I'm a Cross Country Beast!

For such an epic day, this will be a relatively short post :P

I'd been dying to get a lesson in out at Pine Hill for well over a month but weather and schedules were not working.  My desire to get out and jump things over rode my "need" to be escorted around by someone.  Erica and I loaded the mares up for a fun schooling day at Pine Hill.

The objectives were pretty easy: expose them to the varying types of cross country obstacles.  These were jumping flat, jumping a drop, jumping a bank, and then... just jumping.  I was hoping to loosely jump anything beginner novice or lower as we felt it fit.  It had been raining so we had to check the footing for everything but that allowed for plenty of rest time.

We jumped banks, drops, roll tops, boxes, benches, ditches, logs, logs on an incline, stadium jumps (including our first one stride in and out and oxer wooo) plus we hit the dressage ring for a "fake" test run to let the mares see an arena.  Three hours later we felt tired but like rock stars.

It was a great day of baby jumps!

Tired Ladies!

New Saddle? Goldilocks Time!

After the confidence building of jumping illadvised things at the Ranch previously, the thought of a new saddle was in my mind.  It wasn't a NECESSITY of course and what horse person doesn't have a saddle in mind at all times in case someone comes up to them and offers to buy them the saddle of their dreams but they only have 5 seconds to blurt out what they want?

It could totally happen.

A bit of back story on me, I've never owned an english saddle.  At least not one of any worth.  Growing up, I showed, trained, and did everything in borrowed saddles.  I was at an almost "adult only" barn and they took pity on me and loaned me tack to encourage me I think.  So my dressage saddle was a "leftover" from the barn owner (I learned to jump in that bad boy) and then when someone retired a Collegiate Senior Event from their horse, they let me "lease" it for I think like $10 a month but then never collected the money ><

After I quit going to college, one of my many jobs was working for an EPIC tack shop.  We'd spend all our down time sitting in the saddles, trying them out, deciding which was the one we couldn't live without if we could afford anything.  I took every test ride saddle home systematically and tried them all on Athos at the time.  My favorite was the Prestige Eventer but I only had a test ride in the Red Fox.  The Fox was great so I assumed that the pricier Eventer would rock my socks off.

A few years down the road, my husband to be gave me a credit card and told me to buy all the things I wanted.  I was in shock but immediately went for that saddle.  It was going to be like the heavens opened up.  $3000 later and the glorious thing was on my horse.  I got on and... couldn't find my balance.  At.the.walk.  I'd been down for a bit on riding but cripes.  It was like I'd never ridden.  When riding at the canter was scary, I got off and fumed.  It was obviously me, not my perfect saddle.  I'd NEVER had a saddle that was bought for me so this made no sense.  Discouraged I left it in the spare room and pouted.

A year or so went by and I sold the pretty saddle to someone that was super excited to pay $1500 for a saddle that was used only 5 times.  Lucky lady.  At that point I bought a Crosby Prix de Nations that was about $100.  No knee rolls, flat seat, square cantle.  Yes, THAT saddle.  And BOOM I could ride again.  Disgruntled but able to ride, that was my saddle for several years and I vowed to never spent that sort of money again.

When I let my old boys go to their new home, I loaded up EVERYTHING I owned in their trailer and told them to sell it, use it, whatever.  The saddle went to a dog friend of mine at the time.  I had nothing after that day in hopes of discouraging me from getting another horse (hurr hurr).

When I inevitably went back to the horse world, I was going to ONLY ride western and simplify my life.  Maybe.  A friend that was interested in dog training classes offered up a deal:  a used old Stubben of unknown origins in exchange for dog training.  The saddle was in nice condition so I agreed.  I could also ride in the thing so yay me.

