No Frills 2016

No Frills, the first leg of the AERC Triple Crown, was last weekend. I was signed up for the 55 with Moniet. I remembered the trail fondly from last year, though I did hope my horse wouldn't fall off the side of the mountain this time around.

Because I have a pretty packed season lined up for this year, with some pretty important rides coming up (no spoilers), Mike has to be careful which days he takes off of work. There are going to be times when I really need him this season, and I don't want him to squander his time off too soon.

As an amusing side note, his boss approached him on one of their first days back and said, "Ride season must be coming up. What days will you need to take?"

I haven't done an endurance ride without Mike since I did Vermont Moonlight in 2011. I did do a CTR in NJ two years ago, and that ended in me getting pulled at the first hold. I was surprisingly nervous to go alone, even though No Frills features all away holds without crewing anyway.

No Frills Preview

I rode Moniet in the 55 at No Frills in Virginia on Saturday. Mike was unable to come, which marked my first AERC ride without him since 2011! Skip was volunteering so Angela and I headed out alone. Shae was going way faster than I wanted to, so I ended up pulling Moniet up after a few miles and letting her get ahead of me. Moniet was a rock star all day long, vetting with A's across the board from start to finish. We just barely missed Top Ten even though we weren't racing. Sadly, Angela got pulled at the last hold, but was there to cheer me on as we got our completion. This marks my 500 AERC endurance miles, and I am finally starting to feel like a real endurance rider. Details to follow, but my computer is dead and we're dealing with some health issues with Julio...

Photo by Becky Pearman, used with purchase. 

Introducing: Push

I've made a few references to April's "new" baby horse, Push, but haven't done a formal post about him yet. I fail at blogging. April has had Push for nine months already. Whoops!

By this point, I think we pretty much consider Shadow, April's standardbred, a graduate of the TUH program. He has been doing awesome with her, and has really turned into a horse who knows his job and enjoys it. April takes him to hunter paces and rides him in her free time. He's not getting any younger and he battled some lameness issues for a little while there, but over all he's awesome, and is definitely her heart horse.

Kristin on Arrow and April on Shadow during their first hunter pace of the season. I love that my students "grow up" to ride together.

Last summer, April brought up the idea of getting a second, younger horse, that could grow up to be the jumper she has always wanted. I did tell April that I thought she was nuts for getting a second horse when she had so much other stuff going on, but then she showed me Push.

Sweet Pusher Man was a just-turned-two year old chestnut thoroughbred gelding, available through one of the local racehorse people who is always rehoming racehorses. He was never tattooed and never raced. Reportedly, he would walk out of the starting gate and sort of look around and go, "Meh." I'm not sure that story is true, but the bottom line is that he never made it as a racehorse.

When April showed me Push's ad online, I commented that he was a nice looking horse and worth taking a look at. After lessons one day, we drove over to meet him in person. He was laid up in a stall, recovering from an abscess. He was sweet on the ground and put together nicely. I asked to see him out in the open, and said, "I understand that he might be a little off, but I'd like to see him move."

Well, Push was a gorgeous mover and not the least bit lame. As he tore around the ring with his tail in the air, I told April, "I think you're crazy if you get a second horse right now, but if you're going to get one anyway, this is a nice one. In fact, if you don't take him, I might consider him for myself!"

We talked price and April got a great deal. Less than a week later, Push moved to Cara's.

A lot has happened in the last nine months, and there's no way I'm going to catch up on it in one entry. April graduated dialysis school, got a new job, bought a house (with a barn in the back yard) with her boyfriend, and added a puppy to their growing family. She managed to juggle all of this with having not one, but two horses, and I am extremely impressed.

In the mean time, I worked with Push here and there. My conclusion is that they threw in the towel on him before he even got in the starting gate. I also suspect that someone along the line was very rough with him. He has a lump on his poll that indicates that he may have flipped over and whacked his head at some point. This doesn't surprise me.

Here are the things that Push was really good at right from the get-go:

• Being groomed
• Taking baths
• Getting saddled and bridled
• Getting in a trailer

These are the things Push was not very good at:

• Picking up his feet
• Tying
• Leading
• Lunging (especially lunging)

Most of Push's issues stem from fear. While he is a serious sweetheart on the ground, Push quickly gets panicky under any kind of pressure. I suspect that he was cornered and reprimanded for getting the wrong answers in his early training. In the beginning, Push was prone to kicking out, and he was very quick with his feet. While he's  not malicious at all, I did worry that he would injure someone out of fear. He also did not have any concept of giving to pressure. Lunging him resulted in him locking his neck and bolting away from his handler until he either dragged them or ripped the line away and ran off. Honestly, it was really sad to watch. It was also pretty scary, and it wasn't long before Push earned a bad reputation at the barn.

While Push was at Cara's, we worked on desensitizing, picking up our feet, and learning to give to pressure instead of fighting it. It was a long, drawn out, and tedious process, but Push was improving.

Baby steps.

Eventually, April moved her horses home, and I went over there to work with Push some more. The nice thing about April's house was that she had a nice, enclosed space to work with the horses in. I had suggested that Push was the type of horse that would benefit from working in a round pen, but there was none available at Cara's, and the lack of enclosed space was really slowing our work down. In one session at April's, we made tremendous progress, and I gave April some exercises that would help Push choose coming to his handler over panicking and fleeing the situation.

In a turn of events, April needed to make some repairs to her property to make it better set up for horses. Push and Shadow moved temporarily back to Cara's. In the time they were there, I worked with Push every single week. Finally, we started to have breakthroughs. Push learned to give to pressure. He started picking up his feet like a pro. He stood tied and cross tied without a fuss. Lunging started to fall into place. 

The desensitizing was also going ridiculously well:

Being silly after a good session.

In fact, these days, he lunges beautifully. We've even started to introduce side reins a little at a time. Best of all, April is able to do the work with him herself.

Looking like a grown up.

Last week, the boys went home again, hopefully for good this time. We had a session there too. Even though there was a lot going on and Push was distracted by the "new" surroundings, he ended up being relaxed and well-behaved. 

Push turns three in less than a month, and we're getting ready to put a rider up for the first time since April has owned him. I imagine he's been sat on before so that part shouldn't be a big deal. I am excited to see where this horse goes from here. He is a beautiful mover and he's smart once he stops being fearful. He is lucky he ended up with someone so patient and determined. I would love to know what his complete back story is, but I suspect we'll never know.

Did I mention he's a big baby?

Busy Weekend with Ozzy

The weather this weekend was gorgeous. Actually, it's gorgeous now too, but I'm sick as a dog so I'm hiding inside and blogging instead of working or riding (boo!)

When I got home from my trail ride on Saturday, Mike was still at work. I decided to go out and get a quick ride in on Ozzy. I haven't had a chance to do much with him since I announced that he's going back to work. Unfortunately, my life this last year or so has been centered around having two retired horses at home. Getting Ozzy back into regular work is going to take some finagling.

I saw a meme on Facebook recently that talked about replacing the words "I don't have time for XYZ" with "XYZ is not a priority", and then reassessing to see how that makes you feel about XYZ. So I tried it.

"I don't have time to ride Ozzy regularly."
"Riding Ozzy regularly is not a priority."

How did it make me feel? It made me feel a little sad because I used to ride this horse almost every single day and because he really is my heart horse. Then I started thinking, "Well, what are my priorities?"

• Slug through all the necessary grown up things that need to happen every spring. Thankfully, this one is mostly done. I did my taxes, serviced my car, vetted the horses, vetted the dogs, and went to the eye doctor to stop abusing my contacts. ($$$) I still have to get the horses' teeth floated.
• Competing in endurance. I have rides lined up that I refuse to talk about for fear of jinxing them, but the reality is most of my weekends are spoken for.
• Training/lessons. Income is important and if I ever want to be free of the clinic, I need as many of these clients as I can get my grubby little hands on. If that means working 14 hour days sometimes (it does) then so be it.
• The clinic. This is unfortunate and I hope it's not a priority forever, but the reality is that I have to adult and that means showing up for my "part time" job three times a week, even when I want to tear my hair out.
• Exercising the dogs. Ozzy gets to run around outside all day and do whatever he wants. The dogs are cooped up in the house if I'm working or riding. They deserve to get out and play and run around and enjoy the nice weather. Herbie is only five and a half, but she is already developing arthritis and a fit lifestyle is very important to her well-being.
• And, of course, Mike. Now that he's back to work, we are spending less time together. I need to make the time that we do have count. 

After thinking about it that way (and realizing that having a social life and planning my wedding didn't even make the list!) I felt less guilty about the fact that Ozzy sat for another month. 

This weekend, though, I made riding Ozzy a priority and managed to get on him both days. 

On Saturday, I wandered out to the field and whistled for him. He ran halfway across the pasture, trumpeting as he went, and then walked the rest of the way up to meet me. JR hovered in the background, seeming to warn him, "Dude, it's a trap!"

Ozzy was very happy to see me. He kept nickering at me and making all of his goofiest faces. He's not normal, but I love him. 

I brought Ozzy up to the barn and gave him a good grooming. I guess the weather is finally going to change for the better because Ozzy is just now starting to shed. He does this every year. He holds onto his winter coat long after all the other horses have dropped theirs. It's usually mid-May by the time he starts to look less like a yak and more like a horse. 

I tacked Ozzy up quickly. I wasn't even sure I was going to get on him. I wanted to see how he did in the round pen first. At first, he was a little skitzy and had some comical spooking moments that I really wish I had gotten on camera. I have no idea what got up his skirt, but he got over it and went around the pen nicely for a while. 

I did end up getting on Ozzy after all, and we had a short, but nice ride. I asked him to trot and he picked up a gait. Despite being bred as a trotter, this is something he has always struggled with. I am sure he'll improve once we build some fitness and get out in the open a bit. In the mean time, I wasn't complaining about the smooth ride. I even got brave and picked up a canter for a few strides.

Ozzy and I have always been bored in the ring/round pen, and once I felt confident that he wasn't going to fall on top of me, I opened the gate and rode him around in the pasture. We moseyed over to the neighbor's and down to the woods. I kept it to the walk, but Ozzy seemed happy with the change of scenery.

By then, Ozzy was pretty sweaty and I was expecting Mike to be done with work shortly. I hopped down, gave Ozzy his first bath in nearly a year, and let him graze on the lawn for a while, all of which he thoroughly enjoyed.

Of course, the second I put him back in the paddock, Ozzy had a good hard roll and undid all my handy work.

Gross, dude.

On Sunday, I rode Ozzy again. This time, Mike was up in his shop working on jumps, and I was a lot less pressed for time. 

I took the time to groom all of the previous day's filth from Ozzy's coat. Then I decided to deck him out all matchy-matchy. This is something I never really made the time for before Ozzy got sick. I guess I just took for granted the riding time we'd have together. So I dug out my white saddle pad, matching polos, and barely-used fly bonnet. It's too early in the season for bugs to be a problem, but having the fly bonnet on did help manage his forelock.

So handsome.

Once again, I round penned Ozzy a little bit before getting on. This was mostly so I could get some photos. He did not disappoint, and started off looking pretty fancy!

Pretending to dressudge. 

Of course, it wasn't all pretty. There were times when Ozzy was discombobulated and also sort of charging across the round pen willy nilly. O boy.

Still, I was very pleased with his ability and willingness to hold the trot. I must be the only person in the world who has a trotter who is terrible at trotting.

I let Ozzy round pen until he grew bored and expressed interest in eating instead.

I got on board again and rode around in the round pen until we got our sea legs. 

There were moments that were nice:

And there were moments where I wasn't sure how many legs my horse had. In fact, I'm not sure he knows either. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Ozzy's fanciest gait, the tro-llop. 

Eventually, we made our way out into the open world again. We rode all around the pastures, and then I took Ozzy out onto the rest of the property, where there was enough room to trot properly.

Then I got brave and took Ozzy off the property entirely. We rode down the dirt road across the way. I turned around when we encountered some loose dogs, but Ozzy wasn't the least bit bothered. In fact, you'd never know he's had so much time off. I tell people that Ozzy is not naturally a brave horse. He's really kind of a chicken. He only acts brave because it's what he knows I want and expect. Still, you never would have guessed it during our ride yesterday.

It's good to be looking through my favorite set of ears again.

I even had Mike take a picture of us from a unique angle, up in his shop.

I let Ozzy hang out in the barn with me for quite a while after we were done riding. Of course, I bathed him once again (of course, he rolled as soon as he was out). It was a silly ride that didn't accomplish much of anything, but I think that's exactly what's been missing in my life. 

This is the best he's ever looked coming out of winter. Having complete control over his diet has been so awesome :)

Drafty Trail Rides

Alice's trail training continues. We went out again yesterday and she was a very good girl on our nearly two hour trail ride. We saw a lot of things ranging from dirt bikes to a military Humvee surrounded by at least twenty men in camouflage. Alice handled all of that like a seasoned pro, but there was one thing that upset her.

Other horses.

The horror! I know.

We were heading back in when we ran into a pair of riders on a gray and a pinto coming at us. They were very considerate in their approach and I informed them that Alice hasn't seen much of the world just yet.

Alice had stopped with her head up on high alert, and I could feel her heart pounding through the dressage saddle. I let her just stand and stare as the other horses approached us at the walk. I had a feeling she was going to do something dumb, and I was right.

Just as they were almost next to us, Alice decided she couldn't handle it any more and spun 180 degrees and bolted. I was prepared and got her stopped and turned back around in just a few strides. I think the other riders were horrified. I know Alice's owner was stunned.

I dismounted and let her stare some more while the other riders went on their way. She was wide-eyed, but behaved herself. Once they were past us, I climbed back on board and we carried on like nothing had ever happened. I had to laugh at the silliness of it. Loud noises, rushing traffic, barking dogs, rushing water... all of those are fine... but apparently horses carrying humans in the forest are just too much to bear. Never mind that we've had one with us the entire time!

All in all, it was a lovely ride on a beautiful spring day. I am sure that Alice is going to get better and better with more miles. She already seems to have surpassed Marcus in terms of fitness, and I think she'll be a great trail horse in no time.

Best of all, they really are a matching pair:

Introducing: Slang

I have mentioned Cameron on here a few times now. She is one of the boarders at Cara's, and I took an instant liking to her. She is the girl who was riding Brooklyn for me a lot of the time. I like her for a lot of reasons, but mostly because she reminds me of me at that age. (I remember people saying that about me at that time, too. Haha.) She is a hard worker, both around the barn and in the saddle. When I give her homework, she does it, and it shows. She makes improvements in between lessons, and if all of my students were as dedicated to their riding as she is, I'd probably be out of a job. She is also a naturally gifted rider. She has excellent balance and feel, and she really understands what makes her horses tick. She is also young and fearless, which certainly doesn't hurt. Of course, the big difference is that she has horses of her own, which I didn't have at her age.

Cam had one horse when I met her last fall. His name is Shiloh and he's a probable appendix that was pulled from the auction. I'll post more about him later. When I met Cam and her mom, they were casually searching for a second horse, specifically a thoroughbred, and I was really hoping they'd take Brooklyn. Instead, they picked up a gelding from the same person that April got Push from (more on him soon, too.)

Street Slang is a 2010 Virginia-bred by Street Sense. He sold at Keeneland as a yearling for $135k. A month later, he sold for a measly $24k at the Fasig-Tipton mixed sale. That owner ended up racing him before he got claimed and moved along. All in all, he had 20 starts and three wins. I even found some of his racing photos.

Eventually, Slang stopped racing and Cam found him online. They picked him up in the fall, and he wound up being Brooklyn's paddock mate for a while. He has some pin firing in front, and he is a little stiff through his warm up sometimes, but he is serviceably sound and the vet just cleared him for all work.

Not surprisingly, Cam is in love with her "baby horse". He has a very good head on his shoulders, and I'm surprised he had any wins at all because he's generally very lazy (not a bad thing!)

One night, I stepped in while Cam was riding Slang in the indoor, and her mom approached me about lessons. I was delighted. I already knew Cam would be a great student, and the horse seemed to have a good mind and some talent.

We've been on a weekly schedule every since and things are going swimmingly. In the beginning, Slang didn't have a clue about lunging. He also had a hard time picking up his right lead. He had no concept of suppleness or collection and he had a tendency to just sort of slug along, often ignoring the crop.

Their progress has been awesome. Best of all, I do a lot of instructing, but rarely touch the horse. Cam is very capable and she is really bringing this young horse along herself.

We started off by addressing the lunging issues, and Slang is a pro on the line now. As a result, he has really started to build some awesome muscle. His canter has also improved greatly.

We've also been doing a lot of work on getting Slang forward and soft. The difference has been amazing already! Cam also applies these concepts to Shiloh and she says he's never felt better. It wasn't long before we started incorporating poles and then cross rails into our lessons.

At first, Slang wasn't a hundred percent sure what to do about cross rails, and there were some awkward moments.

With some careful practice and lots of gymnastics, he actually really started to get the hang of it, though.

Not surprisingly, the right lead had started to fall into place as well. We spent a lot of time just trotting in and not worrying about the canter. In our last lesson, we finally incorporated some exercises to specifically focus on the right lead, and correcting Slang when he picks up the wrong one. He's such an honest and willing horse and I suspect he's going to have no problems at all as he gains fitness.

We've also started to focus on the jumping a little more. Slang seems to have a natural ability and inclination to jump. He's easy to the fences and very honest about clearing the jumps. It wasn't long before I added some verticals to our repertoire.

Our last lesson was especially stellar. After warming up and fine-tuning the trot, I had Cam do some pretty serious canter work. We used poles and cavaletti to show Slang where we wanted the right lead, and he was getting it every time. Gradually, our gymnastic started to grow. Towards the end of the lesson, I set up a baby oxer and had Cam ride Slang over it. She never even batted an eye, so neither did he.

can't wait to see how this boy turns out

A video posted by just pony things (@showmethecoffee) on Apr 13, 2016 at 4:52pm PDT

So I raised it a a couple of holes and had them try again. Slang sailed effortlessly over the 2'6" oxer and Cam was thrilled. They'll be doing courses in no time, and I suspect showing is not far off on the horizon.

This is an exciting pair to work with and I have a great time at our weekly lessons. Both horse and rider are a joy, and we get a lot accomplished in just one hour. I'm looking forward to seeing where they go from here.

Foxcatcher 2016

Foxcatcher is a deceptively beautiful ride held at Fair Hill in Maryland every year. The rolling hills and stunning river crossings make for an alluring ride. Add in bridges, including one covered bridge, and most people are sold on the ride. It is the first spring ride in the Northeast, which makes it especially attractive.

The ride is a surprisingly difficult one, and it's a lesson many people learn the hard way. The rolling hills look inviting and not very technical, but the constant up and down really takes a toll on horses. Usually, this ride is paired with the first truly warm weather of the season, which can add to fatigue and dehydration in both humans and horses. Maryland's location halfway up the east coast means a huge turn out for this ride every year. There are usually more than 100 riders entered every year. The pace also tends to be blazing fast. The first time I rode this ride, I was told, "If you top ten here, you are going way too fast."

Foxcatcher 50 has become my nemesis of sorts. I completed the LD as Ozzy's second endurance ride, and he did really well. We even caught a loose horse just before the finish line, which makes for an epic story to this day. The following year, I attempted the 50. We were pulled at the first hold after Ozzy got a bad case of race brain and burned himself out on the first loop. It didn't help that the markers had blown down in the storm the night before, and we'd gone off course with some of the top ten riders, turning an already-lengthy 25 mile loop into 32 miles. 2011 was my last attempt at the Foxcatcher 50. I wisely rode with Ival and Wendy and we started at a much more sedate pace. Ozzy had learned a lot about starts and was much more controlled. The first loop was going beautifully until Ozzy took a bad step on the rocks coming towards the covered bridge and came up lame in his right front ankle. By that point, it was pouring down rain, and Ival and Wendy ended up pulling at the next hold. To add insult to injury, Ival's truck broke down coming over the Delaware Memorial Bridge on the way home, and we had to limp it to the nearest service station, where we waited for Erin's cousin to come get the horses. I threw in the towel and declared that ride cursed.

JR Picspam

The weather was nice on Sunday so I brought JR up to the barn for a thorough grooming. In fact, I took the shop vac to his fuzzy coat. I flipped it on and he gave it the hairy eyeball for about half a second, but then I fed him a cookie and ran the nozzle over his shoulder. After that, he was totally fine with it. In fact, he thoroughly enjoyed having his blaze vacuumed.

Look how clean it is.

After we were done with grooming, I tossed JR in the round pen to see how he moves on flat, even ground. The answer is: awesome! He flagged his tail and trotted excitedly around the pen, completely sound. Then he threw a big, excited buck and tore around at a canter. I ended up grabbing my camera to take some pictures of him being sassy.

Frisky 18 year old pony :)

It was really feeling like spring for a change and it was fun to be outside just enjoying my own horses.

JR was loving the round penning, and definitely had his attention completely on me. He even came in every time I called (without treats!)

I took about a million photos of JR in the pen, but I actually kept the exercise short. I'd love to get him into enough work to keep him from gaining too much weight, but I don't want to cause his arthritis to flare up.

Look at that uphill trot!

My horses have nice hair. Hard to believe this pony practically had a mohawk when I got him!

After play time was over, I let JR enjoy some of the green grass in the round pen. While our lawn has really sprung up, the grass in the pasture is coming in more slowly. In fact, the horses typically graze it down before it gets very far. I am actually grateful for this because it means I don't have to worry about them over doing it on rich spring grass. I am especially grateful because I don't have to muzzle a certain Fat!Pony.

JR was very satisfied with his grass time, and was being rather silly by the time I haltered him and put him back out with Ozzy.

They spend too much time together.

I was thrilled to see JR moving so well. He was free and happy and moving lightly without pain. Perhaps there is some light hacking in his future...

Foxcatcher Preview

Spoiler alert: the curse is broken! I got my completion. Moniet and I did a grueling 50 miles in Maryland, that included freezing rain, snow, and winds gusting up to 30mph. Not only did we do it, but I was still smiling when we did! This weekend was incredible.