Dedicated to Sarah

You guys have read my mentions of Sarah several times. Sarah, owner of the wonder pony Blackberry and the mouthiest Dutch Warmblood known to man Memphis. She is my barn partner in crime (Interpret crime how you will. I can neither confirm nor deny anything.), and we have made numerous poor excellent life choices together-- most extending from, "I'm bored. Let's do bad things."

ironically, bobby and memphis now wear the bit the other horse has on.
sharing is caring.

Sarah pulled in right as I got on Bobby yesterday and we agreed we should finally try our ultimate bad idea. Sarah went to get Memphis ready while I worked Bobby quickly. I focused almost solely on leg yields. Super fab tracking to the right, but fucking hell, I could not figure myself out to the left. It was like the left side of my body, from the hip down, was paralyzed. My leg and my pelvis did not want to move back. Bobby was like, "What the fuck are you asking me to do besides go crooked, you nut job?" And I was like, "ARGHGFHBGKJLKLH! Let's sit down and have a talk, you useless excuse for a left side of a body!" Clearly needs to be worked on.

Clearly.

Anyway, Memphis came down looking adorbs in his bad idea gear and Sarah led him over to put side reins and a longe on him. Memphis is not a fan of snow falling off the roof--and by not a fan, I mean he freaks the fuck out.

Snow slides off the roof. Memphis hops sideways, moving literally only one of his feet, and steps on Sarah. And levels her. In retrospect, we both should have felt bad about the situation, but we were both laughing too hard. Sarah hobbled over the mounting block and declared her foot broken. She's almost done with nursing school, so I was inclined to believe her. I told her to go get some vet wrap and wrap it while I ponied Memphis around.

She came back down to longe the crazy beast while I cantered Bobby. Memphis was crazy, Bobby was fabulous. So uphill, so fancy. He's such a good dude most of the time.

Sarah texted me later that night to say her foot was not in fact broken. Just "extensive soft tissue damage." Awesome bruising will ensue. I'm proud.

She was back at the barn today, amazingly being obedient and not riding. In return, I forced her to clean out her locker. We found matches to all her polos. Literally a miracle.

halfway through unpacking the black hole.

I headed down to the arena with Bobby to kick off the circus. Other riders slowly started trickling in until there were six of us--one longeing--in a small dressage ring sized arena. BO correctly predicted that Bobby would have to be the calming affect for everyone. The dude just doesn't care. If someone goes bonkers, he'll turn an ear at them... if he's feeling frisky. I think we spent enough time in maniacal warm up rings last year that he's pretty unfazed by horses cutting him off or coming up behind him. Ain't nobody got time for that!

He was being so lazy starting out. He almost fell on his face walking into a ground pole because he couldn't be bothered to pick his feet up. He finally worked into a bit of a rhythm, suprisingly getting more forward with some sitting trot. I had to beat him into the canter a bit, but he was okay once he was in it. Mainly, it was just a ride to get out. Not much schooling going on.

I probably wouldn't have done much anyway as the fog and the heat were fucking oppressive. It was like being smothered. You couldn't even see yourself in the mirrors as you went by.

blegh.

I don't know when I'll get to the barn next. Depends on the weather. I just don't feel like driving in shitty weather anymore. I'm getting too old for that nonsense.

Sticky Stifles.

Stifles have been the bane of Bobby's existance from day one. When I refer to hind end issues in Bobby, this is what I'm refering to. His owner while racing even emailed me after seeing some of his jumping pictures that he was blown away I could get the horse to jump at all, his hind end was such a disaster.

The counter cantering, the swapping behind, the occasional baby bucks--all hind end issues. All stifle issues.

Jog him out, put him on a line, I doubt you'd notice a lameness. It's more feeling that tiny bit of stick when you're looking for it when riding, and knowing his past history of weakness, connecting the "misbehavior" to the pain in the stifles. (That doesn't mean it doesn't still frustrate me. I am human.)

