The Undoing of the Pony

It is ominously dry and hot here. I'm not looking forward to the next five months. I need to speed up my snowbird plan a bit it seems. Everyone is to be moving to central Florida, drilling wells into the aquifer to water their lawns, Ginnie Springs is selling huge volumes of water directly to Nestle the rivers are drying up. The wildlife is paying the price. Seems like only the crows are thriving actually.  

Anyways. Returning to the regularly scheduled horse programming from the doom and gloom. Monday Ms. GY and I set out to have a nice neighborhood hack. We line this up about once a week and both of us go out another one or two times solo. Well. It was not in fact a nice neighborhood hack. 

The neighbor at the corner has leased out their fields to someone who is farming. Who brought out some agricultural scale waterer aka horse murdering device. We wisely approached on foot, but eventually had to call it and not make the usual loop. 

We back tracked a bit, and I hopped back on the pony. He did strike out and almost rear right after I got back on, emotions were still very high. Ms. GY had one false start getting on her much taller horse and then managed it. We tried to take a different way around the loop. Except there was a new flatbed with crap on it in the neighbor's yard. And her horse tried to turn around and straight up bolt home. He politely acquiesced to her request that he NOT, but we were done. They led the way home as Butterball cantered in place behind them. We had loads of collection but zero relaxation. Once we made it back to the home base, Butterball and I galloped for probably ten minutes before his brain cells came back to roost. This is my usual method of dealing with his feelings when they are a bit out of control: go forward until you're tired then go forward a bit longer. It just took a very long time this go round. Fitness work for the week done. 

I was going to go back out the next day, but my husband and I painted the house. It so desperately needed to be done and this stretch with no rain seemed like the perfect time. We did the back and one side ALL DAY Tuesday and the front Wednesday. Which led to a 1 PM ride time on Wednesday, and it was about 87 degrees. The perfect time to head back out to reassure Butterball that the world off the farm was not going to kill him. I set out in bareback pad plus silicone grip breeches with a pocket full of treats. 

GOLDEN PAT OF BUTTER

Still looks kinda green but is very crunchy. Unrelated, but his frosting in his mane is growing back in too 

Turned AWAY from the sprinkler field to start so we would end up approaching from the side

Beautiful blue sky, dry sand and grass

I tried to get a pic as he turned for a treat, but this was the closest I could get

More sand, so much sand, it's becoming a dessert

Through the woods we go

Sprinkler fields to the right 

Some snax to be had

Closer still to where the beast was living

Alert and slightly confused, where is it? 

If his thoughts were captions, this would've definitely read "??????" 

Oookay I guess I can have snacks if it isn't here...

Headed on home

The absolute best view

The ride did a lot towards securing his marbles again. I feel bad he ended up so unsettled on Monday, but I really didn't think he would be that bothered. So then my expectations had to catch up to the reality of how he was feeling. 

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

Monday Musings: Gardener vs Architect

I listened to a podcast where an author was interviewed. The author quoted George R.R. Martin who said there were two types of writers: architects or gardeners. Architects outline and plan every single step of the plot ahead of time. By contrast, gardeners allow the story to take on a life of its own and cultivate the best garden that they can from what is growing. I, of course, immediately started thinking about how this translates to horses. 

I have identified as an eventer ever since I started riding with some seriousness (ie shows, lessons) again after finishing school. But in reality, my day to day rides are basically the same as what I've been doing since I was a teenager: some flat work, some jumping, and a healthy dose of trail riding. And really, Zinger, my first heart horse that I had from the time I was 15 to the time I was 30, was a lot like Butterball in his enjoyment of those various activities. When I first made that comparison, Ryan corrected that Zinger was regal in a way that pony pants himself is not. But they both LOVE getting out on the trails and exploring. Zing and I would wander for hours. In his older years, I would let him dictate the pace and direction. We would walk for 15 minutes sometimes and an hour plus other days. He was also an incredible athlete and had way more jumping talent than I ever used. I used to regret having him during a time in my life where I didn't have the resources I have now to lesson and travel and show. But he was given to my trainer's daughter by an Ocala UL eventer because he had injured a hind suspensory and needed rehab. We did that rehab, and he was very sound the whole time I had him, but probably wouldn't have been sound if we had pushed him harder. So really, he was with me at the perfect time in my life and his life as well. 

Zing out cross country

Pony Club SJ rally 

In my dad's backyard 

Beach pony 

Trail pony extraordinaire 

Winning our BN division at the horse park when he was 22

Playing XC in a field many, many years ago that is now a housing development about 20 minutes from where I currently live 

And Zing honestly set the bar so high that until Butterball, every other horse has failed to measure up in one way or another. Since I started blogging my equine life, I've owned three horses. Yoshi unfortunately could not stay sound enough to jump. And I wanted to jump, so I found him a fantastic flatwork home. Retrospectively, Ben would have been sounder as a flatwork horse in a manicured ring. Or maybe even a jumping horse in a manicured ring. However, his prior/current owner did retire him from manicured ring hunter life because she thought it was too stressful for him and contributing to his ulcers. He did enjoy jumping though. What he did not enjoy was trail riding. He did it solo if I asked because he was a GOOD BOY, but it was not fun. You could basically feel him internally panicking the whole time. He was pretty happy to go out with friends on the trails and drew from their bravery. So I did shape my rides to reflect that. We either ponied him off his BFF or just went with friends. Had I been more of the gardener mentality with him, we would have moved to non-competitive dressage and jumping in an arena with very little travel. 

Goggles potentially could have been the ultimate trifecta for me, he showed a lot of promise on enjoying trail rides. But his management needs along with size made him not a great fit. I couldn't garden those things into anything manageable without having my own place to tailor to him.

So in reality, I think I am closer to the architect side of things. Honestly until the fourth (or so, I didn't go back to count; there are things I love looking back on, but this is not one of them, surprise) time that Ben went lame due to sore feet, it didn't occur to me to look at a different path with him. But in contrast, and maybe this is just some semblance of maturity developing in myself, if Butterball says at a certain point that he doesn't want to play over bigger cross country fences or that the dressage work is getting to be too much pressure mentally, then I would change my goals and routine with him to suit that (with the obvious requisite vet check to make sure there was nothing to address physically). I would gladly continue to event at novice with him for the next 15 years. 

My base requirement moving forward is something that enjoys being out of the ring. Not necessarily from the first venture out, I was willing to help shape Goggles enjoyment in baby steps, but not starting with a horse like Ben who is absolutely never going to give up all of his anxieties to solo hack out. I LOVE the way Butterball's brain processes things. He is not without some spookiness for sure, but give him a few minutes to ponder and examine and some cookies for encouragement and he decides things aren't so bad. And then he REMEMBERS (no offense Ben, but positive reinforcement conditioning to the same jump panel that lived in the same spot forever and ever did get old). 

Some of this comes back to heart horses I think. The horse that you won't move on from no matter what. The ones that encourage "gardening" to grow something beautiful. 

Return of the Halo

Butterball and I went through a brief, undocumented time of not having the most perfectly delightful hacks. I didn't write about it because I thought I broke my pony. Retrospectively I think winter weather, an overabundance of trust in the snackamore, and, for once, doing too little, gave the pony poor ideas. Never fear, all is right in the world again, and we are back to tromping around bareback and bitless and having a great time. But we'll tell a story about this winter in case I think I've broken him again next January. 

Our hacks all start by passing a house that is very spooky. As far as I can tell about fifteen people live there with about twenty cats. This may be a slight exaggeration but it's probably pretty close to the truth. 

There's several car ports, a few falling down sheds, and just generally a lot of STUFF. It's all under the shade of some large trees and then there's some smaller shrubbery as well. Basically something is always making sounds or moving in the yard but it's never something that can actually be seen well. Or when something can be seen, it's a cat, small child, or basketball followed by small child that comes TEARING out of the yard straight towards the pony. People frequently come and go and then often hang out partially in their cars, again being audible but not necessarily visible. 

Don't get me wrong, everyone who lives there has been incredibly nice. When they pass me on the road in their cars, they slow way down. And when they're out in the yard, they always say hello and we exchange pleasantries. But their knowledge of the fragile psyche of a prey animal is about zero. Although slightly more than zero now because I chatted with the child with the basketball after jumping off the pony to avoid being spun off the pony. 

When I first got Butterball, I think we lucked out into passing the spooky house when people and cats were mostly not moving around. Also his motivation to care about things drastically decreases when it's 90 degrees. But around the time we had the basketball experience, he also started being worried about stuff in the field on the other side of the road from the house. He's seen a lot of deer and never really cared much. Which makes me think there had to be some sort of predator hanging out in the field for a bit. Black bear would be weird but not unheard of and we certainly have bobcats, so who knows. This meant no side of the road was safe. Throughout all of this and as the weather got notably colder, I kept trying to do my weekly bareback hack in his snackamore. 

But eventually he became pretty resistant to leaving the driveway. One ride he was consistently hopping up and down and trying to spin around to head back home. The bitless bridle is great, but when he's being a pill it's actually much worse for both of us (in the way that a more harsh bit used judiciously in educated hands is much better than a snaffle that is hung on). And when I'm bareback I have less of a tendency to kick on. So finally I caved and added the tack back, but he was still very up and agitated passing between the haunted house and the field. It was a constant fight to keep him from jigging and/or spinning to head back home. I clued in one day watching a lesson where they were joking about revoking the horse's decision making ability. I had given my relatively green pony too much responsibility in the face of ALL THE HORSE EATING HELL DEMONS and he had no idea what to do with it. In between directing him forward again or stopping the jigging, I was still trying to walk on a loose rein. But after that lesson I started putting him to work the second I felt him start to tense. If you're not gonna make the right choices, I'll make the choices for us. I think this also helped because if I could get his body in a theoretically relaxed posture and his mind occupied then relaxation of his mind would follow. And wouldn't ya know it, clever pony decided that if the alternative to jigging and trying to spin was leg yields and shoulder in and haunches in, he could in fact walk on a loose rein. 

I also added in cookies, which I'd used for other horses but never for him. I was, and still am, very careful not to give a cookie unless I click, lest I create a pretzel pony who constantly thinks treats are coming from his rider. But when he braves a spooky area or sound calmly, click and cookie! When he is focused on something in the distance, ask for yielding to the rein, click, and cookie! 

The best view! 

Now a few weeks in (and 80 degree weather, so who knows what truly made the difference), I have my super brave, sane, relaxed pony back to take on weekly bareback hacks. On his trot and canter sets (always with tack because I'm not that crazy) this week he braved running dogs, cows, and horses, and never broke stride. He seems joyful heading out the driveway again and even when someone was washing a car in the shadows of the trees out of his sight and then turned on some sort of intermittent power tool, he kept his cool and didn't have to be put to work with lateral work. Good BOY! I would like to think I'm back on track to creating a fearless adventure pony who loves exploring and isn't fussed by much. 

Part of letting him make choices again, we ended up thoroughly in the scraggly little woods by the side of the road. Dunno what he was looking for, but if he's having fun exploring then why not?? 

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. 

Getting Gritty vs. Opting Out

Butterball and I had a jump lesson on Tuesday. It was a really fun course set around a grid down the middle of the arena. The grid was three bounce crossrails, one stride vertical, two stride oxer. Butterball and I hadn't jumped since our cross country school, so I was a little rusty. This is apparent in the video Holly was kind enough to take. 

This was our first or second go through of one version of the course and features my miss as well as a position fault that JT set to work fixing immediately after. For whatever reason I was wanting to pull back with my hands through the grid, so it was a great place to work on hands down, shoulders up. She had me grabbing mane through it to emphasize the hands down and staying down. 

We did a few different courses. After the one in the video she put a couple of jumps up, but left the skinny, the vertical in the grid, and the oxer that was the start of the five stride line all relatively small. We then did them as an angled line across the diagonal, skinny, angled three strides to the XX vertical, angled four strides to the oxer (the blue dashed path in my beautifully created course above). Butterball was totally game and once I closed my leg and showed him the line across to the vertical he was all business about it. Like wedges, Ben and I quite enjoyed the angled lines, so it was fun to try it on BB. I think having a very specific point to ride to helps me ride better than the general flat face of a jump (or angled face of a corner LOL). 

There were a few cones distributed throughout the course to encourage USING the ring and not cutting corners. There were two at the start of the grid, two at the end, and one at the end of the 5 stride to 1 stride line. They were honestly more helpful than I'd like to admit, although both BB and the other horse did take out one at the end of the gymnastic line. You'd think that saying go straight after would get us to do the same thing, but the visual of the cones was REALLY helpful. 

We finished up with a few more trips through the grid. JT ended up adding wedge shaped placing poles to the oxer and putting the XX filler as angled directives to the vertical since BB and the other horse we were jumping with were wanting to wiggle through the line. Each time through I was working on hands DOWN into the neck, grabbing mane, and staying tall with my shoulders. The final oxer height was substantial, I want to say 3'6", but honestly it might've just been 3'3" and I haven't seen that height in a while. BB took a look at it and wiggled through the bounces and I didn't fix it. He wiggled over the vertical and then ducked out of the oxer. Honestly I might have even given a right tug on the rein to turn him out of it. JT had us turn back in, one tap, and then let him settle and take a look at it. She told me to get gritty, and I reasoned in my head she'd never asked us to do anything we (BB or any other horse!) aren't capable of. So I kicked him straight through the first few fences the next go round and he jumped it great. We did it one more time and WOW. He can seriously jump. It is a whole new feeling at this height and will take some work to stop feeling jumped out of the tack. His whole jump, from knees to back to hind end is just incredible. I wish I had video of that trip through. 

Since he had a long conditioning ride Monday and a jump lesson Tuesday, Wednesday was our bareback hack day. I am trying to use the ditches as hills, which is kinda amusing. We serpentine back and forth up and down across them. They mowed the whole shoulder of the quiet road the barn is on, so now I can see where there are trash and holes to avoid, which is great. 

The camera minimizes the slope as usual, but it is reasonably steep in a few portions, just lacking in distance lol. But still, better than nothing?? 

Pesky cut is FINALLY healed up so it's just a scar at this point. I'm still putting Wound Wonder on it daily to try to minimize scarring so it won't be a spot where he wants to get rubbed. 

It is CRAZY to me how good his feet are - the holes from the prior set of shoes are just... holes... the wall hasn't chipped or torn up or anything... 

Meeting the weanling gang. Ben was pretty rude to them, but Butterball was just as sweet as could be