Need A Coat As Show Season Heats Up?

I am going to take a moment for shameless advertisement. Ok, maybe there's a little shame. Well, no, actually that's a lie, there isn't. I have just listed a show coat for sale on eBay and on the off chance anyone is looking for a lovely, lightweight coat, well, here you go! I purchased it at a local humane society benefit and it's just a bit too big for me.

eBay Listing

This is a Wellington Collection jacket, you can find them in Dover for $140. And bonus: you can throw it in the washing machine! Completely brand new, with tags, from my very own smoke free home. It really does look nice in person and the lining is just beautiful, this cheapie camera does not do it justice. Bidding starts at $0.99 and I have no reserve on it, so name your price!

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This Is How We Roll: Horse Boots

I have mentioned my personal addiction love for boots of all shapes and sizes. So I thought I'd share what Solo and I have settled on after years of trying and watching about everything out there.

I do not use boots for dressage schooling, except for front bell boots to protect his special shoes, because I don't like to heat up tendons if I don't have to.  For jump schooling, we use open front boots to protect the front tendons and galloping boots behind to ward off interference along with the standard front bell boots.  At a show, I will use hind ankle boots instead of galloping boots (lighter).  For XC, we always go all out:  bell boots all around, rear heavy duty galloping boots, super awesome N.E.W. sport boots up front.      

Tri-Zone bell boots

Bell Boots

I'm actually pretty happy with a cheapie lot of Roma double lock bell boots I purchased as a group of 8. The velcro is ridiculously grippy and it takes me both hands & some patience to get them off, but I use these for our turnout boots; they hold up surprisingly well. Not bad for $7.

For competition, we are stuck with a pair of Equilibrium Tri-Zone no-turn bell boots.   If by "no-turn" you mean "pretty-much-always-turn." They have the little knobby in the back, but it does basically nothing. Having ripped boots at a horse show, I had to pick some up at the tack tent and this is all they had, so I had to cough up about $30 for them, ugh. As a plus, they are very professional looking & durable; aside from being dirty, they are in impeccable shape despite several trips around XC & schooling & mud. I think we will be stuck with their turniness for a while, which is kind of annoying on a shaped boot.

When we run XC, I also put a pair of simple pull-ons on his back feet, just to protect from interference.  I picked them up for about $10, no complaints.

Hind Boots

Solo sports 2-strap Woofs behind

It's all Woof wear back here. For schooling, I adore my Woof All-Around galloping boot. I will buy these forever & ever. If the ones I have ever die. They are simple, single-lock, two strap velcro, usually on sale at Dover for around $30. I have never had them budge or give way. After about three years of use, they are worn, but still perfectly serviceable. They used to be used for competitions as well, so they've seen a XC course or two, until....

I found a pair of 5-strap Woof sport boots in the trash can while volunteering at an event. Silly rich people (these are $60 boots)...yay for me! They were in perfect shape except for a tiny rub on one edge. So now they are our competition boots due to their heavy duty construction, I have no worries that Solo is going to bash through them. On the downside, they are quite heavy & do not breathe at all, but they don't seem to absorb too much water either.

I also recently bought a pair of hind ankle boots for stadium jumping, my barn-mates all use them & I really liked their lighter weight & smaller design.  The galloping boots seemed like overkill for stadium and, again, I don't like to heat up those tendons!  I found a set of Moxie breathable neoprene boots on sale for about $28.  They come in fun colours & are super light.  NO, mine are NOT hot pink, of COURSE they are a lovely dark powder blue!!  I would give them only a moderate breathability rating -- the ankle pad breathes pretty well, but the strip around the cannon bone does not.   

Front Boots

In the past, I've ridden stadium in plain open front boots from Roma -- durable, fit well, and affordable (around $25ish).  Easy to clean, but like the Woofs, lined with neoprene so again, not so breathable.  Then I ride XC in some generic neoprene splint boots that I think I paid a whopping $12 for.  The splint boots are now disintegrating after three years of faithful service, so it was time to find a replacement (I'll keep the open fronts for stadium, but want the front of the leg protected for XC).

In my other boot post, I told you how I'd learned some startling statistics about boots & injury. I also learned that something like 80% of sporthorse injuries were to the lower front limbs. So I wanted to be sure that this time, I had the best protection I could find. I wanted breathability, lightness, & a serious tendon strike plate.

I ended up with these: the N.E.W Airoflow XC boot. Yes, I paid a ridiculous amount of money for them. I'm not telling, but I did get them on sale. I think because the labels are sewn on upside down. But I am hoping to get some serious years out of them. Oh, and I tried them tonight for the first time. And they are totally AWESOME.

The inside is some kind of techy impact foam.  But the material is a very open weave, not quite a waffle weave, but same concept.  When I took them off of Solo's legs after a sweaty dressage workout on a humid night, his legs were almost totally dry!!!!  The outside is a super tough looking nylon & the cannon is encased in a carbon fiber strike plate that is molded around the leg & padded with the foamy stuff.  Oh and the best part:  they are machine washable.  Now THERE'S practical design!

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Always Expecting The Worst

I have a new horse.  My mild-mannered Quarter Horse seems to have wandered off in the night.  In his place is a somewhat more brash and opinionated creature.  He is just as shiny as ever, but he relishes pushing around Jeff, his pasture mate, with pinned ears and bared teeth.  Instead of meekly submitting to something he doesn't want to do, he boldly states his own opinion, which may include kicking out in symbolic defiance.  There's a hint of arrogance that just wasn't there before.

