Bandage Liners Review

Well this is an old photo, this was the first time I put her dressage boots on

I love doing review posts but haven’t really bought much that’s new and interesting recently since I’m working to stick to my budget. However, I have been using a new set up to protect Katai’s legs for a while now and wanted to share some info and do a review on how it’s working for us. First though, some background.



Still using the boots but Katai wasn’t happy about it

I know that leg protection is a contentious topic and with that being said there are so many variables for each person and each horse that I would never seek to encourage anyone to do something different if they have something that’s working for them. I believe that everyone should seek out information, including the latest research, on the various options and make a decision for each horse about what’s best for them. With that being said, I’ve had multiple friends need to retire their horse or nurse it through a long recovery related to interference injuries so this is something that I may be a bit more picky about than others. I know that most horses shouldn’t NEED protection, however, as we’re building strength, learning the lateral work, figuring out our balance, and occasionally having tantrums I’m way more comfortable knowing that Katai has that extra protection.


Also still wearing the boots.
Side note: I can't believe how far we've come from this!
She was engaged here but not that up in front and now we're getting that much more.

In my area, Minneapolis, MN, the weather only reaches 90* and above for a month or two each year and even then we have very few days that are actually above the 80s. In addition, I don’t ride for that long, or do extensive conditioning work, especially when it’s that hot out since I do not handle the heat well and typically end up with heat stroke if I do any athletic activity when the temp is above the low 90s. Because of those factors I don’t worry much about heat retention and to reduce the risk further I typically skip the bandages if I do ride on those very hot days.


Here we were finally starting to use polos (without bandage liners) full time
Side note again: I love this picture so much! Now we just need to get back to this level of work :)

 

Finally, I think boots are great. They can be way cooler than wraps, are quicker and easier to put on, can stay cleaner, and limit the risk of wrapping injury for those who don’t have instruction on proper wrapping technique. However, Katai hates them with a passion. She will literally pin her ears and threaten to kick me if I put her gorgeous, fluffy, dressage boots on and I don’t even put them on that tight. I’ve tried various boots and she hates all of them. When I realized that it was the boots and not that she was anticipating work, or ulcery, I switched to using polo wrap but never felt comfortable about the lack of protection they offered. Then it seemed like bandage liners were becoming more popular so I did some research and decided to try them out. Over Black Friday I bought two sets of Lemieux bandage liners and then for Christmas I got a set of Eskadron liners.



See how poofy?

Lemieux Bandage Liners
Size: small

I got one black set and one white set of these from Riding Warehouse. They were way cheaper than the Eskadron’s and got really great reviews. Here’s where having a smallish equine might affect my choice a bit so YMMV. They’re rather thick and made out of memory foam that varies in stiffness. Two of the white liners are very soft and give well, the other two are way stiffer and all of the black set are stiffer, thicker foam. With that, because Katai has small legs, they’re really poofy and even with good wrapping pressure they made her look like she’s wearing casts on her legs or 80s style leg warmers. I’m not a fan of how poofy they are and how thick and the varying thickness of the foam makes me wonder about quality control.

I was also using these during the winter in an unheated barn and in that environment the memory foam was especially stiff. In order to get them snug I needed to pull the wraps pretty tight and then when they warmed up they became more pliable and were looser than would be ideal.

My Opinion?: Overall, I wouldn’t buy again for my purpose. On a larger horse or a warmer environment they would likely work well.

Much better

Eskadron Bandage Liners:
Size: small horse
I got a set of these in white from my mom for Christmas. Unfortunately she got me the small horse size vs. the small pony size but luckily this just makes Katai look very European and adds extra protection so I’m pretty ok with it.

I adore these bandage liners in every way and have been using them for almost every ride since I got them. These are very consistent and much more pliable than the Lemieux liners and seem to be cooler underneath than the Lemieux liners after a ride. They’re easy to wrap over and because they’re evenly pliable I’m confident that I’m able to keep the pressure even.

My Opinion?: I love that Katai has extra protection from interference during rides I will absolutely be buying more of these. I’ve got a black set in small horse size and a white set in small pony size on my list so that I can rotate and wash them more easily and have a smaller pair for when I want to be less obnoxiously DQesque.



And the polo wraps come in cute colors that complement our saddle pads!
Side note again: forgive the slightly messier wrapping job here.
I was still figuring out how to wrap the back ones so they don't go up as far as they should.

Polo Wraps:
With my bandage liners I’ve been using polo wraps rather than exercise bandages because they’re what I’m comfortable wrapping, and are more widely available. I did have to get some new polo wraps though because my very cut down polos that were the right length for a pony without liners were way too short for use with liners. I got two sets of Eskadron pony polos (one of the few brands who actually carries pony polos) and a set of PS of Sweden polos.

The Eskadron pony polos are narrower width rather than shorter length and are AMAZING to wrap. The narrower width means that the coverage when wrapping is easier to get consistent and it’s easier to maneuver them around smaller legs. They’re also nicely stretchy and the Velcro is set up to not have a bunch of extra velcro tab sticking out based on the smaller leg circumference (of course the liners also help with this).

The PS of Sweden polos work well also but are much wider so while I can still wrap them very safely they don’t look as neat and are tougher to get a good wrap around the fetlock with small pony legs. I do like the material they’re made out of though and they have an appropriate amount of stretch.

Katai’s Opinion?: I was curious if wrapping with the liners would make Katai mad since the only thing she’s liked so far were plain polos. However, as of today after using these consistently for almost 5 months she still doesn’t seem to care when I’m wrapping her legs. With that I’m giving them the pony mare stamp of approval.

