A Boring Update on Rico

Speaking of Rico, he's doing great! That's the update. He's doing wonderfully on TC's fitness plan, which is basically just that Rico follows TC around and TC moves around a TON. I need to grab updated photos of him, his topline looks really good, his legs are cool and tight, and he doesn't have the ventral edema he used to have. Thank you, TC!

I love their relationship so much, Rico is very attached to TC and apparently has looked for him when TC is off the property for shows or clinics. TC loves Rico but in a little brother type way, where he wants to harass him a bit. But TC is honestly really gentle with Rico, they played a lot harder a couple years ago when Rico was more spry. 

Not the worst place to live out your older years

But honestly, he's still pretty spry. I stare aggressively at him whenever he gets up from laying down, and he's in that age range where when you see them lying down, you rudely interrupt them to make sure they're okay. But he's pretty sound and comfortable as he walks around, and the few times I've seen him play this year at trot and canter, he's looked fairly coordinated too. 

The only major change this year was starting on prascend because he was diagnosed with cushings this spring. He had a couple of quiet days adjusting to the medication, but now he's doing well on it and is back to normal. 

This is a picture of Rico when he just
moved to the ranch back in 2011 before
all the fencing was put up on the road!

My mom is also convinced he is carrying his neck lower, and when you go to give him chest scratches (his favorite), you can hear his neck popping as he lifts it up so you can get to the right spot. I'm considering getting someone out for bodywork at some point. I want to probably first bring them out for TC and see how gentle they are and just talk about Rico and then maybe bring them back for Rico. 

The reason being that I'm mostly looking for him to get more comfortable, not to address any major asymmetries or compensations. However his body is compensating right now is probably for the better. I would hate to release something and then have him crumble because that one part of him being tight was preventing the rest of him from falling apart. I basically want someone who kind of specializes in bodywork for older horses, or just some kind of bodywork that is pretty low manipulation. 

I super trust my acupuncturist with Rico, she has a ton of experience with older horses and knows Rico well, so hopefully she can come out at some point. I'm also considering PEMF or something along those lines. Or maybe finding someone who does massage and can work with him really gently. 

Out in TC's pasture

Honestly, someone could really take me for a ride here, literally if the person just runs their hands over him and tells me how wonderful he is and how he'll feel better now, I'd be sending them money and asking them to come back every week LOL I mean, we all knew I'd get to this point, this should come as no surprise. 

If anyone has any advice on how to find someone to do very older-horse-safe bodywork, that'd be great! I just want him to feel good and be happy in retirement. If that means letting him be, that's also fine! 

WW: Old Photos of Rico and I

As you can probably tell, I'm going through a lot of old photos these days. During this time, I ran across a bunch of old, kind of candid photos of Rico and I! I figured I'd put them here. Realizing what years these were all from was bad for my mental health (hahaha). 

Braiding Rico while chatting with a friend on
my flip phone in 2005 I think?

Wrestling Rico away from grass in 2005 or 2006

Chatting with my trainer while Rico was like "so
are you going to tell her to stop pulling or what?"
I think 2006

Winning things probably 2005

Spooking at a tiny little whirlwind
thingy in 2006

In a clinic with Jeremy Steinberg in 2009

My dad and I walking at Woodside I think 2005?

An Update on Sunny Horse

I gave the pony the winter off, which TC also had off, because of the crazy weather. In the spring when I started bringing TC back, my work schedule was a bit much to have two horses going. Sunny's feet had also taken a turn for the worse and I expressed that I wanted to yank his shoes and get him more comfortable over the course of a couple of trimming cycles. I didn't know if this was just due to the winter or something else, but he's looking WAY better. 

The many different things I've seen behind these
fluffy yellow ears

And so with that and work calming down a bit, I'm starting to get him out again. He's done a turnout and some longeing so far, with the goal being riding him 2-3x per week and keeping him fit enough to do things with but not prioritizing him over TC given that TC and I are surprisingly doing a lot of stuff this year. 

My primary goal for the year is to prep him for his inevitable kid-horse days. My niece is in somewhat consistent lessons over at Kate's barn to get her more comfortable riding on her own. But the goal will be to transition her back to her Sunny Horse probably in the next year or two and until she outgrows him/he retires or we have the capacity to get her another horse. I am not attached to her riding the pony, but my mom sure is. 

Cows!

