Raise Your Hand If You Have Arthritic Changes!

Mine's up.  Solo raised his hoof too.

The chill outside doesn't help. It's a sharp, clear cold. The stars are harsh pinpricks in the ink black sky and Orion hovers in sharp focus in the southern sky above the barn. A biting wind cuts through every doorjamb and under every wall to pierce the back of your collar with its icy fangs.

I've spent all week bouncing around doctor's offices; my neck and back have been locked up for ages and I'm sick of just tolerating the pain. My physical therapist dude has been working on it, but we both can tell the problem is deeper. The chiro studies the xrays and says my neck is permanently screwed, there's no curve left in it at all. "But," he says, "we can keep it mobile and at least all your discs look good." Then he cancels out that by pointing out the arthritic changes along the processes of my lumbar spine. Damn. But hey, the discs are good!

Then this afternoon, it's the eye doctor's turn to crush my world a little more. My eyes have decided to be even lazier than they were before and I've moved from a 6 to a 7.7. Ouch. That was unexpected.

"So, I know that's way too high for Lasik to fix; are there any options for repair at this level of myopia?" I hold my breath, hoping for an impossible affirmative answer.

"Nope," he replies, "not till you're 60 and you get cataracts, then we can just give you a new lens."

"Oh. So you're saying that I should basically try to give myself cataracts."

"Yeah!" (He seems a little too enthusiastic about this...) "Just take your sunglasses off and let the UV do its thing. Well, no, on second thought, then you'll get macular degeneration, so never mind. Nope, you just have to wait."

Then he finishes me off with the old "but, hey, you never know what scientific advances they'll make in the next ten years!" *sigh* Yeah, sure.

By the time I got home, I was thoroughly discouraged. It's not all bad though -- the chiro reckons we can keep things moving and manage the pain back down to human levels and physical therapist reckons he can help keep everything suppler, if that's a word. I can't see worth a crap, but at least I have finally found contacts I love and stay comfy even in the dustiest, most hay-filled sheds.

Then there are irreplacable friends -- lifeshighway generously offered to be my seeing eye old lady when my eyeballs rotted at age 40 and even offered to hit people with her cane when they got in the way. Now THAT'S a true friend right there!

Nonetheless, I maintain, aging is a bitch and I highly recommend avoidance at all cost. And insurance is a joke -- this shit is still ridiculously expensive, even just in co-pays, how the heck are people supposed to take care of themselves if they want to buy groceries too???

And that is the end of my whining for now. Back next time with horse stuff. Because horse stuff is way better.

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A Day With David

Saturday was jump lesson day.  Blowing snow be damned.

Solo is not an easy horse to jump, or should I say, jump well at height; he does not have a naturally uphill balance, so his preferred method of jumping is to dive at the base of the jump and then hurl himself over.

However, if you use a combination of 47 different muscles, perfectly timed aids, and stick your tongue out a bit, you can get him to jump with a lovely, smooth bascule.

I know, what's the holdup, right? I, unfortunately, seem to only be able to occasionally coordinate about 12 of the 27.5 required things to get him straight, balanced, uphill, and round.  About every jump out of 8, I can pull it together.  The odds are getting better, but it's still frustrating when I can't get in "the flow."

I will not admit how much time I spend mulling it all over in my head.  A constant refrain from David is "lift his poll." At the same time, I am supposed to keep my reins short, but not lift my hand.

Thus far, I have failed to work out how to achieve these two seemingly contradictory things.  Or, to be more accurate, I understand how to do them in theory, but fail to get my body to perform said theory.

Join us, then, for parts of a lesson with our jump coach, eventer David O'Brien; he is unbelievably patient with my blundering and has played no small part in bringing Team Flying Solo along.  Apologies for shaky video -- the wind was blowing hard and cold and our dear friend/videographer, Cindy, was shivering!

Part I: We've done our flat warmup of bendy death circles and now we do some small jumps and combinations.



Part II: Moving on to courses and some great Solo tips from David.



I have a lot to work on.

Solo was busy trying to figure out where his friends were and OH SOMETHING MOVED OVER THERE! so he never really softened and focused.  I am still riding too defensively in the stadium ring (being flipped over a pair of ears will do that to you) and I need to allow myself to be a bit more forward coming to the jump and stay softer in my waist.

Before each jump, I need to be more focused on my body in general and remember to use my thigh and core to lift my horse's shoulder as he prepares to pat the ground for takeoff.  My legs are slipping back and getting sloppy.  And I need to have a firm discussion with my arms so they figure out what to do!

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This Is How We Roll: Dressage Saddles

For quite some time, Solo and I played in the sandbox in a Wintec Dressage Pro. However, it was no longer fitting for us, so it was time to find its replacement. For my funky-shaped horse. And funky-shaped me. Yay. Cause we've had such fun with saddle fitting in the past.

But then, for a brief instant, the universe smiled upon us. Because I was out of cash, I thought my search was doomed. But then the SO stepped in. Yes, the same wonderful one who made my one life dream come true five years ago. He was probably sick of listening to me whine incessantly about the horror that is saddle shopping. So he did himself a favour and shut me up by funding My Precious.

