Brush with Fame

A while ago I wrote up a conformation critique of my handsome boy. Then, when Fugly was asking for personal submissions, I sent it in. I wanted to see if she agreed with my assessment, but I also wanted to make the point that some aspects of conformation are related to conditioning and (im)proper trimming/shoeing. Well I woke up this morning to find that Brego has made the front page of Fugly!

The writeup was very kind and the comments were even better. Someone check the time, because Brego's fifteen minutes are starting! :) He already knows he's very handsome, I will have to make sure all this doesn't go to his very large head. Go, Brego!

Jumping Lesson, Redux

Brego and I had our last jumping lesson before the show this weekend. Our focus was on balancing Brego for turns and assessing his striding. He did very well and I caught most of the fun on tape. (I apologize in advance for my grand movie editing experiment).



One hiccup was that Brego is deathly afraid of barrels. I suppose he has had a terrible barrel-racing incident in his past. Anyway, we might see barrels as fences next weekend, so I wanted to school them. Luckily, all of that footage made the cutting room floor. He sucked back from the barrels and we had refusals and fences knocked down. General Mayhem. All very uncharacteristic of Brego. He ended up jumping the barrels in an acceptable fashion but I have committed to schooling him over them for the rest of the week. I am also going to scrape together any other funny looking jumps I can as well.

The weather outlook looks good for the show, so we're full steam ahead for the rest of the week.

Dressage Lesson 3

Brego and I had our final dressage lesson before the show on September 15th. He did really well, of course. Turns out the boy has some talent. If only his rider would get on board!

The big theme today was outside rein and how much I don't use it to support him. We spent some time at the beginning just getting him warmed up and going round. He was out of work this week due to rain so we needed some remedial "get off my leg!!" moments. My trainer was very patient though so after some good tips, we moved on to practicing the test I will ride in a couple of weeks.

The first run through was pretty poor. I couldn't get the left lead until two letters too late. And I had trouble with my corners. But we broke it down movement by movement and my trainer helped me understand how it should be ridden. It was very informative.

For some time, I had used his "draftiness" as an excuse for him being heavy and unable to turn. One of the big lightbulb moments I had today was that I was the reason he was struggling to turn. When I fixed my outside rein and got my weight balanced, he had a really nice canter departure and could easily canter a 20m circle. So the pressure is on me to fix my riding. Sure, he'll never be as light as Merlin, but he's certainly capable of much more. If you ride your horse like he won't make the movements, then he definitely won't. If you ride your horse to help him make the movements (or at least, get out of his freakin' way), he will really surprise you.

So it was an excellent lesson, but pretty tiring, so I am going to let the pictures and videos speak for themselves. I know what I need to focus on the next couple of weeks (outside rein, more impulsion, NO CLUCKING), but the good news is that Brego just gets better and better.

Trotting - Working on him softening down
More Trotting
More successful trot
Trying to soften through a downward transition
Left Canter
Right Canter
And we're finished

Jumping Lesson

Brego and I had a jumping lesson this morning and the goal was to work on small courses with turns and bending lines. The height of the fence is no problem for Brego, but being back and balanced enough to power through a corner without dislocating my shoulders is a feat yet to be mastered.

We ended up with a very successful lesson, culminating in a 5 fence course with two 180 degree turns and finishing over a 3' oxer. He even threw in some automatic changes, if I didn't lay on his neck too bad. The best part of the whole lesson was that Brego saved my bacon twice when I completely blew it for him (and he left the poles up). It's that kind of heart and kindness that makes me think Brego is a really special horse. As much as he is conformationally ill-suited to eventing and with as little jumping experience he has, he never gives up and takes good care of me.

My riding had improved since the last time I had jumped. My trained watched the videos I posted and had plenty of advice for me. But during the lesson today, I seemed to have fixed a lot of what was wrong. She even commented that as the ride got more complicated, I did even better. Something about forcing myself to be effective when a big, heavy, tired Percheron is barreling down towards a 3' oxer... There is definitely still something amiss with my right knee, but that's the knee that's been giving so much trouble recently. The x-rays came back clean and I ice it after every ride. So hopefully as the knee improves, my weird one-sided stiffness will work itself out as well.

So I think we're in good shape for the show in three weeks. The current plan is to get another dressage lesson next weekend and one more jumping lesson before we go to the show on September 14th. In the meantime, he gets some time off and hopefully a mini-camping trip for everyone's mental health. The heat and intensity of the workouts are too taxing for his current fitness level. I want him fresh and eager in three weeks, not burned out and sore.

Alternate Career for the Eventing Percheron?

Inspired by a post on Chronicle of the Horse, I brought an exercise ball out for Brego to play with today. He sort of got it...

Video of his first attempted pass.

At least he could have a fall back career if this whole eventing thing doesn't work out!

Jumpity Jump Jump

More jumping training yesterday. We worked on canters between two 2' fences set on a circle at 3 and 9 o'clock in the arena. It was very hot and humid and the footing in the arena was pretty deep so all in all, very tiring work.

Brego did well and we worked on maintaining a quality canter between the fences and I attempted to correct some of my more glaring jumping faults, like poor release and falling back in the air. I was only mildly successful so I am really grateful I have a jumping lesson this Saturday.



We finished up jumping a 2'10" jump and Brego did wonderfully. He had a lot more impulsion and power than during free jumping and didn't even flick an ear at the fence. He's very brave, just not very coordinated yet. He cleared everything with ease until he tripped and we nearly had a crash. He hit the pole both with his front legs and his back legs and nearly rolled on himself. I managed to stay centered or else I would have been a goner. Miraculously, everyone stayed up, including the pole (he knocked it down later just to prove it could be done!). I trotted him out and he was fine, but the next time over the fence he over jumped by about 3 feet. Poor guy, just not overly coordinated.

He worked hard under hot conditions so he gets another day off, then a light hack on Friday. Saturday it's my lesson with my jumping trainer.

Additional video.

Ugly Is As Ugly Does

Since I am addicted to the Fugly Horse Blog, I decided to see just how, er, lovely Brego is. Here's a marked up photo of him taken today for those playing along at home (Click on it to get a big enough version to see all the lines drawn).


What I see... Nice shoulder, pretty even build, not downhill. Nice neck meeting chest, although topline of neck is weak. Back at the knee. Way off on his back legs, stands under himself. Ok pastern angle (maybe too long on the front), very sloping croup, short canon bones. Cow hocked, short neck, big head. And I hope his back doesn't get one inch longer! :)

All in all, I think I'll keep him!