Trail riding has been awesome this week. We went out with Sarah and Memphis on Monday as I didn't think Bobby had overly taxed himself on Sunday. We headed straight for the creek where Bobby again rolled right into the water, followed closely by Memphis. What a brave pony! We decided we wanted to see how deep the creek went and somehow convinced Bobby to go back to shore so we could disrobe the ponies.
brave memphis!
We played in the creek for over an hour. Memphis felt the need to secure the perimeter and he bravely splashed around by himself, checking out all possibilities of attack. You never know when a killer frog might come out and get you.
bobbys love water!
Bobby, on the other hand, agreed to move only to get to the deepest spot he could find and then parked it, hind foot cocked and all. No amount of prodding, pony club kicking, or arm waving could get him to move. The water horse had found his soaking hole and he was happy.
soaking also involved snorkeling.
We eventually decided to head home and somehow convinced Bobby he could head back to dry land.
"only because there are snacks on dry land."
He got Tuesday off, and we headed out alone on Wednesday. We went down to the creek for a ten minute splash where I tried to convince Bobby that we could not play in the deep hole with BO's saddle on. We then headed up the monster hill, had a gallop, and hiked down the short cut across the road. On the way to the hill we had to take to get back towards the barn, we passed a pond where a gaggle of geese and goslings where wandering around. There were about twenty of them all together and they were making a lot of noise. Their escape route was stupidly not into the pond but up the hill where we were headed.
Bobby stopped when he saw them diving into the woods and continuing up the hill and he stared them down before turning his head to see if I thought they were a viable death threat. I gave him a pat and asked him to walk on and he was like, "Whatever you say, lady. They kill us and it's on you." One of the geese got left behind from its scattering friends and it did the classic dumb bird drop and spread your wings. Bobby gave it the hairy eye as we passed it, but that was the extent of it. I would have taken a picture, but I had both reins in my hands for safety. It didn't matter in the end though. Bobby may be one neurotic beast, but he's definitely not spooky.
buttercup head explores the creek
Yesterday we were waiting for the farrier so only did a thirty minute ride out. I decided instead of going across the road, we'd head up the hill into the woods that we first explored early last year. Unfortunately, there were a ton of trees down so I didn't know where to go anymore We turned around and cruised back down the hill I had to lead him down last year. We are too brave. Kind of.
It's also the season for baby deer. Every single ride we've seen at least one fawn in the grass. Poor things barely escape with their lives when Bobby is around. His instinct when something rustles in the brush is to stomp it to death.
He has today off, a ride tomorrow, and Sunday off as well. Hopefully all my fun things get here this weekend!
After twenty six years, people have finally come to grips with the fact that all I need for my birthday is money. "Can I buy you something horsey?" No. I will by myself something horsey, thank you. The only exception is my Aunt Carrie who sends me an Amazon gift card instead, but it usually funds horsey books. So here is what I blew some cash on this year:
A five point breastplate. Fancy looking, but also totally needed for holding Bobby's saddle firmly in place for all our trail riding and to make me be all, "Wow, you look like an eventer. I should event again." Or something. Sounds legit, right?
Black standing wraps. I've lent mine out through the years. My red set is down to two wraps, one of which is severely chewed up. My navy set is down to three, one of which is missing the velcro.
A hackamore to eventually jump in, but mostly to make trail riding totes rustic.
A black ear net so we can all stop mocking Buttercup Head.
White full seat breeches. I noticed my beige show breeches mysteriously acquired two vampire-like holes in the thigh of one leg, so I took this opportunity to replace them with real dressage breeches.
I also made a grown up decision and went to Old Navy to get a few grown up people summer clothes. Some of you may recall that Old Navy is the only place I can buy clothes, and I was super excited that their summer clothes fit me, too. Yay for weird body proportions! I even managed to buy my first pair of non-Levis since I was about 13 years old. What. They're my first pair of skinny jeans. I am such a hipster.
The dogs also got owner-specific NFL dog collars, but I think that negates the hipster vibe and sends me into some sort of sporty nerd area. I am all the things.
