On Track for A CCI 1*

In The Pedigree

2012-02-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't gathered, I love sporthorse breeding. In particular, I like to find the patterns of the less popular lines. Edward comes from less popular lines. The biggest name up close in his pedigree is Aram, who is still used now and again via frozen. Ed's sire, Faram, is the son of Aram and one of only three approved sons he had out of countless breedings. And, Faram lost his breeding license, despite completing the 100 day test. Yes, in Europe, studs can lose their license to breed. In particular, I find it interesting why: lack of consistency seen in his foalcrops. Some of his get were great, but some weren't so good. So, Faram lost his license. Could you imagine the uproar if a stallion lost their license here?

Faram as a 3 yo.

Given this, there are only a handful of Faram offspring out there, including Edward's full, 1995 brother, Narom. Narom competed up to Level 2 dressage in the UK and then competed up to 1.05m jumpers here in the US. That is all I know. Chances are, his name has changed just like Edward's name changed from Malon to Goldie to Edward to Mazaire upon importation. Poor thing. CASE IN POINT, IF YOU KNOW OF ANY 1995 BAY 17h FARAM SONS, THAT IS ED'S FULL BROTHER!!! I would love to find him!

Back, back to Faram babies in general. The most famous one would probably be Tim Lips' Oncarlos. He has competed at numerous 3 and 4 stars, and has represented the Netherlands at the 2007 European Championships, 2008 Olympics, the 2010 WEGs, the 2011 European Championships and is set for the London Olympics as a 17 year old.

In the US, there are only 3 FEI competing Faram babies, all of them sons. The first one and probably the second highest performing Faram son in eventing is Call On Me whom is out of a Irish mare. Highlights include a win at Wayne CIC2*, a member of a 2* NAYRC team, and a 15th place finish at Bromont CCI3*.

The second brother is Conyer and he is the odd one out of the group since he is a Combined Driving horse! I, personally, think that is really, really cool. And, what's more, is that he has represented USET in combined driving a few times and seemed like the go to horse for his driver. What's even more, the guy was competing up until last year in international competition at 20 years old after being "retired" for all of 2 months! Apparently, there were some soundness issues with his other replacements, causing Conyer to be the faithful go-to guy once again. He is the dark bay.

Of course, the last one is Edward. For consistency's sake, I'll include a picture and video. Plus, it's my blog and no one is going to complain about it. I know for Edward, a lot of his quality comes his strong damline (Rinaldo x Prince Jack xx). Perhaps Faram just meshed well with only a few damlines?

Maybe a few years down the road I can do one for Yves' siblings... Hopefully they are actually proving their worth by then!

I'll Take It!

2012-01-31T15:48:00.000-08:00

After having two weeks completely off and just turn-out, Yves was looking pretty good in terms of build. I decided to go ahead and put him in the running reins on the lunge and see how he coped. I have to say that I was quite shocked, really. He was moving really, really well. And consistently well! During his grown up life, Yves has never been what I would call a flashy mover. He did respectably at his foal inspection, scoring a 7.8 for movement, but he kind of fizzled out around 6 months. No more effortless boing-boing-boing around the turn-out. Ah, well. It was nice while it lasted.

Still cute, even if grown up and un-fancy.

Occasionally, I would see a couple nice steps here and there on the lunge or at liberty. On the lunge, it was definitely more likely to happen, probably because he was actively being encouraged to lift his back. Well, today, he was super! He was really moving out and it was effortless for him. In the canter, not only could he hold it, but his stride was HUGE. His leading hind was coming up to the girth easily. Where did this come from??? He ate up half a 30m lunge circle in 7 strides. I counted. Ed does his medium canter in 7 strides on half a 20m circle.

As I'm sure you guessed, I came to the conclusion that I will go ahead and start riding him again. I'll work him until he tells me he can't anymore and he'll get more time off to concentrate on growing up.

Here is another video of Ed and Yves playing from today. I feel like it shows how much more balanced Yves has become in the last week and a half. It is also very interesting to note the differences in galloping mechanics between Edward, 55.5% xx/xo, and Yves, 64.2% xx/xo with a thoroughbred dam (yes, this value changed because there was a change on HorseTelex). Yves is definitely more efficient in his gallop than Edward while Edward has a lot more sit behind. While galloping around though, I think Yves wins this day. And the loud squee sounds are all from super masculine Edward.

And, in case you are wondering, yes, these two play every single time I put them out together while neither plays with Jury, the other horse that either of these two may go out with.

Watch the Germans

2012-01-30T22:08:00.000-08:00

During my Don Sachey Lesson, he said that I should spend some time watching "real" dressage that I could begin to understand the ultimate goal of a lot of this work. So I did. I sat my butt down on Saturday and watched the World Dressage Masters. And, while I found the work fascinating and beautiful, I felt it was completely unachievable for Edward and me. I just can't get excited to go RIDE after watching upper echelon pure dressage.

I do, however, get seriously pumped to go do stuff after I watch upper echelon eventing dressage. For one, the movements required I can school and don't involve perpetual passage. For two, the type of horse appeals to me, those hot, wiry TB-types. While Valegro is gorgeous, the first thing I thought when I saw him was that he was FAT. Something about round horses take up more leg or something? Meh.

So, I try to go for the next closest thing: German upper echelon dressage. After recently purchasing the Klimkes' Basic Training of the Young Horse, I figured I might as well get familiar with her riding style and execution.

While she isn't my favorite rider, I really appreciate her strong secure core and good legs. Her arms look a bit stiff, though, and it is almost mechanical how she follows the bit. I relate to her as a rider, though. Effective core, solid legs, but always having to fight the stiffness in the arms.

I also came across this video, though, which is a brief snip-it of a DVD she has out.

I LOVED how, around 0:25, the 3 yo colt missteps into cavalletis and she saw the issue coming up, sat down slightly, allowed the horse to make the mistake, and allowed herself to bend at the hip in order to allow the horse to come up through his back without being punished by her seat unintentionally. The horse than fixed itself with no input from Ingrid, and went over the next two poles in fine form. Just lovely.

The Canter-Walk Transition

2012-01-24T15:44:00.000-08:00

Ed and I have been working on this on-and-off for the past year. Right when it was starting to really take shape, he came up with his suspensory injury, sidelining our progress for quite a long time. While I was able to get clean canter-walks on other horses, I just could not do it on Ed.

A few days ago I tried the transition for the first time since pre-injury since I loved what it did for his canter work. While the transitions were not perfect, with a trot half step or two in there, they still effectively helped Ed get the idea of lifting his withers in the canter, providing for more expression.

Today, his canter wasn't completely true and I felt some four beating here and there. So, I went back to the canter-walk and walk-canter transitions similar in the fashion conveyed in this video.

His canter improved almost immediately, along with his ability to be off my seat and leg aids. I decided to incorporate an exercise I learned from Gina: 10m canter half circle, down the centerline for 10m, walk, canter, 10m half circle on new lead, down rail and repeat.
Well. Ed all the sudden "got it" and kind of slammed into a halt. I praised the enthusiasm, but it definitely wasn't... smooth. His upward was excellent, though! Then next time, it was a similar halt, but I gave with my hands with interrupted the abruptness a bit. After one more of each lead, with mildly "woah" aids from me helped it smooth into the canter-canter-canter-halt that one desires going down the centerline. Now, if only that halt was a walk!

Survival Instincts: Null

2012-01-22T20:13:00.000-08:00

The past two days has been pretty rainy in my parts. That means that both horses have been limited to only the indoor arena with no turn-out. While Ed has been pretty good since he is still getting a good amount of work, Yves, not so much. Apparently only 20 minutes of lunging isn't enough to settle a three year old. Who knew?

Well, today was Yves' first time to get turn-out! I put him out while I rode Ed. For the first hour or so, he was perfectly behaved: let's trot over here, graze over there. Good baby. Then, out of the blue, he started playing the "let's run really really really fast and try to stop before we hit the fence!" game. Idiot. I cringed several times as I saw him slide a good 6 feet through the mud that was only right next to the fence (there are a few fence runners that chew up the perimeter of the pasture). One time he actually hit the fence and trotted off merrily with his tail in the air. "Woah!! That was a close one! I'm such a bad ass!" Be still my heart! Fortunately, boyfriend was there to save the day and retrieved silly Yvesbutt from sure self-destruction. I have seen older horses than Yves misjudge fences and mud, so I was glad to get him out much sooner than I would have been able to on my own!

Ed was... prancey. But, once in the arena, his head was mostly screwed on straight. It turned into a pretty productive ride and I rode did a ton of lateral work. So far, the new focus on longitudinal flexion has really improved Ed's suppleness to my legs and I no longer feel like I have to physically position his body as much as I have in the past... even compared to last week.

I love this horse.

More Pony Playtime

2012-01-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday was the first time that I allowed Ed to have turn-out with Yves again. They can play pretty hard, so I wanted to make sure Ed was not hurting before I did allow them out together. As you can see, they celebrated their reunion with some serious enthusiasm!

I think he looks just fine, don't you? Poor Yvesbutt, though! He is SO downhill right now and almost goes down a few times.

Growing Pains

2012-01-19T06:52:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't noticed, the Yves-centric nature of the past month or so has suddenly taken a nose dive. Nothing is wrong, he just got... awkward. About a week and a half ago, he was going forward and into the contact on the lunge with side reins like a pro in all three gaits. Undersaddle, he was already offering to seek a steady contact at the walk and trot while his canter was forward and balanced.

Now, however, he can't really do much of anything. On the lunge, he tries to canter, but ends up cross firing while falling out with his shoulder while, undersaddle, even turning at the trot has become a precarious situation.

So, what is wrong? While I did check his back and legs, I think the issue is that, during the past two weeks, I have been slowly watching his hind end creep up until, now, it is a good inch and a half higher than his front end. Watching him trot around in the turn-out, "spider legs" is an accurate description of his gaits as he frantically attempts to keep his top- and front-heavy self from hitting the ground.

This being said, his workload has been heavily reduced to mostly turn-outs, plus trotting in sidereins on the lunge and hacks out on the trail like a big kid. Steering and brakes still aren't there, but I love the confidence he is getting from conquering the trail with no lead pony or person. That is exactly what I want for my future eventer.

Once he begins to regain the ability to remain upright at speed, I will go back to the Off-Lunge-Ride cycle I had going. Until then, it is more like Off-Lunge-Off-Hack.

Application of Longitudinal Flexion

After my lesson on Tuesday, it was nice to have new "homework assignments," most of which encompassed around making Ed my unicorn. Working on it on my own made me realize how little I had previously worked on him actually bending around my leg. My focus had been keeping him straight off my outside aids.

It was interesting, while I was having him bend around, to get him to give me the bend I wanted, I had to allow him to bend with my outside rein by pushing my outside hand forward and towards his mouth. The amount of contact stayed the same during this.

Going to the right, I was made aware of both of our weaknesses. Ed tends to lean on my right leg while I tend to be overly stiff in my right shoulder, leading to a bit of a conundrum. I had to be 100% aware of my right arm to open my inside hand away from his neck, which requires me to relax my right shoulder so that I can actually follow the rhythmic contact characteristic of the trot. Once I had him going at a trot around my right leg, I would ask for canter. With the transition, he automatically came against my right leg again. I had supple him around my right leg through constant use of my right leg, encouraging the "wrap" with my outside leg slightly back, being aware enough to give with my left rein as needed to maintain the same contact, and staying conscious of helping the bend with my inside rein through a opening rein, not a direct rein. After suppling him around my right leg again, which took about 5 strides, I would have him canter with the correct longitudinal flexion for one circle and then back down to the trot. Again, he came against my right leg. Suppling for about 4 strides, trot circle, back to canter. With each transition, he more easily gave to the right bend.

Once he was going around my inside leg consistently through the transitions, all the way down to the walk, he was done. We'll see what we have today, eh?

A Lesson in Fundamentals

2012-01-17T14:48:00.000-08:00

Today I had a lesson with the Don Sachey, one of the greats of the times of old and former teammate of Bruce Davidson and Jim Wofford. I must admit that I definitely had a bit of a mental block for what I would consider my first real dressage lesson since mid-May. I told Don this and he said, "just ride like you normally would. Pretend I'm not even here."

Okay then. I had already ridden Ed once prior to my 8 am lesson (yes, I did get on him at 6:40am), so he was much more focused this second time. I started with a nice working trot in shoulder fore, some moderate longitudinal stretching, trot-walk-trot transitions, and then into the canter. He felt quite heavy on my on my right lead and just did not want to wrap around that leg.

He stopped me and we talked. He was mostly very complimentary of Edward and my riding. "I must say that it is very... refreshing to see someone take their riding so seriously and with diligence." He felt that we were just a few steps away from being unbeatable. We had very, very good eventing dressage, but if we went up against "real" dressage, it might not go as well.

How do we fix that? Longitudinal flexion.

Don felt that Ed and I exhibited something that has become very prevalent in this country's dressage, which is false straightness. My inside leg is consistently back and my outside rein is too strong and inside rein is too weak. I must admit, to the second comment, I definitely didn't a mental double take. What? Too little contact on the inside rein? This information brought me back to a lesson I had with Bec on Ben. The short version of that lesson was that, the "don't use your inside rein" mantra comes from too many amateurs hanging on the inside rein. To lose this dependence on the inside rein, the focus becomes solely on outside rein use. BUT, when a rider is at a certain point in their riding, you get to even out more. Put simply, use your inside rein, it's there for a reason.

With that mentally, we went into the bulk of the lesson.

1. Testing Effectiveness. This felt like a quiz of my own abilities. He asked me to put Ed is all sorts of positions on a circle: true flexion, counter flexion, renvers, travers, haunches in and haunches out. I passed. This meant that he would expect more of me and achieving longitudinal flexion and true straightness.

2. The Unicorn. With a very exceptions, if Edward were a unicorn (HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE!?!), his horn should always point in the direction of his travel instead of "outside the circle," which is what would happen when I would circle with my false straightness.

3. Testing Submission. While we were trotting around, Don was worried that I might be holding Ed in a frame. He looked good, but there was a simple test: will he follow the contact? Without changing anything, I had to let the reins out and "get the best stretch possible." Fortunately, Ed felt like being good and followed the contact right down to the ground. This was also tested at various points throughout the ride in both trot and canter.

4. Shoulder-in and half-pass. Again, to test submission, but to the leg specifically. Ed was a bit overreactive at times and would give me a lead change here and there, which meant I just had to be that much more precise with my aids. But, Don was pleased with my distinction between half-pass and shoulder-in. A common problem he sees is wishy washy riding, not only in gait transitions, but also between different movements.

An interesting note, which kind of goes against what I have learned in the past, is that, in the half-pass, one maintains diagonal aids. Since you need the outside leg for lateral movement, the longitudinal flexion is maintained with the direct inside rein. SO much easier!

5. Suppleness in the turns to the diagonal. Interestingly, Don gave me permission to give up straightness for suppleness by maintaining renvers on the short side, though the corner, and onto the diagonal. Ed had a tendency to come above the bit and bolt coming out of the turn. We also incorporated plenty of 10m circles in the mix as to have a device for maintaining the renvers.

6. Canter Serpentines. Going both directions, we did a strong bend with the lead through each loop. He felt pretty good, and I think I will start incorporating a lot more counter canter work back into my usual go-tos for suppling exercises.

And, I know some of you want to know, "is he sound?" He felt GREAT to me. The vestigial swelling and sensitivity is gone from his left hip. No soreness evident going either right or left at the canter, even in the 10m canter circles. PHEW!!! I don't consider us completely out of the woods yet: if he starts getting sore from work, then I may have to get him rechecked. But, so far everything is pointing to just a good bruising.

After my lesson, I popped on Yves to hack around while watching another lesson. The next person to lesson had a real large stallion that was more than full of it. The rider decided to lunge right next to the only entrance into the arena, so Yves and I waited outside next to Don. While the stallion bucked and squeed, Yves was about 15m away from him dozing away. Don was quite impressed with how composed he was given his age and complete greenness. Once the lesson started, I just walked Yves around the arena, allowing him to get used to the contact while doing circles and various figures. While I'm sure it wasn't the most exciting ride, it was very productive and quiet. After the lesson, Don socialized with Yves a bit, who was he usual investigative and cuddly self. He also liked his build and breeding of 74% Thoroughbred.

Certifiably Insane

2012-01-15T21:13:00.000-08:00

Or Five Reasons I Do Not Think Ed Broke His Pelvis

1. Horses with pelvic fractures can't prance. Ed, when he gets a few days off (as in one), gets very... full of himself. I like to start each ride on almost every horse I ride with ten to fifteen minutes of hacking out. You know... to relax them. No relaxing today, just fancy pants knee action.

2. Horses with pelvic fractures don't want to go forward. Ed wants to go forward. I hear that's a good thing, right?

3. Horses with pelvic fractures can't weight their hind end. I asked for a nice, quiet trot. I got a leg-flinging extended trot.

4. Horses with pelvic fractures can't canter. When asking for a leg yield at the walk, you know, to loosen him up or something, I got an excellent canter strike-off. It turned into a bouncing-leaping-bucking thing that I think still qualifies as a canter.

5. Horses with pelvic fractures can't rear up. I became quite frustrated with Ed running through my half-halts. I'm not proud of it, but I went to my hands to stop him (combined with the verbal command, "stop you asshole!"). He went up. Not fun when you are on a masochistic no-stirrup kick. So, I booted him forward and got the bouncing-leaping-bucking thing again.

At least one of my horses is broke to ride.

So, yes, Ed seems to be recovering just fine. He felt 100% in the walk and trot, but slightly off when in the left canter, which makes sense due to body soreness. Isn't it frustrating when you think, "oh, I'll be nice and do a quiet hack with just a touch of stretchy work in the walk and trot," and then you get mentally deranged horse that reminds you that, yes, he is mostly thoroughbred.

And this is why Ed would sign his own death certificate is he were to actually break something major. Or did I forget to mention that? I'll tack that one on, too.

6. Horses with pelvic fractures can't do canter circuits in a 12' by 24' stall. I feel like that is self-explanatory.

Vet Appt Rundown

2012-01-13T08:26:00.000-08:00

Due to class scheduling, I don't have a chance to write a detailed report on how the vet appointment went. But, after the bomb I dropped in the last major post, you guys deserve something.

1. The vet does not think Ed broke his pelvis. Rather, he thinks he just has a good case of road rash. If his lameness doesn't improve over the next 10 days, though, then we will re-evaluate. But, that said, as of yesterday morning, he wouldn't even call Ed lame, but just really sore. (Whatever that means?) He can back up, cross over behind, and is quite sound at the walk.

2. We looked at the suspensory ligament. Parts of it looked really, really good. The bone chip involvement is completely gone and healed. But, there were some irregularities present that looked like scar tissue. The way he explained it is that a pretty good injury did occur, scar tissue is completely normal, especially since we did not do any stem cell treatment. The only way to know if it will hold is to test it. He is cleared for limited jumping (up to 3'3") after a few more weeks of flatwork. Of course, I have to bring him up slowly due to his lack of jumping fitness.

3. We took this opportunity to give him stifle and coffin injections. Previously, he would also get hock injections, but his hocks have since fused! Yay for old age and money saved!

Overall, I'm over the moon. No pelvic fracture is suspected (something that I would see has a literal death sentence for Ed since he tends to play in his stall during stall rest) and to be able to do ANY jumping is way beyond what I was expecting. I am so lucky right now and really needed some good news. Ed will be on the regular just-got-injections protocol, which just give him the necessary time to recover from his battle wounds.

And Yves is still 100% fine and as troublesome as ever.

WTF Mate?

2012-01-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

Got a call during my night class about an hour and a half ago. Called back during the break. Apparently, Yves was colicking. Awesome. Went out there to check the situation. Yves was fine, just sleeping all sprawled out, like any baby. Checked on Ed and he seemed happy. I really didn't need that panic attack #2 for the day. Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts so far. I am definitely in need of some GastroGard just waiting for Thursday morning to come. After watching more videos of horses with pelvic fractures, I am feeling better about Edward's prospects. Hopefully it is just some bruising...

Edward & the Possible Pelvic Fracture

2012-01-10T16:46:00.000-08:00

After mulling a bit on the title, I went with what it is: Edward possibly has a pelvic fracture.

I went to the beach today. I had a friend lined up to go with me, but she bailed on me last night. Okay, fine. Suzie, time to put on your big girl pants and just go to the beach by yourself. What's the worst that could happen?

Well, I was tacking up Ed. Following good pony club protocol, I unclipped Ed from the trailer, Put my reins over his head, and then put the halter on his neck. I'm trying to put the bridle on when he just starts walking away from me. Jerk. I grab his nose and dangle the bit in front of his mouth. He won't freaking take the bit, so I take my hand off his nose to put the bit in his mouth... And he took off. The bastard took off.

The trailer parking is RIGHT next to a moderately busy road, so I start yelling trying to get the drivers attention. I hate the images that popped into my mind. Thank goodness, all the cars stopped, but Ed was still trotting when someone honked. Ed spooked at the car and feel straight over on his side. Fortunately, he didn't splay behind, but it was still a hard fall.

He got up right away and stood while I grabbed him and put on the bridle. He was pretty shaken up, but was sound enough to walk. So, I walked him for about 10 minutes and he was going pretty sound. The trot seemed hitchy behind, but it was hard to tell.

I then made the judgement call to get on him because I am way better at detecting soundness in the saddle than on the ground. He seemed perky and bright as we headed down to the beach.

To start, he had an extra dip in his step which wasn't normal for him. It was subtle, but there. After about another minute or so of walking, it was completely gone. I then asked for the trot. Okay... no trotting. Definite drop on his hind right as it compensated for the left. So, we walked for about 25 minutes.

I then tried trotting again. MUCH, MUCH better and nearly sound. Cantered for two steps on the right, all good. Cantered for two steps on the left, felt funny. Okay.

After some more walking, we are back at that the trailer, loaded up and drove the 10 minutes back home. Back home, I treated his superficial wounds and cold hosed his left hip near the inner thigh area. Based on past experiences and my basic knowledge of equine biomechanics, I am thinking he may have fractured the ischium portion of his pelvis due to the location of the swelling and where he is exhibiting pain upon palpation. Poor, poor Edward.

While he had an appointment for this weekend to check his ligament, I moved it up to Thursday morning.

The one good thing is that he is mildly improving with movement in terms of pain, which usually indicates general soreness and NOT a fracture. Here is a video including Ed's movement on the lunge at the trot right after being pulled from the stall and then 30 minutes after handwalking. What do you guys think?

Also, I don't think I will ever be going someplace, like the beach, alone again. Just too many variables.

Horses Being Horses

2012-01-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

As competitive riders, we sometimes get so caught up in becoming a better rider, perfecting the nuances in our riding, getting our horses fit and keeping our horses sound. But, sometimes, we need to sit back and just enjoy them. When I watch this video, I just smile. Silly ponies.

That Could Have Been Better...

2012-01-08T16:51:00.000-08:00

Today just wasn't a good day for me in terms of my ability to deal with other people. I was stoked this morning because I was going to the beach with a friend for the first time since May! I felt like it would be perfect for Ed mentally, too, since he has been stuck in a dressage court for so long. We agreed to pull out at 9 in the morning.

I get there, hooked up the trailer, and then pulled out Ed. I did a quick check of legs, jogged him up to get a baseline and started grooming him. It was now 9:10am, so I texted my friend... nothing. Called... nothing. I took Ed on a walk around while I anxiously looked at the clock on my phone. It was now 9:30am. I finally texted her at 9:45am with a text that read "Honestly, this kind of sucks."

Disheartened, I put Ed away and figured I would go to the beach on another day. Bummer.

I pull out Yves and get stoked for his 6th ride! After currying off copious amounts of fur (WHERE is all this coming from??? He is SLICK right now as it is!), I tack him up and set off to the indoor...

...which is has two riders and a lunger in it. Hmm... okay, we're going to the big arena today! A little soon, but what the hell. I lunge him and he is looking more forward than usual. Eh, okay. I hop on him and walk around to test my steering some more.

We start trotting, and after intermittently cantering here and there, he started going well. We even got him truly on the bit and being comfortable with the contact for about half an arena each direction! Then we started cantering to the left and it was definitely a gallop. It was fun, but there was absolutely no control. After he got that out of his system a bit, we did some actual cantering.

