Western guy talks canter departs: Down to earth

I love videos like this one, that break down the mystery of canter departs to simple instructions. Heather Mason once said in an article that she doesn't like to teach people to track footfalls to time canter departs, but to encourage people to just "get a feel."   I think she is right--thinking about footfalls gets complicated, and really we can learn to "feel it" the way we learn to feel diagonals. That said,  this guy helps us simplify the a footfall approach to something I think I can incorporate into my riding easily.

Lost shoes and time I'll never get back

Well, we had a good run. Ri had gone without losing a single shoe this year. Alas, it came to an end on day 242 of 2012 -- Tuesday, August 28. I went out to ride last night, in a hurry as usual. I did my "lick and a promise" grooming, was girthing up the saddle, and happened to glance at his feet.

 The left hind shoe. Gone.

So, a lost shoe. You might say no big deal, but my farrier and I would disagree. He custom-makes shoes for Riley, and this one was about 2 weeks old. Expensive, but also a big pain to make. I needed to find that shoe.

On foot and on horseback: the search begins
The sun was getting low in the sky when I started the quest for Ri's shoe.  I wandered an unmowed pasture for the remainder of the daylight hours, from 6:30 to about 8pm. The search was oh-so-systematic at the beginning. Walking around the perimeter, then starting a grid, I scanned the ground with my head swiveling like a robot soldier. Nothing. Then I went strategic, investigating the low/wet spots, checking corners, looking for skidmarks, hoofprints. Nope. Then I started digging in the high grass. After the first hour a fellow boarder, god love her, came out and helped on horseback. She covered the ground just outside the pasture and then joined me inside the perimeter.

No. Go.

Must. find. shoe
I went home that night (Tuesday), texted my farrier, and there was more bad news. If I had the shoe, he could squeeze us in the Thursday morning. If not, it might take longer to  clear his schedule.  My next show was about seven rides away IF I find that shoe.

Damn, damn, damn. I made some calls, switched work hours with a colleague, and took Wednesday morning off. Wednesday I went back to the barn at 9am,  hoping the sunlight would help. This time I had a pitchfork to dig in the soft ground and thick brushy areas. I was pretty sure that shoe had to be in the bottom of a deep hoofprint somewhere.

Photo credit: seemann from morguefile.com

Two hours later -- no sign of Ri's footwear.

Now I was into this search for about four hours, with nothing to show for it except a backache and very disgusting shoes of my own.  This was the nadir of my shoe search, I thought. What a waste. And it is out here somewhere! Damn. Then someone else from the barn -- someone I don't know too well --  came out to look with me. My spirits lifted as I thanked her, feeling all grateful. She responded coolly that she had come because she felt  terribly sorry for the farrier. She wandered around a bit and wandered back to the barn.

Okay, so this is the nadir. 

It was 10:30am now, and I was almost ready to admit defeat -- off to shower and to work. By now I was zig-zagging aimlessly, not really expecting to find it.

I didn't see it till I was almost stepping on it. The shoe! The area was flat and the grass was short. I was looking for a glint of steel shining in the sun, but I forgot about rust. And it is amazing how fast things rust. The shoe was well camoflaged.

Jogging back to the barn, waving my shoe triumphantly to the empty stable yard. Dancing into the barn, I patted Harv and Ri and hung the lost show with Ri's halter. I texted my farrier. He's coming tomorrow am, and I'll be riding Thursday night.

Horses are good for bringing you back to the physical limits of our senses, our strength, and mostly, our free time. Here's to found shoes. I'll be knocking back a few glasses of Red Truck wine tonight after work. Anyone care to join me?

iPad using horse lovers -- heads up!

I love this iPad cover -- what a great idea, books covering electronic devices! From ChickLit Designs...

Look what I spotted!

 This is nicer than some non-color foals that I've seen, for sure...

And I'm liking this one, too.

Staying on: Hooray Clayton Fredericks

I would never have guessed this would end with horse and rider continuing on with the course.

Riley is suddenly UPHILL!

I don't mean his conformation either.  I started doing hill work with Ri, and vive la différence!

I need to credit the trainer who started Riley, Oliva, and her mentor Felicitas Von Neumann-Cosel. Olivia often suggested that Riley do hill work, and  FVN-C wrote an article on the subject in Dressage Today.

I read the article and bought it in theory. However, at the time Ri was newly under saddle with a questionable front foot and shoes that flew off in heavy dew. I worried about his working on hard ground or in too-soft ground. Olivia worked him on hills "when the footing was good" (my request) which in NE PA is not that often. I never rode him on trails, much less on hills.

