An Update About Nothing

It's wet. It's cold. It's windy. It's raining. We've gotten somewhere around 5 or 6 inches of rain at least in the last 24 hours. Perfect riding weather. :-\

In good news, since yesterday was a holiday, I got to meet the farrier around lunchtime and we got Solo's fancy new shoes on. So now, pads are gone and he has shiny aluminum wedges up front (pictures to come). I quite like the look of them, and best of all, no frog covering! Solo was a bit surprised walking back to his stall and about tripped over himself, not quite expecting his feet to be so light. I told the farrier that I now expect a guarantee that my horse will jump higher and snap his knees up like a Grand Prix stallion. We are counting down to our big Horse Trial coming up on the 22nd.

I pondered riding across the road to the indoor arena tonight. I am not entirely feeling the motivation though. But I've used up most of my busy work--I put Solo's tail up in its winter tail wrap of eye-burningly bright royal blue Lycra (because all horses need metrosexual accessories!). His mohawk is trimmed, wounds are dressed. I suppose I could clean my tack. Or not.

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Taking Stock

So, I'm pretty much caught up to the present. Finally! I've glossed over a lot, much of it I'm sure I'll come back to, what with my talent for repeating myself and all. Here's where we stand:

Yup, that's my little red speck to the left of the tree.

(1) Home: Solo is mostly settled in at the new farm. To my delight, he is back on pasture board, but with a big safe stall of his own for eating and severe weather. The rest of the time, he is out and about, keeping joints and intestines healthy and mobile.

To my not-so-delight, he is in mad crazy love with a little grey pony mare who is in insane heat. Praise be to the heavens, they will be forced to break up in two days when we rearrange the pastures and Solo will be back in an all-boy group, having proved his untrustworthiness around mares. I can't even catch him now and my sane, lovely horse is now a maddening wild stallion, herding "his" mare carefully away from all other people and horses. I might stab him with a blunt object.  Must...have... restraint...till...Wednesday. But the facility is lovely and BO and co-boarders are gems.


(2) Feet: I talked a little bit about foot problems here. Solo did great barefoot for a while, but EX-farrier managed to completely get rid of his poor heels, at which point farrier was fired. So we had to go back to shoes. They are on all four for now. The fronts are in wedge pads too, til the heels grow back, but the pads are trapping too much moisture and causing frog sensitivity so this week, we are switching to aluminum wedges and pads BE GONE, hurrah!




(3) Tack: Saddles fit, I am trying ANOTHER new bit for dressage -- he liked the happy mouth double-jointed Boucher, but I still felt like things could be better. Am borrowing a KK ultra French mouth loose ring (so happy I found one in BO's bit collection because I can't afford to buy that!) and so far, like it even more. He is STAYING on the bit at the trot and that's a REALLY big deal!

It's been a bit journey -- started with a full cheek snaffle, went to D-ring French link, then D-ring Myler, which worked well for a long time, I now look much more favourably upon the low level Mylers, then to this happy mouth Boucher we picked up at a consignment sale, which Solo quite liked. I have to stay with double jointed bits as Solo has a low palate and big tongue, so single jointed bits jab him in the roof of the mouth. I think we'll stick with the KK though, I really like this new feel.


(4) Dressage: Making good progress. Trot work is becoming much more enjoyable as Solo learns to reach for the contact and stay on it. Walk is good, but need more impulsion. W/T transitions feeling great, as is halt, although Solo has this new tendency to drift left into the halt, but only on centerline, grrr. Canter...well, it has single-stride moments, transitions are not great, it's our project. But Solo is becoming much more supple in all gaits, moves mostly readily off the leg and moves over his back.

(5) Jumping: We were going really well, but since moving to the new place, just haven't had any good schooling sessions as Solo has become a horse-shaped wrecking ball. Still jumping clean at comps as long as I don't mess him up, but we've lost the flow. I think I am not using enough impulsion... Our jumping coach is having surgery so can't travel up here for a bit and we haven't had a lesson with him in a while, sigh. I NEED one!

So...now you'll get some detailed progress and musings on our day-to-day crap, such as it is. I didn't get to ride this weekend, I don't want to work him until the stupid pads come off as we have our big competition coming up in two weeks and I don't want him going footsore on me. I spent some time ground driving him last night for a nice change of pace since he doesn't limp on the arena footing. He did well in the end, although it always makes him nervous. I am working on getting him comfortable with me driving him from directly behind where he can't see me, to build his confidence in himself.

If there are topical posts you'd like to see, feel free to submit requests as well and I will freely share my brain drivel on the topic at hand. But I like to read and explore riding theory and am always open to gathering new tools for the the toolbox, so I spend a lot of time thinking about all that -- now whether my thinking is useful or not remains deeply in question, but it amuses me. I also plan to do some product reviews, as I find them immensely helpful for my own purchases, I want to help out other horsepeople decide what is right for them.

I will keep our calender on here up to date with our various activities and hopefully will get some new videos soon as our routine at the new place settles a bit more. I hate winter because I have to ride in the dark during the week, but at least BO has good lights.

Long term goal: complete Training 3-Day Event at Waredaca. (3 years?)
Short term goal: get a nice canter transition. (10 years?)

SO, now you know the back story, let's see where it takes us...

Me and Solo on our birthday 2009 (my 30th, his 13th). Headgear courtesy of dear barn friends.

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Winter Woebegone

So the Dark Times began.

I was convinced my saddle didn't fit. Solo was fighting me tooth and nail against lifting his back and it's just not in his nature to not do something like that "just because." It looked pinchy, it felt pinchy. I brought out Saddle Fitter #1 (ah yes, the fact that he has a number is indeed an indication of future insanity...). SF #1 bring a couple other saddles to try but says, "Oh no, yours fits fine, really." I try to go with it for a few weeks, but get ticked off and sell it because it's not cutting the mustard. It was a great saddle, the first I'd owned, an old Crosby event saddle that fit almost everything. Except the horse I owned of course.

I think I'll need an entire 'nother post to tell the SF Stories, I'll save that...

Because, oh there were lots of other woes.

It was WAY deeper than it looks

February 2008 -- I'd now resorted to riding bareback while training, but well, it's good for me right? (Maybe less good for my girl parts, but we all gotta cowgirl up, right?) A couple more winter shows were coming up and we were getting ready. And then our lovely farm "trainer" brought strangles back with her from a hunter show. One of our ponies came home with the sniffles. We begged to have pony quarantined because it looked like strangles, but the Powers That Be (PTB) were in staunch denial. Till about six other horses got sick. Then the whole barn was shut down in quarantine for several months. No horses in. Even worse, no horses out. We were in prison.

Solo happily escaped the strangles outbreak with nothing more than 1/2 day of fever, but we still couldn't go anywhere. As the quarantine was finally lifted after months of boredom, Mr. Genius, decided he still didn't want to go anywhere and attempted self-amputation of his foot in the pasture.


Oh let me just tell you how long it takes to heal a pastern cut on skin that is constantly stretching and moving, no matter how tight you wrap your standing wraps. Months.

Oh AND our farrier (now EX farrier) had managed to mash his poor feet into some unholy shape of crampedness to where the poor horse couldn't even walk properly, so we pulled his shoes and began foot transformation back to healthiness.


I'm sure there was some other crap going on too, but mostly I was throwing myself about my house moping and pouting because I couldn't go anywhere, I couldn't get the saddle just right, my horse was hurt...life sucked!

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