Flounder the Lead Line Horse

So, when I saw all the little kids at the show in May, I started planting the seed that my niece could do her first horse show at the October show. 

Luckily for me, the kid is still unbelievably horse crazy, so on Friday midday, my brother, dad, and older niece drove down to the show! 

LOOK AT HER BOWS

The kid was immediately in her element. She knew she was there to show Flounder and wanted to do it immediately rather than waiting the excruciating 24 hours until the leadline on Saturday afternoon.

She spent all of Friday afternoon watching the various rings, pointing out which horses looked like the horses at the ranch, and learning all about different colors and markings from me. My brother even asked some questions about the different types of sports and what was going on. And my dad was an old pro, keeping track of the horses in the hunter derby and saying things such as "I think this is our winner back for the handy, this one got an 83 in the first round, oh wait, no I think there was one that got an 87, so this one is in second place so far" um okay wow dad.

Saturday morning they came out to watch me in my classes. I got so much clapping from the kid and after every class (I had three), she got to hop on Flounder and ride him back to the barn. She whined a little bit but was mostly really good about being patient and watching the show. Luckily there were some great areas for kids, she found our Halloween decorations really fun to play with and she also got to run around in a grass field above the show while we watched it. 

Watching the hunter derby

Literally so much in her element

Eventually it was time to get her ready. She got her breeches on (which I didn't know would happen, she likes to wear patterned leggings and call them breeches, but I think she saw that everyone was wearing tan breeches), we put her paddock boots on, got her garter straps (which I had to punch holes in lol she's so tiny) on. 

My sister-in-law ordered a show shirt and bows for her hair. The show shirt will definitely fit for a long time, it was fairly big on her! We had some time so we went over to the tack shop and found a belt that matched her show shirt. The tack lady asked her about horses and I've never heard the kid so talkative to strangers. She talked to everyone at that show, told them about Flounder and her Sunny Horse back at home too. 

I have no others without her face in
them so here's me again

Look at this fish!

Finally she let me braid her hair, put in her bows, and we got her helmet on. We put her on Flounder and led her around a bit. I had my brother help my dad FaceTime my mom and my SIL (who was up taking care of her father with my youngest niece) so that they could see the leadline debut. 

Soon, it was time to go into the big jumper ring. She was one of three kids in the class and it was ADORABLE. There was a huge crowd because it was right before the speed stake. The kids got to walk around and one kid (who was older than her) trotted a little bit and immediately my niece was like I WANT TO TROT and we had to tell her no, you're two and this is not your horse. 

After walking around once or twice in each direction, we were called in to line up in front of the judge. The judge then asked each kid what their name was, what their pony's name was, and what color their pony was. 

Look at me looking for my next fence and not at
the ground where I will definitely end up one day

Definitely splurged on some pro photos!

My niece is two and a half. She was the youngest kid there and she got asked her questions first, which meant that her answers were hilarious. She didn't want to tell him her name, but she was very enthusiastic to tell him what Flounder's name was. In response to the question about Flounder's color, what came out sounded like "SunnyHorsepalominoAuntMimirideswithmeonmySunnyHorse" *deep breath* "Flounder is white and gray" 

Granted, we didn't practice Flounder's specific color so that was pretty close!

For her efforts, she got a big blue ribbon and a pink and white stuffed pony. We got a truly insane number of photographs of her AND we got video of the entire thing. My mom was so annoyed she didn't come down (it was on her, she was invited! But she thought the leadline would be boring, not like her daughter was also showing or anything...). 

Apparently when the kiddo got home, she told everyone she knew about her horse show and has been wearing her horse show belt with everything she owns. Amazing. She does her next leadline in a couple of weeks!

I love this one so much

I was going to write a third post but there's honestly not much more to report from this show! Unfortunately for me, there were no more pro classes for the rest of the weekend. But it was still fun! I stayed in the .80s and did one class both days (I was supposed to do two the first day but they.. eliminated... me...? It was fine, I got to do my second class). 

It was such a good time moving up and feeling so confident. I didn't have a panic attack, rode way better in the ring than expected, and had a blast the entire time.

The whole weekend was just amazing. I love my barn, I love my (technically not my but I like to dream) fish, I love my best friend, I love this sport, and I love having grooming! Can't wait for the next one!

Jumping Fish

WOW I am behind, so much has happened and I'm hoping I can use this week and the next week to catch up!

Catch up like Flounder and I catching up on time
in the jumper ring a few weeks ago!

