Perception

Another boarder with one of our very friendly barn cats

I have previously had a post named perception but it was back in 2017 so I figured I could reuse it at this point lol.

Lots of things have been happening and I've been wanting to blog more but haven't really had much positive to post about. Since there have been so many negative posts recently I decided I was going to wait until I had something more positive to share. I now do! I'm also going to update on some of the other less positive though just because that's important background.

Since my last post I've been able to make it out every single day to give ulcer meds. Tomorrow is the first day I won't be able to but I have someone else set up to give them and if she can't, for some reason, I have three back up people. Have I mentioned how much I love the community at this barn? Tonight is day 22 of the three pill protocol so only about a week left of three pills and then we step down to two pills for 14 days and finally 1 pill for 14 days. While it's been awesome to be out there every day I'm also looking forward to when this is over and I have a little more flexibility in my schedule.

It has proven to me though that most of the days when I "can't" get to the barn are more that I'm telling myself that I can't rather than that I actually can't make it.

Unfortunately not much riding has happened. After the massage, and the following two days off, I rode and thought Katai was slightly off. It was confirmed by a couple of others at the barn but that it was REALLY slight. Some people thought I could still be riding, others didn't and I decided not to push it. Based on how she was off I guessed heel pain and thrush was the most obvious answer. I'd been treating but not very aggressively and we got so much rain for awhile there (seriously we had rain every day for at least a couple of weeks) that the horses were standing in mud 24/7 around the round bale. In the past she would have at least been in a stall overnight where her feet could have dried out a bit but now that she's on pasture board she wasn't even getting that break from the muck. She definitely had thrush in that foot and the deep sand footing was likely putting pressure on it and making her ouchy.

Tiny car getting snow tires

I made myself a timeline where I would call the vet if she didn't improve and treated more aggressively every day (since I was out there anyway...). She remained slightly off up until the day where I was making the decision and then trotted out completely sound. I totally lucked out on the timing! Yesterday I rode a fully sound pony and it was AWESOME! M and I did ground poles (not very successfully on my part) and talked dressage theory. It was 100% lovely and really ignited my motivation again to get some real riding work done. I'm going to join her for ground pole Mondays this winter and then go with her and her horse on trail rides next summer to help with Katai's fitness.

Seriously though, that ride was everything I needed right now. In continuing the theme of nothing going smoothly horse wise we got some snow this past weekend. It was so cold, and no chemicals are on the roads yet so I watched multiple vehicles spin out ahead of me. Luckily I got snow tires on my tiny car on Friday so I was handling it fine but decided that the chances of being taken out by another car were too high so took side roads the rest of the way home.

Coffee at the barn. The light purple dot is Katai

Also on the weekend, my clipper motor finally died. I didn't do a good job with maintenance when I first got it so I wasn't too surprised. It lasted 5 years and I did about 2-3 clips per year so that's around $10-$13 per clip which is still a good value vs. paying someone else. However, I had made it part way through both sides and Katai has lines EVERYWHERE and looks completely moth eaten. Everyone is laughing at her right now. I really do need working clippers especially since the barn and arena here are heated. Luckily I was able to get a lot of hair off (most of one side and some of the other) before it died so while she looks crazy at least she's not overly hot.

I was trying to figure out what to do and then I got the email from Dover about the gift card sale and decided to just go for it. I got a different type of clipper that I think might do better on her super thick coat and picked up some blade wash, a free gift, and got the free $100 gift card that I think I might use on black Friday. I REALLY didn't need to spend the money right now but a clipper is a necessity so oh well.

What I really wanted to post about though is my mood this winter and perception of what the weather is like. Last year I obsessed over the forecast and any day below the mid 20s had me in a bad, or sad, mood. I just couldn't easily keep myself warm at an unheated, uninsulated barn at those temps. In addition, if it snowed my tires couldn't handle it and my car would slide around and be unsafe.

This year I was hearing all these people complaining about the awful weather and felt surprised. I wasn't even paying attention and then when I looked I realized that it was already in the teens. that is REALLY cold for even us at this point in the year but I just didn't care. I'm not even joining in other people's whining because I feel great! It may be cold going from the car to work, or the car to the barn and sure it's cold when I catch my pony but I have a nice warm sanctuary to escape to so I just don't care. It's so completely wonderful that I've been in a great mood this year and just am not dealing with as much depression since I get my barn time. It's lovely.

I'll share more about my plans to get Katai and myself fit and back on track soon!

The Sticks: Lesson Recap 1/10

I got to the barn just in time for my lesson this week because it was 15 minutes earlier than normal (I knew it was 15 minutes earlier than normal and still didn't leave enough time). I stopped by the ring, said hi to L and checked to see what was on the agenda and found out that we were doing ground poles!

