Ranger Recap: Devon and the Dixon Oval

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On Monday, we had the local hunter show at Devon, Brass   Ring   at   Devon. This was probably the biggest local 1-day show possible in Chester County, because, it’s Devon and everyone wants to show at Devon. The thing is, Devon is Devon and despite being right here in our backyard, there just AREN’T local shows at the Devon Horse Show grounds. You have a few things (Devon, Dressage at Devon, and now Brandywine I and II, but that’s just about it), so getting to have our local show is pretty cool.

Let me start by saying it was a long ass day with an insane number of entries. Schooling was the night before for those interested, but no O/F schooling day of. Show started at 7:30 and rumor throughout the day was the estimated end time was 11:30PM. Insane. Seriously. 2 rings. The class after me was estimated to start no earlier than 2pm but let’s just say that come 5:45 they were still on Baby Greens, division 5 of the day in the Dixon Oval… I’m pretty sure Baby Greens went on for 2.5 hours. They ended up moving Thoroughbred Hunters to the Gold Ring at the end of the day to try and save time… I finally rode at 7ish after a small(er) low hunter division.

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Somehow I ended up with a franken-number ala IHSA… The secretary stand failed to tell the other family sharing Ranger that they should leave the number and since the show went on for a million hours, they’d already left when I showed up… They didn’t want to re-issue another number so they made me this lovely number… Yeah.

Meanwhile is was insanely sunny and freaking hot all day. Because you’re only ever getting burned at Devon OR in the pouring rain. And then the storm clouds started moving in… At some point there was a massive crack of lightning and a long roll of thunder (I swear only 6 of us saw the lightning) and then basically nothing until I went into the ring. Pretty much a little rain and the storm skirted Devon completely (at home we lost power long enough to require clocks to be reset).

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I don’t know where I’m looking but Ranger is cute… Probably calling for whoever he thinks is his new best friend…

Anyway, the classes were huge (I think we had 17-20 in pleasure under saddle classes) and the horses worth way more than Ranger I’m sure, but we rode in the Dixon Oval which was just about the coolest experience of my life. The cherry on top was our amazing Pleasure W/T class where we snagged our 6th place ribbon in a huge ass class.

He was great in his W/T/C but I got stuck on the rail too much and just wasn’t seen. Oh well, I’m not used to showing off… I don’t even care. I’ll be honest, I couldn’t even figure out where to go.

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Over fences? Our course sucked. First off, it was a test not a course (4 fences…) and I never established a pace or a rhythm and screwed up fence 1 (but, Ranger being Ranger didn’t care and we got over even though we took a rail…). Fence 2 was still too slow, but I moved up and started riding to still get the strides for fence 3 and rode again to fence 4, halted, and trotted out of the ring. Seriously though, I had my rhythm by that point and it was over. I hate courses that aren’t courses. Oh well, I still was in the Dixon Oval, jumped my fences, stayed on, and had fun. We weren’t going to get a ribbon over fences anyway so who cares?

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The “lovely” course but whatever… I failed at riding it but who cares. Ranger saved my butt because he’s the best

And with that, I rode at Devon Horse Show grounds on the best Ranger Horse there ever was.

Ranger Recap: It’s HOT outside

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So I’m finally back in the swing of lessons, hopefully at least for a few weeks or maybe until Pony Finals?

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With wonky weather and a horse show, I moved my lesson last week to Friday evening and it was gorgeous and then somehow we finished, were about to go for a trail ride to cool off, felt 2 drops of rain and though better of it, walked into the barn, and the skies opened up. Downpours for what felt like at least 45 minutes. Then it ended, I managed to turn Ranger out, and then more insanely heavy rain.

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Lacking media this week so the Lasagna Kitty reminds your she is god. 

Unfortunately, I remember very little of my lesson other than for the first 3/4 of my lesson I could NOT use my corners and therefore could not find a spot to save my life. I was a mess. Eventually, I actually stayed on the rail and stopped rushing and bam! the spots where there. Go figure?

This week the mid atlantic is experiencing a lovely heat wave with unbearable humidity. Today they’re calling for the heat index to be near 105 but really the humidity is what’s bad. So, I moved my lesson to 8AM to try and beat the heat.

It was still damn hot even at 8AM.

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It wasn’t much better at 8am either…

In preparation for our show on Monday (more on that later), the goal was 15mph trot, loose reins, and trot somewhere you haven’t trotted before each time around the ring, trying to keep him round and not interfering with my hands and keeping the bend. Sometimes I was more successful than others. Lots of trot-halt-trot transitions mixed in as well. Left lead we cantered a circle using first half the ring then later a small circle not passing the mounting block down at the far end. The left lead is a struggle for us at the canter and I had to work to keep my body back, look ahead, and not break AND not turn early enough. Add in heat… Somehow we were actually successful today. Small canter circles, left lead in particular, I HATE. I think Ranger helped. I’m pretty sure he knew we’d still be working on the damn circle if we broke…

Right lead we were spared of circles and added in the our log jump (outside single). First time through we had a nice soft canter. Second time around, I was asked to be more forward so I asked for more canter. Still a nice easy jump. At this point, I’m pretty sure Ranger was ready to be done.

