Reminder!

Remember to enter the giveaway contest by 8pm tonight! Any comments posted after 8pm (Eastern time) will not be counted in the drawing.

I have been out to the barn and riding this week, but I'll just do a giant summary post this weekend at some point. I'm currently feeling too lazy. Also, I need to go take my second shower of the day as squatting upside down to clip the belly of my ground-tied Thoroughbred who is watching snow slide off the roof five feet from his face garnered me a hell of a lot of hair down my bra.... but not nearly as much hair as was stuck to my Chapstick covered lips.

Why was I wearing Chapstick while clipping my horse?

Answer: Fuck you.

no more goat beard!

100 Followers Contest

Alrighty, I think what I'm going to do for the giveaway is just let the winner have their pick of any of the Dapplebay t-shirts or an OTTB t-shirt.

To enter you're going to have to do some sleuthing. In the comments section, I want you to tell me Bobby's race record and how much money he earned while racing. That will involve knowing his registered Jockey Club name (which is right in front of your face, by the way) and knowing how to use the interwebs.

Don't cheat and just copy the person's comment above yours. Or do cheat. I guess I won't be able to tell the difference.

I'll give you until Friday at 8pm to enter. Anyone that comments after that will not be eligible. I'll do the very clever random number drawing thing and announce the winner Saturday.

Make sure you leave a way for me to contact you in case you are the winner.

Thanks for following! Yay, free things!

100.

As in, 100 followers! Fuck yeah! (Dear new followers, This is a swear-friendly blog. You have been warned.) This obviously calls for some celebration, and to me celebration equals buying things. So I'll have a little random drawing giveaway this weekend, but first you guys have to tell me what you want. An OTTB Tee? A Dapplebay tee? A big ass bag of horse treats? An e-high five? Throw me some ideas and I'll see what I can do.

In other news, Sarah and I had a flat school in the freshly dragged, jump free indoor. Bobby was pretty much a boss, although he had a personal LOL when I tried to show Sarah his flying changes. It was more like a flying cross canter fall on your face change. Good old Robert. Never one for class. We did some really solid counter canter work, ten meter canter circles, leg yields, and canter lengthenings.

Aaaand that was about it. At least it was drama free which has not been the trend so far this year--and we're only a week in! Sarah and I set up a grid jumping date for next Monday and I probably won't be jumping him until then. In fact, I probably won't even be riding again until Friday.

To conclude the most boring post yet, I brought my helmet home and installed the camera mount. So fucking pumped to go out on xcountry with it. Here's a helmet cam video of the Training at Bucks (starts at 8:57) so you don't leave feeling entirely jilted of action.

And Again

I'll give my rides so far this year one thing: consistency. As in, we have been consistently sucking ass with jumps.

I pretty much never jump more than once a week, and if I do, it's only twice a week. However, since Bobby's jumps have been more along the lines of ground poles and jumps so little they may as well be considered ground poles, I made Saturday another jumping ride. I set up a wide-ish 2'6" oxer and left the little 2' vertical up with no intention of going over it. Stupid little jump that hates my soul.

We started off with a really good canter to the right. Thanks again, George.

I've been working really hard mentally to judge Bobby's approach to jumps. Sometimes he is being a serious tool and blowing through me to get to a jump. Sometimes it just feels like it and he's not. So yesterday I was being more lenient and really focusing on what I was feeling. Part of me felt like I was letting him get away with something, but the logical part of me that very rarely pokes through reasoned that he really was jumping just fine.

To the left, he needed quite a bit more leg to get him going forward and I struggled with that the first couple of times, but at least I was aware of it! Usually I'm so oblivious to pace, it's ridiculous.

My plan to finish off was jump from the right, change direction across the diagnol, and jump from the left. Nothing hard because things were going well and Bobby was jumping great. He went over fine to the right, landed cross cantering which I lazily let him get away with since we were about to switch anyway, and then he had the front rail to the left with a knock from a front hoof. I wanted to do it once more so we could end with no rails.

When does that ever work? EVER?!

Came around to the right again. Turned the first corner and he switched behind. Uh uh. That throws him so off balance coming towards a jump, it's not even funny. Switch behind equals guaranteed stutter step and an obnoxiously deep spot. Brought him back to the trot, picked the canter back up, circled, and came again. Again the change behind.