It's not an injury. It's a strength issue brought on by his shoddy conformation. Time off apparently compounds the problem, and I've obviously already made the decision that in place of time off this November, we'll just stick with hacking to maintain motion and booty work. Once fit, there are no problems.

I know the tricks to building up his strength. Ground poles, hill work, and rein-backs. I have the Equine Fitness book with the stifle strengthening exercises. Come spring, I feel pretty confident he'll be strong enough again that these issues will be either nonexistant, or much, much less of a problem.

However, I'm kind of up in airs on weather or not I want to do more for him. The work is only going to get harder from here on out, and the hind end is really going to have to start carrying its weight this year. He's a coming eight year old. He's never been on a joint supplement, and I've never had him injected. Can you even inject a stifle? I'm a bit of a sceptic when it comes to joint supps, especially since I am also poor (and currently paying for hoof and ulcer supplements). I did have Red on SmartTendon and it absolutely helped him maintain his soundness.

Soooo.....

Any thoughts from you guys? Any supplements you'd swear by? Any injection stories?

I feel bad making him work through the pain, but building strength is the only thing that I know will take care of it.

Dressage and Hacking

We had another full arena for our ride yesterday, but it was with the same group of people as last Saturday so things went pretty smoothly. Bobby hadn't been ridden in four days and it was still super cold out, but he went right to work without fuss. He's gotten so mature in his flat work in the past month. He's all business now.

My friend, who worked with Bobby while he was at my college after getting retired, posted this on my Facebook today:

That was Robert pretty much all last year. He started figuring things out in the fall, but he was still inconsistent. Now, while we have things to work through and it's certainly not perfect all the time, we no longer consistently look like this:

This?

 A walk in the park.

Grown up fancy pants. Mostly.

After I was done with Bobby, BO asked me to canter her horse for her because of her back problems. Tyler is a school master to the core and he was not amused by my ammie mistakes asking for flying changes down the long side. "Shift your outside hip back, idiot, and I'll change. Oh? Poke me with your spur, too? Fuck you. I'm changing back." Eventually we figured each other out (less is more, Carly), but it was still fun.

I stuffed cookies into Bobby and turned him out where he adorably tried to convince me we should be BFFs instead of parting ways.

"my friends are playing on top of the hill..."

"but i'll still give you the option of coming back over to give me scritches."

This morning, I walked into the barn to find an unsuspecting BM's daughter just getting Spyder ready. "Oh hey, S! Want to go on a trail ride with me?" No one is ever around to ride out during the winter, and I like trail riding with people. S agreed and we got tacked up and then warmed up quickly in the arena.

I can't remember the last time Spyder's been out on trails, and he doesn't get worked very regularly, but S is a really nice rider and Spyder, while green, is a good boy. Bobby picked up on his bestie's jitters, but instead of feeding off of him and joining in, he slowed his walk to a snail's pace and plodded along beside him like, "Chill, dude. It's all groovy out here." Such a good pony. We did end up ponying them for a bit just because Spyder was really yanking on S and he was getting a little too prancey for her. He settled down enough by the end of our forty minute walk to try to eat some trees.

We got back to the barn and BM (S's mom) was like, "I can't believe she went out with you! She never trail rides." BM did say S told her she had fun though, so hopefully I didn't inadvertantly scare the shit out of her.

Carly and Bobby: Forcing Helping people out of their comfort zones since 2012.

Tentatitve Schedule

I haven't been out to see Bobby since Monday. It hasn't reached twenty degrees here which is my cutoff for riding weather, and when you're as broke as I am, it's hard to justify driving thirty miles to the barn to feed your horse cookies. I actually contemplated going out this morning, but first I went into town for dog food and groceries. I came out of Tractor Supply and saw my right front tire looking very, very sad.

Apparently I ran over something in the parking lot that made short work of my recently replaced tire. Sad face. However, changing a tire is one of the very, very few things I'm capable of doing that involves cars (The other two being adding wiper fluid and checking my oil level. Look out.). I lifted the cover in my trunk to grab my jack and spare and let out a series of rather creative curses. Turns out the tire hanging out in the spare's space is actually an old blowout--a rather massive blowout. I've never bothered checking before.

