I am sure most of you already seen this…

but just in case…

and yikes…$150,000…I can’t imagine spending that much on a horse…ever!

The “I like Geldings” Horse Show – Part 4

Lucky for me Lucky was a little bit better. Not great. Not relaxed, but not fighting me. I did my best to just ride the test. The great thing about dressage is that each movement is a totally new score. If she sucked at the centerline and got a 2 that doesn’t prevent her from getting a 7 on the next movement. I did my best during the second test. I am not proud of the ride, but it doesn’t make me hide with shame like the first test. When I came out of the ring for the second time I was okay. Everyone assured me that the test didn’t look anywhere near as bad as it felt. It felt like a 40%, so I was comforted by the fact at least it didn’t look that way. Lucky was still looking around and tense so I told her Owner who had come to watch us not to expect us home anytime soon. I was going to stay until she calmed down.

I took her back to the trailer to untack her and take her braids out. This time I did give her a bath and took care of her at the show. She still wouldn’t stand. I tried everything from standing still myself, to the cowboy “your going to work if you won’t stand” and lots of things in between. After 45 minutes of her rudely plowing me over I was so annoyed I decided to just put her away instead of loosing my cool. She self loaded beautifully and after making she she didn’t want any water and that she had plenty of hay I went to watch tryingtoride’s warm up. I haven’t seen her ride in 2 years and I haven’t seen her horse go in just as long so it was great to see how far they have come. He has a HUGE canter! I have never seen a horse with such jump in the canter! While there I heard Lucky scream…a lot.

I turned a blind ear and just tried to relax and hang out. At the urging of tryingtoride’s entourage I went and picked up my tests. To my surprise we ended up with a 62.5% on the first test and a 60% on the second one. I was shocked, and even a little annoyed because I really didn’t think we earned those scores. It felt so horrible…how could it not have looked horrible??? Apparently it didn’t. We did get last place though, but it was only under 5% from first place. I decided to stop obsessing and go watch tryingtoride’s test. It was great to see her do so well, but super annoying to hear Lucky scream throughout the whole thing. We had been at the show for over 3 hours at this point and she still was not a happy camper. I was so annoyed with her! I said good-bye to everyone and decided to just take her home.

She got off the trailer stressed still and was upset all the way though her hosing off (she had a nice nervous sweat going). Even grazing her was hard because she wouldn’t stand. I gave up and let her loose. She took off to go see her barn mate and peed in greeting. Eww. It was only after she got him excited (he is gelded thank goodness) that she finally took a deep breath, rolled and relaxed. I have a feeling that a lot of her issues at the show were hormone related. Lucky is not mareish. She is normally so even tempered and sweet that I forget she is a mare. A very opinionated one. The show reminded me that when she is in heat she can get a little crazy. You would think at 21 years old she would be over it, but clearly not.

My takeaways from the show are as follows:
1) The white gloves need to go away until my hands get better.
2) I need regular lessons.
3) I need someone to come with me to the shows. It was cool to be able to do everything by myself, but that is not what we need right now.
4) Lucky and I need to go out and about way more. If I can do a show or clinic I have to go until we work though this.
5) She really doesn’t look as bad as she feels.
6) Intro tests suck because there is hardly any movements to them!
7) Sometimes things feel better but score worse…a lot worse.
8) I like geldings.
9) I really do love Lucky. Even after a rough time at the show she came over to me for cuddles and kisses while I was putting stuff away in the barn.
10) I trust Lucky enough that she won’t hurt me on purpose when I ride her even when she is not really listening to me. That is saying something.

The “I like Geldings” Horse Show – Part 3

I tried to use my time before my test wisely. I kept trying different things to see if I could get her to pay attention. None of them were working. When the judge blew her whistle I had no choice but to keep trying things…it was just going to have to be at the trot. I had no control over the tempo of the trot. As you can see from the video it looks like I am posting like a madwoman making her go faster. I am only doing that because when I would try to slow the tempo down she would throw her face in the air and crab. I felt like I had no choice but to follow her tempo. Not saying that it is the right thing to do, it is just what I chose to do. So since I have no seat aids and no leg aids I am using my hands. Excessively. Looking at the video makes me want to chop my hands off. And NEVER wear white gloves again.

A horse at Intro should look like they are straight with big gaits reaching forwards and downwards. Lucky looks and felt completely crooked and hollow. She was much more of a U shape then an n shape. There was literally a moment during the first test where I looked down because she hollowed out so much under me I didn’t know what was happening! I have never felt a horse drop their back so far. I knew my hands were not great, but I had NO IDEA that I was literally YANKING Lucky’s face off. The judge stopped me after the test and pointed it out to me. I wanted to cry as I left the show ring. Watching the video still makes me want to cry. I am using this as a learning experience though. I will not let this horrible test be in vain. I will learn and improve from it.

Since I had almost an hour until my second test I decided to go and get my whip. One of the reasons Lucky was being so resistant was because she was not forward. I had hopes that if I got forward she would relax and things would fall in to place. I got off to get the whip, offered her a drink and tried to just get her to relax and stand still. After a few minutes it became clear that she was not going to stand still or relax so I decided to get back on. I walked her over to the mounting block at the show grounds and she tried to walk away. I did it again, this time she went sideways. I just looked at her as she danced away. I have NEVER had an issue mounting her. I have gotten on her from mounting blocks, water troughs, tables, tree trunks, etc and she is always an angel. I tried it two more times before I asked for help from one of tryingtoride’s friends that I know. The woman kindly agreed to help out and as soon as Lucky knew she didn’t have a choice in things she let me get on. She knew I had the whip and so she would turn and look at the whip and go faster. I could never use it to ask for more forward because she was so worried about it.

