Summer Project: Trailer Re-Vamp

I got lucky in college and with some help from my parents (who were thoroughly over me ranting about having to deal with other people's timelines, ridiculous trailering charges and all of the other issues trailering with people from my barn caused) purchased my cute little 1995 Trail-et 2 Horse trailer. It's a straight load, and while I wish it had the nice modern soft mangers and a ramp, this little trailer has been a fantastic asset. It's not fancy, but it does the job and it's a thousand times better than the dark, low ceiling-ed steel trailers my friends often came to pick me up in - it has really decent ventilation for an older trailer, a nice high ceiling, and the horse slots are a really good length, so they make up for the annoyance of having solid mangers. My trailer also has a tack room with under manger storage, and a small to decent sized full size area.

It's even cuter now that I have a truck in a matching shade of red!

When we purchased the trailer, we scraped and Rust-Oleum-ed over some surface rust, sealed the manger windows and escape doors, re-did the top vent, painted the floor boards with more Rust-Oleum to help them resist any damage from urine, added external hooks and added bridle racks to the front of the trailer. My dad did some wiring work to get me rear load lights and a tack room light for any late-night trailering I would need to do (after a bad experience with a late night load without internal lights in a trailer, we both agreed this was a damn good idea).

Now that I've got two horses (and thus 5x the crap I used to) and a much smaller storage area at our house than I did in college (when I was able to take up large amounts of my parent's upper garage storage with blanket bins) I'm looking at my trailer now as having a lot of wasted storage space. I don't love the saddle racks, both the racks themselves (triangular, so metal rods rest against the panels, which is a big no-no for me) and their location. I have three plastic Stanley trunks as a result of the barn with no tack room, and currently two live in my trailer while one is living in the barn, becoming overrun with spiders. The main compartment feels a bit like wasted space; a lot of the leathergoods I purchased the extra bridle racks along the front (curved) for have wound up in my tack locker in the barn, and I keep my saddles in my car thanks to Hubby's wonderful trunk saddle rack he made for me.

I'm  considering moving the saddle racks, adding a storage bench, creating a built in storage area under the mangers and a myriad of other things - and my show schedule this year differs from previous years, because I'm planning on a lot of one day shows versus multiple days, which changes the way I use my trailer at shows. I want to revamp my trailer to be more useful for storage - because it's utterly stupid how many times I've had to make do this year because something I need is at home in storage - and also functional for tacking out of for lessons and shows.

I generally only haul one horse (because I'm a control freak and don't like dealing with the myriad of problems a second person and horse bring to the table) but my trailer doesn't have a solid divider, so the second stall space isn't really a viable storage option (at least for anything permanent). I do use the right side manger to hold hay and bedding on the way to shows, as it's so much easier to just put it there and strap it in than deal with moving it once I've arrived and it's about to rain. I do occasionally haul two horses, and always like to have the option. My truck, unlike my dad's, also is limited in storage space, as it's a single bench seat F250 with no back seat, and we don't have a cover for the bed.

SO, dear blogland... tell me about your trailers! What works for you? What do you hate? Have you done anything DIY style to upgrade your trailer? 

I have a barn friend again!

After a long week away from my ponies, I finally got out to the barn on Saturday afternoon. I don't remember if I talked about Hubby's knee surgery (3rd time is the charm, right?) but that ate up most of last week, along with doing our taxes like responsible adults. Finally, I got to escape to the barn and hang out with J, who (freaking finally) returned from England.

Thankfully, I had the good sense to lunge Bailey before I got on her, because she spent a good 15+ minutes spontaneously bolting and bucking in between periods of extreme pogo stick trotting. She finally steamed down enough to stop like a normal horse (vs the eye rolling spooking sideways thing I got with previous halting attempts) and went the other way for a few more minutes, and thankfully that seemed to get it out of her system, because she was lovely under saddle; we didn't do too much that was challenging, but the hunter-lope is back (YAY) and she was back to being polite and actually weighting the bit at the trot, which is a good positive step. She wasn't horribly spooky and I felt like it was a good reset for her behavior.

