Thursday, May 27, 2010

ups and downs

Ok, so I haven't posted in awhile. Life's been busy. I've got some photos from a few days ago, but I haven't gotten around to uploading them, so stay tuned for those.
Here's a quick recap of what we've been up to (I'm not sure where I left off, but I know it was after she got her teeth done, so I'll start with last Thursday):
5/20
My friend rachael came up to see Dee, and we had a lovely ride. The right lead canter magically improved. She was round and soft instead of inverted and resistant. All in all, she was pretty good. Rach got on her at the end and walked and trotted her around a little. Dee was well behaved for the most part, though she did try to take advantage of rach a little bit.
5/22
I got on her at dinner time, which automatically made her none-to-happy with me. She was tense and grouchy for 90% of the ride, but her left lead canter was brilliant. I thought 'great! we've got BOTH leads down, now.' Well, Dee thought 'Mom, I did well going that direction, now I'm done playing.' She was atrocious going right. I'd ask for canter and she'd slam into my right leg and swing her haunches into the center. I'd give her a kick and she'd drop behind my leg. Finally, I just went back to walk to have it out with her a little bit. After some hard kicks with the right leg and some convincing wacks with the whip, she finally straightened herself out and got down to business. The canter wasn't great - she was still fighting me - but it was forward and relatively straight, so I left it at that.
5/24
The. worst. ride. ever. She was even MORE tense and even MORE grouchy than she had been on Saturday, and she was not in the mood to play. Half the time, she would just stop (or break to walk) and refuse to do anything else. It didn't matter how much I kicked or wacked, she was just not going anywhere. We did manage some half-way decent canter work in both directions, but it was basically a disastrous ride. It certainly wasn't what I wanted the day before I took her to Nancy's.
5/25
Needless to say, I was a little worried that our time at Nancy's was going to be spent having another knock-down, drag-out fight about forwardness. Turns out, though, that I didn't have anything to worry about. As I was telling Nancy about the horror of the day before, Dee decided to have a nice pee RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RING. Oh, hello raging heat, glad you're back. Nancy just looked at me and went "well, you may have your reason for the issues yesterday". As I was getting on, nancy's barn hand was just heading out to mow around the indoor and her barn manager had just turned on the leaf blower to clean the aisles. Well, the mower sometimes got quite close to the indoor and kicked rocks up onto the walls, but just watching Dee go, no one would be able to tell that anything was happening. She couldn't be bothered with the mower or the blower, and she had her game face on. It was awesome to be riding in an enormous indoor with heavenly footing, because I was just able to let her really toodle around. Her trot was big, bold and steady. Both leads were forward, balanced and soft. The flat work was the best we've ever had, and I think Nancy was really impressed with Dee.
After our flatwork, it was on to some jumping!! Yup, that's right. Miss Dee Jumped!!! At first, nancy just laid a caveletti standard down and had us walk over it. I think we actually insulted Dee with this, she just sort of sauntered over the pole going, 'yeah yeah, whatever'. So, Nancy put it up a little and had us trot it. The first time, Dee thought about jumping it and actually landed in canter after making a small effort, but after that she was over it and just trotted over the little caveletti like it wasn't there. So, we set up another. Yup, still not bothered! We ALMOST cantered the second one once, but she asked if she could go back to trot about two strides away and I let her. After that she wasn't even landing in canter, so we didn't bother. After we did the little line, Nancy had us try a little blue box. It took us a few tries to get over that one, mostly because I wasn't convincing enough and Dee was basically just saying 'well, if you aren't sure, I don't think i'm going'. She wasn't bad, she wasn't being naughty, I just wasn't giving her a reason to go OVER the scary blue box. On the fourth attempt, we made it over. It just got better from there, and she was getting more and more confident as we went. By the time we came to it the final time, she was actually fighting with me a little bit because she wanted to canter it. Due to the fact that our steering isn't quite up to par, though, I made her trot. Nancy was very pleased and told me that over the box, Dee was VERY cute with her front end. Yay! Poor mare was totally cooked by the end, but you could tell she was proud of herself. She got lots of pats and a nice shower. I felt bad, because on the hottest day so far this year, she had to work harder than she's ever worked before, but she was a superstar, and as it turned out, the next day was EVEN HOTTER.
5/26
Yesterday was out of this world hot. The thermometer was reading around 100, and even the barn (which felt cool and heavenly) was right around 85 degrees. Yikes! I did about 25 minutes of work before I quit for the day. It was just too hot. After 25 minutes, Dee was covered in sweat and so was I, but she had been REALLY good. She was forward and lovely and had a beautiful left lead canter transition (those are usually ugly).

