Screeching Halt

 First and foremost, it's now officially fall in the PNW. We had been enjoying an unseasonably warm early-mid October, till about 10 days ago. It went from 90* to 55* in the space of a week and from sunny and warm to windy/rainy/stormy in a day. And thanks to shifting wind patterns, the two days preceding the storm were full of wildfire smoke and the horses got a couple days off/easy days. So naturally, the day we could ride again all the horses were LIT. 

Never mad to hand over the reins to Trainer A

And naturally, that was the day I had a lesson scheduled. The big h/j program (IL) usually has quiet days on Fridays, so A has taken that as one of her busy lesson days. But because of the smoke and IL gearing up for a month of shows, they were schooling horses that same day. The indoor was busy and as I walked Cinder in, her eyes got the size of saucers and she started to vibrate. There was no where I could lunge and because I don't have a death wish I called A who was up at the barn and asked if she could get on first. She agreed and spent the first five minutes trying to stay in the middle of the saddle as Cinder spooked and jigged around the arena. 

A just kept pushing Cinder forward, and started pointing her at fences to get her attention. Cinder did stop at the white vertical above (A got there on a shitty half stride and Cinder rightly said nope) and at the brick wall with no standards (first time jumping it and it caught her off guard) and at a short diagonal one stride that she was convinced was evil. She did get over everything on the second attempt, even though the one stride was a bit hairy. 

The blue vertical was one fence of the one stride. The second fence had it's top rail angled the other direction. Kinda like a Swedish oxer turned into a one stride.

I then got on and did some flat work before popping over some of the cavalettis set up. Because IL was still schooling horses, we couldn't change fence height (even though it was technically A's scheduled lesson time. I'm not bitter about that or anything, why do you ask?) but I still had a good lesson. 

This lesson was eight days before what was supposed to be our last show of the season. Cinder had been a little grouchy when I tacked her up, but felt fine to both A and I under saddle. She had the next day off, and when I came out on Sunday she was even grouchier when getting groomed. Normally she loves to be curried and groomed; but that day she absolutely didn't want me to touch her SI/hips. A rode her the next day and said Cinder nearly took her head off when putting her blanket back on, but again felt fine under saddle. 

Marinating in Peeb's SmartPak brand ceramic blanket

After talking it over with A, we decided to scratch the show. Something was obviously up, even if Cinder felt sound. A did some easy stretchy rides with her during the week and on Friday she saw our bodyworker, L. L said that Cin was sore in her withers and SI/hips, and kicked when L first worked on them. But she settled down and was good by the end of the session. L thought the SI issues could be ovary/heat cycle related as Cin was showing signs of being in heat. Normally you can't tell when Cinder is in heat. She might have one flaming heat/squirting/winking/hussy attitude day a year, but otherwise, nothing. Cinder has been much better to groom/blanket after L worked on her, thank goodness!

The lameness vet is coming tomorrow at will look at Cinder and she's married to a breeding vet so if we need to, Cinder can meet him and get her ovaries ultrasounded.

Saddle Fitting Round The Last

 At least I hope this is the last saddle fitting round we do for a few years. I ended up buying the Voltaire Palm Beach I took on trial. It fit Cinder much better than Peebs' saddle, and was much more comfortable for me, and helpful for my equitation, than the Crosby. 

For as slick as the Crosby was on the flaps, it always felt like I had the stickiest of full seat breeches on and when I posted it was like my butt would come off the saddle but my breeches wouldn't

 

Cinder still has a little lingering soreness along the right side of her withers, but Surpass has been helping. Unfortunately I've run out, and everywhere is back ordered on it. Anyone have any luck using the human version, Voltaren? 

Unfortunately the Voltaire billets didn't work with the new super squishy memory foam girth I had gotten like two weeks before, so I had to order her a size up. Anyone want a lightly used 50" girth?

