Bettina Drummond Clinic 8/21/10

I had the opportunity last weekend to participate in a clinic at our farm with Bettina Drummond, a classical dressage rider and trainer who follows the French method of training, the primary goal of which is to obtain ultimate lightness, balance and harmony between horse and rider. She studied under Nuno Oliveira for 17 years, and is considered internationally as an expert on in-hand work. Through some miracle of workings, she is based very close to our farm, and is there quite often during the week, bringing horses to us on and off for work in the indoor during the winter (and the occasional sale horse she wants my boss to jump during the summer!). Since the entire time I've been at the farm, Gogo has not been able to participate in a lesson with her (which I so desperately wanted to do), but she had been at the farm quite a lot recently working with Coco, one of my boss' horses who came to us with serious mystery tightness and lameness. The work in hand she has done with him in just a few weeks has had a totally transforming effect on him, so when Gogo got the go-ahead from Dr. C to gently proceed into full work again, I jumped at the chance to do an in-hand session too.

I'll be honest - when I first met Bettina, she scared me to death. Around here, Bettina's word is law. Those of you in the area will all agree with me when I say she has more knowledge and understanding of the horse in her pinky finger than probably all of us reading this right now combined, and that knowledge is palpable when she walks into a room. She commands respect, and she reads people like she reads horses. I felt like a child when I first met her and I was starting my big new scary job - she could see right through me! And she wasn't about to take anybody's crap either. She has a way with stallions like I've never seen, and let me tell you her studs don't even put an ear towards a squatting, peeing mare when she is working with them. Over time, I seem to have somehow earned her respect and friendship, even though I still don't understand quite how it happened. I guess with all her intuition she can see that I'm still just a kid learning the ropes of life, genuine in my efforts to do the very best job that I can, and I think that's a respectable thing.

The work we've been doing with Coco over the past few weeks started with a bopper. That's right, a crop with a round plastic-covered foam ball on the end of it, about the size of a ping-poing ball. A bopper! We bopped him all over his body, tapping all his major groups of muscles with the rhythm of a metronome, searching for weaknesses. The point of this, Bettina explained to me, was that horses with serious physical or mental damage (and people, for that matter) stop linking their right and left brains when severely traumatized. Even just by tapping the forehead on either side back and forth, the neurons will start to correctly fire back and forth, cross-linking back to their original function. Apparently dissections have also been done with horses who have had serious hind-end or back trauma, and you can inject joints, rest them, or do whatever else you want, but those horses will go lame again if they go back to work because their muscles atrophy and fail - they're not getting the proper signals from the brain. This method is similar to Endo-tapping I believe, but I don't think they're quite the same thing. When bopping Coco, we discovered how seriously fidgety he was on certain spots of his body, and that when he'd relax, one ear would start swinging in time to the bopping, the ear on the same side of the body. Over time, he stopped being so reactive to those spots as he started to reconnect and heal, and both ears would start swinging together - both sides were firing together again. Bop your mare, Bettina told me. See what you find.

Bop, bop, bop. Gogo's immediate reaction in her stall without a halter was to look at me curiously, then literally swing her butt at me when I bopped her in front of her withers, which was simultaneously not surprising but also not acceptable and not something she's ever really done before (save for one outstanding time). On went the halter, on went the bopping. She showed definite sensitivity where her neck connects to her withers on both sides, which is exactly where she holds all her tension. The second time I bopped her, she was much better about that area, but she showed more sensitivity over her back. Interesting! I plan on continuing to bop her in more of the Endo-tapping way, to encourage relaxation. You never know what it might continue to show, and it might be a first warning method for something brewing.

For the clinic, no bopping was done. Instead, we outfitted Gogo in her bridle, polos and bells, and did a series of small bits of lateral work. Bettina was quick to point out the fact that her right shoulder (specifically how she moves her elbow) is a point of weakness, and she would rather back away from whip tapping than move the elbow sideways. Using the whip and one hand on the reins right below the bit, I moved Gogo down the rail laterally in both directions, trying to achieve an even crossover and a quiet lateral response to the whip.





