rein flapping could get him to shift a foot. Every now and then he'd turn an ear back to me or swing his head around to give my boot a sniff, but he had no interest in forward movement.

On the plus side, for probably only having someone sit on him once or twice, he was great for being alone in the round pen for the first time in his life with a rider on top of him flailing like a crazy person. BO said another girl at the barn wants a project, and he's clearly got a great temperament, so hopefully she'll have fun with him. It certainly makes me appreciate the fact that Bobby and I are way past the stage of breaking out.

"oh, hullo. i had to be chased with a longe whip to be made to go forward."

Awww yeah!

Dudes.

We did it.

We jumped in the indoor without any threats of violence or death voiced from Bobby or myself.

As has been well documented in this blog, jumping in the indoor is like trying to get a moose around a Grand Prix jumper course in a small dressage court. If we can make it over a 6" cross rail without totally biting it, it's been a successful fucking day.

Bobby hadn't been ridden since last Sunday, but that's never any bigs. He always comes out the same way, whether he's had a day off or three months off. He warmed up forward and bouncy with his ears flopped over sideways in his customary "Derp" pose.

I set up an exercise I saw on one of the last Evention episodes: a small vertical (we started at 2') set at X with placing poles set in a diamond shape around the jump 12' out so you're jumping the vertical at an angle. I think they said 9' in the video, but 12' worked well for us.

like so.
vertical set at its end height of 2'6"

Warming up on the flat, I was going back and forth into two point and really jamming my lower leg and heels forward, trying to communicate to my leg that forwards is better than backwards. I used to tell this to Bobby all the time too, and he eventually got it. The idea being, of course, if I think about shooting my leg forward a crazy amount like Marilyn Little, it might actually just stay at my girth instead of swinging back any.

my leg needs to think like this to be immobile. 

Warming up over the fence, I started off turning down the center line at C and cantering through the small gap between the poles. Bobby was arrow straight, totally balanced, and didn't break rhythm for a second. He nailed the distance every single time, and never got frazzled about anything. Who is this horse?!

We moved on to the exercise at the trot first. Bobby was totally unfazed and jumped around like it was nothing. Really, it was nothing--a fun exercise, and great for working on angled jumps and lead changes, but not really a difficult exercise--but he's always so awful at jumping in there!

I got off and knocked the jump up to 2'6" and Bobby went right back to work without getting pissed. Over the jumps, he was a total boss. On the flat between fences, he was a little bit of a bear. He likes to curl behind the bit (or the hackamore in his case) when jumping, and if I'm not paying attention (which is often), I let him pull my upper body down with him. Obviously that does nothing good for either of us, but I was on top of shit today. I forced him to keep his head up, made him stay forward and off his forehand, and really worked on taking the time to bend through the turns instead of careening around them. It's probably what helped make his jumps so good. Dressage is the basis for everything!

But back to my random leg blurb quickly. We did come into one jump where I was shortening my reins as we were one stride out from the pole--for whatever reason; it's just how I roll--and I was caught off guard for the jump. I ended up slipping my reins (thank you, Red, for teaching me that wonderful tool), but my lower leg went flying off to Neverland.

I came around again, and reminded myself to jam my leg and heel forward as far as they could go over the jump--which had been making me feel so much tighter over the rest of the jumps--and dang if I wasn't able to pop out an auto release without moving my legs an inch. Best feeling ever to actually feel like I know what I'm doing over a jump with this horse. Now I just need Hubby to come document this experiment to see where my leg actually goes when I think it's being still.

"are you fucking done blabbing yet?"
no, bobby, i'm not!

I asked BM to look at his hooves with me when I was done. She agreed that the toe can come back more, but she said to leave his bars for now. Her reasoning was that his sole is still a little flat and that on our frozen and rocky ground, the bar is giving his hoof that much more lift. She thinks it will wear down on it's own before getting out of control, but I'll keep an eye on it. I know that when I first pulled his shoes it was horrendous. She also pointed out a spot on each front foot that I hadn't balanced correctly, so I fixed that quickly and we scooted out of there before getting mobbed by lessoners. I'll take his toes back some more the next time I'm out.

I'm super grateful that I can get advice from you guys, and that I can then take it back and have BM check my work or teach me how to do something. Basically, thanks for being my free online farriers! I really value what you guys have to say!

Lame-o Update

I had every intention of doing a Bobby update on Friday that would cover all bases--including the results of his Lyme test. I called the vet Friday morning after talking with the BM who told me that they'd gotten the results back for Star (another high positive), and she had been tested several days after Bobby. The receptionist told me that there had been a mix up at Cornell and Vet was "all over it", so when Cornell faxed in the results--which they told Vet they would do Friday--Vet would call me right away. Still haven't heard from anyone.

Instead, here's what else has been going on: Not much.

I rode on Sunday, dropped supplements off on Wednesday, and headed back out on Friday. I did Bobby's feet first thing. I'm not sure how I feel about them right now. As always, I welcome (beg for) any and all comments or criticism. Here are pictures from Friday:

LF

LF
i'm not sure of the where/when/how of the missing chunk.

RF
thrush be gone! seriously soooooo much better!

RF
maybe there's kind of a little heel there?
maybe? kind of? a little?

LH

LH
someone tell me that line is the delineation between new hoof and old,
and not that i'm foundering my horse.

RH

RH

After all that, I didn't really feel like riding. The cold didn't help. Instead, I put the surcingle and Micklem on and took him down to the indoor for a longe.

He went around w/t fine, and cantered to the left fine, but to the right he either picked up the lead cross cantering behind right away or switched behind once cantering. The switch usually involved a lot of bucking followed by hopping with both hind legs together but cantering normally in front. Clearly he needs to be adjusted. Merry Christmas to Bobby--who wants to pay for the chiro?

After the brief longe, I let him loose and he went loco for a good five minutes straight. He gets pretty silly out in the field, but with the snow and hard ground, I guess he's been missing out on his nightly romp. Once he was done, he calmly walked over to me to get hooked back to the line. I had to walk him out for nearly ten minutes before he was dry and no longer blowing.

He got his cookies and stuck back in his stall. I haven't been out since. 

listening to the cows across the road.

I'll probably go ride tomorrow. This weekend Hubby and I have total awesomeness planned for Bobby. He won't even know what him.