The Flying Dee

Miss Dee did flying changes today. Very nice, clean, unexplosive flying changes.

We started with a few simple changes, which she did very well. Then we set up a pole at the end of each diagonal to encourage a flying change. All I had to do was shift my weight and put my leg on, and she very quietly did a beautifully clean change. Ever making progress!

Practice all day for Accuracy

Dee's been a bit of a cranky lady lately! Luckily, she's only been cranky on the ground. Under saddle, she's been lovely. We had a break from the heat (thank goodness!), and she's positively LIT UP with the cooler weather. Once upon a time, this would have meant explosive spooking and gross misbehavior at the canter. These days she sneaks in one or two spooks, but they aren't a big deal. Instead, she uses all her energy to actually go forward. Yesterday, she came out breathing a little fire, but after a tight warm-up, she really settled in and put her excess energy to good use. The best part? I actually felt like I could still push at her to create a really positive, forward gait. She was wanting to get a bit crooked on the long sides in the canter work, so we did a few steps of leg yield. This worked wonders in getting her to say "Oops! Got to travel in a straight line to stay balanced!" I've never done that sort of stuff with her before, but it did a lot to help Sitka's canter, so I figure it will probably help Dee, too. It also helped to keep her up in front a little more, because she likes to get on her head a little.
Quick post, but she's doing very well!

Catch a Hot One

Today's magic word is "HOT". Dee is getting a well deserved day of rest and lounging in her nice, cool stall. Yesterday she did quite a bit. I got on and did a little flat work... I can't tell you how much I've missed having someone on the ground to yell at me about my bad habits! I get too rigid through the arms and I have terrible posture, so actually being reminded to "Lift your hand!" "Relax the arm!" "SIT UP STRAIGHT!!!" is wonderful and MUCH MUCH MUCH needed! Funny how something as simple as lifting my hand gets her off her head at the canter.
Anyway. After I rode, one of the girls agreed to get on and do a bit of jumping with her. I think I'll be able to try next week... fingers crossed. I'm looking forward to taking jump lessons at this barn, because I like the way that N operates. It seems to be all about making the horse jump naturally and quietly, without too much interference from up top. For instance: Dee is a good jumper, but she hasn't learned how to handle the landing side of a fence. She jumps, lands in a heap, and then just kind of scrambles away. To help that, N set up a little grid. Trot pole to x-rail, one stride to small vertical, one stride to pole, one stride to pole. She was doing ok over the first pole, but then ignoring and scrambling over the second, with no thought of balance or poise. So N made it a tiny vertical to force Dee to THINK and BALANCE. It worked wonders! She was actually forced to land and BALANCE for the raised pole at the end. Good girl! I enjoyed watching the girl ride her. She did a very good job of convincing Dee to be a bit quieter about the approaches, because her first inclination is to rush. She's been like that since I first started her over fences last year. She just gets in a hurry. I think we're at the perfect place to sort that out, because hunters don't hurry. They approach the jumps quietly (and then look fabulous in the air). Wouldn't it be fun to get there!?

Summer is Here

...for the moment, anyway. Right now, we're in the midst of a heat wave. It's supposed to reach 93 today, and get up to 95 tomorrow... and let's not forget the HUMIDITY that connecticut loves so much. I'm not sure what it reached yesterday, but I know it was HOT. Of course, the way my schedule runs, I don't get up to the barn until the afternoon, which makes for some miserably hot riding conditions. Yesterday I promised Dee a 25 minute ride if she behaved. She did, and I kept my promise. Interestingly, she was a bit spooky, which surprised me (she's been a little rock lately). We had one little scoot forward (I think it was an animal in the woods, because I did here something behind us), but she just cantered forward a few times and went straight back to work. She also sucked back a little bit heading towards the woods during her right lead canter, but a little kick fixed that. All in all, she was a good girl. Today she's going to do a little jump school and tomorrow she'll get to just chill out.

Merveilleuse Journée

I've been a bit frustrated lately. I kind of expected to just get on again and be able to jump right in, pain free. That's not been the case. I guess it's getting better by the day, but I'm still feeling pretty limited.
On a happier note, Miss Dee has been absolutely fantastic! It took her two days before she settled. Sunday, she was very tense and looky, and only settled at the very end. Monday, she was a little better, but still took a good long while before she settled. She was also off her feed, and just stalking around the paddock. Yesterday, however, she was fabulous. She went out and got right to work. She was stretching and relaxed, and even though one of the horses in the barn kept screaming to her, she was totally focused. Her canter work was pretty good, too. I can't do too much canter work right now, so we just did two short canters in each direction, but she's really come a long way in that department. Now I feel like I can put my leg on and half-halt, and actually have her ACCEPT the half-halt. All in all, it was a great ride, and for the past few days, I've actually gotten off with a big smile, because she's actually quite fun now! Hopefully we'll continue in the right direction, and my back will be strong enough to do more soon.

