This Sunday we're headed to BCHP where Bobby is, without exception, as squirrely and as squiggly as they come. Side reins are getting packed alongside the longe line and we'll be taking advantage of their round pen before even heading over to the warm up.
To work on the issue of Bobby's cracked out gerbil brain at home, today I pulled out the draw reins and we headed up to the outdoor.
working on no llamas last summer.
Obviously I don't put draw reins on, crank my horse's head down, and call it a victory. They come with their own set of problems. He wants to put his poll down too low and when asked to do something really hard, he tries to curl behind the bit. However, for Bobby, just wearing them is enough to hold his attention and to keep the periscope down. It's easier for me to get him going forward and bump his head up than it is to bring the drama llama head down, fight for bend, fight for straightness, and fight for a sliver of his attention.
To start with we alternated between a working trot with half halts to get him sitting on his butt instead of dragging his toes, lengthenings down the long side, and leg yields. The arena was sectioned off to measure out a large dressage ring for a rider that had a dressage show last weekend, so I worked on parts of our test.
Our dressage judge for the show told me that Bobby almost leg yields out on a circle when coming to the canter depart and I need to work on keeping him straighter. I can feel him drift out, but I guess I've just been ignoring it. We had several discussions about my outside leg pressing against his side not meaning "ignore the canter cue" or "pick up the wrong lead" or "throw a shit fit because you have to stay straight". Eventually we got it sorted out, but it's going to be something we need to keep working on.
It wasn't a breathtaking dressage school by any means, but the problems were worked through as they came up and we moved on instead of constantly fighting each other. If he can just learn to keep his focus while outside, we'd be in good shape. Tomorrow I'm going to longe him in side reins and see if we can have a polite school outside without the draw reins.
He's staying in tonight because his shoes are desperate to part ways with his feet and I don't want them getting ripped off before the farrier gets out tomorrow morning.
I had a minor panic attack when I arrived at the barn yesterday morning. I was wrapping Bobby's legs and noticed that there was no poop in his stall. BM walked by and I asked if he had gone out the night before. Despite the big, starred note I had left on the board for the barn worker, Bobby had spent his night frolicking in the field. Miraculously, he still had all of his shoes on and all he needed was his back legs washed off.
Dressage
Here's how dressage warm up went:
"hellooooooo, bobby. fucking pay attention!"
I knew as soon as we got into the warm up ring that we were not going to put in even a remotely respectable test. Bobby had zero interest in softening, bending, maintaining rhythm, or listening to me. Horses were out on xcountry and all he wanted to do was watch them go around.
one of us had our dressage britches on.
it was not the four legged one of us, by the way.
I did minimal w/t/c before sticking him on a circle and trying to get him to soften and bend. It didn't work. At all. I rode into the ring trying to keep Bobby strung out and plodding instead of drama llama-ing and exploding. Came down the center line, made our first circle, and I really focused on getting my geometry correct to pick up points where I could. I was chanting a little mantra of "Ride into your corners" when the judge blew her whistle. I rode into my corner alright....but I was supposed to be going back down the center line. Dang! I didn't let it rattle me and we carried on back on track.
We got 6s and 7s for our trot work. We managed to pick up a few more points at the canter, getting an 8 and 7s. We ended with a mediocre but well deserved 34.3 that tied us for second. Hubby only got the trot work on video because he abandoned his filmmaker duties to retrieve the dogs who were barking at the tool who parked two inches from our trailer and hung out with his door open and radio on.
Stadium
I took my time to get ready and headed down for stadium twenty minutes before my ride time. There was one rider just going into the ring to jump and then us. They were running way ahead of schedule, but I wasn't going to rush.
Jumped the X and the vertical, making use of my neck strap to keep my balance on the uphill approach to the warm up jumps, and then headed down to do our round. The jump crew volunteer asked me what number I was and I looked down and realized I didn't have my pinny on. I cantered Bobby back to the trailer and enlisted our trailer neighbor to ransack the truck and trailer with me to find it. Thank you random fellow competitor! We eventually dug it out, tied it on, and Bobby and I hurried back.
Here's our crazy, twisty course:
say what?!
Bobby felt okay through it. He was a little wiggly making the turns, but once he got straightened to the fence, he was all business. We did have one chip, of course. But only one this time instead of every single fence!
not sure what i'm doing.
It was a clear round that I actually wasn't embarrassed to do in front of other people! Well on our way to checking off one of my year's goals.
Bobby came around the corner of the stadium ring and saw the start box ahead of him and instantly started jigging sideways. Hubby had to hold on to him while I put my helmet cam on and once he let go, Bobby trotted right off. Pony was ready to do his thing!
Bobby was a total super star. He took a little peek at fence 3, but didn't back off of it all. Fence 4 kind of wigged me out and it was on a downhill landing. I thought about trotting it, but Bobby wanted to canter it so I let him do his thing and he popped right over. We trotted across the messy road crossing, and that halted our momentum a bit so that when we came over the ditch to the big roll top, he was a little under-powered and threw in an extra stride to climb over. After that, he just cruised right along for a super smooth round.
Watch for yourself! (It repeats for some reason. It's only a 4ish minute video.)
Double clear jumping rounds for our first full Novice? Heck yes! The COTHer that got me hooked up to all the eventing venues in our area was volunteering with her daughter and she stopped by the trailer when we were done to compliment Bobby. She said he looked super smooth and super confident. She was stroking his mile long ears while we chatted and he passed out with his lower lip flopping. Poor thing also had to miss his nap by getting turned out at night.
Our tie for second was broken by our dressage tests meaning I moved down to third. No surprise, and I was really happy just to make it around so easily. We stopped by the ice cream truck on our way back to the trailer and got popsicles and dog treats for the hounds.
Ribbons, ice cream, and a good pony made for a totally rocking day.
Remember way back in December when I announced I was going to learn to drive? Drive a horse, that is. I'm already a confirmed liability behind a car wheel. Well between the snow and then the rain, it just kept getting pushed farther and farther back. No more, ladies.
I got to the barn early this morning to get in a quick ride on Robert. He had just lay down for his morning siesta so I went up to the outdoor to watch the last half of a lesson to let him get his snooze on.
nobody interrupts bobby's naps.
He was awake by the time the lesson was over so I took him up to the outdoor. Warmed up on a circle over a big X, came over a small grid (vertical, 2 strides to a bounce or vice versa) a few times each way, and finished with the coop once in each direction. As I was giving him his bath, BO came by and said she was going to drive Artie if I had time to stick around.
artie.
She showed me how to tack him up, took him for a spin down the driveway, and then came back and asked if I wanted to go. I was climbing into the cart before she even got done asking. She let me hold the lines to trot him back up, but he's so impeccably trained he pretty much drove himself. So fancy.
Then it was time for a horse more my speed:
star!
Ok, so she's a pony, but still. The weekend barn worker, K, learned how to drive from the Amish while living in Lancaster so she helped me get Star ready while BO untacked (unhitched?) Artie. BO had me line drive her around a little bit to get used to her steering.
And then we hooked up the cart! K jumped in with me to make sure I didn't die while BO gave me a basic rundown of how Star drives. I backed her up, told her to "come around", and off we went. I wanted to walk a bit first on my first "solo" drive, but Star had other ideas. I was like, "Walk. Star! Walk!" and Star was like, "Shut the hell up back there. I know what I'm doing. You certainly don't."
Ponies. Pony mare no less.
I eventually got her back to the walk (very begrudgingly on Star's behalf) and we ambled around a bit before turning around and "asking" (ok, letting) her trot back. We picked up another passenger--a little girl whose parents want to train their mule to drive and had stuck around to watch--and made the loop again. K went solo to finish the pony off and then the three of us clambered back aboard to pose for pictures.
k, h, and me!
I was giggling like a little kid the whole time. I had so much fun! BO said that now that I know the basics, it will be easier to fit a drive in. Star got stuffed full of cookies for not killing me, Bobby got locked in his stall for the night, and I dragged eighty pounds of tack home to clean.
Hopefully our show tomorrow will be as fun as trotting down the road with a pony!
Well, after two good dressage schools in the indoor, I got ambitious and decided to try my luck by taking the show to the outdoor. Bad decision. As soon as we entered the ring, Bobby's periscope went up and his head went every direction. I put him right to work at the trot to try to focus his attention and it actually kind of worked. Not great work by any means, but he wasn't giving himself whiplash.
After the mediocre trot work, I brought him back to the walk and tried some leg yields. He wanted none of it so I grabbed a long whip off a barrel in the ring and we discussed moving the hindquarters over. There was a little drama about me holding a whip, but he remembered his dressage whip tap-tapping that didn't kill him and scooted over. The leg yields carried over beautifully at the trot tracking right, and then we switched directions and lost everything.
He would not bend to save his life--and I threatened it. Shoulder in? NO. Bend through the corner? NO. Bend on a 20m circle? HELL NO. Grrrr. It was hot, there were flies out, I'm PMSing, and I already have a short temper so before things got out of control and he totally shut his brain off from me fighting with him, I made the smart decision and headed down to the indoor to resolve the problem peaceably.
I put him on a 20m circle and we walked until he relaxed and softened and bent. Then I picked up the sitting trot and we stayed on the circle until he was rhythmical and bent. Then I very very quietly asked for the canter that he calmly stepped into and we were able to move off the circle and eventually do a couple of shallow counter canter loops.
buttercup head goes for a walk.
We had a mental cool out walking up by the paddocks.
skye was the only horse that bothered lifting his head when we went by.
Got back to the barn and gave the nasty beast a bath where his attention span quickly dwindled.
watching star graze.
helping weed.
raiding the bath stuff.
It was not really the last flat ride I would have wanted before a show, but oh well. I think we'll both enjoy having tomorrow off.
Have you guys ever had one of those mornings where you wake up, look in the mirror, and find yourself gasping, "Holy shit! The zombie apocalypse is upon us, and it's started with me!" That would have been me this morning to the point where I put on makeup just to go to the barn. I was that terrifying. Pig Dog felt that she had to outdo me and found something obviously dead and truly foul to roll in and came trotting up the driveway as I went down to check the mail covered in road kill slime.
be glad you can't smell her.
I stuck her stinky ass on her chain because there was no way she was hanging out inside where she has free access to the furniture while I'm gone. When I got back, she got an ice cold bath from the hose and she's now cavorting about the yard with a relieved-to-be-dry and normal smelling Darcy. (cough, cough. It may have something to do with the fact that Darcy is my dog and she's a perfect little angel puppy and Pig is Hubby's dog.)
fortunately pig dogs love getting wet.
On to Pony Pants.
He was far less enthused to head down to the indoor than he was yesterday, but yesterday's weather was grey and chilly and today is sunny and warm. I would have much rather spent it on trails as I'm sure he would have, but turkey hunters put the kibosh on that.
Because he was a bit more push-along today, he was also easier to get into work mode. He resigns himself to his fate pretty quickly when he's not feeling high as a kite. We had kind of a stop-and-go warm up as a new boarder trailered her horse in as we were doing trot work. Bobby finds trailers rather distasteful/spaz worthy (though he does self load without issue) and I gave him a timeout to sit in the middle of the ring and gawp for a few minutes. Once the horse went by, the trailer got parked, and the dump truck returned, he was ready to refocus.
His canter work was a little tense and quick, but a few laps in half seat steadied him and we moved on to lateral work. Bobby's lateral work disappeared for several weeks. He didn't want to step under himself in leg yields and didn't want to move his shoulders for a shoulder-in. His hips and/or back could have been a little sore, but whatever the reason, he's been pretty good the past couple of times. His shoulder-in was still a little sticky, but he was really fab for leg yields today.
crossing the booty.
We finished again with trot lengthenings, something I'm currently only doing along the long side of the arena instead of the diagonal. I don't want him thinking diagonal = lengthening until we've firmly moved up to Training.
I'm not going to lie, I'm really happy with them--especially seeing as how we didn't really start working on them until two weeks ago and we spent all last week jumping instead of dressage-ing. He's not just jetting ahead into a fast trot, and while he's no toe flicking Totilas, my giant, bumbling OTTB does not usually stride out like this:
Bobby lived his rainy day off to the fullest. He was covered in mud and shavings when I pulled him out of the stall and had clearly had a nibble on one of his bell boots, but all shoes were still attached. Phew.
Even though all Bobby has to do to get put on crossties is step out of his stall and turn in a circle, it usually takes us several minutes to get positioned. There are so many exciting things in that little circle, especially when he's in one of his Touch All the Things mood.
his entire head and neck were in benny's stall. this was after i yelled at him to leave benny alone.
"the fuck do you want, bro? i'm trying to eat here."
I left him off the crossties since the barn was empty and he amused himself by seeing how far he could fit other horse's lead ropes down his throat before I caught him.
"time out. did i hear the cookies?"
He was feeling fresh when I got on. His walk was so forward and sproingy and hip-shaking that I felt like I should have been dancing a salsa. Naturally that transferred to being kind of a tool starting out and my requests to slow it down a bit were met with a, "lolz, whut?"
He finally settled down at the trot and we went to work. I really want to transfer his dressage work in the indoor to the outdoor this summer. He's so focused and obedient inside, and while he's not bad on the flat in the outdoor, the quality just doesn't carry over. I think part of that is that there are mirrors in the indoor and I'm much quicker to catch a problem with either myself or him, but the other part is that there are so many distractions outside that his brain goes on overload when there isn't a jump in front of his face.
After a nice warm up, we ran through Novice A in preparation for this weekend (and the weekend after--I sold my old vest and sent in the entry this morning!). He was "enthusiastic", but he kept his shit together and didn't set a foot wrong.