We started cantering down my favorite straw bale jump towards the in gate (now in a new location) and continued around to a brown box jump so it was sort of a figure 8. Goal was not to rush to the bales, but to keep the energy to the boxes and remember to stay out long enough on the rail but then to use both hands to steer to the center. Today was the start of “I can see my spots today” and “Jumping is easy?” It was turning out to be that kind of lesson.

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Next we came up the straw bales and then down the inside line on the quarter line and continued around to our brown boxes. First time, picking up the canter, Ranger was a bit strong and even through I tried to “tug-tug” I also held a bit. As a result, we broke turning the corner to the bales and then got our canter back. The spot was still there but the rhythm wasn’t a nice as it could have been. Still, remember that the turn to the inside quarter line was tight, I remembered to stay out (yay for fixing last week’s mistakes!) and look and our turn worked and again, spot was there and the line was there. We kept our energy and continued to the last jump which was fine. We repeated our exercise to improve my hands and not fight and with a better first turn and better balance, we didn’t break–everything else stayed the same. We walked our corner to looked at the angle of a broken line (I like looking at lines whenever possible, especially if the turn is weird).

From the first jump of our broken/bending line, we turned left and picked up a canter and cantered down over the outside single log jump, cantered up our brown boxed, and then continued around to our weird broken bending line. What can I say, I was have a good day? I don’t know…

 

By this point, we’d jumped everything in the ring but 3 jumps. So, we ended with trotting the cross rail on the end (awkward entrance) down the long side to the inside line (goal 6 strides). First time through we came in from the left. The cross rail was fine (Ranger wanted to rush it, but whatever), but then I struggled to bring him back for the change and  I never re-established our canter rhythm. By the time we approached the first jump of the line, we were crooked and it wasn’t pretty. We ended up with a 7 because that was what was there and I didn’t have any rhythm. We did it again, this time from the right. The cross rail was better (I found the right approach easier even though most evidently like the left approach better?), he still wanted to rush, but we landed less draggy. I managed to bring him back for our change right away and then established a rhythm rather than fighting and could actually look for my spot. First jump was there and then I could move him up for the 6. Thankfully after that, we were done.

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One Hot Ranger

I tried to walk him out a bit, but moved on to the hose pretty quickly. I’m pretty sure I spent 30 minutes hosing and scraping before he actually felt cool. No one was ever going to dry today…

Meanwhile we’re supposedly showing on Monday… I’ll be off from work for the week and agreed to this. It sounded like a good idea at the time. Like all shows do… But now? Local show at Devon which is mostly the reason. How often do I have the chance to show at Devon? Pretty much never. So, for that reason I’m going. But then I think, why spend money so that people can judge me? Makes little sense… Regardless, this will probably be it show-wise for me for a while. I need to build up my reserves. Maybe sometime in the fall, maybe not. But definitely it for the summer. Possibly the fall. But maybe I’ll get some nice pictures out of this one?

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Love my Barn Dog Apparel T-Shirt!

Supplements (BlogHop from DIY Horse Ownership)

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Olivia from DIY Horse Ownership is doing a Blog Hop on supplements so I thought I’d participate.

Batts:

Batts is my supplement horse. He’ll eat anything (except bananas and fig newtons) so he’s not a good test case regarding taste. He lives by the philosophy of eat first, think later.

Which is why it’s really strange that there are items he won’t eat.

Like fig newtons.

Go figure?

I don’t understand this horse entirely…

Digestive:

Dispersible-Powder_5lb Probios Powder 2 scoops daily (~ $.22/day). I started him on this after his New Bolton stay for colic since I’m just paranoid. New Bolton basically told me probiotics don’t do much, but, it’s cheap and doesn’t hurt and makes me feel like I’m at least doing SOMETHING vs NOTHING so why not, right?

 

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Joint:

 

 

I just feed MSM. Right now he gets the Vitaflex MSM @ $.17/day. He’s a little sticky sometimes and this seems to help him be less creeky and more comfortable. When he gets more ouchy/stiff, we go back to the loading dose @$.34/day but most of the time we do well with the maintenance dose.

 

Electrolytes:

