Clinic Recap 5/9

I’ve had a weird couple of weeks. Just personal stuff going on (#datingproblems) but I’ve felt a little out of touch with riding and I’ve had less direction and motivation to ride and blog. However, the clinic with Susanne Winslade went really well!

However, we did have an interesting start since there had been a driving horse (combined driving Haflinger) scheduled before Katai and I started so not only did Katai get a little nervous in the crossties trying to figure out what was going on in the ring but when they drove out they left the door at the end of the arena open. When I was at J’s place open arena doors always led to a mini Katai meltdown and the doors on this area have never been open so I was curious how she would be. I took the time to walk her down there before I mounted up and she was up and curious but not losing her mind so I wasn’t that worried. However, as soon as I mounted up she lost her mind a little.

Thankfully Susanne was of the same opinion that I am and expressed that Katai was just going to need to get over it. We worked on getting and keeping at least one ear on me for the first several minutes and after a few great, forward, connected, directed 20 meter circles in each direction Katai was doing quite well. Susanne wanted me to get her head and neck a little lower than I’ve been getting it. Luckily after all our homework since the last clinic we were able to get there easily and I could immediately feel her start swinging better over her back.

After a few circles and straights with lower ears and a nice connection, Susanne had us start another exercise where we were supposed to spiral in and then leg yield out. Neither Katai or I are good at leg yielding so after a couple times in each direction, as Susanne saw how stuck we were on the struggle bus, she changed it to a "head to the wall" leg yield.

That’s when I started to get a little frustrated with myself. I’ve never learned how to properly do a leg yield and always struggled plus Katai hasn’t ever really learned to do them correctly. She actually used to rear as soon as you put her head to the wall so it wasn’t an effective way to teach this to her previously. During the clinic I was extremely proud that she not only didn’t rear but didn’t lose her mind with the amount of pressure we were putting on her. However, it didn’t mean that we were able to get anywhere ourselves. Poor Susanne had to watch us drunkenly and incorrectly try to accomplish this for a full arena before I let her know that I really didn’t know what I was doing and needed help.

Susanne came over and assisted on the ground and after almost another full arena Katai got it! She really is a smart cookie  After that we did it in the other direction and it was a little rough but we got it, she got the concept of moving her haunches without blowing through her shoulder and I was able to start to understand how to keep her neck straight, not let her blow through her shoulder, and keep her haunches at the correct angle.

What was really interesting is that there is this bodyworker lady (she works more with musculature, not so much chiro) that has attended the last couple of clinics with Susanne and she made an observation, along with Susanne, once we got back that Katai is built like a little body builder but that it’s her "external musculature" and not her internal. She said that the "Internal Musculature" will be strengthened more by stretching and that the occasional slight shortness that I had mentioned (left hind) previously would likely be helped by this stretchy work of getting Katai to cross over properly behind. She also mentioned that she thinks the shortness is coming from Katai’s stifle and maybe fetlock which at least helps me know a little more about where to watch. She didn’t think that it was time to call the vet but suggested that if it goes on for much longer despite doing additional/different work it might be good to get Katai a massage and maybe some body work.

This lady is doing some specific work with horses and riders on Monday and I’m going to do everything I can to get there and have a "lesson" since I think it would be SOO helpful!

Finally, right at the end of our lesson, we went to canter. Susanne wanted me to do three circles and do our best. Unfortunately as I cued for it, Katai actually bucked again which was disappointing since she hasn’t in a while and then half way around the second circle had a big, random spook. Because of that I never really got her on the bit and straight so we didn’t get to show our best work. After our disastrous canter Susanne wanted us to work on straightness and I think that we’ve been over bending the pony. Susanne was having me keep her neck straighter and wanted her haunches out more on the circle. She said that Katai has been throwing her haunches in on the transitions which is likely caused by us trying to keep her bent for the transitions. I’m sure I’m the culprit since I tend to exaggerate and if a little is good, more will be better right? Oops!

I’m going to chat about this with L so that she can help me understand what Susanne was seeing. Last time I thought, for example, that Susanne wanted me to turn my upper body out on the circle (confusing since that’s not what I thought I was supposed to be doing) but after talking to L realized that I was turning and collapsing in so bad that Susanne was just using it as a tool. Indeed, this time it didn’t come up at all since I’ve been working on being straighter myself.

Unfortunately H wasn’t able to make it since I rode right in the middle of the day so I didn’t get pictures. I’ll have to find someone to take some at one of my next rides so that I have some more content since this blog is getting boring without it!

TOABH: Who Trained Your Horse

Last week, we talked about our babies.  This week, let's talk about our greenies.  Who trained your horse?  Is your ponykins still in the process of figuring out this whole monkey-on-my-back thing, did you send off for thirty or sixty or ninety days, or did you buy a horse with all the bells and whistles?  Who has helped your horse become what he or she is today?

That answer is basically me :) I bought Katai completely untrained as a late four year old. She could kind of lead if you could catch her but she had a nasty habit of suddenly rearing, spinning, and bolting backwards away from you whenever you tried to do something she didn't approve of. She certainly didn't know how to tie, was tough to catch, aggressive, had no idea about forward, and had been thoroughly spoiled by her teenage owner. I believe that that girl had sat on her a few times and said that she'd had a saddle on her back but it actually just made things tougher since it had taught her that she didn't need to listen or do what a person wanted since eventually they'd give up. 

This was from before I got her. I can see both fear and some aggression from her in this picture and that's pretty much what I started with. Plus she was extremely obese.

Here she is about five months after I got her. She's standing tied, although there was still a lot of dancing and behaving like an idiot, and wearing a bit for probably the fifth time.

Wearing a blanket like a big girl. It only took me about 15 minutes to get it on. She was still wearing a safety halter since she was tough to catch.

More big girl things, wearing four boots, a surcingle and a bit and this was just before I started ground driving her. She looks so shaggy, undeveloped, and babyish here. I also think it's interesting that at this point her mane fell to the left and now it falls to the right. Apparently it has to do with the development of muscles.

Wearing her first dressage saddle. Such a baby!

First time on her back!!

This was right after one of our first real "rides" up until here we were either in a small enclosed space or mostly just doing mounting practice. At this point we were still just sticking to a walk. You can see though how much different her expression and posture are. She is calm and quiet and there is some trust there.

Working her at the first real boarding barn I kept her at and in her first indoor arena. This is where we went from just walking to doing trot and canter.

First real trail ride outside of any type of fence and down the road.

I don't have many pictures in between because I was always at the barn by myself and it was tough to get any plus I mostly worked on trot and canter over the winter when it was extremely cold and It was tough to have enough motivation to take off my gloves to use my iPhone camera.

And finally from October. I'm hoping to get more pictures soon!

I had such a great ride tonight. She is really starting to understand the lateral work and I'm getting a nice, relaxed, balanced response on a loose rein. Currently I'm focusing on leg yields to the wall and shoulders in. Haunches in used to freak her out and was a great way to get her to rear but she completely didn't understand shoulders in. Now she does well with haunches in and is finally starting to get haunches in along the wall :) Even better she is doing it on a soft feel and maintaining her balance, not sticking her head up in the air and getting hollow. 

I've also been focusing more on the canter. I think I'm going to need to go back to getting the transition nicely on the lunge. She used to pick it up immediately when I gave a specific vocal cue but now she just puts her ears back and races forward at the trot. I'm trying to figure out if it is me or if she just needs a reminder about what the canter cue means. 

Something to work on for next time!

VCBH: Interested Parties

So way back in week seven of this tortuously long blog hop I have going we talked about the Pros of our current horse. Some of us experienced these pros after buying our horse. Now I am curious, what made you interested in your current horse that lead you to buying them in the first place?

This is a really interesting idea for a blog hop topic! 

