nysak comin at ya

So we have new owners at the barn, I haven’t blogged about them because frankly they are douche-bags and I want to think about them as little as possible, suffice to say they do NOT fit in. Their horse is special, our barn is the pits, the barn manager doesn’t know anything and they aren’t going to listen to anything he says(I do agree J is a moron but we do have to do as he says) they have been in horses for a LOooooong time and if any of us need ANY help or advice just ask them, etc, etc *hurk* gag me, they can rot. Anyway, where was I? Oh right the evil chuckling bit..

New owner N and his wife B have different ideas on arena footing than the rest of the barn(not joking they want the arena footing a different way than the ENTIRE rest of us owners) and go to great lengths to make it the way they want it, N has never been trained on our tractor and when asked about it informed us that he’s been trained on just about every piece of equipment the AF has on offer and he’ll be fine. I observe him using the tractor wrong a few times, emails about it are sent out and he does some things right and some wrong after that.

Recently the tractor has been engaged in mowing the un-used pasture so has been un-available for arena working, it was parked at the barn tonight(with the mower attached) so N jumped at the chance to work the arena to his wife’s liking, somehow he about ripped the door off the tractor in the process of removing the mower deck and attaching the arena drag! don’t ask me how( I wasn’t there) but I heard something about a cargo strap on the tractors cab and it got under a wheel/around an axle, the drivers side door is now ALL bent up and missing the glass in the top half, nice.

We have been told repeatedly to take good care of the tractor, that in order to drive the tractor you must be trained in on it, and that if we do not care for it we will loose it.

Now I hate that the tractor is damaged, and if N’s retarded actions make the powers that be remove the tractor from the barn I will pitch a major fit, BUT I love LOVE it that Mr Know-It-All messed up so royally! I hope he is banned from using it ever again, then I and others can work the arenas the way the rest of the barn likes them and not worry that they will be returned to a N and B approved state in less than a day, heheh *evil chuckle*

