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.

The Attitude X Factor

Gogo is feeling a whole world of better after the injections, aloe juice, and Doxy. And that's great! Except for one thing. When Gogo feels poorly, she gets very, very sweet, and very snuggly. She wants me to take her head in my arms and cuddle her, which is the way she's been for the past several weeks. And when Gogo feels good, she has an... attitude. Now that she's feeling REALLY good, she has a REALLY BIG ATTITUDE. Really.

For instance. All that cuddliness? Gone. I always give her a snuggle when I walk by her stall and she has her head poking out over her stall gate, and even just last week, she would cuddle up to me whenever I'd reach up to pull her face over. Now? Nope. She lifts her head away from me and looks away in a way that clearly says, "Mom. You're embarassing me." She's always been punky like this, so this is no surprise. But I was enjoying the sweetness!
And she's starting to do little things to try and reassert her alpha-ness, like I talked about in my last post. I stop her while leading, and she takes another step forward after she's supposed to be standing still. I lead her somewhere, and she lags behind, or drifts. I ask her to stand still, and she looks at me for a moment, then moves her feet. I've had her for three years... she knows the house rules by now. I am a self procleaimed manners nazi, just because horses are big and quite frankly, I'd rather not be getting dragged around, mauled for food, bitten in the butt/face/hand/boob/whathaveyou, or kicked in the head. One of my unbreakable golden rules is that you NEVER put your mouth on ANYTHING unless it is food that is specifically offered to you. She has never, never been mouthy in any way, so this has never been a problem. Alllllll the horses here chew on the crossties, except her, and when she tried this once or twice this past winter, she got a stern talking to. She never did it again. Until yesterday. AND she had the nerve to do it right in front of me. I was brushing her tail out with her paddle brush (yes, that gorgeous, thick, dreamy, shining tail? Yeah, I spritz on some Showsheen and rip a tailbrush through it. Every day.), and I looked up to see her craning her neck around to look at me. While she was staring at me, she purposely reached over and took the crosstie in her mouth. The flat end of the paddle brush made a very loud WHACK as it made contact with her butt, I can tell you that! She jumped a little, and held still for a moment. Then, she turned her head around to look at me again, and took the crosstie in her mouth AGAIN, as if to say HA! Your beatings cannot stop me! Cheeky, cheeky wench.
She also knows that at mealtimes, you hold still and you WAIT for your food. You don't eat it until you get out of my way and I give it to you, then walk away and leave you to it. You do not paw, bite things, kick the wall, scrape your teeth on stuff, pin your ears, or get in my space. Normally she's very polite about these things. But yesterday? She pinned her ears over her stall gate at everyone around her, made like she was going to kick the wall, then walked over to her feed bucket and scraped her teeth on the wall. Which she has done exactly ONCE before in her entire life. Again, another stern talking to. But what did she do just seconds later, when I walked away? Walked back over and scraped her teeth on the wall again. I walked into her stall as she was still doing it, whacked her one, backed her up into the corner, told her to stand and think about what she had done, and closed her door behind me. I fed everyone else, went and cleaned the back grounds, and then went back to feed her. She was still standing in her corner waiting for me. Sorry mare, but you know the rules! I am no-nonsense when it comes to rules on the ground. Everything is cut and dried, black and white. You can do this, and you can't do that, end of story, no exceptions. Today, she was back to her polite self about her food, but it wasn't without an air of disgust. She is very smart, especially about food - you get fed when you wait for me. If you don't wait for me, you don't get fed until you do. That is easy to put together, if you are a cheeky mare.

Under saddle, post injections, I had some sort of dream fantasty that Gogo would be totally thrilled to be feeling better, and would trot off like a million bucks right from the get go, and all would be fabulous! Ah... no. Gogo has other ideas. Yes, she is feeling a TON better, but since she is now finding it easier to do things with her body, she has an entire army of new ways to evade me. When she DOES get going well, the work is brilliant, but we are back up to our 45 minute warmups because she just isn't keen on playing the game just yet. I have to take a step back for a few days, I think, and just go back to letting her warmup by crusing around and being relatively benign to her. When I start asking her for more than she thinks she's ready for too early on in the ride, she just doesn't play. She won't. I can't make her. But when I stay quiet and just let her be for a little while, she always comes around. Always. And just from seeing her in the mirrors as we pass, she is moving phenominally, flexing her hocks more than she has in a very long time. She feels fantastic. She's just... punky.