Because I am, well, me, I quickly surmised the cause of Solo's Big Change. He most likely had a brain tumour and would be dead within the month. This was obviously the most rational and readily available explanation for this new horse at the end of my lead rope.

I presented this information to our most logical of friends, lifeshighway, sure that she too would be puzzled by this turn of events.

lh: "Hmmmm. Well, he's fitter now than he has been since you have had him. Horses often exhibit changes in personality when they reach a certain level of physical fitness."

Me: "Oh. Well, that would make sense too."

I may have a tendency to leap to extreme conclusions in a few...ok, many...situations.

But I think lifeshighway has hit the nail on its proverbial head. Solo is indeed fitter than he has ever been; he is sleek, muscular, and holding the perfect weight and his wind is much improved. I noticed a marked jump in base fitness after doing our two horse trials this spring and it has stayed in place throughout April and May. And the collective "they" say that horses do indeed develop an arrogant confidence of their own, a certain extra vim and vigor when they go from pasture puff to competitive athlete.

So, my horse is kind of a badass now.

And I think I kind of like it.

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Things That Make You Go Ew

Very few things gross me out. I'm a biologist -- my job is sex and poop. But I have weak spots. What can induce a gag reflex in someone who regularly gets spermed on by fish??

Because it's your lucky day, I will tell you!

(1) Having to touch dog poo. Even through a paper towel. Possibly the grossest substance on the planet.

(2) One day, my vet stuck her bare finger in my dog's ear, pulled it out coated with this black, yeasty substance, then sniffed it. I about lost my lunch on the exam table.

(3) Any kind of fabric in my mouth. Even thinking about it. Gack. Don't ask. It's a weird OCD thing.

(4) Working on a National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, we had collected a clutch of endangered prairie chicken eggs. I went to open one to examine it and it exploded. Grey-green liquified chick soup sprayed all over my shirt. Yeah, that'll do it.

And number five got me today. Because it's Weenie Cleaning Weekend for Solo. I broke out the KY Jelly (which won't burn like Excalibur can if you accidentally leave some on there) and lubed him up before the ride. And pulled out half a big white bean, knowing I'd have to get the other half out. That got the old heave muscles warmed up. Just be grateful I didn't succumb to the sudden urge to take a picture of it to post on the blog.

Ah, the things we do for our companions.

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Stupid Circles

Sweat is pouring down my face.

It's approximately 95% humidity, 85 degrees of drip-inducing goodness out.

I am torturing Solo with some dressage schooling, his absolute favourite. If horses are capable of sarcastic glares, I think I got one when I got on.

One of David O's favourite exercises to torment warm us up with is flexing the poll while cantering on a circle. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Ha. It's not.

I am determined to conquer this exercise. Solo's interpretation of this little gymnastic endeavor is to either fall on his inside shoulder while lifting his head around the turn, or pop his outside shoulder out and ignore the outside rein. If you do get close to convincing him to bend, he feels it is impossible to do so while maintaining forward motion.

We've had a little success on a previous ride under jumping tack. Which means I had spurs and the elevator bit so it was easier to use a light aid that Solo could not simply brace himself against and ignore. Today, though, I was in dressage gear, so we had the plastic boucher and no spur.

The canter transitions were going well and the rhythm was cadenced and Solo's back was soft. We began our circle in good balance and I closed it down to 15 m while asking him to flex.

The sweat burned my eyes and my completely non-breathable polo shirt from work that I had been too hurried to change out of clung to my back.

Hot, sweaty Solo said, "No. Flexing is hard" and tipped onto his forehand and leaned.

It happened. I was tired and my patience buckled. I made that fatal riding flaw, goaded by the ugly monsters of heat and fatigue: I got mad.

"Good god, horse, it's not that hard, just BEND!!" I tried to insist with gritted teeth and an outpouring of frustration to the hand on the rein and the heel in his side.

Solo, however, is unfailingly honest in his assessment of my riding finesse on a given day. And he got mad right back, as they unfailingly (and rightfully) do when we try to force our hand too fast. And flung his head up in the air in protest and skittered off to the side.

Immediately I knew that I had pushed too hard and with too little patience. I went back to a walk, letting Solo stretch and myself try and breathe and forget about the swampy air wrapped around my brain.

When I attained some semblance of calm and thought through what went wrong, I picked up a soft contact and asked for our cadenced canter back.

Solo was wary, one ear cocked back, warning me that I better be good up there, he wasn't going to take any crap. I asked him to come into the outside rein a little and asked for a single circle, just 20 m this time, one challenge at a time. As he bent around my leg, I sat up and asked for only a step or two of poll flexion to the inside. I did not force him to hold it very long as he is not there yet. He gave me my steps, I rode him out of the circle and let him continue straight and then we quit.

This is a lesson I must learn over and over and over. A lesson that I know, but that is so hard to stay true to when things get gritty. The moments when I lose it are rare indeed, but serve as an important reminder that impatience has no place in riding and training. If we find ourselves angry or frustrated, we MUST stop, breathe, and jump start our brains because that's where the solution is. Not in force, not in brawn.

We are making progress. We'll get there. As P says, one step at a time. If you get three good steps going one way, and three good steps going the other way, well, then that's six good steps. Maybe next time you'll get eight, then next time eleven and soon, you'll have a whole circle...

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