Happy, Happy, Happy

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln

It’s all about perception, but having really awesome people, a really awesome horse and fantastic weather sure does help.

We’re back and recovered from the first event of the season and boy did it set the standard.  I always love going to Longview Horse Park.  I spent many hours there as a child volunteering, getting ticks, even playing in the water jump.  I have lots of fond memories and a few nightmares from a few problematic jumps.  The Longview Horse Park and I have history and for better or worse, I smile every time I round the corner and see the entry way.

This year I was grinning ear to ear.  It was obvious from the moment I pulled off the interstate that they were excited to have us.  There were signs pointing the way all over the park.  When I pulled in, I was greeted, showed where to park, told where I could ride and informed that the ticks were extra prevalent this year.  (Yes, I’ve been plucking them off the horses twice daily, thanks for the tip).  The icing on the cake though, each of the Port-A-Pots had been stalked with sunscreen, hand sanitizer and bug spray.  Such hospitality!

Oh yeah, that's a Port-a-Pot Pic

I usually don’t ride on Friday evening on account of having plenty of other items to attend to, but word around the barn was if I hurried, I could get a ride in with Coach before she turned into a pumpkin.  So after picking up my number and my year’s supply of fly spray (another reason I love coming to Longview – excellent goodies), Nutmeg and I headed down to the dressage warm-up to stretch our legs.

We’ve been working so hard on being soft and supple from our nose to our tail.  We managed to achieve those goals out on the grass, but when we moved from the grass into the sand and started cantering, we lost our supple and replaced it with rather stiff bucking springs.  I guess it’s a good thing we tackled that Friday instead of early, early Saturday morning.

I walked the cross country course.  It seemed straight forward with two major exceptions.  The two related distances were set on a very non-standard stride.  I hoped my striding was just off and marked them on the list to inquire about.

At this point, I have to admit I’m really enjoying my new work schedule.  Getting home at 3:30 has given me the opportunity to do things like clean tack and pack my trailer ahead of time.  It was really strange to be ahead of the game on Friday evening.  So relaxing!

All ready and the sun hasn't even set yet!

We did our official course walk and it turns out I wasn’t crazy.  The distances were, well, different.  From the roll-top to the ditch was a very, very (for Nutmeg very, very, very) bouncy four strides.  The up bank to the roll-top was a perfect one and a half strides.  Ick.  Plan of attack?  We’re going to be killing time anyway, let’s trot into the questions.  Hopefully problem solved.  I went to bed happy.

I spent a long time on our Dressage warm-up.  We did lots of straightening and suppeling exercises and I felt pretty happy with how things felt.  Then we trotted into the ring with our head and tail up.  So we started over as we took our lap around the ring.  That’s not much time to put things back together, but it happened quicker than it would have in the past.  We were still resistant as we headed down centerline, but we made progress throughout the test.  I felt like we were better balanced on the whole and we made progress.  Our score didn’t really reflect that, but we did break 40 for the first time, so I’ll take that as a sign that we are headed in the right direction, just a little more slowly than I would like.

Our cross country warm-up was nothing short of perfect.  I was riding a soft happy horse that was even adjustable to the base of the jumps.  I headed to the start box glowing.  We lost a bit of our ridability around the course.  Nutmeg was really not thrilled with the slow canter plan.  I guess she is getting used to the faster speeds at Training finally.  The trot in plan was a little confusing for her, but she listened and we got the job done.  It wasn’t pretty to the ditch, but the bank and roll top actually rode quite well.  She is so relaxing to ride cross country.  It really is a pleasurable stroll around the park.  Unfortunately we strolled a little too quickly and I had to make a circle to kill a little time and we still came in about 20 seconds under optimum.  Regardless, I was pleased with our trip around and pleased with the level of fitness she seems to have maintained.  That was my main concern coming out of a hard winter.  We still need to build some fitness before we can make time at Training, but she recovered better than I expected after cross country.

With the pony pampered and tucked away, I was able to sneak away and have an “almost Mother’s Day” meal with my parents.  Meanwhile a tornado formed over my work place.  Thank fully it was little and no one was hurt.  I picked a good weekend to be out of town!

