40's! Feels like Summer!

Today we had weather in the 40's. I swear, after negative wind chill factors, 40's feel like summer!

I am very luck to have a friend with an indoor arena 15 minutes away from my house. Because my outdoor still had piles of snow in places, I figured a nice outing to the indoor was needed in the balmy weather. I packed up Meadow & her things and off we went.

15 minutes later, we arrive, and I unload the girl. I should have known it was going to be an interesting day based on the fact that (a) I hadn't ridden her in about 3 weeks and (b) she came off the trailer a sweaty mess. Now, this horse has been trailered a lot in the past year. Long distances, short distances, and to this particular barn a bunch of times. No excuse for getting all worked up other than pent up energy.

I walked her out a bit before tacking up. Left her halter on as I knew I wanted to lunge her prior to getting on to let her work out any of the winter cobwebs accumulated over the past couple weeks. We literally step one foot into that indoor, and she starts trying to roll. This is her new favorite thing! "Mom! It's so nice in here--no snow, no ice, no mud--must MUST roll." We walk and walk and walk, trying to get her to forget about it. When I think that I MAY be able to lunge her and give her some line, guess what, down she goes, saddle & all. Leaving me with lunge line in one hand, flailing whip in the other, and hooting & hollering like a banshee. What a sight, I'm sure. Silly girl ended up breaking off the over-girth on my old Keiffer saddle. It's not a big deal & is reparable... but is a reminder as to why the babies get the old saddle!

Since I had to fix the saddle & such, I turned her loose for some free-lunging to get the rest of her crazies out. Boy, did she have some fun. Tore around in there like a bat out of hell, for sure. Bucking & rip-roaring twists & turns. When she finally calmed her little butt down, I was able to tack her up with no further mishaps and have a really nice ride.

I was able to get canter departs on both sides multiple times and held the canter for a handful of strides each time as well. She is definitely more unbalanced to the left which is not surprising due to the compensating she had been doing from her injury. I was very pleased with that, and her trot-work was nice and forward and soft. I even threw in a half crossrail which she trotted over like it was nothing. Obviously, I couldn't ask for perfection after letting her sit for 3 weeks, but for the first ride in a while, I was very happy with her... even after the pre-ride antics. :)

Meadow, "flame horse"

Winter blues...

I haven't been able to ride for almost 3 weeks now because of crazy weather mixed with a lost shoe. And, to top it all off now, I'm sick!

One benefit to all of this is that my girls are getting used to wearing blankets... Meadow & Elly both had never worn anything prior to this winter, but -10 to -20 deg wind-chills will make any horse shiver! Luckily, I have taken after my father and am a major hoarder. When I was in high school, I rescued a 17.1hh Holsteiner gelding. I only had him for one winter before we discovered he had irreparable ligament damage in his front legs. He was retired to a pasture pet home, but I kept all the horse-clothes we had bought for him.

Concerto, right after being adopted, 2004 (I think)

Needless to say, my little Arab never needed to wear the size 84" sheet & blanket, but they fit my two big girls perfectly!! On the super frigid nights, Elly gets the sheet (she has a wooly mammoth coat) & Meadow gets the blanket. They are keeping them (a) on their bodies and (b) intact, so I'd say that's pretty good for a 3 & 4 yr old with no blanketing experience! So, even in the dreary cold of winter, at least they're getting "training" on something!

"It's Complicated"

A month or so into Meadow's back injury saga, I decided to switch farriers. I was not pleased with the attitude of the farrier I had been using & his impatience coupled with Meadow's soreness resulted in escalated situations where my baby horse hated to stand for the farrier. I made the switch to a new, young guy who really seems to take pride in fixing up the "problem" horses.

So, before he even came out the first time, he had me send photos of her feet so that he could be prepared for any adjustments he may make. Based on what he saw & from what I had been noticing, her heels were quite under-run, most likely due to a combination of her conformation (long pasterns) and previously rushed trims. The plan was to put shoes all-around on my currently bare-foot, never-before-been-shod horse.



