Fruits of Our Labor

Riding is about horses, but the horse industry is all about the people.  I work hard to make our barn a safe, drama-free community where riders get a break from the stress and emotions of daily life.  I dare say, the teenagers need this as much, if not more than, the adult amateurs.

I’m sure this goes back to my own teenage years. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Overtime, the big event horse I leased throughout high school, went a long way towards channeling my wild-child side. And as important as Overtime, Diane and Fred Peterson, his owners, became my “horse show parents.” They filled the roll of the “cool adults” in my life.  You know, that person who magically shows up with logical advice about the time your parents become impossible, illogical humans you are forced to live with until college.  Without their help, who knows how I would have turned out.

I try to return the favor. I try to be the listening ear when needed and to be the giver of sage, or not-so-sage, advice (don’t change yourself for anyone, learn to drive while eating ice cream, live life for the stories as well as the goals), and sometimes some of it sticks.   

Teenagers have a habit of growing up.  One of the kids from years past is already married with 2 kids, and three others are tying the knot in 2012.  Last weekend I attended one of the weddings.  I haven’t seen Victoria since last June, but the warm reception from both her and her parents confirmed I was as important to Victoria as Diane and Fred were to me. I admit I am sentimentally happy to have been a part of her, and frankly, all of my horse teenagers growing-up years.

I stayed in the area and judged a fix-a-test the next day, and her father stopped by to show me the latest award that had arrived from USDF. “The fruits of your labor,” he called it. 

“No,” I corrected him, “a good grown-up is the fruits of our labor.” 


And that really is how I see it.  My horses, and the people that surround them, inspire me every day to be not only the best rider I can be, but a more compassionate, understanding person. If I can help pass a little bit of this on to our next generation, hopefully they will remember the lessons, both in and out of the stirrup.  


They say it takes a village to raise a child, I'm glad I can be part of that community. Congratulations Victoria and Angel, Samantha and Ryan, and Lisa and Skylar, and I wish you all many happy years together. Now it's your turn to be the village for the next group of young people trying to become good grown-ups. 

  

The calm before the storm

Like any business, the horse business has its busy times and its slow times.  My slow times seem to be rather limited the last few years – January is usually pretty quiet, but by February the winter short-term training horses usually arrive, which means busy, but busy at home.  In March and April our area usually has some pretty fun clinics, involving busy days, but again, mostly I get to sleep in my own bed.  But then, in April show season picks up, and things roll along until the first weekend in November.

Which means right now I am enjoying the calm before the storm. But I’m not so sure Amy and Kelsey are…

Because when I have time, I think too much, and come up with lots of great ideas, which, of course, trickle down to Amy and Kelsey’s job lists.  The big items in the last two weeks have been organizing, leveling stalls, and parasite management.

Working for a red-headed hyper type-A dressage geek means that down time usually means organize.  I HATE looking for things, and with 22 horses, keeping things neat is a daily challenge.  Hence whenever SFD has down-time, I pull out my p-touch label maker and go nuts. Everything needs a place, and if things return to their place, then the order in our tack room defies the disorder in my thoughts. 

With the spring organizing comes the spring pitch-session. We did a respectable job getting things clean before the clinic, but now I’m taking it a step further.  The back cubbies get sorted out and extra stuff stored up stairs, taken to Equine Exchange, or tossed.  Systems for efficient storage need purchased and put into place.  That squirt bottle that we don’t use because it sticks now lives in the garbage instead of on top of the water heater. Clutter goes away. 

The stalls also get addressed this time of year. I don’t care for stall mats, which means we must routinely add screenings to keep stalls level.  When we are in there, we also spray the walls down with dilute bleach to kill any ascarids that may be using a stall for breeding – which is part of our parasite program.

A big part of the worm program is the spring pasture cleaning. So far, we have cleaned 3 of our 10 smaller fields completely and are picking them weekly.  On the 1^st, I’ll rent a big trailer and everyone will pitch in to get the two huge pastures cleaned.  I do this because worms can’t breed inside of the host, which means if we can eliminate Mr. Parasite from meeting Mrs. Parasite in our fields, then there are less expecting Mrs. Parasites to re-infest our fields, and then re-infest our horses. 

