EVENTING BINGO!!!!

This is a tale of two determined souls setting off on a journey full of struggles, testing each to their limits and bringing them together in a partnership that might just be unstoppable.

Disclaimer**NO ANIMALS WERE INJURED IN THE CREATION OF THIS STORY AND NONE OF IT IS REMOTELY TRUE (probably).

The ever creative Emma at 'Fraidy Cat Eventing has come up with the brilliant idea of Eventing Bingo. You can see her blog for more details for the best blogging game evar!!!

For the following story, I am using the winning path on my bingo card with the following:
1.  In first place after dressage
2.  Cheap rail in stadium
3.  FREE SPOT
4.  Your horse was 'THAT' horse in warm up
5.  Went swimming on xc

First, let me introduce you to the main characters:

Wendy:

Not quite middle-aged mother of three (that bit is true) who has realised her dreams of eventing success and is moving up a level from Intermediate to Advanced and attempting to make the Olympic team (haha, not true).

Savvy:

A plucky little Arab cross who can do so much more than any would expect.
Talent for DAYS and attitude to match (very true). Her canter pirouettes are on point and advanced level palisades make her yawn (maybe?).












Now we did not get to this day by accident. Many years of intense training in combination with a lucky windfall of money from LotoMax culminated to create the perfect opportunity for me to arrive at the Olympic qualifier, this year being held in Flin Flon, Manitoba.

As I drove up to the venue with horse trailer in tow, I could not help but feel the butterflies begin to stir in my stomach. I fought hard to relieve my nerves as I found Savvy's stall and tried to relax into the motions of settling in the night before our big day.

Once Savvy was safely tucked in for the night I was happy to run in to some friends I had competed with over in Boorghley the previous year. Nerves were high for us all but after a few mimosas we all relaxed into stories of past glories and funny mishaps. I knew it was only a matter of time before they got around to the retelling of my mishap from last year. I was three-quarters the way through on cross country approaching a jump with a deep ditch in front of it. Savvy was moving at a very good pace and I was feeling very optimistic of our placing. As we reached the jump and Savvy was about to take off, a bunch of ducks flew out from the ditch. Savvy's reaction was to jump even higher and as she landed on the other side, I was no longer with her. At the apex of the jump, she had been so high as for my vest to get caught on an overhanging branch and there I was, dangling in disbelief.

The embarrassing stories continued, but I had to call it an early night because I knew tomorrow would require my all. My dressage time was 9:00 am which meant a very early morning for me and Savvy.

 

The early morning turned into a bit of a rush after I slept through my alarm and arrived at the barn an hour later than I had hoped. Nevertheless I hurried through getting ready and headed over to the warm up area. Sleeping in meant missing the earlier quiet time I was hoping for. It was much more busy but I found a spot to at least practice our halt.

Upon entering that dressage ring Savvy felt like magic. All the outside world disappeared as we completed our personal best test. Every movement felt like perfection and we were really working as a team. Still, with our early go time I would have a long wait to hear how our scores would compare to the rest of the field. It would not be until just before stadium that I would discover Savvy and I were in first place after dressage!!

The high continued as we completed our round in stadium. Savvy was so adjustable and our round felt fantastic. I had not heard her touch any rails, so imagine my surprise when I discovered we had 4 faults. I just could not believe it, the rail on the fourth jump had come down. It was such a disappointment to have a cheap rail in stadium because Savvy had gone so well. Luckily many other riders were having trouble in stadium so we still had a chance.

After stadium, I was tied for the final qualifying spot. All I had to do was make it around xc and I had a chance to be on the Olympic team!

The cross country test was massive! Many of the obstacles were intimidating and required an aggressive ride to survive. Savvy was established in a good pace and she was eating up the jumps. The biggest test was yet to come with a huge jump down a bank into the water, with a massive log jump coming out of the water and a hairpin turn to a skinny and back up the bank. This would not only be physically draining, but very technical and would require damn good riding.

As we approached the bank I was feeling confident and knew we were going to kill this! But wait! What is that in the water...

As we splashed down into the water off the bank, a mother swan and her chicks were swimming by. The mother swan went into some sort of wild protect her babies mode and came after poor Savvy!

It all became a blur of splashing water, panicked horse, violent water fowl and then <splash!>.

NNNOOOOOOOOO!

My Olympic dreams came crashing down like the water splashing down in the pond I was now in. I had not planned on going swimming on xc.

Even though my dreams were washed away I was so excited to watch my good friend receive first at the awards ceremonies. It was a tough course and I was very proud of my horse at this event. We may have been beaten by water fowl yet again, but my Olympic dream perseveres and I know we will get there, some day.

