Labor Day Fun, Part 2: Horse Swap and Trail Riding

The recognized show over Labor Day weekend was a Sat/Sun show, but I opted to do Sunday only. Since Monday was a holiday, and I was driving by myself, I ask Austen about staying over an additional day and going for a trail ride or something Monday before I went home. She thought it sounded fun, so that's what we did!

First, Austen's barn is soooooo fancy. New and visiting horses stay in quarantine stabling.

The nicest quarantine stabling I've ever seen!

I figured I'd have to clean Penn's stall and bring hay, water buckets etc since I was a visitor. Nope. They gave him hay, filled his buckets, gave him his breakfast (as long as I left out a baggie of grain), and cleaned his stall a bunch of times. A++ for service!

Penn loved the window, just like home!

Austen and I wanted to do a horse swap before our trail ride, so I got tacked up and headed to the indoor ring... it was so pretty outside, but umm, that indoor. Drool. I just wanted to ride in it even though they have a pretty outdoor too!

He's all ready to scare the resident dressage queens!

Ermygawd, can we talk about how GORGEOUS this indoor is?
Plus fluffy footing that I'm pretty sure Penn loved.
Plus retractable windows really let the indoor cool down... no sun and a breeze.

I beat Austen to the ring, so I hopped on Penn and rode him around, trying to gauge how he'd react to a third day of work (since he'll be seeing that at champs). He was a bit distracted and a little tense, but settled into work much better than he did for our second test the day before. We did very basic work, just a run through of things he knows and he eventually relaxed. His happy place is definitely in canter now, he relaxed right into it. So much so that I got thinking about the jump he had in his canter on Saturday when we were schooling... hmm... so I decided to go for it and see what happened. I brought him across the diagonal, right to left, checked my seat and leg, and sat up like in my last lesson... straightened a little and just asked for the new left lead... and bam, he hopped right over! Late behind, but he did it!

2.3 seconds after doing his very first flying change!

OMG I was so excited! It was no big deal and Penn just hopped over. The late behind already has me nervous, but he gave me such an excellent and quiet first attempt that I'm happy! It's just hard not to play with it before championships... with my luck, he'll go, "Oh you want changes now? OK!!!!!!" and he'll flip flop in our shallow loops, and goodbye 8's that are double coefficients. He's already inclined to because that's where he first offered the jump for the change. I don't think I've messed it up though, he's very responsive to leg and seat and I don't think he'll plow through to change as long as I make it very very clear what I want. But we're definitely working on those this winter!

Pic stolen from Austen

Austen arrived and we did a horse swap. OMG I love Guinness. I wish I had access to him for a week or more so I could keep playing with all the buttons and work on myself as I got used to him. Austen has done such a good job with him, and he has a level of suppleness that Mikey never had. I first had to work on straightness and not pulling his nose around to the inside. He was happy to go wherever I put him, as long as I gave him time to limber up. He immediately talked me into shortening my legs and curling my body- he takes more leg than Penn. I'm sure he looked much better than I did! He's also a half passing machine. My first instinct is to shove the haunches (wrong) so when I'd ask for it, he'd happily lead with the haunches, just like I asked. I'd ask for for the shoulders to move over and lead in more of a shoulder-in feel and he was like, "Sure thing!" The ability to move his shoulders around, within the half pass, was AWESOME. We did one canter half pass (it didn't have much over or bend cause I'm bad at them, no fault on Pig!), and I could feel him saying at the end, "Would you like a flying change?" I opted for no, since I know he can be expressive and I don't want to mess them up! He is so polite, I loved riding him!

I can't say I saw much of Austen riding Penn, cause I was like, "OMG GUINNESS LOOK WHAT I CAN MAKE YOU DO!!!" but Austen tried a change and he gave her one too!

Me trying to get Guinness to bend his head around so I can get a pic of his face.
He just says "Whhhhyyyyyy"

Two other girls showed up at the indoor for our trail ride, so we swapped back and off we went! Austen's huskies are awesome trail dogs. They make me wish I had a dog to take trail riding. I would probably go a lot more often.

This is a really really really pretty place!

