A New Addition

My parents bought a new horse today! His name is Riot and he's a 9 year old Tennessee Walking horse. He is SO sweet, my dad immediately connected with him (he's going to be his horse) and rode him very well. My dad has back issues so needed a horse that was smooth, easy to handle, and perfect on trails. Riot fit the description!

Riot at the vet check

I tried him before I left for Socal for my parents. I've been playing horse trainer and directing them away from horses that I didn't think were appropriate. I rode him for maybe ten minutes and knew that he was perfect. He just does everything you ask of him. If he doesn't want to do something, he gets a little resistant and then gives in.

Today was his vet check so I met my mom at the clinic after I worked this morning. They used the same vet as I do (Rico's lameness vet), so I talked to him about Rico's energy problem. He agreed with Heidi that Omelene would be a good grain to change to, so we're going to make the switch, we also may try red cell. He gave me some really good information about how energy works- animals burn sugar for the first 15-20 minutes of exercise, then burn fat. He said that the horses need a balance of fat and sugar in their diet to have enough energy for a whole workout. Omelene has more sugar and Rico is already on rice bran which has fat. We also may put him on red cell, since he was slightly anemic. My vet said that red cell basically allows for better red blood cell development and that helps by bringing more oxygen to the muscles.

Anyway, Riot! Riot had some minor issues related to his conformation- the beginning of side bone, a joint in the hock that showed regular wear, and one heel was lower than the other- but my parents are going to be trail riding primarily. All Riot needs to do is keep up with Stretch, which isn't hard! So they bought him.

Any horse that I can instagram from is a keeper

Then it was a frantic two hours at their barn to ready the place. He was VERY dirty, the barn he came from was restricting water due to the drought so he hadn't had a bath in ages. I bathed him all over, betadined his legs, and brushed out his tail and mane. My dad held him since he seemed slightly nervous in the cross ties. He never did anything, but you could just tell he was slightly uncomfortable. My parents have a private barn with now four horses, so it's very different than the big boarding stable he was at.

Now he's all settled in and clean. On Friday he gets the shoes put back on (they did hock and front foot x-rays) but his feet are tough so I might take him into the arena tomorrow just to get him out and doing something. After that, my dad has MAJOR trail riding plans and I've designed a conditioning schedule for him since he's a little out of shape.

Back to it

So it turns out that my sunburn is like a MILLION times worse than I initially thought. The first night I was incredibly sick- shivers, nausea, etc. Needless to say, I couldn't sleep, I got maybe 2 hours and spent most of the night playing video games and wishing someone was awake so I could complain.

The next day, boyfriend came to get me and we headed home. Did you know that a 6 hour car ride doesn't feel so good when your back is severely sunburned and sticking to the car seat? Well, it's true.

Today I woke up and luckily felt better, I got almost a full night's sleep (hoping that tonight is the night for sleep!). I managed to get a sports bra and breeches on and was ready to ride my horse!

This one

Rico was VERY good. Four days off and I was expecting him to be kind of an ass. Either high and wanting to get heavy or obnoxious thinking that he was finally retired. He wasn't either of those! He was happily forward and happy to work. I did a short ride, only a half hour. With the sunburn, I can't wear a back brace so I'm nervous about doing too much. I did manage to do some passage, a bit of piaffe, and a fair amount of canter work, including twos and ones (only 3 in a row, I wasn't going to push it).

Rico wanted to play so I let him run a bit. I don't turn him out (he lives in a HUGE paddock), but I'm happy to let him play while I'm on him since I think that's the safest for him (soundness-wise since we're in good footing, I can immediately re-balance him if he's going to get off balance, and I can prevent tight turns) and I don't mind riding out a few bucks. I know that sounds weird and mildly dangerous but come on, he's 18 years old and very well trained, if I tell him to buck, he bucks, if I tell him to stop, he stops. Never had a problem with him and I can sit everything he's got in him.

Anyway, I gave him the cue (letting him gallop and a special voice command) and he was SO excited. The first time around he just ran and struck out while shaking his head between his knees. The second time around he had a BIG buck to give me! I could tell he thought he bucked too hard, since he immediately slowed down and wasn't as enthusiastic from then on, but I'm glad he got to play.


