Schedule Changes

As is apparent, I think, one thing I've been really considering for the last few years is what riding means to me. Like, what I love to do vs what I do because I feel like I should be doing it because I'm a Dressage Rider (TM). Honestly at this point, this is an ever evolving discussion I have with myself. I want to make sure that I'm doing what I want to do with my very time consuming and expensive hobby, not what I think I should be doing based on arbitrary rules I've given myself. I started jumping over a year ago as a way to break this cycle of me feeling stuck in dressage telling myself "this is what you're good at and who everyone sees you as, so it is what you should do." 

Now that work is picking up in the best possible (but still stressful and time consuming) way, I found myself feeling a little stretched thin riding both horses. 

But it's important to me to ride both because I really want to have my cake and eat it too, eventually. Meaning that I want to have TC as my dressage horse but I don't want to wait to retire him for me to get my jumping horse. There are a lot of reasons why: wanting to have a backup horse for clinics, wanting to jump but not wanting to give TC up, the ever looming dreaded middle age (is it weird to be planning my mid life crisis this early?) that might prevent me from wanting to jump the medium size sticks, and so on. 

But having two horses means fitting two horses into my schedule. That's tough when work is relentless and when I like riding in the middle of the day (over lunch and then right as people stop asking me questions) instead of before or after work like a normal person. I love that my company and my management chain trusts me to create a schedule that works best for me, but sometimes flexibility is so rigid! 

Accurate

I decided that I might want to do a schedule change to figure out how to get both done every day. My schedule was as such: 

Monday - off, work from the office

Tuesday - ride both horses in the arena

Wednesday - ride both horses in the arena

Thursday - off, work from the office

Friday - TC in the arena, Sunny with the kiddo

Saturday - TC on the trail, Sunny in the arena

Sunday - TC in the arena, Sunny on the trail

But what was happening is that I'd ride TC over lunch on Tuesday and Wednesday and then I'd be pressed for time with Sunny because it'd have to be after working hours or in between meetings. It was just too much and sometimes I'd just want to go home. 

The thing is, trail riding takes me half the time arena work does. I get on bareback in my tennis shoes, I go up the hills for 30-45 minutes, then I come back down, toss the bareback pad into the barn, hose the horse down real quick, and throw back in the stall. 

I love these trees!

With the arena work, I have to put on boots, put on a saddle, walk down the road to do a full warm up, ride for 30-45 minutes in the arena, cool down, untack, take my boots off, hose down, and then put back in stall. It takes way longer, an hour and a half for TC at least and an hour and fifteen for the pony (who I can ride bareback if I'm pressed for time vs TC absolutely not).

In addition, I found that I looked forward to trail riding so much on the weekends. All week I'd be glancing up into the hills waiting to go up there. I realized that I should change the schedule to allow me to trail ride during the week at the very least, but then I also decided to double my trail riding and see what happened.

So, this is what I changed to: 

Monday - off, work from the office

Tuesday - TC on the trail, Sunny in the arena

Wednesday - TC in the arena, Sunny on the trail

Thursday - off, work from the office

Friday - TC in the arena, Sunny with the kiddo

Saturday - TC on the trail, Sunny in the arena

Sunday - TC in the arena, Sunny on the trail

I love this view!

It feels kind of weird to only be doing dressage 3x per week with TC, but he's honestly thriving physically right now with less dressage and more hill climbing. I mean, I do put him in his good posture on the trails, I don't think he'd be as happy physically if I let him climb up and down the hills with his underneck rock hard and his back tight. I'm also having a GREAT time and feeling way less stressed with this schedule. 

First, it is SO FUN to be able to trail ride 4x per week. I adore the hills above the ranch so much. Trail riding up there gives me so many like... magical childhood feelings. Sometimes I bring a popsicle from the fridge! I listen to podcasts or music or a book and I just spend some time appreciating how amazing the ranch is and how lucky I feel to be able to have my horse there. It's the perfect way to destress in the middle of the day. 

Second, it's been way easier to get both horses out! Or on days like Tuesday of this week, where Sunny had to be booted out of my schedule, it allowed me to still get TC out despite the entire trail ride me having to be on my phone answering questions from stakeholders and writing code into Teams for my coworkers who needed help. Normally a day like Tuesday would have been stressful trying to fit an arena ride into, but now that I'm giving myself permission to trail ride more, I was able to appreciate the break from work, rather than feeling like I was pressed for time and "wasting" a ride by not getting enough done in the arena because we would have been starting and stopping so much.  

Best trail horse (Sunny is also great)

Hopefully this project is going to smooth out a bit so I can prioritize riding a bit more. The crazy part of it is now over, but I now have to catch up on all of my other work, so I'm expecting the rest of this week to be nuts! But luckily I am going to trail ride Sunny today, then I'll do as much as I can at the office tomorrow so that I can *actually* take our half day Friday half off and get both out. 

Tentative Scheduling Changes

Well, today marks two weeks in my new job and it has been great! I definitely think I made the right decision, which has almost never been the feeling I get when changing jobs. I'm totally overwhelmed with new information and meeting tons of people (my old team was 5 and my new team is 25), but I'm having a blast! 

