A Little Help from my Friends, Part 1

This last year has been a little crazy, even by my standards. We moved the barn to a winter home, then to our permanent home, then last month Doug and I moved ourselves into the cottage on the farm. Here's a few blogs about it all:

     First, last November. How was the move? Well....

     Then in June, SFD has a New Home

     Then July, What Have you Been up to? Well...

Now that things have settled down a bit, I find my mind wandering dangerously close to sentimental thoughts about SFD’s amazing community. They kept our barn afloat while we navigated some stressful seas. This blog is part one of a thank-you to these wonderful people.  If stress brings out people’s true characters, then this year showed me that SFD is made up of some truly wonderful people.

This summer, at a show, a member of the SFD family had a lousy day. We’ve all had them, those days when nothing goes right, and at a show, it seems even worse. I was standing at an uphill vantage point, and I watched as other members of the SFD community literally surrounded her and gave her a listening ear, words of encouragement, and all the moral support that a good barn is supposed to give. It was an awesome moment for me -- SFD operating as a supportive, nurturing community.  That was my goal when I hung my shingle 6 years ago.  Learning this sport is hard, on both physical and emotional levels, and a community of caring friends that understand makes finding the joy in the journey easier.

Even before that day, I knew that SFD is not about me, it is about everyone. SFD has grown beyond the original 9-stall barn, and beyond the fences of the SFD barn itself.  Every pull-in lesson student, every off-farm location student, is embraced as family when we meet at events.  I find this really, really cool.

This didn’t happen by accident, or as a solo act. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without help, as I am the queen of too-many-ideas-and-not-enough-time.  Two people in particular wandered in when I really needed their help. 

When SFD moved to Red Bridge in 2008, we decided to expand SFD to include student’s horses. Previously, I only took care of horses in training with me.  When Doug and I made the decision to expand, I was worried about two things – was I organized enough to keep everyone informed and the paperwork together, and do I have the personality to keep the barn functioning as a group?

Cheryle has been my solution to the first question. When she came on as a boarder, she filled out her paperwork with such attention to detail, I knew I was in the presence of a much more organized mind than my own.  Offering her the position of “office hero” was a no-brainer. Her constantly cheerful tone and much-better organization skills have gone a long way to keeping everyone informed of going-ons at the barn. Plus she happily keeps our records organized, a skill I, frankly, don’t want to take the time to get good at. She says she enjoys bookkeeping. That just doesn’t seem normal to me…

The second solution came a few months later, in Linda. One big concern I had when I started allowing student-boarders is clicks. To some degree, as a group gets larger, clumping-by-friendships is unavoidable, but I really didn’t want to have SFD divided along the “those who show” and “those who don’t.” Linda’s camera skills help draw the non-competing members into the show stories, and her party-organizing skills really help us gel as barn.  

Additionally, Linda came to dressage as an adult, so she understands the emotional ups-and-downs of the adult beginner, and is down right empathic about helping others through the emotional ropes of learning to ride, and then to show. Her tact and well-timed kind words offset my rather sarcastic communication style.  Plus she can organize all of the details of a show weekend, down to dinner reservations. 

So here’s a big thank-you to you two. I would be lost without you.

BLM Finals, 2011

On October 12, we loaded up Secret, Flash, Basil and James, along with their accompanying humans, and headed to the Garden State Classic/BLM Finals at NJ Horse Park.  Secret and I were slated for the 3^rd level Championship, Flash was entered in training level to continue learning to show, and Basil was making his dressage debut.

Living here in Region 1, so close to the boarder of Region 8, we have our pick of championship shows to attend. It seems like every year, either BLM Finals or Region 1 gets rained on. For the past few years, I’ve luckily picked the dry show. Not this year.

 This was Saturday, after the footing had  a day to dry out.
The mud is still up to her coronet band.

After all of the careful planning, calculated training agendas, well-timed shoeing and massage appointments, etc., Secret’s score in the championship class was determined by Mother Nature.  Thursday night the show grounds were flooded with rain, leaving the competition rings a slurry of sandy mud. 

Secret hates mud. Mud makes her tense.  Tension makes her over-reactive. She hates mud on her tummy. So she goes faster. She hates mud on her nose.  So she holds her neck high and tight, like the knight in a game of chess.

