The Week in Review

Not much has happened since the show two weeks ago.  It's been raining and cold until today and I've lacked motivation to do too much.  Buddy's gotten some needed down time, with both Amy and I doing light hacks during the past week. 

I did have a lesson today and we worked on gymnastics.  We started by cantering some single fences, getting warmed up, then moved on to a canter in bounce.  Jen had us start with a conservative 9ft bounce but then moved it out.  We kept adding fences as we went so by the end we had four fences in a row, with a bounce in between each.

 They weren't high, maybe 2ft, but we were working on nailing the first fence then just supporting him down the line.  It was fairly easy to find a nice rhythm coming in, but I had trouble doing nothing as the line approached.  You would think that it would be so easy to sit there and let them go, but nope, hardest thing ever!  I screwed him up royally once, but slipped him the reins and legged him through it.  We only did about 45mins as it was hard for Bud to stay packaged through the line.  I think we are going to start making gymnastics a bigger part of our lessons, especially if we want to show in the jumpers and do combinations.

On Wednesday Jen and I set up a mini jump chute in the indoor for Zoe and Leo to work through.  We want to see how high each could do without a rider and how they handled the fences.  Surprisingly Leo was better about his pace and rhythm through the chute and did 3' without too much problem.


He was very proud of himself

Zoe was being very lazy and would canter up to the fence then loose steam about a stride away.  She'd pop over them from almost a stand still, but made it over every time.  She's adorable and way more huntery than Leo was.  I think we got her up to 3'3"ish.  I'm having dreams of making her my 3' hunter again.  I rode her today after Buddy since her two leases are both busy and couldn't get out for a couple days.  She was great.  The jumps had been reset from my lesson and were 2'-2'6".  She was game for everything and even got the correct strides in the line instead of the pony strides!  

Little Miss Diva only wanted to do it off the right, even though it was set to go off the left.

3 Horses, 2 Days

Yesterday Amy did a light flat hack with Buddy, so I hopped on Leo to see how he would be in an English saddle.  I switched his bit from a plain loose ring snaffle to a kimberwicke w/ a plain snaffle mouth piece and added a running martingale.  Both were very helpful!  He wasn't hanging on my hands or doing his best giraffe impersonation.

We worked on having a nice, soft, relaxed walk.  He wants to go, go, go and will jig a bit after about 10 steps of walk.  Luckily he's very smooth so his jigging isn't too bad.  I was able to get a nice, soft, and somewhat round walk before we moved to trot. I schooled transitions too, getting him to back off my hand in the downwards and to relax before asking for an upward transition.  Going to the left is much easier for him and we were able to get pretty decent trot and canter.  He'll pick up the left lead form the walk but I had to do a trot to canter to get the right lead.  Going right he likes to flip his head and bulge out and it's easier to contain him at the trot than walk.  Considering how much better he was with a bit/martingale change I don't think it will take too much work to get him going nicely.

Today as I was getting ready to head out to the barn I got a text from Anna saying Phoenix had dumped her and her hip hurt.  I immediately imagined the worse and told her I'd be there ASAP.  When I got there she was sitting in a chair and said that he had spooked and jumped sideways.  Luckily Connie was there and heard it, and helped Anna. We have a little storage shed attached to the barn right next to the arena that we store the jumps in.  One of the barn cats had been back there and knocked over a sprinkler and a couple of standards.  Anna was just trotting past and Phoenix caught it out of the corner of his eye and spooked.  She was caught of guard and fell off.

I'm glad that he hadn't been naughty, but upset for Anna.  Her confidence hasn't bounced back from when he dumped her a couple months ago and this didn't help.  She had gotten back on and walked around but I told her I'd get on and school him.  He felt lazy which is good because in the past he'll spook at nothing when he's got too much energy. 

Buddy's stall is at the end of the barn aisle, right next to the arena and he was very pissed that I had ridden Phoenix first.  He kicked the wall every time I went past and finally I had enough and yelled at him.  After that he just made angry faces, including this gem.


It's a good thing Phoenix doesn't care about other horses lunging at him.
 

After a quick flat school with Phoenix I jumped on Bud bareback and trotted around for maybe 10 minutes.  He felt good, but lazy.  He'll have an easy week this week, and next week we'll start jumping again.  I was thinking about taking him to a jumper show the college girls are putting on, but I'm going to be helping them run it and I don't want to have to worry about my rounds or horse.  I'm hoping our next show will be May 19.

Pre-show prep

We had our pre show lesson yesterday and Buddy was very good.  We really didn't work on too much hunter type fences, instead we did a lot of turns, rollbacks and bending lines.  We nailed almost everything, with just a few tiny fixes and were able to have a nice rhythm and flow.

Today Buddy got the day off, and I pulled him mane and clipped him up.  I still have to clip his back legs, my clippers died before I could get them done.  Tomorrow will be bath day and tack cleaning.  I got most of my stuff together already so it should be pretty easy to load up Sunday morning.

Yesterday I also rode Leo, one of the other horses in the barn I occasionally school.  One of the college girls might start riding him and maybe jump him, but he hasn't been worked in a few months and she's more of a beginner so I wanted to see how he was before she rode him. We had been told he had jumped in 4H years ago, but who knows what that means. I put the western saddle on him just to be safe and hacked him while Jen was giving a little kid lesson.  He was ok at the trot, but was horrible at the canter.  Head up, running like a freight train, and wouldn't pick up his right lead.

Once he calmed down a bit I took him over some poles Jen had out and he did good, went right over them.  Jen then told me to take him over a crossrail to see what he did, and he shocked me by being great! Jumped it like he's done it a million times.  I was then told to do a full course with him and he was amazing.  Cantered nice and quietly after the jumps, took everything in stride and was so calm.  He was a bit wiggly and crooked but that's easily fixed. Rick managed to take a video, but hasn't sent it to me yet. I was so proud of him!

He was pretty proud of himself too

What's one more?

In addition to Buddy and Zoe, I've agreed to work another horse at the barn once or twice a week for his owner.  Leo is a late teen aged QH gelding, whose done a bit of everything.  Jake, his owner, mainly just trail rides him, but had him leased to a high school girl who was gaming on him.  The girl quit abruptly and Jake's wife just gave birth to their second son so poor Leo hasn't gotten worked in about a month.  Jake just wants him to get out and have a little tune up so it's shouldn't take too much of my time. And the best part of it is Jake owns a bar that a bunch of us from the barn frequent and I'll get a bar tab in exchange for riding!!


Leo and Buddy last summer.  Leo beat the stuffing out of Bud so they were separated.

 

I gave Bud Sunday and Monday off after the dressage ride and turned him out in the arena for a little play time.  I put him and Phoenix out together on Sunday and it was adorable.  They scratched each other's necks and nuzzled. 

Aren't they cute?!

Yesterday it was pouring so I set up an exercise in the indoor for us to work over.  It's a crossrail on the center line with two placing poles on each side diagonal to the jump (see wonderful illustration below.  Jen calls it the Diamond of Death.  The poles are 9ft from the x-rail and it's meant to be ridden on the diagonal.

 It really forces you to be straight and accurate on your line.  Unfortunately it didn't work so well for Buddy.  Going right to left was fine, but left to right he was pretty over bent and didn't really care if he hit the pole.  We did it decently a couple times then I called it quit. 

Today it was dry-ish and not raining when I got to the barn so we went outside and worked over a gymnastic one of the other girls had set over the weekend.  It was a trot in x-rail bounce to a vertical bounce to an oxer.  We started with just the first bounce and it took Buddy a couple times to get the concept that he had to jump the x-rail.  Once he got it we added the oxer.  It went pretty well, but he did drift to the right a bit.  Since he had jumped two days in a row I didn't do it too many times.