Penn learned about creek crossings on this ride... we did 6 of them? I donno, but he wasn't about to get his feet wet, lol. He stopped and really looked at the first one. I gave him his head and kept pushing forward and I grabbed the grab strap on the front of my saddle. First time I've used it to help me stay on! He jumped the creek since it wasn't wide, and I praised him for going anyway. The next crossing was wider, and he jumped the whole thing again... but it had a nice beach in on the other side so I made him walk in. He then proceeded to lower his shoulders and play with the water with his face, so I kicked him up again and was like, "No rolling!!!" There was one wide crossing where he couldn't jump across (he tried), and was very surprised when he landed in the water so he tried to run out... I'm that horrible horse and rider on the trail that has no steering or brakes or anything near water. I laughed though, he made a big splash jumping in like that.

Following Guinness a bit too close.
I think I need to get him an every day bonnet that is not bright orange.

He almost dumped me on the very last one- the creek kind of split and it was two narrow strips of water with a tiny strip of ground in between (I imagine it isn't there if the water is up at all). I thought he would try to jump the whole thing, or jump and run... Nope, he jumped and bounced it. Oops, I wasn't expecting that so the second leap caught me off guard. He stayed straight though and I held on to mane until he stopped.

The trails were so beautiful and so well maintained!

The trails are maintained by EPIC, and they're Equine Only trails- no ATVs, motorcycles, bikes, walkers, etc. They are spectacular and I wish we had them at home! I absolutely need to come back and visit again.

We had some cheese and crackers and bubbly after the horses were put away while we watched people ride in the indoor (Penn probably needed a rest anyway after our long trail ride, he was dragging by the end!).

Had to bring our baby self to the very fancy wash stall.

Sadly the weekend had to come to an end and Penn and I had to go home :-( I had an awesome time meeting Emma, visiting Austen, and spending the weekend!

All tired coming home.

Labor Day Fun, Part 1: 9/4/2016 Loch Moy II

This past weekend, I packed up Penn and took him to a show all by myself (just the packing up/driving out and driving home/unpacking bits, the rest of the time I was hanging out with Austen!). It's the first time I've taken a horse so far by myself- I did the drive to the show in about 4.5 hours and then drive home from Austen's barn in a little less than 5 hours. Audible was my best friend on those drives! I've found my driving companion (when Husband can't go with me). It was really nice to make the drives by myself and stop only when I wanted (not that Husband makes a ton of stops), and then was able to completely unpack and clean the trailer without worrying about the needs of another person (aka Husband who usually needs to get home ASAP to go to bed so he can get up normal time for work the next day).

Saturday:
Anyway, we had a gorgeous weekend despite the tropical storm that threatened the show area. I left a little later than I wanted to Saturday morning, but it was all good. Penn loaded right up and off we went! I got him all unpacked at the show just in time for Austen to come back from her second ride, and to meet Emma, who is super cool!

I hopped on Penn for a quick school since the Saturday show had ended. I got to use the actual arena (yay for two separate shows in one weekend!), and he was really super. Some lookyness, but he generally got down to business. My last ride before leaving for the show was Thursday, and he was a spooky, looky bastard that kept jumping out of his skin and shooting sideways at normal barn activity: sweeping with a broom, crossties clanking, someone grooming their horse, someone riding their horse outside (we were in because the outdoor was very hard and I didn't want to abuse him right before the weekend). He got on task quickly, so I was happy. Nothing ground breaking, just ran through the things I work on in warm up, did the 1-3 10m trot circle work several times, a couple 1-3 zig zags, and then ran through all the canter work in 1-3. He had some interesting moments in the canter one loops- he'd come across X in the counter canter and would give me a couple strides with extra jump, like he was saying, "Did you want something else here? Or should I stay the same?" Just put a pin in that thought process Penn. We'll come back to it. ;-)

I showed him rings 2 and 3, thinking those were the rings we would be in the next day... oops, it was 1 and 3. Oh well. We be-bopped down at the arena with Austen and Emma, then went on a diversion to a small water complex on the XC course that was just a hair out of the way back to stabling. Penn had a good hard look, stepped in some mud, and thought that was close enough! That's not the time to press his water issue, so he got a pat for sniffing the edge and got to walk away. We put ponies away for the night and went off to dinner!

