Cob Jockey

As with many of the good horse things in my life, it was through Lisa that I finally met a driving instructor. Lisa's been telling me about her for years, but our paths have never been closer at the moment, since she's about to take Eva on a trial to see if she wants to be a driving pony. I'm tickled that Eva brought both Disco's saddle and a driving instructor into my life.

She lives about a half hour north of me, and while her passion is combined driving, she's led a life full of interesting driving experiences as both a professional and an amateur. Think things like being the trainer for a person that had coaches with footmen, lamps, and full picnic hampers in the back for shows.

She showed up, and when Leah and Deb asked if they could audit, the instructor said "As many people as I can get hooked on driving, so much the better."

The first lesson (which ended up lasting 3 hours!) was a lot of equipment stuff. She inspected my cart (perfect size for him, serviceable but does need some work - no surprises), my harness (needs a different noseband and slightly longer traces, but serviceable), and my bit (weirdly the right size, but too narrow at the very top because Disco's face widens so quickly from a tiny little muzzle). 

I was relieved that Maude had steered me correctly in my gear choices so far, even if it's not perfect. Just like riding, I'll start with something that works and upgrade over time, I'm sure.

Ummm pop quiz. Components seen in this photo: breast collar, traces, tugs, saddle, girth, overgirth, shafts.

There is. SO MUCH. To remember. Thank goodness I had a professional there. Just getting the harness on and adjusted was an adventure. And she's a stickler, in the best of ways - multiple straps got a hole punched, not because they were too long or short, but because a half hole would make the fit perfect.

Just me, taking pictures of things to remember how they go

Even these little straps broke my brain. You have to like, remember the right direction to wrap these and put them through a little metal bracket on the underside of the shafts, and decide if they need to be wrapped once or twice, which is affected by how straight the horse is standing in the shafts when you hitch up.

Disco was as good as you could expect a 3 year old stud colt to be for all of this. A little bored, a little nibbly, but stood in the crossties for the better part of a half hour for all of this fiddling with the harness without any major complaints.

We started with ground driving.

And after a few laps of that, we hooked him up. The instructor said she would normally not go that quickly, but she took me at Maude's word that he was solid.

My first ever "behind the ears" of Disco!

She took the reins for a couple of laps before we switched seats (driver sits on the right!) and she handed them to me. But she kept the whip, which, thank goodness. I had a hard enough time just managing the reins, which she mercifully allowed me to hold like riding reins just to spare my brain the challenge of being without muscle memory in addition to everything else I was trying to learn.

I have to admit, I don't know a damn thing about carts, but the proportion of cart to horse, as well as the balance of the shafts, looks nice.

It was the strangest sensation, to be holding reins, feeling a mouth, but sitting in a seat. I found myself more than once with my heels pressed into the back of the cart, hamstrings active, legs desperate to be doing something since my hands were holding reins.

She rides too, and she was able to translate everything into ridden Dressage for me. The outside rein still dictates the size of your circles, just like in riding. Correct contact is just the same in driving as in riding, not too much or too little. Half halts were even similar, with a "square" (both reins) half halt for preparation and general rebalancing, and a right or left half halt to control the shoulders.

Changing rein through the middle of the ring, with a halt.

Disco was just wonderful. Not perfect - there were times he didn't want to stand still or would take a step back in a halt, but the instructor was quick to growl at him and use her whip, and every time he took correction well. He is, after all, only three - and the instructor said afterward that he's "well ahead of where he should be for his age." 

I have so much more respect for the drivers I've seen navigate cones courses at speed after this. Steering is HARD, yo!

When we were all done, she helped me learn how to put everything away correctly, including a precise way to fold the reins so that they didn't develop twists over time. "I'm sorry if what I'm telling you feels very picky, these are just the things I've learned over the years," she said. I told her not to apologize for that, that those are the kinds of experiential things you can't learn from a book, that you can only learn from someone who learned them from someone who held them to a high standard, like she did.

