Cob Jockey

L. Williams suggested in my 'Nature vs Nurture' post that this blog should do a few conformation posts, and that sounded like a lot of fun to me!  Developing an eye for conformation makes our favorite activity, staring at horses, into a fun new game of 'I Spy' - who doesn't like that?

Conformation is important because:
1. It will decide whether or not your horse stays sound in the sport you have chosen for him.
2. It will dictate whether or not he can easily physically succeed at the sport you have chosen for him.

Every horse has conformation flaws, without exception.  Recognizing your horse's conformation flaws is important because you need to understand what's going to feel like simple addition and subtraction to your 'student', and what's going to feel like calculus - "I'm never going to get this!"

When you're horse shopping with a goal of buying a competitive athlete, or just idly playing Canter Cutie Bingo, I believe you should start with a "conformation hit list".  This list is going to look different for every sport- in cutting, being built downhill is advantageous, while in Dressage, it makes life very difficult.

Here are the three categories in my conformation hit list:

Jen's Conformation Hit List
Group 1: Wish List (The Green Category)
Remember when you daydreamed about the traits your ideal husband/wife/partner would have, knowing that maybe you wouldn't end up with someone who had all of those traits?  This is that list.  Dream big!  This list should contain conformation traits that would provide an advantage to a horse competing in your sport and anything you really want to see in your future equine partner - knowing your future horse won't have every single one.

This fellow has several green-list qualities of mine, including a nice open, sloping shoulder, hocks nicely balanced and angulated, short cannon bones, good pastern angles, and good angulation in his hind quarters.

Group 2: Things You Can Live With (The Yellow Category)
You might not define this group as explicitly as you do the other two.  This category is comprised of both traits that are neither advantageous nor disadvantageous, and also traits that maybe aren't ideal, but you feel that you can comfortably manage them.

Slightly over at the knee - it would never be on my green list, but if he was otherwise awesome I wouldn't cull for it (in a jumper), so it goes in my "yellow" category.  Behind at the knee, on the other hand, is on my red list for a jumper.

Group 3: Things You Would Cull For (The Red Category)
This should be an explicitly defined group.  What would make you pass over a horse?  What will set a horse up for failure in your chosen sport?  That's this list, and it will be different for everyone.  For example, a couple of things on my 'cull' list are things that increase concussion: small feet and upright pasterns.  Also on my list are things I just don't want to deal with, like poor quality feet.  But on someone else's list, poor quality feet might be in the "Yellow" list because they feel they can manage it, or the horse is otherwise worth it, and that's totally fine!

Small feet and upright pasterns - this is a cull for me as an eventer, but not in Western halter where concussion isn't a factor.

After I've culled for the 'Red List' traits I can't live with, I can then weigh non-conformation factors like brain, temperament, bravery, etc against the Green and Yellow categories.  It's really important to first cull 'red traits' before culling for brain traits.

Say you're choosing between one horse with 2 green traits and 5 yellow traits that is smart, patient, and brave, and a second horse that has 5 green traits and 2 yellow traits but he's crazy.  In this case, you might choose against the better conformed horse to pick the better brain, and since you've already culled everything in your 'Red' category, you know you'll be conformationally okay no matter what you decide.  This saves you a lot of heartache and possible injuries down the road.

I would really like to encourage open discussion on these conformation posts, so feel free to ask questions or call me out or engage in discussions.  I love chatting about conformation!

"Do you know of anyone who'd be willing to trade me a 70" turnout sheet for a brand new 72" turnout sheet?  Mary bought me one for my birthday and it's just a bit too big.  Well, I take that back, it's not a bad fit lengthwise and would fit him if he wasn't shaped like a dachshund.  Surely I'm not the only person in the world with this problem?"

My trainer's response: "Um..." and laughter.

I love my dachshund!

(I am actually looking to trade this NWT waterproof no-fill Shires turnout sheet, if anyone knows of anyone who would be interested.)

Since Mary came, I've been thinking a lot about nature vs. nurture - kind of.  Specifically, I've been thinking about how conformation and training affect movement.

I studied conformation in college under the tutelage of Dr. Marks, conformation queen, and I know exactly what sort of conformation faults I can live with and what I can't.  I've always loved Connor's shoulder: that nice, sloping shoulder should make it easy for him to rotate his scapula and get his knees up over fences.




...right?

