year in review

2013 Year in Review

Amanda3 Comments

2013 was one of the busiest and most stressful years in all of the years I’ve owned Tristan. It was also very nearly the polar opposite of 2012, which began with an intensive training plan, eventing goals, clear progression, and ended in a muddle of frustration.

So, in summary…

I spent a lot of January in a very bad place mentally; Tristan was still lame on the RF and we still couldn’t figure out exactly why. It was very, very cold in Vermont, and we had three straight days where it did not go above zero, and was as low as -18 overnight. Tristan wore a lined blanket for warmth for the very first time.

Apologies for the awful picture, but this is his
first day with his blanket.

In February, things started off much the same: still lame, still frustrating, and we finally did another round of x-rays (his third since the start of everything). The vet, who will forever remain one of my favorite people because of this, recommended sending the x-rays out to a specialty radiology, because her gut was telling her they weren’t quite right but she couldn’t pinpoint anything. The radiologist came back within 48 hours with a clear diagnosis: infected sequestrum of the coffin bone in the RF. 24 hours later, Tristan was scheduled for surgery.

Getting ready to leave for surgery.

So in the beginning of March, Tristan had surgery. I was a wreck. Hannah came up to keep me sane. Tristan did brilliantly through the whole endeavor, and the surgeon gave us a good prognosis for going forward. Our days were filled with bandage changes, flushing the wound, addressing a small new infection, worrying, and slowly but surely, healing. By the end of the month, he was going outside and being handwalked in very short increments. Not coincidentally, this was also the month I started really blogging in earnest, because so much was going on!

At the vet hospital, muzzled so he would stop
eating the shavings in his stall pre-surgery.

April continued the rehab trend, and I worried and worried some more, as the surgery hole continued to grow and hoof continued to grow with it. Tristan got his spring checkup, and had his teeth done. I got out and about a bit more, and learned how to do pulse and respiration at a competitive trail ride with Hannah. The end of the month marked 8 weeks since surgery, and the checkup went well – Tristan was cleared for normal shoes and to begin rehab under saddle!

Vet checks post-ride at GMHA.

May was a bit frustrating; even though we were cleared to begin under saddle there were delays in getting the actual fancy glue on shoes that he needed to support the right front. In the meantime, I volunteered at King Oak over my 30th birthday weekend. Finally, both front shoes went on, and I began riding at the walk!

Fancy (expensive) glue-on shoes!
We kept rehabbing since June, on what I believe was the slowest rehab ever. But we kept plugging away, and added in some road hacks to the mix. I did the math on Tristan’s foot-related vet bills. I went up for Canadian Adventure to the Bromont CCI3* and had a lovely time, and scribed at a barn show. I also started working at the barn in exchange for lesson time.

Bromont is awfully pretty.

July got hot and saw more slow steps toward normalcy: I took my first lesson with our new trainer. Tristan got a spa day, and then was the world’s worst little shit for the farrier. He made up for that giving a short pony ride to a toddler without batting an eye.

Cutest pony after his bath.

August saw more lessons, and the beginnings of some back feet weirdness that wasn’t resolved for a while. I fell out of my rhythm a bit, though, as I was working a lot of overtime and went close to 15 days without any time off at all.

Thankfully, his feet look way better than this now.

Thankfully, September was better. It started out worryingly, with a swollen left front leg, but it turned out that he’d only banged it up a bit, and a few days of cold hosing and wrapping set it right. I scribed some more, and we did some White Lightning soaks of his hind feet to clear up the ickiness. In fact, White Lightning was my first product review.

Scribing. The view does not suck.

October saw some lesson-cramming and lots of hacking out. Tristan went back in steel shoes, and the awfulness of the abscess hole/surgery site was starting to become a distant memory.

YESSSSSS.
Onward to November, as it started to get cold. We did the blog hop, and I started adding more horse blogs to read at an exponential rate. We started with some longeing exercises to address his topline, and I learned that JB Andrew, dressage mustang extraordinaire, had passed away. We started having some saddle fit issues, and I decided to start experimenting with horse cookies. Tris stepped up as the world’s best babysitter.
Babysitting!
In December we started taking lessons with the barn manager, who is the winter trainer. I stepped up our longeing game with a redneck Pessoa device. I started accounting for my work and for Tristan’s to try to up our game, fitness-wise. I started testing out cookies and got an awesome gift for the horse blogger gift exchange. Tris shredded his winter blanket, and we had some good hacking in the snow. Last but not least, my awesome Christmas present was that he was beautifully behaved for the farrier – and his abscess hole is practically gone!
Bring it on, 2014!




video

Rolex Commercials

AmandaLeave a comment

I’m feeling marginally better but not up to riding, so I did make it out to the barn to longe Tris today but in the meantime I’ve mostly been sipping tea, eating bland things, and binge-watching Arrow.

Here, in lieu of content, have the three Rolex Equestrian commercials that they produced years ago. They’re my gold standard for good equestrian editing to music.



Uncategorized

Post-Christmas

Amanda2 Comments

I hope everyone had a lovely few days – and if you were the recipient of any great horse-related Christmas presents, please share!

I got my first and one of my favorites before Christmas, from Hannah:

Not the saddle – that is very old and has been mine for many years, and will be the subject of a future post. No: the brand new rack underneath! I had posted that I didn’t have one yet, and then one arrived at my door. Awesome. 🙂 I can’t wait to take it everywhere this summer.

I spent Christmas down in the Boston area with my family, and managed to catch some kind of nasty bug that I am still recovering from; I spent Christmas Eve & Day nauseated, weak, and feverish, with occasional interludes of congestion. I still haven’t quite kicked it, which means I am very out of it at work this morning, trying to nibble on graham crackers as my first real food since Monday, and might not make it to the barn tonight. Yay.

accountability · physical fitness (human)

Accountability, Week 3

AmandaLeave a comment

Week 2 fell down a bit, so here’s to Week 3 being better.

Sunday
Me: 45 seconds planking, 15 seconds side planking R&L, 30 seconds back planking, 20 leg lifts R&L, 12 minutes cycling
Tristan: Rest

Monday
Me: nothing. sigh.
Tristan: 20 minute hack through fresh snow

Tuesday
Me: 45 seconds planking, 15 seconds side planking R&L, 30 seconds back planking, 20 leg lifts R&L, walk to work & back (20 minutes)
Tristan: Rest

Wednesday
Me: 45 seconds planking, 15 seconds side planking R&L, 30 seconds back planking, 20 leg lifts R&L
Tristan: 35 minutes longeing

Thursday
Me: walk to work & back (20 minutes)
Tristan: Rest

Friday
Me: Riding; nothing else, sigh.
Tristan: 40 minute ride

Saturday
Me: 45 seconds planking, 15 seconds side planking R&L, 45 seconds back planking, 20 leg lifts R&L
Tristan: Rest

book review

Scorpio Races – On Sale!

AmandaLeave a comment

Heads up!

Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races is on sale for the Kindle today – $1.99!

This is a not-horse book, but it is not a pegasus, unicorn, or other not-horse book. These are water horses: strange, carnivorous Capail Uisce, who can be captured from the surf and half-tamed. Each year, they are raced along the beach, and each year, many of their jockeys die.

I read this…oh, over a year ago, and I was particularly struck by how nicely Stiefvater crafted her water horses, and how unexpected the book was as a whole. Even the storylines you think will be cliches duck the obvious. (Some of the pro reviews compare it to The Hunger Games; it is not much like that, except in that both are excellent reads and involve danger and young people.)

Definitely worth $1.99 and a read!

Uncategorized

Horse Christmas Ornaments

AmandaLeave a comment

Our Christmas tree has four main themes: geeky (Back to the Future, Star Trek, Doctor Who), Swedish (tre kronor, “God Jul,” flags, Dala horses), Boston sports (Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins, and the infamous Rene Rancournament) and…equestrian.

Here are some of my favorite equestrian ornaments, from a collection built over the last few years.

One of my favorites, from Maple Landmark Woodcraft in my college town.
A gift from my aunt and uncle.
My newest, an instant favorite. I bought it at The Breakers while at a work conference.
Do you have any horse-themed ornaments or holiday decorations? What are they?
dressage

Sneaking In

AmandaLeave a comment

Endless long day today, which started with a 3.5 hour meeting and by 1pm my hopes of sneaking away to ride in the afternoon (my second office is 8 minutes from the barn!) began to fade. Then my boss poked her head in and said, “The roads are starting to ice up a bit, you should head to the barn while you can.”

Didn’t have to tell me twice! I changed, threw tack on Tristan, and we had a lovely 40 minute ride. The warmup was especially nice: we got a nice forward rhythm established and as I gradually picked up the reins he reached for the bit nicely.

Once he was thoroughly warmed up and supple and had worked for about 20 minutes in a light frame, we took a short walk break, then worked on transitions some more. Tracking right, some of these were lovely and prompt and soft – there were one or two trot-canter moments that had a great feeling of just stepping right into the gait. To the left, not as much, but he was also coming much more round through the outside rein to the left, so that was still excellent.

I was pleased with one aspect of our warmup in particular: I incorporated a LOT of leg-yielding into it, hither and yon, sometimes the entire diagonal stepping over, back and forth, changing directions, and it really seemed to pay off right away in how much he came through his hind end. He didn’t fall forward and get hard in the bridle until the end, when he was clearly getting tired.

Not sure if I’ll be able to see him tonight – I have to travel for Christmas and we are predicted for a nasty little bout of weather that might make it safest just to hit the road and go, rather than swing by the barn. If at all possible, I’ll stop by and longe him, but we’ll see.

Uncategorized

Movie Review: Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story

Amanda2 Comments

Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story
(available for purchase on Amazon.com)

You are a great champion. When you ran, the ground shook, the sky opened and mere mortals parted. Parted the way to victory, where you’ll meet me in the winner’s circle, where I’ll put a blanket of flowers on your back.

Cale Crane and her family rediscover each other as they nurse a broken down racehorse back to greatness. It’s a pretty standard plot: girl meets horse, horse is injured, girl believes in horse, horse proves girl right all along.

If Racing Stripes was the underdog race movie done wrong, Dreamer is that movie done right. They have more than their fair share of similarities; both fathers aren’t following their dreams, both daughters find a connection with a horse (er, equine) that allows them to reconnect with their fathers, both duos prove everyone wrong.

The devil is in the details, though. This movie really is a loving homage to the horse racing industry, or at least a highly idealized version of it. (It is Hollywood, after all.) Many of the small things are just right, from the way Sonya’s fracture is described to the guest appearances by Giant’s Causeway and Fusaichi Pegasus, from the way Ben mixes up fly spray in a beat-up bottle to the realities of race entrance fees and the rivalry between two Middle Eastern brothers as they throw about huge sums of money. They even do a nice call-out to the “Inspired by a True Story” subtitle of the movie when they explicitly reference Mariah’s Storm, her injury, and her return to racing.

Sure, it tips too far into wish fulfillment at times, and sure, Cale is played a bit too cutesy especially as regards her ownership of the horse – sometimes her father’s trusting of her reads less as parenting and more as abdicating responsibility – but it actually hits the right notes when it needs to. It also does the final race scene really, really well, which is harder to do than you would think (I’m looking at you, Secretariat).

In all, I’d definitely recommend it. It’s a nice Sunday morning watch, it will hit the right sentimental buttons without getting too treacly, and enough of the horse details are right to keep a knowledgeable horse person in the movie.

farrier · longeing

BEST PONY IN ALL THE LAND.

AmandaLeave a comment

Late Monday, the barn owner checked in with me to ask if I’d talked to the vet about dropping off more ace for Tristan’s farrier appointment on Wednesday. CRAP. I hadn’t. So I called the vet, and she was completely unable to come out in the next few days – was actually indisposed and not working.

(If you’re new-ish to this saga: Tristan has been an utter shit for the farrier for the last 18 months, since the start of his foot drama, up to the point of flinging himself to the ground in the middle of a trim, and has been drugged for every single trim/shoeing since arriving in Vermont.)

Double crap. So I told the barn manager, with profuse apologies, and she said she’d make it work. They’d start on him first and go slowly if need be, and could always hold off for another week or two if necessary.

Yesterday, I sat on pins and needles all day waiting for a text; I didn’t want to bother them, but I wanted desperately to know if it had all gone well. It was a new farrier, too, who wasn’t used to Tristan’s assholery. When I left work, I texted the barn manager to say that I was heading to the barn, and hoping no news was good news. She texted back to give her a call when I got to the barn. I spent the rest of the drive to the barn with a sick pit in my stomach; that couldn’t be good, right?

Arrived at the barn, practically ran down the aisle, threw open the stall door, brought Tristan out…and all four feet were trimmed, with new shoes on the front! So the farrier had managed to get them on, at least. I called the barn manager who reported that he was PERFECT. Not a foot wrong! The barn manager didn’t even have to stand with him, he chilled out in cross ties. The farrier advised one more cycle of shoes and then barefoot again in the spring.

BEST PONY OF ALL TIME EVER. I hugged him and kissed him and very nearly started crying right there in the aisle. WHEW.

I groomed him and did his topline stretches and then we did about 35 minutes of longeing, wtc, setting up a circle of death and elevating them with blocks. He did beautifully at the trot, adjusting his stride to nail them perfectly and stretching out and down, lifting his back. He sort of started to get it at the canter, but never had a really successful circle with them. He did have a couple of nice poles that he took in a lifted stride, though.

Here’s some comparison photos.

Taken 12/16/13 for comparison.

Post-trim, taken 12/18/13. SO AWESOME.