… I have decided to move Foster. It was a long-thought out, emotional decision, but one I had to make if I wanted any kind of life outside of work and horses. Since I started my new job, the commute to the barn has been much longer (50 minutes long), and has been taking a toll on me- mentally and physically.
The beautiful backdrop driveway for our current barn
Since I am also working later hours than I used to, it means I have been getting out to the barn close to 7 pm every night. Add in an hour and a half of ride time, basic grooming, and a 35 minute drive home and any kind of ‘down time’ doesn’t start until 9 pm. I know I should think of riding as down time, because it’s certainly not a chore, but let’s face it- everybody needs to veg out just a little bit. Not to mention my poor husband is already thinking about bed time at 9 pm, and frankly, so am I. All these reasons, plus the costs of gas meant the whole situation was less than ideal.
Another photo from our engagement shoot at the barn… oldest wood barn in NC!
So I found a place that is closer to work – a whopping 15 minutes away, to be exact! Added bonus that it has an indoor arena, so I can ride even if it’s nasty outside. There are of course a couple compromises to be made, but I am hoping it will be a good fit for us.
Indoor arena at the new facility
I think the hardest thing about making this decision was the thought of leaving a wonderful group of fellow boarders that I have had for the past 3 years. These ladies are fun, fun, fun, and a nice down-to-earth type that I know I can rely on in a pinch. Luckily, they have all been super supportive of my decision and I desperately hope we all stay in touch after the move. It will be sad not to see their faces around the barn, but I hope I can make more barn friends at the new facility.
Fingers crossed that our big move [tomorrow] goes well!
That’s right, I arrived home yesterday from the land of sunshine and richly costumed theme park employees, and am currently blogging from a slightly more dismal, dank office in Pittsburgh. *sigh*
But let me regale you with my tales from Florida! Warning- there are LOTS of photos in this post!
My best buddy (also a fellow equestrian, who used to join me in terrorizing the hunt country on our Haflinger steeds) and I did Orlando on a budget- which means we took the train down to Florida instead of flying. If you’re curious, it’s 13 hrs by train from NC to FL.
On our way!
We got there, then napped (sleeping is somewhat difficult on the train) and decided to save all our energy for the next day- Disney! Now, I haven’t been to Disney since I was little, and really didn’t remember a thing about it, so I was pretty surprised by the level of detail that went into the atmosphere, and many of the special effects were pretty jaw dropping. For instance, I always thought fireworks set to music were nice, but the music would be atmospheric rather than aligned with the visual pyrotechnic display- Disney’s firework show was brilliant- I don’t think I have ever seen timing done so well!
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The next day we went to Universal- the highlight of my trip because I am oh-so-into Harry Potter. Obviously. We arrived as they were getting ready to open the gates, and of course headed straight to Potter land before all the other obsessed Muggles got there and spoiled the fun.
Let me just say, if Disney world was jaw dropping, the effects inside the Castle ride were heart stopping. I still have no idea how they acheived some of the 3D effects they did. It was very well done, so much so that we went for a second trip later in the afternoon.
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Monday we caught some rays (can you believe it was 80 degrees there? paradise!) and then went indoor skydiving! This was possible with a giant wind tunnel, and an instructor will stand on the net and help you get in the correct position so you actually float in the air! The wind is obviously incredibly strong, so you have to wear ear plugs, helmet, and a badass looking flight suit. And, if you walked 2 miles in the blazing sun to get there and you can’t get your rings off because your fingers are like sausages, you also get to wear a glove a la Michael Jackson.
Anyways, the whole floating thing is actually a lot harder than it looks. In order to stay up, you have to relax your spine, drop your waist, bend your legs to a specific degree and hold your arms in a certain way in front of your face (or like me, go for the Thriller pose, embracing the Michael Jackson theme). It sounds easy until you add all the wind and the fact that there is nothing that compares to trying to float in space, so your body has zero idea what is right or wrong! I started to get the hang of it my second time around (we got 2 turns each, 1 minute each turn), but I have a new found respect for the people who do acrobatics doing the real thing! Wow!
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We toasted our new found skills with a glass of wine at Maggiano’s that resulted in a free meal plus dessert (winning!) and hopped the train back to Raleighwood. I got to spend one night with my guy, quickly see Foster, and here I am again in Pittsburgh the next morning! Phew! Lots of traveling, but I am so glad I got to go on such an adventure-packed vacation! Mischief managed!
Farewell, friends! Tonight I am headed to sunny Florida!
No, I’m not headed to Welly World, as much as I’d like to after seeing all of the fun photography opportunities on She Moved to Texas. Nope- I’m headed to the world of adrenaline and geekiness- Orlando! There to finally make my way to the mecca of PG related wizarding fun – Harry Potter world. And you can bet I am excited.
Just as excited as we were for the opening night!
Ready to go with my HP themed manicure!
So expect me to be away for the next few days, and back on Tuesday with lots of geeky fun photos to share with you guys! Have a great weekend, y’all!
We could rename this blog “Stupid Things Britt Does With a Horse”, and it would be a more descriptive title than the current version.
But let’s start at the beginning. I arrived home from Pittsburgh Friday night about 7:30, convinced the husband to take me straight to the barn where I cleaned the white bits of Foster and packed the last remaining details for the show. Proceeded home about 10:30pm, and unsuccessfully tried to sleep. Got to barn at 5:30 Saturday morning, hooked up and rolled out around 6:20 am. About 15 minutes before arriving at the show, I asked my buddy to look up the test for me so I could go over it once more in my head [most of my test practice had been mental to date, as riding time has been limited by my geographical location and/or weather]. Found out the test I had ridden once physically, and many more times mentally, was the wrong test, and started memorizing the new one.
One thing I love about my horse is that he brings his A game to shows. He tends to get really tense and anxious at home when he sees the trailer, becomes a bit spooky in the cross ties as I put on his shipping boots and fairly prances his way to the trailer. But once he gets to the show, he unloads casually and is always cool as a cucumber. I had the most relaxed horse under me during warm up, and I felt awesome about his dressage test. Beyond coming above the bit in his canter transitions (which we have practiced absolutely nil in the last month), he felt extremely obedient throughout and soft as butter. My hands are a little low, but I allowed his frame to be more Training dressage like, and so since there is a straight elbow-to-bit line, I’m okay with that. When we checked the scoreboard, the placings reflected a strong test- 2nd out of 13!
Screenshot from dressage
In the showjumping warmup, Foster continued to be really relaxed- almost too relaxed in fact! Julieann acted as my coach and tried to get me into a more forward canter, and while we got it in the end, I was a bit worried that he wouldn’t be able to maintain that pace through the course, but I pledged to try.
Imagine my surprise when Foster came out guns blazing in the arena! I thought the first fence was a bit spooky (and recalling our last horse trail there), decided to ride aggressively with a couple warning taps on the shoulder which may have gotten him a bit revved up. I may have also not held the soft knee I was striving for, and so he sensed my tension and got a bit carried away. Either way, it was a point and shoot kind of round, and he jumped me out of the tack a couple times for sure! But clean and clear and heading to XC!
Overjumping.. just a little!
Cross country was where I of course had the most concerns leading up to the show, because of both technical and fitness related questions. He knocked a pole pretty hard in the warmup and overreacted a little bit (with of course the timers yelling at me to get in the start box), so I chose to approach fence 1 with a more collected canter that I could control. After that he really opened up, and we had a fantastic run all the way through the water fence. After that, I breathed a big sigh of relief and mentally went on cruise control. This was a bit of a mistake.
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I approached the half coffin, cruising along and thinking nothing of it, and Foster saw that there was a second element (it was a jump, 2 strides to a reasonably sized ditch), and hesitated. Had I been thinking at all, I am 100% sure he would have gone straight over it, but that’s just it- I wasn’t thinking. So we had a run out, whereupon I brought him back to it and he went straight over. Over one more fence, and we were done. I pulled him up, told him he was a good good boy, and basked in the knowledge that we finished our first Novice course.
Over fence 2
Then I realized (by way of whispers), that I hadn’t gone through the finish flags.
Palm to forehead, then hopped into a canter and backtracked to go through the flags. Word of advice- don’t leave your brain at jump 15. Whoops! In any case, Foster behaved better than I could ever have imagined, and my stupid mistakes cost us a beautiful red ribbon! But in the end though, it wasn’t about the ribbon- it was about getting around and giving Foster a positive experience at the Novice level. I am so proud of him and how he behaved, and can’t wait to take him to the next one!
I do want to take a moment to thank Julieann for coming with me, being a source of positivity that I really needed, and taking the lovely video for us! You’re the best!
I knew this would happen, (with me being in Pittsburgh and not being able to help but think about the competition tomorrow) but I had nightmares last night about the show last night. As in, oh no, I overslept and now I’m two hours behind for my dressage test! Do you think I can go from dressage directly to cross country? Yeah, stupid, I know.
Other than being in a different state the day before, I feel pretty good about it now that I’ve seen the course map-
XC course map
It’s technical, as expected (6-14 will require all of my brain cells to be operating!), but with the exception of maybe 2 fences, we schooled the entire course on Monday. We even did the exact same pattern for jumps 7 – 12. I’ll be interested to see how he handles the half coffin, but he schooled the ditch by itself without question, so I’ll just have to ride with a balanced approach and half halt to let him know something is coming up, and trust him to do his job. The only fence on there that I am a little worried about is #9- which is a decent sized brush jump with trees for standards- Foster hesitated at this during schooling and I need to remember to come into it with my stick in hand for some extra “we’re doing this” sort of confidence.
Otherwise, I have ridden through my test once, maybe twice in the past two weeks, so I won’t be too sad if our score isn’t as lovely as usual. It will be what it will be. And that’s all there is to it! Que sera, sera!
I just wanted to take a moment to gush about my best friend, Dr. Nikki Schweizer, who has made taken the first steps toward starting her own veterinary practice this summer! I was flattered that she asked me to design … Continue reading →
So, I am back in Raleigh again, for the time being at least. We did indeed make it to the dinner and reception of the wedding, which was really special! Then Sunday I was able to spend some quality time catching up with Foster, pulling his mane to an actually desirable length and getting him otherwise trimmed up. Then yesterday, thanks to warmer temps melting the snow, we were able to go school XC!
XC schooling last year
I went down by myself (therefore no photos), as my original partner in crime’s horse came up dead lame 2 days prior, and had scheduled a lesson with a trainer I’ve never worked with before. I will admit there were some differences in communication, and I felt like a pretty big dummy at several times. I’ll further admit that I even got a little emotional, as I know I tend to do when I am feeling sick (which I was/am, fighting off a nasty cold and having stomach issues to boot).
In any case, here is what I did manage to learn from the lesson:
Sit into the saddle longer while posting to encourage him to use his backend
Always imagine keeping the hind end underneath me (especially through turns)
Soft, bent knees – no standing in the stirrups!
Make him maintain a rythym (particularly on terrain)
No pulling on the away side of the fence
Ride the canter, don’t just allow it to happen
Swing my hips and connect to him as I ride to the fence (don’t stop riding!)
While I was trying to learn/remember all of this, Foster was thankfully proving himself a mature, solid citizen. He warmed up really nicely, and took to the fences like he’d done it yesterday, not 3 months ago. There was no hesitation at all jumping the Novice questions. The two fences I was most concerned about, the jump over a log into water (he has only done a cross rail version of this), and the trakehner, were ridiculously easy.
What I thought would happen at the water jump
He attacked the water jump. Where I thought I’d be saying Go, I was saying WHOA! Definitely not going to be a problem, and it felt really great to see how confident he has become.
Ali and Baron jumping out over the log jump last summer
The trakehner was also excellent. This was a super friendly jump, where the ditch was not boxed in but still gave the impression of a taller fence and something to look at. There was still a bit of snow on the ground around the fence, so I was a little apprehensive that things might get slippy if he were to suddenly react. Once again, my fears were completely unfounded, and he went over it beautifully. If only I had a photo to prove it!
Because he was so good, and surprisingly peppy even at the end of our schooling, I have committed to the show this weekend. I know we won’t be as prepared as I would like, but I think it will be a good first outing for him at the Novice level. The course will be maxed out technically speaking (there will be a half coffin, bank to pheasant feeder, terrain questions, and of course the water jump), but it won’t be maxed out with height and width. Tonight Foster is going to get an easy stretchy ride and we will prepare as much as possible for a crazy week! Get excited!
If you’ve turned on the news at any point (or facebook), you’ve probably seen that Raleigh is being destroyed by the snowpocalypse. (PS, this picture is of somewhere about 5 minutes from my house).
Best possible use of my photoshop skills and time? Yes, I think so.
So, of course, I’m stuck in Pittsburgh for a couple extra days. It is futile to be upset about it, since you can’t control the weather, but I admit I am very disappointed to be missing the pre-nuptial activities and wedding ceremony of our good friends who are tying the knot this weekend. I’ll be hopping off the plane, dashing back home to change and then trek on down to Raleigh to celebrate with them.
Of course all of this snow also interferes with horses. I’m sure the cross country schooling we meant to do on Sunday is closed, and that makes us just that much less prepared to go to the show next weekend. Still planning on attempting to compete though, just without any goals in mind. We’ll call it a judged schooling experience.
Foster greets strangers by begging
Anyways, for those of you in the south you have my sympathies, and I hope you are all safe and sound and inside somewhere! I hope to be back online next week and give you guys another update on our pre-show scrambling madness!
This weekend was unusually beautiful (aside: do you like how every post these days starts out by describing the weather?), so of course I spent as much time as possible out at the barn. On the flat we are still mostly stretching, and working up to a training level frame to get his conditioning back. Once we is warmed up we have had some really nice trot work, and I’m hoping this will carry through to the canter once he gains more fitness. I’m also working on getting his weight up a bit to help with the muscle building process, so he is getting alfalfa mush and just started on a Cocosoya supplement as well. This is the first time I have tried the latter (previously I have gone with Cool Calories, but I liked that description for the Cocosoya), so if anyone has feedback I’d love to hear it!
Rabid green foamy pony monster wants more alfalfa cubes!
Yesterday we jumped for the first time in ages, and had oh so much fun. He was a little behind my leg (understandably), especially over the cross rails and smaller fences. There were a couple fences set up at 2’9″ and 2’11”-3′ and once he went over those he pepped up quite a bit. After doing a small course, we were talked into trying our hand at the gymnastic that was set up – a crossrail/crossrail bounce, one stride to a vertical, one stride to a 2’9″ish oxer. At first we took out the vertical, as Foster (and maybe even myself) has never done a bounce before and didn’t want to over complicate it. I had visions of him stumbling through (especially after our raised pole confusion a while back), but I was shocked to see how easily he picked up it up, even the first time. We ended up added the vertical back in, and he popped through the whole thing easy-breezy.
Doing this really reminded me how helpful gymnastics can be- I tend to be intimidated by them because I haven’t been really exposed to them, and I worry about not setting them up right and creating a disaster. Luckily, this one was set up by a fellow boarder for her coming-Prelim horse, so I knew she would have the distances right. Going through this exercise really helped us find our spots (the couple single fences I jumped afterwards were so much nicer as a result!), and I could really work on my position over the fence. Will have to start setting up more of these in the future!
Anyways, outside of the barn, life continues to be a little bit of a struggle. My poor father-in-law is still in the hospital, although moved out of the ICU there is no news of his leaving anytime soon. Elliot has a UTI, which is probably caused by stress/separation anxiety and we are now plugging in a Feliway and he is sporting a fancy purple pheromone collar to help him be chill kitty instead of clingy kitty. Here’s hoping that works!
Elliot aka Snaggletooth and his new pretty purple collar
This week looks to be a crazy-fest, with more snow/slush/wintry mix crap coming, traveling to Pittsburgh, a wedding, and a cross country schooling lesson this weekend! More updates to come!
I have just arrived home from Pittsburgh, where it looks like I will be working a couple days ever week for the next little while. While I love traveling (even to Pittsburgh), this does somewhat complicate the ever pressing issue of trying to get my horse fit for the spring season. I’ve been trying to bribe people into riding my horse, but the weather has further complicated the matter. I am debating trailering him to a covered facility after work, just so I can ride my horse!
Who wouldn’t want to ride this (finally cleaned up) sweet thing?
Also, it doesn’t look like I’ll be going to the recognized show at the Carolina Horse Park as originally planned. After seeing how high the entry fee is ($350 for a show!? OK I get it $175 for the entry fee but $175 for stabling too? Normally stabling there is $40/night, not $88/night!), it is too much to at this time. I have already planned a 4 day trip to Orlando the week before, so we won’t be as prepared as I would like to justify spending that much money.
Harry Potter World, here I come
In any case, after looking up the calendar, it does look like there are plenty of options for schooling shows, rather than slim pickins’ as I originally thought. There’s enough for us to do one Horse Trials every month through June. That’s 5 horse trials, and there are even more dressage and jumper shows to keep us busy, if I find I have money to blow. Our first HT will be at Running Start at the end of February. I know we will not make time because he’s not as fit as I’d like, but that’s OK. What I am hoping for is a positive experience and no run outs!
Running Start schooling over the summer
For those of you that have been praying for my family, and that have sent well wishes, I really appreciate it. At the time there is no real news, as the doctors are still trying to understand what is wrong. Thank you for all of your kind words and thoughtful responses. Y’all are the best.
Red on the Right 