Thanksgiving Morning

It is Thanksgiving morning and it’s gorgeous outside, although a bit chilly. The best weather for riding.

I arrive at the barn late today. I spent a leisurely morning with the kids. I made pancakes for breakfast with scrambled eggs, English muffins and fresh strawberries to round out all the butter and syrup.

I am excited to bring my son to the farm. I love having him there with me. I also relish in the fact that he is outside, breathing the fresh country air, and doing chores (and away from his dreaded video games!).

This morning, given the hour, I fear we may be too late for water duty. We arrive and sure enough Peter confirms my thoughts. “They are all done,” he says with a smile.

Bobby sweeps the stable aisle

Bobby found a broom and is already sweeping the aisle.  It looks like most of the sweeping has been done too. It seems they got an early start for the holiday and we missed the boat for “boy duty.”

A thought then occurs to me as I am getting J ready for our ride. Why not teach Bobby the fine art of  grooming? So I ask if the idea of making tips was of interest to him, he perks right up from his sweeping. Yes, he says. “You can groom for me this spring at the shows and for your sister and her friends too."

"Grooming is good money, if you do it right.” He is really listening now. “Ok, so this is the deal, it’s pretty simple really; you brush and tack the horses and ponies for their riders. Let me show you.” I hand him the curry and instruct him on how to use it. Same with the brush and hoof pick. He is a natural, albeit a bit tentative, but I don’t blame him Jaliska is 16.2 hands.

He already loves J. One morning he was coming to the farm with me to water the horses when I told him about “J’s’ pre-ride ritual.” "Watch this," I tell Bobby. "When I say hi to J she will poke her head out her window and whinnies to say hello. She will then swing around, and if we run really fast and look in her stall, she will be peeing in preparation for our ride.” He laughs at the thought and sure enough when she whinnies, Bobby takes off running down the hill to the lower stable where he then quickly pulls open the sliding stable doors to peer into J’s stall. Sure enough, she has "assumed the position". She knows the drill.

Bobby thought this was hilarious and laughed for a good while. To this day whenever we refer to "J getting ready for her ride," he laughs. Watch J getting ready for her ride!

After we finish grooming her, I show him how to put on her front boots, the saddle pad, saddle and how to tighten the girth. After I put on the bridle, I show him how to fasten the straps. He does a great job and I think he likes it.

Bobby mucks J's stall

Next, it’s time to muck her stall (which had already been done as well, so there is just some fresh manure to clean up).  When he was finished, I told him that by spring he would be a pro at mucking stalls too. His expression let on that he thought that was an OK goal.

I told him "great job" and that he could now "hop on home.” I don’t hop mom, he said. Deadpan. This caused me to immediately grab, kiss and hug him. He seemed to be OK with my spontaneous burst of affection too, although at 13, I knew my days were numbered.

I bring J to the outdoor. Zoe, Lisa, and Catherine are riding. I say hello and happy Thanksgiving. It was so beautiful out. I could not stop smiling.

When cantering J she kept switching up her lead. Zoe thought it might be the mud, I told her “she has been doing this lately on her right lead and I don’t know why.”

I think to myself that she is confused somehow by my instruction, the thought depresses me. Zoe suggests that I “lift my right hand and put weight on my outside heel when going around the corner to support her.” I try this and it seems to work.

Zoe on KEC Amoura last spring

Zoe at the young age of 16 is destined for greatness, after all she won the 1 Meter Circuit Grand Championship at the 2011 Vermont Summer Festival on Jaliska. She is my hero, for only two months prior she had lost her beloved horse KEC Amoura to a freak illness. Amoura was J’s half sister.

       

Private Lesson

It is the day before Thanksgiving and I have a private lesson at two o’clock. It is a half-day at work so I had told my employees they could work from home if they wanted, needless to say only one other person besides me showed up at the office - Jim. Jim and I jammed and then I headed home as it was also a half-day at school and I wanted to there for my kids. I had given the sitter the rest of the week off.

Being a chilly, rainy day, we ride in the indoor. My trainer has me work on getting J in a good rhythm, to extend her trot i.e. lengthen her stride without going faster. I work on that and it goes pretty well. He also says to try to feel her soften in my hands (is it me or is this really another language, I mean seriously who else is going to know what soften in her hands means?!). I try to feel her soften, and she does.