Sunny doesn't... love the child. But I think I can get him more tolerant of her. This year, I'm going to focus on two things that will help with this: 

1. Getting him comfortable being ponied off of TC.

2. Getting him more tolerant of shenanigans. 

The ponying is so that I can exercise them both at the same time, take them places (such as trail facilities/obstacle shows/bombproofing clinics) at the same time, and general "you need to get on board with what the humans want" training. 

I want so much to respect my pony's feelings. But I also want him to just tell Riot how shit TC is rather than having to confront TC directly. He feels the need to REALLY drive home how much he hates TC. I think I've got a good plan to get him a little better about ponying, but we'll see. My priority is to keep TC safe of course, both from physical injuries and general bullying by a pipsqueak. 

The ranch from above

Shenanigan tolerance something I work on a ton with my personal horses. With TC, I've wanted him to feel confident in pretty much any situation and I do this by making sure that I subject expose him to things that are way beyond anything he'd be faced with in the real world. 

For example, I rode him with a pool noodle for a while, thwapping him with it randomly all over his body. When I started doing mounted archery, he had no problems with the arrows touching him or flying by his face. Not the first things to touch his butt or fly by his face while I've been riding him. So when he's ridden by a child and they drop their crop or they fling themselves onto his neck to hug him or anything children do, I know he won't care because I've both done it all and much worse on him. 

The pony is not tolerant of shenanigans and that plus the fact that he doesn't consider his rider's safety or comfort when shenanigans are going down, means that I don't super trust him with the kid. The kid is going to be the cause of many shenanigans and he is the only one of us who does not care about her safety. 

Back to the barn!

I saw a video of a person bombproofing a horse for children who would trip and fall in front of them and crawl under their legs and hang off of them and I thought, perfect. 

I tried it on TC and he doesn't care other than his one fatal flaw which is not feeling bad about stepping on squishy things, which we are working on. Do not step on humans (he didn't step on me, he just is not particularly careful with his giant feet). But you can do jumping jacks around him while leading him and fall on the ground and crawl all over him and he does not care. 

The pony cared SO MUCH. He spooked really hard at me when I "fell" to the ground leading him and was pretty scared of my jumping jacks. So that's our homework. And all the other shenanigans I have planned, which pretty much coincides with my obstacle training for TC anyway! 

The trails!

I'm excited to get the pony back and hopefully make some real changes in how he interacts with his world/the child/the gray horse he hates. He's not young, he's 18 or 19 now? But he's a Morgan and is unreasonably sound and spry despite still having silicosis. If he says no or is not doing well in my program, he'll happily retire. But I think he'll find that being a little more tolerant leads him to a much better existence. Or at least, that's what TC would say! Although according to the pony, he's been indoctrinated. 

WW: Rico's First Show (Video)

Way back in March 2005, Rico and I did our first ever show together and I have found video of it! This is a bit of the 2003 Training Level Test 3 test. 

It was a cool test, you came up centerline, turned left, and then the video picks up from there - you turned left at E, then at X did a figure 8. Then you picked up canter in the corner, rode a circle at A, then rode a half circle and trotted after crossing centerline at E. I assume after that there was some walk work and then cantering the other way. I don't think you did all that much more trotting. 

Anyway, enjoy! While resting assured that my riding got INFINITELY BETTER once I learned how to have any amount of stability in my body without resorting to rigidity. It'd take a while but now I have new problems. 

TC the Warhorse

I've been introducing TC to mounted archery and it's been great! I mean, I expected nothing less, but he was actually kind of reactive to the thwap of the arrow hitting the target at first. Luckily for him, I rarely hit it. 

I started with a couple of ground work sessions where I just had TC in hand and clicked after every arrow I shot. I also rode around with the arrows and did things like shuffling them around, running them all over his body, and throwing them off of his back. But I hadn't yet shot off of him. 

Over the weekend, I got my field target out and decided to try it out!

Literally the most perfect animal

How he looks at me when I'm picking up arrows

We went into the arena and when he saw the target, he made a bee line for it and tried to bite it. I like to think that what's going through his mind is "I don't know what this is, but she HATES it, so I hate it too and I'll also try to kill it." 

I did one round of shooting from the ground and other than wanting to get his nose in between the bowstring and the bow to poke my face (omg TC seriously, so dangerous, luckily I wasn't trying to be quick about anything so I shoved him away), he was perfect. Just one minor startle when I hit the target and then he got used to it. 

At the trot!

Why you hate this thing so much?

