Impulsion

It's probably become an annual occurrence that I come to the realization that Cupid likes to ignore my leg and I should probably do something about it.  So we (mostly) fix the problem, and then over time let standards slip again.  So it's that time again.  Ask with a light squeeze and follow with the whip if I don't get a suitable response.  To start we mostly focused on accelerating out of the corners.  I'm trying to really feel the push from behind, which is a bit difficult for me.  I can feel when the front end gets lighter but have a harder time feeling the rear. 

 Riding Cupid this way is definitely more work for me - but actually not as much work as I thought.  I was expecting him to get a bit more pissy about we expecting more from him, but he is actually quite agreeable.  If I was able to ride him more effectively, he'd be quite a nice horse 😂

I feel like I've made good progress with my upper body, and some progress with my legs though as you can see in the picture below I still end up bracing on my stirrup a lot.  And also in the photo, I still have a bad habit of throwing my hands forward when I'm asking Cupid to go. I still have a hard time keeping my fingers closed on the reins, the rainbow reins are very helpful for me to see when they slip but I was thinking of trying a few rides with a stopper like for a running martingale where I keep my hands.  If I can get the darn things on my reins!

We also did a bit of stirrup work our last lesson.  I've been trying to ride without stirrups about once a week, but I still find it a bit harder to sit while maintaining the stirrups. 

We've also been doing a bit of jumping.  Last week felt really great - Cupid found the sweet spot carrying me to the jumps but not rushing.  The first time over the stone wall was a bit of a flyer that jumped me out of the tack, but our second time over was much smoother.  This week we did a little 2'-2'3" course.  I'm still not planning to show over fences, but it's fun when I can control the jumps and course! 

Unexcused Absense

Time flies, and I just haven't gotten around to blogging for no real reason.  Aside from a few outings, and some very minor bumps and scrapes, there hasn't been a whole lot going on with Cupid and me.  

We did an equine biomechanics clinic with the Traveling Horse Witch last month which certainly merited its own post, but I just didn't get to it and now the details are hazy.  But I will say that Cupid thoroughly enjoyed the session, and felt much looser through his shoulders afterwards.  We are looking forward to Celeste's return in November and hopefully I will be more diligent about taking some pictures and writing about the process!

We also made several trips to the Horse Park, for a few lessons as well as some solo rides.  We walked around the XC course and through the water but didn't do any jumps.  We also showed there, and I felt good about my tests but got really crappy scores which sent me into a bit of a funk about not understanding dressage and how could we be getting worst not better when it felt like we were improving.  I was quite discouraged, but had some good talks with a few experienced friends as well as my coach, found a few things to focus on, and am now ready to give it another try.

It was a rare quiet day at the Horsepark, we pretty much had the place to ourselves!

We've taken several people from our barn trail riding, some with green horses and some experienced.  Our lovely shaded parks are a great place to ride in the summer, though thankfully aside from a few days it hasn't felt too hot.  And even more thankfully we have not had any fire threats or smoke, knock on wood.

Back in the Ring

Cupid and I did our first show in several months!  It was at a venue we hadn't shown at before.  With these two factors in play, I decided to enter Training 1 and 2 - start with a short easy test to get a feel for the ring.

Photo by L. Taylor

I was expecting a 4am wake up, but it turned out my rides weren't until 2:30 and 3:30 so I had a leisurely morning.  I was very happy with how my braids turned out (I know it's tradition, but ... as you can see in the photos I braid on the left - Cupid's mane naturally lies to this side, and I somehow just got used to braiding there and now it feels weird trying to do it on the right!)  

I got to the show grounds around noon and let Cupid snack on his hay while I looked around.  The show arena was mostly hidden behind bushes.  There was a covered arena, plus an uncovered dressage court you could warm up in and the secretary told me there was a third arena where you can lunge.  I tacked up and headed towards the lunging arena, which was another dressage court, and to my dismay had sprinklers on.  So I walked Cupid around a bit, then headed back to the lunging arena.  Now the sprinklers were only on the back half, so I lunged Cupid in the front half even though it was a little sloppy.  Cupid was well behaved on the lunge, and moving quite nicely with the side reins.  If only I could hold my reins that steady...

