A month and a half ago, I had never ridden a half pass, a medium gait, or a (purposeful) counter canter. I had never felt what upper-level dressage was supposed to feel like. I mean, I'd never even felt 2nd level- correct shoulder in and changes of lead through the walk. Now, I've got this incredible horse, one that knows far more than I do about this whole dressage thing. It's intimidating.
At least we look cute. Well, he does anyway.
But every day, I slog through. Often on my own in the evening, after I've worked a full day and then worked turn in at the barn (to afford board, which just went up again). No one is around and I push myself. Some days I feel like a dressage rider and some days I feel like a sack of potatoes riding an albino giraffe. Some days I have help from my trainer. I can't afford more than a lesson every other week or so (plus, I just don't have the time), and even then, I'm "paying" for my lessons by illustrating my trainer's book (which she is supposed to be working on).
We're dressaging!
We look a little better every week. I've been struggling with saddle fit (boo), and the saddle fitter was out last week and the visit wasn't super helpful (basically, the two saddles I have won't work. My trainer's saddle fits Lines well, but I sit terribly in it! Guess I'll be using it though).
I really need to get some new media- the pictures here are from a couple weeks ago, and I've been working on bringing his back up and neck down and control within the gaits. Hopefully I can convince my husband to come out and take pictures soon!
Pretty in pink! But oh so hollow through the back. It's better now, I swear!
Because I've had a hard time putting words down lately. So I'll just do this blog hop on the very last day of October.
What do you consider "jumping high" for yourself? Well, I haven't been jumping consistently for...a long time now. Tony LOVES jumping, and would be much happier being a jumper, but I'm determined to dressage that pony. I have jumped 3'6" with him, and felt good jumping 2'9" courses. I did a 3' course with him once, and the jumps themselves felt easy, it was the maneuvering between them that I had trouble with ;) So right now, I'd say 3' is jumping high. In college, when I was riding IHSA (the last time I was in a consistent jumping program), I was jumping 2'6"/2'9", I'd say.
3' about 3 years ago.
What are your short term goals for riding? Do you think you'll reach them? I want to get to where I am a competent third level rider (maybe 4th?) by the time Lines has to go home (March). I hope I'll reach it! Only a month in to riding him, and I'm feeling more and more like it's within reach. Long term goals for riding? Do you think you'll reach them? Long-term, I'd like to ride dressage at the FEI level. I never thought I'd be able to reach that goal, but now I'm realizing that between good timing, perseverance, and a little luck, good things can happen. So that's my goal, and I WILL reach it :) I've got a lot of riding years left (knock on wood...) How many barns have you been at in your riding career?
I haven taken consistent lessons out of 4 barns - one in Washington and one in Maryland as a kid, one in Michigan as a college student, and the one I'm at now.
How many different trainers have you been with in your riding career?
Once again, for consistent lessons, I'd say 5 or 6. Although the barn in Maryland I think I rode with a few different people (up/down teachers... I did not have the greatest experience at that barn, so I think I've blocked a lot of the memories). For trainers I remember, it would be V, J, and K (V and J in Washington, K in Michigan in college), and then G and JW now (I've ridden with G for 5 years now, although I did take a few lessons with her when I was in high school, and then JW I've been taking clinic lessons from since May, and hope to continue- she's the best!)
Ever worked at a barn? What did you do?
Yep, I am currently working turn-in at my barn 3 nights a week. It gets exhausting with my day job, but I cannot afford board otherwise. I bring horses in, feed, check waters and blankets, and blow out the barn aisle. I've also groomed for my trainer and tacked and hacked lesson ponies at the barn in Michigan. I also started working as a camp counselor at a farm in our area...it lasted a week (reason why in next question).
Scariest thing that has happened at your barn?
Hmmm...I mean, there's been a fair amount of your basic horse and horse people injuries. Nothing too traumatic that I've witnessed at the barn. The scariest thing that has happened to me at a barn would be when a supposed kid-broke trail horse reared and flipped over on me when I was alone on a trail my first week working as a camp counselor, two and a half years ago. I broke my femur, and had minor fractures in my pelvis and sacrum. It majorly sucked. I'll tell the whole story here sometime...
My leg in traction
Have you ever given a lesson? What level was the rider? I've given some basic beginner lessons to friends and family. Nothing for money though. What is your opinion on the accuracy of critiquing riders online? I suppose it can be helpful, but I never critique anyone, and I don't like putting myself out there to be critiqued. Honestly, when I post riding pictures or video on the internet, I just want people to tell me how pretty my ponies are ;) My trainer can yell at me for looking like a sack of potatoes. What is the ideal height of a horse for you? In my adult life, I've ridden everything from a 14hh pony, to a 17.1hh Warmblood. I prefer the bigger guys, as I'm not exactly a small person, but I think I look fine on my 15hh "pony."
