Appreciating what you have

If I let myself think about it too much, I feel sorry for myself that I had to sell Tiki.  I love that horse, and I always thought I would get to keep him "until his legs fell off".  But I know I made the right decision when I get the pics and emails from his kidlet.  Let me tell y'all; they've competed T, and they're going to do a P CT in Dec or Jan.  WHOA!  I always wondered if the boy had the stuff for more UL, but I was too much of a chicken to find out.  It's beginning to look like he DOES :)  So I look forward to hearing about their T competitions, and the big P move up.  It's a match made in Heaven!

I feel so fortunate to not only have Jade to ride, but also to be sitting on SO many horses at Eventing barn.  I used to keep track of all the horses I'd ridden; I wrote their names on my tack box.  It was a never ending push for me to want to sit on EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING I could.  Then I got old and fat and didn't ride much, and when I finally bought my own horse, I found that ANY motivation to sit on anything else was gone.  Just for fun, I'm going to list the horses I've ridden at Eventing barn.  I'm pretty sure I've been there just under a year at this point.  In no particular order: (updated 11-30-14)
1.  Kiara
2.  Pluto
3.  Rusty
4.  Sky
5.  Jedi
6.  Kimmie
7.  Spellbound
8.  Luna
9.  Belle
10.  Hannah
11.  Partner
12.  Connor
13.  Puffin
14.  Whisper
15.  Ricky Bobby
16.  Patton
17. Puzzle

I think of what each and every one of these horses have taught me, and it makes me so happy to say I've had the opportunity to ride them!  And if Tiki had made the trip w/ me to CA like I'd originally planned, I probably wound not have sat on even half these horses!  I've learned how to FINALLY feel what it's like to have real, true collection.  I've ridden passage and piaffe.  I've felt a perfect flying change just by the shifting of my weight.  It's been amazing!  I hope things work out to where I continue to ride where I'm at for a long, long time.  I absolutely love my horsey life right now!

Busy, busy, busy!

Love my smile here.  This was the first time I REALLY felt her trot to the base and rock back nice and easy:)

Life has been a little busy!  I've been working some overtime hours at work, and for Eventing Barn, we're about to put on our very first Recognized Event!  We've done several schooling shows successfully, now it's time to put our organizing skills to the test:)  As a result, my weekly Wednesday Eventing Barn trips have been show planning sessions vs. riding lessons which is a bummer.  I DID get to ride little baby adorableness Connor.  https://www.facebook.com/FourStarFarm  You have to scroll down the page a little bit to see his little grid video.  He is a lazy son of a gun!  I love his size though, exactly what I prefer.  He was the last one I rode, about 3 weeks ago.

Rode Ms. Jade last Sat.  She was pretty much a rock star.  She's been on the back burner as well until after the show b/c all my free time is spent planning, writing emails, trying to coordinate EVERYTHING on my one day off, but I have ridden her on my off Saturdays.  A few weeks ago, we did the grid and she was so amazing.  Last week, I decided to mix things up and canter.  A LOT!  I haven't been doing a LOT of canter with her, really it's been a lot of trot.  And her trot is MUCH better than Tiki's was.  (I say WAS b/c his new kidlet is out there scoring 32's in dressage, woot woot!!!)  She CAN get on the strong, quick side, but lately that tendency has been pretty much non-existent.

Anyway, I w/t her and she was good, so I picked up the canter.  All was well; her bulging and dragging on the flat has gotten WAY better, and she's learned how to respond reasonably well to a half halt.  So ... I cantered her to a jump!  Landed, circled, cantered some more.  She was so shocked, she backed herself off, lol :)  All in all, I spent about 12 minutes (I checked my watch) just cantering different jumps.  I cantered tall crossrails, the red box w/ a pole, a small brush box, a gate w/ a pole, and a vertical sitting about 2'3.  There was even a crossrail/vertical/vertical combo.  1 stride to a 3-4 stride.  Eh, that was just OK.  It was set heading STRAIGHT to the barn, and in the area where she likes to pop that shoulder at the last second and DRAG to the rail.  She quickened a few times through it, but also had a few really good moments. I had the 2nd vertical up at 2'3, the 1st crossrail was TINY, and the 3rd element was a 3'3 crossrail.  A little awkward, but overall not too bad.

