Getting Fancy

When Jen said in our last lesson that Buddy could benefit from going in a figure 8 noseband I immediately started looking for deals online.  I do have a flash noseband that I've been using on him, but figure 8's are so fancy and I've always wanted one.  I found this one. I have a HDR girth that I really like, so I thought I would try their bridle.

I got it yesterday, and it's lot nicer than it looks. The padding is very nice and I really like the one piece crown.  It took me a bit to fit it to Buddy, and he was not amused.  I think he looks very fancy!

I still need to tweak it a bit, but I liked it when I rode last night.  We have a lesson with Jen tomorrow so we'll see what she says.  I also want to see if I can get a regular noseband to swap out the figure 8 with when we show in the hunters.

Go kiss your pony!

Tonight at the barn one of the horses got himself stuck in a feed window in his stall door.  Red is a 16.2hand 24 year old QH gelding.  He's been abused in the past, and can be nervous and flighty but is generally very well mannered and level headed.  No one saw how he did it, but somehow he got his front end thru a 1ftx2ft (ish) window and got stuck at his hips.

Thankfully Rick and Connie were home, as well as Red's former owner Jake. We called the vet and she came out within 20 minutes and sedated him. Luckily Red didn't struggle too much in the 20 minutes. I ran to the boarding barn next door and got the owner Carl to help. They were trying to take the door off the hinges when Red's current owner Sharon and her boyfriend showed up.  I took Sharon away because I knew she wouldn't be able to handle seeing it.  Between everyone else they managed to push Red back thru the window with some ropes and pulleys.

The only obvious injury was a scrape on Red's right hip that the vet wasn't too concerned about.  She checked him out thoroughly and while he was still sedated he seemed fine.  She gave him some banamine and said just a bran/senior grain mash tonight for dinner after the sedation wears off.  Obviously there's a chance of internal injures as his pelvis was constricted for about an hour.  We'll all be keeping an eye on him over the next couple of days. 

Horses never fail to amaze me at how inventive they are.  After everything settled down I made sure to go kiss each of my ponies (including miss Zoe) and just spent a couple minutes loving on each of them.  It was hard enough watching Red struggle tonight, I couldn't imagine if it had been one of my own.




Phoenix in his old stall.  This is the size of the window Red got stuck in.

 

 

 

 



 

Naughty, naughty mare

On Tuesday Zoe bit me.  And not just a nip or something somewhat innocent, it was a deliberate strike.  I had be petting her, with her head hanging out of the stall door.  I turned away to answer a question another boarder asked and Zoe reached out and grabbed my shoulder.  I immediately turned back to smack her, but she moved to the back of her stall.  I had been planning on riding her, but I thought she needed immediate work so I grabbed my lunge line and took her out in the rain.  I worked her butt for a good half hour, until she was nice and tired.  Then I made her stand in a cooler in the cross ties while everyone else was fed their dinner. 

By that point my shoulder was starting to throb a bit, so I went in the tack room to take a look at it.  She managed to break the skin in a couple spots while biting thru a long sleeved t-shirt, sweatshirt, and vest. It was already starting to bruise and had swollen up.  Unfortunately I like to sleep on my side so I didn't get much sleep Tuesday night. Wednesday I was pretty sore, but made it into work where a couple of my coworkers turned green when they saw it.

Wednesday morning
 

It doesn't hurt anymore, unless I bang my arm into something.  The bruising on the top of my arm is already going away and all the swellings gone.  Today Zoe got her feet done, and after warning my farrier I put a stud chain on her.  She was very well behaved.  Buddy also got his feet done and I had his shoes pulled for the winter. I'm giving him today off to get used to being barefoot then will take him out for an easy hack tomorrow.

Switching it up

Yesterday I had Corie, another boarder at the barn, ride and jump Zoe.  Since I'm the only one whose ever jumped her I wanted to see her go and see how she does with someone else.  Corie's a really nice quiet rider who worked as an assistant trainer at one of the big hunter/jumper barns in Portland for a couple years.