We also played around a little bit with holding both reins, one in each hand, and doing shoulder-in and haunches-in down the rail, switching back around to bend the horse left and right while going forward. It was impossibly hard to understand and extremely difficult to handle two reins and a whip and a slightly confused mare while walking backwards, but every time we were both confused, Bettina had me stretch her and walk her forward to diffuse the potential brewing bomb.




It was hard! I know I will need lots of practice at it. But the entire point of it is to achieve balance on both sides of her body while simultaneously strengthening her hind end while ALSO simultaneously working her kinks out for future under saddle work, so it's worth it to learn and understand. Amazingly, after our session, Bettina offered it to me for nothing, thanking me for all I had done for her. I couldn't believe it! The clients all spent the day remarking on how beautiful the facility looked, all our guests raved about what a nice establishment I had running, my boss thanked me for all my hard work, and Bettina's gracious offer on top of all of that was the icing on the cake. It was such a good day!



And of course, since it was high time for it, even though it was a cloudy day we took the opportunity to get our Seasonal Conformation Shots since she was so clean. She looks GREAT!





I like how she is standing like a total goof in the last shot. Compare to June. Even her expression is better. She doesn't look as amazingly sexy as she did last October, when she was still racing fit, but you know. She'll get there, someday!

Jeff Cook Jumping Clinic 5/1/10-5/2/10

Last weekend, I had the chance to ride one of my boss' young green beans in our farm-hosted jumping clinic with Jeff Cook. Jeff trained with and worked for George Morris at Hunterdon for ten years before moving out west with his family, and comes back here on a fairly regular basis to do clinics with us. This was my first time meeting him, first time riding somebody else's horse in a clinic (while she watched... nerve-wracking as she is a far better rider than I am!), and first time doing an exclusively equitation-based clinic (versus dressage or eventing). As James is a little baby wiggly worm and I am a complete rust-bucket over fences, we did the baby section designed for the greenies. Mostly what I got out of this was polish on my basic equitation, especially in the canter. Suddenly, after all this time, I have discovered that yes, I too can two-point like a normal human being! THAT IS SO EXCITING.

For those of you that don't know my background, I started with a huntseat-type lesson barn, moved to a dressage and CT barn when I was a teenager (but did mostly dressage), and had horrible dressage-like equitation over fences for the LONGEST time. It has been a SERIOUSLY long and uphill road trying to counter that, and I've spent a lot of time in my past sitting in the saddle while on XC because I just couldn't figure out HOW to two-point correctly without losing my balance or getting exhausted. Last year, when I did the Eric Horgan clinic, he talked to me about keeping my base of support in my calves versus my thighs while up out of the saddle, and I tried but just didn't understand what he meant. The week before last, however, I was riding James and thinking about what he said, and suddenly I found myself up out of the saddle, base of support right there in my hugging calves, able to balance perfectly and comfortably out of the saddle. Wait, WHAT? WHEN did I learn how to do THAT? I used to ride up out of the saddle like a typical dressage rider, with my base of support in my thighs versus my calves. The problem with this is that you lose your lower leg over fences when you don't have strength in them, and you tend to tilt in the saddle because your balance is too high. Aaah, the things you learn as time goes on!(XC used to look like this. Trying to get in two-point used to look like this.)

Suddenly, I found that I could stay comfortably up out of the saddle. So much WIN! You'll see in the following video that I lose it in the beginning of the circle I made, and fall back into my tilty habits, but I regain composure halfway around the circle and continue onward. Go James go!



Obviously this is going to need a lot of practice. But hey, it's a start! Now we just need some finesse.


Something else Jeff pointed out to me, besides the things I already knew (keep your hands closed around the reins, bring your toe out a little more) was that I shouldn't have vetwrap on my stirrups. But.. but.. but..! It's so pretty and blue! That might be so, he said, but I'm really fooling myself if I think it's going to help me at all. In the end, all it will really do is give me a false sense of security and have me stand up on my toe more than I should. Same goes for the jointed stirrups I use, he said. Now, I know that George is a stickler for those old fillis irons, so I'm not about to go trashing my jointed stirrups, but I did cut off the vetwrap for the second day of the clinic. Awww, maaaan! Goodbye beautiful blue. But he's right, and as I have a tendency to lose my heel sometimes anyway, I can't take any chances. No excuse for not having proper equitation for the sake of having some shiny colors on my stirrups.