Thus began a fifteen minute epic battle of  "Do not fucking change behind Bobby, so help me God." with the reply of, "Oh, okay. PSYCH!" Now I know this horse is a delicate flower and getting into fights with him usually brings about the downfall of any productivity, but I can only hold his hand for so many things. Last weekend, he was changing behind because of me riding poorly. Not the case yesterday. Since New Farrier put front studs in, he has not had this issue a single other time, and I was making damn sure I was being a very careful rider to not inadvertently shift, bump, or tug him.

Honestly, I didn't even know how to remedy the problem. He changed behind, I instantly stopped him and made him canter again. Over and over and over. And over and over. Eventually, I got him to hold it and we turned in to the jump, jumped it, and immediately praised him and called it quits. What would you guys have done? I really have no idea even now how to handle something like that.

hot mess.

He took no time to stop blowing, but he was lathered and for the only time ever I actually had to be somewhere that night so I rubbed him down, going through three towels, until he was only a little damp on the top of his neck. He goes out at night and it was cold, so as a precaution I just left him in for the night. I'm willing to sacrifice a night of turnout for no sniffles.

This morning, I went in early to make up with him. He had some runny poop in his stall from that morning, so I checked him temp. 99.5 No bigs. I shoved some Probios down his throat with a chaser of peppermints and tacked him up.

We had a lovely fifteen minute dressage school in the indoor. Turns on the forehand and some counterbending at the walk, and focusing on being correct and forward at the trot. We did one circle each way of canter and called it quits. We were both happy with how we did. Thank God.

Then we went out for our Sunday trail ride. We walked on a loose rein the whole time except for a run up our galloping hill. I figured I owed him a little fun. He was quiet but alert and didn't offer a scoot the entire time. He gave the hairy eyeball to some round bales that have been stacked by the trail since the beginning of time, but it was more of a "Hmm. I think I've seen those before, but not covered in snow horse eating lava. Oh, well." instead of a freak out.

Friends again, Mr Magee.

You're the man, George Morris

I know I'm not the only one that's been watching the George Morris trainig sessions in the morings. I also know I'm not the only one that's going to be subjecting their horses to things we learned and think we learned. Sorry, ponies! You're in for a rough couple of weeks until we all fall back into our bad habits again!

Obviously the biggest thing ole George harps on is carrying your hands. Bobby has gotten better about the minimal amount I've been trying this since coming back into work, but it still makes him pissy. Regardless, I pressed on and Smarty Pants Magee resigned himself to it and brought his giant head up as well.

The dressage work we've been doing that's been focusing on getting him more uphill definitely helped. Once he realized I was serious about not dropping my hands in my lap at his request, he settled down and put in a call to his booty to come and join the party. What followed was a round, powerful, bouncing canter. Bobby looked like he fit right in with those giant, fancy warmbloods. Only, you know, still ugly and slightly resembling a mule. Plus he was being ridden by someone in holey black paddock boots, brown half chaps, black breeches, dirty gloves, and a hoodie poking out of a men's hunter green jacket that my braid kept getting stuck in. I am one classy lady, what can I say?

I asked him to do canter to trot to canter transitions with seven strides of each. I had a feeling this might be a bad idea since he's kind of a neurotic, overly sensitive nut bag most of the time, and he doesn't like not doing an exercise right so "correcting" him by bringing him back to the trot potentially posed a problem. Well, it ended up going about how I thought it would.

Me: And canter. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Trot.

Bobby: Ummmm, okay....but I thought we were cantering? OMG, now we're cantering again!

Me: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Trot.

Bobby: BUT I THOUGHT I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE CANTERING! WHAT AM I DOING WRONG? MY MIND JUST EXPLODED AHHHHHRUNNINGBACKWARDSNOWAHHHH!!

So, uh, that took some time to sort out until he was confident I wasn't trying to kill him or punish him or whatever was going through his anxiety-ridden brain.

We nixed the seven strides and did a circle of each gait. That worked better for him and we changed it up to canter to walk transitions. To the left, he stepped right into the counter canter... which I actually wasn't asking for, but since it was my fault that I didn't take the time to correct the bend, I just rolled with it and sent him on around the arena. He was like, "Mother fucker, how did I get tricked into this?" Even so, the canter remained round and balanced. We made a lap, and I straightened him out entering the long side and asked for a flying change. Wuh-BAM. For all of thirty seconds, we were fancy asses, you guys!! Faaancyyyy.