Sunday:
Penn started off the day well when he showed very little interest in his grain. Ugh. He does this sometimes, and I don't like it. He's been better lately, but it's disheartening to see him go off his grain again. It took him ALL DAY to eat it.

Two very good boys!

Austen and I visited the show photographer and the office, then went back up to take care of ponies. Guinness went for a walk, Penn got braided and then went for a short walk and graze before I had to get ready for my first test. I didn't plan well enough, I got on 15 min before my test and got down to the ring with 1.5 rides to go before I was up. Penn was still feeling good, so I ran him through our show warm up without too many hitches. He did decide that leg yields were for fools though- those were absolutely weak all around, all day long.

It's a long nice walk to the show ring from stabling. We did trot some of it!

But off we went for 1-2:

On my courtesy lap, Penn had a look at the stuff behind the judge's stand, so I did some walk leg yields across the short side to get him focusing up there. He responded, and all was well! I did a couple in trot down the long side for a touch of focus in the trot. I started the test off with an oops and realized much too late to fix it- I rode the first diagonal MXK instead of M-V. I didn't know how that would get scored, but I ended up with an error on that movement. The leg yields were weak. I was really happy with the canter lengthenings and transitions back to working canter- lesson stuck with us and he had much more power in them and was smoother coming back. Overall, I was really happy with the test, and I was pleased with myself for riding a much more accurate test (error aside) than I have in the past. I've been studying my geometry, and now that Penn carries himself more, I can really use my corners and plan the geometry.

69.063% - first out of six

So this test had a bit of drama to the scoring- I'm glad I went down immediately after putting Penn away. They had the scores up, and I had a 65.313% for second place, and I was a little disappointed because the test felt really good and very on par with the previous weekend. I went and got the paper and glanced down the typed list of scores first (they type the scores into a computer which prints out a paper with the final percent)... and thank goodness because I noticed that for movement 17 (lengthen stride in canter) I got a 0.5. I was like, WTF? Nothing I did was anywhere near that bad, so I immediately flipped to that movement on the test paper, where it was marked a 6.5. I flew back to scoring (not that I went far!), and was like, "I found an error!" They immediately stopped handing out tests and recalculated. Not only was I missing 6 points in the typo, the movement was a double coefficient so I was actually missing 12 points. After fixing the error, I was in first place with a 69.063% . They had to call back the person who collected the first place ribbon because my new score beat theirs, which sucked for them!

We had a couple hours between tests, then I saddled back up for 1-3. Penn didn't really want to play dressage pony again. He did a lot more chomping on the bit in warm up, and was over-reactive to my leg. I had to scrap the walking bits of my warm up and shift right into canter because that got Penn moving and working with me. I went back to trot where he tried to blow through me when I'd ask for leg yields. He was also notably lookier than he was that morning. They were dismantling one of the show rings (while tests were running in the other two!) and everyone in general was packing up. Maybe that was the cause of his distraction, but we did not have the smooth test I wanted. He never really unlocked his back, so I was a bit tense, so I couldn't follow his trot properly. I knew it as soon as I started trotting him- we were in salvage mode.

Huge shout out to Lauren and Austen for the videos, btw! It's always nice to have them! Second shout out to Austen who figured out how to take pics on my phone while the phone was videoing (did not know it could do that).

Penn started off his courtesy lap in a tense trot, so I walked. The trot was not helping his cause at this point, and if he was going to be looky, the canter wouldn't either. Well he stopped and gawked at the people, concession stand... and then the judge and photographer once he got walking again. I did a ton of back and forth leg yielding in walk to attempt to focus him... It kind of helped, but the judge took forever to write her comments down and Penn needed to get moving again.

