In Which the Big White Hairy One Gets Jailed

As a side note, I would like to mention that it was a balmy 80+ degrees yesterday. I wore a tank top and gladiator sandals and a cowboy hat and got a tan. Everyone else up north is excited about letting their ponies go naked for a day when it's 40 degrees out... my ponies haven't worn blankets day or night for over a week. Sadly, the temperatures are supposed to drop and it will only be in the 60's next week. Sounds downright fridgid to me.

Marti has had his Gogo privledges revoked. This was not completely his fault, as Gogo herself had a hand in the matter. I spent my lunchbreak on Thursday sitting out in the field with my horses (safe, I know), and getting nuzzled and snuffled by Gogo while Marti watched with uncertain curiosity in the background. That evening, I moved in to catch him in order to feed him dinner, and it took an unusually long amount of time to get him to come to me. By the time he did, and by the time I got a halter on him (a prerequisite for eating), Gogo had finished her dinner and had wandered over to see what was going on. As she is the boss mare, she turned her butt to him and made to come backwards to kick the snot out of him, and he of course did what any self-respecting wussy horse would do and wheeled and got out of the way. Unfortunately for me, that meant taking off again with halter andd chain still on. I didn't even argue that one, and just let him go. It took an age to recapture him, and involved taking away his food, taking away his Gogo, chasing him around for awhile, leaving him alone for a longer while, and getting out a scoop of grain as tempation. He finally came around, and as soon as I had him I brought him over to the labryrinth and locked him up in the one useable portion of it. This did not amuse him, and he spent some time pacing and crying for Gogo, who didn't help matters by crying back. Eventually, he got over it, and settled in to eating. His butt is staying there until he figures out that I am not an evil devil woman who is going to eat him.

We're making very small bits of progress. In order to eat grain, he is required to come to me and let me halter him. Eventually, I want him to put his nose in his halter, but that will come with time. If he doesn't show interest in coming over, or especially if he leaves, then I move him off away from me and keep him moving until he shows interest in stopping and coming over to me, which he is still not great at. I attempted to bring him out and work on his completely embarassingly horrible clip today, and at least get most of his legs done, and he must have pulled back at least five or six times, truly in terror. He's not afraid of the clippers, he's afraid of being approached. As I tied him with a nylon halter and an unbreakable trailer tie, he eventually just gave up and stood there shaking like a leaf until I could soothe him and reassure him that I am not approaching with a carving knife, just clippers. I didn't get a lot done, and continued on with grooming from there, and he continued to try and pull back several times when I was brushing his mane. I mean really, do I have a neon sign that says "Horse Killer" on my head? I am not trying to eat you, I promise! Again, he was eventually soothed, and stood there quietly while I finished.

But all of this did lead to a very small baby step. When walking back to his pen, he was spooked by some mystery particle of air overhead, and he made to spook and shoot backwards. He hit the chain after one step, and immediately stopped and waited for me instead of panicking and throwing himself around. PROGRESS. I called that a major success, and fed him dinner.

Really, really small baby steps. Lord he needs a bath but I know he is going to try and break his neck to get away from it, so I am just going to be gentle. We'll get there.... it just takes time.

Holy White Terror

Oh boy! Well I've finally seen the naughty side of Marti that his owner warned me about. I didn't quite realize the extent of it though... I have some serious work on my hands.

Marti is a very, very big boy. When Marti is scared, Marti runs in the opposite direction with all haste. Marti also pulls back when tied if he wants to leave. I had seen a bit of this when I went to put on his blanket the first day. He shot backwards like a cannon, but I stopped him after a few hops. 'Ah ok,' I thought. 'I see what she means.' I've been able to do some work with him, which I will elaborate on a little bit later, but he was so amazingly hairy, out of shape and nervous that he worked himself into a total lather every single time. After one of these lathering sessions when he WALKED for 30 minutes, I attempted to hose him off, and he pulled back from where he was tied. He was tied with a nylong hater and strong line to a pipe fence, so he was unable to get away, and he stopped as soon as he figured it out. Hmmmmm. 'Ok, I HAVE to clip him,' I thought. Marti had another freakout prior to beginning his clip when a motorcycle came down the road. He lost it and shot backwards at high speed again, but yet again I stopped him. The actual body clip itself was a total disaster. I had no idea that underneath his ridiculously thick coat, an impenetrable layer of filth existed, and my clippers just stuck in his hair and refused to cut. This was a totally stupid error on my part.... I refuse to clip other people's dirty horses, so WHY did I bother clipping mine? It was awful. Worst clip job I've ever done. And it's not even done yet! After two torturous hours, I finally just gave up, and decided I'd bathe him today and then finish the clip tonight. I'm embarassed by how horrible the clip is. That horse has more lines than I-35. (And you guys know I pride myself on my awesome clip jobs.)

He pulled back twice when I was clipping him, both times when I got up near the top of his head. (He has a clipped bridlepath, so I don't think he's scared of it!) Having anticipated a potential problem, and having watched how he pulled back on purpose two days prior, I tied him with a trailer tie and a nylong halter - unbreakable. If he were to get away, I'd never catch him... and if he is pulling back on purpose, that habit needs to stop NOW. He cannot keep doing it. I don't want him to get hurt, but there is a larger risk of him getting hurt if he gets loose, so it's a risk I have to take. He did stop after the second pullback, thankfully. My problems were not over there, however. Once we got back into the field, I brought out supper and moved in to feed the two. Marti has actually been SHARING a feed bowl with Gogo whenever I can't chase him away from her, and TAKING HER BOWL FROM HER, which is mind-blowing to me considering what a nasty piece of work she is to other horses. Because of this, I had him with a halter and chain still, and fed her first. Marti, of course, moved to sneak in and take a bite, and I turned around to back him up. He bolted backwards at high speed, and once agan I stopped him, but then I decided to back him up an additional step. At that, he absolutely lost it, wheeled on one foot, and galloped away, with me hanging on to him, chain and all. He galloped right through a stud chain with my weight dragging on him. I had no choice but to let go.

But I had the upper hand. I had two things to hold over his head: Gogo and food. I fed Gogo, which upset him, and waited to see if he would come to me for his dinner. He did not, so I took it and fed part of it to Gogo, handful by handful. He still refused to come over even though he watched intently the whole time, so I then took Gogo away from him. Finally, he decided that he REALLY would like to be caught, and let me lead him back over to his dinner and remove his halter. I stood for awhile petting and scratching him, but I am sure my body language was electric. I was not amused.

Today was no improvement. At lunchtime, I came home with the intention of bathing him so I could finishing clipping him this evening. His filth just wasn't going to allow for anything else, so I set up all my bathing stuff and opted to bathe him in his field in case he pulled back and got away during his bath. I tied him in his rope halter and lead, as opposed to his nylon halter and lead, and apparently this was a mistake. I watched his mother bathe him and spray him in the face, so I was surprised to see that he totally freaked the moment I picked up the hose and ran it over his legs. He pulled back once and stopped, then twice and stopped. Then he pulled a third time, and really put his weight into it, fully sitting down and staying taut on the rope until something finally has to give - the lead. He sat fully down, awkwardly stood back up, and took off. There was clearly no catching him after this, so I packed up my bathing stuff, took away the snack I brought for him, and took Gogo away also. He was not happy about this, and screamed his head off, but would not come to me, so I left him alone for awhile. I had to go back to work, so I had to turn Gogo back out, but I clearly needed a new tactic. I will not get on a horse who is a struggle to catch. If he doesn't want to be near me, then I can't trust him to be a willing partner just yet. And if he dumps me, I'll never see him again.

So this evening? He still wouldn't come near me, so I brought a chair, a book, and a bag of Chex Mix, and just sat down and read. Gogo, of course, immediately mugged me for Chex Mix, and probably ate about as much as I did of it. This intrigued Marti, whose curiosity and food drive finally overcame him. We all shared some Chex Mix for awhile, and they both finally lost interest after it was gone and wandered away. I brought out dinner, fed them both, and Marti finally let me catch him and take his halter off.


Clearly, we have some MAJOR issues to work on. 1) He has no interest in being with humans. 2) He doesn't like to be caught. 3) He pulls back HARD. 4) He is scared of his own shadow. I think the root of this is his nervousness, and his distrust and dislike of people. He is waiting for boogiemen to jump out and eat him, and right now he sees me in two lights: food bringer, and scary bathing/clipping/riding lady. He needs to trust me, and learn to like me and want to be with me. When he learns to trust me, he will learn that scary situations are ok because I will say that they are.

But clearly we have to go back to square one: groundwork. I was lucky enough to be contacted by a Parelli representative about a month ago when I mentioned wanting to try playing some Parelli games with Gogo, and they sent me the Getting Started video which covers the basic Seven Games and the basics of Horsenality and the zones of the body. I am not one who ever bought into any of the natural horsemanship guys simply because some of them really do look like complete highway robbers waiting to sell their overpriced wares to any bumbling idiot who came along looking for an answer (you can only train in MY lead, halter and stick, only $3999.99 plus tax and shipping and handling!), but I have to admit that there is something to giving them a try. Good training is good training, no matter what school you subscribe to, but this horse flinches every time I touch him anywhere. He needs to be desensitized, stat. And THEN we will think about riding. I am going to Parelli the SNOT out of him, and pair it with the clicker. No more spoiling him with treats.... those days are over.



I am pretty sure I can get him turned around. It's just going to take some time. Trust you me, if there ever is serious risk to either one of us then he will go to someone more capable than myself. I'm not a trainer and I am not getting myself killed over something like this. Honestly though, Gogo dished it out something terrible when he was his age too. He is only five after all.

But he sure is darn cute for a total devil child.... and he and Gogo are totally in love:




Did you ever think you'd see the day when the naughty spotlight wasn't on Gogo? Me neither!

Moving Right Along

Daily life goes on with my temporarily retired horse. Much like I expected, it's not particularly interesting or exciting, and we don't do much of anything really. Every morning Gogo eats, goes out, grazes all day, and comes back in to her stall at 4pm. She eats hay at 8, 12, 2, 4, and 8pm. She looks a bit rounder than she did before she got here. She likes to be dusty but I tackle the red dirt every other day or so, despite the fact that it's a bit futile. I still enjoy it quite a lot.
This all being said, I don't honestly consider my horse to be retired and totally finished. Truth me told, I feel like a year in a field will do her wonders, and am considering this a year of rehab instead of just a total giving up on her and tossing her out to be a horse for the rest of forever. I really do think she'll come back and do something special and worthwhile. Really and truly, I do.
This opinion is shared by my boss and by her trainer. The trainer, M, is very well-respected around here and has coached Olympic riders year after year. She's seen about every injury you could possibly see. We pulled Gogo out the other day when she came to teach and ride at the barn, and jogged her out. I was doing the running, so I couldn't see really, but she said that she trotted off a bit lame but trotted back really quite well. At two months out from the reinjury, that sounds about right on, exactly the way it was the time before. This is encouraging though, because it means on turnout that she appears to be getting better instead of worse! M's take on this is that despite following the vet's advice to a T before, we did not give her enough time, which at this point I agree with. Her very Irish opinion of this is that for an injury like Gogo's, in order for there to be any chance at all you have to turn them out for a year and THEN start to get back on and tackwalk until you want to kill yourself, then trot until you want to kill yourself, and then canter until you want to kill yourself, and THEN you are good to go. This means not starting official rehab under saddle until the injury is officially 'healed'. This does make sense, certainly, but it's pretty opposite of the rehab we were doing before. In order to create proper healing, we used the under saddle controlled exercise to align the tendon fibers the right way and stimulate proper healing. Two different schools of thought, two different mindsets. I agree with M at this point because clearly, whatever we did before didn't work for some reason. Not giving her enough time before is now the painfully clear answer as to why this really didn't work the way it should have. At least, it's what I am willing to cling to as a potential answer at this point. I have hope that if I just give her time, time and more time.... that maybe she really will totally heal.
To give myself a severe timeframe that I will absolutely not budge from - one year off in turnout before I even THINK about reevaluating for a riding career - makes me honestly feel pretty good. There is no more uncertainty and brooding about what may or may not be best in terms of rehab. There is only one answer: DON'T change my plan and DO stick to my guns. One year off, and then we will reevaluate. That is that. And somehow, this feels like it is the right thing to do. It will be her best shot. And I really feel good about it.

I also know I said that I'm not going to do any goals, but honestly.... I kind of want to do some! Just some stupid ones like play all the Parelli games without majikal sticks and $150 rope halters, and whatever else I feel like doing. That will for sure keep the best of us pretty entertained for about 2 days! I also might have a horse to ride... yay! It's not Trout, who is apparently very unsound, but it's another very nice gelding (so I hear). His name is Murphy, and he's a black Morgan/TB/Irish cross. (Which may mean he's bats but... there you are!) I know Kippen and I have a half-serious bet going for getting new horses but honestly, the only horse I want to own right now is either Gogo, Gogo's baby, or Gogo's total twin clone. I don't want another horse if it's not one of those three options. Having something to ride will satisfy me quite enough for the time being, especially since I am just not ready to totally write Gogo off at this point. She really is my total dreamhorse, flaws and all. I wish I could just do a leg transplant on her. Wouldn't that be nice?

My landlord and I chatted briefly on the phone today about solidifying plans for bringing Gogo over to the 15 acre field sometime soon - as soon as he moves the roundbales out and fixes the small bit of fence that needs some work. Hopefully we'll be good to go on that pretty soon, maybe even within the week!



I might also have a new man in my life.... a training project of a different sort ;) More details soon!

Groundwork A Go-Go

Gogo and I messing around and doing, um, some really bad groundwork. And quelle horreur! She was not even groomed. Enjoy the crooked halts and shavings tail!

The Fresh Leaps of Go-Mare

(I do apologize for the temporary silence since my past post, but as you know, it is BIRTHDAY MADNESS WEEK so I've been out every single night raising a little hell. I finally had a rest night last night and spend it catching up on some oh-so-needed sleep. Tonight, we head into NYC for a big party and then I get to spend tomorrow sightseeing around the City. How is it that I've been in CT a year but haven't been??)






Spring is doing its very best to come to CT. It was nearly 60 degrees yesterday, and it will be today and tomorrow too. All the horses are feeling serious spring fever, and so am I. Not only has this week been fantastic for birthday celebrations, but it's been an amazing one on the Gogo front as well. She's done more and worked harder this week than she has since the accident, and those legs and her soundness are holding up. Since it's been so warm, the legs do tend to fill in funny, lumpy ways, but they're never unusually warm or big, and they're always variations on the same level of fill - AKA giant, ugly Windpuffs of Doom. Every day my favorite boarder and I run our hands down those legs, and every day find pretty much the same thing. Quite honestly, I think I just have to relearn what is normal for her. The legs will never, ever look normal again. They just won't. It's just a matter now of determining what the new normal is.

I hadn't been on Gogo in three days when I finally got back in the saddle on Thursday. I hadn't wanted to be off of her for that long, but that was just how things worked out last week, so I accepted it as such and moved on. I had a really fantastic dressage-y ride on Friday - finally, we are really approaching "real" dressage work versus just walk trot canter on the bit for X amounts of time. She was a bit fussy and a bit bouncy, but once she settled in, she gave me some really nice moments, including three broken canter circles to the right (she kept breaking at the same spot), and three CONSECUTIVE canter circles to the left! That's way more canter than she's been able to do, and she actually took a contact for part of it and maintained it. And she felt physically capable of it, stronger - like she could have kept going without a problem. I left it as that, did some more trotwork, and let her cruise around on the buckle for awhile. I've not really been able to do that much in the indoor since there are door monsters and a loose rein usually means it takes that much longer to stop her when she flees from the door monster. She's actually been quite good down there, but much like last year in March, she's just done with the indoor. Just... done. Remember when she did this last year? Very similar situation here, except we weren't really backsliding mentally, just physically. (Not anymore!) So my solution to that since it's been so gorgeous outside? RIDE OUTSIDE!
Saturday we hacked. We hacked way further off the property than we'd ever been - hell, it was the first time hacking off the property at all. I've been limiting her to the small hills and trails around our property, but since the grass has been so soft and went, I was unable to ride on it at all. Instead, I decided to challenge her a little with the lower-grade hillwork and try something a little more intense. We hacked for the same period of time plus 5 minutes, same as we always do, but went allll the way up the road on a small but steady incline to the first four-way stop, and back again. She was SO HAPPY! Ears pricked, big march in her step, loop in the reins. It was early - maybe 8:30am - and the sun was glittering through the trees, the weather still chilly. It felt just like old times, and it was beautiful. And I'll be doing it again today. :D

These past two days, I've continued to push, just a little, without actually pushing, if I can explain that. Our enormous and gorgeous outdoor has FINALLY thawed and dried enough for it to be ridden on, but is still a little wet and squashy - think giant turfy sponge - but I've been letting the boarders out there for some limited riding. I also got to ride out, much to my joy (and to Gogo's too), but instead of putting on dressage tack and continuing in that way, I decided to have a little fun. Out came the jump saddle, jacked up stirrups and all! Since the footing is still soft up there - by no means turf-able, just softer than the stuff in the indoor and much wetter - I decided to let her get used to it and buzz around with me in my half-seat versus stress her body our trying to compensate for correctness in new footing while the tendon is still in the final stages healing. And WHEEEEEEE! She was FRESH, but SO good. She had a huge park trot going - you knew she would! - and was shaking her head all over the place, something she never does. She also, of course, had to throw in a little Gogo flavor, and did what the other rider in the ring affectionately called a handstand: a backcracking vertical bronc buck with her head between her knees! She NEVER bucks unless she's feeling ridiculously good and fresh, so I was smiling as she went plunging down the long side from there, striking out with both front legs every canter stride. The other boarder's comment? "That was cute." Oh Gogo. She also displayed her more studdish side, spooking away from something and doing this (which I know because I saw a flash of pastel blue bell boot in front of me!), then did the Execute Stallion Rear Program and bounced up and down, shaking her head and waving her front legs like any colt at play might. She then came down and stood totally immobile with her ears pricked, as if to say, "Sorry mom... just, man! I feel like a woman." Oh Gogo...

Yesterday I continued on the theme of doing-something-productive-without-feeling-like-being-productive, and used my jump tack again, letting her have a looser rein and moving at fair speed around the ring. No smaller circles, no complicated movements, just power and speed. She offered a canter at some point, and I got up in my half seat and let her. And she felt GOOD. She felt SO good. Our outdoor is enormous and she went once, twice, three times around with no problem before I pulled her up. We went the other way and same thing - a big, powerful canter, bigger and stronger than ever, no hesitations anywhere. I know we weren't actually going that fast but to me, it felt like flying. It felt like nothing in the world. She even started to consider breaking a sweat, and so did I, the first time that's happened since September. We finished the ride with a hack on the buckle up the driveway... I haven't been able to let her have such a loose rein outside yet.

Truly a good week. Truly, truly.

As for today, we hack again, and then Gogo get her Rabies and Coggins pulled. I am feeling really paranoid about spring shots this year - who wouldn't after all that reaction nonsense - but we are going to seriously space everything about and take every precaution we can. Yeesh though... not looking forward to it, not at all.




You won't hear from me for a few days since I am off to NYC, and then Friday is my actual BIRTHDAY! Who's excited I'm excited!

The first clovers are coming up, birds are chirping, sun is shining... spring is almost here!!

Wahe Guru

Gogo and I out for our "hack" on Wednesday.


Do you ever swear that horses know when things are up? I think sometimes they pick up on our emotional disturbances and make an extra effort to let us know we're appreciated. I know that's totally anthropomorphizing, but... sometimes I really feel like it's true. Regardless, Gogo was in a stunningly good and sweet mood today, the best I can remember her being in since the injury. I walked in the barn and first went to a client in the grooming stall who was worried about her horse because he hadn't finished his grain (he's fine). I heard a very demanding nicker behind me and turned around to see Gogo standing with her head out, staring intently at me. Normally she always pokes her head out whenever she hears my voice, but this was different, very insistent. I went over to see her, and scratched her neck over the stall door. She started grooming me very, very insistently, very thoroughly, just with her lip. She hardly EVER does this, even when I try and get her to reciprocate a scratch. When I stopped scratching her and tried to walk away, she wrapped her head around me and pulled me back in! She even ignored her hay for a good 10 or so minutes while watching me walk back and forth in the barn, just staring at me the entire time. She was in a ridiculously good mood all morning, watching everything around her while in her turnout, nibbling her hay, ears pricked the entire time.

This past Thursday, she graduated to the next size paddock (yay!!) AND to 15 minutes of trotwork. Very exciting! The paddock size (this was the first day out):




And today:





Ooops I've been spotted.




Yesterday, I opted for spa day instead of riding, because it was warm enough to do so. She was just hairy and gross, and as I'm accustomed to having a nice clipped horse in the winter, I just couldn't stand her nastiness anymore. Not to mention a more concerning factor: she is FAT and I have a half-hearted hope that maybe now she'll use calories trying to keep warm. In a heated barn with a haircoat on light work.... it's not easy to stay trim. Once I got to clipping, what I thought was a big nasty haircoat ended up being hardly any hair at all, so it was a quick job. The lighting wasn't the best, so I realized today that I REALLY missed some spots! It wasn't quite the freakishly good clip job that I did last year, but it's not so bad. We stood her up today for pictures:





Holy CRAP is she ever fat. I'm practically starving her and I still can't get her to shed those pounds. I guess they probably won't go away until we get into real gallop-type work... but that's a couple months away yet.

But isn't she pretty. Look at the bionic tail!


Under saddle today, Gogo continued her freakishly bright, cheerful, happy streak, and was nothing less than amazing. She was light, responsive, connected, and best of all, NOT spooky at the scary end of the ring! She's finally stopped leaping around whenever the door moves at the scary end of the ring, but even up until a few days ago she was still putting her head up and scooting past the door quickly every time we passed. Not today! Today she was just feeling GOOD. I let her pick a trot rhythm that was comfortable for her, and off she went, power trotting around the ring like Superwoman, still connected and using her entire body with every step. It felt great, and she felt so sound and strong. I didn't let her go at the bigger pace for very long, but instead experimented to see how much she'd stretch - she practically put her nose on the ground, still in the big trot, still swinging and connected. I haven't been able to try and stretch her at the trot for a LONG time for fear that if she went bolting off I wouldn't be able to stop her in a timely manner. Not only did I get to ride her long and low her today, but she gave me that extraordinary stretch. I think all this walk work is really quite helpful. It gets us both to slow things down and take them piece by piece, ironing out the kinks and figuring out exactly where out bodies need to be. She just felt AWESOME today.


Not to mention the weather was a balmy 45 degrees today, and the scenery around the barn has just been amazingly gorgeous:






I dunno why Gogo was in such a fantastic mood all day, but it made me feel great. I can't not be thankful for Metro's sacrifice today, and remember what he gave to me when he died: the barefoot cause, an undying drive to help the injured around me, and a chance to let a little Gogomare into my life. Thank you Cookieman. I really appreciated today.

Juggling

As you can no doubtedly tell from my recent lack of posts, I am a very, VERY busy girl this week. There is SO much to do at the new barn and not enough hours in the day, and I am working my BUTT off trying to get all my projects under control AND do all my daily tasks AND stand in for a lot of things that the guys can't do when we are short-staffed. But it's impossible to do my job when I have to do someone else's job as well, so I certainly hope that we can get that situation remedied soon. As it stands, I need SO badly to go to the store and get supplies for the farm that I might just be doing that at 6am tomorrow, because I need to make sure the guys know what's on tap for tomorrow since I didn't write it down on the white board tonight (I quite honestly just forgot... didn't leave the farm until almost 8). But despite all the CRAZINESS and not knowing anything but trying to do everything all at once, I love it. Once everything settles down and I actually complete the 29,000 projects she wants me to work on, I'll be able to really settle into a rhythm and take things as they come instead of struggling to juggle them all at once. It's insane but it's great. It's also very exhausting and takes up pretty much my entire life at the moment, which I will need to figure out how to balance. My room is littered with boxed and clothes, all things that need to be unpacked and put away... but I'm just too tired at the end of the day to do it.

And the extra horrible part of it all is that Gogo is getting less than her usual amount of daily attention. I've been so busy these past few days that she didn't get groomed or longlined from Monday through Wednesday, just walked. She hadn't even gotten to handgraze at all because it's been either pouring or completely dark out by the time I can actually do it. We also have some seriously slacker staff on some counts so her stall hasn't been done until like 11am these past few days, which REALLY annoys me, so much so that I've just been doing it myself. Unfortunately for me, she's stuck in the older barn in the smallest stall, which is only about 10x10. It does have the ComfortStall system, but I'd still like to get her somewhere bigger. We are about to be totally full up though, so I dunno how that's going to work. It's a little bit crazy and there is much to get acclimated to.

She is, however, getting to know and love the treadmill, and so am I. That thing is AWESOME! It has all sort of different speeds and heights that it can go to, and you can set it for different programs with varying levels of speed and angle for a real workout. Gogo, however, is just getting the Level 1 set, a totally flat and steady walk for 25 minutes at a time. The treadmill is ideal therapy - it's in a totally straight line (no drunken sailor weaving or turns or hills), it's a hard surface (good for stimulating tendon regeneration), and it's covered so it can be used rain or shine. Gogo was, as usual, totally the proverbial cool cucumber when I put her on it, although it took her a few minutes to really get it - every time I told her good girl, she'd stop, which meant she'd go backwards and hit the butt bar! It only took a few minutes to really understand, and the next day she was totally fine.



More pictures of Gogo on the treadmill coming soon.

