Indoors. But not the prestigious kind.

My attempt to show at The Barracks in December was a real failure. I arrived at 9:15, expecting that being the second to last division, it would give me plenty of time to find the farrier, get a shoe on, braid, hack a little, time for both of us to take a break, then get him ready and be on early for my division. It made a lot of sense in my mind, except that I finally showed at 8 PM, much to the dismay of a certain prince charming horse, who did not appreciate being stuck on the trailer for 12 hours. Lord, I can't blame him! The warmup at that facility is small, and while he doesn't really need a lot of warmup, it also didn't allow for him to have his necessary time to observe his surroundings, trot slowly, and get adjusted to everything. Oh, and of course naps. A nap at the ingate is essential. To my credit, I rode the best that I could, and I did not make any mistakes, but it was just one of those shows that you had to get through without causing long term damage rather than being able to go for the big ribbon. We did make the WIHS/NAL classic, and grabbed a few points towards that, so from the ribbons standpoint it was not a total loss, and shipping into a nearby farm meant that the show was not an expensive one either. Not a disaster, but it definitely left me worrying about Chico's feelings towards showing indoors, since there is no record of him jumping under a roof since Harrisburg of his first year green year. That would be eight years ago, if anyone is counting.

Thus, for Christmas, I asked for a horse show that would let us go back to our roots and see how showing indoors worked for him without all the other new and weird things that I do to him. The Raleigh Winter Classic might not be Harrisburg, but I got to arrive the day before the show started and stay through the end, have a stall, and be stabled with a barn with a setup, so it might as well have been Palm Beach for me. Of course I was the first person on the grounds in the morning, and spent the day body clipping, setting my beautiful stall up, putting new fuses in the trailer, etc. Finally, Mr. Trainer shows up, and we had a teary reunion since he really taught me to post the trot properly and I haven't shown with him in ages and ages. By tearful reunion, I of course mean that the ridiculed me for missing a spot on the inside fetlock and showing up too early. Whatever, I know he loves me at least a little bit. We decided to go school in the indoor to see how he reacted to a more standard indoor ring. If he had been concerned about the actual indoor, Mr. Trainer would have ridden him in the 3'3 Performance Hunters, and if he seemed more or less fine but just needing a refresher, I would ride him. Thankfully, Chico was OK with the ring itself, since it was large and of a coliseum style as opposed to the usual indoor ring that a boarding facility would have.

The next two days, I showed Chico myself in the 3'3 Performance Working Hunters, which is now an A rated division. I didn't really get myself too worked up about the implications, but I did enjoy getting to go into the ring with some good competition and jump something a little bigger than what I have been seeing. The first day was good but not great- I had one very good trip and one with a minor mistake, so I was second and fourth with those two. After watching the trip that beat me for my good trip, I couldn't really find a specific point that would differentiate, so I think that it was the judge's personal preference. As an amateur, if I lose because the judge liked the other horse better, that means I had a damn good day. The second day, I had two good trips, though I got deep to the second part of the (really awkward) bending line, and had a good trip in my final hunter round. Much to my surprise, I won the handy round and was second in the other hunter trip. He still had plenty of energy in the hack class, and I went in still on cloud nine from my handy win, so we managed a blue ribbon in that class also. Champion in a rated professional division! You could not have found anyone more shocked than myself that day, being a college student on a shoestring with a 17 year old veteran who is coming back from five years in a field. Here come your videos!

Good Trip from My First Day

Handy Hunter Round

Final Hunter Trip

Unfortunately, no videos or pictures are available from the final two days in the adults, which is supposed to be my real division. There was no handy for the adults (thank god), and while I only made one big mistake, I rode well and Chico was a good boy for all four rounds. The first day, we had the same judge as the first day of the performance hunters, who did not favor chico for one reason or another. Looking at the videos, I know that he was not jumping as well as he is capable, which must have been the reason, even though he was doing around looking very smooth and pleasant. We were in the middle of the pack for both over fences classes and also the under saddle. The other judge; however, loved my dear Chico. The last day we had him again, and won one under saddle class and...well.... *sigh* The thing is, I knew I had won the class before. And that second class was even better, seriously. So I was coming home to that last 2 stride, and all I could have in my mind was "Grace don't you dare fuck this up". So....what do you think I did? I slowed down too much in the corner thereby setting myself up for a deep and slow jump into the two stride, and then three strides out from the first jump tried to gun it to somehow compensate for everything that I had done since landing from the prior jump. Chip. Chip. Chip. Ugh I could have hit myself. Thankfully I am an amateur and therefore if I only do that once over the course of the week, it's not too bad.

Overall, however, I really learned a lot in this show. I don't miss having a big barn and a big setup and a bunch of people around as much as I thought. I don't miss doing two divisions AT ALL, and I really don't miss being in a hotel for the better part of a week (that is, unless, it involves cute towel boys on the beach in a carribbean location). This hunter princess is very glad she got the confidence boost to jump a little bigger and win against some professionals, but overall, she is very happy with braiding her horse in her trailer, showing close to home, and sleeping in her own bed. I highly suggest my readers try it sometime! You might be shocked how much you like skipping all the extra layers and getting back down to how it started. You, your horse, and trying like hell to put in the trip that you know you can.

Listen to Your Mother

I spent a lot of time at this horse show remembering the away shows that my parents used to come to with me. I miss them! Parents, if you are reading this, please come back! Neither of my parents are horse people, but both of them learned a few helpful skills along the way, and both eventually drove the horse trailer for me at some point. My dad was a shoe-in for this role, having spent the better part of his young adult life with his racer attached to a van, trolling around north america in a points chase, but even mother dear ran a shuttle service for me once from the barn to my school so that I could get to a horse show before midnight (thanks, mom!) I wish I still had the picture we took of the time that she oiled a hoof. Anyways, I thought I would do a little mini post before my epic one on various things I have tried to save money at shows on a few of her lessons that I was reminded of on my trip.

