cheap thrills (c/o Viva Carlos)

When L posted about the cheap products she’s upgraded for better quality ones, I identified quiiite a bit with a lot of those items. Polo shirts that doubled as work/school shirts and riding shirts? Check (though I went with Old Navy ones). Pull on breeches with no zipper and questionable seaming? Check.

There are a couple of other items I’m adding to the list though, and a few that I hope to add in the future.

yeah so neither of these is a great look on me

The biggest cheap item I replaced with a better version? My show coat(s). I’ve owned three in the past: a free, woolen hunter coat with fox-head buttons. A Horze show coat (no longer available, but looked a bit like this one) that cost around $90. And the Equine Couture Raleigh Show Coat, $70.

The first coat was given to me by a friend at my barn who no longer wanted it, and it was a warm, boxy, uncomfortable mistake. I think I wore it once, then it sat in my closet for the rest of eternity months. The Horze coat was my replacement when I was shopping for my first rated event, and while the price point was pretty good, it fit me terribly. I probably should have sized down, but it was always too long for my torso and bunched horribly about the waist. I replaced that with the Equine Couture coat, thinking that a shorter (yet still cheap) coat would fix that problem. It didn’t.

how much do I love it?! let me count the ways

Replaced with: Winston Exclusive Equestrian Coat

I tried on one of these coats at the Sacramento International with Peony and Megan and I adored it right off the bat. It fit perfectly, even off the horse — which none of my previous coats did. The rep offered to give me 10% off if I ordered through him by the end of the week, but I absolutely couldn’t justify pulling the trigger on a near-$750 show coat. L found a tack store that was closing down, though, and on their site I found a heavily-discounted, $450 version of the coat in my size, navy and gray. I had originally wanted back and purple, but I was willing to compromise for $300 off. I bought it, and have no regrets. It’s averaging around $75 per use these days! #worthit

tbt to my horse looking miserable in polos

Replaced: Polo wraps. Ranged in price from $10-$40

I used to be all about those polos. I had 4 or 5 sets at one point (nothing compared to many others, I know), and was planning to add in a few other colours because they were soooo purdy.

Replaced with: Dover brushing boots($25 per pair on sale), Majyk Equipe Dressage Boots(a gift, but $90 per pair, that was a way bigger gift than I realised)

In a wet arena, polos get disgusting really fast. And you can never wrap them the exact same way each time. And eventually, they just kinda look like shit. And I don’t buy anything about their ability to “support tendons and ligaments”, they’re literally just there to stop my horse from hurting himself quite so much when he knocks his limbs together. You know what looks clean even when you’ve washed them seven times and have a dedicated shell to prevent impact trauma? Boots. My polos never exactly wore out, but I’m much happier with 2 pairs of dressage boots than I was with 5 pairs of polos.

matching bling on point

Replaced: Ovation Schooler helmet ($65)

I used to think it was absurd to pay more than $100 for a helmet. Also, this helmet was light and breezy and I didn’t think there was anything else you needed in a helmet.

Replaced with: a variety of Charles Owen helmets (J3 skull cap, Jr8, $180-$300).

Then I realized the value of safety. But also, that the higher quality helmets can fit better, be incredible comfortable, and look good. I don’t regret spending >$500 on helmets in the last five years. Would I spent >$500 on a single helmet? You’d have to give me some really amazing safety features for that to happen.

Replaced: off-brand/Amazon/Target tall socks ($2-$10)

I’m all about tall socks under boots. Or all the time. I just like tall socks. But I thought paying real money for tall socks was stupid — minus the $20 I paid for my SmartWool socks while skiing. They’re just socks. They wear through, and they shouldn’t cost all that much money.

Replaced with: Kerrits wool socks ($18)

One morning my feet were already cold and wet, and I had a long day ahead of me. I stopped in at the tack store as I went by and grabbed two new pairs of socks — thick, good ones. And they made my day. And kinda changed my life. I’m willing to invest a little in socks now.

