Cob Jockey

This is, I guess, less of a Waterloo retrospective and more of a "First 90 days with Kate" retrospective.

This is Disco's new LinkedIn profile picture

See what I mean?

I am at a loss for words to describe what Kate has achieved with him since March 5.

This DOWN TRANSITION, Y'ALL (The GIF sped the tempo up slightly, but it still looks amazing!)

Three months into training with her, he is the most educated horse I've ever ridden; there is such a difference between 'broke' and 'educated'. Connor got to Second Level, sure, but he did it without ever really achieving self-carriage, and so many of the foundational building blocks of Dressage just never developed with me doing all of the riding on him.

Disco feels light, forward, and balanced. Every photo of him I see, his chest is facing forward rather than down, and that's no accident: Kate's style of training emphasizes balance before anything else. He's almost never behind the vertical even for a moment, and the contact is SO alive and obviously meaningful to him. 

All of this gives Kate access to his body parts in the most fluid way imaginable, which is why the lateral work is coming along so well. He's already beginning to learn half pass!

This schooling show comment right here (not from Waterloo) is EXACTLY why I sent him to Kate!

The difference between how he goes with Kate riding him and how he goes with me riding him is so stark. He truly could show First with Kate and possibly even 2-1, but he and I together are a solid Training level pair. When I ride to my absolute best, he goes so well, and when I ride to my usual crooked baseline, he meets me there, confused but obedient. 

Insert potato riding, get potato horse

All that said, I could not have gotten him where Kate has gotten him on my own, which SO validates the decision to send him out, but I can learn to meet him there, and I'm hungry for that challenge. The way Kate trains him and the way she coaches me, I can see a path towards becoming the rider I've always wanted to be and feeling things I've never felt from a horse before.

For the first time in years, I could not stop thinking about horses for probably a week after Waterloo, and that felt so good. I truly can't wait to see what kind of horse I have when I bring him home in October.

Darn my GIF program speeding these up, it's really lovely at real-life speed

That whole weekend of Waterloo, I was struck by how different showing felt this time around, as opposed to the last time I did it five years ago.

Gone were the nerves, the score anxiety, the feeling that I "had" to prove something to someone. There is, of course, a bit of pride to it still, and a bit of wanting to show Disco well on behalf of his progeny and his breeder. But I couldn't bring myself to care about our scores in the 50s, or the score in the 60s -they just fundamentally didn't matter to me on such a deep level.

At any rate, I did tell myself that if I expected better scores, I should have, you know, taken a lesson within the last four years or maybe ridden regularly in the last three.

The overwhelming feeling I had was gratitude and awe. For the first time, I trotted down centerline on a horse I watched grow up from the moment he slid out of his mom, wondering for the next five years what it would feel like when we did this. We did it, and I was present enough to enjoy the moment as it happened.

I still absolutely took my participation awards home (low turnout in the Pony classes, sadly!)

I was also so grateful to be showing with Kate, something I never thought I'd get to do for all of the many years she lived in California, and enjoying hanging out with her fascinating (said with love!!) family and framily.

I also met Eventing a Gogo IRL for the first time after following her blog(s) for the better part of two decades! Hers and Aimee's were the first two blogs I ever followed way back when I started blogging in late 2009.

Disco graciously accepts molestation from total strangers

(It was the craziest thing, I made an Instagram post and tagged her in it, and then she APPEARED AT THE SHOWGROUNDS like I summoned her Beetlejuice-style.)

Possibly most important to me out of anything,  I was amazed at how well my five-year-old stallion handled the atmosphere. Sure, I know he's been showing since he was five months old and has shown three different disciplines in two countries now, but you still never know. 

He went around in a flat/knotted halter all weekend, drank water like a champ, and caused several people to do double-takes and look underneath him after learning he wasn't a gelding. 

The world's most champion drinker from the moment he got off the trailer, even though it wasn't that hot.

He was looky, sure, and a bit backed off at times in the warmup ring when these massive warmbloods rode close to us, but he was far and away a better show horse than Connor was at his first show, which is saying something, because Connor's always been pretty top notch.

His behavior in particular makes me so excited for what we can achieve together. He's just always ready to go to work, and I so appreciate that about him.

One more Waterloo post - riding takeaways next! 

My incompetence at reading a show bill saved my bacon bright and early on Saturday when the show office asked if they could move my 8:00am ride to 11:00am so we could do my pony class measurements at 10:00am. I couldn't believe my ears and felt like I hit the lottery with that one!

We had to do a jog for measurements which was a new one for me.

I ended up needing the time, as I had some fits and starts with braiding. The sewn-in braids I always did with Connor predictably did not work with Disco, and I switched to a running braid technique I had only ever practiced three braids of once. It ended up working really well, and I'll probably write a whole post on that at some point. 

