Leg Up recap

Annie warmed up really well at Leg Up last weekend, giving me high hopes for NOT being dead last after dressage.  My coach helped me ride her forward into the contact and control the direction of my travel by looking up at where I wanted to go and not down at where I was going (interesting concept huh?).

However once she tritty trotted into the dressage ring my hopes were dashed.  I don't know if it was the noise (thanks barrel racers) coming from the arena over the hill, the fact that she was alone when usually she was in the next ring over, or just bad behavior but it was a pretty miserable test.  I had to go to my whip to keep her moving in the free walk.  I was disappointed, the inconsistency is frustrating.  So good in the warm up then SQUAT in the dressage ring.

She was mostly an old pro show jumping, plopping around the stadium course like she'd done it a thousand times (except for an arabian moment when faced with the very scary pile of jumps outside the arena!).  It felt, dare I say, easy!  We've also struggled with her being spooky jumping in new places so this was welcome.  She doesn't want to stop at the fences, and since we're jumping it's less frustrating that her head is straight up in the air, but it's nice that she's feeling more confident in new places.

Cross country I was motivated to "be an eventer"  I wanted to channel my inner brave person and actually gallop her around.  My entire goal for this show was to make the time, something I've never actually done before.  Cross country was a blast, and a challenge.  Annie isn't as bold in places she's not familiar with, and she'd rather have two on the floor in a scary place so she's harder to keep cantering.  I lost a stirrup once during a major spook at the canter sideways, and we did a canter half pass our entire way between fences three and four because there were bears in the tree line.  But we cantered through the scary horse eating paths, and through the busy and looky water complex, and right smack down to the edge of the not as scary water, then some sort of giant leap SPLAT! right into the water.  We trotted through the gravel path that she got stuck on last year, and unfortunately had a stop at the straw bale jump.  Annie questioned its safety and I didn't give her confidence with my leg, damn it.

Then we galloped all the way home.

I even wore a watch, and wrote my minute markers down on my arm, and I even LOOKED at my watch!  to find out I was mostly on time jumping over fence 4 (the two minute marker).  I was thrilled to find out that I was TWO SECONDS UNDER time!  Woot!

In the end our stop moved us from 11th place up to 7th place which happens to be my favorite color, purple!  So not too shabby.

Next up, Annie goes to a dressage show!

MARE face

HHP XC schooling day!

One of the huge bonuses of an instructor I love is that she is so skilled that while coaching me around an XC course on Sunday she was also able to snap pictures so I can capture all those great moments.  When a last minute clinician cancelled IEA opened up the park to schooling the weekend before Leg Up to recoup some of their lost funds.  It was an excellent and well attended day and after a very very nice friend took me I had a great time.

Annie cantering through the water.  She started out cantering through in the other direction because we had the momentum of a jump just before the water to encourage her, cantering into it cold took some encouraging (and actual use of my legs).

She also managed to capture a good "OMG I'm going to die!" moments.  I've never had a problem with down banks based on my few experiences with them but last year while schooling this very same down bank on this very same Annie I got yanked ahead when she launched then promptly bucked the hell off.

So this looked very large and very scary.  And produced this face, oh so nicely captured by my instructor.  Sigh.

Yes, you may laugh.

Finally it ended up being not so terrible, here she is not launching off of it, and here I am giving her plenty of rein to not restrict her head and not be yanked onto her neck.

Back at em!

Annie's back to work!  I was able to ride her several days last week after it was clear that her appetite was back and only a result of the icky antibiotics.  It's funny how much I missed riding her and how worried I was.  My second ride back (first ride was just a little putzzing around) she proved that her weekish off hadn't changed a thing.  Still willing to give her all in some parts and equally willing to flip me off in others.

I even took her for a short trail ride with her new Shire friend on Sunday.  While she wasn't exactly the brave leader I hoped she would be (her STATUE MODE when she sees something that might eat horses is a little annoying) it was nice to have a relaxing trail ride and the mountain bikers didn't bother her one bit.

This week the riding will be sporadic, we have inventory at work and the long/erratic schedule means I'm not going to have time or energy for much riding.  Fourth of July weekend we have Leg Up which I'm terribly glad we got to enter although I do wish we could find time to cram a lesson in.

Feeling barfy

Annie that is, if horses could feel barfy.

Annie was down outside on Monday when I came out to clean stalls and then down again when I looked out, I brought her in since laying down to roll once is normal, twice not so much, and she lay down again immediately.  Sometimes horses get gassy and it goes away quickly without the need for a vet so we left her in the arena and put her on the watch list.

Tuesday morning she didn't feel any better so the vet came out and found her with poor gut sounds, lots of gass on her tummy, and more alarmingly a fever.  She got oiled, a rectal exam, banamine, blood pulled for tests, and Cathy kept a close eye on her overnight.  The vet came out again on Wednesday morning as Annie wasn't any better with a scary temporary diagnosis of Potomac Horse Fever, a very scary illness.  It runs a high fever, diarrhea, and can lead to laminitis and founder if it isn't caught fast.  Without waiting for blood results Annie got hit with some powerful antibiotics via IV.

