Sometimes Love is a Bridle

 February kicked off with the show at Penbritte and then grew somewhat quiet on the equestrian front. Thunder recovered from a pulled tendon early in the month and then promptly damaged his other front leg by getting into an argument with Diablo (25, one-eyed) about who was Rene's boyfriend. (Rene was content for them BOTH to be her boyfriend during the most violent and raging foal heat I have ever seen). It wasn't major, just a lump on the outside of his cannon bone, but Mr. Stoic got time off until it healed anyway.

Raya continued to be super adorable. She got herself into her first trouble (of much trouble, judging by how the horses have behaved lately) when Samule got away from Kathleen during his lunging session and decided that he HAD to capture and investigate Raya. He ran through a couple of fences (did I mention that a lightning strike took out our energiser, too?) and chased poor baby Raya through a couple more, separating her from her mom. Thankfully, Dusty showed up, chased Samule away, and kept Raya by her side until I got to them. Raya was none the worse for wear except for a small scrape on her nose. Samule spent the rest of the month in jail until we got the new energiser.

Lancey only had a couple of rides in February, but he was fabulous. Amazing to hack - obviously - and even better in the arena. In fact, I would have loved to take him to Horse of the Year, but the Arabs are on a weekday which is difficult to swing at the best of times and impossible given all the vet bills these dudes incurred this month.

Arwen had a chill first week in February. She went for a long hack after the show and behaved impeccably - solo is no problem for her these days. Is the dragon maturing? Perhaps we can hope so now that she's 17.

Rene had a photo shoot with her actual owner, who's hopelessly outgrown her now but had a few beautiful years riding her. Raya photobombed accordingly.

Despite Raya's best efforts, the photos still turned out totally spectacular.

photo by Erin Vogler Photography

BarnRat has her lovely new horse but is still competing Midas at SANESA this year as long as she doesn't grow too much more. He's jumping like a beast for her. We took them out to a clinic at E2's yard in Meyerton and he stopped hard at first, but kiddo rode him thoroughly through it, and they ended with a .90m track in fine style including fillers and things.

He's given this poor child a hard time, but she's also developed a fabulous seat, so there's that.

Raya's overwhelming cuteness made it really hard to get anything done. She's been one of the easiest foals we've had, although we had some trouble getting her to quit eating her mom's concentrates - I've never seen a foal eat so much solids so fast. This girl was two weeks old and chowing down on grains and hay already.

Lancey was out of work for most of February because I had a pea-sized melanoma cut out of his butt early in the month. It was the only one I could find and I wanted to get on top of it, so the vet cut it out with nice big, clean margins. He was shaky under the sedation and gave me a fright, but came out of it easily. The wound healed with no fuss at all.

The vet asked if I wanted to biopsy the lump, but like... it was a nasty black thing with octopus tentacles on a grey horse. It was a melanoma. I opted out.

Everyone had flu shots on the 7th as well, so Arwen took it fairly easy that week. The next week, though, we got right back to work and kept ticking over nicely for the rest of the month. We did a ton of work on her halts, trot-canter and walk-canter transitions, and flying changes.

Honestly, I'm not sure how we got anything done at this yard in February because of this Raya cuteness.

This is my new friend and client A's horse, Mawarda, a picture perfect little Arabian. He was kind of ribby when we got him in the winter, but these days he's a shiny, round boy.

(Relax, it's khakibos, an invasive but weirdly beneficial weed. Not that kind of weed.)

Faith was incorrigible at the show, so much so that I didn't even put her kid on her. She wasn't dangerous, just really tense and wiggly - definitely not suited for a 10-year-old. So I switched the kiddo onto Flashy instead. He's been a bit of a dunderhead lately but improving with every ride.

Hubby was allowed to start cycling in the beginning of February, and riding with him has become one of the most exquisite pleasures in my life.

Toy Town and BarnRat joined us on this particular ride, which always introduces an element of chaos. It was some of the most fun I've had on horseback this year - and I've had a lot of fun this year.

Running this place can be stressful, but it's got to be some of the most beautiful land the Lord ever made.

Tarka, also belonging to A, had difficulty gaining her weight back after she arrived with her foal Azai at foot last year. These days, though, she's starting to look a little like an overstuffed sausage.

