17. Your equestrian idol

I don't know if I idolize anyone in the horse world - I fangirl and support what they do, but I don't ever find myself saying "I want to be Sinead" or anything like that.

Two top riders I really admire are Sinead Halpin and Allison Springer. Both of them have shown that they have what it takes, thankyouverymuch, and have shown that even when they're down on luck they can go out and show everyone how it's done. I also admire Sinead, in particular, because of Tate's fitness and how keen he is out on course - I really love to see a horse galloping out of stride, and they put down beautiful graceful rides each time I get lucky enough to find a video. Allison was teaching at a local barn and I LOVED her teaching style, and really want to bring Bailey to a clinic next year. Her commitment to forward first really gelled with my style of riding and I liked the way she worked with the riders.

16. Your most recent fall

Oh goodness. There is some frantic knocking on wood going on here.

My last fall was an emergency dismount off Bailey last fall. We have some issues (forward girth groove, baby horse non existent shoulders, enormous gaits, etc) that resulted in my saddle legit sliding up her neck at the canter. My saddle pad kicked out the back and whomped a baby butt on it's way to the ground, and suddenly we were going MUCH FASTER and I was almost sitting halfway up her neck so I bailed, and prayed for the safety of my saddle. Horse stopped near my mom on the rail, spooked when I got up and seemed kind of confused why she was getting re-tacked up.

(Product plug: shout out to thinline pads with their perfectly fitting shims and Tekna Pressure-EZE girths for fixing all my problems. Love those two products!)

And, for shits and giggles, here's a near miss my mom caught at the last Jane Braddock clinic we attended:

What a little shit.

15. If you could say something to any one horse, what would you say?

This is a weird prompt.

One thing I would love would be to have the time to say goodbye to the special horses in my life who disappeared before I knew they would be leaving me. It's hard to miss them and not know what became of them.

14. Your dream barn/farm

Ok, best topic ever.

Features: (with intermittent photos)

- Dutch doors/doors to the outside to allow the horses to pick if they want to be in or out. I would also love the building to be insulated and have ceiling fans if possible. Good lighting is also a must.

- Auto waterers in stalls and outside - I HATE carrying buckets. You get wet and gross in the summer, cold and dump water everywhere in the winter.. plus they freeze, get black bucket rot, get bent handles, are never easy to hang and, if you do get the electric ones for winter, hold the possibility of BURNING YOUR DAMN BARN DOWN. I hate buckets.

- Long overhang over the dutch doors to provide shelter for the dry lot, as well as to keep hay covered and dry during wet seasons. This will also keep all but the most persistent rain out of my dutch door stalls and hopefully protect the building and possibly leaky dutch doors from the worst of the wind and drifting snow.

- Access to pasture, and pasture with safe fencing. Call me the safety mom, but I'm tired of horse injuries involving fences, which happen often at my current barn. Lots of people love the white PVC fencing, but I prefer the blackwood fences popular down south, especially as my itchy mares would figure out that those PVC posts pop out in no time. Add into this request gates that make sense and electric fencing that is effective but doesn't do shit like electrify gates, ground itself randomly while leaving 90% of your pasture without power... etc. I hate getting shocked by electric fences, but I also hate watching horses contort themselves between the wires if the fence isn't on.

- Large stalls for pony comfort. As Foxie loves to lay down, I want her to have plenty of space to get comfy, and make it easier for her to get up and lay down.

- Hay feeders in stalls, some sort of slow feeder outside. I hate wasting hay - watching Foxie drag hers out into her stall and then lay on it makes me furious. Bailey will spin hers into her shavings if she's anxious. Hay is too expensive for that, so I'm a big slow feeder person. Plus, it promotes happy tummies and horses who don't get bored and break things.

- A wash stall that is well lit and has cold and hot water. Call me a princess, but being at a barn where hot water has to be made with a hot pot or prepared and brought along has made me  value the ability to clean wounds and horses in cooler weather. A wash stall set up like this also gives my vet a prime working surface and make life a lot easier.

- Hay and grain storage shut off from the horses. Not only do I hate it when horses escape and nearly kill themselves eating all of the grain, but I also hand mix my feed currently. Having an area to be able to scoop one scoop here and one there would make it a ton easier than mixing (especially when my Ultium freezes... again.....) and allow me to supplement to my heart's content. I also want some space to store hay especially for the winter, but prefer if the bulk of the hay stay in another building where there is less of a fire risk, and the bales will be less likely to gather rodent inhabitants. External hay storage is also a biggie, as I'd love to buy hay for winter and not need to scrap and settle when I run out like so many people do. Having the space will save me money in the long run.

