Rage Quit

It was a good thing we'd had a great lesson on Wednesday AND that I was sitting next to my coworker who walked me through the process. Otherwise the combo of learning Eventpass and a new Show Management System might've been enough to make me stick to unrated shows and recognized eventing. But we fought through and I *think* I am entered in the December HITS. Sadly we are not doing hunters. Turns out PW doesn't want to be embarrassed by me and thought we should do some ticketed schooling BEFORE we entered actual classes. To the best of my knowledge ticketed schooling, that means you pay a fee (a mere $30 at WEC, but WAIT you have to be entered in the show and have paid all the misc fees to do a ticketed schooling, so $30 is a bit deceiving) to go jump around the jumps that you will be showing over, typically while other people are in the ring and on the Tuesday before classes start on Wednesday. So $267 of entry fees + $80 of my USEF membership + $300 for BB's lifetime USEF registration and we're golden to go to HITS in December and do 4 jumper classes over 2 days. The actual entry fee isn't bad for 4 classes, so now we've just got to play a bit more in jumper land this year to make the USEF memberships worthwhile. 

Anyways, back to the lesson and away from the finance (and patience) breakdown. I think this lesson was FINALLY where it clicked, what so many trainers have now told me in different ways. He needs to have enough pace so that I'm not doing much the last few strides. It is FINE if I need to add a bit of spur to support him for the longer spot. But I SHOULD NOT be chasing the last few strides. We got that in lines a few weeks ago working on dividing them into two halves with the GO-2-3-4 and then assesss-2-3 in a 7 stride line. But the feeling hadn't really happened for singles until Wednesday.  

It wasn't a super pretty lesson TBH and my position went out the window a couple of times. But we jumped all the things and all the lines on stride the first time.

Progress, slow and steady. 

His level of dedication to not peeing in the trailer, good boy

This was 1.05m. PW commented that he jumps even better as the jumps get bigger. I was actually physically tired from this lesson, which isn't normal for me. But the effort BB puts in over the bigger fences means I am having to do more in an *attempt* (often failed obv in the video) to maintain my position. 

This and That

Butterball and I joined Ms. GY at Sweet Dixie on Saturday morning and had the best time. I used the lessons from earlier that week with PW and didn't drop him, no matter what the distance. My friend came as our ground crew too and pointed out NOT letting him lengthen into downhill fences was helpful. Oh yeah, EM pointed that out too. 

With that feeling, I started asking questions with some skinnier fences and combinations, and he was 100% game on. Not a single hesitation. It is a great feeling.

He looks so little in this picture! 

We did another fun trail ride at Black Prong with Amanda and Hillary. I downloaded a .GPX map this time and we used that to navigate. It worked beautifully. 

He's turning in to such a pro and knows to drink when we get to nice pretty water. Side note, this place must be absolutely soggy during the wet season

Henry got very skeptical when it got deeper than the regulation 11"

Then on Monday BB and I took a bareback hack around the neighborhood. All went well until the herd of five cows SPRINTED at the fence as we were walking by. A car was also coming down the road. Poor pony tried so hard to hold it together as he went sideways and then attempted a spin. He let me hop off though and then walked right up to the fence (granted while hiding DIRECTLY) behind me and sniffed noses with the offending moos. 

This was the trouble maker that ran first 

Ridiculously friendly

He was a little on edge, understandably, after that until we found a patch of nice black jack to munch on 

He and his buckskin BFF can share the makeshift hay feeder

Foggy ponies

Don't Be Like Carrie Underwood

Butterball and I had a very productive jump lesson yesterday. But I'll back up to 5 days before that. Last Friday we took a lovely 8.8 mile hack from the farm. Butterball started out HOT. We did a lot of trotting and cantering, but only on grass and/or the sandy parts of the lime rock. I clocked his excited trot at a swinging 12 mph. We met a woman getting on her horse on her farm who asked if he was an Arabian. We also met a whole lot of annoying dogs. Fortunately all fenced, but one who waited until we had just passed it to charge the gate and lose its damn mind, which understandably caused the pony to spook. Rude dog. 