I glanced at the scores from the morning, and to my dismay saw lots of 50s and low 60s - very unusual for our area.  Now I didn't actually see any of these rides, but I had to assume the judge was maybe on the stingier side.  At this point part of me was thinking if my warm up doesn't go well maybe I'll just pack up and go home!

I decided to warm up in the uncovered arena, since it was most similar to the show arena.  It was warm, but thankfully not too hot.  The warm up had tall bushes along one long side, and the other long side was on the main driveway where horses and the occasional rig passed by.  Surprisingly Cupid was not very distracted in there, and I was pretty pleased with how he felt in warm up.  And then we headed to the show ring and T1 felt like a tense, distracted mess.  Cupid broke gait several times, and picked up a wrong lead.  

I was a bit tempted to lunge the ____ out of him before our second test.  But my rational side took over - he hadn't been showing excess energy on the lunge or during warm up so perhaps there were some other things we should work on.  I took him back to the trailer and offered him water and a little break.  I got on him with just under half an hour to my second test and tried to focus extra hard on making sure my reins weren't slipping too long, that I was sitting up straight, and keeping my heels under my hips as we did lots of transitions and light lateral moves.  Then we went back to show ring and had a much improved second test!  

At the end of the day the high point for all levels and divisions was only a 69 - probably the first show I've been to where no one broke 70.  So I was quite happy with my scores - 58 in the first test (which was actually better than I was expecting regardless of the judge), and 62.4 for the second one.  But more importantly I was very happy with how well Cupid handled himself at a new place after not showing in several months.  And I was happy with myself for letting cooler heads prevail and making good improvements.  Of course after watching my video I still see many things to work on but it's finally starting to feel like it's coming together!

Stag, You're It!

Today's ride was interrupted by 3 large bucks, first lurking outside the arena and then briefly venturing into the arena!  Cupid was surprisingly well behaved with them lurking around, and when they came in Cupid thought it was a fun opportunity to use his cow skills.  I didn't want to get too close, so the deer don't run into the mirrors or something.

I think Cupid was a little startled when they ducked back out through the fence, cows don't do that! 😂

I'm glad I happened to have my camera set, even though this was a bit of a Soloshot fail.  I'm not sure why it loses me for so long when I wasn't even close to the camera.  

After the deer left, we practiced some transitions and ran through the T1 test.  Even though the deer were still lurking in the bushes behind A, Cupid was not distracted.  I had the german martingale on for some extra help keeping the contact steady, hopefully to help build the muscle memory. We have a show coming up this weekend, our first in quite a while at a new to us venue so we need all the help we can get!

Pasture Wars

For me, the mental and physical  benefits of group turnout outweigh the risks.  Cupid is in a large, slightly sloped pasture with 5 other geldings during the day.  Most of the time they just eat or stand around, but occasionally one gets the notion to run which usually results in the whole herd taking off.  

Just over a week ago Cupid came in with a scraped up leg.  The barn manager texted me a picture and cleaned it up.  It seemed superficial, though there was a bit of swelling the next day.  My vet happened to be in the barn so took a quick look, but said it should be fine if I just clean it and apply ointment.   Cupid was not lame on it, and by the next day the swelling was gone.  I walked around the pasture to make sure there weren't any loose boards or nails but didn't see anything out of place.

Injury on right front, above his old puncture wound and popped splint

 

A fair amount of swelling for a surface level scratch

All bandaged up

Then this morning I didn't get to the barn until after the horses were already turned out.  As I was walking towards Cupid's pasture I saw and one of the retirees grooming each other and thought, how cute.  However a moment later apparently the other horse had enough (or maybe was embarassed to be caught, lol) and just turned and kicked Cupid!  I thought maybe he didn't connect, but unfortunately there was a fresh wound on Cupid's other front leg!  Since I didn't see the first injury I don't know for sure it's a kick, but they are pretty similarly placed.  

Second injury, on left front

My barn takes precautions, like horses in group turnout are not allowed to have hind shoes and new horses are introduced gradually, after a few days in an adjoining pen.  But horses will be horses, and even an established herd of mostly easy going gelding get rowdy every now and then!  Luckily these injuries were mild and I still believe the benefits outweigh the risks.

