I must admit - there are few things I look forward to every holiday season quite like Tracy's Equestrian Blogger Gift Exchange. No joke, this is like, a serious highlight for me. And I've been vigilantly keeping watch on the parcels arriving at my apartment building for weeks now.
such a pretty card!
And finally (I say "finally" bc I'm basically an over-eager child when it comes to expectations lol), finally - I got home from a stupidly long work day of commuting to far off states to find a parcel waiting for me! By none other than West Coast blogger Susan Friedland-Smith of Saddle Seeks Horse!!
d'aww, gotta love that bay ottb camaraderie!
And Susan, undoubtedly with the help of her wonderful OTTB Knight, assembled quite the holiday package for us!
omgosh that's a lotta stuff!
I especially loved that every piece had its own post-it note card to go along! Tho alas some became detached from their original parcels in transit... but.... It wasn't too hard to figure out which went where lol.
socks notecards and coozies!!!
Of particular note are these amazing Lettia fox hunting socks - one of my favorite brands and a very fun design to boot! Charlie and I continue to have ambitious fox hunting plans (one day!) and these suit me exactly!
so freakin cute tho, right? also do i need a green hunt coat now????? #importantquestions
As do these adorable fox hunting motif note cards, complete with stickers from Hunt Seat Apparel!
omg tho. omg these are too perfect for my group of drinking buddies who also have an eventing problem!
Rounding out that bunch are a pair of beer coozies that I think Susan just threw in as extra gimmes... but..... Well. Let me tell ya, gurlfriend, these things are awesome.
Be Resilient. Like an OTTB. Yasssss. That's a motto I can get behind! As, I suspect, can all of my friends, when we supplement our drinking habits with the occasional cross country school and event!!
it's a reflective LED breast plate tho!!!! brace yo'selves for the inevitable pictures of charlie lighting up ye olde night skies!
But that wasn't the end of it either! There's also a Cowboy Magic detangler sample - a product I've purchased in the past and will absolutely purchase again in the future. AND. Perhaps one of my favorites of the bunch - this hyper reflective, LED-laced breast plate. OMG. And it has charging cables for the LEDs OMG. I literally cannot wait to dress Charlie up in this haha.
Bc obviously I have safety concerns with a very dark and very sketchy driveway we navigate every week night (did I tell you about the time a bunch of teenagers driving a four wheeler way too fast with no lights almost hit us? No? ahhh.... fun horrifying times....). Plus we wander through woods abutting hunting grounds. So. This is mightily useful. And also something excellent to dress the old man up in lol.
aaaand, naturally, some local heart throb flavor du jour. Susan knows what's up haha
And, speaking of the "Old Man," can we just talk about this "Hot Horseman" on the cover of the magazine Susan included?????
Yea.... Susan knows what's up hahaha ;)
Thank you so much, Susan!! Wishing you and Knight a very merry holiday! And thank you Tracy, of the Printable Pony, for hosting my favorite equestrian blogger gift exchange every year!!
Last February we introduced Charlie to the concept of "free jumping" as a means to help him better understand how his body operates in space relative to fixed-position objects like jumps. It was.... an interesting experience, and my post documenting that endeavor went by the alternate title of "Big Trees Fall Hard" (among others haha).
his herd moved to their winter field complete with round bale. all the horses are too excited about the rested grass tho to eat the hay, and have been wayyyyy back in the farthest reaches of the pasture every time i go to get charlie. he seems happy!
But he's come a long way in the last year, helped along by the fact that this horse really does seem to like jumping. So when my weekly jump lesson (moved inside from snowy ground conditions, boo) turned into a private, I was actually really excited for us to do some grid work reminiscent of that free jumping exercise all those months ago.
he was very sorry to leave his herd too haha, as evidenced by all his pitiful whinnying. he's got a very special sort of whinny bc of his tie back surgery, and i tried to catch it on video. only got the tail end but it's still kinda funny/cute to hear lol.
also i love how this farm is legit like 35 miles from baltimore city and yet there are still sirens in the background haha.
