Stuck

I realize I've disappeared on you guys. Part of it is work, part is my current horse life. I am considering taking a huge step and it's simply locked me in place.

I am in the middle of talking to a private school with a large riding program about donating Pete and another of my horses, Loki.

I'm OK with the Pete donation. It's a great place for him to land and it's time for him to go on to his next home.

The program this school offers is an excellent one. The woman who runs it runs the English side of things and her assistant does the western side.


Both are accomplished, sensible trainers.

The program matches a horse to a child for an entire semester, so it's not like the horses will be being yanked and banged around by a bunch of beginners.
They have won national group championships, they are serious competitors and value their horses.

So it should be a good thing.

But, I think I might be nuts not putting Loki up for sale. She's a cracker jack horse and sound. She also has some emotional issues from being over-shown and over-trained (Another story coming....). While the tax write-off will help Pete's owner, I don't make enough $$ for it to help me.

I know if I sold her she would be back in the show pen. She would end up in training again. I owe this mare a lot and I can't help but think it would be a disaster for her if she's sold.

The school will give her back if she doesn't work out. They have had horses donated with the very same problems. Their policy is to keep them home to learn on if they can't handle show pressure. Right there they had me hooked.

So, here I am on the verge of giving away a pretty stinking valuable mare. I think I might be nuts.

I'm certainly going nuts. AHHHHHHH!

What do you think?

I will find a picture of Loki tonight and let you have a gander...

Mouthy Mondays

Yo! I'm back! Long week, glad it's over, glad I did it. I truly appreciate the input on stretching and loosening my mare. I'm inclined to lean towards some of the long, slow, dressagey kind of exercises, I liked HOC's recommendation a bunch.
Ruckus Butt almost busted me...yes I do have a lot of opinion and thoughts on flexing and loosening a horse. But I love getting outside input. My mare has more emotional issues than physical, I'm not ruling out the chiro, but I'm going to try riding her through her tightness first.
She has stiffened in defense. My guess is it has to do with the weaker side of her rider (not me) and how she turned a little tightness into an evasion, then on into a locked up fearful mess. By listening (reading) to all of you I get a much bigger picture on what I want to work on to get my girl back on track So thanks. If you want I'll come back to the program I'm putting together for her.
This is a cool story. I'd have posted it sooner, but it was sent to me as a blog link. Pleeeeaaaassssse don't do this to me. It creates all kinds of work for me. I love to share the space, but prefer to be able to cut and paste.



http://gretathehorse.blogspot.com/


I have a barn buddy who is actually a guy. He doesn't go out to the barn for horses necessarily, but more as our junior fix-it guy when the fix-it guys aren't there or need help.

He likes horses. That's about the only horse-related thing we have in common.

He can ride, but only if he has to (and I laugh when he does).

When it comes to carpentry, I can drill a nail in, drill a hole, and use a hammer. Barely.

We both laugh when I'm given the task of driving a nail into some piece of wood. I'm usually only given it because I'm a last resort. And it doesn't need to be done well. I admire his handiwork, he admires my dressage riding. Nonetheless, we have other teenagery things in common: football (he plays, I watch with an educated eye) and school, friends, movies, the like.

So I was excited to show him a bit of my horsey world when we and and his grandmother -a friend of my instructor - made the long trip from Austin to Seguin (near San Antonio) to visit a gigantic tack store. His grandmother and my instructor were to pick up other items for their horses, I went to try out a saddle I had seen online.

We walk in and my jaw drops at the size and selection of the place, and then we all dispersed. They go and look for bridles, and I go on to admire the beautiful tooling of all the western show saddles.

My guy friend tags along with me and asks questions like "who would pay this much for a saddle?" and I tell that someone who wanted to look good and get attention in the ring would.

"God, I miss riding western sometimes. All the tack was super pretty. Dressage, everything is just black."

"So, get one of these! You're looking for a saddle right?" I look at him in horror.

"I'd get disqualified!"

He laughs. "Damn, they're that picky?" I laugh too.

"You have no idea..... oooh, they have an English section!"

I drag him over there. He watches me gaze in awe at the $3,000 Passiers and delicately set them on the plastic horse model and try them out.

"This is amazing!"

"It's just a saddle."

"Just a saddle? It's a Passier! A Passier!"

"Whatever."

I jokingly scoff at his ignorance, remembering that my instructor and I were probably the only ones in the group who realized the amazing-ness of a Passier. I then saw the saddle I actually had intention to buy elsewhere: my Wintec synthetic. I try it on, and my instructor and I gawk, and then go to look at bridles. I, of course, eye the pretty ones with the padding and the crystal browbands. No intention of getting one, just admiring what I usually only see on the Internet or in magazines or on Grand Prix horses.

Guy friend finally speaks out, "Why do you want to get all of this stuff?"

"I don't. I'm just admiring. Greta and I already have everything we need."

"No, I mean, why get stuff like this in the first place for your horse? She's not top of the line."

Why I oughtta....

I could not laugh this one off. My instructor froze and turned around. He had just pushed the envelope. Not top of the line! He knows just how much I love Greta! How much I dote over her and spend an hour-and-a-half after a 30 minute ride just grooming her. Again. I was being a bit materialistic, true, but how could he say this?

"She most certainly is top of the line! Her sire was imported from Sweden!" my instructor says, and lightly pops him on the head and walks away, leaving me to deal with it.

I sigh, cross my arms, and shake my head, trying to give the best "I'm very disappointed in you" look I could give: something I have learned from watching the parental units. Not the best, but I tried.

"I don't care if she had been sired by a godawful-looking grade and then [foaled by a goat] she is my horse and I am allowed to spoil her. Besides, it's none of your business what I do and don't get for my horse. Just stop me if you see me getting one of those wire bits they had over there."

He shrunk away. We didn't really talk much afterwards until he apologized later during lunch:

"Sorry about what I said in the store-"

"I could see where you were coming from." He raised a brow.

"You just worded it very wrongly. What you should've said is, 'I understand you love Greta very much, but she doesn't care whether or not you get her the $3,000 Passier or the $50 used one off of Craigslist. She could care less if you ride her at all. She could care less who her parents' parents' parents were. What she does care about is that you are her human and that you care for her and watch out for her as she does for you despite all of your antics. You do, and that's all that matters. Though nice saddles are great, too.'"

"I don't know if I could've thought that one up...."

"You didn't need to. It was just a personal eureka." And then I went on to sprinkle some salt on the chips.

Mouthy Mondays-Late Again

Hey guys,
I'm getting this cool story about endurance riding up, it says a lot about getting out and getting it done. I may be missing this week, I am a judge for the Oklahoma Press Association annual competition. We judge each others papers, which is really cool, I'm honored to have been asked to be a judge. Plus I'm learning tons reading all these columns.

I'm also drowning. I have so many articles to read, judge and comment on I'm a little freaked. And really short on time, so I'll be gone for a bit, at least until next week.

In the mean time I'll throw out a question. My daughters retired show mare, Loki, is getting ridden again, by me, after three years off.

She is extremely tight and ungiving on her left side. It's hugely obvious in her lateral work and during her spins.

I haven't been on the horse for at least five years, nobody has ridden her for three.

She's sound and willing to work, but really resistant through the neck, shoulders and ribs. This explains a bunch of the trouble my daughter was having with her during her last show season.

Now I'm planning on fixing her issues. What would you guys do to loosen her up? I have all the time in the world to tackle this.....

I have put her back in a ring snaffle, no other mechanical devices, no drop nose bands etc.

Whaddya think?

WE DID IT!!!!
Saturday, June 20, 2009

I achieved my goal, and finished in less time than last ride! I placed 9th... out of nine... but only 2 minutes after the 8th place finisher!

Summer is finally heating up here. And last weekend's ride was on the first real warm day we've had.

So even though I groaned when I realized I would have to wake up at 6am, I was happy we were scheduled to start an hour earlier than normal.It was a nice relaxing morning for me. I got to the barn by 7 and was on the road by 7:30. I actually arrived on time for once - no rushing!

I got signed up, tacked up and was actually waiting around for the ride to start. Unheard of! It was overcast and breezy, but you could feel the heat coming, so we were all anxious to get started.

I stood around with all the experienced endurance horses at the start line. They were all anxious to get going... Willow was more anxious to get as much grass in her stomach as possible. The time keeper finally said it was a go and we were all off quickly.