That's just the start of it too!

13. A picture of your worst riding

Oh, dear god.

Here's some video, instead:

And something more recent....

Ooofda. 

12. Favorite horse color

Like most horse people, I tried to be opinionated about color... but I never succeeded. Like many riders, I love a beautiful dapple grey, but hate that they turn white as they age. Black horses, another obsession of many, fade in the sun. I hated how plain Foxie was when I first got her, but I've grown to appreciate what is under the hair coat; the beautiful soft eye, the delicate features...

I also own two things that I didn't think I was into - a redhead with WHITE. Ew. I hate white legs, they are never clean. For showing, I love horses without white markings, because they are so easy to groom. Foxie looked resplendent in the show ring, usually after spending the night laying in her own poo. Curry out the chunks and go - no complaints!

SO...

I have to say my favorite color of horse is BAY, closely followed by Chestnut, especially if there is flaxen involved.  Bays come in so many shades - black bay, brown bay, red bay, golden bay... 

Fox also went from a lovely slightly golden bay in summer to a lovely dark brown bay in winter, and is super fun to clip because of it. 

Besides, who can resist that mare?!

11. Find a sale horse online that you want to buy

Um, Ok.

Judge me all you will, but I am 110% thrilled with my current horse, who I was in the process of purchasing this time last year. Bailey is a wonderful horse - she's big, beautiful and has lovely, eye-catching gaits. She is also a nice horse to handle, and really seems interested in people. When I met her for the first time, she came when called, yielded politely to pressure asking her to back up and move away and was personable and came off as quite intelligent. She handled her first trailer ride to her Pre-purchase exam like a champ and my vet was very impressed with her gaits, which is saying something as she does breed warmbloods herself!

So... does wanting my own horse count? I've looked at ads and just am not seeing anything - or I like them and then watch the video and say.... nope. 

So yes, I'll take another one of these, please!

10. How do your family and friends feel about your riding?

I kind of live and breathe my sport, and it's been that way as long as I have been able to make it so. My parents are legitimately the best show parents on the planet - even though I am "grown up" my mom is there making sure we look pretty and my dad is still the head horse holder and whisperer. They let me live in their house rent free so I can keep my horses - seriously, they're the best. My mom seems to genuinely enjoy her time with the horses, though Bailey occasionally makes her nervous. My dad is actually on his way to hold the beasties for the farrier right now...

My friends have only known me as a horse person - this may sound weird but I haven't held on to a lot of childhood friends, so they really have only known me as an equestrian. As they are still speaking to me, I would say they've accepted the pony children. My siblings still probably think I'm weird but they are at least vaguely supportive so I cannot complain. No one in my life is saying "don't ride!" so I'm a happy girl.

So... yeah. 

Trainerless

I haven't blogged in a while - being an adult ammy has proven to be harder than I ever imagined. I figured I had mastered the blogging while working my butt off concept during college, but alas, I am still learning. My commute is about an hour either way and while I do, as a result, spend a ton of time sitting on my butt, I also don't get to blog or spend as much down time doing things other than riding and laundry.

I have, however been riding. I'll start at the beginning of recently, I guess, as it's been quite some time since I've blogged.

Bailey went to her first show at Roekbe's Run this month. In prep, we took a jump lesson or two with Edee, my trainer, and participated in clinics with Lucinda Green and Jane Braddock. We also schooled the Roekbe's Run cross country course. Bailey was pretty good on Friday when we arrived at Roebke's, and seemed to be enjoying watching people arrive (we got there early) and was only a little nervous and spooky when we schooled around the dressage rings and in the warm up

.

Over night, apparently, she was awful and stall walked herself into a lather, and still had quite an edge on her the next day. She wanted OUT of that stall, thank you very much, but was a handful to hold. She did settle and nap a little bit around noon, but turned most of the day. Our dressage test warm up went pretty well, but as it had been raining a good part of the day and the grass ring was very slick and muddy, as was warm up. We went down the center line doing a Llama impression, spooked at a camera person who was admittedly dressed to spook, and had a looky, spooky test. She did stay in the ring, and had a few seconds of nice work, so I'm pretty pleased with her.