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So, Batts is my chronic impaction colicer. He gets EVERY. SINGLE. MEAL. SOAKED. More than soaked, he gets them soupy. Thankfully he’ll more  or less eat anything. He gets a single 3 quart scoop of cubes, 2 take out quart soup containers of plain dried beet pulp dumped in a 5 gallon bucket, and water added so the whole thing is filled 2/3 – 3/4 of the way (lately it’s 2/3 since he’s started protesting the 3/4). To that we add 1-2 quarts of grain for flavoring (right now he gets strategy healthy edge which I can up if he needs to when in higher work but this summer he doesn’t need it — winter he gets too fat and usually needs a diet…). He doesn’t do well on ration balancers and usually looks terrible coat and condition-wise. This seems to work for us… Then he gets electrolytes. LOTS of electrolytes. I buy a MASSIVE 20lbs container of Orange Stress Dex (smells like tang) and he gets 2 scoops AM and PM spring and fall and had been getting 1 scoop AM and PM the rest of the year. But, after he coliced in December, my vet advised he stay on the massive dose all year. But, I go through 3-4 of the 20lbs containers a year. It’s INSANE. So, since he does drink a lot in the summer, I’m experimenting with 1 2/3 of a scoop AM/PM just to limit my use. Yes, our electrolyte usage is insane, but it’s under vet directions. Stress Dex is the cheapest I can find and he eats it so… I have no idea the cost per day nor do I wish to ever calculate it. I usually buy from Dover @ $44.99 per container (tax free) from the local Dover store. If I buy from my feed store, it’s a few dollars more with tax (I buy most everything else from them so I don’t mind skipping them on the Stress Dex purchases).

Flax Seed:

I started feeding whole flax a few winters ago. It improved his coat and hoof quality. I feed a 1.5 cups/daily. A 50lbs bag runs ~ $29.95 from the one further feed store ($45 from the close local feed store) and lasts 2 months since Subi will no longer eat it. Every time I take him off of it, he gets abscesses. Now when he gets abscesses, he’s rarely lame from them so…?

Jiminy:

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He’s easy.

Metabolic:

1 scoop of Quiessence just because I’m paranoid. I don’t know if it does anything, but I’m afraid to stop. He’s in decent weight, but just in case… Gets soaked beet pulp with 8 alfalfa cube PM only and a handful of grain.

He also gets 1/2 scoop electrolytes.

img_3376-1Subi:

He’s terrible about eating poison aka supplements. He gets 1 1/2 cups Buckeye Ultimate Finish fat (~1lbs 2x/day) with his grain and beet pulp in the morning or grain and soaked alfalfa cubes in the evening. He gets chopped hay AM as well (he will ONLY eat the tractor supply brand chopped hay… we are that picky…). He gets way too much grain (combo of Equine Senior and Omalene 200 RT which is currently willing to eat now, but I’m sure it’ll change when he decides that’s no longer edible).  You haven’t met picky until you’ve met Subi. When feed reps actually suggest mixing feeds (which they do NOT do), you know your horse is picky… Nothing medically wrong with him either. I’d love to add at least one supplement (MSM), but I’d risk him going on a hunger strike so it’s just not happening.

Grumpy Chestnut: We jump stuff

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Somehow I have a happy horse again. I mean, he’s grumpy and he’ll always be the grumpy chestnut, but at he’s a happy, grumpy chestnut.

I haven’t hauled him out ANYWHERE in a while so we’ll have to see if he’s happy attitude continues when we go ride in a ring (or, if the attitude was due to the 2 abscess he had even though he was sound on his right front…). Either way, Grumpy Chestnut, aka Batts, is back to his old self.

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Note the crazy dogs around us… He still loves his nose net…

Just like last time, we kept  the ride relatively easy. A quick warm up on the lunge line (he’s just happier that way), some trotting and cantering hill work (SO GRUMPY when I won’t let him just canter up the damn hill), then off to jump all the things in the backyard. By all the things, I mean 3 crossrails and some ground poles (ground poles we did 1x because I stuck them too close to the trees and wacked my head against the branches…).

So I decided I would walk idiot horse up to our first crossrail and let him look. Because that’s how we roll. Well, someone wouldn’t get near it and had a temper-tantrum. HOW DARE I TRY AND MAKE HIM LOOK AT THE DAMN FENCE! HOW DARE I THINK SO LITTLE OF HIM! HOW DARE I! HOW DARE I! HOW DARE I! It was going to be THAT kind of ride.

See, let me remind you, Batts is a stopper. We have jump issues. THIS is why I ride Ranger. When your trainer tells your no amount of training will likely fix the issue (and your horse was just miserable)… Yeah. So I like to make him look. Well, not happening today.

So I circled, tapped him with the crop (extra encouragement to hopefully remind him that yes, we would be JUMPING), and closed my eyes.  We’d do one of two things. Jump or slam on the breaks and realize he needed to inspect the jump. Today we launched ourselves over with complete confidence. We were NOT inspecting jumps. It was a Batts is right, I am wrong kind of night.

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So, I decided to trust him and trotted the other two crossrails (sans inspection) where we also launched over with enthusiasm… Go figure. Sometimes this horse is confident? It’s kind of scary. But, he is crossrail champion of the world.

He wanted NOTHING more than to canter the broken line between two of our crossrails. The first time I WOULD NOT let him. Pissed him off so much. Second time I gave in and we did it, but you can see the slight hesitation at the base. Lovely that now I was going to have to ride… Damn you horse. Make me work? Later?

