Wearing Protection

Haha did I get your attention?  Just thought it a funny title.  When I purchased my xc vest I was not really aware of Beta tests and approval.  I just saw a lot of people wore Tipperary vests and they had fun colors.  Hey what can I say hunters don't wear vests and until 3 years ago I knew nothing of eventing.  So I learned any way I could and with apparel I learned mostly by observation.  Well I am now a wee bit wiser and you better believe when it comes to my kids safety I will do my research.  So I have been on a hunt for a beta 3 approved xc vest.   Beta 3 is the highest and only level approved for cross country jumping. Any other number whether 1-2 or 4-7 do not meet the current qualifications.  Have you tried to find an approved vest?  How about one under $350?  Its not easy.  But I did find Harry Hall Body Protector. They are level 3 approved and only $112 us dollars and that is with shipping.

But not being all that popular in the States I don't have any first hand experiences to go off of.   I am pretty decided that I am going this route.  I just wondered if any of you have first hand experience with these?  I just need to measure my daughter and get it ordered.  Hopefully the hubs can find a way to be OK with yet another equestrian related purchase.  But it is hard to argue when its your daughters safety we are talking about.  I am also on the look out for a saddle for my daughter.  Does anyone have or know of something that would fit a wide pony?  I am wanting to stay in the $200-300 range.

kick in the pants.

Thanks for the kick in the pants.  I looked back and my last post was very down.  Never fear I am not easily kept down and though I was very frustrated with my riding after my last lesson  I walked away even then with a plan.  I also did not mention that no way did laz let me leave on a bad note.  She took down the first jump, lowered the second and had us go through, slowly raising everything back up and we went trough the line beautifully about 3 times before calling it a day.  It was just that over and over I was having to be reminded of things I know and can do but for whatever reason, could not do.

Like I said there is a plan and no giving up on my end.  Low and behold I rode my horse today and he didn't hold a grudge and it is still ao cool the progress we have made in my ability to ride and control his rhythm and use of himself with my body.  Life changing stuff I tell you.  The plan is to get together at my friends farm once a week to jump.  Same friend who teaches me the biomechanics riding.  We will be working on how to incorperate the same concepts when speeds increase and jumps are involved.  Wednesdays every other week we will meet at her place to jump and on the other weeks we will be trailering to LAZ's for a lesson.

Was that ride crappy?  Yes but I have learned that my horse is forgiving, willing and smart. So no matter how hard, we will work through what we need to to be better in the end.  As Lee Ann said, he is opinionated and that is what makes him such a great horse.  So even though I may not be the best I will always do what I have to to give him the best and he knows it and gives me his best.

P.s. when I mentioned that it was not like steady to stop.  It was by no means because anything is wrong with him.  He is feeling, looking and acting great.  It was really all just poor riding.

You guys are so awesome and I just love that I can come here and you guys tell me just what I need to hear.  Even if I do need a swift kick.  Thanks!  And since you guys are the bombdiggitty I am going to do my best to come away Wednesday with some video and photographic documentation of our ride :)

Nothing positive.

Eventing-the most super coolest ever sport that is the most bank account draining thing you'll ever wish you were really good at but will always pretty much suck at.

That would be my personal definition of eventing.  I love it.  I try really hard at it.  I am pretty crappy at it.  I have a really cool horse that deals with my inability to ride.   

After a lesson like I had on Wednesday I walk away with that feeling once again of, "why in the hell do I think I can actaully ride a horse, let alone event.  And moving up?  Ha!  That'll never happen cause I suck far too much."  I have walked this line many times since jumping feet first into this sport.  The line between giving up and having a pity party.  On Wednesday I brought up to LAZ Steady and I's arch nemisis a two stride combination.  We have done them in the past.  We can do them schooling but in a show it all falls apart.  So we broke it down.  It came down to I hold onto his face, I steer with my hands, I will not stop pulling my left rein and it all came tumbling down.  We can't turn, we can't go straight I pretty much can't ride a horse. No matter how many times LAZ would tell me to put my hands in his neck and leave them their some other power would over take me and I physically could not stop myself.  What the ?  Why am I incapable of controling my own body?  We warmed up, OK.  Then we did a few jumps together.  One of them being a two stride combo.  It went worse than bad.  I was riding like crap.  Both of our confidence in this task has been shaken.  He doesn't believe we can do it and I have my doubts also.  He refuses the first.  Well that is new.  Next time around takes the first and refuses the second but does not run right like normal.  Third time around he crashes through the first.  Ahhhh!  The frustration.  I know this is not my horses issue.  He does not do things like this.  Lee Ann made it clear that this "was not Steady".  I know that is not my horse.  I am royally screwing up and cannot get my head right.  I was so mad at myself.  I am so disappointed in myself.  I don't have a clue what happened to my riding.  I know I have a problem with my hands, I hold him too much and I steer too much.  I can't stop myself and I don't understand why. 

It is so bad right now that I don't feel like riding my horse at all.  I don't feel like I have any business on his back.  I just feel completely incapable of getting on him and doing anything positive.  I feel I have no business on the back of a horse of his ability because I am not a good enough rider.  Bottom line I am just NOT.

All the little pieces.

You know those little important pieces a like hip, a rib, a shoulder?  Well there may be an explination as to why jumping the things was not going to happen Sunday.  Stead's gots his massage/accupunture/adjustment today. First time since the gravel incident.  And to be expected his left side was effed up.  I didn't even have to tell her which side it was.  She immediately found his left shoulder was out, his left hip was out and he had a rib that was popped up.  She said lifting his front end would have been tough for him.  Taking off of his left hind would have not been easy.  And lifting his back where the rib was out, under the saddle, would have been very painful.  Poor Dude. There were a few other various things that were adjusted.  The movement in his body once she would fix something was like magic.  She is by far the most effective treatment that I have seen.  And Steady loves her and that's saying a lot because he doesn't love very many people.

I have a jump lesson tomorrow and I am excited to see how he feels.

We win some, we lose some and others we lose to ourselves.

Yup we are just that awesome that we are capable of losing to ourselves.  First and foremost my daughter is so awesome!  She chose to go to the show to help me.  She got up that AM packed a lunch for the both of us.  Then proceed to help me the entire day.  I am such a lucky Mama.  She was exhausted by then end.  I don't have any electronic evidence.  I knew no one from the show and didn't have time to even worry about it. 

The Combined Test.  Show up and check in and come to find out that I am the only rider in the Novice division.  Yay!  First place for me!?  Well one would think.  There we a bunch of pony clubbers. LOVE!  Hey if my club is less than par I still like to see a big group of PCer's out there riding, working together, having a blast and riding well.  I have several people come up to me and were just in awe of how gorgeous Steady was.  I even had a couple people ask what breed he was which surprised me because I feel like he has always looked like stereotypical Thoroughbred.  One ladies comment when I told her he was off the track was, "wow you lucked out with him.  He is amazing."  I tried not to chuckle and humbly take the complement.  But 'luck' did play a part in the coolness of Steady's temperament but anything else was a lot of hard ass work.  But doesn't matter it feels so amazing to have people drooling over my horse.  He has always had a stature about him, that come natural to him and it helps that he is massive but now his color is a dark rick liver, shimmering shiney coat and filled out musculed up in all the right placed.  It's cool.  Anyways back to the rest of it.

Dressage: I warmed up very little.  It was a very small grassy area. Test were ridden in their indoor.  The first half of the test was better than the second.  Well besides that I got to B and I kid you not my mind went completely blank.  I had NO idea where to go next.  Doh!  The bell rang.  Got back on track.  At the first canter transition he got pissy and kicked out.  I swear he does this in every dressage test.  I MUST do something to make this happen.  It never happens when schooling.  I need to figure out what I am doing wrong I know this has to be me.  I have some ideas as to what I probably do. He got more tense as the test went on.  He was OK just not as good as, well, as he was even just 5 minutes earlier warming up.  I have to say I rode the disobedience pretty much perfectly and didn't let him change me and he came back to me quickly.  The rest was like I said Ok.  The opposite canter was worse the transition was good but then he cross canter at some point.  I went to fix it and broke him back down to a trot.  At that point I felt I blew the movement and I went off course again.  Double Doh!  Had a nice halt, which I am pleased with that improvement.  Over all it sounded worse than the score showed and I thought the judge was generous.  But it was actually pretty good for us at a show and the first show of the year/spring.  So I was pleased enough with it.  Score was 37%.

Then we had to wait, TOO LONG to jump.  He warmed up nicely though we warmed up inside and they had 2 REALLY wet REALLY slippery spots right at each end of the arena where you would turn before and and after a jump.  I did not know of these spots to begin with and unfortunately Steady slipped twice.  Then we trotted only.  Jumping was outside in a small grassy area.  It seemed small to me for a course.  At least when you are riding a boat and not a pony.  First jump good.  Second he hit hard with his back legs, knocked the rail and it pissed him off.  He bucked a couple small bucks to let everyone know he didn't like that.  Third jump then it was 2 strides to #4.  He ran out, erg.  I went back around jumped it and was off my game at the point and basically blew by #5 and last second did a shit job trying to salvage it and Steady was like, Naw I ain't doing that.  I re presented, not an issue.  #6 then 2 strides to #7 and unfortunately you can probably see how this course was going.  Yup another run out.  I was displeased with the way I rode.  Yes I was displeased with Steady but I can't get to upset because something is missing.  I am still trying to nail down what it is but Stadium is by far our weakest area.  Two stride combo's are our achilles heal.  I know that %100 of the issue is straightness.  I lose him through his right shoulder and he for some reason decides that he does not think he can make to stride combo's and uses that as an evasion.  He does not refuse because he looks at a jump EVER.  He doesn't even glance at jumps as far as color, deco.  I am not sure what it is but we will get to the bottom of it.  He goes to the masseuse tomorrow then a jump lesson on Wednesday. 

In a division of one we  lost to ourselves and left with an E.  Meh it was a schooling show and I am by no means broken up over it but I would be lying if I said I didn't second guess his reliability.  We will keep working and we will see where this year goes.  Our next show we are aiming for is another schooling show on June 29th where a large some was donated for OTTB's competing in.  We are gonna get our shit together for that one!

I am bit peeved at myself because my mental game riding was just, 'off'.  Going off pattern twice in dressage.  Missing a jump in stadium.  Forgetting how to keep my horse straight between jumps. I just felt off not physically, because I rode strongly and safely but mentally I just couldn't get it together.  I don't know if it had something to do with only getting a few hours of sleep the night before but I will not make that mistake again.  We have never been eliminated for refusals before, EVER!  So I guess now we can mark that one off the list so we don't have to do that again? 

Well I did it.

There was one Combined Test that I just found out about that is only about an hour away.  It is on Sunday and though I hadn't even looked at the Novice test  or jumped a full course in like 8 months I went for it.  It was the only weekend from now until July that I would have available so I just went for it.  I threw the idea around long enough that I missed the cut off date.  Then I put it off again and I finally called yesterday and asked if I was still ok to send it in.  She said yes.  Even though there is a 30% chance of tunderstorms all day Sunday I grew my lady balls stopped making excuses and just dropped it at the post office.  So ready or not Novice here we come!  They have free XC schooling for CT competitors, so that is a bonus.  Hopefully I can make a friend that will let me go out with them.

Funny thing.

Funny thing.  I picked up a copy of Sidelines magazine when I was at Rolex.  I did not have amytime to open it there.  A couple days later my daughter picked it up and brought it to me.  She says, "Mom, did you know you were in this magazine?".  Uhhh no!  Low and behold Steady and I are on the first page of the magazine, lol.  Not something that happens to me every day.  Kinda awesome!  Though they acquired this photo when I entered it in a Facebook contest that I did not win.  Which I find funny.  Apparently we were a favorite of the editor who apparently did not judge the contest.  Though I would have loved some free stuff from the contest but either way a pretty cool find!  I sure am glad I went by that both and happened to grab a magazine!

 Happy mother's day go me!  Steady came home yesterday!!  Its nice to have him back home.  Though it was nice to have access to the facility I'm definitely one who loves to have my horses in my back yard.

And the awesome ottb shirt made it in too!!!