What the HELL just happened??!!??

That was what was running through my head as I was looking at my horse fully saddled lying flat on his side not moving.  (few minutes prior)  The day was going as normal as can be.  I got Steady out and tied him to one of my fence posts just like I always do.  I had all my stuff right there ready to go.  After his bath yesterday he was still shiney and spotless (gotta love a horse that doesn't roll the second he gets put in the pasture after a bath) so I didn't even have to brush him.  He was very mellow and he usually is when all of this goes on.  I put his saddle on, fiddled with it for a moment to check the fit.  He was standing perfectly calm.  I walk about 10 feet away to where my helmet was and started to put it on when I heard the commotion.  I turn around and he is fighting to break away from the post.  He then ends up on his knees with his neck stretch out fighting as hard as he can.  Then he grunts flips out and ends up on his side!!!  With his neck stretched out he really had no leverage to do much but he fought for a second and then just stopped and wasn't moving.  What was going through my mind..."What in the HELL just happened?!  Do I dare get close to him.  Well shit I have to try to pull the quick release knot.  I really hope I tied that right."  I walked up and pulled as hard as I could to try to get it to come loose.  It was pulled so damn tight from him struggling that it wasn't coming easy.  But it was coming loose.  That is when is started fighting again.  I yanked as hard as I could(after the adrenaline rush went away I realized I gave myself a nice rope burn on my fingers) it slipped loose and he was soon back to his feet standing there like nothing happened.  My heart was pounding I was shaking.  He is just standing there so I tried to move him forward because of course my first thought after that was, "did he hurt himself?"  As soon as I started to walk forward he lost it again!  He reared like a real rear I think he hit his head on a tree then he was back down on the ground with his two front legs and seemingly stuggling to get up.  It is strange where your mind goes in a moment like that, my thought process was, "What the Fuck(pardon my mind language)?  Did he break a leg?  He can't stand up?  Shit now I am going to have to call the vet.  I wonder how much costs to put my horse down?  I wonder if he broke my saddle?  Wait he is back up and standing on all fours.  WHAT IN THE HELL just happened????!!!!"  Once he was on all fours I got to saddle as quickly as possible to pull it off thinking that was the only thing that I could have done to cause this.

Standing there with him the saddle on the ground my heart pounding looking at all four legs to see if there were obvious injuries.  Which other than grass on his legs I saw nothing and wondering what to do next.    Well that was the end of the drama.  I walked him and saw short steps in his left hind leg and walked a little more and it went away.  I lunged him for a little bit and I think that there is some soundness problems with him.  I am guessing hocks because he is not showing obvious lameness but something is NOT right with my horse.  I think the lameness is unrelated to his psychotic episode but now I will be putting calls into the leg vet....sigh.  Sometimes I wonder if I can handle this.  I have no hard evidence as to what caused this episode and honestly he scared the shit out of me.  I don't know where we go from here but it wasn't where I had planned to go.

The long format lives on!!

I aquired a great deal of knowledge over last weekends Indiana Eventing Association's T3D/N3D.  This is the first year that Lee Ann Zobbe from Come Again Farms was the coodinator (she is also my most favoritest trainer to take lessons from)  She also added the Novice 3 Day to the scheduele.  It was a hefty bill to fulfill but from everything I saw and have heard it all went off without a hitch and everyone had a splendid time.  It is also a true 3 day in that Dressage ran day one, steeple chase, roads and tracks and cross country on day two and stadium on day 3.

Day one I was placed on bit check and went from not even knowing what it meant to successfully checking each prelim and training dressage horse in for their tests.  So that was a great learning experience.  The day started for me at about 5 am followed by a 2 hour drive a stop a starbucks and some help from mapquest I was there and ready for whatever they needed.  The ladies in charge of dressage said "can you do bit check" and I enthusistically said "sure", "as long as someone shows me how to do it".  I must say that some of those horses have the most wretched ground manners.  Some so head shy I couldn't even come near them.  Others flipping their heads and even smacking me with it.  I would say over half had decent manners and I am thankful for them.  I just wonder how a horse can get to that level of riding and not have at least managable ground manners.  But it was my first time so who am I to judge.  I was super excited when I saw Stacy from Team Taco come up to our station.  I may have creeped her out a little by acting like a crazy stalker fan.  Their dressage test was incredible!!!  And it showed in the scores that put them in first place with a 26.4!  You can read abou their amazing ride of ups and downs at the event here.  Sadly after phases B,C and D that still had them in the lead they withdrew and now Taco is recovering from a SDFT.  It is heartbreaking but also inspiring.

I got to see some beautiful horses and equally beautiful dressage tests.  I learned a great amount and I met some fantastic people.  I got to get a feel for some of the riders and learned some names in the eventing world.  There was one rider in particular that came off as one of the most errogant people ever but almost all were kind and nice people.  The day started chilly and ended in the 80's but my job was kind of cake and most time was spent under a tent just enjoying the day.  I drove the 2 hours back home that evening to find dinner awaiting on table by my dear husband.  It was early to bed for tomorrow was to start even earlier....

Oh no not again.

I don't even want to say the words but I think it may be true.  Saddle fitting problems(I think I just vomited in my mouth a little).   Though I am NOT giving up on the Albion yet I really think if it was reflocked it would make a world of difference.  I doubt it has ever been done and if it had it has been a long time.  Steady is fighting rounding his back and strongly protests making the trot to canter transition.  He seems agreable enough once in the canter but after 30 minutes or so of working I start to get strong resistance to going forward.  I have persued as many avenues possible (not being a vet nor being able to afford one for a very unobvious problem).  No sign of unsoundness and my final assessment was last evening I jumped on bare back and did not get resistance.  Course of action.  Ride bareback as much as possible and I am awaiting some shims from the sweet sweet Aimee at Sprinkler Bandit for my thinline in hopes that may help.  Event camp is quickly approaching, oh yeah, that means I must send in that check!  And we will have an appointment with a saddle fitter and I hope she can get us on the right track.

God bless it all I did not know that with horses came so many damn issues(something I must have been oblivious to as a kid).  If things ever do right for more than a day I won't know what to do with myself.

I rallied to ride after the long weekend.

We are talking waking up at 4 am driving 2 hours and volunteering all day for 3 days straight.  Well I did get to sleep in on Sunday since I stayed overnight.  But dang was Saturday a scorcher.  But more on the 3 day later.  I wanted to post about my ride last night.  I was tired but it was such nice evening and after getting to watch all these horse and riders all weekend I wanted some time with my guy.  I have not felt like we were making great progress as of late.  It seemed that somewhere along the way this spring we have gone a few steps back.  I cannot pinpoint where it was.  We have been fairly consistent in working.  Maybe a week or two off added together but nothing drastic.  I have really stuggled to get him as forward as  I am used to and that brought him and I an entirely new challange.  I have found it is MUCH easier for me to get him to work correctly when he is forward or even too forward.  But when there is lack of forward is harder for me.  We have been working through it and things are getting better but I haven't had a ride in a long time that when I was done I was pleased with the roundness, being on the bit or bending in a long time.  That brings us to yesterday.

After warming up I started asking him to find the bit.  He was lacking forward a little so I asked for a canter and that usually gets him moving forward better after even a short time at the canter.  After that he really stated to feel for the bit then I was relentlessly asking him to be round.  He not only was responding well but just felt great.  He became so round that I could feel him raise me up through his back.  I know he has rounded his back before but this was by far the biggest difference I have ever felt.  At first I was like WTH is that and then I was like ohhhhh I know what that is....gooooood booooy!  With him working so nicely and really responding I decided to push the envelope a bit and go for a leg yield.  We have done them before but it has been a while and I have always had to have strong aides to get him to do it.  Yesterday it was so cool.  I barely had to use my aides and he knew what I was asking for, as soon as I tightened up the outside rein and put on my inside leg he just started doing it.  It felt so cool.  So much so that I said hey maybe we should try another lateral movement.  I have to admit I don't know that I was doing it correctly or even what it is called.  I think it could be a shoulder in or something.  Maybe you can tell me.  Bent him slightly to the inside, slid my inside leg back slightly and gave pressure to let him know I wanted him to keep his haunches on the rail yet move his shoulders to the inside.   And we have 5 or so strides with his shoulders in and haunches on the rail.  Right or not he did exactly what I asked him to do.  We did this just me and him no trainer or even knowledge in dressage and I am proud of it.  I mean I guess there is a good chance I am just screwing him up for the real thing but hey at least he listens as I am screwing him up and we were both enjoying ourselves.  I think he really has a knack for the whole dressage thing.

