Author: Amanda

2012 show season · groton house summer classic · lesson notes

Lesson Notes: Consistency and Following Aids

AmandaLeave a comment

So I’ll be honest: I was more than a little nervous about Tuesday night’s lesson. Though all signs pointed to Tristan recovering completely from whacking his hoof on Saturday, and I felt that I’d acted appropriately in treating it, even his brief bout of unsoundness from the abscess has me paranoid.

He came out his usual self, sticky and fussy in the warmup but giving me good moments, and once he settled in we were right back where we had been. I focused on leg yields in the warmup, asking him to step over without rushing, without blowing through the outside rein, and with bend. It took some time, but after a few good leg yields our overall suppleness increased.

Our focus for the lesson was on two-way communication and consistency, maintaining a length of rein that allowed me to feel his mouth constantly and not giving quite so much in reward. T. talked about how the getting there aids are different from the maintenance aids. I need to be focusing more on the latter now. Instead of constantly picking up and dropping the connection, I need to find the bridge to keep the connection all the time.

There were some really, really nice stretches in there, when I felt that we were completely and totally engaged with each other, my aids were spot-on and instantaneous, my core was fully engaged, and he was working with me instead of evading or fighting. There were also some uglier moments. The canter might – maybe – be finally coming along, creeping slowly toward balance and self-carriage.

We also ran our test for Sunday, Beginner Novice B, aka “when in doubt, cross the diagonal.” Ugh. I didn’t like it any better riding it than I had reading it, but there are some nice moments in there for us. The canter transitions at X, however, do not help at ALL. T. liked it overall and praised my accuracy, but my rhythm was off. Our half-turn to the final halt was great, but I blew it by rushing the halt, which meant we overshot G and he landed crooked.

Tonight, we’ll work a bit in the back fields with his new bell boots, I’ll get started on packing/prepping the trailer, and we should be good to go for Sunday. We go dressage at 8:06 (second ride of the whole day), stadium at 10:54, and cross-country at 11:04.

cross-country · scarlet hill farm · video

Scarlet Hill Photos & Videos

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One of the benefits of having M. “squiring” (his word; apparently grooming sounds boring) was that I got to hand him a camera and document the XC school. There are only a few photos after the fall, alas, because he kind of freaked out, but so it goes.

First up, two videos. The first was our first attempt at going forward after a jump, which resulted in the little bucks there. The second was our second try, with me keeping his head up and really sending him forward. I like the second one better, for obvious reasons!

 

Second, a few photos. I’ll post them in order with my thoughts.

 Warming up, with a little bit of a run.

 I like our distance. I do not like my upper body, or my release. My crappy release will become a theme.

So the goal was, after landing off that jump, to get a good head of steam up, make a wide turn, and head back over the same jump. In this picture you can see my biggest and most constant challenge galloping him: keeping him straight, especially through his shoulders.

 Better, more forward jump! Even worse release and upper body.

Better distance, good forward jump, a bit of height…holy crap my release sucked.

 
And then, the jump that undid us. You can see two things here: how I was angled and off-center, and the slight shift in Tristan’s body that is him thwacking his RF. (Actually, three things: I’m leaning, which is why I’m about to eat grass.)

So then we rebuilt our confidence with this little jump, over which he is much scopier and centered and I am not leaning quite as much.

abscess · cross-country · falling off · lesson notes · scarlet hill farm

95% Perfect: Cross-Country Schooling at Scarlet Hill Farm

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With Tristan completely sound for a dressage ride on Friday night, we went up to our scheduled lesson at Scarlet Hill Farm on Saturday. The trip went well, and we got there with plenty of time to tack up and walk around a bit.

We started the lesson with a bit of trotting and cantering around, and then some small and medium-sized jumps singly. Denise pinpointed our problem almost immediately: Tristan tends to land from cross-country jumps and think he’s done, often coming back to a trot. Part of it is his laziness, and part of it is my fault, leftover from his grab-the-bit-and-run days. In order to build a rhythm out on course, though, and to really work on his galloping, we’ll need to figure out how to land, kick it up a gear, and then come back for the approach to the next fence, all strung together and repeated.