Not going to lie, there were a few moments where I had to literally stick my right spur in her on landing, and I did have to really haul her around a few times turning left (that RIGHT bulge, ugh!), but for the most part I was very excited.  The jumps weren't an issue at ALL, it's now just working to improve the overall quality of the canter and eliminate that drag to the right once and for all.  The spooking has become very much a non-issue, and her work ethic has improved tremendously.  Very proud of the mare!  S will be taking her to her very first OFF grounds show next weekend :)  I'm very sad I'll miss it since I'll be working my tail off all weekend at Event Barn.  Until next time!

Overall theme of the day is ...

... Improvement!  My lessons w/ event trainer have been literally life changing, in the riding sense.  I got to ride both her stallion again!

AND ... I finally got to sit on the 4 star horse, woop woop!  Granted, the 4* horse was a trail ride followed by 45 minutes of walking, but STILL.  My butt sat on a horse bound for the Rolex CCI**** next year.  How lucky can a girl get??

So, I'm so thankful for the opportunity just to be able to experience that upper level feel and movement.  My old hunter trainer said her daughter didn't get to be the amazing rider she is today by riding the "bad" ones, as so many people say.  She got to where she is by having the chance to ride NICE horses, that taught her what a "nice" horse should feel like.

I've been riding lots of ponies; Puffin the puff ball Icelandic, Kiara (not so much since she got purchased.  BOO for me, but yay for her new owner!), and Kimmie (the gray Connemara).

When I rode Kimmie, it took me about 5 minutes to get her round, soft, and in front of my leg.  The previous 3 times I rode her, I EXHAUSTED myself TRYING to get her forward and round, and achieved maybe half a lap of actually having her engaged and her back up.  This last time, it was quick and simple, and she stayed nicely between the hand and the leg for most of my 40 minute ride.  The pony Puffin is mostly about WORKING him.  He's pretty fat, but he's super athletic.  I love to jump him around, and trainer is working with me on doing as little as possible.  I tend to want to "help" him by jumping up his neck, and we all know how that works out.

I took a lesson with honorary little sis Nicole on Rusty, and it was super fantastic.  I jumped around on a horse I'd never ridden, and it was just NICE to be able to focus mostly on ME, and fixing the myriad of bad habits I've developed over the years.  Rusty is another Pluto; an ex upper level horse of trainer's that is now a super lovely lesson horse that I don't get to ride hardly at all b/c she has to use him for her other students!  A year ago, I would have politely declined to jump around, focusing instead on flatwork, but I'm finally being brave and going for it!

I rode a SUPER nice older BTDT hunter named Partner last week.  He's another big, gray Trakehner, and though he has a bit of a spook to him, it was a lovely lesson.  Our first jump was almost enough to zap my confidence b/c he apparently HATES to trot jumps, and it was a horribly awkward and painful jump, but I took a deep breath, pushed back the fallen down brim of my helmet, pushed my heels down, and persevered until I was able to canter back and forth through a line perfectly.  He's just BIG, and I don't feel all that comfortable on a BIG horse.  Flat, yes.  Jump?  Not so much.  But it ended great, I'm happy. :)

Overall, I'm SO happy with the progress I'm making, and trainer treats me like any other part of the team.  I get to ride her 'fancy ponies' (for which she actually THANKED me, what??), I get to ride the nice sale horses, and I have my fun little pony project, which I'm loving.  Even though I miss my sweet, sassy little muffin man like crazy, it warms my heart to see him out competing with his new child at N, finishing on his dressage score like a good boy.  She's thinking of moving up to T this Fall, and I can't wait to hear all about it!  I'm lucky that I can still keep up with him, and I'm lucky the sale worked out and his new home is every bit as good as his old one was :)  I am very grateful for the situation I'm in now, and looking forward to continuing to improve and to sit on more fancy ponies :)

And ... the 2nd of the "2 separate posts"!

Plutes!

Haha, I didn't intend for a week to go by before coming out with the second installment of last week's blog post.  I guess fortunately, there wouldn't have been one from this week anyway since it actually decided to RAIN all night long, YAY!  That means Jade gets Wed off from me, and I technically could ride at eventing barn since they have an indoor, but I have a bunch of stuff that needs to get done around here, so I'm actually going to stay home today, oh the horrors!

