I LOVE LESSONS

Tango and I had a lovely flat lesson with Jen yesterday. We worked a ton on transitions and by the end, I was getting the nicest canter transitions that we've EVER had... he was responsive and forward and I don't think he got the left lead wrong once! Also, I didn't get yelled at quite as much for having my leg too far back! progress! I do, however, need to work a little harder on bending the elbow a bit more and keeping my thumbs up all the time... and of course fix my leg completely.
I learned that if I can just keep him nice and forward all the time, we CAN have nice transitions... a nice change from the wishy washy, dragging on the forhand ones that I'm used to.
That was not, however, the best part of the lesson... I think that the best part was the fact that he was SOUND. He felt great and apparently looked great and I may finally have a wonderful, sound horse. I fret about things like that constantly, but so far so good.
Well, we're off to go hacking!

piglet, deer encounters and motorist manners.

Well now, I promised more pictures of the baby, so first thing's first. Jen's begun calling him "Piglet" because, like his mummy, he likes to make a mess in the stall (we call her "Pig"). So now, here is Pig with her little Piglet...








And from the 23rd to the 28th, I'm going to be horsesitting for Dusty and Piglet, so expect lots more pictures and, if I can figure it out, maybe even a little video of him!

Moving on... I officially sent in my Riga Meadow entry! Yikes!

Tango's been excellent lately, and I think he's finally beginning to get into shape. Yesterday we went out to topsmeade and did two 10 minute trots (I gave him about a minute between them... mostly for me, because my back was getting tired) and a little bit of canter work. He handled it like a champ and was barely even sweating when I got him back to the barn. A few weeks ago he probably would have just fallen down and put up the white flag if I tried to do that much trotting in a row. We also tackled a little natural water obstacle, which he handled very well. The entire beginning of the trail is flooded from all the rain, so unless you go through the water, you can't get into topsmeade... He had a little think about it, but he went in pretty willingly and then was more than happy to slop around in the huge puddles that blocked the path once we got out to the dirt road... progress? I hope so!
I've been taking him out on lots of hacks lately, if just to let him have a nice long cool down after a work, and I must say... the deer are out in FULL FORCE. On each of our last three hacks, we've spotted a deer. Today, as we walked down the trail in topsmeade, I suddenly noticed a deer peering at us. By the time Tango and I noticed it, we were only about ten feet from it. Tango and the deer each stared at one another for awhile and then... pretty much simultaneously... each one turned tail and made to get away from the other as wuickly as possible. Now... it's a VERY good thing that, for the most part, Tango has got a good head on his shoulders, because after his initial spook and spin, he sort of stopped and went, "Ok, well, I've got us facing AWAY from the monster... do I run? will it eat us?" I gave him a little pat and turned him back around, after which he just kind of said "Right, well that's done" and we both continued on as if nothing had happened.

So, the last part of this post is called "Motorist manners" because I was reminded today that lots of motorists don't know or care how to behave when passing by a person on a horse. As we walked down the road on our way to Topsmeade, two cars full of teenagers went speeding by, and as the second one passed, it began honking at us. Luckily, Tango doesn't care about things like that and didn't even bat an eyelash but it was still annoying. If I had been riding, say... Kestral, for instance, we would have been galloping off into the sunset because of that.
I just don't understand what people are thinking... you pass by someone who's riding a LIVING THING, which can sometimes be unpredictable and you BEEP? HOW IS THIS SMART? Then there are the people who pass by as about fifty miles an hour, don't slow down and barely even move over... if tango ever decided to shy or freak out about something, WE WOULD BE KILLED or at least seriously injured. It just really pisses me off when motorists are assholes and I felt the need to bitch about it.

I leave you with a photo from Tango's jump school last week... it was the only decent photo:

Syrias One

Here he is! Dusty's baby! I'll have more pictures soon...

Jumping!

