That Can't Be!

I'm posting again!!

I'm also riding again because MY SADDLE IS BACK!

First though, some updates!

I'm now pretty much fully moved into my new apartment and I love it so much. Anything I was worried about hasn't been an issue, such as street parking, and there are so many amazing things that I hadn't planned on being able to take advantage of. It's also definitely my first adult apartment which is pretty cool.

A small piece of the city skyline

The dogs are adjusting pretty well with just a little separation anxiety from Veggie. Moshy is being a happy puppy superstar! We've even visited the local pet store who's sharing a picture of her on their instagram haha. She's going to be famous :)

Moshy had a fun time with moving in and enjoyed
using my Tipperary bag as a sleeping bag ;)

Pony updates wise there isn't much to report. I've had two lessons since I got my saddle back and both have been primarily about gettin Katai loosened up and moving forward off my legs. She's pretty determined to stew in all her excess energy and not listen and we're pretty determined that if she just moves forward and we can keep her loose and flexible she'll actually feel better.

Right now we're not exactly sure who's going to "win" the battle but I'm feeling pretty good about our progress so far ;)

Also, look at how much more full this tack room is!
I'm down to two saddle racks and a pile of stuff underneath haha
I also love how there are more pink saddle pads at the barn now.
Pretty sure we're driving Jane crazy ;)

Unfortunately the weather has not been cooperating. This past Monday we got a snow storm and now we're supposed to get 3-5" tonight and snow again on Saturday. In addition I'm still getting used to the rush hour traffic so between that and doing some chores on Wednesday I wasn't able to get out on Wednesday either. It's so frustrating and I hate the cold and snow anyway so I'm really sick and tired of winter especially this year. Luckily our weather is warming up and is going to be in the 30s consistently this next 10 days or so. Unfortunately that also likely means more snow. At least it's end of February so this is on it's way out and can't just last forever.

It's BACK!

I missed Wordless Wednesday but this is nearly a wordless post. My week has been nuts preparing to head to Seattle next week for, hopefully, my last trip away for a LONG time so I haven't blogged much. However, I did need to share this.

It's soooo beautiful

and looks sooooo much narrower haha

It Fits!!: Lesson Recap 8/21

Veggie making friends with my grandma's (who's back in town) dog Stewie

My big plan at this lesson was to have L assess the saddle and help me figure out if it fits and to see if she had any other suggestions about the sliding forward thing. I, unfortunately, didn’t have a good week for rides (after my great ride on Thursday I didn’t ride again so only had three rides) so I knew that Katai would be full of excess energy and very sassy.

I found L when I got to the barn and asked if she could check it out before I got Katai fully tacked so that if I needed to ride in my normal saddle it wouldn’t be too much extra work. She was on board so I sat and watched part of her previous lesson and then brought Katai in, groomed her and let L know that I was ready. As soon as she saw the new saddle she got this big grin on her face. After a quick check of the panels she said that as long as it was set where it should be there’s no bridging. She had me make one more change with the point billets to fully remove them from any slots on the flaps so that they pretty much could swing forward from just behind the block. I’ll post some pictures soon of what this looks like. She had me girth up but added some small shims on either side right behind Katai’s shoulder since she felt the saddle was just slightly wide. I found out later that the amazing people at VTO had actually been able to adjust the saddle to a 36 so that makes sense.

I girthed up the saddle with the new arrangement, put Katai’s bridle on, my helmet on, and then headed to the arena. Katai was sassy as soon as I went to mount up and didn’t want to walk calmly even on a long rein. It was an interesting lesson to say the least. Katai didn’t want to play in the sandbox and all she could think about was going fast. All that pent up energy finally started coming out in some nice sneeze snorts after I worked her for awhile at the far end of the arena and just focused on straightness interspersed with correct bend and lots of forward trot. We did some canter but she did a funny leap into the air on the first transition that made me giggle.