Despite some very dry weeks in January and early February, the grazing is holding up fine. Perhaps a little too fine - I'm more worried about fat horses than thin ones right this moment.

Despite being in full work, Arwen is one of the fattest ones. We're working on restoring the fences now that we have the new energiser and we're going to move the fat ones off the best grass, so we'll see how that goes. They'll lose much of it naturally in the winter.

Wedding Bliss and BarnRat have gone from strength to strength. Wedding could be quite rude and throw a few bucks, but E2 jumped on her for me and sorted her out with one ride. Kiddo handles her extremely well. They've been jumping gymnastics and tracks of 0.80m already, which Wedding finds practically effortless. She's also finally gaining some weight on the nice grass - hopefully we'll get the ribs totally covered before winter.

Arwen and I took our new livery, Donker, and his lovely owner, IG, on a hack with Flash and her non-horsy boyfriend. He was admirable about the whole thing and Flash, of course, took perfect care of him - despite having launched a poor little kid only a few minutes earlier. This is the first kid to fall off Flashy, though, in four years of riding school work, so I can't be too mad.

Our neighbor is renting our southern pastures this autumn and winter, so he put up a new fence for us.

I'm not sure I ever introduced Samule. Hubby has been pestering me for months to get him a horse of his own, but I did not. Instead, I got him a tiny, somewhat feral mule. He's much less feral these days - we've had him a few months - and becoming a really cute pet. K is training him for me and we plan to put him in harness eventually. His talents include following us around the pasture and escaping from absolutely any fence that isn't loaded with at least five thousand volts.

I sent this to Erin joking that his front legs kept getting injured so I'd just chopped them off. This was actually his first time back at work with two functioning forelegs - a lungeing session that involved a lot of squealing, leaping, and even, embarrassingly, getting away from me and running around the arena while K was trying to ride Faith. Good to know he was feeling fine, I guess.

My birthday was at the end of February, and I wandered into my house after running around all afternoon to find K, Rain, hubby, and Erin (via video call) gathered inside yelling "Surprise!" like in the movies. They'd all chipped in to buy the most epic birthday present.

After buying Arwen's brown Wintec last year, I didn't really have brown tack to match. It came with a snaffle bridle that mostly matched but had a crank noseband and rubber reins that aren't really showing legal. I bought some mismatched reins and a noseband that also didn't quite match and cobbled them together for Pre-HOY with an old Pelham that I had lying around. She goes in a Pelham - not like she goes in the double, but she goes - so I was happy with that for HOY. Nothing exactly matched, but I wasn't going to fork out a bunch of cash for a bridle that was only really necessary once. Dressage judges might get a twitchy eye from a black bridle and brown saddle, but they won't mark you down like in showing.

At the tack shop where I got the reins, though, there hung a thing of beauty: a brown double bridle exactly the same as Arwen's black one, which is perfect for both showing and dressage and suits her face really well. I thought it would be a good match for my saddle and it wasn't that expensive but, again, I'm still paying off expenses from when hubs was in hospital so it wasn't going to happen. Except that it did. They all got together and bought it for me, and it matches not just well, but perfectly.

Sometimes, love is a bridle.

K put ribbons on it

Donker has been a generally very good boy, but he presumably got into an argument with one of the others - likely Flashy - and received a kick. Being an older boy, he hasn't been healing particularly well, so I spend some time obsessing over his leggy each day.

In the absence of a tractor, an issue we've been dealing with for over a year now, hubby hooked the harrow to his SUV - which he is very precious about - and spent hours dragging the arena for me. It made an enormous difference. This man, you guys <3

M lunged Thunder a few times for me because I was embroiled in HOY prep and not able to pay him a ton of attention in the last week of February when he came back to work. I rode him on the Wednesday, though, and while - as always - he needed a little convincing to get in front of my leg, he felt as strong and supple as ever.

Arwen felt amazing as we prepared for Horse of the Year. We worked on flying changes, hoping to fit one into our show riding test for extra marks, and while she was still a little messy right to left sometimes, her changes left to right got to a point where they felt almost perfect. She skipped softly through them so lightly I could barely feel them.

