Isaac arrived Saturday evening as a tropical storm. Charles had picked up more hay and shavings for Diana and me at Finish Line feed on Friday morning on his way back from work, so both Diana and I were set for the storm supply-wise. I was called to work relief at another veterinary hospital all day Saturday until 10pm, and so I did not make it out to the barn that day to get my things in order. Diana took care of everything-she took all of hers, Mark's, Dianne's, and my stuff that we had hanging either in front of our stalls or in our tack stall into the feed room, where it wouldn't blow away.
Judy found on Craig's List someone selling giant plastic drums for storing water, and purchased 3 of them for the barn. We have well water, and without electricity, the well pump won't work, so this was a good thing to have regardless. Judy has never lived through a tropical storm nor a hurricane before (she is from the Midwest), and was afraid. She had discussed moving all of the horses down to the end closest to the feed room and boarding up the walkout entrances, but no one liked this idea: if the power went out, the horses would roast in their stalls, and if the storm turned as expected, we would probably only get a lot of rain and a little wind. Plus it was a lot of work, and we've all been exhausted at the barn. There have been some issues going on with Judy and we are all doing a lot more work than we originally expected when we came to board here. We're tired, and none of us boarders who are seasoned hurricane veterans were particularly worried about Isaac, especially given that every 12 hours the news reports were placing the storm track further south and west of Florida.
Well, I had to stay up very late Saturday night because I was working an overnight relief shift at the same hospital again on Sunday night. Charles was home for the night, too, so we made a 2:00 am run to the local Walmart Supercenter and rented The Hunger Games. The movie ended up being a long one, so at 4:30 am, when the first bands of wind and rain hit us, I was wide awake. I thought Diana had been overreacting by bringing all of our stuff into the feed room, but at that point, I was really glad she did.
I woke up at 3:00 pm to on-and-off rain and wind. At 4:00 pm I drove to the barn when there was a lull in the weather. It was picking up again as I turned onto our street. This street runs in front of the park. One portion of the road has a row of trees by a pond that were serving as a very visible barrier from the wind and rain, as further down the street, where there were no trees, you could see the wall of wind and rain that was sweeping in from the park.
An example of tropical storm weather
The driveway to the barn was beginning to flood, as it always does when it rains a lot, but the rain stopped as I parked. Water was draining from the walkouts into the parking lot, and in a desperate measure to not get my sneakers wet, I took them off and, carrying my socks in my hand, I hopped into the ankle-deep water barefoot and ran into the barn.
Mark and Dianne were there, and they had been at the barn most of the day taking care of storm preparations. According to the news per Mark, the worst of the storm had already passed that morning, but I didn't believe it given what I had just seen on the short drive to the barn. Judy had parked her horse trailer right in front of Bali's walkout in a vain attempt to block the wind, but it looked like the Tower of Pisa when seen from the front-tilted towards the walkout thanks to the graded footing between the ends of the walkouts and the parking lot. Diana had not been happy when she had seen it. First of all, the wind comes from all directions with tropical storms and hurricanes, and second, if the winds had been stronger, that trailer would have ended up on top of the Bali's walkout fence, if not Bali herself. Bali's colic back on the 4th of July was not managed well by Judy, and Diana is reaching her wits' end with the handling of her horse by the barn manager.
You just don't do this:
Judy's trailer lined up in front of Bali's walkout: the Leaning Trailer of Pisa. The wind came from the east/southeast, towards the barn...had it been a real storm, this trailer would've toppled over for real.
when you know that this can happen:
Trailer turned over by the winds from Hurricane Georges, a category 3 storm that split Puerto Rico in two in 1999. I experienced it first-hand. Photo courtesy of Sol Boricua.
Mark tried to explain to Judy that the trailer was a bad idea, but she wasn't listening. You can understand why Diana, another experienced hurricane veteran, did not take take that sight above well.
Lily's stall was soaked from the rain that had blown in through her walkout entrance. (And so was Bali's-the trailer did NOTHING in terms of blocking wind and rain!) Mark had locked everyone except for Bali in with their stall guards-Bali was the exception because she will simply plow through her stall guard if she feels like going outside. Judy had had Mark move the muck buckets that we use as a water supply from the turnouts into the horses' stalls. Initially I wasn't thrilled with the possibility of Lily overturning a giant muck bucket of water in her stall, but this turned out to be a smart move in the end.
All of the horses were wearing their fly masks to protect their eyes from flying shavings, which was a good idea. I placed Lily on the crossties with her soaked beet pulp/grain mix, and let her eat while I stripped her stall. She didn't care about the wind blowing through the barn. My little Florida mare.
Lily enjoying her dinner despite the nasty storm
4 wheelbarrows full of wet shavings later, the stall was clean down to the mats. I laid down a bag of ultra fine shavings to soak up the wet from the mats, and coarser shavings on top. Normally I would've bedded the stall down deeper, but I knew I'd be stripping the stall again the next day, and if the storm got bad overnight, I doubted Lily would feel inclined to lay down in her stall anyway.
Diana arrived when I was halfway done with my stall, as Mark and Dianne were leaving, and we quickly fed all of the horses and topped off water buckets. Everyone received 2 full haynets for the night, as I was going to be at work and Diana was not driving back out to the barn in the middle of the storm to do the late dinner. We were done by 6:00 pm. The horses were as safe and comfortable as we could make them.
As I was driving home, a ferocious band of rain moved in, the rain coming down so hard that I could not see the road, even with the truck windshield wipers at maximum speed. In the 5 minutes it took for me to get home, however, the rain vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and I was able to run from the truck to our house without getting drenched.
I was able to drive to work inbetween bands of rain, thank God, though I still witnessed a car crash into the guardrail right in front of me on the Turnpike heading north, and drove past multiple fallen trees as I was arriving at Boynton Beach. Not pretty. I walked into the emergency hospital to find a waiting room full of clients and their pets, all of the rooms occuppied and, in the ICU, a dog that had been just brought back from the dead with CPR. Talk about a stormy night. It was total and absolute chaos, like something out of a movie. Within half an hour, I had taken radiographs on 2 patients, placed an IV catheter and drawn blood on a third that was being hospitalized, triaged another incoming emergency, and presented a treatment plan to a fifth client in an exam room. The pace was maddening. The 2 technicians that were supposed to leave at 8pm stayed until 10pm to help us get caught up, but also because the weather outside was so bad it wasn't safe to drive.
Around 10pm, the emergencies stopped arriving, and we were able to catch up. By 11:30, we had either sent the clients back home with treated pets, or had hospitalized the patients that needed further medical attention. The storm outside was just getting worse by the hour. At midnight the two doctors, the other tech and I all sat down in front of the computer to check the radar, and saw that a massive rain band was moving over us, with more coming right behind it. None of the forecasts had said it was going to be this bad. There was horizontal rain outside, and the trees were being whipped and beaten mercilessly by the wind.
At 2:00 am there was a lull in the storm and we were able to take the hospitalized dogs outside for a walk, but by 3:00 am the onslaught began again. This was the image I found online of Isaac, courtesy of www.weather.com:
Isaac Sunday night
As you can see, the wind and rain we were receiving over South FL were pretty much equal in intensity to that at the eye of the storm. This explained a lot. Still, the hourly forecasts didn't even begin to describe what we were experiencing in person. We were dreading the morning and having to drive back to our homes in the storm.
