September Favorites

One of my favorite blogs (non-horsey) does a post of her favorite things at the end of each month and I always love reading it so I decided I’m copying and doing it here too!

Coat in action, photo @skipperdoodlefritz

AA Motionlite Coat

It’s not like I’m the first person to rave about their mesh show jacket but… damn, I love mine. They are just so much more comfortable in the heat, still look good and are so easy to care for. Mine gets shoved into my tack trunk after my rounds and I just shake it out and it’s good to go. Mine is a large and aside from the sleeves being a little long, honestly fits me great. No show coat is particularly flattering on me (hi boobs), but I think this is one of the best out there. Except now I want another one (if they ever come out with an olive green, I’m done for)

Short sleeve shirt

Ego7 Show Shirts

The first one of these I picked up on a whim off Facebook for an insane deal. Once I wore it a few times, I realized I never wanted to wear another show shirt again. Their fabric is this awesome stretchy athletic tech fabric that still looks nice and washes up well. Again, tight white shirts aren’t really my favorite thing to wear for my body type, but if you’re also well-endowed I can’t recommend these enough. I searched and ended up finding two more, one long sleeve and one short, both with navy accents and I love them even more. 10/10 would totally recommend these.

Bridle bag on right, QHP blanket bag on left

Country Pride 3 Hook Tack Rack Case

I wanted a bridle bag for going to shows, but specifically wanted one with hooks inside, not loops. I hate doing and undoing the loops and wanted to be able to easily hang it on a stall front or in a tack stall. This one was met all my criteria so I bought it. I’ve now taken it a few places and can say it’s worth every penny. It’s less expensive than comparable ones, but I find it to be just as nice. It has three hooks inside (it comes with the hooks!), two to hang it on a stall front and a carrying strap. The zipper isn’t anything special, but I haven’t had any issues with it. It’s not huge, but it’s more than sufficient for my two bridles, breastcollar, neckstrap and crops. In a blonde moment, I actually packed my jump girth in it this past weekend too and then panicked when I couldn’t find it in my trunk. I added an iron on monogram with my Cricut, but any decent embroidery shop could also add to it. It also has a front velcro pocket for storage, although I’ll admit I haven’t used that. It would be perfect for little things like extra bits or spurs though.

Ride iQ

This honestly deserves it’s own post and it will probably get one, but I can’t NOT mention it here. I signed up the day they released it publicly and I don’t know how I ever lived without it. I use the lessons all the time between in person lessons with my trainer and I can absolutely say it has improved my riding. I’m prone to either do the same thing in my rides every time, not do enough or get frustrated when I can’t get the same feel I get in my lessons. These days, I pop in an earbud, cue a lesson up and all three of the aforementioned issues don’t occur. I even used it to help with some of my dressage warmup before my coach got there this last weekend.

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Cobblestone Revel Run HT August 2021

The weekend of my birthday, seven of us (well seven riders, eight horses, one mom, one barn mate along for the adventure) headed up to Michigan for Cobblestone HT at their new Revel Run facility. RR was formerly a golf course turned into an eventing venue, meaning it’s every equestrian’s dream come true. It was about a 4 hour drive for us, which honestly wasn’t bad at all.

The majority of the barn was running Modified, Training and Novice, who did dressage and SJ on Friday and XC Saturday, but the two of us running BN and Starter went up together since we did Dressage and XC Saturday and show jumped Sunday.

Friday was full of watching everyone show jump, walking courses and unloading. The facility is still new, so they have temp stalls and it required some toting of things around. Everyone had great rides, Archie got a bath, off to dinner we went.

I forgot appropriate horse bath shoes…

Saturday my dressage ride time wasn’t until almost 11am, but we were there bright and early to watch the earlier XC rides and braid. First time officially braiding my own horse for a show and I was downright pleased with how they came out. Magic combo of Spot On braiding wax and Quick Knots for the win. I’m still slow AF because my horse has more hair than any other in the barn, but at least this helped.

We eventually headed down to dressage warm up and rings and Kristen actually came to watch and met us over there! She was super helpful making sure I looked presentable too – I need to find a horse show mom I can hire apparently. Archie was a little inconsistent to start in warm up, but my coach came down between XC rides to help warm us up before she had to hurry back and by the time she left, he felt great.

Our test was fine – nothing to be unhappy about, but I definitely let some nerves creep in and pulled and pulled and pulled. It’s my go-to subconscious nervous move to slow my horse WAY down (something Archie never argues with) and it’s totally apparent in the video later. We were moving in practically slow motion and that had us sitting 7th out of 15 after dressage on a 39.8.

We didn’t run XC until LATE Saturday – like after 5pm late. By the time we got out there, we’d been able to see most everyone else ride and I was feeling great. We got into the warm up and any forward I’d had just.. evaporated. My coach worked with me and got us to a point where we were easily jumping all the fences in warm up, but it should have been a warning flag.

So slow

A warning for what? Well, leaving in startbox in ABSOLUTELY NO HURRY WHATSOEVER. We were fine over jumps 1 and 2, despite our absolutely lackadaisical pace, but when we got to 3 (a really straightforward log stack), Archie was so behind my leg, he just opted out. I represented and he jumped it easily and really tried to get him up before 4 without screwing with the balance. Four went fine and then we came around a semi-sharp corner to five, a small but bright blue house with cutouts. He was behind my leg and I just… gave up going to it and we had a stop. I let myself get flustered and chose an absolutely horrendous track for representation and Archie (rightfully) said no again. Finally, I took a deep breath, circled around, got the horse in front of my leg and over and off we went. Six and seven were two of the bigger fences on course, but posed absolutely no problems.

Then came the water – it was unflagged for Starter, but he needed the experience of going in. We walked up confidently and… he said, “no thanks.” A small disagreement ensued because, um, no sir, that’s not an acceptable answer. Once we were in, he was fine and I was finally (!) fired up. I just wanted to get through the flags and home at this point: we WERE finishing. Apparently this was the ride he’d needed all weekend, and the last four fences rode beautifully. We were both sweaty messes, honestly embarrassingly so for Starter, but we’d finally conquered that demon. Thank God for sweet Kristen who grabbed Archie to keep him walking so I could catch my breath and not pass out.

Sunday, both my barnmate in the BN and I rode fairly early so we could get out of there. My coach had left already, but left me (and the third barnmate who stayed to support) strict instructions. I decided to walk over to the ring a little early (it was about a 10 minute walk from the barns) by myself – and a pump up playlist of Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and Saweetie. Apologies to the children/families who walked by.. oops.

It worked and by the time I was over near warm up, we had game faces on and were here to get some shit done. The next step of the plan was, before we did any other warm ups, to go for a short gallop. Not a stadium canter. A GALLOP. This worked well at Cobblestone, where warm up for stadium was actually set on the XC course (since they’d all run the day before). When Archie and I came back to warm up, he was in front of my leg, moving forward and doing a much better pace than the day before. I jumped a handful of warm up fences and… waited. The ring that had been running 15 minutes ahead when I walked up had now somehow gone to 10 behind? We waited until I was in the hole, at which point I jumped my oxer and vertical each once again and off we went.

As soon as we got in and the bell rang, I went and did a BIG canter loop around the ring, really making sure he was in front of my leg. Once we headed to the first fence, I felt totally ready – we had this. And we did. I gave him one awful distance to the out of a five stride line across the diagonal, but he jumped it cleanly and we finished double clear.

While the score is nothing to brag about (um triple digits), the fact that it’s a number, not a letter and there was absolute improvement from our last time out meant I was so pleased with the trip. It’s an absolutely gorgeous facility, the footing was PERFECT the entire weekend, the people were wonderful and it gave us a chance to go do the thing somewhere new. We’ll definitely be back!

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Father’s Day Schooling HT: June 2021

Yeah, I’m behind seeing as this happened um. Two three months ago.

In my defense, I was hoping to get some photos so I waited and then photos never materialized and then I forgot and… well, here we are. Still writing it down to have to look back on.

Instead you get… this

My barn puts on two schooling HT per year and the spring/summer one is always Father’s Day weekend. We’d had our less than ideal outing to IEA, but had redeemed ourselves in the spring Tim Bourke clinic, so I felt ready (and determined) to go in and get it done.

Spoiler alert: we got it done.

Hi friends, bye friends!

I won’t bore you with the details of riding BN A because it’s just… not interesting, but it was major improvement from previous schooling shows and IEA and we were sitting on a 32.2 to lead Starter (out of 8) after dressage. I’d love to tell you all about our stadium round, but I remember next to none of it. I do know I buried the poor horse at the in to a line and he somehow jumped from essentially underneath but left it up.

The owls are where I try to murder us

I was feeling great going into XC – we were at home, we’d been schooling BN, there was nothing out there he couldn’t pop over easily. We left the startbox and fence 1 (a tiny log) was RIGHTTHERE. I think we actually trotted it because it was so close. Totally fine and then we were cruising. We did the first big loop without any issues, around the back (where Archie was CONVINCED he was jumping the ditch and I actually had to pull him off of it), down the bank, into the water jump field and back towards startbox. Around fence 4, things seemed to ‘click’ and suddenly I could feel him looking for the flags, searching for the next fence. It was an awesome feeling and one I’ve been waiting on from him.