I always end up with horses based on some weird turn of events. I've never had a "normal" horse shopping experience where I tried multiple horses, had a checklist, budget, PPE etc. and Katai was no different. I'd had a couple of tough decisions to make about horses such as the decisions after Sora hurt herself and deciding that Myshla was just too small. I'd decided after having Myshla that I wanted a pony and since I still owned Myshla and didn't really want a second horse I was only casually looking. I was looking through Horse Clicks and stumbled over an ad with this picture. 

The ad listed a 13.1 hand pony for sale at $400. It stated that she was untrained and half Haflinger. She also just happened to be about half an hour north of where I was living at the time. I held out. I KNEW that I didn't need another horse, I really didn't want to start and train another myself after dealing with Sora's issues and I really wanted a pony that was closer to 14 hands.

A few months later as I was getting more convinced I could handle having two horses and was also pretty sure I was going to find a little girl home for Myshla I decided to start looking more seriously. I wasn't having much luck with the searches I was doing so I lowered the height I was looking for and there she was again. At that point I had nothing to lose by going to see her and I was pretty sure that since it was going into winter, late September, and she had been listed for a few months that her owner may be willing to take a deal.

I went to see her and I wouldn't say I was blown away but she was what I was looking for. She was reasonably calm and despite having not been handled much, or correctly, she picked things up pretty quick. I asked for her to yield her shoulder and she thought quietly about it and although she resisted a little she figured it out without a blow up. I could do almost nothing other than lead her so I played around with groundwork as much as I could. It was her mind and her Haflinger heritage that actually sold her. 

That and the fact that her teenager owner accepted a trade of a whole bunch of extra, horse sized English tack for her instead of cash :)

After her purchase I struggled with several things including intermittent lameness, rearing, lack of any ground manners, two 4+ hour trailer loading experiences, and much worse/tighter/shorter gaits than I hoped she'd have.

 The lameness turned out to be thrush which is now completely gone, the training issues went away with, guess what, training and time, and her gaits have improved immensely now that her feet feel better and she's got some strength. She went from a fairly naughty, headstrong pony with attitude to one of the quietest, bravest, calmest, smartest equines that I've ever had the pleasure to work with. She also grew around an inch and is now 13.2 1/2 - 13.3 hands

My plan was, and has always been, that I COULD train her for a little kid. Get a good return on investment and buy myself something else but honestly, this pony has stolen my heart. I'd hoped from the beginning that I'd keep her and earlier this week I had a whole post typed up about how I know she is my heart horse and how I plan on doing just that but then it disapeared. She has made riding fun for me again after a few bad or scary experiences. I no longer want to go to the barn because I love horses or know I need to train her or myself, now I'm going because I want to ride HER, spend time with HER. 

I need to get new pictures since she is really developing a top line and has filled out a lot since even the most recent photos I've posted. I'll try to post an update after my lesson on Thursday!

In Love with Lessons

My decision to move to this barn has been so well confirmed this week. I adore my instructor (coach would be a better word) and my pony has been quickly returning to her normal self. After my rides last weekend I wasn’t able to make it out to the barn on either Monday or Tuesday because of my social life.

I swear, I never used to have any kind of social life at all and now it feels like it’s been getting out of control. This weekend I left completely open so that I could relax and take care of normal things like dishes and laundry and focus on Katai.

At any rate, on Wednesday morning I planned on going out to the barn to ride and work with Katai but I got an email from J that she would be unavailable for my lesson on Thursday because of a show, Eventing, that she would be coaching her students at. So instead I had my lesson last night at 8:00pm. I was thinking that Katai might misbehave because of the late hour and change in her schedule but she was actually really excellent and best of all I had my first lesson riding her!

That lesson confirmed for me that J is exactly the coach that I hoped she would be. She approved of what I’ve done so far but I found several things that I would have done wrong if I had continued on my own which is exactly why I moved her when I did. Even better, while she sees and is honest about Katai’s limitations she has never questioned me for riding a nontraditional pony and being interested in dressage. She has praised Katai for her brain and said several times how cute she plus she recognizes that I’ve ridden in the past and I’m not completely incompetent but really NEED good instruction since I just haven’t had it. She is also an incredible horseman at everything from groundwork, to tack fit, and of course riding and while she is currently helping a student who rides at PSG and is schooling GP she is really good at teaching me the basics.