I keep working on getting J to bend in the back left corner, but she keeps cutting it. I have been setting her up early, to no avail. She nails her bends at all of the other corners. So I point out this frustration to my trainer. He instructs me to “set her up early by using my left leg and lifting my left hand and to get her paying attention prior to hitting the corner.” Somehow, under my trainer's eye and instruction, she does so perfectly (brat). I seriously think she is showing off for him – they are, after all, both Irish…hmmm.

My trainer sets up a trot pole and small jump. I trot to it and jump it several times. She is pretty dead on center nearly every time. He points out that I have been lifting up my hands when going over the jump which causes her to lift up her head causing me to sit hard on her backside after the jump which makes her landing off kilter. He noted that my position was pretty good right up until the jump but one small change such as lifting my hands, caused her to land rough (how would you feel with someone slamming down on your backside just as you were completing a jump?).

My German trainer's niece jumps an Oxer
during the Young Riders Competition,
she placed third in the country

So I was instructed to hold onto her mane and keep my hands there for at least two strides after the jump. This seemed to work out really well and although my trainer is yelling me, it is in a good way (I had to ask as I was unsure). So all’s well that ends well.

My trainer then sets up an Oxer (two jumps set up back-to-back with some space in between them), and other than one jump where she took off at the trot pole and catapulted over it (where I proceeded to land on her neck but stayed on, I have good “stickiness,” he said) we did really well. It seems all the riding I did as a child paid off.

I really try to focus on my breathing. I take a deep breath several times prior to the jump and then again right before it and  once more after. I breathe, sit up straight and my shoulders down, leg on and heels down. Once I get to the jump I lean forward slightly and carry this position over the jump with my hands on her neck. I still forget to look between her ears but will try hard to do so next time.

I glance at the jump a few strides prior to it to gauge the right take off spot. I keep a firm grip with my lower leg to frame her in order to keep her impulsion coming from behind.

At the end of the lesson my instructor says “when you come in with a good attitude, keep your mouth shut, listen and do what I say, then it all goes pretty well.” OK so not quite sure how to respond to that, I  just nod my head. This seems to make him happy. I decide that if he’s happy, then I am happy. Note to all readers: it has taken me a very, very long time to realize that it is good to make (and keep) your trainer happy, for if they are happy then you are happy.

Thought for the day: Stickiness is a good thing.

10,000 Hours?!

To continue on from my previous post, Gladwell goes onto say that the most successful business people in the world such as Bill Gates, musicians like the Beatles and athletes such as star Canadian hockey players; practice on average 10,000 hours in order to perfect their skill.

When I read that I thought, OMG I am doomed! I just don’t have that kind of time. I AM TOO OLD!

So that is when two things hit me 1) 10,000 hours is to achieve world class status,  I just want to compete and finish a grand prix (and a mini grand prix would suffice!) and 2) what about all the hours I rode as a kid, surely they factor in too? Right?

So if my goal is say 7,000 hours and I achieved roughly 5,000 in my youth, then I only need another 2,000 hours to be able to compete (at a beginner level) in a (mini) Grand Prix.

This equates to roughly six years of training at six hours a week. Now that is doable. I am up for the challenge.

Outliers

I am off to NJ to meet with the CEO of American Standard Brands (ASB), Don Devine. Don and ASB are really great clients of my company GEF. They are big supporters of our Green Building Course for high school students (a burgeoning area for career and technical high schools).

At the Boston Logan Airport I perused the business book section for the flight and immediately, literally within seconds, honed in on Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. I loved reading his books: The Tipping Point and Blink and after quickly scanning some of the quotes on the front inside cover, I purchase it.

In reading Part One: Opportunity, it detailed how successful people really don’t rise from nothing, that they in fact are the ‘“beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities….that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways that others cannot.”  

To that end, Gladwell goes onto to showcase the Canadian hockey phenomenon as a key example to this statement. It seems that boys born from Jan 2 - March (i.e. right after Jan 1  which is the official Canadian eligibility cut off for age-class hockey) are, at a staggering rate, the stars of the game. Why this is so is that a boy who turns 10 on Jan. 2 has 12 months more to develop and mature versus those who are born prior to the Jan 1 cut off.  With a year growing advantage they are bigger and more coordinated and therefore more apt to be recruited.