Then, someone sans horse opened the gait to the arena. Umm... ya. So I went over there and explained hey, I have no control over this horse and I don't think I can actually get him to stay in the arena with the gait open. "Oh, you look fine to me!" I then explained, no, seriously, this is his sixth ride EVER. "Oh, okay, I'll tell my husband to avoid you." Her husband rides a 17.3 hh stallion with wavering amounts of control depending on if the stallion remembers he is a stallion or not. I then said, "you know, I'll just be done for the day."

I really don't like confrontation, but how does any of that sound like a good idea?

So, Yves and I went on a hack around the barn instead. He was really good, especially when it can to spooking at things. He is definitely bolder when he has me or Ed next to him, but the world seems scarier without someone by your side apparently. When he did spook, he tried to turn away, but as soon as he just stood there and watched whatever it was (dog, orange cone, tarps, goat...), I praised him. I asked for some forward, and when I got one or two steps, praise. The more confrontations with scary objects there were, the better he was about trusting me. Super baby strikes again!

Edward fortunately gave me a great ride today. I have been riding sans stirrups for a while now, but I'm still perpetually sore. You know you are out of shape when you once could do 20 minute trot sets in a jump saddle posting without stirrups but can now hardly do a mild dressage work out without them. It will come back soon enough, I'm sure. I need to get back in that dressage ring though, soon! I am planning on going to the Combined Test at Twin Rivers next weekend and haven't even started practicing my tests yet! I really should get on that...

All in all, the day ended better than it started, thanks to the horses. Of course.

Photoshoot with Yves!

2012-01-06T19:33:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the amazing Shannon deBuiser of Alpha Mare Images, there are actually decent pictures of Yves in the world! Shannon has essentially been involved in the entire journey to making Yves, from booking her mare to Yeager back in 2006 with me to being at Yves' inspection as moral support/personal media manager. She now has a new mare that I'm sure she will get a brilliant foal out of in the coming years for her self to dote over!

And because my nostalgic ramblings become dull, let's just get to the pictures!

I contemplated braiding Yves prior to the photoshoot, but ended up not. Now, I wish I had because his wonky rocker mane makes his neck look awful! Promise that he doesn't have a TB neck dip! His Thoroughbred mom didn't even have one when out of work!

We also had some free jumping fun! I wish I had video of this because he is starting to use himself so well! As in, as well as pure jumping bred babies. I am so stoked for this guy! He isn't perfect in front, but nothing unsafe and it is only getting better and better as he gets more practice!

And, despite my constant insistence of her getting pictures of his hind, she only got one which wasn't even the best it could of been. But, I think it still shows that he has some serious power back there!

Wee!!!

Back to School and the Fifth Ride

2012-01-05T01:48:00.000-08:00

After a nice and relaxing holiday at home, it is time to get on with school life. This is actually going to be my last quarter at Cal Poly as an undergraduate and I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to be doing after that. Talk about stressful.

On the brighter side, this is probably the most excited I have been for the course load I have: Equine Reproduction, Equine Exercise Physiology, and Group Performance of Literature. Umm, yes please!

When coming back, I made the decision to go to a different barn. While the other place was good for some more growing up and rehabilitation, both horses are now WTC undersaddle, so I needed something more conducive to that. I am now at a farm that is actually right down the street from the other place that is much more geared toward training. There are three arenas, an indoor, a dressage court, and a huge jumping arena, plus excellent roads for walking out on and even some areas where the footing is good enough for trot sets. Plus, the pastures and turn-outs are all irrigated and have grass in them year round, which is unheard of in California. I think this will definitely be a positive change. Plus, Don Sachey comes in for monthly clinics, which is neat!

The Fifth Ride!

And, yes, I rode Yves for the fifth time today and for his first time not at Elvenstar. Also, Jeff wasn't able to come and help me out, so it was completely solo. After a quick lunge, which included some seriously huge bucks, I stood him next to the mounting block, patted him down a bit, and then hopped on... nothing happened. He just stood there like an old timer. I swear this horse was born broke.

And then he reminded me that he wasn't. Any steering I had last time was no where to be found and he was seriously sizing up the arena fencing with me on him. Fences are for containment, not for heavy contemplation of escape route! After bouncing off the walls a bit, he remembered his training and was super baby again. He is starting to carry himself rounder over the topline and is giving me an awesome feel of the reins in the trot. In the canter, he is getting comfortable with the contact, but it'll take some time until he is working better there. He is also already getting the concept of bending around my inside leg and pushing into the outside rein. As I said, born broke.

(For those reading for the purposes of working with their own baby, I am not asking him to go on the bit, I am more giving him the opportunity to go on the bit by riding him as if he was on the bit. In general, I believe in riding babies as if they weren't babies to a certain extent since correct riding allows them to progress faster than coddling the weaknesses associated with babyhood. Because of his build, he likes to travel round, and because of his training on the lunge, he knows how to look for the contact, making my job all that much easier.)

People at the barn are beginning to realize that he is super baby, too. One woman who is a trainer there asked his breeding because, "he looks like a really fancy Thoroughbred." Yay! That is exactly what I was going for with this cross!

This weekend Jeff will be able to come out and take some more video of Yves and me. It will be neat to see the steep learning curve he is on since only three rides ago.

The Fourth Ride!

2012-01-01T16:23:00.001-08:00

I love this baby.

After a quick lunge, I tried to work on steering with Yves, but something was getting lost in translation. He was starting to get frustrated, so it was time to re-evaluate.

We moved to a bigger arena that was further away from Edward (who kept calling to his baby and Jeff came in to help. We decided to play the "follow Jeff around" game while I simultaneously added to appropriate signals for each turn. When we turned right, I added left leg, opened right rein, and pressed left rein against his neck. Same for going left. At this point, I wasn't turning him, but was allowing him to get the idea of cues when we do certain turns.

Then, Jeff exited arena to go get my dressage whip to help with forward. While he was gone, we were just walking along the perimeter when he picked up the trot. Okay, we're trotting. Apparently we don't need to dressage whip!

Within about ten minutes, completely solo, we walked, trotted, and cantered on the rail, plus some changes of direction and "circles" (squiggly roundish movement that ended with us back where we started kind of).

Being awesome is hard work! Gosh, he is fun! The contact at this point is still pretty wavering, but I will probably start asking for a more consistent feel within the next few rides.

On the Ed front, he is still doing awesome! I am looking forward to his vet appointment on the 13th, so we'll see what happens! Part of me can't help but start dreaming of him coming back to eventing, but I know that probably won't happen. I wouldn't be thinking of it if he wasn't feeling so absolutely amazing and SOUND. Oh, and if he wasn't DRAGGING me to fences! Too bad I don't have a video of him going over small cavalletis. You would have thought it was his birthday and he found a giant bag of carrots in his stall.

But, anyway, happy new year and all that jazz!

Taken on New Year's Eve. How poetic!

The Peers

2011-12-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

Whenever I'm doing something with horses, I often find myself hypnotically staring at my computer screen which is playing some relevant video. When working on perfecting my dressage tests, I find videos of those tests online and study them. When mentally preparing for an upcoming event, I will find videos of the course for the appropriate level to get an idea of the flow and design of it. Well, I'm doing the same thing for breaking Yves. Here are a bunch of videos of 2009 babies in their early work, which is awesome for me to see the different breaking techniques used and, in the further along babies, how they are carrying themselves. From an educational standpoint, I find the following videos fascinating!

The Dressage Prospects

Raymeister x ???

Shakespeare RSF x Contucci x Banter

ES Fred Astair x Connemara mare

The Hunter Prospect

Escapade x Wheaton xx x Gate Dancer xx

Thoroughbred gelding

The Third Ride!

2011-12-29T15:02:00.000-08:00

Finally, a video of YvesButt undersaddle! How exciting is that?! I must say, he is extremely balanced. I know I have said that before, but I have been on older, more established that feel like they are about to nose dive at the canter. On this guy, once he figured out that we did want him to canter, he was happy to oblige. He is just so fun!

Today, with my helper's assistance, I was mostly in control of the go and stop buttons. Once in a while, you'll hear my say, "help" asking for his assistance. He is definitely getting a hang of calf/heel pressure means go and thigh means stop along with contact not being the worst thing in the world. For go, I did use the crop to back it up. It was just a patting motion, but it was sufficient to get the message across.

After this, I went on a harrowing walk around the barn. Jeff was there, but I was on my own trying desperately to go in a general straight line. It was fun! Then, we went into an arena so I could just walk around the perimeter with Jeff right by my side...

...but Yves had his own ideas. While Jeff was closing the gate, Yves decided to happily canter off across the arena. I just kind of went with it. I then got stuck in the corner. I could get him walking a bit, but the lack of steering thwarted my efforts.

Yves and me stuck in the corner.

Jeff unstuck us and I walked and trotted around the arena once solo. Yay baby!

Bringing Up Baby: The Plan

2011-12-28T20:38:00.001-08:00

Now that Yves is backed, it is time to come up with a game plan. Tomorrow will be his third ride and, hopefully, the last one on the lunge. After that, I will start Yves on a three day rotation of work.

Day 1: Lungeing with sliding reins or side reins.
Day 2: The ride.
Day 3: Off.

This will have him being ridden about 2.5 times a week, which I feel is appropriate for his age. This is based on the thinking of one ride per year of age per week. So, a three year old will be ridden three times per week.

The lungeing I will keep up simply to strengthen his back. I personally don't like lungeing all that much, but I do think that is the best way to allow him to get used to carrying himself without worrying about any extra weight on him. Once he gains some more muscle along his topline (and more steering!), I'm hoping to exchange every other lunge with a hack out, either being ponied or undersaddle.

Once he turns three in May, I'm hoping to eliminate lungeing all together. That would cause his work schedule to look something like this:

Day 1: Off.
Day 2: Ride.
Day 3: Pony or hack (dependent on Ed's schedule).
Day 4: Ride.

Can you tell I'm excited???

Yes, Yves is Backed!

2011-12-26T20:12:00.001-08:00

For those that figured it out, yes, Yves was the last ride I had on Christmas Eve. And, man, was it an awesome Christmas present. Yvesbutt was absolutely super. I was surprised by how balanced he felt. He is the youngest horse I have ever ridden, since most of the other ones I have helped back were a full 3 years or older. That being the case, I really thought that I would have to really help him stay afloat. But he completely managed on his own.

As I mentioned in the last post, there is video, but I have to figure out how to retrieve it. I am determined, though! In the meantime, here are a few more stills.

He was such a super baby. There was only one very mild temper tantrum the entire time.

Today I was on him again for his second ride. I tried to give more direction from me instead of the person at the end of the line. The good news is he is very aware of the seat and stops quite well just from me closing my thighs (the preliminary half-halt). The bad news is he is not as in tune with steering. Longitudinal suppleness will not be an issue for Mr. Wiggle Worm. The go button is somewhere in the middle. Sometime this week I will teach him forward using Ed. I am definitely going with the German training scale with him and need to get forward installed as a first priority.

Man, bringing this baby along is going to be so much fun!

More Rides

2011-12-24T18:46:00.002-08:00

The last few days Ed has been feeling great. I must admit that I have been getting creative with the rehabilitation schedule. As in I'm just riding him. No more timer, no more watch. I am still giving him regular walk breaks, but to really get him to improve in his musculature and fitness, I need more transitions and freedom in his work-outs. And, because of it, he has been just getting better and better. Today he was completely full of piss and vinegar, but still tons of fun.

Another thing I have been bad about is turn-out. Ed does best when he is let outside as much as possible. At GME, he was either in a paddock or turn-out at night, depending on the season. I decided to go ahead and turn him out here because the turn-outs are small, flat, and have great footing. I rather him get his willies out here than on hard, irregular footing in a large paddock. So far he has been quiet and only moderately playing with Yves. Maybe this is the real reason he has been feeling so great lately...

I have also been riding a few others. Probably the star of the group would be large 6 year old named Vancouver. He is a Big Eq horse that has traveled back east for the Maclay and the Washington International finals. He is a super smart horse and a trier, which is a funny package to find. Today he was a bit of a goober with little bucking fits here and there. It was all in good fun though. I even jumped him! Too bad I could not find my glasses and was burying him at every other fence.

Vancouver next to Ed. Did I mention he was big?

Then, there was Cooper, a Canadian thoroughbred. He was a complete testing turd at first and kept "spooking" at random sprinklers and trash cans. Apparently he is an absolute pill for his child rider and she isn't strong enough to do anything about it. After some serious testing on his part and "you WILL work" moments on my part, he actually ended up being an awesome horse. Today I played around with leg yields, half passes, and counter canter. He was a champ and game for anything. This would be the horse that I would love to event.

Nick, a bouncy ball of a horse, was another one I got to ride. He used to be ridden by a close friend of mine and competed on the A circuit in Mods and Lows with Wd and I. Unfortunately, she has since quit riding. Nick is still a blast though and is currently leased out to a young rider doing the Mods on him. Neat, fun horse.

Nick's super happy ears looking at various equitation-style gymnastics.

But the last ride of the day for me was by far my favorite.

Yes, there is a video. BUT, it was recorded on my mom's fancy video camera... that only records onto DVD-RW discs... and I have no idea how to even look at at the video anywhere besides on this tiny screen.

Checking Legs

2011-12-19T22:36:00.000-08:00

Almost every eventer I know checks their horses legs often. Personally, I check my horses' legs almost to a fault. I check their legs before them come out of the stall, a more thorough check while grooming, and then a final check before putting them back. This was actually how I caught the suspensory tear in Ed's front right. There was a small amount of swelling that almost seemed inconsequential. A subsequent ultrasound showed it to be critically important.

Below are all the "normal" things for Edward moving forward. Given his history as an accomplished jumper and now FEI event horse and still going at a ripe age of 18.5, I think his legs look great. They are far cleaner than some horses I have seen that are only a fraction of his age.

Below are over-saturated pictures of Ed's legs to show some definition. The letters are indicative of past injuries, diagnoses, or blemishes.

A: Suspensory Ligament Tear. Diagnosed 2011.
B: Superficial Digital Tendon Tear. Diagnosed 2005.
C: Navicular changes. Diagnosed 2008.
D: Boot rubs. 2007.
E: Enlarged Check Ligament. Noticed 2011.
F: Scars. Pre-2004.
G: Sidebone. Diagnosed 2008.
H: Adhesion break up. Diagnosed 2006.
I: ???
J: Bone bruise from getting caught in fence. 2010.
K: Scars from getting caught in fence. 2010.
L: Adhesion break up. Diagnosed 2010.
M: Odd bump. Noticed 2011.
N: Scars. Pre-2004.

It's funny because, clinically, Ed seems like he is falling apart. In actuality though, he still LOVES work and it is getting more and more difficult for me to keep steering him away from jumps. It is also important to note how an individual horse repairs themselves. His "old bow" on the left leg is invisible now and, so far, no scar tissue has caused any visible lump on his right suspensory.

Also, with the navicular changes, I'm sure his degree of rotation would cause some horses to be dead lame while others, like Ed, show very little in terms of symptoms. The only reason we looked at his coffin bones in the first place was because he was being reluctant going down drop banks for a while there. Given his nature, a training issue was unlikely so we investigated pain. The navicular changes were all we had to go on, so we tried injections. Post-injections, he started going down banks.

I must say that I do enjoy the term "jewelry" for the various nicks and bumps that accrue on the legs of old campaigners. They are like battle scars that show others all that they have accomplished.

Just Riding

2011-12-15T22:38:00.000-08:00

One of the benefits of coming to Elvenstar is that I get to ride a bunch of different horses. Since leaving Gina's and dressage team's break, my riding has been exclusively on Ed. I love that horse, but he does a number on the correctness of my riding since he is SO heavy on his right side, both rein and leg. When I only ride him, my right side gets stronger and compensates for that. When I ride other horses, too, I remember what a more even horse feels like and that allows me to help correct Ed's crookedness. (When going in full work, the crookedness is minimal, but right now it is pretty bad. Transitions in shoulder fore help a ton and I finally am feeling like my work is paying off.)

Today was pretty light and I only rode two extras: Oliver and Rain. Oliver is a Swedish boy who is the laziest horse ever. He just does not care. I feel bad for it, but I really wailed on him with my dressage whip to get him forward. Near the end, he was going okay. His responsiveness just isn't there. I think he needs some serious retraining and then he could make a decent lower level dressage horse. (He can't jump his way out of a paper bag.) The gaits are there, you just have to get him to move first. He is for sale, so if you know of anyone that wants a big, black, and beautiful horse with no riding ambitions of their own, Oliver would be perfect.

He is actually quite stunning.

Rain is an adorable 13.0hh grey pony who was a blast. He was forward (thank goodness!), but the suppleness wasn't really there. If one looks at his muscling, as well, it is pretty skimpy on his topline. I have a feeling that his rideability would greatly improve with some good, consistent dressage. Gosh, he was fun though!

Finally a horse I fit!

And, one last cute story.

I was untacking Rain in the school area when this girl came running up with her mom. "Mom, I have to show you him!" I watched, bemused, as she lead her mom to Yvesbutt. Yves was loving the attention and scratchies he was getting from this little girl. "Isn't he friendly?! His name is Ewvs." Mom pulled out a carrot (organic, of course. This is SoCal.) and fed it to him. It was cute. Even is she got his name wrong. (Yves is pronounced "Eve," for the record. It is a French boy's name meaning archer.)

He'll Do

2011-12-14T20:10:00.000-08:00

I have been lunging Yves since we have gotten back to Elvenstar in the lunging arena down below. However, due to the rain and a division of resources (i.e. good footing only in riding arenas), the lunging arena was schlop while the "field arena" was still adequate for lunging. So, off we went!

A lot of things were going against us here. Yves has never been in the field arena ever, let alone on that side of the property without big brother Edward. There were other horses in the arena working, which he has never had to deal with before. And, today was supposed to be the day that I asked Yves to sustain a canter with side reins on for the first time.

He was ridiculously good! As in better than he normally is! It was almost like he was stoked to be with the "big kids." He was just so good. He did have some babies moments, but he finally seemed like he was trying to be a good boy and fit in with the other guys. I'm not normally a fan of over personifying the horse, but this is the best I can convey his attitude.

Overall, he has just been stellar. His head is always out of his stall checking out everything going on and everyone going by. This is a BUSY barn. By far the busiest barn I have ever been at with lessons going 6 days a week and over 150 horses being stabled there. And Yves has completely assimilated. He is just really growing up...

Yves looking quite bored with adult life.

Back Home

2011-12-12T20:22:00.001-08:00

Every winter I find myself making the migration back to Elvenstar Farms. Elvenstar was the start of everything for me in terms of riding. I started there when I was 4 in the leadline "Mommy and Me" classes and moved all the way up to the "Advanced group," the highest group offered, by the time I was 12 on my pony, Bailey.

It is always so nostalgic for me to come back here.

Elvenstar is a purely hunter-jumper barn with its rider base made up of mostly juniors. Because of this, the big focus is on equitation. I must say that I am incredibly thankful for that focus since I feel that it has largely contributed to my riding style today. When I was younger, according to the head trainer, I "didn't have a rider's body," and was therefore shunted from the hunter and equitation competitions to jumper ones. But, the lessons were the same and I still learned a good deal about showmanship, rhythm over a course, and subtle aids.

Normally, I come back to retune my show jumping skills... but that might take a backseat to Ed's rehabilitation program. I still will be able to ride tons of horses of varying schoolings and I hope to catchride a few for lessons.

Since coming here, Yves has been stellar. He LOVES the ongoings of a big show barn! He has never been submerged in an atmosphere like this before, so it will be interesting to see how he handles it. His stall overlooks where the riding school crossties are, so it will be busy there 6 days a week! Everytime I have come by to see the goob, he has had his head out over his door soaking in all the sights. He also LOVES all the attention he is getting from the kids.

Yvesbutt has an impossibly wiggly nose that makes photographs in low light difficult.

He has also been put right back into work since coming here without missing a beat. While he does have his stubborn moments, his brain is pretty solid.

Of course, Edward also made the trip. Unlike Yves, though, Ed HATES kids. I have no idea why, but he has never liked kids. He will and has bitten them before. I really need to make a sign to put on his door. He doesn't like kissing noises either. I had to train myself not to kiss this horse. He likes hugs though.

His rehab has been going great though. The leg looked great after the trip and looked great after a fairly involved ride yesterday. Let's just hope that it keeps going this well!

Do you realize how hard it is not to kiss that face?

Today it was pretty rainy and dark, though. Yves got a full tour of the facilities when I ponied him off Ed bareback. Bold, yes, but they were both very well behaved!

Jung and La Biosthetique Sam

2011-12-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

Here is another video that I could just watch again and again. I love how steady Sam is in the bridle and how incredibly quiet Michael Jung's hands are. One thing I noticed in the rein back, though, is that he actually uses his hands to jiggle the reins for the rein back while no movement of the lower leg is seen. I was taught to bring my lower leg back slightly for a rein back with little change in rein. Just interesting.

Perfect Hindleg Technique

2011-12-08T10:58:00.000-08:00

Perusing about the internet, I found this little gem. It was supposedly said by Andre Nepper of the Cheval de Selle Luxenbourgeois stud-book about Baracuda, son of Baloubet de Rouet out of a Contender mare.

"A big framed chestnut stallion, very comtemporary, very charming and with a wonderful structure. He boasts a big frame, very modern make and shape, as well as elastic basic gaits with an outstanding canter. He has been awarded the top mark for jumping by the licensing committee, with the panel recognizing in particular his perfect hind leg technique over the jumps. A young stallion well suited for modern times. You'll be hard pressed to find a son of Baloubet du Rouet able to match Baracuda's type anywhere in Europe. As far as I'm concerned, he is the prototypical modern jumper, and despite his chestnut color, he should be given the very best Holsteiner mares."

Reading this, I hunted down the following video, which shows a short clip of Baracuda free jumping.

For those not aware, the Holsteiner Verband is the premier sporthorse breeding group worldwide when it comes to consistently producing jumping horses. That being said, the judging panel should know what excellent hindleg technique is and is not and, based on Andre's comments, Baracuda's hindleg technique is perfect.

So, what is perfect hindleg technique? When reviewing the clip, I see a horse that has excellent stifle flexion, which allows the horse to open the entire quarter up and away from the fence.

But, this can sometimes make for a difficult ride. An example of this would be found in Beaulieu's Coolman (Quidam de Revel x Plusplunkt x Pilot) who is often touted for his astounding hindleg technique. From a rider's point of view, though, I would worry about staying with that sort of jump. I will sometimes hear people say, "Wow! Look at that horse! It is nearly jumping its rider out of the tack!" How is that a good thing??? Looking at the videos (though plenty of stills are available at their website), we can see that the stifle flexion is there, but the rest of the leg is just dragging along.

While I don't personally like this jumping style, Coolman is certainly a scopey animal and should have little problems moving up the levels.

What makes Baracuda truly special behind may be that the degree of flexion in his hocks and even his pasterns combined with the ability to clearly redirect his hindend well away from the jump. I'm sure that this horse has excellent SI placement and a low stifle in relationship to the rest of the body. Beyond that though, I'm not sure what would allow him to be such a freak jumper behind in terms of conformation. What really stood out to me, though, was how balanced he was upon landing despite the flamboyant backhand. If only his front end was better...

So, what do you think? Is Baracuda's hind end the end all? Have you seen or ridden better? Do you prefer Coolman's? A different horse's style?

The BE Futurity Program

2011-12-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't gathered this, I love the Brits. I love the way they groom (see Yves' pulled tail), I love the way they ride (Their hands! I want their hands!), and I love the way they are going about their futurity program.

The British Equestrian Futurity (BEF) program is much different from the one here in the US. The BEF is part of an overall sporthorse program where breeders from the three Olympic disciplines come together and present their wares to several different judges. Probably the biggest difference is the presentation of the animal. There are up to three phases; the triangle, liberty, and free jumping.

Unlike here where the triangle is the end all, it seems that the triangle there is only used to glean information about the correctness of the gaits. That I feel is so important since the in-hand presentation of a horse's gaits can vary in quality vastly from handler to handler.

Two year old - 8.62
Primitive Proposal x Jumbo

The quality of the gaits is mostly analyzed during the liberty portion. This is especially helpful when one needs information on the horse's gallop and athleticism. Neither of those traits can be evaluated on a triangle.

