Weather Woes

 It is definitely an El Nino year! It has rained the last 47 days it seems! Which is great for the pastures... we've got grass galore! I need more ponies ;) Anyways, today was a big full day! My plan was to get up, enter AEC's, enter Chatt, enter Full Gallop, and then go to my lesson at 11 am. Then come home and meet Taylor to get Funny and Fleck trimmed and then take my trailer back to Athens to leave it for servicing. Except the other day Rana said she had a doctors appointment and couldn't do 11. We opted to try for 9 am. Which is great... but meant for an early morning. I actually went to bed early last night. But then Emma woke me up twice whining because she had an upset stomach. So I let her out. The second time I was so tired I just left her out there. Then I got woken up a third time with her barking at the horses and Danny pawing the gate. ARGH! So I brought her back in. All 3 times it was raining. And then when my alarm went off at 6 am this morning, it was still raining. HARD! Like POURING hard core. To the point that I was a little convinced my stalls were going to be flooded and thought perhaps I should bring the boy dogs in. Not exactly something I want to haul, tack up, and then ride in. I mean, yes, she has the covered, but... So I went back to sleep til 6:15 and then laid there for a bit. It was still raining hard. I was so torn. I was tired and sleeping so well... with the rain on the tin roof. But then I realized that if I didn't ride with Rana, I wasn't likely to have time to ride otherwise, nor was Ashland likely to be open. Then I wouldn't have my trailer tomorrow.... and I might not even have it Thursday. So I checked the radar... and it actually looked like a window when I'd be hauling and riding. And then the rain stopped. So... fine! I got up... got dressed... fed ponies.. and loaded up. Dan was pretty nasty, but I was running out of time to give him a quick rinse first. Plus it was fairly chilly still. (HA! not for long!). Oh well..  I figured it was what it was. So off we went. I got gas. And it rained a little on the way but not bad. It sprinkled while I tacked up, but that's okay. And then we were in the covered, so it was fine. However, the humidity was insane! And it got warmer. And Rana worked us hard. I sweated a big huge sweaty stomach mark and probably the same on my back. Gross!! 

It was a good ride... but a little bit frustrating too. We basically worked on the canter again and getting quick hind legs. Rana basically said that his biggest issue was that he didn't get quick behind and engage, therefore the front end fell apart. He needs to stay round, all the time. He gets straight in his neck and then he immediately inverts and braces against me. And at the canter, he then props/swaps/falls out of gait/whatever. So... we worked on that. I must keep him round at all times. I must also NOT dig my inside spur into him. It happens without me noticing. So, we spent the whole lesson on getting him round and bent to the inside and maintaining a canter. But we were able to make a little bit of progress and worked on shortening the canter, then letting it open up in the stride, but not lose the roundness. It was hard. Hard work!!! My core is going to be sore I think. Tracking to the left, he kept throwing that right shoulder out and throwing his haunches in. But I was doing the same thing. So Rana had me look at her in the middle of the circle which did help bring my inside shoulder back and rotated my hips a bit better. Ohhhh!! That makes a difference. And going to the right.. heaven help that darned right leg of mine. I cannot keep my spur out of his side and every time I touch him, he props and swaps. So I have to get inside bend with my upper leg and thigh not my spur. And my seat! And we also worked on keeping him up in the canter... and up in his neck (vs diving down, even if he's still round). That was accomplished by half halting while applying leg or whip aids and keeping the bend. And by half halting/holding through my back and core.. not my hands. My hands are just an extension of my back and shoulder blades. Okay, I KNOW this, but it's a hard habit to break when I'm trying to do multiple things at once and he's hanging on me. BUT... it got better. He felt very much like he was softer in the bridle. I was even able to let go some (at least *I* thought I was letting go) and maintain self carriage. 

So phew... Both Dan and I were basically dripping sweat and lathered. And basically I've got to insist... every step.. he cannot blow me off or invert or brace. He can do it. Rana had me look at my canter a bunch and showed me how nice it was getting! She said he had a good bit of 3rd level canter today so we know he can do it. She said that he even had some moments of a 4th level canter so she told me to not get frustrated and keep at it and we'd get there! 

