Baby, It's Hot Out There!

It's soooo hot.

So hot.

But, there's hope! The end is in sight. Maybe.

Hopefully.

Possibly.

Look, a forecast with rain! And temperatures under 100!


Seriously, this Texas heat has been absolutely brutal this summer. I grew up in San Antonio, and while I can remember the heat lasting and lasting, I can't remember getting 100+ temperatures lasting into September.

I hate heat. With a passion. Give me 30 and snowing over 100 any day. I can handle a few 100 days a summer. This is bordering on ridiculous. Seriously, Dante and I went to the track to gallop this morning, and at 6:30 am, it was 93. 93! What is wrong with the universe!?!

I've taken up the habit of retreating into the air conditioning from the hours of noon until 8 pm. My productivity is low, but on the plus side, I've seen about 14 movies in the past week. (On the down side, I've seen most of them already.) I've cleaned a bunch of tack in my house, and on one memorable occasion spent way too much money in the Dover tack store. In my defense, it was all on things that I needed.

Well, most of it.

Ok, I swear I'm done complaining.

In other news, I've made like the Burghley-ites (referring to Will, Sinead, et al) and began running last week. If my horse is expected to be an athlete, then I should be one too. I do go to the gym to run on the suspended track because a) I hate running on a machine that can drop you on your ass as soon as you turn your head to look at something shiny (aka the treadmill) and b) it's air conditioned which enables me to run for much longer without gasping like a fish.

(Dante looks pretty happy being turned out in 100+ heat. I guess whatever floats your boat.)

In Dante news, he is adapting to the heat surprisingly well. Or rather, it shouldn't be so surprising since he lives in it, but still, I am astonished at how quickly his fitness is returning. He's only been back in work three weeks, but he's back to full work in both dressage and jumping and is definitely outpacing my current stamina. I only planned on doing a 3 x 5 gallop this morning but ended up doing 2 x 5 and 1 x 6 gallops because he felt so good. We're well on track for the AECs.

T-minus 9 days!

The Double Debut

(The barn aisle at 10 pm, when I'm finally about to ride.)

Dante has been going again for a couple of weeks now, and has even had his first jump school since Jersey! The 100+ degree heat has been tough to work in, particularly because I have to be at my internship at 7 am. This leaves me to ride in what is often the hottest part of the day, 7 pm. So instead I have been going home and relaxing for a few hours, then venturing out to the barn after 8 and riding in the dark. While it helps immensely, it is still hot! In good news, Dante feels very sound and his heels are continuing to dry out and become less sensitive every week.

Before the thrush reared it's ugly head, we had progressed far enough that I decided it was time to stick Dante back in the snaffle he uses for dressage. Wow, was he awful. And as he was awful, I resorted to all those terrible habits that I have, rounded shoulders, long reins, etc. He was stiff as a board to the left, leaning downhill, and unresponsive to my aids. I was NOT happy at the time.

At that point, I decided I was going to try out the double again. He's never been great in the snaffle, particularly to the right where he resists by hollowing in his poll. He also LOVES to lean on me. I've tried the double before, and while he wasn't terrible in it, he would have moments of fussiness, enough to convince Mike and I that it wasn't for him.

Well, I decided he was just going to have to get used to it. He used to be fussy in his jump bit as well, and now he loves it, so I had reason to believe that once he was used to the double bridle, he would be fine. So I stuck him in it.

And of course, the horse loved it.

He was light, responsive, supple, and steady. Guess we're going to be using that from now on. I'll be testing it out in a show environment though before the two star. I've been riding in it since he's gotten back to work, and he's been really excellent in it.

Of course, this means I now have to go through the joys of purchasing one. I've been borrowing Bonner's for now, but Jessica is going to lend me hers to use for the AECs. I want to try it in a show environment first, to make sure he doesn't flip his lid before I shell out $500+ to buy the bits/bridle/reins.

I've also been working on getting myself back into the sitting trot shape. I have always had trouble with the sitting trot, particularly when I haven't ridden for a while. So right now, I am doing posting to warm up Dante, cantering to warm up my body, and then doing a little bit of sitting trot at a time, posting or walking when I feel my or his rhythm alter. Usually it's mine. All of my lateral work is done at the end in a posting trot, because I'm not yet fit enough to both sit rhythmically and communicate strongly enough for lateral work. Give it a few weeks, and I'll be much more effective.