The moment it all clicked.. and he took off on me LOL

I later actually joked I’m the one person who is THRILLED when my horse tries to run away with me on XC. We came through the finish flags having jumped clear and since I didn’t wear a watch, I could only hope, without any time. Sure enough, there it was – Archie’s first win (my first event win!) and my first FODS at a HT. Did I actually tear up? Maybe.

Arch wasn’t too excited to pose with his blue ribbon (it was dinnertime by now), but he got lots of cookies and scratches. It solidified that he’s here to stay and felt like finally, FINALLY some of our work was really paying off.

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Blog Hop: Scrub a Dub, Archie in the Tub

I owe you a show recap (as you may have seen on Instagram or Facebook), but I’m holding out for (hopefully) some photos to come. Instead, I figured I’d answer Amanda’s post on bathing.

Do you bathe regularly, or only before shows?

Typically I bathe before shows, maybe before a big clinic if my horse is particularly filthy and before clipping. Now, I do rinse off and usually do an apple cider vinegar rinse after riding in the summer. If I’m not showing and they’ve gotten gross, then maybe they’ll get another bath. I honestly try to be pretty sparing about it to save skin and coat oils.

Drying after his most recent bath

Archie also semi-despises baths and all forms of getting wet, unless it’s a water jump. He’s getting better about it (he’s recently learned it’s fun to drink from the hose), but luckily he stays pretty clean. Added bonus of no white legs either.

Dyed tail
And forelock

I will wash forelock and tail more often and that’s because during summer/show season, I dye them about every 8-10 weeks. Yes, with human hair dye. Shoot me. He has this gorgeous dark wavy mane, but his forelock (and tail, although a little less so) turn ORANGE in the sun and I absolutely hate it. (He’s on day turnout, won’t wear a fly mask, there’s no avoiding it) It’s nothing a cheap box of hair dye doesn’t fix and then it looks fab for a good while afterwards.


What’s your temperature cutoff?

We’re really lucky to have hot water in our wash stall, but I still try not to bathe under about 65F. I’ve had a time or two I needed to get it done in order to clip, but generally that’s my cutoff. I will spray off nasty muddy legs with hot water if it’s below that though – I figure if they’re happy to slop their legs through gross cold mud and puddles, some hot water won’t hurt them.

Disagrees, says all water is torture


Any favorite gadgets or shampoos?

I already mentioned my hair dye exploits, but I have a whole little setup.

Shampoo-wise, I really love using a brunette-specific shampoo. Yeah, there are horse ones, but the human ones are cheaper and (in my opinion) work better so I pick them. I specifically use brunette vs a red one because Archie is almost borderline-liver and the brunette shampoos bring out the dark in his coat that I really love. If I’m just doing a pre-clip bath, then I’ll use whatever horse shampoo I have around at the moment. Right now, it’s the EquiFuse concentrate, but in all honesty, I have not been impressed by it and won’t repurchase it.

Amazon.com: John Frieda Brilliant Brunette Visibly Deeper Color Deepening  Shampoo, 8.3 Ounce, with Evening Primrose Oil, Infused with Cocoa: Beauty

I go through literal gallons of apple cider vinegar in the summertime using it as a rinse. I mix some with water and just sponge it all over after rinsing off sweat and grime. It seems to keep them really shiny, takes away any lingering marks and there are all sorts of anecdotes about it helping with bugs or muscles or recovery or whatever. I don’t use it specifically for any of those things, but if it helps, that’s cool.

Lots of rinsing is a necessity when you come in like this

For the first time in my life, I have a horse without any white legs or markings (other than face, which I don’t mess with). When I did though, my secret weapon is some Mrs. Stewarts Bluing Liquid. If you use it directly on whites, it will turn your horse blue, so make sure you mix with water (you want a light/sky blue color of water). It will take yellow out and whiten things better than anything else I’ve found.

Mrs Stewart's Concentrated Liquid Bluing, 8 fl oz - Kroger

For actual tools, I LOVE my Tiger Tongue-sponge combo and my cactus cloth. The get the job done and don’t get gross too easily. (And apparently reading all of these, I need a mini sweat scraper in my life!)

If it’s winter/cool out, I love my cooler from Epplejeck I picked up last year. It looks like Archie should be wearing slippers and have a cigar, but I’m pretty sure he embraces that.


Any other strong opinions?

I next to never wash manes with shampoo. They get “washed” enough with everything else around them and lots of the time, I’m bathing before a show and few things suck more than trying to braid a clean, slippery mane. Not exactly bathing related, but I also keep lower legs semi-clipped up (not closely but not hairy) year-round. It makes them easier to keep clean, I don’t get gross ice balls around pasterns and I just overall prefer it.