Well, it's official. Tango did his first little jump set on Monday, and I was very proud of him. Julie rode him for me, since I don't think it's entirely smart to jump just yet (pretty soon, though! my back is getting better all the time!). We started him off over a tiny little vertical, trotting back and forth quietly, then raised it a little (to about 2', 2'3") and had him trot over it a few more times. I then added another fence to make it an 18' one stride.
It took a few tries for Julie to get him to settle enough not to eat the distance completely, but they got the hang of it and he did it a few times VERY nicely. Yay!
We called it quits after that, because I'm terrified of him going lame. I linimented his legs up and turned him back out. He got yesterday off because A) I'm paranoid about him going lame and B) he hadn't gotten a day off since the previous wednesday, so he was due. I went up and checked on him, though, and he was sound and happy.
Today we just did a quick flat session, mostly long and low.
I'm hope hope hoping to be able to go up to Stephie's next weekend, if she's around. I'd really like to be able to have a nice proper jump set with her.
In other news, Julie and her little mare Dixie may be coming to Riga Meadow, too! That would be tres cool, and I'm going to see if Jen might be able to do an XC school with us at the beginning of July.
In other OTHER news, big BIG news, Dusty is due to foal ANY DAY NOW! I will post a million baby + mommy pictures as soon as I can!
I'll also post the one or two pictures from Tang's jump school, even though there are no real jumping pictures... just a few failed attempted and some flat work ones.

Goals!

I've been a bit lazy about posting, but I finally have some goals. On July 19, I'm aiming to take Tango to our first event of the season at Riga Meadow, which is none to far away in Salisbury, CT. From the virtual walk, it looks like it will be a good place to start the year off. After that, I'm hoping to take him out to Millbrook... of course, we'll have to make sure water is no longer an issue there!
I hopped on him for the first time on Tueday, and to my surprise, my back felt pretty good. I didn't do too much... just a little flat work followed by a half hour on the trail. Yesterday I got on again. We did about 20 minutes of flat work, working on loops at the canter and stretching in the trot. He did some nice leg yeilding and shoulder-ins... over all, I was pleased with what I got out of him, and not wanting to do to much myself, I took him out for a nice long hack. We went out for about 40 minutes, did some trotting up the hills and through the woods. I do love hacking that horse... he's definately got a good head on his shoulders, thank goodness. Julie hopped on him on Monday, and I was very pleased with him. We did some trot poles, working on adjusting the stride a little bit, and he was absolutely wonderful about it. Here's some photos from that:







Next week will be week four of work for him, and we're going to pop over his first little fences. I figure I'll let Julie do that, since it's probably not a GREAT idea for me to be jumping just yet... especially since he jumps so hard. Pretty soon, though!
I'm also going to get ahold of Jen to see if we can do a lesson next weekend, and the week after, I'd like to try to haul him up to Stephie's for some jump work.
Here is my tentative event schedule for him for the next few months:
July 19: Riga Meadow H.T. - Salisbury, CT
August 6 - 9: Millbrook H.T. - Millbrook, NY
August 16 - Kent H.T. - Kent, CT
August 23 - Great Vista HT - Fort Plain, NY
September 5-6 - Town Hill HT - Lakeville, CT
September 10-12 - King Oak HT - EastHampton, MA
October 4 - Kent HT - Kent, CT

we'll see how that goes! I'm going to pick and choose among those.
In conclusion, here are pictures of the ladies in the barn, Casper, Roxy and Summer:

Back in the groove.

Well, Tango's been in work for about a week and a half now, and he's finally getting into business-mode. Today he was actually willing to relax and stretch in his trot work, canter like a normal animal (as opposed to just charging around like a wildebeast), and even execute some leg yeilds at the walk and trot. Julie and I also changed his bit, from a regular Dee to an Eggbutt French-Link, and I think he was pleased with it. It's so nice to actually watch him go around and look SOUND. I've been waiting a LONG time for that! If I can manage to get my back in riding condition soon, I'd like to sign him up for an event in July, but I suppose we'll have to play it by ear.
Today's session... I've decided that I need to work on my photo skills, since out of about 25 photos, only a few were actually usable. I just always seem to get him at the most awkward moments!

First Post!

Since I'm dedicating this blog to Tango and our adventures in training (and lameness, both his and mine), I figure I'll start this thing off with a history of my little boy.