He gawked from X to the diagonal, which didn't set the diagonal off to a good start. Leg yields continued being shitty, stretch trot was hurried since he wasn't relaxing, and the trot circles and halt suffered. Basically all the trot work suffered. The walk was a bit redeeming, the canter right brought in the points (yay for one loops being his strong suit and balancing point and double coefficients), and the canter left brought in a few less points than the right. Still happy with those canter lengthenings and transitions- they could have been better, but they were better than they were before! The final trot was a struggle and I lost his haunches in the turn up centerline again. I was proud that I managed to keep the geometry fairly good though!

67.941% - second out of four

Can I just say, what a snarky bitchy comment she wrote in the collectives? Can she not see how gawky and looky he was in the trot? Of course I'm not letting that trot out to free fall and spiral out of control. And yes, it sucks to sit it because Penn isn't giving me much to sit. But if I was sucking at sitting the trot, more than half of the riders at this show had no business sitting either! Those weren't the only snarky comments that got handed out this weekend though... Her comments still irritate me since she gave me good scores, then ripped me a new one for the sitting trot. Maybe I should be pushing him up and forward even when he's looky, geometry be damned. But I feel like a show is not the place to do it... I do that at home and half the time he counterbends and inverts and throws his shoulders around. Would she rather see that? No. I also think she was totally off base with the free walk. She said "rider restricting stretch" and I don't see it. Maybe I'm blind, but what I see is a horse not stretching and not meeting the bridle... and you don't get free walk by throwing the reins away. Maybe towards the end he stretched and I restricted, but majority of it I was struggling for stretch. I probably should have posted my lengthening trots and I usually do, except we practiced sitting them this week and I get a more uphill and less runny, if conservative, lengthen. I do understand the judge is only looking at a snapshot in time, but still, I don't think her comments at the end are appropriate.

I was still pretty happy that a test with that many flub moments got a 67.941%. And how rocking are his one loops??? We'll work on things, and it will get better.

It was a good test!

Austen and I took our good old time getting out of the show grounds (come on, there was fake apple juice to drink and photos to buy, which I'll have in about 2 weeks), and the show office eventually called us and was like, "we can't leave til you do." Oops. Well we only had to go over to Austen's barn 20 minutes away (no worries, a safe amount of time had passed after the consumption of apple juice), cause Penn and I were spending one more night away from home!

Umm, this apple juice is not safe for kids!

And of course I still needed to take some pictures of the barns!

XC table lounging, cause that's how Austen rolls!

No stabling is complete without huskies!

Guinness started walking Austen and Penn home.

"Mom is over there!"

I eventually remembered to get a pic of the ribbons... but not of them on the horse!

I'll let Austen tell her own story, but horse showing with her is THE BEST!

Lesson 8/30

This is a bit late since it was a week ago, but I just didn't have time to get it posted. At this point, it's more about recording it for future reference than editing properly, sorry!

Look, it's a theory picture.

I have to say, I found lesson this week a little discouraging. It wasn't bad by any means. We chatted about weak spots from the show and went to work on canter and trot lengthenings and the transitions between them. It's just we picked apart so many things and good isn't good enough, and I struggled because I'm so crooked to the left. Trainer assured me it's picking at the difference between good great/excellent, but I can't help but feel discouraged because I felt like I struggled SO BADLY. And it's because I'm crooked.

We did our walk zig zags and hopped into the canter right. I did a couple one loops, and Trainer got after me for being too heavy in my left rein. She had me put him on a circle, collect the canter on a spiral in, then punch it out to a lengthened/medium canter on a big circle. Then when I asked him to collect the canter, it had to be NOW and I had to spiral in.

To the right wasn't bad, my crookedness helps me this way, which is probably why Penn is stronger to the right.

To the left. OMG the struggle is so real.

This is not a struggle. This is adorable and cuddly and wonderful.

I kept losing the right hind. I kept being crooked and throwing myself off one side of my horse. My left leg contracted. We did halt, rein back, walk forward a little, halt, rein back, walk forward a little, repeat, canter. Do not throw my shoulders forward into the canter, do not lose the right hind, stretch my inside leg down. Even more collected. Don't lose the rhythm of the canter and don't lose the motion of the canter with my left hand. Too much left hand. Too much blocking with the left hand. MORE FORWARD into the lengthening. MORE COLLECTED RIGHT NOW into the collected work. LEFT LEG DOWN. Cry. Repeat.

