Month: June 2017

Friday Five

Friday Five: Worst Rides on Gem

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Until I have some more interesting topics to share, I thought it would be fun to do some fun lists and who doesn’t love a little week day alliteration? First up, brought on by my most recent ride, the five worst rides I’ve had on Gem, in ascending order of horror.

5.)  Mud. Falling off. Stupid decisions. This has them all!

This story goes back circa spring 2010 and both Gem and I were very, very different back then. The Dynamic Duo were being boarded at a “training” facility, hahahaha but that is another story, 50 minutes away from us. It was nearing our time to move to OH and I believe this was our very last ride there.

For some reason that is completely unfathomable to me now, Dusty and I decided to ride Gem and Pete in the small indoor arena while an old fashioned sprinkler was running.  You know the type – slow around then zips back? Yep…smart, right?

Dusty went first and hugged the arena wall which gave Pete plenty of time to eye the sprinkler. When it came his way, only his hooves got splashed and all was well and good. When it was my turn, I tried to do the same only husband, using some sort of male logic, came trotting up  between Gem and the sprinkler. Pete gets hit full blast in the chest and freaks out which causes Gem to subsequently freak out bolting bucking and throwing me to splat in the mud.

I was pissed though not at Gem.

4.) Endurance ride Twilight Zone. 

Flash forward to fall of 2011 in WI. Gem and I had completed our first LD three weeks earlier coming in 8th (though for full disclosure I fell off at mile 21). The season ended Halloween weekend and I was too excited to wait until the following May to begin again. Dusty and Pete joined us and even signed up last minute for the ride!

The actual time spent on Gem was fine. We finished with all As in 4 1/2 hours including the 50 minute hold, brain can’t do math right now, tied for  last with Pete in a drizzling rain that had lasted all weekend.

What made it awful was the entire rest of the experience. We arrived with several dishes for the pot luck. Waiting for the ride meeting and dinner in a crammed room, we happened to sit right next to the entrance door to the food. Once dinner was called, everyone ran to the door and Dusty ended up holding it open. Multiple people laughed at us holding the door and waiting patiently telling us that being nice would make us starve. These were adults. We watched as people left with heaping plates of food on multiple trays per person and when it was finally time for us to enter, it was all gone. No food left. We then sat for the ride meeting, hungry, and watched as people threw away all that food they so greedily took. We ended up eating peanut butter in our tent.

During the ride itself, people laughed at our slower pace over twisting, technical train covered in more roots than I had ever seen. Karma took over though – the ride had a really high pull rate for lameness and the vet went ballistic on people.

When we finished, 4 1/2 hours later with a 6 hour time limit, they had already taken down the finish line, nobody was around and dinner had been started an hour early. When we found people they told us to go faster next time, never mind that both our horse (draft horse included) had all As on the card in a ride where a lot were pulled. The vets told us we were rude for making them wait in the drizzle. Excuse me? We could have turned around before the finish and done another loop and still been under 6 hours!

It was enough for me to quit endurance until we moved to a new region.

3.) First solo conditioning ride: January 2014.

When we moved to SC, I decided that I wanted to try again with endurance. Re read #4 to see why I gave up on it back in WI. Wyatt was just over a year old which took Dusty out of the picture as a training partner and I didn’t know anyone local yet.

No to be deterred, I loaded Gem and made my way to the Clemson Experimental Forest for the first time. I wanted to go for an hour. Now, I had had Gem for 4 years at this point, she had done two LD rides and been on countless miles of trails with me and Dusty, this wasn’t her first trail outing by any means.

Dusty went off hiking with the dogs and kiddo and I pointed Gem down a different trail. I had no real distance marker in mind, but figured we could do about 4-5 miles in the hour given her past performances.

30 minutes later we had gone 0.75 miles. I was in near tears and so frustrated I couldn’t speak. She had spun around to go back to the trailer nearly a thousand times in that half an hour, spooked at nothing and crawled at a snails pace that my 1 1/2 year old son could have beaten. To say it was demoralizing is an understatement.

Of course, once I turned her around she decided it was time to gallop all the way back. The next 30 minutes were spent turning back around another thousand times only this time directed by me as I refused to let her go more than a walk back home.

By the time an hour and 1.5 miles were up and I was untacking her, I was near ready to give up on endurance and sell her to a meat packing plant. Thankfully, I did neither.

Pretty sure we aren’t even on the trail here. It looks to be off to the right. Not surprising given how she would turn around all the time.

2.) The clinic from Hell.  

Ah. This still makes me angry. Flash back to our fake training barn in spring of 2012, OH. Trainer’s friend and clinician, B, was coming to the barn to do a clinic. At this point in my career with Gem we were just finally starting to walk with some trot work and no canter at all because asking made Gem buck.  Pete had a nasty rearing problem any time you asked him to stand still for more than a minute.

Trainer, likely trying to drum up business for her friend, signed both of us up for a half flat work and…wait for it…half cross country jump clinic. I wasn’t so keen, but she said we were ready. HA!

There were five us in the group: Dusty/Pete, Me/Gem, a scared to death young girl on a schoolmaster that a monkey could have ridden blind folded, and two middle aged women on their OTTBs. The clinician immediately hated us. Her whole shtick was to yell, make fun of everyone and screech in the most grating nasal voice possible. That is just about the exact opposite type of personality to get me to do anything. Anyway…

The clinic started off with us all sitting on our horses in a circle listening to her. Pete reared and spun and bolted and did anything but stand still. The young girl cried. At least Gem and I could stand. Then we went around the arena on the rail at the walk and when the leader got to C they had to trot while B yelled and screeched about how awful they were and shouldn’t they just get a mountain bike instead? Once everyone went around we had to canter. That went awful in every respect for us.

Having been yelled at for a half hour inside, we moved outside where she proceeded to point us over solid obstacles. I was petrified. Gem was awful. Eventually she told me I was so awful at riding that I was kicked out of her clinic and to just go wander around somewhere out of her sight. I wanted to punch her teeth in. Trainer was laughing the whole time. Two weeks later we moved to WI.

Walking around out of her sight
Learning Pete lives to jump at the same clinic. Dusty was much better at tuning her out

1.)  Trail ride horror show.

It was the summer of 2012. We were still living in WI and knew Wyatt would be born that fall. We spent the summer getting in as much time on fun, childless stuff as possible and one major thing on the list was one last ride together at our favorite trail system: Castle Rock. These trails were so much fun. Mostly double wide sandy roads, some single track technical trails in the woods and a river entrance made perfect for swimming. We used to gallop for miles and miles.

On this particular day I was riding in my WISE cross country saddle which I adored, but ended up not fitting the mare well enough. We were having a great time trotting and cantering through the woods when we came upon one of the narrower and more technical sections. I still don’t know what Gem’s issue was, but she ducked her shoulder and spun 180. The saddle slipped and I was dumped  hard on my hip. I got right back on, but I hurt. It was extremely hot and humid and my nerves were a bit wracked from the fall. My guts decided I needed to go…now. I pulled over and had pretty intense diarrhea (too much info??) in the woods with mosquitoes and horseflies everywhere. My butt itched for a week! To make matters worse, in a park where we had never run across anyone ever before, along comes a big group and there just wasn’t enough vegetation around for proper coverage. It was mortifying.

The ride back was 5 miles and I couldn’t trot due to the hip hurting, but my stomach was killing me and I just wanted to get back before having to partake of the woods again. Didn’t happen. Multiple times we had to pull over so my guts could relieve themselves in the semi open forest with minimal coverage and only leaves which I desperately hoped were not poisonous to wipe with. It was the worst 5 miles I have ever ridden. To make it worse, the heart necklace Dusty had gotten me for Christmas the first year we dated (2003) broke during the fall and came off and I didn’t realize it until that night when I took a shower. We never made it back to the park and even if we had I likely never would have found it again.

The only picture of Castle Rock I could find and given the date stamp should be from that same ride. This is one of the few wooded areas, so I’m guessing it was right before she dumped me

So there you all have it. The 5 worse rides I have had while with Gem. Granted, most of them weren’t actually due to Gem, but without her they wouldn’t have happened so they count!

 

Riding/Horses

Well That Wasn’t Any Fun

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Between all the rain, the hay growing to a point where I couldn’t use the field and then wanting time in the arena to practice course work and our dressage test, I haven’t ridden Gem at home in well over a month. Maybe closer to two.

Monday night I dressed her up in the dressage tack and wanted to work on using my inside leg for bend and re introducing the canter. It ended up being one of the most frustrating rides I have had in a long time.

I kept all of Trainer’s words running through my head as well as the advice from Emma’s great post on auditing the clinic (read it here) and chose every step that I wanted Gem to take. I sat up tall, tightened my core and was greedy with my position (something Trainer is always after me about). I used half halts. I breathed deep and relaxed.

I was therefore a little lost when Gem basically just gave me the horsey middle finger and raced around the field at her best endurance trot not heeding my aides at all. Trainer has also gotten after me about being too lenient with her – if I ask her softly and she ignores me I need to get more aggressive. I did. She still blew through me deciding it was more fun to do whatever she wanted to do.

At one point, and I’m not particularly proud of this but I like being honest, I was full out hauling on her reins while sitting deep and tall, tightening my core and keeping my legs on and she still would not halt. Pulsing the request to not allow a full out pulling war was useless. I was beyond frustrated.

When I asked her to walk, she would either jig or break to trot. Halting was a nightmare. I don’t know what bee got up her butt, but neither of us was enjoying this ride. Still, I couldn’t just quit. I’ve done that before and all it does is teach her that acting that way gets her out of work.

Instead I chose a straight line along the short side of the field and made her walk. If she jigged or broke to trot she got halted. Sometimes nicely and sometimes aggressively. Once we reached the end of my line, we turned and did it again going back the other way. Over and over and over. We did this for 30 minutes before she settled and actually gave me a flat walk.

Then I asked her to trot. Maybe I should have called it a day once she gave me the flat walk, but it had only been 30 minutes and I wanted to work on our canter. I asked her to trot and she immediately zoomed away. No, that is not the right answer. So we worked on trot walk trot transitions although “worked on” is being a little nice about it. Basically I asked her to walk at a very definite spot and she told me where to stick my walk transition instead.

I was out of ways to improve it. I sat tall, tightened my core, had my shoulders back, breathed in and sat down in the saddle to cue for walk. She stared off into her pasture at Pete. I used more rein. She flicked her ears back and gave me the finger. I used more rein than I am comfortable using and she still didn’t give a crap. I turned her in a tiny circle and she finally walked. Repeat time and time and time again. When she finally walked for me, I let her have a break.

At this point I was on a mission with her. She wasn’t in pain. She wasn’t confused. She wasn’t afraid. Now I know that most times it is the rider’s fault and I think I have been more than willing to take the blame each and every time, but Monday night boiled down to Gem just not wanting to work at home while Pete was watching and grazing in the next field. She both knew what I wanted and was more than capable of performing a simple trot to walk transition when asked in a fair and consistent manner. Gem just didn’t want to play.

Asking for any sort of bend was completely out of the question. Any slight touch with my inside leg just sent her more forward and she kept ignoring my half halts prior to using it as Trainer has taught me to do. I gave up on those making a note to have Trainer out to my place again instead of trailering to her so she can help me when Gem decides she has no interest.

Finally, after 45 minutes of this crap I got Gem in a nice trot that was a good pace and not strung out. Trainer has scolded me for allowing Gem to canter from a bad trot, so I worked hard on getting the trot good before asking. Once I asked Gem picked up a lovely left lead canter and we floated over the ground. She maintained power steering and it was soft and light. Perfection really. I never wanted to stop. Eventually I asked her to trot again and she did without fuss, so we ended there on the only good note of the entire hour ride.

Angry mare is angry

She got a good cold hosing afterward as she was really sweaty. She was angry with me and let me know it. Part of me wonders if she isn’t a bit bored with all the walk trot we have been doing and just wants to stretch her back and canter. However, I can’t allow her to canter when she is a zooming and strung out race car, so she needs to figure out that she gets to do the fun stuff only when she is listening.

It seems like the spring rain is finally drying up a bit and the next cutting of hay won’t be for a while, so I should be able to get more frequent rides in at home to work on this. Trainer has been out of town doing Pony Club ratings, but I have a lesson scheduled next week. I’m debating on traveling there or having her come to me. Traveling there allows me to work on things better as Gem is in a much better frame of mind, but that doesn’t really help me when she checks out at home. It just feels like a waste of $55 when she comes to me and all we can work on is getting Gem to walk for the hour versus going there and working on bend, geometry and the like. I don’t know, I’ll have to think on it.

Not happy with me at all
2017 Reading Challenge

Popsugar Reading Challenge Book #23

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My turn was up and the topic was very broad. When I returned the last book I lingered in the library and perused the shelves looking for a good fit.

A book with a red spine: Cambodia Noir by Nick Seeley

Cambodia’ is a place where people go to get lost and never be found. Will has been living there for nine years getting lost in drugs and alcohol trying to kill his past and working as a photographer for a local newspaper.

His life has been a well oiled machine of working just enough to keep his job during the day and spending his nights getting lost in his addictions. That is until June Saito arrives in Cambodia as an intern for the paper. Will is out of town on a trip to acquire more drugs when June arrives and is put up in his apartment. Everyone views her as an up and coming journalist. Someone not afraid to get into the nitty gritty details of a story. June leaves on assignment one day and never returns. Most people believe she jumped ship and got lost or ended up as yet another American casualty, but when her sister flies in from the US with money to spend to find her, Will finds himself hired. He quickly becomes entangled in a spider web of deceit, drugs, murder and his own past.

The book is set in modern times and the author paints a picture of Cambodia that I fear is true while hoping it is not. Drugs, alcohol and sex addiction/trafficking are abundant throughout giving the book a gritty feel.

The prose themselves are written in a fast and sharp manner with short, quickly firing sentences. To me, it makes the book feel choppy and disconnected, but it also moves the story along quickly and keeps the reader’s attention.

Every character in the book is unlikable. Addiction extortion, bribery, murder. As the book progresses the main characters become caught in a downward spiral but not in an endearing and hopeless way. Instead I found myself hoping they would meet an end commiserate with the misery they have caused others.

The author tries hard to lead the reader down a certain path, but the twists and turns he throws in make no sense with the overall theme and the ending, wile a surprise, is so disconnected from the rest of the book as the leave me questioning why I even bothered. I’ll admit to not having seen it coming, but then looking back it made no sense at all.

Likewise, there are many scenes within the novel, that had it been a movie would have fallen into the gratuitous sex/violence category and made no impact on the theme or overall story line. Once scene in particular has Will paid to take photographs of a politician’s son having sex with a man in a hotel room. While Will is watching, both men are brutally murdered with a machete. It serves no real purpose in the story and could have easily been omitted.

I would not recommend this book. The end was not worth the effort of reading. 1/5

Family

Dollywood

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Saturday we packed up the car, made a pit stop to grab my mom, and headed to TN towards Dollywood. It’s been on my list for a long time and Wyatt is finally tall enough to ride most of the rides. In fact, at 42″, he can ride all but the tallest rollercoasters in the park. 

Riding the tram from parking

The weather was next to perfect: neither too hot to be enjoyable nor too cold to want to go on the water rides. We arrived right as the gates were opening.

The park is in a big circle and we headed clockwise to see what kind of trouble we could find. I love rollercoasters, but the hubby and my mom are less enthusiastic so I was prepared to skip most things and just enjoy what Wyatt could ride. 

The park put a lot of effort as thought into things beyond just the rides. Each section had lots of things to do and look at. I’m sure it all cost a fortune.

The park itself is really nice. Everything was sparkling clean and the employees were really nice and friendly. Wyatt was in a hard in between stage: too big to enjoy the little kiddie rides and while tall enough to ride most of the big rollercoasters he was too little to enjoy them. Even with that we found plenty to do. 

The park is broken into sections and each was well decorated. I enjoyed the ambience of each although the 1950s styled section was my favorite. If I could live in any other era it would be the 50s with the sock hops, wonderful music, cool cars and relative prosperity. I was really good at taking pictures in the first section we hit, but after that the phone was placed in protection from water as we did a lot of water rides in the heat of the afternoon. Then I forgot all about it. 

We missed out on the entire central aspect of the park and I think Wyatt would have found plenty to do there, but it was getting late and everyone was tired and ready to leave. 

The day was really enjoyable. We rode plenty of rides with Wyatts favorite being the raft water ride although he was a bit too small to get much of the water spray.

There would only be two complaints I would raise about the park. First, the food was ridiculously expensive. It was bad enough to shell out $67 per ticket but all the lunches were $11 a pop. For chicken nuggets. A regular sized hot dog was $6! For a hot dog! I hate feeling ripped off. Second, the entrances to the rides were really difficult to find. We ended up waking around the outside of many rides just trying to figure out where to enter. 

Wyatt rode this coaster which was pretty insane. He was tall enough and even though he saw how tall it went (one of the largest coasters they have) he said he wanted to go. We ended up in the very front car. I felt bad because even though I warned him it was faster and taller than anything he had done before, I realized later that this wasn’t even in his realm of possibility. He just didn’t understand having never experienced anything like it. He was terrified the entire time and I basically just held on to him and covered his eyes. Near the end of the ride the cars go into a small shed where fire works are. Fire lights up and the car gets blown backwards along the track. It was a lot of fun but he shrieked the entire time. Afterward he announced to everyone “I am never, ever riding that ride again. Ever!” He never cried though. It did make him more cautious going forward with rides.

I’d love to go back. Everyone was whooped when we left and Sunday was spent recuperating at home. Wyatt played play dough for a solid 8 hours. Next time I hope to get him on more rides as I was a bit sad walking past some of the coasters and not being able to go on. Dusty and I snuck away one time to ride the Mystery Mine coaster while my Mom took Wyatt on a different one, but other than that we stuck together. 

Having been to Disney, Cedar Park, Six Flags in Ohio and Kennywood I’d say in comparison this one is like a mini Disney with all the scenery and then beautifully built rides. It wasn’t just steel coaster after steel coaster. There were a few really big steel coasters to go on for adrenaline junkies but most of the rides were more toned down and fun. Much more my style. I would recommend it for anyone in the area. 

Farm life

Seeking Advice: Fly Protection

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Stomp. Stomp. Stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp. 

Ugh. 

While all the rain this year has allowed the pasture to grow and the hay supply to be abundant, it has also allowed the insects to go a little wild. It is to the point where they are having issues eating their grain between stomping and biting at the nasty little buggers. I’ve also noticed that their hooves are starting to chip from the combination of being softer from all the rain and the trauma of all the stomping. 

We have been spraying them with heavy duty fly spray frequently but it seems like it only works for a day and then they either sweat it off with the high temps and humidity or it rains and washes it away. Even the supposedly water proof stuff isn’t lasting more than 48 hours. 

Past use of feed throughs didn’t produce any results for us and just kept Pete from eating. 

I’ve started looking into fly sheets for them. Riding Warehouse has a good variety at a reasonable cost. If we go that route it has to be an open enough mesh to not cause overheating in the hot sun and high humidity. It’s in the upper 80s and low 90s and is only going to heat up from here. I’d rather them get bitten than have heat stroke. Plus most of the bugs seem to be on their legs. 

That lead me to look into just getting fly boots or those newish shoo fly bags. That way the legs are protected and they won’t overheat. But I’ve never been fond of wrapping the legs up and I’ve read that people have issues keeping them on. 

So that leads me to asking you all….fly sheet versus fly boots versus shoo fly versus something I haven’t thought of?? They need some relief and it is too early in the season to ignore. I don’t have a barn, so stalling them with a fan isn’t an option and Dusty looked at me weird when I suggested we buy a massive outdoor fan and put it in the pasture. 

Business ownership, Uncategorized

When Being Comfortable Becomes Dangerous

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Three years ago I was hungry. My name was flashing in black letters on a white background, shiny and new and hanging on the side of my office building. My office building. It held so much promise, so much excitement and so many opportunities to fail.

My appointment book was breathtakingly empty. I jumped every time the pone rang and begged for it to not be a wrong number or sales call. I needed patients. Pay roll, utility bills, the mortgage…all of it was due and none of it cared if I was busy or not.

I was hungry. I was scared.

Every spare moment of my time, which ended up being a lot in the beginning, was spent coming up with ways to fill the appointment book. I made lists of local offices that could be referral sources and then visited each and every one with bagels and a brochure in my hand. I hoped the manic look in my eyes as I glanced over their full waiting rooms wasn’t apparent to the receptionist who took my brochures and hopefully at least glanced at them before throwing them all away.

Brochures, ads, blog posts were all written and re written in a hope to attract people to my practice so I could have the opportunity to meet them and show them that I was worth their time and trust.

I was hungry.

Then an amazing thing happened. I began to see my hard work pay off. I secured a good referral source and started to get some patients. Then they referred friends and family and now, three years later, my schedule is mostly full.

I’m no longer hungry. I am comfortable.

This is an even worse place to be.

Now, my bills are being paid. Pay day is no longer a gut wrenching affair and I even had some extra cash to update my office a little. I could spend the next 25 years of my career just as I am: neither wonderfully successful nor failing. I find this place to be even scarier than when I first unlocked my door and challenged the world to come see me.

Being here means that I am locked: too afraid to branch out and reach for the stars for fear of ruining all I built, yet I’m still vulnerable. At this stage all it would take is someone still hungry to come in and steal everything from me. Someone willing to go out and take risks, pound the pavement and do what I used to do. Then I would find myself forced to do it all over again as I watch my business slowly die all around me.

Being comfortable means you aren’t failing. It also means your aren’t growing.

This past week I made a big decision to step out of my comfort zone. I invested in new technology for my practice, something I deeply believe in and truly believe it will help my patients heal faster and return to their lives sooner. It also cost more than my salary to purchase and is a service not covered by health insurance so patients will need to pay cash.

This investment could help my practice grow in so many ways.

This investment could put me out of business.

I’m no longer comfortable. I’m hungry again. Hungry to spread the word about my new offering. Hungry to garner a new demographic. Hungry to make this work.

Being is hungry is a good thing.

 

Competition

Thoughts After the Show

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This post has been written about a dozens times now and each time I start rambling off in some odd direction I didn’t mean to. There was just so much happening in my brain as we drove home Sunday.

First and most important, I absolutely loved this show, the venue and all the people. Everyone kept telling me how awesome eventers are, but honestly I was very skeptical as I had been told that about other horse disciplines and rarely found it to be true. Not this time though! Everyone I spoke to, from the German guy who has competed at Bromont (no clue what his name was but everyone else seemed to know him), to the older lady who had just completed her first dressage test in 18 years, was not only pleasant and polite, but was genuinely nice and helpful. I had a mini panic attack when it was time to tack up and I had no clue where to put my bridle number. Google brought up anything from “always on the left” to “always on the right” to “whichever side will face the judge at C on your first turn”. I finally just stopped a lady walking by and asked and she said she always puts hers on the right, so I did. (Later Trainer said she always does it on the left, so I am thinking it honestly doesn’t matter).

Even the ring stewards were overly friendly. By the time my division went it had been a long and hot day for everyone and yet the dressage steward took the extra time to pluck the grass out of Gem’s mouth to make her look pretty for the judge and came over to me after the test telling me I looked good int he test and hoping I came back for more in the future. The jump steward was hilarious and kept me calm. It was an amazing experience filled with people who were out there doing what they loved. Even those who had a bad round just chalked it up to a bad day, still smiled and went on to watch and encourage others.

Coming from the world of endurance where people are oh so happy to put the word “just” in front of limited distance or claim you aren’t doing real endurance if it isn’t a 50 miler (something that really really really pisses me off), being in the amoeba division and having those from the earlier intermediate division come over and congratulate me and comment on my mare was refreshing. Maybe this attitude goes away at recognized trials, but there was never once a feeling of being thought of as less due to the division I chose to compete it. Everyone was happy that people were out doing what they enjoy doing with their horse.

Second, this sport has so much potential that I felt even more energized and motivated after than before. I want to improve. I want to grow. I want to go out there and kick some major butt and do it all over again. In fact, had we not been the very last division, I would have easily dropped the money to add in another jump round or two. I loved it. Loved, loved loved.

There was a third, but now I forget what it was. Basically, I achieved all my pre show goals, I’ve fallen in love with this sport, Gem was happy and relaxed the entire day and looked gorgeous all dolled up with her mane in a braid and I felt really proud of what we accomplished by the end of the day. I have a ton of home work to work on, I can’t wait until my next lesson to talk to Trainer about my new goals and see what the future holds for us.

Competition, Uncategorized

Full Gallop Farm CT: Stadium

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Backing up in time a bit:

After I had checked out the goings on in the dressage end of things, I spent a solid hour watching stadium. The last few intermediate riders were going and the course map looked like the same for every level, but different heights. I stood there and memorized the course while slowly trying not to let my head spin out of control as I stared at jump 4.

I promptly texted Trainer that I was going to die and asked her if she wanted me to will her Gem. She laughed and told me to add more leg

The rest of the course looked doable, or at least it would be once they lowered them all to 18″ crossrails as the flyer promised. I also noticed that the arena was very large and super spread out. There was plenty of room for approaches and only one jump, #8, had any related distance at all. At the higher levels and for those who cantered, the course had some really tight turns but I completely failed to snap a picture of the course map.

Ok… back to after dressage:

Stadium was slated for 1:45-2pm with any order of go. I was first up in dressage and didn’t even finish until after stadium was open. I was glad that they had a big window and not a dedicated time so I could change tack and warm up without rushing too much.

The jump warm up arena was down by dressage and had 4 fences set up: a cross rail on either side and two verticals in the middle. The steward informed me that I was the only one around. After popping over the cross rails a couple times, I called it enough. My head was starting to pound and  both Gem and I were tired of the blazing sun beating down on us. It was time to go.


Dusty stood farther away and so the screenshots I tried to grab aren’t very good, but the video is at the end too. I advise watching it on something you can fast forward because there is a lot of open space and trotting it takes a while.

Jump 1 was a friendly cross rail with no filler or decorations. I was way past nervous and literally begged Gem to jump it as we approached. She did begin to hesitate, but once I put my legs on she was game enough. Good girl. We were on a roll!

For the first time ever jumps looked small to me and I was wishing I was doing the tadpole 2’3″ division instead. If you all knew me in real life you would know what a cosmic shift in reality that truly is.

It was a long way around the outside of #9 to get to fence 2 which was also a friendly bland cross rail. If it had been later in the course I would have let her canter it, but my death grip was still in full force and I was faking a smile which looked much more like a grimace. She went over without a second thought.


It was a quick right hand turn to fence three set up on the short side across the arena. Same old song though: minimally decorated cross rail and no issue from Gem.


But then it was to fence 4….the train. The entire day my mind kept going back to that darn train. Would she go over it? The approach wasn’t the greatest either and there were a lot of refusals here. Once you went over 3 it was a sharp left and only a quarter of an arena width to 4. Now if I was educated at all I could tell you in strides what that was, but I was trotting and didn’t pay attention to that. Anyway, it came up fast after the sharp left and caught horses off guard.

Gem wasn’t immune to it either. It didn’t help that the cross rails only class ended up with verticals too and the train was the first one. They left the solid red board up and Gem had never jumped anything solid ever. She hesitated hard, came to a walk and then just stepped over it like it barely existed.

Yup, we literally walked over the jump. Maybe it is time to introduce some height?

I was elated that we made it over the train, but I also knew that we had the rest of the course to do and they got more difficult as it went. Fence four was a pretty butterfly jump that also had a solid board. What happened to cross rails only?

I was a bit surprised that Gem hesitated more at this than the train, maybe it was the bright colors, and I think she basically walked this one too.


Six was a long trot back around 9 to the left and taking it coming back towards home. It was a cute little wishing well and I don’t have a decent enough shot of it to make it worth posting, but by this point things just clicked for us. She was finally game on and looking towards the jumps and I was finally loosening my death grip. I started to smile for real too and as I made my very slow way around 9 and past the jump judge I heard them comment about me looking like I was having fun finally.

And the truth was that I was having fun!

Jump seven was a nice pink and grey vertical. Gem jumped it the best yet on course and looking at the screen shot I can see why. My position actually looks like I know how to jump and I’m no longer holding her back.


Fence 8 had an A and B element which was being ridden as a 2 stride at a canter and who knows what at a trot. It was back to being a plain cross rail and I knew Gem would be just fine. 


Fence 9 was the farthest out from where Dusty stood by the in gate and again the picture isn’t worth posting but it was another vertical but this time was three poles high and I am pretty sure was over 18″ because I don’t see how you can stack three poles and only be at 18″ and it looked much bigger than the rest of the course. It jumped straight forward though and by this time we were both in sync and game on.

But then it was over and all I wanted to do was keep jumping. Now that is an amazing feeling.

Here is the video:

​
Truth is Gem doesn’t jump well because of me. I mean, she definitely will run out or stop if you don’t keep your leg on and let her know you actually want to jump. If she has the slightest out, she will take it no doubt about it. However, when I’m riding her it feels like we are going a million miles an hour but watching the video afterward we could have walked over each jump and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. I really need to let go and trust her more. She is a super great jumper in the sense that she won’t expend the energy to over jump, but also won’t hit a rail if she can help it.

Anyway, I walked her back out the gate and was so thrilled with the entire day. We made it through and didn’t make complete fools of ourselves and didn’t get eliminated!


We were all hot and getting headaches by this time, so I untacked Gem then quickly changed out of my show clothes. She got a sponge bath and walked over to the water trough before I shoved her full of crack cookies and smothered her in hugs as I took her braids out.

My head was really starting to pound by this point and I realized I hadn’t put anything solid in me since getting up at 6 am. Not smart. I hid in the air conditioning in the truck while the class finished and then got my scores and placing.

One of the women ahead of me after dressage had 12 faults in stadium so I moved up to 4th and was so happy to grab my white ribbon and dressage score sheet. I was so proud of both of us! And I didn’t have to be called a loser by my son as I now had my ribbon in hand.


There are so many thoughts to share about this experience and where I’d like to go from here so stay tuned for some posts coming up about that. For the first time in a long time I am really excited for my future with Gem and I can’t wait to tackle it all head on. With the changes I’ve seen in both of us in 4 short months, I can’t even imagine what we could be a year from now.  All I have to say is Bring It!!

Competition, Uncategorized

Full Gallop Farm CT: Dressage

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We got to the venue entirely too early: 9 am for a 1:18 pm dressage time. Trainer had recommended getting there at 10:30 but I’m way too high strung and decided to leave earlier. Yeah, not doing that again.

My crazy Arabian endurance horse spent her 4 hours napping and shoving her face full of hay.

One of my biggest concerns was all the logistics, so as soon as we arrived I immediately signed in then headed to the dressage arena to get a look around. I had 4 hours to kill and it was heating up fast with no shade in sight.

Dressage was in a spare grass paddock with the warm up ring in the neighboring one. The judge was sitting at C in a white pick up truck using the horn as the start signal. I watched a few riders go paying attention to when they entered the ring, how they went around and when they exited after their test. After that I wandered around the rest of the grounds.

The dressage warm up area. It was really spacious and did double duty as warm up and waiting area. Even with a bunch of people just standing waiting to go and those warming up there was still a ton of room
The dressage court. I was a tiny bit nervous going on grass since we have never done that before, but it was actually nicer than a regular sand arena.

Killing 4 hours on a very hot (upper 80s with high humidity), sunny day with a toddler and no friends around isn’t really that enjoyable. By the time the clock said 12pm I was more than ready to get on and ride.

I tacked her up and she looked really gorgeous in the dressage gear. Her mane had been braided the night before and miraculously (well with the help of half a bottle of Quick Braid) stayed in. I just stood back and stared at her for a long while. Gemmie has a special place in my heart and soul.

I can’t believe how very much proper we look! I opted to go very conservative in my attire with the exception of a beautiful belt I found at the tack store last minute. Just enough color to be pretty but not annoying. I had brought my white breeches too but wimped out of wearing them when I realized the night before that all my underwear showed through. 

I was worried she would be a bit high strung walking down to the arena: the path led from the trailer parking, past the stalls, by the jump arena and ended at the two warm up arenas and dressage court. It was a very busy walk. I shouldn’t have worried. She was a saint.

By the time I began my warm up at around 12:30 pm my shirt was sticking to me and sweat was pouring down my face. I worked on halting first since that has been a big issue. Gem has really come around nicely and will now halt with just the slightest request. I’m loving it!!!

I offered her up a drink knowing she had to be as thirsty as I was. She took a sip and promptly spooked at who knows what in her reflection. Maybe she noticed how proper she looked versus her typical endurance wild self and got scared.
I was glad that the warm up area shared the same views as the dressage court would. Gem was able to look at the cross country course where people were schooling.

After that I worked on bend a little. I’m not that great at it and really need to focus on that. She is more like a surf board than a living being with joints. Anyway…I kinda ran out of things to do. It was really hot and she was sweating after working on all that and I wanted her to be fresh but relaxed in the test. With still 20 minutes to go, I hung out at the fence talking to Dusty and my parents who made the drive to watch me ride. I really appreciated them coming specially since all things horse isn’t really their thing.

Wyatt had everyone in tears with laughter. He is just starting to really understand winning and losing. I was halfway across the field when he yelled out “Hey Mommie, are you going to win? Will you get a ribbon? If not does that make you a loser? Don’t be a loser Mommie!” Great support staff I have
Waiting at the gate to enter as I run through the test in my head one last time and try not to vomit. I’ve never been so nauseous on a horse before. Looking back I know it was partly nerves but it was a great deal more the fact that I had eaten exactly nothing all day and drank not nearly enough for the time spent in the heat and sun. My throbbing head by 3 pm let me know I wasn’t doing so good at self care.  I also love Gem’s face in this picture. 

At 1:26 they finally told me it was my turn up next. I’m not sure how these things typically go, but figured 8 minutes late wasn’t so bad. It was around 1:35 when I started.

I spent a bunch of time making a fancy video with all the scores and comments on it. Then I promptly didn’t save it correctly and now I’m too frustrated to do it again. Instead I’ll just run through it here and put the video at the end.

Intro Test B:

When I entered the dressage court, I made Gem walk around the outside and past the judge truck to say hello. I kept her sedate and calm preferring to have to wake her up than wrestle her back down. The judge was super nice and asked if I was ready to which I replied that I never would be so go ahead whenever she wanted. She laughed and honked the horn when we were at E going away from her. At that point I picked up the trot and rode to A where we turned and entered. Gem was moving forward a little behind me, but was relaxed and honestly with how tense I was she was doing a great job at ignoring my negative energy. I asked her to walk about 2-3 strides out of X then she halted. I saluted too soon and she moved during it which just made my stomach tighten since this was the very start of the test.

6.5: straight at centerline, needs immobility at halt

I ignored it the best I could and asked her to trot on to C where we made a left turn and wandered down to E. Gem tried to spook a bit at the flowers, but I put my legs on her and she got the memo that I meant business.

6.5: needs inside leg for bend in the turn


I took a big deep breath here to try to relax in preparation for the 20 meter circle at E. left is our stiffer side (or so I thought) and I needed her to relax as much as possible. Gem was being so insanely good too. She kept the same rhythm throughout without me having to do much nagging or bringing her back. It was just really pleasant to ride.

I tried really hard to look around my circle although I have a habit of not looking far enough ahead. Gem felt much more rigid than she apparently looked to the judge. The circle I was trying hard at keeping large and round was not such a big hit though.

6.5: watch the shape and size of circle. 

My head is looking around the circle, but my body is most definitely telling her to travel straight. Much work to do here!

When we got back to the rail I made certain to straighten up when my body hit E. Trainer had made a big deal about me not ending my circle before then and I wanted to be as accurate as I could be. From there we traveled to the corner where I used it to help her transition to the medium walk between K and A. She listened really well and walked straight off. I was really proud of myself when she started to build as we got to A and I used a half halt to maintain the walk. Trainer is always getting on me for reacting before Gem speeds up instead of waiting until after we are trotting.

6.5: willing 

You can see how tense I am here but my heels are down and my leg is under me so that’s a win in my book!

F came up quickly and it was time for the free walk. I had practiced it a little in warm up and Trainer’s advice rang in my ears: don’t let her break to trot, it is better to be boring and walk than flashy and break. Well, I didn’t go for glory here at all but I think Gem was tired of my tension and she broke to trot twice across the diagonal. It really hurt my psyche to have her do so halfway through the test but I put it out of my mind and moved on to the next one.

5.5: trotting

This screenshot is during one of her trot breaks. I tried to open and lower my hands but she trotted each time. You can still how how tense I was. No wonder she trotted!

Once we were back at E and on the rail I “picked up the contact” and went back to medium walk. Really there wasn’t much difference.

7.0: fair march


The corner came up and I used it to make the transition to trot which she did immediately. Her transitions are really just becoming sharper and sharper without the shuffling steps leading up to and out of them.

7.0: obedient


The right 20 meter circle has always come easier mostly because my right leg isn’t as useless as my left so I tend to have at least a hint of inside leg. We made it around without losing our rhythm which was my main goal.

6.0: needs inside bend

I was really surprised that the right scored less than the left but looking at the video I understand why. Also, from the get go my circle was not very circle like

Back at B and it was a straight trot back to center line at A followed by our last halt and salute.

7.0: overshot centerline, halt almost square


All the above photos were taken as screen shots from the below video. I was really, really happy with Gem. I mean, she did exactly as I asked without any shenanigans or issues at all. I was way too tense and lacked any bend in my own body, so I can’t expect her to be Mrs Bendy herself.

I found out later that we had scored 33.44  which put us in 5th of 9 riders.  Scores ranged from 26-39 so it seemed like the judge was nailing some things hard and being rewarding with others. ​​​Having never done this before I’m not sure what to make of the actual score. Trainer was really happy with it when I texted her my sheet later in the day.

For collectives:
Gaits: 7.0
Impulsion: 7.0
Submission: 7.0
Rider’s Position: 7.0
Rider’s Effectiveness of Aids: 6.5 – use inside leg for bend and balance especially in circles and turns
Geometry and Accuracy: 6.0 – work on riding correct figure


Seeing a 7.0 on all of Gem’s stuff and on my position made my entire day. The rest I can work on and improve but seeing that she didn’t ding Gem for poor movement or anything was a big confidence booster. Plus my position has always been something I am self conscious about so getting a 7 on that made me smile big time. And then there is the little Gem on the back right corner of the test: Excellent first test ever!!!!

 

​Once I was out of there I headed straight back to the trailer to change her tack out. It was already 1:45 pm and stadium was beginning. I didn’t even think to look at scores. It just wasn’t important to me.

 

Gem’s opinion of dressage.




Competition

Full Gallop Farm CT: Preview

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There are so many things slamming against the inside of my skull and I’m too tired to sort through it all and give it the time it deserves. 

The CT was a success in pretty much every aspect and then some! I had an absolute blast and learned a ton. 

The husband was on media duty and got some nice videos and a few pictures. Most will be screen shots from the videos and I still need to figure out how to do that nifty editing to get the score on the video in real time. Once I do, I’ll write up full posts on each phase. 


But….to not have undo drama waiting for the end…..


We got 4th out of 9!! And they weren’t all little kids!!!!!

Stay tuned for details to come!