Susie's Sayings Sink In

UP and I participated in the Susan Hutchison clinic at Kilham Farm, Nicasio last weekend, Dec 6-7. Tivoli brought his mom Brenda and his twin-separated-at-birth Lordanos brought along Sheila so the 6 of his could listen and learn. So that I can practice all year and make best use of Susan's wisdom and experience, let me outline her key points.

1. Adjustability. turn right, turn left, stay straight, speed up, collect, leg yield left, leg yield right, halt straight, resume at the trot with no walk steps, half turns in reverse, turn on the forehand or haunches, these were all the exercises the 7 of us did together in the indoor arena. Good practice for the horse show warm up ring as well. Engaged but calm cooperation was goal. Recognize and reward compliance quickly and often. I think I heard "Trot faster, Joan" most.

2. Know your pace. 12 miles an hour, 12 foot stride. Mark of 360 yards in your arena, this one needed 2 1/4 laps around. Hand gallop this distance in precisely 1 min, slightly under if you have to be off. We did it in 59 seconds, and it felt forward. Get that pace in your head and use it to the first jump in the ring, hence avoiding the chip or add in the first line especially if away from the gait. Also get back to the pace and SLOW down by the end of the course, to avoid creeping up to 14 mph on the forehand so the last line works too. Legs to accelerated, rein aids to slow, keep consistent and simple.
The other great exercise was hand gallop around the ring, using your body with reins for a half halt and make a small circle at a collected canter around a jump. Resume hand gallop and repeat. Tell others in the ring what you are doing first!

3. Practice all paces. You might need 14-15 mph for some lines, 10 mph for others, have all available.

4. Plan the course. In a jump off, plan the side of the fences to jump to shorten the distance between fences or between timers and first or last fences. Turning works better that ground speed, doing both wins. Balance for the turns! Jump, half halt, lead change, bend and go. Repeat.

5. Automatic release preferred. Don't go from extremes of loose flapping reins and then essentially hitting your horse in the mouth for the half halt on the landing. Smooth consistent hold and adjustments as indicated.

6. People need conditioning too. Susan recommended her DVD Riding Prep. I will check it out.

Anything to add? All input appreciated. Thank you, Hugh, for hauling, Megan for images, and Holly and Lumpy for hosting. Mostly, thank you Susan for a great 2 days. Joan and UP

House Cleaning

I am confident no one will read this blog. Look at the title, House Cleaning?  Intimidating. In fact, at this very moment I am procrastinating by writing this very blog. But something has compelled me to stop cleaning out the house in which I have lived for 31 years. Before marriage. Before my son was born, left home, returned home and left home again. Before I got my first real job and after I retired from my last real job.

What possibly could put a halt in the constant decision-making process of "keep, toss or donate", repeat a thousand times. What is efemera which might have value 3000 years from now (to someone else)? What broken dusty two dollar trinket can I possibly part with, even though it brings back a rush of fond memories?

Well, I finally found it, and it may just lift my wings enough to finish this task. Folded, no, crumpled,in a box filled with otherwise dispensable items was a high school writing assignment by my son Sean, complete with teachers assessment. Hope it makes you smile as well.

Not Sugar Coated

There is no sense sugar coating this.  If you wanted to read a "I overcame all odds and succeeded" post, keep searching.  But this is a post on snagging little wisps of dignity from something that was hard to do. I used the "SBAR" format learned at work for sticky situations, seemed appropriate.

S: Situation. Princess and myself qualified for the Pickwick Medal Finals that was to take place at the Strides and Tides Horse Show, Sonoma Horse Park, Sept 13-14, 2014. Wow, fun. Then I looked at the details of the show schedule. Round 1 Saturday morning at 8 am, round 2 on Sunday morning also starting at 8 am.  So far, pretty standard. But what is this, taking place in the Grand Prix arena?

B: Background. Princess and I have never shown in there, not even walked in there. Do the jumps even go that low, only 3'3" as opposed to the usual starting height of 4 feet and up for the regular jumper events in that particular arena? Fun or nerve racking, take your pick. Some horses in the medal final circuit are retired grand prix horses with a second career. This is not sour grapes, but those super talented horses walk in the ring with a "wake me up when it is real" attitude written all over them.