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The first several jumps, my Hermione dog was having fun running up the hill along side of us (several feet to our right). Batts is NOT a dog horse (that’s Subi). But you can tell he was having fun when that wasn’t even annoying him. He learned long ago not to mess with them (and they know when to get away from him), but it’s amazing when he’s having fun. Meanwhile, my cat started watching our antics from the window, with great confusion…

He didn’t quite love the other fence as much after the first time through (boredom) and I was too lazy to put them up to a larger crossrail, but he still had fun “galloping” up his hill. He’s such a weirdo.

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And I did make myself go back and redo our bending line, adding leg, and thankfully it was a success. It’s still hard to trust a horse who has such a stopping history, but he loves his crossrails and seems to ADORE jumping uphill on grass. Go figure? I’m telling you, if Batts could go jump a cross country course of all crossrails and MAYBE a water element (we’d have to school water a bit, but eventually we’d be OK with it), he’s LOVE IT.  Seriously. I’m not sure how he’d do with banks, but again, it’s solid jumps that freak him out, so he might actually be OK with those. Weirdo.

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I do have a log from a downed tree I want to see how is with… It’s small enough to walk over… I just need a good place to put it permanently so that my husband can mow around it without messing with the mowing flow…

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“I jumped all the things!” So proud of himself!

Ranger Recap: We go to a show and I don’t pass out!

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After not showing since… February? I finally agreed to show again. I almost could have showed last weekend but didn’t and then agreed to show this weekend. For what it’s worth, it was both a better decision and a worse decision. Better because as it turned out I got to split the hauling costs again (yay for $34 hauling!), but it was hot (last weekend was humid as hell and rainy, but not sunny so…?) and sunny and hot and I don’t do heat. (Plus, the jumps were tiny and everyone basically agreed that we didn’t care and just not to raise them for the horses (it was a combine pleasure pony/horse division so they just left the fences at 2″)). Honestly I was hot and didn’t care. Other negative for this show? Pleasure is normally 2 flat and 1 over fences. This show was 3 over fences and 1 under saddle. Under saddle in pleasure is Ranger’s strength normally so… But, it turned out to be a positive…

[We didn’t end up having a lesson on this week as my trainer was at a show so I just went out and rode and had to force myself to jump a bit. I trotted and canter and Ranger was tired, I was tired and thought, “he’s perfect, why do we need to do more?” Meanwhile the teenager in the ring with me was doing mini courses and all that. Meanwhile I was happy just to sit on Ranger and plod around. That said, we did (eventually) pop over a few fences. Our hay bales in both directions (yay! the tug method worked beautifully!), a skinny single a few times, and the outside single. With a little nagging, we did our outside line twice as the first time I had no pace (nerves… — in my defense, the second fence was a solid 2’6″+ (though it felt bigger) oxer that I’m not entirely sure I should have jumped outside a lesson–not that Ranger had any issue with it…) and added for an ugly 7, the second time I had pace and rode for a nice 6. We called in a day and went for a walk to cool out. Then I bathed him, scrubbed half his grass stains out to see how clean he’d be on Friday… Very. I just had to wash his legs. And he stayed clean outside overnight in a storm Friday night into Saturday. Good boy!]

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I don’t know what that child is doing but… or who that child is actually… 

So the joys of hunter shows. We got there at 12:30 and my ring was just getting ready to start short stirrup eq. So I got to watch Ranger and his kid. He was adorable though they didn’t get much love from the judge. He was in the bottom of the ribbons, but looked adorable doing it. Kid’s eq wasn’t bad either. After that it was down to the trailer for grass and water and then time to watch the other ring for a while. And wait. Because that’s what you do at hunter shows. Wait.

What felt like a couple hours later (and probably was), it was time to retack Ranger and realize that pretty much none of the girths in the trailer fit. I managed to squeeze him into a stretched out 44″  (I had a 52″ in my car… that wouldn’t help either)–we usually wear a 48″? I guess I need to keep an old girth of Subi’s around just in case… Too many pony girths! And hit the schooling ring. We had a ring conflict as children’s horse/pony combined was about to start right as I was heading in to school (my schooling break consisted of short stirrup hunter and pleasure pony/horse combine) so I made the executive decision to school myself. For right or wrong, I basically went in, jumped everything once in 1 direction (all jumps we were to do in both directions but whatever), didn’t die (though people started falling) and then one of trainer’s kids told me I could stop and leave so I did. Whatever, I was fine with it. I needed to jump something and the schooling was for me, not Ranger. Sorry Ranger.

Then it was untacking and saddle swapping for short stirrup so that Ranger could do that division. He did decently over fences (2 seconds and a first) and then AGAIN failed under saddle. Seriously, this judge did NOT like him under saddle. Then it was a saddle swap and my turn. By this point, they had decided only to raise the jumps to 2 ft and put small gates/boxes under what didn’t have stuff, but when my coat went on and I declared my goal wasn’t to pass out, I decided I really didn’t care. I was told I need more ambitions goals. But, think back to my first show when the goal was not to die. I think not passing out is a fine improved goal. At least I’m not worried about not dying!

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yay courses! I took a picture so I could look at it and then instead forgot I had a picture of the courses… 

So first class in and I go in and promptly pick up…the wrong lead because I’m a complete idiot. But, whatever, we never had the goal of picking up the correct lead right?

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Second class, I almost forgot the course right before walking in. The course was fine. Goal was the pick up the right lead. I stopped caring after that part. Nothing to write home about. My turn to the inside single sucked as I turned too late. Oh well. The rest was ok. And with all our courses we cross cantered a lot because it’s Ranger and we don’t exactly have our changes so whatever.

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Third course. Same as the first. Right before the first jump there’s a nice crash in the other ring. You should be able to hear it. I don’t know exactly what happened other than it sounded like someone crashed through a jump? No one died or fell, but… It was really loud. I was dead at this point so survival because the goal. Spots became long. Or short. And ugly. I barely had a canter at the end. I don’t know how I made it out of the ring. I was dead.

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Somehow I still needed to hack. Oh how I just wanted to die instead. So we hacked. I was dead. And the ring was tight since all the jumps were still up and there was no where to go… It was fine. I rode around on a loop and got my leads and rode fine. The judge did everything she could to find something wrong. Hacking is our strong suit. Which is why we were third. Then they announced the o/f portion and I managed a 1st (1st course, must have missed the lead…), 2nd, and 2nd. So, my strong suit of the hack was our lowest placing portion. The judge did NOT like Ranger on the flat. Though the 3rd was his highest placement u/s that day.

Ended up Reserve for division which was fine. Thank you Ranger for carting my butt around and keeping me in the saddle. You are 100% the best!

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Ranger Recap: Differentiating between the half halt and the tug tug

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Lessons 2 weeks in a row? Shocking! But once again, seeing Ranger was the highlight of my week. After all, when your week includes things like window estimates, dying pool pumps, migraines, and kitties (!!!!), ok, forget the kitties, how could Ranger NOT be the highlight of the week?

I did not steal kitties Quijote and Sancho from their family, but I thought about it…

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The Lasagna kitty was NOT impressed by our visit with kitties.

Well, maybe the kitties were the highlight, but other than the kitties, Ranger certainly was MUCH better than that other stuff!

Ranger (and Ranger’s adorable new pasture mate)

Unlike last week, Ranger has a bit more energy to offer (not that he was fast or anything, but just slightly more energetic than asleep). Me on the other hand? I was back to being lopsided and riding on the flat with my right shoulder in the air and my hand raised… On top of it, my right hip was hurting all day (I think it’s finally better as of today) so I was riding even more lopsided so I’m sure that wasn’t helping. Eventually I guess I evened out? Or my trainer just stopped nagging me about it. Who knows. Flatwork wasn’t my strength this lesson. I was doing too much with my hands so compensate for my hip?

We started off trotting in to our outside line in the 7. Ranger had other ideas and 2 strides out broke into a canter and while we did manage a 7 (I still had too much energy and had to woah late), less than pretty would me my description. Second time through, I was able to actually ride to it and we trotted in nicely and I was able to maintain rather than woah at the last minute.

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Single and straw bales

We then moved onto our outside single and thankfully cantered in nicely to that and then continued to our inside straw bales coming down to our in gate. The goal here was not to let Ranger get too fast and charge to the gate, because, being Ranger and having a bit of energy, we might do that. Coming around the corner, I felt him pick up the pace so I half halted and he slowed down-ish and but still pulled so I half halted again and he slowed but pulled again and but did not speed up. In my mind, mission accomplished?  And we came to the most awkward spot ever where I held, he added and it was super ugly. My trainer was happy I held so we didn’t take the super launch but… before we could talk, we continued around to jump 3, our white oxer around the corner to the inside  outside line we had just been doing. We actually managed to keep our pace and jumped it nicely…

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our oxer and second fence of the outside line

So, our discussion and the point of this post.

Coming in to the straw bales I had been half halting to slow Ranger’s pace, but when I half halt, Ranger slows down, yes, but he gets really heavy on the forehand. So, instead of half halting, we introduce the “tug tug” method. Basically, a couple of short tugs, encouraging him to shift his balance off of the forehand whereas the half halt just gets him heavy. (Alternatively, if he gets really fast and draggy, we halt and back).

So, 3 jumps take 2. This time, the first jump was again fine. Employing our “tug, tug” method, we had a much better attempt at the straw bales and continued to the oxer which again was fine.

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Outside single collection of boxes ?

To end on, we would attempt the whole thing one last time. Except, we can never just end on good enough. Because after having the best first three jumps, really nicely employing a lovely tug, tug to the straw bales, and moving him up to the oxer, my trainer had us continue down our outside vertical (first jump jumped the opposite direction towards the in gate). This was a test to make sure I really understood the tug, tug method. Evidently not only did I understand it, but during this lesson I could use it AND move up to an appropriate spot. This this with this is, the “tug” really doesn’t do too much to change Ranger’s speed, at least once he realizes who is riding him. All it does is changes his balance. It gets him off the forehand and using his hind end so that he can really jump well and it make it even easier to set him up for the fences. Even coming towards things like in gates. He is so well trained to do what his rider say so to that if you add leg, he WILL speed up. If you point him to a fence, he WILL jump it. (Alternatively, if you point him away from something, he WILL skip said jump.) So, if you tell him to get off his front end, he will, but he won’t unless he’s told to. So, after the outside single, we were told to continue around to the outside line in a 6 and since I remembered to keep my leg on around the in gate corner and going away AND remembered to look, the line was easy (and small). And Ranger was perfect. Because he is. We might have finished here or with another jump. I remember finished on another part of the ring. But that was several days ago. So there’s a chance we rejumped the outside single just because. If we did, it was easy because  Ranger is Ranger. And at this point he realized there was no point to test me because I won the battle of the tug tug.