This Saturday was my first Event(aka horse trial) of the show year, my club had one show in May for Dressage and Hunters/Jumpers, it went very well but Eventing is SOOO much more fun! here follows a brief run down of what eventing is for those not in the know
Eventing or Horse Trials are compititions that ask a lot of both horse and rider, one pair of competitors do three different things, starting with Dressage, then Cross Country jumping, then Stadium jumping, it takes a very fit horse and rider to finish an Event well. In eventing there are different levels or divisions you can compete at, our club is for people starting out so we have very beginner friendly events, starting with Intro division which jumps 18′ jumps going only as high as Novice division which jumps at 2’9″(olympic eventing gets into the 4′ and up range, yikes!)
I have competed in two events before doing Starter Division(2ft fences) at each and chose to level up this year and try Beginner Novice, that requires me to jump, or rather my horse to jump 2’7″ fences. I knew she could do it as she is ubber talented and super athletic/bold, I just have to stay with her and not mess her up.
Our morning started with Dressage, we usually do fairly well at it, our major problems being submission and tempo, she likes to get rushy and against my hand when I say “no lets not rush” thankfully I had the opportunity to take a dressage lesson on the Monday preceding this event and worked on both those things in the days before our show. We rode 5th out of 6 riders in the division, I saw the rides before me and knew there was stiff competition from two very good horses and riders, in the ring miss mare was SUPER good, she was flowey and marching without being too fast, we got 7′s and 8′s in the first half of the test! followed by 6′s and 7′s in the second, that’s after the canter work makes mare a little speedy but it wasn’t too bad, overall we had 32 penalty points(a score of 68% in “real” dressage) we were in second place, behind a score of 28 penalties and ahead of a score of 34 penalties.
Onto Cross Country! or as well call it XC, my course had a total of 17 obstacles to jump, nothing too terrifying because our course is inviting to beginners, the ground was a bit mushy from recent rain and having an un-shod pony I was a bit concerned about slipping so I didn’t take the course as fast as I could have, but it went well, I only felt I really messed up on one jump, it’s a little Train Car jump on a slight downhill, I didn’t wait for Holi, and said “jump” when there was in-fact another stride before she should take off(Doh!), she took good care of me and took me safely over it but the resulting picture isn’t pretty. We finished the course inside the time limit with no jumping faults. The girl in first place had no problems on XC but the girl in 2nd got DQ as did the guy in 5th, so after XC there were only four of us in the running for a ribbon.
Stadium…oh stadium, I got Holi warmed up and as I was doing so I thought she felt a bit tired/slow, this is unusual for her but I didn’t bother me, she wasn’t exhausted by any means, she’d just had a long day. Being that it’s a schooling event they allowed the DQ’d people to ride stadium anyway, just for the practice of it, the order of go is reversed by placings(1st place rides last) so I watched the other 4 competitors ride and tried not to think about my nerves, Holi may be AOK with showing and jumping just about anything I put in front of her but I’m a bundle of vomit sometimes(heh) Once I got in the ring I felt ok and we took the first 4 jumps in style, well maybe not in style but we got over them and didn’t knock any rails, jump five was a one stride combination and I set it up badly, approaching on a bit of an angle instead of square on, meaning I jumped the first jump of the combi and was angled toward the left standard of the second jump, that is my weak leg and Holi too the opportunity to duck left, well shit there goes my clean round, no biggie I circled around and did the first jump again heading toward the second, except now I’m thinking she doesn’t like it and I’m riding like crap, so she did a little stop and duck and I went off her side(my right ass cheek is sore now LoL) I let the show people know I was ok, asked for permission to school just that jump before leaving the ring, took Mare back to before the first jump, got the Combi just fine, gave her a big pat and was done.
They gave me a sympathy 4th place medal anyway but I didn’t really deserve it. All in all I’m ok with how the day went, I was VERY pleased with our dressage ride and I’m glad to know I can trust Holi on XC, that she will take me over all the obstacles in our path regardless of my mess ups, I just wish I had payed more attention to the fact she wasn’t the fast/bold mare I’m used to by the end of the day and had ridden her stronger in my stadium round, if I had been on the ball we might not have had the duck out. My next chance to event will be in September and I plan on schooling LOTS of combination’s before then

Now I have to tell a little about my student and the Nysa pony’s event, they competed in the Intro Division(18′ jumps) she’s jumping higher than that now at home but seeing as she didn’t complete her event last year(DQ’d in stadium) I told her she had to complete one event at Intro before she could move higher. She felt it was going to be “so boring” because Intro’s XC consists of mostly logs and 18″ stadium jumps are very weeny, oh well must do as the teacher says.
Dressage for her was pretty good, Nysa wasn’t freaked by the dressage ring or the judges trailer and Hannah remembered her entire test, I didn’t get a chance to read her test but she got 6′s and one 7 I think, they tied with the other competitor in the division(Justin) so it was going to come down to who had problems jumping.
On XC she was a little hesitant, I had instructed her to trot the first log and then canter the rest of the course, she felt Nysa would have gotten too strong for her if she had done canter right away so kept trotting, then part way around the course when she felt comfortable asking for trot she had held Nysa in for so long Nysa wouldn’t canter for her, not until after the last jump when I and her mom both yelled “go Hannah, GO! then they flew to the finish line she got 11 time penalties because she was so slow trotting the whole thing, but Justin got a LOT of jumping penalties he rides a OTTB that is quite green and likes to either over-jump with exuberance or avoid the jumps altogether and go bucking about heh.
Prior to stadium I had Hannah do some more warm up jumps and set them higher than 18″ that way the ones in the ring wouldn’t be so imposing to her, we talked about what jumps(if any) Nysa would have a problem with, I said if anything it would be the “brick wall” Hannah thought the little oxer would be worse, I felt maybe Hannah would have a problem with the oxer but Nysa wouldn’t. Seeing as Hannah had less faults than Justin he did his stadium round first, and completely blew past one of the jumps! yep skipped it, so now this thing is Hannah’s to loose, all she has to do is jump everything and she’s won. Into the ring they went, the first three jumps were no big deal then they had to corner to the bricks, and Hannah bless her gave Nysa a pre-emptive tap with her crop as if to say “we are going over that jump” Nysa didn’t have a problem with that idea and sailed over, Hannah did the rest of the course just fine, including the “scary” oxer. Yep my young lady and they pony won their first event and got a super COOL neck ribbon from it, they looked great and I couldn’t be more proud.