Early September 2013

The truth is, I'm learning that even if a horse is conformed in a way that makes certain things easy for him, there's still a massive training component to things like becoming a careful jumper with good form and tight knees over fences.  Good shoulder conformation will make the road toward good jumping form easier for him than it would be for a horse with a straighter shoulder, all other factors being equal, but it doesn't make good form happen from the first time he ever takes a fence.  And just because doesn't know how to get his shoulders rotated quickly now doesn't mean he never will.

Good form happens when teaching moments like this...




...teach him what it means to snap his knees up quickly, and then combine with favorable shoulder conformation to produce this:


 "Perfection on a stick" (Dr. Marks' favorite conformation line), won't take you where you want to go without the training and temperament to go with it, even if it seems like it should.  It's something I've never really thought about until now.

Thoughts?  This is new territory for my brain, I'd love some opinions.

You three were correct from my previous post, I am building a tack locker!

When we bought this house (built in 1963), it came with some very inconvenient cabinets:


I call them inconvenient because this is a not-to-scale representation of what my 6'4 husband looked like chopping vegetables on that countertop before we removed the upper cabinets:

Forehead, meet inconvenient cabinets.

After removing said cabinets and my amazing husband giving me a surprise birthday present of a dishwasher and lights in that area in 2012, it now looks like this (the unpainted section has since been painted and the dishwasher is now boxed in):

Big improvement!

Anyway, that cabinet that was so inconvenient before is now finding a new life as a tack locker, and here's how I've done it so far:

Step 1:  Remove crosspieces with a hand saw.

It's actually supposed to be used to remove pieces of door casing above floors or something, but don't tell it that.  It did fine.

Ta da, empty box!

Step 2: Wood fill holes, sand, vacuum, wipe, repeat the last three often

Step 3: Cut 1" x 2" furring strips on which the pegboard can rest (I had the strips left over from a project I did in 2012, so $0!)

Step 4: Prime with leftover oil-based waterproofing primer ($0!)

Step 5, not shown: Use bad-ass table saw to cut down pegboard ($13).  Realize tiny adjustments are not as easy to make on the table saw as they are on the miter saw.  Learn how to take off the blade guard and use the push stick on the table saw to preserve fingers. Step 6: Paint pegboard using a light grey sample quart left over from painting the living room in 2012. ($0!) Step 7: Mount pegboard using screws, and giant washers for future stability ($5)

Step 8: Use bad-ass table saw to rip down a board I took out of my husband's closet when I redid it last winter, and turn said moderately straight board into moderately square door. ($0)

That is where I am right now.  The door is 3" deep, and will accommodate dowel rods inside it on which to hang (dry) saddle pads.  The primed side-wall you can see here will be covered in cork, while the facing side is more pegboard.  I've used Amazon points to pay for heavy-duty gate hinges ($0) and locking casters ($0) more to get it off the ground at the barn than to move it (it's not heavy, and I won't be taking it to shows, but it will still move occasionally).  I realize it looks giant here, but it's shorter than I am, and I am 5 feet tall.

Still to come: covering the outsides and door with aspen siding ($24), hanging the door, adding a handle ($?), buying pegboard accessories, adding casters, buying/mounting cork ($15), waterproofing the bottom ($?), adding ventilation ($?), adding external towel racks for drying wet pony boots/use as handles ($?) and finally painting and adding corner trim and other fancy things.  My goal is to keep it under $75, and I'm only able to throw money at it every so often, so it might be a while before it's finished.

What features would you look for if you were building a tack locker?

Connor looked...weird...from a distance tonight.

Hey mom!

Closer...

Closer still...

Halfway there...

Almost...

Turning leaves, September's uniquely blue skies

Pony dozing in the warm sun after a cool night

7pm lessons soon to be forced indoors by lack of light

Dapples and hair growing in strange places (check out that chest hair!  Ow ow!)

A fine shower of shedding summer coat and dust after each curry

I may not have ridden this weekend, since Connor has a swollen bite mark on his back right where the saddle goes today, but that doesn't mean I'm not working on a horsey project, one that so far has cost me a total of $15.  Thanks, scrap wood!  Can you guess what this is becoming?

Work in progress...

From the first fence we jumped in our lesson on Thursday, I felt a difference in the way Connor was leaving the ground.  Mary's lessons had given him the confidence to plant his front feet and take off.

But I had a coming-to-Jesus moment of my own in my lesson which, combined with Mary's "confident man" training for Connor all week, made just as much of a difference.

 It was like my tense seat and legs had been preventing some necessary piece of approach communication before that was now flowing freely between the two of us.  I've never felt him jump so confidently and quietly before.  I focused on staying relaxed all the way to the base of the fence, and it really worked.