Her extended trot became effortless again with the arena harrowed, too.

The main herd is quite large now - eleven horses - but they're getting along so well. Arwen is, obviously, the boss mare and she keeps everyone effortlessly in line. Flashy is the Big Stallion in his little mind and Midas acts as a sort of lieutenant. Faith is also quite dominant, and the rest are pretty happy to just eat grass and not have complicated social lives. Flashy and Midas are even getting along, to my surprise.

Raya and Rene temporarily got put into the arena while my hands were busy. Raya galloped madly around the arena but never came close to the non-electrified white tape surrounding it. She is very clear on the fact that fences are not for touching, a great relief to me. There are few things more frustrating than escapees.

I had professional photos taken of Raya because I'm sad not to have better photos of baby Wynnie, so I look forward to posting those.

I may be a little worried about their weight right now, but I still truly appreciate the low maintenance of these Nooitgedachters. It hardly costs me a thing to keep these two beauties in show condition. They're only on pasture with a fistful of balancer for the micronutrients, and even in full work, these girls simply blossom. No shoes, great mouths that only need the dentist occasionally, cast-iron legs, and they don't even seem to need a ton of bodywork. Thank you ladies.

old man Vastrap in the background living his best retired life

Arwen and I didn't practice our show riding a ton - we have Easter Festival dressage coming up so that's taking up a lot of our attention - but we did make the effort to play with a working riding test and ensure that the halts are still steady. Spoiler alert: the effort paid off.

Kiddo and Midas at their clinic at E2's lovely yard. They have SANESA coming up and I'm interested to see how they do. Midas jumped well at this venue last time and both he and kiddo have improved a lot - she's put in an amazing amount of work.

Another livery also went to the clinic and did this to himself in the horsebox, so that was fun. Horses gonna horse. It was surprisingly superficial and he's basically fine again now, but it was not a good moment when I stepped into the blood-streaked box.

We wrapped up the month by finally getting a good picture of Arwen in her beautiful new bridle, all ready for Horse of the Year - which was amazing.

More on that later. God is good.

Third Level with Arwen

 Technically, our South African dressage levels (or "grades") still go by their old names, Walk/Trot, Preliminary, Novice, Elementary, Medium and Advanced. Considering we only use the American tests now, I'm sure we'll inevitably switch to the American names.

no filter for this African sunrise

Either way, Arwen and I headed to our favourite show venue in the world - Penbritte - at the beginning of February for her first ever Third Level test.

It was the weekend right after pre-HOY and I was hopeful that there would be slightly less dragoning. She loaded up next to Faith (for a kiddo), filling up our horsebox with their gigantic grey butts, and we headed off uneventfully for the 60-minute drive.

apart from traveling and standing in the stable like a champ, Faith was a butthead on this day

We dumped Faith unceremoniously into a stable, poor girl, but she behaved surprisingly well while I saddled Arwen and headed straight to the warmup with thirty minutes before our ride time. This turned out to be the perfect length of warmup, for once. I had time to ride her down if she needed it, but actually, she was pretty chill from the get-go. Forward, supple and focused, with a minimum of dragoning.

She gave me a beautiful stretch in both walk and trot, and then we ran through a few things, focusing mostly on her halts so that we would actually halt instead of manic piaffing at X. She felt steady and easy, and her extended trot, which had evaporated mysteriously the week before, was great in the large soft sand arena we warmed up in.

Both of us felt relaxed and ready when we headed into the familiar arena and said hello to one of my favourite judges, who had the decency to ask if I knew the new tests. Then he rang the bell and off we went.

Our endless practice on the centreline paid off. She came straight in, halted dead still, and remained totally motionless for my salute. An easy 8.0 right there to start off her career in the upper levels.

Obviously, things did not continue in this vein. I was a little lackadaisacal with my leg in the first shoulder-in for 6.5, "some fluency loss", and our half-pass was another 6.5. I argued with her a little into the shoulder-in right which led to 6.0, "little tension, lost fluency", but the argument paid off when she slipped into a very obedient half-pass for 7.0, "fairly fluent".