It happens rarely. Let me bask for a second.

We moved on to cantering at an angle across the diagnol over the ground pole of one of the to-be-verticals I had set out. The first time, he snatched the bit and charged it. I sat him on his ass with a firm, "No, sir!" and came around again. Hands up, leg on, seat light but in the saddle, and firm steady contact. Tah dah! Quiet, rhythmic, easy. We did it several more times just because it was so enjoyable and then had our walk break.

after flat warm up. we hadn't even jumped yet!

I set up an exercise I was sure we would dominate. Here's a teaser: We did not dominate. To the right, it was three trot poles to a vertical. To the left, it was three trot poles to a vertical, one stride to an oxer.

He was not so clever with the trot poles. I obviously ran him through several times with the jumps just as poles, but he saw the jump at the end and clobbered through the poles to get to it. Since that wasn't working out so hot for him, we slowed it down and then came in underpowered and had to put in a bigger effort over the jumps. Balls!

After we got things flowing better and he went through to the right well, and to the left with the oxer still as poles well, I let him take another walk break and then did some more trotting and cantering to get the fancy back. Eh, still didn't really do the magic trick. We finally scrambled through with the oxer well enough that I called it quits. The poor dude did more than enough for the day.

I can't wait to see where this new canter gets us when jumping things we can canter up to. The fact that we're having so many issues over the little things that are technical is very revealing. We're missing a lot of basics, and I kind of like it. Not that I like that they're missing, but I like that I can compile a list of things to work on in the indoor that involves more than dressage.

Two Horses

Bobby had a beasting, ass kicking, stellar dressage school yesterday. In the trot, we did leg yields, counter leg yields, lengthenings across the diagnol and down the long side, and stretching. At the canter, we began to refine the flying changes (he missed behind going from left to right a few times), worked on quieting the simple changes across the diagnol (coming to the trot at X and picking up the new lead at the rail), did the counter canter loop from First 3, started leg yields (killer tracking left leg yielding to the right, not as good the other way), and had fun with lengthenings which he rocks at. Basically, he dominated first level work.

What an about-face, right? Welll kind of. We accomplished all of this because of draw reins. Oh Em Gee, I know. Draw reins are not a daily occurance, new readers. Riding would be so easy if they were. But, again, they're not. So pull your panties out of your ass. The draw reins were a peace offering for a horse I knew was going to be holding a grudge against the tense, frustrating ride we had Tuesday. Yesterday, he got a pat or a neck scratch or a "Good boy!!" every minute of the ride, and Bobby loves to be praised. He ended the ride with his ego stoked. That was worth it for me. Draw reins can go back in the tack trunk.

crappy cell phone pic of the beast heading out to his field.

The second horse was Tripp. BO said to ride him if I felt like it because he needs the work. I don't remember the last time I rode him, but it's been awhile. We know his back/body needs work, and I know his teeth needed to be done when he got in over the summer. They haven't been done yet.

He was ridden western Tuesday, but I left before I saw him go. I threw him on the longe before I got on to warm up his back some and to get some crazies out. He was aware he was on the line, so he wasn't trying to rip my arm out, but he was being a total fruit cake. After fifteen minutes, I got him doing walk-trot transitions both ways and I got on.

I rode him for five minutes before getting off because of his non-stop, violent head flipping. I put him back on the longe with side reins on the loosest hole. He spooked at snow sliding off the roof and jumped forward, hitting himself in the mouth.... at which point he nearly flipped himself over. Awesome. I let him run around for a minute on his own accord before asking for a lap of quiet trot and calling it quits.

Does that not sound like classic teeth problems to you guys?

I told BM how the ride went and she said the girl that had ridden him the day before said he flipped his head the whole ride as well. According to BM, BO's suggestion was a Happy Mouth and a martingale because the barn "help" (we'll use the term loosely for this guy) checked his teeth and said he was fine. We won't go into specifics, but I feel very confident that Mr "Help" has no fucking clue what he's talking about. And, as you can see in the pic, he was in my Happy Mouth. He's going to get put in a martingale and go over backwards on someone. Just my unprofessional opinion.

Little old me, I know nothing though.