Little fish in a big pond

I have <mostly> been on track so far with my plans to trailer over every week to the heated arena with an actual lesson every second week. Even though it was -17 degrees today, I still managed to make myself get there. I was motivated by my plan of action which was to make the most of a big empty arena and let Savvy loose to explore and settle in while I set up ground poles to do some fun little exercises.

 

To my surprise when I opened the overhead door to the arena, there was a large group of reiners having a lesson at one end and some very fancy warmblood dressage horses at the other end. I know practising riding with other things going on is great, but I must admit my heart sank a bit.

I proceeded to tack up but decided to just leave the halter on and lead her around in the arena and feel things out a bit. The reiners were practising spins (seriously how does the horse not just fall over dizzy from that much spinning?!) and Savvy thought this was freakish behavior.

I headed down to the dressage side and although I was at least with my people, I was definitely odd horse out. Amongst the sleek massive pure bred dream horses was my filthy little fluff bum.

Winter is not her best season...

I picked a corner and went about some simple ground work to get Savvy's marbles organized and then hopped on for general toodling and mostly just staying out of the way.

Although in the summer she transforms into quite the dream horse herself :)

The good news is Savvy was listening very well and staying calm even when the reiners started to do gallop/slides. The bad news is her cough came back once we started doing trot work. I knew it would probably still be around but hoped otherwise. I kept things easy for her to avoid aggravating her lungs and mostly just worked on her shape at the walk, leg yields and the like.

Next week there is a jump night that I have signed up for and I am really looking forward to it. Fingers crossed her cough is improved enough to have some fun!

Breakthroughs

So, funny thing I am noticing so far with my lessons with a new coach. She is super young, just starting out with the whole coaching thing so I wasn't expecting much, but that was fine because I just wanted access to the jumps. But now we have had two breakthroughs, the first being how to ride Savvy out of her evading behind the bit and now yesterday she got us through a real proper haunches-in! Savvy and I have never been able to do it and she had us getting it on the second try! wtf?

"Carry me mom." or possibly "Why do you do these things to me?!" - Savvy

AND she had me cantering like no big deal (I haven't cantered on her since last October) half way through a lesson and here's the best/weirdest part: When I first asked Savvy to canter she blew up and bucked all over the place, but Coach had zero reaction, like no big deal and just asked me to canter again. I think because she was all 'whatever' about it, then I was too and just tried again and got it and it was great.

Could this mean I am actually coachable? I don't know. It's early days and all...

Funny, that corner was super spooky to her when we were riding, but on her own it is a lovely spot to hang out...hm.

Yesterday's lesson was #3 of this year. It had been postponed a week because wonderpony had picked up a bit of a viral infection the week before. Her symptoms all quickly improved but she was left with a bit of a cough. I gave her a bit of lunging to see how bad the cough was before deciding to take her to the lesson and she seemed fine. Unfortunately once we got riding at the lesson, her cough was pretty bad and after the little bit of canter it was obvious we would have to just keep at a walk for the remainder of the lesson, hence the quiet, slow work of my nemesis, haunches-in!

It was our first proper ride in the new-to-me Thorowgood all-purpose. What a comfortable saddle! I love how it holds me in the right spot with a lot less effort than my previous saddle. No jumping practise this time but well worth the trailer ride over. Now that I have heard her cough with work, I think she is going to need more time off. Hopefully it will be resolved in a couple of weeks and we can get back to training!

If you try sometimes, you get what you need

But how many saddles do you need?
All of them.

Three horses = seven saddles, thats normal, right?

Most of you are quite familiar with the painful struggle of saddle shopping.

These past few months I have been faced with finding dressage and jump saddles for two horses.

I pretty much set myself up for the impossible -- find dressage and jumping saddles that fit two different horses (one of which is not done growing). But wait, I made it even more impossible -- they had to be under $500 (because this bitch is cheap and seriously, Savvy cost $300 and Shiraz was $350 so saddles being more expensive than the horse hurts my brain).  It has been a struggle but I learned a bit along the way.

Lesson One: Do NOT let the pretty cloud your judgment.

But what about Kieffer, you say? Well, I thought I had found my one true love with Kieffer, but Savvy did not agree. It was just too narrow for my plumpy little arab and she told me so with much shorter strides and an increase in attitude when using this saddle. I may have cried.

Some love stories are just not meant to last...why can't you be wider?! :'(

Lesson Two: Do NOT let other people tell you what you should get.

For the jumping saddle, I decided to go to an actual store and get something brand new. The girl convinced me I needed a size 16, even though I was kinda sure 17 was suitable. Sure enough that damn saddle is too small. Well at least my kids have a new saddle? Yaayy...

