Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Transformation Tuesday - Super B Edition


Super B continues to progress like I thought she would now that we have our consistency back that was so rudely interrupted by the north east.  The real Super B is still coming out and she is still everything I knew she was from the first time.  Keeping her on the flat for the majority of the past year is starting to show just how valuable that plan was.  I have let her tell me when she's ready for stuff and I feel like she's clearly letting me know lately that she's ready to level up.

Lately I have been adding in ground rails, tiny cross rails, and cavaletti.  Things make SO much sense to her now.  Where before she would just kind of throw herself over stuff because she knew that is what the end goal was, she is now jumping with actual form and has a round jump with a powerful push off the ground.  She easily gets her distances and there is NO drama before ground rails or jumps.  Yes, she used to even throw her head in the air approaching ground rails at the trot or canter.  No more.  In fact, she has been SO good the past couple weeks I honestly forgot she ever even had that habit.

Starting very small, and very simple. 


A very rare sighting of TWO unicorns!  Klein has always approved of her, like she was always supposed to be one of us.

Even in the round pen she continues to find what her body is truly capable of.  She is also starting to canter without her head in the air on or off the lunge line, with nothing on.  Everything seems to make more sense to her by the day.



Look ma, no giraffe!



She has totally grasped the concept of stretching.

I just lllllllllllove her!!!!!!!!!!!

She is making corrections and throwing in auto changes where necessary, she also is brave and confident to everything where as months ago you could feel a slight bit of conflict in her.  She WANTED to do whatever I asked because she trusts me but she still had just a slight bit of hesitation coming to some things because she just didn't know what exactly her new job was all about.  Now?  The other day we got an odd distance after coming around a corner and she kept the commitment and went.  I have been beyond proud of her lately.  






Falling asleep during her pedicure.

New set up.

Ok, so I didn't realize what a terrible pic this was until I took it off my phone.  This was what she was in, egg bars with pads, only on the front, she's barefoot in the rear.

She still has her moments, as seen here after two blog friends helped me out when Super B presented the perfect photoshop opportunity because I didn't ask for the right lead canter perfectly.



Let me explain that photo again, her right side has always been her more difficult side, because she's been a NASCAR most of her life (go fast, turn left).  She has been opinionated about the right side sometimes when I ask her to canter.  We started with mare glares, teeth grinding, and reluctance to canter to the right when she first came off the track.

February 27, 2018, me asking for the right lead canter, B, 10/10 not gonna do it.  This was after about a month of being restarted off the track.

She has had regular chiro and massage work and along with regular under saddle work, and work on the lunge line to the right, she has improved A LOT.  It keeps improving with time.  I think part of it was some pain due to some serious chiro adjustments she needed, and some of it was the fact that it felt weird to her.  It wasn't normal and she lacked strength on that side.  With time it is becoming normal.

Now, if I don't sit in the perfect spot I will get a kick out here and there but NOTHING like what it used to be.  If she did it consistently, I would be concerned and it would be further evaluated.  The chiro even told me the best thing for her is work.  Our chiro here was an exercise rider at one point too, so he is EXTREMELY familiar with OTTBs.  Also, I think it is important to bring up the fact that when she does act silly I have NEVER felt like she was being mean about it.  Some horses you can tell when they are giving you a violent warning, this is not her.  I have never felt like she was being malicious, even in the times when she gets wound up about something to the point where she leaps around a little bit.  Never have I felt like she is trying to put me on the ground.  I'm not saying it isn't possible from her, I'm just saying she hasn't made me feel unsafe at any point.  I trust her very much, and she knows it.

Here is proof she can pick up her right lead with no drama:


You will also see her here from this past Sunday, cantering to the right beautifully:


More miles will bring more improvement.  Here is another massive difference.  The top was in October, right before she was out of work for three months due to the abscess from hell, the bottom was a week ago.


And while we're on the topic, I got her video from Keeneland last week from when she went through their yearling auction in September of 2011.

Miss Benburb_Sept2011_Hip1470 from Lauren Warren on Vimeo.

Even as a yearling, she was a super model!!

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Beyond the Walls


Lately, (UNTIL TODAY!!) with the light in the evenings still not lasting very long I have continued to use the weekends to get the girls out, away from the ring.  I did consider riding in the morning before work but after paying close attention to the light while I am at the gym in the early morning, that's not really going to get me any extra daylight right now.

Now, I am NOT complaining.  It has been 55 in the evenings and I have been riding around in a t-shirt or hoodie.  Our ring is obviously has lights and I can work on the flat, or I can set fences and/or ground rails up.  So there is NO complaining going on at all here!  I absolutely love living here and I couldn't be happier about the move.  Just ask any of my friends I Marco Polo regularly.  "*SIGH* I just love this place" is a regular phrase.


But, I am a person that does NOT like staying in the ring for a week at a time either.  Horses have to get out.  So the weekends have been dedicated to adventuring in some form.  If we're not just hacking out around the neighborhood we are hauling locally.  I have taken both the girls to Lone Mountain Park, they have both went to the state park down the road, and hacked through the neighborhood.

Lone Mountain with Super B.



Getting a bath after we got home and letting everyone know they can bend the knee, and kiss the hoof. 

 Heading down the road to the state park.

Hill work at the state park.

Heading back from the state park.

Enjoying a perfect evening after a bath and an adventure.

Klein mare at Lone Mountain. 






We've been having a blast exploring all the new places around here.  These are just a few and there are so many more!

First Dressage Schooling Show of 2019


Last weekend I put Super B in a dressage schooling show that was right down the road.  I was going to take Klein but then realized there isn't much of a point for Klein right now because she has so many miles and she's so reliable at shows.  I always know what I'm going to get with her.  9.8 times out of 10, if she puts a hoof wrong, it's some error I made.  This made me take Super B instead.

Super B has been to that barn before, though we didn't ride for long there.  We went down there for a saddle fitting with a Custom Saddlery rep to try some saddles.  She was a little wild that night which led the rep to make a comment about how she would get on a horse like Klein (I took Klein too, but I'll be keeping her Trilogy on her), but she wouldn't be inclined to get on a horse like Super B.  But, she did settle down and worked nicely.

I was hoping that time spent there would work to our advantage.  Also, since it was a schooling show it would be a low key atmosphere for her, or so I thought.  I just put her in Intro B & C to keep things easy for her.  She's ready for Training Level though, and First is not far behind. 

There were thunderstorms that day that were coming from the west over the mountains.  We were on the edges of them.  While I never find it acceptable for horses to act stupid because it's windy (um, hello, they live outside...IN WIND), I will give Super B a bit of a pass because there were some horses getting pretty upset and I think that got her wound up.  I was hand walking her around when I unloaded her to just check the place out and some horses in the warm up lost their minds.  B was like "Oh we get crazy here?  I can get crazy too!"  She proceeded to prance around with her tail in the air, snorting.  Silly, but she looked gorgeous. 

The horses at the barn next to where we were ended up tearing around the pasture full blast and one decided he had enough and just jumped the fence and took off.  So that added to the chaos.  Klein would watch all of this and just be amused.  She looks at stuff like that like it's all below her and she would never even consider being so goofy.

Damn girl...  She looks AMAZING right now.  I can't wait to see her in her summer coat.  

After the horse was caught, Super B went back to falling asleep at the trailer before I tacked her up.  I tacked up and headed to the warm up where she was great for the most part.  I still have to figure out a strategy for warming her up.  I figured I would give her more time than I thought she needed...that wasn't the right answer. 

Being a good girl in the warm up.


We went in for our first test and she couldn't halt straight to save her life.  I think it was the glass on the judges booth.  It had a big glass sliding windows and a glare.  Which is again, not really an excuse, but I think it as distracting to her and she wasn't sure what it was.  She has mirrors at home now so she's used to those but the mirrors there are full length so that may have been eye opening as well.

Ok, so here you can see exactly what I was talking about with the glare on the judge's booth.

Square, but not straight.

Butt dapples!

Aside from not wanting to halt straight (she is 100% capable of beautiful square halts when she isn't concerned about things) she was just a little fussy.  After that test we went back to the warm up to work on our canter a little more.  She was being pretty opinionated about it and had also figured out she didn't have her running martingale on.  I have been putting it on her for dressage schools in hopes of helping her kind of forget her bad habit of throwing her head straight in the air. 

I can't really complain though because her head throwing habit was easily 90% worse a year ago.  It has all but went away now.  Most of our rides now she never does it.  I still had the running martingale on her just in case.  It is rare she actually tests the waters with it.  I was torn between using it for dressage schools or not since it's not allowed to be used at dressage shows.  I decided to use it for a little while just to see if it would help get rid of that last bit of her bad habit.  Plus, it only engages when it needs to so it doesn't do anything if she's going nicely.

She started throwing a pretty big fit in the warm up but I did manage to get some nice canters.  The guy running the warm up even offered to let us go last if we wanted so I could have more time.  Initially I thought that was a good idea, then I decided to just go because I could tell part of the issue was B was just kind of over it.  She was wound up and getting frustrated so there was no point to prolong that.  We would just go in and do what we could with what we had.


