Hooves of Steel: The Barefoot Journey, Part IV (Gogo's Competitive Barefoot Career)

((Continued from Parts I, II, and III!))

Eventing a horse without shoes had never been a conceivable idea in my youth. Much like the way I used to use the term "gay" to describe all things stupid when I was an 8th grader and then later found out ironically that I was in fact gay myself, I realized that there may be a new, higher level of horse and hoof care that I never even knew existed. With my last horse, who was dearly loved but insufferably clumsy, he experienced slipping issues while bare behind, and so I had him shod. (Looking back now, he clearly had a lot of unaddressed issues that at that time in my life I was clueless about, but he's an interesting example – not very sure-footed and definitely not graceful. What do you do in that case? Perhaps I should have looked a little further and realized his large amount of daily sweet feed and little hay, ulcery symptoms, wormy belly and my horrible unbalanced riding may have been a contributing factor in his difficulties. Perhaps he would have gained a bit of grace and concavity in his feet for a better purchase. Alas, hindsight is 20/20 every time.) Because he had experienced issues with slipping, and he was my entire eventing experience, I assumed that all horses would slip barefoot, and no one ever stepped up to disagree. Once I had Gogo, however, and I had worked through her eternal rehab issues, I set my sights on eventing – really eventing, really competitively. We had done a few dressage and jumper shows while bare, bringing home a good number of blues already, but why couldn’t she do eventing bare too? She was amazingly surefooted, and her feet were excellent. Why shouldn't I try?

And so try we did. Not only did we attempt, but we also triumphed. Our schoolings at local XC courses were always amazingly successful, and I found her traction to be superb. I never worried about where she was putting her feet, and she seemed to always know exactly where her feet were and how they were getting there. If there were rocks, she skipped over and around them at speed. If there was slippery grass, she balanced herself and made it smooth and effortless. If the footing changed, she figured out how to make it work to her advantage. I knew that as a barefooted alpha mare, she knew exactly where her feet were at all times, and she was going to take care of her body. I was a byproduct of her care simply by my location on her back – she wasn’t going to slip, fall or hurt herself, so I was in no danger either. I felt safer on her than I ever had on a horse, despite her kooky behavior.

At her first ever 'real' event, Encore H.T. in Michigan, Gogo was in first after dressage and went double-clear on XC. She did have a rail in stadium, and finished 3rd because of it, but we found shortly thereafter that the chips and rails she was having were entirely hock-related, and a course of Adequan oiled her machinery well. On XC, she was insufferably green but very game, making some squiggles over the first few jumps but never putting a foot out of place, even after splashing through the water. One thing about eventing and traction is that event horses WILL be getting their feet wet on course, and water WILL make things more slippery, and at a show like Encore which was on rail delay from major storms, it makes the challenge much more difficult. Courses out west tend to be much drier and dustier, making this less of an issue, but out in the Midwest and especially on the East Coast, wet + grass = slippery. Despite this, Gogo never put a hoof out of place, and I was completely tickled with her performance. At her second event, South Farm H.T. in Ohio, she was in first after dressage with a 22.6 (!!), and went double clear again on XC, but also had another rail in stadium (remember the hock issues, we hadn't really pinpointed the problem until this show happened). She still was best in her division with a 26.6, and we had our first eventing blue ribbon. (Her first blue ribbon ever was one for Training Level Test 2 in dressage the summer before, winning the class with a 69.7%!) Her third event was also a success, Hunter's Run H.T. in Michigan - a big show with a maxed-out course and an enormously huge day-long downpour that delayed our XC run by a day. She was in third after dressage with a 33.0, behind another mare and a huge clonking Friesian who eliminated out on the first XC fence. The course was a muddy, sopping mess, but despite it Gogo skipped around XC like she hadn't even noticed. I even glanced at my watch and read it wrong near the end of the course, hustling over the line only to later find out that our time had been 4:03.... and the speed time was 4:03. CLOSE! The stadium warmup was so miserably sopping that I only walked and trotted one crossrail, going into the all-weather arena mostly cold-turkey. She went clean, and our overnight leader dropped the first rail, giving us the win. So awesome! The last regular event before the Area Championships and the AECs was the Erie Hunt & Saddle Club H.T. in Pennsylvania, where Gogo was in second comfortably with a 32.5. We sailed around XC and stadium with a little too much speed, and video of our rounds is a bit funny and embarrassing to watch as I had to trot a large section of my XC.... a comfortable lope was WAY too fast! Our leader also went clean, keeping us in second place, but I was still thrilled. We even won a little prize money!

Two firsts, a second, and a third, and we were headed to the Area VI Championships for BN at South Farm. We were in first after a great dressage ride with a 28.5, and I headed cockily out to XC, convinced that we had this one in the bag. Alas, this was when Gogo decided to give me a little taste of humble pie, putting on the afterburners right out of the water complex to gallop at full speed right past fence 6. D'oh! Major rider error on my part, I stopped bothering to ride and she stopped bothering to listen! She loped over the rest of the fences like she was asleep, but obviously we dropped to the back of the pack. So convinced was I that something was wrong with her that I withdrew, taking her home to thoroughly check her over and make sure nothing was wrong. She was fine, but the message was clear - you gotta be there for me, and then I'll be there for you. Point taken!

The 2008 AECs were upon us. It was hard to believe, but after all our hard work, we were overqualified and totally ready to go. Once again, my mare delighted and impressed me - while our dressage was kind of eh (we managed to scrape a 33.0 together even though we scored a 2 AND a 3 for two very frightening movements right in front of the judge!), she was foot-perfect on XC, loping around the toughest course she'd ever seen with ease. Stadium was just as easy and smooth, and we finished on our dressage score in 6th place, taking our victory gallop just as the thunder started rumbling overhead. We were lucky to miss out on the worst of the "A-E-Seas," although I have plenty of pictures of Lamplight flooding and our perilous journey home which included a dam breaking and the entire highway shutting down!! My mare's feet had done it. They had handled all types of terrain, hills, dry hardpack, soft mush, and everything inbetween without so much as a slip. But this was at Beginner Novice, the slowest and smallest you could go. How would she handle the next level?

I needn't have ever been concerned. After a winter's worth of hard work and dedication, and a few jumper shows later, we were ready for the 2009 season and for our new competitive career on the East Coast, our new home in Connecticut giving us access to opportunity untapped and plenty of close-by events of a different caliber. Wow, these shows had some serious HILLS! And the courses were TOUGH! And LONG! And BIG! Our first event ever at Novice together, King Oak H.T., had me nearly peeing myself on the coursewalk. We had just gotten in our first real XC schooling of the year a week before, on slippery and rocky terrain in a downpour, and I wasn't sure how she'd be on a real course. But once again, my mare came through for me, handling the bright white chevrons, the ditch, the up and down banks, the water with a jump right after, the offset three-stride combination (!!), and the brush fence that was a maxed out 3'7". Swear on my life, when standing next to it the brush touched my boobs it was so tall! Not only was there a long section of grass, but in the woods we had some seriously rocky trails to handle, and she crunched down them at high speed like it was all business to her. She never put a foot wrong. We were in first after dressage with a 31.1, and stayed there through two amazing double clear rounds to get our first win of the season, and our first win at Novice, all at the same time. Three weeks later, I found myself comfortably loping around the XC course at the Mystic Valley Hunt Club H.T., the speed much faster than King Oak's (400mpm vs. 350mpm) but with an easier course. The water complex was a bit hairy, with a moving river full of rocks, but she knew exactly where her feet were and where to put them. First after dressage with a 30.0, we went double clear again on both stadium and XC to take our second win of the season. In June, my favorite event and most memorable weekend occurred - Groton House Farm H.T.! It was the biggest show we had attended so far that season, and I was in a large division chock full of professional riders. Despite that, we tied with a big East Coast pro for second place after dressage, our 31.5 putting us directly behind our leader, another big name pro with a 31.0. Gogo had some spooky moments on XC, most notably over the drop and into the water, but we managed to hustle over the finish line to unofficially break our tie and move into second (our time was very close to optimum, a little too close if you ask me!). Daun came out to watch us tackle the stadium, and she skipped around it like it was a cakewalk, sailing into first place as we watched our leader drop the first rail. The division was so close that it bumped them down all the way to 5th. That victory gallop was one of the sweetest moments of my life, and the win secured our necessary scores for qualifying to go to the 2010 AECs. Gogo's bare feet were easily handling anything I could throw at them, from mud and stones to slick grass and big hills. Sharp turns, high speeds, and big takeoffs (her specialty) were all in a day's work for her feet. I never had to worry about her tossing a shoe and frantically trying to get any showground hack to slap it back on, I didn't have to fret over my stud choices, I didn't have to deal with all the hassle. Nature gave my horse everything she needed, and she did the rest. All I had to do was give her a balanced ride.


((Club foot be damned, these hooves crunch rock!!))

But like all good stretches of time, eventually something bad had to happen to our lucky streak. Unfortunately from there, the season took a major downturn, and Gogo's unexplained spookiness and dull attitude became wildly worse. At the Area I Championships, we had a pretty good dressage ride, but she was lacking impulsion and we only scored a 34.7 to fall into 4th place, the first time she'd ever scored out of the top three aside from the previous AEC. On XC, right in front of everyone and their mother, Gogo locked on to fence four and approached with confidence. She then promptly got to the base of the jump, spun on one heel, and slung me right off over her shoulder, breaking my middle finger (ironically) on the way down. It was severely out of character for her, and we were eliminated for the first time in my life. If you've never seen a Gogo spin, I will tell you this: she could have a competitive career as a reiner, only she's faster. Disappointed, I chalked it up to rider error and slunk on home, ready to tackle another event at Riga Meadow H.T. the following weekend. I can do this, I thought. I just need to give her a better ride. Well, as it turns out, even though we were once again in first after dressage with another 34.0, she once again got to a simple obstacle - the up-bank, which couldn't have been more than two feet high, and something she'd been tackling since the age of 5 with ease and confidence - and she spun out on me, this time going in the other direction. I stayed on this time, and the rest of the course was fine, but I was very upset. It was obvious that this was more than rider error. Something was wrong with my horse.

And I was unfortunately right - Lyme disease and a mild case of gastritis were to blame for this behavior. Lyme is pretty much a given here in CT, and if you live here you will eventually get it, so it wasn't a huge surprise. We also opted to go ahead and inject her hocks at that time, thinking maybe if they were sore they could be contributing to the problem. A year of conservative treatments and lots of Adequan, Cosequin ASU, long warmups and cooldowns, Back on Track hock boots, and as much turnout as she could stand were finally not quite enough. With Doxy on board, and aloe juice twice a day for her belly, her behavior and outlook on life dramatically changed, and my cheerful and brave mare was back in full - if anything, she had a little too much vengeance. At Huntington Farm H.T., our last test before tackling the 2010 AECs, she handled the sopping wet hills like a total champ, but her newfound reach in her hocks bogged her down and caused some slip n' slide before the planks during our stadium round. One rail, and our 29.5 turned into a 33.5 and a subsequent 5th place. I was surprised at her carelessness. She doesn't like to hit rails, and here she was swimming through them like Superwoman. Despite that, I was pleased with her flawless performance on XC, and prepared for our final hurrah at Novice, the AECs, which I had worked so hard for all year long.

The rest is history. A quality dressage test (again, with another brain fart right in front of the judge which resulted in a 4 and a 5) and a score of 30.0 had us sitting once again in 7th after dressage. Walking XC, I was impressed with the excellent footing, which was perfectly manicured and aerated grass. I had been galloping up the wild, wet and wooley mountains of New England all season, so this footing seemed like a beautiful treat. Following my first coursewalk, I was alarmed to hear that one of the Prelim horses had slipped on course between fences and had fallen, breaking his scapula. He was subsequently euthanized. A bit saddened, I moved on to prepare for my own ride, and once on course everything else melted away. She was foot-perfect to the first few jumps, and then went I went to give her a half-halt before the fourth fence, and when she bounced up against it she slipped. It was only for a split second, and it was a fairly common reaction on her part, so I didn't think too much of it. The only noticeable things on the rest of the course were that she had no extra gas when I asked her to move out, and that she was very careful on downhill slopes. I thought perhaps she was just being cautious after her little slide, and the rest of the ride went amazingly. She was perfect, didn't hesitate anywhere, didn't look at a thing, and loped over all the maxed-out fences and combinations (two waters, banks, a coffin complex, a corner and a skinny included!) like they were nothing. I was so proud of her, and delighted to find we had moved up a place to 6th. It was then that I noticed on the way back to her stall after checking the scoreboard just how enormous her hind legs were. Somehow, during that slip, she damaged both hinds, and ultrasound revealed a small core lesion on her left SDFT and sheath damage to the right. We withdrew, packed up our gear, and dragged ourselves sadly home, prepared to begin what would eventually turn out to be a year-long rehab.

Did she slip because she was bare? I can't say it wasn't a factor. Would studs have stopped the slide? Possibly, but probably not. They would have either saved her or severely compounded her injuries. Hooves do need a little bit of give to them in order to preverve soft tissue and joint heath, so glueing a foot to the ground isn't a good option. Why did such a tiny slip cause such extensive damage, especially since I had spent a year conditioning her so carefully? We think we can trace it back to the hock injections, which were less than a month out from the AECs - when we gave her a brand new level of movement in her hind limbs, we were already in heavy training, and her legs did not have enough of a chance to compensate and strengthen. If she had any sort of microdamage that was undetected at that point, the slip had to have pushed it over the edge into real injury. If she hadn't slipped in just this right way, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And clearly, this is all just speculation. We will never know what really happened. Any way you look at it, this isn't just a matter of adding shoes and studs to the equation and ignoring the rest. If shoes were really the answer, I would do it.

But it's so much more complicated than that. So what do I do now?

((To be continued!))

Mush Brain

Ever wonder if secretly in the night, aliens come into your room and sometimes replace your brain with tapioca pudding? That's kind of how I felt yesterday.

((Right: The big rig.)) In all seriousness, I am very worn out from my recent hip issue and the subsequent heavy doses of Naproxen and Vicoden I've been on in order to keep it all at bay. I was feeling much better, but had to drive to Vermont yesterday in a small car to pick up the big rig and four horses from the Vermont Summer Festival, and sitting in a car for a long time aggravates the issue. Not only did I have achey hips on the journey, but I also was driving a strange car I knew nothing about, had to leave at 6am, almost ran out of gas, was nearly an hour and a half late upon arrival, killed my cell, was totally panicked about my lateness AND didn't realize at one point that I was speeding because of this and subsequently got pulled over and was given a COURT SUMMONS because I couldn't find the insurance and registration on the vehicle and was going fast enough to be considered reckless (anything over 85 in the entire state of CT is "reckless driving" and the cops in Torrington HATE that). To add insult to injury, our working student gave me a burrito for the road that gave me the worst heartburn of my LIFE. I seriously wanted to DIE. My poor groom was so exhausted that he passed out for the entire four hour drive back to the barn, so it was on me when I realized an hour into the drive that the working student (following us in the small car that I drove up to VT) had forgotten my boss' Yorkie at the showgrounds!! She had to go all the way back to get him. As for me, I had no music and no phone for the entire four hour drive home, and three squealing mares, one poor gelding, and one snoring groom to deal with all the way back. Summary of this story: 6am + stranger's small Subaru + no gas + no gas stations open at 6am in small town + this making me VERY late + speeding + pulled over & given court summons + getting to showgrounds late + four tired horses, three trunks, three saddles, 8 bridles, and god knows what else to be loaded into trailer + burrito of death + major stomachache + four hour trailer ride home with no music, no battery on phone, squealing mares and snoring groom = not the best day of my life.

Needless to say, I did NOT ride when I got home.