Judy texted at 6:00 am - the electricity was out at the barn, but everyone was fed and watered.
Charles had an easy drive home from downtown Fort Lauderdale, but my drive home turned out to be pretty much as bad as I expected. It was windy in Boynton, but with a timid sun peeking out among the clouds. Halfway home on the Turnpike heading south, I could see the bands of rain-the road disappeared into a gray nothing topped off by dark, ominous clouds. I drove through 4 of these bands, one right after the other, a full 20 minutes of pummeling rain and driving wind, where the water was coming down so hard I could barely see the car in front of me. I had to hold the steering wheel with both hands to keep the car in my lane. It was terrifying. It really should be illegal to drive around in tropical storms. Florida doesn't take them seriously, endangering the lives of everyone who is forced to go to work in inclement weather. It's ridiculous. A tropical storm can turn into a hurricane at a moment's notice if the conditions are favorable, and it has happened in the past in Florida. And then what do you do? You stay stuck at work for the next 24-48 hours, in a building that may or may not be hurricane safe, or you drive home in dangerous conditions to make sure your family and your posessions are safe? It's a catch-22.
In Puerto Rico, everything was shut down 24 hours before the storm, whether category 3 hurricane or just a tropical storm, and for 24 hours after to ensure that people stayed safe. I prefer this approach BY FAR.
We did have electricity at home, so I was able to shower with hot water and go to bed with AC. I went to the barn around 6:00 pm. It was cloudy outside, but the wind had died down, and it was sprinkling on and off. The power returned to the barn as I was walking in! It was good that the muck buckets had been placed in the stalls, as it had meant no one had had to worry yet about having to fill their water buckets from the water drums.
There were puddles in the turnouts and the arena, but it has been worse, so I turned Lily out with Willy while I cleaned her stall. The stall was pretty wet, as expected, though not as wet as on Sunday. Lily had a grand old time playing with Willy in Bali's turnout after 48 hours of being cooped up in her stall.
"Come on Willy, let's play!!"
Snorting at the big water puddle
Willy started looking for the perfect spot to roll, and Lily followed suit
A little rolling competition...*lol*
Lily's bucks
And an example of just how much air she can get between herself and the ground. That's a good 3 feet! From the angle of the photo it looks like she was about to kick at Willy, but she was even with the puddle-Willy was a good 20 feet away from her, and just happened to be running around in the background.
Her floaty trot
And a nice uphill canter
A more extended trot.
"SNORT!!"
And they're off again...
I took out 3 wheelbarrow-fulls of wet shavings from her stall, and bedded it down deep. Around that time Diana arrived, and she put Bali out in the arena. Lily is in FLAMING HEAT and kept flirting with Bob over the fence and squirting, so I moved her and Willy out to the arena with Bali. The dressage arena had been taken down, and the horses had an absolute blast running back and forth through the water without having to jump over the dressage arena rails. The arena looks so much bigger without the dressage rails up. I wouldn't mind if Judy left it as is.
Lily and Bali walking off in the arena, almost perfectly synchronized
All hyped up from running around
I set up Lily's feed while the horses ran around and around outside. I finally went to get Lily, and they had settled down to grazing. Bali gave me a hard time when I went to get my mare, trying to wedge herself between Lily and the gate so she could escape first. I had to chase her off. Sometimes Bali tries to use her size and weight to get what she wants. I didn't let her this time. Diana ended up coming to our rescue and helped me close the gate behind Lily before Bali could try to charge through again. Lily was getting worked up, being her typical in-heat hypersensitive self, and ignoring what I was asking her to do, so I turned her around and calmly had her back up all the way down the hallway to the wash rack. I hooked her up to the crossties, and her eyes were bugging out, calling for Bali while Bob ran in and out of his walkout in the stall next door. *sigh* Horses.
I ignored Lily's nervousness and she settled down while I hosed her off on the crossties, since she was splattered with wet sand from the arena, and noticed that she is resting her left hind a lot. She always seems to rest it, but she was resting it more tonight. I felt all up and down her leg, and couldn't get a reaction from her, so her tendons seem to be okay. She does have a little crack in her frog, and I'm wondering if she doesn't have some thrush in there that's flaring up with all of the wetness of the last 2 days. I applied some Dry Cow Today to the crack and put her in her nice fluffy dry stall, leaving the stall chain up for one more night. I want to see what that leg looks like tomorrow. Hopefully it's just a bad case of thrush.
A watery moon was visible driving out of the barn, with some clouds sweeping in, but more like a normal South FL late summer evening.
She has an ear notch from a trap-neuter-return program. However, though initially fearful of people, this one is definetely not feral!
At the barn down the street where I used to board, there was a pride of cats (I guess it would be called a pride?) that would come in the evenings to be fed. There were 7 of them, 6 of which hung around the barn most of the time, and then there was Oreo. She would show up out of the blue only in the evenings and stay on the outskirts of the main group, waiting to be fed. Since I often did the barn evening feedings, I also fed the cats, and I made sure Oreo got some food too. She was one of my favorites, with a little squeaky voice and an adoration for attention once you got her to trust you.
After my horse was taken from me and I was boarding at my current barn, I would see Oreo walking along the arena wall, on her way to the barn down the street. I tried calling her over several times, and convinced the barn manager at the time that we should leave food out for her, but none of these tactics ever worked in stopping her daily pilgrimage to the barn down the street. She actually ran from me when seeing me out of context, so after that I kind of let her be.
As it turns out, after I was gone, Diana was doing most of the evening feedings over there and had also been feeding the barn cats and Oreo. One evening shortly after Diana had moved to our barn, Oreo suddenly showed up at our barn, wailing and looking scruffier than I remembered her.
The timing was perfect. Judy's barn kitty, Smiles, had just been diagnosed with FIV and she had taken her home to become a permanent indoor cat. We still had plenty of cat food at the barn, so I grabbed a handful of food and brought it over to Oreo, calling her name to rein her in before she ran away (she always, always responded with a "Meow!" back) and placing the food on the floor about 6 feet away from her. I stepped back, and Oreo immediately came over to eat. She ate voraciously, so I fed her another handful, and after that she was convinced we were nice people, and allowed us to pet her, which got her talking more than ever and purring up a storm while she followed us up and down the aisle as we finished our chores.
She came back the next night, and after that she has become a permanent resident. In this pic she was kneading the air!
That's one happy kitty. I have to say I love cats about as much as I love horses. I own 3 cats. They're like potato chips-you can't have just one.
On another note, there is finally peace at the barn after Elisabeth left, and after a sit-down with Mark and Dianne, the air has cleared and everyone is friends again. It's nice to actually want to spend time at the barn again and to be able to look people in the eye with a smile.
While waiting for my saddle, we've gotten creative. I have been participating in the sport known as Wessage. Aka dressage in a Western saddle. Dianne now owns my old Wintec All Purpose, but the entire reason why I sold it is because it didn't fit Lily appropriately. I tried Diana's Wintec Close Contact, but it has Cair panels, and she just seemed 100% uncomfortable in it, hollowing her back and inverting her neck. I can't say I was much more comfortable either-for the first time in my life, I was very uncomfortable with short stirrups and felt like I was flopping all over her back at the trot; cantering was out of the question.
