Grey Brook Eventing

Plugged In

2012-01-23T02:27:00.002-05:00

So first victories first, I've managed to live without any more major injuries since my last post. Hooray!! I did smash my knee into my roommate's DVD player which resulted in (another) awesome bruise, and my hand briefly resembled "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Hand" in the range and vividness of its bruise, but everything appears to be settling down for now. Phew. I'm not sure I could handle much more.

On the riding front, things have been progressing really well. Ringo and I finally went back into the ring after two fun weeks out hacking around, and having been adding trot and canter back in slowly. Friday was the first day we cantered and Brian Sabo was there teaching (hopefully by the time he comes back we'll be ready for lessons again!) and went out of his way to comment on how nice Ringo was looking, so it seems like the vacation didn't do him too poorly =)

In fact, I must say that we're feeling better than ever, because I've had a real break through with my seat/sitting. I mentioned around New Years that I'd watched some Mary Wanless tapes, and, dangit, the more I've been practicing what I learned there, the more I'm realizing that it's been REALLY helpful for me.

My big takeaway from the tapes was an increased use of the inner thigh to stabilize and strengthen my seat, combined with a deeper set overall and seat bones that 'plug in' to the saddle. By that, I mean getting the feeling that my two seat bones are like prongs of a plug, and the horse's saddle/back are the outlet. I want my seat to be so secure and deep that it feels like my butt is literally stuck in.

Now, I've probably heard that one should ride with a nice deep and secure seat a few more than a million times, but for some reason this visual was a lot more helpful to me than previous ones. I don't think Mary Wanless even mentions it this way in the tapes, but she did explain the security of the upper thigh/seat a lot better than I had heard in the past, and then while I was practicing it the plug visual came and stuck, so I'm rolling with it.

Since I have a nice and bony butt (surprisingly, since my thighs are hardly stick-like), I can monitor pretty easily when my seat bones are securely in the saddle (almost never) and when they are not (almost always). I've also realized that I spend a lot of time sitting more on one seat bone than the other, which isn't that surprising given my crookedness but which I've noticed immediate results in Ringo's way of going when I can manage to fix it.

The end result? Sitting the trot is suddenly really hard work! But in the best possible way: I've never found sitting trot that strenuous in the abs/core, which I've always known has meant that I wasn't doing it right (because, who are we kidding, I may have a pretty strong core but it's not THAT strong). Now, I'm definitely 'feeling the burn,' and am being rewarded with a trot and canter from Ringo that feels like the best he's ever gone. Yay!! I can't wait until we both get stronger and can maintain the good stuff for longer than the maybe 20 meter circle that we're currently rocking.

Though, I might be killed before then, because Ringo has been stuck inside for the past two days due to rain and I've had nowhere to ride him because the only arena at Stanford was taken over by the high school hunt seat show we hosted. I think I might break out my neck strap for my ride tomorrow...

Calamity Master

2012-01-19T01:41:00.004-05:00

So the last few days have been... 'eventful' I guess would be a good term.

First, I got bucked off last week, marking my first fall in 2 years. It was a stupid situation where I knew I probably was going to get thrown, kept going anyway, and paid the price. Oh well! Fortunately I landed very softly and managed to hold onto the reins, which then made so that I got pulled instantly back onto my feet as the horse backed away (which normally I would feel bad about forcing my horse into a 'pull back' situation... but in this case, the f***er deserved it). So, it didn't end up hurting at all, though my always troublesome right shoulder did tweak a little. No big deal, right?

Then, over the long weekend, I decided it would be SUPER COOL KID BEHAVIOR to try to balance on one foot on the foam roller I use for working out the kinks in my back (it's a probably 6" diameter tube of hard slippery white foam, and it's AWESOME). Needless to say, it went well for about 4 seconds... and then the foam slipped on the carpet I was practicing on. And I ate it. Hard. This hurt considerably more than getting bucked off, and my ankle is still sprained/sore feeling. And the only person I can blame is myself. Well played, Erickson. Well. Played.

THEN, yesterday I crashed my bike. For the first time, ever. I learned how to ride a bike at Stanford, and have had an incredible three and a half year hot streak of safe and tumble-free riding. I've also gotten pretty ballsy recently, and notably rode over a half mile (around curves, through bollards, and across the busiest plaza on campus) without hands just this past Sunday. So obviously, I wiped out while making the totally innocuous turn from the feed barn to the parking lot. That's how it works, right? It also happened right in front of my coach, who I'm pretty sure I gave a small heart attack. At least it's better than the time I fell off the golf cart she was driving (how this happens, I cannot tell you) and got a concussion. Like I said earlier: cool kid behavior.

I was pretty sure at first that I'd broken my thumb in this little escapade, as it was totally paralyzed (zero range of motion) and radiating pain. Being who I am, I decided to ride and see if it got better. Shockingly, it did not, so I had to put my big girl panties on and go to my least favorite place: the doctor. Fortunately, a few Advils and X-rays later and all is well: no break, just some crazy swelling and bruising. I've never had a bruise on the palm of my hand before, and find it rather amusing now that I have full use of all my digits again. Here's to hoping it will turn some awesome colors over the next few days!

But basically, I think I've had my fill of personal disaster for a while. Hopefully this means I've gotten my 2012 injury quota out of the way early (and more importantly, covered the injuries for both me and the horses, right???), and now can just enjoy the rest of the year in style. We'll see...

Also, the blog reached 150 followers today! Thank you so much for reading =)

First Horsey Photo Shoot of the New Year!

2012-01-17T18:24:00.008-05:00

Yesterday the equestrian team had a 'faux-show' to get some pressure-style practice in and to let some people who might not get to show in regular intercollegiate competitions a chance to have a competitive outing this year. It was just for the IHSA (hunt seat) riders, so I got a chance to take some photos instead. It was so fun! I've missed being out shooting so much. I love my film photography work that I do in school, but it's sure hard to beat the subject matter when I get to turn my attention to horses =)

Here are some highlights of what I got:

(Maddy and Ronnie looking sly waiting for the show to start)

(Dreamer, one of our school horses famous for making somewhat cranky faces while being ridden, actually looking as sweet as she really is)

(Emily and Armani caught in the afternoon half light)

(Alex and Consens warming up)

(RONNIE - soooo handsome)

(Emily and Armani warming up over the fan)

(Maddy and Ronnie looking fly!)

(Nikki and Ronnie, who was decidedly not playing anymore by this point in the afternoon)

(Morgan and a very cute Consens)

(Nikki and Nike covering a mega long spot in style)

(Consens throwing a helluva jump at the 'hand gallop' fence in the work off)

(though Nike was not to be left behind!)

(CHILI - my secret lover; I looove him)

(Sasha and Lando looking very serious in the evening dust)

(Macy and Chocky!)

I don't know how much equine journalism stuff I'll be able to do this year, but we'll see. Someday I'd love to go to Rolex, but that probably won't happen in 2012. Maybe Galway in the spring =)

Ode to a Straight Line

2012-01-13T13:11:00.004-05:00

The first week of winter term is over, and my life has begun to settle back into the busy little routine I love. I'm taking a very heavy course load this term (though hopefully, if I get some paperwork submitted properly in the next week, I can drop one class that I absolutely despise but currently must take), and without Kiki my time at the barn feels very light, but I'm still enjoying myself. I get to the barn every morning at around 7, feed Rachel's horses, ride Ringo, and then head back to my room to read until class starts. It's not the most exciting life, but I'm not complaining =)

With Ringo, I'v been taking my time bringing him back from his vacation. I'm not planning on showing until later in the spring, so I don't see the rush in bringing him back to full work, especially when this is such a good chance to reestablish a great base and go back to basics for a while.

(ahh the best view in the house - I've missed that two-tone mane!)

So, we've been walking, on a straight line, for progressively longer every day (this week we went from 20 up to 40, adding 5 minutes a day). And, surprisingly, I've found it really clarifying. Ringo is not the straightest horse, and I am definitely not the straightest rider, so the two of us tend to get pretty radically twisted off to one side or another without really realizing it. By sticking to long straight lines I have to think solely about sitting squarely in the saddle and having his body stacked up squarely beneath me, which is something that I find easy to cheat on when we're doing lots of curves and figures.

I've also been experimenting with playing with Ringo's outline a lot more. I was rereading the blogs the Chronicle puts up on their website (which I am addicted to), and one of the dressage writers, either Lauren Sprieser or Catherine Haddad, was talking about how your horse has an infinite range of outlines, and you should be able to access any one of them at any given moment to best address what you're trying to achieve. A very collected competition frame, for example, is not as useful in warming up or suppling. A very long and low frame is not as useful for canter pirouettes.

This is pretty obvious, I guess, but the idea of range really struck home with me. I think I generally ride with two frames: stretchy, and 'up,' with very little range between. I think part of the reason I've had such a hard time building Ringo's (to my credit, naturally predisposed to be miserable) topline is because, in order to really work that base of the neck muscle, I've needed to find a middle frame where his neck is long but carried more outwards rather then up, but his balance is more cadenced and rocked back then in my stretchy work (obviously, when done correctly, the more 'up' frame will use those base of neck muscles too, but Ringo and I have had a tendency to cheat there in the past). This was a big revelation I had in one of my lessons this fall, and I think accounts for why his topline suddenly got much better very quickly at the end of the year.

So, on my straight line walks, I've been trying to widen the range of frames and outlines in Ringo's and my vocabulary: super collected to the point almost of half steps, big free and swinging with as much overstride as possible, neck up, neck out, neck down, nose on the vertical, nose in front of the vertical (no behind the vertical - that's a bad habit that needs no reinforcing!), super slow and cadenced, super jaunty and brisk, and on and on. I've been finding it very fun, and so despite the rather boring look of my rides of the past week on the surface, the time has been flying. Of course, any time spent with Ringo is the best part of the day, so I guess it's not much of a surprise =)

We'll keep walking until we've gone a week at 60 minutes, then start to add trotting, cantering, and other fun stuff back in. Our first 'competition' of the year will be doing the CIC*** test ride at Galway at the end of March (which I'm so excited to do! Shadbelly, baby!!), which will be a good low pressure marking point to see how our homework is coming along for 3rd Level, as the three star test is, I think, a hair more difficult than the third level tests. But until then, it's back for a little more straight line love.

Kiki's Ears are Famous!

2012-01-08T00:07:00.002-05:00

I'm a bit late noticing this as I just sat down to my computer for the first time since starting my road trip on Monday (and I'm now back safe at Stanny! Lordy it feels good), but a photo I submitted to Eventing Nation got posted yesterday! Kiki's ears are now famous =D

View From My Horse: Kiki Edition

I didn't really talk about my trip to the beach when I put the pictures up, but it was AWESOME. I went with my mom, and it was her first trip to the beach EVER on her awesome Halfie. We walked and trotted almost the entire length of the beach (3 miles) down and back together, and it was so much fun.

It was also the best weather I think I've ever had at this particular beach; usually when we go it's icy cold and blowing up a gale, which is fun its own way because it makes the experience that much more intense, but this time it was warmer, overcast, and remarkably still. We went early in the morning and the light was absolutely unbelievable (the pictures do it no justice at all).

After Ma and I got back to where we'd started, I turned back again so I could get a little galloping in. We cantered a ways down, and it was one of the most lovely, flowing, and balanced canters I've ever gotten out of Kiki: it felt like we were gliding along completely at our ease. After about a half mile we turned back and I let her open up. It was an unbelievable feeling. She opened up, found a new gear, opened up again, and then found a new gear on top of that and opened up even further. I think it was the fastest I've ever gone on a horse, ever. Kiki can really move! I couldn't get the smile off my face for days afterwards =)

New Year, New Resolve

2012-01-01T23:09:00.005-05:00

Happy New Year!! Thank you so much to everyone who commented on my last post. Your words of support really helped cement the gut feeling I've been having of the past few weeks, which is to take a step back, chill out, and take some time to gather a little strength and confidence again.

Pursuant to that, I've decided to give Kiki a vacation instead of sending her into training again. I'm really not sure I want to sell her anymore, and if I did I would want to feel like I played more of a role than this situation would allow - I feel like it's an important part of my learning curve as a horseman to see my relationship with this horse through to completion, instead of just washing my hands of her and leaving her with someone else (not that I wouldn't ask for help! I just want to continue to be part of her journey =)).

I have a close friend (who actually bought Sam, my old horse, and evented him at Prelim for a few seasons) who has agreed to ride her a few times a week. It's a situation I feel great about, and I'm very happy.

So now that I'm feeling a little settled, I've got some New Years Resolutions!

2012 Goals

-Get my Bronze Medal with Ringo-

-Start working towards my Silver Medal with Ringo-

-Graduate from Stanford-

-Get a job!!-

-One word: RESOLVE.

I want to find myself the first day of 2013 a more confident, tough, and happy person.-

-Get Kiki back into shape-

-Return to eventing, positively-

-Find an instructor that I feel really positively about to improve Kiki's jumping technique (I think I have this instructor in Molly, so it will be about me keeping positive and staying with it)-

Today was both the first ride of the year, and my last ride on Kiki for a long time. The weather decided to REALLY cooperate, and we had the most beautiful New Years Day I can ever remember, EVER. It was mid 40s and sunny with giant cottonball clouds. To celebrate, Pa, Ma and I (and all of the dogs!) headed out to the arena for a ride together. I'm just so happy that my mom is riding again and enjoying her awesome Halfie, and that Pa and Dually are slowly but surely getting back into action.

Pa and Dually are only walking for 10 minutes right now, so after they finished Pa was kind enough to get some video of me and Kiki. Hopefully a year from now I can look back on this and see some progress!

First, some sitting trot work after we had warmed up and cantered:

Obviously I want my sitting trot to improve (the perennial refrain!): shoulders back, legs under me, hands quieter!

Then we did some lengthenings/shortenings:

These could be smoother and more extravagant, but I'm still pleased with her. Good girl! Still, shoulders back, Erickson.

Finally, we closed with a little more sitting trot (from verrrrry far away, as Dually had now decided to graze significantly further up the field than in the first video):

Not bad! I find sitting trot on Kiki hard so I do think I've improved (even over this break alone, thanks to watching some awesome Mary Wanless tapes), but there's still a long way to go. I think her trot also looked miles more steady and relaxed in the back than it was earlier in the fall. Good girl lady! Just in time to go on vacay =)

Starting tomorrow I'm off on the long trip back to Stanny - my first cross country trip without the horses, and more importantly without my Pa. I'm a little worried, but very excited because I'm going to stop in some places that I've never had time for before with the horses in tow - namely, the Grand Canyon!! America, here I come!

Funk-adelic

2011-12-31T09:15:00.004-05:00

I've been trying for the past few days to sit down and write a post that looks forward eagerly to the new year, with goals and dreams and potential plans of attack. It's been a happy tradition of the past few years, and has brought me into the new year feeling bright and hopeful. Even last year when faced with a long six months ahead with no horses at all, I still doodled some goals and set them aside for the second half of the year. (though I never put them on the blog).

(In unrelated news, we made it to the beach yesterday! Enjoy as these very happy photos decorate what is otherwise a kind of depressing post)

But this year, I'm having some trouble. Honestly, I feel like I'm in a big funk. It mostly has to do with Kiki and what I want to do with her, but Ringo is tied in too. I've been enjoying the dressage, but is it a direction I really want to move in more seriously? I'm excited to be showing Ringo again but it's hard to get as excited for pure dressage shows as I used to for events. I'd like to think that this means I'm still an eventer at heart... right?

(Me and Mom)

But the problem is, I didn't really enjoy eventing this fall either. Granted, I only went to two shows, and both had some highlights, but I found the whole process more stressful and an opportunity to beat myself up than I'm happy with.

It was this feeling that led me to think that I should sell Kiki this fall. On paper, this still seems like the best idea. But part of me has also come to realize that the things that were making me so stressed out and unhappy didn't really have much to do directly with Kiki. Over the past break I've done some reflecting, and have been able put together a timeline in place that explains a very different explanation of my current feelings.

Basically, I started riding Kiki right at a time when my own confidence and my confidence in/ability to trust my trainer was severely shaken. Even though I stopped riding with that instructor, my misgivings and low self-esteem remained (not that it was particularly great to start!). I felt like I improved Kiki very significantly pretty much on my own over the spring and summer of 2010, and then left her in the care of a trainer I trusted very much and departed for my six month leave with high, high hopes of her continued improvement.

I came back in March to check on her and was shocked to have her feel as bad as when I first got her, unable to pick up both leads or canter over a pile of poles on the ground. The explanation I was given was that I was riding her too poorly, which left me feeling rather unconfident and mistrustful of my (different) trainer. Again. For the second time in a year. When I got her back she was basically unrideable for the first week I had her, and generally felt awful. Added with some other information I learned, I now felt VERY mistrustful of my trainer (again), and gritted my teeth to try to get Kiki looking and going better again.

With this 'vendetta'-style approach (which was completely subconscious at the time; it's only looking back that I realize that was what was going on), every slight against Kiki felt like a slight against me and my attempts to improve her. And since she wasn't going that well, there were a lot of slights. They built up and built up, and suddenly I reached the end of the fall and realized, when I almost went to pieces jumping a school horse over an 18" vertical, that my confidence was totally gone basically without me even realizing.

I had self-sabotaged myself into misery by making everything to do with Kiki into a me-versus-trainer/me-versus-the-world type ultimatum. I am already such a perfectionist that this was a pretty deadly set up. Mistakes are already almost the end of the world for me (and I normally work very hard to make them not a big deal), and now they couldn't be anything but the end of the world, because they implied not only that I'd made a mistake at that given moment but had also ruined my horse, completely devalued myself as a rider/trainer, and 'lost' this stupid conflict I'd set up for myself.

I also felt hard done by because I honestly felt (and feel) that the reason she was going so badly was because of the program she'd been in while I was away and I was just doing everything in my power to right the ship, and not getting any acknowledgement of that. How I expected people to know that when they just met me for the first time in August or September, I couldn't tell you. I was completely to blame for these feelings, and the ensuing bitterness merely contributed to the mistrustful me-versus-trainer ultimatum stated above.

Sigh. A real recipe for success, right??

So now that I've pieced this all together, I'm at a real loss as to what I should do moving forward. It doesn't seem like Kiki herself is the problem. It's just the completely toxic tangle I've gotten myself into surrounding Kiki and my progress together. I don't know a good way out. She needs more training and I don't really have time for her and Ringo and my 80 million other commitments at Stanford, but I am honestly terrified of entering into another professional training nightmare the likes of 2010 and 2011.

I feel like if I could just take a deep breath, get some positive juices flowing, and get into a positive groove, everything would be fine again. New Years Wish, anyone??

(Ma, Pa, Acorn, and Duck all enjoying an awesome day at Cranes Beach)

Boxing Day Lesson with Kim

2011-12-27T11:37:00.006-05:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas or other holiday of choice. I had a great day with my family, feeding the horses and even getting a few flakes of snow (!!!) in the otherwise weirdly mild and warm December we've been having. I got some great gifts, including three beautiful photo books that I've been dreaming about recently that deal with my favorite genre: rural America. I even got one that I'd been positively lusting over but hadn't told anyone in my family about, so I was totally blown away that my brother got it for me. I'm such a lucky girl.

(River of No Return, by Laura McPhee, a book that I've admired for a long time about life in one of the most rural areas of the US: the River of No Return Wilderness Area in Idaho)

(Sawdust Mountain, by Eirik Johnson, a book I'd never heard of but am really enjoying about the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest)

(A Road Divided, by Todd Hido, the book I've been drooling over recently; it's about rural landscapes seen through car windows (a way of looking at the world that I'm all too familiar with by now!))

I also got a real treat riding wise: a Boxing Day lesson with my dressage instructor from the summer, Kim! It was freezing cold (30º) but totally worth it. I really love Kim's instruction and have missed her very much this fall (not that I've had a bad substitute in Rachel!) and it was great to take another lesson with her on Kiki. I've only ridden Kiki a few times now since she went to Dayna's, and I've been very impressed overall with how well she's been feeling. They clearly did a good job with her.

When I got to the indoor for our lesson, Kiki was quite high. Because of this, our lesson was mostly focused on getting her more relaxed, which was a bit frustrating as she's been so relaxed and rideable at home recently. Kim was still able to give me some really good tools to carry forward, most notably:

-Counter bend: Kiki tends to get stuck and stabbing in her hind end at the same time that she's bouncing off the contact. Recently I (and Dayna and Shannon too) have been doing a lot of shoulder in work to try to get her more confirmed in the outside rein. This has been very useful, but Kim suggested I also think about a reverse exercise: bring the shoulders to the inside not by going into shoulder in but by suggesting a whisper of counter bend. This had the same straightening effect of a moderate shoulder in without allowing her to start pivoting and escaping with her hind end, which is a common evasion for her. This was by far the biggest help of the lesson and was really influential in improving Kiki's relaxation and quality of trot.

-Quiet Shoulders, Straight Body: pursuant to the counter bend work, Kim really had me focus on keeping my shoulders quiet and back, instead of leaning or twisting around corners as I'm naturally inclined to do. I even got to the point where, when I got to a corner, I thought about turning with only with seat while very consciously not moving my shoulders. For a horse as sensitive as Kiki, something as seemingly small as this made a huge difference in her balance and relaxation.

-Counting the Rhythm: Kiki has a tendency to quicken, and I'm always on the lookout for new strategies to help slow her down without tensing. Kim suggested a seemingly obvious solution that I've been overlooking: counting. Just counting the rhythm ('one-two-one-two-one-two') made a big difference.

I have videos, too! Here is some of our trotwork in either direction. As you can see, the good moments don't last very long, but they are definitely there! Kiki is such a star =)

I have a jump lesson on Thursday, and then am trying to get organized to go to the beach on Friday - fingers crossed!

Merry Christmas! And Ringo Looking Fancy

2011-12-24T18:50:00.006-05:00

From me, Ringo, Kiki, and all the animals at Black Brook Farm...

Merry Christmas!

As this year comes to a close, I've been doing a lot of reflecting. I have such an incredibly large amount to be thankful for, and still can hardly believe my luck in getting many of the opportunities that came my way in the past twelve months.

I'm planning on doing a few more recaps in the next few days, along with some goal setting and looking ahead to 2012, but in the meantime, enjoy these awesome pictures my friend Fallon took of me and Ringo on our last ride together of the year just before I left for Christmas break. I think he looks so good; more than anything else, the biggest thrill of 2011 was getting to have this amazing horse back in my life:

The Trip So Far

2011-12-19T00:13:00.004-05:00

Greetings from Amarillo! This will be brief as we have a very early morning tomorrow, but the trip back home so far is going very well (especially given its totally last minute nature!). The big thing is that we've been experiencing some crazy weather, and in fact are getting up extra early tomorrow to try to outrun the BLIZZARD that's supposed to sweep through northeast New Mexico and into the Amarillo area tomorrow. Yikes! Here's some of the crazy (and beautiful!) weather we've experienced so far:

(First off, beautiful but COLD! (28º) and frosty in Pacheco Pass outside Gilroy)

(but still very, very lovely)

(then, so foggy it completely blocked out the sun shortly after this picture was taken and forced us to drive super slowly in fear of wandering blindly into a 70 car pile up)

(then, so bright Pa had to resort to wearing two pairs of sunglasses)

(then perfect!)

(then cool and rainy in the desert east of Barstow)

(then snowy?! It actually snowed a lot harder than this-- in places the road was completely washed out in white and there were drifts on the sides of the road)

(then, beautiful again... for now)

Kiki and her last minute travel companion Cooper (who belongs to a friend and is heading to Pennsylvania) are both taking all the changes in stride so far. Fingers crossed for three more smooth days on the road!

Stressopalooza

2011-12-14T01:35:00.005-05:00

Today I went down to visit Kiki, watch Shannon jump her again, and get a read on her progress and potential future at Flying Tail Farm. I'm not sure if I mentioned this specifically last time, but we decided when I dropped her off that Shannon and Dayna would think on her for two weeks and then give me their appraisal of how easy it would be able for them to sell her. If it looked like it might take more time in training than we could afford, I was going to bring her home to Massachusetts to try some different sales options (I know folks willing to market her as a jumper and a foxhunter, respectively).

I've been so thankful for how up front, kind, and honest both Shannon and Dayna have been through this entire process. They've been just wonderful, and it was great to see Kiki so happy and well taken care of when I arrived.

(Happy Kiki)

Shannon got on Kiki and starting warming up, and I definitely noticed a difference in her way of going and rideability. Her trot looked much looser and in general she was very settled with few 'arguments.' Excellent! Shannon also agreed that she had improved much in her flatwork in even the short ten days she had been there, and thought that she had the potential to have a very nice trot especially.

After a brief go on the flat they started jumping. Kiki was quite fresh when I dropped her off a week and a half ago (can you blame her? It was her first time jumping in two months!), so it was a real thrill to get to watch her go in her more regular form. I've actually never seen her jump, except for when she was very young, as Suzi didn't believe in jumping her too much and I've done most of the rest of the work on her myself. She's so cute!! We put the jumps up a bit and she showed great bravery and general technique. Here are some videos I took:

At the end, Shannon agreed that when Kiki goes her best, she really is quite fun to ride. She thought that Kiki could easily do Preliminary/CCI* in the coming season if she was tuned up for it properly. This was encouraging to hear, as the price we'd like to get for her ($25,000) would put her on the very reasonable end of that type of horse.

The downside of that positive is that, to be marketed as a CCI* prospect, she really needs to complete a few Preliminaries. This would require a very large investment of both time and financial resources on our part, and would mean that she wouldn't be truly marketable until probably at least April of next year. Unfortunately, that's not a realistic option for my family right now, so we've had to make the decision to bring her home. As I've already said, I'm so, so thankful for Shannon and Dayna for being so up front and honest. They clearly like Kiki (how could you not??) and I think they would do a great job selling her; it's just not realistic for me to have Ringo at the Red Barn, Kiki in full sales training for an extended period, and be paying for school at the same time. Oh well...

So now it's a flurry of activity trying to get everything organized to bring Kiki home at the beginning of winter break. Fortunately we had semi-planned for this eventuality and Pa already has his plane ticket ready to come out and help me make the drive back. We just need to get ahold of places to stay, get the truck all outfitted and ready, pick Kiki up and bring her back to Stanford for a day or so, and (unrelatedly) get completely moved out of my dorm room as I am moving to a different room next quarter. Oh, and... school? That too? Fortunately I only have one very doable final left, but it's still another thing to worry about.

In a case of excellent timing, my back has also decided to completely flake out on me recently, to the point where my physical therapist today constructed a crude back brace out of tape to keep me in a semi-correct posture despite my constant neck and back spasms that try to pull me into a Quasimodo-esque hunchback. It's a sexy look, clearly.

One major upside, of course, is that I'm really excited to have Kiki home with me over winter break!! Beach ride, here we come!! =D

My favorite Horse Photos of 2011

2011-12-12T02:02:00.009-05:00

If you've been following this blog over the past year, you know that I take a lot of pictures of horses. In fact, 'a lot' is an understatement. I took over 10,000 pictures of horses in my 6 months in England alone, and live for the days when I get to turn the lens toward my all-time favorite subjects.

But what isn't as obvious is the amount of time I spend looking at other people's pictures of horses, too. I'm always browsing for the best equine photographers and photographs I can find, both for inspiration and just for pure enjoyment. I have some definite idols (Nico Morgan, who I got to meet at Badminton this year, and Kat Netzler of the Chronicle are the first two that pop to mind) and I not only can't get enough of their pictures but also hope that if I look enough, my eye might some day end up as good as theirs =)

Generally, whenever I find a photograph on the internet that I like, I save it on my computer for later enjoyment/perusal. Now that the year has come to a close, I thought I would share some of my favorite finds from 2011. These photos come almost exclusively from The Chronicle of the Horse, Eventing Nation, and the great mystery of The Facebooks. Enjoy!

Crazy Athleticism

(aka: why horses are AWESOME)

(Nina Ligon and Fernhill Fearless showing some serious hops at the Jersey Fresh CCI*** - via Chronicle)

(Neville Bardos showing the incredible scope needed at the CCI**** level - via Eventing Nation)

(Jumping a car??! via Facebook)

(Jennie Brannigan and No Objection jump over 6' bareback - via Chronicle)

(A Grand Prix horse shows some extra enthusiasm during the CDI at Saugerties - via Chronicle)

(Athena is officially one of the coolest little horses on the planet - via Chronicle)

Special Moments

(aka: why a life with horses is the best life of all)

(Sapphire with her fans (ok, this is from 2010, sue me) - via Chronicle)

(Sinead Halpin crosses the finish line at her storybook Rolex debut - via facebook)

(Caroline Powell looks delighted with Lenamore after their test at Burghley - via Eventing Nation)

(18 year-old Lenamore completes another Burghley clear inside the time - just another day at the office for one of the best horses in eventing today - via Eventing Nation)

(Friend and fellow New Englander Kylie Lyman finally gets the recognition she deserves as one of the best up and coming riders in the US by winning the Fair Hill CCI** - via Chronicle)

(The Chronicle did a tribute to Kingston, who passed away this year, and this photo from the '04 olympic selection trials was by far my favorite - via Chronicle)

(Hickstead doing what he did best: winning - via Chronicle)

(Cold, wet, rainy, and triumphant: the victory parade at Burghley, the competition I would love to complete far more than any other - via Eventing Nation)

(Clark Montgomery looks proud but reflective after winning the 2011 Bromont CCI*** - via Chronicle)

(Boyd lives the eventer's dream: hacking in front of Burghley House at one of the biggest equine competitions in the world with his country's flag on his arm - via Boyd's blog)

(Toytown retires - via Facebook)

(Texting and riding: why not?? - via Eventing Nation)

(Winning the World Cup IN STYLE - via Chronicle)

Here's to a 2012 with many more pictures and moments with horses!

Good News Comes in Twos

2011-12-05T02:49:00.005-05:00

Since my last epic ramble of a post, I've gotten two very good pieces of news! (I've also almost crashed my bike, almost gotten hit by a car, and totally wiped out while walking when I misjudged the height of a curb, but... let's focus on the positives.)

First,

Pa Rode Dually!!

After nearly six months and a long, meticulous hand walking rehab, Pa got back on for Dually's first tack walk this afternoon. YAY!! The road is still long from here (I think, according to our vet's rehab plan, that they're supposed to walk for almost two months before trotting), but this is a big step. And the Dude, in classic style, was absolutely perfect. Good man.

In a far distant second to that good news, this blog reached 100,000 page views over the weekend! I'm so overwhelmed that so many wonderful, kind, and supportive people have decided to come on this strange, (hopefully?) interesting journey with me. Thank you so much for reading, following, and commenting! It means more to me than I can accurately describe =)

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2011-12-04T11:10:00.005-05:00

Holy God, have these last two weeks been stressful. Things are definitely on the upward trend from the general misery that was last week, but... barely. I'm feeling pretty scattered and sat down about three times last night to write an organized, cogent, narrative description was what's been going on, to no avail. So, here's an overview. In the past week:

The Good

-I got to see Rachel yesterday!! A few other girls from the dressage team and I all headed up to visit her yesterday afternoon. She looked weak and recovering, but was still the same amazing Rachel =) By the sounds of it, hopefully she'll be able to start easing back into the barn at the New Year. Hooray!!-

-I finished up one of the four major assignments I have for the finals period and am quite close with another. Now, I have just one presentation/paper and one final between me and Christmerrss-

-I'm done with my Christmas shopping! Massive first-

-I sold my Devoucoux dressage saddle with an almost absurd rapidity-

-Ringo has been amazing, despite getting 6 days off between last Saturday and two days ago due to the general craziness of my life. I rode him in the double again for the first time in a few weeks yesterday and he felt really, really good. What a champ-

(Thanksgiving hack on Prowler... the best view in the world, made definitely better by the fact I was wearing a T shirt when I took this on Thanksgiving day - oh California, you're so good to me)

-I spoke to the folks that have Kiki to sell yesterday, and she's settled in well and is benefiting from a good professional tune up. But...-

(Kiki enjoying some last carrots before she left the Red Barn)

The Bad

-...saying goodbye to Kiki was still incredibly stressful and heartbreaking. Plus, it's not clear whether she will stay at Dayna's or come home with me over Christmas (they're assessing her for two weeks, and if they don't think they can sell her she'll come back to Mass to be sold as a jumper)-

(Good luck, Kiki! Be a good girl, PLEASE!!!)

-I got in a car accident yesterday literally 30 seconds after I'd cashed the check for selling my saddle. I was distracted--I kid you not, thinking about how I could best distribute the profits and maybe treat myself to a little something if there was leftover--and clipped a car in the parking lot, completely ripping off its front bumper. Well, there goes most of the saddle money right there. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid stupid.-

(My truck, Billie Jean, showing off her good side - her already bad side (she has a dent in the front right bumper) is now made even significantly less classy by the white scrape along the entire back right half of her side paneling. Poor girl, having to put up with being driven by such a lackadaisical driver... grrrr)

-I had to pull one all-nighter and many very, very sleepless nights to get all my work done this week, which left me a pretty sad and drained panda come Thursday and Friday nights where, both nights, I passed out in my clothes with the lights on at 7pm. Cool kid life-

The Ugly... Well, let's say Strange

-I'm having 'boy problems' (can you still call them 'boys' when they're college seniors? They sure still seem like boys, anyway, given the maturity levels they often display) that are so absurd as to be neither good nor bad but just downright strange. As you might have gathered from this blog, I tend to like talking to horses more than I like talking to people, so I find these sorts of situations difficult at the best of times. Oh well.-

-I somehow pulled a muscle in my back during physical therapy this week (ironic?) and have been semi-crippled ever since. I won't call this a downright 'bad' because I'm hoping maybe I'm just really sore from all the strength building I did (??? ... sure)... but I'm still feeling pretty stiff. Whoops.-

Well, if you've made this far through this disconnected ramble, I salute you. Hopefully things will sort over the next few days as I hustle to try to make a little extra money to offset this stupid car accident (*&$#!), and as we know whether Kiki will be home for the holiday or staying in sunny California. Until then: ride it out.

(The Kiki solution to any life stresses: when in doubt, eat your weight in carrots. A good motto by all accounts)

Tough Week

2011-11-26T21:09:00.004-05:00

Sorry I've been so quiet over the past few days. It's been a tougher week than I'd like to admit in many ways, and I've been throwing all my energy into trying to remain positive and focused.

Obviously, the most frightening part of the last few days have surrounded Rachel's illness. Though she is now back at home she is still not out of the woods yet. Fortunately she has a great support team on her side and hopefully she will be back to her normal self in no time, but I've still been very worried.

Besides that, I've also been dealing with some very difficult decisions in my own life. After much grappling I think I've settled in my choices, and feel confident that they are the right ones for me, but that does not make them any easier.

Firstly, I've decided to graduate from Stanford at the end of this year. Originally I had planned to stay on an extra year to finish a second major, but after much weighing of positives and negatives it has not ultimately seemed worth it. I will still graduate in 4 years with a major, two minors and a good GPA (hopefully, if things continue as they have). Part of me would love to stay at Stanford for as long as I possibly could, not only because I love it so dearly but also because I think it would take that long to actually take advantage of all the things I've wanted to do while I was here, but I'm also feeling very ready to start the next adventure in my life.

Pursuant to that, I've also started thinking about jobs and have decided to move back to New England. This isn't so much news, as I've always planned on coming back to the homeland, but it now seems a lot closer and more real. I have a few leads on jobs but will wait to discuss those until they're a bit more finalized.

Lastly, and most important to this blog, I've decided to sell Kiki. This was by far the most difficult of the three decisions I had to make this week, and the most painful. I love Kiki very, very dearly and feel like she's not only a member of a family but that she's my own child. I've had more than one idle day dream of us growing up to be old biddies together, still enjoying each others' company 10, 20 years down the road. I don't think I've ever met a horse I get along with in terms of personality more; we're like peas and carrots.

(Kiki showing off her cracking good jumping form)

And yet if I'm perfectly honest with myself, I know that, as a riding match, we're not quite a perfect fit. Kiki is so talented and special that I want her to be with someone that is that perfect fit, because she deserves that. Also, as I move forward and see myself phasing more into dressage, I know that that is not a road that Kiki would enjoy going down: she has improved unrecognizably on the flat, and I believe has the potential to be quite competitive, but jumping is always where her true interests lie and I would always feel like I wasn't using her to the best of her abilities if I took her down that route.

(Getting a 22 at Millbrook, my best ever dressage score by a country mile!)

Of course, that decision has come with many more sub-decisions, and a fair amount of headache already. What should we sell her as? Eventer? Jumper? Foxhunter? I think she could excel in any of the three, and all have pros and cons and their own details to be worked out. How much should we ask for her? That I still don't know yet, so I'm bringing her down to Dayna's in the coming week for Shannon Lilley (her assistant trainer and recent Pan Am gold medalist!!) to ride, assess, and help me come up with a price. Where should we sell her? I could either leave her in California or bring her back east. Where should she stay in the meantime? I'd like to not have to pay for an empty stall at the Red Barn a day longer than I'd have to, so figuring out when/where she should go while she's being sold has been probably the most complicated dance so far, with no end in sight yet. It looks, though, like she will probably be going down to Dayna's as early as the 1st, which feels very soon.

(Kiki is one of the most solid-feeling cross country horses I've ever ridden. It feels absurdly natural and easy to her)

I'm so thankful to have had this amazing horse in my life. It will be hard, but I know that it will feel good to have her make someone else as happy as she's made me.

So anyway, if you know someone who is interested and would like to try her, let me know at k.m.erickso@gmail.com. I will put her complete ad up when we finalize the details, but she will be reasonably priced.

Excellent News

2011-11-22T07:25:00.002-05:00

Rachel is doing much better and is set to be released from the hospital this afternoon or evening. Though it sounds like her recovery may be a slow one, there doesn't seem to be any reason that she won't be able to return to full health. Yay!! Thank you so much for your kind words and thoughts =)

Keep Rachel in Your Thoughts

2011-11-21T15:12:00.003-05:00

I am too stressed/worried/overwhelmed to go into details, but my dressage coach and dear friend Rachel is very sick. She collapsed at a team dinner she hosted for us at her house last night and is currently in stable but very serious condition at the hospital. Please keep her in your thoughts.

Rachel has been an unbelievable mentor to me over the past three years. She is the first person EVER who actually made me enjoy dressage, realize that it could be fun, and that I might actually be not terrible at it (she has still has to work pretty hard to convince me of that last one...!). When I came back to Stanford after my disastrous time off in the early months of 2010 she was the first person to dust me off and get me back on my feet and enjoying riding again. I owe so, so, so much to her and know that there's no way I'd be the rider I am today without her.

(Rachel with the Stanford Dressage Team at our first show of the year at Cal Poly a few weeks ago)

Five Years of Record Keeping

2011-11-19T22:42:00.010-05:00

This November marks a strange but special milestone for me: I've now kept daily records of my riding for five continuous years.

(The book itself, recently upgraded this year to a fatter binder because it was overflowing the old one, with an old favorite for a cover: an illustrated feed card I made for Dually back when I left him at a friend's house a few years ago. The artistry is really stunning, right??)

I've never been a diary keeper (well, I guess except for this blog!) so to have a written log of such a long period of time is pretty unprecedented for me. It's weird to look back at those first months back in the late autumn of 2006 and think about how much has changed since then: except for horses, and this record of my time with them, there is very little about my life then that corresponds to my life now. I lived in Massachusetts, was a senior at Middlesex, still entertained (quickly fading) hopes of running competitively after high school, was trying to figure out what colleges to apply to (Stanford being only my wildest dream), had never lived away from home, never done a CCI*, never been to Young Riders, never broken my neck, never met Ringo or Kiki, was only just getting introduced to the subject that I would eventually major in (Art History), and could only speculate as to where I might find myself in a year's time, let alone five.

(My first month: November 2006. Then as now I always have one sheet for my horses (in this case, Dually), and then the reverse is another sheet with all other horses)

Now, I'm as unsure about the future as ever (maybe even more so, without the stable prospect of college ahead), but everything else feels very different. Except the horses. The horses, though the names have changed, the competitions have come and gone, and the disciplines have shifted and come full circle again, have always been the guiding force by which my life has moved forward. There have been some unbelievable highs and some very crushing lows, but not a day passes where I don't feel thankful to have horses and riding in my life.

(July 2011: A great month because it marked getting back in the saddle after six long months in England!!)

(Not all months are as exciting, unfortunately. Here's October 2010, when Ringo was at home rehabbing from his bowed tendon and Kiki was laid up at Stanford with a mystery lameness we never fully diagnosed. It's a bummer when you get more "0 minutes" than rides!)

