Last Week's Rides

I managed 3 rides on Penn in the past week- Wednesday 12/9, Saturday 12/12, Sunday 12/13.

Penny in her natural belly up, toes curled, sleeping state. I think she likes looking at the Christmas tree lights too.

Wednesday's ride was crap. Well, crap for Penn. The footing wasn't great- slightly slick on top. I didn't even canter because Penn was uncomfortable just trotting. I had asked him for some leg yields, and he just folded his body in half and threw himself sideways. He was just reactive to everything and more uncooperative than he's been. I'm sure I was to blame too- I get overly handsy when he doesn't cooperate, which doesn't make him cooperate any better. I was already in a funk- I didn't particularly want to ride, but I had taken a half day from work to do it and it was sunny and kind of warm out. I couldn't get our act together so I quit before I screwed him up too badly. I did use the road walk on the back back to the barn to leg yield from one side of the road to the other, and to shoulder in. That worked out very well- he bounced nicely off the trees that line the road and had some nice work.

Saturday was a bit better. And warmer! 65 degrees- a near record high! I got him down to the outdoor and he was all grunty for the first 15-20 min. Weird. I worked on the 10m circle to leg yield a bit and mixed in a little canter sooner than I normally would have mixed it in. He was a bit tense, and I know Mikey would unlock a bit if I let him canter, so I gave that a whirl with Penn. It didn't work- he just kind of leaned on me and went hell bent around the arena. I reset and made him go to work and did some one loops in canter when I could. Partway through my ride I made a huge effort to relax my hands/wrists/arms and give. Penn rewarded me by softening a bit too. I used turn on the haunches whenever we botched a transition from walk to trot. His turn on the haunch is getting very good! I had a super excellent one to the left, worthy of 2nd level at the end of my ride. A lesson was starting so the end of my ride got scrapped a bit. It took a while to cool Penn out since it was so warm and he was quite lathered.

Trail ride on Sunday.

Sunday was better than Saturday. There were a bunch of canter poles out, and 4 of them were raised on my cavalettis. I rolled those down to a slightly raised height more appropriate to Penn's ability and got to work. As a warm up, I asked him to be round in walk and walk over the raised poles, then trot two poles on a short side, then trot 3 on the next long side, transition to walk near the raised poles, repeat. He hit every raised pole with almost every single foot, every single time through the poles. After leaving the poles he'd have an incredible trot transition with his back up and everything. He couldn't hold it for long, but it was there. He only tapped the poles on the ground a couple times. Trotting didn't help much through the raised poles- he still whacked them. I'm sure he's just not strong enough yet, but it is kind of annoying. He sure as hell is NOT a hunter/jumper/eventer!

I moved on the leg yields- 10m trot circle left that put us on the centerline for a leg yield right. I paid attention to the crossover, but more to the amount of crooked he got through his body. I kept after his trailing hind end, asked him to keep his head in front of his chest more, and when we got to the rail, I asked for a canter left, went across the short side, and then went immediately into a one loop on the next long side.

I love this exercise. As soon as I found my seat (shoulder blades pushing back that recliner!) and got my outside elbow working with his motion, and thought about sinking my elbow down and in next to my side, he connected and lightened immediately and the one loop on the left lead was much easier. There's no anticipating for him in this exercise- he hasn't linked it together yet. I can definitely feel him questioning his leads in the one loop, and I think when he's stronger I'll be able to ask for flying changes and he'll give them. (Trainer and I already talked about that- as soon as he's strong enough we're going to teach them to him and I will have to be good enough to keep him on the correct lead in 1st/2nd level counter canter work). But the exercise keeps his brain thinking forward in a constructive manner.

I did the same exercise to the right to fantastic results. I'm very excited! His right lead canter gets 4-beaty, and this forced me to keep him going, and that same elbow/seat thinking kicked him into a nicely connected gear and he became so pliable. It was wonderful. I only did one leg yield and 2-3 one loops to the right because they were so good! We quit after 20 min of riding to go for a short trail ride with a couple other riders who were patiently waiting for me to be done schooling Penn. A short ride was ok- he was puffing pretty hard by then and was very good. Time for a walk on a long rein!

He has such cute little ears.

