Things are NOT getting any less expensive.  As expected, the truck needed new tires which bumped my July bills over the two grand mark.  Funny to say, but my goal each month is to spend less than two thousand dollars. Something always comes up though: one of the horses gets sick, trailer needs repairs, big show somewhere far away, or tack needs fixing/replacing.  Sheesh ...

I already know that August is going to be an expensive month as well.  I have a schooling show the first weekend, a clinic the second weekend, and Regional Adult Amateur Competition (RAAC) the final weekend.  I got to "skip" the farrier bill in July, but that bill be due again in August.  It's not that shoes were free, but Jaime came at the end of June and will return the beginning of August which meant he didn't come in July.  It's a good thing as that bit of savings helped fund my new tires.

I will save something on my August board, yippee, as I was on barn duty for several weeks in July.  That savings is what's funding a part of the RAAC show; the show premium and stabling for RAAC came out to $413.  No small potatoes.

I don't mean to sound as though I am whining.  I could save myself a boat load of money if I stopped showing, but it's the showing that I like the most.  From October through February I probably won't show so my expenses should go back down.  

Maybe I need to start investing in an apple a day ...

I know this doesn't seem of much interest to most of you, and quite a few probably didn't even make it this far into the sentence.  For me?  Being able to take Sydney to a lesson is HUGE!!!!  I am feeling quite pleased today.  Mt. Self-Doubt, prepare to be summited!

I've been working with JL since last summer.  She has helped me enormously with Speedy.  I started taking Sydney to her last July fully expecting to show him late that summer.  That, of course, didn't work out. In fact, the longer I took lessons, the worse he became until finally, it was just too dangerous to ride him in a lesson setting.  The pressure and "noise" of the lesson were just too much for him.

I shed a few tears and then devised a new plan.  I've spent the past three months teaching Sydney (and me) to just relax.  Nothing else. Thoroughbreds are not like Arabs.  I've since learned a little about how they think.  They don't like to feel pressured and they don't like making mistakes.  So, I took off the pressure and gave Sydney many, many opportunities to get the right answer.  I learned how much I can push him (not very), and how to reward him when he gets the answer right.

I am happy to say that he is now quite the happy fellow.  I took him to a lesson a few weeks ago.  JL encouraged me to start turning up the volume,  but slowly.  Turning up the volume means go a little faster and tolerate the whip and firmer leg pressure.  So I did all of those things.  We played "Race Horse" - slooooow trot to go, go, go fast trot back to slooooow trot.  I started tapping his shoulder with the whip when I needed more go or when I need him to move over.  I also started getting firmer with my leg which he learned doesn't always mean GO!  Sometimes it means move sideways.

I took Sydney to see JL on Wednesday.  I think she was quite impressed with how tolerant he has become.  I ride him with quite a loose rein which has encouraged him to go deep and low.  JL liked this.  He's much looser through his back and swings nicely.  Now that I can turn up the volume a little, JL thinks he's ready for more contact.  But instead of forward into the contact, which is stressful, we're going to work on sideways to the contact.

We started with the lesson on the pulley halt.  This went quickly as I just had that same lesson on Speedy.  We started at the walk.  Sydney understood it almost immediately. We worked on getting the halt with as little pull on the outside rein as possible.  Even if he thought about stopping, he got a release.  We then moved on to the trot.  Again, piece of cake.  His halts started getting quicker and sharper.  He understood the purpose of the outside rein.  Since he was able to get the right answer right away, he was happy to play the game.

The pulley halt lesson is all about teaching the horse to respect the outside rein.  Rewarding even the thought of stopping lets Sydney know that he has the right answer, something an OTTB wants.  I could tell he liked the exercise.  Once he was stopping smartly with the quietest aid possible, we worked on moving off my inside leg just like we had with Speedy.

The exercise goes something like this: inside leg tap, outside hand squeeze.  There can be no forward movement.  At first, just Sydney's hind end moved.  He still earned a good boy.  Next, just his front end moved sideways.  He still got a release and a good boy.  Little by little I was able to time my leg, seat, and hand aids so that I got a fairly correct lateral movement that included his whole body.  That earned a very good boy, and the lesson was over.

My homework is to continue with the pulley halt practice each time he gets ridden.  If he responds quickly the first time, move on.  If not, continue until he gets it.  Then we're to move on to sideways movement until I can continually get the sideways movement while walking in a small circle, spiraling out.

On Thursday morning, I gave it all a try.  I could not be happier.  The pulley halts went perfectly, even at the trot.  The sideways movement was not so easy, so we did a few attempts with some sideways movement, and then we took a nice walk break with some trot circles.  After working on the pulley halt and sideways stuff, his trot work was much improved!  We then returned to the sideways stuff where I got a decent spiral circle at the walk. Sydney got numerous good boy pats and that was the end of the ride.  

What will make this work for us is that I won't take Sydney back for anther lesson until I either feel stuck or ready to move on.  With Speedy, I feel like we get it so much faster and are ready for the next week's lesson.  Taking away the timetable from Sydney's progress removes the pressure.  If it takes me three months to get a good spiral circle at the walk, okay. Interestingly, we actually did two or three decent ten meter circles after the sideways exercises.  I think we might be onto something here!

Definitely a two-steps forward kind of day.

Of course it won't look quite like this today, but it will still be much cooler than in the valley.

I ride a lot, at least five days a week.  I also do a lot of other horse-related activities: shows, clinics, expos, etc.  Those things all happen on the weekends.  If I am not careful, my life becomes completely horse-centered to the exclusion of all else.  This is not a healthy thing, especially when one wants to remain happily married.  Hubby and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary this week.

To help maintain this marital bliss, I make sure that there is at least one weekend a month that is not horse-centered.  We try to use those weekends to go to our cabin where we can relax and get away from the hustle and bustle of our daily life.  There is no phone, no cell service, no internet, no cable (just DVDs), no traffic, no pizza delivery, and very little noise.  There's just the two of us.  It's a nice break from reality.

This means that there won't be a blog post tomorrow and maybe not one on Sunday either.  I am sure you can do with a break from reading anyway. Enjoy your own weekend, horse-filled or not, and I'll see you Monday.

This is actually a poor title; I don't really know how to be less restrictive.  If I knew how, I would obviously not be restricting Speedy's movements.  Let me back up.  The judge at Sunday's show felt that I was restricting Speedy at the canter and at times, in our turns.  Hmm ...

We are improving, of that there is no doubt.  The judge's comments used to include words like hollow, unsteady, needs more bend, needs more activity, etc.  These comments are being replaced with different ones: some loss of balance, needs better stretch, encourage stretch to contact, and so on.

Speedy had Monday off, but by Tuesday it was back to work.  I decided to really focus on the judge's comments and see if I could figure out how I was restricting Speedy and how I could get more suppleness of the back.

I started out at the walk and really focused on maintaing contact while still feeling the slightest movement of Speedy's head and neck.  I even closed my eyes and allowed my body to feel like it was melting into the saddle.  Our trot transition got a lot softer.  Hmm ...

We worked on walk to trot transitions all the while focusing on ME being soft.  Speedy is already super "light" in the bridle.  His go-to evasion is to get behind the vertical and drop the contact as soon as he can.  If I am stiff or "hard," he just tenses his back and there goes any suppleness of the back.  So I focused on soft and loose.  I kept my elbows bent and  tried to get some sway in my shoulders.  I finally got the softness that I had been missing over the last week.

We moved on to the canter where I tried really hard to follow his motion without bumping him in the mouth.  It took a few efforts, but we got what felt like a more rhythmical canter that wasn't rushed or strung out.  The canter to trot transition was also quite improved.

Oddly enough, I am much softer and more relaxed when I ride Sydney. When I hop aboard Speedy, I feel an intensity that causes tension in us both.  I know the feeling stems from a desire to improve, but I need to find a way to soften the focus so that my intensity is somewhat diffused.  On the flip side, I need to be slightly more intense with Sydney.  I get too loosey-goosey on him, and I think he might now appreciate the support of some focused energy.

Riding two very different horses forces me to constantly evaluate my aids. Sometimes they're effective, sometimes less so.  Either way, I just keep plunking away!

I did a five minute warm up for this test.  It was pretty warm, and Speedy doesn't need much of a warm up for his second ride of the day.

As I entered the arena, I paused at the judge's booth to give him my name and number.  I also smiled and joked about giving this another try.  The judge laughed (bless his heart) and promised to do something about the wacko spectators.  I don't remember what he actually said, but it was something to that effect.  It was really kind of him to acknowledge our earlier difficulty in such a jovial and light hearted way.  I was feeling pretty good as we took our warm up lap.

I don't know if the judge gave me extra time or if we were just running ahead, but I had time to pass by "P" three times before the judge rang me in. Speedy was cool as a cucumber the whole time.  That's the pony I love!