A: Assessment. We were awful. But better round by round. We did have an opportunity for a Pickwick warm up on Friday. Princess went into total alert mode, accommodating slowly to the new environment. Hmm, would have preferred a little speedier adaptation; we were not on the moon surface after all. She pretended she was glued to the ground. 'If I keep all four feet firmly on the ground, then this nightmare will be over soon.' Not so fast, sister. Remember, this is a jumping event? This realization came slowly to my charge, but eventually sunk in.

R: Recommendation. Ride hard. Have the confidence enough for both of us. And if given the chance, borrow a retired grand prix jumper for the event. Kidding (sort of). Here are some pix of the event for your enjoyment. I am proud of my girl. And she can never again say 'but I have never been here before' and I am confident she will step up to the plate and do her best. Carrots given generously.

1 meter jumpers. Curiously no rubs

The Skinny (fence, not me) at the Pickwick Finals in the Grand Prix arena. I should have told her it was only 3'3" not 4'3"

Lesson 1 - Artichokes

This blog is going in a new direction. Farming for food. I do not mean buying a plant from a nursery with a fully formed orange, for example, ripe and ready to eat, planting it, and before any chance of screwing things up, slurping the delicious orange that someone else actually grew.  No, I am talking about growing some or a substantial part of the calories we need to sustain ourselves.  It would not be an unappreciated consequence of burning most of those calories in growing that food. Sort of circular, don't you think?

Lesson one, starting with the letter "A," is artichokes.  And the lesson is to pick the thistle flowers before the first hot day.  In an urban setting, it is like telling a newcomer to town to get off the subway stop before yours.  How do you know the next day will be hot?  How do you know your never-to-be-seen again friendly subway orienter will gracefully alight and you have gone one stop too far?

Artichokes, Cynara scolymus, in the Asteraceae or composite family, is a perennial herb that is growing to the size of a VW bug in our backyard.  The immature flower is blessed with bracts (modified leaves) and a heart. Steam for 40-60 minutes until the bracts can be separated with a mere tug. Bite away, scraping all you can from the bracts, happy that your adolescent orthodontic work gave you perfect alignment. Then embellish the heart with olive oil or retro mayonnaise  or nothing at all, and enjoy vegetable heaven.

But wait ONE MORE DAY, that first hot day, and the plant goes into procreation mode.  No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more sharing with the people that carefully weeded, watered, cultivated, and fertilized it all season long. They need to assure seed formation for next year. Every gram of sweet light green flesh is transformed in hours to an inedible tough fibrous base of a huge composite flower, ready to bloom, attract pollinators and form seeds.  We just enjoyed artichoke hearts with penne pasta, capers, preserved lemon and garlic, picked before the first hot day.  Magnifique. 

Too late...

Joe Speaks Princess, or Walking on Air

We just finished participating in the Joe Fargis Clinic at Riverside Equestrian Center, hosted by Marion Nelson.  Quick...look it up, gold medal Jumping 1984 Los Angeles Olympics on Touch of Class, brilliant round, take a look at his jump off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIuRbr6q2wE

UP and I have participated in 6 clinics in our tenure together: Susie Hutchison, Bernie Traurig, George Morris, Linda Allan, Nick Karazissis, and most recently Joe Fargis.  My husband accuses me of going to more clinics than any other 59 year old amateur in history.  But what can he base that statistic on, really? Just because it is probably true.  Not to forget daily training and instruction from Mr White.  They have all provided valuable insight and feedback and pushed the performance envelope just a bit to higher levels.

But Joe speaks "Princess."  This clinic really resonated.  There were two prevailing messages, it seemed to me: straight and calm.  Straight straight straight.  The horse needs absolute straightness for full force from the hind legs to jump.  And calm calm calm.  Pretend that everything is cool and calm even when it is not.  The horse needs that calm muscle relaxation to do the challenging tasks we are asking of them.

So we got into a straight and calm zone.  I know Princess's every evasive move, having ridden her for 3 years.  Evasive move number one: when departing on the left lead and not wanting to do so, move haunches to the inside 3 feet instantly on departure.  Cute, not.  Evasive move number two: when attempting flying change to right lead, and there is some distracting element on the planet (child on levee, dry leaf blowing in the wind), do an incomplete change to a cross canter, kill me now.

But with the long slow warm up, re-enforcing straight and calm, she settled in nicely.  We completed an eleven element technical course with twists and turns galore, big enough for me, and perfect!  I am walking on air.  Thank you, JF and HW and UP. I will forever remember straight and calm.