Friday, July 26, 2013

After two months of waiting, the saddle verdict isssss....

Horrible. For me, anyway.

The nice new Duett Rondo that took forever to get to me, specially ordered for size (17" seat 32cm tree), arrived yesterday. The saddle fitter deemed it a perfect fit for my mare, but I could not make it to the barn to see it and try it myself.

So today I ventured out, bursting with excitement. My excitement bubble would soon be popped. Or rather obliterated. I could tell as soon as I took the saddle cover off - the twist was going to be WAY too wide for me, the seat WAY too flat.

But I got on, trying to remain optimistic. I walked - eh, not great but maybe okay. I trotted - I think I can -- OH GOD what are my legs doing? How is it possible to do a chair seat AND be thrown forward? WHAT. THE. HELL. I couldn't even balance in it! I've NEVER been rendered this ineffective or unbalanced in a saddle, EVER. I felt like a complete beginner, and I've always prided myself in a very secure seat!

Beauty, on the other hand, loved it. She immediately got into a cute frame, used her back and cruised around happily, despite the flopping fool on her back. I asked for a canter, trying to maintain some semblance of balance staying on, and she gave me the most relaxed, round, gorgeous canter I've gotten in a looooong time.

Well, glad you love it mare... If only I could ride in it!

All my friends have been reassuring me that I just need to adjust and it will be fine, and I feel like I should stick with it, since I owe my horse a saddle that fits, but I really feel that sometimes a saddle doesn't work with your body, and let's be honest, if I can't balance, how can I be an effective rider for my horse?

So the saddle verdict stands as such:
Duett:
Horse: yes
Katie: No
Wallet: Yes

Albion:
Horse: Yes
Katie: YES
Wallet: NOPE

All other saddles in the entire universe:
Horse: NOPE!!!!!
Katie: Probably
Wallet: Potentially

CAN'T THE UNIVERSE JUST GIVE ME A SADDLE THAT FITS ALL CRITERIA AND END MY SUFFERING?!?!?

Monday, July 22, 2013

How to get a 67.5 at your horse's first show ever



1.) Fight with your horse for a week prior to the show. Make sure a couple of these rides happen in a lesson so your trainer loses faith in your abilities, too.

2.) Have horse get all worked up in the trailer, even though the ride is on 15 minutes.
Tortured in the torture box of torture
3.) Unload jigging, yelling, nervous horse. Lead around indoor ring in which dressage tests are to be held in. Make sure the ring is surrounded by stalls, with horses inside, of course. For good measure, you might want a couple of these to be stallions, especially if you have a particularly flirtatious mare. Have horse call to all these 'new friends' incessantly.

4.) Have barn owner tell you that you are welcome to ride in the ring to get horse desensitized, but you only have 10 minutes until a particularly excitable stallion is scheduled to ride. Have trainer run to trailer, get bridle and tell you to just get on bareback. Proceed to have small anxiety attack.

5.) After successfully leaving ring before horny mare and excitable stallion meet, tack up and proceed to warm up ring, which is conveniently located 15 feet from the road, a road which is frequented by motorcycles and fast traffic. Practice walking and trotting, with a few walk-BOLT transitions thrown in (thanks to loud cars) while you hold your breath and forget how to be an effective rider.

6.) Enter another stallion to warm up ring.

7.) Do dressage test. Somehow, horse is amazing, you remember how to ride, judge loves your horse, leave ring beaming as your trainer cries with joy. Proceed to join the cry-fest.


Judge's comment: "Pair has potential! Nice horse!"

TADA!

But seriously, I am BLOWN AWAY by my little horse! For our first show, the goal was literally to get in, get it done, get out. And despite the universe's best efforts to throw everything possible in the way, my little horse was AMAZING - despite the nervousness at first, she settled right down and was so calm once she got the nerves out of her system. After the first half an hour or so, it was just like she'd done this her entire life!!

Our second test was less than stellar, but still alright, ending us with a 62. I made a stupid mistake early on that cost us -2 (after halting and saluting, I thought we trotted at C, but really were supposed to  trot on from X...) and got flustered and just forgot how to ride. Even though a 62 is a VERY respectable score, especially for a first time horse, we got 6th (out of six). And the 67.5 placed us in second, only because I was riding against a professional with a GORGEOUS Morgan stallion, who was warming up doing leg yields in the warm up ring, but then showing at Intro. Um, not fair? But I really don't care how I placed, it was all about the experience, and the great scores were just icing on the already amazing cake!

