Category: Blog

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and Internationally competitive rider.

So, after contemplating what to do with Dale, we made the decision to sell him.  We would make sure that the home met our criteria.  What we didn’t want for him was to be in full time training nor live in a box stall.  Hopefully we could find someone with a horse crazy teenager – that would be perfect.  We thought we had a buyer who fit all of this but it fell through – as sometimes happens. My backup plan was to donate him to a college equestrian team – something we did with Cooper last year.  It’s a win/win. We are donating to a worthwhile cause, the horse is needed and appreciated and the horse gets all of the above, plus you know they are well looked after on all accounts (vet, shoeing, cleaning, etc.). 

California State University, Fresno is about 2 hours away and their equestrian reining team competes throughout the United States on a pretty high level.  Their facility is good – horses aren’t kept in box stalls – they have a mare motel setup with larger pens – they can interact with the horses on either side of them.  They get to come in contact with many people daily – most of whom are horse crazy young women. There is even a garbage bin full of treats near the cross ties (bonus!). 

We’d had good luck with Cooper going there so we thought this was also a good choice for Dale. This is a recent pic of Cooper getting ooodles of attention https://www.instagram.com/p/B2heZvwJnR0 When I went to drop him off there, I did see something that triggered the writing of this blog. I saw them lunging horses.

Let me just say, that I am fine with people lunging horses.  I used to do it, my mom still does it, and there are some very good reasons to do so.  But, I really think that a lot of people who lunge think that by getting their horse physically tired before they work with them or get on them, the horse will reach the mental state necessary to perform the way the person wants them to. 

This used to be my reason for lunging.  I thought if I tired my horse out physically that he would also mentally comply with my requests.  Did it work? I don’t know, maybe. If I’m honest, it probably worked for my mental state more than the horses.  But what I have come to find through Warwick is what I really will call a better way.  A better way for the horse to arrive at and maintain the mental space that allows them to perform/learn at their best (not to mention a great way for us to practice mindfulness). Warwick has distilled it down into 3 simple steps, which all build on each other and work together in concert: 

1. Teach your horse how to find true Relaxation, then building on that: 
2. Develop connection with your horse. While keeping #1 & #2 in tact…
3. Commence with “training”. 

Anytime you lose #1 or #2 re-establish before resuming #3.  This works on the ground or under saddle. Warwick says that by having the first 2, training is sped up and much easier. 

Recently, Dr. Steve Peters gave a talk at the Best Horse Practices Summit and our friend Amy Skinner took notes, here is something she jotted down in her notes from his session:

“The three most important elements of training a confident, relaxed horse are: emotional regulation, safety, and focus. The horse must first learn to relax when worried, feel confident that it is safe, and learn to engage and try. Without any of the three in equal parts, progress is pretty hard to make.”

I think this is the exact recipe that Warwick has formulated and it feels good to hear it from Evidence Based Horsemanship co-author Dr. Steve Peters as well.  

If you haven’t read that book – trot on over and get it (or the DVD).  We highly recommend them! 

Back to Dale – we made sure to send over the Youtube Videos that Warwick made of him – making sure they understand what it is he is wanting if and when he starts being mouthy.  It is simply his way of telling them he’s anxious and he needs some support.  The way we did that was to remain present, pay attention and to engage with him. Maybe watching that video and having Dale there will help plant a seed in the Fresno State University arena – I’m sure Dale will be a favorite of the team and help the girls grow there for years to come.  

I do admit to shedding some tears when I drove away – I will miss him.

Thanks for reading. 

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and Internationally competitive rider.

There seems to be a bit of a trend going on.  I felt it after WEG as well. The post-event mental crash.

After Vegas, instead of feeling energized and inspired, I have been feeling out of sorts and non-committal.  As I write this, it’s a month after the event and I have not ridden once. This happened after WEG as well.

I’ve spent the month learning new things, reading books, taking a few online courses and trying to decide where my head is regarding the horses and competition and actually life in general.  A total detox, though, from actual riding.  

Where my head is.

I love competing – but I’m just not sure about the reining anymore.  The more I learn about horses, the less I want them to just be obedient.  Reining is the ultimate in obedience. The paragraph that explains what reining is says, “To rein a horse is not only to guide him BUT TO CONTROL HIS EVERY MOVEMENT.”  I don’t know how that sits with me anymore. 

I guess I care more about how they are feeling nowadays. I’ve concluded that I really don’t want to have to prepare a horse to be perfect, which is what we do in the reining, even though it’s never perfect in the show pen.  If they put a step wrong, we fix it. If they don’t spin fast enough we motivate them, if they don’t stop deep enough, we reinforce it. And watching that happen at a show now is hard. It’s hard because there are varying levels of how that all plays out in the warm-up pen and it’s never to the horse’s benefit, mostly it’s just heartbreaking for me to watch. 

I am blessed to have horses now that don’t need all of that.  We rarely work on maneuvers, we work more on their “gymnastics”.  Which is what I want. I guess I’ve figured out some things by just writing this. Maybe our “schtick” is to continue to live up to the meme…”Love the Animal First and the Sport Second.”  Showing others that this is doable and you can have success in other ways than winning a blue ribbon.  

I’ve been invited to submit a video for another large Invitational Freestyle event in mid-January.  Maybe this is a way for me to channel my creativity and love for my horses or to showcase what is possible with the connection I’ve built with them.  It’s flattering and tempting…and a very long trip across the rocky mountains in January. I’ll need a good song and routine that I can be inspired from and inspire others.  It gives me something to think about anyway.

I do appreciate the opportunity to get this out there, it has been cathartic just writing it down, so for that I am thankful. (I think that word is appropriate here).

Thanks for reading, humbled.

 

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and Internationally competitive rider.

My plan for show day was to get up early and ride – sticking to his formula.  I drew number 18, so I thought I’d wash him after my early morning warm up session and then get him back out at about draw 10 and jog him around.  Our friend Joe Schmidt was there in case I needed anything (I only needed to have a horse holder while I did my last nervous wee and then put my chaps on).  

The early morning warm-up did not go really well.  Oscar remained a bit uptight about the gate and I felt like I did not get his worry cup emptied enough.  I knew some of it had to be coming from me. So after I washed him, the dogs and I snuck down to the end of the barns where there wasn’t anyone around and I did some QiGong.  I did some visualizations (Anticipate Success from Jane Pike) and I texted with my friend Amber whom I’d done the retreat with. She is a theta healer and she tried to help, but she said when she got up to wherever she goes to help, she said that I felt a little bit out of my body.  She was right! I think I slapped on some essential oils as well. I used the Bemer blanket and oils on Oscar and got him show ready while listening to Willie Nelson’s “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.” That song has been my horse show song since I was 8. Whenever it would come on when we were going to a show, I would do well!   

My beautiful friend Liz stayed away during all of this, only coming to bring me breakfast and coffee (½ decaf) – Much needed! Proof that I’d made the right decision on who to invite for my support crew!  I’ve talked about Oscar’s show formula before – not sure if I’ve mentioned mine. Before I show, I need some alone time to sort things out which includes listening to my song and keeping myself busy. Once I’m in the saddle, I’m completely fine.  I decided to wear my WEG outfit – it still had good “juju” on it – I have worn it a lot and have usually done well while wearing it.

I felt that Oscar was relaxed when I was jogging him around outside before we went in to show.  I was feeling pretty confident, albeit a bit nervous. I did my anticipate success visualization and a lot of focus on my breathing. 

When it came time to go in the show pen, I ran in as fast as I’d planned but Oscar didn’t stop really well.  I did not shut off our first spin correctly, which was a penalty 1/2. The biggest surprise was when I went to turn left – which is always a +½ maneuver for us, Oscar didn’t respond at all. It was like he didn’t know what I was asking. I still haven’t figured that out.  I ended up doing something funny with my hand and bumping him with my leg to get him to turn. It was not a credit-earning maneuver. Our left circles were good, I reminded myself where I was and that I should have fun and smile, which I did. He slowed down well and I loosened my reins to show how well he was going slow, but I wasn’t prepared for what he did in the lead change. My bad.

At home, this lead change doesn’t work well.  There is still something residual in his body that we haven’t fixed completely and perhaps there is pain there – which we address through regular bodywork, CBD oil, good shoeing, and supplements.  He has NEVER missed the lead change in a class, so while I was hyper-aware of what I needed to do to make it work in the show pen, I hadn’t contemplated what Oscar threw at me. I had planned to get around most of the circle and when I straightened up through the middle, I would set him up and really press my outside leg on him to get him to change. I had prepared for it not working and him being late to change or missing a lead, which would both be penalties as well.  It ended up that I need not have worried about that, as Oscar changed leads just as I rounded the top of my small circle, very early, which was a full 1 point penalty. Darn it!

Right circles were good and I smiled and had fun with them.  All 3 stops were average, not great, not credit-earning. So, my score, when announced was disappointing.  I would not be taking home any money from this event. 

In hindsight, I feel that Oscar was out of sorts the entire time.  He wasn’t tuned into me 100%, especially when I showed him. Whether it was that he was alone or was the venue, or he could feel the atmosphere or feel me being a bit nervous or 1000 other things, I couldn’t tell you.  Likely a combination. I am disappointed that it went like this, but in the end, was happy to have been part of such an event. Maybe next year I’ll get chosen for the freestyle! 

Speaking of the freestyle, it was after our class and it was really good.  My WEG teammate Dan James did a really good Game of Thrones routine, complete with a liberty team surrounding him.  He ended up Reserve Champion by a ½ point. Andrea Fappani, who is one of the million-dollar contestants won it on his good horse Custom Spook – doing a brideless routine dressed as a boxer, complete with boxing gloves to “Eye of the Tiger”.  

The Million Dollar Class was later and it was spectacular.  The line to get in was wrapped all the way to the end of the casino, the stands were pretty darn full.  Every single rider had the chance to win it. There was no “underdog” or anything, despite how they might have played it out on the Last Cowboy TV show.  They were all capable of scoring the highest. In the end, it was a tie between the youngest rider Cade McCutcheon and Craig Schmersal. They decided to be named co-champions instead of running their horses again.  

Confirmation of a 2020 event was made several times.  There will also be a season 2 of “The Last Cowboy” along with it.  Since I haven’t mentioned that yet, I will tell you a little about that.  Taylor Sheridan, who has been involved in writing and directing films like Sicario, Hell or High Water and a few others, as well as being an actor in The Sons of Anarchy, has been competing in the reining for the last 5 years or so.  I remember seeing him for the first time at a show that I was judging. I thought, HMMM, he looks very Hollywood.  Come to find out – he was.  I had not watched Sons at that point, so I really had no idea who he was. 