Before show jumping she was being super belligerent and was basically shoving people over and being super rude. I understand that she is stressed, but I was quite unhappy with her manners, and laid down some discipline. She reared up a bit, slipped, and flopped over in the grass like the graceful creature she is, and I was pretty thoroughly freaked out. My lovely trainer, Edee, did say later that my horse was being very rude, but I'm still a bit shocked at how pissed off and irrational I was being. She doused me in calming essential oils and packed me off to walk show jumping. Apparently I knocked some ego out of her because she was lovely in the warm up and put in a nice quiet round in the show jumping. She was a bit leery of the bright standards and fence fillers, but jumped each fence and left the rails in the cups. We did do some trotting, so we had 2 seconds of time. 

I legitimately wept with pride after her show jumping round - I am so very proud of how confident she felt by the end of that course, and how lovely of a ride she gave me. At that point, I decided that Bailey was just going to need to grow up on her own and that there was nothing I could do to stop her from stall walking short of tying her up, so I sprayed on some Sore-No-More and wrapped her in standing wraps, and let her do her thing. The standing wraps at least protected her from any further dings from spinning, and she did settle eventually - she was wearing some shavings the next morning, so she did sleep a bit. I walked XC by myself and felt pretty confident going into day 3 of the show - its also nice to realized that while your horse is being a freak, she gets her brain back when you are in the irons. 

Sunday was more eventful  that I would have liked - Edee's intermediate horse was injured after punching through a base board on a corner and getting his hind foot stuck under the jump, and I spent my day ignoring my horse for the most part while I did my best to help her with her other two rides. When it was Bailey's turn to run XC she settled quickly under saddle and while she felt tired, was jumping well and cantering along like a million bucks. Bailey went into the box and seemed to know Something Was Up, and headed out on to course at a trot. The first two fences were bogies all day, but I rode my plan and we got over both, and cantered on. By fence 4 I knew we would need to overtake the rider in front of me, and tried to pass her. She didn't slow down and let us get clear, and trotted a few strides behind us into the woods for jump 8. I wasn't riding with 100% attention and Bailey was distracted by the horse behind us, and we picked up a stop. I was shocked that the girl behind me jumped it as we were turning away, but we jumped it on try #2 and cantered past her. Bailey took me home over the rest of the jumps, and seemed to really enjoy herself. We had another two seconds of time, but I'm not worried about her ability to make time at this point. 

All in all, I am, in retrospect, thrilled with her, and feel that I really could have saved her the stop on XC if I had been focused. If I ever need to overtake someone again, I will handle it much better, and hopefully the jump judges will, too. 

Bailey had a few days off coming home, and we did an easy flat on Tuesday in prep for our lesson Wednesday. Unfortunately, Edee was in an accident on Tuesday evening, so no lesson on Wednesday or training for a while. I worked on dressage again on Thursday, as I feel that keeping her focused is our biggest issue for the next show - I'd love to be able to ride at least a few strides that look halfway decent. I also tried to start teaching her flying changes, but it really doesn't make sense to her yet. We jumped Saturday morning and Bailey was very good - we had a vertical set up at 2'9 that she was clearing well, but didn't leave it in the cups every time. Big fences don't feel very different than little ones, but they are good for my brain, as I see them and either over ride or stop riding all together. 

Sunday brought a heat wave a la last summer (SO. Hot. SO. Humid) so the girls just had baths on Monday. Today I'm planning a dressage ride with Bailey and will hopefully get a ride in on Foxie, as well. She also got ridden Saturday morning, but not for very long as my barn owner needed to move my trailer, etc, etc. She was very sassy that morning, so she apparently needs more work ;)

I might even start blogging again. Maybe.

A, BB and Fox

Day 9

Any injuries you've gotten from riding


HAHAHAHAHA what do you mean, pony princesses get hurt riding their pretty prancy ponies? Never.


Pardon the nasty sarcasm, I'm not coping with life well  today and it's leeching into every thought I have. Ugh.

I have not yet fallen from B (*knocks wood ferociously*) but lord knows I had my share of fliers off of Foxie. The list of injuries includes:

1. A possibly dislocated and quickly... re? Located finger due to a rein wrapped around my finger on a bucking horse. I've also hit my nose in a similar situation, and chipped a tooth with my whip when I got bucked forward into my own hands.

2. Took a double barreled kick to my Left Thigh when I got between my horse and her paddock mate, approximately a billion years ago. Black bruise abounded for ~ 1.5 months.