I purchased all of these items with my own money or received them from family members as gifts. I am not being compensated for this review.

Finally!

There are certainly some nice things about MN but the weather is not one of them. It is FINALLY nice here! By nice I mean that I wore a sweater to the barn today and it was only 48 to start but warmed up to the 60s later in the day and it was sunny!

This weekend was lovely but that was after a seriously awful week that is really just fully explained with this very popular cartoon by K.C. Green.

I'm not going to go over it in detail but in summary: Moshy got hurt last weekend which resulted in two vet visits this weekend with no answers. We did get x-rays and the next step may be orthopedic surgery. I was also thinking an opportunity may open up that didn't but I didn't find out until on my way to get x-rays for Moshy on Friday. On top of all of that I had a dentist apt for fillings on Wednesday. One hour turned into two and I got so many injections into my lower jaw that it was incredibly bruised and painful until this weekend. With all of that they still couldn't get my tooth numb enough so I have to go back for another 2 hour apt in just over a week.

This weekend though it started to turn better.

How could it not when I get to spend time with this girl <3

First I got to sleep in on Saturday! Then I did a bunch of cleaning and food prep which was sorely needed. In the afternoon when it was warmer I went to the barn. I thought Katai might be spicy because I, I think understandably, hadn't been able to make it to the barn much this past week. However, she was a sweet, well behaved lady and we actually accomplished something for our ride! We did a bunch of great canter, she listened well, and only had one minor melt down. Then this morning I had a lesson with K who had flown in this weekend to teach lessons.

I've been doing training braids so her mane (at least what wasn't rubbed out) is adorably wavy.
But then there's that bit at the top that's sticking straight up...

She hadn't seen us in a LONG time so there wasn't anything groundbreaking since she was getting to know us again. However, she did have some great advice and exercises for us which was awesome. Primary though I was really proud of Katai who had almost and hour under saddle (albeit with a lot of walk) and just kept trying to do what we were asking the WHOLE time. She had no melt downs, never said no, and never really got frustrated.

My wraps keep getting neater and neater!

This is big primarily because it's spring, I haven't been riding consistently, and we're both weak. When we were both fit we had weekly hour long lessons and I was riding another 3-4 days a week but right now we are so far from that it's not even funny. With that being said, she barely got sweaty and was never breathing hard. However, I'm fairly certain she's going to be muscle sore so I'm going to use that as an experience to do some low pressure, light, fun things this week. On the schedule are  a trail hand walk, a short bareback bitless ride (to try out my new bitless set up!), some grooming, and some work on her feet. With some more slow, consistent fitness work we'll both be back to it soon!

Not Rolex

Like really not Rolex. As usual the MN horse expo fell on Rolex LRK3DE weekend and while it’s nowhere near as fun as LRK3DE would have been it is still a big horse event with lots of good shopping. I didn’t go last year and wasn’t sure this year but I ended up with an appointment in the morning and rather than taking just the first half of a Friday off I took the whole day. With that it would have been silly not to go really.

Moshy has a slightly sore hind leg, probably from getting tired on a walk, so she's taking extra naps.
If it's not better by Monday there will be a vet visit. Despite being able to prance around on it she's being pretty pathetic about it, poor baby :(

I had two goals, talk with the Shadow trailer dealer and do some shopping. Having checked out Jen at CobJockey’s Shadow trailer I’m pretty sure that’s the trailer I want to buy. For the last few years the Shadow dealer has been at the Expo. Not only do they offer deals (not that I’m necessarily in a place to get something but still!) but I also wanted to talk with them about some of the items I’d want installed on my trailer to see what it would take and if they could do it. Unfortunately one of the main buildings that trailer vendors utilize had a roof collapse during one of our recent snow falls. In the end it seemed to mean that many of the normal trailer distributers decided not to go. Oh well, I’ll be in a better place spring of next year to consider buying something and hopefully they’ll be back then!

My other goal was shopping, particularly at the going-out-of-business local tack store's booth. Based on how much they had left to get rid of when I was there a few weekends ago I figured they’d have some really good deals since this was the last weekend they were open. When I finally found their booth I walked around looking at the racks of clothing and strap goods they had and was sort of disappointed. Still great deals but again, 50% off of items that are $100-$400+ is still a lot of money.

Katai got mane training braids :) Her poor, rubbed out mane :(

Then I saw a few bins on the ground and realize they were full of show shirts and there was a sign that said $5 per shirt in those bins. That was more like it! I did some digging and found two Pikeur show shirts and scored the deal of the century. One fits me perfect now which means it will be slightly big when I finish losing this extra weight but the other, which is slightly too small now, will be perfect. Both shirts were over $100 list price so this was a fantastic deal.

$220 worth of Pikeur show shirts for $10 makes my budget very happy

I stopped and picked up a coffee at a food truck, pretty much the only vegan thing I could find :), then I walked back out towards the entrance to leave. On the way out I discovered that there was another vendor building that they typically don’t have open for the expo. It was at the opposite end of the grounds but I decided to go check it out and walked all the way back. I didn’t find anything but I’m pretty sure it was the universe fixing my timing because when I headed back out to leave I ran into someone that I haven’t seen in a while back at the entrance and found out some AMAZING info. I don’t have anything to share now but will as soon as I can!

Another Clinic Recap!

Bad media > no media?

I mean I should probably not actually call these clinic. Really they're more like monthly lessons with my trainer's trainer but for right now clinic works and it's easier to type! This was almost a week ago at this point but still important to recap.

