Fiasco. Part One.

This post could have had two other titles:

1. Cluster fuck.

2. Longest. Day. Ever.

You astute readers will recall that yesterday was to be Bobby's first ever real cross country school at Burgundy Hollow, two hours away from the barn. I won't even get into the actual schooling ride in this post, though I will give you a teaser and tell you that I feel confident filing it under either of the two alternate titles.

Instead, let us delve into the journey out and the journey back. I assure you, it will include high drama, swearing, the excessive use of tobacco products, possible fires, illegal activities, and our main feature will be a runaway truck ramp. If that doesn't make you want to stick around for an undoubtably long post, I don't know what will!

Hubs and I roll out of the house at 7:30 to get to the barn by 8ish. Perfect. Our schooling is to be at 11 so we'll probably roll out of the barn just before 9 and we'll be there right on time. Best laid plans, right? We pull into the barn drive and Sarah is trotting out Blackberry before bending down to grope his leg. Super! His leg isn't warm, there's no fluid, he's not bothered by us poking it, but there's a rather strange lump on his RF. Since he's sound on it, she decides to take him anyway and see how he goes. Crisis one averted.

We get the boys wrapped and loaded up. No issues there as expected. Hubs and I jump in the truck with the hounds, and Sarah and her boyfriend jump in her car with their beagle, and away to the gas station we go for a quick fill up in the truck. We pre-pay for $50 of gas and stand around the truck while Hubby puts gas in. Suddenly, Hubby says, "Oh, shit! There's gas leaking from the bottom of the truck!" So Hubby quickly pulls the truck out of the way of the pump, cuts one of my water buckets in half, and shoves it under the gas tank that is pouring gas out of it. Being men, Hubby and Boyfriend crawl under the truck and find a hole in the gas tank. Mind you, this fucking truck just had $1,500 worth of repairs done to it so it would be totally road-worthy. Clearly they missed this small detail. With not much choice, we wait until the gas stops leaking and high tail it back to the barn.

Get the ponies back in their stalls and ask BO if there's anyway we can borrow her truck. "No problemo!" BO says. "Use my trailer, too because the truck is extra, extra long and a BP trailer will probably be a pain to haul. Just check the air in the trailer tires because one likes to go low." Thanks, BO! Fastest truck and trailer switcheroo ever and the boys are back on and we're headed to a different gas station for some air. We fill up the low tire and check the others. One looks like it's got a bubble in it so Hubby lets out some air. All seems well and we're finally back on the road! I call up the wonderful Michelle Casale--owner/operator of Burgundy Hollow--and tell her we'll be an hour late.

Everything is going smoothly. Truck and trailer are rolling right along and the ponies have box stalls to themselves and plenty of hay to stuff their faces. Then we get to Hazleton. Hazleton is a shitty town with bumpy roads that we have to go right through the center of. We literally hit every single red light in town. Every single one. Then, we finally get out of town and end up behind a crazy woman driving a large van. We hit a passing lane and go to pass her. She pulls into the left lane in front of us so we move to the right lane just as she careens in front of us to "park" on the curb. WTF, crazy lady?! Oh, well. No harm done.

Now we reach the climax of our story. We're going down the hill into Jim Thorpe on 93S, about to turn intio 209. This hill is a fucking beast. It's windey, it's long, and it's steep as shit. A good place for the trailer brakes to not work, right? And forget the truck brakes. They're now billowing smoke out behind us as we go wheeling around a curve about to get to the stop sign that there's no way we're stopping at. So Hubby took advantage of the runaway truck ramp which THANK GOD was thick, heavy gravel and we slid to a stop.

Ponies are fine. It was, of course, the first thing I checked as soon as we were mostly stopped. Sarah comes running down after us and we all have a group panic attack. Sarah proceeds to suck down two cigarettes in a row and Hubby has his first cigarette in two years. We're finally able to get our shit together long enough to move the truck off the ramp and onto the shoulder to wait for the brakes to cool down. I call up Michelle again and give her the rundown, telling her to tack on another half an hour to our ETA. She offers to come out and get us and tells us that her family lives in Jim Thorpe and if we need anything, just call her. Don't worry about time, she's there painting poles all day. Hubby and Boyfriend get the trailer brakes going again and Boyfriend gets in the truck with Hubby for manly moral support.