Lesson Three: Patience, and when that runs out, pure shitfaced luck. And if you have neither of the two, then more money.

Many fails later plus a bit of dumb luck I have found my saddles! (Don't even be all, you could have had a bigger budget if you hadn't wasted your money on the fails. I don't listen to that kind of common sense.)

Drum roll:

#1 - Dressage saddle found:

generic but comfortable.. :'( I miss you Kieffer! 

 

This was a such a freak find. I was not even 'really' saddle shopping at that particular moment. It was on a facebook group called "Saddles Under $600...In Canada...". These are my people.

It was $250 plus shipping. It needs some love but is sound and functional. Savvy likes it and I find it pretty comfortable. For the win, it also fits Shiraz.

#2 - All purpose saddle found:

It is a Thorowgood wide with changable gullet system. Test riding this saddle I was really trying to hide my excitement as I rode in it because I really wanted to talk the seller down in price. It just felt so wonderful. It was easy to two-point in (thanks Emma for that tip!) and just put me in the right spot without any effort. I also am a huge fan of the fabric that holds me better in a spook than leather ever would.

So function has won the day over form here. No fancy names or stunning good looks, but both horses are liking these choices and I am about as happy as I can be on my budget.

I am ecstatic to be done with this. So anyone looking for a narrow Kieffer dressage saddle?

Getting to work

Having my horses at home in my backyard is something I am very grateful for, but the trade off is being surrounded by heaps of snow and very cold temperatures with no where to ride right now.

 Trailering out may be a hassle but all is forgiven once I enter the beautiful heated beast of an arena I have at my disposal!

 All 110 x 220 heated arena to ourselves...heaven! and Savvy approves. 

I headed over for lesson #2 of 2017 and made sure not to overdo the warmup and get Savvy too hot for my main purpose of this whole endeavour - jumping!

As a side note, Savvy's puncture wound from Christmas is finally healed! You can see the black mark on her neck where the hair has not grown back yet, but the wound itself is completely gone.

The lesson started out with poles, so many poles.

We began with trot extensions and compressions over the two brown poles and added in the red poles once I had started to get her more adjustable. That red trot line was such a workout for both me and Savvy because we are so out of shape, but man this pony has springs!

Next we did brown to blue, focusing on good turns, straightness and pushing her to a lengthened trot through the blue without rushing. This was to set us up for 'forward' later on when the second last blue pole would become a cross rail.

No jumping media, but by the end Savvy was offering some very jump-like movements over this!

I had a bit of a breakthrough in this lesson regarding Savvy's strong urge to hide behind the bit. I have struggled with this, but had some success in this lesson with focusing more on leg and seat rather than what I do with contact. Before I think I was throwing away the contact in reaction to her evading, but focusing on her body instead helped me push her back out onto the contact. She is just so sensitive it is hard to keep in any steady sort of frame or pace. It seems every little thing, be it me or environment, affects her and she is the opposite of straight all. the. time. For both Savvy and myself, our biggest obstacles are our brains--we are both over-thinking everything.

The jumping itself was so fun. She was being forward and energetic and even offered up a couple of 'real' jumps rather than step-overs. Those took me by surprise and I ended up grabbing mane.

The take-home for this is doable even in the snow--even though I cannot do riding trot work, I can lunge Savvy over poles and start rebuilding her muscles. Now I just have to shovel out my poles...

Anyone have interesting pole work ideas? It looks like this will be my focus for the next little bit and don't want it to get too tedious.

First Lesson of 2017

Operation JumpAllTheFences (aka teach Savvy and myself how to jump and start eventing this summer) is officially under way with my first lesson of the year.



Ready to ride!

 

I was scheduled to start last Thursday, but weather kiboshed my plans with a super fun wind/snow storm. This Thursday however, offered up a perfect sunshiny day with warm temps to boot.



Just a typical Manitoba morning...where no horse gets ridden. :(

It turns out a few months off from heading anywhere with my horse was enough to bring on some serious nerves, but the whole trip there went just fine and I didn't even hurt myself this entire outing! Gold star for me!



Although there was one casualty - one of my winter riding boot soles came right off (luckily at the end of my lesson though). 

I arrived well before my lesson and had a lot of time to lunge her around the massive arena (which I had all to myself!) and show her all the mirrors/giant advertisement signs and see what kind of horse she would be after so much time off.

She spooked once when she kicked some sand against the wall and then again at an advertisement with a large horse picture on it. She had to sniff the pic right on the horse's nose a few times before she was sure it wasn't a real horse.

I knew keeping Savvy from getting too hot would be a major issue with this plan. It was great for me to be in a heated arena, but the fluffbum was already sweaty before I even got on. Once the coach arrived, I explained I would be fine with a really easy-on-the-horse type lesson so Savvy wouldn't get too hot. So two-point torture would be my fate. Maybe I should have told her I was also just getting back into work as well and shouldn't over-do it?



Wonder pony was pretty sceptical about this whole back to lessons thing.

As the lesson progressed, the arena went from empty to horse after horse coming in which was great practise dealing with the automatic overhead door opening again and again and keeping Savvy focused on task no matter what cute gelding had just come in.

And she was great! Not perfect obviously - there was a lot of head bobbing as per usual, some serious side eye every time we passed a horse and a bit of jumpiness at random noises (like snow sliding off the roof), but I was happy with the level of relaxation in her walk and trot and it felt quite enjoyable to ride.

As for all the two-point practise, I will not be walking tomorrow.

Next week I will head back and work on all the positional stuff we covered today, and moving forward, I think I will stick with the bi-weekly lessons at least until this whole winter/can't ride at home issue clears up.

It is amazing just how good I feel now. It was so great to get back to riding! Anyone else find nothing beats a good ride for your mood? Or is any kind of horse time do the trick?

Baby Steps

 

I can't even tell you how excited I am for my plans this year. When I was a little girl, I had a Shetland pony. That poor little thing tolerated every whim of a 7-year-old's imagination. We did all the things that would make a parent's heart stop: from my daring attempts pretending to be a stunt rider, or racing my sister on her (much slower) pony out in the fields, to pretending I was eventing, taking my wee pony through ditches, over fallen trees and just general galloping around as fast as her little legs could go.

Flash and Flicka (no I did not name her that)

I progressed with horses through 4-H, competing in everything Western with a bit of English and then as an adult getting into much more of an English focus with hunter/jumper lessons and competing as well as immersion into dressage madness last year. However, that dream of eventing has always been in the back of my mind. It really feels like now or never. I am not getting any younger.


Things have been falling into place and I do believe this will be the year I actually set foot on an eventing course.

 As fate would have it, the Manitoba Horse Trials Organisation had decided to hold an information session for newbies to the sport this month. (Bonus it was held at Greenhawk tack store and they offered us special discounts that evening-so shopping!) They filled us in on how everything runs here in Manitoba, tack/equipment needed, coaches, rules, upcoming events, etc.

Cross rails...its a start!

So here are the levels:

• Pre-Entry Entry (equitable to USEA Beginner Novice)
• Pre-Training (equitable to USEA Novice): XC: fences maximum height 0.91 m; ditch 1.50 m; drops 1.10 m; Stadium fences: 0.96m
• Training: XC: fences maximum height 1.00 m ditch 1.80 m drops 1.40 m; Stadium fences: 1.05 m
• Preliminary: XC: fences maximum height 1.10 m ditch 2.80 m drops 1.60 m; Stadium fences: 1.15 m
• Intermediate: XC: fences maximum height 1.15 m ditch 3.20 m drops 1.80 m; Stadium fences: 1.20 m
• Advanced: XC: fences maximum height 1.20 m ditch 3.60 m drops 2.00 m; Stadium fences: 1.25 m

 There is a planned clinic in May and three derbies scheduled for this year. They explained the derbies are very 'beginner' friendly and are basically schooling shows.

There are cross-country jumps located in the park 20 minutes from my house. These are available for use for a $20 fee per day, but you must be accompanied by a coach who has also paid a fee.

Also because of reciprocity agreements, having a MHT membership (which is surprisingly affordable) allows you to attend two Dressage Winnipeg shows without paying for the DW membership (not affordable), as well as I believe two hunter/jumper shows without additional membership fees. This is under review however, but hopefully does not disappear.

Possibly my hero - Elisa Wallace doing her thang, being awesome as always.

My plan at this point is to start out riding Savvy at the first clinic and derby. Shiraz is still a green-bean walk/trot machine and will be turning 4 this spring. Even though she has been really good so far in her training, I am still a bit concerned about jumping a 4-year-old but we will see how it goes. Savvy may not be an overly talented jumper at this point, but I feel safe riding her and think she is actually going to enjoy the challenge and variety this sport brings. (She is super smart and gets bored pretty quickly!) Plus I get to still enjoy working on dressage because it is in my blood now and there is no cure.

For now, I need to get back to riding and I have a plan for that - trailer over to a heated arena once a week and possibly jump lessons once every second week. Riding at home beyond a walk is just not possible because of snow, but I am filling each and every day with tons of ground work, lunging over poles/cross rails and desensitising work.

Are you trying something new this year? I would love to hear about it!