He warmed up a little blah and lethargic and behind my leg - but no real temper tantrums. My theory that the dressage saddle is a culprit of many of our recent dinosaur moments seems likelier and likelier. The jump saddle fortunately is still apparently in Charlie's good graces. Thank god! Hopefully that'll be confirmed by the fitter soon enough too.
also happy to do the jompies thing again!
And anyway, even without a sour attitude, Charlie's never really able to soften and give his best trot until after a little bit of canter. Which is where we end up in trouble when he's feeling sour - he's got to canter to feel better, but doesn't want to canter. Tricky balance!
But once he canters the world is ok again. As was the case in this particular ride, where he actually just went right on along with his business and warmed up and got to work the best he has in recent memory. Good boy!
not sure i'll ever not love this horse <3
We kept the warm up simple bc gymnastic exercises are taxing enough on their own. We trotted through some ground poles / cavalleti on the center line a few times (wherein Charlie almost got us killed just once by being distracted), then moved on to the skeletons of the grid to be built along the arena's long side.
one of his last trips through. i don't think he'd ever get tired of doing this haha
It started as just ground poles, then the middle element raised to a cavaletti sized vertical, then a second element also raised, then all three. Ridden a couple times in each configuration from both directions. Eventually they were all raised a little more, and the final element became an oxer (maybe around 2'3ish or higher, it's hard to tell lol).
Lather, rinse, repeat. We just trucked on through again and again. Little breaks occasionally in between, tho not too many breaks bc Charlie would sometimes forget how to horse if we let him sit too long lol. Like when he jumped through and just clobbered everything. C'mon buddy! Lift them legs!!
As far as I was concerned, this reeeeally felt like the perfect lesson as our second time back jumping things again. Charlie got to remember niceties like holding himself up and compressing his step and keeping a balanced pace.
ooooooh now this is an interesting development! fun fact: there weren't any stirrups on it when i went to hop up after the lesson to try it out. can you visualize me trying to hoist my ass up into a high-cantled dressage saddle on giant brontosaurus charlie from a too-short mounting block, with nothing to help except for a plastic jump riser used for a little extra height on top of the mounting block?? can you see that in your mind's eye? bc.... wow i'm sure it was a sight to behold haha. my hips might never be the same again lol
Meanwhile I got to focus on all those simple fundamentals that often get forgotten when otherwise careening around a course. Like: Keeping my legs down under me, pushing my hands forward, and asking nothing else of the horse other than straightness and forward. Letting the grid do all the rest of the work for me.
And go figure, when I helped with the straightness Charlie was likelier to land on his correct lead. He even landed on and jumped from both leads somewhat regularly, as opposed to avoiding that left lead like the plague. More evidence that the dressage saddle contributed to that issue....
happy tired pony post-ride <3
Much like that ground pole session we did last week, this was the perfect opportunity to just let the exercise kinda school Charlie, instead of me needing to manage every step. Definitely useful for both of us as we knock the rust off!
And anything that helps Charlie remember how to use himself better over fences has gotta be a win, right? Mostly tho I'm just so thrilled with how easy it felt for him (even some of the oopsie moments lol) and how happy he was to just keep on going and going and going.
Even tho he was definitely super duper tired by the end (he practically fell asleep standing in the arena after I hopped off), he never got grumpy about repeating the exercise. And kept trying the whole time. Yessss :D
Gotta love those gymnasties, right? Do you use grids in schooling? Does your horse love them as much as Charlie? Or maybe you're one of those who hates them, or has a horse that's stressed out by all those poles all jammed together? Is your horse super careless like Charlie or a little more... impressed by stuff like this?
Hello, my name is Emma. And I ride a capable, if slightly careless, thoroughbred named Charlie. My friends also ride very capable thoroughbreds. And together, we occasionally make somewhat ambitious plans.
behold: christmas spirit incarnate!
also, this pic is from post-ride, note how loose the hackamore noseband got through the ride.... womp
Such as how we've been planning for weeks to go cross country schooling this past weekend. Either at some sort of typical venue -- or somewhere in Western Maryland that has all-weather cross country arenas.
friends with ribbons tooo!
