Two for the show

So it's nearly September and the majority of life is still... in... flux.

Not exactly where I want to be, but when in doubt when life hands you a snow globe, just shake the damn thing until it settles or go to a horse show.

I vote going to a horse show.

Last year I enthusastically entered into the National Dressage Pony Cup PSG test. I barely had confirmed pir's and the tempi's were still a tad shakey, but I was boldly going where I had not clue about.

And the show, alongside a few others, supported it.

I love this show, it's exactly what the pony population needs and is a fabulous showcase for anything under 14.2. It even has small horse classes. To have this in my backyard is a heaven sent.

But it wasn't to be last year, the pony popped a split and was out for a little while. Then it was cold, rainy and miserable on top of it.

This year, entries are due and I was at a toss between Fourth level and PSG. 

A few days ago, out of sheer curosity we rolled through the PSG. Not expecting much, or anything brilliant I was reasonably impressed, but not enough to consider it. So I went to an non-bias source and rolled through it again.

It was respectable.

So on a whim (and a few bourbons of courage) I filed the entry for the NDPC at the Saint George and before I could change my mind the post went out in the morning mail.

Today, I realized I have less than two weeks till I reach something we've been working towards for a very long time and I thought I would never say it, but it's scary.

There comes a point in your life, when all you've wanted comes perfectly within grasp, and then you have to make a choice whether or not you really want it. I've wanted to do this since I started dressage about a decade ago. There wasn't really a day that made me stop wanting it and wanting it on a larger scale each passing year.

So, commitment phobias aside, I'm trying to get my game face on despite some reservations. We've been rolling through the test itself at least twice in a session picking things apart and putting it back together. The canter tour is a marathon and not recommended for the faint.

Still could use as much good juju as I can get though.

This also comes as fall season kicks off and a new horse arrives this weekend.

Sincere G.

Officially posting this.

Sincere G. is a 2009 chestnut gelding by Savant (Kupido/Grannus) out of a 14.0 Bask/Barbary-bred Arabian Mare.

Flashy, highly trainable, easy going with three good gaits; he was lightly backed in 2011, and has begun working on the lunge and through the jump chute with stylish, careful form. Initially bred for dressage, he would make an exceptional A circuit hunter/jumper candidate. He will be going under saddle this fall if not sold.

Asking $5,000, motivated to place him prior to winter.

Contact:
Kelly Gage
859/699-7383

And I want more

The last few weeks have been a blur between a lot of highs and lows.

The season is here, and it's breathing down our necks and after two straight weeks of training, it feels like we're prepared enough to roll down centerline this weekend at 4-1. No promises for photos and videos, I have no idea about the amount of extra hands I'll have about.

In between I tossed both ponies into Houston and Hess' clinics.

Sinari, dug deep on the first day of Houston and produced a solid school with really ramped balance and collection. The second day, riding in the heat of the day, we ran out of juice and schoolmastered around trying to keep her comfortable. She was able to pull a little bit out of work, but we mostly worked on biomechanics and positioning.

Sincere benefited as well, getting a base feeling and direction as to where to take his training in the next few months. In the end, I know the more we develop on the ground the more we will have under saddle.

A day off from work and we shipped over late to Rolling Hills to train with one of my all-time favorite judges, Christoph Hess. Christoph, who has an equally quick eye as Houston and Koford, picked up on the work quickly. He began ramping us into this week with emphasis on scores. We picked apart and reviewed and picked some more. His goal aside from setting the stage was to push an electric ride.

Talk about a different ride entirely! Sinari became positively hot off the aids, to the point where we were pushing control issues. But that's where we needed to go, just to the edge.

Hess also noted a year over year improvement on the mare, which was great to be not really re-humbled back to a 20 meter stretch circle for 45 minutes.

I also brought out Sincere to this one as well. The purpose was two fold, the first being that getting him off the property and getting him into a job (even a basic mindset of work) in a new place is fun and he shouldn't worry about it. The second, is I have a huge amount of respect for the people I work with, Hess being one of the top people in the young horse world I wanted his thoughts on what was produced three years ago.

While Sincere was a trooper, and I didn't kill either one of us in long lines, Hess was not as impressed. Sincere pretty much looked like a turkey trotting around tense and not his loose usual self.  But, given that he shipped in 30 minutes prior, was groomed, tacked up in a busy barn and lunged in a strange arena, I give him more credit.

Overall it went well, and we'll be back for more.

When the whole world smiles

I forgot about regular life for a bit during the weekend.

You know, bills, torrential weather, money, collapsing economy and stupid people who don't call your insurance back, the entire usual gauntlet of stuff that occupies my desk on a day-to-day basis it was forgotten for the most part and it was just me and the ponies.

