Favorite Things Fridays

I've decided, as of today, that I'm going to try to share a favorite thing every Friday. Partially because I like things, I like Fridays and I like reviewing products. And Partially because my blog is boring and maybe talking about things instead of my strugfest style issues will make people stick around and tolerate me :)

Lately, my mostest favoritest thing are my shaped saddle pads. I've been using my hunter one a ton recently, and I have been appreciating it's help in making me seem relatively normal, color coordinated and put together as we meet new people at the new barn.

Manufacturer: PRI, though Bit of Britain doesn't mention this on their new piped versions, my previous pads (green, white, black ordered from Bit of Britain a few years ago) are all labelled PRI. 

Details: 

• BoB piped comes in Navy, Royal, Black, Red, White. Appears to be the Medium size. $59,95
• VTO is now selling the plain unpiped version in Black, Red, Royal and Navy. Available only in medium. $46.95

For reference, here are the measurements of the pads I got from BoB:

Large - 24" spine, 20.5" drop

Medium - 22" spine, 20" drop (note, VTO is reporting drop is 19.5")

I'm not sure what happened to the large size , but that was a thing at one point, and it was great. Also, not sure where the hunter color went, but I would like it back. 

Pros: Really nicely made, thick and sturdy. These pads (in large, I haven't tried a medium) are the only off the shelf non-custom pads that fit my Courbette Vision Extra, so these are great for extra forward saddles. They also look pretty cool with dressage saddles. At ~50$, they're cheaper than the fancy sporty euro pads that the pros are using, but still have the cool eventer-y look. 

Cons: They really don't work well with my center agitator washer. Clearly, I need a different washer. Apparently doesn't come in hunter, or large any longer.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Yesterday was kind of chilly and drizzly - it looks like the mares got rained on, but they were dry in their stalls when I arrived at the barn yesterday. I was a bit crabby after driving in stupid, aggravating traffic, but I got Bails tacked up for dressage. I'm still debating whether or not I need a shorter girth, or more holes in my billets on my dressage saddle. Bailey seems fit and in good weight, and seems to actually be moving into the "I might have muscle tone" stage of life, which makes me happy. She looks like a flabby Jennifer Aniston without muscle tone (I have a friend who says she has a Jennifer Aniston butt, vs Foxie's Beyonce butt).

Top: Bailey, Week 1 at 4 years old. Bottom Left: Winter 2013-2015, Left Large: Yesterday.

Dressage wise, Bailey was so-so. We rode in the top small ring, which was new to B, partially flooded, next to a swing set which Bailey thought was quite scary, next to the driveway where lots of people were driving in and she wanted to be up, on her forehand and finicky about the mud. I changed her bit out last night from the regular hunter dee back to the magickal weighted 16 mm loose ring and while she hung on my hands less, I missed the stability the dee was giving me in my hand. I still need to work on closing my fingers on the reins and keeping better contact on my outside rein - those are my two working points for our next ride.

Work wise, Bailey was... sub par. She was generally obedient, but wasn't really connected, and thus, no brilliance was achieved. We did putz around in the new indoor arenas and I was happy that miss crazy pants didn't spook, kill the child on the pony, or do something otherwise stupid because of the new indoors, with mirrors. I have a feeling its going to be more of a challenge to jump in the winters at Woodloch, but it was just as hard at Dakota, when I come to think of it. Perhaps I should find myself a jumping lesson to join over the winter so I can benefit from having the lesson group and having someone to set and raise jumps for me (I mean, and teach me, that too.) I am hoping that the pony and children lessons die down in the coldest months, which makes sense for the kids, and would make it easier to ride over the winter. We did dressage most of the winter both of the last two years, so it should be fine 90% of the time.

The rest of this week will be another dressage ride, and hopefully another weekend jump school. Now that we've had a dressage school that actually did productive things, it's time for both of us to buckle down and get back to work. 

BB & the Coffin

Saturday afternoon I had a pretty fantastic ride. The Husband was along getting the pup out for some field exposure, so I tacked BB up for jumping, grabbed my XC vest and booted her up to go play outside. It was raining lightly as we headed out, but Bailey seemed pretty brave and forward going out. Albeit, I did have a stick and was wearing properly sized spurs instead of my 1/4 nubs, but still. Happy, forward horse.

We did some quick warm up and then headed right into our first jump - a baby log - to the barrels. Bailey propped at the barrels but jumped in just fine, and cruised right out of the unfilled water complex over a log. We reversed and went back through, and it took me a ride or two to figure out I was presenting the barrels on an angle, and that I really had to swing wide going out and ride for the far left of the complex going in to get to the barrels straight, and then pull a hard turn left for the log on the other side; once I was riding more accurately, Bailey was jumping much better.

Thinking we were bold and forward and going, I trotted her over the little bridge, popped her over the log there, and pointed her at the ditch. She cranked to a full stop, stuck her face down in it and jumped over it after waffling a bit; a mistake on my end thinking that a nonevent last time equaled similar nonchallance on Saturday. She was much better going to the barn (ditch > log) but still looky coming back the other way. We moved on after a few hops to the small log in the middle of two A frame style feeder fences, and then to the banks. After playing lightly on the baby and middle size, I was feeling ballsy so I trotted her up to the big one; not a problem! She was a bit more hesitant to go down the first time, but after a few tries was acting like it wasn't a big deal. The next time we went up, I pointed her at the stacked logs that appeared to be a related distance to the big bank, and it was! She did a quiet four and hopped it nicely. We played over the smaller of the two feeders (again, another stop/waffle/hop for the first) and weirdly enough, she was braver going away from home than going towards home.

After re-hopping the half coffin ditch to log combo, I took her back across the bridge and continued over the log to the barrels via water complex - B was feeling so good, and bold and seemed to really be enjoying her job, so I was feeling really brave. Brave enough to let her sniff, then point her at the BN-ish sized picnic table. She jumped it a few times, but propped on the first take off and seemed to stick a tiny bit less at take off the next few times. I finally one-handed it and cracked her one over it, and she jumped better. So much better, I let her lope across the little bridge, jump the log, slow down but jump the ditch and then pointed her at the skinny on the far side. Full coffin! Go! No questions asked, she was a rock star. Going home? No questions either. No propping, just BOOM ditch log picnic table. I was thrilled, pulled her up, and while we puttered through a down bank thing I discovered as part of the water complex, we were done with that.

I wish I had media for you, because B was awesome! I was so proud. I'll have to get a map drawn up of the XC course so I can give my readers an idea of what we're playing with. This shows you the banks (small U shape, far right), and you can kind of see the water complex (grey area to the left)... but there are a lot more jumps, and they're in different spots.

Clearly, I need a photographer, or a helmet camera... or something. 

Either way, it was a great ride! Unfortunately, B was a total asshat and sat back three  separate times in her 5 minute bathing period (including rear/sit back/thrash like crazy) and I had to throw myself clear of her feet all three times. So I ended up with mud on my breeches, a bruise on my ass and a horse with a sore poll, but it was still awesome. Focus on the positives, people. Positives. 

Horses for Sale!

Just kidding. Here's my addition to That Red Mare's Blog Hop. Offered for your consideration:

"Foxie"

The Evolution of Really Bad Pastern Angles

Tara Shani, known in the barn as "Foxie" is a 20 year old OTTB. Despite two career ending injuries, Foxie is sound enough for flatwork, dressage and trail riding, but prefers to be left alone unless she's allowed to gallop around carte blanche. Don't let her age fool you; Foxie still prescribes to the Thoroughbred concept of exponential acceleration and continually inspires raised eyebrows when her age is revealed. She is a somewhat hard keeper, but does well on high calorie-per-pound feeds with a high fat content. She also requires daily Previcox to keep her comfortable, as while she has a magnificent number of natural conformational issues, the dropped left hind fetlock and resulting straightened hock angle are the result of an injured suspensory ligament and do cause her discomfort. 

