11/17/2018 - Diagnosing Penn, Part 2

We didn’t have any luck finding Penn’s feed at Tractor Supply Friday night and had resolved to go to one of the big feed stores after my lesson.

In his own dry lot.

We had a lovely ride with GP Trainer’s second assistant trainer (GP Trainer was off teaching a clinic). Penn felt great! He did take some NQR steps tracking right at the trot, but settled right into sound trot steps to the left.

The assistant trainer addressed some of the issues we’d been having: I didn’t want to touch the inside rein because that’s “not correct” but I’d lost the lateral flexion at the poll and Penn just wanted to put his nose to the outside, despite all of my inside leg being on and his neck being shifted in:

Link to YouTube

Using both the inside rein and inside leg, she had me think about flexion and bend as two different things (because they are) and overdo the lateral flexion and bend in a “bend, more, most” 3 step process. At that point I’d also use a bit more inside leg in a ‘lift the belly’ type motion to encourage him to bring his back up. I'd hold the "most" for a few steps, then release the inside rein. Repeat as often as needed. Doing this will cause him to fall out the outside shoulder, but that doesn't matter too much. He wanted to fall out more tracking right, so I kept enough outside aids on to keep him on the circle. Even though we're using an awful lot of inside rein, I still can't just pull or hang on it- she had me rolling my inside hand and being super sloppy with it to encourage him to bring his nose in.

Link to YouTube

As he became more flexible with that and started losing the outside shoulder on the circle, she had me keep him straighter by blocking the outside shoulder. It was really nice, he suppled and eventually I didn’t need my inside rein to remind him anymore. We did that in both walk and trot, and she carefully timed my 2 minutes of trot each direction (she is currently doing the same drill with her horse and also wears an event watch to keep track!).

The next two videos are just bend, more, most on the circle at the trot. The one to the right has some general NQR steps, but the left looks a little better with a weird step every now and then.

Link to YouTube

Link to YouTube

We finished with some leg yields from the wall to some distance in, to back to the wall. They started out as straight, fly sideways, fly the other way, straight. She had me keep careful control over the shoulders and force him to take straight ahead steps before SLOWLY going back to the wall. If we didn’t make it back to the wall, so be it. The shoulder control was the important part. They were allowed to be a bit sloppy (not straight nose to tail) because this is building on the bend, more most idea and just keeping control of the shoulder.

The second two are leg yield exercises in the walk and trot from the wall to the quarterline. Sorry they aren't more edited down, I just didn't have time to pick them apart and do the edits!

Link to YouTube

Link to YouTube

It was a really great lesson and was very productive. I fear it’s the last lesson I’ll ever have on him. :( I’m sure most of you know where that’s going. But that’s another post that's coming.

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We went to GP Trainer's massive local feed store- it's more like a mega feed store that's also a tack shop to rival Dover in available products plus sells expensive hunt club home decor. Mom and I paroozed the entire place, but of course I didn't take pictures! What the heck, I'm not good at this.

They were having a sale on Charles Owen helmets, and I've never tried one on, so I grabbed a very sparkly one (gray/black sparkles I think), and I loved it. It fit great and looked great. Then I looked at the price tag. Over $400! I can't even figure out which one it was by looking online. But I do know that they fit my head well, and also have the right profile for my head. Good to know for when I need to replace my OneK!

We ended up not finding his exact grain (Purina Impact Performance) in the product list, and the staff was wonderful in helping me find something similar based on an online label. I was afraid to buy him a brand new feed for only 4 feedings, so I got him a bag of alfalfa pellets thinking he’d like them. Uhhh, you can guess how that worked out!

Safely tucked into GP Trainer's!

So thank all the lucky stars that we opted to do an MRI, and GP Trainer was willing to keep Penn and my trailer… As mom and I were headed home on Saturday, the truck gave a “CHECK BRAKE SYSTEM” error message.

You might be thinking, “But wait? Didn’t you already lose your brakes in this truck and have them replaced on the fly in Ohio when Mikey was having hock surgery to try and save his soundness?”

Ok, so you might not be thinking that exactly. BUT WHY THE F DOES MY TRUCK FEEL THE NEED TO LOSE ITS BRAKES EVERY TIME THERE’S SOMETHING MAJOR WRONG WITH THE HORSE?!

Ahem.

We got ourselves stopped right away on the side of the PA Turnpike. I tried the Torque phone app with the computer/Bluetooth plug in with no results, though I can’t say I tried very hard when I was panicking on the side of the highway. I called Husband to let him know there was a problem, and we would need rescuing at some point. Luckily (if there is something lucky about this besides we didn’t have the trailer and horse with us), we had stopped right in front of a sign that said “Rest Stop 2 Miles”. Wonderful. I figured I had enough brakes left to go 45 mph with my flashers on and limp to the rest stop where I felt safe popping the hood and looking at my brake fluid.

Did you know when you go 45 mph in a 70 zone with your flashers on, people and 18 wheelers avoid you like the plague? It’s my new favorite way of traveling!

Anywho, I used 3rd, 2nd and low gears to get myself slowed down on the exit ramp, and used the brakes to fully stop in an empty part of the parking lot. Sure enough, I had no brake fluid going to the rear brakes anymore, we only had some going to the front.

Front bucket is for the rear brakes. No fluid!

Rear bucket is for the front brakes. Found what's left of my fluid!

Did you know you have to call *11 for the Emergency Services on the Turnpike, who will then tow you to the next exit, unload you, then you can call AAA to save the day? I didn't. I do now!

Luckily, the rest stop was 2 miles from the next exit, there was a good parking lot nearby to drop us off, and the tow was free because it was under 3 miles. The driver was also there in record time- 30 min! Mom and I barely had time to use the bathroom, get something for dinner, and make our calls before he showed up.