He felt great the whole time. He then had the next two days off since I worked until 4 PM and we're not prepping for a three day anymore so I get to NOT squeeze in a ride in the tiny amount of fading light left after getting home at 4:45. 

Monday, through a series of horses being horses, we found ourselves alone at Majestic Oaks. People were out in golf carts taking down flowers from the horse trial over the weekend, so I felt safe popping over a few things. Some things were fine, others were not great. I stopped and put hind studs in because I felt him slip at the base of a fence and the ground is in fact pretty hard and slick right now. He seemed a bit better after that, but was still opting for the pop chip more than seemed right. Although my riding and the shift in plans might've been contributing, I was still worried about his feet after our long hack. I chatted with my friend and we decided that next farrier visit he'd get leather pads behind. 

Tuesday we did a dressage ride, but Ms. GY had some small jumps set up in the arena, and I couldn't resist adding in the canter cavaletti on a circle. Fit it in, make him wait. It took a bit, but we got there. It's such a deceptively challenging exercise. Wednesday I clipped him (badly) and then we loaded up and went back to PW's. 

Chimney sweep pony. Clipping was needed.

Excessive. My bath kinda sucked too. My poor clipper blades. 

PW kindly said my clip job wasn't too bad. I told him not to look too close. Butterball warmed up pretty well and felt relatively soft and springy. 

We started with a warm up 2'3" oxer off both leads. We popped over it off the right, but off the left the spot was going to be deep. Naturally I flung the reins at him and took my leg off, and he stopped. PW assessed that he 100% could have jumped the tiny jump from any distance, but that "Jesus take the wheel" is not an appropriate strategy on my part. He explained that when I see the deep spot there but then let go of all contact, his stride actually lengthens further, making it even worse. So, hold the reins, sit up and support with leg. That served us well for the rest of the lesson. We didn't have another stop even though we didn't get beautiful distances to everything. I did think at one point that "if you're not failing, you're not learning." Our previous lesson everything had just flowed beautifully and felt so easy and perfect. This lesson was definitely a lesson of failures and growth. 

PW did take it easy on us since we were obviously a bit discombobulated. He started with the jumps pretty soft and then built up the one stride instead of pushing us straight into it. Eventually though the last few jumps were a meter again and we put the whole course together including the one stride. 

We've been working on related distances since pre-Kentucky using the strategy of breaking them up into two parts. So for a 7 stride line, land and GO 2-3-4 then assess and half-halt 1-2-3. It works wonders and prevents the long, flat, last minute push to get the strides. We got the leave out 6 in our lesson this week doing that and did a leave out 5 in the lesson at the end of October. But it doesn't look horrifying doing it this way. There's no last minute fling at the fence that causes panic in me, the pony, and those watching. You know the type of ride, you cringe as they leave the ground in a mess. Yeah, we want to avoid that and this strategy seems to work. 

I did feel the need to clarify with PW after - a few jumps in our last course I felt like I definitely spurred him off the ground to get the slightly gappy distance instead of the pop chip. PW said that was totally appropriate. But I don't want to create the horse who "can't think for himself" and needs to be told exactly when to leave the ground. But EM and PW have distinctly NOT told me to take all leg off (as Amanda pointed out once out cross country at Sweet Dixie), but instead to support quietly. I need to find that balance. Leg quietly on so I don't HAVE to spur him off the ground. 

No lesson media so enjoy the view from the trailer after 

October 30th lesson video - better than nothing? 

October Wrap Up

 

BIG October event was clearly Kentucky 

Kentucky Recaps:  

• Travel and the jog
  
• Dressage
  
• Endurance day
  
• Stadium
  
• XC Pro Pics
  
• Lessons learned/Three day info

 

	Butterball
Training rides	0
Lessons	3
Hacks	4 - Black Prong, Watermelon Pond, Allie’s Farm
Flat rides	6
Conditioning rides	3
XC school	0
Shows	1

Butterball had a total of 19 rides in October, with the majority of those days off coming post-Kentucky. We did end the month with another lesson with PW. I've spent a lot of time pondering what our next goal is these days. I still want to move up to training level on this horse. But while that is a solid goal, it's not one with a timeline on it. And, TBH, both my wallet and I are a bit burned out on travel from this fall (Bouckaert, Stable View, Kentucky). But seeing new courses and venues was SO COOL. I think 1 or 2 destination events per YEAR will be our new norm though. 