Dee comes home

"I feel marooned in this body..."

I'm going a bit stir crazy. It hasn't even been 2 weeks, but it seems like years.

Anyway, I talked to Steph today. Dee is no longer at the bottom of her riding list! Yay! I guess she's been pretty good lately... her long and low work is very nice and she's much less crazy when she jumps. Apparently the left lead is still a bit of a problem, but she just has trouble with it because she's still weak, not because she's being bad. Steph was impressed with how clever she is to the fences, because she's quick to put herself where she needs to be, and can stuff in a short one before the fence without getting off balance or launch from the long one and only be sort of off balance on landing. She also thinks that she has a lot of jump and said that she has a pretty impressive kick behind over the jumps, which is interesting, because Bettina has also mentioned how big of a jump she has behind just in her gallop. Who knows... maybe this summer we'll focus on jumper shows. Steph seems to think that might be her niche.

Dusty and Dee

FINALLY, some proper video of Dee! She's not being very respectful of the little jump (she seemed more concerned with playing around before and after. The jump was just something to get out of the way of). Steph agrees that she probably needs to be challenged a bit more in that department.
That said, I've got some hard decisions to make. After talking to Steph, my parents, and even some of my friends, it seems that the general consensus is that I would be stupid to keep her through school. I'm not sure that I disagree. My main trepidation with leasing her is that someone will take her on lease and then decide that they don't want to keep leasing her. At that point, I'll be stuck trying to take care of a horse when a) I have no time, because law school is pretty all-consuming and b) I have no money, because at least for my first semester, I will have no job. Then what do I do? I don't want to end up in a situation where her well-being is compromised. I desperately want to keep her, but maybe I'm just being selfish. My other worry is that the job market out of law school isn't great, and I'm going to be in debt up to my ears. Can I really be sure that I'll be able to support a horse and myself on top of paying off loans? If anyone reading would like to weigh in, I would GREATLY appreciate it.

Now, with all that weighing on my mind yesterday, I headed over to Stoneleigh-Burnham School to visit the best mare ever - Dusty! I was so excited to see her. When I got there, I stopped someone who was bringing horses in and asked if he knew Dusty. He said no, the name didn't ring a bell. Then he checked the stall-listing, and there was no horse named Dusty on it. Hmm. Ok, well... maybe they changed her name. I went to the office to speak with the head of the program.
Before I go on, I would like to add that Jen sent her an e-mail the day before telling her I would be stopping by, and to call or e-mail if that was a problem.
Well, apparently it WAS a problem, but the woman just didn't bother to tell Jen. The problem? They SOLD Dusty. SOLD HER. They never even sent Jen a message or gave her a heads up. The worst part of that is that Jen had specifically told them that if Dusty didn't work out for their program, that she would take her back. She didn't want her to just be sold on. To add insult to injury, when I asked the woman who they sold Dusty to, she told me she didn't know! Now, between Jen and the people who used to lease her, there were plenty of people who could have worked together to find a nice home for Dusty, and it was specifically requested that they be notified if Dusty wasn't good for the program. I am appalled that Stoneleigh just sold her on without ever contacting Jen.
Jen is going to try to get more information about what happened to Dusty and why she wasn't contacted, and I will update as I find out.
The moral of this story? Don't send your horse to Stoneleigh.

Dusty, I hope you're ok, wherever you are!

Happy New Year!

Wow, 2010 is gone already? When did that happen? I wish I could say that I felt like I accomplished a lot with Dee, but I didn't. I was a little disappointed with how things turned out in that regard, but on the other hand, I have a beautiful, sound, promising young horse who is finally learning about work ethic. I went up to watch her go on Thursday. Have you ever been in a new england indoor in winter after snow? When that snow starts melting, it's like your world is caving in overhead, and horses don't like that. I used to hate that at Stephie's, because even the quietest horses freak out at an invisible avalanche of snow sliding down the roof. Needless to say, I wasn't surprised that Dee was feeling a little wild. Going right was fine, but when she started going left, the snow started falling. Poor thing had her eyes bugging out of her head. She held it together pretty well, but there was some scooting and bucking.
Also, I swear miss mare gets taller every week I go there.

Im hoping that this year Dee and I will get to make our big debut!

At any rate, Happy New Year to all!

February 2010:


March 2010:


April 2010:


May 2010:


June 2010:


July 2010:


August 2010: (Vegas!)


