Short Horse Story

Here it is again, weeks and weeks with no posting. Yes, it’s ridiculous. I know. (hanging head)
Compared to last year at this time, we are enjoying a non-winter – winter (if there is such a thing) thus far!

Well,okay, not completely…
It has been cold but we have nothing more than a skiff of snow on the ground which means I have been able to ride a bit more. Maggie is quite plump. We.. I mean , I, have practicing the best technique of how to get on a round horse with a fluffy slippery coat. I swear one of the other horses has gotten a hold of my show sheen and is wiping Maggie’s back down with it when I am not home. What the hell is with her slippery coat!! (yes, it's a sign of a healthy horse I suppose but seriously??) It’s requiring some athletic capabilities on my part in order to get on without sliding the saddle over. Maggie gets pretty irritated about the whole thing and has actually walked over to the mounting block as if to say "please.. just use this .." Yes, I could always use the mounting block and some days I do but I think I just like the challenge of. I almost have it down to a science! Maybe I will do a little write up on details of the "How To's" and yes, there is actually a technique involved!

Maggie has also been perfecting her Houdini acts and has the "getting into places where she shouldn’t" be down to an art. I guess the allure of the compost heap full of rotting hay , chicken and horse manure was too much for her stomach to ignore any longer?? Sans electric fence. Getting in is one thing, the getting out she hasn’t really perfected yet, much to my fencing’s demise. When she first started her latest antics, she patiently waited until someone came home and rescued her. We would unplug the fence, un string the wire and release her from her confines. Well, the last time, it was Tom that got home first and ultimately had to deal with her. I am just guessing but I would imagine he cussed a blue streak all the way out to her and back and called her a few choice names in the process. But ever since, things went back to normal again. Maggie stayed out of the area. I figured she probably grew bored with the whole routine and realized there wasn’t anything worth eating in there anymore. Perfect! We were done with finding her stuck somewhere she shouldn’t be and I didn't have to worry about her getting into bad hay.

I am not exactly sure what happened after that because two days later, we came home to find the entire perimeter fencing of the compost heap saggingm ripped and two of the poles(cheap temporary plastic ones) broken right off and , as if to add insult to injury, Maggie and Cassidy were contently standing on top of the immaculately groomed grassy knoll that serves as Tom’s archery stop, which is also .. correction.. WAS fenced off . More wire fence busted. 12 degree weather…( I LOVE this mare, really...)

As if that weren’t quite enough, as we walked into the pasture, brother and sister took off, leaping off the mound (quite impressively I might add)and kicking up fairly large clods of sod as they went.. of which one landed at promptly at Tom’s feet.
Do you suppose they planned that part??

I didn’t want to look at Tom at that moment because he surely had to have steam rolling out of his ears by now…after a few seconds, as Maggie and Cassidy did what I presume was a Victory lap, I couldn’t help but start laughing hysterically at the whole thing. It was as if Maggie gave him the middle hoof… !!

I figure Maggie decided at some point in all this that she was pretty offended at what Tom called her just days before. I guess she got the last laugh and I will be fixing the missing hoof clumps on the arrow mound.

Bored horses… I may not have a fence left on the place by spring..

Catching Up...

Wow, it’s been a while. I have really fallen off the social media and horses scene. It just seems that there hasn’t been enough free moments that allow me to take time to post anything or even catch up on anyone else’s blogs.

I’ll take my chances and assume there are a few of you wondering and possibly still curious about things here at Acer Farm, so let me try to catch you up. In fact it shouldn’t be too hard.