At the end of my lesson L suggested that I end the ride on a positive note (not that we were fighting or giving corrections at all really and were mostly just trying to get her to go forward and not tie herself into knots) and then hop off and lunge her for a while just to let her drain some energy. It’s completely my fault that she had so much extra energy (and the weather since it had been a stormy week and we just had a cold front blow in before my lesson) as I told L’s next student, I’ve been doing a great job with pony fitness and not as good of job with consistent rides this past week.

I hopped off and lunged doing lots of canter/trot transitions until Katai had done a bunch more snort/sneezes and I could see her thinking again instead of just running along in her own little world. She got lots of pats, an apology, and a good grooming. I had planned to get some video of my lesson but my phone died as I was just starting the video.

My only clip from my last ride :(

Then, I was going to redeem myself and get some video of my ride last night. I was all excited about it because I was riding outside and it was a beautiful night so it would have been good video but all my phone captured was about 3 minutes of video of my walking Katai around the arena letting her look at all the new things. Media is so tough!

I just ordered my saddle this morning!!! I was worried about how long it would take for me to get it and L had suggested I check to see if I could keep the trial until the saddle came in. Unfortunately there are three more people in line waiting to try it (popular saddle!) so I need to ship it back today but luckily Prestige had a Prestige Lucky Idol in stock in the US that is a 34 which they can adjust to a 36. Because of that they said that I’d get the new saddle in about a week. I’m so excited and can’t wait! I’ll take more pictures to share once I get it. After having previously decided on a brown saddle (what I’ve wanted for the last few years) I had a change of heart and decided to go with the black. Not just because of the shorter wait but because it’s just so typical for dressage saddles. I’m actually really excited about it and the good thing is that I was going to splurge on a new bridle for my Christmas/birthday present to myself later this so I can just go ahead and order that in black instead of brown. Getting all traditional over here in pinto sport pony dressage land ;)

Another Saddle Update

Where the magic happens

It's been awhile since I posted and a very long time since I did a proper riding post. I don't have one for you yet but I do have another saddle update!

I finally got the Prestige Lucky back on trial with the adjustment made. It got to the barn on Monday or Tuesday but I didn't make it out to try it out until Wednesday.

When I set it on her back it still very slightly bridged (very slightly lighter pressure under the seat) but once I girthed it loosely it felt better. Katai also stands with a more hollow back so I knew that once I started riding it wouldn't bridge at all.

Her darn girth groove is just so far forward!

I took the pictures in this post and then put a saddle pad on and then tried it out. I had planned on just a lunging day so I lunged her first and then hopped on for a short ride. She felt good but a little sassy because the saddle put my leg back a little further on her barrel and it sat back a little further so she was being sassy about my leg pressure.

She seemed nice and loose and comfortable over her back but honestly the saddle rode so differently than my previous one that I was feeling very out of it and wasn't completely sure what I was feeling. Then she went to canter (leg position again) but I went with it since I wanted to see what she would think of the saddle at a canter. At the canter she felt less enthused but my leg was also significantly further back on her barrel at that point than it normally is so I'm wondering if it was the or the saddle.

Not bad

Unfortunately when I finished my short bit of canter I thought that the saddle had still slid forward a bit and when I climbed off, after a little more trot work, I confirmed that it had. It had slid forward at least an inch. I was honestly pretty frustrated. This saddle is shorter through the back and has a point billet, two things that were supposed to help and yet it still slid forward.

I could store snacks in there

After some thought about it on the way home I'm going to try girthing it a little different, take some more pictures for the saddle fitter at VTO tonight and hopefully either I'll figure something out with a little tweaking or maybe they'll have an idea or maybe it just won't fit and it will be back to the drawing board. Fingers crossed!

I'm going to hopefully take more photos of my ride tonight and will share those soon.

Tack Room Tour: OCD Much?

As mentioned before I watch a lot of YouTube. In fact at this point it’s almost completely replaced any other form of tv such as Hulu or Netflix (I don’t have cable). I LOVE watching vlogs, it’s totally a guilty pleasure for me and I love seeing people doing mundane things. I’m a very visual person so seeing how other people do things is interesting to me and it makes me feel like we’re ultimately all so similar. We all have our own strengths and our own struggles. It’s easy to read something and add meaning that wasn’t ever meant to be there or to write something with a positive or negative spin on it that someone else might not have felt but with videos you can see more of the real truth.

