My Lesson Horse

I was always hoping that Rico would remain sound long term so I could offer lessons on him. There just aren't a lot of Grand Prix schoolmasters out there. I ended up teaching two people and letting three friends ride him before he ended up not being sound enough for me to be comfortable putting people on him anymore. Plus, all he wants to do is go on new trails and act feral in his pasture and he gave me enough already so I'm not asking for anything else.

TC has always been a bit of a dingbat. Please enjoy this picture of a dog doing exactly what TC would like to do whenever he sees anything at all:

But over the years, TC has gotten WAY better. This is the first year where I'm absolutely itching to put people on him, not to expose him to other riders, but to expose them to HIM, because he's fabulous.

On Tuesday I had a dentist appointment so I worked from home, allowing me to teach one of my long time students on TC during my lunch break. And it was great! Granted, this one has cantered up centerline on her own horse and has ran around a few prelims, so she's rather capable.

It was so fun to see someone else ride him and help her out so that she could feel all that he had to offer. He isn't strong enough at the movements to give other riders, say, a really good shoulder-in feeling, but he gives a great feeling over his back and in the bridle. He wants his riders to have very forward thinking hands (he shrinks at any backwards rein pressure regardless of the weight in the reins) and to ride from the leg and seat, but he's got a great sense of humor and honestly is pretty safe at this point.

Me describing TC, pictured

He was really good for her at the walk and trot. Aaaand the canter was rough. I haven't let too many people canter him because the canter is so tricky. Sure enough, the canter is still really tricky. I learned SO much about it though.

In trot, she was able to get a really good feeling and I was able to easily help her achieve it. Make sure you stay committed to his large gaits (don't post too small, he trots as big as you post), keep the reins short and hands up (ugh Tracey, this whole lesson was me repeating Tracey's words lol TC makes you ride some kinda way), connect him to the outside rein from the inside leg, touch the inside bit ring with your ring finger, then push both elbows forward from the lats to give him space to connect.

I was finding it easy to see where things would fall apart. The hind legs get behind him if you aren't really committed to the trot with your seat. He curls in a weird way if the hands get too low. He drops his back and runs through the right side when you pull on the left rein. He DOES need to fill the right side more even though it feels like he is running through that rein. His left hind doesn't want to come under as much (and chiro vet is coming next week).

She got to experience his suddenly exceptional trot to walk transitions. At this point you just keep your leg on and close a bit of thigh and he walks. I told her not to pull on the reins unless she wanted him to just throw himself onto the ground. She did once and he absolutely collapsed into a stilted walk, tripped, and then her next transitions were all perfect.

Still looking fab in his new bridle

Canter though, canter is tough. TC just doesn't have a lot of balance and self carriage at the canter. In trot, I can basically just put him where he needs to go and then sit there with all my aids off and he just goes along until I change something. In canter, if I take all my aids off... well, I have no idea what would happen honestly, there's no way I'd try that just yet.

At this point, I've pretty much perfected the art of managed to not be terrible at riding it myself, but helping another rider figure it out was HARD for me. She lost power steering to the left pretty much immediately, and it happened in the exact same way that I used to. The tendency in her, once very strong in me, was to then want to put her right rein over his neck, twist her body toward the inside, and pull back with an opening left rein across her left thigh. ME TOO ME TOO!

This time, getting to see it in real time how poorly those aids work were enough to get me 150% committed to changing the way I ride him (I was previously only 110% committed after lots of lessons with Tracey). The second that left rein got wide (not even back, it was the wideness that fucked him up!), he fell away from it and out his right shoulder, which was only made worse by popping off the right seat bone and twisting to the inside to try to shove him over. I've learned time and time again that you can't shove this horse into anything, he just doesn't respond to pressure like that.

I hopped on him to fix it just so that his last bit of cantering left wasn't running into the fence and he tried it once with me and then I got it all dialed in again. I never worry about him being "ruined" because he's so excited and willing to do whatever his rider says, even if it's wrong. So in getting on him, he basically was like "she told me to do THIS *run sideways* isn't that great?" and I said "no do it this way" and he said "okay that's fun too!!!" I love this horse.

EVERYTHING IS SO MUCH FUN

Cantering right was better, though you really have to keep him in a corridor (vs bouncing him off one set of aids) or you'll lose him laterally VERY quickly, she kept riding him on weird shaped circles and I harped on her about that. You really have to ride both sides of him or he oozes wherever there's space. I didn't realize how extreme it was until I put someone who isn't used to riding such a gelatinous creature on him. I think there's a reason why everything else that I'm riding feels so organized right now lol.

Back in trot, I decided to torment her a bit with some sitting trot. But she managed to sit his trot super well! He's got a giant trot that I find challenging to sit, but he gives such a good feeling over his back that it's worth the effort to try it. I was so happy with how she sat it and so happy that he was so good about it. We did lose power steering to the left again, but this time she was able to dial it in and get a really good circle out of him. Love it.

That was plenty of work for him, so we took him on a walk around the ranch and then I turned him out while I worked in my car for a couple of hours. He came in very happy and very dirty. What a sweet freaking horse, I was so envious that she got to ride him that day.

I got to ride him the next day, I can survive a
day without riding him

It was SUCH a good experience for everyone! Her horse isn't as scopey/loose of a mover and is tricky in a different way in the bridle (too heavy vs too light). TC was a good combination of giving her a really amazing feeling at the trot (I always say he's the most fun I've ever had on the back of a horse) and finding her flaws and putting them on display at the canter. He's a giant tattle tail and I love it, I can see him being an amazing schoolmaster to teach on one day. Though I think if I want to sell him/teach on him as a schoolmaster, we should work on getting him a liiiiittle easier to canter, no one wants to buy something that is going to ram them into a fence if they pull on the inside rein. Because let's be honest, we all pull on the inside rein a bit.

So with that, I'm excited to start getting the canter in that place of antifragility that I have the trot. She's off at college but comes back over Thanksgiving, I think I'm going to have her ride him again and we'll see where the canter work is by then.

Updated Tracey Lesson Notes whiteboard, check
marks are things she isn't saying anymore!