Since late July I think I went 7 weeks, without riding a horse. In fact, other than feed them and gaze upon them in the pasture, I don’t even think I had one piece of clothing with horse hair on it.. and that’s not because I was ultra careful around them.. I just didn’t get around them much in order to get horse hair on me…
Life has been busy and there are many reasons I took a break from the horses. I guess in retrospect, I needed the break in order to take care of some other things I had been neglecting. Sometimes, you have to come up for air. The important point is that things are slowly getting back on track and I am hoping to pick up the pieces with my horses.
Two weeks ago I dusted off my Duett, found JB’s girth and bridle, (buried behind loads of other tack ) and loaded JB up to take our first trail ride since the accident. JB did very well and seemed to enjoy a chance to see something new. He has some difficulty going downhill, I suppose due to the rigidity of the joint now, but otherwise, he did great. He's slow and careful. We poked along at a walk for about an hour. Tom was along with his horse and patiently waited for us when we lagged behind. It seems JB is officially a pleasure trail horse. He’s been sporting a set of natural balance aluminum shoes since early July which helps support his sole and help him break the right foot over more quickly. The dynamics of how he travels with his new “bionic” pastern joint foot lends itself to needing corrective shoeing. I had hoped he might be okay with continued barefoot trimming but so far, he does better with the shoes. That may change in time but that is what he needs for now.

Maggie is an embarrassment. She is back to her “barrel” with 4 legs figure. She is about 75 lbs overweight and sassy as ever. Her daily exercise routine these days equates to running to the water trough and then galloping as fast she can back to her hay pile for fear that she might miss a few bites. (Yes, I purposefully feed her as far away from the water tank as possible… I figure atleast it’s some sort of activity and it provides me with entertainment of watching her run). Actually I did take her for a 5 mile ride this past weekend. She started off really quiet and happily walking along behind Tom and his colt. Unfortunately that didn’t last too long. Tom’s colt decided that a deer was the closest thing he had seen to a horse eating monster and spooked, which startled Maggie, which then seemed to set the tone for the next hour. Maggie mostly quieted back down but the “hurry” in her feet kept showing up, requiring many “training” moments… Oh well, what could I have really expected after not riding her in weeks and weeks? We finished on a good note and she got into her big flat footed, head bobbing walk that most horses twice her size can’t hold a candle to … as long as she was walking, I was leaving it alone!!

The days have gotten shorter and cooler so sadly, most of the good riding weather season is behind me, which is just typical. I finally get myself back into a riding frame of mind right about the time that riding becomes almost impossible.

The garden really took off in July. We have been busy in the last couple of weeks harvesting our bounty. Its been fun and challening. The last time I had a garden I was in high school. The food dryer has been running full time drying bags of apples, plums, tomatoes, strawberries and peppers and proven to have been a sound investment. I still have a few squash to pull and the cold season veggies like carrots, parsnip, beets, and spinach are going strong. Next year, we need to get cold frames built.

The chickens are laying eggs daily and the two young roosters we inherited from a friend are developing their crow… lucky us…

So , that’s the latest and greatest. I am hoping I will get back to some blog lurking again and with any luck , more time in the saddle this month.

Keep your fingers crossed the weather holds just a bit longer.

Bracing the Sails

In my last post, I posted that Endurance just wasn’t in the cards this year for Maggie and I. Our slow start into conditioning due to weather hindered any progress right from the get go. From there, it just seemed like it was one thing or another popping up that got in the way and my whole spring riding season kind of imploded on me. Any conditioning rides we did manage to get to, starting in late June, became nothing but a battle on the trail. Maggie was usually fine if I rode alone. I could keep her at a decent pace but add one other rider and the fight was on. I wasn’t having fun on the trail, Maggie was a terror and before I knew it, I was 3 weeks out from the only nearby ride on the schedule this year. I had planned to attend for months.

Fortunately for me, some of the most difficult decisions can be the easiest decisions when you look at the facts. The facts were that Maggie wasn’t even close to being ready, physically or mentally to complete a limited distance ride. So, I bagged plans to attend and , subsequently, resigned to the fact that everything endurance related in my life was just going to be on hold for now.

Disappointed ? Yes but also a sense of relief came with it. Hubby and I headed out shortly thereafter that decision for a vacation to Idaho and Oregon. During that week away, I decided that when we returned I would make plans to attend an upcoming Alice Trindle clinic for a weekend of private lessons for Maggie and I. Tom was also on the schedule for some lesson time with Alice to do Garocha work. The clinic was being hosted at a friend’s ranch about 3 hour’s away, so we had a place to stay.