I didn't think a three hour drive was that bad, nor did I think an 8am dressage ride time was that bad. Then I realized that I also had to get up, have breakfast, drive to the barn, feed the horse, wrap the horse, put the horse on the trailer, drive, and give myself enough time to unload the horse, unwrap the horse, check in, tack up the horse, longe the horse, and warm up the horse without being stressed about running out of time. What I'm trying to say is, Hubby and I got up at 2am Sunday morning and I'm still tired.
Dressage
The severe thunderstorms forecasted for the day were downgraded to showers by that morning, and we were lucky enough to only get rained on when we first pulled in. Even so, the grass was wet and deep and I feared for my life Bobby' s canter leads. I put him on the longe away from, but still overlooking, the chaos of warm up and he immediately trotted off as he took in his surroundings.
And he continued trotting for twenty straight minutes.
longe yourself, fool.
I finally convinced him to stand still long enough to clip the side reins on, and then he had a ten minute round of being sassy while alternating between cantering and trotting.
"i can't wait to show these other horses my best drama llama impression!"
He got his bit checked and my whip measured at the same time which apparently was cause for great distress and he nearly ran the nice bit check lady over. "Someone else is touching the whip! I just know they're going to kill me!" Fortunately, no lasting harm was done and we scooted over and began warming up.
"Wow, Bobby," you say. "You look like those months and months and months of dressage work have finally paid off when it really counts."
LOLZ.
Is this your very first post? Of course it didn't!
While Mr Magee managed not to take offense to multiple riders nearly colliding with him when they refused to stick to the "Stay in your own fucking bubble" code, he was traumatized (read: overreacted) when he had to pull up short trotting around the ring just before going in when the rider coming out randomly cut in front of us while not paying any attention at all to where she was going. She did apologize which probably saved her life because I was ready to shank a bitch.
Needless to say, that horrible (not really) action made Bobby's brain explode into a whole new stratosphere and he pranced into the ring with his head held high. Comments for the entire test can be summarized with "tense, hollow, braced, tense, tense, tense...." You get the idea. He also really needs to learn that the free walk does not mean "You are free to wander about across the diagnol." On a positive note, I'm not ashamed of my riding. I don't think I look half bad, if you take the princess out from underneath me. He ended up with a 37.4 which is my second worse dressage score ever and put us in ninth.
Stadium Hubby and I got back from our ten hour hike to and around the xcountry course (no shit, dudes) and off in the distance I spotted a large, dark bay, high-withered horse being grazed. Upon closer inspection, I recognized the neon green bell boots and I took off running to see what had befallen my miserable sod of a horse this time. Apparently his genius self managed to get a front leg tangled in his lead rope while grazing. And no, Bobby cannot wait on the trailer because he's taken to thrashing around when we're not moving. Dick.
Our neighbor had seen him in a state of semi-distress and helped him out of his predicament and took him over to graze beside the stadium ring. She was very, very nice about it and said he looked worried, but he waited for someone to come rescue him. Good ole Bobby. He had nary a scratch on him, so while Hubby went to collect his family who had come to annoy the shit out of me cheer me on for my birthday, I started getting him tacked up.
you can tell we're always on the same page.
I was in full blown panic mode bridling Bobby. I was literally about to burst into tears. I did not want to jump at all. Like, at all. I somehow convinced myself to stop being a drama queen and climbed aboard. We walked around on a loose rein for a few minutes, trotted one lap, and casually turned to the crossrail. Bobby immediately jumped into the canter and blew over it. Whatever, right?! All I had to do was release, and I did manage that! We walked around for another couple of minutes and pointed for the vertical. Same thing: canter, jump, release!
ok, it's a sucky picture, but look where my hands are! also, this horse jumps like a boss when not jumping like a looney.
I was good with that and ready to go in. Oh, no. T/N was running late so they had to reset the course first. That only took a few minutes, but then everyone and their trainers had to walk the course at least ten times each. Then, just as it looked like we were going to be allowed to start riding the course, someone pointed out that one of the combinations was a one stride which is not allowed below Training. So that had to get reset to a two stride, and then everyone had to rewalk the course. Holy shit, people. I had seen three training rounds go and I knew the course already. It's not that fucking hard!!! Needless to say, we walked around for a good forty five minutes.
me: the fuck is going on here? i should be on xcountry by now. bobby: fuck these other fucking horses. oh, heyyy. that's a lady!