He really loves the sport and wants to expose it to as many people as possible. So as he is directing the new Paramount Network show, Yellowstone, he incorporates as much Reining into the show as possible.  It’s been in a couple of episodes. Then he decided to get Paramount to sponsor the Million Dollar Reining and film a reality show along with it called The Last Cowboy.  They did 6 episodes, following 8 of the 12 riders in the lead up to the show in Vegas.  I think they did a good job of highlighting our sport and the riders. While I think there was a bit of scripting involved, I think they portrayed everyone pretty true!   Other than Matt Mills, I was hoping that Craig would win. We’ve known them the longest and they are both truly good people and horsemen!

My next installment will be about the “after” Vegas crash. 

 

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and Internationally competitive rider.

I kept riding both horses until the week before I needed to leave for Vegas JUST IN CASE.  I made the final decision that Oscar would be my horse for TRFAM as planned. He was feeling great, both mentally & physically sound. 

This is where it gets interesting.  At the beginning of the year, I had been invited to co-facilitate a women’s Confidence & Connection retreat – in August.  When I agreed to it, the Vegas event didn’t exist. Now the retreat landed the weekend before I needed to leave for Vegas.  Warwick was preparing to leave for his England clinic tour so he had a lot on his plate and I had to decide how this all worked in with my show preparation.  I had some choices. I could: 1. Stay home and ride early every morning instead of staying at the retreat venue. This meant driving 1 hour each way – getting there by 8AM and leaving around 10PM.  2. I could take Oscar with me and either ride in the arena or participate in other ways like trail riding/meditating, etc. 3. I could leave him home with Warwick for him to prepare – but Warwick had never prepared him and only ridden him a handful of times since we bought him.  

I’ll digress a bit here.  It really wasn’t until we got Sherlock that I attempted to do any sort of “training”.  I do realize I was training them every time I came in contact with them, but I mean legitimate horse training.  With Sherlock, I started on the ground. It was the first time I’d really attempted groundwork (actually, I guess I did some in Australia, but not a lot and it was all very mechanical). But what I figured out with Sherlock and then Petey in 2016 was that if I really got to know them and I did most of the riding, that I was probably the best person to keep that up.  Granted, they were fully trained reining horses. I was maintaining them and until Oscar, I was not really teaching them anything new as far as maneuvers were concerned. But, there is a bit of work that goes into preparing them to be shown and knowing when to have them “ready” both mentally and physically. I got a lot of experience at that in 2016 when I showed Sherlock & Petey a lot and I did 95% of the riding.  

When we got Oscar, he was completely trained, I mean really, he was the teacher.  He had taught 2 young girls the ropes and even Chuy – he was one of the first horses that Chuy had a lot of success on!  He was good at what he did. When we first brought him home, we had decided that we wouldn’t try to change anything, I would go with what we had and just try to stay out of his way and let him do his thing.  However, as we got further down the track and I decided that he would be my WEG horse, with Warwick’s guidance, I was able to change some of the things that we wanted to. I did a lot of dressagey type exercises that completely changed the way he carried his body.  Enough that Warwick noticed. 

I messed it up, plenty!  I’d think I was doing it right only to find out I was putting the wrong leg in the wrong place – but in the end it all worked out and we did change the way he carried himself (I still have to consciously think about what leg to put where in order to do the exercises properly but I think I’ve got it now!)

Back to my decision.  The reality was, no matter which choice I made, I was not going to get to prepare the way one should for such a big event. I ended up choosing to take Oscar with me to the retreat.  We hung out together a lot, meditated together and did some trail rides through the vineyards. I will say that after 4 days of QiGong and other exercises at the retreat – I felt mentally & physically awesome!  I think Oscar did too. 

Warwick & Tyler left for England the day after I got home from the retreat (a Monday).   I had planned to leave for Vegas on Wednesday, which gave me an entire day to pack and organize for the housesitter. I had planned to drive, taking the 2 dogs and Oscar on our 5-day trip.  It is about a 9-9.5 hour drive from our place to Vegas. I always find it difficult to leave our place. It makes it easier when I take the dogs, but to have all of those lives dependent on someone else following instructions always gives me some rabbits. Even if they follow instructions well, they can’t know all the nuances nor share the loving feelings that I have for all of our critters. 

In trying to be the best prepared mentally and physically, I was thrown a little curveball before I left.  When the schedule for the Paid Warm Ups was put out, they had drawn me for 1:06PM on Wednesday. In order to get there for that, I would have had to leave way earlier than I was comfortable with.  It seems the older I get the more sleep I need. If I wake up before 4, I’m jetlagged, even if I don’t fly on an airplane! Luckily one of my horse show friends had her spot later in the day and she was gracious enough to trade with me. It still meant I had to leave early, but not jetlag early.  I ended up driving out the gate at 4:53 AM. I arrived in Vegas at about 2 PM. The drive was fine, I took the 2 horse trailer so it was easy to stop and use rest areas and fuel up (and I did stop a lot, due to early morning coffee consumption and trying to stay hydrated – it was a warm drive). 

The venue at Vegas is really spectacular.  It is held at the South Point Casino & Hotel and the horse show facility is incorporated into the whole casino/hotel.  You really don’t ever have to see the light of day once you are there. The horses are in stalls on the bottom floor and the arenas are attached.  You access the hotel, and therefore your room, through a corridor from the casino that adjoins the barns. 

I had another friend who was going and we had decided to split a tack room since the stalls were quite expensive (the entire show was quite expensive – except for the hotel room – Oscar’s stall was actually more than my hotel room for 5 nights).  I got Oscar introduced to his high priced stall and the dogs to their area of the tack room (much to their dismay) and then had to promptly saddle up for my Paid Warm-Up (we “buy” time in the arena – alone – to practice what we need to practice). I rode in one of the other arenas to get him warmed up but hadn’t set foot in the show arena until my “time”.  

I had known what pattern we would run for weeks.  It was Pattern 12, what they call a “run in”. Meaning, the first maneuver is running in through the gate past the center marker, stopping and backing up.  Then it is 4 spins to the right, 4 ¼ to the left. Then 2 large left circles and one small slow left circle, change leads, 2 large right circles followed by a slow and lead change.  Then there are 3 more stops, the first 2 have rollbacks and the last one is just a stop. 

There were 2 things I’d never done with Oscar in the show pen.  I’d never started a pattern with a run in and I’d never changed leads from a slow left circle.  The first thing, I’m not very good at and the second thing Oscar is not very good at. Using hindsight now, I think I gave too much energy to these 2 things, to my detriment.  I actually said it to a couple of people out loud! 

The main show arena is a coliseum with lots of seating.  The judges usually sit in the stands, but there were chairs in the arena indicating that they would be in the arena this time.  The far end of the arena can be kind of scary for the horses because it is draped with black drapes and sometimes the tractor is parked there and people walk around there.  Because of the darkness of that end, it creates suspicion in most of the horses. This time, they had a stage set up, which didn’t make it any less scary! They had put up a giant “ceiling” over the entrance to the arena as well, which is not usually there. 

In any case, for the paid warm-up, I thought I had better practice my run in and stop.  If I could do it over, I would not choose that option. He’d never been in the arena and even though he was warmed up and was feeling pretty laid back, the running in and stopping in a brand new arena gave him a good dose of worry.  I spent the rest of my allotted time trying to get him back to a good headspace, mostly by loping quiet circles. I spent most of the time opposite the far end of the arena. Overall I thought it went ok, not good, not horrible, but some things to work on for sure.  

After I rode, I went and checked in, went up to my room and then grabbed something to eat on my way to meet Greg & Jill from Therasage EMC.  They had very generously said they would work on Oscar while we were there. The first night Greg used hands on massage, cold laser and the Magna Wave (PEMF).  He also used some Physio Tape on Oscar’s sacrum that night. By the time they were finished, we were all beat and it was time for some sleep. I admit to sneaking my dogs up to the room in a very covert operation which entailed dragging my suitcase and 2 pups in a shoulder bag covered by a backpack.  They were good though, not a peep. Of course, Drover promptly jumped all over the beds when we arrived, which meant I had some cleaning to do. The hotel had removed their carpets, however, and replaced them with wood floors. This was smart not only because I’m not the only one who sneaks their dogs in, but the amount of shavings and hay that come out of hiding when undressing must have necessitated the replacement. I wonder how many vacuums they ruined before the change. 

We did not have to get up super early because according to the schedule, we couldn’t ride in the show arena until 7:30AM.  However, because I had been awake since 4, tossing and turning, so I was ready to go earlier than that and we were actually allowed in.  I remember working on the running in that day and we nailed it. I was really excited about that. I verbalized to more than one person, “now I just need to do that in my class.”

I did have to work on standing outside of the arena in the “chute” where you run from and into the arena though.  The one thing about Oscar is that he wants to be good. This is his blessing and his curse. If you show him something a few times, in his head I’m sure he is saying, “Got it.  I know what you want. Sit back and let me do it.” So, after running him through the gate and into the arena a couple of times, he knew what was next and he got to anticipating it and collecting some worry.  I ended up sitting right outside the gate for quite a long time which is something I usually don’t do because normally they are attracted to the gate. He felt good everywhere else in the warm-up.

I’ll talk a little about the atmosphere now.  Usually, at this venue, the barns are full and there is a certain energy about the place.  When you ride in the arenas, it’s chock-a-block (full) and it feels like everyone has their competition hat on.  This environment had a more social feel, more excitement, fewer horses and more people. That part was cool – I was warming up with some of the million-dollar riders (which I do a lot anyway since we go to the same shows) on their million-dollar horses but to me, it didn’t feel as competitive.  Maybe we were all just happy to be there or maybe I wasn’t in tune with what everyone else was feeling – haha. 

Anyway, I decided that Oscar didn’t need to be ridden again that day, but that I’d walk him around a bit outside later in the afternoon before Greg worked on him again.  I also made an appointment for him the next day at the “spa” which is a Cold Salt Water therapy unit where the water goes up to their gaskin. Really good for their legs!  I wanted to give him every opportunity to feel his best.

I passed the time during the day playing with the dogs, cleaning Oscar’s stall and a bit of shopping. We had our draw party and I was doing a little behind the scenes work for Horse & Rider Magazine’s Instagram story so I filmed a bit.  Once that was over, Greg worked on Oscar and the dogs and I snuck up to the room again. I think my dinner was a plate of nibblies at the draw party and ½ a chocolate chip cookie when I got back to the room (better than the fried horse show food!).  

The next day, Friday, was pretty much the same thing.  It was the day before my show day. In my warm up I did a lot of walking in and out of the gate and quietly loping in and out.  They changed a couple of things in the arena. The judges’ chairs were now up on platforms and the far end stage had instruments and lights there.  Oscar didn’t really care about these changes, he seemed not to notice too much.  