This got my through my first year with the girls but after I started jumping I knew it was time to saddle shop for reals.  I have a really long femur so I knew I needed a forward flap.  I looked around, read reviews, had spent most my older life sitting in saddles in tack shops to feel the differences and I've ridden tons of horses with tons of saddles owned by other people.  I was going to get a "jumping" saddle so I could do both dressage and jumping in it as I suspected at this time eventing was in my future.  The draw of entering the hunter/jumper world was growing but its such a bizarre place I can't ever commit.

My search was down to the Toulouse Marielle or the Ovation Tierra.  I've never seen an Ovation saddle in person but the reviews online are great.  The Marielle has bleh reviews but I like that its modeled after a great saddle.  Nothing was striking me as a great idea and the test ride for the Marielle from Smart Pak was on backorder for like forever so I just sighed and went on.

Over Christmas my parents asked me what I wanted, I laughed and told them the same thing I've told them for 31 years: horse stuff.  Not expecting anything (like normal), I went to Christmas Eve dinner expecting nothing and getting... horse stuff.  Weird but awesome!  With the saddle planning on the back burner, I decided to take Erica to Charlottes in Tomball just to spend the card.

This is where fate shows up.

Naturally I was going to check out the saddles.  Imagine my shock when they had a Toulouse Marielle +4 18" seat (my butt is kinda big if you can't tell :P ) for $100 less than the cheapest price I'd found online.  o.O <--me

Marielle feeling fiiiinnneee!

They talked me into trying it despite my immense protests. Armed with the knowledge of how to wrap stirrup leathers and protect billets, I took the thing home.  Immediately I threw it on Katy with my old dressage girth (which was 6" too big and hung off her with room for a hand under it fully tightened oops) and got on.  Katy is still working on her balance at this point and so walking, trotting, and cantering the circles with basically no girth was harrowing.  She kept diving in and I kept having to balance to keep the saddle centered.  It was not fun.  The saddle is also WAY cushier than I'm ever used to and it felt weird.  Not bad, just weird.  Then I had a "why not?" moment and jumped a small cross rail.  Again, no girth effectively.  THAT FELT GREAT!  It was the easiest jump I could ever recall doing without a saddle to fight against me.  I really liked that at this point and got off feeling ok.

Circuit Premier Special EQ Forward Flap?

Later that week I was at a dog show near a Dover and I bought a much smaller girth.  While there I tried out their saddles too of course, just in case.  The girth barely worked when I got home but I decided to keep the saddle at that point.

So yeah, new saddle (y)  Less money in the bank :D

Circuit Premier Victory RTF

Pessoa Lotsamoney Forward Flap

Converting Someone Else

My work has allowed me to come into contact with some amazing (and not so amazing) people.  Yes, undergrads and professional students primarily on up through varying staff and faculty people.  This is about undergrads and especially student workers.

I'm always on the fence when I get amazing people in my lab to work for me.  I am a rule abider - its why I still have a job.  There is no way I'll sacrifice that.  Having four horses has given me a reason to bend this slightly.  When I had a 2 year old AQHA horse that I was retraining, he got to that dreaded "needs riding miles" stage before I could move on with him.  I HATE that stage and find it horribly boring so I had a student friend go ride him when she could for her relaxation and I offered her a percentage of the sale when he sold.  It was a great arrangement and we were both thrilled.

At this point in my life, the horses (save Arthur) could benefit from someone else riding them and so I've kept my ears open.  A person came into my life recently that had tons of REAL riding experience.  There is no shortage of "I'll give riding a try!" type of people around but I don't have that much spare time to train someone from ground zero.  Come to me with walk, trot, canter and I can work with that.  Before this time, I didn't have that. So it was a bit odd when someone came to me through a winding pathway that had extensive horse (jumping!) experience.  It was in the hunter/jumper world but I was thankful.  Erica came out for a trial on Piper (she's also shorter than me!) and they hit it off.  I was thrilled.