Yearling - 8.54
Jumbo x Rock King

The last phase is the free jumping. For obvious reasons, this phase is only open to three year olds and older. While the show jumping futurity would look more for outright scope and technique, the criteria for an eventer is slightly different. One of the most important jumping traits appeared to be boldness without sacrificing a healthy avoidance of wood. If the horse continuously ducks out, refuses, and simply slams through fences, eventing is probably not the job for it. An eventing prospect is also permitted to have a more economical jump than its show jumping counterparts.

Three year old - 8.52
Forrest Gump x ?

What we can learn from this...

I must admit that I was slightly disappointed in the eventing futurity-type class I participated in last year. This isn't sour grapes (Yves got a blue ribbon!), but simply a critique of the existing system. The DSHB program is longer standing than the FEH program and I believe it was started in the late 90's or early 00's. The triangle may be appropriate and reliable for the dressage folks where two out of three gaits may be evaluated. For eventing, though, only two out of five "gaits," (walk, trot, canter, gallop, jump) may be evaluated. It is absurd to believe that a system where less than half of the raw qualities of the horse may be examined to have any sort of success in determining future winning event horses. If this was a 5th grade word problem, I would select "E: Not enough information."

The result of the use of the triangle as the sole demonstration of gaits has been that horses of dressage breeding (Rotspon, Quarterback, De Niro...) have dominated the FEH field. Most dressage horses have better walks and trots than most event horses: fact. Dressage horses should be beating event horses in those two areas. But, it is unfortunate that this causes the "true" event horse prospects and their breeders from being acknowledged for their early successes.

To create a system more reliable for identifying future upper level event horses, the liberty phase must be added. Most venues have some sort of closed arena which would be appropriate for this phase. There is a reason that all of the sport horse breeding societies allow the horses to display their gaits at liberty instead of just relying on the handler and the triangle. In order to get an idea of a horse's raw abilities, the horse must be seen at liberty in all three gaits. Without the addition of a liberty phase, the FEH system will continue to fail as a support system for domestic eventing stock.

Videos? Videos!

2011-12-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

But don't get too excited. This aren't like the way cool Leslie Law clinic videos from last January. Rather, these are the type of videos where I set the camera on something at a slightly off-kilter angle and then ride around in the arena, possibly in view of said camera. I then edit it to reduce the copious amounts of dead time to only moderate amounts of dead time. These videos are exciting, but they are educational for me to see where we are. I segmented the one video into three in an attempt to break up the monotony.

The Warm-Up

The Work-In, plus Lateral Work

The Canter Work

What I'm Seeing/Feeling...

-I need to get him even more shoulder fore in the warm-up. It looks like I am too heavy on the inside rein, and allowing the shoulder to pop out some.

-After the "pony trot" beginning, I need to get him stretching deeper and lower.

-I need to be reaching towards the bit much more than I am. My hands will always be my downfall, so I need to just keep reminding myself to always go towards the horses mouth.

-When I'm riding him, it feels like he isn't accepting my right leg, but it definitely looks like in the video that he responds just fine to my right and its my left leg that he is ignoring. I think I need to use my right leg less to prevent him from getting tense while I need to be more firm with my left so that I can really get him accepting that.

-I am still to heavy with my right hand, causing a tilt of his head to the right. I need to independently work on my own self carriage on that side of my body, it seems.

-The canter work looks decent considering that this was only the first week of canter work. He felt sore behind, though, which I credit to him being due to hock and stifle injections.

-Like the trot work, I need to get him straighter using shoulder fore in the canter.

-My legs are having a tendency to go forward and off him whenever I am half halting. I used to have this problem which was previously fixed by me thinking of really elongating my leg down the sides of my horse.

Man, I need a lesson...

Almost Back to Work

2011-12-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

Edward's rehabilitation has been going on just merrily for the past few months. We actually just entered month 7 of rehabilitation. Considering the original injury, I could not be happier with Ed's progress! He has been sound since day 1, so that really isn't an indicator of anything, but the "tests" that the suspensory ligament has stood up to are impressive:

1. Two days of two tests at Introductory level. Despite cantering in the walk-trot only tests and having a dramatic adjustment in his work type, he was no worse for wear because of it.

2. Teaching a 2 year old how to pony. This often including rapid stops and changes of direction.

Yves using his persuasive wiles and good looks to convince Ed and I that the walk is over.

3. Finding out that the all-weather arena can't hold up to all weather. Two days after a good rain, I tried to ride in the "all-weather" arena. Well, the base was suddenly nonexistent and Ed sunk into the muck about 6-9 inches! Not ideal for rehabbing a ligament!

4. Hillwork galore! While "typical" suspensory rehab programs call for only flat, well-groomed surfaces, I have taken a chance with Ed and have been using hills regularly since the completion of one month of just walking. Part of the reason I did this is because I feel that the hills will keep the rest of his arthritis-prone body happy. A recovered suspensory ligament is no good if the rest of the body has gone down the tubes.

And, despite these challenges, his leg stayed cold and tight! There were only two days where there was filling, but he had filling in three of his four legs then due to a heat wave and being stuck in a stall.

I find myself thinking about competing again. Part of me still wants to just sit down and figure out all the events I want to attend in 2012. I find myself still dreaming of Intermediate and Advanced with this horse. I still have that yearning. At his last ultra-sound in September, the vet said that he looked amazing considering the original incident and to not lose hope yet. That almost makes it worse. I know I won't be retiring Ed flat-out anytime soon: he loves working too much. But, I don't know if he will be eventing ever again. I guess we will see in January.

Right now we are up to three working sets with a total of 15 minutes trotting and 4 minutes cantering. I've starting doing some lateral work. Again, unconventional, but this horse thrives with it. He will be back to full flat work in January and the vet appointment will determine if he can jump. For his sake, I hope he can.

Our first show together once he was officially under my name. That is one happy horse.

Yves LIKES Jumping!!!

2011-11-28T20:32:00.001-08:00

I really should be studying for finals right now, but I just have to share this.

I am just 110% stoked after today, even though it was something so little. A while back, my boyfriend helped me free jump Yves through a shoot and the results were interesting. Yves was obviously green and unsure, though the raw materials (i.e. ability to pick up legs) seemed to be there. Most importantly, though, he didn't seem to actually like it...

Today, I had Yves turned out in an arena that had the remnants of a jump near the rail which consisted of a tall barrel and three poles. All three poles were on the ground. Yves was busy gamboling about and would once in a while go over the poles out of stride. For fun, I set one end of a pole on top of the barrel. While running around, he jumped the half-jump, stopped, turned around and jumped it again. Hmmm...

I made the jump a full cross rail of about 2'3" and he kept jumping it until he got tired. We cuddled a bit while he caught his breath. (Most personable horse ever!) I was so pleased with what I saw out of him and his desire, so I figured that was enough for the day.

Then, he got a second wind and started jumping again. While he squeeing about, I set the pole up on the barrel to a fairly big vertical. He jumped it from a long spot right out of stride in an economical fashion followed by a few more conservative distances. Then, he completely buried himself at the base of it and tried to get his front legs out of the way, but couldn't, knocking the rail down. I reset it to give him another shot if he wanted it. He came around and hit a deep spot again, but this time rocked back and cleared it with ample room in front and at least a foot and a half behind. !!!

After I cleaned stalls and put the ponies to bed, I got my measuring tape out and measured the jump. It was 3'7.5". While I don't think he will be winning any freejump competitions, he seems to be bold, have scope, doesn't like to touch wood and adjusts for his mistakes. I'll take it!

Given that this was completely impromptu, no pictures or videos. Bummer.

A Lesson in Contrast

2011-11-20T13:45:00.000-08:00

That's right! I had a lesson! :cue shining lights and celestial monotones:

At Cal Poly, we had a local dressage trainer to come in for some privates. While I would have loved to ride Dancer for it, three others had already signed up with him as their ride. So, I went with my go-to girl, Gwen. The nice thing about Gwen is that she is hot, has a tendency to become excessively light in the forehand, and loves to completely lose it when stuff gets tough... so I get her to myself! She definitely knows her stuff, but requires a rider not as concerned about self-preservation.

The trainer was Karen, an Intermediare rider that was in the running for the Pan Am team at some point. I thought she was very approachable and seemed to take riding from a more scientific approach, which I can certainly appreciate. We shared several viewpoints, like straightness and its correction, and the like.

After relaying some of Gwen's strengths and weaknesses and then my own, we got to the bulk of the issue with Gwen which is a maintenance of rhythm. While I can maintain a regular tempo on her, it is only with constant half-halts and, when she is (rarely) ridden by others, she often gets quicker and quicker. But, this constant use of half halts for the maintenance of rhythm means that it is difficult for them to be used for lift or cues. (While I don't entirely agree with this, I can understand the logic behind it.)

Based on the other lessons I saw, this was the theme of the day. Essentially, it involves asking (white) for the desired response, like forward or stop, giving the horse a chance to respond, and then dramatically demanding the response (black). In a spark of genius on some individual's part, this is referred to as "Black and White." Gwen has a tendency to be perfectly content in the grey area: heavy on the hand and listening sometimes. It takes a lot of work to get her where I want her to be.

(For clarity, the "grey" area, while for Gwen is being too quick, for the other horses, it was being too dull.)

So, what we did is, walking on a completely loose rein, ask for a halt from only the seat. If she didn't respond, then I was instructed to slam on the breaks as if she was about to step off a cliff utilizing STRONG hand and seat. It was an interesting technique and seemed to work. I can certainly understand the usefulness of it, though Gwen did almost lift off twice.

She was only permitted to walk at a designated tempo without input from me. If she went too forward, then I would dramatically correct her. The same was done for the trot at a WP tempo. Near the end of the lesson, the same exercise was used while stretching down to the bit without leaning. If she leaned, she was dramatically corrected.

And that's all we got to. The method was interesting and I can understand it more for the opposite problem of a horse ignoring the leg, though I don't like using my hands in this manner. I could also see the method going awry with a rider who lacks the timing to know when to give.

I would like to take a lesson with her on Ed, though, before I make a more bounden judgement. I like her, but I'm not sold on this particular method yet.

Exciting Times and Sleepless Nights

2011-11-13T18:27:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks have just been absolutely insane. Good insane, but still insane.

A few weeks ago was my very first IDA competition. I put in a solid performance and it certainly renewed my hunger for sporthorses (not that it had subsided that much!). Edward successfully competed in the Intro division and was a rockstar. He LOVED to be in a competition again. Apparently, he is hungry for it, too. ;) His rehabilitation has been going swimmingly and I am starting to make plans to attempt to achieve my USDF Bronze Medal next year.

Fanciest IDA intro horse ever!

For me, the show was good and I put in two solid tests, both in the mid to high 60's. I did feel rusty, especially since my last dressage lesson was in April! I am going to make an effort to get more formal training in the future, though.

Olivia pony working it.

Mr. T had me working for every step!

And then, it was off to the Nutritional Advisors' Group conference. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. This may sound nerdy, but I was definitely a bit star struck here and there, especially when one well known professor pummeled me with questions on my project, which I answered quite well, if I do say so myself.

And then, after two weeks of make-ups and early testings, it was off to the North American Performance Testing! Again, amazing. Here is a quick thank you that I posted on COTH that I feel sums up my experience. I will have a more comprehensive review at a later point, though.

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the final days of the Stallion Testing at Silver Creek this year and it had far exceeded my expectations. I went there simply as an individual craving insight into the state of American sporthorse breeding as well as trying to gain a more tangible understanding of what different lines produce. The first thing I noticed when I arrived (beyond the breathtaking grounds!) was the undeniable quality of care that the stallions received. All of them gleamed with health and appeared fit and ready for the last days of the testing. Seeing the test riders prepping the horses for each ride, one could tell that they enjoyed the work in earnest and had familiarity with each of their mounts that could only be achieved through daily personal attention of the horses.

The stallion owners were all wonderful and welcomed me, an outsider, with open arms. Each evening I was there, I was invited (dragged?) to partake in dinner and drinks and enjoyed the conversations about various topics (mostly horses, duh!) that remained productive and extremely educational. I just couldn't say enough nice things about the group. In particular, I would like to thank Kathy and Jos of Avalon Equine for giving me a ride each day to the inspection and providing me with the proper framing for the final days, Jim of Greenstone Farm for putting up with my endless questions, Dianna of Fox Creek Farm for divulging her pony breeding secrets to me, and the Gabers, the owners of Sandro Fidelis, for the inspiration that the small-time breeder can still be a big-time player. And to all the stallion owners, congratulations! For a horse to even complete the test in one piece is an accomplishment in itself, scores aside!

And, of course, a huge thank you to Silver Creek, the registries in attendance, and the entire inspection team. Everything and everyone exhibited exemplary professionalism. In particular, to Silver Creek, I want to reiterate that it takes a special group to open up their home to, quite literally, the world and remain as tactful and accommodating as they have been. Thank you and keep doing what you're doing, for the sake of American sport horse breeding.

To anyone that is contemplating going, I would 110% back that decision! It doesn't matter if you are a mare owner, stallion owner, or gelding owner (like me!), the trip is amazing for anyone that has an interest in any facet of sporthorse breeding. Yes, one will get free blessings in the name of Jesus from the locals and the wine does come from Walmart, but great people and great horses make for an unbeatable combination. And, if done right, the trip is quite feasible both financially and temporally and the wealth of knowledge gained more than pays for the trip. Plus, you get to know the scores as soon as the SOs do.

Thank you again to all and I hope to see you next year!

Suzie Middlebrook

GoGoGo

2011-10-20T22:33:00.002-07:00

In the past few days...

I regularly get up prior to 5. (Think 3:30 and 4:30 wake-up times.)
I don't eat lunch. (CLIFbars coming out my ears!)
I only pee twice a day. (Getting to the toilet takes too much time.)
Every minute is pre-scheduled.(Yes, my itinerary says "10:30 - Blog".)
I go to bed around 11 or 12. (Is this possible?)

It is just one of those weeks. I have the first IDA show of the year (and my first ever!) this weekend, plus me leaving for four days at 12:30 in the afternoon for the Nutritional Advisory Group Conference when I get to present my paper that I have been working on for the past year and a half! Then, after the conference, the results are officially submitted to the Smithsonian Institute, who granted the funding for the work.

During the week, I somehow managed to give Ed a hunter clip. AND!!! I clipped Ed's bridle path without a twitch, drugs, or heavy restraints for the first time EVER!!! I kind of snuck it up on him while I was doing the line for his mane. Quite honestly, the clip job is a pretty shoddy one since the motor in my clippers was giving out. Then caused 3 5mm strips to remain behind each pass of the blade. Lines-o-rama!

I was hoping to go to the Future Event Horse Championships this Friday, but life was 100% not going to let this happen. Bummer. On the bright side, Yves gets to tag along with Ed to the IDA show and get a feeling for atmosphere at a multiday show with no stabling fee! Score!

But, seriously, get stoked for this IDA show. Essentially, it goes like this:

GBE's Kate vs. OT*'s Suzie

I have actually never competed against Kate, but there is nothing wrong with a little competition-based feud. I honestly won't be surprised if she and I are battling it out for top spots at 1st level all year... unless UC Davis or Santa Cruz actually got some real dressage riders instead of us wannabe-DQ eventers.

Remember Parelli Lady?

2011-10-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

So this was a while ago, but still too funny not to share.

So, I drive in the barn with Jeff and pass by where the trailers are parked. We look and Parelli Lady (PL) is standing on the top left corner of her trailer's ramp with her right arm outstretched, orange stick in hand. In her left hand is the end of a leadrope. On the other end of the leadrope is a calm black Arabian dosing just off the far right corner of the ramp. His eyes are closing, his lip is slack and his one back leg is cocked. And PL is standing there, very patiently, with her carrot stick.

Jeff has seen my load my horses and some problem horses tons of times. Even the problem horses take about 3 minutes, usually. So he asked me, "What is she doing?" "Loading a horse." "The horse looks asleep." "Yup." And we keep driving to where my horses are. We turned out Yves, mucked stalls, handwalked Ed, and grained. It took about an hour. We all get back in my truck and head down the hill again.

Jeff starts cracking up. Hmm? Dear PL is still standing there in mostly the same position, while horse has migrated to standing in the shade of the trailer on the side of the trailer. That is serious dedication to a dogma. Perhaps an Animal Communicator would work better.

Since then, I have seen her performing the same tactics on two other occasions. She has yet to get the horse in the trailer.

Not Dead, Just No Internet

2011-10-12T09:13:00.001-07:00

I've been aching to update this for a while! Though, it seems like today I still won't be able to give it justice.

Dressage Team has been AMAZING. I able to really ride 5 days a week on a variety of horses from a 4th level Rhinelander schoolmaster to a young, off the track Thoroughbred. While I wish there was more coaching available (the "coaches" are sometimes less experienced than me in dressage!), it has been invaluable for me to be in the saddle again! There is one mare in particular, a hot chestnut thoroughbred named Gwen, that I have taken a liking to. She is an ex-eventer and is an absolute blast to ride. The Team doesn't like to use her, though, since she tends to bolt. She has yet to bolt with me, though, and I have been riding her nearly every time I'm out there. Half passes, counter canters, and working pirouettes are all coming back to me!

I have also been coaching a good bit unofficially. For the most part, the various coaches we have are fairly inexperienced in both coaching and with a variety of horses. They also seem to be too nice, in my opinion. The riders have become a bit lackluster because of it and don't have the polish needed to put forth a solid test. I have spoken to several long-time members and they seem to agree with that. Lots of seesawing, pulling in transitions, and locked elbows.

When I have been coaching, probably my favorite word has been "more." More lengthening, more bounce, more contact, more elasticity, more, MORE, MORE! There has been a settling and allowance of apathy that has to stop for the Team to succeed. Last year, they were the largest and lowest place team in the region. Ouch. Time to shake things up!

Some of the riders have been really off-put with my coaching. I even told one girl she has to wear breaches, not jeans, or bring her own saddle to ruin. Yikes! But, on the flipside, I am also gathering a bit of a following. There are several riders that want to improve their riding, not just sit on a horse and be coddled. I have heard things like, "you make me ride like I used to ride in high school," and "I ride better for you than I ever have. Thank you so much." Both comments were so satisfying to hear.

Now, my horses.

Edward

We are now up to three 1 minute trot sessions, upping one of those to 2 minutes tomorrow. He has been feeling great lately and I have even started playing with lengthening his trot again. The hills have also helped him a ton in terms of fitness. I was looking at how our progress is going and it looks like he will be back to full flat work by February! I can't wait!

Right, he is also signed up as an alternative for the Introductory tests at the first Dressage Team competition of the year at Cal Poly. We have NO Intro horses, hence why Ed might have to step up to the plate. The test is short and easy and his leg has been great despite questionable footing and unintentional sharp turns (while ponying YvesButt, of course). His next ultrasound is on November 17th, at which point we see if he can start cantering or not.

Kelpie

Yves has been going well... ish. He is going through a stubborn phase again. His lunging in almost perfect in an arena except for the right lead canter. For some reason, he just gets way too stoked on life to handle himself. Yesterday, I asked for the first right canter and he started cantering, then bounding, then bouncing and bucking, leaping 4'+ in the air, and then fell and rolled. I do NOT want that to happen when I'm on him!!! Everything else has been great, though. Going left, trot/canter transitions are old hat. I don't know if he is just stiff on that side or what.

The way I ended up dealing with it yesterday is bringing it way back to walking on the lunge, then trot for one circle, walk for half a circle, trot for a circle, then canter for about 4 strides, then trot, walk, stand, and praise the willies out of him. I then did it again, but about 6 strides then a last time for just over half a circle. We'll work on that again today to see if we can canter like a sane baby.

Dumbdumb Yvesbutt

2011-09-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

Yves cast himself. I must say that he handled the situation very well. Like, as if that was just a normal thing. I turned him out and, while I was doing the latch on the fence, Yves goes down for a roll. He then rolls into the fence, subsequently getting both his front and one of his rear underneath the fence.

Crap.

Immediately, my mind goes back to when his mom got cast in her stall. She rolled over and was next to the wall. She immediately started thrashing hard and ended up giving the stall a serious being. She was so distraught that we couldn't even help her without endangering ourselves. She finally rolled back over, but it was scary.

Well, Yves tried to roll back over, couldn't, and so he laid there and looked at me. His expression was just... well... something like this:

"This is embarrassing."

Jeff was there and we tried to roll him over to no avail. We ended up just removing the bottom rung of the fence and he got up, sound and happy. He was down for about 20 minutes and was just completely chill about the whole situation. Mind blowing.

The Thoroughbred: A Documentary

2011-09-25T17:58:00.000-07:00

I found this documentary, titled, "Inside Nature's Giants: The Thoroughbred" posted on a BB that is extremely interesting and revealing. It features a good amount of dissection of a 4 year old Thoroughbred, though it is done tactfully and scientifically. I would recommend this to anyone involved in the sporthorse industry.

The Thoroughbred

Sorry that I have been fairly quiet. This was the first week of school and I have been kept busy with that along with several other happenings, including...
1. I put Yves in side reins for the first time.
2. I started trotting Ed again.
3. His leg looks and feels GREAT.
4. I'm trying to figure out how to get to the American Stallion Inspection Finals in Oklahoma.
5. I tried out and made the Cal Poly Dressage Team. (1st level, for those curious.)
6. Parelli lady is still crazy.

Happy Fall!

The Sweat Wrap

2011-09-16T18:07:00.000-07:00

At the request of jenj, here is a little how-to for you.

What is a sweat wrap?
A sweat wrap is essentially a stable bandage with a cling wrap twist. Most commonly, it involves some sort of ointment being placed on the leg, surrounded by a layer of cling wrap, then a pillow wrap of some kind, topped off with a stable or support bandage. I have also seen a sweat wrap lite version where the pillow wrap went directly on the leg, then cling wrap, and then the stable bandage. I can't really fathom how well that would work though.

When would one use a sweat wrap?
Some people will use a sweat wrap on a horse prone to stocking up or when the horse has a fat leg in general. I like to use it when a horse bumps itself pretty well and has a resulting non-tendon-related injury. I personally avoid using a sweat wrap on hot tendons since it can give the tendon a false tightness and can hide any serious injuries pretty well. It can also be used to draw out infections, which is perfect for cellulitis or scratches.

Why "sweat" the leg?
Despite the name, the goal is not to actually make the leg sweat. Every time I have used a sweat wrap, the leg has been just as warm as it would have been with a regular wrap.

What ointments are used?
My go-to goop is a 50:50 mix of DMSO and Furazone. The DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) is a solvent that is miscible with most everything and passes readily through skin. The DMSO acts as a carrier for the Furazone, which is a wound ointment. The combination allows the anti-microbial aspects of Furazone to reach the subdermal layers. This is particularly appreciated for scratches, cellulitis, and puncture wounds. DMSO can be used by itself to tighten tendons, but, again, I personally advise against that from a horsemanship point of view. On Yves' leg, I only used Furazone, though I may use a DMSO-Furazone mix soon to get the remaining swelling down for purely cosmetic purposes.

Others have used petroleum jelly, ethanol or glycerin oil.

What about safety?
There are three rules to using sweatwraps.
1. Wear gloves when dealing with the DMSO since it will pass whatever is on your skin into your.
2. Wash, rinse and dry the leg thoroughly prior to applying DMSO since, again, whatever is on the skin (flyspray, dust, etc.) will permeate into the tissues.
3. Don't leave the wrap on longer than 16 hours and allow the horse to have breaks from the sweat wrap. When I have had to wrap Ed for several days in a row due to a run in with the fence, I would wrap him over night and let it rest during the day.

Now, the How-To.

1. Gather your supplies: "ointment of choice," gloves, standing wrap, cling wrap, a soap of some kind, and a towel.

2. Wash the leg with soap of some kind. I'm using Aloedine, a betadine-based scrub. Be sure to rinse it completely afterwards.

3. Dry the leg. I use a microfiber towel since it absorbs water like crazy.

4. Apply your ointment in a uniform, thin layer. I used some Furazone, as I mentioned earlier.

5. Wrap the leg in a single layer of cling wrap. Wrap is the wrong word... it is more like place the cling wrap on the leg. No pressure is applied during this stage. Try to have it has smooth as possible, though small creases are unavoidable and totally fine.