After I rode him I took him for his spa.  He was a little concerned about this. They basically put a diaper on them and it is awkward.  Then walking him into the chute and when the water started filling up and swirling around, Oscar was not a fan.  It was not exactly the calming, relaxing experience I had hoped for him. He did settle in, and his legs felt great afterward. 

There was a big class on this day, the $100K Open Shoot Out.  So anyone could enter and compete for a purse of $100K (if they wanted to pay the hefty entry fee).  We would come to find out that the top 5 from this class would automatically be entered in the Run For A Million class in 2020 (up until this class was running, nobody knew there would be another event in 2020 – most of us thought this was a one-time thing).  I went and watched this class until my best friend arrived from Texas.  

I thought it would be good to have some support since Warwick wasn’t there.  I had other friends there, of course, but having Liz there was awesome. She is not a horsey person, she is just a great human.  After she arrived, we went back and watched the remaining horses in the 100K class, there were some very nice horses and big scores. Then we walked around the casino and played a few slot machines – where she won $385!  Very exciting! She thought I was a really good friend when I told her, “that’s it, let’s go cash in” instead of playing any more! We went to the Run For A Million draw party, went to dinner and then to bed (with the dogs). By this time my covert operation was pretty standard and nobody looked twice. 

 

Continued in Part 2

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and Internationally competitive rider.

We first got whisperings about a Million Dollar reining early this year (2019). In late February, I got a text from Dan James telling me about a $50k Invitational Freestyle that they were going to have in addition to the million dollar class in Las Vegas. All I had to do was submit a freestyle video! It turns out that my better freestyles were done when VHS was the way to record such things, so I didn’t really have a good recent one. I ended up sending a phone video of The Angry American (a song by Toby Keith) that I did at The Mane Event in Scottsdale in 2017. They let everyone know by June 1st who was chosen for that class – I was not one of them. But by then, they had also added a $50k Non Pro Championship to the event – all you had to do was show in a qualifying class and lucky for us, one of the qualifiers was right up the road from us in July – Reining By The Bay.

In order to qualify, you had to be in the top 5 in one of two non pro classes at that show. Once qualified, you could pick whichever horse you owned to show in Las Vegas. In other words, you didn’t have to show the horse you qualified on.

My horse situation:

After Oscar hurt himself in March, we x-rayed and ultrasounded and couldn’t find anything. We changed his shoeing thinking it was a bone bruise so he had no sliders, he had wedges on his hinds. He was not really lame, just slightly off.

By June, he was much improved but still not 100% so we had a nuclear scan done at the beginning of June. The vet didn’t really find anything in the area of the injury – he reported that Oscar looked good for a 15 year old reining horse. Some heat in all the places you would expect – he suggested injecting his hocks and giving Tildren as maintenance, so we did that.

I had decided that my plan would be to show Petey and Dale at Reining By The Bay and try to qualify for the Run For A Million $50k Non Pro Championship. I would then get Oscar ready to be my horse for that class which was 3 weeks after Reining By The Bay (as long as he recovered to 100% and stayed that way). That would be 9 weeks after he had the suggested treatments. (I felt that Oscar was my best chance in that class after he showed me what he was capable of at WEG last year. I felt that Petey was capable of that too, but it would take more of a toll on him mentally then Oscar as Petey is far more sensitive of a horse than Oscar).

4 weeks post treatment Oscar looked good so I started riding him as well as Petey. This was the second week of July (he had been on our Eurocizer so he was not completely out of shape). I alternated between him and Petey each day, so they each got ridden every other day until the week before Reining By The Bay when they both needed to be ridden daily to ensure they would be fit enough for the stopping part of the patterns. Warwick rode Dale for me the entire time. As Oscar continued to feel great, I had decided that unless something happened, I would show all 3 of them in the qualifying classes and see if I could make it in the top 5 on one of them. Since there were 2 qualifying classes, I figured I had 6 chances – a lot more than most others!
This also would give me insight as to how Oscar would handle minimal preparation vs. the months of preparation he had last year.

Luckily for us, Reining by the Bay is the closest big reining show to us. It is a little over an hour’s drive. It is also held at one of the biggest outdoor arena venues and it just so happens to overlook the San Francisco Bay. You can actually see the chapel at Stanford University from the arena. We love showing there and I’ve had a pretty good track record there except the time I got vertigo at the show and couldn’t show (2016)!

Instead of keeping the horses in stalls all week at the show, we planned to fight traffic and drive back and forth from home going up on show days and hopefully once the week before. They would be setting up for the show, but we were able to get some time in the arena. We ended up going twice the week before.

We took Dale & Oscar on Tuesday and Dale & Petey on Thursday. The arenas were not busy at all, and they got to have a look around and feel the ground. I would show the following Tuesday and Thursday.

On the following Tuesday, when the class order was drawn, I was to show Dale before Petey and then Petey before Oscar. I had plenty of time in between Petey and Oscar, but not so much between Dale & Petey. Warwick prepared Dale for me and I warmed up Oscar quite early. I was sticking to his formula of ride early then just walk/jog around before going in his class. For Petey, I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked and I didn’t get him stopping very well in warm up. Everything else felt great. I’d never had 3 horses to show before, let alone in the same class. It was a little hectic.

When I showed Dale, he felt pretty good. He had been shown a bit last year by a big time open (professional trainer) rider, but in watching the show videos, he kept him very contained and rode with a lot of contact. This is not really my style and so by riding on a looser rein, there is a lot of margin for error. I had a couple of penalties and ended with a score of 70 on Dale.

Petey was as good as he’s ever been in his spins and circles, but I did not get him stopped very well. Another score of 70.

At this point, the day was not going as I’d visualized. I didn’t have any expectations for Dale, but I thought I could do well on Petey. I thought he was my qualifier since Oscar had not had that much preparation.

After jogging Oscar around a bit, I took him in and he was amazing. He was right there for me, only going as fast as I asked and the judge rewarded us with a top score of 73.5. That score held for the remainder of the class and we ended up winning over the entire qualifying class. We were qualified for Vegas! I decided that we did not need to show in the second qualifying class since I attained my goal. To do so would just add another hard run before Vegas, something he didn’t need.

I did want to keep riding Petey as well just in case something happened to Oscar. We decided to go back to the show on Sunday and “school” in another class. Schooling means that we enter a regular class, with the intention of staying close to the pattern but fixing things that need to be fixed without offending/disrespecting the judge’s time. We intend to receive a 0 score. To participate in this class on Sunday meant getting up at 5AM and driving to the venue, preparing the horses like they were to get shown and then fixing whatever I needed to in the arena. Both of them just needed to have a nice soft experience in the show pen, so that is what I did.

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and Internationally competitive rider.

I am preparing for an upcoming Women’s Retreat (www.womensconfidenceretreat.com) and so I’m reviewing the Brené Brown curriculum from my recent Dare to Lead™ Facilitator Training.

I get to speak about the unspeakables – Vulnerability & Shame and the antidote to it – Empathy.

As I was revisiting the 5 parts to Empathy, I thought that Warwick could easily rename the “Focus work” to “Empathy work.” I was specifically thinking this when I was reviewing the 5 attributes of Empathy but then as I was typing this, all of it resonated with me in context of our horses (of course, Brené is speaking of Daring Human Leadership).

The thing about empathy is that you don’t have to have experienced the same thing.  You are not responding to an event, it’s not responding to an experience.  It is responding to the emotion that underlies the experience or event.  With empathy, you are connecting to the emotions.   Brené does this little exercise where she asks: “Raise your hands if you know what Love feels like?  Hate? Surprise? Fear? Shame? Curiosity? Disappointment? Confusion?” When everyone raises their hands for each one, like you probably did, she exclaims, “You Pass!”  We have all felt those things, we know what emotions feel like even if we haven’t experienced every single event.

So, you have the ability to be Empathetic because you’ve felt those emotions before.  You have the ability to connect to the emotions even if you haven’t had the experience. However, while you may be inherently kind, empathy is a practiced skill.

Here are the 5 attributes of Empathy and kind of my mashup as to where it relates to our horses as well as humans.  Brené puts them in this order.  I interpret it in this order 1, 3, 4 and use #2 and #5 throughout (hope that makes sense):

1. Perspective Taking – To see the world as others see it – you need to listen to a person’s story and honor it as truth even if it doesn’t fit with your experience in that situation.Another way that I just saw this written in context to horses from Kerri Lake’s “Listen Like A Horse”-  ‘This is what it feels like to be me in this situation’~          Love, your horse.
2. Stay out of judgment – Kerri also talks about judgments in the way that I wish I could convey. She says:  Judgments are not truths, they are opinions.  Judgements that show up as negative or positive are creating limiting barriers for our awareness.  They create obstacles for communication.  Judgment leads to fixing problems rather than creating effective and elegant responses.In reference to people, Brené has found in her research that we judge in places that we are susceptible to shame and we judge those doing worse than us in those areas.The beautiful thing about our horses is that they don’t judge us.  Not many places we can go for that in this world!

3. Recognizing Emotion – Emotional literacy is hard with people and even harder with horses. This is why just observing them and “Being” with them is so important.     One of the ways your horse communicates with you is the way that he presents, “Here’s how it feels to be me with you when you show up like that.”I think Warwick’s sentiment of “Take everything as valuable information not as a personal insult” is right on here.  We have to recognize their emotion without judging it.  Once we judge it, we create our own emotion and horses can read that vibration from us.  That is one of their superpowers, so we have to be very careful that it doesn’t influence the next skill.

4. Communicate Emotion – Communicate your understanding of that person’s feelings.  This is the beautiful dance of the Focus work with your horse.  Keeping stress indicators in mind.  Balancing the drive and draw.  Waiting for them while they process.  You are communicating to them that you hear and understand them.   The way that we do this is through the next skill.

5. Mindfulness – Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and surrounding environment. It involves acceptance, which means that we pay attention to those things without judging them.  When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future.  **This excerpt is from the definition of Mindfulness from the Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley.I love this piece because we get so caught up in the past with horses.  We create stories around what has happened to the horse in the past instead of just listening to their truth.  I love what Kerri Lake says, “Those stories are largely of misunderstanding and misinterpretations of people, of their judgments and fears of their own ability or inability to be in control, to perform, to create a certain outcome.”  Their truth is simply who they are and how they are showing up right now, at this moment, standing in front of you.

Well, that got a little more in depth than I had envisioned.  I was simply thinking of the straight 1-5 list and let you make up your own parallels but I felt compelled to add my thoughts.  I don’t think we will change the name of the Focus Work, but I think it really speaks to what we are doing with our horses when we are being empathetic (you can say Empathetic or Empathic – they are the same).

