smellshorsey

Making Friends -- and Jumping Too High!

Buddy's first horse trials are coming up and we're worried about how he's going to behave (or not) on cross-country. No doubt he'll enjoy it. I'm concerned he'll enjoy it way too much.

Not much room here to practice cross-country in our yard, so we went to Jane's farm yesterday for a lesson and some trail riding. I took Lucy (my obese TB) since she never gets to go anywhere.

Lily and Jane went on a trail ride and I sat in the sunshine and did some freelance work, which was difficult because of the scenery that was so distracting and the very large dog heads that kept thrusting into my lap (English Bull Mastiffs -- I think you buy them by the pound.) Nice dogs. Bad breath.

Jane found or set up some fallen trees for jumps and they took advantage of the fact that I was not there. They claim to have jumped 3'9", which is great for building Lily and Buddy's confidence for their cross-country course, but makes my hair stand on end.

Just think about it. I'm sitting there holding my breath because I don't want to smell the dog's odoriferous exhalings  and I should have been holding my breath because Goodness! She's out there jumping that horse over 3'9" logs! A great time was had by all. And when they got back, everybody got to make new friends.

Here Buddy is making friends with a 6-month-old foal. Unfortunately, there's a 4-year-old mare in that pasture (no relation to the foal) with some out-of-control maternal instincts and she was not letting Buddy or Lucy get anywhere near that foal. Buddy and the foal immediately started doing some mutual grooming before the self-appointed baby-protector chased Buddy off. Click on photos to enlarge.

And here's Lucy trying not to make friends.

Have you ever seen anything cuter than these mini-donkeys? Jane and her husband are hoping that the jenny is in foal. I might need that foal. Or maybe the whole set. They chase cats but the cat keeps coming back for more.

Lucy wasn't afraid of them at all until Buddy decided they were scary. Here's one of the few times he stayed close enough to the fence long enough to get a photo. Notice how very interested the donkeys are in Buddy.

Losing Confidence -- and Getting it Back

For most riders (except possibly for Sue at Flying Changes), falling off repeatedly can make you lose confidence. So can almost falling off, thinking about falling off, seeing somebody fall off, remembering how you fell off, and wondering when you are next going to fall off.

I remember one year when I was eventing my really fabulous best-ever horse (never written about him but it's coming) I knew three people who broke their backs riding. None were paralyzed, though one had a terrible time recovering and another had to quit riding. And I remember watching a girl from our barn who was a great rider on a fantastic horse tumble into the ditch obstacle on a cross-country course (they were both fine) and feeling a fear so great that it wouldn't have been greater if she had been my daughter. As soon as she proved to be fine, I immediately began to worry about me.

So I know fear. And I know losing confidence. And when I see it creeping up on my girl, it breaks my heart.

Not sure where it came from. My brave girl who rode her pony and Buddy like motorcycles, racing around and enjoying every stride. Who was always wanting the jumps put higher in lessons and Pony Club. Who really is getting better every week. Suddenly, she's not so sure she can do what she's been doing. What she could do a year ago. Or longer....

We have a long talk. She's hurting -- so I hurt with her. And Paul and I scheme on how to get her confidence back.

An e-mail and divine intervention later, and we have our answer: Jane

Jane (not her real name) is one of Lily's former teachers. The "kick-the-snot-out-of-the-pony" teacher. She's recovering from surgery (back trouble related to riding -- hate to even think about that) and she's well enough to come. I'm surprised she can come, because she's been working too much on her other job to teach for the last couple of years.

Jane is also the Camp Counselor at Hell Camp, the place where bad horses get to go for 30 days if they need "a reckoning." Lucy got to go there once, and when she came back, she had a lovely new attitude. (Too bad Jane doesn't run a diet camp for middle-aged moms.)

So Jane shows up. And the magic begins. Some adjustments to the bridle (addition of curb chain which we'll call "hay twine" because I don't own a curb chain) and a very boisterous lesson that starts with lots of extreme transitions. Not always pretty but this isn't about pretty. This is about Building Confidence.

And part of the charm is -- Jane makes Lily LAUGH! Even doing the scary stuff.

