Last time I rode was yesterday. I was on Joey (the chestnut from the previous post), who is a 16 y/o Hanoverian, though I think he looks more like a TB than anything else--likely because he's too out of shape to look like a beefy warmblood, and he's a little guy, only around 15 hands.
Old picture
He didn't want to move off my leg from the walk, so we did a lot of walk-trot transitions to rev him up and get him more connected. While we were trotting I worked on controlling his pace with my seat and relaxing my inner thighs, which I think wanted to grip since he is so much narrower than Shadow-man.
Then a little left-lead canter from the trot (which is difficult for him--he is much easier to canter from a walk), which was lovely. He gave me that nice, uphill, springy canter I know he has in him--I think because I was helping him to maintain the pace with my seat rather than leg, leg, leg. There is nothing better than a canter that just makes you feel happy to be alive. Then long rein walk, and some more walk-trot transitions.
Had some trouble getting the right lead canter--my trainer was giving a lesson to someone else, but she saw I was having issues. She told me to counterbend and give with my right hand. Took like two tries for me to get it, but then bingo! New trick learned. And we ended on a long rein after he got that right lead for like 3 strides. While he was cooling out I practiced my 2-point since I haven't done that in a long time. Felt funny doing 2-point in a dressage saddle though :)
All in all (since some of the time was spent staying out of the lessoner's way while she was jumping), probably amounted to a good 30 minutes of work. I was certainly tired and it was like 80 degrees yesterday so Joey worked up a little sweat too.
No challenge post tomorrow--I will be traveling to Pittsburgh to get my sangria on with my BFF :) Byron will be picking up our new Siamese kitten, so when I return on Sunday prepare to be inundated with cuteness.
It's 6:45. I am watching TV. My girlfriend is supposed to come over tonight so I haven't started cooking dinner yet for us because I have yet to hear from her. I am starving and I take an expectant look at my phone, but it is fruitless. I could call, but I know better. When she is late like this, it means she won't answer her phone until she is done.
And I know she isn't at work because I got a text as she was leaving. I know where she is--with her other love. So I turn on my Xbox, and drown myself in gory violence.
Another 30 minutes have passed by the time the phone rings. "Hello?"
"Sorry, I'll be home in another hour or two."
"Should I start dinner?"
"Yes, I am starving. Bye!" ***
You can hear how happy she is on the other line. When she left this morning, she was in a horrible mood. She is certainly not a morning person. Now, after seeing Joey, she is happy. I get up, walk over to the kitchen, and being cutting up tomatoes for my homemade pasta sauce. It's one of my favorite comfort foods.
The process takes a while. Each tomato has to be diced, seeded, skinned and then roasted in the oven. The smells that intertwine with each other float throughout the house. Garlic, onion, oregano, thyme. Of course the tomatoes are the strongest smell. Slowly darkening. The whole process takes about two hours. So I walk back and forth from the TV to check on everything. I almost done when I hear the door slam. It's taken her two hours, the maximum time she allocated herself to stay with Joey, which is no surprise.
She comes into the kitchen. It's clear what she has been doing. Her hair, despite her best attempts at taming it, is all over the place, strands of curly hair betraying her ponytail. Its obvious that she has been sweating pretty hard in the past couple of hours. She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and then runs upstairs to take a shower so she can hide his smell. I turn back and continue on my work. I begin to mash the roasted tomatoes up, pour in some red wine to enhance the flavor, pull out the freshly made meatballs from the oven as well, and let them marinate a bit in the sauce.
By the time she returns, dinner is ready. The sauce is perfect. A dark, almost forbidding red, which matches nicely to a glass of red wine. She takes a sip and walks over to the TV, saying as she goes, "Hey baby, your room is a bit of mess. You should pick up your clothes and put them in the wash."
I know that Joey is a complete animal, who never, and I doubt, ever does pick up after himself. She always talks about how when she see him, the first thing she does is pick up all of his shit, and then hand feeds him. It doesn't matter if he is being sweet or bad, she does it all the same. I, however, do not receive such royal treatment. And never have. And I doubt ever will.
I just don't understand their relationship. I know that when I walk over to her with my plate in hand, she will want to talk about all the things they did. She might briefly mention how work was, especially if anything peculiar happened. But without a doubt, Joey will enter the the conversation. She always brags about how he, for a few minutes, did everything she asked of him… which usually entails walking in a circle a few times, and not being scared of a plastic bag. I will nod my head, asking her a few more questions about the subject, but all the time, all I really want to point out is that I have never been scared of a plastic bag, and for the most part, I can walk in a circle when asked to.
***Some events in this account have been fictionalized. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
1. Go to unpaid internship where you get to read and write about horse stuff all day! And file things. (It's OK, they're horse-related things.)