This week we see Heidi on Thursday! Then it's two more lessons before the Intermediare II. I can't decide whether I'm more nervous or more excited, but it's definitely a little bit of both.

I may be heading down to the Monterey Aquarium this
week so more fishy pictures!

A Horseless Weekend

So I had my last Heidi lesson on Tuesday and then on Wednesday I left for Socal! I visited boyfriend's family and now boyfriend is in a wedding so I'm visiting my brother and his girlfriend until boyfriend comes to pick me up and we'll drive back up to Norcal.

Some artsy pictures!

 

Tired from his pi/pa school

This means that I haven't ridden since Wednesday morning! The ride was good, I'm really pleased with how great Rico is doing. I also signed up for the Intermediare II on August 9th. I have NO idea who the judge is but the plan is to just go in and see what happens.

On Wednesday, Rico was SUPER solid in the piaffe and passage, I think we'll probably have a few tiny mistakes but I'm feeling very confident about it. The ones probably won't happen, just saying, but I'm hoping that the judge doesn't give me a 1 or a 2, they're a double coefficient so ideally I want to do them in sets of 5 or 6 (or like 3 haha) and get a 4 for "miscounting." We'll see!

Passage

Piaffe

More passage

Then I hopped on a plane. Boyfriend and I (and some friends) went to the Griffith Observatory my first night there which was AMAZING. We're both science nerds so learning more about space was so much fun. The next night, his parents took us out for dinner since my birthday is next week. Then yesterday morning we drove down to the OC (haha) to hang out with my brother for lunch. Brother, his girlfriend, and I played disc golf last night and today we spent most of the day at the beach.

So interested

I have the WORST sunburn I've had in years. I put on sunscreen I SWEAR but then I think I must have gone into the water to boogie board and it all came off.

Tonight we have more birthday celebrations apparently (I'm not a big birthday person, in fact, I had scheduled a lesson on my birthday but then was encouraged by boyfriend to move it) and then tomorrow we return home.

Dirty pony

Such a good pony

What is Rico doing? Heidi encouraged me to give him some time off. I reluctantly agreed. I don't like him having days off, and I certainly don't like him having more than maybe two at the max! He'll probably have four total.

I wanted Heidi to ride him but she said that he's improved so much that she doesn't want to ride him unless we hit a big block. She said no one else really should be riding him just in case he a.) goes lame or b.) gets confused.

My mom is riding him for me, she walks him down the road and back while my dad rides her horse, Stretch. Hopefully my dad will get his own horse next week- we vet check on Wednesday. If it goes well, my family will officially own their first gaited horse. I'm in love with him. I'll give you more details if we buy him :)

Pretty face

Love the action to bring out the eyes

Moving on Up! But Not All the Way

I had a lesson with Heidi today! It was my first one in ten days so I was curious to see what she thought of my ability to keep him going.

So forward! Pictures by my awesome friend who stayed the
weekend with me

I'm still working on the editing, she gave me a bunch of PS
actions and I'm using a LOT of them

I warmed up as usual and started working on the energy. Heidi said he looked great! Nicely forward and engaged. We immediately jumped into the tempis. She had me do them up centerline at a mirror and pointed out a problem. The problem is that instead of tempis, we basically leap sideways in what appears to be a crappy half pass in between changes. Woops.

Heidi had me hold onto the outside rein a little more firmly in the changes and immediately they were MUCH better. She said that the theme for today was control rather than expression. We can add expression when we have control. We don't have control over the straightness in the tempis, so we reduce the expression to gain control. Makes sense!

His topline looks soooo good

Then we did some ones. She just said to do a bunch so I did a few couplets and then I did three in a row. Given how questionable they have been recently (I could barely get couplets this weekend), I was pleased. Then she said "show me five!" and I was like AHHH. But Rico did them! Well! She said that eight was the magic number, that once as we have eight we have fifteen. We'll see about that...