6. Wrap with a standing wrap and you're done!

Diet Formulation Part 1: Gathering Your Tools

2011-09-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Yay for more nutrition!

So, remember that handy dandy Nutrient Requirement of Horses Working Document I showed you back in April? Well, I'm going to teach you how to use it now! I am about to re-evaluate my own horses diets and need a refresher anyways, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

To be able to complete this, I suggest the following:

1. A good knowledge of the horse's above maintenance workload, including pregnancy, growth, and breeding duties as well as training regiment.
2. A decent idea of your horse's weight. A livestock scale is best (duh), btu many weight tapes can give ballpark numbers as well.
3. The analysis report for the hay type or types you are feeding, like this. It is usually about $16-18 per sample. Make sure to follow proper hay sampling technique!
4. A bag of the grain you are planning on feeding.
5. A phone to call the company that makes your feed (because they ALWAYS leave off critical information that you need to formulate a diet).
6. The nutrition information for any of the supplements you are adding to the diet.
7. A good calculator. (Nutrition involves a lot of math... which is why I love it.)

I'll give you a day or so to gather all that and look out for the next segment!

Public Service Announcement: EHV-1

2011-09-15T08:27:00.001-07:00

Another EHV-1 outbreak is possibly underway. This one scares me due to the sheer number of horses that have been exposed. As I previously mentioned, there are some endurance horses at my barn, but fortunately none of them attended the ACTH Ride for Mustangs on September 10, 2011. But now there are 68 potentially exposed horses floating around California.

The littlest things always seem to have the biggest impact.

For the latest news, refer to the CDFA Website and the Jurga Report.

Watch for nasal signs, keep a thermometer handy, and good luck.

Punky Pony

2011-09-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

One of the first things I do when I get to the barn in check the ponies over, especially the legs. I do Ed first because I have constant visions of him playing too hard and completely wrecking himself. The visions seem to reside faster with physical proof that he is, indeed, fine. I also check Yves' legs, which are normally very clean and tight, as one would expect of a two year old.

Well, today the front right looked big. Oh no... On closer examination, it appears that he had gotten a cut of the lateral side of the foreleg, which had become inflammed. There was some heat, but under the swelling, the tendons were tight, thank goodness.

The doctored wound.

He walked and jogged totally sound. I walked him out and then turned him out for about a hour and the swelling dissipated tremendously. Afterwards, I scrubbed it and cleaned it, plus a healthy glob of Swat over it. If the swelling continues, I will probably start sweating it and possibly get him on some SMZs. He would do this to himself.

Punk.

Parellitis?

2011-09-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Today I was working with Yves in groundwork. His has been super easy with everything and this was the first time I worked with him sans-halter. I worked with him mostly yielding to pressure: backing up, turn on the haunches, and some yielding of the haunches. Then went to having him in an in-hand position, still loose. We did, essentially, off-leash heel work except the dog is really, really big. Right angle turns, figure-eights, turn-abouts, halts, backing up, going around jumps and barrels, and even some cavalletis. Yves was awesome and I'm pleased with how willing he is to work when given a choice, essentially.

Well, one of the boarders at this new place was watching me. She is one of "those" type: she has multiple carrot sticks, owns some dressage whip with a bouncy ball on the end, makes her horse trot circles around her while she faces one direction, and spends 2-3 hours at the barn each day without ever riding.

After a while she said, "It is so nice to see English riders using the natural horsemanship. It looks like your baby is almost ready for Level 3!" Of course, I had no idea what she was talking about and asked her to elaborate (while Yves rolled and rolled and rolled... I think he has a rolling addiction). Turns out, "level 3" referred to Parelli. I told her that I was just playing with him and he was a quick study. I'm not sure how I feel about all this... Flattered? Offended? I do know that it makes me uncomfortable.

Drink the Kool-Aid.

Another Reason I Love the Old Man

2011-09-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

I had bought a bunch of shavings at the local feed store and placed them in the barn preliminarily. The stack in front of Ed's stall was about six high. While I was arranging some other bags of shavings up top, Ed went to town on the ones in front of his stall. He was hardcore throwing them across the room. Unfortunately, no pictures of that, but I did get some evidence of his shenanigans.

Even though he will probably never be my "going into battle" partner again, he will always bring a smile to my face simply due to his off-kilter sense of humor.

Something to Call My Own

2011-09-09T12:01:00.001-07:00

When I was first looking at "The New Place," the BO proposed that I could lease out the Old Barn with my friend starting in October. It would essentially be self-care and we would provide our own shavings and hay as well as mucking our own stalls. They would still feed breakfast and dinner, which is convenient.

The more I'm thinking about it, the more I like the idea. Yves would probably have to stay inside this winter anyways since he will be fully body clipped for the FEH Championships in November and Ed would be inside anyways due to his injury. My friend and I would have full reign over the the entire barn, including the hay loft and tack room.

I was told to "think of a number" and give it to her. Under normal circumstances, she would get $1000 for the barn at $250 per stall. I would say hay is about $100 per horse and mucking is around $30 per horse per month... so about $120 per stall would be left. That being the case, would an even $500 seem fair? And that would be regardless of whether the barn was full or not. I have never done this before, so I would love input!

Here are more pictures of the place. Of course, these are before the serious cleaning I would give this place if we did lease it.

From the main entrance.

The tackroom.

The hayloft.

The view from the hayloft, including more feed storage.

Yves wondering what I'm doing in the hayloft.

I Love the Old Man

2011-09-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

So, Old Man Ed was cracking me up today. I didn't have time to work Yves and walk Ed for 35 minutes so I decided to pony Yves for the second time in his life. Remember that in the first experience, Yves escaped two or three times and I needed Jeff to help with the stop and go. To say the least, I was a little out of my mind.

In general, it went really well. Yves completely remembered how to follow Ed with the stop and go as well as turning. No escapes or anything. But, about 20 minutes into the walk, Yves got bored and decided that it would be fun to stop and then trot in front of Ed. Ed, who was concentrating very hard on being on the bit and flexing back and forth, thought Yves was VERY annoying. Ed was fairly tolerant at first, but when Yves tried it for the third time, Ed bit him hard on the neck! Yves squealed and then was really good for a period. About 5 minutes later, I think Yves forgot why he gave up the trot in front of Ed game. Ed gave him to meanest look that sweet gelding could muster and Yves went right back in line and continued to be the little angel that he is... kind of.

Oh, and for those of you that were really really really into eventing and then suddenly have no use for your very expensive Point 2 Air Vest. You have naught for which to worry! You know what else came with that $700 purchase??? A $2 nylon pommel strap that can double as a place to secure a leadrope while ponying! No longer must you English riders awkwardly wrap the leadrope around your leg or attempt to steer your mount and hold the pony at the same time! Worthy investment indeed...

Oh Babies...

2011-09-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I worked Yves for the first time in a while and he was a WILD CHILD. I would say, "walk on," and he would trot. I would ask for a bigger trot, and he would bolt farting and bucking. Mmmkay. So I undid the lunging rig and let him bounce around the arena. After some good bucks, he stood still and then spun in a circle with his nose to the dirt. He froze again, then reared straight up, pawing at the air! And then his back legs slipped from underneath him and he landed straight on his butt. He sat there for a second or two and then seemed to think, "well, while I'm down here..." and proceeded to roll and roll and roll.

With my first saddle ever (all of 14 inches!) still on him. :Sigh:

Luckily the tree seemed to be still intact and the thing was already severely beat up.

After that, he was awesome to lunge and he was behaving quite well. Guess he just had to get the willies out first! He did trot-canter-trot-canter transitions like a pro! Between his airs above ground and how quickly he is building muscle, his natural athletic prowess is quite impressive.

On the Ed front, due to moving and what not, his rehab program was halted. Luckily, I'm not in any rush, and will just start with walking 30 minutes a day, adding 5 minutes to the walking every other day. Once that is finished, back to the schedule!

The New Place

2011-09-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

I would love to refer to the new place by its name but it doesn't have one! It is located just inside Los Osos and is about 10 minutes from San Luis Obispo, which is perfect for me and school.

When I first looked at it, I was skeptical and felt like I was saying "yes" to boarding their on faith, which I was. The owner, though, seemed very genuine in her desire to make it into a decent training facility. It is very apparent that there is a lot happening around this place to bring it up to training facility standards.

Right now the two ponies are staying in the "Old Barn." It is quite an old barn, at that, and has some serious jerry-rigging of electricity and water lines going on in order to make it less 1890's. It has four in-and-out stalls that vary in size. The stalls that Yves and Ed are in are about 16" by 16". Yves' out is about 24" by 32" while Ed's is "only" 16" by 32". The other two outs are similar to Yves' while the one of the stalls is about 16" by 24". These are the types of stalls that make me not feel guilty for Ed and even Yves still has plenty of room to play throughout the day.

Cute ponies!

The "old barn" also has a hay loft, complete with pulley system (!), and a tack room with a tree branch as a handle. There is also huge area for trunks or grain on the ground level. The whole thing is wonderfully nostalgic and seems to have been well kept over the years.

Here is a from memory layout of the barn. I think this is pretty darn close to what it actually is. As you can tell, the flow of it is decent, too.

Click for full size image.

Now, on to the rest of the facilities. Right now there is one small arena available with all-weather footing. While it has a more traditional gravel base, the top layer is actually beach sand from the same region where I do most of my conditioning. At first, I was a bit wary of this and was thinking that it would be too deep and holding for a suspensory injury. Not so. I used it for the first time today to lunge Yves and was very impressed. It is not too deep and felt like similar to the all-weather arena I used at Elvenstar. But, the best thing about this arena is that, not only can it withstand wet weather, the footing actually improves with rain. How crazy is that?!

Down below is where the new arena is going. It is going to big enough for a jumping course and a full dressage court. Sweet! She is using a stiff clay base for this arena, which is settling as I type this. On top of that will be silt from the river flat where the arena is being carved. For the actual arena, she will be using the same local sand. The estimated finish date is September 20th.

Arena to be.

As you saw in the background, there is also the "New Barn." New Barn will have a tack room, 7 in-and-out stalls with sliding barred doors, cross ties, and a wash rack. Plus, over the barn will be a small apartment for a stable hand or manager to live in. I have a hard time really "seeing" the barn, but it looks like it will be nice when it is done.

Your stereotypical big red barn.

The majority of horsie housing are about 8 HUGE 1 to 2 acre pastures limited to 2-3 horses each. Right now they are dry, but supposedly they are green most of the year according to other boarders. There are also a couple individual paddocks suitable for stallions or horses that just need to be alone, complete with 6' no climb fencing.

One of the aisles between four dry pastures.

But, the best thing is that the BO goes above and beyond. During my initial visit to see the place, I mentioned that, as an eventer, we do lots of conditioning with hills and distance. Apparently, she kept that in mind. About 3 days after I arrived, she told me to check out her hill. She had his guys run the tractor over a strip of the hill, which is a good quarter mile long with a decent grade. They are planning on improving and maintaining that footing so that is could be used for hill sprints. How cool is that?!

She also petitioned a while back for access to a 5 mile trail. When, access was granted and, according to an endurance rider, the majority of the 5 mile track is suitable for her training for her 25k race down in SoCal. Chances are, if it is good enough for her arabs, it is good enough for eventers!

The longer I'm here, the more I'm thinking that this will be an AWESOME fit.

Yves and I Someday?

2011-09-04T07:24:00.001-07:00

Like any eventing-crazy youth, admidst desperately trying to find where I'm going to live for the next two years, I have been watching my favorite pairs on the Burghley.tv website. Only one word describes what I'm feeling.

HUNGER.

Time to Go

2011-08-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

Now that this is official and the horses are settled, I will let the cat out: all of us (Edward, Yves, Tobi, Jeff and I) are moving from Rancho del Rio.

At this point, it doesn't make sense to have my horses at a really nice training facility and paying really nice training facility prices. Edward will be rehabbing for the next 6 months and Yves will be barely backed this year. Training and lessons with either would be a waste at this point. Once Ed is more capable and Yves more broke, trailering in for lessons would be a much more viable option, but not at this point in time?

Where am I moving?

I found a place on Craigslist. The facility has no name and is owned by a woman with a love of nice, pretty dressage horses. She has owned the facilities for 6 years but only a few boarders. She now is building a big barn with in-and-outs and putting down a HUGE arena that will be big enough for a full court and a jump course. It also has a smaller short court dressage arena and miles of trails. It is pretty brown right now and doesn't have frills like manicured lawns, but I have faith. Plus the board is cheap at only $250 for GREEN pasture and "negotiable" for stalls meaning I can work it off. Ed will LOVE having an in-and-out and Yves will be on a big pasture with a hill to it which will be good for his continued development.

Back From Home

2011-08-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

I was back at home for a week, hence the lack of posts. It was nice. The horses came with me and stayed just down the street from me. One of our neighbors have horse property that they don't use, so I took it over for my visit. It was so nice to have a barn to myself. It was a small three-stall barn with in-and-outs plus an arena and two pipe corrals. At night, I turned Yves out in the arena with Ed in the pipe corral adjacent.

Edward LOVED being out of a box stall. Poor guy. Here at Rancho, he is in a 12 by 12 stall while he used to be on a 1/2 acre paddock. Being in that stall also made his legs stock up a bit, but not so in the in-and-out.

He and Yves hadn't really spent much time together, but they are now best buds. Often times, I would catch them grooming each other in the mornings when it was time to bring them in. It was very cute.

I also caught Yves sunbathing in the afternoon when I was coming to feed. He was too lazy to get up and was making the cutest expression. I wish my phone could capture the cuteness a bit more... oh well.

Now we are back up in Atascadero and getting ready for school again, plus taking by GRE in about a week. I was originally going to break Yves on my birthday (September 2nd), but I'm going whale watching instead! Plus, I don't think he is quite ready yet due to both training and growth issues. The training issue is more due tohim having the week back home off due to a very small arena (bad for growing joints to lunge in). The growth issue is because he is suddenly as tall as Ed. Yikes!

That was Unexpected

2011-08-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

Day three of rehabilitation was very interesting. Ed was fine walking around. I stayed on the property since I didn't want to deal with his shenanigans while I was reviewing for an exam via flashcards. (Multitasking is the name of the game for a student-rider.) Then, came time for the minute trot. He felt good. I don't mean good for a horse with a recent suspensory injury or good for a horse not being in work for a while. He felt just good.

He wasn't hitchy behind even for the first few steps and he wanted to go forward and was even starting to carry himself in front. The last two times he was pretty heavy in the hand and very long and low in his carriage. Not this time, though... very interesting.

After the 5 minute walk cool down, I dismounted, collected the reins, and then Ed did two legitimate caprioles that would hold their own at the Spanish Riding School. Weirdest horse ever. Jeff saw that and just shook his head... probably since I told him that Ed could be his horse if he doesn't come back to be a kid's lower level event horse or my medium level dressage horse.

Ed also got defurred. After torturing Yves for the past few weeks, it was time for Ed to get his own beauty treatment. It was bad. His mane was SO long. And, bridle path? Nonexistant. His drafty feathers were other making a reemergence. Gone with it all!

Mortifying.

On the Yves front, he killed his fly sheet. I have been repairing it on two week intervals with a good measure of success, but I'm not sure about this time. He completely shredded the neck portion plus holes that I can't just stitch together. I need fly sheet patches. I'm kicking myself for not hoarding past fly sheet material for this exact purpose. As for training, baby has been good and is getting a mental break. There is only so much you can do with a two year old and I'm not a fan of lunging his just for the sake of keeping him in work. He is cute though.

Taken from Ed's back prior to sheet destruction. Flippin' adorable.

Adventures in Ponying

2011-08-15T11:01:00.001-07:00

Since I am a GENIUS, I thought it would be a great idea to teach Yves how to pony off of Edward. So, it started fine with me on Ed and Jeff leading Yves next to me, stopping when I say "woah," going when I cluck. I then took the lead and was going to continue the exercise... when my back-up (Jeff) wasn't there. He thought that everything was totally fine and went to go play with Tobi. I'm walking forward and Yves isn't moving... gets free, takes off bucking, setting Ed off bucking... ya... Good thing I was in a closed arena.

So, word for the wise, make sure your helper knows that they have to keep helping and be very clear with your instructions since they may be very easily misunderstood.

Try 2 went much smoother. Yves figured it out and was going off my cues very well. After turns, stops, and starts were down without any pulling or lagging from Yves while staying right parallel to Ed, we went outside the ring to see how that went.

And it went well... until Ed spooked at his own shadow, spun and tried to take off. Yves got out of the way and then stood there watching the festivities. At least the baby has a brain.

Once it was time for trotting, I through Yves in his turnout again so that I could trot unhindered. I don't think I'll be ponying Yves at the trot for a good while. Ed felt much better today that yesterday, though he still feels really out behind.

Surprisingly, the leg still looks good today. I still plan on going day by day, though.

Let Us Begin...

2011-08-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

Day 1 of the 27 week rehabilitation program complete. It included 25 minutes of walking, 1 minute of trotting, and 5 minutes of walking.

He was pretty full of himself walking around and blew up a bit when some dogs tried to be silly near him... and then again when two horses decided that us walking by was nearly as exciting as the hay man coming to town. Dear old man, can you start acting old already?

After twenty minutes walking around on the hard ground, we went into the arena and concentrated on getting a consistent contact and being straight. During his time off, he has gotten really, really crooked and won't get off my right leg. I gave my right rein, which he wanted to lean into, and kept the supple contact in the left rein. Then, I basically booted him as much as I could without setting him off and it ended up working and he was straightish! Yay for straightish!

And then, the trot! I would love to say that all his suspension and power was still there and he felt AMAZING. But, in actuality, it felt like I was riding a old farty pants school horse. He started off feeling really hitchy behind, which makes sense given that he is past due on hock injections. As we continued, he became more regular and bigger with his steps. He was definitely still pony trotting around, but we have got to start somewhere!

Afterwards, he was completely full of himself and was jigging and tossing his head continuously for the 5 minute "walk." Oh pony.

I checked the leg last night, but couldn't really see or feel anything. This morning, it was again the first thing I did. At first, it looked great! No abnormal heat nor swelling... but the more I looked at it, the more I thought I saw something or felt something. Gah! I would always do this before the injury, but I don't want to screw something up. I showed it to another person there and they said it looked fine... Hmm...

On the Path of Suspensory Success? Part II

2011-08-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

For the past week, Ed has been walking for 15 minutes undersaddle each day and, for background, this is what our rehabilitation plan has been so far.

week 1: stall rest, ice 2x daily, bute 2x daily, wrappedB week 2: stall rest, wrapped
week 3: PRP therapy/5 min handwalking, wrapped
week 4: 10 min handwalking, wrapped
week 5: 15 min handwalking
week 6: 20 min handwalking
week 7: 25 min handwalking
week 8: 30 min handwalking
week 9: 30 min handwalking
week 10: 15 min walking undersaddle

As I mentioned, I was checking his leg a total of 3x times per day and not once was there any swelling, heat, or any other indication that his leg was having trouble with the work. If anything, he felt heel sore on both fronts, but I feel like that is more due to the awful thrush he has right now due to him being on stall rest and attempting to occupy his time by drinking and dispelling excessive amounts of water. Some horses weave, some horses crib, some horses sleep... mine chooses to drink copious amounts of water. Despite daily treatment and me trying to skippy out his stall in the afternoon when I can, the undersides of his feet look awful.

Since the leg looks good, that means we get to start a 6 month rehabilitation program starting tomorrow! Here is a copy of the program.

As you can see, according to this sheet, I would start trotting him tomorrow. While it is only for 1 minute, it still makes me nervous. He has been off for almost 3 months now, but I still feel like this might be rushing it... maybe?

So, my plan is to go forward with the rehabilitation planned laid out and, if I notice any negative changing in my horse, I will cut the trotting and just add another month to the schedule which would look like this:

week -3: 20 minutes walking
week -2: 25 minutes walking
week -1: 30 minutes walking
week 0: 35 minutes walking

Who knows, maybe I'm being overly conservative. Thoughts, anyone? Kate, I know you just went through this with your horse, so we'll see.

On the bright side, Ed would make a great horse for Jeff if push comes to shove. Jeff walked him once for me and learned how to stop and turn!

On the Path of Suspensory Success?

2011-08-12T19:15:00.000-07:00

I spoke to the vet the next day on the phone and he said that Ed was recovering brilliantly. He felt that the PRP therapy did exactly what it needed to do in laying down the bridges to encourage correct regrowth and the growth promoters certainly accelerated the healing process. I quote, "I'm really, really happy with how his tendon is looking now."

So, what does this mean? Well...

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I LOVE the sight of that flaxen mane right in front of me! So, the plan was to walk him undersaddle for 15 minutes each day to see how the leg holds. If the leg became hot, blows up, or anything of the sort, then we would back it off. So, I did my due diligence and often rode him in the early morning and then would check the leg at the end of the day. Of course, I would check the leg before and after every ride, but that is just an ingrained habit of mine. I know every ounce of scar tissue, windpuff, splint, and the like on that horse.

More tomorrow on how undersaddle working went and what to do now. Right now it is time to watch the 2009 Star Trek film, instead!

"It Looks Better and He's Fat"

2011-08-03T00:35:00.000-07:00

Ed had a check up today. Since I was still sick and had my own appointment, I didn't get to go and see and hear what was happening for myself. All I know are those two golden nuggets:

1. The ultrasound was an improvement over his last one.
2. The airfern packed on a ton of weight.

I'm calling tomorrow to get more details.

Yves has been AMAZING lately. He got over himself and has been back to wonder baby. It looks like we are on track for backing in September! So, he'll thirty days put on then, school will start and he sits around getting fuzzy till early Spring next year.

Vlog Much?

2011-07-27T19:44:00.000-07:00

I have been sick and the riding has been light. I have been riding Daisy, a chestnut Oldenburg mare, this week who is awesome. She obviously has had some training, but has been finicky in the contact, though she is improving every time I ride her. Unlike Ed, she is light and sensitive, meaning riding her is easy in the terms of energy expenditure. With Ed, I got a serious thigh-burning, bicep-tearing, calf-aching workout every time I rode him. Speaking of him, Ed is a handful and I have come to resent handwalking him. He is best around 7:30-8:00pm when there is absolutely nothing happening at the barn since almost will set off The Stallion. Yves gets a break. He's been good and is at the point where lunging looks like circles and he can canter reasonably well for three whole circles. He also prefers clean flying lead changes to trot transitions when he picks up the wrong lead (which I think is AWESOME!).

Back to being sick. I have no idea what I have. My fever has been fluttering around 100 to 102F while my normal is abnormally low (97.4F). While Jeff was at work, I made him this video pleading him to come home. It didn't work.

The volume level is low while the swearing level is high. It is not funny nor entertaining and I am undeniably delusional. Seriously.

Excellent Clinic Report

2011-07-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

I found this post on Ultimate Dressage the other day and found it enlightening and entertaining. It covers a variety of issues from sourness to mares to muscle weakness. It also touts the benefits of working a horse in hand, which I'm finding more and more relevant to my everyday work with Yves. Since Ed had sidebone, I was advised to not lunge him, so I find things like this post an excellent reminder on what the goals of such work should be. While I was not previously aware of Manolo Mendez, if I hear of him coming to my area, I will totally sign up for a clinic!

Enjoy!

Manolo Mendez - Clinic Report from April 20-21

Woodside Summer Dressage 2011 Pictures!

2011-07-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

I'm quite impressed with the photographs, I must say! She is quite talented, especially with fidgety Yvesbutt. (He is still Yvesbutt and will remain so until he learns to stand still.)

I'm 90% positive that I will be buying these two and have an e-mail into the photographer for price lists now. In the running one, you can clearly see my attire and footwear. Scandalous.

More pictures can be found here and Yves is on the 4th and 6th page.

Something that I did notice though is that he looked a bit downhill, which I can fix by "half halting" with one or two short steps. I have done that training at home, but apparently I need to carry on to competitions as well.

Added for kicks... Yves 6 six weeks ago. Ha!

A Lesson in Letting Go

2011-07-19T21:16:00.001-07:00

After not jumping for 6 weeks and not riding for 3 weeks, I had an opportunity to ride for Dayna Lynd-Pugh while on Smurf, a former 1* horse. I for sure felt rusty, but the horse's owner was impressed by how quickly I figured him out despite never jumping him before.

