Ro Gets Into the Halloween Spirit
Consider applesauce.
No, don’t. It makes me all queasy. I can’t stand mashed fruit. It’s a texture thing. It reminds me too much of snot.
Consider, instead, Saturday morning. It was sunny and a lovely, cool 70 degrees. I was at the other barn, getting ready for my lesson. My barn manager called to let me know that Ro wasn’t eating and seemed lethargic. Also, her nose was snotty.
The first part I knew—she’s been picky about her hay for a couple weeks, but we had sorted that out. Yesterday she ignored her alfalfa pellets, but I brought her in Saturday morning before heading to the lesson barn. She’d been diving into them when I left. Perhaps she was full from the ones I fed her and not ready to eat the breakfast ration? Perhaps her snotty nose was just alfalfa pellet mush?
Even so… I made my apologies to my instructor and headed back to my barn.
And there she stood: chomping contentedly at her hay. Nose crusted, but who could say if it was snot or alfalfa mush? Breakfast uneaten. I cleaned her nose, took her temp, and observed. No fresh snot. Normal temp. Chomping contentedly at hay. It was close enough to lunch time that I dumped out her uneaten breakfast, cleaned her feed bucket really well, and dumped in lunch. Which she ate.
You know those people in restaurants who send back perfectly good meals because there are water spots on the knife? It was like that. Princess and I are going to have words if she thinks I’m going to indulge her with sterilized buckets at every meal.
Since she was a little subdued, I hung around to monitor her for a while. She ate hay, I took her temp. Rinse and repeat for several hours. Everything was normal. I put in a call to the vet to have him stop by Monday just to check up on Miss Finicky Appetite, but I wasn’t too worried.
I went home, and less than two hours later received a call from a friend who told me Ro’s nose was running yellow snot and she was lethargic.
Back to the barn I went—and, indeed, now she was all snotty. And now her temp was up to 102. And now she was tucked up. And yet—eating hay.
I called the vet back, talked to him, gave banamine, and waited until he could get out. Ro ate hay and snotted all over everything.
End result: for Halloween my pony has decided to dress up as the Mucinex mascot. He’s thinking she picked up a virus that’s running around and got a bacterial infection on top of it, which is causing the snotty nose. He’s running cultures to verify, and in the meantime I have a bucket of antibiotics.
This is where pharmaceutical companies just don’t get it.
My picky, princess mare is off her feed as it is. Just how am I supposed to convince her to eat huge scoops of antibiotics?
Re-enter applesauce. All horses like applesauce, right?
Yeah, no. I let Ro taste it, and she licked it off my hands with all the uncertainty of a kid experimenting with fire: Ohhh… smells good. Let me taste. Ew! Poison! But it smells good… was I wrong? Let me taste it again… Yuck! Poison! But it can’t be poison, it smells so good… let me taste it one more time…
So then my hands were covered in snot and applesauce and, let me tell you, that did nothing to improve my opinion of mashed fruit. Disgusting stuff. I was right—it is like snot.
I decided to take the plunge and mix her antibiotics in the applesauce and see if she’d eat it. She sniffed it and gave me the most offended look ever. She was not eating that, thank you very much.
Since I had nothing to lose, I threw her dinner on top of it, mixed it up, and walked away. She’d either eat it or not.
I came back and found her bucket licked clean. Ok. Applesauce = poison. Applesauce-covered alfalfa pellets = yummy.
My horse is sick.
(Ro would like to point out that she is not the one spending all day scrubbing an innocent horse’s nose and shoving stuff up an innocent horse’s bum, so perhaps we could reevalute who is “sick” in this situation—the applesauce-eating horse, or the person with the thermometer fetish?)
Today was more of the same. Her attitude has perked up. She’s eating, her temp is normal, and if I could just get her to drink more water, I’d feel a whole lot happier about the whole picture.
But on the whole, I think next year I will dress her up before she takes matters into her own hands again. This Mucinex Monster is not my idea of a good Halloween.
Eddo Hoekstra Clinic Part II: Video Snippet
After chomping at the bit to get a hold of the clinic video, I was able to pick it up today.
For some reason, I thought having half a dozen media players—most of which claimed to have editing capabilities—plus a stand-alone program or two would mean I could, you know, do some editing.
Two hours later, I managed to get a very short clip with video quality that didn’t completely suck (the DVD is great—clipped-out versions, not so much).
