Should I add to the collection...?

Rob announced today that he probably has to go to the UK for work in October.

I replied, "well if you are over there, why don't you bring me back a sidesaddle?"

Him, "ok, if that's what you want".

So... should I start looking for a medium wide gullet 21" or 22" O.N.E.S. that he could bring home with him? Do I *really* need to ask that question...? lol

I'm having a good week, I have heavy machinery in my backyard...

Molly isn't too sure what is going on, but she is highly suspicious (does this mean more work for her?) and she spends alot of her time just hanging out at the gate watching the digger, roller and bulldozer.

Watch this space for more updates. We are due heavy snow again this weekend, so all progress has halted until we see what the weather does, plus the ground will need to dry out before we do anything more. Roll on spring! :)

We have snow!

We have had a massive snow storm overnight with over 30cm of snow falling, and its still going off and on today.

The kids were so excited, its been a couple of years since we last had snow on the ground, so they immediately wanted to go out and have a snowball fight :)

I think they lasted about 5 minutes before they were both frozen. They didn't think to put gloves on... Apparently its the biggest snow dump we have had in 15 years. It sure is pretty out there.

Of the four horses, three are in wool lined canvas and were warm and dry. Poor Molly is wearing a brand new synthetic rug and they just don't seem to hold up to heavy snow, she was quite damp and chilled this morning. I brought her and my filly into the stables and let Molly dry out and re-rugged her before putting them back. 

The more I handle my filly the more I get excited about her, she has never seen snow before, her eyes were out on stalks and she just sticks with me and does whatever I ask of her, even though she wasn't sure about all the white stuff everywhere - she has a real "I trust you mum" attitude :)

We did have another very unimpressed member of the household...

The only problem now is once all that snow melts my paddocks are going to turn into mud :(

Dressage today = epic FAIL!

Well things did not bode well for dressage today right from the start. I have a massive head cold and feel like complete crap and seriously toyed with scratching early this morning. But we had a fantastic ride yesterday, plus the show was only 20 minutes down the road - so I dosed up on cold & flu tablets and headed off.

When Molly came off the float I knew things just weren't right. She was very tense and didn't tuck into her hay net like she normally does (she's a bit of a labrador and very food motivated) but stood pawing at the ground. 

"uh oh..." I thought....

So we tacked up and had attracted quite an audience of specators by the time I walked over to the mounting block. And boy was she tense! We walked and walked and walked and she just got more and more tense. I did the first test and simply laughed at her the whole way through. Her trot work was hideous - tense, choppy, above the bit and resistant the whole way. There's nothing like a row of spectators when your horse is pitching a fit and going god damn awful. Although her canter work was certainly active.

I went to the office and scratched from our second test - I said I didn't want to demonstrate how secure sidesaddle was when your horse has a full on tantrum! And I was glad that I did, by the time I got her back to the float she was shaking, her adrenaline was so high.

When I unloaded her at home, after another short 20 minute trip, she was dripping sweat, and I had to wash her down again. Then putting her away she reared at the gate, pulled the lead rope through my hand and crashed past the fence to take off. That is NOT normal behaviour for Molly.

I am wondering if something happened in the float on the way down, as at one point I thought I heard her calling out, which is really unusual. We also had a bee fly into her face when we were warming up and I thought she was going to start rearing trying to get rid of it, but I'm pretty sure it didn't sting her. 

Definately not a good day, but her behaviour is so out of character (even when she is a complete chestnut mare and nutty to ride, she is always a gem to handle) so I'm going to keep an eye on her for the next day or two.

In the meantime we'll keep working on relaxation at home - our next outing is a month away.

To hog or not?

I'm seriously considering hogging Molly's mane, does anyone have pros/cons of doing it? I've been told it takes absolutely ages to grow back if I do and goes through a spikey, stick straight up in the air phase also.

BUT - her winter cover has rubbed out the bottom of her mane again and there is only something like 4 strands of hair left, which is impossible to plait anyway. Plus with the arthritis in my hands I get quite stressed about plaiting, as they just aren't as neat & tight as I used to be able to do. So it would save me quite a bit of time and save me worrying about whether they look good enough or not.

But I haven't seen any dressage horses with hogged manes, so I'm not sure if its the done thing or not? And we don't really show, and if I do I tend to put Molly in the cob classes anyway (where it's acceptable to hog).

So I think I'm leaning towards hogging it, but just can't bring myself to pick up the clippers!

Quick update

Well I haven't posted for a wee while and thought I would give a bit of an update. It's the middle of winter here, we've just passed the shortest day and I have planted my garlic. It's been really dry, which is unusual, and the temperature is dropping. We have had a few mornings with hard frosts and the mercury below zero. I wasn't too happy to pull out my winter wool riding apron to discover the mice have been snacking on it all summer long! grrr... they have even chewed all the wool off the covered buttons. It's a lovely wool/cashmere blend that I bought off eBay and it is so warm on the frosty mornings. I'm going to have to cover it in patches and I will look like I am schooling with a patch work quilt as a knee blanket...