Buddy is not happy, but Buddy is not being abused. Jane and Lily have Buddy's attention. Buddy would rather drag around and do nothing -- or go "Yahoo" after the jumps. He's not allowed to do either. The lesson is fast, the jumps get high. The jumps get higher. The laughter continues. Buddy doesn't have a chance to do anything silly because there are still a lot of transitions, mostly  ending with a halt.

Wild, crazy, fun and safe things are done. Nobody falls off. Not even close. Confidence restored.

And then we had to go measure the jumps.

Thank you, God!

The gift of riding (or other) lessons

Most little girls love horses. When they (we) grow up, some pursue that dream. I've known many adult women who have taken up riding and love it even more than they thought they would.

I thought this post from saucygrrrl's blog, The Cats Demand Answers, was very funny. Her husband gave her the gift or riding lessons, and this post tells about her first lesson. It may bring back memories. And for those of you who haven't been with me from the beginning (which was not long ago), you and saucygrrrl might enjoy this previous post of mine about a really funny thing that happened in a riding lesson -- and how wonderful school ponies can be.

It also reminded me that lessons of any sort can be a great gift for an adult. Paul is giving his father golf lessons for his birthday. Lessons are always a great gift for the person who either already has everything or doesn't have anywhere to put anything else.

Trot on, sauccygrrrl! (And keep up the posting.)

In praise of the school pony

True story from one of Lily's riding teachers, whom I'll call "Teresa" because that's not even close to her name:

Teresa has a big farm that can host horse trials and just about anything else. She's also got a string of school ponies that couldn't win a ribbon in a horse show unless they were the only horses in the class, but are some of the best riding teachers around.

One day she was taking a class of beginners on a trail ride where they would play the game, "Pass the Stick." (She probably has a better name for it but I can't remember.) This game makes walking through the woods fun and helps children work on steering the horse and developing their balance. Here's how you play: Teresa gives the first child in a line a flexible stick or pine branch and tells this child to find a place to put it (such as on the low-hanging branch of a tree) so that the next child can pick it up. The next child puts it on a tree limb and it goes on down the line.

This game is challenging if you aren't great at steering your horse. This was Dora's problem. Dora, a tiny girl with long blond hair, compensated by stretching out as far as she could from the horse she was riding to the tree branch where the stick was perched. Dora stretched and stretched. Dora stretched too far and hit the ground. The line of school ponies stopped. For some reason, Dora was lying on the ground under her horse, rolling back and forth and laughing. The other children steered their horses nearby, almost encircling her, and they were laughing, too.

Teresa calmly called out, "Dora, honey, get out from under the horse, please."

Dora kept laughing and yelled back, "I can't." All the children were laughing now, and Dora kept rolling.

Teresa didn't like the scene. The child was under the horse. Her school ponies are good, but they are still horses. "Dora, honey, I said for you to get out from under that horse!" Teresa was riding as quickly as she could toward Dora, but she didn't dare trot or do anything that might make Dora's horse or the other school ponies move.

"I can't!" Dora called back, still laughing and rolling and still smack dab under the horse.

Teresa, who is immensely calm, was beginning to lose her calm. "Dora, right now, get out from under the horse."

Dora didn't move other than to keep rolling and laughing.

Teresa finally got close enough to hop off of her horse and grab Dora's horse's bridle, "Dora, get out of from under that horse!!!!"

Dora kept laughing. All the children were laughing. Dora said, "I can't! He's standing on my hair."

Bless him. That school pony never took a step. Teresa lifted up his front foot and freed Dora's hair.

Piano and riding

While I'm on the subject of riding lessons, here's a smart tip. If you want your daughter (or son) to take piano and find you are fighting a battle (Why do I have to take piano? I don't like to practice!) you can fix it all in one easy step:

Link riding lessons to piano lessons.

Just say this, "Certainly, dear. You may stop taking piano any time you want. And the day you quit piano is the day you stop riding."

It's what my parents did to me, and though I hated it, I am grateful. And Lily gets to suffer the same fate.

As her piano teacher said (and she's only had one piano teacher), "No one has ever told me that they were glad that their parents let them stop taking piano, but I can't tell you the number who have told me that they were so glad their parents made them keep taking."

Maybe there's a musical freestyle in there somewhere.