I gave Corie a brief rundown on what I've been working on with Zoe, and left them alone to warm up.  After they warmed up, Corie and I talked about what Z still needs to work on; going forward at the canter and improving her bend and flexion. 

I set some fences up at 2'-2'3" and let Corie work on whatever she wanted to.  They did some single fences then went down the outside line and the bending line.  Corie let Zoe figure out most of and tried to stay out her way and it was great to watch!  Zoe looked so nice and steady.  I put a couple of the fences up to 2'6" and except for once when they got too deep Zoe jumped each one very nicely.  Corie really liked her, and said she thinks Zoe could go up to 3'!  I'm hoping Corie will be willing to ride her a couple more times.

Look at those knees!!

I love Zoe's expression!

Tack Sale

Twice a year there's a huge 4H tack sale about an hour north of here.  I went today with some of the 4H girls and another boarder, and scored a couple good deals.  I was looking for a western bit for Buddy, draw reins, and a figure 8 (either just the figure 8 or a whole bridle.  Jen suggested putting him in either that or a flash for a bit and I've always wanted a figure 8).  I didn't find the draw reins or a figure 8, but we did find a nice western bit for $15 and a very cute new set of polos for $9.

Green argyle!

Buddy proudly modeling the new wraps.

Anna got a pink set for Phoenix.  I'm sure he's going to look fabulous in them!

Good Ponies

Both Anna and I had lessons tonight.  Anna went first, and I talked with Jen about what I've been working on with her.  They started doing circles at the trot and canter and Anna was able to get Phoenix round and soft.  He looks so much more fluid and sound when he's round, and it makes me feel better about letting her jump him.  Jen had Anna start with some trot poles then moved her to a little line of x-rails.  Phoenix was happy to just trot along and not jump the fence, but  Jen had Anna give him a little squeeze and cluck at the base.  He finally jumped the fence and Anna was able to canter down a line for the first time.  They did a couple times and called it good.

For my lesson, we started with the draw reins on Buddy and worked on the flat on a circle.  While he's defiantly improved, I was still having a bit of trouble getting him soft and round going left.  He was a lot less combative and I felt like I didn't have to work quite as hard. 

We took the draw reins off, and Jen set the fences up.  We really haven't jumped much in the past couple weeks, mostly focusing on our flat work so the jumps were around 2'3".  After a couple warm up trot fences, we started down the line trying to have a nice rhythm and maintain the softness we had during the flat work. Once I figured out the distance to the first fence, the line flowed really well.  We then added a couple other diagonal fences fora little course. 

The right to left diagonal fence was our hard spot for the night.  It was on a slight downhill, and Bud really wanted to fall on his front end and pick up speed.  Jen had me half halt with a lot of thigh, while being fairly soft with my hand.  It worked and he backed off, but then he was too behind my leg.  We finally figured it out, and were able to have a couple decent jumps.  By that time Buddy was pretty tired so we ended with that. 

I'm glad that I can see the progress we're making and hopefully it can continue!

Posting Canter

I rode Phoenix on Sunday, and we worked on getting him to go forward and build impulsion.  Anna had been sick and hadn't ridden him in four days, so I thought I would hop on and see how he was.  Considering it's been cold and wet, and he went from being outside 24/7 to be in all the time, he wasn't too bad.  He was pretty stiff warming up, so when I picked up the canter I went into a posting canter to help build impulsion.

For a posting canter, you two point one stride, sit one stride and repeat.  During the sitting stride, you push with your seat and leg to encourage forward momentum then let them come up to you while in two point.  It takes a bit to get it figured out, but once you do it really helps get the horse forward without too much work and it develops a nice rhythm.  I felt a difference in Phoenix by the end of our ride.

Yesterday, Anna was back out and I was hacking Zoe while she rode.  I demonstrated the posting canter to her on Zoe, then had her do it on Phoenix.  She didn't quite get it, but his stride still lengthened and he was moving better.  I also showed her how to ask for leg yields, and since Phoenix does those really well, she was able to get a couple nice ones out of him.