Today's trivia

I have a trivia question for ya since everyone seems to be down in KY at Rolex besides me I thought a good ole' Kentucky trivia question would be fitting.  Though there is a small chance me and the family may be making our way to Lexington in the morning to watch Cross Country!  So here it is:

Where did the Kentucky traditional black fences/barns come from?

I wish I had a prize for the first correct answer but hey you never know I can probably come up with something creative to send off to one other lucky blogger...lol.

#1 great, #2 crap, #3 IN LOVE

3rd assessment of the Albion-our first ride in it.

Side note- I know this is not %100 the saddle he had also been adjusted since the last time we had a ride so I know that had something to do with it.  But it has to be half of it.  I did also use my Lami-cell pad to ensure the wither clearance I want. 

First off HOLY fricken Lazy-boy, riding in that thing is like making sweet, sweet love to the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man(glad my family doesn't read this cause they may be blushing). 

I am slapped right into a great position and not shoved in the back seat like normal.  It fits me like a dream.  My knees don't come near the edge of the flaps like every other saddle I've ridden in.  It is like my knees are sitting in a big fluffy cloud of perfectness.  It was amazing! 

But all that aside and in all seriousness I have NEVER ridden Steady Smiler happier than he was today.  I can't put into words how amazing it was.  He offered round from step ONE!  He was stretching and reaching for contact every single step.  For one stride he threw his head up in the air and it was like he realized, "wait, this doesn't hurt!  No need to fight." and that was the only stride like it. If this is the horse that I will have all the time when he is comfortable I am clueless how far he could go.  I have seen moments of him showing that quality of movement so I knew it was in there but I didn't know why it wasn't consistent.  Just moments here and there.  His free walk was SO big and swingy that it could jar one's lower back with his neck stretched low.  I was walking around with tears running down my cheeks because I have NEVER ridden this horse before.  I mean I have ridden Steady hundreds of times but I have NEVER ridden this horse.  I have never felt that kind of relaxation during a ride from him.  The same thing at the trot, tears, tears of relief, guilt, joy, and excitement.  Relief knowing my horse is happy.  Guilt knowing he could have had this all along.  Joy to be riding the horse I was riding.  Excitement for what the future holds for us.

Scratch that, we are going Progressive.

So I had my plan laid out and I was headed out on the hunt for all the things I was planning to add to Steady's diet.  On my list were:

Flaxseed oil
beet pulp
probiotics
rice bran
alfalfa cubes

In my search I went to a feed supplier and had a looooong conversation with him.  I hope he wasn't just trying to sell me but he was very convincing and I made the decision to go with his suggestions.  These are the two items I came home with that he assured me would take the place of all of those other items I was going to buy.

ProAdvantage diet balancer
Envision Classic

He said give it 30 days and he guarantees I will see the difference.  He encouraged me to take photo's of before and after.  So I am hoping he is right and Steady will be the poster child for Progressive :)  The price tag on these items are not something to sneeze at but their feeding amounts are so small that it will cost me no more than what I am already doing and not getting results.  One 50# bag of the diet balancer is $30 but you feed 2#'s a day.  The envision 50# bag is $40 and you feed 2 #'s a day.

Question how careful are you when switching and/or adding things to your horses diets.

The Albion

Sorry I didn't post photo's sooner.  I think I went into denial mode because I took the photo's right before I realized it wasn't the perfect fit and kinda tried to put the whole thing out of my mind.  LOL healthy metal process right?!  Now looking back at them I thought I took better photo's than I did.  I didn't take any of it from the front angle at his shoulder but I did get pretty much all the other angles.

It seems like it is coming from every direction.

