q4 review (insert sad trombone noise here)

Ha. Ok. Let's review my 4th quarter goals, or what I refer to as "the adventure that was not." 

this does not constitute an adventure in my book

Obviously it doesn't take a genius to see that this quarter did not go as planned... Breaking my leg in October took me out of the action completely, with no reason to believe I'll be cleared for full capacity before the new year. 

Ugh. But let's take a look anyway. 

General:

• Start thinking more seriously about crack pot / pipe dream / highly unrealistic winter plans  Goal not met, but crossing it off the list anyway. I thought seriously, very seriously, about going to Aiken with Dan for an intensive week of clinics, lessons, and ultimately an event. This is not happening. Le sigh.
• Additionally, start thinking more seriously about crack pot / pipe dream / unrealistic plans for next year -   This one at least gets to stay on the list. However my plans for next year could take a very different turn from what I originally intended. We will see.
• Clinics! Audit allll the clinics!  We'll call this a win. I audited Stephen Birchall at Austen's barn and Boyd Martin at Loblolly Farm. Both were wonderful. I had also planned to attend a semi-local clinic with WFP, tho his serious injury obviously derailed this plan. Perhaps there will be further opportunities later?
• Consider what work needs to be done before winter doldrums set in  Also getting crossed off the list despite nothing actually happening. Winter doldrums are imminent and we got zero work done in anticipation of them. 
• Get Bali going in the lesson program again (sooner rather than later!) -  My injury couldn't have come at a worse time for Bali. 

bali needs all the help he can get

Riding:

• Dressage boot camp: lateral work, transitions (all of them, up down, within the gait, whatever), next first level type shit?  -  Nope. 
• Moar dressage lessons plz! -  Double nope. We had one lesson w C before our last event. Not really what I meant. Ah well.
• At least one more xc schooling? -  Oooh we actually did this!
• Contingency plans for evening lessons as darkness sets in -  The arena lights were fixed and are better than ever now (evidence here)!! But also Dan is gone for the season now so evening lessons aren't a thing anymore anyway. Womp womp.
• All the fall trail riding - I'm gonna call two trail rides a win. Bali here, and Izzy there.
• Fox hunting? -  Noooope.

early october was so promising. this was a bright spot

Competition:

• End competition season on positive note, regardless of if that means staying at BN or shooting for an actual honest-to-god legit N -  BOOM. We totally did this. It wasn't exactly the 'positive note' I hoped to hit, but we finished the xc phase of our last event feeling better than ever. 
• Dressage < 32 -   Nope.
• Clear stadium (putting this here even tho it makes me uncomfortable lol) -   Nope. Haha. Hahahaha. 
• Clear xc. We can doooooo it! - AW YISSS. 

pictured: positive note

So there ya have it. Rather than wallow in crushing disappointment that I'm still not healed, I'm taking solace in knowing that October started out very promising - we were on track to meet or surpass each of these goals. That's good enough. Accidents are accidents, ya know?

and tempting fate is tempting fate

But given where things currently are, I'm not making concrete goals for next quarter. My plans for getting more serious about dressage still hold, but I don't want to tempt fate by putting timelines on anything. For now and the foreseeable future, my #1 priority is recovering fully.

FCE's Gift DIY: Ribbon Shadow Box

On the off chance that any of you are still pulling together thoughtful and loving gifts for Christmas (or if you're just looking for display ideas for your burgeoning satin collection), I'm sharing the ribbon shadow box I recently put together for my mother.

Because my mother is the sweetest and most supportive soul ever, and said all she wanted for Christmas were framed photos of me and Isabel (particularly the shot of me untacking the mare from Loch Moy... my mom likes candids, what can I say?) and a shadow box with my ribbons.

Well mom, I can totally do that for you. Happily and with love. Here's how:

collect your materials!

First step was bringing the ribbons home from the barn, where they had been left piled in my tack room corner after coming down for the season (coinciding with blankets getting hung in their place for winter, boo). As an eventer, I don't have a very extensive collection,** but each ribbon is fairly rich in the memory department.

(**My collection certainly doesn't rival the impressive wall-fulls of other bloggers like Gingham, who managed to creatively decorate her entire tree with ribbons and still have scads left over!)

ribbons are neatly folded and labeled

Given that (and the fact that every single detail is documented on this here blog), I hadn't properly labeled any of the ribbons, so that became step two. They are labeled with my and Isabel's names, the show name, division, and month and year. Then the tails are rolled up under the clip.

it's recommended that you have a cat handy for emergency assistance

The shadow box was very conveniently on sale at Joann's, which I didn't even realize until we were checking out. Not bad! It's pretty straightforward organization-wise too, just a matter of playing around with the ribbons to see what pattern etc that you like.