We did a lot of basic w/t/c work with the young horses and the green riders, so there wasn't much for me to get out of it. We jumped some tiiiiiiiiny little things, which James was SO unimpressed with....



.... but it was still very fun. My take home message from the clinic was mostly that I need to practice, practice, practice and not let my skills get too rusty while waiting for the mare to get back on her feet. Jeff was a fabulous clinician, very nice and super helpful, and I recommend him if you have a chance. I only wish it had been Gogo instead, I know I would have gotten a TON of stuff out of it with her.






And for something a little more interesting than James hopping over a six inch crossrail, here is my boss riding one of the Florida horses. MUCH more exciting!






Mare is getting primed for her next vet visit in a few weeks. Her legs have been quiet and tight (sometimes with minor fill, but nothing alarming, and it usually goes with fill in the fronts too), and she's actually been well-behaved for once! I better not say that outloud though, because you know it'll never last!

Namaste.

What a fabulous weekend I just had. Okay, I know that it's the Memorial Day weekend, and it's supposed to go through Monday, but my holiday ended yesterday. It was so needed though, and I feel exceedingly refreshed. Everything went beautifully, and while I hope to do it again sometime soon, I feel like vacations like this come long only once in awhile. I can accept that fact though, as I get to appreciate them even more when they do happen.

Friday, after getting my repaired boot back (AGAIN), I washed the truck, packed my stuff, bathed my horse, and loaded Gogo and Salute onto the trailer. I was headed off to my lesson with Kerry Millikin at Hillden Farm, set for 3:00, and I was excited. The trip was uneventful, and Gogo and I looked pretty classy if you ask me.



That's Gogo's flybonnet signed by Jennifer Wooten-Dafoe and The Good Witch! But she was unimpressed.




I found Kerry to be really, really refreshing. She tells it like it is, but not harshly. I was later told that if she doesn't like your horse, she's going to let you know about it, but she had nothing but good things to say about Gogo - a real compliment. Right off the bat, she honed in on my equitation - "you ride like a dressage rider!" - and helped me get out of dressage mode and into jump mode, something I've never really been able to make the transition to fully simply because I've never really been taught how. I tend to sit up instead of really getting into my halfseat. Kerry helped me close my hip angle, turn my toes out a bit, and take the brunt of my weight into my heels and calf instead of stalling out at my knees and thighs - more of a dressage thing to do. The other thing we worked on was keeping her round instead of letting her cruise around with her head in the air. I usully leave her face alone while we're jumping, but by keeping her round to a fence, it helps to influence how she uses her body over the jump. She's tidy with her legs when she jumps with no bascule, but it does her no favors otherwise to jump so flat. So, instead of doing what we usually do, we tried to go around a little more like this:



Which, in turn, caused her to jump more like this:



The picture isn't at the best moment of the jump, and she's sort of trying to figure out where her legs need to be, but you can see she's actually using her body over the fence. Bascule what? We have that?



Kerry helped me stay up in two point all the way to the fence and away from it, staying quiet the whole way. She was totally pleased with how quietly Gogo dealt with the little challenges we set up for her, including a jump on a circle and some gymnastic exercises. She did super well, and I felt that I did do.
After the lesson, I went with Anne and Jen (and Salute and Lucas) for a nice relaxing hack. Or so I thought! We went all the way down the mountain, and trotted all the way back up! It was another hour before we were back, so Gogo and I were both pretty tired! We turned out our horses for a few hours each on grass (a REAL treat), and then tucked them into their stalls at Jen's place for the night.

And we rounded out the evening with a whole mess of people enjoying wine and cheese and dinner on the porch, watching the sunset:





Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh yea. A lot of wine and passing out on Anne's couch followed. Yessss.

The following morning at 7:30am sharp (oye!) after delicious smoothies, Anne and I headed off to yoga. I LOVE YOGA. I never get to do it anymore because I don't have the time or money to go to a studio and take classes, and lack the religious inspiration to actually do it on my own. I find the practice of yoga to be enlightening, refreshing, and rejuvenating. And not only does it stretch every part of your body, it tones every part too - I woke up this morning and EVERYTHING hurt. The classes at this studio run for an hour and a half and are only $15, and they're on Saturdays too, so it would be totally possible for me to go to them. On my way to Moksha, one yoga practice at a time.

After changing and helping a neighbor load some horses into a trailer, we cleaned out our stalls, let our horses out on grass again for awhile, groomed them up, and then loaded up and headed out for White Memorial Park for a few hours of trail riding goodness. The day started off with a downpour, but nature must have been happy with the positive energy we sent out into the universe with our yoga, so everything cleared up beautifully by the time we got out there. The trails were perfect, the scenery was gorgeous, and the company was hilareous. We laughed the whole time we were out there.







Just perfect.
We finished the day with some lunch, and then cruised on to take the tired ponies (and our tired selves) back home. One of my favorite parts of the day is taking care of a horse's needs after a hard workout. Putting a freshly linimented, rubbed, and wrapped horse into a softly bedded stall with buckets of clear, cool water and a mountain of fresh hay in front of them just feels so good.

Today was a well-deserved day off for both of us, complete with some stretching, grooming, walking, and turnout. Tomorrow, it's back to work, and prepping for the show on Saturday!!




Breaking the daily cycle of Samsara and achieving a little taste of Moksha is exactly what you need sometimes. Thanks, Gogo. Thanks, Anne and Salute. Thanks, Kerry. Thanks, Jen. Thanks, yoga. Thanks, life.

Hard Work and Dedication

Gogo and I, we're working hard. We're carefully shaping and toning our bodies and minds, preparing us for what may just be our best season yet. No, I take it back. For what WILL be our best season yet.

This week, we worked HARD. The level and type of work has been increased and altered, and fitness work is coming more into play now that the weather is changing for the better (even though as I say this, a severe thunderstorm is bearing down on us.... I can hear it coming!!). Last Saturday was our first two-hour conditioning walk-trot hack, with 10 minutes of trot and 1:50 of walking. Sunday she had off, Monday we jumped that fabulous 3'9", Tuesday and Wednesday were productive dressage days, Thursday we did gallop work for the first time, Friday and Saturday were the dressage clinic days, and today was our second two-hour conditioning hack. That's a very solid week of very hard work. Her back was linimented tonight, as well as all four legs and her hocks, and she was wrapped all around and given a gram of bute. Tomorrow, she'll get two 20-minute handwalks and a nice groom. She's almost shedded out!

We are dedicated to keeping this conditioning schedule. Today, it poured. It was gross, gray, yucky weather all morning, and poor Gogo ended up staying out in a downpour for a little while, looking sullenly at me while I worked in the barn until I felt bad and brought her in. The question remained all the rest of the day - will it keep raining? Should I still go hack? When I got off of work at 2:30 (as I usually do on Sundays, which makes them an ideal hack day), it was still on and off, and I couldn't decide. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it out a full two hours tomorrow, and I also knew that if I didn't go today, I'd have to miss this week's hack. So, I went to the bank, waited for the rain to clear, and sucked it up and got on, damn the rain. Amazingly, it held off for me. We upped our trot work to 15 minutes, and she felt fresh and happy. She seemed to understand that this walking had a purpose, and kept marching all the way through. It began to mist and blow as we made our final half-hour approach towards home, but it was no matter. We had braved the weather, come hell or high water, and we did it. She was chipper as could be back in the barn, even though she was angry that I shoved bute down her throat and refused to eat her dinner for a good long while because of it.

We're on our way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's a picture Ted, our 85 year-old boarder, took of me on Friday at the clinic doing no stirrups work. I dunno WHY my leg is a mile in front of me and totally off her side, and the moment was a little awkward, but I think had this been taken a few instants later that it would have been great.



Oh she's the bestest.


On a different note, our show schedule has changed. May is still King Oak Farms H.T. (May 9-10) and Mystic Valley Hunt Club H.T. (May 30), but in June, we're either going to be doing the Heidi White clinic or Groton House H.T. the 26th through the 28th. I'll need your input on that, my dear readers! July remains the same - Old Chatham (which is Area championships for Novice) and Riga Meadow, but there is a small wrench in my plans. It had been my desire to do Riga Meadow as my first Training with her, but as it turns out... they don't run Training! So Novice it will be, I assume! The other thing that really changed was August - I was going to do Kent School H.T. on the 16th of August, but my good friend from high school is getting married on that day, so I'm going to the wedding for sure. Instead, I think I'll end up doing Millbrook H.T., which appears to be a terrifyingly big deal, running BN through Advanced. NOT a good place to move up. So that leaves us with the AECs in September, and then possibly the Stoneleigh Burnham H.T. at the end of September as my first Training. We're for sure doing Kent and Ethel Walker in October though at Training, so look out!


I'm exhausted, and I imagine she is too. Tomorrow, we relax. Tuesday, back to dressage!

Dressage Clinic 3/27-28/09 - Sharon Schneidman

The past two days, I've had the opportunity to work with Sharon Scheidman, who came here to do a clinic at our farm. Sharon was a coach for the US Para-Olympic team last year in Beijing, along with having a USDF gold medal, 40 years of experience, winnings in Florida at the FEI level, and more. Vicki was wonderful when it came to this clinic, because she managed to get me the price of two semi-privates for the price of one. Sweet! I found Sharon to be witty, funny, refreshing, very kind, and very insightful. It was really great to hear a different perspective from someone who understands a little bit about hotter, event-type horses - her husband Grant competed with the international USEF Three-Day team.

Friday, Gogo was awesome. Just AWESOME. Awesome, amazing, incredible, beautiful! When I first went to talk to Sharon about her, and discussed some of her major issues, she gave me some really excellent insight into the psyche of an event horse. Vicki has really put an emphasis on decreasing her warmup time so we can get on to improving other things, and I don't disagree with her, but I think at this point that it may not be what Gogo needs. If I get too focused on the warmup instead of letting her just warm up, I can get too picky with her and what she is doing instead of letting her figure it out on her own, and she can get annoyed with me about it. I discussed this with Sharon, and she said something simple: "Event horses just warm up differently than dressage horses. Take your time." Essentially, she described how her husband had told her that the dressage horses he now rides are so easy to warm up as opposed to his event horses, and that the warm up time was cut in half, and it made me relax and feel better. It's not my inability to create a soft, supple horse in minutes, it's her inability to get there that fast just yet. On good days, our warmup time has been cut at least in half from last December or so though, sometimes more. And that was just how she warmed up on Friday - quickly, easily, and quietly, and we went on to perform some of our best work yet. Expressive lengthenings, 10m circles to shoulder-ins, leg yields of all varying degrees of steepness, some REALLY nice canter work, and a million excellent transitions, as well as trying out varying degrees of collecting her and letting her back out. We stretched and came right back, too! I also, for the first time in I have no idea how long, had the chance to drop my stirrups and work that way, and I REALLY felt it straighten and lengthen my position. I had a really classical, upright, straight and correct position last spring, but I feel like I've let it slip, and the pictures I posted will show that my shoulders have rounded, and I'm sitting in way more of a chairseat than I ever want to be. (My camera was around on day 2, which is very sad because day 1 was when I should have had it!!) She felt amazing, supple, loose, and light, and I got off beaming. Sharon said she really liked her, and really thought she could go far.

Well, yesterday was not as great. It wasn't bad, per se, but I was subconsciously trying to manipulate her in the warmup again, I think, and of course because I did that, she was very flaky on the contact for pretty much the entire lesson. It was my fault, Shannon was in my lesson with me and wanted to go for a walk hack before we started to work, but I should have warmed up in the ring instead. By the time we got back, we were 5 minutes late, and I wanted to get right to work so I could make the most of it. Gogo, however, doesn't work that way of course, and while she wasn't BAD, we never got out of our warmup phase. I got zero out of the second session, and that was kind of my fault. At the end, she told me that my take-away homework was just to practice endless, endless, endless patience and the rest would come from that. I told everyone I was going to stay out for a minute longer and do some more trotwork to see if I could get her brains back, and they all left. Of course, I ended up relaxing my shoulders, letting her do what she wanted to about the contact for a few minutes (popping above it and whatnot), and being in general very soft with her, and lo and behold, tada! Perfect horse. We did all sort of varying degrees of leg yields and half 10m circles, changing directions halfway, so we were never on a straight line - always circling or going sideways. Something about that plus me finally relaxing my body made her come super round, super underneath herself and she became super supple. Hooray! Only the lesson was long over. So booo.

No more mister crap position is my take home lesson here! No more roundy shoulders, no more occasional forward legs. I'm going back to my old, perfect position and YOU CAN'T STOP ME! New plan of action: In the warmup, focus on my position only, and kind of just ignore her until she decides that she wants to play. That way, I can take my mind off of wanting to ask her to do more than she is capable of at that moment in the ride, and can improve my position at the same time. I think this will work out just fine.


Today I'm supposed to go on my 2-hour conditioning hack.... but it seems to be raining a lot. :( We'll see how the afternoon shapes up....

Life Is Good!

So many good things have happened in the past three days! I have been a bad bad blogger not keeping you up to date on all these recent developments!

Friday was the dressage lesson I already talked about, and later on in the afternoon, I received an e-mail from my mother about saddles. I've been on the hunt since May for a Prestige Eventing saddle in black, and have had no luck finding a nice used one anywhere. Most places online sell them new for $2500, so I was surprised to get this particular e-mail stating that she had found a tack store called Green Valley Tack that sold them new for $2200. I googled them, and was completely thrilled to find that they were in New York, less than two hours away. I decided to give them a call, and asked if they had any in stock. What do you know? They had one on consignment, 17" seat (perfect), 33cm tree (also perfect), and it was IN BLACK! $1900. No freaking way. What are the odds??

So Saturday, first thing in the morning, I headed off to New York. The drive was gorgeous, through the serious boonies of New York, and the tack store itself was very nice. I also got some new Herm Sprenger knob spurs and - gasp - white gloves, because I feel it is time to graduate to them, finally. I also found the saddle on the rack, and wow.... it was in perfect, amazing, gorgeous condition. I mean, flawless. You could see that the billets, which are long by the way and therefore necessitate the use of a short girth, had been used a bit but that was really all. So hooray! I loaded up my prize for a test ride, and off I headed back to Connecticut. Immediately when I arrived, I hooked up my trailer, groomed my pretty mare, loaded her up, and headed out to the Larkin Bridle Trail, a 10-mile trail that was once upon a time an old rail line, but was abandoned in 1947... I think. We're ready to start out conditioning hacks, and with the excellent, slightly giving but still nice and firm and dry stonedust footing on this trail, it was a perfect place to begin. I LOVED the saddle, and she liked it too. The flap is very forward, but it didn't seem to interfere with her shoulder at all, and she was still striding out for all she was worth. This week's conditioning hack began with a warmup of 10 walking minutes, them 10 minutes of nice, forward trot, and then another 1:40 of walk hacking for a total of 2 hours. Next week, we will up the trotting to 15 minutes, and the week after will have 15 minutes again. The following week will have 20, and so on until we work out way up to 25 of nonstop trotting, with the remainder of the 2 hours at the walk. Anyway, oh the saddle! It was SO COMFORTABLE! My only complaint was that the leather was a bit slick, but hey, nothing a good conditioning won't fix! And oh, the trail was just beautiful.






This place was only 20 minutes away. I'll be going back here PLENTY this summer, I can feel it.

Sunday, I decided to give Gogo off instead of jumping. She seemed a bit tired after her workout on Saturday - took TWO lay-down naps in the morning! - so I figured she deserved the rest. She got a nice grooming and handwalking instead, sweet girl.

And yesterday? Oh, lovely mare! After her morning turnout, I brought her in, tacked her up, and set up two simple verticals in the indoor, just to get a feel of the saddle over fences. Talk about SECURE. It has a HUGE knee block and a big thigh block too, and with the long billets there isn't any bulky girth under my leg, so I felt like, aside from the slick leather, I wasn't going ANYWHERE! After warming up over the little vertical (made of blox, I think it was about 2'), Shannon came in and we progressively raised the other vertical. And raised it. And raised it. And Gogo jumped higher, and better. And better. And better. And before we knew it, she was sailing over 3'9" like she had been doing it in her sleep, all her life. I didn't even realize how high it was until I stopped and got a good look at it. "Higher?" Shannon asked. And I declined, only because I didn't want to tempt fate. Next time! ;)

She was THE happiest clam back in the barn. On one of the approaches to the 3'9", her big-strided self made a very interesting judgement call, all on her own. She got a hair closer to it than I think she anticipated, so instead of risking taking the rail down, she took off a hair towards the left of the jump to give her body more room to open up in the air, and then readjusted her straightness on her own on the other side of the fence. She hates a close, chippy spot and that was where she would have ended up taking off from had she stayed perfectly straight, so I accepted that call as a good one. Instead, she made just enough room for her body that the jump itself was excellent. She's a smart one, that silly little mare.

It just felt soooooooooooo easy. She's gonna jump big sticks, I tell you! Big sticks!

And, on top of that, we made an offer of $1800 on the Prestige, and the lady accepted. I am the owner of a beautiful, almost completely brand new Prestige Eventing saddle, only the sexiest saddle EVER MADE! I'll get some better pictures to post tonight because I am DYING to show it off! This also frees me to sell my old County - any takers? ;) - and, if I can get $500 for it... that's the entry fee for the AECs right there. Good news, good news!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The other two good things that happened? We have a clinic this coming weekend with Sharon Schneideman, and I was thinking about how best to pay for it (dip into my show fund? I didn't want to!) when I was asked the other day if I would trailer a horse going in for a bone scan to the nearby private equine hospital, at the cool charge of $2.00 a mile. Well duh I'll do it! Now the clinic is completely paid for :) And also, I went to the post office at 9pm last night in order to get this into the mailbox for post the first thing this morning:



My entry for King Oak Farms HT!!!!!!! It all begins here!


So the Cliff Notes version of all this:
1) Finally, finally found my new jump saddle, a used Black Prestige Eventing model!
2) Can now sell my old saddle!
3) Just made a chunk of money trailering a horse around and can now pay for this coming weekend's clinic!
4) Had a gorgeous conditioning hack on Saturday, and am really starting to get into our conditioning work now!
5) The entry for our first 2009 event goes out in the mail TODAY!


Life is good.

A Big Hodgepodge of Things

There was a whole bunch of stuff I meant to blog about this week but did not, so I'm attempting to get a jump on that and remember all the little blurbs of stuff I had in my head....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1) Gogo had her 4th trim this week, on Monday specifically. It was nice because I had ridden her out on the pavement, so she wore her feet down a little for me already! It was a hair over two weeks, and I have to say I much prefer the two week schedule to the three week schedule. I'm getting better and better at this! Once again, I didn't ever manage to get any really good pictures, but I have a few decent ones.





It's becoming fairly easy to wield the tools now that I'm building a bit of muscle memory about it. By the way, her cracks look AWESOME. They aren't going anywhere anytime soon, I don't think, but they look very tight right now and as long as I keep touching up the roll there's no reason for me to believe that they won't stay tight. I've been reading about Pete Ramey's special soaks he does for horses with chronic cracks... perhaps I shall look into this more and maybe give it a try. Or maybe try the tea tree oil thing that was suggested to me....


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


2) Supplements. Supplements are always an interesting topic to me, as is anything relating to nutrition. Currently, Gogo is getting regular Cosequin and Mare Magic as her two oral supplements, which I get from Smartpak. I LOVE Smartpak, and I'll totally keep using it if my other plans don't work out, but I was thinking about both supplements and wondering if I should change them.
Mare Magic is red raspberry leaf in a pretty package. That's all it is. And it REALLY helps. It's not something that prevents mares from coming into heat. What it DOES do it make her heats much more tolerable and much less crampy for her - she stays loose and giving in her back, whereas before she'd hold a lot of tension just behind the saddle, and it also keeps her head MUCH more level during that 'special' time.. lol. Mare Magic, in monthly Smartpaks, is $10.95 a month. Now, that doesn't sound so bad, right? But think of it this way: the actual bags of Mare Magic are either 8oz ($19.95) or 32oz ($55.95). There are 16oz to a pound, so that's half a pound and two pounds. Online, you can buy bulk red raspberrry lead (the kind you make tea out of) for between $9-10 for a pound. 32oz is supposed to last 240 days... so 16oz would last about four months. Which equates to about $2.50 a month. $2.50 a month or $10.95 a month.... well, that's easy. Buy bulk, screw Mare Magic.
Regular Cosequin is good stuff. It's REALLY good stuff. Now, however, they have a new product on the market called Cosequin ASU, which I keep hearing is a far superior product. Directly from that website: "Cosequin ASU goes above and beyond the traditional glucosamine/chondroitin sulfate products on the market. Cosequin ASU contains NMX1000™* avocado/soybean unsaponifiables (ASU) formulated with FCHG49®* glucosamine hydrochloride and TRH122®* low molecular weight chondroitin sulfate. Plus the addition of high purity MSM! This sets Cosequin ASU apart from any other joint health supplement for horses. And all in a tasty, easy to administer powder!" Cosequin ASU is also more than double the price of regular Cosequin. Hm. The options here are to find it really cheap somewhere and buy it in bulk (not huge amounts of bulk, just enough bulk to save money), OR to try another product I'm interested in: Promotion EQ. Go read that website... does that not sound too good to be true? You get a FULL money back guarantee if you're not satisfied, so what do you have to lose? I recently talked to someone in person who is a total believer - had a very lame mare with stifle issues who had been on Cosequin for many years and was still lame, to the point where they were going to euthanize her. She put her on Promotion EQ, and within a few weeks, the mare was running around the pasture. She no longer drags her toes, and she's not lame (not rideable either, but not in pain). So I'm very interested in that! I don't think it currently comes in Smartpaks though, so that's the other problem. If it doesn't come in Smartpaks, and I'm not going to use Mare Magic anymore, well.... sorry Smartpak.

What I'm going to do I think it order one more Smartpak, and then next month order some Promotion EQ and bulk raspberry leaf. I reaaaaaaaally love the ease of Smartpaks, but..... well......


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


3) I am very angry right now at Dover. In November I ordered a sheet for Gogo, and.... well, it's January and no sheet. I finally was like, all right, this is ridiculous, and I hunted for hours to find all the tracking codes and things to see where the package ended up (or didn't end up). THEY SHIPPED IT TO OHIO. IN NOVEMBER. I did NOT put Ohio as my shipping address... I put Michigan!!!!!!!!! So right now Dover is on my shit list, and I shall have to call them and yell at them. On the other hand, isn't that sheet pretty in ice blue?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


4) I cannot wait for the summer months to come. Why? Because there are some awesome clients here who keep saying things like, "oh you want to go conditioning? I know ALL the places to go, I'll totally go with you, I'm not afraid to gallop!" and "Hey want to go swim your horse in the ocean with us? We go every year, it's great!" And one more thing: "Hey, Heidi White is coming for a clinic, want to go with us? You can stable with us for free at my friend's house!" NO WAY! I totally want to go to the Heidi White clinic. I've heard she is refreshing, insightful, kind, and really intelligent, and breaks down exercises carefully so each rider has success at them. The clinic is in June, which works out perfectly because I have no shows at ALL in June... sweet!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


5) Dude. My grandmother called me the other day and was like, "I know you're poor and you want to horseshow. How much money do you want."

AWESOME. More on that later.