All this work lead me to think about what I'd like to accomplish in our winter boarding time. I want him to get stronger, and I'd like the leg yields to be solid by then. So I think this will be our schedule per week (do at least 4 of these, with minimal repeating within a week):

• 1 day of cavaletti work (note, make sure to pick up my blocks before moving!). Trainer wants to get him going on that to make him stronger, but I'll have to do it on my own since she's going south for the winter. There are several dressage riders at this barn, perhaps we can make a day of it and find a grounds person to adjust poles if they're knocked?
• 1 day focused more on lateral work and getting his canter together since the two seem to go hand in hand- leg yield and shoulder in. I'd like to add haunches in as he gets stronger. Last time we did haunches in it was VERY hard for him. This will have to be a short and structured ride.
• 1 day working on simple trot work to build muscle and fitness.
• 1 day to work on something that stood out like crazy on the other days as a problem, or just to review.
• 1 day to go for a walk or do something fun that is not related to dressage at all and is completely nonconstructive!

I don't want to ride him more than 5 days a week, and I think 4 would be better. I don't want to sour him or wear him out! I'd like to go see the trails so that maybe one day on each weekend we can go out on them. It's what I would have done if I was at home all winter (hill work in the hay fields and trail rides through the Christmas Tree Farm). When we go back home in spring, I'd like him to be at a good enough muscle and fitness level to start doing some hill work and trot sets!

Spare Tire Hell

Did you know American Chevy Silverados (and Camaros) use metric sized bolts? I didn't either.

Anyone who has a truck for hauling (or daily driving), please go to the back of your truck and try to take the spare tire down. Before you have a flat and realize you need the jaws of life to remove said spare tire. Or bolt cutters. That's what we used.

Three jacks to support the spare tire so it didn't fall on Husband's head while he was trying to prod/pound the secondary latch.

My truck was inspected last week, and I wanted to go over the tires and make sure I could remove the tire by hand (Dad had a car come back that was tightened in a way that the hand tools in the trunk couldn't get the tire off- he needed power tools to do it so now I'm paranoid). Since winter is coming in and I'm still hauling the trailer around, I also wanted to make sure I had the right air pressure. This past weekend was so nice and warm, Husband and I decided to take a look on Sunday and get the spare tire down too to check it's air pressure.

Note the cut and bent support arms.

How do I know my American truck was made using metric bolts? We had to break the spare tire hoist to get my spare off, and then Husband took the whole hoist off the truck so we could replace it. A metric bolt holds the hoist to the frame. Something I think is funny because Chevrolet/GM is an American company that uses metric measurements in the building process.

Removing the bolt to get the hoist off.

The secondary latch holds up the tire in the event that the cable that holds up the spare tire breaks. This is also the biggest, piece of crap part in the whole system. My husband had to cut and bend the arms that hold up the spare in order to get the spare out from under the truck. At that point, the hoist became a piece of rusted garbage, and banging on the secondary latch didn't do any good, so husband took the whole damn thing off. Which now needs to be replaced, but at least I won't be stranded somewhere unable to get my spare tire off!

Voila! No more spare tire hoist.

I'm ordering an aftermarket part from Amazon which does not have a secondary latch, so hopefully this never happens again. We're going to keep after it- taking the spare down once or twice a year to check it and make sure the cable holding it up isn't wearing since there won't be a backup method of keeping the tire under the truck.

Rusted piece of garbage now.

Summer Preview

I started putting together next year's show schedule this morning. It began by my need to calculate how many bus tickets I needed to buy for January, and it just kind of snowballed into making my 2016 vacation tracker and then planning some vacation and that meant checking out USDF.org and picking some shows!

I think dressage judges are always looking, darn.

I did pick Region 1 to show in- Region 2 Championships are 8 hours away. So are Region 1 Championships... so I'll just stick with my "close by" shows that are 3-4 hours away and not fiddle with changing my Region affiliation.

I picked 8 shows that span 5 weekends (plus Championships):

	Dates	Show Name	Location
1	5/21-22/2016	Potomac Valley Dressage Association (PVDA) Spring	Leesburg, VA
2	6/4/2016	WPDA June*	Quentin, PA
	6/5/2016	WPDA June Encore*	Quentin, PA
3	6/10/2016	Northern Virginia (NOVA) Breeding Classic and Summer Dressage Warmup	Leesburg, VA
	6/11-12/2016	VADA/NOVA Summer Dressage Festival	Leesburg, VA
4	6/26/2016	Dressage at Centre Hall	Centre Hall, PA
5	7/30/2016	WPDA Summer Sizzler**	Quentin, PA
	7/31/2016	WPDA Summer Sizzler Encore	Quentin, PA
6	9/15-18/2016	GAIG/USDF Region 1 Championships and NCDCTA Autumn Leaves Dressage	Williamston, NC
	* This GMO usually holds an early summer show the first weekend of June. If for some reason this show is not held, I'll go to the cheaper single day show on 6/5/2016: NC PAHA Dressage Show in Hugesville, PA. ** I am assuming this show is pending with the USDF because the Encore show the next day is official.