We finally pull in and let the boys get off to graze while we sit down with Michelle to get different directions home. Fuck you, Jim Thorpe. We'll never see the likes of you again!

So we head home after two hours of schooling and whatnot and get on I-80. Yay, for 80! A real road with no hills! We're about two exits from home when Sarah calls up from our rear. "Uhh, there's rubber flying off the trailer tires." Get off the exit which we were fortunately just passing and examine the damage. Blown out tire on the trailer--the tire that was bubbly when we left. Hubs has the tire off and switched in ten minutes flat and we get back on the road.

We stop at a gas station to top BO's truck off and turn towards the last one mile to the barn. What can possibly go wrong at this point, right? We're so close!! We hit a turkey. The barn drive is in sight and we hit a turkey. It didn't do any damage to us as BO has a brush guard on the truck, but the turkey fared otherwise.

But the crazy WTF day doesn't end there. Blackberry and Bobby are tossed in the indoor to roll and walk around for awhile before dinner and bedtime (Oh, did I mention? It's now 6:30pm.). As Hubby is backing the trailer back into its house, Sarah's ex-boyfriend comes down to hook up BO's other trailer. And who does ex-bf have with him? Sarah's current bf's ex-girlfriend. I swear Twilight Zone music was playing. How does that even happen? I'm so glad I'm not a teenager anymore. Dating drama never appealed to me.

We were finally able to end the day after Hubby dropped the P.O.S. truck off at the garage. I was supposed to be leaving for Illinois today to help my mom pack because she just bought a new house, but I put it off a day to  recoup from the crazies. A riding post with pictures will follow at some point today, I promise.

Bobby has his game face on.

"i iz ready to be smart horsie tomorrowz!"

Oh, jeeze. We may have issues.....

I went up to catch him this morning and he and Spyder were playing tag in slow motion. "I'ma gunna get youz! Heyyy, slow down! Youz are going toooo fast!"

lamest racehorses ever.

phew! all tired out.

Sarah and I didn't feel like doing anything constructive, so we both dicked around in the arena for awhile.

just because.

We ended up going to one of this long, not very steep hills out behind the xcountry field and having a race. Bobby lost. And I was getting after him to go. But he lost by a lot. Don't challenge a Quarter Horse to a short race!

But in regards to actually accomplishing things, he's all trimmed up and the trailer is ready to roll first thing tomorrow. Fingers crossed we don't die!

No interesting title.

Clearly I deviated from my earlier schedule of dressage ride Wednesday and Thursday and jump school today. Wednesday I explained that the arena was just not looking appealing to either of us, and then yesterday I realized that today is Friday the 13th. I am definitely superstitious and I know that if I had tried to jump today, I would have probably died. Bobby too. Just because. So instead we dressage-d today!

stopping to say hello to dollar.

I don't have much to say about it. Robert was fabulous. We were in the indoor even though it was gorgeous outside because Bobby doesn't think dressage work should be done in wide open spaces. Plus, I think he likes to admire himself in the mirrors. Oh, well. Pick your battles, as they say.

We did a ton of trot work. We'd take a walk break after doing one fun thing at the trot and Bobby would be all, "Yay, canter time!" And then we'd do more trotting. But I mixed it up so neither of us got bored. Trot circles, trot leg yields, sitting trot, lengthening and shortening the trot, and trot-halt-trot.

After all that, I let him canter three circles and one full time around the arena in each direction before calling it quits. He was a hair strong and crooked to the right, but not out of control by any means and he straightened out as we went along.

I don't know what I'll do tomorrow. Clean tack. Pack the trailer. Possibly get ambitious and give him a bath. We shall see!

Bobby plays a fun game.

The game was called "Because I said so, that's why." Its focal point was on him wanting to canter and me wanting him to trot and him saying, "But we've been trotting!" and me saying, "I don't give a shit. You're going to trot because I said so!"

Here was today's other fun game:

crappy cell phone picture taken off of bobby during cool out.

all a daunting 2'6", though they look smaller.