I knew that my blue ribbon from our first ever Novice at Olde Hope would get top billing - not just bc it's blue, but also bc damn it's a pretty ribbon. The rosette isn't my favorite, but the floral streamers just really please me.

these proved more versatile than the big strip included with the box

The shadow box (which has velour backing) came with one long strip of adhesive velcro, but I found that these little velcro rounds were more useful. The ribbons aren't particularly heavy, so one round was good enough for each ribbon, and I adhered it to the metal clip in case my mother is ever inclined to take the ribbons out for a different purpose.

submit finished product for feline review

How you organize the ribbons is up to you. I had envisioned confetti or ribbon decorations or labels etc. But actually, I ultimately decided that the ribbons spoke for themselves. And there was enough color and sparkle (esp with the gold accents on so many of the ribbons) that no other decoration was necessary.

My second place Fair Hill ribbon got top placement bc that was the first horse show my parents ever attended (I didn't really start competing until moving away for college). They knew exactly zip zero about eventing, and hadn't even seen me ride in maybe 10 years. And it was at that event, watching me and Isabel gallop across a rainy cross country field, that it finally clicked for them - they understood what it was all about. And they LOVED it.

obvi it's gotta pass the sniff test

They also attended my event at Olde Hope, which I went to solo and stressed out by move-up nerves. It was really special having them there, especially bc the show venue is pretty close to home for them. They even came to the Oktoberfest Olde Hope event, despite the fact that I wasn't riding since I broke my leg the day before... Tho hopefully that won't be the first memory they associate with that farm name haha!

it only counts if the cat is impressed

Then the two MCTA ribbons on the bottom (both from Tranquility, since MCTA is awesome and pins dressage through 6th place in addition to final placings) are from Father's Day. It was another event I attended solo, and recall calling my step dad between phases to wish him a happy Father's Day, and chat with my mom a bit too. It felt poignant, esp as I couldn't talk to my father but felt his presence all the same.

The rest will carry less significance for my parents, but I love them anyway. The yellow and white MCTA ribbons in the middle left section are from Jenny Camp, where we had our redemption with an easy romp through their BBN course knowing full well that BN at Loch Moy was slated for the following weekend.

And that BN course challenged us, but our strongest dressage test to date secured our place in the ribbons (green mid right) despite xc penalties. Then, of course, the red ribbon in the middle right is from our home turf at OF - where we had a BLAST galloping across that xc course a week before our victorious move up to novice.

ta da!

Final step is to wrap it all up (carefully and with extra padding!) and tie a nice bow around it all. Hopefully my mom loves it!

What about you - have you done something like this for your ribbons?

a reader poll: helmet bling

So by now most readers (or readers since my last event in early October) know that I have a helmet camera. And it's awesome sauce - best present I ever bought myself ever, highly recommend! (And thanks Carly for sharing details about yours so I knew what to look for!).

(Also, for those of you into that kind of thing, the helmet cam label will direct you to posts with all the videos from the camera, typically events and xc schooling shenanigans)

a match made in heaven

Attaching the camera proved tricky and I ultimately purchased a One K skull cap (conveniently on sale at the time from Tack of the Day) so that the adhesive mount could be permanently affixed. So far, so good, right? But I didn't love the look of the brimless skull cap on me, so the last piece of the puzzle was a helmet cover.

i love the color. the competing logos tho? not so much

Turns out that finding a helmet cover in navy (without going the cu$tom route) was trickier than I anticipated. Finally tho, I found CO's covers online at Dover. Awesome. The color is perfect too. One problem tho - the pics online did not include that massive logo in bright silver stitching. And isn't it kinda blasphemous to have two different helmet company logos right next to each other?!? 

wild patch

So I began my search for some sort of patch to cover up the CO logo, ending with this crazy weird beauty from eBay (which, btw, that store has a zillion different awesome patches if you ever are inclined in that direction). As soon as I saw it online I knew it had to be mine. I mean, that wild mane, the tail flick, the mare glare and tossed head? It's Izzamonster!

cat for scale

But.... then I kinda got cold feet about it and never affixed it to the helmet. Idk. I kinda like a simple, universal and classic look - neutral colors and no logos when possible. So I colored over the CO logo's silver thread with black sharpie and called it good enough.

typical competition look. CO logo jusssst barely visible

Lately tho I've been rethinking it. The logo itself isn't really obvious ever in pics, and would the patch be that much different? And Isabel really truly is kinda a bad ass event pony, so maybe that patch would add to the picture rather than diminish or distract? Idk.

What do you think? Or do we need pics of what it could potentially look like?

Patch or No Patch?

TRM Hop: 12 Days of Christmas

In the spirit of the imminent holidays, Cathryn of That Red Mare organized another blog hop, this one with a seasonal (and musical) twist. She asks us to come up with a play on The Twelve Days of Christmas song, putting our own spin on it.

So obviously I had to play along too. Enjoy!