  I watch a lot of vegan videos, tiny house building videos, and recently have started watching Casey Neistat’s vlogs which are spectacular. However, some of my favorite videos to watch are done by other riders. I enjoy watching barn vlogs because, as mentioned previously, it’s fun to see how other people interact with their horses, seeing their successes and being able to cheer them on, and how they struggle the same way I do sometimes. Last night one of the people I’m subscribed to (an eventer in Australia) did a tack room tour and it made me think of doing this post. I know that people blog about this as well but her set up specifically made me curious about what others do and I decided to share mine.

Part of my space, saddle with tack cleaning rag hanging, helmet hanging in the back over a container that holds Katai's boots. Coat spray and grooming tote in front.

I tend to be very neat at the barn however, that's not the case at home. My space at home ranges from slightly messy to nuclear disaster and although I clean it every week or two I have no issue with tossing stuff on the floor to be dealt with later. I’m the same way in the kitchen and thankfully I have patient roommates because I tend to pile dishes until I have a chance to clean them and then I clean and scrub the whole kitchen. My car is also normally a disaster and I regularly leave dirty horse blankets in there with the windows closed in spring (speaking of that I had an interesting day where I offered someone a ride and I thought they were going to pass out from dirty horse blanket smell while I was so used to it that I didn’t even notice) However, with my horse(s) I’ve always been extremely neat. I bring all of my leather tack home every month and do a thorough cleaning. I enjoy tack cleaning so much that I’d probably have it home every week if I didn’t know that was bad for the leather. I also wipe it down with a damp cloth after every ride, which is a fairly recent addition to my process.

Mine's on the left with the pink polkadot tote, Bridle is lower row with the bundled up cream colored lunge line hanging. All the way to the right is a refrigerator specifically for the horses with is amazing :-)

I just LOVE the feeling of soft, buttery, clean tack and really dislike that stiff, caky, cracked leather feel that bridles in particular get if they aren’t cleaned on a regular basis. I also wash saddle pads every few rides during the summer when they get nasty and sweaty quickly and at least every couple of weeks during the winter when they just don’t get as dirty. I’ve got a “horse laundry” bin in my basement at home that fills up pretty quickly with tack rags, sweaty saddle pads, coolers, grooming rags, polos or boots, and I wash my saddle cover every few months. I love all of it, it’s like therapy for me and bringing a neat clean pile of folded horse laundry back to the barn feels amazing. My fellow boarders don't seem to feel the same way though and I'd say that most of the leather goods at my barn are not treated the same as mine.

This YouTube vlogger had a similar setup to my fellow boarders’ with a packed cabinet in complete disarray. She had gloves in two separate places, blankets piled on the ground (which was dirt), strap goods in tangled piles etc. I guess it just made me wonder if I’m an OCD horse person or if other’s are bothered as much as I am by dirty tack and yet couldn’t care less about a messy house?

Youtube Playlist Favorites:

Hannah Lucy - Australian Eventer
equine.emma1996 - Another Australian Eventer
Carter Sulivan - Canadian Dressage rider
Hot for Food - My favorite vegan food blog - GREAT recipes!

It's Here!!!!

So sorry I've been absent but things in my life have been nuts!!

The other news I talked about in my last post is that I received a job offer :-) Finally!!! It's with an amazing local company and means that I'll finally be able to move into the cities and closer to my boyfriend. I'm so, so, so excited and can't wait to move. Life is going to be so crazy for the next few weeks that I'm not sure how often I'll be able to post but getting my saddle today was way too exciting to not share.