That evening, she let me know that he was helping her a ton with her horse. He gave her the feeling of "forward thinking hands" finally and she applied it to her horse and got a way better feeling and way more suspension than ever before. I can describe that feeling all I want but TC does a way better job of teaching it than I do.

I also texted Tracey to tell her that I'd taught on TC and that I had learned so much about what happens when I pull on the left rein. She said that teaching on him was a great thing for my perspective and probably secretly was like "thank god, hopefully I can stop wasting my breath telling her to stop pulling on the left rein" lol

So yay TC, my new lesson horse!

Bouldering

This weekend was the first one I spent at home in a long time! No teaching, no traveling except to ride TC with my trainer and to see my brother, both are under an hour's drive from my house.

On Sunday, I rode TC bareback around the ranch and then chatted with an old friend who I hadn't seen since leaving this barn a year and a half ago. It was great to see her and so fun to wander around the ranch bareback on TC! Plus, we upgraded our bridle finally. It's an Eponia Frost and it is replacing my 16 year old Vespucci bridle that started to look rather unsafe. I'm super stoked to have it! It needs tons of conditioner but other than that, is really soft and fits TC's weird head really well.

New bridle!

From the barn, I drove straight up to visit my brother and SIL. I had texted them to see if they wanted to go do something that weekend. Brother was free but SIL had to work, so the two of us headed out to try bouldering (rock climbing with no ropes) for the first time ever.

I've been wanting to try rock climbing or bouldering (just want to climb some shit) for a long time now but have zero experience with it whatsoever. My brother has done it once so it was great to have someone there to help me understand. Now, once does not make him an expert, so we were roughly at the same level: terrible.


The levels went from V0 to V8 at the gym we went to. Most of the V0s were very doable, easy to hold on to, relatively straight forward, and not many of them had you climbing up and over like... terrain, or whatever you want to call it. The V1s got trickier and we managed to do one V2 and I only cheated once on that route.

It's freaking HARD. At first I was nervous about the height (you honestly aren't more than 6 feet off the ground, I had to remind myself that I was just as high up when I am on TC and that I had a soft padded landing), then I couldn't figure out how to climb over anything that wasn't just straight up and down. Once I was confident and semi-okay at climbing very straightforward routes, my hands hurt a TON. So that ended up being the limiting factor unfortunately.

We took a short break for my brother to spot me on bench (there were weights too!), I need to do more heavy bench work but it's hard to do by myself. And I also did a few back squats to work on form because that's been a tricky thing for me coming back from mono for some stupid reason.

My brother climbing one of the easier routes

We went back to climbing for a bit and went after the more challenging V1s. There was one that we couldn't figure out for quite some time, we kept taking turns sitting and yelling at each other where to put our feet, until I finally did it! It felt awesome to accomplish such a tricky... beginner route lol, but it made me realize that it was similar to riding - an athletic endeavor that requires problem solving skills. I love lifting and crossfit, but the more technical movements are the ones that hurt my wrist, so I don't do a lot of problem solving + physical activity except when riding.

Once our hands were too beat up to continue, I convinced my brother to get froyo with me (it wasn't difficult) and then we headed back to the house to play some video games. Climbing and video games, makes me sound like a bro, even though they were both my idea (my brother hasn't played co-op Portal 2, what a travesty). After that, we spent the evening at the ranch going through our old childhood stuff. I will spare you a picture of a quilt my brother's high school girlfriend made him with pictures of them. My SIL thought it was HILARIOUS.

We found the breyers and beanie babies of my
childhood in boxes. Keeping both for my
future niece!

But climbing was SO much fun though and I can't wait to go again. If the climbing gym near my work didn't have such a weird membership contract, I'd be signing up immediately. I'm still considering going a few times there to see if it's something I'm cool with signing a weird contract for. It's a really good upper body workout, for me at least, and for how I'm doing it, which is something I'm lacking in my current programming. I really don't need any more hobbies, but I do really like this one!

And it's always fun to spend time with my brother, we're both super busy so don't spend tons of time together anymore, but we're already talking about going bouldering again!

Left Hand Amnesia

On Saturday, TC and I had another lesson! I was super excited for the lesson because it'd been two weeks since my last lesson and I felt like we made some REALLY good progress.

We've now gotten past the point where Tracey jut starts harping on me while I walk around warming up, this lesson she asked "what do you want to work on?" and I had no idea what to say. It's like when I ask the kids what they've been working on this week and they say "jumping" like okay kid, but this is your dressage lesson.

I told her we'd been playing with the quality of the gaits, my biomechanics, and then we'd done some simple changes/shoulder-in/counter canter movements here and there.

Wandering up to the arena

Immediately she had me school the turns on the haunches. I'm taking advantage of riding with an L faculty member to ask questions about the movements as a whole. The turns on the haunches really should be ridden from a collected walk, but Second level horses don't collect their walks, so that's why it says to shorten the step in the walk. TC struggled to shorten his walk a bit, but Tracey said that his TOHs were 8s! She's a tough judge so I was really excited about that! Essentially her feedback was they're good, don't fuck them up. So we immediately moved on.

The trot started out a bit iffy because there was a lot going on outside the arena. TC has been really good about not exploding because of external stimuli anymore (which I so so so appreciate, don't get me wrong), but he still struggles to pay attention. He just wants to calmly watch stuff. Like a horse freaking out on the long lines at the other end of the arena, a motorcycle, or a weird part of the arena that got overwatered. All of those things were keeping him from fully committing to the throughness, but I was pretty happy that he wasn't being insane. We both got a talking to from Tracey about working through

Happy ears

Most of the instruction during my trot warm up work was on keeping the throughness and utilizing my half halts better. Also my hands, they are endlessly bad, more on that later. The half halts were fine, she told me to just use them in a more intelligent way timing-wise.

From there, we took a short break and then she had me pick him up in walk and then pick up the canter. I should probably start warming him up for these lessons... but he's a trouper so he picked it right up.

Feedback on the upward transitions are that I shouldn't let him do them if he comes off the bit. He does get better about them as he goes along, but it was a good reminder that he's beyond the point where we celebrate the walk to canter, he's had it for a good year now.

