XC Schooling

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Britt

And so passed another weekend of going 200 mph. Story of my life. Friday night I hosted a get together for a group of lady friends, Saturday snuck out to the barn briefly to see Foster before going bridesmaid dress shopping and then finished off the night at a gala!

All dressed up for the gala!

You guys are probably most interested in my cross country schooling yesterday at the Fork though!

We arrived shortly after 1 PM, and it was clear that most of the people there were wrapping up and heading home. We got out to the beautiful cross country course to discover we had it all to ourselves- score! It was decidedly warm yesterday, around 60 degrees, and I was thanking my lucky stars that Foster was trace clipped but still worried he would run out of steam quickly, so we kept warm up pretty minimal.

We popped over one Beginner Novice fence and then proceeded to tackle the Novice course one fence at a time. It was apparent that Foster is slightly less confident (as in, not blasé anymore!) to these fences, but grew bolder as we went on, and felt pretty adjustable throughout. We even tackled a few training fences, including a bending line from a max table to a roll top- he was great!

Breezing over a Novice fence

The courses at the Fork are always relatively tough, and tend to be maxed out in height and width, and it seemed that this one was no different. The only exceptions were when technical questions were asked- such as a couple combinations and in jumping into water, etc.

Overall it was a great learning day with many successes! Julieann conquered her first Prelim fences (badass!) and schooled the training course, and overall Foster showed great competence at the Novice level. We will definitely benefit from more schooling this winter, but this was a great place to start!

Approaching a Training Table

I should be getting a video sometime tonight, and will be sure to post it so you can see our XC awesomeness! Stay tuned!

Winter Goals for Horse and Home

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Britt

I know, I know, it’s not quite winter yet. But it my mind, when the temperature dips below freezing and the fleece jods come out, it’s winter. So sue me! Here’s what I hope to achieve and have planned around the homestead and in the saddle this season:

The Horse: At Home

Help Foster understand that transitions happen in the bum and not in the neck
Incorporate conditioning day into weekly routine (Jimmy Wofford reference here)
Master Trakehner fences
School coffin combinations
Work on lengthenings (trot and canter)
Possibly introduce flying changes advice here would be welcome!!!

Trakehner, you are mine!

The Horse: Competitions & Schoolings

The Fork (11/17)
Running Start Schooling
Why Not an American Ark Novice CT (12/14 or 1/11)
Why Not an American Ark Novice Horse Trials (2/22)

Running Start schooling over the summer

The House

Take out mini forest and big-mama-jama pine tree in back yard
Hang curtains and ~~for goodness sake~~ paint feet of dresser in Carolina Room
Paint over wallpaper in half bath
Install new light fixtures in master bath
Fix fireplace

I will finally finish those feet, I swear!

The Rest

Read books 6 & 7 of Outlander Series
Cook best Thanksgiving dinner ever
Watch Saving Mr. Banks movie
Find opportunity to play Harry Potter trivia
Design final Invitation Suite for BFF

Get excited!

As you can see, that’s a lot of goals! I am hoping that most of them are small enough so as to be realistic, but it will be interesting to see where we stand next March. Similarly, at the end of the year I intend to go through my previous goals and see what we have accomplished. Most of the time we are so focused on where we can improve, I want to make sure there is time to celebrate what we have done! That’s all for now!

A Show Recap: Carolina Horse Park and making time (finally!)

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Britt

All braided up and showing off his not-so-fuzzy face!

The show Sunday was a success in many ways. While we did have a bit of a colic scare (not Foster, but his trailermate, Jasper) the supportive community of eventers around us helped us find a vet and eventually send us home safely. We are so glad he is okay and ready to fight another day! We were busy all weekend, seeing lots of familiar faces, including that of a Connemara gelding that my family used to own and breed many moons ago! It is so refreshing to see horses end up in forever homes with wonderful people, and at 18 years young, this guy is going strong! I know because he beat me this weekend! I look forward to seeing this pair again in the future!

Foothills Waterman as a stud at our farm, and this weekend at the show!

