Boots! (my other love)

As most anybody who spends a significant amount of time around horses (be it mucking out a stall, or actually riding) can appreciate.. it's hard to top a great pair of boots.

And as anyone who spends almost  as much time lurking around sample sales and flipping through fashion mags (I know, I know... it's a ridiculous, overpriced, totally wonderful, (and not that all unlike horses) industry, but I LOVE IT).... It's hard to top a great pair of boots...

Put those two together and BLAM-O. From October to March, it's tough to find me in anything but an appropriately heeled piece of footwear.  (Unlike Miss P, I do not thrive barefoot)

To reference one of my favorite Friends quotes:

"These are my new I-don't-need-a-job, I-don't-need-a-man, I've-got-great-boots, boots!"

In honor of my (barely controlled) love of boots, I present this - a parade of my current footwear d'jour:

The new boots:  Konigs.  I have no idea what model they are, but they are shockingly tall, and still abusing my feet.  I have a blister on my left heel that more closely resembles a lunar crater than anything else I can think of... and yet I still love them.  They look great on, provide nice support, and I'm fairly certain they'd survive a nuclear blast.  Plus they were an absolute steal at $150.

When you live in Seattle, you end up acquiring a veritable collection of rain boots.  These cute little Pucci Galoshes are my current fav.  Plus they match nearly everything Pia wears...

For stomping around the barn, and my neighborhood, I am absolutely obsessed with the Ariat Plymouth boots.  They are comfy enough to be in all day, whether I'm scampering around the barn, or walking all over Seattle, and cute enough for me to feel polished, while not so cute that I feel guilty wearing them in a stall, or getting them all covered in horsey dust.

These little guys get shed before my feet hit the ground at the barn.  Suede boots = no go for horses, but they are low heeled, and nice enough for dinner out without being so obnoxious that I don't wear them to work on a regular basis (as indicated by the tragically corporate carpet).  Thank you Theory for continuing my addiction to your not-that-affordable clothing line.

Finally, from Modern Vintage - a heeled boot that I love so much I have actually gone back and purchased them in multiple colors.  They are NOT barn appropriate, but as most of my wardrobe can attest, simply "not being barn appropriate" rarely keeps it out of the barn.  I've replaced the heels on my brown version of these guys multiple times, as stabbing around a sand ring in stilettos and "watching" someone else ride really eats up a covered heel... oops.  Oh well.  not a habit that's likely to change anytime soon. :)

And that, my friends, rounds out my Top 5 Boots for the '09-'10 season.

If I were to do an extensive catalog of my shoe closet I can guarantee that a) your respect for me would go down, b) you'd get horrifically bored, and c) I would have to admit that I have some seriously damaged old favorites stashed away that I'm too sentimental to part with, even though I have literally worn them into the ground, past the point of even my very polite, very indulgent shoe-man's repair skills. 

I love boots.

Good Mare!!!!!

Yesterday was possibly, dare I say it, the best ride I've had on Pia. Ever.

(shriek!!)

 Pia, thoroughly impressed with herself during our ride.  Ham-face.

After Tuesday, and Tuesday v2.0... I was thinking about how I could possibly try to skip the drama and get straight to our pretty, pretty trot work that I've been growing so fond of.  I'd love to say that I had a grand plan for obtaining it, but in reality I was so tired and burned out from work yesterday (I've been preparing a legal appeal all week) that I could barely figure out which way to turn on the highway in order to get to the barn.

I decided that I just wasn't mentally capable of putting up a fight.  I didn't have it in me to be pissy, or make sure that the mare knew who was boss.  I just couldn't muster it.  It's not to say that I was sad, or mopey, I was just flat out braindead.  I can only imagine what activity would (or wouldn't) have shown up if a doctor were in a room somewhere monitoring me..  Though I imagine their comments would have been something along the lines of "Hmmm, intriguing.  Her motor skills appear to be in tact, yet we see know signs of normal brainwave activity.  In fact, her readings correspond with that of a deep coma.  Nurse... check the monitor..."

Yeah, comatose.  Or living dead if we want to be seasonally appropriate.... ANYWAY.

So I tacked the mare up quickly and simply decided that we would have a calm ride.  I just decided it.  Not sure what that means really, but I was very committed to calm.  P seemed to oblige and wasn't too uppity as we walked to the ring and I just got on. 

Now, the girl is cold backed, and I lunge her about 80% of the time before I ride, so I let her have a nice long amble around the ring for about 15 minutes before even asking for the trot.  Good news? she was calm, willing to be on the buckle, and also willing to work in the walk without any ridiculous jigging.  I took these both as good signs.