I needed a new gust of air to fill my sails. I thought maybe this would do it. If nothing else, it would give me another fun weekend away.

The clinic began on Friday July 22 and we headed down that day. My ride time was Saturday afternoon.

The Training issues I wanted to address:
-Rushiness due to hyper sensitive to any leg pressure . Not able to get any effective responses with lateral work due to hypersensitivity.
-Tension when traveling counter clock wise, locking her back and jaw and pushing through her outside shoulder when doing circles in that direction
-At a halt, hind quarter release with leg pressure ; get Maggie to take just one step over when applying leg pressure as opposed to wanting to blast head or rear (when I tried to block her forward motion)
-Tension in Maggie creating me to brace my lower back which caused more tension in Maggie, which caused more tension in my lower back, which ……; well you get the picture.
-Getting her relaxed enough at a trot where she did not hold her breath.


Training Sessions at Home (what I had started doing)
-From the ground, ask Maggie to step a hind foot over, just one step in each direction without walking forward.
-Once she was accepting that, I would get on and purposefully move my legs around along her sides while walking , but not asking anything to get her to begin to differentiate between real leg pressure for a queue and the sensation of my leg touching her sides.
-Bending at a walk using lots of circles, serpentines, etc . Walk over ground rails, stop and back with a soft feel.
-Turn and change direction without speeding up in the turn.
-Different speeds at a walk, slow walk, faster walk, fastest walk and vice versa (Hurry does not Mean Worry)

Knowing that things fell apart in a trot, I kept our home sessions mostly at the walk (as maddening as it often became for me, it was what Maggie needed). .

The Goals for the clinic
-To get some further ideas and help in slowing Maggie down
-Figure out if what I have been asking is correct. What do I need to change?
-Learning to recognize when her braciness is a direct result of my braciness.
-Figure out how to help Maggie start putting less effort into fighting me and more effort into listening to me

The Lesson
Out in the middle of a large mowed hay field , an “arena “was marked off by 4 cones. I talked to Alice about my frustrations with Maggie and what we had been working on and what I had hoped to accomplish. We started out working at a walk and she had me bend Maggie around each cone at the corners. As I turned her around the cone, Alice wanted me to open up the inside rein way out(so traveling left, I would turn her by opening my left arm out and down towards the ground) She also had me over exaggerate my posture and weight distribution to the inside of the circle by leaning down and bit a forward, towards her shoulder and the ground (don’t know how to make that make sense any better than that ) as I was guiding Maggie around the cone. As I came out of the circle I would balance up and let Maggie follow my seat aid for a leg yield over to the straight line of the arena. At first, we were out of sync and Maggie was wondering why I was leaning and throwing her off balance but she was having to compensate and shift how she was moving. AHA! She was having to pay attention! I wasn’t really long before Maggie started slowing down and listening to me. Part of it was that it was something totally new, part of it was that I was putting her into a bit of physical bind , causing a mental change in her. Pretty soon, the whole picture started coming together, she softened around the cones and actually started following her nose, stepping under herself and as she came out of the circle , she started floating over to what would be the rail of the arena. I wasn’t having to apply unnecessary pressure with my leg. Instead, she was responding to the balancing up in my seat. After a bit, we lessened the exaggeration of the weight distribution and went back to correct posture and Maggie continued to listen well. So basically , we set it up so Maggie had to pay attention to me with exaggerated “not so good” posture. This little exercise threw a total wrench in things for us at first but it worked. We repeated this process at a trot. As expected it started out rough. Ofcourse I got bracey with my lower back and as you can imagine, so did Maggie. Once I settled in and started focusing on relaxing my back and seat, Maggie started working for me instead of against me. By the time the hour and half lesson was over, I had a horse who was trotting at a normal rhythm and pace, that I could easily sit to . I had a horse that was soft , able to bend, and driving from her hind end. It was lovely.