Dressage
While there was some tension in our dressage test, we still somehow managed a 32. But the test looked like a giant 7 with a couple 6’s thrown in for the more tense moments, so maybe it didn’t look as bad as it felt. Positive moments included ~~relatively~~ straight centerlines, definitely straight movement down the long sides of the arenas (instead of haunches in!), and a fairly good free walk. We also got straight 7’s in our overall marks, a first for us as a pair! We will continue to work on getting a more active trot and correct transitions, but as always, it’s a work in progress.

Such a ham!

Showjumping
In our warm up, Foster felt really behind my leg, and I was experiencing an odd shooting pain in my right ankle. As a result I kept the warm up minimal. Luckily Foster’s motor and my ankle started to improve as we started our round, and he put in a solid effort to finish with all the rails up and only 1 time penalty point. The first 4 jumps included two serious rollbacks that we lost a bit of impulsion to, which is I think where we didn’t make time. His spots were also not perfect, but at this height I’m not terribly worried. However, I am pleased with my pony for cantering the first fence (no more first fence syndrome!) and getting through almost double clear.

Cross Country
Cross country was definitely the highlight of the show! The course was very nice and inviting, with lots of room to gallop towards the end, and included a sunken road that was so much fun! Foster had a bit of a spook into the water (which is itself quite spooky, being in the dark with an odd reflection in it) but went through the flags and cantered out. I can definitely say that Foster figured out how to gallop, and I finally felt him kick it into gear and feel ~~like Superman~~ confident coming to all the fences. My 1 minute warning beeper went off at the second-to-last fence, and we came in 34 seconds under time– a huge improvement for us! Also… we didn’t get lost!

The ORANGE fence I missed at the last show!

The sunken road

Overall, I am very very pleased with the results. We came in 3rd out of 17 riders and I definitely feel like that he is prepared for Novice- if only we didn’t have to wait till next year to try it! Next weekend we will be heading to the Fork to school their Novice cross country course and I feel like Foster is going to eat it up! So forgive me if I’m a bit quiet this week, and I will post the showjumping video soon and talk cross country on Monday! Congrats to all of the competitors this weekend and thank you to all of the volunteers that put on this great show!

PS if you want to see our photos (thank you High Time Photography!) click here!

Back at home and taking a couple days off!

Learning new tricks

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Britt

This weekend was was one the most beautiful weekends this year. If you have never experienced fall in the Carolinas, you are missing out. The colors on the trees were stunning, and at a lovely 65 degrees, well, you get the idea.

Gorgeous.

Saturday my best friend Nikki came out and gave me a lesson on Foster. Nikki is a lovely rider that traded off with me as student coach in our Dressage Team days, so I knew she would give me great advice. I gained a couple very helpful visualization tips to help us with dressage, aiming to reduce the bracing in the upward transitions as well as lift Foster’s back and increase his swing through the walk.

After about 20 minutes or so of dressage, we switched up tack and played around with fences. Nikki has a good idea of what we have been doing, and went ahead and raised the fences so we could really have some fun. Ranging from 3′ to 3’6″, the course we did included a triple combination (one-stride to a two stride with a 3’6″ oxer) and a heck of a tight rollback to a 3’4″ish chevron fence. I was so proud of my boy for handling everything with good grace, and got another excellent visualization tip that will better my equitation over fences. Nikki then hopped on Foster and hopped over a few fences, giggling over each one as she did! Having not jumped in years, it was great to see her have so much fun!

What are you doing with me today??

After all the fun Saturday, we kept it easy Sunday, with a long and low session that went really well. Then Foster got his bath and out came the clippers! I did a simple trace clip on him, switching it up a bit from last year in that I used more curves than angles.

Foster’s clip last year, more of an Irish Clip with angles

Tonight we will do a not-to-demanding dressage school and tomorrow he will have off. With all these great tips up our sleeves I am really excited about the horse trials this weekend! At the very least I can say we are prepared for success!

I’ll be tidying up the clip job tonight and will be sure to post photos tomorrow!

Must buy all the things!

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Britt

For realz.

After my comedic attempt to ride my horse last week, and because recently we have been working on more lateral work that requires me to sit, I have decided to go shopping.

It started with full seats, before I remembered that it’s time to clip, so I need Body Clippers, and oh yeah, that hand-me-down pair of Open Front Boots are disgusting and falling apart and borderline pathetic on my horse anymore, and oh wait, don’t I need more bute just in case because what horse person doesn’t have bute on hand just in case?