Her medium trot felt fabulous for 7.0, and then we cruised into the halt. She didn't stand perfectly still - I was feeling a little rushed and didn't wait for her to put her left front down, which she tends to dither around with sometimes - which led to a slightly messy rein-back for 6.5, "slightly hurried, steps not quite equal". We can do better. At least I counted the steps properly like a grownup this time.

That led us into the walk work, often a challenge on the PiaffeDragon. Her extended walk was 7.0, "some ground cover", and then came the dreaded turns on the haunches at which I am so pitiful. I've been working hard on them and they were, in fact, better, albeit not great. The first was 6.0, "lost little rhythm", and the second was another 6.0, "some tension." On the livestream (yes, Penbritte livestreams everything because they honestly just rock), I notice that she lost rhythm in the last step out of the TOH, so that's where we can make up a half mark or so.

with my vast audience of seven

It was as we were walking to C for the canter transition (the walk 6.5, "some tension") that my brain quite simply evaporated. I knew we had to canter at C. I also knew that I had, in fact, cantered on a horse before in my life. However, I couldn't for the life of me remember how to canter. I sat there in a panic for a few seconds and then waved my legs around. Arwen bucked magnificently, which apparently jolted my brain back into gear. I applied the aids and Arwen obediently set off. That earned us a 5.0, "resistance", although I believe the resistance came from my brain cells and not my horse.

The medium canter was a bit floppy, 5.5 "more ground cover for medium", but I had returned my brain to my skull by the 10m circle which was a 7.0. Next, we headed into the flying changes. The first one, right to left, felt pretty good to me but was a 6.0, "little late behind". I tried for a bold extended canter and must have redeemed us a little for a 6.0, "bit hurried, more ground cover" (my dude she is 14.3, we have little legs). The transitions were a 6.5, and we had another 7.0 for the canter circle.

She leaped through the flying change left to right, as she does, but it was clean for 6.0, "lost fluency - jumped". We got it together for a transition to collected trot that garnered a 6.5. The wheels all fell off in unison when we went across the diagonal and I magnificently overrode the extended trot, so she broke, pirouette cantered, trotted a bit, broke again, and then gave me three good steps before we reached the corner. My bad. Those got us a 4.0 and 4.5, obviously, "broke after M (x2)" and "more difference!".

Kudos to the judge for using all the numbers, though - we had a fabulous second centreline for 8.5, "steady and straight", certainly the best mark I have ever had in graded dressage. That concluded her first ever Third test for 63.3%, rider brain farts notwithstanding.

Also, thank you Arwen for being really good in the stable for the rest of the show while I wrangled children and their desperately uncooperative mounts.

I absolutely loved riding her at this show. Not only is this the best venue I've ever had the pleasure to ride at, but I also felt the judging was extremely fair. Also, thank you America for your tests. This was such an easy test to memorise and so uncomplicated while still asking all the right questions for the level. I massively enjoyed riding it and it felt both horse and rider-friendly.

We have big dreams for this year and it feels so good to have her first Third Level in the books. Now to train for Horse of the Year!

God is so incomparably good.

Pre-HOY 2024

 My bestie Erin's young horse has been with us for a year or so now to be schooled, and last weekend, it was time for her very first ridden outing. Since she has an illustrious showing career ahead of her, we picked Pre-Horse of the Year at Fourways for her first show, and I figured it would be silly not to put Arwen in the box and take her along as well.

Once I had given Erin and K, showing queens both, a few small heart attacks about my total lack of showing-appropriate attire, we were finally ready.

After a final schooling ride, during which I completely forgot how showing classes worked and dedicated myself to practicing an individual test that did not apply to the class I had, in fact, entered, I spent a peaceful twilit hour doing her mane. She snoozed peacefully throughout.

I also succeeded in angering my showing friends by completely ignoring their advice to dye her tail black, then regretted it intensely when four washes with purple shampoo and stain remover completely failed to achieve anything other than pale yellow.

my commentators (helpers would not be accurate): hubby, Titan, Rain, K, Barnrat and Blizzy

Still, with her hair all done and her National Champion daysheet on, Arwen looked like a film star in her fancy robe, ready for the set. I turned her out in the big field in the hopes that sticking with her routine would make her slightly less dragonish than usual. (Spoiler alert: I was wrong).

thank you K for making Arwen look amazing and me like a grinning blu of pale legs

The next morning, Arwen grazed peacefully in the field, looking clean and perfect in her day sheet. She was so good to get ready that I thought maybe our days of being a mad dragon at shows were behind us. (Again, so wrong).

