Days of relaxation...and some extra entertainment

I have had some very nice, relaxing days, with much food but also much riding.
Lovely.


When the snow comes it makes all the difference for us riders, so right now I am a happy girl.
Before we get the snow it is dark after work, and the ground is either frozen (and often uneven) and before that it is muddy. It is not easy to work the horses.
With the snow it is light even when it is dark, and we have a very good surface to work on.
Hooray!





Fame and I have been really enjoying our trail rides again.
We have been happy both of us, Fame striding out, full of energy and with toppled ears and me enjoying the ride and the scenery.
I had planned to do some dressage work too, but until today we have been dashing through the snow instead.


Yesterday after we had passed the frozen creek and were on our way up to the stable, a large male moose was laying down in the snow, just beside the path.
I stopped Fame to see if he was interested in moving.
He was not.
He only moved an ear, staring straight at us and stayed put.
I could not take any photos, because I had my hands full trying to keep Fame in place.
She either did not see the moose (which I doubt, even if he was laying quite still), or she just did not care as she was heading home to her food.
She was one impatient horse.
I finally had to make a detour through the winter jungle, emptying a lot of snow laden trees in my neck (of course) but we came home safe and sound, and Fame got her food...



I have mainly been riding bareback. It has been very cold, and it is the easiest way to keep warm.
Even if Fame has been full of pep I have managed to survive sideways crow hops at full speed and suddenly stops from canter, and all the other fun things a happy horse can entertain herself and her rider with.
But yesterday it was a close one.
We were on our way home, and I had asked her to trot.
Her trot (by magic) increased in speed and I resigned and asked her for canter instead.
Riding bareback it is absolutely to be preferred. Hehum.
Anyway the canter increased in speed too (by magic! has nothing to do with being on our way home) and we reached a T-junction path.
Toot-tooot.
We managed to negotiate a steep turn and Fame gets so elevated by this so she has to launch a series of bucks.
Due to the cold I was riding her with a hackamore, which makes it hard to get the head up. I did my best anyway and in addition growled "NO" loud and clear, trying to stay on, sitting more and more loose for every buck.
And she goes "What?? Oh, sorry" and stops bucking, but I can tell she is quite smug with her little self.
Stupid thing.




In addition to some quality time with the horses, I have been busy with a long standing project.
We listen to audiobooks a lot in the family.
Unfortunately when you have audiobooks in CD formate, sometimes a disc go missing, in particular if you have kids in the house.
I have finally taken the effort to rip the CDs over to mp3-files.
It takes some time, but then we have a safe and versatile copy.
It makes us able to play the books both on our mp3-players and in the car, where the player also can handle mp3-files. Suddenly you don't need 10-20 discs, just one or two which makes life easier. Being audiobooks you can compress down to 48Kbps, which downsizes the files considerably.

I got two very nice Christmas presents from my sister this year.
In the beginning of the 80'ies Trevor Nunn's and Royal Shakespeare Company's version of "Nicholas Nickleby" was sent on TV.
It is a theater show, a marathon performance of 9 hours, divided into several episodes and recorded at one of the world’s most historic theatres, London’s Old Vic.
It was very, very good and we were stuck to the screen while it lasted.
This year I got the show on DVDs and a box of safran and almond biscotti to follow.
Coming in after a cold ride it has been wonderful to creep up in the sofa with a hot cup of tea and some biscotti.
The show was just as good as I remembered it; the cast and the adaption is nothing but fantastic, and the sofa is now full of crumbles...



The spruces are majestic now.
It is my favourite winter tree.
So beautiful, and provides shelter and food to the wild animals too.


Enjoy your winter everyone!

Dressage show with a redneck twist

The pony girls from our club at the show, excluding the geriatric, overaged one

My goal for this spring was to start one class higher than last year, which here is called class LA.

(I am sorry but I do not know what the English/American equivalent is called, but the program contains exercises as canter-walk-canter transitions, walk pirouettes, leg yields, medium and extended walk/trot/canter and counter canter.)

My daughter's pony Charlie was diagnosed with a minor tendon problem at Easter time, so he has had free from shows and training since then, just slowly building him up again until he was cleared by the vet beginning of June.
I could not start when my daughter had an injured pony, so I waited with shows until they were fit for fight again.

The D-day was this Saturday, and I was happy to see that Fame's cut on the back had healed nicely so I could put on a saddle again.

Not.
I came home on Friday afternoon, only to find new wounds at the same place, right where the back of the saddle should lie *sigh*

My daughter's pony who is as kind as can be to us, is definitely not kind to Fame.

What to do?

I had postponed the start for so long, and this Regional show was at a neighbour stable too, so we could just ride over.

I really wanted to ride that program to get a check that we are on the right track, and Fame needed the training of a show atmosphere - she has only started 3 dressage shows outside our own stable in her whole life.

(Yes, I am a training nerd, not a show nerd!)
Hm.

The new cuts were also behind my seat if I rode her bareback...

I called the judge and asked for permission to start without a saddle, outside competition.

Which I got!

So comes Saturday morning, I happily start to braid my horse and prepare for show.

When ready I overviewed the result.

It was not that bad? I thought when my daughter came round and commented:

"That wasn't too smart"

"What?" I said.

"Braiding when riding bareback?"

"Oh...."
Hadn't thought about that. Nothing to hold on to.

But what the heck, should I ride bareback in the show at least I could do it with style.

A year ago, last time we participated in a show outside the stable, I had a fast and tense giraffe horse in the warm up, totally unconcentrated on me to begin with. I had to ride her a bit tired to get her to settle down and concentrate some. As a consequence she was somewhat pluggy when riding the program.

I was happy to see that this time - even if initially a bit tense and looking around - she concentrated on the work and kept her focus on me. She was a little bit strong, so we worked with leg-yields, transitions and circles to improve things. After a while I could also introduce some supplying work in a longer and deeper frame to loosen her back.

As I had helped my daughter at her warm-up, our time was a bit short, and suddenly it was time for us to enter the arena.

Every time when I am to participate in a show, I curse myself for not starting the show training earlier, as all the flaws become very visible when I two days beforehand try to ride through the program *headdesk*

We did not do well enough on the walk piruettes, halts and rein-backs.

Totally my fault, we should have trained more.

I had to laugh at myself on Sunday as I read Carl Hester's book of dressage where he commented something like "the dressage rider always has to train on square halts, rein-back and walk piruettes."

Duh.

Look! No saddle!

How it went?
We placed 5th out of 17 riders.

Had the geriatric rider remembered the program we would have placed 3rd...

I was very happy with my horse.
She tensed up a bit when entering the arena and saw some ghosts at two places - but relaxed when I spoke to her and did a good job.

The canter work went well, we got nice marks for the counter canter (which we have been training on).

She got a bit strong and slightly deaf when I tried to get the half halts through (probably due to a bit of tension being on the show), and it is more difficult to use my seat to get her back to me when riding bareback.

Due to this I safed a bit when it came to riding some more engagement into her; I was afraid she would get too strong.

But all in all I was happy that we did not make a total fool of ourselves, my buddy Fame and me.

Hey, I even stayed on the horse!

I must confess that I had dreaded the Very Tense Zigzaging and Jumping Giraffe, but luckily it did not show up today.

My daughter?

She did a very nice round and placed 3rd in the same class.

Rode better than me, as usual.
(But we are catching up... Beware of the evil Bareback-rider sneaking up from behind, Bwa-ha-ha-ha!...as long as we can remember the program, that is.)

My concentrated daugher on her lovely pony Charlie, who is now out by himself during daytime.
He can munch on hay instead of on Fame, evil thing.
As you can see he doesn't need any extra proteins.