Christmas recap: The horse edition

Actual Christmas update to come later- this one is all about the horses over the holidays!

Merry Christmas from our family!

As mentioned earlier, we had our barn party on the Saturday Dec. 19th and it was a blast! It was super nice to chat with everyone, and we opened our Secret Santa gifts. I loved mine- saddle soap that I truly needed, and some really fun extras like a small bottle of Baileys (that is done already, ha), chocolate covered spoons, and a mug with blackboard paint and chalk, that you can write on. Cute!

Sunday Ian and I went to the barn and he kindly agreed to take videos of me jumping! I had to include italics here because this is a rare event, people! Oats and I were jumping so-so (our trot fences were not bad, some lousy blips where we ground to a chip, and then crawled over the fence…trying to get away from doing that!) and some really nice fences! Oats was quite sassy, threw a small buck in at the trot too!

 

We also had an opportunity to take our annual Christmas photo with the family (aka Gidget and Mr. Oats).

And then I rode Monday and think we did some flatwork? I do recall that my energy lately for flatwork has been ‘high’ and Oats is certainly feeding off it…When I wanted some contact, Oats wanted to canter. Rinse, repeat.

Hm…

 

And then Oats got some time off! I’m sure he appreciated it. He was off while I was taking a small Xmas holiday in Ucluelet and then at Christmas with family up-Island. When I got back into riding him on Saturday, he was not so full of beans…The opposite actually.

Saturday’s ride was fine, popped over a cross-rail, a lot of half-seat canter. Nothing demanding.

then jumped…Awkardly.

Sunday’s ride- now I wanted a bit more- popped over a small course a couple times, trot fence, and some bending/contact work at the trot.

Monday– a bigger (oooh) few fences set up and we jumped them! Only once each, but hey…My diagonal fence suuuucked so hard I almost saw my trainer yelling at me from the shadows. I have to get that one figured out. The one on the quarter line was great! Also some curving fence x-rails, and those were super fun!

Contact work at the walk, which was harder than Oats and I thought it had any right to be….

And dressage lesson tonight! Can only anticipate what it will be like….And I am back to work this week, which is totally and utterly non-awesome.

The good, the bad, the terrifying

Had my dressage semi-private lesson last night, as per usual, and I was kind of riding on a high from my one last week–it was so cool and Oats was being great, and just..ahhh…

fancy dressage Oats

And was last night the same floating-on-air feeling?

Well, not quite. But not in the ways you’re thinking- Oats was a little snippier about following direction, in his usual ways: wanting to pull down/yank the reins, hopping and anticipating, having a bit of ‘energy’ when I was asking for a good contact trot and he was trying to strike off in canter…

That’s all fine and good, not a problem. But the anticipating was kiiiind of wigging me out. We sorted it out fine enough and I was pleased with his attempt to try.

So what went so wrong in the lesson? At first, nothing~

We got a pretty reasonable haunches in, and then haunches out, for Oats. I mean, he was still trying to go horizontal, and then too vertical, but hey, he is TRYING! YAY!

We then worked on some deep bend, and then deep contact, and leg yielding at the walk, then trot- going back to walk when he got fussy about contact. He did get pretty fussy, and a bit hoppy. This made me anxious, and I kind of started reverting back to my ancient fears…

And then…

My riding partner was having a heck of a time with her mare. Things just didn’t seem to be going well, and they stayed on a circle to work while Oats and I were doing the leg-yields, etc. Oats and I were at one end of the ring, when her horse, Chanel REARED STRAIGHT UP!

It was horrifying.

She jumped off the back of the horse and kind of landed on her butt/back. She was ok. The horse just stood there.

I was just in shock.

That is probably the most dangerous thing I have ever seen- other than when Jim lost his shit and galloped/bolted and bucked super high.

I immediately wanted to get off, to not ride, and to scrape that image off my retinas, where they were permanently seared- to say nothing of what kind of fantastical disaster-scenarios have been running in my brain lately!

They got back on, and the rest of their lesson was conducted with a longe whip in Karen’s hand- appropriately so.

My lesson also continued, and it was very non-dramatic. We worked up to canter transitions from our leg yields with less hissy fits from Oats, and then got a fairly nice, forward on-the-contact trot to end. It was nice, and he was a good partner.

So, alls well that ends well, right?

Well, for me- I am having problems letting these incidents go in my head. When I ride, I replay potential disaster scenarios- I can barely manage to stop from envisioning them! When I run through my jump sessions, I am VERY careful to make sure they are good, nice scenarios. But when I’m actually riding, other things creep in…

Because lately it seems to me like there are a lot of accidents:

• My mom breaking her arm on Oats- a freak thing
• Older lady at the barn falling off a horse she probably shouldn’t have been on and breaking her collarbone and rib- in Aug.
• Nov- same older lady then falls off her horse and lands on her feet, and breaks her leg so severely it will be next year-this time- before she can do anything!
• A young mother get seriously injured on a hack with her horse this summer- and she’s been on the news a lot lately, in an sad insurance fight. I tangentially know her.
• Nicole got bucked off last week and broke a rib and got a concussion
• And now, Chanel rears so high it looks like she could have flipped over in my lesson last night.

Just, these things are starting to add up in my head, and NOT in a good way. In a very anxiety- making way…

Long may you run

Return of the semi-private dressage lessons! My lesson partner was on holidays, so Oats and had the luxury (torture?) of two private lessons, and one week off when I was recovering from running the half marathon.

No fear, we were back in action this week and Oats was in rare form…

Flinging his head around and being fussy at any sort of lateral work. NO! I don’t do that anymore!

Good- offering up a LOVELY canter when he was being asked for:

• more trot,
• contact in the trot,
• bend in the trot.

All seem to equal = Ok mom! I will canter! It will be the nicest canter, because I don’t want to do any more of those other things.

I actually even let him canter large, and into a pretty fair circle, when he offered it up so nicely the zillionth time. That is not a bad problem to have right now, haha. I did get pretty annoyed at his arguing about things like mild lateral work, or bend, or going forward with *gasp* any sort of bend…

It makes my lateral work look and feel like the biggest pain in the ass and hard work!

Well, it is a phase right now. Next week he may be more cooperative. And let’s face it- small victories here with his canter. It was just so good. Wheee!

Wild rabbit season

It was good to have my lesson partner back, and never fear, we were completely soaked in sweat (me more than Oats, hm…) after my lesson. Oats gave Karen a good staring at when she was leaving, haha. And I saw three wild bunnies in the paddocks when I was riding Oats back up to the barn! Happy Easter to you little guys.