This one was similar to the last one but a bit tougher in a few ways. First, K's trainer had identified our ability level so she was more picky, as I'd suspected she would be, and second, we cantered early on and then Katai lost her marbles a little.

We started out warming up the walk and trot and K's trainer commented that she seemed way more relaxed and rather than just posing and going she was actually softer. Yay! success.

We cantered as part of warm up and it actually went really well. Katai went right into it and let me bring her back calmly. We cantered in each direction and then went back to working on walk. Katai was UP at that point and was not going to be told to go slower than a full hand gallop. With K's trainer's influence we were able to keep everything pretty calm and were focusing and trying to help her relax with lots of pets and verbal rewards when she was trying. we were working on getting her to listen mainly to my seat but she didn't want to listen to us at all in any way at that point.

Not sure why but clean buckets seem to be a point of contention at this barn.
They scrub them everyday and they're always super clean.

To her credit she never once pulled any real crap. No throwing down a halt, no bucking, no bolting, and no rearing. About the worst she did was walk through my aids, try to trot, or jig a little so really nothing bad at all.

It was tough though to just keep asking calmly for over 20 minutes just for her to slow down and relax when she wasn't listening at all. We did have a few break through moments and, the next day, it was clear that progress had been made so that was good. That day though was tough especially since I had a pretty bad headache which had been made worse by wearing my helmet and the relative heat after our cool spring.

Oh well, that's horses.

Our homework is all about relaxation. I'm taking it one step further though. Katai (and myself) have always been impatient. She had me pretty well trained to let her just push forward anytime things started to go south since not allowing her to go forward resulted in her going up or striking out.

Me grazing Connor while he dried from his bath
I can't believe this was over a week ago now.

Since the first clinic I've been doing a lot of groundwork just working on patience. I don't know where I read it but a trainer I was following somewhere wrote about that having a horse take a step and halt and stand, rinse and repeat, was really helpful in helping them calm down. Therefore I've been working on a lot of groundwork asking for one step at a time with lots and lots of standing. Really, tons of standing. Katai hates it and is trying to figure out why this game is so boring, but, it's been helping.

Of course spring and mare hormones have been making this worse but this week on Tuesday we worked on trailer loading. She was SUPER anxious to hop on the trailer, hop off and be done with things and got angry when I wouldn't even let her on the trailer until she stood calmly. She was trying so hard to tell me that I was wrong and didn't understand but we ended with zero escalation and zero argument with her (relatively) calmly climbing on and off just because I literally stood there and ignored her for at least 30 minutes. We're going to do this a ton more and in the meantime I'm finding all the things I can think of that usually cause her to escalate and we're going to do calm, stubborn and patient on my part, patience training.

Under saddle I'm working on mentally taking the pressure off myself and her. We're doing easy work, lunging in a halter, and spending some additional time doing stretchy forward rides with just a bit more collection. We'll see what the result of all of this is but she's been really chill recently. This weekend I plan to do a bit more collection work with lots of interspersed relaxation to see if we're able to maintain. Things have been promising so far!

Blogger Meet Up Trip!

Those of you who follow me on Instagram probably already know why I was wearing riding boots at the airport in my last post. For anyone who doesn't, I was visiting Jen from CobJockey!

Jen and I first met in person at the National Dressage Pony Cup a couple of years ago. I really felt like I clicked with her and we had a great time hanging out. We started making plans then to get together so that I could see Connor again, maybe have the chance to ride him :), meet her spouse, and visit her amazing house. Since then we've talked about it but finding a time that worked for both of us with our busy work schedules and horsey stuff was tough.

Finally, over this winter we started talking about doing something this spring. I was aiming for April/May timeframe to hopefully have decent weather but not intrude into show season too much. In the end my bf ended up picking the weekend that we were hosting the Final Four so that we could escape the craziness.

I fail at taking photos of architecture
but trust me, this church is  beautiful

It worked out great! The weather in IN was gorgeous and sunny in the 60s and 70s which was a nice break from our 40s-50s and grey skies. We left MN on Friday afternoon and got back Tuesday afternoon and we had so much fun!!

Getting the Equisense going

Before I get to the pony things I just have to say that Jen and her spouse were amazing hosts. Their home is gorgeous and it was great to be able to explore their hometown and visit some of the awesome places including a really adorable coffee shop that I wanted to take home with me. Also, my one worry about the trip was whether my bf would enjoy himself since he is not much of an outdoor person and definitely doesn't like to spend time at the barn. That meant that he and Jen's spouse would likely be hanging out a lot. I hoped that they would enjoy each other's company and that's exactly what happened. My bf has already been talking about when we can visit again and that he wishes that we lived closer :)

On to pony things! We had three full days at Jen's gorgeous barn and we took full advantage of our time. On Saturday we went to the barn early in the day and got to hang out and talk ponies for awhile while Jen's trainer and her husband got packed up and headed out to a clinic. Then we got Connor ready and headed to the outdoor where Jen rode first and then handed him off to me and, guys, he was SO MUCH FUN! The cues I know and use seemed to mostly transfer and the few things that didn't, and let's be honest I'm probably doing wrong, were fun to play around with to see where our understanding varied.

After we rode we gave Connor a bath and tried a new product on his mane, tail, and feather.

Connor wasn't pleased about being a punk rock unicorn.

