My Rides

 I realized I haven't really talked about my rides on Cin lately. For the most part, she's been really really good. So good that I tend to forget she's only four. But then she'll have an ADD day and I remember. 

I've been luck in that we've had weekly lessons with J and I feel like each ride we've made progress. We started with just trotting a single fence, to being able to trot a course of cross rails. Baby steps, but still steps! 

Always pat your pony

We had a lesson last night and since fall is here, it was starting to get dark during our ride. Cinder was a little more up than she normally is and I let that get to me. I was nervous about riding down to the far end because Cinder was tense down there and when we did make our way down there I forgot to ride and sat there like a sack of potatoes. After a couple of circles Cinder relaxed and I remembered to actually ride her and then the far end was a non issue. 

Not from last night but back when daylight after 6:30 was still a thing

We ended the lesson by trotting a fence out of the scary corner towards home and again, the first time I sat there like a lump and let Cinder get crooked and take off early. Thankfully she doesn't hold grudges (well, not in these instances) and the second time I remembered to go deeper on the turn and use more left leg to keep her straight. We had a nice jump, landed on the correct lead, and had a soft canter after. What more could a girl want?

Your Monthly Update

I didn't really mean to go almost a month with out blogging, oops!  Not a whole lot has happened, good rides and bad rides, some good lessons and some not so good lessons, some very grown-up big kid work out the mare, some complete baby moments where she lost her mind. 

I'm a big kid now...maybe

We had one lesson where my fear and insecurity took control.  Mare felt spooky and was convinced she had to run in one particular spot in the ring.  It was tracking left, as we came around a corner and went on the rail between a jump on the quarter line and the arena fence.  Every single time she'd drop her butt, throw her head, and try to leap forward.  I regressed to a complete beginner, including curling up in the fetal position while grabbing her mouth, thinking we were going to die.  My trainer ended up hand walking us around the ring till I was completely mortified and calmed down.  We did eventually manage to trot twice around the arena without any hysterics on both the mare's and my part before calling it a day.  The big thing that helped, when I remembered, was to breathe and not grab her face when she wanted to explode.  If I let her go a stride or two without getting on her case, she would stop on her own.  It's just so very hard to break that instinct to hold on for dear life.

Soon after that lesson her favorite spot to spook became next to the tree of doom!!!

But since then, minus the spooking at the tree of doom, we've had a couple good lessons.  We've set up placing poles before and after the jumps to help slow the mare down and make her think instead of just hauling ass to and away from the jumps. I'm splitting my rides between the jump and dressage saddles but I think McKenna's learned that the jump tack = jumping = fun! so I'm going to do more flat work/non jumping rides in the jump saddle.  Have to mix it up and keep her on her toes.  We've had some nice dressage work and got our first steps of actual leg yield in the trot going left.  Hopefully in the next month we'll be able to have a lesson with TS and continue on.

It always makes me laugh looking at his big belly and super long stick legs. He really should be hand shorter than he is.

Phoenix is very fat and very happy. I've been out to see him a few times but hadn't run into PO for awhile till this weekend.  She apologized for getting my horse fat but I'd rather him be that way than skinny, especially at 20. I talked with her about cutting back his feed and poor pony is only going to be getting half the alfalfa he was getting before.  I'm such a mean mommy.

Corner of Shame

So last time we had the sleazy of shame, now we have the corner of shame!  It's been a rough week for the poor mare.

Being cute won't get you anywhere....sometimes

McKenna's consistently spooky in two corner of the indoor.  Tracking left she likes to drop her butt and take off going past the corner that has our mounting block.  Tracking right she likes to take off in the opposite corner, which just happens to be next to her stall.  We've tried doing downward transitions, halting, tons of halt halts, but nothing really works for long to keep her little brain in her head in these two corners. 

On Friday we had cantered left, trotted across the diagonal and were getting ready to pick up the right lead when she took off bucking.  Granted, probably not my best idea to do that transition in the scary corner. Got her walking in the center of the ring, then she started crow hopping.  I was so pissed that I took her over to the scary corner and made her stand in it for a good five minutes.   We then did a turn on the haunches and stood facing down the long side for another few minutes.  Once she gave me a big sigh and relaxed a bit I let her walk off.  Did some walk-trot transitions on a circle at that end of the arena before going back to a canter.

All we need is a dunce cap

I was playing it safe and cantered at the other end of the arena, one bucking/crow hopping fit a day is enough thank you, but my friend pushed me into doing at least one canter through the scary corner.  I took a deep breath, tried to stay relaxed and pushed on.  McKenna got tense, but was good so we quit with that.  Times like that that I both love and hate friends that push me out of my comfort zones!