Again from Saturday. Chess piece neck, but still a
recognizable half-pass, even from the side.

Needless to say, being ran away with by an over-reactive chess piece isn’t exactly the dressage ideal, so her championship ride didn’t work out like we had hoped.  The judges comments were kind, and the scores were appropriate.   

The neat thing is Secret had one of her championship judges again the next day in her two open classes. As the footing dried out, Secret’s relaxation improved, and so did her scores.  Having the same judge 3 rides in a row, with each ride being very, very different,  and seeing that reflected in the scores tells me that the judge judged what she saw each ride.  As a competitor, I can’t ask for anything more. 

By Sunday, Mother Nature had returned Secret’s sunshiny personality, and her score was back up where it has been all season.  With the exception of the championship class, Secret placed well against the warmbloods, bringing home a fifth and two thirds. 

Check it out - completely airborn.

Flash, on the other hand, seems to be a mudder.  Her reaction to the mud on her tummy was to bounce higher.  Linda caught an awesome photo of Flash with all four feet off of the ground.  Her bouncing brought home the a red ribbon.

Unfortunately, Flash put so much into bouncing out of the mud that her back became more and more tired as the weekend progressed.  Her back fatigue showed in her scores, which weren’t as high as the last show, but she was much more ridable in every class, which is no small feat for the turbo-pinto mare.  She was also much more relaxed overall  at this show—we could ride every class without needing a ring-side equine baby sitter.  Flash has really learned how to show this season. I’ll focus on getting her back stronger over the winter, and we’ll see what next season brings.

It's a little out of focus, but what an amazing canter!

Basil didn’t compete until Saturday, and by then Friday’s blustery wind had dried the footing considerably.  He is a super young man, with a laid-back workman-like personality and a body built for dressage. He handled all of the show chaos like a seasoned veteran, and was obedient and willing in both tests. He scored mid 60’s in both classes, tying for second on Saturday and bringing home blue on Sunday.  Rebecca and Dennis bred Basil as a family project. The pride in their eyes at watching their baby grow up was really fun to be a part of.

SFD students have also been rocking the show ring recently.  Rebecca and James ended a strong first season with a good BLM show, Kristen and Clyde brought home red from the Thorncroft event, Alexa and Mi Alma had a great ride at Devon and were FCDA intro level and thoroughbred champions, Jess and Mo brought home ribbons from FCDA, and I’ve heard rumors that Paige aboard Maggie and Ericka aboard Stella have been cleaning up over fences.  Plus I can’t forget Bethany and Willy who have been tearing it up at the medieval mounted games events.  Dressage cross trains into other disciplines so well, but more of that in a later blog. I have asked several students to write a few paragraphs; I’m sure we’ll hear from them soon.   

Coming Soon

Dear Blog,

I am sorry. I have been neglecting you.  Between boxing up the house, moving the house, un-boxing the house, competing and attending Dressage at Devon, a wonderful weekend visit from my closest friend, and BLM finals this weekend, I just haven't given you the time you deserve. But as the old Willy Nelson song goes, "you were always on my mind." So brace yourself, soon, very soon, all of the ideas bouncing around in my head will flesh-out the outlines saved on my phone. I promise, your time of neglect will end very soon.

Respectfully,
Your over-scheduled Blog-Writer.

My Thoughts on Showing

I show a lot, in everything from little schooling shows to breed-specific shows to regional championships. Between shows, I wear the hats of trainer, instructor, coach, and L graduate. My students range from their first show to seasoned FEI riders. This gives me a rather wide-ranging perspective, and from this perspective, I wish I could say a few things to competitors. Since this is my blog, heck, I think I will.

This is supposed to be fun.  Keep that in mind as you plan your show season and prepare for each show. What is fun for you? Is it blue ribbons? Then be sure you are confirmed at the level you are competing, and don’t enter your well-loved heart-of-gold quarter horse in an Olympic qualifying show. 

First, the level you choose to enter. Most riders loose 30-40% of their polish when they step into the show ring. If you want that blue more than you want oxygen, then you need to be blue-ribbon worthy on an average day, not only on your “best-ride-ever” day. Chances are, show stress isn’t going to bring out you or your horse’s best, especially if you are worried about the trot lengthening. So set yourself up by going down the centerline knowing that you and your horse are not just competent at the level, you are dang good at it.