****************

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

Twelve treats for eating

Eleven statues neighing

Ten deer a-grazing

Nine geldings trotting

Eight grooms a-grooming

Seven mares a-jumping

Six kids up-downing

Five gleaming browbands

Four beating hooves

Three barn cats

Two loose ring bits

And an arab on her 'A' game :)

who wore it better?

Asking because I got to play dress up with and ride both horses!!!!!

i swear this is her happy face

See, my office had big budget cuts this year and, as such, announced that instead of a holiday party we would have a 4 hr long 'Town Hall Meeting.' Um, seriously ppl?!? But it was all a ploy - 30min into the meeting they said "SURPRISE - everyone gets the afternoon off. Go do something special that *isn't* just running errands."

So.... I rode the horses. On a weekday in daylight :)

'we go fast yes? we do the thing?!?' - isabel

And it will surprise exactly nobody to know that Isabel was a super star. She felt so so SO good! We only used half the ring  since they're in the process of putting in new footing (super exciting and likely the topic of a later post) but that was totally fine. It's not like I was trying to do coursework haha.

i'm on a horse! (also you can kinda see the area where the footing has been dug out)

Mostly we just talked about connection and bend and pushing from the hind end into the bridle. Plus she wanted to stretch a bit. Fine fine. Her left side is still more stiff, but my legs also weren't really... legging haha, so I didn't fuss about it.

I felt a bit loose, but not as much as expected. And it was actually due in part to too-long stirrups on my dressage saddle (personally I always feel more secure in a shorter jump-length stirrup anyway).

best mare is the best

And then before I knew it we were cantering a lap or two too, and it was fine!! Ahhhh what a good mare - she felt phenomenal and happy and stepped right into canter despite my tipping upper body (or maybe bc of it - we're moderately codependent when it comes to cues haha), and then actually gave me some nice-for-her canter-trot transitions.

EVIDENCE!!!!

Hard to explain how good that felt, guys. We were maybe only at it for 20 minutes, mostly walking on a loose rein. Nothing super hard or challenging, no fighting. Just enjoying each other's company and testing out which of *my* buttons still work bc all of hers appear perfectly intact.

Then it was on to phase 2 of the day: Balimurphy! And a continuation of my 'fake it til ya make it' plan: dressing him for success. A couple days ago I hit up the consignment store and snagged 4 new-to-me saddle pads for $25. Including my first ever actual proper dressage pad - in this lovely burgundy with silver braided piping and an interesting quilt pattern.

so who wore it better?!?

The pad's a little small but I am not particularly worried about that. What's interesting is that I thought Bali would be the obvious winner with this particular color - ya know, with the whole 'burgundy on a redhead' thing. But actually it doesn't pop quite as much on his coat as I expected, and I kinda like the color on Izzy too. What do you think?

that's one excited ottb lol

Regardless, I think Bali actually enjoyed playing dress up. Every time I go get him from his new field he's standing off completely alone like a little lost puppy. Probably good for taking his ego down a notch so he's less of an asshole to handle, but it's a tad pitiful.

Then again tho I think it makes him happy to come in and be fussed with. He was already MUCH better behaved for grooming than during our spa session over the weekend. (Tho we still had a conversation about whether shaking a hind leg in my general direction is acceptable. Short answer? No. Sill not acceptable.)

the only non-blurry pics i can get are his Eeyore faces

But he was more or less a gentleman for getting saddled up. This is a big deal since his behavior on the ground contributes just as much to scaring students as anything he does under saddle. He is a quick study tho, and I expect speedy improvement with his ground manners. Amazing how a consistent routine alone can fix so many problems.

he says that all this 'being a good boy'  nonsense is harder than it looks!

As far as his behavior under saddle? Brace yourself for a shocker: Bali was the most willingly forward he has *ever* been for me - even more so than our off property adventure at OF. His walk was immediately loose and big stepping - rather than needing 10 min to coax him forward.

In fact, homeboy was straight up feeling fresh. But good. Very good. Probably too much horse for a beginner, but a happy and willing horse. He didn't nap, kick out or suck back once - and I gave him ample opportunity by standing in the center or walking on loose reins chatting with Brita and Kaitlyn, then getting back to work. Typically he's hard to get going after a break, so that needs improvement. But for this ride? He was spot-on.