Riding teachers teach more than riding

Choosing a riding instructor for your daughter is more difficult than choosing one for yourself. If you pick out one for yourself who is a great teacher but curses like a sailor and "carries on," as my grandmother would say, with the farrier, etc., you are not likely to start cursing like a sailor and carrying on with the feed and seed man unless you were already so inclined.

Selecting a teacher for your daughter (or son -- there are so few boys who are interested that I hope you'll forgive me for frequently overlooking your young horseman) is more complicated. Our goal is to teach Lily to ride AND make sure that her teacher is a suitable mentor. After all, at some point I half expect Lily to have more faith in her riding teacher's judgment than mine in areas beyond riding because anybody who knows that much about horses just has to be right about everything, unlike Mom.

Lily, now 12, has had seven riding teachers, not counting the ones at camp. I'm startled to count them all up. We parted on good terms with all of them. One got a job with a lot of travel and couldn't teach lessons anymore, two got pregnant and dropped out, one went back to school and one was great but the other children in the class only rode once a week so, with Lily riding every day, they weren't learning at the same speed.

But everything worked for a while, and all the teachers taught her something. I am grateful to them all. Here's what I learned. For a very young child, private lessons on the lunge line on a very reliable horse are great for developing position and confidence. Your child should have good rapport with the instructor and really want to please her. Group lessons are fun and keep the child interested, but learning is slow because most children only ride once a week -- during the lesson. Lily rides six days a week.

Semi-private lessons with another child who rides her own horse and rides almost daily are the best for where she is right now. They can enjoy each other's company, learn from watching each other, have the slightest bit of peer pressure to do their best and get a small rest while the other child jumps the course, etc. Plus, it's slightly less expensive than private lessons.

Unfortunately, Lily's riding classmate also plays soccer, and as luck would have it, the soccer day is the same as the riding lesson day, so Lily's getting private lessons until soccer season is over.

I'm also very happy with this riding teacher's attitude, choice of words, professionalism and character.

I greatly loved a former teacher who used very colorful, non-profane language. "Kick the snot out of her!" she would yell, and Lily would get serious about urging her stubborn pony forward. The other teacher would call my horse a "heifer," etc. It made us laugh, and this teacher also had the ability to come up with games that helped a young child have fun while accidentally learning something.

Lily made the comment that her current teacher has never said to kick the snot out of anybody. "She just says, 'Squeeze with your legs.'" Sometimes, though, I do believe that kicking the snot out of your horse or pony is the only choice you have.

Lily has been with her current teacher for almost a year. The quality and apparent character of this teacher's other students reinforces my good opinion. She has a huge following of very nice, polite, dedicated teenaged riders who are good riders and seem to be good girls. Since I want Lily to be both, I feel like we have found the right person at the right time. The atmosphere at her barn is wholesome, too. People are friendly, the moms help whichever child needs help and everything is clean and orderly. People drink water and eat healthy snacks.

One mom I know left a barn because the other moms were into happy hour, which they brought in coolers in their Mercedes, while the children took lessons. That's all fine and dandy, but who's driving? Most people live 30 miles away.

There are very few times in your life you have complete control over who your daughter will look up to. Picking out a riding teacher is one of those times. So far, very lucky.

Automatic lead changes

I'm missing something. Can somebody tell me why your child has to have a horse/pony that can do automatic lead changes?

Lead changes, yes. Automatic, no.

Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, stick around anyway because lead changes are not really what this post is about.

If you're new, here's a fast and probably inaccurate description of an automatic lead change. Your child is jumping a horse show course. She starts off on the left lead to take the line of jumps down the right-hand side of the arena. When she comes to the curve at the end of the arena after the line of jumps, she needs to be on the left lead. She could have asked for this lead over the last jump before the curve, she could have asked for a flying lead change if the pony landed on the wrong lead or she could have smiled at the judge while her pony executed a perfect automatic flying lead change and kept on going. The third choice is what Show Moms are willing to pay for. If you want to know more, go to Wikipedia's Canter and scroll down to "Importance of Leads."

There is a really nice Horse Mom I know who just shipped in a new Extremely Fancy Pony she found at the national championships. She was telling the rest of us Horse Moms about him. She knows everything about him except whether or not he does automatic lead changes. If he doesn't do these, out he goes.

"If he's otherwise perfect, why don't you keep him?" I asked.

"Because if he doesn't do automatic lead changes 100 percent of the time,  he might mess up at one of the big shows," she said.