Obviously, our show schedule has changed a bit. Originally, we planned to head to Michigan at the end of the month for Richland Park, then to Georgia at the end of September for Poplar and up to Maryland for Fair Hill CCI**. Unfortunately, losing those two weeks was tough enough in terms of fitness that it seems like a better idea to head to Galway in the beginning of November. That made a six week gap between Poplar and Galway, and no good prep show between. Greenwood is one week after Poplar, and Holly Hill is one week before Galway, so neither works as a prep. Meadowcreek is at the right time, but doesn't offer Intermediate, and also isn't my favorite show to go to, due to the fact that it either POURS or the ground is wicked hard.

At that point, I started reconsidering Poplar as well as Richland, and decided to aim for Greenwood instead as my final prep before Galway. Although it's five weeks out from the two star, Dante has never been one to need a ton of prep shows to run a tremendous cross country, and his dressage is usually best around the third show of the season anyways.

In the end, I've decided to head for the AECs as my first prep show of the season. It will be a tough championship course to ride as the first show, but Richland would have been tough as well. I don't have any intention of winning because well, Dante's dressage is definitely not the best at the first show of the season, and we'll be competing against a bunch of really nice horses and riders. We also aren't going to rock around cross country in our usual style because Dante does have hoof issues with sore heels due to thrush. Better to conserve his soundness for the two star.

So this fall, we'll have AECs, Greenwood, and Galway to prove ourselves. I can't wait to get back on the show scene.

For the Want of a Hoof

Something I know many horse owners fight with is bad hooves. Particularly thoroughbred hooves. Dante has sometimes had good feet, but more often, he has had problems. Here follows the tale of the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad feet.

Winter 2007: I purchase Dante at the very beginning and he comes to me with ok feet. I immediately put him on a hoof supplement as a precaution. However, current barn farrier is Not Very Good, something that I naively don't realize as a first time horse owner. After all, why would my barn use a Not Very Good Farrier? Not Very Good Farrier tells me my horses hooves are too hard and I need to condition them. Every day. So I do. Dante's feet proceed to fall apart, chunks flying off with constant thrown shoes until it looks like tiny grenades have exploded beneath them. I continue to put on hoof conditioner every day, thinking that it is simply terrible thoroughbred feet.

Autumn 2007: Dante and I move to Maryland, where we make the acquaintance of Awesome Farrier. Awesome Farrier takes one look at Dante's feet and knows exactly what I've been doing to them. He tells me to never ever condition this particular horse's hooves again, because they are too, too, too soft. Excellent Farrier is forced to glue on shoes until Dante's hooves have grown back. By the time they have, Dante has been on hoof supplement for a full year and there is a noticeable difference in his hoof quality. By the time we leave Maryland in early 2008, Dante's hooves finally look fantastic.

Summer 2008: At this point, Dante has been shod by Excellent Farrier several times and his hooves continue to look great. But the summer humidity takes it's toll, as well as a two week vacation away from him where he went with his hooves unpicked, and 3 of the 4 hooves contract thrush. Upon my return, Dante feels Not Quite Right. Vet 1 examines him, says he has a neck problem. Upon 1 month of rest, problem is apparently unresolved (although I am not sure it's in his neck) and a bone scan is recommended. I am aware of the thrush and have been trying to treat it, but not taking it terribly seriously. I am also relatively poor, so before a bone scan, I decide to get a second vet's opinion. Vet 2 diagnoses thrush causing the horse's heels to hurt. Sure enough, after a thorough regiment of soaking his hooves in copper sulfate and vinegar solution. The thrush seems to go away.

Summer 2009: In early summer, at CO Horse Park, I realize Dante has been stacking his shavings under his heels and leaning forward to put his weight on his toes. I have recently noticed the thrush is back and have been very religious about picking his feet. He continues to do this through the summer and his heels are contracted at this point. After Maui Jim, I call the vet and we decide to x-ray, which reveal coffin bones at a slightly different angle than the foot. Excellent Farrier puts risers on his shoes that allow me to still pick his feet and treat the thrush. The contracted heels continues to secrete some gunk even after the thrush is gone, which I assume is just part of contracted heels.