He had a walk break and then we tried our trot lengthenings again. He broke into the canter the first couple of times I asked which wasn't surprising with how forward the whole ride was going, but we both kept our cool and he really put in a great effort. For a Thoroughbred, he can be pretty extravagant in his movement, but he's certainly no warmblood. Regardless, the camera will be taking a field trip tomorrow and hopefully I can capture how he's progressing.
We finished with a hack up the hill next to the pastures where we passed BO on her way down the road. She told me there was a trail through the Christmas trees if I could find it, so we set out.
kind of looks like a trail.
However, our "trail" quickly dead ended into trees we couldn't get into. We ended up wandering around a bit until we found a deer path that looped us back to the pastures. Finished off by pouring Kopertox into his RH which was looking a little thrush-y. And by "pouring into his RH" I obviously mean "pouring all over my hand". One day I will invest in latex gloves.
Ratio of time spent on housework this weekend to time spent watching Rolex: 0:100. And then Hubby had the nerve to call me outside when the last five riders were stadium jumping to hold the ladder for him so he could get off the roof. Really, Hubby? You sit up there and be quiet until this show is over. Ain't nobody got time for that!
I did go out and see my horse Sunday morning, dragging a half-awake Hubby with me. (I swear he's not abused as he seems, although I did make him go up to the xcountry field with me last weekend when he had a migraine. Poor Hubby. He's well fed if nothing else.)
Bobby and I were alone in the ring when we started off and he was appropriately lazy. Not a plodding sort of lazy, but a "Do work. The end." sort of lazy. Did some w/t/c warm up and then did a few changes across the arena for which he was really lazy.
When we were done warming up BO, BM, and three other people came up to use the round pen to do some ground work with the most gorgeous QH mare ever who was there to work on trailer loading. Bobby was in awe. He could not tear his big, dumb head away from her. We went from boring canter work to fire breathing canter work.
"i am a STALLION, mami! you know you want this!"
going by the round pen. clearly.
I would just like to point out that he was gelded at 2yo. I was there to watch his manliness get tossed onto the roof. But sometimes Bobby Magee channels a little Mighty Magee and his papa was one crazy fuck. After he got some silliness out at the canter and no one gave him so much of a glance, he settled down into work.
For jumping I had set up a 2'9" vertical, 2'6" vertical two strides to a 2'3" that later went up to 2'9" oxer, the gate at 2'9", and the coop which is 2'7". We did the stand alone vertical a few times without incident.
his head is ALWAYS crooked right, even when on a loose rein galloping. compensating for his neck, maybe?
Then we did the coop and I almost fell off. I was like, "Turn left! Land on your left lead! Here, I'll turn my whole fucking body to the left to show you instead of just my shoulders!" and Bobby was like, "Roger. Turning right." and we almost parted ways mid-air.
directional disagreement.
We got it sorted out after that. And by "we" I mean I pulled my head out of my ass and just rode straight. Works every time. We went through the line next without any problems.
The oxer got bumped up and I celebrated by leaving Bobby hanging and he celebrated by getting a little crooked after the vertical. That was easily resolved again through keeping us straight by keeping my right leg a little stronger against his side.
opening left rein: "stay in the middle, stay in the middle, stay in the middle."
We had a little walk break so I could look at the pictures and do a position review. Urgh. I know my heel creeps up; I mentioned that in a previous post. By my leg is still sneaking back more than I think it is. It's not as bad as it can be for sure, but I want it to stay glued to the girth. It's still too swingy! More squats, more no stirrup work, and more practice will fix it, but I want it fixed now. I have no patience for you, loose leg! I don't even know what the fuck to do about my heels. They collapse to the ground at all other times, but get them over a fence and they're all, "See ya!" Then I saw pictures of Andrew Nicholson stadium jumping and I was like, "Well, fuck. I'm not that bad!" And then I thought to myself, "Self, if you ever get to a 4*, I won't say a thing about where your leg is. But until then, get your shit together."
Moving on.
We finished with the gate which rides at a weird angle off the rail and it takes Robert by surprise. Anything that takes Robert by surprise is clearly very offensive:
I should have asked Hubby to take more videos, but can you guys see how he's not bombing the jump anymore?? There's actually some semblance of rhythm instead of "JUMP!! RUSH THE JUMP!! CHARGE THE JUMP!! HOW FAST CAN WE GET OVER THE JUMP?!"
dangling knees need some grid work soon.
Heels up and leg slipping back, but it's all calm in Bobby Land. Small win.
As we were finishing up jumping, BM's pony came up for a quick lesson and Bobby briefly tried to impress her before deciding she wasn't really his taste.
How we started our ride:
derpin'
How we ended our ride:
"ladies! ladies everywhere!"
He got hosed down, fed loads of cookies, and parked back in front of his hay.
He has today off. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be dressage rides, Friday off, light jump school Saturday, and then show on Sunday!
