Look! Dressage!

 There was a show at Penny's old home (where the clinic was) today. The Taskmaster rode the BN test that we've spent the last two years riding over and over again to give her a nice good ride for once. I was going to ride Intro B on Meatball, but for a variety of reasons he didn't come, so I rode the test on Pony Toes. Not our best test, but not our worst. She was not a giraffe and that's all I really hope for some days. She got a 66% with The Taskmaster and a 59% with me.

Thursday Pictures

Alas, I only have them this small.

Oh look, here's Penny being resistant and my arms seem to be frozen rigid.

Oh, this isn't too bad. Look who's being good. This picture does not make me cringe.

Back to resistance. But at least I have some bend in my elbows. Maybe they'll thaw sometime soon.

Ah! The elbows do bend! But, ack to the rest.

This isn't too horrendous, but we're not there yet.

Again, back to the resistance.

Finally! Still not as nice as when we're down with The Taskmaster though. Though, if I could get this consistently without effort I'd be happy.

Eric Horgan Clinic Day 2

I so wish I could get through an Eric clinic without having an emotional breakdown and masses of tears.

It's not because of Eric per se. It's just that I never ride as well as I think I should be able to. And my pony, oh, my pony. So awful. The pony that is absolute awesomeness over a stadium course or XC at a competition is horrendous when we're schooling in a pressure situation.

So yeah, it's totally my fault. Because I just clench harder and harder with my legs and that just pisses Penny off more and more. When we're competing I focus on two things: 1) stay on 2) steer. At home we're adding in: quality of canter, taking off at the right time, me not jumping ahead, noodle arms, relax the butt, relax the thighs, relax the shoulders. The more I have to think of the more determined I am to do them all and I end up turning into my best impression of a marble statue trying to ride.

So, the crying. Penny, last year right after St Johns decided she need to buck when she was asked to canter. Just one buck, every time. I got her saddle refit, vet work up, the whole nine yards and at this point it's behavioral. JM had almost broken her of the habit in the last few months, but she delivered it today with gusto. So there I am, trying to be awesome with the awesome pony and she's bucking. Okay, so she's just doing it when she starts to canter, I'm not going to sweat it, we're working on the problem. After like the 10th buck though, I was starting to get frustrated. Gosh darnit! Why the hell does she do this? What am I doing? God, I suck. We jumped our line and then she threw in this huge buck for no reason at all. Well, I had it and told her so in no uncertain terms. And then I burst in to tears, declared I was done for the day, dismounted and cried into Penny's mane.

In some ways, now that I'm thinking about it, that was a big moment for the two of us. Penny doesn't generally let me hug her, she's not big on affection. But she let me cry on her for a good five minutes, big huge sobs. She didn't move.

Eric came over and I have no recollection what he said. I cried myself out and got back on. And strangely... Penny stopped bucking. I don't know if it's because she'd finally found my breaking point. It's more likely that during the cry I cried all my clenched muscles out too. I stopped asking for as much, I just wanted a nice ride. And that's what I got, including a tricky rollback that she did like the awesome pony she is. Eric asked what had happened and I said "obviously, I need to have a mental breakdown to ride well." Not far from the truth though. When you're so at the bottom the only solution is to cry and be dramatic is there anywhere to go but up? Actually, I guess there is. There are those people that are just screwed up afterwards while I, on the other hand, get it out of my system and move on.

I gave myself permission to ride with longer reins and Eric said something about he wouldn't normally advise riding with reins that long, but I seem to be able to do just fine with them and I told him the longer I ride the happier she is. She does not like to be told what to do. Short reins are a little too much control for her. Yes, she needs to get over this, but we were just trying to survive the day on a good note at that point. (Actually, I'm just fine with being able to control her with long reins, but I understand the necessity of teaching her otherwise.)

At the end we were doing really well. She was quiet, I wasn't clenching, we'd refound our balance together. I suspect we'll lose it again for part of tomorrow.

Eric Horgan Clinic Day One

Two years ago, when Penny had been under saddle about five months and she'd literally just started jumping the week before, we did our first clinic with Eric Horgan. We really weren't ready. He's been out twice since then, it was inconvenient for me to get to one, the other I was laid up from surgery. The stars aligned this time and I was easily able to get a ride for Penny back to where she used to live.

I was really apprehensive about our flat lesson today. Experience has shown me that Eric teaches things different than traditional dressage and I've been in DressageLand for over six months now. In DressageLand, leg goes on, head goes down. Eric's all about the "use the hands to soften the mouth." It was that philosophy that sort of ruined Penny and I, but I had been suspecting something had been lost in translation and I was right. Yes, he does advise the alternate hand (more wrist, but I can't use mine) movement for softening, but one uses it in a soft manner. Not with your reins cranked short and then pulling more. So, I was willing to introduce this back into my ride, because I knew squeezing the reins was not going to ruin my pony.

At one point early in the ride he asked if I was left handed. The answer is "no." And then he commented that I'm atypical, because I ride with a much stronger non-dominant hand, and that my right rein just kept getting longer, and longer, and longer. I then got to explain the nerve issues I have and that was likely the culprit and that while I can try my best to rectify the situation I can only ride as well as that days hands/arms will let me. Later on I was riding around with contact only with my right (outside) hand and my left hand was basically on the buckle. It was the only way I could keep it from getting involved.

Which reminds me of a problem I regularly have at physical therapy. My neck always wants to get involved if I'm doing an exercise that it can, at all, get involved with. Which is also a symptom of a larger problem I have, that was showing itself with flashing neon lights today: every cell of my body that can be involved with the ride is. Eric had to keep yelling at me to relax various body parts. Their default is clenched and tight. I really, really need to stop doing that.

The Taskmaster on Penny yesterday. I wish I could make her look like this.