Very, very punky.

Tomorrow comes the true test: we are going XC schooling at Red Rock in Rhode Island. It has water, banks, and plenty of varied jumps. And at $25 a school, it also has the right price. Very excited!






Boy I love that wenchista. I do really enjoy when she has this snarky attitude. It's never nasty in any way - never any pinned ears or grumpiness - but it definitely has an air of better-than-thou snootiness to it. Directing this cheekiness into productivity is a very refined art, and it's not easy. I don't pretend to be successful at it day in and day out. There are days that I just can't figure out how to approach it. And there are days when it all comes together and really clicks.

It's something I realy live for, every day.

A Good Karma EXPLOSION!

Today was one big giant WIN! It was as if karma went, well all right, you've done alllllll the things you needed to do to get yourselves back on track, here's all your good luck back now!


First, I want to know who exactly swapped Gogo out for a Ferrari overnight? I did expect her to feel better after her hock injections, but WOW, it's a WORLD of difference. It was noticeable from the get go - she was standing way more comfortably in the aisle while I was grooming and tacking, hardly resting that right hind (or the left) at all... she just stood there, four square, looking cheerful. She hasn't done that since she was 5 or 6. I got on her with the plan to lightly hack, but at the same time test the machinery and see exactly what we had. Right away, she marched off with a purpose, and we headed out to the orchard. After a nice walk, I picked up a trot, and WHOA! I didn't even realize how much she's been pulling herself along with her forehand as opposed to really pushing with her hindend, and today, she was PUSHING. It felt fabulous. I asked her to canter, and she sprang lightly into it, no moments of inversion or hesitations. She moved and turned with the slightest move on my part. She accelerated and decelerated smoothly. I moved to the driveway, most curious about that part - she has always felt different when posting on the left diagonal versus the right while traveling in a straight line on pavement, not lame per se, but different from when you post on the right diagonal. Now? Uniform, straight, and comfortable. I kept hacking up through the neighborhood, and asked her for a final test: walking down a hill. One of the things that led me to believe she did need her hocks done was her increasing aversion to traveling down hills. She was starting to shuffle, insist that we switchback instead of go straight, and slow dramatically. Today? She marched down that hill at top walking speed, in a perfectly straight line, marching with utmost comfort and confidence in herself. Wow.
So it is very clear to me that I did do the right thing. I can't remember her ever feeling this good. She must have as a 5 year old, but wow. Seriously. She was all hot and looky today, probably because she had just had three days off and magic juice squirted into her hocks, and she also spent a good part of her day trying to push the envelope with me. When Gogo isn't feeling her best, she easily relinquishes her alpha role to me and lets me run the show without her input. When she is feeling good, however, she starts trying to reassert herself in little ways, like taking a step forward into my space after I've asked her on no uncertain terms to cease movement, or moving away from her non-negotiable spot at my shoulder while I'm leading her. She wants to run the show, and she would take over in an instant if I let her. Not in a mean way, certainly, but she is the alpha mare, after all. So I have to keep on my toes with her and make sure she minds her manners. I do enjoy when she gets punky like this though, because it DOES mean she is feeling really good.

Second, USEA put out their summer edition of the Eventing 2.0 online magazine today. All thanks to Daun, Leslie contacted me about a month ago and asked if I would write for USEA's blog, which I was very excited to do. However, when I sent in my first blog piece, they liked it to much that they decided to make a whole article about us in Eventing 2.0! If you flip through the online magazine to page 28, you'll see our article and get to read a bit more about Gogo's history. I've already had a flood of e-mails about it. They even went so far as to add in additional pictures of her and I at last year's AEC that I didn't even know existed! The article looks fabulous - the bolded captions are even in baby blue! The only thing I would like to add to it was the final line of the original piece, which was removed from final copy of the article: "And nobody can stop us, any of us, if we really believe in ourselves." Add that on mentally ;) THANK YOU Leslie, and THANK YOU Daun, because I would never have made the contact if you hadn't suggested me to her. Awesome!!

Third, my awards all came in the mail today! I earned a Rider Achievement Award at the Novice level, and qualified myself for the Medallion Club level of this due to having placed in the top 5 placings at three horse trials this calendar year. Gogo and I also each earned a Gold Medal at the Novice level in the new Medal Program, due to having finished three times with a score below 35 at Novice. You can read more about the Medal Program here.





Sweet!!

Fourth, look what else came in the mail today! My custom helmet cover! It's black with light blue stars, although it's hard to tell in this picture. I got this (and Gogo's BoT hock wraps) using a gift certificate from Bit of Britain that I won last year at the AECs. Can I even say how much I LOVE Bit of Britain? I had to use the paper order form you find in the catalogue so I could send in my gift certificate, and I couldn't have sent that out more than two weeks ago. My BoT wraps? On my horse in about three days. My custom helmet cover that I doubted would even get here before the AEC? THE fastest turnaround time ever, here in about two or possibly two and a half weeks at most. I expected at least four to six, minus shipping time. You go, Bit of Britain! Eventers all over the nation LOVE YOU, and THANK YOU for sponsoring the AECs this year!



And fifth, and most exciting of all, my entry for the AEC went out today. YES. I had been stalling on this just because I wanted to make sure she was feeling back in tip top form before I sent off all that money, but everything has just seemed to fall into place so beautifully this past week. It was time. Our official countdown to Huntington Farm is 5 days, and our official countdown to the AECs is 23 days. Guys, that is a little over three weeks away. THREE WEEKS. I AM SO EXCITED YOU HAVE NO IDEA.



Tomorrow, we start back with our dressage, and will be dressage-ing through Thursday. Friday, I will hopefully have another XC lesson with Ann to really see where she is now that she's feeling so much better. And then on Saturday, we leave for Huntington Farm in Vermont, and show on Sunday. I can't help but feel positive and excited about this show. I just feel like it's going to go well.

Life is good.




Gogo and I schooling XC last year at Bath Pony Club, looking like happy clams.

The deed is done.

Sorry for my small bits of hiatus. I am currently in Michigan for a friend's wedding (which was THE fairytale wedding of the century, SERIOUSLY), and am headed back to Connecticut tonight. The less often I get to come home to Michigan, the more I miss it. I kind of don't want to go back.


Anyway. Dr. C came out on Thursday after I had already ridden Gogo (and she was fairly lovely but coming into heat so a little bit distractable), and after wrestling with it mentally (and physically, really) for a year, it was finally decided that hock injections were in fact the best and kindest way to approach the changes in her hocks. These changes are not causing lameness at this point, but they will in the future if I am not proactive now. I've done as much as I can otherwise to help her body, but she's given me the signs of needing a little more help than that. With all that in mind, I made the decision to do what I had hoped I wouldn't have to for maybe another year yet. Arthritis is not curable. All I can do at this point is try to keep her as comfortable as possible for the remainder of her years. We'll never know just why this started in her, or how. If I had been pounding on her as a 3 year-old, yes. But she lived in a field until she was nearly 5. Her hind end conformation is pretty correct. When I was jumping her hardest, it was once a week at the very most, over fences that maxed out at around 2'9", and rarely. But, it still happened. And there is no use now in crying over spilled milk. When the systemic solutions were not enough, I went directly to the source of the problem. And when we went into the low joint in that right hock, there was a bit of excess fluid that came leaking back out of the needle, a good sign that there was some inflammation in there. Despite my personal aversion to injections (and how I feel very strongly that they are an American sickness and crutch), deep down I know that I did the right thing.

And I feel better now that it is done. Now, I can stop fretting about it every day. Now, I know that she can get back to doing what she really seems to love - running and jumping - without fear on her part or mine that she will experience any discomfort in those wonky hocks. I'm very interested to see how she feels post-injection. She has today, tomorrow, and Sunday off, and then I will hack her Monday and see just how she feels.


I did the right thing. Whether or not she's running and jumping or just hanging out in a field, I still want her to be as comfortable as possible, and would likely have opted for this in the end no matter what my intentions with her were, sport or otherwise. Nevertheless, I still can't help feeling a little weird. I've talked about this before, but things like this always bring up the morality question: why do we do things to horses that break them? Why do we need things like injections in order to keep them going for our own amusement? This is one of the reasons why I have absolutely no intentions of ever being a professional rider or trainer. At the top levels of sport, somedays you HAVE to go train and ride no matter whether or not you or the horse feel in top shape. Especially right after I got Gogo back from Crazy Trainer, she would have days where she looked like a zombie, and I couldn't bring myself to do more than just play with her on those days. I think that's the right thing to do. She always came out better the next day for it. And yes, I'd lose a day of training, but better that than lose her brain to continual pounding when she couldn't mentally handle it. Last week, when she was feeling especially crappy and before I started her on the aloe, she had a day just like that. When I went to pull her out to ride her, she just looked at me as if to say, please no. And I didn't have the heart to disagree. Sometimes, as a professional, you have to compete a horse (client or otherwise) that you know isn't ready. That you know isn't all that sound. That you know you shouldn't. But you're under so much pressure, and you risk losing money, losing clients. So what do you do? Your four-star horse NEEDS to jump today, but he's feeling exhausted from a tough gallop the day before. You're going to the Pan Ams in two weeks and you can't risk deviating from your rigorous workout schedule. What do you do? I certainly don't possess nearly that kind of talent that I would ever find myself in that situation anyway, but in a similar professional setting on a lesser scale? I couldn't do it. I couldn't make myself.

This is a large part of why I want to go into alternative farrier work. I want to help horses feel and perform the best they can and be as healthy as they can. There isn't a soul around who wouldn't agree with you that keeping a horse barefoot IS the healthiest way for them, but it's just a fact we barefoot folks need to face: people have a point when they say they doubt a horse's ability to go around Rolex without some sort of additional traction. What horse in the wild is going around at a flat-out gallop leaping over enormous obstacles? Shoeing may or may not be the unhealthier way to keep a horse going, but this is where my dream career comes in... there HAS to be a better way than shoes, I WANT to find a better way. We all know the problems that can come with shoeing, so I'm not about to list them. Boots fall off, wiggle, cause rubs. Epoxy custom shoes can fail too. Our healthier alternatives are not yet good enough. I want to find a better way.

We've come a long, long, long way over the domestication of horses. I mean, for god's sake it used to be common practice to take a saucer full of turpentine and hold it to a horse's naval to cure founder. Hopefully in a hundred-odd years, technology will have finally given us our perfect alternative to shoes. And our kids (well, not mine, I'm not going to have any little runts) will look back and go wow, remember when our grandparents used to actually nail stuff to their horse's feet?

One Happy Mare

I have plenty to write about the past couple of days, but alas, this morning I'm up early to be out in the barn by 5:15 so I can have the washrack scrubbed down, the stalls cleaned, the horses fed and turned out and be ready for my 9:00am lesson. The vet is coming sometimes today (hopefully late morning) to give Gogo's hocks the once-over and decide for sure whether or not we need to stick needles and unicorn tears into them. (For the price of injections in Connecticut, that BETTER be what's in them.) For now, I just had to share with you a little short video of my happy, happy horse. I can't even believe how cheerful she's been, it's ridiculous. Even more cheerful than pre-Lyme, really.




She's the best mare EVER.

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. ;)

Elementary, my dear Gogo

Man, July just was not a good month for neither Gogo nor I was it? We are still dealing with the fallout from that, but I am thankful to say that the future is very sunny, and everything seems to be coming back together. Life may have imploded for me in July, but August is already looking way up, and September looks even more promising from where we now stand. It's not all back to normal yet, certainly no, but there is progress, always progress.


One of the things I do best in this world is honing in on a horsey problem and sleuthing about to find all possible answers to the issue, especially the physical aspect of things. I am a full believer in ruling out the physical issues before addressing the mental ones, and at the same time take full responsibility for all of them at once. If my horse is skittery under saddle and spooky, does that mean she's Lymey? High? Ulcery? What did I do to contribute to the problem, and what can I do to fix it? My horse is spooky and jittery on XC? Did I hang on her face, knock her in the teeth, chase her to a bad spot, slam on her back, overface her, scare her otherwise? Do her hocks hurt? Is she Lymey, ulcery, high? What did I do to contribute to the problem, and what can I do to fix it?

I never wanted to be a vet. No, I had no desire to play god and kill horses necessarily (or unnecessarily), or cut them open, live or dead. What I HAVE always been interested in is rehab once a problem had been diagnosed, and watching the progression being made. I thrived on taking care of my stall-bound Metro, day in and day out. Meticulously, I brought him back as best I could, and spent all my days wondering how better I could do it. That story ended sadly, but it didn't kill my enthusiasm for therapeutic work. In fact, for some time I wanted to open and run a rehabilitation center similar to KESMARC but with a homey feel, turnouts and such. That idea has long since been abandoned due to the enormous financial undertaking that would require... but discussing my future career options is a topic for another day. The point here is that I live for this kind of stuff. I want to make things feel better.

On Thursday, I had my first really successful dressage ride in two weeks. The preceding week had not been successful in the slightest, and Monday and Tuesday were quite awful as well. The Doxy has had 11 days in her system now, and I'm not feeling particularly as though it has made all that much of a difference. I will still give it another 5 days, and if there is still no improvement, I will pull her off it and save the rest of the Doxy for another time (not that I hope I ever need it ever again!). No need to waste money and eat at her stomach for nothing. Wednesday, it took a very long time to warmup, but I just let her do her thing within reasonable limits, and eventually, after endless 20-meter circles at the walk with occasional halts and reinbacks tossed in, she quieted and moved out without anxiety. We worked on transitions, improving the quality of her movement within movements, shoulder-ins, leg yields, and relaxation. We also worked a fair amount of counter-canter going left - we did several high quality shallow loops, and even went across the short diagonal to maintain counter canter halfway through the short side. She was lovely going left. Going right, I had almost nothing. She traveled very, very crookedly, her haunches way in at all times, and it was a struggle to straighten her. I decided it was foolish to try and do more than simply improve what I had to work with, so we left the more difficult stuff for another day when she's feeling better. This is still why I suspect hocks though. She was not being directly disobedient, she just didn't feel like she could do more beyond putting all our collective wills into simply traveling straight. That was the only real issue I had though, that right canter. She moved out very well the rest of the time, no other hesitations, and I felt very much like I was riding well too.

Yesterday, given how good she felt on Thursday, I opted to go ahead with my original plan for the day, a XC lesson with Ann Bowie at Mystic. All I wanted out of the day was to see how much of this is a rider-caused issue, and to give her some confidence back if I was causing her any reluctance. Ann was very helpful, and we got quite a bit of simple but effective schooling in. Ann made sure to pick apart the pieces of my equitation that are likely contributing to the issue, mainly in the way my energies and balance are centered up higher in my body than they should be. Instead of directing my energy to my legs and having them solidly on, I tend to make too much of a move with my upper body instead of letting it smoothly roll. About 6 strides out, she had me transition from a forward canter/slow gallop to a more collected (term used loosely) canter, and I sat down and put my leg on solidly. This, at first, had the effect of lengthening her instead of shortening her because she had also had me make every effort to have more neutral hands - i.e. not pulling back in ANY way to make adjustments - which, I think, was stressing her out because it's much harder to go pelting at a jump and hope you make it over than it is to bring yourself back before a jump! I had to really think about sending energy forward but capturing it in the contact without restricting her. With equal legs on both sides and equal reins on both sides capturing that forward energy and rolling it into a bouncing ball (that's the best image I had in my mind, a bouncing ball of energy rolling forward with nowhere for the energy to leak out of, such as a slack rein or a weak leg), she adjusted herself perfectly and gamely and calmly went to every fence. THEN, and only then, did I feel major improvements in my equitation over the top of the fence. But before, when I WASN'T perfectly perfect like that, she found the weak spots and she told on me. She bolted sideways away from the ditch the first time, the same ditch she loped over in May. She did the same at the white telephone polls. She chipped in, or she took things long and rushed. I had to REALLY focus and it wasn't until the last six or so jumps that I really felt like I got exactly what Ann wanted me to do. Then, everything fell much more into place. It was really odd to see how randomly spooky she still could be though. I walked her towards one of the teeny little upbanks they have there while on a loose rein, and when she got to the base of it, instead of walking right up it like she has always done before, she stopped, snorted loudly at it, and backed quickly away with a rather terrified expression. I walked her forward again, and after a little bit of quiet coaxing, she hopped up it from a walk on a loose rein (it was about a foot tall... she's walked up banks approaching three feet tall no problem, although they were often times unintentional when I was taking a break and not paying attention!!) That kind of behavior was still very odd to me. We weren't doing anything out of the ordinary, challenging, fast, or confusing. Just your run of the mill walk, like she always has done before. On the other hand, she did chase after a herd of deer that I pointed her at in order to clear them out of the field, and she cantered through a flock of geese standing around grazing in front of a fence, the only sign that she had noticed them manifesting itself into one single, perfect change right in the middle of the group. All in all, the lesson was very good and very helpful, but I will need more of them before I really feel like everything comes fully together and I really can give her the kind of ride she needs. When we got it right though, it was perfection and harmony.

But the continued odd spookiness that has really exploded into a problem in the past month got me thinking again. Gogo has been scoped for ulcers before and came out clean in situations where I felt SURE that she HAD to have them, and the odd weight fluctuations and jumping issues she had last summer all stemmed from her hocks and barn management problems instead of digestive issues. When those two things were addressed, she bloomed again. But, you still have to wonder. Spookiness at things that normally aren't scary is a typical ulcer-type symptom. So are things like going into the ring (or XC course) to do a round, and dropping a shoulder and having a right fit for no particular reason. She HAS been traveling a lot, which can really be hard on them even though she has to be THE best trailerer I've ever met in my life. I don't suspect ulcers because of management issues either - they get hay very nearly free choice, at the hours of 6am, 9am, 11am, 2pm, 4pm, and 8pm, and Gogo gets out on grass for about 6 hours a day (the best I can do, and the most she's ever had really). She's also on a very tiny amount of fortified grain a day: 2lbs of Gro N' Win, recently upped to 2.5 with the addition of another little cupful of Triple Crown Complete to counter the slight weight loss she's had. Or rather, topline loss. Her topline just... isn't looking as good as it was. There are a lot of explanations for that though, so you never know. Her attitude, however, has taken a slight downturn. She's much more sullen than she has been, and it doesn't seem to be corrected with fun things. A good swim in the river the other day was great fun while it lasted, but back at the barn? Very blah. However, I would like to note that after XC schooling yesterday, and today while getting her groom and handwalk, she was MUCH cheerier than I've seen her be in two weeks. Maybe she just needed to get out and run.

Could she be ulcery? Maybe. In the same way that she could have been Lymey, I suppose. I am not going to have her scoped and treat her with thousands of dollars of Gastroguard though, as my evidence is just not hard enough to really suspect it and my pocketbook is not vast enough to spend enormous chunks of money on possible whims. What I AM going to try, however, is something I got from The Barb Wire some time ago. This is a holistic alternative therapy, and given Tamara's gelding Aaruba's difficulty in responding to previous treatments and Tamara's serious knowledge on the subject, I completely trust in the way she raves about how good he felt after just three days of the treatment. All it is is just 1/2 cup of aloe vera juice or gel (I opted for juice as I felt she would eat it better), and a teaspoon of human-grade MSM. You can find these things at your local Whole Foods Market, or even Walmart. Is this curing the ulcers, or is this just helping tummies feel better? We wouldn't know unless we scoped before and after, which is not the case here. At about $2 daily, this is a far more economical option (Gastroguard is anywhere between $30 and $50 daily), and who knows? I've heard many good things about it, so it's worth a shot.


I finally have a hold on all the flyaway tethers that have broken loose from this hot air balloon basket we're journeying in. We've lost a little altitude, but we're retying them on, one by one. The Lyme tether is secured and no longer a concern. The ulcer tether is currently being repaired, and the hocks/eyes tether will be secured next week. The rider error tether is in my hands and is always a priority and a never ending work in progress, but it too will be secured, last but not least. And then, we will regain all our lost altitude with a vengeance, and break through the clouds to fly higher than ever before. It might be a campy little description, but it's an accurate one.


Gogo says, even with my tub of fresh water and my grass AND hay and my flymask and flysheet and flyspray.... I still want to come indoors.

The Many Disgruntled Faces of Gogo

Happy 3-Year Anniversary to Gogo and I, belated by a few days :) I really can't believe we've been together that long. I only had Quincy for 3 years before he died... I had Metro for less than 2. I really, really hope Gogo sticks around on this earth until she's a crusty old bat who goes to sleep on her own peacefully when she's in her 30's. That's a much better way to go than how my boys went.

I have much to write about, but I am very tired and gearing up for a very long work week, so you will just have to wait until tomorrow for all my interesting news! But until then, I thought I'd put up some of the comformation photos I always take of Gogo from season to season, in order to keep track of her body condition. While I have some very nice ones, these are hard to capture as Gogo tends to think that standing still for photos is VERY tedious and boring. When she's not doing her famous Picture Pose (which I will have another post on at some point), she is doing her equally as famous Disgruntled Face, letting everyone around her know just how displeased she is with our VERY DULL activities.

Without further ado, the Comformation Pose with a Disgruntled Face twist ;)





Gogo says, UGH, you people are so TEDIOUS!

Tarsus AJKFR#SHPM!UTHARSUS!

All together now: SIIIIIIIIGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Round and round and round we go, searching for the answers to Gogo's issues, traveling down all possible paths and finding ourselves always back at the same old place over and over again: hocks.

I don't want joint injections to be the answer here. No, no, no. I am fighting with all my might to see what else we might address first, making sure to exhaust all possibilities. But an eerily creepy sensation of deja vous washed over me yesterday after a particularly bad jump school, reminding me suddenly and sharply of a long-forgotten jump school I had last year just before her hocks were diagnosed with changes. Last year, I had a very bad week leading up to South Farm. We XC schooled at Bath the Sunday before, and she was bonkers but had gotten better by the end. Monday, as described by my calendar from last year, she was being "obnoxious and weird," but "settled by end." Tuesday, I trailered her to Lake Erie to get some coursework in, and she was completely crackers. Rail after rail, chipping everywhere, refusals... it was a right disaster. She had the following two days off, and off we went to South Farm... where I then scored a 22.6 in my dressage test, an all time record for me. However, we then had a rail the following day in stadium, despite our ridculously good dressage score still keeping us in first. But everything just felt all wrong. The following week, I trailered her to the Equine Specialty Hospital, where they localized it to her right hock.
Yesterday's jump school? I suppose it was destined to fail from the get-go. First of all, I have to admit, I HATE setting jump exercises. I hate schlepping poles and standards around. I hate measuring and remeasuring and STILL getting distances wrong (as I did today). I hate having to drag it all back to where it belongs when I'm done. Today was no different; I unknowingly measured my bounce exercise incorrectly. So of course, after we warmed up, we went into the exercise to give it a go. First time through, she flailed over the first tiny vertical (couldn't have been 2'), and then dropped her shoulder and spun at the second bounce. Of course, right? Tried it again, and she managed to flounder through the entire exercise but just barely. The third and fourth times through resulted in yet another spin out, and then finally a flat out grind to a stop refusal at the very first obstacle, at which point I readjusted the exercise, wanting to kick us both in the ribs. The exercise improved from there, as she went through it successfully every time without hesitation, but she jumped poorly despite the corrected distance, and what was designed to be a simple exercise with a focus on my position turned out to be little more than a giant mess. While I was glad to correct the behavior side of it, and felt that in that respect I had been successful, I just can't believe that my horse is being naughty without good reason. I might not be the best jock in the world but... I don't suck THAT bad on a regular basis, so much that I might make her sour over fences. I got off feeling dull and sad, even though the final run through the exercise had been the best.

It's just eerily familiar, is all. Last year, she started chipping, refusing (at home), and knocking rails (at shows). This year, she's started chipping, refusing (at home and shows), and knocking rails (at home). I'm willing to give the Doxy its chance, but in all honesty, I just.... think everything keeps pointing back to hocks. I don't want to inject. I don't. But I've exhausted my other options and I think I just.... need to do what's best for her.

One of the Salmon Brook vets is coming out to take a look at her on Monday (probably not Dr. O who I think is in Ireland, so it'll probably be Dr. C), and we're going to have a good flexy-poke at her. And we'll just.... see what they have to say.


What I have done in the past year (since preliminary diagnosis of mild arthritic changes) in terms of helping the issue:
Adequan (loading dose, then once monthly, now on twice monthly)
Cosequin (original at first, now on Cosequin ASU)
As MUCH turnout as possible (here we strrrreeettttcccchhhhh it... between handgrazing at night and turnout in the morning, she gets about 6-7 hours a day. Not as much as I'd like, but it's the best we can do.)
LONG warmups
LONG cooldowns
Cold-hosing/icing after hard workouts
Bute before/after hard workouts
Poulticing hocks after hard workouts
Liniment after medium-hard workouts
Have purchased a pair of Back on Track hock boots but they're not here yet
Ensured proper hoof care (long toes, broken angles, overgrown feet, etc. can all add joint stress, not to mention tendon and ligament stress!)

What I HAVEN'T done:
Legend (as it acts more like a short-term pain reliever than anything else and doesn't really last more than a few days... and it's expensive!)
Added herbs (unfortunately, herbs like Devil's Claw test at shows... but this can potentially be looked into for winter months)
Looked into magnets (inconclusive supportive data)
Looked into light therapy (only because one of my friends SWEARS by this stuff, but it's REALLY expensive and I'm not sure it's the right answer as it doesn't help to offset any damage, just relieves pain)
Injected (but that's obviously what we're talking about here.... sigh)


In the end, I think all roads seem to have come to one junction. I've delayed and delyaed and delayed this, and I've always known I'd have to do it someday. When you think about it, it's not really all that bad, I guess. The way I see it, the major cons of this are cost, starting down a possibly never-ending road (but I already knew I'd have to go down it), possibly contributing to a faster joint fusion (but not all horses fuse, and it's fine once they do fuse), going invasively into a joint (always a dangerous and scary thing), and corticosteroids can be hell on tummies. But the pros? Injecting helps to slow further damage to joints and instantly relieves pain, which, in the long run, is what we're trying our hardest to do and have been successful at so far, up until this point. I just think what I'm doing is no longer enough.

I hate to say it - oh I HATE to say it! - but I think she's going to feel a ton better after we get this done. Goodbye, morals.

It sucks so bad. I mean, I was SO CAREFUL with her when she was younger, so careful. I always warmed up and cooled down properly. I only ever jumped her once every two weeks, for less than 20 minutes at a time, over fences that couldn't have been higher than 2'3". I took things slowly and carefully. And she was fine. Unfortunately, things like this can also happen: crazy trainer told me as a fact that she always, always lunged my horse for at least an hour in sidereins before getting on her, EVERY time. I saw the lunging area.... deep, rutted mud, banked up on all sides from the horses running, lopsided, and smaller than 12 meters. That, my friends, will kill a joint. I'm lucky it didn't break a leg too. I'm sure that had something to do with the formation of the arthritis.




Things like joint injections always get me thinking about morality.... WHY do we do things to our horses that make them hurt? WHY do we ride them hard, jump them big, ask for collection, ask them to gallop their hearts out, and then wonder why they break? Why should we NEED joint injections to keep them going? Sometimes, I honestly just don't know. But I do know that feeling I get when Gogo really locks onto a fence and pulls me to it. She genuinely, as much as a horse can, seems to enjoy herself, the thrill of speed and of leaping joyously into the air. As far as I can tell, she wants to do it. The second she loses that heart and it's unrelated to a physical issue, we'll stop. She's alive, and is an animal in my care, and she couldn't help herself otherwise. It's my job to make her feel as good and healthy as she can, and I take full responsibility for her needing whatever she needs to be comfortable. I want to give her body a chance to embrace that joy.

Will this limit her career? Probably. Will this stop her from going forward? No. When I think about it, the physical damages in my own body FAR surpass her own. Her arthritic changes are very, very mild, isolated to one tiny spot - hardly career or life threatening in any way. My own twisted, lumpy, out-of-alignment skeleton? Well, it's quite a miracle I'm walking without assistance today, let's say that. I'm giving myself a chance too, you know. I'm in pain every day but I love all this, so I'm not giving up.

I don't really know what life is all about but she and I are both alive, and she and I both have the right to live as comfortably as we can for our duration on earth. I'm very thankful for modern medicine in this situation but at the same time, I wish it didn't exist and nature could deal with us accordingly. We wouldn't have horses or people who need constant maintenance to keep shuffling through their lives. We'd have strong, healthy individuals. Then again, if we let natural selection occur I'd be dead right now, so there you are, really. My brain is all jumbled now, I don't really know what else to say.

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:







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


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!