This is a RUNNING BRAID. I'm still amazed. It wasn't too bad for my first attempt at it, although I'm me, so there are definitely improvements I want to do next time.

Kate had the genius idea of entering the same test for all four rides that weekend to really set us up for success. Even still, I'm not at all ashamed to admit that I waved the white flag of adult amateurism hard all weekend, and Kate was very gracious about it. 

Kate read my tests for me and videod at the same time, off of the same phone, AND showed her own Castleberry horse (Belgian WBx Castleberrys Opportunity Knox). I actually don't know how she did it.

For that first test, I had her warm him up for me (I actually didn't know you could do that in Dressage until Kate offered!) and for the first time, I saw that First Level horse she told me she had schooling at home. He was a completely different horse from when I rode him, and it brought into stark relief just how much my own riding would need to improve after I take him home in October. In a good way.

Pictured: potato riding

I also had Kate read alllllllll four of my Training 2 tests. My old trainer would have died of embarrassment, but I was incapable of embarrassment over that. The mental odds were very much stacked against me, and I was going to take every chance I got to offload some stress and ride to the best of my abilities.

This post is long enough, so I'm going to summarize the first three tests (with scores in the mid-upper 50's) as follows:

1. Baby horse does the thing
2. The canter aid is kick and pray right?
3. "Canter surprise", also, OMG there are HORSES OVER THERE DID YOU KNOW THAT

Kate had put a sophisticated canter aid on him (lifting the inside seatbone) that I am more or less physically incapable of doing on my weak side, which I demonstrated by doing leg lifts in the tack stall after the first test. As a result, the canter transitions were a bit of an adventure all weekend even though with Kate he picks it up wonderfully, and he never misses leads with either one of us.

That fourth test, though.

    4. Redemption

I went into the ring feeling confident we could put it all together, and we did exactly that. The showgrounds were a bit quieter, Disco was feeling properly bored, and Kate had helped us to a breakthrough with the canter transition in the warmup.

I had realized I actually haven't ridden many trot-canter transitions over the years. 5-year-old Connor came preinstalled with a walk-canter transition so good, I wasn't motivated to do much with the trot-canter. After I said that, Kate had me ask for walk-canters as if he was an educated horse, and the canter transitions got SO much better, even if they did have a few steps of trot in there.

More on this in the recap post, but "stop riding him like the barely broke baby you dropped off three months ago" was A Theme this weekend.

We ended up scoring a 62%+, and I told him he won the Olympics.

Takeaways post to come! 

In terms of show goals, my only goal for Disco this year is "Do Pony Cup," and at some point I realized that I should, you know, do a practice show before then. 

Despite it being rated, Waterloo was the obvious choice: halfway between us, and we've talked about doing it together for years. Her dad lives silly close to it, and with the facility for sale, we weren't sure how many more opportunities we'd get to make that slumber party a reality.

For sale! Please buy it and keep it a showgrounds!

Entering was such an ordeal in pretty much every way possible, including Kate's vet giving us shot/Coggins records with just stable names on a receipt printed on a dot matrix printer, and not understanding why that wasn't enough, and me not realizing that pony class measurements were only held on Thursday night (we would be arriving on Friday).

That last one ended up being a blessing in disguise, but we'll get there.

Our two stallions stabled side-by-side

It was so, SO good to see this horse again, guys. I really didn't realize how much I miss him or how much he's grown on me in general.

But man, as of Friday night, as we crammed a lesson in very quickly before sunset, I was not entirely sure entering my first rated show in five years on my green five-year-old when I hadn't really ridden in years and had never braided him was a good idea.

(lol)

Look at me, riding my baby horse at a showgrounds for the first time!

He felt incredible, nothing like the baby horse I had given to Kate three months earlier, but I was riding like a sack of potatoes. I could barely turn him, and I couldn't figure out his canter aid. 

Another competitor saw JUST this view of the boys when Kate pulled up and asked if they were Welsh Cobs. I was gobsmacked. In all my years of showing Welsh Cobs, no one has ever properly identified them, let alone from this angle! She made my day.

And complicating things further, in the three months Kate had him, he'd completely outgrown his saddle, and it was tipping me forward badly onto my pubic bone. I actually ended up riding in one of Kate's saddles, a Stubben that worked out wonderfully for both of us, and it's saying a lot that I never noticed that saddle all weekend.

The Most Chill about show stabling. Still has never needed a chain anywhere we've gone.

I had an 8:00am ride the next morning, with Kate's ride a few minutes before mine so she wouldn't be able to coach me. After my lesson, I said "I really think I want to scratch that first test, I just don't think we're setting us up for success between the fact that you won't be able to coach me and having to braid him for the first time and everything."

Kate talked me off the ledge, saying lets stay entered and just see how he feels in the warmup. So that's what we did. To be continued...

We are not quite a month in, and I am already so, so glad I've sent Disco to Kate.