I guess it was the weather that allowed me to breathe a temporary sigh of relief. It's been an unusually warm few days.

Saturday was lesson day at the barn, worked on a number of fun things, pirouettes, half pass, cleaning up transitions to and from. The mare was incredibly game, putting it all in under a thick fur coat and warm weather.

We also had an audience from the past. A couple of friends who knew Sinari when she was younger, and then saw her go for the first time in five years. It's a bit of an ego stroke to hear the compliments.

Also got to hash out some other stuff and gained new perspective.

Sunday was equally productive with mostly canter work, emphasis on the ultra-collected and throwing in lateral movements.

Today though it was drama-central between lame horses, catching up, making plans, website re-design, ect. that the little euphoric bubble I carried throughout the weekend popped into a giant sized headache. Nothing seems to be going exactly as planned.

Then car repair people came in with quotes. Overall I'm looking at a 1,000 with all the repairs ala dealership (that's without the tires). Meaning I'm going to have to become really clever with how I'm going to do this.

I was thinking the obvious first:
-Seatbelts
-Tires
-Breaks

Then the not-so-obvious:
-Bumper
-Hitch

So I'm looking into buying my own parts, and just paying for service. Seatbelts, which would normally retail for 300 total, I know I can get the entire thing for 24 via web. Breaks and pads would run around 100 for parts, and the bumper would run around 200. This is without shipping and doing an initial search.

So 624 plus labor (tack on 200) is still less than 1,000.

Go me.

With that bill coming, another bill is soon-to-be paid off. Cardi's fee is 100 shy of completing out (much to both breeder and my own excitement). This also begins another round of other payments.

Speaking of the pappa to be, he recently cliniced with Debbie McD to a lot of success. Debbie is gaining success with ponies lately and I'm trying to arrange something so we get a pony only clinic series going.

Hopefully, it can come to fruition. But for now I'm back tabling it until some things clear.

Ain't misbehavin'

A long time ago, I was a fearless teen. There really wasn't a horse I couldn't ride, gallop out or bounce off of. I loved and lived to event at one point and usually the more bolder, hotter ponies were much better than the ones who were shy and reserved.

When I started dressage, I was the same way, I liked a hotter horse. Porches as my then-coach would describe them. Thankfully the schoolmaster taught me not to nag with the aids otherwise I would still be in the stratosphere.

With the training from impetuous teen to semi-educated rider, I really began to develop tastes for particular habits and over the years I've developed pet peeves with people and their horses that could be perfectly controllable aspects attributed to training.

These are just a few:

• I hate horses that can't lead by my shoulder that lag, lean or drag behind.
• I don't like unforward/cold/lazy horses.
• Horses that don't know how to stand and wait at the block.
• Pushy horses.

So when one of these really rear their heads, I try my darnedest to get past it, and unfortunately it's often swift, somewhat methodical and sometimes lacks the southern version of tact.

Forwardness is my biggest pet peeve of all. I want the horse to be forward, without question, all the time. Irregardless of under saddle or on the ground. Its such a basic fundamental principle of dressage, but at the same time it's just as ignored as straightness.

Part of forwardness is fitness. Eighty percent of horses out there aren't really fit enough to go beyond the level they're being asked of. The other twenty percent are just not off the aids, not sharp enough.

I think other half of the problem is three fold. First part is that most riders are really afraid of asking for super forward, carrying gaits, also that horses never really learned to be forward from the get-go on the ground and I think the other half has to deal with the corrective measure, which sometimes can't be pretty from an outsider's standpoint.

When my horses aren't forward, I immediately correct them and send them on. Being in front of my leg is not a question. It has to happen, all. the. time. The general thought to corrective action in some fields (notoriously natural horsemanship) runs a long the lines of abuse.

Clear direction and correction isn't abuse. Nagging however, is.

And this is what bothers me when I sit on other horses, is while I try to remain tactful and un-nagging as possible. But its the perception of being overtly rough that bothers me.

The weather outside is frightful.

The weather dipped into negatives last week and most of my riding plans went out the window until today.

We began back seriously on Tuesday, but then the weather came hard and quick. While I grew up the north, and I'm used to schooling, being in and around it. But when you break your bucket while chipping out ice, replacing bedding because it was so frozen it wasn't comfortable to walk, let alone sleep on, I took the hint. I let riding slide.

But I wasn't around horses. Being the Director of Pony Cup, I did a lot of work over the week to begin to put infrastructure within the show. We decided on a class list, levels of sponsorship and what direction the show should take. Even got a location (can't tell it's a secret). Made a lot of headway on it. Recieved community blessings from the upper-ups. Good mojo overall.

Redesign was so-so. Much of my ideas were shot down like clay pigeons and I'm working late every evening to get the update done. At least the weather cooperated with that. Even if the FTP didn't.