I am literally going to have to study and practice this. #slowlearner

Thankfully, she offered to come back for a lesson later this week. I'm looking forward to it already. Who knew I would enjoy driving after being afraid of it for all these years?

I'm turning out after breakfast. Disco opens his mouth to grab the halter when I go to put it over his nose. It's such a minor thing, I could have easily gotten it on anyway and ignored his open mouth in favor of getting turnout over more quickly, but I won't. I drop the halter and walk into his shoulder, pushing him around his stall without touching him. I stop. He stops second. He drops his head and stands still. 

We try again, and this time his mouth stays closed. We've been working on this in our (virtual) Kate lessons, and he understands that he got moved because opening his mouth was the wrong answer. And his reward for standing politely for haltering is that I allow him to stand still, and that he gets to go outside.

We have so many conversations like this, and they do feel like conversations. He gives me a right answer and I reward him - by letting him stand still with my body language clearly saying "I am not asking you for anything in this moment", with wither scratches, or by ending the session. He gives me a wrong answer, and I make him move his feet - ideally in the way he finds most challenging, which right now is sideways, but sometimes it's backwards.

"Before Kate" me would have not known how to reward or discipline him in the same ways a herdmate would. How to be so aware of my body language that I understand even what the lean of my body in one direction or another means to him. Old me wouldn't have known how to reward without treats, or to discipline in a way the horse understood and could process and learn from.

But Kate has completely transformed the way I handle horses, and the horses respond. Pyro and Disco especially. I swear it's because they feel understood, and because the human's "language" makes sense to them.

I watch, now, and I see the way Connor stands his ground when Disco is being annoying, and it's Disco that eventually walks off to a different part of the pasture. "The horse that moves his feet loses," as Kate says. 

Connor and I are speaking the same language to him, and while Disco still tries stuff with us both, it feels almost half-hearted. The answers to his shenanigans, mild as they are, have been so consistent from both of us (all of us, really), that he doesn't try as hard as he did when he first got here only three weeks ago. 

It's fascinating, it's fun, and it's paving the way for Disco to be a Very Good Boy for everyone that handles him, and nothing means more to me than that right now.

Now that Disco is home, we are figuring out winter turnouts. Last winter, we kept our 3 horses drylotted all winter because we seeded the pastures in October (which worked out beautifully). This winter, we have 6 horses, and so we had to choose which of the paddocks and pastures we wanted to sacrifice and which we wanted to grow grass in and rest.

It's no easy choice. We have 3 bigger pastures that grow a lot of grass well, two paddocks that don't grow grass well despite getting the same treatment as the others, one drylot and one drylot around the barn. We also have a stallion to keep separated, so he and Connor are unavoidably in a pasture I would love to rest over the winter but can't (long term pipe dream: build a drylot in the stallion paradise pasture), and we only have shelters in two pastures and the barn drylot.

In the end, we decided to sacrifice the two paddocks, which can be opened up to the drylots and to each other to make a pretty decent sized area.

So, a couple weeks ago we opened up all the gates and chucked the non-Connor/Disco herd of four out there. They were turned out together from April until the end of August when we had to split them up due to drought, so I didn't think things would be THAT wild.

F***** horses.

Lesson learned. Even previously integrated herds need to be re-integrated in wide open spaces. Which, after this incident, we promptly put the same four horses together in the big field and they've been just fine for weeks after, go figure.

Fortunately, there wasn't so much as a scratch on any of the horses involved, and even better, most of the fencing materials were able to be re-used. The best boarders and significant others ever dutifully came out the following Saturday to put it back together, which required just a knife, a Sawzall and about 45 minutes of work.

I complain a bit about this white fence, but on the whole, it has been great to us. Generally it breaks before the horses do, it's easy to work on, and it requires no maintenance at all unless you feel like pressure washing several miles of fence (I mostly don't, although I'm often tempted).

I'm feeling extra grateful and thankful this Thanksgiving. Both in that I have more to be grateful for than usual, and in that I'm (I know, I know, common theme) feeling feelings like gratitude in ways I never have before.

I am, first and foremost, grateful for my SO. I never knew love could be like this, and never knew how powerful it is to have a partner like this. Without him, I would not have the confidence to do so many things, from the little things to the biggest things.

My SO helping my longtime career mentor unload the tiller I borrowed to redo the indoor arena footing this month, with the help of my former trainer

And on similar lines, I am grateful to have three of the best boarders on the planet. Our co-op setup is not without its challenges, but none of them are because of these wonderful people.

Boarder Leah, her husband and my SO fixing a fence the horses went through...(not Disco and Connor!)

I'm as grateful to have Disco home as I'm grateful that he was gone with Maude for a year and a half.

I'm grateful to be able to MOVE. I spent the first three months of 2024 in pain after I got cocky and made bad choices in the gym, which is very unusual for the person whose gym motto is "Don't do stupid shit". It was my first injury ever, and it really drove home the fact that being able to move is key to who I am, to my ability to contribute to the co-op, and to my mental health. Certainly not something I will take for granted as I age.

Dropping in at a random CrossFit gym in Texas with my SO earlier this month, where they had the rare appropriate-height pull-up bars for my height. Thankfully, I am ending 2024 just having set a lifetime PR back squat, so no lasting impact from that injury.

I am grateful for this little house and for the opportunity to buy this farm. Every time I walk the quarter mile across the field to the barn, I'm happy. Even in the weather.

Best commute ever

I'm grateful for my momma, for getting me into all of this in the first place and for being my rock through all of these life changes.

I am grateful for the best barn dogs, who are nearly perfect off-leash these days, and are so happy living here.

I'm grateful for Lisa, as a friend, as my "other mother", and as someone who has given me the most amazing opportunities with horses over the last decade, and of course, in particular this last year, with Encore, Eva and Disco.

I'm grateful for Kate, who, despite living thousands of miles away from me, continues to be such an amazing friend, mentor and trainer. She will tell me I'm wrong about this, but I'm not sure I could do Disco without her, and she continues to teach me the most surprising things about the animals I have loved my entire life.

I'm grateful for the relationship I have with my SO's kids, and in particular his daughter, who has fallen deeply in love with Connor, and he with her.

Most of all, I am grateful for this life I have now. I have always said that I want to build a life that I don't feel the need to escape from, a life in which I take vacations because there are interesting places to visit, not because I need to get away. I thought I had that before, but I didn't realize all the little escapes I had built into my life back then. This, now - this all feels so right.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

We are settling into a routine here.

Best baby stallion chilling in his "I'm about to have a Kate lesson, aren't I" rope halter. And the crossties that we shortened to the point that it's no longer fun for him to try to eat them. #winning

Not quite two weeks into his return, we have hit a lot of milestones. All of the co-op members can handle him safely. He walks like a good boy down the driveway to and from his turn out, both two-at-a-time with Connor and alone. He continues to be turned out with Connor no problem, although Connor would prefer he play a little less rough sometimes. And he finds being curried to be much more of a turn on so far than our one and only mare (yay, boys).

We have also had two Kate groundwork lessons so far, which have both felt like inoculations against thinking I can't raise a three year old stallion to be a good citizen. It helps so much to have her in my ear telling me to stick with my ask when he pushes my buttons and to tell me my timing was/wasn't quite right and to give me a structured, repeatable framework for my asks, my rewards, and all of the skills I need him to have.

I'm being very slow, methodical and careful in everything with him because I want to set both him and the co-op up for success, but truly, he has been such a good boy so far. There are certainly moments when I question my sanity, but there are many others when I find myself impressed and surprised that he's standing there quietly or learning something new easily or keeping his freaking mouth shut when I'm trying to halter him (a work in progress, thank you Kate!).

Baby stallion vertical mirror covers designed and built by my wonderful SO

Trying to keep it all in perspective, this baby horse life. I know the good moments will get closer and closer all the time until one day they're 15 and I won't remember these baby days at all.