You get the idea.

I did break down and buy myself a new pair of white Kerrits full seat jods that are so sticky I will not have to worry ever again about my rear parting with my horse at a show (just kidding, I know the time is coming). Then Tack of the Day had more Kerrits full seats on sale ($40 off and purple, yes please!) that I just had to get! And then again yesterday there are more Kerrits full seats on sale, and guess what, they are houndstooth! Who doesn’t want houndstooth breeches? Thank god for blogs like Sprinkler Bandits and She Moved to Texas for having awesome contests that stop me from buying things in hopes that I will win them instead!

Boot Giveaway via Sprinkler Bandit.. oh the colors!

Oh, and then add that to the fact that my trunk (a cheap Tupperware thing I picked up at Target for a whopping 12 bucks) is already bursting at the seams -literally- and I am in no mood to repeat the experience of having small rodents set up shop (and then die, ick) amongst my white polo wraps, just because my lid doesn’t quite close all the way!

When you give a mouse a trunk to live in, they might decide to die in it

Where does it end? Do I have a problem?

A Show Recap: Portofino Horse Trials

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Britt

Hey there.

At this point in time, I will admit that I am a little too brain-dead to go into a full blown diagnosis of our show on Sunday. After an exhausting weekend filled with Michael Buble:

Buble, Box Seats, and Big finales- oh my!

and an engagement shoot for a friend:

A preview from the engagement shoot

by the time Sunday rolled around I was straight up exhausted. So I decided we were just going to have fun and see what happened, with our fingers and hooves crossed that things went well.

Well, we had truck issues getting to the show and a very kind friend ended up bringing the ponies out to Portofino for us. So I went way out of order, but luckily the show management was willing to be flexible and let things happen as they may. Thank goodness. Foster felt super relaxed in our warmup, so I rode around for 20 or so minutes before going in the arena.

I have watched the video plenty of times and hashed it all over in my head, but here’s the short version: In hind sight maybe I should have focused on getting him more in front of my leg, but whatev’s. I see plenty of things to work on (I smacked myself in the head when I saw my reins getting long again, what is WRONG WITH ME?!) and some bracing stuff, so all in all, not our best test, but not our worst. So frustrating that again our walk wasn’t up to par until the last couple strides, but good enough to get a 7.5. I think I was being a bit conservative because of the last show when he broke. Anyways, here’s the video, which speaks for itself.

Show jumping was catching a lot of riders out with refusals and what not, so I just decided to go in relatively aggressively (again, Foster was completely blase’ through our warmup but just in case) and get er’ done. He got in a bit deep in some spots and cross cantered a ton (where did that come from?) but because the footing was a bit deep I knew if we stopped we’d never get going again, so we persevered. Clean and clear, but not pretty. Oh well.

I had a tired, hot horse by the time we got around to cross country (PS what is up with the temperature going up 10 degrees on show days?!?) but felt pretty good about the course. Trotted over fence 1 as per our game plan and attempted to rock and roll, but unfortunately never got up to speed because Foster wanted to look at all the funny terrain questions (oh-mah-gerd what is the patch of sand doing there?! and Oh snap! there’s a pile of junk beside fence 3! ahh!) but was a good boy all in all. He hopped over the Novice sized (oh yes, 2’11” fences on a BN course!) fences easily. Not that he shouldn’t have, but still. Here’s the video of our cross country, in which I yell about a certain ‘outrider’ who was wandering around my fences as I was trying to go go go! So I (IMHO) politely was trying to tell people that she was being a distraction and needed to get out of my way! Sheesh!

We ended up 3rd out of 8th, on a 34-point-something dressage score and 5 time faults. I’m pleased and think we are very close! Entry is sent in for another horse trial at CHP on the 10th of November, where we will do our damnedest to make time on both SJ and XC!

Until next time.. keep kicking!

Inconsistency

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Britt

Last night I had the most amazing jump school. I took advantage of having the light still and decided to hop over the 3′-3’3″ fences as originally planned for tonight. For not having jumped anything bigger than 2’9″ in a while, I thought Foster was an absolute champ, and felt forward, straight(ish), and jumping in good form.