3. Came off at a horse show in warm up (yay! I got to get back on and show) and blackened my left side, and had a puncture just below my lowest rib. Yes, again with the left side... I now have some lovely visible dents in my thigh muscle from the amount of trauma it has received. People at work asked if I was being beaten at home. I won a Romfh contest telling them that I adored their show shirts because blood washes out of them. It was delightful.

4. Knee caps have met many jump standards, trees and other hard objects.

5. Two nasty head injuries - one when a horse tried to whap me out of the way when leaving his stall to go out one morning (I beat him back into the stall, closed the door, and lost track of time for a bit/saw stars) and one when I hit my head on the arena kick boards and then stubbornly drove myself back to school in a snow storm. At least, I hope it was snowing.

6. Crazy nasty rope burn after my young horse bolted backwards off the trailer as I walked forward (and stupidly wrapped the lunge around my hand) to put up the butt bar. Cue more adrenalin fed hollering and yanking before wrapping hands in vet wrap and making the damn horse load, and then lots of crying and shaking.

Other than that, not a whole lot of bad has happened. I fight hard to stay on, and when I do come off I at least try not to hit anything solid. I did, however, say "try".

A.

Day 8

Day 8 asks you to share a little bit about the stable you are at. I am currently boarding, though my greatest wish is to bring my horses home someday soon. Both of my girls are stalled over night and go out in paddocks with a handful of other horses each day. The paddocks have wire fencing and we feed round bales, usually with slow feed nets. Each paddock also has a small shelter, and Foxie's paddock has an automatic waterer. Bailey's pasture has a regular trough, but the staff does a good job of keeping it ice free in winter and gunk free in summer. It does have an inconvenient leak about 3/4 of the way up which makes using the tank float a stupid idea, but apparently I'm the only one who doesn't like unnecessary mud. The barn was pretty rudimentary when I arrived, but since then the barn owner has built large indoor and outdoor arenas and has converted our old, quite small indoor to a full stall barn. The property has over 100 horses living on it, including the barn owner's trail horses, that he trailers to local parks to do trail rides all day.

What I like:

- Round bales: some people hate them - I personally love that my horses have forage all day when they are outside.  I do count that hay as pretty nutritionally nill as the bales vary in quality, but to prevent ulcers, I'm quite happy to let the horses have forage all day.
- The staff feeds what I want, when I want: I get to choose my grain and let staff know how much each horse gets, which means I can feed the high quality, high fat expensive stuff other boarding barn's won't. They also feed my smartpaks and Foxie's Previcox pills (ok, most of the time. I do count them) which is nice for no extra charge.
- Long turnout times, especially in summer: the horses go out early and don't come in until 6:30, meaning that my girls get lots of time to be horses.
- The outdoor: it has great footing and the barn owner has a relatively decent bunch of jumps. It's big enough to share, too, which makes having 100+ horses on the property bearable.

What I don't like:

- The lack of knowledge: most of the boarders are fair weather horse people, or well intentioned but neglectful horse owners. Most of the horses are very fat and not very well trained, and most of them don't get worked very often, and most of the time not very hard. Some of them are well behaved but others are big bullies who scare their owners.
- The lack of rules: While I love being able to jump/bring in a trainer/do whatever I want, everyone else gets to, too. I don't agree with a majority of the horsemanship (or lack there of) and I also have a lot of generalized anxiety on behalf of the other horses, who often don't see the farrier often enough. Even though we DO have rules about vetting, worming and other general care, I can guarantee my barn owner doesn't check everyone.
- The myriad of trainers and crazy people: my boarding barn is pretty cheap for our area, which means it attracts somewhat seedy people occasionally, like the people who buy a horse but don't even know how to put on a halter or "make the horse trot". Ufdah. We also have at least 5 "trainers" of various heritage, from some french dressage person who was on NPR, to a dressage/trail rider who decided to start teaching. Each to their own, I mean, but when four people are trying to "teach" in the same ring, it doesn't leave me any room to ride. (RUDE.).
- The indoor: while it's beautiful and full of potential, the barn owner must have hired some seedy contractors because the footing is awful - the rocks/class 5 are fully mixed with the sand, and they also put in extra sand to "cover" the fact that the class 5 wasn't tamped down and given time to settle, so it's crazy deep. As someone who had DONE the tendon and ligament thing, it's kind of a disaster waiting to happen.

So yeah, that's my boarding barn.

My dream barn?

Stalls with runs or opening to my dry lot + access to pasture
Automatic waters all day erry day
Slow feed hay when dry lotted
Wash stall
Access to warm water - be it wash stall, a sink, etc.
Insulated barn that is warm in winter / cool in summer and isn't a fire/collapse/etc hazard

And if I'm feeling particularly spoiled, an indoor arena, outdoor arena/grass arena to ride in in summer and XC fences (believe me, I have PLANS) in my pastures.

sigh.

5,6,7....

Day 5:

The last time you rode your horse, and what you did:

Day 5 would have been Saturday, and lucky for my ponies,  they both got worked on Saturday morning. Bailey had her usual weekend jump school and tackled this exercise I found on the internet:

We actually jumped the diagonal fences straight, because we're GD eventers, thank you very much and the center vertical was hanging out around 2'9-2'11, so it actually was a challenge for Miss B. She was more energetic than she has been (she showed just last weekend for the first time) but I'm still appraising her fitness as I know we need to do some boot camp before our next event. The head toss from one of our previous lessons was back, even though I made sure to give her a generous, conscious release rather than doing auto releases with soft fingers. Hopefully she was just feeling like a badass, and isn't totally pissed at me for steering. 

Foxie had a short work out as it turned out they needed to move my horse trailer to accommodate a driveway repair. This, of course, required me to get off my horse and by the time we got the thing moved and dislodged from the hitch (I HATE putting my rig on other people's trucks FOR A REASON) it wasn't worth trying to ride. Saturday mornings at the barn are also a hot mess, so we will be avoiding them in the future. 

Day 6:

Your Most Accomplished Horse

My most accomplished horse is Miss Fox, but I have a feeling her career will be quickly eclipsed by her sister, Bailey. Foxie won us the Grand Champion title at our home schooling show our first year together, and has a box of ribbons from our Jumper days. She pinned at two trials during her eventing career, as well, and was schooling lovely dressage and 3' courses / Training XC before her injury. 

Good kid.

Day 7: 

Your Best Ribbon

Goodness! Every ribbon has been a wonderful experience, and even not ribboning with Bailey at her last show left me weeping with joy after our stadium round - I was just that proud of her. 

The best one in my memory, however, was Foxie and I's 6th place finish at Roebke's Run Fall Horse Trials in 2011. This was the first trial I went to 100% without a coach (previously, my coach had done a lot of ignoring me, but alas, things happen) and the first trial Foxie completed. 

So happy!

Day 4: A Horse That Impacted your Life

Oh god, this is a hard one - there have been many. Triumph, a horse no one wanted and was sold very quickly, but who I loved so, so much. Dundee, who taught me to kick ass and take names rather than being the timid little mouse of a rider I was before:

I think the actual award has to go to the original miracle horse, Foxie. Even after the hardest of horse lives and two career ending injuries, she's still a star.

So here's a pic of that mare beastin' a triple bar, like she does.

:)

Day 2 & 3

We'll kill two birds with one stone today, as yesterday was a bit of a hot mess both at work and on the home front - my trainer was injured late Tuesday night in a riding accident and is in a local trauma center awaiting surgery for a fractured pelvis. Please send some jingles our way, as she is a talented young professional and is most certainly devastated that all of her plans (a two star at Rebecca Farms, making the under-25 list...) are going astray. 

Day 2 - A picture of your horse

BB at the show last weekend

Day 3 - A picture of your best riding

Ok, this isn't my best riding. I don't have a defining "I RODE SO WELL" type moment, except maybe pulling it together last weekend for show jumping and getting her royal redness over all of the jumps. Here's a photo taken during our last big jump lesson with my trainer in early June (I do most of my jump schooling myself) where BB jumped her first 3' oxer! She was very good during this lesson and showed off her lovely footwork through the grid leading up to this - including shortening herself in the air to "fit" into a landing spot before a tight raised canter pole. Good kid!

Keep Calm, Kick On.

A, BB and Fox

Back In the (Blogging) Saddle

So I'm the world's worst blogger. Unfortunately for my writing, grown up life doesn't have a lot of time for blogging! I'm trying to turn over a new leaf, so I'm hoping I can find a bit of time each day to do the 30 day challenge I so admired over on TBA's blog, so here we go!

1. A photo of you and your horse

I have two horses, so let's do two pictures, because they're freaking cute.

Foxie - '96, 15.3hh plain bay OTTB
Semi retired from riding, retired from eventing and 110% adorable

Bailey - '09 16.1 and growing chestnut American Warmblood (TB/TB/Holsteiner) 

My up and coming eventer and the queen of the herp derp horses

Here's to more posts!

A, BB and Fox