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The Last Minute Tim Bourke Clinic

Coming off of IEA, I was relatively down about well, everything. I knew I wasn’t ready to give up on Archie, but I was frustrated and tossing around multiple ideas for what to do next. My barn was hosting a Tim Bourke clinic that weekend, but I hadn’t signed up since we’d been doing things back to back for so many weeks. Come Friday, I’m looking over the schedule to see what I might like to audit and I notice one of the juniors is riding in the Starter group… but only Sunday for XC. Long story short, I end up splitting with her and taking her Saturday SJ spot.

It was UNGODLY HOT especially on the sand

Tim asks about each of our horses and how everyone’s been doing (benefit of a clinician who comes multiple times a year, he knows us and our horses) and I tell him how I’m frustrated and even debated selling Archie. With that, we start jumping around – twice over a little crossrail, onto a small vertical and then he adds in a grid.

Warmup vertical

It started as a low oxer, two strides to bounce ground poles, three strides to a vertical out and built from there, eventually becoming a big (to me!) oxer to bounce crossrails and three to a vertical. He added a course as well, full of twists and turns that plenty of people had issues with, both in our group and in others.

Jumping through the one stride… in one stride

And Archie? I’ll be damned if he didn’t step up and jump around every single fence like an absolute pro. Of course it wasn’t perfect, hello amateur rider on sassy pony, but there wasn’t a single moment of nappy pony attitude. In fact, at the end of the lesson, Tim looks at us (and everyone standing there) and goes, “And you want to sell this horse WHY?”

Guess he jumps well

We all laughed, that knowing, ‘oh you haven’t seen it yet’ laugh. Which somehow turned into, “find her a spot to ride XC tomorrow.” Say what? I was absolutely thrilled with Archie (and myself for RIDING DAMNIT), but knew XC would be the real test.

He can stay

Turns out, the only spot for me Sunday was in a Novice group, but the nice thing about XC is being able to do similar exercises, changing the fences to appropriate heights. We started with the same exercise, swapping a Starter rolltop for their Novice one, but otherwise everything else the same, including a solid N bank and handful of BN stuff. Wouldn’t you know it, Archie said, “GAME ON” and didn’t put a foot wrong. We ended up jumping nearly all BN that day and he made absolute easy work of it.

The posing this horse does is ridiculous

Even when we moved out to the bigger field, he tackled a BN half-coffin without a second thought, jumped a BN rolltop into and out of the water and just generally did everything he was asked – happily.

I’m not afraid or ashamed to give myself some credit here: I sat up and rode the damn horse. I took no excuses and told him he was going OR ELSE. But you know what? He never even needed the threat.

I left Sunday with Tim telling me I’d be stupid to sell this horse, that he has great potential and we’re going to be just fine. And even if he hadn’t said that? I felt it. It felt like, well damn, maybe this work is finally paying off. Nothing out there felt big or hard and best of all, it was fun for both of us.

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IEA HT 2021: XC Day

Behind again, so let’s knock out IEA HT XC (aka the last day of the longest horse show ever). I was something like the seventh to last ride of the weekend. If you ever needed motivation to get your shit together and move up to BN, going XC at 4pm on Sunday will do it.

Hard to tell, but Sunday he was literally using the door to hold up his head

Despite having LITERALLY ALL DAY to get ready, I somehow ended up running short on time. Luckily there were still a few of the juniors around who were done and they helped get me put together to head on over to warm up. I was feeling super ready after the day before and honestly in hindsight, a little cocky. With the number of eliminations in stadium the day before, I was already thinking about ribbons and BN move ups and just being generally a mental asshole.

On my way I had no fewer than three people stop and tell me things like, “OMG everyone is falling off at 5!” or “Sooo many eliminations already! 5 is super spooky!” which honestly was… not helpful. I know everyone was trying to be helpful, but all it did was make me question my plan and my ride.

We got over to warm up, I’ve got 20+ minutes until my ride time, I pick up a trot and not three strides later, they’re yelling asking if I’m ready to go. Uh, NO?! I try to mentally put myself back, but now I’m questioning AND a little frazzled. Trainer tells me to snap out of it and go jump around. Archie proceeds to warm up quite lovely. He’s a little sticky/behind my leg to the BN rolltop the first time, but jumps it lovely the second (this should have been a warning flag, but instead I was like, “Oh he was perfect the second time!”) During this time, start has asked me twice more if I’m ready to go (keep in mind: still 5-10 minutes out from my time). Finally, I answer that yes, I’m ready to go.