Summer 2010: During the winter, Excellent Farrier puts a bar on the hoof riser as a result of Dante's contracted heels. Then, as summer returns, so does Dante's thrush. The gunk has never gone away, even in winter. Dante still stacks his heels. He is Not Quite Right for most of the summer, but for some reason, I never twig onto the fact that it was probably thrush. Then as fall finally brings cooler temperatures, he finally feels comfortable...just in time for him to suffer an injury.

Winter 2011: Dante feels great, but still has gunk, still stacks shavings and puts weight on his toes in his stall. I assume he just had Terrible, No-Good Thoroughbred feet. He gets full blown pour in pads right before Florida on recommendation of the vet and Excellent Farrier.

Spring 2011: Dante seems more and more uncomfortable throughout the show season. I only see it in retrospect, something I regret very much. His coffins bother him towards the very end, and in the end, we are spun from the final jog at Jersey. In retrospect, his heels hurt him enough to make his coffin bones hurt, and I never saw it. At this point he has been somewhat sensitive on his contracted heels for two and a half years. I figure this is something that I cannot change because that was just the way his feet were. I know the Texas humidity doesn't help, but I'm unable to do anything about that until I graduate.

Summer 2011: I begin to bring Dante back into work in July, and while he is behaving very well, he feels once again Not Quite Right, particular to the left. The vet checks him out 100%...except for his heels. Which, once again, have thrush. We decide to remove the pour-in pads to just the simple risers again in order to access the thrush. The day the pads are removed, Dante is noticeably lame on his left hind. He has never been actually lame before, only short or not quite right. This lameness includes head bobbing. The second day, he seems to lunge ok so I hop on...and he's lamer than the day before, very obviously to the left and on the hind leg. He kicks out strongly when I try to pick his left hind hood. I soak it in copper sulfate and vinegar. The vet comes out the next day. Dante is not lame on the left hind anymore. Instead, he is slightly off (not lame) on the right front. We strongly suspect the thrush at this point, but block his right front to be sure. He is then sound on the right front, but lame left front. The only sound foot is his right hind, which never contracted the original thrush, and remains healthy and perfectly formed with wide heels to this day. Vet recommends copper sulfate/vinegar soaks every other day and gives me a dry cow treatment to put in his heels once every day. I begin thinking very hard.

One Week Ago 2011: I begin Googling sulcus thrush, and find a plethora of information. Most of all, I find out that the dry cow treatment Tomorrow is strongly recommended, so I order a box. I do some more research and discover that I have been relatively wrong about assuming his contracted heels caused thrush. Well, they do. But the thrush very likely caused the contracted heels in the first place. By causing his heels to hurt, the thrush caused Dante to put his weight on his toes by stacking his shavings. As a result, his heels began to contract because they had no weight on them. Also, his coffins had a changed angle due to the fact that the horse was distributing his weight incorrectly. The thrush is a fungal infection, but it also allowed the gunk to begin. The gunk is a bacterial infection that has NEVER gone away. Many, many of this horses problems stem from this thrush, including the fact that he feels like he could easily move uphill, but often moves down hill.

And now I feel tremendously awful and relieved in one go. Relieved, because this is very fixable. I need to be ridiculously religious about his copper sulfate soaks and the Tomorrow treatment until his heels are fully healed, and possibly even continue them occasionally as a preventative. Hopefully, he will become more willing to put weight on his heels, the heels will spread out, the coffin angles will return to being correct, and the thrush will have no where to live. The reformation of the hoof might take a long time. If it doesn't happen by the time I graduate, I will pull his shoes to hopefully ease the process. He'll be getting 8-12 months off at that point anyways while I begin my career, so it would be a good time for that.

I've been doing this treatment for about five days now and already the Tomorrow has made a huge difference. The gunk is noticeably less, and much drier in nature. His heels are distinctly tougher and much less sensitive. I have hope.

(Dante's smiling face while I patiently soak his feet. Ironically, his right hind had a tiny bit of thrush in it tonight, so I jumped right on it.)

I feel awful because all of these issues could have been prevented if I had been vigilant and obsessive about it in the first place. Unfortunately, it is much easier to learn things in retrospect. My poor, saint of a horse has been suffering for all this time and yet has performed amazingly well all this time, never some much as thinking about not jumping. That shows me how much he loves to jump and how much of a giant heart he has.