Not hard to see why she gets comments about her looks on every single dressage test we've ever ridden.


The second test went better than I thought.  She got both her canters fairly quick and held it together until the last trot down the long side before turning back up the center line.  There we were, just trotting down the long side and out of nowhere she did threw her head straight in the air so I quickly turned her in a circle and continued like it never happened.  That's how I always handle it.  She was crooked up the center line and again didn't want to halt straight but we survived. 

*SIGH*  There it is.  We were just trotting down the long side, nicely when this came out of absolutely nowhere.  At least she goes right back to work like it never happened.  

Even with her silliness, she scored in the 60's.  I was surprised.  The judge must have been feeling generous.  I did get comments saying "quiet, tactful rider" and she got comments saying "elegant horse, lots of potential, just fussy today."  So, the judge sees what is there even though she wasn't on her best behavior.  I don't blame her though, she was great at her last dressage show in NJ because she had been to that barn several times.  That's where she scored in the 70's.  THAT is the kind of stuff she is capable of.  I feel like she is still getting her bearings here.  She is 80% settled I would say, but she is still anxious when we go new places here.  She had just gotten comfortable with her new life with me in NJ when I moved her 3,000+ miles away to a place completely foreign to her.  Me, and Klein are her only constants so I can completely appreciate why she is slightly concerned.


I had hoped the whole head throwing thing wasn't something where she was like "oh now that I KNOW the running martingale isn't on I'll just go back to doing this."  So, there will be no more schooling with that for dressage schools.  The next time I rode her at home after that show I didn't have it on, and she was GREAT.  So, it's not the martingale.  It was a combination of being somewhere unfamiliar and craziness going on around her.  She's pretty level headed about A LOT of things and I think she just needs a little more time here and for me to continue taking her out to different places and she won't get so wound up.  Stuff like this is EXACTLY why I took her and not Klein. She obviously NEEDS the miles. 

Afterward, her normal calm while her staff...aka The Other Half, tends to her majesty.

We'll continue to go different places regularly, to include that barn since it's right down the road.  The first couple weeks she was here, even at home (our new home barn) she felt kind of anxious, that has completely left the building, so now I expect the next step is going to be that calm no matter where I take her.

Monday, March 4, 2019

Total Saddle Fit Stability Stirrup Leathers

 Trilogy Verago Elite (Klein's dresage saddle).

Total Saddle Fit has started making Stability Stirrup Leathers.  I have this type of leathers on my jump saddles and I LOVE them.  They made an instant, noticeable difference and I have been a fan ever since, which is the reason my jump saddles all have them on them.  Their "wide-body design brings an unprecedented level of stability to a rider's leg.  The unique design creates a broad contact area on the flap, offering incredible stability unmatched by traditional leathers."




The companies that are making them aren't making them in a dressage length though, until now.  Total Saddle Fit has come out with them in both lengths.  I love them for jumping so much of course I wanted to see how they felt in a dressage saddle.

Custom Saddlery Icon Star (Super B's dressage saddle).

True to form, the leather quality is impressive.  I took them for a ride on two different dressage saddles and they were equally as awesome on both.  They definitely provide a very comfortable, solid base for your lower leg.  Super B can get a bit...um, animated sometimes and these leathers even provide some extra stability in those little episodes.  Super B actually had one of those little outbursts in a dressage show yesterday that prompted some "tactful, quiet rider" written comments and she still managed to get in the 60's.  Was that all the leathers?  Well, no, of course not, but that extra stability does help you stay quiet.


I have ridden with them for two weeks now and they are absolutely staying.  They are incredibly comfortable.  Total Saddle Fit has the motto "Ridiculously Effective Creations."  They stay true to that with every product I have from them.  Every product they make is effective and is created out of an actual need for improvement in equipment for both horse and rider.  All of their products are designed for the improvement and effectiveness for both horse and rider.


If you're not looking for these type of leathers in particular, they do sell traditional leathers too in black or brown, jumping or dressage length.  I also have a couple pairs of these and I have had them for a couple years now, they are holding up exceptionally well and have yet to stretch at all.  They also make slim leathers in black or brown, in various sizes, if that is what you're looking for.

Or, if you're not in the market for leathers, at least take a stroll around their website and check out the rest of their quality, comfortable, effective products.  Remember, they do have a 30 day 100% money back guarantee as well, and they stand behind that.  One last thing, so last month they offered free shipping, if you missed out on that, they're now offering free shipping on EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE!