Author: Amanda

farrier · stupid human tricks

Best Laid Plans

Amanda2 Comments

After a weekend out of state visiting family, I had a routine medical procedure Monday morning. It was supposed to take 5 minutes and leave me in mild discomfort; it took 35, was excruciatingly painful, and my body crashed pretty hard afterwards to the point that my doctor drove me home herself on her lunch break. (<3 Vermont)

So I did not ride on Monday. I did not move from the couch until late Monday night. I woke up Tuesday morning feeling waaaaay better, though I slowed down through the day, and planned on a road hack. I got to the barn to find out Tristan had attempted vivisection of his left hind hoof, as seen below.

Luckily the farrier was there and finishing up with another horse and said he’d look at Tris next. Score. While waiting, I watched a lesson and seeing another rider sit the trot made me queasy – no riding for me after all. Farrier cleaned up the foot and declared it ugly but not worrisome. He’s mixing up gunk for me to apply until it grows out just to be careful but it already looks way better.

Today I am feeling well enough to for sure go for a hack…and it is pouring. We’ll see if it keeps up until I get off from work, but seriously, universe, I would like to ride my horse.
dressage · lesson notes

Lesson Notes

Amanda1 Comment

Second lesson on Tuesday, and it went really, really well. I think the 30 minute spots are a perfect fit for us right now: I have him warmed up, we zero in on a few specific issues, and then I have homework.

Warmup was a bit rocky on Tuesday, as he was hopping about rather than go forward, so I stood up off his back and urged him into a canter for a few minutes, and focused on staying forward and straight rather than anything he was doing with his head.

When R. came up for the lesson, we started by testing the response to driving aid exercises we’d been drilling and she saw huge improvement. Not perfect, but already much sharper off the aids. So now that we had laid the forward-and-straight foundation back down, we added flexion back ion.

She talked about something I’d never really parsed for myself before. If the inside rein is responsible for flexion, then there are three types of inside rein that can help achieve that flexion. The first is an indirect rein – a subtle lift and shift of the inside rein more toward the outside rein, while brings your elbow back behind your shoulder. Second was direct rein, which is straight back. Third was open rein, bringing the rein away from the horse’s neck.

Indirect rein is more for collection, is more subtle, and is a lighter aid. Direct rein is, well, more direct, and in Tristan’s case in particular I have to be careful not to kill the motor when I use it. Open rein is more for greenies who are just learning to steer (and also for oh $h!t moments on XC, I should think…).

We worked on a 20m walk circle and re-established flexion. Tris settled in beautifully, thankfully showing R. that instead of the lazy lunatic who slams into walls as in our last lesson, he does have a dressage pony in them. Within a stride or two he flexed beautifully into the inside rein and filled up the outside rein. We’re not talking FEI collection, here, but he recognized and executed the concept beautifully. We repeated at the trot, and worked through a rough patch tracking left – he is hollow to the left and over-eager to fling his shoulders to the outside. So we applied a few strides of counterbend, release, inside bend, release, counterbend, release, and he worked through it nicely.

Then we worked on layering in a half-halt for more collection into that outside rein, once he’d filled it up. R. doesn’t like to use the term half-halt when teaching because she feels it places too much emphasis on the “halt” – it’s more of a half-go, or as she calls it a connecting aid. I’ve always thought of a half-halt as that guy in the old phone commercials – “Can you hear me now? Good!”

So we broke the half-halt down into its component parts: forward energy, inside flexion, outside rein, and release. In the perfect, imperceptible half-halt these all happen practically simultaneously. I’ve never been that coordinated and in the past my half-halts have been an approximation of this but I’d like to take this opportunity to really nail them. So then we worked half-halts on the 20m circle at the trot.

One of the most useful concepts R. gave me while we were working the half-halts was about recycling energy. That’s essentially what a half-halt does: if you feel like your energy/collection level is at, say, a 2, then your next half-halt should be at a 2.5, and think about loading the hind legs, increasing the collection, etc., up to that 2.5. Then go for a 3 on your next half-halt. The idea being you’re always asking for a bit more with each half-halt and that you aren’t “leaking”” energy in between (or at least hopefully not). I am thinking of them a bit like a catalyst, too – you’re checking in, you’re putting a finger on the connection, and when you’re asking for more dressage collection you use it to recharge the battery, but if you use a half-halt out on XC or in the jump ring, you’re asking for a re-orient – “here, the jump is here, let’s touch base, let’s re-form ourselves to tackle what’s next.”