She began the lesson by telling me to do two things that made me feel out of my element:
1. Lengthen your stirrups.
2. Lengthen your reins.

At the beginning, she had me get the bend. I have been taught to get the bend from the inside leg and holding the outside rein to carry the horse. Her goal for us, though, was to really unlock his neck and had me let go and follow with the outside rein and pull him around with the inside rein. Then, I would relax the tension on the inside rein and carry the bend with my inside leg. The whole time, I was thinking, "I'm losing the shoulder!" but sometimes you just have to go with it.

We then did a small vertical on a circle and concentrated on turning him with the inside rein immediately after the fence. Once again, the goal was to unlock his back. I could reestablish the contact in the turn, but then had to drop him approaching the fence and have him carry himself. He is a rusher, though not as bad as Ed, so this was very valuable training for him.

We then did a few courses focusing on the tightness of the turn and the balance. At first, he would get frantic and overeager looking for the next jump. It was my job just to stay quiet and let him find him find comfort in the bend. My reins were soooo fricken long that I felt like this 15.1hh wiggle worm under me was going to have complete say over where we went.

After a while of this, he was doing better till I saw a short spot. Since I was out of practice, I made a novice mistake and pulled without leg to back it up. He stopped and I landed on the oxer. Ooops. But, I didn't make that mistake again and, by the end, I felt like a hunter derby rider.

The feeling was very interesting and I had to use my eye to its maximum to get the most out of it. Essentially, I would look at the jump and identify where I was in relationship to it. I would make a tiny adjustment for 2 or 3 strides about 6 to 8 strides away. Since I could hold the adjustment longer, the change was nearly imperceptible. Once the adjustment was complete, my knuckles would rest on either side of the horse's crest and I would just let him maintain the stride length to the base. We did about 10 fences like that and called it quits.

Afterward, I talked to Gina briefly about it. After riding Ed for 10 years and trying to fix his rushing with similar and different methods under 9 different trainers, it was nice to know that he is just that kind of horse and it isn't that I can't fix a rusher. He is freaky athletic and he knows it. Cocky bugger. Even Dayna seemed to agree that there are some horses out there like that, though they are rare. It was invaluable for me to get this feeling from Smurf so that I can add it to my riding tool box.

And here is Smurf, in all his glory. He is getting a vet check today and then will hopefully be going to a new home as a 2'6"-3' packer. Sad for me, good for him.

This is a nose.

15.1hh of sweaty glory immediately post-ride.

Woodside Summer Dressage Recap

2011-07-19T18:20:00.000-07:00

That was certainly an experience to say the least.

We pulled out of the barn at 6:20 am to be there in time for my friend's first ride around 11:30am. Yves was a bit apprehensive about loading into an unfamiliar trailer that had a narrow entrance, but he got on without too much fuss. Around 9:00 we stopped for Starbucks since the driver was feeling drowsy and had to use the bathroom. The horses seemed content and so we both went in, me to place my order and my friend to use the bathroom, while Jeff was outside with the dog trying to get him to pee. After I placed my order, Jeff said that the horses made a big noise, but now they were fine.

Hmm...

So I go and check on them and the mare is munching away and Yves looked... off. His eyes were drooping and he was leaning on the side of his slot. I peak in to see what's up and there is a hoof in the integrated manger. Gah! So, I cluck and lift the hoof to see if I can convince him to lift his foot up and back. Uhh... no... He brings the other hoof up instead! Shit. So Yves is playing circus pony in the trailer and I need to get him down by getting him to back up. I see my friend and wave her down. She occupies his head and hooves while I open the back and we convince him to figure himself out. As soon as he was down, he was happy to just keep munching away. To be safe, we unload both horses since, in this three horse trailer, the front stall has no manger. Surprisingly, he hardly hesitated to get back in the trailer and we continued on our way to the Horsepark at Woodside.

After practicing the triangle and standing up, I was sure that we would have a much better go than we did at Twin. Jeff put it best: "that could have gone better." Oh Yves... outside the ring and within the warm-up, he was actually really good. A bit vocal, but nothing out of place with all the youngsters. But, once in front of the judge, he was fidgety, pushy, and would not stand longer than an iota of s second.

I practiced for 30-40 minutes every day on our showmanship. I got it so that Yves knew "stand" meant to not move a muscle and perk those ears! I got it so that he could move backward or forward only one diagonal pair at a time so that we could perfect the "open stance" used in breed shows.

And all of it out the window!

He was absolutely awesome on the triangle, though, and was forward and lofty for the trot while respecting my space. I thought we had that nailed at least!

I was feeling bummed and I was sure the judge just discounted him for his behavior, which I totally understand. In the championship round, I would trot Yves and only get halfway done and she would say, "thank you number 286." When comparing the walks, she would glance over Yves. He finished deadlast. Jeff and my friend, though, were sitting behind the two judges and told me they were "real bitches." I thought they were trying to be nice and said something along the lines of I would have excused my self if I was judging, but then Jeff said, "no, seriously, they were mean."

Huh? Apparently they were tearing ME apart! What? According to the rules, running shoes are permissible to allow the runner to show off the colt. Well, I run normally and I run in my Vibram Bikilas. No, they aren't traditional, but almost all modern running shoes are made with only mesh or fabric tops. Well, apparently they called them "spiny skeleton shoes," and one of them said that she didn't want to come near me while I was wearing them. As if my shoe choice is a reflection of my character? As for the rest of my attire, my was slicked into a bun, I had a light blue polo tucked into light beige pants, and a black belt. My make-up with subtle and natural and the shoes in question were white with light blue trim and cleaned the night before so they looked like new. I'm sure all 5'3" of me was very intimidating.

It is just a bummer that that would be the reason Yves doesn't do well. After the breed show concluded, I went back in to work on Yves standing still. It definitely involved some stinging smacks to his big nose whenever he got pushy.

In conclusion...

What went well!
Yves stood completely quiet for braiding even with the mare gone.
He explored the entire show grounds quietly alert.
He trotted out like a superstar!
He is a tying champion.
He walked right into the water jump.
He trotted right into the water jump.
He went over a small jump set up in the water.
He isn't pawing anymore in the trailer.

What needs work!
Standing in new locations on command.
My shoe choice.
Vocalization is not acceptable.
A new no-tolerance policy on invading my space with his head.

He now gets about a month off from showing and I will be focusing on getting him ready for backing by getting him more confirmed on the lunge, introducing tack on the lunge, and finally introducing sidereins on the lunge.

Woodside Summer SHB Preview

2011-07-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

This coming Sunday, Yves makes it back into the show ring. This time though, he is playing a make-believe dressage prospect. In no fashion do I think that Yves will become a dressage superstar, but this is all about the showring experience. His sire, Yeager GF, was originally advertised in Germany as a FEI dressage prospect, so maybe this isn't as farfetched as I think it is... maybe.

As I get more and more into this SHB/FEH thing, the more I find myself interested in the breeding of these horses I'm competing against. I would love to still be able to talk about how to perfect my leg yields, but I'm just not there anymore (though I wish I was!!!). Give it a year or so...

(God, I hope it isn't that long!)

In this spirit, I thought it would be fun to scope out the competition of the coming weekend. In the USDF's SHB classes, things are run a bit different than USEA's FEH classes. Here, the colts and fillies are completely separated. Within the genders, they are further divided by age into Foals and Weanlings, Yearlings, Two-year-olds, and Three-year-olds. The top two from each age group then continue into the Championship class for there respective gender. The top two placing babies in the Championship class are qualified to compete in the Region Finals. Clear as mud?

So, who is the competition? In the two-year-old colts class, along with Yvening Affair, we also have Don Marteen and Argentum BSH. In the three-year-old colts class, we have Majestic Playboy and Bravo's First Class.

Don Marteen is a Domiro out of Tasha that was an ET foal. Domiro is a bred to the hilt Donnerhall son. Tasha is a currently competing FEI KWPN mare. Talk about intimidating! I believe this will be his first show. While I can't find any pictures of Don Marteen, but here is one of his sire. I have to say that Domiro is a spitting image of Donnerhall in terms of build.

Removed.

Domiro by Donnerhall.

The second two-year-old is Argentum BSH, by Art Deco out of Sasia. Art Deco is a very well-known pinto stallion, though I'm afraid that "being pinto" is all his is well-known for. While he has well over 100 offspring registered with USEF, only 6 of them have FEI passports, with only one of those being active. This colt is fairly experienced when it comes to showing, having gone to 6 shows. Interestingly, this colt has never beaten another horse in competition. He looks nice enough in photographs, so I'm curious to what I see in person. He did do very well at inspection, though, scoring an 8.0 and 8.3.

Removed.

Wee Argentum in 2009.

The first colt of the three-year-old is Majestic Playboy. Playboy is by a local pony stallion, Majestic Dakoda, and is out of Bubble Butt Barbie. (Yes, I know. Poor mare. This is why you don't like 8 year old boys name ponies.) Playboy has gone to a whopping 23 shows in his short life, with 9 of those being dressage-related. Basically, he is pro. His performance at those shows seems to be fairly average. He also did very well at inspection, scoring (I believe) an 8.2.

Removed.

Playboy last year at Woodside.

The last colt I'm covering is Bravo's First Class, by Bravo and out of Faunja. I have to say that I'm fairly amused by this since I have competed against his father, Bravo, on multiple occasions. Bravo is a nice horse and his babies are certainly doing well on the keuring circuit. First Class is touted as Bravo's nicest baby to date after he scored a 8.6 at his inspection and is currently kept whole as a stallion prospect. On the show circuit, he has attended 7 shows and has consistently been in the upper middle part of the pack.

Removed.>

First Class placing 6th at the Region 7 SHB Championships.

The Real FEH Test

2011-07-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Or how to introduce a horse to cross country in hand.

After the FEH class, we went back to the trailer and changed into more appropriate clothing. We then went out on the cross country course! Oh yes!

We began with the water, which Yves had never seen before. One of the absolute best things about Yves has been his bravery. He hardly hesitates when going trough "scary" places. Over the muddy puddle by the washracks? No big. Through the tight, dark corridor in the backside of the barn? Tackled. Into the trailer by himself for the first time? Yawn.

The water jump was murky and muddy from the combined test, so I was worried. I definitely had some flashbacks of Ed's severe water phobia and how he took an hour of lead-ins, kicking, whipping, and the like until he FINALLY went into the water. Yves saw the water move (Tobi was playing), and perked up and snorted a bit. Once he was at the water's edge, he stopped, smelled, and walked right in. Yay baby!

So we hung out in the water for a bit and then we decided to head over to the coffin combinations for some ditch introduction. We first popped over some Intro logs in hand which he thought was fun and bucked on the landing side. (Eeks! That is SO much scarier in hand!) We then walked through the ditch and he stepped in it with a front leg. We back over it again and he jumped it from a walk. The last time we trotted it and he gave an excellent effort over it.

We did one last log before playing in the water some more. He thought this FEH test was WAY more fun than that stupid triangle. Given that nearly every single venue that there is a SHB/FEH class at has a cross country course (including some I haven't been to with Ed), he will definitely get a "treat" after nearly every class.

Yvening Affair does his First FEH Class

2011-07-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

That was quite the experience, I must say. I was definitely VERY nervous for this, which seems crazy. I was more nervous for trotting my baby around a triangle than I have been for going over crazy solid jumps. Go figure.

But, my nervousness definitely got to Yves. My normally very patient and well-behaved baby would not stand for his inspection. There was tons of fidgeting and rooting. He looked awful, in my opinion, and was standing splayed in back and super base narrow in front. Yuck. The triangle stuff went well, though. He marched around the triangle like a star for the walk. He kind of bounded into the trot, but he was awesome in the corners. Next time I will definitely go for more.

I totally have a video of this on my phone, but I can't upload it to save my life without a micro USB cable, which I lost.

Here is his scorecard, though,, which I feel is quite enlightening.

Click for full-size.

For the most part, I completely agree with the judging. She did a great job in her objectivity and I felt that numbers were on target. She did say to me that he is a nice horse, but it was difficult to score him better when he was sabotaging himself. For example, the first comment reads, "neck a little heavy at base." When a horse is rooting, of course they will look base heavy.

She also said, "a little tight in elbow." At this growth stage, his leg conformation was probably hit the hardest, as I mentioned in my pre-FEH entry. Growing up will only help him here.

For the movement scores, in the walk she said that we were a little quick. I thought we were marching, but apparently too much so. I will slow our walk down in the future to try to help him out here. Too improve elasticity, a whip assistant will help tremendously.

For correctness, the comments read, "slight twist behind | crosses at front in." I'm honestly not positive what she meant on this and I would have loved to ask her about it. In the future, I'll be more on top of getting my scorecard sooner so I can ask about such things. I know it has to do with the flight of his feet, though and I'm going to be paying attention to this more and try to deduce what she meant.

As for our blue ribbon, this is slightly misleading. While there was one more 2yo entered, the owner literally chickened out of the competition in the last minutes before she was supposed to go. I saw the (gorgeous!) bay walking around right when I was called to go. I stopped paying attention to her and then, when I came out, she wasn't there. It's a shame because she is a nice horse.

The owner of Twin/fellow FEH competitor said that the Gatsby filly's owner was nervous about the triangle which is why she ducked out. This being the case, I will say that Yves beat the other two year old since at least Yves completed the test!

There were three other FEH competitors whom all did awesome. I felt like the best horse of the day was Irish Blend by Rascalino. She was a very correct, flashy chestnut ISH mare. Flaxen, a big blaze, four tall socks, and even a belly spot! She wasn't the biggest mover and was a smidge heavy in her frame for my taste, but she was certainly nice and had a great expression. If I find a picture of her, I'll post it. In the mean time, here is her sire.

Rascalino. Noice.

There was one horse there that I distinctly can say won't be an eventer (though I hope I'm proven wrong). While the other four babies there (including the Gatsby filly) just exuded athlete with a touch of fire, this one just seemed dull.

Good Yvesbutt!

2011-07-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

We came home with this today.

Yes, its blue. More on the whole FEH experience tomorrow. I'm way too tired and sunburnt to talk about it now.

I can't believe it...

2011-07-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Yves' big show debut. Unfortunately, the "big" debut is actually quite small with a total of 5 FEH competing with only two of those five being in the 2 year old division. Since I have little idea of what I'm getting into, I definitely scoped out the competition. The other 2 year old is a Gatsby filly. She was rated Premium at his BWB inspection and was for sale last year for $12,000 and, apparently, sold at that!

Gatsby is an awesome stallion and one that I seriously considered breeding Penny to post-Yves. Rumor has it that his get are making their way into the eventing world and with him being half-thoroughbred, that is absolutely no surprise to me. So far, I haven't seen any of his older offspring competing in anything in eventing other than the FEH and YEH series, but time will tell. As foals, his babies clean up at their inspections and are often site champions and top placing nation wide for their respective registries. As adults, though, I haven't seen too much pan out as an upper level competition horse yet in any of the Olympic divisions.

Gastby in the XC portion of his stallion inspection.

Of course, Yves decided to have a funky growth spurt starting about a week ago and my very balanced and correct colt is now butt high by about 2-3 inches. Thanks dude. This ends up making his look wonky everywhere else. I had Jeff stand him up for me yesterday and I couldn't help thinking that his neck was tying in poorly at the withers, his shoulder looked straight, he looks back at the knee, toed out, and like he has a weak, misplaced loin. Booooooo!

The Mitt

2011-07-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

I ordered a fly sheet from SmartPak since Penny's old one had a very sad and drawn out death at the hooves of Yves. Way to take care of your inheritance, buck-o.

Anyway, said fly sheet comes with a free mit to put fly spray on your horse. Okay, sweet. I'm assuming that they happen to be aware of the fact that Yves isn't a fan of spray bottles, especially near his face. So I conclude that someone more entrepreneurial than me makes a cheap mit that one sprays fly spray on and then you put in on your horse. Sounds like a plan.

I see a SmartPak box at my horse and I'm excited to get this new fly sheet on Yves since the other one was, at this point, dead and buried. I break out the sheet and in it is this thing...

Okay. So, I have a two year old that is not comfortable with being sprayed. Is spraying fly spray on something resembling cookie monster's toupee really going to help that much??? I would be scared of that thing coming at my face, fly sprayed or not!

Granted, it makes a nice counter duster... I credit the microfibers.

Yves Free Jumped!

2011-07-03T16:57:00.000-07:00

How exciting is that? Today seemed like a good day to free jump Yves for the first time in his life. He has had some good pole introductions, but all in hand and all just walking. You can tell in the video that he is very green and we hardly jumped him, but I think I like what I see! As soon as he "got it" we stopped, but expect another go at it in 1-2 months.

While I'm no jumping professional, I do have an idea for what is good in youngsters and what isn't. Here is my list of what I want in a future jumping horse:

1. The presence of a bascule, or a good stretching arch from poll to withers created by a lift of the shoulders.
2. A good flexion of the elbow joint to allow the legs to fold. "Good knees" are not a requirement and can be trained for, but you can't begin with this.

3. The ability to flex the hocks on take-off since this is where the scope comes from.
4. The horse's ability to fix his or her own mistakes and regulate their own stride.
5. The flexion of the stifle and the upward extension of the hindend upon landing. Time and time again, I have heard that the front end can be tweaked, but the hind end is what it is.

Here is a couple of freeze frames of the last jump, which I find interesting to look at.

Entered!

2011-07-02T21:32:00.000-07:00

Yves' two entries for this coming weekend and the next weekend are in the mail now! The two shows are Future Event Horse at Twin Rivers on the 10th and Woodside Summer Dressage on the 17th! How crazy is it that the time is upon us! Little Yvesbutt is growing up so fast!

Wee Yves' first taste of freedom. Damn cute.

So, how is that triangle work going, you ask? Really well, actually. We had the two days of trot-and-woah work. After some lunging for a few days, he got about a week off and was only brought in for grooming and grain. I just started working with him again yesterday on the triangle with dressage letters set up at each point of the triangle.

We started with the walking bit until he was responding to a raised whip butt without any resemblance of running into me. We then went to slow trotting and then walking at each corner. He was really good and only a few baby moments in the mix. I was brave enough to try for some gusto, which resulted in Yves cantering and bouncing... not desirable. Oh well.

Today, we started where we left off from yesterday. He completely had the idea of automatically slowing down for the corner, and then continuing on. So, we went to going from normal trot to a slow trot around a corner, and then back to a normal trot. We also practiced going for it again and he was SO much better! He actually kept trotting and, when he did canter, he learned to respond just to a "trot" from me, and then continue on our way. He still has silly moments, but he is two, after all.

Edward is also doing well and he is now handwalking for 15 minutes a day now. He has been quite well behaved... except today. I was walking Ed and Jeff was walking Yves for Yves' first time down a road near Rancho. I figured old man Ed can show him how its done. Well... ya... Ed went bonkers. We just came inside the gate back to Rancho and a horse in the front pasture decided to buck and play which completely set Ed off. He was prancing and snorting and flying. I had no idea he could arch his neck that much. Awesome. Yves was just standing with Jeff, both of them looking fairly nervous. Yves because he had no idea why Ed was going crazy and Jeff because he was worried Yves would go crazy like Ed. Yves just watched on until the excitement was over on both fronts: Ed and the "trigger" horse, who was still havinga blast. And that is why I was leading the 18 year old and Jeff was leading the 2 year old.

Just because my puppy is adorable.

Tobi The Wonder Dog!

Teaching a Horse How to Lunge and Clip

2011-06-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

Poor Ed. Pretty much day in and day out he is stuck inside his stall. He is now permitted 5 minutes of handwalking per day, which is an adventure in itself, but that really doesn't do much to fill the other 1,435 minutes of the day.

So, I got him a Uncle Jimmy's Hanging Ball. He loves it! The text I got from Bec today after I hung it was the following:

Ed - obsessed with ball. OBSESSED.

Yay pony! At first, he was spooking at it since it would swing into his bum. But, after a while, he would just lick it and follow it and try to bite it and lick it some more. It was pretty cute.

Lunging Introduction

For Yves, we had another exciting day. We kept the lunging very low key and, at this point, it is more like long lining than lunging. There were four big goals for today, given that this was his first time on the lungeline:

1. Maintaining lunging position (i.e. shoulder in front with me at the haunches).
2. Understanding "woah," "stand," "walk," and "[gait] on." (Those mean, respectively, slow, halt, walk, and more forward.)
3. When halting, it is not necessary to face me.
4. Trotting one full circle around me each direction.

With other horses, I would only have taught one or two of those things, but Yves just kind of got it.

Yves would be a natural horseman's dream colt. He was already programmed to stand at attention when halting on the lunge. Too bad I don't play by those rules. I have to say that he got this whole lunging thing pretty quick. Within about 3 minutes, he had the positioning down pat both directions. At first he was so confused, though! I could tell he was thinking, "but you told me that I'm supposed to be next to you!" But, as soon as he was staying out without my placing him there, I told him, "good," his cue for "that's the right answer!" You could see the light bulb go on and he just got it.

"Woah" was a bit trickier, though he got that, too. Since I really want him to read contact as something other than just slowing down, I had to be a bit clever with how I taught "woah." I would ask for it by stopping my body from following him around the circle and saying, "woah" with a downward inflection. As soon as he slowed up any perceptible amount, I would say "good," combined with a "walk on" cued with a dressage whip near his flank. After a bit, he figured "woah," could mean stop, too, and would stop and turn towards me. This is another reason that I would send him forward fairly quickly after saying, "good."

(For those familiar with clicker training, "good" is like my "click." It was "charged" with treats and scratchies earlier on, to give the word meaning. I have tried clicker training in the past with my animals and I hated being impeded in my training with whether or not I had the clicker on me. My Boxer Tobi's "click" is "yes." Again, same concept, less hindrance.)

Once he stopped turning into me, I would ask for, "stand," a command he already knows from our in-hand training. I would ask for for "woah," and then, when he looked like he was about to stop on his own, "stand." Then I would go to him and give scratchies.

While I wasn't planning this entirely, I asked for a bigger "walk on," and it became a trot, so I went with, saying "trot." He went around the circle like a big boy with no silliness. I then asked for a "walk," and he went right down to a walk! Good baby!

Going the other direction, we worked on the brakes, and then I asked for a trot, which he willingly gave. We were almost done with our one-time-around when he leapt straight up into the air and then tried to continue cantering. He came back down to the trot and then the walk with little resistance. I then went for the trot again, but he had reverted back to wanting to stop and turn towards me. With some coaxing from the dressage whip, I got a well-mannered baby trotting a full circle around me by the end. Yay Yves!

Clipper Introduction

Having had everything from horses that fall asleep with being clipped to horses that require substantial drugging, twitching and a handler, I have realized that I prefer the former. This is how I plan on achieving that. Keep in mind though, that this horse has no baggage that came with clipping, making my life that much easier.

I started by letting Yves see and smell the clippers briefly and then placed them on his shoulder while off. He tried to move away from them, but I followed his movement to teach him that moving away doesn't make the clippers come off you. As soon as he stood for them, I began rubbing them all over him from poll to flank to belly to legs to tail. I then did the same thing with his face, placing them on top of his poll, between his eyes, on his cheek, on his ear, and under his chin. Once he seemed comfortable with that I turned them on and repeated the whole process. Near his poll, he got a little funny, so I kept it there a bit longer, following him as he tried to move away. He eventually stood still and was good after that.

For his first clipping experience, I did the muzzle. I have learned that horses' seem to think that getting their muzzle clipped is kind of fun, even for the horses that don't like being clipped. Yves stood great for it, while occasionally trying to eat the clippers.

I will bring the clippers out again today and do the rubbing bit again, spending more time near his poll. My goal is to get him thinking that this is just normal grooming stuff and nothing too exciting.

Saddle Introduction and Tail Dyeing

2011-06-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

Yves had a pretty eventful day today. It began with him getting saddled up for the very first time in his entire life. He was a super star for it and was more interested in the cookies than the saddle. (I bribe when doing new and possibly uncomfortable things. He rarely gets cookies otherwise.) I was planning on barely cinching the girth, but he just didn't care and after a few bouts of walk-n-cinch, it ended up tight enough that I could get on without worrying about the saddle slipping, though not entirely riding tight.

