Ben and I schooled at Majestic Oaks on Friday. I put his calming acupuncture points in when we arrived. And he zenned out by the trailer by himself on a windy day.
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| Points in! Hiding under his forelock |
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| Five minutes later |
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| He also got studs. We went with the left sided one medial and lateral behind |
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| And he was fantastic!! |
I could feel him get his confidence back as we went. He was squirrelly to the first few fences but became much more game as he realized he felt more secure in his hind end. We didn't do a ton since we're doing the schooling show next week, but we ran through the combinations in the course. JT was encouraging me to take a breath, soften, and regroup after each fence. Make it through one part of the combo before moving the focus to the next. Then steady leg on and hand forward to the fence.
He did launch into the water off the down bank after the roll top, and I nearly fell into the water. Not something he typically does, but y'know, why not try something different? The next time through the 3 strides from the roll top to the down bank were right there but he conservatively squeezed in another stride then very gently dropped in. I could almost feel him go "oops, almost lost mom last time, gotta be careful". Good boy, Ben.
Glad he was so good! That jump looks terrifying. =-)
ReplyDeleteMe too, feels great to have his confidence back.
DeleteThat left side stud has been my go to for like everything lol and Charlie freakin loves the extra little bit of grip. Tho I used the right side version above a couple times this summer when the ground was particularly hard and grassy and those were real winners too. Basically. Not everybody feels the same way about studs (and some folks seem a little holier than thou when I say I ride my novice horse in them….) but my horse is happy in them and I’m happy when he’s happy sooooo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ReplyDeleteDo you just use them in the hinds as well? I'm just deferring to whatever Steph recommends as I have no experience in this! Mr GY gave me the left hand set and then said "I'm sure you know this but..." And I told him I definitely knew nothing about studs so to give me all his tips and tricks on getting them in and out etc etc
DeleteAlso if it makes the horse happy, why are people so judgemental??
i use them all the way around, two per hoof. usually the same style all the way around, tho i may have just used the longer grass studs behind this past summer with the shorter ones up front (can't actually remember).
Deletei'm far from being an expert, and apparently there are a ton of strong opinions on the matter. including considerations for the additional torque put on the legs when studs are used. if you're curious, i wrote about getting started with studs back in 2018, and there was a lot of good info in the comments. tho.... just bc an opinion is delivered authoritatively doesn't mean it's good lol.... like folks who are like, "NEVER USE WATER!" to clean the studs... well, uh, the studs go through water when actually in use, so i'm guessing it's not that important? also, lol, i never actually clean my studs anyway, except for occasionally brushing off the dirt so, and five years later they're still ok so..... eh??
https://fraidycateventing.blogspot.com/2018/07/fraidy-cat-eventing-learns-about-studs.html
my tendency has been to stick with the small studs you show above basically thru all conditions, tho hard ground poses us the greatest challenges.
That was all quite helpful. I did order a pre made stud kit just to have something since we needed them in use pretty quickly. The kit came with blanks that have an Allen wrench hole on the back. I put those in the hinds that I plan on using often and put the rubber plugs in the fronts. We'll see which works better long term. The downside of the blanks is that I have to clean out the Allen wrench hole to get them out at all. But I thought the rubber plugs might fall out. I guess not??
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