Alas, holiday scheduling got in the way of that, so we had to make due with a humble trail ride.
Birdie was highly skeptical of the bells lol
But. Ya know. "Humble" is a relative term.
three amigos!!! and damn but charlie looks giant.... he and Birdie are supposedly the same height but.... yea he's massive
And I woke up that morning feeling like.... Ya know. Sometimes, when all else fails, why not manufacture some real holiday cheer??
"hello, yes, Bella - i luv you" -- Charlie
So I stopped by the neighborhood pharmacy and picked up some bells and ribbons. And told Brita and Rachael to "Brace Yo'Selves" bc Christmas was about to go down lol.
jingle jingle jingle!
Luckily all parties were on board and happily pulled out some last minute color coordination. Subtle, ya know?
bc bells, obvi
And of course the horses were happy for the diversion no matter what. Naturally none of them have done much in the way of "outings" recently, and trail rides aren't exactly new for any of them.... but the bells and snow definitely added a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole thing.
horses were happy setting off in the snow
So off we went! Three Two saucy sassy thoroughbreds and Charlie!
and omg, that Riley puppy, wow, she was HAPPY
And, obviously, one Riley dog. Bc damn that dog is like an essential ingredient in all of our trail riding.
just look at that dog tho lol
No joke - if you've never hacked out with an energetic exuberant golden puppy, you're seriously missing out. And nothing - and I mean nothing - breaks a horse to dogs better than a golden (or huskies, for that matter {nothing beats a good sonka dog <3}). Highly recommend!
oooooooh but crossing the ice-covered stream was EXCITING too!! you'll have to watch the video for the full effect haha
Rachael's mare Birdie was seriously lit up (she hauled in for the day and had never seen any of these trails) and was happiest leading the way for most of the ride -- except for the above stream crossing.
What a funny moment! Poor brave Bella drew the short straw for blazing this particular trail, and set one hoof on the ice then LEAPT across when the ice broke. Charlie was second bc he's also seen this crossing multiple times, and Bella in all her leaping hadn't sufficiently broken up the ice.
some areas tho were fully cleared of snow
Luckily Charlie did not murder me, and actually stepped through nicely enough to chop it all up. And Birdie more or less happily followed the other two horses. Made me wish I had my helmet camera on tho, bc I certainly wasn't brave enough to hold my phone up to record it!
the woods were more mixed
The horses also had another tricky section of trail to contend with later on: a fairly broad natural ditch, more like a gully. Birdie led the way there and stepped through like a civilized being. Tho Bella and Charlie both had to jump it. Sliiiightly nerve wracking but damn these are good horses!
charlie's bow <3
For the most part, we just wended and wound our way through the woods - trying to make it last. The ringing of our bells was maybe the sweetest most cheerful sound I've heard in a long time, and it made me so happy to try to capture moments of that - including when we trotted/cantered across a field border.
For that reason alone, I hope you watch the video. If for nothing other than to hear the bells!
lol tail queens (and king)!
Obviously it would have been nice to actually go cross country schooling too... But. Ya know. This was a pretty solid alternative.
gotta love it, right?
And anyway I think Charlie was a little tired and sore from his lesson on gymnastics the day before (post coming soon!), so a low key trail ride was the perfect antidote for him.
the horses in the next field over were highly suspicious of our bells lol
We finished the ride with two wonderful sections of moving the horses out - once along a soy bean field where we mostly just trotted (in the video). But also again once we got into the cross country fields, we just let 'em go!
thanks Brita & Bella for handling all the gates!
Charlie, ever the gentleman, just ambled along in a polite canter. Spooked a little bit at the dog running up on the same side as those blasted bells banging into his shoulder.... lol.... But mostly just cantered right on along!
heading back to the barn quite satisfied, still jingling obvi lol
Which is good for me, bc this DIY hackamore noseband turns out to not be quite sufficient for the pressure I exert on it with Charlie, compared to Izzy. It's a suspender clip from the local crafts store - and after every 2-3 rides I'm finding it reeeeeally loosened up. It might be time to put a buckle on that after all.
and it was all repurposed as stall decorations!