Only happy when running or jumping

Foxie is appropriate for a very brave advanced beginner, as she is not for the faint of heart. Along with her injured hind suspensory, Foxie is also notoriously cold backed and prefers to canter away from the mounting block (if she deigns to stand at all) while pretending to know how to buck. Foxie goes best in a pelham; she is very forward and opinionated, as well as intensely adverse to giving to contact and is capable of ignoring an impressive amount of bit related discomfort while running off with you. She will go into the bridle if the rider follows the strange and illogical routine she has trained her current owner into dealing with, and once collected, will begrudgingly leg yield, shoulder fore and perform "animated" flying lead changes.  She enjoys trail riding, but must lead because Thoroughbreds win all races. An ideal home would be a galloping crazy young, light weight person who is willing to invest in 1.50$ worth of pain meds each day and many, many peppermints. She would prefer if this person also allowed her to wallow in the mud like a swamp creature.

"Bailey"

WRF Come Along Pond, aka "Bailey" is a 16.1h+ TBxWB. She is eligible to be registered as an American Warmblood. Bailey is a flashy, fancy moving mare with athletic conformation. She has great hooves (currently barefoot) and a lovely mane and tail. Bailey has endless athletic potential, and with a brain replacement could make any rider a wonderful upper or even international level prospect. 

Bailey is friendly like a Labrador, and is similarly unaware of her imposing size most of the time. She has lovely paces and great jumping form with even knees, but would need to be heavily drugged to be appropriate as a Hunter. While she passages as a nervous habit, Bailey also would probably not make a great dressage horse, as she generally gets bored of or resents actually having to do something hard. Bailey is quite spooky and can be difficult to control from the saddle or on the ground, and generally forgets there is a human involved in the situation at all while throwing herself around in terror.

But she could be a model, so it's okay.

Bailey has a ton of personality, and is very brave as long as she is fully convinced she is being super badass. She loves to be praised and enjoys showing off for a crowd. She does not enjoy and will spook at: decorated fences (especially XC), children, ponies, children on ponies, sudden movements, anything she didn't notice before, corn/most crops, the wind, any noise she cannot easily see and therefore identify and generally... herself. 

Bailey stands resentfully for the farrier, vet and bathing, but enjoys being groomed, hugged, fussed over and fed treats. She will try anything once, food wise, and is a pretty easy keeper who licks her feed bin clean each day. She loads well enough in a trailer if you have a lunge whip and a lunge line run through the window. While Bailey has some history of bad behavior (biting, bucking, rearing, bolting - no kicking!) she is a good willed horse who generally lashes out out of irrational fear of something stupid, so let that give you solace. Her only true vice is stallwalking.

Nobody Puts Baby In a Corner

In Monica's latest post, and in a lot of other places in my life, I've come to realize that I'm being held back in my riding by one really simple concept. It's stupid, honestly.

In my mind, Bailey is still the "baby". She's a baby horse with a baby brain that can't handle big challenges and because of her baby-ness, one needs to expect less of her.

But the thing is, Bailey is 6. Bailey is technically turning 7 sometime in the relatively near future (since we don't know her birthday, I've decided its July 16th). She's physically mature, and I need to stop acting like it's okay for her not to be mentally mature. I let her be dramatic and a doofus, and let her get away with horsey murder because "she's a baby".

Baby horse at 4, a day after she came home

Spooking in dressage

But honestly, it's time to grow up, B. In a lot of ways over the past few months, she's started to show me that she's ready to be treated like a grown up. She's so darn capable physically, and lately she's seemed pretty darn capable, mentally. Yes, she's still a hot and spicy red mare, but we can keep a lid on it. She can conquer her fears instead of running from them. I don't think she will ever stop being spicy, and throwing stupid things like a stop at a "scary" 8" high log because she was too busy being ditzy to notice it. But the important thing is her ability to keep going. She can spook at the hose as long as she eventually steps over it and we continue about our ride. She can be looky and silly and overjump things, but she needs to reach a new level of maturity and trust - and I need to be able to trust her to be solid and react to things like a (relative) Grown Up.

Spooking at something she's gone past...

At least a half dozen times already

This winter I realized I was riding her too sympathetically - she was taking advantage of the fact that I was trained to have her spook, and then have to spend the next 10 minutes picking up the mental pieces. Once I started riding her with the expectation that we continue going forward, and we go back to work after the spook, she started to step up the plate. She hasn't stopped being annoyingly distractable, and she hasn't stopped being looky or spooky or her usual mildly crazy self. But she has learned to go back to work, finally. She has been working with me when I say, "hey, stop locking your jaw and soften, and stay soft past the scary thing the next time".

I feel like the progress is slow, and I'm not sure what, when I go back out to the XC course next time, kind of horse I'll have. I'm hoping, though, that she remembers things just a little better every time, so we can get back to having goals and, hopefully, achieving that T3D dream.

WE MOVED!

If the all capitals title doesn't get the message across, Bailey and Foxie have successfully made it to their new home over the weekend. Saturday was an intensely busy and stressful day; it was both vet day and moving day, and there was so. much. driving.

Shots went well, both mares are scoring 5's this year on body score, and I have one spring float and one fall float this time around. I'm not looking forward to the vet bill, but they are good to go for the season, which makes me happy.

All three mares loaded and trailered great, which made both J and I really happy. We tried to protect my trailer from scary city drivers, and no one died or rear ended my trailer, so I am also happy. I think anxiety ruled the day, because I was exhausted and just... done with everything even by the time we got my girls to the barn. Then I had to bag feed, get the girls settled... it felt like I had tons to do but at the same time, it probably wasn't all that much.

I did hack Bailey lightly after she ate dinner, before heading to my inlaws, and she was relatively good. She worked up some sweat, and stood nicely to be bathed. We checked on them on the way home from the inlaws later that evening and both mares had settled; Foxie hadn't touched much of her dinner, but Bailey had settled down and stopped stall walking, which was great! We hurried home to collect the pup from a long day of playing and all three of us, exhausted, actually almost managed to sleep in on Sunday. Almost.

And now, for what you actually care about. Here are some photos of our new digs!

Bailey's corner stall and my current tack area, with bonus friendly barn cat.
Yes, her door opens to the right... it's weird. 

That plastic box marks the future site of my tack locker. Can't wait!

BB in "Prison"

Foxie loves the hay at this place! Nom nom nom. 

I held off posting because I totally forgot to get media on Saturday. I had a great ride on Bailey yesterday - she doesn't seem to love her stall (aka she wants OUT) but she stood nicely to be tacked up, and looks great still. We rode out after some spur related shenanigans and hopped around and warmed up in the jumping arena, and then walked around the galloping track to the XC to play. We did some starter logs, an itty bitty ditch and then I discovered the banks. YES! We played up and down the banks, and Bailey gained a lot of confidence in a short ride. We eventually got brave and actually jumped some things that might have been BN height... but I didn't have my armor on, so I kept that to a minimum. We'll be back out to play on Wednesday - and this time, I'll have my spurs set and my armor on!

Teach Me Tuesday: Dressage Girths

I'm relatively new to the dressage girth scene; I bought my first long billeted dressage saddle in late 2014, and ended up with a curved Ovation girth which worked ok until I got into my curved girth craze, and eventually decided to pony up the dollars for a Total Saddle Fit girth.

Now, I bought a 28, because B was going in a 28 (which had stretched, who knew?) and I figured it would work out. And it does securely hold my saddle to my horse.

But where the heck is a proper dressage girth supposed to sit? I understand that buckles should be above the elbows for obvious anatomical reasons... but the whole long pad / billets with varying ideas of where the holes should be / girth length thing has me confused.

I get that this is bad:

Shamelessly stolen image from Amerigo... 

But what does good look like??

It may just be my weirdo saddle, but my current 28" TSF sits with 1-2 extra holes on top, and that's it. Is it too long? 

TSF at Otter Creek last year:

Help me, internet!