Willow and I stretched out in a nice trot, but we were quickly outdistanced by the others. That was OK, I had one person behind me; he had a young horse and wanted to teach her to not gallop like a mad thing at the start. Willow was too sensible to do something like that... that would be too much like work!

We maintained a good trot for about a mile and a half before we were passed by the rider behind us. But that didn't last long as I called him back from the wrong trail.

We continued on. All of a sudden, a pack came up from behind us. I was confused! These people had long outdistanced me! They had taken the wrong trail. Willow and I had a BFO (blinding flash of the obvious)... this meant we were in the lead!

We'd NEVER been in the lead before! Now she got excited! I asked if they (six of them) wanted to pass. But they said Willow was setting a good pace. This surprised me as Willow was 2-3 hands shorter than all of them. And she wasn't even doing her power trot!

Willow was determined to stay in the lead, even though I could feel that she wanted to slow to a walk. She realized that they would then pass her. So she started playing her passive-aggressive/ psychological games. She would suddenly swerve, with no warning to me or the horse behind her, from one side of the trail to the other; like a car in movie chase scene. She would spook at nothing, as if to say "ahhh! It's gonna eat us! Turn around and run away! I'll distract it while you escape! (hehe)". And turning to give the evil eye while dancing around and casting a voodoo hex.

OK, so the last was an exaggeration! BUT SHE WOULD IF SHE COULD!!!Finally, after a mile, I pulled her back and let them pass. I didn't want her to blow her wad, all at the beginning. I got off and walked for a bit, let her cool down. Then I got back on and we began motoring again.

Around mile 6, the rider with the young horse came up behind us. Luckily it was a mare, so Willow wasn't tempted to kick her head of. The ONLY gelding she tolerates seems to be her son. Interesting.

My riding partner had done lots of endurance rides in the past, competing at the Nationals last year, so I took the opportunity to learn. He set the pace, but very soon his young mare refused to pass Willow. She was quite happy being second. And that's how Will liked it!

It started to heat up. We got off and walked a mile or so, trying to get them to drink at the many puddles. I was just hoping Will wouldn't get down and roll like she had last year here. I brought extra shoes this year.We got back on and tried to finish the loop quicker to give us more time for the second one.

We ended up pulsing down in the same time as last ride - 2h 53m. But this time we had already done 15+ miles. I was satisfied.I ran Willow through her vet check - well actually she ran me! I practically had to sprint to keep up with her. The vet said she looked great. She had actually improved on a few of her scores and her slight limp from vet-in had gone away.

We wandered over to the trailer to get some food into Will. I had made up a bowl of soaked alfalfa cubes before I left. I added some ground flax and another 1/2 litre of water and pushed it in front of her. She slurped it up double time and then went over to her hay. I mixed her up a second bowl; 3/4 lbs Grow N' Win pellets, 1+ litre of water and a dose of electrolytes (safe to give her now that I got some water into her). This too disappeared in short order.

I scarfed down a sandwich, then started brushing her off. We were ready ahead of time at the end of our hold, so I let her have some more grass. She needed the water and electrolytes in it for the second loop - it was heating up.

I set out with my riding companion of the first loop.Neither horse was feeling really excited to be leaving camp. By five miles into the second loop, my legs were killing me from constantly urging her on. My companion had given up even any pretence of trying to pass me and set a quicker pace. The young, inexperienced mare wasn't prepared for this type of work and wasn't really feeling like moving very fast.

If I had been alone I could have probably completed faster, as Willow wouldn't have been constantly waiting for the mare behind her. We could have cantered more and made things interesting for her.

While I did cross the finish line before him, I had problems with my HRM and so we pulsed down 2 minutes after the young mare. Oh, well. I had still obtained my goal for the day and was very satisfied with Willow's performance.Willow once again raced me up and down for the trot-out and got great marks for the day. Actually prompting the vet and the scribe to say that this was the best they've ever seen her at a finish, even though she did complete it faster.

Awesome!My goal for the next ride is to keep her in shape over summer and at the August Spruce Woods ride, to complete it another 15 minutes faster. ... now I just need to get hubby to stay home and watch the other animals for the weekend!

http://gotlandendurance.blogspot.com/