Jomping Ponies

So a few of you might've already seen a lil tease of this post and thanks for the comments :D

Yankee recovered quickly from his little foot issue and a few days ago Jackie and I spent a day riding each other horses. Amid the tornado watch too. It was frightening, but fun. (later that night we had some massive hail accompany deathstorm. It was the size of my palm. DAMN NATURE YOU SCARY)

We first rode Yanks. I only have pics of the 3'9 oxers we tackled, but the grid work was pretty ridiculous and he loved it. I had 4 trot poles, a cavaletti, onse stride to x rail, one stride vertical, one stride vertical, bounce to oxer, one stride to x rail, one stride to oxer. It was awesome. We wanted him to sit a little back and not rush so much. Thats why we put the bounces in the the middle of the grid.

Here's a VIDEO... I swear in it though because I am a potty mouth that can't control my swear word usage. Heh.  So beware if you dont like cursing, dont watch!

After each round through the grid we took him over one of the two oxers. Both set at 3'9.. and he was rather....overzealous to say the least, HA. I'd rather have him jump well and be little cray than jump like shit an refuse stuff and come in too close. Yankee has ALWAYS preferred the long spot and I've learned to just stay out of his way and not hassle him when I'm 3 strides out. Also I still have to work on my eq and not shoot forward. Jackie helps.

Jackie rode him first

uhhh, long spot much?

Love this pic, wish my eq was better though

Not the best on for either of us. He is flat and my butt is waaay too high.

I don't know if you can see it well, but we put flowers ON the blue oxer top rail. He didnt even flinch at them. If anything he just jumped higher. I was extremely happy with his little self rocketing around because he wasn't out of control, just exuberant. Every time he listened to my half halts afterwards and collected right back up. For a little cooldown fun we played around in our little water jump. He refused the first time, which is worrysome considering that would be 20 penalties, but we shall sort it out this weekend schooling at Longview. You might also notice I jumped him in his lever noseband and waterford instead of the hackamore. Last time he was rooting with the hackamore so I put a bit in to remind him of his manners.

"Is this sanitary??"

After all that fun at my barn, we went to Jackie's to jump miss Isis.  She does the same thing Yankee did when he was a bebe-rushes the fences. She also hates contact. Which make sit quite difficult to execute half halts without her throwing a piss fit.

Jackie has been doing a TON of work with her since she came back from her injury (for new readers, she tore a hole in her butt muscle. A BIG one. Long story. But it was gaping and huge. Laid her up most of the winter. She's been back in work for about a month and a half?) and her head tossing has gotten LOADS better. Jackie's played around with bits and nosebands and rides her in a running martingale which has done wonders for Isis.

Jackie took her over a few low fences, including a water jump, and did a little bounce exercise trying to get her to to SIT back in her butt and not dive forward. It seemed to sink in a little bit and she nailed it after a few run throughs.

Can we please? this trot.

Over the "scary" water "jump"

Through the bounces

I had never jumped her before so I experienced QUITE the learning curve when I got on and tried to half halt her to the first fence when she dove for it. She basically stopped moving, threw her head up and we promptly ran smack into the standards and I about fell off. We re grouped and I re figured out how to ride her haha. Lordy. Jackie make sit look easy because let me tell you, it is not. Riding one horse for so long can def be a curse.

I took her though the small stuff a few times

 Then Jackie wanted to make an oxer and hop her over it a few times and try to see if I could help her figure out why she dives for fences/ throws a fit when you half halt. Sometimes a second opinion helps when you get stuck in training.

You cant tell, but I was struggling HARD to maintain my position on this gal. She has a massive jump and along with a floaty canter I was all kinds of all over the place. While she can be hard headed I really do like this mare. What I did was pretty unorthodox, but it seemed to help balance her and not charge so much. I would half halt 2 strides before our turn to the fence, literally loop the reins and just use my leg and body to turn her, then halt halt ONE TWO again, then just let go. I TRIED to not do it less than 4 strides out because by then she had her stride and if you mess with it she is bound to whack it. Like most horses. She's def more sensitive though to pressure so thats why I looped the reins after each strong halt halt. I liekd how she responded but I didn't know if Jackie was OK with how I had ridden her. I sometimes hate riding other peoples horses because I dont know their limits etc etc.

After that Jackie got on and tried the same thing and after a few rails she  nailed it with this beautiful jump...