Finally our division started getting called in and we popped over the vertical once more two riders out. Then we got scolded by ring steward for not standing right by the gate as the rider in front of us went around. I wanted to be like, "Do you want to make this antsy fuck stand still? Feel free. I'll go stand over here and watch." Whatevs. We were walking in as the other rider jumped the last fence. No harm done.
fence 1
fence 2. the majority of the refusals were here.
Bobby rocked that shit. I might have had zero brakes and questionable steering, but at least I didn't have any stopping! We didn't hit any problems until the fifth jump which sat close to the last jump as you came out of the turn from four. Bobby locked onto the wrong jump and I had to cut our turn short to pull him off of it. He came in at an awful distance and got a pop on the shoulder for encouragement and bless his pony heart, he took it for me.
heave! you can do it, bobby!
He pulled down a rail and had a little scoot sideways when he heard it fall. It was only a five stride line so we didn't have much room to get reorganized, but I gave him a little neck scratch and told him he was a good boy and he kept his shit together enough to get relatively straight and jump six. He had the top panel of that one down, too.
bobby: can we make it in one?! me: no, no. cancel that, bobby.
He went flying into the two stride, and I opted to go around five instead of making the inside turn like everyone else to get to nine. That earned us two time faults, but he had a clear path to nine and jumped that clean.
bobby's all, "where's the spread on this bitch?"
Two rails and two time faults, but hot damn--we finished!
The course actually looked really fun with the exception of the cliff diving experience of the fourth fence. Hell to the no is all I'll say about that.
It was about a six mile journey to the start box (Have any of you been here that can corroborate my story? That is no shit.). Bobby kept looking back at me as we hacked over there like, "The trailer's back there if we're not going to jump any more jumps. Where are we going?" We finally made it just as the rider before me was starting out and the timer gave me a one minute warning. Uh, what?
I decided not to jump a warm up jump which I think ended up being a mistake. It was such a long walk that Bobby lost his crazy horse jumping groove and left the start box like, "What the fuck is going on here, lady? Are we jumping or are we trail riding?"
He went up and down instead of forward to the first jump, and backed off so much on the second jump that I was ready to pull him around and circle him before he launched from a stand still. It was a combination of the two for the third jump and I pulled him right up after that and elected to retire. I wasn't doing him any favors by not committing to the jumps and I wasn't about to attempt skydiving over the fourth when we could barely get over a log on flat ground.
We might not have finished, but we didn't get eliminated either. I'm thinking positive here, folks.
this horse seriously loves his dew.
We then had to sit around the truck for two more hours and "hang" with Hubby's family. I'm not sure I can explain the joys of this adequately so I won't even try. Bobby thought it was the best time ever, though. He was pretty sure they were his personal cheering squad/feeding team/head rubbing assistants/best friends in general. The awning that had been erected (don't even get me started) blew over on top of him at one point and he just stepped back and was like, "Now about that cake...."
totally staged. bobby figured out quickly the small child had nothing to offer him.
Looking at it from someone else's point of view, it probably wasn't a very good show. But for me, while the dressage remains disappointing due to sudden attacks of "I AM SO TENSE FOR NO REASON" on Bobby's part, I am just totally pumped we actually finished stadium. That was enough for me. Now we have zero plans for the rest of the summer until I feel like finding a show somewhere. But until then, we're going to do a lot of trail riding and zen out for awhile.
Hubby's brother did take a bunch of stadium pics with his fancy camera so hopefully I'll be able to share those this week at some point.
After our no good, very bad stadium round at Bucks, I've been trying to formulate a game plan to get Bobby back on track jumping-wise. I thought all I would need to do was get him to focus and he'd be back on auto-pilot. Every day we trudged up to the outdoor arena and dealt with horses getting turned out and brought in, the tractor running, the ATV going back and forth from the barn to paddocks, people lessoning in the indoor arena that the outdoor overlooks, and horses just outside the arena rails grazing.