So what does this mean? It means that a boy born after Jan 1 plays 50-75 games more per season versus his younger counterparts. He also receives the benefit of extra and better training and experiences which in fact make him a better player. So it wasn’t really due to the fact that he was bigger that made him better, he was selected because he was bigger and all the extra training and ice time made him better. The day he was born was his hidden advantage which brought him extraordinary opportunities. 

So what does this have to do with me and my riding? Well, it made me instantly realize that I do not have the early age advantage (hmmm...or did I?). So I started thinking about what hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities I have had and have now. Following is a list of what I came up with:

My hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities:

1)       I was given a pony and learned to ride when I was five and even though I never received professional training, I developed a natural seat and ability that I still have to this day.

2)      My pony (and later my horse) was kept in my back yard providing me the opportunity to ride whenever I wanted.

3)      I grew up in Florida which afforded optimal riding conditions year-round. Because we lived across the street from the bay and around the corner from the reservoir, on hot days we would literally go swimming on our horses. Note: this was also a great way to wash off all of the sticky orange juice we got covered with when the eating oranges while riding through the orange groves.

4)      Because my best friends, who were also my neighbors, had horses too, the primary form of recreation that I participated in growing up was, of course riding. I calculated that I spent nearly 5,000 hours riding between the ages of five and fifteen.

5)      Because my horse Nehi (named after the soda as he was a strawberry roan) was very spirited it forced me to think fast, develop a sturdy seat and a solid command of my horse.

6)      Because I learned how to control a very hot horse, it made me somewhat fearless. This has stayed with me, for the most part, to this day which is why I want to jump a prix.

7)      Fast forward to 2011: Due to a successful career in sales, I was able to afford a very good horse giving me an early advantage albeit at a late age, by having a superior jumper at the onset of my professional training.  

8)      Because a stable was built nearly across the street from where live, travel time to get there is inconsequential.

9)      Because the stable has an enclosed riding arena, I can ride any day I choose even while living in New England with its harsh weather conditions (cold winters, hot humid summers, heavy rainfall, and windy days). OK, so there are more gorgeous days than bad in New England and that is when I take advantage of the full outdoor arena and 700 acres of trails abutting the farm.

10)   Because with the stable, came excellent instruction in my Irish trainer which means that I don’t even have to travel for my training, except for a clinic here and there and of my summer trips to Germany.

11)   Given that I am an “early to bed and early to rise” practitioner, I ride at 5:30 every morning and am back in time to get my kids to school and off to work without skipping a beat.

12)   Because of the fact that I run my own company, I dictate my own schedule which means that I can lesson whenever I want; I just adjust my schedule accordingly.

13)   Because I am my own boss, I can take two weeks off to train in Germany, like I did last summer.

14)   Because my daughter rides too, it is a shared passion and I am her hero and role model which motivates me even further.

15)   Because my son is 13, I am teaching him responsibility and farm work through watering the horses and sweeping the stable aisles every weekend. The goal is to have him groom for me by spring show season.  OK, so this is not a hidden advantage or extraordinary opportunity, it just makes me happy to teach him farm work and to be around and appreciate animals.

So to summarize my hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities, I guess I have a few.

Happiness is Riding

This is my first lesson in almost two weeks. I ride with my friend Neal. We work in the indoor as it is very cold and windy outside. Our trainer puts up trot poles and then a small set of jumps which he proceeds to elevate after we clear them a few times. It really is fun.

He remarks after that I rode the most consistent that he had ever seen. It seems the time off from lessons and all the practicing with ground poles that Jaliska and I did during her lime recovery really worked.

My trainer notes that I need to make sure that I go over the jump with J versus being left behind or ahead of her. I am working hard on keeping a firm seat, with leg on and heels down to frame and support her for the jump.