It was good to be back!

Two weeks ago, we were at another hunter/jumper show! It came at such a great time, I was able to hand off all of my work and actually take a total of 4 days off of work (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Monday for a recovery day). I didn’t even bring my laptop down! 

I spent all day Tuesday preparing to hand off my projects and then managed to ride TC. Unfortunately over the weekend, my back injury got worse, so I ended up taking it easy on TC that day and then not riding him or the pony Wednesday before I left. I wanted to preserve my back for the show, but did decide to hand off the ride on Flounder to someone else if I found that my back wasn’t up for it. I have a doctor’s appointment coming up for it and am taking it easy until then. 

On Wednesday it seemed like I might not ride at all. Luckily Kate did a warmup round on Flounder (the entire barn except the two horses I was hauling got down there on Tuesday), so I didn’t need to ride him AND he got a solid trainer ride on him in the arena I was going to be jumping in for the weekend. But I woke up on Thursday feeling surprisingly good and managed to ride the whole weekend!!

He is so cute

His cute little knees, I think I fucked this one up
but he didn't care lol

I opted to just do the jumpers this time. Flounder doesn’t have a change and is just not super competitive in the pro hunter divisions. Plus, I think the jumpers are really fun, the courses are so interesting! 

On the first day I opted to just do the .70 meter jumpers again. The first class had a jump off and we were definitely quite rusty. I went way too slowly and Flounder got annoyed that I wasn’t riding him forward to the fences, so he popped a fence down to let me know that I needed to pick up the pace or risk more rails. In my second class, I asked Kate if I should go faster and she said yes. Then as I was cantering to the first fence I heard her say that I needed to go even faster. So I went as fast as I could, which ended up being a completely normal pace. 

In true amateur hour fashion, for some reason I thought it was optimum time jumpers, so I took the long way around one of the turns noticing that I was a little ahead of time. It was a speed class though (why do they have speed classes at this low of a level?!), but we still were quick enough to get second place out of something like seventeen rounds! 

This absolutely made my day and then we were done before 9am, amazing! This was our first time having grooms (my first time in like 20 years!) and it was absolutely worth it. I got to hop off, change out of my show clothes and into normal clothes, and go watch everyone in our barn ride every day. It was so great. I had a little bit of sticker shock at first but then after the first day when I had horses unloaded from my trailer, my trailer unloaded and cleaned out, and then was parking after hauling in 15 minutes before… wow, absolutely worth it. This goes in the budget for shows from now on! 

He's literally so adorable over fences, no joke, Kate
clicker trained him to jump, he was actually a failed
gymkhana horse!

Look at all of his toes!

On the second day, I asked if I could move up to the .80s for my second class because there was only one pro class per height (and then no more pro classes after that, ugh). Kate said yes and so I did! It was good to have the .70s first to give me some confidence riding more forward. I managed to go around clean and fast for a fourth place ribbon.

It was my first .80s class on Flounder but he was a star. I honestly didn't even notice the jumps had gotten bigger! We went clean and clear and this time landed ourselves in THIRD place out of a whole lot of people. Such an amazing little fish!!

Friday evening, my brother, niece, and father came down to watch the hunter derby and stay overnight so that my niece could do her very first leadline class on Saturday afternoon. More on that tomorrow!

Rose in May Part 3: I'm a Dressage Trainer Folks

After Flounder had a super confidence boosting ride with his kid on Saturday morning, I hopped on! I was so grateful that I'd had the ability to do that and that she'd ridden him so tactfully. 

Kate had me jump one fence in warm up without much trotting or cantering. I think I was in there for maybe 2 minutes at most. That was the other great thing about this plan: I eliminated the warm up and went in cold. 

I loved these standards so much, I decided to get
really close to one of them

Good thing we did that because I proceeded to have the best round of my show so far. We dropped a couple of rails because my riding still wasn't quite where I wanted it to be, but I didn't lose my head at all. I only had a little bit of tunnel vision and I came out really pleased with even more information. 

There were some confounding variables, sure. I definitely felt more comfortable in the jumper ring just because we don't have changes and it's tough to make horse distances in the hunters (there were no combinations in the jumper classes for this show/level). I also liked how the courses were more complicated, as much as I was concerned I'd panic and not remember the course, it ended up being easy to remember and there weren't so many long lines that made me second guess myself. 

But I think the lack of warm up was huge: I had absolutely nothing to trigger that visceral fear in me before going into the ring. Warm ups... apparently I'm totally fine with being mowed down in the dressage warm up, but someone gets a little close to me in the jumping warm up and I'm not okay. I mean... come to think of it, TC has always been the most enthusiastic horse in the warm up ring soooo maybe we're the ones terrorizing other people rather than being terrorized ourselves. Oh no. Oh noooo. 

He is the cutest

That wasn't my last class on Saturday though! I participated in the Hack and Splash later that afternoon. The class was a hunter hack class to benefit a charity, the catch was that we had to carry around a cup of water with us while we were in the class. Flounder had done it before and the fences were small, so I was game. 

I got my cup of water and went into the arena with 8 or so? other horses. There were 19 total in the class and we'd been split into two groups. Water was measured based on how much we lost out of our cup and the least amount lost won. 

As a dressage rider, the idea of riding one handed in a jump saddle, including over jumps, was concerning. Although in my last jumping lesson, I mysteriously started pulling on the right rein instead of the left, so I did jump some fences with my right hand behind my back. So you could say I was prepared. 

I don't have pictures of the fun class just yet, but
I'll use it for a WW when I do get them!

Shockingly, we did very well! After cantering the second direction, I realized that I'd actually not lost any water. How insane would it be to get through the whole thing without losing ANY water? Well, that almost happened as I took the first jump and no water spilled out. Holy shit. Buuuut I saw a short one for the second fence and got a little concerned about the water, causing Flounder to chip rather than just quietly shorten his step. I lost what ended up being 0.1 centimeters of water out of my cup.

We went to stand in the crowd and everyone told us how impressed they were that we hadn't lost any water over the first jump! I was like well, Flounder gives an amazing feeling over the fence. But it also felt REALLY good to be able to do this, clearly I had a lot of stability in the tack on the flat and over fences, and as someone who has, no joke, absolutely complained about how short my stirrups are in the jump tack EVERY SINGLE TIME I RIDE, I was pretty proud. 

The 0.1 centimeters lost was enough to win the class!! I got a very cute tumbler with the horse park's logo on it for my efforts and Flounder got a lot of carrots and cookies (I mean, he got lots of them all weekend). 

Such a fast fish! Note: we were not fast

Kate and I discussed and decided to end the weekend with just one jumper class the next morning. I was kind of torn because I was like... if the first course goes badly I would want to go in again, but if it goes well, I could always scratch. Kate said she'd rather us wish we'd done more, which was the right decision, so we just signed me up for the one class. 

This time I'd be warming Flounder up myself, so that would bring the warm up back into the picture, more information. It was a different warm up though, much larger than the hunter warm up. 

We didn't do a ton in warm up, just three jumps and then Kate asked if I felt okay to go over. I said yes, I feel as good as I'm going to feel. Kate asked what else we could do in warm up to make me feel better and I said that I could use like 40 Advil. She said that it was long past that time, which was correct. But seriously jumping that many days in a row completely destroyed my body! 

Such a good fish

The last course was amazing. I could not have asked for anything better. 

The course started out with a hilarious moment that made me laugh as I cantered to the first fence, that might have made the difference. Basically, I heard the buzzer and then glanced to the board to see if my name was up there, but it wasn't. I thought it had been the day before, it didn't matter since I wasn't competing for real, but I then second guessed if that was my buzzer. I really didn't want to be rude and start jumping if it wasn't my turn just yet. 

I yelled for Kate because again, it didn't matter, "is that my buzzer?" and she yelled back that it was. The announcer then said "yes, Megan, that's your buzzer" and I said "sorry, it's been a long week!" and he said "it's okay, she's a dressage trainer folks" which he'd found out when asking me why my number was upside down as I walked in. And probably assumed when I was complaining about my stirrups being short at the gate earlier. 

I laughed the entire way down to the first fence and then potentially put in the best round of my life. It wasn't perfect but I was able to ride just like I did at home and not lose my head. As I landed off the last jump, I was grinning, it was SO MUCH FUN! I can't remember the last time I had fun DURING a round. 

What an amazing way to end my first show! And more importantly, what a great information gathering weekend it was. 

Rose in May Part 2: My Mental Game

The next day, I was in the same division with a hunter class and then a hunter undersaddle class. I decided to braid Flounder on Thursday night and he looked AMAZING for Friday. I mean, as amazing as one can look when one decides to rub out half one's mane reaching through the fence for grass sprigs. 

LOOK how adorable he is, please note the butt
wrinkles, the nose, and the sweet ears!

I took Flounder over to warm up and once again, he was THRILLED to be at the horse show. But this time, the warm up was busy. It was set up in such a way that we didn't have a ton of space, they really had no choice in how to set it up as it was definitely the smallest warm up on the property. There were three fences with almost no room to go between them and then the rail had one and a half tracks between the edge of the standard and the rail. 

That would have been fine and was the day before, but I ended up having a few incidents that triggered some deep fears in me, apparently. Flounder was FINE, but we got pinned on the rail once, had to slam on the brakes to let someone pass, and had some trouble figuring out how to get to the jumps with people in the way. I wasn't actually, logically afraid because it's Flounder, but my body slowly pumped full of adrenaline. 

It came to a head when I was passing a jump at the canter and someone cantered up behind me and jumped the jump at the same time. I suddenly broke him to trot and felt panic flow through me. I wanted OUT of the arena. I went to Kate and she helped me remember that I was on FLOUNDER and not any of my green, spooky training client horses from years ago... It was okay. 

I don't KNOW why I'm like this lol

But it was not okay. I got into the arena and I had a similar round to the ones I had in 2010 when I was taking the young stallion around his first events while simultaneously working with a LOT of naughty/green horses over fences. I used to tell people that show jumping was my weakest phase and it was... but I didn't actually realize WHY it was my weakest phase. 

Turns out I was having panic attacks in the show ring. And, now that I know what they are (thank you to the worst year of my life, 2018), I could correctly identify that I had another one on Friday at this show on Flounder. I can only describe it as feeling TERRIFIED despite there being absolutely no threat. Like I knew there was no threat, Flounder didn't do anything wrong, he jumped all the jumps and didn't stop or even shake his head... 

But again I can't emphasize how terrified I was for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I had horrible tunnel vision and couldn't take any real breaths. I was shaking and basically only able to steer around the course, which felt completely out of control. Flounder is the best and he took care of me to the best of his abilities. Just like before, I made it around without forgetting my course or really doing anything *too* badly. 

Watching the video I was just thinking "eh, maybe don't put him to nothing so much, Megan" but there was nothing shocking about the way I looked from the outside. And that's when it all came together for me, the realization that no one knew I was having panic attacks in the show ring because I genuinely just look kind of normal, or maybe a bit shitty but not unreasonably shitty. 

Jumping around with Flounder wondering wtf
is going on up there

I come out of the ring shaking and honestly have almost no memory of what exactly happened between entering the ring and getting back to the barns maybe? I know based on the messages I sent to my friends and what I wrote in my journal that I resisted feeling what I was feeling and instead tried to deflect. Kate made me feel my feelings and walked me through some breathing exercises and helped me get myself grounded. 

Pausing here I just want to say how much I appreciate Kate. It would have been easy for her, like my former trainers, to say something like "hey that wasn't so bad, don't worry about it! Try not to put him to nothing and keep your leg on, cool, have fun in your flat class and I'll catch up with you later." That would have been acceptable and it was what happened for a VERY long time with many different trainers. I didn't have words to describe what was happening to me and I had an ego like most young horse trainers did, so even if I did have words, I probably wouldn't have admitted it. This time though, my trainer is my best friend and even if she wasn't, she has an amazing ability to see through all the bullshit. I love that about her and this is why I'm choosing to come back into jumping now, because I can do it with her. 

Once I'd calmed down, I opted out of my flat class, went back to the barn, and wrote down as much as I could about it. As much as it was very un fun to have a panic attack in the show ring, I had achieved my goal: I had information. 

The only real difference day to day was the warm up and I had definitely felt it starting in warm up. With that realization in mind, I remembered that my last 3+ shows over fences (12 years ago) had insane warmups. Whether because my trainer put a fence up 6+ inches above where we were showing to "get him to jump the shit out of them" without telling me and instead we crashed through it, or because I was dodging other horses due to being on a stallion, or because I was being stretched in every direction with clients while my horse's owner watching from the sidelines. 

The most adorable braided fish

We opted to put me into a ticketed round later that day at the same height. I warmed up much better but was still full of adrenaline from earlier. I had a much better round with only a small amount of panic, but Flounder had lost a bit of faith in me and we ended up having a stop. I felt it coming from a mile away but that panicky feeling led to me not being quick enough to make sure he made it over. We finished the course just fine though!

Despite having a mental breakdown, I remained in pretty good spirits the rest of the day. I tried really hard to stay in the moment, not make any big decisions at the show. The purpose of the show was to gather information. If I crashed and burned the rest of the show, that was information. If I was able to bounce back, that was information. There was no reason to dissect the show until it was over. The only thing I had to think about was what to do for the rest of the weekend to gather the most information.

As we sat and watched the derby, I told Kate what I wanted to do: I wanted one of her kids to take Flounder around a jumper class in the morning and then I'd do the second jumper class. 

Downtown Paso Robles is really cute!

The reasons for this were:  

1. I wanted Flounder to be guaranteed to have a confidence boosting ride and I knew I was going to be hit or miss depending on my warm up. If he stopped a bunch with me, who is to say it was me riding him to the stops or him saying "hey she was real shit yesterday and I don't want to play with her anymore" 

2. I wanted to experiment with almost no warm up for myself, have him warmed up for me

3. I wanted to eliminate any issues we might have switching rings with Flounder sometimes being a little spookier in the jumper ring

I was VERY glad to do this because Flounder got a confidence boosting ride the next morning that set him right back where he was before I let him down. I'm so grateful that Kate's student was there, she is an INCREDIBLE rider.

As much as it was no fun to realize that I couldn't give him what he needed that morning, it was great to be able to confidently put the horse first with no concern for my once fragile ego. I have no goals in this sport except to have fun and while I have a lot of strengths, clearly I have this weakness that needs to be addressed. I'm putting my future horse first by working through it before I bring him into my life and I'm putting Flounder first by happily stepping aside to let him rebuild confidence with someone who can help him with that. 

Tomorrow, I'll reveal how my last rounds at the show went!

Rose in May Part 1: Returning to the Hunters

Last weekend was a BLAST! I got to show over fences at a rated show for the first time in TWELVE YEARS and compete in a hunter class for the first time in TWENTY YEARS. 

Actually, um, I'm going to stop doing the math. This is getting depressing. 

The point is, Kate's barn goes to two really cute B rated hunter/jumper shows every year and I finally got one on my calendar! 

Omg look at this fish

My goal coming into this show was to gather as much information as I could. I didn't need to win any ribbons (given that I'm a professional, I couldn't even compete for ribbons over the weekend anyway because of the bizarre way hunter jumper shows are run) or even go around clear or even all that well for me to consider it a success. I wanted to keep my long term goal of returning to eventing very much at the forefront of my mind rather than get bogged down in being disappointed about not returning with an armful of ribbons (I mean, I could just throw TC back into the dressage ring if ribbons were what I wanted). 

The greater goal is to get my show jumping to a point where I am confident and capable. Show jumping has always been my weakest part of eventing. What better way to do so than at a hunter/jumper show where I can show 6 over fences classes in a whole weekend? Rather than spending the equivalent amount on an event and only get one show jump round and one cross country round? Especially if I was concerned that the show jump round may be bad enough where I can't move on to cross country...

And that really was a risk. You'll hear more about that tomorrow. 

The show grounds were beautiful!

We arrived too late to school Wednesday, but that was okay because Flounder has been to these shows before and we chose to keep me at a comfortably low level all weekend. I also worked clear through the week (felt very guilty asking for more time off during my first five months, they let me go to Kentucky after all... although my manager knew I was at the show and asked if he could take some stuff off my plate! I said no lol), so I left after my meetings were over on Wednesday and arrived with the last two horses around 7:30pm. 

After everyone was settled, I went to get us dinner and then Kate and I got to our hotel room to relax before passing out. I had some work to do early the next morning, so I did that while also updating my safe sport (oops) and got to the barn without too much time to spare. 

The entire time at the show I only had ONE thing to do for work that had to be done at a specific time that was during the show or could conflict with classes: I had a training from 10am to noon on Thursday. When I heard that my class began at 9:15 I thought, oh well, I will scratch and just do the ticketed rounds later in the day maybe? Or just not show that day? School later? Try to find a dressage court so I could feel at home?

But everyone told me it'd be FINE, that I could be one of the first few in the ring and that I could hand Flounder off the moment I got off. I set several alarms on my phone (one labeled POINT OF NO RETURN) where I had to immediately get off the horse and RUN to my computer. 

Me, shortly before running to my computer

My two classes were running simultaneously, so I memorized both courses (and remembered that hunter courses are so easy, I legit just memorized the first fence and then followed the flowers) with the idea that I'd do both back to back without leaving the show ring and I got into warm up. Flounder was FEELING IT but we had the warm up to ourselves for the most part so we felt our feelings and jumped some fences. Right at the end, I started getting a bit nervous about making my meeting though. 

As I was cantering around to the next fence I started saying "I'm having the FULL AMATEUR EXPERIENCE! I need to get through these two rounds ASAP so I can go to a MEETING" which I and another professional in the ring thought was hilarious. I mean, honestly the entire weekend was a masterclass in amateur hour shenanigans brought to us by me, a professional. 

The jumper ring!

I did make my meeting after two very average rounds. I was a little nervous given that I'd never shown Flounder over fences like these before and didn't put in the best rounds, but they were all mistakes I typically make at home and I mostly kept my head, so I was happy! We missed one lead in each class and I found out that our left drift was kind of ridiculous in the lines. I also discovered that Flounder REALLY has to be moving to make the horse distances and decided that I didn't give two shits about trying to make the distances. Basically, a really good first day!

My meeting went well except for the fact that I took it in my truck and my truck died due to me being dump and not turning it on but having the air running with the key turned half way. Oops. But it did allow me to teach the children later about jumping a truck. 

It was fun to be at the show after that just watching and cheering everyone on while carrying my work around with me. I went shopping (found really nice breeches at 50% off!), placed a riding warehouse order that got delivered the next day, and watched a ton of classes. Honestly it was kind of a breath of fresh air to see no horses with their noses severely behind vertical... I know every horse sport has its issues but I was generally really impressed with the way most of the horses went at this show. 

Look at that lip!

I went to sleep that night super excited for the next day! I had my list of things I wanted to improve about my rounds and no meetings to stress me out in the warm up. It was bound to be a good second day!

Jumping Update

I figure, given that a week from today I'll be showing over fences for the first time in a long time, I should probably provide a jumping update. 

I love his nose in this one, trying so hard

Flounder continues to be the coolest little horse. He's so much fun and gives such a good feeling over fences. For this first year or two that I'm coming back into jumping, he's provided such a nice safe space to do that in without just packing me around. 

Kate is obviously amazing for bringing Flounder into my life, but she's also an amazing instructor. I am having so much fun learning from someone so much more technical than the trainers I had in my youth. There's too much to post about, honestly, but some of the themes have been:

- using my slingshot to improve the way Flounder jumps through a grid

- timing the aid for a lead while in the air and not getting in the way of him responding

- timing my breathing to optimize the way he jumps

- dealing with my right hip and the myriad of issues it's been causing

- addressing my tendency to freeze a bit (and stop breathing) when coming up to a fence I can't see a distance too

- going over the specific mechanics of going from my neutral position into my jumping position without jamming my foot down in the stirrup

And most recently, trying to figure out my mental game as we prepare for this horse show next week!

Is he not the CUTEST

Unimpressed by this one

I'm really excited for the show, but my brain is a little apprehensive. I'd say for the 2 or so years before I quit jumping, show jumping became a problem that I never got to address. 

See, being an assistant trainer at an event barn meant that it was my job to ride babies who had never jumped before and also any horses who didn't jump safely for their owners. This meant that I rode a ton of stoppers, horses who bolted after they landed off of combinations, horses who bucked after jumps, and horses who wouldn't jump fill or spreads or banks or ditches. 

For some reason, this manifested in me being very anxious about showing over show jumps. Cross country? No problem. No idea why, those jumps don't come down!!! Should I not be more afraid out there? Somehow I am not afraid on cross country. And honestly I'm not even afraid over the show jumps, it's hard to explain. My brain just... stops working. 

So adorable

So while I am feeling pretty good in the schooling ring at home, I am wondering how the show will go. But luckily my goals for the show are primarily to gather information. See how deep the issues run, see what it feels like when they kick in, and see how I respond to it. This will allow Kate to dig into it at home and then we'll go to another show this fall to see how I've improved!

I love this plan because I don't really want to sign up for an event only to get to the second day (let's be real, I'll be doing BN or below so I'll be doing cross country last) and have my brain freeze up so I get eliminated. Once I'm an old pro in the arena over fences, THEN I can sign up for an event. 

Wish us luck at the show! We leave on Wednesday, but I'm not taking the days off of work so we'll see what I can do those first few days. But the weekend should be super fun! 

WW: Just Like the Saddle Club

We didn't get any pictures of all of us this weekend but we still got some great pictures. I highly recommend having a pony sleepover with your amazing friends. 

Amazing sunset on our first night there

Peony conquering the wiggliest Flounder

L on Speedy taking a video of Nicole on Dante

Playing on the trail course!

Once again, if you horse knows how
to smile I will force them to and take
pictures of them

Trail ride!!

Peony braided my pony! Also look how good his
body is looking these days! He's downright slim
(note: pony's ribs are still very well covered)

Dante on the trail course

Pony Camp

With L up in the bay for a month and Nicole's new pony still nearby, we opted to try to have an ACTUAL PONY SLEEPOVER WITH PONIES and it actually worked out. It was hit or miss for a while because of the necessity for it to not be raining. But last weekend, we (L, Nicole, Kate, Peony, and I) rented an Airbnb together near Kate's barn and we hung out for the weekend!

The sunset on the first night was beautiful

On Friday, Nicole left her MIL's place a few hours east of us and headed to L's barn to pick up Dante. Meanwhile, Peony drove down from her house a few hours north of us. And Kate and I drove our normal 40ish minute commute. We all converged at Kate's barn in the mid afternoon. After some excited greetings, we tacked up to ride! Peony rode one of Kate's client's super sweet horses, I rode Flounder, L rode Dante, and Nicole rode Speedy. And Kate was teaching in the ring we were riding in. 

It was super fun to just ride around a bit together! I played with Flounder's dressage moves, Peony got to ride a horse who was not Spot, L got to school Dante over some strange jumps, and we all got to see Speedy go for the first time. After some riding, we swapped horses! L hunterfied the horse Peony was riding, Peony got to experience the wiggliness that is Flounder, I got to play with Speedy, and Nicole got to jump Dante, among many other switches. 

We then went for a wander around the polo field, leading me to get the most amazing video I've ever taken: L trotted and cantered Dante around on the field in the sunset and it was beautiful. It's on her IG if you want to see it! You can probably imagine what it looks like given what the sunset looks like. 

But then Dante decided to become a hill horse and lost a shoe so he just hung out the rest of the weekend. 

That night, Kate's SO brought us Thai food (and picked up Kate's dogs who we got to hang out with until then) and then we sat on the couches at the AirBnb and talked about horses until I think about 1am. It was a super fun day and I always love our conversations when we are all together. 

Kate's barn has a bunch of ducks! 

Saturday morning we got up, got coffee, and headed to the barn. Our plan was to hang out in the morning while Kate taught some lessons and then go on a trail ride! I had to go get my pony from the ranch, so Peony and I headed over there to do that. 

I hitched in record time and then we were on the road! Sunny was good to haul and seemed excited to be somewhere different (he's been on this trail once before). The trail ride was super fun, although the pony did get over threshold and so I had to dismount and help him on the ground. When I got back on, he was much happier. 

Definitely something to keep in mind moving forward with him. I think with all the work we're doing, he's feeling less shut down, but now underneath it all, there's some anxiety, specifically about other horses. I'll be exploring this with Kate a bit this year. I want him to feel relaxed on a group trail ride, he deserves to work through his anxiety and be a happier, healthier pony. 

Trail ride!

L came back with me to the ranch to unload and my brother, SIL, and niece were there to drop some things off! My niece helped me put away the pony. Then my brother and SIL pulled me aside to let me know that they were having another girl (due in July). My niece has no idea what's in store for her: sharing her pony (who she just started referring to as MAH, which is how she lets us know what is hers). 

We headed out to an Indian pizza place and picked up dinner, then went to the barn to help Kate, Nicole, and Peony finish up. We got back to the AirBnb relatively early (for horse people at least lol) and hung out. 

L made the mistake of showing us her journal that night. She has a lot of lists in there and one of the exercises was to list everything she was good at (horse edition). She only had NINE things written down and most of them were duplicates of each other. So we all dished out some good, old fashioned mild to moderate bullying and got her to finish the list with 37 things she was good at. 

I will sit over you and yell at you
to write nice things about yourself
in your own journal, be warned.

Sunday morning, Peony headed home (although promised to come down to ride with Kate and I more often) and the rest of us went to the barn for one last fun day! Kate and L worked with Dante in hand and then Kate rode Speedy and taught Nicole. Kate then taught some lessons. I played with a barn cat and talked to some of Kate's clients, I love not being a trainer anymore (except for some clinics and remote lessons). 

Soon, we all had to get going. Nicole and L hit the road with the ponies and I headed out to get TC out and take the pony down the road and back. 

Such a fun weekend!

It was SUCH a fun weekend. I feel so unbelievably lucky to have such amazing friends and for this weekend to work out so perfectly (schedule and weather wise). We definitely need to do more things like this as a group and we talked about making this (minus ponies since it was just a fun coincidence that L and Nicole's horses were nearby) an annual thing. 

Can't wait for more adventures with my favorite people!

Cross Country Camp Day 3: Knocking the Rust Off

Day two started out well with Flounder thinking he was the BEST at cross country and being annoyed at me that I wasn't letting him gallop out all his feelings about how amazing he was. 

It was honestly so absurd to have him squeal every time I asked him to go forward and to feel mildly out of control while cantering around in warm up.

We finally started to jump and Flounder was insulted that we weren't schooling all the Prelim and that he had to jump a tiny intro log. He would land and do his version of exploding which is just to toss his head and squeal. I just love him so much. 

Didn't get as many pictures from the second day

Once we moved onto the BN line, he was much more interested in getting serious. Apparently the difference between intro and BN is enough to get him to calm down. 

We worked on this long, unrelated bending line for a bit. I was for some reason wanting to jump up his neck on takeoff and get too much into my stirrup on landing, which was frustrating but probably due to me being kind of tired and sore from the day before. 

That led me into so many realizations about the adults I used to work with when I was the assistant trainer to an event trainer. I laughed to think of how many times I didn't understand when the adults would be tired from the day before or when they'd feel like it was too hot out or when they'd say that a N fence looked big. And there I was being like "oh no I don't want to school the novice corner no thank you" and "my seat bones are sore but I'm also tired so I am not comfortable sitting or being up in half seat, I need to lay down" and "I know it's not *that* hot out but it's *really* hot out" 

But we made it through! For the most part! 

Flounder thought he was king of the
world at first

After our first few lines, we moved onto yet another pimple fence. If you approached it toward the barns, you had a flat bit right before jumping but you landed on the downhill slope. If you approached it the other way, you jumped from the uphill but you had a flat bit to land on before going downhill. 

We schooled it the way that was more horse friendly (landing on the flat bit) and Flounder reiterated that I wasn't good at jumping pimple jumps so he stopped. When we came back to it again, we made it over and it was much better. I really got the feeling of landing in my thigh on that fence and tried to commit that to memory. 

After that, Kate had us do a little course! We were to do the first two beginner novice fences, then come to the pimple fence (also on the BN course), do the first line we did (BN) and then go through the water and up the hill to a line we'd done the day before. We had some options for intro fences if we were having issues so I felt confident heading out. 

We started in the start box which was SO fun and Flounder was solid over the first fence. Then he started playing a bit and surged toward the next fence. I should have half halted earlier on but instead just let him go and thought he'd launch over the long spot. Well, Flounder isn't *that* athletic and so chipped hard and I had to slip my reins to let him figure out how to get over it. Sorry buddy! Thought you were more athletic than that given how you were acting. 

The next fence, the pimple, rode beautifully and so did the original line we had started with.  

The best fish!

We weren't that far into the course and my body was like "you know what, fuck you for this, I thought we were dressage riders" so I kept having to sit back down into full seat as we cantered to the upper field. 

This tiredness definitely made me look at the next fence so we had two stops there. That sucked because it had been a no-brainer the day before, but that's okay because it's all a learning experience and this is exactly the information I need: I need to ride in half seat WAY more if I want to do this sport again. 

We did get over that roll top and then opted for the last fence to be an intro fence to end on a good note. 

He's so cute and he made himself so
dirty the whole weekend lol!

That concluded our cross country weekend! I'm so glad it worked out for me to go. I learned a ton and had a lot of fun with both horses (more on TC tomorrow). 

My main takeaways were: 

- I need to do more work in half seat to get stronger/fitter for the gallop stretches on cross country

- I need to land in my thigh vs my stirrup to help Flounder balance better after the fences (and set him up for any related lines)

- I need to keep my hip back in the air/wait for him to jump

- I need to work on my down banks

- I also need to work on pimple jumps!

Overall it was a fabulous weekend! I can't wait for the next cross country schooling and in the mean time, it's all half seat all the time for me. Sunny is finally feeling better from his eye issue (long story but he is apparently allergic to something that made one of his eyes blow up and so he got himself a hospital stay recently, he hasn't been ridden much since then) so I think I'm going to start riding him again to practice my jumping work. 

I might try to pick up a saddle for him that isn't awful. Just something cheap that I can practice half seat in and do some small jumps at home in between my lessons on Flounder.