The driver tried to get his dispatcher to let him take us all the way to our proper exit (since AAA was going to call them anyway to tow me there), but the company was short staffed and couldn’t send him 60 miles out of his service area. He would have charged us his company’s rate for towing, instead of the $4 a mile that AAA would charge.

Getting picked up at the Turnpike rest stop.

Husband met mom and me at the Turnpike exit and reviewed the brake lines while we waited for the AAA tow to arrive. The lines that were replaced in Feb 2015 were still solid, albeit rusty (they shouldn’t be since the lines were supposed to be stainless…). The problem was, the shop that did my original line replacement only replaced the main lines that had been previously spliced. They did not replace the lines that go to each wheel. Husband found that out a few months ago and was going to replace them himself in the spring with some new tools he got for his tractor project… whups, not doing that! The passenger rear line developed a hole and was streaming brake fluid all over the parking lot.

The AAA tow truck showed up fairly quickly, and we followed it to the shop where we decided to drop the truck off at… without telling the shop of course! They’re only open M-F, and there’s no emergency number. Husband left them an envelope with a laundry list of things: Brakes (doh), wheel bearing check (we think the passenger front is bad), speedometer (Who needs this to work properly? I don’t. I always end up pulling the trailer at whatever speed feels comfortable… which is usually 5-15mph below the posted limit), and then do an inspection because that’s due in December.

Oh, that’s not the end of course! Stay tuned for more…

Since Champs

Ok, so what have we been up to since Championships?

More on this below!

I spent the first two weeks after championships trying to resolve all the bad feelings I've had about being able to school myself, while also feeling very lost without a short term goal. I still haven't totally resolved those bad feelings, but I suspect they'll come and go in the next few months. Since we didn't make it to Finals, show season was a wrap, which left me a bit directionless. Though, I think everyone wanted/needed a break.

I decided to take some regularly scheduled lessons with Dressage Trainer while I'm in trailering limbo (can't go see GP Trainer without a functional truck!). Of course this hasn't panned out yet- she's out every other Saturday, but I missed the first Saturday because I was doing a road rally with Husband, and then the next time had to be changed from Saturday to Wednesday, but I had other plans that day too. I need some structure in my riding again, and I miss having lessons every other week like I was used to with Event Trainer. I did get some really great lessons though, from an unexpected source! More on that in the next post. ;)

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A week after its hauling disaster, the truck was given a non-diagnosis from the dealership we had it towed to (PISSED). They basically said they could not reproduce the problem and offered us an engine rebuild for $3700, plus the cost of whatever parts they find out are bad. Uh, no. We paid the $122 for their "check" and attempted to drive the handful of miles home. We had to stop halfway through the 10 min drive home because the truck'as oil pressure had dropped to zero. We waited about 20 min, and then drove the rest of the way home (it was back to zero by the time I backed it into it's space). Husband left the dealership a bad review, and they ended up refunding us the entire $122, which is nice since we weren't any further ahead.

Husband did some research, but couldn't fix the problem with what he has available to him at our home garage. He thinks it is a bad oil pump, but we either have to take the engine out (uhh he doesn't have a lift big enough), or he has to drop the suspension and axle to get to the underside (uhh he doesn't have those capabilities at home), so off to a shop it goes. Not back to the one that handled its original "diagnosis." It's going to another shop that told us flat out that they don't repair engines, only replace them. Husband said we didn't want a replacement yet, so they offered to diagnosis for $60. We'll see what they say, but they seem more willing to talk possibilities than the original dealership.

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Anyway, on 9/24, I got my mom to come out and video one of my early morning rides because I have had zero feedback for what I'm feeling (no mirrors, eyes, or video). I ran Penn through a bunch of transitions between walk and trot and trot and canter, with the goal of him being lighter in the bridle each time. I lost some of the connection since he's so used to a heavier contact (so he didn't have true connection before). He seemed to remember being lighter from our last ride where I did that (yay!), and then I moved on to the fun stuff:

Trying to teach Penn to piaffe!

It's very much the blind leading the blind. All I have to go on is GP Trainer saying she teaches it by frustrating them in the walk until they offer piaffe as an answer. I tried to find the rhythm of the walk with my legs, lighten my seat, and tickle his haunches with the whip. I never get more than a good step or two, and nothing so far has been as good as what he offered in the above gif (which is obviously still a baby horse response and it needs more sit in the good steps and less muddled steps). I'm still happy even though he spends a good amount of time taking muddled steps- they're at least in diagonal pairs! He's getting it though. This was my third ride working on it, with basically no feedback whether he was right or not. I need some instruction before I do something wrong though. He started giving me some real sit with attempts to leap into canter towards the end of the practice, and I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, so I stopped there and haven't really revisited it since.

The next thing I worked was his counter canter. I want to do more of it since he's fairly confirmed in his changes (even if they're not always clean), since it'll make his canter better. I want to start making the turns in CC smaller too, so I mirrored the 4-3 pattern a little (10m half circle to 10m cc half circle, down the next wall, flying change halfway, repeat 10m half circle, 10m cc half circle, flying change, corner). I skipped the flying change parts in this ride (I did the middle one the other day), so that I could loop 10m half circles on the same lead, only they aren't 10m, they're more like 15m.

I ended up turning these half circles into a counter canter figure 8. Or rather, I tried to; Penn kept breaking on the left lead cc. I did manage to finish the ride with a figure 8 with straight diagonals, with cc on the round edges and flying changes near X. Super super happy with the work. His canter got much better, and his changes quieted immediately- no hopping. He did one clean one and a bunch of late behind, but it doesn't bother me. He's been clean or late up front in normal changes, so I think it's a footwork/strength problem.

I knew he had talked me into not sitting as much as GP Trainer wants, but I didn't realize how much!! I need to practice cc without perching!

Link to YouTube

If you're interested, the full 25 min of work is here. The first bit is warm up (walking, transitions), then messing with piaffe, then around the 20min mark we start the canter.

Link to YouTube

I'm looking forward to more lessons this fall!

9/14/2017 - Championships, Part 1: The Long Ass Drive

Wahoo, we've ground through the pre-championship posts in the queue, time for the big show!

Before we get there, I had one last ride before packing it up for champs. And it was horrible. Absolutely dreadful. I worked inside to use the corners and arena walls, and that might have been my biggest mistake ever.

#freakingoutoverallthethings

I had walked Penn around and was gearing up to trot and start tuning him in to my leg... when one of the horses who was in for dinner lost her ever loving mind and tried to claw up the stall wall. They got her out of the stall, but she was hell bent on leaving and leaped out into the indoor, directly in front of Penn. She was very very disturbed, and her abrupt appearance really spooked Penn. Like, legit scared him. His whole body shook with every heart beat. I could feel it in my leg and seat, and see it in his head and neck. The horse was terrified. He wouldn't go forward, he wouldn't go towards the far end of the arena, he wanted to stop and spin. He took a bunch of nervous poops where he just stood there and trembled.

I tried my best to encourage him forward into his fears, and to try and salvage a basic ride that could hopefully end with some relaxation. He did not need pony club kicked anymore. He needed to chill and turn down his turbo. He seemed to get more and more freaked out the more I tried to package him. So I stopped trying to. I sat the trot and let him trot as big as he wanted up into the bridle. And boy oh boy, he went to town. I offered him nothing except a steady rider and he just kept going and going. After a good bit of "excessive big show trot" he was finally ready to take some input and relaxed a hair. I did a little bit of canter, same idea, big big canter. He was a bit squirrely in canter (bodily out of control and he could have easily dumped me), but we got some work done.

I was horrified. He has worked much, much harder than I wanted, and none of it was what we needed to work on. The Perfect Impulse guy was out, and I told him he might need to spend a bunch more time on Penn the next day at his treatment because today was a shitshow. :(

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Thursday morning dawned rainy and hot. Irma had finally made it to my neck of the woods and brought tropical humidity with her. Fortunately, she had lost most of her rain and wind by the time she reached us!

Husband and I got to the barn right on time, got packed up right on time, and left the farm, right on time around 10:45-11:00am. The goal was to be at the show outside Cincinnati by 4pm. Ha. Hahahahaha.

My truck had other ideas.

No oil pressure means you pull over before you turn your engine into a hunk of useless metal.

About 15 min after we left, the truck's oil pressure dropped to zero. The truck did that before to Husband, but he pulled over and turned the truck off, let it sit for 5 min, then turned it back on and it was back up on pressure, no further issues.

We pulled over and turned the truck off. I texted my barn owner that shit might be hitting the fan. Husband hopped out, checked the oil level, added some since it was a hair low, but everything else seemed fine. We got the truck started again, and the pressure was normal again. We decided to keep going, and stopped for gas about 20 min later. Everything still seemed fine, so I texted BO that it seems ok, Husband is 99% sure it's an electrical gremlin and the gauge was bad (we've had other gauge problems). About 20 min after that, we were going up a long steeper hill on the way into Pittsburgh when the oil pressure dropped like a stone and the truck lost some pulling power. We managed to limp the truck to a commuter parking lot and popped the hood... and when Husband pulled the dipstick, it came out smoking.

Fuuuuuuuckkkkkkkkkkkkk.

I called barn owner immediately... but no answer, so I left a message. I then texted M (BO's daughter) and was like, "I need to get a hold of your mom, we're stranded with the trailer). Then I texted Dressage Trainer- she was heading to Championships that day too. I messaged another person I knew was going to champs. I messaged everyone I could think of as I tried to formulate plans B-Z to try and get the horse another 5-6 hours to the show. DT was already in Columbus (way far away) and once we were back on the road, one of the other ladies said she had an extra trailer spot if we were still in a jam.

While I called everyone I knew, Husband called AAA. I was actually kind of sad I didn't get to use US Rider, but we were still within an hour of the barn, and only 15 min from my house, so I didn't need to call strangers.

This horse is a fucking rock star.
He stood in the trailer without making a peep the entire time we were sitting in the parking lot.

BO was great- she called back and agreed to let us borrow her truck for the weekend. She set her stuff in order and drove out to meet us. While she did that, AAA was on the way too. So were my parents. We arranged for the truck to go to a local dealership for them to look at whenever they had time and my dad would follow it there to make sure they got the right information down. Mom drove my BO back to the farm.

It seriously took a village to get us to this show. Horse people may be a crazy breed, but they are the most helpful people too. I could not have gotten to champs without the help of a bunch of people.

This made me very, very sad.
Also, this is the biggest truck this flatbed can take, haha.

It also took us like, 10 hours. Not kidding. We left sometime around 10:45am, and arrived around 9pm I think (no earlier, for sure). The trip was supposed to take 5 hours and 30 min. We figured 6 or 7 hours since we had the trailer. Between the stops we made (the first sitting on the highway, getting gas, stopped a second time for a couple hours, stopped again for diesel for the second truck, and stopped again because we we just beat), and the sheer distance to travel (308 miles), we took enough time to get there that I could have driven to Region 1 Champs in NC. The whole point of going to Region 2 Champs was to avoid the 10-11 hour drive. Sigh.

It may be 10:00pm in this pic, but we made it!

Karen was wonderful- she was my go between to the other members of our stabling party, and she got me the combination for the tack room so I could dump all my stuff in there after everyone else left. I promise guys, I may not have met any of you yet, but I won't steal your stuff or miss locking the tack room :-) An 8am ride time meant I had to get my stuff in there the night we arrived or face an even earlier morning.

Next, a very, very early first ride.

9/4-5/2017 - Trail Riding and Lesson

Monday 9/4/2017:

Monday was turning out to be a beautiful day, but getting hot quick! Austen and I got to her barn, and I tried to see what Penn was up to- he was just chilling in his field in an apparent grass coma. Austen and I messed around with Baybuilt (a trim and a ride!), then she went over and fetched Guinness while I got Penn tacked up.

He made me walk across the entire field, then thought about running away! He was very happy out there by himself and did not want to be caught.

Penn kind of stopped eating well on this trip- he didn't eat all of his dinner, and only ate a bit of his breakfast. I know he goes off grain a bit while he's on a lot of grass, and when he's away, so I still chalked it up as normal for him because he was in a grass coma and not at home!

We had to keep the trail ride short- I needed to leave for GP Trainer's by a certain time to make it in time for her staff to be there when I arrived (I believe Monday is her day "off", aka minimal work day, and her staff is usually done by 4pm).

Penn decided to be a bit of an ass about water on our trail ride- backing up, not wanting to cross. It took us about five minutes to have a "moment" at the first creek crossing before Penn decided crossing it would be a good idea. Austen knew of another great crossing that we could walk up the creek a bit, so we went there to finish our ride:

This one was fine. It was so pretty! I wish I had it at home.
He was staring at Lyra who was hunting something from the creek.

Too soon, it was time to head back to the barn and pack up. I love visiting Austen! We always have a good time. I cannot thank her enough for being my eyes at the show and having great tips that really helped (and spending her weekend on horse show mode!), and for keeping me company after my parents called Sunday. I would have been in a really bad mindset if I had been alone.

I arrived at GP Trainer's right as her staff was finishing up for the day at 4. They showed me where to put Penn to eat his dinner, and which field he could spend the night in (the horses were on night turnout). Of course, Penn wanted no parts of his dinner.

Asshole. This is why I don't use feed pans either- both Mikey and Penn dump them.
I scooped the feed back into the pan, and the asshole grabbed the pan and dumped it a second time WHILE I was refilling it.
I just turned him out at that point and put his dinner back in a travel ziplock!

I turned him out and he was like "See ya mom!" and meandered off to investigate his neighbors and chow down on lush VA grass. I went to my hotel, had a nice dinner by myself, and went to bed early! #paintingthetownbeige

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Tuesday 9/5/2017:

I arrived for my lesson in time to massage Penn a bit before it. He really likes that phaser! He took a snooze while I massaged him. GP Trainer was super sick with some sort of plague- she taught her mom in the lesson before me, and then peaced out to go to the doctor after my lesson. I had looked on her schedule to see if she had any earlier slots available (I did want to get home ASAP after lesson), but she didn't have any earlier lessons, and no lessons for the rest of the day. I have a feeling she cancelled her schedule except for the two of us, which was nice of her to teach me anyway!

We worked in her outdoor since it's a standard size ring and I wanted to work on 1-3 concepts in the correct riding space since Championships was coming up. I told her about the weekend, (yay bronze! boo 2-3) and how I needed some hand holding because I felt inept after the 2-3 disasters.

She immediately got after me for accuracy- 10m circles and not cutting the turn right/halt/turn left stuff. ("You're a bronze medalist, ride like one!"). We looked over the halts too- she told me to stop touching him before I thought I needed to because I was pushing him out of the square halt. Then we went on to address riding the movements better, and I had some major DOH moments. I told her, "Why the hell didn't I think to ride them like this?!" She laughed and said that's why she gets paid the big bucks, lol.

We're going to put some graphics in here too.

Left: Leg yield zig zag
Middle: Right lead shallow loop
Right: Left lead shallow loop
Green is the track, blue dash is your eye.
Did you know, the only thing harder than riding a shallow loop is actually drawing one on a computer? Please forgive those horrible green shapes! I couldn't free hand it, and Excel shapes were limiting.

• Leg yield zig zag: leg yield right K-X, leg yield left X-H. Ride the shoulders down the K-X-M diagonal like you would the half pass right, but aim about 2m to the right of M. This puts you on the centerline a bit before X, so you have "plenty" of time to straighten over X (and ensures make it to X). Then when you leg yield left, aim for about 2m to the left of H so you get to H on time and are straight again at H.
• Shallow canter loops: Right lead on K-X-H and left lead on H-X-K. Look at the letter on the 3/4 diagonal (R and P in our loops), when you get towards centerline start looking to C/A, straighten on centerline, then look down the diagonal and aim slightly before H/K. Riding the loops like this ensures you make it to centerline, show more than just two straight diagonal lines, and ensures you show some counter canter.

It's magical nonsense, I tell you! Like, durrrr, how did I not think of AIMING THE MOVEMENT?! I'm sad it took me this long to learn that, and here we are, basically done with 1-3. The shallow loops are SO FUN to ride when you ride them like that. They are SO EASY to ride when you ride them like that too. So easy. I am seeing all the points I've lost in the past on the 1-3 loops AND the T-3 trot loops fly past my eyes.

I'll certainly keep that magical nonsense in the back of my head for the next ever because it will ALWAYS be applicable to basically everything else.

We worked a little bit on the simple change through trot as well. I have it down so Penn takes 2 steps of trot and off we go again. She wanted me to take 3, if only because it sometimes looks scrambled when you take so few trot steps. Guys, we royally sucked the big one here. Waiting that extra step messed us both up- he started picking up the wrong lead, or just trotting off really fast. I guess that means we've over-schooled the movement and he's anticipating.

We finished by running through 1-3, which went pretty well except he simply got tired. She finished with, you'll be great as long as you:

• Don't warm up for 35 min.
• Get his coughing under control. It's a huge problem.
• Make sure you know your test.