14 hands, but a large enough barrel to take up my leg.
So trainer G and I discovered in my lesson this week that I have a "type." G hadn't ridden Lines yet, and I really wanted her to get on and get a feel for him so we can have a plan of action for our lessons. Turns out that Lines can be a little bit of a bully. He doesn't always respect the bit, and he doesn't want to move over when you put your leg on. Having ridden Tony for a few years now, I am just amazed that any horse will move its butt over even a little bit. Turns out a little bit isn't enough. I am not holding Lines up to a high enough standard. G says that if I blow on him, he should be moving across the arena.
At least he's super cute, even if he's not reaching for contact...
So I need to be doing lots and lots of downward transitions and leg yields in all gaits to get him respecting the bit. Once you can do that, he is much more supple and maneuverable. My first lesson with G on him, I could barely control the canter. Partly because I am so tense in the canter myself from years of defensive riding on Tony, and partly because I didn't have Lines respecting the bit. He wants to blow through my aids a bit.
I'll be doing some experimenting with getting Lines more supple and respectful, and then I'm hoping we can start moving up! Turns out he is not so unlike a certain golden pony in attitude. I joked that he's like a more schooled Tony (extended trot on the circle instead of cantering for one thing), and really it's not that far off. So it's super good practice. I do want Tony to move up at least a few levels, and learning to ride on Lines will give me lots of tools for how to get more out of my pony.
Selfie attempts...more difficult with a tall horse turns out...
It has been way too long since I've written an update, and SO many things have happened since then! First things first, Tony is perfectly sound and healthy.
Healthy and sassy as ever
Even though Tony is perfectly fine, he is getting the winter off. No body clipping, no blankets, just going fuzzy and feral. Why, you ask? Because of this:
Mirror selfie pros already
I have a new horse! This is the first horse that I have ever been officially, legally responsible for. My name is on a contract. I do not own him, but have taken him on as a care lease for 6 months. It al happened very fast. So I'll tell his story.
Lines 29 (pronounced "Linus"), is a 21-year-old Westfalen (Westphalian-why all the different spellings?) gelding. Several years ago, I saw him for sale, showed his ad to my trainer, and commented on how handsome he was. I don't particularly like gray horses, and his build is not one I'm usually drawn to, but for some reason he caught my eye. Buying a horse was definitely not in the cards, so I just kept an eye on his career after he sold.
His current owner is amazing. She's a young trainer, just now starting her own business. She took Lines from first level to Prix St Georges over the last few years. She now has a very nice three-year-old, and is working with some very nice horses with an upper level trainer/breeder in our area. Lines is her baby, but it came to the point where it was best for both of them to move on- her to bringing up her young horse and work on her business, and him to find an adult amateur wanting to work up the levels and able to shower an older horse with love and cookies. She posted him for sale.
I saw his ad and thought how lucky someone will be to get to have Lines in their life. My trainer, G, sent me the ad and I said something along the lines of "Aww, Lines! Too bad I can't buy a horse." Then she pointed me to the last line of the ad. "Possible short term lease to the perfect situation," and said "YOU are the perfect situation."
That was on a Monday. By Wednesday, Lines' owner and I were seriously discussing contracts and insurance. The barn I ride out of has an excellent reputation for care and training. It may not be the fanciest facility, but the horses are meticulously cared for, and want for nothing, so his owner felt good about sending him there.
I arranged to go see Lines on Friday. I thought we'd just go down, try him out and chat with the owner, but G suggested taking the trailer down. Just in case, you know?
It was a really, really long ride down. There was an accident and we were stuck in the worst traffic ever. We were over an hour late by the time we got to the owner's barn. I felt terrible!
I thought I'd watch the owner ride and then hop on and try Lines out. But no. We threw tack on the horse and tossed me up. And then I had to perform with the owner and her trainer watching me. Talk about nerve-wracking! I was afraid to take up contact or push or pull on anything too hard for fear his owner would think it wasn't a good match. After 15 minutes of a subpar ride where I don't think I really had him round at all, G said she would walk Lines out while we signed contracts. And that's how I got an FEI (lease) horse!
Trainer kept saying that it was okay to take a feel. Haha, nope!
It took a bit to get Lines in the trailer. He didn't want to leave. It was rough. But we finally got it done, took him home, and tucked him in. He settled in wonderfully, and is right at home at the barn. He has been so wonderful for the last week and a half. My confidence is going up, and I am so excited to actually learn how to ride dressage! First lesson tomorrow, so I'll definitely have a recap for that!
I had my post-op appointment today, and the doctor cleared me to ride. He said I can do whatever I want- I'm young and healthy and healed well. Yay!
Side note- never ask the internet for advice. I asked people on a Facebook group their experiences with laparoscopic appendectomies and going back to riding, and they were all "4 weeks at least." Hah. So there. Back to it I go!
2 weeks ago, I started getting a stomach ache on my way home from work. It wasn't too bad at first. But it got pretty bad, pretty quick, and by 8:30 I had made my husband come home from work (he works swing shift in the summer) and take me to the ER, thinking it was appendicitis.
The ER was busy, but passing out in triage will get you in the back faster. Yay? I finally got some pain meds/anti nausea meds through an IV drip and had to wait around until they could get my in for a CT scan. By midnight, I'd had the scan and they determined it was in fact my appendix and it needed to come out. I hung out in the hospital not sleeping all night, and finally had the surgery the next day at about noon.
Drugged and bored in the ER
I managed to recover pretty quickly and was back to part days at work two days later, but the nurse told me I shouldn't ride for 4-6 weeks, unless I want to get internal scar tissue in my abdomen, which is apparently a bad thing. Hm. I go in for my post-op appointment this week, and I'm hoping since I'm making such a quick recovery that I can go back to riding soon. Especially since my favorite clinician is coming up in 2 weeks, and I need to get back on the pony!
When I was talking with the Dr., he noticed my unicorn stuffie. I told him that any time someone in my group of horsey friends is in the hospital, we need to have unicorn magic. Then I realized that my friends are in the hospital more than is normal. I guess that comes with being in a high-risk sport. Even outside of the broken bones and sprains that tend to come with horses, my trainer was in and out of the hospital a couple years ago with thyroid cancer, a friend of ours just recently had a lump removed, and I had my appendix out. We are definitely using up our unicorn magic, but it's worked so far. Here's hoping it continues!
Me and unicorn stuffie and my unicorn sweatshirt after being released
There's a blog hop going around right now, and one of the questions is something about being friends with your trainer. I am so happy to count my trainer/coach as one of my closest friends. We have been in the teacher/student relationship (both directions! I taught her an art class), the employer/employee relationship, and we're still good friends. When I texted her that I was in the hospital, she was ready to drop everything and come (she brought the unicorn and food for my husband the next morning, which was amazing...the poor guy was running between home, work and hospital all night), and I hope she knows it goes both ways!
Anyway, I am back to working full time, and hoping to be back to riding the Tony beast soon. He's perfectly happy just hanging out on pasture all day, but I sure miss riding!
All I've done with the beast in the past two weeks
Well, we did it. We went to a rated show and survived! I have been groom/support system/videographer at SO many shows over the last 4 years, and I am so happy I finally got to take a horse to one of them. It's been a goal for so long, but it's always felt a little out of reach. My horse wasn't broke enough and I was broke. This year I really worked on getting my horse broke, and getting out there doing things (clinics, schooling shows, etc), and actively saved money from my side-business of pet portraits and pony painting parties (we don't paint on ponies, we paint ponies on canvas. It's fun ;) ).
So I made a plan to do 2 different shows this summer. The first one didn't work out. The timing was bad. So that left me with one. I was hoping to get my bronze scores for First Level this summer, but since I was only doing one show, it didn't really make sense to pay for all the memberships. I have my USDF and USEF, but I would need Tony's and Tony's owners' memberships. So I entered the Opportunity Classes at First Level.
My travel buddy M and I left last Friday morning (edit, this sat in my drafts for forever...we left July 8. It's August now. Yikes) to stop at the lesson barn to give the ponies baths (neither of us has a wash rack or warm water at home) before heading down to the show grounds to settle in and school. There was, of course, a wash rack back up with 7 horses leaving for the show. Good thing the eventers had left for their show the day before, or we would have been there all day. So we hung out and finally got the ponies bathed, wrapped and loaded.
So embarrassing. What you can't see are his
rainbow unicorn pillow wraps under the pink.
We had a pretty easy drive to the show grounds. It's only about an hour from our lesson barn, and it's a beautiful drive.
You really can't grasp just how high above the water we are. 180 feet.
Narrow bridge. Horse trailer. Pedestrians. It's a fun time.
We get there, fluff up our stalls and settle our ponies in. We opted to haul our own shavings in rather than buy them at the show office. Next time, I'll probably pay the extra $5 or so and just have them ready for me. I'm cheap though ;) After the ponies were in their stalls, happily munching on hay (or watching everything, as Tony was doing), we set up our camp. The very best part about the Whidbey show grounds is that you can camp right next to your stalls. I could poke my head out of the tent and check on the horses. Plus they don't charge a camping fee. Another plus in my (pocket)book. Our tent was seriously massive, and we had a queen airbed, one of those double high ones. M and I know how to camp right. The rest of our showing crew...not so much.
After getting all settled and taking the ponies on a hand walk around the show grounds, it was time to saddle up and school in the rings before they closed them for the night. Tony was good, looked at a couple things, but ultimately settled in and did fine in both the warm up and competition ring. The ring can be a spooky one because it's right near the woods, and deer tend to dart about. Thankfully the deer stayed away while we were riding. After riding, it was dinner, hand grazing, and bed time.
Mmmmm...grass.
On both show days, I decided to ride two tests. Might as well get as much out of the weekend as I could. On Saturday, my first test was around 10:30. I didn't want a super long warm up, as we would be riding twice, and I knew I'd run out of horse. He's not the most fit this summer, what with me working a full time office job. Whomp, whomp. His warm up was awesome. His canter felt so good, and he was forward and on my aids.
On the way to our test. My stock tie went limp. It was my first time tying one. You can hardly see, but there's unicorns on it!
Our test was okay. We did 1-1 first. It was good, not great. I have to say, I was super happy with the kid though. We went in and got it done. He had some nice moments, but there was no sparkle. I was thankful for an obedient pony, and no spooking. We had mostly 6's, a couple 5's and 7's. One 4 on our canter transition, where he hopped behind into it and was just generally on the forehand and ugly. Our free walk was painfully slow. Just not stepping through in back, and barely in stretch in front. But we got through it, and it actually wasn't as bad in the video as it felt. Overall, I was happy with Tony. No disobedience, no talking back. Sadly we got no cute points! I am all about cute points. We usually get some sort of comment like "nice pair" or "adorable" or something. I know some riders with Haflingers do not appreciate those comments, as they feel like it's condescending, but I don't care. I ride a giant Barbie pony, and I do it with pride! I came out of the ring with tears in my eyes...don't worry, they were happy tears. It's been a long road, and we finally made it into the rated ring (even if they were "just" opportunity classes). I've worked so hard to get here, and had to save up my pennies all year to make it work, and I was just so happy. As I came out of the ring, one of my barnmates greeted me with "Well, it's too bad he bucked in the canter." Um, thanks. But no thanks. I'm happy with him so shush.
Totally cute.
I have to say I was super disappointed when I got my test back. Not in the score. It was a 61 and change, which isn't great, but scores were low all day, and I was totally happy with it. I was disappointed that there was not one positive comment on my whole test. Lots of negative/neutral comments, and on any of the 7's I got, there was just nothing written. Sigh. The collective marks were completely illegible, and not super helpful one way or the other once we deciphered it.
Our second test (1-2) was almost two hours later, so I walked Tony back to stabling and let him chill out for a while. I opted to get one just 20 minutes before my ride, do some walking, and a super short warm up so he didn't die on me in the ring. If he's tired, it's nearly impossible to have any sort of decent canter transition. Entering the ring, I made sure to push him on right away. Our trot work was much better. More forward and sparkly. Judge said it was too quick. Whatever. I made a plan to try for more in the freewalk, but it backfired when he jigged a few steps. He still wasn't stepping through enough in the back. Things to work on. Our first canter transition, Tony cross cantered to start, so we got majorly dinged there. Even though we had a few mistakes, I thought the quality of the work was better than the first test, and I thought for sure we'd get higher marks throughout the trot, and end up with about an even score with the jigging walk and bad canter moments. Our leg yields were pretty good. Trainer said that the one to the right was perfect for a first level leg yield. It went exactly where it was supposed to, and he was moving almost parallel to the rails. I think I got a 6. Sigh. Still got about the same marks on the trot, and lower on walk and canter for a 58 or 59%. Collective marks, which were slightly more legible this time (same judge), were that we needed more preperation for this level.
Butt-out like some sort of weird dressage/hunt seat hybrid rider. But look at my pretty pony!
I realized that judges don't know where you've come from, what you are working with, or what your horse used to do. They just see what you are presenting them that day. And even though I thought Tony did amazingly, the judge saw a pair that may not be ready for First Level- a horse still on the forehand in the canter with iffy transitions, lengthenings that are not quite there yet. I'm still super happy with the beast. I'll leave a video at the end. It's nothing special, and there are mistakes, but I think it's a solid test for where we are in life. And man, we clean up nice, I have to say ;)
A blue ribbon for each test! We may or may not have been the only pair in all of our classes...
Day 2 we left the forelock long.
My dad videoed for me in our second test. My parents were able to watch me ride competitively for the first time ever! It was their last weekend in the country, and they made it work to watch my brother run a marathon in the morning, and then they drove an hour and a half to watch my ride and take me out to lunch.
I won't post a recap of day two...it was almost exactly the same. We had good moments, and bad. Scores were almost identical to day 1. We were both tired, but we made it through. Tony walked around the grounds on the buckle, and was a complete gentleman. He acted like an old pro. I just love this horse so much, and I hope we can continue improving!
