Stall Rest... Going Great

Ya'll... I have lucked into a life of few injuries. And I guess thank goodness for that because I don't do well with resting. Please stop reading now if you don't want to hear my SUPER FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS whine. 

Anyways, it's been a little over a WEEK since I sprained my ankle, and I am struggling. The ankle (generously using that term, it was really from digits to mid-calf) blew up like a balloon initially. Now that has subsided and the past two days have been a more concerning swelling - focused right over the probable injured deltoid ligament. Greatttttt. I've been doing some mobility exercises each day and my husband has done a few dolphin stim sessions (like electroacupuncture but without the needles). It will get there, it's just taking longer than I wanted, which, let's be honest, what I wanted was a full recovery in about 24 hours. 

Wednesday I went out and did a jumper show anyways. And it was great. When I missed to a fence and slipped the reins and then felt like I threw them away for the last few fences, Butterball actually jumped beautifully. OOOOOHHHH. I've been doing too much too stiffly with my hands. K. Got it. Next round went better. BUT when I saw the pictures Lisa Madren took along with some of the still shots from the videos, I was leaning right. Now I love me a good lean on the best of days, but I think I was protecting the left ankle. Alright. Not fair to the pony to go jump things while the left ankle doesn't have good mobility and strength. 

When we got home, Butterball flopped down for his midday nap that the trip had RUDELY caused him to miss. I love him. 

Seriously, you know I need a midday siesta...

Okay, so shouldn't go jump things and do two point and all that. But surely I can go trail ride.... so Friday we headed over to San Felasco. 

Getting cleaned up before leaving

I love this area with the quiet cushioned pine needles

DUCK!! There are still SO MANY trees down from Helene

Unfortunately I discovered that even worse than just having my feet in the stirrups and doing things was the motion of picking my stirrup back up after moseying along with my feet out. That mild inversion motion is really unpleasant with injured lateral ligaments. Boo. Butterball was fantastic for the trail ride though, done all in his snackamore. I didn't necessarily have brakes when we trotted and cantered, but I didn't super need them either. 

He was really wanting to spook at each trail sign, so I started a cookie for touching signs reward policy. By the end he was shoving his nose onto them then craning his head around. Hrmmmm that may backfire on me at some point. 

So that is the summary of my week of "recovery". Mostly written because I'm sitting in my house rather than out playing with my pony before work. 

January 2025 Wrap Up

 

	Ben	Butterball
Training rides	0	0
Lessons	0	5- 4 jump, 1 dressage
Hacks	0	2 bareback walk hacks, lots of walk hacks to start flat rides
Ground work, lunge, long line	4- 2 Equiband lunges, 2 ground work sessions	1
Flat rides	0	8
Conditioning rides	0	1
XC school	0	1
Shows	0	0

January was a month of a few big changes/decisions as far as horse keeping goes. Butterball got his hind shoes pulled at the beginning of the month. Then we switched to a new farrier the second week of the month. I consciously decided not to do much with Ben until we got him into his glue on composites in February. Instead we played a little bit on the ground. He LOVES the blocks that I learned from the cowboy who helped with Goggles. Not surprisingly, Ben is very, very in tune with his person, and being told exactly where to place his body and how to follow along brought him a lot of security. We marched all over the spooky parts of the property with him directly in line behind me but at a respectful distance. It was pretty neat. All I had to do was stop and he would immediately halt square behind me. Instead of needing to fully step back, a small pump of both arms backwards would have him backing up directly in line. He's gone over it before, but we marched right over the wooden bridge in line like that with the line loose and me not having to direct him in any way other than walking over it myself. 

He also did have two lunging sessions. One of those sessions I was trotting him through a bounce exercise I had set up for Butterball.  He rightly recognized that the bounces were set to canter and bounced himself through at the canter a few times; it was adorable. 

Ben and Butterball continue to go out during the day with three of the barn owner's horses, two yearling colts and a two year old filly. Occasionally the filly gets sick of the boys, but otherwise they are all pretty delighted to be together. It's really interesting to watch the older horses interact with the yearlings. Occasionally the yearlings get snapped at, but generally the lessons my boys give them are pretty gently reinforced and well received. 