I have been picking paddocks and pastures as long as SFD has been around, and it has paid off. This year we did fecal counts on all of the horses, and (yes, I am bragging here) any horse that has been in my care for more than a year was essentially clean.  Which means we only need to worm these guys twice this year, and save the stress that worming products put on their systems and on the environment.

Then, on April 7, the show season begins. And Amy and Kelsey can get a break.  I'm sure they are looking forward to it.

Clinic Preparations

I like riding in clinics. Investing in my education is really important to me. I enjoy seeing what another dressage pro does with the raw material I work with every day, having an additional set of eyes to catch the inevitable training holes from working on my own, and getting to meet other  like-minded horse folks. 

I was helping one of my endurance friends (she rides 100 miles. Seriously. 100 miles is for cars.) at a race, and someone complained about something, I really don’t remember what, and my friend replied “you really don’t have the right to complain until you have organized a race.”  I thought that was sage advice, so I try to host at least one clinic a year. Because let me tell you, hosting is very different than riding.

This year, again in partnership with OVCTA, we are hosting Phebe DeVoe, a popular ‘r’ judge and FEI trainer based in MD. I like Phoebe a lot, her positive attitude and fun personality make her great to stable near at shows. 

The clinic is this Saturday, and it is full with a waiting list (YEA!) and we expect auditors. So of course, the spring cleaning has commenced. This is also our first major event at our new home, so we want everything to look really spiffy.

Amy and Kelsey have been sweeping, scrubbing, and organizing.  Our barn has stalls at the end of the indoor, with overhead hay storage, which Kelsey creatively stacked it into stadium seating.  We moved the winter blanket storage to make room for refreshments. I made myself stay inside part of this GORGEOUS week to make a schedule and a program and a blog about the clinic. I took the opportunity to purchase a wireless headset system to the riders can clearly hear Phoebe.  I have been prepping my students as to how to prioritize their warm-up, how to stay organized and on time as you get ready, and how to get a tail really, really clean. 

So it is now Friday, day before the clinic, and SFD is pretty much ready.  All we have left to do is the final arena footing prep and make the order-of-event sheet for the staff (yea, I’m anal like that). And post a blog and constant contact. And make sure Phoebe and the auditors lunch is picked up. And ride. Oh yea, ride.

I actually get a bit more nervous for clinics than I do for competition – clinicians evaluate my training process, judges judge the finished product.  The “finished product” includes factors the horse brought with it when they arrived in training – genetics, previous training, inherent crookedness, etc. so I feel like I am responsible for about 50% of the score.  But the training process? That’s all on me.

This time, my barn organization and stable management are also on display, an additional stress absent from clinics I trailer out to. 

At this point, 24-hours from start time, my attitude towards clinic organizers is one of amazement. How do they do this if they work a full-time job and don’t have an Amazing Amy or a Kick-butt Kelsey to help? I am suddenly quite patient that the ride times aren’t available until the week of the clinic and that the parking isn’t clearly marked.

So my friend was right, organizing a clinic does cure all complaints.

Let the rides begin!

Mastering Habits

 Several years ago, I attended Gil Merrik’s Mastery Class down at Hassler Dressage. I almost didn’t sign up, as the name “Mastery Class” seemed a bit touchy-feely-vague for my tastes, but I got the impression they were a bit short on people, and I had the day free, so thought I’d be a good egg and attend. 

Boy, am I glad I went.  I was pretty blown away by how much I got out of that day. Now, years later, I still refer to my notes from Gil’s class.  Last week, in preparation for our annual “Show Goals and Planning Party,” I again reread those notes, and realized that when I applied one part of Gil’s class, I reaped unexpected results.

The part I am referring to is Gil’s discussion about moving goals forward.  He talked about taking goal planning one step further, and creating a process for achieving those goals. He explained his process, which involved making a commitment, applying certain actions to that commitment, and getting results.  He had a nifty white-board to draw all of these circles and arrows on (my notes actually call this ‘the circle thingy for goals’), but I am limited a bit by the media, so I’ll do my best to explain it in words.

It starts like this:

            Commitment + action = results

According to Gil, when commitments match up with actions, trust and integrity are created.

