Back to Basics

It feels like I've been spinning my wheels a bit this fall. Work has been crazy and won't even back out for another month, I was gone early in November and then again at Thanksgiving, and with the ponies at two different barns I feel guilty spending more time at one barn than the other. Granted Cinder is two, turned out 12hrs a day, and her only job right now is eating and pooping. Peebs, on the other hand, has been either super hot and spicy (for him) or super lazy and convinced he doesn't know concepts like bending or riding with contact.

We went to Utah to volunteer at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary at Thanksgiving and I got to help feed ponies and Lucky the mule

I think part of Peebs' issue was moving barns.  He went from 24/7 turnout to maybe 4hrs of turnout a day, and now that its started raining, the pastures are closed and he's in 24/7. Also GS switched hay from the local grass they used to feed to Eastern Oregon orchard grass, which is a lot richer. I've always had him on plain grass, and he just felt like he was vibrating out of his skin on the orchard. Peebs had diarrhea almost constantly from the orchard so I went out and bought my own grass hay for him. Diarrhea stopped, and a much more saner Peebs is back.  He's also an air fern and got very rotund on the orchard.

Lucky and his pasture buddies live at the Disney barn. Many movies have been filmed on the property and Disney built this for one of theirs.

I finally had a lesson this weekend, after about a month.  I had asked for a flat lesson as Peebs and I had been having issues, see above. We did have a CTJ last week when I had to borrow a dressage whip, but Peebs did remember he knows how to get off my right leg and that he can go on the bit. Our lesson went a lot better than I was expecting; I was able to get Peebs to soften and listen to my aids quicker than I thought I could, and from there we worked on more refining the aids rather than big asks. My big take aways were watching his right shoulder tracking left, and to always feel like I'm pushing him out tracking right. And if I feel like I'm working too hard, grab the dressage whip or put on my spurs.  He knows what I'm asking for, I shouldn't have to nag him.

Nothing Like Jumping Right Back Into It

Why are vacations so short?  Four days in the sun relaxing, eating, and drinking is not enough! 

All you can drink margaritas are surprisingly strong, like half tequila and half sweet and sour. 

After 5 days off, McKenna and I had our first lesson with Jen tonight.  I lunged her last night, and she ran and ran making me somewhat nervous for tonight.  Tonight I turned her out and let her run herself around.  Then we went on the line with side reins for another 10 minutes before the lesson. Poor pony was tired.

We started by trotting a circle at each end then crossing the diagonal line and repeating. I tend to loose connection in my outside rein so we focused on having a good feel on both reins and pushing her into my outside rein.  Jen had me exaggerate turning my body to the inside to get McKenna to follow me and bend her body.  We got some really nice trot and Jen kept commenting how cute she looked.

Every time we changed direction, when I sat to change my diagonal, McKenna would pause and hesitate.  I've tried some sitting trot with her in the past, and she's never sure what to do.  Tonight Jen had me do 10 steps posting and 10 steps sitting.  At first McKenna would stiffen up and suck back during the sitting trot, but after a few minutes she figured it out and had the same soft trot if I was posting or sitting.  Our homework is to continue that and start adding in 10 steps of two point.

In our canter work we went back to exaggerating turning my body and scooping her up with my inside leg and rein.  We kept her on a circle, letting her figure out the bend.  She wasn't too sure what to do with the added inside leg at first but started to get it towards the end.  Surprisingly she's gotten a lot better to the right.  Our problem going right was that she wanted to over bend and drift out on one side of the circle.  I had to relax my inside leg a bit to catch her with my outside leg.  She got a little worked up, and had a mini buck about it, but settled down and got over it.   We quit with that, since it was obvious we were close to baby's mental limit. 

I am so happy that even with time off McKenna can come back and work really well.  I'm hoping to have another lesson in two week and maybe, if we work on our homework, we can start doing some trot and canter poles. 

Tired baby is tired

Schooling the School Master

Even though it was 95* last night, I finally got my lesson on our barn's school master Tia.  The lesson was supposed to be focused on me and us jumping bigger fences, but didn't go quite as planned.  It was still a great lesson and hopefully in a couple weeks we'll do it again.

