Month: December 2019

The barn is slowly getting renovated/remodeled and with each step forward I am falling more in love with it. The first major project was putting on a new roof as the old one was leaking significantly. Once that debacle ended, Dusty was able to re wire the barn and get all the outlets functioning once again. The last project we did was to cement the barn aisle and get rid of the 6″+ of loose, fluffy dirt that poofed into the air with every step taken and coated everything including all my tack in a fine layer of dust within 30 seconds. Once those projects were done, it was on to the fun stuff.

Currently I am using the old show office as my tack room and it is working out ok. It is small, but has a door and a ceiling to keep the dirt out. The issue is that most of the space is occupied by a large work bench, an old fridge, the electric panel and a ladder up to the loft which take up 3 of the 4 walls, limiting my options for organization. The actual tack room is down the aisle a little ways but has been sitting unused because a) no ceiling b) no door and c) rotten floor boards from previously leaking roof.

Well, it was time to finally start turning that room into a usable space again so that I can move my tack out of the show office and turn that into Dusty’s workshop. The first fix was easy: remove the rotten floor boards and put down new ones. We needed to remove the top most wall board for the next project, so Dusty re-purposed those for the floor.

The bigger issue was the ceiling. Thankfully, Dusty’s brother is an engineer, super project savvy and was coming down with his family to visit us after Christmas. The trip turned into a group effort to build a ceiling which turned out better than I ever imagined and was also a lot of fun in the process. There were a total of 10 of us, though Wyatt floated in and out, and it took us from 7 am – 5:30 pm to get the job done and everything cleaned up.

This is not a DIY how to because I’m not an engineer and I am not project savvy. I refused to use any of the power tools so I was relegated as the official measurer , carrier of heavy things, and cleaner upper, but I did pay close attention to what we were doing, asked a lot of questions and learned a lot along the way. I’ll do my best to summarize how we went from an empty space above our heads to a gorgeous, custom made drop ceiling in the span of about 10 hours, but don’t go trying this at home off this post. I’m sure I’m leaving things out and I don’t know the correct names for anything.

The first step was to create a frame around the top of the wall. I asked why we removed boards just to add new ones and was told that the new boards were bigger. This was super quick.

From here, it got a little tricky. We needed to put up metal brackets that would hold wooden beams that spanned the width of the room. The room was not built square, which wasn’t surprising, and we had to get them all parallel and level or the panels wouldn’t work. We used a laser leveler, lots of measuring and some ingenuity to get this part figured out.

While those smarter than me were doing this job, I was out in the barn aisle helping to create the beams that would sit in the brackets. This was really fun and also not something my brain would ever have been able to conjure up. We took the measurements that the boys shouted over the wall at us, cut the board to length, then added a second smaller board to the top of this one, cut it 2″ shorter and screwed it on. This created a T shaped beam that would sit inside the bracket and have a lip to hold the panels.

Once all the beams were done, they were screwed into the brackets.

While the boys were on ladders (another task I refused to do) a group of us headed over to the table saw I got Dusty for Christmas this year and began cutting down large plywood panels into smaller rectangles. The center 24 were easy to do as they were all the same shape, but the short sides of the room were not square so six panels had to be cut with one end wider than the other.

One final last set of boards needed to be added to the frame work before we could move on. A small 1×2 was added under the T beams to create a more finished look.

Phew! We were nearly there. This next step took forever. Two boards were needed length wise, perpendicular to the T beams to create the proper grid framing for the panels. In order for these boards to sit well, notches were cut out of the T beams. We had discussed doing this while making the T beams, but the fear was that if they were off at all once the beams were installed, it would look awful or not work. So….the guys cut the notches out over head while installed. Not a job for me.

From there it was attaching the beams through that notch to finish the grid

Then we had to take measurements of the openings along the two short side walls. Since the room is not square, we had to make adjustments to create panels that were wider at one end to fit properly.

We all let out a cheer when the final panel slid into place and we had a completed ceiling. It was a lot of work but with a great group of people all pitching in, it was fun and went by fast.

Dusty needs to install new lights since the ceiling went below the height of the old ones but I haven’t decided what I want yet so that is on me. I plan to spend New Years Eve and Day staining the panels a dark brown and painting the beams white to finish it off.