Changing up our program
 Well this season I have started to feel more comfortable with our ring work, and his feet are doing really great -- he goes a whole six weeks between shoeings, which is like a miracle to me.  While we aren't stinkin' up the arena at horse shows, our canter work leaves much to be desired. One look at his topline and the problem is clear. What to do? Let's see... Um.. Maybe now is finally the right time to go...

Over hill over dale...
This last week, I started riding Ri on trails with gentle inclines and declines, which are in abundance at our barn. I was pleased with our first trotwork uphill, with Riley pushing easily, energetically, and happily up the inclines. He liked to wiggle going downhill at the walk, but having read the Dressage Today article I knew what that was about, and I kept him straight with halt transitions.

One week, big difference
So for four days, I started each ride with a trail ride up and down around the pastures at the farm -- maybe 15 minutes. We ended the "trail" portion at the outdoor, where I did walk/halt and trot/halt transitions, a few circles, then proceeded to canter work.

The canter work is awesome. He's sitting down, he's even in both reins, and I have this place to put my seatbones where I can regulate the speed and bend. I don't think I've suddenly become an awesome rider, I think that as Felicitas says, hill work gives the horse muscle memory for working the tush and over the back. The pump is primed, and I just have to sit there.

Sometimes I overlook answers to problems that are "too obvious." I need to stop that.

And you don't know the half of it!

View the Full Monty at Etsy.com. Something makes me want to report this to Etsy, but it is art. Not my aesthetic. BTW have you seen the blog regretsy.com?

Chamfron Stud

I used to talk to a friend of mine -- a woman who also raised her horse from a baby -- and we talked about publishing a picture book, one that traced top foals to adulthood. We'd identify top foals, average foals, and "homely" foals at breeding farms, trying to identify a wide range of types and breeding lines. We'd pick out a good sampling and take conformation photos of them every six months as they become riding horses and competition horses. We'd include information like breed show results and performance results -- maybe even links to a web site with videos! How informative would that be? Very! And Chamfron Stud posted this great photo on their Facebook page. It's  Chamfron Marco Polo by their Appaloosa stallion Exbury Ghost and out of an imported Quarter Horse called Shesa Perfect Zippo.    I wish more breeders would do this. Here the photos show how you can't predict color, no matter how much sellers pressure you for something definitive.

Chamfron Marco Polo

Chamfron Stud's breeder Laura likes to trace the progress of her horses even after they are sold. She'd like to do more of these aging progressions, and I'd certainly love to see it! Chamfron Stud is in southwest Scotland.  Here are a few of the many wonderful pix on the Chamfron Facebook page...

Harmony's Quartermark: Grand Prix Arabian

I love Arabians in dressage -- Dressagemom.com has a super duper new Arab, a gray named Phil. If you start reading her blog NOW you'll be able to watch her move him up the levels. He's gonna get there.

Occasionally I'll look for for upper level horses that are Arabians when I'm online. Here's one I found recently. He's a nice one...

Training 2: 68.7% and the runaway that wasn't

It was a cool day, and in the very large warmup ring Ri would occasionally "volunteer" a canter and ignore my requests to come back to a trot. Not really naughty, but definitely a change in his usual laid back "why don't we find some shade and just hang out?" self.  I kind of liked it but I didn't really want any volunteer or spontaneous movements in the test.

Now, when you look at this footage I think it looks pretty controlled. It did not feel that way.

In our first canter I was pretty sure we were not going to come back to trot in the vicinity of the specified letters (we did, thankfully). It felt like a hand gallop and I felt zero control. It doesn't look that way, I don't think. I was not pleased with the ride so much but the video was better than I thought it would be. And it is an eight point improvement over our last Training 2 test at a recognized show. The top score in the class was 71%, then 69%, then us -- a third.

Training 3 at BHCP: "Getting/keeping the canter"

Well, the test wasn't that great, but the prefatory remarks are pretty hilarious. Courtesy Bob.

Well, we got 4s on the canter that were utterly deserved (not great quality to begin with, and we didn't hold it). But we got 8s on our curvy-line trots, and a few 7s. Stretchy trot was pretty mediocre. The judge was more than fair in giving us a 62.something percent, and her comments included a line I love: "Lovely trot work." We'll just keep on truckin', eventually we'll find our canter happy-place.

High-withered horse? Try the Dura-tech saddle pad!!

 Keywords for this post: horse tack, Schneiders,

At my last show (Sunday the 19th!) I sported a new saddley pad -- the Dura-Tech® V-Free™ Dressage Pad with Tekno-Dri® from Schneiders Saddlery. Show pix and video coming soon!

Regular pads -- even the high wither Dover pad -- seem to pull in weird places -- if a pad looks like it fits on one side, it sits at an odd angle on the other side. When I saw the design of the Dura-Tech® V-Free™ Dressage Pad I had a good feeling about how it would work for Riley. And at $44 why wouldn't I try? It's great fabric, thick but not coarse, and it sits well on Ri's back. It's big enough that I don't need to worry about my saddle sitting over the end of the pad. I was concerned about the seam but it is very soft and -- well, it feels seamless

I'll post photos from our show later this week. How'd it go? Wait and see.
Oh, BTW, this is not a paid ad. I'm truly likin' this pad...

Practical hay testing: Roll in ze hay

Remember Terri Garr's line, "Roll in ze hay?"

I went to a nutrition seminar last night with Bob. Dr. Don Kapper, head nutritionist at Progressive Nutrition, spoke about some recent advances in equine nutrition. There was lots of good stuff -- things I had not heard -- but he offered good advice on assessing the quality of hay.

Hay tip
When hay is young it is the most digestible. As hay matures, the plant prepares for to support the blossom head by strengthening the stem and produces lignin, an undigestible fibrous material. It does the horse no good and makes for stemmy hay. After showing how hay is analyzed in the lab, he offered an alternative method of assessing your horse's hay:

"Open a bale, spread it around. Then take off your clothes and roll in it naked."

Does it feel good or bad? If you're not sure, Dr. Kapper says, smiling:

"A second opinion is helpful."

Oh, and a blossom head of 1-2 inches is okay in a bale. Six to eight inches, not what you want to see...

Draft horses: Have you forgotten what they look like?

You don't see thtem much any more, do you? Take a look at this Belgian draft. Massive!

Maggie's Farm: Not working@MF no more :-)

The Royal order of the muck buckets

It's the end of a long era of barn work. 

When I bought Harvey in 1996, he required major surgery within a few months of my purchasing him. Sinus surgery.   A vet tech at my co op was a little too explicit about the risks to horses going under general anesthesia and Harv's surgery.

I was beyond hysterical--a complete drama queen.  One of my bargains with God was that I would be grateful for Harv every day, and would always care for him myself. 

So Harv came through the surgery fine. True to my word, I have continued to care for Harv, and when I moved out the co op, keeping my end of the bargain was to do barn work. 

Since 1998, I have worked for six barns, doing mucking, driving tractors (albeit in a limited way),  giving meds, sweeping, watering, de-cob-webbing,  putting up hay, turnout in all weather conditions -- everything. I learned everything I know about good barn management from a few  people who trained me and set an example. Doing this work made me a better horsewoman. I love the work, actually, especially when I feel good about the care. I thought I would always do it, but lately I've been realizing how hard it is to make my life work with only one non-work day a week.

I've had a good run.

Now, after sixteen years of six day weeks (Sunday through Friday) and a bare minimum of 50 hours "on the clock" for one employer or another,  it is finally time for a break. I'm throwing in the towel on barn work. I will have Sundays off. Bob is happy, because for the first time since our marriage we have two full consecutive days to spend together. We can think of doing something fun on Saturday  nights without me watching the clock. I can go to Dressage at Devon's "Big Night!" It's like a whole new world of "weekend."

Hats off to the folks who take care of our horses. I'll never take those folks for granted.

$19 for an awesome choker

Okay, I ordered my awesome choker from Dameron Enterprises and it arrived in the mail today -- love it! I'm not sure the colors show up that well, but it's a pale pink with slightly darker pink check, with subtle silver sparkles.

Training level 2: Not a giant step forward

Some things I like, and some I don't. We got a 65% despite some real accuracy and balance issues...

Training 3: Not our breakthrough ride, but...

Ri and I went to a Bucks County Horse Park schooling show last Tuesday. Training 3 was probably our better test -- we got a 68% despite scoring a "2" on one movement (you'll see what happened in the video). Have to say, the footage looks a whole lot better than it felt.

No, it is not our "breakthrough" test where we fix our canter and the departs and the other glitches we've struggled with, but I do like these things:

• He's steadier in the bridle
• Our trot halt and halt trot transitions aren't bad
• The upward transitions to canter are improving
• The canter work is a bit more controlled -- my efforts to keep things collected did result in a loss of balance that threw us into a trot, and out, and in, through two movements that call for canter throughout. Oh well.

Ri felt "against my hand" in the warmup, wanted to look at everything, and it continued into our first test. The second test, I admit I was perturbed, and I "set my hand" creating human side-reins, and got very forceful with my seat. Not something I'd want to do every ride, but it did mask an issue for four minutes!

Dressage Finger: Smartpak does it again!

Have I posted this? I think it's a hoot, and the summer is drawing to a close so I'd better post it quickly.

Horse shopping? You CAN find a great one on sale!

Here's the new guy!

There are so many AWFUL stories out there about horse shopping - dishonesty, unmet expectations, rudeness, misrepresentation. HOW NICE to have witnessed a super experience! My friend H---- is the proud owner of an imported Oldenburg by Roadster (Rhodiamant) out of a Weltmeyer line mare. She bought him from a breeder in Maryland. The breeder showed concern for finding the horse a great home, and he gave my friend first right of refusal when several people were coming to look at the horse one weekend. Why? Because he liked her riding and her demeanor. He arranged for her to ride the horse in an off-the-property ring to test how the horse reacted to unfamiliar surroundings. He gave her time. And when he brought to her property, H--- said it was very clear that he was fond of this horse and sad about selling him.

This lovely chestnut has some of the same bloodlines as Ri and the telltale Rubenstein head. He was so reasonably priced I wondered if something might be amiss -- but he passed an exhaustive vet check with no issues. I saw him last night and his gaits are awesome.

I'm so pleased for my friend -- she got a great horse at a reasonable price -- and happy to see someone have a really good buying experience.  I'm glad to know of a breeder that cares for his animals and took pains to find him not just any buyer, but a good home.

Arabian/Apaloosa colt

What a cutie -- hope the owners continue to show footage, would love to watch this one grow up!

Not about me :-)

Finally, a photo of someone else!

This is a photo taken at a local schooling show last weekend, of a horse  that I think is just stunning. I love the classical dressage horse profile (you can probably guess this horse's breeding) and the energy and joy that I see in horse and rider. And the sunlight on the tail, and...

This photo makes me think of what dressage is supposed to be--not the ability to demonstrate control over an animal (to "make him do things") but sharing an experience with the horse, and the process of going back to nature and recapturing the horse's natural movement. Felicitas VN said in a clinic that horses love to express themselves with their bodies. I have always felt this is true, every time I see Harv running around the pasture...

The only question is, do they take VISA?

Well, the canter is a little baby-ish and he is just a tad horizontal, but my oh my, those knees! I'll add this one to my "lottery list."

Ri Ri gives us the low down

More photos: "Still about me"

Photos: Because 'it's all about me!'

Colbert Nation: Part two ROCKS!

Nothing to add to this, except M Barisone was the perfect straight man. Well done!

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Strap on your seatbelt: Heartbreak in London

I was reading The Dressage Curmudgeon's blog about "dressage jerks" -- yes there are many of them, and I have encountered a few this week as it turns out. But she is talking about dressage jerks of a magnitude far greater than the ones I meet, and as a counterpoint, she talks about David Marcus, a Canadian rider who she finds to be kind, generous, and an all-together nice guy. He's from Nebraska, which could partly explain an unassuming, down-to-earth personality. It ain't no Wellington. Just one more reason his ill-fated ride at London was so unfortunate. Have you all seen it? The fun starts at 3:35. His poise and tact through the incident is remarkable, and I almost wept at the little moments where, in the midst of a horrible moment, he keeps adjusting his hat.

What do my Macbook Air and Steve Jobs have in common?

Together again?

Both have crossed the rainbow bridge, it seems. My slender weightless friend, oft referred to as Mein liebchen  or Mon petit chou, was purchased as a refurb from Apple. Tucked into a backpack, he accompanied me on many Rolex trips and was a permanent fixture on the household coffee table (adjacent to the couch, of course). I blogged, I video'ed, I skyped, I emailed, and this little guy saw it all.

I have taken him into work where he sits in the equivalent of the repair ICU, waiting for the certified Apple repair person to return from vacation. I fear this is a one way trip.

My little laptop could still pull through, but I'm preparing myself for a goodbye. The emotional toll is only part of it. There is the question of  (gulp) the replacement, too.  No time to mourn, must get finances in order. Should I splurge for a new Macbook? Settle for the equally functional and infinitely cheaper Windows-OS and hardware?

Pray for us. ;-)

Had enough yet?

Me too... But at least they got the apparel right.