Underneath it all, I am a practical Midwestern girl, and I remember rolling my eyes (inside, of course—once I hit my mid 30s I learned to do that, well, sort of) at Gil’s whole discussion of creating trust and integrity. Integrity is all well and good, but not very measurable, so I had a hard time correlating “integrity” with the more concrete, usually-quite-measurable “goal.” 

Aside from that, the next part really resonated with me. He said the problem with this equation is not the results, it is taking the stand.

Because by taking the stand, I could, by definition, fail. Without a stand, there is no failure. But with a stand, there is. Failure is scary. And let’s face it, fear can easily lead to creating stories. As kids, how many stories did we tell to avoid punishment? But a story is not an action, and when we replace action with story, we get our second equation:

Commitment + story = no results

But the bigger problem is, in our culture -

                        no results + a good story = kinda looks like results

But that's not true. 

                        In reality, no result + a story = no results. 

According to Gil, in this situation, there's no integrity and no trust.  He stated that taking responsibility for our words and commitments needs to matter to us.  Which I agreed with, but I’m kinda hard wired to “say what you mean, and mean what you say,” so again, I didn’t find the integrity part all that earth shattering. But seeing how clearly stories can derail results, well, that did resonate.

Gil went further. He said the additional danger of the story is it is based on your history, your past and your experiences, not necessarily all of the facts.  This may be incomplete info, but we perceive it as THE TRUTH, and boy, is it easy to fall in love with THE TRUTH – just look at all of the different religions, exercise nuts, health food advocates, the list goes on.  Once someone has fallen in love with TRUTH, we will defend our truth. A quick look at the current political climate confirms this. TRUTH is really easy to commit to, but then actions line up with the story, instead of with the commitment, which leads to no results. Which is all too common.

Last week, as I re-read the notes, I realized I had applied Gil’s process of moving goals forward to Venus, and in large part, that process had been as much a part of her rehab as the vet services.

Here’s how it applies to me—I bought Venus, and told everyone that I was going to do FEI Young Horse with her and then take her to Prix St George, which meant I needed help. So I took my first lesson with Scott Hassler, the USEF Young Horse coach.  That was my action to support my commitment.  I did my homework, and returned for regular lessons.

Before you get to thinking “well, she had this great opportunity and this great horse, of course that’s what she did.” Yea, no.  Venus was the best horse I could afford, and my budget was very, very small.  I could afford a nice front end, a nice back end, or a nice brain. I went for the back end, but the problems came out with her fearful, slightly tense brain. She ran through my aids A LOT as a youngster. 

Plus, have you seen the horses at Hassler’s? Hasslers arena was, and is, full of beautiful horses, being ridden by beautiful riders who seem never to move, or have ineffective aids, or get frustrated, and I was just trying to steer and stop enough to not run into them.

Many, many times I nearly quit going. I nearly bought into the stories I told myself -- I’m just a poor working horseperson just trying to get along, not like the rich, pretty riders down there, or I can’t afford to give up 6 hours, I could get a lot done, etc.   But I didn’t, not because of integrity, or honesty, or any other abstract term.  I kept going because going down there every-other Wednesday became a pattern, and everyone knew that was my pattern, and would ask about my lessons, which, of course, reinforced the pattern. Soon, that pattern became a habit.

After a while, that habit began to yielded results—Venus started to become more consistent in her responses, I started to develop a bit of confidence, and she and I competed in the FEI 5-year-old division. So for me, Gil’s equation began to look more like this:

            Commitment + action = habit = more commitment + more actions = results

Then Venus got hurt. I did the rehab, and put her back in training.  Frankly, I wasn't hopeful of her becoming an FEI horse. I bought into the story that she had done a lot of damage to her body, and probably wouldn’t make it.

But aside from that story, I had a habit. I was in the habit of climbing on her back and heading to the ring every day, and putting her in the trailer and heading down for Scott’s help on a regular basis. So I kept up my habit.

Last winter her training became really, really frustrating, but again, my habit was to take her in the arena, so I kept going.  When I was off of her, I would lament about her lack of progress, but my habit was strong, and I just kept putting my foot in the stirrup and swinging a leg over.

And somewhere, when I was doing what was habitual, Venus began to blossom.  She has become the light, forward, delightful horse I dreamed of when I bought her, and our short-term goal became to compete 3^rd level this year, with goals of moving up in the future.