The next step for the tack room will be to create a door which is proving more annoying than we thought. The opening is an odd size: too big for a single door, too small for double doors so we are weighing our options on that. Once we have a sealed in room, it will be on to organization and then moving everything in. Its a large space, so I have plenty to work with and already know the basic gist of where I want things on which wall. The biggest issue is that I really don’t like having everything on the walls in the open. No matter how organized it still looks cluttered and messy to me, so Dusty has been tasked with building a wall of lockers so my saddles and bridles can all be behind closed doors for a much cleaner look. That is going to take a while to do though, so in the meantime we will make a trip to Ikea for storage ideas and use temporary saddle racks that I already have.

I can’t wait for the tack room to be finished. It will be a great renovation to the barn and one step closer to having it all done.

While I’m confused/miffed at Cambox for doing whatever it is they are doing, life is still pretty darn good and chugging along.

Eeyore has been on his best behavior for all rides post the FGF HT debacle, so maybe he has learned a thing or two about not being a turd to start and conserving energy.

The number one goal right now is finding that line between him hanging on my hands and backing out of the contact altogether. Trainer gave me some awesome tips, starting with sit the frick up and stop letting him pull me down with him. Shocking I know. I’ve been really working hard at this and it has made a huge difference in his response to me.

It’s still a work in progress as now he is taking to using any contact as an excuse to stop moving his feet and curl his chin to his chest. Lots of leg is needed to keep him moving when he gets bunched up like that but I think we are making some headway.

I also didn’t break his pleasure in jumping as I feared I did. We’ve been working on a mix of dressage stuff and then a few jumps then back to dressage to break it up. I need to jump more often to get the muscle memory of my flow with him and to keep my confidence up. It seems like every fence grows 3’ when I haven’t jumped in a while.

I don’t want to over do it though and this combination of back and forth is working for both of us at the moment. The real reason I got so many blocks and poles is to build an easy to put up/take down dressage arena inside my jump one. Dusty wracked his brain for a way to make this possible without spending 3k on a true arena. He came up with using jump blocks to elevate poles off the ground, calculated how many we’d need for each side and then ordered letters that stick in the ground as well. The theory is that I can build the dressage court when I want it and take it apart to set up jumps when I don’t. It won’t be perfectly 20m x 60m, I think it’s a foot or so off on each side but it will be close enough. It was an awesome, thoughtful and creative gift that gives me a lot of exercise possibilities. No excuses now for bad geometry.

Trainer has been off having a life in another state for the holidays and I am not so patiently awaiting her return so I can get back under her expert eye. The Pessoa bit she wants me to try is still on back order, ugh the story of my life right now, but as soon as that comes in I’m excited to try it and see if it helps bring him up in the front end. Or at least prevents him dropping down so much in front of a jump.

Nothing else super exciting to report. I’m trying to see if I can get Trainer to ride him at Windridge in Feb. Originally I was going to be out of town that weekend, but the place was booked and I had to postpone the trip a couple weeks. This frees up Windridge though and Dusty is off so fingers crossed Trainer isn’t busy that weekend and can get Eeyore some confidence boosting show miles for me.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season and the ever so slightly longer days if you squint real hard.

What. A. Year.

2019 can best be summed up as a year of transformation for me. I am not the same person now as I was to start the year and while I still have a ways to go to be the person/rider I want to be, I’m a heck of a lot closer than I was and I am really proud of that fact.

I started 2019 questioning pretty much everything with horses. Did I make the right choice in Eeyore? Should I keep him? Is eventing even the right discipline for me? Am I a good enough rider to do this? Am I brave enough?

By the time the spring rolled around I knew I needed some outside help and began looking for a trainer that I felt comfortable with and would work with me and my hectic schedule. It took a few misses and until the end of May before I found Trainer AB and my whole world changed.

I first rode with her on May 31, 2019 and from the very first minutes of that ride I knew everything was going to be alright. Hard and scary at times, but alright.

Trainer AB has completely transformed me as a rider in ways that I have a hard time explaining. Sure my posture is better. Sure my timing of the aides is faster. Sure I don’t lock my elbows as much. But those aren’t the important ways that she has changed me.

At the beginning of 2019 I was a reactive rider both physically and emotionally. I was scared and being scared makes you a bad rider no matter how tall you sit up and how loose your elbows are. Ground poles created anxiety and anything raised over 6″ off the ground threw me into cardiac arrest. I lacked the tools I needed to deal with his exuberance of energy at the beginning of the ride and then lacked the tools I needed to deal with his insistence that he was dying near the end of the ride. And because I was fearful, I’d overreact and end up punishing him unduly or let him get away with things in fear of picking a fight and it escalating.

Now I’m no longer afraid. I’m no longer afraid to insist that he does what I ask. I’m no longer afraid to put my leg on and grab mane. I’m no longer afraid to push my own limits. Sure, I’m still a wimp. I don’t like big fences and 2’3″ is giving me heart palpitations sitting here thinking about. But being a wimp and being afraid are two different things and my definition of being a wimp is changing. Where I once felt that 12″ was too high, I now have my heart set on getting around a 2’3″ course without looking like a complete failure. And I will own a starter xc course this spring.

I have a lot to work on still. I need to sit up and stop curling into a fetal position. I need to grab more mane and stay out of his way over the bigger fences. I need to figure out how to get him out of my hands but still in the bridle. I need to work on our bend forever. There is so much to learn. I’m finally in a place where I can learn those things and I have a great team of support behind me to get there.

I’m really excited about 2020. I have a trainer I adore, a horse that I love to work with, a supportive family and a big, big dream to conquer the starter division at a schooling HT before the summer lull hits. There is a lot of work to do before then and for the first time in a long time, I feel ready to tackle it all.

One of the biggest lessons I learned this year is that while you can technically do eventing alone, it is a whole heck of lot easier and more fun to do it with a “tribe” (I still hate that word) at your back. No way would I have done either of the HTs this year without the support system around me. Sure we failed at the second one, but even failure is easier to swallow when your Trainer texts you with a plan of action and reassurance that it was only a bump in the road.

Trainer AB has spun my world on its head and I am loving it. Here’s to more personal growth in 2020!

Emily from May As Well Event posted a great picture challenge on her blog to post a picture from each year of the last decade as we enter 2020. I’m hopping on this one!

2010

Enter Gemmie. This is the picture from the day I brought her underfed, wormy, sorta ugly body home to a boarding barn in Ohio. It was January 2, 2010. I can’t believe it’s been a decade. Also proof that I wasn’t always a wimpy Southerner and did in fact once live where it was cold and snowy.

2011

My first ever endurance ride! A 25 mile limited distance outing in all the wrong tack and all the wrong clothes. Fun fact: this was the first time I ever rode Gem solo on trail. Another fun fact: We finished in 8th place in a huge field but I didn’t know best condition was a thing so I packed up and went home. We were living in WI at the time and I was in my first year of residency.

2012

Still in WI and now a second year resident which meant life got a lot better. We snuck in a fall trail ride before the trails closed for the year. It was gorgeous.

2013

We had moved down to SC that summer and Pete was still a riding horse. We got a babysitter for Wyatt and hit up my first hunter pace. It was gorgeous and I was addicted from the get go.

2014

Somehow I managed to go all of 2014 with a cell phone and didn’t get any pictures of me on my horse. I did my first 50 mile endurance ride on Gem this year finishing middle of the pack and happy. This is her in camp the day before the ride.

2015

This was followed closely by a February 50 mile endurance ride. I love looking at these pictures and remembering how much Gem ate up the trail. She loved endurance. It is also pretty neat to see how all my gear changed. I was now in an endurance saddle, tights, light weight mesh half chaps, a halter/bridle combo, and sporting a hydration pack. It took me a long time to hone in my endurance equipment.

2016

Long time readers knew this one was coming. I’ve used it a lot. This is from the 100 mile endurance ride I did at Biltmore in the spring. One of the best days of my life. Gem was so happy and on it all day long. We finished middle of the pack and she could have easily kept going had there been more trails to do.

2017

This was the year I hung up my endurance gear and picked up eventing. The above picture was taken while we waited to go in for our dressage test in an amoeba level CT at Full Gallop Farm. We ended up placing in the ribbons which still shocks me. You can see quite clearly why this was the one and only CT we ever did. Gem hated everything about being an arena horse.

