The Repurposed Horse

It's basically April in February these days. Gracie is the 16-year-old (!!! I legit thought she was like 7 or 8 until I looked this up just now.  Homegirl looks good for her age!!!) quarter horse mare that I will be showing in addition to Leo on Saturday.  She spent her days before CEC in the Western world, but has developed a real talent for jumping over the last few years.  She's a really fun ride (although I tend to equate her canter with sitting on a box of rocks that a random person is rattling), and has been fantastic with helping me rebuild my confidence these last few weeks. longest gif ever. I've ridden her a handful of times and she is a really fantastic horse to ride if you want to really work on improving your EQ -- and your use of leg (so much falling in to the right).  We had a somewhat disharmonious ride last Friday - again, not the most comfortable horse, and much less forward than my usual steed - but started syncing up quite well during o...

Friday's lesson with Gracie went very smoothly. It was a great confidence builder - she "very bravely" took me over the blue barrels several times like it was NBD (because for her, it wasn't. At all.) I'm excited to show her on Saturday. Leo got the weekend off to be a horse, and we reunited this evening for our much-anticipated (on my end) jumping lesson. I don't have any media, and I don't have much in the way of new photos since I didn't go to the barn all weekend. But. My horse is amazing, you guys. Unfortunately, it was not this sunny today.  Despite the misleading photo above, today's lesson was held inside (aka back in my comfort zone). However, the indoor is significantly smaller than the outdoor, and there *are* shavings in it still, so the courses involve ~very~ tight turns. Trainer K set a particularly twisty 2'6-2'9 course, which involved a tight 2 stride bending line from a wall (solid jumps are literally everything tha...

My barn has a strict no jumping outside of lessons policy. This is largely due to the fact that several years ago, someone was jumping on her own, fell badly, and broke her arm. Since then, there had been a moratorium on jumping -- even the trainers almost never jump outside of lessons, and if they do they make sure that other people are around.  The rule has been in place since before I started riding at CEC, so I'm pretty used to it, but this week it was a little frustrating because I really wanted to work on rebuilding my confidence over fences after my fall last Friday. Ready to rock In my lesson on Monday, it quickly became clear that my confidence has been completely shattered. We were working on another 2'6-2'9 course, filled with tight rollbacks and bending lines. Thankfully, the barrels didn't make the cut this time, but there was a coop that Leo had never seen before. Anyways. I was pretty much paralyzed with fear at the start. Like, in tears, shaking, t...

Rosie learns how to cavaletti My week so far... Lesson in which we worked on restoring my shattered confidence Sweaty selfie after conquering ground pole courses Sneak peek of an upcoming post

It was bound to happen sooner or later. The unseasonably warm weather meant that today we rode outside for the first time since..Like.. November? And Leo was very, very excited. The outside jumps are much "scarier" than the inside ones. Trainer K had a 2'-2'6 course set up. Everything was going swimmingly, if the swimmer was a dolphin on crack attempting to hit warp speed. But the jumps were pretty solid. I got lost coming off a line, made an awkward turn into a bending line at the last second, and Leo noped out of the second jump pretty hard. I, on the other hand, jumped it. Like, full cartwheel hit the jump with my torso then hit the ground jumped it. Unfortunately, there is no media of this. I am told that it was pretty spectacular. My poor horse was so confused - no one has ever fallen off of him during jumping before, and he was staring at me like wtf is wrong with you, person?! I'm fine, just bruised ribs and a small bump on my forehead from my ...

At the end of the video featured in my last post , you can see a certain...unusual feature of the indoor arena.  Nicole  quite aptly referred to it as a 'sandcastle' in her comment.  Ahem. Freshly delivered.  It kind of looks like a sleeping dinosaur. In the above picture, the pile is brand new.  They are delivered by the semi-load, so they start off by taking up most of the arena, although there is always enough room in the front to lunge (although for the first few weeks, the area for lunging is pretty small).  We go through that amount roughly every 3.5 months. Not impressed. Why is there a gargantuan pile of sawdust in the middle of our arena?  The property that our barn is currently located on has traditionally been a saddlebred barn.  In the riding and training of saddleseat horses, the bulk of under saddle work is done exclusively on the rail or down the stall aisleways.  Unless the horses are being lunged, th...

Your trainer sneaks the jump up to 2'9 when you aren't looking and your horse freaking trots it like it's not even a thing. Also, this is the highest we've ever asked Leo to jump. 😍

First up - Griffy update.  Homeboy is doing much better!  Turns out it was an ulcer, not an abscess - the one scenario in which an ulcer is actually a good thing.  He has had some medication adjustments, and is significantly happier.  His eye was almost fully open today, and if things continue improving, he should be able to go back to work sometime in the next few weeks. Yay, Griffin! Onwards to...dichotomy.  The dichotomy between riding my horse in a lesson, and riding my horse on my own.  In recent posts, I've talked about how great Leo has been during our lessons - exciting, brave things have been happening, and oftentimes much progress has been made.  There was time off because of the eye injury, but it seemed that most progress was not lost, and lessons have continued to be much fun.   Happy horse. From Monday night. In lessons, in the company of other horses, Leo is becoming braver and more badass all the time.  But the thi...