Stick Jumping II

For those of you who are having a hard time keeping up with my spotty, mile long and distracted posts, Bailey has had two semi-crappy jump schools over the last week (Wednesday and Sunday). I've been doing a lot of thinking and talking about our issues with a friend, and while I've got over a month to resolve the problem... it's not the most confidence boosting issue we've ever had.

Bailey's always been a pretty easy jumper but lately it seems like we're more and more reliant on getting a good "spot". My preference, the long, isn't always the most popular with her, so we still end up with a lot of chippy, too close for comfort distances. B is scopey, so she gets us out of plenty of binds, but I'd prefer if we could figure this out now, when we can still get out of a bad situation. There seems to be a sweet spot for good jumps:

I've also noticed that when I kick for and actually get my long spot, the jump is amazing. It checks all of the boxes; air time, position seems to just work out, hands actually manage to do hand things... and generally she doesn't take that rail. 

So how do we fix the issues? Beyond going to a trainer (and we've got just a few rides before I'm going to call in reinforcements), I am going to try the following this week:

1. Switch into the waterford. We can't get distances and we can't deal with the other issues if I can't half halt / soften / etc my gosh darn horse. In her defense, I'm also going to put the neck strap on her so I don't yank on her pretty face. 

2. Roll them placing poles out. 12' or so seemed to work out for the smaller stuff... so I'm tempted to put the fences up around 2'9-2'11 and roll them out to 14' just to see what happens. 

3. Set up a gymnastic in the near future. We haven't done one in quite some time (I mean, single fences do have more utility when you only have a few standards/poles to work with...) and I think its time. I'm also seriously considering trailering over to the gymnastics trainer extraordinaire to put Bailey through her courses and grids. If Bailey isn't jumping better by mid June, I'll find the money and make the trip to WI happen.  

4. Translate our jumping needs over to other areas - more half halts and collection-extension work to tune and lighten the front end, raised trot poles to strengthen her back and some fitness work because she's definitely felt "tired" sometimes lately. It could very well be a food thing, but we'll up her workload first to see. 

Who has a favorite jumping exercise? I need some ideas :)

Jumping Sticks (x2)

I actually rode my horse again! I know, this really shouldn't be such a victory. But it is, so bare with me.

We're finally into glorious summer-ish weather here in Minnesota, and I am one happy camper because of it. Bailey seemed pleasant and happy to see me when I arrived on a lovely 70 degree afternoon this week, and I took her out to play over some sticks, because as my lovely husband reminded me, I haven't actually show jumped her in... a month? More?

I was in a good mood, so finding my horse in a broken halter only irked me a little bit. I don't get how she keeps breaking hardware and leaving the break-away fuse in tact, but whatever. 

So much derp.

Anyhoo, sticks. There was a lesson jumping adorable tiny ponies over adorable tiny jumps, but when they were done, I casually destroyed their excercise and moved their trot poles, because... ponies. We ended up with this:

ART

 I warmed up trying to use the pony distances, I'll admit. But finally I ended up with a mid-size vertical with placing pole, a good sized x-rail with placing pole and a random, terrifyingly 2ish holes higher than everything else hanging vertical. Bailey was kind of happy in a too-forward kind of way, and it was hard to package her so that she'd hit the placing pole right and not kill us over the fence. I played with the two outside fences for a while. Right before I got on, I had set the vertical and honestly, I had butterflies in my stomach, because it seemed BIG.

It didn't really ride all that big. Bailey was giving it a kind of awkward, leg-hangy type effort. I connected the jumps a few times and ended up kicking for the long once or twice, and was pleased with the jump that I got out of her. It seems like we hardly did anything at all, but Bailey was panting and sweaty pretty quickly. I guess it's time to put some more fitness on her! I don't blame her, because we've had bipolar weather like crazy. After the 50's and low 60's and rain we had last week, 70-something felt glorious. We went on a little hack - the plan was to pop over the ditch and down the banks on our way back to the barn - but realized the schoolie fence was up blocking the XC side of the gallop track, so I just cut losses and rode the tired beast home. 