Feedback on the downward transitions was that I need to keep my hands up. By putting them down too far, I'm popping myself up out of the tack and THIS is what I've been feeling, that I can't do the canter to walk transition and keep my ass in the saddle. So I need to work on that.

She also wanted me to do them on a 10m circle, which is an exercise I have my clients do all the time but I never do it myself....... I was actually riding them worse on the circle, even though it theoretically sets us up way better for the transition, probably because I haven't ridden all that many 10m canter circles lately.

The canter itself felt really quite good and Tracey was impressed. She said it was a way more reasonable canter. To me, it feels like it's right at the most amount of collection he can handle without breaking constantly, so we're going to keep developing it, but I'm really glad that she was happy with it! His canter has been an absolute nightmare for so long, I finally feel like I can ride it.

Look how dappled he is! This is a very awkward angle wth

Back in trot, we looked at the shoulder-in again. Luckily for me, the insane amount of shoulder-in and shoulder-fore I've been doing did pay off. I had... new things to fix. The number one thing being my right leg that wants to slip back in the right shoulder-in. Tracey used the hammer and anvil analogy and reminded me that if my inside leg slips back in the shoulder-in, the bend will happen at the wrong part of the body for shoulder-in (too far back).

In that direction, I need to get him to move off my outside (left) thigh better. And here's where things get annoying, my left thigh doesn't want to come onto the horse without the right thigh on. I can put the right thigh on by itself but not the left. Cool. So something to work on, I should just get a saddle rack and a saddle to sit on at work.

The other direction, the left, felt pretty good! Tracey was happy, she wanted a little more throughness here and there, a little more bend, but was generally pretty complimentary.

What she wasn't complimentary of the whole lesson was my hands. It is getting better though! But my left hand is still completely rogue. At one point, Tracey was harping on me about it and I told her "I swear I have left hand amnesia, I have no idea what it's doing!" and she said "that's why I keep telling you what it's doing, so you can stop it!"

Return of the white board in the trailer, I still
love this thing! 

It was a great lesson and I was excited to be working on all this Second level stuff and getting good feedback about it. TC is also continuing to impress me. I freaking love this horse. He just goes to work and tries really hard all the time. The collection is tough, and I've got big goals for this guy so it's something he's going to need to figure out, but he's figuring it out.

I'm thinking that we'll have to do every other week for a while due to horse shows and travel plans, but the idea is to get him schooling all of Second in lessons by the end of October so that I can debut him at Greenville. We'll see how it all goes, but at least those double coefficient walk pirouettes are solid!

The Illusion of Patience

In the last few weeks I've had some nice compliments as a trainer. It's always nice to hear that my clients like riding with me. My main goal as a trainer has been to find people who are good clients and then keep them, while dumping the ones that add drama to my life. I have a great client base right now and it's growing!

The compliment I received the most in the last few weeks was that multiple clients told me that they were grateful that I was so patient. Um, what?

Bareback ride on a day off!

Inside my brain at least, I am not a patient person. At all. I am frequently grumbly to myself about not being further in my career already, not having a living situation where I can have a chicken or at least a dog (YET), didn't do the L program earlier, not ready to canter down centerline in my shadbelly again. I want to school the pirouettes and tempi changes on TC, and I want my damn brother to have a damn kid already (I'm not a having-my-own-kids person but I am a being-an-aunt person) so I can put it on Rico and have its first gait be piaffe okAY KEVIN GET ON IT.

So as I was driving to work after yet another client told me how glad they were that I was being so patient with them/their horse, I started to wonder how it is that I give off the vibe that I'm this incredibly chill patient trainer who will happily keep a client on a twenty meter circle until their eyes start to bleed and they start wondering how they could get away with murdering me.

Because let me tell you, I am not an inherently patient individual.

Chilling in turnout

What I realized is that I have three qualities always working against each other to create the illusion of patience when inside my brain I am not patient at all, these are:
Impatience
Type-A-ness (which sounds nicer than neuroticism)
Laziness

How do they work together/against each other? Here we go:

Impatience: I want to school the tempi changes on TC so much it hurts sometimes
Type-A-Ness: But I don't want him to have shit changes, the last thing I want to do is worry about having bad changes in the show ring
Laziness: I don't want to have to go through years of fixing a shit fucking change, what a waste of time
Conclusion: I'm waiting to put on the changes until he's stronger.


Impatience: I want my client to be able to ride leg yields and show at First level and then we'll start schooling the counter canter and shoulder-in and and and
Type-A-Ness: But ugh look at what their right elbow is doing STOP THAT NOW
Laziness: If I let her do a leg yield now with her right elbow flying away from her side, she's going to produce a shit leg yield and then I'm going to have to teach it to her AGAIN ugh no thanks
Conclusion: Engage your lats, narrow your boards, bend your right elbow, find the connection from the right bit ring to the right lat...


Impatience: I want to be a director! More pay, more responsibility, more integrated into the school, my resume would look fab, so many good things, do it now, apply for any position that opens!
Type-A-Ness: But I don't want to be like, a bad director, I want to make sure that I can commit to being an amazing boss and really throw myself into it.
Laziness: Fuck work ride ponies.
Conclusion: I've got several more analyst years left and I'm going to enjoy the hell out of them.


Impatience: I want more clients and to grow my business! Everyone must ride with me and then I'll save all my pennies and finally have a house where I can have a chicken or nine and a dog.
Type-A-Ness: But I don't want to be a bad trainer who doesn't respond to their clients, I know I get overwhelmed with new clients and it takes a lot more energy to respond to them than to clients I've had for more than six weeks.
Laziness: Sleeping in is nice and I feel like I haven't done that since 1996 at this point.
Conclusion:  Steady growth!

Sometimes my clients bring me tomatoes!!

So this is my main theory behind being what I feel like is a VERY impatient person but somehow managing to give off this extra patient vibe. Who knows.

Can't Take Credit for This One

I've been hauling TC a lot this year, which has been great! TC is a great hauler. He is pretty good at this point about getting on the trailer, standing while I walk around to do the butt bar, not pawing incessantly when we have to stop, and waiting patiently when we park. 

