Liebster 2

Got another Liebster award from Woven Web Diaries! Thank you so much. I hadn't heard of her blog before but I was quite pleased to see another cute black TB doing dressage.

11 Questions
1. Favorite racehorse and why? 
I don't really know much about racing, but apparently Midnight's grandsire is Alydar, the horse who went neck-and-neck with Affirmed in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown and always lost by a nose. And then he went off to stud and was killed for the insurance money. Totally bizarre story that I had never heard of prior to leasing him.

Another interesting, yet tragic story--while I was touring colleges and still thought I wanted to be a vet, I visited UPenn's New Bolton Center while Barbaro was being treated there. He was under close security so I didn't see him in person, but the place was filled to the brim with get-well cards, signs and horse treats.

2. First racetrack you ever went to or wish to visit if never been?
The only racetrack I have ever been to is Laurel Racetrack. That was for the Maryland Million if I recall correctly. I actually was there because a friend of a friend was doing free henna there. I feel like I should say I want to watch the Preakness at Pimlico...it would be easy enough for me to go, but tales of the drunken debauchery that goes on there are actually quite a turnoff for me.

3. Favorite horse real or fictional?
Midnight, of course.

4. What color of horse do you prefer and which markings on it?
My favorite is dapple gray.

5. Who is your riding idol?
Don't really have one.

6. Best place you've ever visited that isn't considered a major tourist attraction or is 'off the beaten path'?
Salamanca, Spain. It is home to the oldest university in Spain and is a huge hub for Spanish study abroad, so many of its inhabitants are temporary students and the retirees who host them. It's not the most well-known city, but absolutely adored my time there--it was so cheap, beautiful and walkable and I learned so much.

See, I don't always look as deranged as I did in my last post

 7. Favorite breakfast cereal?
Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I love to let it sit until it gets soggy and the milk becomes cinnamon sugar flavored.

8. Favorite non horse animal? Can't be cat or dog either...
Hmm. I can't say I really have a favorite besides dogs, cats and horses. I used to have a bunch of peach-faced lovebirds growing up but they were really bitchy.

9. What are you most afraid of?
 Aside from the normal stuff everyone is afraid of, like car crashes and other disasters, I'm afraid of rollercoasters and riding on waverunners--the latter of which is always used to tease me here at Lake Winnipesaukee.

10. Could you ever see yourself training or competing in dressage?
Yep!

11. Three people, dead or alive, real or fictional you'd have dinner with?
Elizabeth Bishop
The Schramms of Evention--I'm counting them as one person
I had trouble thinking of a third, but this just popped in my mind: the Saudi Arabian woman who qualified for Olympic showjumping last year, but then her horse went lame at the last minute. I would love to hear about how she was able to get to that level of riding as a woman in Saudi Arabia (or if she had to train abroad) and what the real deal was with the last minute scratch.

In Which Midnight Wins the Beauty Contest Hands Down

So my dad surprised me this week by coming up to the farm to watch my lesson and take pictures! He knows how to make his horsey daughter happy.

It seems like every lesson with Midnight, I've actually been learning something new which is great. This time it was training myself to really open my shoulders and sit back, since that's the only way I get forward AND round without a fight...Midnight prefers one or the other obviously. Then we popped over some little baby jumps, which he had very little respect for and jumped quite weirdly...though at least by the end we were coming at it from an energetic, controlled "showjumping canter" rather than a bleh canter and then a HEY WE'RE JUMPING NOW WEEEEEEEEEEEEE rushing canter 3 strides out.

In the pictures, Midnight looked beautiful as always.

Me, not so much.

I sacrifice my dignity for this blog. FOR YOU.

Even when he took the WAY long spot from that rushy canter and jumped like a total goober, he still looks happy and yay and like he is trying so hard.

Meanwhile, I looked like....

Really? Really.

Hide your kids. Hide your wife.

Note to self: work on poker face for the show in July.

I am up at peaceful Lake Winnipesaukee for the week so no Midnight update until I get back...though I will be writing some more general stuff for Horse Nation. Stay tuned.

Twerpy Little Twerp

So before I start--I published another article on Horsenation, the much-awaited one about my internship at Practical Horseman! I was waiting to write it until I got my act together and was ready to submit to HN. And then I ended up writing it in one night. Deadlines are motivating I guess.