Replaced with: Noble Outfitters Peddies ($14), Noble Outfitters technical socks ($12 for the perfect fit ones)

To be honest, every piece of the Noble Outfitters gear I have was a gift (I have a family friend who was a rep and had a lot of leftover demo stuff). And the first time I put on a pair of peddies I thought they were stupid. Now? I reach for them preferentially. I wear through the heels of my socks like crazy, and the thicker foot bed but thin calf on these is juuust right for Goldilocks over here.

Replacing: clearance sale tall boots (usually Ariat Heritage boots, bought on sale for $150-$200)

I used to always keep an eye out for tall boot sales in my size. I’m lucky that I have an odd-shaped leg that isn’t too uncommon — a 6-6.5 footbed with a long, thin calf — and usually there are a few pairs of these floating around at the end of the season. I currently have two sets that I use, one for schooling and one for showing.

Replacing with: better, higher quality, more comfortable boots

I haven’t actually pulled this trigger yet, but I imagine I will sometime in the not-too-distant future. A couple of weeks ago I forgot my boots when I went to the barn, and one of the ladies there loaned me her Ariat Volants. They were SO COMFY. And they did not have any of the weird heel issues that tall boots so often plague me with. I just assumed I had a particularly poorly-conformed heel, because I wear through the heels of all of my shoes. But it turns out that you can get things that fit you better, and they will be more comfortable, and probably last longer.

On the other hand, there are some cheap things I keep around and won’t replace.  For example, gloves. I stick with the cheap SSG goves, because I lose one or the other often enough that it would make me really sad to replace them. I still have all of my cheap Dover-esque saddle pads and won’t be replacing those any time soon either — saddle pads just don’t wear out that quickly, in my experience, so why would I spend the money on more?

what i wish i’d known

Let me tell you what I wish I’d known,
When I was young and dreamed of glory.

Olivia started me thinking about this all the way back in April. April! And it’s taken me until now to put it together. A lot of the things I were thinking of were aspects of riding that I thought I understood, but which turned out to be nothing like I expected.

I was pretty green when I started with Murray. Greener than I would recommend. Greener than I would be if I had a do-over. But ego is a thing, and at least Murray is a funny and good-natured guy who, antics though he has, doesn’t really want to kill anyone. That greenness meant that I’ve realized and learned a lot of things over the years.

happy babies! but omg my elbows

There will be no short-cuts with this creature

There are some horses where you can teach them something once and it quickly generalizes across a variety of situations. Or horses where you can just try something out and it goes well the first time. Hell, I’ve done it! I clipped Sookie in November without the slightest idea what she’d do in response, and with little concern that it would go anything other than well. That’s just the type of horse she is.

That horse? That horse is not my horse. Murray needs every single lesson — sometimes he needs each one 4 or 6 or ten times. Murray needs every step explained to him. Murray needs every good behavior rewarded and every bad one ignored. Murray needs consistency. Murray needs refreshers and primers when you come back to a lesson after a while off (ahem, clipping).

I thought we’d just do a few things right and skip along and blip bloop beep! There we’d be, jumping around training level courses and killing the spectators with our incredible good looks and shockingly low price point.

Spoiler alert: we’re not.

This is obviously not on Murray. But now I know: there will be no skipped steps. No short-cuts. We will do everything.

You never stop riding your butt off

I had this idea that once we go more trained and less green, I’d just be able to sit up there and look good (maybe wave at my adoring fans as we galloped by?) while Murray did all the work. Sure, I’d read the course maps and do the general directing, and pick a distance here or there. But my horse would be so well trained, I wouldn’t need to ride as hard as I did when training my horse to jump!

Wrong, wrong, wrong. So much wrong.

The first time I rode around the Novice XC at Camelot, I did almost nothing. Because I had a sprained knee. The next time I rode around the XC at Camelot? I had to ride my ass off. I rode my ass off up to every fence that Murray was like “err, there’s something near that I’m not sure about.” I rode my ass off to fences where Murray was like “oh, that’s where we’re going?” I rode my ass off to fences that Murray ate for breakfast.

It’s not the same riding or effort. Taking Murray around his first real XC course was a battle of wills to just keep him moving forward and underneath me. Now I have to do that a lot less — like, 10% of the time probably. The rest of the time I don’t get to just sit there and look pretty. I work hard to keep him put together, set him up well for each fence, and make the ride as good as it can be.

I’m not trying to say I thought that XC would be easy as I moved up the levels. I just thought I wouldn’t have to focus on the riding part so much. Or maybe that my horse would be so trained and consistent that I’d half halt him with one iota of energy ten strides out from a fence for a perfect spot every time. I don’t know. But we ride every fence, and we ride every movement, and we’re better for it.

this magnificent nearly-tracking-up-stride not brought to you  by “sitting there looking pretty”

Consistency is key

I don’t know when I realized this. I think it really came on over the last couple of years, as I’ve worked with younger (human) students. I always knew that in training animals, being consistent is essential to clear communication. But one day I just realized that so many of the problems we have are due to a lack of consistency. And I’m not just talking about me and Murray.

How far would we be now if only I’d been consistent from the very beginning? If I hadn’t done hundreds, maybe even thousands, of transitions where I kicked Murray into a trot, then pulled on his face to get him to walk and try again because I thought the transition didn’t meet the standard? If I hadn’t made refusing a fence a crime that earned sympathy sometimes and a wildly out-of-control response at others? If I hadn’t just kicked bigger and moar and harder for a little bit of forward?

This one bites both ways. When I’m not consistent, I muddle over Murray’s incorrect responses more than I probably need to. Did I put that aid on clearly? Was that response within the acceptable range? Did I wobble through the transition and unintentionally cause that? All of that questioning of myself makes the training less clear and precise too.

I’m not a robot, so I don’t expect I’m going to come out the same every day. But if there is any skill I’m working hardest on honing right now, it’s greater consistency.

2017 eventing bingo: final call

I was pretty amped when Emma suggested Eventing Bingo this year.  I knew when I saw my cards that I wasn’t likely to get a full row, but thought I’d take a stab at it anyway.  In a perfect world, my bingo cards would have been a little more Murray-centric. But I guess I’ll take what fate gives me.

Anyway, I figured with all of the 2017 updates, I’d update my bingo cards as well. And lookie here — with just a teeeensy bit of creative credit-giving, I knocked out quite a few more cells!

So sure, we didn’t compete in heavy rain by anyone’s standards… but in June, we had a crazy, aseasonal DELUGE and got nearly 1/4 of an inch overnight before dressage.  I feel like doing dressage in the slop is really in the spirit of “heavy rain”, since rain in June in Camelot is basically an apocalypse-level event.

this court was the better of the two and it was still sloppy! okay, sloppy FOR CALIFORNIA

I also had no brakes at this event as we approached the trakehner. I knew we needed to slow down and get a look at the fence, but could we slow? Noooope.

I somehow managed to finish second to last at two events, and third to last in the third I competed in this year. So I just modified my cards a little to make them more applicable to my status in the bottom 3.

At Camelot in August we had a pretty baller square halt. I don’t remember if the judge commented on it (too lazy to go get the test), but here’s the photographic evidence (thanks Kate!).

mmmm lookin’ so good with all that burned-off skin missing from your cannons

And in August I also fell off of my horse during a warm up day for XC.  Camelot schooling shows let you school and warm up on the XC course on the Friday before the event begins, which is where I fell off and sprained my MCL.  So I went ahead and gave myself “fell off in warmup” as well.

A rousing success it was not.  There were a couple of rows there with four items selected, but not the fifth… which is a bummer but OH WELL.  I can’t say that I’m sad I didn’t miss the finish flags or fall off in stadium!

In the end, I made a few modifications to my bingo card so that it more accurately reflects my season. Murray ain’t leaving any strides out any time soon, so I changed all of those to more accurately reflect his tendencies (deep spots and screaming). And how lucky is it to ride in a division where more than half the riders were eliminated?! Or get toted around stadium and XC on a sprained MCL, coming in a full minute under optimum to boot?  Notorious OTTB, that’s who.

and look, we got Bingo twice!!

 

GoT Bloghop: Murray is Craig Middlebrooks

Over a year ago, Austen started this clever little blog hop talking about our horses as characters from movies (or TV).  And at the time I was like “I don’t know what character my horse is! He’s just Murray! All the good characters are taken! I HATE THIS BLOG HOP!!!”

Never let it be said that we are not well matched in melodrama.

But I finally figured it out!  I now know who Murray’s television personality is.

Murray is Craig Middlebrooks from Parks and Rec.

We all know that Murray just feels way too many feels.  He, quite literally, cannot keep the feels inside his body.

And he is always happy to tell you about them.

Murray freaks out easily.

 

And when that happens, he very desperately needs your help.

His responses to normal stimuli generally fall somewhere between “wildly inappropriate” and “way over the top”.

Especially when he doesn’t want you to know that he likes something.

Lying down is his happy place.

Despite the fact that he just can’t control himself, we love Murray anyway.  He’s just so cute when he’s upset!

Eventing Bingo

Emma is winning at getting me to post twice in one day, but MAN is this Eventing Bingo challenge one and a freaking half.  I mean, damn!  My cards are not smiling upon me for likelihood.  But since my bingo entry is allowed to be a work of fiction…

It was a bad day — awful day, really.  Just the worst day that anyone has ever had happen to them!  And nobody knows more about bad days than me.  First of all we were competing in heavy rain — an absolute deluge of rain.  I haven’t seen rain like this in my entire life.  There was so much rain everywhere, it probably broke the drought in California.

We went in to dressage and the judge — good guy, really. A great friend, just a real quality human being — gave me straight 6s across the board.  Of course, this was enough to land us a score of 0%!  Not that it was to anyone’s surprise, of course.  Nobody knows more about dressage than me.

This amazing score was enough to land us in first place after dressage.  In a huge class!  There were hundreds of people there!  Our show was going so well, right up until cross country.  We got lost in the woods on course, and it took a whole search and rescue team to find us again.  No joke!  They were looking for us for weeks in there.  Murray and I survived by foraging for nuts and berries, and eating a lot of grass and shrubbery.  I never knew that humans could survive on shrubbery, but we can, and we did.

When we finally got back out of the woods, another show had conveniently started and we were just in time for the stadium rounds! The show officials decided that they would let me run stadium in this division since I never got to complete at the previous show, due to being lost in the woods for several weeks. I was feeling great, as good as you can after being lost in the woods for a few weeks.  Murray, likewise, was full of sass.  He was the sassiest he’s ever been!  He was so sassy that I fell off in warm up.

Despite that, we went on to win our class.  Because that’s what winners do.  And we’re winners.

 

Viva Carlos Blog Hop: Naivete

When L first posted this blog hop about funny things we believed when we were less educated riders, I was like “ha! good thing I’ve had such a thorough and correct riding education in my adulthood.”

I know.  I make even myself laugh.

Despite many attempts to teach her otherwise, past Nicole straight up did not understand pushing a horse into the bridle.  She definitely thought pulling was a thing there.  And even after she knew it was about pushing the horse forward, her ability to execute such a thin was really astonishingly limited.

A big mistake of past Nicole’s was believing that just because you could do a movement on a horse you should do it to school it.  Thus, poor past Nicole’s past horses have schooled a lot of really atrocious leg yield, shoulder in, and haunches in.  Past Nicole also may have believed that if you could do something smoothly it was obviously good (like, the transition between going straight + leg yield was smooth and we slid over to the wall no prob? awesome, first level movement), and show ready.  Past Nicole was broken of that one REAL fast.

Past Nicole also legitimately believed that you could get any horse fat on just hay.  Like, not just that hay should be the staple of the diet, but that the first thing you should do to a horse who wasn’t gaining weight appropriately was shove more/better/different/other hay in front of them until they decided to stop being borderline anorexic and cave to your ridiculous human behavior.  Present Nicole understands that horses are mysterious and complex individuals who may not like eating hay and may just need grain to keep their dumb asses alive.

