Cruisin’

/ Ashley Wingert / 4 Comments

Today, I embraced the one superstition that I follow — that whatever you do on New Year’s Day is what you’ll spend the rest of the year doing.  So I  listened to my favorite music while driving (which is pretty much an everyday given as it is, but whatever…), curled up with a good book, blogged, and of course…

Rode. My. Pony. 

One of the popular clinicians has a game/technique/training tool/exercise called “Cruising” that can be best summed up as putting the horse on auto-pilot.  As in, drop the reins, hang on, and let the horse go.  Only rule is that the horse has to keep going.  No reins, no controlling where they go.  Just hang on for the ride.

For a Type A control freak such as myself, doing this is akin to torture.  Not only that, but I spent my first formative year of horseback riding in a huntseat English environment, which is all about lots and lots of contact, especially rein, with the horse, and that losing that contact is a fast way for your butt and the dirt to get really familiar with each other.

Spending the last 15 years riding a pony that is not only very forward, but has also perfected the art of the “drop-n-spin” (damn Quarter Horse blood), has taught me to ride with pretty constant rein contact, so I have maybe half a second warning before she pulls a fast one.  (The theory being that where the head goes, the body follows…It hasn’t always worked…)

So to challenge myself, Mimi and I went Cruising for part of our workout.  On one hand, it was kind of easy.  Mimi has extensive arena training, and would be considered to be a push-button rail pony: get her going and she just tracks along the rail, making circle after circle.  It was easy to get into a rhythm and just hang on while she motored around.  Exhilarating, actually.  Liberating.  One hand on the saddle (let’s not be too daring here…’member that spin-n-drop?) one hand free.

(Watching the NFR [National Finals Rodeo] last month might also have shamed me into trying this, if the bareback and saddle bronc riders can stay on a bucking horse with one hand while the horse goes its own way.  Never mind that it’s only for 8 seconds and a good many of them don’t stay on…minor detail…)

On the other hand: Mimi’s a pony.  Which means right about the time I start getting a bit complacent, her new favorite I-want-to-hang-out-at-the-gate-and-not-work attitude wakes up, she realizes that she can go wherever she wants to, and half a second later, she’s made a sharp turn and a beeline for the gate.  Yeah, glad I was still holding onto the saddle at the point.  It didn’t get her anywhere, since the only rule is that they can’t stop.  We looked like a pinball machine for a bit there, bouncing around in the corner by the gate until the pony resigned herself to the fact that her antics weren’t getting her anywhere.

And then I had to take up the reins again because I can only give up that kind of control for so long.  But for the remainder of the time, I was much more conscious about how much I was using the reins, and made a concerted effort to focus on lighter contact.

I’ve always had fairly soft, quiet hands when I ride…they’re just controlling and reluctant to give up that release.  (This is another good reason to ride in a hackamore.)  I sort of hate to admit just how much I rely on my reins for control, balance and staying on…but I’ve had too many instances happen of where I lost my reins and then was totally sunk to be comfortable without that early-warning system that comes with constant contact.

Some days, hands-free lunge line school doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

But hey, knowing a problem/weakness/area to work on is half the battle, right?

Caveat/Disclaimer/Et Cetera: I did this in a controlled environment — a 180′ x 75′ sand arena surrounded by 3-rail pipe fence and closed gates.  I did this on a trustworthy, reliable, sane horse that I am familiar with.  I kept the exercise to a walk/trot for now.  It’s a good trust-building exercise, and great fun for the horse.  But I would be very reluctant to try this on a young horse who isn’t ready for this kind of freedom, especially at anything faster than a walk.  It could go to their heads and get them a little overexcited and overwhelmed.  No way I would try this in an open environment.  Just use common sense and good judgment when deciding whether or not you and your horse are ready to try this.

Resolution

/ Ashley Wingert / Leave a comment

Who here likes to make inebriated declarations of good intent New Year’s resolutions?

I actually don’t.

To be more specific: I set goals for the year, try to plan things in advance, and accept that fact that 75% of those plans will end up getting kicked to the curb through little fault of my own.

So while I’m not completely against the idea of resolutions in general — hey, they obviously work for a lot of people — I have a tendency to go way overboard in the expectations department.  I also might not be 100% in touch with reality some of the time.  So rather than creating a list of unrealistic resolutions that then leave me with an abject sense of failure when they don’t happen, I’ve settled on the more vague “plans and goals” approach.

Or maybe I just don’t like the idea of being held accountable, even by myself, to declarations made when I’ve stayed up past my bedtime.

But even without specific goals/plans/outlandish fantasies in mind at the moment, I’m looking forward to writing 2012.