Then I got on with just the arrows and did some desensitizing. No need though, he was super chill about it and the only task at the top of his mind seemed to be to go bother the target again. 

Next, I shot very lightly with my arm through my reins so that I didn't fall off the back. I aimed at the ground so that we avoided the thwap. He was super good about it! So I started to just play with it!

We did a lot standing still, a bunch walking, and I even trotted him and shot off of him! Being bareback, he is SO BOUNCY, so I didn't do it much. But I think I could legitimately canter and shoot off of him in my saddle, next time. 

I also started the process of shooting while standing on him, which I really want to do, mostly because I think it's going to look super cool, not for any other reason. 

Don't look as cool just walking but he is cute

After we do archery we roll

In the most ADORABLE news, my niece watched me practice on TC and was VERY interested in mounted archery. She's kind of in this "anything Aunt Mimi does is extremely cool" phase, which I think is going to get her bullied at school eventually given that she mostly wears leggings with her socks pulled up over them to mimic my boot socks. I am not a fashion icon, she will figure this out eventually. 

Anyway, I ordered her a kid's bow and arrows (with suction cups) immediately. The next time she was at the ranch, I taught her how to use it and she has been completely addicted to it ever since. She practiced for hours when we were at the ranch, told me that she wanted to tell Miss Kate and Miss Kenna (her riding instructors) that she *needed* to shoot arrows off of Ginger Pony, wanted to watch Brave all day, and took her bow and arrows home so that she could practice shooting arrows off of her pony at home. 

Almost cuter was my brother googling "archery for toddlers" which did not bring up much. But he wants to see if we can take her to a range to watch and there's also a mounted archery demo at Horse Expo that we'll be taking her to. 

And of course, when she starts riding TC, she can shoot off of him, although she told me that I'd have to help her because she has to hold onto the reins (would not listen to me when I told her that you actually have to drop your reins to shoot). 

So adorable, and she's so good, you can
literally tell her what to shoot and she
just does it... jealous...

Lots of treats of course

For me, there's a mounted archery clinic in early July that I might go to. It's a bit of a haul and comes at the end of my company's week long July 4th shutdown, but we'll see! 

A Day in the Life: Working in Tech in Silicon Valley

Now that I'm coming up on a year and a half of working in tech in the heart of Silicon Valley, I figured I'd post a day in the life. Maybe it'd be interesting if you're not from around here?

Growing up here, I got used to a lot of what Silicon Valley had to offer, but I was never actually inside one of those big tech companies. I was mostly pummeled by the impact of those companies on the surrounding area: the insane traffic, the unattainable housing prices, and logos on the sides of buildings that people outside the area only see on their computers. 

It was all still foreign for me personally though, until I made the move from academia directly into big tech last year. 

Can confirm: some of this show is accurate

Because I don't want to post photos of my work, I'm using Silicon Valley (the tv show) gifs and letting you know how accurate they are, hopefully that's sufficient lol! 

Anyway, onto my typical day!

I'm super lucky that my schedule is so flexible because I can flex it to accommodate my riding. I usually ride Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday during the week, taking Monday and Thursday off to be at work all day. I flex my schedule to accommodate it, meaning that on the days I don't ride, I usually work 10 or so hours and then on the days I do, I can work a little less. 

6:00AM - 9:00AM Wakeup & Get Ready

I usually wake up between 6am and 8:47am, why the large difference? Because I have insomnia and I never know whether my body is going to be wide awake trying to solve the world's problems at 6am or waking up to my "oh shit you need to get out of bed" alarm at 8:47am. 

If I'm up at 6am, I'm probably exhausted, so I usually lay around trying to go back to sleep and failing. If I'm struggling to get up, usually I'll open my corporate app, which will tell me what is for breakfast and that usually motivates me to get up and get out the door. 

On occasion, I'll do a bit of work early if I'm already up because some of my stakeholders are on the east coast. Luckily everyone knows I'm not a morning person!

Accurate, although we have multiple
scanner things for each building

9:00AM - 10:00AM Breakfast

I leave for work between 9 and 9:15 each morning. It's a 15 minute walk to the closest building with food in it. Yes, I said walk, I normally walk to work because I live really close, like uncomfortably close. Don't get too excited, remember that every time I pay rent, I want to jump out a window. Also my place hasn't been updated since it was built in the 80s, including the dishwasher. 

Breakfast stops being served at 9:30, so I usually make it just in time to grab whatever is being served. 

The food is free and we joke that it's the best restaurant in the bay area. It's honestly more like a cafeteria in that there are a bunch of different stations where you can grab food. For breakfast, they usually have a traditional eggs + potatoes + breakfast meat at one station, some pastries at another, a yogurt bowl, some fruit/vegetables/smoked salmon you can grab, and then there's always some kind of random option, which is anything from french toast to a breakfast burrito. 

If the weather is nice, I'll usually eat outside and use the time to answer teams messages and read emails. I also use this time to look at my calendar (which I also do the day before just in case I have a 9am meeting) and update my schedule + action items on my iPad, which I keep my entire life on.

The people in the cafeteria being like please just
pick out your breakfast

10:00AM - 12:00PM Work

I usually have at least one morning meeting. Sometimes I'm back to back all morning though. Either way this time is usually reserved for meetings and working in between. 

We have an open office with desks that we can be assigned or we can just hot-desk. I have an un-assigned assigned desk aka I put a post-it on it with my name. I sit with my other local teammates, although most of the team is based in the SF office or remote, but usually I see at least one other team member when I'm there. 

If the office is too loud or if I have a meeting, there are meeting rooms scattered around the building. Everything from big rooms to accommodate like 20 people down to tiny phone booths for just one person. 

And during this time, I try to make myself drink water. We have a ton of fun types of water (and sodas/coffee/tea/etc) in the mico kitchens. We have one per floor so you can stop by and grab food and drinks whenever you want. For my first few weeks I ate SO MANY SNACKS but now I'm used to it and only grab them when I actually want them.

Me the first week feeling like I was
stealing food 

12:00PM - 1:00PM Lunch

Sometimes I have lunch meetings, which is fine because while I try to get lunch around noon, lunch is served from 11:30 to 1:30 every day. So even if I have a meeting that ends at 1, I can still grab lunch. 

There are even more lunch options than breakfast options, so we always check the app/website to see what is being served in each building. While my building doesn't do breakfast, they do lunch so that's super convenient if I only have a half hour. If I have longer, I'll usually go wander around to find something I really want. Each building has slightly different food, but we have basically everything you could imagine. There are specific cafes for Indian food, BBQ, a general Asian cafe, ramen, boba, pizza, mexican, salad, and so on.

Not yet accurate

1:00PM - 3:30PM Work

More work time and usually at least one more meeting. Very occasionally I'll wander around campus with a coworker, especially if we have something to talk about, we've found some cool places, such as a meditation room, a massage room (you have to pay for that though), a music room, the gym, and all sorts of other things. Also all micro kitchens have slightly different snacks. If there's a bunch of us there, then we have used the game room! But that's happened like... twice in the last year and a half. 

Not accurate, they did bring these bikes around on campus for
a bit but they were used for transportation between buildlings,
not for meetings lol

3:30PM - 4:00PM Coffee Break

In addition to the cafeterias, we also have a few cafes which are open from like 7am to 4pm. These are where you can grab coffee or tea from some of our amazing baristas and they have some snacks that are pre-made. If you accidentally skip lunch, the cafes usually have some sort of sandwich to eat. But we make sure to get in the door around 3:30 because they're really good about closing on time and then after that you just have micro kitchen foods (which are like chips and chex mix type of food). 

Not every day but a lot of days lol

4:00PM - 7:00 (or whenever) PM Work

After 4 it's pretty much whatever else needs to be done, this is usually my heads down time since we don't usually have meetings after 3 or 4. Sometimes I'll walk back home right after lunch if I have an errand or laundry or if I just feel like being at home instead. Or sometimes I'm at work late finishing stuff up or hanging with one of my coworkers who also works late sometimes. 

We don't get served dinner, which is fine. It means that I usually eat dinner at home. And honestly on the days I stay at the office all day, I don't usually want much for dinner! Sometimes if I plan ahead, I'll grab something from lunch or from the cafe to save for dinner, but that happens very rarely. 

Every c-suite at every tech company in the area lol

Riding Days

On the days that I ride, the schedule starts the same, but I usually do one of the following: 

1) drive down right after breakfast, work for the rest of the morning at the ranch, ride over lunch, work until 5 or 6, then drive home and finish up work later.

2) work from the office until 11ish, drive down over lunch, work for the rest of the day at the ranch, either squeezing a ride in whenever I can.