Since the clinic I went to at the Equine Affair in Springfield, MA last week, I have been now looking at the jump, this is the same advice Elmar gave me. As long as I have her “in front of me” so that she is using her back legs for impulsion then she should not stop (which can happen when you don’t do these things while looking at the jump). That being said, I don’t stare at the jump, just glance at it to gauge my timing and distance so that I take off from the right location or spot in front of the jump. I then look straight ahead. I need to remember to look through her ears.

She veers to the right a bit. I believe this is because she is cutting the corner in getting to the jump, while if I had her fill the corner, it would leave me with more time and allow for a straighter trajectory in getting to the jump. I will work on this next time.

All in all it was a good lesson and I feel happy about my progress. 

Jaliska Gets Time Off

It was so cold and blustery and J looked so happy prancing around in the back field with her friends (Cranberry, TJ and Stella) that I decide to give her the day off, it is Sunday after all.

I did this even while knowing that I would not be able to ride tomorrow, Monday, as I am headed to New Jersey on business. But I also know that time off is a good thing for Jaliska. I ride her so much that a few days off will give her muscles a break and given she is in the field grazing all day; she does not need to be exercised.

I may even give her Tuesday off as it’s my company’s Thanksgiving feast. I will have a lesson on Wednesday, and riding her on Thursday, Thanksgiving morning, of course on Friday (because it’s my day off) and then another lesson again on Saturday.

So Jaliska gets three days off.

Stress Relief

This morning I wake at 3 am. My mind filled with the stresses of work. This causes me to get up immediately and head to my home office where I furiously begin typing and sending emails. I don’t feel any better. 

Note to self, don’t ever send out emails at 4 am to anyone other than yourself and then upon receiving, promptly delete them.

The author's son Bobby, 13, proudly displays his
Star Wars Lego ship.



I head to the barn at 7 am after kissing my son and wishing him a good day at school. He heads for the bus.


Sure enough after an hour with Jaliska, I am a person renewed.

Life with horse is a beautiful thing.



Question of the day:

How can you not love a wet, fuzzy muzzle?

Cowboy Take Me Away

I awake prior to the alarm going off at 4 am.

I pour a cup of coffee and head to my home office. After sending out a few emails and polishing off a bowl of cereal, I am off to paradise. I see my horse, her head is poking out of the window of her stall.  “Jaliska, good morning girl.” She whinnies. "I have an apple for you, here you go." She takes it in one bite.

I open the stable doors. It is a beautiful morning, like spring, nearly 50 degrees. The sunrise is truly spectacular. It's the color of a tropical drink, orange and red all swirled together. Just beautiful.

Jaliska enjoys her morning
ration of hay.

I grab a couple slices of hay to provide some energy for my girl and plug in my i-pod. I start singing “Cowboy Take Me Away” from the Dixie Chicks to her as I pick her hooves. I swear she is swaying to the music.

 

Jaliska suddenly spins around to look out the window. She hears what I can't with my i-pod  plugged in. I see someone walking by, unusual for this hour. “Hello,” I say. “Sorry, did my singing bother you?” He shakes his head no while laughing.


“Who are you,” I ask, not recognizing him as a boarder or stable hand. I am Rob from the hunt, I am here to lay down scent for the dogs.  “Oh, have a great day Rob from the hunt,” I say.

I remove all of the poles from the jumps
and place them on the ground.

Jaliska has already turned around, intent on finishing her early morning ration of hay. I leave her to it and head to the outdoor ring. I remove all of the jumps and lay the poles on the ground. “No jumping without professional supervision.” Barn Rule # 1. This was made very clear to me not so long ago in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS, we will leave it at that.

“The jumping is the easy part,” my trainer always says. Best for me to work on the hard part then. That would be getting to the the jump at the right distance, cantering the right number of strides in between and perfecting my gait while jumping the course, etc. etc. etc. This is what I will work on today (and for the rest of my life).

Jaliska contracted lime recently so after ten days of antibiotics, and my slowly building up her endurance, first walking, then walk trot, then walk, trot and a few minutes of cantering, etc. I am finally able to allow her to canter some poles.

Jaliska is on fire today, she is like a finely tuned machine as she manuevers the course. She is dead on center at every pole. She has missed jumping  just as much as me (if you call jumping ground poles jumping). Jaliska is perfection. My ride is a dream. Life is a dream, at the farm.