Inability to keep my canter not withstanding, or another lesson recap

Posted on December 29, 2016 by Sarah (threechestnuts)

The best part of working for a university is the paid week off between Christmas and New Years. And while I had so my I should be doing this week, I’ve pretty much spent the week catching up on laziness. Honestly, Monday was spend recovering from Christmas with a migraine. Tuesday was spent recovering from Monday’s migraine and going out for sushi with my mom, and Wednesday was spent seeing Mamma Mia in Philly with husband courtesy of my mother. Somehow that took out more than half of my time off. But, the nice part of the week off was a lesson during the week during daylight hours.

lazy like a Lasagna kitty this week!

For some odd reason though, my leg wasn’t working too well. And Ranger wasn’t exactly filled with energy either thanks to a day outside in the rain. After a frustrating exercise at the trot and canter over a pole where we worked on my ability (or rather inability) to steer using my outside leg and rein we moved onto some jumping. Where I was met with a Ranger I didn’t quite know. Normally, Ranger is Ranger, but today (in the beginning) he was sort of long strided (and slow) and we canter up to our lovely inside white single jump to absolutely no spot. But, Ranger being Ranger took chip and we moved on from there. Next time, I was little more prepared and actually half halted, got him onto his hind end, and rode him to a nice spot. From there, we cantered a nice circle and cantered down over our inside grey single towards the double doors (one and only time we did this jump this direction). Slightly long spot but decent enough.

New hairnet that doesn’t induce migraines? Only time will tell. First ride a success. Will review…

From here we moved on to our the same grey single the other direction, continuing our canter around to our outside line in the holding 8. Goals here were the approaches for each line/jump (straightness) and holding for the damn 8. While if I added leg, we could easily do the 7, for some reason we were working on the 8 last week (because last week the 8 was there) and decided to keep the 8 this week. The first time through, the first jump was perfect, the second jump was nice, and then we did a 7 1/2. The second time through, I sort of screwed up and the first jump was ok-ish, but not great, the second jump pretty much sucked, but the plan was the remember to hold at 3, 4, 5, and 6 and as a result, jump 3 was actually perfect. I can’t remember if this was it or if we did it again.

We ended with a simple course. Trotting into the small vertical at the end of the ring (last week’s crossrail) bending line to the single fence on the rail, continuing to our single inside grey jump, outside line, around to inside white jump. Other than the fact that by this point, my legs were REALLY tired (and I didn’t start with much strength to begin with) and Ranger was NOT helping me out in the corner with my simple changes or really just cantering into the corners…, the jumps themselves were decent. We could have used some pace, but today, pace was not happening. But our spots were there!

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In other news, it appears our next show is a week from Sunday…

That was fun!, or another lesson recap

Posted on December 23, 2016 by Sarah (threechestnuts)

For the first time in a while, I actually had my regular Thursday evening lesson.

But, being me, I have absolutely no media to add to this post so I needed to resort to a drawing. Sadly the drawing was not to scale, but… tough.

All I can say is I’m having so much fun on Ranger. Everything is just so easy. So easy. Almost too easy at this point? I don’t thing riding has every felt easy like this? I’ll get to this at the end of the post or if I don’t, maybe another post, because it is still as work day and I am at work which means, I should be, well, working. But I lack motivation and I don’t want to deal with people. After telling this to my mom last night her advice was to tell everyone “Begone Satan!” Um, not exactly what I expected to hear from my mother…

So, back to my lesson. I mostly warmed up on my own while the previous lesson finished up. I tried to work on a forward trot and lots of circle (mostly to stay out of the previous lesson’s way). Our canter was actually really nice and forward as well which was nice too. Everything just felt good. And I wasn’t a mess which was even better.

