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.

Orange

My baby is currently living two and a half hours away from me at Stephie's. Of course, I'm happy about it, because I can't ride and she needs to learn how to be an event horse, but I miss her! We had to drive up there in a driving rain storm, which was a nightmare. By the time I got up past Springfield, it was raining so hard that I could barely see the road. I ended up just getting off the highway and taking rt. 202 all the way in. It tacked on another half hour to the trip, but it was much safer. Steph offered to get on her when we got there, so I got to see her go.
There were two or three bitchy moments, but overall she was a good girl, and I must say... She's a PRETTY mare. She's gotten much more steady in the bridle, and WOW... when she's soft and round, she's quite fancy! The canter needs a ton of work, but even that got better as she went. What would REALLY help our canter is if her withers grew a bit more so that she stops being a bit downhill.
The day before we left, Bettina had a free lunge session with us. As Dee was galloping around, Bettina just said to me "If you can't make the time on this thing, then you're a chicken shit." It's true. Her stride is MASSIVE, and her gallop looks like SO much fun. I can't wait to try it out this spring!
In other news, Dusty has moved up to Stonleigh Burnham. Jen told me that if I let her know when I'm heading up to visit Dee, she'll call into Stonleigh and tell them I'm coming for a visit so that I can see Dusty, too. I'm excited to see the old girl... she was, quite possibly, the most amazing horse I ever had. She came into my life at the exact right time, and we complimented each other perfectly. Will Dee be the next Dusty? I hope so... Dusty may be small, but she left some huge shoes to fill.

Maid Mare-ion

Seriously? How cute is she? We got a little wet yesterday, and Dee wore the towel for a little while. How is it that she'll let me throw a towel over her face, but she gets mad when I put a blanket on her? And speaking of blankets, her sheet now barely fits her! Not too thrilled about that, especially since I'm pretty sure it's a size 82 and my midweight is smaller... I'll have to try that on her one of these days. We might be in the market for a new midweight.
Yesterday's ride was sort of a bust. We walked around for a little while, did a little trotting and then the heavens opened up. In .2 seconds we were both drenched, so I just headed back to the barn. Today went much better. Interestingly, trotting to the right, she kept alternating between wanting to break into canter or walk... ANYTHING but the trot. I let her canter around for a little while, but even after that she kept trying to go back to canter. Part of me wanted to let her, because HEY, she's FORWARD, but the other part of me said "no, she's STILL being disrespectful". I listened to voice number two and insisted we just trot. It wasn't like she had SO MUCH energy that she needed to blow off steam, she was actually very polite about breaking to canter, so after I insisted she just trot, we had a very nice time.
We had another day of left-lead difficulty, today... it took me lots of tries to get the left lead. The good news, though, is that I FINALLY got a left lead canter transition with absolutely NO fireworks. She's been very explosive to the left lately, so it was nice that she was very quiet in every single canter transition. During our trot work, we did have a bit of an explosion when she thought she saw something and scooted off, but it was just a minor spook and she settled right back down to work.
We still had a little bit of that stubborn-ness in going forward, but it seems to be getting better. Once my trailer gets back from the shop, I'm hoping to get her over to Bettina.

I'm a Big Girl now!

Dee is officially beginning to be a grown-up! Today, she got on the trailer and let me walk around back to put the butt bar up. I know, I know, it doesn't sound like much, but she usually just gets back off the trailer as soon as I walk around back. I don't think she's being bad, I think she just figures "well, you USUALLY ask me to get off when you go round back...". It took me quite a few tries, but I finally convinced her that she didn't have to get off when I left her. Even better was that when we left Nancy's to go home, she marched onto the trailer and stood like a soldier while I put the back up. What a smart girl!
Our ride today was excellent, too. We had 20 minutes of no fighting and forward going. It was absolute bliss and I quit after 20ish minutes because she'd been great and she was absolutely DRIPPING with sweat. It was around 90 with enough humidity to make you think the world somehow ended up underwater, so I decided not to make her keep going when she'd been an angel. I know Nancy would have wanted me to trot over a bunch of cavaletti, but the mare was just SO good and SO sweaty... I couldn't do that to her.

Back (on track?)