On a whim, I asked for permission and tried Diana's synthetic Abetta Western saddle on Lily. It's very light (maybe 15 lbs?) and small, with rounded skirts and a 15" seat. My fear was that having a Western saddle on would make Lily have a flashback to the cowboy days, so I lunged her for a couple of minutes with the saddle before getting on. She had absolutely no reaction, so I got on.
The ride was a huge success. She performed as well as she did in Judy's dressage saddle, giving me her snappy trot, and collecting when asked to. I was thrilled.
Our next ride was actually our first ride with Diana! I have known her for 2 years, and had not yet actually seen her on a horse, not even her own. We went on a trail ride to the park, and had a great time. She's a nice rider, and after 5 years together, her and Bali have an obvious partnership and trust. I love watching pairs like them-it's like they're one entity, a centaur.
Since Diana rode in her Western saddle for the occassion, I borrowed Dianne's black Circle Y Western saddle that she used to use on Pink. It also fit Lily well, and despite being heavier than Diana's (probably just under 17 lbs) Lily still didn't care about it on her back. It was like riding on a sofa-it has a nice cushy memory foam seat, and I actually liked NOT being able to feel every single little thing that Lily was doing underneath me. I remembered why I used to prefer training horses in Western saddles. I'd switch to my old close contact only when I knew I could trust the horse or if it was something gaited, like a Paso Fino.
So I've continued riding her Western. I figure it's good practice for the Alta Escuela, which is also heavier in weight than a regular dressage saddle, has a wider twist more like a Western saddle, and also initially feels like you're sitting higher above the horse. She has performed almost as well in Dianne's Western in the arena as in Diana's, so I now have 2 saddles to choose from in the meantime.
Lily goes Western
I took the noseband off, permanently for now. She really doesn't need it, and it's been so hot, I'd rather she have as little stuff on her as possible.
So to continue the update that I didn't quite finish in the last 2 posts, Lily's body has changed tremendously in the last month. Not only because of the new haircut - after the clinic, we arrived home and I took her mane off. Why? Well, during dinner with Manuel the clinician, the subject of Lusitano mares' traditional roached manes came up.
Iberian-type mare, with the traditional roached mane and shaved tail.
Judy in particular doesn't like this look on mares, but Miguel was saying that you can shape a roached mane to create the ilusion of a false crest.
I've always liked roached manes, but found it inconvenient when riding jumpers, especially if you rode horses that wanted to fly across the course, making rollbacks and tight turns a feat-sometimes you really need some mane to grab in those instances! However, since we're just doing dressage, I proceeded to take Lily's mane off. This is the result:
The long tuft of hair? Yes, I left it on purpose. It's called an "oh shit handle."
I LOVE the look on her. It makes her look very Spanish, and less Thoroughbred-y. I shaped it so that the highest part of the curve is even with the slight dip in her neck (you can really see what I mean in angle of the second picture above). By the end of the first week of the new haircut, Judy admitted to me that though she hates roached manes, she really does like the look on Lily. She's feminine enough to be able to pull it off.
Her body is rounder, her withers appear higher, and she's developing more muscle in the little triangle between her shoulder blade, withers and beginning of the top of her neck.
The few of you who read this blog will have noticed that I changed the blog banner photo, because I finally have a good enough pic of Lily and me together. That photo was taken 2 weeks ago by Judy, the day after one of our best lessons yet. These are my 2 favorites:
Totally looking like a Spanish horse!
Love this photo. Her left hind is almost even with her girth, and her front end is UP! My butt is out of the saddle, but I promise I was not bouncing. Please see video below.
This video of her in one of her most collected canters so far was taken on the same day:
The head tossing has almost completely disappeared after purchasing a curb chain cover. We're still working on that inside bend on this side-her right lead canter is her weakest point of all. But still, HUUUUGE improvement from just a month ago!
A video of her trot, also that same day:
She does get on the forehand in the corner, and tries to get quick coming down the long side of the arena towards Charles (who was taking the video), but you can see the overall improvement in her carriage, especially when compared to this, taken September of last year.
I think pictures speak louder than words. :) We have been doing more shoulder-ins, practicing the counted walk (she still gets very impatient with this and wants to walk sideways like a crab-it's very hard for her to go straight and slow!) and a lot of circles at a walk using the outside rein only as part of our warm-up and cool-down. She'll also do a turn on the haunches with no reins, which I discovered pretty much by accident, but she'll do it in both directions! Other than that, we've been working on short collected canter sessions with a correct bend, and on really extending her trot for short periods of time. I started all of these exercises initially in her turnout, which is about half the size of the arena, so she wouldn't try to escape the bit by bolting if she became scared with the new cues and equipment. This idea worked-during a 2-week period, she attempted to escape only once, and I was able to bring her to an immediate stop and then continue working as if nothing had happened, thanks to the reduced work space. For the last 3 weeks, we've been back in the arena, and this week I started taking her out again-I don't want her getting ring-sour with too much arena work, and I think working in the park is essential to her conditioning. Plus, it's breezier in the park than in the barn arena.
While it never truly got what I would call "cool" this winter, temperatures were tolerable for the most part if you rode before 10:00 am or after 3pm. As of May, we are officially back to hot, muggy Florida summer weather, with temps already hitting the 90's this week. If you want to ride, you have to do it in the early morning, at 8:00 am or earlier, ideally, or in the late afternoon after 6:00 pm. That is, if it's not pouring. It rained every single day for most of last month-it was starting to feel like we live in the Pacific Northwest... I've said it before, and I'll say it again: whoever called this the Sunshine State definetely did NOT live here year-round! It is normal to get afternoon thunderstorms in the summer, and since summer here starts in April and ends in November, that's pretty much 8 months of rainy season.
The start of Florida monsoon season. "Sunshine State" my @#$...
Despite the warm winter, the experts keep saying it's going to be a less active than usual hurricane season, which has everyone perplexed. See the Accuweather report here. The reader comments at the bottom of the page following the report totally cracked me up, because it was exactly what I was thinking as I read it. What will keep hurricanes from forming if the Atlantic water temps between Africa and the US east coast never went below 80 degrees this winter? We've already had 2 tropical storms form-Alberto and Beryl, both in May. Hurricane season officially started on June 1st, and we're already starting on the letter "C" for storm names... Thankfully, our barn is hurricane-proof up to category 3 or 4, and it doesn't flood; Judy just has to implement a system for boarding up the walkout entrances, and we're good to go. Hopefully that happens within the next month or so.
It's been a long time since I posted on here, though I think about it all the time! Between work, more responsability at the barn, riding, and time with Charles, it seems the days fly by. Usually when I'm home, all I want to do is sleep, and then it's time to go back to the barn.
Lily's progress continues. It seems like almost every ride includes a new breakthrough with her. April brought about a few of our first real leg yields:
Still some tension here, but she is slowly improving
A lot more work on the bit:
I'm leaning forward (yuck) but love how she looks here!
Tracking UP!
And the Lightness clinic.
The clinic was life-changing, if I may call it that. I cried, bitched and had internal tantrums, and poor Lily, overwhelmed by a progressive change of all of the equipment she was comfortable with, in one fell swoop demonstrated the trainer, whom I will call Miguel for the purposes of this blog, why she DIDN'T need a whip, why I think she IS athletic enough to make it to upper level dressage, and her rider's (me) ability to stay on...