Into the startbox and out to the first fence we go. Pick up a canter and feel like I’m riding forward, but in hindsight, he was sticky leaving his new BFFs in warm up and needed a healthy tap or two. Instead, I ride up like I’m out for a Sunday hack and surprise, surprise, Archie stops. Deep breath. Regroup. Reapproach, tap him, up and over we go. “Alright,” I think, “we’ve got that out of the way. Now we’re away from everyone and going.”

Well, we make it another 100 meters where there’s a super gentle slope and some sand on the ground. Archie says, “NOPE. Not doing that. I’m done. This is STUPID, you are STUPID, I am GOING HOME.”

We proceed to have a fight ON THE FLAT about trotting forward. Now I’m just annoyed. Fence two comes up and it’s the world’s tiniest log. Archie skids to a sort-of halt at it, I say, “THE FUCK YOU ARE,” smack him and he pops over it. Jumping from a standstill/sortof walk: not recommended, but this thing was like 20″ tall so I DON’T EVEN CARE. Forget annoyed, now I’m pissed.

Around the corner to three. We knew he’d probably try to run out left here (there’s a BN jump to our right) so I’ve got my stick in my left hand and… he runs out right. Basically INTO the BN fence. I turn him, give him approximately two stride lengths and tell him to get his ass over it, to which he willingly pops over. From there, we go through a fairly narrow path in a grove of trees to a hanging log at the edge. He finally feels like maybe he’s understanding this game and it jumps without a problem. Five was the Fence Everyone Was Talking About. It was set with the water to your left and warm up to your right and was naturally a slightly spookier looking fence.

Am I now 400lbs? Apparently.

I ride like hell to it until like.. two strides out and I don’t know if it’s nerves, mental state, exhaustion, frustration… I just turn into a puddle and stop riding. Surprise, surprise, Archie stops and ta-da, my weekend is over. In hindsight, if I’d just ridden to that fence, he would have jumped it.

From last year, but same fence

I was definitely disappointed leaving the course, but more in myself for letting my emotional brain take over my logistical/rational side. By the time I got back to the barns, a friend handed me a drink (God bless eventers), I untacked, cooled off (literally cooled off, it was so hot) and started trying to get packed up. My very sweet barnmate had waited for us to haul us home so I’m hustling trying to get everything together.

Archie then decides that, nahhh, he doesn’t load anymore.

I strongly consider leaving him at the Horse Park at this point. “Free to any marginally acceptable home.” Maybe just set him free.

A local trainer works some magic with the tiny terrorist and gets him on the godforsaken trailer and we’re finally, FINALLY headed home.

It takes me two days to even go to the barn again. I’m frustrated, ready to sell the stupid horse, wondering why I do this sport. Luckily, time is a good filter and within a few days, I can tell that’s not the answer. The answer is the horse is still green XC, he went to a huge offsite show, it was day 4, and his rider mentally checked out. My trainer reassures me if I’d just ridden to 5, he was starting to get the hang of it and probably would have at least jumped around a few more and that we’ve made considerable progress over the last few months.

Haven’t set him free yet

And that’s the wrap up of IEA weekend. It didn’t end how I would have liked it to, but when I look back, I’m still thrilled with Saturday, had a great time and learned a lot. Archie held himself together at his first HT for the most part, he was never bothered by the 10 billion cicadas and I didn’t fall off a single time. We made it around a hard stadium course and looking back, the XC course was kind of a mess for all the Starter divisions. In the end, of those of us who made it to the startbox, there were 5 rider falls, 10 eliminations and 3 retirements.

The last 10 months with Archie have been the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced with a horse, but I’m not ready to give up on him yet. That XC course exposed he’s still green and needs miles – particularly miles off the property. We’ve formulated a plan for the next few months and since then, I’ve buckled down to get it done. It’s already paying off (more on that soon!) and I’m happy to say, I have not left him on the side of any roads or set him free.

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IEA HT 2021: Dressage & Stadium

Saturday we finally showed – at almost 4pm. I spent the morning helping in the dressage rings (there were three running simultaneously which was… chaotic) before heading back to the barn to start getting ready. Much of my barn had already ridden dressage and a fair number had already show jumped or were getting ready for it. Fun stuff being the solo Starter pair in the group. It was hot and I didn’t want to take too much out of already-inclined-to-be-lazy Archie (especially knowing we had to SJ after), but I also needed to remind him (as I do daily) that he is not made up of 2x4s and is, in fact, capable of bending. Of course I rode dressage at nearly the exact time we had three BN riders show jumping so I was flying solo here. We’d known this was more than likely to happen and had talked through my warm up game plan already, so it wasn’t particularly panic-inducing.

Dressage ring in gate-ing with my friend Carl Cicada

In fact, warming up Archie felt fantastic. I had enough horse, he was mostly bending and his canter felt great. Years and years ago showing breed show stuff my trainer was all about “Don’t try to fix or change anything in the warm up. You’ve done the work at home, you can’t change it now,” which I think is still great advice and one I take to heart. It pains me a little to see people trying to get the work done in the warm up – that’s not the place.

As we headed to our ring (ring 2 aka the ring in the middle of two others), I couldn’t wipe the stupid smile off my face. After five recognized scratches, three horses and five years of work, I was finally, FINALLY riding down centerline. On my very own horse.

ALL THE FEELS

Our test was… our test? I don’t know what all to say about it honestly. We did the right things in the right places at more or less the right speed with some type of connection more or less, which was all I could ask for. I’m not Michael Jung, my horse isn’t Valegro and it’s BN A which is an extremely boring test. Not saying I’m great at it, but I can suck and still objectively say it’s boring.

WE MADE IT MA

We had two or three moments that stand out, mainly one in our free walk where we were coming across the diagonal and a horse happened to be warming up right outside our ring (there was a very small amount of space between rings). Archie, who had been stretching nicely, went HELLO WHO ARE YOU WHY ARE YOU IN MY SPACE GTFO. Lovely. The other moment was pure rider error. With three rings going, rings 1 and 3 had bells and I had a whistle. In the middle of my test, I hear a bell. And proceed to completely fucking panic for about 3 seconds trying to figure out what I’d done wrong until my sane brain kicked in and remembered that wasn’t my ring. Needless to say, Archie felt me go WTFWTFWTFWTF OMG OMG WTF up there and lost his own focus and connection. Sorry dude.

In the end, we finished with a 37.5. Not great, but for my admittedly non-dressaging halter bred QH at his very first HT in the middle of an absolutely chaotic space? It might as well have been a 27.

No dressage pics so you get stadium (xpressfoto)

I went back to the barn to chill and take my time to change tack and headed to stadium warmup. This time (thank God), my trainer was around. About six horses out, we jumped a little and feeling great, went on in.

xpressfoto

Plenty of people were having issues with this course (I’d later find out 30% of my division was eliminated in stadium…), but Archie’s strongest phase right now is stadium so I was determined to have a good ride. The first fence was straight across the short side of the ring and enough people had stops at it I rode the hell out of it which was probably slightly ridiculous looking at 2’3″ish. Two rode well and was a bending line to three, set right on the rail where everyone was sitting/standing. A combination of not having Archie’s shoulders straight (hi rider error) and him not seeing everyone until the last stride or two and going WHO DOSE PEOPLE meant we had a runout right.

Fence of distraction (xpressfoto)

I circled around, swapped my crop to the right (you know… where it should have been the whole time) and rode him growling, “JUMP THE FUCKING JUMP OR DIE.” And pretty much the rest of the course like that too.

Xpressfoto

We finished the rest clear and I was so proud of this little horse. It was not an easy course for starter and it was late enough in the day that there were plenty of people watching and horses hand grazing.

Crying with happiness for real (xpressfoto)

That was a wrap for the night, showing wise. I was absolutely beaming. Party pony had handled day 1 like a champ and now it was party-Holly time. By which I mean, stuff my face with all the food at our DIY competitor’s party, drink a single drink, laugh until way too late and pass the f out until 6am. That’s a good day to me.

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Catching Up & IEA HT 2021: The Beginning

Yesterday evening I realized I’ve done something horsey (and time consuming) every single weekend for going on seven weeks in a row. Oh. No wonder I’m exhausted, my life is in semi-shambles and I’m living out of laundry baskets (clean… I… think?). How do people do this all the time?!

How I feel rn

Needless to say, there’s a lot to catch up on here. The highlights are on Instagram, but I love having the longer form posts to look back on, so there may be some retroactive out of date things coming up. Since we left off, I’ve taken some lessons, schooled XC, rode CobJockey’s Connor, acquired a bike (thanks Jen!), went to Archie’s first sanctioned HT and ended up in a last minute Tim Bourke clinic. I… think that’s everything? Honestly, who knows.

Our lessons and schooling leading up to IEA HT were great. Super progress, Archie was basically loping around like, “I got this mom!” I conquered the stupid starter slatted table at home that I’ve had a mental block over for like, 8 months. We dressaged. Off to the Horse Park we went on Thursday morning (in the rain), despite my not showing until late Saturday.

Cannot be bothered with this log anymore I guess?

It was so much fun to have so many of the barn there – between all of us, we had something like 17 horses across the regular HT divisions and the Classic 3 Days. Archie got settled, we watched everyone jog for the three day and I went off to Jen’s to spend the night, with a pit stop to ride Connor!

Also adorable and v good at posing

He is so much fun and Jen has done a great job with him. She asked if I wanted to get on and I wasn’t about to turn down a ride. Bareback and new pony makes me sound a lot braver than I am, but the truth is Connor is so well behaved and trained (and the damn Brockamp pad is so comfortable) it wasn’t nerve inducing one bit. I didn’t want to do too much on him, seeing as it was already getting later and I was his third rider of the evening, but once I was told to shorten my reins like 4′ we were off. Some trot, a little canter, played with a tiny bit of his lateral work – man, I felt spoiled riding such a confirmed dressage pony! Also, very jealous when hacking my very not-confirmed pony 24 hours later.

Mexican food and margaritas followed (aka my love language all in one, ponies and mexican food) although we rode bikes to dinner which was slightly questionable at a few moments seeing as I hadn’t been on a bike in… twelve? years. Only ran into one wall though, so there’s a win, and apparently ride/steer better post-margarita, which is an interesting data point to think about for my dressage…

The three of us spent basically the entire evening discussing ponies and tech stuff (so, like, my only two interests in life?) before I finally sent myself to bed knowing I had an early alarm clock. I’m so grateful for their generosity (did I mention they also gave me said bike after I mentioned I’ve been trying to buy one for a year?) and it was basically a perfect way to kick off a horse show weekend.

Settled in and looking adorable

Since I had the World’s Worst Ride Times (Dressage Saturday at 3:53pm, SJ Saturday at 6:18pm and XC Sunday at 4:10pm…) and a barnmate was the volunteer coordinator, I ended up helping out with Steeplechase practice Friday for the 3 Day competitors. It ran like a mini-clinic with Dorothy Crowell and I learned so much. It was a ton of fun too and I got to hear lots of fun stories from Dorothy and I mean, talk about being starstruck. I finally snuck out around 3pm to go ride my own horse (who at this point was thinking horse trials were GREAT, hang out and eat all day?!)

Greatest compliment of my life

Archie was a little distracted and slightly up (completely understandable) so we hacked over to the indoor to school and put all our marbles back in. Within just a few minutes, he realized what this game was and was such a grown up I could not have been prouder. I figured we’d go hack for a bit to cool off, semi-forgetting this was Cicada Country. Back on the roads & tracks there were places they were so loud it felt like a jet was overhead. One of the wildest things I’ve ever experienced. By day two, we were used to just throwing them off of us and (mostly) no longer did the cicada dance every time one landed on us. (Fun fact: they make a fun scream when you grab their wings…)

Spotted on our way to coursewalk

We finished the evening doing some course walks and having dinner with barn mates. We got super lucky and all of our campers/trailers ended up being grouped so we spent a considerable amount of time eating, drinking and generally being merry.

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Party Pony Eventing

I’ve been thinking for a while about the blog’s name: the only mare left in my life is Lucy, who is retired and lives 1500 miles from me. The name gave no indication of what was happening around here. But I didn’t have a better idea so it stayed.

Then I got into Archie’s Instagram account. And his reputation as the partypony became known (I’d say far and wide, but that’s mostly because Emily lives in California and that’s far away so). And I realized – duh. The name was right in front of me. We’re Party Pony Eventing. It represents more than just Archie himself though.

The party isn’t I’m some wild, ‘up until wee hours’ kinda person. It’s the sitting around with your barn mates watching lessons after yours. Having drinks after a trail ride. Sitting around at a show in the evening, catching up with friends you haven’t seen in months and laughing about the day’s events. The party is the celebration when you cross the finish flags – or maybe when you successfully jump that damn slatted table that’s been haunting your dreams for months. Sometimes the party is just celebrating the joy of having a horse and marveling at how lucky you are or spending a few extra moments to get the really itchy spot.

We may not always (ever?) win, but we’re not going to lose the party – because as long as we’re having fun, we’re winners. So cheers to good friends, good horses and good drinks.

(Please update your RSS feeds if needed, I unfortunately don’t know how to redirect those!)

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Sharon White, May 2021: Cross Country!

It’s taken me a few days to finish writing about day two of the clinic: cross country day. Between exhaustion (post clinic hangover is a thing), lessons and regular rides, work and trying to put the words together, it ended up being longer than expected. (Not to mention trying to figure out the stupid WordPress/RSS photo issue)

Archie is naturally less experienced on XC and I get more nervous when the jumps get solid – not always the ideal combination. We’ve taken it really slowly though and after schooling at the HHP and our great stadium lesson, I came out feeling ready to rock. I just wanted to jump some starter stuff, nice and easy to get ready for IEA. HAHA.

