Badly Needed Update

So much has happened since my last real blog update that I think it’s time to do some catching up. I am starting to feel better but this cold is still hanging on and I’ve had way too little energy for all the commitments I have. Being an adult sucks sometimes!

 

Katai has been awesome. She is really maturing into a nice pony and just over the past couple of months has matured to the point where I don’t worry about leaving her cross tied while I’m getting tack or when a horse leaves her by herself. She deals with our slightly claustrophobic gate situation in the paddocks without batting an eye and goes right into work mode 80%-90% of the time when we enter the arena.

 

Prior to getting so sick I did get a nice lesson in with L and although she is out of town next week we decided that after that I will take weekly lessons! I’m so excited that I’m able to, and that she thinks we’re at a point where that will benefit us, because I’m sure we will make much more steady process that way. I am going to have to change my budget a bit but I think it is worth it. The lesson on Sunday went really well and it was awesome to have H there videotaping it. I have to admit I was shocked and slightly disgusted with my riding which is exactly why it’s good to have video of myself. I have unfortunately picked up some bad habits from J who encouraged a very forward, hunter style, posting trot as well as a chair seat and slouchy shoulders.  Who knows why really but now I’m paying the price L (Not that I was perfect before by any means but this has just increased the number of bad habits that I have to deal with.)

 

Katai is still quite rushy but we are starting to make progress there and her contact has gotten so, so much better. It’s both more steady and she gets it earlier in the ride rather than needing to work almost half an hour to really get her on the bit it’s now down to a few minutes. She is also starting to have relaxed moments at the trot even though they are few and far between. The most frustrating thing for me is when she gets tense and rushy and then starts blowing me off. It’s like her brain is a million miles away and I’m trying to yell at her but she’s not hearing me. Those are the moments when I start to get frustrated but I feel like everything else is a positive, if slow, work in progress.

 

I am going to share some videos, one from right when I first started riding at J’s and the other from this last lesson. I’m honestly terrified to share because it doesn’t seem like we’ve made enough progress but then I remind myself that for the 6 months we were with J we were actually going backwards and the progress we’ve made has pretty much been from December – April and I feel a bit better. My instinct is only to show the pretty moments but then this wouldn’t be a true journal of our progress and I’ve been realizing that I wish I had more video of when things were falling apart with J so that I could really see how much progress we’ve made now without her. That made me decide that it’s time to post some of these things. However, I need to get them all to the same place, like YouTube and do some editing just for length before I post and with how busy I’ve been lately I’m not sure when that will be but you can look forward to cringing at my riding sometime soon.

 

In other news I’ve gone Vegan, for health and diet reasons primarily although animal rights and environmental benefits are an added bonus, and I’m really enjoying it. I’m discovering foods and flavors that I’d forgotten or never knew existed which is fun. I will be sharing some food stuff both with recipes and meals that I’m eating etc because I think it’s really interesting and fun. The reason I bring it up here is that during my foray into natural horsemanship previously some of the people I spent time with were vegetarian or vegan and said that their horses treated them different. I can only imagine that to an animal with such an advanced sense of smell the difference between an animal that eats meat vs one that eats only plant based food would be extremely huge. I’d, however, never really thought it was true but I’ve noticed a HUGE difference in Katai’s behavior with me recently. She keeps wanting to rest her nose against me, share breath, cuddle, and she’s much quieter when I’m handling her doing things that previously were scary like clipping or spraying her with flyspray. I can imagine that it would be the difference between a predator and a pasture mate. Of course this is all just speculation but I do find it interesting!

 

I also, back to dressage related topics, officially ordered my saddle! I mailed the tracings on Monday April 20^thbut they probably didn’t get there until closer to the 24^thso I’m starting my countdown on April 27^th which means that I’m about two weeks in at this point. The estimate would have been 4-6 weeks but because of the redesigned block he said it would take more time so I’m estimating 8 weeks which would be sometime around the end of June. I’m so so so so so excited and to prepare have been slowly working on deciding which pieces of tack to purchase so that everything will be Havana and therefore match.

 

Thanks to all of your suggestions I decided on a Micklem for Katai’s bridle and I picked one up from our local tack store last night! I was little concerned about how she would deal with the chin strap since I’ve never ridden her in a flash but she was extremely quiet. She didn’t fuss at all when I bridled her and she was also quieter as I was riding. It wasn’t a 180* change but she was at least a bit softer on the contact and at least slightly less fussy. I’m interested to see how she goes this weekend!

 

Pony didn’t want to stand still for pictures.

 Of course, since I don’t like the thick rubber reins that came with it, that meant that last night I rode with a black saddle, brown girth, black reins, and brown bridle so now I just need to find brown reins that I like and pick up some brown stirrup leathers and then we will be all set!

Just because I love this photo