I've done up to three in lessons before and never raised but Katai has been doing so well that L started us with four raised and then quickly added two more. At first we just focused on maintaining bend through the line and making sure that I could keep her at the same tempo. After a few great circles in each direction L had me do an exercise where I trotted over the poles on a 20 meter circle and then immediately asked for a canter. Sometimes I would do a couple of circles at a canter going around the poles and then L would have me do a circle where I would trot over the poles, canter almost back to the poles and then back to a trot over the poles again.

It was an awesome lesson because I had a great way to not micromanage her and just deal with the big stuff and let the exercise do all the work. It certainly was a great workout for both of us and we ended after a great canter transition.

I stuck around for awhile after my lesson and cleaned Katai's leather halter. It was nasty, there were gunk stalagmites on it that took a lot of scrubbing to clean off. While I was cleaning that I watched L ride one of her training horses, a beautiful Selle Fancais that was an upper level hunter now turning dressage horse. She went to do the poles with this horse and it was funny how confused she was. It was like she was trying to figure out if it was supposed to be a long spread or a very tight bounce. After eyeing it up a few times though she went over it really nicely. 

Finally I  got to see some of P's lesson. She's recently started riding with L and has been making so much progress! Her horse is, I believe, a Saddlebred and is reluctant to stretch forward and down towards the contact but they've been making great progress. It was fun to see her ride again since it's been awhile since I saw one of her lessons.

It was great to be able to spend most of the day at the barn and I'm looking forward to seeing my pony again tomorrow!

Burnout

At one point when I was younger and didn’t have the opportunity to board in an amazing place I knew better than to ride the same way in the same place day after day. At that point in my life I was doing eventing and so one day we’d jump in our “ring” which was basically a flat field and the next we would do cross country, trails, take the horses swimming, or just lunge and do a grooming day.

 

Unfortunately at some point as I became an adult I forgot about this and started to not appreciate that my horse needed variety. Over this past year, as Katai develops, I’ve become especially bad at this to the point that I basically ride in the same way and in the same place every time I ride. I think part of this is because for a while Katai was so green and I didn’t really have a safe place to ride her outside but now that I do have a good place to ride outside and access to trails I’ve just not really started to do that again. Partially because I’m a perfectionist and want to work directly on what my instructor has given me and get it perfect and part of it is because I’ve just gotten lazy about planning my rides.

 

I guess I hadn’t even realized how bad it had become until I ran into three things this week that were great reminders.

 

The first reminder was a great post on COTH about whether a horse lacked work ethic or if it was bored. After reading just the first few posts I realized what a disservice I was doing to Katai by not ever taking her out of the ring. Not only does she need it mentally but physically as well. Quickly as I continued to read through the comments I begin to formulate a plan for the next couple of weeks of how to vary Katai’s schedule a bit.

 

The second reminder was that I’ve been re-reading Equine Fitness by Jec Aristotle Ballou and she gives a lot of cross training exercises and really emphasizes how important it is from a strength perspective to make sure a horses’ work is varied. She also stresses that by doing the same thing every day you are much more likely to cause your horse to breakdown or develop injuries.

 

The third was reading Jen’s post from Cob Jockey about perfectionism. I’m such a perfectionist, I think it’s a large part of why I love Dressage, that not only am I critical of every step in the arena but I also don’t want to spend the time out of the arena because I don’t feel I’ll be making progress. Of course I know this isn’t true and I understand how much stronger and more balanced both mentally and physically this will make both Katai and myself but I think I have to admit that sometimes I feel like it’s just wasted time. After reading her post though I realized how important it is for Katai to feel like she’s not being micro managed on every ride and a good way for me to do that is to do something else and give both of us a break from this specific work.

 

All of this came at a great point as I’ve realized that I really need to ride more consistently if I would like to meet my goals. I’ve always been pretty happy with riding 3-4 days per week but now I think we are at the point where I need to try to shoot for 4-5 days per week. It will be easier, and better for both of us, to do that if I’m varying what we are working on and doing different types of rides throughout the week. Right now I’m going to shoot for a canter set/conditioning ride, at least one day where I ride over ground poles and a ride where I start to get her used to trails at least every other week. With my lesson that means that I’ve either got 1 or 2 (or sometimes possibly 3) days of focused dressage riding left on my calendar every week. If we were in a different place and at a different level I think that could possibly be an issue but since a lot of conversations with my trainer have to do with developing strength right now I think this sort of schedule is just about right. Plus, one of our other focuses is on getting her to listen to and understand my leg cues and that can happen anywhere.

 

I’m really looking forward to having more variety in my schedule and I think Katai probably is too!