I did put HITS on my December calendar, so there's that. PW had mentioned a few hunter classes. Honestly, I think it would be fun. I have basically zero experience in the hunters other than a few trips around a local show as a teenager with my appaloosa. But he assures me I have a fancy enough horse to go play some, so why not? He knows my eventing goals, so wouldn't do anything training wise that wouldn't mesh well. 

It is the absolutely gorgeous time of year in Florida for more adventures. Mornings are cool and the middle of the day, even if it hits 80, is pleasantly dry, so it doesn't feel too hot. And I'm attempting not to lose the fitness we fought so hard for this fall. Which means I'm forcing myself to pencil in at least a little fitness work. 

The other day I evaluated Butterball's topline. Unfortunately even with a different hay plan (stuffing him full of beautiful O&A), he lost a bit of weight and topline during the Kentucky trip. I also think that maybe JV's dressage was a more... user friendly way of learning/going FOR ME. And that we had more lift and push when I was riding him that way as compared to when I focused on softness first. The end goal did include softness. But it wasn't priority number one. So we will try to get back in with JV this month as well, after working on the homework from the last time we saw him (slowing the canter down). 

Dolce got to FLY to NC and turned 10x cuddlier without her sister around

What a goof (also my pants are covered in sawdust, she's not that dandruffy)

Maybe hummingbird nest? 

Two buckskin best friends

Foto (and film) Friday

Butterball had a nice vacation for the past two weeks. We did still do things... 

A fun trail ride at Black Prong in Goethe with Amanda and Hillary. We only made one wrong turn. We did a lot of inadvertent mudding. It was still fun. 

Another fun trail ride, this time at Watermelon Pond in Goethe with Ms. GY. We made no wrong turns because she's a better navigator than I am. It was also notably drier. 

And yet another fun trail ride from my friend's farm. Butterball also got to practice some pig desensitization - first by circling around the back of the farm where he DEFINITELY could smell the pigs, then an in hand walk with LOTS of cookies. I think he made progress.

Meeting her mare and DONKEY. He marched STRAIGHT to the donkey (Nacho, the most perfect creature ever). But Rose intervened. Then mare squealed at him. He wasn't sure what to think. 

Guess what we're meeting here - Happy Halloween, Butterball

Then yesterday we went back to PW's for a jump lesson. It was delightful. We worked on going straight away from the fences. Shockingly this helped with staying straight in the air. He put things up to a meter. I managed not to panic. We also did a leave out and did five strides in a six stride line. PW clapped for us. 

If you've made it this far and want to see one more Kentucky thing... Go ahead and skip the dressage test. Wasn't my best riding by a long shot. Also, I thought we were FLYING on steeplechase. There is video evidence that we were ::ahem:: quickly cantering. 

Kentucky Part Six: What I Learned

Last post about Kentucky, I swear. Then we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming. I currently don't have "programming" scheduled for this winter though other than a trip to HITS for a venture in to jumper land (or maybe hunter land??? that has been thrown around...) in December. The Kentucky trip was such a big goal that I'm enjoying not having firm plans for the time being. 

The Classic Three Day

USEA has a good amount of information on the classic format out on the web. Their main page also includes where you can find classic format events at each level. Pieces of the information I'm sharing below also came from our lovely clinician for the week, Carol Kozlowski.  

To lay it out relatively quickly, the additional pieces for a classic format that are not part of a national level horse trial are: the arrival exam; the jogs; phases A-C on XC day; the 10 minute box; and the vet inspection post cross country. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the arrival exams are for the veterinarians to get a baseline of your horses TPR and general appearance. Everyone has just arrived from hauls of varying lengths and yanked the horses off the trailer to mill about with a bunch of new horses nearby in a new setting, which means the base HR probably isn't what it is at home, but may approximate what it should return to post-endurance phases. 

The jog/presentation to the ground jury is the first opportunity to show your horse off to the ground jury. They should be braided, in a clean bridle (with approved dressage bit) and the handler should be neatly dressed. Some people take the opportunity to look very lovely, I went for not distracting. There is an order posted and similar corralling to a dressage or stadium warm up. When it is your turn you walk up to the ground jury, say hello, and then hold your horse from the front so they can walk around. 

