Project Fiona - Day 365

Amazing how quickly a year can go by. I still feel like I just got a new horse. Maybe I'll never stop being the new mom that whips out pictures at any opportunity. It's quite possible.

So one year done. But done is the wrong word. One year in. I've said that it takes about a year to build a solid relationship with a horse, and I have to say that we've just about got it now.




There's not really much else to say. She's wonderful, talented, and I was incredibly lucky to stumble across her. It's been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, but she's just blossomed.

In the next three weeks, she's got a full schedule. She's got a schooling three-phase next weekend at Novice, the weekend after that is a sanctioned horse trial at Beginner Novice, and then the weekend after that is our dressage show with Training 1 and 2. There might even be a two-phase at Novice in there, all in preparation for our grand move up to Novice at UNH in October.

Now I'm going to go have a beer while I apologize to my knee for the 2 hour hack we went on after that jumping video. It wasn't planned to be a 2 hour hack, but we got just a wee bit lost in the apple orchard. Fortunately both of our ladies don't mind things like walking down a major road while we found our way back.

Explanations

Ever try to explain to a thoroughbred mare why we do lateral work? It's a funny conversation.

"Shoulder in."
"Why?"
"Because it's good for you."
"Liar."
"It's going to make you more supple and it will be easier for you to lift your back and go on the bit. And we have a dressage show in three weeks."
"Those are stupid reasons."
"Okay, fine, do it because I told you to."
"Ha."
"Do it because I'm sticking a spur in your side."
"Ha ha. You don't own enough Saddle-tight to win this one, mom, and we both know it."
"Do it because I have those molasses and oat treats you love in the barn and tomorrow I'll take you out for a gallop."
" . . . you've got a deal, but I still think this is stupid."

Needless to say, the princess does not enjoy doing her lateral work. Traveling in three tracks does not make sense, and she thinks we need to just forget this whole nonsense and go jump something already. Or maybe do some lengthenings, those are a lot more fun. Anything that does not involve leg yielding on and off the track. Or anything that does not resemble a counter canter. I know her flying lead change was one of the things that sold me on her, but it is damn annoying to try to canter a bending line on a horse that will do a flying change if I so much as glance in the direction of travel. I sneezed and got a flying change, for pity's sake. You should see her tempi changes out on the trail when she's trying to guess which way we're going to turn next. If she could do them on a straight line, and when I actually wanted them, I'd have a Grand Prix horse on my hands.

Instead, I have Fiona. And she does not believe in shoulder in.

Clinic Time

Bobby Costello working with a student at the August 2nd clinic.
Picture courtesy of Eleazer Davis Farm.

A couple weeks ago, one of the ladies from the barn asked if I wanted to head to a clinic with her. I love going to clinics, so I was in before I even knew who was teaching. Stadium clinic with Bobby Costello? Sounded like a great way to spend the day.

We loaded up the princess and Mr. Lips to head to Eleazer Davis Farm in Bedford, MA. It was hot and sunny with the threat for storms later in the day, but Smart Pak was there to provide lunch and lots of cold drinks. There was also a raffle for saddle pads and a spiffy bridle, but I never have luck with those things. There was already a class going when we arrived and we settled in to watch a couple rounds.

If I had to summarize what Bobby wants to see in stadium, I would say a forward, positive ride that's proactive. When a rider came into a one stride underpowered, he described that canter as having no options. She couldn't move up or ease off, since she didn't have the power to make a change. That definitely stuck out as an interesting thought. You need a powerful, forward canter in order to have options.

Bobby's a positive teacher, quick to yell 'excellent ride' when a rider deserves it. He's also not afraid to let a rider know when there's a problem. As he told one rider, 'you're riding like you're on a Jamaican vacation!'. Fortunately, that wasn't me. I got comments about 'the jumps are on this end of the ring, there's nothing over there, where are you going?'. Accuracy is very important. If he's looking for a five stride, do not jump it in a four or a six.

Or in the case of Fiona, bounce through a one stride. I got a laugh for that one. He has a particular laugh for when an exercise catches a pair out.