I'm super lucky that my schedule is this flexible. It's a perk of I think most of my work being somewhat independent outside of meetings and my team and company culture. I also will do anything to get my work done on time, meaning that I have worked a LOT of weekends and evenings. So I figure that as long as I get everything done, I can ride at a time where it makes the most sense. I've run that by my manager and gotten a "I don't care what you do, work when you work best and just hit your deadlines and go to your meetings" speech. Luckily he flexes his schedule too and has kind of realized that if he just lets me do my weird thing, I'll produce a lot more work than I would if I were forced into a 9-5 schedule. 

I also have rules around riding during working hours. I must always be 10-15 minutes from my computer (which like, at the office I'm often further from my computer lol), meaning that if I get 5 minutes into my ride and someone needs me urgently (and it's legitimate and not just like, someone weaponizing urgency), I can tell them that I'll be right there.

I also try to do my quicker rides on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when I'm more likely to be needed. I can do a trail ride relatively quickly and I will also often have my computer at the barn so I can keep an eye on things (run processes, respond to emails/teams) while I'm tacking up. 

You've reached the end of a post about work! Hopefully it was interesting enough

Working Equitation Clinic

May has turned into quite the month for TC and I. The first two weekends of the month were spent doing obstacles and then this third weekend was working equitation! He's going to be disappointed when this coming weekend is a dressage clinic (biomechanics for me because I am ~crooked~ as per usual). 

I was wondering if TC was going to be excited about another outing or annoyed about it. He nickered at me when I went to get him and happily loaded into the trailer, so that was good! We used to haul out all the time for trail rides and clinics and lessons at our old barn. When he moved to the ranch two years ago, we stopped hauling out for trail rides, and last year we really didn't go anywhere. I'm glad he's enjoying all the outings! 

My gray horse waiting his turn so he
can show off how completely okay
he is at reining back

We got to the clinic, which was right around the corner at Kate's barn, a bit late because, well, I have no real excuse. I've been so unbelievably exhausted on weekends lately, maybe that's my excuse. Also the clinic was 3 hours long and TC is still not in as good of shape as I want him to be (he's carrying around some extra chonkiness from his pasture right now). Honestly it worked out, because we missed a side passing exercise and as I mentioned last week, TC is weirdly amazing at side passing these days.

But despite being a bit late, it was so much fun! The clinician hadn't seen him in FIVE years, where she vividly remembered him kicking down her obstacles. I told her no promises that he wouldn't destroy them this time, but that he hadn't kicked anything down in a while. 

The pen with a little piggy in it!

We started with the pen, where we were told to be more forward through it. Honestly, like how? He is a very large horse. Then we did some apparently acceptable walk pirouettes, which I haven't schooled in a long time. 

We then went to the bending poles (WE people, please don't judge the words I'm using to describe these exercises lol) and got to do half pass and leg yield for the first time in a long time too! He was very good at it, so good that we were told to do it one handed and at the trot. He's not great at like, a super slow trot, so the trot was tough, but I can say confidently that I can do half pass (at the walk) with one hand!

I took very few pictures

Because there were so many of us, we had some downtime while some riders got extra help. TC took this time to stare at the pony club lesson next door. I told him "that'll be you in a few years" because I'm thinking that he might like to be a pony club horse for my nieces when he's in his later teens. 

Also during downtime, I found him inching towards and then straight up following a couple of the horses around in a move I'd like to call "chaos recognizes chaos" because did he follow the most perfect Flounder around? Or the sweet lesson ponies? No he did not. He found Kate's most chaotic training horses in the group and decided to inch toward them. One of them was not a fan and walked away from him and TC pursued him. The other was like FRIEMBDS??? And I had to pull him away like no not you two. Then he saw Duende, his most favorite chaotic gray friend and I thought I might lose him over there. 

Creeping on the pony club

The rest of the obstacles went well! I even got in some ETS practice both undersaddle and on the ground playing over the bridge. And TC got to jump over a cross rail for the first time outside of jumping at home and he was shocked when the jump appeared under him so it was not a graceful moment. 

Our reining back could be improved, but I did discover that he does it best when I'm holding the reins in one hand because that's what I do when we're opening gates. We also apparently open the gate in a way that would let some cows out. TC has his own way of opening gates and I have zero influence over him. Oh well. 

And that was it! 

My helmet camera's SD card was full
booo it would have been so cool

When we got back to the rig, TC hesitated for a second getting on the trailer. I think he misses living at a boarding stable a little bit. It's a better life for him to be at the ranch out in pasture of course, but he loves the activity of boarding stables and all the different horses/people there. 

Luckily for him, we're going to be doing a lot this year now that I've stopped trying to return to dressage. We've got a few more ETS's, several playdays, and maybe we'll try a WE show. I dunno, I feel like it's a bit stuffy in comparison to the ETS's, but if there's a local one that I'm around for, I think it'd be fun to try not to get eliminated from!

Stories About Rico Pt 2

I decided to write another post about Rico! All of these I think I've shared on the blog before, but they're still fun 

Very early 2000s moment: my mom accidentally
turning the camera to sepia tone LOL

Rico the Combined Driving Horse

I bought Rico in 2005 when he was just turning 9 years old. He'd been at the dressage barn for training/sale for a couple of months and had probably 60 days of actual dressage training on him. Before that, he *was* ridden, but not as his primary career, because he was a Combined Driving horse! 

His previous owners imported him from Germany as I think a 4 year old alongside his partner, Limbo. He was apparently the calm lazy one, while Limbo was the hot, less brave one. Limbo would jazz Rico up and Rico would be like "dude, slowing down would take more effort" whenever Limbo would get nervous. 

The driving training was definitely interesting, I feel like it made dressage a little challenging for him since he'd been taught to pull. But I also think it set us up super well for him being a good boy in the show ring because despite being green to dressage, he wasn't green to crowds or warm up arenas or travelling. 

Literally one of two photos I have of him driving,
he is on the left of the cart, right of the photo

Rico Hated Trail Rides

He was green to trail rides alone on narrow trails with me riding him bareback though! I was kind of an idiot and thought this was a great way to relax with my horse. Early on, he would frequently spin and head back home. 

He did get over it and was eventually probably my best trail horse aside from TC at this point. And actually, honestly, the only thing TC has over Rico is that TC walks faster and is not afraid of pigs.  

I even got to ride him on my childhood trails, somewhere where I am going to take TC this year. Rico and I rode all over those trails in the late 2000s and they were so much fun! 

Cantering up a trail in 2006 I think?

Rico at Pebble Beach 2005

So this show sucked because I was an overconfident teenager. I basically didn't memorize my tests enough so my trainer had to read one right at the last minute. Rico then tried to murder me in the warmup arena by bucking SUPER big and I landed on the saddle and cracked my back pretty good. I then insisted on riding in my next test and got a 59 because my trainer read me off course (given that she wasn't prepared to read at all, I don't blame her). Then I ended up scratching and my trainer rode him in the show and scored way better. 

I'm still bad at scratching but this is definitely a show I think about frequently when I think about scratching for the good of myself/my horse. Just ridiculous! Glad I grew out of being an idiot, well, kind of. 

I also think of that show when I remember that for the most part, my worst injuries have happened when I cling onto my horse like a spider monkey rather than falling off like a normal person. Sometimes hitting the dirt is better. 

This was pre launching buck

Ended up hurting myself at that show so I had to take
some time off of riding, very dumb

I love reminiscing about this wonderful horse! He is the best.

Trying Out the Side Pull

TC and I took it easy on Sunday and I just brushed him and did some light stretching/bodywork for him out in his pasture. Then on Monday, I decided to take him on an easy trail ride to just get a leg stretcher in. 

He handled the hauling well, but he was definitely worn out and a little body sore in weird places. Poor guy! It was 6.5 hours of hauling total that day with not a huge amount of time between the drive up (3 hours) and the drive back (3.5 hours). I decided that less time in between was better than hauling in 100 degree heat, and I'm glad I did it, even if it was a lot of hauling! 

Heading up to the trails!

On Monday I opted to put him in the side pull for the first time. I've had it since the winter, but haven't trusted him enough in it to willingly ride in it yet. But now I have my sweet summer horse back! So it was time to try the side pull. 

He was honestly SO GOOD in it! We were mostly on a loose rein out on the trails but I felt like I had plenty of control out there. 

Looking down at the ranch afterwards

I think next, we'll try riding in it in the arena and see what happens. I really want the horse to be able to do his job bitless and with a bit (and bridleless), not for any reason in particular, just because I feel like it opens up doors if he ever needs to go without a bit for a while! I guess he's been ridden in my weird flower hackamore, but the side pull definitely feels like more his style. 

WW: Got My Trail Horse Back

TC takes a few trail rides at home in the first part of the year to remember that trail riding is about relaxing and taking in nature, not snatching at grass and spooking at nature. And finally we have hit our stride where I can go out on the trails bareback and be on a loose rein the entire time. 

Already, the hills are turning brown from the lack of rain this spring. Oh well, it's still beautiful! 

Looking down on the ranch

We call this the "bowl" 

TC says "I can see my house from here"

We finally got the trails mowed so that
TC can't snatch at grass so much

Running I ETS

This last weekend, TC and I competed in our very first ETS! 

ETS stands for Equine Trail Sports and it's basically a way more formal version of the ranch competitions we did last year that TC loved so much. 

We ended up just going up for the in hand class on Saturday, it was super hot and staying overnight ended up being a bit too much to deal with given how my work schedule has been. But it was super worth a long day trip (and TC and I have recovered from it)! 

Hanging with friends! Peep Peony's adorable baby
horse Goose on the end

Since I assume a lot of people who read this blog are here from the glory days of dressage, I'm going to quickly go over what an ETS entails, at least the in hand class. Apologies if I make this even more confusing. 

There were eight obstacles and each obstacle had three levels to choose from. Level 1 was the most basic and Level 3 was the most advanced. Each level is worth the corresponding number of points. To qualify for the Novice division, you need 8 to 11 points, intermediate is 12 to 18 (I think maybe 19) points, and Advanced is 19 to 24 points. You can get 8 points by doing Level 1 for all eight obstacles. You can get 24 points by doing Level 3 for all eight obstacles. 

For each obstacle, regardless of the Level you do, you get a rider score and a horse score out of ten. Then your level is a multiplier, so if you do Level 1 really really well and get a 10/10 on both, that'll be way better than doing Level 2 terribly and getting a 2/10 on both horse and rider scores despite Level 2 having a multiplier. 

They differentiate between horse and rider so that if your horse is perfect and you're screaming like a banshee, they can give your horse a good score and you a bad score. Or if you're perfect but your horse is screaming like a banshee, they can give you a good score and your horse a bad score. If you're both terrible or both great, you can get the same score. 

So there's some strategy to it! We competed in the Novice division, so I aimed to do five obstacles at Level 1 (5 points) and three obstacles at level 2 (6 points) for a total of 11 points.

Went on a walk around the property

We arrived in time to watch the first round of horses and have a friend go over the course with me. Then it was our turn! Here were the obstacles in the order that we did them:

Pedestal (Cross over obstacle)

We opted to do Level 2 for this obstacle and it was a bad idea. For Level 1, you had to get both of your horse's front feet on the pedestal and then have them step off of it. Given that TC likes to stand on things, I think we would have scored better if we'd done Level 1. But I had a tough time deciding what to do, and Level 2 had you walk straight over it. I figured TC would be fine walking over it and I was wrong. We attempted twice but he only managed to get his front feet on it and then straddled it with his hind feet (it was VERY narrow). Oh well! 

For this one, we got a 4/10 for me and a 4/10 for TC for a total of 8 points. The multiplier took that 8 to a 10.40. 

I took *very* shitty pictures the whole day, oh
well, but this is the pedestal

Ring (Turn on the forehand)

Filled with dread when there were options for TC to stand on things that he wasn't supposed to stand on, we decided to just do Level 1 for this obstacle. There was a tiny metal square we had to put his front feet in and then we just had to do a 180 degree turn on the forehand. 

In true TC fashion, he stepped on the sides of the square (it was totally safe, just annoying) but he did do it less than I thought he would! So we ended up with a 5/10 for both of us for a total of 10 points. No multiplier because it was Level 1. 

Watching the competition from his day pen, he was
immediately destructive, apparently he hasn't
outgrown wanting to dig holes and climb
pipe panels yet

Teeter Totters (Cross over obstacle)

I was certain that TC and I could do Level 2 or even Level 3 with any teeter totter obstacle. He is a star when it comes to standing on things, after all. But both Level 2 and 3 used the BIG teeter totter and he's never been on one that giant. I decided that day was not the day to push it and so we opted for Level 1, which was just to walk across the teeter totter. 

TC was absolutely perfect and we both got a 10/10 for a total of 20 points! 

You can kind of see the teeter totter behind the judge

Sidepass 'T' (Sidepass)

TC somehow learned to side pass like a BOSS in the last few years. Like I didn't expect this. I think the belly tickler from the ranch competitions helped him? I don't know. He went years being kind of awful at side passing and now he's so good at it and let me tell you, we did not work on it. 

So I opted to do Level 2 for this obstacle. It was three logs in the shape of a capital T. For Level 2, we had to side pass over half the top of the T facing the bottom part, then at the intersection, do a turn on the forehand and side pass over the bottom part of the T. 

TC did want to stand on the logs instead of side passing, so I ended up having to do a lot of management, reducing our scores to 8/10 for both of us. Because of the multiplier, we got a 20.80. So you can see how even if we'd gotten a 10/10 for both of us for Level 1, doing Level 2 but getting an 8/10 ended up being better points-wise! 

LOL my favorite picture of TC and
Goose

Bridge (Cross over obstacle)

I was unsure of whether to do Level 1 or Level 2 for this. The bridge was quite high off the ground, and Level 1 was just putting your front feet on it and then backing off, while Level 2 was halting in the middle of the bridge. I didn't trust TC's sense of self preservation to not fall off the bridge if he had to stop forward motion, so I opted for Level 1. We each got a 10/10 for a total score of 20.00. 

And you can see the teal bridge, also my horse's
chonky belly

Get on your Soapbox (Forward movement)

For this obstacle, we had to stand on a mattress and send the horse around us. Level 1 was just in walk and Level 2 was at the trot. Level 2 also involved halting for 3 seconds and then bringing the horse toward us. Well, oops. I forgot about that part. But we did do Level 2 and TC was PERFECT and the judge said "you can put him in my trailer any day," but still gave us a 4/10 for each of us because I didn't do the obstacle properly. Oops! Sorry TC! Total score was 10.40. 

Bright and early at the gas station!
Literally the worst pictures

The Narrow Path (Forward movement)

This was another one where anything beyond Level 1 was going to be ridiculous.  There was an L shaped pathway with big metal logs on each side of it. At first I thought it was a rein back obstacle and I think TC would actually be really good at that. But nope, Level 1 you had to walk your horse through it, Level 2 you had to trot your horse through it.

I need to work on trotting TC in hand, he is not a candidate for a breed show. Every time I trot him in hand (not longeing, just alongside him), he thinks it's the most hilarious game and usually leaps into the air, strikes out, and then tries to snatch at me. It does not help matters that I laugh at him every time. So we opted for Level 1. We got a 10/10 each for a total of 20 points. 

We did get a cute picture of them too

Tunnel (Cross under)

Remember that covered wagon from last obstacle show? Imagine that, darker, with logs inside of it, and ANIMAL PELTS ON THE WALLS. 

This is where this sport is sold for me. When we were walking in, TC saw one of these animal pelts for the first time, it was hanging on the gate. He *lost it* and was snorting with his neck all arched and his entire body rigid. We were blocking the way and I quickly tried to shuffle him out of the way (he would not move) to let some people in and some people out. The people trying to come in said "don't worry about it, my horse is going to have the same reaction, just let him get used to it" and the people trying to come out said "oh, it's okay, we are in no rush, let him work through it" and then the judge yelled over to me "you can let him smell it, it's pretty scary if they haven't seen that before!" 

Like literally he'd be judged on his tolerance of these things in the tunnel (which is why I saved it for last) and everyone was so kind about letting me do my clicker training. And the judge still gave me a 10/10 and him a 9/10 when we did the obstacle, despite her watching me clicker train it earlier. Like, wow. This sport is so much "for the horse" and I just love it. I've definitely been told multiple times to "not let him do that" when TC has been nervous at dressage shows. 

Anyway, 19 points to round us out (Level 2 was like, turning around and doing it again and I forget what Level 3 was, we obviously did Level 1). 

The dreaded tunnel

I ended up heading out before I knew what we'd gotten but the next morning, the scores were posted! We got 130.60 overall and that was good enough for THIRD PLACE (out of twelve!!). I am SO PROUD OF HIM. This was our first rated show in this new-to-both-of-us discipline and he was such a star. 

Like, I can't believe this is the same horse who was a chronic bolter and was so spooky. I still remember writing this hilarious post about things I hated because of him. Going to those bombproofing clinics out of desperation eventually led us to this amazing discipline. I'm glad to have something to work towards that isn't dressage. 

Why you house the horse? Horse
hates to be housed

We have two schooling shows coming up and then we'll be back in the rated ring in July. We're definitely camping overnight - a family friend has a solar powered electric fence I can use to keep him contained! I cannot wait, and I think TC is excited for the next one too!