"WILL NOT EAT HAY, MUST FIND FRIENDS!"
The rest of the day was a little bit of a drag, just because I was done at 9, but I had to wait until the other riders from the barn were done, and they were all doing the two-phase. So we had to wait until 3 to finally head home. I didn't really want her to graze all day, since she is not used to so much green grass and is prone to gas colic, but the show did not offer stall rentals or paddock rentals, and when I tried to put her in the trailer to eat hay and chill, she just freaked out and yelled for her friends/other horses/people/just because, and refused to touch the hay. So I just ended up holding her all day, with periodic breaks provided by my mom. She ended up fine, so I guess I didn't need to worry.

My dad took a ton of pictures, but he is lame and has a film camera (dinosaur much?) so he will need to get them developed/put on a disk before I can see them/post them.

All in all, it was an AMAZING day and I am SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSO proud of my little horse!

Saturday, July 20, 2013

The girls prepare to attempt their first show!

Tomorrow, we attempt The Great Unknown, aka Beauty's first show. It is the perfect first show, though, since it is a small schooling show (dressage and two-phase) that is about 10 minutes away and does not draw a huge crowd. Beauty and I will be attempting Intro A and B, just simple walk-trot tests. It is really more about getting her off the property and to get the experience rather than to push and go for the blue. I have no idea how she will behave! She could be perfect, or she could be a distracted nightmare. While I'd love to get a nice score and come home with a ribbon, that is not the point of this - as long as I get the tests done and there are minimal casualties, I will be happy!

We had a fantastic lesson (finally, we've had enough bad rides in the last week!) and she was back to her happy, confident self! I think she was in heat. Surprise, surprise. Mares...

"I was good, give me treats! Can I eats this?"

Miss B was very good for the show prep, with only minor tantrums around bath time. She stood to be braided, let me trim her whiskers and spray her with various products. She came out looking like a real show horse!


So fancy!
So excited, hope tomorrow goes well! Fingers crossed!

Thursday, July 11, 2013

The good, the bad, the in between

Well I let the blogging duties slide again, so a lot has happened since my last post! To make the recap easier, I'm going to categorize events.

The FANTASTIC:
-WE JUMPED!!!! It was just a teeny crossrail, probably about a foot in the middle (my friend J had put it up to jump for her first time jumping for 6 months!) . I started just goofing off and walking her over it, since it was tiny enough for her to step over, and then decided to trot over it, thinking she'd just step over it at the trot. Nope! Good thing I was in my light seat because she LAUNCHED over that sucker, like it was about 2 feet! And then she landed on the correct lead and acted like nothing happened! I kind of caught her in the mouth on the other side because I expected some excitement or naughtiness afterwards, but she was fine! We did it two more times with the same great results! SO proud.

The good:
-"Hacking," or hand walking the pony up the hill behind the barn, down the neighbor's driveway and up the barn driveway. I've never taken her that far because she gets antsy just on the barn driveway. But she was very good and listened to me, though she jigged the entire way, but didn't pull on me, so I let her figure herself out. We've done this loop three times now, both with another horse and alone, and she's been great! I'll be ready to ride her around the loop soon!
- Riding outside more often! She get's spooky outside and for my own comfort level, I tend to just ride inside so I don't have to deal with the sillies. But I need to get over it and ride her out there more to get her used to focusing in varying environments. So I rode with my friends J and H the other day and we rode outside in the evening (it was so hot that day, so we rode later to avoid the heat). Beauty was silly and spooky for a while, including a 0 to 60 mph spook at a bird flying out of the bushes, but settled in and was GREAT! Love the brain on this mare, once she gets something figured out, she's over it.
-MY NEW SADDLE IS COMING TOMORROW OR MONDAY! No more sore backs!!!!
-Gorgeous new dressage bridle from Smartpak!
-I sent in my entry for Beauty's first show! It is a dressage schooling show at a nearby barn and I will be doing Into A and B. Hopefully it will be a good first show experience, and I don't care if we don't get amazing scores, this is just for her experience and anything else is icing on the cake.

The bad:
-Due to several frustrating non-horse related life events, I haven't been able to get to the barn much in the last week. As a result, our lesson today was AWFUL. She would absolutely NOT calm down and spent the entire lesson racing around at the trot with her head in my lap and her back hollow. Any contact I took was SO OFFENSIVE and anytime I asked for bend, she took it as an excuse to SHOOT ACROSS THE RING WITH HEAD IN AIR! Ugh. I know everyone has bad days, but even her bad days are never this bad..