Foxie was finally sound, as well, and while Bailey got to deal with J and I gabbing while riding (with lots of gabbing walk breaks) Foxie got worked through with no distractions. She was stiff, and a bit bucky (it's quite icy out in their paddock, so I'm guessing they both needed to stretch and burn off some energy) but did some nice flatwork in Bailey's micklem, as well. I don't know if she loves the micklem (and I still need to play with the noseband/bit hangers a bit...) but she seemed happy to be back at work. Her canter is so much more condensed than Bailey's is right off the bat, and it's nice to have her back to remind me how to ride without the ever-forgiving nature of Bailey. Fox wants me to ride with steady hands and proper, polite leg cues, where Bailey lets me get away with a lot more floppiness.

I hope, one day, I can ride Bailey as subtly and as accurately as I am able to ride Foxie, but Foxie makes it easy; she's so smooth, where Bailey is bouncy and quite hard to sit on. I'm looking forward to putting B into some lessons with a dressage trainer this spring - hopefully they can help me find my seat with her. In the mean time, I'm going to continue to experiment with saddles (with both horses; Bailey's jump saddle seemed gappy in new and exciting ways on Foxie when I looked at her from the front) and need to remember to save to have my fitter out again this spring.

Here's to hoping tonight's ride is also sane and (hopefully) a bit more productive; Bailey seems to lose condition pretty quickly and easily, so I need to work on getting her back in shape. Spring can't get here fast enough - I want to work her outside, so we can actually do some muscle work!

Canter Along, Pond: Rides 2 & 3

While I went into rides 2 and 3 with the best intentions, I can tell that the atmosphere is working against us; more people are riding as it gets back into relatively sane temperatures here, and that means more traffic. Rides 2 and 3 were much more tense and brought out more behavior issues than i would have liked.

Ride 2 went on during a lesson, and the teacher was acting like I was causing problems in her lesson (I wasn't - the other horses were not feeding off Bailey, and it's not my problem that your students aren't cantering yet. No one seems to care but you that I'm cantering, lady). Bailey was a bit hot and forward, and while she wasn't naughty, she wasn't a straightforward ride, either. She was better through her shoulders and her canter felt very powerful (yay!) but she was distractable. The hot chilli pepper pony came out once we got a nice transition - she just wanted to GO GO GO and when riding in the small arena, the walls come up quickly no matter what. When you're roaring along, it gets more out of control with every step. Because we were getting the stink eye, and she was being quite good, we quit while we were ahead and I combed out the magical tail:

Tail game like #WOAH

Ride 3 was also started during a lesson, and luckily I didn't start with a lot of cantering like I normally did. I finally got my fake Micklem in trade, and while it may not yet be adjusted perfectly, Bailey seemed to be quite good in it, just like she was in the rental from the tack shop. The trot work was good, if forward. Bailey was a bit stiff and up, like I probably should have lunged her before. Once I had the arena to myself, we started canter work. It was a vague disaster - she wanted to put her head down and buck, and once I got it up, she was almost unmanageably forward, skittering in an almost bolt with her back end while still trying to haul me forward. It crossed my mind that I was in a really dangerous situation (between the bucking and bolting she was also tossing her head and getting light in front when I half halted) but I felt like stopping and getting off would let her win. So I let her canter, and canter, and canter... until she finally settled enough to feel ride-able.

At least she's cute?

So... operation improve the canter is going a bit sideways currently. It's hard to improve a canter when you can hardly control it... so we'll be regressing to work on that. I think the micklem, once I've got it fit a bit better, will help. I take it as a good thing that she was taking a firm contact in her trot work (and we can probably count hauling on my hands in the canter as a good sign too...) and while I certainly am not happy with her behavior in the canter, it's not the Micklem's fault. 

Canter Along, Pond: Ride 1

Operation "De-Pogo-sticking-the-canter" has commenced as of last night. After my semi-awful ride on Monday, I came out with an idea of what I wanted to work on (the canter) and tried to set myself up for success; saddle is balanced with half pad with rear shims, I had the right bit on, and a running martingale because I was missing it last time. I didn't end up videoing due to the arena having people in it (I feel awkward videoing myself when there are other riders in the frame) but we set to work, and I tried a couple of things last night:

1. Cantering earlier in our ride and leaving the trot work (which is always 800,000x easier) for last.
2. Demanding a bend.

Why was her canter better two years ago?

Bailey was a bit sluggish off of my aids (not sure if it was shock at being asked to canter so soon, or if I wasn't setting her up like I usually do?) into the canter, but tried hard to do what I asked. Her canter was relatively soft and controllable at the canter, but asking her to go straight involved locking her jaw, and when she'd run into my legs trying to circle or go to the wall (we were passing someone who I was giving the rail, so we'd go straight on the quarter line) she'd nearly fall over. I distinctly remember applying spurs to keep her upright.

At least I was better at sitting up by Year 2

Still didn't fit in that saddle, though.

While this improved, as did her transitions (which were soft with very little hanging on the bit in the downwards), in retrospect, I need to do a better job of keeping my fingers closed on my reins (bad, Ashley) and also need to use half halts and my outside leg more effectively to pull her upright from her usual tendency to motorcycle. Her neck is very bendy (unlike Foxie's) so it's easy to delude myself that she's soft and bending when really it's just her neck being bendy, and her body is tumbling along behind, but probably crooked. She is more comfortable cantering on a circle, so that's probably the place to broach more complex/hard ideas like not falling over, condensing her stride with a half halt and other exciting but entirely basic canter concepts.

Goals for next time:

1. Install half halts on a circle and get her STRAIGHT vertically
2. Attempt half halts on long walls to continue this, but don't sacrifice bend/softness.
3. Troubleshoot the jaw locking on the long walls.
4. If she's magically going really nicely, attempt a medium canter and half halt (baby step beginning of being able to collect > medium within the gait)

Bailey Jumped A Thing (The actual post)

I was so ecstatic with BB after our jump school on Friday.

Admittedly, I did her absolutely no favors; I rushed our warm up and as a result, had problems with balancing her (especially in the canter) and basic things like half-halts were nonexistent. I was willing to let it slide, because I wanted to jump, and she was jumping out of her skin for me. Bailey has never been all that... bold in the indoor. I have recently joked that she tries to slide her hind quarters under the fence and jump it from there because we can't possibly get close enough. Friday night included a few fliers of her own making, and she tackled a super badly set 3' vertical like a boss, on an angle, with a bad turn to put her on the angle. And she did it several times.

With a stylish back end, too.

We got a few more changes over a pole, but I'm still struggling to capture and get the change through her hind end, especially when seated. It's a work in progress, and as I'm writing this, I'm wondering if we need to take some time and work on sitting down, and also her ability to be even and slow in the canter. Bailey was super speedy on jump day, and was explosive and hard to balance last night in dressage tack. Put those two things together, and I think we're lacking some strength.

Still a badass.

It's been busy the last few rides; I ignored Foxie on Friday, and made up for it by getting her all ready to go last night, only to discover that stone bruise (I am assuming) season has come early, just like shedding season, and she was off on her left front. I also am horse sitting J's quarter horse mare, Ginny, who is funny, if angry at me because I make her canter soooooo much. It's also been warm, so Ginny ends up steaming herself damp, and Bailey even managed to work up a bit of dampness last night.

I figured Bailey would be pretty sane after all of the cantering and jumping we did on Friday... Either I am deluding myself into thinking that we did a lot, or she is in better shape than I think, because she probably could have used some time on the lunge line before I rode. Instead, I hopped on and she was lovely in a new bit (and snaffle bridle) for the walk and the trot. The canter was a hot mess of hanging on my hands, bracing through the jaw and occasionally deciding to bolt. The reaction got worse when we started practicing walk-canter transitions, and while we worked through it, I probably should have been more proactive and either swapped into my normal bridle, or done something better to problem solve.

I've spent tons of time with this mug lately and not enough time riding. As per usual.

I still need to get up the guts to try long lining her again, I think. I haven't done it in probably 2 years, but it would probably help re-introduce flexing the hocks. I also want to get her into the BOT to make sure that we don't have any soreness issues from jumping or general existing in slippery winter (side note, still really like the BOT pad, but not sure it's on her long enough to make a difference) and try to ramp up her strength. I've always felt like Bailey wasn't strong because she really doesn't have any muscle tone... but I'm not sure how to build the muscles we need, so I may need to get desperate enough to pay for a lesson. Foxie always had a lovely, powerful canter, and could almost do canter pirouettes for how well she could compress and sit down once she figured it out. Bailey was not blessed with a canter (she always had and still has a fabulous trot, and lately has developed a really nice forward walk) and I'm lacking the tools to build one. Suggestions?

Not a life altering canter, folks. 

Bailey Jumped a Thing!

I finally got out to the barn last night and had the upper arena all to myself. Of course. all thoughts of a good warm up and maybe a few jumps or flying changes went out the window, because how often do you get a large indoor to yourself at a busy boarding and lesson barn??

The result?

Full speed

slowmo of the same jump


#obsessed

I'm Not Sure

As we head towards the end of January, I'm seeing lots of posts about show seasons and what everyone is planning to do this year.

I'm envious, because it seems like some of these areas have a lot more going for them than MN does! While we have two horse trials within a 3 hour drive, we don't have a lot of schooling. And we don't have a lot of schooling shows. Looking at the schedule I've drawn out for next year, it feels pretty lame.

This was really fun.

The problem is that after a year of not competing due to fiances, I'm not fully convinced I want to go back.

The cost is stressful.
The haul and the PTO and the schedule with a husband who has his own life and a dog who can't take care of himself is stressful.
Going it alone is stressful (but so are coach's fees, especially when I haven't yet found a coach I really click with).
Feeling like I have to show BN when things never seem to go right at shows... is, well, stressful.
Feeling like I'm letting my horse down with my actions - or by not showing - is stressful.
Staying clean, and making sure I feed myself and keep myself going throughout the show is stressful.
After the last year of dealing with show organizers as a non-competitor... I don't know if I want to support some of my local shows, because the people behind them aren't quite who I used to think they were.

I could keep going, but I won't.

I love this photo but I was forcing myself to be happy because otherwise I would have shut down out of anxiety and fear.
(though that wasn't showing's fault, that was a personal thing)

With that list, I wonder why I liked showing at all.

Well, I like to run XC.

Who doesn't like XC?

I like to jump, and do dressage, and I like trying to be better.

I like showing myself that I can.

I like dressing up and looking fancy for photos and video.

Who doesn't like looking fancy?

All of this is weighing heavily on me right now, because spending so much money to go to shows still has me paralyzed. I'm still aiming at CT and two schooling shows at this point... but I almost wonder, what's the point.

But I also wonder... what else can I do? I don't want  to wander without any goals. And I don't have a ton of money to spend. I don't think I like other sports after being spoiled by ride times and the generally required (and thus, not an extra fee I have to pay) stabling. My horse life has been broken up into "getting good enough to compete" time and then "competition". Once Foxie went lame, I laid low and dreamed about getting a competition horse because, well, competing was what I did. I feel a lot of anxiety and confusion, because I should want to show. Everyone around me seems to want to show. And how else do I get to run and jump like that?

But still, I feel... lost. Caught, kind of.

How do you, dear reader, balance costs with enjoyment? What do you enjoy about showing? What else do you do, besides go to shows?