Working Equitation: Day 2

Ah, the most exciting day! I was very anxious. Oats had been pretty amped the day before (hence the need for two rides, ha) but I was most worried about the two natural obstacles in the course: water, and a bank.

And I was right to be worried 😦

We went in for our first round and I immediately got DQ’d, lol. I ‘crossed my line’ on my way to start through the gates, whoops! But it went ok for the first obstacle (barrels) and then we went straight over to the bank for obstacle 2 and the wheels came off Oats’ brain. He was TERRIFIED of the bank. Would NOT go near it, at all. Well-meaning folks were like, well if you tried walking up to it slowly? Hahahahhah yeah, if he would stop rearing and running backwards, maybe I could…But I couldn’t get near it. Not one iota.

Speed round, video courtesy of Shelly Donaldson!

He was stressed and amped as hell, and we got permission to move on, having been disqualified already. He felt very tense and rigid, and was thinking about bucking me off. We went over to the garoccha line and he was good until we went to the bull for the rings and he spooked at the bull and I dropped the ring, and almost my pole! Hahaha.

The rest of the course was edgy and very tense but manageable. He didn’t really want to go through the water but then he did! I was surprised he did, when the bank was such a major issue?! I then messed up the entry to the double slalom (missed going through the cones the correct way) and got confused, ha. DQ number 3 or 4??

And then we hopped over the jump, got the jug, and cantered through the finish lines, where Oats started building up a head of steam and tried to buck me off going through the finish gates!! I had to pull him up, roughly, and then salute to the judge. They were laughing! hahaha.

Then for the Speed Round, same course (ARGHHHH) but no jug, only single slalom and one way through the cattle pen. Still the bank 😦 So I knew we’d get DQ’d and I was thinking about scratching, to be honest.

But, we took a break (Oats was SO THIRSTY allll weekend, poor dude), untacked and then chilled out. It was quite hot out too.

Afternoon, we tacked back up for Speed Round. I was kind of dreading it, but also thought who cares? This is all for schooling. And boy, was it! We went in for our round, and I took special care to NOT cross my lines hahah. We started well again, the barrels and then had a different idea for the bank- a trainer there suggested we go up above it, and then down to it. Did it work? A resounding NOPE! He danced, ran, spun, reared and generally freaked out.

So……DQ again.

And we skipped it, and he only had one ‘gonna buck you off!’ moment immediately afterward heading to the Garrocha line (where he was good but I missed the loop, shit!). Otherwise he was even a real trooper about going into the water, slightly hesitant but good! 🙂

We did get permission to school the bank after the competitors were done. I had someone come with me (my trainer who is helping me practice the obstacles at home) and I led him up to it in-hand. He snorted bigtime, but then happily followed me up the bank. And then down and then back up. I hopped back on, and we walked up to it and over on a loose rein. Easy-peasy! 🙂 How I WISH we had been able to do that in the competition…It would have saved him and me a lot of tension and angst eh?? Five minutes of introducing it to him and done! Good Oats.

It was a challenging weekend but did help me get out of my own head for a bit.

Even the weather is against me: A big rant

So, I was ready to write a happy cheerful show report (Oats and I did the Sooke Saddle Club’s Show and Tell on Sunday and had a lovely time!), until it all blew up in my face and now he is dead lame, and I have a big horse show on Saturday, and work is insane, and I am losing perspective and spiralling rapidly. Like, really spiralling.

What happened to my Oats?

I am in a horrendous mood. I went to bed last night because I couldn’t stand the idea of having that day happen to me any more. I woke up feeling angry, pissed off, frustrated, stressed out and terrible. I said to my husband, and my colleagues: I have two modes this week: Asleep or horrible.

So, yeah. That’s how things are. It feels like even the weather is against me, with the World’ s Most Terrible Summer Weather TM happening allllll effing summer. Going swimming in the river, or at Thetis Lake? Not this year LOL!. Its so shitty. I’m pissed. I feel like I’m never going to be happy or reasonable again.

Beware world, I’m walking around with a chip on my shoulder the size of the Empire State Building and I am definitely taking it out on everyone around me. I wish I could sequester myself from everyone, because I know I am not being reasonable, or kind, or anything that should be infected on my (nice, decent people) surrounding me.

Hold on, hold on

So…After my exciting, energy draining weekend I was looking forward to settling down and working on some good stuff (like, not falling off jumping is a big one that I am apparently incapable of doing right now…).

And I had a great ride on Tuesday- no lesson, just cruising around in the field. Oats felt great, I was chill, everything was nice. I had some high hopes for my lesson on Wednesday, looking forward to it and feeling like generally, everything is pretty fine. I spent the day loving photos of Oats from the Derby and feeling pretty much on top of the world!