2018

Gem retired and Eeyore joined the herd mid 2018 and then immediately went lame. I don’t have many riding pictures from this year since most of it was spent sidelined while he grew his hoof back and I found a farrier who knew what he was doing. This was right as he came back to work before the year ended.

2019

It was hard to pick my favorite from this year. There are so many I love. I think this wins because even though my equitation is awful, I had been petrified of this pipe jump to point where I was shaking. Yet we went and did it and now I’m doing combinations with two pipe jumps and have added a rail on top. Trainer has changed me in ways I can’t even explain.

Thanks Emily for the awesome trip down memory lane.

This is my absolute favorite time in blogland. The gift posts are the best of the entire year and I get just as excited to see what other people get as I am for my own box to arrive.

Olivia from Hellomylivia with the most wondrous Frankie sent me the nicest gifts this year and I love them all.

First is the note which is super cute.

Maybe someday my Orange Butthead will be like her Frankie and I’ll start calling him a unicorn, but until then I’ll keep this stuffed one as a reminder of where we are going.

Eeyore will eat up the Mrs. Pastures in a flash and I’ve been dying to get my hands on a Tiger Tongue and see what all that bad boy grooming tool can do.

Thank you Olivia!!!! Everything is perfect and I hope you and your loved ones all have a wonderful Christmas.

Thank you all for your kind words and support yesterday. It meant the world to me.

For starters, I’m not giving up on my eventing dream due to one bad show. We had issues, sure but deep down I know we can conquer starter level. Eeyore is capable and I am capable. We just need to be capable on the same day.

I’ve been running different ideas through my head ever since packing up and driving home from the show and I think I have a decent enough plan to start with.

First, I want Trainer AB to take him to his next show. Possibly at Windridge in February if she is available. Eeyore needs a big confidence building outing and she is the better one to do that for him than I am. Getting him some show miles without me in the irons will go a long way to ease my own concerns when it comes to leaving the start box. Plus it will give her a better idea of how he feels throughout the show so we can come up with a more solid plan of how to manage him. Right now he gets too amped up for dressage to go well, but then can lose too much to make it all the way to the end.

Second, we need better fitness. This time of year is the absolute worst for working on this. Yesterday it rained all day again and the 10 day forecast shows half the days with over a 50% chance of significant rain fall. It makes for sloppy conditions and a lot of time off with no indoor arena available for use. Still though there are options. Even walking trail rides help build good strong abs and butt muscles and if there is one thing I know how to do, it is leg up a horse. Eeyore is getting slated for some long, slow miles on trail on bad days and faster miles on good ones. Hopefully come spring we are both in better shape to tackle this sport.

Third, I have some spare change from selling my Bates and I’ve been toying with the idea of sending him off to Trainer AB for a month of full training, but I think taking more lessons is a better use of that money. When it comes down to it, I’m the weak link here and having someone else ride my horse won’t fix me. With a limited horse budget the money has to be well spent and I think right now it would be better to try to finagle at least one lesson a week, if not two, with Trainer AB for the next month or two until it runs out. January and February are my slowest months at work due to deductibles starting over again. I typically don’t do surgery which frees up every Friday. I think I can sneak in a lesson every Wednesday night at the local barn she comes to then add a Friday lesson at her place as well. This should help with fitness too but more importantly, it gets me on him in front of her eyes much more frequently.

With more education on my part and better fitness on both our parts, I think we can come out swinging better in the spring of 2020. Eeyore does enjoy this game quite a bit when he isn’t half dead and sore. He isn’t a horse who digs down deep to find his next gear when the going gets rough and I’m fine with that. I don’t need a brave horse that will get us killed and I have no dreams of upper level eventing. If I ever make it to BN, I’ll be thrilled. He does have it in him to do starter though and I really want to do it, so my eyes are set on a redemption outing in mid to late spring 2020.

By the time I entered at A Eeyore was the most rideable he has probably ever been. Of course he was sore and exhausted which I didn’t really pay attention to at the time, but still he was rideable and I had a good feeling about the test.

My only goal for this phase was to go in and ride the test this time. I didn’t want to survive it. I wanted to ride it.

