Back in the (Old) Saddle

I've surprisingly done some dressage in my last few rides.

The horror, look how long my stirrups are

It's been a while since I really wanted to do any dressage, probably closing in on 6 months, maybe longer. Basically it got to the point where obsessing over my horse's posture and topline and how collected is he and is the angle correct for this leg crossing move and well that was clean but it was in the wrong balance and so on... just became so frustrating for both of us. I kept feeling like we'd make progress in one department only to have another one become a problem. 

I also didn't love how I have to ride him in order to do well in the show ring. He and I scored the best when I was chasing him into a short neck. No thanks. 

Not the longest neck but not the way it used to be

He's such a fun horse

So for a long time, I've been primarily riding in my TCS and on a loose rein with my horse off the bit. I love my TCS because it's comfortable like a bareback pad but it's enough like a saddle where TC has deemed it appropriate for going faster than a walk in. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but the horse is convinced that bareback pads are for walking only. If you try to trot him, he literally stops and turns his head around at you like "what exactly is your problem?"

In coming back to work, TC has been a bit... much... to canter to the left. I think he's just feeling sassy and excited to be moving? I don't know, but either way it's not fun to ride in a tiny strip of leather. 

Finally one day I was like, I do have a saddle I could ride in. So I broke it out and what do you know? It doesn't fit him anymore. He basically had 4 months off and lost a ton of topline, so it bridges really badly. More on that later. 

I forget how big he is sometimes! 

I could use some biomechanics lessons lol this is
apparently what I do after an entire winter off

On a whim, I pulled out my old saddle. And that one actually sat pretty well on him! Not perfect, but definitely not bridging. 

Being back in this saddle brought a flood of memories back both of Rico and TC. And TC was actually SUPER good in it. Like, kind of feral, but offered me some fun dressage stuff (like an unfit extended trot I didn't ask for) so I went with it. We did some flying changes and some shoulder-in and some counter canter. And it was actually so much fun to be back in this saddle feeling like my old self on my horse feeling like his old self. 

A few days later (these pictures are from the first ride fyi), I found myself itching to get back in the saddle and fix the connection. He'd been a little backed off the contact to the left and so I saddled up again. I found myself playing with some of the exercises that I like to use for connection and remembering how fun it was to dissect the connection on this tricky horse. We didn't do anything fancy that day, but I left feeling really good about our ride! 

He definitely thought about taking off around this
short side... 

While this isn't my "return to dressage" by any means, it was fun to work on things that I like working on with horses. The connection has always been something I super enjoy working on and it was fun to step back into it. 

TC the Kid's Horse

Alright as stated earlier this week, TC is not about me right now. TC is about his pasture. Also about the children. 

My oldest niece is 3 years old and her little sister is coming up on her first birthday this summer. And TC is completely enamored by them. I don't post pictures of their faces just to protect privacy, so you'll just have to believe me (and a screenshot) when I tell these stories. 

Picture this but with two little girls
on his back, so adorable

First, he DID decide to come in last Friday when I went to get him, which was a surprise. Until I turned around and realized he was marching right up to the older kiddo who was walking up with my brother. He's learning to let her groom him without accidentally knocking her over or stepping on her. 

While her precious Sunny Horse (who does not like her nearly as much as TC does) doesn't move a muscle when she grooms him, TC doesn't understand that tiny humans don't predict his every move. Only recently have I realized how much the horse wiggles in the cross ties and how much I just get out of his way while grooming him. I definitely had to snatch her away from him as he shifted his weight into her. Soooo he's getting some "don't accidentally mow children down" lessons. 

But all the other kid stuff is easy for him. The oldest one will run through the barn in front of him, play with her little broom, drag a pitchfork, and climb on and off a saddle we put on a haybale for her, and he doesn't care whatsoever. 

Baby face, no, baby hand and
my horse's soft eye, yes

He's also totally fine with strollers, and by totally fine, I mean that he's a stroller seeking missel and he will absolutely flip the top open to find the baby inside. Even strangers, like they'll be concerned that he's spooking when we're on the trail and I have to be like no... he's not afraid, he just wants to boop your baby and I'm trying to explain to him that he can't. 

And then on Friday, when little sister was being held by my dad, she reached out to him, grabbed both his nostrils in her tiny baby hands, and SCREAMED BLOODY MURDER (in like a happy baby way but holy shit this kid is LOUD). He just stood there quietly, nostrils gripped tightly in her tiny fists.

The GRIP

Anyway, I have all of these adorable images floating in my mind of the girls riding him double on the trails and TC being the best babysitter. I can't wait! Older one knows that she has to be cantering Miss Kate's ponies before she is allowed to ride TC, she's counting down the days (years) I'm sure. 

Stories About Rico

*I feel obligated to put on any post like this that Rico is alive and doing very well*

Rico and I hung out on Saturday because TC was not about it. And then on Sunday I rode TC in my old Custom saddle. Those seem unrelated, but they brought back a lot of really sweet memories. I thought I'd relive some of them today!

Actual babies! Me at 18 and him at 8

Passage Training

I taught Rico to piaffe by basically putting him against my barn door and tapping his butt. I have better ways of doing it now, but he actually developed a surprisingly decent piaffe like that (I am aware that I never deserved this horse, I am making it up to him by giving him an incredible retirement). But it took me a long time to get a passage on him. I looked back at the dates and it's just nuts.

At the end of November in 2013, Rico was 17 years old (almost 18) and I took him to an Alfredo Hernandez clinic on a whim. We'd just finished our first "season" at PSG, and by season, I mean two months. He debuted at PSG in September 2013 and we did three PSG tests. 

The sweetest, like TC is sweet in a
very in-your-face way, and Rico is a
lot more chillaxed about it

Alfredo was able to get Rico to passage really easily and I was SHOCKED. I then made it my mission to get him to passage at home and grabbed a handful of sugar cubes every day. The horse was quite food motivated (what I could have done with him if I'd started clicker training then!) so he had a solid passage button installed in a week. He also then wouldn't stop passaging, but that's fine. 

Insanely, my 2014 goals put the I2 as a stretch goal. Instead, by the time we hit one year of passage under his belt, he was retired after earning me my Gold medal. How INSANE is that. The horse's first steps of passage were November 2013, we went down centerline at I2 (first time you do it in the ring) in August 2014, moved to the GP in September 2014, Gold medal October 2014.

Pictured in TC's current pasture

Juggling School + Riding

The other thing that really brought back memories with my saddle was how unbelievably close to the edge I was financially the entire time I was riding Rico at those levels. That saddle cost me something like $600. I found it at a used tack store and was determined to make it work. Luckily it fit him pretty well and me pretty well and we just went with it.

I went back to school in 2011 and graduated from my undergrad in 2013, only to immediately enter into a graduate school program. I will absolutely own my privilege, while I paid my own bills + books + tuition, rent and board were not expenses I had at the time. I worked insane hours, I'd get up in the mornings early to go to crossfit, then head straight to school for classes, run out to teach for the rest of the day, then drive back down to the ranch in traffic and ride Rico sometimes in the dark before doing homework. I took one lesson a week from my trainer in the evenings on a weekday. Weekends were packed with clinics (that I was teaching, not taking) and other teaching/training opportunities. 

He's the best guy

I poured money into my horse in a way that I never would now. Every penny I made went into an account to pay for tuition for the next semester, and then after that was saved, every other penny went into lessons, bodywork, joint injections, shoes, anything to keep the horse feeling good and me riding at the level I wanted to be at. 

I still remember thinking that my trainer's $100 lessons were so steep and the idea of paying for one a WEEK sounded like so much. But I think I realized that she was going to really change things for us, and she did. 

I mostly rode him in a hackamore if I wasn't doing
dressage on him, he was really great in it

Jumping Bean

When Rico retired, I ended up jumping him a little bit and I still remember how much fun he was to jump. He was a little on the spooky side (lol probably my fault), but he was so easy. 

Honestly, this horse is so freaking athletic. I think he could have literally done any (english) horse sport and been successful. I mean, before I got him, he was a successful combined driving horse too! To be perfectly candid, his only limitation was having me as a rider. 

You could put him over any height fence from any distance and he'd just figure it out (ask me how I know). I remember getting some pictures of me jumping him around a meter one day way way back in the day and then looking at the pictures like... is the horse even fucking trying? Could he make these jumps look any smaller? 

From that day if I remember correctly

On cross country, he was toooo athletic though. I boarded him at the Woodside Horse Park when I worked there and I'd go out after hours and just let him gallop around the tracks, even bridleless! But over fences? Only like twice (with tack + protective vest) and it was a truly terrifying experience. As I mentioned, he was kind of a spooky horse and didn't like to jump anything with fill. The first time I took him out there he cracked his back over a log and I was like, well, this is how I die. And then he took off bucking with me afterwards. I don't know if he was just having fun or was like wow fuck you for taking me to a place with ONLY fill. But after that I only tried one more time with the same result and then decided he was not going to be an event horse. 

I'm going through some fear right now because I haven't ridden much, and so this is probably not realistic for me, but I'd love to clone this horse (or find something with very similar breeding) and try again. Maybe someone else could train him for me though... or maybe I'll just stick to the 15.2h version. 

LOOK AT THEM! Back in 2015 when
TC got injured and we thought that he
might not need to go to the rehab
facility (lol delusional)

Anyway, I might try to do these more as I try to make my way back into blogging. Despite him doing well, this year with him turning 27 has made me realize that our time together could be (is... but I'm still holding out hope that he lives to 35+) limited. I know that I've always said that any years we got after he had Pigeon Fever were bonus years. And I try really hard to tell myself that any year after 25 is a huge bonus given that horses aren't meant to live forever. The fact that we get this long with them is a gift (as I lost my sweet "heart" dog when he was 12 and I will never get over that despite him living a completely full life and going when it was time). But I'm really wanting to cherish the time we have together and everything we went through when he was my main ride. Because at some point I'll stop writing about him, and I don't want that to be any time soon. 

Fueling this is probably that Rico was diagnosed with cushings this year. He started prascend a couple weeks ago and he's still ramping on to it so I haven't noticed a huge difference or anything. I can't emphasize how well he's doing in general, like even the cushings diagnosis came later than I thought it would and he's not a severe case at all. The numbers show that he definitely has it, but it's very mild. He even shed completely out this year, like you literally wouldn't know (I got him tested as a precaution and because it did take him a little longer to shed and he had those long hairs). 

But we're in that phase where I hold my breath when he gets up from laying down. Even though he's not had any issues with it! Even though he's on TC's fitness plan! Even though his topline looks sadly about the same as it did when we were doing the GP! Even though when TC got loose in his pasture, he went galloping around with him for funzies! I'm just going to be that really annoying overprotective owner. Mostly because I never want this horse to have a bad day. Every day needs to be a good day for him. 

Pasture Addict

TC has been loving his pasture so much lately. More than he loves me, which is totally fine, except I do want to spend time with him. On Saturday, he wouldn't let me catch him at all. He ran around me in circles until I decided that he probably got more exercise than he would have if I'd ridden him, so instead I got Rico out for a spa day. He let me catch him Sunday but he was strongly considering another day off. 

I don't blame him, the ranch is so
beautiful

Every time I put him back after riding him, his first task is to gallop as fast as he can out to his pasture. He has pretty much stopped eating his hay, and he's down to 3lbs morning and night. He won't even eat his alfalfa until he's locked in overnight. 

He gets locked in overnight not only because it's just a lot of grass for them all to get, but also because if he isn't, he'll dehydrate himself. He was left out overnight once and looking at the cameras, he didn't come in at all, not even for water. Like, he was fine, but the day after he was definitely a little tired!

This is my horse (also me lol)

In the evenings, the horses all get grain and some hay, then they get locked in from their pastures. When we go up to the barn to feed, all of them (except TC) mosey in and wait for their grain. TC comes galloping in the moment he hears the door to his stall open. All of the other horses are all in well before then, but he's timed it so that he can not waste a precious moment that he has on pasture but also not be late for his grain. He comes careening into the stall and then you have to go lock him in quick. 

This is how he gets locked in, by the way, a single
strand of non-electrified tape. No one tell him.

I'm glad he loves his life so much. Not going to lie, I do miss him whinnying at me every day, but I think that'll start back up again once the grass all dies. 

Back on the Trails

TC's stifle acted up a few weeks ago as if I needed a reminder that we hadn't been able to get out on the trails in exactly two months. I gave him some time off and bute and he was fine once we got back to work and started climbing hills again. 

There is SO MUCH GRASS up there

He takes about 5 trail rides to stop being so impressed by everything up there. And this might take longer because the trails are so overgrown that both times we've been up there, he's been VERY offended that he isn't allowed to graze the whole time. Rude of me, honestly. 

He's still the best trail horse, even though I had to get off last time because seeing a family of deer and then the neighbors making noise was too much for him and he insisted that grazing was the only way he wouldn't have a meltdown. But other than that he's been amazing. I mean even then I was bareback and just annoyed at him, not afraid that anything would actually happen. 

Love this view, especially when it's green

Family of deer

I'm glad to have the trails. Honestly it's so nice to be able to give him a solid ride in like... 30 minutes. It's got a nice slow climb to the gate, then a few steep places to get him a good workout in, then a nice slow descent back down to the barn. I can do one loop in 25 minutes or two loops in like 40 minutes. Because I go out bareback, it's super quick! I think this is probably one of the major selling points of staying at the ranch for me, previously I had to haul out and even if I'm just going on a quick ride, that still adds so much time. 

Hello paradise 

Very happy to be out and about again

Hopefully it stays clear from now on so that we can keep trail riding!

WW: Twelve Years Old

TC turned twelve earlier this month, I think this was the best birthday photo shoot ever!

Look at this guy, so happy with his
birthday balloon

Twelve, the best age (so far)

Gotta eat the balloon

And smiles of course

This horse is just hilarious

So unimpressed with my effort

First Update of 2023

Wow, this is the longest I've gone without blogging probably ever. 

I don't really know why, I think I started moving away from the sport, which was the reason why I started this blog. Then work picked up, the weather got bad, and I started shifting my life toward other things. I also noticed a big downturn in my personal computer usage, and I don't have any of my accounts on my work computer. I still haven't mastered blogging from my phone! 

Having the most fun, just not
documenting it

But don't take my silence to mean that I haven't been enjoying the hell out of my horse and just my life in general. It's just that for the first time potentially ever, I'm not really working toward anything in particular with the horses. Mostly because we had the most insane winter with rain, so I only just really started riding again. Nothing has felt worthy of a post. But maybe I can recap how the last few months have gone with my life horse-wise and non-horse-wise. 

Here's a quick rundown: 

TC

He is still obsessed with his pasture. Actually to the point where he can't be on it overnight because he won't come in for water and we worry about him. 

I've ridden him more in the last couple of weeks than I did from like mid December through the end of March. I'm still not doing dressage and have no plans to. I think we'll try our hand at some ETS shows this year, but mostly I just want to have fun with him at the ranch. 

I think he looks great given what we've been doing
lately, which is basically nothing

He's also so happy

Rico

Rico had his 27th birthday in February. He is sound and spry and very happy. Most of his day is spent following TC back and forth from the stalls to the pasture. Although sometimes he just watches TC gallop back and forth being a dingleberry. 

He's at the age where every time he lays down I hold my breath but I've been feeling pretty peaceful about him and my time together. No amount of time with this horse will ever be enough but I'm grateful for the time we have had and however much time we have left. 

That being said, he had probably the best vet check he's had in years this spring. His liver values are almost normal! I have to thank that weird gray horse for keeping him on such an excellent fitness plan. 

The best boy

Oh Rico, you think you escaped but you don't
realize that it was orchestrated 

Sunny

The pony got the winter off and I'm starting him back now a few days a week in the long lines. I'm also putting him through my bombproofing protocol, which is a lot less embarrassing to do at the ranch than at a boarding stable. He's had a couple of days of this and thinks I am absurd. 

The kid is not riding him right now, we told her that Sunny Horse is too spicy to ride in the winter. But she did have her first riding lesson with Miss Kate a couple of weeks ago and she'll take regular lessons for a while. It was honestly amazing, I am not a teaching-little-bitty-kids person and Kate is amazing at it. Plus, I can't maintain the pony for her consistently but Kate's ponies are maintained by her wonderful program and are generally a little more positive about children than Sunny is. Even Flounder, who the kid remains OBSESSED with (I mean, same). 

Loving how my position is looking even without
jumping all that much

Jumping

I took a break from jumping due to the weather. I JUST started back a couple of weeks ago and I am a disaster. Oh well, this is why I have a Flounder to pack me over jumps and go tell on me to Kate. Over the winter, we did two back to back cross country schoolings and we discovered some residual fear that I have out there. Most of my lessons this last year have been on reschooling my nervous system to not be so much in SNS activation. It's been absolutely amazing and I think one of the reasons why TC has been so happy. I still have work to do in specific contexts, such as cross country schooling. So we'll see how much of that we do this year. But we'll definitely do some hunter/jumper shows!

Look at how great he is

We even jumped a table 

Pottery

I've started taking pottery classes. I was convinced on a whim to take one with a coworker and fell in love with it. I am not a particularly artistic person, not anymore at least. I haven't had an artistic outlet in years and it feels really good to be creative again. I love throwing on the wheel and have started doing some hand building to put things on the things I've thrown. We took two classes and I'm now just signed up for open studio. We'll see if I continue, but man it was nice to do when it was raining! 

Maybe I'll write a separate post about pottery at some point, it's really quite fun. 

I put a snake on a mug

Friends

I've felt so lucky to see my friends a fair amount recently! This mostly has encompassed me squishing their dogs and yelling about how cute they are. 

I cuddled the shit out of Peony's dog

Kate and I went cross country schooling

Tormented Kate's dog too, don't let
me near your dogs or I will squish them
Not pictured: me slapping Nicole's dog
and making her other dog probably a little
concerned by how much I loved her

Furnishings & New Beginnings 

I've finally gotten my new place fully furnished (except a dining table but who needs one). I didn't post about it, but I left my last relationship last fall. Sometimes you just need to do that. I realized that a lot of the reason why I was staying in the relationship was society's arbitrary timeline/expectations, not because the relationship was a good one. 

I love all these pictures, my three best
ponies, all 4 years apart (2014, 2018, 2022)

I'm now living on my own again in an amazing space that I got to decorate myself. And I feel really lucky to have someone new in my life who makes me feel safe and more like myself than I honestly have with someone else. It's been good for my nervous system. And if that stops being true, I know for certain that I can give myself everything that a romantic relationship can. I feel lucky to know that I won't compromise my values for a future relationship just for the sake of being in one. Men are like desserts, after all, I love that full quote by Cher, it's on my wall. 

My new house is near a park!

Work

I love my job so much, I hit one year in this position in February. I have been working my ass off, probably a bit too much, to succeed here. And I'm doing it. I had my second review cycle and got another exceeds expectations and even a small raise despite my team having absolutely no budget. I'm up for promotion next cycle and it sounds like I have a lot of support across the org. More importantly, the work I'm doing is fun and engaging, the people I work with are amazing, and I'm comfortable financially without working two jobs. I mean, I could be more comfortable, don't get me wrong. But previously I'd be stressed about paying rent. Now I'm stressed about having to decide what horse shows to do this year and lamenting about the fact that I can't just impulse buy a truck camper or a pony. 

Trail rides during lunch remain my favorite

Honestly, life is really good right now! I feel bad that I haven't been sharing it on the blog. But I honestly don't know what to write about at this point. I guess I'll either figure it out or the blog will continue to be a baren wasteland.