Except I wasn’t.

I came into my lesson not feeling angsty, or strange or stressed or anything…And then it became immediately clear that this was NOT my day, or Oats’. He started off spooky, looking at everything and ‘startling’ constantly. I don’t do well when he is like this- it sets me off in a really BIG way- and I started having trouble managing the situation. We warmed up okay nevertheless, and he kept startling and being spooky and looky. Sadly, this only got worse as we continued on…

It started pissing me off, more and more. We went to work over trot poles to eventually build a gymnastic (not something new in our world, pretty ho-hum) and Oats COULD NOT GET HIS SHIT TOGETHER. He trotted, fumbled, tripped, stumbled, fell and just fucked around, adding in some startles that literally set my teeth on edge.

I couldn’t manage. Like, I was riding and shouting ”I HATE this horse.” UGh.

Normally, when he’s like this, we can deal and get through it. But this time? Oh, no.

We slowly worked our way to a small x- rail to another x-rail, and Oats bizarrely managed to trip on the last pole, catch it hard between his hind hoofies, almost fall and sting himself so badly with this weirdness that he was limping?!!!!

I was ready to jump off- I was worried he’d really hurt himself! But Nicole convinced me to keep walking him out and eventually he worked out of it. He was just surprised. Still, wow, WTF is going on with me/my horse? I just was crying in disbelief.

So, back to the drawing board.

He trotted out okay, and then we went back to poles. Poles are ok. Then, the small x-rail…That was ok too. Then add in another x-rail, to a small vertical. The wheels immediately fell off again- Oats stumbled, tripped into the vertical, and my whole arm went through the reins. EFFFFF!!

I lost my shit. I yanked him up,  and burst into tears.

I was in the middle of probably the biggest horse-related meltdown I’ve had since…Oh, maybe a really bad dressage lesson last year, when I got off and cried?

Weird, so weird. I just couldn’t cope, or manage the situation with Oats at all. I wanted to yell, shout, scream, cry and just freak out. We ended up walking, walking, walking and breathing. Oats seemed not fazed at all, but wow, I was. In a big way.

Finally, when I was able to calm down and manage my emotions, we cantered over a few small x-rails, which were totally fine and rode great. He was still looky as hell, but it was ok.

SIGHHH

I cried a bit later, telling my friend about the ride. And then when I dismounted and was walking Oats through the gate, I went to latch it and he spooked so hard he almost fell into the gate. WTF? He is not a spooky horse…So yeah, not sure what was going on with him yesterday, but whatever it was, it sucked out loud.

A challenge

I went quiet last week, partly due to a large amount of stress at work, but also due to horse stress.  Yep, they both happened on the same day…Don’t you just love it? After all the shenanigans Oats has gone through lately (stopping at fences, being a dick at horse shows, stopping again at fences, me falling off in a bad 7-day period…) things got even worse. Not for riding–that’s been fine.

Photo courtesy of Lindsay F.

Oats is all ‘me be a dink?’ That’s unpossible…instead of impossible.

He banged into the stable manager when she was taking him out of the field, and she fell into a stump. On her back. Cue a hospital visit and now she’s off horses/stable work for a good two weeks, maybe up to six now. I felt terrible when I heard about this.

Jesus. First, my horse is an asshole to jump. Now he is an asshole to handle?

I was SO OVER THE HORSE THING. All of it. All of it was putting me in a really bad mood. I felt so sorry for her, and like, just…GAHHH. Last week and hell, most of the ENTIRE month of May, my horse had no redeeming qualities. NONE.

I was furious at him, angry and so pissed off.

I rode Thursday and it was actually a fairly productive ride, but I found myself chasing him to the pole exercise I was working on…So maybe I wasn’t good at letting things go. By Saturday, I had a good long time to stew in my misery and unhappiness. When my lesson time finally rolled around, I had worked myself into a frenzy of tension. Full of ‘I don’t wannas.’

So yeah, perfect to have a lesson, right?

WRONG.

This time I verbalized what was going on in my head to my instructor, who totally got it. I’m going through some stuff right now with Oats, and I’m not feeling comfortable at all. I needed to take a step back and re-evaluate and see where things are.

And I am pleased to say I did not lose my temper at Oats in my lesson, we didn’t push my boundaries with jumps- we did a small ‘x’ and a small vertical that I quite frankly could jump in my sleep- and worked on jumping those in combination with a leg-yielding pattern. It was interesting, I was very sweaty when we finished, and I didn’t at all feel keyed up, nervous, anxious or anything.