We are honoring them.  We are respecting them.  We are listening to them.  We are loving them.

I for one, can never go back to the horseperson I was before.  I was well on my path when I bought Dale, but he has really shown me what can be accomplished through being empathetic.  To say he is a completely different horse now is the truth.  In this case, doing the Empathy Work is a double-edged sword though – since the plan was to show him and then sell him.  Now that I’ve seen the horse he can be, the decision to sell him will be harder knowing what he will likely revert back to.   I struggle with that – the practical (we don’t need 8 horses on 6 acres) versus the emotional (how can I sell him knowing he will revert back to the horse he was before in the absence of empathetic handling).   I guess I’ll figure it out eventually.

Thanks for letting me share my musings.

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and Internationally competitive rider.

Not that I think you shouldn’t check on your horse’s physical wellness, but when I hear someone dismiss working on a behavioral issue with a horse and instead focus on soreness or a feed to give them instead, I think you are doing not only a disservice to your horse but yourself as well.

Read my first sentence – it’s not that I don’t think you should be on top of those things – you certainly should be.  I just don’t want you to let yourself off the hook.

Brene Brown says that Blame is just the discharge of discomfort or anger.  I found that definition very enlightening.  Now, when I find myself teetering on a blamefest, I try to become curious about the underlying feelings and examine them further.  At first it was just the act of identifying that I was using blame – you know what they say – you have to be aware of the problem first.  I’m not saying I have this mastered, blame is something that has a pretty good hold on me.  I’d like to think it’s getting better though.

When we see our horses respond or act in a way that we’ve decided is not right, I think too many times we want to blame soreness or feed or equipment or the weather or the change of scenery or ANYTHING BUT US.  I touched on this in my earlier blog You are the constant factor. There is one story I wanted to share that prompted me to write another about this subject.

We were at a horse expo – Warwick was working with a “problem horse” on the ground and the owner was having some trouble.  The owner had described her horse using a couple of different names (stubborn was one). She was having trouble getting her horse to go off around her.  It turned out that she was asking the horse to go, but stepping back at the same time.  This resulted in a horse that was confused – not stubborn.  This is one of the most common problems that we see horse owners do with their horse.  The result is that the horse gets mixed signals and often doesn’t know what to do.  They get confused.  It’s not the human’s intention – having a rather large animal in front of us causes our body to react all sorts of ways.

To describe this a little more – because this is definitely something to understand about horses.  Horses are very good at letting you know if what is on your inside doesn’t match how it comes out the outside.  A good word to use is Congruent.  They know when your thoughts and your actions are congruent or incongruent.  In this case, consciously, the person was wanting her horse to go but unconsciously there was something that did not match that and it came out as stepping backwards.  Maybe she was thinking, I want the horse to go, but……what if he does this or last time he did this or I don’t want to get run over or kicked or whatever.  The point is, the horse picked up on the incongruence and was confused.

As if he was sprinkling his fairy dust around, the minute Warwick took a hold of the lead rope, the problem went away.  He explained what he saw her doing, why it didn’t work for her and showed her a different way.  The horse responded immediately. Warwick didn’t really do anything except act with congruence.  His internal intention and thoughts matched what he asked the horse to do.  He didn’t need a rope, a stick & string, nothing but the ask, because it was clear to the horse.  The session ended with the horse showing it was capable of going off with energy and relaxation.  It was really cool.

The owner came up to the booth later and said that another clinician had approached her after the session and told her that her horse was sore and that she should have it worked on. Now, that is fair enough, I’m never going to tell a person NOT to do something that will benefit the horse and we are huge advocates of body work on horses – we get ours done all the time.  It was how I heard the owner of the horse communicate it to me.  To me, it was like she had forgotten that Warwick had shown her that her horse didn’t really have the issues she thought that it had.  I believe she was convinced that the answer was that the horse was sore and that is why it was not working for her.  It’s like she did not see the horse “not be sore” with Warwick and respond to what he was doing.  It was like she was holding onto an answer that let her off the hook.

I bring this up because this is a common occurrence on the Facebook group.  People want to first blame the feed or the body or the teeth or the feet or the equipment (not that you shouldn’t be on top of all of those things to begin with, you totally should).  But, what you should also be cognitive of is you and how you affect your horse.  Are you bringing in the baggage of your day? Using the time with your horse as your release? Are you mentally present and ALL IN? Are you making tiny little mistakes that confuse your horse? (Not being consistent is one of those little things – think of a person you’ve known in your life that was inconsistent and how you responded to them – Warwick had a boss like that. Every morning it was a guessing game as to what mood the boss would be in and that would determine the day he’d have.)  Be aware of it, don’t beat yourself up over it, but also don’t dismiss the fact that you are probably a bigger factor than food, equipment, etc.  Maybe some days it is better for your horse if you don’t show up or maybe just hang out with them instead of working with them.

Hopefully I can persuade you to FIRST look at how the horse is being handled and what it is being taught (whether you mean to or not).  When you are handling the horse, you will notice if there is something physically wrong.  In doing the first parts of either the SKILLS or RELATIONSHIP path – you are observing your horse intensely.  If you notice something “off” ask yourself:  Does he do this when I am not around/attached to him/riding him?   If the answer is yes, then perhaps you should investigate further.  But if your horse has done something 1 time or doesn’t do it when you are not in the equation, then perhaps the only investigation you need to do is with yourself.

The more and more I learn about energy, the more convinced I am that I am the one that needs to change to suit my horse rather than the other way around (the way I have conducted myself up until this realization.) This journey is really a self-development one and I am learning so much!

Thanks for reading – I hope it didn’t come across as a rant!

 

 

 

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and Internationally competitive rider.

I thought I’d jot down some thoughts from the first show of the year in Arizona last week.  It was a big show, not just a local affiliate show. In the lead up to the show, I had high expectations even in light of my weak preparation due to weather and my lack of experience getting a younger horse ready to show (Warwick was in Australia for 3 weeks leading up to the show).

However, the week before the show, I was having real doubts about going.  I felt that we weren’t ready, I was concerned about driving 13 hours by myself with a new trailer and horse and it’s always hard to leave home and the animals that stay.  For me, no matter how good the people are that help us out, it’s still stressful to drive out the gate and turn it over to someone else.

I told Warwick about my doubts and he supported whatever decision I made.  Please don’t laugh when I tell you how I made my decision. A little backstory first.

I am working with 2 incredible women to host a Women’s confidence retreat later in the year – where people bring their own horses and we get to work on ourselves and go on trail rides, eat great food, and really delve deeply into self improvement.  They are both Theta Healers, amongst other awesome credentials they possess. They referred me to someone locally to go and have “a session” with. I’m pretty open to new things lately, so I thought that if they recommended it, I’d go! I didn’t ask many questions beforehand.  When I made the appointment, Denise (https://deniseelizabethbyron.com/), the lady I was to go see, asked me my birth details. No problemo!

It turns out she is an astrologer/business coach/numerologist type of person (I still can’t really explain what she does).  When I got there she had a print out of how the planets were all aligned when I was born. Then she proceeded to describe me to the very Nth degree just by reading my chart. A few hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.  Then she asked about Tyler and his birth details and described him to the Nth degree. It was crazily accurate. We talked about the future and I left with another appointment scheduled.

So, what did I do when I was having doubts about going to this show?  I texted Denise! I basically asked her to tell me if the stars said I should go or not!  She replied an emphatic YES! She said that the energy for Travel & Competition was high and that if it was going to be FUN then I should go. Go I did!

I think I’ll have to make this a series because to go over everything is going to take awhile.  So, I will cover travel through arrival day and then continue in subsequent posts.

I decided to break up the drive and I found a horse hotel about 8 hours away, in Palm Desert near Palm Springs.  Most of the drive is down the very straight and flat Highway 5 which is pretty boring. Then up the “grapevine” and over through some little towns – which bypasses Los Angeles – which is never any fun to drive in.   I had planned to leave by 9AM so I could get things situated here first and not surprisingly, was out the gate at 9:01AM (I’m very punctual – which was verified by Denise – I think she said “You get shit done” – ummmm, yes, yes I do).

The drive was unremarkable – I listened to The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh.  Highly recommend it. The horses traveled fine, I found good places to fuel up (the trailer is pretty long, so it is a bit tricky to maneuver into fuel up).  

We arrived at the horse hotel around 5 pm, got the boys settled in their outdoor pens, got the trailer parked and had time to turn them both out to let off a little steam after their trailer confinement.  They only had little automatic waterers which neither of the boys liked (I had Dale and Oscar with me), so I just dug out a couple of our buckets and filled them up.

I did a quick Ziva Meditation, ate some dinner, cuddled the dogs, tucked the boys in and went to bed. I wish I could say it was a restful night, but I had more anxiety that night then I’d had in awhile.  I was parked right outside of the facility, in their parking lot. It backed up to the desert basically. Nothing behind us but open land with Joshua trees and scrub. Coyotes were howling and I thought – “Great, just great.  What if there are people wandering around out here. What if there is a serial killer in Desert Hot Springs (seriously, I actually contemplated the serial killer scenario). Yada Yada Yada” I remember waking up, thinking Ok, I’ve just gone through 1 sleep cycle, now I need to cool off, go into another and repeat that a couple more times!  My mind did calm down a bit but sleep was still restless and I woke up pretty early – good time to do my Ziva meditation, make some coffee and because the sun came up earlier there I got on the road by 6:07AM!

It was only a 4-5 hour trip into Scottsdale so not too bad.  I re-listened to the Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton – fascinating stuff!  I felt like I had a bit of an anxiety hangover (I haven’t been drinking so it wasn’t a traditional one).  I think the restlessness during the night really had an effect!

I arrived at the venue and was able to pull up right outside the barns, unload and get everyone situated.  I set up the trailer, put the Air Con on, because it’s Arizona and went off to ride!

This is where it got a little interesting!  Both boys were now calling out to each other!   I started with Dale and my intention was to take the time it takes.  This horse show usually allows us to arrive 4 or 5 days before the actual competition starts, but this year, we were only allowed to arrive the day before!  I was scheduled to show both horses the next day. The plan was to “school” meaning I’d go in with the intention of showing where I could in the pattern and fixing what needed fixing.  This should mean not a whole lot of expectation.

Anyway, I started well with Dale, doing a little focus work but he was definitely not responding like at home.  I decided, well, he is good at it when I ride him so I’ll just get on. He actually did do better once I was on him.  It only took about 10 minutes for him to settle in. I rode him in a couple of the arenas because they were all open and he took that in his stride.

