Jumping in the Cold

Despite the persistent below-average temperatures, Taco and I shipped out to a jumping lesson yesterday.  It is the best day we've had in a while: it hadn't rained in a few days and it was a balmy 36 degrees (average is 51!). We met Amy at the nearby farm of another student of hers, since the jump field at home is rather mushy.  Thank you Pam for letting us come use your beautiful, well-drained arena!

Anyway, shipping out required using my rig for the first time in a little while.  I looked it over and all was well.  I started the truck, which I had driven a few weeks prior,  and matched up the hitch on the first try. 

This would be a good time to introduce my rig.  The truck and trailer are by no means new but they are safe and sturdy for Taco's traveling comfort.  My truck, the Beast, a 1995 F250, was a public works/ highway painting truck in another life.  When I got it there was an orange spinning light on the top, which I have since removed.  I kept the backup beeper, though!  The trailer, a 1989 Trail-Et New Yorker, had a previous distinguished career hauling S.S. Skipper, a wonderful Prelim and CCI* horse who competed in the 1990s and who just celebrated his 27th birthday.  They are connected by a hefty weight-distribution hitch with sway bar.  It is a good rig, even if it is not shiny and new.  

My truck has been quite reliable, but yesterday there was a brief moment of great dismay when, after I happily dropped the coupler onto the Beast's hitch ball, the Beast's engine sputtered off.  However, after a conference with Amy over the phone (she was already on her way to our lesson), I waited several minutes and then managed to get the Beast started again.  Ice in the fuel line, we were thinking.

But the important thing is that Taco and I made it to the lesson!  We shared it with Megan and her mare Go With the Flo (not to be confused with Amy's mare Go With the Flo). Megan is hoping to move her Flo up to Training this year, so we are well-matched to take a jumping lesson together.  We also share the same need to practice increasing adjustability in the canter, so we can learn a lot from watching each other.  Amy had us practice a five-stride line quite a few times.  We would have practiced it only a couple of times, except that both of us were letting our horses get strung out after the jump in and had to repeat it a few times to get the concept.  Finally we both managed to produce five similar, balanced strides in between.  Then Amy told us to do it in six!  And I did it!  I do feel that I am getting better at maintaining energy and uphill balance.  Taco is grateful that I am getting a clue, I am sure.  He was wonderful, as he always is.

Then we finished up with a couple of short courses, continuing to practice an uphill canter all the way around.  Not bad at all.  We'll need to do this again before long... four weeks until Full Gallop!

Team Taco Members: Some People

Here are some of the people on Team Taco:

Me (Anastasia, Stacy to most): Jockey

I have been riding since 1984.  Here I am on Cherokee that year.

I was a horse-crazy kid despite growing up in the city.  I graduated as a C-3 from Jericho Forest Pony Club (I took my B-test but failed one section-- anyone want to guess what it was?).  My Pony Club horses were my appy mare Shady...

... and a TB/ Hanoverian, Corey, who was leased from a fellow boarder.

I rode intermittently in college, took a year off from school and taught beginners, and then rode through grad school at Princeton University in New Jersey.  Some of the horses were Gusty, a TB/ ConnX...

... Lark ("Sparky"), an OTTB...

... Peabody (a quarter Horse) and Woody (what is he, Heather? I don't have pictures of them), and Patrick, an Irish Sport Horse:

I always told myself that I would get a horse again after I finished my PhD in History in 2003.  So in 2005, after I finished and moved to Nashville, I lucked into an OTTB who needed a home, Banks:

Banks got me riding again after the move and taught me a lot.  Eventually, I understood that he did not enjoy the dressage and cross country phases of eventing, so I found a lower-level hunter/jumper home for him.

When the summer of 2008 came around, Banks was for sale and I was enjoying my friend Elizabeth's draftX, Destiny, and unsure about what I would do next.  That was the moment that Taco fell into my lap.

As a rider, my major challenge is to be assertive: to insist on forwardness, to give clear and unambiguous aids, and to discern what is happening underneath me so that I can take decisive action.  I also struggle with tipping forward and letting the horse get behind me while my upper body gets rigid.  So I constantly have to think about sitting tall and strong, pushing Taco, out in front of me, and staying supple in my arms and shoulders.  Oh yeah, and controlling my mutant right leg, which tends to wander where it shouldn't.

Carol: Dog Wrangler and Sports Psychologist

Carol is my other half and is an essential part of Team Taco.  First, she encouraged me to form a team with Taco in the first place and then helped me buy him.  Also, she comes to almost every show, a true labor of love. At shows, she has two very important roles: dog wrangling and sports psychology.

