Leaps and Bounds

Last Saturday I started McKenna on MagRestore, a magnesium supplement that she was on with her old owner.  Magnesium deficient horses tend to be hot, unfocused, nervous, and can't stop moving.  Basically all typical OTTB traits.  When McKenna came to us, she was so calm and relaxed we thought she was drugged.  Since then she's gotten hotter and more ADD when being worked.  They told us that she was on this supplement, but I wanted to see how she was off it.  While she's not "bad", I do think the MagRestore really helped quiet her down.  My barn owner wanted to try it on a couple of her horses so we went in together and bought a big tub of it.

Right now they are on a loading dose, but I can see that McKenna's starting to respond to it.  She doesn't need as much lunging before we work as she did a week ago.  She still tends to be a bit ADD, and isn't as relaxed as she was the first day, but I can see a difference.  Hopefully she'll continue to get better.

And as far as working her, she's been great.  I lunged her in my barn owner's lunging draw reins for the first time this week.  The lunging draw reins are tighter and work them a bit more than the side reins so I was a little nervous at to how she'd react.  She didn't care at all and seemed to figure out what was expected of her pretty quick.  We'll start working them into the weekly routine from here on out.

A bunch of poles had been set up in the outdoor arena so after our work in the lunging draw reins I took her outside and lunged over poles.  A circle of death was set up and we started with that.  Again, McKenna didn't care and while she got a little rushed and wasn't totally straight or in the center of the poles she went around really well.  We then moved on to a set of three poles and she rocked it.  Went over then like she does it every day.  My friend convinced me to set up a little vertical and see how she did, so I did.  She obviously isn't sure what to do with her legs, and got a little nervous and rushy after the jump, but relaxed after a few tries.

I promise she has a head