Good Ladybug

Edit: I wrote this before I was in the accident but I wanted to thank all of you for your comments. It means a lot :) I was extremely sore yesterday and actually went to the hospital. They told me I had whiplash and gave me some pain meds and told me to take it easy for a few days. I dodged not being able to ride but we had a snow storm yesterday and today so I won't be going to the barn. Tomorrow the high is -9* so we'll see if I go out then. Luckily next week is still forecast to be in the 20s and 30s so I'll be there every day!

First, to explain the title I always used to call female horses Lady. Not as in the name but the way you might say "Hey ladies!" to your friends. With Katai, since she's my adorable little bug it turned into Ladybug :)

The adorable little bug herself

Second, I just want to say that Katai is a good girl. The reason that I don't talk about her spooking, bucking, leaping, bolting, kicking, biting, etc is that she just doesn't. Especially after working with Jane, she just doesn't do anything other than get a bit tense, rush a bit, trot sideways a bit, or possibly giraffe for a stride or two and that's more confusion or when she's feeling a little stiff than an actual "no" response.

You can just feel the pre-ride excitement 

As an adult amateur who personally doesn't have the guts to deal with a big powerful horse that  doesn't always want to play this is absolutely perfect for me. It's the most amazing feeling to go to the barn and know that one way or another we're going to have a productive ride. Of course sometimes I feel better about rides than others and I'm consistently on the struggle bus with figuring out all of these new skills that Jane is patiently trying to teach. However, Katai has been right along for the ride which makes the struggle bus a much less lonely place.

P is for Pony and also Perfect and Princess ;)

She's still a horse and sometimes she still decides to blow me off. Sometimes when it's chilly out and you're a pony and your feet have grown wings and you're stretchy trotting so your rider has less half halting ability it's a lot more fun to go fast than to listen. I wasn't asking for much, just that she slightly slow down based on my escalated seat cues but slowing my posting wasn't working, using my seat wasn't working, picking up my reins wasn't working so I went to pulling on my reins and to be frank, it took a pretty big pull to make a difference. I HATE pulling on her mouth but a "trotting" away pony needs to listen at some point and I'd given her almost too long (more than half of the arena) to make a change.

We're riding at 3* like a badass

After I corrected her we walked for a bit, did a transition to trot (which was beautiful :-) and then I asked her for stretchy trot again. Going down the long side again her feet grew little wings and we were nearly cantering. I started with my posting, then my seat, and finally barely picked up the reins and this time she immediately slowed her trot. What I was really happy about was that there was no over reacting and she stayed stretched down into contact. I ended on that because we were already at the end of a great ride but it's being added to our homework for the next few weeks.

She's Sound!!!:Lesson Recap 2/28

*This is a warning that starting with the 6th paragraph I'm going to be journaling about how my mind works in regards to my pony. It's probably a little boring and not much about our lesson but I want to write it for myself. Feel free to skip to my next post if it's boring.

I'm so happy right now! I drove out to the barn first thing on Saturday morning and was preparing myself the whole time for her to still be off. When I got there I tacked her up and put on side reins so that I could start off lunging and then hopefully ride after. She still seemed a little tender on the concrete but once she got to the arena footing she looked excellent! I had my fingers crossed the whole time and when I first asked her to trot she was really reluctant so I got nervous but other than clearly being stiff she was sound!

I had her walk, trot, canter each direction on the lunge and then climbed up. Her saddle was really sliding forward badly which I think was a combination of gaining some weight (pony's got a cute little hay belly right now) and losing some muscle behind her shoulders. Under saddle I walked and trotted and when I went to canter I got her first real bronc moment. I looked down and realized that her saddle had really slid forward but made her canter a circle first so that she didn't think that I'd get down for that type of behavior. Then I called it a day.

Today I started off lunging her again. Part of me was worried that after our work yesterday she'd be a little sore again but other than seeming a bit stiff to start out again she was brilliant and very sound. I walk, trot, cantered her again on the lunge and then just as L was getting to the barn I climbed up.

Katai was VERY reluctant to bend her rib cage to the left. This was normal for her but was getting better and better prior to our three week break. Today it was pretty bad but thankfully between her being more mature, stronger, and better trained and me being smarter and better trained we figured it out by the end of the lesson and with very few theatrics from Katai. She had a few stiff, trot sewing machine, canter moments but mainly kept her head about her and she never pulled any rearing or balking crap. After a couple of great stretchy bendy circles in each direction we called it a day before we made her too sore.

I was really happy with that but during my 1/2 hour drive home I always analyze how everything went or felt and after about 15 minutes I came to this sort of stunning realization that the entire time I was riding I was feeding myself self defeating self talk. except it wasn't so much about me, it was about my pony.

See Katai is enough for me, she always will be. I've had these scenarios that I play over in my head when I'm day dreaming where some rich parent comes up to me at a show (where we're showing 2nd level or something) and offers me some outrageous amount for my pony like $50,000 and I turn them down. Katai is literally everything I love about horses, she's my perfect match and there's no way that I'd sell her now or in the future when we are riding at 2nd level.

However, some small part of my brain has always related the amount I got her for (basically free) to her worth. I mean we all probably do it to some extent. There's a big difference between this;

 

 

and this;

Clearly if you had the former you'd blame yourself for mistakes, you'd feel like you could do anything, you'd expect that you'd be riding at a high level fairly quickly and (speaking at least for myself) I would certainly pay for the best instruction and care team that money could buy so that we didn't "mess up" this talented (and expensive) horse.

I'd also spend twice the time grooming that horse, have more chiro appointments scheduled, certainly more massage appointments and I'd have the saddle fitter out more often. I know, I know just because the horse is worth more it doesn't mean that it deserves any of this more than my pony. I truly do understand that Katai deserves everything that that horse does but I would just expect to do those things for that horse while me, and everyone around me, is surprised when I do those things for my pony. It's just the way that human thought process seems to work and it's something I've been fighting ever since I got Katai. I love that I get to do all these things for my pony regardless of the worth that someone might place on her and again, I think that she's completely priceless, but my traitor brain doesn't always play along with my heart in this case.

In the car I realized that today as I was riding I kept thinking that "this little pony just can't do this", "she's not talented", "she's sore because she's not talented", "she's not holding up because she's not a dressage horse", "she can't do dressage", "why are we trying to do this", etc. Despite this clearly not being the case I kept right up with the self defeating self talk.

I mean this is the pony that went from a sewing machine trot to such a long stride that the other local dressage instructor had to move the ground poles closer for a dressage horse she was riding (and not to compress stride). This is the pony that developed a stunning medium trot after less than a year of regular lessons and only about 4 months of a reasonably consistent riding schedule. This is the pony that now canters just off my seat cue and has developed a nice amount of jump to the canter, this is a sound, athletic pony and just about any sound, moderately athletic horse can do dressage at the lower levels but most importantly this is the pony that I chose to ride over any other horse. For me Katai is more than enough, the lower levels are more than enough and I still truly believe that we'll be able to achieve a bronze medal.

My damn brain, but again. This;

vs. this;

In the past when I moved her from the temporary winter barn to the barn with the crazy people I was extremely nervous. For some reason I was sick to my stomach thinking of moving her to that beautiful barn because I was worried that she'd be a little devil and she's clearly a scruffy pony and I'd have to own up to this being my scruffy devil pony. So I tricked myself, I told myself that I was actually moving Charlotte Dujardin's new, talented pony prospect to a new amazing dressage training facility where I'd be helping to exercise her. This pony prospect easily cost charlotte in the 5 figures like this guy and of course was exceptionally trained so she wouldn't have any issues with the move.

It actually worked. I was calm and proud of being able to bring this amazing pony to the new barn. Everyone there gushed over how amazing she was and I truly believe it's because I treated her like she was worth a million dollars. Pretty sad huh that I couldn't just be proud of my own pony. Now I need to do the same thing again only actually remind myself of how much Katai is worth to me. That needs to be enough and unfortunately after all the self defeating I've been doing I'm going to have my work cut out for me to reverse that to get my brain to actually acknowledge how much worth and love my heart has for this pony.

It feels traitorous to even post this here and looking at these pictures I know which I'd choose every time (just a hint, it's not the expensive one) but I'd rather acknowledge it and work on it then keep it a secret.

The Weeknd: Lesson Recap 12/6

This weekend was amazing for me and my pony. I had, due to some unexpected changes last week, ended up with four rides in a row. I had ridden Thursday for drill team (short ride), Friday (dressage ride), Saturday (supposed to be a trail ride), and Sunday (for my lesson of course).

This whole week we've had unusually warm temperatures and the snow that we ended up had almost all melted. I had been hoping that this would mean that I could safely plan a trail ride on Saturday but I was warned by the BM that the slush and mud was making it slippery out so I went to the outdoor arena instead and was so glad that I did!

The arena had a thin coating of snow but with the warm temps the footing was still good and since pony was full of herself I was looking for any excuse to ask her to canter. She had to wait until I asked but once I did I had her canter pretty much until I could feel her tiring a little. Because of the snowy footing she had a great amount of jump in her canter and so I felt like I had wings.

It was amazing!

I really wish someone had been available to take pictures or video because she had her little pastel quarter sheet on and with the snowy background it would have been so cute.

Then for my lesson on Sunday we rode inside since the footing was getting a little mushy. Katai was a little tired and muscle sore from all her cantering the day before but in true pony fashion decided that trying to run away with me would be her best way to get out of work. Instead she got pushed forward in a canter and had to keep cantering until it was my idea for her to quit. Then, just because she's sassy she decided when we switched directions that it would be a good idea to try that again.

This all occurred during our warm up so by the time that L started our lesson pony was already pretty tuckered out and thought that she really shouldn't have to work. She was behind my leg pretty much the whole ride, until work started getting tough later on and then she decided to start running away again, but it was ok because we spent more time working on me.

The last couple of lessons Katai has been going well enough that we've been working on leg yields on the quarter lines. Today we added canter transitions once we hit the wall to help me figure out how to get my body placed right. We would do the leg yield, one canter circle, back to the trot and then back down the center line to do the whole thing again!

This got her pretty jazzed up so it was back to the races but after her tiring day on Saturday and the amount of canter she did to start we cut her some slack and just ended a little early after one last good transition.

Overall I learned a lot and it was a great lesson. I've been holding with my inside hand and when I'm doing the leg yield especially I grab it rather than releasing it. Great homework for me this week! Katai is really getting broke and I'm able to do so much to influence her direction/speed/bend etc. that it's just fun to ride even if things don't all go perfectly :-)