Long toes, flared feet prior to new farrier

Front feet with underrun heels, prior to new farrier

Our appointment day arrives and Meadow just cannot handle it. She had come to despise farriers so much that she escalated herself to the point of being unsafe. I tried to twitch her after she had gotten herself in this tizzy & jammed my wrist so badly that I got faint from the pain. We had to call it quits after getting just one shoe on and decided that going forward, she'd have to be tranquilized. We set up a time with the vet a couple days later.

Now, Miss Meadow also hates vets. I credit this to her younger days (pre-Leah) when they would ace her in order to work with her. She has a crazy needle phobia and requires a twitch in order to receive any shots. I know, I know, you are probably thinking--spoiled, un-disciplined horse. Yes, I've gotten that lecture before. However, she is perfect with her feet with me and everything else 90% of the time, only escalating like this in certain associations (vet & now, farrier)... so it's just something we've learned to deal with. Luckily, the vet & farrier team I have now understand this and are willing to work with me on it rather than ridicule me & her about it.

When the vet comes, we tranquilize her and are able to get front shoes on, trimmed hinds. We have been doing that system now for about 5 shoeing cycles. Every 6 weeks I coordinate vet and farrier schedules and have them meet me to get Meadow's shoes on. It is a pain. in. the. butt.

Yesterday was one of those days. The farrier came out at noon and the vet was scheduled for 1pm. We worked on Elly & Brazynska first and finished early. It was a little before 1pm so I called the vet office for a status check. She was running about 30 min late. We decided to give Meadow a try without any drugs... Well, she was not having it. I decided to give something else a try. I took a chain and put it under her lip. The vet who did her SI injections did this in order to give her drugs and she responded well to it, so I figured, what the heck. And guess what--she stood like a statue the entire time! Yippee! Hopefully we have figured Meadow out! She may not be perfect and still needs some "management" to get those shoes on, but I think we're making progress. I am very pleased that now -*knocks on wood*- we won't need to call the vet out going forward! And, if all goes well next round, we'll finally be adding hind shoes to give her some extra support come Spring! Little victories!

Feet now are better shaped, rounder & more compact

Toes are now shorter with more heel support

In the barn - Elly

Elly's Whisperwind is the newest addition to The Sippel Farm. She is a 3 year old, 16.2hh, registered Georgian Grande (1/2 Friesian, 1/2 Saddlebred). She is fabulous and just dripping with potential!



My future dressage superstar!

I have only had her since the end of October, so with the holidays and winter weather rolling in, we haven't had time to make much progress. Instead, it's been a whirlwind of craziness, starting with the three horses escaping through an open gate one weekend when we were outside doing chores. It took about 2 hours of chasing them to finally get halters on everyone. We had a lighted police escort home, so Miss Elly got a lot of desensitizing experience that day! However, she must have loved her freedom SO much that the next day, I woke up to find her ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE! She had jumped the 4+ ft fence and was just waiting on the other side for the other girls to join her. Luckily, they're not quite as brave! She calmly came back in when I opened the gate, but what a scare! Erik and I spent the entire evening stringing hot-wire around at about 5 ft, so if she jumps out now, she will be getting sold as a grand prix jumping prospect! Haha!

On the training side of things, I can tell that she is going to be super easy. Her prior owner did a ton of ground work with her, so she is very respectful on the ground and sensitive. We've worked on her lunging a bit--she tends to get fast, so we're working on calm & listening. I've also gotten her accepting the bridle & saddle already; she had no experience with either and she handled it like a pro! We've done a little long-lining, and I'm starting to get her to accept weight. I sat on her for the first time on Sunday, and Erik led us in a circle on a lead-line. Easy-as-pie! I'd like to get some good weather days in a row so that I can get at least 2 weeks of solid long-lining experience on her (to install brakes) before I try to truly get on and go! I am very excited to see what 2014 brings for us though... and 2015, 2016, 2017......... :)

In the barn - Meadow

Red River Meadow is my giveaway story. I bought my own little farmette in the Summer of 2010, and Brazynska needed a friend. Not really--haha--as Brazynska was as independent as can be, but I needed her to have a friend. :) Since I had just bought the house, I was a bit cash-poor. Luckily--or unluckily--the horse market was doing very poorly and so there were a lot of people looking to give away horses, especially coming into winter. I started to peruse the Giveaway Forum on COTH, the CANTER Mid-Atlantic ads, Craigslist, anything! I went to look at LOTS of free horses, traveling to WV, PA, & NJ even. But I was being picky. I wanted the right free horse.