Excuse us, do you happen to have cookies?? 

Butterball had a great month, albeit a slightly easier one than normal. He took the removal of his hind shoes completely in stride. In December we stopped using the Forestier jump saddle and switched him to Goggle's Custom Monte Carlo. He seems much happier, but it still wasn't a perfect fit. At the end of the month we had a saddle fitting with a British Master Saddler who came highly recommended. I ordered a new jump saddle from her and am getting the tree changed in a dressage saddle that I bought from Jen. Come March when the fitter comes back up from Wellington, I'm hoping we will be all set on the saddle front other than annual checks. 

We also met with a new dressage trainer and had one lesson which will hopefully be the start of every other week lessons. Towards the end of the month, in spite of a fall and a sprained ankle, it seemed like everything was clicking for us with some lovely jump schools. 

Looking ahead...

February started with our trip to Three Lakes. We're headed to a Majestic schooling show in the middle of the month. BB is seeing his new farrier for a second time. Ben is getting composites put on and will hopefully TRULY go back to work. 

Love this pony so much! 

Three Lakes Winter I

In spite of a markedly puffy ankle (mine, Butterball's legs looked great or I wouldn't have gone), Butterball and I headed down to Three Lakes on Saturday morning. If it had been a Majestic show I probably would've scratched and given my ankle the time it wanted. But, y'know, recognized entry fee + new venue + examination of the grading scale of sprains... Probably just a grade 1 given my low pain level (and for the record I'm not a tough horse person who doesn't feel pain, I'm a giant wimp)... All that led to the decision to give it a go but be prepared to scratch if I felt like I couldn't deal.

I love the one day format they do for Three Lakes horse trials: prelim, modified, and novice all run Saturday then training, BN, and starter all run Sunday. It's a smaller venue so this helps with parking. I had very civilized ride times, 11:37 for dressage, 1:51 for stadium, then 2:20 for XC. 

Butterball got his bath at 7 AM Saturday morning. We tested out the Farnam whitening shampoo I had bought after Majestic in December when I realized feathery white socks needed some serious help to not be yellow. Overall I was pleased with it. Then he got loaded up into his box stall with 1 flake each of orchard and alfalfa and a lot of Tifton. By the time we finished up the two-ish hour drive he'd finished most of his special hay. The nice part of the box stall is he can also clean it up off the floor. When we arrived they were directing parking with an ATV. They led us to the end of one row, directly facing the dressage arenas. We were also conveniently right next to a porta-potty and trash can. 

Dressage: 

Ordinarily I would've walked Butterball around a bit since it was a new venue. But I was trying to be kind to my ankle, so I left him on the trailer until we had about 40 minutes before our ride time. Right before I took him off, with some trepidation, I put on my boot. It zipped up over the puffy ankle, thank goodness. I'd brought paddock boots and half chaps. But if I had to resort to that I wanted a sign that said "I'm not being disrespectful I just can't get a tall boot on" (sort of along the lines of "I'm not an asshole I just am not from around here and didn't know this became a turn only lane"). The dressage rings were in view of the first few XC jumps and dressage warm up shared a whole tape fence line with XC. But fortunately Butterball gives few shits about that sort of thing. We warmed up with our soft trot-walk transitions and some baby leg yields and shoulder fore. He felt soft and pleasant. We took a short walk break (and found a shoe people had been looking for, no I don't stare at the ground while I'm riding, why would you assume that...). When the rider before us went into the ring I picked him back up and put him back to work. 

He was a bit up as we went around the ring the first time, but in true pony form it just took two loops around the outside before he was completely focused. Our test was overall better than last time, but the trot work wasn't quite as nice. The canter transitions were nice and prompt and softer than they have been at previous shows. He was a bit stiff in his neck and body after the walk work so the second trot serpentine didn't go as well as it could have, but other than that I was quite pleased. The scores mostly agreed with my assessment. Our right lead canter work was still the lowest piece, but we did pretty well for the left lead. It's interesting, I feel like with Ben I was rarely told something I didn't know in the comments. However, I've found the most recent test comments with BB pretty useful ie I didn't realize we were losing alignment in the right lead. It's also exciting to look at where we can be as we keep working on the pieces. With Ben so much of it was about his tongue out so it felt like there was little I could do to change things (which is actually incorrect, if we'd started with 10s then with the tongue we still would've had 9s...). 