Gosh, I love that mare.
Like I said, I've got some pictures from when Rachael came to visit, so I'll post those soon. Now. Off to ride!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Miss Dee's New Mouth

Wow. That about sums up my ride today. Wow.
Dee got her teeth done yesterday. When the dentist opened her mouth, the first thing she said was "Oh dear". The left side had big, sharp hooks that had caused some cuts on her cheeks, her fronts were wearing at a diagonal angle and most of the molars on the right side weren't even touching. Poor miss mare!
The dentist got right down to work after giving dee some relaxation juice and within about 40 minutes, my horse had a new, improved mouth.
Another perk of getting her teeth done? I got to pull her whole mane and give her a bridle path before the sedative wore off!

Today, I was figuring that I would only do a little bit with her, since she had a lot of work done, but it didn't quite work out that way. The first thing I noticed was that when I put the bridle on, she didn't fuss with the bit at ALL. When I got on, she seemed pretty happy, but it wasn't until we started trotting that I really saw the difference. Now, she's been good lately, but she's still pretty unsteady in the bride, going up and down constantly, tilting her head, that sort of thing... no real consistency. Well, today's magic word seemed to be 'steady', because she hardly fussed at all. Sure, the transitions are still a little fussy, and the canter has a ways to go before it's round, but the trot work was BRILLIANT. She was SO steady, and really just seemed SO much happier and capable. I feel like now we've really turned a corner and are ready to start accomplishing lots of great things.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Adventure time!

I'm a bad blogger. I promised video from steph's and I have nothing... totally forgot my camera. I'm taking her (hopefully) up to Nancy's this week, so maybe I can get the video then.
Thursday, we left for chase farm at 11:45 and had a blissfully uneventful 2 and a half hour ride up to Orange. When I got her off of the trailer, she took a little look around and then hunted down the nearest grass patch. What a good girl! I let her wander a little bit and then took her inside the barn to find her stall. Now, steph's main barn is an old cow barn with very low ceilings, and the doorway is very narrow (maybe 4 feet). Some horses have a little bit of a hard time being convinced that they should go through the dark, narrow doorway. Dee, on the other hand, marched right on into the barn like a little champ. She also settled right into her stall, which is more than Tango used to do. The last time I took Tango up, he was in the same stall that Dee was, and he was trying to break through the stall gate. Dee was mostly just concerned with the delicious flake of hay that was waiting for her.
About twenty minutes later I got her tacked up and headed to the outdoor. There were lots of things around - metal water troughs, a mattress under one of the jumps, blue barrels, poles stacked up on the side - and Dee hardly even gave anything a second glance (the mattress weirded her out a little at first). We got down to business after she had gotten a chance to walk all around everything, and the lesson was brilliant. Steph had me working on putting the pressure on her a little more about not coming above the bit so much, this basically involved just keeping my hands steady and my leg on when she would pop up, so she would realize that having her head up there isn't so comfy. She took it all in stride, with no fighting about the new protocol. After some pretty nice trot work, with some REALLY good stretching, we decided to try a little bit of canter. Now, she had been really good about the canter work before we went to steph's, with a decent head-set and a very relaxed stride. Our canter on Thursday? Not so great. To the left there was a lot of inversion and porpoising. The right lead was similar, but improved quite a bit. My problem was that when she would invert, I was trying to use the hold and push method to get her to bring her head down. This doesn't help when they're completely upside down and hollow, as I found out. It really only resulted in Dee and I being frustrated with eachother, and she was expressing that with some minor bucking. Steph finally suggested that I just put a loop in the rein and let her go. Well, what do you know, the bucks disappeared, the head came down a bit and her back softened. Sorry it took me so long to figure that out, Dee! I would like to add that during this lesson, we had another horse working around us (though we had a circle to ourselves when we cantered, probably because the other girl was worried about our steering abilities) and Dee didn't worry about it at all. The other horse could trot up behind her, we could pass the other horse, we could do anything with the other horse and she didn't care! Then, towards the end of our lesson a cavalcade of horse trailers pulled in. I don't even remember Dee giving that a glance.
Needless to say I was extremely pleased with Thursday's lesson. We did a LOT and Dee was a good sport about it. After I rode her, Steph asked if I wanted to ride Scudder. Are you kidding!? Of COURSE I want to ride Scud!
Let me explain. When I was a working student, all three of Steph's homebreds were on the farm: Abby, Abbett and Scudder. Abby was 6, Abbett was 4 and Scud was 2. I had an absolute blast riding Abby and Abbett, and I got a chance to do some natural horsemanship stuff with Scud. Every time that I've been back to Steph's since Scud was under saddle, he was broken. I've never even seen him go! So, I was incredibly excited about getting on him, and it was a very fun ride. It was very nice to be on a horse that isn't a wiggling worm all the time. I would also like to add that Scud has the most amazing canter EVER. It's like riding on air!