You've held up your end of the bargain, big guy. It's time to hold up my end.

The Road Not Taken

As I begin my first real foray into the career I hope to have when I graduate, I find myself reflecting more and more on the past several years, and the choices that have led me to where I am today. Driving in traffic for two or more hours every day has given me a chance to reflect about how the choices we make become who we are. At the same time, it is so easy to look back, second guess yourself, and regret.

I will never be a professional horseman. From the age of nine, I was positive that I would be a jockey and win the Triple Crown. I geared my entire life towards that goal, including attending U of Kentucky for college, locating myself in the horse capital of the world. Finally, at the age of nineteen, I accepted what had been staring me in the face for years. I was just too big to be a jockey. In order to make weight, I'd have had to reduce my eating habits to unhealthy levels.

At this point, I came to the first fork in the road. Should I sacrifice my health in order to achieve my dream? The cost (and self discipline) was too much. I gave up my dream.

For a while, I had no new dream. I toyed with the idea of being a bloodstock agent or an equine lawyer. Then, just as I graduated, I was able to purchase my first horse. Suddenly, I had direction. We won our first event at Beginner Novice two weeks after I graduated and I decided to give a career of eventing a go.

I became a working student. That was an enlightening experience. For all those young hopefuls out there, if you truly think you want to be a professional eventer, go be a working student. It was the most exhausting, yet edifying experience of my life.

Generally, working students tend to either love it and never want to leave, or turn sour on horses after too much exposure. The former are those who tend to end up successful in a career in horses. The latter become resentful of the whole situation, mentally depressed, and burned out on horses. I was the latter.

I hated horses, I hated working with horses, I even hated spending time with my own horse. This wasn't the way I wanted to spend my life, burned out and resenting the animals I had once loved. I thought hard about my future career paths at that point. I had to make a decision. Would I have lots of time to work with horses, but no money, no life, no guarantee of success at some point, and miserable the entire time? Or would I go back to college, get another, more useful degree, and eventually become an amateur who has to juggle riding her one horse with a full time job? Each path had its pros and cons, but ultimately, I chose the path that would allow me to always enjoy horses. I chose to become an amateur.

Now I'm poised on the edge of actually emerging out into the world and having to balance all the elements of my life. Up until now, balancing college with competing has been a relatively painless and almost pleasant experience. Next year, I will be working 8-5 (or hopefully 7-4), then commuting to the barn in the evenings to ride every day. I will fall into bed each night exhausted from a long day and do it all over again the next. I will have the money to pursue the sport though, and I will have the joy of seeing my lovely horse each day.

Obviously, not everyone burns out the way I do. My friend, Jessica Pye of Pye Equestrian, is at the same stage of life as me, but has chosen the other fork in the road. No matter how tough it is, between injuries and lack of money, she never tires of seeing her horse's face peek out from his stall. We are reflections of the choices that each young aspiring rider must make.

I will never ride in the Olympics, or represent my country. I will never win Rolex, and probably never compete at even Burghley or Badminton. I mostly aspire to ride around Rolex, and complete. Dressage is a constant struggle for us, and show jumping is tricky for me. I will never have the time to ride five horses a day and practice my dressage so much that it becomes world class. I hope to improve with every ride, but some days I slide backwards. I only have time for one horse, so when he is on vacation, so am I. This makes it tougher to start up again for the next season, because we are both out of shape.

These are all the negatives about being a working amateur. The positive? Every day, when I see my horse's face, I am filled with content. After all, who could frown at a nose like this?

The Amateur Side

Well, Dante is on vacation until the end of June, which leaves me at loose ends...on the horsey side of my life anyways.

In the summer, Dante and riding generally get put on the back burner because one of these days, I need to get a real career (instead of that of prolonged scholarship). In order to obtain this career, I have to do internships in the summer while I'm in school, which means working 7:30a to 5:30p Mon-Thurs, with a half day on Fridays. Now, eventually I don't foresee this being a problem, I will ride late at night. My s/o is in med school, so he won't exactly be mad at me for being super busy.

However, here in Texas, riding in the evening during the summer is unpleasant. Actually, let me rephrase that. RIDING in the summer is unpleasant. Riding is least unpleasant from the hours of 6am to 9am, when the temperature is a mere ninety degrees. Riding is incredibly unpleasant from 3 pm to 8 pm, when the temperatures hit one hundred and more.