After a few rides, we went out to the Ranch and decided to give it a ride.  I was on Katy (I know, I know, but I needed miles of confidence building and well, she's easier for me to ride at my height).  It all started out nicely and I only had to tack my own horse up!  Yes!  So awesome.  The goal was to maybe find some logs to jump Piper over to see how she was to jump.  I didn't have anything at my house for jump material so this seemed the most logical.  Luckily Erica is super gutsy so we found a fallen tree that was a bit questionable and she pointed Piper at it.  Piper being Piper sorted out the game and flew over it.  Then the search was on for jumps!

I trotted and cantered along, taking my job of checking the take off and landing spots very seriously.  After sorting out some pretty nice looking jumps and watching Piper rock them, I was beginning to think I should get in on the action with Katy.  Remember, I'm in my old flat, slightly off center Stuebben from the 1970s.  It doesn't seem like a good idea, but my leg is secure and well, I'd gone to Pine Hill and not died.  I wouldn't die today.  I was 80% sure of that.

A few goes through the woods and we came upon a clearing FULL of downed logs.  It was go time.  I found a nice log that was perfect in every way except... it had a gap between it and the ground.  Would Katy be bothered by it?  Would she pay attention and actually jump the thing?  If she refused what would I be able to do?  SO MANY FEELS.  There was a nice tiny log next to it so we trotted that.  No overjumping, nothing so I was like hmm.  Maybe Erica will get bored and take the first log.

No dice.

I got impatient and started a pre-flight checklist.  Heels down?  Eyes forward?  Committed to the jump? so on and so forth.  And I headed for it.  The log was probably 2'6" off the ground - in my mind "tiny" from my past.  For someone that's not jumped in a while, it was big really fast.  I swallowed the panic and kept my legs on.  Katy easily cleared it, I landed, took a breath, and smiled.  OMG I CAN JUMP STILL AND SO CAN MY HORSE.

So then we proceeded to search the property for reasonable things to jump, water to go through (it ended up chest deep oops), and other eventy types of things while I yammered on about how epic going cross country is to a girl that had been in the hunter/jumper world exclusively.

Also my Stubben needs to be retired from my bum :(

OMG JUMPING!!!

First off, I didn't die.

The more I try to get back into fighting shape, the more things go on my "Must Do Without Dying" list.  I do have one.  Really, I do.  One that's been lingering is jumping.  I mean.  What?!  I used to jump ALL the time and was actually pretty boss at it.  My trainers in high school were great about telling me to just get my ass over things and be done with it.

Gotta love eventers!

Problem was, I am now acutely aware of how much guts and glory training I had.  I understand strides but would be hard pressed to hit them exactly.  I have a vague idea of how big a jump is (this one is bigger than that one!) and a laundry list of other things I never was taught/bothered to learn properly.  Natural talent gets you far as a fit youngster but once your body has been pilaged by pregnancy and injury, natural talent seems like the enemy.

Aww, you can do it!

Ugh.

So logically I began the process.  While my background seems wild and wooly, we were definitely NOT the kids jumping anything and everything just to do it.  No, it was always in lessons, clinics, or schooling days and NEVER unsupervised.  As someone that is on her own with her horses, this is a terrifying concept now.

Thinking back on my past, I decided to contact someone that I'd loved to train with before: Ruth Sawin.  Pine Hill was my favorite place to be during a trying teenage period and in some ways I feel like I'm going to Graceland when I'm there.  I contacted Ruth.  Surely she was too busy to babysit some crazy 34 year old out of shape has been.  She'd never email me back.

But she did.  Immediately.

The surge of relief and horror flew over me.  This was going to happen!  Wait, this was going to happen!?!?!  Oh crap.

The day came and it was brutally cold.  I could back out...  NO!  I needed to do this.  If I was rubbish then I could simply bail and do reining where I keep my feet on a ground.  In the back of my mind I knew that was not the right path, so I loaded up Katy (the trustworthy one) like a weenie and made the drive I will know by heart until I die.

