Though lessons have been… less than consistent over the last 2 months, I still try to make my rides worthwhile and keep my trainers’ voices in my head as much as possible. In particular, there are several often heard phrases that I tell myself over and over, with hopes of eventually never having to hear them again.
From my dressage trainer, these generally include:
Don’t show him what not to do, instead show him what to do!
Get him reaching from the base of his neck!
Engage your core / Think about landing in the same place in the saddle every time
And from my eventing trainer, it’s often:
Shoulders away from the fence!
No leaning over the fence (with my hips/shoulders/head/secret hopes and wishes)
Keep him straight!
and very very often…
What was that?!
or…
What happened there?!
and even more commonly…
Why don’t you just try that again.
What are the mantras your trainer uses with you? What phrases live in your head when you aren’t in a training session? And what are the words that you are basically ready to tattoo on your arm so you don’t forget?
Luckily, Jack’s eyeball is starting to improve, thanks to my wonderful barn family stepping in to medicate him 4x/day while I was away. But as you can see in the picture below, there’s still noticeable swelling and weepiness.Jack’s been a pretty good sport overall about getting his meds. Which is great, because all of the people doing the medicating are shorties like myself, and fighting with a 17h giraffe is not the greatest time. We have a check up today at 2pm, and I’m hoping the vet will give us the green light to ride again, but who knows- as I wouldn’t want the dust from riding to aggravate his condition.
And with all that said, I also want to look into his respiratory issues (the heavy breathing thing mentioned last week). So right now I’m seriously thinking of scrapping our next show (mid June) in favor of a lighter schedule while we all recoup.Again, sorry on being lighter news-wise. Medications and all that are not so interesting.
In the latest part of Jack’s ploy to keep our vets in every comfort, Jack came in yesterday with this:
Unable to open it, swollen as hell, fuckery.
The vet came out, and he’s getting a fully fledged arsenal of medications. That I then misplaced.
Horses are dumb. And apparently so am I. Because being a human this week is basically more than I can handle.So if you’re wondering about us, I’ll be off gassing up my struggle bus.
Apparently we went right from Spring into monsoon season here in NC. We’ve had almost 2 straight weeks of rain, and the forecast doesn’t look to improve any time soon. While this has been great for my garden, it hasn’t been so great for riding. Even the indoor starts to look less appealing after 2 weeks.
Jack, for himself, would also like a break from the weather. The Golden Boy has really been struggling with the heat, and we are all struggling with the drowning sensation that accompanies going outside.
Despite very long warm up and cool down sessions, his panting during more strenuous sessions is noticeable. Because I don’t want my horse to keel over one day, I’ve started planning a conditioning program to hopefully get his cardiovascular fitness improved to decrease recovery time. We take lots of walk breaks while he recovers. I watch to make sure he’s sweating (he is). And I’m looking into adding electrolytes to his meals. (PS- is Smartpak’s supplement site down for anyone else?)
I’m hoping that this is just an adjustment period that we are going through, since really in terms of a NC summer, we haven’t even gotten to the real heat.
So blog fam, I need your advice! What do you guys do to help your ponies adjust to rising mercury?
Despite my own personal mixed feelings regarding horse racing, I do inevitably get excited when the Triple Crown rolls around. Why? Because for just a few minutes every year, the rest of the nation becomes as fascinated by horses as equestrians are on the daily. No matter whether or not you ever rode a horse, the thrill of seeing American Pharoah break an almost 40 year drought and take the Triple Crown- that was something that just set the heart on fire.
But there to douse the flames are some of the horrors that inevitably come with mixing horses and money- it invites greed to look past some of the basic principles of horsemanship, and take advantage of a creature bound to do our will. And I won’t pretend that racing is the only victim to this side of human nature. Every horse discipline, every industry has seen its fair share of a turned eye, or pushing just that bit too far, and no one can claim total innocence.
And yet there, on the morning after the Derby, questions arose. Charismatic trainer Bob Baffert led the stunning Justify out to meet an adoring press, and horsepeople looked on in dismay. That horse was not sound. Not at all.
Baffert clearly says in the video that he came out of the Derby “really well”, and yet, the horse won’t comfortably put weight on his left hind. Later in a press conference, Baffert said that the horse had Scratches, a skin infection that was irritated by the gravel. Then it was circulated that the horse had a bruised foot.
In the end, Justify was cleared for the Preakness, and made himself even more valuable by winning the second leg of the Triple Crown. At my particular viewing party, we all watched him walk before and after with eagle eyes, and couldn’t come to a unified consensus on whether he looked 100% or not. And yet, he won, and surely we’ll see him again in the Belmont at the end of the summer.
For my part, I hope he does well, and I hope that all the curfuffle really is just an ill timed stone bruise, or a skin infection. Justify is one of the strongest, well boned TB’s to win the Derby since Big Brown 10 years ago. His lack of a 2 yr old season may set an excellent precedent for later-started, but successful horses that have more longevity in their careers, both on the track and in potential sporthorse disciplines.
Things I do wonder about, and I hope there are informed individuals out there who can fill us in… What kind of vetting is required, if any, before these big races? How is transparency viewed in the racing industry? What medications are allowed to be used (NSAIDs, etc) on the track? Do you think Justify has a shot at the Belmont? Is there a horse out there that you prefer? Where do you think the racing industry should go, or practices they should adopt?
This past weekend is admittedly a bit of a blur. I finally started feeling better late Saturday evening. Our XC school that day had gone pretty well, but Jack was definitely being a bit of a spook- not unusual for him after not jumping for a couple weeks. I was struggling with the sudden ~90* temperatures, particularly after being already dehydrated from several days with a stomach flu.
But the show goes on, and we found ourselves doing a short warmup and heading into the dressage.
All in all I’m happy with our effort. A pair of volunteers that decided my entering the ring was the perfect time to move things behind the judge’s truck are to blame for the distraction down centerline (but what can you do, we’re thankful for volunteers no matter what). He tripped in the transition from trot to medium walk. And our right lead canter transition- well that’s still a work in progress. A score of 28.1 put us in 3rd out of 16 after the dressage, and Jack earned himself a snooze before getting ready for the jumping phases.
The Novice SJ course
After walking the SJ course, and visiting the XC course one more time, it was ready to showjump. And quite frankly, I don’t know what to say about SJ. I know that I panicked. I know that my brain was melting out of my ears, and my horse felt tired. I know that I jumped all the jumps in the correct order. And I know that I got 3 poles down. I couldn’t even tell you where. Totally my fault.
Basically a showjumping lollipop
After coming out of my SJ stupor, I realized I probably couldn’t/shouldn’t ride XC like that. So I gathered up the remnants of my brain, stuffed it back in my head, and went out determined to give him a great ride around a fair course with a lot of terrain questions.
And I remembered my GoPro!
The course was so fun. Jack is feeling like a confident Novice horse, and hunting the jumps. Sure, he’s not point and shoot, but he probably never will be. And yet- those ears tell the whole tale.
In the end, my bowling for rails in SJ denied us a top-2 finish… by a long shot. But he’s getting so much more relaxed in all 3 phases, and didn’t lose his marbles when friends left the stable- huge wins for a horse that was a nervous nelly at the same venue less than a year ago. And really, with all the shite that we had to deal with the last couple weeks, getting out and having a positive experience was the biggest win of all.
Jack and I finally got to have a dressage lesson together on Tuesday, and once he loosened up he felt beautiful, washing away all my worries about the cluster that was the previous week. We are playing around with the “dial” of a gait – taking a boring, dinky trot to something with more impulsion and even pushing into lengthening territory, but keeping the focus on him staying relaxed and swinging through his back. This has been a major challenge for us, since Jack is not an incredibly relaxed horse by nature and can get tense rather quickly.
Jack this Jan
I tend to think of Jack as a micromanaging kind of ride, and when we discussed my trainer corrected me- when you’re on him it’s not about being busy as a rider, but staying mentally focused through every step, watching his frame and his mental energy through every stride. He’s simply not a “get on and coast” sort of dude. And while that can be a little challenging, it also means that he’s good for the rider, in that it requires correct riding in order to produce good results with him.
Unlike Foster, who could get away with (and sometimes needed) a little bit of uglier riding
Unlike Jack, who seems to be feeling significantly better the last couple days, I myself am feeling rather shitty. Fully body aches, shooting pain in my R hip, and feeling sick after every meal- not my personal best really. But still, there’s riding to be done, and a show to get to this weekend. But man, what I would do for a 12 hour nap right now!
Well it’s official. Jack is absolutely the most high maintenance horse I’ve ever owned. And yet, as we close in on our one-year anniversary of being a team, I don’t regret choosing this big yellow dude at all.
As it turns out, whatever it is that caused the hives last week is apparently still around and still causing us problems. After being officially weaned off of Dex on May 4th, by the morning of May 6th the hives were already returning, and the golden boy looked a little long in the face.
*sigh*
We also had a bit of an accident that resulted in some very high emotions in me and some scrapes on Jack. Luckily with icing and bute that seems to be resolved. Just another thing in the list of all the fucking things that could have not happened last week. But whatever.
Days off make for good photo days
We are meant to go show this weekend, which will be our second go at Novice. Considering the clusterfuck that has been the last several days, luckily it’s just a schooling show. And we get to school the XC the day before. So if the golden boy isn’t feeling up to the whole shebang, we can school xc and just do dressage the next day. Or school, dressage and SJ. Or you know, if he’s feeling good do the whole HT.
Either way it should be a weekend to look forward to- new team mates, old friends, and our first time showing with pretty much all of the people I love. Thank goodness- something to look forward to!
Guys, I hate to be cryptic. But Jack and I need some jingles. This is not our week.
We will hopefully be back to our usual reporting next week as we get ready for our second Novice. I hope everyone has a safe weekend and fun Derby plans!
So Dex must be some kind of miracle drug, because by 5 yesterday, Jack was looking so much better. And while still a little groggy, he was a little perkier- certainly better than the obviously miserable state he was in that morning.
Yesterday at 5pm L side
Yesterday at 5 pm R side
Y’all, I have never seen hives like that on any creature. Seeing a breakout of that magnitude on my own horse was equal parts amazement, stress, and shock. I’m so lucky that my vet was able to come out and ease my fears and give him the IV injection he needed to make everything better.
This morning, things are looking even more improved.
A LH that actually resembles a leg
No more hives!
The plan is to keep him on decreasing doses of oral Dex for the next couple days, and probably keep him off of his normal pasture since we still don’t know what it was that set off the reaction in the first place. This evening I’ll head out to check on the golden boy, ice his leg and stuff him full of carrots.
These horses, guys, they’re going to be the death of me.
Red on the Right 