Our final halt earned us a 6. I really need to sort out how to make that better. Unlike the rest of the work where I feel like I'm making pretty good progress, I stopped schooling halts because they were getting worse and worse the more I worked at it. More crooked, less immobile, etc. I did briefly start doing them in hand because pony rarely halts square. He is bendy and elastic and that is lovely in a lot of things, but doesn't make for a good halt. I could certainly return to trying in hand until I can get some help in a lesson. 

30.3, good enough for 3rd out of 12 

After dressage I put my feet up for a bit. My friend who was parked just a few trailers down stopped by "you're not taking off your boot at all today, are you?". Me: "absolutely not" 

Even in the boots you can tell the ankle is puffy. I'll spare y'all from the barefoot pictures 🤢. Plus as a very weird side note, twice in my life I've had random strangers ask to take pictures of my feet. Sooo not going to put them out there all exposed 😂

Stadium: 

Stadium warm up was a bit hairy. It was on a slope and in a relatively small area. They flagged the jumps to go uphill at least and were limiting the number of riders allowed in. The stadium course itself had a slope to it too, headed downhill from right to left in the picture. We did a few warm up jumps and then headed in. It was a weird round TBH. Examining his expression in the pictures, I think he is much happier than he was at Majestic in December. But we sure chipped to a few of them. But I think because he is happier and feeling better in his body he jumped the crap out of most fences even from the chip. When we first came in he was a bit lookier about things than I was expecting, so there was more forward energy to deal with, but not necessarily the productive bouncy uphill forward energy. We got a bit of a weird spot to 1, but he took the appropriate spot, I just didn't go with him that well. 

Two he was looky at and I was late to the balancing up - it felt similar to our XC lesson where I learned that if he has the appropriate balance he is waaaayyyy less looky. 

3 and 4 were okay

JT had warned me not to let him get rolling down the hill too much to 4, and I mostly followed directions. 

5 and 6 were again okay, they rode in a short 7 or a long 6. I knew we were going to do the short 7 so should've gotten the work done sooner in the line. 

8A we got deep to the base (and then he jumped the snot out of it again) and we did 3 in the 2, but JT had warned me it was a long 2, so I wasn't shocked, but was more than a bit annoyed with myself by this point. 

We finally got it together to ride a nice 8, 9, and 10. 

Finishing up strong over 10

My friend drove up to see us go and got all the media for us! 

Cross Country: 

We had driven down and walked the course Friday afternoon. Typically I would have walked it again Saturday morning, but y'know, the ankle. 

Something relatively close was burning on Friday, so it was hazy with little chunks of ash dropping. Fortunately it was clear on Saturday. But this is the iconic Three Lakes view that I reaalllly hope there is a gallop picture of BB in front of. 

My friend helped me get Butterball ready for XC and then we headed over to warm up. We let a few people head out before us because JT wanted us to have an effective half halt. We worked on it until I could gallop forward and then half halt enough to do a 10m canter circle on the grassy slope of the warm up area. Once we had that, we headed out of the box

1- straight forward and at least one height down from the max of the level, I think because there is so much to look at. I thought it was small and insignificant when I walked, but was grateful for it once we were going (as seen in the video above, he was a bit looky)

2- we were still finding our groove at this one

3- ramp

4- Bench, we were more on the same page starting at this one

5- water, but a bit of a spooky one, it was pretty reflective and there were things to look at. I did a decent job half halting and getting him back to a pace where he had some time to think. He was a good honest pony and splashed on through. 

6- table

7AB- half coffin. After 6 there was a right-hand turn into this treed area. I definitely could not find 7AB at first and took a good hard look at the BN 7 that was a little to the left of this picture. Eventually I found it. I did not half halt enough coming up to it, but he's a GOOD BOY and not ditchy and did it for me anyways. You'd think after sounding like a broken record here about half halting I would've fixed this sooner, but y'know. 

8- table. There were some people walking the course who pointed in the direction of 8 after watching me get lost on the way to 7. LOL. From 8 on he felt like he was jumping SO WELL. And I was consistently too conservative in my release as he was jumping that well though, I'm sorry bud. 

9- roll top 

10- small log stack at the top of a hill. There was a flat entrance to this crater thing and then it rose up around you. He jumped this great and the uphill helped with the balance. 

11- Brushy roll top, not meant to be a gallop fence though because...

12- down bank. I 10000% didn't half halt enough, but again, see above with the ditch, he is a GOOD BOY, and jumped right down. After seeing the majestic pics with my hands up as we went down the bank, I tried to shove them into his mane as he went down. 

13- Triple bar, right along the side of another lake. This was kinda spooky, but he was a very good boy. Then you turned left and galloped between the lake and another pondish thing 

14- Table - very good boy over this too

15- another water crossing. I think the bottom might've been funky in this one because he cantered in and then tried to slow almost to a walk. I didn't feel him slipping though, so maybe it was just close to the end and he was tired. 

16- Roll top after you galloped back across another raised road between the ponds

17- Wood pile, he peeked at this a bit, but WENT from the right spot, good boy!

18- Gate, a very upright vertical, so we were instructed to get our show jumping canter on here. 

19- Cabin, the final fence! 

There were A LOT of time faults in our division, but we finished 8 seconds under optimum time in spite of our zig zagging in the trees on our way to 7AB. This was good enough to move us up to first! It's kinda funny, I've never placed first in a recognized event before and there have been stadium rounds I've been way more proud of. In my head I always thought that people who won had it all together, but that is actually incorrect in my case. Anyways, disclaimer aside, we got a nice Three Lakes cloth bag, a belt, AND a photo frame and gift certificate towards a picture from the event, YAY! 

I made Ryan come out the next day and take pictures of the perfect pony. He said he wanted to document my ribbon with my ankle 😂

Personal Responsibility... For BOTH of Us

This post had about three different titles in my head while I drove home from my lesson on Thursday. Other options included "Wheels Off... And Back on Again", "It's All Adding Up", "A Little Sting to Make it Stick". In other words there were a lot of important lessons learned in one single jump lesson. Also, this is two posts in one day with the pre-scheduled post and then this word vomit. But this blog is mostly for my own reference and use, so getting these words down was important. 

We started with a soft, bouncy trot going into our recent fave jump with placing poles 9 feet on either side. My directions were to not squeeze him off the ground. I didn't and he did the tiniest school pony trot over the fence. I was told to give him a TAP on landing and kick him forward into a gallop away from the fence if he did that again. Got it! But then I completely dropped the contact. We paused and went over the directions again. I was to create a soft, bouncy trot to jump from and then maintain contact throughout the exercise, but it was his responsibility to get us over the fence. The first few were not cute, but after two TAPS on landing, he was taking me to the jump MUCH more convincingly. Cool! 

Then we moved on to stringing things together. 

Very obviously not to scale. I found it easier to hand draw than screw around in MS Paint now that I don't have a touch screen tablet

TBH I'm not sure what the gymnastic line was on the left. I think it was two strides between but each cross rail had a 9' placing pole at the base of it. You would think that meant I hadn't ridden through it, but I did, several times. The pink oxer is a brand new pink rolltop that is pretty spooky that we had done a few small circles around at the walk and trot during our warm up. The first time we headed towards it, I squeezed, but also leaned my shoulders at it. Aaaand suddenly found myself on the ground. I mean, not suddenly, it wasn't a dirty stop, there was plenty of time for me to do something else, but there I was. 

JT trotted over and caught Butterball who had only gone a few strides away. She asked me how I was, I told her I was unsure about my ankle but that it wasn't broken. After a few more minutes of sitting and contemplating life (and discussing how I leaned rather than keeping my shoulders back), I stood up and it felt OK. Not fantastic, but usable. So I popped back on and she dropped the rails over the offending pink oxer. She said "Lean back by a MILE" so I did, and wouldn't ya know it, pony popped right over. Somewhat in dramatic fashion, so we trotted back and forth until it was a non-event. Then we resumed the course, including adding in the direct 4 stride line to the oxer after the placing pole exercise. It all felt AMAZING, he was taking me over the fences and all I had to do was establish the proper canter. The distances were coming up so easily as well and we didn't chip at the base of anything. 