Go check it out and give me a shot at that SmartPak gift card!!!

So although I haven't mentioned it before, Mr. Midnight can be a bit of a twerp on the ground. There are a million excuses why--he was gelded late, there are new horses in his field, blah blah blah--but bottom line, he's 12 years old and needs to save the drama for his mama. (Oh wait, that's me, isn't it.) Anyway, if I don't assert yourself as the one with the power to move him around, then he totally takes advantage--gets in my space, turns his butt to me, tries to rub his face on me after a ride, whaps his head around without paying attention to where my head is, etc.

I'm working on these things slowly by keeping his halter and lead on while I groom and tack up so I can keep control of him better. If he moves in my space, I push back and get him to take a step or two. If he tries to turn his butt to me when I walk towards him, I move to his shoulder, then ask him to engage that hind leg and do a little turn on the forehand. He has actually been pretty good for the past few weeks, and I'm starting to work on getting him to cross-tie. He's OK with being attached to just one cross-tie, but if his head is in both it kind of flips him out, so I just do one cross-tie and a lead rope in my hand.

But with summer, new boarders have come...and that means new horses in his field. Which means ALL RULES GO OUT THE WINDOW. Of course.

So that is how I spent God knows how long trying to catch him. He was fine to catch, but then would just rip away and take off galloping. I only put up with that for like 3 times of him running away, then I got a chain and an apple. By that point someone else came up to catch her horse and I just followed them out. It did take two tries though--I was so terrified he was going to break his nose or something when he galloped off with the chain. Thankfully he was fine, and I was able to get someone to take my Horsenation author bio picture.

Plus some other pictures that made me realize that I need to establish FORWARD definitively before I fiddle with the roundness stuff I've been learning in our lessons. In the other pictures we have flexion but he's clearly not using his whole body at all. Which is a shame because his gaits are actually quite lovely and swingy. And on my end, I need to get my hands out of my crotch and use my elbows! You can kind of see in the picture above my wrists are a bit bent, not effective.

Hopefully things will have settled down in his field the next time I go out. If not , hopefully I can get there early before my lesson and do a little groundwork (leg yields, turn on the forehand to get control of his legs) in his field.

Debut on HorseNation.com

At work so I'll keep it short. But my first HorseNation article was pubbed just now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plus more to come later.
Go read it!

Book Review:The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

Day 28 – 30 Day Horse Challenge – Helmet or no helmet?

Ok I have to admit, I intentionally waited to post this on International Helmet Awareness Day. That probably gives you a clue that I am religious about wearing my helmet every time I ride. I have always been like that, but I really realized how important it was when I first started riding at the therapeutic center last year, and a horse I assumed was absolutely dead quiet (being a therapy horse, you know?) bolted on me. It was the first time I ever felt dizzy and not quite right after a fall, and although I kept riding after I caught up to my horse, in hindsight I think I had a very, very mild concussion.

You really never know what is going to happen, whether it's on a new horse or one you've known for years. Just think of Courtney King-Dye and her traumatic brain injury when her horse tripped. Yes, there are a million excuses not to wear a helmet, but why take that chance with your brain? You only get one, and it only takes one trip, or one spook. At least to me, the minor inconvenience of ugly helmet hair is worth knowing that my odds of dying/becoming a vegetable are slightly lessened.

Day 26 – 30 Day Horse Challenge – Biggest riding pet peeve

I'm going to try to finish this challenge thing up.

I would say my biggest riding pet peeve  is more of a people pet peeve. I hate when people think they know it all, or that their trainer knows it all, and they close themselves off to new things. In general it's always much better to look things up for yourself and decide what you think is right.

And as a more nitpicky thing, I hate when the keepers aren't properly fastened on a bridle. I don't really notice/care when other people do this, but if I notice something about my equipment isn't quite right I get really annoyed with myself.

Speaking of bridles and equipment, the clinician recommended that I start riding Midnight in a flash because he likes to almost poke his tongue out and she said it is a lot easier to prevent tongue issues than it is to fix them. I think that makes a lot of sense, but always feel kind of bad tightening the noseband and flash. There is still space for a finger between the bridle and his face, but it really made me realize how NOT anatomical a traditional bridle is. A horse's face is not a perfect circle like a noseband so there are inevitably pressure points.