Focus seemed to be mostly there for the dressage, and despite moments of anxiety and tension, Bobby really settled into a routine and started putting in decent flat work out there. The jumping, however, never came back.
I brainstormed with Hubby and people at the barn that have seen Bobby go. I had Sarah ride him to see if she could give me any insights. After her ride, he seemed patched together enough to jump a few fences with me, but I didn't feel at all confident about my ability to continue the trend.
On Monday, we had an all-out drag-out fight. I ended up sitting on Bobby for two hours, trying to get him to trot a one stride line of small crossrails. He pulled out all his evasive maneuvers and threw in a few extra for good measure and we never did get it done. I ended the ride sobbing, managed to pull myself together to walk back to the barn, and then promptly burst into tears again when S asked me how it went. "I broke my horse, and I don't know how to fix him!" was about all that was coherent from my answer.
S consoled me, and I went home and immediately send an S.O.S. to pm BM to ask her if she'd put in a real training ride on him. I also shot off an email to the secretary at Bucks and scratched from the June event. She was incredibly kind and quick to respond and promised a refund was on its way. That lifted a huge load off my chest, and I felt even better when BM said she'd be able to ride first thing Tuesday morning.
BM got a small taste of Bobby's tricks that Sarah did not. He rushed, he pulled, he got tense, and he shot sideways once when faced with a jump. BM never got frazzled and very calmly and very professionally continued on like he hadn't set a foot wrong and Bobby slowly began to decompress.
She asked me if I could handle constructive criticism. I told her that she could rip me to shreds at this point. I was beating myself up enough knowing that I'm the reason he's come unglued and nothing she was going to say would hurt my feelings. She told me that what she sees from me is my complete inability to release over fences. Absolutely! This is something I've mentioned over and over again in this blog, yet I get so caught up in everything that Bobby's doing that over and over its priority goes right out the window.
So BM had me get on and she stood beside the jump and reminded me at every single approach to grab mane and release---nothing else matters. Bobby got quick, but he didn't once pull his "I hate everything!" antics.
The moral was that Bobby's probably been throwing on the dramatics because he doesn't like getting snatched in the mouth. Who can blame him? He's a horse that internalizes everything which makes him seem like he dopes along without a care in the world, but I think he finally got so fed up with me that all the tension, anxiety, and flat out distaste for my riding finally came to head.
We had a long powwow after the ride.
Bobby does like his job. He likes to jump. I haven't ruined that yet.
He's not a hunter horse, and he's never going to put in a hunter round. I need to drop that notion right now. Permanently. All he has to do is get us around clear and safe--who cares how it looks?
Bobby probably won't be the horse to get me to the top, which isn't something I really have any ambition for anyway, but if I can ride him well at my level, I'll be a better rider on any horse after him because of it.
Going into our show this weekend, I'm assuming we're going to get eliminated. I don't know how he'll handle a new place, but quite frankly my hopes are not high. If he finishes in our division of 18, that will be complete icing on the cake.
With that in mind, BM said my one and only goal this weekend is to make sure I release. If I do nothing else, at least I'll know that I did my job.
And here's a disclaimer for all the "Aren't lessons great? You should get them!" comments that are just dying to come from your little fingers:
I'm not going to take jumping lessons from BO. Reasons were chronicled last year, and I stand firmly by them. Also, because it's BO's barn, she's the only one allowed to teach out of it. I completely understand this, and I have nothing against it. That means that while BM and others might lend me a hand here and there, setting up a weekly lesson schedule is not a possibility. I don't have my own truck to trailer out for lessons--we use Hubby's company truck for shows, and he works six days a week during this time of the year.
At this point, I don't really have a plan for the rest of the show season. I have no burning desire to go to another show. Until I feel confident that Bobby will do his job without the explosives, and I'm able to ride him without snatching/panicking/fighting, we're not going anywhere.
Today was the perfect day for a much needed trail ride. Only five more days of turkey season and then we can go out whenever we want!
I met Sarah at the barn and loudly announced, "I am so high right now." Then I rounded the corner and saw two impressionable tweens with startled looks on their faces and I quickly assured them it was because of Benadryl. I took some helmet cam of our trail ride, but I'm not sharing a single second of it because I'm breathing like a heifer--a heifer that just ran twenty miles in 100* weather. Allergies are a bitch.
killer views, gorgeous weather.
