Today I decided to reach into my archives for some non-equine and non-canine material. It seems I’ve always been drawn to photographing birds, and here are some of the images I’ve captured over the years.
One of my first photos from Design School… Canadian Goose, circa 2008
Swan at Stourhead Estate, England. Fall 2011
Another Stourhead swan. 2011
Crows on a fenceline. Stonehenge, England. 2013
Have a wonderful weekend!
Like most people, I find myself of the right-handed, non-ambidextrous sort. So for riding, I find that I am most coordinated and can maintain more finesse in my right hand.
Unlike most people, besides being more awkward to the left, I also I have a completely busted left side. To wit, these are the flaws and injuries that I have acquired that prevent any real grace on that half of my body.
Natural Gait
Some people toe out when they walk, others toe in. Others walk straight, and you stink. Me? I walk with my right foot straight, and my left foot toed in about 30 degrees. Walking straight lines is hard for me. I get this from my mother, who told me if I were a horse, she wouldn’t buy me (note: I learned everything about buying horses from her, and I get it- I wouldn’t buy me either 😉 ). She has, with time and concentration, talk herself to walk with both feet straight. I’m lazy and can’t be bothered. Also, I find my left leg wraps around my horse’s side better. Whatevs.
Love you too, mum, and thanks for the awkwardness.
The Ankle
Labor day of my sophomore year, my friend and I went to return her phone. Turns out my horse, Ivan, thought it looked tasty, and his molars left it irreparable. We went to the barn, whereupon Ivan decided to inflict some damage on me. Not with his teeth, but by ‘bucking’ mid-air over a sizeable fence. I made the decision to bail, and got my foot caught in the stirrup, fracturing my left ankle. One leg cast and robo-boot later, and I can still occasionally feel the effects of that injury.
Hand-grazing Ivan in the leg cast.
No worries, I still went out that night!
The Hip
A couple years later, after I had fully recovered from the ankle injury, I was jumping Ivan again when some horses started galloping around the arena. Ivan had this really fun habit of just bolting without notice, and did just that, careening around the arena. I hung on admirably about 3/4 way around before becoming unbalanced. I then somehow became clothes-lined hip first by a jump standard wing. The impact took me out hard enough that I couldn’t walk for 3 days. The Health Center said I may have broken it, and I should go to the ER. Eventers may be brave, but we’re occasionally also stupid (or maybe that’s just me). I never went, and my hip issues are the most prevalent body problems I still feel. A chiropractor said my hip injury has caused a pinched nerve, but I don’t actually know what happened- just that it hurt. A lot.
Jumping Ivan over one of the jump standards that took me out
So there you have it, folks. A crooked rider, with a crooked horse (whose bum side is also his left). When all else fails, turn right.
When my sweet husband got me a GroPro Camera for my birthday, I was ecstatic. Who doesn’t love watching cross-country helmet cams? Before trying it out at an actual event, I thought I would test my set up while fiddle-farting around in the arena at home. This was our first time jumping again since the show, hence nothing super impressive. Also, Foster’s first bounce in many months. Here’s the result:
It was all planned to really use the helmet cam at an event in Virginia this weekend, but I decided to scratch last night when I realized that it was becoming more pressure than it was worth. We’re still recovering from the 3 day horse show weekend in Hunter/Jumper Land, as well as some life events that must take precedence over training-like-crazy for a schooling event. So, even though I’m disappointed that I won’t be sharing what would have been a hilarious helmet cam cross country video next week, I feel like I’ve made the right decision in waiting a little while longer before competing again.
Instead, we have our first cross country lesson planned with Doug at a much closer venue, and our next show will be in a another month! Many more helmet-cams in our future, for sure!
I’m jumping on this blog-hop wagon (thanks to Life of Riley for the idea!) because progress has been on my mind a lot recently. We’re going through one of those annoying phases where it seems like we are going backwards a bit (mostly related to the whole getting-crazy-deep-distances issue, and my sudden intimidation of both airy fences and fences with crap loads of filler – sidenote: maybe I’m just a chicken shit?)… anyways.
I keep telling myself, this is just another phase, and just like in the past we’ll come out of it the other side and be better than before. Looking back on where we’ve been is one way to assure myself of this. So here’s our transformation post, before and after Fosters!
Foster:
Foster Jan 2011 in his sales pic
April 2012
May 2014
Dressage (trotting):
Feb. 2011
Nov. 2012
April 2014
Dressage (canter):
Feb. 2011
Nov. 2012
April 2014
Showjumping:
June 2012
Sept 2013
Dec. 2013
Cross Country:
Feb 2012 – first XC school
Feb 2012
Oct. 2012
August 2013
November 2013
April 2014
So that’s it. 3 and a half years of ups and downs, but a lot of progress when I look at the first and last pictures in each set. Our bond has definitely grown, and he’s been able to give me confidence that I could never have in my past horses. I’m sure we’ll get through this latest phase and be moving forward again soon!
Really this lesson ended up being more like a training ride/lesson hybrid, but it was worth it all the same. Eliza got there just as I finished warming up, and offered to hop on Foster briefly. I always think it’s great when she gets on him, because he seems like such a tricky horse to ride and for me to explain, that sometimes I don’t know how to translate what I’m feeling into the right questions.
Immediately, Eliza was surprised to feel how ‘stuck’ he is in his neck. I’ve been able to mask a lot of this tension with the way I ride him, but we really need to get to the meat of the issue before we can seriously consider collection and more advanced work, because the connection is not perfectly clear when he is bracing with the base of his neck.
Other remarks included how wiggly he is, and maintaining activity behind instead of letting him shuffle his hind legs like he’s wont to do. While Foster just tends to be a bit crooked, the crookedness is pretty specifically located in his hind end, and he likes to throw his haunches right instead of put weight on his left hock. And as far as the activity goes, she was much more adamant about reminding him to be active with subtle whip cues, and when he was really coming through behind, it was very noticeable!
In the last 10 minutes, I hopped back on and tried to get a feel for what she was discussing. I definitely saw the difference in the canter, and we worked on the timing of my whip aid to keep the canter ‘jumping’.
So overall, an informative lesson slash training ride. Sometimes the perspective from the ground is just as valuable as being in the saddle! I’m probably going to ask Eliza to do a proper training ride on him sometime in the future. Do you do training rides? What do you like about them/maybe not like?
As promised, here is puppy-pic-poluted post numero dos! Bentley is a 3 month old Shorkie (Shih Tzu X Yorkie) mix that belongs to one of my best friends. I just loved his little expressions and all that fluff! So glad we were able to snap a few photos of this little guy- and I’ll be seeing him again when I return to take my friend’s engagement photos next month! Hooray, more Bentley!
Have a great weekend!
So now you’ve read the run down of our first and second days at our first real hunter/jumper show, and you’re probably sitting on the edge of your seat with anticipation wondering, “what now? Will they make the jump (pun intended) to hunter/jumper land permanently? *gasp*”.
Let me end your pretend anxiety and say, probably not. However, I was thoroughly surprised to find that I did not see evidence of many stereotypes I had in my head of the hunter/jumper crowd, and that I would certainly be willing to enter a hunter/jumper show again, if only for a day rather than the weekend-long shebang.
Here are the overall Pro’s and Con’s I experienced over the weekend. In hopes that I won’t offend any hunters out there, keep in mind that this is a first real H/J experience for someone who has only done Dressage and Eventing for the last 10 years.
The Pro’s:
Warm up
These trainers have obviously taken the time to school their students in proper warm-up ring etiquette, and it showed. Calling fences or inside/outside, as well as staying out of the way when standing, were all observed. Considering that I was warming up with people mostly half my age (yay 2’6″ classes!), this was all the more impressive. I feel like at any typical event I am the lone voice in the warm up arena and have been known to yell at more than one person for not calling out their warm-up fences. So, eventers, let’s get our act together.
No snobbery
I’ll be honest, I fully expected to see a bit of hunter/jumper princessness while I was here. Instead, I saw a lot of down-to-earth people and comraderie amongst the competitors.
Adding/scratching classes is awesome
Especially for people who can’t make up their minds (*cough* like myself, Sunday morning), this was a great feature to the show. The downside of course being that nothing can be scheduled down to the minute like at an event, but it still comes in handy.
part of our badly abuse class-sheet
Legit Jumper Courses
This was pretty cool to see. The level of difficulty was exactly what was expected, and I thought it was still fair throughout the different heights. It might have been neat to ride through a triple combination, but that’s about all that was missing from the courses. Thumbs up from me!
Footing
Also known as water/drag all the things! These people mean business about footing, and the water trucks and tractors came and went so much they had it down to a science.
Turnout
All the pretty ponies, and all the pretty people! And even though I am fond of wearing my Ugly Boots and Ugly Pants to horse shows, it was kind of nice to pretend to be part of the fancy crowd all weekend.
The Ugly Boots (shown here) came along for the trip, luckily the Ugly Pants (also shown here) stayed at home
No timers
Obviously for the hunter classes, there’s no obnoxious buzzer sending you on your merry way. Not gonna lie, at the end of day 2, this was something Foster and I were seriously appreciating. Thank you, hunter gods, for not asking us to be relaxed and fast. Thank you.
The Con’s:
The Wait
I know you were expecting this. Waiting around with no schedule sucks. To be fair, I understand why (note my earlier comment about scratching classes), but there is definitely something to be said for knowing exactly when you are going, and being able to plan your day accordingly.
Inconsistent Judging
Maybe it’s my uneducated eye, but I could not find rhyme or reason between the  different judges. And really, I’m talking about flat classes. Where I thought I saw a relaxed ‘hunter-type’ with big strides, swinging movement, and relaxed demeanor, the horse that was clenching it’s jaw and avoiding contact by head-tilting pinned. Or in another arena, when I though a horse and rider produced a nice outline/frame, the horse that had it’s nose to the sky placed. I just couldn’t understand how the scoring was done, and this was a bit frustrating- adding to the mysteries of hunteryness.
The Clothes
And specifically, the rules about what’s OK and what’s not. Your boots need non-functioning laces, the saddle pad must be fitted (or non-existent, the route we went), your breeches must be knee patch, etc, etc. In the (mostly) form-follows-function world of eventing wardrobe, some of these things just made my eyes roll.
Feeling sneaky riding in Full-seats that don’t look like Full-Seats!
Confusing class descriptions
Again, totally based on my ignorance as an eventer, but seriously- who comes up with these names? Even checking the state’s Hunter-Jumper Association doesn’t immediately describe what a Special Hunter was, and asking multiple people about the difference between Special Hunter and Pre-Green Hunter didn’t seem to clear up the difference. So. much. confusion.
Photography
It was pretty amazing to see how much more expensive the photography was at this C rated show than it is at any event. And sure, maybe it’s because the clientele are willing to pay that prices, in which case, good for the photographer. But hot damn, that’s a lot of money! Maybe I’m just bitter because they got 4 photos of me, and they were some of the worst photos I have seen in my life. I watched the videos, I know our level of awkwardness wasn’t quite that bad. Maybe next time, Mr. Photographer.
Foster and one of our 2 4th place ribbons!
Overall Take-away
When it really comes down to it, this weekend was a wonderful opportunity to get in the jump arena in a low-pressure kind of way. I was able to somewhat successfully implement and learn a new technique, expose Foster to new types of fences, and take in a lot of knowledge about a new discipline. I learned a lot about what my horse can handle, and where his fitness limits are, which, though frustrating at the time, is really useful in preparing for future competitions. Â So all-in-all, this was a good experience and I’ll be keeping an eye on the hunter/jumper calendar next year in case another opportunity comes up to visit hunter/jumper land again!
Tonight, we return to the world of dressage with another lesson with Eliza. Until next time, hunter/jumper land!
So, having already established that poor baby Foster was almost debilitated with exhaustion from the day before, I had to come up with a new game plan for Day 2 of our Hunter/Jumper experience. The original plan was to do a couple more jumper classes, but I knew ‘go fast’ and ‘jump big’ were not tools in our tool box that day, so a change of plan was needed.
Foster naps in his stall
At first, after much discussion, we decided to do 2’9″ Schooling Hunters, and be damned that we would be up against professionals. Not like we were going to place anyways. Then there were concerns that we wouldn’t have time to get ready, and switched to Adult Amateurs. I got on and soon saw that there was no waking up Foster enough to do the 2’9″ fences (that ring also was the one decked out in astro-turf, filler galore). So I scratched again. I suppose there’s something to be said for being able to swap classes, even if you’re driving yourself absolutely bonkers over it all (I despise wishy-washyness, even in myself).
Another day of hunters! Also, tents. We like tents.
The final decision was that it would be best for him if we took it all the way back to 2’6″ and do the Special Hunter division. Our first flat class, yay!
Cue the waiting around, and getting hot and bothered about hearing that our arena was being held for 30 minutes at a time. But finally, our time came.
I was relatively pleased with our first round, in that at least we weren’t moving at a complete snail’s pace (though admittedly, still pretty slow), and we got about half our leads (the video chopped off the first half). My friend C had just shared with me a wonderful trick that I decided to implement- Step, Lift, Look. So for trying out something new for the first time in a show arena, I was pretty OK with that! Otherwise, obviously, we got in pretty darn deep to a couple fences, but whatevs, we had a mulligan another round coming up!
Round 2 made me really happy. We got all but one of our leads, and I am debating tattooing Step, Lift, Look on my body. One deepish distance that resulted in him jumping totally over his shoulder again, but I’ll take it! Who knows, maybe my horse could do the hunter thing.
Last came the flat round. Since I came off of our second round huffing like a grampus (seriously, I was as winded as when I come off XC! Not pretty!), I was just kind of going to let him poke around wherever he felt comfortable. So we loped around, and earned ourselves a pretty little 4th place ribbon for our efforts.
After that, I took poor pony back to his stall to cover him in liniment from head to toe, and bubble wrapped him for the ride home. Since then, he’s had two days to chill and recuperate, and tonight he’ll get a nice stretchy walk/trot session and lots of carrots and pats from me.
Next up, I’ll share with you my eventer’s perspective on the whole show, and would I do it again. Until tomorrow!
Since I’m suffering from major horse-show-hangover still, my normal one-giant-huge-recap post is going to have to be broken into a few pieces.
I’ll start at the end though. At the end of this show I am so, so proud of my horse. No, we didn’t come home with arms full of ribbons, and we didn’t even go as well as we normally do. But he proved to me how much he is willing to take care of me, and try for me, and that’s something you just don’t find in a lot of horses.
OK, back to the beginning.
My schooling Thursday over the 3’3″ fences ended up being pretty craptastic. There was a ton of traffic around the jumping arena, and pairing that with the fact that I was there by myself, staring at these huge airy 3’3″ oxers meant that I started over-riding things, and we have a couple really ugly jumps. So of course in my efforts to end on a good note (we did), I spent a lot longer riding than the 25 minute ride intended. A lot longer.
No I don’t ride this hunched- rolling my shoulders to get loosened up!
Then Friday we get to the show, and I realize that hunters have a very special place in their hearts for fillers. Fillers, and in particular, astro-turf. Astro-turf boxes, astro-turf poles, and of course your run-of-the-mill roll tops were everywhere. These fences looked giant too! So, I hopped on the less than plucky pony (since he’d jumped two days in a row so far), and jumped again. Another super special ugly fence that I thought might give me a black eye, another couple to end on a good note, and we called it a night.
Foster in his hunter get up (i.e, cross country saddle with no pad) and me in the full hunter outfit- FS jods and all!
So, the Foster I got on Saturday was already super tired from my cocked-up jumping efforts the 3 days previous. This was absolutely not the way I had planned things, but there it is. So I decided to bring everything down a notch. Instead of Adult Amateurs 2’9″, we did Special Hunters 2’6″. Instead of a 3′ and 3’3″ jumper class, we did 2’9″ and 3′. I still wanted to make this a positive experience, and that seemed in the best interest of everyone.
Donning our ‘hunter’ bridle and new show shirt!
Special Hunter 2’6″ was interesting. Considering how tired we were, and that jumper classes were ahead, I was glad to see the expected outside line to diagonal pattern of a hunter course. Since we were still mastering leads over fences, I just did simple changes. Here’s how that went:
Somehow we earned ourselves a 4th place ribbon for that class, even though he jumped over his shoulder almost the entire course.
Then tired pony had to to his first jumper class. We waited around for ages, continuing to expect them to be done and moving on any minute (since when does it take 45 minutes to do 3 rounds in a jumper class? what the what?). Foster proceeded to get even more tired. It was a proper jumper course though, full of roll backs and a few related distances. We went in a little low on gas, and again, Foster jumped over his shoulder and even started bringing down poles (unusual). You’ll see in the video a few simple changes, as well as a few times when I say ‘eff it’, and stay on the wrong lead in order to keep his momentum up.
The last class of the day was our 3′ jumper class. I knew we were running on fumes, and I decided that if he started crashing fences, we would pull up. With all the waiting and not knowing how things worked, I’d been in the saddle for over 4 hours, and we were pretty ready to be done. But I did realize that he would need some more speed (especially since he did the last course at a snail’s pace). No bothering here for simple changes that would slow us down, we were just going to see how it went:
Ha. While we were moving more forward, that’s about all I can say for this video. It took everything I had with my legs to get him going, and he tried so hard to do what I was asking. I still can’t stop laughing at our almost-disastrous attempt over fence 5. Instead of jumping over and across the oxer, my poor boy jumped straight up and landed immediately on the backside of the fence, sending me sky rocketing out of the saddle as a result. Somehow though, we were able to recover and scrape through the rest of the course.
And so ended Day 1 of our hunter/jumper initiation. Foster, while absolutely exhausted by this time, saved my butt all day long. While it was some pretty shitty riding on my part, he piloted me around and did his job with a pretty good attitude. Proud does not even begin to describe how I feel for my horse.
Up next, wishy-washyness and more hunter goodness.
Ready for puppy-poluted post number one? Here ya go!
Sampson is a 3 month old German Shepherd, and the newest addition at my parent’s house. He is potentially the floppiest puppy I have ever seen, with these super expressive eyes that make you want to melt. In true GSD fashion, when he’s not wrestling the other puppy at the house, he follows my mum around like, well, a puppy. He even sleeps just outside her door, the way my GSD Drake does. Completely adorable!
Sampson does have a couple of siblings still available in Florida- if you or someone you know is interested please shoot me a message and I’ll give you the details!
Have a great weekend, guys! I’m off to a horse show!
Red on the Right 