My attempt to draw my course… No where to scale, but in attempt to save paper… (you can trot a nice circle around jump 1 and fit 8+ish strides between 1 and 2)

We moved on to jumping soon after and decided to focus less on height this week and more on length of course. So, trainer knocked down jumps first time in a while that she lowered jumps even though I’m pretty sure we did everything at the height they were last lesson. I’m trying not to read into these things though. Height shouldn’t matter. I jumped these jumps well Sunday so why should I care that I didn’t jump them in this lesson? Anyway, we warmed up trotting into a broken line crossrail to the outside single just focusing on a steady pace landing, halting, and staying straight. Strangely enough, we pretty nailed it the first time which raised expectations for the rest of the lesson. At this point, the other horse left the ring which usually causes Ranger change his behavior slightly, after all, his friend is leaving. It doesn’t actually matter which friend is leaving or if he’s ever met said friend before. So, with this in mind, we repeated the exercise, anticipating an increase in speed, but honestly, he stayed pretty steady so we continued on and canted up our inside single and continued on to our outside line. The single was perfect, the outside line wasn’t mostly because turned a little bit late… Surprising, right? That said, after the first attempted when I actually remembered to look ahead, the outside line was fine and right there. I think part of my issue with turning late at times is I don’t always look ahead? Or, I look too far ahead and I’m afraid I’ll turn too early and cut my corners so I turn too late. I have no idea.

Borrowed media from last week to see jumps 8 (green) 9 (hay bales) 3/7(grey), 6 (white), 4 (pink/black outside line), 1 (crossrail)

Since 5 jumps wasn’t enough, after a few times we continued after the outside line and came up the other inside single. This was the single we started with last week so no big deal. I think we did this once. Then, it was continue back down the other inside single the other direction (jump 7) and up our 2 stride for our 9 jump course. I can’t remember the last time I did a 9 jump course. 8 years ago? Most of my hunter courses were 8 jumps or at times 7, but rarely ever 9. So, this was good for my brain. Even better, I didn’t get lost! Unfortunately, we only did the course once as it was pretty perfect. We might have drifted slightly in one line, but not enough to warrant redoing anything or I’d have tried to get a video. Seriously though, this was some of the best riding I feel like I’ve done in a while.

Which brings me back to my first point. Everything feels easy. Too easy. Not boring, but easy. Trainer asked me while I was untacking if had thought about buying a jumper since we all know Batty isn’t that and showed me a video of a cool big quiet looking gelding. I’m just completely not in the position to buy a horse. I mean, I have 3. And it’s fine, but man, do I want a horse. It was sort of that moment that showed me how much I want something like that. Big, quiet, easy to the jumps. But, I don’t have the funds. Forget month to month lack of funds (because that’s so not there right now either), I don’t have purchase price either, not that I know what that would be.

Which brings me to Subi. At some point, I probably do need to have a serious conversation with her about him and see if restarting him is an actual option. I’m probably way stronger of a rider to do it myself now than I was a year (or even 2 or 3) ago, but, at the same time, I do need the assistance of a trainer or facility where he can be ridden every day in the beginning. I can’t do that at home. So, if my current trainer can do that at a price I can make work, good. If not, I can send him out to someone else (I really liked the guy who taught Batty to load and I’ve seen him ride–really good all around horseman who I’d trust though I’d have to send Subi a good 6 – 8 miles from my house rather than 1.1 miles). So, I don’t know. If trainer will take him on, I might still take him to other trainer for some trailer loading lessons. Mostly to teach him to self load. Because, if I do start taking him places, I need him to self load. That’s one thing he doesn’t do.

My office picture wall

So the next question, am I crazy to think about bringing Subi by soon to be 20 year old gelding back into work? He’s had a year off and about 2 year of minimal work before that, but he’s generally had little to no soundness issues. Most of the time off has been because of me. I lost my confidence and with him, not having a really place to ride has really been a struggle. If I can make it work regularly hauling out for lessons and hacks, and only occasionally needing to ride at home, he could probably stay in a routine… 20 isn’t that old, right? He can still run around and buck like a 5 year old (this is where I see him aging. I no longer say 2 year old). He’s lost a lot of top line/muscle, but even in work he’s never had a great topline…

Lesson Recap

Posted on December 19, 2016 by Sarah (threechestnuts)

I finally got a lesson in on Sunday. I cancelled Thursday a week ago after Batty colicked. While he was feeling better, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to ride after stressing about him all day. I wonder why? And then this past Thursday we sort of were dealing with an arctic vortex of sorts and with highs at 21* and wind chills making it feel like 1-5*, needless to say, we cancelled. So, luckily we rescheduled for Sunday. And, after Saturday’s ice storm, Sunday was rainy and in the low 50s at 11am… It was really kind of odd. No wonder I’ve been having all these migraines. The weather really needs to stop ping-ponging.