Each show has one Regional Championship Qualifying class, which means the weekends that hold "two shows" in one weekend actually have 2 qualifying classes. I just need two scores in 1-3 that are 62%+ in order to qualify. If I get the scores I need early on, I may not keep going to recognized shows because well, June is looking really expensive.

I hate to put all my eggs in one basket in June though. There just wasn't anything in July and August that is close enough for me (not driving 8 hours, sorry!), and you have to have qualifying scores by mid August I believe.

I think I'll go to all the shows in June, and if I have the qualifying scores by then, I'll skip July. Penn will need a rest I think after doing 3 weekends almost back to back. The show in weekend 4 is very important to go to- this is the first time they've offered a show on the weekend (it's usually a Friday) and they're trying to attract more people so I want to go support it. Maybe I'll dump that 3 day weekend (weekend #3). Maybe I should dump the May weekend (weekend #1) since I don't really want to go showing in May, but I don't want the pressure later either.

I'll revisit USDF's website in a couple months to parooze any new shows that are added, and then finalize my schedule.

You can probably see why I don't join any GMOs and just go straight with a Participating Membership (PM): PVDA, VADA, NOVA, WPDA, and NCDCTA are all hosts for these shows, and each group holds so many shows that I'd go broke trying to hit the ones in just one group!

Anyway, if I somehow manage to go to all of these, Penn should have his First Level Horse Performance Certificate by the end of summer... because I don't deserve to go to championships if I can't manage 10-60%+ scores riding 1-2 tests a day at each show!

12/5 Lesson and some big news!

Ok, so I've been taking a ton of lessons lately. Seems all I'm posting about! It's cool though, Trainer is heading south to Aiken in mid-January and I'll be left to my own devices until the end of March... unless GRM comes back during that time. I'm sure I'll have an issue I'd like help with!

So for this lesson, we actually trailered to a fellow blogger's new barn that is one of Trainer's travel-to-teach barns. There's an indoor if the outdoor footing is no good, so under the guise of a guaranteed lesson (the footing at home ended up being not good enough to ride on, so good call) I was able to go see this barn. I had wanted to see it and meet the owners anyway because it's close enough that I wanted to haul in on the weekends to use the indoor since the weather is slowly preventing me from using our outdoor on the weekends.

Penny and Sophie and our front door with the new wreath!

First of all, I loaded Penn into my trailer, on the first attempt, by myself! I know, you're all like, "Why so excited?" It's because when we got Penn, the trailer was a huge ordeal and I've only recently been able to get him on Trainer's slant load by myself (the divider helps convince him to stay on). I've never been able to load him by myself onto my trailer because it's a straight load and Penn wouldn't stay put long enough for me to get to the back of him to put up the butt bar (he also wouldn't tolerate the squish from the swinging divider- he'd fly out the back of the trailer). I was able to load him almost like Mikey. Since my divider swings, I bungee it to the passenger side horse stall when I load. I led Penn up into the trailer from the wrong side, convinced him to stay put without being tied, and he gave me enough time to walk next to him, get the divider un-bungeed and the butt bar up and pinned in place before he moved! The only difference is that Mikey would walk himself into place and I could stay at the back of the trailer. Good boy Penn!

The medium weight ultimate turnout blanket will be going back to SmartPak. There is a pull in the blanket that I'm sure will let water through. I'll wait for another bigger rip to happen though before sending it back.
SmartPak's Ultimate Turnout is apparently not Dix proof!

Penn was a bit nervous at a different barn (a little more nervous that he usually is- I think because he hauled alone). He wasn't quite steady in the cross ties, so I didn't bother cross tying him. No reason to have him panic and break someone else's barn! They didn't tie the cross ties to the wall using baling twine, so I wasn't taking any chances.

Surprisingly though, Penn stood quietly for me to get on him in the outdoor, and went to work. He was a bit distracted, but he still paid attention to me. It's nice to know he relaxes when he's doing his job.

Trainer and I chatted about our lessons with GRM, and then got to work. Again, I'm going to bullet what we did... it's easier for me to keep track of things!

Walk/Trot work:

• This was his first time really working outside in a new place. He's always been inside when we go practice dressage somewhere, so this was an excellent adventure!
• Since he was a little looky, I was prone to keeping him too slow in trot and too tight a hold on the reins. Trainer pushed me to keep the forward motion, keep my hand forward, and don't take away from him.
• STOP CRUSHING THE HORSE WITH THE OUTSIDE REIN. When he's looky/spooky, I need to let him have a way out (in our case, he was looking to the outside at various items around the arena, so I took the inside rein and overbent him in, and let him go out the outside shoulder- thinking leg yield towards the spooky item).
• I stuck to sit trot because he was a bit looky and I'm better at steadying him from sit trot. Not resorting to sit trot is going to be one of my goals.
• Trot shoulder fore/shoulder in/small amount of haunches in on the long walls.
• Relax the hands forward, drop my elbows down, let the forward happen, small amounts of shoulder fore = lifted back magic. I made trainer laugh because I was like "Is he pooping?" and she was like "No..." and I was like "It feels like it... so his back must be up!" and she facepalmed and laughed.
• We worked a little on leg yield, but Penn was very resistant to continuing to move forward into the leg yield. We settled on the following pattern: 10m circle right, down centerline, leg yield left, any time he resists sideways motion, 10m circle right using the last steps of the circle to encourage sideways into the next leg yield. Let him overbend his neck to the right so he gets good cross over and can flow. He's far enough along now that he's not shooting out the left shoulder and the hind end isn't trailing, so he can be a bit overbent. And for the love of God, LET GO OF YOUR LEFT REIN.
• Repeat the pattern in the other direction- 10m circle left, down centerline, leg yield right, any time he resists sideways do a 10m circle left using the last steps of the circle to encourage sideways again. Let him overbend his neck to the left so he gets good cross over and can flow.
• We finished up the trot work with a stretchy trot on a figure 8.

Canter work:

• (This one goes with the trot work too, however it was where we based the canter work too) Transitions to trot must be through and not giraffe-like. He must connect all 4 ways in walk to start: left seat to left hand, right seat to right hand, left seat to right hand, right seat to left hand. Use shoulder in and shoulder out on a 20m circle so work on all of those connections. Then trot. If it's crap, walk, repeat the connections, trot.
• Repeat the connections in trot on a 23m circle. Shoulder in, half pass in to a 20m circle, canter.
• Penn's canter is either 4 beat or rushy, there's no in between right now. He also does not want to meet the left rein while going left (he's happy to meet it going right).
• (to the right mostly) Carry myself over my outside stirrup more, stop leaning over my inside leg. I'm not helping by doing that.
• (to the left mostly) Repeat the counter bend in canter, then with the thought of half pass inwards. LET GO OF THE F-ING LEFT REIN. Remarkable, the horse stood himself up and balanced himself. It became: counterbend, bend in, half pass inwards onto a smaller circle, maintain the smaller circle, leg yield out to the 20m circle. Repeat.
• (to the left only) Since we were thinking half pass on the circle and actually getting decent floaty in on the circle, Trainer had me prep him on that circle, then go straight down a quarterline, and then ask for canter half pass left. Nothing super fabulous happened, and Penn was getting tired, but he tried and took his very first half pass steps!
• Stretchy trot to finish. Penn just about ran his nose on the ground. He LOVES to stretch out after hard work.

Penn tried his guts out in lesson. His butt felt like jelly while I cooled him out. I haven't had my butt worked like that in a long time- I was still sore Monday! Penn went for a well deserved walk on Sunday.

Walking on the road on the way home Sunday.

I took some pictures on Sunday of Penn for his new coggins. Mikey's pictures for his this year were really super terrible. He was all out of proportion, angular, and the awkward leg and body positioning didn't help the terrible picture. I get that you have to be able to see the inside of the legs too, but come on, can't we stand the horse with even weight on each hoof? Without his ears at half mast and looking around instead of forward?

I didn't realize everyone was moving towards putting pictures on the coggins instead of marking up the model horse, and this is the first year I've been forced to use the Global Vet Link coggins instead of being mailed the yellow carbon copy paper. If I had known that, I would have taken pictures of Mikey myself and sent them to the vet to use! The pictures that were taken of Penn in March 2015 for his current coggins are terrible (though not as bad as Mikey's), and they need to be redone anyway because it's a different vet. Trainer and the Vet Assistant made a list of horses that would need pictures, and I opted to take them myself instead of having them do it.

Right side

Left Side

Front

So I sent those 3 pictures in to the vet. We'll see if they'll do. He's still way under muscled and too angular for my taste. I've had him for 4 months now, I expected to see more of a difference. Don't get me wrong, the horse has still filled out a lot and has a lot of new muscle. He's working hard. BUT HE NEEDS MOAR!

Which I guess is a perfect segue into my big news! As much as the thought of winter boarding elsewhere terrifies me (ie Mikey's fractured hock from last year), I'm going to give it another try. I really liked the barn that we went to for lesson this past weekend. I've got a bunch of friends there already, including fellow blogger Hawk. The owners are super nice, there is an outdoor with incredible footing, a well maintained indoor with good footing, the barn is heated to 45 degrees in the winter, they feed essentially the same feed so I'm not going to be providing my own grain this time (I'll monitor his weight to make sure he doesn't drop weight though), and free choice hay.

With the indoor available, I can keep building muscle all winter! I'd say that's the main thing holding us back from First Level right now (aside from a messy canter, but that's a strength issue too). Yes, we've started to score very well at Training and he's schooling the First Level work nicely. He just doesn't have the musculature to support First Level yet. My biggest worry was that I'd hack him all winter at home and he'd keep the same muscle. While that's fine, it's not doing much to support First Level aside from making sure we don't deteriorate.

Penn moves in for 3 moths starting Jan 1! I think he's going to enjoy a semi-quiet December. I am planning on showing him Jan 3 (and picking up my two other blue ribbons which may or may not be the main reason I want to go), but I'm not going to fret about hacking him and having quiet time. There will be more than enough work that happens between Jan 1 and March 31!

12/1 Lesson with German Riding Master

So it took me long enough to get this post out, almost a week after the lesson! I'm glad I make quick bullet point posts shortly after lessons so I remember what we did!

Penn had a day off after the show and then I packed him back up into the trailer to have a lesson with the German Riding Master!

My trainer came and had a lesson as well! Our two horses, Rani and Penn.

German Riding Master (GRM) loved Penn. He was impressed by how soft and supple he is already, and how he seemed to have such a good brain. GRM isn't one to give out "Awesome" comments often, but I heard it many, many times.

Here's quite a few some bullet points from our lesson:

• I make Penn trip by smothering him with a single rein. Sure enough, if I got to smothering with a particular rein, he'd trip with that front foot.
• We started turn on the haunches. Penn wants to cross his hind legs instead of his fronts, so we focused on keeping the turn centered over the hind end. GRM also had me over exaggerate the aids and almost lead his shoulder around to get the hind end centered and the fronts moving and crossing.
• Every transition matters. This horse knows how to walk, trot, and canter. GRM said, "I know how his trot will look just from watching you walk around. You fail in the transition." In walk to trot: coming above the bit is no longer acceptable. He must maintain the contact. Do a walk to trot transition, even out the contact with shoulder fore, relax the hands so the neck can lengthen and fill and the contact becomes elastic and steady, walk, pat, repeat. GRM was also a stickler for proper tempo in the trot. It was a fine line of too slow and too quick.
• After a failed transition in walk, do something like a turn on the fore or turn on the haunch to give him something else to think about then revisit the transition.
• When Penn is good, give and release for a second with both reins. Not enough to drop him on his head, but a release that lets him know he's done a good job.
• Penn comes through and round, but is inconsistent in the contact. He jumps around on it. Use shoulder fore and shoulder in to help steady him. Give him something to do to help move him into the contact.
• Within the trot, ask for more uphill, more raising the shoulders and the base of the neck. Half halt with the thigh and thinking about pushing back a tough recliner with the space between my shoulder blades worked well. Penn answered immediately. It is incredible.
• When I post the trot, I have to be careful not to drop Penn downward. I need to continue thinking about him raising his neck and shoulders even though I'm posting.
• We worked a small amount of shoulder fore and shoulder in at the trot. It mostly revolved around me not smothering him with one rein and letting him carry some forward in the movement. Just a few steps is all that's required- let him go straight after some good steps and then go back to the movement a few steps later (lots of transitions in and out of the shoulder in).
• Penn is a little horse, just do small angles for now in the shoulder in. He can't do big angles.
• To canter: teach him the inside hip means canter. Get a good trot going, then shoulder in on the circle, bigger trot (almost canter speed), inside seatbone scoop-(no leg), canter. As Penn got better, I had to quiet the aid otherwise I goosed him.
• Shoulder in into canter both directions. Think shoulder in out of canter too.
• The right lead canter gets stale, so lengthen for two strides, half halt, lengthen for two strides, half halt.
• Leg yield along the wall as prep for a leg yield across the diagonal (no idea how to make this work at home since we don't have a wall). Do it that way to get Penn thinking about moving his haunches.
• Counter bend slightly before the leg yields across the diagonal so I'm not setting Penn up to fail. In the leg yield right, haunches leading is ok for now. In the leg yield left, keep the shoulders coming forward and slightly leading.

Penn was so super awesome. Everyone at the barn we went to also thought he was freaking adorable too.

Everything comes so easy to Penn within this work. He doesn't throw tantrums about it. I'm not working against his conformation. I love Mikey, and I can really appreciate how difficult this work was for him, but every step was an uphill battle with him. Penn is miles ahead of where Mikey was when I was showing him at training level. I love OTTBs, however, I don't think I could ask another one to do this kind of work again (the 3rd level work+, they should all be able do up to second!). I couldn't do it, not now that I know how difficult it was for Mikey. Man, he must have really loved me- he tried so hard and worked so hard for me.

All ready to go home. Rani had to hold herself back by stepping on her own lead rope! (Note, we usually loop lead ropes over the neck so they don't hang, but all our horses are also taught not to panic if they step on it either).

11/29 Schooling Dressage Show

The end of my vacation was highlighted by a schooling show!

Pretend this is blue ribbon times 3, because we won all our classes!
I wasn't able to stay until the last two classes pinned though (the classes were open all day).

I didn't go alone to this show- Trainer and 3 other students brought horses. I think I was the only one who braided (which is complete overkill for this show- people were showing in brightly colored sweatshirts, non light colored breeches, and maybe 2-3 people wore coats). I also had extra time Sunday morning and I'm teaching Penn's mane to go to the right, so I figured I'd take any chance I can get to tie it up on the right side of his neck. I can also braid his mane in about 25 min and take them out in about 5 min due to the obscene amount of braiding practice I got working for Trainer in the summer/fall.

I dropped the ball and didn't take any pictures with my phone from the prep phases. What the hell!

You know how I decided that Penn was going to get over his clipper phobia asap? You know how you school at home with all kinds of distractions because anything can happen at a horse show? My first test is why we do all that prep at home. The barn that hosts the show is a large hunter jumper barn and just because they're holding a show doesn't mean the barn stops it's regular activities. Boarders find other rings to ride in, lessons are taught, and the staff keeps working like a normal day. This past Sunday included clipping horses.

A little background info about the host barn: It is a HUGE 75,000+ square foot facility with two indoor rings, 200 stalls, 3 outdoor rings and a polo field. The whole indoor arena/warm up arena/boarder stalls/show stalls/lounge/everything you could ever want in a barn is under a massive steel truss building (you know, the ones with the huge steel arches that stick out into the arena). There are two indoors- the main one that we show in, and a smaller (yet still large enough to hold a 20x60m ring) warm up arena. Boarder stalls and an aisle run down both longsides of the main indoor arena (cross section: building wall, stalls, aisle, wall, show ring, wall, aisle, stalls, building wall). The aisles and stalls have a ceiling, and the hay is kept above. They hay the horses by dropping flakes from the loft. The warm up ring is a large sectioned off part of the building that has, what I assume are, temporary stalls set up in a permanent manner. I can't believe they take down over 100 stalls after every show- not when they host a show or two every month. The show stabling and warm up ring mirrors the set up of the main indoor and boarder stabling, minus the loft (cross section: building wall, stalls, aisle, stalls, warm up, stalls, aisle, stalls, building wall). The sawdust pile is on the warm up ring side of the wall that separates the warm up from the main ring. It's a pretty neat place.

How is all this relevant? Well, normal barn functions on Sunday included running clippers on the other side of the show ring wall next to the letter F. Remember when I turned on the clippers at home and Penn left the barn? I am super glad I made him get over his clipper phobia. He heard those suckers click on right when I started my first test and was like, "Holy shit, it's the clippers!!!" but I was able to tell him to stuff it for the most part and have a semi-good test.

And the papers...

For a 63.478%. I tied with one of the other riders in my group, but I had better collectives than she did, so I won! It was a big class too, 12 riders, including my trainer! She was riding one of her new sensitive baby horses (she was 3rd, wahoo, top three for us!)

Training 2:

And the papers...

For a 69.038%. I won by 5.2%! It was another big class too, 11 riders. And super thrilled about an 8 for rider marks. I've never scored higher than a 6 or 6.5.

Training 3:

And the papers...

For a 68.182%. I won by 3.9%. It was a smaller class, just 7 riders. I botched the last canter to trot... I never prepped him for a downward transition and blew past C. Also, shallow loops in a wider than 20m,  small sized dressage arena? Not cool.

I LOVED this stretchy trot from T3. A bit on the forehand, but he was so willing.

Training 2 and 3 were very nice to ride. Penn was very attentive to me, and rideable through the moments where he was a bit spooky. He let me have a good think about each movement and I was able to properly implement my plan in most of them. I never felt like the tests were just zipping by, like I was being rushed to finish them. In all our years together, I achieved this feeling with Mikey twice. It was back in 2014 when I got my Second level scores. Everything simply fell together and we were in harmony. I didn't have to actively fix anything, just remind, so I could actively think about my plan on how to ride each movement to it's fullest. Training 2 and 3 on Sunday were that way with Penn. He let me ride the plan. That's no dig at Mikey- dressage was tough for him. Penn's talent for it is a constant reminder of how hard Mikey worked for me.

Like, I really loved this stretchy trot.

The too wide ring was made abundantly clear to me and Trainer in Training 3's one loop in trot. We're already riding in a small dressage ring, and to top it off, it's 14ft wider than it should be (I looked it up- it's 80' wide... compared to 66'=20m). That means if you ride a proper shallow loop, you're not going to make it to X. If you ride the arena instead of the proper loop, you're so angular that the movement looks wrong and rides terribly. Ack. Of course that messes up the circles as well. Ride a true 20m circle, or ride the arena and make sure you hit the 4 points of your circle as laid out by your letters? Beggars can't be choosers though- this farm hosts a 6 show winter dressage series that lets you ride 3 classes and have an overnight stall for only $90. Can't beat that. The local-to-me series is $100 for two classes and a day stall.

Trainer had no real complaints for me - just that Penn needs more strength and time is what's going to build that. She also said he needs 2.5 tests - he's distracted a bit in the first but gets better as he goes, is great for the second, and gets tired by the third.

All in all, my barn had a great day. They don't divide the classes into Open and AA/Jr at this show series, everyone who is riding gets lumped together by test. One of our riders won Intro A, was 2nd in Intro B. I won all of Training Level (and had the high score of the day, but boo, there's no ribbon for that!). One of the other riders was 3rd in BN B and 2nd in Training 1. Trainer was 3rd in Training 1 and 3, 2nd in Training 2. Another of our riders was 1st in Novice B and Training A, and 2nd in Novice A. We did no worse than 3rd in any class! Not too shabby for 13 tests in a wait-listed show!

"Hi Mom! Whacha doing?"

The Stubben Has Arrived!

Last Tuesday, the tack shop called after my lesson and said my saddle was in! I picked it up on Wednesday and tried it out!

Modeling his new saddle!

It fits Penn like a glove, and makes excellent use of Penn's Total Saddle Fit girth- where it naturally sits the billets are behind the girth groove.

Yay saddle!

It's a very different feel than anything else I've ridden in- it has a very narrow twist that makes it easy for me to get my leg around Penn- I'm not fighting the saddle to get my leg on. It also puts my leg right at the girth, and it feels like a close contact saddle even though it's not a monoflap. Since I feel so close in it, I can tell immediately when my leg floats back (an annoying tendency that I can't seem to shake).

Anyway, I really like it, Penn really likes it, everybody's happy!

The rest of Penn's blankets came in last Wednesday too, yay tough clothes! They seem to be holding up well.