Gorgeous huh? I can't wait to go schooling this weekend with them!  After our jump school we took her out to the field to let her let loose. J thinks that she's getting arena sour and needed to let loose.

And I agree! Mare mare loooooved it!! I think we might race Sunday >:)

Jackie also made a new blog now that she has her own horse, so you all should head over there and follow her. Link is www.theisiseffect.blogspot.com

Hopefully our next post will be some badass XC pics! (cross fingers that the ground stays firm with all this rain)

Tittilating Tease

...of a post! Haw haw haw.

I'm still waiting on the rest of them, but here's a sneak photo of the next post about Yanks and his wonderfully overzealous jumping yesterday...

Good Gravy....

....I SUCK at posting, or doing anything really. I'm sorry ya'll. Especially Cindy, I am SO behind. Forgive me *begs on knees*

After recovering from bronchitis and then the dressage show last week, shit hit the FAN. Of course. Thats how my life goes. I'm not surprised anymore. Not only did I work a milion hours, Yankee got an abcess, thrush and a fever ALL AT ONCE. He was laid up for a week and I was legit panicked about all the things.

Hurty pony is sad. But adorable.

He says "ouchies" :(

I felt so terrible for the poor guy. We've had nonstop rain for about 2 weeks (yes, and its still raining) and even though he stays in during the day and I pick his feet daily, he still got thrush. Per usual every spring. GO AWAY RAIN I HATE YOU.

It was horrifying. I said good night to him Monday night after our gallop (he was perky and fine) and the next morning his head was hanging, he was literally holding his leg up in the air and it was all puffy and hot. I picked the foot trying to find the problem, it starting bleeding ferociously, I panic, call my farrier, have him come out, he says he not only has thrush BUT an abcess in the BULB of his heel (WHAT THE FRICK, is this possible??) and the thrush was infected. How the HAIL did this all happen overnight??

Poor guy was a sad pony for about 4 days, but I gave him 8 days off anyways. He seems perfectly fine after much babying and we still plan to XC school this Sunday. I'm going to ride him today and am actually more worried about him killing me. Due to the foot ailments and the torrential rain, the horses have only been out ONCE in a week. They are going cray.

So there's that.

I guess I will never really do my second post on "Good Peeps" But I will say that I loved my bf a lot for coming to my show. Like a lot a lot. He hated it. But still came and videoed for me :) He MIGHT come schooling with us Sunday too. And he WILL come to my events >:)

Pretending to be thrilled

Poneh ready to travel! With my NEW shipping boots I got for Xmas-shanks mommy!

My Giraffe pre-show, just chillin

So the show- I will just touch on it since its a week later and I don't want to make this post hellas long. We did two tests and did great on the first and quite horrendous on the second. All my fault-sorta.

I couldn't have been more proud of my lil OTTB, he was chill from the second he stepped off the trailer. 7 years later I guess they chill out and stop caring. I only had to warm up for each test for 10 min because he was basically falling asleep he was so relaxed. HOPEFULLY he keeps that up for USEA dressage.

The first test he felt great, forward, bendy and overall just really fabulous.

We got straight 7's with the exception of our stretch work-5's. To be expected. The judge was harsh, played favs and we haven't worked on stretching in a while-oops. I love it when judges are like "really good" "great" "nice!" and still give 7s....uh thanks? We totally deserved the 5s on free walk and stretch circle though.

Overall we got a 68% on the first test and I was pretty happy with the exception of her comments in the end "Needs to be more relaxed" ...uh hwhat? Apparently he looked super tense, (I think thats just his TB head carriage) but to me he was THE MOST calm I've ever felt him. He was basically a cucumber. And I was SUPER impressed with his trot work. Looky!!

Our second test was alittle more...shitty. I had a reader because I get really confused trying to memorize USDF dressage letters for large arenas. Mistake. I could barely hear her and I missed TWO movements. Yes two. The judge yelled at her and felt bad for me but I still got 2 errors and I los tmy mind after making two mistakes.

I get really shaken when I mess up and I kinda quit riding. Yankee was still calm, but he felt me get nervous and wasnt great. Add to that I rode hella shitty and it wasnt fab. We got a 57%, mostly 4s and 5s HAHAHAHAHAAAA. Hwhat. Take a gander at my effed up eq...

Falling back much?

WHOA inside hand what the hail are you doin

Not a bad halt though

So that was Sunday. I was still MORE than happy with Yanks and our 68% got us a first.

Holla back later this week! Hope everyone is doing well and no one else is getting drowned with rain.

#PrayForBoston

I Haz Good Peeps: PI

I have a couple posts on draft, and I really need to update on this weekend! It was a good one, thanks in part to my posse. Where would any horse girl be without her posse of supportive peeps? Lost and alone.

Part II will highlight today (dressage show) and how all that went. But before that I wanted to talk a little about Jackie and her awesomeness. Many of you longtime followers know who she is, but newer ones may not.

Jackie is a jumping goddess. Like for real, I bow down to her. She also happens to be my best friend and leased Yankee last summer before she bought her own mare. Shes new to eventing and dressage, but used to catch ride jumpers and literally has no fear. She is my PIC in all adventures, horsey or not and on Friday she came out to the barn to help me with our jumping.

Since 2010 I have had this weird aversion to all jumps over 3'3. I've been told not to fixate on the incident by many people, so I will not mention it, but I now have anxiety in stadium...and XC....so yeah.

It sucks being an eventer with jumping anxiety because usually those are the fun parts that people live for. I think most eventers have a little dressage anxiety because that score determines where you start..so add to that, I'm just a ball of nerves at every show now. While they are my favorite phases...they are also the ones that I screw up repeatedly simply because I have a horrible mindset. I wish I could go back in time when I was fearless and rode correctly. I'm not "afraid afraid",  just anxious...and therefore my riding is not as good as it can be. Jackie helps.

My biggest problem is tensing up before the fence, looking a the groundline and jumping ahead, which in turn puts me forward in the landing and unable to gather us for the next fence. Basically I can't keep my shoulders back. All I really needed was someone to yell at me on the ground and show me that, "Yes, you can do this. You can. You've had the capability, you just need to not think about what could go wrong".

Enter Jackie.

We set up a neat little small course that was meant to give me no time in between to think, only time to ride. Yankee was very excited to jump since we had been practicing dressage all week and was a BIT fresh, but he still listened.

The entire "lesson" was spent doing jump after jump, concentrating VERY hard on keeping my shoulders back and Yankee UP towards the fences, relaxed over them and sitting UP after fence fence to recollect.

Without fail, everytime I tensed up, he jumped like shit. He even refused a few times because I dropped him. Whenever I sat UP though, and softened my rein, whaddayaknow, he jumped the moon.

Jackie was very good at being quiet until she saw me tip and would yell "BACK" or "SOFTEN" and it always jolted me out of my bad riding mindset. She even had me ride oxers with my eyes closed to learn to WAIT for the jump and TRUST my horse to do his job. He knows his job. I get in his way. It was incredible the difference. I maintained a pretty solid eq. and he put forth a great effort for me!

What I'm saying is, that I am extremely lucky to have her in my life.  Not many friends would take 3 hours out of their day to help someone with something, without getting something out of it. I always appreciate my horsey friends' support and I really don't know what I would do without them. She is definitely a big reason of why we get better :)

Here's a sneak peek from today! The boy, another amazing person in my life :D

I was bad.

SO I've been bad.

Very very bad.

Besides eating copious amounts of chips and chocolate the past few days...

I rode my horse. I cleaned stalls. GASP. Even though I was ordered to lay around at home and get better. Yeah right. I tried that for two days and about lost my shit. I can't...I can't even.

But Yankee was FANTASTICAL today. Everyone who popped in was all like, "omg he looks soooo good" "omg he looks so great. Like, so great". And I'm just over here fangirling kinda humble like, "You think? I mean we've been working really hard at it. I just hope its good enough..."

But SRSLY GUYS he was a dream today. You know those fancy dressage horses that are all gooey underneath you and bendy and put their shoulders and bootays where you want them to go and all that jazz? Yeah.

I forgot my inhaler though and halfway through the ride I felt like I was dying. Thanks Bronchitis.

In other news, I found out today that there's a Hickstead documentart coming out soonish.

The link is HERE.

...... OMG BRB SOBBING.

If you don't know who he is...we....we can't be friends.

Also, don't worry contest winners from a coons age ago, your drawings are ALMOST done. I like to tweak them to perfection. And those who ordered drawings from me, no fretting either-yours are coming along too! I wish I could do them all in one day, but alas.  I can't.

