Bumps in the road

So, yesterday I made the usual beginning of the season vet appointment.  You know, the ones where we get a baseline of where P-man is now, and make a plan for the year (which never work out, but it's a nice idea).  Well, Prophet must of heard me making the appointment, because he's done a minor suspensory tweak in the process of pulling his shoe and walking on all this ice.  I'm such a paranoid mom, as it is really quite minimal, but like most eventers, I obsess continually over my horses legs.  There is a slight bit of heat and he is a bit tender when I palpate it (unflexed) the first time, which is are good enough symptoms to have me freaking out!

He is getting his shoe put back on today, so will be able to evaluate it better this evening, but for now, I'm forced to sit here at work fretting and be satisfied with knowing we caught it early and he's poulticed to the hilt.  My ever positive, and wonderful vet, Dr. Kate Lombardi is on call to check it tomorrow if it's still inflamed.  He is getting the weekend off since I will be driving up to the 'burg in VA anyway, but, will still be getting poulticed and iced - if I can con someone into cold water hosing him in the 30-40 degree weather!

Monday we'll start walking again and go from there...  Keep your figures cross for the boy!

SNOW!!

It's snowing! A full-on northerner type of snow.

I went out this morning to attempt to ride and no amount of oil or cooking spray could keep the ice-high-heels at bay, but since it doesn't look like I'll be making my way into work anytime soon - an afternoon snow ride may be in order.

Prophet has had a couple of easy days of hanging out. Saturday was a flopping bust. Drove to the jumper show, only to have the footing be ridiculously horrible. I dropped him way down to 2'6 just so he could basically walk the course and not loose any confidence. He was such a tryer, putting two lovely strides in each of the one stride spaces of the triple, and trotting the rest of the course (I even made him walk one corner that was especially bad). I declined to do my second round (jump off) and kindly excused myself from the arena and the rest of the show. After packing up the trailer and loading the boy, the organizer came down to hand me my blue ribbon (!) I guess I was the only one who had made it around clean on the first round, and managed to pull off a win.

I didn't want to sit and stew about whether or not P-man had lost any confidence, so re-tacked him when we got home for a quick jump school in the field - and he was awesome! He did start off a bit stuck over the fences, jumping more up then across, but ended up great.

I lived and learned I guess...

Off to play with the animals in the snow!

I had no idea....

I musta made somebody mad by severely underestimating the cold snap.  Earlier in the week I spoke about how 28 seemed  a bit brisk in the morning.  WELL, this morning it was a blustery 15 degrees, with a low of 9 tonight.  We probably won't even see 28 as a HIGH.  

Even so, I will be pulling out of the driveway tomorrow at 8 am so I can run around some jumper classes and get some more ring time.  Hopefully P-man will enjoy his time in manicured footing since below freezing temperatures don't do a whole lot to help an already very wet field.  

This mornings ride was at about 1/4 pace as a result of the nastiness below our feet.  P is still full of himself and becoming quite the spunky thing.  At one point we had this trot that I'm pretty sure did not touch the ground.  Pretty damn fun to ride for a minute but after that the fun-ness was replaced with the fact that we couldn't DO anything with it.  Oh well - at least it was cool for a minute.  

Prophet it also getting quite proficient at nearly dumping me by jumping the 8 inch log as if it is 4 1/2 feet tall.  I swear he does it purely for entertainment reasons, and until I actually hit the ground, I'll probably continue to find it quite funny.

I'm attempting to drag John to the show with me tomorrow so we'll see if I can't get some pictures of the big man doing his thing!

Safety in Eventing part 1

With all the recent goin's ons in Eventing, there is much talk about how to make the sport safer, how to get people to act smarter or more educated, and what it is that makes the 'new' eventer as opposed to the long format competitors.  There are many people who are much more intelligent then I stating some very wise and not-so-wise opinions on the subject (one of my favorite being William Micklem's on the Barn Mice site - you should read it!), so I don't feel it's my place to spout to much off about it.

I will however, spout off about my own experience and how it relates to safety in eventing...

Rocky and I at Queeny Park - 2002

My first preliminary horse, Rocky was my hero.  I wanted to to everything with him, and he would have tried to do it for me.  He was built exactly opposite of ideal, but had a dream gallop and jump, but we were no where near successful at the preliminary level.

Why?

First off, the horse would be brilliant - when he was on.  Scope to die for, and brave as a soldier.  But what he did not have was that 'oh, sh*t, get your legs out of the way before you land in the middle of the oxer' kind of fifth leg.  In his case, his conformation wouldn't allow it even though he had heart the size of Texas.  

Secondly, he KNEW he didn't have that ability, and was smart enough to put on the brakes when one of those ugly things was about to happen.  SELF PRESERVATION.  He didn't want to die, neither did I.  We made a good pair.  We were also undereducated at the time, but because he would stop, we were safe.  No tearing around in fear - no last minute ducks out to the side - no making the spectators gasp for air.  If everything failed for us - we still could walk back to the barn and try it again the next day. 

We skipped around a couple of preliminary courses that he made feel like cake - other's I knew we wouldn't make it around as soon as we left the start box.  He knew it too and we were ok with that. 

My opinion is people get themselves into trouble when horses are lacking BOTH a 'fifth leg' and the smarts to know when they're not going to be on all fours on the other side.  Ted, who had run around 5 years worth of advanced, including the 2005 Rolex ****, had enough smarts to stop with I got him in wrong, even if the jump was BN height.  After he got over the initial freak out of him refusing, he would literally take over, as if he was saying "you f-ed that one up the first time, now let me handle it."  

Are mistakes going to happen - of course.  Everyone falls in the water jump, everyone has that stupid slip that happens, and some of them are going to be bad.  BUT hopefully if riders and horses are both smart enough to take up the slack for each other, then 2009 will be a successful eventing year.

Good lordy it's cold

I thought I moved to the South - what is this?!

Woke up this morning late (when John leaves for work late, it means that I wake up late) so no ride happened, but I think it was a blessing in disguise - everything was frozen.  Having a horse that has to eat EVERYTHING sopping wet always makes it more interesting on the frozen mornings, and this one didn't disappoint.  The horses happily stayed snuggled in their blankies as I fed them their grain.  Usually they enjoy the first bit of air they get as I unwrap them, but I really don't think they minded missing that experience since the awaiting air was a brisk 28 degrees!

Yesterday wasn't quite as cold, but the P-man was feeling GOOD!  I put the hackmore on for a bit of a trot and decided halfway through to pop some fences.  All of my mom's bootcamp work has opened up his stride so much and he's learning how to use it.  Suddenly the hackmore doesn't have the braking power it did before!  He's never been a horse that really celebrated after fences - he's more the type that thinks he's perfect everytime so there's not need to celebrate.  BUT yesterday, apparently he thought he was extra perfect and extra feeling good, so I let him have a bit of a romp.  Good times where had by all!

I'm sure I wouldn't be saying that if he'd sailed me into the neighbor's yard though!

Exciting news for today - I've found a saddle that I do believe I'm going to buy!  Leave it to me to be the one that has a brown Dressage saddle and a black Jumping saddle - so opposite - that's me!

Proud Momma

For years I've said that the P-man's true calling was in the hunter world.  Don't get me wrong, he's an absolute blast to burn around cross-country and stadium on, but he's just such a laid back guy most of the time and is very confident in himself - so confident that if you drop the reins 5 strides out from a fence, he thinks it's his time to shine.  He always thinks he has everything under control.

But now I think his calling may be with a young rider.  

Yesterday one of my students had to cancel because her horse was lame (again).  I felt so bad as she has had pony problems in the past and really just loves to ride.  I figured P could use a ride with out me drilling the basics and the student is a wonderful, light, quiet rider who I even let ride Ted over the summer.  She's the kind of rider horses just seem to get along with because she stays out of their way, but has a good feel.  I called her up to see if she wanted to come hack Prophet a bit around.

The partnership was great!  Granted, P-man has finally started to figure things out lately, but he went around for the entire 45 minutes with a beautiful long frame, truckin' over the trot poles, and even gave her a bit of a jump over the 8 inch log in the woods (not planned, but it worked out fine).  I unfortunately didn't get any pictures, but it was such a 'proud parent' feeling!  I got on him afterward and he was happy and loose, back crackin' over the cross country fences - I think she's hired as my warm-up rider!

More Rain....

We may need an ark!  

It has been nasty the last couple of days!  Yesterday, the P-man 

got a day off because it was sideways!  This morning started off beautiful (see before picture below), albeit 45 mph winds, but really it just made things more interesting.  What made things REALLY interesting was the fact that I wore a windbreaker that would 'whip' when it caught the wind in the right direction, or blow me up like a marshmallow when going the other way - Prophet was NOT impressed, but was actually a really good boy in keeping all 4 feet on the ground.  He only sidestepped for a moment when the neighbor's bulldog made a move to make us his breakfast!

Sky Before

We ended our ride right as the wind was bringing the clouds.  By the time I got ready for work and out to the car - it was nasty!  So glad I got the ride in. 

Sky After

BUT in other exciting news -- they have revamped the qualifications (as of today - tomorrow could be different with the USEA) for the 1/2* and Prophet only really needs one run - although I am looking to get him out 3 times before the event.  That leaves my checkbook a little happier - although that just means I have some extra money to spend on my saddle!