So our task for the first 20 minutes was to get a good, forward approach, land, and gallop off straight. I was to make a really big, exciting deal out of going forward, straight. We’re still dealing a bit with his tendency to fling his shoulders every which way as an evasion. As Denise put it, if he’s going sideways, he’s not going forward.

For the first jump with this strategy, I cantered him up a hill, really zeroed in on the jump, landed, and immediately cheered him on forward – so he threw a party on the landing, as they say, dropping his nose and throwing in a few bucks out of excitement. He’s only done that a handful of times, and I couldn’t stop laughing. He’s still Tristan, so we’re talking mostly speed bump bucks that he stopped as soon as I pulled him up. We tried it once again, and this time I kept his head up and urged him forward, and he found his galloping gear a few strides out. The idea is that teaching him to land and go forward will also help improve our approach, and improve his scope as a consequence.

We then put together a few jumps, in some nice big loops of the field, and I was happy with everything except one piece of my own riding. I didn’t find as many places as I wanted to get off his back, for a few reasons. One, I’m not in the kind of shape I want to be in, and didn’t feel like I could both balance and ride effectively. Two, related, when I got off his back I didn’t have the kind of connection that I wanted in order to keep him forward; dropping back into the saddle helped me bring him forward and up – and then put me in the right place to gather him again for the fence.

Then we strung together six jumps in a row, in a big wide circuit. The first three went beautifully, and after that we had a bit of a downhill run. He was feeling a bit fresh, and a bit off-balance, and at the foot of the hill Denise had given me the choice between a BN-sized jump that was a bit spooky, versus a jump that she thought was 2’9″ or 2’11” – definitely Novice-sized – but rampier and much more straightforward. When I looked at it from up the hill, it also looked like the line would be easier, the turn wider and flatter.

However, I hadn’t anticipated being off balance from down the hill, and I both backed him off a little too much – feeling too fast, though I really wasn’t, and also a bit in my head, as it was bigger than anything we’d jumped yet – and didn’t get my line, angling him a bit to the right and not really channeling him straight over.

We still would’ve been fine save for one final thing: he dropped his right front leg ever-so-slightly and caught his hoof hard on the 4×4 on the top of the jump. Again, still fine, except this was the foot that had just abscessed, and I’m sure dinging it that hard stung like hell. He landed, went OW, and stumbled hard – never falling! – but just enough for me to be thrown forward on his neck. I had a moment or two of trying to save it, and then decided to bail, rolling over his shoulder and landing shoulder-hip-head. I completed the roll and went straight to my feet, to see him hopping around and not even wanting to put the RF on the ground.

I had a moment of sheer panic and checked over the leg – no hair missing, no scuff on the boot at all, and then I saw a scrape on his hoof. Denise made it down the hill, and we stood him for just a second, then walked him about, and then I got on and walked and trotted him for a second. It had clearly stung like hell, but wasn’t any kind of permanent problem. We then proceeded to walk and trot a few times over the smaller barrel fence, the “spooky” one (he didn’t care) in beautiful form, and then we went up to play in the water, just in case his foot did start to ache again.

He did GREAT at the water, everything I could have hoped for – went right in, trotted around, trotted in and out. Then we put together another small course that involved jumping out of the water over a small long, looping around a few small jumps, and dropping back into the water over the same (barely 12″) log – which he’s never done before.

Again – GREAT – and not only that but he jumped out of and dropped into the water SO WELL. Like a pro. Set himself up for it, didn’t launch, didn’t hesitate, slowed down but only a hair, and I was so stinking proud of him. Unfortunately after that loop his foot really was achey – sound at the walk and trot, but clearly not quite up to galloping and jumping. I asked if we could pop him over a ditch while we were there (he has never indicated any signs of being ditchy, but I wanted to cover my bases) and we did so.

