Redemption

I have a lot to catch up on, but first and foremost, we had some serious redemption at our show this past weekend.

Kisses for the best pony

Not only was Peebs back to his normal, happy self, we cantered our first full course at a show and didn't die!!  In fact we did pretty damn well. I honestly don't know why I was scared to do it; cantering him in the big show ring is so much easier than trotting around. For the most part we were able to find a nice rhythm and just lope along.  I found most of my distances, we made the strides easy (actually too easy, homeboy can have a 13ft stride, who knew?!).  I'll put a full show recap up later.

Of course getting here from our last show took some work.  The week after our last show Peebs felt really disconnected and when I lunged him to take a look, it was like his front end and hind end were two different horses. We also had another major spooking incident walking down the road involving a mail truck.  So I called the chiro and poor pony was way out.  When she first started working on him she said his hips were out and his neck was a bit wonky.  But once she started on his neck he was much worse than she thought.  He's very stoic and we think his way of saying he was out was spooking and being super amped. And a couple days after she worked on him, the tension I'd been feeling for the past couple weeks was gone and he stopped spooking at things. At the show we had multiple encounters with the water trucks and tractors and he never once cared about them.  Even when they got close enough that we got sprayed all he did was stick his head in the air and pin his ears.

The week before the show we had our best lesson to date. Trainer put the jumps up a hole and set the lines on an 11ft stride.  Our arena is small and it's hard to set on a 12' stride so we normally do a 10' or 11'.  Since we've mostly been doing baby stuff I tend to set on a 10'. The theme for the lesson was to ride him forward, in prep for  the bigger strides and lines at the show. And what do you know, once I committed to it, it was easy.  Once I'm comfortable with having a bit more pace and bigger stride, Peebs is super easy to find distances on. He's not a super fancy warmblood hunter, but he can have a nice pace and rhythm that makes doing the hunters fun. Now, all we need is a flying change and we'll be set!!

Speed Racer

Had a lesson with Buddy yesterday morning, the first lesson on him in 2 months, I think?  I had been trying to get one in sooner, but my availability never meshed with my trainer's.  Since we haven't been jumping much lately (the last time I jumped him was on New Year's Day) I was bit worried how we would do.  With our clinic next weekend I been feeling like we aren't prepared.

 

Our lesson was first thing in the morning and usually Buddy can be crabby when I pull him away from his breakfast. I shouldn't have worried he was excited and forward, ready to go.  We worked on transitions and at one point I asked for a trot from the halt and he lifted into a beautiful round, soft canter.  Trainer said to just go with it as it was one of the nicest transitions she's seen him do. Even our trot warm up fences were good.  He was jumping them nicely and cantering away quietly.  Normally he either just trots the fence without jumping, or kinda hurls himself over.

 

Oregon State, fight fight fight!

We moved on to figure 8ing a couple diagonal fences and while he was forward and going, he was pretty stiff to the right. Had to do a few circles in front of the right-to-left fence to get him thinking right bend before jumping it. Once he was bending I could see our distance and the fence flowed easily.

 

Turning into speed racer here.

From there we added an outside line, a five going uphill. I tend to have to ride him more forward to these lines since he looses impulsion going up the hi. Not today!  I just had to make sure he was bending right and soft and it worked.  The third time thru, for whatever reason, he decided to turn into speed racer and completely blew through my hands.  Got way deep to the first fence, pulling the rail, and galloped down the line.  Also got way deep to the second fence, pulling not just the rail but one of the standards down too.  Trainer rolled out the ground lines in an attempt to back him off the fences and we tried again.  He learned his lesson and when I half halted he waited and did the line like a normal horse.

RIP Zipper

We finished off doing some rollback turns over the diagonal fences and an outside Swedish oxer.  Buddy was still going strong and I was starting to pick at him a bit so we worked on being soft and riding the forward pace.  It was such a change from how he normally is that it threw me a bit, but I liked it. 

About halfway thru the lesson I felt a pop on my calf then started hearing a flapping noise.  During a walk break I looked down and saw that my left boot (the one that lost it's zipper tab this summer) had split and my boot was wide open.  The only thing holding it on was the tab on the top.  Trainer asked if I wanted to stop but I said no, it would be a good calf exercise to try and hold it on!  Now I just have to decide if spending $100 on a new zipper for an 8yr old boot that only cost $200 to begin with is worth it or if I should just get new boots. 

Well earned rest

Buddy is getting today, tomorrow, and Friday off.  We had a couple nice flat work ride Sunday and Monday and a great jump school yesterday. I didn't wear spurs for our flat work, but he remembered them!  We had some of our best leg yields yet, and some decent shoulder in. Our counter canter still needs work, but we did manage to go once around the ring tracking left on the right lead.  It's a start! Monday we went without stirrups and while the arena was busy, we had a decent ride.

Yesterday I set up three fences to school over.  I set up the vertical going up on the left that caused us trouble in our lesson.  The other two fences were diagonal fences.  I started with an "x" and low verticals then put the two diagonal fences up to 2'3".  The outside vertical was still giving us trouble, and Buddy was really tired and not helping me out.  I had the spurs, but he was pretty pissy with them.  Our diagonal fences were really nice.  I schooled them on a short turn out of the corner, working on keeping him square to the fence and coming forward out of the corner.  We nailed everyone of them!  While we still have issues going forward to the outside fences, I was really happy with the diagonals, so I didn't push it since he was tired. You really learn how to pick your battles with Buddy!

Now he has three days to recuperate.  I was pretty tired after work today so I just turned him out in the indoor and let him roll. Tomorrow I have a 2hr workshop for my job, after I put in a full day so I probably won't have the energy to ride.  Friday my mom flys in from San Diego and we are going to the Brad Paisley concert!  I won't be able to make it out to the barn, but Bud will go back to work on Saturday.