All because of mastering a habit.

            

Will Ride for Food

I love my job. I spend my life riding and caring for a bunch of really wonderful horses. When I tell people what I do, I get a look of envy from them.  “You are so lucky to get to do what you love,” they say, and frankly, I agree with them. I have the amazing luxury of loving the way I earn my groceries.

But there’s a side of me that feels really guilty for spending my life doing something so self-indulgent. I learned social consciousness at my grandmother’s knee, and growing up with a single mom, I remember the winter she had pneumonia and couldn’t work. The grocery gift boxes fed us.

I firmly believe that everyone should give back to their community, so last Saturday SFD held their first “Open Training” session. In it, I sat on Mandy, my young Morgan mare, and did my best to explain what was going on in my mind while I trained her.  The cost of admission was a donation to the Chester County Food Bank.

Thank you everyone who came. I hope you got something out of the training, and I know the people who will get the food will also thank you.

Winter Workshop 2012

By Cheryle Oshman Blunt

I can remember when I was about 10-12 years old, I would sit for hours every spring reading the descriptions of horseback riding camps for kids my age.  I was very dedicated to choosing just the right one.  Did I want to swim in the pond with “my” horse every day, or did I want the camp where we would jump and jump and jump?  I knew even as I pored over those brochures that we did not have enough money to supplement my weekly riding lessons with an expensive camp experience, but it was still a dream.

A few years ago when Ange started talking about adult dressage camp, my excitement bordered on the ridiculous.  I told my husband that all I wanted for Christmas was to go to horse camp.  Of course, we call it a winter workshop, but you couldn’t fool me, I was finally going to horse camp.  Believe me, I wasn’t disappointed.

In the last couple of years, I have my role has shifted from participant to staff. We have some younger riders who participate these days, but most of my time is spent with the adults.  And what I see is pretty special.  I see a weekend when a bunch of grown-ups get to immerse themselves in their passion.  I see people who leave their limitations behind – time limits, physical limits, and the limits of self-consciousness – to grow as dressage riders.  Actually, we all grow as equestrians.

This year’s workshop had tons variety, from silly to serious.   On the less-traditional-dressage side, we formed a semi-circle around a shivering woman in jingly hip scarves who taught us to isolate our abdominal muscles. Sure, she called belly dancing, but we weren’t fooled.  “We call that lead changes,” Ange said, as we popped one hip to the side and then the other. 

That wasn’t all. Later on that day, I watched riders grab swords, spears, and lances to try their hands and their horses’ hooves at lobbing heads (well, foam mannequin heads) and pig sticking (or, spearing tape-covered pieces of foam).  Needless to say, there was a lot of laughter that day.

In the mounted work, I saw many riders stretching their riding skills in private, group, and seat lessons.  Throughout the weekend, everyone was taught by Ange, Cara, and Kelsey, getting different perspectives and different words to help them progress as riders. And boy did they.

The unmounted events catered to dressage geek skills, overall horsemanship skills, and fun skills. The mounted upper-level dressage demonstration and the “how confirmation effects training” theory session satisfied the dressage geeks in the group. Learning to take a horse’s temperature, pulse, and respiration, as well as how to wrap a horse and get tack pony-club clean, satisfied overall horsemanship skills.  Then there was goal setting, and the history of those Medieval mounted games to round it all out.

At the end of each day, riders and horses went to bed tired and happy, to return next morning full of smiles and coffee.  In all honesty, I’m glad that my camp experience has come to me as an adult.  It’s sweeter now than it would have been during my childhood.  Whether I participate or teach, full days at the barn surrounded by horses and friends who share my passion is an exquisite luxury I can appreciate keenly.  Thanks, Ange, Cara, and Kelsey.  And thanks to all who came.

Red Mare Update

Several people have asked about Venus’ progress, as I have been a bit silent about it lately.  Frankly, I was afraid to jinx her very steady progress, but at this year’s Winter Workshop, we looked at videos of her at 4, 5, 6, and from December, and I was really pleased with what I saw. To paraphrase Denny Emerson’s latest book, training progress is like grass --you don’t see it growing until it needs cut.

To recap (and save you time digging through old blogs), I purchased Venus as a 2 ½ year old. She proved to be a tricky youngster because of her very fearful nature.  Dressage training did what it was supposed to do, giving her more confidence, enough to compete in the young dressage horse FEI classes as a 4-and-5-year-old, and by age 6 she was really coming into her own, giving me a red ribbon in Suitablity at Dressage at Devon. 

In March of her 7-year-old year, I was letting her run around in the indoor (we had been stall bound for weeks from crazy amounts of snow – it snowed over 70 inches that winter), and she tried to jump out. She didn’t make it.  Yea, it was ugly.  “The Crash,” as we call it in the barn, did quite a bit of damage, and took a lot of time off, hand walking, slow rehab, and crossed fingers hoping she would come back 100%. 

Last January, almost 2 years after her accident, I had spent 3 days at with Scott Hassler trying to find my “before the crash” mare. Our mixed results left me pretty disheartened. Two weeks after, she gave me 5 minutes of amazing—it was like a pin-prick of light at the far end of a very long tunnel.  

In February, six frustrating, doubt-ridden weeks later, we returned to Scott.  Some days she’d be cooperative and soft in her body, other days diving onto the forehand and locking her neck.  He saw signs of progress, so advised I stay on the same path, but the little light at the end of the tunnel had taken on a frustrating strobe-light feature.   

 

We muddled along this way until April, with a frustrating cycle of her cruising along, looking pretty, but feeling very flat and unresponsive, and then be really good and quick-off-of-the-aids for a while.  I would think we were past her “staleness,” as Scott termed it in February, only to have it show up again a few rides later.  My other mounts were progressing consistently, but my own horse was consistently inconsistent.  Despite all of the other horse’s progress, Venus’ lack of progress had me feeling like a failure as a trainer. 

Because of the dramatic trauma she had inflicted on her body, I worried that the problem was physical.  I had the vet, chiropractor, massage therapist, shoer, saddle fitter, and other trainers look at her, and no one could find a physical reason for her lack of responsiveness.  Which just added to the frustration–if she didn’t hurt, why couldn’t I get her to work correctly?

It all came to a head in April (while a few students were watching, of course. I guess that’s the risk of having an open training program). Venus was cruising along, not really responding to my aids unless my aids got loud and ugly, then would over-react.  I got off frustrated and in tears over Venus’ lack of ridablility.  I was emotionally wrung out. I decided that if she needed that much pressure to do the work, then I wasn’t the trainer for the job.  I just don’t have it in me to use that kind of pressure every day– it was not worth the emotional cost.  I felt like I had wasted 2 years and countless dollars trying to rehab her.  Maybe she just wasn’t capable of the work.  The strobe light at the end of the tunnel flickered to tomb-like darkness.

As timing would have it, I was scheduled to take Secret and Sling to Scott for 3 days. I decided to take Venus for the first day, and then return with Sling for days 2 and 3.  I figured if he couldn’t help me with her training block, no one could.

After I whined to Scott about my frustration, I put her to work, and as I expected, she looked ok. Flat, not responsive enough, but from the ground, she didn’t look nearly as bad as she felt. So he got on. 

And he agreed with me.

He said she felt ok in her neck and the contact, but she just wasn’t using her back or hind legs, particularly her left hind. She also was not responding to the seat and leg aids, and it showed up most in the canter. The left canter was stuck, the right canter was quite unbalanced and running. He worked on quickening her responses to the aids, and getting her using her hind legs. She improved.  He asked me to leave her for the three days, and he’d ride her again the next day. 

I ended up riding her the next day, and the next. He had me warm her up, then ride her in short, 3-7 minute long segments, going between a small compressed trot, walk, compressed trot, and working trot. Then do the same in the canter.  The point–the shortened gait makes her bend her hind legs and prevent her from using speed to avoid the work, and the short sets respect her growing back and stifle strength.  She, of course, threw a few objections (she is red, after all), but the frequent breaks kept her tension from evolving into a “battle of the red-heads.” When her temper flared up, he’d have me maintain the current level of intensity with my aids until she relaxed a little, then give her a break.  She was not allowed use her emotions to escape the work, any more than using speed to escape the work.