I LOVE HIM 

They then ask you to go ahead, so you trot your horse down to the designated turn around area (usually marked by flowers or some other plant), come to a walk, turn your horse AWAY from you around the end, and then jog back. The jog should be done WITHOUT pulling on the horse's reins the whole time. Then they decide if the horse is accepted or held. Those who are held are then physically examined by another veterinarian to see if there is an obvious reason ie pulse in a foot. They are then re-presented a few horses later. 

While I practiced jogging at home, I had a completely different horse at this show, so I opted NOT to jog with the dressage whip we had practiced with. But it is acceptable to jog with a whip if needed. 

Turning around

I had previously been told by my vet at home to MOVE out during the jog - go as fast as you can without cantering

Carol told us that the really polished look while jogging came when you could time your strides with your horses 

The jog is repeated the morning of stadium. A few more horses were held that morning, but all were eventually accepted. 

The day following the jog was dressage day. There are 3 day tests, and ours were held in a standard arena. Read your omnibus ya'll (although, the omnibus did include the wrong pace for C, but that's okay). 

The next day is endurance day. This is where the major difference is between a classic three day and a horse trial. Phase A is a brisk trot to warm you up for phase B, steeplechase. Then phase C is a combo of walk/trot to cool down and prep for phase D, the XC course. 

Phase A and C have "gates" that you MUST pass through. The gates are just flagged spots with the standard red on right. Unlike cross country though, the volunteers at these gates are allowed and encouraged to help you stay on course. We were also allowed to hack A and C ahead of time. The gates are clearly marked and the 1K markers are also pretty large and clear. A is at 220 mpm, which is a brisk trot. If you're us this was some hopping up and down, some canter stretches, etc. You also do need to do some cantering because this is your warm up for steeplechase. 

Carol recommended coming through each 1K at 4 minutes, which gave you a tiny bit of extra time. If you look at the pace of 220 mpm and do 1K/220, then you actually have 4:30 for each 1K. She also recommended saying hello to the volunteers at each gate and repeating, out loud, several times, the gate number as you went through it so you remembered which gate you needed to be going through next. 

Between phase A and B, there is a 1 minute break. If you finish A early, you get a longer break before B. I don't recall the exact penalty, but time penalties are VERY costly on A and C; "don't get them" was Carol's instruction. Time penalties on B are more costly than D still, 0.8 penalties per second vs. 0.4 on D. 

Phase B is the steeplechase. And OMG is it fun. During the practice Carol recommended not hunting for a distance, just keep flowing forward. I settled for a tiny rebalancing 4-5 strides out because the one fence I didn't do that on he got slightly under. 

Go pony GO! 

Got a bit deep to this one

Much better

I was kind of worried about not having any warm up fences before starting steeplechase, but we practiced that after dressage and it wasn't a problem. It wasn't a problem for the true phase B either. 

Our steeplechase course was a single loop over 5 fences. Fences 1-3 were pretty flat, 4 and 5 were both after slight downhill slopes. The pace was 470 mpm and it was 1410 meters, so a nice even 3 minute course. 

Phase C starts exactly as phase B ends, so your start time of C is your end time of B. 

For us, the track for C was almost exactly the same as A, but with a little tiny out loop to gate 5. The 160 mpm pace is trotting and walking some. Each 1K marker Carol recommended taking 6 minutes. The actual time (1000m/160) you could take was 6:15. Then you pick up the trot again as your approach the 10 minute box and trot straight to a vet they point you at so they can get an initial assessment of soundness. 

The ten minute box was way less mysterious and challenging than I had thought. Granted this was NOVICE in October with a freshly clipped horse. YMMV given different settings. The goal is to get vitals back down ASAP so you can safely carry on to XC ten minutes after you trot into the vet box. 

He was 101.5 with a pulse of 60 bpm and resp of 56. when we came in. I think in warmer months, cooling would be more essential. You get 6 minutes until they re-inspect. That includes a repeat TPR and a jog in hand. If they have any concerns they will hold you. 