Well, I don’t know what happened over night, but when I got out to the barn this morning to school our test, I felt like I had gone from this:

giphy (1)

to this:

Horse Fail GIF

I was sliding all over the place, my fingers were numb, I couldn’t feel my legs- in short, I was spaghetti all over my horse. Poor Foster put up with my ridiculous monkey business for some time, before I realized that I hardly had the coordination to sit, much less do work. Nonetheless we somehow managed to finish with 10 minutes of respectable trot work, but the goal of riding through my test eluded me.

One of the reasons I know I felt like this was just from being a weenie in the cold. I am aware that I have relatively poor circulation in my hands and my pinkies go numb quite quickly in frigid temps, and while this morning did not necessarily fit that bill, it was much colder than what I have been used to. Not a great excuse, but still.

I suspect my breeches were also partly to blame, as they are ones that I haven’t used all year and felt I didn’t have the grip I needed in them. Sunday I will be riding in my new Kerrits Full Seats, which the reviews claim to be sticky sticky sticky. So hopefully that won’t be an issue at the show! Maybe I should practice in them tomorrow… hmm..

Oooh, pretty!

Lastly, I know there are simply days in which I am better coordinated, and vice versa. Do any of you have days like that? I would love to know if I am not the only one!

For now though I will put it from my mind- we were given last minute tickets to go see Michael Buble in concert and I am so excited! So I will leave you with my favorite Buble (and Drifters) song 🙂

Back to business and the NC State Fair

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Britt

Now that the party is over and the husband and I are over our post-party-hosting hangover (not necessarily the alcoholic sort, more of the oh-thank-god-the-house-doesn’t-need-to-be-clean-anymore variation) it’s back to work at the barn with Foster. He really wasn’t worked much the two weeks between our last show and this past weekend, and I can definitely tell he has lost a little muscle tone.

Sorry Drake, we can’t throw your ball because we are tired

I did forget to mention that we went cross country schooling on Sunday at the lovely course just up the road from us. While Foster started out a little silly, more than likely due to the fact that I was amped up on a giant Red Bull and sitting stiff on his back), he settled down and we tackled some new things. Foster did his first trakehner, jump into water, serious jump downhill, and we worked on moving in between jumps and not just dilly dallying. All a success!

OK, so not this big… it may have been less than 2′ tall…but still…

On the flat, he feels like he has more impulsion and self carriage since I got his hock injected, and we had a great school Tuesday night in which we worked on lots of transitions (and my sitting), and some basic canter work. I hope to repeat that lesson tonight and add in some more lateral work that we haven’t schooled in a while. Tomorrow we jump, and will be focusing on getting our confidence back and tackling bigger fences again, in the 3’3″ ish department.

Besides all that, the fair is in town! We went last night with our fabulous neighbors, and had a great time. Nothing beats eating ridiculous fried food (fried mac-n-cheese not your thing? what about the fried brownie sundae?) for one night a year and not feeling guilty about it. My one requirement each year is fried oreos (yum!) and the husband demands everything be covered in chili. Our neighbors were even braver, and sampled (and finished!) the Krispy Kreme burger, a delightful sandwich of questionable meat product served with a slice of cheese and pickles between two glazed doughnuts. I’m told it was shamefully good.

We smile extra hard when we think it may be the last picture we ever take

We also rode the most terrifyingly fast ferris wheel (seriously, scared to death!), marveled at the livestock (the one place I get to use my Animal Science knowledge, naming all the cows and explaining to people that some goats are meant for meat), and gazed upon the biggest pumpkins I have ever seen. I don’t know about you guys, but those things start to look gross to me after they reach 200 lbs! The biggest pumpkin there could be carved into a playhouse for small children and was 799 lbs. Wow!

$11,000 for a pig? Think of how many horses you could buy with that!

All in all a great week, and we are looking forward to our next Horse Trial this weekend. Ali is making the bold move up to Novice, and my goal is to get around the Beginner Novice course ~~without getting lost~~ clean and clear. Then in a few weeks I would like to move up to Novice at a Combined Training show not too far away. Fingers crossed!

A show recap: Carolina Horse Park

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Britt

Well, if we were searching for redemption, we found it… and then lost it. Lost it in a way I will share in a moment, and in a way I can sum up in one quote:

“The person who knows how to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.”

But let’s start at the beginning- thanks to Ali, Foster was able to get to the show grounds the day before and we had quite a nice schooling in the dressage arena, although I noticed he was getting a bit tense in his neck and starting to go crooked again. During dressage the next day I continued to feel this, but got on with it, since you can’t fix everything in one day. We put in a decent test, with some tension and crookedness but otherwise pleasant enough. I was a bit disappointed that we broke in our free walk (normally a solid 8) but happy that we received a 7 on our right lead canter depart and circle, which has been our pain point in the past couple tests. After discussing with a few equine people much smarter than myself, I am going to get his left hock injected again and hope that solves the crookedness issues that are starting to creep back into our work.

Right lead canter yay!

In show jumping I did my best to go in with a get-er’-done approach to the first fence, which he went over quite confidently and then move on with the rest of the course. While he almost jumped me out of the tack over fence 3, he put in a nice round and I am oh-so-proud of my spotted pony. I thought the energy was much better than our last show, and was surprised to hear that we received 19 time penalties. For this level, I thought a forward canter should suffice, barring a few trot strides to allow for simple changes. The time penalty issue seemed to be prevalent for many of the competitors though, so I don’t count it as a loss.

Whee! Foster thinks he’s ready for 2’11” fences!

Cross country is where things fell apart a bit. Foster was a total star and went over the first fence quite happily, and I had the most fun on cross country that I have had in a long time, cantering all the fences without hesitation. Maybe I was having a bit too much fun even, because when I landed from fence 9 I started looking for 10 and didn’t see it where I thought it would be! In the 30ish seconds that followed, I brought him back to a walk, and then a trot, wandering around looking for what I thought would be an obvious obstacle in the middle of the woods- it was bright orange for Pete’s sake! In any case, I laughed it off when I spotted it, hopped over it and carried on our merry way! Just a minor pilot error, and one that I will be laughing about for a long time!

(and no, I couldn’t hear her tell me to turn right! oops!)

So while we didn’t finish where we wanted to (a whopping 40+ time penalties will do that I guess!) I am so pleased that Foster put in nice jumping rounds and did his best. I desperately needed a positive experience after being so bummed about the last show, and this competition was just that. Still more to work on, I know, but nonetheless proud of my boy for redeeming himself and not being phased by his passenger’s nonsense from time to time!

On a more serious note, I have several family members who could do with prayers and positive thoughts sent their way. As great as horses are, our loved ones come first! So if you are reading this and have a moment, please send a quick prayer our way. Thanks for your support!

No news is good news, right?

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Britt

Not much going on in the horse world, as I’ve ridden only once since the last show. While that ride did feel great, I don’t feel over the hump yet. I realized that in my journey to straightness, I have been working less on really bending through our circles, which was highlighted in the judge’s comments. So we worked on plenty of figure-eight’s and balanced transitions incorporating bend. He felt good. Maybe we ~~don’t suck~~ aren’t so bad off after all.

Tonight I may attempt jumping, and see how it goes. The quest to create the scariest jumps ever has culminated in a new monstrosity in the arena, in which the chevron jump had a love child with some barrels and the mixture of plastic and oddness is something I didn’t want to tackle right before the competition. So we will see how tonight goes!

Otherwise we have been busy (as usual) around the house getting the myriad projects I want done accomplished before all of our guests come in a few weeks. Even still, the to-do list is daunting:

Spray paint the doorbell cover to match new hardware
Spray paint the light fixture by the door to match as well
Install new fan in the sun room
Finish painting Carolina Room and hang curtains
Buy new chair for living room
Buy bed for Carolina Room
Paint the annoying piece of wall I missed in the guest bathroom
Figure out why the DVD player doesn’t work in the guest bedroom
Make-over the side table to match the dresser in the Carolina Room
For that matter, paint the darned feet on the dresser!
Get the weed-eater fixed
Apply lattice to outside of sun room

And so on and so forth…

Maybe it doesn’t seem like a huge list, but considering that the husband and I both have 9-5 jobs, a house to keep clean, and oh, not to mention my time consuming horse hobby, finding the time and energy to tackle these projects has been tricky!

Enough with the whining I suppose, let’s get to work!