He said this was the path he has wanted to go with Venus for a long time, but she hasn’t shown the emotional maturity to let go here. He felt her mind was ready for it, and frankly, I was at wits end, so I was equally ready. The added bonus of this method is it should teach her to manage her emotions when the work got harder.

He sent me home with the advice to use anything to get her more active and uphill EXCEPT forward.  Yea, it was the opposite of how I rode pretty much every other horse in the barn, but at this point, I was willing to try anything. He cautioned me that this would probably take six months to get her committed to really bending her hind legs, but he thought I would be happy with the results if I stuck with it.  After three days, Scott had managed to turn the tomb back into a tunnel, with dim light at the end of it.

Since I was in uncharted territory with Venus, I begged Jann, the secretary at Hassler Dressage, for a follow-up lesson. Two weeks later, I loaded the mare up and headed down again. I had been a good little dressage queen, and stuck to the homework, but had concerns.  I wanted to talk to Scott about adding some lateral work, as I felt like Venus was getting a little bunched-up with the steady diet of transitions within the gait.

Scott saw improvements in two areas – Venus’ acceptance of pressure, and the clarity of my aids. He agreed with adding controlled lateral work, as long as she didn’t swing her hips out to avoid bending her hind legs.  Again he advised patience, and he said would start to see an improvement in her gaits and responsiveness gradually over time. He reminded me that I was looking at a 6-month project.

We went home and continued our homework.  While this is going on, Silly, my other mare, become lame and subsequently bred, I hit show season with Eclipse, Secret, Flash and Sling, someone hit and totaled my truck, and we are moving to our new barn—in no particular order. I like stress. Stress keeps my outlook so positive.

With the new barn though, Venus could again get turnout, which helped. She was becoming consistent in the work–not stellar, but consistent, which is enough for me. 

We continued to make steady progress through the summer, and her mind became more and more calm.  She became more and more accepting of the work with less and less tension—a huge step for her, and necessary for her to climb the levels. Her only minor setbacks were honest physical complaints, and quickly resolved (sore front feet when the ground got hard resolved with hoof packing, a really tight back just before she cycled resolved with B-L, that sort of thing). The light at the end of the tunnel was at about 25-watts, but steady.

In late July, I took her back to Scott to check her progress. He was very pleased with what he saw, especially in the trot work.  We worked on creating more activity in her lateral work, instead of just using it to break up the compression work. We added activating the walk before the canter to get the first stride of canter more uphill, added more school figures in canter, but kept the canter strides relatively small.  Again he cautioned me against big, forward gaits. He told me he’d like to see her canter pirouettes starting to develop before we introduce the medium canter. Finally, we had some measurable forward progress.  The light dialed up to 60 watts.

By August, Venus was beginning to have moments of really swingy, soft work, and was starting to offer more work on her own, but I still felt like we were getting stuck, especially in the canter.  I took her to Scott for a check-up, and after he watched me warm up, he said I had more hind-end activity than front end movement – a huge change from April.  We spent the lesson discussing techniques to teach her to lift her shoulders more. I went home with my mind full of new ideas for the direction of her training, and the bulb burning a bright 75 watts.

Venus and I continued to plug away, using various techniques to improve her balance and suppleness in trot and canter.  I mixed her work days with lots of walks on the hills to keep her mind fresh. Somewhere along there I started to really look forward to riding my girl. 

In September, again I returned to Scott for a check-up, and he was thrilled (his words, actually).  Ashley, the assistant trainer at Hasslers who has seen Venus since she was 5, didn’t recognize her.  I was actually a bit surprised by their reactions. Venus had improved gradually, and although I knew our rides were going well, I hadn’t realized her gaits and balance had changed so dramatically.  Scott sent me home with the orders of “come back with a canter pirouette.”  The light bulb was burning bright and steady.

I continued to do my homework, and when I headed down to Scott’s for our December lesson, Kelsey tagged along to shoot some video. The lesson went well, with work on improving her right lead canter, improving the clarity of her half-pass work, and cleaning up her changes.  At one point, she locked into a brilliant, balanced, ridable left-lead canter that completely rocked my world.

Then I came home and watched the video.  She looked even better than she felt. 

I am touching wood as I type, but I feel like Venus and I are standing at the end of the tunnel looking into the full sunshine, and it is a wonderful place to be.