Looking Upward

Work has been INSANE this week. INSANE. I am not used to my job, which is a cushy public sector job with no stress, being stressful! I felt bad for anyone I had to interact with this week, including my coworkers who are in it with me. On Wednesday I drank too much coffee and didn't eat enough and was like... yelling and writing stuff on the board like some crazy conspiracy theorist.

Unfortunately with work, I haven't been able to ride much. I'm working from home today because I've literally been in like 5 hours worth of meetings every day all week and I finally was like "fuck this I am guaranteeing that I can ride my horse by not driving over the hill" so today I get to finally ride my horse again.

I wanna sit on it

After his adventure on Monday, where I was completely blown away by his half pass skills, he got a day off on Tuesday where all we did was hand walk around the ranch. Wednesday I did ride him, but only for about 15 minutes because the arena was being dragged and pushed my ride too late. I had a hard stop at 9am to get to work for a meeting at 10am (where I again had time to get coffee and then be crazy for the rest of the day). Same thing happened on Thursday, except that instead of trying to ride, I just turned him out in the square pen and then walked him around the ranch.

I feel horrible that he's stuck in this little stall and basically had three days in a row where he was out of his stall for only an hour or so. Things have changed at the barn, where I won't be able to put him in any other stall, so that's super unfortunate. I'm exploring other options but I'm super bummed to have to do that. I really do like it there but I can't leave TC in such a small spot with my work schedule.

Even so, I'm really excited about next week. I stayed up late last night fixing everything I could for work so today and next week should be way lighter. I'm downright refusing to have 10am meetings all week (except the one I have to go to on Wednesdays) so I am RIDING my horse. Including in a lesson with Tanya! We feel so rusty and so unfit, both of us, but I think it will be good for us.

I thought he had edema on his belly but it was his abs lol

With everything being so crazy, I haven't even thought about showing this year yet. I have options, though the counter canter vs flying change argument weighs on me a bit. If I want to, I could get the changes more solid now (especially because I'm thinking I might get to a barn with mirrors sooner than I thought) and push out our rated Second level debut OR I could front load the year at Second and then work on changes once I snag all the scores I need for All Breeds, which will take me four shows. 

Financially, I'm thinking of doing the changes first, since then I can push out showing. On the other hand, I am eager to be able to call TC my Second level horse, which I feel like I can't do just yet, even though he's now schooling all of Third. But I love doing the changes and getting them semi-solid before Second basically guarantees that we can end the year at Third. How crazy would that be?

Generally looking into the future, I'm really hoping for an entire year at PSG in 2021. Regionals is in Sacramento, which means that I could compete him in the open PSG for that. If he's competitive at that level, I might do a couple of CDIs on him if I can swing it financially (since they are expensive). After that, it's a push for the GP hopefully in 2023, using 2022 to do the small tour and then maybe even doing the large tour in 2024. Then he'd be for sale... but let's not think about that. Maybe he'll be supremely untalented at the FEI levels and will be worth so little that I just get to keep him forever!

His tail is kind of ridiculous, it's also very dirty

Honestly with how he was piaffing in the cross ties (when he was being a jerk), how he keeps offering me moments of passage (also when he's being frisky), how he just instantaneously has a very rideable canter half pass, and ridiculous ability in the pirouettes... I dunno I might have a CDI horse on my hands. But let's just focus on Second level for a bit. Uh and square halts, which still plague us.

WW: How Things Change

There's literally nothing to do around here except try not to breath in all the hazardous air particles. TC has been getting walked on the walker and then I've been walking him too, but we're not going to try riding until the weekend.

But this means that I now have no blog content! So for today, I figured I'd look back at some old pictures. We're coming up on four years since I met TC and took this picture when I put him back after our first ride together:

December 2014

And I took this one on one of our hand walks this week.

November 2018

I love what dressage does to a horse! He's been out of full work for almost a month now so he's getting a little flabby, but I still think he looks good.

Rico's Conformation

No trail ride today because I'm sick. I spent all day yesterday in bed hoping that today I would wake up feeling wonderfully refreshed and ready to do errands, trail ride TC, ride Rico, and generally go back to real life. Not so much. I woke up at 4am feeling like shit, managed to sleep until 6 and now I've been sort of awake reading blogs, watching all sorts of shit on hulu and netflix, and STILL procrastinating working on my thesis despite having now two full days off.

So what to write about? Well luckily Carly posted about Bobby's conformation that she modeled after a post by Breeches and Boat Shoes and I figured I'd hop on the train. It killed quite a bit of time today playing with photoshop.


Unfortunately I don't have much in terms of conformation pictures of TC, but I do have a great one of Rico! Plus he'd be more interesting because we know what he was physically capable of at his height. Plus he isn't in the awkward three year old baby phase.

This picture was taken at the height of his dressage career in September or maybe August 2014. The ground is relatively level (although it errs on the side of making him look a bit more uphill- he is quite uphill but maybe not this much) and he's standing pretty square.

So beautiful, he'll never look like this again!

Length vs. Height

So this square should be a square, which it basically is. If anything, he's a bit longer than he is tall. I didn't know if the bottom line was supposed to go to his point of buttock or just to where his butt ends along the parallel line from his shoulder. He's probably a bit long.

Heartgirth vs. Legs

They should be the same length and they basically are. His big withers seem to make his heartgirth especially long though, but I guess he has long legs to make up for it? He's not particularly huge, he's 16.2, but as you can see, his withers give him a good chunk of that height so he rides smaller.

Topline vs. Underline

So the topline needs to be shorter than the underline. And it is! And this horse is ridiculously uphill. Everything I get on after him feels like I'm trying to manage an out of control wheelbarrow. Despite being so uphill, he sure does love to go on his forehand.

Forequarters vs. Hindquarters

Yeah his front end is way bigger than his back end. Although my square kind of cut off some of his tush, so maybe it isn't as bad is it appears. Maybe this is why he loves being on his forehand.

Shoulder vs. Back vs. Buttock

These aren't too bad. His back is a bit on the long side. It theoretically should make him great at lateral work and kind of bad at collection but um it ended up being the exact opposite of that. He has so much sitting capability and struggled a LOT in the half pass work. He's got a mean shoulder-in though.

Head vs. Body

They basically all match up except his damn big withers making his heartgirth super super long. Surprisingly, he's comfortable bareback because he's very flat behind the withers so you can sit nicely in that little dip. I'm sure that once as he loses all his muscle (and now fat), he will be less comfortable.

Buttock vs. Hip vs. Stifle 

It's pretty even, but he does seem to be a tad short from his stifle to his hip. I don't know what that means.

Overall I like the way he's put together. I mean I have no right to complain about his conformation ever because this horse made it to Grand Prix and got me my USDF Gold Medal. I think it's interesting that theoretically his long back and slightly short hind quarters should have made him super great at lateral work and maybe not so great at the collected movements. When, in reality, the horse had a killer piaffe and the world's most clunky half passes. Just goes to show that training is HUGE when it comes to performance since uh I loved the piaffe and hated the half pass.

One thing I can complain about though... look at those stupid front feet and their lack of heel and way too long toes. Stupid stupid feet. Those damn feet made him susceptible to tendon/ligament injuries (DDFT, Suspensory, Check) and made his coffin joints weak. In order to help those stupid feet, I paid for shoes every THREE WEEKS and those shoes were specially made for him with frog support pads and a rocker toe. Ugh.

Next horse is going to have massive legs with massive feet with a big heel and no toe. And it will be barefoot FOREVER.

Look at those massive feet with tree trunk legs to accompany
them. Special shoes NOT necessary for this guy.