The last time I wrote, I was just returning from a tumultuous but ultimately rewarding trip to Fitch’s Corner Horse Trials. My horse, Oskar had banged himself up en route but with the help of plenty of ice and plenty of hand walking, we had managed to keep him sound and complete the weekend. When we got home I did have him checked out thoroughly by my vet and made a plan to get him back to 100% quickly. No big deal.
Unfortunately, Oskar had other plans.
About a week into my physical therapy work with him, he kicked the fence with the same leg. UGH! He is one of those horses who makes a stink whenever another horse walks by his stall, he squeals & kicks out…with the left hind every time. This time he apparently didn’t like the look Wylie was giving him and kicked the paddock fence, managing to further scrape up his already mangled leg.
It didn’t look like much beyond superficial damage and I did ride him later that day and he felt fine, great actually. By the next morning though, he was hobbling around on 3 legs. Oskar’s saga continues like this for the next few weeks. One day he’s fine, the next he is on 3 legs…and so on…He had a similar injury last year that took the better part of 9 months to heal. If I can get him through this one, I think I will have to invest in a padded cell!
Anyway, the following week I had been asked to ride in a jumper demo at a fundraising event at GMHA called “Chef’s Night”. Obviously, Oskar wasn’t doing much in the way of jumping with only 3 good legs! So I enlisted the service of my mom’s 20 year old ISH Ballykissangel. Bally is named after a BBC drama from about 15 years ago. It was very popular with people of a certain age group, which is one reason that Bally is the perfect horse for my mother!
He is a gigantic, white beast of a horse who is called a sport horse but is a full 50% Irish Draft. He has broad square shoulders, huge, stocky legs and a bit of a mellow personality;Not at all what I am used to. My mom generously allowed me to ride him in the jumper demo over a 2’9”-3’ course and he was good. Not spectacular but good.
The following week was the Festival of Eventing clinic at GMHA which was a 3 day clinic that brought in excellent clinicians and about 40 riders. I had signed up for it months before when Oskar was going strong. I took the whole week off of work. I thought it sounded like a great opportunity to iron out the kinks in our partnership and really focus for a few days on him.The clinic was followed immediately by the August horse trials where I was due to finally make the move up to training.
Oskar kept me guessing right up to the last minute about whether he was going to be sound or not. As it turns out…on the first day, he was not up to it. Again, my mom offered me the ride on her big guy Bally. I thought it over and decided,” What the hell”. I’d take a flat lesson and see how it went.
Between Chef’s Night and the clinic, the saddle that my mom had ordered for Bally through Trumbull Mountain had come in. He got a Black Country Quantum X (hoop tree)
With wither gussets to accommodate his huge shoulders, prominent withers and broad back. Before I started working at Trumbull Mountain, I had heard of hoop trees but as I ride almost exclusively Thoroughbreds, I had never really needed to know anything about them. I did know that Bally was a difficult horse to fit with a traditional tree. I had also noticed that he got very stiff in his shoulders and had a hard time developing muscle on top of his shoulders. Over time, he developed hollows on top of his shoulder blades, behind his withers. When he did start to swing through his back, he would often grind his teeth. The old saddle did not appear to be a terrible fit but he obviously wasn’t thrilled with it.
Let me tell you, one ride in the new saddle and I am a believer that some horses really benefit from the hoop tree!! Bally was able to lift his shoulder and swing freely through his back in a way that would not have been possible just a week before in the other saddle!
I decided again to take my mom up on the offer to ride him in the cross country school the next morning. Now, keep in mind that this horse hadn’t been jumping more than 2’6”/3’ for years. I went to the lesson with the idea that if he told me he had enough or if he felt like he was straining, we would quit. Nothing of the sort happened! We galloped around a course of Novice and Training size jumps easily and again, I was shocked by the horse underneath me! He lifted his back up over the jumps in a way that was never possible in the other saddle. I suddenly realized the scope he possessed, even as a 20 year old!
Bally is a very careful horse, which is why he is an excellent ride for my mom. He likes to stick a quick “shuffle stride” in before each fence to make sure he really knows what he has got to do. Previously, the shuffle would be followed by a somewhat uncomfortable “pop” over the jump. He got the job done but you never felt like you were soaring! Bally was a changed man! The “shuffle” was still there but I now felt that he was quicker with his feet off the ground, like he could get his shoulders up and over more fluidly!
After the school, the clinician suggested that I put Bally in Oskar’s spot at training level in the horse trials.I thought she was joking and protested that he was old, not terribly fit, blah, blah blah. In the end, I was persuaded to do it with the same attitude I had for the clinic. I would see how he felt each step of the way and be ready to pull up at the slightest hint of strain.
To make a long story short, we did it! Bally jumped around both show jumping and cross country better that he has ever jumped in his life. We were a bit slow cross country but the jumping was nearly flawless!
In retrospect, I really don’t think he could have jumped around as comfortably in his old saddle. In addition, after just 10 days in the hoop tree, his back is visibly changing. The hollows behind his shoulder blades are filling in and the dips along the sides of his withers are disappearing. My only regret is that we didn’t get this spectacular horse a proper saddle earlier in his career!!