Tag: young horse

It happened the way many horse show entries do: on a whim. I was three states away immersed in my Masterson Method Advanced class and didn’t think much about our home show except for the fact that I would be missing it. Then came that midweek text inquiring about my missing entry… my subconscious took hold of my phone and said sure, I could be there if they needed entries and that was that.

Instead of a leisurely drive home from a friend’s house in Cincinnati on Saturday morning, I white knuckled my way home from Indianapolis that Friday night, fueled by a healthy dinner of iced coffee and pistachios and chatting on the phone to stay awake. When I finally collapsed into bed at midnight-thirty, I could barely sleep for the horse show excitement buzzing in my brain.

In true horse girl fashion, my anxiety woke up an hour before the alarm said to. It wasn’t about the ride though: it was about the white breeches. In the three years that they had been hanging in the closet untouched, a lot had happened. I’d spent over two years not riding and slowly losing fitness. I stress ate my way through a global pandemic. The gyms closed, the marathons were cancelled, I sustained an Achilles injury to my good leg, and my physical health (and mental health) took a hit. F*ck it, I told my brain. If the white breeches don’t fit, I’ll wear the pink ones. It’s only a schooling show, after all. When the moment of truth came, the breeches zipped and my heart did a little somersault. For something that seems so silly, it was a huge moment. The last time I zippered those white breeches, I rode Beau down centerline for what would be the last time, though I didn’t know it then. The last time I wore the white breeches, I had no idea of the changes and challenges that would have to be endured to get to a place where I would wear them again. Between these two shows were three years marked with tears, with triumphs, with outlandish dreams and huge risks all in pursuit of a chance to do this once again. 

While I grumbled at the heat and humidity as I pulled on my black coat, I secretly knew I wanted to wear it again–the Bronze Medal pin proudly pinned to its lapels as a nod to the horse who carried me so far. I swung myself into his saddle, took up his reins into my hands, and felt so much gratitude for my dear Charlie Brown though it was his tiny successor now sporting his hand me downs. 

Even though the last chapters of his career were not written the way I would’ve penned them, I felt ever grateful to be on this path once again–living the tumultuous journey of developing a dressage horse. Nothing with horses is a given, a sure thing, or the least bit linear. But for the Type A dressage riders, that’s a hard concept to come to grips with. So after a soft and steady warm up with Lucy on her best behavior, we headed to the outdoor just to “ride around except in show clothes.” And that’s exactly what we did. Not quite educated enough to execute an accurate test yet, Lucy and I contested a Materiale class alongside another super youngster at Uphill. Both four-year-olds were calm and composed and everybody even picked up the left lead! It was exactly as boring as you want it to be with young horses, but I left the ring completely elated. 

Sure, it was just another ride in the outdoor (though to be fair, we only have about 6 of those under our belts) but this one represented a lot more. Because this ride involved white breeches, and white breeches mean you have a sound horse to ride. It means you have a sane partner who won’t lose their marbles if you ride in front of a dozen people. For me, white breeches mean not only do I have a sound, sane horse, but that I’m back on the wild and curvy road that I’ve been trying to get back to for three long years. 

It’s been three years since I last rode into a show ring, two years since I met my latest adventure, and just one year since I first swung a leg over her back. This story is for everyone who thinks their dreams have been derailed forever, are unattainable, or just plain silly. If it sets your soul on fire, if it lights a spark and a passion inside your soul, it is not silly, it is not unattainable, and no matter how long it takes, those dreams are worth chasing.

 
Here’s to more white breeches and more dressage dreams coming true!

 

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I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: babyhorseland is a wild place. It’s like being on a roller coaster where you definitely might die, if not from bodily injury then definitely from a heart attack. Or an aneurysm….

It’s like being on a roller coaster that in one moment is the best, most thrilling thing imaginable but in another moment you’re like wtf am I doing on this thing? And why did I walk through a valley of hot coals to get in line for this? And, why am I truly doing this voluntarily?!

The highs have been very, very high. Since our last Lucy Lu update I have backed and started this special little filly under saddle and let me tell you: she is F-U-N. And she is smart. From our last update in July where she conquered her fear of baths, she has come a long, long way. I went from being carried around like a sack of potatoes to bravely swinging a leg over and going for a pony ride in the indoor to cantering around on the lunge line and even going walk-trot off the lunge by Halloween. 

I was on Cloud 9! This roller coaster was the best adventure that I’d ever been been brave enough to ride! Then suddenly a bolt flies off and you think, ‘well, I might die now.’  She definitely knocked a screw loose somewhere along the way and some of things I have seen are hard to unsee… there were days on the lunge line when I would watch her antics and think, ‘am I really going to get on that thing again?’ And these days eventually culminated into a harrowing and expensive journey trying to find a physical cause for going off the rails. Surely we can tighten that bolt and get back on track. 

After many, many weeks and many vet visits and many sleepless nights we had treated her for everything she might have and ruled out everything else. (Here is where the aneurysm comes in… I had definitely convinced myself she was suffering some pretty terrible and incurable ailments). The emotional roller coaster was at its lowest low and I was not sure if I wanted to go around again. But gosh were those fun times fun and I hadn’t actually died yet and the vet’s orders were to ride the damn horse so… why not.

In the dregs of winter, mid-pandemic, and approaching the holidays, a good groundsperson was hard to find. So I found myself doing what every desperate horse girl does when she is in dire need of a groundsperson: make your husband do it. This sparked an entirely new and exciting route for the baby horse roller coaster: gently riding around the indoor while Beau finds his second career as a husband horse. 

And as only the allure of babyhorseland can do, I was sucked right back in again. Each week, I got a bit bolder and a bit braver and she got a bit steadier and a bit braver herself. And Beau.. well it goes without saying that he was THRILLED to have conned a new person into his I-will-not-be-caught-for-less-than-three-treats routine and his new job description included sporting a western saddle and not even needing to walk into corners. 

All this to say, babyhorseland is a wild, wild place where you never know where you might end up once you cross its threshold. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and it’s not for the faint of heart, but if you need me, that’s where I live now…
#greetingsfrombabyhorseland 

Each time you scroll by a sale ad, it must depict the ‘perfect horse.’ The ad will tout all of the virtues of this horse, starting with the most basic skills: loads, ties, stands for the vet and farrier, easy to clip and to bathe, sound, no vices, cooperative in turnout with other horses… but all of that stuff you just gloss over. It’s a formality, a prerequisite. Of course every horse can do those things, right? Wrong.

Now having the privilege of taming and training my very own ‘feral horse’ I am here to tell you that this dream horse you’re looking at online doesn’t “just do” those things. Someone taught that horse all of those skills with painstaking repetition and thoughtful preparation and the patience of someone who has never owned a watch or a calendar.

I’m not saying little Lucy isn’t wonderful and she’s definitely as easy as they come. BUT, it has taken me nearly 11 months just to install these prerequisites of “How to Horse” with the help of a lot of YouTube, countless books, and endless phone calls to people who have bravely and successfully completed the baby thing before me. (A lot of people are in this category, but mostly it’s been Nina Catanzarite, shout out to her!) 

Some things were quite straightforward and Lucy more or less learned ‘by the book’ with me following the plans that the experts recommended. My mantra was always ‘one step at a time’ and the only hard thing about that process was learning how to laugh it off when people would inquire, “well have you done this yet, have you done that yet, when are you going to ride her?!” I learned with sweet ol’ Beau that it’s a heck of a lot easier and faster to do something right the first time, than if you have to go back and undo your hasty mistakes. Within weeks, Lucy had learned how to lead, tie, and stand and I was just thrilled. 

Our next major goal was trailer loading, which also went more or less according to plan, albeit very slowly and methodically. It did not take long to figure out that Lucy was very sensitive, very timid, but also very smart. Her being a quick study could easily work against me if I accidentally taught her to expect a bad experience, or if she learned that her fear was justified. We started out with the most basic task: put your little hoof onto a tarp. Now onto a piece of plywood. Now walk the whole way across it. Now walk across it with two barrels on either side. Now the barrels get more narrow and touch you, keep walking across it. Now back through. Now stand on it. These little steps were done one tiny bit a time, never more than one step in a day. She was always cautious and always skeptical, but as long as I only asked for a little more, then a little more, she obliged and grew more confident. Eventually we started feeding her dinner on the trailer ramp. Then in the trailer. Then we put the butt bar up and gave her some snacks. We walked on and off, on and off. We did one test lap around the block. We hauled her to a nearby farm with a friend. Then farther away and without a friend. (Shout out to Katey Simons for all of her help with this!) Months later, and she’s a trailer loading pro.

But this blog isn’t about the times that her training went according to plan. It’s about the things it took her six months to get over (clippers) or nine months to get over (fly spray) or my latest major victory: bathing. That was a hard one, and I’m lucky we conquered the other two super intense activities first, or… well, let’s just leave it at that.

Lucy is a dressage horse (or she will be) so it’s a good thing that she’s sensitive to the lightest touch on her body. But it can completely overwhelm her into a panic. My saving grace is that she has learned how to love being groomed and being massaged. After slow, patient sessions, she learned to relax into the rhythm of each touch and stand quietly. I used gentle massage techniques to help relax her during our first sessions with a girth and it was only with the help of a soft brush that I was able to acclimate her to the sound and sensation of fly spray and clippers. But the hose, oh my goodness, the hose!! It took two solid months for me to convince her the hose was not a predator. During those two months, I just quietly groomed and tacked her up in the wash stall and didn’t even look at the hose. We then graduated to grooming and tacking up in the wash stall while I held the hose and didn’t do anything with it while everyone laughed at me. Then I started grooming her while I gently sprayed the hose, but didn’t dare touch her with a drop of water. I will never forget how joyful it felt to finally spray her little foot on the ‘mist’ setting only. It took how many months, but finally I was able to spray my filly’s left front foot with the hose!

After that monumental breakthrough, things progressed much more quickly. Day by day, she allowed me to touch more and more of her body with the water. This (fortunately) coincided with a nasty heat wave so not only did I absolutely need to hose her off, she began to find the water much more tolerable. Within a week, she was able to stand quietly while I simultaneously brushed her to soothe her with the familiar feeling of grooming while also spraying her ever so gently with the hose. (To date, we have only mastered the mist setting, but I have my eyes on the prize, aka, shower setting. And someday, bubbles too). 

So why am I telling this incredibly silly story of bathing my three year old? To remind myself how impossibly impossible this was just a few months ago and that there will be more impossibilities in the future with this horse.  And to have a little chuckle about those perfect horse for sale ads. Lucy now stands stands quietly in crossties, loads like a champ, is adored by her vet and farrier, and soon, will be a pro at bubble baths. But how is she under saddle? I guess we’ll find out!