Ride Notes: Goals

• "Carry my hands" goal: Wow, it's hard not to pull! This is also forcing me to ride with shorter reins which is definitely not a strong suit of mine. 
• When he wants to pop above the contact--pretty much only in the lateral work--I'm trying to convince myself that my hands can go a little wide instead of instantly drop and take back, ending up in my lap and pulling which is just my absolute favorite. I've had to revert to a little wiggle back and forth now and then, but I guess better that for two strides than setting my hands and pulling for however long until I notice I'm doing it and chuck the reins at him, usually dropping all the contact in the process. It's gonna be a journey, hot damn. 
• "Forward in the lateral work" goal: Also known as, time to up your fitness, heifer. A large part, if not the entire reason, of why I'm shutting the trot down in the lateral work is because a bigger gait is harder to sit. I had to really work hard physically to keep up with his bigger, swingier trot.
• Bonus though, he will and can do it. Especially paired with not pulling/carrying my hands.
• More sideways.
• I brought Mr Tappy out the past two rides because I knew I wanted to get that big sideways step back and I didn't want to have to keep kicking him to get it. He wanted to shoot and scoot all over the first minute I had it in my hand, but he quickly started ignoring it being in my hand. Both rides all it took was one brush and he was like, "Yes, ma'am!"
• The half pass is easy now. Canter half pass, we're coming for you!
• The changes.
• I can get them both ways. After a fight. And a lot of not clean ones. BM is getting on him tomorrow so we can both see how to approach this. I'm very dubious she's going to be able to help, but if nothing else I can say I've crossed that avenue off my list. Without a working truck to haul to anyone at the moment, it's her or me. 

Quick aside

 This week was a quick break from real dressage work--which is never really a bad thing! 

On Monday we did a light stretchy ride.

Tuesday and Wednesday he had off.

Thursday he got his teeth done, and then had a quick longe.

This morning we did some jumping for the first time since....September?

always good pony pets for trying hard.
and always puppies!

I set up a pretty remedial course, although it was at least more fun than the standard hunter course. We started coming off the rail onto the diagonal over the barrels (with no stopping because apparently we're a grown up now), down the long side to a vertical, up the other diagonal over a one stride gate-to-gate, the diagonal again to an oxer with fill, and then a quick half rollback turn right over a vertical (the X pictured above). 

Things were a bit sloppy once we started coursing. I had to remember how to ride, and Opie came around to the vertical on the long side/rail that I had set up after warming up and slammed on the brakes in surprise over the magically appearing jump. He was fine once I came back around to it, and didn't look at anything else. 

Once I gave myself a pep talk though and we kept looping through the course, I started riding more forward and letting go while keeping my leg on and everything of course straightened itself out. I was super proud of him for not turning into a rage monster since it's been so long since he's done any jumping. Especially since I just had him in his fat, hollow snaffle dressage bit. 

He gets his weekly pulse treatment tonight, and then he'll have tomorrow off before we return to dressage land again. 

Back to work

At this point I would say Opie is completely back into full work. He's still got some cardio to rebuild--which honestly always lacks a bit in the winter when we're not trail riding as much--but he feels strong, and most importantly he's remained sound with each new thing I reintroduce.

He missed one week of his pulse treatment for Christmas, and when she came to do him on New Year's he wasn't any more reactive than usual, but he was definitely glad to have her back. 

rebuilding that beastly topline

I've been focusing a lot on the canter the last few rides after not doing much with it all of December. Thank god for the double during this endeavor. He wants to start off heavy and leaning, and the double takes care of that with zero fighting and half the work on my part. He also starts off crooked AF, but getting him super collected and doing a ton of work on the quarter lines is taking care of that. 

casually the most handsome

The trot work has needed a lot of transitions to get cooking. Which...it's dressage. I need to be doing ALL THE TRANSITIONS anyway, so the night and day difference in quality is keeping it easy in reminding me to do so. 

I need to start getting back to work on all the lateral stuff, keep plugging away at strengthening the canter, and then I'm going to bite the bullet and make BM get on him and see what she can do with his changes. I don't want to fuck up my back again. I know that whether she gets them or not, she's going to be a miracle worker and all his success is going to be thanks to her, but whatever. I want my fucking Bronze this year, and Imma do whatever I can to make that happen. 

we got a puppy. she is sometimes a goat, sometimes a demon
dragon spawn, and sometimes just a good nugget.