At this point, I do what any helpless woman would do and called Hubby. I'm not sure what Hubby was going to do. Magically make a new tire appear? It didn't matter because Hubby was on his way to Jersey Shore (bitch.) for important business. He said to go back into TSC and buy Fix-a-Tire. Done and done, Hubby.

Well, Fix-a-tire failed with an F-. I could hear air wooshing out of my tire as I tried to bring it back to life. I guess I ran over a fucking knife? Who knows. With Hubby crossed off the list, I caved and called AAA for a free tow. I waited in my car with my puppies (who must get their cookies at TSC or they hate me for days) and blasted the heater for an hour waiting for the tow truck.

The puppies were a little unsure about the tow guy, who was a giant, but once he doled out his own cookies and put the truck in drive, they were like, "Yay, car ride! Yay, best friends!" They fail as guard dogs.

pig keeping our driver's seat warm.

So there's your non-horse related story for the day, although it explains why I am not going to see Bobby yet again. Hopefully I can get a tire tomorrow and be back on schedule. I think it's even supposed to be 26* Sunday! Trail riding weather for sure.

But now for your pony fix. Since it's been too cold to ride, I've been slowly and torturously pencilling in a show schedule. I'm still waiting on the Williamsport Riding Club to finish their schedule so I can look at their dressage shows. However, here's where I'm at so far:

April: Cross country school at Burgundy sometime mid-month. I'll be coordinating with Sarah on this one as she wants to take Memphis to an event or two this year.

May: Novice at Burgundy on the 5th, followed by N at Bucks the next weekend. Both unrecognized.

June: Recognized N at GVRDC on my birthday and the first recognized at Bucks two weeks later. Never been to Geneseo before, but I'm looking forward to new places this year.

July: BCHP CT at Training on the 7th. School cross country afterwards. I have a big blank space under July and August. I learned the hard way last year that I can't go very long between shows or my brain motivation is lost. I'll be on the lookout for jumper or dressage shows to fill the void.

August: BCHP Schooling on the 11th. I don't know if I'll do this one or not.

September: Recognized at Bucks the 8th. Maybe Training? We'll see how it goes. Dressage show the next weekend.

October: Radnor Hunt recognized the 12th. It's only two and a half hours away, but it's a beefy ass course so it was not on the to-do list last year. I'd like to make it this year though.

All the shows are on the sidebar now. It looks like a lot of fun, but who knows how many I'll actually make it to.

Also, I still have no groceries.

Thank you, Dapplebay!

The winner of my 100 Followers Contest, L. Williams, chose Dapplebay's Jumper tee for her prize.

The owner/creator/creative mastermind behind Dapplebay, the wonderful Leah, was amazingly generous following the contest and she offered me my choice of shirts as well! Obviously I accepted. Who wouldn't have? My choice was the 3 Days/ 3 Ways shirt in grey.

I got it yesterday and I'm wearing it today. I. Love. It. Super soft, super classy looking, super wearing-it-everywhere amazing. I cannot recommend it more. Leah has designs for the english rider in all of us. Who cares if you ride western? You'd still look super cute in one of these bad boys.

Dear Hubby,

I know I keep telling you I need a new OTTB Tee for Valentine's Day, but I'm pretty sure you could swing an Eventer tee, too. Just throwing that out there.

Your adoring fan,

Carly

Good day at the barn

My drive to the barn was not uneventful, but ironically, it did involve barn-like things.

The short story is, I was hit with a load of hay.

The long story is, I was hit with a load of hay three miles from the barn. I was minding my own business, admiring an oncoming pick-up truck of second cut square bales when blammo! The lovely hay is flying off the hood of my car. I slammed on the brakes and let out a very girly squeal before pulling off on the shoulder. I've lost a bale or two while driving down the road before. No bigs. This guy's entire load landed on my car while I was driving 60mph. Kind of a bigs. Fortunately, hay explodes on impact and it was no harm done. I hepled the guy get the surviving bales out of the middle of the road and finished my drive to the barn without further ado.