The jumping started out with gymnastics, then moved on to courses. Most of the horses settled in nicely to the gymnastic, jumping well with set poles forcing them to really use their bodies. Fiona is not very good at gymnastics, but she held it together to manage a one stride to a two stride combination. Bobby had no idea what an accomplishment that was for her. Before we could move up to a grid with a bounce, Mother Nature decided to interfere.

We were the last group of the day and the promised thunderstorms decided to arrive with a good dose of fury. We had to scramble for the indoor when we spotted lightening and had to take cover for about thirty minutes while the wind howled and thunder rumbled. Eventually they moved jumps up to the indoor so our group could finish. I appreciated Eleazer Davis Farm for managing to make the best of the mess, and Bobby for continuing on like nothing had happened despite the massive disruption.

The analogy that was used for the princess was that she's like a sling shot. When she gets wound and I hold her too tightly, that's like hauling a sling shot all the way back. When I release to a fence, she just explodes. I need to bring her back and let go over and over until she can learn to balance herself and not explode over fences. He also thought she was very attractive, so I was a happy camper. Fiona had a little crush on him, nudging his arm whenever he was in reach to get him to pet her. She was quite adorable and put in a good show of what she's capable of, both her explosive side and her talented side.

A huge thank you to Eleazer Davis Farm for a well run clinic (and ice cream!), Smart Pak for a delicious lunch, my friend for giving us a ride to the clinic, and Bobby for his advice and patience when the princess decided to have one of her mini-meltdowns in the middle of our lesson. We got a lot out of it, and hopefully we'll get another chance to ride with him again. There are pictures of the clinic (none of us due to the weather) and the new ring on Facebook.

Courage

There are a couple different types of courage that you see in the world of horses. There's the basic kind that we all have, the kind that lets us mount a thousand pound animal that may spontaneously decide the sky is falling and take off at any second. We can't actually control horses and anyone that's ridden for any real length of time knows this. We can ask politely, beg, plead, push, and even punish, but there is no chance my little self can force my 16.1 hand mare to do anything is she's dead set against it.

There's also the courage of facing something you're not one hundred percent sure of, like that corner on cross country or the triple bar your trainer just moved up. That's the kind of courage where you are afraid, but you go anyway. It's part and parcel of the sport, to accept the fact that you will occasionally be afraid and that there's nothing wrong with that. It's that edge of fear that gives us the addictive adrenaline rush. In order to grow, we learn to take a deep breath, push the fear into the back seat, and just trust in our horse, our trainer, and our own abilities.

I'm learning about a new type of courage. The kind that comes with dropping off an entry form. It's a surprisingly defined moment. Once you drop that envelope into the mail box, it's done. Sure, you can scratch later, but you've still entered. You've committed to going and doing something that makes your heart pound and your respiration pick up. I'm still early enough in the game that this isn't routine yet. I haven't ridden most of the courses in the area, so they are still unknown quantities. As surprising as it is, it takes a certain amount of courage to affix that stamp and send your paperwork off.

I've entered a sanctioned dressage show and it triggered that same moment. Am I ready to take the princess out and have her judged as a pure dressage horse? They won't care that she devours cross country and skips around stadium, they'll only be interested in the performance in that small square of sand. Am I ready to show what she's learned, and even more heart palpitation inducing, read the comments I get back? It's the only way that we'll grow and progress, so I dropped that envelope in the mail. Dressage has slipped badly, and I need to face down my nerves and fix it.

Odd that I'm more nervous about a couple dressage tests than our next horse trial. Courage is defined a bit different for every person, and right now, it takes more courage for me to go down center line than to drop into water.

I've ordered a new pen for my tablet, so hopefully I'll be able to get caught up on my art starting next week.

Mother Nature Strikes Back

I did one weather complaint post in winter, I'm due for one in the summer. Don't get me wrong, compared to the weather in my hometown back in Minnesota, New England doesn't really have weather. You can go a week at home and not get above zero at all in the winter, and then top one hundred in the summer with mosquitoes big enough to take a roping saddle. That doesn't even begin to cover the straight line winds, tornadoes, or blizzards.

Actually I should suggest that to my mom as a new way to work her sheep. Round them up with her trusted mount, a Minnesota mosquito. I digress.

Even if the weather here on the East Coast is more mild, it can be damn unpleasant at times. Such as today. Projected high is 96 degrees Fahrenheit (36 degrees Celsius, I'm getting pretty good at doing those conversions on the fly because of teammates in Europe), with a heat index of 105. That's pretty miserable in any part of the country, especially when it's humid enough to feel like I've been slapped in the face with a wet blanket each time I step outside.

Considering the conditions, the princess is getting the day off. She does tend to get panting easily and sweats a good bit, I don't want to push her on a day like this. Tomorrow's lesson is at 9am and the humidity is reportedly going to start breaking, so it sounds like a better day all around. Between the bugs and the weather, conditions have been less than ideal. I took her out for a nice, relaxing ride in the woods on Sunday. This turned into a break neck gallop up a long hill with me cheering her on, yelling 'We can lose them!' as we outran the deer flies. Fiona enjoyed herself a good bit, but it was not exactly a leisurely trail ride.

This is the worst part of the summer. It's hot, it's muggy, and the bugs are monstrous and persistent. Mid-July to mid-August is the part of summer I don't like. Mid-Febuary to mid-March is the matching time in winter that I loathe. But I probably don't have much room to complain, I could be back in Minnesota. Nine months of winter and three months of lousy sledding.

Moving Up

So much for resting on my laurels.

Fiona after having her braids out at UNH

Less than a week after my great accomplishment of completing my first sanctioned event with Fiona, I have some new goals to work on. Like many things involving horses, this all starts with talking to my trainer. This entire blog is based on a passing comment made to my trainer, suggesting I was ready to buy a horse. There's a profound revelation in that somewhere, I'm just not sure what it is.

Back when I took the princess to the Scarlett Hill derby cross, my trainer made a passing joke about me moving up for Huntington since they weren't planning on being at the show for Beginner Novice day. I panicked a bit, but she later assured me she was just joking. Fast forward to last night, when we were e-mailing about my schedule for the rest of the show season. For King Oak they're not planning on going for the Beginner Novice day, and again she said 'so you'll just have to move up!'. Again, I had a minor panic attack. A much smaller one, now that I've cruised around at Beginner Novice, but it still happened.

Today I asked if she was joking. She said no, she's not joking. We have two months before King Oak, and the princess already does the Novice dressage test and schools at Novice for stadium. We even do the Novice jumps for cross country schools. Why not? It seems so simple and logical when you say it like that, it's just taking me a moment to shift gears. I'm still giddy from Beginner Novice, and we get to move up already?

Moving up is something universal across equestrian disciplines. I've had that moment of staring at my trainer all wide eyed as a hunter, as a jumper, and now as an eventer. I'm sure this conversation takes place in dressage and western pleasure barns, too.

Trainer: You should move up next show.
Student: You think I'm ready?
Trainer: Absolutely.
Student: *smiles, nods, disappears to bathroom to throw up*

Possibly less throwing up in disciplines that don't involve galloping and jumping things that don't fall down, but it's the same idea. I know I was pretty nauseous when I moved up in the jumper world. It's not even really about the change in difficulty, or the bigger jumps, or the possibility of having to face a real ditch on cross county. Moving up is almost as much about the label as the test. I'd be a Novice rider, and my horse would be a Novice horse. If nothing else, that's faster to type than Beginner Novice.

We're putting together a plan to make sure that in two months, the princess and I are ready to tackle the fearsome world of Novice. I have a stadium clinic with Bobby Costello on Aug 2nd (and rumor has it he likes to jack up the fences, so that should be interesting), I have some schooling two-phases coming up that I'll do at Novice, and some cross country schooling trips that will be going up to Novice. I have full faith that when my trainer is done with us, we won't bat an eyelash at King Oak.

Once I'm done throwing up in the portapotty.

Mission Accomplished

As I said to my husband last night while I had a glass of wine and elevated my aching feet, it's not that often in life that we set out on a difficult, long-term project and have it end as an undeniable success. Life tends to get in the way, and particularly with horses, things can go so very wrong so quickly. All it takes is a turn of an ankle to bring the project to a premature end. In the case of Fiona, we didn't even know if she had the mind for the game. As far as projects go, this one was a very long shot.

It took eleven months, but I can officially call Fiona an eventer. She completed her first horse trial yesterday, finishing on her dressage score in Beginner Novice. I think I will be giddy for days. I know I was grinning like a damn fool when we came off cross country and all I could think was 'we did it'. Getting a ribbon was a nice added bonus.

Dressage continues to be our problem phase, which is ironic after a winter of her being a dressage superstar and a jumping disaster. Warm up was chaotic, and the dressage rings were right across from the trailers. When I went across the diagnols, she could see her friends standing around the trailer. Our first canter depart was an airs above the ground movement. However, it was still better than the two phase, with a calmer rhythm and she recovered from her athletic depart to a decent canter. It was a 42.9, which is not competitive, but from the comments I think the judge liked her. The comment I'm taking to heart was 'just be patient'. The judge has a good point. Her first horse trial, the goal was just to complete. I didn't account for the atmosphere.

I haven't been to a sanctioned event since Mystic in May of 2010, so it's easy to forget what a different feel it is. And Mystic is smaller and quieter than UNH. There were horses and golf carts and pedestrians everywhere. I didn't realize until the first golf cart zipped by that the princess had probably never seen one before. Three dressage rings were running, with a decent audience watching everything. It must have been overwhelming to her.

It was a long walk down a road to get to stadium, and she had to do the walk all by herself. Then she had to go by the vendors and the audience around stadium. It was downright chaotic for her and she was sweating before we got to stadium warm up.

She was a trooper. She warmed up well, bravely made the walk back to the stadium area, and spent a good bit of time staring at the audience that was sitting alongside the ring. The course was sweeping and friendly with only one tight turn. One panel was a brightly colored sunset that a lot of horses didn't like, but she went over with a little tap on the shoulder. She was more distracted by all of the activity outside of the ring than the fences, but she put her game face on and jumped around like a real competitor. The announcer had some fun with her show name, which made me laugh on course and probably helped our performance.

I was a nervous wreck for cross country, I'll admit it. I'm almost as green cross country as she is, so I was walking the course with wide eyes. Size wasn't the problem, Fiona can jump the moon. It was more the variety of things to jump and managing hills and turns. And remembering which way to turn, since the different courses intersected and had different paths. The ditch was a fake one, with logs on the ground and sawdust piled in it (called the Devil's Sandbox, which cracked me up), and there was no bank, but we did have a water crossing. Those were minor. The 'talking' fence was the UNH fence.

It's funny that there was a 'talking' fence, but people were definitely talking about it. Number three, the UNH fence, was a rather shiny piece of wood with UNH written on it in blue. Behind it was piled up hay, and there were round hay bales on either side with clear plastic on them. It was a pretty substantial fence, shared by Beginner Novice and Novice. The Training horses had to go right by it, and the word was that even they were having some spooking problems. I rode that fence like world peace depended on Fiona getting over it. I popped her on the shoulder (probably the second time I've ever used a crop with intent with her), kicked, and growled 'get over it!'. She took two stutter steps than surged forward and over the fence. Minor detail the Devil's Sandbox was about six strides afterward, and I was supposed to trot that. We never did make it back to trot, but she sure didn't bat an eyelash at it.

Actually, she didn't bat an eyelash at anything after the UNH fence. She dragged me around the course, jumping everything I pointed her at with great gusto. I was careful on the turns (probably too careful), which ate up time. When we got to the water, we were supposed to have close to two minutes left. I checked my watch and I had just one minute left. I put the pedal to the floor for the end of the course and managed to cross the finish flags with a couple seconds to spare. Then I spent about a hundred yards trying to get my mare to stop. She swaggered all the way back to the trailers, acting like she owned the world.

Once she was untacked, cooled out, and cleaned up? She fell asleep on the trailer. It was a long day for the green bean.

Tomorrow I send in my entry for Valinor. I wonder if I'll be done grinning by the time that show rolls around.