Her Middle Name Was Boom

I don't often find her napping, but she's pretty cute when she does.

Poor Dee was neglected for the entire week while I was stuck in the law library.  My "earliest" night ended at almost 8, so riding was kind of a no-go.  I got up there for the first time since last Sunday yesterday, and she was actually quite lovely.  She was a little high, but did a good job of keeping it together.  Luckily her idea of being "naughty" lately is to try to find things to spook at, but she has gotten to the point where she sort of lets me know when she's thinking of shying and lets me ride her past it.  Today she was even better.  The more I make her do -- small circles, large circles, serpentines, leg yields, shoulder-ins, etc etc -- the better she gets.  She has really started to get the idea of using herself in the trot work, and has started to get really steady in the contact, keep a nice even rhythm, and really push off of the ground.  On top of everything, she also feels like she's happy to do it, like she's enjoying her job and the new things she's learning.

I live for the applause

This is a video from DragonCon... this guy was awesome.

I haven't seen much of Dee, but she's been pretty good when I've been up there.  Today I got up there early, and it was still slightly chilly out.  There were also two men right outside of the arena cutting up a tree with chainsaws.  She was a total worm on the crossties, and every time I walked away from her she started pawing like a mad-woman.  When I got on, she felt like she was about to blow, but she held it together admirably.  Throughout the entire ride, I could feel the conflict going on in her head, but she was trying really hard to behave, and we only had one minor explosion.

Naughty Beast

"Lazy Sunday, Amy?"

No, FEI TV, it's not.  Thanks for rubbing that in, though.  When I woke up at 6:30 this morning so that I can be in the library by 8, that was the e-mail sitting at the top of my inbox.  It's like the world is mocking me.  Or, FEI TV is, at least.  
This week is out of control already, starting yesterday.  I spent a solid 8 hours reading in the library yesterday (with a riding break thrown in -- I'm not THAT masochistic!) and have a solid day ahead of me today.  Who was the jerk who made up the lie that we're all supposed to be bored to death during our 3rd year?

Anyway, all that to say I'll probably be slightly MIA for awhile... October 18 I will be "free" again. I'll try to post before then, though.

Dee was really lovely yesterday.  We had some nice fall-like weather, and aside from not wanting to take the left lead, she was excellent.  Some really nice trot work.  She's finally starting to come up in front by herself a little because she's getting stronger behind and I love it.  

Day 22- The importance of riding in your life
At this point, I have been riding for 21 years.  My riding habit is old enough to buy its own alcohol.  I'd say that it's gone way past the point of "just a phase."  I had a conversation with my non-horsey friend the other day, and she was saying that most people just couldn't ride, because it is really expensive and if you aren't from a wealthy family you have to spend too much time working to do it.  I told her this was patently false.  The truth is that most people don't want to spend the time.  I gave up a lot of things to be able to do what I love.  I can't tell you how often I opted not to go on a family vacation, or had to decline hanging with friends because the horses take precedence.  Was is a bummer sometimes?  I guess.  But it made my riding habit possible, and that was what mattered.  This December, I will be celebrating 4 years with Dee.  It's kind of hard to believe it's been so long.  

Day 23- Your worst riding habits

I have a hunchback like quasi modo sometimes, and I have a bad habit of curling my wrists.  

Day 24- Your best riding friend

French Fry!  She doesn't really ride anymore, and we don't live in the same state, but we've been friends for years and years and years and she is definitely my best any-friend.  

Day 25- Your dream trailer

I need a truck before I can dream about a new trailer.

Day 26- Your grooming routine

It's pretty simple:

Step 1 - scrub with curry, laugh at all of her funny "I love this" faces.

Step 2 - bang dirt off with medium-soft brush.  Yell at her for trying to bite and question why she loves being roughly curried but hates the nice brush.

Step 3 - footsies

Step 4 - boot up

Step 6 - saddle - yell at her for trying to bite again.

Step 5 - make her put on her fly hat.  She always looks depressed at this.

Step 6 - bridle / helmet

Day 27- You know your an equestrian when….. (Give 5 original ones)

1.You casually mention to some acquaintances, at 10am, that you're heading to the barn soon, and they all give you a funny look.  One of them then speaks up and says "seriously?  Isn't it a bit early to be drinking?"  

2. You don't think anything of having whips in your house and car.

3. For your birthday, you splurge and buy your horse a message, because "when she's happy I'm happy."

4. All of your "selfies" on facebook have a horse face in them with you.

5. You have no qualms about walking into the grocery store in the tan riding pants that have a black/brown stain on the butt from your saddle despite the fact that it probably looks like you had a weird accident in them.

Day 28- Helmet or no helmet?

Helmet.  Always.  My head has still not fully healed from my concussion in June.

Day 29- A style/trend in tack/etc. that you don’t like

I am so not "up" on the trends - in horse tack or human clothes.  I dp hate lots of gadgets, though I'm not sure if that's a trend or not.  The most "kitted out" Dee has ever been when I ride her has been a breastplate and fancy browband (attached to her plain black bridle with the eggbutt french link).  

Day 30- Your Future With Horses

Dee is my future.  And maybe a baby Dee.