Today I had to run allllllll the way to Waterbury to get grain from the sole Buckeye dealer in the state of Connecticut, and I ended up back at the barn quite late. Gogo is now scheduled to go on the treadmill at 11am every day, and hopefully if I ever start to take a lunch break (still haven't taken one all week), I will be able to long line her then. She got a nice grooming and a long lining session today when I got back, which was great and made her a very happy kid. There were several sets of trot poles set up around the ring, and we walked over those a good number of times, which is very useful for losening up those tight hips and back. I never ended up putting her on the Robaxin because her back soreness went away rather quickly (I think it HAD to be related to that vaccine reaction), and she's been off Surpass for nearly 2 weeks now - I hope to NOT put her back on. I haven't iced her hinds this week because quite frankly, they've been tighter than they've been since the injury, and cooler too. They're still not normal and they're still not as cool as I'd like, but give the circumstance I'm impressed.

And the best part.... ONE WEEK til I can get back on her and walk again!!!!!!


Now hopefully tomorrow, after I get Sophie bodyclipped, Pilgrim's mane pulled, all the needed barn supplies from the store, the new hay schedule set in place with the non-English-speaking workers on board, the maintenace guy called about the broken stall front, the folders for the new horses set up, two stalls prepped for two new incoming boarders arriving tomorrow morning, the blanket room measured for new racks, the board and billing book updated, the grains premade, and the 25,000 other things I'm forgetting here all done, then I will be able to maybe unpack some of my stuff from the trailer and figure out where to send my winter blankets to for cleaning. I also made friends with our exceedingly pro-barefoot farrier... more on that later. As for now..... SLEEEEEEP.

Two Fatties Back to Work

As of Thursday, Gogo's rehab schedule has changed again, and now included one 15 minute handwalk in the AM (up from 10 mins), 10 minutes of handgrazing AM, and 15 minutes of long lining in the afternoon. She is far out enough from the injury to start toying with variations on her daily handwalks. She still needs flat ground, pavement, and straight lines, but she also is craving mental stimuation. I think she's acclimated to the whole idea of stall rest pretty well, but that didn't stop her the other day from doing some serious aerials during her afternoon handwalk. She's very well behaved about her obnoxiousness though - she might be shooting forward or bouncing off the ground with all four feet, but let me tell you something, she NEVER puts tension on the lead! Nevertheless, the last thing I want her to do is to start pinging around like that, so once she hit the 15 min 2x daily mark, I decided it was high time to start long lining/ground driving again. It was cute - when I pulled out the surcingle and the rest of the tack, her eyes about popped out of her head and her ears looked as though if she put them any more forward they'd snap right off.



(It's kind of cute actually... my whole little family minus kitten and parrot are in this picture. Dog, truck, mare, me!)
Boy those are two serious fatties right there. I myself seem to have put on 10 pounds over the course of the past 11 months and I am NOT happy about it. Despite the fact that I am half starved, the boarders are nonstop bringing Dunkin, brie, bagels, and more crap food to the barn, so that's what I've been eating, and it's really showing by now. Nobody is going to stop and look at me and call me morbidly obese, but I know the difference in myself, and that's what bothers me. Once the move is complete, I fully intend on shedding that extra grossness by being able to actually afford all sort of delicious fruits and veggies, and exercise. And as for Gogo, well, that's a bit trickier. I've cut her already meager grain ration to 1.5lbs daily spread out over 3 feedings (and remember, she's not actually getting grain at all, she's getting a ration balancer - I can't actually cut it any lower than it already is for fear that she wouldn't be getting all her daily needed vits/mins in), and she's munching on about 8 flakes of really crappy quality grass hay. I know next to nothing about our hay - no idea where it comes from, what's in it, etc - and it changes every time the supplier brings it, but there is one consistant thing about it: It's always crappy. Normally I'd be very unhappy about this, but given the circumstance, it's actually a good thing. We've been keeping Gogo happy by essentially keeping a constant flow of hay in front of her, and by having less than beautiful hay, it takes her much longer to chew on (she'd gobble it if it was nicer, this way she takes a long time to pick around her favorite parts first... she still hoovers it all, it just takes a lot longer!), and it doesn't fatten her up like a nice quality grass hay would do. Still, all that extra fiber in the form of stemminess is showing up in her increasingly pendulous belly - her colon is stuffed full! Her topline is decreasing too, but not in the way I expected. I assumed it would just melt off of her, but it's only sort of diminished to the way it looked last winter. I worked VERY hard to build a nice topline on her (the Ewe-Necked Wonder remember) so I'm very, very sad to see it go.

Wednesday, Gogo was bouncing around like a porpoise on the end of her lead, like I was saying, so I figured that with the change of schedule on Thursday, it was high time to start long lining again and give her something to do. A disclaimer for the picture: this is NOT where you normally stand while long lining. It can be very dangerous to stand this close, and it's generally much safer to stand about 6-8 feet behind the horse and off to the side a bit. We're not exactly long lining per say though... we're just ground driving. I have tried attaching the long lines at varying points on her surcingle and back to the bit, but given her tendancy to curl under and lose steering when she feels confined, I'm not willing to play with that right now during rehab, so I just run them from the bit through the side rings on her surcingle and back to me. At this point in our lives, Gogo's long lining experience includes steering and the commends walk on, trot on, whoa, back up.... yeah, that's about it. That to me only qualifies as ground driving. Still, it's something, and we're doing nothing more on the ground than just walking for the purpose of therapy (and tossing in a few halts and the occasional back up just to keep it fresh), so it serves its purpose. I see videos like this and go wow, one day perhaps, but that day is not today. (Also, those of you who know me know that I just can't stand Friesians... but I admit that what was done on the long lines with that one is pretty interesting). I don't have a clue where you would even begin to teach piaffe/passage on the long lines. Then again, I don't have a clue how you would really teach piaffe/passage at all, beyond the vague theory I've read about in books. Someday, Gogo... but not today.

Today, you and I are just going to go for a walk.





And admire the barn scenery while we're at it.








I officially move in to my new apartment on Sunday. And work begins Monday. I'm starting to get nervous at this point. Hang on to a stranger's galloping horse in the middle of the woods? No problem. Start a new job? Oh god help me. Bravery only gets you so far sometimes.

Official AEC Countdown: 5 days!!

I am officially calling an end to this veterinary nightmare week RIGHT NOW. We had one go in to Fairfield for a colic (turns out he's got wicked ulcers), one go in to Salmon Brook for stovepipe legs and a serious fever, two go to Fairfield to get their suspensories shockwaved/injected with steroids/poked at, had a different vet essentially give up on the third suspensory horse (told us to just throw her in a field), and then of course we put Max down last night. All since Wednesday, I might add. Theo is back and eating fine and drinking sort of fine, the suspensory horses are lame but less so (except for Hermione, who is more so), and we had no random emergencies today. So we're DONE now right? We're DONE! Because I said so!

And yet, despite alllll this crappiness, Gogo has been the ultimate superstar this week. I couldn't imagine having a better set of schoolings directly before the AECs. Bonus points because she's in VIOLENT FLAMING PEEING HEAT:



Notice how she's getting licked by Teg. Nice. Today when I was walking her to the wash stall, she stopped dead in front of Sonny's stall and tried to pee on his face. I literally had to drag her squatting, peeing self down the rest of the aisle while the geldings all did their best big-bad-stud impressions. As Daun correctly put it, KEEP YOUR PANTIES ON GOGO YOU'RE WORKING.

But here's the good news: she was in heat at King Oak, Mystic AND Groton House! So maybe this is the magic trick!


Yesterday evening, I had planned on galloping, but given the fact that Max was already in such distress and my gallop field is directly next door to his barn, I figured I better bag on that plan and jump instead. I set up my favorite old exercise as a refresher: a very big X right on the centerline, with four strides leading to three trot poles. You canter the X, and have those four strides to bring your horse back to trot. Sounds easy? It's not, if you're Gogo. She very much likes to go into autopilot mode after each fence, so it's a good challenge for her. She warmed up well, and went through the exercise backwards and forwards a few times VERY quietly and very perfectly. Tada! 15 minutes and I'm done? Nope, silly me wanted to test the gears and see what we had with lead changes. Now, when she got her hocks done I figured it would resolve her cross-cantering issue - she swaps in front but not behind, even though while out on XC she does perfect, fluid changes every time. But nope, injections did not fix it immediately. I did some very unsuccessful part-changes a few times, and then was like oh screw this, FINE, let's GO FORWARD and see if we can get some. And lo and behold, there we had it! We just needed more GO to get those changes right. Unfortunately, that meant I had just added a lot of GO when I needed to be adding a lot of NOT GO in this quiet exercise. I let her walk for a bit, then went to address the exercise a few more times - yep, now we're nuts! She tried to run through it like a maniac a few times, and then finally settled after some serious half-halts and some trotting through it. The final time through, she really waited when I asked her to, right to the base of the fence, and while she wanted to charge off after it, she took my fairly firm half halt very well, and two strides out had already come back to trot. Nice! I called it a day on that and hacked about in the orchard in the sunset.

Today was our final dressage school before we step into the ring on Friday, and boy I couldn't have asked for a better one. All week she's been a little snotty about her dressage, meaning she's been taking her sweet time to warm up, and doing it a little more on her own terms than I'd usually like. But today, she warmed up right away in a nice stretchy trot (a stretchy trot as our warmup, not a giraffe trot! Hooray!), and was foot perfect from there on out. She developed a very supple, very buoyant trot after some quick transitions, and actually maintained left bend through everything we did - she always, always wants to pop her left shoulder out and sneak back over to the right, but not today! We did simple changes through the trot and walk (quite a feat after last night's gallopy flying changes) and a lot of counter canter work for her, but mostly we just worked on straightness, correctness and quality of gaits. Vicki wants me to think about her trot and canter work as being right on the edge of a lengthening or a leg yield all the time, so I need to keep that in my head. No more comments about needing activity from behind! We will have so much activity it will SCARE YOU!


Speaking of something scary (or well, maybe not scary but a little bit intimidating), times are up for the AEC and WHOA, there are 41 people in my division. 41 PEOPLE. That is far and away the most I've ever shown again, and is more than double what I normally show against. At least half those are professionals, and several of them are big names... very big names. Jennie Brannigan is in my division. Phillip Dutton is in my division. Phillip Dutton, who was leading at Burghley yesterday (had time faults and is now in 4th after XC). (By the way, The Good Witch is in 38th after a not-too-awesome XC, and there are a WHOLE slew of eliminations and retires, including Mandiba, Madison Park, Arthur, Courageous Comet, and Macchiato. 12 eliminations, 13 retires on XC. Crazy... I wonder what happened.) So yeah. 41 people, some totally unbeaten horses with some amazing show records, and a whole slew of Really Big Names. I know this sounds weird, but in a way, I feel more relaxed about all this after seeing that. I no longer feel like I should be under some sort of pressure to do well, because quite frankly, that is a LOT of competition and a LOT of really good horseflesh to show against. I still am hoping to Top Ten - that would be amazing - but in all honesty, I want to go out there and do exactly what I always want to do, which is put in a great dressage test and finish on that score. If she goes around XC and stadium like a champ after a great dressage test, who cares how we place? Now that the pressure is off, I get to go just for the honor of being there, and showing against these amazing people, and getting to watch all the other amazing people, and getting to hang out with all my old friends and rivals and family. You don't really have rivals in eventing.... you have friends that you just happen to want to beat all the time!


Oye it's September 5th and I STILL don't have my goals up. Tomorrow I will, I swear! I have a half day of work thankfully (it'll be my 8th day in a row, how did I get stick with THAT schedule?), so I'll get to get most of my leftover stuff done, and then we'll gallop in the freshly mowed field. The weather has been amazing, Gogo feels ridiculously good on her naked feet of steel, all the things on my to do list are right on track, and the boarders got together and gave me almost $700 for the journey, just because they wanted to. That's incredible.


I have a really good feeling about this one. I'm nervous as hell, but I'm seriously excited at the same time. We leave in three days!!




(2008 AEC Picture of the Day: Halt, salute, breathe!!)

Three Great Rides (Official AEC Countdown: ONE WEEK!)

First thing's first. Since she ragged on Gogo's not-ambition to go win next year's International Hunter Derby, I declare today National Embarass Your Best Friend Day! However I shall also post an equally embarassing picture of me to not make her feel so bad. Ha!

Second, you'll have to forgive me for not doing my End of August analysis yet. I have other things to write about first so you'll just have to wait!


These past three days have been fantastic. I've been very productive and busy in terms of getting things together for the trip, and our rides have been equally as good. After two days of good dressage on Sunday and Monday, we headed out Tuesday evening for our 2-hour conditioning hack, the last one before the AECs. I had an absolutely HORRIBLE day at work, and ended up getting on much later than I had originally planned (it was 6pm by the time we left... and it's been getting dark by 7:30!), but a great ride on the Mami was all I needed to feel better. The hayfield had just been mowed (a stroke of good luck!), and after the hack out to it, we started out 25 minute trot. WOW she felt great - 20 minutes into it and she was STILL powertrotting along, so big that I could hardly post to it, and still breaking to the canter pretty much every time we rounded a corner of the field. So I said, what the hell, let's burn off a little energy, why not? and let her go. And the afterburners kicked in - I've never gone that fast on any horse in my whole life! (And I've had some pretty hair-raising gallop moments in my life - the one that stands out in my head involved crazy New Zealand ponies and crashing at breakneck speed through the wild underbrush... one of those just-hold-on-and-cross-yourself rides!!) The sun was low at that point and I watched her shadow as we flew along, admiring her huge reach and laughing as we left the crappiness of the day in the dust. I brought her back to trot as we rounded the corner of the rectangular field, and let her go as we reached the long side of the field again. And she FLEW again, top speed! We rounded the next corner at the trot and as we came back around to the first long side, she exploded into a full-out sprint with hardly any prompting from me, going even faster than before. We must have galloped at absolute top speed at least 6 times like this around the field, which is pretty huge. I didn't intend for her to work this hard, but we were both having so much fun neither one of us could help ourselves. Finally, I looked at my watch and realized it was high time to continue on with our walk work, and brought her back. She came right back to me, ears pricked, marching right along, happy as a clam, hardly winded and still with a ton of extra energy to spare. Boy she is AWFULLY fit for just Novice! (I fitted her up for Training, anticipating that we'd be running one or two at the end of the year, but July and life got in the way of those plans, so now I have an over-fit Novice horse... oops!) She just felt SO GOOD. We walked up the gravel road for a little while before heading back to the pavement, and I was quite delighted to feel that, despite the fact that she's hardly been on gravel anywhere at all this year, she was quite comfortable on it. When it was very wet earlier in the year and she was on a different ration balancer, she was slow and overly-cautious when walking on rocks, and I avoided the gravel road. Now that her feet have dried out and toughened up, and given the fact that she has amazingly dropped almost an entierly new foot in three months (not kidding.... I can't even BELIEVE how fast she puts out hoof, it's kind of scary! And hair too for that matter... her bridlepath, clipped just two weeks ago for Huntington, is already nearly 2/3 of an inch long.), she is quite comfortable again. I know everyone has been having hoof trouble with this wetness all year, so I'm glad to see that my own small version of it is under control. Anyway, so we ventured back onto the pavement and continued our walk hack for our remaining time, enjoying the gorgeous sunset and contemplating returning as it steadily got darker. Determined to not cut our time short despite the rapidly dissapearing daylight, I headed back to the orchard to finish our walk, where we were treated to a nearly full moon and a subsequent moonlight walk. Fabulous, and beautiful. She was bright and chipper when I finally dismounted at the two-hour mark, still with plenty of gas in the tank. I kept her legs unwrapped given the creeping crud still stubbornly hanging on to her front legs, and checked them first thing in the morning the next day - if by some horrible off chance there WAS an S-word problem there despite all the signs pointing to otherwise, it SURELY would have presented itself after such a hard ride. But, success! Her legs were tight and cool as always, and she jogged out perfectly sound on the way to turnout. Sweet! All systems go!

Yesterday and today, her cheerful, overly-fit self was raring to go for some dressage.... or well, I was and she, after some convincing, agreed with me. She was, at first, being very subtly stubborn (If I stretch out to your contact, I will disengage my hind end. Oh you want me to go forward instead of disengage my hind end? Then I will, but I will disengage from this contact. Back and forth.), but eventually she settled, and we had a very good workout, complete with some fantastic counter-canter. Today's work was equally as excellent, and she had some OUTSTANDING trotwork in the end, and some absolutely fabulous walk-canters, which I haven't schooled that much as of late. Mostly we worked on LEFT BEND, which she has an aversion to, and once I finally broke up the locked tension in the midsection of her neck and connected her a little more thoroughly (you can see it visually, the area in her neck she most obviously resists the bend... it feels a little like when you need to take a frozen solid ice pack out of the freezer and massage it with your hands for awhile to make it flexible), suddenly whoa! Her shoulders came up, her work became way straighter and she developed some serious push from behind. Sweet! The work was high quality, all of it, and she worked very hard. Dare I say we had moments of real collection? I do dare day it. I'm not about to go run out and try a Second Level test anytime soon, but on days like this, I feel like we're approaching it, maybe even next spring.

Tomorrow, we gallop, and after Tuesday's hack I am VERY excited to get out there and boogie our guts out!


The AECs are now officially one week away. Can you believe it? I can hardly even wrap my head around it. I was going back and rereading posts from these past nine months since I moved to Connecticut tonight, laughing at all our ups, bemoaning all our downs, and realizing just how far we've come. We've worked so hard for this, put in our all, struggled through all the challenges thrown at us, and come out on top every time. We have fought hard for this, and we're ready. The pre-show jitters are starting to set in... ahh!! We leave in five days!!




(2008 AEC Picture of the Day: After some SERIOUS flooding, I try and swim my way to the Bit of Britain tent, because I inconveniently forgot to pack my canoe.)

Official AEC Countdown: 10 (Nearly 9) Days!!!!!

Okay. First of all I thought you all should know that Gogo has a secret ambition to be a show hunter. Why? Oh I dunno. I have to say, I think that's as correct as I've ever seen her form be. She is always very tidy with her legs, but doesn't often have that kind of bascule, nor are her front legs so evenly matched usually. Lovely. And as for me? Let's just say I need to get it together because I am the STAIN in that otherwise GORGEOUS photo! As you can tell I was on DEFENSIVE OVERKILL. I guess you can't blame me given the entire month of July. Well, at least it's better than it was earlier in the summer, that's for sure. But I have not regained my former poise over fences that I was almost achieving last year. But just look at her go. That was a nice lopey canter for her, really. Can you just imagine when she's actually galloping?

Gogo is back to serious work as of yesterday and has been a right snot about it, followed by a dash of fabulous. Generally, after a bit of downtime I start back up with a hack, but I wanted to get on her and test the gears, and get down to a bit of work given our dwindling time before the AECs! She was understandably a bit body-stiff when we first started out, but some w/t/c on the buckle sorted her out and loosened her up. It took awhile, but she eventually unkinked her body and became quite supple. We didn't do much beyond w/t/c, transitions, leg yields, and a few very minor lengthenings, but that was enough. She didn't have a lot of adjustability within gaits, but she was starting to tire a little by the end, so I called it a day on a perfectly square halt. Today, we went back out for another dressage session and she, for whatever reason, was NOT in the mood to play at first. Given the fact that she's, well, Gogo, I gave her some room to be herself, and she fussed, fussed, fussed, fussed. After about 45 minutes of mediocre fussy work, I finally halted and had her stand there on contact for a few minutes. Sometimes, this is all she needs to really let go and relax for whatever reason, and it worked today. She then gave me about 15 minutes of absolutely LOVELY work - incredibly supple both directions and very adjustable within gaits. We schooled some very nice leg yields, played with shoulder-in, did rapid-fire transitions (which completely blow her mind when she's not relaxed, but really engage her when she IS relaxed), and played with shallow loops in canter. To my great delight, she swelled like a sail and filled both reins during these, and gave me some very good ones going left. Now, given our previous difficulties going right, and our previous difficulties with counter-canter to begin with, I haven't done a successful shallow loop in canter going to the right on her.... well, maybe ever. Today, with minor trepidation and curiosity, I attempted one going right after a few going left, and lo and behold, she gave me an absolutely magnificent one, better than the ones going left, and as we rounded the corner I asked for a canter-halt, and BAM! Perfectly balanced, perfectly square. I ended on that, how could I ask for better? It was like she was gearing up over the past two rides to be perfect at the end of this one. We're dressage-ing for the next two days as well, and then HOPEFULLY getting an XC school in as well as some conditioning work. Valinor is holding open schooling on their course this week and weekend, but - alas - it is three hours away. That sounds like GREAT fun, but three hours....? That's a bit far. I've tried to get in contact with Mistover, but haven't heard back via e-mail, so I will try to call tomorrow instead. Maybe back to Red Rock? I dunno. I need WATER! Real up-down, in-out WATER!

I am happy to say that the weird mystery swellings in Gogo's front legs finally have an actual cause - NASTY SCURF! She had a rather extended bit of time off last week, long than I wanted, because I was so paranoid about the S word and the residual puffiness. It didn't seem to make sense though, her weird puffiness in relation to the S word, because she's been sound this whole time, and literally within 10 seconds of walking out of her stall, all the puffiness vanished. No heat, no residual swelling... just excess fluid, so it seemed. As it turns out, she had scurf forming under her hair, and linimenting and wrapping only served to make it explode. GROSS. I ended up clipping all hour lower legs today (which I didn't really want to do but I HAD to get it under control!), and scrubbing them with anti-gross shampoo. Most of the scurf went away - yay! - but you could tell when I was clipping her that it was REALLY bothering her. She spent most of her time jerking her legs away from me when I went to clip the scurfier spots, which was just tons of fun for me, let me tell you. So PHEW to that. We'll see tomorrow morning if it made any difference in the puffiness. I also managed to pull her mane in a way that thinned it without shortening it at all. Mad skills. Her buttons require a slightly longer mane than typical hunter braids would call for, but it needs to be fairly thin at the same time to really look good. Her mane would really love to be THICK and all over the place, so it's a constant uphill battle of epic proportions. It's actually been laying down all on the right side this week all by itself, so I must be doing something right.


Saturday I managed to get ALL THIS STUFF DONE!:
Take everything out of trailer tack room and vacuum the floor
Go through all boxes in trailer
Remove dirty blankets from trailer
Go through all buckets in trailer – clean everything in them!!
Call IL Ag Dept
Put health papers in CAR!
Organize show clothes
Don’t forget show BELT
Put show pads in trailer
FIND STOCK PIN! (Which was a fail... I seem to have lost it.)
Put show clothes in trailer
Pick up coats from drycleaners and put in trailer
Go through all stuff in trailer, figure out what I need to replace
Get SAFETY PIN for my dressage coat (I need a new one... this one fits horribly!)
Clean safety vest

Sunday I was much less productive:
Get new boot shine for tall boots
Wash/clean Gogo’s boots

And today I managed to get these few things done:
Wash sheets
Put boots (inc. new bells) in trailer
Order needed supplies (Showsheen, poultice, hoof polish)
Clip legs
Pull mane



On our merry way, we are. Once the clock rolls over to midnight, 9 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!




(2008 AEC Picture of the Day: Gogo and I getting ready for one booty-kickin' XC run!!)

The Return of the Queen

SHE'S BACK! The Gogo I know and love, the cross-country machine.... oh she's back.

Thursday evening, Gogo, Shan and I all headed out to Red Rock Farm in Rhode Island to get some XC schooling in. I was slightly anxious about it, seeing as our last schooling at Mystic was only partially a success - but this was before the aloe juice and the hock injections. She came off the trailer and out onto the field like an old pro (which is normal for her... but hasn't been so much as of late!), and quietly wandered around behind Shannon while we checked out the grounds. It was a fairly small place, but there was a ton of stuff to school and it was all well built and well maintained, with banks, water, and a lot of varied jumps from teeny-tiny to Training. There was a ditch somewhere down one of the wooded trails, and Shannon stepped over it in front of Gogo. I let Gogo pick her path, remembering all too well how when we went to school at Mystic the other week, the sight of the ditch caused her to bolt sideways repeatedly. This time, she went, oh that's nice, never hesitated, and hopped over it practically ON TOP of Shannon! That's when I knew things were just going to go well.

And they really did. She was supurb, start to finish - acting just like her good ol' normal self again. All the brightly colored, funny looking ones, she never looked at. The bigger ones, she never hesitated at. She never hesitated at anything, really, except for the water, but I can understand why. The water was actually a stream that they had backed up and worked on, and it had a big bank out, a tiny bank out, and an open side, but the water was BLACK due to all the caca that grows in a pond in the August heat. They warned me about this ahead of time over the phone, so I knew it was coming and planned accordingly. She took a little while to convince that she should really go in, but once in, she walked and trotted in and out like a pro, up and down the tiny bank option. There was a bigger, Novice-sized bank next to the little one, and she and I were standing in the water in front of it, just relaxing for a minute. Much to my surprise (and delight, really), she went, okay we're facing that so it's time to go! and hopped up out of it from a standstill without me asking. Luckily at the last second I managed to grab onto my saddle as she was leaping so I didn't go flipping backwards over her butt into the water, lol. Boy look at those HOCKS MOVE! I haven't seen them flexing that much since she was 5!



We also found the actual bank complex, which was great - it had a tiny bank, a medium bank, and a large bank, all with very nice footing, and the medium bank had a two stride option after it. And this was where I found that I REALLY had my horse back! At Mystic, they have several banks, one of which is weenie teenie. Remember the nightmare at Riga, about the banks that she has ALWAYS done no problem all her life? Much of the same there at Mystic - I walked her up to the bank, and she put her head down and snorted at it like she had never seen a bank before, backing up as fast as she could as if terrified. But here? This is how Gogo normally walks up banks:



Woohoo my horse is back!! Don't mind the mad head tossing - she REALLLLLY hates bugs.



And she really just cruised around everything in the field perfectly. Approached every fence exactly the same, even the super scary ones. She didn't put a foot wrong anywhere. She did clock herself pretty hard on a bigger table, as you'll see in this next video, and even though she flopped over the next fence, she came back around to the table and jumped it with all her heart. Awesome.



Seriously, she was perfect. Perfect. PERFECT. If she takes on Huntington's XC course like she did this one.... we'll win. Horses can be unpredictable and you never know. But I am feeling REALLY good about this coming weekend and I can't wait to get her back around a full course. I can't even describe to you how good she feels. This is the Gogo that knows and loves her job. This is the Gogo that locks on to every fence with her ears forward and takes it all in stride, no matter what it is. This is the Gogo I know is in there.

We're ready. Two days.

Udder Madness (or, How Gogo Got Felt Up by a 10 Year-Old)

Gogo and I have had a fabulous couple of days. Call it luck, call it diligence, call it a miracle, call it whatever you want, but Gogo's making a rapid turnaround. She's been absolutely marvelous these past two rides, and her attitude has completely brightened. Either the Doxy has finally started to really kick in, or the addition of the aloe juice and MSM has made her feel right as rain. I started her only two days ago on the concoction (1/2 cup aloe juice + 1 tsp. human-grade MSM mixed in and poured over breakfast and again at dinner), and perhaps it's just coincidence, but when I pulled her back out of her stall after breakfast on that first day, she was brighter eyed than she's been in some weeks now. I couldn't believe it.



That is one happy face. Compare that to this picture taken a few days ago. Astounding, really. With that change in attitude in mind, I tacked up yesterday for my conditioning hack, VERY interested to see what her attitude would be under saddle. Given the fact that we've had more rain and I was scheduled to gallop today, I didn't want to tear the fields up, so I opted to do something I've been avoiding - doing the trot part of our hack on the road. I worry, with all the roadwork that we do, about excess wear on her bare feet, so I try to be careful about it. Her feet have held up to to it just fine, but they're maintaining themselves exactly where they want to be and have not grown excess, so there isn't much wall to wear down. With that in mind, I attempted something decidedly out of the ordinary for me. A former boarder and fellow barefoot enthusiast had a pair of Easyboot Epics for her old horse, and they didn't remotely fit her new horse but did fit Gogo when she gave them to me to try. I've never used them before and wasn't really all that keen to try. I didn't like the design of the boot in back - it seemed like the area below the heels inside the boot had a weird raised edge that looked like it was going to crush her heels once she really got going. Preemptively, I wrapped all four feet in vetwrap and duct tape, making sure to REALLY make it secure on her hinds. I expected them to wear off at some point but I figured we'd give it a try anyway.

Well, of course my ingenious design.... fell off of both hinds before we even began our trotwork. So much for that. Oh well, on with the show, right? Right from the get-go, she strode right out, marching happily away from home, seemingly eager to get to work. No hesitations, no slow walk, no spookiness, no nothing. It felt unrelated to boots... it was more of an attitude thing. I was delighted, but we had far to go. She trotted out well in the boots at first, and all seemed well. Hell, she was striding out better than ever before, even! Yay boots! Except then... she started feeling funny. Then she started limping. Then she started seriously hobbling! I, of course, went OH GOD WHAT DID SHE DO, and stopped and jumped right off. I pulled off both boots, and examined her feet. No damage anywhere, thank god, but she seemed much happier with them off, so I trotted her in hand to see - and she was fine. I got back on and trotted out, and tada! No more hobbling. She moved out in an increasingly forward and happy way without them, so NOT yay to the boots! I abandoned them on the side of the road and left them there, though I did go back and retrieve them today. Safe to say, I will NOT be using them again. They'll go on Ebay and some other person can deal with them. I DO want to invest in a pair or two of boots at some point, I know I will need them SOMEDAY. But until I can afford some Renegades I think she will just go on with her bad bare self. She has yet to give me indication that she can't get along without them just fine.

Our 25 minutes of trotwork ended with a happy, bright, and forward horse. We continued on our merry way for some time, walking along with purpose, enjoying the cloudy, grey afternoon for its lack of serious heat and mugginess (two things we've been getting a LOT of lately!). We ventured down a sideroad we don't often take, and that was where things got VERY interesting VERY fast.
I happened to pass a house with a pool in the backyard, as many of the houses in our area do, but this one on this particular day was filled with a whole bunch of kids having a pool party. When they saw me, all I heard was "HORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!", and turned just in time to see these kids multiplying and come pouring out of the woodwork - kids streaming out of the house, kids flying up from the pool, kids running up from behind the house... there had to be 30 of them all in all. And here they come, SPRINTING at top speed, ALL of them all at once, all SCREAMING at the top of their lungs. A lesser horse would have quailed at the very sight, but Gogo stopped and stood like a rock and ignored them for the most part. They all ran up in front of me and started shouting nonsensical questions all at the same time, like "What's that thing poking out of her foot?" Um... that's her hoof.
While I am answering all these millions of questions, unbeknownst to me several of these little hellions have snuck up directly behind my horse and are all now gathered mere inches from her hind end. Had Gogo been any other horse, it would have been Kiddie Massacre, but she did not even flick an ear to give me any indication that somebody might be back there, so I noticed nothing until I heard a smack and felt her butt vibrating. I turned out to see the kids were now taking pictures of themselves slapping her on the ass, and apparently the look of horror on my face was hysterical because they all started laughing maniacally. And before I could even open my mouth to say anything, suddenly there's another kid who appears on the OTHER side of her with a dumb question. I couldn't make this up if I tried: the kid asked, "Is this a boy or a girl?" and REACHED UNDERNEATH HER and GRABBED HER UDDER. AND HE PULLED. And bless her lil' Gogo heart, she did not move a muscle. As I am trying desperately to herd their little barefoot selves away from my horse's rear end (pool party remember? about to get their feet crushed!), one of the little ones asks if he can give her a handful of grass. I said yes, somewhat absentmindedly as I am rather flustered at the fact that NONE of the kids are listening to a word I say when I tell them to back up (I was literally completely surrounded on all sides by tiny bare feet), so what do they do? They ALL started ripping up HUGE chunks of their lawn and started shoving it in my horse's face. So now, Gogo is in heaven and going from kid to kid to kid to kid to kid to kid to kid to kid eating their handplucked grass. Her lips brushed one of their hands apparently, because he started screaming that she bit him, but when I asked if it hurt, he said no, so I told him, "then she didn't bite you. Be careful." Now, one of the kids is asking if I'll run her up and down the road. I said no, but I did agree to trot her for a few steps down the road so they can watch. No sooner had I agreed to this and moved off into a trot than they ALL STARTED RUNNING AFTER HER, and were running up to her and SMACKING her on the ass WHILE SHE WAS TROTTING, all the while screaming and cackling at the top of their lungs. Gogo's eyes got pretty big when the entire pack of horse-eating children started chasing her at high speed, but she was completely sensible about it otherwise, and didn't flinch in the slightest as they tried to get themselves killed behind her. I finally was like, okay I havve to go now, bye!! and wheeled away and trotted off in the other direction, towards a big hill. THEY CHASED AFTER US! So we park trotted off as fast as we could up the hill, until we had left the tired kids far behind. We didn't stop til we got all the way to the top, where I then sat and laughed until I almost cried.

On our way home, we marched past the gallop field and the subsequent rocks and scary staircase at Lynnie's house. These have been a source of complete terror for her anytime we've passed them this past month or two, but I was completely astonished to find that she didn't look at them, ANY of them. Nothing was spooky. She didn't even look at the storm drains, and those are ALWAYS very scary. I couldn't believe it. We reached home with plenty of energy left, and a happy, bright horse. Amazing. Really amazing.


And today? More of the same goodness! It was about 965724959322734 degrees outside with somewhere around a thousand percent humidity, so I ended up waiting until around 7pm to do my gallops. And she was INCREDIBLE. I kept them on the slightly lighter side of tough, as follows:

15 minute walk hack/warmup to field
5 minutes trot
1 minute walk
5 minutes trot
1 minute walk
5 minutes trot
2 minutes walk
4 minutes 350mpm canter
1 minute walk
4 minutes 350mpm canter
1 minute walk
5 minutes 470mpm gallop
15 minute walk hack/cooldown home

She was incredible. She moved right out in her trotwork and made it seem like a breeze, and hopped up into her canter, completely willing to cruise along on autopilot while I worked on the position changes Ann had me do last Friday. They worked remarkably well, I have to say, and I'll tell you what, my thighs were BURNING by the time I was done! The real test was moving up into the 470mpm gallop. Last time we galloped, she was completely spent after only the first canter set, so we finished with a second canter set and chalked it up to feeling crappy after just starting the Doxy. This time, she sprang forward into cruising speed, and maintained it almost entirely on her own. The only times I had to ask for rebalancing were when we came around the corner and down the steeper part of the hill, and when we had to move out again at the bottom of it. She would flick her ears back at me as I asked her to keep going, and pulled away with the lightest of aids and her ears pricked. The 5 minute mark rolled around, and definitely compared to last week I had TONS of horse underneath me still, but sensibly so. When we went to walk home, fresh in my memory was how she has been spooking like crazy before/after our gallops at the rocks and Lynnie's staircase (particularly this ride), so I was completely amazed to find that the rocks were NOT scary, the mailboxes were NOT scary, and Lynnie's staircase was also NOT scary at all. She didn't look at a single one of them. And the one or two things she did look at, she did the exact kind of spooking I've always loved - puts her head down, gives it a good eyeball, and then moves TOWARDS it instead of away from it to get a better look. When she's been spooky lately, she's been doing the typical run away from it kind of spooking. But not yesterday, and not today. Yesterday and today, she was back to my good ol' Gogomare.



We're on the upswing, and it feels so good. I putzed around with her for a good hour or so after we were done, including giving her a liniment bath and parking her in front of two enormous fans while I trimmed her feet (which look gorgeous, by the way). She's one happy chick right now. I don't know if it is the Doxy after all or if the aloe really is the miracle that Tamara said it was for Aaruba, but one thing is for certain. Something is working.


The uptrend is making me REALLY excited for Huntington, and for the AECs. I always had planned on pulling from Huntington if it seemed like it wasn't in her best interests, and I haven't even entered the AECs yet because I need to know that I can get through another full XC course without mishap before I take her all the freaking way to Chicago, but it feels like it's all falling back into place again. I'm starting to get the show bug again too. I was a little burnt out before from all the work I'd been doing around here and all the sleep I had not been getting in return, but life seems to be working itself all out. The vet is still coming Thursday, and we still have yet to see how her dressage goes with this new regime. But I am feeling really, really good about all this. Horses are a rollercoaster, right? There will ALWAYS be ups and downs. Now, we just have to time this particular up with reaching the highest peak on the coaster right at the AECs, and we'll be all set. ;)

End of July Analysis

July has completely flown by. All for the better too, really: between the moldy apartment and a month and a half of sleeping on the couch, the drama with Alex, and Gogo's only semi-explained spooky-nuts behavior at our last two events, I am READY for August and a clean slate!

Summer is really here in the thick, but it's a bit sad that I only started to really think that starting just last week. It's been raining so much that it sort of felt like the eternal end of spring and not the nice, hot, steamy days we've been having for a little over two weeks now. But the dog days are now here, with blazing hot sunshine, humidity so thick you have to carry a machete to cut your way through it, and daily afternoon thunderstorms that arrive at around 4pm and range from mildly annoying to pretty darn scary:







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Onto our July analysis.... there's quite a lot to think about:


July Goals:

1) Place Top 5 at the Area I Novice Championships (my real goal is to WIN them, of course, but I know that that is a pompous goal to make and that I'll jinx it if I do!)
Psh! Well we all know how that went! Certainly, you win some, you lose some, and that's really how the game of eventing goes: it's more than just talent. It really has a ton to do with circumstance and really, when you think about it, luck sometimes. We rolled our way through our first three events like they were crumb cake, but we didn't go into Areas feeling strong due to all the drama and mess that my life had become in the preceding weeks. Add in there, if you will, the Lymey-ness that Gogo has been exhibiting and voila! Recipe for a poor outcome, sadly. We've rehashed it, we've analyzed it, we've treated the medical issues and we're well on our way to addressing the mental ones, too. We will bounce back from this, no doubt. These things can and do happen, and all we can do is figure out how we can twist them to learn lessons our of them and make us better as a team.

2) REALLY focus on my position over fences - stop that leg swinging and upper body ducking!
Thankfully I have been able to work on this, thanks in large part to the Eric clinic, which was very helpful. There's still a long way to go, but tomorrow I plan on setting up a series of bounces and work on me, me, me. Focus is on my position now, because that is the key to making everything better.

3) Continue to fine-tune our gallop speed and fitness via GPS, and, if possible, work at higher speeds over XC fences (not really a goal for this month, but definitely for next)
Yes, as expected, this is more a goal for this month as opposed to last month. My GPS is, unfortunately, not all that reliable (it's a cheap model, and I will be investing in a better one for next year for sure), but I am still going to use it and take it with a grain of salt when I know it's reading wrong. We will not be working so much at speed over fences as we will confident and quiet rides to fences, but I would like the concept of balanced speed to be introduced when she is feeling particularly bold.

4) Continue ironing out the kinks in our Novice test - transitions, freewalk - and continue to work on more complicated Second Level movements (and develop collection further!)
We certainly are coming along pertaining to our kinks - unfortunately, now it's the other stuff that was so solid before that we need to focus on, like the quality of our gaits in general! I've been told many times that I am the type to find a problem, seek it out, and pour all my energy into fixing that problem, often times overcorrecting it and sliding off in the opposite direction - for instance, I used to round my shoulders and slump in my halfseat, but now, according to Eric, I have overcorrected and have too much arch in my lower back! I need to make sure I don't miss the forest for the trees, and focus on the bigger picture as well as the finer details. But I do have to say that at King Oak, our weakest points were our halt and our freewalk, things that have always been less than perfect unless EVERYTHING leading up to the movement was perfect and Mars and Venus and Pluto were all correctly aligned. We got 5's on both those movements. But at Old Chatham, I received an 8 on my final halt, and at Riga, I received an 8 on my freewalk! Woo hoo! Improvements made!

5) Figure out exactly what I want from the month of August, our last large span of time before the AECs in September
I have spent a good deal of time figuring out what I want from August training and show wise. I want, first and foremost, to get our XC schooling as much as we can and as successfully as we can. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, I'm afraid. I don't really have access to a groundperson, and lessons with big name local trainers are difficult to secure (and often times more expensive than a month's worth of groceries). The rain has closed almost every open course around, and I don't know when I'll be able to really get out. I've been dropping lines EVERYWHERE - Town Hill, Mystic, Riga, Walkers, Jenny Goebble's place, Babcock Hill, Willow Creek, Oakendale, Ayer Mountain, etc!! - and so far I've only heard back from Town Hill and Walkers, both closed due to rain. Poooo. Also in August, I want to make sure I successfully make it around Huntington's XC course during their H.T. I think once everything is addressed, we won't have a problem. I need to focus on my equitation over fences, I need to make sure our gallops are up to snuff, I need to make sure all the issues contributing to our problems are addressed (treating Lyme, checking eyes, checking hocks, checking ME).... and we gotta have some fun doing it all! :D Summer is hot and sticky and fun, and we are spending every evening rolling around together in the grass and enjoying the sunshine (well, I am anyway, she's too busy eating grass) and we have plans to make it over to the river and go for a swim hopefully this week too. Summer is the BEST!



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!
2) Successfully complete the Huntington Farm H.T. WITHOUT XC PENALTIES!
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!
4) Finesse our Novice testwork, continue finessing First Level work and continue to work more Second Level movements in
5) At the end of this month, be fully ready, prepared physically and mentally, and excited for the AECs!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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




With the apartment now back in top shape, I can finally say I am getting good sleep again, and with that sleep comes the need to start focusing on my body in other ways again. I've dropped weight - who wouldn't in this situation? - but it's not because I'm being healthy, it's because I'm not eating. And that's just the wrong way to go about all this! So added to the list, I want to make sure I am getting enough exercise and EATING WELL, because how can I expect her to be in top shape when I myself am not?



My spirits are back up because this is what I see when I look up from my computer now:



The fruits of this year's hard labor so far. We will add more blues before the year is out, I promise you that.





EDIT: By the way, did I mention Gogo continues to be completely insane? Today when I was tacking up for our conditioning hack, I put her saddle on and girthed her up, and she was standing there like she was completely glued to the ground for whatever reason. She looked awkward, so I walked in front of her and put both hands lightly on either side of her halter to ask her to step up out of it. What was her response? Broke her halter and left it hanging in the crossties, turned around, humped her back all the way down the aisle like a rodeo horse (as if she'd never had a saddle on before), and skidded to a stop at the end of the barn aisle. I can only imagine that I must have temporarily pinched something somewhere, because removal and checking of tack was inconclusive, and when I asked her to step forward again in the crossties exactly the same way, she moved forward as she normally would have done. MARES! We are now onto ANOTHER new halter....



Seriously, she keeps my life interesting. That's one thing I can safely say is NOT about to change!