There are pics on Styles camera that I will post whenever he gets them to me, I also had Hannah’s mom tape my rides(we forgot our camcorder) and those will endup online as soon as I get them too.

OK so this post is mostly for my gal A for she has been DEMANDING updates on the Holi Mare and the clinics I’ve been doing, the rest of you feel free to ignore this.

Centered Riding was last month but I have to touch a little more on what I learned.
First thing was my saddles were too small, if you are going to ride centered you have to have more space for your seat bones, they have got to be able to swing with the horse, not together but independently.
Next sit on your seat bones only, not your pubic bone at all, just the seat, sink your tailbone and lift with those abs(yes it feels weird at first and hurts too) doing this brings your thigh into contact with the horse more, along with the back of your calf vs the inside of your calf.
As you ride your should feel your seat bones moving in an elliptical back-peddle motion, as the horse marches along in walk your should feel the tips of your seat bones first drop, then rise and come forward, then back and drop, think about back-peddling on an elliptical machine with your seat bones and you’ve got it. Ride the hind legs of your horse, not the front, ignore what the head is doing, who cares about headset, if they are moving well/engaging behind they lift their back and the head will drop, it has to.
Your heels should be back under your hips at ALL times, walk, trot, canter, two-point…ALL times. This was quite hard for me and I found new muscles to make sore but it’s made a big difference with Holi, she is MUCH more relaxed when my legs are under me and NOT around her girth. Sink your knees when you post, Sue kept telling us “kneel and go froward” it’s funky but it works too.
There was a great canter exercise that I can’t duplicate in print because it involved all of us cantering on the ground, yes us riders cantering, not the horses(it was hilarious and I believe one of the clinic gals got video) basically keep your pelvis straight, most people tend to angle it in the direction they are going, for example in right lead canter your right hip gets ahead of your left, it shouldn’t because then your left leg gets pushing on the haunches too much and you get that ugly “ass off the wall” canter, your should get canter like normal and then center your pelvis, keep your hips square and think “outside seat bone to inside knee” that is the rhythm to the energy the horse is creating.
For me and my speedy mare I had to work on making it hard for her to move me, Sue said I had wonderful feel for my horse and I was taught correctly to flow with the ride but for Holi(and any speedy horse) I needed to be stiffer, she had me put my hand on my side and hiss(deep breath in and then force air out through my tongue/teeth)so I could feel the muscles I needed to stiffen up, Sue said “visualize the slowest western pleasure horse you’ve ever seen, make your body move like Holi is walking that slow” yes I rode around and around at a walk hissing! but it sure worked, I got a lovely marching but not rushing walk. Also for Holi my upward transition cues needed to be quieter, I should make the barest suggestion that we increase speed to get an upward transition, for downward transitions I should be more firm but also more relaxed, inhale, then breathe out as I ask for the down(keep your legs BACK) and it goes much better.
For us mare riders we have to remember we are riding a MARE, our legs go right where a stallions legs go when they get bred, so as a MARE they have two responses to that leg pressure, 1. if they are in heat and receptive they back up, 2. if they are not in heat and receptive they kick/buck/bolt forward, you should never be actively grabbing/squeezing a mares sides unless you want that sort of response. Yes they should tolerate our legs being at their sides, and having a contact with them but we should NOT expect them to tolerate constant squeezing.

That’s all for Centered Riding I can convey via print, I’ll do a post about the Jumper Clinic I just got home from as soon as I have pictures