I'm semi-toying with the idea of buying a Micklem (have you noticed my wish list is growing?) but I'm not really sure if it would make a difference. I still need to keep it fairly tight so he doesn't poke his tongue out, so I'm not sure if getting one would just make me feel better without really mattering one way or the other on Midnight's end.

Thoughts? To Micklem or not to Micklem when you have a horse with borderline tongue-sticky-outy-ness?

Fancy Pantsy Dressagey Stuff

A note to all my fellow bloggers out there--I am really enjoying seeing all the Liebster awards get passed around! It's been fun learning about the non-horsey aspects of your lives.

Great lesson today! I got Midnight to go round consistently, which I had only done sporadically before--essentially, if he was looking weirdly at something or not paying attention, I'd bend him to the inside, get him to step under himself a bit, and get a little neck flexion. But today we worked almost entirely on the circle doing shoulder-fore as a way to set up nice transitions.

So in the clinic, the judge introduced me to shoulder-fore and I think I really misunderstood. I thought it was essentially getting the horse to step under himself with his inside hind (and thus had no idea why it was called shoulder-fore). She had me try shoulder-fore on the circle and I was just so unsure of what I was doing and whether I was doing it right that we did turns on the forehand instead to engage that inside hind.

But I think now I get it--shoulder-fore literally is just moving the shoulders to the inside while maintaining forward motion. The leg engagement stuff is a separate issue, but I thought that the one term covered both things. Getting him to engage that hind leg really helps with bend and getting him round, while the shoulder fore is more just to control his shoulders since he likes to pop the outside one occasionally. It is NOTHING compared to how the drafts will pop their shoulder though. My instructor was trying to tell me that I did a good job, and that Midnight is a big horse who's kind of hard to put together, and I was like...No. Compared to a draft, this is nowhere NEAR a big horse that is hard to put together! Her horse is a Percheron cross so she should know! Midnight is about 16hh (which I don't consider that tall) and he has a long back, but ask correctly and he's in rear wheel drive.

And now time for a big announcement...my barn is doing an informal summer combined test in July and I am planning on doing the 18"/ USDF Intro Test B division. At first I was thinking I would just do dressage...and maybe a jumper class...and then I decided, heck with it. I have my instructor's blessing as long as I get more miles jumping with Midnight. He loves to jump, but he's still pretty green to it. In fact, the first time we tried an oxer (okay, the second time--he stopped the first) he just LEAPED over and then took off rooting with some happy yipee bucks. I just laughed. They were very graceful, rhythmic bucks. My horse in high school did that all the time.

I still have yet to jump anything outside of the arena, but I think I'm going to ride outside this weekend and maybe do some of the small ground-pole-sized logs that are around.There was only so long I could have resisted, being at a super nice eventing facility. This will mark the most horse disciplines tried in one summer: reining, dressage, jumping and XC!

I have to say, I love that my barn hosts clinics and things like this because it gives me concrete goals to work toward. I'm eyeing Tack of the Day for XC vests on sale...maybe I should set up an Ebay search too :) Anyone ever tried buying a vest online?

Liebster Award

Wow, it has been an awesome week. I got a promotion at work, I had a fun time reining and hanging out with my college friend today, and apparently I've been nominated for the Liebster award. Thanks so much to L at Viva Carlos! I feel honored that she notices my sporadic posts when it seems like there has been a lot of upheaval in her life lately.

HOW TO ACCEPT THE AWARD: The Liebster Blog Award is a way to recognize blogs who have less than 200 followers.  Liebster is a German word that means beloved and valued.  Here are the rules for accepting the award:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and include a link back to their blog.
2. List 11 random facts about yourself.
3. Answer the 11 questions given to you.
4. Create 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate.
5. Choose 11 bloggers with 200 or fewer followers to nominate and include links to their blogs.
6. Go to each blogger's page and let them know you have nominated them.