Despite all this, we ended on a really, really good note:
Yup, that's us, on the 3rd and last day of the clinic.
The clinic took place at the Martin Downs Equestrin Center in Palm City. Please check out their photos! It is a LOVELY, top-notch facility, where all disciplines (Western, H/J, dressage, and everything in between) are truly welcome. Tara, the barn manager, is awesome, and despite her busy schedule running a 50-stall barn, managed to make all of us feel welcome and appreciated. It was a beautiful experience.
Sarah organized the clinic single-handedly, and it was a huge success. Judy came too, but as an auditor, because Rose's hip had been flaring up. We went a day early, to give Lily and Romeo extra time to become acclimated to the new surroundings, since they both initially can get worked up in new environments. Sarah towed Romeo in Mark's truck and trailer because she had to pick up Miguel at the airport, and Judy and I drove down in her truck with Lily in tow about 30 minutes behind her. The drive only took an hour from our area in Broward, and Lily trailered well. She was assigned a large box stall in the main barn, with her own overhead fan. Her neighbor was...an Interagro Lusitano!! As it turns out, Martin Downs is home to the Interagro Lusitanos when they are shipped to FL for the yearly auction, and some have become permanent residents. Hence, Lily's handsome gray neighbor (he was a gelding. They did have Interagro stallions in the stallion barn.)
Romeo was over at the stallion barn next door, where most of the clinic horses were placed for the weekend. I had asked to be in the main barn away from the stallions, not because I have anything against stallions, but because Lily had gone into raging heat 2 days before the clinic and I didn't want her distracted by the absolutely gorgeous Spanish stallions at the end of the stallion barn (all of them either Lusitanos or Andalusians...beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!) while I was trying to get her to learn new things in a completely new environment!
Thursday afternoon, after allowing the horses to settle in for a couple of hours and checking out the hotel room we would be sharing, we went back to the barn (a 10 minute drive) to tack up and ride Lily and Romeo in the covered arena. There were mirrors at one end, and Sarah and I wanted to make sure the 2 horses were used to the mirrors before the clinic started.
Tacking up Lily, she was fidgeting constantly and calling, which drives me crazy. This is one of her things when she is in heat-she gets monumentally attached to other horses within seconds. After saddling up, I released Lily in the large round pen, and had her trot and canter around for a bit before hopping on. After being so worked up in the cross-ties, I figured she'd explode in the round pen. She surprised me by being very good.
We rode over to the covered arena, and entered by the mirrors. She looked at them, but was unfazed. We walked and trotted, covering the length of the arena and letting her look at everything. She was fine until Sarah and Romeo left the arena, where she decided to have a small fit-she spun, did a small rear, and crow-hopped a couple of times, but I spun her around and made her trot. She wasn't really paying attention to me after that, and despite her anxiety, I could tell that she was exhausted. I had her do a couple of leg yields and shoulder-ins in front of the mirror at a walk, and left it at that for the day.
We met Miguel for dinner that night. He is Spanish, and his first language is Spanish, but when he speaks in English, he has a heavy French accent from having lived in Switzerland when he was younger. The most fascinating thing about him is that all of his training and riding is self-taught, which makes him truly gifted. By the end of dinner, we were all excited to start learning from him the next day.
The next day, Friday, was private lesson day, and Miguel was booked solid for the day. Sarah had the first 2 lessons (for a total of 2 hours riding). They worked on shoulder-in and counter shoulder-in to get Romeo's mind off of wanting to run when excited. By the end of the lesson, Romeo was dripping sweat. Sarah had a somewhat hard time understanding the exercises because she doesn't have a dressage background and there was a language barrier, with Miguel's first language being Spanish. I could understand what he was asking her to do, but my one criticism of the lesson was that when one way of asking her to do something didn't work, he didn't phrase it differently-he just kept asking her to do the same thing over and over, in the same choice of words, even though she wasn't understanding. Eventually she'd get it, but she had no idea what she was doing to make it work. In Sarah's case, it might have taken her 15 minutes instead of 1 hour to understand the one exercise if the information had been relayed differently. A very good instructor will change the way he/she describes movements or corrections to try to reach his student more effectively. Sadly, most riding instructors, Olympic calibre trainers included, lack this ability. It applies to everything-someone may be excellent at something, but that doesn't always translate into that person also having the capacity to teach someone else how to be that good.
Sarah demonstrates a shoulder-in as she had Romeo circle around Miguel
By the time the 3rd lesson was happening, I was really wishing I had been able to schedule a private lesson for Lily and me-the private lesson day had already filled up by the time I registered. I was curious to see what Miguel would think of Lily, and what exercises he'd come up with for us. He seemed to be very impressed with 2 of the riders, both upper level competetitive dressage riders, both of them with beautiful gray Andalusian geldings. His way of teaching worked perfectly for the more advanced students. The first rider owned 5 horses, and had brought her Andalusian and a Hanoverian mare for the clinic. She seemed nice enough, but had already angered Sarah by requesting in advance that no one watch her private lessons, and then entering the arena on her horse before Sarah's lesson was finished. The second rider had a gorgeous ride on her gelding-it was like watching a dance, where they were both completely in tune to each other, and there was this tangible love between the two of them as they rode past...it was lovely to watch. I expressed interest in a lesson, if there was any kind of cancellation or if there was any way I could be squeezed in at the end of the day, and Miguel said that if he still had the energy, we could do it.
As it turned out, another lady who had scheduled 2 lessons back-to-back finished early because she was tired, and Miguel was able to squeeze me in after all.
I tacked up Lily with my heart in my throat from NERVES. By this point, it was 5:00 pm in the evening, and pretty much everyone who would be attending the clinic had arrived, and was sitting at the covered arena watching the lessons. I have stage fright, even after so many years competing on the jumper circuit. Also, some very dark, ominous clouds had rolled in-it looked like it was going to downright pour at any minute, there were hail warnings for the county (lovely, the sound of hail on the tin roof of a covered arena!), and Lily had been cooped up in her stall all day. She was distracted and fidgety while I tacked her up, whinnying at the horses turned out in the pastures, and it didn't help remembering that every other time I have gotten on her in the past when I've been nervous, she's turned into a firecracker.
I mounted up in the covered arena, and we warmed up so Miguel could watch her move. I didn't even bother trying to get her on the bit-he had criticized this when done by everyone else, even the Grand Prix riders, so I just stayed off of Lily's face and rode her with a light seat. She was going particularly inverted because of her own nerves, but she did walk, trot and canter uneventfully. Once he had seen enough, Miguel called us to him, and then he proceeded to rip into us. Or so it felt.
He asked what did we want to learn in this lesson. I said I wanted exercises to get Lily working more from her haunches and improve the quality of her gaits, and to get her lateral work equal (she is much better leg yielding to the right than the left). He asked if my goal was competitive dressage and I said yes; I just want to see how far Lily and I can go; my main goal right now is to get her working correctly. He kind of scoffed at us, which I found incredibly offensive. He truly acted like he thought my mare was useless, and said that we would never be able to help us in a 1 hour lesson. I was floored. He had given lessons to several inexperienced riders on gaited horses, ranging from Paso Finos to a Mangalarga Marchador without a problem, without belittling them, but he couldn't teach me on my horse? Why even bother squeezing me in, if he was going to have that kind of attitude?
