Changes.

Over the past week or so, the barn team and I have been working on finding a good turnout and feed program for Robert. We pulled him out of the OTTB field and switched him to the xcountry field with the fatties. He went two days without any bite marks, but he was standing alone not grazing. The third day, someone gave him a long bite mark down his butt and that was the end of that experiment.

his battle wounds are healing.

 

We decided to put him back with his rejected racehorse buddies and pull the bully, Bennie, out of that field. Bennie went into his own paddock and the new horse, a little grey QH colt, took his place. When I left the barn and drove by his paddock, Bobby and bff Spyder were grazing together in a far corner while everyone else chased the new guy around. He hasn't come in with a new mark on him since, and the grey horse, Pilot, has become Bobby's shadow.

simon coming to see if there are any cookies for him.

If he starts coming in banged up again, we're going to try to move him and Spyder into a paddock together. Not ideal since the only remaining paddock doesn't have a ton of good grass left in it, and I don't really want screaming butt buddies when I take Bobby out.

puppy fight!

He's also been looking a little...unthrifty as of late. It doesn't help that he's kind of ugly and his coat is so bleached out, though constant bathing with Microtek is helping bay him out a smidge, but he's looking a little ribbier than usual. I don't want him on any more grain than he's on so I'm trying a month of Strongid. If that doesn't make him show some improvement, I'm going to take the plunge and order the blue pop rocks.

mauled by a piglet.

I'm on a helmet search since I did a good job of killing my CO skull cap and my IRH is now six years old and really needs to get retired. I don't remember helmets being so expensive, but maybe that's because I'm poor now.

they're everywhere!

I checked on Bobby Monday. BM said he'd been passed out all morning. His front legs were cold and tight, but his hinds were a little stocked up--probably from laying down for so long--so I took him down to the indoor for a little exercise.

poop!

speed racer.
ha. ha ha.

checking himself out.

I'm not sure when I'll be out to ride him next. Maybe Thursday? With the exception of a minor headache, I'm not at all sore today (as opposed to yesterday where I couldn't turn my head because my neck was so stiff), but I know how much Bobby loves his time off.



BCHP ST -- BN

Nothing like waking up at 3:45 in the morning to make you question your sanity and why on earth you thought going to a show was "fun".

Dressage:

looking semi fancy.

eyes up to avoid collisions.
a good motivator.

Bobby was a tense mess warming up for dressage. The ring is shared with both dressage and stadium riders so it's always mass chaos and we were both gritting our teeth and trying not to get run over. Bobby even spooked (well, a Bobby spook doesn't count on normal horses) when a horse came cantering up behind him on the rail (which we were very, very near to). He had a hard time focusing whenever we went by the warm up jumps and I headed into the arena knowing we were going to produce a pretty sub-par test.

Dressage Test

It looks better than it felt; he was still really tense and heavy in my hands. When we finished, I halted, saluted, gave Bobby a quick pat, and let out a huge breath of air and then the judge and I looked at each other and laughed. She called out "Good girl!" and told me I rode very tactically on an obviously tense horse. We ended up with 6s halfway down the board and 7s for the second half which earned us a 33.5 that tied us for 3rd and got us a yellow ribbon for competitive prancing.

Stadium

Can I just say that I really hate people who tote their trainers around with them and think they're entitled to take over all the warm up jumps? Hey, I have to warm my horse up too and when I call out a fence before you and am headed directly at it, I don't appreciate having to yank my horse up to avoid you as you cut in front of me because your trainer told you to go ahead and do it. It's called sharing people. Sharing is caring.

baby horse loves to do the jumping at shows.

I had Hubby video the stadium round....and really wish I hadn't. Unfortunately, there's not much to say about it except a) Bobby is a fucking superstar for saving my ass over all the fences and not refusing, running out, or pulling a single rail and b) that was the worst jumping round I have ever done in my whole life.

getting big pats for saving my patootie.