Then I got home, ate some lunch, and... entered AEC's!!!! FINALLY!!!! 4 years in the making or so?? Ha. But yay. Then I cleaned stalls, unloaded the hay we got on the way home from Rana's, and then Taylor showed up to do the non-shod crew. Then after that I pulled all my tack out of the trailer and hauled to Athens again. And you know what sucks?!?! I didn't realize until this morning but... I'm working tomorrow and have a short day... I'm finishing at 4ish... basically right across the street from Rana! Sigh.. I could have done my lesson, left Dan there... dropped my trailer off (and saved myself two trips to Athens) and then taken riding clothes tomorrow and ridden there after work... then gone back Thursday for another lesson and hopefully pick up my trailer and bring him home. Sigh. I suppose I could have still done it, but... it would have meant going back to bring his food and stuff. And then I'd worry he'd be stressed as would Funny and Fleck. And honestly, I'm not sure either of us have 3 straight days of hard dressage in a row in this heat and humidity in us! Weaklings!! ;) So... oh well. It would have been handy though. Because if I decide to ride tomorrow, it'll have to be at home because I don't have the trailer. And I'm pretty sure my arena is soupy! Especially if we get more rain. Oh well. Maybe we'll just hack the neighborhood. 

Just some random photos as I don't have any lesson ones. 

Sneaky sneaky

Ahhhh, no migraine today! I saw 6 horses and a dog and acupunctured 3 of them too. BUT, I still made it home by 6 pm. I opted to "groom" Funny and Dan. (and by groom, I mean smear the dirt around in their sweaty coats) Then I threw the bareback pad on Dan and his bridle and grabbed Funny and off we went. Much to Fleck's chagrin. We just went to the tennis courts, did a little trot circle, walked up the hill twice, and then headed back. We passed a biker (3 times!), Eddie and Buddy in their golf cart, and a few trucks. Everyone was super! We came home rather soon though because there was rumbling thunder and the sky was getting dark by the house. And Funny, who has recovered from her abscess, now has a fat left hind cannon. Sigh. She was sound, so.... I wonder if it's from banging it on the fence. Thanks for teaching her that Dan! But anyways.. they were both good though Dan got a little nervous and chompy. Weird... 

He had a massage yesterday and Kathleen found some new spots on him. She agreed that it could be some tension from protecting that stifle. And then he was fussy and weird at the dressage show (ashland) and then he got his tongue over the bit once at the show and then again today. Granted, I had also pulled the flash off for the first time in awhile, but... it does make me wonder. Hopefully Keelin can get him in soon. I'll give him some bute in the meantime I think.

It makes me smile how similar they are! You can tell they're related (distantly, but still). Ahhhhhh, now I feel better!

 

 

Ashland show

 So... today was interesting. It was a good day... just don't look at my scores. ;) 

I had another migraine... and it was SOOOOO hot and steamy. But, my pill kicked in and there was a breeze... sometimes. So we persevered. Well, that's not true. It wasn't "perseverence"... we just went. Ha! Dan got a bath and I took a pill and by the time we rode our first test the migraine was gone. It was super hot though. But I drank a ton of water. We did BN Test B to start. I couldn't get my warm up rolling. It was too hot and I kept stopping. I tried to ride like I was riding on my own... vs prepping for a test. But, I was trying to time it. Sigh. So we did a lot of stopping and starting. And he kept pulling the reins out of my hands to stretch. Which, maybe he was a little sore, or maybe he just didn't want to work that hard?? So we warmed up and I didn't do too much upper level stuff thinking that perhaps this would keep him from getting too on the muscle. It worked, but... too well. He was a little bit lazy. Not bad.. but a little bit. And the judge nailed us on his lack of impulsion from the hind end. It was a much nicer test that at Area Champs, I thought. We scored a 32.8. So... not bad, but.... sigh. Not going to be competitive at AEC's. But, as we came out of the arena a client came up to me and asked who I rode with because she was thrilled with how correct my riding was!!!! She said that he looked correct and like true dressage and she thought some famous dressage person would be happy with that! YAY!!!! She made my day :) It was nice to hear that. Yes.. thank you... we've been working so hard!!! Of course this was before I saw my score, but... oh well. ;) (although we did get an 8 on our halt!)

We had about 2 hours before our next test so I untacked and rinsed Dan off and let him chill while I cleaned my tack. He's so silly! He kept saying hi while I was in the trailer. I'm really proud of him though. He stood tied to the trailer quietly and didn't make any fuss or get worried. Granted... he was surrounded by other horse and he was at Ashland, not some random place. But still... maybe the magnesium is helping. 