Test 2 went very much like Test 1 without all of the drama.  We started with sevens, earned another 6 for our left lead canter (really?!), and got sevens for both our trots across the diagonal (!).  The right lead canter scored a 5.5, again better than the 4s we were earning just a month or so ago, but the stretchy trot is still a problem; we earned a five with the comment, limited stretch, reluctant.  

We may have some work left to do on our stretchy trot, but our trot work up the center line both from X and at A is worth bragging about.  We earned sevens across the board.  Our final trot down centerline came with the comment, fairly steady and straight.  I'm good with that!

Final score was 61.607% which was good enough for a blue out of two riders.  The score sheet is below.  Click images to enlarge.

My warm up didn't go so well, but neither did my last schooling ride on Friday.  I don't know what was wrong.  Speedy has just been tense and not super thrilled with the idea of relaxing and working over his back.  Maybe I am asking for too much too tightly. I dunno ...

Even though I wasn't thrilled with how he warmed up, I went in with what I had.  Our trot down the alley felt great, and I actually felt like we were improving as the test started which is a novel feeling for me.  I was actually feeling good.


We started off with two sevens which confirms the feeling I had.  We also earned a six for our left lead canter depart which is huge for us.  The stretchy trot continues to be my nemesis; we earned a five.  We rocked the free walk with a seven (!) and even got a decent working trot at C (six).

And then things went all to Hell.  See photo just below.  Most of the spectators sit in the bleachers on the right, or they sit along the long side just under those trees. 

The "A" end of the arena doesn't really have pedestrian access.  It's just a sloping hill covered in foxtails and tall grass.  The warm up arena is down below, and there are cattle pens off to the left of the arena but below the berm.

For unknown reasons, three "spectators," and I use that term with jaw clenched, decided to approach the dressage court from over the top of the berm through the foxtails all the while chatting loudly and toting armloads of stuff: a folding chair, beach bag, and other miscellaneous hand-held items.  They popped into view just as I approached "P" during my right circle at B.

I felt Speedy suck back and pop his nose into the air.  I added tons of leg, but there was no way I could keep the right bend.  In a VERY loud voice, I yelled, "STOP MOVING, please!"  To their credit, they did stop moving, but the chair, beach bag, and other miscellaneous items also froze in midair where they had been swinging along.  This freaked Speedy out even more.

As I finished the circle at B heading back to A, I realized, in horror, that the spectators were still frozen with all items still hanging in the air in some weird version of Red Light/Green Light.  Holy crap!  I was able to get Speedy to pass, but it wasn't pretty.  I circled at A and tried to develop a right lead canter in the second half of the circle.  Uh ... yeah ... nope.  Speedy started and sputtered and moved his four legs in anything but a nice 1, 2, 3 canter rhythm.  I finally gave up and just got him by them again, for the third pass.  They were STILL frozen in place!

Our trot down the center line is one of our strengths so I did my best to pull him together for one last chance to salvage the ride.  It must have worked because the judge gave us a six for our effort.  We halted, I saluted, and then my lower lip started to tremble as tears threatened.  We left the arena as my new "friends" bumbled their way to their seats.  As I exited at A, the next rider gave me a that really sucked comment and then followed it with an atta girl, you handled that really well.

I moped my way back to the trailer still fighting tears.  I popped Speedy's halter on and made sure his hay and water were within reach.  Then I boohooed my way into the trailer and quickly dialed Cha Ching's mom for an attitude adjustment.  She knew just what to say, Damn those insensitive people!, and within minutes I had a smile back on and was ready to go ride test 2.

Here is the Training Level, Test 1 score sheet.  Our trouble started at movement 10.  Check out the judge's comment, distracted at P.  Yeah, ya think?!  Final score was a 57.500%  Click images to enlarge.

Score sheets with better analysis tomorrow.

For now:

• Have fun. - yeah, mostly.  Visited with some old friends and enjoyed myself.
• Don't get hurt. - nothing broken, torn, or ruined.  Mission accomplished!
• Earn scores above 60% - ummmm ... yes and no, but it had to do with the spectators, not really an error that Speedy or I committed.  More on that tomorrow, promise!
• Boots - holy cow they were so much more comfortable.  That was the best money spent.
• Socks - wore a pair of my new ones - comfy and cute!

And a few photos of the grounds - The Bear Valley Equestrian Center, located just outside of Tehachapi, California, is a very pretty facility. 

Click images to enlarge. 

I might have forgotten to mention that I have a show this morning.  My goals are simple: have fun, don't get hurt, and earn scores above 60%.

I'll be in Tehachapi which is a little over an hour away.  I ride at 7:58 a.m. so I have to leave the house pretty darn early.  Poor Speedy's not going to know what hit him!

I am a bit anxious about the early ride time since it will be pretty cool in Tehachapi.  Speedy is normally very well behaved at this venue, but the cool morning air might give him some extra energy, hence the don't get hurt goal.

This is a CDS show, but I already have my qualifying scores for September's Regional Adult Amateur Competition (RAAC) so I don't feel any pressure to earn a certain score.  It's not a USDF show so I can't earn any scores toward my USDF Riding Performance Award.  Even though I don't need them, I still want to earn scores over 60% since my mind is now on doing well at RAAC.

Wish us well, and I'll let you know how we do.

On Thursday I ate a La Rosa Piña Colada ice cream bar on the tailgate of my truck.  What a great way to end a busy morning at the barn - ice cream dripping to the ground, legs swinging, and a whole lot of slurping!

If you're from Bakersfield, especially from the north east, you know all about La Rosa ice cream carts.  I bought my bar at the feed store, hence sitting on my tailgate, but I sure wish the cart would come by occasionally.

If you're not from Bakersfield, La Rosa is a family owned business that manufactures its own ice cream bars which they sell from bell-clad carts and at various locations around town.  Jesus Diaz and his wife, Rosa, started making their ice cream bars in 1980.

I have to go back to the feed store today ... I might have another one!

As I write this on Wednesday, it's a "chilly" 75℉ (24℃) which is 30 degrees cooler than a week ago at this same time.  Thank goodness.  With such cool weather, I was able to feed seven horses (fed for the neighbor), clean four stalls (twice!), ride three horses, fill 2 water troughs, bathe 1 horse, move sprinklers, clean the barn aisle, and putter around doing other odd jobs.

Tuesday was just as nice.  After riding and doing barn chores, I decided to give the inside of my horse trailer a thorough scrubbing.  On a hot day, it's like a sauna inside when you hose it out.  With low temperatures and a cool breeze, it's almost like visiting a water park.  Almost.  I wish I had thought to take before photos, but alas, I didn't.  I would have been embarrassed to show them any way.

Speedy is a messy traveler.  He breathes/sneezes a constant stream of wetness against the front window and partition which subsequently gets grossly crusty.  He also loves to poop in the trailer, and it ALWAYS hits the wall and STICKS. I keep shavings on my trailer floor which help absorb some of the moisture and prevent the floor from becoming slippery, but it's hard to clean out every single poop ball which means there are always a few floating around in the shavings.  Speedy is also a sloppy eater so there is also loose hay mixed around in the poop infused shavings.  Add some summer time dust, and you have a pretty good mess.

I emptied the tack room, swept out the shavings, and armed myself with a scrub brush and a nozzle sprayer set to jet.  Here are some after photos.

I just realized there are some confusing elements in this photo that beg an explanation.  

The water tank: I haven't used it in a long time, but I don't have anywhere else to store it.  Speedy travels on this side of the partition so it's no big deal.  When I bring more than one horse, I remove the water tank so that a horse can travel in that stall.  

The door next to the water tank: that's a pass through door which leads to the living quarters.  It's one of my favorite features of the trailer.  There's a screen on the other side which allows good ventilation to pass through the living quarters.  It's also handy when camping; muddy/dirty shoes, folding chairs, ice chest, and jackets can be stored in the horse compartment without taking up space or stinking up the living quarters.

Where's the other divider?: I took out the second divider long ago.  99% of the time, I bring only one horse at a time.  Without the divider there, he has a lot more room while traveling.  Back when I was using two horses at a time for endurance riding, they traveled quite happily side-by-side in the double stall while the first stall was used for the water tank and a hay bale.

What's that above the middle window?: The rectangular thing is a light, and the black lumps are the mounting bolts for the Hi-Tie.  The bolts don't stick out that far, but I wanted to be really careful. They're covered with heavy duty foam and Gorilla Tape.  They're actually no longer than the receiver bolt for the missing divider seen in the center of the photo.

I love having a clean trailer; I just wish it would stay that way!  I'll add fresh shavings before Sunday's show and I've already put my regular stuff back in the tack room.

If you want to see more pictures of the trailer or read more about trailering, I've written a small series on safety and so on.  You can find those posts at this link.