2020 Goal Review and 2021 Goals

 2020 Goals:

1. Improve rider position. Let's be real, I'm never going to be the glowing example of dressage equitation, but I was able to be more cognizant of what my body was doing as both Opie and I got stronger as the year went on. Still room for improvement, but improvement was made.
2. Once a week stretch day. I scrapped setting aside one day a week specifically for stretching because without shows my riding/training schedule was pretty sporadic. But I made sure to incorporate lots of stretching throughout every single ride anyway, and there were plenty of rides where stretching was all we did. Gonna call it mission accomplished.
3. Be a bigger cheerleader for myself. Meh. Privatizing the blog was good because I was able to be more honest with how I felt for each ride, but I'm still pretty close lipped to anyone about the good things both my horse and myself do. 
4. Find a balance between pushing Opie forward and making sure he stays happy in his work. All well and good until we really started hitting the changes. And then no. Of course, looking back, how much of it was maybe some sort of lingering soreness in the groin/stifle/hamstring area since that L-R change was never much of an issue. He certainly felt confident with the added collection and cleaning up the lateral work, but the changes nullified this goal for us.
5. Do more jumping. Bish, yes, so much jumping. The 'rona opened up all sorts of fun cross country activities we probably wouldn't have done otherwise. 
6. Ride each movement in our tests. What tests? What show season?
7. Figure out how to score well in the turn on the haunches. What tests? What show season? I do think I broke this down in my head though, and will be able to ride it well next year. 

Well, at least the fundamentals got crossed off? Like a lot of people, this year was kind of a blessing in disguise with being able to step away from focusing on a show season and test riding and just kind of do the thing instead. 

2021 Goals:

1. Have an acceptable, clean flying change each way. They can be a little wild and wooly still, but I want them on regardless. 
2. Ride the lateral work forward.
3. Canter half pass.
4. Carry my hands. As in, in the air. Not with my lap.

The Cost of 2020

2019, with links to the other years I've done this starting in 2016.

Memberships: $45

• I renewed my GMO's membership in November. I ended up sitting on renewing anything else in the spring because I wasn't sure my truck/finances/horse's mental state were going to get us to a show ring. Turns out it was a prudent choice and I didn't waste a dime on memberships that I couldn't do anything with. 

Vet: $1,526.25

• Radiographs, ultrasounds, and plenty of maintenance kicked this one up a notch this year. 

Board: $1,710

• Getting abused in the morning by naughty horses keeps the cost down!

Truck and Trailer: $567.25

• I could have added more on to this one when the truck's transmission blew, but I told Hubby to blow the bitch up because I was done dealing with it. He fixed the transmission, but I didn't add it to the tally because I'm done hauling with it everrrrrr. New truck next year, and the trailer needs to get its electric sorted again so that's going to be a whopper in 2021.

Farrier: $630

Lessons: $0

Shows: $421.84

• A hunter show, a few hunter paces, a jumper derby, and a whole lot of cross country schooling. 

Supplements: $1,203.99

• This includes a monthly supply of Nutrena Empower Boost, a late addition of Purina Outlast, and a couple other cheap things throughout the year (Buteless for his bum leg, UGard before the Outlast, yada yada). It's also a six month supply of his expensive magical mushrooms for his teeth. He hasn't been on that for a month because I'm going to try to the old on for six, off for three thing to see if it can justify the cost. Or if his dentist ever gets back to me to schedule an appointment and she tells me he has a whole new mouth.

Tack and Equipment: $2,086.37

• I bought a western saddle. And a jump saddle. And a super nice double bridle. Really everything else was just chump change LOL. 

Total: $8,190.70

• This could have been so much more if I had showed for real this year! But also I probably wouldn't have bought a western saddle and a jump saddle if I had been focused on showing dressage, soooo....

2020 Year in Review

2020 was the first full year I had my blog private, and it turned out to be the perfect year for it. I feel like I was more honest and frank about my rides than I have been in a long time--both for the good and the bad. 

January

January was a mixed month. After giving Opie most of December off when we both got burnt out, we did some jump schools (good), some trail rides (good), some dressage schools (some good, some the typical mid-winter Satanic variety), and he got introduced to the double--just during stretch rides, but he took to it well. 

February

We started off the month drilling the basics on the flat: being round, being forward, being supple in the lateral work...being obedient. All the horrible stuff, but much needed for both of us. He got adjusted by the chiro for an out of whack LH--there's that pesky leg again! We finished the month doing a few jump schools and owning game night yet again.