A photo of two stallions hanging out together!

Kate videos some of her training rides for me, and narrates them, and in watching those, I've realized that it's my first time actually seeing this process of a young horse being started. And there are times where she'll laugh something off that I know I would have taken too seriously, or where she released when she felt him consider the idea of what she wants, when I would have hung on to the ask too long, and it just crystallizes how right the decision was to not do this myself.

It's made me appreciate the trainer as a professional. Kate has done this so many times, she's performing a repeatable process much the same way I do at work, and Disco is benefiting from her experience with the process in the clarity she brings to his training rides, and therefore the relative speed at which he's learning - already doing things at not quite five that Connor was closer to 10 before I stumbled into those skills with him.

Baby SI, HI and counter canter loops already!

It has also put me so at peace with being an amateur. I greatly admire my amateur friends who have started their own horses, but I'm not that kind of amateur. I'm not going to start the number of horses in my lifetime that Kate has, because I spend my days being a professional in other areas, and that's okay!

But no matter how impressed I am with how far he's gotten under saddle already, Kate giving him friends and social situations makes me the happiest. 

So far, Disco has been turned out unsupervised with one of her geldings, and has gotten supervised turnout time with another gelding and with his fellow Castleberry Cobs class of 2021 brother from another mother, Oxley, the Warmblood cross that Kate owns, who is also still intact. They haven't seen each other since they were weanlings, and they were so happy to be turned out together.

But at the end of the day, raising him in a social situation and then insisting on only sending him to trainers who are also willing to keep him in a social situation seems to have been the right call. He is just a horse who likes hanging out with other horses (and being the low man on the totem pole, no less), and he knows no other way.

Grooming each other! Don't mind Oxley's little riblets, he's going through a growth spurt.

For years now, I've known I would send Disco out for full training in his four year old year, once I got him to the stage that required finesse.

When it slowly became clear that Kate's move back to the Midwest would happen in the second half of his four year old year, the whole plan crystallized: there's no one else I would rather send him to for this phase of training. Kate's ability to "speak horse", her clear "boss mare" body language, her experience taking horses through the levels of Dressage, and her genuine enthusiasm for him and his career after she rode him last summer all make her the top choice by a mile. 

At home last August

Going to Kate also meant he would stay intact for now (he still earns the right to keep them through good behavior every day of his life, and that will never change). He will always be a horse first, a performance horse second, and a breeding stallion third, and I wouldn't have hesitated to collect/freeze and geld him if being a stallion held back my options on training and/or held back his options on socialization. 

Temporary solitary confinement at his new home

Not too many trainers will take on an outside stallion for full training, and even fewer (probably zero, and I don't blame them) would attempt to give that stallion a turnout buddy. Disco has always been turned out with others to this point in his life, and I didn't want full training to come with the stress of sudden and confusing loneliness for him. Kate is willing to try him with someone else after he gets settled in, and that means so much to me.

The moment he realized this is not a vacation

So, last week, at the age of four years and ten months, we packed him in the trailer and drove him 7 hours north. And it didn't come a moment too soon for my personal life, which is going to turn upside down in a very "growthy" kind of way this year - including, among other major life changes, taking the house down to the studs and living in the camper for a few months before my partner and his kids move in with me. 

It's all good things, all very intentional things, but having one less horse on my plate ended up being more of an immediate relief than I was even anticipating.

He'll be up there for at least four months, and after that, we'll play it by ear. 

Be good, buddy. 

It was January of 2009, and I was a junior in college, majoring in Equine Studies. Why? I still had no idea, except that I loved horses. My advisor, Dr. Marks, had patiently worked through it with me since before I was a freshman. The previous three years had gone something like this:

“I kind of think I might want to be a vet.”

“There’s no ‘kind of’ with being a vet. You either REALLY want to be a vet, or you don’t.”

“Oh. I guess I don’t.”

During one such repetition of this conversation in my sophomore year, she said, “You know, it’s easy to think of things you want to do - a lot of things sound good until you do them. I want you to pay attention to the things you don’t want to do. That’s going to tell us a lot more.”

A year or so later, in January of 2009, that advice changed my life.

The woman herself, on my graduation day

That weekend, much like this past one, the temperature didn’t get above 8F and a perfect storm of things led to me having to be at the barn for 13-14 hours every day for four days where everything took longer in the snow. I was too exhausted to shower or eat and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow every night.

Me in barn clothes after a similarly exhausting weekend freshman year

At some point during all that, I found myself daydreaming about my other work/study job in the IT department. I wondered what projects they were working on and what ridiculous requests the help desk had entertained since I’d last been there. I bet they’d showered in the last four days.

And I realized.

I don’t want to do this, Dr. Marks.

I don’t want to dedicate my entire life to cleaning stalls and scrubbing buckets.