We took a break after some progress since Penn and I were both turning to jelly.

Off to the trot. We did the left first because it's tough and we didn't have much steam left in us. Same exercise, just in trot.

This is where we really attached my position. Trainer had me stretch my left leg down, pull my elbows down into my sides, stretch my neck up. I felt so crooked, and Penn felt so crooked, but apparently we were actually straight. Ugh. But, I can absolutely tell a difference in his gaits when he's actually straight. It's worth the effort to fix (doh).

The right was better- I got several great lengthening/almost medium trots on the circle. I was still feeling bummed, but Trainer assured me this is something I can easily work on in the next few weeks and it'll be a ton better by championships.

She also told me to set up a chute using poles to work on squaring up the halts at X between the two 10m trot circles in 1-3. I worked on that on my own Thursday in what was a horrible horrible ride.

Great feelings coming in to the show this weekend! I swear, this lesson was actually helpful, no matter how discouraged I seem to feel. Next few posts, the AWESOME weekend we had!

One Year of Penn

What does one year of Penn look like?

We're starting off with ribbons and scores and things, because that's how I gauge my own training and progress!

Penn's "textile trophy" collection, according to my husband.
I'm going to need a bigger wall.

• 3 Levels
• 32 tests (2 Intro, 17 Training, 13 First)
• 6 Championships
• 11 Firsts
• 7 Seconds
• 3 Thirds
• 4 Fourths
• 5 Fifths
• 1 Eighth
• Out of the ribbons once (9th place)
• Out of the top 5 twice (second show)

I want to mention two things:

• One, he's been in the top three 65.6% of the time, and he's been in some large classes. He usually won all the small classes he was in, but he's won them on 68%+ scores, so I feel like he probably would have won or been close to the top in those anyway.
• Two, there were 11 Level or Test championships up for grabs at the shows we went to, and Penn won 6 of them. There were some 'unofficial' awards too: He was the high score of the day at two schooling shows. He was also First Level Champion and Reserve Overall High Score of the day at one of the recognized shows that didn't offer championship ribbons (I asked about it, they said they stopped doing it because people wouldn't hang around for the awards). I feel like those are incredible, yet unofficial since there were no actual awards, achievements that are worth noting.

This is what 32 tests look like.
Yes, I've kept them all! They live in the filing cabinet for proof for the insurance company.

Just like Centerline Scores! However, because I'm nerdy, I broke out Schooling and Recognized too in order to see if there really is a difference between scores in the long run.

• Scores below 60%: 5
• Scores 60-64.999%: 13
• Scores 65-69.999%: 12
• Scores above 70%: 2

He's been a pretty solid competition horse. His average is hovering right around 64.7%, which isn't bad at all! He started out a bit looky, became solid in public, and right now is in a looky phase again, which is too bad for our current comparison.

Of course it's not all about ribbons and scores. How has he changed physically?

8/23/2015 - First show.

8/28/2016 - Right at home at a show.
(btw, you all are going to see this picture a TON. I am in love with it!)

8/17/2015 - Nomming hay at home.

8/28/2016 - Seriously, where did my gangly baby horse go?!?!

8/11/2016 - The day I met him.

November 2015 - Pictures for his coggins.

8/28/2016 - So much bulk!!

8/23/2015 - First show.

8/28/2016 - Most recent show.

8/23/2015 - First show.

8/28/2016 - Most recent show.

Plus, he canters now!

Then of course there's the video, but I made gif's for easy viewing, then wrote links for the videos so you can parooze at your leisure if you want. It's incredible how far he's come in just a year!

I-B and 1-3 just happen to follow similar patterns, so this worked out well for compare gifs!

First up is the trot from X.

Next is the Medium walk.

I-B doesn't canter, so I pulled a clip from one of his first Training level tests.

Link to Full Video, First show, Intro B, 62.500%
Link to Full Video, Most recent show, First 3, 70.441%

I'm blown away by the changes in one year, and his accomplishments in one year. He's really a joy to work with, even on his bad days. He has far exceeded my expectations! I'm looking forward to what the next year bring!