To Some Wonderful Women...

In the past 7 years, I have had the opportunity to spend time with and work with some truly incredible horsewomen. They have offered me guidance, encouragement, a sympathetic ear and a supportive shoulder. They have quelled my fears, boosted my confidence and improved my horsemanship skills. They have invited me into their homes and allowed me into their lives.
Together, we have risen high and fallen hard. We have taken the horses countless trips and covered thousands of miles. We have laughed and cried, cursed and joked. We have seen each other at our best and at our worst. We have battled through exhaustion, illness and injury. We have done it with a smile.
We have chased down loose horses together. We’ve whined and sighed about 3AM wake-up calls and 16-hour workdays. We’ve kept each other company in the emergency room and the horse-hospital. We’ve seen each other bleed – physically and emotionally – and we’ve seen each other sweat. We’ve slogged through snow, mud and humidity to get the barn chores done. We’ve poulticed, wrapped, given shots, crushed up pills, dressed wounds and iced legs. We’ve come home from shows with ribbons, and we’ve come home from shows with heartache.
I can’t explain how privileged I have been to work with these brilliant, talented, kind-hearted women. These women have made me exponentially stronger, but they have also made me kinder, more humble. They have taught me that hard work is still valued and rewarded. Most importantly, they have given me the confidence to follow my dreams.

Keep Calm and Carry On.

It's funny. I don't think of Dee as being a particularly difficult horse to ride. I mean, yes, she is forward to the jumps, but she doesn't ever make me nervous... maybe because I've ridden some horses who can be truly scary over the fences when they "make a bid" (Elvis, Roo, Dusty...even Tango at the clinic...). I may try to push myself this week... put the fences up a bit and see how she does over a course. I only hesitate because even after little fences I have some trouble with my back, but I kind of want to see what she's like.
I had someone try her out yesterday, and was really surprised at Dee's behavior over fences. She was WILD. As soon as she saw the fences, she would stick her head in the air, throw her weight off to one side and start doing that hollow-backed canter that no one ever wants their horse to do because you feel out of control when they do it. The she would leap over the fence like a jack-rabbit and take-off. She even threw a buck after a few of the fences, which is VERY uncharacteristic. I mean, I love jumping her now because I feel safe with her... I would never expect her to act like such a wild beast. And who knows, maybe she doesn't act like a wild beast with me because I expect her not to and don't ride her like a runaway. Maybe it's just because from my experience with Dusty, I learned that the more you clamp down on a hot horse while you're jumping, the bigger the mess ends up being. Hell, I made Dusty a crazy mess for awhile there until Jen got me to stop riding backwards.
Tango also helped me with riding a runaway when I took him to the Jon Holling clinic. With him, it was a little different, because he wasn't running because I was riding backwards... he was just being as ass. Jon helped me realize that if you keep a cool head and just quietly deal with whatever the horse is doing, it will eventually get better. The key was not making it a big deal... just make little corrections so the horse knows what is happening is unacceptable, but other than that, keep yourself calm and carry on.

A Case of the Itchies

Ok, so, the title has nothing to do with miss Dee. Whether i have endless bug bites or what, I am itchy ALL THE TIME lately. It's pretty terrible. It is a completely random thing to write about, but I figured I'd mention it since I'm sitting here itching away as I write this post. Wtf?

Dee's been going really well the past few days. We had a few days of super hot weather, so I did easy schools - about 20 minutes each day. I also did a few mini jump schools with her... for me more than her. I wish I could wrap my head around the fact that ever since Abbie dumped me at Rocking Horse, I've never really gotten my confidence back over fences. It's frustrating, because I don't have any real reason to fret... Tango was a fabulous, honest jumper, and Dee has been carting my semi-healed self around over fences for the past few weeks like a top class lady. But, despite all that, I still have a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach even when I look at a cross-rail. Am I worried about getting hurt again? Maybe... Who knows. Maybe one day I'll get over myself. In the meantime, once I get past that initial dread, I have a blast on maresy-poo.
It's funny, because while she's been my most difficult project, I think she's quickly becoming a favorite. Dusty is still top-mare, but I have a feeling Dee will get there one day. All I know is that I'm glad I didn't let her hormones get the best of me, because now I have a fantastic little girl, and I sincerely hope that I can keep her forever... She deserves it.
I realize that I'm just sort of prattling on and on about my girl and not actually saying much. Sorry about that.. sometimes you just have to prattle.