TC's only bad habit getting on the trailer is that he'd really like to walk through the divider. I don't know what it is about this horse, but he really isn't a fan of barriers. So every time I try to lead him in, he chests the bar and occasionally jumps in like he's scared it's going to hurt him. Wth. He won't do it if I keep the passenger side back door closed, but then I have to walk all the way through the tack room and back out to do the butt bar. 

So, one of my goals this summer was to teach him to self load so I could just send him in without that door having to be open to let me back out. I read some articles, mentally went through the steps of how I might clicker train him to do it, talked to Kate endlessly about my plan to train him when I got to a barn where I could keep my rig there. A little bit of training every day at the end of our rides. 

It's been about a year and a half since I bought this thing and I
still ADORE it

I have to walk through this door. I love that it's
there but not for this part. 

Then one day I'm loading him up for a Tracey lesson and I'm holding him while putting down the ramp and opening his door. He's just standing there and so I decide to do the first practice right there. I didn't have the clicker or anything, but it'd be a good baseline. 

I put the rope over his shoulder and said "load up!" as if I taught him what that meant. And he just walked on the trailer, all the way in, and stood nicely waiting for me to do the butt bar. 

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I trained my horse to self load. Er... how he trained himself to self load. Now I regret all those times I wasted time loading him myself when he was thinking "I can do this by myself!" 

Endless Repetition

Since the beach ride, TC has only really been ridden twice. On Monday, he got a leg stretching kind of ride and then Tuesday he got shoes (and I was going to ride before the shoes, but then realized I didn't have money for my farrier, so I had to run around gathering money for her). Tuesday after he got shoes, I threw him in a giant turnout paddock to wander around in while I finished up at the barn. He did nothing.

Then I collected him from turnout and on our way back, he he pranced near the round pen. I threw him in there and that's when he ran around and bucked a few times. Weirdo. I think he liked the soft sand. And I wouldn't let him roll in it because he wanted to roll near the fence and I'd just had a semi-traumatic experience helping a horse who had cast recently.

It's been so humid in the mornings recently, boo

Finally yesterday I got a decent ride in. I worked from home because the saddle fitter was coming for one of my client horses and I was asked to be there to ride the horse for it. So I had plenty of TC time after that. And this morning I didn't have client horses, so I got to ride him for a big longer than I normally do as well.

TC is feeling really good lately, I've been mostly working on my own biomechanics and getting him to be a bit more through from the get go.

Both yesterday's ride and today's were really big steps forward in both of those departments. My sitting trot, despite me not being as vigorous about my gym schedule (more on that in my once a month gym post that everyone probably thinks is boring but I like it) lately, feels great, I'm not getting too wiggly in the middle and I'm staying with him more comfortably. My hands remain difficult to control, I just want them very low. Sometimes I get them in a really good place and other times I KNOW that I'm riding with them too low and I start justifying it to myself before forcing them back up.

Check out @spot_on_braiding_wax on insta/fb to get hyped for
Peony's new product! Made it so easy to braid this guy while
he was getting shoes. Full review later!

Because it's easy for TC to get himself on the vertical with his big friesian neck, I've noticed that he can drop his back and bring it back up and drop it again and bring it back up without me panicking about it. Sure, it feels less good when his back is down and I certainly notice and fix it, but it's not this giant evasion like Rico had when he wasn't through his back.

So now I'm on his case about keeping it up 100% of the time, all the time. And that's tough for him, so we've been taking it easy and doing a lot of repetition with it until it's just automatic for him. The trot work is mostly shoulder-fore and walk-trot transitions, the canter work has just been work on large figures and straight lines into the mirror.

It got to the point this morning where I felt like I could bounce him into trot with just my seat from the walk. And that I could settle him into walk from just my seat as well. Both were super fun, he's able to be so sensitive without being a dingbat at this point, which has been amazing to sit on. He gives a really good feeling over his back and into the bridle, like everything is super accessible. I hope we can keep that feeling moving up the levels!

The horse in the mirror had to work just as hard as you did, TC

I have another lesson this Saturday with my trainer, which is good! I'm riding a very hot client horse right now and I start struggling with him the further away I get from riding with Tracey, so I told myself that this client horse is paying for my Tracey lessons because without them, I can't ride him! So off to Tracey we go, and I'm so excited to see how she thinks things are going. Poorly, I'm sure, but I'm finally feeling like we're closing in on the same things at home that we can get at lessons.

Boarding in the Bay

Horse keeping in the bay area can be... challenging. And it's getting even more challenging. I teach on the peninsula (in the heart of silicon valley) a couple days a week and got wind of one facility preparing to close permanently (with two others possibly following) in favor of, from what I hear at least, building condos. There's also been threats to the area where I board - various barns and land being put up for sale with the looming worry that developers will buy it. The times, they are a changing.

Westwind barn, still standing

I grew up in Cupertino (that town your iphone defaults to) and my family kept horses in Los Altos Hills, riding distance to Westwind Barn. I'm sure this means nothing to someone not familiar with this area, so essentially, I grew up in the suburbs of what was becoming Silicon Valley, kept my horses about 20 minutes north in a very horse friendly (at the time) neighborhood in the backyard of TC's breeder's parents' house (the connection that led me to him, incidentally) which was across the street from my grandparents' house (they are now long gone and that house is also long gone, sold to a major player in Silicon Valley so they could tear down the house and the horse facilities to build a gigantic guest house mansion with multi-million dollar views of the bay).

I rode along the roads, looping in and out of pastures and open space, riding down to visit friends who kept their horses in their backyards nearby. I rode to pony club once a week at Westwind or for the occasional schooling show, but most of my childhood was spent on the trails or on the roads. Westwind was mostly pasture and large paddock board with some stalls in the main barn, there was one arena and a large field to ride in, and most people who rode there rode their horses over from their houses/private barns to ride vs boarding there.

I love getting anonymous messages like this, makes me feel
like a real blogger that what I post annoys people enough
to comment like this! This post is semi-inspired by that but
also by a few barns closing/coming up for sale nearby.

Fast forward to now, nearly every house within riding distance of the barn I grew up at is a McMansion with the horse facilities either bulldozed or in ruins to serve as rustic decor. Other than a piece of land with no road access that is on a very steep hill, prices go as low as 2.75 million for 1.5 acres of undeveloped land if you'd like to live there but don't have the money for the typical 5 million dollar homes in the area.

