The Almost Travesty

Yesterday, the day started off pretty exceptional. I slept in, then went to the barn to school yanks and he was angel. It was still really cold outside, so I didn't ride outside. In fact I didn't ride at all, just did a bit of groundwork and trick training to switch it up.

Yankee did very well in hand. I started with long lining, working on straightness and perfection of cues. I have trained him to 'walk on' with a tap to his rump on top, to 'trot on' the same way and to 'whoa' with little bumps on the reins. He is supposed to stand perfectly still until I say otherwise and he usually does. He is also ground tie trained, which you can see in the video. To come down from a gait I say "whoa____", like if he is trotting I say "whoa walk". To move up I say "Aaaaaand___". Within gaits I say "eeeeeasy" to slow and "____ON" to increase action. Consistency is key and Yanks has it down, since I use the same voice commands when lunging. Long lining yesterday I tried doing renver and traver using the whip as my leg and he sort of got it, but really all it was doing (esp to the left) was making his neck crooked, and we don't want that!

After long lining I did a little more piaffe training and he is really picking it up! Literally! I am using alternating cues for his back legs (tapping L, R, L ,R) and he is doing the front leg work himself. The video is pretty good, do not mind my hobo outfit and pink boots, teee hee! Yanks is REALLY starting to get the idea of what I mean when I say "easy", he sets back and the movement goes UP. After the movement I ask him to "trot ON" more to let him know there is a difference and I am positive he gets it. Don't you just love his ground tying skills too? :)

This is where the day gets sketch-ma-getch and almost tragic.

After his training shesh, I like to clicker train with trick work and yesterday I was working on his bow. He gets that he is supposed to stretch his front legs out, but he still isnt getting that to balance correctly, he needs to back his back legs up a bit too. To help with this, I ask him to almost set out like a standardbred and then bow. I ask him to bow with one leg set back, and I still have to command him to do so by touching it and holding it up a bit while he brings his head down and back and bows. We do this ALL the time and I didn't think twice about it today.

I had asked a few times for it and of course, he performed beautifully as always. I am trying to 'wean' him off me holding his leg so that eventually he can bring it back himself and so every time I ask I hold it less and less and he does it himself more and more.

The 4th time I asked it was all going swimmingly....and then right as he brought his head back and down I saw his front stabilizing leg buckle and I thought " Oh Shiiiit"....

Oh shit indeed.

When his leg buckled, his left shoulder bumped me and since I was half crouching (I had just set his kneeling leg), I toppled over and landed sprawled on my back and all I saw was his MASSIVE body falling....

I was terrified. I braced for the impact and saw Yankee scrambling above me and all I could think about was my impending death. All these thoughts raced through my head in about a split second, I was gonna get crushed and die, I was gonna be a veggie for the rest of my life, what will happen to yankee when I die, how did this happen, why am I so stupid to try to teach a horse to bow...bla bla bla.

Then, miraculously, his body was no longer falling, in fact it was rising away from me..."I'm saved! I'm Aliiiiive! How did this happ-OOOOWWWWW?!" What the-"

In his effort to not fall on me, Yankee ended up crunching down on my right ankle with his hind foot when he rebalanced himself. Thank sweet Jesus that he didn't fall on me and he doesn't have hind shoes right now, but oh crap now my ankle is broken...

Yankee was very worried about me and I could see in his eyes he was sorry, I told him what an amazing horsey he is for saving me like that. I KNOW he tried his best not to fall on me and in his effort, accidentally stepped on my ankle. I leaned on him for support while walking him back to the crossties and he stood perfectly still while I brushed him and put on his blanket (which is really hard to do on one foot) and led him back to his paddock and stall.

So there I was, thinking my ankle was broken and I was scared, hurting, sad and angry at myself since it was all my fault. I drove home with my left foot (cried the whole way), called off work for that day and waited for Brandon to get home to take me to the ER for x-rays.

3 hours and xrays and CT scans later I find out its not broken (YIPPEE) but just a bad sprain and deep bruising. I don't really understand how since it hurts like a mother trucker but the doc gave me percocet and ordered me to 5 days of inactivty, a brace and crutches. 5-6 weeks for 100% heal, but hey I am NOT complaining! I could have actually broken it, or worse, died!

I am very grateful that it is only a sprain since SOOO much could have been ruined (not being able to work to earm income, have a hard time getting to classes, no riding this season, etc etc) and I am VERY thankful for my wonderful horsey :)

Hobbies, Part I

This will be a new series thing I will do on days I don't get to ride, or think I won't be able to. It's 2 degrees today with some viscous wind and I have to feed today (starting around 2:30 I will do stalls, and feed about 3:15 so I can hopefully get to work at 4pm, then I work till 11:30pm) and work, so I really doubt I will be hopping on. Both of us don't usually enjoy rides when it is this cold.

So, let the hobbying begin!

I have always drawn, for as long as I could remember, but just recently started taking "real" art classes for my major in college. it has been useful, but sometimes I feel it throws me off my natural groove. Horses are my favorite subject, of course, but I love drawing any animal. People and still life's are my least favorite but I have to for class.
Most of my drawings are done freehand, not looking at models or pictures and my favorite medium is graphite and charcoal.


This is a freehand I did while chillen around the house last year sometime. Most of my horse drawings never even reach completion, but those that do, I put up on my FB page. This is one of my favorites! This one is by no means a project and it only took me about half an hour.

This was done a few years ago, shortly after I adopted Yankee. He was a racehorse, so I wanted to sketch one! This didnt take any time at all, maybe 15 min. Funny how the ones I sketch out turn out to be better than ones I really concentrate on!

This is a new technique I tried for intermediate drawing II. The project was a silent story, no words, just pictures. I fabricated a life story about a fictional horse named Fraenze Datcha en Azzura, a german grand prix showjumping horse. The story began at her birth, showed her story of succes's and failures, winning world champ and later her injury that was career ending and led to her broodmare status. I had to vary mediums, styles, viewpoints and sizing as well as colors. It ended up being 11 panels (boards) with 4 pictures per board. It took me about a week to do and I'd say 30 min per picture....so 22 hours total!!
This was one of my favorite pictures, this was pen and colored charcoal. I tried to make it very simplistic with a splash of color.


This is another part of Azzura's story, right after they gained professional, national status. Done in pen and colored charcoal.

This is a whole panel from Azzura's story, winning her first national show. I love the angles I chose for the jumping part! The hands and hooves were supposed to symbolize a partnership and those were done in all pen. the other two panels were pen and colored charcoal.

I don't just draw horses, here is one of the model drawings we did in class. Each pose was 30 min long, all charcoal, and I turned this is for a grade, got an A :)

The skeleton project...gah this was god awful. It's life sized, and in all charcoal. I had to draw this standing up and take precise measurements from the model and try to recreate it on paper. This was not a fun project at all but I am proud how it turned out. It took 10 hours total and was my midterm for intermediate drawing II. Got an A :)

This was my midterm for intermediate drawing I and is a drawing of a futuristic city. It is amassive drawing, I can't remember the measurements but extend your arm out and thats about how long it is, just about as tall too. the little ball things are "cars" and people travel by tubes. We had to vary viewpoint and technique and I got an A :)

I have hundreds of more pictures but I didn't want to bore ya'll! This is just a taste of what I do on my freetime and for class. Hope you enjoyed !

Catch 22?

As you can see this was Yankee today schooling a few steps of piaffe in passage movement. I know this is nothing special and it's not perfect but this video if for my records. Yankee gets a few steps in piaffe/passage. I am training him for piaffe but since he is moving forward its technically a passage even though the upward movement in the front is not spectacular by any means. I am mostly working on lowering his quarters, slowing the trot and lifting the back legs. I am hoping the rest will fall into place with practice.
After that I did a few min of long lining, which was fun :) Brandon even tried it too, but since he only has 3 fingers on one hand he was having a hard time holding the whip and reins and accidentally bumped Yankee numerous times on the bum with the whip and freaked him out. Ooops, won't be trying that again.
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Today's ride was pretty dismal, and I'm attributing it to 2 days off, the bumping Brandon did and the 'blizzard of death' that descended upon us this afternoon. It dumped (so far) 6 inches in about 3 hours and Lord knows Missouri and it's drivers are not capable of handling such snow (supposed to keep snowing overnight). We had to deal with this...


....on the way to the barn. Along with other drivers it took about 45 min. to go 10 miles. In 10 minutes time I saw 5 groups of emergency vehicles going separate ways to help wrecked people. On one road alone I saw 5 vehicles run off into ditches and a bus, and this was when only 3 inches were on the ground. Stoopid.

Yankee was very uppity today and tense and some of it may relate to anxiety of drilling movements and the above reasons. I am trying to vary our rides but there is only so much I can do in winter. I can't jump alone (barn rule) and when its 2 degrees and windy, riding is unbearable, I don't care who y'ar. Tomorrow I will switch it up a bit if the wind dies down and go out for a hack in the snow, but if it's too cold I'll just give him another day off.

Today I warmed up with the piaffe school, unmounted, then did basic WTC circles and extensions in-gait, mounted. I wasn't planning on doing anything extensive and I just wanted to touch up our side passes and shoulder in's before working on our trot extension, but he was having none of that. I know some of it was my fault too, I was freezing and a little stressed from the hectic day and I know I was tense too but he was really throwing a fit. Soooo I reverted to just easy WTC circles and down the long sides but even that simple stuff he tensed at, was behind my leg, above the bit and lagging. It was SO frustrating. I resorted to trotting on loose rein in hopes to stretch his back and loosen. It worked, barely, but I did get some good trotting in after the stretch.