Ok ok, I'm procrastinating.  Time to go to school.

The Horn of Shame

After her terrible behavior on our hack, Dee had to wear the "horn of shame" today.  

I jest... sort of.  I actually just love dressing my horses in silly costumes, and this was a remnant from DragonCon, where I dressed as a unicorn.  I decided that Dee would make a cute unicorn, and since she is a good sport about letting me put ridiculous things on her head, we just went with it.  The BM got a kick out of the fact that she just lets me do these things to her.  As you can see, she does not look thrilled about being a unicorn.

Eventing Nation posted this great list of Ten Things Eventers Love to Hear, and some of them definitely hit home.  For instance:

1. That little rear/buck/scoot combination during your test was quite spectacular!
I have heard a variation of this.  When Kess and I went to an event in Wilton with Dusty, he was being an absolute troll in the Cross Country warm-up because he couldn't see Dusty.  He was leaping, rearing, spinning, and doing some really impressive airs above the ground.  I was half a second away from killing him, and one of the Pony Clubber girls there to volunteer came up to me and said "wow!  Your horse is SO talented and gorgeous!"  It gave Kess a stay of execution and he went on to absolutely rock the cross-country (even though we had to gallop by the trailers).

2. Trainer: Your 20 meter circle actually somewhat resembled a circle! 
Ok, so Dusty was not always the best behaved dressage horse.  During one test early in our partnership, the test called for a canter transition followed by a 20-meter circle.  Basically, I asked for canter, Dusty may (or may not) have held it together for a stride or two (I can't remember), and then she went on a broncing rampage.  I somehow managed to keep her in the dressage ring, and got back to where we needed to be in the test, but we definitely never made that 20 meter circle.  When I got the test back, the judge had given us a 3 for that movement (!) with the comment "circle not round."  Uh, you think?

3. How do you keep your white breeches so clean??
No one has ever in the history of my riding career complimented me on how clean and tidy I look.  I am a dirt magnet.  It's not something I strive for, it's just a cold hard fact.  Back in the days of horse camp, I earned the "dirtiest camper" award because I was always covered head to toe in grime by the end of the day.

Day 21- Your perfect riding outfit
As you will notice in #3 above, I am not renowned for my clean and tidy riding attire.  My perfect attire includes boots without holes, half-chaps, and a comfy shirt.  Sometimes I can't manage the "boots without holes" part, but so far my new paddock boots are holding up.

Reason / Unreason

“I survive by finding the sweet spot between reason and unreason, between the rational and irrational.”

I feel like this quote sums up my ride today.  I thought we would have a lovely hack, maybe with some trotting up the grassy hill to start getting her into better shape.  I thought wrong.  I took her into the jump ring, hopped on, and then headed for the wooded trail that leads down to the nice grass path.  You can also go down the lane next to the paddocks to get there, but it's always nice to be in the shade.  I didn't really think anything of it as we walked to the woods, but a rabbit darting in front of us made apparently meant that "there are dragons in those woods and we can't go in there."  She is not normally a worrier when it comes to hacking, but once she came to that conclusion there was no way I was going to change her mind.  In fact, at one point, she snaked her head around and grabbed ahold of my boot to tell me just how wrong I was about asking her to move.  That earned her a little kick in the nose and a smack.  As she stood there refusing to move, she was getting more and more agitated - puffed up, breathing fire, tense as all get-out.  So, I turned her around, went back in the ring, and made her work until she was listening and moving forward in a civilized manner.  At that point, we attempted to tackle the trail again and she immediately said "no."  There was no tension, no worry, just flat out stubbornness.  So we went down the lane instead, and she immediately puffed up and started gnashing the bit like she was about to be stuffed in the start box and asked to run.  
She then arbitrarily decided, a ways down the lane, that one of the gates was too terrifying to pass by.  Except she wasn't really acting afraid of it.  She just put on the breaks and refused to move forward.  And so we sat there.  She never once tried to turn around, but she also didn't want to move forward.  I kicked for awhile, and whenever she would take a step, I would stop kicking and tell her she was good.  She would then walk a few steps and decide "nope, I still don't want to go by that gate," at which point we would start all over.  She is a little bit of a funny horse in that when she gets something in her head, she can get really irrational - she stops listening to reason and just shuts down.  I know she has hit this point when she starts shaking her head up and down violently, smacking her lips together (she will also sometimes do this a little when I first pick up the reins, which is a leftover panic-reaction from her first few non-racehorse rides under saddle, when they had a martingale on her that was way too tight... a little kick and a softening will usually stop this completely).  When she gets to this point, it's hard to get her to do anything productive.  At one point, she was shaking her head to violently and for such a long time that I just reached up and slapped her neck near her ears, which seemed to snap her out of it a bit, because she then gave in and started walking - right past the "terrifying" gate.  
At that point, she was so brain-fried that I went about 50 feet past the gate, turned around, and took her into the woods to walk back (I didn't want her thinking that she was allowed to turn and go back the way she came).  In the woods, she rolled her eyes at everything, and then, for no reason that I could think of (other than that she was being completely unreasonable and had stopped thinking completely), she got to the mouth of the woods, with the barn right in front of her, and tried to wheel around and run back into the woods.    So confusing.  I then convinced her to walk out of the woods, which she did on her tip-toes, and at that point, she finally relaxed and walked flat-footed on a loose rein, like a normal animal.. until I got off and ran up my stirrups, at which point she freaked out and tried to bolt for no apparent reason.  So, we went for a little hand walk around the property until she had her brain back in her head.  
Oh well.  No one died, and the fact that she eventually went where she didn't want to go when we were on the lane was a definite win.  We will be going on many more hacks by ourselves to get over whatever weirdness is going on.  