Ranger had a couple of other lessons that day which is completely not normal for him. So he was already warmed up when I got there (he also had an easy lesson after me). We did a quick warm up on the flat and the lack of riding really showed in my leg. Ouch. But, once we both agreed that we were going to actually move, we sort of did that. See, sometimes we have trouble when I relax maintaining a nice, 15mph trot. But, when my legs are dead, it’s hard to KEEP. MOVING. FORWARD. But, we didn’t dwell at the trot once determined we could trot and moved on the canter where again FORWARD was the mission. We had a respectable, but not great canter to the right, but a fabulous, forward canter to the left, until it was commented upon where upon we broke into a trot. Yeah. So, once again, we cantered, then were forced to be MORE FORWARD than ever before before we could finally halt and then walk. We are big on downward transitions to a halt. Canter to halt. Trot to halt. Jump, land, halt. We like to halt.

So, after catching our breathes and regaining feeling in my leg, we warmed up by cantering into a single on the diagonal with the intention of landing to the left of the ground pole on the landing and halting. Of course, I didn’t take a great picture of the whole ring to get an idea of the line coming in, but this will have to do. Basically, the intention was to use my entire ring and corner, turn after a jump that isn’t pictured, and take the long ride to the white box and land on the left of the ground pole. I happen to be the strange person out there and always turn to late rather than too early like a normal person so the fact that I nailed my turn was quite a success! Then, land and halt in the corner.

First exercise (white box) and 2 stride

After we did that a few times, adding leg because Ranger was sort of lazy, we cantered down our other inside diagonal single (grey plank/wall thing) towards the double doors on the left side of the ring that aren’t part of the picture. Slightly harder angle and I did cut this one a little late the first time, because, I can’t turn too early like a normal person, but we had enough time to correct and still jump straight. Actually, all in all, my turns were pretty decent considering drifting, especially in the indoor, is something Ranger does incredibly well…

Feeling super happy with that, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear the next words, “2 stride” from my trainer. I don’t like 2 strides all that much and for some reason, the second jump in this 2 stride has been scaring the crap out of my for the last few weeks. I’ve been giving it the side eye every time we’re in the indoor, hoping I don’t have to jump it. So far I’ve been lucky. This lesson, my luck ran out. It just looked big and intimidating or something.

Stupid 2nd jump in 2 stride

Anyway, coming into the 2 stride, it was a similar approach to the first jump, but instead of turning after the jump, we had to turn AT the jump. One of those, if I turn too late, I’m going to miss my 2nd jump, the one that scares me. Great.

Another view of the dreaded 2 stride (and no views of the rest of the ring…)

Thankfully, other than not exactly adding enough leg, we survived the first time through. Which of course meant we had to repeat again. And again. But, the jump didn’t eat me. But, thanks to Ranger’s drifting habit, coming into the first jump, it was a lot of right leg and both reins to the left. But, the second I was over the first jump, left leg and both reins to right to keep him straight. Still, straightness won out today.