And to that end I’m actually quite pleased. When he lost his focus outside the arena, I dragged him back. My circles were larger and more round. I asked for bend and while we didn’t achieve at home levels, we were much closer to what we can do than the last time. I was more proactive about slowing him or bumping him up and he felt much more even paced because of this.

Other than him breaking from the left lead canter early (a warning sign of what was to come, this horse never chooses to stop cantering on his own) I really felt the test rode 100x better than our prior attempt. I was super proud of Eeyore and myself as we left the dressage court.

In reality, it scored 1 point worse than Jumping Branch with a score of 39.7. It was fair though. We got 7s for the left trot circle, left canter transition and right trot circle. I got dinged with a 5 for the break in the left canter circle and then another 5 for the return to trot afterward with the comment “could be more supple”. Other than that it was a bunch of 6s and 5.5s. End comment was that he needs to be off the forehand and is a bit braced and stiff into the contact which happen to be the main focus of our flat work these days, so yup. Spot on judge.

I had about an hour before stadium which gave me time to put him in his stall to rest a little while I showed Dusty the xc course and he made a plan of where to stand to get the most fences on camera. At Jumping Branch I had gotten on too early before stadium, so this time I waited and gave myself 20 minutes of warm up time.

And this is when I knew we were in trouble. I had Dusty set up a small vertical and Eeyore just sorta plopped over it from a trot and refused to canter on the backside. We did it again and he was better but the horse was half asleep and not wanting to move. He cantered away from the fence for about 3 strides before putting on the brakes and asking to be done. This from who generally gallops off into the sunset after each fence. Typically once he gets pointed to a fence, he lights up like a Christmas tree and tackles it with obvious glee. Not this time. This time he put in the smallest effort possible and with a glance over at the massive looking course we had before us, I knew this wasn’t going to be pretty.

Now here it gets a little confusing. The course looked huge to me. It was supposed to be 2’3” but it didn’t appear any different than the just finished BN division and nobody had seen anyone change the height. I asked the steward to make sure it was in fact set to starter and was told that it was the lowest it was going all day and to go when I was ready. I popped him over the vertical again, asked the steward yet again about the height and then assumed I was just being a wimp and entered.

What ensued was a bloodbath.

Rumors after said it was still set to BN height especially since some of the people entered in starter were seen jumping a much smaller, simpler course though when I asked about it I was told they were doing amoeba and it was correct. I don’t know. What I do know is that Eeyore and I were over faced. We were not prepared to go from our prior experiences of tiny verticals with no fill at our last starter outing to a beast of a course that was 90% oxers, overloaded with fill and brightly colored. I’m not saying the course wasn’t fair. I’m saying we weren’t prepared for the massive jump in questions we were asked.

I’m posting the video here but be nice folks or I’ll haunt you all in the afterlife. It’s embarrassing and ugly and if I wasn’t such an honest person I’d hide it.

I came in to the first fence, which had a huge wall under it and was a wide oxer, backed off and Eeyore said “no thanks”. My fault. We came again and he pogo stick jumped it then proceeded to do the same until jump 5 which was finally a plain vertical. On my end I got left horribly behind and had a hard time figuring out my own body as he would come to the base under powered and behind my leg, then ask to stop, I’d add more leg and he’d launch over at the last second. I couldn’t get in sync with him which didn’t help his confidence at all.

Jumps 5,6,7 went pretty well but then 8 was another heap of ugly and coming to 9 you can see him take some not good looking steps on his front left. We eeked it out over 9 and 10A/B to finish with no rail and 1 refusal, but folks my horse was done. Fried. Kaput.

Cross country was immediately to follow and I had a bad feeling about it. What little fumes Eeyore had been running on were long used up after the efforts he put in to not kill me in stadium. His mental health was shaken by my poor riding and Dusty said he saw some bad steps on his front left.

I headed to cross country hoping the longer stretches of cantering would help loosen him up and we got counted down.

There were three jumps on course I was worried about. A palisade at 4, a scoop/coop option at 11 and massive table option at 12. The rest were logs, cabins, a fake ditch, straight through the water and a down bank.

Well, we came out of the start box and I knew I needed more power so I got him in a canter and he said no. He ran out to the left which I knew was a possibility since the right was blocked by the BN fence. We came again and the same thing. A third time and we were done.