March

More enforcing the basics and cleaning up the Second level work. Opie finally started to understand the medium trot for the first time, and we finished out the month "starting" the changes. Even back then, the L-R was good, but the R-L was a hot mess. We did a few bridleless jump schools just for funsies. I railed about my lack of a reliable hauling vehicle and my horse's tension, and how they were going to ruin our show season. Then COVID was like, "Surprise, bitch, I can do all that for you." And no show season was to be had!

April

We attempted to pull Opie's shoes since we weren't going anywhere in the foreseeable future thanks to the 'rona. He ended up with an abscess in a hind foot, and his feet got too chewed up and tender barefoot so that was the end of any exciting farrier news for the year. We started to work for real in the double, and also introduced Opie to barrels. Because 'rona. Do all the things.

May

We started the month with a couple jumps schools which he was pretty wild for. We did a ton of trail riding, and kept sneaking in work on the changes with middling success. 

June

MOAR TRAIL RIDING. MOAR JUMPING. MOAR FUCKING AROUND. We enjoyed the shit out of June. Got a hunter pace in during which I almost died of heat stroke because Fat, jumped everything inside and out of the barn, and closed out the month by doing a jumper derby in which Opie was slightly rabid, but bold and brave and got a fourth in the Intro and a sixth in the BN.

July

We did another hunter pace and switched back and forth between cross country schooling and doing real dressage work this month. A++ for the jumping, more like a C+ for the dressage with some serious battles over the counter--specifically the counter canter.

August

EVEN MOAR TRAIL RIDING. And fucking around of course. We did our very first test ride of 3-1 which was sloppy, but felt doable. The R-L change continued to be our nemesis. We finished out the month with another cross country school. 

September

We kicked off this month in a horrible no good way. I was getting drama piled on top of me, and Opie was just adding fuel to the fire by having a complete meltdown over the changes. He fucked up my back badly, couldn't relax to save his life even hacking out, and earned himself a spot on the chiro's wait list. Halfway through the month I dropped the dressage, did a couple of hunter oriented rides, went on vacation for a week, and then came back and did a wild hunter show. By the end of the month, however, I had gotten us back on track and kept everything from imploding.

October

Opie got adjusted by the chiro at the beginning of the month and it kicked off a long lameness journey. He was out in the usual places, but when the chiro got to the LH (always the problem leg), he fucked around for a long time and then thought what was going on was more of a stifle soft tissue injury or aggravation. We did a Bute trial with zero success, and he went from dropping his hip to outright lameness all while only doing walk work. 

November

Getting nowhere with Bute, rest, and/or walking, I finally called the vet out for a lameness consult. She x-rayed, saw nothing, and made an appointment to come back out to ultrasound. Nothing there either even though he had now gotten even more lame, and all she could offer was more Bute and stall rest. He predictably lost his shit on the few days of stall rest we did do, and I quickly nixed that plan. Trying to get better ideas from her ended up futile as she basically fired me as a client and straight out told me to find a new vet. Thanks. What ended up working was multiple PEMF treatments in a week with weekly follow ups and a little Bute here and there as he came back into light work. The suspected culprit? A pulled groin--nothing the vet ever mentioned.

December

My plan was to walk for the month of December, but Opie's broken brain had other ideas, and ultimately it worked out for the best. With his weekly PEMF treatments and easing into real work, he's remained completely sound and is basically back in full work. He feels a little weak every now and then, and I definitely want to keep his pulse therapy going, but amazingly I'm finishing out the year with a sound and sane horse that should still be on track for Third next year. Provided we can get that R-L change this time around. 

Best Laid Plans

 I had every intention of walking Opie for the month of December.

That did not last.

I was hoping that being under saddle--even if it just was at the walk--would be enough to make Opie feel like he had a job again, and therefore put him mentally back in his normal routine where he didn't lose his shit in his stall. 

That did not work.

So I went ahead and added the trot back in. He feels totally sound albeit a little weak and wiggly from two months of doing nothing. 

"Rehab" will now consist of...rolling with whatever each ride brings. He's getting once a week PEMF sessions, and obviously I'm not dumping him right into full work, both of which will hopefully keep that leg/groin/area in general from getting sore again. The tricky thing will be not doing too much while still doing enough so that he feels fulfilled in his tiny brain. 

The overall picture here is, of course, that the vet is the worst and I'm pissed I'm in this frustrating situation at all.

Also that my horse is a nutter and if he could stop being that, that would be great.