"But isn't the rider supposed to do something? (Like ride.)" I asked. She looked at me as if I had just passed gas and kept going with her story.

This coming year they're going to hire a professional rider to campaign the pony so that he will qualify for national championships. Then next year, they'll let their daughter ride him.

But I'm still stuck on the automatic lead change thing. "What if you want to counter-canter?" I ask. Counter-cantering is intentionally cantering on the wrong lead. It is seldom asked for but I have had to do it in competitions, and not just in dressage.

The Show Mom looked at me. “You almost never have to counter-canter.” True.

This woman is buying not only a fancy pony, but one that has been “programmed.” Like a Seeing Eye dog or other animal assistant, this pony must compensate for what the owner/rider cannot do.   

The justification for this is that well-balanced horses do this when galloping on their own in the field. The real reason is so that the child – and mother – can win. 

So, what this woman is buying is a pony that knows all the things her daughter does not. This makes no sense to me. I thought riding was a sport requiring skill, effort and knowledge. 

What will her daughter learn from all this? Several things, such as all she has to do to win is to show up. That for some reason, she is better than the other children (unless the other children’s parents have even more money). And that very little effort is required for success. 

Unlearning these lessons later in life will require much more than simply learning to ask for a lead change now.

My 95-year-old father said, “Why don’t they forget about the pony and just buy a trophy?” 

Later, when this child encounters a “real” horse, she may be disturbed and confused to find that, in spite of her many winnings, she really doesn’t know how to ride. And she may wonder that so many things in life require so much more effort than she knows how to give.

Or am I missing something? Am I just mean and jealous?

With my daughter, Lily, nothing comes without effort. Buddy jumps because she taught him, starting when she was only 11. He was a western pleasure horse. She’s had to develop a deep seat and legs because otherwise she gets bucked off. She’s learned to anticipate his detours from the plan by his body language, and subtly correct him before he takes action.

In other words, he’s teaching her how to ride as much as her teachers. Assuming she survives falling off regularly, frequent frustration and learning to lose gracefully, she’s going to be a real horsewoman.

Lily will be able to ride gifted but difficult high performance horses because she will have known challenges – and how to overcome them. The ribbons she does win will be entirely hers because she put in the hours and effort, six days a week. (Buddy gets Wednesdays off.) And she’s learning that if you really want something, you have to earn it.

And though Buddy is what they call A Lot of Horse and he can get really, really tall sometimes, she loves him. He is cute and funny, like so many Bad Boys. He’s a great pet and would come in the house if we’d let him. He’s not mean, just contrary and sometimes uncooperative when asked to perform.(He can also be very, very good.)

Lily is as ambitious as anyone. And however far she gets, she’ll have done it on her own. 

You can’t buy what Buddy is teaching her. 

Horse Moms of the World, what do you think?

Riding lessons and 100 degree temperature!

I wouldn't have done it. Today it was over 100 degrees AGAIN. The ground is crunchy with parched grass. The pine trees are losing their needles. The gum tree's leaves are turning. It is unholy hot out there. For the 13th day in a row.

And today was the first day for "fall" riding lessons. Now, my daughter, whom I'll call "Lily" because that's not her name but one she likes, has had a riding lesson almost every week this summer. So you would think she could miss riding in 100 degree heat.

You would be thinking wrong. She went. No one died. I may have to put a salt block in her room, though.
Oh. And I had to haul the horse to the lesson. That is right, all you soccer moms who think that driving your child to practice and games is a hassle. I have to take child and horse to the lesson, or horse shows, or whatever. I drive a Prius when I am in "normal" mode. When I'm in Horse Mom mode,  I drive an '84 Suburban named Ben (Sub-urb- Ben, get it?) who has quite the drinking problem (don't ask about my mpg -- I wouldn't dream of calculating it), pull a trailer and deliver both daughter and horse to her destination.  I coddle Ben. He is an old man pulling a heavy load. And you know about old people and heat.

But Ben made it too. With any luck, we'll either get rain, a cool spell or preferably both. In the meantime, we get to watch the hay crop dry up in the field, and look forward to another winter of astronomical hay prices.

I'm really sorry about the heavy rains in other parts of the country. Wish we could trade!

Take care, wherever you are.