Ugh, I've just been so burnt out by working 30 hours per week and finding time to ride. Guess I should get used to it if I plan to go to med school and be a doctor ;)


Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Saddles and sore backs

I never wanted to be That Horse Owner that let a poorly fitting saddle hurt her horse. I bent over backwards to get a saddle that would fit (or so I thought), hiring a saddle fitter, trying a whopping 18 saddles before finding one that got the green light, and then, reflocking the goddamn saddle to replace lumpy flocking that could cause discomfort. And of course, all of this was way over my budget (have I mentioned I am a broke college kid working a minimum wage job to afford my beast?)

But of course, despite my efforts, everything went to hell. I had the saddle fitter out six months later to do some adjustments on the flocking, and she broke the wonderful news to me: This saddle doesn't fit at all, you need a new saddle.

Little Miss Shoulders (Beauty) had muscled up so nicely, that she now needed a saddle that was a whole tree size wider. And the saddle I had was already a wide.

So the search began again, resulting in me ordering a new saddle from a company that specializes in wide horses, Duett. Luckily, even new, there saddles are pretty cheap, so I could (almost) afford this.

So, great, I have a saddle that will fit coming my way, right?

WRONG.

The company in the US was out of the model, size and tree that I needed. So they put in an order for the manufacturer and told me it would be maybe two weeks. Okay, I could do that.

A month later, no saddle, we called the US company. The order had been delayed and would (hopefully) be in in a month.

And meanwhile, I've been riding my sensitive mare in a saddle that doesn't fit, six days a week.

It started with her being just less willing to come up through her back when riding or having a rough time getting the canter transition, but now is full blown "don't touch my back", flinching when being groomed, ear pinning undersaddle, PAIN. It breaks my heart and I don't know what to do. I feel awful every time I get on, because I know I am causing her discomfort.

But at the same time, I can't just give her a month off (she goes batshit crazy when not in work, plus we have out FIRST SHOW YAY in three weeks). She's the widest horse at the barn, so there isn't a saddle that I could borrow to fit her better. I've tried using a riser pad, a gel pad, a fleece half pad - nothing helps. Riding bareback doesn't help, since my bouncing seatbones just stab her in the area where she is already sore. I've been putting liniment on her back daily and cold hosing her.

I just don't know what to do and I feel like a horrible horse mom. :(

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

An old attempt...

I tried to start a blog in Beauty's POV, but it sort of deteriorated when I left for school and she stayed behind... Out of sight, out of... blog? Certainly not out of mind though, being without her for 6-ish months was torture!

Anyway, here is the link if you are interested!
beautyvenusdancer.blogspot.com

What a failure!




I am a fail of a blogger.

I told myself I'd start up this new blog when I got home from school (May) and here it is, July, and I haven't done a single post!

Well, better late than never! This blog is to document the progress, shenanigans, and overall journey of my and my 7 year old Morgan mare, Beauty.


TREEAATZ?
Beauty is my first horse (though I've ridden since I was 6 and leased many horses) and came to me in the least expected way possible - my hairdresser/family friend has a small farm and has kept horses for many years, one of which I almost bought. She called me up one night, raving about the gorgeous, sweet, but untrained, 4 year old mare she'd just bought for $500. She suggested that this horse could be my training project and seemed to think that I, a 16 year old with no experience starting horses (or even riding green horses, for that matter), could get this horse trained and how lovely it would be (did I mention this woman was a bit crazy?). I scoffed. That's dangerous, I don't know what I'm doing, that's insane. But I agreed to do some basic natural horsemanship and lunge the horse to get her training started. But one thing led to another, long story short, I fell in love. With the help of a natural horsemanship trainer, we gradually made progress and strengthened our bond.
Playing in the snow

Purchasing my new dream horse was a disaster in itself, as the crazy woman who brought us together suddenly became jealous and refused to sell me the horse that I had spent almost every day for a year training. I was devastated, but luck turned in out favor a few months later, when Crazy Woman lost her job and needed quick money. We grabbed that bill of sale and booked it out of there!

Yay dressage pony!
It has since been the best two years of my life, owning this wonderful little horse. It has not been easy, with many setbacks that left us both frustrated and discouraged, but I would not change a thing - every setback has made us stronger. We are now schooling dressage and soon to be starting to jump! She is the best horse I can imagine and I am so proud of where we have both come from, and excited for our future!