So dreamy, especially in B/W. I was sad to file him away.
2. Go to barn!
We make circles! (I am imagining that in the voice of this video. (You're welcome.))
3. Breeze through traffic! Traffic cannot stop you from...
4. Homework. Well, actually, homework isn't so important. Replace homework with eating a garlic bagel with cheese for now. Mmm. Now no one will kiss you except your horse!
Wait, how did a horse's butt end up on my homework?!
5. Be sad that you're not at Rolex this weekend because you have to do homework and and other non-horsey stuff. And because you're poor.
6. Console yourself with Horse Nation's Rolex coverage.
7. And all the horse blogs that updated today.
8. Okay, now it's really time to do your annotated bibliography.
No more horse butts. :(
9. Wait, maybe you should rummage through your closet for something to wear to that silly family event this weekend that's cutting into your barn time.
Is it wrong that after 4 years of college, I still find the fact that my bedsheets have crabs on them to be a hilarious visual joke?
10. Seriously, write up one of your sources. Run it through EasyBib because you're hip and with it and you don't waste time.
11. Brag to the world about it on your blog as a reward.
So since Joey decided he was more interested in galloping home to his buddies than you know, caring whether I stay on or not, I've been very hesitant to try riding him outside of the ring. I still haven't done it, and although his owner came out several times to hack him and found no problem, I always came up with an excuse to not try again--it's too windy; it's too muddy; he's (conveniently) lame. That lameness meant that I was riding other horses last week, one of whom is an awesomely stubborn, giraffe-necked Arabian named Eclipse:
He's a good boy, but he has his own ideas on how things should be done.
Specifically his problem is that he won't go on contact unless you really push him into the bridle with your leg. I'm still working on this--I can usually get him to do this in the first few minutes of trotting, but then we lose it. Still getting used to his quirks. The good thing is that he's very focused, while Joey is more tempted to pay attention to his buddies or random people walking around, etc.
So on Thursday I decided the time had come for me to stop being silly. Sometimes I sense disturbing similarities with my own mindset and with a
horse's--if I have too much time to think, I get nervous, but if I put myself to work, I just get the job done. I love to hack out, and I have many fond memories of tearing around chasing deer with my ex-foxhunter in high school. Riding outside is not something I want to give myself any more time to rattle around in my brain as an evil monster.
It was so worth it.
A few years ago, a big open field like this would have made me think GALLOP!!!! I want to build myself back up to that level of confidence. So much of riding is just that--confidence-building, in a kind of twisted way. If you're afraid something horrible will happen, it will, just because you're nervous and that transmits loud and clear to a flight animal. Riding is basically BE CONFIDENT OR ELSE. I don't know why that works for me, but it does. I think it's why I've always loved jumping--the risk is there, but there's so much to plan and regulate that I just do what I have to do instead of overanalyzing it.
On the road again...check out those perky ears!
The ride was uneventful enough that I bridged my reins and snapped a few photos along the way. We only had one minor spook trotting uphill when a bird flew up suddenly and he skittered away. I circled him and then he was totally fine, no big deal. We walked for a while after that while I tried to get my leg to stop trembling--it was more of my spook than his. After a few rounds of singing the ABCs, breathing deeply, and putting my weight in my heels, I felt OK enough to pick up a trot again.
The farm was long out of sight--it was just me and Eclipse tracing the perimeter of the corn and grass fields. We even cantered for short stretches--Eclipse was ready to GO! Thankfully he is very easy to rate and we kept it at a canter rather than a full-out gallop. He was definitely not thrilled to come back to the walk--I think the best way to describe it is rangey. He was covering almost as much ground as a trot (which, by the way, was suuuper smooth)!
I was very happy with the ride, even if Eclipse was a bit peeved at the pace. Easy does it...and maybe I'll be trying this again in the near future with Joey. The approaching warm weather is on my side.
That's right...this post is dedicated to the delightful Joey, the horse I've been riding for the past couple weeks.
Huh? Whazzat?
Yesterday was my birthday, and I was so glad that I had the opportunity to ride, though as you can see from Joey's windswept mane, it was VERY breezy outside! I'm supposed to work on keeping him long and low with leg, leg, leg and building his back muscle when I ride, and my personal goal has been to not fling my upper body about at the canter with him. I can always feel it the next day in my abs and calves, so I feel like I am making some progress...he really is a good boy despite trying to convince me otherwise once.
I've been duct-taping my phone to the fence post to take videos to judge my position--glad it didn't fall down in the wind! I intended to post the first couple videos, but they were pretty horrendous so they don't need to be floating all over the Internet. I am still moving back and forth slightly too much at the canter--that motion should be going up through my back, not from front to back (if that makes sense). I'm also seeing a weird wiggly motion in my back at the trot. I wonder if it has anything to do with the pain/stiffness I feel in my lower back when I lay down flat. I didn't get too excited about my birthday this year, but maybe 22 will turn out to be a milestone year after all. My first chiropractic adjustment!