Bobby really, really wanted to canter after trotting in warmup. He needs to learn that riding doesn't always go w/t/c. So each time he tried to leap into the canter, I halted him and backed him up a couple steps before asking him to trot again. And not just little mincy trot--a big, normal horse trot. He finally got the hang of it by the end of our ride once he figured out I was going to let him canter eventually, but we had a couple of go-rounds starting out.

I made him trot each fence the first time "because I said so, that's why." We went over the blue vertical first. He started doing his little prance-y "I want to canterrrrr!" trot up to it and sucking back, so I jabbed him once with my spurs and he rocketed over from a full stride out. I assumed a rather defensive position and cursed him out as we went sailing over before landing suprisingly coordinated.

yaaahhhhhh!

I made him trot it once more just to make a point of it before letting him canter it a few times. Punk. The other two jumps went off without fuss and I started putting a few of them together. Finally, I made up a little course which was slightly difficult with only three jumps, but I didn't feel like hauling anything else out. As soon as I went over the first jump, I loudly exclaimed, "Well, shit. I just forgot my own made up course!"

So I made it up again on the fly and Bobby and I played with all the jumps from every direction and angle, picking and choosing as we went and just having fun with it. Bobby's ears were locked forward and he was cruising around like, "Just show me where to go next and I'll do it!"

I'm finally starting to trust him jumping in the arena and we're getting our groove on together. The best way to ride him, I'm learning, is to make a point of getting a really good canter and then once we turn towards a jump, if the canter is good, just sit still and let him roll. If he needs a little whoa or a little go, I can do a tiny correction a few strides out, but other than that I need to leave him alone. He gets too flustered when I try to micro-manage him. What a ground-breaking concept, right?

But today was awesome. We were both enjoying ourselves and having fun. I really felt like we were starting to flow instead of testing each other. I'm soo looking forward to Sunday!

Wildlife.

I headed up to the freshly grated and dragged outdoor first thing this morning. It looked amazing. No one had ridden in it yet and all the jumps were moved to the corners so it was a great big square of awesomeness. But Bobby and I weren't really feeling the whole ring work thing today so we quickly abandoned it and headed out for a long trail ride.

As soon as we set foot onto the trail head, baby bunnies started blasting out of all corners of the woods.

They weren't particularly clever bunnies, and one hopped along frantically in front of us for the first half of the path. The little fuck was lucky Bobby didn't tromple him to death. Bobby's take on all things scary on the trail: If you kill it, it can't kill you. He goes out of his way to stomp on scary things.

Next up were sleeping deer.

I saw one stand up from the tall grass they were in so I started serenading Bobby with a little Aladdin soundtrack music--this is usually a good deer deterrant. They run far and fast when they hear my beautiful voice. So up popped another deer, and then another and another until there were six deer trotting across the field away from us. We passed several others prancing through the woods as we went along.

Finally, after crossing the creek and the road, and leaping our way up a hill (never has losing a stirrup seemed so terrifying as when you're vertically ascending a mountainside and you think you're going to go sliding backwards off your horse), we came blasting out into an open field and pissed off a bald eagle.

Bobby was understandably slightly taken aback by this screaming, offended, giant bird that launched itself from the branches behind him and did a rather admirable airs-above-the-ground leap forward before deciding that being eaten alive wasn't worth getting worked up about and continued calmly on his way.

We passed a couple of red tailed hawks, too, but those suckers are like pigeons around here. You barely take notice of them.

So besides the copious amounts of wild animals we encountered, we had a pretty uneventful ride. I conquered one of the monster hills I was afraid to ride down when I went out with Sarah the last time, Bobby played in the creek for awhile, and we did a lot of trotting. We were out for an hour and a half and just as we ambled back to the barn, it started snowing like crazy. Full on blizzard! And then it stopped because it is fucking April after all. It's supposed to be in the mid sixties the rest of the week and the mid seventies over the weekend. Whatev, weather.

Unrequited Love.

Bobby is head over heals for the TB mare stalled across from him.