Erin's mare loaded picture perfectly---straight into the box like an old hand---and Arwen, as always, went straight in. She's an absolute pleasure to load even though they snarked at each other a bit once they were in, but if you're going to put two grey mares in an enclosed space, this is what happens.

Did I mention that last year we finally purchased the horsebox and fitted hubby's SUV with a tow hitch? It has been life-changing for us. We have so much freedom now.

I had some trepidation about the whole thing, considering this was our first horse-related outing since hubby's surgery. K, BarnRat and I only yelled at him about six times to remind him not to lift the ramp. We did this on girl power, much to hubby's amusement.

The drive up got a little eventful when Erin's mare somehow got her sheet under her feet and stomped around a bit, understandably, but we fixed it and she was very good after that, to her great credit. Arwen was soaked with sweat on arrival---she always is---but happy to go into a paddock and eat some hay while we got K and the mare into their classes. (Shout-out to K and Erin and the mare, who were all amazing and netted her very first ridden satin).

I had ages to get ready and somehow still endeavoured to be late. By the time I had washed Arwen's tail (again), gotten dressed, and saddled her up, I only had fifteen minutes to warm up. This would be fine, I thought. It was only a showing class; we didn't need to check in with lateral work or any of that kind of thing. Trot and canter a few figure-eights and we were all good.

After years of SANESA, almost never getting a kid to the gate late, I had forgotten that showing classes follow on. I showed up at the warmup as they were calling us in. I apologize to K and Erin for causing them emotional distress.

Well, in we went, and my 17-year-old horse abruptly morphed into her draconic form.

She walked and trotted around effortlessly, but once we got to cantering, chaos ensued. This beast of mine leaped through every transition. It bucked. It stood on its hindlegs in a joyous celebration of being a fierce and fearless woman who doesn't listen to anybody. The judge stared and I tried not to look like this is a thing that happens regularly.

She was so absolutely wonderful in every moment other than the odd chaotic episode that she still came second in a class of four or five, so that was a surprise. We did the championship class too, in which there was somewhat less leaping, but still obviously came second to the other horse who did not attempt to commit any homicides.

The judge had asked us for a bit more canter in the first class, so I pushed her out of the collected canter for the second one, and he was happy with that.

"It was a bit naughty," he commented.

"It was very naughty," I said.

It accepted its rosette and plunged madly during the lap of honour while I hung on saying, "Ma'am. MA'AM COULD YOU NOT."

K and Erin both had their eyes popping out when I came out, but I was grinning. I would have gotten right off any other horse that tried this sort of thing, but it's Arwen. She's not trying to get me off. She's not in pain, or frustrated, or fearful. If you put a little kid on her she toodles around like a schoolie. She's just got a little extra... pizzazz for me, and I know and love her for it. I would be worried if she didn't have these moments now and then.

This did not stop me from spending the next thirty minutes cantering around and around the warmup to take the edge off, and it was with a much more pleasant creature that we headed down for the working riding. It was a technically simple and not particularly spooky test, and if I could get my dragon to stand still when necessary, I thought we'd have a nice test.

We almost did. The first half for four seconds was easy, and we trotted the bending poles with one hand without batting an eye. The lane was no big deal, and she popped easily over the weeny little cross. Then we got to the barrels where I had to move a stuffed animal from one to the other and my brain froze because the previous rider had already done so and I was approaching from the wrong side. I fixed it quickly, but Arwen saw herself in the mirror at the second barrel and piaffed a little, so we lost marks there.

The trotting poles were perfect, and then we approached a liverpool with a few puddles in it. I was not confident about this but had the presence of mind not to override it. This was a good thing, because Arwen didn't even look at it. She trotted right across without a second thought.

Regrettably, the getting lost and then piaffing at the barrel cost us a few marks, but the judge was really complimentary about this very well-behaved horse of mine and said that she looked forward to seeing us at Horse of the Year itself.

I look forward to this also, although maybe with a little bit less piaffing.

God is so good.