I went in with good intentions. Forward, forward, forward! Bobby was down. Bobby loves the jumping game, especially at shows. So we get to the first fence and I'm like, "Forward!" and Bobby's like, "Okay!" and I'm like, "AHHH! Why are you going forward? Stop, stop, stop!" and Bobby's like, "Okay.....?" And then that's how I rode every single fence. Yuck. Completely writing that one off. We picked up one time penalty thanks to me, but still moved up to 2nd.

Cross Country

Your course walk. Fence 9 was the water.

I have a few complaints about this course. First of all, Hubby and I walked around in circles for awhile trying to find the start box and our first fence. We ended up diving into the woods and working our way back from fence seven. We weren't the only ones because when we finally set out the right way, we ran into a couple people coming from the opposite direction with really confused looks on their faces. Second of all, the footing in the woods was awful. If it wasn't muddy, churned up, and shot through with giant roots, it was straight up gravel. Who sets up jumps on gravel? I mean, really.

We ran into a couple thrills and spills as the first of the training riders went out. One woman fell at the double banks down and I grabbed her snorting horse. She walked over with her air vest deployed and just shook her head and said, "Oh, Diamond." We also saw a couple of stops.

warming up.

Bobby had his dancing feet on when we got over to xcountry warm up. I could feel him start to build himself up and he no longer could stand still. "I iz ready to do the running and the jumpingggg!!!!" Instead of getting discouraged by my deplorable stadium round, I decided to put my Grr Face on and redeem myself.

I put my foot on the gas pedal right out of the start box and while it wasn't any crazy gallop, we were finally cruising right along. When we reached an open stretch (of which there were plenty--what Bucks lacks in terrain they make up for in size and length), I asked for more speed. I didn't yank him back from any of the fences and he jumped every fence out of stride. Amazing how that works. I was a little freaked out by the size of most of these jumps. Bucks is known for a tough course that's usually maxed out--I'd say 80% of this one was max size. 2'7 isn't big until you accept the fact that you're a wimp and it's a solid obstacle instead of an airy stack of rails. I was especially in awe of fence 4--"Ed's Table". This thing was huge, in the woods, and set in the middle of the gravel trail. Coming up to it, I was talking out loud as I'm prone to do. "This thing is a monster. This is a big jump, Bobby." He sailed right over with zero hesitation and upon landing I yelled out, "But you don't even give a fuck!" I heard the jump judge laughing behind me and we were legit rocking and rolling from there on out.

When we walked the course, I had planned on trotting through the water out of the flags before coming through since Bobby hasn't been in water since the beginning of June. However, he was moving at such a good, forward rhythm that I just gave him a little "Hello, pay attention to this" half-halt and he cantered right on through.

  

giant fucking fence.

Everything was going awesome. I wasn't remotely tired, Bobby wasn't blowing, and we were so in-tune and ripping through fences like they were nothing. Then we got to the second to last fence. Neither Bobby or I could read it at all coming up to it and Bobby managed to get his front foot on the bottom "step" of it. I think he just misjudged how wide it was. Whatever it was, he started to scramble over then thought better of it and slammed on the brakes. I was already jumping it--though I should have been in a much more defense position--and when his head and neck went over the other side of the jump without the back half of his body, I followed it and somersaulted right over.

robert's first cross country fault--that was my fault.

I landed on my head and shoulder, thinking to myself as the ground came rushing up, "I wonder how well those air vests work" and probably gave myself a mild concussion. I feel like absolute light-headed, dizzy hell right now. Oh, well. You're not a real eventer until you've gotten one, right? Bobby looked back at me as he walked around the fence, then mosied on over to Hubby as I assured the jump judge I was fine. What was I supposed to tell him? "Actually, I hit my crotch really hard on the pommel of my saddle when my horse stopped and I think I'm going to go ice my vagina."