This fence flowed like silk.  It was an incredible feeling.

Mary has left, but hopefully her Connor lessons and the relaxed canter feeling will stay with us for a long time to come.

And now, after getting ridden five days in a row for probably the first time since I've had him, Connor is getting a well deserved Saturday off and Sunday hack!

Aunt Mary

"He knows he needs to get over the fence, but he's not sure what to do with his feet to get there."

I've written about my friend Mary before.  If it weren't for her indisputable need for good health insurance, she'd be an equine professional.  She's a naturally talented rider with great feel who takes instruction well, pays attention to detail and works really hard, endearing her to every trainer she rides with.

She got on Connor for the first time in nearly two years this week, and became the first person other than me to jump him.  I knew she would feel things I couldn't as a novice jumper, and when she said he didn't know where to put his feet on takeoff, I had an 'Aha!' moment.  He never stops,  but there's always a moment of hesitation at the base of a fence, like "I'm taking this jump?" instead of "I'm taking this jump!"

"I mean, he's a Cob, bred to pull with his front end, the idea of both of his front feet being off the ground has to be pretty unnerving for him."

So while I've been at my desk job this week, Mary has been spending time at my barn and teaching my pony where his feet are over fences.  This has involved, at times, a stick, 20 feet of poles, really small jumps, and lots of praise when he got through anything without touching it.  Here's every jump attempt they had from Tuesday, the first time she jumped him (don't judge Mary's position - this was definitely not an eq ride!):

She used a stick slightly before takeoff here.

No idea where to put his feet.

This was our "good pony" fence for the day, and where we quit.

Two days later, after two days of Mary training, this happened in my lesson:

PROGRESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But that's a story for another post. :-)

First, housekeeping: I changed my RSS address to a third party that will allow me to not lose my list of subscribers should I ever decide to move the blog.  If you follow Connor and I through an RSS reader, please make sure you are still getting updates from me, and delete and re-add Cob Jockey if you are not!  Thanks!

Earlier this summer, I won a bottle of Vetrolin Shine Spray in Karley's 100 Followers contest, and promised to do a writeup on how well the sunscreen in it kept Connor from fading this summer.  I am not at the barn every day, and I didn't know if a couple of applications per week was enough for it to work, until a clinician asked if he had been on night turnout all summer.  She complimented his non-faded coat and was shocked when I said he was on 24/7 turnout, no flysheet.  "My horse is totally faded, what's your secret?"



Usually by the end of the summer, he's a brassy orange color, his red hairs all tipped with orange, but not this summer.  This summer, he's his normal reddish-orange, shiny and sassy, with very little fading.

Here's my official vote for Vetrolin Shine Spray with Sunscreen: especially if you are at the barn every day, that stuff works.  If you're me and it only gets on your horse's body three or four days a week, you'll still see a difference.  If you're not me and you can apply it every day, it will probably create a glowing force field of sun protection around your horse.  (If that actually happens, take a picture for me.)

Oh my GOSH those breeches are unattractive.  I apologize to all of you, but they're my only pair!

Also on the subject of coat issues, in the above picture you can see the weird hair pattern that develops every summer on Connor's butt.  The hair on his backside actually grows in a different direction than the hair on the top of his hindquarters, and until this summer I didn't know why.  Now I do: his tail is so thick and heavy, it brushes his hair into sort of a natural quarter mark all summer as he swats at flies.  I've never had a horse's tail do that to their body hair before, anyone else's horses do this?

Is there a better way to spend a Saturday morning than handling fancy baby Cobs in their first horse show?  I don't think so!

That's me handling baby Filigree (Castleberry's Filigree) this past weekend.  She's a future Dressage star with movement like she has, she's amazing!

Connor's breeder gets all of her babies out to their first in-hand show when they're still babies, and they learn from their moms that trailer rides and show stabling and loud speakers and judges wearing cowboy hats and trotting in-hand are just facts of life that are nothing to get worked up about:

Sleepy baby pony in show stabling after her first show.

This excellent conditioning as babies leads to wild behavior like this as adults at shows:

Hoosier Horse Fair and Expo

 And this:

Greater Dayton Horse Trials, I'm seeing a pattern here...

And this...

Straight load, slant load, stock trailer, horse trailer, head-to-head, step up, back ramp, side ramp: Connor's done them all without questioning.  That's good brains, and good early conditioning.

Three cheers for good breeders and good ponies!  And seriously, if you are a Dressage rider...she's awesome...I'm just saying...

Happy baby!