Second, the shows you choose to enter. If blue is the goal, stick to smaller, non-national-team qualifying shows. Even if you aren’t competing FEI yet, the Olympic contenders show up with their whole barn, which means the 2016 hopeful may be in your class. Just watching those amazing animals in warm up is pretty intimidating. But if “fun” for you is putting Mr. Heart-of-Gold against the big boys to see how he compares, by all means, go for it. Frankly, that is how I define fun, so I do it all the time. Doing this, I rarely bring home the blue, but I know how my horse stacks against the big boys. And once in a while we steal the blue. That, for me, is fun.

Showing is 50% preparation and 50% luck.  We can only control so many things in this sport. We can’t control the weather, the order of the class, the arena we are assigned, or the naughty neighbor dog who comes tearing alongside your class proudly carrying the awards-table table cloth in his mouth. 

One thing you can control is how well you know your test. Memorize your test until you can recite it in your sleep.  Memorize not only the pattern, but how you will ride that pattern. Ride the separate parts of your test, then the whole test, then the parts again, until your mind and body have it cold. If your horse learns the pattern, all the better--if he is in the habit of heading deep into the corners or beginning a circle at B, you can add impulsion and balance while he's doing the steering.

If you have a lot of tests to learn, or fight with show nerves, memorize your test inside-out, then use a reader. In our barn, we have policy of whomever goes off course has to buy the entire show group ice cream. This year, with all of the new tests, I, unfortunately, have picked up the ice cream tab more times than I care to admit. My excuse is I am in the ring from training to PSG this year, but in reality, I just need to make myself take more time memorizing tests. It is something I can control.

Appreciate your support system. Showing is important to you, or you wouldn’t give up your time and your money. Your family has to pick up your weekend laundry duty, and your show friends have to deal with your neurotic pre-show habits. These things are an inevitable part of showing, so be nice to them. Greet them with “good morning.” Say “thank you.” Smile. Buy them a beer or an ice cream. You need these people to make your dreams come true, so appreciate them, even if the judge didn’t appreciate your ride.

You don’t have to compete to excel in dressage. I know this is an odd thing to say in a blog about competing, but it is true. Competing is a completely different skill set than riding, or taking a lesson.  I have a student who showed a few times, and then quit showing.  She still takes lessons and clinics, and really loves her horses. Her opinion on showing – why would she spend all of that money, get all stressed out in an expensive outfit, to get a stranger’s opinion that she may or may not agree with. For her, that doesn’t increase her enjoyment of her horse.  So she doesn’t do it. Which brings us to my next point.

The judge isn’t always correct. Yes, I said it, in print. Lightning has not struck me dead yet.  Frankly, competitors, expecting a judge to be correct in every decision, every ride, really isn’t fair. These judges are making 12-40 decisions every 6-8 minutes. That kind of concentration is really, really hard. When I sit in the judge’s booth for a day, I am TIRED.  I, and every judge I have talked to, scribed for, or sat in a judge’s training session with, tries their best to give each competitor a fair, constructive report on the ride they watched. And sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes the mistakes are in the competitor’s favor, and sometimes they aren’t.  I probably see as many Christmas gifts on score sheets as I see Scrooges.

That being said, there are times when judges do overstep their boundaries. Judges only have the right to comment on what they can see. Judges who make blanket statements about the horse, in my opinion, overstep their boundaries. I understand that the personality type attracted to judging is, by definition, judgmental, but to write on score sheet that a particular horse is “limited by genetics” (yep, I really did get that on a score sheet) is inappropriate. Especially when I, and pretty much every other judge, has disagreed. Thankfully, the horse’s owner and I both follow my next advice.

Don’t let anyone change your opinion of your horse. This is your horse, and I’m guessing you really love him. You probably love the way his nose feels, the way he makes funny faces when you groom the right spots, the way he nickers when he knows you have carrots. Don’t let some stranger who sits in a box change that. You can be disappointed in your performance together, but don’t let that change how you feel about him. Your horse didn’t choose to come to a horse show. He’d probably prefer 5 lush grassy acres to a nervous rider obsessing over a transition at a scary flower-topped letter box. He does it because you ask. That alone is worthy of affection.