A lot of past Nicole’s naiivete was around riding myths/herself.  Things like

• if I could ride a difficult horse, I would be a good rider
• if I could sit a buck, I would be a good rider
• if I could ride this particular difficult horse, I would be a good rider

Of course, now I know that none of the above are indicators of anything other than being able to ride one or a few difficult horses.  And it turns out that just riding the difficult horse isn’t all that difficult.  It’s coaxing an excellent performance out of them, or even just the relaxation and suppleness needed for a good performance that’s the challenge.  But none of those instantly make you, or indicate that you are, a good rider.

correlation =/= causation or even really an actual effect (apha errors are real yo)

Past Nicole also believed that since Murray was athletic and could jump real big, if she could just get him strong and fit he would be totally confident and competent over big fences.  While confidence is certainly intrinsically tied up in ability, it’s hardly the be-all-and-end-all.  I now know that there is soooo much more that goes in to confidence than strength and ability — including rider confidence.

Additionally, past Nicole also used to believe that if Murray were confident over big fences, she would magically be confident over big fences.  Sorry, kiddo!  It doesn’t work that way.  Especially not with a horse who is really, really, really tuned in to finding anything potentially scary about a situation and RUNNING THE FUCK AWAY from it.  Confidence has to go Nicole first, then Murray, then positive reinforcement loop & trust bank that leads to more confidence.

murray is so good for carting me over stuff like this even when
i promise to ride terribly over it!

I learn so much about horses and riding every day that I look back on myself just a few months ago and think “WTF was I doing/thinking/saying” and then immediately “omg what must people think of me?!?!”  Past Nicole is always screwing over Present and Future Nicole(s) in that way. She’s such a bitch.

 

alternative pony facts

It’s time, friends. I’m going there.

Alternative pony facts.

Perhaps we should blog hop this?

Fact: Murray is jumping like a deranged moose.

Alternative fact: This horse has incredible jumping form. It’s just the best.  It’s the best jumping form I’ve ever seen. The best jumping form in the world. Nobody has jumping form better than Murray.

Fact: Spot might kill you for a chicken nugget.

Alternative fact: Spot hates alfalfa and treats. In fact she’s the least food motivated horse ever. Nobody hates treats more than Spot.

Fact: Murray is going to bumblingly his way over an 18″ pole.

Alternative fact: This horse is so good.  Look at him leaping over that pole!  He doesn’t want it to touch his feet. He would never touch a pole with his feet.  That pole is probably three feet, no, four feet in the air!  Nobody is more careful than this horse.

Fact: Murray is one lazy sucker.

Alternative fact: Murray is the most active horse with the best work ethic ever! This horse never sleeps! He’s always up and about, doing things, always working, always trying, always thinking.  Nobody sleeps less than Murray.

Fact: Horses are money pits that make their owners crazy in many ways

Alternative fact: Horse are a reasonable and budget-friendly hobby.  Everyone can afford horses!  And everyone who rides horses is totally reasonable and sane.  They would never do anything crazy for their giant pets. Nobody is more reasonable than people who ride horses.

Fact: … and they are constantly trying to kill themselves, requiring alarmingly specialized care for a giant pet

Alternative fact: Horses are so easy to keep, never do anything strange, and can be left unattended for long periods of time.  An idiot could keep one!  Nothing is easier to keep than a horse!

december 10 questions

I really enjoy learning about everyone’s opinions, ponies, and lives through the monthly ten questions.

Does your horse need shoes?  Questionable.  Murray was 100% sound when he was barefoot and lived on hills and rocky soils in Oregon.  For the work we do now he needs front shoes at least — his upright RF has rotation of the coffin bone that diverges from a foot with a normal angle (nothing more than to be expected of a foot with that shape), which places it close to the sole.  I have had several veterinarians (including a lameness specialist) recommend that I not take his front shoes off as long as we are in work.