Hubby couldn't wait to show me his picture. "I don't mean to laugh, but you give new meaning to ass over tea cups." Thanks, Hubby. Bobby got loads of cookies and scratches back at the trailer. No reason to get mad at the big mule for finally showing a sense of self preservation. We got around all but two of the jumps in the best form yet. I had an awesome cross country ride. It was a little disappointing to find out that we would have won if I hadn't come off. I'll count it as a win anyway. Good boy, Mr Magee!

Bloggers are the best.

You guys are going to have to start billing me for your advice because I've been using it and it's been working really well. You're a well educated group of ladies and I'm taking full advantage. Keep commenting and critiquing away! I have a products wish list of stuff you guys have recommended.

I gave myself a very specific plan of action for these past three days to make sure no one got pissed off--myself or Bobby. Amazingly, things went swimmingly.

Tuesday:

I started off longing Bobby in side reins to show him that I meant business. I worked him on the line for twenty minutes with lots of praise to show him that I also sometimes like him.

Then we went balls to the wall (such an eloquent phrase) on dressage work for the next forty minutes. Lots of mixing it up between walk and trot, and a couple of okay canters. For an outdoor dressage school, it was really friggin' amazing all around. Bobby was listening so well to my half halts and my leg that I didn't once get flustered with him. Olivia passed the arena to get Kidd and said, "Carly, you have a dressage pony!" Yay!

I'm attributing a great part of this success to a new bit recommended long ago by Aimee at I am the Sprinkler Bandit. It's a french link with a long flat middle piece. I settled on a plain egg butt during my epic bit search because I couldn't find one of these laying around, and then the other day I spotted Sarah's bridle with the bit attached. I made the appropriate grabby hands and she told me to try it out. Bobby was Foamy Face Magee and so happy in it. Definitely ordering one.

We finished by cantering over all the jumps from Sunday with all but the barrels lowered to 2'. I wanted easy fences so we could focus solely on distances. And guess what? He got a perfect distance to every single one from both directions. He had a big canter after all that dressage work and he just cruised right over them. Plan of attack for Sunday: lots of flat work for our jumping warm up.

Wednesday:

I got to the barn a little early so after grooming Bobby and spraying Blue Kote on his latest chomp mark (even though he's been switched to a different field!), I went up to watch the end of the campers ride. It. Was. Hilarious. BO had them playing a game of tossing a water bottle to each other in a circle, and I couldn't help but giggle each time on of the poor schoolies got clocked with it. They earned their keep and their cookies by just standing there and taking it.

I gathered all the jumps and set the grid suggested by NSRider over at The Imperfect Perfect Horse with a minor tweak for arena size: 2' vertical, 1 stride, xrail bounce, 2 strides to a 2'3 oxer. This grid rode really, really well and Bobby killed it. I didn't have a single problem with it except for my very last time through which I got on video by coercing the girl riding with me to take it. Bobby took an awkward spot to the first fence because of the bad turn I made to it. But it wasn't a chest-the-jump short spot so I was okay with that and ended it there.   

look at pony face using his neck.
now if i could just re-learn how to release....

Last time through:   

Thursday:  

chillin' with bo's dog.

I had another dressage school planned and ended up in the outdoor again since the indoor had poles strewn about in various crazy trail class patterns. Longed in side reins to start us out, but cut it short this time because it was so hot out. That was a mistake; Bobby alternated between dumping his whole giant body into my hands and trying to get me to carry him, and making drama llama faces at the horses in the field. I gritted my teeth and got off and stuck him back on the longe in side reins. Another ten minutes and he was ready to go this time. He gave me fabulous work from there on out, especially at the canter--though I like to think me being insanely focused on sitting up straight and staying centered in the saddle had a lot to do with it. Yay for better riding?

There was a new grid set up so after popping over the green xrail a few times, I let Bobby at it. Uh, it was a disaster. I don't know who set it, but it was clearly someone without a measuring wheel. Total disaster and I apologize profusely to Robert for making him scramble through it. Once more over the green X and we were done. Tomorrow he'll have off, and then trail ride Saturday. Ride times for Sunday: Dressage - 8:54 Stadium - 11:17 XCountry - 11:32 It's going to be an early morning as Bucks is two and a half hours away, but at least we'll be home early and avoid the worst of the heat!

