Month: March 2019

Tuesday. Oh Tuesday. It’s become my riding day at home since Dusty has agreed to leave work early and get Wyatt which allows me to head straight home and ride before dinner. It’s really nice.

This week could have been a disaster. In fact, I could probably write it up that way if I tried hard enough to focus on the crap moments. You know what though? It wasn’t a disaster. It was actually pretty flipping fantastic.

It started off terribly. The temps had dropped 20 degrees, I hadn’t worked him in exactly one week due to various excuses (sickness mostly but rain and farrier too), and all three horses had been lunatics in the field the last couple of days for no discernible reason.

He was nearly vibrating walking in and when Dusty and Wyatt came tearing out of the house to play with the dogs barking madly and Wyatt screaming in delight, well poor Doofus lost what little control he had. I hurriedly grabbed at the quick release on the cross tie as the whites began to show in his eye and he threatened to come apart at the seams. In the process my precious saddle hit the dirt and I just about lost it.

And a month ago this all would have translated to a tense hot mess of a ride. He would have shaked that head, curled behind the bit and cantered off to nowhere all while screaming for his friends. And I would have become tense and frustrated myself. Probably had some tears and or choice words about him and ended it by stomping back to the barn.

But not this time. This time I buckled down, forced the knot to release in my stomach and ride anyway. Even while I walked him to the arena to lunge and the thought “I’m going to die” ran through my head.

He lunged ok. A bit wild but listened promptly to all my transition requests and didn’t pull on the line one time. I could see him thinking about it but he didn’t and I was so proud of him for that.

When we returned to the arena fully tacked up, I felt the energy radiating off him and briefly questioned my life choices but you know what? As soon as I mounted he sighed into the work. It’s like he was waiting for something to do.

All antics stopped. Sure he was still a bit quick and reactive. Sure he tried to canter a few times when all I wanted was a trot but it was all acceptable given his high strung nature that night and not over top like in rides the preceding months.

I’ve found that working on the halt is a great warm up for him. The first time he always tries to blow through me and I have to get a bit more harsh in his mouth than I’d like to back up the halt aid. Then when I ask him to walk he shakes his head in annoyance at the pit stop. As I keep working on the halt eventually he blows out and will halt with only my seat and legs.

Once that happens I can get to the real work. Tuesday I started with leg yields on the straight and then into a 20 m circle. We are getting pretty darn good with the right bend. I’m really starting to get the feel for timing all my aides. A bend with the inside rein, pushing out with my inside leg while providing a slight squeeze on the outside rein to let him know I mean “over” and not “forward” and then a quickly applied outside leg to keep him moving and not stalling out. It works beautifully when I get the timing down.

The left is pretty meh mostly because my left leg still has Alzheimer’s and is pretty useless. I’m beginning to wonder if I had a stroke and didn’t know it. The difference in strength is almost embarrassing, but I’m working on it and I know it is me and not him.

In the past, when he has felt this energized I’ve gotten tense in the trot transition due to his propensity to shoot off like a rocket and ignore me. Or I avoid it and call it a day with walk work. Tuesday I forced myself to put away the past and do it.

The first time he started his annoying head shaking that let’s me know he wishes I’d go screw myself and let him be a wild horse galloping on the range. A half halt put him in his place though and I began work in the trot.

It wasn’t perfect. I let him veer off my planned path too many times, he tried to canter some and then eventually used a half halt as an excuse to halt.

But I worked through it, didn’t get emotional, didn’t let him bully me and after a much shorter time than usual he settled and we ended up having some really great work. I felt good enough to pop him over a jump as a reward before working on the canter.

The transitions are getting a lot better. Less rocket launch and more controlled which allows me to start the canter with control versus hanging on for dear life a few laps. He is getting more balance and more strength and able to canter slower and more deliberately which is way more enjoyable to ride.

My biggest issue in the canter at the moment is his decision to take all half halts as a true halt. I need to remember to add leg which is hard when I’m trying to use the half halt to slow but when I don’t he stops. I need to remember to use all my aids. It’s hard folks.

I got off him an hour later not feeling defeated as in rides past. I dismounted with elation. I rode. Really rode. I used my brain to work through things. He met me half way and came ready for work. Neither of us are perfect or advanced but we are growing as a pair finally and it is the best feeling. The future is getting brighter and brighter.

Tuesday night Gemmie was taking her sweet time licking her bowl out after dinner. Since the grass is now back in full force, they have all been reduced to a mere handful of the ration balancer. She isn’t particularly pleased by this turn of events and has taken to very pointedly licking her bowl for a full 5 minutes after she is done to prove a point that she is starving. You’ll see shortly that is she anything but.

I grabbed H’Appy and Dusty took Pete and we walked them out to the far pasture across the driveway leaving Gem to her anger licking. Wyatt was out playing in the yard. Dusty and I left the pasture and started walking back towards the barn to get Gem and put out the morning feed.

We stopped in our tracks.

There was Wyatt leading Gem out to the pasture all on his own without us asking. He had taken it completely upon himself to stop playing, go into the barn, attach her lead, and bring her out for us.

My smile could not have been bigger. The fact that he stopped playing to do chores was mind blowing. The fact that he can get Gem all by himself was mind blowing. Gem is amazing with him. She tolerates his attempts to show her the world, walks in tiny steps avoiding his erratic path, and when he asks her to trot she trots with the teeniest steps imaginable. That mare is worth everything to me. She is irreplaceable.

My heart about burst.

On January 25th, I noted a weird crack in the front of H’Appy’s right front hoof. The farrier wasn’t due out for another three weeks, so I shot him a quick text asking if I needed to worry about it. With H’Appy being sound he said to keep it clean and monitor.

At that next appointment he took a look and said it was doing fine. The hoof hadn’t grown much in those three weeks and he recommended I keep it cleaned out and use thrush buster or similar product. With the near constant rain and the mushy ground, it was a hard fight but it never seemed to get any worse and he was sound.

Farrier was due out again this past Friday and I sent him a text making sure he looked at that front right again. It was lingering and I don’t like things that linger.

I guess somewhat fortunately I was feeling like complete and utter crap Friday after a week of little sleep and a worsening sinus infection. It was bad enough that I bailed at work at lunch time to go sleep on my couch. This got me home in time to meet the farrier who I haven’t seen in about four trims now.

I was quite shocked when I walked into the barn and saw this

Ugh. It made my stomach go squee.

That crack had turned into or possibly always had been white line. I’ve never dealt with white line as Gem has amazing feet. H’Appy not so much.

I asked how this happened, mostly for my own education and partly hoping it wasn’t all my fault. Farrier thinks it’s multifactorial as most things are. Mostly, he came with poor nutrition and as a result poor foot health. He is still very very slowly growing out the hoof he came to me with and it is plain old not healthy enough to fight super muddy gross conditions. Add to that the fact that farrier had to pretty aggressively trim that hoof to cut back the elf slipper shape and relieve the mechanical laminitis that made him lame all summer, and now we had an unhealthy and extremely thin hoof wall standing in sloppy mud.

Basically we were screwed and lucky it was only this bad.

He cut it all out and cauterized the surrounding tissue to prevent recurrence. I’m to clean it and use my thrush buster every other day. There is no chalky substance left and with it being an anaerobic infection, getting air to it alone is a “cure” though I’m not taking any chances.

I thought of KC immediately and texted her that H’Appy wanted to be like Pilgrim. Hence the post title. I’m clever, aren’t I?

The good news here is that he is still sound so I can ride now that I’m back to feeling like a human instead of a zombie thanks to sleeping the entire day Saturday. The hoof is clean and hard and required only minimal resection. Farrier warned me though that with the location his hoof may start to separate and spread outside the confines of the shoe. If I see that happen at all, he is to be notified ASAP and will come out and either do pour in pads to get more weight in the sole and off the hoof wall (hard to do with him since he used to be so sole sensitive) or use clips to hold the hoof together (also hard to do with him since this is the shoe he typically rips off and ripping it off with a clip could cause major hoof damage all over again). Since neither option is a good one for him or my sanity if he should have yet another summer off due to a bad right hoof, let’s just all hope this heals uneventfully shall we?

I’ve ordered KC’s magical Wunderhoof and he will be back on a hoof supplement though nothing will be as good as the spring grass and sunshine we are now finally getting. Fingers crossed everyone that this is but a cosmetic blip on our spring radar. I really don’t know what I’ll do if he is out for the season again this year.

It took 15 years of planning, dreaming, scheming and researching to buy our farm. I had wanted a farm for much, much longer than that. As far back as 10 years old I was drawing barn ideas and pasture plans while in school. Seeing that dream finally come true was….

Deflating.

What?! Am I insane? Quite possibly.

You see, when you work that hard for that long to achieve one simple goal. When everything always led to this one moment. When all your energy, all your decisions, all your major life choices were made in such a way as to lead you here and then it happens, well there is a part of you that goes Now What Do I Do?

Or maybe that’s just me. I’m driven. I work hard to get what I want. I don’t stop until I do.

Last year I took all that energy and put it into working the farm. Mowing the pastures obsessively, keeping the barn gleaming, trimming fence line, edging, moving fence lines. I threw myself into being the best farm manager I could possibly be until I started to resent it. Started to burn out.

The winter was a blessing. It was so darn wet and cold that nothing could be done. Last fall’s tall grasses in rested pastures couldn’t be cut. Fence lines couldn’t be weed whacked. Plans to fertilize the big pasture were forced on hold until we hear from Duke so as to avoid wasting money on a condemned part of the property. Everything came to a halt and I could breathe again.

This year, as the pastures dry out and the spring grass comes in, I have vowed to stop. I am allowing myself to have an imperfect farm in order to enjoy this dream of mine. I mowed the big pasture Sunday and looked around at the sheer immensity that keeping up 30 acres of grass with only 3 horses grazing truly is. Our grass is hearty and grows year round. Something always needs mowed.

But I love it. I love the lay of our land. I love the barn and the old windmill. I love the well house and the fishing pond. I love seeing my horses out my windows. Saturday I spent the day sick on the couch and I looked up as Hubby walked Gem back to the pasture after dinner.

There was my horse walking down my winding driveway to eat grass out of my pasture. Everything I ever wanted.

This year I’m going to enjoy it. All of it. Yes I will still mow the pastures to maintain their health. Yes I will still clean the barn and fix fences. But not to the point of hating the one thing I’ve spent my entire life working for. The work can wait. Life and happiness can not.

Tuesday night I rode again and added jumps back in as a reward for all the hard work he has been putting in on the flat. My motivation has started to sky rocket now that I have some new tools to play with, specific items to fix and day light to ride in.

I expected a few shenanigans, some banshee style screaming and a bit of distraction due to moving the horses out to the field across the driveway that morning. He doesn’t generally like working when he can’t see them.

But you know what I got instead? This:

Huh.

We walked to the arena with nary a protest. He lined up to the mounting block without trying to eat me. I mounted and he stayed chill while I adjusted myself.

Huh.

He walked on calmly yet forward and swinging through his back. He thought about calling out but shut up on his own and got to work.

Huh.

We worked on the concept of leg yielding out on the circle while capturing with my outside rein. He didn’t protest, fling his head or break to the trot.

Huh.

when I did ask for the trot it was rhythmic and slow. I kept my own posting slow and kept my hands down. I didn’t catch myself raising them to my chin one time. He changed direction smoothly when asked and kept steady without a fight. No drama. He never once leaned on my hands. No rooting. No curling his chin to his chest.

Huh.

I pointed him at the first jump which I had raised a hole higher than I’ve ever set them. He thought briefly about lurching towards it, but a very slight squeeze with my outside rein held him in check and he popped over easy peasy. On the back side he asked to canter but listened politely when I said no, we are trotting. It felt like a true conversation instead of an argument. It felt magical.

Huh.

I pointed him to the next jump and he barely even attempted to jump. He mostly stepped over it. We then did the bending line to the other one and he jumped it and I let him canter back to the first which he then jumped.

Huh.

I asked for a few more times over both but it was such a non issue that I moved on and asked for the canter. The canter has always been flat, racy and leaning into the turns like a motorcycle. A little wild. This time he stepped up into the canter without angry ears or a tense jaw and we slowly and politely cantered around in a sedate manner.

Huh.

I let him trot again and then walk. Then we halted and I sat there on him with an idiots grin plastered across my face.

This. This is the horse I bought. This is the horse I kept saying was in there. This horse is fun and gives me wings. Those jumps were nothing to him. I wanted to raise them. Me. Scaredy cat me. Wanted. To. Raise. The. Jumps.

Huh.

I didn’t though. Instead I got off and gave him a lot of praise. Sure he needs more than a 20 minute ride to lose weight and gain fitness but not Tuesday. Tuesday he needed rewarded for being the best good boy. He needed to know that by not fighting, by not flipping me and my aides the bird he could be done sooner.

I’ll ride again tonight and plan to extend it even if he is being awesome. He does need to actually work too. I’ll definitely be needing lessons ASAP if he continues like this because I’ll soon run out of ideas on my own and I’ll need to stay slightly ahead of him to stave off boredom. When H’Appy is bored he will find something to entertain himself. It’s never what I would pick.

We have a lot of work ahead of us. A lot. On his end and on my end. But you know what? I’m finally reaching a point where I’m committed to putting in the effort to make this whole thing happen for us. I know we can get there. Slower than I had hoped but we will get there.

Sunday morning I set out to ride with four homework items in mind:

1. Lower my hands and soften quicker when he responds
2. Slow my post
3. Have a distinct plan and refuse to let him dictate the ride
4. Work on true bend through a circle by leg yielding him out while capturing him with my outside rein.

By the end of the hour I could easily check off every single item and felt like I was walking on cloud 9.

Was it easy? Nope.

Was it perfect? Nope.

Did it feel amazing to start with a hot tense mess and end with a slow, relaxed and supple trot through multiple different exercises? Heck yeah it did!

I was proud of myself for being able to apply what she taught me at home alone. He came out ready for a fight. He was an angry, head tossing and tail swishing Appy. We spent a long time at the walk working on the above checklist.

Keep point # 3 in mind I set up two different exercises with ground poles leaving space in the middle for additional work. This way, I always had something to focus on while not drilling the same thing over and over again.

Exercise 1 was two poles set up to create a circle. I worked on this at the lesson and really liked it because it forced me to continue on the same path and focus on the bend. This is where she taught me to really use a leg yield to push him out but making sure I capture him in my outside rein to prevent him trotting or cantering off. It’s hard work for both of us and we were both pretty tired at the end but by golly did he give me some truly wonderfully balanced and bent circles.

Exercise 2 was a set of trot poles along the long side. Apparently trot poles no longer bother him. For me this is a great exercise to work on straightness after all the bending and using a proper half halt to keep him balanced and rhythmic over the poles.

Exercise 3 was performing a larger circle between the other exercises. This gave me a chance to work on bend and pace while having to control the circle without the benefit of the placement poles and still having visible boundaries.

The three all worked on similar things but were just different enough. I really really enjoyed it.

For the entire ride I bounced back and forth between all the exercises and both directions giving a lot of walk breaks and pats for being a good boy. I also rewarded his work by allowing him to work at large once we had achieved what I wanted through that circuit. So I’d work on the circle over the poles and once I felt he was giving me the slightest bit of what I was asking, I’d let him go straight and we would meander around the arena at large for a while. Not only did he get to take a break from the hard work, but it also kept him moving and working in some fashion. He has this habit of thinking all breaks equals finished for the day and will come back to work really angry and tense. By giving him “breaks” from he hard work by walking or trotting at large and then returning to a new exercise to work again, he kept his head int he game for the entire hour.

At the very end I added a new exercise: go straight over one of the circle poles and continue being straight until the fence, turn right, go around and hit the other pole, stay straight until the fence, turn left etc…

Once he was doing that without any opinions on his end, I called it a day.

We didn’t get to the canter but right now I don’t care. A relaxed and slow trot with him out of my hands is my first goal. Once we get that down better I’ll carry that into the canter.

It’s good to feel like we actually accomplished something together and that I dictated the entire ride without letting him bait me or bully me into straying from my path.

It wasn’t new to me. Being told I post too darn fast. J used to get on me about that all the time. My time with Gem on the trail is mostly to blame. After that many conditioning and competition miles your muscle memory gets pretty honed in. By the time I retired Gem from endurance I could have told you precisely the mph we were traveling based solely on my posting. 5.5 mph….8 mph….12 mph. Spend that many hours trotting down a trail with a GPS watch attached to your wrist and you can’t help but learn pacing by feel.

When we turned to arena work it was the first issue, of many, that came with me from endurance. We careened around the arena in a very happy, forward 8 mph trot. Both Gem and I felt comfortable and at home. Trainer nearly had a stroke.

Slow your posting.

Slow it.

No more.

Feel like you are almost walking.

There.

I heard those words dozens of times in every single ride.

Slow. Down.

When I chose H’Appy he came with a nice slow trot. He meandered around the arena. I felt like we weren’t going anywhere and my internal GPS was screaming “this is too slow! We are only going 3 mph!!!”

Trainer loved it. I lamented that we weren’t going anywhere. She responded that there was no where to go. It was a 20 m circle after all. What was the rush?

Over the months that I rode him I noticed that I was nagging him in the trot. He would be trotting along merrily and there I was asking for more, more, more.

Now he gives me more.

A lot more.

Good boy gave me what I wanted.

Now I don’t want it any longer.

During my latest lesson, C kept telling me to slow down. Post lower. Post heavier. Post slower. And when I did, he would relax, breathe and slow down. He never once broke to the canter.

I knew the issue was me. Fixing him would be easier. Fixing me…well that’s hard work. I can afford horse boot camp. I can’t afford a rider boot camp.

So that is my #1 homework while I figure out what lessons will work out for me. Slowing my body down. Stop asking for slow with my hands and fast with my body. That’s confusing. I imagine he feels as frustrated with me as I was with C and that is not how I want my horse to feel. No wonder he gets anxious and tense. Poor guy got stuck with me as his rider. Sorry buddy. We will figure it out though. I’m committed to that.

It’s probably safe to wager that every single blogger out there has at least one post about trailer loading.

Being stranded with a stubborn donkey is never fun.

I had spent Thursday evening working on trailer loading in anticipation of hauling to the lesson Friday. By the time we finished he was on and off no issue. Friday morning he loaded right up at home again no issue.

Yet there I found myself, confidence a bit shaky, in a torrential downpour with my horse refusing to get on the trailer. It was embarrassing. I almost left him on consignment.

Of course it wasn’t entirely his fault. The rain probably felt wonderful on his lathered skin after that lesson, a giant puddle had formed right at the base of the ramp and some dumbass had parked the trailer in such a way that he had to walk through a tree to load straight. Ahem.

Still though. Flashbacks to being stranded at a trail head with Gem for 2 hours were running through my head.

As soon as the rain stopped, C came over to help and with her at front and me behind he leaped over the puddle and on the trailer the first try.

I’m very good at making mistakes. I hate making them twice.

Saturday I wanted him to have off figuring he’d be pretty sore after the lesson but the trailer was still hooked up so right before dinner I worked on self loading.

My go to set up is as below and it worked wonders for getting Gem to load. She never got to self loading status but I also never tried. I was happy she even got on it.

The first time I led him on to show him it was the same as the past two days and he walked straight on. Good boy.

Then I hooked up the longe and grabbed my dressage whip. The only thing I dislike about this set up is that he can still swing to the near side of the trailer but I figured that was his problem and he could figure out how to load on an angle if he was going to be stupid about it.

It took about 15 minutes before he was on and off like this with me standing outside the trailer.

I gave him a long grazing break and then hooked up the regular lead line and worked on him getting on with that.

The first time he tried to bulldoze through me which earned him a good smack with the whip on his shoulder. He didn’t try that again.

Maybe 5 minutes later and he was a self loading machine. I took him in for dinner, grabbed the other two, groomed everyone and then on the way back to the pasture we worked on it again.

He had retained it well and was getting on all by his lovely self with a few clucks from me. His best feature is how well he retains things. Hopefully this will prevent future issues with loading.

A big shout out to my Hubby who listened to my tirade Friday afternoon and talked me off the ledge.

You know what really gets me? Right before the lesson started I was feeling so so so proud of H’Appy. He was being such a big boy and was really looking to me for guidance which is a brand new thing for him. I’ve been working really hard on the ground to instill that and when we arrived at a brand new place it all came out and I couldn’t have been happier.

To go from that to…I don’t even know what best describes it….defeated, angry, frustrated….is a real shame because guys he was such a Big Boy to begin with.

I’m not even sure what all to go into. I had sent a text to C Thursday after work confirming our lesson for 130 the next day. She asked if we could move it up to 11 and that was fine by me. We texted a while back and forth and then finished it with “see you tomorrow”. A prior text even said the date: March 15th.

I arrived at 1015 to have plenty of time to get my bearings and walk him around and work on ground stuff if needed. I sent her a text when I got there asking which arena we would be using. She asked why I was there because we had agreed on Saturday. I quickly looked back at all my texts and nope. Clear as day said Friday the 15th. She wasn’t around and said she would be late and also had to do office stuff before we could begin. What? Apparently this isn’t uncommon as the barn staff shrugged and said that’s just her.

I took the time to walk him around the grounds and he was amazing. He never called out. He never pulled or balked. He walked calmly beside me sniffing all the arenas and footing. I even took him into the indoor to walk around as well.

Eventually I got on around 1045 to warm up. He was a bit amped and distracted and it took a few walk halt transitions to reinstall the breaks but after only 5 minutes he was relaxed and swinging freely. I even trotted and while the first few transitions saw a lot of head flinging sass he quickly got to work no fuss.

And then we waited. And waited. And waited. It was close to 1130 before she showed up and by that point he was done even though I had even gotten off and chilled for a solid 15 minutes.

We spoke briefly and then got to work and that’s when things went downhill.

I do wonder if he recalls his old lesson horse days because I swear as soon as someone enters the arena and stands to give directions he immediately tenses and gets pissy. He is always worse during a lesson than when I’m alone. I’d blame me but by the time we got started I was way past being nervous and into being annoyed and rather bored. There was no tension left in me at all.

So anyway we got started and it wasn’t pretty but he settled and we did a nice figure 8 around two jumps. She then added two ground poles on one diagonal on a curve and two on the other half of the 8 straight and had us working over those too. He had moments of tension and moments of glory and overall it was actually going pretty good work wise and I was enjoying the exercise. Some things she told me were in direct opposition to what I had been told by J in the past (J wanted the outside rein steady around the circle and to soften the inside a lot whereas C told me to loosen the outside and hold the inside) but I was being open minded and willing to learn.

From there we moved to four trot poles straight down the short side in the middle of a circle of jumps and he must have recalled the ride earlier in the week because he was good through that exercise too.

We finished with some pretty craptastic canter work to call it a day.

And while all that sounds really great, the nitty gritty of it was anything but. You see, I was trying my best to do everything she was telling me to do yet every time I would do it I would get yelled at.

Example:

She told me that I let him hang on my hands too much. I needed to lower them (yes I very much do need to stop raising them to the ceiling) and if he started leaning I was to throw the contact away and let him deal.

Ok.

We went around the circle and he started pulling hard and trying to take over. I softened and threw away the contact to let him deal.

And then I got yelled at because I wasn’t using a very strong half halt and I was like but you told me not to and she said I needed to.

Ok.

Another example.

I was going through the straight four trot poles and then turned right. I went around the jumps and did it again. I turned right again. She told me that I was being too repetitive and needed to switch it up.

Ok.

Next time I turned left.

She criticized me telling me I’m too haphazard and have no plan and that I do things too different each time. I was always going right so why change and go left all of a sudden?

Um…because you told me to?

And it kept going like that. I’d try to do exactly what she said, sometimes a lot more effectively than others, and then she’d yell at me for doing it. It was all very frustrating.

The other thing that really confused me was right at the start. She got on me and told me I’m too annoying talking to him all the time. I need to be quiet. Now J always told me I was too quiet and to talk to Gem more and H’Appy thrives on near constant praise. I told her that but she said I basically needed to shut up.

Being open minded, I did. Each time he would do something super well I’d bite my tongue and watch as he grew anxious. He did the right thing but there was no reward and when I’d ask again he got angry until by the end he was flipping me the bird.

But if I tried to praise, I got yelled at.

At the very end she told me he was too fat (he is but he is losing it steadily) and needed to be in work 7 days a week and oh by the way she has a spot open for full training if I wanted to leave him and begin right away.

Sigh.

No thanks.