That's for a later date tho. For now? I'm just enjoying having spent a wonderful, cheerful, and musical morning with buddies dashing through the snow around our farm :)
Do you ever like to take holiday spins with your horses? Or dress them up? Have you ever used bells like this? Did you love it just as much? Or was your horse like Birdie - no bells allowed?
It's been hard to feel inspired taking pictures lately bc.... well.. Everything is so... brown. The horse. The walls around the horse. The floor below the horse. The mud on the blanket on the horse. Everything. Brown.
skeptical brown face is skeptical
But I swear - for all my moaning and groaning about hoping to one day maybe get to do fun stuff with my horse again, we are in fact actually currently doing stuff too. It's just not super duper amazing exciting stuff, and is barely even made colorful by all these accompanying brown photos.
by jove, that's an open air arena! what on earth happened to the wall?!?
Mostly tho, we've just been schooling the most fundamental of stuff. Like, not even "dressage" fundamentals. Just.... riding horse fundamentals. Walk, trot, canter, steer. And. Uh. Yea I've started riding with the neck strap again bc sometimes the ride gets a tad bumpy.
if you just went by the mirror tho, it wouldn't look any different. just.... brown.
Charlie's a very communicative horse tho. Which is a double edged sword. Sometimes I just wish he was a little tougher.... but then again it's honestly maybe possibly a little bit preferable sometimes to have a horse who tells you (clearly, so clearly) when something is buggin him.
behind that majestic horse tho, and behind that mirror... yup. that wall done got torn down!
Something is currently clearly buggin Charlie. And it's not just knockin the rust off or the residual creakiness that came from being on stall rest so long. It's not because he's lame. So next on the docket is equipment failures. You may recall this time last year I made the discovery that my oh-so-fancy anatomic leather girth was apparently the thorn (literally) in Charlie's side. And when I switched to a fuzzy girth, many many of our dinosaur-in-tar-pit moments went extinct.
this skeptical brown pony who would like to know wtf i'm doing taking pictures when clearly the wall is gone
My current hope is that we'll alight on some similar discovery this time too. Everything is on the chopping block. I've grown suspicious of the dressage saddle in particular, so that's on an unpaid leave of absence until the fitter can look at it and either deem it fixable for Charlie or a total loss. At this point, I'm actually planning on replacing it either way - unless the fitter reeeeally likes it.
horses outside The Wall proved to be very upsetting. unclear why.... i blame that fresh clip for letting the sillies in
The fitter will also take a looksie at the jump saddle too - which may be more easily adjusted for the horse given it has wool flocking. If she declares that a total loss tho, Charlie will be for sale.
.
.
.
.
.
Lolz just kidding haha. Maybe. Haha. I really like this saddle tho..... But I digress. My point is that everything in Charlie's universe is currently under inspection. Since we already know he's the type of Prince to feel a Pea under 20 Mattresses, nothing is too insignificant during this review!
intermission from the all-brown-all-the-time pictures for a little colorful course diagram. keep in mind this arena is 20x40m, and yes those poles are just as close to the wall as they appear. turns are tight, lemme tell ya.
And in the meantime I just try to keep him working with me as best he can. As in the past, ground poles prove excellent in this regard. He still kinda hates me and thinks I'm terribly unfair to ask for canter like, ever, but can reconcile himself enough to the idea when there are ground poles involved.
This particular arrangement (left behind by lesson kiddos) was particularly useful in it's simplicity. I just did figures of 8 over the diagonal poles again and again and again - which, as you might imagine, necessitated many simple changes of lead. Currently Charlie's bugaboo - but again, once he was in the zone of the exercise, he could maybe concede to just pick up the new lead with minimal drama.
how many shades of brown do you think there are in the world?