And by My Precious, I mean our new dressage saddle. 17.5 inches of black beauty.

I like to pet it and stare at it...oh, sorry, you want details! It is a Black Country Eden, chosen because, of their two dressage trees, this one has a little more scoop to it and sat on Solo beautifully. These saddles are hand built in England -- you pick the tree (or they can build one off of your wither tracing) and then you pick all the options (for no extra charge!).

So I spec'd it out:

Grippy heritage leather
Wither gussets to fill those hollows behind Solo's withers
Thigh blocks that were not too big
A flap angled slightly forward to accomodate my freaky long thighs
Dropped panels to spread weight over a wider surface area on Solo's back

Here's an example of dropped panels on a jumping saddle, they fit in behind the shoulder:

End result: awesomeness. You sit in it and it's like sliding into a glove. Gorgeous balance and oh so comfortable, it's like an easy chair. I have mad, mad love for it and will never let it go.

Thank you, darlin'.

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Down Time

I hate winter. I may have mentioned that a time or two before.

It makes me feel like a prisoner: footing sucks, it's dark every day after work, and it's so damn cold I spend half my time putting on or taking off layers of strategically arranged clothing. I long for the day when I can walk outside with one shirt on. Just one. Sheer bliss, that is.

Solo seems to be taking it lying down.  With his eyes closed.  On a bed of sun-warmed hay. At least one of us is comfortable.

It is then left to us sun-starved and shivering riders to come up with tasks to fill our barn time when the ground is slop. Or frozen. Or covered in a lethal mix of ice and snowpack. Because I am freaking tired of riding around in circles in the stupid arena. And so is my horse.

As a result, my trailer dressing room is organized with new and OCD-appropriate containers. Including a, get this....wait for it....magnetic paper towel holder. I consider it my crowning achievement in trailer pimped-out-ness.

I have also mended Solo's blanket linings with my dazzling seamstress skills.

Do try to restrain your awe and envy. I am sure Hollywood costume designers are already googling my number.

I have also reorganized my tack room corner, devised a way to store my extra baling twine, invented a saddle pad hanging system, cleaned the feed room, and cleaned all my buckets.

Now what?

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I Didn't Think We Could

I was cleaning up some draft posts today -- I store snippits of thoughts and ideas for later pondering.  At the top of the sorting list was this one, from late in March of this past year, 2010:

Can Solo even make it to Training Level? Can he take me to my goal? Have I aimed higher than his body can accomodate? Perhaps I am being too ambitious and we won't be able to get there.

I remember well the grave and lingering doubt. The spring season was almost over and we had not completed one event and finished in 18th with a pulled back muscle at another. My horse felt tired and I wondered if we would ever be able to conquer Novice level.

We did another HT that weekend following my troubled thoughts. I believe I recall flying jump rails, although I also recall a thrilling dressage score.

But the flickering wings of doubt still hovered around mental corners and I studied my horse with many a furrowed brow.

And then there was summer and field season and me working myself to death and then there was heat and more heat and still more heat and Solo's summer break.

And then there was fall.

I studied my goal and I got back on my horse. Vitamins had brought his body back in balance. A vacation had pricked his ears. Hmmm....

Then I had a conversation with Becky Holder. I asked (trying not to appear tipsy and idiotic even though I'd already thrown back a wee bit of barn aisle wine...) if I was perhaps a moron for wanting to take a horse to a classic 3-day when he would be 16. Becky had just taken Comet to WEG at 14 and I wanted her insight. I believe her words were Absolutely not. And we talked about management and fitness and timing and all of a sudden, I found myself able to believe again.

Two days later, my horse hopped up and down double steps on the cross country field and popped through combinations without blinking. And my goal was resuscitated, the doubt shoved back into its cage, and I knew we could do it.

The point of all this rambling, you patient readers, you, is that sometimes, yes, this whole crazy journey seems impossible. There have been times and probably will again be times where my willpower staggers in the face of uncountable variables. And the place I am in today, the place that Solo and I are in right now, is not one that I expected. It was beyond my visible horizon, and yet, here we are, getting ready to embark on Training Level and storm the barricades around our 3-Day goal.

Which brings me to you: all of you out there who have some thing you want to do with your horses. When we start out, sometimes it seems too big or too hard, but I am standing here today and telling you -- just because you can't see it on your horizon, doesn't mean it's not waiting just beyond the curvature of the earth. Just because you can't see the entirety of the road that takes you there, doesn't mean that path doesn't exist. All it requires of you is that you keep putting one foot, one hoof in front of the other and that you keep trying.

Because before you know it, my friends, you will wake up one day and, surprise, you will be there. Maybe not along the route you thought, and maybe not at the time you planned, but progress will indeed have found its way to you.

Solo and I still have a long way to go. It means a great deal to me that you've participated in our journey thus far. We really have come to a place that I wasn't sure we could make and I am stunned and thrilled to be here. We're going to keep on trying and keep our eyes on the track ahead. And the message that I want all of you to hang on to, even when you feel discouraged or too far behind or too tired, is that, whatever your goal is, whether it's running at Prelim or jumping a crossrail or going on your first trail ride, if you keep at it, you can do it.

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