Sunday’s stadium course seemed to ride very well.  Nutmeg had just the right amount of energy.  We had a fine warm-up, but lost our concentration a bit when we went in the ring.  Like Dressage, I was able to get her back together much more quickly, so I’m pleased.  I didn’t ride the course well.  I let Nutmeg get long and flat a few times and that cost us our typical two rails.  Eventually I will learn that lesson.

Our chances of being in the ribbons were miniscule, but ever the optimist, I stood around and watched the rest of our division go.  No real problems other than one poor lost soul.  I decided we had waited long enough and walked Nutmeg back to the barn.  Not a second after I had started untacking they announced the ribbons and we got one.  My barn buddies valiantly vaulted me back into the saddle so we could go join the victory gallop, but alas, we weren’t quite fast enough.  Oh well, we still got a pretty ribbon to add to the collection.

It was a marvelous weekend.  It could have been miserable.  We could have complained about the ticks, pouted about the dressage score, worried about the cross country, and gotten frustrated over the rails, but that wouldn’t help anything.  When I go to a horse show, I’m there to enjoy the weekend, my friends and my horse.  Once you make up your mind, don’t let something trivial unmake it.  If you struggle with unhappy horse shows, try this Fresh Perspective: Be Happy.  It really is your choice.

I will call her Squishy

“And she will be mine and she will be my Squishy Squishy…”

Severe Thunderstorms were blowing across the Missouri/Kansas border, but Nutmeg and I had a scheduled dressage lesson and by golly, we were going to get our monies worth.

We’ve made some really big break throughs over the winter considering how little we were actually able to ride.  Nutmeg has gone from a stiff board, pulling herself and me with her around the arena with very little influence accepted from me, to a much more manageable animal.  We started with getting her jaw unlocked and explaining that you can rotate your head on the end of your neck.  Next we got our half halts working a bit better and focused on allowing her back to come up in downward transitions.  Then it was time to unlock the shoulders and make them a bit more mobile.  I suddenly had a much more rideable horse and it was awesome.  Then Spring hit.

I don’t know what it is about spring, but it was like the last three months of breaks throughs were blown away on the very healthy continuous breeze.  We needed a lesson, if only to help me regain my sanity.  So of course, the sane thing to do was to haul an hour and take a lesson during a thunderstorm with straight line winds and small hail.

I’ll profess that I didn’t hear a lot of that lesson, but sometimes it isn’t about hearing the instructor.  After every lesson, we take the instruction and put it into practice; I just had to do it a bit quicker than normal.  It was nice to be able to puzzle through things with the confidence that if I really started messing up someone was watching and would stop me.  It made for a very different atmosphere.

I’m happy to report that even with all the distractions Mother Nature was creating, we were able to add yet another building block.  It’s funny.  I’ve been familiar with the dressage training for years and years, but now I feel like I am actually learning how to create each step on the scale.  Each lesson lays another brick by dealing with a different hole in our pyramid.

In this particular lesson, we spent the first twenty minutes or so suppling Nutmeg behind the loins.  We worked in leg yield head to the wall, then transitioned that to haunches-in.  I’m still struggling mentally with the concept of diagonal aids, but as always, I think it’s because I’m trying to over-do and over-think.  When mom’s confused, Nutmeg’s really at a loss, but it’s coming.  We actually had several good steps.  It’s just going to take some time.

Then we trotted.  Every single second we spent crawling around the arena step-by-step was worth it when we picked up the trot.  In a word, it was “squishy.”  Malleable, has never been a word I would use to describe Nutmeg but suddenly I was riding a pile of Jell-O.  Just the right amount of surface tension to create bouncy, but completely pliable in every direction.  I think my grin probably created stretch lines on the back of my scalp.

The bar has been raised yet again and I have a step-by-step plan on how to reach it.  This is such an exciting adventure.  Nutmeg is now my squishy and has earned herself a new nick-name, the FlufferNutter.  I may be making shirts.  I know it’s silly, but sometimes that’s okay.  So this Fresh Perspective comes from the FlufferNutter, “Sometimes you have to ride through the Thunder in order to float in the clouds.”