Friday, we let Dee go out for a little bit in the morning to stretch her legs before I rode, and I think she enjoyed spending time squealing at the gelding in the paddock next to her. It was a little bit of a gross, rainy day, so we rode in the indoor. I think that she was a little bit muscle sore and cranky, because the minute I got on, she was a ball of tension. I was actually worried that she was lame at first, but Steph thought it looked more like tension, and I had to agree. She was totally stuck on her right side and well on her way to full-blown tantrum mode, but we just quietly worked through it. After about fifteen minutes, I finally had her a little more relaxed and willing to play. Our left lead was much improved from the day before (though our transition was pretty bad - she sort of did a leaping squeal into it, but she was on the right lead, so I just kicked her forward through the leaping). I let go of her face right away and it resulted in a much more relaxed left lead canter than we'd had the day before. I mean, the left lead still isn't the best, but it's coming along. Going right, she had some beautiful transitions. She was quiet and even a little round into the canter every time. We did have a little issue with cross-cantering going to the right. Our circle was a little bit smaller than she's used to, and her haunches kept drifting in. When that happened, she would totally lose the hind end and start cross-cantering. Finally, however, I was able to convince her to stay a little straighter in her body and we got some really good canter work in.
All in all, it was a great two days. Steph seemed to really like her. She kept saying how nice Dee was, and how she thought that Dee was going to be very very fancy when she gets a little stronger behind.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Blustery Day

Oh the wind is lashing lustily
And the trees are thrashing thrustily
And the leaves are rustling gustily
So it's rather safe to say
That it seems that it may turn out to be
It feels that it will undoubtedly
It looks like a rather blustery day, today


The theme for this weekend has been wind.
I went up to King Oak on Sunday to cheer everyone on. The wind was gusting and it was mighty cold, but it was fun to be at an event! I caught up with Stephie, Nancy, Nikki, Jen and Beth, which was great. I also got to watch SITKA show jump and start XC. Sitka was the mare that I competed in Florida, and she was her usual amazing, goofy self.

That was Sitka and I at the Florida Horse Park.. good times!

While King Oak really made me want to get out and event, I'm content with baby steps for now. Today was another wickedly windy and chilly day, and Dee had the weekend off, but she was a star! She had tons of distractions to deal with and just trucked on like a champ. Roxy screaming at us from the paddock? Who cares!? Pete driving around on the tractor? Whatever! Wind making sand tornados in the ring? Psh, they're no match for us!
She was SUPER stretching to the right (nose almost on the ground type of stretching) and she felt balanced and forward the whole time. Left she only gave me a few of those super stretches, but was still fairly long, low and balanced most of the time. She was also a wee bit lazy today, which was a shock, since the weather really would have given her an excuse to be a goof. I like being able to kick at her a little bit, and today I was REALLY able to kick at her a little. The best part was that she responded just right by giving me more POWER, not more SPEED. I know that some of our work was a little too lacking in forwardness, but Stephie had always told me that with the trackies, it's easier to speed them up than to slow them down. I mean, they already KNOW how to go fast. She also once again picked up both leads on the first try. The left lead was a little more steady (held it around the 20m circle!) than it was on friday, and going right, I was able to half-halt and get a much nicer canter for a few strides on the circle. She responded perfectly and was light, forward, balanced and even a little bit round for about 5 strides. Yay! She's actually got a pretty nice canter, and my worries about it being naturally a little strung out and lopey and starting to dissolve. She's clearly going to be able to collect and come up in front - I got that little sneak peak of it today. The best part of that sneak peak? It means she's getting stronger! After our huge canter success, she was perfectly happy to go back to some stretchy trot, at which point I quit for the day. I'm looking forward to out ride tomorrow, and it it's not too windy, I may try to get some video.
Thursday we're trucking over to Steph's, so if I don't get video tomorrow, I'll hopefully be able to convince steph to take some video during our lessons. I'm really going to need to get cracking on the video for my advanced horsemanship class!