We haven’t been able to do much stopping at home because of the weather and our arena being outside has been too wet to do much of that.  So, I needed to work on this. While we have made progress with some of the “tightness” that Dale exhibits, on this day, Dale held onto it like a pacifier.  When I say tightness, when we run down for a stop, he is tight in his shoulders and he runs downhill and has been known to porpoise a bit (have a hump in his back and his neck down while running, not really bucking, but not really not bucking).  Instead of driving from behind, running free and loose, he can run tight like this. This does not set us up well for stops. After a little while, I thought about it and decided to go back a couple steps! I had to establish more forward period. So, that is what I did.  I got him more forward at lower speeds and then he loosened up on his run downs. A small victory, but I was feeling very smart. I knew I had another ride on him in the morning before the official class and my expectations were still high.

I rode Oscar, who was a little more “up” than usual.  He called out to Dale several times and wasn’t his usual chill self.  As I mentioned, usually this is not anything to cause concern because we have days to figure it out and let them settle in.  I tried to convince myself that this was going to just be a “I guess we’ll see how they are when they aren’t very well prepared” show.  “You need those sometimes”, I told myself. “It can’t always go to plan”, I tried to convince my brain. It was a struggle because I knew I didn’t believe any of those things – I wanted to do well.  I wanted them to show well. I wanted to have fun in the arena without them doing anything wrong. You know what they say – Expectation is the root of all disappointment or something like that…totally!

I took them both down to the washracks and gave them a good bath – something they desperately needed after the winter we’ve had.  The Arizona sun felt good on all of us! I also gave them both a Bemer (PEMF) treatment and they got their yummy grain and dinner.  I went to bed that night excited to get up and ride them again before the show started. I was draw 2 on Oscar and 17 on Dale, so it was to be an early morning and I’d be done by 10:30 AM which gave me all day to play in the desert!

Next blog will be about DAY 1 and 2 of the horse show.

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and Internationally competitive rider.

Written in December 2018.

I thought I’d share a little of what’s been happening with my new horse “Dale”.  We purchased Dale a couple weeks ago at the NRHA Futurity show – Chuy shopped for me, as he knows my style and abilities quite well.  We had chosen a mare that he really liked but unfortunately, she had a little issue on her stifle that I was not willing to risk.  When he found out Dale was for sale (his name was Fabio then), he called me straight away.  Dale was an “open” horse, meaning he was high enough caliber for a really top professional to ride, but Chuy felt he’d make a good horse for me.

After exceeding our goals at the World Equestrian Games, I felt the need to set new ones and Jane Pike had encouraged me to aim high.  So, I have.  Currently, my total NRHA earnings are a bit over $56,000 USD.  It has taken me since 2001 to accumulate those earnings (I have only showed consistently about 4 of those years – meaning shown all year vs. one or two shows per year).  In 2016, I doubled my earnings because I showed 2 horses and showed a fair bit.  So I went from $22,000 to $44,000.  Well, the new goals are:

2019 – Get to $100,000 in earnings

2020 – Win the AQHA Select Amateur Reining World Championship (for 50 and over non-professionals)

In order to reach my goal for next year, I needed a younger horse so that I could show in the categories that had more money.  The classes for the oldies like Oscar don’t provide enough money for me to reach my goals in one year. This is why I was searching for a younger horse.  Dale will be 5 on January 1st (like all horses in the Northern Hemisphere).  We will show in the “Derby” classes next year.  These are for 4, 5 & 6 year old horses and have significantly more money than the Maturities (for horses over 7).

Anyway, when we flew back to Oklahoma City to meet Fabio/Dale at the show, I was at first a bit disappointed, honestly.  He was really not very good on the ground.  He had to chew on something the entire time – including us if he could reach. I am going to go out on a limb here and admit that, in my head, I thought he was a bit scary.  He was one I was not going to turn my back on.  This was my first impression of the horse I’d already paid for!  I was able to think more logically about why he acted this way:  1.  Dale/Fabio was a horse in a big trainer’s barn/program – one of probably 30-50 horses the trainer rode.  An assistant had done all the work on the ground with him – saddling, grooming, preparing, etc. The trainer had gotten on, ridden him, gotten off and handed him to someone else for everything else – unsaddling, washing, etc..Usually in programs like this, that person is one of the least experienced  2. I don’t think he had a very high opinion of humans.  and not surprisingly 3. He was anxious.  But even though I knew logically what was going on, my heart was a bit heavy (for many reasons) and I sure hoped that we could help him once we got home.

So, while I was in OKC, I didn’t try to change anything – he was very good under saddle.  “Good” meaning obedient.  He did what I asked for without appearing anxious or defensive or resentful.  Talent was not an issue either – he is a great reining horse.

We got him back to our place last week and today will be session 6 with him.  I just want to talk about session 1 and 5 so that I can talk about breaking old habits.

The first session was in the round pen.  He was turned loose.  I was doing the work under Warwick’s watchful eye (and camera – we are videoing the whole thing).  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit anxious.  I don’t like when horses bite – it is scary.  In the past, biting was met with an elbow.  Not in a malicious way, but as an “oops you just ran into my elbow” way.  It usually worked, but in hindsight it can also make a horse defensive and just obedient.  You probably have not taken away their desire to bite, but they know there will be a repercussion if they do, so they don’t.

I went to the middle of the round pen and when he finally engaged me and came up to me, he started to chew.  My instinct was to throw the elbow in to protect myself.  Warwick suggested a different idea after my first flaying elbow – he told me to just increase my energy – not AT Dale, just in my space.  Start small and increase until Dale steps back.  At first I did too much, because, as I said, I don’t want to be bitten.  After a while I got the hang of the new response and started more slowly and then intensified until he stepped back.  The most amazing thing happened.  He stopped trying to bite me, he licked and chewed and started to nuzzle me instead.  Instead of pushing into me, he was asking if he could share space with me.

Now, I know I’ve heard and seen the most incredible things from the focus work and Oscar is awesome at it.  But I guess I’d never truly FIXED something that I thought needed fixing with it until this moment.  It freakin works!!!!  In the subsequent sessions – Dale has progressed and while in my presence he has not tried to chew on things or me anymore as long as I can get his focus.

The second day under saddle was another opportunity for me to break a habit.  The habit that I had before was to lead the horse into the arena and get on.  I did some focus work online just to see how that was and after I bridled him, I noticed that when I went to get on, he blocked me out.  In the past, I would not have seen this display and would have just gotten on.  Instead, I did the whole calming signals thing.  When I went to approach his near side and he blocked me, I stepped back, saying to him with my body language, “I saw that.”  It took a couple times and then he let me around to mount.  It’s not fixed yet, but I think we are making progress and I know he is feeling good about the relationship that is developing between us.

I have a long way to go, but they say you get the horse you need – I guess I needed Dale!

FOLLOW UP – I wrote this next blog, forgetting I’d written the one above, so this is an interesting Post Script – Written March 6th, so about 3 months later!

After the World Equestrian Games (WEG) last year, I thought about how I was to top that?  What could possibly be better than the entire experience in Tryon? I wanted to ride the high and I set out to establish some really lofty new goals.   

The biggest one was to double my NRHA earnings in 2019.  I had done it once before, in 2016 when I showed both Petey & Sherlock. Of course it was a smaller number then.  To accomplish it in 2019, it meant I needed a horse that could show in some of the premiere events and my horses were too old for those divisions (even though I will show them in some other classes and plan to show Oscar early in the year and Petey later in the year after Bella has her baby).   This is why I bought Dale (formerly known as Fabio).

My plan was to bring Dale home for a couple weeks, get to know him and then send him to Chuy’s to stay in full time training. (Dale was the last name of his previous owners and the name went well with my other boys Petey & Oscar).  I rationalized that we didn’t have the room (we only have 3 stalls and we needed them for Bella, Petey & Oscar) and I didn’t have the time to ride 2 horses every day. He would just be my show horse, I thought, I won’t get attached.  Then I’ll sell him at the end of the year so that he is still young enough to get what we paid for him and I’ll have reached my goal and YES – that is an awesome plan!

Then I brought him home.

He’s a talented reining horse.  He’s a successful reining horse – he won 2 Reserve World Championships in 2018.  

But man was he anxious.  That chewing – all anxiety/disassociation stuff. 

He didn’t know how to interact with us.  

It took me 3 days of sitting on a bucket in the round pen for him to be curious & confident enough to want much to do with me!  After that, everyday our relationship deepened. Oh boy, I’m in trouble! I think my horse purchasing should be stopped. I cannot keep collecting these horses!!!

So, Bella moved in with Petey (yes, they share a stall and paddock when it’s raining and it’s been raining a lot here) and Dale joined them and Oscar in the barn and took the 3rd stall. I’ve shifted my schedule so that I’m riding more – it’s good to have Oscar be the second horse I have to ride since he just needs to be kept fit and happy.  

The past few months of riding Dale and getting to know him, my opinion of him has only grown better and better.  Warwick loves him, he says, “Well maybe he’s a 2 year horse now.” Translation: maybe he is never leaving!

I think my whole competition mindset has shifted as well.  WEG was such an awesome experience that now when I start thinking about a monetary goal, I’m not sure I want to continue towards it.  You see, WEG was not about money. WEG was about the experience of representing a country and going out and having FUN and of course, doing the best we could in the arena.  It was about spending time with people we love and respect. It was about so much more than winning anything. Hard to explain when all of my life, the showing has been about competing and winning.

I’m pretty sure I won’t ever have another WEG experience.  I’m just as sure that I’ll spend a lot of time chasing that feeling. I don’t think it is attainable if I only focus on the competition instead of the experience. I think I want the experience more now.  I never thought I’d be saying that.

I leave for the first show of the season in 10 days.  I feel like a weight has been lifted after this realization and new focus.  I’m looking forward to spending time in the desert (there is something magical about the desert) with my 2 horses and my dogs and my friends (Warwick arrives on show day).  I plan to keep all the practices that I did at WEG with me and even add some new one’s like meditation into the mix.  I’ll be the one going for a walk amongst the cactus before my class and smiling all the way through my pattern and hoping like HE## that when it comes down to it, I can remain in the moment and grateful for the experience that is presented to me!

Thanks for reading.

 

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and nationally competitive rider.

If you would have told me that Warwick & I would both mark our Personal Best scores in reining at the World Equestrian Games (WEG – the “biggest” show we’ve ever gone to), I would never believed it possible!  But we did and more!

I thought I would jot down the most significant things that WE DID AT THE GAMES, not leading up to the games because there was so much in the leadup (from the horse training to the mental preparation).  These things worked for us because we had done a lot of work prior to our arrival in Tryon.

Keep your expectations realistic! Our expectations were to do the best that we could with our horse on the day – truly!  We were showing horses that were kept at home, lived in a pasture together, weren’t clipped and we were showing against the best of the best.  We wanted to do well for the team, but never thought past that.  We figured we would show once – in the team event.  Neither of us thought we would do well enough to qualify for a second run, but we both did.  And after that run we were only ½ point and 1 point, respectively, off of making the individual finals – WAYYYYYY more than we could have dreamed! I think if we had gone in with the expectation to make the individual finals, things would not have gone as well.

We surrounded ourselves with awesome people.  Our dream team was assembled by a combination of us choosing some of the people around us, some of the people chose to come to the games and the remainder were teammates who had earned their place there.   I will mention the one that I got to choose, Jane Pike (Confident Rider).  You would be hard pressed to find a lovlier human being than Jane.  Add in the fact that she has some super mental/mindset skills to share and is also one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, it was an easy choice to invite her along on this journey.  I actually popped the question to her last year while we were in New Zealand and I prefaced it with “If we are lucky enough to qualify for this amazing event…”  I couldn’t be happier with that decision and her acceptance to come.  I know she sacrificed a lot to be there with us and am so grateful for her presence before, during and after the WEG. Surrounding ourselves with people like Jane definitely boosted our game.

We adopted a no complaining/negativity rule complete with a “safeword” when we strayed.  The word doesn’t matter – and our chosen one was part of an inside joke (it was “water”). It was just a trigger to stop the path of our negative thinking.  In our group, if anyone strayed into negative territory, we just called out our safe word and it adjusted our thoughts.  Personally, there were a couple of times that I had to physically removed myself from negative conversations (when I was around other people, not our group).  You couldn’t get me out of there fast enough! I’m not saying that we were always 100% positive, that is unrealistic, however, I reckon we got into the 70-80% range.

Make sure you arrive at the event in the best physical and mental shape possible.   I’ve always done some sort of exercise but we started Crossfit about 6 weeks before we travelled to the games and it made me feel strong and good about myself (and a little sore!).  We also have been practicing Meditation for the last year or so through the help of Jane Pike who made us our own personalized audios.  We also practiced using Headspace and Muse.  Having a clear mind really helps reduce the anxiety and anticipation and gets you back into the moment. Both of us also went “on the wagon” for 3 months prior to the WEG.

Make sure your horse arrives at the event in the best physical and mental shape possible. I won’t share how much our vet/shoeing bills were, but we ensured we had given the horses the VERY best care and probably went a little overboard in the lead up.  They got shockwave, joint injections, Adequan, Legend, bodywork, the best shoeing around to match x-rays of their angles, etc.  We carefully monitored what work we did and when we did it.  Honestly, I didn’t stop my horse until the second day we were at the venue and I only stopped him about 3 times each day.  I think I only worked on the spin 3 of the 6 days we were there. I ensured that he was able to reset himself mentally if he got too “up”.  I did notice that after the first hard run, he changed from being a little forward but chilled to more anxious and less forward.  It was an interesting observation but obviously didn’t impact the semi-final performance!

Get enough sleep.  Luckily we did not have to, nor could we, ride during early AM or late PM hours.  The riding schedule was posted the day before so we were able to plan for bed times, etc.  It is unusual to not be tired at the horse shows and for someone who has a hard time napping, I needed to get my sleep during normal sleeping hours!

Eat as well as you can.  This was probably the biggest challenge.  We were in a catering situation that wasn’t real good until about 2 days before we competed.  I think the adrenaline from just being there helped and I never found myself being “Hangry”.  I did want a lot of veggies by the end of it though.

Listen to music that inspires you.  We had a 30-minute drive to and from the venue each day, so we filled the mornings with songs that we had chosen to inspire us.  My two songs were “Best Day of My Life” by the American Authors and one that I’ve been listening to before every horse show since I was 5 years old, “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” by Willie Nelson.  Warwick’s choices were “Believer” by Imagine Dragons and “Legend” by The Score.

Make sure what you’ve left at home is in good hands.  Most people I know can’t just go away from home for weeks at a time with nothing to sustain at home.  For us, we still had 5 horses, 2 dogs, a cat and a flock of chickens to be loved while we were gone.  Luckily, we found Bekah Tate who not only took great care of everything and everyone at home, but we got frequent updates from her as well!

In the warmup: 

• When I would think about what might go wrong, I stopped the thought and instead gave thanks and gratitude for what I’d already accomplished (just being there, being able to show, my horse was sound and happy and prepared are just a few of the things I thought about). This was upon Jane’s suggestion and it worked a treat!
• I focused on my performance statement – reminders to Focus, Think Slow, Slow your hand down, SMILE!
• On the gratitude type of vibe, I also kept repeating a couple things in my mind. I pretended that someone was interviewing me after and asking me how it went and my answers were:  We had the best run we’ve ever had and My horse was better than he’s ever been.
• Employed 2 different breathing techniques that Jane showed us.

In the showpen:

• Reminded myself of my performance statement (slow down).
• Reminded myself to SMILE – I was showing at the frigging WEG!!!
• Employed the breathing technique that didn’t require fingers on my nose.

While some of these things are specific to the actual showpen, I think you could use some of the advice for anything in life.  I’ve certainly used it in other areas, and knowing the combination made for such a successful event at the World Equestrian Games, I’ll be employing these tips on a regular basis!  I’ll also continue doing the other work on myself and my horses that are found in Warwick’s subscription library and on Confident Rider!

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and nationally competitive rider.

It’s Sunday and we are anticipating the arrival of Bekah from Texas.  She is coming as an “intern” to learn from Warwick while he is here and hold down the fort when we go on 3 trips – WEG in September, New Zealand in October and Massachusetts in November.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit nervous – it’s always a bit of a risk inviting someone into your home when you don’t really know them!  I’m sure it will be fine but the anticipation causes a bit of unrest!

Oscar got another easy day – I just put him on the Eurocizer since I have a lot of work to catch up on after being gone for 4 days.  We are in the middle of a big overhaul to both the main website and video site, so I’ve got to get stuck into that. Petey & Sherlock had a bit of an easy day as well.

I thought I’d mention another hurdle that we encountered on this WEG journey so you don’t think it’s all just roses, unicorns and fairy dust.

Not surprising that it has to do with Bella again (seems to be a theme, hmmmmm).  I mentioned before that she was sore in the front feet when we first got her, so we have played around with her shoeing, injected her and are always cognizant of her movement.  When we were in Arizona, the first week of our big 5 week tour trip, she seemed really good.  I built up her stopping stamina and actually had a high point during one of our early morning schooling sessions:

Casey Deary is one of the best reining trainers that there is out there, he’s earned over a million dollars in winnings and wins the biggest events.  He is a really, really great guy…super funny and can do a pretty good Australian accent to boot!  Well, I was stopping Bella one morning and he happened to be at the end where I had just executed a most awesome slide on Miss Bella, who is a pretty bada$$ stopper!  After watching said stop, Casey asked me “what is that one?” Now, to many, that might not seem like much, but when one of the best trainers asks what horse you are riding after a big time stop, you feel pretty good.  I think I fumbled around with my words a bit because it caught me so off guard.  I usually try to have a good quip ready to fire back at Casey because usually it is a funny thing that he says.  He was not being funny this time and it made my day (maybe my week, honestly).

Anyway, when it was time for the vet inspection (aka “the jog”) for the CRI3* I was most worried about her front feet, because that is all we’ve had issues with.  I got Oscar done and he passed with flying colors, but Miss Bella got pulled aside for further inspection.  I thought they’d come over and start checking her front feet, but they were checking her stifle.  The vet went to touch it and she nearly kicked him!  Oh no!  I’d been so concerned about the front that I hadn’t even thought about the hind end.  They had me do the trot again and told me that we were “provisionally passed” but if when I warmed her up, she felt off in any way, that I should not compete on her.

Because there were only 6 in the class, and I went first on Oscar, my plan was to warm Bella up first and put her away and then get on Oscar, warm him up and show.  Then I would get Bella back out, jog around and show her.  When I warmed Bella up, she seemed fine, the vet and judge gave her the thumbs up (I had put some poultice on her stifle between the jog and the warm up).  I put her away and went about my planned warm up with Oscar and then showed him.   I received a 70.5 on Oscar which was a second qualifying score above 70, so there was exactly ZERO reason to get Bella back out and show her.  I decided to scratch her from the competition and get some Bute into her as soon as I could.

We decided from that point on that we would concentrate on getting Bella in foal to Petey’s daddy.  His name is Dun Gotta Gun and he stands in Texas, right down the road from where we were going to stay before the next show.  We made plans to drop her off there and get ‘er done!   It didn’t exactly work that way, but that is for another time (and she is in foal now).

This week will be a bit frantic, lots of things to organize – truck and trailer services, body worker here, horseshoeing, vet here to shockwave Petey, Aussies arriving from Australia and New Zealand and we have to pack up the truck and trailer and horses and get them on the road.

I’m not sure I’ll post everyday – we’ll see how it goes.  Perhaps if something really out of the ordinary happens I’ll blog about it, but the plan is to keep fitness up rather than train a whole bunch.  Warwick will be working with the other horses with Bekah so she can step in while we are gone – I think he has plans to video a lot so you’ll get to see some new footage on the subscription on Ringer and Murray and he’s going to finish up the sidepassing up to the fence “trick” with Oscar.

Thanks for reading.

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and nationally competitive rider.

A summary of the days since we went to the horse show.

TUESDAY: We ended up getting on the road earlier than we planned, which is always a bonus.   Setting up the stalls, tack room and living quarters trailer take a while and we wanted to ride in the arena, so getting there earlier than anticipated was a good thing!

We were able to ride one that afternoon before going to the Mexican restaurant for dinner.  I rode Oscar,of course, and Warwick rode Sherlock.  Both of the boys were good.  The show arena was open and there weren’t a lot of people riding, so we were able to take our time and put them through a few paces.  Sherlock seemed pretty relaxed and present and Oscar was Oscar – he is usually the same anywhere.   After dinner, Warwick rode Petey.  Now Petey can get the “first day at the horse show” feeling.  This means that he doesn’t respond as well as he does at home and gets a little “flat”.  There was a bit of that, but not like usual.

WEDNESDAY: The first day of the official horse show was dedicated to “paid warm-ups” which is basically paying for 5 minutes in the arena.  You can do whatever you like with the time. For all of our horses, we used it to just chill, kind of lope around, let them know it is no big deal and that not every time we go in the arena are we going to 1. Run a pattern or 2. Run a pattern hard.  This all went well, Warwick got 2 go’s with Sherlock because we originally had planned for Cooper to be there.  I guess we haven’t mentioned what is up with Cooper.