The next day was forecast to be rainy so we planned to ride in the indoor. It was icky enough out that the horses were inside, avoiding a fairly cold downpour when we got there. Like the previous day Jen rode first and then let me climb on again. I feel so lucky to have had a couple of chances to ride her amazing pony. I was able to build on what I had figured out the previous day and it felt like we were speaking the same language on more things. I was also playing with the half halts that K's trainer wants me to do with Katai. It was so nice to be able to play with that on a more educated horse vs. trying to figure them out as Katai was figuring them out.

My phone is not good in low light so everything turned out super blurry but I had to
share this photo of Connor's amazing tail.
At any rate Jen had Connor looking awesome before I hopped up

Unfortunately I realized when I looked at these photos that I'd completely forgotten to close up my helmet strap. Oops! Quite bad on my part but luckily Connor was a good boy.

Since Jen has a show next weekend and a lesson on Tuesday we knew that Monday would need to be a quiet day. We talked about a few options but ended up going to a tack shop and then Jen giving me a lesson and some practice braiding Connor! The tack shop was awesome and I was sorely tempted by some of the clothes and brushes but I stuck to my budget and didn't get anything. Sad day for tack haul photos. With the braiding I definitely picked up some things including that braiding up is really truly important and quick braid is definitely nicer to work with than the gel that I've been using.

It was an amazing trip! I had so much fun with Jen and her spouse and Connor was just as amazing as I remember. My bf and I definitely want to visit again and would love to host here as well although maybe not during blizzard season.

Meanwhile in MN...

Confidence Builder Clinic Recap (long)

This clinic/lesson day was exactly what I needed. I feel like my confidence has been pretty low over the past year or so. We left Jane’s having issues with Katai’s behavior because of, I believe, the saddle fit and ulcer issue. They had been resolved at that point but Katai was still reactive and worried about being uncomfortable. Then we worked with S2 and I lost more confidence about our path because she had a very different way of working with horses and caused more tension than I’d like. K has been very complimentary but after all of the past issues it’s been tough for me to not worry or doubt. Having another person who was saying really positive things about Katai and myself really helped, plus K’s trainer just has that much more history of bringing people up the levels so that was especially cool to hear.

The day on Saturday was forecast to be colder than what we’ve had (mid 30s instead of mid 40s-50s) so that added to my normal anxiousness because I was riding with someone new. I managed to hang out at home most of the morning and didn’t get myself too tied into knots. I left around 11:45 so that I could catch most of the first rider’s ride but not sit around too long and get nervous or too cold. I also was meeting up with one of K’s other students who was riding to pick up the bags and tags to get my blankets over to a blanket washing service. This is something I’m doing for the first time this year since living with bf means that having horse blankets hanging around drying in the apartment isn’t very fair :)

I got there and it was sunny but breezy and chilly. I got my bags and tags picked up and then went to the arena and watched the first couple of riders. The person who was riding, and about half way done, was the person who organized the day. She was working on canter transitions but I missed most of it because I was chatting with other riders about K moving, what they were nervous about and what I was, etc. The next rider to go was one of K’s long time students and someone who’s riding at 1st level very successfully and I was able to watch a bit more. She’s just getting back into it because she was out for most of the winter due to knee surgery. K’s trainer had a lot positive to say about her improvement despite that since they had worked together in the past. I was able to watch most of this ride and then I headed down to the barn to get Katai ready so that we could have lots of time to walk around in the arena and let go of some nervous energy.

While I warmed up I was able to catch bits and pieces of the person before me who also has taken lessons with K’s trainer before. She’s the one I went to the tack sale with along with K and I’m going to call her Jo since she’ll be making more of an appearance here in the near future.

Then it was my turn and I introduced myself and Katai. Since I’d only ever had one lesson with her, many years ago, on one of her lessons horses we took some time to debrief and talk about what I’ve been working on. The items I brought up were that I had gotten busy with my hands before working with K so she’d been working on getting them more still and giving forward vs. pulling back. We talked about how Katai blows through half halts especially through my seat (which was why I had gotten busy with my hands) and was hot and could get fizzy and worried if we worked on small things for too long (partially because the previous horse was struggling with this). I also mentioned that we’ve been working on getting her to reach forward and down but that my assessment was that now she’s swung far enough in that direction that it’s time to start to include a bit more work to bring her up. Finally I mentioned that she’s been throwing her head into the canter transition and we’ve been working on letting her “roll into it” more but that my timing wasn’t as good as K’s so sometimes she really started to run.

I had noticed through the other riders that K’s trainer was working a lot on position things and I was excited about it. Jane worked a TON on my position but since then I haven’t been getting any advice. I’ve been thinking that it was because it just wasn’t something that either instructor focused on much since I’ve ridden with people who seem to either work a ton on position or really not at all. It turns out though that one of K’s trainer’s first assessments was that I had a really solid position. I’m still a little in disbelief about that actually because I was such a mess when I started riding with Jane and would have guessed that it would have been falling apart again in the interim. It’s not that I don’t have things to do, like closing the back of my armpits a bit and being more relaxed through transitions (more on that later) but otherwise K’s trainer didn’t have much to say. That felt amazing.

She had me get started and just do sort of a warm up with her watching. I did some walk and then went to trot and did 20 meter circles, went large, did some 10 meter circles and some leg yield in both directions at the trot and then we did some canter in each direction. Then K’s trainer had me come back to walk and we got into the meat of the lesson. To start she had us do trot/walk/trot transitions with just a couple steps of walk. This is very consistent with what K and Jane have both had us work on. Basically Katai likes to ignore half halts and needs to learn to step under a bit more. We did fine but during that work K’s trainer also identified that we were both trying too hard. I was too demanding with my seat, although she complimented me on my hands.

She called out several times that Katai is her favorite sort of horse. Super obedient, a little hot, and trying so hard to do what I asked. She said that we were similar in that I was trying super hard and by doing that I was sometimes too demanding with my seat and asking for something immediate vs. letting it happen slower. She acknowledged that one of the toughest things we do as riders is to deal with the pendulum of obedience vs. relaxation and that right now we needed more relaxation. She asked me to relax my seat more into transitions vs. making the transition happen. It was tough for both of us and for a while it meant I was walking Katai into walls to teach her what I was looking for. She picked it up really quickly, more so than me, though so that was encouraging. Now I just need to work on it.

Finally we worked on some SI at the sitting trot and here K’s trainer again wanted a bit more relaxation especially through Katai’s pole and jaw. She did say that we were getting a medium trot through it though which made me celebrate since the biggest issue when I was working with Jane was that I was shutting her down with my seat and getting a tiny little trot through it. Cue minor internal celebration. Obviously we’ll need to get it more collected but the bigger looser trot is so much better than the tiny prancy steps we were getting. To help with the relaxation K’s trainer just wanted me to slightly counter flex her and then return to inside flexion to help her relax her pole, jaw, and body a bit. It was hugely helpful when I did this so some homework for us! She also said through the work that she agrees with me that Katai is stretching forward and down really well. We want to keep as much of that as possible, and return there if we lose it obviously, but that it is time to start to ask her to come up during rides.

Overall I felt sort of showered with compliments. K’s trainer was impressed by us and by the work we’d done. She said she wouldn’t have guessed that I was getting busy with my hands because they looked good in this lesson. She also complimented my position a few times which, again, felt really unreal. She also had so many nice things to say about Katai including that I could get a lot of money for her if I ever decided to sell her, especially with her size and that she was “worth her weight in gold”. That felt almost nicer than the compliments about my riding because Katai has certainly not always been a horse that people have said those things about.

I’m normally really uncomfortable about compliments and if they swing too far to just that during lessons I always wonder what I paid for. In this lesson though I got a lot of stuff to work on and I know we’ll build on this when I ride with her in April. In addition, I’ve just had so little motivation, so many doubts, and so little faith in our path this past year that hearing such nice and affirming things about us was just what I needed right now.

After I finished my ride Katai got stuffed with treats as we cooled out and while she was groomed and put away. She was happy to be back outside with her favorite mare bear friend. Then I went back to watch the next couple of lessons.

It turned out that Jo’s niece was getting a lesson with K’s trainer as well so we had a chance to talk while that was going on and we made some plans! Jo used to trailer over to get lessons from K’s trainer every week but it just got to be too much so she stopped. So, with that in mind, we made a plan to trailer over to K’s trainer’s farm (which is about 10 minutes away) monthly for lessons through the summer when K’s trainer isn’t able to make it out to our barn. I’m super pumped because it will not only be great to have regular access to lesson but it will also mean that we can get some good, low key trailering experience with way less pressure! K’s trainer’s farm is also lovely and she has a large heated arena with lovely footing. We’re going to talk with her when she’s here in April and make a plan. Fingers crossed it all works out the way we want it to!

What Would Some (a little) Look Like

Before we get to the rest of this post I had another good ride and lunged Katai in side reins this week! We're as ready as we can be at this point for our clinic/lesson day with K's trainer. I have one more of these non ride update posts and then I should be able to post some awesome ride updates! Now I just need to get more media :)

Katai realized I was there while I was sitting in my car and was whinnying to me <3
#doesthisstallionfencemakemelookshort?

I am a perfectionist. It’s been something I’ve dealt with since I was little. For me this means I struggle with putting in some effort and only ever want to do 0% or 100%. This is why I struggle with goals and, in particular, planning especially for my personal life. Strangely enough this is a major work function for me and I’m really good at coaching people on how to make effective plans that are focused on taking action. However, in my personal life planning beyond the next day or so is tough for me and it’s especially tough for me to plan or make goals for Katai and rides.

Further out than a day or so my brain starts getting hung up on all of the factors that are involved in having two living beings as partners in a very demanding sport. When I do go ride or work Katai I react to the moment and usually accomplish something and it’s fine but it makes it tough to set more specific goals. I might even plan out for the next day’s ride but beyond that I struggle.

With weekly lesson’s it’s always felt ok to have less of a plan because there is another person who is helping to keep our path going in the right direction. However, now that we have lessons monthly or less I feel like it’s really critical that I plan better. In thinking about this and trying to figure out why I can do this at work and not in my personal life and then I saw this posted on my friend's wall; “What would some (a little) look like”.

Looking super majestic while she spooked at people walking in the aisle

With that in mind, over this past week, on a long car drive, I put on my workplace coaching hat and basically coached myself through what I was doing and what wasn’t working and realized the following;

 1. Without an accurate assessment of our gaps and strengths how was I going to be able to focus on the items that I need to improve?
2. Listing which days I was going to ride and movements to work on was too micro for how my brain works and the specificity was frustrating if the pony I had that day didn’t want to play along in that particular way or couldn’t because of soreness etc. Some structure is helpful, too much structure is hurtful especially when dealing with two animals who will likely each have their own things going on for any particular day
3. Bucketing items vs. making specific plans is what I coach employees and leaders to do. Lists of individual issues are way less helpful than identifying themes and building a plan to improve those themes
4. Some action is better than the 0% or 100% approach. Some structure is helpful, too much structure is hurtful
5. Not every ride needs to be perfect, in fact no ride needs to be perfect they just need to accomplish something so I need to set up a plan that encourages me to ride without much specificity so that I can focus on a couple things and not try to accomplish everything at once.

My bf and I were up and Moshy had decided to sleep in.
This was all we could see of her for most of the morning 

Then, when I got home, I listed out items like walk/trot/walk, canter, waiting for cues, half halts, straightness, and transitions and gave us a percentage score for each. After doing that for the movements that we can at least kind of perform I outlined the movements we need to move up to the next level such as walk/canter/walk. Then I put together ride plans in “buckets” that go something like this. Ride 1. Work on baseline gaits, Ride 2. Focus on collection, Ride 3. Stretchy ride.

Under each of those I outlined a list of items that I could do that day and also put a timeframe that I want to ride for. For the collection ride for example I outlined half halts, transitions, transitions within the gaits, backing, SI, etc. and also made that ride shorter, around 20 minutes. Finally I also listed out a bunch of alternative options such as desensitizing Katai to her travel boots, doing a bareback ride, or going for a hand walk. These are things I’ll put into our schedule as well since I want to be riding 3-4 times per week, lunging or doing just a walk ride as my fourth ride, and then having a non-riding day right now.

Then, based on weaknesses, I put my first week together. Since we’re just getting back into this right now I’m going with an either/or approach based on how Katai is feeling but eventually I’ll be more strict about that kind of ride we do since I still have a ton of variability within that ride to play with depending on how she’s feeling.

Still spooking, also I can't wait until her clip grows out

I had posted here about the planner I got for myself during the holidays. I had been disappointed about it and was actually going to post more about how it wasn’t working but now that I have this figured out it’s working great for this way of planning. I’m really hopeful that this will help me continue to make progress without regular access to a trainer.

It’s already helping my motivation since it seems way less overwhelming to have a specific sort of ride to pick from a list vs. thinking of all of the possible things I could work on for a specific day (or just try to do everything every time I rode which was a trap I was falling into). Hopefully this along with utilizing the resources I posted about previously will help me continue to make progress even with less access to lessons!

How do you plan, or not plan, for rides? How do you keep yourself on track?

Resourceful

Guess what! I actually rode today and it was good :) I do have a series of posts that I want to do but after this I should actually have riding updates including an update from the clinic.

One thing is for sure, not having weekly lessons scheduled has made me way more resourceful. I’ve been working on a few things and thought it might be good for future me to have this written down as well as potentially helpful for others.

Resources:

Podcasts! I’ve been listening to the Dressage Radio Show podcast which is now the official podcast of the USDF. I mostly really enjoy it and learn a lot each time I listen. Even items that I don’t initially think would be helpful often spark something as they’re talking through it. One of the ideas I’ve been thinking through recently came from a freestyle conversation where the person they were interviewing talked about assessing the movements you ride and how strong or weak they are for you and your particular horse.

Youtube: This is a huge one for me! I learn from everything I watch whether it’s motivation, technique, a reminder of something that I’ve learned previously but forgotten, or something completely new. My current favorite channels are; Olivia Towers, Joseph Newcomb, and Texas dressage girl. I’ve put a Joseph Newcomb video below that was especially helpful recently.

Video: One of the things that Joseph Newcomb talks about in the above video is videotaping yourself riding. I’m pretty good at coaching myself when I see what’s going on especially since I watch a ton of really good riders on video or in person. I may have to guess at exactly what’s going on but since I can put together the way it looks with the way I remember it feeling it’s actually pretty effective. At the very least I can clean up a lot and then identify a couple things that I’m not able to fix on my own and help the next instructor I ride with narrow down on what I need help with.

Apps: While potentially not accurate on a ride by ride basis I feel like apps like the Equilab app are helpful at identifying trends. Stride length is one example of a trend that, once identified, can be helpful. One of the features I find to be most helpful is how long you spend going in each direction. Again, while probably not 100% accurate each ride it does help identify issues that you can then work on.

Other trainers: I’m lucky enough that K’s trainer comes to the barn once per month during the winter. Right now she’s scheduled to be here next weekend and toward the end of April and I’m riding with her each time. She’s amazing, I’ve ridden with her once before although not on Katai, and I’m really lucky to be able to ride with her. Some lessons are better than none!

In other news, this is why my pony is always so clean.
This is her stall after a full night. There are a few more poops under
the hay at the back but they're neat little piles <3

There are also non-dressage trainers who come to the barn and I may take advantage of that and do a trailer loading lesson with one trainer who has a very quiet, calm, but firm, approach that I think would be helpful for me and Katai.

Other Students: K really encouraged her students to help each other out when she was leaving. I’ve talked with a few of them and while we’re mostly all at a similar level it’s still really helpful to be able to have someone on the ground watch and call out things that they’re seeing. The sense of comradery is great and the motivation to go and ride with someone vs. just riding on your own is really helpful for me. In addition she also offered that if we get video of each other we could send it to her and get some suggestions. See why I like her so much?

If It's Not One Thing

It's another.

I'd LOVE to be able to post that I've had regular rides for a week and things are going well, however, that's really not the case yet.

First there was the weather and it started with ice and the barn being shut down. Then we had extreme mud and my car decided to break and cost me nearly $1400 in repairs. That both depled my emergency fund that I've been pouring my heart and soul (or mostly just all my pennies) into as well as the small amount of trailer savings I'd built up. Grrrrr

No pictures of the mud but here it is with the ice.
This was when the barn opened again because it was warm enough that it wasn't a skating rink.

