Cob Jockey

This is getting ridiculous:

Waiting...waiting...

A 30 minute walk-trot ride should not necessitate 90 minutes of standing around waiting for Connor to dry off to the point that I can put his blanket back on him, yet I've done that twice in the last three days.  I think we're far enough into the winter season to judge that it's going to be a warm one again - meteorologists are saying this week that by this point in the season, it's been so warm for so long that the ground probably won't even freeze here this winter.  As much as I love his deep red, copper-colored winter coat, it's so thick that it's holding us back in our training, and I'm planning on hitting it hard in January.  It's time for it to go.  FULL CLIP TIME, READY, GO!

Standing in the pasture, in the pitch dark, in the rain, ten minutes after my lesson was supposed to have started, watching Connor trot away from me, I started to lose it.  "You're supposed to be the thing that helps me to forget about all of my problems for a few hours a week!" I yelled at him.  He hadn't been hard to catch in six months, but tonight his new, young 17.3hh-ish pasture buddy decided to lunge at him after I had already gotten the lead rope around Connor's neck and was in the process of putting his halter on. The two of them decided it was playtime and gleefully ran around me in the pasture.  I finally caught him 30 minutes later, with my trainer's help, tacked up in record time, and headed out to the arena for a short lesson.

She wanted to introduce haunches-in, and did, and it went okay as we practiced switching back and forth between shoulder-in and haunches-in.  I'd never done haunches-in before, so it's going to take a lot more time and feel for me to understand what's going on and how to do it.  He kept trying to canter when I moved my leg back, so we need to work on refining that aid.  I'm still a little murky on it myself, so if anyone has any tips, I'm all ears.

He was quite heavy and in my hands all lesson, so toward the middle she asked me to "surprise him" with my leg aids while catching him with my rein aids anytime he dove behind the vertical.  I was still sort of mad at him, so that exercise was actually quite fun and probably more effective that it would have been otherwise.  I wish I had video of the level of engagement and alertness he had during those walk-halt transitions.  Head goes down, aids applied, head flies up, pony understands.

After all the running around (in mild weather with a blanket) and then 30 minutes of mostly walking, he was so sweaty that he still wasn't ready for a blanket at 9:15pm - over an hour after I got off.  Add in my 45 minute drive time, and I had to leave him and ask my instructor to blanket him after she finished teaching so I could go home, eat dinner and collapse into bed.  Anyone else in Indiana considering taking more hair off of their horses if the weather doesn't turn soon?  I'm at the point where it's holding up our training.

What do you do when you're waiting on the sweaty thing to dry?  Take many, many pictures.

Step 1: Rub, rub, rub, rub.

Step 2: Replace cooler and wait...

Step 3: Remove cooler for a few minutes, have a seat and watch pony ears flick back and forth as he air-dries

Step 4: Go up the stairs to the bathroom, calling pony's name as you go.

Last winter I borrowed coolers, specifically a Rider's International one with a neck and an off-brand one without, both polar fleece.  They did a good job, and I do miss the neck on the RI cooler, but I have to say that I am sold on this one.  I'm still holding out on clipping/blanketing until he gets a full coat and it stays below 60 degrees, so he's hairy, and we're working quite hard in the grassy field: he's getting pretty sweaty. 

The Turbo Dry cooler is smooth and sort of shiny on the outside (and completely sawdust/hay repellant) and a lighter synthetic fleece-like material on the inside.  I love the chest closure, which is a traditional metal blanket fastener as well as heavy duty Velcro that goes over it; it's really secure.  My only complaint with the hardware is that I wish it had two belly straps like a normal blanket, but that's minor.

After my rides, I've curried him, gave him a rub down with a towel, and then put him under this for about ten minutes or so.  By that time, he's gotten to the point where I'd be comfortable blanketing him.  I don't have any scientifically measured data to back up this claim, but I'd say it's cooling him out in half or two-thirds of the time the other coolers took.  It's definitely faster.

My other favorite part about this cooler is that it came in a round plastic bag with carrying straps that's about a foot long and six inches in diameter.  When I'm ready to put it up, I can roll it back up, put it in that bag, and hang it on the rack outside of his stall or put it in my tack trunk, because it takes up very little room. I can see this being heavily used at spring and fall shows as well.

The best endorsement is that others in my barn, including my trainer, are interested in purchasing one now that they've seen mine.  At $48, it's very reasonable, and I'm sure it could be monogrammed if you want.

Centaur TurboDry cooler: Connor approved!

We had a little bit of both tonight - sweaty stuff and heavy stuff.  Let's start with the sweaty stuff, because it's cute:

His new Centaur TurboDry cooler fits, but goes down to his knees.  Sigh.   Do they make blankets in 'dachschund'  size?

Now for the heavy stuff.  You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging as regularly lately.  The truth is, it's a lot easier to find the words to say 'Things are going great!' and a lot harder to admit that things haven't been very much fun lately for me or for Connor.  It's not that it's been all bad lately; my lesson a week ago was spectacularly good, first level Dressage winning good.  But the show, and my rides since then, have not been fun for either of us.

I admitted this to my trainer tonight, who had me forget about working through his back, accepting contact, and all of the 'little stuff', and had me do trot and canter work without stirrups in an effort to get me to relax.  We rarely do no-stirrups work without an actual reason, and "figuring out what's going on" was a good reason tonight.  Most of the lesson was spent with her studying us and thinking.  "He's such an interesting one, different from the other horses," she said.  "I go back and forth between thinking we need to break everything down to the very basics, or just ride him through things and let him figure the rest out."

The end of the lesson was spent with the two of us discussing things.  We both agreed that he's getting burnt out on Dressage and the arena right now, and that we need to make it fun again for both of us.  We're going to utilize the several hundred acres of farmland and forest around the barn and go on hacks at least once a week, during which we'll work on Dressage stuff but also do things like gallop up hills and just generally play around and "get to know each other" as my trainer put it.  We're going to back off the small stuff and focus on having fun with the big stuff.  We've got six months before our 2013 event season starts, so it's perfect timing for a little vacation.

I'm really looking forward to this.  Here's to galloping the hills of central Indiana like a little kid on a pony over the next few weeks!