Baby genius!

Then began another stage in the Operation Tail: dyeing. Here are some pictures of the starting material.

For Yves, I used two sets of Revlon ColorSilk in Brown Black since even his dark points aren't actually black, but darkdarkdark chocolate brown. If this were for a bay, I would probably have gone with Soft Black and not Extreme Black or Blackest Black (or whatever they call it) since those types of black can look harsh and no one wants Gothic-stylin' ponies.

To begin with, I brushed and shampooed Yves tail so that it tangle and grime free. I really scrubbed at the tail bone since any grime there would soak up the dye, botching those tail hairs. I then left the tail to dry and followed the directions to make up the dye. I have never dyed anything in my life, so if I could figure this out, so can you.

Once the dye was ready, I sectioned Yves' dry tail into 4 sections: one at the head of the tail and three below. In each section, I started near the tail bone with the dye, squirting it on the section, and then pulling it through about 3-5 inches of hair repeatedly to saturate each strand. I then moved down the section of tail and repeated until I got to the end.

Once everything had the dye in it, I braided the tail and put it in a plastic bag, tying the top to the tail so it stayed put. The point of this was to make sure that, if Yves swatted at flies, he wouldn't dye his sides, too!

How's my sacking out technique, Parelli?

I then let him graze for about 20 minutes as the dye set. Then I rinsed out all the dye going from bottom to top. The tail felt like straw at this point, which had me worried a bit. I then used some deep conditioner in it for about 3-5 minutes, and then rinsed that out, too. Once his tail was dry, I could finally see the results and I liked them! The sunbleaching was mostly gone without the tail looking like it was dyed!

Note that the tail is almost starting to look like a poorly pulled tail?

Great success!

Afterwards, Yves got his first leg protection introduction. He hardly cared. Not so exciting.

After a dinner break, Yves got his bridle put back on for grain time. He was protesting when I was putting it on, but he completely accepted the bit once it was in his mouth. Clever boy!

Happy face!

PRP Therapy and Bridle Introduction

2011-06-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

I made the decision to go with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy with Ed. Today was the day of the appointment, so I loaded Ed and Yves up for our adventure off to Estrella Equine. Yves came along to (1) get more trailering experience, (2) go to an unfamiliar place and behave, and (3) get a 5-way and WNV vaccine. Normally, I do my own vaccines, but reasons 1 and 2 compelled me to just get them done by the vet. It was also a good introduction for him to Dr. B.

Up to this point, Ed has been on 100% stall rest. Poor guy. The leg has been looking good and he is still sound on it, but it is amazing what an ultrasound can reveal.

The leg. Ugh.

Ed was quite the wild child and was ready for some excitement beyond the confines of his stall. He unloaded well and went right into the stocks. Freedom is brief for those with tore suspensories. He was promptly drugged with a Dorm/Torb cocktail and left to simmer as the vet did his preparations. The assistant, whom I'm assuming got tired of lifted Ed's head so that he didn't strangle himself in his drunken stupor, balanced Ed's head on a cart. I thought it was very amusing!

Such a good sport.

Then began the PRP therapy. The vet drew 60cc of blood from Ed and then used a "special" centrifuge to spin it into the necessary fractions for about 20 minutes. (How this centrifuge was "special," I have no idea. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if we had even "special-er" centrifuges in my lab. Moving on.)

Drawing the blood. Check out the size of that syringe!

He then located the tear in the ligament using an ultrasound. Once the PRP was ready for injection, he used the ultrasound machine to locate the tear again and then insert a fine (about 30 gauge) needle into the tear location and injected about 5cc of the PRP into the tear. Afterwards, the leg was bandaged with sterile bandage and wrapped up. I'm to leave the wrap on till tomorrow.

As for rehabilitation, I get to walk Ed for 5 whole minutes everyday starting Wednesday! Yippee! Right now, the sensible part of me is thinking, "I gotta find a studchain, stat!"

The postprocedural wrap-up.

When we got back, Ed went in his stall to sulk some more. Yves, however, got more of his tail pulled and then it was time for his first bridle experience! The way I did it was I undid the cheek strap from the headstall. I slipped the headstall over Yves' head and then slipped my fingers, followed by the bit in his mouth. While this sounds easy, it involved some muscle. I then let him feel sorry for himself as he tried to suck the bit down his throat. I made his grain and gave him it so that he could concentrate on the grain instead of the bit. Afterwards, I lead him around with my leadrope attached to the caveson. Hardly a care! Good baby!

Enjoying his grain with his bridle on.

That Felt Good

2011-06-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

I rode for the first time since my dressage round at Woodside. While I have been on a horse, either hacking out or a light flatwork, but this was the first real ride I had where I had a plan to begin with, rode it out, and then worked on what needed to be worked on. It was a lot of fun. I find myself doubting my own riding ability, thinking that I only had success because I had Ed or that I just will never "click" or have that same bond with another horse. I am coming to term with the idea that Ed is destined to bring up some little girls in the lower levels, while kicking some butt. He will LOVE that job and he will do it exceedingly well! He is the type of horse that is easy to ride, but will only do as well as the rider rides him. I know that I can ride and it is my responsibility to Yves to keep the skills I learned from Ed sharp so that I can do him justice when his time comes.

How cute are my two boys?

On Yves' never-ending education front, we did some more trotting yesterday and he starting to get the transitions just based off my body language. We still need to work on turning left, but I'm sure that will come soon.

Today, he got a good grooming, was fed his grain, and then he got a surcingle put on him! Eeks! He was pretty worried about the saddle pad (he had a bad blanketing experience not too long back), but he settled pretty quickly. He then got the surcingle placed on, cinched up just enough that it won't shift, and then we went on a walk. He was hesitant for the first few steps and then got over it. After walking and then chilling with it on, I jiggled the rings on it to desensitize him to the sound and then rocked the surcingle on his back so that he could get accustomed to that sensation. He hardly cared.

Soon to be a big boy!

Cuddly Yvesbutt.

Isn't his coat looking so much better? Daily currying, daily hot toweling, Empower Boost, and SmartOmega. Also, see his tail wrap? I WILL conquer that disaster of a tail!

Jogging Up: Not As Easy As It Looks!

2011-06-10T21:19:00.000-07:00

With Yves, I have gained a new appreciation of how much we have to teach our horses. They don't know how to tie or lead or even eat a cookie when they first enter the world. We have to teach them everything.

So far, for better or worse, I have taught Yves almost everything he knows about human-horse relations, which is kind of neat to say. The "or worse" bit probably came in today. I have been harking on Jeff or the roommate to help teach Yves how to jog in hand by being my whip bearer. I finally got fed up of waiting and grabbed Yves and a whip and set to work.

At this point, Yves already knew "whoa" meant stop, "easy" meant slow up, and a flick of the whip meant to speed up. I had also been slowly jogging (slow speed, normal tempo) next to him to get him used to the idea of me "bouncing" next to him since he was put off by it at first. I decide to go in the covered arena for this newest adventure and set off to work.

We started with a quick overview of what he knows so far (backing, turns, halts, yielding quarters...). I then said, "ready?," clucked twice and started jogging in place while touching him with the whip (literal touching, not tap touching - he's sensitive). Off we went into a trot! After a few steps, I said, "easy," walked and he walked as well. Wow! That was way too easy!

Second time, I try again, but go for a little more gusto. We get to a big tempo and BAM! Yves decided trotting was a lot of fun and bounded into me! I felt like I was falling off a horse and was thinking, "can I stay on my feet? Can I salvage this? Oh no, here I go!" Luckily, the dressage footing is soft and Yves just walked around despite his new freedom. I caught him for another go.

At this point, I decided I should take it a bit slower and work on trotting to walking on cue. Better, but I was really pulling on his face. I don't want to teach him to lean into the hand before I'm even on him! So, I decided to do serpentines back and forth across the ring. About half way across, I would ask for the trot and then ask for the downward while facing the fence. The fence will naturally slow him up, so I can leave the rope long and his gorgeous neck out!

I gotta say though, he has a hell of a trot! Already, it is so hard for me to keep up with it compared to Ed's jog up trot! Yeesh!

Continuing the Transformation

2011-06-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

My goal right now is to get Yvesbutt to look more like Yvening Affair and the progress is coming along nicely. We have exactly one month from now for this transformation to be completed, so no time to dilly dally!

I'm now trying to tackle his hair. His tangled, thick, and sunbleached hair. Using liberal amounts of cowboy magic, I got the dreads out of his mail and tail. I then cut the mane with thinning shears and finished it with scissors. I HATE cutting manes, but in cases where the mane is already 823 feet long, I make some compensations in my grooming ethics. Thinning shears give it a more natural look, though the mane will suck for braiding. This being the case, I have been pulling his mane little by little.

I have now been shampooing and conditioning the crap out of everything using Garnier Triple Nutrition, along with his whole coat. I don't normally need to use conditioner on a horse's body, but two years of sun and grime have taken their toll.

Now the tail. I'm obsessed with the proverbial perfect tail which, to me, is pulled, banged, and thick without lacking life. I don't like excessively thick tails that are so heavy that the horse can hardly swish with it. Ed had a naturally thin, scraggly tail that took years to get decently thick through daily brushing (ALWAYS with Cowboy Magic or Vetrolin Shine Spray), weekly baths, and mud knotting in poor weather. I will have the opposite issue with Yves whose tail is already easily twice the thickness of Ed's. That is shockingly incredible to me since Penny's was much thinner than Ed's.

I have never had the chance to actually own my own pulled tail, so I'm actually excited at the prospect! I didn't pull Ed's because it had so many pretty colors and braiding really suited him, but Yves doesn't have such an excuse.

I started to pull it today and it is so THICK! I have pulled other tails before and I felt like I made so much more progress in the same amount of time as I did with Yves yesterday. I got the very top done... as in I started. He stood pretty well for it, though, which is nice!

I did bang it because I wanted something to show for my work. I have to say, banging the tail is the easiest way to dramatically improve a horse's appearance and make them look sportier.

I swear he isn't sickle hocked - just eating.

I also sticked him yesterday! I'll let you figure out his height for yourself.

To Do Him Some Justice

2011-06-07T22:01:00.000-07:00

After my last final (yay!), I took the time to give Yves' his first non-sponge bath ever (which he was super for! He LOVES the hose!) and take some pictures. Since the last time you saw him, he has had his mane trimmed and braided and his feet done. That coupled with some thorough grooming each day and he is starting to look quite dashing! We have some time before the Twin Rivers FEH competition, so my goal is to make him look like a real show horse by then!

Now, here are a bunch of conformation shots of him. He is starting to get the hang of standing moderately square, but there is plenty of work to do still! Doesn't he actually look like a decent sporthorse prospect now?

Critical Lessons in Growing Up

2011-06-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

Being that there was nothing really available at the location that Yves was previously boarded, he has been on a crash course since he has gotten here. I have to say, he has such a level head! He isn't spooking at things that my 18-year-old Ed spooks at! He certainly looks and is very aware of his surroundings, but no spinning, snorting, planting feet, or temper tantrums. I was most impressed by him when he walked over the liver pool! He walked up to it, paused, looked, and walked over it. The crinkly sound of it spooked him, but he was calmly walking over it by only the third time.

While I was worried that he was behind the learning curve, he is very quickly getting up to speed! At this rate, I am thinking lunging lessons will begin by the middle of next week, FEH competition in early July, and then backing after that. My goal by the end of the summer is to be able to walk him off the property undersaddle by himself.

1. Trailer loading by himself.
2. Trailer ride by himself.
3. Being to a new place by himself.
4. Having to deal with a grown-up that is as big as him (instead of 14-something hh QHs).
5. Walking through a barn.
6. Walking in a jump arena.
7. Walking in a covered arena.
8. Going in a stall by himself.
9. Cross-tying.
10. Cross-tying for 15 whole minutes.
11. Been groomed while cross-tied.
12. Having hooves picked while cross-tied.
13. Dogs (he had never seen one before coming to RdR!).
14. Having poop shoveled out of his cross-tie.
15. Walking over his first pole.
16. Walking over two poles on a bending line.
17. Walking over two walk poles one step apart.
18. Walking over two sets of two walk poles on a bending lines.
19. Walking over a liverpool.
20. Hanging out while held for 1 hour without being rude.

Ed's Vet Check

2011-06-03T21:11:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went up to my vet's hospital for an ultrasound on Ed. He does have an acute tear on his right lateral suspensory near the junction between the ligament and the sesamoid bone. The good thing is that it is a fairly small area, though there is some bone that was pulled off with the ligament tore.

At that point, the vet was saying that, of course, stem cell would be the best treatment, though platelet rich plasma (PRP) injection therapy would also be a good option. I did ask about shockwave therapy, but he felt that SW was more for strained ligaments than tears, as in this case.

This morning I received a fairly urgent call from the vet. He told me that he was thinking about my case and wanted to take some x-rays of Ed's foot. He had a hunch that Ed might have a bone cyst, as well. Yikes!

Drugged Ed standing for his photoshoot.

Fortunately, there was no bone cyst, though the x-ray was still very telling. There was some ossification of the affected ligament, signifying that this issue was ongoing and it just finally gave. Even with this, the vet said, "I'm not writing him off yet."

Our options are as follows:

1. Stem cell therapy. While this is the gold standard of treatment, it is also the most expensive of about $3500 to $5000. The theory behind it is that one injects stem cells into the affected site. These cells lose their pluripotency (the ability to turn into nearly any type of cell) and become ligament cells, which patch up the hole. The biggest benefit is that one isn't only healing damaged tissue, but replacing it. If the suspensory ligament was a flat tire, most therapies would be more similar to plugging up the hole while stem cell therapy is getting a new tire.

2. Platelet rich plasma (PRP) injection therapy. This is where blood is drawn from Ed, spun down to isolate the "goodies," and then injected into the affected site. The PRP contains growth factors and other bioactive proteins that accelerate healing and create an environment that is more conducive to proper healing, minimizing adhesion formation. At my clinic, it is priced at just below $1200.

3. Shockwave therapy. While the mechanism of action for this therapy isn't understood, it seems to help with the healing process. While used for ligament injuries, it is most promising in cases of tendon strain rather than tears, as in Ed's case.

4. Do nothing. Time, ice and NSAIDS. This would be the least likely option to get him back to fighting fit form, though it is the cheapest.

I have a lot to think about. Right now, it seems like the best option would be PRP therapy, but I'm going to talk to Gina and my vet some more on the subject.

I just want to thank my parents for being incredibly supportive emotionally and financially of both my riding career and Ed's recovery. They are on board for any of the treatments, which is a very fortunate situation to be in, and they "just want Eddie better." They are even offering to help finance leasing a horse so that I can continue going for my long-term competition goals. I love you Mom and Dad!

The Brief Biography (and Beyond) of YvesButt

2011-06-01T21:23:00.000-07:00

I thought Ed's appointment was supposed to be today, but it was moved to tomorrow at 12:30pm. That being the case, this is Yves' post and I will follow-up on Ed for tomorrow. So far though, he has been iced daily, 1g bute AM and PM, and the leg in question is wrapped 24 hours a day with daily changing. No handwalking yet until he gets vet approval. Poor guy. He is so done with stall rest, though he has settled in a bit. He has finally stopped trying to knock down his stall each hour, though! Progress!

Yvening Affair, or Yves, was born on May 13, 2009. He was the product between Penny, my dark brown thoroughbred mare who now makes race babies, and Yeager GF, a sooty buckskin then-FEI dressage prospect from Trakehner jumper lines.

Penny during a jump school.

Yeager schooling dressage as a 6 year old.

Penny was my Children's jumper/Modified Junior jumper (3'7" - 3'11") who was spicier than my dad's jambalaya. She was wicked talented and still maintains my personal record for the highest I've ever jumped at 5'2". Her biggest enemy was herself in that she would get so frazzled that she would shut down and not even walk forward. As soon as things would be going great at home, we would bring to a show and she would fall apart. Looking back, a serious UlcerGard regimen probably would have done her wonders, but there is nothing I can do about that now.

While the talent was there, I needed a stallion with a solid mind. In that respect, Yeager fit the bill. He was young and quite unproven at that time, but he oozed talent with his lofty gaits and enthusiastic jumping style. I went and visited him with my mom, Jeff (the SO), and his mom in 2006. Jeff's mom, who is completely un-horsie, was the subject of interest of then 5 year old Yeager with her sparkly shirt. She was in his pasture with us and she waved him away in a bit of an eccentric manner. He just quietly moved off, though you could tell he still wanted to examine her shirt. He was also very poised at his RPSI stallion inspection despite his admittedly-timid rider. If he can pass on that mind to a Penny baby, he can pass on that mind to any baby!

Penny was bred to Yeager in 2006 and took 1st try. On July 1st, 2007, she gave birth to Yauvani, or Vaungh. Unfortunately, he was born dysmature and was placed in the ICU at Alamo Pintado Equine Hospital only a few hours after he was born. He was a feisty one and would often kick and try to get up despite his wobbly, underdeveloped legs. After a fairly promising beginning, he began to have seizures on day 3. We made the decision to put his down on July 4th.

While his ears are adorable, they are a symptom of Vaughn's under-cooked state.

We didn't try to get Penny pregnant again that year due to emotion strains, but we did again in 2008. Originally, I was trying to breed to Capone I, but that fell through due to a seriously fucked situation in about ten different ways. In a last ditch effort, we bred to Yeager again. Big shout out to Anne Johnson of Black Tree Farm who will bend over backwards to get the semen where it needs to be!

And, finally, we get to YvesButt! Jeff and I were there when he was born around 1:00am. The birth was really quick (less than about 5 minutes!) and Yves was standing just before the 2 hour mark. He was adorable! The vet that attended him, who is also an eventer, said that he would be a nice one and was the best looking foal born at the facility that year.

YvesButt's first morning!

Penny took to motherhood like no other. She was adequately protective, but careful with Yves and I had never seen her so happy. This was part of the reason that she was let go to the thoroughbred breeding farm since I knew she would be happier there than she ever would be as a riding horse.

Penny doing what she does best.

At three months old, Yves went to RPSI inspection and received his half-brand and his first passport. He was handled by Jeff who had, at that point, taken a liking to the colt. At the inspection, Yves received a 7.8 for movement, a 7.4 for conformation, and an overall score of 7.6, which was good for Silver Premium status. He was also the second highest scoring foal presented at that site.

After that, life became fairly quiet for Yves and he spent life outside with a gang of other unruly weanlings.

Yves is the one getting his mane chewed off.

General revelry.

Things were pretty quiet for Yves after his RPSI inspection. He was occasionally pulled out for a grooming or hoof trim, but really nothing beyond that. He was castrated around his year birthday, but I'm sure he would rather forget that!

Today, he moved to Rancho del Rio and is currently residing in Ed's old pasture since Ed is confined to a stall. So far YvesButt has settled in quite well and I'm really excited to get to work on him.

Meet the New Top Horse: YvesButt

2011-05-31T22:32:00.000-07:00

While I'm still bitter and devastated about Ed, I have been trying to think about the future since Saturday. I know I'm acting like this is the end of Ed's career. The truth is, it pretty much is. If he were a 10 year old, this would be a completely different situation. But, when stall resting an 18 year old with substantial arthritis already, one just has to be realistic. I will still be rehabbing him to bring him back as much as he can and I can still see him doing lower level events under a junior.

In the mean time, I will still be riding pretty much anything I can and even trying to get a catch ride here and there. I'm not in a position to board two horses unless miracles happen, so leasing isn't an option.

Probably the biggest thing that comes out of this is Yves gets to step up and be "top horse."

He has no idea what he is in for.

So, YvesButt will be coming up tomorrow to begin his life as a real horse. He is kind of a push over, so he'll be able to fit in perfectly into Ed's spot in the herd. This will be interesting. The brief plan is to get him socialized and ready for the FEH competition at Twin in July. Shortly after that, he will be backed and he will become a trail champion by the end of the summer. What fun!

I am the worst photographer ever. I'm embarassed for YvesButt since I put this picture up of him.

I sort of measured him today. He is my height at the wither. I'm 5'3", making him 15.3hh. Not good. I know he is going through a serious growth/ugly stage right now, so hopefully he'll slow down soon! I look ridiculous on most horses 16.2hh or taller, so hold up YvesButt!

I Hate Memorial Weekend

2011-05-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

2000: At a hunter/jumper show, I was warming up for pony jumpers. I was coming to a square 3'3" oxer on Bailey (Kiss Me Quick) and leaned up the neck at a long one. She stopped, I went over the jump, then she jumped, landing on my head (with only a huntcap on) and leg. I ended up with a bone bruise and was in a removable cast for 3 months. (Apparently bone bruises take longer to heal than broken bones.)

2001: I had awful cramping and stomach pains. It was so bad that I ended up at the hospital with a possible pancreatitis. Fortunately, it turned to be a very expensive stomach ache.

2003: A the same hunter/jumper show as in 2000, I was riding Penny and she kept stopping and stopping. Turned out she had an abscess in her root canal.

2004: Again, same hunter/jumper show, I became really sick and was vomitting up a storm. I ended up scratching most my classes.

2006:While camping at Joshua Tree, I became feverish, pale, and exhausted. I could hardly do anything but curl up in a ball with no resemblance of medical attention for miles around. We ended up going home early because of my condition. Apparently, I have a systemic candida infection.

2007:On a backpacking trip, I was hiking with a good load (40 to 50 pounds) on our way back. I tripped, caught myself and carried on. When I was driving back, I was having trouble sitting comfortably. Tuesday morning, I couldn't walk. Turned out that I had rotated three lumbar vertebrate.

2008: With some friends, I am galloping at the beach on Penny. I was near the water's edge when a swell came, sweeping Penny's feet out from under her. We went down at the same time, but she up first, nailing me with her rear foot on my face. The hoof gave me a hole that went entirely through my cheek that required eight stitches. I now have a sweet looking scar.

2009: While studying for a midterm a Tuesday, I became quite crampy and sick. I ended up vomitting a ton and was generally not doing well. According to the doctors at the Urgent Care clinic, it was just menstrual pains. I don't agree, but I did end up getting a vicodine prescription out of it (that I never filled).

2010: The Sunday before the Woodside Preliminary Challenge, Ed's back right leg became swollen. He was a bit off on it and we ended up ultrasounding it. He broke up an adhesion and was on pasture rest for 2 months.

2011: I unloaded Ed on Thursday for the Preliminary Challenge at Woodside. His front right looked a tad stocked-up, but so did all the other legs. With work, they all went down. Friday morning, he is still stocked up, especially in the front right. The swelling did not go down with handwalking or work. I did dressage, where he was pretty earthbound and had an uncharacteristically poor performance. Even the he is jogging sound on it, we got him ultrasounded before cross-country to be sure. His lateral suspensory ligament is twice the size it should be with a probable tear and a possible bone chip in it.

I will probably talk about it more tomorrow or the next day, but I am emotionally drained right now. Lots of crying, being pissed, and trying to be okay with it on my part. As my mom says though, "at least he's not dead." This horse is not fun to rehab. He gets rank. Like, really rank.

Uggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Conditioning Shenanigans

2011-05-23T06:06:00.000-07:00

While I could talk about anxious I am about going to Woodside with the whole EHV-1 issue or even explain how I want to vomit/gambol/die/lionize/forget since I will be sending in my entry for Copper Meadow's Open Intermediate division today, this is more fun.

Yesterday, we went to the beach for conditioning. We did 1 x 20 min trot and 3 x 6 min canter, averaging 450 mpm. Just to note, my first conditioning since the 1* star was last weekend and we did 1 x 20 min trot and 3 x 5 min canter at 400-420 mpm.

These videos are sideways still since I'm not that computer savvy. My suggestion to you is to watch it on a laptop while turning it on its side.

My EHV-1 Concerns

2011-05-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

Pretty much every one in the US with a horse that actively competes has probably heard about the EHV-1 outbreak that seems to have stemmed from the NCHA Western Nationals. I am definitely worried about this and have already made some adjustments due to the outbreak.

First, I was planning on attending a schooling show in my hometown. I know that the show is being held at a location nearby a cutting barn, making the likelihood of there being EHV-1 in the area that much higher. Even if the cutting barn wasn't in the area, I would probably be limiting any unnecessary travel to areas that could result in contact with infected horses.

Second, I will be taking Ed and Yves' temperatures every other day. This will serve as a baseline for right now. It is difficult to determine when a horse is ill without knowing was a normal temperature is for that horse. While the "normal" seems to be about 100.0 deg. F, if I had a horse that was always around 98.5 deg. F and then suddenly had a temperature of 101.5 deg. F, I would call the vet. The worrisome temperature is generally about 102.0 deg. F and higher, but as in the situation I just discussed, there are other factors to consider for each individual.

Third, if a known outbreak does occur in my immediate area, like in the next county, I would go to taking both horses' temperatures twice a day.

As for vaccinations, if the horse was already vaccinated, like Ed, a booster will suffice. Since he just had his booster in February for his passport and he is an older horse, he is as protected as he could be. Yves has not been previously vaccinated and it takes several months and boosters until the vaccine is effective. Also being a young horse, whom are more susceptible to the disease (presumably due to an unexperienced immune system), he is kind of screwed. That said, though, there has been no evidence that the vaccine is even effective in preventing the onset of this strain. Isn't that just super?!

I have got to say that the officials at the NCHA Western Nationals handled the outbreak so poorly. While I have no clue of the details, what I have heard is that there was a panic leading to everyone removing their horses from the show as quickly as possible. There were 708 horses at that show. Each of those horses were potential carriers. It is now in the hands of their owners to monitor their horses' temperatures and test them. There has several reports of symptomatic and/or EHV-1 positive horses in six states - Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Arizona - plus in Canada.

So far, I have seen no official actions as of yet in order to stifle the outbreak. The NCHA did cancel all shows for the upcoming weekend Right now I'm going to e-mail the secretary for the Woodside Spring Event and figure out what precautions are being made. If you have a show of any kind coming up in the next 2 to 3 weeks, I would advise you to contact them to get a feel for what steps are being taken to minimize the risk of EHV-1 transmission at the show.

And probably the most important thing that I have to say on this matter is to be aware of yourself being a vector! While it is not transmittable to humans, our clothing, boots, brushes, trailers, etc. can harbor and transmit the disease to otherwise healthy horses! If you have to visit multiple barns, like I do, change your clothes and your shoes before visiting each barn and don't use the same brushes.

More Information

The NCHA advises their members.
The AAEP's Information Sheet on EHV.
Spring Gulch HT Cancelled
News from Pilchuck Equine Hospital in Washington on Facebook

Crunch Time

2011-05-14T00:11:00.000-07:00

After the two week break for Ed, I was quite eager to get right back to where we were! But, with horses, it isn't that simple.

I rode him on Tuesday for the first time and he felt like crap. No lameness, but just stiff and completely unsupple. He was so heavy on my right rein and would not take on contact on the left! We spent most of our time getting him onto the left rein through shoulder-ins and circles. As soon as he was feeling moderately into my left rein, I would change directions and he had the same issue going on to the outside rein. After lots and lots of walk-trots in the shoulder-in, he was finally getting light and in my hand without being against it. We cantered a bit going each direction in a big, forward working canter, but not really concentrating on anything in particular beyond tempo and straightness.

On Wednesday, we jumped! In the warm-up, though, we focused on the same thing as yesterday. We went through a bending grid off four cavalletis set a bounce apart from each other. Ed felt completely discombobulated going through them. Going to the left, he could hardly stay within the bend. After a few times, he was finally staying more or less in the middle of the cavalletis. Going the other direction, he was diving to the inside, sabotaging himself and making it hard to fit the stride in between the fences. After getting him off my right leg and onto the outside rein, he was finally going through it centered.

I then went to a good sized plank fence of about 3'3" and rode in a figure of eight a few times. He felt patience and was jumping very correctly, which was a relief after his dismal performance through the cavalletis.

Given his sudden and short-lived lameness at the end of the 1* and the lack of funds to figure out what was wrong, I left him completely alone in terms of aftercare: no liniment, no ice, no wraps. My goal was to crop up any swelling that would crop up with a stressed soft tissue injury. The next morning, his legs looked tight and felt cool. Excellent! I'm beginning to think that he must have just tweaked himself a bit.

At that point, I sent off my entry for the famous $15,000 Preliminary Challenge at Woodside!

At this point, I guess it is time to start getting ready! I reviewed the test and it is very lopsided in terms of gaits. There are 30 points for the walk, 40 points for the canter, and 90 points for the trot! Yikes! Luckily for us, the trotwork is our strong point, but I feel bad for those who feel that the canter is their strong suit. The only thing really tested in the canter is a medium canter 20m circle each direction. Cake!

It also made me realize that our Intermediate debut is exactly one month away! Eeeeks! At this point, I'm definitely more nervous than excited. I know Ed will be fantastic, but I just need to keep me head on straight!

Yesterday I had an excellent dressage school on Ed that made me feel like he was finally feeling like his old self. That school set us up perfectly for the lesson on Friday, talked about here.

A Lesson in Suppling

2011-05-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

I had my first lesson on Edward since the one star today with Gina. The overall theme of the lesson was blocking Ed's many evasions. These evasions are what are keeping up from having more consistent 8's, which is something I would love to change!

I started our warm-up alone and did my best to get Ed to accept the contact from both legs and hands with the ultimate goal of stillness through acceptance. This involves a lot of shoulder in going both directions at the walk while maintaining an even tempo.

Going to the right, I have to remember to keep my inside leg on to push him into the outside rein while not hanging with my right arm on his mouth (my biggest flaw ever!). He will also trick me into thinking that I have the shoulder in by popping out his left shoulder for the bend instead of bending through his whole body. Basically, when I think it going well, I'm probably doing something wrong. Going to the left, he has a tougher time bending around my leg and has a tendency to come too light on the inside rein.

We then did some long and lowish trotting with him deep. I'm a big believer in riding down to ride up, especially with Ed. If I go to my more correct frame to begin with, he forgets to use his back, resulting in him shuffling from behind and bracing up front.

After trotting around a bit to loosen up the old man, we got down to business.

1. Keep the left shoulder straight. We began with focusing on keeping him straight on his left side since, as I mentioned earlier, he likes to bulge.

2. 10 m circle figures of eight. So, my 10m circles have improved a ton and I'm now able to get Ed to keep the contact right from the beginning. But, in switching the bend, Ed would brace for about 3-5 strides before softening again into the contact. Solution? Just before hitting the centerline, I have to ask for a shoulder-in to the new inside to get past that initial lack of suppleness. What a difference!

3. Trot, halt, rein-back. We worked on my trot-halts to begin with, and then added the rein-back to the last few. I was half-halting in preparation for the halt, but it caused the engine to putter a bit too much, resulting in a halt that was square in front, but lacked the impulsion to get that last leg to step under. We tried to solve this problem by coupling the half-halt with a bit of a driving seat, to get him to really power into his halt. This resulted in a much more consistently square halt.

4. Shoulder-in and Renvers. Yes, this one again. Unlike last time, though, we only stuck with it briefly (probably because I have been working on it non-stop since then!). He was much more supple in changing the bend in between these, so there was really no reason to continue.

5. Three-loop serpentine at the canter. After some circles and at large at the canter, we went to the counter canter work. The biggest thing right now is keeping the suppleness in the canter. He has a tendency to fall on the inside shoulder of the lead/outside shoulder of the curve near the end of the counter canter portion. After working on this a bit, we went to the nitty gritty stuff.

6. Counter-canter with haunches-in and shoulder-in. The best way to gain suppleness in the counter-canter is to do more with it. He desperately needs to learn that he can do more than he thinks he can. So, in the counter-canter, we alternated between the haunches-in and the shoulder-in. The shoulder-in is trickier since it prepares the horse for the change. Whenever he felt like he was about to swap, we went to the true lead with a counter bend, and then straight back to the original exercise.

7. Changes through the trot on the quarterline. Since Ed was still trying to evade so heavily, we had to concentrate on not letting him loose the shoulder or haunches. On the straight line with no rail to lean on, his fall-outs were glaringly obvious. He would try to evade with the shoulder, then the haunches, then by leg yielding, and then by blowing off my half-halts and running through the changes. We patience and some walk breaks, we both finally got it. After this, we went back to exercise 6 some more.

8. Medium canter to counter canter. This is basically the same movement as the one in the Intermediate Test A. It is tricky to execute well since the horse must be able to collect again after the medium without softening too much in the contact. We actually did it pretty well after the two big suppling exercises.

9. Leg-yields. We finished up with some leg-yields. As long as I focused on the bend to the leg yield, then the leg yield was supple and easy with plenty of impulsion. He was also very able to make the degree of cross-over, which has been difficult for us in the past. I just need to be aware of keeping the haunches in line and softening with my right shoulder.

Judge Suzie? Oh Yes!

2011-05-10T19:41:00.000-07:00

On Thursday late week, I got a call from a friend of mine who was put in charge of running the Twin Rivers One Day Event. She was explaining to me how they were short a judge and a scribe for this event. I was thinking that they wanted me to be a scribe, which I would have been glad to do. I was very surprised when she finally asked, "Can you judge for us?" Ummm, ya! How exciting is that?

After watching hours and hours of Rolex dressage and listening to the very insightful commentary by Sally O'Connor, I actually didn't feel completely uncomfortable in that situation. The way I went about with my scoring is as follows:

9 - Correctly executed, good connection, and with pizazz.
8 - Correctly executed with no minor flaws.
7 - Well executed, but slightly lacking in degree of correctness.
6 - Well executed, with one minor flaw (i.e. slightly behind the vertical, not enough bend, wiggly, precision, etc).
5 - Executed with two minor flaws or one major flaw (i.e. curling, gaping, lost hindend, not on the bit, very late, etc.).
4 - Not executed adequately, break in gait, not performed or several major/minor flaws.
3 - Disobedience (i.e. kicking out, severe head tossing) or severe accumulation of flaws.
2 - Severe disobedience (i.e. bucking, bolting, spinning).

Keep in mind, I was only judging Walk-Trot through Training level, so these scores would not be adequate for the upper levels. Even between those lower levels, there was a huge discrepancy between an 8 trot in Walk-Trot and an 8 trot in Novice. I also know that the scale is from 10 to 1, but I didn't give out either a 10 or a 1 all weekend. I did give one 9 though. It was a Novice mare that came down that centerline after a superb test. She was on her line from her turn, was straight as an arrow, and had a square, collected halt that would make 4* riders jealous: she fully deserved that 9.

It was a great experience though and it gave me a lot more insight into how to improve my own scores.

The biggest thing I noticed is that, with a capable pair, I want to give them 7s and 8s, but the performance won't let me due to little mistakes. Either the circle is too big or the rider drops the inside contact or the transition is too early or the rider missed the line or they didn't just go for the bit of extra oomph. When I was watching these tests, I would get a general sense of the execution by identifying what was good about it. Then, for each little mistake, that drops the score down bit by bit. Let's me share with you two real scenarios:

1. The junior was on a big moving grey thoroughbred and the movement was a 15 m circle at B. The actual trot was great. The rider was loose and following and the horse was stretching into the contact was a soft, open stride. At Training level, that by itself would have been an 8. But, the rider sabotaged herself! The circle was about 1m shy of being a 20m circle and she came back to the rail about 2 m after B, making the circle teardrop-shaped. Those two flaws combined gave her a 6 instead. For shame!

2. This was an adult amateur on her black cob that had a conservative test thus far. Coming down centerline, she halted at X. It was a beautiful halt that was square and straight. But, the movement includes the left turn onto the centerline and the trot to X with the directives looking for the quality of the turn and the straightness down the centerline. Turning onto the centerline, she lost the shoulder and the horse drifted about 5m past the centerline, then drifted back to it, overshot it, and then was finally in line with the centerline just in time to give her fabulous halt. I'm sure she was thinking, "that halt was bomb!" (or that is what I would be thinking), but due to the drunken nature getting to X, I ended up giving her a 5. It wasn't because I didn't like her horse or her or her pad or anything like that; I loved the halt, but there was more to that movement than the halt.

Also, if you ever find yourself judging, don't use the word "drunken" in your comments. Especially when the rider is a 12 year old on their gray pony. My bad!

Two Lessons: Straightness and Freedom

2011-05-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

I got a serious ass-kicking today in the riding department. Ed is still on break, so each lesson was on one of the horses I have been riding for the past two weeks.

The first ride was on Ben, a former 2* horse, and taught by Bec. I haven't had a lesson with her in over 7 months, which is a crazy long time. She has a very different teaching style than Gina and has no problem telling you that your riding is subpar. It is refreshing. Ben has been having trouble staying straight in both directions. He is constantly looking for an out, which can make picking up the left lead difficult.

Normally I have no issues picking up his right lead. I get my inside bend, protect the outside shoulder, concentrate on my timing, and the left lead just happens. I missed the lead a few times and the more I focused on trying to get it, the tougher it became to pick up the lead. It was a vicious cycle and not one that I'm proud of.

The key things that I took away from the ride were almost all related to straightness:

1. Despite the mantra of keeping the weight in the outside rein, that almost more to make sure that the rider isn't riding off the inside rein. At a certain point in the rider's education, the rider must learn how to keep the weight equal in both reins.
2. The ultimate goal is to keep the contact constant in both reins without lightening or increasing the contact regardless of the movement being performed.
3. The tempo is as important as the energy of the gait. A constant mental tempo of "1-2-1-2" or "1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4" assists with this and is the secret of many upper level riders. Some horses have a natural tempo, but many don't and use speeding up or slowing down as an evasion just like popping the shoulder.
4. The horse should "fill" both reins equally and it must be balanced, as needed, with bend initiated from the leg.

My second ride was guided by my current roommate, teammate, and 1* extraordinaire. He is a talented rider who wishes to become a professional rider. This being the case, he needs to learn to give instruction. I proposed the idea and offered up myself as a guinea pig. We used his former mount, a 1* horse, since my "coach" is so familiar with him and his "feelings." I know when I was first helping others, it was difficult to articulate what I knew to be correct and to have confidence in what I was saying, hence the need to practice this skill. As we all know, great riders don't make great instructors, and this is probably the best way to counter that.

(He is also fairly violent!!! He definitely just punched me when I made fun of him for falling asleep on the couch while watching "24." And he is now trying to cuddle up next to me... I hate cuddling.)

Back to the ride! The ride really didn't have much structure to it and the beginning exercises didn't really lead to the ultimate goal of the ride. This structure is what I have become accustomed to and the lack of direction makes it a bit more difficult to discuss what we worked on.

The biggest theme was probably my right arm. My left arm is strong, but following, and rarely gets tight or restrictive. My right arm definitely has a mind of its own. The tightness starts in my shoulder and feeds into my elbow. I was even caught subtly see-sawing with my right arm, unbeknownst to me! Yuck! With horses that are heavier on the rein aids, like Ed, the tension is carried when and matched by my left arm, creating an equilibrium. But, why my left arm is highly adaptive, my right arm is very bad at diverging from anything but holding.

Another thing that I needed to work on fairly consistently was utilizing my seat instead of my hand to slow down the tempo of the gait, especially the canter. On this horse, he has a very telling way of letting the ground person know when the rider is being restrictive by way of curling or coming up against the bit. This is perfect for me since I need a horse light in the mouth so that I can learn how to carry my own two hands instead of relying on the contact to do it for me.

Lastly, we worked on walk-canter and canter-walk transitions. In the upward, I must be constantly aware of the tempo and my body position. I allow the horse to just barely speed up the walk tempo going into the canter, which allows the horse to escape with the hind and "pull" themselves into the canter instead of push themselves into it.

For the canter-walk, it was all about the weight of the seat. For the downward, I would weight the seat and then lighten it just enough to allow the horse to come up and through his back. I got some awesome downwards, but it will be a while until I can get them consistently on my own horse.

Highlighting Your Bad Points

2011-05-04T07:42:00.000-07:00

On the first day of any event, it is all about showmanship before you even go into that arena. Those first few seconds going around the outside of the arena are when you need to be making your best first impression by highlighting your good points. I know that Ed's walk to canter transitions, which are beyond the scope of a Preliminary dressage test, are of very high quality and I like to show those off. It is my way of telling the judge that, not only do I meet the requirements of my level of dressage, I exceed them. I also include a casual walk by the judge's booth before the ring the bell to tell them "Good morning!" or "Good afternoon!" (Not only do I look courteous, but spooky Ed gets a good, long look at each judge's booth which he couldn't afford if I just trotted or cantered by!)

Then, going down that centerline, I look straight at the judge at C letting them know that my horse is so prepared for this test and I'm going to nail it. Whether or not I actually do nail it is another thing all together, but the confidence can sometimes afford you the benefit of the doubt between that 6 and 7 score!

But at home, it is a completely different viewpoint. While I could just do what Ed and I are good at the whole time, we would never get any better and I loathe being stagnant when it comes to developing my riding. I can sometimes get too concentrated on my riding and end up being on Ed for a hour and a half or two, but at least he is fit enough to keep up with it! It is difficult sometimes to prevent myself from drilling on a certain exercise though.

The following is a list of movements that I am actively working to improve, along with what level the movement corresponds to, ordered from least confirmed to most confirmed. The movements with a + next to them mean I am drilling them almost every dressage school.

Simple lead changes (I)+
Canter to halt (A)
Canter to walk (I)+
Half-pass canter (4*)
Flying lead changes (A)
Walk pirouettes (2*)+
Half-pass trot (A)
Shoulder-in (old P/I)+
Haunches-in (I)
Rein-back (P)+
Counter canter (P)+
Leg-yield trot(P)+
Medium canter (1*)
Trot to halt (BN) +
Medium trot (1*)

As you can see, the I tests will be really highlighting some of my weaknesses and it seems like Ed actually has a naturally easier time with the more difficult movements (i.e. half pass, flying changes, etc.) than the the more basic movements, like canter to walk. And who knows, maybe I only think that Ed is better at those things since I have never had to be accountable for them in a competition setting.

Since Ed is on a break right now, I have been really frustrated. I can't help but think about all the ways I could be improving our dressage. After watching Badminton, where I winning dressage score at the local 1 and 2 star levels would have left you in 30-somethingth place maybe, I have a chronic hunger to get my scores to where they could be. While a 50 is good, why not 45? Or 40? Instead of pressing for what is good enough, I want to go for what will blow my fellow competitors out of the water. It is fairly difficult to embrace this new mentality when your horse requires some well-deserved R & R.

As I mentioned before, I am still riding other horses. Over the past week, I have ridden a 2* horse, two 1* horses, a 20-something scoring Training level horse, and a 5 yo upper-level prospect. All of them are very, very different from each other with their own strengths and weaknesses.

While riding all these horses, something that I have really recognized is that my seat is lacking "follow" when something changes. On both the 1* horses, who I know are heavily confirmed in the canter to walk, I had difficulty replicating the same quality of transition that I know these two horses are capable of. I found that I would pop up a bit with my seat and had difficulty following the dramatic change in motion from canter to walk. I have a feeling that I was stiffening my mid-section and slowing my seat for the half-halt, but I need to really learn to relax again to allow the transition to happen. Right now I'm trying to force it, leading to it not happening. So, this will be my challenge for the next week or so. How ridiculously frustrating!

Goal: Buh-dum, buh-dum, walk.

Maintaining the 1* Horse: Supplements

2011-05-02T21:45:00.001-07:00

This is the second post of my Maintaining the 1* Horse series. Once again, while I have taken quite a few classes in equine care and nutrition, have been involved in independent studies of new feeds and additives for Purina and Zinpro, and have helped design an in vitro (in lab/test tube settings versus live animal) system to mimic the equid's digestive system, I still don't consider myself an expert in the field. Therefore, while I feel that my knowledge is valuable and the following information is sound, I do want you to take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.

Nutrition

Today, supplements are seen as absolutely mandatory for the competition animal, whether it is a horse, dog, or even livestock. A supplement can be any item that is added to the main diet of the horse. That being said, even grain is considered a supplement since it supplements the bulk of the horse's feed, usually being hay. My personal approach to supplements is that less is more and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Ed was not on any type of supplement until the beginning of this year when he was 17.5 years old.

I finally decided to put him on a supplement when it was becoming apparent that his age was catching up to him and he was taking longer to warm-up. I required a joint supplement that would take care of the pain associated with arthritis. While no joint supplements will cure or reverse arthritis, there are some that will homeopathically manage the pain associated with it. Quite honestly, the two "wonder ingredients" in most joint supplements, glucosamine and chondroitin, have been shown to do nothing for alleviating joint pain or improving joint mobility. While they are both components of a healthy joint, adding them to the diet really won't change anything since they never even get incorporated into the joint. Think of it this way: if you have a broken fence, you wouldn't fix it by rubbing sawdust on the weaker planks.

That being said, there are some things that one should look for in a joint supplement: MSM and hyaluronic acid/hyaluronadate sodium. I could go on all day about joint supplements, but there is more to cover. Read here for a bit more information of joint supplements.

Edward is also on SmartOmega, a omega balancing supplement to help alleviate and diet-induced inflammation occurring in his joints. I pay just under $45 a month for the SmartFlex Senior Herb-Free and SmartOmega combination from SmartPak.

From a broader perspective, it is all about the horse. If the horse has trouble keeping shoes on, go with a hoof supplement. If he gets ulcers, put him on a ulcer-prevention supplement. Of course, we all would love to prevent every possibility with every possible supplement, but supplements aren't wonder drugs. They take months of feeding until positive results are seen and the horseman must rely on faith that it was indeed the supplement that induced the improvement in the horse and not some other factor.

Another thing to keep in mind is that oversupplementation is a greater risk to your horse than under supplementation. Many "good things", such as vitamin A and selenium can quickly become bad if feed even a small amount too much one time. So, when one layers supplement on top of supplement, it can leader to a subpar performance or even, in extreme cases, death. No, Tony the Pony doesn't have ulcers, soft hooves, a dull coat, and is usually a cool sailor, but he might develop those issues, so let's just prevent them now! Not only would that be hard on the pony, but it would be hard on the bank account!

Tony the Pony would end up eating more powder 'n' pellets than actual grain!

So, my main advice is to pick 1 to 3 of your horse's biggest problems and addressing those through supplementation.

The majority of other GME horses are just on two scoops of Platinum Performance CJ and Strongid daily feedthrough wormer, costing about $100 per month to feed. While PP is a great product, it is too pricey for most people, including myself, and Ed seems to be going fantastically well on his current supplement regime.

Fantastic Role Models at Rolex

2011-05-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

Almost three years ago now, I converted to eventing. What drew me to the sport more than anything else was the amount of connection with the horse that is required. While it is nice when a horse nickers at you when you come, that has always seemed superficial to me. (Quite honestly, the horses at GME are the most animated early in the morning for a fellow that does nothing more than give grain and muck stalls. There is no bond there other than fellow means food.) It is something deeper than that. It is about mutual trust that the rider and horse will do their respective jobs for a safe return home. While this often yields an amount of affection from both parties, that is not necessarily a key quality of the connection I'm talking about.

This weekend, the top two riders, Mary King and Sinead Halpin, clearly have that connection. Mary King is a hero of mine and her example of riding was key for me to learn how to "hail a cab" in order to get my spooky and careful horse into water (thanks for the tip K.E.!). Just the complete infatuation for her horses that she has is evident in everything she does. My favorite moment of the entire weekend was when she finished her dressage test on Urco. Just after saluting, she gave a sweet, closed-mouth and prideful smile as she looked down at her mount and gave him a pat. Incredible.

Mary King is the horsewoman that all other horsewomen should aspire to be. So inspiring!

The third place rider (because, in case you didn't here, MK dominated the field on both mounts for a 1-2 finish!) was Sinead Halpin. I have followed her career since I discovered her blog about a year ago. She is a very honest rider who has inspired me to be equally frank here. In eventing, even when everything goes well, it never goes to plan, and Sinead is very upfront about that grittiness. When things go well, she acknowledges her horses and when things go poorly, she discusses her own short comings.

Yesterday, I came across this interview of Sinead being interviewed by her groom Meagan. It is actually really funny and I had a goofy grin on my face the whole time I was watching it. My favorite part was when she was discussing her dressage warm-up on Tate and her plan of action for that 48 mark: "I just want you to be happy - just be happy!" Enjoy!

Maintaining the 1* Horse: Nutrition

2011-04-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

This one is for you jenj!