Cooper was purchased for Warwick to show this year – to get back in the arena under some pressure.  Cooper was a “Derby” horse, being 6 years old he could compete in higher money events (there is the pressure, because it pays more to win/place it also costs more to enter). You’ve read about Cooper in some of my other blogs, but what it came down to is that Cooper didn’t have the DESIRE to be a reining horse.  Even after changing how we interacted with him (which did help a great deal), it took more than we wanted to do to have him perform in the reining really well.  Cooper had a great deal of talent, but lacked the work ethic to tap into the talent if that makes sense.  Since the plan had always been to show him through Reining By The Bay and then sell him, we stuck to that plan, kind of.   We didn’t actually “sell” him, we donated him to Fresno State University about 2 hours away.  They have an equestrian team that does reining, horsemanship and English.  They will use him for whatever he is best at – a lot of the reiners they get end up being great horsemanship horses.  He will get a lot of young girls to fawn all over him and love on him and so far it seems to be a great match.

Anyway, Warwick got to go twice on Sherlock.  The first time he was a bit bright eyed about being in the arena alone and the second time he was better.  Warwick took his time and worked on him being present and engaged.

Before Warwick’s paid warm-up on Petey, Petey wasn’t stopping. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t coming to a halt, it means when he did a sliding stop he went into the stop, came out of it then went back in. Warwick worked on it just a few times, and when it wasn’t improving, he thought maybe it was something he was doing with his body (believe me, tightening up a muscle here and there in your body has a huge effect on how well a reiner stops) so he had me get on and try it a couple of times. I had about the same result. So at least we knew it wasn’t Warwick’s body position. As with all problem solving, figuring out what is causing the problem is the first course of action, before trying to correct the issue. By the time Warwick’s paid warm-up came up, the issue wasn’t rectified so Warwick stayed away from the stop, just to ensure Petey had a relaxing time in the arena. Afterwards, the problem fixed itself, it turns out that the surface at the show wasn’t as heavy as our at home, and didn’t require as much effort for the stop. When Petey pushed really hard, he popped out of the stop. As Petey got used to the ground, the stop improved.

THURSDAY:  Show day for Warwick.  He wanted to show both horses under some pressure, so we entered both of them in the 4 divisions that he was eligible for (the divisions run concurrently so you show once in multiple classes).  We did this because sometimes if you are entered in one and it really doesn’t mean much if something goes wrong, we just go to schooling (fix what needs fixing and receive a zero score).  When you enter into everything, that decision to school is further away in your mind!  He drew up early in the draw on Sherlock.  We knew the pattern was not the best one for Sherlock because you have to run in and stop and then turn both ways.  That is a lot to handle versus a “walk-in” pattern where you walk to the middle and then turn (which is the pattern we have at WEG).  So, Sherlock reverted a little bit once he got run down and stopped – he was a little concerned in the center of the arena where the spins go and got a little tight.  His circles were pretty good – usually the tightness causes him to fall out of lead, which he did not do (yeah!!! Victory).  In the rundowns to his stops, one of them was kind of tight and he got to leaning a bit.  Overall, he threw a few things at Warwick and he ended with a score of 70.  A score of 70 is average, it is what you have when you walk in the arena.  So, there were some good maneuvers and some poor maneuvers that evened out to a 70 score.

When it was Petey’s turn, Warwick was able to be confident in what was about to happen because he has shown Petey a lot more than Sherlock (he’s only shown Sherlock once).  He was able to get credit on 5 of the 8 manuevers and end with a score of 72.5.  It was good enough to win 2 divisions and be reserve in the other 2, winning 4 buckles.

We had another class to school in after the show class, basically another paid warm up where you get time in the arena.  This is what I took Oscar in. I put my chaps and hat on so I could make it feel like a show situation to him.  I went in and checked on my turns and my run around the ends (approach to stops).  He was good.

Warwick took his two in as well and chilled them out.  Both were good.  Sherlock actually improved over the class before.

FRIDAY: We had a real class that we were entered into but were planning to school in.  This time there was a judge present which meant that you need to respect what you are doing so you don’t take advantage of the time in the arena.  Usually, this means sticking to the pattern and fixing things along the way.  I chose to skip the spins because I don’t have to worry about those and start with circles.  Little Oscar showed me something he hadn’t before and that was a spook.  Someone had led their horse up to the other end of the arena and the horses head was over the gate.  This had not existed at any time so Oscar decided he didn’t like it.  It was good, I got to see how he would come back from a sideways spook and tightness.  For the most part, he came back to me pretty well, he still had one or two looks at that area once the person had gone and we finished the pattern well after he’d spit all the rabbits out.

Warwick had good schoolings on both Sherlock and Petey.  Sherlock actually was quite good and made big improvements overall.

We loaded up and headed home – just in time for dinner!

The show was confirmation that Petey would be the “chosen one” to go to WEG if we could ensure his injury did not seem to be a problem.  It didn’t seem to bother him at the show and we are doing everything we can to keep it that way (ice, poultice, shockwave, Bemer, compression suits, Adequan, Legend).

Warwick will continue to ride Sherlock this week and we will have the vet come on Friday to watch Petey jog on hard ground with no warm up to see what she thinks the probability is that he will pass a jog.  We have done this every time she comes out, even with Oscar.

The good thing is that if Sherlock ends up having to get on the trailer on Saturday morning, we have AMPLE opportunity to put him in schooling situations so that he can find some more relaxation when he is alone in the show pen.

The boys all had Saturday off, back to it Sunday.  With only 6 days until they get on the trailer, the plan is to keep them fit, sound and happy.  We will test some reining maneuvers on Friday because we are going to Chuy’s to ride in his HUGE arena, but other than that, we will be working on fitness and gymnastics.

More tomorrow – I’ll hit some more of the Hurdles that we encountered since Sunday will likely be a pretty boring riding day.

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and nationally competitive rider.

Well, we were due for a different day – so far it’s been all “yay, everything is amazing.” Today, notsomuch. Not that it was a bad day, it actually was proof that Oscar is really good at learning what I’m teaching him!

I’ve been doing so many rectangles and not running from fence to fence, that when I put my hand down today to run from fence to fence (what we call fencing – it’s not about using the fence to stop our horses, it’s about getting them to think that they are going to run all the way to the fence so the run is good (using anticipation to our benefit). If your run is not good, your stop will not be good. When you say the word Whoa, you want your horse gaining ground, running uphill. If you stop in the same place every time, they anticipate in a negative way and your run gets shorter and shorter and sometimes they will even “scotch” or really hesitate and stutter. This really messes up the stop. Therefore, we want the horses to anticipate running to the fence.) Anyway, when I put my hand down and in essence said, “Where do you want to go?” Oscar’s reply was – I want to go to the side fence – please.

I had built too much anticipation of him turning instead of running to the fence. So, today, I had to uninstall that little feature. So, I spent the good part of an hour asking him where he wanted to go, letting him go there and then doing some work there. Then I’d put him back where I wanted him and let him rest. The work to rest ratio was about 1:2 so for as long as I worked him, I rested twice as long. After a while, Warwick suggested that the work I was doing (4 circle exercise) was not changing his mind, so I had to step up the work. So, I worked on my spins and some sidepassing and a bit tighter 4 circles.

There were no ill feelings, no sweat (neither of us), no cussing, nothing other than a bit of a lesson in mindfulness and patience. After the corrections, I got one fence to fence at the walk – it was a start. A couple more fixes at the lope and then he actually started to lope towards the side fence and fixed himself. Then a couple more times of fixing and one perfect fence to fence at a lope. I stopped, got off and gave him a cuddle. This was the longest I’ve ever ridden Oscar!

I’m not concerned about this at all. Honestly, Oscar is fine just the way he is and has always been, so if I can improve him just a bit, then I’m happy.

Warwick was riding Petey during this time, circling and checking on his slow down. Also stopping him. He pulled a front shoe so he had to do some repairs. He got that fixed, finished up and was still done before me!

I had to run and do errands before our photo shoot, so I went to town while Warwick rode Sherlock.

When I got home, he was all excited! “I figured him out”. All of the problems that Sherlock has from his shoulders are due to tightness in his body, the usual shoulder corrections unfortunately made him tighter which was a vicious circle. So, he had to figure out how to ask him to do something that would cause his shoulders to stand up without him getting tight and it worked like a charm. I think his decision is leaning towards Sherlock a little more every day.

The Horse & Rider photo shoot went as photo shoots usually do – let’s just say that unless I can become clairvoyant and read Warwick’s mind, then photos and videos are not the most comfortable times. This is why he has a robot camera and a son who do most of his videoing ;)

We are off to the show tomorrow, so I will likely do a multi-day post when we get home.

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and nationally competitive rider.

As I was falling asleep last night, I heard a commotion in the barn.  It sounded like someone was cast.  Of course, when we got there, all 3 of the horses were looking at us like we were crazy people. I’m glad it was a false alarm!

Starting to do a daily digest this late in the game means that I haven’t shared some of our earlier hurdles.  Maybe I’ll throw those in when I think of them.

The first hurdle we had was from Bella.  When we decided to go for this WEG thing last fall, I had a younger horse Tom.  Our marketing department (Victoria Westphal) was here taking photos at our Labor Day Clinic last year and mentioned she was getting bored with her consistent and beautiful mare, Bella.  Victoria is pretty competitive so she wanted something a bit more challenging.  I half-heartedly said, “Well, we could trade”.  And then that flippant remark became serious and that is how we came to own Bella, a beautiful 8-year-old chestnut mare, royally reining bred, with mane to her knees.  I have to watch what I say around Victoria ;)

Bella arrived mid-October 2017 in the middle of our trip to New Zealand so I had the housesitter keep her in the barn with a small paddock.  She was barefoot in the front as she had been for ages.  The closest horse to her was Petey, who was living outside, within sight, but about 500 feet away from her.

We had already started the FEI Passporting process with Bella while she was at her old home in Washington.  The first thing is a microchip and a series of Flu shots.  So, she got her microchip and first flu shot there. Our vet came to our place while we were gone to complete the passport and second shot.  We were in a time crunch because the first qualifying show I wanted to go to was November 3, in Oklahoma City.

When we got home on October 24^th, Bella looked lame.  Upon questioning the housesitter, she said that she had been pacing in the paddock.  So, we had the vet out to xray and do some injections and we put front shoes on her with pads.  We had a week before we would have to get her on a trailer to OKC because it’s a 3 day drive.  We were a bit limited to what we could and couldn’t do per FEI drug regulations so we just did what we could to stay within the confines of their rules.   As the days passed, Bella improved but the consensus was that she would not be ready in time to go to this first qualifying show.