I want to solve complex problems and work with awe-inspiring technology and take showers.

It hit me like a lightning bolt. I love IT. Like, I really love IT. 

Three months later, over spring break, my beloved IT department would “P2V” everything – move our servers from physical boxes to VMware virtualized ones, a technology that would change the world (literally, look it up) and my life. 

When the dust settled, one of the IT staff members dragged me into the server room and excitedly said “There’s a server moving from this box to this box RIGHT NOW and people are USING IT and no one has any idea!” His excitement was contagious, and that “I love IT” moment from a few months earlier sharply crystallized into “I want to do this VMware thing for a career.” 

16 years and 10 months after that, “that VMware thing” has taken me places I never dreamed I’d be capable of going, solving problems for the largest companies on the planet, and I got there with passion, luck, and yes, an Equine Studies degree, which I did end up finishing even though I knew it wasn’t going to be my career.

And on weekends like this last one, when my boarders can’t get to the barn to help me and I haven’t showered for four days, just like that weekend in 2009, I’m reminded that it’s okay to love horses but not make a career out of them. It’s okay to say “I don’t want to do this” – at least, not all the time, and to find a way to fit horses into your life in a way that works for you.

After all, if it wasn’t for “that VMware thing”, I wouldn’t be financially capable of owning the barn. In a roundabout way, my equine studies degree has gotten me right where I need to be with horses, and I have Dr. Marks and "What do you NOT want to do?" to thank for that.

Rhiannon's comment on my last post made me realize I need to revisit the whole "where are we going to live" thing now that the barn is purchased. Maybe the way we've worked through this will help somebody someday as they go through this on their own farm property.

Buying the farm ended up being a 2 1/2 year process from when we went under contract to when we closed. That was by design - I needed the time to get my house in town ready to sell and sold, and it was a complicated transaction in other ways too. Fortunately, the outgoing BO was in no hurry, which was great.

That gave Tim and I time to think about the house. The farm doesn't have a house on it, although it does have a stunning homesite at the top of the tallest hill for miles, overlooking hundreds of acres of farmland. The outgoing BOs needed to "intend" to build a house there to get financing, so it's septic-ready and even has 20 year old blueprints we could use if we wanted.

• We are so close to town, that farm field will definitely be a subdivision someday.
• Boarder traffic means the site is not peaceful, which is especially problematic with a reactive dog.
• It's the opposite of secluded, being exposed on the top of the hill. You can't see the barn from the street, but you'd be able to see the house from the street.
• Horses are LOUD, yo. Even living a quarter mile away from them, I hear their unrequited love screams sometimes (and no, it's never the stallion, lol). I started to think some separation would be nice.
• The crop farm next to the farm has a grain dryer and siloes right next to the home site, and it's loud enough that you can't talk at a normal volume outside when it's running September-November every year.

All the while, I was slowly falling in love with the farmhouse. Or, more accurately, the location of the farmhouse.

Both of the current owners' mothers lived in this house, I cannot take credit for the landscaping.

It's a quarter mile off the street down an easement driveway, and that plus the rolling terrain means even people who have lived here their whole lives don't know there's a house there.  

Just part of our long, long, LONG driveway. The farmhouse is right there on the left, but almost invisible thanks to the hill and trees.

It's almost fully protected from ever having neighbors, except the ones that own the rental house, who also own the 20 acres and the only other house behind the farm.

(It was all one farm at one point before being parceled off into two 20 acre tracts, and yeah, if we win the lottery, I'd love to combine them again and own it all someday. A 40 acre horse farm with a big brick colonial and a little farmhouse is a hell of a property!)

It's surrounded by incredible mature trees. 

Just a few of the mature trees in the backyard

It's Meatloaf paradise - despite being close enough to one of the local high schools to hear the announcers during football games and two minutes from Best Buy and Lowe's, the ravine, the hills, the trees, and the complete lack of traffic mean Meatloaf is the most relaxed out here she's ever been.

I've been enjoying the quarter mile walk across the hayfield to the barn. It's the perfect distance to wear my dogs out before work in the morning. 

The barn as seen from my front lawn.

My neighbors' house across the street from the farm on a misty morning. Currently the only house in that field across the street.

The house itself is nothing to write home about, but it ticks Tim and I's boxes in a few ways: 

• It exists, therefore it's cheaper than building new.
• Whole-home renovations are my comfort zone; new construction - not so much. All of my contractors from the last reno gave this one a thumbs up after inspecting it.
• It's small. We both value having "just enough" house after having big ones previously, and a house that encourages us and the kids to spend time outside. Not because it's unpleasant to be in, but because it has wonderful inside/outside spaces and because this beautiful property is just outside the door, begging to be explored.

The only problem? The owners weren't sure they wanted to sell. But after six months of getting to know me, they started to explore the idea, and as of another year after that, we are finally under contract. And it feels so right.