Carol had mentioned having extra tack, shoes, etc. in the box. They will let you start XC slightly late if you need a shoe replaced and the farrier was nearby. When I almost came off of him during phase C I did think maybe I should have had extra reins/whole extra bridle in case that broke I could replace it and continue rather than being forced to retire. 

As soon as we trotted into the box we were paired with a volunteer in an orange vest who started a timer and got us to the repeat vet check and then on to start XC on time. It was super well organized and took away a lot of the stress. 

Then XC was pretty standard, although a challenging course in this case. 

After XC there is another TPR. You can pull tack and let the horse cool down and then the TPR is repeated in ten minutes. Although I guess this isn't necessarily required since we got a visual "He looks very content" and then got sent back to the barn. 

The final jog is the morning after XC. My post-XC care consisted of a loooooong hand graze/walk the evening of the endurance day and the next morning before the jog; soupy alfalfa pellets that night; packing his hind feet (he's got pads up front) with Magic Cushion; and magnawave the morning of the jog. He is on electrolytes already and the way the weather was, he had gotten WAY hotter/sweatier on our conditioning rides than he did on endurance day. I figured I shouldn't fix something that wasn't broken. 

Helpful links regarding the classic format: 

• USEA Classic Series Guidelines
  
•  Preparing for Your First 3-Day
• The 10 Minute Box

Conditioning 

I roughly followed this conditioning schedule. But what we actually did is on the calendar below. 

The 9/4 ride is where I bruised his feet. And also the reason we only did 2 instead of 3 canters... I realized the road was probably not ideal. 

Every conditioning ride had 15-20 minutes of trot to warm up and 30 minutes of walk after the canter sets. When I was out on endurance day, I realized that the 30 minutes walk kind of approximates phase C. 

I also added 30 minutes of walking/hacking to the start of nearly every other ride starting in September, with the exception of lessons. Other than the last week of Oct 8 & 9, I didn't do conditioning rides back to back with lessons. But I wanted to feel confident headed to Kentucky knowing that he could jump stadium fences after doing an endurance day. 

I did up his calories for the whole thing too. He got more alfalfa in the stall AM and PM (they come in for 1-2 hours to eat twice a day) and he got Dac Oil added to his feed starting after Chatt. He got Pre-fuel starting 7 days out from leaving for Kentucky. He got a polyglycan injection q1 week and got his Adequan series in September. 

I did not do twice weekly canter sets. I've been told that ideal is q5 days. Due to footing and terrain around Ms. GY's (flat, lime rock), I hauled out to condition starting in September. This gave us soft footing and a hill. But realistically, I cannot, and will not for his stress level, haul him 2 hours round trip 3+ times a week for a jump lesson and two conditioning sets. I think once a week led to a plenty fit horse for novice. I do wish I'd added in the "sprints" in the last week a bit sooner. Not for his fitness necessarily, but to get both of us used to going faster. If we'd had a little bit more leeway we could have still made time on steeplechase even with the spook and bucking. 

Miscellaneous

I've never done pre-rides. But given how late our dressage ride was and how wired he was, a nice loose hack on Thursday morning probably would have done a lot for both of us. Nothing hard, just 20-30 minutes walk with a tiny bit of trot and canter in a nicely stretchy, forward way. I don't think this would have taken too much from his energy level over the next few days. I did take him for plenty of hand grazes, but there's something different about being under saddle and having to focus a bit, but not too hard, that I think would have been better prep for dressage. 

I thought about including my budget column for this, but really, the costs for the classic format were not much more than the costs for a big away show. The entry + stall was $800. Otherwise costs just included lodging for the humans, which we definitely saved on by camping, and massively increased diesel costs. This won't be an every year trip, but is certainly worth the splurge again at some point in the next few years. 

I mentioned it in another post, but Butterball seems to have decided he doesn't like drinking while traveling. I need to investigate Gatorade or something similar at home to see if that would tempt him. Otherwise, soupy alfalfa pellets seemed to work as well. 

Also, perhaps most importantly, DH discovered that Butterball LOVES Kodiak Cookie Butter Granola. Like really, really loves it. He got several handfuls throughout the weekend. 

Happy pony waiting for breakfast with friends a few days after arriving back home