PLans this week...more dressage schooling, then kick some ass  at the show. BOOM.

Rollercoaster Ride

Hoppy Easter everyone! Spring has sprung!

Many ups and downs lately for me...

This time the up was our schooling and photo opp on Friday, and the down, me, sidelined AGAIN with sickness. Yes. I've been complaining of a cold for about 4 weeks. It lingered, I felt better on week 5 and them BAM, sick again. This time I couldn't just power through it. I was really dragging, couldn't breathe, non stop coughing, etc. Doctor man at Urgent Care said I'm plagued with bronchitis which I suppose is better than Mono, but it realy blows. I even have an inhaler now, its so nerdy. I've been intermittantly napping and watching insane amounts of SVU on netflix.

Anyways, we had an OK week. I can't remember if I blogged about our jump school with the single oxer and the figure 8's over it but he was pretty dreadful. I'm sure it was my riding, but he kept rapping the rails and only get his lead changes 70% of the time. So, suck.

We've done 2 more conditioning rides. Lots of walking and trotting. Hella boring. But Levi the dog loves coming along.

Friday A. and I made our ponies a little prettier and made plans to shoot a few pics in the outdoor. I threw Yanks white polos on and cleaned my tack a bit, cuz we fancy.

How adorable.

The warm up was fantastic and I was very pleased with how soft, forward and relaxed he was being. Our forever struggle is getting him to relax his jaw, neck and shoulders and  move forward, especially to the right. He's been doing great lately since we've really been working hard on the "forward and soft" aspect of dressage.

 





I too have been working exceptionally hard on my position. I have a horrible habit of 'scrunching'. I look down, tilt my thumbs in, and my leg angles get all wonky. Half of it is because I am constantly having to use my inside leg to push his shoulder over, the other half is that my legs are a mile long and my saddle is about 2xs too small now. But no monies to get a bigger one.

Case in point:

mmmmm, scrunchy. A hard hunter habit to break. As I look though, I still have a line all the way down from ear to elbow, hip to heel, But its not "correct" for dressage. And those hands...LAWD. Thumbs UP buttercup! Least my Yankee looks great.

I also got on Pronto for H. since she is injured and can't ride for months. Its actually quite tragic...she was getting Pronto going along really nicely and then she hit the bottom of her rollercoaster.

He's half percheron and MASSIVE. I mean, absolutely huge. He makes me look tiny and I'm 5'9. His biggest issue is also unlocking his jaw. But his gaits are naturally gorgeous and uphill. I LOVE working with him because he tries so hard to please you. I rode the day before I got sick though and his trot and canter are so huge, you feel like you're gonna go flying out of the saddle! It was a workout for sure.

But look how soft, round and forward he was going! Love this horse! And I always have better equitation on him too-yay properly fitting saddles!

So I guess I'm stuck in bed for the next 3 days, recovering. Hopefully I do so quickly because I have a show to attend on Sunday! The boy is coming so I believe I will actually have photographic or video evidence!

OUCH.

...says my bank account.

Not only is this the time of month that all bills are due, but I just paid for my first  HT, a schooling dressage show, and XC schooling for mid-April PLUS bought a lever noseband off eBay for $65.

I should be happy...but an empty account gives me anxiety. Like, lie awake at night anxiety.

Lets hope I make big money this week or I may have to curl in a ball and sob over what is my life. WHY DID I HAVE TO FALL IN LOVE WITH THE MOST EXPENSIVE SPORT. Well. The one that is the most expensive in relation to how much you get from it. Which is basically $0. Unless you count happiness. But happiness doesn't pay my entry fees. Or gas.

I shed a tear. Or few. BUT I am looking forward to them! I just have to sob for a while over my literally hard earned money getting pissed away in less than 10 minutes.

We had a glorious ride today though and it really put me in positive spirits. The pony was absolutely a gem; loose, free, relaxed, obedient. I didn't ride earlier this week due to the winter blues, but I plan on doing our weekly conditioning ride tomorrow, Thursday off, jump Fri, light work Sat, off Sun. due to my busy sch Thurs/Sun.

The schooling show is on the 7th and then we have two opps for XC schooling- the last two weekends in April. I'm not going to Rolex anymore, but its just as well since I NEEEEEED to school. Need.

Wish I had more flat pictures. Words are boring.

Also I'm sorry I ruined WD for a few. I was just...so traumatized.