I kind of lost track of time while shopping and only saw the second half of Phillip Dutton's clinic on using ringwork to prepare for cross country, but what I saw was really terrific.
I had sat through nearly all of Julie Goodnight's clinic earlier that day on the canter, and was really disappointed at the amount of time she spent covering extreme basics (like...what a canter looks like, and how you have a right and left lead, and how to cue the canter. yeah. that was the first HOUR) so I was thrilled to see that Dutton had a group of extremely capable riders and was kicking their butts.
He worked with individual riders, setting up broad exercises but then addressing each horse and rider pair's challenges as they worked through it. These were NOT easy exercises - think one stride extreme slices, and one stride right angles, and big wide corners. He had them up and out of their saddles and in a true cross-country gallop to approach some jumps. It was really cool to see, and to see the riders and the horses improve in just a few minutes.
We are both still alive! Work is stressful, my brain is in a very bad place, but it's also 60 degrees outside today and I am going to ride in my regular breeches tonight come hell or high water.
Here have a video of sassy Tristan longeing on Monday to tide you over until I can make my brain do actual thinking and writing things.
I have been up since 3:15 am for work things and cannot brain today, so here, have a throwback video to Tris and I doing Beginner Novice B a few years ago.
Okay, I'll confess. I haven't watched Downton Abbey since the second-to-last episode of season 3, allowing me to preserve the illusion that a certain favorite character is alive and well and happily where he belongs. At one time I was as rabid a fan as it gets. Season 1 got me through my master's thesis: for every 10 pages written, I got to watch an episode.
So when I heard that season 5 featured Lady Mary Crawley riding in a point to point race...! Well. I scoured the internet for footage, and found this lovely little video. Enjoy!
Still in Maine (have to talk the florist out of $5k of exotic flowers today, gulp) but the barn manager sent me some awesome videos.
Tristan is the barn's default babysitter, and is currently teaching a yearling by UB-40 manners. It's below zero and the turnouts are a solid sheet of ice, so they're getting short turnouts in the indoor. The barn manager is letting them run around a little as long as Tristan doesn't go overboard, and as you can see, he's feeling much better!
So there I am, on my fourth piece of banana bread and third cup of tea of the day (don't judge) and I'm taking a short mental break. I click on this video, because I love the Stuff Riders Say series. This should be good, right?
Then I got to 1:13 on the video: they mentioned my blog! I can only guess it's because my review of their new SmartBlanket App came across their desk somehow. The power of the internet?
I laughed and laughed and laughed. Yes, that is how you say that. :)
So I know it's almost July, but let's review my June goal:
June
Unfortunately I already know that most of June will be a wasteland due to a massive work event at the end of the month. The goal for this month is to keep my head above water: stick to a schedule and keep him fit.
Possible events for riding or volunteering: East Hill Farm Schooling Dressage (no dates yet), Vermont Morgan Heritage Days (June 14-15)
I was right. June was a total timesuck, wasteland, minefield - pick your metaphor. I got maybe a half dozen rides in the entire month.
The good news? Putting him into training for that month was one of the best horse-related decisions I've ever made. Hurrah and huzzah for that! He kept in work and fitness, and not only that, he made huge, HUGE improvements.
In fact, I have proof. I was able to get out last night to watch the last of his training rides and I have two short videos: the first of his first canter stretch during warmup, the second of a canter further along in the ride that shows some of what his next step is: more sit, more lift through the shoulders.
Finally, I saw this note and had to laugh. Only in Vermont would we still be worried about it being below 50 overnight. (I camped for most of last week for my work event, and on Friday night it was 38 degrees. Yep. You read that right. SO COLD.)
Here's to more horse riding and blogging for the rest of 2014!
This may not be new news to anyone who reads Eventing Nation, but I finally got around to watching a few of the Evention Tv shows and I laughed until I cried. (Thanks to Saiph's post at Wait for the Jump about finding the humor, which helped kick me out of my grumpiness about the weather and sent me to watch these.)
Here are just a few of my favorites.
They also have a variety of educational videos that are really quite well done and informative. Check them out when you're looking for something to do on these cold nights!
As far as I'm concerned, this is the best video on the internet. Yes, the entire internet. In fact, I have been known to say that this video, this specific video, is the reason the internet exists.
I can't watch it without breaking into big, ugly, gulping sobs at about the halfway mark.
Enjoy.
They're on the turn, and Secretariat is blazing along! The first three-quarters of a mile in 1:09 and four fifths. Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine! Secretariat by twelve, Secretariat by fourteen lengths on the turn! Sham is dropping back. It looks like they'll catch him today, as My Gallant and Twice a Prince are both coming up to him now. But Secretariat is all alone! He's out there almost a sixteenth of a mile away from the rest of the horses! Secretariat is in a position that seems impossible to catch. He's into the stretch. Secretariat leads this field by 18 lengths, and now Twice a Prince has taken second and My Gallant has moved back to third. They're in the stretch. Secretariat has opened a 22 length lead! He is going to be the Triple Crown winner! Here comes Secretariat to the wire. An unbelievable, an amazing performance!
Here is something for More Joy Day for you to watch. It never fails to make me tear up. (In a good way! Happy tears!)
I had the great privilege of seeing this same freestyle in person at the Equine Affaire Fantasia in 2006 at the Big E in Springfield, MA. That was the first I had seen or heard of her, and she completely stole the show.
If you haven't seen this video, turn the sound way up and grab some tissues.
I'm feeling marginally better but not up to riding, so I did make it out to the barn to longe Tris today but in the meantime I've mostly been sipping tea, eating bland things, and binge-watching Arrow.
Here, in lieu of content, have the three Rolex Equestrian commercials that they produced years ago. They're my gold standard for good equestrian editing to music.
I asked the barn manager to film me jogging Tris out on Monday afternoon so I could send it to the vet. Good news: he actually looks not half bad! He's not 100% sound (that's too much to hope for) but he looks good enough that the vet was impressed. I've asked her if he looks good enough to start handwalking; still waiting on that answer.
One of the benefits of having M. "squiring" (his word; apparently grooming sounds boring) was that I got to hand him a camera and document the XC school. There are only a few photos after the fall, alas, because he kind of freaked out, but so it goes.
First up, two videos. The first was our first attempt at going forward after a jump, which resulted in the little bucks there. The second was our second try, with me keeping his head up and really sending him forward. I like the second one better, for obvious reasons!
Second, a few photos. I'll post them in order with my thoughts.
Warming up, with a little bit of a run.
I like our distance. I do not like my upper body, or my release. My crappy release will become a theme.
So the goal was, after landing off that jump, to get a good head of steam up, make a wide turn, and head back over the same jump. In this picture you can see my biggest and most constant challenge galloping him: keeping him straight, especially through his shoulders.
Better, more forward jump! Even worse release and upper body.
Better distance, good forward jump, a bit of height...holy crap my release sucked.
And then, the jump that undid us. You can see two things here: how I was angled and off-center, and the slight shift in Tristan's body that is him thwacking his RF. (Actually, three things: I'm leaning, which is why I'm about to eat grass.)
So then we rebuilt our confidence with this little jump, over which he is much scopier and centered and I am not leaning quite as much.
...and then life intervened, whew. I haven't even turned on my home computer since Monday, much less been able to work from it.
Back on track. Tristan woke up on Saturday morning disinclined to participate in the day's activities. He paced his stall, followed me around while I cleaned it around him, had hoovered up his grain but was fussing too much to really eat more hay after that. I cleaned his stall as best I could - he'd tracked hay a fair bit, next time I'll know and bring a hay net - and put him on the trailer. We got to the grounds about 6:50. My goal was to get on by 7:30.
Thank goodness I had some help getting him ready, because he would. not. stand. still. He's typically a little fidgety in new places to be tacked up, but this went beyond the pale. He was flinging everyone who hung onto him every which way he could. Eventually we got tack on him, but it took three times as long to do a running braid in his mane - and unfortunately it looked terrible - because I couldn't get a grip with his flinging about.
He was a hot ticket in his warmup too, and I fell into my typically nasty trick not wanting to put leg on because he was so reactive. Please understand that Tristan's reactive is an order of magnitude smaller than most horses; I prefer him that way. He is spooky and light so rarely that it unnerves me when he is. I can out-stubborn my horse all day long, but as soon as he gets reactive, I feel like I'm riding a horse of spun glass and hesitate to apply firm aids.
Luckily, T. talked us through it, and pointed out that when I actually put my leg on, firmed my reins, and rode him, he was going nicely. If I'd had another 15 minutes I might've really settled us in, but the warmup was not terribly productive. We moved down to the secondary warmup and did some trotting. I opted out of cantering down there to avoid problems with the little kids on ponies without steering.
I felt good about him once he was in the ring, though, and overall, was happy with my test. He was responsive and mostly willing. The first left canter circle was terrible; sort of a 15 meter egg shape instead of a proper circle. After the free walk, though, I felt great about everything. I knew we'd nailed the free walk, which is one of Tristan's favorite things, and I felt great about the right trot circle and then, bless him, he gave me an right lead bang on cue. My halt wavered a bit but I waited until he'd settled and gave a full, proper, measured salute.
(Pet peeve: riders who slide into a halt and nod and fling their hand out to the side in .25 seconds while their horse is still jigging. I halt, confirm he's settled, put down my hand, half count, put down my head, half count, and then bring both back slowly. Then I look at the judge, then I drop the reins.)
The judge said it was a really nice test, and T. said afterwards it was really quite pleasant. He has said in days since that Tris wasn't carrying any tension at all in his hind legs, and really produced a nice, rhythmical test, which was great news. Though I didn't know it at the time, we scored a 32, with an 8 for the free walk and, astoundingly, an 8 for gaits. Thanks to my hare-brained wavering during the halt, we got a 5 for that - apparently I managed to completely miss X.
One of the barn moms was kind enough to email me a few days later and say that she'd videod the second half of Tristan's test, so here it is for posterity. It starts with that lovely free walk.
