No one puts baby in the corner

I used to hate lateral work, I found it tedious and a means to the end. Go side ways, move this or that,

look cool doing it. That was about it. My half passes lacked power, my pirouettes were interesting and that shoulder in could definitely be muddled through or cobbled together.

It wasn't until very recently (read: four weeks ago) that I really began to understand and find it useful beyond making whoever obedient to the leg.

Yes, prior to that I was sufficiently nagged to include more lateral work, and I did to some success. But, it was the same old thing.

After Alfredo's clinic, I caved in and started warming up in lateral work, not because I thought it was particularly useful at the time, but the way he related it to me made sense.

Basically long straight lines are served as cardio, they do warm the horse up, but not as thoroughly as it could get. The purpose of a warmup, as explained, is (along with several other reasons) is to mentally click the horse in, create a better balance and create flexibility.

I used to think a few laps around the arena and let the movements do the work, and we have liftoff. Until over four weeks ago, I was comfortably ok with this scenario and then I was introduced to this new way and perspective shifted.

The work is very basic, specifically shoulder in, haunches in on 20 meters (and variations on it). Different horse entirely, different human too.

I added in using the deep corners and making a working pirouette out of them. Part of this was for the horses, the other part was for me to make sure I was using my body in an effective way. Either way it's a neat exercise.

Push forward a few weeks, everyone was warming up more and more uphill, and mentally clicking into the work faster. I started building on the corner exercise again in regular work after I saw old tape of another rider. After the corner pirouette, I start to add in the half steps and pseudo-passage.

The ponies picked up on this way too well, and upcoming dressage competitions (I think we're out of the NDPC, because USPS decided to do naughty things) I've started to downgrade a lot of the new material.

Dance till you're dead

Within the past few weeks, my pre-dawn game face begins with blaring red alarm clock numbers reading 5:00am and ends with the same ugly numbers saying 10:30.

Welcome to fall.

I love and loathe this part of the season for a lot of different things.

It's the best weather to train and compete in. The horses are getting their second winds and they feel fantastic. It's the time that young horses start their careers, and the older campaigners get to go out and hack about.  It's also championship season time, where all the work you've put in shows off, hopefully, at the right time.

It also marks the end of the long march of inspections, travel, shows, the pressure and the regular grind. It means that I don't have to keep the trailer stocked and hooked up. I can go out with friends that I haven't seen since March, go see family or take a non-horse-related trip and maybe, just maybe spend a few weeks at my house crashed on the couch.

It also means waking up and going home in the dark, hairy bra's for clipping said horses, extra shavings, blanket changing, heated water buckets, mash, fall shots, dental work, pulling shoes and apples from the local cider mill.


This fall denotes the end of a long, interesting season and the start of something entirely too different.

My horses, like everyone else, are benefiting from the change in season. Sinari has sprouted a coat, which makes work shorter until we get the clippers out.  Her workouts are more playful, but will gear in this week for another run at FEI in two weeks. Sincere is getting his act together and really start to come along, he still has a baby neck, but all the mechanics are there especially when he relaxes. He'll be shipped out in November to start his East Coast career.  I've started a little bit of in hand work with him to get the idea of lateral work in and also start creating some flexibility. Reba is also really starting to develop her canter. Her trot and walk are really nice, but the canter is still weaker so transition work on the ground and under saddle has really started to help her organize herself.

Also I got to travel a bit to Devon where I caught up with old faces and new ones. Devon is magic, and for those who haven't been the show (which is typically started with rain and goes into monsoon) the fall CDI is a staple and attracts a number of great rides. It's the only place in the US where you'll see babies straight to international Grand Prix in about three square miles of actual ground. It's also insanity.

This year I didn't bring a horse, but I was somewhere between press, at large groom and spectator. I enjoyed it but without a horse, I felt a little out of place. The shopping made up for that fact. It's something that I'm slowly feeling that showing there is something obtainable, and with the quality that is now coming out, it's on the goal list.

New faces

Christmas came early, I got new ponies to play with the other week (been belated on introducing them).

Wylie Court Jester (Wicked Court Jester) and Mr. Merlot are two ponies that I've been watching for years. They are fantastically bred ponies that have pretty much made waves on the east coast. They are every dressage rider's dream ponies and would easily hold their own in Europe. I envied them and Cory Gregory for years. Never in a million years would expect to get a phone call asking if I wanted to take up the reins.

But, life, as with ponies occasionally takes a turn.After a flurry of conversations with Cory, the boys came down to be legged up for the spring.

Both boys settled in without a hassle, and have been getting back to work for the past two weeks. While we're still on our honeymoon period, they are showing very well. They are exceptionally fun and challenging in their own ways. They are two very distinct rides and I can't wait to really dig in.

The best part is they will be shipping in to Florida with Sinari.

Rolling in the deep

Fall is something else in the horse industry. Between the color, clipping and the year end wrap up, the whole population is in transition.

Kentucky winters are catch and catch all. Some years they're mild, and will not get below 50 degrees; and others, well... you don't get to leave the house for three months.

There are people who are making the yearly trek down to Florida and then there is the indoor shuffle. I've officially joined the thundering herd, at least temporarily.

My herd is back in transition. I spent this week trying to recover from my last week's trip to Florida and planning the next few trips down there as well for business.

I have decided to go to Florida this year with Sinari. I've been avoiding it in years past simply because I didn't have the cash and it feels stupid to take a horse down there that isn't competing at a certain level. I also felt stifled to expand my network in an unknown area. It wasn't until recently did I know anyone that does that trip, and felt comfortable enough to do it.