• Put some blush on! I don't know why exactly this one came to me over a horse show, but it's her favorite beauty advice. No matter how late I am running or how little sleep I have gotten, I always make myself put on a swipe of eyeliner on the upper lid and a coat of mascara. It makes you look more in control of yourself and well rested than you will feel. I encourage my readers to pick a non-negotiable beauty ritual to bring with you on the road. Everyone has their thing.
• Don't drive with those boots! I had to show in my schooling tall boots this weekend, and did not think to bring any other form of footwear with me except the high heals I started my journey with. Bad idea. Bring a pair of shoes to drive in if you have a trip that is more than an hour or two. Your ankles and feet will thank you, even if you suddenly are just wearing weird pants out of context when you stop at gas stations rather than obviously being the horse person with the trailer.
• Can you feed this to a horse? This is one of her favorite questions, and it's something I have stopped doing but should make an effort to start again. Always offer horsie a bite. You never know what strange food they end up liking. Just make sure you have common edible illegal substances on the top of your head when you do this. Lego loved oreo cookies, but cocoa powder=caffiene, so he only would get them after the last day had finished and I knew he wouldn't be tested, provided there was more than two weeks before the next show.
• Take the interstate! This is one area my parents differed, if there was an option of driving routes, my father would always go with the back roads for the view and my mother would stay on the interstate for the good signage and plentiful gas stations. If you have the horse trailer, unless you have driven the route before, take the interstate. Being close to a mechanic and a gas station is very important. Also, you know, highway patrol, for us single ladies.
• Don't go to sleep with dirty feet! This is a weird non negotiable from my childhood that has stuck with me. I just can't do it. I'm not really suggesting it to the audience, just noting an odd habit we share.
• Did you bring something nice to wear to dinner? Hah, I have been able to change for dinner a grand total of three times in my show career, every other time has been in my riding clothes. I persisted in bringing a nice outfit with me for a couple years though. Do keep a mental checklist of what you need to bring for yourself, though. It's so easy to forget your own bag when you are packing five separate bins/trunks/boxes for one horse (true story, more on that at some point) that I have often found myself without some crucial item. Pack yourself before you pack the horse, and write down everything you need to put in your bag the morning of.
• What kind of beer does Chris like again? Always have the kind of beer your trainer likes, even if now that you can legally drink you think it tastes like some bodily fluid of the devil. I'm talking about you, Miller Light. They have been putting up with you all day, they will probably need it.
• Can't you pay someone to do that so you can get some sleep? Now that the answer is always no, I am much much more cognizant of how wonderful my support crew was when I was showing in high school. Write your braider a nice note every so often, even if you rarely see him or her face to face, and always leave your check on Saturday night since they will want to leave before you do on Sunday.

That about sums up the list that has been floating around in my head. Next up is the varying levels of success that my money saving budget cuts have had.

Budget Fail Part 3: The Actual Horse Showing Part

Ladies and Gentlemen, this might just be the final installment of the series detailing my adventures at the December Classic Horse Show at the Carolina Horse Park . In the light of day, and with some sleep to encourage me to be reasonable, I realized how LOVELY the grounds were. The stalls are 10 by 12, larger than usual, and have rubber mats, which are a luxury not generally found at shows. Each stall has sturdy, professionally installed eye hooks for buckets, as opposed to the u-nails that someone left there in the early eighties, and two outlets which appear to actually adhere to modern electrical code, another unusual feature. The only missing feature was hot water access, which I would have greatly appreciated that morning when it was still a chilly 45 degrees and Chico needed a bath. Hot water is a very rare amenity, though, so the facility still gets a great review from me. The footing was great and the warmup area was spacious, as were the rings. Thankfully the office staff got my stabling situation sorted out such that I could stay where I had camped the night before, and I let them know about my grooming stall since I am no good with deception.

It is at this point I check in on the rings and realize that I need approximately one more hour to prepare to go in the ring than I actually have available to me, because entries to the show were very very low and thus the rings were running faster than I had planned. I put in some particularly large braids to shorten the braiding process, skipped the cold bath and went over my horse with a damp towel, installed his fake tail, and gave him a few minutes to relax while I got my coat, number, and helmet on. It is at this point I notice that Megan is also getting her horse ready, which was problematic since she was the person who I was hoping could set the jumps for me in the warmup area. To any non horse people: when you are warming up for a class, you start working the horse on the flat, then begin with a low jump, and progressively make it larger and wider, usually to the size of the fences in the class. This is generally accomplished by having a person on the ground stake a claim on one of the fences in the warmup area (there are inevitably three) and then adjust the height and width for you. Without having one of those people, I had to just jump what was already there, which thankfully was a small vertical and a 3' oxer. I cantered back and forth over the vertical until I personally got my shit together, jumped the oxer, and headed to the ring all by myself.

Mr. Perfect, Chico, lit right up once he got into the ring, which is normal but not quite to the extent that was exhibited that day. In our warmup class, he actually SPOOKED at something outside of the ring on the way to the first jump, so I got after him, came back to it and tried to ride it in the way I would on a green horse who was stopping at a jump. I was sitting back in the tack, had my legs on, and steady contact on the reins. This time, Chico just plain stopped. I then took a moment to think of what my trainer, Chanda, would tell me to do, and walked up to it, let him sniff both sides, picked up an easy trot and gave him a long approach to the jump with my seat off his back, legs on, and very light contact, and he proceeded to jump the rest of the fences on the first try, which is what he usually does. Point taken, sir. You're allowed to have your occasional naughty moment, and I need to just deal, since you know more about this than I do. (Note: Chico is the only horse who gets this treatment, because he does, in fact, know more about show hunters than I do)

My first trip did not have anything that technically went wrong, since we took off an appropriate distance from all of the jumps, got the right number of strides in between them, and changed leads where it was necessary. That is why I won. It could not have been attractive, given that I wanted to go a full gear slower than he did, and most of the time between the fences was spent trying to slow the crazy old man down. I also subsequently added out of the corner in a couple places where I should not have. I let him nap and realize how exhausting that had been before our second class, and when we went back in, he was still fresh but much more rideable. We nailed most of the course, and on my way to the last line, a tight six, I thought "Grace, don't you dare pull on the reins and add a stride because you are winning this class". Of course, the combination of slowing down too much in preparation for the tight line and my decision to gun it for the long spot meant I had a really spectacular chip to that line. Way to overthink. There were only four in my division, so I still managed a third place finish.