Even though I couldn't really tell where my feet were, I got Bobby all tacked up and we headed out. For not being on a trail ride in nearly a month, he was pretty good. A little jigging and a little sideways drift, but seeing as I was riding on the buckle with one hand, he could have been a lot worse.
We made our usual across the road loop which including me going down the monster hill for the third time ever. Holla! Floating out of my head from antihistamines has its advantages, I'll tell you. Since it was so beautiful out, neither one of us wanted to head back so instead we trekked down to Fishing Creek.
probably the shallowest we went.
Bobby took one look at the water and plowed right in. Round river rocks that make horrendous footing? Who cares! Bobbys love the water! He did not want to get out of the water, but Memphis didn't want to get in, so I finally convinced him to go retrieve his trail partner. Memph stuck his front toes in and then spent about five minutes creeping the rest of the way in.
"welcome, friends. give me head rubs so we can swim."
As long as he was right next to Bobby, Memphis was okay, but he definitely needed to employ the buddy system. Unfortunately for poor Memph, Bobby really wanted to go exploring the rest of the way down the creek and kept splashing further and further downstream on his own volition, getting deeper and deeper. Memphis would slowly follow with a worried look on his face until he caught up to Bobby, and then he'd nip him in the face to show his displeasure to his dumb friend.
"this isn't a good idea, bobby." "lolz, whut? this is awesome!"
Bobby wasn't offended. Bobby was all, "Yayyy!! Swimming hole!" At which point--when the pawing and splashing got a little too zealous and I thought he might take the wading up to his belly to the next level--I turned him around to go home. He wouldn't move! He did not want to get out of the water. He was having way too much fun. I finally got him to go forward, and then he tried to make a detour into the "rapids" instead of exiting the creek. He finally agreed to get back onto the bank and we headed home.
Hopefully the day off and a good trail ride put Robert back in good spirits and he'll work with me through a jump school tomorrow.
The weather totally caught on to my bitching. It went from 90* at the beginning of the week to the mid-forties today. I put Bobby's sheet on for tonight. That's right. It's the end of May and my horse needs a sheet for turnout. What the fuck is going on with you, weather? I'm not saying the lack of heat induced fainting spells isn't appreciated, but at least be consistent, amigo.
Bobby had Wednesday off and had a dressage school in the outdoor yesterday. He was longed, and then alternated between being mediocre and downright naughty. We spent a solid five minutes spinning about in circles because... well, quite honestly I'm not really sure why he was spinning, but there you have it. After a ten minute canter, he collected himself to perform slightly above mediocre and I finished the ride with a scowl on my face. You can learn to be a little consistent too, Robert.
centaur summer sheet, aka more loot from bm. say whaaat.
Today I made a date with Sarah for her to jump Bobby. Since he was so awful at our last show, and so awful Tuesday, I really wanted to see if it was just me making him a total fruitcake, or if he just genuinely is a fruitcake and I'd have to find something else to fix him. I've also never seen anyone else jump him, or anyone else beside the 10yo that leased him back in 2011 ride him. Sarah willingly agreed and because of the rain last night, we set up a few jumps in the indoor.
First things first: I switched his saddle from the Stubben to the Pessoa. The Pessoa is a bit wider which never would have worked on Bobby's bony, narrow ass last year. However, with how much he's muscled up, it actually sits pretty damn nicely on him. Of course, it's one size to small for me, but Bobby first. I can squeeze my ass in there if need be.
I warmed Bobby up on one half of the arena while Sarah longed Memphis on the other half. Memphis decided he was the fanciest Dutch stallion you've ever seen when he realized there was a filly off the back of the arena. The filly fell for it and proceeded to bang on the gate for the majority of our ride. We won't get into what Memphis did, but it involved a lot of acrobatics on the longe and a very ungentlemanly....display of affection? Pervert.
Anyway.
Sarah ran through All The Things with Bobby. Does Bobby like this? Does Bobby like that? Does Bobby need to go more forward to the jumps to avoid rushing those last two strides? Does Bobby go calmer halting a few strides out and then trotting over? Does Bobby like when you do absolutely nothing?