Les sigh.

I've been in kind of a rut the past few days, frustrated with my own riding and feeling hopeless/helpless with my horse. I feel like I'm not getting anything out of my rides lately and I'm completely stuck in a gross, boring, and mediocre state of poniness. Why are basic concepts so hard for Bobby and I to grasp....and then keep? We're both floundering--the mid-season slump, I guess.

 Friday we did a quick walk ride out on the trails to warm up. Only fifteen minutes instead of the thirty I had planned on because it was really hot and really buggy. Went into the indoor and proceeded to pick a fight with each other over every little thing.

Me: Bobby, walk faster.

Bobby: What? Trot?

Me: No. Just walk.

Bobby: Wait, what? I'm not listening. Did you say halt?

I put up wiht this for about twenty minutes before getting off and "winning" by longing him in side reins and calling that productive enough for the day. It was too hot and we were both too pissy.

so. hot.

Saturday, Hubby got dragged out of bed early so we could be on the xcountry field by 8am to avoid the worst of the predicted 95* weather and one hundred percent humidity. It was still hot as Hades though. I warmed Bobby up over the biggest fences in the upper half of the field and tried not to blow a fuse when he wouldn't listen to me when I asked him to take off from my spot instead of his. Taking off doesn't work when you're buried in the fence, ass.

I had the trakehner in sight as the end goal, but we also made it over the oxer for the first time. He didn't refuse, but dammit if I could get him away from the base of the effing jump.

notice butt ventilation. i added a new hole mounting that morning.

there's my leg....going backwards as we go forwards.

I let him have a long breather after the oxer as we'd been going nonstop for a good forty minutes and he was blowing pretty hard. Then a long run up the hill to the beastly 3' trakehner--Bobby miraculously listened to me and took off from the perfect spot and we sailed over without a hitch. Yay! Unfortunately Hubby didn't get a very good picture of it. I took him over it twice more, which was a mistake as the pony was very tired and he puked a half stride in both times and knocked his feet.

yeah....

Today we met up with Sarah and Memphis and Blackberry and his lessor Nan. It was a lot of fun riding with them, but I was easily distracted and honestly, I was having more fun just hanging out with them than I knew I would have been jumping.

bobby enjoyed the chilled pace too.

We did do some jumping:

But again we were plagued with the unwanted, unasked for chipped in strides that are starting to make jumping not only not fun, but also dangerous.

i could have murdered him for this, as you can tell from my face.

I know some of it's pace--we need more, more more, but without getting rushed and strung out--and some of it's that Bobby's still green, but some of it really is that he won't listen when I ask him to go. A whip would be handy to back up my spurs, but Bobby strongly protests to whips.

My homework this week:

* Fun, consistent dressage rides.

* Teeny, tiny fences with a whip in hand (gasp!) to work our asses of on correct distances. This was the plan earlier, but loose and lost shoes derailed it pretty quickly.

Monday off because he'll be tired from jumping, and Friday off because Saturday is going to be a long, relaxing trail ride with friends. Only three days off real work, but I'd rather have a happy, fresh horse than a horse drilled to boredom and naughtiness--which is where I feel we are now.

sometimes we're friends.

Lesson.

My lesson was supposed to be at nine this morning so I got to the barn at 8:30, groomed, tacked up, and went down to the ring to warm up. BO is always late by a few minutes, but at 9:15 I finally rode back to the barn and asked BM if BO was even home. Nope. She went to get her hair done first thing in the morning with her friend, completely forgetting she had a lesson with me. Needless to say, I was about two seconds away from just finishing my ride on my own and leaving. Buuuut I didn't because I wanted some help with lateral work which is hit and miss and we had a few comments on our last dressage tests that Bobby needed more bend.