BUT the boy LOVES to jump.  You know your horse loves jumping when you are trotting in a half acre field on a loose rein and he heads straight for the only 2 jumps that are set up.  LOVE IT!  So I just let him jump.  We were trotting along and he caught sight of one of the jumps and perked his ears up and honed in on it.  He even went for the big side of the log.  Then the other jump was at a 45 degree turn and 40 feet away and he turned straight toward it locked on to it and popped over.  Oh man he is a horse after my own heart.  The jumps are only about 2 feet but that really needs to change I can tell he just wants bigger and so do I.  I need to find some stuff to make into jumps.  I have a feeling that him and I could be close to novice by the end of this season if we were in any sort of hurry.  But I am in no hurry and don't really care to be at this point so we will go no higher than beginner novice this year at schooling shows.  Next year probably hang at beginner novice and maybe do the IEA event and/or Greater Dayton.  I am in no hurry and just plan to be safe and have fun!!!  I am sooooo stoked for what we will get to do at event camp and to work with these awesome trainers!!

The quick recap of the weekend.

Am overwhelmed by an amazing weekend!  I met some of the most genuinely kind and down to earth people.  Stayed up too late giggling in the camper.  Saw some incredible horses and riders.  Sweat my butt off and was covered in dirt.  Learned a great amount of helpful information.  Daydreamed about the day Steady and I will do our first 3 day.  Got teary eyed seeing riders and horses get presented with a challenge and maybe even think about hesitating then trusting in each other, landing on the other side shouting "GOOD BOY/Girl!".  Worked as hard as I could to do my small part to make this a great experience for all the riders.  Was amazed by the elegance in dressage then those same horses turn into these fierce jumping machines in cross country.  All  this while my sweet husband held down the home front so I could be gone for a 3 day weekend and even came home to dinner made and on the table both nights I came home.  What a start to the month of June!  And I have a feeling it is just going to get better.

Trail ride part 3: Total cuteness!

Mini's crossing water with little people on their backs.  I turned the camera around in this video because everyone was behind me but then the mini's ended up leading us out of the water.  You can hear my girls excitement. After the water you can hear Elaina bouncing and her voice rattling, too cute!  They truely loved it and it is the most rewarding and fulfilling experiences I have had as a mother.  Sharing these times on the trails.  Even though the mini's were buggers at moments the truth is I trust them with my girls and they don't let me down. 



I think Steady truely enjoys trail rides.  He has also come a long way from last year when it was his first times out on a trail.  He questioned many things, like hills, water and scary noises and now he goes through most of the trails with ears perked and loving it.  He is and never will be a deadhead trail horse, I mean how lame would that be anyways.  I would never trust anyone that wasn't a very experienced rider on his back for the moments that he decides that going forward is not our best option.  Sometimes side ways or backwards or even straight up in the air have been some of his other choices but he is never nasty about it and as long as you are planted in your seat and know how to work through the issue then he is just a lovely trail horse.

Count down to IEA N3D/T3D!

I am excited to be going to a T3D for my first time ever!  Friday I will be a dressage scribe, Saturday and Sunday a XC jump judge.  So citing!  I will be packing tomorrow and leaving about 5 am Friday morning.  Not much to say about it because I have no idea what I have gotten myself into :).  I will have my camera in hand and plan to update when I get home.