WOOOHOOOO!!!!!! Green Acres Report!

WOW. I never thought I'd "get the mojo back" so easily. And so RIGHT!!!!!

So I took Buck, Meghan and Luna to the Green Acres Stables Event yesterday. I was entered at elementary. I had toiled all week beforehand because I was worried about his breathing. I decided to keep him in the 3-phase (instead of dropping to the 2-phase), and planned that if I felt that he needed it, I would retire on cross country and ask (beg) to ride stadium.

I warmed up for dressage in the tiny arena (complete with "water jumps"). It wasn't the best warm-up but I really concentrated on getting him forward off my leg. I rode the test and felt that it was pretty good. He's still learning to come off my leg, and he's so anticipating that sometimes his legs seem to go every which way. It was an accurate test though, and his transitions were pretty good. I expected to score around a 35.....So you can imagine my surprise when we earned a 41.6!!!!! EEEEK. Overall though this judge had very high marks. This score put me in 2nd place after dressage, with the 1st place rider having something like a 38....So really, I guess it wasn't *that* bad. She did comment on the right canter that he looked "off". It's weird because sometimes at the canter he doesn't seem to want to "follow through" on the right front....plus THAT is the foot that he gives the farrier trouble with. So I'm definitely going to do some more exploring. (Going to call the chiro on Monday.)

So then I walked cross country and ofcourse I feel like I'm going to die. In the past we have had first fence-itis....and today's first fence? A BIG ASS LOG.....Now, I'm happy it was a log, but seriously, it is flagged for Novice, Beginner Novice AND Elementary???? My "thigh" test puts this fence at 2'6"....and when I had it on the course last time long time buddy Shannon told me NOT to walk too close because it'll only look bigger close up. Ugh!!!!!! The rest of the fences were all ones I had jumped before with the exception of switching out a few logs for different ones, AND THE BIG SMILIE SURPRISE. haha. The "SMILIE SUPRISE" fence is fence #9 on my course....Basically it is a bunch of stumps sticking out of the ground and then cut to look like a smilie mouth :) The middle of the jump is probably about 2'3", but if you don't hit the middle you may jump as big as 3'. In addition, this fence is about 4 strides out of the woods, and angled funny so at the exit you have to turn left hard but NOT in to the Novice/Training "house" jump....The smilie fence also had a rather large puddle on the landing, and I was worried about that.....So I obsessed about fence #1 - BIG ASS LOG and fence #9 - big ass stumps.

I get back on and begin to warm-up. I want to conserve the pony, the warm-up area is little and they only have 2 jumps - a x-rail and a vertical (with an 8' rail)....I opt to canter a bit, and then I pop the x-rail twice. That was my warm-up.

I get in to the box and tap him a few times....and then we leave the box and I tap him a few more times and turn towards the log....and he LOCKS on it. It was SUCH a cool feeling. His head came up, he sat down, lengthened his stride and we flew over it!!!!! YAY FOR BUCK!!!!! We have no issues at all for the rest of the course. He was AWESOME over the stumps. I was so exhilarated coming off of cross country. Not because of getting over the 2 scary fences, but because he was LOOKING for jumps, positive to EVERY fence and just so much fun to ride! I don't think there was a single "ugly" fence that we jumped - as in they all rode beautifully.

So what changed? I pushed him to canter/hand gallop EVERY single fence. I stayed back, I kicked in places. I TOLD him to jump every fence. Instead of praying that he did. I also remembered Denise's ride when she told me that he was almost "thinking of walking before he even jumped the fence". Obviously that's not a good thing, so I RODE hard to make sure he knew that we were going to continue cantering afterwards.

I think I *finally* got it. I trust him that he's not going to stop if I ride him positively towards every fence. I rode agressively but not defensively, if you catch my drift.

Stadium was up next. The course was held in the sand ring, and since we had a ton of rain the night before, it was SWAMPY in spots....I remembered then the lesson where there were puddles right in front of my jumps and how if I didn't ride agressively he'd stop. So I knew what I had to do - ride like I rode xc!