Mostly though today was a fail. I work tomorrow too, 8 hour shift so I dunno if I will even want to ride beforehand for fear of being tired before I even go in to work...how sad of me to say that. Work and riding is SUCH a catch 22. I work so I can ride (pay board, equipment, shows, vetting, farrier...) but if I try to ride before/after work I am tired and either can't ride or work. Seems like its one or the other. My life seems like a huge catch 22. Everything that my life is I can relate to the catch 22 theory...work, school, exercise, riding, art...etc etc.

3 Days Time

So this video was from 3 days ago, but in those 3 days, I've been able to ride Yankee everyday and had quite some up and downs! Wednesday I had the day off so I took a good while to school some dressage and take some videos. Unfortunately I was a little hasty and took the videos in the beginning of our ride when he was still his fresh, so they weren't very good and he wasn't as relaxed as later in the ride. We were working on flying changes and side passes at the trot again, which went ok, just not solid yet. he gets the idea, but gets a little tense. The video above is just some trot and canter work, but its some pretttty good schooling gaits.

As usual I've been schooling with balance and relaxation for myself and it really seems to be transmitting to him when we school seriously. With Yankee, a strong outside rein with a strong outside leg and soft inside leg just behind the girth while half halting brings him together like Totilas :) So Wednesday, ok day.

Thursday I didn't want to do too much since we had been schooling really hard core so I hopped on bareback with the intent to go for a loooong RELAXING trail ride. Raquel was in the arena working Actress (Cheryl's Grand Prix [retired] broodmare that she is leasing) so I joined her to watch a bit. Actress is, the shit! I watched her do some lengthenings and was amazed. I told Yankee to watch the master and to learn by example...I'm pretty sure he scoffed at my attempt to show him what a real dressage horse looked like because he purposely looked away, lol. After watching Actress, I took Yanks out on the trail behind the jump course and he was....AWFUL. I cannot even explain to you how terrible! It's like he was trying to kill me! I've ridden him MANY times bareback, even when he was 4, and he had never been this horrid. His main arsenal was bucks but he didn't leave out shying at pointless nothings or rearing like pegasus. The bucks were espechially fierce-at one point in a bucking fit of his I literally was hanging on for dear life by his mane. My bum came off his back a good 6 inches and of course when I slammed back on his back he bucked even harder. It was a viscous cycle. Thursday, not so good.

Which brings me to today. On the flip side, he was an angel today. I began with long lining which transformed into asking for passage steps...which he did..WITH GUSTO! As with the flying changes, the steps happened by accident almost. I have been working with him on the flat (and not moving) with the steps of passage, the very basics-touch the whip to a leg, he lifts, and I reward. While trotting on the long lines today I told him to whoa and tapped his back legs and BAM, he collected up, sat down and did two steps of passage. I was stunned! So I asked again and got four steps! Its still in the baby stages and I don't think I will go too far with this since I will never have to do passage, but its still cool to know! After that I hopped on to ask for some simple stuff since we spent about 20 min on the long line extremely collected. Did a few side passes brilliantly and one flying change. Overall, friday good :)

The # 9

The number 9 is not usually a daunting number, and actually it is one of my favorites. I consider all numerals of 3 to be lucky, especially, 3, 6, and 9. (I always manage to get one of those three numbers in my bridle # for shows.)

9 is the natural number following 8 and preceding 10. Nine is a composite number, its proper divisors being 1 and 3. It is 3 times 3 and hence the third square number . It is the first composite lucky number..

But this is the first time I have ever been worried about the number 9. See, it's Yankee's new age this year. Officially, by Jockey Club standards he turned 9 on the New Year even though his real birthday isn't until March.

Mot horse people would consider 9 a good age for a horse, still young and vibrant, but I am fearful of it for one reason-WE HAVE ONLY EVER OFFICIALLY COMPETED AT TRAINING LEVEL. I KNOW he has the potential to be successful as a preliminary horse and even intermediate, but I am starting to have doubts about a 4* competitor. We have the basics down but we just need to pull everything together.

He is NINE! To me he should be much farther along in his competitive career at 9 then training level. I know 6 and 7 year old horses that are at prelim or higher already. I guess the biggest problem has been money. I am not rich by any means and half my time has been spent working to make enough to scrape by, let alone have $$ for shows-wich leaves not much time for schooling or showing. Sometimes I wish I was rich and could buy what I want, but more so, I feel lucky to have worked for it all, knowing I did it and no one else. That DOES make me proud, but I get discouraged SO easily.