   

We got back on and warmed up for our second level test and it was the same thing. I tried to power through and get him going but he was not really into it. We did manage to get some canter work and transitions and he started to get more animated. But it was just so steamy, we just... didn't have our usual oomph. Luckily it did start storming in the distance so there was a little bit of a breeze. We got to do our 2nd test and it was okay. It's just a hard test! We didn't do as well as I had hoped... I felt like there were some bumbles and it wasn't as smooth as I wanted. But we scored okay. 63%. Then we had 3 riders before we went back in. I let him rest for the first rider... picked him back up and let him work then rest then work for the next two riders and then back we went. Our 3rd level debut was a bit of a disaster! We were both hot and tired and I think Dan was done. He basically blew me off a good bit. We started out okay... our trot shoulder ins and half passes weren't terrible. Pretty good I thought. Then our lengthen felt decent. And our walk was okay too. Then we cantered and it went downhill. He picked up the wrong lead, he broke in the 10 meter circle, and... our "changes" were terrible. The first one he swapped on his own before I could ask for the downward. I'm not sure if it was clean or not, but then two strides later he propped up front and swapped up front and then back again. The second change was awful. He kept threatening to break in the 10 meter circle and then blew thorugh me and swapped up front then when I tried to walk to swap, he trotted. Sigh... I don't even know what happened. I think we were on 4 different leads in a 10 second span. We eventually landed on the correct lead on all 4 legs so we just carried on. And he blew me off on our centerline too. We scored a 51. :( Whoops. That's embarassing. Sigh. Oh well. 

 

So, our scores weren't great, but... he was a good boy and didn't get fussy, scared, or freak out at the trailer. We had a good BN test without him getting too much on the muscle or running through me. We had a much better test than we did at stableview! Then we managed a decent ride for 2-2 and we managed to get through (barely) 3-1. Our scores were bad, but... we did it. And there were good parts of the test. And my clients comments were nice. And Meg commented how uphill his canter looked and how collected and how much improvement she's seen since she saw us last. So that's exciting!! So I'm just going to ignore the scores. :) 

Shhhh... there were no other people in any of my classes. :) 

Practicing

Today was a HOT hot hot miserable day! Freddie came in the morning and it was hot then! Then I had to spread manure. Then it was time to ride. I was so torn. Part of me wanted to ride at Ashland because the footing is better... and then we could hack. But then part of me wanted to ride at home. But it meant moving jumps and setting up the arena. Although at Ashland, they only had the small arena open. Argh. I finally decided that it was way too hot to move all the jumps and the footing at home looked rather damp. And I figured if I didn't go ride now... I might lose my motivation and it was unlikely to get cooler later.. or not cool enough. Which, side note, good thing I didn't wait... it got WAY HOTTER AND MORE HUMID later in the day. Like... suffocatingly bad. So anyways... I finally decided to go to Ashland. And it was definitely the better choice. Plus, the small arena had been opened up to the big one :) YAY!

So we rode. We warmed up and then after a little bit of work on the canter and the half pass and the canter transitions... we ran through our tests. And holy heck... 2-2 is a really hard test. Like really hard!!! 

Practiced dressage... ran through 2-2 and 3-1. 2-2 is WAY HARDER!!! WAY HARDER! Like why did I decide to ride this test?! The trot tour isn't too bad, but then the canter is hard stuff. The simples are hard. The counter canter on the rail off a diagonal is hard. It's just a hard test! And I believe it's the one with the centerline at the end that has the medium to working to halt. Which is also hard. It's Dan's favorite!!! But hard to get him back to working. Although he did it pretty well today. So then we ran through 3-1. And wow... that's really an easy test. I mean... I'm sure it's not easy in the sense that we're not in enough of a 3rd level collection/sit... and we obviously still don't have our changes. But... it flows nicely and rides quite well. It sort of sets you up for success. :) But I made the mistake of just seeing if I could get a change. Nope! I have no idea how to ask. So then we went back to our simples. And he got a little rushy. But oh well. The goal for tomorrow is NOT to win... NOT to get a good score... but more using it as a ride a test to see how far off we are. Which, I suspect, is quite far. I have a feeling that I'm going to be highly disappointed. The last few rides he's felt amazing and I've been like "yeah... we're gonna score in the 60's even without a change!", but.... I'm guessing not. I'm guessing in real life... it's not as fancy as it feels. But oh well. I think he's a rockstar and I told him so, so... that's what we're going with. 