Happy Birthday to Me

The third week of July was a mess – Silly needed to be confirmed in foal, and I needed to do a few things, namely, finalize the lease on the additional pasture land, move a new boarder in, pick up a new-to-us barn fridge, take Secret and Venus down for lessons with Scott on Wednesday, and, the biggie, I had to find a truck to replace Big Blue before I lost my rental truck on Friday, July 22. My birthday.  Great. Everyone asked what I was doing for my birthday, and my reply was the same—wipe out my “to-do” list.  I figured if I survived the week, turning 40 wasn’t an issue at all.

Monday I called several car dealerships, to try to narrow my list. Tuesday, after I moved the new horse in, I test drove several trucks (and scared one salesman by describing the repairs the truck needed…yea, I know I am female, but I know what failing ball joints sound like, and failing struts. No, you don’t need to talk to my husband).  Every time I got in a truck, I wondered, “Will I feel comfortable pulling the horses in this truck?” A few of the trucks had features I liked, but none were really ideal. I called my mechanic uncle, and he managed to systematically rule out just about every truck on my list.  Meanwhile, the clock was ticking.

Wednesday, I interrupted truck shopping for my monthly trip to Hassler Dressage.  Linda, Kelsey and I loaded up Venus and Secret. I had several questions about Secret’s training path, and was eager for his eyes on Venus’ progress.  Both mares feel significantly more balanced and Venus has been more willing, but working on my own, I wanted to make sure they looked as good as they felt.

The answer, for both mares, was “yes.”  Scott was very complimentary of the improvements in both horses, and gave me tons of homework for Secret in particular.  Up until now, Secret has followed Eclipse’s training path with stunning accuracy.  But now her path diverges, and with his help, her next few month’s training plan is now mapped out.  

By Thursday I had given up on finding what I wanted, and was trying to decide what I could settle for. Then Doug found my truck on the internet. It was exactly what I was looking for. Just before I left for the dealership to test drive the truck, Leslie, from Trevelyan Farm, texted with the happy news that Silly is expecting.   I headed out to see the truck, and yep, it was exactly what I was looking for.  I negotiate the price, and arranged to get the rental returned and the new truck picked up on Friday.

Then Doug and I went to dinner. I let our favorite bartender pick my traditional birthday beverage, a tasty Belgium beer, and a friendly couple picked up my last beer.  The musician started playing a Jimmy Buffett cover, and I was feeling quite fulfilled. 

I don’t expect people to make a fuss over my birthday, so I really didn’t notice when no one did.  When Berks County Pony Clubbers asked for lessons late on the following Friday evening at Vue de Lue barn, which incidentally isn’t where I normally teach them, I honestly wasn’t suspicious at all.  I started to wonder a little when Wendy said there were 8 or 9 students at 8 pm on a Friday, and when I was told not to eat since there would be food at the Pony Club meeting, but I still arrived in full teacher mode.

I finally caught on when everyone came out of the barn yelling “SURPRISE.”

Yea, I can be kinda slow……

The party had a circus theme.  The Derrs had gone all out decorated their barn, and Doug had photoshopped my face into circus posters.  Dawn, Alexa’s mom, put together a scrap book with photos of students with their horses all circus-ed up.  I now knew why Kelsey’s horse, Buzz, had huge yellow stains on him for a week (he was tye-dyed in the photo), and why I wasn’t supposed to ask about the sparkly garland on Cheryle’s helmet or knotted glitzy stuff into Karison’s forelock.   Seems strange is kinda normal around our barn…

I wish my legs were that long!!

The sheer amount of time and creativity offered by everyone completely blew me away.

Thank you all very much, for the most amazing, memorable party I have had since Mom dropped my birthday cake in Jr high.  I’m not sure when, but sometime in the last 10 years, Pennsylvania has become home, in large part because of my amazing family of students. You guys rock my world.

What have you been up to? Well….

I admit my life gets pretty crazy, especially this time of year.  This year is particularly crazy. Of course, everyone knows about our move. But underneath that headline news, my mare, Silly, decided to go lame, and then Big Blue Truck was smashed by a rouge Honda. Meanwhile, the normal business of the show season has been rolling along. 

So, put the events in order, a couple of weeks before our move, Silly went lame. Silly, officially known as Anisette, is my big, wonderful black Hanoverian mare that I bought a couple of years ago. I have known Silly since she was 4, and loved her since I met her. I don’t mention her much in the blog, because “Silly is working great, trying hard and making steady progress” is kind of boring reading. Around the barn, she is known as “the good girl.” She is smart, talented and tries too hard. I’ve always said she would go broken, and apparently I was right.

In May, my good girl started feeling a little funky.  She went from funky to oh-my-goodness-she-is-lame so quickly that I thought she was going to abscess in her right front foot. We soaked, but nothing blew. Dr. Crowley did a nerve block, a very-localized anesthetic that numbs specific regions to help find out where exactly the pain is, and pain went away when we numbed the toe/coffin joint region, so she suggested an ultrasound.

While Secret was scaring the warmbloods and Sling was sorting out his show nerves at the Memorial Day show in NJ, Dr. Lewis performed an ultrasound on her right front pastern. Her soft tissue looked great. So Dr. C came back out, and we x-rayed, and nothing of significance showed up. So we blocked again, this time specifically numbing the coffin joint, and Silly jogged off sound.  

Then, while Secret was giving a career-best 3^rd level performance and Sling was struggling with his balance from a recent growth spurt and trying to convince me he needed to stop every time he needed to poo ("no, Sling-a-ling, you can't stop in the middle of a dressage test, the judges don't like that") at Ride For Life, Dr. C injected the coffin joint. I came home with high hopes of bringing my super-fun girl back to work as soon as we returned. No such luck. Injecting the coffin joint made no difference at all, so Dr. C recommended an MRI of that foot.

We scheduled it for the following Friday, as Wednesday I was scheduled to don my tail coat for Eclipse’s Prix St. Georges debut at Suddenly Farm. He did a respectable job for blue, despite my major “oops” – I memorized the old PSG test, not the new 2009 version.

The following Monday, I received the results of the MRI, and bingo, we found the problem. In the sagittal plane of her right front foot, the MRI showed a subchondral bone defect in the distal phalanx. In layman’s terms, in the center of her coffin joint, well away from the edges that show in an x-ray, she has a bump where there should be a smooth surface. Most likely, this bump has been there since birth, and being the good girl that she is, she as figured out how to get the job done despite the discomfort. But over time, the bump has smashed into the bone below it, and it has done its damage.

By now it was late June, so I made a few frantic calls to Dr. Crowley to be sure that this sort of issue wasn’t hereditary, followed by another frantic call to Leslie Feakins out at Trevelyan Farm to manage the breeding, and Hilltop Farm to secure my stallion choice (Bugatti), and sent Silly off to see about making her a mommy. Our timing was good—she arrived at Trevelyan with a follicle about ready to breed, and proceeded to produce not one, but two more follicles (did I mention that she is an overachiever?). Hopefully one of them will combine with Bugatti’s offering. Next Thursday we will find out if she is indeed pregnant.

But the fun didn’t stop there.

A week after I took Silly out to Trevalyn, I was driving down 113, minding my own business, when a red Honda CRV decided it needed to cross the road at that exact moment. Honda vs F250? The truck won the battle, breaking the CRV’s axle and protecting me in the same moment.

Between Enterprise Commercial Truck Rental and the insurance companies, I managed to rent a proper pulling vehicle to get Secret, Paradoks, Linda, Aneesa and I to the AHA Region 15 Championships that Friday. The show was tons of fun, and Ted worked his magic -- Aneesa and Paradoks brought home a Top 5 at training level, and Secret earned the title of 3^rd level champion. 

Although the battle went to Big Blue, the war went to the insurance company. Last Friday they totaled her out and left me frantically truck shopping, as the insurance company will only pay for the rental for another week. Hopefully, I will find Big Blue’s replacement in time for the Gunnar Ostergaard clinic next weekend. If not, we have back-up plans to get Secret and Sling to the festivities. 

So, in short, expect a naming-party for the new truck, and a clinic report in the near future. Assuming things don’t go any more crazy than they already are….