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Best Ranger Horse.

We finished with a nice walk along the fields to cool out. I enjoyed it, Ranger just wanted his carrots. Going to attempt to show soon (next weekend? Eeek). Really bad idea financially, but when are horses ever a good idea?

Meanwhile, it’s humid here. I’m stuck at work. Fun times.

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How to ride The Grumpy Chestnut

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In all my posts lately about Ranger, I haven’t written a lot about Batty. In fact, after our few disastrous rides, I haven’t really WANTED to ride him. So far this year, we’ve had a grand total of 3 rides.

So, with summer coming up, I had to change that.

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Why not pick the hottest day of the year to ride again?

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I was going to haul out on Sunday morning, but instead, I decided to sleep in (7:30 just seemed so nice…), and then the idea of hooking up the trailer just seemed like too much work. I was already making excuses. So I decided to ride at home. I decided to try and bring the fun back for both of us and created a little playground in my backyard highlighting what Batts likes (crossrails, hills, and fun) and avoiding what he dislikes (anything that’s not a crossrail, solid jumps, too much work, non fun stuff, collection, etc.). So Batty watched me set up his course/playground with extreme interest and when I finally went to catch him, walked up to me rather than away from me (often I can’t catch him…)–huge change.

We also made 2 other changes. I lunged him lightly at whatever pace he wanted (to the left he chose the trot, to the right he chose a combo of a trot and canter) and I stuck a nose net on him to see if we could do anything to combat the violent head tossing he was doing the last few rides. He didn’t love the nose net but the head tossing did NOT resurface so… ???

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Surveying our “playground” — what you can’t see is the steep hill after the extreme right crossrail or that the crossrail right in front of Batts head goes up an nice incline after

After lunging we warmed up with some trot and canter sets up the hill by my driveway before we visited our “playground” in the backyard. It was already freaking hot by this point. The plan WAS to be off by 10 but we didn’t actually get on until 10 so… Oops. Either way, we didn’t do a crazy amount. But, we visited our poles and crossrails and had a look. A certain chestnut eventually got mad a me for making him look and then stopped but then started launching himself over his crossrails and “galloping” up his hills afterwards. He was having fun. At one point I tried to trot my one crossrail to the next one but someone would have nothing to do with it and insisted we canter to it and gallop out and up our hill, but other than that… I’m pretty sure I looked like a little kid on a pony I was laughing so much. I had no control either. If only I could do cross country with crossrails… he’d shine at that… But ONLY that… Crossrail champion of the world.

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So sleepy!

So what did this tell me? No idea.

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Walking back after a walk through the development to cool down because we do stuff like that because, why not?

But, he wants the fun back in the work and ring work just ain’t fun. Crossrails and hills? That’s fun. Weirdo. Batts is an odd one.

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Happy Grumpy Chestnut!

Well, he did take off on my after I untacked him and pooped in my neighbor’s lawn… So he wasn’t 100% well behaved…

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Diet? what diet… Oy.

Ranger Recap: Do I remember how to ride?

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I FINALLY got to see Ranger again on Thursday and, while I’m not sure he remembered me, he certainly remembered that I keep treats in my helmet bag. It was a stressful week so my goal going in was just to enjoy myself and leave in one piece. Thankfully my trainer had the same idea in mind.

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We had a slightly longer warm up than normal on the flat (it HAD been 3 weeks and only 2 lessons in the last 5 weeks…) and I sort of had to remember how to ride. Ranger was pretty quiet which was a good, but very interested in a counterbend, which was less than good as it required MORE LEG than I had. We incorporated some halts and bending and eventually sorted everything out. We even picked up an even canter which was really nice until I forgot how to steer and almost crashed him into standard  when I misjudged a turn canter a circle on the left lead… I was bound to find rust somewhere!!! We redid the circle and thankfully I remembered to actually use BOTH hands and steer… And turn and me head and look… Amazing what planning can do.

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Once I actually caught my breath (I’m out of shape…), we warmed up with our outside line and TROTTED in (I haven’t been allowed to trot into a (non-gymnastics) line since… September?) in 7.  Ranger was perfect and we continued around to canter in to it in a 6. Again, we did it well. But, heading away from the in gate so why would it be bad?

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Next we cantered up our outside single, down our inside single (hay bales towards our in gate), and then up our outside line. Goal was to maintain the consistent pace. We repeated this a few time. The first time the first jump was fine, but I can’t say I saw the best spot. The hay bales were nice considering we wanted to speed up, but I managed to half halt him into a nice quiet spot, unfortunately, we then slowed TOO much and then I got too relaxed headed to the outside line and saw nothing when I was told to move up. So I kind of got a bit left behind and had to move him up a bit to the 6. Second time through I was happier with the first 2 fences, but I think we chipped the first fence of the line? Or I could be making that up. All I remember was the last time through I finally nailed the spot of the first fence, held my pace to the hay bales, maintained to the outside line, and did NOT need to add leg for the 6. I think we ended there. Jumps were small which was nice for my first lesson back.img_4038

Ended the evening with a nice walk around the property, just me and Ranger.  Thursday evening was the first time we say real sun but temperatures were actually nice so it was nice to be out just walking around.

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I’m alive… sort of.

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Short recap, but I am alive.

I’ve barely ridden this past month (good riddance May!) and managed to miss my last 2 lessons due to work travel. (Thank you work conference in Seattle that also had me miss the entirety of the Devon Horse Show).

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Yay for latte art

But, hopefully work has settled down and I can start riding again. Lesson this week and I can finally see my Ranger again! I miss him.

Miss that face! But, work (hopefully) calmed down and most students are gone!

Meanwhile while in Seattle, this little bugger nearly needed to find a new home.

Free to a home? Free to any home? He’s so damn lucky he’s cute.

Recently he’s been a turd. After 2 years of ownership, he’s started testing fence boundaries and breaking through fences and escaping. We put up electric and that worked until it didn’t which was day 2 of my trip. I got a frantic and angry call from my husband that Jiminy was loose and could not be caught.

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Eventually he was herded into the paddock and then the shed. The next day he was released and got loose again… This time the calls were MUCH more angry and divorce was imminent. However, beyond the screaming (what the hell was I to do from Seattle?!), Jiminy decided his best place to escape was down the tree lined hill between the fence and the woods where he got caught up the fence between a downed tree branch, old pallet, and the fence and patiently waited for assistance. If there is ONE this I can say about this turd, he doesn’t NOT panic when stuck and understands when the fight is over. Humans are here to untangle you from the messes you get yourself caught up in…

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At that point, Jiminy was jailed. I told my husband to leave him stalled  until I return with hay and water less we repeat the near divorce proceedings again. Since the mid atlantic has been without much sun, we turned our charger off and this gave it some time to (hopefully) fully charge as well. Since my return, he’s been on supervised turnout with the assistance of an attached lunge line (it’s his ball and chain) –he’s fine with it– in the paddock. We added an additional strand of electric fence polywire Sunday but I realize we’ve got a bleed underground which is probably why the shock is so weak and the battery/solar charger is running down so quickly (we used the plastic tubing to bury our wire, but we’re just going to replace it with the underground wire since I can hear the stuff buried under the gate pulsing…). So, we need to fix that before he can resume normal turnout. But, Sunday everyone spent some time out on the grass and  he was a happy pony for several hours.

Then there was that moment I thought he was dead…

The other boys are doing well. Subi is Subi. He’s happy, eating well, and I thought was super sound, but still is having these skip trot moments behind that even my husband is noticing. My one dog does this thing were sometimes she trots on 3 legs (skipping one hind leg). My husband is comparing it to that. I haven’t seen it, but he’s noticing every once and and while he’s avoiding that one hind leg with the stifle issue. Overall, he’s happy and pasture sound, but I’m feeling justified retiring him. It’s usually after he goes for a nice gallop that he’s hitchy.

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If he had muscle, he’s be fat. But, no sign of ribs, he’s round and happy.

 

 

 

 

 

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Always my best boy

As for this guy, he needs to get back into work which HOPEFULLY will happen now if life has settled down some. I need to call the farrier again (for some reason never got a scheduling call back…) and the dentist, but I should still be able to do something with him in the mean time. He’s a little hivey and it turns out his fly sheet had a big hole in it I forgot about. With all these other expenses, I’m going to try and get it repaired by the blanket lady (she thinks it can be salvaged), but I need to wash it first so I don’t need to pay for that. So, hopefully I can to that today… In the meantime he’s got one of Subi’s old one’s on… He’s busting out the front. My husband compared it to the pudgy guy who wears a too tight fitting v-neck t-shirt, but that’s body-shaming… Half of his belly is hanging out too. But, better than nothing…

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When your mom makes you where your older, skinnier brother’s hand me downs…

Ranger Recap: Do we have brakes?

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So I never wrote about last week’s lesson and at this point I barely remember it so I’ll just jump right into this week’s lesson. But my quick note about last week was to say, Ranger is back to being 100% sound. He’s feeling good. And, as a result, he’s a different horse to ride…

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reusing old media again…

Last night we were welcomed with some (relatively) cold weather for May and wind. 50s. And Ranger was feeling a little full of himself. And I guess he hasn’t been ridden much? So we started off with a forward trot… And I was told to let go of his mouth. Didn’t even realize I was holding his mouth. Usually  I’m aware of these things… See, I didn’t even want to ride last night. Work is kicking my butt and I’m just stressed and done with the world. But, my husband told me to ride and I’d feel better riding so I went and I did, because, well, Ranger is Ranger and makes things better.

So, once consciously made sure I wasn’t holding his mouth, added in some trot-halt transitions mostly to see if we had any brakes. Right now, Ranger is more or less being ridden by me and one other kid with an occasional ride by another adult who more or less only rides on the flat? So, he’s not doing too much. I guess Ranger was ignoring the kid earlier this week so we started by installing brakes. Now, he pretty much always listens hacking so this wasn’t actually an issue. From here we added some sit trot circles around our log jump where I had to remember not to lean in. At the canter, again, similar stuff. Increasing pace along the sides, collecting in corners/circles, and NOT FALLING IN when we circle, specifically on the left lead. Ranger didn’t help by focusing on jump while we circled and since I didn’t balance him as well as I should have… I mean, we circled, it was just ugly. Needless to say, we had to repeat that exercise.  Anyway we finished our warm up. Ranger was fine, but very focused on the gate [due to the incoming storm, everyone was in for the night so SOMEONE had a bit of an attitude about being out while his friends were all in the barn].

Jump-wise we started on the left lead cantering over our log jump directly towards the in gate, the same jump we had been circling all during our flat work. The tricky thing was not only that we’d been circling it, but also that, we had to turn in the air so that we could turn between the inside line and the outside line as the outside line was on the rail. So, basically a super tight turn. Goals: Not to drive by the jump, steady pace, plan for landing. We actually had a really nice jump and landing, with the exception of a certain pinto trying to snatch the reins from my hands approaching the fence… So, next time through, a series of tug-release, tug-release to the fence. Not so much as half halts as we weren’t actually slowing him down or changing our pace as the pace here was perfect, just minding manners… no dragging me at the last minute. Sort of successful, sort of not. We did this a few times until we finally got it (once, we broke as he finally accepted that I meant business and took it as a cue to trot..).

From here we moved on to the outside line (right lead) along the fence. First time through I was asked to canter the first jump and then HALT to ensure that I had brakes. First jump was lovely and then fail. We had 2 lovely jumps in a 7 but never managed a halt. Broken brakes.  I could have cut in to ensure that I got the halt, but I figured that wasn’t smart… So next time through, goal was come in quieter (tug-release more half-halt natured) and then demand the halt. Lift his head and be firm (and harsh if firm fails). So, we came in nice and quietly with a shorter rein and landed and halted within 2-3 strides. I’m pretty sure I scared the crap out of Ranger. But he gave me a perfect halt.

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More old media, but a look at the outside line

Thanks to the perfect halt, we picked up the canter and this time, asked him to do the outside line in a holding 7. We came in at the same pace as the halt and the 7 was easy. We landed, kept the canter, and continued to our line, this time asking for the 6. Of course, I added JUST a bit too much leg (and didn’t take it off on 4-5-6 ) so we chipped a bit. One more time and we had a lovely 6.

From here we cantered in our white inside single (which was a simple 2’3″ vertical) and continued around to our line in a 6. Nice, easy and simple. Good boy Ranger.

We ended working on our other outside line. The deal was if I did it nicely we could end after the first time. Which is to say I think I did it 4 times? My trainer first asked if it looked too high to which I said no, it really just looks normal height. See, sometimes I have height issues with jumps. These were only 2’6″ and we’ve jumped higher but usually only the 2nd fence and not as much lately since Ranger’s been ouchy (though I’m pretty sure we did a couple week’s ago?)… Who knows. Anyway, this stemmed a conversation where my trainer was planning to tell me the line was the exact same height as the second jump in the line I was just jumping but since the height wasn’t bothering me, the pep talk appeal was useless. I have to say though, I love how quickly my trainer has figured out my brain… Telling me to do stuff doesn’t work, but coming up with appeals really does.

So the line. So much for going well. Remember our brake exercise? The goal was to teach Ranger we had brakes. But, instead it taught me we had brakes. So, coming in the first time, SOMEONE was way too enthusiastic (jumping home heading towards in game = WOOHOO). Not only did he try and launch himself, he was zig-zaggy and drunk-horse-like. But, thanks to my newfound brakes, we actually got through the line. I think I got a 6, but had I not held him, it would have been a 5. Or we would have done a fly by. So, we tried again. This time, I tried to hold more coming in but he still launched himself over the first fence and then I held too much and we got a 7…  (long spot plus too much holding). Then I think we got a good spot but I still held too much for another 7. Then I think we finally got a good spot and I held for 1-2-3 and let go for 4-5-6 to have a nice 6. With that we got to end and someone was VERY happy to go inside.

Because Ranger isn’t being ridden much right now, my trainer offered to let me ride him on weekends that he’s not at shows thinking that extra rides with a competent adult with help. He probably won’t need it once it gets hot, but for now… I probably need to double check, but I’m all for extra rides on Ranger…