When we were done we walked out and dang.... when we stop creating our own wind it's HOT!!! Dan was puffing and even a little worn out. I was puffing and worn out. We went back to the trailer and got naked. :) Hee heee. Well, Dan got a bareback pad and the hack halter. I got my shoes and socks off. We headed to the lake. BUT... of course... because there were no friends, Dan decided he was bored and didn't want to bother playing. So he put his front two feet barely in, took a sip or two, and headed back. Seriously dude?! But when we're fully tacked.. that's when you want to swim? Sigh... Oh well. We headed back and took the long route and then he got a nice rinse off and was cool at that point. 

Soul Soothing

 So.. this was actually Monday night.. before Paradise, but oops. I didn't ride Sunday because I felt icky and the weather was not cooperative. Then Monday was a long day and I was hot and tired but felt like I needed to just sit on Dan. So I hopped on and we just moseyed around the pasture for 10 minutes. Ahhhh.... I felt much better. When I was getting off though, somehow I flung my phone at my face and cloncked myself in the forehead. It left a lump! That hurts more than falling off yesterday! hee hee.. 

Paradise!

 Today we went to Paradise to go XC schooling. I left the house at 6:30 to pick up Laura and Llama. We got to Paradise about 9:30. And it was so hot and humid. And Lellie has sheep now! So there was a little excitement for a moment. :) But luckily Dan settled once the sheep stopped making noise. He wanted to go see them because he could only hear them. But they were hiding. So we headed out and warmed up and got started. It went great! Dan was pretty darn super over everything. We jumped most of the novice stuff. We were tempted by some of the training stuff too. :) He felt good. He was in front of my leg and game. We had one table that I got slack on and forgot to close my leg and encourage becaues... he was in front of my leg. He was fine, but he chipped. When I close my leg, he's much bolder and gamer. 

Jacel was wanting to jump a training picnic table and said so. I said "I'll do it if you do it"! Hee hee. She laughed and said she was super competitive... I was like "Yeah, me too.. that's why I dared you!". So then she did it. On the PONY! Which meant I had to. But if they could do it.. surely my 17 hand horse could. And we did. :) Then we went over to the corner and the two brush fences and the funky awful fence with the weird ground line. I told Jacel she should do the funky fence and roll back to the corner. Hee hee. I was sassy! But she did. And they rocked it. So then she made me do it. Which... I was itching to. Only we started with the corner as a left hand corner. And Dan drifts right. I knew he was drifting right... I was closing my right leg as hard as I could. BUT... he drifted too far and bailed. He was so far right that the fence was HUGE. And he politely slammed on the brakes and rolled his shoulder, so I basically tucked and rolled right off of him onto the fence. I landed on my butt/back and it did not hurt one bit. Like I said, he just rolled me right off onto it. Hee hee. I got back on and we came from the other direction. He glanced off it the first attempt. He jumped, but didn't actually jump the jump.. more off to the side. So then Jacel reminded me to just ride it like a table... and then we did it. So then we did the other direction and got that fine too. :) Yay! Then we did the brush fences. And I made him pop over the bendy line and he totally could have stopped at the second because I surprised him. But he went! What a good boy! We then moved on to the sunken road. The ground lines weren't mowed so we couldn't do the big one. And then we did one other table and decided to be done. All the ponies were SUPER!

Then Margaret said she wanted to gallop. I said that we would join her. But the others decided they wanted to also, so off we went. Dan was like "oh hellsno you bitches ain't beating me" so he got ahead of them. :) hee hee. It was fun. At least I could stop him at the end though. So then we saw a sharkstooth and I thought.. maybe I should jump that. Jacel told me to do it. So we galloped towards it and then suddenly Dan was slinging to the side and I almost fell off... twice! There were dogs on the other side of the fence and he heard them and spooked. It was like 5 strides before the actual fence! Doh. But I also realized HOW big that fence really was... like training level for sure.. maybe even prelim. So I decided today wasn't the day given the dogs and such. And we jumped another baby version of it and then called it a day. 

We did take them to the lake and let them splash around and sit in the water for 20 minutes to "ice" their legs. :) It was a really fun day with fun friends! And I'm so proud of the pony. He was super and game and tried really hard!