The start guy yelled that I could still go on, so I did thinking maybe it was that fake log/tootsie roll thing that had him backed off. A violent no in a sloppy muddy hole right before the jump told me we were done for the day.

And you know what? I wasn’t upset at Eeyore. I told him he was a good boy. Thanked him for the effort he had put in during stadium and walked him back to his stall to drink while I grabbed my dressage test and packed up.

Eeyore may be a lot of things, but he is honest and brave and loves to jump. Him saying no like that was about as loud as he could make it that he didn’t have it in him to do it. I could have been more forceful and he may have gone over but why? There was no way we were going to make it over 12 jumps that way and the footing was sloppy and slippery from all the recent rain. All I could think about was him getting hurt. He saved my ass in stadium over the hardest, highest course we had ever done and I was thankful for that.

As far as I’m concerned we did the best we could on Sunday. The decision to work him Saturday was based on past experiences and recent life choices and it ended up biting us in the butt. I do think that had I not done that, we likely would have completed. Or at least made it past fence 1. I won’t make that mistake again. Easy fix. We were also outfaced in stadium. The leap from amoeba to starter was bigger than I anticipated and while I know we can do that height, we need a lot more work before I do another full course at that height in competition.

Eeyore got bute in his dinner Sunday night and will have a few days off. Dusty examined him closely and believes he is just muscle sore. Hopefully that is the case and we can get back on track quickly. I have a lot of thoughts of where to go from here, but thankfully none of them include giving up. I know we can do this, we just need more time to get us both on the same page and a better base of fitness.

So….yeah. That didn’t go according to plan. But you know what? It all boiled down to a wrong decision I made on Saturday compounded by a few things Sunday and well, I can fix that easily enough.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed because I am. Who wants to be eliminated at the first fence of cross country? Eeyore was a good honest boy though and I’m proud of him for what he did and I know we can tweak some things and come back and try again.

The original plan was for Trainer AB to meet me at the show around 8 am Sunday morning. We’d do a xc school while the course was still available and then she’d help me during the show. Unfortunately she realized the next day that she already had some lessons scheduled on Sunday and wouldn’t be able to make the show. Which was fine. It was very last minute planning.

We discussed the best plan B. The working data we had was that he had been a psycho the day before and morning of Jumping Branch and it had taken nearly an hour to get him listening and still he blew through me for most of the dressage and stadium. That was after a pre ride the day before and another one the morning of. Add to that the fact that every single ride since then has been dedicated to slowing his roll. Then add to that the fact he had been inside the prior 24 hours due to the freezing rain conditions and well we both thought it wouldn’t be terrible if Trainer AB came to my place Saturday to ride him. Get him off his forehand a bit. Get him tuned back in. Wear him out a little.

She worked on flat work for about an hour and came away with a ton of good advice, tips and future ideas. It was a great experience for all. Except…..

Sunday morning Eeyore was exhausted and muscle sore. I never would have guessed it but I suppose she had him really working his butt and abs and he had earned those sore muscles. He was malleable and easy to ride at the show but I had zero horse under me the entire day. He was half asleep and sore and then I made some more wrong decisions.

The xc course was still open when I pulled in at 830am but when I checked in I was told I needed a grounds person which I didn’t have. Dusty and the kiddos were coming closer to my ride time, so I spent the extra time walking my courses a few times and getting the lay of the land. It was a really chill atmosphere with only maybe 20-30 or so riders the entire day and a lot of room to warm up.

Since I hadn’t gotten the xc school in I had planned, and still working off my prior experiences with him where it usually takes a solid 40 minutes to get him to stop breaking into a canter and chill out, I got on him to warm up at 1130 for a 1237 start time.

Yeah. Not a good idea.

I worked him w/t/c at large and on a 20 m circle until he relaxed and was listening both directions and then looked at my watch and it was 12. Womp.

He was done. More than done in fact. I hopped off him and chilled by the dressage court until they told me I could go early at which point I mounted again, did a few more trot/canter/trot transitions to make sure he was tuned in and then headed into the dressage ring 15 minutes before my scheduled time with an easy to ride horse under me who was running on 1/4 tank of gas at this point.

I felt bad knowing he was over worked from the day before and my insanely long warm up ride. Nothing I could do at that point though except enter at A and get going with the day.