What Won't Kill You Eats Gas

It's been super hot and humid these past few days, so I've been taking it easy on maresy-poo. Wednesday, she was sweating just standing around in her stall, so I just took her out for a relaxing hack down the road. Of course, it turned into a not-so-relaxing hack when we got attacked by a swarm of deer flies on the way back to the barn, but thankfully miss mare is pretty laid back and just dealt with it through lots of head tossing and twitching. Poor baby. I think we both came back with lots and lots of bites. I had at least 6 little welts from those damn bugs.
Yesterday was another scorcher (it doesn't help that I can't get up to the barn until the hottest part of the day). We had the easiest flat school ever. Most of it was lateral work at the walk.
Today was a bit cooler, so we did a bit more. We did LOTS of transitions from walk to trot today. Why? Whether from the heat outside or from her being in heat, she has been the tiniest been snarky in her walk to trot transitions. She hits the walk and then says "ok, we're done!". When I ask for trot again, she responds by snarking at me for awhile before complying.
Now, I don't usually ride with a whip, because she doesn't usually need one. Today, I decided to carry the dressage whip so that if she snarked, I could very firmly tell her that wasn't acceptable. Our first walk to trot transition, I put my leg on and she said "I don't want to!" So I followed that up with a little tap of the whip. The response? "Mo-om! I REALLY don't want to!" So she got a nice firm swat, which got the answer I was looking for.
The second and third transition required on tap with the whip, and after that, she was suddenly perfectly compliant. We had lots of very nice walk trot transitions and some very nice halt trot transitions. The trot halt transitions were ugly and a half, but I'll blame myself for those. B is going to come up to give us some much needed help within the next few weeks... Can't wait for that!!

The Flying Dee

Miss Dee did flying changes today. Very nice, clean, unexplosive flying changes.

We started with a few simple changes, which she did very well. Then we set up a pole at the end of each diagonal to encourage a flying change. All I had to do was shift my weight and put my leg on, and she very quietly did a beautifully clean change. Ever making progress!

Counting Down

I only have about 4 weeks until I leave for Tennessee, and I'm starting to panic because no one seems interested in either leasing or buying Dee baby. I don't actually want to sell her, so I guess I'm glad no one wants to buy her, but I desperately need to find someone interested in a free lease. I mean, she's such a good girl now! Who wouldn't want to play with her for 3 years!? Anyway, I'm not sure who reads this blog, but if anyone reading happens to know anyone who might be interested, please please please pass the info along! My e-mail is amy.bergamo@gmail.com, and I'd be happy to address specific details through that (where exactly she's living, my cell # to discuss her further, etc) To be vague, she's currently in Woodbury, CT.

Anyway. We had a fabulous jump school yesterday. We did lots of different gymnastic-esque exercises. One strides galore, a double bounce to a one stride, etc etc. The first time she did the bounce to one stride, we had the out set up as a little cross rail. Well, that's not very challenging, mom! So I'm just going to flatten out and skid over the top of it, dragging my toes and not even bothering to acknowledge that it's there. Solution? Crank up the height. With the bigger vertical, she actually bothered to look and balance and jump nicely. I have to say, when the fences get higher, she's got a big, fun jump to her. It sort of reminds me of Tango, but a little less of the back-cracking, jump you totally out of the tack style that he did so well. With her, you can feel the power, and it is a big effort, but I don't feel like I need to hang on for dear life like I did a lot of the time with Tango. She's a bit more comfortable in that department. The only downer of the day was that by the end of the school, my back was so exhausted that over the last combination, the most I could do was bury my hands in her mane to keep myself propped up. I mean, we did do a lot of jumping, but it was still frustrating.

On the flat work front, she's been doing fairly well. The canter work has been especially promising. These days, she's actually been coming up in front and carrying herself a bit instead of trying to pile drive her withers into the dirt. Can she hold it for long? No. She can make one trip around the whole arena, and maybe a circle afterward before she starts falling forward. But it's progress! I can only assume as she gets stronger that will get easier.

On the not-my-horse front, we got two new stallions in at B's this week. They are drop-dead gorgeous. I also had my first solo baby handling yesterday, and he was a very good little guy. I was especially impressed since as I was moving him from one pasture to another, I had Rascal screaming and freaking out that I was taking his baby friend away and I had the new stallions inside sqwaking about who knows what. He didn't even bat a little eyelash at the commotion... just ambled along to the other paddock. Very cute.

Ok, now that it's raining, I suppose I should get away from the computer and go ride before it starts really pouring.