I give up, give in, and generally never want to go through this again. This clip may be all you get from the clinic.
She’s been under saddle (somewhat inconsistently) for about six months now, and this is only her second time off the property. Watch the difference in her trot from the first 3-5 seconds and the rest of the time—towards the end, she really starts swinging and moving like a real horse.
She’s such a good girl!
Eddo Hoekstra Clinic Part I: Obervations
Sonesta Farms held a clinic with Eddo Hoekstra this weekend. I audited some sessions on all four days (Thurs - Sun) and had sessions on Ro on Sat/Sun. I had video taken of my rides, and I’ll put the highlights up once I get it.
Some general observations:
He wanted the riders to do less but do it correctly and allow the horses to figure things out for themselves. He told several riders to use less or quieter aids, and he was very consistent about asking riders to keep their hands upright and close together. Most riders who wore spurs were told to use them less. On Ro, I was told to use only my leg right below the knee when asking her to straighten and move into the outside rein—not my entire lower leg. You could see all the horses respond to this. As the riders got quieter and softer, so did the horses.
The word of the weekend was “rebalance.” There was some discussion among the auditors early on about what he meant by that, and the general consensus was “half halt.” I don’t think so. When he said “rebalance,” you could see the riders fixing their position first and, sometimes, also half halting. The few times he said just half halt, the riders would half halt without fixing themselves. By the time I rode on Saturday, I was pretty sure that rebalance meant “fix yourself first, then the horse,” and that held true through my session with Ro—every time he said “rebalance,” I had crept out of position. A half halt might be part of the overall rebalancing, but the two are not synonymous.
The phrase of the weekend was “If you were in a car, you’d be in a ditch right now.” He very much wanted riders to maintain the pattern no matter what the horse did. They could miss a transition, get a transition late, or just flub everything up entirely, but he wanted them on whatever line the exercise was supposed to be on. If you were on an octagon, you needed to stay on the octagon. If you were on a circle, stay on the circle. If you were going down the long side, you needed to stay on the long side—not wander into the quarter line.
If the horse offered something unexpected to the riders, he wanted the riders to differentiate between “no” and “not now.” He never wanted the horse punished for breaking into a canter. You let them canter on and then come back to the trot. If you ask for the canter and get the wrong lead, you continue on—especially if it’s counter canter and harder for the horse. If you are at the walk and the horse trots, you continue the exercise in the trot—but make sure it is a connected, purposeful trot. You didn’t go on and on in the unexpected gait, but you went on long enough to acknowledge what the horse wanted before saying, “But this isn’t what *I* want, so we’re going to try again.” It was the difference between constantly shutting a horse down so they would be afraid to offer more later and negotiating with the horse so that things did not go entirely off track.
But it did not mean the horse could blow through the riders’ aids and do whatever they wanted. On horses that were consistently blowing through the aids, he often turned to a series of rapid-fire exercises designed to get the horse and rider thinking and back together again. Although horses may be naturally good at some things and those things are fun to work on, you can’t entirely ignore the things that are hard for the horse just because the horse doesn’t want to do them.
He also wanted riders to take risks and make things more like fun and play. One of the first comments he made to me was that Ro wasn’t a baby horse and I needed to sit back and ride her like a real horse. With other riders, he wanted them to push for more in the gaits. Or he wanted riders to just try something for the fun of it. He thought Ro could be doing flying changes in a couple weeks—not schooling them routinely, but he bet that if I asked just to see what happened, she would give them to me.
The idea of risk tasking goes back to the rider doing less and negotiating between no, not now, and yes—the rider needs to keep doors open for the horse to do things. Maybe unexpected things—he likes a forward horse who isn’t afraid to be a little naughty and test what it can do with the open doors.
And if you take a risk and things go wrong? You rebalance and reconsider the situation—maybe repeat the exercise, maybe find a different exercise to achieve the end you originally wanted. As he said to several riders when things went wrong: “You are just as close to something you do want as something you don’t want.”
Some of the best rides to watch were not the riders who were finessing things at whatever level they were working at, but the ones who had things going “wrong” all over the place—very energetic horses, horses blowing through the aids, etc. He had the riders work with that energy, or he had them focus on the horse/rider communication, and by the end of the session there were some very dramatic changes in their way of going. Whatever went wrong could also go right—and he got the horses and riders there by never shutting the horse down entirely. Make sure the rider is correct, make sure the horse is balanced, straight, and forward, and everything else is variables you can play with from moment to moment until you get to the place you want to be at.
