Pony Withdrawl

I didn't get to see my pony tonight and I'm missing her badly. It's just too cold though. I blanketed her yesterday after our ride so she should be reasonably comfortable and it was going to be cold enough again that there wasn't a good reason for me take it off so she'll wear it until tomorrow or even Wednesday morning.

I did spend some time working on my goals for the year and although its nowhere near a complete list I think it's time for me to start writing them down for the world to see, or at least the world of horse bloggers :-)

 

Goals for 2014

 

1. Attend at least 3 dressage shows

 

2. Get out of the arena

 

3. Try an endurance ride (if I can find one that is local enough)

 

4. Take as many lessons as possible

 

 

I am seriously serious about accomplishing these things this year with my girl come hell or high water. I am already working on plans for transportation and figuring out who, where and when I can get lessons from. I see 2014 as a jumping off point for us and a way to get to bigger and better things. I think that a nice, fairly simple year of just accomplishing tons of miles and sweaty saddle pads together will leave us in the perfect place to get more serious about lessons and competing next year. This plan also runs concurrently with my career goals. I see myself at my current job for about two more years. I am hopeful that at that point I can find a new job with a higher wage as I am seriously underpaid now. Hopefully this new job will either be in or closer to the cities and at that point as I am looking for new boarding barns I will need to know more about my competition plans since the facility I move to will depend on where I want to take things.

 

 

All I know is that at this point the world is our oyster.

 

                 

Winter Update

So its been way to long since I posted anything on my blog. This is due to a few reasons including this polar vortex thing and how busy my life seems all of a sudden. I swear, a few years ago I never would have believed that I would have a busy social life but suddenly that is exactly the way it seems to be. I am figuring out how to balance it all and starting to demand more horse time rather than just dealing with being busy and putting Katai last all of the time but it is a work in progress since I've never had to do anything like this before.

I have been working with her fairly consistently its just not as often as I would like, hasn't been as productive as I would like and I've had no time to blog on what has been happening. However, I decided that it is time to stop making excuses. I've had this thing that I've called a "100 Day Challenge" where basically I wrote out 100 days of things that I wanted to do I wanted to accomplish such as cantering Katai for the first time, eating healthier and making more time for myself. I've been doing fairly well meeting the challenges every day with the exception of missing a few riding days due to weather. One of the challenges is starting to blog more consistently again so that is what I'm working on now.

Today I was out at the barn for awhile despite the cold and rode not only Katai but another large draft cross named Durango. It is wonderful to ride a horse that has more experience and to have the chance to work on myself. His owner has asked me to ride once in awhile to do some dressage work and give her some tips. Today we worked on turns on the haunches to start to try to lighten his front end a bit.

Durango with his owner riding 

 



The real star of the show was Katai though. She is slowly getting better and better and our biggest hindrance right now is her lack of strength. Just like any young horse she is weak especially going to one side and that makes the work hard and her frustrated. It really doesn't help that with this extremely cold winter all of the horses are just standing around in the pen. Today she was clearly sore from our last workout a couple of days ago when we did a lot of trotting. While I don't like seeing her sore she did get more comfortable as she warmed up and got working again and I am glad that she is building muscle. I gave her easy work today and we did a lot of walking with just a small amount of trotting. Tomorrow she will get just a grooming and some grain. I may try to liniment her but honestly with how long her coat is right now I think it may be a lost cause. I will do some carrot stretches with her though and some walking to just help her stretch out.

Eating grain foods in a stall.

 



I < 3 my Barn

Really, they have a Keurig coffee maker with all kinds of free K-Cups. I brought some Mocha ones today because that's my favorite :-)

 

There is also hot water for tea and a microwave. The little lounge area and bathroom are heated too which is wonderful!

 

J has it decorated so cute and there is tons of seating on these cozy little couches.  The small box on the wall to the right is a sound system so you can play the radio, cds or my Iphone!!! over the sound system in the arena. Ones of my goals tonight is actually to work on a riding playlist :-)

The view into the arena is great!

 

There are two lines of three stalls each in the end of the arena. The lounge is just to my right in the picture. J doesn't believe in stalling horses so these are mostly storage but a couple are cleaned out and ready for horses for overnights or health reasons.

The tackroom is cozy and further to the left at the same end of the barn as the stalls and lounge. I ended up with a whole three saddle racks to myself which is awesome and probably won't last. 

When I took these pictures my saddle was home being cleaned and acting as art in my living room. 

I LOVE that saddle :-)

The best part!

 

Finally pony eating her grain. Normally she is tied but tonight was declared "love on pony night" by Katai and myself because she has been great and is working hard. She is still young and not very strong and I don't want to overface her and make her dislike being worked. I actually thought that she might not want to be caught tonight but she walked right up to me. She got some hay while I groomed her and then we played at liberty around the trail obstacles set up in the arena for awhile. Finally I took care of her feet, she got her grain and then I turned her out again.

Tomorrow there will be more riding and hopefully I will be able to work her more to her uncomfortable side. Soon I hope to have pictures of me actually riding her!