The course was pretty twisty. Fence 1 & 2 were coming towards home, Fence 3 was an oxer (where I asked for a long spot but he chipped in and was right!), Fence 4 was a vertical to a bending line with a red fence with "panels" underneath it. Fence 6 was a rollback from fence 5. Fence 7 was a scary "rock wall" fence. And finally fence 8 was another oxer.

I rode the course exactly how I had planned. I kicked and whipped a little coming to fence 7 - didn't want him looking at the rock wall. He jumped everything well - though he was tired, bless his heart. We were clean.

AND WE WON!!!!! The 1st place rider had a rail (or stop?) in stadium, and we slid in to take the blue ribbon ;)

I was so VERY proud of him. It wasn't all about the ribbon. It was about the FEELING I had after both jumping rounds. It felt like we were a team, it felt like he "got it"...and he liked it!!!

So we got a really purdy ribbon for the collection, and an AMAZING package of horse cookies. Of course they were gone by this AM....Razzy's Oat Swirls or something like that. They smelled delicious!!!! Buck shared a little bit, but for the most part he got the whole bag to himself. And he totally deserved it!!!!

Meghan and Luna also brought home a ribbon! They got 8th in their first ever 3-phase :) YAY Meghan and Luna!!!!

Riding with Denise

I don't know if I mentioned this in one of my previous blogs, but after the disaster that was Groton House, I decided that I wanted someone to event Buck for me at the BN level. Something about my psyche that had me convinced that it would be BETTER for him AND me if someone more experienced took him there first. At the cross country schooling day on July 1st I cornered Meredith and Denise and we all agreed that Denise Goyea would be the one to christen Buck ;) haha

The plan then was to have Denise ride him a couple times a week and then work towards a few USEA events at the end of the season.

Today was Denise's first ride on Buck. HEHEHEHEHE. Let's just say that it was interesting. Buck has been allowed to "plow" along on his forehand for far too long. Partly because I've been trying to work on me and the jumping and partly because I am still way out of shape and didn't realize that I SHOULD be expecting more out of him. So the first 20 minutes or so were a lot of kick and pull. He would get all sorts of nasty with his head, hop a bit, there were a few crow hops and one leap then buck, hehe. But he *did* get it eventually and by golly, there were some FANCY steps there!!!!! He is INDEED a very fancy little pony :)

At some point she began jumping him. She only jumped a bit because it was hot, humid and his breathing still isn't there. She deliberately made him take a few long spots. When I explained to her at the end that I felt he was hanging his shoulder and getting REALLY close the jump, she told me it was because he was using his FRONT end to get his power off the ground. So he gets closer to the base because he's using his front end to determine where to take off from. I don't know much about jumping, but THIS explanation sounds pretty darned good to me. It makes sense.

She was concerned about his fitness. I can DEFINITELY see why she would be. But I also know that he would've been MUCH better about 2 weeks ago and that the breathing issue that is very recent is causing him to seem a lot less fit than he is. I know I'm no expert, but I have been through this "exercise intolerance" issue before and once he's through the inflammatory process he'll bounce back fine. She was also concerned that he jumps and then just wants to stop at the end of the jump. Part of this I think is from the breathing because just a few weeks ago I was not having that problem. But it is true. He's a lazy horse and we're definitely going to have to work on that!

Other than that, she felt like he was a good jumper. That he is going to be a lot of fun! And he's comfortable to ride (which I already knew!). The current plan is for her to take him BN at Apple Knoll Schooling Trials on August 2nd, and then his first USEA event will be King Oak in September! FUN :)

A Set Back in the Health Department :(

Poor weenie, allergic Buck! So the ghetto barn DID catch up with him :(

Tuesday I had a lesson with Meredith and I was pleased with it. Very pleased, in fact. I noticed though that he was definitely stiffer in the right canter....and he coughed a few times, but nothing serious.

Wednesday he was off.

Thursday he got new shoes. And in the time it took for Brad to get all 4 shoes on (and the hind two tapped), Buck coughed at least 10 times and had very rasp-y breathing sounds. UGH.

So I took him to the clinic Friday morning and unfortunately confirmed what I was thinking on Thursday. He's having another flare up of the inflammatory airway disease from December :( He's obviously allergic to SOMETHING in the environment and I haven't quite pinpointed it. We scoped him, redid the bronchial aveolar lavage (aka "B.A.L") and then drew blood for allergy testing. The BAL is an interesting process where they insert a tube in to his airway, push saline in to the tube (lung) and then withdraw it all. Then they send the samples out for a cytology reading. Last time he had this done it showed a large level of nuetrophils and mast cells. Mast cells are present when there is an inflammatory/allergic reaction. We are *hoping* that THIS time we may be able to see something that he inhaled and deduce from there that it is causing him issues. Dr. Jackie Bartol told me that she once had a case where a horse had inhaled "rust" like flecks that were present in the BAL....and it turned out that the horse had a rusty salt block holder in his stall. Once they removed the salt block holder the horse was fine. Now we're not expecting anything that EASY to happen, but if they find particles then we know that it is likely related to airborne particulates and may not necessarily be ONE particular thing he is allergic to....(Which would be why my controlling of his environment - him living outside, no shavings, soaking all hay, etc - has helped him thus far!)

So anyways, we're in a wait and see pattern from that to see if we can get more information.

In the meantime, Buck had 5 days off. I rode for the first time today and he was definitely feeling alright body / muscle wise. He wasn't stiff at all, and I had some AWESOME walk-canter transitions and trot-canter transitions. I have no doubt that the shoes we put on him helped this :) Yay! Unfortunately he was pretty winded (despite being on the prednisolone for 2.5 doses). No coughing though he had a LOT of mucous being expelled from his nose.

Before the ride I opted to sign up for the Green Acres 3-phase on Saturday. We're doing elementary again. Hopefully he'll be back to himself again - or at least on the way there. I remember seeing a pretty remarkable difference in his breathing after he'd been on the pred for 5 days last time....so hopefully that'll be the case. If not I'll just ask to make my entry a two phase and be done with it!

GMHA Starter Trials

So the last event on my "schedule" from this Spring was the GMHA Starter Trials held in South Woodstock, VT on July 4-5th.

Between the Groton House debacle I had 3 stadium jumping lessons and one cross country schooling day. That's a lot of jumping, hehe! At least it felt like that's all I did when I went to ride. My last lesson, which I did not blog about, was a disaster. Mere had set-up a two stride combination and I just couldn't get the right distance coming in, and once the jumps were raised, we started having stopping problems at the first element :( So that was on July 3rd, and I was set to do Elementary at GMHA on July 5th. Needless to say this left me in a bit of a lurch, and I was definitely nervous coming in to GMHA.

We have had TORRENTIAL rains in the past two weeks, and the grounds just can't seem to soak it all up. This led to GMHA's decision to run a "modified cross country" course in the "Upwey Arena"....well I hadn't been to GMHA in YEARS (9) and therefore I didn't know what to expect....couple that with the part that I had already paid for the hotel room and I just decided that I had to go.

I was having serious doubts on Saturday about whether I should continue at the elementary level or if I should drop back and do some smaller stuff and become a stronger jumping rider. But I didn't want to give up at GMHA, and I also figured that if this weekend went disasterous that I would definitely drop....and if not, well, we'd just keep on at this level.

So this was Buck's first time overnighting at a show. He ended up becoming fast friends with the gelding behind him, which made Sunday quite interesting when both horses were in and out. At one point he hauled off and kicked the wall....and poor Shannon and Kisses got the scare of their life :( Thank Gawd the temporary stabling held up and no one was hurt....but then I got after Buck and he realized that I am FAR more intimidating than being left by his good old buddy gelding pal in the next stall. Yah. We were unfortunately stabled in the very disgusting "ghetto" barn called "Upwey". GMHA has done some serious improvements on their facility, and it would've been nice to have seen the new stalls and what not. Apparently they wanted to test Buck's respiratory issues and see if he could indeed handle staying all night in one of the dustiest, moldiest barns around. And he did make it, but I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that he had Flovent and Albuterol on board. And I would've put some eye drops in his eyes too if I had brought them (the dust/allergens in the air made his eyes all gooky).

Anyways, we settled Buck in for the day, then went to check in at the hotel....I then went back to the barn and braided Buck, walked the courses with Shannon, and THEN we went to dinner. On the course walk we noted quite a few slick spots, and the warm-up "dust bowl" could now be coined the "mud bowl"....Yuck!

Sunday dawned a GORGEOUS day. Absolutely some of the nicest horse show weather I've ever encountered. Sunny, breezy and a high of about 68!

I tack up for dressage and get on. We meander through the stream over to the mud bowl, which miraculously dried up overnight and the footing was fantastic! YAY! I warmed up and found Buck to be quite opionionated, and he even threw in a few bucks here and there? Alrighty then. We went in to the test and he IMMEDIATELY dropped behind my leg and decided that he didn't need to move off my inside leg....grrrrrr.....we *did* have good up transitions in to the canter, but one of the transitions was so darned early. The rest of it was pretty bad - wiggly in spots, I couldn't get him in to the puddle down the long side so it we were off the rail about 2 feet from B to M! Nothing was glaringly terrible, but he was just so against my leg it wasn't even funny. Now at least I know what we can address in my Helen Cast clinic on Sunday!!!! I believe I scored a 42.1, which would have been the WORST score I have EVER EVER attained in my life. I knew it was bad, but I certainly didn't think it was a 40+ bad. It was rhythmical and he was fairly forward. The geometry was not great, but nothing so bad, especially after video review...

Dressage Video

So we have a huge lull between dressage and the jumping phases. Anyways, I have time to obsess about stadium...and obsess and obsess. The course is fairly fair for the level. Fence 1 is a tiny vertical away from the gate on the diagnol. Then fence 2 is a max vertical 4 strides to a smaller vertical but this fence has a YELLOW panel with stars cut out. (This line was on the way back to the gate.) Fence 4 is an OXER painted orange and blue - quite "looky" and going away from the fence....then Fence 5 is a rainbow colored fence with little green rolltops on the ground acting as a ground line. Then we come to fence 6, a natural fence with a natural brush box underneath. Then 3 strides to fence 7, a red and white oxer, finally loop back to fence 8, a purple and white fence with a brush box underneath it.

Stadium warm-up was interesting. I got him in to the canter and was easily able to adjust his stride. And we did jump all 3 warm-up fences BUT we got some really wonky distances. Thankfully I remembered Meredith's advice about "controlling the canter NOT the distance". I was able to stay about of his way. He was on FIRE! hehe

We go in to stadium, and he seems pretty keen to the game. He's learning now what his job is and how to do it. We pick up our canter and heads towards fence 1. The funny thing is that I FELT like he was gunning at it, but in the video, it appears that he was just increasing his stride length so he could meet the distance properly...>WOAH< ;) Fence 2 is uneventful, Fence 3 comes up and he peeks at it, but it's fine. I ride fence 4 (the oxer) very strongly because it could cause an issue, and he goes with it. Fence 5 was also a perhaps looky fence....he peeks, but doesn't have issue with it. At this point we come to the combination and he TROTS the first fence, and then gets 4 tiny strides in to the 3 stride combination, but hey, it works. Finally fence 8 he peeks at, but again, no problems. We went CLEAN. Which, ladies and gentlemen, is a HUGE deal for Buck the Clutz!!!!!

Stadium Video

We meander to modified cross country. It's actually kinda a cute set-up. They have a huge arena filled with natural objects. Unfortunately they have so much "stuff" in the arena that there's a lot of twisty turns, but they were able to run 5 levels of cross country in there! It's more like a derby cross for us. They have a few fences with logs underneath a pole, there are 2 coops (a natural one and a red one) and a haybale jump. The footing is FANTASTIC. Perhaps a little hard, but I'll take it.

Unfortunately we pick up the wrong lead out of the box and have to hang a hard left...so I pull him back to the trot to the first fence and then proceed to get on top of his neck. He says NO WAY, I'm not jumping like that, and he stops. Ugh. Well I turn and take a breath and represent him to it in a strong trot and he pops over it no biggee. Then we trot to fence 2, the grey coop. We had to snake way out to get the line for fence 3 and 4...then run around the start box to fence 5. Really, these 3 fences were in really yucky spots for a younger/greener horse because the turns interrupt the rhythm. BUT, fence 6 - 7 - 8 were great. Fence 6 was a red coop that we were able to canter at in a nice forward rhythm....so THIS is what cross country is supposed to feel like!!!! Fence 7 and 8 (backwards 1 & 2) rode beautifully.

Cross Country Video

I learned a TON about Buck and jumping him during this event! He LIKES to be ridden forward to the jumps. Me worrying about the distances has made me bring him back and I think he is like, "Hey, what's wrong with you????" haha

So the weekend ends with another stop. BUT a huge learning here. And a pretty big breakthrough. I have more clarity of what I want to do and what I feel I need. First of all I need to work on the flatwork a lot more. Second of all I need to do a lot more work on myself jumping wise! I am going to finish off the summer at elementary, but I'm going to have Denise Goyea do some riding and competing on him so he gets more mileage for ME ;)

A quick view of "cross country"

Getting my "mojo" back....

At least that's what Meredith said yesterday about my cross country schooling day runs! Scarlet Hill Farm ran a "Cross Country Show" yesterday in the miserable wet conditions! The idea is that they set a course and an optimum SPEED. You then go across the course and try to match that speed. The person closest to the optimum speed wins. You are expected to go over all of the fences as in horse trial but disobediences do not count. You can't get eliminated for too many stops at a fence, and if you want, you can go around a fence or choose an easier option.

The time for the "elementary" division was 275 meters per minute - which is a "strong trot". I am sort of past the whole trotting fences thing, so I was more going out to "get the flow" of the course and have a good positive schooling before our GMHA schooling trials this weekend.

The course was on the small side, but had some better questions (for me) near the end. The first fence was a pile of logs going away from the trailers/barn area. Then you s curve to fence 2 which had two options - a small log on the ground or a hanging log. Then curve a bit more to fence 3, an unsuspecting log which caused A LOT more problems than anticipating. Then we are in to the 2nd field. Snake down to another log (the "troll" log from previous schooling sessions). Fence 5 had an option - you could either jump the 2' olive colored table or a small pile of logs. Fence 6 was an up bank - maybe about 18" to 2'?, Fence 7 was a reddish colored coop, and finally Fence 8 was the tiniest little log up near fence 1.

So I go out on course. Buck goes in to the start box and says, "HEY, I KNOW what we're doing!!!" It was REALLY cute to see him perk up his ears and kinda know exactly what was going on! We head off to fence 1 with no problems, but then we get bogged down between fence 1 and 2 (and maybe there was a bit of wanting to run to the trailers???) so we opt here for the small log on the ground. Then to fence 3 - which was a HORSE EATING MONSTER!!!! I don't know WHAT his problem was, but he didn't want near this fence. With a little beating and spurring he went and then was fine to fence 4. At this point we finally have a rhythm. My PLAN for fence 5 (olive box) was to go for the olive box, but if I had had any "issues" earlier in the course to go for the log pile because I was there to build confidence. Plus the olive box had ridden TERRIBLY when we schooled in a few weeks ago in a different location. Anyways, we had a nice canter here, so I just went for it - and it was great. We trotted the upbank no problems, hopped over the coop and log. We had a clear round and I was happy with my resolve to not have a "stop" at fence 3.

Turns out that there were birds DIVE BOMBING everyone around fence 3.....and horses - even well schooled event horses were having problems there!

So we go out again on our 2nd run. This time I opt for the hanging log at fence 2. And the "Bird Log" was still sticky but none too bad. The olive table/box rode beautifully this time, and we cantered the up bank. Everything was spectacular this round and we came off the course very confident.

I had tried out some of my new jumping skills that we've practiced, and by darn it, I think he jumps better with them :) So my new mantra is "Squeeze your boobs" around the course, hahahahahahaha. I was so proud of my little pony guy....he REALLY gets it now!

So I wasn't expecting any kind of ribbon because I was going much faster than the other riders I watched. Well, apparently my "guage" is way off. I was going 252 mpm....and I ended up in 2nd place. haha! That is hysterical, but just icing on the cake of a very good schooling :)