We had been told to bring 2 sets of reins, but to bring our usual bit. The first thing he said was that he couldn't teach us anything with Lily in a loose ring (I had her in a Myler Comfort Snaffle loose ring). WTF??! I had a whole collection of bits back home, with everything from a waterford bit from my jumping days to a low port kimberwicke that I used for brakes on my previous gelding, and had brought NONE because we had been told they would not be needed. Then he pointed out that Lily has an inverted neck, which I am fully aware of, and I pointed out this was actually an improvement from before-we have only recently been able to figure out how to get her to work correctly without freaking her out.
He then had us work on a 10 meter circle at the walk, with Lily overbent to the inside, and then send her out in a straight line, pushing her forward with my legs. The point of the exercise was to improve the quality of her gait by getting her to extend, though I still don't understand the mechanics of this exercise-the why and how of it. Lily would release in the circle, but I would be told to continue-I couldn't tell what Miguel was seeing as indication that it was time to send her into the straight line. We tried this at the walk and trot, but she wasn't giving a snappy response to the leg pressure on the straightaway-she was still tired from the day before.
Because of this, he asked for someone to hand him a whip. For me to use. I felt all of the blood drain from my face. Lily is absolutely terrified of whips. All I have to do is hold a lunge whip in my hand, unmoving with lash pointing down, and she will LITERALLY run herself into the ground in terror. She will tolerate me holding a dressage whip while standing on the ground next to her and running it over her body when she is calm and in the right mindset, but when she is in heat, any little thing I do can cause a flashback, and has the potential to seem life-threatening to her. I had no idea what she would do in a new setting, with a group of people watching us, and a man trying to pass me a whip across her neck. Judy actually spoke up for me, explaining that Lily had been abused, but Miguel decided to proceed with the introduction of the whip.
She did freak out when he tried to hand it to me, so Miguel quickly worked on desensitizing her, running it all over her body until she stopped flinching. I was enraged because my mare does NOT need a whip. However, he wanted me to use the whip just to reinforce my leg. If she didn't respond immediately to leg pressure when sending her out on a straight line, I was to tap my calf with the whip. I tried it, and was very surprised when Lily did NOT take off, proving the new levels that her trust in me has reached. Her response at the trot, however, was to give me her very fast pogo-sticky trot. Miguel then wanted me to slow my post to control her, which I can do just fine without half-halts, but Lily wasn't really responding to that with the whip in my hand. He then wanted me to try the exercise at the canter. Now, that did result in Lily bolting, where I instantly dropped the whip, and we did a mad circle at a gallop around Miguel while I got her back under control.
"THAT is why I don't use a whip." I said, my blood boiling, as I brought my poor mare to a halt in front of him. After that, he still wanted me to use the whip, but by then, Lily was so worked up there was no need for me to tap my leg-she was responding instantly to leg pressure.
I was a frazzled mess of nerves by the end of that lesson, and felt that it had totally not been worth putting myself in danger for it nor worth the extra money I'd be paying for it, just to be subjected to this man's opinion of a TB cross mare. Example: Lily snorts with every stride when she canters, like most fit TBs do. Ex-racers have the snorting-with-every-stride down to an art, and thanks to Lily, I learned that this is actually inherited. She started this type of snorting when she really started to really trust me at the canter, which happened around the same time that she really started to get fit. I love hearing her do it-the snorting stops when she is tense. Miguel said he had never heard a horse do this and acted like Lily was a freak for doing so. I find this very odd. I'm pretty sure this isn't limited to just Thoroughbreds, but whatever.
I untacked Lily and hosed her off, so angry that I felt the tears springing into my eyes. I put her away next to her boyfriend as the thunder really started to rumble. That evening at dinner, we discussed who would be in which groups. The vast majority of riders were on gaited horses, mostly Paso Finos, Trote-Galopes, the Mangalarga and a gaited Morgan. They were divided into 2 groups, one with the more timid and inexperienced riders, the other with the more experienced riders on difficult horses. I was kind of placed by default in the 3rd group with the Grand Prix dressage riders and another First Level rider, because we were the only four on non-gaited horses, and we all rode dressage.
The next morning was a chilly and watery one. I was exhausted, and felt like I was coming down with a cold-my head was throbbing and my nose was runny. The weather wasn't helping-we had more hailstorm warnings, and we'd had electric storms all night long. It was a good thing we had that covered arena, as the storms rolling in from the sea were affecting all of Florida. Even Charles, back home and working Thursday night, had said the thunder and lightning was so bad in Broward that they could hear the rumbling inside the building, a rare occurrence.
In the morning, we had the lecture portion of the clinic, which was fascinating. We learned about Nuno Oliveira and Jean-Claude Racinet's theories, all new to me. I wondered how I had existed without knowing about this kind of riding. The entire principle of lightness is that you teach the horse to carry himself with minimal cues and effort from the rider. The ultimate goal is to have the horse so in tune to your aids, that you can think what you want and the horse will do it. But to be able to do this, you must have the horse in an uphill frame. The horse is naturally balanced on his own, but becomes unbalanced with the weight of the rider. You must bring the withers and neck up so that the horse becomes balanced again, so that everything that he can do at liberty, he'll be able to do under saddle.
This is the video of Nuno Oliveira that Miguel played for us. Please note that not only does he ride one-handed, the horse doesn't flick his tail a SINGLE time during the entire video. The whip is carried upright in the traditional French classical manner:
He also played this video, which I had seen before. This is dressage on steroids. I don't agree with the bullfighting part of it, but man, this horse is AMAZING. The rider is Pablo Hermosa, and his Lusitano, Merlin.
I think the theory portion of the clinic was essential for us to be able to understand the exercises that we did later, and why we were doing them.
At noon, we broke for lunch, and returned at 1:00 pm to ride. It started to drizzle at this point.
My group went first, and I rode Lily in a borrowed Myler D-ring with 2 sets of reins, which we learned to hold in the French classical manner-one set of reins threaded through the thumb and index (snaffle rein to lift the horse's neck), the other beneath the pinkie (curb rein, to tuck the horse's nose).
We did several exercises, dropping and picking up the reins, asking the horses to walk, trot and canter with no reins. We then practiced the counted walk, which was completely new for us. Lily wriggled and tried to scootch sideways, and later I would find out that this is normal in young horses-they have a hard time going that slow while still staying straight. It was a fun exercise-we had to keep the horses going very straight, and very slow, with no reins, no legs and no hands. If they stopped, we had to start over. We even did a little "race" where we all did the counted walk down the length of the arena, with the slowest horse winning first place. We then did transitions from counted walk to trot, and from counted walk to a collected canter. And then we were asked to do flying changes without hands. This is where it got very interesting for Lily and me...
Up until that moment, Lily had done fairly well, despite the addition of a second set of reins, a completely different bit with a curb chain, my dressage whip in my hand (I had been ordered to carry it, though I had not needed it whatsoever) and an arena with 3 other horses, including a Lusitano stallion. We had only done 2 flying lead changes in the past back home, and both by accident: the first, she had flipped leads on her own, from right to left (and took off when she frightened herself...), and the second time, I was experimenting with a counter canter, and she swapped leads on her own again from right to left, as I turned her into a circle to the left on the right lead. That second time was perfect, but I had never attempted to repeat it because her canter was still unbalanced.