(Okay, okay, so I’ve got a couple things in mind: Keep up on blogging.  I’ve gotten back into the habit of it again…Maintain it.  And this past fall, I cracked down on my own health and lifestyle.  Nothing drastic (I’ll never manage to create a stir in diet-blog land with it), just taking a very sensible approach of watching my portions, eating a well-balanced diet, walking every day (2-4 miles), and some kind of resistance workout a couple times a week.  It’s working, and I’m slowly shedding pounds and feeling good about my own fitness and health.  Keep at it.)

Superstition says that whatever you do on New Year’s is what you’ll spend the rest of the year doing.  Superstitious or not, it sounds like a good excuse to go ride.  :)

Let the Record Reflect

/ Ashley Wingert / 2 Comments

I love looking at ride records for both horses and riders.  They really tell an interesting story, whether you’re looking to purchase a horse with some endurance miles (Was he raced from the get-go, or started slow and taught to be in touch with his brain?  Any pulls?  What kind?  What kind of ride does he seem to excel at?), or looking for bloodlines and/or close relations of a youngster (Please let him have even a tenth of the endurance talent as his mother/brother/second-cousin-twice-removed.).

The same goes for rider records as well: Did that bit of advice you got around the campfire come from someone with upteen-thousands of miles who probably knows what they’re talking about, or an upstart flash-in-the-pan with a handful of raced LD miles to their name?

Too bad the records don’t tell the whole story.

Let’s use a very personal example: Me.  Honestly, if I looked myself up on AERC, I wouldn’t be too impressed.

2005-2011
17 rides
13 completions (9/9 LDs, 4/8 Endurance)
Pulls: 3 Rider Option, 1 Overtime
5 different horses

Nothing to brag about, right?  There’s a reason I don’t sit around the campfire and offer too much endurance advice.  I might be experienced around horses in general, but I still consider myself very much an endurance newbie.

But who wants the inside story?  (For the sake of the rest of this post, I’ll pretend somebody just raised their hand.)

To start: 17 rides in seven ride seasons?  Some people get that to that many rides in one season.  Lucky them.  I’ve had to work around around: full-time school, part-time job, and limited resources, meaning sticking to in-state rides.

LD record?  Nothing eyebrow-raising.  A couple of Top Tens in there on Mimi.  Full disclosure?  They were small rides.

Endurance…ouch.  In my defense, I turn to the pull codes.  Three Rider Option.  The story behind those? 1) I broke myself. 2) I broke myself. 3) I almost broke my horse but stopped before I did.  The story I tell myself to make me feel better is that I’ve never had a vet have to pull me…I exercise common sense and good judgment…the truth?  I’m a paranoid, slightly neurotic wimp without access to good pain meds.

Huh?

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have a high pain tolerance.  My ankles were each responsible for a pull, and I’ve learned I can’t ride with a sprained ankle.  Some people can.  But I always sort of sucked at the ride-without-stirrups thing and tend to rely pretty heavily on my legs for keeping me in the saddle and balanced.  But the bottom line is, I don’t really feel like giving myself permanent damage for the sake of a hobby, something I’m supposed to be doing for fun.

Overtime pull?  Tough ride, bad weather, silly horses.  ‘Nuff said.

That last RO pull should really be a RO-Metabolic, but that was before they really started keeping track of the more specific RO pull codes.  And the vets couldn’t find anything wrong.  But I know my pony, and she was at the “ADR” point — Ain’t Doin’ Right.  If we had kept on going, I know she would have tied up.  We called it a day.

And the five different horses?  Only one of them is mine.  I have generous friends that need horses ridden.  I’m happy to accommodate.

So, to sum up: I’m a paranoid, uber-conservative rider who still has a pain threshold, riding an older, not-entirely-suited-for-endurance pony who has given me enough scares and traumas to make me even more paranoid and conservative.

What the ride record doesn’t tell you is how many hours I’ve spent training and conditioning.  I believe it was Julie Suhr that said something to the effect of, “If you don’t enjoy the training, you’re in the wrong sport.”  Well, if it weren’t for the training, I wouldn’t end up doing much riding!

I love the training process…to me, that’s where the most progress and bonding is done.  I’m resigned to the fact that, at rides, I might only have 75% — at best — of my horse’s brain, and that I’m kind of just along for the ride sometimes.  But training rides?  Those are the blood, sweat and tears that go into the foundation of getting to the actual rides.  I wish I’d done a better job of keeping training records…I would love to know how many hours I’ve spent in the saddle and how many miles we’ve covered.

Moral of the story?  Just like you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t judge an endurance rider by their record.

At least, not entirely.