As Denise pointed out, he was jumping much better and more cleanly after whacking his foot. She said wryly that it’s a tough lesson, but sometimes they need a bit of a wake up like that. He even got close to cracking his back and getting scopey over a little red house jump. It’s really too bad that he started getting sore again, because he was starting to go really well, but I got everything I wanted out of the day, and we’ll be back next month for more.

He stood quietly to get untacked and bathed, and I rubbed liniment all over, including his RF hoof and sole, figuring why not? When we got back to the barn, I settled him in and soaked his RF again to get some of the sting out, then gave him bute and asked the morning feeder to give him more. That, plus some rest, should put him right as rain.

In the meantime, I am off to Dover to get myself a new helmet (it was due anyway, 3+ years old and dropped a few times) and him some bell boots to go cross-country in from now on…

abscess · cross-country · groton house summer classic

Declaring Victory

AmandaLeave a comment

Tristan walked and trotted sound on the longe line on Tuesday night, and when I examined his foot, there was no pus at all. We’d been going back and forth on whether the pus was some sort of weird moist environment reaction to the meds in the poultice, or whether it was drainage. The poultice had dried thoroughly and stayed stuck to the bottom of his foot during Tuesday, even though he lost the rest of the boot, and so created a mostly-sealed environment. No pus inside that means I am confident that it was drainage after all.

Wednesday night I rode, and while he felt all sorts of stiff and hinky, he also felt even in the way he struck the ground, which T. confirmed, through the walk, trot, and canter. It makes sense that after a week off and on stall rest he wouldn’t feel great. I stayed on long enough to confirm to myself that a) he wasn’t sore in his feet at all and b) his whole-body issues were related to the stall rest, and I could feel how to work through them. I didn’t want to push him too far and make him sore after being still for so long. I soaked his RF one last time, since I was there anyway, and took his “DO NOT TURN OUT” note off his door.

C. checked in on him last night to clean out that foot, and reported that while he was sick of having his feet messed with, he looked good otherwise. I’ll go down tonight and focus on stretching and straightening and working him through and getting him ready to go XC tomorrow.

Not an ideal place for a lesson – mentally or physically – but I feel good about his soundness, and I will present our challenges to the trainer before we begin. If he shows signs of soreness or it’s not going well, we’ll pull up. I do hope we’ll be able to school productively, though, as this is our confirmation/confidence-booster before going BN at the Groton House Summer Classic next weekend.

2012 show season · abscess · adventures with the vet · not-so-quiet-freakout · show planning

Sound (ish) again?

AmandaLeave a comment

After five days of soaking and poulticing, last night I put Tristan on the longe line and he looked sound at the walk and trot – a bit fresh, even. I soaked and poulticed one last time, and left instructions to keep him in today.

Tonight, I’ll tack him up and see how he feels under saddle. I’ve also put a call in to the vet to clarify. He never had what I would call significant discharge from an abscess; he had white pus in the cleft to the left of his frog, but I’m not sure if it was from an abscess or some goo from the poultice.

Here’s the real complication: the farrier looked at him on Monday, and his opinion is that Tris is just all-around footsore up front. He said he couldn’t find any particularly reactive spot on the hoof that would indicate abscess, and believes Tris should go in front shoes.

I am really reluctant to do that, for a variety of reasons. He’s never worn shoes before, save for the six week experiment with bar shoes before we turned him out. He’s certainly worked more often and for longer than he is working at this point in his life, though not at the level of difficulty/athleticism that he is getting to now. The vet both a) pinpointed problems to the RF and b) did a set of radiographs to check sole depth, and was happy with that sole depth. Last but not least, I can either afford to shoe him or to event him this summer. There are not funds for both. If I don’t event him, I don’t need to shoe him. If I event him, I can’t afford to shoe him. It’s a nasty little Catch-22.

In the meantime, we’ll see. If he’s sound to ride tonight, I’ll soak again, and check on Friday night. I’ll check in with the vet and see what she says about the footsore/”good depth of sole” debate. I need this XC school on Saturday as a last run before Groton House, but if he’s not sound – he’s not sound, that’s that.