Guess what time I'm available to ride during this internship?

However, I'm actually very excited for this internship, which will be for an international engineering company (although I am staying in Dallas) designing and building HVAC systems. Eventually I would like to work in green construction and LEED certification, and I think this is a great first step towards this.

To make matters more complicated, I am also taking a summer class. I normally wouldn't try and do this, but the class is not being offered during the school year, is taught by my favorite teacher, is a fun computer class, and satisfies an important requirement for my degree. However, this means that for five weeks, I have class on Mon-Wed from 6:30p to 9:00p. This class ends in the second week of July, so at least I only have to do this for a couple of weeks while trying also to ride Dante.

Speaking of Dante, he should start under saddle again the first weekend of July. I'll only be able to ride Thurs-Sun, but it will be fine. Then in late July, we'll get back to riding full time, in August we'll gear up and start fitness work, and at the end of August we'll head up to Richland where we'll run Intermediate.

I've been thinking a lot lately how I'm going to balance riding and work once I graduate, and I have a preliminary plan thought out in my head. It might change, it might not, but I always feel better when I have a plan.

Back to the Basics

Sometimes, things don't turn out the way you pictured them in your thoughts.

This is basically the summary of what happened to us at Jersey Fresh.

All season long, I was gearing to Jersey. Our dressage was improving at home and our show jumping was in sync. We'd had three amazing cross country runs in a row, and I felt that it wasn't beyond our capabilities to finish in the top ten or even the top five if things went extremely well.

Mostly though, I just wanted to get around and get a qualifying run.

Our problems began about two weeks prior. I noticed that Dante's lateral work was stiffer and less willing on his part. Dante has a weak right SI ligament, and while he usually begins the season with beautiful lateral work (for him), it tends to weaken throughout the season. I was hoping to make it through Jersey without it getting sore, but unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. So our lateral work went quite downhill literally the week we were in Jersey until I mainly thought to get through the right-handed lateral work. Lovely. (It doesn't affect his left lateral work at all interestingly enough. However, I had refrained from doing any lateral work in the previous week or two and so the left lateral work suffered from lack of practice.)

However, both my vet and I discussed at length and concurred that the ligament did not bother him at all for jumping, cantering, galloping, and most trot work save right-handed lateral work. We decided to go and let the chips fall where they may.

Sure enough, we got through the dressage test. That was about it. I had hoped to make up some points in the canter work, but we were both tense and the canter-walk-canters became canter-halt-canters which scored very badly. The scores were running quite high throughout the day, which didn't help my case any, and I definitely felt that the score was a few points higher than it should have been. However, I squeaked out a barely qualifying score, so at least there was that. I was through the first phase.

Onto cross country. Dante was amazing out on course, other than spooking a little at the second jump and the trakehner. Every other jump he just attacked and jumped as if he had been doing this level his entire life. It was a touch course, with riders like Phillip Dutton and Kim Severson falling off and retiring. Dante ate it up like it was a Novice course and we cruised in twelve seconds under time, no problem. It was amazing. So now we were up to four awesome cross country runs in a row.

After cross country, I iced Dante in the ice boots twice and jogged him up for Mike. Mike and Heather both thought he looked great and I thought so too, from what I could see while running next to him. We just jogged him up in stabling, not on the roads outside of stabling, but he looked great.

The next morning I got to the stabling at 6 am and jogged up Dante. So far as I could tell, he still looked good. Heather and Mike saw him job around 7 am and also thought he looked good. However, when we got out on the asphalt right before the jog, Dante took a few slightly funny steps. We got held, and the vet said he was a little short on his left front but couldn't find any soreness at all. We reinspected and I thought Dante looked a lot better on reinspection, but unfortunately, the decision didn't go our way.

Looking back, I think Dante was affected by the hard ground, but only a tiny bit...enough to be sound on the (very) slightly softer ground in stabling, but bothered by the hard asphalt in the jog area. If I had iced Dante that morning, I believe he would have passed with no problems. From now on, Dante will get iced in the morning before the jog, since he does seem to be affected by hard ground just a bit. I'll also make sure to jog him on the hardest surface available to make absolutely sure that he's sound.

Dante's had a long season, and he's on a long vacation now. I'll be working and in summer school throughout June, so he'll start back up in July. For the fall, we'll keep it as short as possible and only do three shows, Richland, Poplar, and Fair Hill CCI**, with Galway CCI** as back up. The vet will come out every two weeks to check out Dante and make sure he's on track too.

Hopefully, we'll be good to go in the fall.

Fresh Starts

Wow, today has been a whirlwind of activity.

It began at 3:30 am, when my alarm kindly woke me up so I could catch my 6 am flight. I'm relatively certain that this is the first time I have ever seen 3:30 am from the getting up side of things, although to be fair, I knew of its existence thanks to sporadic all-nighters and the occasional party during college.

Still, 3:30am is incredibly early to wake up. Especially when your final exam didn't end until 7 pm the night before and you didn't get to sleep until midnight.

Okay, enough with the whining. I was able to catch a few extra Z's on the plane and ate some Poptarts for breakfast. The breakfast of champions!....Or not. After the plane landed, I managed to somehow end up with not only a lovely Toyota Camry as my rental car, but also a soft pretzel that the Enterprise counter was handing out. Yay lunch!

The Camry and I zipped up I-95 because we were on a deadline. Bafflingly, it appears that PA and NJ think you should be driving only 55 on the highway. Luckily, the other drivers on the highway agreed with my withering assessment of the speed limits and I was able to make good time and arrive at the Horse Park of New Jersey just before noon.

Since the jog was in two hours, I got straight to work. Heather and Bonner had kindly already bathed him for me, so all I had to do was braid him, groom him, wrap his tail, add quartermarks, touch up his clip job, and polish his hooves before the jog at two. Oh, and I had to look cute myself. No problem!

Then comes the part where I'm dumb and I arrive at jog 20 minutes early and have to walk in so many circles that my feet get blisters from the shoes I purposely bought one size too small so that I could jog in them. Go me.

Luckily Dante jogged up quite well. Dante's not the best behaved at jogs, but not in the way most horses are bad. He jogs readily enough, but really wants to stay a half pace behind me the whole way down the lane. So I tap him with my in hand whip, and he happily speeds up....and then I can't stop him. It's not as if he's running away with me or anything, but he just blithely ignores the eggbutt snaffle in his mouth and tries to keep trotting into eternity. Thanks horse.

But we looked damn good. No photos yet though, the parentals don't arrive until tomorrow. Bonner's mom got a few and of course the show photographers were there so I hope to end up with a couple nice ones.

After the jog, I hopped on (after changing out of my dress). I was just planning on giving him a light work, but it took us longer to get in sync than I thought it would. The heat got to me a bit, and since my ride time is 4:10 on Friday, I need to get used to it. Finally, at the end I got over the heat bump and he got over the 'I don't want to flex today' thing and we got ourselves nicely in sync. Hopefully we will have a bit better time of it tomorrow, having refreshed ourselves of the concept of dressage today.

Now, I could have waited until tomorrow to walk the cross country course, but that's one of my favorite things of the weekend. I love the discovery of new things to jump and the anticipation of cross country day. So I set out to walk the 9 minute, 14 second course.

Wow, it's long.

It's also lovely, set primarily in a beautiful emerald field. I can see why spectators like this event, as you can see the majority of the action from one vantage point. The course winds back and forth at least 4 times through this field. Now, this also makes it difficult to figure out which jump is yours and where you're going after. I definitely accidentally walked the first three jumps of the CIC** before realizing my mistake. I also got lost at least twice trying to find a jump, became confused due to some roping, and almost gave up while climbing a steep hill at the end. But an hour later I finally finished and I am so glad to be here.

(The fields of the Horse Park of New Jersey.)

I'm going to try and get a coursewalk up at some point, but that is not tonight. I will say that I am very excited about jumping the bank complex, the coffin, the brush fence, the trakehner, and most of all, the keyhole! The course looks great with lots of galloping room. My main concern right now is that the ground is pretty harder, and there is no longer any forecast for rain. I really hope they aerovate the ground.

Tomorrow will begin with our coursewalk at 8 am with Mike. At 2 pm, my parents arrive so I'll go pick them up and then from 4:30 to 5:30 is ring desensitization, so I'll go ride then.