The car repair meant that I had a loaner for a few days and didn't feel like needing to call a tow truck to get a massive BMW, that wasn't mine, towed at the barn when I got it stuck in the mud so I didn't go out for a few days. Then I got my car back but the steering was sort of erratic and getting worse so I missed a couple more days before finally bringing it back to the shop. In addition to that Katai had spring shots this past Wednesday and I gave her that day and Thursday off before going out on Friday guessing I'd be lunging. Unfortunately pony's neck was SUPER stiff and I'm wondering if she was also running a bit of a temperature. I gave her bute, groomed her and let her be.

Today I went out and when I first saw her in her stall I was so hopeful! Her neck no longer looked so stiff and I was hoping that the bute had helped and I'd be able to do just a light ride at mostly walk to get her back into things. However, I was grooming her and went to brush her side on the left and she nearly took my face off. Clearly her tummy was bothering her and after poking around a bit more it was clear she was feeling pretty ulcery. I gave her Tums and some ulcer meds and decided that based on how reactive she was being riding was only going to set us back.

I'm over here freaking out a little since I'm signed up to ride with K's trainer in a week and it's been over a week since I had a ride on my pony. Seriously, it would be great if the universe would just cooperate and let me get out to the barn on a regular basis!

Also, the vegan soul food from this all vegan restaurant was wonderful!

Leaving this blog on a positive note, the weather is AMAZING! It was in the mid 50s today and consistently it's been in the 40s. Thank goodness! I've finally been leaving Katai naked and it's been so nice to be able to be at the barn without feeling like I'm just trying to survive :)

I'm also really excited about my lesson next week! It would just be even better if I could ride at least a couple times before I ride so fingers crossed.

I also got all my tack cleaned last night and clean tack is the best. Now I just need to wait until shedding season is closer to being over and then I'll wash my brushes. I'm also working on getting my   blankets to a place that will wash them since I can't now that I'm living in a nice apartment with my bf.

March Goals

I’m not even going to attempt to recap any goals for this year since we basically haven’t accomplished anything in 2019 yet beyond lots of vacation time. However in continuing with the theme of trying to post more positive things, looking ahead to the rest of March, and what I hope to accomplish, feels good.

Blog More:

My hope is that even if the weather continues to be awful I can still do some more blogging. I’m sure I can find things to blog about even if they aren’t substantial riding updates.

I also want to start trying to get more media even if it’s the snow outside our apartment, Katai eating hay in her stall, or Katai being fluffy and rolling in the arena.

Fitness:

My bf (who has a lot of yoga experience) finally convinced me to go to my first yoga class last Saturday. Unfortunately for him this ended up being a way more difficult class than it should have which made me slightly frustrated and left me feeling a little defeated. I HATE group fitness classes of any sort with a passion and while I was really hopeful that yoga would feel different this one didn’t. We went to a Vinyasa 1 class that apparently was more like a difficult Vinyasa 2 class and the class was packed so the yoga teacher wasn’t able to spend much time with anyone.

At any rate my amazing bf persevered and has convinced me to go to a yoga fundamentals class next Thursday. I’m actually looking forward to this one! I do want to do yoga, I just want to gain some understanding of how to do things correctly and then do it on my own at home and maybe just occasionally join him for a class.

Along with yoga I’m hoping to spend more time in our apartment gym even if that’s just walking on the treadmill and doing core work outs. I really want to get more in shape as I’m increasing my ride frequency.

Bone collection, check
Nap, check

Plan for Shows?:

This one unfortunately is pretty up in the air. I don’t know how I’ll show this year. I’m not sure who I’d trailer with, which trailer I could borrow if any, how much budget I’ll have for showing, or where Katai and I will be riding wise. Right now I’m planning to take things as they come and take opportunities as I can.

I’m very much going to be working to make sure we can show a handful of times this year but if that’s schooling shows this fall that’s ok. For that reason I haven’t paid for any memberships yet but will be proceeding with that if needed. However, I would like to go through and mark some shows that I’m interested in and try to keep those weekends open/start talking with a couple of the people I board with to see if they’d want to join me.

Additional Lessons/Clinic:

I’ve been working with K to do a few weekly lessons (vs. bi-weekly). Unfortunately the weather has been totally derailing this but I’m hoping that the next couple of weeks in March will work for this.

I’ve also signed up for “clinic” with a local, upper level dressage trainer. This person is K’s trainer (KM) and actually the first person I ever took a dressage lesson with way back when. It was supposed to be this past Saturday but, continuing the theme, was canceled based on the weather and was rescheduled for 3/30. My hope is that by then I’ll have had some good rides, a couple lessons at least, and will be feeling more prepared. This person is one option for additional lessons once K moves and I already have tentatively also planned to ride with her on 4/20.

We (the bf, his sister and I) went to Two Cellos
and also got to see Jon McLaughlin who opened for them

Finalize plans for once K is gone:

It’s extremely sad that K is going to be gone the end of this month. I’m going to work hard this month to get as many lesson with her as possible and then finalize plans for once she’s gone. I’ve stepped out of one of my Sunday DnD groups as of last Sunday so I now have more weekend time available which may mean that I can more easily get lessons with K when she’s here. I’m hoping to finalize that within the next couple of weeks.