He goes out during the day and she goes out at night, but when I bring him in to ride, he gazes longingly at her through the bars of her stall until I unhook from the crossties and let him profess his love to her. You can see how much she loves him back. The funny thing is, if he stops paying attention to her, or when we start to leave for the arena, she presses her nose against the grate. She's just playing hard to get!

temporarily distracted by the hanging play thing/crosstie.

"i love you, tasha!"

Today was another dressage school. I worked him for a full forty-five minutes and pushed him to really work, but I made sure everything was Baby Horsie approved and broken down into simple steps.

After a phenomenal w/t warm up, I asked him to canter a 20m circle in each direction to see if he was going to be charging around like a looney and swapping his hind legs around the right. Nope. He was definitely excited to be cantering, but I'm learning that I have to let him roll out a little bit because what I think is fast is just his normal stride. He's a big horse and he has big movements. He was a little bit of a brat to come back down to the trot, so I set up our game plan for the rest of the ride to be trot-halt-trot transitions (my fave), canter-trot transistions, and then run through BN A once.

His trot-halt transitions were fab. Zero complaints. I had to be a little more firm than I would have liked the first couple of canter-trot transitions, but once he realized what I was asking, they were like bam-bam-bam. Really good. Plus, he was just so relaxed. His big ears were flopping sideways, his stride was swinging along, and his back wasn't a hot, tensed mess.

happy horsie.

In his last 20m circle to the right, he tripped and went down to his nose, but he bounced right back up and kept cantering like it was no big. However, he definitely remembered it because when we got to that part of the arena while cantering in the test he started to rush, but a quick half halt and he came right back to me.

His test overall was pretty awesome. Not that the BN A test is anything fancy or challenging, but for a horse that couldn't even canter at the beginning of the year, I'm super pumped to get through it without looking like a hot mess. His free walk was the best it has ever been, his trot was big and loose, and his canter was so UP. We need to work on anticipating movements and our halt and salute. He thinks trotting down the centerline is a fun way to change direction, not a place to stand still.

Yay for making progress! I got ahold of Michelle at Burgundy Hollow this morning and scheduled our xcountry school for Sunday morning. I'll do another dressage ride tomorrow and Thursday, then a jump school Friday, flat or hack on Saturday, and hopefully kick some real jumps asses Sunday.

Bit help!

Bobby didn't get worked yesterday because Hubby and I were to busy being cool kids and playing with our toys. Ok. Maybe the part about being cool kids is a lie. Buuuut....we took our (free!) boat out on its maiden voyage on the Susquehanna. It was pulled along by our very own new (as in '91) F150, driven by yours truly. It was my first time pulling anything behind me for longer than just moving things around driveways (and farm equipment--I can pull anything down the road if I'm in a tractor), and I neither killed any pedestrians nor took out any parked cars. Small win!

the puppies first time on a boat. they weren't too sure at first, but
after their daddy comforted them, they settled down.

We stopped off at one of the islands in the river and explored a bit. The hound dogs were thrilled. Water on all sides to play in, an infite number of sticks, and all sorts of smelly things to roll in. Darcy was also convinced shells are edible.

"best day everrrr!"

devil dogs fighting over sticks.

darcy always wins.

Pig jumped in and out of the boat on command like she'd been doing it forever. Darcy the Princess, on the other hand....

"um, you are coming back to carry me to shore, right?"

Today I took Bobby to the indoor to avoid the gusting winds and do a little dressage school. I only worked him for about twenty minutes at the walk and trot because he was doing so fabulous and I want him to think happy thoughts when he gets worked. Trotted right off with the tiniest touch of my leg, didn't hollow out his back a single time, didn't get fussy when I picked up contact, dropped right back to the walk and halt with just my seat....just all around perfect.

This is where the bit help comes into play. I used his jumping bit--the slow twist loose ring. He goes amazingly in this bit. He's so light and relaxed and his jaw isn't clenched and he listens to every teeny tiny thing I ask him. However, this bit obviously isn't dressage legal. SO. Any suggestions of a legal bit that will be as perfect as the slow twist? And if you have one laying around, do you want to send it to me to try? I'll paying shipping and send it right back! I don't even know where to start, and I don't want to buy a bunch of bits that I'll never use.

i need an ecogold dressage pad.
but robert looks cute in red.