So I untacked Bobby and stuck him back in his stall and got on Spyder. Here's the thing about Spyder: he sticks at 17.2hh at his shoulder and he's built sooo downhill that his butt must be a solid 18hh. He has to die for gaits, but when riding him, you always feel a little bit precarious. He also started off our ride walking like a total drunkard. I ended up grabbing a whip and giving him one solid whack behind my leg and that woke him up enough to be nice for the rest of our ride. This weekend when Hubby comes out for his obligitory pony time, I'll have to jump on Spyder so you can see me go all Hunter Princess. I don't know what it is, but whenever I ride him, I seem to fancy myself a bit of a hunter rider. We fnished with a little jaunt through the woods.

spyder's first solo hack.

There was a lesson before mine that got started fifteen minutes late so I watered the barn to help BM finish chores and went to watch two sixty year old women do some quasi dressage. I read Intro A and B for them then got Bobby ready. Again.

BO asked if I wanted to run through any of the tests. No, I know BN A and I don't have to any more real dressage for the rest of the year. I wanted help with my lateral work. "Ok, well if you don't want to do the tests I have something I want to do with you." (Oh, PS I never found out what it was.) Clearly we were off to a great start.

Bobby, as always during lessons it seems, wasted the first twenty five minutes on making me correct his way of going. Never can he just go right into a nice working trot like he mostly does with me. Oh, no. He won't even fake putting his head down. We had to get that sorted out which was hard as balls, and then we worked on backing correctly. Bobby now knows how to back on a loose rein, so that's fancy I guess.

We did some cantering and worked on getting him to stretch down. BO said he looked really nice and we'll get really good scores on his canter. Um, thanks. If I run into a stretchy canter circle, I'll be pumped. Can we do some shoulder-in now? Even a little leg yielding?

No. We then worked some more at the trot, trying to get me to feel the difference between forward with impulsion (which felt too slow to me) and rushing (which felt too fast). So I either felt I was going too fast or too slow. But BO said all the bajillion half halts she was making me do were getting him to step under himself and go truly forward and when I bathed him after our ride, his butt cheeks were foamy.

Sooo....what did I learn from my expensive private lesson? Ehm.....

..................

BO did nit pick me the whole time about my position which I appreciated, though now that I'm home I'm so sore it's ridiculous. It's just really frustrating to only be able to take a lesson once every month and I go in knowing exactly what I need and want to work on, and we don't even touch upon it.

I know if I lessoned with her every week, I'd probably make leaps and bounds in my position and with Bobby in general. But I can't afford to lesson every week. I can barely afford these monthly lessons. I need homework that I can grind through on my own, not "Can you schedule another lesson some time next week and I'll get on him?" No. I honestly cannot. I have zero more pony dollars for the month.

There's a Michael Page clinic at my alumnus that my advisor wants me to attend September 30th. He's getting me more info, but I think if that doesn't go through (it's a four hour drive into NY) I'm going to see if I can't trailer over to the eventing barn by my house for a jumping lesson before we go Novice at Burgundy Hollow at the end of October.

Bobby also came in with a new bite on his bum, which is supposed to finally get Bennie moved out of that paddock. Just in case that doesn't happen tonight though, one of the BMs' daughter's joked I should put chili powder on his bum to ward off unfriendly advances.

Poor, Robert. Forced to play along with the things we find funny. He was rewarded for his patience with some of BM's Mountain Dew when she made the mistake of opening her bottle in front of his stall. Bobby loves Mountain Dew.

A lot of walking.

Really nothing all that exciting to update on.... again. Monday I strapped on Bobby's boots and dragged him to the indoor for thirty minutes of walking. Deja vu, anyone? Nothing like watching a full day of Olympic cross country to make you want to go walk around an indoor for a ride. I did lots of real work riding at least, as previous walk-only rides have given me plenty of exercises.  You should see this horse bend and counter-bend back and forth by the time we're done. It's like buttah.