She rinsed off like a normal functional horse, of course, after I got all prepped to deal with a rearing, thrashing monster (again). I took a quick trail ride and did some work with the Foxmonster too - overall, a great way to spend an afternoon at the barn :)

Edit: This post was actually written... at some point last week. Wednesday? Thursday? Anyways, we've jumped more sticks since then, this time in 85+ degree heat. Bailey was thrilled to be working out in the hot, dusty outdoor yesteday afternoon. We had the same set up, but the vertical with placing pole had become an oxer with wee standards and I set up a monster striped panel fence that weighed approximately 8 million pounds across the arena from the existing line. I was also wearing knee patch breeches and my new boots that I'm in the process of breaking in.

It went as well as you can expect. Giant crossrail with placing poles on both sides? No problems. She even managed to jump (awkwardly) the vertical with another badly placed pole until I got off and rolled it in. Over the oxer, she casually jumped me out of the tack a handful of times. We were stringing together courses, and I was pretty happy, and went "what the hell" and loped Bailey over the new fence. Or, should I say, pointed her at the new face, felt her slow down, went to my crop because my leg was totally done at that point and awkwardly got jumped out of the tack (stayed on the horse, though) while taking the extremely heavy rail. We put it back up, and once again, got jumped out of the  tack but she did go to it. Going the other way inspired a slow down to a stall and then mule leap reaction, which unfortunately resulted in me staying on my horse by virtue of pulling on her face.

LOVELY.

It was freaking hot, I felt like I was dying, Bailey was totally convinced she was dying, and when I finally was like fine, one more time clear and we'll be done, she pulls the rail again. UGH. We got one awkward, clean jump after and headed home to untack for a much needed bath. Since this post is getting long, I'll publish my goals and plans and some more squinty-analysis on Bailey's jumping "issues" in another post.

Hint: it involves more sweaty saddle pads

Who Are You And Where is BB?

I think someone has pulled a changeling-type situation with my horse. Because, you see... Bailey has been all kinds of sane and (relatively) normal lately and I just can't quite bring myself to believe it.
I rode with a friend on Thursday, and again on a cold and early Saturday morning... and I'm honestly surprised.

Here's a mirror selfie from Saturday. See, I ride my horse sometimes!

Thursday we dressed for dressage but ended up doing long trots and a bit of cantering with my friend, J, and her barrel horse. Bailey thought she was probably going to die because of over trotting, but she survived, and was surprisingly only sweaty under her girth. I was proud; she was less spooky than Ginny, J's horse and while being a bit dramatic - as in I asked her to slow down and I got a panting, immediate halt - she was responsive and polite in a snaffle and my little spurs. She didn't spook at the mama deer and her twin fawns we saw on the XC course - she stared but didn't bolt - and even (relatively) politely jumped up and down the ST and BN banks and while she did plenty of back and forth waffling about doing the ditch, she trotted it a few times with no major issues after that. And I didn't die, even in my dressage saddle.

Saturday I was feeling like I actually should do some real dressage because I keep miraculously getting distracted, so we dressed for the part; I put boots on my horse and everything, guys. I also decided it was a great day to start breaking in my new tall boots, the Mountain Horse Venezia field boots. Bailey caught easily, slurped down some alf pellets while warming up in the back on track sheet since it was freezing that day and she had been out without a blanket. I felt like it was probably not the smartest decision to wear new boots on a horse who may or may not be a stiff uncontrollable kite, but I tossed on the little spurs and a quarter sheet and went to try out the other barn's indoor. The indoor in our barn continues to be too small for my taste and always seems to have a mess of lesson kids going around in small circles. The big arena had a pony lesson going, but ponies are good for Bailey, and it's much easier to share the arena with something that goes around half the arena by the time you've done like, 4 circles on the other half.

Taking photos of horse in fluffy dressage bridle is still a struggle. Much distracted

I was so shocked at what I was sitting on that I hardly knew what to do; my horse warmed up quietly, came through on the bridle and put in some lovely warm up work. She was looky, but not spooky; the first time I can remember that she's really been one without the other. She wanted to look out the doors but a casual boot with my inside leg kept her forward and engaged. Her canter was, again, soft and balanced and relaxed, and her mouth stayed soft and pliable. She seemed to have had some takeaways from our long trotting session with J, because her medium/extended trot was lovely and really had some shoulder action. She even compliantly did some straight leg yields for me, and was throwing nice, straight halts.

There is a straight halt in that mirror despite cloudy weird lighting.

I have no idea who this horse is, but I'm keeping her, ok? I am 100% on board with doing dressage all next winter, because mirrors and my pony is magically ok with life in that indoor and everything is great.

Oh yeah, and I love my new tall boots :) 

Wednesday Worries

This Wednesday, I don't have a what do; I'm discovering that my "What Do" posts are generally... I'm worrying about something, lets ask blogland. I am a habitual worrier. My brain has a magical ability to fixate on things and not only can I imagine all the bad things that could possibly happen (honestly, I should probably write Final Destination movies, because I can imagine 10,000 ways to horrifically die most of the time) but they sit on my chest and make it hard to think about anything else.

Here are some spring flowers to break up the text... photos by me!

Here's a running list of my worries, as of late:

1. My horses will get ulcers from not getting enough hay, and wasting what they will get. I'm ignoring the fact that both appear to be dappling... it could happen. BAH. I've got a bunch of hay feeder links saved, and am debating asking if I can provide something (a net, a hay hoop, hell, a muck bucket) for staff to feed hay in.

2. Turn out halters will rub holes in my horses faces and not break when they need to. Foxie has a history of problems with halter rubs, so I have been looking into a beta-with-breakaway option for her. I think her problems stem from both weight and filth; while the new barn has a generally sandy footing, I still think she can gunk up a halter in no time. I could also get her one of the rope halters the barn uses (Do or Do Knot, a business run by one of the boarders) with a breakaway fuse. Either way, anxiety makes me want to spend money spastically before anything bad actually happens. Bailey hasn't worn a halter full time... ever? I don't think? And with her sitting back asshattery a few weeks ago (and the other time she sat back and was actually in a break away halter... and broke a brass buckle but not the fuse) I am worried she will kill herself trying to break a halter.

I'm talking about halters, so here's a nice picture of Foxie's show halter!

3. I can't decide if I need to replace helmets or not. I do want a new Tipperary Sportage for summer schooling (because mine is janky and SINKS) but... do I need a new skull cap? Should I just wear my CO and possibly pass out from overheating? Show and school in the same helmet? Do I buy a close out Tipperary Titan to replace my current one, or do I try on a CO skull cap and spend lots of money? This similar anxiety train also has lines to body protectorville, where I worry about needing to replace my XC armor.

4. While I'm pretty sure this one is all in my head, I'm worried my horses aren't getting their smartpaks, and Foxie isn't getting her pill. Or that they're getting eachother's smartpaks despite being labeled (Foxie is the BAY. I even put it on her stall card in case they couldn't tell from the photo of a horse that is obviously not BB).

Definitely not red. Though this halter is Bailey's, now. 

Do you worry more than you should? What do you do to quiet the demons?

This Week(ish): Ride Updates

While I want to write about every ride like magic is happening, it's really not. In an effort to not be too boring, here's how my rides have been so far this week:

Saturday AM:
I got to the barn early on Saturday, and retrieved Bailey out of the pasture probably quite soon after she was turned out. While she was in good spirits and I tossed a quarter sheet over her rump while I was tacking her up, she was stiff and up walking from the barn to the outdoor arena, and while on our way, spooked at a horse turned out in the grass paddock out there. We started out walking, and I tried to push her forward into work, but she was still very tense and wasn't willing to come through. We defaulted back to some figure-8's and I tried to make sure that I was really riding with contact (vs. throwing my outside rein away like I tend to do) and she did slowly soften up. I was relatively happy with her canter after some work- her first few canters were very show-jump esque, with her head up and not a whole lot of connection between us.

