Fear itself

"...the  only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  -FDR

I have a fear. A paralyzing fear. And I have a fear of that fear. I very rationally should either not be afraid, or I should not do the thing that scares me.  This is apparently not my way. I also know the fear is my biggest problem, I tend to throw up my hands (figuratively... most of the time) and kind of try flailingly to somehow make it through.

This is the cause of significant issue due to the fact jumping scares the bajeezes out of me. And right now I'm doing it maybe three times a week (sometimes less). Last week I was in a private lesson where the flat was perfect and literally all of my wheels fell off the second the standards and poles got lugged out. I understand a lot of things in principle.  I know you just keep your eyes up, heels down, toes forward, squeeze tight with your lower legs, keep your back straight, follow with your arms, trot in canter out, downward transitions by stopping in your body not with the reins, breathe, blink, etc, etc, etc.  I also know I can know these things all I want as I make a decent line at a good forward trot, and proceed to do few (or none) of the above on the actual jumping part. The jumps where I manage to do things kind of right are not based on any actual skill, or timing, or learning. More or less fluke outliers, not worth considering in the scheme of my riding ability.

I had a riding exam about a week and a half ago where I went over maybe six jumps of the smallest possible introductory size.  I proceeded to fall off on my first attempt and be jumped way, way out of the tack on every single other. On top of this, I was told what has come to be my all time least favourite (non-life threatening) type of news.  Have you guessed it? If you thought, "Your saddle doesn't fit", then DING DING DING, you win! I just got this new saddle. I don't think I've owned it a month. It seems to be twisting. The prospect of saddle shopping is kind of strange in a way, because if I were doing it voluntarily I think it would probably be super rad (I think it would be comparable in excitement to if I were able to buy suuuper nice tall boots). But though saddle shopping means new saddle, it also means trying saddles (literally worse than scrubbing really scummy water troughs). I'm going to talk to some people, see if there's something I can do, maybe get it reflocked or something. That on top of the disaster that was most of the rest of the test, made it not the best day.

Fortunately, I did manage to pass my riding test! (Which qualifies me for a rather exciting event in the fall that I'm hoping to blog about!!!) Each movement of the required elements is scored out of 10, with 10 being excellent, 0 being you literally didn't even try, and 6.5 being sufficient (with a 65% required in order to pass the riding element).  My jumping recieved a 5.5.  5 is insufficient, and 6 is almost sufficient, so my jumping overall is almost almost sufficient.  I had a good laugh over that.  A 3 is rated as bad, so I'd definitely hate to see what a jumping score of 3 is.

I also had another pony club lesson two days later.  The exercise set up was two jumps  perpendicular to the rail and set off the track at E and B respectively, with one fence set up in the center of the ring on the diagonal. There were three of us riding, and one part of our warmup was a spiral in at the trot until we all ended up in a small circle nose to tail. It was interesting the different challenge of doing the exercise with other people.  Then, one at a time we worked over the jumps, starting at E, then the diagonal, then around to B. We started at a trot, and the goal was to get a canter transition over the poles and canter out, transitioning back to the trot between fences.  The first couple attempts I only managed to get the canter about a stride after the fence.  Then the other girls in my lesson both took a turn and I tried again with more success.  I was worrying too much about the fence when all I really needed to do was worry about timing my transition.  Really it's no different than working on the flat, trying to get a transition in a particular place like in a dressage test.  Tell that to the fear.  I also ended up doing the exercise the same, except only trotting to the first fence and cantering the rest.  It was a hot mess the first time, but the second I pulled myself together we actually accomplished it quite capably.  To go and show what a well behaved, excellent horse I have, she even did a flying change when she picked up the wrong lead after the second pole. Fancy mare.

I also, fortunately, know how to laugh at myself.  I was at a charity casino for my local equestrian park recently, and one of the ladies there showed us a video of her daughter's stadium round at a recent event.  She's a really great rider, and it sounds like she did really well.  I, naturally, responded by pulling up the video of myself at the first jump and showing it around.

(Here, enjoy a terrible quality cell phone video and take a moment to remember it's okay to laugh at yourself... that, and my horse is basically a saint for not completely turfing me).

Quarterly goals recap Jan-March/Second Quarter Goals

The first three months of this year have gone by faster than I could possibly have imagined.  I think I may have found the time to grab the occasional breath a handful of times in the first quarter of 2015, but I can't be sure.  Without further ado, the overdue analysis of my goals:

Make more horse time.  Too many excuses and not enough pony have been happening recently, and I intend to put a stop to it.   Success! The lengthening daylight hours especially have been a huge help in completing this goal!

Play with the Horse Ball.  Jazz's absolute favourite thing and I'm not even sure I've brought it out more than twice in the last year.  Plus a fun thing both on the ground and under saddle. I brought out the ball one day, only to remember why it had been put away in the first place after an immense half-hour struggle to get it inflated enough to be safe.  

Put the Western saddle back on occasionally. I kind of miss it.   Done and done! I had it on at least twice, one of which was  pony sharing with two awesome kids at my barn, and Jazz was an angel for them.  

Do something about my tall boots.  I need to bathe them in boot stretch or get room put in at the shoe repair place because they are much too tight on my calves.  Yes! I bought the most wonderful, most beautiful, bestest imaginable brand spanking new paddock boots and half chaps a few weeks back.

Tack store haul! I also got a new saddle pad and cookies!

Write a product review post or two.  Product reviews are the kind of post I will read 100% of the time I see them on my blogger dashboard, but I have yet to write one.  This one was a failure.  I attempted to write a review of leather care products and was starting to assemble the pieces and then pre-spring break crazy schedule and spring break happened.  

My personal favourite picture from leather care product review day. 

Think about a bitless bridle option. Since my horse needs her teeth done every 6 months at this point, it might be nice to have an alternative when her mouth hurts.  I do own a bitless bridle, but I don't love it and I'm considering a different type of bridle.  At no point did I even think about this at all.  There were too many other things on both the horsey horizon and the personal one.  

Try to talk less in lessons. Pretty self explanatory but a definite bad habit of mine. I definitely made progress, but this is ongoing, so I'll probably repeat it in another quarter.  

Show off the horse.  I have been telling many, many friends for a long time they can come meet my horse, but I have taken very few people out to the farm.  I may end up moving this goal to a different quarter depending on how our winter goes (I probably shouldn't introduce my non-horsey friends who have never ridden a horse to the crazy winter Jazz I know and love).  I had a relative come to visit just last week and we went for a farm visit.  Plus I shared her with the two kids at my barn mentioned earlier.  I like the idea of sharing her, so this will be another repeat goal.

Get better at leg protection. I will divide this one into two parts
a) use the brushing boots and/or open front boots I own much more often
b) polos! I have one set and I am honestly pitiful at wrapping them  Truth be told, I didn't do this, but in hindsight the last three months were not a good time for this goal, as we're lucky to be able to do a good flatwork session most days, so it doesn't seem that necessary to do boots.  This one will probably be back in the summer.  

And because I love sharing him, here's my cat, continuing to be deluded into thinking he's a person.  

Goals for the Second Quarter (April-June)

Survive the next month and a half.  There are huge time commitments coming up on the personal horizon.  May especially will be no doubt roaring along at 1000 miles an hour, and I think it's only fair to myself to acknowledge that fact and try to do my best.

See to it the horse is fed. I think I've mentioned here before that Jazz is prone to bouts of diarrhea that can cause a sore, rubbed bum. I had the vet out on her last episode, and one of the new management protocols we're trying out is more regular doses of her probiotic.  At very least every 2-3 days she needs to be fed a dose of it, and luckily C will be able to help on some of the aforementioned crazy weeks.

Get the horse photo ready.  Some important photos are being taken with the horse very late May.  Make the necessary arrangements (trailer loading practise, thorough grooming the days leading up to photos, cleaning tack, etc.)

Casey is always photo ready. 

Try to get pony exercised.  I'm actually taking May off of lessons since I physically do not have the time.  I have someone in mind who I want to ask if they'd be willing, so if possible, she'll be getting a little training and exercise.


June: Advance.  Make some progress with riding.  More work in non-lesson rides, less messing around.  Get some momentum going heading into our busier riding time in the summer.

Edit: Keep it positive.  It's come to my recent attention that I am often not good enough at talking up my pony successes with my real life horsey friends, and I tend to overemphasize our difficulties.  Work on that.

Win-ter

It's a day exactly like this one where I understand how people like winter.  It is far from my own favourite season, and Jazz seems to feel the same way more often than not.  But today, when it's not too cold at -5, sunny with not a cloud in the sky, and not a breath of wind, I get it.  It was a truly gorgeous day, and a wonderful reminder of how lucky I am to have the horse I have and so many other little things.

Jazz was fairly easy to catch today.  I had her new halter from my recent tack shop stop (review coming soon I just need some pictures), and I noticed the tag on it said full.  I thought that was odd, because I could have sworn I'd bought a cob halter.  It was the same brand as my pastel purple halter (which is cob sized), so I knew it would fit, and I specifically remembered the girl at the tack shop asking to make sure we knew it was cob sized.  So, when I got to the fence, I yelled over to C (who had been with me when I bought it) to see if I was crazy or if the halter was actually supposed to be cob sized.  She recalled that the tag that had said cob had been the sale tag, so it must have been mislabled.  As we were talking over the fence, Jazz started nuzzling my shoulder and giving me little kisses.  It was so sweet, and she's only done that maybe twice before.  I tried to get C to take a picture, but Jazz stopped by the time she got her phone out.  She did get a few cute shots, though.

I love this one.  She almost looks like she's smiling.

As I was walking back from the pasture, I noticed how gorgeous of a day it was, and asked C to take some more pictures.  Two of the barn cats even came out to greet us.  

Just look at that sky! It was really perfect

I picked up one of the cats and put her in my coat, and Jazz happily snuffled her.  She loves the cats, but usually she scares them off.  Today she was just sniffing and snuffling the kitten so gently she didn't even squirm.

We got this adorable but sadly fuzzy picture of it

 Soon the other cat caught her attention, and we captured a couple photos of Jazz's fascination with the cats.

I got a few nice pictures in the sun near the back paddocks (the ones in the far background of the above photos)

One of my absolute favourites

This one turned out really nice of me and the cat

See? Cat and I are cute, pony looks like she's plotting something.

A brief interlude from today's events to summarize our lesson from this past Wednesday that I neglected to blog about.  Something I don't appreciate often enough about my trainer is the confidence I feel when I ride with her. My last ride before my lesson I didn't ride above a walk because I didn't feel safe.  I cantered on Wednesday, because I am confident my trainer knows enough to tell me how best to keep my occasionally frazzled horse (and self) under control, and I also know she will listen when something just isn't working.  In December, a lesson I didn't blog about didn't happen because I got onto a horse I wasn't sure about, and when Jazz felt much closer to rearing than I wanted to touch with a ten foot pole, I told my instructor I wasn't comfortable and hopped off (and she also didn't let me pay her for the lesson I didn't take).  So on Wednesday, I got on to a fussed sort of Jazz that I probably wouldn't have even trotted if I was alone at the barn.  I had bought a standing martingale at the tack shop the previous weekend, but hadn't actually had time to put it on yet.  I asked my trainer if she wanted me to try it, and she helped me put it on and adjust it correctly.  We went quickly back into some trot work, and Jazz bumped herself in the nose a few times.  The difference was immediately obvious to me.  She's head tossed a bit for some time now, but it finally felt like I could ride it out safely again.  We did a lovely canter on her better right lead, and tried her left, but with little success.  She's much duller to the right leg, and she will run sideways on the circle when tracking left sometimes, even stopping sometimes.  It's very difficult for me to try to control, and has been a source of most of my frustration with riding over the last three or four months.  When I had been having no success for a few minutes of working on it, and as I was starting to get frustrated, I did something I'd been meaning to do every time we'd had this problem for the last few months.  I asked my trainer if there was some other way (any other way) we could possibly work this out.  She said a crop was an option, and retrieved one from the whip bucket.  She explained how to use it, and we worked on small circles where she wasn't squirreling off sideways on me.  It took about two sharp pops with the crop behind my leg, and four or five gentle taps before she was much improved (and a million miles an hour, but I wasn't going to pull on her after giving her such a strong foward cue, that would just be confusing).

Coming back to today, we even squeezed in some work after the photoshoot, . I taught C a little basic groundwork, and Jazz was a rockstar.  I groomed her and tacked up with our other purchase from last week's tack shopping, a standing martingale.  I walked her for a bit, and she was listening the best right off the bat she has in months.  She's always been very eager to go when I get on, and I sometimes have issue getting her to stand at the mounting block for me to get my reins and stirrups organized.  Today she stood well, and started off at a good walk, but listening nicely to halts and half halts (another thing that she usually has to warm up to in the winter).  We trotted early on, and I worked on doing ovals tracking left at the trot.  She was actually getting off my outside leg on the open (non-walled) end of our oval, and I didn't need to fetch the crop to get her to listen.  We even cantered a bit on her good right lead.  There were two other horses in the arena trotting and cantering, which made Jazz want to speed up, so we had a fairly zippy but controlled canter.  I just focused on her being quiet and listening, and did a bit of leg yielding on the quarter line intermittently throughout the ride.  I even worked a bit at two pointing at the trot, which made Jazz happily zip around in a fast trot.  I pulled out two ground poles to trot over, and even commented to C that if she did well over the poles, I might pop over a cavaletti.  That goes to show how confident I was feeling in her, because I would never jump outside of a lesson unless I knew Jazz was doing well.

 Unfortunately, just as I was getting ready to start work over the poles, Jazz had a big spook.  She reeled up her head and bumped herself on the martingale, and took off, nearly tripping herself over the pole, and doing a little dolphin buck over it.  I yelled at C to move because I wasn't feeling confident about my steering, and veered right.  She came back to reality quickly, with the whole spook maybe lasting four seconds.  I'm not sure exactly what set her off, but the other people in the arena had dismounted and were doing a little de-spooking with the flag (aka Jazz's number one fear) on the far end of the arena, so that may have factored in.  I've found Jazz isn't usually a horse that will spook at something that startles her unless two or more things happen at once.  For example, she'll sometimes startle at the sound of people rattling the chains on gates just outside the arena walls, or snow falling off the roof, or a car door slamming, but she'll rarely spook at these types of things unless at least two of them are happening at once, or one happens while I'm cueing for an upward transition.  I put the poles away and basically worked on getting her calmed and releasing her tension. 

I especially love her dragon breath in this picture

Once I was off, I took off her bridle and looped the martingale strap through the neck loop so it wouldn't drag.  Just then, two scary sounds at the same time = another spook.  Jazz startled and reeled away from the viewing area (where the halter had been sitting, and I was standing next to the rail) and away about five steps.  She stopped quickly, and I had to laugh at her a little bit.  She couldn't have picked a better time to spook, with her bridle off and no worrying about her catching her bit.  Her girth was still tightened, so her saddle didn't move an inch, and she had respectfully not so much as grazed me.  I did two fast groundwork moves to get her brain back, and untacked for good.  

I've really learned something this week, and I hope it's something I remember next time I'm in a similar situation.  I have had a very natural horsemanship kind of 'upbringing', and I've been committed to a gadgets are bad kind of mentality.  I was first told by my trainer that I should consider a martingale/tie-down in June, and I bought one last Saturday.  The result was an immediate feeling that I had returned to safety upon first use, and a horse who didn't catch herself on the martingale once (with the exception of a spook, of course) the second time she had ever had a martingale. My trainer commented to me when I asked about another method to deal with Jazz running sideways at the trot, that a crop or spurs would help, though she knew I didn't usually like that kind of thing. I've actually had the thought cross my mind a few times that a crop might have been the answer to my outside leg problem when she really isn't listening the way she was.  I've actually used a crop before.  It helped take us from here: 

 "Pleeeeeeease trot? Pretty please?"

to here:

You can actually see the crop in the video too.

So the moral of the story is a piece of advice I've heard from one of my horsey mentors (paraphrased) "You are going to hear a million opinions from horse people.  You can't ever do that, horses should never do this, etc.  The important thing is for you to figure out what feels right to you, and to do that."

So, readers, remember that no matter what, what matters is that you have a horse you can be proud of, and a method that you can feel good about.  

New Year, New Endeavors

Last year, my New Year's resolution was to keep up this blog with at least one post per week.  Though I did get less consistent with my timing, and I did fall behind occasionally, I would say I kept my resolution.  This year, I decided to try to stick to the same resolution, because I have really come to love blogging. However, I feel like I've been missing out on a big part of what seems a common aspect of the blogging experience: GOALS.

I never made goals before because I have an extremely busy schedule outside of my horsey life, and it just didn't seem realistic for me to be making progress in that way.  Sometimes life gets crazy and its a week or more between barn visits, and sometimes (coughwintercough) Jazz is not feeling this whole 'moving forward' nonsense and, not entirely by choice, we have a groundwork foundation day.  

However, I've been thinking about what I want to write, and I consider what I like to read.  Probably some of my favourite posts to read on other's blogs are goals.  So, I'm going to try it.  I don't think monthly will probably be ideal for me or my horse, so I'm going to make some quarterly goals.

Goals for the First Quarter (Jan-March)

Make more horse time.  Too many excuses and not enough pony have been happening recently, and I intend to put a stop to it.  

Play with the Horse Ball.  Jazz's absolute favourite thing and I'm not even sure I've brought it out more than twice in the last year.  Plus a fun thing both on the ground and under saddle.

Put the Western saddle back on occasionally. I kind of miss it.  

Do something about my tall boots.  I need to bathe them in boot stretch or get room put in at the shoe repair place because they are much too tight on my calves.  

Write a product review post or two.  Product reviews are the kind of post I will read 100% of the time I see them on my blogger dashboard, but I have yet to write one.  

Think about a bitless bridle option. Since my horse needs her teeth done every 6 months at this point, it might be nice to have an alternative when her mouth hurts.  I do own a bitless bridle, but I don't love it and I'm considering a different type of bridle.  

Try to talk less in lessons. Pretty self explanatory but a definite bad habit of mine.

Show off the horse.  I have been telling many, many friends for a long time they can come meet my horse, but I have taken very few people out to the farm.  I may end up moving this goal to a different quarter depending on how our winter goes (I probably shouldn't introduce my non-horsey friends who have never ridden a horse to the crazy winter Jazz I know and love).

Get better at leg protection. I will divide this one into two parts
a) use the brushing boots and/or open front boots I own much more often
b) polos! I have one set and I am honestly pitiful at wrapping them