Day 20- Your favorite place to trail ride
Out west.  Obviously I've never done that on my own horse, but I always loved our rides at the Ranches.

Violently Happy

Sometimes I forget what a fabulous little jump-machine my mare is.  I upped the fences a tiny bit from last week, but still kept them pretty small, because let's face it: neither of us has jumped in two years, and I don't need her getting hurt from too-much-too-soon.  I also worry that if the jumps get too big my back will not hold up.  Well, I've decided that if we are going to keep doing a weekly jump session, Dee needs a little more challenge in her life.  She was a little bit wild today - not wild in a way where I was worried, but wild in a way where she was intentionally over-jumping things and then celebrating on the other side.  Thankfully, she has breaks, and even when she is excited and making bids at the fences, I am generally ok with softening for the last stride or two no matter what and letting her do her thing, because I know she's going to jump and that she probably won't kill me on the other side, even if she does do some head tossing, leapy celebrations.  She does have breaks.  With such tiny jumps today, she was just fooling around the whole time, enjoying herself thoroughly.  While I love to see her having so much fun, I think it's probably a good idea to make her think a bit more about what she's doing, and take her job a little more seriously.  

Too Much of a Challenge, I think.

Day 19- A discipline you would like to do that you’ve never done before
Cutting!  I've done a bit of reining, but I think it would be SO fun to sit on a real cow horse and do some cutting.

The Great Horse-Escape of 2013

Dee nickered at me today when I came in.  I don't think she has ever done that before.  She will sometimes poke her head out of the stall and look at me like "Oh hi mom!"  but she never nickers. 
We had a nice flat school today (tomorrow I plan to do baby jumps, and a hack on Sunday).  She was a little bit of a fire-cracker, but in a good way, and we got one really lovely lengthening.  My ride was overshadowed, however, by the great horse-escape of 2013.

As I was settling up with the vet, we noticed three horses - two chestnuts and a paint - wandering up the pathway that leads to the pastures.  They were in no hurry, and just kind of hanging out, eating grass.  Once the vet left, one of the other boarders and I grabbed halters and went to go grab two of them (the third had already wandered into an open pasture).  As we approached, the other two also went into the open pasture and we closed them in.  At that point, we decided to go check the gates and look around for other loose horses.  To our great surprise, the gate was latched, and as far as we could tell, the entire fenceline was intact.  The only think we could think of was that the horses went into the forest (so thick that I could barely walk through) and then down a VERY steep hill through a possible break in the fence.  We didn't find the break because we couldn't get through the forest well-enough, but that's the only apparent explanation.  We did find the other horses in the woods, so who knows.  

Day 18- Your riding goals
Ehh.  Dee and I don't have much in the way of direction right now.  I just want to keep her and I in good spirits and having fun.  She has been really excellent lately, and her work ethic has done a 180, so I'm just happy with where we are and going with it.  What she has taught me, though, is that she is a horse that I need to just "go with the flow" with.  She has days when she doesn't want to play, and that's ok.  I have those days too.  One day, maybe we will go compete, but that's not a goal right now.  Could she go compete at a dressage show right now and be ok?  Yeah.  And she might actually be competitive.  But I don't have the time to worry about that right now, and I'd rather just enjoy my girl without the stress of upcoming competitions.

Fever Sleeves

So, as I was sitting in class today, fellow Law Student boarder messages me on Facebook to let me know that apparently a horse died last week at the barn and another one may have died today... from what may or may not be Potomac Horse Fever.  Somehow, I had no idea about this, and from what I'm told, Dee and I were walking by the covered-up dead horse for two days without knowing (seriously, mare!?  you are NOT supposed to be ok with wandering by a dead horse!).  I called the vet today in a panic after I heard, because Dee isn't vaccinated for that and I don't know much about it.  They are going to vaccinate tomorrow, and apparently the vet hasn't yet isolated what the cause it -- it could be Potomac, but it could also be Salmonella or Ecoli.  The Potomac test came back negative, but she told me that might not mean anything.  Ugh.  I've just got my fingers crossed that she doesn't get sick, because I don't know what I would do if anything happened to her.

Day 17- Your equestrian idol

I suppose I have a few of them.  I've always really admired Phillip Dutton and William Fox-Pitt.  I'm also quite fond of Charlotte Dujardin, who is not an eventer, but gosh she is impressive.  Two more that I will add, who you may or may not have heard of, are Stephie Baer and Bettina Drummond, who are not only brilliant riders and trainers, but also some of the most caring and wonderful women I have ever had the pleasure of working with.