In August of 2007, after a year-long haitus from horses, I decided that it was time to get back to riding again, and needed a horse to do that with. I stumbled across him online, and while I didn't think too highly of him from his photos, I figured I would take a look at him, since I was going to be ten minutes away trying another horse, anyway. When I arrived at the barn, I was confronted with a skinny, leggy, scruffy gelding, but he had a sweet look to him, and seemed to be pretty quiet. His owner informed me that she had gotten him off the track the previous december, and after turning him out for six months, she had begun trail-riding and taking him over some of the local hunt jumps.
I got on him to discover that he didn't really know how to steer, only understood the leg in regards to signalling the walk, trot and canter, wouldn't bend, and couldn't or wouldn't take the correct lead most of the time. However, he tried hard, was a cute mover and seemed to have potential in the jump department - if he could get past the geekiness induced by youth and ineducation. I left with the feeling that for the price, he might be a good candidate for a re-sale if I could fatten him up and put some training into him. He passed the pre-purchase and I hauled him home the following weekend.
We spent all winter learning how to steer, bend, move off of the leg and pick up the proper lead on the first try. We also worked on producing a jump that was less extravagent, doing gymnastics religiously. I quickly decided that this was a seriously talented horse, and threw out the re-sale idea, deciding to keep him for myself.
Around February in 2008, he bagan presenting with a mystery lameness in his left front. It would come and go and was never accompanied by heat or swelling. By April it was occuring more frequently, and I took him to see the vet about it, no longer convinced that it was something that bute and a lighter work-load were helping. The vet did several nerve blocks before deducing that the pain was in his right hind hock and left front hoof. X-rays revealed minor density loss in his navicular bone, but no change in shape. While he was skeptical that this was causing SO MUCH discomfort, he nevertheless prescribed bar shoes and bute.
Ever the intermittent lameness, I managed to take him to King Oak in May for his first event where, despite a tantrum at the mandatory water-crossing, he was an absolute star...


Despite that success, however, the lameness continued and I called the vet back out. After watching him jog on the lunge and in hand, she couldn't detect any lameness (he had had a week off at this point). Due to his history, though, she decided that it was probably a good idea to inject the joint.
That done, I still didn't have a sound horse. My trainer suggested that unless I wanted to take him to Tufts to get "the works" and figure out what exactly I was dealing with, I should probably just sell him as a trail horse, since he seemed to be ok on minimal work. After much hemming and hawwing, I decided that it might be for the best to sell him to someone who didn't want to do much with him.
I had one or two people come out to look at him, but watching him go, I was dismayed to see that despite virtually no workload, he was still sore. After calling up Stephie Baer, the MA-based trainer that I was a working student for and still rode with when I could, we decided that not everything was adding up to navicular. He didn't move or act like a horse who had sore feet, the lameness was worse with a saddle on and manifested in an unwillingness to stretch the left leg out completely, but out in the paddock, he had to qualms about tearing around like a lunatic. Stephie suggested that I take him to see Mary, a vet that deals more in holistics and chiropractics, to see if she could find soemthing else going on.
I trucked him up to Littleton, MA for Mary to look at. She quickly found that his left shoulder muscles were extremely sore and told me that this would not only explain the increased lameness under saddle, but also the reason that the other vets had thought it was in his feet, as the muscles were pulling in the tendons and ultimately agitating the navicular area. She worked on him for an hour, injected some homeopathics, took blood to check his vitamin levels (since he was eating a TON and not really gaining weight or looking 100% healthy.) and sent us home with some Platinum Performance.
All of his vitamin levels came back normal, so on our next visit a month later, she pulled a Lyme titer. He was looking much more sound, but I felt that he had become more listless and had begun to look generally dull. The Lyme test came back VERY positive, so on the Doxy he went! In February of 2009, he finished up with his doxy and I finally put him back into work.
Of course, by the end of march I found myself sidelined with a back injury, so poor Tango was back out of work. I've finally wrangled a few friends to ride him while I nurse a torn disc back into riding shape. I plan on dedicating this thing to the progress that we're both making. Here are photos from his first time back undersaddle last week:





Whew! Long first post!!