She was sticky as we moved up into the trot for the first time (typical) and she pulled all of her usual antics: Cow kicking, biting her own chest (I still don't quite understand that one) and hunching her back away from my leg.  But she finally un-stuck and trotted on.  After about a minute of asking (nicely) for her to move forward, she just unlocked.  She lifted her back, softened her poll and just floated around the ring. 

Goooood Mare!

I zig zagged and swirled around.  P was a bit sticky about staying between my aids, but it didn't take long for her to accept them and willingly travel straight on the circle... no open side shenanigans, no fussy mouth.  Just nice, easy, calm trot work. 

I was so excited, I kept looking around, hoping that someone would roll down the driveway to witness this miracle, but no one did.  So I just got to cherish the moment alone with Miss Pia.  Which was ok too.

All told, we probably ended up working for 45 minutes with some decent walk brakes thrown in.  Pia barely broke a sweat, where she's usually drenched by the 20 minute mark.  I think it was a combo of it being a less strenuous workout along with the fact that she wasn't all fussy and tense the whole time. 

We even got a few outstanding leg yields in.  I didn't want to push the lateral work, instead I was focused on reinforcing the forward, calm, accpting work we had, but she was great.  Since she's so darn smart, I had to make the mare work straight down the quarter and centerline about 10 times before she stopped anticipating the leg yield..

But when I did ask? She moved graciously away from my leg, staying very balanced (for a wobbler) and mostly forward while she did it. She got lots of praise and pats for that one... What a star.

Lots of increase/decrease again, and I focused on really maintaining our balance instead of focusing on getting a "response" from her at my ask.  She really took to that well and I think we had some awesome "pushed" into medium as a result.

This mare continues to astound me.  In August, we had to practically beat her up in order to get her to play nice, and any attempts at babying her resulted in her taking control and acting like a loon.  Now, she seems resistance to the firm hand, and seemed to love the quiet, gentle ask.

Man, this lady keeps me on my toes.  Makes me glad I don't date women, as I can only imagine how this manifests itself in the human variety....I mean, wow. 

Considering the fact that I almost bailed on the barn in favor of my couch and some ramen, I am so, so, so glad I chose to go left instead of right on the freeway.  A nice, calm, easy ride was just what I needed. 

Today, we're trying a lesson, though I gave the BO download on our successes yesterday, so I'm hoping we can work the same sort of routine in today.. Let's hope it still works!

Happy Friday All!

PS- look, slobber! Not exciting for most people, but foamy white soft slobber??? Yessssss she's accepting the bit! Vetwrap, ghetto bit WIN!

$15k could get you....

A mountain of vet bills

A decent horse

A decent horse AND a mountain of vet bills

Or....

1/10th of 1/2 of an AWESOME PAIR. 

Hmm. 

One's mind could run wild.... It says you get endless "visiting privileges."  Something tells me you wouldn't be getting 10% of the riding privs....

Tuesday v2.0

Right, right. Yesterday was "wednesday" by tradtitional accounts... but by horsey accounts, it felt a lot like tuesday.

I rode the beast on my own, and we entered the ring just as everyone else was leaving it.. We had a decent lunge session - aside from the fact that when I snapped up some extra lunge line, I also snapped up a crap-ton (official unit of measure) of arena sand into my eyeball. 

On one hand, it was an educational opportunity for my semi insulated, non-street fighting self... as I had never truely understood the value and effectiveness of throwing/kicking/shoving dirt/sand in an assailant's face.  So... from a self-defense/tough girl perspective, I was grateful.  From a holy-crap-there's-8lbs-of-sand-in-my-eyeball perspective, it sucked.

Fortunately for me, Pia decided that my cries of terror and blind scrambling in a circle must have sounded somewhat similar to my coos of "eeeeea-sssyyyyy.  aaaaand whoaaaaaa."  Because she politely stopped and waited for my shrieks of "my eye, by EYYYYYYYYEEEEE" to die down.

Anywhoo. After that I hopped on and we literally had a repeat of "tuesday."  Snotty, switching up her tricks.  Refusing to go forward, refusing to stop. Cranky lateral work, blowing through hand/leg/seat/(lady's choice) but always fixing what I corrected and finding a new "loophole" to shoot through.

Then, after about 40 minutes of work, Ta-Da!!! Perfection! Light, forward, swinging perfection.  We got 10 minutes of lovely, easy trot work and called it a day.

I'll admit that this pattern is confusing me, but I'll take it.  Especially since we seemed to get to the nice trot work with slightly fewer theatrics today than yesterday, though maybe that's just my recency bias...

In other news, I think I'm still digging sand out of my eye... ew.