Friday, May 7, 2010

I CAN pick up the left lead?

Today was a really big day for Dee and I. I've been working very hard to get her stronger behind so that she would find the canter transitions (and work in general) in our tiny ring less stressful. We've been doing endless walk-trot transitions, some baby leg-yields and as much stretchy work as I can convince her to do, and I've basically left the canter work alone completely. Today, she was doing some really lovely trot work... mostly stretching, quiet, forward and balanced... so I decided to try a little canter. We started to the left, which is the hard direction for her lead-wise, but the better direction for her in her trot work. I made sure she was forward and balanced, then softened my hand and asked for canter (she tends to get feeling a bit restricted with too much contact, so I wanted her to feel free to canter forward). To my great surprise, she popped right onto the left lead. No fuss, no muss. Sure, she threw her head up a tad, but I don't care about that right now. I care about the fact that I was able to ask for canter and get a QUIET transition onto the CORRECT lead. I honestly expected some playing or bucking or.. i don't know, baby antics.. but she was a perfect lady, I only had to give the slightest of leg aids and off she went. She broke a little bit on the 1st short side, but quickly picked back up and went on. The right lead was just as nice, with a quiet depart and an even nicer overall canter. The left side is definitely her weak side for canter work.. I could feel her struggling a bit more to maintain it (which is strange, because I'm rather crooked, with my right hip quite a bit higher than the left, and I have always had a TON of trouble with right lead canter, because it's hard for me to get my hips moving properly.) After our HUGE canter success, I quit for the day and told her what a rock star she is for picking up her leads on the first try. Seriously. I love this mare.
I think that I mentioned a few posts back about starting her onto Mushroom Matrix's ECP Matrix. I'm really thinking that it's making a difference. She's looking good and feeling great. I also just got a FREE month's supply of Performance Matrix. Bettina swears by it for young horses, "Blood Matrix is specially designed to improve energy and endurance and to promote quicker recovery after exercise. It works by helping to improve the transportation of oxygen to cells and the removal of carbon dioxide." (from mushroommatrix.com). Hey, Ill give it a try. I'm a big fan of the ECP, so I think I'll be a fan of this, too.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Rainy Days!

Good news! Dee's mystery swelling seems to have mysteriously disappeared! I was all excited about it, got her all tacked up, had JUST finished tightening the nose band and... crazy thunderstorm. what a bummer. I've been running a little crazy with finals coming up, so I didn't have time to wait it out. She didn't seem TOO upset about that! Oh well. Tomorrow is another day (actually, probably not, I'm going to be shoulder-deep in all the cases for the law final).

Monday, May 3, 2010

MAY

May is officially here! This means that school is nearly finished and I can start really having fun with the pony. But OF COURSE there are complications! I went to ride her last night and the left side of her muzzle, right near the corner of her mouth, is slightly puffy and hyper-sensitive. She wouldn't even let me touch it. Now, usually she loves when I pet her muzzle and nose, and she loved it when I pet the right side, but she absolutely freaked out when I got near the left side. She's eating fine, but I'm a little worried about it. She allowed me to sort of look inside her mouth, and it kind of looked like it might be red, but she wouldn't let me close enough to the actual swollen part to really tell. I'll try to get a picture today, if it's still swollen (hopefully it isn't!).