Much like at the halt, Bailey feels cantering should involve looking up and around for things to spook at.

We did some walk-canter transitions and canter-halt transitions, which helped, and while I had to move to a smaller circle to get her to bend through her body, she stayed quite uphill in her canter work, and was pretty obedient. I moved her from the jump ring to the upper ring we rode in last week (swingset, road, etc) and she put in some more decent trot and canter work.

I tried to tie up the ride neatly with some square halts on the center line, but our halts were not particularly square. We definitely need to do more dressage, but it's so hard to resist the XC fences!



Tuesday:

I meant to ride Monday afternoon, but the husband and dog kind of threw off the schedule. The schedule will only get worse since the Hubby goes in for surgery tomorrow and won't be mobile for a while, but I'll take what I can get at this point.

It was gorgeous last night; just a bit breezy so I was still wearing a long sleeve shirt, but I got a bit too warm with armor ontop of it. Why was I wearing armor? Oh yeah, because I went and played on XC again. YAY! We started our ride in the jump arena, and while Bailey was looky (big tractor/manure spreader/skid loader parade) she seemed to just translate that into being very forward vs having a melt down. This is definitely progress on her usual reaction to life, so I was thrilled. We did a little warm up, popped a cavaletti, and loped out to the XC.

Less Derp, more "RAWR!" on XC,  please, B

Bailey was definitely up and definitely knew we were out to jump, so she was jigging as I tried to walk her over to start on some small stuff. We headed to the ditch first, and had a few stall-then-jump moments before she started to flow over it more smoothly - even when she was being spooky, she was still thrilled and wanted to keep cantering off shaking her head and doing her badass dance. We built up to the full coffin going back and forth over the ditch / log / skinny log combo and went to play on the banks. She was good on the mini and mid sized banks, but was a bit awkward going up the big bank, and had to tap dance around dramatically before hopping back down it. She was still really not happy to be stopping and walking, and was pulling my arms off - apparently the best way to have a forward, over eager, pulls-you-to-the-fences horse is to forget your gloves.

On the big up bank I kept kind of losing my lower leg despite my best attempts to keep it at the girth and right after popping over a little log set between two coops as a warm up for the BN looking coop, I realized that I had lost a rear velcro block in the grass. I'm not sure how that happened- it's never happened before! But I was impressed that I was able to dismount, re-attach the block and mount from the mid-size down bank without any problems; B wanted to graze, but once I pulled her head up, she was willing and stood quietly for me to mount.

She popped over the red hay feeder question next to the little log with no questions, happily hopped the half coffin and (begrudgingly) halted before the little bridge. We did our bent line through the unfilled water complex again and then I headed back to see if Bailey had retained anything about the BN picnic table. She was still sticky going away (it took three tries to get one I was happy with) but going home? She flew. No questions asked, yes, ma'am. With that note, I decided to be done and hack the long way around the galloping track home. Bailey spotted a very quiet car pulling down the driveway between the paddocks and the track area, and spooked pretty hard, but I only lost a stirrup and was able to get her reorganized and on her way. It took a bit to work that tension out - we did shoulder in while walking and I tried to keep her marching forward into the bridle. The second half of the walk, we ended up doing walk-halt, trot-halt and canter-halt transitions, because my hands were so sore from her hanging on me and dragging me around. She did improve after a few transitions, but I am still wondering if a waterford is in her future.

All in all? A great, positive ride. I feel like BB is really starting to absorb some of this XC stuff. Once we're a bit more confident, I'm going to start looking for more off-property schooling opportunities.

Lets get back to this!