these need a little extra help

What do you think of the barefoot vs. shoes debate? So many things. I have so many thoughts on this.  I think that we don’t have a good enough understanding or what it means for a horse to be barefoot, or any rigorously performed scientific studies on how being barefoot influences movement, long term soundness, and performance.  I think we don’t have a good understanding of what adding a shoe to the foot really does in terms of traction and pressure distribution*.  I think that in over a year of living and traveling in Africa I saw zebras (barefoot, in case you didn’t know already) hauling ass away from me/lions/cheetahs/hyenas/scary wind across wet grass, rocky outcrops, gravel, slick mud, and hills without slipping, falling, tripping, or collapsing.  I know I saw a couple of zebras get caught, and many more than one lame zebra.  I think that we don’t really understand how selective forces on horses have affected the strength, shape, and quality of their feet in regard to the jobs we expect them to perform, or truly how the way we keep them diverges from what may be “best” or “healthiest”.  I think that there are people keeping and competing barefoot horses very successfully. I think that if you have something that works for you, there’s no need to mess with it.

* I could very well be wrong – please tell me if I am because I want to know MORE!.

Favourite season for riding? Any season when it isn’t actively raining on me.

zebras are, incidentally, hilarious

How many shows do you think know you’ve gone to? I can count them! It’s not many. 2011 – SAHJA at HNR. 2012 – Camelot in April and June. 2013 – busy living in Africa. 2014 – SAHJA at WSS (didn’t compete, Murray was lame) in Jan, Camelot in May and July. 2015 – SAHJA at WSS in Jan, Camelot in June, WSS in August, SAHJA at WSS in October. 2016 – Camelot in April.  That comes to ten!  Such a nice, round number. Perhaps I’ll keep it that way and never show again.

Do you consider yourself a good rider? For the amount of time I have been riding, the amount of training I have been able to afford, and the quality of horse I have? Good enough.  I could be much better with more money/time/horse power/access/talent.

How experienced do you think someone should be to own a horse? Experienced enough to know when to ask for help and listen to people who know more.  It’s different for everyone.

Have you ever gotten into a fight with your trainer? I don’t really get in fights. I have discussions.  It seems like a pedantic distinction (and it is, to some degree), but a fight implies irrationality and a discussion is an exercise in trading rational arguments.  If you aren’t interested in listening to logic or trying to convince me with logic, I’m not interested in talking to you.

Describe your dream horse. Tall, dark, and handsome. Hard enough to ride that he makes me look good, but easy enough to ride that he makes me look great.  Goes fast, comes back easily.  Jumps big and always goes but doesn’t let me get away with bad habits.  Dressages like Valegro and jumps like Bioesthetique Sam.  You said dream horse, right?

Does anyone in your family ride? I have ranching family that used to use horses for work, but don’t really any longer.

If you could ride any horse in the world, which one would it be? Why? Hawley’s Livingstone when he was still running fast and jumping big.  He was beautiful, fun, talented, and continues to be an amazing teacher at 26 — imagine what he was at 10 or 15?!  Plus he has the name of an incredible African explorer.

sffs blog hop: location, location, location

I have had so much fun reading the responses to Sarah’s blog hop about our horsey locations!  I live in Davis, California, which is a small university town located in 2015’s favourite county — #YOLO.  The town keeps about 60,000 people, around 10,000 of whom are probably students, with another 20,000 or so students that flood in during the school year.  The town is small — 6 miles end to end (I measured on Google) — and you can’t drive more than 10 minutes in any one direction without hitting ag fields.

animals not to scale

It takes me about 20 minutes to get to my barn on the ag roads.  Much of the housing development that I live in used to be a thoroughbred breeding ranch.  My trainer and barn manager actually used to rent one of their old barns — it’s where I started riding with them.  (Our new location is a MASSIVE upgrade).

Davis is a little expensive for what you’d expect in the area, because we are kinda near the bay area and the land is expensive and the schools are good, so… I don’t know. Inflation. Or something.  My barn is inexpensive for the area (we do not have the world’s most amazing footing, but we do have all night turnout when pastures permit).

Trim – $40-60
Shoes – $65 for a half set is the cheapest I have heard of, I pay $85 for a full set, others start out around $100 for a full set
Monthly training – $600+ is the price I’ve seen thrown around, but I’m sure it doesn’t come close to what some of the trainers in the area charge
Pasture board – $350+ (weirdly there is NOT a ton of pasture board in the area – it’s more profitable to grow tomatoes/sunflower seeds/corn/hay or almonds/walnuts)
Stall board – $450+ (closer to $550-$600 average I’d say)
Hay – $13+/bale for rye, $15+/bale for orchard grass, $18+/bale for alfalfa. These are three string bales and weigh well over a hundred pounds, and you can get them cheaper when you buy by the truckload.  But it’s ABSURD how much of our hay gets shipped to Asia.  There’s a hay broker down the road from our barn called HAYKINGDOM and they don’t even sell within the US!
I have literally never seen a round bale in this county. I have seen cow bales, but have never seen a price on them.

The weather in Davis is pretty good, with spurts of absolutely awful.  It hangs out in the 90s from basically mid-June to mid-September (and sometimes into October, ick), with spikes up into the 100’s (and some waves).  In winter it gets down to the 40s, but we don’t get a terribly large amount of rain (I think something like 30″ per year?).  We are technically in a desert so we get massive swings between daytime and nighttime temps (sometimes 70 degree days are followed by 40 degree nights).  We get some of the central valley weather but none of the worst of it — it will freeze (sometimes hard enough to freeze the arena), but not all that often.  I complain a lot about the cold, but really, Davis rocks much of the year.

One of the most interesting weather phenomena in Davis is the tule fog (I call it ground fog).  The soil in the area is incredibly clay-y, and water doesn’t drain very fast.  When it rains a lot, followed by clear sunny days, the moisture evaporates into the air.  After sunset the air cools and the moisture trapped in the air condenses into a thick cloud that just… hangs out.  Sometimes it will take days for the fog to clear, sometimes the fog will be heavy and strong in the mornings and evenings and disappear during the days.  It gives the area a wonderfully eerie ambiance, but does occasionally make you skip your freeway exit.

Showing in the Tule fog in 2014.

There’s a pretty even split between English and Western riders here.  I imagine there are very few trail riders, as we have no trails to speak of — the land is flat, flat, flat.  I don’t know anything about the Western scene, but there are English riders of all shapes, sizes, colors, and disciplines here.  Just within our barn — an eventing barn — we have a couple of hunters, a couple of dressage riders, and the rest of will us dabble in jumpers/hunters for fun.   There are tons of dressage and H/J shows within a 3 hour haul, and even a decent number in the Sacramento area within a 1 hour hall.  WSS is the only event within 1 hour of Davis, though Camelot comes in at just over 2 hours away, and there are plenty more south of us.

We do have one tack store in the area. There’s another in the foothills. I… don’t want to talk about it right now.

Prior to white occupation, much of the central valley was a series of vernal pools, which are shallow ponds, lakes, and creeks that fill up with the winter rains.  Ever since human occupation of the area the creeks have been dammed and diverted until we got this pattern of agricultural land we preferred.  It means that there are fewer of the vernal pool species that used to exist (like salamanders), and the environment changed rather radically from a seasonal wetland to a mostly dry-land with a few seasonal rivers and wetlands.  Sometimes humpback whales come up the delta.  Some have even made it as far as Sacramento, following the river up from the Pacific ocean.  Nutty, right?

believe it or not I used to spend all my free time and money doing THIS! underlying story: I have never been good at saving money

We’re pretty close to the mountains, not far from the beach, surrounded by good wine and good breweries, and absolutely no fucking hills whatsoever.  That is my biggest complaint: NO HILLS.

nov-cember ten

I know it’s technically December now, but I wrote this in November so it still counts, right?

1.  How old is the youngest/greenest horse you have ever ridden?

I’ve ridden a handful of three year olds off the track, under the watchful eye of my trainer. I rode one on Wednesday, actually!  Sometimes when they are tiny you need an equally tiny person —  I am your tiny person.

 

 

2.  How old is the oldest horse that you have ridden?

The oldest horse with an age that I knew was probably Mighty or Derby — 17 when I last rode them.  But I am sure I have sat on more ancient horses in my lifetime, I just don’t/didn’t know it.