What she found out:
Don't chase him to the fences. If he wants to go more forward, he'll do it on his own. Absolutely no spurs, leg, seat grinding allowed.
He was pretty confused about the whole halt-trot-jump exercise, but he didn't rush.
What made him happiest was just putting him on course for the jump, grabbing mane, and sitting there.
He does feel like he's charging the fence, but at the same time, he doesn't. It's not like a calvary charge. It's more like a, "Get to the fence. Get to the fence. Ok, it's been jumped. Carry on."
Sarah also fell off for the third time this month, all three of those times being with me. Pretty sure I'm bad luck. She had asked Bobby to halt just a little too close to the fence so he didn't have quite enough room to get a good trot going to clear it and he ran into the jump, pulled the rails, stopped, and backed up to avoid the mess. I really thought she was going to stick it, but his jumping back tipped her off over his head, taking his bridle with him. To his credit, he just stood there and gave us a worried look until I went to grab him, and he jumped right over it when she got back on.
I took Memphis for a brief spin before getting back on Bobby. Memphis was totes confused and plodded along like a packer for me, including going over a couple of jumps from a crawl to make sure I wasn't jostled. Such a good pony, and so much fancier than Bobby.
Bobby stayed willing for me to jump him. He had one stop at the yellow vertical, but he trotted over it once he was circled. We did a pattern a few times over all three jumps and headed up to the outdoor to see what the footing was like. Once up there, we cantered the same X and vertical from Tuesday with no runouts or refusals. We even jumped the coop! My position is absolute shit, but at least my horse is jumping again.
I'm still not feeling very confident about our show next week. I'm worried that he's going to pick up on how worried I am about him doing a repeat performance of the last show and do exactly that. But we still have one week! One week for me to throw up with anxiety. I really, really question why I ever want to do more than trail ride about ninety percent of the time.
The unattractive shade of puce my face turns when I get hot.
Despite being born in California, and the vast majority of my immediate and extended family living on the sunny west coast, my dad's Irish and English heritage and my mom's Irish and German heritage have combined to make me an albino. "Tanning" to my body means freckles and various degrees of sunburn.
Sweating grosses me out. I'm not above holding my shirt off of my disgustingly sticky body and squealing like a two year old, "Get it off! Get it off!"
Along those lines, sweat + "warm vanilla" deodorant + SPF 5,000 sunblock = I smell like a wet dog's ass.
Every mutant bug known to man comes to life and wants to be my BFF. Dear Mutant Bug: Fuck off. I will go ninja warrior on your ass, and you will not survive.
time outs in the shade are a summer must.
Since it's a balmy 90* outside today, I decided to go to the barn at 8:30 to try to beat some of the heat. That failed. It was still in the mid-eighties, humid, and no cloud cover. Whatevs. At least it wasn't raining! I threw Bobby on grass while I set up a grid from the August 2012 Eventing USA magazine.
The exercise is simple: A vertical and a square oxer on opposite ends of the arena and a double bounce in the middle. I only had enough standards for one bounce, but it worked. According to Courtney Cooper the purpose of this is "to introduce making shorter, more square turns. In time, this will help young horses to start looking for their jumps as soon as they land." Right up Bobby's wandering brain alley, right?
Bobby warmed up fine. The mares had been switched to the field above the outdoor and the mares like to run around for no reason, but he was relatively focused. Started out by warming up over the single vertical (2'). Jumped it the first time, refused it the second time. And refused it again and again and again. Oh, and again.
He finally got over it (I won't say jumped it) and we moved on to the bounce. "Oh?" Bobby says. "Charge the jump like a rabid rhino? Done and done!" ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. We had a spastic piss-fit about the bounce for awhile before making it through and taking a break.
Went back to work and cantered over a pole on the ground, counting out from 3 strides and then 5. So exciting. At least it calmed both of us down. Took another walk break to cool off and tried the oxer (also 2').
Man, Blogger is being a serious bitch about videos, isn't it?
FINALLY, after walking everything and trotting everything, we were able to canter all the tiny little baby jumps. For fuck's sake, horse. What is going on in your head??
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