September 2010:


October 2010:


November 2010:


December 2010:
No pictures, just cowboys!

Mare-y Christmas!

Christmas Horse Cookies!

I'm a little sad that I only got to see the washington horses for Christmas! Miss Dee is doing very well, though, so that's a good thing. I went up again on Wednesday, and she was quite lovely. Her walk and trot are looking fabulous, and the canter has glimmers of glory. She's weak, so the canter is still hard, but she IS trying. She would get herself into a really nice frame for a few strides, and then she just couldn't hold it anymore. I was VERY glad to see that they aren't pushing the issue, they're letting her do it herself, because when she's ready, I know she'll go where she needs to with her head, she's very good that way and they respect that in her. They did the same thing with the trot work... they have her trotting around on light contact, and she carries herself very nicely.
On another note, I'm pretty sure she's getting bigger. I mentioned in passing that she looks taller, and Garry said he'd been thinking the same thing, but thought that it was just because he saw her everyday. She looks pretty good, though! AAANNDD, while she was trotting around, Garry said that she is very fancy, which just made my day! I mean, I think she's fancy, but I'm biased, because she's my baby, so it's nice to hear someone else say it.
More updates next week!

Work Ethic!

I went to see Dee on Wednesday, and am VERY pleased with how she's doing. She is now walking, trotting and cantering nicely (most of the time). The breaks-on, snarky behavior is greatly reduced, and I think that it will be gone soon. Garry seems to think shell be just fine, which is exciting. Another good thing? She is much more respectful on the ground! She hasn't kicked or bitten anyone, and apparently now she's pretty much stopped trying!

Progress is a good thing...

...I mean hey, we could all be cavemen with scummy fingernails trying to hunt down a wooly mammoth.

After mild success on Wednesday, I got up on Dee planning to continue with my reverse-psychology style riding. This seems to be working, as we had another fairly decent ride. She was doing a very nice, stretchy working trot all over the arena and focusing more on me than what was going on outside of the arena. Our right lead canter was very nice, though she's getting a little bit into the habit of leaning on her forehand. On the one hand, I'm thrilled that she wants to stretch down in the canter. I mean, she doesn't rush around out of balance, but on the other hand, she is VERY much heavy on the forehand. I've been leaving it be for now because I don't want to be telling her 'stretch stretch stretch' at the trot and then TOTALLY contradict myself by saying 'no, I don't want you there' at the canter. She's got a pretty good natural balance, so I don't think it will be hard to pick her up and teach her to canter uphill when the time comes. For now, I'm just happy that she's behaving and steady.
Going left, I DID manage to get the correct lead. It took us a few tries, and at one point we went from trotting along very nicely to broncing straight towards the arena fence (which I think happened because the cat appeared suddenly outside of the ring... I wasn't actually asking for canter at that point), but we finally nailed the left lead. Once she had the correct lead, the canter felt quite good. I think part of the problem is that she's weaker on the left hind, so stepping under and picking up the left lead is more difficult. In her mind, it's easier to throw her weight the other way and pick up the right lead, so unless I'm VERY careful to have her in the PERFECT balance, she just has trouble with that lead. I know that will sort itself out as she gets stronger.

On another note, I took my trailer to get serviced on Friday. They've got some work to do, but I'm hoping to have it back by the end of this week or the beginning of next. Once I have that sorted out, we can get back to lesson-taking.

Wide-Eyed and Legless

Dee has been excellent on the lounge line lately. We've been doing lots of transitions, and she's been getting better and better. Today, I decided that I would get on and do a little after our session. Well, it didn't go exactly as I hoped. As soon as I got on, she was right into her snarky, "i'm not going forward attitude". I handled things a little differently today, though. Nancy told me to stop worrying about things and JUST GO FORWARD. Well, when she gets in these moods, the more I push about going from walk to trot, the less forward she goes. With this knowledge, I just stopped asking for trot. Instead, I decided that since we were walking already, we would continue to walk, but we would do the MOST FORWARD walk we possibly could. Well, it worked exactly like I wanted it to, because she got fed up with marching along at the walk and started trying to break into trot. However, I insisted that we stay walking, because she has to know that she doesn't dictate what we do. Once she stopped trying to break into trot and resigned herself to marching along, I asked for trot. Guess what? She marched forward in working trot! My only goal in the trot was forwardness. Tilt your head to the side? Pretend to be a giraffe? Be my guest. Just keep trotting forward. Eventually, she realized that it was easier to keep going forward if she stopped fussing, and she actually ended up stretching into my contact and marching along. We even managed some nice canter work going right. Our left lead canter, on the other hand, seems to have disappeared. I think part of the problem going left was that I didn't have her straight enough, so every time I asked for canter, she picked up the right lead. Interestingly enough, at one point, I asked for canter and got a very impressive saddle bronc move from her - head between knees, back rounded, all four feet off the ground. When all four feet ended up back on the ground, I was excited to find her on the left lead, so we just went with it. She didn't work hard today, but we DID do an awful lot. I think I was on her for an hour, and I'll tell you what - I'm sure my legs will be yelling at me tomorrow!