I love seeing my boys out in pasture
grazing next to each other <3

With the new job comes a new schedule. My previous job was so unbelievably flexible that I could ride whenever I felt like it. I also didn't have any incentive to come into the office because it was an hour away from my house and 45 minutes away from my barn, which are 40 minutes apart. I called it the triangle, and I hated the triangle. 

New job is still VERY flexible, but I have like ten times the number of meetings (this isn't permanent, it's due to the amazing onboarding process they have, way better than previous jobs where my onboarding was "here is your computer, that's how you gain access to the database, good luck!") and want to be available during normal hours as most of my coworkers work normal hours. It's also right around the corner from my house (I can literally wake up and be in the office in less than 30 minutes) and feeds me breakfast, lunch, and dinner if I'm there at the right times. I also just super love being there so far. 

For my weekly schedule, I wanted these things: 

- work from the ranch Friday so I can hang with my niece during breaks

- TC gets ridden 5x/week

- Sunny gets ridden 4-5x/week

- work from the office 2-3x/week

I tried to take a picture of him surrounded by birds
but they were leaving by this point

I really have loved taking a weekend day off from everything, so my previous schedule had me not riding on Wednesdays and then I could either take Saturday or Sunday off. When I was teaching it was such a nice thing to have a whole day off where I didn't have to do anything that felt like work. But it also meant that I'd only get one full day off of riding to focus exclusively on work and I think with this new job, I'd like to move things around a bit. So here is my tentative schedule for the next few weeks, we'll see how it goes!

Monday - work from the office, horses' day off

Tuesday - work from the ranch, ride TC at lunch and Sunny before or after work

Wednesday - work from the ranch, ride TC at lunch and Sunny before or after work

Thursday - work from the office, horses' day off

Friday - work from the ranch, ride both at lunch (Sunny goes out with my niece so it doesn't take too long)

Saturday - ride both

Sunday- ride both

Trail riding at lunch is AMAZING

So far I've been LOVING the lunch time rides, it's been so perfect. It's a great way to break up the day, I usually work 4 hours in the morning, then ride TC, then work another 4 hours, then ride Sunny. Or I've had some mornings where my meetings don't start too early and I can do Sunny early and then work a few hours, ride TC, then work the rest of my day. 

Working at the ranch has its downsides though, and I learned the hard way that I need to put my computer on my phone's hot spot (luckily I have unlimited data and the data at the ranch is super fast) for meetings. It's also insanely cold in the room I'm working in as it's attached to the garage. 

Another downside is that my niece is NOT used to Aunt Mimi not having like, half the day to give to her. My previous job was so laid back that I rarely did much on Fridays (answered some emails on my phone while hanging out with the kiddo, you know), so I could take a lot of the day to hang out with her. Last week she was confused when I said I had to go to work so I asked her if she thought I had a job and she said no. Hmmmmm. 

Look at how great his chest looked
the other day! This is completely
unrelated to this post but I'm excited

We'll see how it goes!! I figure that I'll swap to riding both in the early mornings in the summer because of the heat, it will often hit the mid 90s or above by lunchtime. But until then, I'll be enjoying my lunchtime rides! And also enjoying going into the office twice a week and only commuting 18 minutes total on those days. 

Changing Up the Routine

I've decided to put TC on a fitness schedule with some postural rehab exercises sprinkled in. My acupuncturist thought he needed to be fitter to start to see the improvements we've made. We are still battling some stuff, one being his neck apparently bothering him (he sees the PT on September 7th so we will get some answers there), the other being the saddle fit issues. The saddle I have on trial IS letting him build muscle, so that's great news, but it's not a perfect fit. Local trainer thinks it's low behind, which is something Mary said would be a thing with him, but my main issue with it right now is that it slides forward aggressively. 

The bands help keep the saddle back at least lol

I'm not sure if it's the saddle or his conformation, or maybe both. His girth groove is right behind his elbow and his shoulder comes back further than that. So everything slides forward into/onto his shoulder. My sticky pad doesn’t seem to be helping that anymore, I’m not sure if it’s because with more downward transitions, there’s more opportunity for it to slide forward or with more work, he’s getting sweatier and my sticky pad isn’t working so well. I'm going to get another sticky pad and see if that one works better. 

I'm considering buying a crupper just to see if that's an option. I mean, obviously the best option is to have a saddle that doesn't want to slide forward. But I'm starting to think that such a thing might not exist unless I go with a point billet. Maybe this is why my last saddle didn't slide forward, the point billet pinned it behind his shoulder. But that's not good either! I may end up finding that I can pin a saddle behind his shoulder with a point billet (restricting the shoulder) OR I can have a saddle that slides forward over the shoulders. Neither are ideal. 

Obviously TC says that sliding forward over the shoulders is better than pinning a saddle behind the shoulders, but I'm not interested in buying a saddle that slides forward until it is made very clear to me that EVERY saddle is going to do this. The saddle fitter comes next weekend so we'll have a chat about it. From there I'll either let him adjust it and we'll try it for another month, or we'll be back to the drawing board/bareback saddle. 

