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.