TRM Blog Hop: Before and After

Yay, pictures over writing! This blog hop from Cathryn is to show "before and after of their training progress, personality changes, or even of them growing up!" 

I know I've done variations of this post before, but I liked Cathryn's take on solid just before and just after--none of this "but look at the journeyyyy" bullshit. Fuck the journey. LOOK AT THE RESULTS. 

I was able to steal a few of the before pictures from Sarah, and if you're sort of new to the blog and don't know who Sarah is, let's do the briefest of recaps of The Story of Bobby.

Bobby was bred, born, raised, trained, and retired at Cobleskill where both Sarah and I went to college--only Sarah is just a wee baby so while I got foal, weanling, yearling, and two year old Bobby wherein I broke him for the track and sent him off to be a racehorse, Sarah was there when he came back and got stuck with OTTB Bobby before I bought him out of the program. 

Let's begin the journey there!

Before, 2010:

fresh off the track. he's never been this dark and shiny in the summer since this picture.
bobby is a pig and he loves his turnout which makes for a dirty, sun-bleached pone.

this angle is obviously not the best, but that pencil neck has plagued me for years

After, 2011:

february, two months after i bought him

This was right when I first started blogging, and I think there were maybe five of you that were reading back then, so what happened next was the boarding barn where I had both Bobby and Red was a literal disaster and were feeding my horses' grain (lots and lots of it that I was buying myself) to other horses in the barn. I couldn't afford to board two horses anywhere else, so Bobby went to go live with a COTHer so I could get them out of there.

Before, June 2011:

it was a fucking saga. let's not revisit it in depth.

After, December 2011:

then red had to be put down,
and the COTHer gave bobby back to me as one chunky monkey

Other milestones include....

First trail ride:

january 2011

august 2016

First jump:

january 2011

may 2015

First dressage rides:

january 2011

july 2011
(actually from our second ever show,
but i assure you the dressage test itself looked just as awesome as this)

may 2016
(pc: megan stapley, used with purchase)

First cross country jump:

july 2011

june 2015

First hunter show:

april 2011

I can't believe I don't have the pictures from Bobby's first hunter show--and first show period--anymore!! The above will have to do because his first show was with the small child riding him who I leased him out to. They did showmanship and several w/t classes and got ribbons in pretty much everything.

may 2015
now we do flat classes like this and just steal hunter princesses champion ribbons

Conformation-wise...

Look again:

february 2011

And now:

obviously a summer picture because he looks like a rabid yeti at the moment
#hurryupandcomebackclipperblades

It's sometimes hard for me to notice big changes when look at full body shots of Bobby because he still has the same, dopey baby head even at eleven years old. But the change in his body is so apparent to me in person--he's a big horse, and it's less in being leggy and more in being a massively built tank with a lot of presence once you're up close to him.

In conclusion? Don't fret, owners of young, awkward, probably a little ugly at times (a daily battle in Bobby Land), slightly crazy, and definitely bumbling baby horses! Beast mode transformation takes a long time to fully come about. Maybe one day you'll own your very own versatile Bobby Magee!*

*aim higher

10 Questions for November

From L, who manages to produce not only content for her own blog, but for everyone else's as well!

1. How old is the youngest/greenest horse you've ridden? We started babies at around 18 months for the track.

baby bobby ready for work

2. How old is the oldest horse you've ridden? Hmm. That's tough. Probably only through late teens that I can think of.

3. Were you scared of horses when you first started riding? No. I first started riding at a very podunk farm in South Carolina when I was five, and I remember trying to climb onto the backs of horses in their paddocks.

4. Would you say you're a more nervous rider or a confident rider? It depends on how quickly I can get into my head and trick myself into thinking that I'm super confident and nothing will phase me. But if I let doubt starting creeping in, forget it.

5. Biggest pet peeve about non-horse people around horses? How they don't seem to understand that I have to take care of my horse. I don't just arrive and it's tacked and ready to go, and I can't just get off after riding and walk away without doing anything to it. So sorry to waste your time, but fuck off.

6. A time you've been scared for your life? (horse related) I very briefly owned this OTQH who flipped over with me once. That was the end of that relationship.

7. Have you ever fallen off at a show? What happened? We were coming to the second-to-last jump on cross country (sitting in first place I might add), and Bobby misread the produce stand at Bucks and tried to climb it instead of jump it. He rethought that mid-scramble and threw on the brakes, sending me over his head onto my head for my first concussion.

baiii.

8. What's a breed of horse you've never ridden but would like to ride? I've never ridden a gaited horse but would really like to!

9. Describe the worst behaved horse you've ridden? Back in the good old days of Bobby running backwards at a high rate of speed being his answer to everything was not awesome. Like the time he ran backwards off a fucking cliff while I was on him (emergency dismount ftw), or the many, many times he ran backwards and sat down on top of fences.

10. The most frustrating ride you've ever had? Too many on Bobby to even count.

#realtionshipgoals

WW: That time Bobby was adopted by deer

i saw a group of deer while trail riding monday

i didn't think i was going to be able to get too close

but figured we'd try to get as close as they'd let us

they could have cared less it turns out

bobby kept trying to graze with them

but i was like, bobby! get your head up and pose!

finally they either got annoyed or weirded out by
my giggling and started wandering off

except this big doe who really didn't want to leave her snacks

the slowest exit ever

bye deer!

Clinic and Trail Ride

Right? Doesn't it sound like Bobby has been up to so many things the past few days?

Spoiler alert:

"hai! cookies?"

He has not been.

Our barn hosted a jumping clinic with Dave Kendrick over the weekend. I didn't participate because Bobby is not (yet?) in two hours of flat and over fences work shape, but I did audit and try to get some pictures and videos for my barn mates.

The main takeaway I got was that I really need to invest in a new camera. One that doesn't randomly take pictures on its own and then turns around and shuts off my video recordings before I'm done filming. IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK?!

big brown moose loves snuggles

I wish I could give you an in-depth clinic report, but...I didn't get any ground breaking information I feel is worthy of sharing. Dave was very strict about proper flat work, and he spent a long time warming everyone up with good, solid dressage instruction (and no stirrup work, poor suckers). The course for the first group was a slight deviation of a hunter course, while the second group was more focused on jumper turns--which really highlighted how important dressage is in every discipline.

The second group finished up with a tight roll back turn:

Everyone had some degree of difficulty with it, and I was being very grabby hands in wanting to get on my own horse and show them how easy it actually was. So, uh, I got Bobby out of the field when they were done, popped him over the green diagonal once as a warm up and then came right around to the roll back exercise and nailed it with ease the first time. Dressage, people. It makes everything cake.

We also jumped the triple bar once even though Bobby hasn't jumped a stadium fence in two months. He was literally perfect, and then proceeded to flat around for another ten minutes like a light, fluffy, lateral work slaying butterfly.

Even though I didn't get a whole lot of new information out of the two sessions, I liked Dave as a clinician a lot. If he comes back, I'd definitely see about getting a private with him as I think he has a lot to offer.

pig dog is maybe not the biggest fan of ponies, but she's also too dumb to resist
when i call her into the paddock and then gets tricked into this.

Bobby had Sunday off. I was planning on a dressage ride Monday morning, but my car was in the garage racking up a bill to rival Bobby's vet work so I was left with my truck. As I was doing chores, I kept walking by my truck...and my trailer...and it was almost 60* and sunny out in the middle of November...

I rode Shooter quickly first. He was in full spookasaurus mode which I was not in the mood for because he was spooking at LITERALLY NOTHING. "Oh, is that my reflection in the mirror that I've ridden past FIVE HUNDRED TIMES ALREADY? LET ME SPOOK AT IT." "Is that a SUN BEAM I see? OH GOD, RUN AWAY SLOWLY."

We had a go-round where I finally kicked him (hard) in his fat, flabby sides and made him trot until he decided maybe spooking wasn't worth the effort and he could actually just go around and do his fucking job. I was able to work on getting some correct shoulder-in out of him instead of just him bending his neck too much and doing strange things with his haunches, but I got off feeling like it was a wasted ride. I forgot how much retraining horses sucks.

never going to be able to retrain this thing to not
spend an hour soaking whenever it comes across water

When I was done with Shooter, I hooked up my trailer, threw Bobby into it, and drove the half hour down to Mendon Ponds Park for a glorious walk only trail ride.

how could i not with this weather?

Bobby may be a lot of bad things at times, but I'm forever grateful for his ability to self load onto the trailer and be unloaded literally anywhere without a care in the world. We stuck to the pond side of the road which is flatter with perfect footing instead of venturing across the road into the woods and hills. The great thing about this park is that you can come here a hundred times and never have to take the same trail. It literally goes on forever, and while not a horse park, the miles of beautifully manicured fields are never off limits, and most of the trails are limited to hikers and horses only.

gorg.

Because I kept it to a walk, and because Bobby had to have at least fifteen solid minutes of soak time whenever we got to the water (as in, no amount of kicking would get him out), it took us about two hours to circle the main pond. I packed his feet when we were done, rubbed his legs down, and then gave him a gram of Bute when we got back just to be on the safe side, but he was right as rain this morning.

one of a trillion perfect galloping fields

I don't know why I don't get down there more often. It's easy to get to and not that far from the barn. I'll make it a point next year, and maybe we'll be able to get in another ride or too before the snow comes!

creeping on a driving horse before heading home

The Great White Whale

No, not Moby Dick. I'm talking about the other great white whale--Shooter!

working on his figure

Remember Shooter? I never really got into blogging much about him since I was super preoccupied with trying to get my horse sound, and then during that time I got on Shooter one morning and he was also off in in his LF. I jumped off of him, threw him at BM, and basically had a hysterical melt down because I could not fucking believe that I had just made a second horse lame in the same damn leg.

Those were trying times, let me tell you.

But BM came to the conclusion that his saddle fit was terrible, and when she consulted with his owner, J said that when his arthritis starts acting up it presents as a LF lameness.

So the big dude got some body work done and a few weeks off to let everything settle down before I brought him back out to try again.

such a hippo

The first day I tried to just climb back aboard him, but he was in full on tweaker mode and I ended up popping him on the longe instead. I've gotten in several rides on him since then, and BM and I are pulling back all the layers of what's going on with this horse's head and body.

Shooter is complicated. I don't feel he's particularly complicated to ride, but the little wheels in his little brain are on their own special track. He puts on quite a show when he wants you to think he's afraid of something, and he's so big that it borders on being dangerous. He's the type of horse that spooks into your arms, and he has no problem flailing directly into you.

Obviously then the first priority was to put some serious ground work on this dude. He absolutely had to learn that you do not ever, ever come into my personal space no matter what the circumstance is. I started off leading him everywhere with a chain and a whip. If he "spooked" (we'll get to that in a second), he got yelled at first. If that didn't work, he got the chain. If that didn't work, he got smacked in the shoulder with the whip to get him to move over.

We're to the point now where if it's super windy outside or there's something new along his route out to his paddock I'll take the whip with me, but otherwise he goes in a plain lead rope with a nice loop I can wiggle at him if he starts thinking bad thoughts.

"OH GOD THERE ARE THINGS SOMEWHERE"

To come around to his spooking, it is absolute complete BULLSHIT. This horse is not afraid of things. My assessment of him is that he's big, he's spoiled, and he's lacking manners. I don't know if he thinks spooking will get him out of working--and maybe that's worked for him in the past--or if he just can't be bothered to focus on you long enough to behave himself, but I don't think there's anything he's genuinely afraid of.

The other day BM was watering outside the door to the arena and Shooter didn't care in the slightest. When she was done, she came in and was talking to me as we circled around her. One of the girls walked by again with the hose and he almost ran BM over from spooking...and then when I booted him forward he carried on like nothing had happened.

Or when we were hanging out in the aisle and he was completely chill. He reached over to nose the tub against the wall, thought nothing of it, went back to chilling, and then five seconds later leaped sideways away from it like it was after him.