I debated going to the barn at all since I had a midterm and a video project due today (which of course I saved till the last minute because I don't know how to make videos...makes perfect sense, I know). I had to stay up till 1am to finish that, and I woke up at 6am...and then 6:15 am...and then 7 am to go over my study guide and run through my flash cards for a few hours before my 10am exam. To top it off, I had a sick, feverish boyfriend to look after, although he very sweetly made one of my favorite dinners for me--scalloped potatoes and breaded chicken. It's so good to eat something hearty when the wind sounds like it's about going to tear the house down.
I'm glad I rode, because I was actually working productively all night rather than letting that post-work exhaustion wash over me and squandering time. I don't know how long that project would have taken otherwise! And how could I not feel lucky to have this little munchkin in my life?
This is my good side.
Moral of the story: Go to the barn...then do your homework! Or vice versa, but what's the fun in eating dessert after dinner?
I am so excited to see the rescue where I volunteer, Gentle Giants, being featured on the Snarky Rider blog...not least because the director of the rescue, Christine, is very entertaining with her guest posts.
Her post about Chase went along with a theme I'm seeing in a lot of other horsey blogs in the past week: suitability. As is usually the case at the rescue, the most handsome horses get a ton of calls from potential adopters, regardless of their ability and whether the horse is advertised as a bloodthirsty brain-smashing bronc. Chase isn't quite that, but he needs a very special adopter. Someone who can put a lot of time into building his confidence and handling his trust issues. Someone who doesn't mind playing lawn darts every so often when things like this happen:
Image from Chase's adoption page. I guess GG figures that a picture is worth 1000 words.
I was not that person. Christine asked me if I would be willing to ride Chase-- a horse with severe fear issues when mounting-- in exchange for a little cash this summer. I thought about it. I figured that I could follow the OCD-specific pattern that Chase required in order to not bolt when I mounted him. I'd never any problem mounting smoothly, and what's more, I'd never been paid to ride before. I said yes.
I was slightly dismayed that I had to ride Western, since I never feel quite as secure in a Western saddle, but I soon realized why it was necessary. Chase totally lost his marbles in that instant when a rider disappeared from his sight as he or she moved from the ground to the saddle. I'm not sure why he hasn't figured out that people don't magically teleport from the ground to his back after months of expensive training, but funnily enough, horses don't seem to register things like the ratio of money to expected results.
So in order to mount, I had to crank his head around as far as possible so he could see me the whole time, loop the rein around the horn for leverage, and then use the horn to pull myself up from the ground...all with those too-long Western stirrups. Now, I'm 5'4." Chase is 16 hands. It wasn't that I couldn't mount up from the ground on a horse that height--I did it all the time in high school, with my 17-hand Thoroughbred Spur--but Spur wasn't trying to BOLT as I pulled myself up.
I bounced up into the stirrup with one leg. He scooted his hind end away from me. I repeated this until I got up the guts to just swing my other leg over. And then I heard my helmet ping against the round pen and I was sitting on the ground, trying to catch my breath. According to the people watching, I flipped over his head, thwacked against the wall, and fell into a pile of manure. Wish I could have seen it myself.
I'm trying to get to the idea that suitability goes to the core of true horsemanship, and sometimes the factors are out of your control. I'm never going to be taller than 5'4," and I'll never be suited to mounting a tall horse from the ground. Especially one with some "quirks." Personally, I think Chase would do best with a guy riding him--someone with the height to mount up easily and the strength to keep him from bolting (which he has now in the form of a brave volunteer). Maybe I could have learned to ride Chase--but we're not suited to each other as regular partners.
But so many people overhorse themselves-- or worse, their kids. Poor little guy--even in the thumbnails you can see how terrified he is of his horse. His position is weak; he gets left behind or jumped out of the tack, and he's dealing with his fear by YANKING on the reins, only making the problem worse. They are not a happy pair. (You'll have to click the link for photos. It's a professional photographer and I don't want to step on anyone's toes.)
Another unhappy pair:
If you're jumping higher out of the tack than your horse is jumping the fence...it's not a match. Not to gloss over the death grip this rider has on his horse's face, but I just looove how the horse gets smacked for refusing around 3:07...when it's clearly the rider's fault since he was laying on the horse's neck, making it physically impossible for the horse to lift up his front end! (video found via Snarky Rider)
A guest blogger for FHOTD had some great tips for determining suitability when you're buying a horse. I think it applies to just trying a horse that you're going to ride regularly as well.