I spent my "free" afternoon after the show doing all of my usual post horse show routines for horse care and then trying to find someone who could help me with my truck and trailer situation. One member of the show staff, Bob, helpfully offered to install a new jack if I would go buy one, which he described to me. Naturally, the one that I purchased would have worked on the vast vast majority of trailers, but mine has a welded plate in the way, so I later had to go back and buy a plain car jack, which we decided I would put on a section of 2 by 4 that he found for me and then use to jack the trailer up off the truck once I got home. He also fixed my hitch for me, which needed to be flipped so that the trailer would ride higher in the front and thus be level. I grabbed dinner for myself and Henry, and headed back to the show for night check and to braid for the next morning. I decided that to compensate for the very large braids of that morning, I would put in a ton of very small ones, which was a great idea until 20 minutes later when I had barely made progress down his neck and realized it was going to take an hour and a half to finish. Oh well. It looked pretty! I settled everyone in for the night and left what I thought was a particularly pretty setup:

The rings started earlier the next morning, and my age group's division was going earlier in the day, so even with the braiding already done, I didn't get to sleep any longer. Thankfully, my trainer Chanda's godmother, Judy Kelly, who is a famous and very knowledgable equestrian from the glory days of the sport, had run into me the day before and was able to set the jumps and coach me a little bit. Chico was not fresh like the prior day, and the combination of a little help to settle me down and having my normal horse back proved to be a very good one. We didn't win the hack class, which was a function of the judge's personal preference, since he has won some large hack classes at very prestigious horse shows, but I was not too concerned with that. We went out to warm up for the jumping classes, and after getting my bad jump out of the way, I settled right into the rhythm that we needed. My warmup and both classes both went very well, with the possible exception of the first jump in the second class which was spooky and thus merited a funny jump. We won both classes, and I received a score of 82 for my second class which was the first round of the WIHS/NAL classic. I was very pleased with that score, given that the first jump had been a little awkward, and it sent me into the second round as the leader. We also were champion of the division!

The second round would run after the older age group had finished, so I took the time to take Chico back to the barn to relax and pee, which he appreciated. Miss Judy had a prior commitment which prevented her from being able to school me again for the classic round, but Megan had finished for the day and very kindly messed up her tight schedule in order to set jumps for me. I warmed up quickly, and had a good round except he looked at that same jump along with an oxer which they had put in the ring specifically for the classic round, a bending eight strides after a two stride which was set on the judge's side of the ring. It was in an odd place, and I overdid it with the encouragement, which got us a little tight to that fence. He doesn't like when I get him close to the jump, and he was already a little wary of that fence, so I am sure the resulting effort was not attractive. We scored an 80 for that round, which is respectable, and I was very happy with him for being such a good sport about having to go back and jump again. Our combined score was leading when the adults finished, but I still had three children's hunters who were combined in the classic, so I left to purchase the aforementioned car jack with my fingers crossed that my position would hold. Much to my delight, it did, and I earned 140 points towards Washington and Harrisburg and 85 dollars.

Because I had to make a trip to fill up the truck and buy the jack and then find Bob and figure out how to get everything functional for the trip home, I was one of the last ones to leave the show grounds, but 5 PM isn't bad at all. The drive down taught me my lesson, and I took I-95 home, which was a total breeze and was 15 minutes shorter, even though the route was 40 miles longer. I encountered this magnificent truck stop which had a McDonalds attached, and I delivered the champion back to the farm safely.

I will follow up this post with one detailing my efforts at being the hunter princess on a budget, whether or not they were successful, and whether or not it's worth it. I will say this- I haven't entitled this series "Budget Fail" for no reason. While I am sure it would have been significantly more expensive if I had not taken the steps that I did, it still was not a cheap weekend by any means!

Budget Fail: Part 2-The Road Was the Easy Part

Let's begin this portion, which will hopefully be shorter than the novel I recently posted, with the map that Google presented to me when I looked for routes between my barn and the show grounds.

In an effort to save gas and therefore money, I thought taking the direct route would make sense, since I would be driving slower and for a shorter distance than if I took the interstate. Now, I am sure all of you who have sensible thought processes are thinking to yourselves, "But Grace, you left for a very long drive at 7 PM. Why would you take the back roads? What if something happened?" The answer to those questions is that I had not remotely considered that Route 15 was as much of a back road as it actually is. I was expecting it to be either 2 or 4 lanes, designed to be wide enough to accommodate trucking traffic, and the normal infrastructure that goes along with that kind of road. There are plenty of highways in the area like that, so it was not a total figment of my imagination, but it was really stupid of me to assume that just because the roads are under the same classification and have the same size line on a map, they are therefore somehow equal. No. In my defense, I will say that another competitor from my area who drives horses to that facility regularly uses that route and likes it, so maybe my issues were mostly related to the dark and not knowing what I was getting into.

Pictured is the portion of my route that travels through an area that is so rural that I was sure I had accidentally been transported to North Dakota or the surface of mars. My father, ironically, called me repeatedly on my trip down to check on my progress and lecture me on driving so late at night. (Hmm, why did I get on the road so late again?) My mother decided that I was, in fact, traveling through a dangerous war zone, and called about every 30-45 minutes. Both were following me on Google maps and would demand my location each time they called, so that they could inform me what I had just passed, (I know, I was there) what is coming up, (Yes, I have seen the sign that says Boomfuckville is this way) and then offer directions to me, as though I would stray from my printed out route while I was in the middle of nowhere in the night. The absence of cell service in the above pictured area of Virginia was particularly distressing to both of them, since it was one of the points of the trip where both were trying to reach me simultaneously, and neither could reach me. This of course meant that as soon as I reached Clarksville and got a signal, I had a barrage of text messages coming in from all sides which grew increasingly distressed. I adore both of them, and know that all of it was the two of them worrying about me and being unable to assist me in any other way, and looking back on it I am laughing, but at the time it was a lot to handle the truck and trailer, unfamiliar back roads at night, trying to find a gas station when there has not been a town for 20 miles and won't be another for 30, spotty to nonexistent cell service, and two parents to reassure. I suppose packing everything up and driving far away to a horse show is no longer a normal occurrence, which is why they both decided that this was the trip to be really worried about me, even though I have been driving horses to shows since I was 17.

Once I got to the Raleigh area, everyone had a big deep breath and a sigh of relief since I was back in populated areas. Wagon Wheel came on my playlist, and I took a second to be a loser and giggle that I was in the song. Everything was smooth sailing until I was close to the horse park, which is very far into the country. My friend, Megan, had called ahead of time to let me know that I needed to follow the directions on the website, not the ones that a navigation system sends you to, since that will be wrong and send you to the offices or something like that. She had also helpfully gone to find my stall assignment, which I appreciated immensely. I had called the show office earlier in hopes of finding that piece of information, and to confirm that my shavings would be waiting for me, and the lady in the office assured me that the stall chart at the entrance would have my stall on it and that the shavings would be there. Megan had also let me know where her stalls were, and warned me that the stabling situation was rather volatile and that everyone was moving around. She suggested that I claim that someone else's things were in my assigned stall and instead put my horse in the empty stalls on her aisle, which were vacated by the barn which was supposed to be there because of a broken board or something. I wasn't about to drag 8 bags of shavings across three barns when I got in, but I promised to consider it once I could scope out the situation.

I finally arrived at the show grounds about 5 minutes after I decided to find somewhere to turn around since I must have passed the place, and found the stabling chart. Of course, my name was not on the chart. It was not on C-22, which was the stall which the office had told Megan, but I decided to go there anyways, since there would be a big pile of shavings bags that would confirm that it was my stall. Although unoccupied, there was a dirtbike parked in C-22 and no shavings bags to be found. I therefore assume that it is not my stall, and proceed to walk around the barns while ranting on the phone to my dear Jacques, looking for the big pile of shavings bags that would mark my temporary home. I promise you, readers, that there were four bags of shavings in the stabling complex at 1 AM, all of which were scattered and obviously belonging to one barn or another. This caused a complete hissy fit worthy of any hunter princess. I was apparently loud and bitchy enough to alert the braiders, who I overheard asking each other who just pulled in and what her problem was. I thankfully had a spare bag in the truck from my morning errands, and the stall next to Megan's had a bag spread in it, presumably before the barn decided to vacate that block. Two bags, while unacceptable in comparison to my usual 8-10, is not COMPLETELY unacceptable in the way that bare ground would have been. I'm stabling with my friend after all, and if the office is upset in the morning, I had all kinds of pent up rage that was fueled by sleep deprivation that really needed a point of delivery. I hastily unpacked most of the trailer and threw everything but my trunk into the next stall down, deciding to use it as a grooming/tack stall and hoping that no one would notice since it was vacant anyways.

This is the point at which I would generally park the trailer, but we have that whole "trailer can not be detached from truck" issue, so I put the ramps back up and punched my hotel into my phone and headed there for a few hours of much needed sleep. I think I finally got to sleep at 3 AM and decided to "sleep in" to 6:30 since the ring started at 8. A quick check of www.horseshowsonline.com to see if the show had even received my entry informed me that the rings would be starting an hour later, which was a very welcome extra hour the alarm could be pushed back.

Budget Fail: Part 1-The Long Road to The Road

Because I am going to ramble when it comes to this horse show, I am going to start out this post with a few bullet points of important facts I learned over the weekend.

• If you want to show your horse on a budget, do not go far away. It does not work.
• There are parts of the state of Virginia that are so rural you can drive through them for 45 minutes without encountering a gas station or having cell service. God bless Eisenhower.
• REINFORCEMENT: People have trainers, haulers, braiders, and grooms for a reason. Those people sleep. I am unclear as to whether or not the aforementioned professionals do.
• No one is there to help you once you go through the gate. It is a very good thing to do some work on your own so you can school yourself once you get there.

So, let's begin with a little story about your resident hunter princess, myself. My mother calls me "her snake bit daughter". If you can imagine an obscure way for fate to just cause someone to have a really hard time with something, it's going to happen to me. This is important to keep in mind not just for this series, but throughout the blog. I have had friends ask me how it is that I always have a story to tell, and the bad luck combined with my tendency to be an airhead explain why. It just is the perfect storm of "hold on, you said WHAT happened?"

A congressman wanted to honor my late grandfather by flying a flag over the capitol building for a day in his honor and then presenting the flag to his family. The date for this event changed three times, starting in September. Naturally, last week my father announced that the ceremony would be Friday, the one day of the entire year that it would be most problematic for me. Any attempts to explain this to him delicately were not met well, so I resigned myself to a very, very long day. 6 AM wakeup call, dress up in business attire, makeup, hair, heels, the works. Drive to Orange, Virginia to pick up the feed I realized I was out of when I had packed the trailer and a couple other last minute items. Then head over to the vet to pick up a few medications that I keep with me at the show just in case. Having finished my errands (thankfully horse people are up early and getting all of this done before 8:15 was not a problem), I drove to Culpeper, Virginia, where my sister and I had planned to meet so that we could drive into DC together and use the HOV lane. Henry of course could not be stuck sitting in the truck waiting on us all day, so I checked him into Mountain Run Kennel for the day so that he could run around, and hoped and prayed that he would get plenty of exercise. The staff was as sweet and accommodating as could be, and the facility was a dog paradise, set in the middle of acres of farmland, so I felt good leaving him there. Poor Oliver was not so lucky, since he is not allowed to go in high traffic areas, much less a boarding facility, grooming place, dog park, or anything like that, because he is on a bunch of medications to suppress his immune system to treat his neurological condition. He spent the weekend at VETSS, the emergency veterinary clinic in Charlottesville that has treated him, and received his second round of chemotherapy from Dr. Miller with Virginia Vet Specialists who without question saved his life. I'll do a post on Ollie and his condition later.

Annie and I had been in communication the whole morning, starting when I called her to get her out of bed half an hour after she was supposed to be up, and she was still in recovery from the prior night's sorority date function. To those not familiar with the practices of the greek community, a date function is what fraternities and sororities will have as a social event, usually themed. The idea is that every member of the organization will bring a date (presumably of the opposite gender), hence the title, but I have never seen this actually executed with the sororities. Generally a bunch of sisters will bring good friends who are not in the sorority as their dates, or people will bring multiple "dates" with them, and it basically turns into a big fun theme party that you need to be invited by a sister to. Themes vary, but there will invariably a vast quantity of alcohol, beginning around 8 PM at several pregames, both organized by sisters and of the unorganized, "let's start drinking early and get dressed together" sort. The event ends at 2 AM, and while most people go home at that point, it seems that annie elected to attend a fraternity function that continued past that time. Needless to say, her 7:30 wake up call was received with bitterness and hostility that can only be compared to a terrorist group ranting about the evils of the United States. She also probably should not have been driving, and while I maintain that she would have been under the legal limit, she was not of the same opinion. The combination of sleep deprivation and residual alcohol was nevertheless not a good idea, but the drive to Culpeper from Charlottesville is a straight line on a 4 lane road, so I felt it was manageable provided she drank plenty of coffee and had a greasy breakfast. I had apparently underestimated the prior night's activities, since I had to stay on the phone with her for most of the drive, and she managed to hit a temporary construction sign that was in the median and damage her driver's side mirror.