Adventures in Saddle Fitting
When we started Ro under saddle in spring, she was a little light and muscle-less. Underdeveloped, you could say.
Actually, what people said was, “Is she two? She looks like she’s two.”
Poor Ro. If she were human, she’d be destined for a lifetime of carding. She’s five.
Fortunately, my trainer had a saddle that fit her beautifully, and I bought the saddle when I bought Ro.
And we began working and progressing and figuring things out, like how to turn right and how to trot more like a real horse and less like a giraffe on crack.
And some little switch inside Ro went Oh, crap! Work! Need more muscle! Develop!
Naturally, the saddle that fit beautifully to start out with quickly became too tight through the tree.
Ro, never shy about expressing her opinion, let me know that we needed to address this right the heck now. It’s better to listen to the early warning signs with her—Ro has figured out the whole “ask nicely, ask sternly, then demand” concept that people use so often in training. She uses it right back at me.
My hopes of holding on for another month or so dwindled and disappeared. We need a new saddle right the heck now, before Ro decides to move beyond the “ask nicely” stage.
As everyone knows, buying saddles is as much fun as going to the dentist, but without the nitrous oxide. Which meant that I not only had to find a saddle—I also had to come up with an immediate alternative plan.
The obvious solution: ride bareback. It’s good for the horse and rider. Builds character. Plus, the rider will magically develop glowing hair and the horse will turn into a thundering black steed with a long, thick mane and tail that will blow in the sea breeze. I’ve seen it on TV, and there were no disclaimers like “Ocean scene not included,” so it must be true.
I got on Ro bareback. We walked around. She thought it was weird but ok. Then we trotted.
Here’s the thing: picture a horse who is still finding her balance and rhythm, and who sometimes still acts like a giraffe on crack. Picture a summer-slick coat. Add a roached mane. Subtract any sort of stirrup leather or grab strap around the neck. Now picture the idiot who thinks that’s a recipe for success. Now you know what I look like.
I didn’t fall off, but that’s all that can be said about that.
Time to revise Plan A. Plan B: Bareback, with a bareback pad!
I bought a bareback pad and put it on Ro. She gave me the evil eye, but I girthed it up anyway. Her ears went flat back and she threw a fit.
I pulled it off and checked her back for soreness. Nada.
I put the saddle on her and she looked mildly annoyed but tolerated it.
I put the bareback pad on and her ears went flat back.
Apparently, we will not be riding with a bareback pad any time soon.
The next day, I went back to the tack store. Their eyes light up when I walk in anymore. One of these days I’m going to show up and they’ll hand me a glass of champagne and some cheese and crackers.
I walked out with a demo saddle—with no other short-term option available, I am going to have to work Ro in whatever demo and trial saddles I can find, until I find one that fits her.
When I checked the fit of the saddle on her, it was a little large. But not too bad—I have a fleece half pad and I thought that might work well enough. She’s still got a lot of muscle building to do, so slightly large might work out ok.
I took the saddle off and put the half pad on. Ro gave me the evil eye. I put the saddle on anyway. When I asked her to walk off, her ears went flat back. When I took the half pad off and just used a regular pad, she walked off happily.
At this point, I honestly think she just hates fleece pads.
That saddle ended up not working—it kept riding forward on her, and it was really too small for me. So the next day I went back to the tack shop and picked up a different trial saddle. You know I can’t walk in there to switch saddles and not buy anything. The tack store and my credit card, they are BFF.
Fortunately, this one seems to be working pretty well for her. I got on her yesterday and she was in some sort of go-go-go mode, so all we really did was gallop around. The saddle stayed in place and she seemed happy with it. Today we did real work and she was pretty soft and responsive (read: tired from yesterday). We’ll see how things go after a couple more rides.
But I am sort of dumbfounded about the fleece pad thingy. As much of a princess as she it, you’d think she’d have loved it. She’s probably holding out for ThinLine or something even more expensive.
Whoops
I had a spam attack this morning and while attempting to clean it up and put some better defenses in place, I deleted the last 100 or so comments.
I apologize; I fat-fingered something and didn’t catch it in time.