OTTB Charm

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, the one good thing that came out of Banner's little injury and my subsequent panicking was that it finally allowed me a chance to take Charmer out to my lesson this Tuesday! I'd been trying to set up time to take him instead of Banner for a little while, but my schedule hasn't really allowed it to happen unfortunately. Photos from an unrelated jump ride at home! I've been able to keep up a reasonable amount of consistency with Charmer lately, which has been nice. And we are slowly working on improving his strength and adding in some jumps again. I have an annoying tendency to get very in my own head about riding him so I knew as we progressed, I needed to prioritize a lesson sooner rather than later so that I could get some good direction on how to improve with him. We arrived in the early afternoon Tuesday, and he was his nice calm, cool collected self on the ground. He's incredibly well mannered and handleable...

I'm definitely a few days late with this post, as I intended to make it on Monday, but oh well! Better late than never. Last Thursday (Feb 20th), I pulled Banner out as normal for a casual dressage ride. Everything seemed nice and normal until I started grooming and saw a big fat spot on his RF leg. It was super unusual swelling and definitely sent me into a wild panic. The outside of his leg looked 100% normal, but the inside had odd swelling in a place that made me fear suspensory or possibly tendon damage. I immediately called my vet in a fairly worried, but trying to stay level-headed, state and left a voicemail explaining what I saw & wanted to get her out as soon as I could fit into her schedule. Bless her, she called me back within an hour (she was in the middle of acupuncturing another horse but called as soon as she was done), and we were able to make an appointment for Friday. The plan was to keep him in his stall, wrapped overnight and see what we found the next...

Banner has been in a pretty weird funk for the last few weeks it seems. Our winter schedule is always a little lighter since I don't board anymore and therefore don't have an indoor arena. He's on a 2-4 day a week schedule depending on the weather, arena ride-ability & light. Our summer schedule is generally 5-7 days a week, so definitely a big difference! I'm not totally sure what's up with him, but I'm feeling a touch lost about it and a bit frustrated, so we are back to the mega basics for a few rides to see if I can get my happy lil pony back! I'm hoping he is just a little burned out on the tough stuff we have been working on & some light work will return him to his unicorn status.  With the days getting longer though, I've found myself with a little extra time now that my rides with Banner have been short & sweet. Its been perfect timing for continuing to bring Charms back into work. I've been trying to hit a lesson with him ...

Charmer has been an absolute rockstar this last week or so as I've been slowly easing him back into work. I had to move my lesson from Tuesday last week to Thursday with Banner, and it was just pretty horrendous - think temper tantrums every 5 minutes. I left on Thursday feeling pretty frustrated and discouraged, plus being super exhausted after dealing with Banner's antics for the better part of an hour and a half. After I got home, I wallowed in self pity for a few hours as I did some laundry and watched TV, and after an appropriate amount of time feeling sorry for myself about how miserable our lesson had been, I finally picked myself up and went outside to go play with Charmer. The day was lovely, nearly 50* and super sunny, so I felt guilty if I let the lovely weather pass me by. It was a pretty good thing it was so nice outside, or I would've probably passed up going out. My poor property is still mildly a swamp from having basically a week straight of rain, bu...

Last year, I got a bit swept away with Banner about showing and lessons and moving up and improving my riding. Which don't get me wrong, I love  that we improved so much and accomplished so much last year! But unfortunately time seemed to run away from me last year, and my sweet Charms was put on the back burner. It was really no fault of his own, but I needed to work through some of my riding baggage and Banner helped me do that. I would pull Charmer out for a few days every so often to lunge or ride, and don't get me wrong, he got groomed and I stuffed him full of cookies every day or two. He wasn't ignored by any means, but we just didn't get much of anything done under saddle in 2019. Despite the fact that I know  he didn't care about getting time off, I still felt (and feel) immensely guilty about it. He is very talented and I felt like I just let that go to waste for a year. Starting in 2020, I feel like I have adjusted to have some slightly better time...

In late August/early September of 2018, Banner and I began weekly lessons with Trainer C, which has been such a game changer for my riding and for our partnership. Trainer C also has ridden him lots when he was still with his previous owner so she has a really good understanding of him. In the nearly year and a half we have been in weekly lessons, I have worked very  hard to not take off too many weeks in a row. We've had a few times where it has been off - when she had a baby, when I got deathly ill last year, when I went on my honeymoon, or sometimes when my work schedule has prevented it. I try extremely hard not to miss more than 3 lessons in a row because it takes a tremendous toll on my motivation and my confidence. Because of the holidays, my work schedule got all messed up for December and I ended up having to work on the 17th, so I cancelled that lesson, and then obviously the 24th & 31st were Christmas Eve & New Years Eve, respectively, so we opted out on ...

I'm making an effort to be a better, more consistent blogger this year, so here's my first post of 2020 to try and get off to a good start! First off! I bought a dressage saddle! It's a 17.5" (although rides more like a 17" IMO) Devoucoux Makila! I snagged it off of a local friend for a great deal a few weeks ago! Not that I was necessarily looking for a dressage saddle at the time, but I saw her post and the saddle was about as perfect as I could ask for in a used saddle, plus this particular one was local so I could try it on! It pretty much fits B like a glove which is great! Since his jump saddle is a Devoucoux I had a good feeling about it going in and I wasn't disappointed! The seat feels a touch tight for me but a lot of that I attribute to not being in dressage tack for so long. I rode in it for the trial, and while I felt a bit out of place, I knew it would work for us! A few days later, I did our first at home ride in the saddle! ...