Clicker training square halts

He was very proud of himself

The saddle thing feels outside my control, but what is in my control is what TC and I are doing each day. I'm implementing some things for the month of September that should improve his fitness and hopefully strengthen his topline now that we (hopefully) have that ability. 

I tend to go through phases of implementing something and then changing things too quickly to see whether the things I implemented worked. Yes, I did go to graduate school for experimental and research psychology, why do you ask?

So I wrote a checklist down on my whiteboard and gave myself a schedule to follow. 

Schedule: 

day off x 2

dressage ride x 3

trail ride x 1

long line x 1

I tried to do a Monday-Sunday schedule but my current schedule changes too much. I think when/if I start a new job, I will be able to set up a schedule, but for now I am still on my highly flexible but also highly variable schedule. 

He was tired from my lesson (this was the day after)
but he still felt pretty good!

This is my grooming checklist:

- stand on balance pads in front while I curry/brush

- stand on balance pads behind while I brush out tail 

- pick feet

- do PT exercises x 3

- do sternum/shoulder lifts (I've taught him to lift his shoulder when I scratch under his sternum) x 2

- belly lifts and butt tucks x 2

Riding checklist: 

- walk down the road and back in bands

- warm up for 5 minutes (working up to 15 minutes) in bands

- trot over trot poles during trot work (I'm leaving them out in the ring) 

- 30 steps of rein back x 2

For the trail riding I will just let him relax, we have tons of hills behind the ranch but I'd like to take him out to the trail facility when I have time to! 

And for the long lining, it'll be a lighter day, about 30 minutes of clicking for posture and working on balance in downward transitions (because it's tough to do them in the saddle with it sliding forward). 

It was kind of a stretchy day

I think I’ll implement this for a month and then start brainstorming changes to make in an intelligent way. For example, maybe I want to try a new bit, maybe I want to add an exercise from Jec’s book on equine fitness (right now the only one is the reining back). I then want to experiment with reducing the exercises to figure out what is necessary to do when. I'm sure it'd be best to add one thing at a time but I am not that person. Plus, none of this takes up a huge amount of time (tacking up takes a bit longer now but that's about it) or does any damage so it should be good. 

Aaaand we'll see about the saddle. The fitter for the saddle I've been borrowing should be coming out next weekend and if he thinks he can get it to not slide, I'll definitely give it another shot. If it's sliding because he's grown out of it, that'd be amazing, it's a fairly easy saddle to adjust (I could do so on my own actually). But if it's sliding due to gravity/conformation... well, maybe I'll just have to order a crupper. 

And So It Begins

Well, I renewed my memberships and put into the CDS membership that I want to qualify for regionals this year. Then I signed up for our first show with two 3-3Q tests. Oh god it's happening. 

I don't doubt we will qualify for championships. It just takes time, but I'm confident that we'll score at least in the mid 60s at Third level this year. Last year we snagged a couple of 70%s but I'm riding him a little differently now so we'll see whether that pays off or not. 

This last week I finally have gotten my horse back from a year and a bit ago, whenever things were last going well. I gave him a day off on Sunday (taught a clinic) and then on Monday I took him on the trail ride I posted about on Tuesday. Tuesday I rode him in the arena and took some pivo video and DAMN. I have my horse back! Maybe the day before we go to this show, we'll go on a trail ride?? I swear the less dressage this horse does, the better he goes. 

Welcome home, TC, we have a lot to catch you
up on! 

So I'm excited to see how this show goes. We have that show, which counts as two shows, and I think we'll be doing four tests total. That's a lot of tests, but he's so confirmed at the level that I think he's game for it. 

Plus, we honestly don't need much warm up. Just walk, trot, canter, do a few changes to get the weirdness out of him (they start weird sometimes) and some trot lateral work. Then go into the 3-1 to use that to warm him up further, then come back and do some canter half pass left and then go into the 3-3. There's a chance I'll scratch his second 3-1 test if he seems tired (they also aren't allowing stabling so he has to trailer an hour each way), but I'd like to grab four scores at those "two" shows so that we will immediately be half way to All Breeds. 

Last year really shook me, all of us probably, show-wise. We waited to show until the later summer because of the pandemic and then BAM lightning storm and fires all over the place. This year I want to get us qualified for All Breeds and hopefully for regionals ASAP. Even if it means that we will be scoring lower than we could if we waited. That's okay. We can always do more shows to raise our median later this year. 

Trail rides make TC a happy camper

Looking ahead at the schedule, I feel like we have some options. There's a show the first weekend in May that I think we'll go to, just a one day, and we'll do 3-2 and 3-3Q. I want to do the 3-2 a few times but didn't want to mess with it for the first show of the year. So then we just need another shows for the rest of our regionals scores. We can either do another one day in early June and another one day in early July or we could head further away. 

I'm also tempted to head to a Golden State show before regionals. Golden State shows are HUGE and held at the same facility as regionals. TC has never been in atmosphere before, not really, he's done a lot of local 1-2 day shows where we've mostly hauled in and out. He's stayed overnight once in 2018 and he was a very good boy. 

He's a bit tough to house. Lots of our show facilities have 10x10 temp stalls, which I KNOW lots of 17h+++ horses stay in just fine overnight for horse shows, but I still get nervous that he's going to get himself cast or something. He's also actually a monkey and will climb on fencing that isn't solid. 

But he's got to get over it sometime. Well, more accurately, I have to get over it, I honestly think he'll care less than I do, especially because I'll get him a hanging ball treat and maybe one of those balls that you can shove carrots into? Whatever he needs to make me feel like he's not bored in there. 

Hugs for the best pony

Then regionals is in September! Hopefully our fire season doesn't impact that. I am really looking forward to going as it's my FIRST time going! 

I have qualified for it once and actually at the same level! I qualified in 2009 at Third level with Rico but we were not going to be at all competitive and I had just left my trainer so had no one really to go with. This time, TC and I are going no matter what. I know we won't be competitive (remember I'm a professional in California and Steffen Peters is also a professional in California) but it's okay! I just want to go for fun. 

I'm excited to stay with friends, to bring my SO who can bring his bike and treat it like a mini vacation, to go to the lake on days that I ride early, to eat amazing food (maybe even in a restaurant!), and to see friends from near and far who I only seem to see at horse shows. It'll be a really fun time. 

Another Trail Ride and Brainstorming a Schedule

On Saturday, I headed down to the barn feeling a little burnt out just from the general shit that is going on in this country piled on top of the global pandemic, our move, TC's stifle, and knowing that I was on my last two days of my three week break from my normal job. 

I don't know why, but I had a major desire to not be at the barn the moment I got there (it was crowded and I didn't have my headphones, sometimes you just want to be antisocial), so I called the hotline that you can call to see the status of the trails and told myself that if the hills were open, I'd go there instead. Sure enough, the hills were open so I ran into the barn, grabbed TC's tack, threw it in my trailer, ran down to TC's paddock, grabbed him, threw him in the trailer and we were on our way to the trail facility within fifteen minutes of my arrival. 

Favorite place

It was our second time in four days being out there, so TC was much more relaxed but did get very excited as we walked to the gate. He aggressively poked the first gate and it opened a tiny amount. Big enough for him to fit through but not comfortably so he flung himself through it as I was trying to grab it and actually open it like we normally do. He was just too enthused to bother waiting for me and seemed to laugh maniacally as I brought him back to walk. 

Everyone and their mother was out there because it was a weekend but once we got up the first hill, people were peeling off to go on other trails and we were alone. 

TC felt strong up the first hill, which was all I was planning on doing our first time climbing in 6 months, so we continued on the flatlands to the next hill. After we climbed that hill, I had him turn around and come back down. He struggled a little bit on the downhill, and by struggled I mean that he wanted to just let gravity take him down the hill. That's typical of his first trail ride after a while so I didn't think much of it. 

Happiest pony in the hills!

I got back to the barn and told myself that until the rain started again, I'd take TC on the trails twice a week, one weekend day and one weekday. And in general, I think we need more trail rides, both for his physical fitness and for my mental health! 

I think I get too into the dressage and don't really structure my weeks to help him out. I was asked about TC's schedule on instagram recently and I felt guilty saying that he didn't really have one. So I think I'm going to try to put him on a real schedule this year. Including one full day off, which is necessary for me to do my real job! 

Here's my thinking: 

Monday: dressage

Tuesday: stretchy day in the equibands 

Wednesday: dressage/lesson with Tracey (she comes every other week)

Thursday: trail ride 

Friday: day off

Saturday: dressage

Sunday: cavalletti

Obviously that is subject to change for a lot of reasons! If it's raining, I'll be moving his day off to Thursday because the arena has a weird schedule on Thursdays. If I'm teaching a clinic on the weekend, I'll probably move his day off to either Thursday and Sunday if it's a Sunday clinic or just to Saturday if it's a Saturday clinic. If I have a crazy number of meetings, I'll have to change it up too. 

So really I should just say that I want to do three dedicated hard dressage day, one day where we do cavalletti, one day where we do some work on the basics in the equibands, and one day where we trail ride. 

I love the views from up here

We'll see what we can figure out. My priority for this year is to work on the basics so that we can make a move up to Fourth level by October/November and score well at Championships in September at Third level. I don't think we need as much dedicated dressage work as much as he needs some postural work and strength building with trails, cavallettis, and basics days with the equiband. 

Juggling Act

As I get older, there seem to be less and less weekends per year. I'm not a fan. It's literally the first week of the new year and I've got several spreadsheets, calendars, and many emails/messages out trying to figure out my schedule for the entire year. This is what I'm balancing:

- scribing for the L program
- sitting for the L program
- the L program itself
- my clinic schedule
- my client's show schedule
- my own show schedule
- riding in lessons/clinics myself
- spending time with friends/boyfriend/family/my future niece or nephew
- going on vacation at least once
- not wanting to be burnt out

I want to go to a place between now and the
final exam too ugh

There are just not enough weekends.

If we break it out, which I have, this is what I've got going on:

29 weekends until the L program finishes, or 58 weekend days.

Of those weekend days...

6 of them are spent at the L program itself
10 of them are (hopefully) spent scribing or sitting for the L program
2 of them are being happily handed to Mary Wanless
16 of them are my own (some assumed/projected) clinics
8 of them I've blocked out for doing non-horse things
4 of them are blocked out for client shows (need to get the full list from my clients, there will be more I'm sure, although I plan on handing some clients off to other trainers for some shows)

Leaving 12 weekend days free for showing and lessons...

I think it's safe to say I probably won't show until August when the program is over. There are a couple of shows coming up that I might be able to swing, but a lot of that depends on whether TC is going to be ready to go back to Second level (since I've done fucked up his counter canter of course).

He loves the changes so he doesn't mind

But I've given myself full permission to do ALL THE SHOWS starting in August, so I should be able to do All Breeds this year even if I don't get to show before then. Here's the tentative plan:

August Greenville (2 days)
August SVE (2 days)
Those two count as two shows each so I'll be good for scores as long as we score okay. We have our 65% from this last fall to count as well.

Then I have some options for a Third level debut:
September YY (1 day)
October WSS (2 days I think)
November SVE (2 days)

There's a chance I'll snag the rest of my Second level scores in April... I'm thinking of doing CNDC, which counts as two shows. If I do that and then get his changes good enough to debut him at Greenville at Third WHILE grabbing another 2-1 score to finish up All Breeds, that'd be cool too! We'll see how close he is to Third by August, that seems rather soon.

The sunset was super cool the other day, had to stop (in the
middle of a country road no less) to take a picture

Either way, he's doing so well it'd be a shame to go another full year without showing him, so I'm dedicated. Fingers crossed everything goes according to plan and I have a Third level horse by the end of the year, go TC!

Tentative Fall Show Schedule

While I think that taking a season off of dressage isn't a bad idea, I also do like showing, and so does TC.

I'm still very much on the fence about this. On the one hand, I like showing and it honestly doesn't matter if we score badly, he was ready for Second last year, etc. On the other hand, scoring under a 65 makes me feel meh. And I like spending money on things that make me feel better than meh. Skipping a year, the year that I got sick with mono, had my horse boarded at a barn he hates, and where I haven't been taking many lessons... well, it's not a bad year to skip.

Either way, our year involves a lot more of this

In addition, I've once again got a week long trip to Michigan planned this summer to visit family, which I am so excited about. TC will get that week off to hang. I like giving him vacations, I think it helps our relationship to have some time off and it doesn't harm him in the least. After that vacation, I'm going to go to this dope-as-fuck wedding and then we tentatively (how many times can I say this word in this post) immediately jump into showing. Eek.

So all that should tell me not to do this, but I want to at least get on the lesson schedule that will set me up the best for these shows I have tentatively planned. If we don't go through with this schedule, at least we get a lot of great lessons.

Here is the tentative plan:
6/29 - Lesson (take a half day)
7/4 - Lesson
7/6 - Lesson
7/13 - Lesson
7/20 to early August - Vacation and then bringing him back into work
8/6 - Lesson (take a half day)
8/10 - Greenville
8/11 - Greenville
8/15 - Lesson (take a half day)
8/18 - ASH
8/25 - Lesson
9/1 - Lesson
9/8 - YY

Can't wait for this view again :) 

The Greenville show I *think* counts as two shows. That plus the other two, ASH and YY, are going to add up to four shows necessary for All Breeds. I need eight scores, only 2 at 2-3, but I hate 2-2 enough where I'm thinking of just doing 2-1 and 2-3 at all shows. It seems kind of weird, 2-1 is so easy now and 2-3 is the hardest test of the level. Maybe TC's zippy counter canter bullshit that's happening right now will lead me to want to do 2-2 just to escape the three loop serpentine (I mean we have to do it, but not four times).

In addition, YY is a new facility for him. It has been a great facility to me in the past (did my first GP on Rico there! Among other milestones) but I just think TC is going to hate the show arena. I'm thinking that hauling up the day before to school and staying overnight is my best bet to having a good horse, buuuut that adds so much money. Like probably doubles the cost at least. Ugh. It might be possible to go school there at some point at the end of August.

Greenville last August, hey he's way more collected in his
canter this year!

In a perfect world, we'd be ready to dip our toes in at 3-1 for October Greenville (I love that facility if it's not obvious), BUT the weekend before that show is my first L Program weekend in AZ, so we'll see if I can swing both. I have the L program pretty much paid for so it's not a money thing as much as it's a my horse doesn't have his flying changes thing.

The Rest of the Year

Ugh this giant first world problem has been hanging over my head for a week and I figured I'd just blog about it.

Why were you not just GOOD at this show????

TC ruined my plans this year by needing to be withdrawn from our 1-3 test in late June. I just needed to get a 60%+ on that test. And I did add everything up and even getting 7s on everything else including collectives (not happening lol), it was still under 60. So withdrawing was not a bad thing.

BUT to complete our scores for All Breeds this year, I need one more show with one more judge and three more scores, two of which need to be at 1-3.

Next year I am for sure not making this mistake! We're going to do a lot of 2-3 I think. But honestly the move was what slowed us down since we didn't show until May and are now too far from all the shows we did in late July/August last year.

We have three show options to choose from between now and September 30th:

Show #1 is August 11-12 and is juuust far enough away where stabling is probably better than hauling back and forth.
Pros:
Can do both days and get all scores necessary
TC has been there so I trust that he will be somewhat sane there
Footing is great
If we fuck up this show, we still have show #4 to enter

Cons:
Might be there alone/no friends
It's two shows, so double the office fee
Trainer not going
I really don't want to stay overnight anywhere (that's just me whining)

Show #1 is at the same facility that we went to last fall

Show #2 is August 17-18, two one day horse shows at the same facility and the first day is just GMO rated, so doesn't count for All Breeds.
Pros:
Trainer is going
Lots of people I know are going (yay friends)
Cooler near the coast
Footing is great

Cons:
Expensive, like really expensive, especially to go both days and only get two scores out of it (aka have to do another show)
We really can't fuck up here because it's so expensive I couldn't do more than just a quick one day to grab the last score
TC hasn't been there
Might be more atmosphere than he can handle
Would have to stay overnight



Show #3 is August 17-18 also, a two day show that I could theoretically haul into each day
Pros:
Least expensive option
Don't have to stay overnight, though it would be much easier to (though stabling is so expensive there!)
Might have a friend going
If we fuck up this show, we still have show #4 to enter

Cons:
TC has never been there
There's for sure a lot more atmosphere there than he's used to
Might be there alone/no friends
Trainer not going

Rico and I did our third PSG at Show #3 in 2013, it was too
much atmosphere even for him...

Show #4 is September 13-14, a two day show that I could theoretically haul into both days
Pros:
Don't have to stay overnight, though it would be much easier to
TC has been to this facility before and will go again before this show (schooling show)

Cons:
Late enough in the year where we need this show to go well or we're fucked
Trainer not going
Might be there alone/no friends
Footing was kinda iffy last time we were there
There's a working equitation clinic this Saturday that I REALLY wanted to go to and that's a far enough haul where I can't do both in the same weekend


Options:

Do Show #1 both days stabling overnight, having Show #4 to fall back on if shit hits the fan
Pros: good footing, he's been there before, have a show to fall back on
Cons: have to stay overnight, no friends planning on going, trainer not going, earliest show so less ability to take lessons coming up to it

Do Show #1 just for one day, then do Show #2 (maybe just the USDF day)
Pros: no stabling for first show, trainer for second show
Cons: second show is expensive, second show is only a week later so not much time to prep in between

Do Show # 3 both days possibly stabling, having Show #4 to fall back on if shit hits the fan
Pros: least expensive option, friend possibly going, have a show to fall back on
Cons: almost certainly too much atmosphere, so might have to do another show, no trainer

Do Show #2 (maybe just the USDF day), then do one day at Show #4 and skip the WE clinic
Pros: trainer going to first show, have trainer's helpful warm up tips for second show (aka better scores?), further out so can take more lessons, scores would probably be higher
Cons: maybe too much atmosphere, I want to do that clinic, no show to fall back on, multiple shows are expensive

There are obviously endless options but these are the ones I'm considering mostly.

The only option that makes any sense is to look back at pictures
of when this guy was 4 years old and laugh at how little and
awkward he was

I dunno...

The most cost effective way to get the scores is to do Show #3 both days. That's a lot less expensive than all other options because it's nearby and is only one show (vs Show #1 is two shows so you pay double office fees). But I *really* think that the atmosphere is going to be too much for him. TC could lose his shit and I'll be super annoyed that I don't have my trainer there/wasted a two day show on tomfoolery like we did at the last show. This has the potential to be the most expensive option if I have to withdraw and put him in Show #4 both days.

So that's why I'm a little bit leaning toward doing Show #1 for the whole weekend and being done with it. Just a bit more expensive (like the amount I'd make teaching a lesson). Buuuut I hate showing alone. However, my mom told me that because Show #1 is in wine country, she and my dad would come up again on one day (and then ditch me to drink wine, totally cool mom thanks). Nicole also said that she might be willing to come to that show to hang out (and/or has a friend who might want to show there too = reducing my gas bill), and Kate offered too, you guys are the fucking best.

The other downside about that show is that I basically don't get any lessons after this coming weekend before that one. I'm out of town for basically every weekend leading up to it. I could probably swing a weekday lesson if I needed to though. I don't think we'd score badly there, but it'd be nice to have more than one lesson coming up to it. I am really wanting to get a 70% at this level this year!

I also really like the idea of going to Show #2 with my trainer, having her help me come up with a warm up plan, and then doing Show #4 alone and probably killing it there. If I'm collecting scores for All Breeds, it'd be nice to be competitive. I can reduce the expense of Show #2 by only doing the second day (still hauling in for a lesson on Saturday and staying overnight though, so it's basically as expensive as Show #1 including the lesson + coaching fees).

I remember taking this very selective screenshot and thinking
that this was what he may look like in the future and he does
kind of look like that, just bigger and grey-er

Financially, I'm also just very torn between wanting to take advantage of having a sound, fit, willing horse and just doing the shows I want to do (Show #2 + maybe one day at Show #1 so I can still do the WE clinic) even though it's going to be VERY expensive.

Because on the one hand, if he goes lame in September I'll be like "why didn't I spend all my money on showing him when I could show him?!" but on the other hand, there are other things I could do with that money that would be just as enjoyable. Like the working equitation clinic, going to stay at my trainer's barn overnight for two lessons in a row, buying a soloshot, or putting it in my savings account like some kind of crazy adult.

What would you choose?

Is it to start learning another programming language so you can eventually switch fields to something that would allow you to do ALL the things? Because that's what I'm doing right now. Also I love learning new things and it's been super fun so far!

Switching Schedules & Summer Heat

TC used to board in a pretty warm area, given that you could get to the beach in an hour. But that heat is nothing compared to where we're living now. And it's not even gotten hot yet!

We may have hit the 100s for a week here and there, but we were in an area that always got windy in the afternoons and always got pretty cold overnight. So essentially, aside from a few days a year, if you rode at 7:30am or at 6:30pm, you were pretty good temperature-wise. 

I'm just now getting my first dose of the central valley heat up here- it was 95 for a few days last weekend- and I do not like it.

Summer means beach rides maybe??

Monday morning for the trail ride, it stayed nice and cool until the end (we finished around 11), then started to get hot. I had lunch with Kate where it was pretty miserable outside, then headed home and was going to ride TC when it cooled down.

It did not cool down. I got to the barn around 5 and it was 96, but there was no wind at all, so it felt much hotter. I hosed him down and went inside, thinking that I'd ride in the evening. It was still 89 degrees at 8pm when I decided to just go feed him and try again Tuesday morning.

This week is my first week doing my 9/80, where I work 9 hours a day Tuesday through Friday, and then have every other Monday off and every other Monday I work 8 hours. We do this through summer term since work slows down a bit. It's ten weeks, so five Mondays off! I decided to flip my schedule to riding in the morning for the summer too. First, that's the only time that it's remotely cool enough to work the horse and second, it means that I'll hit less traffic so the 9 hours a day doesn't feel so bad. 

Riding Tuesday morning (high = 97) was rough even at 6:30am! I was on by 6:40, started working him just before 7, stopped working him at 7:30, and got off of him at 7:45. By 7:15 it was in the 70s and the sun was beating down on us. And this isn't even the summer heat! 

Last summer, this place got hot but at least there was often wind

Luckily Horse Expo is happening soon so I'll be researching all the summer things. I have one pair of tights, that I was going to reserve for wearing on the hottest days or where I had to ride in the afternoons, though I think I may need more pairs. I definitely need to get a helmet with better ventilation (definitely need recommendations, I have a more oval shaped head so a lot of helmets don't fit me well, only the COs seem to and they're hot as hell). I think I'm going to nix the gloves for the summer too. They have holes in them where my reins go anyway so it's not like they're doing anything.

And then I need to figure out what to do with TC heat-wise. He's already on electrolytes so nutritionally I'm not worried about him. He also has a fan. I'm thinking about rinsing him off in the evenings when I get home from work, it's not the heat of the day but again, it's still in the 80s at like 7:30-8pm so I'm sure he'd appreciate being cooled down. 

Any summer advice for me and for the horse is appreciated! I'm more worried about him, as I live on site and can jump in the shower before heading to work. 

This Year's Show Schedule

I expected my show schedule to get all kinds of messy due to the move, but after looking at the schedule, I think things might be okay. The only issue is my current trailer hunt, which isn't going perfectly well (as in, I don't have one yet).

There are a few things that I've penciled in though, and we'll see how much of this will actually happen.

My current goals are to get all our scores for All Breeds (unless it's way apparent that we won't be competitive, then I don't care how many scores we get), to get TC to a few new facilities this year, to take more lessons this year, and to trail ride more.

Needs lessons. Very badly.

For this month, I have two shows on my radar. One is a schooling show at a facility that hosts rated shows too. That is on May 13th, really soon! Peony is going to that one, so I'll definitely have a ride over there (as long as TC will get in her trailer). The schooling show circuit sounds super fun! If you do three of their shows, you can be eligible to win cool prizes.

Then there's a rated show at the end of the month that I want to do. It's super close (like 20 mins away) so hopefully I either have a trailer by then or at least have my truck up here. I can only do one day of that show, since I have a festival thing to go to for the rest of the weekend. We'll just do 1-1 and 1-2 there and see how that goes.


Ideally this month I also want to go on a trail ride with TC. I was auditing the trainer I'm going to ride with on Monday and ran into a potential trail riding buddy. I had mentioned where I was boarding and said that one of my favorite things was walking around the fields and she asked if I wanted to trail ride with her! I said yes but that my horse was young and could be a bit dumb. She said no problem, she's got a quiet older horse. Excellent! So we can sandwich TC between him and Spot.

I really want to get TC better out on the trail and exploring new places. Last year we trail rode twice, and this year we've been out once. I love trail riding, but TC has been quite restricted. The south bay's trail facilities were mostly up pretty steep hills, so I've been very paranoid about his suspensory. Obviously he's handled the three trail rides okay, but I don't think I'll ever stop worrying about his leg. I check it before and after each ride and panic if it seems anything but extremely tight.

Sacramento as a whole is much flatter than the bay area, which is surrounded by foothills/mountains. I swear where I live I can't see a single mountain, which is super weird. There are some trail facilities with hills, but I'm hoping to find something a bit more rolling, vs our favorite facility in the bay which is mostly climbing up or down.

Such a good pony

After that, our next show will be at the end of June, so we'll have time to get some more lessons before then, which is necessary since we have to do 1-3 at that show. With my 9/80 this summer letting me have Mondays off, we should have time for at least one lesson in June. 

Then we have shows in July and August as well. By then we should be old pros at going to the two separate show facilities and trail riding, yay TC!

At the end of the year, I may try to ride a First level freestyle a couple of times. And possibly move him up to 2-1. We'll see, he has a long way to go in the collection required at the canter for that level, but it's feeling more doable every day! 

Updated Day in the Life

Today I have been at my job for a month. I still very much miss my old job, but I'm adjusting. There are so many good things about this position, and there are some not great things, but in this post I'll focus on the good things.

Like giant fields to ride amazing ponies in

The best part of this job is that my commute hours have been cut way down. I still don't live next door or anything (not even in the same county), but if I leave early enough, my commute to work is 40 minutes, mayyybe 45 minutes, and my commute home is the same. Because I live at my barn, that's my only driving each day. And this is all during normal commuting hours. When I switch to my summer schedule, I'll be able to cut my commute down to 35 minutes (the traffic up here is cute in the mornings).

The only issue I ever have is getting home on Fridays because for some reason everyone and their mother is driving on Fridays here. And that's where I'll take the "long" way home which is about 50 minutes. Honestly on Fridays I don't even care because I can usually sleep in enough that it doesn't matter if I'm late to the barn.

Here's my current schedule though:

6:40- wake up
7:20- leave for work
8:00- at work
4:30- leave work (we are required to take 30 minute lunches, no skipping lunch allowed)
5:10- at home, change clothes
5:30- walk down to the barn
6:00- ride TC
7:00- put TC away, feed grain, etc
7:30- at home

Being gone from my house for only twelve hours a day is crazy to me, especially getting to be at the barn for two hours (so I get to do a lot of walking, TC gets ridden for a full hour now). I'm saving time both because I don't have to drive to the barn (25 minutes) and saving time not having to drive much further in traffic (35 minutes or so, depending on my schedule).

It's obviously still a substantial commute, 40-45 minutes each way. But I really love where I live and moving closer to work would just mean that I'd be driving out to the barn instead. Given that I like being at the barn nearly every day (and don't want to be at work 7 days a week), it'd probably just add time to my schedule.

And giant arenas to ride in

This summer I get to do a 9/80 for ten weeks. For anyone who doesn't know what that means, it means working 80 hours over 9 days instead of 10, and taking a day off every other week. Typically you take Fridays off, and I was excited to have Fridays off, but my boss said that Mondays were better. So I get five free (well) Mondays off this summer in exchange for me working 9 hours instead of 8 on certain days.

I asked to move my riding to the morning then, since leaving work after 5 makes that cute traffic turn into real traffic. I was told that I could work 8:30 to 6 instead from Tuesday through Friday, then on Mondays I'll either work a normal 8 hour day or take the day off depending on the week. I'm not so excited about not having as much time at the barn, but this will be temporary and we'll see how the weather is when the schedule is over. Riding in the mornings means not boiling up here, even if it means less pony time.

5:45- awake
6:15- walk down to the barn
6:40- ride TC
7:20- put TC away
8:00- leave
8:30...ish- at work (it'll be more like 8:40 but don't tell anyone)
6:00...ish- leave (it'll be more like 6:10 but don't tell anyone)
6:45- home

So it's only 12.5 hours away from home despite an extra hour of work because I'll be rushing at the barn in the morning. And I will probably end up seeing about shifting my hours a bit, working more like 10 hours on days where TC gets the day off so I can come in a tiny bit later (ugh like coming in at 9 would be the best) on the days where I ride him. I have plans for taking some lessons and doing some trail riding on the Mondays that I have off!

I know I don't want to stay at this job forever, but for now, I at least really like the schedule. I feel like I have more time with TC, more time at home, and just am in less of a hurry in general. We'll see how the summer goes.