I think when we arrived it was nipping at about 30 degrees F.  In Texas, that's cold.  And naturally there was a wind.  My mare was good - until I went to get on her.  Awesomepants.  I took a breath and just jumped on her.  She was uptight.  I was going to die.  Moving her on and focusing on work I found that we could walk, trot, canter and not die.  Going good so far.  I could call it quits and be happy probably.

Then Ruth showed up.  I was nervous, excited, happy, and frozen.  My butt.literally.was.frozen.  She was kind and had nice things to say about my Craigslist Special horse.  I was relieved and informed her that my goal was to simply jump something.  Anything.  A 6" crossrail would suffice.  They have those, right?  I have no idea.

The lesson went fine and I was relieved to find out that while I was out of shape, I wasn't going to die.  Jumping was a bit like riding a bike and that brought some confidence.  Ruth kindly let us go play over some logs - LOGS!- on cross country and we trotted through the water.  And over the bridge.  And yes, through the woods.  The jumps were tiny but I remembered now why I loved eventing.

She also pointed out that my 40 year old Stubben Sieg from Germany was not the best option for my butt.  Ruth probably said this much more eloquently but that was the gist of it.  More on that later... but for now:

Sold.   And not dead. Victory is mine!

Piper's Grindstone

Christmas break is a time of wonder for most people.  For me, as a state/University employee, it's also known as my annual vacation.  I will get around to taking a real vacation with my family sometime, but in the meantime, this is when I rock it.  By rock it, I mean ride my horses during the daytime and do things like hike with my dogs at the nearby forest.

I'm out of control, I know.

This year was different in that I had Arthur to work with and Piper, while coming along, really needed a come to Jesus set of training times.  Arthur progressed with his ground work and I ended up on him bareback with a halter.  We rode calmly for 100 feet and then a circle each way before I slid off by the end of the break. Not bad, eh?

Now for Piper.

Piper is a headstrong, confident, gutsy little thing.  She doesn't know the word no though which is a contradiction.  Part of the reason I love riding her is she is SOOO smart and will readily give me her all.  The reason I DON'T like riding Piper is that she owns her training.  In this case, her OLD and outdated training I'm trying to change.  Once she knows something, she KNOWS it.  You can build on it, but taking it down is tough.  Its about 2 hours of work on my part when I normally was hoping for about 45 minutes.

So for break, I was going head to head with the little wee beastie.  She needed to learn to get the heck off my hands and balance herself!  Piper is naturally VERY well balanced, catty, and agile.  Moving her body around is not an issue.  Compensating for a rider, even my size, is not an issue for her.  Much like a racehorse however, she was "held back" when she wanted to go and taught to pull down and out to get her way.  Awesomesauce.

The game this break was to take away her ability to lean on me.  Balance herself.  All those goodies.

My tool of choice?  A rope halter and my reining saddle.

I just went to the riding area and asked her to move around.  If she pulled on me, we one rein stopped to a halt.  She hates that.  Like a legitimate, no moving until I say go halt.  It was like her sky had fallen.  We worked on this concept of "wait until I tell you to go up a gear" and "stop means stop until I say go."  Working our way up to circles, that meant no "falling in" the circle.  If she did, she was one rein stopped to a halt again.

Bottom line, we progressed this way daily for about 2 hours each day with me just being consistent with these concepts.  Again, she's very smart so within the 2 weeks she figured out how to go nicely on the flat without dragging me around/wheeling in tiny circles like she's still barrel racing.  It's a work in progress and she wasn't happy but we got it done.  By the end of the training, she was much more chill and flexible in her work.  My son was her cool out rider for most of the days and he loved it.

Merry Christmas Pipes!

Arthur's Retraining Begins

Whenever I get a new horse in, I've always given them time to settle in before "real" training begins.  This doesn't mean I do nothing to them though.  I start by touching them.  In the pasture.  However and where ever I want.  Mango was the worst at this with the bunch of horses I got this year.  It may sound odd, but just like my dogs, I want them to learn that training can happen anytime, anywhere.  There is never a really true "off" time.  Granted they get to spend most of their time doing whatever they want, how they want,  and when they want so I have little sympathy.

So much like my other horses I've trained, I spent time in the pasture to start with.  For my sanity, I left a halter on Arthur since he had shown he could be a turd about being caught or basically anytime he didn't want to have a person around him (which was most always).  I normally start out while feeding since this can be the most dangerous time as the horse WANTS what you have and most horses have TERRIBLE feeding manners.  I just touch their shoulder with a flat palm or whatever (no poking) and then I dump the feed.  When they start eating, I touch their shoulder or neck again.  Most new horses will pin their ears back or something similar and I'll snort and throw my hands up and chase them away from the food.

MY FOOD!

I'll repeat this until they stop the behavior.  Less ambitious horses will sigh and I'll walk off.

This is the start of all things they hate.  Might as well get it going, right?  The other thing I start doing is following them.  This is a bit like what Monty Roberts used to talk about in his early books.  I have no idea what he does now with his training but when I want to single a horse out (basics of catching them), I follow them.  They move I move.  They stop I pause.  Most new horses hate this and will run around like idiots.  I just keep following.  Its REALLY fun to watch my older horses in the pasture, you can basically see them shaking their heads at the newbie.

So Arthur hated all this, he took his big sexy self and floated around my pasture arrogantly.  My pasture is divided into two larger portions connected by a long 20 foot wide "chute" area.  I patiently cut the other horses to one side of my body and him to the other as I stood in the chute.  He charged me.  I convincingly drove him away with the lead rope and he darted back to his side of the pasture.  This took about an hour, but he finally sighed and just stared at me as though wondering what my deal was and why I hadn't given up.  I walked over, lead rope in hand and pet him.  Then I left.  This is when they normally go "WTF" and I like leaving them with that thought.  It means they are thinking so +1 there.

Most people are so quick to snag the halter and that's not the point.  Your horse should accept your presence and wait for you to make the move.  Grabbing a halter as your first move doesn't show trust or confidence at all on your part.

The next day he was less apt to run.  I calmly touched him then his halter and then began touching his forehead.  One pat = one release.  We continued this twice a day for about a week. Once I got to the point where I could rub his face and he was seemingly happy/accepting about it, I worked on moving north and onto his ears.  He was fine with that for about as long as it would take to put a bridle on.  When I lingered longer one morning, he reared up and tried to drag me.  I let go and commenced following him around.  Recapture, retry, recapture, retry.  This went on for about an hour before I could even put one finger near the base of his ear.

We had something concrete to work on.

When I got Arthur I knew that accepting and understanding pressure was going to be his "thing."  He's a kind boy and VERY smart so I knew patience and just "messing" with him was going to be the way.  The hard part on a horse like this is you first have to "break" him.  Not by spirit, but his old habits.  Everything he did, he was good for the "normal" amount of time.  Come up with a lead rope?  He'd stand long enough for you to clip it on.  If you didn't directly do that, he'd arrogantly charge off like he'd won a prize.  Touch his ears?  Only long enough for a bridle.  "No sightseeing here please!" he was screaming.  Petting was something he simply accepted and then shut down about.  Get pushed? Shut down.  This lack of coping skills meant that at some point he'd blow.  And that was why he was considered "unpredictable" and such a dangerous horse. 

I had to break all this up like an ice flow in Greenland.  I think Greenland has ice flows...

To effectively do this however, you have to be systematic about it.  Build trust, then push it.  Build trust, then push it.  Push, pull.  That's about all there is with horses.  And patience.  Patience of a saint helps.  You cannot get emotionally involved either. Rebuild when you need and always have a plan. And always ALWAYS be willing to temporarily change that plan to help the horse understand the goals.  Keep pushing...  Keep building... Rebuild if need be.