'wish i was eating my dinner right now' - bali

Canter was a tad too strong, but I'm taking partial responsibility given my weak core and legs. The brakes were (mostly) there tho. All in all I was very impressed with how tuned in and ready he felt. So he got lots of love and life savers and then got to dig into his dinner right after the ride. And I was left feeling much more optimistic about his chances in the program. Fingers crossed!

cats will always find something cozy to lay on. polos, jackets, whatever. they will find it

Riding with my friends again was also surprisingly gratifying. I've been coming out to watch them ride, and going to lessons with them, sure. But to actually *ride* with them... it was pretty great. I got winded quickly and will undoubtedly be sore haha, but whatever. It was totally worth it and left me feeling happier and more mentally refreshed than I've felt since October 24 :)

More Auditing: Boyd Martin Clinic

One of my goals for the last few months of 2015 was to audit all the clinics. Many of those goals became laughable after I broke my leg, but actually the clinic thing has sorta serendipitously happened. Most recently, I learned from Austen that Boyd Martin would be in the area teaching clinic-style show jumping lessons. So obviously I had to go watch too!

time to start teaching!

I think there were three total groups - from green beans (rider or horse) to more advanced. We saw the first and last splits, and everyone worked over the same exercises. Tho some grew in complexity (think shorter distances) for the more advanced groups.

this farm had all kinds of neat details. i particularly liked this old fire truck

The host farm was just stunning - gazebos everywhere and incredibly scenic vistas of Maryland farmland in every direction. Plus everyone was super friendly. Had I been in riding condition it would have been seriously tempting to actually join in on the lesson too.

But sadly I can't ride yet (soon!) .... which is probably for the best bc Boyd's exercises and style of teaching are similar to Dan's, but double the cost. Sooooo.... haha I'll stick with auditing for now (tho actually Dan's gone for the season anyway, womp womp).

horse weighs whether his intense desire to bite Austen's hat is outweighed by the consequences of said nip

Anyway, I didn't see any of the warm ups except for the final group of the day (two advanced riders), so idk if it was the same in each split, but Boyd was very hands off during this portion. Both riders warmed up on their own and it was interesting to see how they chose to do so. Particularly, both went through some similar exercises - canter to halt, then striking off in canter again on the other lead. And also testing the flying changes and some lateral work.

see the gazebo in the background? 

Once they were ready to jump, Boyd sent them through a set of three cavaletti on a bending line (the white lines at the bottom of the course diagram). They were spread farther apart for earlier groups (maybe 2-3 strides) and changed to 1 stride distances for the last group. Riders circled through until it was smooth and relaxed looking, and Boyd also took this opportunity to assess each rider's position. Particularly, he wanted to see a softer lighter half seat.

oxers were square and everything rode in both directions. you're gonna need a LOT of poles and standards haha

Next the group moved to the cross rail exercise, starting with just a line of two on the end to get the horse tuned in. Then the full serpentine line. Riders were supposed to "show the horse where to go" and start looking for their changes of direction early.

every split worked on some variation of this bending line exercise

The jumps themselves were not particularly large, and the distances looked pretty inviting - an easy 3 where they changed bend (only tricky if you had a longer-strided horse).

Boyd wanted an exaggerated but soft opening rein to cue for the changes of direction

Again, riders worked on this until it was smooth. A consistent theme was getting the horses to jump 'slower' - don't race off the ground. Boyd didn't want to see any sharp turns either.

big pets for a good boy!

He also wanted riders approaching the serpentine of cross rails (ridden in both directions) from a roll back left turn. The idea being that, whenever possible, riders should approach a fence from the opposite direction of the bend they will land in. This helps the horse jump straighter and is preferable to using rein aids for straightness over the fence, since rein aids can get the horse's head out of alignment mid-jump.

horse JUMPS

The course work itself was actually very straight forward - the outside line rode in an easy 4 (occasionally a 3) to a 3. Boyd introduced that line by having riders come in off the rail to just the end jump on a right lead and land with the idea of turning left back to the rail to loop back and catch the middle oxer to land right and repeat. A figure eight, essentially.

Particularly catching the end jump to land left (the jump pictured above, tho that pic is from a different exercise) proved challenging, as the jump was very close to the rail and corner and horses were anticipating a right hand turn, not left.

Another challenging turn was coming out of that same outside line, then turning sharply right to the red and white diagonal line. Boyd wanted to see smooth turns with riders looking early.

airy oxer on the diagonal. and gazebo, natch.

As mentioned previously, he also stressed the importance of not rushing the horse off the ground. He says horses jump best when they jump slowly (as in, move through the air slowly, not necessarily slow-paced). And when riders get too quick with their upper bodies it makes the horse jump faster too. That's obviously a good little nugget for me to remember lol.

A final sorta take away from him was: "Never be afraid to put the jumps down." The value in these exercises is not derived from fence height - it's the turns and speed and smoothness that's really important. Cavaletti or ground poles can help put you on the right track just as well.

So all in all it was a very fun clinic for me to watch - esp with the caliber of horses and riders participating. Super impressive! I'd also really encourage anybody to audit a similar clinic with Boyd too. Personally I'm not likely to fork over the cash to ride with him, since his philosophies and exercises match my current program with Dan and Trainer P so closely. But I always love hearing how different trainers explain similar concepts.