Despite all the morning activities, we were actually exactly on time according to my schedule, which still had extra built in time for traffic and getting a little bit lost. The trip into DC was not too difficult, and after detailing all the events of the night before and purchasing a whole lot of gatorade, Annie took a long and much needed nap. An uncharacteristic lucky turn of events had me staring across an intersection at my father while I was on the phone with him trying to figure out the logistics of getting past the barricades and into the appropriate capitol parking garage. The ceremony was really lovely, and I had a good time seeing some extended family and hearing stories about my grandfather's influence in the community. I probably should not commit this to writing, but the most interesting part was when we briefly spoke about some political issues with the congressman, which is not remotely in the theme of this blog so I won't go there. Suffice it to say that I left DC wondering if there was any reliable source of information about political events available to me at all, short of living in the district and knowing everyone.

Of course, my plan that the ceremony would start promptly at noon, and that we could then be leaving the district by 1 or 1:30 was completely imaginary. Everything started at 12:30, took quite a while, and lunch was at an actual restaurant. We finally got going at 2:30 and, thanks to what I am sure was comparatively mild DC traffic, the 70 mile drive back to Culpeper took two hours. I grabbed Henry at 5, just before they closed, and began wondering how on earth I was going to drive nearly 6 hours to a show when it was getting dark before I even got to the barn.

I arrived to the barn with the vague memory that last time I was at my trailer, the ground had collapsed underneath my block, but assumed that just meant I might have trouble getting the coupler high enough to get onto the ball, which has happened before and I have been able to handle it. In order to explain the issue, let's first look at a picture of a trailer jack:

The jack basically consists of two metal tubes, one smaller and one larger, and a crank handle that moves the smaller one out of the larger tube, thereby raising whatever heavy object is attached to the bracket. Well, when the ground collapsed, the smaller tube, which was resting on a wooden block, bent at about a 30 degree angle to the larger tube, thus rendering the jack useless, since it would not lower the trailer onto my truck. A combination of banging, cursing, battering the coupler of the trailer with the ball on my truck, and lots of sweat on my part meant that 45 minutes after I initially backed up to my trailer, it was finally attached to my truck. I had also rendered the jack even more useless in the process, and resigned myself to having the trailer attached to my truck until such time that a professional could remove it. Everything was thankfully packed, so the rest of the loading process went smoothly and I pulled out of the farm, with horse, great dane, and all the necessary accoutrements, at 7....

The Hunter Princess on a Budget

It has been a good long while since I have shown regularly, and to say that a lot has changed would be a vast understatement. My new horse, Chico, was a gift to me, since he is an older fellow with a prior injury who requires special attention. My showing is also going to be financed in a larger portion by my own self, so the house rules are about to change in here. Long gone are the days of the grooming stall, and the tack stall, and the other grooming stall, and the two stalls that were set up as a lounge and display of the barn's accomplishments. My new M.O. involves showing off the trailer whenever possible, dreaming of switching demos into a suburban so I can camp in the back, and spending early mornings on a braiding ladder.

I miss having more help, surely, but I am getting my setup perfected to the point where showing off the trailer is easier than having a stall and a grooming stall. I'll have to get some pictures for everyone. My two horse bumper pull has a side ramp also, which makes it really nice and airy in the summer, and plans are in the works currently for a quiet camping generator to further pimp my ride. It's a no-brainer to show at culpeper and deep run this way, since both are less than an hour from the barn. The shows at Rose Mount and Lexington are also within reasonable driving distance, although I will get a stall if my division is going more than one day, because being a tight wad hunter princess is, frankly, exhausting.

Some of my readers may wonder whether I should be allowed to maintain my title, given these changes in procedure and finances. I will have them know that my lovely horse will still always be wearing seasonally appropriate, custom made, monogrammed blankets from The Clothes Horse, and I will not be seen in the ring looking anything less than perfect. Well...if I can help it. I am a blonde, after all.

Walter's Horse

We interrupt these long boring ramblings to add some entertainment. Walter found a horse while we were in Holland. I left his sight and came back to find him giggling and recording this.

DTW- it's mostly a good airport

Initially, I was concerned about using Detroit as a connection. For one, the city might as well be Nagasaki, but with bad chi instead of nuclear radiation. They do the same amount of damage to the surrounding area though. Second, this was the famed "Flight of the Underwear Bomber". In case you live under a rock, here's the photo evidence:

The man apparently stashed some kind of explosives in his, erm, testicular region (I am keeping my promise on the penis-free blog!) and then failed to detonate them properly, instead setting himself on fire in that area. He was apprehended and taken care of, but the aftermath meant I was traveling with a very very nervous father. Security in the Amsterdam airport isn't like what you normally deal with here. Each individual gate has its own agents, xray machine, and sniffer room thing. I thought it would just be an improved version of a normal procedure. Until I recieved, hands down, the most invasive frisking ever. Seriously, it was more action than I have gotten in a good long while. I know I'm, erm, well endowed, but I am not hiding bombs in there. Also, I was wearing leggings-type pants. Grabbing my butt cheeks/lady bits is unnecessary, a visual inspection, I believe is more than adequate. However, I am not in control of security procedures, and I was in Amsterdam, so I let the creepy Asian with the soul patch do his thing without protest. I didn't like it but I bet no one else sneaks anything on in their underwear, so, that's how it goes.

Now, back to Detroit. According to their airport website, the buildings that I am in are the McNamara terminal, which are all new as of 2002. It's really a pretty, bright airport. Concourse A is the second longest airport in the world, with a one mile long hallway. There is a train that moves up and down it, but instead of being underground, they installed it way overhead, so you can see it buzzing up and down. It's definitely neat to watch. The most interesting part about the airport, however, is the acid trip that is the tunnel. Here's the wikipedia entry reference to it:

The "B" and "C" concourses are connected to the main terminal building and the "A" Concourse by a pedestrian walkway under the tarmac. This walkway, known as the Light Tunnel, features an elaborate multi-colored light show behind sculpted glass panels extending the entire length of the walkway, as well several moving walkways. The light patterns are synchronized with an original musical score. This installation, one of the first, large scale uses of color changing LED lighting in the States, was produced by Mills James Productions and has won multiple lighting design awards including the prestigious Guth Award of Merit.