Being Backwards

Sometimes I feel like I must be the worst rider in the world. I'm incredibly frustrated with myself, but things may be looking up. Dee and I took a trip to Nancy's today to get some sense knocked into us and I'll tell you what, she had to do some pretty hard knocking. I've been riding terribly backwards, and while nancy blamed the fact that I ride in a small ring, I know that's not really it. The small ring makes it easier to ride backwards, but I've always had this problem and it's a bad habit that I quickly fall back into if someone isn't hassling me about it. It also doesn't help that I don't handle the spooking and bolting the way I should. Rather than sitting up and calmly handling the problem, I panic, lean forward and pull back... NOT the way to deal with it. I didn't really fix that today, but Nancy did have me riding a little bit less backward by the end, and seems to think that the issues we've been having aren't as huge as I've made them out to be.
I do love this mare, and I know that she's very nice. I just wish I rode her better. I think I may talk to my uncle about getting on one or two of his horses a few times a week, just to log more hours in the saddle. Before I do that, though, it looks like Dee and I may be spending a week at Nancy's! She's got a stall available, and I can afford to put Dee up there for a week. Riding in a huge ring for a week will do us a world of good.

Behavior

Since my last post, I've ridden twice. The first time could be considered a mild disaster, but also a minor breakthrough (maybe?). We started out well enough, but after a few figure eights, the resistance o the right began to escalate. At first, she was just a little bit stiff, but as I continued, she was more and more resistant.
Of course, the more she pushed into my right leg, the more I kicked back in response, but the more I kicked back, the less responsive she became. It was incredibly frustrating, and as I got increasingly frustrated, she just continued to fight me and act up. Finally, I was so frustrated and upset that I got off for a few minutes. I think that we both needed the break.
When I got back on, I tried a different tactic. Instead of fighting, I just sort of ignored the bad behavior and quietly rode through it. Magically, the more I just overlooked the behavior, the less of the bad behavior I saw. She actually became quite lovely by the end of the ride, so I took her out for a little mini-hack down the driveway to cool her down. This was the first time that we got all the way down the driveway, and she was a VERY good girl. At the point where the driveway crosses the river and a tree line (after you cross the river you can't see the barn or house anymore), she had a very minor tantrum about leaving her friends. For about a minute she was backing up and trying to turn around, but after a few failed attempts and some convincing from my end, she just marched on to a symphony of "Good girl!" I felt like a broken record, but the more I told her how wonderful she was, the more willing she seemed to keep going. I'll gladly look like a lunatic to passers-by if it makes mare happy!
The second time I rode, I once again employed the less-is-more technique of trying to overlook her shenanagins. Once again, the shenanagins disappeared when she couldn't get a rise out of me. What a cheeky minx. However, I shouldn't be surprised, considering Dusty was much the same. Overall, that was a very good ride. I did have one VERY odd moment, though. We were trotting along, she was being lovely, and then she did the most awkward, almost slow-motion little buck that I've ever seen. Then, she broke into a slow SLOW canter, did another REALLY slow little buck, and went right back to trotting around nicely. I have no idea where that came from. I can only guess that she had a horsefly on her or something, because slow, small bucks are NOT her m.o.











Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep - "Asleep" The Smiths

That mare is a monster....

I'm not sure if it's the time off or the never-ending heat wave, but Dee has been a bit of a monster this week. Thursday she was pretty good, with a significant drop in the spooking, broncing and bolting that she had been engaging in the day before. Friday, she was an absolute horror. I rode early, before work, with plans to only ride for a half-hour. It was incredibly hot and humid, even that early, and I didn't want to make her work hard. Well, she came out breathing fire and fought with me for the entire ride. Every inch or the ring had something to spook at, canter transitions were invitations to explode, every few minutes in the trot work, she was trying to take off or be naughty... it was just a disaster. I ended up working her for a solid hour without ever really accomplishing anything other than a halfway decent canter circle (meaning she wasn't leaping, squealing or spooking for one circle) in each direction. It was incredibly discouraging, but I honestly don't think the behavior was caused by any sort of discomfort in her body, because when she settled a little, her gaits felt fantastic. She's completely lost that stiffness, but it seems to have been replaced by feeling TOO good.
Yesterday, I almost gave her the day off, but decided that I needed to see how she felt. I once again was aiming to only do a short ride and thankfully, we accomplished that goal. She was much better, only spooking once and not acting like a wild beast in her canter transitions. She did feel a little free behind in the canter work, and a little hump-backed, but she held it together. I'm going to give her the day off today, and then it's back to work tomorrow!

Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to -
"Coin Operated Boy" by The Dresden Dolls

Oh Cheeky Cheeky...

Oh Naughty Sneaky...

After far too long out of the saddle, I was finally able to get back on Dee today. She was a cheeky little minx - spooking, bolting, broncing - but when she decided to behave, she felt great. All of that stiffness behind has disappeared, she was bending better in both directions and that mopey, grumpy attitude was gone. Instead, I had a four year old who had too much energy and not quite enough self-restraint to behave herself the whole time.

I'm hoping that tomorrow she'll be a little less wild. She certainly got out a lot of pent-up naughtiness today, so I suppose it can only improve from here. It was great to be back on her, even if it was a bit of a rodeo ride.



Day 06 - A song that reminds of you of somewhere -
"There's No Business Like Show Business" sung by Ethel Merman

My friend and I used to go to a LOT of Mindless Self Indulgence concerts, and they played this song several times after the show finished. Now, when I hear it, I think of those shows.

FAIL

I haven't updated, mostly because I have nothing to update about. After our disastrous ride on the 16th, I gave Dee the weekend off hoping she would sort herself out a little and be fresh and happy on monday. TOTAL FAIL. She felt awful once again. Usually, with 4 days off, she would be bright and playful. Instead, she was grumpy and sluggish, totally behind the leg, focused on everything but me, grunting and squealing at the leg, stiff as a 2x4 and about as responsive. She just seemed... miserable. She usually enjoys working, but she was acting like it was the worst thing in the world. So, I called the vet about a lyme titer, just to check. I mean, I suppose it could be this lingering heat, but I want to cover all my bases. She's on vacation until I get the results back, which should be any day now - the vet came on Thursday.
Fingers crossed that it was just silly hormones, since she seems to be less mare-ish to handle this week.

Heat

Poor Miss Dee has had a rough week. She is in an absolutely crazy heat right now and just seems a little miserable. Yesterday was our weekly lesson, and for starters, I'm pretty sure that she just sat hard on the butt bar the entire ride over, because her tail was a matted mess and I could feel her being a little all over the place while I was driving, which is not usually like her. Then, as soon as we got into the ring, she peed (and had squatted about 7 times while I was grooming her at home). When I got on, she was feeling very stiff behind and just tense in general. Normally, she's a tad bit lazy, but once you tell her 'forward', she's good to go and pretty good about maintaining the engine by herself. Yesterday, she just kept stalling. She was determined to be behind the leg most of the time. We spent about 15 minutes just trying to get her to relax and go forward, and it helped a little, but she just wasn't in the game. After that, we had her hop over a little cross rail a few times. Even doing that, she was tense tense tense - stiff as a board in the turns and just lit up about the whole thing. At one point, I'm pretty certain that we did about 6 flying changes in a row down the center of the ring after the jump... impressive, but not at all what I wanted, since she was basically just running away with me a little. I finally convinced her to quiet down a little bit and then Nancy saddled up one of her horses and took us out on our FIRST TRAIL RIDE! It seemed like the perfect thing to do, because Dee was obviously not feeling so hot physically and we've been talking about taking her out. She was, of course, absolutely brilliant. First, she had to leave the indoor through a narrow doorway with a little drop down to the outdoor ring. She didn't even bat an eye at that, and then she dealt with turned out horses running the fence line, a wooden bridge and a big mucky puddle like she'd seen it all a million times. What a good girl! To celebrate, she peed in the aisle when we got back.
Today was nothing short of a disaster. She was SO stiff behind and SO reluctant to go forward. I didn't end up doing much, because she was just totally out of sorts (she even squealed at my leg once, which she's NEVER done). I can't really blame her - I know she's having a bit of a tough time with her hormones this week. So tonight I put lots of shavings in her stall and gave her a giant pile of hay so that she could just chill out and unwind. She usually goes out at night (and often during the day) unless it's bad weather, but I know that she enjoys being in her stall for some alone time. I'm hoping she'll benefit from just having a good rest. We'll see how she does tomorrow.


Still a bit skinnier than I'd like, but look at that face! It was pretty overcast when I took the pictures... I wish the sun was out, because her coat is looking absolutely gorgeous lately and these pictures don't show it at all.

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!