Holy cow, so many cool people

Last week was pretty awesome. There was the NorCal blogger meetup, which was wonderful to be around so many kindred spirits and next time I'll have to actually talk to the people at the other end of the table.

 
 L came out and met Tango and Kat, we had dinner, many laughs were had.

I ran my Eventing Boot Camp which is going to be a post unto it's own. I asked Megan to come out and teach a clinic for my EBC, which was an amazing experience for my girls.

I got to meet Figure's Confetti and play with her a bit.

I had dinner with Emma and L and Megan which once again drove home how incredible it is that there are people like them in the world.

This is such a crazy thing, our love for horses. And I spend a lot of time with my clients and students who all love these crazy animals the way I do. Then I go out in the 'real world' or just talk to my mom.... and feel that I am so lucky to have this insane passion, this absolutely ridiculous thing that actually grounds me and keeps me real.

And meeting all of you has made me more grateful, that even this (by which I mean, taking an already crazy thing [horseback riding] and making it even crazier [writing about it on the internet]) even THIS can be beyond valuable. Thank you, all of you!

Kat-Apulted

Life of a Groom

Yesterday (actually April 26 because this has been sitting in my drafts for a very long time) while chatting with the farrier about goodness-knows-what because that's what you do when the farrier is there, one of my working students had tacked Tango up for me and sort of hung around awkwardly waiting for me to take Tango up to school.

Tango started to dance and I think WS might have coughed or something to remind me that I had a horse waiting for me, and the farrier shared this story that just made me laugh:

"It's the life of a working student or a groom, you hurry up and you wait, you hurry up and you wait. You see the groom standing around falling asleep while the trainer is just talking to everyone, talking to everyone, and then you hear the trainer say, 'no, no, let me go get you some coffee!' and walk off. You see the groom start to sweat, thinking to himself, 'I was supposed to have about seventy horses tacked up ten minutes ago...' I've seen it a hundred times."

"Up, down, up, down" as a maintenance aid

Summer camp is upon us: endless coaching of correct leg position, how to hold yourself upright in the saddle, this is how you steer, this is standing up in the saddle, this is posting at the walk, and then with some you graduate to posting on the lunge line.

These horses are saints. I am beyond lucky to know these horses and when I think about how many kids have benefited from these horses it is a bit overwhelming. But they're not dumb. They know when an educated butt is sitting on them and when it's a kid who knows nothing. (See also: my TB took off with a student and when I got on to school him, I loped him around like a western pleasure horse with no rein contact.)

I've begun to notice something interesting. As long as you're chanting "up, down, up, down," in a sing-songy but rhythmic voice, several of our horses will continue plugging along peacefully. The moment you stop, however, they'll break to the walk.

Somehow, inadvertently, we've trained these horses to assume "up, down, up, down" is their maintenance aid. 

A whirlwind: and now it's summertime

I have so MANY things to recap, but I also want to get them out of the way so that I can write more in-depth posts about the things I've been learning.

So let's just go through a summary.

My sister came to visit and we had a grand time. I took her trail riding at Henry Cowell and Tango got to practice going up and down little steps.  What a goose.

I took a bunch of students to Peppertree Ranch for a show and while the show itself went quite well, it was running extremely slowly because someone entered like nine horses the night before the show. We were at the showgrounds five hours longer than we anticipated. There was the above snake who kept popping his head out near my truck though. That was nifty. 

Jen from Cob Jockey came out to California for a work trip and I got to show her around the barn. What a funny, easy-to-talk-to, and thoughtful person! I really loved meeting her and find myself looking forward to the next visit! She also wrote this amazingly kind post about her visit that covers our brief adventure.

Chente finished his first one-day event with a student aboard. Dressage score of 40, no penalties in stadium, two refusals on cross-country. But he crossed the waters perfectly and was totally manageable out on course so I'm pretty stoked about that. 

I attempted the dutch braids a la Guinness On Tap and it sort of worked. It was better when I tried again later. 

Amidst a really excellent schooling session I got this moment out of Tango, not minutes after discussing how if I want to sell him I should probably advertise him somewhere. It's a hilarious photo to me. 

I took a couple of students to Woodside to school cross country and this photo of Kat and her lessee happened. Seriously I am in love with my horse and it kills me.  

I took both Tango and Kat to a show with a bunch of other kids (Megan, I think you were there! Sorry to have missed you! I probably was no fun anyhow as I was busy herding cats kids around.)

It's weird to say this out loud: Tango was better than Kat. I enjoyed jumping Tango more than I enjoyed jumping Kat. At a show. Yup. OH HOW THE TABLES HAVE TURNED. Does he really belong in the hunter ring yet? No. I mean look at that sloppy knee action. But here's something to consider, which is how stupidly relaxed he is. He doesn't even think about refusing things. He half-halts. His tempo is becoming steadier all the way around the course. And he acted like an old pro.

Kat and I stepped into the 1.0m ring for the first time and she performed like she always does, with her heart totally in it and her focus 100%. We pulled a rail when I for some reason decided we should jump out from underneath a vertical, but otherwise she jumped hard and well. I'm looking forward to the next time.

We only jumped on the schooling day, where you earned a blue ribbon if you didn't knock any fences down and you remembered your course (how else do you think Tango has collected seven blue ribbons in two shows and eight trips in the ring? hahaha) but I think both of them are more than ready to be performing against other horses.

Have some more photos of Tango because I think he's the cutest thoroughbred. and I love him. 

Hello show season

As a team we've attended two shows this year. Hang tight as this weekend we attend Peppertree, the following weekend the Twin Rivers 1-day, then two weekends to the next JK Presents.

There was going to be the Woodside 3-day in there, but I've made the decision to keep schooling my horses rather than force them through a full event at the moment.

Then a few quiet moments until we get into the swing again....

Lesson with (another) new trainer

About two weeks ago I hauled Diva and Kat up to Pleasonton to ride with yet another new trainer.

And guyz.

It. was. amazing. (also I have no media so I'll keep this short and mostly for my own reference.) I forgot how lovely it is to ride with an eventing trainer. Yes, I can put the pieces together from my jumping lessons and from my dressage lessons, but having someone who ALSO puts the pieces together train me? It's a delightful thing.

I rode Kat first and she decided that the lake next to the arena was unacceptable, as were the other horses, and also the gate was WAY TOO SMALL TO WALK THROUGH. We had a brief discussion about, I dunno, moving forward, and then about four laps of the arena trembling at things. She knew better than to actually spook at anything, so she just spent some time pulling a llama and trembling.

We're gonna call this trainer Dumbledore because I think it's funny. Dumbledore comes down from the barn and makes a few jokes about how hot my mare is, and then we got to work. Okay: I got put to work and my mare sorta did her thing.

We worked on half-halting with my seat BEFORE my fingers, the goal being to get her to come back to me just off my seat. We worked on downward transitions and trying to get her to almost lengthen her neck in the downwards rather than curling under (spoiler alert: I cannot pull on the reins in order to accomplish this). We worked on using shoulder-in to help her balance and slowwww downnnn. And we worked on getting even bend both directions.

The jumping was a little hilarious because it was a one stride with placing poles before and after each jump, giving us three poles and two fences. Kat kept supermanning the last pole because why would you gather yourself properly to set all your feet down. I also got nailed for my habit of not sitting down on my horse after my last jump.

In the end, I had a horse who had completely filled the reins up in an honest way, her shoulders felt so free, and she was totally on my seat. I had to think really hard to prevent myself from A) throwing the reins away and B) pulling on the reins. That level of responsiveness from her requires me to really focus so I'm matching her correctly. But our canter, man. Un-bloodly-believable. I love those moments.

With Diva we did a lot of lengthening and shortening at the canter, and I was working super hard on my position and thinking about the same level of sensitivity I'd had with Kat (Diva wasn't listening that hard, but it was still good for me) and after several lengthen/shorten at the canter, then same at the trot, then back to the canter repetitions I felt myself start to seriously lose steam. I like to think I'm pretty riding fit, but these lessons nailed home that I need to step-up my fitness game in order to really ride these horses as well as I want to be able to ride them.

We did the same jumping exercise with Diva and Dumbledore put v-poles on the second jump, and Diva jumped me right out of the tack. She whipped her knees up and totally cracked her back over the jump. I'd honestly never felt her jump so well. Dumbledore explained that sometimes it makes them feel a bit claustrophobic so they whip their knees up to escape it, but also that it keeps them straighter so they jump better.

Makes sense to me!

We then moved on to a series of bending line exercises wherein I 100% forgot to, I dunno, half-halt, so we had some goofy moments, but Diva jumped everything I pointed her at and continued to be super game. I asked to end the lesson early when I felt her start to get too noodle-y and tired.

I'm going back tomorrow with Tango and Kat, so I'm super stoked to keep learning!