Coming back to riding has been wonderful and the horses are stronger than ever now. For now, getting everyone in shape is the top priority and it's slow, methodical work.

Part of me gets really frustrated at this stop and go thing. She's turning ten this year, and I feel that while we're making huge leaps of progress, and we can taste FEI somedays- we still have a long way to go. Still rusty on the changes, still no confirmed piaffe, an assemblance of a half pass.

But, today was straightness and keeping body alignment. My coach had a wonderful visualisation technique that worked wonders. Nose, withers, ribs and hips, keep these aligned and you have a thorough horse and everything else will follow.

I did have a few sucking back discussions with Sinari who wanted to slow (not collect) when I sat portions of the trot. A few well placed taps kept her energetically forward.

For me it was sitting. I found myself tipping forward a bit, but when I sat, I was still a little hovering. Relaxing into the motion, sitting and dictating the tempo became easier towards the end.

In the end, it was a very productive day.

May is still very pregnant and Bella is still very muddy (outdoor is drowned and repetitively frozen).

May hit her third trimester, and it's all starting to seem so eminent. I can almost see this foal, somedays I really dread it. Still unsure what I want to do for next year, but I think 2010 she might have a job as an ET recipient mare. Which works out a whole lot of solutions for the both of us until 2011, when I really want to do ET with Sinari.

Did find a stallion, but not telling who until the last bit of contracts are signed and I'm ready to proceed.

Overall, I'm ready to move forward again and I'm eager for the weather to stop being bi-polar.

DQ'ed

I proudly say I'm a dressage queen.

DQ status usually comes as a negative connotation. We've all heard of the evil narcissistic DQ who hogs the cathedral-silent arena with perfect footing, excessively places demands, hates anything different and generally is just... evil.

But I believe there are good DQs out there. The ones who, while are fussy, are doing things for a larger persepective.

I'm not your typical queen. I ride ponies, I do my own chores and try to remain as nice as possible (most of the time). I can, in theory, only afford one lesson a week, and the other three come from a unique exchange. I ride with reiners, and go gallop out.

Being a DQ I can't resist the larger horses somedays and was contendedly planning a breeding program around them.

But since my eventual ascent to co-director status for the National Dressage Pony Cup, numerous conversations about ponies popping up, I've come to realise that I was on the right path to begin with (and what I was more comfortabling dealing with to start).

I've begun to realise the breadth and depth of my commitment to ponies, to the point where starting over seems not only foolish, but detrimental. Breeding and training elite ponies is no small task.

Training wise, the community is fractured. Mares are sent in to be breeding stock past the age of four. Stallions are breeding actively and breeders usually can't afford to send them off to be promoted. Geldings are just sold. There isn't a link between breeders and rides. There isn't a huge effort to track bloodlines as a larger whole.

So finding quality stock that is semi-broke and not breaking my wallet is incredibly tough. Finding siblings or patterns is even harder.

Finding mares that have not only competed above 4th level, but have excellent minds and pedigree are hard to find, if not damn rare. I have one of those coming up and people are clamoring for carbon copies.

So, the formula is clear. Find the very best mares, who have records/high rideability, compete them, breed them (via ET) and see what occurs.

Time will tell if the formula will work, but meanwhile, I'm gathering force.

Dressage Pony 2.0

I'm a geek.

Actually a huge one and I'm fairly particular about what I use. You see, I wrote in my Xanga account for YEARS (almost four I believe), and I've recently come to really not like the layout, formatting and the beyond basic services.

So I'm making a switch over to blogger.

My name is Kelly Gage, I'm an Editor, a writer, a web designer/content developer, Head of Marketing and above all-- a dressage rider.

Despite riding ala Amateur status, I'm pretty damn serious and my ponies. I ride six days a week, rain, sleet, snow or shine. I train with some pretty cool people and have the support of some of the best and brightest in their world.

And the ponies? Far from typical too.

There's Sinari, who is a '99 model welsh cob mare (pictured above), who I've been owned by since she was four. Extremely clever, handy and intelligent, she's my top horse at 14.1 hands. She's schooling straight through third, with fourth thrown in there. Recently showed second with the goal towards earning bronze by next year. Currently learning piaffe, passage and cleaning up the changes.

Then there's Bella, a silver-rated haflinger mare standing at 15.0 hands (owned by Deer Haven Farm). She's a willful tank of blond fluff, just starting her career and lucky to have the ride on her. But despite being green-- she's moving fast and tries extremely hard. She's a solid training level right now with learning first. Super comfortable mare. She should be debuing in spring.

Finally there's May- arabian broodmare and .5 (yet-to-be-born foal).

Together we make a team, and this blog is about their progression.