Nothing like a little sprain to really reinforce NOT jumping ahead (or leaning prior to jumping ahead). The sting in my ankle was a steady little reminder to keep my shoulders back. 

It felt like the lesson was the final piece to the work we've been doing recently to make sure everything is comfy and good in his world - the feet, the saddle, my position (for the most part). I had gone through a couple months of feeling like I had taken him a few steps back in his training - he was so EASY to jump when I bought him, why was I feeling like I had to push for every stride and every jump even as his canter was getting stronger and stronger. I think one part of this was that he was the obvious winner in the comparison to how it felt to jump Goggles. But another part was that I was used to micromanaging every stride, and he was happy enough to acquiesce to not going unless I was pushing. But he's a really clever pony, so once we were sure he was comfortable in every way, it was time to remind him that his part is getting us over the fence in a pleasant fashion. MY job, reminded by my ankle, is to create the canter, keep my damn body still/back as we approach the fence, and then press my hands into his neck over the fence. 

The most civilized posed picture I've managed to take of these two

Weekly Reservations

As a follow up to my 2025 reservations post I had typed a rough draft of this post prior to Emma's post regarding goals. After reading that I realized that this post pretty closely aligned with the "process goals". The actual foundation that leads up to showing up to those competitions. Emma's post and the blog posts linked to in it did prompt me to think about what did I want to have as my focus while proceeding through each week. That distinction keeps this post from being more along the lines of a horse version of my annual "Getting it Right off the Horse" post. 

So first we'll zoom in from those grand competition goals* to the weekly nitty-gritty. Ideally each week with Butterball would consist of: 

- Jump lesson with JT, usually a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio of stadium to XC lessons over a 4 or 5 week period

- 1 hour bareback walk hack with serpentines through ditches and other terrain questions. This day also involves some footing questions with a mix of pavement, soft sand, hard sand, rocks, etc 

- Fitness day- currently we're at 20 minutes trotting then 3 x 3 min canter, but we will be upping that to 3 x 4 min canter soon

- Dressage lesson OR at home cavaletti work with a 30 minute walk hack to warm up

- Dressage school at home with a 30 minute walk hack to start

- Lunge in Equiband for 23-25 minutes (10 at walk/halt, 10 at walk/trot, couple minutes each way with trot/canter), some weeks incorporate another bareback walk hack to start 

The weekly plan helps us get to those competitions in two ways. First I have always believed that a good amount of walking is the best way to keep a horse sound. And I'm not alone in that belief. So the weekly plan incorporates a lot of that, done over as much varied terrain as possible. Which involves the ditches on the side of the roads and occasionally trailering out to actual (Florida style) hills. Hacking out also helps with desensitizing Butterball to things that might come up at shows - we encountered two flags on a fence noisily flapping in the breeze the other day and had the opportunity to very slowly acclimate to them. He's also learned about open trash cans and now wants to shove his face deep into each one, I think because they smell like food. Culvert openings were another thing that were initially deep dark holes of doom and now are a-okay to him. Second, each week includes instruction and a jump school to keep us heading in the right direction under close guidance. 

As far as my internal focus for each week or month, I liked L. Williams approach from way back when of having a specific position goal each month. It is impossible for me to focus on everything at the same time all the time, an idea JT verified at one point early on in our relationship when I asked "but what about X position fault" and she essentially told me slow down young grasshopper you can only take instruction on one or maybe two things at a time. In that vein, I was amazed at how well Butterball started going when I just focused on keeping my body still and centered and keeping him soft through the down transitions. While I'm not sure I can concretely put each weeks or months focus on the blog because it's going to change based on what is most relevant at the time, I am concretely going to resolve that if he starts doing weird things or not going well on the flat, rather than micromanaging him and picking, I'll examine my own position and aids first. Then I'll take it back to the basics of good, soft transitions and a steady tempo. 

*Grand competition goals = showing up at those specific competitions and finishing on a number, but even the showing up part is sometimes out of my hands because horses are horses