Well, today I had a lesson scheduled with Nancy, but I awoke this morning to a VERY sore back. It took me about 10 minutes just to roll myself out of bed. I remained optimistic, thinking that maybe a few ibuprofin would help, but it really didn't. Luckily, Nancy was happy to get on and ride for me, since I figured that even if I got myself INTO the saddle, I would a)be useless and b)probably not be able to get back OUT of the saddle later. Bummer.
It was really cool to be able to watch Dee go, though, and I'm glad that now Nancy has a feel for what I'm sitting on. She rode for about 40 minutes or so, just walk, trot, canter and then some cavaletti. It took about 15 minutes for Dee to settle in, and then she was very good. She's also quite fancy! I never knew! And, she's a VERY cute jumper (she had to over-jump all of the cavaletti).
I'm going to truck her back up to Nancy's Thursday to ride her around a bit. Nancy will be at Millbrook, but she said to just go up and use the ring. I'm hoping I can get there, because I had some issues on the way home today. There appears to be something weird going on with the trailer breaks... they started breaking of their own volition. I'm going to try some electrical grease on the connector, because I think my connection may be the issue.
Now, my back has been pretty good lately. I'm not entirely sure what I did to make it hurt so badly, but I assume it's just something that's going to happen now and again. One of my friends just got her massage license, so I'm thinking of going to her soon. I mean, it can't hurt. Today was pretty terrible, pain-wise, and I even had my leg go numb at one point on the way home. Not good. It's a little better tonight. I've been wearing my back on track brace all day, which is a godsend, and I've taken lots of ibuprofin. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be back to my usual low-grade pain.

Other Horses!?

Dee had her first ever experience with SHARING yesterday. That is, she was made to share the indoor with not one but TWO horses. Well, ok, she didn't share with both until the end, but she held it together.
Now, of course she's shared space on the track, but that's a very different experience than sharing space in the ring, and I've had horses who get VERY upset about it. Luckily, Beth - who we were in there with first - was nice enough to let us just tag along behind her, which Dee loved. Also, by the end, Taylor could be half of the indoor away from us, and Dee was ok with it, because she could still see her, and felt like she MUST still be following her, so it was ok... what a crap racehorse she must have been! She was totally unconcerned with keeping up!
When Taylor needed to have a canter, another horse had walked into the ring, and that girl was nice enough to have her gelding babysit us in the center of the ring while Beth went for her canter. Dee actually STOOD STILL in the center with Miles and didn't even bat an eyelash when Taylor was cantering behind her. What a good girl! I was expecting her to be a little panicked about such a big horse thundering behind her, but it was no big deal at all.
All in all we did lots of trotting, just slow and steady. It was a good time for her to get her head around other horses in the ring (and when Miles went out and started trotting while we were trotting, she was fine with it!), and it was also a good workout for her (by the end, however, it was a good workout for ME, while I was trying to convince her that continuing to trot was a good idea even though she was tired).
I was very very happy with her, she's a good mare.

In other news, I finally got ahold of Steph yesterday after weeks of attempting, and she's on her way to sunny and warm Florida. Jealous. She's going down with 9 horses and 1 WS... so she's gonna be BUSY (We had 10 between the two of us), but at least she'll be warm. One of these winters when I have the money (I'm actually thinking of starting a Dee Account), I want to be able to send the mare down to sunny Florida for the winter and maybe visit for a week or two and compete somewhere. Hopefully someday... maybe next winter? Who knows!



That was what I woke up to every morning in Ocala.

Queen Of Munchkin Land

I'm pretty sure that in the few days she's been here, the other horses have accepted Disco as their leader. Roxi is like her little shadow, Casper gets out of her way even if there's food involved and Summer just leaves her alone all together. I think Dee enjoys living in munchkin land!
Yesterday was her first trip ever to an indoor. We had some minor mishaps, and she's going to have to learn to load on the trailer with just me, but we got over to Nancy's safe and sound. She was a very good girl getting tacked up in the barn aisle, and then came the big task: going inside the indoor. As I slid the door open, I'm pretty sure her eyes popped out of her head... there were jumps! mirrors! birds! She ogled all the jumps, stared at herself in the mirror and just generally scoped the whole place out. Once I'd walked her once around in each direction, Nancy held her while I got on. Now, she hasn't REALLY been ridden in a few weeks. I'd jumped on her the day before, but the ring was an ice rink and we just walked. Needless to say, I was expecting some fireworks... I mean, a 3 year old in a new place that hasn't been ridden in awhile? Surely there is going to be spooking, bucking or something, right? WRONG! She was an absolute doll, getting straight to business. I just did walk/trot, and we worked on her transitions a little bit... her last trot - walk transition was actually not terrible, since she didn't turn into a giraffe, so I quit with that.
I must say, I was quite impressed. Most of the time, she was stretching and relaxed, coming quietly from behind. I was very, very pleased with her, and I think she'll be quite nice eventually... it seems like she's very sensible under saddle. Now, if I can just get her to stop being such a witch on the ground, we'll be all set!