I told her two of the three were just fine, I normally warm up for like 15 min, and I've ridden this test at least 20 times in the past year and a half, I know it. **foreshadowing famous last words**

The coughing was a huge problem throughout lesson. He had his warm up coughs, but then would rip me out of the tack and cough up a storm in the rest of the work, to the point where it was detrimental to getting the work done.

I got on the road shortly after lesson, and made a few phone calls. Penn was scheduled to have his fall shots the next day (stupid USEF 6 month and not within 7 days of the start of a show rules made this appointment really nerve wracking if they had to cancel for an emergency). I called the vet office and asked them to have the vet bring an antihistamine with her to the barn. I didn't believe Penn was sick, I thought he had allergies. He's a seasonal cougher anyway, particularly in the fall (he came home in 2015 and a few weeks later I was almost in tears because I thought he had heaves and was doomed). They asked if I had a preferred drug choice, I said no, they're all illegal to show on, so just one that usually works fast and well.

The next call was to my barn owner to fill her in on my grandfather and the vet visit. I work for her 1-2 times a week, so I needed to tell her my schedule would be up in the air. I also told her all the things I needed for the vet, since we hit crunch time as we were 8-10 days out from the start of Championships.

Towards the end of the phone call, the sky started looking REALLY scary.

This does not do the darkness justice.

I didn't worry too much about the rain, I've hauled through it before, NBD. I take it easy and it's cool. I already drive super slow with the trailer anyway.

Nope. I ended up pulling over about 10 min after hanging up with BO. The road was no longer straight, and the rain was coming down so fast and hard that my wipers did exactly nothing to get it off the windshield. The wind was very strong too. I limped along for a little bit at 35 mph before looking for a safe place to pull over.

I watched Penn in my cameras, and originally panicked because his head bumper was wet and I thought I had a leak in the roof. No, the wind and rain were that strong that they made it into my limited screened windows and soaked his face and side. Sorry buddy :(

The rest of the trip was uneventful, just long. I got the trailer parked and unpacked in record time once we got to the farm, tossed Penn out, and went home to empty my suitcase to pack it for a trip to NJ for the funeral.

All the Recaps

ERMYGAWD TOES!!!!!!!

Ahem, now that I've hooked you with a cute kitten who is not only showing you all of his toes, but is also winking at you...

Once again, things are happening and I'm not writing. I have some kind of block- I'm running so short on time that writing just isn't on the to do list. Here's a basic review of this post so you can skip around as desired (there's a bunch of pictures too):

1. Lesson 6/30 - the details are getting hazy because I messed up and didn't write the review soon enough, and I've had some meh rides.
2. Desensitizing
3. Riding Recaps
4. Spending All the Money I Don't Have
5. Felix
6. Lesson 7/5 - this ended up REALLY good!

1. Lesson 6/30
I love Trainer. I sent her a message last Monday that I was having a problem that I was totally not comfortable fixing on my own, She came out for an ad-hoc lesson (and a couple other people jumped on the schedule, which makes it a ton easier to have her out!).

She had me get on and walk around and tell her what was going on, then go to trot. Penn was not doing his bouncing on and off the contact, except he did jump into canter a couple times for no apparent reason (I asked if I did something, she said not that she could tell). She had me canter and he was generally good. She liked how he was much more uphill than before, so the collection work is working. She asked to sit on him at that point to get a feel for exactly what buttons are no good. I've got no problem with that- he gets a professional school and I get to watch him go.

Before she even got on, she readjusted my saddle: she set it a tiny bit further back, and loosened the girth one hole. I'm all kinds of messed up on girth holes- this saddle is the same as my old one, except the billets seem shorter, yet not, and I'm still settling into what holes the girth goes on.

She said he was very jumpy off the leg. Basically, I over-sensitized him to it. She put her leg on and he went, "OK I'M GOING RIGHT! OK I'M GOING LEFT!" She said he's living in halfway land with his connection- he's almost there, but when she half halts and connects him, he connects for a second and then ducks behind the contact and essentially whines about it (the hopping). When he gets hopping, she uses hard outside leg to send him in and basically does turn on the fore type movement until he's decided to stop hopping and ready to be a gentleman again. At that point, half halt and carry on like nothing happened. She said he's resisting meeting the outside rein (his favorite trick). She said she could tell that I was getting overly handsy with him too. :-( Sorry Penn.

She had me get back on after she worked him to the left a bit. She had me abandon the better bend idea, he's not going to bend properly if he's not meeting the bridle. I dealt with a couple tantrums, shut them down, then carried on like nothing happened. It was great! The lack of bend (or even looking to the inside) irked me, but again, not the point. First we had to fix what I broke, then we can start putting the wheels back on the bus.

Things to do:

• Keep the lines of communication working in my fingers- my hands tend to lock up and go stale and become a brick wall. I need to keep flexing my fingers as we go.
• I also need to half halt approximately every step.
• Open my inside rein when asking for canter.
• Canter on a circle, spiral in, then spiral out in this pattern: two steps out, one step back in, two steps out, one step back in

Basically, I got overzealous in working him and blew his brain, but he kept trying until he just couldn't. He also wasn't helping in that he was having tantrums when I was quiet again. We each had some fault, but it's of course mine because he wouldn't be having tantrums if I wasn't going crazy on him!


2. Desensitizing
This was probably the highlight of my weekend. I had a great time. Some of the ladies at the barn do obstacle trail, and they were out and about practicing on Saturday. They have: a bridge, tarp, hula hoop, snow sled drag, rope gate, and they had zig zag back up poles out. I don't know if they had anything else, I didn't get that far. I was more interested in the tarp and the bridge.

Penn is looking cute. At least he didn't look ridiculous in this picture.

When I have Penn out and about, he doesn't deal well with footing changes (ie puddles, soft ground, water crossing). Working with the tarp and bridge really appealed to me because those are footing changes. (by the way, I didn't ride him over anything, we did in hand work)

I anticipated a fight, so I had the chain on his lead rope, ready to go, gloves, and a dressage whip. I started by reaffirming Penn's forward motion. I stop, he stops. I walk on, he walks on. He was a half beat late to coming with me, so I tapped him with the whip. Stop, walk. He started promptly moving off with me, so off we went to the bridge.

He sniffed it, touched it, then willingly stepped on it. Like a freaking dunce. So maybe we need to work on terrain changes, because he kept stabbing his toes into this poor plywood bridge. I was certain he was going to put a foot though it. He wasn't taking light steps either. He was like "BOOM BOOM BOOM" as he walked across it. He never said no to it, but he did go around a couple times. As soon as I got him straight, he went across, NBD. BTW we were walking across the length of it, not the short side like the above picture suggests. When we walked across the short side, he just stepped over the whole damn thing.

We moved on to the tarp, which he sniffed, pawed, and walked across, before trotting off of it. I brought him back around until he would walk off of it.

No reaction to the tarp.

We repeated both the bridge and tarp, then went off to have a  meh ride... One of the ladies was interested in seeing if her mare would walk over the bridge later in the day, so we ended up pulling all the stuff back out and a bunch of us had a grand old time playing with our horses and scary things.

Penn has zero excuses to be spooky. Zero.

• He walked across the tarp and bridge with zero concern.
• He let me: drag the tarp across the ground in front of him, roll/bunch it up and feed it over his back, take a bunch of pics of him standing by himself, and snap and wave the tarp in front of him.
• He also walked and trotted while wearing the tarp like a blanket, then didn't panic when he stepped on a low hanging part and it dragged off his rump.
• He let me put the tarp on his head and over his eyes.
• He let me take a hula hoop (that when shaken makes rattle noises), shake it next to him on both sides, over his back, over his head, and put it around his neck (that was a little concerning for him because he couldn't figure out how to get away from it once he started walking).
• He "dragged" the sled (I held it's rope by his face and walked him).

His ears stayed just like that as I dragged the tarp around and pushed it over him. Not even a flick.

I was so proud of him. He was either looking out the arena doors or standing there with his ears pointed to the side, head down (that was while I was waving and flapping the tarp in front of his face). He then proceeded to be looky in the wash stall. Sigh. I'm still proud of him


3. Ride Recaps (one trail, two arena)
Friday night, I got to trail ride with Hawk and a couple of the trail riding ladies at the barn. We did a short ride to the hay fields and back due to an impending thunderstorm that ended up missing us, but we still got sprinkled on. At least it didn't downpour on us! Penn was a gem and led the whole way on a long rein. I'm so glad we got to do something fun with everyone! Penn and I both needed to get out of the ring.

"Look! Hell isn't raining down over there."

I tried to replicate my lesson in my rides on Saturday and Monday, and Saturday was OK- I was able to ride without Penn having any tantrums. He met the bridle well, but wasn't connected enough in the canter- he was in almost-there-land. He was still looking to the outside too much.

Monday was bleh. No tantrums, so that's good, but now he's starting to giraffe and stare again. Like, really badly. Like, how on earth did I manage to qualify for championships bad. I actually pulled him up on Monday and growled at him because I was so frustrated. I didn't want to pressure him into anything, I didn't want to get handsy on him, but I didn't want to be a wall either. I eventually settled for a semi wall while tracking to the right- I opened my inside rein to make him look to the right, I pushed him to the outside rein, and gave him the mother of all half halts- varying from inside leg to outside rein and outside leg to outside rein. I kept each set of fingers working. I made him trot and canter like that. He finally connected and got some pushing power from behind. Definitely too low in the poll and too deep, but he was just so locked in the jaw and unfocused before that point. I was not a happy camper.


4. Spending All the Money I Don't Have
For some reason, I'm losing all control on my horse spending habits. I was so good for so long. Things just need to be purchased!

• Penn needed a good snaffle bridle. I didn't have a noseband that he could wear, so FFE bridle. I don't regret it. I love that bridle!
• Penn has suddenly started marking up his legs again- badly. He's missing dime sized clumps of hair from 3 out of 4 legs (in the exact same spot- right on the fetlock joint), and one of them was oozing nicely the other day. I'm back on the hunt for turnout boots. This time around, I'm not going to cheap route. I'm going the route I originally wanted to take- buy expensive XC boots. Except, I opted to buy the DSB version instead because it was slightly cheaper and I don't need the strike plate on the back of the tendon, I need it over the splint. I ordered the Majyk Equipe Infinity Series Sport/Dressage Boot from Riding Warehouse- they should be here Thursday. I found excellent reviews where you can actually see daylight through the pin holes in the inner foam. I'm really hoping Penn doesn't have a reaction to the hypoallergenic foam, and that the breath ability is just as described!
• I bought truck tires. $771. At least I'll get 3% back from my CC company. This had to happen before we drive the 8+ hours to championships. My truck's tires are not in shape for a trip like that. I figured I'd jump on it now because my trailer needs to be inspected, and the guy who does that is super reasonable in pricing when it comes to tire swapping/balancing/disposal. I may as well have both done at the same time!
• I really want the Fly Turtle for Penn. He is shredding his Mio Flysheet- there are so many holes in it. I'll certainly try to mend them, but I'm curious if Blanket-Monster-Penn will rip this one. It has a year guarantee... while that's only a year, it's a lot more time than the Mio flysheet lasted. The Mio lasted one night before it had holes.
• I want this Horze saddle pad, in Navy. I have it in silver- I got it when I ordered my new saddle. Unfortunately, my tack shop doesn't have it (where I could get a steep discount on it), and I'm not ready to shell out $47 plus shipping. I really like it- I love the square corner, the stitching, it fits under my saddle, and the grippy bits under the saddle. I'd like to put the navy one in the saddle pad rotation that seems to only be the black Dover dressage pad, very rarely my navy BOT pad (I haven't used that one in a month or more- I should sell it), and the silver version that I usually use for lessons only. It makes me want the white version for shows too. #allthecolors #exceptpink
• Oh yea, Penn's insurance is due in August. But first I need to figure out a new value for him, because it's not his purchase price anymore.

Want, want, want. There are very few needs in that list (bridle to ride horse in, boots to prevent horse from laming himself, truck tires to make sure I don't kill horse and myself while hauling, insurance on said horse because he's young and getting fancy and I couldn't even hope to replace him).

Kitty snuggles.

5. Felix
Felix continues to be cute AF. He prances like a cartoon pony. He carries toys around in his mouth, while prancing. He particularly likes toys with tails- he holds it by the tail and jiggles the rest of the toy in front of him as he fancy prances. He is a cuddly love bug and Sophie has finally allowed him to snuggle with her. Penny doesn't hiss at him any more, and she's even gotten in on the run and chase games he and Sophie play. She even tolerated him sitting next to her.

Tolerance at it's best.
"Do you see what I have to put up with?"
Penny was also miffed because Sophie was in the top  shelf of the cat tree, which is Penny's, and was disinclined to move.

Sophie and Felix are going to be snuggle buddies for a long time.

I was going to put last night's lesson on here, except it was fabulous and needs its own post!

Trailer Upgrades!

Since I have the best husband ever, he upgraded my truck and made additions to my trailer back in January. The week he worked on the trailer just happened to be the coldest week of January. Oops.

First off, I had to empty my entire trailer for husband to do the work. This also meant de-stink-bugging everything (I must have pulled hundreds out of my stuff).

Copious amounts of stuff. (not pictured: water jugs, broom, pitchfork, standing saddle rack...)
How did it all fit in a 4'x6' tack room? (a couple items go in the horse compartment)

After Husband finished the trailer, I had to sort through it all and decide what was going back in... obviously the muck cart, pitchfork, brooms, trunk went back in. Things like: hunt breastplate with standing martingale attachment, XC boots, never used open front boots, and XC crash vest were sent to the horsey boxes in the basement for storage. Things like my horsey medical supplies needed condensed and sorted. Broken and empty bottles needed to be thrown out, same with broken halters and torn blanket bags. My super awesome rain coat was sent to the closet because it fills with stink bugs in my trailer and so I refuse to wear it.

One complete set of jump stuff (saddle, bridle, 5-point breastplate, SMBs, ankle boots) remains in the trailer for trail riding.
There are two additional bridle hooks next to the door, I just didn't take a picture of them.

The horse compartment. No worries, everything is securely bungeed and ratcheted in!
Fuzzy edges due to it being a sunny day reflecting on snow after Snowstorm Jonas.

Ok, on to the improvements! (come on, a clean and tidy trailer is an improvement right?)

Who could forget when Husband messaged me and said my tackroom door fell off?

With all of the in and out of the tackroom in frigid temps, the hanging-on-by-a-thread door fell off. It had been allowed to slam open in a previous life, which meant the hinges pulled the screws mostly out of the framing, it hung crooked (and closed hard). Husband made a new oak frame (shown above) to replace the rotten one. He added some metal edging where the door had lost its original.

Bam! The door hangs straight and closes easily with its new insides!

The next major upgrade? New radio system for the truck. We have trailer cams, and I used to use a screen with an ethernet cable that ran out the door to a phone jack on the bumper. Now it's all built into the truck! He also added a camera to the back of the trailer so we can back up in the dark without hitting anything (and stare at tailgaters), and then he added a back up camera to the truck to make it easier to hook up.

The screen turns on automatically when the truck is put in reverse. The big red button is an override so we can look at the cameras while traveling forward. The little black buttons are toggles and then direct buttons for each camera. This taped on system is going to go away in the next few weeks- husband is ordering a custom face plate for the empty cubby behind the buttons so the buttons are locked in place (and so it looks nicer).

Another good thing is the loss of the ethernet cable and phone jack at the bumper:

Real plugs!

So the big plug closer to the hitch is the electric, but the smaller plug to the left is for the cameras in the trailer and the one behind the trailer! You can also see the truck's back up camera attached to the top of the license plate.

New radio system all lit up (coming home from the last show). It's Penn radio!

Now for photographic proof of just how bright it is inside the trailer, mostly thanks to two truck batteries in the tackroom (which Husband charged the piss out of and they seem to be back in good working shape!). When not hooked up to the truck, I can use them to create an electrical current the same as what's in your house to light up curly cue light bulbs (which are protected from horses by metal cages). Husband also replaced the small, not-as-bright, trailer lights with LED so they used less power.

All the lights on. Every light in and on the trailer. Obnoxious, haha.

Husband replaced the ramp light with a super bright LED flood light.
Now I think this is a welcoming box for the horse to climb into in the dark!

Tack room- filthy from a day of muddy parking.

Lighting improvements:

Look! I can see the hitch in the dark to unhook!

LED flood lights point backwards to allow for night time tying to the trailer (something I haven't done since 4H!), nighttime packing (I used them to pack for the last horse show since I packed in the dark!), or help in seeing what's behind you when backing up in the dark. They automatically go on when the truck is put in reverse (only when the truck lights are on). There are also toggle switches in the tackroom for when it's not hooked up to the truck.

View from behind the trailer with the lights on.

A more normal view of what it would look like without all the other lights on, haha.

The other thing he added were the orange tag lights you see by the wheel wells.
There are 4- one on each end of the wheel wells.

Husband did a good job!

Back to Work

I am finally feeling better, but I haven't ridden Penn yet. It takes a lot for me not to ride- but not being able to breathe is enough!

I long lined him Friday night... I also had to put him back in his place in the cross ties. I don't tolerate fidgeting and moving and pressure on the ties. I just don't. I find it dangerous and rude and annoying. He had almost a whole week of no rules other than behave walking into and out of the field, so he got a quick reminder that he needed to stand quietly. He then proceeded to look like a sad puppy... because he really is just a big puppy!

Anyway, we long lined Friday and I'm making good progress with the canter. Trainer wanted me to apply strong half halts under saddle when the diagonal pair was on the ground, so I was able to apply that to the lines when I can actually see his legs. Worked super well! I am trying to not do as much for him from the ground, but

Penn decided to have a mind of his own when I stopped him to rearrange the lines, he backed away from me, wrapped the lines around his neck and was just like, "Look! You can't make me." It took me a few minutes to get him safely reset, then he got a couple smacks with the whip to get forward thinking again. I had to remind him a couple times I was in charge, and he finished his work nicely.

Friday night.

I long lined Penn again Saturday, and had a slightly less productive work in reference to bettering the canter, but Friday's work had stuck because he didn't immediately zoom off on his own when I asked for it. He picked up a quiet, but still leaning in, canter each way. I only lasted for one or two canters each way before I had to stop- I never used to get dizzy lunging, but it's a fairly new thing for me and my illness made it worse.

Both days I worked more on Penn's pi/pa basics. I've scrapped the hind end for now (more towards pi training, and to be honest, I'm fascinated by passage not piaffe) just because I don't think he needs to learn to sit and plant himself at all just yet. Seems like a can of worms I'm not ready to have opened! He knows to pick up his hind feet if I tap a hind leg, and for now that's good enough. He's super tuned into a tap or two on the front of the front leg's cannon bone though. I sometimes match each tap with a cluck to help him understand I want his feet to move.

He's so responsive to the leg tapping, that I wasn't sure where to go with it other than to put it into motion in the walk while the indoor and wall are available to me. I don't have a bamboo pole or anything, so I've taken to using the handle end of my dressage whip- no lash and it's a good solid rubber handle. He found it a bit confusing to hold his walk on his own while my attention is elsewhere, but figured out quickly that's what I wanted.

So as I watched Alfredo's videos, the pole he uses to encourage passage almost acts like something the horse needs to step over- letting the horse move the leg into the pole, and forward with the horse, and near knee height, he's always encouraging a big step.

Taking that thinking into plan, I found if I get Penn's walk going, then hold the handle of my whip at low cannon/fetlock height and let it bounce against his legs as he walks, he actively takes bigger and slower steps. I match each step with a cluck, and have him continue until he's taken about 6 big steps in total.

He caught on almost immediately- prompt big steps, then he got tons of praise. I only ask for the steps once per long side of the arena, and I don't drill it for more than two or three long sides because he's young, it isn't a huge part of his training, and I don't want to overstimulate him or blow his mind.

I guess I'd like to eventually have someone drive behind him and be in control of where he goes and his speed and gait, and I can encourage the bigger steps. The whole goal of this isn't to create a good passage or one with a rider, just an idea in his head that I can hopefully tap into for a loftier trot while riding so his first level trot work is a step above most everyone else's and not as far behind the imported fancy warmbloods we that we'll be competing against. This subject gets a lot of attention in this post, but in reality I spend about 5 to 10 minutes tops working on it, and usually at the end of long lining since we're already on the ground working in hand (so not much more than 15-30 min per week).

While I spent the entire day Saturday at the barn (working with Penn and then just chatting with BO), Husband was hard at work on my trailer all day Saturday!

Hitch light!

Light down the side of the trailer (both sides) for night packing and backing up.

Backstory: before we bought the trailer, the tack room door experienced a few too many slam opens. Every time it was allowed to bang open, the screws would pull out of the wood a little bit and then eventually the door became sticky to open and close.

On Friday, the door gave up and fell off its hinges. Husband was able to use the lock on the door to help hold it in place for the night so he could fix it Saturday. I got an alarming photo of my tack room door on Saturday while I was at the barn- it was in pieces of rotting wood on the garage floor. By the time I got home, Husband had created a new oak wood frame that goes around the foam and under the plastic skin. It's a new solid surface for the aluminum framing to be screwed to, and it means the door opens and closes properly!

New frame, old rotten frame, the rest of the door in the background.

Back where it belongs! Shut evenly and firmly and attached to the trailer!

It hangs straight and even now!

I had Hawk from No Longer Fiction ride Penn on Sunday for me. I'm still not feeling up to riding, but I think Penn had enough long lining for a few days (I sure did!). She's a wonderful sensitive quiet rider, which is exactly what Penn needs since he is very sensitive to what his rider does (as she found out!). She did a lovely job putting him through his paces and figuring him out. It was nice to see someone else ride him. Thank you Hawk!

BO also gave me a window decal of a dressage horse for my trailer- family sent her a whole stack of them and she was like, would you want one? I was like YESSSSSS.

So obviously we stuck it to the trailer Sunday afternoon after I got home. It's a bit hard to see- I guess I never realized how tinted the trailer windows are... it's kind of hard to see the decal without it being back-lite or something.

Husband peeking into the trailer as we were trying to decide if the decal was straight or not.

It's hard to see from the outside- the window tint and then reflection takes a lot out of the skinny white lines.

The truck is next on the list of things to be updated, and hopefully the trailer is back to the barn sometime this week- Husband needs it here to make sure all the hookups and cameras work after he installs the new radio thingy. However, we need our driveway back!