We've ended up in Ocala this year simply because of friends and cash flow and hopefully by next year we'll be in Wellington as an FEI pair (I'm planning on using the time to get my scores at fourth and qualify for DAD and part of my silver).

The trek to Florida also means prepping up and out for it. A first major goal since the splint.

Sinari is back to being powder keg hot. It's nothing short of wonderful. She doesn't last long still but with another few weeks she will be back to it. Worked a lot of lateral work, a lot of schooling pir's and changes. Her changes are bigger, but inconsistent. Trying to find my schedule with her has been a bit challenging, but with a few upcoming changes it should be better.

Sincere I couldn't be happier with. He walks, trots and canters under saddle, off the lunge, round, and fairly balanced. He is above all obedient. It bodes well. He too will be breaking for winter fields and then back to work in spring. As a 2 ½ year old, he's done plenty.

I also did a minor fashion splurge for the 2012.

I purchased my first shadbelly. I've been holding off for a while, I wanted a nice one, and nice ones run in the area of 600 on up. Then I ran across this one, of all places Facebook. A 14R, for 30 bucks. Sold. It arrived the other day, tried it on and while the waist needs to be tailored a little shorter (and I was thinking about putting different buttons on it), it fits like an old favorite jacket. It's beautiful and elegant, and surreal.

Another surreal thing is I got the notice that I was accepted into the USDF Young Rider Graduate Program.
I had applied a bit on a whim not thinking I would be remotely competitive enough or even accepted. A lot of the riders who apply have been to the NAJRYC, have been competitively mounted and trained since the age of 18. While I've been trained, and continue to have access to really good teachers, I've never been competitively mounted on anything trained by someone else. Plus I'm only now getting good results and records.

So to be invited to that and have the potential to go to the FEI Trainers conference has made my day. 

Baby Love (SHN v. DAD)

It's a bonus show weekend, two championship shows going off at the same time in two different places.

The East Coast tradition, Dressage at Devon, where every breeder hopes to end up and Sport Horse Nationals, where every Sport Horse person with an Arabian wants to as well.

I unfortunately happen to on both sides of the fence.

One of my goals this year with Sincere was to make it to AHA's Sport Horse Nationals. I felt his quality at the start of the year wasn't going to be up to the Dixon Oval (boy was I wrong). Plus SHN, is, after all in our backyard. Easy decision right? Hauling distance versus not hauling, hotel versus my own bed, roses over rosette. Not.

Unfortunately, timing and cash flow didn't work out for SHN. 

On doing the entire entry for one (!) class, was over $500, including stabling, memberships I would have to have and a few other requirements. This, for a single in hand class, for a two year old.  What made the class attractive in 2010 and not 2011? Cash payout, which they abolished this year.  For two minutes in the arena, it's roughly $4.16 a minute, no payback.

Normally, I don't complain about show costs. I'm used to filling out entries for myself and several other competitors and seeing the tabs that are racked up in the name of pursuing blues.

However, I really couldn't justify this cost when I sat down and ran the numbers against Devon, who has the largest breed show in America attached to it and also no payout. Cost: $350 for three classes, which included stabling ($1.94 a minute if you really want to do the math) and the registration cost for USDF for Sincere to compete. My memberships to USEF and USDF already allow me in, and the best young horses on the East Coast are there.

So the future choice becomes: Garland of Roses or Dixon Blue?  

Don't get me wrong, I love both shows.

A placing at Devon would mean serious street credit for Sincere. It would mean a lot in other departments as well.  I've always wanted to show Devon.

A placing at SHN would mean street credit in the breed for the boy as well, but there's something that would be sour about placing there, especially after I saw the classes run and scored.

I believe AHA has taken a huge step and risk in bringing the show to Kentucky on a permanent basis. I believe that they are trying to revitalize an industry that has been a victim of their own success, in a way that allows regular people to compete their horses in a national championship venue in disciplines that naturally promote and award good, ethical training practices.

The joy of the SHN show is that the in-hand classes are huge and the quality is bell-curved.

You have everyone showing young horses all the way through mature stallions. Everyone gets a spin on the triangle. Where most breed shows are drying up, this one boasts serious numbers (43 for half arabian geldings alone). Their definition of how an amateur can handle horses is open; but unlike open shows, the classes aren't strictly run to the morays of Dressage Sport Horse Breeding or Hunter Breeding. The show is a hybrid between an open dressage, hunter, carriage show and an Arabian show.

That's where the sour feeling comes in.

While it's great that the class numbers are big, and that an amateur can handle a non-relation owned horse, there are bigger problems.

The breeding classes are mashed together, so it's a mixed bag of movers and judges (hunter judges place hunters and dressage judges place dressage), there's also a score for "arabian type" which I don't believe has any bearing on what would make a good sport horse. You're not allowed a whip handler, and you're not allowed to make a double pass either.

Most of this is tolerable, but there is one bothersome point: is that there is no end result to the process.

Where normal in hand shows are just for young horses (6 and under with the occasional appearance by a mature stallion), AHA is producing the next halter industry, and ignoring the creation of a pipeline from in hand to a performance career. They are ignoring the point of why breeding classes exist not as permanent places to show, but as a way to identify, develop and award talent and breeding programs that produce it.



So, while I'm still interested in showing at SHN in future under saddle classes, for the 99 percent of the time that Sincere will be competing, it will be in the regular world, against every other horse, where I know his placings and wins aren't tempered with the statement: 'just the best of the breed', but rather just the best.