I managed to talk a local saddle fitter into repacking my sidesaddle. He is originally from the UK and has done a fair bit of work on sidesaddles but hasn't touched them for years, mainly because of the crap that people find here and then expect him to make it work. So I traded outrageously on my neighbour's good standing in the local equestrian community and he said he would look at it, as a favour to her. It also helped that it is a new saddle and only needed a repack. Although he did tell me that I was responsible if he developed night terrors from having to look at a sidesaddle again! lol

So that is done and it has made a huge difference BUT it is still twisting to the left at the front. I suspect Molly is like Leila's Hattie and her shape just isn't compatible with the billet placement, so there's probably nothing I can do about it. I also suspect I am unconsciously putting too much weight into the stirrup and pulling the saddle over myself. I need to have an experiment and ride without a stirrup to see if it still happens, but I do think Molly's round shape is the larger portion of the problem.

I am seriously thinking about starting to put some money aside for a decent sidesaddle for my youngster. Honey will be 3 this Christmas and I will send her away to be broken in. I figure I will start her under sidesaddle when she is about 6, so that gives me 3 years to save my pennies. I *really* want a Laura Dempsey sidesaddle, they look devine. But by the time I factor in the exchange rate, shipping, insurance and the local taxes I will get hit with here (another 25%) it could cost me nearly $10,000 NZD. That's a serious amount of money just for a sidesaddle :(

I am going to wait and see what Honey is like undersaddle and also decide how serious I want to be about this dressage thing. If I really want to have a crack at the NZ para-dressage squad with Honey then I definately need to spend the money and get her a custom sidesaddle, as I will need to be competitive at about level 4/5 to have a chance. Anyway those are the long term goals that I toss around in my head at night.

I have decided to carry on pottering around with Molly. So many people have told me to sell her, that she's a dog and not worth my time (because she is tense, highly reactive and anxious) and there have been many tearful days here contemplating her sale. I did advertise her and pulled her ad after just 10 minutes, I couldn't do it. She is my sidesaddle pony, she's fantastic to handle and very respectful of my damaged joints, and so darn smart aside that she keeps me on my toes. Riding is my physical therapy (which most people don't realise) and she keeps me moving and active. That is worth far more to me than a few ribbons.

So that is all that is happening. The next dressage competition is 16 July and I need to decide in the next week whether I am going to enter or not :)

More earthquakes

We had a magnitude 5.5 at lunch time and then a magnitude 6.0 at 2.20pm. There is more damage in town and buildings down, 50,000 houses have lost power and liquifaction is back again. The kids' school closed early, they were all out on the playing field when I got there at 2.30pm. So many of the wee kids were in tears, they were so scared, its so heart breaking. The cracks in the house get wider with each quake, but at least the stables are fine!

And to top it off Rob can't even come home, as we have the ash cloud from the South American volcano over us as well and all flights are grounded. When will Mother Nature leave us alone?  :(

Big Bertha

I can't believe I actually forgot to mention that I *cough* acquired another sidesaddle! I now have two, I guess that is how collections start? lol

It is incredibly hard to find sidesaddles in New Zealand, there just isn't the number of saddles down here. I had toyed with buying myself a western sidesaddle for trail riding, but then I spotted this one for sale up in the North Island. It has been recently refurbished (so didn't require any work) which was a bit of a deciding factor.

It has been christened Big Bertha as it is just enormous, I feel like a child in it, but she is ohhhh so comfy :) Its not a sidesaddle that I would do dressage in, I can't "feel" Molly like I can in my Tidbold sidesaddle, but its a great second sidesaddle (and did I mention how comfortable it is?), and I like that I now have a sidesaddle I can lend out to interested people who want to have a go, since nobody else down here will do that.

The girth is too short unfortunately, it was a struggle to get it in the last hole on each side. I have a saddle fitter coming shortly and hopefully he will be able to extend it on one side, to give us some extra length to play with.

I would be interested in any opinions as to age. It has a cut back head and a fairly level seat. It has an ordinary roller stirrup bar, but a two position leaping head, which I thought was a fairly "modern" invention? And I've not seen it on an old sidesaddle that wasn't a O.N.E.S before. The leaping head also collapses, and has an intriguing square ring on the end. What was the purpose of the collapsible head and what could the wee ring be for?

Collapsible leaping head and a small square ring on the end

The saddle is quite long, 22" from in front of the upright pommel. And the pommels themselves are huge, I can only imagine what sort of imposing figure it was made for!