Bobby does, I think, read my blog. I was whining about how I wish his trot work was more consistent and just, well, better and when I asked him if he wanted to try a trot with his boots on, he sprang right into it and actually did something a little strange. He used his..... neck! That long, dinosaur-like appendage that likes to pretend it's working, but really it's just his head that's tucked in. Well folks, yesterday he bent that baby from his shoulders and actually put it to work and his trot was faaaabulous.

i tried to get video but i only stayed in the frame for about 2secs.

I was honestly a little giddy. We only trotted for five minutes at the end of our thirty minutes of walking, and I was inclined to write it off as him just trying to watch what his clunkyily clad feet were doing than any real submission.

Yesterday I went out with a mission: stay at the barn until the farrier got there and be that crazy owner that watches his every move and makes obnoxious comments on her horse's feet while he's working. New Farrier could not make it out which kind of makes me angry. Ohh, well. I had awhile to wait so I amused myself in other ways.

I saw Sue for the first time since she had to put Gabby down and I helped her clean out her locker. We agreed that it's not technically "hoarding" when you're a horse person--it's just saving things for another horse! And since she already has another horse, there was really no need to throw anything away. Such good logic. I'm a good helper.

sue and gabby last summer.

With that done, and still no sign of the farrier, I decided to ride Trip. Remember Trip? Trip ended up getting a lot of time off because of his back which is exactly what he needed. He's started to fill out a little bit and while still lean, he no longer looks like a tucked up racehorse. He stood nicely in the crossties while I pulled his mane and then didn't try to bite, kick, or grind his teeth while I tacked him up.

trip.

He'd been ridden a few times by one of the advanced girls a couple weeks ago, but had pretty much been sitting since then. I led him around the indoor once and then jumped on. He didn't even snort the whole time. He looked around, but was totally cool and ready to go to work. I love Thoroughbreds.

I did a long walk warm up because his back is still a little tight, then worked on transistions with his trot. He needs his teeth done still so he's kind of fussy with the bit, but someone trained him really, really well to listen to seat aids and I had to be careful my half halts weren't too strong or he'd come right back to the walk. Cantered each direction with no problems and called it quits after thirty five minutes. Still a fun horse, still pretty fancy, and I still like him, but I think I've gotten too used to the big galump of Mr Magee at this point.

"i am so adorable."

I bemoaned my horse's lack of shoes with another boarder whose mare had pulled her shoe off that morning while we waited for the farrier together. He finally showed up and I told him, "Don't take a single centimeter off of his feet. Just put the shoes back on and rasp down the rough edges." His feet are so effing small as it is, he can't be getting a full trim every four weeks and be expected to grow anything. So the nippers didn't come out once and, for princess feet that still need a lot of growing to do, they looked fine to me.

He was, unfortunately, still kind of tender so I only walked him again....except for the one lap of trot I snuck in to see if his neck still knew it had a part to play. Heck yes it did. He's getting today off because Thursday I have a lesson with BO and I want him to feel funky fresh going into it. Ideally I would have liked to lesson the week of my show, but next week is the last camp week and I know from previous experience that BO is pretty much useless when camp is going on. "I want you to teach my how to do stretchy trot." "Ok, let's canter the whole lesson." Really? Really.

Maladies Update.

Enjoy the Olympic cross country day today everyone! I plan on settling in for a long morning of tv and computer coverage before I do anything remotely productive.

Bobby didn't get another round of Bute yesterday because he walked out only slightly mincy on the gravel when I took his boots off. He got another shot of Thrush Buster and a good grooming before I antagonized him with a peppermint wrapper and made him take some pictures with me. Hoepfully we'll get in a walk ride in the indoor today and I'll check with BO to see if New Farrier will be out Friday or not.

Photo Spam:

not even a bad hair day. more like a bad hair life.

"there must be a cookie in there!!!"

trying to eat the wrapper.

big dope.

Sue ended up putting Gabby down Saturday night. I feel awful for her of course, but I'm glad she finally made the call. There was honestly nothing else that could have been done. RIP, Gabriella.

Gabby in April.