Best Laid Plans

I got the brilliant idea from Amelia Newcomb to create this shirt (with masking tape) to help me easily check my alignment if I video myself.  I was really pumped to try it, and managed to execute a proof of concept but unfortunately had my tracker turned off for all but the last minute of our ride, when we were just walking around.  Whomp whomp.  

Here I'm turned sideways talking to someone outside the arena, but it gives an idea how it will look.

Now here I'm basically just neck reining Cupid on a long rein, at least my shoulders are level but there is really no reason for my spine to be that curved.

And after that turn even going into the corner I'm still holding some of that crookedness, making us counterbent going into the turn.

I think this will be a helpful thing to try a few times - assuming I'm not a total dummy with the camera again. 

Horse Camping - How to High Line

I was very excited when I saw there was a Trail Trials just over an hour away - most are about 3 hours.  I was decidedly less excited when I realized the park it would be at has "horse camping" sites but they do not have any sort of pens.  I immediately disregarded the high line poles they offered, and started searching for where I can rent portable corral panels (apparently not a service that exists, though it should along with horse trailers you can rent!), and then started looking at barns in the area that would allow an overnight stay.  Then I started to look into portable electric tape-type fencing and finally settled on the QuikFence available on Amazon, which has tape strands integrated into the posts.

We were also initially debating between going up Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, but for traffic and work/school/family considerations decided to only stay the one night.  

The estimated delivery time for my fence was between Monday and Wednesday the week of the trip.  On Monday Fedex tagged the package in Kansas, heading to California.  On Wednesday there weren't any further updates, so I called FedEx and told them it was imperative I receive the package on Friday.  I was a little concerned when the rep told me he would try to locate it...

Same thing on Thursday, and I called them somewhat panicked Friday morning.  They still seemed totally unsure where the package was and when/if I would receive it.  At this point I pretty much shrugged my shoulders and threw a long rope in the truck and hoped for the best.  At least I knew I would have a lot of horse camping experts around, and sure enough several people helped me get set up and Cupid was high line tied overnight!

The high line poles are just very tall sturdy wooden poles with an eye hook screwed in, so tall I needed my mounting block to reach.  The rope needs to be taut, and it is pretty much impossible to get it taut enough without a ratchet which someone was nice enough to lend me.  I initially envisioned a ring on the rope so the horses can move along the length of it, but I was told that is not what you want.  I did not have a swivel snap, so I just tied a loop in the rope and attached a carabiner to that (I'd rather Cupid get loose than tangled...)  You want the horse tied so they can just barely reach the ground.  (And since the high line rope is up kind of high, the trick is to throw the lead rope over the top and use that to pull the high line rope down to tie the lead rope to.)

I tied Cupid to the high line after our ride so he would have time to get used to it, and I could observe him the next few hours.  He was totally fine being tied there.  During the day I had his hay net there, but for night time I just put the hay loose on the ground.  And this may be somewhat controversial, but I did not leave water out for him because he likes to dump it but I offered him water regularly throughout the day and he drank a good amount. 

I'm not going to lie, I was somewhat terrified going to sleep that night (right nearby in a tent), and also felt like a pretty terrible horse owner for doing this to my horse.  But I tried telling myself that the portable stabling at some shows isn't any bigger, and can be hot and horses get cast in them all the time...

We stayed up talking with a group of other Trail Trialers, and I went to bed around 11.  I woke up at 1:30 (which is usually around the time my son wakes me up so I'm just used to waking up then), and took a peek out to see Cupid peacefully sleeping lying down!  Not stretched out on his side but with his legs under him.  My barnmate's horse was dozing standing up.  They both seemed perfectly content.  I woke up again at 4:30, and Cupid was still or again lying down.  Then I woke up at 6 when birds started chirping and horses rustling.  By then Cupid was also standing up and happy as can be. 

So our first experience high lining was a success.  I'm still going to be a little scared if I have to do it again, but at least I'll be better prepared!

And of course on Sunday I came home to this...