11 Random Facts About Me
1. At 5'4" (and a half, damn it!) I am the tallest woman in my family.
2. My parents have been divorced nearly 10 years, and can barely speak to each other, and Byron's parents have been divorced less than 5 years they still work together, and very amicably. It boggles my mind.
3. Despite 23 years of attempting and failing to quit, I am a nail biter.
4. Most of my clothes are a "bruise palette." That is, they're either neutral colors, black, or blue. I feel like these kind of colors make me look more professional.
5. My hair was straight and blond as a toddler, but brown and curly by the time I was 10.
6. I have never visited a state south of Virginia.
7. I stress-clean. I don't know why because I hate cleaning and it just stresses me out more when I fixate on all the things that need to be done.
8. Today I went to an Amish market and bought fresh honey for $8 and 6 tomato plants for $1.50. A pretty good deal.
9. I went to Catholic school till eighth grade, but am not particularly religious these days. However, I have a friend who moved to Rome to become a nun right out of college. Well, technically she is a Novitiate, not a nun, at this point.
10. I once took a Spanish linguistics class that required a LOT of sentence diagramming in Spanish. I thought it was so fun.
11. I hated pasta until like two years ago.

 
11 Questions from L:
1. Favorite type of Jump: Oxers. They are inviting to the horse and they make me feel like a BAMF.
2. Favorite Professional Rider/Horse Team: McLain Ward and Sapphire. I saw them at Washington International before Sapphire was retired and they were just spectacular.
3. Favorite Riding Exercise: Leg yields. They make me feel fancy, but they're not hard, and they get Midnight to start listening to my leg.
4. Least Favorite Riding Exercise: The Stick of Doom. AKA when you ride with a whip or a long stick behind your elbows. I don't dislike the exercise, but whenever I'm prescribed it, that means I've been letting my shoulders cave in and my core has been ineffective.
5. Where do you see yourself next years (horse/career/life): Hopefully I will have moved up in my career to the point where I can finagle around $800/month for horse expenses in my budget, and I will have an emergency vet fund. I hope to own Midnight, or a horse like him, and continue in dressage awesomeness with some occasional jumping, kind of like I do now, but hopefully I will feel like less of a noob. I also hope that Byron and I will be married in 10 years, though hopefully sooner!
6. Advice you would give yourself 5 years ago: Don't be shy about saying you are a poor student looking for extra riding opportunities. I figured out too late that people are very sympathetic to this as long as you are polite, considerate, and willing to work!
7. If you could change your name, what would you change it to? I actually like my name: Carla Lake.
8. If you could train with anyone who would it be and why? The Schramms from Evention. They're funny,  they really know their stuff and they give very clear explanations.
9. I'm giving you $5k what would you buy? Midnight!
10. Give me the recipe for your favorite dish you can make: Beef Bourguinon. It's very simple, plus you get to light stuff on fire which gets awesome points from my Girl Scout side. However since it requires so much wine, it's an expensive dish so I usually use box wine. Tastes the same to me once it's cooked in. (tip: with this recipe, skip the whole onion and just use the pearl onions. Double onion is just too onion-y and the pearl onions are much cuter than regular.)
11. Dream vacation destination? Foxhunting in Ireland OR Dressage in Spain. I have no idea if I'll ever actually do either of these, but if I ever return to Europe, I would take a side trip to visit my host family in Salamanca from when I studied abroad. It was such a great experience I actually feel homesick when I think of it.

Choose 11 Bloggers with under 200 followers:
1. East Coast Wrangler (not sure if she will have time to do the survey, but her blog is fun to follow)
2. Panic and the Pony
3. Little Bay Horse
4. The Jumping Percheron
5. Cob Jockey
6. Equinpilot
7. Eleven is too damn many. That's all I've got who would possibly answer the survey, and who I think are good bloggers.
8.
9.
10.
11.

My questions for you:
1. Outline your riding experience.
2. Who was your favorite instructor and why?
3. What is the best thing that has happened horse-wise so far this year?
4. What is the worst thing that has happened horse-wise so far this year?
5. Are you a cat person or a dog person--or both, or neither?
6. What's your favorite piece of equipment?
7. What's your favorite thing to do with your horse?
8. What is something you've always wanted to do but never tried?
9. Do you and your horse have "colors"?
10. What is your favorite easy dinner to make after coming home from the barn?
11. What is your #1 riding goal for this year?

Getting Dizzy

So as I mentioned earlier, I went out to try reining today on the southern peninsula of Maryland (AKA the middle of nowhere). It was a lot of fun! Not necessarily a style of riding I'd want to do on a regular basis (not a fan of the plod-along trot or the herky-jerky canter), but it was fun to try and the horses were VERY well schooled at this farm.

Essentially the difference appears to be that to steer in a curb bit, you lift your hand, put one leg on, and take the other leg completely off the horse so you are pushing him into an empty space. Then you drop your hand again once the horse starts going in the direction you want.

Of course Lena, the lesson horse mare I was riding, quickly figured out how green I was to all of this and took it upon herself to help me practice this new kind of steering by ducking in, stopping at the gate, and cutting corners -_- I guess that is why she is a lesson pony!

I had a lot of trouble getting the correct canter lead since they have been trained to canter from a squeeze with two legs, rather than bending to the inside and then asking with the outside leg. She was grumpy in general and since I had been fumbling with the new style of steering, she was ducking in especially as we attempted the canter

But that wasn't really the main event...at the end of my lesson, I got to try some spins on a horse with the special sliding shoes.

I also got to wear some cowboy spurs. Don't worry, they weren't sharp--the rowels are more for show than anything. Starlight responded to just a tickle from them.

 Yeehaw!

Don't worry, I won't be turning to the dark side more than occasionally...this reining farm is 1.5 hours away from me. And I love my boy's big trot and his valiant effort at jumping!

Trail riding > blogging

Yes I do still enjoy blogging...but now that it's nice outside, riding and being outside take precedence :)

You can see where his pasture buddy took a pretty major chomp out of him above his elbow

Midnight and I went on our FIRST trail ride yesterday and it was a big success. It was originally supposed to be last week, but we got rained out...so when the girl I had planned to ride with happened to show up at the farm around the same time as me on Sunday and breezily asked, "Hey, so do you want to go on that hack?" it took all I had not to have a fit and go,  "UH...YES! omg omg omg!!!!!!!!!!" This girl is around my age, but is an ex-Pony Clubber who has had horses most of her life. Things like this are not a novelty to her, but even though we mostly kept it to a walk (ground was still semi-wet) it was a huge deal to me.

Not only was Midnight a perfect gentleman (despite some unplanned canter as we trotted up a hill), just the concept of having barn buddies to hack out with is just awesome to me.  Yes, I've had barn friends, but for one reason or another, especially through college as I flip-flopped between barns depending on the time and money I had available, the barn has never felt so much like a second home to me as it does now.

I don't know how many of you can relate, but growing up I didn't really go to the barn to make friends. I had group lessons once a week at a very fancy hunter/jumper barn where many of the girls my age had $100k show ponies, and I always felt like I was on the lower tier. I felt lucky just to ride at all, but it always seemed like they were progressing faster than I was, going to shows all the time, wearing Tailored Sportsmans, and generally forming this amazing Saddle Club-like clique that I couldn't be a part of without my own horse.

When I did start free-leasing a horse, and I was at the barn more often, I realized that it was just that--a snobbish clique--but for many years my main motivation for going to the barn was to avoid human interaction and just hang out with my horse. Can you tell I had terrible social skills was really shy?

Anyway, I know it's still early days yet, but I feel so at home at this barn.  The facilities are great (can you say indoor sprinkler system?), there are a bunch of amazingly talented riders (eventers going Intermediate, dressage riders going Grand Prix--no I am not kidding), yet everyone is incredibly nice and while I'm sure there are little barn dramas here and there, it's a really relaxed environment. People hang out and drink beer and box wine while watching lessons...I am in love. 


The only difficult aspect (*coughcoughhumblebrag*) is trying not to compare myself to a lot of the boarders who seem to be always taking lessons with prestigious trainers, and going off to all kinds of shows and events. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm only 23 and I (perhaps stupidly) chose to work in publishing. Maybe I should have gone the medical route and got a job at NIH like so many of the boarders seem to have done (seriously, it's weird how many of them work there). But with the money I have now, the half-lease works out well, and I can afford it comfortably while still paying rent, bills and loans, plus saving, investing, and eating. I'm lucky that the lessons here are way cheaper than the ones I was doing before, so that I can do one a week. I'm doing this for fun...I can work up to being able to afford all the extras.

Sorry if this post was mushy. I had to humblebrag somewhere.

BTW, nice article over at New York magazine about those of us who never grew out of the horse thing.

AND...forgot to mention that this weekend I am taking a reining lesson out with a friend of mine who rides Western. Should be interesting!