Sorry for the horrible picture. I was too excited not to share. Proper pictures on the amazing pony to follow :-)

My Crazy Weekend

My barn was having a schooling show this Saturday. I hadn't planned on entering but at the last minute J told me that there would be a sport horse In hand class and I REALLY wanted to show Katai. There were a few problems including that I have a white pony who is still pretty sure that the hose is going to eat her so a real bath would be tricky, I have no idea how to do sport horse in hand, plus I haven't ever made Katai trot next to me and even if I could get her to it certainly wouldn't show off her trot very well. I hate being unprepared so I decided to skip it this time but on Friday evening J asked if I would scribe and I jumped at the chance.

It really was great to scribe and get a feel for what the judge was looking for. This was my first time and I was a little nervous but the judge was very patient and helpful and I feel like its a good life skill. I was glad it was a schooling show and that no one showed over 1st level since those tests were already difficult enough.

It was great to spectate and help out, and I would certainly scribe again in a heartbeat, but hopefully I can ride in the next one!

Then on Saturday I ran my first 5K, not an event just on my own, with only one short 15 second walk in the middle! It was my first time running over two miles and I hadn't done that since last year. Tonight I ran another 5K and cut off 3 minutes :)

I'm really glad that I'm making some improvement because I'm entered in a Ragnar in August https://www.ragnarrelay.com. I'm excited but extremely nervous because this will be the first sporting event that I've ever been a part of. I never did any sports as a kid other than riding and even with riding I never had lessons or anyone to push me so I sort of putzed along and just had fun, which is great don't get me wrong but it doesn't encourage any type of fitness. I was certainly never an athletic kid and while my family did lots of hiking and we would sometimes go on long bike rides it was never easy or especially fun for me. I was never thin but going through college and grad school I was starting to get a bit tubby. It's not something that I've ever really brought up on this blog but it was seeing a picture of myself riding Myshla that made me decide I had to change something. 

I started running last year but never made it over two miles and only did that a few times. This winter I didn't run at all because I didn't have access to a treadmill so this year I had to start all over and I am so glad that I did! I'm actually starting to enjoy it and I can tell how much more fit I am just since I got back to it at the beginning of May. Since I started working on my diet and exercise about three years ago I've lost over 40 pounds and my goal is to lose about 15-20 more. Training for the Ragnar this summer will certainly help! 

Finally on Sunday my sister came to visit and came with me to the barn. I was able to convince her to take some pictures. She rocks! They are a little blurry but they are also almost the only pictures I have of me riding Katai so I don't even care.

Can you tell how much I love this pony :-)

Please forgive the wonky elbows and hands. Between the green baby pony things, the fact that J wants my hands a little low and wide right now to help her stretch down, and the fact that I haven't really ridden much at all for the last month since Katai got to the barn my position has certainly been better. Now that I finally have a saddle that fits and a pony that behaves I can start to do the work to bring it together.

Saddle Tryouts

I knew when I acquired Katai that I would need to buy another saddle because her back is shaped so differently that Myshla's. I did hope that Myshla's Niedersuss would fit her well enough to use for the first couple of months but alas it wasn't to be so and so I've been using a western saddle when I've been working with her recently. Over this winter with fewer hours and smaller payroll bonuses a saddle wasn't in the budget but I just received my profit sharing bonus so I finally had a good saddle budget :)

Time for saddle shopping, yay! (Dripping sarcasm)

I started out with the local tack shop since they have about 50 or so dressage saddles that you can take out on trial. I ended up choosing a Kieffer Wein 16.5" with a medium tree and a Thornhill Danube 17" with a wide tree. I thought that the Kieffer would be too narrow and the Thornhill would be too long for her back.

I tried both on her without a saddle pad and, while they both fit, the Thornhill looked like it had been custom made for her. Then it was time for me to try it out since a rider can change a lot. I was nervous that since I hadn't been on her back since December she would be a naughty pony but she was perfect! She remembered everything that we had done at out last ride and was stretching out her back and relaxing which told me that the saddle did still fit well. Even better I love it as well, its sooooo comfy!

I was originally hoping to spend less than either saddle was listed at and thought that if either did fit I would go online and try to find a good deal just like I did with my $450 Niedersuss but the Thornhill seriously fit so well and was in such great condition that I just drove straight back to the tack shop and bought it.

Pictures will follow :)