Borrowed Steeds

First off, I am absolutely green with jealousy for everyone going to Rolex! It seems like so many bloggers are going this year and I'm so sad I couldn't make it. A classmate and I discussed trying to make it "school-related" to get excused absences to go, but it's right in the prime midterm time and it would just be too much hassle to rearrange midterms and too much $$ :( So have fun for me everyone! Maybe one year I'll make it.

But I finally have (somewhat) exciting things to blog about!

A different view

I haven't been riding Jetta at all lately and I've been BORED. I need a pony to ride. So when a fellow boarder was at the barn (one of the 3 people I actually like!) I asked if she would be interested in having me ride her horse since I know she's been super busy lately with her new baby and working as a nurse. She said yes!

Meet Vante (rhymes with Monty). He's a 5 year old spanish breed cross (not exactly sure what breeds). He's the sweetest, most curious guy ever and I've been eyeballing him forever. I'm so glad I can ride him!

He's normally ridden western, but I'm using my own tack. He looks quite wonderful in dressage tack I think. My bridle is a touch big, he's got a small head compared to Jetta so I think I need to get some cob sized cheek pieces for my bridle so it'll fit better. I think I also need a black breastplate to go with because he's so narrow my saddle slid back a good 3 or 4 inches.

I had a lot of fun riding him. He's more green than I thought he was, but he's very honest and listens very well to voice ques. We just need to work on steering, getting him to move off my leg and giving to the bit. His default mode of travel is giraffe-style and while he's soft to the bit, he doesn't want to seek contact and is quite fussy with the bit, which I can't blame him since he's normally ridden in a double twisted wire.

He has the most uphill canter ever though and it was so fun to ride him! The goal is to ride 3 days a week since his owner usually rides him twice a week (though only lightly).

Much uphill, so giraffe

I'm excited (obviously).

And then I got to ride a second pony! PR, my fellow eventer vet school buddy, is taking care of some horses at her barn for people going to Rolex, so she asked if I'd want to ride her horse Bailey while she rode another horse to save time.

I rode last night and I get to ride again tonight - Bailey is amazing. She's a prelim level eventer who loves her job and she's impeccably trained. I had such a fun time riding her, though I think by the end she was a little annoyed with me bouncing around since I'm so unfit. Plus I just had too much fun playing with her adjustability and she was just like "pick a speed and stick with it!".

So it was a great horse-y day. I might even be able to ride Bailey this summer since PR is doing several internships out of state.

I'm glad I have some opportunities to ride and keep my sanity!

Rain, Rain Go Away

I apologize for not posting more often! I just feel like I don't have the energy to post with school being so busy which is a bummer.

Nothing too exciting has been happening though. Weather has been super gross and rainy and not warm. This week I got a whopping two rides in on Misty. I meant to ride both ponies last night but had a major allergy attack and decided that since I couldn't breathe I should probably just ride only one horse, lol.

Misty was good for one ride and not so good for the other. Monday we were able to ride outside in the sun just before the downpour. Our warm-ups aren't pretty but once we get done with the warm up she starts to settle and move better and accept more contact. I've started asking for more leg yields and she's stopped getting panicked about them. Introduced shoulder-in which is going well, just little baby steps every ride. Also have been working on lengthenings which are just more like zoomy trots at the moment, but every so often she gets that nice, floaty, long stride.

Thursday she was not so good. I chose to ride her during feeding time which wasn't optimal so she was quite interested and a little spooky/tense with all the noise going on above her head in the loft. She wasn't awful (certainly no where near as bad as Jetta gets) and we were able to end on a semi-good note, but it wasn't great. She didn't want to move forward and was quite behind my leg at the beginning and didn't want anything to do with contact. Eventually I gave up and worked on something I knew we could do without theatrics and just practiced our stretchy trot and then our straight halts down the centerline. I really want to make a good impression at our big show next month by entering straight and stopping perfectly! She did very good at both of those things so we were able to end well which was especially good because I was not doing so well on the breathing front. Stupid allergies.

I planned on taking Jetta for a trail ride tomorrow but the forecast changed and it's supposed to rain most of the day. So I'm putting it off until Wednesday when it's supposed to be gloriously sunny and almost 80 degrees! Cannot wait. Until then, I'm going to try and put at least a couple indoor rides on Jetta.

And that's pretty much it in my world! I'm so jealous of everyone that's at Rolex right now and have been spending little snippets of time watching the rides on my computer. Someday I'll make it out there in person!

(Also, sorry for no pictures. I have a bunch I want to share, but my phone isn't letting me email them to myself. Ah, technology; I have no idea why you're not working!)

Follow Up

So for follow up to yesterday's post.

The things I need to work on with Jetta:

• Steadier in the bridle
• I thought we improved a lot in this respect since our last show, but obviously we aren't 100% confirmed. I think what will help is having a little bit quieter hands and seat (maybe I need to finally get some of those FITS breeches and glue my butt to the saddle!) and a little bit stronger leg to get her to stay consistent in the bridle.

• Better trot lengthenings
• While you can't see our lengthenings in the video at the canter, I think those are the bomb, even though this particular judge didn't like them (the last one did though). Our trot lengthenings however still need a lot of work. Jetta needs to push more with her hind end and I'd like to see more "air time" in our trot during the lengthenings. I'm definitely doing to ask TS to help us with these the next time I have a lesson with her, but I'm open to suggestions on how to improve the lengthened trot. Right now, I'm thinking lots of transitions within the trot, from collected to working to lengthened trot to help her rock her weight back more.  
• Me sitting up and back more
• First order of business = chiropractor. As I sit here hunched over because sitting up straight makes my back hurt, lol. Then I'm going to dig out my Equifit Shoulders Back contraption so at least I have a reminder to sit back. Then obviously just practice, practice, practice. 
• Those dang 10m half circles
• I don't know what it is about them but we can do a full 10m circle relatively well but ask us to do two half circles and we make them uneven and wonky so we just need to fine tune those as well. 

 Some "screen shots" from the video:

looking fancy in the corner

lengthened trot

Things that I was really happy with:

• Our canter transitions. SO MUCH BETTER! Especially the one to the right because that's our awful direction. But it was so nice this time around. Still a little bit sassy with the ears pinned and a tail swish, but I'll take it because we didn't have a rocket launch or buck going into it. 
• Our stretchy trot circle was also much improved, but could still use a little bit of work having Jetta stretch more out with her nose and also me sitting back more. Also, working on maintaining an even tempo. 
• Jetta's overall relaxation for this test was way better this time around. I think a lot of it was the better footing but she was just cool and collected for the whole test pretty much so I was proud of her for that. 

 And I forgot to post about our placings yesterday. We got a first place out of three in our Training Level Test 3 and a second place out of three in our First Level Test 1. I thought it was amusing that we had recycled ribbons and this was our second place ribbon:

My dorky horse apparently looks like a mule

And also some follow up from Rolex - I'm so happy that Quimbo with Andrew Nicholson won! I watched all of the dressage rides and Quimbo was one of my favorites. When I heard that he'd done so well on cross country I was definitely rooting for him to win! He's adorable (the horse of course) and it's neat that he won his first four star event!

Image: Chronicle of the Horse

Plus how can you not root for someone who makes it look that easy?! I'm pretty sure if I was taking that jump I'd be holding onto both reins for dear life probably screaming, lol.

Dressage? What Dressage?

Soooo, we have a dressage show on Sunday. And here's what we've been doing the past week+:

Monday - jumping
Tuesday - off
Wednesday - lunge
Thursday - off
Friday - off
Saturday - ride in jump saddle
Sunday - jumping show
Monday - off
Tuesday - off
Wednesday - trail ride
Thursday - off

Yeah. I've been a bad rider, meaning we've got two days to smooth out any tough spots in our dressage tests. Sigh. We did work on a lot of elements that we were having trouble with after the last dressage show, so I think we still can have a good ride and hopefully improve on our scores from last time. The only thing I'm worried about is our lengthenings in the trot because recently Jetta has decided half way through the lengthening to canter.

Hopefully we can still improve upon this!

But, hopefully we'll improve on suppleness and "bendiness" for our 10 m half circles and loops and I think our canter transitions have improved as well. We'll be riding Training 3 and First 1 again. And at least I know this facility will have nice footing so Jetta will move nicer than at the last place with the rock hard ground.

And of course I couldn't post without mentioning Rolex in some form or fashion. I'm so jealous of everyone that's there! I was thinking of asking for a plane ticket for my birthday (which is how I got to go to the World Equestrian Games in 2010) but after looking at prices even months ahead of time I knew it would be too expensive :(

But that's why there's live stream which I've been trying to squeeze in watching between classes and homework. Go Thoroughbreds! I should set up a screen in front of Jetta's stall and tell her to watch and learn, lol. I love eventing - I can't wait till we get out there for our first actual horse trial in June!!

Jetta's awesome!

We had such a good ride yesterday! I thought she was going to be a brat based off of how she was for our lesson and the day before I just went for a trail ride in the sidepull.

Anyways, I decided to get a head start on my goal of improving our ground manners. I lunged her in the rope halter which I haven't done for a while. I've kind of stopped lunging her because it's hard with so many people in the arena and when I do lunge her, I just do it in the bridle because she is such a pain! She pulls and leans and nothing you do can make her cut it out. But she was awesome today! We needed a little reminder on cues, paying attention when I ask her to go and listening to voice cues when I want her to slow down. I put out the barrels and lunged her over them. Sometimes Jetta just has good and bad days with jumping. Her bad days she will run out and refuse the jumps, but not today! I love it when she pricks her ears and locks on the jump and goes for it. I set the barrels up to their full height, about 3 feet and she was pretty hilarious. She's getting a lot better about using her body but she still rockets herself over with her hind end and her front end gets all wonky. After seeing her jump the barrels I was a little nervous about jumping her in the saddle.

After having way too much fun making her jump on the lunge line I just hopped on and worked on lengthening and shortening our stride and using half halts to bring her bak to me. Then we jumped the barrels and she was great! I made her take a collected trot in and she didn't speed up or run out on the jumps and she moved away nicely after the jump and I was able to do a nice halt with her. So good! Then after that, we had a super nice stretchy trot going on. It takes her a while because at first she speeds up and will only stretch for a second but after she realized that she really can slow down and really stretch, she loves it.

So overall it was just a fantastic ride and I was really happy with it. It's so nice when I get a nice ride early in the morning because it just makes my whole day! I wish I had some pictures of her jumping to show how she's improving! Maybe I'll get ML to do some soon. We were talking about her giving me some pointers while I jump, that way she gets more experience instructing and I get someone to yell at me to get my shoulders back!

On a somewhat side note, I'm watching the recording of Rolex that my parents did for me on TV and I love watching it!!! So awesome. I love watching Mary King. How amazing it was to see her win, she just seems like an awesome person. Wow. Cross country was quite interesting. I heard about all the crashes but geez! I've never seen so many crashes and almost every single horse I watched brushed or hung a leg on multiple jumps and most people just look like they had a rough ride. I'm so jealous of all the 20-something riders hat competed, how lucky to be so young and competing at such a high level! Oh and don't you just love the commercials for Rolex? I just think they're so completely awesome :)



Mary King's well-deserved victory lap