Ramblings in Lieu of Anything Important

Generally, a lack of blogs would make a person guilty of being lazy, but I think in this case, since the whole point of this is to track my progress with The Horse, it just means I'm a lazy rider. I rode Too in BO's Wednesday lesson a week or two ago, and usually when she lets me sneak my horse into one of her classes, I leave after the flat half of the lesson. On this particular day, she asked if I wanted to stay and jump a bit. I could feel myself get a bit green around the gills, but considering the class consisted of an age group seven to fifteen years younger than me, and the jumps were sized accordingly (as in, for the hardcore seven-year old and stoic ten year-old girl in the class), my pride made me stay. It's hard to maintain a good image when you run squealing from a two foot vertical with a step rail. I did make one concession to utter wimpdom and verify to BO that I was going to trot the jump. Every time.

First jump: the aforementioned two foot vertical with a step rail. When it was our turn in line, we proceeded to pick up a lofty, green dressage horsey trot around the ring to our fence. Approach fence, ears confusedly pricked forward, yet not too bad. At least, we didn't knock the whole thing down, and barely touched the pole. As we cantered scurrily away, I called back to BO: "Is she as awful as I think she is?" "Nah, that's actually all right!"

Second jump: same vertical. CLUNK. Nuff said.

Third jump: same. Less clunking, but an alarming glimpse of flailing knees from the corner of my right eye. BO hesitantly saying that "she just needs to learn to use her butt more."

Fourth jump: By this point, Too IS using her butt...at least for our anti-climatic trot to the new jump. She is thrusting off of her hindquarters with every stride, and beautifully light in my hands and well rounded... until I aim her at the actual fence, which is another jump with a steprail before it, this time a low ladder type jump with a plain white pole over it. Maybe a hair over two feet, but not much. Picture, if you will: the shrimpy human astride a snorty mare who makes it obvious with her progressively more airborne trot and approach that signifies she is actually in a western arena running poles that she does not agree with this. Doubtful trainer off to the side offering, "Eyes up and leg on. Um, not so much that she rockets off. Good. Now... Whoops!" as the mare, still in the faraway western arena, trots the steprail and does a fabulous rollback just in front of the jump. Doubtful trainer pauses to remove top rail. Snorty McPranceypants approaches again. Trots the pole, pauses in midair and...CLUNK. Rinse and repeat. Or rather, run away, and THEN rinse and repeat if desired.

We've been working on it.

I don't want or need a jumping horse (as I proved to myself by muttering to the horse on every approach, "You are Marco you are Marco you are Marco oh my god a jump YOU ARE MARCO!" to keep from panicking), but it seemed to help sit her back for her flat work, so we'll do a bit of cross training on low fences to help. Not to mention developing a little bit more trust, instead of the mare thinking I'm a moron for aiming her at solid things like I don't have eyes or sense, and her silently thinking it's a good thing she's got all those legs.

I rode her with a friend this past Friday and had a pretty good ride. We sort of just poked around, but it was very fun, relaxing poking around. I intended to drag Boyfrand out to the barn Saturday to actually get some work done and coerce him into taking some new riding pictures. Unfortunately, we got caught up doing all kinds of adult things like buying the last book in the Hunger Game series, eating Hardees breakfast at 10:45, and buying and setting up a dining room table to replace the plastic folding one we've had since we moved into the house a year and a half ago.

So on Sunday, when I ended up being at the barn an hour later than usual, and the new boarder was riding her horse, I figured I might as well go grab Too out of her pasture and have a pleasant 15 minute hack before going home.

Isn't that ALWAYS when the bad rides happen? When you decide you just want to play? Something ALWAYS happens that, by god, you are going to FIX before you give up! Horse won't pick up the right lead, or does something that you decide you have to fix so he "doesn't get away with it" and then it just escalates into something far, far beyond your short pleasant hack. About four or five years ago, when Taylor was here, we set up the oldest, crappiest horse trailer BO had at the end of the small ring, hitched to a truck with the gate to the ring opened into the trailer, with Tay's food in the trailer, and he didn't eat unless he got in the trailer. I had come out to ride Ben, for a "short pleasant hack" out in the pasture. Which we had. Fifteen minutes of cheerful moseying about in the field...after which I rode him through the gate, through the small ring which was currently empty, and tried to take him past the horse trailer so I could ride around behind the barn to where his stall is.

Forty-five minutes later, Benny still would not go past the damn trailer and I was crying and cussing and Benny was doing airs above the ground and galloping in reverse and cussing as well. But damn it, he was going to walk past the &*^%@! trailer!! Oh no, no he wasn't. I finally dismounted and led him up to it, at which point he dropped his sweaty head, sniffed the trailer, said, Oh hey you're a horse trailer, Mom can I eat now? And walked away cool as a cucumber.

Sunday was one of those days. I should know by now that she's usually going to be a pain when she's absolutely quiet in the crossties. Generally she wiggles a bit, nickers at the horses in the pasture, and that's fine, she rides well those days. But if she stands there, still as a statue and absolutely mum...that means she is concentrating, she is storing up all of her energy to make my life miserable, and I should maybe have a stiff drink before I mount up. Luckily I can count those rides on one hand at this point, but then again, I've only had her since January. How's that for optimism?

She was not with me. She was anywhere but with me. BO's husband was driving around in her pasture in the golf cart, and that was the thread that unravelled her. She was so fractious, overreactive, and nervous about her friends that I rode her for over an hour until she gave me her attention for more than a split second, at which point I dismounted and called it a day. There may or may not have been a lot of shoulders and haunches in before that point, I'm not saying. I am quite certain she used muscles she didn't even know she had. Hopefully the lesson she learned from Sunday was to not be a bitch to the human on Sundays, because the human has no where to be on Sundays and has all the time in the world to work the hiney off of a bitchy cow.

So yesterday, I decided to lunge her in side reins to work her a little bit, since I didn't have time for a ride, unless it was a short ride, and I just covered the probable path THAT would have taken...I started her out floppy loose and slowly worked her up to a bit of contact, which she semi-accepted at the end of a 15 minute session. I don't know that she learned anything, but I learned that it would be interesting to see her in a sulky race against Standardbreds.

This doesn't nearly, NEARLY, do it justice.

However, Friday is my birthday and hopefully I can coerce SOMEONE into snapping some shots of us this weekend.

(P.S. I don't want to give off the impression that I'm not happy with Too; chances are she is in heat or something equally girly and ridiculous, and no one ever cares about her feelings, and she really just wanted some chocolate or something, blah blah, I can totally relate. Generally I enjoy her and I understand she will have her days and hey, the golf cart WAS quite rattley and for all she knew, might have eaten her friends without her to protect them.)

In other news, Fiona went back to the horse trader last week. Turns out, the situation was not going to work out with her being a beginner lesson pony (saw that one coming as soon as she got food into her.) Hopefully HTF (who is one of those ethical horse traders who happens to find horses in crappy condition) can place her in a suitable home where she will be much enjoyed. And hopefully she will keep her name because it is the shit.

Too is getting shiny and buff:

Psst: Bye, Feefs!

Is an absolute goofball:



No really, I watched her make this face in the pasture for five straight minutes today.

Is not interested at all in making friends with Ben:

I mean, honestly, could YOU resist him?

Who is unconcerned, because he has been adopted by Dear Vet's ancient Appendix, Bar:

And has a puncture under his left jaw the size of Texas:

Which I panicked over, calmed down, Dear Vet deemed a puncture and started him on antibiotics (which, I would like to brag, he eats out of my hand like candy)

(which, I'm terrified to keep him on too much longer, since antibiotics for a respiratory problem several years ago threw him into two weeks of colicking and me thinking I was going to lose my best friend)

(which, I think he remembers, because he actually started spitting them out today)

And is not impressed with my doctoring attempts, since they involve standing in the death trap crossties. I don't know WHY, but he is petrified of this wash rack. He is okay in any OTHER wash rack, except for one similar to this at the barn BO sold to move to this place. He turns into a scrambling turkey on acid in here, as you can see by the bulging eyes and very offensive posture.

I need a horse whisperer. I don't get it.

And that's all, folks. I'll end with a picture of one of my favorite views in the world.

Of course that's Ben's little nose poking out of there. Too is next to him, but she's just too dark or antisocial to make an appearance.