It was a disappointment and a relief at the same time.  Because of the way that the qualification worked, we had to show 3 times and mark above a 70 twice.  Because I hadn’t even ridden her yet and Petey would have only had a week back on him after our trip, we were thinking that this qualifier would be our “free” one where we just needed a score.  But, neither Warwick and I liked this strategy – we both like to be more prepared – especially when you are travelling half way across the country to show.  This is the first time the universe stepped in for us.

We finally got Bellas feet sorted and she got used to being turned out in a paddock and the arena (it was winter so that is their winter turn out).  She even got to be turned out with Petey and Oscar.  They were fast friends.  We were told that Bella was a show horse who had been in a stall most of her life, so this was a big change for her.  She went to our first qualifier in January – more on that later.

So, that was our first course correction or switching to a Plan B.  It was the first but not the last.  I’ll mention those as we proceed.

Today is Sunday, August 19^th and we both got to riding early.  Warwick has worked the arena up good enough to stop in it (as you saw by Petey’s picture yesterday).  I decided that I’d start getting Oscar to do some stopping since we are going to the show later this week and his muscles need to get back to that.  Because of his new shoes, we have to be careful that he doesn’t pull them off, so we use Duct and Electrical tape on his front hooves so that there is nothing to catch the back feet on the front feet.  I try not to use bell boots if I don’t have to.  None of our horses have a habit of overreaching so much that they hurt themselves and I’ve found that using them can sometimes cause scratches (I think some places it’s called greasy heal?), so I just try and stay away from them if I can help it.

We did lots of rectangles at the ends and got him anticipating a turn and not a run to the other fence.  I practiced getting him to stop from my 3 stop cues, individually, at the walk first.  The first is to say WHOA.  The second is to take my legs away from his sides and the third is to pick up on my reins.  Once I had those good at the walk, I progressed to the lope (he just needed a reminder and he was good so I skipped doing it from the jog).  I stopped him twice and he was good both times.  I got called a horse trainer again because his stop is different (better) than it used to be, according to Warwick.

Warwick worked on circles with Sherlock, including the slow down.  He looked very good today.  He also worked on spins and standing.  Also looked good.  They ended the day with a good ole lay down and roll.

Petey got a bit of a mental health day – Warwick had a migraine that was threatening so he just did some fun stuff with him today.

I did some shopping today – getting ready for the upcoming show and photo shoot for Horse & Rider.  Warwick got some new Ariat shirts from the Ariat outlet and I got a new pair of shoes. The horses got some grain J

Back home I did some home organizing.  I don’t know about you, but most of my house cleaning/organizing gets done right before people arrive!  Things I’ve been putting off like organizing the Linen cupboard or the kitchen cabinets.  Knowing that our housesitter will have to find stuff has me doing some last minute cleaning!

Warwick is ironing his shirts for tomorrow – I thank his mom Betty for this.  She irons everything – including sheets and undies and she does an excellent job.  I’ve never been able to iron as well as she does so Warwick does it himself – SCORE!!!!

Thanks for reading, more later.

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and nationally competitive rider.

Saturday means early Crossfit – it’s called Quickfit because it’s a 30 minute class…which usually means 15 minutes of some sort of torture!  Actually, it was one of the easier classes so far – or we are getting more fit – I like to think the latter.

Time to ride after Crossfit and breakfast.

Oscar was good.  I worked on our lateral movements at the walk and then did full arena rectangles while counter cantering.  I tried one left to right lead change and it worked perfect, so I left that alone.  I worked a bit on right spins – he tends to drop his shoulder a bit.  Other than anticipation being a “problem”, Oscar’s right shoulder tends to be the culprit if anything is going wrong.  So far his new front shoes seem fine.

Warwick rode Petey while I rode Oscar.  He looks great.  He worked on his spins and then had me take pictures while he stopped him and then had me try it too.  Petey feels good! There is a spot where he flattens out when he is running to a stop.  I got to the point in the past that I just ignored it, but I wasn’t going to the WEG at that time either!  So, Warwick is going to work on that spot a bit.

We were done in time to watch Chuy Chavez ride for Mexico at the Pan-American Reining in Brazil.  We are so proud of how much Chuy has learned and grown – it feels like being a proud parent!  Mexico ended up with a Bronze, so that was very cool.

Warwick rode Sherlock after dinner tonight, still continuing to make sure he is balancing the mental with the physical.  Here is what he said tonight when someone asked how he is balancing all of this while preparing for such a big show:

I am aware of his mental state all the time, still take time catching him, and monitor him closely during grooming and saddling. I haven’t been doing any “groundwork” per se.

This evening when I went to get on him, he blocked me out, so I stepped back, and we did that for probably 5 minutes then he had a big lick and a chew, then I got on. Riding him, I am aware if his breathing gets tight and I back off, but for the most part he licks and chews and “briezens’ a lot.

by Robyn Schiller

Robyn is the wife of horse (and people) trainer Warwick Schiller. She invites you to join her as she journeys through her life as trainer’s wife, mother, businesswoman and nationally competitive rider.

August 17^th – Both a bit sore from our Crossfit workout yesterday!

We both rode early again, in anticipation of it getting warm – really didn’t get too hot though.

I did some more rectangles on Oscar today and went back a step with the lead change today.  I figured out that when I ask him to get off of my leg it doesn’t work well even at the walk.  When I put a leg on, he yields but the second I take it off he stops everything.  So, I did a lot of that and then emptying out the rabbits that doing this caused.  I then did some loping from fence to fence to see how straight and soft he would stay and that worked well.

Warwick rode Sherlock and Petey again – Worked on spins and standing with Sherlock.  He got some things sorted for Petey’s rollback (which is his “thing” in the show pen).  So far, Petey is staying sound on his front foot. We also treated a couple other spots with the shockwave and it has made a big difference. The decision between the two is not getting any easier.

They all get their Bemer treatments and last night’s pajamas (Hidez suits) were worn without any drama.

We are planning to go to a show next week that is about 3 hours away.  It will give us an opportunity to set up a show situation and fix things in the show pen before WEG.  It will also give Warwick an opportunity to show both of his horses,  He is hoping that this show might help with his decision of which horse to take.

Here is our schedule up to and including WEG and afterwards:

Aug. 21-24 – NRHA Reining Show at Rancho Murieta, California – about 3 hours away

Aug. 22 – Health certificates need to be prepared

Aug. 25^th – our housesitter Bekah Tate is arriving from Texas

Aug. 27^th – Horses get body work done

Aug. 28^th – Truck gets serviced and Trailer in for some minor repairs

Aug. 30^th – Horses get shod

Aug. 30^th – Rachel Longworth & Jane Pike arrive – I got them on the same flight from Sydney!!

Aug. 31^st – Katy Negranti arrives

Sep 1 – Horses leave – Katy is driving and Rachel & Jane are the co-pilots.  They will take 3.5 days to get to Dan James’ place in Kentucky – ROAD TRIP on Route 66!

Sep. 3 – Warwick and I fly to Dan’s in Kentucky

Sep. 4 – Girls with the horses Arrive!

Sep. 5-6 Play at Dan’s – tour Lexington

Sep. 7 – Drive 6 hours to TRYON***

Sep 8-11 Prepare horses – have a look around North Carolina!

Sep 11 – OPENING CEREMONIES

Sep 12 – Team Competition

Sep 13 – Individual Comp (for person who is not showing for the team – we do not know who this is yet)

Sept 14 – Tattoos anyone? YES!

Sep 15 – Individual Finals

Sep 16 – Leave and go to Nashville for the night

Sep 17 – Home late – Katy driving horse’s home

Sep 18-19 – Monterey & San Francisco with Jane & Rachel – Rachel leaves 19^th PM

Sep 20 – Horses should be home

Sep 20-21 – Home prep for Jane/Robyn combined Workshop

Sep 22-23 – Cultivating Confidence Workshop with Jane & Robyn

Sep 24 – Jane leaves

Sep 25 – Back to REAL LIFE

***We are trying to get our appointment with the North Carolina government for our arrival at WEG in Tryon.  We had to send them all of our test results (a negative coggins and an EP test – whatever that is), vaccination records and worming verification.  We are hoping for an arrival time of Friday, Sept. 7^th at 11:30.  This means we will have to leave Dan James’ place around 4:30 AM to give us some wiggle room.

OMG – I am tired just reading all of that!  I hadn’t fully realized how much is going on in the next month.  Between Tyler going back to school earlier this week and knowing, but not knowing, how much is coming up – it’s no wonder I’m a little grumpy!

Today our reining team was offered a Hay Steamer from HyGain – I had to ask what they were!  Apparently, we are going to get one for the team’s use.

I am working with the amazing Jane Pike from Confident Rider – who is also my “groom” for the games.  We get allocated a certain number of tickets and we get allocated a ticket for a “groom”.  It is interesting that other people have someone in this capacity.  For us, we do everything with the horses ourselves.  All the interactions that we have are with us, not someone else.  I guess thinking about it, this isn’t the case for every reiner – because some trainers do use assistants to get their horses tacked up, warmed up, cooled down, washed off, groomed, fed, stalls cleaned, etc.  However, this is not the case for us.  We do everything ourselves and prefer it that way.

So, our “groom” selections were made by thinking about which people we wanted surrounding us during the biggest, most important show we’ve ever shown at.  If you’ve ever met Jane, either in person or virtually, then you will completely understand why I chose her.  She is a force of nature – someone who just makes you feel like a better person in her presence.  I’m so excited to have her by my side on this journey!

Anyway, Jane and I have been working together in the lead up to her arrival and she pointed me in the direction of a module in her Competition Ready course – so I’ve just printed out the workbook on Creating Your Ideal state and will be working on that this evening.

I guess this is as good of a time to mention our other support crew!

Katy Negranti is Warwick’s groom and is the horse hauler!  She has a commercial driver’s license so she is able to legally drive our rig from coast to coast and back again.  Rachel Longworth is coming over from Australia to support us as are aussies Megan Harrison and husband Andrew (they are skipping the road trip and just meeting us in North Carolina).

The support crew that we are leaving at home are our horse shoer and vet!

We had to make a change in horse shoers earlier this year when Kim Gillespie moved from right around the corner (talk about convenient) to Texas!  Luckily, we found Mike Hayward who has been fabulous in keeping the horses sound and working closely with our vet, Caili Fulgoni.  She is actually married to the son of one of our favorite former clients, Ray Fulgoni!   Caili is amazing – she has been with us from the moment we decided to try and qualify, which was last October (2017).  She definitely has the horse’s best interest at heart and has been so good about responding to our questions, concerns and celebrations!   We definitely could not be doing this without either Mike or Caili!

If there is anything else you want me to include in these daily updates, let me know.