Spring Cleaning

GI wish I had media for this project, but I don't. My phone was dead, and honestly... I probably would have destroyed it judging how stubbornly disgusting my hands remain after multiple cleaning attempts.

Why are my hands gross?

Oh, because I cleaned my saddles yesterday. I did bridles about a week ago when I was all excited about the new noseband (photos to come, I promise) as well as martingales/breast collars, but totally ignored my saddles.

This bridle is clean, I swear. 

 I felt vindicated when I rode in my dressage saddle and it was so dusty in the indoor it was tan from dust. EW. But it was time to pretend I have my shit together so the new barn likes me take care of my beloved investments and clean off a winter's worth of dirt, dust and grime.

I also took the opportunity to do a deep clean on the Baron Von Trenck, which will be going on Ebay ASAP... though I have official husband approval to keep it if I can't get a decent price for it, so I won't be giving it away. I took some new photos for the ad, and just need to take some measurements/photos of that and I'll be ready to post it. It cleaned up nicely!

I'm currently using:

Plain glycerine soap - I'm not fully convinced this does much. But I've had the same bar since forever.
Passier Lederbaslam - Not as good as the conditioner I used before, but does the job. I like using it on my River boots because it buffs to a nice low key shine.
Effax Ledersoft - I'm not sure if this is great stuff, but the previously abused leather of my Vision and new leather seem to love it, and it works wonders on stiff flaps, billets and other bits and pieces. I was using Neetsfoot oil, but I really hated that...

I have been lusting, lately, after something new and wonderful to help get my tack cleaner and to make the process more enjoyable - I used to adore the conditioner I used, but now that I can't find it anywhere, I'm pretty ho-hum about my whole tack cleaning bucket. I want to get into the habit of keeping things cleaner, especially now that I'm planning to ride more regularly in my tall boots. So, blogland, what are your favorite tack cleaning products, conditioners and other "stuff"? What is your tack cleaning routine like? 

Happy Friday!

Gratuitous photo of pretty mare. 

And We're Back

My last blog here was back in December - it's been a busy few months! In truth, I tried to break up with blogger, and picked up a wordpress blog for a while to talk about my riding... but I am a blogger girl at heart, so here I am, again.

Since my last post:

• Bailey's sanity came back to roost, or I grew a toolkit to make it, or something. Either way we're doing more riding than spooking these days (though she's still not 100%, its MUCH better). 
• I rode the whole winter in my jump saddle, and somehow along the way decided my dressage saddle didn't actually fit the beast.
• We saw a saddle fitter, who confirmed that my old dressage saddle doesn't fit (and is now aggressively for sale, because I've held on to it too long and I'm going to loose my nerve if I don't sell it soon) and made me nervous my Vision doesn't fit the horse either, but since it's not too bad, and Bailey has no issues, we will keep on keepin' on. 
• It turns out that the Royan fits Bailey pretty much exactly how the fitter would have wanted a saddle to fit her... but the fitter wouldn't look at a foam paneled flex tree saddle so, her loss. 
• We got a dog, and he's super cute and/or the second love of my life

Adorable small mugwump with his first bird

• Oh, yeah, I got married... too. Ya know. NBD.

I'm somebody's wife now, AHHH!

• Oh, and the horses are moving to a new home on Saturday. 

It's a whirlwind of a few months, but honestly, you haven't really missed much in riding. Bailey feels more grown up in her brain, but continues to have good days and bad days with keeping a soft mouth (especially to the inside), truly going into the bridle, doing correct lateral work. It's a pity that she dearly loves a waterford or her new slow twist, and goes well in them - they aren't dressage legal and it sucks. We've jumped, we've dressaged. Foxie has gone back and forth between being in shape (before dog, when Drew could lunge her) and being a saggy older lady (current status). I'll have to see if anything from Wordpress is worth porting over; it's been cold and I've been so busy that I'm super low on photographic content, so the posts are probably ranty/wordy and low on interesting things to look at. 

Looking forward, get excited to witness me freaking out about moving my horses, hopefully doing a lot of XC schooling and looking forward to my first show of the season!