Fingers crossed.

abscess · adventures with the vet · not-so-quiet-freakout

Baby’s First Abscess

AmandaLeave a comment

So…I haven’t yet managed the rest of the Hitching Post writeup. Life intervened. This week, life intervened in the form of Tristan coming out of the stall for his Tuesday night lesson and, within a few seconds of walk work, getting very, very lame. I have never ridden a horse that head-bobbingly lame. So cue panic attack on my part.

I was pretty sure I’d felt a bit of heat and swelling in his right hind, and T. said he thought RH or LF, so we started cold hosing the RH. Then we added soaking. Then I hit my wall and called the vet out for Thursday afternoon – I was flying to California for a wedding on Friday morning and needed more certainty before I left.

The vet flexed him all four around, and saw him lame on his right front. Then she determined that he was very very sore to hoof testers, and he was very noticeably off on the longe line, and suggested radiographs of both fronts just to make sure, and to check his sole thickness on the RF.

Both front feet looked ok on the screens, and she palpated his RF fetlock to kingdom come. Everything combined pointed to an abscess in the RF, so his protocol was soaking, poulticing, bute, and stall rest.

I’ve never soaked or poulticed a horse before, so that was new. He’d stood ok for his soaking of the RH, but was a holy terror for the first soak of his RF – soaked me, the barn aisle, and basically everything but his foot for the first 10 minutes. He was much better for his second soaking, and was fine for the poultice.

Then I flew to California, and had a series of small breakdowns, one of which ended in messy tears, about abandoning him, especially after I ran into some obstacles nailing down a Friday night helper. Luckily, we have a lot of very, very good people at the barn who are helping take care of him. I’m still out in California today, but flying back Monday night and get to finally help take care of him myself.

I’m helping a friend with her toddler on this trip, and exhausted, and my coping skills are not good after the roller coaster week, so of course I’m having huge anxiety problems about my responsibility or lack thereof as a horse owner, about how he’s in pain and I’m not there to help him, and until he actually starts draining I’ll be nervous that it isn’t really an abscess. I’m also worried about our scheduled XC school coming up next Saturday – that was supposed to be our prep run to go BN at Groton House. Next Tuesday is my withdraw-without-penalty date for Groton House, so I have to decide whether to chance it.

Oh, and the vet bill? Let’s not speak of that. There goes the beginnings of my savings for a new car.

2012 show season · beginner novice a · dressage tests · hitching post farm · video

Hitching Post Recap: Dressage

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…and then life intervened, whew. I haven’t even turned on my home computer since Monday, much less been able to work from it.

Back on track. Tristan woke up on Saturday morning disinclined to participate in the day’s activities. He paced his stall, followed me around while I cleaned it around him, had hoovered up his grain but was fussing too much to really eat more hay after that. I cleaned his stall as best I could – he’d tracked hay a fair bit, next time I’ll know and bring a hay net – and put him on the trailer. We got to the grounds about 6:50. My goal was to get on by 7:30.

Thank goodness I had some help getting him ready, because he would. not. stand. still. He’s typically a little fidgety in new places to be tacked up, but this went beyond the pale. He was flinging everyone who hung onto him every which way he could. Eventually we got tack on him, but it took three times as long to do a running braid in his mane – and unfortunately it looked terrible – because I couldn’t get a grip with his flinging about.

He was a hot ticket in his warmup too, and I fell into my typically nasty trick not wanting to put leg on because he was so reactive. Please understand that Tristan’s reactive is an order of magnitude smaller than most horses; I prefer him that way. He is spooky and light so rarely that it unnerves me when he is. I can out-stubborn my horse all day long, but as soon as he gets reactive, I feel like I’m riding a horse of spun glass and hesitate to apply firm aids.

Luckily, T. talked us through it, and pointed out that when I actually put my leg on, firmed my reins, and rode him, he was going nicely. If I’d had another 15 minutes I might’ve really settled us in, but the warmup was not terribly productive. We moved down to the secondary warmup and did some trotting. I opted out of cantering down there to avoid problems with the little kids on ponies without steering.

