'Progress'

No horse makes progress the same way. There's no magic program to follow. No 'wiki-how' step by step guide. Some pick up everything easily and take everything in stride. Others need to learn lessons more than once. Still others learn quickly but don't get confident and so they need their hands held for a long time. It's one of the reasons training horses stays exciting. Each horse is different and each horse can be different on each day.

Since I've been riding Elliot, progress has been basically linear. He was not always confident in the beginning but he nevertheless took forward steps. He ran beginner novice. Then he ran novice. Then he ran training and then preliminary. We had a brief disruption when he strained a tendon and had colic surgery, but for the most part, we made 'progress'.

Last season he ran around a bunch of tough intermediates and a CIC2. AECs was the first blip on the radar. It was followed closely by the Fair Hill debacle. After a little winter down time, this season has been rocky. We got eliminated at Rocking Horse I, dropped to preliminary for Ocala II but still had a couple stops on cross country, and had a couple stops on the intermediate cross country at Rocking Horse III. Not progress.

Who really knows what caused the back slide. Was he ulcery? Was he sore somewhere? Or maybe he was weak? Did he lose confidence after carting me around all those intermediates last season? Were the holes in our training starting to show up? Or did we just lose our mojo after a silly mistake at AECs, getting foiled at Fair Hill, and then a lot of down time to stew about it? I don't really have an answer.

The plan for this season was to move up to Advanced in Florida. I wish that had happened, but it didn't. I'm sorry we have holes or lost mojo or whatever you want to call it, but I'm happy to be fixing the issues now rather than having them show up next year while we're trying to get qualified for something really big like Rolex. The horse is still very special and he's young. He's not lame. He looks great right now and he is fitter and getting stronger than ever. Maybe the setback was good. More training. More preparation. Another season of intermediate will only make him better. We can plan to move up in the fall.

Progress with horses isn't always linear. As my dad reminded me today, it isn't even always 'progress'. You just keep moving.

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Just Happy to be Nominated

It's always good when you show up to a three day with your horse's leg pressure wrapped above the knee.


After the week leading up to the CIC2, I was just happy to be get there and pass the jog.


I rode Elliot at Chatt Hills Thursday Evening and he felt much as you might expect after running through a three board fence, getting cellulitis, not being ridden for a week, and then being on the trailer for six hours. He was wound up and crooked.

I did not have high hopes for the dressage. I wasn't even sure I really knew my test. I held off really learning it because I thought it might be the kiss of death. My warped, superstitious logic: 'If I learned my test, Elliot was certain not to come sound. If I didn't learn the test, I would have a sound horse, but probably forget the test all over the place'. It was a chance I was willing to take.

My goal was to score under 75 in order that the weekend could be a qualifier for Fair Hill in the fall. My secondary goal was to finish in the top half.

Elliot warmed up reasonably well, and then put in a solid test considering the circumstances. He was not elastic like he had been at Poplar Place a few weekends before, and the canter was disjointed. However, we muddled through. He was not last by any means, AND we got our qualifying score: 67.80!

CHC International was trying to make quite a spectacle in order to draw more of the general public. They had the international levels jumping under spotlights late in the evening the same day as dressage.

The time between Dressage and SJ was good. We had a chance to have Dougie Hannum work on Elliot. Doug worked his magic and made him more comfortable. It was also reassuring to have someone as knowledgeable as Doug tell me that Smellie was okay to run. He basically said 'treat him like a horse'; continue icing and keeping an eye on him. So we did.

I was lucky to go around on Heidi, who was brilliant, first. By the time Elliot went, it was dark and the spotlights only put off so much light. Plus, we had never jumped under lights and I was feeling especially rattled since I had not jumped him since Poplar Place two weeks before. He was brilliant. I had two rails. Elliot was a star. When I learn to show jump, we'll be unbeatable!

It rained all night long, which was not the end of the world. The ground was firm the day before so a little rain would only make it better. I didn't go until later in the afternoon, so I got up early and walked around course a couple times. I decided not even to wheel it. I am still green at this level, and Elliot was only there to jump around some tough questions and come home safe and sound. There were some big old tables on the course. There were also some big old skinnies on the course including two impressive corners as the out of combinations.

