Offsite Delayed Updates

Last week at work, we had our very first offsite! Well, for me and for the 25% of us who are new, it was our first. For the rest of my coworkers, it was the first one in over two years! 

It was an absolute blast. I spent three nights in San Francisco at a very nice hotel hanging out with coworkers from all over the world (not too many of them, we are a small team, but we do have one international member!). 

I just love my job and my team and my company. We had such a great time doing a lot of team bonding, which included a food tour, volunteering, going to a sports event, and eating at a nice restaurant. 

But I did miss my ponies! Here are some updates on what they've been up to for the last couple of weeks.

Woohoo!

Rico

Rico is still doing so well! I've taken to doing some belly lifts and massage work with him just for about 10 minutes a few days a week when I can. I figure just ten minutes isn't much out of my day, but I get some quality bonding time with him and he gets to feel better. I can't see a difference in his muscling or anything, but I figure every little bit helps! He at least enjoys the time we spend together.

TC

This should be my last break from riding until this fall. I got home and TC was a little beside himself about it. I think he's feeling my being away so much, and I am too, but he has a really good life at the ranch and gets a lot of movement even on days he isn't ridden.  Still, I feel a bit guilty! 

A few weeks ago, we changed some things up with the way we were working on his collection and he's feeling really good! His mane is actually changing sides near the base of his neck, it's always laid on the right side and now it's flipping left. He's never felt more even side to side, so I can't help but to wonder if that's related! Who knows. I'm excited to actually be consistent with him from now on. 

His canter is feeling amazing! I'm still working on
not pulling on the left rein, but he's doing a good
job of ignoring it

Riot

I'm so sad for Riot and for my dad. The chirovet came out on Friday and thinks he either has EPM or, more likely, DSLD. His suspensories behind have been taking a LOT of weight as he stands in his weird posture. She worked on him and he did look better afterwards. He is going to be put on prevocox for a while to help him with the pain while we wait for the actual vet to come out to confirm with an ultrasound, and then we'll go from there. We haven't brainstormed much but my vote is to do corrective shoes and I was going to offer to keep him in supportive wraps for a while. We'll do what it takes nutritionally and probably put him on a flatter pasture for a while. And then there's all the shockwave/PRP/etc that we'll have to see cost-wise. 

I'm so sad for my dad. My mom isn't interested in riding anymore but my dad is and I want him to enjoy that. Unfortunately my dad can't ride the pony (not that I'd wish ill upon the pony, but it's a bummer that there isn't alignment between the person who wants to ride and the horse who is healthy enough to ride). 

I am hoping to get him on TC because TC is so damn safe on the trails and that's really what my dad wants to do. But that'll take time given how tricky TC is to fit a saddle to. Fingers crossed since today I'll be putting my dad's two saddles on him. Unfortunately my dad isn't a small person (I mean, TC is like 1400lbs and my dad isn't anywhere near the 20% mark but definitely more than my like... less than 10%) so I definitely want the saddle to fit well. 

If anyone has any advice on DSLD, please let me know. We are of course happy to retire him but if there's any way he can come back to riding (even lightly), I want to try do that for him!

Took me over to the house, he's really
starting to come out of his shell

Sunny

Oh my gosh you guys, I just love this pony. He and I went on a trail ride before the offsite and had a really nice time. I love how much he and I are connected now after so many years of feeling kind of like adversaries? I dunno, but with each ride he trusts me more and while I can't quite read his mind like I can with TC, I do feel like I get SOMETHING from him when I ride him now. 

He's back to not cantering on the left lead, ever since I left for Paso, he hasn't wanted to. So the plan is to incorporate longeing him once or twice a week just on the left lead to make up the difference. He canters happily on the longe so I think it's just a strength thing. 

None of those band-aids were needed btw lol

The best thing ever though happened this last weekend. My niece hasn't been able to ride for a little while just due to schedules and it being like, 105 last week. This weekend she got to ride TWO DAYS IN A ROW (I took her to Kate's too, so she actually got to ride three horses in two days), how special. And she decided that she was going to ride by herself. 

I got her a saddle for Christmas but she kept telling me she didn't want to ride in it yet, she wanted to ride with me. Well, too much "when I'm a big girl, I'm going to ride TC" and her insane memory remembering that I told her when she was a big girl, she'd ride her Sunny Horse by herself. Kid still counts by saying "one two three eight" but she put two and two together and asked to ride her Sunny Horse by herself. 

She did SO WELL!! I need to get her stirrups (if anyone has TINY stirrup recommendations, let me know as well), so she just rode without them. She walked down the road and then we went into the arena and she demanded that I drop the rope. Yeah, no. She has no idea how to steer?! Oh to have the confidence of a two year old. 

She did trot but my rule is that if she has no stirrups, she has her leg held by someone. She did NOT like that and actually my brother did accidentally almost pull her off of the horse. She looked mildly afraid but had a fun time harassing my brother about it. So she was happy right away again. The next day she was very demanding though "Apple hold my leg" so that she could trot! I'll get her stirrups soon so she doesn't need someone to hold her on. 

SURE ENOUGH as we walked back from her first ride by herself, she says "okay I'm going to ride TC right now" and then later I caught her saying that TC was her horse. Okay child, I mean, it's not like he was chasing leaves in the arena last I rode him... but he's honestly fine if we don't go in the arena, so maybe she'll get to trail ride him sooner than I think. 

These were way too big to be served
during a food tour lol but they were
very good!

I'm SO glad to be home and riding consistently again. I have the week of the fourth off of work because once again, my job is amazing, and so it'll be all horses all the time. There's a ton I want to get done, like cleaning all my tack, organizing the barn, buying a shed for all my stuff (been there over a year, probably need to get my shit together), and bathing Rico and Riot. I'm also hoping to ride TC and Sunny each day and spend time with my niece. Her little sister should be arriving any day now so she and I will be getting to spend more time together so that her parents can take care of the new little one. Pony riders doubling in three.. two.. one! 

Saddle Update

I realize that I left off with my saddle drama with me getting it and it needing to get sent back because it shifted aggressively forward. 

TC likes it!

Well, no news is good news! The saddle has been great! My saddle maker clipped off the back billet and put a billet further forward. It's not a point billet, since we didn't want to cram his shoulders down, but it's far enough forward where the saddle stays further back. 

The balance was still a bit off, but it improved with me putting a couple of thinnish standing wraps under the front of it. On Flounder, I use a Lami-cell half pad, so I ordered one of those thinking that it'd be good to have a spare for Flounder anyway (also they're not expensive), but it works beautifully with my saddle. It lifts the front just enough to give me a better balance, but it's not a dedicated front riser (since it didn't need to go up that high).

It's so nice to sit in at the canter!

I'm still hoping that it will settle enough (it's not quite broken in just yet) and will stop needing the half pad eventually, but I also don't mind having him in one. 

My only qualm other than the balance is that I legit think he got the twist too narrow. This is my fault, as I usually have too wide twists, so I told him that he could not make it too narrow. Well, he kind of did! It's not a big deal, but I am going to ask him about it at some point and see if we can just widen the panels a little bit to give me a better sitting surface. 

Probably should have taken close up pictures
for this post, oh well

I still adore the saddle so much! TC goes great in it and I still love the magic blocks that seem to be there only when I need them to be. I've also never sat the canter better in it!

I'm really glad I splurged and went custom for this saddle. It was an extremely reasonable price and it's just amazing. 

Five Years with the Pony

I was looking through my blog a bit ago and ran across some old posts about Sunny! I posted when we first saw him, when we bought him, and when he was diagnosed with silicosis. 

If you don't want to read, here's a quick summary of how we got him: 

My mom really wanted to get herself a really sweet, safe pony that she could share with her (future, at the time) grandchildren. She saw an ad for a little Morgan just an hour or so south of the ranch and we went to go try him. He was a literal unicorn, perfect on the trail, over fences, and giving longe lessons to children regularly. We loved him, he passed the vet check, and he came home with us. 

Just a week or two later though, he exhibited some odd symptoms. He wouldn't put his head down to graze, wouldn't go on the bit, and wouldn't do a carrot stretch. We had the vet out and he was diagnosed with silicosis. 

I definitely saw that lots of people were asking what silicosis is and what it's caused by, whoops. Five years later, here is some info: 

- it usually only affects horses along the central California coast

- it's caused by silica, which is in the soil and small enough to get deep into the lungs/body

- most of the cases attack the lungs, causing breathing problems

- Sunny has the rarer kind of silicosis that attacks the bones of the neck

- they have a treatment for the kind of silicosis that Sunny has, so he received that and was able to come off the previcox he went on when he started showing symptoms 

He's really adorable

For many years, he still struggled to go on the bit and seemed protective over his neck. My mom was always a bit nervous because his balance seemed off (I never felt this). But he was a happy, healthy enough pony who could absolutely do his job of going on the trails and being a very cute pasture puff. 

During the pandemic, my mom stopped riding. I haven't really processed it yet, but she is not interested in riding anymore. I'm still hoping that she might change her mind, but I'm not pressuring her. She does still love him and she loves seeing me work with him, which I started doing in August last year. It was part of my plan to see how having a second horse would feel to me. 

He's been such a fun horse to bring along and has actually taught me a lot! TC and I have been partners for so long and he has such a fun, confident personality. Being with TC gives me the feeling of having a conversation full of inside jokes with a really good friend. Riding him is like being in complete harmony with a horse, he gives me his entire self, both body and mind. I can literally imagine what I want him to do and he just does it (I know how insane that sounds, trust me). 

Sweet pony

The pony though, he's a more complicated, quirky type mentally and that has him really blocked off from me. He feels like talking to a brick wall a lot of the time and riding him, there's no connection to his mind. His primary emotions seemed to be grumpiness, disassociation, and perking up in the most adorable way if there are cookies around. 

I've slowly broken open his crusty shell though. Between training him using only positive reinforcement, implementing changes based on Dr Susan Fay's work, and riding him in a way that makes his body feel good, he has really changed. 

A few weeks ago, he was... silly. It really caught me off guard because he's always been SO serious with his work. But he bit a cavalletti block, which doesn't sound like much in writing, but he had this mischievous look on his face like he knew I didn't want him to eat my blocks. A few days later, I was talking to my mom about him while I was petting his forelock and he started yawning over and over again. My mom said "I don't think I've ever seen him yawn before" and ever since, he's yawned a ton. Then later that day, he was playing with the dog like TC does, sniffing her legs and wiggling his nose on her butt. 

Another silly moment, he has never
really bitten my whip before

Over the weekend for the first time, he very clearly gave me the feeling that he needed a turnout, so I turned him out. TC is really good at asking for turnouts in a kind and safe manor (he squeals and shakes his head at me), but the pony has been completely silent until he explodes. This was the first time he gave me the feeling that he needed a turnout and so I gave it to him and he ran and ran. 

I sat down in the middle of the arena to change the subject and he immediately drew into me, at first trotting around me snorting and then coming up and standing with me. We then actually played at liberty, the first time he's offered that with no clicker (I forgot it, oops)! Then he came in and stood under my arm getting pets while he licked, chewed, and yawned. 

He's never let me stand like this with
him, also lol my photo taking skills,
why Megan

I don't really know what my plan is with him, I think it's okay not to have one. I'm really enjoying solving this puzzle and improving his body and mind. He turned 17 years old yesterday and he seems really happy and confident. 

My timeline for my new horse is unknown due to a number of reasons, but I guess I'm hoping that I can get him going really well so that I can confidently hand him off to my niece in a few years and have him be happy and healthy so he can give her a lot of fun firsts. 

Mostly I'm just having fun with him! 

Unexpected Jetset Lifestyle

After hauling home from the show last Sunday, I finally made it home to sleep in my own bed. But before I could do that, I had to unpack, do laundry, and repack. But this time it wasn't for a horse show, on Monday morning, I flew out to Tucson, Arizona to stay at a ridiculous resort through last Friday. 

It was so weird to be at a place like this!

How freaking weird life has been the last two weeks as I've shown at a hunter show and then stayed at a resort (???). I am not a resort person, I am a camping person or a cheap airbnb person. But my family was all going to the resort for a somewhat distant family member's birthday and at the last minute I decided to go. 

Initially I had not wanted to go because I felt weird asking about yet another working-from-not-at-home-or-office week after they were so kind to give me DTO to go to Kentucky and then say sure about going to the horse show. I was also not entirely enthused about person being celebrated, but that's family drama for a different kind of blog (I do not have a secret family drama blog, but maybe I should?? Is that a thing? If so I want to follow other peoples' family drama blogs, please send them to me). We are also replacing the roof and so the SO wasn't going to be able to go anyway. 

Insanity

It was really cool to be there

One of the pool areas

Buuuut at the horse show I realized how much I missed my niece after seeing all these adorable kids on ponies (since without going on this trip it'd be a solid month between seeing her given their and my schedules) AND I realized that working from not-home and not-office was actually super doable and easy and no one at my job actually cared. My company has a Work From Anywhere policy and I was about to flex that shit for two weeks. 

Impulsively, I booked tickets and my SIL figured out a room situation for me. And then on Monday I got on a plane with my work stuff and a very differently packed suitcase. 

Seeing myself not in riding clothes
is always a trip lol

Breakfast

Hiking with the birders lol

It was a crazy weird week! Every morning I'd go down to either the Starbucks in the resort or one of the restaurants for breakfast. Then I'd either go on a hike, swim, or just hang out with the family before work. When I had to work, I did so on a lounge chair by the pool, or on the beautiful patio, or in a cabana, or up in the room when it was too hot to work outside. 

In between meetings and working, I would play with my niece, swim in the pool, float down the lazy river, or go on a walk. I booked a massage at the same time my SIL did, so we got to spend time in the spa and hang out. My dad and I also took an afternoon to drive out to the National Park! 

Work from pool

Work from patio

It was SO MUCH FUN to hang out with my niece so many days in a row. I'm turning into the kind of aunt who brings her things all the time so when I told her I had something for her, she was excited but seemed unsurprised. Sure enough, one by one, I pulled out a small figurine of each of her ponies at the ranch. I had found them at a Tractor Supply in Paso Robles at the horse show and figured they looked enough like the ranch ponies to get her obsessed with them. I was correct. She spent all week carrying them around and talking about them. Every morning her first words were something like "I'm gonna ride TC when I'm a big girl" or "Riot!" or "Sunny horse is a palomino" 

She even bonked her head really good and when my brother grabbed her to whisk her away, she SCREAMED and we thought she'd really hurt herself. But no, the screaming was exclusively "MY PONIES MY PONIES" and he had to bring her back to get them. 

On the night of said birthday party, I babysat her in my room so that my brother and SIL could enjoy themselves and I could get some space from someone I've deemed unhealthy to have in my life. We watched Frozen and I let her cut her own fruit with a knife... I never said I was a good babysitter. But she survived given that it was a plastic knife and she mostly used the handle to cut the fruit. It was fun to sit with her and actually really fun to watch Frozen again while I blogged about the horse show. 

PONIES!

It was actually really pretty there

It was such a great week to spend with my family. Getting home was a bit of a nightmare, but I did finally get myself home on Friday evening and then spent a pony filled weekend with my horses before going back to work on Monday! It was no fun to miss out on riding TC for ten days, but I am glad that I got to have two really fun and out of the ordinary weeks doing things that I love to do! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He is the cutest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such a fast fish! Note: we were not fast

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

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

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

Such a good fish

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

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

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

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

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

Rose in May Part 2: My Mental Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jumping around with Flounder wondering wtf
is going on up there

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

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

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

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

The most adorable braided fish

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

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

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

Downtown Paso Robles is really cute!

The reasons for this were:  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rose in May Part 1: Returning to the Hunters

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

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

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

Omg look at this fish

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

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

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

The show grounds were beautiful!

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

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

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

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

Me, shortly before running to my computer

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

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

The jumper ring!

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

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

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

Look at that lip!

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