I felt good about him once he was in the ring, though, and overall, was happy with my test. He was responsive and mostly willing. The first left canter circle was terrible; sort of a 15 meter egg shape instead of a proper circle. After the free walk, though, I felt great about everything. I knew we’d nailed the free walk, which is one of Tristan’s favorite things, and I felt great about the right trot circle and then, bless him, he gave me an right lead bang on cue. My halt wavered a bit but I waited until he’d settled and gave a full, proper, measured salute.

(Pet peeve: riders who slide into a halt and nod and fling their hand out to the side in .25 seconds while their horse is still jigging. I halt, confirm he’s settled, put down my hand, half count, put down my head, half count, and then bring both back slowly. Then I look at the judge, then I drop the reins.)

The judge said it was a really nice test, and T. said afterwards it was really quite pleasant. He has said in days since that Tris wasn’t carrying any tension at all in his hind legs, and really produced a nice, rhythmical test, which was great news. Though I didn’t know it at the time, we scored a 32, with an 8 for the free walk and, astoundingly, an 8 for gaits. Thanks to my hare-brained wavering during the halt, we got a 5 for that – apparently I managed to completely miss X.

One of the barn moms was kind enough to email me a few days later and say that she’d videod the second half of Tristan’s test, so here it is for posterity. It starts with that lovely free walk.

2012 show season · hitching post farm · not-so-quiet-freakout

Hitching Post Recap: Friday Journey

AmandaLeave a comment

Historically, I am a white-knuckle hauler. I have an overactive imagination, a slightly cranky pony, and an older rig. Add those things up and usually the most stressful part of going anywhere for me is the ride there.

I spent last week getting ready for the trip. Water was done by Tuesday; I wrote and re-wrote a shopping list for the tack store to replenish supplies; I wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote an overall packing list and a tight schedule for Friday morning.

Mostly, all went well. I was out late Thursday night finishing packing and cleaning tack, but it all got done, and I was in bed by 12:30.

Alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. on Friday and I was on the road a little before 7:00, where I hit tons of traffic, which put me about 30 minutes behind my carefully mapped schedule, which was where I stayed for the rest of the morning, alas. Friday’s activities included a short trail ride, a bath for Tris, then a run out to pick up shavings, a new pitchfork, and on impulse buy, a broom just for the trailer. Total: $50 (!?!?). Then a swing by the grocery store for some food and ice for the cooler, then back to the barn, where I probably could have gotten on the road by 10:45, only 15 minutes behind schedule, but the rest of the barn’s trailers were waiting to all go together, so I figured I’d join the caravan.

Granted, I left the caravan behind almost immediately; as it turned out, they all took a totally different highway route. I was relying on my old standby college route, 95 to 93 to 89, which went just fine. Getting off the highway to the farm was a bit strenuous, as at one point I missed a turn, pissed off the GPS, and had to cross a river on a single-track industrial bridge that looked like its underpinnings had all been washed out by Hurricane Irene and then replaced with potholes and occasionally some gravel. So that was less than fun.

We still arrived at Hitching Post a good 15 minutes before everyone else, though, and I set out riding things while waiting for everyone else. When they arrived, we all tacked up and rode together in the ring to loosen the horses up and get them used to the environment. It was also a little mini warmup ring experience, complete with choking dust clouds. Tris actually felt great, so we only worked for about 25 minutes or so to keep his brain in his head and keep him loose, then hacked out for a bit, down to the stadium ring and put his nose on a jump or two that were not part of our course but served to familiarize him again with the idea of XC jumps.

I put him back on the trailer and we walked the XC course. I took photos, which helped my nerves later when I had a bit of trouble falling asleep – I reviewed the course on my camera a few times and talked myself through a course walk. I’ll post them when I recap XC. It was a cute little course, not a gimme, with some nice questions and a water crossing. I started mentally preparing myself for a refusal at the water crossing, but also walked my line a few times and focused hard on thinking about keeping him straight and moving.

We also walked the stadium course, which was a little odd, a little tricky, with lots of different combinations to it. Then we headed over to the farm where we’d stable overnight, which was an utterly charming little farm with a 165 year old barn and gorgeous pastures. Tris settled in immediately, and I threw him hay and filled his water; he ate and drank normally and loved his end stall – he could hang his head over the door and look outside or watch what the goings-on in the aisle. I groomed him for a while and squared away my truck while everyone else groomed and braided.

We all went out to dinner together, which was really nice, and then when we came back we topped everyone’s water and I threw Tris some more hay to keep him content overnight. He drank quite a bit of water at the farm, which was fantastic; he’s usually not a good drinker while away from home. I also picked out his stall to make it easier for myself the next morning.

It was really nice being so close to him overnight; I could wander back over in my pajamas and give him a kiss goodnight, then tuck myself into the backseat of the truck and review my course for the next day. I was out cold by 10:30, which was really  nice.

2012 show season · lesson notes · show planning

Lesson Notes: Rhythm and Consistency

AmandaLeave a comment

I’ve known for some time now that Tristan’s best dressage scores would come not from flashy movement, or superior training but from consistency and accuracy.

Last night, we took some great big steps toward achieving a consistent forward rhythm throughout our ride. I started out focusing hard on keeping him relaxed through his back right from the first step, and slowly, slowly ramped up his walk work. In all, we had easily 20 minutes of walk work in which I gradually asked him for more, took in more rein, and stepped him through his hind end more.

That paid off almost immediately in the trot. As T. commented, Tris has definitely been flashier and moved better, but he’s never maintained such a solid commitment to the bridle from his hind end throughout. He had good activity and maintained a sense of forward. I was trying to keep two things in mind for my leg: one, not to nag, but instead to be a constant presence and to make individual leg action purposeful and quick; two, to anticipate his ducking out moments and remind him that he had to maintain, not back off, when asked for more bend and more roundness.

The payoff were a dozen or so strides at a time, in a few separate instances, in which all of a sudden the activity and spring and swing in his hind end increased exponentially. I was a bit caught by surprise, as I think he was: all of a sudden there was a lot more to deal with. I tried to mostly stay out of his way, keeping the reins very light and keeping my leg on while not asking him to do any more than what he was doing.

We ran through our test – Beginner Novice A – for Hitching Post this weekend, and T.’s only criticism was that I’d botched some of my figures, and made roundish squares instead of proper circles.

After the ride, I filled up the water buckets for my trailer and spent some time organizing my new travel trunk. Tonight, I have a shopping list at Dover, I’ll organize my trip paperwork, and create a final packing/schedule list, and tomorrow, we’ll have a conditioning ride and I’ll finish prepping my trailer.

conditioning · not-so-quiet-freakout

Conditioning Miles

AmandaLeave a comment

So here’s sad: I’ve spent about the last day and a half wondering why my calves are a bit sore.

Then I remembered that I spent about an hour in the half in the saddle on Saturday. Oh yeah…

Really good ride overall. Nothing fancy. Friday night we went for a long hack, and Saturday we did conditioning sets. Schedule went something like this:

20 minutes walk
10 minutes trot
5 minutes walk
10 minutes trot
5 minutes walk
10 minutes trot
5 minutes walk
3 minutes canter
5 minutes walk
3 minutes canter
cool out w/ trail walk

I was pleased with both his willingness and his fitness. I’m enjoying that point about midway through the second trot set when he clicks in and settles down to business and starts to tick right along. By the time we picked up our third trot set he was really enjoying himself, stretching into the reins and giving a nice big strided gait.

This week, we prep for our first overnight show, at Hitching Post Farm in Vermont. I’m getting a bit nervous. We’re entered at Grasshopper (tiny baby jumps) so the show itself shouldn’t be particularly stressful, but I am not a good traveler with horses. I worry, constantly, even more so when it’s my own horse. I worry about packing, and about hauling, and about settling in, and on and on. I’m working on packing lists and timetables and have emailed everyone to confirm everything, but I won’t be settled until Tris is home in his own stall on Saturday night.

If all goes well, we’re due to move up to a schooling show at Beginner Novice in late June, after a few cross-country schools and dressage tests.