One day, I started going back through older posts to the Giveaway Forum on COTH. I found one for a yearling sporthorse filly out in the western edge of VA. They had a video of her and she moved nicely, and better still, she was a BIG girl. Erik (my husband--who was my boyfriend at the time) and I took the 3 hour trip to go see her, and I literally just looked at her in the stall & decided that she was the right free horse. Like I said, I had gone to see A LOT of horses, so I had seen the gauntlet of "quality," and I could tell right off the bat that she was going to be a big, pretty girl. The owner was super nice and the only reason she was giving her away was that her husband had lost his job and she just didn't have the time or resources to dedicate to her. She just wanted her to go to a good home instead. They also tried to send us home with a free cat too, but we resisted the urge on that one. :)


Braynska & Meadow, Winter 2010

I made arrangements with Meadow's owners to have her shipped to my house as I didn't have a truck/trailer at the time. She walked off the trailer like a pro and settled into the stall super easily. I kept her and Brazynska separated for a week or so and when I finally put them together, Brazynska was not very happy with me. Meadow had little-to-no manners (she had been out with another yearling), and she had had very minimal handling. I actually have to give Brazynska a lot of credit for Meadow's "training" as she did a lot to whip that little yearling into shape--even though at 1.5 yrs old, Meadow was already taller than Braz!

Over the course of the next 1.5 years, I did lots of groundwork with Meadow. She learned how to pick up her feet, how to lead, how to tie, how to lunge, how to long-line, how to trailer, how to tack up, how to accept weight. By the time it came to backing her, she was already basically "broke." We had absolutely no rodeo moments, everything was calm and collected.



2nd time ever on Meadow's back, Summer 2011

Of course, though, right around the time where I was trying to get her started, everything really started hitting the fan with my mom's illness, so both Brazynska and Meadow actually were boarded for a couple months down in the Norfolk area where Erik was stationed.
We moved everyone back home in December of 2012, and with winter, no "real" riding happened until around February of 2013. With the new year, I really wanted to get back into the swing of things and get serious. I joined MAHA in order to meet some horse-friends, and started trailering out A LOT to different parks and farms to give Meadow exposure. She was coming along great, so I entered her into her first show in April.


Meadow's first show, April 2013

Well, it sucked. Enter bucking, evading, rodeo-style Meadow. It was all so strange coming from my sensible, easy coming 4-year-old, so I had the vet / chiro out to look at her. I had seen her fall while horse-playing in the pasture, so we guessed that maybe she tweaked something in her back & he recommended at least 3 months of rest with regular adjustments. I was heartbroken, because I was just getting back into it, and here was a major set-back. 3 months came and went and Meadow still was not right. Her lower back & hind end were still hurting and there was nothing left to adjust, so at about 6 months in, I took her to Virginia Equine Imaging and had them diagnose her. Without doing a full bone scan, they diagnosed her with an SI injury and we attempted to do injections. Meadow had other ideas... so we ended up trying Shockwave therapy. That helped enough that I could start riding again (slowly), but she still wasn't 100%. We did end up doing SI injections in November, and she seems marginally more comfortable now. I'm hoping that strengthening and stretching will get her the rest of the way.

All ~7 months off were not for naught though, as I was still able to take Meadow to the 2013 RPSI inspection tour and get her branded & entered into Mare Book 1. She did great for that, even not at 100%!

Needless to say, though, since November, we have been in regular work, weather-permitting. Her walk & trot are coming along nicely, but we are still having canter issues. At 4 years old and 16.2hh, she is young & tall--in combination with compensating for an injury for ~7 months--so her balance is just not there yet. We have gotten canter departs both directions though--so it's just a matter of strengthening to maintain!

Two weeks ago, I took her to her basically-first show (2nd show ever, 1st since she's overcome this issue), and we showed Intro A & B. She was calm, level-headed, and overall did great! The judge commented on her quiet temperament and told us that we just need to work on consistency. I think that's pretty awesome for my baby girl, and I'm very excited to watch her progress throughout this coming year... I need to get this canter thing straightened out, and we need her to stay healthy... *Crossing fingers*...