But, we couldn’t end there because that wound’t be fair to me. After all, I was comfortable and happy (and shocked that the first jump of the 2 stride that in the past might have seemed intimidating was fine as easy), we had to put it all together. So, after a nice long walk break while some boarders cantered their horses around after multiple days without turnout while Ranger watched thinking it seemed like way too much work, did out mini course. Basically, cantered our single white box, around to the grey single, (big kick) around to the 2 stride. I overshot the 2 stride slightly the last time, but he was actually moving nicely and adjustable that it didn’t matter. I had enough time to straighten him up before the first jump (thankfully) so we were able to call it a day after that! Or at least I was. Poor Ranger had 1 more lesson… I hung around after to groom and make sure he got his carrot. He was fine, but had no idea why he worked so hard! He rarely does multiple lessons but after having much of the week off…

In other news, my 3 bums are doing fine. Batty’s up to 3 gallons of water in his breakfast. I don’t know how much he drinks and how much Jiminy ends up wearing… Jiminy meanwhile protested Saturday’s weather by taking up residence in the run-in shed and refusing to leave. Poor guy just hates winter. I don’t have as much sympathy as I should. Subi’s happy as long as he gets to wear multiple blankets and Batty’s happy as long as he gets to eat. Subi’s starting to enjoy chopped hay so… maybe Mr. Picky will have another source of calories?

Catching up or not

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Sarah (threechestnuts)

I haven’t felt much like blogging lately. Not entirely sure why. I haven’t had all that much to talk about but I haven’t had nothing. Who knows. The whole fate of the world has me done combined with work and migraines I guess? I don’t know…

Still not much up for blogging but I did have a nice lesson tonight. And I managed to get videos so that’s something! The videos were at the end of the lesson and sort of an afterthought but they’re something, right? In the first video we were supposed to get a 7 in the last line… oh well. The second video was a redo of that last line. Ranger was pretty ready to be done by that point. But he’s completely perfect…

Rounding up ponies, or something like that

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Sarah (threechestnuts)

Updates are hard without media…

So some of these post are useless without pictures, but I’ll do the best I can…

Not too much to report on on the horse front. The boys continue to do well though mostly just spend there time stuffing their faces with hay and grumbling about a lack of food… The feed store was out of alfalfa cubes a few weeks ago and so we got timothy/alfalfa cubes instead. Subi has always been hit or miss with cubes, but I like the benefits of alfalfa. It seems timothy/alfalfa cubes are the way to go and are a BIG hit with him. He’s actually enthusiastic about evening cubes now. We’ll see how long he keeps this up, but… I’d love to actually up with cubes in the winter, but that might be pushing my luck. Still, in the mean time, it’s nice he’s so enthusiastic about food. On top of that, he’s back to eating flax too. All of this means he’ll probably stop eating in January just to drive me insane..

Sunday I had a nice ride on Batty. By nice, I mean I tortured myself with 2 point for longer than intended. I set a timer that failed to go off so instead instead of staying up for my targeted 5 1/2 minutes, I ended up in 2 point for an awful 12:36.64. At the walk. How I did not fall asleep of boredom, I do not know. How my legs did not fall off, I do not know. How, 2 days later, I managed to hobble around, I do not know. But, listening to a podcast while in 2 point did make things more tolerable. As did a very happy and pleasant horse. He’s not normally this happy or pleasant, but I think the fact that I wasn’t asking him to actually work much helped a lot… After the torture of 2 pointed ended, we did some trot sets up and down the hill for a while and then I let him gallop up hill a few times before calling it a day. Then I conveniently decided to fill up a water trough, forgot about the hose until we came out to feed dinner, and noticed I flooded the paddock… Ooops. Only 2.5 hours of extra water… At least the round bale was sitting on a pallet?

Prior to my 2 point fiasco, I had a lesson earlier in the day on Ranger, where I more or less learned that I’ve been 2 pointing wrong most of my life. Well, not wrong so much as less correct. We don’t necessarily work on 2 point specifically in lessons, but I was warming before we started and my trainer started commented on position and all that. Turns out my heels are down to far to the point of being ineffective. So, the goal becomes concentrating less on heels and more of distribution of pressure between the big toe and the little toe (I already and pressing into my heel enough) to ensure that I’m keeping enough contact with my lower leg. Huge difference just bringing the little toe into the equation (and I’m blaming the little toe for all the pain felt as a result of the 2 point with Batt–but I certainly felt SO MUCH MORE stable making that minor change).

Anyway, back to my lesson. I love that little horse so damn much. He’s so perfect for me right now. He’s so broke on the flat that everything is just easy, but all my faults just are just magnified (my ineffective outside arm seems to move forward while circling for some reason…) so I really know what I need to work on. He’s super comfortable and steady too. What he is, I have no idea, but he’s truly amazing for me.

We warmed up trotting into a simple line focusing on where I’m looking (UP toward the second jump and not at the base of the first…). First time through I didn’t have enough energy and sort of held and we trotted into an un-energetic 7. Added leg to trot into a 6 the next time that actually looked better. Then I screwed up cantered in… I don’t know why I couldn’t pick up my damn lead. Then when I did, I needed to circle to get my rhythm, and unlike normal people who cut corner, I am the opposite and turn too late. So, we worked on that until it was nice. Then the conversation turned to “you’re going to think I’m crazy” and of course anything that starts with those words… So, left lead canter to a single towards the in gate) around to the outside triple (4 stride to 4 stride). Me: stops breathing. Before we start, we break it down a bit and remember that this horse will stop and NOTHING and all I need to do is steer as he does duck in a bit so in between the triple I need to pull hands to rail (triple was against rail which actually made it easy) and LOOK UP TO LAST FENCE OF TRIPLE until I’m approaching that fence and then look out of ring.

So, our first attempt was interesting. Coming to the single, Ranger decided OMG JUMPING TO IN GATE and decided to actually speed up and brain said OMG I DIE but as we approached in gate, Ranger said, time to stop and my leg barely said keep going, so, going to the triple it was wiggly and slow and ugly, but we made it over all 4 jumps. Trainer asked my opinion. Me: It was really ugly. Trainer: Did you get over jumps? Me: yes. Trainer: Are prizes being given out today? Me: But… Trainer: Goal was to get through it. Did you stop, crash, die, etc.? Hit him in the mouth? No. So, attempt 2 was pretty much perfect. We still rushed the first jump a bit (a little bit of OMG JUMPING TOWARDS IN GATE) but not (OMG DIE from me) and I was more prepared that he was going to pull me towards the quarter line while cantering to the first fence so I was able to use more leg and hand to have a better spot. And then landing I was prepared to just look up and ahead and then start adding leg as we approached the in gate so we didn’t have a debate about stopping which led up to a perfect spot at the the first jump of the triple. A little leg and steering in the air allowed him to just carry me over the rest of the triple and with that I survived. So, when I was told to do it again and add in the 6 line we started with, I actually said OK.

Was out 6 jump course perfect? No, I think the triple was prettier the second time, but our first jump was the best the last time (FINALLY no more OMG JUMPING TO IN GATE!!! from Ranger) and I finally had a nice turn to my 6 stride. So, for not having done a course in at least 7 years, I was pretty happy. The jumps are small right now which is fine. I need small though I don’t think the height really matters with Ranger. He’s just amazing and exactly what I need. If he were a little smaller, I might be able to fit him in my backseat and take him home with me…

I’ve ridden so many greenies over the years that I’ve learned to ride defensively or super well schooled horses with soundness issues that I’ve been very limited in what I can do, or modified HOW I ride to best support the horse. Or lesson horses that we pretty much limited to cross rails or had little to no education or soundness issues or both. Or “Wenglish” horses that were just interesting… I’ve had little chances to just ride a really well trained schoolmaster. For where I am right now, I need to bring my education back up. Subi is the exception as he was pretty well trained, but, my trainer at the time never got on him. Granted, I didn’t do training board, but I’ve learned even if I had, said trainer wouldn’t have actually ridden my horse, just charged me for service not rendered (not always the case but was the case during the period of time when I was a boarder). But that’s a whole other rant that I’m not getting into.

Square Peg, Round Hole

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Sarah (threechestnuts)

So, I have lots to update on, but instead I’m going to stick with what’s grating on my mind. I’ll get to the other, more fun, stuff another day.