Key points:

-Insisting on a change of gait from Maggie when I asked her to slow, even if it means we momentarily break into a walk and her head comes up and she momentarily travels like a camel.
-As rough and uncomfortable as it can get, work through various speeds at the trot ; anywhere from slow as a peanut rolling Western pleasure trot to Maggie’s fast trot to a normal trot and vice versa. Let her trot big and fast for a lap , but then insist she come back down. All the while, mix it up with changes of direction, circles, serpentines, etc keep her guessing.
-Don’t let Maggie go too far in a straight line at this time
-Change speeds often- it may take a while to help Maggie sort out that she actually can travel at different speeds at my request.

So there you have it. In the spirit of sharing those not so great times that I know we all have in training our horses(but are all too often not mentioned amongst us!). Maybe it will encourage someone else out there struggling with their horse like I was, to take a step back and look at what their horse needs , instead of staying the course with our own goals.

A lot of what I took away from my time with Alice was similar to what I had already been working on but it really makes a difference to have someone else confirm what you think is the right thing and then getting to see a change in your horse as a result of getting a little instruction. Getting to feel what it feels like when things are good and not just guessing that it was right!

In the last couple of weeks since the clinic, Maggie and I have had some really nice arena sessions on our own.

I do believe our sails are braced and I can finally advance the ship in her course.

Realizations and Refocus

I should be packing and preparing to attend what would have been my first ride of the season this weekend, (yes, while the rest of you have already attended 5 or more already!) It’s a new ride this year in Potomac, Montana. A one day ride that offers both a limited distance of 35 and a 50 miler. Between weather, work, saddle fitting issues and a huge list of other bumps in the road, I never got into a conditioning schedule this year with Maggie. I have managed to get few good 10-12 mile rides under my belt but that was it. Any remaining delusion that I could have Maggie ready for the July 23rd ride was quickly decided for me a few weeks ago when I actually looked at the calendar , factored in that I was gone the week before the ride, and considered Maggie’s latest recovery rates on our conditioning rides. Maggie was barely managing 12 miles of hilly country at a moderate pace.

It was just enough to know I couldn’t ask her to complete a 35 mile ride, in hilly country.

So, yet another ride scratched for the season. But it’s not a bad thing. In fact, I am feeling a bit rejuvenated over the whole thing.

About 2 months ago, it was just a tickle in my brain, a passing thought here and there.. is endurance is even worth doing in this part of the country? We only have 1-2 rides that are even remotely close (5 hour or less drive away) and if your lucky, you might be able to seriously start conditioning in June. That alone makes endurance a difficult goal where I live. Then there was the issues I was seeing in Maggie that I didn’t like. Over the course of the last several weeks, that nagging thought kept coming back every time I climbed on her. She was tense, rushy, bracey. Every ride with others was getting a little worse, a little more of a battle to keep her quiet and relaxed. I realized I needed to do something. I don’t know about other endurance riders, but I refuse to have a horse that is a barely controlled runaway with t braced jaw and braced back just so I can fly down the trail and compete in endurance. Not my idea of fun and I am sure not much fun for Maggie either.

When you keep trying to do the same thing and you keep running into road blocks, it’s time to change the path. That is what I have decided to do. No, I am not giving up on endurance. I am just refocusing. For now.

Without the hours of pounding out the miles, I have been spending more time in the arena with Maggie and I have realized a few things. Things I didn’t like. For one, endurance has really done a number on my riding. I have become stiff and bracey in my sitting trot, I have developed tension in my hips and lower back and guess what? It directly translates to my horse.

I have enough years of dressage and equitation lessons to draw upon to fix all of this. It just requires me to spend time on it. And that is what I intend to do.

The arena work has always been there but it was a means to an end, just enough to get by, to get down the trail. A little bending, a little lateral work, a few circles, a few half halts, etc. Now, I am going full blown back to my roots of Dressage, Equitation and maybe a little jumping just to mix it up a bit. I f I want a soft responsive horse that does more than go down the trail, its what Maggie needs. We are already making some good progress and it’s only been a couple weeks of concerted effort. Maggie is finding her slow relaxed trot and getting as soft as butter in my hands. For the first time in a long time, it feels really good to ride her and I think she is happier as well.