Bobby was being super lazy about the concept of moving while getting tacked up and into the arena. "Yeah, yeah. I heard your invitation to move. I think I'd rather just hang here for awhile, thanks." In response, I got right after him as soon as I got my leg over and he very quickly became polite and forward, and it carried through our whole ride.

"poor me. i work so hard."

I had him in jump tack so I could do some no stirrup work (which seems like cheating in a dressage saddle) and work on changing the pace within gaits while in half seat. I haven't ridden in jump tack with spurs for quite awhile now. I've felt so loose and insecure with his jump that I didn't want to accidently poke him. Since I wasn't jumping, I strapped them back on and it made a big difference. Collecting and lengthening in half seat in the canter? Easy peasy. Same at the trot.

We worked through the leg yield movements from First....2? and the canter work from Training B. We attempted some trot lengthenings across the diagnol which were his best yet. Admittedly that's not saying much since they've been pretty much nonexistent thus far, but I think they're starting to emerge. And, of course, some truly torturous no stirrup work. Fucking hell, am I a weakling. That's all I have to say about that.

Overall, a really good, obedient ride from Mr Magee. Forward, responsive, cooperative, and productive. Couldn't have asked for more.

I finished by mauling poor Memphis with my clippers. The high of the week was actually today at a balmy 25* so I only gave him a bib clip instead of a trace and then snuggled him into his blanket. He's so adorable. He stood like a statue until I went to take care of his goat beard and the lips starting going. I've never seen a horse so interested in putting things in his mouth in my life. We had a little talk about how running clipper blades are not a smart choice and I stuffed some carrots down his throat.



he looks made because i was waving the end of the
lead rope at him so he would stop trying to eat my phone.

No clue when I'll be out to the barn next. Sarah and I sent a tentative date for Thursday to participate in an activity neither of us is versed in, nor qualified to attempt. We make poor life choices together. I'll be sure to let you guys in on it if it plays out.

Helmet Cam Debut

I stuck my helmet cam on my helmet for the first time Saturday. I only had a flat school planned, but I figured it would take some tweaking to get the angle and mechanics worked out, so why not go ahead and play with it?

There were five other riders in the arena, but it was actually a nice group to ride with and we all quite flawlessly stayed out of each other's way and managed to keep to task. What a relief. Hubby signaled to me from the viewing room that I should tip the camera down more. That did make a difference, but it was still a bit high when looking at the video that night. I'm not going to share any of that video because a) It's boring, and b) I didn't realize how completely useless the software that came with the camera is--you can't edit anything with it, or really do anything but upload and watch. Two thumbs way, way down.

I angled the camera down even more yesterday and while it looks like it's facing the ground, it's actually at the perfect angle now. I took Bobby out on an hour long trail ride where he was incredibly good with the insane wind. He had every reason to lose his mind, but he was completely focused on working. My helmet cover flew off my helmet at one point, and if my helmet didn't fit so well, it probably would have gone flying off, too.

The quality of these videos is fabulous... as long as you're watching on the Contour software. Once uploaded to Youtube, the quality shits the bed. They're also taking an average of two hours to upload which is probably partly my horrible internet's problem, but certainly not the only issue. I'm not happy with the software for this thing. In fact, I'm pretty much disgusted with it.

But anyway, here are some of the clips from that ride:

Our first gallop hill:

Down a hill, bushwhacking, through the creek, across the road, and up the giant monster hill:

Getting hit by the wind the first time. Notice me checking to make sure my helmet cover is still on--it was for the moment, but went flying off later on.

Bobby was pretty sure the roundbale that has been in this field every single time he's been out here was suddenly deadly, but he was brave and walked by it eventually:

We met up with Sarah and Memphis just as they were heading out, so we doubled back and did another thirty minutes with them, including a race head-on into the wind: