playing the waiting game

Happy Boxing Day everyone!! Isabel's owner is Canadian and is hosting a Boxing Day party tonight - sounds like fun to me! 

And, uh, that's pretty much the only fun thing happening right now. (Aside from celebrating the holidays with my family with many lovely feasts and my niece and nephew and cousins over the past few days! Those were definitely good times!)

First of all... I'm pretty much in Secret Santa purgatory right now. Due to living in a Baltimore City apartment with no mail room, I don't want packages delivered to my home. 

The above photo was originally intended to showcase my beloved trucky truck doing its parallel parking thang. But it's also a picture of my neighborhood. Pretty safe, but still. You can't be too careful with precious Secret Santa presents!! 

Therefore, the gift (it IS here!!) is sitting quite safely at my sister's house. Except, uh, she's away visiting her in-laws (and forgot to bring it to dinner on Christmas Eve.... grrr). And I don't have a key. 

So. Uh. To my very generous Secret Santa - here's a preemptive THANK YOU! I am absolutely DYING of anticipation knowing that it's so close by, and yet so unattainable... Hopefully I'll be able to pick it up today... fingers crossed!

waiting makes Isabel sad too

Meanwhile, I'm four days into my nearly-two-week vacation (typing those words makes me soooo happy, all things considered) and the weather has been atrocious. Rain rain mist rain fog rain... At least the foreseeable forecast is pretty excellent - so fingers also crossed that the footing dries up well enough to get some stuff done. It kills me that we are AGAIN going into our Saturday lesson after nearly a week off... 

please stay dry!!

Ah well - I guess in the grand scheme of things, these complaints fall squarely into the 'first world problems' category, and for that I'm grateful :)

Hopefully there will be more interesting updates soon!

merry christmas!

Wishing everybody a safe and enjoyable holiday! I promise Isabel is having a happier time than she makes it look in these pictures lol (she's apparently kind of Scrooge-ish). :)

"For this indignity, I shall require ALL the cookies. Thank you. Oh, and bah humbug" - Isabel

ww - antlers

So I picked up a cat hat yesterday. With antlers. Because I am a terrible person who should not be allowed near animals. Lol. 

Naturally, Isabel had to get in on the fun too. She deemed the whole thing a little beneath her, but too bad Princess. Those antlers aren't going to wear themselves!!

Happy Holidays everyone!

TOABH: Shining Star

It's that time again, where we celebrate Archie's imminent birthday with a blog hop post on our own special ponykins. I'm feeling very much on the same wavelength as Beka in this series - as today's answer is also something I've written about previously. But here's the perfect opportunity to add a little depth. 

Shining Star

Let's talk about the biggest achievements your horse has accomplished.  I'm not talking about you as a rider - I want to know what your ponykins has done to make you proud.  Is there a glorious satin collection, did he/she figure out some dressage movement that took months to learn, or are is it just a great day when your butt stays in the saddle?  

I could go on and on and on about how amazing Princess Isabel is... but today I'm going to stick to one very specific thing. Namely - my blog title: 'Fraidy Cat Eventing. 

That's pretty straight forward, right? I'm, uh, not the bravest rider. Conservative is a word I'd like to use, except I know perfectly well that my *ahem* fear can actually be really counter productive and self defeating. 

But confidence is a funny thing, and it CAN be rebuilt. Just takes time and patience... 

Meanwhile - I'm 100% guaranteed to be scared shitless of roll tops. I HATE them. They freak me right the F out. Coops and boxes? Nbd. Never mind that roll tops are actually easier for horses than angular jumps, since they mimic the arc of a horse's jump. Never mind that at all. Roll tops are terrifying and I'd be happy to never see another one ever again. 

But this is supposed to be a post about Isabel, right? 

So: I am so so so proud of Isabel for taking care of me. Period. 

We've still only jumped roll tops a handful of times... and really the only time that was actually quite nice was when the roll top was backwards (and therefore looked like a gate - easy peasy! video here - fence at 1:30). 

In fact, when I saw that #6 fence on our first ever horse trial xc course walk, I nearly melted down and questioned every single decision that had led me to that point. 

For the most part, I've just pointed Isabel at these jumps and mentally checked out. Completely frozen, holding on for dear life. ESPECIALLY the first two-three times (again, there's only been a handful or so). 

But Isabel has taken it all in stride (or, as best she could given my death grip on the reins) and made it a drama free, and - dare I say - enjoyable experience. In fact, I can confidently say that Isabel has yet to meet a roll top she doesn't like. 

first time!!

2nd time - clinging to that mane like it's my job

roll top at our first horse trial!

(we are jumping it backwards in this more recent shot, but what the hell, i'm counting it anyway)

It's pretty clear in the first two pictures - especially that second time - that I am in 100% passenger mode. And not even a particularly helpful (or balanced!) passenger. But Isabel's ears are pricked and happy exactly the same as when we nailed the fence in the last photo. 

Good good good mare! This is why she is my shining star :) 

tracking apps for riding

Let's talk about technology for a moment. To start, I read about an app on The Reeling last year and used it a handful of times in December 2013. So this isn't really a review, per se, as I haven't really used it at all since (plus the app has had at least a face lift - and probably other updates too since my last time using it...).  

But a couple bloggers recently wrote about tracking apps and technology (looking at YOU Equestrian Journey and $900FacebookPony!), and it reminded me how much I enjoy data. 

home screen

So essentially, I'm interested in getting a better grip on the numbers behind our rides, and am curious to know what's available to this end. Since I've only ever used EquiTrack, here's a quick breakdown of what this app offers. 

Isabel's profile from My Stable

There are a few different apps out there, and perhaps some of them are free (this one is not), but this is the one I have used. It's pretty straight forward: you create profiles for each horse you ride and for each new ride, you pick the horse and training program (or just click 'start' to default to 'freestyle'). Then get riding!

ride history

I never used any of the training programs so all my rides are categorized as 'freestyle.' This suits me just fine lol. This app tracks history for each horse's rides - with a quick view like above, and then you can go into each ride for full details. I'm not totally sure about the 'Energy' and 'MyCals' calculations, but the rest of it seems pretty neat. 

map of a trail ride

It also maps the ride using GPS. This can be pretty cool for trail rides... 

less useful map of an arena ride

But kinda silly for arena rides. All the same tho - it's cool to see exactly how many miles we traveled in endless sandbox circles lol. You can also tell from this arena pic that the GPS isn't always exactly spot on (no we did not jump the arena fence), but it seemed pretty close. 

(Also - I seem to remember that the gps could glitch a bit if I received an incoming call... not sure if that's an issue specific to this app, or anything relying on gps).

ride details

The full ride details view can be edited to note ground conditions, and there's a free-text notes section where you can type whatever you want. 

It also captures top and average speeds, and distinguishes between total time and ride time. I think the difference is the 'ride time' clock stops if you're standing still? Not totally positive tho... And again, the 'equi energy' and 'my calories' are based on some calculation that may or may not be dubious lol. 

continuation of ride details

The notes section is pretty neat - and this was where I tried to keep track of what we did in our rides in my pre-blog life... There are a couple real winners in there, like the time I noted that we even managed to jump a cavaletti in the arena going towards the gate without losing our minds!!! ... ahhh memories... Ooh, here's another fun time: 

yea idk what that dog walker was thinking either...

In any case, I definitely would like to get back into the habit of tracking my rides again - esp since I already have this app installed... but not quite sure how to reconcile it with getting people to take videos on my phone... maybe I need a second device??? lol #firstworldproblems

Do you use anything to track your rides? Is your app horse-specific, or more generalized? Maybe more importantly, does it work for you?

random ruminations

Updates to come on other things later. For now: a quick snippet of recent observations

• Isabel will no longer eat peanuts. I thought this was the most genius treat idea evar, and was thrilled when she initially showed interest. But the charm is broken and princess is finished with them. (In fact - if you try to give her one, then follow up with, say, a sugar cube, she will be highly suspicious lol)

sigh. it was good while it lasted! 

• People leave the tack room door open and then wonder why there are cat scratches on their saddles. Guys. C'mon. It's common sense. The tack room is warm and cats are drawn like magnets to the exact location you'd least like to see them (ie, your expensive saddle seat).







• I impulse bought the iron/champagne pipers that were recently on clearance. I LOVE the color, and maybe figured out my initial problems with my first pair: These pants need to be worn a couple times before they relax and break in a bit. They feel solidly 'meh' at first, but now I love and wear both pairs often. So I think it's just a matter of giving them time.

i believe we are mid dolphin-leap in this pic, but it's a nice shot of the pants!

• The other night my hair was still in a braid from earlier and I figured I'd leave it like that for a quick evening ride - rather than take out the braid and do my typical hunter hair. HUGE mistake. Ughhh. My hair was all up in my face and it was miserable. Hairnets, folks. Every time. 

That is all :)

december's 10 questions

L. Williams is at it again!

1. What size horse do you prefer to ride? I typically feel best on something around 16hh. Isabel is a bit small-ish, as I had trouble seeing distances on shorter horses... but now I'm pretty used to her way of going lol. 

Lad-sized horses are good!

2. Do you school in tall boots or half chaps and paddock boots? Both - depending on what I'm doing or wearing, ground conditions, or my mood. If we're going into the woods or the ground is really muddy, paddock boots are a no-brainer. But I like riding in tall boots too - and just picked up a schooling pair to give my show boots a break. 

3. What do you do with your ribbons after shows? My mom has the year-end tricolors I won the one and only summer I was fabulously successful in a show series (yay for sparse attendance in adult divisions at schooling shows!). 

I used to hang Isabel's ribbons on her stall... but some barn mates apparently felt that was too competitive (which is definitely NOT my intent!) so I took them down. Now they're in a box in the trunk of my car getting wrinkled lol. 

i just thought it was pretty...

4. Do you ride/board at a large show barn or a small private barn? Isabel's barn houses <30 horses and a busy lesson program. Past events include closed-barn shows, combined trainings, trail challenges, and one variety show that included games, barrels, and a terrifyingly misguided gambler's choice jumpers class (who on EARTH decided to give lesson kids two minutes to rack up as many points as possible by jumping random fences willy nilly?). So... long story short, it's a medium sized barn - tho only 3-5 of us go to outside shows. 

OF, on the other hand, is a large eventing barn that's home to a few seriously competitive riders (including Maryland Hunt Cup riders - how cool!). They host a yearly recognized event, and several starter and schooling type shows. 

5. Have you ever seen a horse give birth? Nope! 

6. What is your favorite breed? Most of my experiences are with TBs, and I expect that my first horse will be an OTTB (when that day ever happens...). Arabians are actually not particularly high on my list of favorites, but I'm clearly pretty fond of Isabel... so it depends on the horse, I guess.  

Gwenyth was a pretty cute Cleveland Bay, tho moderately spastic

7. Favorite tack brand? Not a clue! 

8. Would you ever buy used tack? Yep, pretty much 75-80% of my riding and general equipment is consignment (why pay full price for trailer ties when there's a perfectly serviceable pair for $8??). 

a combination of new and old here

9. Ever been on a carriage ride? Can't actually remember... maybe not?

10. How often do you go to the tack store? I tend to go in spurts, it seems. Maybe every other month?