After my initial evaluation of the new saddle I had my hopes way up.  And if it could stop raining around here for more than a few minutes I could possibly some day get to ride again.  But Monday in the few minute break from rain I threw on the saddle and jumped on to get a better evaluation in.  I almost didn't want to come on here and talk about it and honestly it took me 2 days to get over the disappointment but sadly that 3 finger space almost disappeared when I got on.  I should not have gotten my hopes up but it really did look good.  So I determined that if this saddle didn't fit perfectly then we were going to resort to shim pads.  So that is where we are.  I have a Lamicell pad that I can use for now that is what I have used up until now to keep saddles off his withers.  So I will continue to use that until I can save up for a shim pad.  Frustrated and disappointed but not surprised.  Another problem is that I still have not been able to really ride in it because my girths are too long.   Again frustrated I have this saddle yet still cannot ride.  I wish I could just zip out to the nearest tack store and pick up a girth but considering there is no tack store in 50 mile radius it is just not that simple.  And that the fuel it would cost me to get to the nearest tack store as it would for a girth.  I am just frustrated and want to ride in the nicest saddle that I have ever been able to ride in and it is sitting in my laundry tack room and I can't ride in it...grrrr.

I have been wanting to post about this next issue is my ever skinny horse.  WTH??!!  why can't I get weight on my horse?  I feel though that I am living the definition of insanity.  You know the one that goes something like "repeating the same actions and expecting different results".  That would drive the sanest of us crazy and God knows I am not all there to begin with.  So since my knowledge of a hard to keep scrawny thoroughbred is next to nil, I have relied on the help and experience of others.  That approach has been well ummmm, well, I am here talking about how it is failing right?  Yeah it has gone just that well.  So I was told to feed purina equine senior and free choice hay.  Since weight gain doesn't happen over night I have taken the watch and see approach.  When I didn't see enough gain I would increase the amount of feed.  hmmmm see where this is going?  Kind of like a dog chasing it's tale.  So I am out on a mission to find a solution for my underweight love.  So here is my next plan of action and I am up for opinions but please I really would appreciate opinions that you have seen work first hand.  I really don't want to go through more guesses.  I plan to have the vet out but I asked him last year about it and he never really gave me any solid answers(I am not the happiest with my vet but he is the only equine vet near by).  So back to my plan of action.  I am currently in the process of changing him over to Strategy, I am also trying to find a local place that carries the ADM mineral buckets.  Along with a fecal test.  I was also told to feed alfalfa cubes and beet pulp and even some rice bran.  So that is where I know to start.  I really want to find a solution to this problem that we continue to struggle to fix.

And I am not going to even get started on the money frustrations.  It seems everyone wants our money and not to mention fuel prices, ugh.

I never got to the part about my lesson...in which Steady transmits his inner Pokey.

You know Pokey?  Gumby's trusty steed, the little pony made out of clay?  Yeah him...

I am frustrated that I didn't get to this sooner simply because it helps me keep my mind focused on the recently absorbed information.  Ideally I would have put this all down on paper the day after my lesson but now it is a week and a day later and I am finally getting to it.  I had some extremely important breakthroughs in my lesson with Lee Ann Zobbe.

#1 I feel like gumby riding pokey sometimes with Steady's bendy neck.  It is hard to get a straight line when a horses face and head can be facing an entirely different direction than the direction that their body is moving in.  I have been told before that this was happening but was not given real clear instructions on how to correct the problem.  I am a reactive rider and try to fix the problem but with no success.  This is the point that we spent much of my lesson on.  I would be riding to a fence and Lee Ann would yell "is he straight?"  I and I would yell back "no!".  But then continue on to our jump then land and head toward the next one in worse shape than the first.  So Steady's head is facing right but his body is drifting left.  My reactive riding brain says "no I don't want him to go left.  Pull right, pull right.  Wait it isn't fixing the problem!  Shoot now Lee Ann is yelling.  We are getting closer and he is still crooked.  Shoot she is still yelling.  What is she saying?  She is saying left rein I don't want him to go left must use right rein.  She is yelling louder, "LEFT REIN!"  Ooops that jump was awful since we were so crooked.  What the heck is wrong with us?"  This repeated itself multiple times before Lee Ann finally said, "do you not know your right from your left?".  She was being dead serious BTW not sarcastic.  I frustratedly laughed and answered "yes I do"  She said "oh, I only asked because some people struggle with that and it seems everytime I say right you use left."

Has anyone ever seen the movie Cars?  You know the part where Doc is trying to teach Lightening Mcqueen to race on the dirt track?  Doc tells LM on the turn if you want to go left, turn right.  Then LM laughs and tells Doc he is crazy and says "Yeah, maybe in opposite world!"  Then he proceeds to try again again doing it his own way before he finally gives in and tries what Doc says and it works!  Well that was me.  I could not wrap my brain around the idea that if I want him to go right then I need to use my left rein.

Lee Ann taking the reins to show me what to do.

Lee Ann finally gives up and comes over and grabs the reins and from the ground gets Steady to move in the correct direction with the correct aides.  Then she gives them back to me and lo and behold!!  Nothing!  I still do the same thing...grrrr.  So after probably 30 minutes of her trying to explain to me in a hundred different ways how to make this happen I FINALLY figured it out.  She never got mad, she never just said forget it, she just kept looking for a different way to explain the same thing.  I think that is a sign of an amazing teacher!  I think it was about at the wheel barrow analogy and her making me hold my hands on top of her as she was using the reins that something finally clicked in my brain.  She demonstrated trying to steer a wheel barrow the way I am steering my horse and some how explained and showed me where my hands, elbows, shoulder, hip and leg all needed to be when asking him to turn.  And "DiNG" I got it, I felt it, I could finally get what she meant.  In my defense she did say the reason it was so hard for me to get is because when I ask correctly Steady fights it but if I stick with it he will "get it" soon too.  He wasn't being obstinent`he was trying his hardest to figure out what the heck I was trying to do up there.  He was getting frustrated but we were finally figuring it out.  We had a little time to try a few jumps with proper turns and called it a good day.  This break through is huge for me and it makes me love training with Lee Ann more than I already did.  I cannot brag about her enough, she amazes me. I have never walked away from a lesson with her without some break through and feeling like we can and will progress through it.

I touched on the fact that I am a reactive rider and that really causes most of my problems.  So when something is happening that I know shouldn't be happening the process my brain goes through is something like this, "No that is not right, I don't want that to happen, stop doing that, this just is not working, no, no, no."  So my mind is saying that so you can imagine what my body is doing.  A good rider should be proactive and the brain process should sound more like, "this is happening, but I want this.  Not that, but this, do this, do this, do this."  Then your body is giving direction not just attempting to put a stop to the unwanted behaviour.  I need to spend time retraining my brain to be proactive and not reactive.  I think alot of times the problem is that I know what behaviour I don't want and know what actions I do want but just don't know the right way to get them and that is where is all starts to go down hill.  The number one reason lessons are SO important for me and my horses well being.

I have some really really amazingly wonderful good news!!!

I have been on a trip with my daughter for her bithday since Thursday.  I have been axiously awaiting the arrival of the Albion I bought off of ebay.  And of course what I was hoping wouldn't happen did, it showed up on Friday and I had already left for Chicago on Thursday.  So I had to wait a looong torcherous wait.  We pulled in the driveway tonight about 10:30 pm and I had to still feed everyone in the rain.  I brought everyone in fed and ran inside and tore open the box!  Oooh it is soooo pretty but pretty doesn't matter much if it doesn't fit right?

I ran outside at about 11 pm in the dark with a flashlight to get my first test of whether or not this saddle will fit.  I put it on slid it into place and....to be continued....

Hahaha just kidding I am just not mean like that.  I took my initial look and....I have NEVER put a saddle on my horse before that didn't fall on or very close to his withers.  This saddle had 2 fingers clearance on each side and 3!! at the top!!!  I feared that in trying to fit his withers I would in turn have to have a saddle that sat pommel high and guess what???  I does NOT!!!  It looks like it has great spine clearance.  It also sits balanced and level across the back.  Since it was dark I took the flash light and pointed it through the wither clearance and could see light out the back.  It seems almost too good to be true, but it is looking extremely promising.  This is all my initial look and still need to girth up and ride in it but by the looks there will be no need for shim pads and we will actually have a saddle that FITS my horse!!!  I am soooo excited!!  And am starting to breath a sigh of relief after a year of dealing with ill fitting saddles.