So, this weekend instead of packing up to go ride 35 miles, I am packing up to get a few private lessons with a respected horsewoman, Alice Trindle. She is in Hamilton, Montana putting on a 3 day clinic and it’s been a few years since I have had the opportunity to train with her. I think it will be money better spent for where Maggie and I are in our journey.

Mental Health Days

I took time off work yesterday and today just because. I needed a few days to catch up on things and just have time to myself and not worry about being somewhere at a certain time. Yesterday, I paid bills, ran errands, and got groceries. Today I went riding, a long slow 12.5 miles. A friend joined me today but in the last two weeks I have logged more miles than I have all season. I guess with no one to distract me (husband) I found that riding was as good of a distraction as any, and the weather is finally cooperating.
This past week , I managed to go out and hit the trails 3 times. That has to be some kind of record! Maggie is slowly coming back into condition but it's taking a while. Today she was tired when we finished out 12.5 miles and we didn't ride fast at all. The last few miles she started getting a bit stumbly. I'll give her a few days off, which probably works out best since driving in this valley on the Fourth of July with a horse trailer is nightmarish. People seem to come out of the woodwork.. I guess it's all the summer residents with their fancy lake homes.

I think I am starting to figure Maggie out a bit. When I ride alone, she is getting much more confident and is much more relaxed on the trail. I actually prefer , and I think she does as well, when we are alone. We can trot along the trail in a nice relaxed trot, loose rein for miles on end. It's absolutely wonderful.
Add another rider and horse, she gets competitive and racey. It's not enjoyable because I am constantly having to be on her mouth half halting and getting her to slow up. She assumes MACH CHICKEN speed most of the time and trying to find a rhythym in her trot is impossible. I just have to get in two -point and stay off her back a bit. There is NO posting to that gawd-awful pace! Today we clocked a 14 mph trot. Those are the times I think, " I should just sell her as a harness trotting horse!"

So, as long as I don't ride at any gait other than a walk when another rider and horse is along, we're fine, right? Problem solved.. BORING!!

I will say that Maggie is a total ROCKSTAR on those narrow windy trails that have tree roots and rocks. She's like a cat, and it seems the faster the trot, the better she is. She just picks her way effortlessly as we fly through the trees. I never have to worry about her taking a missed step. It's a pretty cool feeling to ride a catty little horse that handles technical terrain so well at speed.

So I guess the plan is that we'll keep working on pacing at home, and getting Maggie to listen to half halts and hope that it continues to translate to the trail when others join us, but if any of you have suggestions out there for a race brained mare, they are more than welcome here.

European Update

Well, Phase 1 is completed in Salgen, Germany. the horsemanship clinic went quite well and they want him to come back!! (next time with wife ofcourse). He and his travel partners rubbed shoulders with royalty, having stayed on the grounds of the Castle of the Princess of Bavaria. Granted they stayed in a yurt on the castle grounds but they showered in the castle!! How many people can say they have done that??? They also got a private tour of the castle. Tom reports it was unreal to see. So cool...(kicking self for not going!)

Then, the travelers were off to catch a train to Budapest. After a few hairy moments of being on the wrong train and almost heading to Croatia, they figured it out and got on the right train. It was an 8 hour all night train ride, in which they had to stand up for most of it as they were last to get on and couldn't find seats, until about an hour before they were at their destination.

Tom is now safely in the Valley, in Hungary, although "safe" could be the wrong term. He has done some training, riding in armour , herding pigs and oxen, and apparently drinking wine and Polinka(hungarina brandy) based on the texted phone pic he sent me today. He takes his warrior test on Monday which involves running 6 miles with hills, shooting 500 arrows in 90 minutes or less, and riding bareback for two hours.

Hopefully he will hold off on the Polinka until after he has completed his test...