Clinic Preps

This weekend is the Jon Holling clinic up in Sherborn, MA and while I'm excited about it, I am also nervous nervous nervous. We're going to be in the "Soft Novice" group as opposed to the other novice group, which is "Novice/Training" and DEFINATELY not us!!
This past week was a bit of a waste, and he had a LOT more time off than I wanted him to, but I'm not too worried. Last Monday (the 29th) I walked into the barn to find that his front left was all scraped up. It was hot and fat and he was head bobbing lame on it... GREAT! We were scheduled to truck down to Nancy's the next day, but that was not looking likely, so I called to leave her a message that my horse is an idiot and we might not be sound tomorrow. I cleaned the scrapes (Luckily that's all they were) and deduced that he had probably stuck his foot through the fence. After the scrapes were cleaned, I put ice on the leg for about 20 minutes and then poulticed it for the night, hoping maybe it would be magically better in the morning.
Needless to say, it WASN'T magically better in the morning... it was still hot and still fat. He WAS, however, sound on it, which made me extremely happy. We missed the lesson, and I re-iced/re-poulticed and took him for a hand-walk. I went back that evening to take the poultice off, put more ice on and re-bandage. Luckily, it was looking a lot better. By wednesday the swelling had gone down quite a bit and he was still sound, so I elected to do a little flat work. Thursday, I showed up ready to really put him to work and discovered that he had ripped that left front shoe off. Our farrier, being the WONDERFUL person that he is, came out within an HOUR of me calling him in a panic and fixed the problem, but I had run out of light for riding. Friday we did more flat work, but it was kind of an awful ride... neither of us was in sync. He was tense and pissy and I was impatient. After forty minutes of arguing and not getting much accomplished, I finally just had him do some stretchy work, which he loves, and called it a day.
Speaking of stretchy, I am really excited about how great he's doing with that. He really takes the contact down and stays engaged behind now, so I really feel like we're improving from the stretch work now.
Saturday we had a lesson with Jen, which wound up being somewhere around an hour and a half long. We spent about an hour on flat work, drilling transitions and working on lateral movement a bit. I really feel like he's starting to GET the transitions up and down, but I also feel like I need to help him out a little more. His trot work is really improving... he is more consistantly forward and has become easier to ride at in terms of asking for more trot. His canter is, as always, a work in progress... he has a pretty good canter naturally, but I never feel like it's as good as it could be. We're getting there... he's more forward than he used to be, at least. After working on the flat, we did a little jumping. Jen set up a 9' bounce and we continued working our transitions before/after it to get him more uphill. Eventually, she shortened the distance a little, and I really felt the quality of his gaits improve through the exercise... he was responsive, up in front and jumping in great form by the end. Now we just need to get him a little more careful over smaller jumps! He jumps very correctly most of the time, and uses himself well, but he sometimes gets lazy... especially when the jumps are small and/or plain.
I'll post more later (or after the clinic, if I don't find time before then!).

Back to Blog

I know I know, it's been too long! The past two weeks have been sort of crazy and I haven't had a moment to think about blogging. I believe we left off at the fact that Tang and I were about to head up to Orange to hang out with Steph for the weekend. Well, that went AMAZINGLY well. There was a brief mix-up on the way up there, because steph had forgotton to write down that we were coming and was going to be gone until six that evening, but it worked out all right, Tang and I just hung out until she got home.

Our lesson on Saturday was on the flat, and Steph was pleased with how he looked soundness-wise. She was also happy to see how much more educated he is now compared to last time she saw him, but told me that it was time to start putting a little more pressure on him. She had me really riding him from behind into a more uphill balance. What really pleased me was that he just did it, he pretty much understood and gave the right answers every time, it was really cool.
Sunday we rode at nine and it was time for my first time jumping since last summer, when he was sound! Stephie's instructions to Tango were "Can you please NOT jump these like they're 3'6 so that your mother's back doesn't get sore?" haha. Well, he listened! He really has gotten a lot more educated all around. We kept the jumps low (mostly for me), but he was really pretty good overall... a few naughty moments, but that's to be expected, I guess. I feel like those will disappear as the jumps get a little bigger, because he simply doesn't pay attention when they're smaller and thinks it's playtime. Silly boy.
After stephie's, I went up to Jen's to horse-sit for the week and got to play with Piglet! I have lots of pictures, and if I can ever figure out how to get videos on my computer, I'll post those, too!











