Ride, Drag, Roll, Repeat

We had a lot of rain on Thursday last week, 2.25 inches all on one day. It was our first large storm of the season, and another 2+ inches came in over the weekend. 

He misses the tracks and so do I

I'd mentioned a while back that my arena had been damaged by the rain. So I've become pretty obsessed with preparing it for each storm, and so far it's held up really well this winter! 

When I know that rain is coming, I'll make sure that all the drainage spots in the arena (where the water flows under the kick boards) are clear. It usually involves shoveling sand back into the arena and then shoveling some pathways away from the arena so that the water doesn't get stuck behind the kick boards and start traveling down to that corner rather than out of the arena. 

It's road walking season

Then I drag the arena "hamburger" style, so that any tractor marks that are left go across the arena toward the short side rather than down the arena (I guess "hotdog" style lol). Sometimes even after I roll it, water still finds the drag tracks to wander down. 

And finally, I roll the arena. I've been experimenting a bit with how much rolling is necessary. One pass seems to get 80% of the way there, so if it's a small storm, I stick with that. But for this large storm, the arena got two passes, and that was really great!

Not bad!

He was happy to go down the road

On Friday after that storm, I dragged the arena and it was super rideable!! Way improved from the maybe three days it used to take to recover from a storm like that. So I got TC out to work. 

Side note: he was really good! He actually did very well with his bit flexions that day, fighting me a lot less and doing a lot of releasing. And then the work in the arena was quite good. He seemed to be glad for some entertainment, since the horses get locked in from their pastures and just have access to their (quite large) paddocks. 

I was super impressed with how well the arena held up! Even if the weather changed over the course of the day and it turned out that literally on Saturday morning at 6am, we were set to get another storm. So I dragged the arena, rolled it, and shoveled the sand out from the drainage areas. 

Then on Saturday the weather changed AGAIN so it wasn't going to rain until 3pm. Because I'm so dedicated to this rehab, I trudged down there, dragged the arena, long lined him, then dragged again and sealed it back up. 

I don't mind the roads too much!

Finally Sunday it was too wet to want to work in it! So instead, we walked down the road. It was my first time riding him down the road in a long time, I had been avoiding it due to the mechanical laminitis he had shown in his first x-rays. It was also the first time I had put the bridle on him in a while too! We just walked, no real work, so I don't know how the bit flexions are helping yet. But it felt like just a normal thing to do with him again, which I think we both appreciated. 

Luckily once I came back down on Tuesday, the arena was good enough to use! Pretty good to make it through 4+ inches of rain and only lose one planned riding day. 

TC's Favorite Puddle

I have been terrible at blogging. But I'm okay with that really.

It's not a bad road to walk along

Work has been super busy, I've been offered to step in and take over a lot of work from an open position that's above me. Theoretically this lines me up really well for a promotion, as does another few things that I'm strategically doing. So that'll be a really good move for me. It's way more technical and I'm excited to be able to really flex my analytics skills in addition to going deeper into our data warehouse. 

I was also sick for the first time in LITERAL YEARS. Probably since I was super burnt out in June 2021 but honestly it was the first actual flu-like illness since getting mono in 2019. Craziness. 

And right as I was feeling better, the rains started. So TC and the pony have had most of the last week and a half off. I have been road walking them bareback each day that I can. Pony is handling it well, this is his ideal work schedule. 

TC, on the other hand, is always incredibly bored having to be locked in from his pasture and not having any arena work to burn off the weirdness. Not rambunctious energy anymore at eleven years old, just chaotic weirdness. 

Excitedly marching down the road

For example, his recent habit is knowing when the hot wire is turned off and playing with the strands with his nose. He's also taken to screaming at any humans near him. 

When I've road walked him, he seems hyper aware of my rule that if you act like a horse shaped kite, you get put away. So he has been dragging me down the road with his eyes bugged out feeling like a cannon about to go off... but he has not put one toe out of line. 

His favorite activities on the road include walking up peoples' driveways to see what's going on, following people who are walking/driving/jogging along the road, and playing in his favorite puddle. He thinks it's just the best form of entertainment. 

The only good thing about rain, according to TC

The other day, he had the best day, where someone stopped to get their mail near his favorite puddle, so he got to show off his enthusiastic pawing. We had a quick chat while he was playing and I'm glad that she was not positioned so that she got sprayed by the muddy water he was flinging. The entire road got sprayed though, and I thought I got video of it but I didn't, boo!

Then we got back to the ranch (he always tries to stay out as long as he can, poor guy) and he didn't want to go back to the barn, so he tried to climb onto the porch. I let him stare into the house for a while, which I can imagine must have been unbelievably creepy from inside the house if anyone was there. I think he'd be a house horse if he could. 

The creepiest, he thought the screen
was just the coolest texture

So that's my update. It's pretty boring around here, which is honestly just what I need. A nice light, relaxing winter to throw myself into my job so I can come out of the winter with, fingers crossed, a promotion that will allow me to do all the fun horse things I want to next year! 

WW: Road Walking

As much as the words "road walking" used to be accompanied by a lot of fear, now I know that it means that I get to see how beautiful the road is after the rain! Also some fear, given that TC has been a bit wild on the roads lol chill out, TC. 

How is it SO beautiful out here?

Maybe it's just my phone's fancy camera

Either way, wow

Endless Road Walking

Sure enough, this week proved to be my own personal worst case scenario with having TC at the ranch. We had a huge atmospheric river at the beginning of last week, then five days of really nice weather, wherein the arena did let us ride for three days, and now this week we have another storm. 

I didn't care toooo much about not being on the ball figuring out where to haul to this last week. It was a bit of a busy week for me anyway. The ranch arena became rideable on Friday and we had some nice rides through the weekend. 

On the days we didn't haul out, I road walked the horses. They could not be different in their attitudes toward road walking and toward puddles. They have similar attitudes toward pigs, though, which surprised me. 

It was a beautiful walk the other day

TC thinks road walking is stupid. The only road he likes is the access road, which is too muddy to ride down. I had him go further down the actual road and he thought that was garbage. He was also pretty shocked that clicker training wasn't happening too often on the walk. I did bring it and we did some work shifting his weight, but I mostly just kind of wandered down the road and back. 

What he does like about road walking though, is the puddles. He LOVES puddles. He dragged me to every single one to play in them. He'd lip the water, paw, fling his head in it, and nibble at the grass under it. I'd be changing the music on my phone and suddenly be yanked forward, like a child riding a pony in a field, and his head would be on the ground and he'd be dragging me to a puddle. 

TC really likes the pigs, there are three in one of the pastures we walk by and sometimes they are out. On one of our road walking days, they were out and TC thought they were just great. He stared at them for a bit and then we continued down the road, but about eight steps away, he turned back around and wanted to go watch them again. It took me quite a bit to get him back to the barn because he kept wanting to go hang out with the pigs. 

Playing in a puddle

Sunny, on the other hand, would like to petition to only be road walked for the rest of his life. He is so chill and happy on the road. He likes going all the way down to the end of the road and then all the way back. He even took my niece all the way down the road on Friday!

Puddles though? You mean water jumps? I tried to get him to walk into a puddle and because it's been a while since I had a puddle aversive horse, I was genuinely shocked when he said no. TC has ruined me for puddle hesitancy. I tried to coax him through it and he waffled a bit, then sat back and jumped over it. As fun as that was, it was a bit slippery on the other side of the puddle, so I gave up.

Sunny was HILARIOUS with the pigs, probably the first time I've laughed harder on him than on TC, who is constantly doing ridiculous things that make me laugh. At first, Sunny seemed nervous about the pigs, but he kept approaching them. I was wondering if he was just doing it for me, but then remembered what horse I was on. Sunny and I have a business relationship vs TC who would be the kind of friend who would constantly be telling you that he'd die for you to the point where you felt really uncomfortable. 

Slowly it became apparent that Sunny ADORES the pigs. It escalated to the point where he dragged me all the way up to the fence where a pig was standing and Sunny yanked the reins out of my hands. I thought he was diving for grass but instead he smushed his little pony nose up against the pig's ears and back. It took a LOT to get him to leave the pigs alone and go back to the barn. So ridiculous. 

Watching the pigs

So, it's been what I expected this winter so far. Kind of annoying, but I have had a lot of time at home to get through my to do list, do all my Christmas shopping (well, almost), and deal with some jobs that are getting closer to offers. I'm still exploring all of my hauling out options and will hopefully figure out something that works well soonish. 

For now though, I'm just enjoying the free time and feeling very grateful that both TC and Sunny are so good on the roads in the winter!

Rain Rain Rain

Right when the horses are doing well, we have another rain storm to deal with! I was lucky to be able to drag the arena right before it started raining. The rain started on Sunday and it's still going strong. I think it goes away officially on Thursday and then I have to wait for the arena to dry. 

As much as I'm eager to continue this work with the horses, I'm also kind of enjoying having a winter like this. I might need to do winters like this from now on. The horses still have large paddocks (they get locked in off the pastures to preserve the ground/grass) and I'm heading down today to do some massage work and maybe take them down the road and back. 

It's so beautiful, even when it's rainy! This was
before the rain though, ponies still on pasture

I think the hardest part about the storms is not the actual rain, but the days where it's dry but I still can't ride because the arena is wet. I don't mind not riding when it's raining, I actually love that he's got such a big paddock and such good care that I don't have to go out there when it's raining. It was also excellent timing because I had four interviews yesterday, so I actually managed to look nice for them and not take any of them from my car or the barn. 

But I am not looking forward to later this week when the weather is excellent but the arena is a swamp. 

I'm still considering what to do during that time. My options include: 

- Go over to the local covered arena that is literally right around the corner (can't ride to it though). I can pay $10 per horse to ride over there. The only issue is that the footing is SUPER hit or miss. I might take Sunny over there first and if the footing is good, I'll take him home and then bring TC over. 

- Message the neighbors and see if their arena is usable before mine (they have better footing and I assume it drains better, but it's not a covered ring). 

- Message this barn up the road that has a covered arena, I rode there with Rico a long time ago but fell out of touch with the owner. Problem is that she might require lessons with her and I'm not interested in taking dressage lessons right now. 

- Wait until Kate's arena dries and go there. I assume her arena will dry faster than mine. Even if it doesn't, I really want her to do some bodywork on my horses and help me with them, so I might just do a lesson with her to use the covered arena.

- Take the horses to the trail facility and do the bottom paved loop. This would be great for Sunny, but TC has been feeling way too good lately (and he's been locked off his pasture which he utilizes for galloping at least once a day) for me to willingly take him off the property on a trail ride where there are going to be TONS of people wandering and cycling and pushing strollers and running and skateboarding and riding scooters... I dunno, I trust him but I also value my life. 

- Learn to just chillax and stop caring about getting back on ASAP after a rain storm. 

I hope it warms up enough to bathe this dirty
creature, he is living his best muddy pasture life

So we'll see what ends up happening! I have a lot going on this week outside of horses (Christmas party, interviewing, work, Christmas shopping, wrapping presents, etc), so it's really not the end of the world if they hang for a bit. This is *literally* why I kept TC at the ranch. But I'm just so eager to continue working with him on this stuff! He's doing so well and I'm getting so excited about the future. 

First Rains at the Ranch

Well, we have had our first rainstorm with TC at the ranch! A bit earlier than I thought it would be, but that's okay. 

It rained on Thursday night to midday Friday, but that storm was just enough to make the pastures a bit muddy and fully saturate the arena. So while the horses got locked onto their paddocks overnight (to save the pastures), the arena was still amazing and they were back on their pastures on Saturday. 

Then on Sunday, it started actually raining. I ended up staying home and baking pumpkin muffins, carving pumpkins, and doing some work that I'd put off. Then Monday morning, it stopped raining and it was nice and sunny. 

The arena looked pretty good from this angle on
Monday but it wasn't great 

I went down to see the damage on Monday during lunch. The storm just on Sunday alone dumped 6 inches on the bay area. That was more rain than we'd gotten between January and this storm. 

Luckily the ranch's stalls, porches, and paddocks handle rain really well. TC had no mud in his paddock and had stayed in it (since it's just a couple of not electrified cables keeping him from his pasture). It's pretty good sized, he has a 12x12 stall, a 12x12 porch, and then a 50 foot paddock from the edge of the porch with the width being 24 feet. Definitely as big as the biggest paddock at a boarding stable and no mud!

While the paddocks survived, the arena was pretty bad on Monday. The sand was very saturated and downright gelatinous. I just rode the horses down the road and back bareback. 

It reminded me of when I worked at the Horse Park before we got a covered arena, we used to road walk the horses on the days where it wasn't raining but the arenas were closed. It was always chaos. We'd try to take nutty horses out with quiet horses to keep the chaotic energy down. Inevitably we would 1) not have enough quiet horses to go around so at least one group was just abject chaos the entire time and 2) the head trainer and I were always on the nuttiest nuts with the working students and brave AA volunteers riding the quieter horses. We'd always laugh at the end of the day wondering how no one got sent to the hospital. 

Meanwhile, ten years older and quite a bit smarter, I was riding two perfect horses down the road and back while sitting on my phone listening to a book and chatting with my friends. I swear if I could have paid vacation, set hours, automatic billing, and no crazy horses in the winter, I'd be a full time horse trainer. 

I made pumpkin muffins! No sugar,
just honey, but they aren't terrible

The silver lining of the storm was that my dad hiked the hill yesterday and said that the trails actually were great. So that's our plan for today. If the arena is less sludgy, I'll drag it to turn the wettest footing so that it gets exposure to the sun. And hopefully tomorrow we will be back to work in the arena! If not, I'll just give them a day off and ride Thursday! 

All in all, for one of the craziest storms we've had, just having Sunday through Wednesday off of riding (and not even if we end up being able to trail ride) isn't bad at all. Now, if we start having back to back storms like this, that'll start to be an issue, but I have some ideas (mostly just places to haul) for how to continue riding during that time. 

Just a Few Things

Things have been going well the last week and a half since our last lesson. We've been plugging away at Second level and are signed up for 2-1 and 2-2 this weekend at a schooling show. Hopefully that goes well!

A few random things have happened that don't warrant full posts. I figured I'd just list them here!

Grabbed some video of our new canter!

Canter to Walk Transitions

We had a great breakthrough with these. Basically, if I feel like I'm having to work to get the transition to be smooth, the quality of the canter isn't there. When he's really well collected and sitting down properly, the transitions are easy. That's a very "no duh" breakthrough, but feeling that they can be so so good when the canter is good has made me very determined to have that quality of a canter all the time. So we're working on that!


The First Rain

We had a very brief rainstorm on Tuesday morning and TC and I were caught in it. I had gotten on and we were going to just ride in the misty rain when it just kind of opened up on us. TC flipped out and I was sore from CrossFit the night before so I just figured I'd long line instead. TC was nuts on the long lines so he got worked a lot harder than I thought.

This horse remains the fucking worst about rain. It's like he's never seen rain before EVERY SINGLE TIME.

My right side is so weak gah

Deadlift Progress

I posted on Tuesday that I was hopeful that I'd get my body weight deadlift soon and I got it on Monday night! I was so excited. We were doing a 5x3 at 80% of 1RM but I'd been putting in so much effort at 50-80% of my previous 1RM (calculated at 129lbs) that I wanted to at least hit body weight (125lbs) for this. As I was warming up, I told myself I could jump to 125 to hit the PR. If I could do it for 3 reps, I could keep it for the workout. And I could! So I did! And that's how I ended up doing a 5x3 at bodyweight. New 1RM calculation says it's 137 :)

And then I weighed myself on Tuesday and I now weigh in at 130, which is good because it means that I've gained quite a lot of muscle in the last few months, but it's bad because now I'm not at body weight yet!! Next time. I'm sure I can do 130 easily.


Winter Musings

I'm thinking about doing another light winter for TC. He's been bucking quite big recently and I'm not a fan of riding him in the cold/dark/rain when he's being insane. It may be a good idea to do more ground work/basics this winter and then bring him back in March for the late-April shows. On the other hand, I feel like if we put in a solid winter of work, we'll be guaranteeing that we could get to, if not finish Third level by next fall. And that'd be pretty cool. So I figure we'll play it by ear. If he starts scaring me or being an idiot about weather, he's getting some time to chill.

I'm also throwing around the idea of switching barns for the winter. I love having him at my house but the reality is, the footing in the indoor gets chewed up by people longeing in there. There's really no other weather-proof area for people to longe so having people not do it isn't an option. If I want to keep him going, moving him to the dressage barn (about a 20 minute drive though) may be the better option. I don't know how to approach my landlord/barn owner though :( if we're just taking it easy, I can just choose to ride him on days where I can ride outside.

He's so beefy

Looking Ahead

Next year, CDS/Regional Championships is in northern CA again. It switches back and forth between being in LA (this year, it just happened last weekend) and being in my backyard at Rancho Murieta.

I don't think TC is ready to do championships. It's a lot of atmosphere for him. Plus, we'd be doing it at Second level, since I doubt I can get him ready to be scoring in the 70s at Third. I think that our plan will be to do another two years just qualifying for All Breeds and wait until 2021 to try for Championships. By then we'll be at Fourth, if we're thinking one level per year, or maybe even ready to do it at Prix St George. I don't know. But I think TC at 10 (wow) will be able to handle the atmosphere better than TC at 8.

BUT I am not ruling it out. It costs an extra $10 per 2-3 to get qualified, and we need to do five of them. That's fifty dollars (and really, the cost is going to be coming from all the shows we'll have to do to get five 2-3 tests in), so I think I might put in for it anyway.

The right lead is definitely harder (and it was getting dark)

Regardless, I'm really excited for TC's progress this year. I can't believe that we're showing at Second level this weekend! Even if it's just a schooling show...

Tackling Rideability

This weekend I had a ton of stuff on my to do list. And I got almost all of it done! On my list was certainly to ride TC, and we had a couple of really great rides.

Friday's ride was... exciting. Like I said last week, TC isn't a fan of the rain, so he gets a bit tense and zippy in it. He also gets tight when he's not been out for a day, and when he's tight like that, he bucks a bit. I think it's honestly that he's trying to loosen up, which he needs to find a better way to do, but it's not him being bad.

So Friday it was raining and he was bucky, so we did a lot of that and a little bit bugged the other riders in the arena. It's not worth talking about, since Saturday's ride was so phenomenal!

I made him take selfies and this one is so silly

We started in walk and really focused on getting him stepping forward and into the bridle. He is really figuring out how to cover more ground at the walk, which is really nice to feel. He's always had a really good walk, but it's always been like he's walking through molasses. Saturday he perked up quite well and we rode some leg yields and shoulder-in within the walk, before playing a little bit with the turns on the haunches.

Despite wanting to do them very slowly, he's got the mechanic down at this point. There is no stepping out and there is only sticking if I accidentally turn him too tight. All but one was great on Saturday though, and I started to get fussier about making sure that he's still reaching for the bridle, getting him a little quicker behind, and adding a titch more bend to it all to prepare for turning them into real pirouettes.

The trot is always great from the start when I take my time doing a nice long walk warm up with a lot of lateral work, and sure enough on Saturday, it was pretty good from the start. We started with some figures, working on getting him reaching to the bridle and stepping off of my aids. He's been super in the bridle lately, and my goal now with the connection is to continue to make it a bit more robust and continue to build strength within it so that he doesn't ever feel like he needs to retract his neck to regain balance. So that's a good thing to work on in warm up.

Trying to get as much ranch wandering in as possible before it
starts raining again

We rode some leg yields in warm up and they were great! He still steps off my left leg a thousand times better than he steps off my right. Kate had the opposite experience, so I'm wondering if something is going on in my position that is making it hard for him to step off the right leg for me. So that will be a good question for whoever future trainer is when I can finally grab a lesson. We worked on continuing to improve the cross over in the leg yield left and keep him a bit more upright on the outside in the leg yield right. He stayed really well out to both reins in each leg yield, which is great, since he tends to either not connect to the right rein (when LYing left) or busts through it (when LYing right).

The sitting trot is for sure coming along and I'm so happy with where it's at. I know I still have a bit of the Pac Man abdomen going on but my backline is ON and it's getting stronger. I find that focusing on getting the backline turned on as it passes over my butt is really helpful. For the most part, it wants to stop at my mid thigh, so focusing on inching it further has helped a lot. His trot isn't feeling too bouncy anymore, but I know it is because I'm sore quite literally every single day I ride him.

From there we did our canter work. I'm starting to tackle the rideability in the canter quite a bit more and Saturday was no exception. The throughness at the canter is finally coming along okay. Still not at the level of trot/at the level I want it to be at, but he's actually really coming over his back a lot of the time. Until, that is, we have to go in a straight line. To the right, it's not bad at all and I can usually get him going totally straight into the mirror. To the left, he really struggles to keep the right side of his body up. He legitimately feels like he's going to fall over it.

He's not a fan of selfies

To fix this, I did some shallow loops. To the right, they were really great. He's super rideable in them, doesn't threaten to change, I can actually ride the canter instead of feeling like I have to hold it all together. To the left, it's really hard to get him to make the turn at the top of it. He'll come off the rail fine, but then when we go to turn back, he feels like he has to lean hard right to get back. It looks fine in the mirror, but the feeling isn't great and the throughness goes away. The exercise for sure exacerbated what I was feeling on the straight line. It's honestly all about the right rein, remember in the leg yield how he either falls away from it or through it? There's no INTO it involved. So I redoubled my efforts to ride him INTO the right rein as I came around the corner and we had a much smoother movement.

Still though, that shit is hard! To end, we came back to trot and played a bit with transitions within the gait. I really need to get my shit together with the mediums in trot and canter. I feel like I can't ride them quite yet in canter because of that right rein business, but the trot is very ready to begin to develop it. The lengthening is fine, but it can get a bit unrideable, where it feels like I slingshot him across the diagonal and hope for the best. I mean, I rode them like that for many years on Rico, and I'm not too worried about First level, but beyond that, I want him a bit more rideable. So we started with just adding power to our collected trot and seeing what happened. He got real fancy and I let it out a bit until I couldn't sit it as easily, then brought it back.

At the end, we wandered around the ranch and he got lots of pets and cookies. He can be kind of a dingbat sometimes (see: all the rides last week in the rain), but I really am having a ton of fun with him at this stage. He finally feels super accessible and it's just a matter of improving the throughness and collection, and maintaining all of that good stuff through new movements.

Thanks, TC

The culprit

Unfortunately we couldn't replicate the ride on Sunday. I came out to the barn to ride and TC had blown up a leg. I really wish it hadn't been the suspensory leg, but it was. The swelling was further down than the suspensory, kind of in the middle of the leg, and only on the inside. It wasn't hot and it was squishy. There was a small cut right at the top of the swelling, and he was totally sound, so here's hoping that he was just dicking around and that his leg decided to go nuts over a small cut. It happened recently on the other leg too.

We did a lot of walking and then a short ride just to keep him sane. By the end, his leg looked much better, so I gave him a gram of bute and we'll see what his leg looks like today! Really hoping that it's nothing serious.

Hates the Rain

Wednesday morning I went out to ride TC and, despite raining all night, it was actually clear! I was really excited, because TC is the actual worst in the rain. I'd take 30 degrees but dry rather than 50 degrees and wet any day.

Shouldn't have hand walked on the ONE day it was
nice this week, why am I so dumb?

I pulled TC out, slogging through the mud and seeing that he'd taken the opportunity to roll in it. Gross. Thanks, buddy. He got to go straight to the wash rack to get his toes sprayed off so I could pick his feet. As I was putting on the bridle, it started to sprinkle rain. That was fine, though I definitely didn't want to get on and do our usual walk around the ranch before our ride. We managed to get into the covered arena as it started really raining.

I was distracted by my phone so I decided to walk him around a couple laps at first. TC spooked at the water coming out of the gutters, a cat that he's seen a lot before, and the same guys who feed him feeding another horse (how dare they). Then, across the barn, some tree trimmers were trimming a tree. TC hated that as well, spooking again and again every time they started up the tree trimmer.

When we made it back to the mounting block, I hopped on, like you do when you're stupid. Normally I would have just put him away, or done ground work and then put him away, but I've been trying to ride him more and get him fitter before his move. I'm so unreasonably nervous that he'll go lame the moment he steps off the trailer at the new barn. I figure if he's fitter, he'll be less likely to go immediately and permanently lame when he moves. So whatever, gotta put in at least a leg stretcher ride.

He spooked at his clothes that he had watched me
put on this bench the whole ride

TC was a ball of nerves and I was not here for it. Normally I'm in a better place mentally when I ride him, but I've been actually having some stupid health things. My stomach is incredibly sensitive, and I ate some weird food and had a weird meal schedule last week. Over last weekend, I had some really scary chest pain and I a little bit thought I might die.

I had resisted going to the ER for a while just because it came and went and I had no other cardiac symptoms. Finally Tuesday I went to the ER and they ruled out heart problems due to me having all the negative predictors of it (like, I'm young, no family history, fit-ish, not overweight, super low blood pressure, and low cholesterol), they said that it was probably esophageal spasms related to my stomach problems. It can be exacerbated by stress, which like, I'm obviously under given the move.

Since then I had/have been on the stupidest fucking diet trying to get my stomach under control. Essentially I eliminated anything and everything that could possibly bother me. So far I can eat white bread (no sourdough), eggs, and apparently greek yogurt. I tried a banana and it was a no go. No fried food, no chocolate, no sugar, no fat, no caffeine, no citrus. I'm also taking out all spices and basically everything good in the world.

So why am I bitching about this? Well, Wednesday morning I was riding my horse and half of my mind was on my chest pain (I had eaten a plain frozen waffle that morning, apparently that's not okay), wondering if I should have insisted that they do an EKG to really look at my heart rather than just making assumptions that I was okay.

Cool

Meanwhile, TC was pretty much just terrified of everything. He scooted non-stop. Just constantly. We'd get done with one scoot, I'd put him back on the aids and stuff him through half a circle, before we'd be scooting off again. We had one really good bolt, where he completely downshifted and ran away with me. I had to be careful bringing him back because he felt like he was going to go up as I slowed him down. Damnit, TC.

I finally put him in the canter because then at least I can sort of channel his scoots into work, and we schooled a bunch of small circles. Between scoots, bucks, and spooks, he really showed me how awesome he's going to be in the future. We got a few circles that were closing in on voltes, where I felt like I could really move him around. The voltes felt like if I half halted and put my outside thigh on, he'd pirouette. Just like in trot when it feels like I could half halt and get passage, this was NOT true, like if I half halted in that canter he'd probably just dump into an ugly trot. But he's giving me really good work, even if he then spooks at the gutter (again) and takes off with me.

I can't wait until it's all brown and ugly again

I'm pretty done with winter. It's been a relatively mild winter, with a nice long break in February, but I'm always super done with winter the moment that winter starts. If winter could just be a week or two of crazy weather that I could just give TC off and I'll just stay inside eating pho and tofu soup, I'd be very much on board with that. I know I can't even talk at all since I live in California and our winters are like some places' summers.

Maybe TC needs to go to rain camp in Seattle or someplace for a few months in the winter to get over his weird shit about rain (and appreciate how mild it actually is here). Or maybe I just need to ride him in the rain constantly. The latter sounds more achievable so I'm off to go ride him in the rain again. This horse WILL be good in all weather types or else...

Hail No

One of the things that I used to struggle with when riding TC as a young horse was that once something set him off, he often wouldn't be able to calm down. Basically his brain would fall out, he'd freak the hell out, and then just be nuts the rest of the day. It became more about survival than actually working on anything.

On Saturday it wasn't raining when we got on, but the clouds looked ominous. I figured we'd have five or ten minutes to walk around the ranch (I am so not a lead-your-horse-to-the-arena kind of person, I love wandering around for ten or fifteen minutes before and after working) and then we'd go hide in the covered arena while it was raining.

Take me back to the days of outdoor arenas being open, wait
maybe they'll be open today... I should stop complaining

I was almost correct, it started dumping on us just as we were rounding our second to last turn toward the arena. It didn't rain though, this was hail. TC seemed okay for a second, but then all the other horses FREAKED about the hail on the tin roofs around them. TC, who doesn't always give into peer pressure but did this time, also freaked out. He started trotting a bit and I was going to just aim him into the arena and ride, but then he slammed to a halt and I knew that I wasn't going to make it to the covered arena in one piece.

This is what they teach us the emergency dismount for though, so I flung myself off of him as he went up and he landed and spun around me, in pure panic mode. I put my whip in front of him so that he wouldn't drag me and we walked to the cross ties being pelted by hail and he was really scared, standing there trembling. I don't blame him, horse was born in a drought and last year we mostly just got rain. It really doesn't hail very often.

He stood in the cross ties and I put his cooler on even just to give him a little bit of protection (since the hail was coming in a bit sideways) and he slowly calmed down with me petting him and telling him that he was okay.

Rico in the winter... One day TC will be like this. Then I will
sell him and take a three month road trip.

After the hail turned to a light rain (it wasn't very long), I walked him to the covered arena and led him around once before getting on. The moment I was on him, I could feel a huge hump in his back. He didn't feel like he could go forward at all, his back was so tight. He was super nervous, spooking a lot and he felt dull but explosive to my leg, if that makes sense. We walked around and I had to give myself a pep talk before we trotted.

It took a long time. We trotted for a long time. He really didn't want to come through and relax, but we slowly worked down into a stretch, for which he got a ton of scratches and good boys. Slowly he started to reach for the bridle and slowly I felt his back relax and him start swinging through it a bit more.

By the end of the ride, he was totally chill, even though it had rained a few more times (horse hates rain and apparently ESPECIALLY hates hail) and even though the five western riders were all having a chat riding abreast on the rail (so basically taking up half the arena, gah). We got some really good canter work- I rode an exercise Kate had done in her lesson that I watched earlier that day, a little haunches-in and a little shoulder-in at the canter to get TC to be more accessible laterally- and ended with some stellar leg yields.

Some places are pretty when it rains... 

In the past, I really don't think I would have gotten him as relaxed and through. I honestly probably wouldn't have ridden him, or if I did, I would have been taken off with a lot. I think it's a combination of him being more mature, me having more influence over him due to better training, and me trusting that I CAN get him back to me after he gets worried.

Even though he turns seven in a few weeks, he's still a bit spooky and reactive, but the reactivity is getting less and I can get him back to me 99 times out of a hundred. I definitely wouldn't have said that a year ago!

Storming

We've had a really weird winter here in California. For most (all?) of February, it was warm and sunny, like spring. Everything bloomed and I had a couple days of allergies, which was SUPER weird for me.

He was pouting the WHOLE time I had him in the
cross ties yesterday

Today though, it's going to rain. And it was absolutely pouring rain yesterday. My horse hates rain. And we have a lesson this afternoon. Sorry, a doctor's appointment. Well, we did. I decided to cancel it for a number of reasons, mostly that I just don't plain feel like riding in a lesson with a new-ish trainer when I know my horse might be a huge dork. I don't need help with how to deal with my horse being a dork I get a lot of practice with that, I need help with the dressage part. She's not a zero toolkit trainer. And I don't know if we'd get to the other toolkits that she's actually adept at teaching. I should be able to ride with her very soon again, so it'd be better if she saw me then. And I'll get a ton out of auditing and talking with her!

Lucky for me, Kate was ready and willing to take my slot from me and I think it's for the best. Kate has been working super hard with Mox and this trainer, so I was really happy to hand her the slot so she can take two lessons instead of one. And the organizer was super happy that we dealt with this on our own rather than emailing her and having to cancel last minute.

But I think my doctor's appointment still stands. Instead of riding in it though, I'll be auditing and watching, so I'm super excited! This trainer is one that I'm sure will be on my list of trainers to ride with in the future. And hopefully she won't hate us when she does see us!

Who wouldn't be excited to see these guys???

Orrrr okay sometimes we're fun to hang out with (honestly I'm
just impressed he can lift his heavy tail like that)

Meanwhile TC and I have been doing some ground work. Yesterday we did some fun stuff in the covered arena, teaching him to follow me when I ran and making him do a lot of reining back with his neck DOWN since his favorite thing undersaddle is to tell me that he can't possibly rein back without stuffing his ears in my nose. It was really fun and totally low stress since I decided to cancel the lesson. I will probably ride today and he'll probably be totally fine and I'll wish I had taken the lesson, but the stress wasn't worth it when I can see her again in just a couple of weeks if I want to.

Back to Work

Yesterday I went to work for a few hours and then went to the barn after my early afternoon meeting. The good news is that although I feel very out of shape and am coughing a lot still, I feel mostly normal. The bad news is that now I have a CRAZY horse to deal with. Despite having a week off here and there all year with me traveling to PA so much, the weather has made this last week off MUCH harder to deal with.

It rained a ton on Monday and quite a bit on Tuesday so that coupled with the rain we got the week before means that TC's paddock is a mud pit. TC is also pretty wet and muddy himself. Gross.

I'm not impressed with how TC's stall and paddock are holding up. His stall definitely gets a bit wet inside, though he can get out of the rain. His paddock is terrible though. He has two mats coming out of his stall (there are two entrances to his stall) and one near his water, but other than that the whole paddock is basically just... mud. TC is luckily smart enough not to run around like a maniac in the mud and hurt himself (well, so far, am not holding out hope), but that just means that he's really nuts now.

I think one of the reasons why he's been so good this winter is because while it's been a bit cold, we haven't had rain, so he can trot and canter in his paddock a bit. Now there's no way for him to self exercise. Right when I stopped exercising him.

This pathway was so much muddier the other day

When I went out on Monday, I took TC for a short walk and then did some ground work in the covered round pen. Immediately when we got in there, I regretted every time I had turned him out in there. TC thinks that this round pen is where you go crazy. It doesn't help that he's always thought this round pen was where horses came to die at the barn. It's got really tall sides and is tucked against a scary building, the bathroom, and a house, so it's not like all the other arenas/round pens where we can walk around the outside of it.

So it's really spooky. And I've already set the precedent that he goes in there and goes crazy. So now facing a winter of being stuck in either there or in the covered arena where I am not allowed to long line, if I don't want to ride, I am stuck in the round pen. Where TC is crazy. Oh good.

I for sure couldn't ride on Monday. I probably could have on Tuesday, but on Monday I was determined to change the way TC thinks about the round pen.

I headed in there on Tuesday armed with the clicker and long lines and it was basically a shit show. Looking at what worked, I probably should have done a few things in different orders. First, do not allow him to be insane in there. I thought that maybe letting him trot around a bit would cause him to settle. It did not. He did not settle (he never has, once as the hamsters are off their wheels, you have to get him stopped), he just kept getting himself worked up and would go faster and faster. Second, I should always always always be working on this horse's brakes when he gets like this. Because again, he will work himself into a frenzy and just drag me in circles. Third, how many times do I have to learn to REMOVE ALL MOUNTING BLOCKS FROM THE AREA when I want to long line.

So was this horse, much muddier

So after making those mistakes and then seeing with my own eyes him work himself up, me not be able to put pressure on the bridle quick enough, him freak out because of that and then take off.... I finally used my brain (we only had maybe 3/4 of a brain between the two of us it seems). I managed to get him stopped and first reinstalled some real good brakes. We had to do a lot of backing up in all this, but soon he figured out that when I said WHOA, he needed to get his shit together and just stop. No matter what was happening around us.

Then I tackled getting him to stay out on the rail. We worked in small circles on the one side of the round pen that he kept avoiding, then slowly spiraled out into the larger area. After that, we started to trot just in the 3/4 of the circle that he'd stay out on, and then I'd ask him to walk and then step out in the quarter he was nervous about.

Soon he was as good as he was going to get in there. It's still not good. It's very tense and tight and nervous. But at least obedient.

Still, I kept thinking to myself, is this worth all the hassle? I mean it's nice to have a place for him to get exercise when I'm not on him. I wish my barn let people longe in arenas because it'd be really convenient to just pop him on the longe real quick on days like this one, but it doesn't. But also does he really need a longe or a long line? Certainly not if it's just going to freak him out and make his back tight.

I think the answer is to mostly ride when the outdoor round pens are closed and maybe tackle the indoor round pen at the walk until he really learns to settle in there. I don't know how I feel about him trotting around and around, however obediently, with his back completely rigid and his little legs going up and down. It seems completely counter to what we've been achieving and I do think it will have a negative effect on him until I can fix it in there. I'm a big believer in not practicing things badly. It's the same thing with his changes, when he would only offer me unclean ones, we did not practice them. You do not practice bad movements. I do not want him to practice trotting around with his back tight.

Always been skeptical of this round pen... 

Either way it ended up being a good day, though I was as frustrated as I have been in a while with him. It wasn't his fault, I'm just kind of done with the stupid young horse phase. He's coming 7 this year and I don't like that he's still so emotionally immature.

At the same time, I acknowledge that if I had continued along the path that we were on when he was 4 (instead of him getting injured and me having to take 1.5 years off of doing anything with him), he'd be a lot further along by now in that department. So the answer is just to keep trucking and acknowledge that just like last year, in the spring I'll be very glad that I didn't kick him to the curb this winter. Or maybe the answer is to move to the desert where it doesn't rain ever. I think every winter will get better though, either that or he'll start getting every winter off for real!

Driving in the Rain

On Friday it was raining but I still made it out to see TC before zipping down to my parents' place for the first of three consecutive birthday weekends. That made Friday's mileage 175 miles on the nose, would have been more but I stayed overnight at my parents' because driving over 200 miles in a day sounded terrible, especially because that would have brought Saturday's miles to almost 190 vs only 125! Sunday was just over 100.

I drive too much.

Why does everyone I love live so far away and in so many different directions? I can't wait until October when I can move at least in line with one of my many long commutes.

I heard on the previous Sunday that TC's leg looked better after giving me a heart attack on Saturday morning, but didn't hear about it all week. I assumed no news was good news but still got desperate on Thursday morning to find out whether he was doing better. The owners said they were keeping him wrapped all the time and that it was looking really good, but that he was still on bute for it. Ugh, TC seems fine, but after my own problems with NSAIDs that have lead to stomach issues, I'm concerned for him like a parent who gets cold and wants their kid to put on a jacket.

His mane is getting long

I got out there late because of traffic and unfortunately the owner had to leave earlier than normal so I only had about fifteen minutes with him. Nothing like just under 2 hours of driving to see your horse for fifteen minutes before hopping back in the car for 3 more, but that's what happens sometimes and at least I get to see him every week.

Every time I see him, TC manages to remind me how much I like him. He's so sweet, and now that he's working more and shedding out his coat, he's looking really gorgeous. As beautiful as a weird/random friesian x oldenburg cross with no topline can look. His coat is shiny and he's actually looking like a gray horse rather than a black horse who has aged terribly.

I gave him a hug, which he seems to really enjoy, he puts his neck up high to let me come at him, then puts his head down and occasionally puts his nose on my back. So cute! I think just any attention this horse gets, he considers good attention. I also kissed his nose, which I normally can't do because he gets distracted, but he started wiggling his nose and smiling so he got carrots for that. So damn cute, I don't care if it looks like he might bite my face.

GIVE ME CARROTS

The owner had sent me pictures of his leg earlier in the day before he got wrapped and it looked normal. She told me that she thought it was cellulitis due to the wraps. I was skeptical, but it makes the most sense given that it'd be really hard for him to even smack it hard enough to get a swelling like that. I've only dealt with cellulitis once with Rico and much prefer that to a second suspensory injury lower down.

I told her to do whatever she wanted to it and she said he might go on antibiotics if it blows up again. For now a gram of bute a day (which again I was skeptical about because they seem a bit bute-happy there. In the long run it won't kill him though, he's young and has had no stomach issues thus far) and only wrapping overnight.

Afterward, I got back in the car and drove the 3 hours down to my parents' place for my mom's birthday dinner, the rain slowing the already slow traffic down to a standstill at places.

He is so cute

Fortunately for Rico, on Saturday morning it was raining enough where I hunkered down in my parents' house with the rest of my family and just watched the three horses play in the rain. Riot got a bit bold and BIT Rico on the butt, which I've never seen happen! I think Rico was as shocked as we were, since he didn't do anything about it. He really doesn't kick out, so he just kind of hopped away and spun around to rear at Riot, who reared back. They're so cute together.

I would have loved to ride though! But I rode a client's horse on Sunday so I didn't have to go more than a week without riding. Can't wait til the baby horse is back in business! Only six or seven more visits until the next, and hopefully final, ultrasound.