Shiny Pretty Things

After my last post we continued our crafty ways, and more jumps were built, painted, and assembled at our increasingly DIY little farm:

 

 

 

It was fun and sort of cathartic; I used to draw all the time and still frequently feel a need to make things with my hands, and this definitely fit that bill.  I'm loving the bright colors (Reject paint cans for $0.50 each?  Heck yeah!  Bring on Barbie's Pony Playland!) and having a lot of fun brainstorming new patterns, too.  I'm just sad our pile of materials has dwindled to scraps, although it might be better this way, because I would probably still be painting!  We're slowly going to add a few more sets of standards and more poles/planks/fillers when we get the chance.  It's definitely cheaper to build your own but still requires a lot of time and energy, which is usually taken up with pesky things like feeding and cleaning and earning a paycheck.  Dratticakes.

In addition to letting my creative flag fly, I'm using the opportunity to re-do one thing I overlooked when I was first starting Willie's jumping career:  create as many different and unusual-looking obstacles as possible to better prep Jabby for anything he might face in the show ring.  Back in the day, my teenaged bumpkin self never thought that perhaps a horse that skipped over plain wooden poles and solid cross-country obstacles as high as my hip would need a slower introduction to painted crossrails... Hoo boy was our first jumper round a trip.   (And yes, we are making sure to keep a set or two of "natural" rails, in case we want to give the hunters a try!)

Naturally, we set out all these nice, pretty jumps and winter finally decided to show up.  Not to be a fair-weather rider, but Friday morning the wind knocked me down.  Twice.  Mega frowny-face.  In any case, I'm currently looking at three days off in a row, so provided it warms up enough that strolling across the grass doesn't produce clippy-cloppy noises, I'm sure I'll try them out soon.

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Yesterday the wind abated a bit, and our favorite kidlet stopped by again. Willie took her on her first ever trail ride.  Her grandmother had been asking if an escorted trail ride would ever be possible, and I said we could try it whenever they were ready.   Naturally, being terminally infected by the horse-bug, kidlet jumped at the chance, even as the temps hovered around freezing.

I borrowed a saddle to ride Jabby, and clipped a lead rope to the D-rings just in case.  Willie, of course, was a super star, and he carried his charge quite placidly around the farm while we did a pre-flight check.  Then we wound off across the soyfields, through the playground, down the back of the nursery, and then back up the street to home before it got dark.

We even did a little bit of trotting towards the end, and Willie snuck in a few canter steps before obliging kidlet's request to whoa.  She's a good little rider but I didn't want her getting bounced from the tack if he broke gait -- his itty-bitty kiddo trot is much different from the fall-down-onto-the-forehand trot, and she's not yet skilled enough to get the balanced transition.  But she was grinning from ear to ear, and he marched proudly home, like, "See?  I cantered without dropping her!"   We were oh-so-cold but everyone had big smiles all around.

I think wistfully of how our shows and big adventures together might be a thing of the past, but I'm glad Willie's a good enough horse that I can confidently share him with other people.  The boy was born to be a schoolmaster, even if he didn't really come with the proper skill set for it.

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Today Jabby got to go back to our friend's indoor.   It was so cold and my morning so packed that I almost bagged it, but I'm glad I didn't.  Jabby loaded up with his saddle on, and I bridled him next to my car before walking down to the indoor.  In my haste to load up I had completely forgotten my paddock boots, so I had to ride in my K*ty Lake Boots, which are quite comfy but not what I had in mind for a dressage school!  Still, they worked...  If you were wondering, I still wear these boots all day every day, and still completely love them. :)

After a long walk warm-up, we moved into trot and then on to the GoGoGo! exercise.  We go down the long side and I push him as forward as he'll go without breaking gait or hollowing, use the short side to collect and rebalance, and then lather, rinse, repeat on the next long side, with the occasional circle or stretchy line thrown in to keep things from being predictable.

We caught our breath, and Jabby made friends with an incredibly handsome Standardbred living at one end of the arena.  (Hint:  His name was Ybbaj.)   We picked up work again with the canter, focusing on quiet transitions and then asking for, and getting, a few shallow canter loops -- coming out of the corner, traveling to the quarterline or just past it, then traveling back to the long side without losing balance or rhythm.  We also practiced simple changes across the diagonal, which are easy-peasy for him, but since it's required a certain way in competition, I thought we'd take the opportunity to practice the proper geometry.

This is only the second time we've had a real arena in nearly a year (and never with such nice footing!) so I decided to do a complete run-through of a dressage test, too.  The indoor is roughly the size of a large dressage arena, and has all the letters handily labeled, so I thought it might give me a good idea of what to expect before -- Ulp! -- sending off an entry form for a local schooling show.  I decided to go for glory, and flipped my test book open to Training 3.  I haven't ridden any of the 2011 tests completely through, and while I read all of the new patterns when they first came out, I hadn't needed to memorize any of them yet.

Unfortunately Jabby's quarter was about up, even after taking another break before trotting up "centerline."  We got to the first canter transition and I stopped to regroup.  He was completely tuning me out again.  He's been doing so well lately that it was frustrating, but I also know that there is a very real possibility of show-day stress completely cooking his brain, so it was good practice all around.

As we trotted up centerline again, he was still grumbling a bit, but we got through the pattern without any more incidents.   That is, until the last canter, where I mistakenly added another change across the diagonal and ended up doing our stretchy trot circle in the wrong direction, needing to take yet another turn across the diagonal to finish up centerline.  Minus 2 points for me!   Through the last half of the test, he did start to relax again, and was even "singing" his way around at some points.

I'm still undecided... I like this test for him because the transitions come up quickly enough to keep us busy, instead of T-1 and T-2 where there are lots of long, straight lines to start worrying about people in the stands and whether E is a monster turning its head sideways and if I remembered to turn off the hose at the farm when I fed that morning.   We both do better when we don't have time to overthink things.   The quality isn't quite up to par on the average days -- T-3 should be a preparation for First Level, requiring the start of thrust, self-carriage, and uphill balance -- but I also know that we can get all the movements.   There's nothing wrong with starting out again at Intro, either, but there's the same problem with long lines and, frankly, Intro tends to get crack-of-dawn ride times at schooling shows and that seems infinitely less pleasant in winter, LOL!    Our first outing, whenever it finally comes, will be all about the learning experience, so I'm not all that concerned about scores.  All the same, I would like to show at the most appropriate level and make sure I represent Jabby fairly, too.

I still have a little time to figure things out.  There is actually a whole slew of schooling shows coming up nearby so I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities to make a fool of myself  practice!