Just Bad Riding

Bobby and I kicked off the new year with a not so awesome ride that we ended up really needing. We got back down to the basics--and I mean some absolutely rudimentary fundamentals--to keep myself from ripping my hair out after running back into his Bolt the Fence routine.

 But before all this, I played around with the jumps that were set up super low (about 2'). We worked on jumping at an angle which he has never done before. He clobbered the rail the first couple of times, but once he figured out where to take off from, he had it under his belt.

I tried taking him through the line, but the striding wasn't even sort of measured out (not my doing this time!), and I really don't like jumping lines in the indoor anyway. Instead, Hubby raised the green vertical up to 2'6 for us to fool around with.

Enter Drama Llama. Again. Didn't we all miss him?

We'd come around the corner, turn in towards the jump, he'd swap leads behind, suck back, I'd add leg, he'd take that as his cue to run, and he'd bolt the last stride nearly running into the fence, and we'd bring down the rail because jumping from on top of the jump does not work well. Rinse and repeat. Needless to say, this formula was not getting us anywhere. Of course, being the micro-managing, tunnel vision, easily pissed rider that I am (awesome combination for the type of horse Bobby is, by the way. /sarcasm), I wasn't able to process any of this as we were going through it. I finally stopped and asked Hubby if he could see what the fuck was going on.

Hubby: Well, you're throwing your hands forward as soon as you make the turn, and when you do that he goes faster. You need to hold your hands still.

Me: But he's sucking back so badly around the corner, I have to get him moving more forward.

Hubby: ....okay....Maybe that's what you should be focusing on. Keep the pace through your turn, but don't chuck your hands at his face. Here's a whip. Ass hat.

That Hubby. He sure is a good one!

Hubby knocked the jump down to a ground pole and Bobby and I went back to work. At the walk.

After we walked over it nearly a dozen times (more for a mental Bobby break than anything), we trotted over it. He immediately put the theatrics back on and tried running and jumping over it, so I buried my hands in his neck and counted "one-two one-two" out loud as we went around. That helped both of us work in a rhythm and we were able to switch directions and try again.

From the left, we were able to work on cantering over the pole, focusing on Hubby's advice and not moving my hands an inch while keeping my leg on. Not surprisingly, that worked out swimmingly and we had a very quiet go-round.

Then we switched back to the right and, after walking on a long rein for a few laps to decompress again, we picked up the canter. Here is where the whip came in handy. I bridged my reins, used my wrist to taptaptap him on the shoulder with the whip, and drove him forward with my seat. His head was in my face, his mouth was wide open, and I was riding him like I was humping Joe Flacco (Er, did that secret fantasy just slip out?), but dammit--we stayed in rhythm and cantered over without jumping it or bolting it. Win.

We finished with a quiet, rhythmic canter over an 18" vertical both ways.

Upon reflection, here's a summary of the problems (Of course that's plural! You guys have been around long enough to know that!) that led to all of this:

1. Not keeping my leg on made him lose the rhythm as we made our turn. He fell out of balance and sucked back, anticipating having to run at the fence to make the distance. I played right into this by...
2. Giving away all my contact and chasing him into the jump when I should have been focused on maintaining our pace all the way around.
3. Bobby has closed the chapter on flying changes. He knows them. They're far from perfect, but he understands the cue and will now respond instantly. As I've mentioned in the past, once Bobby knows something, drop it!!!! He gets extremely flustered and anxious when he gets drilled on something. What does this have to do with this exercise? I was very unbalanced myself making that turn and was inadvertantly letting my leg slip back and bump him in the side. Cue flying change. Only Bobby has developed some sense of self preservation and understood he couldn't make the turn and be expected to jump off the wrong lead. So he only switched behind which, of course, unbalanced both of us even more.
4. For whatever reason, I could not keep my upper body back tracking right yesterday. If I wasn't sitting in my saddle, I was tipped forward onto his neck. Not sure where that came from. It wasn't awesome.

In the end, we did what basically amounted to a green horse/beginner rider lesson. Only it was on my own time, on my not really all that green anymore horse, who was being ridden by someone who knows how to avoid all of the above.

Nothing like a little lesson in humility and humbleness to ring in a new year. Maybe it's secretly a way to kick things off right. Better basics, better foundation, more ass kicking.

Now here are some pictures of my puppies over the weekend so you can depart with happy thoughts.