And Now, a Word About our Sponsors

In late 2009, when I sat down to work out plans for 2010, one item on the list was to try to sort out this whole “sponsorship” thing.  Then, as followers of the blog know, thanks to the passing of my landlord in late December 2009, 2010 was a flurry of relocation stress, that concluded with our recent move to our new home.  But somehow, even with this chaos going on, I managed to find two really super sponsors.

As I was wrapping my head around what being sponsored meant, I couldn’t help but think about the sponsor/athlete relationship.  I wanted sponsors that I would be really proud to ride for. Sponsors whose products and services were as high-quality and well-thought-out as the care and training I give my horses.  In short I wanted sponsors I believe in.

Which lead me to my two sponsors.  I am really proud to represent both Custom Saddlery and Zephyr’s Garden products.

Custom Saddlery

Custom Saddlery became my sponsor in late 2010.  I will freely admit I feel like I've hit the big time when I see my name on their rather-prestigious list of "Custom Saddlery Sponsored Riders." 

I have been working with Fred That, VP of Custom Saddlery, for a while now. Whenever I have a student ready to purchase a saddle, I try very hard to be as cost-conscious as possible. We scour the internet and the tack stores, looking for something that both horse and rider can live with, until we are totally frustrated. Then we call Fred, there, tucked in the depths of his trailer, lies the perfect saddle. With only one exception, Fred has been able to make every horse’s back happy and the rider balanced. Which, in my barn, with everything from 13.2 ponies to 18.1 warmbloods, is pretty impressive.

Even more impressive is how Fred approached the one horse, Eclipse, who put his nose up at Custom Saddles. Eclipse likes this old, beat-up, patched, too-big-for-me brown Albion HR. Fred has put my antique piece of tack back together twice now. Last month, when he had it in to restitch the underside and patch the newest hole, he took a good look at how the underside was built to figure out why Eclipse goes so well in that old saddle, and he figured it out – in Eclipse’s case, it has to do with how the billets attach to the tree. I suspect Eclipse’s billet preferences will show up in a future Custom Saddlery model.

Taking the time to figure out “why” showed Fred’s dedication to excellence and his problem-solving mind that will find the solution, even if it means thinking outside of the box. That kind of thinking shows in all of the Custom Saddle designs, and makes me feel honored to hang their banner at our tack stall.

Zephyr's Garden

I really didn’t pick Zephyr’s Garden to approach for a sponsorship, Venus did. Which is only fitting, since Zephyr’s Garden is named after the horse, Zephyr, who is lovingly plastered all over their advertising. 

Venus, my red mare, has her opinions about everything. She is sweet, wonderful, hardheaded, talented, temperamental, affectionate, and opinionated- - in short, a chestnut mare. I have worked with her naturally-distrustful nature since she was a baby, and have almost made her into a “normal” horse. She will stand politely in crossties, self load in a trailer, and even go into a strange wash rack with minimal delays. But we never have conquered fly spray.

I spent weeks desensitizing her to a spray bottle filled with water, but the minute I switched it to actual flyspray, she began to dance, tremble, then exit. I concluded that it must be some chemical in the fly spray. I tried several brands, and the only one she would stand for was a super-watered-down herbal mix that seemed to attract flies, not repel them. So she turns out wrapped in every available fly barrier garment, but hacking out in the summer is just no fun.

A friend suggested I try Zephyr’s Garden. She went as far as contacting the company to get a free trial for me.  As I’m sure you can figure out, Venus will tolerate it. As of now, we wipe it on instead of spray, but I see a future day where she is letting me spray her like a normal horse. I switched all of my horses to it--I really like that Amy and I are not inhaling all of those chemicals every time we try to give them some fly relief.

Then Linda saw the bottle floating around the barn, and started in investigate other Zephyr’s Garden products. Secret gives Linda and I fits every year with her itchy reaction to every fly that touches her. She rubs her tail to frazzled baldness every summer. Linda has tried just about every product on the market, and when she saw that Zephyr’s Garden has anti-itch products, she couldn’t get her order in fast enough. Secret also approves of Zephyr’s products, and proudly sported a smooth tail in her victory gallop at the Region 15 Championship last weekend. In short, this stuff works.

Thank you, Custom Saddlery and Zephyr’s Garden. Your products are truly excellent.