Or this morning when there were two tarps outside the barn and he tried spooking but I caught him with the whip at the exact right second and he strolled over to them completely unconcerned, even as I jumped around on them and kicked them at him...and then spooked and tried to spin around at absolutely nothing behind him.

It's as if he's like, "Yawn, not scary. OH WAIT I FORGOT I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE TOO SPOOKY TO HORSE OH GOD THAT THING THAT HAPPENED WAS SCARY."

I know I shouldn't talk shit about other people's horses on my blog, but this dude is a straight up pig to handle, and I've had no problem telling his mom that.

he gets distracted staring at himself in the mirror constantly

Under saddle he also tries spooking, but he's a lot more unsuccessful. For one, he's so obese that it's like riding a beluga whale having a seizure in slow motion, but he also responds really well to being redirected to something else. He's so slow in his under saddle spooks that I can usually feel them coming a mile away and distract him with something else.

We're working mostly at the trot right now. He's got to learn to shift his weight back and articulate his hocks while relaxing his back and not curling under. You know, basic dressage. He likes to default to a fake head set, on the forehand and trailing his hind end. So we've been doing lots and lots of transitions within the trot and trying to get him to push his nose out and take a breath. I try to finish off with a lap or two of super collected work because then he's more willing to stretch down and out for his walk while cooling out.

I've ditched his mom's elevator bit and flash and switched him over to Bobby's french link. Copious amounts of candy are shoved in his mouth before and during our rides to get him to soften his jaw and move the bit around in his mouth a little bit. That's actually coming along really well.

He's not the easiest or the most fun horse to ride or be around, but he's a smart dude and somewhere in there he's quite a fancy dude. I'm still super grateful I get the chance to put my grubby hands on him whenever I want because he's doing a lot to broaden my education and lessen the load on Bobby.

ok, i do like him just a little bit.

"Bobby's been vandalized!": RockTape Review

I've had kinesio tape in mind for Bobby for quite awhile. I'd seen it on other top equine athletes in the past, and I'm always interested and willing to test out a new health fad. With Bobby's history of a chronically weak hind end that needs a lot of work to stay strong, but can also get sore with how much work it needs, I was mostly interested to test it out along his haunches and hip.

starting with the cheeks

Riding Warehouse had a twenty percent of sale on RockTape one day so I jumped at the chance to get a small roll to test it out. I watched a few youtube tutorials and read over their website. It didn't look particularly difficult to apply and with a good base knowledge of what muscles ran where, I went out to the barn to play with it.

Turns out it's actually a lot more difficult to apply than it appears. You have to figure out the correct tension to apply it without pulling it so tightly that it becomes uncomfortable. You also have to make sure you really rub it aggressively to activate the glue well, while not rubbing it so much that you pull the tape right off. I had the hardest time getting the bottom of the tape to stay down, and I have a feeling that's mostly me not getting the tension right.

bobby has a lot of issues, what can i say?

I applied it to Bobby the first time right after he'd been body clipped so I thought for sure that gave it the best chance to stay on. When the kids went to bring him in that night, they went rushing to BM and exclaimed, "Bobby's been vandalized!" So BM had to explain that no one had crept into the paddock and slapped stickers onto my horse, and that instead it was just me trying another silly experiment.

The tape stayed on so-so, although probably pretty well considering he was turned out, but in the end I didn't really notice a difference in my ride. I brought the tape home and doctored Hubby's weak wrist with it, and he said he definitely felt a difference with the tape on.

one day later

The tape sat around for awhile until I got to the barn one day and Bobby had a massive knot along his spine towards his lower back. Figuring it wouldn't hurt, I pulled it back out and taped over the knot. It stayed on better this time as I felt like I had a little better handle on it after sticking it to Hubby a few times.

day of application

Two days later I pulled it off while waiting for the massage therapist to arrive, and I was legitimately surprised to find that the knot was gone. He was still sore in the area, but that rock hard cement block that had laid along his back was completely dissipated. Color me impressed.

two days later

I've tried using it once more on his weird right front leg, but I couldn't get a good handle on the angle while trying to get the tension right. Most of the tape was gone the next morning and his leg was still it's normal chunky size.

I'd love to have someone who was actually trained in using the tape to come out and work on Bobby. I do think it's an effective use of therapy, especially when combined with massage work, but for me it's not worth buying another roll to use myself simply because I don't know enough about applying it to make it worth the money.

Check out Cathryn's guest post here for more info!

Positional Corrections

I'm not sure how this is possible, but my position over fences is so much more solid than my position on the flat. More specifically, my position in a dressage saddle varies from "Oh, she might be getting it!" to "What in the actual fuck is happening here?"

It's a dressage saddle. Isn't the whole point of it to drape your leg beautifully in a vertical line and keep your upper half erect?

just really good at dressaging, okay?

Fortunately (I guess), all this walking we've been doing leaves me room for little else than being obsessive hyper aware of what all my body parts are doing. Like, was that my heel that just touched Bobby's stifle? I don't know, I'm too busy trying to un-pinch my fat roll from my belt buckle because I slump so badly.

i know my fave activity is ragging on bobby, but he truly is the definition of an ammy horse.
sure he might try to kill you sometimes, but he still goes like this when you ride like that.
proof years of incorrect training is just fine.
lolz, no, don't be like me, kids.

I've been trying to be hard on myself and just bitch slap all these bad habits right in the face. That's a solid game plan because everyone should always be striving to improve their riding, but at the same time I came home Saturday evening after dragging Hubby out for media so I could do a check-in on where I was, and I had a cry for myself. Being Type A is a full time job, you guys. Not being instantly perfect can be puh-retty fucking deflating.

Obviously crying will get bitches nowhere, and Denny Emerson would be all, "blah blah the poorer you are and the harder you work, the more I like you. Now go plant some flowers in front of your barn!" So I feel like Denny would like me quite a bit because I do love some flowers, but more to the point, I'm down to get dirty here.

put that fucking hand down.

Here's what's on my list for positional fixes I want to crack down on this winter so that I can come out next summer and have the judge just slap a big ole #SLAY on my collective marks.

• My core has reverted to being a straight up weakling. Not that it's ever been particularly steely, but taking a couple months off from real dressage work erased all semblance of ab strength. After two days of being back in my dressage saddle, I was literally whimpering when sweeping the barn aisle. My first instinct to combat my horrible slouching is to leanreallyfarback which is not correct either. Instead I need to broaden my shoulders, open up my chest, and lift my back and core. 
• I have to stop. fucking. nagging. with my lower leg. I need to work on staying neutral at all times until I'm actually asking for something. When I do this, my trained horse carries on doing his job instead of getting annoyed and always trying to figure out if I'm asking him to do something or just flailing. And then when I do need something, he's super responsive to the tiniest of changes in my aids. This is an instant change in both our ways of going, but for sure the hardest for me.

i'm ten thousand times more annoying at the walk than i am at the trot

• I need to shorten my reins way up. When I let them get so long, they dump my hands into my lap. Instead of shortening my reins, I like to just lift my hands up really high as a fix. Not the right fix. Stop it.
• When bending/doing a circle, my upper body doesn't need to make its own circle. I need to keep my shoulders from tipping down and in, and keep my head straight.
• I'm usually super aware of my crooked right wrist and drifting elbow after dealing with that issue for a long, long time. But this ties into the too long reins, where straightening my wrist is all well and good, but if its then hovering six feet above my horse's neck, it's still not doing its job. 

sometimes it looks like we're marginally qualified.
qualified for what, i don't know.

As for Bobby, my two main focuses are Push and Power. I'm trying to slowly build up to riding for a bolder, more forward pace without feeling like an airplane about to crash from running onto the forehand.

It's a work in progress, but for a being a horse that's supposedly navicular, supposedly might have some sort of soft tissue injury, or supposedly shouldn't be being treated for anything because he won't ever be sound for any sort of flat work, "rehab" is going well so far. As in, he's sound, and he's staying sound with every little step forward I shove back in there...including our first left lead canter!

I mean, one whole big circle #dropmic, but still.

This is what the dark days (aka Winter) are best for, right? The slow, boring, drudge work.