So after leaving HRH Jade, I made my way 45 mins up the road to the eventing barn.  After our weekly meeting with a facebook rep, I was allowed to saddle up my adorable little fluffy pony again, Puffin!  He is so adorable.  He's actually a fun little booger to ride, as well.  I spent about 20 minutes with the shedding blade, working to remove some of the great "Spring Shed", then led him to the outdoor were I proceeded to mount using the block.  Yep.  I used the mounting block for a pony who's back I tower over.  In my defense, he is extremely fat with no withers to speak of, so it's more of a step over sort of mounting.  Trainer was teaching a lesson while I rode, and didn't have a whole lot to say on the flat with him, which for her is somewhat surprising as she usually can find no less than 5 things at once to correct me on ... while I'm walking!  Lol, but Puffin is a kid's pony, so there's really no need to try and do much more than keep him straight, light, and forward as much as possible.

Then she told me to go jump the tiny 18" vertical.  OK, no problem.  What a cutie!  B/c he is so small, I felt the urge to help him by jumping up his neck, so I definitely got my correction handed to me there.  Trotted over it a few more times, and much better.  I then cantered a pretty tall crossrail; like, the cups were at the equivalent of his belly.  He hopped right over, cute as a button!  Cantered a pretty big vertical, about 2'3, and it was perfect.  His little legs are so short, trainer had to remind me to just wait on him and not get ahead, and I did.  Cantered into a line of crossrails, and I just looped the reins and kicked and he was perfect!

I was pretty content at that point to stop and watch (pony was puffing like a train, anyway.  Did I mention he's fat and hairy?  And it was rapidly approaching 80 degrees?).  I was observing trainer's head groom lessoning on a young, green Morgan/TB named Spellbound.  I'd ridden him a few months ago, and he's super fun.  She was supposed to show him at our schooling show in a few days, so it was jump around time!  They were to trot over the liverpool.  The liverpool is an actual, 4' wide liverpool, that you fill up with water, not just a tarp or something.  There was a tiny amount of water in it, really, it was dry if I'm being completely honest!  While trainer lectured her on using her stick and being effective, I just sat, watched, and patted my pony.  After a few tries, she was able to successfully trot him over the jump, and I turned to leave the ring.

"Ok Jen, now the pony needs to go jump the liverpool!"  Um, are you kidding?  I've never jumped an actual liverpool before, especially not on a 13 hand pony!  I made some comment about me being a "passive observer" as opposed to an "active participant", but I got my crop ready and trotted up after NOT being allowed to show him the jump.  As I expected, he stopped pretty hard core, and ducked left and tried to run off.  Trainer tried to block him with her body, but he was in full on run through mode.  I had my stick out ... but had neglected to use it.  I got yelled at for that, then presented again with another pretty hard stop, but at least this time I used it on his neck, on the left side.  Finally, he leaped over.  Trotted in again, and he jumped after a slight hesitation, then cantered it a few times and he was perfect.  I should have gotten the job done the FIRST time, and not trot in thinking "He's gonna stop".  It's probably self defeating.

My second ride (technically 3rd) of the afternoon was Pluto, trainer's former upper level dressage mount.  He's now her main lesson horse dude, a real steady eddy, and big enough to accommodate most riders.  I hadn't had the chance to ride him yet b/c he normally already has a lesson or 2 scheduled on Wed, but this week I'd gotten lucky.  He's one of those horses that will go around like a schoolie for most people, but you can really ride him correctly and he'll become Mr. Dressage King.  I was armed with my spurs this time, and went back out to the outdoor after covering myself with is white hair.  I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure him out, and was feeling him be really stiff and reluctant to get round for me.

Trainer came out on her horse, and immediately began barking at me to STOP PULLING, and use my legs and seat to get him round.  WAY easier said than done!  I didn't even REALIZE I was pulling.  Nevertheless, she was exactly right and when I put on twice as much leg, and half as much hand, he took a breath, lifted his back, and got on the bit.  Amazing.  Subtle is the way to get results, NOT try to pull him into a frame.  After about 30 minutes, I'd gotten some pretty decent walk/trot.  What was nice is for my canter work, the only correction I got was to lighten my seat a hair because I had him so collected he threw a few tempi changes for me in the beginning.  After that, I was ok enough that trainer focused on her on ride while I finished up.

What a teacher!  Pluto knows more than I probably EVER will, and taught me so much about how a big guy doesn't need muscle to get the most out of him. He gave me so much awareness of my body, and how light one must be in order to achieve true dressage harmony.

I spent Sunday at the barn volunteering at our first schooling show of the season.  It was a CT, with extra showjumping and dressage tests thrown in.  Super fun!  I spent all day, doing a little score running, some score calculations, and a lot of filming.  SO thankful to have found this barn, I'm learning more now than I have in the last 15 years.