Moral of the story: The Extended Version
I'll put my responses (coming from the perspective of someone trying to ride cheaply) after the basic guidelines from FHOTD.
FHOTD says: Well, start off by being realistic; don’t try to buy a $50,000 horse if you cannot afford it. I say: Find a way to take lessons on performance horses, then use those skills to make yourself a great asset to any barn that needs horses exercised.
FHOTD says: Be serious about buying a horse. I say: Definitely, though in our case it's leasing or free-leasing. You have to really think--Do I have time to ride this horse regularly? Do I have the money for whatever costs there are, like gas money, farrier money, whatever? Right now, since I've kind of been advertising that I'm looking for a horse to ride at school and work, I think I actually have to narrow it down. There are not enough hours in the day to do homework, work, tack up and ride 4 different horses living in 4 different directions.
FHOTD says: Don’t buy a horse that doesn’t meet your discipline needs. I say: Depends. Right now I am riding a dressage horse and I've only taken one dressage lesson in my entire life. He's teaching me to be a lot quieter with my upper body so I think cross-training can actually be quite helpful. I think this rule applies more exclusively to buying.
FHOTD says: If you have a trainer, BRING THEM WITH YOU!!! I say: Not really necessary for a free lease or just a random horse you're going to ride a couple times a week.
FHOTD says: Don’t lie about your riding ability. I say: Amen. Colossal waste of everyone's time. But that isn't to say that if you're a showjumper, you can't ride dressage or vice versa. To take Joey, the horse I'm riding now, for example--his advertisement said "goes best in a dressage training level frame." Do I actually really know what a training level frame is? No. But I did know how to get a horse to stretch down and use his back, and after some Googling I figured we might be a good match. A beginner might have to look a little harder or take a few more lessons before he or she is able to find a horse to ride regularly that will be safe and appropriate, but there are older horses or horses with soundness issues who would benefit from some walking and trotting once in a while.
FHOTD says: Be prepared, be honest and be communicative. And most of all don’t come out with the intention of wasting someone’s time. I say: Great note to end on.
Pro: Free! Sometimes even paid! Sadly, I have no experience with the latter. The only time someone offered to pay me to ride a horse, I ended up doing a flip over the horse's head, banging my own head on a round pen, and landing in poop. Which brings us to the Con...and I'm not talking about Tegan and Sara here.
Con:
Click the picture for full-size
That would be Joey, the new horse I'm riding twice a week for free thanks to COTH's Riderless Horses and Horseless Riders matchmaking thread. My "interview ride" went great, although I have zero experience in dressage and the ad I answered said he goes better in a dressage frame. I took that to mean--stretch him down, and sit back, which gave us a great first ride.
Then yesterday happened. Horses always seem to know when I need to be taken down a notch. There were a lot of little kids and commotion in the barn, so I figured that with that and the unseasonably warm weather, I'd try hacking Joey out in a big open field with a couple of power lines to watch over us.
I hopped on, felt that my stirrups were a bit long, thought, "Eh, whatever. He's used to that; he's a dressage horse," and walked around, just checking out the terrain for 10 minutes or so. Tried to pick up a trot and realized I was not used to long stirrups at all, so I dismounted, fixed them, and realized something else--I have to work on mounting from the ground and Joey needs to work on standing still for more than two seconds. So we moseyed over to the stool/table thing that I had used to mount up the first time. No problem--then I asked for a trot, and it was sayonara for Joey.
I'm not exactly sure whether he bucked or what, but all of a sudden I was hanging on his neck, and I knew things weren't going to get any better from there so I bailed. Hard. I must have landed on my back, judging by the bruises today, but he definitely knocked the wind out of me. I mostly remember just trying to catch my breath on all fours in the soggy grass while he hightailed it to his hay and his buddies in the barn down the hill. I followed him--much slower.
The farm does therapeutic riding, and so far it seems like stuff is generally well under control. The farm manager had Joey in hand by the time I made it down the hill. I explained what happened, and she pointed out that my face was bleeding. My glasses had cut the side of my nose.
Great, I thought. I touched the bridge of my nose and looked at the blood on my finger. My boyfriend's going to give me crap about this one. I tried to pick a SAFE horse this time! A THERAPY horse, come on!
Turns out he hacks out great in therapy lessons...with an instructor and sidewalkers. My definition of hacking out is a bit different. So I cleaned up, hopped back on in the indoor, and made that little son-of-a-gun MARCH! ...in spite of the stars before my eyes.
Moral of the story: Don't assume an ex-Pony Club dressage horse will hack out. And always wear a helmet!
PS--I was worried I might die in my sleep from a horrific brain injury (though I did wear a helmet, as always) so I called a nurse hotline. Apparently everything is OK and I should just ice my neck, take it easy, and command my boyfriend to give me "gentle massages." Sounds good to me.