Trails, Trikes, Horses and Dogs

I loaded up yesterday and met a friend at the State land for a day of riding. The weather was good enough, it wasn't a downpour and it was above 40 degrees. We dosed up on mosquito repellent and the same for the horses and headed out. This was the first time I had been out on the trail since getting my Specialized saddle so I was interested in seeing how it felt for myself and Maggie in terrain other than my arena. Steph brough along her little Springer Spanial , Molly who is pretty well behaved on the trail, exept for the occasional chasing of a squirrel or deer. Normally I prefer not to have a dog along in this area because there are lots of other people with dogs and it's just one less thing to have to deal with in my opinion , but Molly seemed well behaved enough. They have recently logged this area so the "old" trails that I once knew very well are all but a memory now, so we put on our adventurous hats and just rode out onto various trails to see where we ended up. The thing about this area is that most trails eventually get you somewhere you are eventually going to recognized. As we came off one such trail, we realized we had been riding for 3 hours already and it was about an hour back to the trailer so we headed back down a trail that would take us back to the trail head. Along the the entire ride we had run into several mountain bikers and for the most part, they are generally willing to be courteous when they see a horse but they often aren't familiar with horses or comfortable around them. Mountain bikes coming down the trail at a high rate of speed toward your horse will tell you quickly how well trained your horse is. Unlike horseback riders who are always looking around checking the scenery, mountain bikers are so busy watching the terrain right in front of their wheel , they often don't realize they are coming up on a horse until it's almost too late. Horses often can't figure out what a person on a bike is. Even more terrifying to a horse, is a child on the back of it's parents bike! The other problem is that this area is heavily wooded. You can't always see the bikers coming but your horses is usually a good indicator that something is coming at you. Having to deal with bikers is just a reality where I live. Have to share the trails. The key to keeping the situation safe for everyone is to get the bikers talking. As soon as they say something, then the horse can recognize that it's just a person with really weird legs..However, if the bikers happen. Steph and I had run into about 4 sets of these mountain bikers and all were very friendly. If they happen to be coming up behind you that's almost a bit more difficult. yesterday we were only a short distance from the end of th trail head and there is a steep rocky decline to get down. Maggie seemed to be a bit tired so I jumped off of her to walk her down the steep hill. We were just about to the bottom when Maggie's head popped up , laid her ears back and wheeled around. 3 bikers popped over the top of the hill and were coming at us very fast, along with a vary large Chesapeake dog. I pulled maggie out of the way to the side of the trail because they still hadn't seen us, again trying not to crash on on a bike while going down a steep hill takes alot of concentration! With bikers, they are supposed to yeild to horseback riders, and most times they do but I always opt to get out of their way and let them go by, for obvious reasons. Most will yeild and stop and cautiously go by. This group hit the brakes as soon as the biker in the front saw me, which by that time he was only 10 feet from me but his dog was a different story. His dog came at Maggie and I , barking and growling. I guess it was just a reaction but had my lead rope in my hand and the dog caught the business end of it right in the nose, right about the time he was about to get way to close for comfort. I am not sure if he would have just sniffed me or Maggie but he was showing way more aggression than I thought was necessary so I just reacted I guess. It startled him but he got pissed and came back , more towards Maggie's nose. The owner, who was telling him "No" wasn't being effective in the least. At this point, the dog barked and growled and was trying to figure out how to get around the crazy lady with the rope when the owner finally had enough sense to ride off so the dog would follow him, meekly apologizing.

I climbed back in the saddle once we got to the bottom of the hill and kept heading for the parking lot. We got to the end only to find that these bikers were still there, in the biker/hiker parking lot (which is separate from the trailer parking) and so was the dog. I had to get past them one more time, cross the road and go another 1/4 mile to get to the trailer. As I passed through, the dog ofcoruse, came towards us again. They were able to grab him in time before he followed me across the road.

So, another adventurous day on the trail . Maggie is pretty tolerant of things like this, for which I am grateful. She wasn't rattled afterwards,, but it did scare her a bit. I couldn't help but wishI had been riding JB at that moment the dog came at us. JB gets down right "stallion" like and would have tap danced all over that dog had he come at us like that.

I don't mind sharing the trail with bikers, hikers, dogs, and other non-motorized recreators, but it seems that maybe there is some opportunity there to educate one another since we both have to share the trails.

Anyone else run into these situations? How do you deal with them?


On a the flip side, the saddle worked out great. I was very happy with how it fit Maggie and I was comfortable as well.