So every day we touched and I pushed him a little further.  Touching near his ear in the pasture moved on to touching an ear.  Then the other ear.  Then petting the ears back then holding my hand on them.  Then petting them forward.  Then back.  Then I began rotating and manipulating them in my hands for as long as I pleased.  An accompanying exercise I was working on, was yielding to poll pressure.  I never did both exercises at once in the beginning.  I either did poll pressure OR the petting.  If his head went up even a fraction with poll pressure, I asked him to lower it a fraction until he did.  Once he was good with both pieces, I started putting them together.  Lower the head, touch the ears.  Lower the head, touch the ears.  Soon his head was on the ground and he was ok with his ears being inspected.  This was the point where the two exercises had effectively come together.

This was basically our first two - three weeks.  No lead rope, no leading, not even leaving the pasture.  I like to work my horses around the other better trained horses so they get used to distractions like that from the start.

A boy named Arthur.

Do you want a project horse?

No.

He's free!

I don't care.

Its a registered APHA (solid bred) and is like 17 hands tall.

*sigh*  Where is he? How old?

Here in town!  One mile from your house in fact!  6 years old.

*grumbles* Fine, I'll look at him.

Lets review that at this point in my life, I have 3 horses.  They're all mares ranging from 13h-15+ hands and 8 years old to about 20.  I've spent most of the past year working on them and myself to make them walk, trot, canter and not flip out over dumb crap.  I'm in the home stretch!  I'm about to be able to start them in reining, dressage, jumping, WHATEVER.

So I don't need a horse.

I looked up his registered name online and naturally, he was bred perfectly for what I'd been lusting after for about 10 years but assumed I'd always been too cheap to buy.    Here's his dad (7x World Champion, 1x World Challenge Champion, 6x Reserve World Champion; Multiple Reichert Champion , 2x APHA World Show All-Around Horse, 2010 APHA High Point English Horse The Big Sensation)  and I've been obsessed with his maternal grandsire for like ever.  Who is that?  Artful Move of course...  So yes, I was going to go see him.
 
Upon arrival the previous owner showed me to his stall and proceeded to thump thump thump on his forehead in greeting.  Any of my previous horses probably would have backed up at least or thrown their head up.  This horse just stared and took it.  OK, problem one might be checking out under stress.  The reason he was free was that the current "owner/lessee/etc" needed to move and wanted him gone ASAP.  He'd had an illustrious career of going to various trainers and while he was great to ride, he would randomly and unpredictably buck when you went to mount.

I don't believe in unpredictability.  Nothing with horses "just happens out of the blue."

So I pulled him out and decided to stress him in hopes of seeing him act up.  I stood on a muck bucket and had him move around me.  I pushed on him, I grabbed him.  When he crowded me, I cow kicked him out for being rude.  When he was calm, I was calm and he quickly reacted positively to that.  After about 15 minutes he was standing still and receptively with me on the bucket.  Hmmm.  We took him to the round pen so I could see about hi moving laterally.  He did it well, but cluelessly.  At this point he was doing the "young baby horse" thing where he's just trying to get you happy so he can escape the pressure.  But again, no blow ups.

We ended with a mounting block and me jumping up/at/on him.  His head was up but he never flinched or moved away.  After laying on his back with no reaction, I slid off and said I'd think about it.  I've NEVER pushed a horse that hard when meeting them but I wanted to see what sort of volatile beast I was getting.  When I pick out a new project, I have rules.  No bite, buck, kick, or rear.  I don't like fixing those things and I worry about a horse's trustworthiness over time.  

That night I talked to a friend of mine who works with her husband with "fixing" horses to see what she thought.  I was thinking his foundation just sucked and he was anxious as a result.  She agreed and I was left to make the decision.  "I don't need/want another horse" was the main phrase that went through my head that night.  But he was a sad lost little guy and while I'm not sentimental, he was also a hell of a horse and something that I'd always had on my "horse bucket list."

So I got him.  He's a hot mess of worry, but with time, consistency, and patience we'll get there.  And test my training skills in the process.