As college has gone on and many of my friends have slowly grown out of riding and I still jump out of bed every morning between 5:30 and 7 so that I can get to the barn, even if it's just to see the horses on days when I'm not riding, I've realized that being with the horses is one of the only times when I feel completely myself.

(March 2010 was a crappy month for my self-confidence and my relationship with my trainer. But look at the pretty colors!!!)

Now, here are some stats. In the past five years:

I've...

-ridden 2,122 horses (an average of 1.16/day)-

-ridden my own horses 1,367 times-

-spent 1,490.5 hours in the saddle (over 62 days!)-

-my most active year for riding was Nov '09-Oct '10, where I rode 541 times-

-I spent the most hours in the saddle in the period from Nov '08-Oct '09, where I logged 401 hours (almost 17 days)-

-this past year (Nov '10 - Oct '11) was my lightest year on record at 328 rides, but all but 25 of those came in the last four months of the period (Jul '11 - Oct '11)-

There is a saying that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to completely master something. If we assumed I had roughly 1,500 hours of practice before I began keeping records, then, at the rate I'm currently going, I would have about 23 years to go to reach that milestone! I guess that's why they call riding a lifetime commitment...

(March 2007: as far as I can tell, the only month that uses the same pen/pencil from start to finish. This was the month I took extra time off on either side of my senior spring break in high school to be a working student for Suzi Gornall in Aiken, my first working student experience ever!)

Over the years the records have run through many different pens, gone through periods of neat handwriting and chicken scratches, and measured more steps forward and steps back than I can count. Here's to five, ten, fifty more years of fun with horses!

(Ringo is getting dapples!! What a handsome Prowler)

I Heart Mondays

2011-11-14T14:37:00.004-05:00

After the CRUSHING DISAPPOINTMENT that was the Stanford-Oregon football game this weekend, made bearable only by the fact that my dad was there to soften the blow for me, I needed some cheering up. The perfect cure? A little case of the Mondays. Monday gets such a bad rap, but it's one of my favorite days of the week this quarter. Why? Well, let's see:

5:30 - Wake Up

Ok, that might sound a little miserable to a lot of people, and it normally would for me too, but since Sunday is the one day of the week where I'm generally able to sleep in/nap in the afternoon, Monday is the only morning where waking up early doesn't seem so bad. I'm also a morning person so the earlier I can get feeling fresh and going the better the day seems.

6 - Move car back to the barn

I don't have permit parking this year, so I can only park my car on campus on the weekends when there's no ticketing. I may have to get up early on Monday mornings to move my car back to the barn where it lives during the week, but it's the only time all week that I get to drive to the barn with the heat blasting and not feel like my thumbs were going to get frostbite from gripping the handles of my bike on frosty mornings.

6:15 - first ride of the day

This is always my favorite ride of the day. It's still dark when I grab my horse (it's usually Kiki) and the sun only peaks in fully when I'm about half way through. It's crisp, cool, and unbelievably peaceful. I always have the arena completely to myself and the footing is always pristine and fresh dragged from the night before. Kiki is usually on her best behavior, and life is very, very good.

8 - Team Dressage lesson

This week I rode Dreamer, who is one of my favorite team horses but certainly not the easiest. The team lessons are very position oriented and I always feel like they get the week off on the right foot, with me thinking about being the most effective rider I can be.

9:30 - third ride of the day

Now it's Ringo's turn. By now the morning is cooking right along and I'm usually in a pretty good groove. We usually just do some stretching stuff today as I often work harder over the weekend, and then Tuesday is Ringo's day off, so I want to get him feeling as loose and supple as possible so he can make the most of his rest day.

10:45 - done! Feed, clean tack, and bike back to the dorm

I usually get back around 11 and have an hour to shower and then either take a nap, browse the Interwebz, or watch tv (or some combination of the above!). After getting so much done already, it's one of the few times all week that I feel totally guiltless in slacking off for a while.

12 noon - lunch

nom nom nom nom nom nom nom

1pm - work/chill time

Usually I head to the library after lunch to get a start on the piles of reading that I have to do every week, though this week I'm actually ahead so I think I'll take the opportunity to catch up on lost sleep (a perennial favorite activity).

3:15 - class

I only have one class on Monday, and it's my favorite: photography. Mondays are almost always lab days, which means that we're given two and a half hours pretty much left to our own devices to work on our term projects in any way we see fit. I'm currently working on stuff like this:

Heaven.

6 - dinner

again: nom nom nom nom nom nom

7 - Equestrian Team meeting

We have our team meetings every Monday night at the barn. I realized one week this fall as I was biking over that this is probably the longest running single tradition that I've had in my four years at Stanford: class schedules, lesson times, and and my personal routines have all fluctuated and changed, but every single Monday night I find myself biking out to the barn for team meeting. There's something kind of comforting in that.

After that, it's studying/chilling until bed. What's not to love??

Grrrumph

2011-11-10T23:20:00.005-05:00

Well. I've had quite the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day! Ok, maybe I exaggerate a bit, but I definitely did walk out of the barn today wanting to tear my hair out.

After a good team dressage lesson this morning, I got on Ringo. We did our normal 15 minute walk and then headed into the ring to begin our planned stretchy ride. After the first few strides of trot, I immediately knew something was wrong. S*%T!! I jumped off at once and asked my friend to jog him out for me. Sure enough: dead. lame. Head bobbing. I felt my heart literally drop out of my body. I had been talking with a friend just over the weekend that you never know when your last ride with any given horse might be, and all of sudden I had a grim vision of this happening to me right then.

I brought him back into the barn and rechecked the legs that I though I'd deemed acceptable before I got on. Sure enough, everything still looked as tight and cool as normal. What could be wrong? And then I noticed a small cut on the inside of his left front ankle. It was so small and scabbed over looking that I could hardly believe that it was the source of the problem. When I prodded it, however, Ringo immediately whipped his hoof out of the way. Ah ha. I think we found the situation. I scrubbed, dressed, and wrapped the wound up, and set Ringo back in his stall for the day. Okay. Crisis 1 of the day: averted.

After a brief pause to go to class (wait what? school? I know, I'm surprised too), it was back to the barn again to ride Kiki. I've been feeling really at ends with Kiki over the past few days: she's been in heat, not happy with the weather change, and feeling pressure from the increase in work I've been trying to ask of her. Last night I just had a nightmare of the ride, and was determined to do something positive.

(Cute thing)

I decided to let her let out some extra energy in the round pen before I got on in hopes that she might be a little more relaxed and loose in her back from the beginning. She LOVED it and immediately took off squealing and bucking. She never really bucks or does anything in the round pen. Wahoo! I was just starting to pat myself on the back for hopefully getting the ride off on the right foot when, to my horror, she took an extra big buck, stumbled, and proceeded to completely wipe out, down on her side and everything. WHAT. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. She looked a little surprised for a second to be on the ground, then got up and set off again at a nice, bright, forward, sound trot. Okay. Perhaps not all was lost.

(a few minutes pre-fall)

I gathered her up and brought her back in to tack her up. As I was brushing her leg, I stopped. Her left knee was swollen to almost twice its normal size. S*%T!! Yet again, I grabbed a friend to jog her for me. Fortunately she seemed totally sound, so I decided to give the ride a try. I went out and did about 15 minutes of work but was so paranoid that I had to call it pretty quickly. We came back to the barn and the knee was still swollen. I cold hosed it, could not figure out a way to wrap it with the materials I had, and so just gave her some bute and put her away for the night.

I'm supposed to have a lesson tomorrow morning with Brian Sabo that I've ridiculously looking forward to. In classic form, it's looking very likely that I'll have two horses and nothing to ride. Sigh. Such is life.

(Also, I got pictures from the IDA show! Here's me on Saturday - I wish my position was a little more secure looking...)

(Good girl Olivia!)

Some Housekeeping

2011-11-09T02:40:00.003-05:00

As you probably will have noticed from the new header, I've been doing some small revamps to the blog to get ready for the incoming year. The big progress of today was that I finally finished constructing all the pages that appear right below the header (and which have all said 'coming soon!' for about 4 months now.. whoopsiedoodle). Check them out!

Dressage in the Redwoods - Success!!

2011-11-06T10:02:00.005-05:00

What a great end to the season! We survived (primary mission objective), we didn't make fools ourselves (close second), and we even ended up doing well - bonus!!!

I was lucky to not ride until almost 2pm, so I was able to get up, feed, bathe, and pack the trailer and still have time to go out to breakfast with my mother, who had been in town but had to leave that morning. If only every horse show could be this laid back! I came back, braided, and then we were off.

(Prowler looking too cute for words as I was tacking him up)

I checked in and managed to find Heidi and apologize for my flakiness, which she was very gracious about. Unfortunately, however, she was riding right before I was, and so wouldn't be able to help me. Instead, she offered to have her mother, who is also a trainer and judge, warm me up for me. I was a little nervous as I'd never met her mother, but I really wanted some help just in case everything crashed and burned in warmup, so I agreed.

Well, everything did NOT crash and burn in warmup. In fact, except for a small almost-rearing episode on the way down to the collecting ring and a moment about half way through where I asked for medium canter and Ringo went explosively running away with me down the long side (probably the first time I've ever actually used the curb rein on my double bridle in earnest!), he was PERFECT. After I'd been trotting a while and was just transitioning into my sitting work, Heidi's mother Pam introduced herself to me (I'd been too nervous to initiate conversation) and asked if I needed any help. I said that I would love help and she smiled and said, "Well, I've been watching you since the beginning and so far I don't have much to tell you because it all looks very good." Needless to say I blushed a little bit, and was very very pleased! Pam helped me with a few things like the angle of my half pass and my medium trot (which actually felt good!! WHAT?!) and in general was very complimentary of Ringo. Yay!

Before I felt totally ready, it was my turn to head in. The one thing I didn't really like about the venue was that we warmed up in a very secluded, non-atmospheric outdoor arena, and then had to walk down a hill a short distance into a very spooky, highly atmospheric indoor to do our test. Not ideal for looky ponies like Ringo. Sure enough, our first tour of the arena was riddled with spooking and snorting. I was really happy, then, when I was able to buckle down, keep riding, and for the most part bring his attention back to me. The test wasn't our most relaxed, for sure, but there were no major spook-related blow ups either.

In general I was really pleased. We got good marks on all the things I knew we could do well: medium canter (7s, judge's comment: 'brave!'), flying changes (7s), shoulder-in (7s), half-pass (one 7, the other a 6 because I messed up the angle), medium and extended walk (7s). We also were correctly marked down in the places I was thinking wouldn't go so well and didn't, mainly the turn on the haunches (5, 'stuck') and the halt and reinback (5, 'stiff and braced'). The good marks fortunately covered not only those but also the one big bobble of the test, which was a break in our first medium trot that resulted in a 4. Whoops.

I also got two 7s and a 6 on rider, which is good, though definite incentive for improvement. The collective marks were very encouraging, commenting specifically on my good riding, and touched on some of the general homework that I know is an issue: getting him slower and more cadenced at the trot and canter, and getting him more relaxed and not braced against the hand. In other words, it was exactly what I was hoping for: a positive experience that simultaneously pointed the way towards what we should work on this winter. Hooray!

The icing on the cake, of course, was that we won (in our giant class of 2) and, more importantly, walked away with a pretty darn respectable score! 64.2% is the highest score Ringo has ever gotten at 3rd level, even when he was ridden by a famous professional rider back in his pre-eventing youth. It is a full 5% higher than the best of Ringo's and my attempts at 3rd level back in May of 2010, and makes me feel good about the progress we've made since then, injury and all.

Ringo will now get a few more weeks of medium level work (and hopefully a lesson or two) before getting most of December off on vacation while I go home for the holidays. I've already starting looking at the 2012 season and can honestly say that I'm the most excited I've been about a new season of showing in a long, long time. Here's to sound and happy ponies along the way!

I am a Fool

2011-11-05T01:02:00.003-04:00

I have my last horse show of the year tomorrow with Ringo, something that I should have been meticulously arranging and getting ready for for the past few weeks. Instead I feel totally out to lunch and unprepared. So unprepared, in fact, that I haven't even arranged my coaching yet.

Heidi Gaian kindly offered to coach me over a month ago when I took a lesson with her, and then sent out a follow up email about ten days ago asking to set something up beforehand. I kept putting off getting back to her... and putting it off, and putting it off, until suddenly it was 6pm tonight and I realized that it was far too late to email her and I didn't have her phone number. Clearly, I am dumb. Hopefully I can just get to the show early enough tomorrow to find her, apologize profusely, and maybe slip into the schedule at the last minute (and hopefully try to come off as not too much of a flake... whoops).

In general, I'm feeling pretty good, though I definitely did have a run through of the test with Rachel on Thursday that went so atrociously that I started getting green around the gills. Fortunately Rachel gave me some great pointers that will hopefully help me save points in some key places: the rein back, turn on the haunches, and medium trot. I'm hoping that, armed with that advice and a good healthy dose of adrenaline, we'll be able to put in a non-embarrassing performance tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Ringo's a New Man

2011-10-31T23:13:00.003-04:00

Today was a banner day, because I gritted my teeth and clipped a horse for the first time in three years! I only did Ringo (Kiki is slated for Friday) and I was pretty nervous, but it actually went fine. It only took an hour and a half (as opposed to the three hours I was fearing) and, while there definitely are some tracks, they could be a lot worse.

(Ringo amidst the blizzard of white fluff that was his winter coat)

(Not Dually-levels of fuzziness, for sure, but still impressive!)

(Rachel holding Ringo to show off his new 'do - this picture totally does not do justice how much better his topline has gotten. But look! No more ribs! And he's starting to develop a butt! Progress)

I'm set to clip a school horse each on Tuesday and Thursday, and then Kiki on Friday. Looks like I'm going to have a lot of hairy laundry to do on Friday night...

Just Like the First Day of School

2011-10-30T19:23:00.004-04:00

The season might be over (well, for the most part, more on that in a second) but for the ponies the past week has been like going back to school again: new shoes, new jackets (well, old jackets pulled out for the first time this season), new haircuts, and plenty of homework to start chipping away on.

Because I'm flat broke, I decided to pull Kiki's shoes for the winter to save on farrier bills ($65 verse $225? Yes please). Kiki has always had good feet and was barefoot until she was 6+, and my farrier was totally on board, so I felt pretty good about the decision. So far, almost a week later, she's been FABULOUS. No foot soreness at all (though I have been careful to avoid crunchy rocks while she's adjusting) and her first ride barefoot felt MARKEDLY better than previous days. Normally she finds her balance pretty difficult and I have to constantly try to keep her from falling into her forehand and racing wildly, and while it wasn't a 100% turn around I was surprised at how much more balanced she felt shoe-free. I don't want to jinx myself early, but the shoes might not be coming back any time soon...

(Kiki looking pumped for the farrier)

Ringo's shoes looked pretty weird when I first looked at them, but I think I've come out feeling happy about them. We will see. Ringo's shoeing is always tough, and the amount of heartache I've put into his feet (versus the absolute non-event that is Kiki's shoeing) has impressed on me how important good feet will be for the next horse I end up with. I never want to deal with this again!!

(Pretty good...)

They are also both getting clipped tomorrow, which will be good though I'm dreading the process. There was a time when I was a moderately proficient clipper, but I have never liked the process, never been that good at it, and have not done it myself now for almost three years. Watch out, ponies: you might be looking like chewed up carpet samples before long.

I'm getting excited because, after a few weeks of just riding on my own, it looks like I'm going to be getting some lessons again in the very near future. I've been rebrushing up on all the homework I was left with in my last lessons on Ringo and Kiki, respectively, and can't wait to get a progress report and new instructions as we head into the winter.

But wait, did I say that my season might not be over just yet? It's true! On a whim I decided to enter one day of a show down in Watsonville this coming weekend. I'll just being one test, one day, and am hoping to use it as a low-pressure way of taking a first attempt at Third Level before the year ends. Hopefully we'll get a good sense of what we're doing okay on and what needs work before next spring!

IDA 101

2011-10-25T22:11:00.004-04:00

Niamh noted very astutely in my writeup from the IDA show yesterday that I've never really explained what IDA is, exactly. Whoops! Sorry about that! Here's a quick rundown of what the world of intercollegiate dressage is all about:

The Name

IDA stands for the Intercollegiate Dressage Association. It's a coed, national organization open to undergraduate and graduate students at participating colleges and universities in the United States. While significantly smaller than the other main intercollegiate riding association (IHSA, or the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association, which does hunt seat equitation), IDA still boasts over 50 teams from different schools across the country.

The Levels

There are four levels of competition offered. From lowest to highest, they are: Intro (can be asked to do Intro tests A and B), Lower Training (Intro C and Training 1), Upper Training (Training 2 and 3), and First (any First level test). Riders are placed into different levels based on their previous showing experience before joining IDA. There is a set form for determining level placement that takes a wide variety of disciplines into account from eventing to pony club to jumpers to dressage. For example, I was placed into First level because I had shown Intermediate level eventing and was a B level pony clubber. Another girl on our team placed into Upper Training because she had shown Training level USDF shows. Intro is for people with no show experience at all.

The Team

A team consists of one rider from each level. A school can field two teams at any given regular season show (though at Stanford we almost never have enough people). Riders who are not on a team are allowed to compete as individuals.

How Shows Work: General Stuff and the Draw

Each geographical area of the US is split into regions. In California we are Region U, which means that Stanford competes against the other California schools with IDA teams. These are currently Cal Poly, UC Davis, and UC Santa Cruz. Each school hosts at least one show a year. The host school will provide the horses and venue (which means that when we go to Cal Poly we all ride Cal Poly's horses; when they come to us, they ride our horses, etc). What horse each rider gets is determined by a random draw system. The horses are sorted into groups of four with one horse per level (so, a group will have a 1st level, UT, LT and Intro horse) and then a team will draw one of these groups. The rider gets an opportunity to watch a parade of all the horses in the competition before she has to get on for her own ride, but it is likely that she will never have ridden the horse before (especially at an away show).

How Shows Work: Warmup and Riding

10 minutes before each rider's ride time, she is given permission to mount her horse and head into the warmup area. During this time a coach can help you and you can do whatever you want (within normal legal USDF rules) to acquaint yourself with your horse and get it as ring-ready as possible. Often I find that the first thing I assess is the general stop and go buttons, then try to figure how tired the horse is (sometimes a horse goes two or three times so by the time you get on it it's pretty cooked), then tailor my warmup from there. Fresh and minimal breaks? Lots of transitions and harder lateral work to try to get some submission installed before show time. Tired and behind the leg? Lots of walk breaks to try to conserve energy with short bursts of trot in between to get a little pop before it's time to go in. Practicing the test movements is the last thing if everything else is cooking along well (though it is good to test the halt etc just to avoid any nasty surprises). After 10 minutes, the steward sends you over and it's show time!

(As you might have deduced, I don't have any pictures of my riding at the last show. Here I am warming up at my first IDA show ever, also at Cal Poly, also on Dancer, but way back in November 2009. How time flies!)

The Scoring: Tests

The tests are scored just like regular dressage tests, though the rider's position mark is changed from a x1 coefficient to a x4 to try to reward good riding over fancy horses (which obviously in this format we don't have much control over). Good IDA judges also tend to reward clean, accurate tests that might be a little plain over flashy ones with bobbles, because again in this format accuracy and smoothness are something a rider can control, and the fanciness of her mount is not.

(Phew!)

The Scoring: Team Competition

Each division is ranked and pinned like at a regular horse show. Then, each team member's place is converted into points and added to the team total. The points go like: 1st place - 7 points; 2nd place - 5 points; 3rd place - 4 points; 4th place - 3 points; 5th place - 2 points; and 6th place - 1 point. At the end of the day, the points from the 3 highest placing riders on each team (meaning that there is one drop score) are added up. This team total determines the team placing for the day. Additionally, the team totals add up cumulatively over the season, and the school with the highest season-end total qualifies to go to Nationals.

----

I think that about covers the basics. If you have any other questions, please let me know!

(IDA is fun!!)

IDA @ Cal Poly: Small But Mighty!

2011-10-24T23:16:00.010-04:00

The Stanford Dressage Team had our first show of the year last weekend down at Cal Poly in beautiful (and I really mean beautiful!!) San Luis Obispo. Despite being just 5 members strong (as opposed to Cal Poly and Davis who both have over 20 people), with 3 of us performing our first IDA (or dressage at all!) tests ever, we had a great showing and came out team champions the first day and reserve the second. Wahoo! Go Stanford Dressage!

(Our haul on Day 1)

I kicked off the competition on Saturday with the first ride of the whole show, doing First Level Test 1 on a bay mare named Olivia. I was a bit apprehensive to ride her because she looked very sensitive, but I ended up LOVING her. Our fearless coach, Rachel, gave me some great guidance in our 10 minute warmup so that I had her as soft and through as I possibly could when we went in the ring.

I was also really happy with my mental preparation. I had actually taken time before I got on to remove myself from the group, zen out, and get in the zone (which is something I always want to do but never seem to give myself time for), and it really paid off: I felt like I rode one of the most accurate and correct tests I've ever done on any horse, ever. We did have one bobble in the medium walk that was totally my fault, but other than that I thought I made crisp transitions, both within the gait and from one gait to the next, and presented a really flowing, steady, nice picture. I had been so nervous because I really wanted to start the year off on the right foot, and so was almost overwhelmed with relief as I turned up the final centerline and made a nice halt and salute. Phew! The season had started in style!

It was a double delight after such a good feeling ride to be rewarded for it in the judging! I won my class with a 69% and got some really nice comments on my test. I also got two 8s and a 7 in the three rider categories in the collective marks which might be a first for me. Very exciting!

(Christy looking great in warmup)

(Rachel coaching Marilu)

The rest of the team also did amazingly on Saturday. In Upper Training, Christy battled it out against a ton of other really qualified well-prepared riders for 4th place and a career high score. In Lower Training, Michelle did a great job with a horse she found challenging and ended in 3rd. Finally, as one of the last riders of the day, our Intro rider Marilu showed off her wonderful poise and tactful riding in her first competition EVER to finish in 2nd place. Yay!! I was so blown away by and proud of how everyone on our team rode. It was a huge icing on the cake to win the team competition against some very good teams.

(Marilu on Honey)

Sunday dawned very early and once again I started the team off in First level (though mercifully this time I was spared the joy of starting the whole competition off). I drew Dancer, who was the horse I rode to victory in my very first IDA show ever two years ago. Unfortunately, I think I took this as an excuse to not quite be as mentally prepared as I had been on Saturday, with the result that I rode the entire warmup and test with a bit less flair and precision than I should have. It still felt very good in places, but I definitely didn't walk away from it feeling as elated as I had after my ride on Olivia. I also made one very large mistake where I allowed Dancer to swap out his lead literally the stride before I was planning to come back to trot (d'oh!! So close!!) which I knew was going to hurt my score.

I ended up second by .5%, which I knew I deserved but was still a little bummed about because I could point to such concrete things that I knew I could have prevented that would have given me the win. Such is dressage! I still got some very nice comments and got another round of two 8s and a 7 in my rider collectives (and we had different judges each day, making it doubly rewarding), so I was very very pleased.

It's also exciting how good the First Level division is in IDA this year. There are a lot of good riders and the scores are really close, so little details of showmanship really count. I really think that riding in IDA this year is going to help my riding as a whole, so I'm seriously looking forward to the rest of the season.

(Christy in Upper Training)

(Michelle and Shawn)

(Big smiles for a job well done!)

Again, everyone else on the team was really inspiring. Christy rode a good test on a horse we all wanted to take home to come 5th in Upper Training, while Michelle rode her horse beautifully for 3rd place in Lower. Our individual Olivia rode a superb test in Lower Training (in her first pure dressage test ever!) to come 2nd.

Marilu had to deal with the most drama of anyone on out team when the horse she had drawn had to be substituted at the last minute for another one with a completely different way of going. She did a great job rolling with the punches and, despite some moments of tension in the ring, came out with 4th place. In the end we were tied with another team for 2nd place and won the tiebreaker with our collective rider marks, which was a great end to a fabulous weekend!

(Big smiles for Olivia too, who was AWESOME in her first ever IDA competition)

(Marilu making her last-minute Intro horse look wicked fancy)

As the show ended, I felt really overwhelmed with how well everything had gone. Cal Poly ran a great show, the horses were turned out beautifully (every single horse was braided!!) and were a pleasure to ride, everyone we talked to was so nice and friendly, there was so much good riding and horsemanship going on, our coach Rachel was fabulous as always, and of course everyone on our team really rose to the occasion and put in great performances. It was a weekend that really got me excited for the next IDA adventure!

(This was how I celebrated a weekend well ridden - grilled cheese (already inhaled by the time this photo was taken), salad (for aesthetic purposes only), and onion rings. It's a good life)

Tranter King

2011-10-18T18:41:00.006-04:00

Dually used to have a tendency to 4 beat in the canter sometimes when the work got hard, a bad habit we always lovingly referred to as 'trantering.' Well the Dude can rest easy now in his rehab, because I've found a horse that picks up the tranter where Dually left off and elevates it to new forms of glory. That horse is, of course, my new western friend Chulo. Chulo acts like there is no greater glory on this green earth than achieving that perfect balance between trotting behind and awkwardly loping in front.

(Chulo and I touring the dressage ring... we felt a little out of place)

Unfortunately for him, I do not agree with his lofty views on this subject. I DESPISE trantering, especially because it makes me feel even more awkward in the already strange (but weirdly comforting and secure) confines of a western saddle. So, in my past few rides with Chulo (or, as I like to call him, 'Churro'... mmmm, delicious =D), we've been doing a lot of transitions and big circles in what Chulo has informed me in no uncertain terms is a WILD GALLOP (aka a 3 beat canter). Once I get him forward I can actually work on getting him slower, more collected, and more correct for a rail horse. It's a process, but I'm having so much fun! Plus my thighs are getting an epic workout from trying to keep me with the crazy motion of his tranterlope.

(He's so cute!! Plus every time I pull out my camera he automatically starts posing: good pony)

I've also come to appreciate the beauty of a good jog. At first I thought it was just boring and the equine equivalent of watching paint dry, but now I sort of get the zen enjoyment that it can bring. Yeah, it's never going to be as fun to me as a big extended canter or tempis or going out for a gallop, but it's also a pretty nice way to view the scenery, especially since you spend a lot less time trying to stay with the motion of the horse (or in my case with dressage, hanging on for dear life and trying to survive) and a lot more time thinking or watching the world go by. I'm digging it.

(Yes I know I'm holding the reins wrong - we were hacking out at this point and I was just trying to do whatever I could to not drop one of the split reins on the ground)

In my extremely brief western experience (I think I just broke the barrier yesterday of being able to count my total western rides with two hands) I've only ever ridden WP/rail horses. I was talking to one of the western riders at the barn this morning and she was getting me really excited about the idea of doing cow horses or reining and getting to experience the faster side of the western world.

(I'm looking pretttty English with my GPA, Tailored Sportsmans, and Ariat tall boots, but at least I've got the rowel spurs to play the part with!)

This is what I love most about horses: there are just so many ways to have a great time! The older I get, the more I realize that my experiences with horses touch on just a tiny fraction of the many different disciplines, breeds, and styles of riding that exist out there. I want to experience them all! Maybe some day... =)

How to Put a Little Howdy in Your Day

2011-10-18T01:11:00.004-04:00

In order to offset costs for the equestrian team, every member is required to do weekly chores around the barn. Usually this means fairly miserable tasks like clipping 25 disgruntled school horses or scrubbing down the outsides of the stall doors with rag and a bucket. It's hardly the worst things things you could have to do in a barn (I've mucked exactly 1 stall in my entire time at the Red Barn, for example, as opposed to the average 16 A DAY I did on my year off), but it's still not very fun.

This year, however, I lucked out in the work department. Besides a few odd jobs and some loads of laundry, I get to ride Chulo, a privately owned horse whose owner doesn't come often and asks the equestrian team to keep the horse in shape for him, a few times a week for work hours. Now, this in itself wouldn't be too remarkable, but...

Chulo is a western horse.

(a very cute western horse, in fact)

Which means that I get to ride western. Yay! I've been itching to learn how to ride western and even considered joining the western team this year, before the reality of the busy shambled clusterf*** that is my life became clear. Now, Chulo is lazy... by Western terms. Which means that, by English terms, he is the laziest horse on the planet. As the lady who helped me get acquainted with him said, "he always walks like he's headed to his own funeral."

After getting used to the fact that WAY TOO SLOW was, in fact, the correct speed, I had a blast! Definitely a good change of pace from my regular riding.

On the 'regular' team front, we're getting pumped for our IDA debut this weekend at Cal Poly. Only one other girl and I have ever ridden a dressage test before in our lives, so it should be interesting to say the least. Bring it on!!

Lightbulb... Again

2011-10-12T16:16:00.004-04:00

Since my last big lightbulb moment with Kiki, I've been kind of at a loss as to what to do. I've ridden her a bit in my jump saddle. I've ridden a ton bareback. I've tried to take a little time to reevaluate.

In general I've been really pleased with the progress of the last few weeks. There are moments when I still doubt myself, moments where it all still seems really hard and fruitless, but also an increasing number of moments where things feel satisfying and right. As long as those moments continue to increase in frequency, I'm ok.

Recently, I've started hunting around for dressage saddles I can borrow for a little while so that I can start adding that piece back in. The bareback has been really fun, but it's whacked out my position a bit (I've gotten stronger in my leg and seat, but it's hard for me to motivate to be really correct in my core and upper body without a saddle... my problem, I know, but there you are) and in the long run I've got to get a working saddle if I want to compete again. Fortunately, I think I've found a saddle that I can borrow for a little while that fits Kiki pretty darn well.

But more than that (and here's the lightbulb of the day), it fits me amazingly. Holy cow. Riding in this saddle has made me realize that I'd never until now sat in a dressage saddle that was big enough for my freakishly long thigh (as in, you may think you have long thighs, but you haven't seen mine: my father is 3" taller than I am (6' versus 5'9") and I'm almost 2" longer than he is in the thigh; the only reason I'm not 6'1" is that I also have a suspiciously short torso).

It was revolutionary. Suddenly I could sit as easily as I do bareback (something which has never been true for me before, because, I'm realizing, I've always been fighting against too-tight blocks and seats). I felt like I wasn't collapsing or contorting my upper body nearly as much to try to stay balanced. It was free, easy, and smooth, even when Kiki was being difficult. Wow. Wow wow wow wow wow. I think I'm in love.

I feel like this fall has been the season of saddle discoveries. I'm not sure how many more surprises I can take in that department, but at least this one was a lot more pleasant than the last...

(Kiki peaks in on the activities in the tack room)

In The Weeds

2011-10-11T01:40:00.005-04:00

Sigh... it's been a long first two weeks of school, and as you've been gathering the blog has taken a hit as a result.

(But look how cute Kiki is! This was from Twin)

I've been feeling really overwhelmed since coming back to Stanford. It came to a head tonight as I was biking back from team meeting (in the rain... WHY). I have two jobs on campus (both of which I'm excited about and am so so thankful to have... but that doesn't mean they don't take up a lot of time), the horses to take care of, dressage team, polo, trying to start a photography business, getting started as a sports photographer for the school paper (a college dream!), serving as the art editor of one of the campus art magazines, trying to have a semblance of a fun/normal senior year... and school somewhere there too. I feel like I have nothing to complain about because these are all activities that I enjoy, but I just don't have enough time to get everything done with the quality that I want and it really frazzles me.

To ease this off, I decided to drop one class (which I realized wasn't really going to be useful towards my degree anyway) and take the quarter off from polo. While polo was one of the highlights of my fall last year, it's a huge time commitment, especially on weekends, which are my only chance to really focus on Ringo and Kiki at the moment. Fortunately I love the people on polo and so know that I'll be able to keep in touch with them, and hopefully pick up playing again for fun in the winter or spring. I still feel like I have an uncomfortable number of balls in the air, but I'm feeling a bit more settled. I'm definitely excited to start my jobs on campus (and even more excited to start getting a little inflow of cashmoneys as times have been pretty absurdly tight of late).

Meanwhile, because I've majorly sucked at giving updates recently, here are some quick and dirty updates of the ponies:

Ringo

...Is awesome. Pretty much 'nuff said. He's been ticking along really nicely, and it's exciting to feel him getting stronger and more confident week by week. We had a great lesson with Brian Sabo a few weeks ago that really left me glowing. We did our first real 4 tempis and Brian said that we could probably have done 2 tempis that day if we put our mind to it. The actual changes were great but our straightness was pretty wandering, leading Brian to say that we needed to get that in line so that when we started 1's we wouldn't end up in the next county by mistake. When I laughed and said that I didn't think we'd have to worry about that for a good long while, he smiled and said, 'sooner than you think.' Definitely a lesson to look back on with a smile =)

(Ringo at Woodside)

(Relaxing after a good ride - look at his cute little feet!)

For Ringo's plans, I'd love to take him to one more show in early November to keep picking away at our bronze medal, but don't currently have the funds. So, we're playing it by ear, and in the meantime are enjoying a lot of playing around with the double bridle and many, many, many counter canter serpentines to try to keep building balance and strength in the canter. In other words, we may not get to show, but life is still very, very good.

(favorite bear)

(Prowler, prowlin)

(SO CUTE)

Kiki

Kiki has been improving in leaps and bounds since the lightbulb moment of a few weeks ago. I've ridden her almost exclusively bareback, which has been insanely fun, and have even jumped her bareback a few times. I tried her in a school saddle today that fit her quite well, and she felt great. I've also had two amazing lessons with Dayna: one where she rode Kiki and gave me some excellent, highly specific advice about what to do next (DO NOT SACRIFICE THE OUTSIDE REIN FOR ANYTHING!! ... And keep kicking!!); and then another where I got to show how well I'd absorbed that advice. The second lesson was one of the best rides I've had on Kiki ever. She was steady in the bridle, not leaning, and showed off this lovely floaty trot that just felt wonderful beyond wonderful.

(Enjoying an evening bareback ride - her topline is getting so nice!)

As I talked about previously, the goal originally was to go to Galway but that has now been scrapped, which means that Kiki is off the hook until 2012. I'd love to get her out hunting this fall/winter, and take as many lessons as I can afford (which is, currently, not many... but we will see). But if we kept moving along in the same way we have for the past few weeks, I'd enter the new year a very happy lady =)

(Takin a tour of the parking lot)

Woodside Mudslide... Almost

2011-10-09T22:38:00.005-04:00

Thanks to the ridiculous weather we had over the past week (three days of pouring down rain in a row??! In OCTOBER??! The world is clearly coming to an end) the Woodside horse trials had some serious footing issues to contend with that, for a moment, seemed almost unsurmountable. But thanks to the quick thinking of the organizers and officials, some major time and arena changes, and the cooperation of the competitors, it ended up being the same level of fabulous competition that they always manage to provide. In fact, it was even more exciting this year because they were holding their first FEI competitions in 9 years, which added new levels of difficulty and prestige to what is usually their lowest key horse trials of the year.

I was bummed to not be able to ride due to conflicts with equestrian team and the Stanford Red Barn Festival, but was still very lucky to get a chance to go out each day to snag photos of the CIC*** riders. The division was small but mighty, with a lot of good riding going on, and it was inspiring as always to watch these horses and riders make such difficult questions look so easy over and over again. As I was walking the cross country today trying to find the best places to shoot, I was seriously itching to be jumping some bigger fences again!! One day at a time... but in the meantime, it sure is fun to watch =)

It's interesting to watch the dressage at this level now and think to myself, "gee, I think I could do that!" Before Ringo, that thought never once crossed my mind (before Ringo, I'd only ever done a handful of clean flying changes on command in my entire life! Funny how a horse changes your perspective). I still couldn't ride with the same poise or polish that a lot of the top tests showed on Friday, but the test definitely seems doable (well, if I was sitting on Kiki I might be singing a different tune...). I'd love to do a test ride for one of these events on Ringo, as right now that's probably as close to FEI-level eventing as I'll get in the foreseeable future.

(This horse looked SO FUN TO RIDE. I got to sneak peeks of the warmup ring from where I was standing and every time I looked over these two looked so steady, quiet, and rhythmical. Their test was beautifully soft and expressive and extremely worthy of second place)

(James Alliston led from wire to wire with this horse, who looked seriously special the whole weekend. And such a cute face!!)

(I also loved this horse, who wasn't as relaxed as the other two but still looked seriously fun.)

Dressage and show jumping were both supposed to go on Friday, but the ring was sloppy enough by Friday afternoon that they decided to postpone until the next night. It still ended up being a great evening on showing the next day, with the class taking place in the big grand prix arena with piles of spectators having a good time and enjoying some good competition. The course rode really hard (here was a place where I felt realllllly far away from being able to compete at the upper levels again) and there wasn't a single double clear round all night, though there were some real squeakers. It was fun to shoot in such beautiful evening light, and goodness I wish all venues were as beautiful as Woodside!!

(One of Dayna's other students, Kaitie, had a BADASS clear round on their way to second place in their second Intermediate - goo Undie!)

(The awesome evening light that was going on in the 3*)

(Sick auto release)

(The neatest cutest jumper on this planet)

(The horse I liked from dressage again - SO NICE)

(James Alliston had one rail but still maintained their lead)

(JM on the black stallion)

Finally on Sunday the event came to a conclusion with the cross country. The course had dried out beautifully at this point and was even a bit dusty! Oh California, so classic. The course rode well in general though there were two horse falls, both at the end of the course and caused, I think, by tired horses losing their form. Woodside is the hilliest event in California and it's always tough to get fit enough, especially at the top levels. Fortunately everyone walked away to play another day and the standard of riding in general looked really high.

(Neat and tidy again into the water - Andrea and Estrella made the course look easy)

(Sploosh!)

(Winner winner chicken dinner)

(Woah there, tiger!)

I finished the weekend exhausted but happy. It feels great to be back in California; there's truly no place like it. Now if only I could actually get to ride at the next show!!

Twin Photos

2011-10-04T00:27:00.004-04:00

I took some photos for the USEA website of the Advanced division at Twin. It was my first time doing this for an event in California, and it was a wonderful day to be back at the horse show =). The division was pretty small so it was a lot shorter day than I'm used to, but I definitely wasn't complaining. Enjoy!

(This horse was seriously cool)

(Nice and neat over the massive drop into water!)

(Andrea Baxter (aka XXX) lookin fly over the big corner in the water)

(Eventual winners Sandra Donnelly and Buenos Aires stepping out towards the first water)

(For some reason I really like this galloping shot - it feels so balanced and the background is so quintessentially California: dry, open, and beautiful)

(James Alliston and Jumbo's Jake, who led after the first two days)

Up next: Dayna rides Kiki, Brian meets Ringo, and I take a dive into (photographing) hunter land! We like to keep it interesting over here... ;)

Whirlwind Wrap Up Part III: Twin Rivers

2011-10-01T14:03:00.004-04:00

Phew! I've reached the end of the first week of my senior year of college. Weird? Indeed. I'm really not sure what to make of it.

Meanwhile, I've had a lot to think about after Twin Rivers last weekend with Kiki. We had a good outing (actually a really fun one!) but left the weekend with more questions and things to ponder than answers. Let me explain (beware, buckle up for a long post ahead):

Dressage

The dressage phase, which of course was the one I was dreading the most of the whole show (ironic from the girl who now rides pure dressage as well? Why yes, yes it is), did not get off to a good start. We got down to the warmup just in time for the whole area to get completely overriden by two massive water trucks and multiple drag tractors that proceeded to whizz around the ENTIRE time I was riding. I usually like finding one corner of the warmup and sticking there, but the constant movement of the trucks meant that I had to keep shuffling around to different parts of the space.

I have to say, Kiki was unbelievably well-behaved. She never batted an eye even when the tractors hauled by so close and fast that we literally got peppered with kicked up dirt. After having a similar situation almost send Ringo off the rails at Woodside just one week previously, I was very thankful to be sitting on the less spooky of my two horses this time around! Dayna helped us out and in general the warmup went really well, and Kiki was actually working better than I'd been expecting her to. I headed off to the ring feeling tentatively confident.

And then... tensionexplosiontimes!! Ok, I exaggerate a little. There was no rearing or bolting (both things that have happened to me at Twin in the past... Thanks, Ringo), and we didn't get a 50. But man, other than that, it did not feel good. She was so unsteady in the bridle I felt like she was going to fall over because she was head tossing so crazily. She was racing, unbalanced, and tight. We went about Mach 10 the entire way and pretty much the only positive take away was that it was over quickly.

I left the arena and immediately started crying. D'oh! I really didn't want Dayna to see me cry... at the first horse show she coached me at!! I cry a lot at horse shows and almost always I'm not actually hysterical or all that upset; in fact, most of my brain thinks to itself, "who is this crazy lady whose body I've suddenly been forced to inhabit and why is she crying???" But it doesn't look good.

Fortunately Dayna didn't mind and, after I went back to the barn and threw myself a brief but intense pity party, I felt better about it too. I load myself up with a lot of pressure, especially on the flat, and lose sight of the progress we actually have been making. For example, the warmup was really good; better than I ever could have dreamed of back in August when I could barely get her to canter without trying to kill me. As Dayna said, we're just going to get her more and more and more through in those moments when she's relaxed, so that when she goes into the ring and gets a little tense I can still ride her. It's all a process, and there's no need to get so upset about missteps along the way.

Show Jumping

The lower levels show jumped on Saturday, which I actually preferred because I was distinctly more nervous about the show jumping and so was glad to get it out of the way first so I could just enjoy cross country on Sunday. Warmup started out really well and then I started to get a little nervous and picky, which caused her to get diving and chipping. Fortunately Dayna was there and put us back on the rails, so that I was actually feeling pretty good, besides being mildly nervous, when it was my turn to go in.

Dayna told me right as I entered, 'Remember, this is just another lesson with just you and me. Don't think of it any other way.' And I actually did! Coming up to the first jump, I said to myself, 'This is going to be good, because I'm going to MAKE it good.'

Kiki puffed up nicely in the ring and jumped boldly but not wildly, kept a good forward rhythm, and didn't charge a single fence. We did have one rail midway through the course on the out of the left hand bending line where I starting picking with my left rein, but other than that I was really really pleased. It felt like one of our best rounds so far. Yay Kiki!

Even more than Kiki's performance, though, I was really impressed with Dayna's coaching. She handled the warmup masterfully and then said exactly what I needed to hear going into the ring. I couldn't ask for more.

Cross Country

At last, after three long hot days at the show, it was time for the fun part: cross country!! Huntington and the Jim Wofford clinic have been the only times I've been cross country in the past fourteen months, and while Kiki was very obedient both times neither left me with a particularly warm fuzzy feeling inside. So I didn't really know what to expect this time around, though I was definitely feeling bolstered by my good show jumping round from Saturday.

(Kiki getting pumped before cross country)

Kiki felt great in the flat warmup, and even Dayna and her student Kaitie mentioned how fancy she is when she gets her head screwed on straight. When we went to jump she got pretty aggressive and then I got picking to try to control her, but Dayna once again stepped in and saved it. By the time it was my turn, I feeling pretty confident about what we had to tackle.

(Kaitie also took these sweet pictures of us in warmup - thank you!!)

(Don't pick, Erickso, or you end up a lot closer to the jump than you want to be!!)

(Better =D)

And man, it was so much fun!!! Besides eating it spectacularly at the first jump (legit one of the worst cross country fences I've ever had... ever) we got better and better until, at the end, it felt almost like I was riding Dually again, where she was cruising along smoothly and we could canter right up to the jumps with my hands low and neutral. She cruised through the water, jumped super boldly through the coffin, and was perfect at the up bank. In fact, she was pretty much perfect every where.

The only bummer was that, despite wearing my watch, I totally lost track of time and realized as I was approaching the last fence that I was 30 seconds under the Speed Fault time. Whoops!! By that point it was too late so I cantered through the finish flags with 8 speed penalties. I couldn't get too mad about it though because the round was so smooth and lovely. Plus, Speed Fault time is determined based on Training level speed, so all it meant was that we went a comfortable Training-Level pace. I'm ok with that. It was the most fun I'd had on course in a long time and gave me a real adrenaline rush. Good girl Piggy!!!!

The Stuff to Ponder

So clearly, the jumping has improved leaps and bounds. After my ride on Sunday I asked Dayna what I should enter for Galway, and she agreed that the Training jumping phases would probably be well within our abilities. The dressage, however, is a slower story, and Dayna was worried about the increased pressure I would put on myself at the next level up (smart lady).

There is also the problem that, now that school has started, I have considerably less time and mental energy to devote to show preparation, so any improvements we have going forward will be slower than they were in the last three weeks. It's not realistic to hope for miracles between here and Galway when I'll probably only be able to ride 5ish days a week and might only get two lessons (three if I'm lucky).

At the moment, as disappointing as it is, I'm leaning towards bagging Galway altogether. It's such a ridiculous luxury to get to compete while I'm in school at all, and taking three, probably four days off from school to compete in a Novice horse trial seems a bit much. Plus, I could use that same weekend to take Ringo to a dressage show that's only an hour away and keep chipping away at those Bronze Medal scores (!!). We'll see. But I definitely have a lot to think about over the next few days...

(PS - it was freezing on Cross Country morning! I could barely make myself take my jacket off to get on)

Whirlwind Wrap Up Part II: Ringo Meets Heidi

2011-09-26T10:13:00.004-04:00

After the Woodside show last weekend things started to really heat up because of equestrian team pre-season that had me occupied for 8 or 9 hours a day. Most days I could only ride one of my horses and fell into bed at 10pm feeling drained from the combination of hard work and hot weather.

By the time Thursday rolled around I was feeling pretty fried, especially since whatever few brain cells I had left were groping with the fact that I had to leave for Twin Rivers that evening with Kiki in tow for the event and felt neither packed nor prepared. On Thursday afternoon, however, I took a quick break from being stressed to have a very exciting dressage lesson with Heidi Gaian, who has been Rachel's instructor for years and years.

I had never seen Heidi teach before and so was happy to watch Rachel's lesson before I got on. Rachel was riding a very nice new client horse, and it was interesting to watch him improve over the hour. Heidi's style was very direct and to the point, which I liked but also found a little intimidating. She seemed to be asking a lot of hard questions and movements; what if I couldn't keep up with what she was asking?

When my lesson started I told her my score history and, upon hearing that I'd gotten some good scores at second level, she suggested we start working on some third level things. You know what that means: changes. Gulp. Ringo has beautiful changes but so far I've been mediocre at best at producing them cleanly and expressively on command (there are a lot of flying changes in our counter canter and a lot of late changes when I ask for them... perfect).

So, the first time she asked me to come across the diagonal and do a single change, my stomach was in knots. I really wanted to get it right the first try and make a good impression! I took a deep breath, set him up as squarely as I could, and asked as strongly as I know how. And... whee!! It worked! It was one of our better changes! I had a big sigh of relief and thought to myself, 'well, I've passed that test, now we'll probably move onto something else.'

Imagine my surprise, then, when I immediately heard her say to go across the next diagonal and do not one, but three changes! Yikes!! Ringo really had his dance shoes on because even though I was totally discombobulated from this request he still performed admirably and pulled off three lovely changes. We did it a few more times, sometimes more cleanly than others, but in general I was thrilled with him and Heidi, I think, was happy too.

At the end of our lesson as we were wrapping up she asked, 'So, when are we taking this horse Prix St Georges?' I gave her a sort of stunned look. I've been told that Ringo has PSG potential but always in a distant, nebulous, years-off kind of way. Heidi went on to say that we could have Ringo going PSG by the spring if we worked at it.

She finished by saying, 'Why not?' Why not, indeed. I think, despite Heidi's (seeming?) confidence, that it would be a pretty massive stretch to be going FEI by the spring, but I'd certainly like to keep trying! Though there are definitely still many many miles to go between here and there...

Deep Breath Time

2011-09-25T23:12:00.003-04:00

All right. Time for a big deep breath. The past three weeks have felt like they've gone by at a million and a half miles an hour and I'm feeling distinctly behind the eight ball. My clothes are a massive disgusting mountain in the peak of the dressing room. There are shopping bags filled with empty food cartons filling the passenger seat of my car. My tack and show stuff are balled in a dirty pile in the tack room. I've survived three solid weeks of showing (the longest continuous streak I've ever done) and am thoroughly exhausted but also immensely satisfied.

Here's the first part of a recap of the past few weeks (which is going to take a few posts because hella stuff has gone down):

9-10 September: Dressage Derby with Ringo

I took Ringo up to beautiful (read: 103 degrees and flat, flat, flat!) Vacaville, CA, for our first show back in California and our second level debut. Rachel had originally thought that she might come with us but her horse ended up not being quite ready, so we were on our own. Though I'm sure we would have scored better with help in the warmup, it was also a good experience to go and realize that we can also manage pretty well on our own.

(The perennial step one for bringing Ringo to a show: attack the white bits with as much QuicSilver as I possibly can)

(Ringo loves his baths. Clearly.)

Ringo was pretty faultless both days. It was so. freakin. hot. that he felt a little lazy, and I was glad that I had decided to buy a pair of big DQ-ey spurs (1"+, uncurved, and blunt) right before we left. In our first test on Friday we had two judges, which gave it a very official feel for a regular second level test. Ringo was awesome in warmup and then got a little tense around and in the ring, which mostly carried over in our canter work, where he felt a little unbalanced and wild at times. Still, I was very pleased, especially since I was so hot that my brain was on semi-meltdown.

(Ringo looking so pretty and white when he first arrived!)

I finished my test only to have the judge at C blow the whistle and tell me that I'd gone off course. Huh?? I was so hot that I honestly couldn't remember if I had or hadn't. Fortunately the other judge stepped in on my behalf and said that I was fine, but it was still pretty strange. The judge at C then presumably had to give me scores for movements that she didn't actually watch (or remember watching) me do. It was unsurprising, then, that her score was a good deal lower than that from the judge at E. I got a 61% from her and a 69% from the other judge (!!) for a 65% aggregate score. Not bad for a first attempt!!

(Endless Vacaville sunset - beautiful, but insanely warm)

Saturday we came back for the same test again. I shortened my warmup a bit and ended up timing it pretty perfectly. Ringo was much more relaxed and we put in what was by far the best test I think I've ever ridden to date. It felt incredibly fluid and easy. The canter work, especially, felt super balanced and square, which is something we struggle with. Unfortunately we jigged in our free walk, which not only blew up that score but also our collective marks for gaits and submission. Phooey. We still got four 8's and our entire canter tour scored 7s and higher, so I was thrilled. We got a 65%+ but with the one mistake of the free walk rectified would have come very close to breaking 70%. Good boy Prowler!!

The pictures are posted and viewable here:

(Ringo being sexy)

After that it was a whirlwind week to get ready for the Woodside dressage show the next weekend, which I actually did write about in real time (mostly to feel sorry for myself. Whomp whomp).

I had some great lessons with Dayna in the meantime, which I would write about more in detail except my brain feels like a cotton ball and my three lessons with her have all blended together. The big takeaway: more leg, less rein, sit up tall, don't freak out. I'm pretty sure I could have that shouted at me for the rest of my life and it would never stop being applicable. But man, Kiki has been improving in leaps and bounds under her instruction and I'm excited to keep moving forward.

Next post, my clinic with Heidi Gaian on Ringo (Ringo go PSG?? Maybe, my friends) and then my most recent outing at Twin on Kiki. Until then, I've got a lot of laundry to do.

LIGHTBULB

2011-09-18T23:49:00.004-04:00

After my disappointing Friday with Kiki, I felt so emotionally and physically drained that it was pretty hard to get really excited for my rides on Ringo on Saturday and Sunday. Ringo was a total star, but I felt very flat as a rider. We had a very disrupted warmup on Saturday thanks to some water-truck/drag shenanigans halfway through which meant that I didn't get to work the canter nearly as much as I want to so that when we got into the ring the canter was pretty wild.

On Sunday I fulfilled a big goal of having a mistake-free test (no broken gaits, missed transitions, etc, which I usually manage to have at least one of each time) and was rewarded with my best score at 2nd Level yet, a 66.7%. The canter work was still pretty far from where it has been in the past and I didn't feel like I rode particularly brilliantly, so it's exciting to think about how much better even we can score when we get everything popping at once. Mostly it just felt good to have this show behind me; for whatever reason I didn't enjoy myself this weekend, and I'm looking forward to getting some good training in before I regroup and head out into the dangerous waters of DQ land again.

I left Kiki completely alone on Saturday because I was still very disappointed from Friday and didn't want to give her a bad ride just because I was feeling frustrated. I was somewhat dreading getting on and fighting with her today, so I decided to take a chance and ride her bareback just for a spin around the property. I've actually never ridden her bareback before because she's been so, umm, "enthusiastic" that I've feared for my life. But, by 5 pm today and after 12 straight hours of nonstop horse show and equestrian team preseason action, I obviously wasn't thinking straight and decided to go for it.

And it was awesome.

As in, it was one of the best rides I've had on Kiki ever. I picked up the trot and she was steady in the bridle, not racing, and as relaxed in her back as I've ever felt her. When I asked her to rock back and lift her poll while still coming forward, she did it without throwing a fit. We ran through the entire same test from Friday, in the dressage court, and it was far and away the best attempt we'd ever done together. Her canter felt bigger and more rideable. Her trot felt bouncy and powerful without being out of control. I could sit. I could turn. I could put my hands forward without feeling like she was falling apart. It was an epiphany.

So what does it mean?

I think the saddle is bothering her. This claim is further supported by the fact that I've always felt that she goes better in the jump saddle than the dressage saddle. I always thought it had something to do with how the jump saddle encourages me to be lighter on her back, but perhaps it's more that the jump saddle just fits her better than the dressage saddle does.

I don't know what this was such a cosmic revelation to me, as it really should be obvious that the dressage saddle wouldn't fit, but it totally was. I only own one dressage saddle for both horses: a Devoucoux that came with Ringo and was custom fit for him and his old owner who was at significantly shorter than I am, meaning that the saddle has never really fit me superbly. I've always just ridden in it because it was a step up from my previous saddle (a Roosli that I'd gotten as a christmas present when I was 12 years old, 5'6", 170 pounds, and riding my 15hh quarter horse Boris) and because it fit Ringo.

Ringo and Kiki could not have more different body types (Ringo: narrow and bony with a huge wither; Kiki: absolutely barrel-bodied with almost no withers at all), but necessity has dictated up until now for Kiki to take one for the team and wear Ringo's stuff. The saddle never made her sore, so I had no reason to believe that, despite its obviously wonky fit, it was holding us back in any way. I feel stupid now because it seems like such an obvious place to look when dealing with the sorts of problems Kiki was facing, which all center around her back and her center of balance in some way. I've always been lucky and had strong-backed horses and good fitting saddles, so I've thought about saddle fit very little. After having such a huge turn around in the space of one ride, it seems pretty clear that the time has come to invest more time and thought into the saddle than I have been.

Fortunately talks of a new saddle (perhaps actually with flaps long enough for my legs?? What a shocking concept) have been on the table since the end of the summer when Kim pointed out how few favors my current saddle is actually doing for my position. It's still a big investment to bust out, but if it improves Kiki's way of going as drastically as our bareback ride was tonight, then it will be well worth it in the long run.

Any suggestions? I am sort of tempted to return to my Stubben roots, as I would trust their indestructibility and fitability with my life, but I'm really not sure. I've always dreamed of having a Stackhouse close-contact dressage saddle, because I despise giant overblocked monstrosities and always want something that's essentially as close to a jump saddle with straight flaps as I can get, but that's wayyy out of my price range at the moment. But, a girl can dream...

(Cute Kiki. Problem saddle.)

Burn Out

2011-09-17T10:46:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. I've been holding out fairly desperately for the day I moved into my dorm and got internet again, but of course here I am now sitting in my new dorm with a computer that I still can't get online and no hope of getting the problem resolved over the next few days. Boo. I've been in desperate need of an update, though, as quite a bit has happened since I last posted, so here is the crappier iPhone-produced and pictureless version of what I was hoping originally to write.

I've been feeling really burnt out lately. The anxiety of the move, plus being a little homesick, plus the always brewing drama of the Red Barn, plus all the stupid worries I have for the coming school year and coming back after having been away from Stanford for so long, have all left me completely exhausted both physically and emotionally. So, take any of the following histrionics with a grain of salt, as I most certainly have not been in the most resilient mood over the past ten days.

I took Kiki to the Woodside dressage show yesterday to do some first level tests in preparation for Twin next week. I have to say, I've been really pleased with how she's been feeling lately. I've been able to do more sitting work with her, and get her into a rideable place. The sitting, especially, has helped overcome the snag I'd hit where every time I would come back to trot after cantering she would literally grab the bit and by across the arena, because I could control her with my seat and not have to pull as much with my hands. Her canter was miles better than the throwing herself against the walls that she'd done I our first lessons with Kim, and there are brief moments where I can actually get her to unlock more through her back than she ever has before in the dressage ring.

So when I brought her to the show and she actually kept her head on straight during the warmup and as we entered the ring, I was pretty hopeful. We made some mistakes and she got tense a few times, but it felt miles ahead of where we'd been at GMHA in July. During the second test, especially, I really felt like we might actually start being competitive.

Well, we weren't. Our first test scored the lowest we've ever gotten on wny dressage test ever (except for that memorable 51% I got at Stuart last year... But I try not to think about that, haha). When I got the tests back the comments were so mean on both, even the second one where I had scored better, that I burst into tears and couldn't stop crying. Both tests slammed me for my riding and said that I was holding Kiki back and limiting her potential with my restricting aids. I got my first '5' on rider in as long as I can remember. Rachel tried really hard to cheer me up but I was already in full on melt down mode so there wasn't much to be done.

I just feel like I can't do right with this horse. When I ride her forward, she races on the forehand and is completely unbalanced and out of control. When I ride her more conservatively, I'm restricting her potential and she gets tight in the back. I make her fussy. I make her tense. I can't sit her trot. I can't control her trot from the post. I can't get her unstuck in the canter. The list feels like it goes on and on and on. It makes me incredibly frustrated. I feel like I have the same horse I did when I started riding her as a five year old. All the work and training I've put into her has come to nothing.

So, it's back to the drawing board again, for what feels like the thousandth time. Maybe someday I will stop sucking enough to actually ride this horse properly and get rewarded for it. Maybe.

I Swear I Haven't Died...

2011-09-07T23:48:00.005-04:00

...I'm just living in a world without internet connection or power (besides my trusty car charger for my iPhone). I've been back at Stanford for six days now and am thoroughly enjoying being back in the California lifestyle, but will also be excited for next Friday when I can actually move into my housing for the year and can stop hiding out on my mattress in the peak of my trailer, eating nothing but warm diet coke and pb&j sandwiches* and taking cold showers in the equestrian team locker room (but hey, it's better than the sink!).

Both the ponies have settled in really well, though not without a bit of drama on the way. Kiki had a small and almost entirely healed cut on the front of her cannon bone on her LH that of course in the process of the five day road trip managed to get completely infected and blown up. Great. She has remained completely sound but the swelling has proven quite stubborn despite a complete round of antibiotics, sweat wraps every night, and now a three day course of steroids. Grrr. I have yet to ship Kiki to Stanford without something crazy happening to her left hind leg. It's cursed, and is begging to just get chopped off so I don't have to worry about it anymore (kidding. Sort of.). Fortunately the vet came out and gave her the go ahead to keep riding in the meantime, but I'm still running on stress level: midnight over trying to get the inflammation down.

Ringo, despite a round of scratches cropping up right before we left, travelled and settled in beautifully. Then in a moment of total hare-brained stupidity I decided to take him to the beach, which turned out to be a total disaster. Ringo hated everything: he thought the waves were going to eat him, the kids were going to eat him, the seaweed was going to eat him, even the ground itself was going to open up and swallow him whole. There was a lot of rearing and running sideways. Worse though, the sand was super deep right down to the surf, even though we went at low tide, which meant that I was totally convinced that he was going to rebow his tendon. There is still a slight irregularity that I can feel where the bow was, and so the next few mornings were spent very restlessly wondering if the lump had gotten bigger or if I was imagining things. Fortunately I think I diverted disaster, but seriously. The stress. I thought I was going to have a stroke.

In good news, though, I had a great lesson with Kiki today with Dayna Lynd-Pugh. We jumped a little bit but the big take away was a strategy for getting her steadier in the bridle without pissing her off or making her defensive. Bottom line: I need to cut the nagging with the right rein. Curretly I try to solve every problem I feel by cranking on the right rein, when what I really need to be firmer with is my right leg while staying following with my hand. So simple, so effective! I really liked Dayna's teaching style and am excited for another lesson next week. It's really exciting to have jumping be so fun again!

And then... Horse show? What? It's snuck up on me, but Ringo and I leave for our second level debut on Friday morning. There are definite rough spots in the usual places (simple changes = nemesis) but in general I'm feeling pretty well prepared. Ringo feels stronger and more relaxed than I've ever felt him, so even if we're not perfect I think it will be a good learning experience for us. Now, if I can just briefly convince him to forget that he has beautiful, clean changes that are wayyyy easier than counter canter :D

*(Don't worry Mom and Pa, I swear that's a bit of an exaggeration)

Richland Photos!

2011-08-31T10:07:00.006-04:00

As I mentioned a few days ago, we did make one day-long detour in the road trip to go to Richland Park so Pa and I could spectate and I could take some pictures for the USEA. The ponies enjoyed the extra day of rest (though their paddocks at the horse hotel we were staying at were somewhat death defying and had me up all night worrying) and I really enjoyed being back in action. Richland is a beautiful place and, though I've only competed there once before, one of my favorite venues. Here's some of what I got:

(This was my second shot of the day, straight out of the camera without any editing - I should have quit here!)

(Kristin Schmolze out over the fat Richland froggy)

(Jennie Brannigan looking fierce on her way to 2nd place)

(I think this was my favorite 'drop into water' of the weekend...)

(...seconded only by this one)

(Buck Davidson, CIC*** winner!)

(Sooo neat and tidy)

(Big jump out of the coffin)

(One of my favorite mares, R-Star)

(Advanced winner Michael Pollard - better watch out or you'll bite that tongue right off!)

(Tamie Smith showing an unorthodox but highly athletic means of clearing of the brush out of the first water)

(Hannah Burnett made the Pan Am selection trial course look easy)

(Shannon Lilley and Ballingowan Pizazz - Pan Am selection trial winners!!)

(My friend Max from California on her horse Devon whose markings are eerily similar to Ringo's - originally Devon was Ringo's mini-twin, but now that he's going advanced he's considerably more badass than Ringo!)

Hopefully I'll get to do a little more work for the USEA over the fall. They are so nice to me and it's a wonderful excuse to do one of my favorite things - watching horses all day!

Back in the Promised Land

2011-08-31T00:35:00.003-04:00

(My favorite part of the trip: stopping at the Nebraska State Fair in Grand Island)

My God, we made it.

After 5 days and over 3,000 miles, the two ponies, Pa, and I pulled into the Stanford Red Barn parking lot, my second home and a place I've missed desperately over the past nine months. It feels unbelievably good to be back, and even better to know that the trip went smoothly and the ponies (touch wood) came through just fine: Ringo's leg (which decided to develop scratches T minus 1 day before departure: perfect) never blew up, we didn't crash, the ponies didn't kill each other, and Kiki managed to not slip and fall on her face coming off the trailer ONCE. Phew.

I hadn't realized how stressed I'd been for their safety until we got out of the truck at Stanford, and I literally felt my knees wobbling as the adrenaline washed out of me. The last time we made this trip after all, Kiki fell off the ramp unloading at Stanford and was as a result lame and out of work for the entire fall, and basically ended up coming to California only to sit in a stall for three months until it was time to start the whole long and arduous trip back to Massachusetts over Thanksgiving . D'oh.

The plan for the next few days is to slowly bring them back into work after the six days they've had off in transit. I'm just going to get on them long enough tomorrow to feel how they came through the trip, and then make a plan from there. My dad is around for two more days, so we're going to try to do a little sightseeing as well.

I can't write this post, however, without mentioning how heartsick I am for Andrea and Gogo. Gogo and Ringo were both rehabbing at the same time, and I gathered a lot of strength from Andrea's obvious commitment to horsemanship, and her unceasing quest to do right by her horse. Hugs.

So Long, Farewell

2011-08-27T21:44:00.006-04:00

It's hard to believe, but my summer on the farm has come to a close already. Where did the time go? I was only home for just under 8 weeks, but what a fun (and busy!) 8 weeks they were. I'm going to miss the farm very much, but am also looking forward to the three easy weeks I'll have in California before the school year begins.

I'm currently in Michigan with both ponies in tow, a quarter of the way back to our second home in Palo Alto. We stopped off today so I could do a day of work for the USEA, taking pictures at the Richland Park HT and CIC. It was my first big horse show since Luhmuhlen and I had such a blast!! Horse shows truly are amazing places. I'll have photos from Richland tomorrow, but at the moment here is a brief (and, I admit, fairly nauseating) video of me and Kiki on our last ride on the farm two nights ago (inspired by Suzie's awesome beach conditioning videos, which are considerably better!) =):

Ringo, in the meantime, got a going back to school gift of a very different sort:

A double bridle! Mom's new pony came with a double (just part of the MASSIVE wardrobe that he arrived with!) and, on Tuesday night, I decided to try it on Ringo on a whim. And, it fit! Score! It'll be a while yet before we're ready to start training in it, but it's fun to dream...

Tomorrow we head to Grand Island, Nebraska, for the second leg of the trip. Wish us luck!

Back to the Canter

2011-08-20T23:25:00.009-04:00

On Thursday Kiki and I had our last jump lesson before heading back to California (in less than a week now - eeeeee!). I'm sad that I only got to take two jump lessons with Molly Kenney this summer, but man were they both worth it!

Our previous lesson had been in Kiki's "rough patch" (which, touch wood, we may not be totally clear of but we're definitely on the up and up) and so was very basic. We spent the entire lesson spiraling in and out on a 20m circle at the trot, and only jumped one little X at the end. But even then, I could tell that I liked Molly's approach. She was no-nonsense but tactful and Kiki (even in her total pillbug state that she'd been in) went way better at the end than we had at the beginning.

This week, Molly was very impressed right from the beginning with the progress we'd made since the last time we saw her. We could trot and canter without throwing fits! Miracles!! So, we were given permission to jump =)

We started out over a four stride line, just cantering back and forth. We only had to do it a few times for Molly to hone in on something that's been a key issue for me of late, that all comes down to the two magic words of jumping: Canter and Distance.

For me, growing up riding with Suzi, distance was never a stated part of the equation. Jumping, all the way up through Intermediate, was all about developing a good canter. The only time I ever counted strides was in related lines at shows, and even then it was only as a marker to know that, if we were looking a little short, I needed to keep the canter revving to handle the possibility of adding a "shuffle" stride in. I never thought about seeing distances in the slightest, but since I was so focused on having a good canter and Dually and I were such an established partnership, it rarely ever mattered.

Then I moved to California and everything changed, because I got introduced to the idea of "seeing a distance." Well, it turned out that I actually didn't have a half-bad eye! But I certainly didn't have a god-given talent for picking distances out of the air, and I spent so much time trying to "find distances" (whatever that actually means) that I thought about the canter less and less. The results, as you might imagine, have not been great. As a result, I've gotten less and less confident in my show jumping ability (and my jumping in general) over the past three years.

Well, without knowing a cent of that history, Molly cottoned onto the whole situation right away. To try to get me back to working on developing a canter, she had me just canter around and jump in no particular course or agenda. No stress, no looking for distances. Just make a good canter, and put some jumps in the way. And it actually worked! It was shocking what a difference it made, and really drove home just how far off the good path I'd gone. I've always, on paper, known how important having a good canter was, but I clearly haven't been following through well enough.

Here's our first round:

As you can see, we got a pretty wide variety of distances, and when I got to the deeper ones I got nervous and choked up on the reins too much, causing her to drop her knees (aka totally destroying her form in a way that could be dangerous down the road jumping big solid fences). Molly reminded me to stay chilly and, if anything, float the reins a little bit (not dropping her but just taking the pressure off) when we got to that spot to give her the best chance of using herself. We definitely improved in that aspect in our last round, seen here:

What a star! And check out how much sharper with her knees she was, even in the deep distances!

It was honestly that best I'd felt jumping in years. I know that sounds stupid because what we were doing was so absurdly simple, but I felt totally relaxed and confident probably for the first time since the Dually days. I'm really sad to be leaving Molly as I wish I had a little more time with her to get this good feeling solidified. But, at least I know what I'm aiming for when I head back to California!

In other news, we had the craziest thunder/lightning/hail storm I've ever seen on the farm yesterday. I was sprinting around trying to bring horses in in the PISSING DOWN rain (in the 10 minutes I was outside, I got over a half inch of rain in my wellies) and got pelted with acorn-sized hail that left welts all over my legs (because, like the mild-mannered New Englander I am, I left the house in a blind panic to get the horses in in whatever clothes I happened to have on... which was a pair of tiny running shorts, meaning that my bare thighs got a LOT of direct hail action. Ouch). Of course, I got the horses in juuuust in time for the sun to pop out again. Such is life.

(Welt-o-rama)

Progress

2011-08-17T19:29:00.007-04:00

I'm on a bit of a video kick at the moment (mostly because it's been so long since I've ridden in a place with mirrors, so I don't really know what I look like riding!) and so, because Kiki has been much much much better over the past few days, asked Pa to video our ride today.

Since I last wrote about Kiki, I've had (or tried to have - old habits die hard!) a mental do-over about how I think about her training. I've always felt like we were behind the curve and that I had to keep pushing, pushing, pushing to 'catch up with everyone else.' Even typing that looks silly, because just who are these 'everyone else' that I've been so worried about? Freaks of nature like the eventers that go CCI**** when they're 8 years old? Why do I need to care? Kiki may be a little slow in her young horse development, but she's still hardly over the hill, and we've got plenty of time and no real rush at all to get where we want to go.

So, I've been trying very, VERY hard to just sit back and enjoy the ride a bit more. And I think it's paying off! Kiki is so sensitive that she most definitely picks up on my mood, and I think has been appreciating me not spending every ride tense and thinking to myself 'not good enough! Not good enough!' She has been steadily improving over the past 10 days, to the point where I'm not totally mortified to put video evidence of her up on the interwebz for everyone to see.

Here is her left lead canter (caution, beware mega solar glare a around :50):

No, it's not perfect. In fact, it's still really only passable. But did you see that moment where she broke to trot, went a few steps, and then calmly picked up the correct lead again? BREAKTHROUGH. Something that simple was literally what had her throwing herself against the walls of the indoor in her lesson a week and a half ago (actually, picking up the left lead canter at all was a pretty major production; but break and ask for it again? Jokes). To be able to canter around the arena, make circles, do little spiral ins and outs, and have her steady, sane, and not pulling or bolting is like a dream come true. Good piggy!

To the right:

This is her stronger direction, and I think it shows. There were even moments down the long side where her stride began to unlock a little and a real, civilized, more than passable canter came out. (Well, a glimmer, anyways).

And finally:

...This is why, at the end of the day, Kiki doesn't get kicked out of the barn =) She has a hell of a trot when she loosens her back up! Now if only we could trot like that in a competition frame... Someday!

Kim Lesson... with Videos!

2011-08-15T20:22:00.004-04:00

Today I got to take refuge in the indoor from the CRAZY rain we've been getting and have a lesson with Kim on Ringo. He was amazing! It's cool to feel him get stronger and be able to sit and carry himself better. In our last lesson we had run through a lot of the movements from the different second level tests to see which one would suit Ringo the best (we settled on 2-3).

So this time around we went back to basics a bit and really focus on straightness and getting Ringo to sit a little bit more in the canter. Thanks to Pa's awesome videography, I have video evidence of how good he was! There's still lots and lots to work on (mostly with my position: wobbly core, chair seat, floating left elbow - ugh!) but I'm really happy with how he's looking.

Here's the tail end of our warmup, just starting to put him together a bit more in the canter:

After warming up, we did a "box" exercise, where I rode a box shape around the bottom end of the arena, focusing on making the deepest, squarest turns I could in every corner. Then, we went from there straight into shoulder in. What a difference! Getting control of his hindquarters in the square turn meant that I could go straight into the shoulder in, instead of muddling around the turn and then having to fight his shoulders over. Here's our shoulder in:

Sitting trot = fail. And as you can see, I definitely didn't get it right every time, sometimes resulting in some awkward first few steps of shoulder in. But when we did, it was pretty darn good.

Then, we moved on to the canter, continuing the box exercise and then making two square turns, going across the short diagonal into counter canter, doing two square turns in counter canter, and then heading back across the diagonal into true canter with a 10m circle along the way. Again, when I made the turns correctly, his canter became totally well-balanced and powerful. It felt almost like a whole new gait! Here's the canter in three parts:

He feels the best he ever has for me. I'm getting so nervous for the trip back to California (in just 10 days!!) because I'm worried that the trip will unhinge all the progress we've made. He's so happy at home right now and I'm worried about how he'll adjust to the (not worse, but quite different) lifestyle of the Red Barn. Ugh. We'll just have to make the transition as easy as possible for him!

Why it's Great to Volunteer

2011-08-14T00:51:00.005-04:00

1. Free Food!!

-At a swell place like GMHA you get breakfast, snacks, and lunch; at a smaller place like Huntington the organizer will make you a sandwich at her kitchen table! What's not to love?

2. Judges are nice

-Ok, this is stupid for me to admit, but I was definitely one of those competitors growing up who was seriously intimidated by dressage judges. There they were, sitting impassively in their little booths... LITERALLY JUDGING ME. Over the years I made up countless excuses about how such and such judge was evil and must not like me/my horse/my turnout/(insert lamo excuse here). Well, there probably are some judges that will do that out there, but in my time volunteering I haven't met them yet. Every judge I've met has been kind and courteous, worked as hard as they could to be fair and unbiased throughout the day, and has judged the quality of the test in front of them and nothing else. It's been really fun to get to know them!

3. It's Satisfying

-Let's be real: if I hadn't volunteered today, I probably would have picked a few paddocks, ridden my ponies, and spent the rest of the day in a vegetative state either in front of my computer or the television (or both). While enjoyable, such a day could hardly be labeled rewarding or satisfying. Volunteering, however, feels like a day well spent in every sense of the word. I'm up and working from before sunrise to sunset, I'm active the entire time, and I'm working for the sport I love. I finish the day feeling like I've not only given back to the sport but enriched my own learning and riding. Which brings me to...

4. It's a good learning experience

-There's no better way to figure out what a judge wants than to watch 50+ tests over a 7 1/2 hour period with a score-by-score running commentary direct from the judge in your ear. I always leave scribing feeling like I have a better understanding of what the judge wants to see, what her expectations are, and what part of the test to pay closest attention to as a rider. For example, today we did the Training division, which of course felt pretty applicable for me and Kiki. There must have been 30 riders who lost points for the figure-8 circle movement because they didn't prepare their horses well enough for the change of bend. I've always known that the preparation was important, but it really hit home to watch the difference between a properly executed ride and a sloppily done one.

5. It's a great excuse to horse-gawk

-At three days one of my favorite spectator activities is the jog because I love watching how all the different horses move and are put together. Well, the scribe's view of dressage (which is a lot of disconnected flashes and bits caught between feverish writing interludes) is about as close to the jog as one can get in a regular horse trial. I got to watch pretty much every horse in the competition, either in the ring or in warmup, and could admire an almost endless combination of shapes, sizes, movements, and personalities. I just can't get enough of it.

6. It's good handwriting practice!

-Sorry folks, I have terrible handwriting. But, just like improving one's knowledge about test riding, there's nothing to jumpstart one's penmanship like a 7 1/2 hour trial by fire. I focused hard and in the sweet-spot middle of the day (when I was warmed up but not weary yet) I managed to make my words loopy but legible, as lovely as I'd ever seen them in quick form (I actually can have nice handwriting when I write painstakingly slowly; it just falls apart when I try to turn the tempo up).

7. It's a chance to catch up with old friends

-I have a lot of Area I friends and good acquaintances that I really only see at shows, so if I hadn't gone up today it would have been a whole year or even more until I saw them again. The scribe is probably one of the more focus-requiring and so less catch-up-with-old-pals friendly volunteer jobs, but that's what lunch breaks are for.

8. It feels special to be a part of place I've loved for so long

-GMHA has always been one of my favorite venues, and nearly all my fondest childhood riding memories revolve around it in some way, between the Connemara shows and Young Rider camp and my earliest early events. So, even beyond the satisfaction of volunteering in general, it feels extra special just to get any old excuse at all to be up at GMHA on a fine summer day and bask in its beauty and uniqueness.

9. It's awe-inspiring to realize how much goes into every show I attend

-This goes hand in hand with the other satisfaction/giving back thoughts, but even more specifically I wanted to underline the increased awareness and gratitude volunteering gives you for just how hard running horse shows really is. There are so many people behind the scenes that get almost no recognition but without whom events just couldn't run. Definitely a lesson in not taking things for granted!

10. Did I mention free food??

(Teddy Grahams FTW)

Kiki Comes to Jesus, and We Have a Change of Plans

2011-08-08T20:35:00.003-04:00

First off, if you happened to see a post about my average day in photos this morning, only to have it mysteriously vanish at around 9am, that would be because I meant to post it to my other blog (which has been seriously thirsty for some content of late) but in my foggy 8am state I accidentally published it here. If you want to see it, check out my other blog.

The past week plus since the Jim Wofford clinic has been full of "ah ha" moments for Kiki, but not without a little bit of western behavior along the way. As of right now I'm feeling good and confident, but have also come to realize that a bit of a change up is in order to proceed best with Kiki's training.

To put it short, we've hit a cusp. We've gotten to the point where she is obedient and quiet in her "basic" work--walk/trot/canter and plopping around over low jumps--even at shows now. This is a great thing and shows huge progress from her as a young horse, where it was pretty unpredictable as to whether she would decide to "throw her toys out of the pram" at the show, as the Brits like to say (aka have a total meltdown).

When I try to push her a little further, however, and really bring out her HUGE latent athleticism, especially in the dressage, we've hit a wall. I had a great lesson with Kim today with her where it became really clear that she has all the pieces and more to be a really great horse (Kim was seriously impressed with her and said that she has the potential to be as good on the flat as Ringo someday, which is certainly high praise in my book!!), but is facing a block when it comes to the canter that is just going to take good old fashioned time and patience to overcome. Kim gave me some wonderful tools and great confidence that I'm doing the right thing, but just need to keep confronting her about it (without getting angry or mean) in order to break through and enter into the next level of her training.

Basically when I ask her to canter at the moment, she goes from being calm and thinking to herself "I can!" to a little frantic and thinking to herself, "I not only can't, but I don't want to either!" Asking her to stick with it currently results in some fairly mega tantrums that range from bolting, to rooting, to literally throwing herself against the walls of the indoor (klassy). But, when she gets it, she really gets it!

So it's just going to take time, patience, and commitment on my part (and hopefully as much help from Kim as I can get!). I'm going to take a step back and start incorporating more lunging into our weekly routine to get her feeling more confident in her own balance without her having to worry about me flopping around on her back. Kim also suggested long lining, which I know she knows how to do but that I admit (somewhat sheepishly) I've never done before, and so might also give a try if I can get the guts up. Under saddle, we're going to spend a lot more time in canter than we have been, not necessarily grinding on her but just chilling there so that she starts to realize that the canter isn't something that she grits her teeth (literally), holds her breath, and tries to just survive through.

The nuts and bolts effect of this realization is that I've decided to withdraw her from GMHA and Richland. She has proven that she knows what shows are about and can be a good civilized pony at them, but in the meantime isn't ready to be competitive at the level I want to compete her at. She is so special that I don't see that reason in using her miles up at shows where she's not yet ready to be a star.

I've been pondering this decision for a while now and have worried that I was doing it because I was feeling chicken (which has been true in the past), but I honestly don't think that's the case here. I've been approaching Kiki that way I approached my career with Dually, which just doesn't make sense. Dually was already experienced and ready to show when I started eventing him, and I needed to push myself to go out and show even when I felt a bit scared sometimes in order to build my own confidence and show experience. Now with Kiki it's me that is the more experienced member of the partnership, and I don't need to be going out showing just for the sake of getting my own experience or chasing ribbons. Now that the groundwork has been lain in terms of getting her settled and workmanlike at the shows, I need to take as much time as she needs to bring her from her current "sleeper athlete" (where glimmers of her awesomeness appear and are almost as quickly lost) to just "athlete."

I'm bummed because this means that I won't be getting out on cross country soon, but I feel good in my decision. This just means that I'll be looking forward to my next cross country round that much more!!

July Wrap Up and August Goals

2011-08-04T09:04:00.003-04:00

Sorry to be a few days late with this; I'd been feeling a little internet over-saturated and so had put myself on a horsey news/websites ban. The ponies are seriously enjoying the awesome weather we've been having recently, and even though I don't mind the heat I'm certainly not complaining either! So here were my July goals:

July+ 2011:

Personal Fitness Goals

-Continue with marathon training, now aiming for the Top of Utah Marathon (17 Sept)-

noo this has been the biggest fail of the month. I didn't properly take into account how crazy busy I was going to be, or how drained of energy. I'm still signed up for a half marathon that same day, but I haven't run any significant distance since coming home and so am feeling a little underwhelmed about the whole situation. I'm not really sure where to go on this one.

-Ride without stirrups for at least 30 minutes, twice a week-

Sort of. I definitely did do some riding without stirrups, though I wouldn't say that it was 30 minutes, twice a week. About half way through the month both the horses felt totally dead, I think because I'd been trying so hard to get myself back into form with them, and so I purposefully let off the sitting trot and no stirrups work to try to let them recover. But, with Ringo's 2nd level debut getting closer, it's time to start sitting again!

-Ride in two point for ALL conditioning work, including trot warmups (at least once a week)-

Yes, though I only did two canters this month instead of four. Again, Kiki was seeming a bit weary and we have been competing a ton, so I wanted to give her a chance to chill and recover whenever I could.

-Continue with plank exercises, getting to 1:45 by end of July-

Nope. Bad girl. Bad bad bad.

-Start doing morning/evening feeding again-

Yes, though I've been pretty light on chores because of my schedule. The get up at 6, work, go study in the city from 7:20-5, rider two horses, do homework, fall into bed, and start it all over again the next day routine doesn't leave a huge amount of wiggle room for other activities.

-Help David and Gallagher out in the garden at least once a week-

Nope. When did I actually think I was going to have time to do this??

July+ 2011:

Piggy Goals

-Stay calm, steady, and relaxed in both flat and jumping-

Yes for the most part - she's really seemed grown up in terms of her quietness, though I am a bit worried as to how flat and without sparkle she's seemed of late. I think we need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and both get refreshed.

-Bring out the dressage saddle again (Suzi doesn't use one) and start getting reacquainted-

Yes! With much success! We even got a bronze medal score at a very respected dressage show!

-Take a lesson a week, either jumping or flat, to help guide progress-

Not once a week, but we did get four total thanks to the two clinics we did, which were both remarkably helpful.

-Work trot/canter and walk/canter transitions to improve strength-

Yes, though we can always do more. She was still being a little funny about picking up the correct lead at the Wofford clinic, which has been one of her evasions since Day 1 and is a clear sign that she's not straight and strong enough. We still have work to do!

-hack out every day on hills in addition to ride to improve strength-

Yes, conditionally; I did this for the first few weeks until I felt like I'd absolutely drained her dry (the heat and humidity, and the fact that she has no shade in her paddock, certainly have not helped matters), but have laid off in the past few weeks to try to help her rejuvenate.

-Do conditioning work 1x/week-

Well, pretty much. We did two canters, two cross country schools, and an event. I think that's more than adequate.

-Practice drops into water, ditches, etc-

No drops into water, but we went through water, have popped a ditch, and have been out and about with her not batting an eye at anything (that's my girl!).

-Feel comfortable jumping 3'3" courses by end of July-

No, which was my biggest twisting stomach reaction about the Jim Wofford clinic. The jumps were all around 2'9"-3', and they still looked big. It's going to take a little time yet.

-Having good competitive outings at Huntington and GMHA, meaning obedient on the flat and polite and rideable in the jumping, with me riding appropriately-

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!! She was a champ and I actually didn't ride horribly. Win.

Ringo Goals

-Stay calm and steady as well-

Yes!! He's been so fantastically calm; I'd like to think he's happy to be back in work =)

-Practice sitting trot as much as possible without driving him nuts-

Yes, though it hasn't been as much as I'd wanted. August will, hopefully, be the month of sitting trot!

-Get 1st level fit by GMHA-

Yes! He was a bit tired on Sunday but still responded so well.

-Practice tests 1x/week-

No, but I did do a better job than normal of practicing my test movements. It's hard to practice the tests when you don't have the right sized ring to practice them in! Hopefully this month I can get organized enough to practice my tests in my dressage lessons, and so get some feedback!

-Have a happy, calm, fun return to competition after 13 months off at GMHA!!-

YES!! THE BIGGEST SUCCESS OF THE MONTH BY FAR AND AWAY!!

-Start jumping again??-

Nope, but we have trotted some little poles. I'm ok with that =)

-Take out hacking every day on hills to improve strength-

Pa has been Ringo's go-to hacking partner, and they've been great. It hasn't been every day, but they've gotten out a fair bit.

-Check legs daily to monitor soundness (I do this anyway, but why not make it official)-

Yep. There have been some days where he's had some general thickening because of the heat, and I can definitely still feel where his injury was (though that's because I'm super paranoid about it - most people can't), but in general everything is looking good. Hopefully we're on a good trend!

----

So July was, all in all, a pretty successful month. I got back into riding with a bang and lived to tell the tale, and both the ponies are happy and well. I left July not quite as confident or prepared as I'd like for Training at GMHA in just over a week (yikes! Where has the time gone?) but I'm still feeling a lot less rusty than I did four weeks ago. I just have to remember that patience is my friend…

August is looking to be another busy month, but hopefully it will be a bit more relaxing on the day to day, as my summer school will be ending in a week (wahoo!). Here's what I'm hoping to get done:

Kiki:

-Get feeling prepared and ready for GMHA, using thoughtful jump schools to build confidence-

-Have a good outing at GMHA, meaning obedient dressage and non-frightening jumping-

-Keep sound and confident through to Richland-

-Improve on GMHA performance at Richland-

-Be able to do a shallow loop in counter canter by the end of the month-

Ringo

-Practice sitting trot every day we do "up" work-

-improve shoulder ins and transitions in/out of shoulder in-

-go hacking at least once a week-

-ride out of the ring more often-

-improve simple changes and counter canter-

-Practice 2-3 at least twice!!-

I can't believe summer is almost over already! Best make the most of what we have left =)

(Kiki enjoying her fancy stall setup at GMHA)

(Ringo's back!! The biggest success of the month or even the year!!)

Jim Wofford Clinic

2011-07-31T21:25:00.006-04:00

Pa, Kiki, and I are hot, sweaty, and exhausted from a long weekend on the road and in the saddle but it was well worth it. The clinic with Jim Wofford was a huge success! I'm sorry this post is long, but there are lots of stories (and pictures!) to share.

(Warming up on Day 1)

I wish I could say the same about the drive down, which was an absolute nightmare. We left almost exactly when we had wanted to and were hoping to be in Dover, PA, by 9:30. Then we hit traffic in Hartford… and Waterbury… and Danbury… and then got deluged in a massive rainstorm that slowed everyone on the road to a crawl in New York state, and then hit traffic again just outside Bethlehem, PA. Ughhh.

At a few minutes before midnight we finally rolled into the farm for the night. The farm owner was SO NICE and had waited up for us and showed Kiki to the nice big grass pen with run where she'd be staying. Kiki was pretty ready to get off the trailer, but in classic style took two steps into her paddock and immediately started eating. What a champ. We got her tucked in for the night and then stumbled off to our hotel and fell asleep almost instantly.

Day 1: Stadium Jumping

The next day dawned early as we got back to the farm to get Kiki all squeaky clean before the 8am Q&A session. As usual my mind went utterly blank as soon as I was asked to come up with questions (this happens in school all the time, too - one of my biggest weaknesses) but Pa came through with a few really great ones about the differing philosophies between having a quality canter and needing to see a distance. It's so cool to hear Jim reach into his deep, deep well of experience and give such eloquent, funny, intelligent responses.

After that we quickly grabbed Kiki, got her ready, and I headed up to the ring with butterflies beginning to flutter around in my stomach. We warmed up briefly and then got to work right away, trotting and then cantering over a small vertical all while counting out loud to try to achieve a steady, unchanging rhythm in the approach to the fence. This was ultimately going to be the big take away from the lesson, which I was somewhat expecting given my previous experience with him as a clinician. Which was mostly why I was nervous, because smooth and steady in the approach has never been Kiki's and my strong point!

(Getting started under the watchful eye)

(Looking so cute!)

I think I was a little nervous to start and kept trying to overcorrect Kiki in order to not have her start rushing, with the opposite effect that I ended up choking her into some miserable jumps. To fix this, Jim made me change my grip on the reins to driving reins (basically the reverse of normal, so that the reins lie over the top of your index finger instead of coming up from your ring finger) which makes it harder to pull.

(Getting our grip changed - Jenny (on the other grey) went to driving reins as well)

(Showing off our new driving reins)

The first time I came around with my new grip I had a total mental panic attack and got into the fence totally wrong. Kiki launched from way way off and I got left behind, slipping reins out to the buckle to try to keep from hitting her in the mouth. Jim immediately layed into me, saying that I was a bad rider who didn't have good enough balance to stay with my horse when I wasn't choking her to death with the reins. He then suggested I take up waterskiing instead so then I could at least lean against a boat, which didn't care, instead of a horse, who did. Yikes!! That was a pretty rough response for one mistake!

At this point, the lesson wasn't moving in a direction I was particularly happy with. It didn't help that the next exercise was a long four stride (which, with Kiki's short stride, was always going to be a tougher one) that we got five in like three times in a row. It felt like I had to be pulled aside after every attempt I made, and had to do the exercise like five times more than everyone else. We took a water break and I was feeling a bit low.

But then, we got better! I took a deep breath, put on my big girl pants, and got my sh** together. I got Kiki into a nice canter and then stayed quiet and relaxed, and she actually responded beautifully! From the break on, we really made no mistakes from there out. I could have brought her back a bit more the first time we went through the next exercise, a tight downhill 5-stride, but nailed it on the second attempt.

(Looking classy!)

(This one was the best picture, position wise - too bad it's blurry!)

(Being nice and quiet into the quiet 6)

Our last course, which involved a going 3 to a steady 3, around to the forward 4, back to the quiet 5, and then up a quiet 6 stride, went very smoothly. I could have ridden the 3 to 3 better, which Jim noted, but then I got myself together and rode more and more focused as we went. Jim even complimented us at the end - wahoo! As we walked back for lunch, I admitted to Jim that this was only the 8th time I'd jumped since last August (which, shockingly, is true!!), and he agreed that it was just a matter of time for me to get my mojo back. Phew! A lesson that could have easily gone south ended up excellent!

(Kiki's tail looking "ethereal" as Suzie would say =D)

(Finishing up over the faux-corner - after which, Jimmy said, "Thank you!!")

Day 2: Cross Country

Day 2 started even earlier as we were trying to finish before the heat set in. We moved the Q&A to the end and started riding right away out in the cross country field. The first field we were in was very hard with short, wet grass that made the going extremely slick. I had put studs in but still felt a little tentative as we cantered around to warm up.

(SO. CUTE.)

(Kiki's tail having a life of its own again!)

We just did a few little coops and rails to start, and then popped on and off a little bank. After our first round Jim said, "Ah excellent, Kate, starting off today where we finished yesterday: jumping in stride!" Which made me very, very happy. Kiki was a little spicy and lit up with the start and stop nature of the 6-person cross country school, but jumped wonderfully.

(A little close but very sensible given the ground conditions)

(My first bank in 11 months!)

After that we started moving onto the real xc course, with our first station at a post and rail on a slope that we had to jump coming uphill, turn, and jump again going downhill to practice different approaches for different terrain. Kiki was great and I was really starting to feel back in my element, position and balance-wise.

(Clever Kiki)

We did a few more things in the woods, which were more difficult because of the fact that Kiki was very tense leaving the group and getting going on the uneven footing, rather than because of the jumps themselves. When we moved out into the big field, though, we were in our element! Once I could actually let Kiki canter on a bit before I had to start jumping she immediately chilled out. We did a few little courses, for which Kiki was a total champ.

We only had one hairy moment when we came up to a corner that you couldn't see the width of on the approach. We got there on a bit of a going stride and then Kiki saw the width at the last second and hesitated ever so slightly and ended up sort of diving across the face. She knocked the top of the corner very hard with her forelegs, which would not have been that big of a deal except that the fence wasn't fixed properly and it tipped slightly, meaning that her front legs dragged along with the fence longer than they would have if the fence had been totally immobile. The end result was that her trajectory changed fairly significantly and we sort of nosed dived into landing. Yikes! Not good!

Fortunately, Kiki didn't seem too worried after our incident and jumped neat as a pin from there on out. Jim was very happy with the way we went, and gave us some nice compliments at the end of the lesson. Kiki was definitely the star of the class and finished up fresh and very proud of herself. Yay!!

(Going yeehaw over the wee dray)

(Flying over the spooky green coop that undid some other members of our group)

The weird thing, though, was that driving home I didn't feel super confident. I'm so happy with Kiki and proud of our performance this weekend, but for whatever reason didn't walk away feeling super assured. I think it was that the jumps stayed very small all weekend, and I still found it plenty hard enough. Looking ahead to GMHA, which is in just two weeks, our planned return to Training is still feeling like a big ask. Hmm...

I've also been very short on sleep and my neck has been bothering me more than usual (it always hurts a little bit, all the time, but I tweaked it at the dressage show last weekend and it's gotten bad enough again that sitting in a chair for the four hours of my German class is almost enough to drive me to tears on a daily basis), which could be accounting for my grumpiness. Hopefully a week of maximum rest, minimum stress, and maybe a trip to a chiropractor can get me feeling feisty again! In the meantime, I just have to remind myself of what a star my pony is, and think good, happy, chill thoughts. Onward!

(Also, sorry for the continual changing of the banner - I promise I'll settle on something soon!)

Off to the Woff

2011-07-29T13:36:00.003-04:00

I may be running off of an average of about 4 hours of sleep per night over the past week and am facing the daunting challenge of a seven hour drive to Pennsylvania directly ahead (though mercifully Pa and I will tackle that together), and I may have butterflies jumping around in my stomach at the idea of riding in front of one of the biggest figures (scratch that, THE GOD) of eventing and am nervous whether he'll like Kiki and all those usual pre-clinic jitters, but I'm also SO EXCITED. I get to ride with Jim Wofford this weekend!!

I got to ride with Jim Wofford once in June 2009, right towards the end of my time with Dually. Dually and I had had a terrible go at Copper Meadows just over a week earlier and our confidence was pretty low; at Copper he had been so tentative and sucked back in the show jumping, and I was doubting whether he wanted to do this anymore. Within a few minutes with Jimmy he was blasting around like his old self again, jumping better than he had in months and feeling like we could go Advanced the next weekend. I may or may not have almost killed Jimmy at one point when our steering utterly failed in a sunken road, but otherwise it was a massive massive success.

So, when the opportunity opened up to ride with him again, even as far away as York, PA, I jumped at it! I have no idea how Kiki will behave, but that's part of what makes owning her exciting, haha. I jumped for the first time since Huntington on Wednesday and set up a gymnastic from his book, which generally went well though I felt massively rusty and like I couldn't see a distance--worse even than when I first came home from England!! Yikes! I think I was just psyching myself out a bit; if I stay loose and cool over the weekend and don't over think too much (always my biggest problem), I have good reason to believe that all will be well.

GMHA Dressage Days: The Tests... Sort Of

2011-07-26T08:32:00.005-04:00

So I had this super clever plan that I was going to make this beautiful Excel spreadsheet with all my tests from the weekend, complete with scores and comments. Well, I did indeed manage to do that, and even figured out how to transfer those into PDFs and then into JPEGs that I thought I could upload here.

And I could... but I couldn't get them so that when you clicked on them, they actually got any bigger! This left me with a bunch tiny, unreadable images on the screen. Not good. I spent thirty minutes of exhausted semi-comatose frustration at midnight last night trying to resize the images so that when you clicked on them, something happened (as it was they didn't do anything, even though most of the pictures on my site will open in full size on another page if you click on them). Grrr!! It's times like this that I wish I was less obtuse when it comes to computers... oh well.

Anyway, it was really interesting to study the tests a little more closely as I was entering them into the spreadsheet. I realized that Kiki's best test actually had a lot more range than I thought it did, with us getting a lot of pretty sketchy (and certainly justified) scores early on. On the other hand her last test, which I had been certain had been pretty cheaply judged at the time, actually had more consistently good marks than the first one! It just so happened, due to the placement of the coefficients, that it ended up on a lower final percentage.

I've never really thought about the actual breakdown, movement by movement, of my scores before, and it is both humbling and fascinating to see how much a single move or mistake can affect the final tally. It definitely ups my appreciation for the level of concentration and preparation required to really produce a top test!

It rained yesterday (hallelujah), but I still rode as I'm off to a Red Sox game tonight and didn't want them to have two days off (tough life, I know). I was hoping to just do something really brief and suppling to feel how the show treated them. Ringo was fabulous and feels better coming out of the show than he did coming into it - always a great feeling! Kiki on the other hand was as witchy as she has been in a long long time, even trying to ditch me at one point early on in the ride! I think it was the rain that was undoing her, which is a pretty poor excuse for a New England-based event horse. So her plan of "10 minutes of stretchy trot, maybe a loop of canter each way" quickly became a little more involved. Kiki!! Always keeping me on my toes, haha.

The countdown for Jimmy Wofford is ON!! I'm getting sooo excited, though the 7 hour drive to the clinic... maybe not so thrilling.

GMHA Dressage Day 2: DQ Transformation - Complete

2011-07-24T18:51:00.007-04:00

I feel like I start all these posts with something incredibly corny and gushy about my horses, but I just can't help it: they were both soooo good today!

I did manage to get the class changes I wanted, meaning that Kiki started the morning bright and early at 8:35 with a redo of First Level Test 1. This is where the multi-day dressage show became super helpful, because I really felt like I had some guidance from the comments from my previous day's test that were still fresh in my mind and try to apply this time around. I focused on having Kiki be steadier and quieter in her tempo, consistent in the contact NO IFS AND OR BUTS, and more accepting of my leg. This meant lots of patient leg yielding in the warmup, but it really paid off. She was MILES better in her test compared to yesterday. And, we were actually rewarded in the judging! She didn't get a hugely better score but she did break into the much-coveted 60% region and the judge wrote really nice comments, so I was thrilled. Good girl!

(Classic Kiki-induced smile/grimace - when you might want to cry, but all you can do is laugh)

(Kiki showing off her suspiciously good medium trot, while I show off my wacky new habit of playing with with my tongue in moments of concentration... Bad Kate!)

(You've come a long way, Baby)

(WHITE TAIL BITCHES)

(Actually square! It only took us six attempts!)

After a few hours, in which time I washed and braided Ringo, Kiki and I came back for her last test of the weekend, First Level Test 2. She was, I thought, even better than before, with our test marred only by a mistake of my doing where I half-halted a little too eagerly in the corner while cantering and Kiki, feeling a bit tired from the weekend's exertions, broke to trot. Whoops! But she broke very nicely and trotted beautifully, so no complaints =) She ended up getting another 58% (a bit undeservedly I thought this time, but it was a different judge who was scoring very harshly so what can you do) but the comments were yet again very helpful. I'm so happy I decided to bring her because I feel like I have a real direction to head with her in our training over the next few weeks.

(Flying! I wish I didn't look so lumpy, but there you go)

(Leg yielding - I've lost the hind end a bit but she's still being remarkably obedient given some of our practice attempts in warmup!!)

(Trying very very hard)

(Looking so relaxed! Shocking)

Finally, it was Ringo's turn to finish out the weekend in First Level Test 3. He felt a little tired in warmup but still put in a great effort, just ending up a little sticky off my leg in some of the leg yields. 1-3 is pretty reminiscent of the eventing Prelim tests, with leg yields off the rail, medium trots and canters, and that damn KXH shallow serpentine loop of canter that I never seemed to be able to figure out. So, it felt like real redemption to go in today and rock it!

Ringo was faultless, and every point we lost was my error (mostly involving getting him a little too tight in his neck at times - a classic problem for us). We got several 8s, including one for our first medium trot (yes!!! SWEET REDEMPTION!! After always feeling like an idiot at Gina's for never being able to get it right!!) and one for me on rider (another serious WAHOO because it's a first!). He finished with a 69.5% which was enough to win a seriously big and competitive class. What a champ!!

(I'm sort of yawing off to the side... unclear)

(8 Baby!)

(Free walk, another one of Ringo's natural strengths)

(Another good picture spoiled by my wacky hands - clearly the judge who gave me an 8 on my position was looking away during this moment!)

(Ringo showing off his mega-powerful medium canter - as close as we're getting to galloping these days...)

In terms of Bronze Medal goals, we're now officially half way there! I have both my first level scores (technically I could choose from Ringo's 67%, his 69%, or Kiki's 60%, which all qualify as they all came from different judges) and am still sitting on a 2nd level score that I got with Dually way back in 2008. Of course, the second half will presumably take a bit more doing, as being competitive at 3rd level is still seeming pretty far away at the moment, but I'm really excited to keep going!