That being said, Gogo and I have indeed survived our first week of canterwork, and are neither crippled nor dead! YAY! I am in ultra-paranoia mode, seeing as cantering is where it all went to poopoo last time, but so far, we are ok. In typical fashion, as soon as our canterwork started, the legs all began to fill in the mornings. Of course, right? There's nothing alarming about the fill at this point. It's a little funny looking, but not ugly like it was in the spring when something was really wrong. The right is vaguely warmer every day than the left, which is usually filled and pretty cold, but not hot by any stretch. Both front legs are the same temperature, and are warmer than the left hind but cooler than the right hind. It's kind of weird. The fronts have some fill to them as well, which is why I'm not too worried about it. It is August and the humidity is disgusting. All the horses in the barn who are prone to it have some level of fill in their legs. I'm still keeping a wary eye on it, and am jogging her pretty much daily, just to make sure. Whenever she jogs out, the fill dissapears, which is a really good sign. And she looks really, really, really good when she jogs out - the most important thing.

Last week's schedule went something like this:
Monday and Tuesday: 20 minutes of loose rein walk in straight lines, walking over ground poles. 15 minutes of walk on contact, 30 meter circles and a few small leg yields. 15 minutes of trot in straight lines. During trotwork, Monday: one long side of canter on each lead (actually, more like 1.5 going left on accident... picked up wrong lead!). Tuesday: two long sides canter on each lead. Cooldown: 5 minutes on contact work, 10 minutes loose rein, straight lines.
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 20 minutes of loose rein walk in straight lines, walking over ground poles. 15 minutes of walk on contact, 30 meter circles and a few small leg yields. 20 minutes of trot in straight lines. During trotwork, Monday: canter one whole time around arena on each leads. Tuesday: canter two times around area on each lead. Friday: instead of during trotwork, add time additionally to trotwork... canter three times around arena on each lead. Cooldown: 5 minutes on contact work, 10 minutes loose rein, straight lines.

I made the very bad mistake of not drugging her on Friday. Three months into the riding portion of rehab, we've come so far that I'm not comfortable weaning her off her 1/4cc of Ace just yet for fear that she's going to do something incredbly stupid and reinjure herself. She had been SO quiet for weeks though that I thought she'd be all right now that she's cantering and getting her energy out, and opted to go without for a day. I was wrong! She was okay during our walk work, and then we moved into the trot.... and the head started to come up... and the snatching at the bit began..... and the teeth gnashing and eyerolling..... and the snorting and prancing..... and the bucking, taking off, and leaping with all four feet off the ground......! Hmmmmm. Oddly enough, I still managed to cross myself and pick up the canter, and she was outstanding in both directions, despite being a little bit more forward than usual. The resulting trot and walk work was also excellent. Needless to say though, I am still going to continue my light sedation routine. I just can't risk it at this point. She's just a little too fresh and we've come so far!

Today, our ride went like this: 20 minutes loose rein walk on straight lines, walk poles. 15 minutes walk on contact, circles and a few shallow leg yields. 20 minutes trot on straight lines. 5-6 minutes canter - 4 times around arena on each lead. Cooldown: 5 minutes walk on contact, 10 minutes loose rein walk on straight lines. She was still kind of obnoxious during her trotwork, occasionally throwing her head straight up in the air in that special way that she does, and I asked the working student to watch her trot in case she was acting out because she was hurting. She said nope, she looked just fine. And she FELT just fine too... I am just such a nervous wreck over the idea that something could go wrong at any moment during this whole rehab nonsense that I can't help but worry. Any little thing might mean something bad, and I can't ignore anything. She continued to feel better and better as we went along, settling into a nice rhythm and quieting down, and we bumped up into canter. She felt great! We went four times around the entire arena on each lead, and even though she thought about fussing for a moment going to the right, she settled into a super canter, even better than the left, straight and strong. When we were cooling out, I still had my mind on her fussiness, and figured I should really get a better look at her from the ground in case I could see something subtle going on. One can't be too careful. I hesitantly broke out the lunge line, and sent her out going left first - all looked good, but I expected it to. If there was going to be anything subtle, it was going to be to the right. I turned her around, sent her out, and she EXPLODED! Thankfully, her bit of gaga rush canter was shortlived, and she settled into a forward trot. Oh my god... she looked AMAZING! Absolutely stunning. I've never seen her so good and loose going to the right.
A hose-off, 20 minutes of grass, 30 minutes of ice, and two trimmed hinds later, the legs were icy cold and staying that way. I wrapped her anyway, just to see if that might help the excess edema in the morning, but I came away from the evening feeling much better than I had all week.

Also, the Princess got ANOTHER new halter.... I need to do another post covering Four Years of Ridiculous Halters.



Amazing. Nameplate and all.... it says Gogo Fatale in large letters with a smaller "Gogo" underneath it, and it also had two rearing horses on either side of the name.... true to form!



One final note: the Millbrook H.T. was last weekend, and I managed to score a Saturday off so we could watch the Advanced XC! Katherine at Grey Brook Eventing was also there with her fabulous mare Kiki, but alas, we did not cross paths. (She came in 2nd in her division with a 26.5!) It was outstanding and I got some pretty good pictures with my little camera:













Buck Davidson and Titanium:



Dude how many horses can that man possibly ride in a day? He didn't run Bobby, much to our dismay, but he still rode THREE other Advanced horses, plus all his other I and P horses, and I'm sure there were lower level ones on top of all that. I guess if you're going to come all the way from Ocala, you go big or go home!

Does that ever make you want to show or what!!

Bummin'.

Want to know what started today? Rolex. The ultimate destination, as spectator or rider, for all those who love our great sport of eventing. Year after year, Rolex devotees make their annual pilgrimage to this holiest of grounds to cheer, walk 89 miles a day, rack up enormous amounts of debt at the trade fair, gulp down corndogs, meet up with dozens of friends we only see once a year, have heartattacks at every jump, and scream ourselves hoarse as we watch our favorite riders, horses and heroes conquer the most grueling event North America could possibly ever offer up. Rolex. Just the word gives me the good chills. Rolex, where I go year after year without fail, no matter how impossible it is to get there. Rolex... where I will not be this year, and it's driving me nuts. Hurting me, even. I gave up my Rolex this year because I have very limited vacation days and thought I was going to need them all for showing. Now, I don't need any of them for anything, and could have easily taken a few days to go. Sigh.

And yet, life goes on. Thinking about missing Rolex has made me sharply aware of missing my entire show season, and it hurts. I am doing my best to enjoy all the little things I love about my mare - how rich and glossy her coat is even with the last remnants of winter fuzz, how one section of her mane always falls to the wrong side of her neck no matter what I do, how her feet still remain rock hard and gorgeous despite rest and her perpetually sloppy stall (she is the worst hay dunker and she drags that water ALL over the front of her stall every day), how she always manages to look happy whenever I come around in the morning to say hi - but I'm still wanting to ride, to gallop, to just sit on her even. In due time, I suppose. Right now we are celebrating the victory of starting to treadmill again, of tight and cool legs that stay down and cool from the first cold-tubbing of the morning all the way to nightly wraps, and of a freshly trimmed set of feet that make me smile every time I look at them. I might be dreaming of Rolex right now, but I know that next year it will come. I might be wishing for a full and hearty season of eventing for myself and for my mare right now, but I know that even though we can't this year, with patience and time we can do just about anything.







I keep catching Gogo snoozing every morning after she gets a fresh clean stall. (Hence the terrible cameraphone pictures.) She's always covered in shavings, filthy, drooling, and peaceful. I think I know what she might be dreaming about.

Breeding: Pros and Cons?

In contemplating Gogo's future for the next year, I keep coming back across breeding as the one thing that sticks out as simultaneously the most important thing I could do, and the most undecided. I've already ruled out eventing for this year - even if she bounces back fast from this injury, I see no reason to push her and fit her up for it. We have time. I have two different vet opinions on breeding - one says definitely, one says put her back to work and don't bother. While I do agree with putting her back to work at least in a rehab sense, as that is the best and most controlled way to strengthen and heal a tendon, I'm not planning on hitting any big shows anytime soon. And seeing as I had planned on breeding her next year anyway (before this injury happened of course), this isn't exactly a spur of the moment thing. I've given it a lot of thought, and it's a definite yes for her future. The question, however, is when. Do I breed now, or do I wait? If I don't breed her this year, chances are (should she recover well and go on injury-free) that I won't have a chance to breed her for several more years given her ideal competition schedule. And let's be honest, it's a gamble all around to have an older maiden mare, and sometimes it isn't worth it.

So that leads me to now. This is the ideal time... or well, almost the ideal time. If I do breed her now, that probably cuts out next season as well, seeing as it's a full time job to be a mom, a double full time job to be a mom and a riding horse, and a triple full time overtime no lunchbreaks job to be a mom and a riding horse who is getting fitted up for a competitive season. (Although hell, that way I might finally get her to lose some damn weight!) And that isn't ideal in my mind either, losing two seasons. On the other hand, it will absolutely get me to take my time. Forget about worrying, forget about planning for a season, forget about feeling the need to push her before she may or may not be ready - I won't have that option, so it won't happen.

She'll be 9 this coming year, 10 when baby hits the ground, which means it won't be until age 11 that she's back to eventing fully again. God, that sounds old. Way old. But by breeding her now and REALLY taking my time, I might just secure a seriously long competitive career with her down the road. Who knows, she could be eventing until she's in her 20's! Lil' Tricky was 21 when he did Rolex. The nicest dressage horse in my barn is a Grand Prix horse who is 21, still in full work, and not on a SINGLE supplement. Nothing. He is a far more supple and expressive mover than all of the other horses in the barn combined. That's impressive. But back to Gogo... god forbid I try and get her back into work too soon and she reinjures herself, because she'll probably be done. And then she'll be making babies anyway, so there you have it. It's just a matter of NOW or LATER?


I've made my very basic list of pro's and con's for you all to see. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but I want your opinions on this. Breed her THIS YEAR, or DON'T?



Reasons to breed this year:
1) Good time - recooping from an injury, not competing
2) Gives me plenty of reason to take as much time as I need - won't have a competition season next year either most likely so this injury will have absolutely maximum potential for not ever happening again!!
3) Will have a super awesome, well-bred event baby to start up potentially when Gogo's career is winding down - good timimg all around
4) Breeding now prevents her from being an older maiden, which are harder to get pregnant, keep pregnant, and foal out safely
5) Did I mention having an adorable, bouncing, rearing bundle of joy!? I have no interest in purchasing my next horse elsewhere. I want her kiddo and nothing else. I would be the happiest kid in the world to end up with a complete carbon copy of her. In fact, I'd prefer it that way!

Reasons to NOT breed this year:
1) Money. I am doing well enough at this point for myself and will be able to afford two horses without issue, but still... two horses is double the expense of one. I enjoy spending lavishly on Gogo, and I do remember what it was like not long ago to be spending lavishly on Gogo and then going very hungry myself. Not where I ever want to be again. This is really the most enormous reason. Of course I'll be able to afford it, but I kind of am enjoying being able to spend extra money on ME for once! I also eventually need to be thinking about, you know, my life and future beyond all this... do I want a house someday? I have a really small savings fund for my supposed someday retirement, should I be thinking about this some more? I mean, as a horseperson I will NEVER retire until the day I die, but you know. The future is eventually going to be the present.
2) Cutting out an extra competition season. I suppose this is just for selfish reasons really. Can't wait to get back on that mare and gallop XC! But there will be time for that in the future. Sometimes it just feels like everything is a ticking clock though.
3) Time. With two horses, probably at two separate barns, I will lose large amounts of time that I already struggle to find somedays. Yesterday I got home at 9pm from the barn, just because I was there cleaning! I didn't ride anybody, so imagine if I had two horses to ride! I also would probably lose travel time, due to both the time and money issue. And that's fine, a sacrifice I can make (because I've already sacrified it anyway, sadly), but you know. I like having the option even if I don't actually have it.





So what to do? Breed her now, take two years to get back into competition, and then go on to have a long career while baby grows up and gets reason to head out just as she is winding now? Continue to ride her and not breed, and have a competition season next year and extra time and money for myself but have to breed her later as an older maiden and risk sitting out several seasons while I have neither mare nor baby to ride? A hard choice.
I will tell you this, I had a dream two nights ago that Gogo did in fact foal out right in front of me and randomly (don't think I knew she was pregnant in the dream). I went in to clean her stall, and she popped out a baby while STANDING, and it lasted all of about 5 seconds. It was a huge, bright bay colt with those distinctive I'm-going-to-grey-out markings around his lil' nosey. Oh noes, not a grey colt! We want a dark bay filly just like her mom!






(One of my boarders snapped these two pictures of her looking adorable. She has the oogly-eyed skeptical face on in the first picture because the guys were in the hayloft getting reason to throw down lunch hay, and in the second she is obviously getting up to get her lunch hay!)

An Exercise in New Year's Resolutions

I did in fact go back and delete my last post after having second thoughts about it. I know it's been requested of me to write about my awesome job but that's not what this blog is about, and shouldn't be. I certainly did not mean to gossip about my boarders by sharing that last story.... it really just was too funny and I wanted to spread a little joking cheer. In retrospect, not particularly appropriate of me! Won't happen again. If you want to know about the hijinks that ensure while trying to keep 31 horses, 23 owners, 2 cats, 4 trainers, and 4 staff members happy all at the same time, well... you'll just have to get to know me personally!




In other news, I've been doing my best to integrate my New Year's resolutions into my daily life. These are all, for the most part, life changes versus one-time events, so I've been playing with them and doing my best to make my life and my world a better place. As a refresher, here are my 2010 resolutions/goals:

Travel as much as I can – Madagascar/Egypt/? At the end of the year
Complete the 100 Pushups/200 Situps/25 Pullups/200 Squats challenges
Learn how to run barefoot and compete in a 5k barefoot (maybe!)
Do yoga once (or twice) every week
Eat healthier – buy fresh food every week and learn to MAKE IT
Save money for other things than the necessary – shows, and breeding next year
During the winter, ski every Wednesday that weather allows
Complete Metro's scrapbook
Have a poem published
Finish Patrick painting


Well, so far I've done my very best to ski every week, but it's quite a bit harder than expected. Unfortunately for me, Connecticut is on the temperate end of New England, so while my sister is up skiing in Vermont and Maine all weekend every weekend, I struggle on my one day off to get out to our tiny local hills. I went skiing two Wednesdays ago and the hill I went to SUCKED! The snow was terrible, there were only two chairlifts open, and I got SCREAMED at by some maniac chairlift operator when I didn't put the bar on the chairlift down. (Seriously? Is that a rule now? I thought it was a suggestion.) Last week I wanted to go on Wednesday, but I didn't actually have a day off last week, so that didn't work. This week, I've had to contend with the fact that it's been 40+ degrees all week, so ALL the snow is gone. Can't exactly ski with no snow! I HAVE done yoga every week though, which is great. We have a very nice small studio in town that has classes every evening, and while I was doing a very intense hotroom Vinyasa class, I also tried a few Naam classes with my roommate, just because it's always more fun to exercise with a friend. Our Naam class is.... not like any Naam yoga I've ever known. We do lots of chanting, obviously, but we don't really do much in the way of actual yoga poses. Lots of fitness stuff, but it's just not... yoga. It's a bit weird, but actually quite tiring, so that's good. On the barefoot running front, I've been researching a bit and I do agree that I want to get a pair of Vibram Five Fingers. A lot of barefoot enthusiasts say that getting a transition shoe is not ideal if you're going to run fully barefoot, but I'm not quite sure that I DO want to get to that point just yet. It's the same idea as getting hoof boots in my mind. Movement is critical to creating the bare foot that you want, and if you have a hoof in transition, forcing the horse to hobble painfully over rocks just isn't fair. That foot will come in time, but you need to help it get there. Same with barefoot running. If I'm hobbling over rocks with my pathetic feet that have been wearing shoes since I could first walk, I'm not going to get very far am I? My feet need to strengthen, and I need help getting there.

An interesting comparison: here are some healthy bare human feet versus unhealthy "shod" human feet, and healthy bare hooves versus unhealthy shod hooves.

And:

Don't be fooled by the width of the shod foot. That is a hoof plagued with paper-thin, pancake-flat soles, serious flares, and a very contracted heel. Nothing at all like the rock-cruncher on the left.
As you can see by both the human and horse examples, the foot will adapt to compensate for improper footwear, and will also adapt to a more natural lifestyle if given the opportunity. To what extent it will adapt is dependent on everything - environment, exercise, diet, proper trim, genetics, etc. But every foot can change in some way, shape or form.

EDIT: I forgot to add in one more thing, and it's very important, maybe the most important part of the whole post. It is quite clear to me that if you were to take the unhealthy "shod" foot in that picture and set it to walking around barefoot, aside from the obvious pain factor from those weak, uncalloused soles, that foot will never turn into the big wide one pictured. Why? Because more likely than not, that unhealthy foot has been crammed into shoes ever since it was young. It's similar to the very outdated foot binding custom: a young, growing foot will become permanently deformed if forced into something unnatural. Countless doctors agree that improper footwear for children can be exceptionally damaging and unhealthy. And now here's a thought: what about that idea of the tiny, boxy Quarter Horse foot? The eternally crappy Thoroughbred foot? Quite obviously, genetics DOES play a part in this, but you don't see crappy feet in ALL QHs or TBs. You DO see a lot of crappy feet in OTTBs and QHs who come from young sport backgrounds. Those TBs get shod for the track when they are long yearlings. Those halter, western pleasure and other young western sport type QHs get shod when they are weanlings, and I've heard it's desirable to encourage a horse to put out the tiny, upright boxes that seem to plague our QHs today. I certainly hope that's not the real case. Regardless, those young feet are not done growing, and do they get the chance to develop a thick digital cushion, a dinosaur hide frog, thick walls, and a tough sole callous? No they do not. If you have a completely outstanding farrier, the damage probably won't be huge. But unless your farrier is God, it's quite possible that the fast growth of young hooves will quickly outgrow their shoes - but be unable to adjust for their size. They'll be stuck the way they are. Actually, Bowker did a study on this, dissecting hooves that had been kept bare and hooves that had been shod at a young age, and he found that the internal structures of the feet shod at a young age were essentially "frozen" in a state of immaturity - they were permanently stunted. (If anyone has a link to that study, let me know so I can put it up here.) This is why I think a lot of people won't - or even just can't - take their horses barefoot and expect them to be able to perform. Those feet were deformed when they were still growing, and never had the chance to develop what they needed to make it in the natural world. A majorly "deformed" foot taken bare will change for the better if given the opportunity, I assure you. But will it ever really be fully barefoot and sound and comfortable on all types of terrain in all situations? Maybe! But, maybe not. I wish we could take two cloned TBs, put them in the exact same diet, exercise, and turnout program, and shoe the one and leave the second barefoot, just to see what would happen. THAT would be an interesting study.

I digress. Anyway.



In this miserable, crappy Connecticut winter weather, I am really looking forward to trying on a pair of VFFs and am dreaming of a warmer, drier springtime.

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

As for Gogo, it's becoming quite clear that I've likely bitten off way more than I can chew financially for the upcoming season! Sure I want to do Holsteiner approvals in the fall and all the bigger events and the AECs and some dressage shows and some jumper shows and a competitive trail ride and hunter trials and hunter paces and OH MAN! that is a lot of stuff. Toooooo much stuff. WAY too much stuff. If I really want to breed her next year, I need to budget for it, and that means not being ridiculously extravagant this year. I certainly am bringing in three times the money that I was (not that that's a ton, but hey, it's a start), but that doesn't mean I can throw money wherever I want it. So, I'm going through my show schedule and scaling back to just include the most important things. The schedule is not complete yet - this is just events and a couple possible schooling dressage shows - but I am not planning to do any competitive trail rides, jumper shows or too many other things. Holsteiner approvals may not happen this year either... it's so many hundreds and hundreds of dollars.


April 18: Mount Holyoke Schooling Dressage Show (CT) First 4, Second 1
May 1: Once Again Farm Schooling Dressage Show (CT) First 4, Second 1
May 29: Mystic Valley Hunt Club HT (CT) (Novice)
June 25 - 27: Groton House II HT (MA) (Training)
July 10 - 11: ENDYCTA/Old Chatham (NY) (Training)
July 24 - 25: Fitch's Corner HT (NY) (Training)
August 5 - 8: Millbrook HT (NY) (Training)
August 14 - 15: GMHA HT (VT) (Training)
September 09 – 12: American Eventing Championships (GA) (Training)
October 2 - 3: University of New Hampshire HT (NH)
October/November: Cap in with Wentworth/Tanheath
October: New England Hunter Trials (Novice)
November 12-14: 2010 Equine Affaire Versatile Horse & Rider Competition

Italicised are the possibilities that I haven't decided on yet. Not included here are any potential hunter paces I want to do. There are TONS to choose from, so I haven't decided yet which I'd like to do. I am happy to report I have a whole slew of eager boarders who would love to join me in these endeavors, so I will have riding buddies, partners and support! Hooray!

As for the events - the real meat of the season - I am planning on starting the season with Mystic's very easy Novice, just as a pipe opener. If all goes according to plan, I do want to make Groton House our first Training. I considered doing the spring GMHA at Training, but it's in early June, and I just don't think we'll be ready by then. So we'll do what we did last year with Groton House - cross our fingers and hope that we'll get in!

Really what I'd like to do is one of those schooling dressage shows just to get her off the property, then go into the eventing season strong. Whether or not I will do Old Chatham entirly depends on how she feels, and how she does at Groton House. Once again, my brain has exploded seeing that every other level has their Area Championships in the fall.... but the level I want to show at? Yep, gotta be held at a spooky venue in JULY! So quite possibly, I will not be attending Areas this year. It just depends on, well, everything.


Gogo is feeling good, strong, and sound under saddle. One of our boarders commented yesterday on how perfectly even she looks behind, much to my happiness. She also mentioned while watching her from behind that she could also tell her evenness from just how evenly her tail waved back and forth while she was trotting. Love that!


Gogo would also like to say that she is REALLY looking forward to springtime and galloping again:

That's a "PLEASE!" face if I ever saw one!

The Elephant in the Corner.

((Edit: Due to an influx in random comment spam about Viagra and the fact that I want to know who is leaving comments on complicated posts such as this one, I've had to disable anonymous posting for now. Sorry for the inconvenience.))





It's high time I touched on a subject I've been vastly avoiding for the past three months. I've heard the question asked so many times now that I have no choice but to confront it. The skeptics, the critics, the naysayers are all gleefully certain that I have failed in my barefoot quest, that obviously because of the incident at the AECs I am destined to fail and will surely change my sordid ways now. I hear the question everywhere I go, from everyone I talk to: Will you shoe your horse now?

The answer, my readers, is no.


No, I will not alter what I consider to be the best horsecare decision I have ever made, and after this long post you will understand why. I hope that by now those that know me understand that I am here on earth to make the best decisions I can for my horse's health and well-being. If that were to mean shoeing her, I would. If that were to mean giving up eventing, I would. But it doesn't. I have quite a lot to say on the matter, so get comfortable. Knowing what I know about feet - seeing what I've seen - I just can't go back. Taking the barefoot route is a choice for her health, and I will not choose metal shoes for my convenience. There has to be a better way to provide traction and protection for those that need it. There HAS to be. And do I need it beyond what I already have? Quite frankly, no, I don't.

Let's first talk about the mechanics of a bare foot versus a studded foot. The bare hoof has a certain amount of natural slide engineered into it. You want the foot to have a little wiggle room when it lands because it cushions the impact and lessens strain and the likelihood of subsequent injury. That being said, a bare hoof is surprisingly "grippy" on most footings. In a lot of scenarios, a bare hoof is actually a better option than a regular smooth shod hoof because flat steel/aluminum/whathaveyou can be VERY slick. The bare hoof might have a little give, but the metal shoe once it starts to slide doesn't stop. Think about wintertime for example - not a sane soul would keep a horse smooth shod around an icy, snowy, hilly place. Everyone either goes bare for the winter or uses caulks/borium. It's a similar situation on grass - smooth shod hooves are just too slippery. So that leaves me two options essentially - staying bare or going with something with caulks. The big question is, do I want a little bit of give to lesson the beating a leg takes while in action and risk a bigger slide than I want, or do I want to potentially torque and damage a leg through not allowing it that natural slide when it needs it? In a normal situation, a bare hoof actually provides a surprising amount of traction, much more than a smooth shod hoof. A nice, cuppy foot holds ground very well, and varied, texturized structures on the bottom of the foot increase surface area and the "grippy" factor in most situations. At the AECs, what I failed to take into account was the footing that day, because it seemed just fine at first glance. My horse had been going round the soaking wet mountains of New England all season with not ONE single slip anymore - or ever in her entire LIFE that I can EVER remember! - so I felt pretty invincible. Imagine how stupid I felt when the beautiful, totally flat footing proved dangerously slick - unlike my soft, wet New England hills, this footing was rock hard but covered with a layer of wet, slick, long grass... like a sheet of ice. In some circumstances, no one can cope with footing situations like that. Let me say this in bold to stress its importance: All feet - flat shod, barefoot, borium, calks, studs, boots, anything - can slip under the right circumstances. Your average horse weighs between 1000-1200lbs. A tiny piece of studded metal nailed to the bottom of a foot is realistically not going to stop a slide if the conditions are right. Case in point - at the AECs, the day before I ran XC, at right about the same time in the morning that I ran XC, a Prelim horse with studs all around slid right about where I slid, in no relation to any fences. My horse caught herself and continued on. That horse slid, fell, fractured its scapula, and had to be euthanized. At a Championship show, monkeys are not going around riding at Prelim. This was obviously a competent pair. Studs did not help that horse in that situation. And, quite frankly, I wonder what would have happened had I been riding a studded horse. Either the studs would have stopped the slide, or they would have seriously compounded her injuries. As it stands, I feel lucky that the damage was as minimal as it was. It could have been worse.... so much worse. And one of the reasons I believe she is recovering as rapidly as she is now is because she is bare. The blood flow in that foot is uninhibited, and free to bring a rich supply of nutrients and fibroblasts to the site of the injury. It's helping her heal.

When it comes to caulks, it takes two to tango - the foot needs to come in contact with the ground for the studs to take effect obviously, but the ground has to be firm enough to match the force and return the hold. Sure, calks add traction, but not all the time. At Huntington, for example, the stadium footing was horrible and soaking wet. You know that turf that just comes up when you step on it, the kind that you could grab a handful of and the grass would just release from the mud underneath it? That's the kind it was. No foot - studded or otherwise - is going to negotiate that well. I actually watched a studded horse refuse a fence from well over a few strides out, and he sat on his haunches like a reining horse and slid.... and slid.... and slid..... and slid, right into the fence, nearly flipping over backwards on his rider because his hind end rocketed underneath himself so fast that the rest of him didn't have time to catch up. Did Gogo negotiate that footing well? Nope. (And I have a feeling I know why that is, but I will explain that shortly). The girl who won my division had a quick, catty little horse who, as she described it, skipped right over the footing. Gogo, with her different stride length and style, didn't.
Caulks can really be a scary thing. They are designed for one thing - keep the foot where the horse puts it. If a hoof at speed needs a little bit of slide, it doesn't get it with studs. This can lead to strains, hyperextensions, and trauma. (I'm not saying it does, I'm just saying it can.) If the caulks aren't big enough, they're worthless as traction devices. If the caulks are too big, they can do damage through either the aforementioned strain, or by creating pressure points on the foot. (This is why you remove studs immediately after your ride - standing around on hard ground with studs still in can be VERY damaging.) And let's not forget what happens when a horse miscalculates where to put its legs and stabs itself in the belly/legs/chest/wherever with a studded foot. They make belly guards for a reason, you know!


So what I want is traction. I don't need protection like an endurance horse out in the rocky desert might. For the most part, I have all the traction I need with her big, gorgeous bare feet. And I'd prefer that she be able to slip a little when she needs to in order to keep her from harm. So now, it's back to a question of morals - if the footing is bad enough that I would need studs, should I even be running her at all? And, in all seriousness, it's Novice we're talking about here. It's not Rolex. If you can't get around a regular, nice-footing Novice course without needing studs, then you've got some serious issues, I'm sorry. It's been raining for a week straight and the ground is a muddy mess and you're doing to die without your biggest spikes? Well.... maybe you should just call it a day and go home with an intact horse.

I need traction. But I need give when she needs give. And I need stop when she needs stop. 99% of the time I've got exactly what I need when I'm bare. And I think the most important thing to stress now is that I don't think she slid at the AECs because she was bare.

So what happened? I have a theory. Stick with me on this one because it might take a small bit of explaining.


Remember those hock injections?

Let's start there.


Daun awakened this little kernel of thought in my head. We were talking about injecting her right stifle when she was at Tufts and how I didn't want to make my horse a pincushion but that I felt that this time, unlike the hocks, we really did have hard evidence and that I felt less ethically stressed about it. We both feel pretty much the same about injections, only I've subjected my poor animal to them and she has not. You all remember how I essentially gave myself an ulcer going back and forth about whether or not to do her hocks in August, and how I eventually caved and went ahead with it. And yep, she did in fact feel better... but it was hardly the miracle I expected. What Daun had to say about injections, particularly in the hocks, is that besides all the ethical drama behind them, they can also "move the problem" somewhere else. Making her hocks feel better (even when they were doing their job just fine before) increases the likelihood of her injuring something else. To quote Daun, "The whole leg is connected, obviously, and if you give them 5 degrees more flexion in the hock, that is 5 degrees more movement the stifle and pasterns must absorb as well. Say the horse is tracking up fine pre-injections, but now after injections the horse easily overtracks by 6". At speeds, that is a LOT more strain on those tendons reaching under, suddenly, overnight, because the hocks feel better. Stuff like that scares me. Also when changing the way of going via shoeing or the feet. The tendons and support structures need time to adjust to the new way of movement, but we don't give them time, we change things suddenly." (This is why I love Daun. Because she has brains and she uses them.) And I certainly don't disagree. In fact, I am quite certain this has quite an enormous part to do with her injuries.
We were all shocked when she did bilateral tendon injuries on XC, no one more than me because of the countless hours of slow work on tarmac that I did alllllllllll spring and summer long. Her tendons should have been made of IRON. And I think they probably were... until I changed things. Suddenly, she had a bigger range of motion. Suddenly, she had more push and more stress upon limb flight and landing. I counted it up and prior to Huntington (the first show after the injections), she hadn't taken a rail down in 9 shows. 9 SHOWS. That is astounding. After the injections, at Huntington, she smashed through a couple of warmup fences like a madwoman. Strange, I thought... she's normally more careful than that. I think perhaps she had a bit of a Superwoman complex... no need to protect those hocks anymore Ma, they feel awesome so I can take off wherever I feel like and I don't have to be careful with them anymore! And before that fifth fence, she took off early and both hinds rocketed out from underneath her. She didn't protect herself in that footing AT ALL. Not like her in the slightest. (Ironically, she handled the soppy, soggy, hilly XC like a champ, giant hills and all.) And who knows? Maybe during that slip - maybe during that last month of gallops and hacks - those newly-loaded tendons started to get a little tired. Maybe I didn't give them enough time to adjust. Maybe I overstressed them simply by giving her a bigger range of motion far too late in the season, when we were already training at maximum capacity. Whatever the case may be, when I half-halted her before fence four at the AECs, instead of carefully slowing herself and coming up in front like she normally does, she saw no need to protect her body and wasn't careful about the way she took the half-half. And the fact that during a very small, routine slip - when I have no memory of her ever slipping on XC ever before in my life - she did such extensive damage begs the question, did she have undetected bilateral microdamage before? It wouldn't surprise me. In fact, I feel pretty strongly that this has a large part to do with it.


In short: I don't think she slipped because she's barefoot. I think she slipped because she wasn't protecting her body, and because I had quite likely inadvertently caused a predisposition to an injury. It was probably me that caused her body to fail. I don't think as horse owners we sit back and think about these things enough. We rely on our trainers, our barn managers, our vets and our farriers to give us their best opinions, but sometimes all we really need is our own selves to make the best choices. Sure, Gogo felt better after the hock injections - what horse wouldn't? But she was moving just fine before. At what cost did an unnecessary procedure come? Maybe we all need to look around at all our injured and damaged horses. All right, so Sammy did a suspensory on XC when he slipped. Sure, we've got that. So we put studs on Sammy when he's better and don't think about it anymore. But maybe what we should be doing is looking back at what led up to Sammy's injury. Maybe Sammy's farrier work was unsatisfactory and that predisposed him. Maybe he was worked too hard, maybe he was injected too recently, maybe he's a 16-year-old OTTB, maybe the footing at home is terrible, maybe he's conformationally lacking, maybe he's been showing a lot and his body is tired. There is so much that goes into all of it. And at the same time, it's crying over spilled milk, and after an injury there's nothing we can do but just plow on. But hindsight is 20-20 every time, and you find yourself always thinking, I wonder if I had done things differently, would the outcome have changed?

Add, add, add, add, add. We are always adding for our horse's benefit, or so we think. My horse is working hard, so let's add a joint supplement. And let's add DMG, and an antioxident, and supplements to support his tendons and ligaments. His feet aren't so good, let's add a hoof supplement, and fancy shoes, and pads, and studs. His back is sore, so let's add these fancy new pads. He hurts from all the new strain we're adding to his body, so let's inject his whole body. Oh now he has ulcers, let's give him thousands of dollars worth of treatments that may or may not help, depending on what else his lifestyle is like. He's broken all over now, so let's double all our efforts. Soon, you have a horse living miserable in bubble wrap, so broken and over-supplented, over-shod, and over-drugged that it's hardly a horse anymore. You know, Mother Nature did design everything in the world to work well on its own without our interference. Sometimes, we should just do our best to try and stick to Her plan.


You can tell I've had a lot of down time to think about all this.




In summary, I think slapping on a metal pair of shoes isn't going to change a damn thing, except her hooves, and not at all in a desirable way. I think there is far more to all of this than a simple solution. I think it's complicated, stressful, and altogether morally challenging, like all things related to horsecare. As I said before, if putting shoes on her was the answer to the problem, I'd do that. It's not about pride in a horsecare style I've opted for. It's about her, and what she needs.


Quite a lot to think about, going into this New Year.

Official AEC Countdown: 3 DAYS!

To achieve great things, two things are needed:
A plan, and not quite enough time.

~ Leonard Bernstein

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

Suddenly I've just realized that I am leaving tomorrow on the first leg of the journey to the AECs. Tomorrow. We've planned, we've worked impossibly hard all year, we've overcome troubles and triumphed where we only could have dreamed we might. And yet, it never feels like enough time before the Championships. Are our transitions all really up to snuff? Why didn't I get to school XC one last time? I wish I had gotten to jump another full stadium course, I wish I had gotten to school water, can we really actually maintain left bend through an entire test without one lapse, was it a good idea to drop the last gallop from this week's workout session? All these things in my head, wishing I had had just a little more time.

But that's the fun part of it all. You can't make yourself perfect. You work and you work and there is still always something to make a little better. Time goes at its own speed, and all you can do is try to keep up with it. And you never can in the way you want to, but half the fun is trying.

The AECs are upon us, and all our heavy workouts are over. I dropped the gallop from yesterday's schedule because I had worked her very hard for seven days in a row (she usually gets every sixth day off), and I realized that there was no need for it, no need to potentially exhaust her at the end of the week if she's already been working that hard. I will hack her today, she'll have tomorrow and Wednesday off to travel, and I will either hack her around Lamplight on Thursday or lunge her instead. And then, at 10:18am on Friday, I will be turning down the centerline for the culmination of an entire year's worth of work.

It's finally time.




August Goals:

1) XC school our brains out, and successfully!!! And make sure our gallop fitness is to a T! AND make sure my jumping equitation improves!
Well all of these things DID happen, for the most part! We didn't get to school her BRAINS out per se, but we did get to go twice in the past month, which is more than I'd been able to do in a chunk all summer. Once she was finally feeling right as rain, the schooling at Red Rock was AWESOME. And she was just AWESOME at Huntington. Given that she is a horse with a very sharp memory, it is my hope that because we didn't get to school this week, she will remember these past two sessions and go onto XC feeling as confident as she has been. They had XC fences in the warmup at the AECs last year, so hopefully they will again this year - it was VERY helpful.
As for her gallop fitness? SHE IS TOO FIT. And my equitation? It DID improve, but hopefully it will continue to do so at a fast pace than it has been!

2) Successfully complete the Huntington Farm H.T. WITHOUT XC PENALTIES!
SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

3) Make sure every possible issue with Gogo is addressed: treat Lyme, check eyes, and hopefully not but maybe if we have to, inject her hocks... please let's hope not!
Yep, everything got addressed, hocks included. She was treated for Lyme (Doxy has been done for a week or two now), her eyes are fine, her stomach got addressed with the aloe juice, and her hocks were done. And suddenly, once everything was all squared away, she was her old amazing self again. Thank god for small miracles.

4) Finesse our Novice testwork, continue finessing First Level work and continue to work more Second Level movements inActually, I really feel like we've made a small breakthrough in this past week. She's been absolutely outstanding - OUTSTANDING! - so let's hope we can really put our game face on in dressage and give them hell!!

5) At the end of this month, be fully ready, prepared physically and mentally, and excited for the AECs!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah. Like I said, there is never, ever enough time, and there never will be before this show or any other show, but we are ready.

And 6) Make sure we've having fun doing it all :D
Ohhhhhhh yea :D



September Goals:
1) Successfully complete the AECs on our competitive dressage score, and have a total blast doing it.

I still want to be top 10.




(2008 AEC Picture of the Day: Mad excited for XC!!)

Huntington Farms H.T. 9/23/09

BACK IN WINNING FORM!!

Or well, almost ;) Gogo and I took 5th in our division at Huntington this weekend due to a bad ride to the planks on my part and a subsequent slip in the mud during stadium, which cost us a rail even though Maresie did her very best to get us out of a bad situation. Oops! Rails happen, and when they're my fault combined with Mother Nature... oh well!

Huntington was GREAT fun. The drive wasn't nearly as bothersome as I expected, and I spent it cruising along with good music enjoying myself. It got wilder and more woodsy the further north I went, and I was reminded of driving through nothern Michigan. Except for the "Bear Crossing" and "Moose Crossing" signs. Bears?? Moose?? I've never even seen a moose, I don't think. I almost hit a bear wearing a giant radio collar with my Durango when I was driving through Sequoia National Park in California. I saw bears once outside a restaurant in the Yoop (that's Michigan's Upper Penninsula for those of you not from there... believe it or not, yes, Michigan is actually two states with one name, separated by water.) But it certainly felt like I was heading into the Wops the further I went.
Gogo settled in like a good girl upon arrival - we were in the upper barn on top of a hill, overlooking the rest of the valley we were in. Huntington has a ton of land, it seems, or at least had permission to use an awful lot of land! The barn had a narrow little entrance door and low ceilings, but the stalls were big and roomy and she seemed very comfortable there. She even only tried to attack her neighbors once or twice, how sweet.

As for me, once I got her settled I headed out to walk XC, where it promptly started to rain on me. From that point on, I'm pretty sure I didn't dry out until I got in the car to drive home the next day. After getting a good look at the course (and getting thoroughly soaked), I gave Gogo her night check, and settled into the trailer for the night. I had one of her blankets spread onto the floor of the trailer (after it was cleaned out of course!!), a sleeping bag and pillow on top of that, and my cooler of snacks, backpack of stuff, and Harry Potter to keep me company in the rain. And it rained alllllllllllllll night. Lights were out by 10pm (unusual for me!), and I awoke the next morning on my own at 6:30am feeling refreshed and ready to roll.

Dressage went well. I did not achieve nearly the level of relaxation that I usually do, even after an hour of warmup (easy there beast... still hot to trot after an hour? Well... here goes nothing...!) but she put in a very solid test even though it felt like if I had needed a half-halt anywhere, I wouldn't have been able to get one! We came away with a test of solid 7's, two 8's, and one deserved 6 for our freewalk. Still, that gave us a 29.5, our best score of this season so far, and putting us in 3rd behind a tie for 1st with two 28.5s. Pretty respectable! A friend I had made at Mystic was in 5th with either a 31.0 or a 31.5, I can't remember, but that gives you an idea of how close the scores were! I can't rememeber where our winner was sitting after dressage, but it must have been right around there. I was pleased with the score and the test, but still got the same old comments as always - needs more activity behind and needs better left bend. Well... I guess the hock injections didn't exactly solve that issue either. Guess it's back to a rider problem... d'oh!

Onto XC, which I was understandably a little nervous about. It had been drizzling on and off, and I was feeling a bit anxious, because how could I not after our past two shows? But I needn't have worried. The course was quite long for Novice - optimum time was nearly 6 minutes, I think Groton House's was a little over 5 minutes, for comparison - and it was very long and gallopy, like a lot of people had told me ahead of time. The first fence was very inviting, enclosed on both sides and simple to look at:



And she jumped it like a champ. From there, it was a nice long gallop to fence 2, another attractive brushy fence with a turny approach to it, which she took slightly crooked but showed no hesitation to. Up into the woods from there, down a long road which put you back out into a small field where fence 3 was:



Again, fairly sizeable, very inviting, and she gave it a very good effort. Up into the woods and down the dirt road again, and around a corner to the biggest field where fence 4 was waiting, which again gave no problems:



Fence 5, which barely missed being included in that picture, was a big swing around to the left, easy for her, another simple palisade/coop type jump, and from there you headed to fence 6, a very sweet tire jump which she looked at in a sort of curious way but never hesitated to on approach. It was like she was going oh, that's nicely built isn't it? And on we went. Fence 7 was a simple palisade, and on we went to fence 8, which was our first real question:



That's the backside of it. Notice the funky hill right before it? I know that seems uncomplicated, but Gogo has this tendancy to gather speed going down hills, and I was not about to be going a thousand miles an hour at the bottom of this little speed bump here only to have her go hmmmm I am going too fast and can't POSSIBLY be expected to jump this! What I had planned to do was come down the short side of the hill at a trot and risk a steering issue rather than risk a speed issue coming over the hill. I needn't have worried, however, because even though she simply would not trot, she came around that shorter side of the hill and was completely game to it, jumping it just fine. Hooray! From here, I don't have any more pictures (it was raining pretty hard at that time and I didn't want to get my camera all wet), but I will describe it as best I can. I wish I had gotten to take more pictures, there are some things I wish you guys could see! After fence 8 was a hard right turn to a one stride combination of simple logs, and fence 10 was a white barn/doghouse, all of which she handled easily. It got trickier from there - fence 11 was a set of airy logs at the top of a pretty steep hill, which you had to jump while you were still going up, and she gave it a mighty effort which I was very impressed with - I'm pretty sure she's never jumped anything quite like that before. The meat of the course started at fence 12, the ditch, which was kind of weird looking. From the ditch, you had just a couple of strides to make it to fence 13, an offset coop off to the right, and then it was onto the upbank, with another offset approach to it - it was basically arcing around these three all going to the right in a circle. The bank was interesting - it was set at the top of a hill in a circular shape, and they called it The Castle. In the middle of The Castle was a chevron from Training the day before, so you had to crank left in order to not run into it when you reached the top of the bank. From there, it was down a fairly steep little section of hill to a set of brushy logs at the bottom, which was complicated to get to because you had a fairly narrow path going left off of The Castle (so you didn't fall off the other sides), and then you had to go right down this steep-ish hill to the brushy log. Complicated for her, to be sure, but she took all of it in stride and was completely game and relaxed through the whole thing. She never hesitated once, even though it went so fast I don't think I had time to register hardly any of it! It was a loooooooooooong gallop down a dirt road from there to fence 16, a set of logs set on a downhill slope, which she hopped over easily. Down a pretty turfed up hill we went, at the bottom of which was the water complex. I had planned on trotting this hill, but again, she came back to me instead in a very controlled canter and so I let her cruise comfortably down the hill that way. She looked at the water for a second - it was a large puddle mostly - but a couple pops with my beater and she trotted right in, and out over the logs right after it. Wheeee down the final hill to the big white at the end, and I came home whooping and hollering like a backwoods redneck at the Friday night hoedown. My friend came in behind me and was equally as pleased with her ride, and we walked back together to stabling discussing our rides. I was thrilled. THRILLED! She was perfect!

I have no pictures of stadium either - bummer. The course was very turny, with rollbacks and some tight turns, and I think it would have been great fun if it hadn't been raining like crazy. Even though the XC footing had been fine, by the time we went for stadium, the ground there was very turfed and very slick. You know when the ground is so saturated that giant clods of grass just come loose when you step on them? It was that kind of slick. The first fence Gogo took in the warmup she knocked, which should have been my first clue that I should take it conservatively. She handled the course well through the 5th fence, but felt unstable in the footing, as did most everyone else, I think. It felt like it didn't have anything to due with her barefooted-ness either, because I know that question will get asked! I saw a shod horse with big ol' studs go sliding vertically into the first fence of the combination, simply because he said no after he had had a rail at the fence before it and just couldn't stop himself in the muck in time to not crash. I saw some earlier crashes too, while I was checking out the course for a second time. Ohhhh well, sometimes Mother Nature has some tricks up her sleeve! Anyway, it was onto a sort of awkward bending line onto fence 6, the evil planks on flat cups - o horrors, flat cups! - which I gave her a decidedly bad ride to. She landed on her right lead, and when I went to ask her to switch left, she cross-cantered. I'm not sure if she ever switched, really - the fence was approaching and I stopped paying attention because I didn't see a spot and I don't think she did either. As a result, she tried to save both our butts by leaving long, and just flopped through it, taking it down with her as we landed. The rest of the course she jumped her GUTS out though, which was super sweet and I was very proud of her. I came out of the ring feeling crappy about the injections - after all, this was the first time in the past 9 events we've gone to that she's had a rail, and this was the first post injections, you know. That theory didn't seem to make all that much sense to me though, and when we went back into the ring for our victory gallop, I took another look at the fence. Yep, there they were, skid marks from two hind feet losing their purchase as a horse tried to take off! Ohhhhhhhh I get it, she likely just slipped in the footing while trying to cover my butt for me and just couldn't quite manage it. But she tried, and that's all that matters to me.

We finished 5th on our final score of 33.5. That's pretty respectable if you ask me for our first time back out, and in very stiff competition too. The top 5 places ALL moved around after stadium, it was crazy! The girl that was in 1st also had a rail, so had we gone clean, we would have moved into 1st for our 4th win of the season - d'oh again! - but as our winner pointed out in a comment on my last post, karma was throwing her a bone after a very bad week, so I will totally agree to the universe's choice here ;) (By the way, I DID notice your horse's huuuuuge ears... I LOVE that, my last gelding had MONSTER ears so I have a soft spot for them, lol). I also have to say I think I would have keeled over dead if we had actually won another one. Winning three is freaky enough for me, and winning three in a row? TOO freaky. Winning FOUR? If we do win another I think I'm going to die of a heartattack.


I can't believe how amazing she was. This pink ribbons means a lot more to me than all the blue ones it's next to. She galloped her heart out, jumped her guts out, and did her very best through some very tricky coursework and some very ucky footing. She wasn't spooky, looky, hesitant, or balky in any way. She really gave it her all for me, and I couldn't be happier with how she was.

The best part? Look at this face after we were done:



That is one happy horse with energy still left in the tank. She was plenty tired today, but yesterday she was still buzzed after we were done and searching for more cookies. She's back to her old self, and I am SERIOUSLY excited for the AECs. The official countdown is 15 days starting tomorrow (Tuesday), and we leave on the 7th. Gogo had a chiro adjustment today, which I will write about tomorrow cause this is getting LONG, and because of it she'll have a couple of days off. It's back to work on Thursday with a nice long hack, and then it's down to business. The wire is approaching, and I can't believe it. How are the AECs right around the corner already??

It was a great weekend, and I'm so glad to have my horse back to her good old self again.