 

In the barn - Brazynska

Let's introduce the girls...



Brazynska baby pic, 1990
 

Brazynska MF is a registered Polish Arabian who has been in my family her entire life. She was originally intended to be a racehorse as part of Majestic Farms, my aunt's Arabian horse farm in Palm City, FL. When Majestic Farms was dismantled, I acquired 3 of my aunt's Arabs--Indian Princesse (the first horse I ever rode!), Majestic Mystique aka Misty, and Brazynksa. Brazynska was actually part of my aunt's last large foal-crop so while she was race-trained, she never actually made it to the track.


I grew up with Brazynska. I mean, Princesse & Misty represent a big chunk of my childhood and my early years riding, but Brazynska represents my coming-of-age story. Through middle school, I had the horses boarded at barns that micro-managed me, which is awesome for parents who want to drop their kids at the barn all day and then head off to work or whatnot. I cleaned stalls, I swept aisles, I fed horses, I cleaned tack, and I only rode when & where I was "allowed" to. I learned discipline, I learned horsemanship, I learned good riding fundamentals, but I did not get any "street-smarts." I never took a horse on a trail-ride; I never showed; riding in the outdoor arena was considered a BIG DEAL. This resulted in a burnt-out teenager with "crazy," spooky Arabs that had never been ANYWHERE.

As I entered high school, I convinced my parents to let me look for another barn. I ended up moving from a highly disciplined, 50-stall, trainer-on-site, covered-arena dressage barn to a small boarding facility where basically the horses are pets and no one ever rode. At this point, I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my riding. I started jumping, I took up trail-riding, and I joined the local 4-H club. I needed to get un-stuffed from where I was before. I remember taking Brazynska to our first show--we attempted an 18" or so course and had like 3 refusals. She was a flighty wreck, and I had no idea what I was doing, but it was fun!

After about a year of fooling around, I decided to start looking for a dressage trainer again. The jumping and trail-riding were fun and all, but the perfectionist in me needed to get back to dressage. I tested out a couple trainers before landing on a young, up-and-comer in the area. I learned a ton working with her with Brazynska, as well as, acting as a working student for her during my summers.

Brazynska and I started to show regularly, even making it down to Wellington for a few large, rated dressage shows. I won't lie and say we did well... but I learned a lot from her. As a hot, spooky, but-willing horse, anything that she threw at me has now prepared me so well for working with future horses.

Brazynska will now be 24 years old this March and is basically retired. I take her on trail rides--she kicks butt whenever we race my friends :)--and every once in a while, I'll pop her over a jump or two for fun. She's still got the buttons in there to do most 2nd level movements, but she just doesn't have the conditioning to hold on. That's okay though--she is enjoying her retirement & the two youngins are keeping me plenty busy!! :)



All in a name

I've named the blog "The Joy of Dressage" in memory of my mother Joy Wright, 1963-2012. She lost her battle with a very rare, very aggressive form of cancer--appendiceal adenocarcinoma--at the end of August 2012 after a 3 year fight. And I mean, fight. When she was diagnosed, it was already Stage IV, and the fact that she was able to persist and fight through 3 years was an absolute miracle. She never gave up hope, she always had a positive attitude, and she kept her absolute faith through it all. That kind of determination is something that I will always admire about my mother and that I can hopefully pass on to my own children some day.


Mom & Brazynska, Summer 2011

 

Now, people always assume that my horse-lust probably came from my mother, and while my mom liked the horses, the obsession was all my own. She--and my father--were always utterly supportive though. Driving me to and from the barn almost every day, spending weekends at horse shows, paying umpteen dollars for horse board, vet bills, riding lessons... Crazily supportive.

So, for those reasons and many, many more, I name this blog in her memory. I want something that I can look back at when I'm feeling frustrated and see how far the girls & I have come. I want something that I can use as an outlet to share my triumphs. Things that I miss being able to talk to with my mom. It will probably end up being more of a training-journal than anything else, but all in all, I hope to continue the "Wright" tradition of determination, optimism, & faith to fuel these horse dreams & ambitions. I'm excited to see where "The Joy of Dressage" takes us!