Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Peebs

Between being NQR and me on vacation, the Peebs got an almost three week vacation.  I don't think he minded tho.  We had the chiro out last week and he was very out and dropped on his right side.  Our homework is lots of neck stretches, both on the ground and under saddle, as well as counter canter.  The Peebs is not thrilled.

He did make a new friend

We had our first lesson, and first jump school, since our show last month.  I had absolutely zero expectations and was prepared for a wild pony.  Peebs did jump a bit enthusiastically into our warm up line, but after a pulley rein stop he settled down and was great.

This is what we do while waiting for the chiro

We worked on keeping our right bend coming into the line.  He really loves to counter bend going right and I have to be diligent about holding the right bend all the way to the base of the jump. I tend to let go a stride or two out and he'll flip his bend and float his haunches right. Our drifting haunches is going to be our biggest issue. Going left, he'll do the same, especially if I get nervous and hold his mouth too much.  We trotted the skinny barrel below, a fence I have hated for years and as soon as I got nervous and picked at him, his haunches swung right.  Phoenix stopped at the barrel years ago and I fell off, hitting the visor of my helmet on it and the whole front of my helmet cracked.  I was fine, physically, but have had a hang up about it since. Also, that was the last time I wore a Troxel.

The Peebs don't care

At least his haunches-going-right-when-I-get-nervous-and-pick thing is a good way for me to remember to let go and relax.  We'll just see how much I actually can relax!  Trainer and I also discussed having her do some rides on him, to help reinforce the straightness and bend issues we've been having.  I know I can fix it myself, but mentally it'd help me to see her on him and it never hurts to put a pro on your pony now and then.  Hopefully we'll manage to sneak in a lesson/ride in the few days between her vacation and my next one.

We Do Stuff & Things

It's been hard scheduling lessons with my regular trainer for the past few weeks, and I've been feeling like I'm spinning my wheels with what to do with McKenna.  We walk-trot-canter, try not to have expoldy baby moments, maybe add some pole work in but generally its the same day to day.

On Saturday I had the barn to myself and decided to go for it and set up a cross rail and a set of trot poles in the indoor.  Our indoor is too small to have both set up if I have to share the arena, and since most of the other boarders don't jump I feel it's not fair to them if I take over the space with jumps.   We worked back and forth over the poles to warm up, stopping on a straight line and doing turns on the forehand or haunches to reverse.  McKenna was great, kept a nice rhythm and pace over the poles and didn't get rushy.

Queens of awkward trot fences

I then added trotting the cross rail and stopping on a straight line.  Again, she started out great before the fence, but was dragging on my hand in the stop.  I finally let her hit the wall with her nose and then she seemed to get to the point. McKenna did start getting bold going to the fence after a few times, but a couple small circles with random halting fixed that. My friend showed up towards the end of our ride and was kind enough to snap a couple pics. 

Sunday we had a lesson scheduled with our chiropractor/dressage instructor.  She watched us warm up, then readjusted the German martingale, lowering it on McKenna's neck so it sat more like draw reins coming from the girth, and moved the clip from the first d-ring on the reins to the second, giving me more leverage.  McKenna was not amused.

The main focus of the lesson was getting McKenna to over bend and work deep in a frame.  She wanted to be stuck behind my leg so Tina had me post on the wrong diagonal to help encourage her inside hind to step up. It took a good 10-15 minutes of trotting to really get her to where she needed to be. Tina told me to think about getting my inside seat bone on her stifle to help push her into my outside rein.  I'd never heard that before, but it helped. We did lots of walk breaks and changes of direction and except for one mini spook she was really well behaved. We also schooled some turns on the forehand, trying to keep a forward feel.

Love

Our canter work followed the trot work, only less of it.  The over bending and deep work really tired her out quick in the canter so if we got a couple good circles we called it good. We only rode for a half hour but both mine and McKenna's butts were kicked! We're going to try and have Tina back in a month or so for another lesson.

You can see her mini buck/tail swish about half way through the video, as we are cantering along the far wall. It feels bigger than it looks.