I haven't been able to ride much in the Voltaire since I got it because we've been having some majorly weird weather. It was 75* a week ago, then over the weekend we had thunderstorms (including a funnel cloud about 10miles south of me), and then Monday morning it snowed. It didn't stick (at least where I live) but it's been snowing/slushing/hailing/raining off and on all week plus being in the upper 30s-mid 40s temp wise. This is the first time in recorded history we've gotten snow in April. I'm getting really fed up with living through unprecedented events. 

Still my best boy

As for Peebs, he's loving the currently-retired life. He's back to 12hr turnout, and got the grass run off his stall opened up again. I pull him out a few times a week to groom and check him over, but otherwise he gets stuffed with cookies and enjoys life.

OSU Event Team Jumper Schooling Show

"How to Show in 15* Weather"

On Saturday we ventured out into the frozen tundra for our first show of the year and our first time in the jumper ring together.  We had had below freezing temps with snow and ice for what feels life forever, and while it was sunny Saturday my truck said it was 24* and the feel like temp was 15*.  I questioned my sanity for signing up for this show way more than once. 

When you have to try on your show clothes to make sure they fit over a bazillion layers.  I ended up wearing 3 shirts, a vest, fleece tights, breeches, a pair of regular socks, boots socks, and my heavy barn coat.

Because of the freezing temps we haven't gotten to ride outside for like two weeks, and I've been lazy and not wanting to set fences inside, so we've been doing lot of trot and canter poles. I had entered us in two crossrail and two 2' classes, with the plan of trotting in and cantering through the lines. I figured even with not a lot of schooling Peebs could handle that. And if it was too much, I'd always scratch.

My BO went with me as my ground person/emergency helper.  Trainer's daughter had a gymnastics meet that weekend so I was on my own. There was some confusion when we got there about stalls, and my stall was still locked.  And when they opened it for me, I discovered that bedding wasn't included in the price of the stall.  I apparently had to buy bedding from the facility.  So Peebs didn't get any bedding.  He was only in his stall for me to tack up, untack, check our placings, and repack the trailer, and he didn't pee or poop, so it wasn't the end of the world. But it was still annoying.

There was a photographer and I'm waiting on pics, but for now you get blurry screenshots

It was a pretty small show, so I tacked up right away and got on.  Peebs was pretty impressed with the facility and spooked more than a few times during warm up. Going in for our first round, he spooked hard going to and at the first fence.  I actually had to circle him away just in front of the start timers to try and get him forward and we kinda jumped the first fence from a standstill.  He then spooked at the far side of the ring at some jump filler (boxes, brush) that they weren't using that was behind the fence and spun sideways.  I circled again, and talked to him. I ended up trotting everything.  No way was I going to attempt a canter fence when he was that rattled. About 2/3rd of the way through the course he started to settle, but still gave the filler the hairy eyeball when we went past going the other direction. 

I kept him walking while we waited for our second round and had serious thoughts about scratching the 2'.  Peebs has never been that looky or distracted before. Our second round was better, he wasn't as spooky and I was able to canter out of some of the lines and around the ring.  He did have a bit spook at the far side arena wall.  I don't know at what, maybe our shadow on it?

Jumper pony mode activated

I figured that since he was a better for the second round, that I'd attempt our first 2' round and go from there.  It went well; he was more focused on the fences, I could sit and add leg to move him up in the lines, and he didn't spook at anything. I did have a moment when I realized the first fence in the judges line was an oxer (the red oxer in the pic above) and I was trotting it. I hate trotting oxers.  But Peebs don't care. We did have one oops moments when I had to move him up in a diagonal line then try and bring him back for a tight turn to a fence on the short side of the ring.  We way overshot the turn and looked like drunken sailors going to it.   We did our second 2' round and other than seeing a 4.5 stride distance in the 4 stride diagonal line, it was our best round.  He felt like his normal, solid Peebers self. 

1st in our second 2', second in the first 2', third in the second xrail, and fifth in the first xrail

I'm super happy with how we ended, and that I made myself do the 2' classes even though I didn't want to.  I had a blast (minus our first round) being back in the jumper ring and can't wait till we're ready to show in them at a regular show. It was beyond gratifying to see how Peebs settled and improved over the four rounds, and that I could get that improvement without my trainer to talk me down. I just hope our next show is slightly warmer!

Show Season Over

We were supposed to go to our last show of the season this Saturday.  There is a 100% chance of rain (over an inch), which wouldn't be a deal breaker, but winds in the 40-60mph range.  If not worse.

When the National Weather Service tells you to stay home, you stay home.

I was texting with my trainer this morning about it, and neither one of us wants to haul in that kind of weather.  Maybe if I had a goose neck trailer instead of a bumper pull, but even then it's just not worth it. So instead of cleaning tack and packing up the trailer tonight, I'm going to be grocery shopping and battening down the hatches.

#TBT Freeman Farms May 2014

During my blogging break this year Buddy and I went to two local schooling shows.  The first of them was the May Freeman Farms show.  We went to the same show last year, but this year it was just me showing.  No organizing everything, no having to share my horse, no worrying about anyone else....it was very nice!  Unfortunately, like last year we had the same weather.  Pouring down rain, cool and windy.  Not very fun show weather.

 Because of said weather no pics or video was taken. This was from a lesson the week before the show.

We had decided to move up a division at this show, doing the 2'9-3' Low Child/AA jumpers.  We had three rounds, a power and speed and two jump off rounds.  I don't remember much about the courses, except there was one pretty funky bending line from an outside oxer to a diagonal vertical.  We were lucky that we got there early to school and did that line a few times because it was hard.  You had to go straight after the oxer for 2-3 strides, then almost make a 90 degree turn to the second fence.  If you tried to soften the turn, you ended up falling way in on the landing and running into another fence.   I remember that my mantra was "Go Deep!" for that line.

FF show May 2013.  It looked just like this, only the jumps were bigger

While Buddy is normally a horse that doesn't care about ridding in the rain, he took exception that day.  In two of the rounds to get to the first fence you had to canter headfirst into the rain and wind.  He was not a happy pony about that!  I had to circle in front of the timers and beat him with my stick to get him forward.  If he could have cantered backwards, he would have. In another round my reins were so wet I couldn't hold onto them in a turn and we had to circle while I got them back.  We didn't place super great, but if I remember we didn't have rails down (maybe one), we were just slower than everyone else (and the whole circling thing didn't help) but we came home with some satin. I was still super happy with how we did.  His first time showing that big, my first time in 5yrs, and miserable weather, not a recipe for for a good horse show.

Almost Wordless Western Wednesday

This:

lead to this:

The grass almost came up to his head in a couple spots

Hail-proof

Spring is coming to Oregon!  In the past week we've had a sun, rain, wind, and today we got hail.  It was sunny when I headed out to the barn, with some clouds and it had rained a little in the morning.  The footing in the outdoor was great, so I set a few fences for Buddy and I to work over. It's been a few weeks since we really jumped, so I put up just two single verticals.

He warmed up ok, but a little sticky in the canter transitions.  I didn't push it since I wanted him happy for our over fences works.  We started over a cavaletti trotting back and forth.  He felt good and seemed to wake up. I then went to the two verticals.  They were on the diagonals, and the left to right one was not working for us.  He kept drifting to the left, when he normally goes right.  We had a couple ugly fences till he figured out that he had to move off my left leg. 

We had only done maybe 6 jumps when it started raining, lightly at first then pretty hard.  I had a couple hard drops hit my face before I realized it was hailing.  We were headed to a jump when the sky opened up and hail the size of peas started coming down. We took the fence then high tailed it to the barn to wait in the barn aisle till it stopped.  Buddy really didn't seem to care about the hail, he only shook his head a couple times.  Even though we were only out in it for maybe a minute, we were both soaked.  Once the hail stopped we went back out, but the footing was soup so we called it a day.

You can see the hail in his mane.

The hail covered arena