Month: February 2019

Sigh.

Look. I know what you all are going to say. Get a trainer. Take lessons. Do boot camp.

And I may. Or I may just sell him and move on. I’m currently up in the air on which is better for the both of us.

I’m a realistic person. Or so I try to be. Tuesday evening was glorious. 65 and sunny after 6 straight days of thunderstorms, lightening and torrential rain that left the area with 3″ of standing water everywhere. Thankfully the clay soil around here drains quickly and after 36 hours of sunshine, the arena was usable again.

Add changing pastures to the back “sacrifice” area during the rain to the 10 days off and I knew he’d need to get some energy out on the lunge before I hopped on him. I’m ok with doing that if that is what he needs.

Except he lost his ever loving mind once on the lunge. He pulled a nasty buck/leap/bolt and maybe I should have been able to but he ripped the damn lunge line out of my hand and took off trailing it behind him.

I stood there and said out loud “I hope you break your f*%#ing leg on that line horse” as he tore around the arena screaming for Gem and Pete and eyeing ways to escape.

I immediately ran to the back fence line that happens to have a hole in it when someone ran the bucket on the tractor through it. Ahem. Oops. He eyed that hole as he ran around and then stopped at the far end to graze.

Thinking he was done, I walked over to grab the trailing line only to have him give me serious side eye and tear straight for that hole. He jumped over the fence and into freedom.

Or so he thought. There is a small alley of grass between the arena and the large pasture fence so all he did was jump into a smaller contained space which is why we haven’t bothered to fix the fence yet.

I walked through brambles, cursing his existence the entire time, and called to him. At which point he looked really sad that his evil plan failed and came trotting over to me.

I marched him back through the brambles, over the fence and into the arena where I proceeded to lunge his hooves off him before taking his heaving, sweating carcass to the mounting block to be ridden.

He wasn’t so proud of his little plan any longer.

He then got worked under saddle pretty hard. I held contact. I didn’t allow cantering instead of trotting. We worked hard. We worked long.

Finally I stopped and let him be done but I was angry. Angry that I couldn’t just enjoy a ride on a rare gorgeous free evening. Angry that he is still this obsessed with two horses who never call back for him, never run the fence looking for him, never care if he is gone. Angry that while he does not scare me he also isn’t being very enjoyable.

Sure he had 10 days off due to rain. Sure his friends were moved. But I don’t care. He should be able to function even with that.

Lessons may help. I’m not sure. They’d be at another facility so Gem and Pete wouldn’t be an issue. Who knows if he’d even behave like this while off property?

Boot camp doesn’t seem like a good idea. Sure it wouldn’t hurt. He’d get into a program, get fit and be tuned up while I could also lesson weekly but I’d fear when he returned home and I rode him away from Gem and Pete none of that would matter anyway.

I think back to when I met him. Horses were everywhere. Every paddock surrounding the arena was chock full of horses plus horses were in the barn as well. He was never out of sight of another horse. And he rode perfectly for me. I jumped. I cantered. He was foot perfect. I asked about other horses and got the answer that he didn’t care about them and chose to walk up to people instead.

Which is true. He will leave Gem and Pete in the pasture to come say hi to me every time. He will graze around the bend or 5 acres away and not care. But if he can’t see them he loses it.

So she didn’t lie. I’m guessing she never had him in a situation where he couldn’t see another horse and didn’t know it.

So what to do? Under saddle he was ok. I still had some issues with him trying to blow through me and canter instead of trot when he got tired but he went where I asked, returned to the trot quickly, jumped nicely over the vertical, had bend in my 20 m circles and I even worked purposefully on canter transitions and within the canter itself. Really the ride itself was good once we got there.

But the lead up. I nearly put together a for sale ad. In my head it was half written.

I don’t know. This month has been sporadic with the weather but let’s be real. My riding life will always be sporadic. I’m not a 6 day a week rider. Im a twice a week maybe possibly if something doesn’t come up rider. Those rides can’t suck. They just can’t.

Sigh.

Lots to think about.

In the meantime I’m trying to find someone who can give a lesson in the evening after 630 or a weekend. So far no luck. The one person I found who has an evening schedule is full with people more advanced than me so I can’t fit into the group at the moment. I’ll keep plugging away at it and keep working at home as well but he isn’t happy and I’m not happy and something has to give or he will need a new home and I’ll be back to horse shopping.

Pyramid schemes.

They used to be the domain of the lonely, bored housewife who hosted Avon, Mary Kay or Tupperware parties to make some money while raising the kids. Amway made a big splash in the 90s and early 2000s.

And then social media happened.

All of a sudden it was easy to build a pyramid based business. People no longer needed to go door to door or host real life parties. It could all be done online. Nearly overnight dozens of such “direct sales” businesses appeared: Beach Body, Jamberry, Arbonne, Roden and Fields, Plexus etc…

You all have seen them flooding your Facebook news feed on the daily as another friend hops on the bus.

I’ve seen so many companies and turned down so many pleas to join and sell I can’t even remember them all.

Until now. I caved. I joined.

This is likely one of the only times I’ll mention it on here. I may announce a few things from time to time but this blog will be mostly clean of it. Except this post. This post I’m holding you hostage.

I joined Color Street Nails this past weekend. Why? Mostly because I want to earn some extra cash to spend on lessons without feeling guilty pulling from the family stash. Even if I only make $100 a month extra that’s still a couple of lessons locally or one lesson in Aiken.

Plus I actually really do love the product and have been using it for half a year now. I’m an open, honest person so no BS from me here on this. No sales pitch. Just honest facts about why I like it and think you may too.

Color Street nails are 100% real nail polish dried 95% of the way. The strips are flexible and are the base, color and top coat all in one. The designs are adorable and way beyond anything I’d be able to do with a bottle or want to pay for in a salon. They also sell solids, glitter and French tips as well.

You open the package, choose the right size, peel off the backing and press to your nail. I like to hold it for about 30 sec and rub gently to make sure they adhere. Then you either fold and break the tip off or trim with scissors and file. The strip is long enough to do two fingers with, one should cover both thumb nails for example.

Once on you are done. They will take 30 minutes or so to fully dry but you can’t smudge them or ruin them. I’ve put them on and then got up to finish dinner or did them between patients and immediately put gloves on. Probably not recommended, but I don’t have time to wait.

They last well too. Bottle polish may last me 3 days. If I don’t ruin it before it dries fully which never happens. I’m busy. I don’t have time to baby my hands for an hour. Generally speaking I’ll get 5-7 days with them looking really good and then the tips will start to wear off at which point I grab my file and file down my nail and they look brand new again for another 5-7 days. Generally by that point I either have to remove for surgery or I’m tired of the color and want to put something new on anyway.

This isn’t gel, vinyl or powder so they do wear more than those products but they also don’t require anything special to apply and you remove with regular polish remover.

Simple, quick, gorgeous.

I get compliments every time I put a new color on.

The other thing I love?

Remember, I’m pretty cheap at heart. No way am I spending a fortune on my nails. These cost $13 for the design ones (my favorites), $14 for French tips, $12 for glitter and $11 for solids.

Each pack gives you two full manicures or a mani and pedi so in reality every time I make my nails pretty it only cost me about $6.50.

The price is great.

If you have any interest I have a ton of free samples heading my way that I can mail to you. You can also shop online but be warned that whatever lame person made the catalogue did a crap job. Every set I’ve gotten has been 10 times prettier in real life.

The link to my personal store is below

Shop here!!!

I’m also on Facebook with a closed group where I’m posting instructions and information and will be having some give aways. I will be getting 5 free sets  and will give a free set to the first 5 people who order.

Or host a party for your friends, I do all the work and you earn free stuff.

Honestly guys this is the only way I can have pretty nails with my job and the horses and not break the bank or ruin my nails with gel or powder.

If at all interested give me a shout out in the comments, email me for a sample (agemofahorse at gmail dot com) or join my Facebook group.

I doubt you’ll regret it. It such an easy, inexpensive way to put a smile on your face.

And with that I am done annoying my captive audience. I may announce new lines or fun giveaways from time to time on here, but I won’t be filling your blog roll with nails all of a sudden, I promise.

As I stood in the tack room switching the stirrups to the correct side on H’Appy’s saddle, Gem’s endurance saddle caught my eye resting on its saddle stand. A small sad smile spread across my face, the type that appears when you feel both happy for the memories yet sad that the time has past.

That saddle was the culmination of years of trial and error, of fine tuning to the point that it fit her like a glove. My eyes ran the length of the fleece lined stirrup leathers, remembering the exact reason and day I purchased them and settled on the bright red caged stirrup irons I bought on a whim on Facebook and worked perfectly to resolve the last of the twitches in my ankles.

I turned my gaze to her red mohair cinch, the cinch that took me years to settle on. One single inch longer and she would get girth galls. It was a bit of dumb luck to get this cinch. I had ordered it for a different length and it came incorrectly, but fit her well and solved the girth issue, so I kept it.

Then my eyes stared longingly at her pad, an incredibly expensive full sheepskin pad with shims I never needed. That pad weighed a ton, but wicked the sweat and heat away from her back allowing her to move freely and comfortably even in the dead of a SC summer on a long conditioning ride. Her back scores remained an A on every vet card thanks to this pad.

Finally, I looked over at her endurance bridle hanging on the bridle hook next to H’Appy’s. The black and red side pull with bit hangers and halter ring. It not only functioned perfectly, it fit her well and showed off her feminine face well. The brow band was hand crafted by fellow blogger Karen and remains on the bridle to this day.

As I looked over everything, remembering the first rides I used each piece of tack, the reasons and function to every new addition or change, I smiled and recalled fondly all those miles spent arguing with my favorite bay mare. All the views between her black tipped ears. All the times I bit the dust and hopped back on her to finish out the ride. Her equipment was not cheap and did not happen all at once. No, I started endurance in a cheap Wintec AP, cotton AP pad and leather bridle with suede half chaps and tan breeches in 2011.

By the time we started the Biltmore 100 in 2016, I had upgraded every single piece of that equipment, after much trial and error and a lot of research. When I finished my visual tour of memory lane, I looked over H’Appy’s gear – a hodge podge of used and new equipment mostly bought out of convenience or a quick need with the exception of his saddle and girth. I’m not a fan of the pad I use, his bridle is missing the throat latch and isn’t a perfect fit which is fine since I bought it for Gem, I don’t have a breast plate for him yet, no boots for protection while jumping, and I’m still fiddling with stirrups.

And while I feel a little frustrated at times, not knowing exactly what he needs or will like, I have to remind myself that I didn’t start out with Gem in endurance in the gear I retired her in. That set up took a long time to hone in, to tweak until it was perfect. It is a bit hard to go from that, from the absolute perfect set up that I knew like the back of my hand where every piece had a specific purpose, to this entry level mess. I’m slowly figuring things out though. Exchanging pieces as needed with more researched, more specific equipment. Fortunately, I have the saddle and girth, two major pieces of the puzzle. I have my eye on a specific pad I would like to try, a few other types of stirrups if these ones don’t pan out, and a new bridle on my wish list. Patience is the key. I know someday I’ll look over the gear for H’Appy with the same fondness and memories.

Oh look! My new to me FreeJump Pro stirrups came in the mail. I need to try these out!

Ugh. That color makes my eyes bleed. Can I spray paint them? Is that tacky? Probably no worse than mixing royal blue with navy.

Hmmm…how do these go on? Why isn’t there a R or L on them? Even my headphones have that and who knew they were side specific. There is a flat edge and a rounded one. It looks like it slopes towards the heel when put on like this but then the colored arm is on the inside. Maybe that is a good thing since it’s ugly anyway. I don’t know.

5 minutes of internal debate later

Screw it. This looks right. I’m trying it.

Huh. These things are really sticky. I have to pick my foot up to adjust it. Why do I move my feet so much? Is is just because now I can’t that I have to? Or am I always this fidgety with my feet? Oh great. Another riding issue to fix. I’ll be 100 before I’m a decent rider at this rate.

Walking around getting the feel. H’Appy is feeling fantastic and is listening super well.

Let’s trot. And really I mean trot. Not canter. Or gallop. Or slam to a halt.

30 seconds later.

Holy mother of God why is someone stabbing my peroneals (outside ankle tendons) with a hot poker? Make it stop. Canter. Yes let’s canter.

Two laps of canter later

Nope. Nope nope nope. I’m crippled. I’ll never walk again.

Hobbles up to the barn to untack.

Maybe it’s the length. Maybe I need to lengthen them. I’ll try that tomorrow. If my feet don’t fall off first. Maybe it isn’t a stirrup issue. Is it the saddle? Did I spend all that money and need to resell it? I don’t want to sell it. But what else could it be? It’s the saddle. Shit. How am I going to tell Dusty I’m selling the saddle and getting a new one? What would I even get? Happy loves this saddle. Oh man. I should have just eaten my body weight in Mac’n cheese and chocolate for Valentine’s Day instead of rising. Damn.

Posts photo to Instagram and FB about the new stirrups.

Oh. Someone commented. Hmmm…oh fuck. I put them on wrong. Huh. Maybe I don’t need a new saddle after all. Just a brain transplant.

Thanks Amanda for letting me know I put them on wrong. I was on the verge of listing the saddle for sale, so I owe you one.

Farrier came out Tuesday afternoon while I was at work. I can’t repeat this enough. Finding him has been a life saver. Not only is he amazing at what he does, but he comes out when I’m not home and even offers to let the horses back out after he is done.

This has killed off so much stress. I used to have to trailer Gem and Pete to TrainerJ’s barn the night before the farrier was to come and have them spend the night so they could be done the next day. I would then go get them and bring them home after. It was a pain and not very sustainable especially if something were to happen before the next due date.

My current farrier isn’t just prompt and willing to work with my work schedule. He makes all his shoes from scratch so H’Appys oddly mismatched sized hooves don’t need to be trimmed to a size or placed in an awkward shoe. He hot shoes and doesn’t use clips, two things that I’ve been on board with.

He comes out every five weeks or at least that is the plan. There were a few cycles in there where H’Appy decided to drop his shoe at week four, which isn’t so terrible except at $245 a pop the whole monthly habit was getting a bit hard to swallow. Thankfully the last two times he has managed to maintain for the entire five weeks.

Farrier always shoots me a text when they are leaving to ask if I want the horses back out. Typically I tell him he doesn’t have to bother unless they are in the closest pasture which they aren’t right now. I also love the quick dinner feeding when they are already inside.

The text opens up my chance to pester him with questions which he is always gracious enough to answer. Or he just knows I won’t stop if he doesn’t respond.

I asked if there was anything new and he informed me that the soles have changed enough that he left the pads off. He wants me to check in with him after I ride next to let him know how he does. I’m really excited they are gone but also a bit worried he will be sore.

H’Appy is not shy about telling me how he feels so I won’t need to guess. The pads weren’t really a big deal and if he needs to go back in them then fine, but less is more in my typically barefoot fanatic mind. If I ever do get him out of shoes it will be a very happy day for me.

It’s supposed to rain for the next week, no exaggeration, but it’s ok. H’Appy is always a bit sore after the farrier leaves and giving him a few days off has proven wise in the past. As he continues to grow out a better hoof I’m thinking that will go away.

It has been 9 months since I brought him home and he ripped his hoof to shreds. His first major hoofiversary will be the third week of May, when he did the damage to his already poor quality hoof capsule. The second one, the one I’m more interested in, isn’t until August when I found this farrier and had the xrays done by the lameness vet. That is day one of good rehab in my mind.

Hoof growth is super interesting to me and while I tend to lean towards barefoot for healthier circulation and overall function, sometimes that just isn’t possible with the horse you have. H’Appy proved that to me last summer. Maybe with his stronger hoof wall and thicker soles he can withstand barefoot in the future but other than hating the damage shoes do to my pasture, I’m not anti shoe either. I’m pretty much pro whatever makes my horse happy and pain free and at the moment that is shoes sans pads.

Everything apparently but that’s horses for you.

There is something in particular that I’m doing wrong and I need to figure out what it is. A trainer would be helpful here, but I’m not quite ready to re enter the world of lessons. H’Appy isn’t to the point where I think the money would be well spent yet. Soon though. Instead I’m turning to the hive mind of the blogosphere for suggestions.

The problem: all my horses think “canter” when all I want is “trot”.

It happened a lot with Gem and both TrainerJ and I chalked it up to her hyper sensitive, high energy self.

But it is happening with H’Appy too and I’m convinced it is something I’m doing to confuse him.

Let me fill in some details.

Saturday afternoon I hopped back on. This was the third ride with the Dynamic Duo out of sight in the new pasture and true to form he was settled and focused once again. He may be a Doofus but he is a Doofus with a brain and time has shown me that after a few repeated experiences, he returns to his calm self. He didn’t even need time on the lunge before mounting.

Off we went for a nice long walk warm up. While he was more focused, didn’t yell for his friends and didn’t argue with me, I could tell he had a lot of energy so we quickly proceeded to trot. Except he wanted to canter instead. We talked about that and after a while he chilled out about it and acquiesced to trotting.

Confession time here. I could enter an arena and remain in the trot for hours and never tire of it. That’s probably not normal and more than likely bores the horse to death even with changes in direction, various figures and walk breaks. I get it.

Since I wanted to work on the canter anyway, once he gave me an entire circuit of the arena without breaking from the trot, I cued for the canter and off we went. I focused hard on sitting down, leaning back so that while I felt like I was laying on his butt my shadow proved I was vertical (I’m a habitual forward leaner) and not driving with my seat.

By the end I was feeling a lot better about my position and steering and it was a fantastic ride.

Except….

When I did take breaks from cantering and then got him back into the trot he would try to canter again. Now I know canter work jazzes many a horse up and I’m sure he was also anticipating the cue, but this isn’t unusual for horses I am riding to jump to canter.

Since he was attentive under me, I decided to pay extra attention to what I was doing so that I could maybe isolate some factors and play around with my position. This led to the following data:

• Leaning forward while posting speeds him up and he breaks to canter
• Leaning back does the same thing
• Sitting tall and vertically slows him down and keeps him in the trot easier
• Slowing my posting allows him to stay under me better and therefore maintain the trot better
• Turning is almost always where he breaks to canter. Maybe I’m sports car racing around my turns? Or maybe he learned in lessons that he was always asked to canter in a turn?
• Going back towards home is another favorite spot to try to canter. That’s bad behavior related not necessarily my fault.
• He does prefer to shuffle in the trot or break canter versus give a nice true working trot. Extended trot leads to cantering. Fitness issue? Connection issue on my end?

• I tend to throw him away in the trot transition. This was created by Mr. I Like To Throw Temper Tantrums throwing his head all over the place in the transition. I think maybe I should stop doing that now and keep contact so he can’t go racing off in the wrong gait.
• I am always more tense than I should be and I’ve figured out that I have a pretty hard core driving seat at all times. I yell even when I don’t think I am. This probably isn’t helping.

There were other issues that popped up in the ride as always but this is the main one I’d really like to fix soon. I want to be able to trot when I want and for how long I want without breaking gait. For a lot of reasons but mostly because it is annoying as hell to be trotting one step then cantering then walking or halting and cycling back through. That whole rhythm thing and all. I had the same or similar issue with Gem too so it has to be driven by me and something I’m doing while trotting that tells the horse to canter without me knowing it.

Any suggestions from you all on what to work on or improve to fix this?

You remember how I was all “his first ten minute temper tantrum has all but disappeared?”

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

So yeah about that…

H’Appy got Sunday and Monday off, but Tuesday was 72F and there was no way I was going to miss that ride. My plan going in was to work on canter transitions and force my butt to sit in the darn saddle.

The issue? We had moved the horses to the pasture on the other side of the drive for the month of February and possibly into March depending on when the guy can come to spray for weeds/fertilize. The move meant that even with the Dynamic Duo left outside, Butthead wouldn’t be able to see them.

The whole evening started out on a bad note. Tuesdays Dusty is supposed to get Wyatt from school which gives me the chance to finish everything up at work and head straight home, shaving off a half an hour plus. He was running late though and I ended up needing to get Wyatt. So I was already kinda peeved off that I wouldn’t be getting home until closer to 6 instead of 5. There went my shot at riding in the light.

Then Gem was being a complete witch about coming in for dinner. I was going to bring them all in before riding to limit the amount of chores needing done later, but the darn mare wouldn’t come near me and when she finally did she wouldn’t let me get the halter on her stupid bay head. I was pretty dumbfounded on what got up her butt. Ever since being retired she meets me at the gate, walks up to me when working in the pasture and is a general love bug.  Then it dawned on me.

I was dressed to ride. I even had my helmet on and there was no way in Hades that mare was going to be led in with me dressed like that. She is retired and plans to stay that way.

By the time I caught H’Appy it was getting dark, Dusty still wasn’t home and the Dynamic Duo were still outside. This wasn’t going well. I took a deep breath though and shook my mind free of stress while I groomed my orange beast.

He was really well behaved in the cross ties and for tacking up which is generally a sign that he will be malleable for work. Nope. Not Tuesday night. As soon as he realized he couldn’t see his friends his brain melted out of his head and he was checked out.

Back on the lunge line and back to galloping circles around me. I wasn’t amused. I don’t have time to lunge my horse for 40 minutes at 630pm in fading light watching him get sweaty knowing I still had to feed afterward. This is ridiculous and completely unnecessary behavior and it needs to stop. He knew where his friends were as he had just left them yet he acted like he was all alone in the great wide world.

The only silver lining was that the lunging took about half the time as it did the week prior when the horses were left inside when I rode, so progress?

Once he lowered his head and began chewing and licking his lips, I forced one last circle and mounted. We were not going to have another walk/halt ride. Big Boy was going to work.

As I walked him around he felt ok-ish under me. Super tense and wanting to look around and scream for two horses who could care less if he was dead or alive, but he was quiet about it and his halt was firmly installed. At least that lesson from the previous brainless ride had stuck, so I felt a little better about the work I’m doing with him. Maybe some of it is sticking.

He also had nice flexibility, giving me bend in both directions when asked even when he desperately wanted to stare off into the darkness looking for his friends. Eventually I felt like his attention was on me enough to ask for the trot. It was ugly and swung from short and choppy to near cantering, but he stayed in the trot the entire time and went where I asked without arguing. He still felt like a coiled spring under me but all four feet did as I asked and well it was a huge improvement from prior.

I ended the ride after he gave me three nice trot transitions in a row and took him up to the barn to cool down before eating his dinner. Then I finally got to bring the other two inside at which point he settled down. Of all his quirks and nonsense this is the one that annoys the snot out of me the most. His friends are always around. He always gets to go back to them at the end of a ride. He acts like it is such a shock every time that he gets to see them again and other than more time and more miles I have no clue how to fix it.

The horses will be out in that pasture for all of February and part of March when the big one gets sprayed for weeds so he is going to have to learn to deal with not being able to see them when we ride. Hopefully by the end of the month he will have chilled out about it. Either that or one of us won’t make it to March alive and I have a strong suspicion who it would be.

First I’m going to get this out of my system:

SQUEEE SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE!!!!!!!!

Ok. I think I’m done.

SQUEE!

No. Now I’m done.

Saturday was gorgeous and I thought to myself “Sara, you have standards and poles, why wait to trailer out when you can set up a small course here at home?” It was a good question and one I couldn’t answer, so I set about dragging the arena to improve the footing and placing some jumps.

Everything was set to go. The footing was soft and fluffy, it was warm and sunny, and the horses were left out to not blow poor H’Appy’s mind. In my mind, everything was set up for a successful and fun ride.

You can imagine my surprise when I found a fire breathing dragon rearing in the cross ties throwing a massive temper tantrum. Over what? Your guess is as good as mine.

The second time he nearly slaughtered me trying to brush him and I’d had enough. Ok. You want to be this way? Fine. I’m about to go MOTHER on your ass. Ask Wyatt – when the MOM voice comes out I’m not playing.

I marched him to the arena not tolerating even a single hoof out of place on the way there and threw him on the line. He promptly farted, bucked, and dug in deep taking off in a hell bent gallop to no where. His training in lunging is awesome though and while he was a maniac he stayed out on the circle and never pulled on me.

So I stood there and watched him go around and around and vaguely worried that he was about to blow a tendon, but then realized I didn’t really care in that moment if a limb fell completely off. When he tried to slow down I didn’t let him. Finally I asked to trot and when he did I asked him immediately back into a canter then worked him transitioning between all gaits with no more than five steps in each until Homeboy no longer cared about anything but me. Then I changed direction and made him do it all over again.

By the time I let him stop he was caked in sweat, lathered between his abundant buttocks and blowing hard.

I didn’t care. This wasn’t my fault and I had had enough. We marched back to the barn where he stood like a gentleman to be groomed and tacked and then headed back to the arena to work on the exercise I had set up.

Under saddle he started off with his head up his butt. I thought “oh no you don’t. I’ve been too easy on you treating you like some super fragile glass horse. No more. I set everything up for you to succeed and I refuse to let you bait me into an easy ride”

So we trotted and he wanted to canter. I had words with him over that and he eventually settled. Sorry bud, none of this is my doing. We are jumping this course today. If it takes you an hour to decide to comply that’s on you.

I think it was about 40 minutes later and he settled in to the task at hand. He became adjustable and listened to my half halts. If he did ask to canter instead of trot and I said no he came back within a step or two versus two entire laps of the arena.

At that point we got to jumping.

And guys….it was AMAZING. Capital AMAZING.

I started off going over the cross rail away from the gate, looping around the right to the vertical along the rail and then going around the crossrail to hit the vertical on the diagonal. Some times I’d stay going right and do it again, others I’d turn left and go around that way.

H’Appy got better and better each round. After a couple of times I let him canter and…yeah…I’m addicted. He is easy to jump. He never says no. He never waivers. He locks on and just goes. After a bit I began to relax and  I used my brain. It had long since stopped screaming “we are going to die!” and gone quiet so it seemed like a good time to start engaging it too.

As we came up to the vertical I found my brain turning on and told myself to sit back and up, wait with leg on until the base and then relax and let him go. And shocker of all shockers, the jump came up and we went over smooth as silk.

It was hard to make myself stop but he had worked really hard and was  stinky with sweat. Plus we had a hockey game to go to that night and I was running out of time to get him cooled down and put back out. He got a ton of praise for the second half of the ride, a nice long cooling shower with a ton of time spent on his legs, and then I had just enough time to change and not smell like a horse before we had to get going. Below is a video of the end of the ride.

Ask my employee and she will tell you my brain is like a sieve. She thinks I’m the most forgetful person. The thing is that I actually have a fantastic memory it’s just that my brain is trying to balance about fifty different things at one time and once it has moved on it generally doesn’t circle back around again for a long time.

So yeah. I’m sorta forgetful.

It turns out though that my brain isn’t the only part of me that takes a vacation from time to time.

I went to my first physical therapy session and it was eye opening. Turns out there are plenty of reasons I hurt, none of which include piriformis syndrome which was what I thought I had. Go figure – Dr. Google wasn’t correct.

My pain lies within all three groups of the gluteus muscle complex with the medius the worst culprit. As I explained my symptoms to my therapist, he smirked (we have a great working relationship as I send all my patients needing therapy to him and enjoy having lunch with him several times a year) as he told me

“You just explained gluteal amnesia to a T”

Uh…what?

Gluteal amnesia is also called “dead butt syndrome” and is a condition that stems from being too sedentary. I sit all the time. I sit to talk to my patients. I sit to treat them. I sit to type up the medical record. Heck I even sit to do my surgery. The reason I choose to sit is to protect my cervical spine as early and debilitating arthritis of the neck is extremely common in my field from being bent over people’s feet all the time. Sitting allows me to raise their feet to my eye level and protect my neck.

The trade off apparently is that now my butt has Alzheimer’s. Great.

There were other issues he found as well mostly that my left hip is an entire muscle grade weaker than my right (muscles are graded on a scale of 0-5 so losing one grade is roughly 20%) ) and the hip flexors on the left are extremely tight.

This has led to my symptoms: fine walking, standing and riding but flare when I ask for muscle power jogging, cramping in the butt, eventual feeling like my entire hip is about to give out on me, improper gait mechanics in my foot strike, medial knee pain. He said that I feel like my leg will collapse under me because it actually will due to my glutes “forgetting ” how to fire to provide stability and power.

The good news is that with some work and a better balance of standing versus sitting, it should be reversible. Unfortunately it’s been going on for a really long time, but he was optimistic.

He treated me with cupping followed by dry needling to try to break down the contracture that my glutes are currently stuck in and gave me a topical magnesium foam to apply before and after working out. Phase 1 is to get the complex to relax through physical modalities as above plus a ton of stretching every day.

Phase 2 will be strengthening the surrounding muscles to allow them to function better.

Phase 3 will be standing more for prevention and I’ve already figured out some ways I can do that.

He gave me the green light to keep riding as long as I’m stretching and even said I could do light jogging too as long as I stop if it starts to act up. This apparently isn’t something you can just run through which was a lesson I learned last year.

It will be super interesting to see how my riding changes once my left butt decides to join the party.