Since my quite spectacular crash off of Batty a few weeks a go, I’ve sort of been questioning a lot of things. Am I asking him to do stuff he can’t do? Am I asking him to do stuff he doesn’t want to do? Am I causing all sorts of problems? Am I causing all of our stopping issues? Is it physical? Is it mental? Is it me? Is it him? Can a pro fix this? What is this? Am I going to get hurt fixing whatever this turns out to be?

So here is the thing about Batty and falls and all of that. Fall happen. I don’t actually care about falling. They come with riding and while we try to avoid them and minimize the risk, the only way to avoid them completely is not to ride. I am not willing to do that. So, it comes down to calculated risks. But, the other side of the coin is Batty has NEVER been consistent over fences. I remember when I first rode him as a green broke 5/6 year old (who was actually we later learned a green broke 2 year old) 12+ years ago wiggling and zooming to jumps and slamming on the breaks, ducking out his hind end… He eventually got more consistent, especially over plain jane crossrails and verticals. But, he’s never been confident or consistent over any jump with build up or anything solid underneath. This horse used to slam on the breaks at a ground pole… So, it should surprise me that we have issues…

Then there is me. Without going into issues, I’m at the point in my life where i need to minimize the risks. I need to avoid too many falls and concussions. I need to avoid head injuries and more concussions. I have too many issues with migraines (and right now am just in a holding pattern until I can get into see neuro in November, but that’s a whole other story). So, this brings me to this week’s lesson…

My trainer has offered me to get on Batty and school him over jumps and I finally took her up on the offer. So, after warming him up on the flat, she got on him to basically see who was the issue. Me or him (I’m quick to always blame myself even though deep down I know the issues I rooted well beyond me). With a lot of the same struggle I have, she schooled him over and over 3 jumps until he was consistent and confident over all 3, licking and chewing. Then I got on and did the same (I was fine for 1 and 2, struggle for 3, but, that was me). We got through it and then ultimately had a talk.

Trainer basically said it’s amazing I haven’t come off more than I have because when he stops it’s not a normal stopper motion. He swings out his hind end and it comes out of no where. He doesn’t look at the jump, doesn’t drop his head, and doesn’t give warning (well, when we stopped at jump 3, he warned me as we ran out of gas 4 strides out, but that’s different). He’s never going to be consistent. If we jump him daily, he’ll likely get better (aka memorize these jumps), but the second something changes — be it the ring, a jump, etc.–we will be starting over from scratch. So, the advice? We stop trying to jump him. He’s sound. Physically he can do it and more and he can do it easily, but it’s just not for him.

So Saturday we went on a trail ride and soon we’ll start looking for paper chases and stuff like that. Just need to find people to do stuff like this with. We’ll still try and take a lesson here and there to keep up with our flat work, but no more solid ‘hunter’ jumps. That’s just not him. But give him a field to gallop through and he’s a happy horse… Regardless, he’s with me for life.

So, for the time being, I’m going to take lessons on one of her lesson horses who can pack me around over 2’6″ for the winter and reassess in the spring. We’ll see where I am financially in March. If I have the funds, I might see about putting Subi in training for a month to see what I have. My mom asked right away about Subi but it’s almost October… Why get him in shape just to give him the winter off in 2 months? I know I don’t have the time to commit to what he needs in the winter but I can probably do enough for spring/summer/fall. So, we’ll see. I’m hoping my family will help me out with training. The downside of all of this is, right now he is sound, but he’s 20 in January. Will he be sound back in work? I’m only willing to do so much maintenance to keep him comfortable when I know he’s comfortable retired. So, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Hopefully we’ll know what he have pretty quickly and can back out of training if he can’t hold up and I’m happy popping over 2′-2’3″ if that’s all he can do and skipping changes if it keeps him sounder. Hopefully by the spring I’ll be healthier too.

Due for a crash landing…

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Sarah (threechestnuts)

So it’s been a while since I’ve really posted anything. Partly I haven’t had too much to post, but partly I’ve just been dealing so much with a crappy period of nearly non-stop migraines and while some riding has taken place, I’ve had nothing exciting to talk about about and the rest of the time I’ve really been too miserable to care.

While I’ve been feel like crap (hopefully the new medicine regime will get them back under control), Batty’s been feeling pretty good. We’ve had some good hacks, a couple of good lessons, lots of horrific heat, and a nice trail ride or 2. Between the heat, migraines, and pony finals, we missed a lesson while my trainer was a way, but got back on track last night.

(all pictures are from a ride a couple of weeks ago).

Overall, he was a good boy for our flat work. We’ve really been working on my position at the canter in the corners. I’ve ridden super sensitive, upright thoroughbreds for so long that I’m so used to spending so much time in half seat whereas Batty is a downhill quarter horse so I need to break myself of that habit. Trainer has my half seating the long sides and sitting and lifting through the corners. Makes complete sense, I just need to get myself used to that! We’re getting there. I also don’t always like to side. I can lean back without actually sitting which is bad as well. Old habits die hard…. But, progress is being made, or so I think?

After drilling flatwork, less trot work today, and more canter work (yay canter circle and my inability to drop my outside shoulder without being reminded in one direction…) we did a little jumping. Trainer decided we’d be nice to Batty and start with something simple and easy. A tiny little gate without any boxes or flowers heading towards the in gate. Well, idiot horse decided to fight today and it took us what felt like forever to get over it, we did eventually but it wasn’t easy. He fought a bit the second time, but after that was fine with it. Strangely enough, he much preferred the jump the other direction. After that we moved on to another, more built up jump and he did much better with that. Wanted to jump it the first time but got over soon after (we sort of practice the walk up to it and ask until he goes over philosophy as they’re small enough that he can carry himself over at this height). This one he was probably the most confident with this jump.

After our brush box, we moved on to a simple gate and that’s where we found disaster. He actually wanted to jump it, but there was a stupid vine (I swear, the fake vine was annoying the shit out of him) that he was staring at and the footing made noise when it hit the plastic vine…. So, crop, spur, crop, spur, crop, spur, SUPER HORSE LAUNCH OVER JUMP and on the other side we were!!…unfortunately, not together. I just got too much weight in my right stirrup and went flying off and landed hard. It took me a few minutes to get myself together (I feel like for the first 15 seconds I couldn’t make sense when I tried to talk?) which kind of freaked me out but otherwise, we’re all ok.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a fall so I know I was due, but did I have to have a hard fall? I think I whacked my head (it hurts) though no one seems to think I did) and I don’t have so much as a scuff on my brand new helmet (ride 3?) so who knows? This morning my lower back and right hip are throbbing and I have a nasty cut/bruise on my right elbow. I think I’m going to live on Advil today…

Weekend wrap up

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Sarah (threechestnuts)

I already posted about Sam, the giant horse, but I figure I should catch up a little on the rest of the weekend.

I’m trying to get back into lessons again and had my first lesson (in a couple of years) scheduled for earlier last week. Of course, a storm was moving in so about 40 minutes before my lesson, we rescheduled for Friday. Storm dissipated completely and it was sunny (though raining) during my would be lesson.

Lesson on Friday was a little earlier than was convenient, but being a holiday weekend, I decided I could skip out a little early. So, when 4:30 came around, I headed out. Just to get to my car as a bolt of lightening struck and knocked out power across the university campus. No rain at this point either. Of course, I park in a gated lot which meant that the electric gate didn’t work to let us all out. Calls to parking and public safety were useless and no one necessarily wanted to be “the one” to break the gate. Eventually, we decided to drive through the handicap ramp and sidewalk to exit the parking lot. Fun times, but no cars go stuck. I’m not sure if it would have been as successful if it were raining…

My drive home included lots of sun, lots of rain, localized flooding, localized heavy winds, and downed branches. Oh and more blinding sun. I got home to find heavy rain and part of a tree on my round pen. Another fun project. Still, radar looked looked like it would clear out, 6pm showed 0% percolation, and no lesson cancellation. Because of the rain, I ended up rushing out last minute (we had a long 1 mile drive…) and felted rushed pretty much until I was actually on Batts.

Round pen repairs needed again….

While I’ve worked with this trainer very briefly a few years ago, I was still nervous because that’s me. Nerves and stress. Add in crazy 90% humidity and I was feeling sort of wonky to start out.

Overall, the lesson went pretty well and we’re going to try and stick to an every other week schedule (I’d love to do more, but my bank account objects) and I’ll haul in on off weeks to hack in the ring. We worked on pace, moving off my leg when asked, bending, and energy. Needless to say, we rocked our halts and downward transitions, but it was suggested I start wearing spurs with him again since he was zero respect for my leg. Right now we’re following the whole ask with leg once, then demand with crop. I’ve avoided spurs lately as my leg sucks and swings though trainer has indicated that it really doesn’t in reality… So, back on spurs go, at least for flat work.

We actually did some jumping which surprised me as I was expecting a flat lesson. I don’t know how much I’ve posted about Batty, but he’s a former dead quiet, bombproof lesson horse who would be absolutely perfect if he weren’t a stopper… A reluctance for jumping combined with getting hit in the mouth by a variety of riders and all of that… Even poles were an issue at times (stopping or trying to launch over them). Anyway, since I’ve had him, I haven’t done too much jumping. I didn’t jump him at all for the first few months and then boredom hit and poles were reintroduced as were cross rails. He has his moments, but for the most part, he’s pretty good with simple, boring cross rails of varying heights. Even boring (read empty) verticals were pretty consistent too and he’d occasionally pop over a 2’6″ bland vertical. Then, with all of his soundness issues and abscesses last year, he hasn’t really jumped much. Anyway, a few weeks back he popped over some cross rails and a tiny vertical and then the following week we fought a little with our jumps since the one cross rail was trying to eat him… After successfully trotting a few cross rail courses, we haven’t actually popped over anything since.

So when trainer suggested some fences, I wasn’t entirely certain. Especially since we were facing actual solid jumps (brush box and some astroturf covered thing). They were tiny, but solid. Determined he could walk over them, we worked on the whole forward motion thing. Lots of crop and kicking later, he finally made it over to lots of pats and praise. Second time was quicker success, third time was immediate. Then we trotting it before moving onto the second jump. Astro turf is scary, but having learned from the first jump, we eventually made it over, and then immediately made it over the second time. Once he was over, he was good. We trotted the line once then trotted in and cantered out and called it a day. Batty was pretty darn pleased with himself. He’s a strange one and moves very quickly from OMG something’s living in that jump and it’s going to eat me to Mr. Cocky and Proud of Himself (from there we move onto “I’m bored and can’t be bothered to put in effort” but we didn’t get that far).

Anyway, post lesson we were both exhausted and sweaty. After a nice cool shower (using cross ties! which appears we’re fine with again) we headed home to a thoroughbred who missed his Batthorse very much…

the masked men

On Sunday, we were supposed to go to a fun little schooling show at my friend’s barn, but due to low entries, she cancelled. Instead, we headed out to Fair Hill for a trail ride with Erik and the dogs.

My best girls (and Erik)

Armed with a broken crop, I learned bridges are something we need to work on. He was find with the first bridge until a car went under it and then no go. Darn broken crop didn’t help me much. Second bridge was scary because of the sound the small piece of metal made when he stepped on it. I eventually got off and forced him over it (again, damn broken crop) and considered it a success. The covered bridge however was no issue at all and he happily crossed that one (that was the bridge we had issues over last time). Still, considering he was out there without other horses, he did pretty well. Stuck mostly to the walk as my Hermione dog did NOT like me getting that far ahead and since it was warm, I didn’t feel like stressing my already tired pups (Marble got to lay in the creek so she was happy). I did let him canter up this small hill a bit once the dogs were back at the truck and that seemed to make him happy. Strange horse likes cantering up hill.