3.  Where you scared of horses when you first started riding?

I don’t recall being scared of horses as a child. I had a few awkward moments like when my aunt grabbed me and sheltered me in her arms while her small herd of horses went bananas for no reason around us in a giant pasture.  Or the giant clydesdale cross mare who used to terrorize us at riding camp.  These experiences made me leery, but only of the parts of horses that are worth being leery about — flying hooves, and all that.

4.  Would you say you are more of a nervous or confident rider?

I am a confident rider and human being, but I am also green and therefore I do not always understand what there is to be afraid of (both a good and a bad thing), and I can more easily hit the wall of “I just don’t know what to do here” than more experienced riders.

5.  Biggest pet peeve about non-horse people around horses?

I don’t know if this is a pet peeve or not, but I always roll my eyes at peoples’ inability to understand and recognize the danger zones on a horse.  Stompy hard things = bad for human heads, limbs, and torsos.  Those white things that clack when you shut them? Also can be danger, Will Robinson.

Also, and this holds true in all areas of my life, people who don’t know much or anything about horses (more generally: a subject) who try to make statements or claim knowledge on the topic.  If you don’t know what you’re talking about, kindly do not pester my ears with your noise.  My sister is the perfect human in this way, because she always tells me that she doesn’t know what such an such an animal is doing and asks me to use my expert knowledge to explain it (standard response: it’s pooping, sister, that’s what pooping looks like).

6.  A time you’ve been scared for you life (horse related).

I don’t have one. Perhaps the above-mentioned story about my aunt holding me back when her horses were being a bit nutty.  I guess there was also a moment last winter when I was holding the reins on a 17 hand three year old sale horse in the arena about to lunge him for a client who was trying a bunch of horses. Another rider was using the lunging equipment in the arena, but I thought I could walk around the arena a bit to get the three-year-old calmed down before he got on the lunge. Unfortunately, the horse I was holding decided that hearing the other horse RIPPING AROUND on the lunge was just way too stimulating and started leaping and flailing at the end of the reins.  The rider lunging did not see/notice what was going on with the gigantic baby t-rex kite that I was flying, and I was literally holding on for dear life to avoid the kite from going flying around the arena and getting tangled in the lunge.  I wasn’t necessarily worried for my life, per se, since I knew I could let go and let the shit show unfold if I needed to.  I was worried about the giant baby’s life (a little) and a lot about the other rider’s life.  I definitely nearly puked from the adrenaline rush when someone finally stopped the rider lunging.

7.  Have you ever fallen off at a show?  What happened?

UHH YUUUUPPPPP!!!

8.  What’s a breed of horse that you have never ridden but would like to try?

Err… I’m not sure. I’ve never really thought about different breeds being important (BEYOND childhood okay guys). I guess maybe I’d like to give riding a Fresian a go, but only naked and bareback and with hair long enough to cover up all the naughty bits.

9.  Describe the worst behaved horse you have ever ridden.

https://zenbabyhorse.wordpress.com/

(Though in Murray’s defense, I am also one of the worst behaved humans he’s ever met sooooo….)

10.  Describe the most frustrating ride you have ever had.

I’ve described lots of terribly frustrating rides on this blog, but the most frustrating ones always come down to one thing: I don’t understand what is going on.  Usually it’s because my understanding or perception of what is happening is somehow slightly separated from reality.  For example, when I spent like 8+ months thinking that speed = bravery.  Or when I didn’t understand that trying to bully Murray into taking the long spot ALL THE TIME RIGHT NOW NO EXCEPTIONS was not a good way to build confidence.  Or the months and miles and shows where I didn’t understand that firm rules = better behavior (and don’t you go saying I still don’t understand that, because I do, I am just bad at enforcing it okay?!)

When I have some understanding of what is going on, I can slow down, think about how to fix what we are doing, and take a different approach.  When I don’t understand, I end up  beating my head against a Murray-shaped wall of willpower, and we all know who wins that battle.  Good thing my understanding is growing daily!

I love this judgmental kestral.