The bending line exercise was particularly challenging for us bc it wanted a small enough canter to make the turn to the diagonal rail, and a small enough canter to make that 10m half circle turn at the end. Plus since I continued going in the same direction as I started, that bend in the middle actually hinted slightly at counter canter.
We needed the bend too tho bc the distances (measured undoubtedly for ponies) were tough. The four was probably spot on - but way too big a step for lumbering bronto Charlie to make that 10m half circle immediately after. The five was actually right there for us on the right lead, but nowhere to be found on the left lead. Further evidence that we've lost adjustability on that lead.
charlie doesn't care, so long as i hurry the F up with his treat delivery, plz!
So actually a pretty good exercise for where we are right now in regaining fitness. Just technical enough to call us out when our pace was wrong or we were strung out, but also simple enough that the horse could easily understand when he executed it well.
Little rides like this are honestly mostly what we need at this point. Opportunities for me to sorta sit back and guide the horse, with the walls and ground poles serving as "natural aids" in a way. So the exercise itself is clear enough to the horse that he can just get on with being a good boy without questioning what I'm asking every single step (ugh).
Considering the current icy state of the ground.... I guess this type of ride will have to suffice no matter what lol, so we might as well make the best of it! Tho I did learn on this particular evening that the lonnng driveway between the arena and barn is miiiighty sketchy when it's icy.
Charlie slips exactly as much as you would expect a careless oaf like him to slip. Plus for whatever godforsaken reason, leaving the arena (with me on foot - no death wish here!) he got a major bee up his bonnet upon spying other horses through the torn down wall omg and spent the whole walk spooking and snorting and slipping down the icy driveway.
People always tell me that he must be so much happier in his new life post-track. And that ammy horses really have it the best bc of all those fancy supplements and body work sessions and primping and pampering.
the face of joy? or.... suffering? lol don't answer that
I'm not fully convinced Charlie agrees with all that tho, lol.
yea.... that's a freshly bathed neck. in freezing weather. sorry buddy!
As evidenced by his shocked - shocked - reaction to me spot-bathing him with a wash rag last night. He kept trying to tell me, "Emma - it's actually literally freezing out right now, are you friggin crazy??"
dressed for success tho, right?? the butt sticking out is all the rage, i'm told
Alas, Charlie.... some things just have to get done no matter the weather. And at least I used hot water!
and in case it's not totally obvious, that's my quarter sheet wrapped around his neck lol...
His herd had just changed fields the day prior and apparently there must have been some extreme running around bc Charlie was crusted in dried sweat from eyelid to asshole, I shit you not. Plus, ya know, it had been a while since he had a bath anyway so his coat was pretty cruddy despite my constant vigorous grooming efforts.
it actually worked quite well tho and he was dry in no time
On one hand, I honestly think the horse secretly adores all this hands-on attention (especially since it did not result in being tacked up (a story for another day) or ridden). And naturally there were many bites of carrots involved. Tho he maybe did not love the heavy focus on his belly and girth area.... it needed cleaned tho, buddy, I swear!
it helps that all the barn's winter windows have been installed, they make a HUGE difference!
And all for a good cause too. You see, I don't have my own clippers and am honestly pretty fine with just paying someone to do the job. Especially at our previous h/j barn, the barn mgr there was an expert groom and getting the horse clipped was an easy peasy add-on to board. Plus he looked fantastic.
so handsome <3
Which was fine by me, since last year was my first time with a horse who needed it anyway (Isabel never got clipped, hardy beastie that she was). Charlie's neck and girth area always get very sweaty very quickly even in light work, and that's a huge pain in the ass to dry off before blanketing. Clipping is the easiest way to address that, as far as I'm concerned.
tho maybe slightly world-weary lol
It's turned out to not be quite as easy as just "adding it to my board" at the new place tho, and actually was a little difficult finding someone to even do the job. Finally tho, we got it done. And hopefully Charlie's impromptu late-night spot-cleaning session kept my friend's clippers in relatively decent shape!
And. Now that the big guy is all clipped up like the little sport horse he's intended to be, maybe we can get back to doing more and more fun stuff! ;)