Last night we started out by trying some saddles. I had brought both the saddles from the previous post and it turns out that neither one actually fit. Then we also tried a dressage saddle that was at the barn as well as another close contact saddle which is what I ended up riding her in but even that one didn’t really fit. Katai was decently good standing in the arena while we messed around with her and she is figuring out how to stand still even if it still isn’t really her strong suit. I think the plan had been to do more lunging with her but with J’s close contact saddle on she asked about what I wanted and I said to ride. J was concerned about the girth, and I think about Katai since she’s only ever seen her as a little fireball on the ground and never with someone on her back. She did allow me to climb up though and after some initial corrections to the way I mount, I’ve always been pretty haphazard about it really and have gotten even sloppier recently, she gave me a pony ride around a 20 meter circle for quite awhile.

She helped Katai understand some of the concepts, like stretching into contact, that we are working on and it was wonderful to have help on the ground because it is something I’ve never had. After a few laps in each direction, and a reminder that I could hop down if needed, she finally let me go and stood back. Katai was her normal workmanlike self even if she was very forward. She listened and we had some great moments and I think that J was able to relax a little seeing that I wasn’t going to be instantly killed. Katai really has been pulling some interesting behaviors on both myself and J and has been quite the handful over the past few weeks so I can completely understand what J would have to worry about. Luckily I’ve gone slowly enough and strictly enough with her under saddle training that she really is a little doll about being ridden even if she isn’t always on the ground which is something I’ve mentioned before.

Tonight Katai just had grooming/cuddle time. I did try yet another saddle on her but again it didn't fit. I am starting to figure out where I've been going wrong though and hope to get this figured out soon. I've pretty much had every saddle from the tack shop out on trial at this point and the clerks are starting to laugh at me when I come in :/ Oh well, it will all be worth it when I finally have a saddle that fits!!

Muddy pony is muddy and very happy to have some hand grazing time with me. Next item of business is to get her used to the wash stall ;-)

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!!!

Big Girl

Today it was windy enough that I wasn't comfortable working outside so I brought both girls in the barn for a second time to groom and have them practice standing tied. Neither one of them has a problem with the wind but I do and days like today make me want to curl up inside with a blanket and watch a movie.

I did have Katai wear her bridle with the new bit for the first time since I got the NS bit and it was a success. She was much less fussy and much more relaxed. I spent a bunch of time grooming both her and Myshla including brushing out tails and clipping manes so they look like neat English horses again rather than fuzzy ponies.

Katai did way better at standing tied today and actually figured out how to eat around her bit which was a huge thing since it means she is starting to relax her jaw a little. It's not something I would normally encourage a horse to do with a bit in their mouth but in my opinion its not bad for them to know they can either.

I did get a couple of pictures of her today so this blog finally isn't as boring. Doesn't she look like a big girl?

Mind Set

Is something I constantly struggle with when it comes to really throwing myself into this journey with Katai. I had no trouble doing it properly with my music because my mom made sure we had plenty of opportunities and I have no problem getting the mindset right with my career because I make the opportunities myself but I still can't believe that I can make things happen with Katai.

Part of it is not having those opportunities with horses when I was little. I never had the correct tack, no transportation for our horses so no lessons and no good instructors in the area for lessons anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I am incredibly thankful for the fact that we even had horses. I'm bringing it up just because it is affecting how I think about being competitive with Katai.

I'm hoping that as we go into spring and summer and I have more of those opportunities it will start to sink in. It's also really helping that I'm finally able to afford the right tack. I'm not talking popular tack I just mean tack that fits properly and is appropriate for the type if riding I'm doing. I do have to say that I am very excited to get my custom Mattes pad in pony appropriate colors though ;)

This quote by Ayn Rand is something I just found and feel is appropriate,

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplacable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours."