driving · sleigh rally

Green Mountain Horse Association Sleigh Rally

Amanda12 Comments

The Green Mountain Horse Association, or GMHA for short, is a really special organization. They steward hundreds of acres of horse property in South Woodstock, Vermont, and host dressage, eventing, hunter/jumper, endurance/trail rides, and driving year-round. Their barns, offices, and other outbuildings are wonderful, and they are set in some of the most beautiful country in an already beautiful state. I’ve never been to another facility quite like it (and that includes the Kentucky Horse Park).

Yesterday, Hannah and I met up to spectate at the GMHA Sleigh Rally. We weren’t sure what we were getting into – other than a stated goal of seeing some cool sleigh driving – but it was an incredibly special day. We saw most of the classes through the day, and I couldn’t stop staring at the gorgeous horses, gorgeous sleighs, and seriously fancy outfits. I remain a bit mystified at what they were judging – class list is here, if you’re interested – but it was cool to see. Some basics carry over across sport: even driving horses ran the gamut of engaged, obedient, coming through their back, etc. Some things confused me a great deal.
In short: amazing day. If you are even remotely close to GMHA – and we met people who drove 3+ hours to spectate – I can’t recommend it enough. We even got lucky with the weather: sunny, clear, and no wind, comfortable weather to stand outside for 4-5 hours even if it was in the high teens/low 20s.
On to the pictures!

The last of the light. Note Hannah taking video in the middle ground. 
The streams at GMHA are pretty even in the winter.

I don’t know if the above picture really captures the utter gorgeousness of that particular sleigh, and how seriously fancy the horse was with his matching not-quite-quarter sheet.

I was absolutely enthralled by the way the trailers had been modified to hold carriages and sleighs. Every one was different.

This pony’s name was Mr. Wee. I am so not making that up.

Look closely. Yes, yes that is a greyhound in a top hat and Baker sheet rocking the sleigh dog class.

These guys came out of nowhere and absolutely crushed the Currier & Ives class. There were audible gasps in the crowd when they drove over from their trailer to enter the class. It was the only class they did all day, I think. They clearly came to win!

This pony’s name was Edward. Look closely. There is a Corgi wearing a scarf in the sleigh.
Later, when they came back in from the cross country pace, the driver pulled him to a halt and announced loudly “That was so much fun! This is the best pony ever! I have to get out and hug him!” And so she leapt out of the sleigh and gave him a huge hug. It. was. adorable.

GO MR. WEE GO. That quarter sheet was about the size of a regular horse saddle pad.
Go and check out Hannah’s blog for more photos and a video. Joan of FlatlandsFoto was there, too, and I’m sure she’ll post some gorgeous stuff, so if you don’t follow her on Facebook you should do so.
Uncategorized

A Very Equine Christmas

Amanda3 Comments

Finally getting around to a Christmas wrap-up!

First, I got my excellent blogger gift exchange present; then I got my saddle rack (and, Tris would like to note, a bag of Meadow Mints that he is making a good dent in). Then it was time for Christmas proper!

My biggest and best present was from my parents: a Dover wool dress sheet. I had visited the Dover store in New Hampshire when I was in the area back in November, and found the sheet in his size in perfect condition in the bargain basement. It was on steep discount but still more than I wanted to shell out that day (considering I was already making a bunch of other purchases). My mother decided to buy it that day and wrap it up for Christmas for Tris. I’ve wanted a wool dress sheet/cooler for some time and this fits the bill perfectly AND it looks great on him!

If I were buying new I would’ve gotten black, but hey – the green looks good, and it was a gift and I love it!
Next horsey presents were two books from my wishlist:
Dover Horse Anatomy Coloring Book

This book is so freaking cool I almost can’t stand it. It’s got everything, and it’s got multiple views of everything and it’s all labeled to the nth degree and beyond. I had a reasonably good knowledge of anatomy and bones but wow, there are so may more muscles than I thought there were!

I had an uncle who went to massage therapy school, and I remember every night he worked on his coloring book of Grey’s Anatomy to help learn human muscle groupings. Ever since then, I’ve thought it would be a cool idea to learn horse anatomy the same way – and now I can!

Cherry Hill’s Stablekeeping

I LOVE Cherry Hill’s books. I am full-on obsessive about the way she does these books: the explicit explanations, the dozens of photographs, the how-tos and the how-not-tos. Equipping Your Horse Farm was my bible when I was buying my trailer. I read it cover-to-cover multiple times, and I made photocopies of the checklists of what questions to ask when looking at a trailer and carried them around with me at all times. So I was thrilled to get this and spent a happy hour skimming through it. I’ll do a more in-depth read later.

Last, the barn present to all the boarders was really sweet this year. I have been the lucky recipient of some pretty great barn presents, and every one has been great. This one is a nice combination of thoughtful and useful. (And I have to admire its clever craftiness!)

Isn’t it marvelous? It was assembled from inexpensive items: a pot holder, a button, a towel, and some thread. Put all those together and you have a handy grooming cloth that attaches to a blanket bar, AND it has Tristan’s name hand-stitched to the top! I love it!

Uncategorized

More Joy Day Approaching!

Amanda2 Comments

Have you heard of More Joy Day? It is a wonderful thing. Read more here.

I propose we also have a horse blog More Joy Day. So, on January 9, share the joy. Post a photo, feed your horse a peppermint, tell the world about a great blog you read, donate to a horse rescue, host a giveaway, give a lesson pony a spa day, bring cookies to your trainer/barn manager, sweep the aisle, pay for someone else’s coffee at the shop…you name it. Do something, anything, to bring more joy to the world.

I’ll post on January 9 to share what I’m doing – I have Ideas – and if you do something awesome that day, let me know about it, ok? I’ll host a roundup so we can all share in the good cheer.

So…get ready to go forth and spread more joy!

topline · winter

Change of Plans

Amanda2 Comments

I had a work schedule laid out for Tris for last night and tonight. Last night we got slammed with the tail end of Hercules and the snow was still blowing hard sideways and it was 0. This morning I woke up more hopeful.

Noooooooope. Day 2 of huddling under blankets at home, reading, and playing with crafts and baking.
Here, have some updated topline photos instead. There is definitely some improvement in person, but I’m not sure it comes through in the photos.

dressage · topline

Is your horse using his back?

Amanda8 Comments

With Tristan’s slow climb back to fitness, I’ve been working hardest on making sure he’s using his back effectively. I don’t have a great natural feel for how a horse is moving underneath me – in fact, I have zero natural feel. Everything I have has been drilled into me by many frustrated trainers.

So I’m always looking for ways to learn more. A friend on Facebook linked to this article, which does a good job of describing what I’m looking for but the real gold is in a video the article linked to. It’s really outstanding. It’s given me things to think about and a much more clear visual reference for what to look for. (I probably could’ve picked these things out before but I don’t think I could have really listed off why I thought a particular horse was better through its back.)

Here it is embedded for reference.

Uncategorized

Happy Anniversary!

Amanda12 Comments

Sad but true story, you guys.

The first thing you need to know is that I am really bad with dates, which is ironic for someone who makes a living in history. Epically bad. I can barely remember my own birthday.

So my fifth anniversary with my boyfriend was coming up, and I sort of knew it was in the beginning of January somewhere? I was pretty sure it was in the first week, anyway.

Then I thought aha! It’s on the second!

Then he said “So, on the fifth, what do you want to do?”

Whoops.

January 2 is my anniversary with Tristan…not with the boyfriend.

So, happy anniversary, Tristan my love! To be fair – 2014 makes eight years, which is far longer than any boy has ever lasted.

Ridiculous photo from a few minutes after he arrived late at
night – already stuffing his face with hay.

2014 goals

2014 Goals

Amanda6 Comments

Okay. Here we go. May this year be better than the one that came before it.

Tristan’s Goals

1. Get fit and rebuild muscle
His #1 goal for the year is to get back in shape. Ideal would be BN fit again, but we’ll see.

2. Strengthen dressage, particularly the canter
I would love to come out of 2014 with a real canter. We’ll see. I’ll take anything other than giraffe motorcycling, at this point.

3. Work on jumping again
He is jumping in hand, but I’d like to try some jumping lessons under saddle and see how his foot holds up.

4. Do a few tests at dressage show
Tons of options here for places to go. Ideally I’d travel, but we have two shows at home each year that we could do if we want. The whole barn goes down to GHMA and up to the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds for big registered show each year, so I could dip a toe in there if I chose.

5. Complete a group trail ride
GMHA, maybe? They have some good CTR options on their schedule. This could potentially also be a hunter pace, or a more informal community trail ride.

My Goals

1. Get fit!
I need to be a stronger, more effective rider.

2. Find a schedule and stick to it
Year 1 in Vermont was about working like crazy in my new position. Year 2 will be, if anything, even more busy, with some major events coming up, but now that I have the basic routine down I need to be more disciplined about keeping Tristan in a program.

3. Take more lessons
Much as I wanted to, my lessons in 2013 were sporadic. I need to commit to working more barn hours and taking more lessons.

4. Rebuild emergency savings
2013 was the year of neverending vet bills. 2014 needs to involve more buckling down and replenishing the money that went away. I’ll be shopping for a new daily driver in the fall, and looking toward replacing truck and trailer in another 3-5 years, and those things can’t happen without better fiscal management.

5. Be better organized with barn stuff
My stuff is freaking everywhere right now – the car trunk, the truck back seat, the trailer, the mud room, the tack room…you name it. I need to go through, re-organize everything, and take stock of what I have – and keep it in better shape going forward.

lesson notes

Lesson Notes

Amanda7 Comments

Excellent, really difficult lesson yesterday. Tris and I were both quite tired at the end of it.

Once again, we focused on getting him supple behind the saddle, and keeping his shoulders from leading too much in leg yields. I was zipping through them too quickly, and S. encouraged me to slow down and pause on moments of straightness in them. The goal was then not just quality steps but also where his feet were and on what tracks everything was on.

We also doubled down on getting him forward through long sides and then progressed to keeping him forward through the short ends. He is small and compact enough not to need extra consideration on the short ends of the indoor; he can perfectly well keep himself balanced and going really forward through them, no matter what he tries to tell me.

In all, some huge improvements in his way of going and his self-carriage. I’m asking for more and he’s giving me more. We had some stretches of trot that I would happily take into a dressage ring anywhere at Training/Beginner Novice. We had some gorgeous downward transitions in to an elastic, forward walk.

On the other hand, our canter was an unmitigated disaster. Well – to be accurate, there was some mitigation, in that there was a LOT to work through and it was good we did so in a lesson.

In short, we are still working to get him straight and pushing through in the canter. And it feels like no matter how gorgeous a trot we start from, the canter blows up in the first stride. The theory is that some of that quality trot will carry over, right? Not so much.

Right canter was ok, not great, but it went. Left canter was – well. It started getting ugly, and when he broke to a trot I pulled him up and had a talk-through with S. about my tendency to hang on to my left (inside) rein. It doesn’t happen nearly as much tracking right, and when I really cling to it I might as well be hanging on to a brick wall. There is no give, no softness, and my whole arm gets sore.

She asked what would happen if I let go. I told her he’d counter-bend and possibly slam into the wall. I think she thought I was exaggerating. I so wasn’t. Tristan has shown himself perfectly willing to slam into walls in the past. He goes where he’s pointed. It’s an asset on cross-country; not always in dressage.

So we worked back through the trot and she had me physically pushing my left hand forward. That got some beautiful stuff! Then we translate it into the canter. I obediently pushed my left hand forward. WHAM SCRAPE WHAM went his right shoulder and my right leg. Ok. Ow. Tried again; I only avoided the same fate, again and again, when I pulled my leg up practically on his back to avoid the wall.

Eventually, we were avoiding the wall, but our 20m circle was bulging out badly into the middle of the ring. Tristan spied a pole on the centerline (outside the bounds of the circle) and made a beeline for it. He jumped it very prettily and neatly in stride and cracked everyone watching up, and after that he aimed for it each time, having learned that performing antics over it would save him from working hard for another circle.

So S. brought in cavaletti blocks and made a bounds of a smaller, about 18m, circle on the open end, and said that I was a) not to hang on to my inside rein and b) not to go outside them.

Yeah. So after 3-4 circles of Tristan crashing through the blocks and then breaking into trot, me getting progressively more frustrated, my outside rein 2-3 inches to the inside of his withers as I full-on pony-kicked with my spur him as hard as I could with my outside leg to keep him on the circle…we called a truce for a few minutes, and trotted around the ring.

We worked on it some more. I wish I could say we had a magic circle where he stayed on my outside rein and was adjustable and did not try to trip over the blocks, but that was not to be. I did get my aids more coordinated, and our turns were a bit better, and we made miniscule adjustments that resulted in us missing the blocks more often. But we were both getting tired, and we finished with a huge forward trot on the bit and a soft downward transition.

I’m still stumped by his canter. I don’t know if it will just take more hard work by me – or if I’m just not the right person to crack it. I don’t think I can afford training rides on him, or maybe I can save up until the main trainer gets back from Florida. I keep hoping that he’ll make a breakthrough but I can’t ride it well enough or long enough to get there. At least in the trot I could school that for long enough to really get through to him. I never feel like I have enough time in the canter.

Anyway. Even with the discouraging canter work, it was a good lesson, and I’m looking forward to keeping up the work with him.

conditioning · stupid human tricks

Pushing Too Hard

Amanda4 Comments

One of the most popular posts I’ve ever written on this blog was called “When to push, and when to back off.” It’s something I struggle with still.

Saturday night, I pushed too hard. It started out really, really well: he warmed up well, and was responding nicely. We were moving forward, through the walk and into the trot to work. My intention was something of a conditioning ride: not really hard dressage work, but more like trot sets.

So we had a long walk warmup, and then we trotted on a loose rein for a bit, and then I picked up the reins. I didn’t do anything but work on my own hand position and just basically take hold of the reins. I got a feel of the bit but didn’t specifically ask for anything with it. I worked on keeping him straight through his whole body, paying careful attention to his haunches. As he got more forward and loose, he started to reach forward into the bridle himself. Historically, he has to be coaxed and teased into reaching for the bit at all, so behaving like a normal horse – ie, get him straight and forward and he will go into the bridle – is awesome.

We took a walk break, and then picked back up with a few minutes of trotting and then 2.5 minutes of cantering. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But a couple of factors made it a poor decision on my part. First, it was significantly warmer than it has been: in the mid-30s rather than low teens. Second, he was already gunning more forward than he typically is, and his canter reflected that. Third, I had started him on his right lead canter, which is his stronger lead.

He was puffing a bit after the canter, but recovered in a few minutes, and then I compounded my poor decision. I thought since we had worked his right lead, we had to work his left, which is where he really needs more work. So we repeated the exercise to the left: 2.5 minutes of trot, 2.5 minutes of canter. At 2 minutes into the canter he started blowing hard with every stride, so I pulled him up.

And then we walked. And walked. And walked. He was panting in a way I’ve never heard him do before – short, quick gulps. After 3 minutes of walking, I stopped him and pulled his saddle, then got on him bareback. After 3 minutes of that, I slid off him and walked. He slowly, slowly, slowly took longer and deeper breaths, and at about the 8 minute mark it started to resolve into a normal breathing pattern.

He was never in any other obvious kind of distress: pulse was fast but ok, he was moving easily (not even overly tired-appearing), he wasn’t sweating more than a hint of dampness, and he was alert and nosed me for treats when I paused him occasionally. When he was breathing mostly normally again – a bit elevated but nothing that set off alarm bells for me – I brought him back to his stall and he took a small drink of water and happily dug into his hay, then begged for his grain (which had been pulled before we started riding).

I felt like something you’d scrape off a boot. I paced, and paced, and put away all his tack and checked him every time I walked past his stall, and then I found a half-dozen odd organizing jobs around the barn and kept checking on him, and then I sat in my car for 30 minutes and Googled “horse panting after exercise” on my phone and texted Hannah for reassurance. Finally, well over an hour after I had put him back in his stall, he was still looking totally fine, I went home. I fretted the rest of the night, and woke up the next morning at 6:30 and watched the clock in agony until I knew that the morning feed person would have laid eyes on him and called me if there was anything wrong.

Sunday, he was fine; he even got his massage. J. said he was clearly fatigued but not sore anywhere, and that he’d actually begun building back muscle tone. He needs more weight again, and he still needs a lot more muscle, but the overall quality of what he is adding is good and there’s clearly just a bit more along his back.

So, lesson learned. I still feel wretched, and I can still hear perfectly his quick huffs of breath, but he’ll be ok. And I’ll be much more careful in his conditioning rides going forward. He’s showing me he’s older in all these small ways, and I need to pay more careful attention.

color

Blog to Watch: Equine Tapestry

Amanda2 Comments

I am sort of constantly trying to figure out just what color my horse is. In shorthand, and on all his official papers, I list him as a bay roan. It seems simplest and most descriptive.

However, there’s a decent chance that’s not what he is, genetically. Roans don’t typically have salt-and-pepper manes. They don’t typically have skunk tails and barring above the tail.

He also quite clearly has a few primitive markings: a hint of a dorsal stripe and tiger stripes on his legs.

Since he was born in the wild, there’s no way of knowing (at least at this late and far removed date) who his parents were, and no way of including or excluding certain possibilities based on their color.
Is he rabicano? Is he minimally expressed sabino? Is he mealy? Who knows!
His color is one of the reasons I’ve always been fascinated by equine color genetics. I am by no means an expert but I usually consider myself to have a decent eye.
Lesli at Equine Tapestry really is an expert. She writes about color with detail and precision, and backs her findings up with extensive photographs. She’s always got a new, interesting quirk to talk about. I love reading every word of her posts and I always come away thinking. Consider this a strong recommendation to follow her!