Going late in the division is sometimes a blessing, but sometimes a curse. As out time got closer, I listened to all the people, many of them combinations with more experience than me, who were having trouble on cross country. This was compounded with the fact that I was already nervous, and the rain over night made the warm up deep. I was struggling to find a distance. Kyle Carter made a remark to Betsy about setting up a grid for me to help me find a distance. I'm sure he meant it as a jest, but as one of our 8 year old students says 'some jokes are not funny'. I didn't need help to know I was missing all over the place.


I had talked with Betsy before and we both decided if Elliot didn't feel like he was taking me to the jumps or he had a couple stops on course, I would call it a day. It is always better to listen to you horse. Save him for another day.

We got into the box and the rest was history.


Elliot cantered around a big, imposing 2* XC that was giving other, more experience pairs trouble like he had been doing it his whole life. He jumped through those corners I had been sweating no problem. He saved me when I missed. He even ran straight as an arrow after I saw a shoe fly by us at the second water (a bit like having your hub cap pass you on the highway).

We got our qualifier and we finished in the top half (even if just barely). Everyone thinks their horse is amazing, but mine really is. He's got a lot of talent, but more importantly he's got a lot of heart.

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Struggle City

Any one who knows me or Smellie probably has heard (and probably has heard ad naseum) about Elliot's tough road to the CHC International Two Star. However, in an effort to document Team Smellie's entire journey (and for those of you who missed this epsiode, I'm laying it all out here too!

Our goal is to qualify for the Fair Hill CCI2 this fall. To do that, we need two Intermediate HT with NQRs and either one CCI1 and a CIC2 with NQRs or two CIC2 with NQR. Since we just moved up to the intermediate level, we wanted to get a jump on the FEI qualifications in case we ran into trouble. There are not as many FEI qualifiers as horse trials.

In our usual tardy RBF fashion, we entered Chatt Hills late. Rick Dunkerton is a saint and got us in. No sooner did I receive an email that I was accepted into Chatt Hills, than Elliot ran through a three board fence and banged himself up.


We rushed out to the farm found that in fact, he was not putting weight on his left hind, though the leg itself looked pretty good. After a full body scan, we discovered a skinned and bruised left stifle, a 2" puncture on the left front, and a big old lump on the right front cannon bone. Also never good to have a one legged horse the week before a FEI event.

FEI is very strict about what substances are allowed and now allowed. Basically, their zero tolerance policy, means that your horse cannot have any type of substance in its system. This means you have to know all the drugs withdrawl times and not use them within that window before an FEI event. Otherwise your horse will test positive and then you will be in big trouble. And for thorse wondering, the FEI controlled substances list is vast.

These rules meant we had to be very careful about what we gave poor Elliot. In the end, we decided not to give him much. We iced 4-5 times the day, cleaned him up, flushed his puncture, wrapped, hand walked, and gave him arnica.

By the end of the day, he was walking much better and feeling comfortable. We all took a sigh of relief.

However, it was a little too soon.


The next morning, the left front which had the punture was swollen and very senative to the touch. By midday he was very lame even at the walk on it, despite icing, flushing, and wrapping. After talking at length to two vets (both of whom believed it was cellultis and did not inferere with the joint or tendon), we started him on IV antibiotics, continued icing it, and sweat wrapped the leg. He was very uncomfortable, but Betsy and I thought if we can just make it to tomorrow, the antibiotics will kick in and he will feel much better. It was a long night. We stayed with him until about 3AM icing and keeping an eye on his vitals. The last thing we needed was for him to colic on top of the cellultis.


Thank heavens it paid off! And for all the flac we give him, Elliot is one tough man. He never stopped drinking or eating, despite having to hobble around his stall.

By morning, he was already walking better, and everyday through the week that followed he continued to visibly improve.


It was very close. I rode him for the first time on Tuesday. It amounted to an hour walk with a little trotting at the end. He felt stiff at the beginning, but warmed up to feel pretty okay. Wednesday we did the same thing with a little more real work. He was better still.

By Thursday AM he was trotting sound. We made the decision to take him even though we knew we were pushing him.

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