Luckily she came back negative for Potomac Horse Fever but blood results showed some sort of bacterial infection since we hadn't waited for a diagnosis she was already on antibiotics.

Friday was her last IV dose of antibiotics and her fever has stayed down without any banamine but we're still having trouble getting her to eat like normal.  She's eating bits here and there but not nearly enough to make us happy.

This all means that instead of packing up for our horse trial this weekend I've been coaxing Annie to eat by hand feeding her and fussing over her.  I've filled in the time by riding Penny and working with baby Al but it isn't the same as galloping XC on a good horse.

Baby getting backed!

Baby Al isn't such a baby anymore, he has now reached that age of wisdom we call "3" where he's considered old enough to have a job.  My long term plans are to start him under saddle walk trot and canter and take him to the barn I lesson at to hack him around a few times, then hit a late fall show where he gets a stall and gets to hang out with all the big horses but probably doesn't actually enter.

Right now he's learning all about big horse things.  I'm starting slow with basic groundwork like teaching him to lunge (ok at the walk, exciting at the trot), and to be used to having a rope all over parts of his body.  He learned how to wear a saddlepad last week and went from NO WAY! to MEH in one session.

One of my current favorite horse trainers on Youtube is this guy, Warwick Schiller.  He's a NH type trainer who does tons of groundwork with his client's horses.  He believes that good groundwork makes good horses and after carefully studying his videos I tend to agree.  Click on this video and look at the other videos he has made and watch the quiet progress of this young horse from rank to well behaved.

Here's baby Al with his first time feeling weight on his back, I don't have a timeline for actually getting on him and he probably  needs to wear a saddle first anyway but it was a good moment.  He has "ack!" baby horse spazz moments that blend in nicely with his "whatever moments."

ACK!!!! Rolltop!!!! Or Sabrina and Annie show BN and live to tell about it.

Sunday Annie and I competed at Dan Hobyn Stables in our very first BN combined test (that would be dressage and show jumping).  These folks are celebrating their 45th year in the business of teaching people to jump cross country fences and they are a wonderful group of people.  I always have a ton of fun when I show there.

As long as you don't include me not sleeping at all the night before and having Jurassic Age size butterflies rampaging around my tummy.  I had chosen Dan Hobyn because it is fun, friendly, and laid back.  It has a BN course that has a lot of the elements of a BN course but doesn't tend to be maxed out. It still didn't mean I didn't want to ralph all over my Mountain Horses warming up for stadium.  

It's a tie to your trailer kind of place, which Annie seems to like because trailer hay is better than stall hay.

Dressage went exactly as expected.  Annie takes longer to gear down in a field because fields are for jumping idiot.  Plus we hadn't exactly been dressaging our way down the trails for our endurance ride.  The dressage ring is by a road and I expected to lose her attention if a car drove by, which it did.  What I was able to do however, is to continue to develop my "warm up smarter stupid" strategy.  Not just sitting like a lump but incorporating serpentines, changes of direction, and transitions into my warm up to capture her attention.  I believe in being honest about the skills we brought to the dressage ring and accepting the scores I deserve.  

I wasn't there for the dressage though.

We went straight over from dressage to jumping, I had time to do a quick tack change but it wasn't necessarily and I tend to be a "let's get it over with" type of person.  

I wouldn't call the course "beefy" but I would call it "looky"  it's set in a grass field and there are lots of ups and downs, not very noticeable to the naked eye, but enough that you can get rolling downhill and lose control.  It had LOTS of filler that we had never jumped before, and it's not our regular place so it was all unfamiliar.  

With two rolltops (ACK!!!!!  I dreamed about these, let me be honest with you), a brick wall, a panel, and a gate oxer it proved to be a good test of how badly I wanted to do this, how well I rode, and how game Annie was.  

The first two fences Annie gave some room but not a big look, coming down to the rolltop I could feel her question me "Are we jumping that?!  Are you sure?!  Like for serious sure?!  WELL OK HANG ON COWABUNGA!!!!!!

She questioned me at most of the other fences as well but was game as long as I was game and I could feel her raise up higher and higher in front on approach and drive her hindquarters under.  It's a really cool feeling of power and being game but it's also a little scary because all of a sudden I'm jumping a fire breathing dragon over a castle.  It's quite a bit of power in such a little body.  If I wanted her to go over, she'd go over, but she wasn't going to skim over anything.

And then we were done.  My legs shook, my adrenalin pumped, I had forgotten to count over half the fences.  But I stayed on!!!  And we didn't stop!!! AND WE DIDN'T FINISH LAST!!!! 

Next time, we jump the moon!!!!

Video, as long as you promise to not laugh at my spazzy behavior.