First off, I want to put a declaimer portion here. The following I will talk about with just be based on my experience with the relatively few one star horses I have been involved with. Granted, they have all been very successful the past few weeks, but every horse is an individual and requires different types and different amounts of those treatments. Different horses will have their individual weaknesses that must be addressed accordingly.

This is the first of a few of this "series," so to speak. I will also be covering supplements, joint management, alternative therapies, grooming and maintaining soundness during competition. Keep in mind, I'm no 4* rider and these are simply the methods I have used successfully in only the past few months or have seen working on other horses. But, I am still more than happy to share with you what I do know.

Let's start with nutrition, since that is more my field of expertise. Quite honestly, Ed is an awful example to look at for feeding the event horse since he is on a perma-diet. I never see ribs on him until just after the 1* has passed. He quickly gains it back, though.

A handy tool for evaluating your horse's gross intake is the NRC's Nutrient Requirement of Horses calculator. Granted, this requires a basic understanding of nutrition to use, such as dry matter and the ability to know how to input the data from your feed into the calculator for the best results. If you want to get really precise, you would hire a Certified Hay Sampler (such as myself) to sample your hay and send the sample off to DairyOne to analyze for a fee. They are usually pretty quick to return data, but usually the level of detail is not necessary for the mid-level horse.

The first thing one must do is figure out the level of activity of the horse. In terms of eventing, a lower to mid level event horse (pre-FEI, N to P) would be considered in heavy work while a mid to upper level event horse (1* to 4*) would be considered in intense work.

Another thing you have to know for the NRC program is how much you are feeding. Grain is easy to measure, at about 1 lb per quart, but hay can be trickier. It really depends how your flakes break off. One flake of alfalfa could be about 2 lbs to 5 lbs, depending on the thickness of the flake. Generally, it is about 1.25 lb/inch of flake for alfalfa and 1 lb/inch of flake for grass hay. Now, just to confuse everything, the NRC program is all in kg. In every kilogram, there is 2.2 lbs, so just remember that conversion factor when using the calculator.

As I mentioned earlier, Ed is my little air fern and hardly gets anything. With that in mind, I will also include the diets of the two other 1* horses at GME.

Edward
Grain: 1.3 kg Nutrena Safe Choice
AM: 1 flake timothy
Noon: 1 flake alfalfa
PM: 2 flakes timothy

S.P.
Grain: 1.3 kg Nutrena Safe Choice
AM: 2 flakes timothy
Noon: 1 flake alfalfa
PM: 2 flakes timothy

C.C.
Grain: 2.6 kg Nutrena Safe Choice, 1.4 kg Nutrena Empower
AM: 2 flakes timothy
Noon: 1 flake alfalfa
PM: 1 flake alfalfa, 2 flakes timothy

When I put these values into the NRC equine nutrition calculator, Ed meets all the requirements except for digestible energy. While a horse in intense work should be getting 34.5 Mcal per day, he is only getting about 18.5 Mcal: this means that Ed is only getting a little over half his recommended daily caloric intake. Obviously, that is not the case based on his weight, but it goes to show that nutrition guidelines are guidelines and there is an art involved. The other mineral and protein requirements have less flexibility than the caloric amount, but since all those are met, this is considered an adequate diet for Ed. I do know that neither sodium nor chloride are met by this diet, but that is because (1) neither of those values are available from Nutrena and (2) all GME horses have access to a salt block to avoid any associated electrolyte deficiencies.

As you can see under the "DE" or digestible energy column, Ed appears to heavily underfed, though that is not the case.

Looking at C.C., now, and she is right on the money for caloric intake. She looks to be a good weight and has plenty of energy to compete. But, my only concern would be that she is quite high in the crude protein department. When a horse is intaking an excessive amount of protein, it can be very difficult on the kidneys and eventually result in bladder or kidney stones. These stones may cause physical damage which could severely impact the health of the horse. High protein levels can also result in enteroliths, meaning intestine stones. These enteroliths can cause blockages and colic, both of which we want to avoid.

The circled figure shows that C.C. is receiving nearly twice as much crude protein as she needs and this may cause issues down the line.

Since every horse is an individual, she could be handling the protein just fine. To check this definitely, a urinalysis is in order to check for free protein in the urine. There should never be free protein present in urine and, when there is, that means that the kidneys are working too hard for some reason, resulting in the sloughing of renal material into the urine. Note that the protein is not from unmetabolized protein just passing through, but the actual kidney is loosing material from having to hyperfiltrate the blood passing through.

An easier way to check, though, is with your nose. Normally, most mammals including horses convert ammonia to urea for excretion. Ammonia is a normal nitrogenous byproduct associated with protein catabolism, but it is highly toxic to the animal. In order to make it safer, it is converted to urea, which is easily diluted and excreted in the urine.

When a horse consumes too much protein, the urea cycle gets backed up, allowing ammonia to be excreted in the urine. This ammonia can be easily smelt when cleaning stalls and indicates that the animal is in a state of metabolic stress. So far, I haven't encountered this smell when cleaning CC's stall, but I will be sure to mention it to her owner if I ever do.

SP is fairly middle of the road between Ed and CC, but it just goes to show that, even though all three horses are in the same amount of work, they each get their individualized feed regime.

A Rolex Realization

2011-04-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

This is not really related to anything in my life, other than my obsession with watching 4*s on my computer. Essentially, my life has been wake up at 5, get ready for the day, medicate/ice various horses, watch Rolex while doing homework during the breaks, go ride 2-3 horses, and then watch Badminton re-runs in the evening. This really is the sporting life.

But, I was noticing the new Rolex logo and thought that it looked uncannily like Lucinda's spitfire mare Brit. Sure enough, it is!

Love that mare!

Conditioning: From Pasture to CCI 1*

2011-04-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

Part of my goal of this blog is to provide a resource for those moving up from the lower levels to the upper levels. I want to help people learn from my experience and not find out what in barn inspections are the morning that one needs to present your horse! While some people are fortunate to grow up in the YR program, there are others that, for one reason or another, don't have the guidance that moving up really requires.

With this in mind, I with to give a more comprehensive and collective account of the conditioning plan I used for Ed to prepare him for this true test of athleticism. I feel that Ed's 7 minute release from the 10 minute box and subsequent double clean stadium are a testament to the quality of this plan.

This program was advised by Gina Miles and Rebecca Braitling, along with incorporation of what I learned about conditioning from jumperland, conditioning of myself for high school varsity hurdles and the program published in The USCTA Book of Eventing and written by Jimmy Wofford.

First, the horse must be in a good amount of work prior to starting a real conditioning program. After a break in pasture for about 2 months, Ed was slowly brought back into work over a two week period. Keep in mind, he was CCI 1* fit before going into pasture, meaning he may have more of a base than a horse conditioning for the CCI 1* for the first time.

Week 1 For the first half of the week, only walking. On the first day, I walked only 30 minutes. I added 15 minutes to that for the second day and then another 15 minutes, for a total of 45 minutes, on the third day. The fourth through sixth day, I added some trot work and began working him in the walk, specifically including lateral work.

Week 2 At this point, canter work is added. Solid, active work should slowly increase from about 20 minutes to 40 minutes by the end of the week. I also started walking him for about 15 minutes before and after each ride.

Week 3 The horse should be able to complete a full dressage workout at this point. Two days of the six days should be some low jumping (>2'6") with the other days focusing on improving the dressage to what it was previous to the break. The walking before and after continues, but hills are not incorporated as well.

Week 4 The horse should be able to begin jumping more height, up to 3'3", though technique should be focused upon more than sheer scope. Full dressage work and a total of 30 minutes walking daily should be continued, as well.

At this point, the foundations should be set so that the horse is strong enough to withstand the stress that comes along with conditioning. If conditioning is done too rapidly, then one risks stress fractures or torn soft tissues injuries, along with beyond normal muscle soreness. Keep in mind it is another 4 weeks from this point until I begin even cantering over hills. Here on out, I will include only daily walking amounts and the gallop specific to that week, if any.

Week 5
30 minutes walking daily
2 x 10 min trot, 3 x 4 min canter on flat terrain

Week 6
30 minutes walking daily
2 x 10 min trot, 1 x 4 min canter, 2 x 5 min canter on flat terrain

Week 7
30 minutes walking daily
90 min walk/trot over steep, hilly terrain

Week 8
30 minutes walking daily
1 x 20 min trot, 2 x 5 min canter over flat terrain

Week 9
30 minutes walking daily
2 x 15 min trotting, 2 x 7 min canter over rolling hills

Week 10
30 minutes walking daily
Preliminary horse trials

Week 11
Light work only

Week 12
45 minutes walking daily
1 x 25 min trot, 2 x 6 min canter over flat terrain

Week 13
CIC 1* Event

Week 14
Light work only

Week 15
60 minutes walking daily
1 x 20 min trot, 3 x 6 min canter over flat terrain

Week 16
60 minutes walking daily
1 x 20 min trot (hills), 2 x 750m canter/gallop up McKinlaigh Hill

If I had to change one thing, I would have liked to add one gallop of speed work near the end. That probably would have made the difference between having and not having those 2 time penalties on cross country day this past weekend.

Stadium Pics from the 2011 Twin Rivers CCI 1*

2011-04-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

The nice thing about competing at the higher levels is that, even when you have no one taking pictures of you, you can usually find some of yourself on Facebook somewhere! Like the cross country picture earlier, I found myself tagged in these ones as well. Honestly, this course I didn't feel was up to par in either height nor technicality for an FEI level competition, and it showed in the results. Horses that consistently have rails had none or only one, with a total of only 8 rails coming down in the 15 horses that jumped stadium. When comparing that to the 26 rails between 22 horses at the Galway CIC, it is obvious that the stadium should have been much more influential than it was.

Fence 1: The Aussie Fence

Fence 2

Fence 4

Fence 5B

This one is my favorite!

Excuse the left drift (it was totally a right drift on Saturday though...)

Fence 9: This is the fence that Ed landed funny off of.

Fence 10A: It apparently didn't phase him that much.

Easy now!

Last fence! Double clear!

As I mentioned yesterday and in the picture caption above, Ed did land funny off of fence 9. He was obviously game enough and had the heart to continue into the crux of the stadium round, the triple combination, without hitting anything down. After icing and poulticing him on Sunday, I checked him Monday. There was a small amount of filling, still, but the heat was dissipating. Today, no heat and no filling! Yay!

I have been and will continue to ice him three times a day. He is also on limited turn-out for the next week or so until going into his larger pasture again. Due to a recent pet emergency involving my dog being runover by the rear wheels of a dually F350, there is not enough money to ultrasound Ed right now. Given his history, though, I think he just blew a small adhesion in his leg and will be fine with a little rest. So, I will keep icing him till Sunday, then give him another week mostly off, with only walking hacks. After that, he will go back into work. If he stays sound, it was an adhesion and no more worries. If he doesn't or the leg blows up, I will reevaluate the situation then.

Trooper Tobi ain't no pussy dog!

Day Three of the Twin Rivers CCI 1*: The Trot Up and Stadium

2011-04-25T10:45:00.001-07:00

I got to the barn at 5:30 in the morning to begin prepping for the day. After cleaning off my boots and grabbing my equipment, Ed got his grain and hay while I took off his wraps and poultice. His legs looked great, which was always nice to see. When Gina got there, I jogged him up for her and he looked sound, but pretty stiff. It was agreed that I should ride him to limber him up before the jog.

So, I tacked him up and headed down to the rings for a short jaunt. When I first picked up the trot, he felt pretty choppy. I let him really stretch out his neck for some long and low work. After a few times around, he started to feel much more consistent in his stride length and I began to ask him for some more/deeper flexion. I also incorporated some figures of eight to make sure he is just as flexible laterally and he is longitudinally.

Once he felt good, I headed back to begin getting him prepped for the jog: braid his forelock, brush his tail, wash off his legs, and put some baby oil on his face. While washing off his legs, I felt some heat in the lower part of his right tendon. Hmm... I mentioned it to the bosses, but there wasn't much we could do about it before the jog. I then went and changed into my jog outfit, black slacks and a turquoise undershirt, topped with a silvery grey jacket. At around 8:00, fifteen minutes before the jog, I began walking Ed out to make sure he was able to stay loose.

The time for the trot up arrived and we were ready. There were three horses presented before Ed. The two right before Ed were held. Yikes! I was called to present, and we trotted down the runway like a pair of drunken sailors bouncing off each other! That is not how it is supposed to go! I knew I had to nail the trot back to avoid being held, so I took my time setting him up and we had a great trot on the way back. He was passed, thank goodness!

All the GME 1* horses heading back from the jog.

I had some time between the jog and stadium, so I headed over to watch the preliminary stadium since it was the same course as the CCI 1*. It was pretty low and was mistaken for a Training level course by multiple people, including myself! The course began with a left square turn off the rail to the AUS vertical, bending in about 10 strides to the red oxer. Then a left, wide 180 degree turn to another square oxer. A bit of a stretch to a vertical along the far rail, then a tricky right turn to the black vertical-vertical two stride combination. Left rollback to a big yellow square oxer along the judge's rail with another left rollback to a vertical. Then, around the two stride to the mission vertical, long bending left line to the yellow Estrella Equine oxer. The course finished by going down the outside rail in to the airy oxer-vertical-vertical one stride combination.

The preliminary course in the morning light.

While watching it, the last line was by far the most influential, especially for the horses that jumped bold into it. Overall, though, the course was taking a beating, with some heavy knocks here and there with only a few rails being dislodged. Since I usually count on the stadium to move up in the placings, this was not good news for me! I was currently standing in 6th, with less than two rails separating me and the winner. But, if no rails fall, I can count on staying in my comfortable 6th position.

When I came back to start getting ready, I found Edward sleeping in his stall. He is an excellent sleeper and it is not at all uncommon to find his completely flat out in his stall for an hour or two.

So groggy.

After spending a good amount of time getting all his shavings out of his mane and tail, I tacked him up and got myself ready. We both then headed down for the course walk. The course walked pretty much how I felt it would. It was still pretty low with only two or three fences at the full 3'9" height.

I warmed Ed up and he felt stellar. I jumped only a hand full of fences before I was satisfied with my eye and his responsiveness. I went in and he perked up right away, but settled in quite well as I did my usual last minute course review in the ring. We jumped into the vertical boldly, but he then settled well to the second. He easily made the turn back to the third and was perfectly off my outside, left aids to the vertical on the end. To the first combination, he was foot perfect. He was a touch bold to the yellow oxer, but seemed to easily clear it all the same. The rollback to the 7th fence, a vertical, was right on the same track I planned. Coming to the 8th, he was getting keen and nicked it a bit, but it stayed in the cup. Because of this, he really overjumped the 9th fence, a big square oxer. On landing, he felt a touch different. I went to the last combination, which he was quite bold to, but he backed himself off miraculously well inside there. Double clear!

Only two rails among the top 5 horses fell, leaving me in 5th place overall. He was a stellar horse all weekend and I really couldn't ask for me out of him! Along with (another!) pink ribbon (it is our 4th in a row!), we also received $100 in prize money and $35 off chiropractic work from Todd! Ed undeniably deserves that chiropractor appointment, and I'll make sure he gets it!

Back at the barn, I told the bosses about Ed feeling funny after the 9th fence. We jogged him up and he was about a 2 on his front right, the same tendon that was hot this morning. Damn.

There was a small amount of fill, though there was no more heat. I iced and poulticed him again before heading home. Even though he is normally turned out at night, he stayed in until we could get a sense of what was happening.

This morning, I pulled his wraps and the leg was cool and tight. Upon jog up, he was still off, but only about a 1 now. I will be scheduling a vet appointment sometime this week, for sure. We are pretty certain that it is just an adhesion breaking up (same thing that happened last May) since he has some scar tissue in that limb from an old bow.

Day Two of the Twin Rivers CCI 1*: Cross Country & Jog Prep

2011-04-24T17:48:00.000-07:00

Wow. I needed that. Considering that our last clean XC was back in September, I was beginning to doubt Ed's resolve to be an upper level horse.

He proved me wrong.

He booked it around that course in amazing form. My biggest goal for my riding in this is to not sabotage him. The past two times I didn't give Ed a 100% positive and forward ride, especially at the first couple fences. I was busy worrying about the technique of individual fences instead of the flow of the course as a whole, causing me to pull to all my distances. Coming into this course, I was challenging myself to allow the bigger spot to happen.

The first fence on course was the same as for the preliminary back in March that Ed stopped at. In that course, he just balked hard at it and I wasn't 100% committed, leading to an unfortunate stop that cost me the win when it was all said and done. This time, I was not going to let that happen. I'm fine with not winning, but don't let it be due to some airhead moment on my part.

Coming out of the box, Ed was fresh and more than eager to attack anything... until he saw the bright blue T-W-I-N fence ahead of him. He half halted himself and sat into him and drove him forward. We got the flyer, but sometimes one just has to get it done.

After that, it was a nice short gallop stretch to 2, the steps. Between fences 1 and 2, I got Ed used to my leg meaning things other than "GO!" I put on my right leg for a stride or two of yielding left, then reversed repeated the sequence. I had done a similar exercise in the warm-up, to prepare him for it out on course when the epinephrine is running high: half-pass left, lead change, half-pass right, lead change. Of course, in the warm-up, it was much more precise. Out there, I was probably clocking about 535 mpm at that point, so forgive me, but no lead changes.

Coming to 2, he half-halted himself again, and I drove him forward. It was another log spot, but nothing like the first. I let him open up some, then, and continued to the third fence, which was a hanging log on a mound off a hard left turn. Once I read in a magazine to never have three spots in a row, since it will mess up your eye, leading to disaster. This was the perfect fence to not have a long spot on, so I really asked him to come back to me, more so than I would have if this had been later on in the course. Once we were on the line to the log, I sat up and still with my hands low and forward. He got right to the base and we had all the tools needed to complete the rest of the course!

He jumped 4 and 5 great, which was a table, over a mound, skinny. He had a great collected balance while maintaining about 450 mpm. The trakehner was next, which has always looked at. He jumped it the best he ever had, without peaking or anything of the like.

I landed and turned to look for my line that I walked to get to the water. An FEI official parked right on my path, leaving either a tight, possibly angled turn to the water drop in, or go around on the slick grass. Being a jumper, it felt more natural for me to go inside and we were just fine. It was then a hard, blind right turn to the log in the water, which Ed did quite well. Given that the log was one of the fences I was more worried about, I was so relieved to have gotten it done in such fine form!

Twinkle toes!
Photo credit to Hannah Finder

Retrospectively, I made the right choice going inside the delegate's vehicle instead of around. A barnmate of mine went outside and his horse slipped there, but recovered. The rider after him had a full on horse fall. Yikes!

Then was a gallop to the hollow. Ed was fresh, so I had a bit of trouble getting him back, but he marched right down and jumped close to the base of the rolltop on the way out. After that was a nice gallop, then a 180 degree turn back to the coffin.

After our run-out in the coffin at Galway, I was very aware of his entire left side. I had my stick ready to catch his shoulder if decided to attempt some freelance work! I jumped in one the right side of the log in, he jumped the ditch, and then was foot perfect on the out. Goes to show what good riding does for a horse's confidence!

Then was a table to the double upbanks, right bending five strides to the corner on top of the hill. I have nothing to complain about and can hardly recall it, actually.

Then was a good stretch of gallop with a log oxer in the middle. I did have to set him up for the log oxer, but I didn't ride backwards at all, so he was able to get right back to 530+ mpm afterwards. Then, up the hill and rollback down to the log/drop bank to the skinny chevron. The four was a touch tight, but definitely well within the realm of a fair ride.

At this point, I'm about 5 seconds up on my 5th minute, so I'm feeling good about making time. We get to the ditch and wall, which was right out of stride. After a bit more gallop, it was the turn back to the turkey feeder on a mound, long bending line to a very skinny hanging log on a separate mound. Ed was a bit rank here and took some time to get back, so I didn't let him out too much in between those two fences, even though there was a good 10-15 strides in between them. The accuracy required for the second fence also deterred this.

In the water, is my 6th minute. I hit my minute mark about 50m away from the water. Crap! The water was a hanging log in, several strides across, upbank, two stride, angled duck. He made quick work of it and I then was set on making up what time I lost in the turkey feeder-log line. We galloped off, down the hill, to a steeplechase fence (thank you course designer DD!). I didn't even ask to change anything about Ed's balance coming to the fence since it was very brushy and very forgiving.

We continued on to the last real question: a corner, five or six strides, to a turkey feeder. Before the corner, I hit minute 7, with only 19 seconds to get to the finish line 2 fences and 200m away. He was catty and brilliant through the last combination as we dashed to the last fence: the mission. Given the roof, I gave a good half halt to Ed to make sure he still had his head on right coming to it, since it is not unlikely for something to happen at this fence. When I started to really think about this upcoming fence, I checked my watch: 9 seconds left. I then turned my attention to the fence, made the appropriate adjustments, and we jumped it.

As soon as I crossed the finish line, I was celebrating and thanking Edward for the amazing go.

In the ten minute box, Ed was recovering fantastically well. He was back to normal respiration rate and heart rate after only 3 minutes! At 7 minutes, he was cleared to leave. Flippin' rockstar! During the 10 minute box, I was approached by some USEF officials. Ed was randomly selected for a FEI drug test. Wonderful.

I knew he was clean, but it always adds some stress to have to deal with any additional FEI business than what one already has on their plate. Even though Ed is a notorious pee-er at the barn and always has to go right after a ride, apparently that wasn't the case today. They still drew a blood test though. I have absolutely no idea when, how, or if I will here the results.

Once the tester gave up on a urine sample, I iced Ed and then jogged him for Gina. He looked stiff, but sound. Upon palpation, he was pretty backsore again, so he got a massage and some chiropractic work from Todd, the horse chiropractor. The whole time, Ed was very suspicious of the whole thing from the tools and their noises to Todd himself. After about an hour of work, Ed was a happy camper after being poulticed, wrapped, and fed dinner. Spoiled pony.

Twin Rivers 2011 CCI 1* Virtual Course Walk

2011-04-23T00:11:00.001-07:00

I need to go to bed, so this will be very minimal (i.e. just pictures). Enjoy!

Day One of the Twin Rivers CCI 1*: Dressage

2011-04-22T23:19:00.000-07:00

Today was dressage day, which started with a 2 hour walk with Ed to get his willies out. That failed. He was way too excited for all this showing business. I could hardly handle him and he could hardly handle himself. Stud chain please!

I then spent lots of time grooming him so that I would miss a single detail. I even did my first quarter marks on him and they looked great! A friend of mine also did his tail for me. I can make a mud knot, but pretty, delicate tail braids are beyond me!

I then got myself ready and was on about 45 minutes before my go time. Ed felt really, really good and was limber pretty much from the start. This allowed me to start sitting sooner and asking for deeper flexion from him earlier on in our warm-up than normal. Ride 'em down to ride 'em up.

Going around the ring, I put the finishing touches on Ed's competition frame, which was making it debut today. It demands a lot more self carriage from Ed, but I think he is finally at the point that he can handle it. Going around the outside, he felt fresh and was ready to show off.

He felt good going down the center line, but my halt felt crooked. He gave me a decent medium, though I think I could have gone for even more, which showed in the scores (two 7s). He leg yields felt like they could have had a touch more angle, but I really liked my walk transition and halt at the end. I need to work on my rein backs, though, since he is still resistant. I actually managed to get Ed to keep his damn head down it the extended walk and pulled off an 8 and a 7! Then, my medium to the right went well, along with the 10 m circle back for the tracking left counter canter. But, then, disaster struck.

Ed swapped out. It was a gorgeous, soft lead change, but no bonus points were given. I fumbled about trying to regain the counter lead after several attempts. By the time I got it, I was in the "trot change" area and blew up that score, too. Oh well. I pulled off the rest of the test, but that really cost me. The next counter canter, I was very conservative and ended up losing some of the quality of the canter.

Plenty of homework to do before the Preliminary Challenge, that's for sure!

Finishing touches.

Deep and swinging.

Round all across his topline.

'Round the outside.

Competition frame!

Completing the second leg yield.

Back down the rail.

My kick ass medium walk!

Starting the medium canter.

Medium canter.

Bringin' it back from medium to working.

Me attempting to fix a lead = FAIL.

Medium to the left now.