I was supposed to have a jump lesson Tuesday with Nancy, but Tango decided to stick his foot through the fence Monday night. He was lame lame lame on Monday, so I iced and poulticed. Tuesday he actually jogged sound, but it was still fat enough that I didn't feel comfortable riding him, let alone jumping him. I'm currently trying to re-schedule, because we really need to get in gear if we're hoping to have ANY chance at Riga Meadow!!

I LOVE LESSONS

Tango and I had a lovely flat lesson with Jen yesterday. We worked a ton on transitions and by the end, I was getting the nicest canter transitions that we've EVER had... he was responsive and forward and I don't think he got the left lead wrong once! Also, I didn't get yelled at quite as much for having my leg too far back! progress! I do, however, need to work a little harder on bending the elbow a bit more and keeping my thumbs up all the time... and of course fix my leg completely.
I learned that if I can just keep him nice and forward all the time, we CAN have nice transitions... a nice change from the wishy washy, dragging on the forhand ones that I'm used to.
That was not, however, the best part of the lesson... I think that the best part was the fact that he was SOUND. He felt great and apparently looked great and I may finally have a wonderful, sound horse. I fret about things like that constantly, but so far so good.
Well, we're off to go hacking!

Goals!

I've been a bit lazy about posting, but I finally have some goals. On July 19, I'm aiming to take Tango to our first event of the season at Riga Meadow, which is none to far away in Salisbury, CT. From the virtual walk, it looks like it will be a good place to start the year off. After that, I'm hoping to take him out to Millbrook... of course, we'll have to make sure water is no longer an issue there!
I hopped on him for the first time on Tueday, and to my surprise, my back felt pretty good. I didn't do too much... just a little flat work followed by a half hour on the trail. Yesterday I got on again. We did about 20 minutes of flat work, working on loops at the canter and stretching in the trot. He did some nice leg yeilding and shoulder-ins... over all, I was pleased with what I got out of him, and not wanting to do to much myself, I took him out for a nice long hack. We went out for about 40 minutes, did some trotting up the hills and through the woods. I do love hacking that horse... he's definately got a good head on his shoulders, thank goodness. Julie hopped on him on Monday, and I was very pleased with him. We did some trot poles, working on adjusting the stride a little bit, and he was absolutely wonderful about it. Here's some photos from that:







Next week will be week four of work for him, and we're going to pop over his first little fences. I figure I'll let Julie do that, since it's probably not a GREAT idea for me to be jumping just yet... especially since he jumps so hard. Pretty soon, though!
I'm also going to get ahold of Jen to see if we can do a lesson next weekend, and the week after, I'd like to try to haul him up to Stephie's for some jump work.
Here is my tentative event schedule for him for the next few months:
July 19: Riga Meadow H.T. - Salisbury, CT
August 6 - 9: Millbrook H.T. - Millbrook, NY
August 16 - Kent H.T. - Kent, CT
August 23 - Great Vista HT - Fort Plain, NY
September 5-6 - Town Hill HT - Lakeville, CT
September 10-12 - King Oak HT - EastHampton, MA
October 4 - Kent HT - Kent, CT

we'll see how that goes! I'm going to pick and choose among those.
In conclusion, here are pictures of the ladies in the barn, Casper, Roxy and Summer:

Back in the groove.

Well, Tango's been in work for about a week and a half now, and he's finally getting into business-mode. Today he was actually willing to relax and stretch in his trot work, canter like a normal animal (as opposed to just charging around like a wildebeast), and even execute some leg yeilds at the walk and trot. Julie and I also changed his bit, from a regular Dee to an Eggbutt French-Link, and I think he was pleased with it. It's so nice to actually watch him go around and look SOUND. I've been waiting a LONG time for that! If I can manage to get my back in riding condition soon, I'd like to sign him up for an event in July, but I suppose we'll have to play it by ear.
Today's session... I've decided that I need to work on my photo skills, since out of about 25 photos, only a few were actually usable. I just always seem to get him at the most awkward moments!