Is this my new favorite photo? Yes.

We started by warming up over a log we’ve jumped quite a bit – but that’s also usually more of a mid-lesson ride vs our warmup fence. Archie was like, “yeah, and?” and popped over like nothing though. We circled over it, turning both ways and it got better and better just with the repetition. Added in some other small Starter stuff we’ve done recently and I was like, alright, okay! I’ve got this!

Annnd then Sharon added in the Grey whiskey barrels (we call it the distillery) – which is a solid BN fence. One I’ve jumped on Doc and Iggy. But definitely have not jumped on Archie. I came down to it the first time and Archie said, “Uh, she doesn’t want to jump it so I’m not going to…” We regrouped and… ran out again. At this point Sharon pointed out it was more of a ‘wanna go to the barn’ thing. The barn was over to our left and the horse kept running out… left. Duh. She had me reevaluate my line so I was jumping it straighter away vs angled towards the barn (essentially if you jumped it perfectly perpendicular, you were heading angled at the barn, but if you changed the angle slightly, they were jumping straight forward out into the field). Voila! A very anti-climatic first BN XC fence! (JK, we got claps and cheers because we have the best barn family ever) Archie is funny; he’ll stop if you aren’t riding confidently and forward, but he’s not afraid. He never really overjumps things huge or even peeks down at them, which is a relief for my out of shape ammie ass.

I am so graceful and beautiful

We went on and Archie schooled all the banks with a yawn – even the bigger N/T one (this will become important later). We practice our bank complex at least once, if not multiple times a week, just walking off and on while hacking out or after lessons. It’s really paid off because the footwork makes sense to him and banks are NBD.

We luv ditches

A small course followed – our first log, back around to a BN log pile, the grey whiskey barrels to another set of brown barrels (also a very solid BN fence), a black BN rolltop, the bigger ditch, a small Starter rolltop, the novice bank up, a few strides, down and back over the grey barrels the other direction.

The brown barrels posed a little trouble, mainly because my eyes bugged out, but after some coaching, we jumped them without a problem and he was fantastic for the rest of the course. This horse thinks ditches are the BEST – all the fun of jompies with none of the work. Weirdo, but I’ll take it.

Off to the water we went. I knew Archie had been a pain at the water two weekends ago, so I was prepared for some antics, but he just… strolled in. Pleasantly surprised, Sharon had us walk up the itty bitty bank out of the water (it’s maybe 12″… MAYBE), no problem. Now turn around and just walk right off of it.

It started so well…

HAHAHAHAHA Archie said YALL CAN FUCK OFF NOW.

HI HO SILVER BITCHES

Commence tantrum of the year. Do I own a horse or a petulant toddler? Don’t answer that. After 20 minutes of progressively worse behavior, Sharon asked if I was okay having one of the juniors get on him. She’s an amazing rider (the one who took him over his first ditch last month), rides Prelim and brings up all kinds of sassy ponies. Um, YES PLEASE. I hate to admit it, but I was more than happy to throw my dumbass horse’s reins at her. (Note: usually I follow the ‘don’t call your horse an asshole, words matter’ perspective, but this? This was my horse being an epic asshole.) He had made up his mind he was NOT GOING DOWN THAT BANK NO MA’AM.

I SAID I DONT WANNA

Junior (I’ll call her A, if you’re an Area VIII person, I’m sure you’ll recognize her) worked and worked him. We put every other horse in that field in the water (…again). And finally. Archie said, “I JUST WANTED A POOL PARTY!” and hopped down like he did this every single day. No leap, no Superman antics, nothing. Just meandered right off.

I told you. Asshole.

She finished out the rest of the ride on my (now soaking wet) horse – jumping him around a bunch more BN stuff, including the bank out three stride pheasant feeder combination. He finished looking like he’d just run around Kentucky – SOAKING wet, lathered in sweat. Dude. You did this to yourself…

We’ve spent everyday since lunging in and out of the water on both banks in the water. He now does both our itty bitty one and the larger one on the other side in hand. We’ll find out this weekend if it translated under saddle. It seems once he ‘gets’ something and realizes he has to do it, it seems to click and not be an issue, but oh my god, the drama involved was Oscar worthy.

I can laugh about it now and I’m still super happy with the day and the weekend. I never mind having A school Archie: there’s a lot of value in those confident miles and I’m actually really happy we got to work through this entire issue and tantrum with someone like Sharon. I already can’t wait to see her again at camp in July.

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