Oh, and I have a check, so I'll soon be all signed up to ride with Dom Schramm in June! WHOO!

Saturday PM:

Andrew's surgery went well on Thursday, and by Saturday PM I was itching for a few hours away to get a ride in. So I did.

I got to the barn pretty late; after 7, I tried to not be in a hurry to get a ride in before the sun went down. I got Bailey tacked up in the usual dress (including the loose ring magic snaffle, again) and we cruised out to the big outdoor jumping ring (which was empty due to the open house that had happened earlier in the day). Bailey seemed pretty low key and relaxed, like I had woken her from a nap and she was still a little sleepy. I had on my 1/4" spurs for the first time in approximately forever, and I wasn't sure how that was going to go for us.

It was actually, totally, clandestinely awesome.

Like this awesome (I keep using this photo for everything #sorrynotsorry)

I'm taking it as an early mother's day present for putting up with her for a whole year. Her walk was forward and compliant, her trot work was settled and quite adjustable for a horse who isn't being ridden consistently and probably lost those muscles a few weeks ago. Her canter was a shock; after a whole winter of canter troubles (again), B remained soft and through the bridle. I was shocked because her mouth was actually soft. Her poll was pliable. I mean, it wasn't Valegro amazing, but I was just so happily surprised by the softness she offered me. The canter was rideable and light, and I felt like I was not only super secure in the tack without having to clamp my legs, but like I could actually influence her gait rather than just sit there and know it's 70% awful.

It's definitely something I need to work on - I feel like lately I've become too complacent in the dressage saddle; not as bad as when I was convinced I can't move, but more that the horse is such a shitshow that I just have to kind of sit there and stay balanced and let it happen. Not only do I want to work on continuing this magical trend (who knows why it happened?) but I really want to stop feeling like a passenger, especially when the shit hits the fan. It doesn't do either of us any good for me to sit and brace through the tough moments, and if I can stay soft, maybe I can keep Bailey ride-able so I can start to fix the messes.

I can't wait to get back into a schedule and see what 6 going on 7 Bailey can give me - it feels like she's grown up and changed lately, and I really, really want to hop on that train all the way to the show ring. 

What Do Wednesday: Hay, you.

Dearest readers,

What does your barn do with hay? I'm curious how other barns handle feeding hay, both inside and out. Currently, I'm not a huge fan of how the new barn feeds hay, simply because my horses are pigs and waste a lot of their gorgeous hay. I'm not sure I want to be that boarder, though - the one who has an annoying list of requests for their horse. So, what do?

Funny human, hay is for sleeps!

Here's my current/past situation:

Dakota-

Inside: At our previous barn, my horses had their stall hay fed in a Prefert stall manger (outside door). While I know having heads down to eat is best, I was happy because while Foxie pulled her hay out of her manger a lot, it ended up under her manger and not in the middle of her stall to get peed and pooped on. Bailey's stall was also a lot tidier, hay wise.

The girls were fed 3ish flakes by the good barn worker, and 1-2 by the shitty barn worker.

Outside, the mares had net-covered round bales in various feeders. I didn't love the safety feeder that they put in towards the end (I mean, I'm all for safety, but Bailey was too tall for it so it rubbed a spot in her mane.

Woodloch-

Inside: the horses get their hay on the floor of their stall, currently. I watched Bailey pee on some beautiful hay the other day and that makes me unhappy. I also noticed B didn't have a speck of hay in her stall last night; pretty sure she got forgotten (not a big deal) but it would be nice not to stand there and wonder if she got fed and porked it all, or if she got forgotten.

Both girls get 2 flakes, which isn't something I LOVE (I'd prefer there to be more, but I get it) but it's good quality, so they tend to eat it up pretty fast.

Outside: The horses get fed round bales, netted, in feeders. Yay! My only :( is that there is only one bale, and quite a few horses.

Tell me internet... what do? Secondary to that question, has anyone seen these odd contraptions ("Hay Hoops") in use?