Tia is a 14yr old, 16.3 hand Oldenburg/TB hunter mare that came from a big H/J barn outside Portland.  From what we were told, she won a lot in the 3' but couldn't stay sound for the 3'6".  It sounds like she was jumped too much, too young, and now had lameness issues.  She has had at least one foal but we were told she can't get pregnant/hold the pregnancy anymore.  The big barn donated her for a hefty tax write off to the OSU Vet School to use as a research/testing horse but OSU felt like she could still be used, as long as her lameness was managed correctly. She bounced around to a couple different places before coming to our barn as a lesson horse.  She'll never pass a pre-purchase, needs pads on her front feet, joint supplements, and the occasional bute after hard work but is as push button, point and shoot as you get.

Tia and one of her leasees

I've notice over the past couple weeks that Tia's been lacking a lot of top line muscle, so I warmed her up for our lesson in draw reins.  She tends to trick her leasees into thinking she round, and in frame because she'll put her head down but really she's false framing.  It takes a lot of leg, and spur, to get her really round and soft, and she'll do this hoppy/head toss thing to show her displeasure with it.  As soon as I put the draw reins on she gave up the fight and settled into a nice frame.  I still had to use more leg than normal, but I wasn't fighting her and could focus on her bending/falling in issues.  Jen had me spiral in and out in circles to loosen her up as well as making her march out in both the trot and canter.

She tends to have a nice rhythm in the canter, and because of that people don't push her up as much as they should.  She's pretty long backed, and tends to get strung out because she isn't using her body.  In our warm up fences Jen was having me focus on getting a forward pace and marching down the lines.  It was hard for me since she has a much bigger stride than Buddy to adjust my eye, but Tia's such a good girl she'll jump from anywhere.

Good example of how she jumps when left to her own devices.  Long, hollow, and strung out

We focused most of the lesson on a single outside fence set about half way up the long side.  Tia's main issues is that she really over bends right and drifts left.  I had to counter bend her in the corners going right and think of having a strong wall on the left side with my leg.  It went pretty well then we switched to the left.  Her issue going left is that she falls way in and motorcycles around the turn.  We took a couple circles to fix that but then ran into the problem of too much bend and drifting right.

Jen had me think about what I needed to do (inside left leg to hold her up in the turn, then outside right leg to prevent her from drifting) when I had an epiphany like Jen at Cob Jockey did.  I was using too much left leg after the turn and no matter how much I pushed with my right leg, she wasn't going to listen to it.  As soon as I thought about relaxing my left leg after the turn we found a beautiful, straight line to the fence.  Tia even landed on the left lead (she likes to switch to the right) and cantered off nice and quietly.  I had to go do it again to make sure it wasn't good luck and while the second time wasn't quite as good as the first it was still miles better than normal.  Jen said that for Tia, that's a huge accomplishment and something she needs a lot of work on.  I'm going to try and work her a bit on my own so that by the time my next lesson on her comes we can move on and focus on me instead of me fixing her!

We have a dressage pony!

Yesterday we had a dressage clinic at the barn.  Mary Arnold is a local trainer that Connie has worked on and off with for many years, and right after I first moved into the barn about 5yr ago we had a clinic with her.  Unfortunately I don't remember much about the last one other than I had a decent ride so I was cautiously optimistic about this clinic.

I had to work first thing this morning and made it to the barn in time to watch  most of Anna's ride with Phoenix.  They were working on getting Phoenix to be more responsive to Anna's aides by doing trot-walk-trot transitions.  They also did some leg yields at the walk and trot; Anna's first time doing them. Once she figured out what she was supposed to be doing they nailed them!  Mary said at the end of the ride she remembered Phoenix and I and said that he's come a long way and is very nice horse for Anna to be riding.  Made me feel like a proud mama!

For my lesson, I got on about 20mins early to warm Buddy up.  The lessons were being held in the indoor, so we went outside to warm up.  Luckily we managed to find a window when it wasn't raining.  It's been wet and cold and I've noticed over the past month that it takes Bud a lot longer to warm up.  He was little cranky and behind my leg, and I tried really hard to pick at him. 

When we went in to start the ride Buddy decided to wake up.  He started marching off right away and instead of half halting him to slow down, Mary had me focus on driving into my hand and using his forward motion to get him round.  It worked well!  Buddy seemed a little surprised that I wasn't pulling on him and our usual tug-of-war wasn't going to happen. 

We started our trot work by doing some circles and getting him to soften to the outside rein.  To the right wasn't too bad, but he was really resistant to give to my right rein going left.  We did some counter bend and once he softened brought him back to the left bend.  Mary said that he's pretty stiff in his right shoulder and needs to work on learning how balance himself.  We did have some very nice moments when he did give and started to really use his hind end.  Mary had us go down the long side and ask for a lengthening while giving on the inside rein.  It felt wonderful and we got some nice compliments!

We gave Buddy a walk break, then went back to a circle at the trot.  Mary had us spiral in and out on the circle and once we had an nice soft trot, she had me think about leg yielding him into the canter.  It took me a couple tried to figure out what I was supposed to do with each leg and rein at what time but once I got it, oh man did we have some nice transitions.  Instead of leaping or rushing into the canter he felt more balanced and round.  He couldn't hold that balanced canter for long and Mary said that's fine; again he needs to learn how to re balance himself. 

I'm so glad I decided to do the clinic and hopefully Mary will be coming back in 6-8wks.  Everyone at the barn had good rides and has homework to do.  Mary was super nice and I'm glad that she likes Buddy. 

Both boys were tired and got to play in the arena together today

Breaking out the big guns

So in our lesson tonight, we basically stayed on a circle to the left the entire time.  Jen had me start trying to get Buddy soft and bendy by doing some figure 8's at the trot.  He was ok, but not great.  I was really having to thump him with my inside leg to keep him going. Same thing in the canter.  I dropped my inside stirrup to try and thump him and push him out to create the bend.  Still not working.

Jen got on him for  only the second time in the two years I've had him. She really got after him and boy was he pissed!  They duked it out for about 5 minutes with him occasionally giving in.  The whole time Jen was cussing him out and calling him names.  She had me grab a set of draw reins and we tried again.  I hopped on him again, and after figuring out my reins (it's been such a long time since I've ridden with two reins!) we tried again. 

I started with the reins loose and slowly started shortening them and asking for flexion.  He gave it to me to a point, then decided to fight me.  I was able to get him back and we moved up to the canter.  He was still pretty fussy, but better.  Jen decided to hop back on and took no mercy.  Once Bud gave in, they had some beautiful trot work.  He was moving forward and really stepping out and Jen was able to loosen up on the draw reins and have a light, quiet contact.  His canter was also miles better.  He was a little over bent to the left, but he was using his hind end and really driving forward with little effort from Jen.

The plan for now is to keep using the draw reins, but do short 20mins or so hacks mostly at the walk and trot while he builds up his top line.  Hopefully he won't fight me as much and I won't have to use the draw reins but we want  to make sure he gets the point.

Back to the drawing board

Unfortunately my ride on Sunday didn't go so well.  I couldn't get Bud to have a nice, soft, round, canter to the left.  He kept fighting me the whole time.  He was high headed, and every time I tried to drive him from my seat to my hands he would flip his head and speed up. 

I decided to try to keep him on a circle and try to spiral him out and create some bend. It worked and we got a couple decent circles but as soon as we tried to go down the long side he would loose the bend and flip his head up.  He was better to the right, but still not as nice as he could have been. 

On the plus side we had some really nice trot work.  He was stretching down into the contact and was moving off my leg pretty well.  We have a lesson Thursday where Jen can hopefully give up some pointers.

Riding without rails

The one thing that I always seem to forget about riding in the fields is how much harder to get a horse straight and bending without having an arena wall or rail to guide you. Buddy and I went out to the grass field again Wed. night and two other girls were already out there.  I put the German martingale on, since I haven't used it in a few weeks.  Buddy marched right along out to the field, and towards the other horses, but when I asked him to start to work and move away from them he got pissy.

Lot of dramatic head tossing (or as much as the martingale would allow) and shoulder bulging later, we started our trot work.  Since there's no fence or anything to really guide you, its hard to know what is the "correct" diagonal to be on, or which way to bend my horse.  We did a bunch of zig zagging across the field, trying to work on switching the bend and getting him to move off my new "inside" leg.  It is definitely much more work out in the field!

Once we picked up the canter, I worked on pulling him together.  He really wanted to to be strung out and on his front end, so I had to make a conscious effort to sit down and bring my shoulders back and my hand up.  No letting him pull me down!  Predictably, this caused him to brake gait, so then I remembered to put my leg on.  We did some big circles and figure 8s, with a couple nice flying changes.  I did let him gallop out a bit and worked on going forward and coming back.  We ended by doing a couple lead changes in a somewhat straight line, doing a change then 6 or 7 strides later changing back.  He's starting to get it!