Post show thoughts

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Britt

Now that I’ve had time to process our whirlwind first show experience, I can attempt to put together the lessons learned, both for Smitty and myself.

I think my own overarching feeling is that of relief in terms of the weekend. There have been times in the last couple months when I wondered what I have gotten myself into with a talented youngster [read: handful] like Smitty. I doubted that I would have the confidence to lead such a horse through new experiences and create a positive outcome. But driving away from the show, I felt that even the speed bumps along the way that I made the right decisions and gave Smitty the best experience I could given the environment. He learned to be polite in his stall, to look to me for guidance over new fences, and to focus on his person rather than the horses around him. Though he continues to need lessons in some ground manners, for instance the difference between nuzzling and nipping, I am learning that I can trust him and I learned that giving him a job is the best way to navigate any mental obstacles he may face.

This is my dance space, this is your dance space. Figure it out, Smitty.

As part of giving him a job, I think I will be proactive rather than reactive in terms of lunging. Getting him moving, and his brain engaged, was a good way of balancing the atmosphere of a show, and while shows are still a novel thing to him, we’ll calculate lunging into our warm up plans. I’m not a fan of lunging much in general, but it’s the safer alternative to a ticking baby bomb. Though next time hopefully he won’t be so tired that I feel like I have to hump and kick him to get him forward in a basic walk trot test.

We also learned that as far as a plan, at this point in time it’s safe to say that having extra folks around is a necessity. Holding a wiggle worm that attempts to eat anything and everything in sight makes even sponging him off a two man job. Once standing is easier, maybe we can manage showing on our own, but for now… not so much.

How I feel trying to manage Smitty and basically anything else

One of the wonderful things about the weekend was feeling like Smitty and I bonded a bit, as cheesy as that sounds. There were moments walking around, or in his stall, or just hanging out in warmup, that I felt like he would turn and look at me. It’s those little moments when I can tell him he’s a good boy (or you know, yell it at him a thousand times in a row) that makes me see a glimmer of a partnership down the road. Though basically I relish any opportunity to communicate with him that’s beyond “get that out of your mouth” at this point.

Smitty is getting a full 3 days off to recover from his long weekend and hopefully process all that happened. And I’m taking the 3 days off to recover and soak my aching everything. After being stepped on at least 4 times, my feet have been thoroughly abused and staying horizontal is the name of the game until Thursday.

What I haven’t decided yet is where to go from here. I have a couple off-property lessons I am attempting to plan, but no shows on the calendar for now. I think a W/T/C test could easily be in the books next time, but where and when are still up in the air. Still, lots to think about and lots to be excited about for now!

Horse Show Recap: GaG at CHP

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Britt

While I’m having a serious bout of horse show hangover (y’all, it was 2 years since my last show!), I can definitely look back on Smitty’s first competition and smile.

We arrived Saturday afternoon and settled him into his stall, and he seemed fairly content to relax and munch his hay and drink his water like a good boy. We walked a few laps of the venue and let him see the bikes, kids, dogs, tents, and other general show atmosphere that was slowly building. Since he handled it well, I tacked up and schooled him a bit. Luckily for us, there was only one other rider schooling, which had little to do with Smitty and a lot to do with my mental composure. Once I relaxed ~~my death grip on the reins~~ and gave us both a job of moving forward and changing direction, life got suddenly easier and we were able to find a good note to end on.

The next morning we went on another walk around the venue, which was decidedly much busier than the day before. All was well until about 10 minutes in, when the atmosphere got to Smitty’s baby brain and resulted in a minor meltdown. In the interest of self preservation, and of those around me (read: horses, children, dogs everywhere), I found a quiet unused field to lunge him and get the sillies out. It took a lot longer than I would have hoped to do so, but eventually he got his brain reinstalled and was listening and doing transitions politely on the lunge line and it felt safe to venture back into polite society.

At that point it was almost time for my dressage, and so we tacked up and found another somewhat quiet area to do warm up before heading into the arena. Baby pony was tired at this point, but put in an obedient test and was completely unfazed by his sandbox experience. We had wiggly centerlines (straight lines are hard, yo!), and geometry in general left some points on the table, as well as a lack of free walk (which we haven’t introduced yet). But given that, Smitty still scored a 29.7 and got his first 9 for a movement- what more could I ask for?

After dressage, Smitty got to nap for a couple hours before heading out to show jumping. The Green as Grass showjumping was held on the grass, and I was surprised to see the cross rails of the past replaced with a full set of verticals and even an oxer, complete with gates (which I have no idea if he’s ever seen) and ferns and the like. It was a proper mini showjumping course.

Celebrating with some dressage with some Chardonneighneigh

Celebrating dressage with some Chardonneighneigh

My warm up consisted of a couple trot circles, one lazy jump over the warm up cross rail, and heading into the arena. Smitty perked up a bit at the sight of the new fences, and we proceeded to fence one. At each new jump, I could feel the baby brain wondering why this one didn’t look like the last. But he was incredibly honest and with a little encouragement took each one with increasing confidence. As you can hear in the video, I did my best to convince him that he was superman after every fence, the dominator of 18″ fences all over the world. Apparently my nattering was highly entertaining to my friends, so enjoy the commentary.

Our clear showjumping result left us in 2nd place (or 1st, they haven’t posted official results) out of 10 horses, and I couldn’t be happier. With the help of wonderful friends, and a great venue, baby Smitty had a wonderful first show experience and hopefully set the bar for things to come.

Growing Spurt

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Britt

Among all my frustrations about saddle shopping was a nagging fear that all of my blankets, nary a season old, would also not fit the lanky new pony. So of course I stuck my head in the sand and decided I would just pull them out when it was cold, and pray they would fit. Because nothing says fall like ~~pumpkin spice lattes~~ ~~scarves~~ ~~leaves changing color~~ dropping a few hundred dollars on new blankets.

But praise be, the blankets fit. Apparently Smitty’s length makes up for Foster’s breadth, so we won’t have anything to worry about for the time being.

And then my farrier showed up to do another horse, and while Smitty was in the cross ties, happened to point out- “you know your horse is bum high, right?”

And sure enough, he is. No wonder he’s been looking a bit lanky again this last week. I was hoping he’d go wide before he went tall, but looks like that’s not to be. My farrier assured me, my dreams of a 16.2h horse are basically shot.

Please don’t grow too much- k, Smitty? Please?

Just part of the baby-horse journey I suppose!

Smitty’s Family Tree

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Britt

Yesterday I sent off Smitty’s passport to the RPSI registry to officially get transferred into my name. There’s some little thrill of peering through his passport and seeing all these names of horses long ago. Having an inspected warmblood is new to me, and getting to look up his ancestry brings the same sense of wonder that I imagine TB owners get looking up their horse’s racing history. It’s fascinating to consider the purpose and thought that was put into these matches and hopefully see a glimmer of what is to come.

click to enlarge

It was most interesting to me to see that there is some dressage in there, and while I am no bloodline expert- it’s obvious that with Stakkato and Calypso in there that he is also very jumper-bred as well. An eventer lurks in there somewhere, I think!

Smitty’s First Incident

Posted on September 21, 2016 by Britt

Yesterday I got out to the barn, and upon running my hand down one of Smitty’s delicate little legs immediately had a shock. His right hind was swollen and hot. Further investigation showed a really long scrape down the inside of the leg, about 8 inches long.

I threw him on the lunge and if I wanted to nit-pick, I would say he wasn’t stepping quite as under on that hind as the other, and was more sluggish to the right. But not obviously off. So I threw my ice boot on it and waited 30 minutes.

Annoyed with my standing just out of reach

After the half hour, I removed the ice packs, and applied surpass to the leg, avoiding the scrape itself. My hope is to go out again this evening and rinse and repeat the process, assuming it hasn’t gotten noticeably better.

It was bound to happen eventually, so here’s hoping Smitty’s first incident is just a small one.

Smitty’s First Cross Country School

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Britt

I’ve officially owned this tall drink of water for a month, and so it was time to get off property and introduce him formally to a proposed life in eventing. With the help of my friend A, we took a long afternoon with no time constraints to head to a local schooling venue.

Smitty doesn’t appear to have loaded into a step-up trailer before, but after some honest coaxing we got him on and soon enough arrive at the venue. We got him off and I led him around the giant field scattered with cross country fences. With each one he would look at it, snort, touch it, and then immediately nosh on the surrounding grass. After a few minutes of this even a dilapidated pile of wood that once was a corner was no big deal to him.

We tacked up (a two person job without crossties- such the wiggle worm!) and meandered around the field again. When nothing had changed, we went for a big trot and canter. A quick check on transitions and steering and it was time for some “real” cross-country stuff.

The first was a baby ditch, more like a swale with a ground line. But for a baby eventing horse, it was the perfect introduction. Walking and trotting over this proved to be no big deal, so we progressed onto eventing requirement numero dos- banks. The first attempt, he didn’t understand the question, but on the re-approach went up it like a champ. We trotted up it a couple times, then came back down it at a walk and trot. On landing, he happily cantered off without any drama.

Next up was the bowl, which we used to show him terrain and how to balance himself going up and down the steep hills. Bar one moment of exuberance, this too was no big deal. Onto the water!

The water was interesting, because in its current state it was obviously home to frogs and dragonflies and a crap ton of algae. It took some minutes to insist to Smitty that it was truly water, and not some kind of toxic sludge. But as soon as he stuck his nose in it you could see the light bulb go on, and he marched through and around it without looking back. In fact, he cracked me up because when we went to exit the water, he took it upon himself to leap out!

To say I’m thrilled with our first adventure is an understatement. Smitty handled everything with as sensibly as a baby can, and really seemed to take to the idea of working out in the open. Now that I know that he can be such a good boy, I can’t help but think up all sorts of things that we can do next!

Smitty videos and our first time jumping

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Britt

Saddle woes continue, but in the mean time I’m trying a couple of (very generous) friends’ saddles in pursuit of a band aid for the situation. This particular saddle is a County, with a narrow tree and skid row panels. The saddle seems an OK fit other than being a bit tight at the front, but it was interesting to see him go in it and get feedback from Smitty himself.

https://youtu.be/TGfuMmBrvC4

Overall, he was maybe not as free and forward in it as he was in the Stubbens, but not terrible. You can see in the video that he was a big stride, but tends to get behind the leg, which causes some not-so-wonderful tendencies in me. I’m continuing to work on not nagging and using voice and a quiet leg/whip combination to get the forward, but as the video shows, it’s very much a work in progress. I’m quite pleased with the canter transition though, and once I can get his back up in the canter I can ask for a trot more like this:

https://youtu.be/huyfeNw3zVM

And even in the downward transitions I have to remind him to march forward. So much to work on! Then yesterday, we did this:

Baby fences! It’s hard to even call them jumps, because at this stage we basically just canter over them. The vertical was initially a cross rail, and when that went well I hopped off and changed it. It’s maybe 18″, but it was a good place to start. My approach was basically grab the neck rope and keep my leg on, and bar a couple long spots, it went quite well! Perhaps next time I’ll get some video proof. (Many thanks to A for videoing the above!)

Wednesday I am heading to the American Eventing Championships in Tryon to provide moral support for a friend. Shout out if you’re headed there too, would love to meet up with folks!

Lesson Recap: Smitty takes the first step to Dressage Ponydom

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Britt

So last night, I finally got to introduce Smitty to one of my A-team. In a borrowed saddle from a friend who also has a rather narrow pony, I had my first lesson aboard my gawky warmblood baby.

My biggest lamentation with Smitty at the moment (this being only 2 weeks into our relationship) is that he is a somewhat lazy fellow. Because it’s important that I establish some basic rules from the get-go, my main emphasis in riding him so far is to get him in front of my leg without getting in the habit of nagging (which I want to do so badly). I’m trying, but I admit this is a lot easier with someone on the ground reminding you to have a hanging leg.

A lot of what I got in my lesson was affirmation of some of the things I’ve been doing, which is always encouraging. Our warm up consists of walk halt transitions, using primarily my weight to halt and keeping the expectation that he march off when I ask, not dawdle in a slowly increasing tempo. Other affirmations include my using the walls as a guide for him to pick up the correct lead, and pushing him forward in the downward transitions (rather than let him collapse and stop like he really wants to do).

Of course it wouldn’t be a lesson if I didn’t learn things, and I definitely learned plenty. I forget oftentimes to use my voice in combination with a leading word- for instance, I just say “trot!” instead of “…and trot” or “alright Smitty, trot!”. It seems silly, but it’s more fair to let him know that something is coming even if it means a bit more nattering to my horse. He’s already picking up on the verbal cues really well, but it’s up to me to continue to be consistent and give him the best opportunity to succeed at what I’m asking.

Position is also something I’m struggling a bit with, since Smitty tends to bounce me out of the saddle with every trot step. My hands like to creep higher and higher with his head, so I need constant reminder to keep my hands low. Physical reminders to do this include thinking about touching his mane with my hands, looping a finger through my neck strap at the canter, and thinking about keeping my elbows heavy.

Since I’m probably boring you guys to death with all this baby stuff, I’m going to throw the rest of my babbling notes into bullet form:

Don’t ask for much contact at the walk. When getting ready to trot, pick up a soft feel and trot immediately- we do not want to to bottle up his walk while we are still encouraging him to stretch and step forward
In trot walk transitions, keep leg quiet during the few steps of walk before picking up trot again- no nagging in between
In the canter, really think about releasing with the reins, don’t be tempted into pulling.
Riding a circle, ask for bend for a few steps and release
- Release is an important concept with babies, so they keep thinking forward and learn the difference between asking and “not-asking”

Overall, it was a super lesson, and Eliza really liked and had good things to say about my new youngster. I’m already looking forward to hitting the saddle again tonight and giving some of this new content a go again!

Smitty Week 1 Update

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Britt

So it’s officially been one week since meeting the Smitster, and I couldn’t be happier with his little baby brain. Getting a baby, which I consider him since he really acts/looks more like a 3 year old than a 4 year old, has reminded me of a few things that I haven’t recalled in some time.

The first is tack woes. While I really didn’t expect my existing saddles to fit Smitty, since they are medium wide trees and he is a rather narrow fellow, I forgot how tricksy it can be to constantly be figuring out bits and bridles and all the other little things that you take for granted once a routine is established. For instance, I’ve already determined that 2 of my bits aren’t ideal at the moment for him, and added in the dressage whip as well, and we’ve only ridden 5 times so far.

And even further in my baby tack woes soliloquy, I will likely be selling my beloved PS of Sweden bridle, since baby Smitty’s refined head is literally too small for it- the noseband on the tightest hole still doesn’t really work and I’m loathe to punch holes in it and cut off the excess.

Wah, I love this bridle.

But I suppose selling the bridle (among other things, post coming soon) will help fund the new saddle that I’ll be auctioning off my soul to buy. Le sigh, major first world problems here.

Other than tack woes, there’s just the process of sorting out what my new horse responds to. I like to use vocal positive reinforcement a lot, but I learned pretty quickly that this guy has been taught that “good boy” means “whoa”, so I’ve been trying different inflections of my voice with the phrase to reward him and teach him that he can keep trotting at the same time. I suppose I could find another phrase, but “you’re super duper” or “gold star” don’t quite roll off the tongue.

Tonight I plan to introduce yet another bit into the mix and hope that this one sticks, and continue working out Smitty’s buttons and continue to acquaint him with his new life as a dressage and eventing pony.

Adventures in Horse Shopping: The Changing Face of Buying Horses

Posted on August 11, 2016 by Britt

In the olden days of horse shopping, if I was in the market for a horse, I had a few different go-to tactics. I’d go pick up my local Stablemates magazine, check out the classified section of the Chronicle, or consider going to an auction. The only online source I checked religiously was dreamhorse.com, which I would check out even if I wasn’t looking in order to stay aware of the market.

Now, buying horses is a whole other ball game. Thanks to social media and the addition of several new search-based horse sales sites, horse shopping has become accessible in a way it never was before. My daily routine for the search started by checking the new ads on warmblood-sales.com, then dreamhorse, then equinenow.com and equine.com, and eventually ended up on facebook.

Horse shopping on facebook is at once overwhelming and amazing. Amazing, thanks to friends being able to tag and suggest horses in a heartbeat, and thanks to sellers being able to respond directly to search ads. Even more amazing was the response to my tongue-in-check ISO ad, culminating in an article by the Chronicle. The overwhelming aspect of searching on social media is the sheer quantity of responses and horses available. Keeping up with sellers, their horses, the back and forth conversations and the scheduling and rescheduling of appointments kept me mentally hopping, and while exhilarating, was also exhausting.

The other fun side of social media has been sharing some of the horses I’ve looked at with you all, albeit it becomes a tricky balance of sharing and still respecting the seller’s privacy and goals. But getting to sit on nice horses, and so many different types of rides, is an exciting adventure that warrants sharing and social media is the obvious enabler of that.

https://youtu.be/KPOyFbDyAOE

In the end of course it was also facebook that led me to Smitty. A dressage prospect hiding in a Hunter Jumper group that an eventing DQ just had to snap up. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to see that ad marked with a big fat SOLD tag, and how much I enjoyed cancelling all my ISO ads thereafter.

Smitty’s Sales Ad

Social media has changed a lot when it comes to horse shopping, and now, I get to use it to bombard you all with new pony updates!

Red on the Right

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