After that we worked the pirouettes. The left one is downright GOOD now, I have a lot of control over the size and the turn. The right one is... pirouette-like. I tend to ride it HUGE at first and then way too small. The main issue is the first step. Rico tries to stop every time and I have to hurl him around, so we made a plan to fix that. Heidi still said that the concept was there, he just needs to get stronger.

The piaffe and passage was next. We first worked the passage, which Heidi said was much better in front of me. She said "NOW he looks like a Grand Prix horse!" He was a lot easier to keep in front of me through the turns and he isn't trying to get behind me as much anymore.

Such a good boy

The piaffe was also great! She didn't really say much about it. He has really learned to stay on the spot well, and transitions well from the passage, but now we need to address the piaffe to passage transition. He basically gets a little hollow and BOINGS out of it instead of stepping forward over the ground. Occasionally there's a mini rear and then a leap, but that's almost gone.

We worked on lowering his neck in the piaffe and then pushing him out of it, which worked wonders.

Yes Rico, keep your neck down!

Afterward we had a discussion about shows. I really want to put him into SOMETHING before the September show we'll be doing Grand Prix at. We went over all the August shows and there was one on August 9th that stood out as a good one to do. I asked her what level, I don't honestly care. She said Intermediare II!

She said it would be a good test to see how the piaffe, passage, and ones are without putting the pressure of me doing my first Grand Prix on a horse I trained myself without a trainer.

So we're moving up! But not all the way up :)

Who's ready to be an Intermediare II horse?

Such a good animal

Transitions

Something kind of unbelievable happened today. I got a video of Rico and I schooling piaffe and passage! Sorry for the quality...

So this weekend my best friend is staying with me at my parents' place because they're gone! We've had a totally obnoxious girly weekend, which boyfriend totally appreciates me getting out of my system while he's gone. We did crafts, watched a couple of chick flicks, baked WAY too many sweet things (sorry parents), and rode ponies. 

I made two terrariums this weekend..

Little succulents

These dorks...

This morning we got up to find that the water was STILL off (I had to give Rico yesterday off because of it). So we took Rico and Stretch on a trail ride to get Rico some cardio. About half way through the trail ride, I got a call from my dad who told me how to turn the water back on.

Poor Rico! 

So we went to school and bff took pictures! She said he looked awesome (she took the pictures from Rico's very first Alfredo clinic in November) so I asked for a video. 

You can see the unevenness in the right hind, he just doesn't push hard with the left hind and engage with the right. He's always been that way. Heidi and I aren't concerned, she's given me some exercises to work on and I've been doing them. 

What I am SUPER happy about is that he's very active and very round, the transitions are pretty flawless for a horse with only 8 months of piaffe and passage training, and HE STAYED IN FRONT OF ME OMG. There is no hint that the horse may stop in those transitions. What a good freaking horse, and even after an hour of (light) hill work! It was 90 degrees too :) 

Pictures soon! I'm updating photoshop and learning some fancy photoshop tricks to change the way I edit the pictures. I should have them ready by tomorrow night or Monday. Tuesday is Heidi and Wednesday I leave for Southern California to visit my boyfriend's family and then my brother! 

Installing the GO Button

Before I start, look at a current conformation picture of my animal! He's on a muscle builder and I think he's looking pretty good, his butt is all round and his neck is pretty beefy for a horse who has had a little pencil neck most of his life. He's eighteen and a half this month! Btw, his coat looks weird because he had just had a bath and was drying all funny.

In order to get him to look like this, I threw a rock in front of him

This post will be broken up by a few recent phone pictures/instagrams :)

This week Heidi is in Kentucky so Rico and I are on our own. I've decided to work on a few things that keep coming up in my lessons so that when she comes back for our next lesson, we'll be super impressive.

The first thing I want to do this week is address the forward issue. Rico isn't reliably forward, and a lot of my lesson is dedicated to pausing the movements we're working on, and sending him forward. Every single movement is a thousand times better when he's in front of me.  

He's only forward when jumping. Our last jump school was this

In the past I've been like "well, he just has to be GOING all the time then" and ran him off his feet. This doesn't work for us. It makes both of us stressed and pissed off. Knowing this, I came to the conclusion that Rico is never going to be 100% reliably forward. He won't voluntarily stay in front of me at all times without me doing something periodically. Too bad, I bought the wrong horse, he'll always suck back. I'm going to just have to deal with it.

I decided that what I need is to install a button that gets him in front of me, and make that button reliable. So then, when he inevitably gets behind me in some of these movements, I have a way of getting him back in front of me within a step or two and then go back to the movement. 

Sounds pretty similar to having him in front of me all the time, but I now have a different mentality about the whole forward issue. Having this button means that I'm not scared he'll get behind me because I know we can get out. And this means that I will ride less defensively. I installed it on Sunday and on Monday I had a MUCH more pleasant ride.

Someone got new shavings recently...

Basically now whenever I slip both legs slightly back and tip my upper body slightly forward, Rico knows that he has to GO. I spend the entire ride on Sunday doing that at all gaits and when he ignored me, we galloped forward.

Heidi had me change my riding schedule, so we now do piaffe and passage every day for one of our work sets. After Sunday, I decided to add one work set for just energy, so now our ride is this: 5 minute warm up, 8 minute energy work, 8 minute piaffe and passage, and then 2 more 8 minute sets of whatever else we're doing that day. 

Please stop working me so much!

Monday I did the warm up and then reiterated him that I wanted that go button ready to be pushed. Then we started the piaffe and passage. WHAT a difference from even the day before! Rico felt GREAT in the passage and I only had to shoot him out of it a couple of times. I now can just brush my legs slightly back and he adds energy, and as long as I put my legs back to the passage button in time, he doesn't break gait. The paiffe was better than it has ever been, I actually felt like we could do it for the 12-15 steps required in the test without having to kick and cluck and tap the whole time.

I then went into canter and just worked on a few changes and keeping him in front of me. He was great! The changes are okay... one of the symptoms of him being in front of me is that I've been quieting down the changes for so long to reduce the kicking that he doesn't do them well when he's forward. Oh well, I'll address that later when he's stronger. Heidi thinks it's a connection problem so once as his topline is bulked up a bit more, that will be easier.

Rico feels pretty well connected to the front lawn

With how good he was being, we did some pirouettes for the other two sets. I wanted to work on a few things:

First the energy. If he got behind me, I'd do one of two things- I'd either shoot him out of it, or I'd touch the energy button and then go back to the pirouette. I want him not knowing whether he's going to have to leave quickly or not so that he stays on his toes. 

I then wanted to work the biomechanic. I tend to push his haunches way too much to the inside and we go WAY sideways first. That was almost perfect! Go us!

Finally I wanted to work on getting the right pirouette to turn faster. Success... sort of? An ideal pirouette is 6-8 strides. We went from 14 strides to 4 strides (aka spin) to 8. So we ended well but there was a point in the middle there where I thought Rico wanted to be a reining horse. 

The full moon over my arena the other night

Overall I was VERY pleased with those two rides. Today Rico has off because the last two rides were so hard, and then it's back to work on Wednesday and into the weekend. This weekend boyfriend is at a bachelor party so I'm having my own horse-filled bachelor weekend with my best friend who is helping me house sit at my parents' house. We'll hopefully go on a trail ride with Rico and Stretch and she's promised to teach me some of her photography skills (which are AMAZING).

Trail ride!

Next week we have a Heidi lesson on Tuesday and then I fly out to Socal on Wednesday to visit boyfriend's family and my brother. Rico gets a Heidi ride and then three fun days with my mom.

And in other news, one of the neighbor cows had a baby!!

Previous Rides: Larkin

I've had Rico for so long that sometimes I forget I used to ride other horses. Now that new computer is all set with pictures from my past, I figured I'd share some pictures and stories about the horses I used to ride, especially when there's a lull in new content (yesterday conditioning ride, today trail ride, tomorrow Heidi).

Larkin remains one of the coolest horses I've ridden. He is a percheron x thoroughbred gelding who evented at the training (and I think was solidly schooling prelim) level with his owner before I leased him. Larkin had attitude. He was very lazy on the flat and very forward over fences, which remains one of my favorite types of horses to ride. I light horses up on the flat and can't stand the hot, anxious types, but that's exactly what I want (minus the anxiety) over fences. Over fences I want to just sit there and regulate. Larkin was... kind of that.

Always the classiest of jumpers! My position looks great too... eek!

He had a bit of a bolt in him, not helped out by my hot seat and inexperience. I think he thought it was funny. I remember that he wanted to run at all the fences. I was maybe 100lbs soaking wet and he would just leave with me clinging onto him. It took a while to find the right bit combination but once as we did, I was able to jump him around without risking my existence. I still remember the jarring SPROING he had over fences. Coming off of my equitation horse who had the flattest jump of all time, it was weird to be on something with such a round jump.

I started riding him in 2003 with my previous event trainer. I evented him once at the Novice level at Rancho Murieta that year. That show was great! I earned a 35 in dressage despite not knowing how to keep him on the bit (he had a fabulous walk and canter). Cross country was a BLAST, although the last time Larkin was there, he schooled prelim, so we had some minor steering issues as he downshifted and took off toward a preliminary fence instead of the tiny novice log. Woops. Stadium went well and I moved up to either third or fourth, I forget.

Hey look! A Prelim fence! That looks fun

Larkin at Murieta

After leaving my event trainer, I did a couple of schooling shows in the spring on him before he decided to stop jumping. He was getting old and started taking rails and eventually jumps down.

Stylish, this was his go-to jumping form

Such furry feet! And I'm always twisted
 one way or another

Learning to put him on the bit...

Jumping! Actually straight this time

Second place! Our last jumping show

I was struggling to find a jumping trainer I liked and had found a dressage trainer instead who convinced me to show him at Villa Rosa. I earned a couple of 70%s and some pretty picture frames which are still on my wall.

Warming up, so much rounder! I'm still twisted though :) 

Winner!

From then on, I was bitten by the dressage bug. I continued riding at shows, eventually qualifying and competing in CDS JR/YR Championships at Training and First level in 2004.

Look at this fancy animal!

So much better

We earned a 10 on this medium walk!

Championship JR team at Training level!

That fall, my back was not holding up to Larkin's jarring trot so my parents decided to buy me one last horse!

And that's when this weirdo comes in

FIVE One-Tempis

FIVE. FIVE ONE TEMPIS! FIVE IN A ROW!! WHO IS THIS HORSE??

This one?

I went out to ride today after giving Rico a day off yesterday and jumping on Friday (we did three skinny overturned muck buckets in a combination of short-ish one strides). I wanted to school the piaffe and passage. I have a lesson with Heidi on Thursday of this coming week, so I figured I'd get that out of the way so I could work on the basics coming up to the lesson.

He was superb! Easy transitions in and out and stayed much better up in front of me than he has in the past. I still can't get the quality I got with Heidi but there was not one single doubt in my mind that we could make it through at least one of the three piaffe/passage tours in the I2/GP tests. The I2 has two, the GP has three, so he still needs to be fitter.

He was so good, I decided to play at the canter and he was hot to change. I was just going to do some forward and back, working on roundness, but every time I half halted, he slipped into the other lead. So I went with it! If he wants to change, let's change.

Thankfully not like this anymore!

I started with a whole bunch of twos on a circle. This is helping SO much, he is so easy to change now and I'm much better about keeping him straight because he HAS to be in order to change to the counter canter.

I then started down the long side with some couplets one step apart. So a one, a two, a one, a two. I did those around the corners too and he struggled at first but then stepped up his game.

Then we did three in a row... four in a row... FIVE! What an amazing animal! He's only ever done four in a row and they're hit or miss.

My issue is that I tend to go too fast through them, I swing my legs around like I'm a crazy person. Today I counted out loud. One two one two... And then swung my legs to that rhythm. I KNEW IT. I knew the horse was thinking I was this complete idiot for swinging my legs so fast and just humored me by giving me a few each time.

Tomorrow I ride at the crack of dawn so I can get to crossfit and then go horse shopping with my mom. Then it's just two more days until Heidi. I'm excited to get another lesson. We've been emailing and decided that the September 7th Yarra Yarra is a good first Grand Prix to aim for. That's one year almost exactly from Rico's first Prix St George. Craziness.

Blog Hop: Interested Parties

Another awesome blog hop from Viva Carlos! What made me interested in buying Rico all those years ago?

Eleven years ago I was an event rider ("event" rider) riding a cool perch x tb cross named Larkin who was owned by a family friend. Ten years ago Larkin decided that jumping wasn't that fun, and I agreed, so we switched to dressage. I showed him at Training and First level with scores in the 70s, but as winter approached it was apparent that I would need to move on. Larkin had the world's bounciest trot and my back was severely injured.

My parents surprised me in their willingness to buy me one last horse. I had proven my dedication to the sport over years and years and they wanted to see me do well at the higher levels.

I started looking for a horse in a relatively low budget for the market. My idea was to get a third level-ish horse who I could grab my bronze on, and then move on to doing Young Riders (which is Prix St George) by the time I was 21.

We started looking and my trainer rejected everything for not being fancy enough. I must have looked at 100 videos (and this was before everyone put everything on youtube, maybe before youtube itself?, so I was getting snail-mailed dvds and vhs tapes) and sat on at least 30-40 horses before finding Rico.

He is and was quite a catch

It was the end of December 2004 (and I had been looking for three months, which felt like eternity for an eighteen year old) when Heidi was judging a schooling show that I was riding a friend's horse in. Heidi was my trainer's trainer at the time and she knew I was looking for a horse. I jokingly said "have you found me a horse yet?" and she said yes and to come try him on Tuesday.

So I want to say that it was January 5th, 2005 when I first met Rico. I saw this adorable picture of him first...

SO fancy

And then I got to see him in person. He... looked better in pictures. I remember thinking he was really big and kind of mousy. He had recently been clipped so that's why his coat was all gray and he also is just a tall horse. He's only 16.2, but he stands tall with his head up in the air most of the time, we call him a llama. He stood quietly in the crossties to get brushed and tacked up. He licked me the whole time. It was really freaking weird. To be honest, I thought he was a little weirdo and started thinking I didn't want him.

Rico had come into Heidi's barn in the beginning of December for training and to be sold. He had been a combined driving horse for years in Europe and then imported (I believe from Germany) to the US along with his pair, Limbo, to Lodi up in Northern California. From there he competed all over the US at the preliminary level in combined driving with Limbo before Limbo was injured. Rico had disliked being a singles horse and was sent to Heidi while Limbo recovered and then was sold, also as a dressage horse.

He's the one on the left of the cart, looking bored

So Rico had about 30 days undersaddle. Not exactly a third level schoolmaster...

I watched Heidi ride him, then my trainer at the time, then I got on him. He had the biggest freaking gaits! I could barely ride him. He was green. He didn't steer very well. His gaits were way too big for his topline and he kind of just flailed around the arena while I flailed atop him. My trainer loved him, Heidi approved, my mom approved. I was like meh sure.

He passed the vet check with flying colors and on January 8th, 2005 I was his owner. He was 8 years old (turning 9 in February) and all joints from his feet to his knees and hocks were perfectly clean. He flexed completely negative. All this paid off, he may have had several severe tendon injuries, but the damn joints are still going strong. He didn't need hock injections until he was 16!

At the vet check

I felt pretty mixed about him for many years. He was fancier than I had ever imagined, but he was green and difficult, so I watched my dreams get flushed away. No quick Bronze medal, it took me 4 years to earn that on him. No Young Riders for me, since it wasn't until I was 26 that he went Prix St George.

First show at Training level

More painful Training level at his second show in the rain

But despite losing out on a lot of the plans I had, I don't regret the purchase at all. He's taught me so much over the years and remains just as talented as he was the day that I bought him. He's slightly easier to ride now though, since most of the time I can steer him.

The best horse