Well, Miguel wanted me to try it. He had every rider cross the diagonal of the arena one by one, and do a flying change halfway down with a change of direction in favor of the new lead, all without reins. When it was my turn, he had us canter from a walk, with no rein contact. I was to pick up the lead he ordered at the instant he said it. At the corner, we would be turning to the right in front of the mirrors.
"Left lead!" Miguel called out.
From what I was told by onlookers, Lily picked up the left lead and actually did do the flying change to the right. I never felt it. All I felt was the part where she bolted, and the part where I froze, thinking, "Oh shit, I'm going to fall off in front of all of these people". I tossed the whip and grabbed the reins as she was headed straight for the exit. At the very last second, she changed her mind, swerved towards the inside of the arena, and gave a demonstration of some of her best crowhops yet. She must've gotten at least 2'6" of air-it certainly felt like we were going over fences with her head down... I pulled her head up, straightened her out, and she took off down the long side of the arena. I felt the instant where she considered running into the crowd, corrected her, which sent her in a beeline straight for Miguel, corrected her again, and she aimed for the back exit of the arena. The lady on the Lusitano stallion was standing next to the exit, and she backed him up against the exit to block it as we came flying down straight towards her. At this moment, my brain finally clicked and I went from helpless mode to "This is enough!" I sat up, and jumper-style, grabbed mane with my outside hand, and with my inside hand turned Lily away from the exit and spun her in a circle around Miguel, where she finally stopped. Why I hadn't done that right from the start was beyond me. It had been a 30 second run maybe, but it felt like we'd galloped the Kentucky Derby. Instant applause from the crowd when we stopped. Miguel was speechless, and after a second, he said, "And you need to practice more emergency stops!" I managed to laugh at this with everyone else, but I was sooo mad, and my heart was about to pound its way out of my chest. We had put everyone in danger -riders, Miguel, the crowd, and myself- because of a damned whip that my mare did not need.
I did not carry the whip again during the rest of the clinic. Miguel did not argue the point with me again.
We finished our session uneventfully, though Lily and I were both frazzled after that, and we simply trotted when the rest of the group cantered. Afterwards, Miguel had us get off and practice everything on foot. This was very interesting, and it was even more interesting to realize that none of these riders had ever thought the effort that it took for a horse to do all of these exercises. We discovered how difficult it is to balance during a counted walk, especially if you only have 2 feet, and we then did counted walk to canter transitions on our feet, then with flying lead changes. At the end of the exercises, it was me by myself doing one tempis down the length of the arena (as a kid I didn't run-I cantered. One of my favorite things to do at the beach was flying lead changes while running on the wet sand at the edge of the shore). If you have never done this on your own, you should try it. Not only will you understand the horse better, but you will realize what YOUR body must do in order for the horse to be able to perform what you want. "Canter yourself." Miguel said while we were riding. If you can canter yourself, you can get the horse to canter while astride, without cues.
After the session, I asked Miguel how Lily and I had done overall. Compared to everyone else, we had received very little correction and I wasn't sure if it was because we were doing very well, or we were doing so badly that it was too much to correct. He said we had done great, and even the flying lead change had been great. He said that as a rider, all I need to do is sit further back. He wanted me to try the Spanish bit. It is basically a sweet iron curb with a low port and short shanks, that can be set up like a pelham with 2 sets of reins. He gave me one, and I placed it on Lily's bridle, ready for the next day.
That afternoon, we sat and watched the gaited horse groups. They were somewhat disorganized, as in one group, where Romeo and a Trote-Galope stallion had been assigned, there were a lot of very strong horses whom their riders could not get to walk under any circumstances. The exercises were a struggle for them, including Romeo, who was very worked up about being in an arena with other horses. The last group included the more inexperienced riders, on mostly Paso Fino horses. These horses were a lot more laid back than those in the second group, but one girl in particular was singled out because she, too, could not get her little mare to just walk either. It became such a struggle, that at the end of their session, both the girl and us in the crowd insisted that Miguel show us how he would get the mare to walk.
He switched her jaquima noseband for a serreta, and rode her with one set of reins on her curb and the other set on the serreta. It took Miguel a good 15 minutes to get the little mare to walk. Initially she was very confused and became quite worked up. However, Miguel insisted, patiently, with almost invisible aids of seat and hands, to get her to relax and just...walk... Eventually, it worked, and they walked several laps around the arena, and did circles in the center. Miguel suggested that the girl try a different saddle the next day-he explained he'd had such a hard time because the saddle placed him in a chair seat, where he was driving with his seat, and until he adjusted his weight so he was sitting straighter, he could not get the mare to walk.
The next day, each group was to ride twice. It was another watery dawn, and it was chilly. My group went first. I mounted up, and Lily immediately flung her head violently when she felt the pressure of the curb chain on her chin. We walked around the arena with everyone else, while I quickly got the 2 sets of reins sorted out, and figured out how much pressure I would need on one or the other. Just a gentle squeeze was enough to get a response from Lily, even with a loop in the reins. I was absolutely thrilled.
We did walk, trot and canter (myself and the First Level rider both continued to trot during the canter portions) playing with the reins per Miguel's orders to elevate or drop the horses' heads and necks. Miguel was teaching us how to bring the horses' withers up, which automatically made all of the horses look taller. The photo above was taken by Judy during this portion of the clinic. I was amazed when I looked down and saw that curve in Lily's neck, and felt her front end suddenly disappear, as all of her weight transferred to her back end. Really, really cool. We then did circles with contact on only the outside rein. This was one of the hardest exercises I have ever done, and Lily and I were almost able to do it at the walk, but barely at the trot. We didn't even attempt the canter.
Afterwards, I sat next to Judy to watch the other groups go. I was glad I'd been placed in the advanced group, because I would not have been able to do half as much. However, the gaited horse groups were MUCH more organized today, and it was interesting to note that pretty much every rider who had had issues with getting her horse to walk the previous day, was riding in a borrowed dressage saddle today! Even better-when asked to, all of these horses were walking without a problem.
In the afternoon, my group did more of the same, and I continued to make mental notes of all the stuff I wanted to practice later at home. Afterwards, I bought the Spanish bit, and have continued to use use it at home with the double reins.
Immediately after our session was off, Judy hooked up the trailer while I got all of my stuff together, wrapped Lily's legs, and then we loaded up and went home. We were all exhausted. While we all went back to work the next day, Monday (it was the loooongest workweek ever!), Lily got some well-deserved 3 days off.
The last 2 weeks since I took the "For Sale" ads down have been really, really good.
As it turns out, I did end up caving and taking out an old pair of nylon cord draw reins that I own from my jumper days. I hate those things, but I clipped them on Lily just to have them there. While riding her for the girls that came to see her, I realized we needed a hell of a lot more work on our canter. We had not really cantered in over a month, and while performing for the prospective buyers, I realized just how rusty Lily had become. My idea was to have the draw reins on, and if necessary, give a suggestion (never, EVER cranking down on the draw reins) for her to bring down her head at the canter.