Well, and here is my version:

The flights themselves were actually really pleasant. Going over, I slept most of the way, and coming back I enjoyed the personal entertainment screen and a copy of Shutter Island. Some random comments from that aspect:

• If you have read the book Shutter Island, please take a moment to inform me WTF is going on in the last 50 pages. Thanks. I liked it a lot until that point and then I was lost.
• If you choose to watch the movie, "The Men Who Stare at Goats", it probably makes a lot more sense if you don't take a nap in the middle. I woke up to an army base that had LSD released into the water supply and everyone was going insane. It was a really confusing time for me.
• Top Gun. One of the best movies ever. That's really all I have to say about that.
• I also got in a bit of Inglorious Basterds (sic), and wasn't all that impressed. I have really bad taste in movies for the most part I think though. I rarely like a movie that wins any kind of award.

Traveling With a Saddle

So, for my shortest topic, it can be done! You can, in fact, carry a saddle on board of a plane. I have even managed to fit it into the overhead of a "regional jet"- puddle jumper. Here are some things to expect:

• People will look at you as though you are some kind of freak carrying something dangerous. I don't know why, nor can I understand why no one asked me about it, but it's apparently very, VERY suspicious.
• Security, surprisingly, will not care like you think they will. I even have cheese grater pads on my stirrups, which I think could be some kind of weapon. No problemo, send 'er on through.
• On the note of stirrups: I have the black Italian carbon ones. If you have metal ones, CHECK THEM. You do not want to carry them around, and I have heard that they can be taken, since you could swing it at someone and smush their head like a hardboiled egg. The latter part being my interpretation, not the TSA.
• Even if you want to risk the security with the stirrups, you absolutely don't want to carry them around. That saddle gets heavy real quick when you are on an endlessly long moving walkway.
• It's not as good of an idea to perch the saddle on the handle of a rolling bag as you would think. The double bar configuration means it will start slipping on the aforementioned moving walkways, then you will have to stop and right it. This will inevitably happen just as the one pissed off New Yorker who is late for his connection is trying to perform the airport walkway version of a Talladega bump draft. Carry it if you can. Much less irritating. However, I suspect that if I had given that plan more thought and secured it around the handle, in a burrito fashion, with some kind of strap, it would have worked out better.
• You probably aren't as crazy as I am, so disregard that above if necessary. That's really only going to come into play if you're trying to bring three carry ons. Which, also, no one seems to care about. Go figure.

This concludes my helpful tutorial on how to carry on a saddle. More travel-related rantings to follow.

So the first day over here, not surprisingly, got significantly better once the horses were factored into the picture! First, once we found some gas station food, we headed to the first barn of the day. I saw about seven or eight horses there, none of which really struck me for a hunter, though I loved one as a jumper. Three year old stallion by Unaniem, huge personality. Anyways, the last one is a gorgeous gray who someone else has first dibs on, so all I did was watch him loose in the ring, but he was a cute mover and just was running around and having so much fun. What got me mostly was that he kept jumping the fence that was set up in the ring just because he loved it. He'd veer across the ring and jump it off a 2 stride approach, or go all the way on the rail, and he was always dead on with how he judged himself. So cute.

After that, we drove 2 hours to the eastern part of the country, near the German border. I tried one other horse, whose videos I really liked. He's really fancy, but tends to lock his jaw on the left. I'm not sure if it's a baby thing, or of he needs his teeth done, or a training issue, but it is a concern. He wanted to be good once he figured it out though, and we got some really good fences in. I have a video of yours truly riding him around that should be ready sometime before the next ice age at this rate. Until then, I'm fighting off the jet lag...

I'm sitting in the hotel now, getting ready to go see the one horse. Here are some of my writings from earlier, when I didn't have internet access. More updates to follow.

Currently, my altitude is 8754 meters and we are beginning our descent into the Amsterdam airport, which is 174 km away. I have spent the flight sleeping, watching New Moon in an effort to be culturally literate, and filling out the most beautiful notebook ever. I have all the contact information for dealers, hotels, confirmation numbers, and then pages upon pages of forms. One per horse, and I have fields so that I can not forget to write anything down. The saddle made it through the trip without the horrifying concept of the gate check being exercised, it folded right up into a burrito and fit even in the overhead of the regional jet. Time to turn off approved portable devices!!!

8 AM- We have arrived in the town of Ijesslstein. I wish we had not. The town feels like...hmm, how can I describe it? If Nazi Germany had a zombie apocalypse. There is not one open coffee shop, restauraunt, anything, just lots of school children on bikes moving in packs. None of them seem able to describe where to find some food, or speak english well, which left me feeling like a hobo, shivering on main street and yelling “Food? Food?” at passers by. Dad and I have since completely given up on the concept of a quaint bakery for breakfast and are sitting in the car enjoying the heat, possibly going to grab some munchies at a gas station, and kill some time until 9 when I am going to look at the first batch of horses.

"This is where gnomes come from. I just saw one driving a van" -WW

Adjusting to euro time

I spent a good portion of the night sleeping, but at this point all I'm getting is "kid before christmas" sleep- dozing off and then snapping awake, "is it time yet?!" That's probably for the better since my passport comes in the mail this morning and I need to be able to sign for it. Traveling outfit is still up in the air, but there seems to be no escape from the black pants and brown bag. I can not for the life of me get a flight tracker widget to embed in here properly, so my flights are 6118 from Norfolk to Detroit, and 252 from Detroit to Amsterdam.

I leave tomorrow! For real this time! After a lovely final night in the states involving a mechanical bull, I think I am ready to do this. By some miracle, I was able to fit into a 21" carryon bag:

• 3 pairs breeches
• 1 pair tall boots
• 1 GPA speed air helmet
• 1 North Face down jacket
• 1 raincoat
• 2 cashmere sweaters
• 1 fleece pullover
• 1 wrap dress
• 1 pair jeans
• 1 dressy top to go with jeans
• and of course underwear, socks, medicine, and toiletries to go around.I mean really people! It can be done! I am the opposite of the light traveler, and just my first try I might have been converted. I think the key is keeping the number of pairs of shoes down.

Equine Stomach Ulcers, Diagnosis Continued

So, I lied. Well, I didn't lie, I was just incorrect in my outline. I was supposed to talk about whether or not to scope in the last post and then I forgot. Apologies. There are two ways that you can diagnose ulcers clinically. First, you can have the horse "scoped", which is a procedure in which the vet runs a 3 meter long endoscope through the nose, and then into the stomach, and examines the lining of the stomach. Second, you can treat the horse for ulcers for a short amount of time, and if you note improvement in the behavior, then assume there are ulcers and continue treatment.

Personally, I think the scope is a valuable tool, in certain circumstances. If the horse is colicing on a regular basis and waiting it out isn't wise, if the behavior is genuinely dangerous, or if there is another situation where you absolutely need to know. Also, if your horse is insured and you plan to file a claim, and thus money is somewhat less of a concern, it's great to be able to re-scope after treatment so that you can see if they have been cleared up or not. (Note: if you do choose to file a claim, remember that the insurance company will then put an exclusion on the stomach, so colic surgery will not be covered until you can get the exclusion off the policy) If the horse's health is at stake, if YOUR health is at stake, if you just really need to know, the scope is the way to go. However, if you are considering that your horse has ulcers because of behavioral issues that are more minor, you might consider treating the horse for a few days to see if there is a response. I have found that within 3 days of full-dose gastrogard, I can see a significant improvement, but some horses take longer. Of course, you can take the combination approach and treat the horse for a few days, and then decide based on the improvement or lack thereof if you want to scope.

If you do choose to scope, the procedure is as follows: the horse will have to fast prior to the procedure, generally about 12 hours, but different vets like different amounts of time. Be sure to follow your vet's recommendation on this. You can either sweep all the shavings out of the stall or leave the bedding in and put a muzzle on. I favor the muzzle approach not only because it means less sweeping and shoveling for me, but also because after that amount of time with food, most horses are grumpy and the muzzle means they can't bite. I have the bucket-style muzzle, I think most of them will work. You will also have to withold water from the horse starting 4 hours prior to the scope. The fasting, I think, is the major downside to doing this- having an empty stomach is very stressful to the horse and will exacerbate any ulcers that are there. There's certainly that trade off to consider.

Ulcers Part 2- Diagnosis

I remember the first time I thought my horse might have stomach ulcers. I was perched on top of a stepstool, brandishing my clippers at Lego, who at that time was alternately trying to bite, kick, and body slam me against the wall of the wash rack. I located two strong men, who held up a leg to try to keep him still, twitched him, and ran a chain through his mouth, so that I wouldn't get hurt...again. As I was trying to get at the left ear, always his least favorite, the man holding the twitch and the chain mused, "I wonder if his stomach bothers him..." In my time owning the horse, he had hurt me so often that it was a running joke in the barn that when I rode him, the midget toss began. The spook, spin, and tear off bucking got me every single time, and the horrible behavior on the ground just kept getting more aggressive. I was trying to sell the bastard, but I thought I would give him one chance, so I booked an appointment to have him scoped. Now, that was the first time I treated him for ulcers. I probably went through it ten more times after that, and I became the go-to 'ulcer person' in my barn of 80 something horses, so I learned to look for the more subtle signs. It's far better to catch them early than to wait until the horse is turning himself inside out because of the pain.

Now, here comes the part that is completely unvalidated by any kind of study, but most horsemen will agree- not every horse is bothered by stomach ulcers. Studies do show that the vast majority of performance horses have stomach ulcers, as do many foals, but not every horse shows discomfort. For some, they are just there, and they don't cause them pain or poor digestion to any degree that we can tell. You can, of course, treat these horses, but the horse does need stomach acid for efficient digestion. Over treating an ulcer means not enough stomach acid, so the food doesn't get broken down, and it ferments in the hind gut and causes an ulcer there. So, if your horse is not showing symptoms, but a scope shows an ulcer, consider just turning a blind eye to the endoscope screen and look at a happy healthy horse instead.

However, if you are reading this page, chances are that your horse isn't one who has an ulcer that does not bother him. (Note, for purposes of this series, I am assuming a male horse, they affect mares just as often) I tend to think of symptoms of ulcers as being split into two categories: Behavioral and Physical. Behavioral problems tend to stem from the pain of the acid on the raw stomach lining, whereas physical problems come from the decreased digestive efficiency.

Behavioral problems run a whole span from a reluctance to go forward under saddle to bolting. Trying to make a list of them is impossible, but when a horse is in pain, they will generally show it in some way. I will say that horses tend to react differently to ulcer pain than they would to pain from a lameness or a cut or something of that nature, so consider it a separate matter. If your horse's behavior on the ground or under saddle suddenly takes a turn for the worse, consider that they may have an ulcer. Often, symptoms are worse when they are being ridden because stress causes an increase in acid production, which means pain. Any other situation that is stressful will have the same effect, so trailering, showing, visits from the vet or farrier, etc. all can be times when the pain is more severe. All of that said, there are certain behaviors that are particularly indicative of an ulcer:

• Grinding Teeth
• Girthiness- I think it is the combination of something on their stomach and the anticipation of being ridden that causes them to object to the girth when their stomach hurts.
• Cribbing during or after feeding
• Objection to grooming over the stomach
• Poor Appetite

The physical signs, however, are much more clear cut, and thus they don't require an excessively wordy explanation on my part.

• Hard Keeper
• Dull Coat
• Frequent Colic, often mild

Will treating your horse for stomach ulcers turn a rank horse into an angel? It's unlikely. Will the elimination of pain eliminate the behaviors that are caused by pain? Yes. It's impossible for us to know which bad behaviors are caused by pain and which are just bad behaviors until we eliminate the pain, but doing so can make a difference in horses who are hurting and acting out. As for the physical symptoms, I have noticed huge differences in the amount of food horses need to eat to maintain condition pre and post treatment. If you have a very hard keeper who never looks good no matter what you do, he's probably not utilizing his food well, and an ulcer is a very likely reason.

Equine Stomach Ulcers, Part 1

Hello everyone. Sorry about the silence- my big bay horse is done with his show career, and the process of moving him out to the back 40 and cleaning my show tack and putting it away in the trailer has not had me in a writing mood. However, I know that stomach ulcers are a scary thing for a horse owner to deal with, and having been there and done that, I thought it might be nice to share what I do know with the public. And so my writer's block vanishes.

Now, to get this out of the way: I am not a vet. I never have been one, I don't have an animal science degree, I did not even stay at a Holiday Inn last night, so please take any commentary of mine with a big grain of salt. Possibly dig out the rock salt that you bought for making ice cream- you know you're never doing that again. Making ice cream is just not a good plan, in my opinion. It always turns out with this weird texture that is like if you threw a milkshake in the freezer. Anyways, that is beside the point. I have no qualifications to dispense advice, consider me the nutty guy on the street corner who claims to have lost a leg in Vietnam, just for the love of god do not sue me. That is all.

I hope for my series to include:

• Diagnosis- What are the signs of ulcers? Should you scope? What does the scope report mean?
• Medicines- Why is Gastrogard so expensive? How long do I have to give it? Does it really work? What else is out there? Does THAT work?
• Management Changes- What can I do to keep this from coming back? How on earth can I give my show horse a less stressful existence?
• Supplements- What is in them and do they work?
• Why the heck do you know all of this?
• What worked for you?

I would love nothing more than to get some questions from the peanut gallery on this one. My big bay horse had recurrent ulcers, and I spent a whole lot of my life hunting down information and trying to treat them, so if I don't know the answer to your question, I can probably direct you to someone who does.

"It's a penis free blog"

I just said that to my best friend, john david. I told him to check out my newest post on the dirty things I keep in my mouth, but then had to clarify that this is a penis free blog. I would put up a poll to see if we should keep it that way, but thankfully the only penises that I deal with on a regular basis involve excalibur and some rubber gloves. Or not. Depends on the horse. Goodness gracious, I am quite the hunter princess. Braiding my own horses and now glove free sheath cleaning. So, I guess it's not a penis free blog. It just has a "must be this long to be featured" requirement.

Best. Thing. Ever.

Hello Friends! Well, maybe not the best thing. I never thought I would be grateful for standing up on that old rickety stepladder that every barn has with 30 pounds of fluids in my left hand and a rope in my right. And, of course, a needle cap in my mouth, because that's how these things go. I am really, really bad about holding things in my mouth. Not anything gross like a hoof pick, but braiding yarn and needle caps are generally put there for safe keeping which isn't really all that sanitary. Anyways, another horse whose owner was out of the town was colicing, and we ended up having to run a catheter and hang IV fluids off the rafters. Worked like a charm! Much happier horse today. Current retail obsession is a good old fashioned witney square but it is looking increasingly less likely that I will have a clipped horse, so buying a blanket seems like a great way to totally jinx myself.

Hunter Braiding

While I understand that a true hunter princess would never deign to braid her own horse, by popular request, I took a couple photos while braiding. Sophie, my lovely little TB mare, is the model for this shoot. Ideally, when you are braiding, you will have painstakingly pulled the mane over the course of 3 weeks so that the ends are perfectly tapered. This makes it much easier and holds the knots better. Sophie is kind of my little redneck pony who lives in the back 40 and she doesn't much agree with things like clipping and pulling, even with a good healthy dose of acepromazine, so I just took a dull clipper blade and thinned out the ends. You want the mane about 6" long, longer if it's thicker, since when the hair wraps around itself in the braid it will shorten up more, and shorter if it is thinner.

So, to begin, section off a piece of mane about an inch wide. You want the braid to end up slightly thinner than your pinky finger, and of course you will have to take a larger section if you have a thin mane and a smaller one if it's a very thick mane. Use your comb to part the mane, perpendicular to the crest. Crooked parts are ICKY. Also, start at the poll, so when you have an awkward amount of mane left and don't know how many braids to put in, it will be at the withers where no one cares. Dampen the section with a little water or quic braid. Quic braid is good stuff but I don't always have it handy. Personally, I like the mane just damp. Some people like it soaking wet, some like dry, some like hair gel. Whatever makes your skirt fly up, you just have to experiment. Use the comb to keep the extra hair out of your way.

Divide your piece of mane into 3 sections, and begin braiding.

The tighter you can keep the braid, the better. This is particularly important at the top!

I usually go down 5 crosses when I add in the yarn. Adding yarn requires 2 hands, so I don't have a photo for you. Basically, you want the yarn folded in half, and draped across your pointer finger with half hanging on each side. Grab the braid like you are just going to continue braiding. The middle of the yarn should be underneath of the braid now that you are holding it. Cross over the piece from the left, pinch. Then take the half of the yarn that is not in your right hand, and jam it up in that piece. If you are braiding with colored yarn, do this down further so that the flecks aren't visible and you just see the color in the knots.

Generally, 10 crosses is a good number to finish with, and then you tie off with an overhand knot. The period stopping to photograph made this braid kind of unattractive. Ignore that. OK, thanks. This knot had to be rolled down a bit so it was neater and all the hair was in one tail rather than two. Do not worry about the tail! We will tuck it in and it will be invisible. Tricky.

Take your latch hook, and run it under the braid. Take care to have it in the middle of the braid, and run it from ALL the way on the other side of the crest. You want the metal piece to be right on the skin the whole way, it will make the knots work better. Then you put the yarn in the hook portion of the latch hook, and pull it through to the other side of the crest.

Pull on the yarn until the overhead knot which you used to tie off the end of the braid is snug against the crest. Now keep pulling. You're going to feel this nice little give, which means the knot is now buied deep within the underside of the braid. This is good! See how the tail points downwards instead of all out to the side? Yep. That's what you want.

Tie one knot underneath of the braid. Use the surgeon knot for all of these, it holds the tension better. It's just like a normal half hitch but you loop it around twice. You know like if you were beginning to tie your shoe? You twist the one lace around the other? Do that twice. This knot needs to be snug up against the crest.

Now you are going to tie the same knot again. This one you are going to pull tight on the top of the braid, and it is going to create the bump. Count down three crosses on the left side, assuming you begin the braid crossing the right piece over. If you start braiding the other way, then count down on the right. Put the knot up to the crease directly below that third bump. Then push the braid up against the crest, and pull the knot tight.

Now tie twice underneath of the braid to secure. Exhale. You finished one. Rinse and repeat.