Ending on a good note. I was pleased with how it went.

Sunday, I set up the pole exercise in the outdoor and went to practice my ‘eye’- short distance, long distance, right distance. I deliberately pushed for the long distance and actually was able to ride it- wow! And I ‘collected’ sort of held for a short distance, and was able to make it.

It was a good ride, very comprehensive. I had a small jump set up, but it wasn’t calling to me yesterday, so I left it alone. Our lateral work sucked, but what else is new? Haha. Oh and Oats had a hissy fit about a car parked behind the arena- something NEW?! Gasp! But we managed just fine.

I finished feeling pretty calm and competent. I need the practice, apparently, on making decisions. I will keep on it until I feel like I can make the right decision!

I also felt awful about the stable manager so I sent her a Starbucks gift card as a ‘get well’ gesture. That made me feel a tiny bit better.

Can’t even with today.

I actually came into Friday with pretty high hopes, maybe a recap of how my jumping lesson went yesterday (fairly well), and looking forward to the weekend and all the fun things I have coming up but instead…

Today. Me.

My day got steadily worse.

And worse.

And worse.

And now? I’m so done. I’m ready to throw my phone at the window.

Funny enough, it’s not any ‘one’ big thing…It’s just…Effing enough. Death by a thousand small, tiny paper cuts. On their own, ouch. All together, all day, constantly? Eaten alive!

Let me explain further:

An interview I was conducting took 1 hour, not 30 minutes like I had planned. On it’s own, fine, today? Not so fine.

I didn’t work out at lunch like I normally do- in part planned, but also I had to write the story for the interview.

I ran errands at lunch and got into a squwak with the cashier at Shoppers about something I bought that was on sale with a coupon on the product, which the cashier steadfastly refused to even look at. A manager got involved, I left satisfied but still, couldn’t this be resolved faster/easier?

I go to the bank to deposit $ and the ATM eats part of my deposit and doesn’t credit the missing money to my account. EFFF?~!

I go back to work and have approximately 1,000 emails of various competing priorities waiting for me, ok this is normal…

I get a message from my friend that I show with, and she won’t be able to make the show we had planned together for Nov. I was really looking forward to showing with her, and now probably can’t go–my coach won’t go with just one person and that’s me. 😦

I get another message from another friend who I had plans with tomorrow, she is sick and probably won’t be able to make dinner. Greeeat….

So. Effing. DONE. with today. It’s not even the end of the day, and my telephone is in my hand, ready to throw out or at the window…

Leave no bridge unburned? Sometimes, I hate my pony.

So, back to dressage with Karen last night. Good and bad.

Summer Oats

Bad: Oats is still being a weird asshole about everything in the outdoor. Balky, stopping suddenly and running backwards, when I counterbent, he just slammed on the brakes and refused to move, frightened, spooky, edgy, strange and not cooperative.

Good: Luckily, during our actual dressage lesson he toned down his crazy idiot behaviour and was great!

To be decided: What in HELL is making him act like this?

He is very relaxed, almost comatose, when we were cruising in the middle of the ring and then like when I try to push him to the outside of the arena he just gets super crazy, and tries to either scoot/spook or just slams on the brakes and starts running backwards. WTF??????

Our dressage lesson was great though. So, we are in the middle of a change in our relationship that for the life of me, i CANNOT FIGURE OUT and I HATE OATS when he is acting like a moron. Seriously, I was so pissed off and frustrated before our lesson started I was almost in tears. TEARS! Stupid horse.

Anyways, I’m getting sucked into his drama and I really really hate it, and can’t seem to extricate myself reasonably.

The lesson itself was quite good- his lateral work continues to improve, he did stall out a bit but got out of it with minor shenanigans, we worked on walk-canter on very tight circles with minor success (it was actually hilarious) but also minor hissy-fits, so that was great too…And we did some work without stirrups (ouch my aching seat bonesssss) and Oats was very understanding about my bouncing and didn’t threaten to ditch me, he just went slower hahah. So, it’s weird- he was a total jerkface about going around in the ring, but in our focused and intense dressage lesson (mostly at a circle at the top of the arena) he was golden. Not perfect, but not an idiot- just trying, good and honestly trying.

I can appreciate that. What I can’t appreciate is the other side of him that wants to spook, bolt, slam on the brakes and then leave the scene. Even typing about it makes me MAD!

Sigh…Horses.

…to be continued, I suppose. I am taking tonight off – to watch Jurassic Park! And then jump lesson tomorrow. I can only imagine what that is going to be like?  He has been so good, and then SO BAD, and then good?