The warm up for the second test was yucky. Very yucky. I was all super strong hands woman again and Lucky was like a pretzel below me. The naughty girl even tried to take off again! I wasn’t letting that happen, but that meant I was riding progressively stronger. I tossed the whip and tried to just get her to settle. When it again became clear that I was wasting my time I went up to the top warm up ring and just tried to at least get her listen to my leg. The person before me was literally going up the centerline when Lucky sighed and let go of just a little bit of her tension. I was ready to pull my hair out by then and my only thought as I walked towards the show ring was that my test could not get any worse.

The “I like Geldings” Horse Show – Part 2

I had thought the 2 minute trailer ride would be great for her, but not so much. When I opened the doors of the trailer at the show I found Lucky shaking. Uncontrollably shaking. To the point where I had thought that she night be tying up. Looking in to her eye though it became very clear that my pretty girl was terrified! Since I wasn’t nervous at all I just took a deep breath and assessed the situation. I was alone with a very scared horse. I knew I couldn’t unload her until I had checked in at the show office, so I decided to just sit with her in the trailer. I talked to her and hung out. It took about 5 minutes before she started to eat hay and another 5 for the full body shaking to become intermittent. She was still upset, but I didn’t feel bad leaving her to check in.

As soon as I got my number I unloaded her and brought her out to look around. She settled down a lot more once she could see other horses. I figured that the short trailer ride was a little off putting to her and she would be fine from now on. Yeah, I was wrong.

As I brought her back towards the trailer so my show coat and her bridle she started to dance. She was clearly anxious and could not stand still. I actually feel safer on Lucky when I am on her so after one walk around the ring on foot establishing that I was still with her I climbed aboard. We walked in to the lower ring and she tried to grab the bit and bolt. I grabbed the reins up just in time and so she just did a few steps of canter. My first thought was “Go Me. You stopped her”. My Second thought was, “Oh Shit, she is really strong and you have never figured out how to make her less strong while riding her”. At this point I was alone so I took a deep breath and started talking to myself as though I was the trainer on the ground. I told myself to do lots of transitions, from walk to halt, free walk to medium walks, walk to trot, etc. I was doing transitions when I noticed that I had zero control over my horse when I was not using my reins. I couldn’t control her tempo, her gait, or even her direction if I was not strong arming her.

I don’t want to strong arm her though. I hate it when I am grabby on her mouth. I kept trying to sit deep, but she would ignore my seat. Even worse, she would actually go towards any leg pressure. Like when I would put on my outside leg she would drift towards the outside! I decided to change to a different warm up ring to see if that would help. I decided that since I so little control I would just focus on getting her to turn where I wanted and to try and get her forward at the walk. My parents had decided to come by and see me, and tryingtoride came early to she could watch my ride. Even my non-horsey parents could tell that Lucky and I were not doing so well. I kept trying to drop my reins and give her the benefit of the doubt, but she kept throwing her face in the air and walking like a druken sailor.

I almost scratched. As the called my number to go in I literally stopped with the intention of just getting off. I knew better though. You can’t turn a green horse in to a great show horse if you don’t show them. So what if the test was shitty. I was there for experience. I walked her in to the ring determined, but riding very, very defensively.

The “I like Geldings” Horse Show – Part 1

So I have been feeling super confident for the last two weeks after the success of our first horse show. When last week Lucky went in to her big spring heat, I didn’t really think too much about it. Sure, she would scream more on the cross ties, and yes, she would try and drag me to see the other horses when we were out for a hack, but minus the ocean of pee and all that, we were fine. In fact, we have been better than fine lately…Lucky and I have been looking and feeling really good as of late.

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The night before the show I had a bad ride on Lucky, she was not very focused at all. I got her to sort of listen to me after 45 minutes and got off. I figured a bad ride before the show would mean a good show…right? It was too cold for a cold water bath so I gave her a nice grooming and braided her up. I have not done real braids since the Memorial Day show with Phoenix back in 2010! I was impressed with myself how they came out. I did get a phone call while I was braiding. The Young Rider had offered to come to the show with me, but when she called me up and explained that she had an offer to go to the beach I didn’t hesitate in telling her to take the weekend off and relax. She had just finished her final exams and Lucky and I were fine showing alone. Of course it would have been more fun to have here there, but she needed some down time. I finished up with Lucky, put her hood on, turned her loose, cleaned my tack and headed home for the night.

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As everyone who has ever read my blog knows, I LOVE to show. I ended up waking up at 4:30, a half hour before my alarm went off, because I was so excited to be going to a horse show. In the past month Lucky has gotten strong and fitter and her gaits are showing it. She even has suspension at the trot! I could’t wait to show off my old green horse in the show ring.

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I picked up my trailer at Gen’s and gave him a kiss for good luck. He is so stinking cute when he is sleepy! After a few minutes of cuddle time I headed off to see how my grooming job and braids held up with her out for the night. When I pulled in the driveway I was pleasantly surprised to see Lucky’s owner was out feeding all of the horses. She woke up super early even though she wasn’t feeling well so she could feed before I got there. How nice is that! I packed the truck and trailer up while Lucky finished her breakfast and had a nice chat with her owner.

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I took a peak at her through the back of the barn and saw no signs of mud. Lucky hadn’t rolled! Man I love my Lucky Lady! I was also happy when I took off her hood because she didn’t rub out her braids either. My little rock star!

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She was peeing and screaming up a storm, which was making me crazy, the whole time I was getting her ready. Finally I deemed her clean enough to get her saddle on so we could head out. I really like saddling her before I put her in the trailer…it makes my life at the show so much easier! She loaded up like a total champ and we were off to the show with well over an hour before our first class.

Someone doesn’t know if they want to be a show horse

Not bad

Considering I haven’t really braided in 2 years. 24 total. And it was too cold for a bath so it was with dry hair