Here is some dog wrangling at the Kentucky Horse Park:

Carol's considerable sports psychology skills come from her previous job as an international rower, where she represented the US in multiple worldwide competitions between 1998 and 2004, including the 2000  Olympics in Sydney.  So she knows what she is talking about when it comes to playing the mental game.

photo: www.row2k.com

Carol is an intergral part of Team Taco and I am incredibly lucky to have her.


Amy: Provost

Amy is our coach and trainer, and owns the beautiful farm where Taco lives, Panther Springs.  A student of Sharon Anthony, Tami Crawford, Debbie Atkinson, Jim Graham, and Mike Winter, Amy combines kindness and a genuine desire for her students to succeed with firm prodding to help us get out of our own way.  She patiently explains concepts over and over and over again. She also takes expert care of Taco, thus preserving Stacy's sanity (whatever is left, anyhow).

Steve: Pony Club Dad

Steve was in fact Stacy's Pony Club dad some years ago.  Now he is a long-distance cheerleader and helped Stacy buy Taco.

Wendy: Taco Grandma

Wendy is Stacy's mom and Taco's grandma.  She is very proud of her GrandHorse and also helped make his purchase possible.

Team Taco also relies on the tireless support of Annika (see post from January 23), Lynda (who coined the term "Team Taco", the Chronicle of the Horse Bulletin Board, and the T3DE 2010 Yahoo Group.

Team Taco Members: Taco Himself!

This is the first of a few posts in which I will introduce the members of Team Taco.  First of all is Taco (Cat Burglar) himself.  A 1996 Bay Thoroughbred, with a tiny white star on his forehead, Taco has quite lovely sporthorse bloodlines (his Jockey Club name was different).  He is an amazing athlete, a jokester, a cuddle muffin, and a prince (sometimes I call him HRH Taco).  He is as honest as can be over fences and has gorgeous movement that can dazzle in dressage.  He can be ridiculously silly one moment (what is THAT! Mulch?? Mulch is scary!) and then put in a flawless round or test the next (or mug for a treat, whichever is the activity going on).  He loves carrots, Flax Snax, carrots, Mrs. Pastures cookies, carrots, peppermints, and carrots.

When his previous owner Annika got him through the CANTER organization at age five, he had been a racehorse in Michigan.  He was, as she put it, "full of all sorts of tricks" at first.  He was anxious and reactive, and she hit the ground many, many times in the first year she had him!  When they started eventing, they were always clear cross country (XC) but often dead last in dressage, with comments like "tactful ride."  He also had some scary injuries, including a giant stifle (which led to weeks at New Bolton's hospital at UPENN) and some cellulitis after a laceration to a front leg.

But over time, they developed a beautiful partnership, and Annika's patience and, yes, tactful riding built Taco up into a confident and responsive athlete.  By 2006, they were showing heavily at Preliminary and they did two CCI* competitions (internationally-sanctioned three day events at the Preliminary level).  Annika's photo album is full of their highlight moments.  They were an amazing pair.

Then, in January of 2007, Taco got hurt again. Badly.  He was in a stall at a neighbor's barn (the neighbor was riding him lightly while Annika had to go out of town) and he kicked out at another horse over the stall door.  His left hind leg got caught and he scraped the skin off a large area of the front of the cannon bone (warning: graphic wound photo).  The recovery was not smooth, and took over 14 months.  The wound had seemed to be closing up that spring, and six months later he was back in light work-- but one night the whole leg opened up again.  This complication led to three (four? Annika, correct me here if neccesary!) surgeries on the leg over the course of the next several months, one of which involved some very scary moments in the recovery stall.  In addition, his immune system was in overdrive and he began to develop uveitis (an immune-mediated eye condition).  At one point, Annika feared that she might have to put him down.  But she kept going and, just as it always had, her patience and care paid off.  He had successful surgery on the eye to remove the vitreous and stop the immunological reaction, which might have led to permanent blindness had it continued.  The leg surgeries found some old suture material in the wound and it began to close again.  He came back from the brink and was healing in earnest by the spring of 2008.

In the meantime, however, Annika had made a big decision: to go back to school to become a physician's assistant.  Taco, who was used to being the king of the barn, was in desperate need of a regular work schedule and the attention to which he was accustomed.  Annika and I had known each other on the Chronicle of the Horse bulletin board for some time, and we had met in person at Rolex in 2008.  I was in the process of selling my old horse, an OTTB who did not want to be an event horse.  Suddenly, everything seemed to click into place.  Taco was coming to Tennessee!