In addition to those crazy prices, the housing market in the bay area has so many cash-only investors where you have to offer huge sums of money over the asking price and sign away that you're fine with not having an inspection in order to buy something. You see something somewhat affordable for you, cool, you're now battling 9-15 other people to get it and at least two of them are showing up, cash in hand, willing to buy it without even walking inside. My friends have literally written sweet letters trying to appeal to property owners about how they'll use their house in addition to agreeing to no inspection and offering 10-15% over the asking price. They're still turned down. So even if you had the money to live there, it will still take probably 8-10 offers and searching for months to get a place. If you had the money, it's well worth it for the beautiful views, lack of commute, and ever increasing housing market that never seems to crash as low as the rest of the country in times of economic downturn and comes back up way faster.

This was TC's first ever schooling show and this facility is being
torn down, no more horses (it once housed over 100 of them)

So that area in Los Altos Hills is wild, maybe you're okay with not having your horse on your own property and would rather board in that area and drive in like I did as a kid. Well, the house I grew up in is now worth 2.3 million dollars. It's a 2,000 square foot house on a 7500 square foot lot (my parents sold it 10+ years ago so they got a payout but not a 2.5 million dollar payout). You can board your horses a mere 20 minutes away (uh it'd help if you didn't work so you can plan your drives to avoid traffic that will more than double that commute) for about $800-$1000 per month at a nice barn, $500-700 at one with some issues.

The nice barns ARE nice. But the paddocks are not large (the nicest barns seem to have the least amount of space), there's no real turnout, and often times the barns will require training with trainers that charge what might seem like an outrageous amount of money because they too have to live nearby and keep their horses at the facility. Why waste space on turnouts when you can stuff more horses in your facility and sell off unused parcels for tons of money? Pfft.

The more affordable barns do have issues. Poor footing, lack of lights (or even lack of electricity as a whole), small stalls/paddocks, no turnout, bad fencing (so many pastures in this area have barbed wire fencing), no covered arena, stalls/paddocks aren't cleaned (so you have to do it yourself), etc. I teach at a few facilities that I'd never in a million years keep my own horse due to one or more of those issues.

Me on Shawnee (we hauled him nearby so stopped to take him
out of the trailer in the non-horsey suburb of my childhood) in my
front yard of my very boring childhood house, now worth
2.3 million dollars

Due to the lack of boarding facilities, the number of people who want to ride and have horses, and the cost of maintenance (expensive area = pay your workers more, hay is expensive, property taxes, etc) the boarding facilities don't have to be as nice and/or can't afford to be as nice as you'd expect them to be for the amount of money you're paying. When you have a waiting list a mile long, if one boarder complains that your footing isn't that good or that their paddock isn't big enough, or that the fencing sucks, you can just tell them to leave and grab someone else off the list. No barn in the area is hurting for boarders because...

Facilities are closing left and right to sell to developers while private barns are being turned into vineyards or pools in the backyards of estates because why take care of horses at home when you can just put them elsewhere? So the barns have long wait-lists and are putting horses wherever they can to stay afloat themselves. Being a barn owner in the area means turning down huge sums of money (I'm talking tens of millions dollars for property that the new owners would just tear down and put in condos because each one of those will sell for 1.5-2 million dollars) all the while hearing that your board is too expensive, your fencing/footing isn't safe enough, and your paddocks are too small.


Things are way better in the outskirts of the bay area. It's why I live there. But there are still challenges. My rent is literally 55% of my take home salary from my office job, my commute is just under an hour one way, and I have to work a second job to make ends meet. But I can live 10 minutes away from a barn that is affordable to be at and IMO, has no cons for me personally.

Purchasing in this area isn't as bad, there are actual horse properties to buy for less-than-outrageous amounts of money! For example, you could buy this nice horse property on one acre for 1.2 million dollars. Not a lot of space for amenities though, maybe you're okay with just riding in the small pasture or hauling out every day. Want more room? Well, there are a few boarding stables for sale in the 2.5-4 million dollar range for sale, except like I said, you could be fighting developers with deep pockets who are able to pay in cash and who don't care how nice the facility is or whether it is making money because they'll just tear it down. Oh or you can get a whopping 10 acres for only 2 million! Such a deal, but you'd have to develop your horse facilities yourself and the house is only 900 square feet, looks like it could use a renovation and it sounds like there's a lot of paperwork associated with that property with the state, weird.

I feel like this sometimes with my constant working

The prices sound great right? Except down here, you're looking at a 45 minute commute to the bay area (since my job on the coast in academia will not pay that mortgage) without traffic, and traffic easily doubles or even triples your drive depending on how far you need to go and at what hour. The one highway from my area backs up starting at 5 in the morning and is still iffy around 11. Getting home from the bay on a weekend also has major traffic (which annoys me EVERY TIME lol). These tech companies pay well though, you can work at Google and make plenty of money to buy one of these properties... but you're looking at a 1.5-2 hour commute. Public transportation? Well, from one of those properties, you can drive thirty minutes to the station and then the train takes 1.5-2 hours and only leaves at three times in the morning (and also only comes down that far at three times in the afternoon).

In terms of boarding, there are more barns in my area than on the peninsula and not as many of them are under threat of being sold/developed (still a threat though), which is great! But the pickings are still limited.

I'm very lucky at my barn. It checks off nearly all my boxes. The footing is not only safe, it's downright great, there are amenities that help me enjoy my horse (dressage court, mirrors, covered arena), the fencing is safe, and we will be moving into a large paddock in the next couple of months. But it took me 9 months to get into and that's with me knowing the facility owners very well and offering to move into a smaller paddock first. I can't teach there or have my own trainer come in either, which is fine with me because I like having my horse at a separate facility than the one I train at and I have a trailer to haul to my trainer with. There's no real turnout (turnout paddocks are just a bit larger than what he has now), though I can turn TC out myself in a decent size space but I have to stay there with him and there's a max time limit. There's also no trails, but there are great trail facilities within a 30 minute haul.

Another barn in the area that is slowly being gutted to make
room for non-horse activities

I'm a firm believer that horses should live out (my parents have all their horses out in pastures with stalls/paddocks attached), I don't disagree with that comment made on my blog last week. It is better for them and if I could, I'd keep TC at his breeder's forever (but amenities are not what I need and that spot he had was not his to keep, they did me a HUGE FAVOR by letting me come in temporarily). I see the pastures on the east coast and midwest and I can't help but to be envious. TC would love to live on 10 acres or more, with a ton of friends, eating fresh grass rather than hay that costs $22 a bale.

But for right now, I think I'm doing a good job keeping him well taken care of in a tricky area.

Another barn currently for sale, hopefully the
new owners will keep it as a boarding stable

But I will put this offer out there: if anyone would like to rescue TC from his horrible fate of being owned by someone who lives in the bay area where he doesn't get enough turnout, his adoption fee is $50,000. Or, you can contribute to my fund to buy him his own barn where he can have more room, I'm sure he'd love that. I think I'd need about $1.5 million for the property and another few hundred thousand to build the barn and arena. Also he'd love some mini donks so I'll plan on buying him some of those, don't worry.

Or I can just keep plugging away with my two jobs and my crazy commute and hang onto my current barn as long as I can, we're both happy there and that's all that matters to me.

Not a Seahorse, But a High Electron Horse

I've been wanting to take TC to the beach for a long time, mostly just to check a box as something he's done.

There's a beach about an hour's drive away that is pretty low key. Not a lot of trail riding to get to the beach, not a ton of sand before you hit the water, and usually not too many people.

I invited my dad and Riot to have someone there to call the ambulance for company. Riot has been to the beach a few times and although he's rather neurotic, he's safe and stays pretty quiet.

What a good boy

TC has not ridden out with another horse since before his suspensory injury almost four years ago. That's a long time! I've mostly avoided it because in the past TC has 1) gotten very attached to the other horse and 2) been a slow walker, so has always had to trot/canter to catch up and I don't like that now that I'm the one paying the vet bills. And it works for us, I mostly trail ride alone because of my random schedule.

But I figured it was time to start taking him out with other horses and see how he does! I also don't get to spend much time with my dad, so it was nice to hang out with him for the day.

Riot is 15.2 maybe? TC is only a hand bigger but seems way
way way bigger lol 

I loaded TC into the trailer and he hesitated for a moment before getting in, maybe he's not a two-trail-rides-in-one-weekend kind of horse. We then drove over to my parents' house to pick up Riot.

Poor innocent Riot. He's been in my rig before but never with TC. TC has never hauled in my rig with another horse. They both handled this poorly in their own ways.

TC nearly turned around in his space trying to get to Riot as Riot loaded. I had to push TC's nose out of the way several times to keep him from bugging him. Riot stood, shaking, pressed up against the wall that wasn't next to TC as TC aggressively STARED into the depths of Riot's soul and decided that he liked what he saw and that they were BEST FRIENDS FOREVER. He was smashed up against the divider and had his nose in Riot's manger as the doors closed. I tied TC real short so that he couldn't reach over and bother Riot the entire time. TC wasn't pleased with that.

Hi, want to be neurotic best friends forever???

When we unloaded at the beach, Riot was still shaking (he is a nervous guy generally, but I'm sure being dumped in a small space with a very enthusiastic friend was a lot for him) but TC had settled down a bit. Until we unloaded Riot and TC freaked the HELL out. Okay, lesson learned, TC unloads first then.

I smacked TC's butt to get him to stop leaning on the butt bar and then he unloaded, took a deep breath, and relaxed.

I had one of those "this is my dumb horse, there are many like it, but this one is mine" moments. Actually, this entire trip was one of those moments.

This path was great, wish it was longer!

Not having a death wish, I decided to lead TC down to the beach and see what he was going to do before getting on him. I know him well and know all his moves, but the beach is such a weird place. With the sand and the waves, I just didn't want to have him flip out and bolt in that deep of sand. He never bolts in hand so that's helpful.

We walked down to the beach and the look on TC's face was hysterical and I didn't get any media because my phone was in the car. He HATED it at first. When the waves came at him, he lowered himself back and down so far (like a dog) that his belly hit the sand. At one point, he was sniffing a piece of seaweed when a wave surprised him, so he spun away from it and then fell onto the sand. This seemed to get him to realize how soft the sand was, so he took his time finding several spaces to roll.

By the end of our walk, he was fine, but he'd trapped me in the sea once and I was wet and sandy and just wanted to go back to the trailer to empty out my shoes. Note to self: bring another pair of socks, always, actually just put a pile of socks in the trailer.

As close as we got undersaddle

We decided to tack up but walk along the path on the other side of the dunes from the beach. I wish this trail was longer so that the trail alone was worth the drive, then I think I'd go down there more and get TC all dialed in as a beach horse. It's a beautiful trail and TC was amazing on it. He led at first, then let Riot lead and was super polite about it all. He passed bikes and people and dogs and was just so happy.

After we got back, we walked up the dune with the idea that we'd walk out to the ocean and back, but there were a TON more people there and I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to get near people. So we decided to do the little trail again and then go home.

Following Riot like a good boy

At the end of our second walk on the trail, we ran into a man walking a bike. He had a beard and was carrying a plastic bag, he kind of looked like Radagast the Brown. He stopped us. A lot of people had stopped to ask about the horses, so I figured he just wanted to ask something.

Radagast: Do you know anything about nuclear chemistry?
My dad, a chemist: No, I don't (he totally does)
Radagast: Okay so there are forces in this universe, right? Protons! They're very stable, they're positive. This world is very positive, lots of protons. Then there are electrons, those are very unstable, they do not do well in this world.

TC, meanwhile, isn't sure whether the best way to get around Riot is to go around him or to go through him, so has wedged himself up Riot's butt as our wizard friend is talking to us.

Radagast: This horse *gestures to TC* he is very high electron. Very unstable. With the forces in this world *gestures around us* he's likely to explode.

And then he walked away. 

TC would have loved to go play in this water

It was kind of absurd, but he kind of read my horse pretty well and I think it's hilarious. So from now on, I'll be referring to TC and horses like TC as high electron horses.

He's definitely not a seahorse though.

And FYI, Riot was way less nervous hauling back with TC, and TC was better when I unloaded him first at my parents' house before loading him back up to take him home.

Reluctant Zookeeper of a Rather Sparse Zoo

Although I was bummed to not be showing, I was very excited to have a weekend fully at home since... um... early June, when I had mono and was forced to be home. Every weekend since recovering I've either driven away from the area to teach, been on vacation, or been at a dope ass wedding. There's something glorious about two full days of not needing to drive or fly anywhere (even if those things are fun) and not having to work.

Saturday, the plan was to have one of my students come down to ride TC, but she had to cancel, so I ended up taking him on a trail ride instead after sleeping in and going out to lunch with Kate.

It was a much cooler day than the week leading up to it, and it was quite windy. But I wasn't going to let some cool weather and wind stop me from taking my sometimes spooky horse to a brand new trail facility (for him), because sometimes I make bad life choices.

Hello South Valley

I pulled into the park and immediately saw that the place to pay was out of reach for me in my rig. There was no way I was going to fit. Whatever. I don't mind paying tickets when it's for a county park. I do mind getting my rig stuck in a county park and having to call for help though.

As I pulled into the very horse-unfriendly parking lot (pavement, no designated place to put my rig), I drove past a small child's birthday party. It seemed like every person who had ever laid eyes on this child was invited, and it was complete with a BBQ, giant flapping signs/streamers/etc, and a BOUNCY CASTLE. Like, this kid was absolutely living it up, jealous.

I parked and put TC on the other side of the trailer from the birthday party so all he had to look at was a man blowing up what seemed to be 80 tires, 5 air mattresses, and another bouncy castle with an industrial strength air pump. I put his noise canceling bonnet on just to help him deal.

What a good boy

TC stood okay but was kind of concerned. Meanwhile everyone around us proceeded to act like they were suddenly at a very sparse zoo and I was the reluctant zookeeper taking care of the "horse" habitat.

Our first visitor was a man on a bike. I heard him stop by the guy with the nine hundred tires to blow up and talk to him. Then he rode his bike directly into TC's ass and was lodged half up it when he started to ask me if I had a first aid kit. I wish I had asked him if he was asking preemptively because he was riding his bike within kicking distance of my horse. But I first yelled at him to get away from my horse and that it was very dangerous to ride bikes around horses without checking with their owners, let alone so close. Then I said no, because it's true, I don't have a human first aid kit, only a horse one. I'm sure he found one, if he was okay to be riding his bike so close to my horse, he was probably fine. Or maybe he had a head injury. There were plenty of other people to help him though.

The next visitors were two children on bikes who had the intelligence to stay away from the horse. They kept shouting at me but I couldn't hear them because of the wind, screams coming from the bouncy castle, and the air pump. So I just ignored them, TC isn't kid safe in this kind of an environment and I don't blame him, I too am not kid safe when stressed. I finished tacking him up and hopped on. TC gave the bouncy castle one hairy eyeball but generally walked quietly along the trail.

The birthday party, bouncy castle behind one of the trees

Our next unfortunate encounter came from men stretching. TC hates it when people stretch on fence posts. I told TC to get over his anti-mobility attitude and walk forward. The guys saw me and one put up both hands above his head, what I interpreted was a gesture to stop.

I'd heard a drone earlier (but it didn't seem to bother TC that much, granted it was pretty far away) and so was thinking that he was having me stop because maybe they were about to launch the drone or land it or something? I don't know. I figured TC was fine, actually getting antsier standing, so continued. Another guy showed up and put his hands up so I stopped again. Then I heard "what's his name?" and.. ugh okay. I asked if there was anything up there, but it was so windy that no one heard me. Whatever, I rode up to them.

I got told, not asked, that TC was an Andalusian. Okay, I get this a lot. He is not though. I have the six pack to prove it (if you want to see said six pack, please isolate me with no sugar for several weeks). I said no he isn't and they said yes he is and I said no, all while I kept a steady pace to get by them. At least they had stopped stretching, so TC was fine with being told he was an Andalusian. I was pretty done with them by the time we got past them.

Nice wide trails, which I appreciate on my
giant horse

Anyway, I kept walking and was about half way down the next hill when TC took off. Now, let me tell you all the times TC has ever taken off with me on the trail: .... never. So I turned around and saw that another bicyclist had started to follow me, too closely, down the hill, hadn't yelled to see if I knew he was there or to see if he could pass. Then, spooks my horse and decides that THIS is the time to ask me about passing. I told him to please wait and then allowed him to pass when I got TC out of the way.

Around that time I saw the trailer again, which kind of sucked, it's a small park but I didn't realize this loop was so short. So I walked down another trail out for a while and then walked back, walked across in front of the birthday party that TC was now very interested in. Tiny children locked in a castle that seems to be shaking them to death? He's all about it, apparently. What a judgmental shrew, I love him.

Up the ridge and across and we finally saw a view of the south valley. It was beautiful! TC at this point was getting a bit done. He loves trail riding, but I think the constant out-and-back was bugging him a bit. Also the bugs, my fly spray bottle broke.

Such a beautiful place

We walked back to the parking lot and I saw a ranger giving me a ticket. Oh well. I don't mind tickets at the county parks so much, I mean, even if it cost more than the $6 to park there, I'd just budget for it. In the bay area, which is so crowded and the land is so expensive, I so adore having all these parks within a 30 minute trailer distance. I'd happily pay ten times the amount to ride there. I... might ride there a little less, but I wouldn't complain about it.

So I was planning on just apologizing for not being able to get a tag and happily paying my fine. I think the ranger and I had very different thoughts on how the conversation would go. She clearly thought I'd push back against the ticket, I was very happy to have a ticket.

This was the actual conversation that neither of us knew how to navigate given that the other person was acting so strange:
Me: Hey, sorry I didn't pay, couldn't get my truck into that sp-
Her: You could have ridden over there
Me: Fair, yes, but the bouncy castle was making my horse nervous so I figured I'd just pay the f-
Her: There's a trail right there
Me: Yes, I see that now, I just thought for safety... I'm have cash in the car or am happy to pa-
Her: Well, see, the thing is that I've already written out this ticket
Me: Okay, understandable, can I have it? I'll pay it when I get home
Her: Oh...... okay I mean I can just forget about it
Me: I'm happy to pay the fine, I can pay it as soon as I get home
Her: Uh, okay, um, well I can forget the ticket if I can pet your horse
Me: I mean okay but I'm also fine to pay... sure okay you can pet him

And so she pet TC and he was a very good boy about it. I thanked her and she thanked me and then I loaded TC up and we went home.

But really, she was super sweet and clearly likes horses. I'm sure she gets a ton of push back and it sucks to be the bad guy. Hopefully I gave her a good experience with someone who wasn't being rude about a ticket.

We found this random path down here too

Honestly it was a decent ride, TC was a really good boy and the views were beautiful. I don't know whether I'll go back necessarily, I think I like the other places we've been recently a bit more. But it was still a great experience for both of us and it made me realize how much TC has calmed down even in the last six months with all of the traveling we've done. He's turning into a really solid trail horse!

Well, in some locations. Tomorrow I'll tell you about our trip to the beach!

How My Goals Have Changed

It's now been an entire year since we were in the rated show ring. First time we haven't been in a rated show in a season for a few years now. At first I was really frustrated/sad about that, but I think it's okay now. Not every year is going to be like the last two, and I'm so grateful to have had those years and I hope that next year will be one of those years too.

I know that we're ready to go in and do okay at Second level right now. But I am still waiting for several reasons. I figured that I would outline these, as I find it interesting how things have changed for me as a rider and for me with TC vs Rico.

STRESSED

Not stressed

In the past, Rico and I moved up when it was probable that we would score a 60% or better. If any of you have found my centerline scores, you'll see that I was, for the most part, successful at this pathway. I have three scores under 60% on my record: one 59% at First level on Rico when I was trying to ride him when I was injured and also went off course twice; one 59% at Third level on Rico when all the letters blew down on half of the arena and he refused to go near them (should have withdrawn honestly); and one glorious 54% for my first ever Grand Prix when Leo was lame coming up to it and I was nervous to push him in the show ring so we basically didn't do the piaffe.

As long as it was in the 60s though, I didn't care about the score. A 6 means sufficient. I wanted to be sufficient at each level. That's an excellent goal given that it was my first time going up the levels. To be sufficient at them.

I was pretty successful at that! I scored okay, got through each level with a passing grade essentially. Excellent! But I was always a bit stressed, a bit worried that I'd score in that insufficient place.

STRESSED

Not stressed

Now that I'm showing TC, I have different goals. My main goal now is to figure out what I need to do to make showing fun for me, something that it hasn't been in years. It could be that I just find the upper levels inherently stressful, which is totally true, they are stressful. But it could be something else...

One of the most stressful things about getting my Gold on Rico was the uncertainty surrounding scoring in the 60s. I very much did score in the 60s, he never scored below that at the FEI levels, but I sometimes did this by the skin of my teeth. 60.01% if you know what I mean. Standing there, waiting for the score, feeling anxious that we might have gotten something lower instead (and therefore putting off/possibly not getting my gold) was TERRIBLE. It completely ruined my show experience. Going into the ring knowing that we had never ridden a clean test at home, knowing that there were movements we had not confirmed, knowing that Rico might decide not to be on the bit that day or halt in his pirouettes... it was horrible.

Nearing the end of my Gold medal I told myself I never wanted to show again, certainly not at the FEI levels. It was terrible. I couldn't have anyone come up to me at shows before my test without snapping at them, I couldn't eat anything, I could barely get down water. Sure, the minute I got in the ring, my anxiety shut down and I was able to ride just fine, but the weeks leading up to the show, the minutes before the test, the countless mornings trying to force myself to eat... it SUCKED.

STRESSED

Not stressed

Along comes TC, who, in comparison to Rico, I've completely over prepared for the show ring, and what do you know, showing is FUN again.

Going in the ring absolutely knowing that even if he has some antics (and he will always have antics), we'll have a chance of scoring in the high 60s/low 70s, not just barely in the 60s, is completely relaxing. Knowing that he can do every movement at a 7 or better at home gives me so much confidence.

With Rico, I never wanted anyone there to see me show, I didn't want to interact with anyone who I would feel bad about snapping at, I didn't want to show on the same day that my students showed because I couldn't be a good trainer for them... now with TC, I want people to come watch me show, I like running into friends at shows and laughing with them about how absurd our sport is. I get kind of bummed now when people can't come hang out at the show with me. And I can EAT now, I don't get nervous, even if TC is way less predictable in the show ring than Rico and is way less fancy/talented than he is (all judges loved Rico, all of them). Leading up to the show, I don't stress over individual rides, obsess over how he's doing the day before... nothing. I just show! And it's fun!

STRESSED

ANNOYED but not stressed

A good part of this is the fact that I'm a professional. I have to keep in mind is my show record as a trainer. You don't usually see trainers that are okay risking low (below 60%) scores. One of my trainer friends put it really well: consistently taking a horse who scores poorly in the ring as a trainer shows poor judgement. Riders do not want to ride with trainers who do not have good judgement.

It really stuck with me. I want my students to believe that with me, they will be capable of scoring in the 60s easily. Everyone has their own goals, so I try to be honest with how I think my horse/rider pair will score. I will, of course, let them know if they are risking low scores before we sign up. No judgement though, if they want to take that risk, that's totally fine. Dressage is a wonderful sport because it's pretty safe, the only thing you risk bruising by moving up a level is your ego (or your business as a trainer).

STRESSED

Not stressed

So we're waiting. I no longer am chasing medals, I have no timeline with this horse. I want showing to be fun, and knowing myself, I need to feel a certain way - confirmed in both the basics and the movements - before going in the ring. We're very close, but we're walking that line right now. Plus, it bodes well as I gain clients (oh man at this rate I'm never going to sleep, it's exciting though) to be the trainer who goes out there and gets good scores.

I know that we'll make it this year or early next year and I know that we'll be ready. Most importantly, I know that it will be fun for me, which is the most important thing at this point.