Ow

I did a stupid. A Big, Fat, Stupid. The kind of stupid that I know better than doing, yet for whatever reason I did it anyway. And oh, am I paying the price.

Today, when I got off of Meatball we did our carrot stretches and then he followed me around the arena. He and his buddy The Idiot get to stay out there tonight. Anyway, he were walking along and I started running, this gigantic horse next to me. It was awesome. Until he forgot I was a human, not a horse, and bumped me, hard.

Next thing, I'm on my side on the ground. I hit left back hip, elbows and head. Thank god, thank god I had my helmet on. Though I wouldn't have gone out there with him to begin with without my helmet. While I don't actually need to replace it, because I already had more helmets than I need, I recently found out I can get my favorite helmet in navy suede and I am very, very tempted.

Anyway, not concussed. Road rash on both elbows and on my butt (i was wearing really thin breeches.)  I have road rash between my eyes on my forehead (we're guessing my sunglasses did that.) I have a giant bruise on my right elbow. JM wrapped me up in ice packs to drive home. I stopped at Sonic and got a chocolate strawberry cream slush (mmmmmmmmm....)

I am going to hurt so bad tomorrow. And I'm riding in a clinic on Thurs/Fri/Sat and a schooling show on Sun. At least I'm riding Penny for the clinic. I might be a little scared of Meatball right now. Not because he hurt me, I know he didn't mean to, but he's just so damn big. He was more upset about the whole thing than I am. Though, the most frantic was the dogs. They all had to come over and check on me. Buffy was frantic to get in my lap and lick my face.

I think I had half of the arena's sand in my ear.

What is it with people taking pictures of my butt?

 Waiting for Stadium.

Approaching the second XC fence.

#3

Jump #5 in the Log Jam

St Johns BN Course Walk

First Jump. Note the sideways signs from the wind.

Jump #2 The Owl's Nest. Due to the owl statue sitting between the BN and N fences. This log looked huge.

#3. Shared with Novice.

#4

#5

#6 Woodpile

#7 Almost a Trakehner

#8 Squiggle















#9 Was the water option. No good pictures of it, but you can see the water complex in the background of #8

#10

#11

#12 Lava Rocks

#13, Which we called "The Toop." Part table, part coop.

#14

The Bridge

#15, Our first roll top.

#16, last fence, shared with Novice. Also seemed extremely large.

I must be famous now

My St Johns Event Report on Eventing Nation

St Johns

Pony Toes and I had an excellent time at St Johns. Sure, it was snowing and cold and there were 50 mph winds, but we got to run fast and jump. That makes any day awesome.

I packed Penny's sheet that she's never worn at the last minute and I'm glad I did. When the snow was blowing in I'm sure she appreciated it. It kept her clean too, though she'd managed to get poop on her neck Sunday morning. We had an end stall with no one behind us, which was awesome. I suspect my request for a "solid walled stall" might have given them the impression she's anti-social. She's just paranoid that some other horse is going to steal her food if they can see it, so the solid walls are needed for pony happiness.

Our dressage was abysmal. The earlier rides had dealt with blowing snow, but we had higher winds (45-50 mph.) The little dressage arena fence was on its side. Penny was quiet but our lines were wavy and our circles more gear shaped. Sometimes she was like a giraffe, other moments she was actually being good. So, quiet but not at all listening to me. We got our worst score ever: 52.9. My Partner In Crime did slightly better, but the judge called her over at the end of the test and told her that her horse looked really cranky and that he really didn't want to be there. One more example of just getting through the dressage so we can go jump.

Due to the crazy wind they had to postpone stadium to Sunday morning because the jumps just wouldn't stay up. Walking XC was insane. The signs were on the ground, backwards, broken, etc and there was no point to righting them as the wind would just tear them up again. They were all in place for XC and that's really all that matters.

Penny was absolutely brilliant jumping. She has confirmed herself as a Super Jumper. We went into stadium and at first she was all "ho hum" then she realized the fences were bigger than she's competed at before and just rocked. We flew over that course. There was a bit of a scary moment with a tricky turn and she thought about going over the arena fence (not taller than 3') but we got turned and continued on. I guess the spectators all held their breath for that moment. Oh, and my shriek probably didn't help. I don't know what it is when I'm competing. When something out of the ordinary happens I shriek. Happened in warm-up too when she spooked at the bronc chutes (we've been to St Johns three times, you would think she'd be over the darn things by now.)

Directly after stadium we walked to XC (that's the across the racetrack, around the runway, past the graveyard trip.) We were all warmed up, so we basically walked directly down to the start box. Upside: no nerves. Downside: I was a bit out of breath so had to stop and walk between fences 4 and 5. Penny, again, just rocked. I walked 2-3 times in the earlier part of the course and she came right back to me. I know it's odd, but it gives us both a moment to catch our breaths and focus.


When I was walking the course I was second-guessing the decision to go BN. I need to have more faith in my pony. I suspect I could take her out Novice and just hang on. I did need to put my leg on occasionally, especially when we had the tricky lava rock fence up a hill and then a couple strides later just at the top of the hill the jump we call the "Toop" because it's sort of half-table, half-coop. We did the water option, though it didn't actually require us getting in the water. We stepped two left hooves in. If I'd know how my time was I would have gone all the way through it. We had the fastest time and that's with the walking.

Both stadium and XC I just let her go. She loves to run and jump, she was being safe and was fit enough to do it. Her natural cruising speed is BN speed, so it works for us.

At the end though, we didn't move up from last place and ended up with 6th. Perfectly respectable for our first BN, but it means I didn't get the place I needed for an AEC qualification. My Partner In Crime now has both of hers. I'm trying not to worry. My pony is awesome and that's all that matters.


 
Do I look wind burned and cold?