The result? My draw reins are the kind that clip onto the girth loop and the bit (instead of running throught the bit rings). Just having that little bit of extra weight on the bit was enough to get Lily to really think about arching her neck and lowering her head. My legs did the rest to bring her back up and her hind end engaged, and it was sooo much easier to get her on the bit at the walk and trot! The draw reins flapped loosely between her front legs the entire time. It was the weight of them on the bit that did the rest.
For cantering, I did use a little bit of light contact on the draw reins, only enough to put pressure on the bit if she lifted her head above a normal head carriage. The first couple of sessions re-introducing the canter, Lily was completely dropping her left shoulder on the left lead and leaning in; because of this, it was almost impossible to keep her on the rail going to the left. In Mary Wanless's book "The Natural Rider", she discusses that to correct this, you should make sure that your weight is evenly distributed across your seat bones. So I did the opposite of what I used to do in jumpers-for years and years, I was always told to step into the outside stirrup, to avoid getting dumped on the inside of a tight bend when doing rollbacks and tight turns at a gallop. This time, I distributed my weight evenly in the saddle, and all of a sudden, like magic, Lily straightened.
We've continued practicing this in our workout sessions for the last 2 weeks, and doing 2 wonderful exercises that Judy gave me in my last lesson about 3 weeks ago: the loopy serpentines that I described before, and the giant X. For the X exercise, we would post at a working trot down the long side of the arena, turn the first corner, collect and sit the trot, and at the 2nd corner, launch into a medium trot crossing the diagonal to change direction. In the opposite corner, half halt, 10 m circle (I added the circles to make it harder), down the short side of the arena at a collected sitting trot, up the long side at working trot rising, and repeat the exercise. Lily really seemed to enjoy this, and has been responding by being slinky-like in her flexibility and willingness to bend, while staying on the bit for longer periods of time. We've also started practicing simple lead changes again at the canter, and just staying on the rail down the long side of the arena at the canter-we usually do a lot of 20m circles.
We've also been working on the trail the last 2 weeks - once we went out by ourselves and just did an extended free walk around the park; another time we went with Dianne and Mark, also just walking, but since Lily wanted to power walk in front, I had her doing zig-zag leg yields across the trail on the straightaways so we wouldn't put too much distance between us and Dianne and Mark; and the 3rd time, we went by ourselves again for a proper conditioning ride, where Lily glided down the trails at a trot, neck arched and on the bit most of the time.
I finally had another lesson with Judy Saturday. I'd been really excited to show her our progress, as the day before, Lily had been absolutely amazing, actually staying on the bit for a full 15 min at the end of our ride. This was the first time she's done this for that long while in the arena. She's been getting better and better at simple lead changes within 3-4 strides as well, and the other day while attempting to push her into a shoulder-fore at the canter, she actually did a flying lead change! The funny thing was that she scared herself and tried to bolt...*lol*...silly girl. I think it's the first time she's ever done a flying change under saddle; she can do them effortlessly on the lunge and at liberty.
I did place the draw reins on Lily for the lesson, but they were slack as ever. I demonstrated our warm-up loopy serpentines, which I've made more difficult by doing mini leg-yields to push Lily into the bends. She has been responding really well to this, and Saturday was no different. Judy was impressed. After we'd done loopy serpentines up and down the arena at a walk, Judy had us practice real leg yields. We'd walk down the center line, I'd make sure I was sitting with my weight distributed evenly in the saddle, look where I wanted to go, and push Lily over with the opposite leg. Leg yields to the left were effortless. To the right it was a little harder-her hind end trailed somewhat. We worked on this for a few minutes, then switched to something else-the giant X. Judy had us circle BEFORE crossing the diagonal. This was harder than what I had been doing on my own, as it meant getting Lily organized, without changing the pace, before sending her across the diagonal. Again, Judy was very happy with our progress.
We then practiced simple lead changes, which Lily nailed fairly well. Good thing we'd been practicing! I asked if Lily was even remotely on the bit at the canter, as it always feels like she's going down hill. Judy had me work on my position, and I made the conscious effort to stay even in the saddle. At one point, I felt Lily lighten on the bit and arch her neck-she was on the bit.
We then repeated everything without the draw reins-it made no difference! Lily's performance was just as good without them! She was even on point with her trot-halt transitions. I was thrilled, and so was Judy.
On Sunday, I rode for 45 minutes without the draw reins, and Lily gave me another amazing ride. Maybe it's a new trend? :)
One of the perks of living in South FL is the winter show season. The weather is mild, so some of the bigger shows in the country take place in Wellington, such as the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF).
Totillas himself was supposed to come to the US this year, specifically to Wellington, to show at the World Dressage Masters competition. Judy and I were about to buy the VERY expensive tickets to go see him in person, when we heard he had pulled out of the competition due to lameness issues.
However, Heather Blitz and Paragon were there, and took a second place in the Grand Prix Special.
She is now one of my favorite dressage riders. She is the first professional dressage rider that I've seen that actually wears her stirrups shorter than I do. She raised and trained Paragon herself. The horse is so expressive in his gaits that he almost doesn't know what to do with all that energy! Watch the video above to see what I mean.
There have been hunter/jumper and dressage shows going on every weekend at WEF this season, and Judy and I were trying to make it to see the dressage classes. We drove up one rainy Saturday but couldn't find the dressage arenas. So we watched the jumpers instead. I don't know when this happened, but apparently draw reins are now the norm in the warm-up jumper arena. We only saw 2 horses in the entire show that did NOT have draw reins in the warm-up! Wtf??!! I was horrified. I actually learned to use draw reins when I wasn't competing anymore; this was unheard of on the Puertorrican jumper scene and in the Tampa schooling show jumper scene as well.
There were a lot of gorgeous horses that could have been just as good at dressage as they were at jumpers. Except their heads were cranked down into their chests by draw reins pulled taught in some of the heaviest hands I've ever seen in person. Both Judy and I were horrified.
However, I still get melancholy when I watch top level riders at horse shows, because I came so close to being one of them. I always wonder what my life would have been like if I'd been able to continue down that path. I commented this to Judy, and she turned to me and said, "You can still do it." "In dressage?" I asked. I have no interest in going back to jumping. I've completely passed that phase in my life. "Yes. You are very talented-if you really want to go to the Olympics, you could do it."
I can't begin to say how good it felt to hear that again. To hear a trainer I trust, that has ridden with some top riders and trainers herself, say that she thinks I'm that calibre of a rider. When I graduated from highschool, I tried to flip my life over to make that dream possible, but all of the doors were shut in my face: the one trainer that was willing to take me there moved back to the States, I was accepted into a very good university in Massachussetts with an intercollegiate riding team that would've gotten me out of the island and right into upper level competition here in the States...but my father changed his mind and refused to help finance my first year (after that first year, I could have had a riding athletic scholarship!) at ANY university, and without those 2 pieces to the puzzle, my family simply could not afford the monumental expense of taking me to that level. There were simply no other trainers like that in PR at the time, no exposure to sponsors because all competition was local, and to move up the ranks to eventually get to that level, I would have had to compete in the States regardless. I let the dream go without a fight, because it seemed to not be in the cards for me.
Judy was willing to go the distance to help get me there, but once we started discussing cost, the battle seemed more and more uphill. Charles would've supported me in this decision. However, I looked at this path long and hard for 3 weeks. Judy talked about breeding Rose to elite stallions (she is a registered Azteca, remember, with nice bloodlines-she is out of the Andalusian stallion Romerito II) and selling her babies to get the money together to get me a really good horse on whom I could get noticed. This would have taken a minimum of 3 years, assuming everything went smoothly, and that's just to get The Horse. It would've been at least another 10 years of training, competing in recognized shows (= lots and lots of $$$) to work my way up the ranks to the highest levels of dressage and competition, and then trying to qualify for the Panamerican Games, to then see if I would qualify to be on an Olympic team...the idea of the process was daunting, full of "what-ifs" (what if The Horse got injured, what if we didn't make the cut in one of the lesser competitions and had to start over, etc), and with a necessity for good luck to be on our side just to make it all the way there on the first try... We discussed creating a partnership, moving to a different state to be able to afford multiple horses (so I could keep Lily and this Wonder Horse), riding Rose up to 4th level in recognized shows to get noticed for a sponsor (or sponsors) in the meantime (the logistics of this was difficult-if a mare is popping out babies and was at Training Level to begin with, it would be very hard to condition her up to 4th Level in a span of 3-4 years in between pregnancies-I didn't see how this would work out). But then the chiropractor came out, and his diagnosis of Rose's problems was pretty grim. It would be very hard to take her to that level of competition without injuring her. If she could even make it that far to begin with, before her physical issues got in the way. So that kind of annulled half of the plans.
I continued riding Lily, willing to watch and wait to see what would happen, if we would get some big revelation from the heavens about whether I should dare to hope that money would somehow pour out of the skies and we'd be able to even think about shooting for this for real. Then one morning, I was going to take Lily on the trail for a nice relaxing ride, and the minute I got on, she started bucking. She had an absolute fit in the barn parking lot, for no reason that I could see or imagine. I somehow managed to stay on. These were mean bucks, too-not her happy crowhopping. She wanted me OFF. I couldn't understand why. I'd worked her the day before, and there had been no change in tack that day. Prior to me getting on this day, we had done some nice stretches in the cross ties, and she had been her usual calm sweet self up until the moment my butt sat in the saddle.
So I got off (once I was able to get her to stand still for a couple of seconds) and lunged her. She wanted to run, and run, and run. So I let her run. And when she didn't want to run anymore, I made her run some more. She galloped on the lunge line in both directions for a good 40 minutes, of her own accord mostly. She was extremely reactive, acting like she thought I was going to beat her, which I wasn't even hinting at with my body language. It drives me crazy when she does that-when Lily gets upset, she regresses.
Once she got to the point where she wanted to walk on the lunge and listen, and the sweat was just dripping off of her, I got on again and just rode her in the arena, mostly walk and a little bit of light trot on the bit. It took forever to cool her down. I still don't know what got into her. Maybe she was going into heat? Her back wasn't sore when I untacked her, and there was no pain anywhere that I could tell. I gave her bute for the next 3 days, just in case, which she had off anyway because I was back to work.
I was incredibly frustrated with this episode, and almost irrationally angered by it afterwards. To the point where, when Judy sent me pictures of this wonderful little colt from an ad on Craigslist, I told her I wanted to go see him that same day. He was half Hanoverian, 1/4 Paint, 1/4 TB. Gorgeous little guy, and very unusual coloring-he was a red roan sabino! He had Donnerhall in his bloodlines, and was out of a lovely eventing stallion. We went that afternoon and I fell in love with him. He was a stunning mover, completely uphill, with good bone in his legs, beautiful conformation, and a quirky, playful personality. I LIKED him, and the feeling seemed to be mutual, because he kept following me around the paddock, despite his owner and Judy being in the paddock with us. On this horse, I would've really gotten noticed riding into an arena, and the best part was that he was just under a year old-I could have done all of his training myself and turned him into whatever I wanted. He also fit my "unusual breeding" requirement. His price was extremely affordable for the superb horse he was, but not something that I had sitting in the bank at the time.
I put up a "For Sale" ad for Lily that week. The colt, however, sold to someone else before I had my first inquiry on Lily's ad. I followed along with the inquiries just out of curiosity to see what would happen (I have never sold a horse) and also because I just had this weird sense of separation from my mare. It felt like I was just watching everything from a distance, with absolutely no emotional involvement. I had 2 inquiries. The first was disastrous-a girl that said she rode First Level came and tried Lily out. My first concern when I met her was her weight-she was not a thin rider, and Lily's abusive experience was with at the hands of a heavier man. I was afraid that Lily was really going to act up.
After going over how Lily should be ridden (with soft hands, letting her reach for the bit on her own), the girl got on, my mare walked off, and the girl immediately started snatching at Lily's face, trying to force her into a frame. Lily did not like that AT ALL, and proceeded to do a beautiful leg yield to the left at a trot of her own accord, throwing her head up in a way that almost unseated the girl. I had advertised my mare truthfully as the hot and sensitive creature she is, and this had been discussed with the girl and her trainer prior to allowing her to get in the saddle. This girl was afraid from the get-go, and unbalanced. The ride lasted all of 10 minutes, with the girl just walking Lily in a corner of the arena thanks to her trainer's coaching. Watching her made me mad. She was NOT a First Level rider-she had bragged about this repeatedly in her communications with me prior to having her come out. Maybe she can get a First Level horse to do what he's supposed to, but she was not at that level herself. If she's First Level, I'm Prix St. Georges!!
The second girl was actually a good match, and rode Lily beautifully and calmly. To make it even better, she had a Selle Francais gelding that she was trying to sell, and I went to try him out, considering a trade. The horse was fun to ride. The way the girl had described him, it sounded like he was dead to the leg and a giant brute, but he was actually quite responsive and a fairly big mover. However, I wasn't terribly impressed while riding him (despite having a decent stride length, he was stiff as a board laterally, and while I liked him, I didn't feel that "click" with him) and even less after watching the videos of us together-Lily was a nicer mover than he was, and he would have required a LOT of work to get him to the point where I have Lily now. After riding the gelding, I hand-grazed him while talking to his owner, while watching one of the barn lessons. Some of the students in the lesson using big bits, martingales, and hauling on the reins to get difficult horses to obey. This is when I woke up from my Hanoverian colt-induced stupor: I immediately started worrying about Lily's destiny, and wondered what the HELL had been going through my mind when I'd decided to sell her! It was a no-brainer: I went to my barn after trying out the gelding, rode Lily, confirmed that my mare is so much nicer (just in case I hadn't noticed before...), realized I really couldn't imagine my life without her, and went home to take down the ads.
Phew! I'm glad I realized what a huge mistake that was before it was too late. Whatever got into Lily that day she tried to buck me off must have affected my brain, too. I talked to Judy about the whole thing afterwards, and my final decision was the original one: I don't care about being an Olympic-level rider anymore, I just want to take an unusual horse and turn him/her into something outstanding. It was nice to revisit that dream, and to hear again from someone I respect that I have the talent to get there, but I choose to use that talent to train an unusual horse to do something big. Maybe a USDF bronze medal? That would sure be nice. :) And even if we never get there, competition, like life, is more about the journey, not the destination.
We'll see. In the meantime, Lily and I continue to work hard, play hard, and wait for the jump.