In addition I’m going to continue to figure out additional options including the following;

• KM may be coming out once per month through summer and will most likely be coming out once per month at least until summer. When I clinic with her at the end of the month I’m planning to talk through plans with her as well as far as when I could get lessons with her.
• The gold medalist instructor who’s lessons I audited this past month also offered a lesson or two on her lesson horses. I may make a plan to do so either this month or next to keep that door open. Of course I also think it would be good for my continuing dressage education to ride a more trained horse and take advantage of any and all lesson opportunities.
• I’m also going to continue to look at other options for moving Katai whether for later this year or in the future just because in continuing to have conversations about it with my support system I think that making sure we have a place to land if/when this place closes is pretty important at this point.

Layers

What an appropriate name for this blog post. First, we’ve got the layers of snow. Snow that JUST KEEPS FREAKING FALLING and won’t give me a long enough break to get to the barn.

Seriously guys, not sure what I did but pretty sure I’m in some sort of 3 year run of bad luck. 2018 concluded with the illness from hell and I was encouraged that it would all be up from there but alas all that’s happened is extreme cold (windchills down to -50*s), and lots and lots of snow. I’ve barely been leaving the house at all and have only made it in to work about 7 days out of the past three weeks.

That’s bad.

Luckily I can work from home, unluckily I hate it and even worse, the same snow that has me working from home also means I haven’t been able to make it out to the barn much at all. At least my boss, who is an eventer, lives 5 minutes from her barn so even if she’s working from home she can still go to the barn. I’m very jealous lol.

I was going to wait to blog until I had more positive news to share but we’re into March at this point and there’s a lot more snow in the forecast and the days where we aren’t getting snow are really cold. Grrrrrrrrrrr

 Luckily I live with a really amazing person now and have an awesome puppy so time at home hasn’t been awful but I am just absolutely dying for some consistent, productive time at the barn and am feeling really motivated to make progress so it just sucks that the weather isn’t cooperating. Second, while I don’t have much really positive riding stuff to share I do have some updates that I wanted to share so I figured it made sense to post at this point.

The first update is that I actually did get a bit done at the barn over the last 10 days or so. I was able to make it out late not last week but the one before, on Saturday, and then again on Monday and I had my lesson last Tuesday! The bad news is that I forgot to bring riding clothes with me to work on Tuesday so I didn’t ride and instead K put a ride on Katai. However, it went really well and despite not riding much she was really impressed with the progress I’d made on my homework. T

he second update is that I audited a lesson two Thursdays ago for a fantastic, upper level, local trainer. I’m still figuring out what I’m going to do with K moving. For the short term I plan to stay and will try to make e/o week weekend lessons work. If they were weekdays it would be fine and I wouldn’t be that worried but I have a REALLY tough time fitting things in on the weekend so I’m worried about that. I’ve also been planning to increase my lessons this spring and either take weekly lessons, get more clinic time, or at least take more as needed so that we can officially progress up to second level.

Long term not only am I really sad to be losing my trainer but the farm I am at will also need to close at some point, likely, in the next few years. I don’t know (or understand) all of the details but the land was re-zoned as commercial so I signed on knowing that they had approx. 3 years at that point. The city may allow them to extend but if not, there will be a TON of displaced riders and horses all looking for space at the same time and I don’t want to deal with that. The two things together are causing me to look at new places despite wanting to be doing just about anything other than move Katai again.

She can't resist grabbing a bite of Alfalfa as we walk past

The good part of it? I really enjoyed the lessons I got to see. This person is very easy going but still firm, has their Gold medal so would be the most accomplished dressage show rider that I’ve had the chance to ride with, and is just fun and has a good sense of humor. Unfortunately she had a cold when I audited so was a little less chipper but still fun. The riders at that barn are very talented and I saw more upper level riders and horses there than I have at any other barn in a LONG time. The arena was also really nice, big, and had fantastic rubber mix footing. It was also really busy the entire time I was there from around 6-8:15 with at least 3-4 dressage riders in the arena at all times. I would ADORE being part of a community like that.

The less good? I’m on a waiting list with a few people ahead of me and it’s a tough place to get into since even if a sale horse there sells the new owners often keep it there. I’m also slightly nervous about the intensity. I feel like over the past few years I’ve discovered that there is a sweet spot for me where I can work, make progress, and be motivated but not shut down and still have fun. As I’ve had more things happen in my life outside of horses that balance has shifted slightly so while I REALLY want to ride consistently, make progress, blog more, and for heaven’s sakes finally show more!!! I’m also really conscious of the fact that if I swing too far into that sort of environment I may burn out and it might stop being fun. I’m doing a TON of thinking about the last point and still figuring out where/what type of barn I’d fit at best in the long run.

One big thing I’m considering is that J’s farm (not Jane although Jane’s was a close second) was my absolute favorite environment to be in. If J hadn’t been such a heavy handed person I would have stayed in a heartbeat. Part of me thinks that ever since being there I’m really looking for something similar and this place is so similar it’s eerie. Everything from the set-up of having a heated grooming area but unheated grooming area, to having more trails, to there being primarily dressage riders, to the level of the instructor (J had her silver medal when I was there but shortly after I left she got her gold), tack lockers, pasture board for most horses etc. It’s so similar. That is really encouraging. Add to that the fact that I had the most fun riding and made the most progress/was most motivated when I rode with J and Jane and I think this could be a fit. I've also asked my bf and he thinks I should go for it and I put a lot of stock in his opinion.

But I did get these cool socks. Consolation prize?

In other updates I also went to a tack sale at a great, local tack shop last night with K and another barn friend. That was awesome! Lots of horse talk and shopping. It's been a long time since I got to do something like that and I had so much fun. Again, making me even more sad that K is leaving :(