At the moment Ringo's next show isn't until mid-September in California, though I may try to go to Saugerties the third week in August if I can work it schedule/time/money wise. It might be for the best to wait until September (as eager as I am to show him again), as the thing we need to work on most between here and 2nd and 3rd level is strength building to get his frame more consistently elevated and collected, and that's just going to take good old fashioned time. Still, very exciting to contemplate showing with Ringo again!!

Kiki, on the other hand, is in for a big treat next weekend as she and I get to ride in a clinic with GOD (aka: Jim Wofford). I've gotten to ride with him once before, back in 2009 with Dually, and had a great time, so I'm really excited to do it again! We've been in full-on dressage mode for the past week, so I think Kiki will enjoy the chance to put her jumping shoes back on again.

I'm in the process of making excel sheets of all my tests for the weekend (with scores and comments), which I should hopefully have up by tomorrow.

GMHA Dressage Day 1: We're Back!!

2011-07-23T19:44:00.003-04:00

RINGO. IS. AWESOME!!!!

Seriously, this horse is the coolest. I was so happy when I finished my test with him today, our first competitive outing together in over a year, that I almost cried. He was PERFECT, and if hadn't been for me forgetting my test halfway through and trotting at the wrong letter, we would have won our big and competitive class. We still ended up with a 67.8%, though, which I'm thrilled beyond thrilled with. Good man!!

Kiki was great too, though the first level test is a pretty big stretch for her at this point. I wanted to test her with the harder level to see how she would react to being pushed on a little further in the arena, even though I knew it meant we wouldn't be taking home any top prizes, and I was really pleased with how she reacted. She was rideable and sane throughout, and stayed forward without getting frantic. She's still unconfirmed in the contact, which pulled all of her scores down (and especially the transitions, which nearly all carried 2x coefficients in this particular test). She ended on a 58% in 1-1. Considering that she got a flat 60% at Training Level Test 1 just over a year ago, a 58% at 1-1 is still a pretty good step forward. She definitely has moments!! We just have to keep working on making those moments last longer and longer =)

Kiki is entered in 1-2 and Ringo in 1-2 and 1-3 tomorrow, but I think I'm going to scratch Ringo from the 1-2 (he was soooo good today, and I'm not sure I want to push him to do two rides in a day yet) and add Kiki into a 1-1 (she could use more ring time). I of course realized that I wanted to do this as we pulled into the parking lot for dinner, 35 minutes from the show grounds, and so wasn't able to request these changes tonight when they would have been more likely to go through, but we shall see! I'm feeling sooo lucky to get to be at a show with my dad and my two wonderful horses. Yay!

Ready, Set, MELT!

2011-07-22T07:28:00.005-04:00

First of all, I wanted to write more formally to thank everyone for their wonderful support about Dually. He is a wonderful athlete and friend and your words really did help a lot with getting over the shock and sadness of learning that he is in pain. So thank you!! We'll get through this, one day at a time.

Now to the real post: IT'S SHOW TIME!! The trailer is (mostly) packed, Ringo and Kiki both got their first rounds of baths yesterday, and I've spent the past three days frantically trying to learn and practice my tests. Of course, we've been hit by a mega heat wave in Massachusetts, meaning that I've been slogging through preparations while sweat endlessly pours off my body, but I'm not complaining. It's supposed to be cooler in Vermont, hot weather means jackets will almost certainly be waived (no getting choked by my weirdly tight collar!!), and I GET TO SHOW RINGO!! Carlisle could be converted to the surface of the sun and I'd still be getting excited because I've waited such a long time for this weekend to come.

Of course, with that excitement comes a bucketful of anxiety. What if it's too soon? What if I'm pushing it and he reinjures himself? Have I prepared him enough? Has his rehab been thorough enough? What if I've bitten off more than is reasonable to do? GAHH SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION.

*Deep breaths.* I just have to remind myself that he's been cleared for all flatwork by my vet, he's been cantering/building to full work for nearly two months now, his leg feels as good and normal as it ever feels, and it has not changed in the slightest since I got him back from Suzi's. We are only showing 1st level, which in the long run is not a huge strain on the horse's body. I will be vigilant, super overprotective, and paranoid for any changes or unusual behavior. ...But I'm still worried!!!

We head up to GMHA at 4pm today. I'm not sure what access to technologies we'll have, but I'll try to give updates as regularly as I can. Dressage World, here we come!!

(Ringo and I after the dressage at our last Preliminary together)

Bummer Dude

2011-07-20T21:59:00.006-04:00

Horses. The highs are so high but man, the lows can sure be low. After last year, which was pretty much a nonstop roller coaster of soundness problems between Kiki and Ringo, my primary goal for 2011 was that everyone finished the year happy and as sound (or sounder!) than they'd started.

Touch wood, so far all has been going fine with my two horses (but there's still more than 4 months left! Plenty of time to do stupid crap like fall off the trailer or just mysteriously hop oneself into massive lameness like Kiki did on two separate occasions late lsat summer).

But, alas, things have not gone so smoothly for The Dude. The vet came back to visit Dually again on Monday, and he was, inexplicably, worse yet again, despite the most controlled possible treatment of stall rest, short hand grazes, and constant hoof packing and soaking. WTF?! At that point Dr. L (our vet) recommended that Pa drive D up to New England Equine to get a further diagnosis, as we'd pretty much run through the gamut of diagnostic options available to us at home. They headed up yesterday, and today the news came back: it's not good.

Dually has torn his deep digital flexor tendon down in his hoof. Tendon injuries within the hoof are super slow-healing because there isn't a huge amount of blood flow to that part of the horse's body compared to other places, and good blow circulation is one of the primary factors that determines the speed at which the body heals itself. The injury is such that the vets my dad spoke to today were not super confident about his ability to return to full competitive work, and at the age of 16, it's not likely that we want to push him to do that. So, we're in for another long and difficult road of healing and decision making.

I feel awful for Dually. Over the past 10 years, The Dude has completed 60 USEA events between Novice and Intermediate (with over 30 at the Preliminary level or higher) and in all that time amassed only a single cross country penalty (which I completely blame myself for - as far as he's concerned, he's been perfect!). Even more incredibly, he never missed a single event due to lameness. I only even had to give him more than a single day off twice in our six and a half years together: once for ehrlichea and once when we fell on a gallop and he cut his leg open. He's never had to be on extended stall rest, never had to miss out on the job he loves. He's the horse I owe more to than probably any other single living creature, human or otherwise, on this planet (with the exception of my parents), and it destroys me to know that he's in pain. Fortunately he's a pretty laid back guy and I feel good that he'll take this setback in classic Dude fashion, but I'm still gutted to know that he's going to have to be on stall rest for the foreseeable future.

(Me and the Dude getting ready for a jog; he was never held once in all his many CCI*s)

(Coming home at our first Intermediate, a lifelong dream come true for me - my mouth is open because I'm shouting 'Good boy!!' as loud as I can)

(You'll always be my favorite handsome man)

I also feel terrible for Pa, who was just starting to really figure The Dude out. I'm certain that they were right on the brink of a real competitive breakthrough, and am crushed that they won't get the chance to highlight one another's talents in competitions in the near future.

(Pa and The Dude sharing a moment back at Galway 2008, before their partnership began)

Ughh!!!

Huntington!!

2011-07-17T18:18:00.008-04:00

Well, I'm feeling a little sun fried after my first long horse show weekend in the sun in a loooong time, but am so thrilled! Huntington was my first competitive outing (outside of intercollegiate stuff) in eleven months. I was definitely feeling rusty, and so was double thrilled with Kiki because she was really obedient and tolerant when I made mistakes. She's grown up so much!

(I'm looking a little unkempt, but Kiki was great)

We arrived in the late morning, just in time to start getting ready for dressage. I think I've been trying so hard to get back into shape with my riding that I've been overdoing it just a bit with both Ringo and Kiki, meaning that they're both feeling a little tired and flat. Combine that with the sudden surge in the heat and humidity that rolled in over the weekend, and Kiki definitely wasn't feeling her sparkliest! I feel bad and am giving them both a few days off over today, tomorrow, and possibly Tuesday to try to give them both a chance to recharge.

Given that, I tried to just make the test as pleasant an experience as possible for Kiki and didn't push her to be in any sort 'competition' outline or try to get to the fancier work that we've been pushing for in preparation. So, she was pretty low in the poll and the comments and scores reflected that, but she was also super obedient and relaxed. With memories of Stuart one year ago this weekend, where Kiki went totally rank and then mysteriously came out of the ring hopping lame, this was a MASSIVE improvement!

(A little low in the poll, but so chill with competing and grown up)

We ended on a 33.5 which put us mid-field in our division. Looking at the pictures, I feel like I know where our homework is, both in where I should try to improve Kiki's way of going and my position. I looked pretty rough sometimes!! But it could be a lot worse too, all things considered.

(Position = a bit rough; canter = a bit flat)

After dressage Pa took Kiki back to the trailers (thank you Pa!! Best groom ever!) while I zipped off to walk the cross country course. Despite getting lost a few times because I didn't think to procure a map, I thought the course looked very fun and doable. I was getting excited!

(Good girl)

I had planned for a pretty short warmup for cross country since we'd done dressage only like two hours earlier, but when we got down to the warmup area with twenty minutes to go, the division hadn't even started yet! We ended up sitting around for probably fifteen or twenty minutes before the division even started, which was a good chance to catch up with some folks I hadn't seen in a long time because I've been a abroad, even if I was a bit peeved to force my horse to be out into the sun any longer than necessary.

Finally it was our turn! Kiki was AWESOME. I felt very secure in my two point and jumping position, but my setting up skills were somewhat lacking. Sometimes I brought her back too much and then had to make a move, other times I didn't feel like I really got her off her forehand. She jumped really well despite my shortcomings, but I know I have some homework to do! We finished clear and well within the time, moving up to 5th after the second phase.

It got really, really hot by mid-afternoon, and in the wait for show jumping both Pa and I got pretty dehydrated and sick feeling despite our best efforts to keep drinking and find shade. In my somewhat foggy and headache-ridden state, I walked over to show jumping on three separate occasions to try to walk the course and got turned away each time. Then, finally, I decided to just get tacked up and head over, only to find that my division had already started! Yikes! Talk about show rusty!

I'm usually pretty good with my timing, so I was a little mortified. I never even got to walk my course! I literally had enough time to trot and canter around, jump one jump, and watch the rider in front of me go to figure out the general pattern of the fences. I was pretty happy with how I handled the situation, given how badly I had set myself up, and managed to not get totally nervous.

I went into the ring and made sure to take every turn extra wide to give myself enough time to read the fences, and it actually went pretty well! We only had one turn/jump that I wasn't very happy with, where we jumping pretty boldly down a six-stride line going downhill and then I got a bit discombobulated and made a pretty sloppy turn to the next fence, a vertical on a slight rise. We kind of buried into it, but Kiki was very clever and jumped it cleanly. After that, we finished up well and finished with our first clear round in a USEA event ever! Good girl Kiki =)

We ended up tied for 3rd, but since we'd gone pretty fast on cross country we lost the tie and came home with 4th. I couldn't be more thrilled with Kiki. What a star!

Today, I went back to Huntington and spent the morning scribing. If you've never volunteered at an event, DO IT. It's always a lot of work and time in the sun, but it's soooo fun, educational, and rewarding. I felt like I had a lot better understanding of what the judge was looking for by the end of the day, and hopefully had a better grasp of what separates a good test from a winning test. Plus the judge I worked with was super nice and it was fun to meet new people. So VOLUNTEER!! It's beyond worth it!

Next up is GMHA dressage next weekend; Ringo has, of course, thrown a shoe, but should be getting it back on in the next few days. I'm getting really excited to show him again!! Hopefully he can follow in the Piggy's footsteps =)

(CHAMP!)

Huntington, Briefly

2011-07-16T22:14:00.006-04:00

Kiki was great! I was not awful! No tears! Nobody melted in the heat or turned into lobsters in the sun! We even came home with a ribbon! Does it get much better than that?

I'll do a more complete update tomorrow when I have the energy to upload the pictures (we only have dressage, but I think there are some cute ones) and give a better description of the day. In brief, though, Kiki was super obedient in her dressage test to score a 33.5 and end up in the middle of the pack, was a BLAST cross country despite some questionable preparation to the fences at times by her jockey (whoops - rusty!), and then had one of the smoothest rounds we've ever had in the show jumping (and our first clear round in a USEA event together... EVER). We finished on our dressage score and moved up to 4th place. Super mare!

(we also sported our SEXY new ecogold saddle pad, shown here getting a good luck break in ride the Thursday before the event. I've wanted an ecogold pad for year and years and years, and so when they did a fundraiser for the True Prospect Farm fire a couple months ago, I decided it was time. I love it so much!!)

I'm off to bed because it's another BRIGHT AND VERY VERY EARLY morning tomorrow as I'm making the trek straight back to Huntington to spend the day scribing. I'm very excited as I've never scribed before, and am looking forward to learning and helping out at the same time. The two and a half hour drive and 7:30am call time, though... not so much. It will be worth it, though, because I'm very excited to do some volunteering at one of my favorite Area I events!

I Heart my (almost) Thoroughbred

2011-07-13T21:51:00.005-04:00

I took Kiki for her last conditioning set before our eventing re-debut at Huntington this evening. My previous experience with conditioning has almost entire been through Dually, which meant that for me, conditioning has been quite an effort. Dually was sooo hard to get in shape. Every three day I took him to, I felt like I had to toe the line between trying to do every gallop I possibly could and keeping him sound, and even then I got to the show and he was only just fit enough. Needless to say, his big drafty body was not the easiest to get three day-ready!

Now that I have a 7/8 TB in Kiki, conditioning is suddenly... easy! I mean, we're also going Novice, which makes things considerably breezier, but there's no denying that Kiki is also just naturally way easier to put condition on that Dually was. Today we did a 10 minute trot warmup up and down the hill (in which I successfully stayed in two-point the entire time - getting better!) and then two 4 minute canter/jump sets with a 1 minute rest in between that involved about a half dozen 2'9"-3' fences, some sprints, and some figure eights/flying changes.

She was BRILLIANT, jumping beautifully and sprinting and coming back like a champ. After the first set she wasn't even blowing, and after the second set she was a little warm but after two minutes of trotting out was completely recovered and ready to go again. Good girl!! I <3 my (7/8ths) TB!!

(Kiki looking like a lazy little pony before our gallop this afternoon... oh how looks can be deceiving!)

I'm also in the process of trying to get Kiki registered in the non-breeding Sport Horse Book of the Irish Draught Horse Society of America, which meant that today we took some conformation shots. Kiki was pretty special about standing still with all the evening bugs, but hopefully they'll be good enough!

(She's getting so grey!)

Double Disappointment

2011-07-11T19:57:00.006-04:00

Sigh. Horses are heartbreakers, aren't they?

Today the vet came out to do both Ringo's one year ultrasound, and hopefully his clearance to jump, and to recheck Dually's foot after his weekend of hoof packing and epsom soaking. Alas, as the title of this post might suggest, neither visit went exactly according to plan.

Ringo's leg looks fine. It hasn't changed much since last time, which is good because his workload has increased significantly. This means that, hopefully, it's pretty stable for flatwork and the vet gave the go ahead that we can keep working up to whatever level of flatwork our heart desires and ability allows.

(I'm 'glowing' rather unpleasantly in this picture, but I had to include it because check out his awesome DQ browband in action! He's so handsome)

But, it only just looks fine. It doesn't look normal, and there are still some little striations and irregularities in the tendon composition that are a little worrisome. Because it has now remained pretty much unchanged for that past six months, despite all the work increase, it's likely that the irregularities are scar tissue that isn't going anywhere fast. This means that the leg is always going to be in a somewhat compromised state. For flatwork, or even low coursework, on a nice level surface in an arena, it should never be an issue. But for upper level eventing, with drops, tight turns, uneven and constantly changing footing surfaces, and slowing down and speeding up? Not so much. It's just never going to be strong enough again to not be constantly flirting with another serious blow out.

So, we made the decision right there: Ringo is not going to event again. I've been prepared for this fact from the beginning, but it's still obviously very disappointing. He's been feeling so good recently that I've been letting myself daydream more and more frequently about getting to head out of the start box with him again. He has the most amazing gallop and riding him cross country is like piloting a cruise missile... in the best possible way. It's very, very bittersweet to realize that I'm never going to feel that again.

(The best)

(No one does it like you)

On the upside, his flatwork is going well and there's never been a horse out there that I've had more fun riding on the flat. I had my first lesson on him in 13 months today with the dressage instructor my dad has been using, and it was fabulous. Ringo was great and Kim (the instructor) though that my long term goals of getting my bronze and silver USDF medals on him were definitely within my longterm grasp. Plus, it's not that we don't get to jump at all; we just have to keep it low, controlled, and always on good level footing. We can start doing trotting poles next week! Not all is lost =)

(Hey! I don't look totally rusty! It's a miracle! Also check out that hind leg step - Ringo is so fancy schmancy)

(working on adding some jump to that canter)

Dually, unfortunately, did not have the positive recheck we were hoping for. In fact, he seemed a little worse than last time. Boo. A bruise still seems the most likely candidate; it's just a significantly worse bruise than we'd hoped. He'll now have at least another 10 days off, which means that the Training Three Day is out for this year. What a bummer! The great news, of course, is that he should be totally fine and should even be able to finish the season out well... he just won't be fit enough in time for the Three Day in August. Oh well... =(

(Big D in invalid mode)

Kiki = Supahstar!

2011-07-10T22:38:00.003-04:00

Kiki has been feeling GREAT the past few days. Phew! After her crazy rankness of the first few days I had her back, I was a bit worried that we were in for a long summer. But, after a brief re-acqauinting period we're back on track and I'm really able to appreciate how strong and good she feels.

A few days ago I got the guts up to ride her bareback for the first time ever (I've always worried she might have a CRACRAY attack that I would not be able to survive)... in the dark, no less! Much to my surprise, she was not only not wacky about being in the dark, but also felt great bareback. We did the best shoulder-in work she's ever done, and even started to get some progress on her haunches in, which is something she's always found super difficult. Good girl!

Then, today, we did a little jumping. The jumps were set in the ring from a Pony Club lesson the day before and ranged from an x to a 2'9" vertical, along with a little trot-in gymnastic of placing rail to an x, one stride to a vertical, one stride to an oxer. We trotted through the gymnastic once to get going (it was all x's to start) and then popped around. Kiki was super but I was realizing as I looked around that I was feeling a little chicken about putting the jumps up. Since we're going Novice in a week, I decided I needed to do something to get my eye up or have a very nerve-wracking weekend!

So, I turned to the gymnastic. I love gymnastics because they set you up to jump well, and then you can look back on them and go, 'Yes! I can actually jump that high!' I started by putting the gymnastic to a bigger x, then a 2'6" vertical, then a 2'9" oxer. The distances had originally been set for ponies cantering in, so I thought it would be a good, slightly short, test for Kiki to trot into. She went through like an old pro and felt great, so I put the jumps up 6" (leaving the x the same). Again, it was no big thing, so I decided to bump them up again. I've jumped Kiki 3'6" one time before, right before she moved up to Training last year, but that was feeling like a pretty long time ago as I trotted into the line! Ahhh but she was so good, I needn't have worried.

I'd originally planned to stop at 3'6", but she made it feel so easy that I decided to be ballsy and put it up once again to 3'9". At this point I was only adjusting the oxer and leaving the first two elements the same, so that it went placing rail to x, one stride to 3' vertical, once stride to the now 3'9" oxer. I moved the oxer out a smidge to make it easier for her. She gave the front rail a rub but put in such an amazingly cracking effort that I literally cackled with glee as we landed. What a champ! In a move of totally unforeseen cajones, I decided to up it one more. Why not go for 4'?

Well, I think she was a little shocked and awed when we got into the line and she realized it was so big, but turned herself inside out to try to avoid the rails. She lost her form a little bit (dropping her knees) but jumped twice as high to make up for it, and cleared it without so much as a rub. That's my girl!! I popped over the single x and one of the 2'6" verticals just to make sure she finished on a super confident note, and then gave her as many hugs and pats as she would tolerate. She was sooo good!!

(Kiki checks out the 4' oxer she conquered - look how far above the point of her shoulder it is! Good woman, Kiki!)

She's going to get a well-deserved rest say tomorrow and then the countdown to Huntington, and my first horse trial in 11 months, begins!! I'm super excited, but am starting to feel the butterflies already. I'd love to keep this good trend going for 6 more days at least...