Tris was a bit tired even after that short lesson, as he used his back and hind end waaaaay more than he has. Our prescription is 10-15 minutes of this work a day for the next stretch and then we’ll check in again and take the next step. We’ll also make sure we get plenty of road hacks in there, too. 🙂

competitive trail riding · road hacking

Trail Pony

Amanda2 Comments

I’ve been focusing on ring work with Tristan, doing our homework from our lesson: responsive to driving aids, maintaining tempo, putting him forward into the bridle rather than riding backwards. We’ve been trying to get forward-without-fast in the canter in particular.

Sunday I went down to GMHA to volunteer again for P&Rs for the 25/25/50 CTR ride that Hannah wrote about here. Gorgeous, perfect day, wonderful horses, and I got very wistful about being out and about. I think Tris would be a great CTR horse. I’d like to be less homebound now that he’s back to 100%. I’ve been dragging my heels on this more than a bit – I haven’t re-registered my trailer in Vermont (10 months later…) and it needs a check/inspection. My savings still haven’t quite recovered from his surgery and vet bills, but I hope soon – maybe September – to get up to that. There are some GMHA rides coming up that we could swing.

On that note, last night I got to the barn after a full day of work on my day off and pulled out our jump saddle and we hit the roads. We did mostly walking, some trotting on flattish sections, and all in all spent about 45 minutes doing about 3 miles. Probably 85% of it was some kind of grade, some of it quite steep indeed. On the flat and lightly sloping sections where we trotted, he really settled into a nice big road trot, and while I took a firm grip on the reins he never offered to canter; he was just motoring along.

We finished with a bit of a hand gallop up our favorite hayfield hill, and one benefit of riding in the jump saddle was that I could do a proper gallop position and bridge my reins which seemed to give him a flashback to conditioning for events last summer. ZOOM. For the first time, too, I had to pull him back when we cleared the pasture instead of urging him forward until we cleared the fenceline.

physical fitness (human)

Small Victories

AmandaLeave a comment

Lip update: sloooowly getting better. Swelling almost all the way gone, but still stiff and bruised. Now looks about 95% normal. Pain level is about comparable with the most painful zit you’ve ever had on your lip, and I still can’t drink normally which means I have now dripped iced coffee on three different pairs of pants this week. Which I’m sure is information you all needed to have.

I’ve been doing barn chores for the primary reason of earning lesson credits, but my secondary reason was to continue getting back in shape. I had 11 months off, too, and the stress of moving and starting a challenging new job meant that I have been consuming way more than my fair share of carbohydrates. I’ve been baking too much bread and then eating it all, is the real problem here.

So I was very pleased to discover yesterday, while carrying heavy book boxes around at work, that lifting them was far easier than it was a month ago. I’m also marginally stronger while doing chores, and while my legs were a bit sore when we started cantering they’re not now, and I’m incorporating more two-point work for my own fitness.

I am still struggling with adding in additional exercise – we have a recumbent bike at home that I was using regularly for a while, but not so much now – but it’s good to feel the little work I’ve been able to manage making a difference.

farrier

Onward

Amanda4 Comments

My lip is way less swollen today, though it is just painful enough to be putting me in a low-grade bad mood all day, which I really didn’t need.

I’ve been a bit quieter otherwise because I went through a very frustrating few days with Tristan. I arrived at the barn last Thursday to see that he had new shoes, and that we went back to glue-ons. Hooray for new shoes, uh-oh for glue-ons. I texted the farrier to check in and ask if Tris had behaved or if they’d had to tranq him again. Farrier said yes, tranq, and he hadn’t really behaved and that he’d go over it with me in detail when he was back from his trip.
I checked in the next day and chatted with the barn manager who had been there for the whole escapade. Tris started acting up right away, so they gave him a bit of sedative, and he got through the RF that way, which was by far the more complicated and tricky one to do – farrier had to clean out the abscess cavity and then refill it with epoxy/glue.
When they did the LF Tris got progressively worse, and they added a bit more tranq. The tough thing about glue-ons is that at a certain point in the process the horse can NOT put his foot down or it will not dry properly. So Tris started breaking through the tranq at that exact wrong moment in the process and the farrier held on.
Tris responded by laying down. Yes, you read that right. He laid down on his shoulder in the crossties, and when the farrier let the foot go and stepped back, he laid down in the back too. And didn’t get back up. He laid there glaring at the barn manager and the farrier – as a friend described later, “like a toddler throwing himself to the floor and holding his breath.”
So the barn manager held his head and the farrier took off the not-set-right LF shoe and trimmed it back a bit. Tris tried to get up a bit while he was doing this, but the barn manager was firm and kept him down, and after the minute or two it took they let him back up and backed his butt into a corner.
And then he was good as gold for every second of the entire rest of the trim. Like it had finally filtered through his brain. I’ve semi-affectionately called him my 2×4 horse in the past, but this might take the cake.
Farrier and barn manager are consummate pros, and they both went out of their way to assure me that their read on him was never fear, aggression, or anything dangerous – simply stubbornness and a massive case of the don’t wannas – which he is certainly more than capable of! He has not shown the slightest inkling of reaction to the whole thing in the days since: still good as gold to handle, and I have turned his feet every which way looking at his new shoeing job. If anything, he seems happy to have new shoes, as he is landing a bit better since his feet had grown out quite a bit.
I apologized profusely to them and they told me there was no need, they still thought he was great, and they  have every confidence that he has finally gotten the message. I took him outside and walked and trotted up and down many hills until he was puffing as a productive way to vent some of my frustration, and then I went home and cried and cried. I hope that he really is progressing now, but I don’t know what to do anymore.
chores

Ugh

Amanda4 Comments

My life right now can be summed up by the first 15 minutes of my barn shift today: barn manager hurt her back and is immobile, other helper did not show up, and then a horse and I had a disagreement about his fly sheet. I was standing in precisely the wrong spot and he swung his head into mine with enough speed and force that I saw stars.

I finished putting the sheet on him, staggered outside, hunched over, and spat many, many mouthfuls of blood into the grass.
The good news, 5 hours later, is that we got help with stalls, and the spikes of pain in my skull are a dull ache. Also, no loose teeth, and I have a really spectacularly impressive fat lip with swelling up to my nose. So at least I have proof? I tried to take a picture but none of them really came out.
Sigh.
dressage · dressage tests

"Throwing" a Class

Amanda2 Comments

I clicked on the title of this COTH thread thinking I was going to read some gossipy chat about high stakes dressage classes and underhanded betting schemes.

Instead, it’s a discussion of whether or not it’s okay to randomly start riding whatever figures you feel like in the middle of your dressage test, if you feel that makes the ride better. Say, you feel like a 10m circle would really help out your right bend, so if it’s okay to just throw one in. The OP frames the question as schooling show with a tense horse, so that helps maybe a little bit, but I am utterly horrified.

No. No, it’s not okay to start riding whatever you feel like in the middle of a dressage test, even if you’re okay with getting dinged for error of course. That is not the point of a dressage test, which is a proscribed series of movements in specific places and specific times, one leading to the other. The transitions are part of the test.

Not only is it missing the point, it’s incredibly, staggeringly rude to the judge, to the show organizers, and to your other competitors. It’s wasteful of the time and effort everyone has put in to craft a schedule, to choose tests, and to put on the schooling show in the first place. I have scribed for many, many dressage tests and if I ever saw someone randomly dropping in additional movements just because they felt their horse needed it, I would be confused and pissed off, as would every judge I’ve ever worked with.

Now: are there situations in which you can essentially school in a show ring? OF COURSE. Here’s the difference: you have a conversation with the show organizers ahead of time. You say, we’re having a lot of trouble with the show atmosphere; would it be possible for me to ride my test just before a break, or during a break, or at the end of the day, or first thing in the day? You make it clear that if things go drastically wrong, you might need to stay in for a few extra minutes to school and fix it. You are polite and courteous and you don’t just do whatever you feel like.

I’ve done that. I’ve asked to go back in the ring at the end of the day. I’ve completely, utterly blown a test and, knowing there was a gap after me in the schedule, asked if I could go back in the ring and work it out for a few minutes. Most schooling shows are totally fine with that; it’s what they really want to do. In fact, I’ve scribed for judges that have sent me as a runner after a horse and rider that just exited the ring to ask them to come back and work in the ring for a bit after they’ve had serious problems.

But just deciding to ride something different on the spur of a moment? No. That does not make you a considerate rider who’s just doing the best for her horse. It makes you a jackass.

Uncategorized

Best Pony

Amanda2 Comments

I’ve said for some time that Tristan would be a really terrific little kids’ pony someday. Yesterday, I was able to test that theory.

Friends came to visit and stay for a few days with their two year old. On their last visit, we introduced B to Tristan, and he did a little bit of petting and dropped a peppermint in his bucket. I gave him a small Schleich horse that he promptly named Tristan (or, more accurately, “T-Man”). Since then it’s become one of his favorite toys and when he visited his grandparents in Amish country a few weeks ago he very excitedly pointed to horses in the fields and informed his grandparents that his Auntie Amanda had a neigh-neigh too, and he would get to pet and ride it when he visited.

So we went to the barn, and B helped to groom him a little bit, and then I put a bridle on and sat on him bareback for a few minutes while B watched. Then B’s mom got on and sat on Tristan at the mounting block, and then we put B up in front of her. I had Tris take a few steps at a time (“step up” is one of the best vocal commands I ever taught him) and then we were off at the walk. B’s parents stood on either side holding his hands, but eventually we transitioned to B holding the reins and a bit of Tris’s mane and I taught him to say “walk” and “whoa” and to ask for left and right. All told, maybe about 10 minutes but he grinned and giggled the whole time. Victory!

I could not possibly have been more thrilled with Tristan. He stood stock-still at the mounting block, flicking his ears back and forth and paying verrrrrrry careful attention to what was going on. He was obviously deeply concerned about the new little person on his back – not in a frustrated or upset sense; he placed every foot sooooo carefully, and was clearly analyzing every balance shift B made to try and help him out. I’ve noticed this tendency before when my boyfriend has ridden him. Some horses react to inexperienced riders with frustration; Tristan tends to get very concerned and go even more slowly and carefully. He is the absolute best horse I ever could have asked for. I’m so, so proud of him.

Maybe, someday, when I have my farm and my life is a little further along, my own kids will learn to ride on him, too.

show planning

Goals

Amanda1 Comment

I had spent a few days reflecting on my story with Tristan in case R. asked questions about our background. We have a few key points that I tell people – he was wild until he was 4, unstarted until 11, and 97% of his rides have been done by me. (In fact I was trying to make a list of anyone who’s put substantial time in saddle in on him, and only three people have ridden him above a half dozen times. I’m the only one who’s ever ridden him more than a dozen times.)

We talked a very little bit about that but it was the first question that I – foolishly – had not prepared for.

“What’s your goal?”

I was stumped for a second, and in the moment I said, “I want to enjoy my horse. I’ve had him for almost eight years, and he’s the love of my life. Maybe we’ll get out eventing again someday, but I have no concrete plans for that right now.”

In the days since I’ve been thinking more about this. If you’d asked me that question one year ago I would have said: compete recognized at Beginner Novice, and maybe someday complete a Novice Three Day.

Those would still be lovely things to achieve, but in almost eight years together we’ve been derailed from them many times, and now Tristan is 18 and I have a hugely demanding job and no extra cash flow. For all that I am intensely ambitious and goal-driven in every other part of my life, I’ve never been as competitive with my horse. I want us to consistently get better, and I want him to be healthy and happy.

Maybe, by the end of the summer, when we’ve been on track for longer, I’ll feel differently. But right now, I’m content to keep him in work and keep plugging along.