Running I ETS

This last weekend, TC and I competed in our very first ETS! 

ETS stands for Equine Trail Sports and it's basically a way more formal version of the ranch competitions we did last year that TC loved so much. 

We ended up just going up for the in hand class on Saturday, it was super hot and staying overnight ended up being a bit too much to deal with given how my work schedule has been. But it was super worth a long day trip (and TC and I have recovered from it)! 

Hanging with friends! Peep Peony's adorable baby
horse Goose on the end

Since I assume a lot of people who read this blog are here from the glory days of dressage, I'm going to quickly go over what an ETS entails, at least the in hand class. Apologies if I make this even more confusing. 

There were eight obstacles and each obstacle had three levels to choose from. Level 1 was the most basic and Level 3 was the most advanced. Each level is worth the corresponding number of points. To qualify for the Novice division, you need 8 to 11 points, intermediate is 12 to 18 (I think maybe 19) points, and Advanced is 19 to 24 points. You can get 8 points by doing Level 1 for all eight obstacles. You can get 24 points by doing Level 3 for all eight obstacles. 

For each obstacle, regardless of the Level you do, you get a rider score and a horse score out of ten. Then your level is a multiplier, so if you do Level 1 really really well and get a 10/10 on both, that'll be way better than doing Level 2 terribly and getting a 2/10 on both horse and rider scores despite Level 2 having a multiplier. 

They differentiate between horse and rider so that if your horse is perfect and you're screaming like a banshee, they can give your horse a good score and you a bad score. Or if you're perfect but your horse is screaming like a banshee, they can give you a good score and your horse a bad score. If you're both terrible or both great, you can get the same score. 

So there's some strategy to it! We competed in the Novice division, so I aimed to do five obstacles at Level 1 (5 points) and three obstacles at level 2 (6 points) for a total of 11 points.

Went on a walk around the property

We arrived in time to watch the first round of horses and have a friend go over the course with me. Then it was our turn! Here were the obstacles in the order that we did them:

Pedestal (Cross over obstacle)

We opted to do Level 2 for this obstacle and it was a bad idea. For Level 1, you had to get both of your horse's front feet on the pedestal and then have them step off of it. Given that TC likes to stand on things, I think we would have scored better if we'd done Level 1. But I had a tough time deciding what to do, and Level 2 had you walk straight over it. I figured TC would be fine walking over it and I was wrong. We attempted twice but he only managed to get his front feet on it and then straddled it with his hind feet (it was VERY narrow). Oh well! 

For this one, we got a 4/10 for me and a 4/10 for TC for a total of 8 points. The multiplier took that 8 to a 10.40. 

I took *very* shitty pictures the whole day, oh
well, but this is the pedestal

Ring (Turn on the forehand)

Filled with dread when there were options for TC to stand on things that he wasn't supposed to stand on, we decided to just do Level 1 for this obstacle. There was a tiny metal square we had to put his front feet in and then we just had to do a 180 degree turn on the forehand. 

In true TC fashion, he stepped on the sides of the square (it was totally safe, just annoying) but he did do it less than I thought he would! So we ended up with a 5/10 for both of us for a total of 10 points. No multiplier because it was Level 1. 

Watching the competition from his day pen, he was
immediately destructive, apparently he hasn't
outgrown wanting to dig holes and climb
pipe panels yet

Teeter Totters (Cross over obstacle)

I was certain that TC and I could do Level 2 or even Level 3 with any teeter totter obstacle. He is a star when it comes to standing on things, after all. But both Level 2 and 3 used the BIG teeter totter and he's never been on one that giant. I decided that day was not the day to push it and so we opted for Level 1, which was just to walk across the teeter totter. 

TC was absolutely perfect and we both got a 10/10 for a total of 20 points! 

You can kind of see the teeter totter behind the judge

Sidepass 'T' (Sidepass)

TC somehow learned to side pass like a BOSS in the last few years. Like I didn't expect this. I think the belly tickler from the ranch competitions helped him? I don't know. He went years being kind of awful at side passing and now he's so good at it and let me tell you, we did not work on it. 

So I opted to do Level 2 for this obstacle. It was three logs in the shape of a capital T. For Level 2, we had to side pass over half the top of the T facing the bottom part, then at the intersection, do a turn on the forehand and side pass over the bottom part of the T. 

TC did want to stand on the logs instead of side passing, so I ended up having to do a lot of management, reducing our scores to 8/10 for both of us. Because of the multiplier, we got a 20.80. So you can see how even if we'd gotten a 10/10 for both of us for Level 1, doing Level 2 but getting an 8/10 ended up being better points-wise! 

LOL my favorite picture of TC and
Goose

Bridge (Cross over obstacle)

I was unsure of whether to do Level 1 or Level 2 for this. The bridge was quite high off the ground, and Level 1 was just putting your front feet on it and then backing off, while Level 2 was halting in the middle of the bridge. I didn't trust TC's sense of self preservation to not fall off the bridge if he had to stop forward motion, so I opted for Level 1. We each got a 10/10 for a total score of 20.00. 

And you can see the teal bridge, also my horse's
chonky belly

Get on your Soapbox (Forward movement)

For this obstacle, we had to stand on a mattress and send the horse around us. Level 1 was just in walk and Level 2 was at the trot. Level 2 also involved halting for 3 seconds and then bringing the horse toward us. Well, oops. I forgot about that part. But we did do Level 2 and TC was PERFECT and the judge said "you can put him in my trailer any day," but still gave us a 4/10 for each of us because I didn't do the obstacle properly. Oops! Sorry TC! Total score was 10.40. 

Bright and early at the gas station!
Literally the worst pictures

The Narrow Path (Forward movement)

This was another one where anything beyond Level 1 was going to be ridiculous.  There was an L shaped pathway with big metal logs on each side of it. At first I thought it was a rein back obstacle and I think TC would actually be really good at that. But nope, Level 1 you had to walk your horse through it, Level 2 you had to trot your horse through it.

I need to work on trotting TC in hand, he is not a candidate for a breed show. Every time I trot him in hand (not longeing, just alongside him), he thinks it's the most hilarious game and usually leaps into the air, strikes out, and then tries to snatch at me. It does not help matters that I laugh at him every time. So we opted for Level 1. We got a 10/10 each for a total of 20 points. 

We did get a cute picture of them too

Tunnel (Cross under)

Remember that covered wagon from last obstacle show? Imagine that, darker, with logs inside of it, and ANIMAL PELTS ON THE WALLS. 

This is where this sport is sold for me. When we were walking in, TC saw one of these animal pelts for the first time, it was hanging on the gate. He *lost it* and was snorting with his neck all arched and his entire body rigid. We were blocking the way and I quickly tried to shuffle him out of the way (he would not move) to let some people in and some people out. The people trying to come in said "don't worry about it, my horse is going to have the same reaction, just let him get used to it" and the people trying to come out said "oh, it's okay, we are in no rush, let him work through it" and then the judge yelled over to me "you can let him smell it, it's pretty scary if they haven't seen that before!" 

Like literally he'd be judged on his tolerance of these things in the tunnel (which is why I saved it for last) and everyone was so kind about letting me do my clicker training. And the judge still gave me a 10/10 and him a 9/10 when we did the obstacle, despite her watching me clicker train it earlier. Like, wow. This sport is so much "for the horse" and I just love it. I've definitely been told multiple times to "not let him do that" when TC has been nervous at dressage shows. 

Anyway, 19 points to round us out (Level 2 was like, turning around and doing it again and I forget what Level 3 was, we obviously did Level 1). 

The dreaded tunnel

I ended up heading out before I knew what we'd gotten but the next morning, the scores were posted! We got 130.60 overall and that was good enough for THIRD PLACE (out of twelve!!). I am SO PROUD OF HIM. This was our first rated show in this new-to-both-of-us discipline and he was such a star. 

Like, I can't believe this is the same horse who was a chronic bolter and was so spooky. I still remember writing this hilarious post about things I hated because of him. Going to those bombproofing clinics out of desperation eventually led us to this amazing discipline. I'm glad to have something to work towards that isn't dressage. 

Why you house the horse? Horse
hates to be housed

We have two schooling shows coming up and then we'll be back in the rated ring in July. We're definitely camping overnight - a family friend has a solar powered electric fence I can use to keep him contained! I cannot wait, and I think TC is excited for the next one too!

Some More Dressage

I've been kind of doing dressage a bit randomly. At least half of my rides are trail rides or practicing obstacles or working on mounted archery, but I have done some dressage rides in between, mostly because TC is fat right now due to the pasture. 

Chonky

Such a good boy

But I have been enjoying it more than I have in a few years. I think taking the pressure off of ever returning to the sport for real has really helped. And I've been working through some of the trauma that I experienced in the last few years that led me toward some crippling perfectionism. It was pointed out that I did this in my job and it paid off, but it doesn't work with my horse. 

I dug in further and was able to point to the incident that sent me down this path with the horse at the end of 2020. It's been long enough now and I've had enough therapy now to be able to see what it did to me and be able to start to let go some of the effects. And that's great! It means I can maybe start rebuilding my enjoyment of dressage earlier than I thought. I still have no desire to return to competition, but I do really love what good dressage does for horses. 

Getting my reachy horse back

Feeling pretty good in the balance for a horse who
would rather be a rhombus

Warm up trot, from this video I saw he was carrying
some tension in the right side of his neck so we've
been working on that since

Most of what I'm working on with TC right now has been the connection and how he's feeling on my seat. My primary goals are that he stays in balance, both laterally and longitudinally, and stays out to the contact. His tendency to throw his balance around and retract his neck to keep himself from succumbing to gravity is still very strong. 

I'm picking a different exercise for each ride and just seeing how it helps or hinders him. There's really no major goal other than to get him to burn some calories, gain some muscle, and be easier to ride. I think he's looking and feeling pretty good right now. It's not perfect but it'll never be. 

Canter isn't the best right now but we'll get there

He's so dirty right now

Always lots of cookies

This coming weekend we may be attending a working equitation clinic. Mostly for more obstacle practice, but I also am not opposed to showing in that discipline. It'd be an excuse to wear my fancy new burgundy jacket on this horse (thanks Nicole who bullied me into buying it because it was super cheap!), or maybe my navy one. And also just more practice with obstacles in the show ring!

SCCHA Obstacle Play Day Pt 2

Here's part 2 of our fun at the obstacle play day! Last we left off, we were halfway through the course and the horse had only just started to calm the fuck down. 

Walking Over Logs

There was a woman in the course walk who was pointing out how unfair this log pile was for short horses to walk over. And another woman pointed out that there are obstacles that were unfair for large horses too. TC conquered the log pile easily with his giant feet and big stride. I had a moment of thinking he might get claustrophobic in there and try to jump out, but he was pretty relaxed by this point in the course. 

Most of the time it isn't great to have a large horse
for these shows but for this obstacle it was

Standing On a Tire

But then the next obstacle involved him having to stand on a platform (a filled-in tire) and he is so giant that it felt like sitting on an elephant who was standing on a ball. He didn't quite understand that I wanted all his feets on the tiny tire but he did make an effort and I took it and praised him quite a lot

These are not large

Photo Booth

This was such a cute obstacle, they had us stand off to the side and get some pictures of the other riders on course. TC was an absolute pro and pretty smug about it. 

Had to catch this smug horse when I put my phone
away and he thought I might have cookies

We had another minute to wait but TC had settled in finally. We hung out until the next judge was ready for us. 

Ring Toss

We had to trot around some plants with a hula hoop and then stop and toss the hula hoop over one of the plants. TC was fine with the hula hoop and the tossing, he did some head shaking in the trot but I think by this point he'd settled enough to not murder me. Excellent. 

I love it, I will eat it - TC

Not fussed

Windmill

I forgot to say that it was kind of cold and windy this day so when we had to side pass around a little windmill, I didn't know how TC would handle it. Would he spook? Apparently not. He didn't spook, but I've never had to hold a horse back from stuffing his face into actual whirling blades. He was ADAMANT that he poke it with his nose and I was like... my friend... this is a metal windmill. 

Begging me to let him touch it

Duck Pond

This last obstacle was ADORABLE! We had to take a net and fish two little rubber ducks out of the makeshift pond with it. I picked up the net and TC was NOT okay with it for some reason. WTF. I have carried around my archery stuff with him, carried around my tripod, carried around a shrieking toddler... but a pvc pipe with a little net on the end? Terrifying. What was even more terrifying were the ducks. I did NOT expect him to spook but as I grabbed for my ducks, he sat down and ran backwards. I stuffed the net in front of his nose and he was like OH THE DUCKS OF COURSE and calmed right down. But I only got one duck, oh well! 

Skeptical about the net

Very concerned about the ducks in the net

I walked him out and as per usual, the horse is a celebrity. I think he just sticks out like a sore thumb and has this super chaotic-good type of personality. I got a lot of compliments with how I handled the duck situation too, which was really nice. The vibe is so different than at dressage shows, I'm kind of getting used to how friendly everyone is. I am definitely the kind of person you have to come up to and force your friendliness on, especially lately with work being so insane, I've needed way more alone time than usual. But everyone was so sweet and easy to talk to! 

I took him back to the trailer to hang out after letting him graze a lot while chatting with the person who won the advanced division the day before! He and his horse have been doing this for 18 years together! And his horse is Rico's age, 27! I think Rico would have loved the obstacle shows, maybe I'll let him play with some of the obstacles I'm making for TC at home. 

Back at the trailer, I ate some lunch and TC told me all about how much it hurts his soul to be tied to a trailer with a hay bag. He got a lot of carrots for his suffering. The woman next to me came back and we chatted about how it went, she does some pretty cool western stuff that went over my head and I just kind of gestured to my pawing machine and was like "yeah this thing was a bolter in his youth so I signed him up for bombproofing clinics to try to chill him out but instead I just discovered that the only thing he likes more than bolting is chaos so now I bring him to these events?"

Making sure the ducks are safe

I then decided to take TC on a walk to give him a break from the horrible plight of being tied for twenty minutes. It was lunch time, so we got to explore the part of the property that wasn't being used for the competition. There were some bridges and steps that we walked over and TC was REALLY EXCITED that obstacle time wasn't over. The first bridge he flung himself onto in a really dramatic way.  Then he actually took off trotting and dragged me over another bridge that he promptly ate shit trying to get onto. He did this several more times before I finally got him under control. 

We even ran into another person who does clicker training, I apologized because her horse was looking at me like he wanted to get paid too. But it's so cool to just casually run into other clicker training people in the wild. I really love this sport. 

I used the clicker to help him learn how to do the teeter totter backwards for the first time! Stepping up on the tall side and bringing it down. I was super proud of him for that! He also walked over a suspension bridge for the first time. He thought hard about jumping onto me (I was to the side) but then thought better of it and continued. 

Your life is the worse (he had water
but was flinging it all over so I took it
down for a bit)

Trails through the campground!

I also decided to walk over to the campground to see how it looked. It's SUCH a nice campground! There are four little pipe pens to every picnic table/campsite and most of them were accessible enough to get your truck and/or entire rig near. I'm definitely going to camp next time we do something like this. TC thought it was great and had a blast walking through the more wooded area. 

I stayed a little longer to watch some more of the competition and say goodbye to everyone. I wasn't going to wait the entire day for the awards. I figured we'd been last in our division due to my animal being so feral. It didn't bother me though, I'm glad we challenged ourself with the Intermediate division and I'm glad we had this outing before we head to our first real ETS this weekend. 

Look how cute these campsites are! This one was
a bit overgrown (didn't want to post pictures of
peoples' setups)

It was great to see how he was at a brand new facility for the first time... I guess since October, but still. It was also great to get my rig out for an outing before hauling a lot longer. And it was good to see how TC did over obstacles he'd never seen before. 

We'll definitely try to make the next one of these! And hopefully we'll be camping next time too! I got a few more things to make my trailer camping situation even more comfortable. Hopefully this will be the last year I camp out of it because at the top of my list is to buy a camper for my truck so that I can do more comfortable horse camping adventures. 

SCCHA Obstacle Play Day Pt 1

At the last minute, I signed up for a schooling show! It was perfect timing because we'll be competing for real at this facility in July and we also have our first official ETS this weekend. The horse hasn't done obstacles since last fall and we haven't traveled much since then either. 

It was so fun!

It ended up being a great day! My truck and trailer both needed new tires this spring, so that was a bummer for my bank account, but I'm glad I could stop worrying about their age. They felt great hauling over the hill in the morning to get to the facility. 

We got there about a quarter of the way through the course walk. I left TC in the torture chamber trailer and got us registered, then I walked the course. 

Look how cool this covered wagon is!

I had signed us up for Intermediate because Advanced sounded hard and Novice sounded easy. There were no descriptions, I just decided that arbitrarily. The Advanced was hard but even the Novice was no joke! These are some hardcore obstacle people in comparison to the local ranch competitions TC and I did last year. 

After walking the course and deciding that as long as TC didn't get too enthusiastic, it would be fine, I went to get him out of the trailer. He unloaded, saw the obstacles, and lost his ever loving mind wanting to go over to them. 

I took him on a walk around the property that wasn't blocked off for the event. I realized that this was going to be the first time we didn't get to practice the obstacles beforehand. Hmmm. TC tried very hard to yank me over to the obstacles and I had to drag him back to the trailer to tack him up. 

Why must the horse be contained

Now, there was definitely a lot of sass radiating out of this animal that made me realize that he was going to consider launching me so that he could get to the obstacles sooner. You'd think the best plan would be to ride him down, but this horse doesn't ride down or longe down. He just gets chock full of adrenaline and audacity and is an actual nightmare the more he does. This is the type of day where at home, I would have immediately turned him out and watch him gallop around and around. 

So I decided to not ride him. We did ground work and then I got on him about 3 minutes before I was supposed to go out on course. 

Except that the judge wasn't ready so we had to stand and wait pace in small circles because someone thought that standing still may require rearing, which I think is a feeling he's learned that he can give me so that he can keep moving. 

Reining Back Serpentine

Obviously the first obstacle included reining back, so we did not do particularly well on this one. Normally the horse is quite decent at reining back, but he was all bunched up and wanting to poke the obstacle we were reining back along. When I wouldn't let him, he figured his butt might be able to poke it, so he swung his hips around and then refused to do anything but walk directly backwards toward the obstacle. I had to take a step forward to get him to not hit the obstacle. But then he figured it out and it ended up okay. 

The first three obstacles

One Rein Weave

The next obstacle included weaving around plants while only holding onto one rein. I knew this was going to be tough since the horse doesn't neck rein and it turns out I should probably teach him. I ended up picking the wrong rein. I decided that I loved pulling on the left rein that I may as well use that one. Except the first obstacle was to the left so when we went to turn back away from it, he was like nah and tried to drag me to it so he could finally touch it. At least he didn't snatch a plant like this one horse did, it was so cute!

Side Pass Speed Bump

For some reason, there was a tiny speed bump headed into a grob, which had some water in it and was fenced off. We were to straddle the bump and side pass across it. The horse is shockingly good at side passing for an animal who was convinced that his legs would get permanently tangled if he ever went sideways as a young horse. But what he is not good at is ground textures, they elicit a lot of skepticism. When I did finally get him over it, he thought I might want him to jump the fence into the grob and I probably overreacted like NO YOU WILL NOT BE JUMPING THAT and he sat back like I TOLD YOU THE SPEED BUMP WAS DANGEROUS and put himself back on the safe side. We did eventually get through the obstacle though! 

Hated this thing, there were too many different
ground types

Step Up & Turn

We had to wait for a little bit after the speed bump, so we walked in small circles trying to get him to stop trying to mow down the competition so he could do more obstacles. There are always a few obstacles that remind me how gigantic my horse is. This was one of them. We had to walk up the soft side of a bank complex and then stand on top and turn around. Now, my animal is not an event horse, but at the very top of the bank complex he was certainly ready to leap off the (very small) double down bank and head off to Kentucky. But I did somehow get him turned around and he walked back down pretty quietly. 

Descriptions!

Covered Wagon

We had to walk over these narrow logs heading toward this big covered wagon made out of two gate panels and I guess some netting? It was super cool. The logs proved to be very confusing to TC, who is wide enough at his base to step to the side of each log, which was hilarious and not the point of the obstacle, I will be getting small logs to practice over. He then is a very claustrophobic horse, so I was SO PROUD of him for walking through the covered wagon and not losing his shit about it, especially on a day like this day where he didn't have a lot of shit to lose. 

Concerned horse, but he was so good!

Barrel Roll

I thought this would be a shoe-in for this horse, but it turns out his chaotic nature was dialed up and about a third of the way down the chute for the barrel, he thought it was hilarious to twist the barrel around, which is how he plays with poles in the arena. I didn't want to give up (or have him think that the point of barrels is to twist them) so I had him shove the barrel down sideways. He thought that was kind of stupid because why shove the barrel down when you can stand on the logs that are containing it? Or on the barrel itself which I had to yell "NO" at him lest he squash their barrel and/or hurt himself. 

Before he twisted the barrel

But by this point, he was pretty relaxed and having a great time. But this post is getting insanely long, so I'll post the second half of the course and day tomorrow!

Don't Give Me Time Off

The last few weeks at work have been probably the hardest I've worked in a long time. So I told my manager that I wasn't feeling so great and needed a freaking MOMENT. Luckily my manager is amazing and so he encouraged me to take some time to myself. I didn't have anything I wanted to do in particular though, I'm not traveling much this year because I'm saving all my dollars both into my retirement accounts and also into an account labeled Truck Camper, more on that later. But I do still need downtime, and my favorite kind of downtime is the kind where I just take time to myself and do whatever the fuck I feel like. 

What do I do when I have time to myself? Weird shit. 

Accurate

The Wash Rack

On one of the days I had some time to myself, I spent hours fixing up the wash rack. Basically when it was put in, we thought it was an excellent idea to line the rock under it with these mesh panels and then put rubber mats on top. The plants ALSO loved this idea and instead of staying away, as intended, they took over the mesh panels and anchored themselves under the mats, contorting them and becoming impossible to weed. 

Because of this, the wash rack wouldn't drain AND the horse would snatch at the grasses growing up under him every time I'd turn around. Can't blame him. 

I started the project innocently enough by trying to weed it. Several hours later my mom walks out to all of the mats being turned over and me, covered in mud, yanking these mesh panels out and exclaiming "there are so many worms under here!! Look!" like an actual child. But everyone was very happy by the end when it now DRAINS PROPERLY. Well, everyone except TC, who is now bummed that there are no more wash rack snacks. 

This was half way through, I need to take a proper
"after" photo! But there is so much more room and
my mom says "I smile every time I see it!"

Painting a Mural

Alright, this one was one of my funniest asks.

So, my aunt, who I get my "how hard could it be" gene from, offered to paint a mural on my niece's bedroom wall. She's decided to paint it as though you're inside the barn looking at Sunny Horse and TC, with the dog hanging out by the stalls too. You'd think that such a feat would only be taken on by someone with any kind of artistic skills, but you'd be wrong. As such, both horses and the dog look as though they've escaped the depths of hell to come terrorize the child. And the child is now afraid of her bedroom wall. 

Somehow it has become legend in my family that I am a good artist. I am not. But I am aware of what horses and dogs look like and that's apparently the best we are going to do with this mural. I'd seen it at one point and was like oh god, I need to intervene even just to make sure that the kid doesn't grow up thinking that TC's face looks like this.

My aunt paints the demon animals every Wednesday. I stopped by to "say hi" and was offered a paint brush, so I made TC's face look less horrifying. It was a classic Huckleberry Finn moment because I am now being asked to fix the other disastrous creatures. The only time the paint is there is on Wednesday afternoons, so I am taking some Wednesday afternoons off. 

Except I do this to both

Build Data Pipelines

I have been using Python a lot for my job and it's been super fun. I love my job as is, but I really want to move towards data engineering in the future. My management chain is super supportive of this and I've been given some projects that are geared toward this to help me develop. 

Apparently I can't get enough of it. Because I started building a few data pipelines of my own. The one I'm furthest on is a personalized weather forecast. It uses a weather API to retrieve forecast, history, and current data from exactly where my barn is. It then analyzes it and tells me exactly what to wear based on the forecast and history. Why history? Because if it has been 90 for a week and now it's 65, I'm going to want a jacket, if it's been 55 all week and now it's 65, I'll want a sun shirt on. 

Why do I not just like... get a normal weather app and make those decisions myself? Well, the weather app that I like went away and all the other ones I found use the city that the barn is in and that is sometimes 10 degrees warmer/cooler than the actual ranch because of where it's located. Also I want something *personalized* because so many of them default to my house which is very rarely the same weather as the ranch because I'm so much closer to the bay. 

My next most far along project is one where I'm building myself a program that will decide what I should watch based on what I am currently subscribed to (my rule is that I don't subscribe to more than two streaming services at the same time) and what I generally like. Basically I'm looking to automate as much of my decision making as possible. When I get better at these (and when I get my aforementioned truck camper), I'm going to build something to plan road trips for me. 

He isn't a data pipeline but he's way
cuter

Live My Best Aunt Life

This isn't a weird thing, but my niece has started lessons at Kate's barn. She's a bit young but she's horse crazy and her Sunny Horse is not super enthused about her right now. So she goes over there on Fridays where there's a pony, an instructor, and she isn't infested with some sort of daycare cold or something. She LOVES it and talks about Miss Kate and all of Miss Kate's horses, including her current favorite horse: Flounder. I mean Twix. I mean Ginger Pony. I mean Tommy. Honestly, she loves all of them, although she's been riding Ginger Pony mostly. 

We also went to an earth day celebration and I helped my oldest niece not perpetuate my sister-in-law's fear of snakes when we saw a snake at one of the booths. I love snakes and by the end of the day, my niece was saying "I saw a snake that was from apple and nana's ranch and he was so cuuuuute." If you do not feel the same way as we do, skip the rest of this post. 

Thank you Riding Warehouse for this
adorable unicorn helmet cover

Snake Wrangler

Speaking of snakes, a super adorable snake came into the ranch kitchen and freaked everyone out, luckily I was there because I love a snake coming indoors trying to be a people. It was a super cute little snake! And Nicole helped me identify it after I excitedly texted pictures. It's a ring-necked snake!

So little and cute!

Had a little orange belly!

Anyway, I super look forward to having some time to do things that I actually plan to do. Upcoming is a concert this weekend, the ETS next weekend, maybe a short working vacation after that, and lots of other fun stuff coming up. Also a lot more work. Which is fine because I get to work at a place that makes sure I have time to paint demon animals, build myself weather apps, and weed between rubber mats whenever I need to. 

Prepping for TC's First ETS

In mid April, I drove up to Sacramento to experience two very different types of competitions: a rated dressage show and an obstacle show put on by Equine Trail Sports. 

Peony's baby horse was competing in the in-hand portion of the ETS, so we spent the morning there. I was super impressed, it was SO FUN! And very friendly for both horses and riders/handlers. I got very excited to prepare for TC's first ETS next weekend. I think he's going to think it's a blast. 

The other show we went to was a dressage show. I hadn't been to one in a little bit but was generally not feeling much FOMO. We cheered on friends and drank smoothies and I got an absurd dish towel all while I was figuring out how to prepare TC for his first ETS. 

He knocked down every one of those blocks

So far, we are implementing the following:

1. More handling tricks

One of the harder obstacles was bridling your horse while you sat on a mounting block. TC likes to talk about how tall he is when you bridle him, but that's my fault for not teaching him how to be bridled properly. So that was at the top of my list. He's WAY better about it after even just one clicker training session. 

Also other little things, like brushing up on his ground tying skills and teaching him to walk through a gate without me going in first. Like I'm pretty sure he does those pretty well, but I want to make sure that he is solid before this show. 

2. Setting up some obstacles (materials we have)

There were some relatively easy obstacles to make, such as a "jump rope" where you tie a long rope to a fence, pull it out perpendicular to the fence, put your horse parallel to the rope, then flip it over their body and back. TC was amazing at this by the way. He stood ground tied and was totally chill while I fumbled with it and accidentally hooked it behind his butt and over his ears. 

They also had a lot of poles/barrels, so I figured I'd set up those obstacles in my arena. I mean, I have poles in the form of tree stakes and barrels in the form of jump blocks, but that's good enough! He was really good about backing and even side stepping, but anything that involved him walking over poles involved him stopping and flipping them around with his feet and then standing on them. He also knocked down all of my blocks. 

3. Making some obstacles (materials we don't have)

I don't want to spend a bunch of money on this, but some of the obstacles seemed fairly easy to make. Like a flag, TC hasn't done a lot of work with a flag, but it seems easy enough to make. 

There's also a ton of wood at the ranch just laying around. I'm not sure if I can, but I'd love to make a teeter totter. 

I haven't done this yet, but I want to! Maybe this coming weekend, although I need to prioritize getting him off the property to make sure my truck/trailer are good to go. 

4. Mounted archery

I still haven't introduced TC to it properly, but I figure this will be a good way to get him thinking about weird stuff happening on his back! 

All he wants to do with poles

I'm going to bring my waterproof tote thing down from the barn and put it by the arena for the summer to house some of these things inside. One of my goals for the next couple of years is to beef up the arena in terms of how we store things. I'd love to build a little platform for jumps and obstacles that is easy to access and it'd also be fun to have a viewing area in the shade. But maybe we'll just start with a tote. 

Fingers crossed that prep for the ETS continues to go as well as it has gone! And that he's feeling ready by the time we go in less than two weeks... time is moving so quickly right now!

TC's New Kicks

TC got shoes last week and for the first time, I opted to have my farrier put pads on him. 

I've been lucky that TC has pretty decent feet. Rico's feet were the bane of my existence and by the last year of us competing, he was getting his front feet done every 3 weeks with frog support pads. He's back to 6 weeks now, but has kept those frog support pads. 

TC was barefoot when I got him and we found the tiniest bit of a whisper of side bone at the vet check. About a year later, I put front shoes on him, and then a year or two later, he got back shoes when he started doing more collected work. But that was kind of it. He's been a pretty straight shoe ever since. 

It's been so nice to ride so much lately!

For the last few years, he hasn't looked all that great in the summers. I realized this pattern over the winter when I got him out and he felt fan-fucking-tastic. I always feel really good about how things are going coming out of winter and then come mid summer he feels worse. 

I chatted with Kate about it thinking that it might be a nutrition thing, or a weather thing (maybe he needs to be clipped in the summer or only ridden early?) but then she mentioned his feet. Oh! I hadn't even thought about them. They've always been just kind of decent. But when I rode him a week and a half ago in the ring, I did feel what I could maybe guestimate was a little bit of tenderness. He does gallop around in his pasture a lot and while we are apparently getting rain this week, it has dried out quite a lot and the ground is hard again. 

I figured pads wouldn't be a crazy thing to try, so I texted my farrier and asked her to slap on whatever she had in the truck. He got frog support pads on Thursday just like his big brother! She said that his soles were definitely thin, so she thinks that he will feel way better in the pads. 

Complete with grass he put in there

On Friday I rode him and he felt pretty good! I felt like he was way better able to use his thoracic sling (which require some pushing down into the ground by the front feet) and I could really get my thigh on him in a way that I convinced myself I hadn't been able to in the past. It was also easier to control the tempo. 

I'm reserving some judgment because he did lay down more than he normally does on Friday night. On Saturday I trotted him out on hard ground and he looked totally sound both ways, but I'm keeping an eye on it. We may need to switch to flat pads. I know that it'd be great to get him to grow some heel and frog support pads do help with that. Buuut I also don't want the horse uncomfortable of course. Fingers crossed!