Yay! Boarding!

I found a place!!!!

I really love where Katai is now but with no arena, a sketchy pasture (used to be an alfalfa field 0_0) and nobody to ride with I have been seriously considering moving her. The problem is that the closest boarding stable and the most reasonable is also over crowed and has poor pasture spaces with many, many horses per field plus it is way more expensive just for pasture board.

This barn is slightly further away from home but almost exactly the same distance from work. It has a huge indoor coverall arena, an outdoor round pen, trails and a nice outdoor riding space, arena with grass footing. There aren't too many boarders and the woman who owns that place has exceptional horse keeping knowledge. She only deworms if she knows what the worm count is, rotates pastures and is willing to dry lot and manage turnout which is so huge for Katai!

















 Best of all the board is exactly what I will be paying now where she is for winter and only a little more expensive then I have been paying for the summer plus I can move in soon! It looks like I may be able to move her as soon as next Sunday although it will depend partially on Dan since I know I didn't give him much warning.

I can't wait to be able to ride her inside a nice safe space, ride with other people and be able to ride during the winter.

I was going to get more pictures but it was getting dark and its always a little weird taking pictures as the owner is walking you around. Next time I will get arena pictures :)

I can't wait!!!

Riding the OTTBs

After checking on Katai yesterday Lisa invited me out to ride in the new arena. She's asked me to stop and ride with her even once I'm fully moved out and I happily accepted. It will be good for me to ride a fully trained horse and fun to still spend some time hanging out with Lisa.

Last night I started out riding Missy who is a small, at least for an OTTB, Bay mare who is in her late teens. She hasn't been ridden much and is stiff but after 15 minutes of warm up and some very concentrated leg yielding and proper circles she was moving extremely nice. It was really fun to really RIDE again and to feel the difference in Missy after some correct riding.

While I was riding Missy I noticed that Lisa was having some trouble with Liv, who is an awesome 2nd level Dressage horse, and I asked if she would want to switch. She did so then I climbed on Liv and worked on getting her to slow down and not blow through the aids. She had cantered the day before and was hot and could only focus on cantering. It took about 10 minutes to get her to actually listen and stretch out softly into contact rather than lifting above it and running through all aids.

Overall it was an awesome ride even if I'm extremely sore and I really look forward to doing it again :-)

A Graduation of Sorts

Tonight I am so extremely proud of my little girl!

Lisa asked if I wanted to bring the girls, Katai and her horse Liv, to the neighbor's arena that we finished last weekend. I have a cold but I knew it would be good for me to get up and do something rather than moping around so I agreed. I had no idea how it would go but it ended up being an awesome experience!

I trailered Katai down to the neighbors which was the first big step. I've only ever trailered her to bring her home and that time she freaked out and it took me over an hour to load her. She was understandably a little freaked out when I unloaded but she stood tied while I groomed and tacked up even if she was moving her feet a little more than she should have.

Lisa had elected to ride to the neighbors rather than trailer and the only time that Katai really freaked out was when she could hear Liv through the trees and they started screaming at each other. She pulled back twice but thanks to her awesome rope halter she didn't get free and calmed right back down.

I took her out to lunge her a bit and get her feet moving while I waited for Lisa to arrive and them tied her back up to the trailer while Lisa changed and adjusted tack.

When we initially brought them both I to the arena I figured it would just be a lunging day because she was still pretty worked up but as I actively lunged her at a walk, using the whole arena, she settled right back down and was being so calm and well behaved that riding just made sense.

So I climbed on. She was extremely good and having another horse to follow helped with forward movement. She threw her head up one time with naughty intentions but I just growled at her and she went right back to her normal, well behaved self.

After that it was all easy. I ended on a good note sooner than I would have liked but the day had already been full of new, stressful things for her and I didn't see the need to push it especially when she was behaving so well.

She again stood tied to the trailer like a champ and walked right past the neighbor's dump truck into his pasture without batting an eye. She and Liv will stay down there for the rest of the week so we can take advantage of the nice weather and the arena but I'm guessing that the new stable will be ready by this weekend so then I'll probably be moving.

I am so totally proud of my pony and myself for getting her to this point! Now I just have to work with her more consistently and she will be the most awesome, stubborn pony ever!!!

Next time I will get pictures :)

Awesome Opportunity

This post also could have been called "eaten by mosquitoes" but I thought I should maybe keep it positive.

Long story short, I haven't had a real arena to ride in for several years except for a short time with Sora while I was boarding her, of course I couldn't ride her then but that's not really the point is it?

Is it....

Never mind


At any rate I now have an opportunity to finally have an awesome, large arena at the neighbor's!!! He is in a relationship with Lisa, my landlord, and said that if we bought the fencing materials he would buy the sand. He already had an arena at some point and the base is still there but he stole the sand off it to use it for his landscaping business.

Last weekend we put in posts and got most of them painted white. This weekend we have to finish painting and drill holes for the rope. Then we just need to hang gates and get the sand and we will be set!