I thought I did the right thing going to college, but I also feel it led me back two whole years too. I don't think I'm where I should be for a 20 year old eventer. I envy those 17-18 yr old Young riders who are already successful. I Know what to do, I just don't have the means yet...

I have so many thoughts swirling in my head right now, too many to type, so I will leave it at that. My rant probably seems jumbled and doesn't make too much sense either but it felt good to get it out there.

I do see hope in many places though, including this horse who remarkably resembles my horse.
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Conformation and technique wise. His name is Clifton Promise and is a very successful eventer in NZ. He id no. 1 in NZ, and placed 7th at the WEG's. Conformation wise especially, I worry at times for fear Yankee lacks strength, but looking at Promise, I have more hope :D

Twenty Eleven

It's super corny to make goals for the new year (everyone does it and gets all gung ho for a month), since I believe in making goals all year round or having "rough goals" (ones that shouldn't make you stress like crazy to achieve). Goals should be things that are attainable so one doesn't get discouraged, but also a titch challenging to make the task 'goal worthy'. So without much more delay my so called goals for 2011 are...(Drumroll please)

*Acquire a rig. Mesa need bad...if I am to show at all this summer and not let ANOTHER season go to ridiculous, useless, bactracking waste, then I need to find a truck and trailer ASAP. Not only for shows, but if Yankee gets hurt I need to be able to take him to a vet if trailering is a possibility. Plus, it just gives me freedom to get off the farm and go school elsewhere and, GASP, take lessons! What a novel idea..
* Give Yankee more pasture time. Horse thrive on pasture, its a known fact and common sense. Horses are natural grazers and wanderers and to pin them up in small paddocks and stalls is against their nature. Yankee is always happier when he is outside in a pasture. Right now, he has small 'pasture' (I think maybe half and acre paddock that used to have grass) and a smaller, gravel paddock as well as a wonderfully large stall. Granted I love where we board and I feel super lucky to be there, but when spring rolls around I need my boy in a pasture..with grass. He is a big thoroughbred that was born to run and be free (emotionally and physically), and right now (partly because of a little thrush and winter pasture limitations as well as scheduling with the workers..) he is limited to his paddocks. He is getting grumpy. Must talk to Cheryl.

*Keep Yanks feet healthy! Stupid, tiny, fragile thoroughbred feet. I've been giving him Biotin everyday to help with this and regular, good, farrier work. Hope to keep this up! Sadly, he is prone to thrush and breakage (if no shoes kept on), but we are trying! I tried barefoot and that was a disaster! took about 4 months to repair the damage...



*(Dressage Foundations) Continue throughness over back, active hindquarters, and steady connection in the bridle, TRY to overcome the head wagging in canter we always get marked down for. Cheryl revolutionized the way I think about dressagein ways I could barely describe on the internet. I plan to continue through the training scale and further develop in our dressage! As for the head wagging, I've always been told by judges its just a head set we have and not a true connection, but when I give the reins he always seeks contact, leading me to think its just a bad habit from the racetrack...hmmm.

* ( Dressage Movements) Master side pass at trot, extended trot, counter canter, flying changes and start working on half passes and doubtfully tempi changes. With as well as our school the other day went, I am uber confident that this goal will be acheived to some (or all) success! Side pass at the trot we already have, but not well at all-it lacks quite a bit of straightness, activity and cross step. We also have the extended trot idea, but Yankee is prone to rushing, rather than lifting and extending the legs...I know he can do it as I've seen him in the pasture! As for the counter canter- we have 2 steps, but thats all he has strength for. MORE! Flying changes we've done exactly 4 times, practice! practice! Half pass and tempi changes take A LOT of strength, which I hope to achieve, but this will be on my 'rough goals' list.

*(Jumping XC) CONSISTENT courses. Meaning no random ass refusals. Yankee is so weird, he loves jumping and is fearless but sometimes he gets a fairy in his head that makes him go coo-coo and he refuses. So Stooopid. My horse normally feels solid as a brick house underneath me and goes like a freight train on a course, however every once in a blue moon he will get all jello like and act like a pogo stick, then BAM, refuse. We must get over this as it is preventing us from moving up to Preliminary!!!! UGH

* (Jumping, Stadium) Keep those feetsies off the fences. This is mostly my fault..I have a maaaassive problem of throwing myself up Yankee's neck (wish I could find some pictures of a show this summer. They were quite drastic, by far the worst stadium ride of my life, but here's the website if anyone wants to see MAJOR FAIL-http://brantgamma.exposuremanager.com/p/vollmer_monica_lh0/lh0b3536_3_64_111. Now granted, there were some good fences, but mostly bad) and throwing him off balance. Been working on that though! See 'SHOCKER' post.

* Attend as many shows (USEA and jumper/dressage) as financially possible. I plan on getting a second job this summer to help with the whole poor college student thing.

Yankee Wonder 2nd time doing flying changes