Confidence Builder Clinic Recap (long)

This clinic/lesson day was exactly what I needed. I feel like my confidence has been pretty low over the past year or so. We left Jane’s having issues with Katai’s behavior because of, I believe, the saddle fit and ulcer issue. They had been resolved at that point but Katai was still reactive and worried about being uncomfortable. Then we worked with S2 and I lost more confidence about our path because she had a very different way of working with horses and caused more tension than I’d like. K has been very complimentary but after all of the past issues it’s been tough for me to not worry or doubt. Having another person who was saying really positive things about Katai and myself really helped, plus K’s trainer just has that much more history of bringing people up the levels so that was especially cool to hear.

The day on Saturday was forecast to be colder than what we’ve had (mid 30s instead of mid 40s-50s) so that added to my normal anxiousness because I was riding with someone new. I managed to hang out at home most of the morning and didn’t get myself too tied into knots. I left around 11:45 so that I could catch most of the first rider’s ride but not sit around too long and get nervous or too cold. I also was meeting up with one of K’s other students who was riding to pick up the bags and tags to get my blankets over to a blanket washing service. This is something I’m doing for the first time this year since living with bf means that having horse blankets hanging around drying in the apartment isn’t very fair :)

I got there and it was sunny but breezy and chilly. I got my bags and tags picked up and then went to the arena and watched the first couple of riders. The person who was riding, and about half way done, was the person who organized the day. She was working on canter transitions but I missed most of it because I was chatting with other riders about K moving, what they were nervous about and what I was, etc. The next rider to go was one of K’s long time students and someone who’s riding at 1st level very successfully and I was able to watch a bit more. She’s just getting back into it because she was out for most of the winter due to knee surgery. K’s trainer had a lot positive to say about her improvement despite that since they had worked together in the past. I was able to watch most of this ride and then I headed down to the barn to get Katai ready so that we could have lots of time to walk around in the arena and let go of some nervous energy.

While I warmed up I was able to catch bits and pieces of the person before me who also has taken lessons with K’s trainer before. She’s the one I went to the tack sale with along with K and I’m going to call her Jo since she’ll be making more of an appearance here in the near future.

Then it was my turn and I introduced myself and Katai. Since I’d only ever had one lesson with her, many years ago, on one of her lessons horses we took some time to debrief and talk about what I’ve been working on. The items I brought up were that I had gotten busy with my hands before working with K so she’d been working on getting them more still and giving forward vs. pulling back. We talked about how Katai blows through half halts especially through my seat (which was why I had gotten busy with my hands) and was hot and could get fizzy and worried if we worked on small things for too long (partially because the previous horse was struggling with this). I also mentioned that we’ve been working on getting her to reach forward and down but that my assessment was that now she’s swung far enough in that direction that it’s time to start to include a bit more work to bring her up. Finally I mentioned that she’s been throwing her head into the canter transition and we’ve been working on letting her “roll into it” more but that my timing wasn’t as good as K’s so sometimes she really started to run.

I had noticed through the other riders that K’s trainer was working a lot on position things and I was excited about it. Jane worked a TON on my position but since then I haven’t been getting any advice. I’ve been thinking that it was because it just wasn’t something that either instructor focused on much since I’ve ridden with people who seem to either work a ton on position or really not at all. It turns out though that one of K’s trainer’s first assessments was that I had a really solid position. I’m still a little in disbelief about that actually because I was such a mess when I started riding with Jane and would have guessed that it would have been falling apart again in the interim. It’s not that I don’t have things to do, like closing the back of my armpits a bit and being more relaxed through transitions (more on that later) but otherwise K’s trainer didn’t have much to say. That felt amazing.

She had me get started and just do sort of a warm up with her watching. I did some walk and then went to trot and did 20 meter circles, went large, did some 10 meter circles and some leg yield in both directions at the trot and then we did some canter in each direction. Then K’s trainer had me come back to walk and we got into the meat of the lesson. To start she had us do trot/walk/trot transitions with just a couple steps of walk. This is very consistent with what K and Jane have both had us work on. Basically Katai likes to ignore half halts and needs to learn to step under a bit more. We did fine but during that work K’s trainer also identified that we were both trying too hard. I was too demanding with my seat, although she complimented me on my hands.

She called out several times that Katai is her favorite sort of horse. Super obedient, a little hot, and trying so hard to do what I asked. She said that we were similar in that I was trying super hard and by doing that I was sometimes too demanding with my seat and asking for something immediate vs. letting it happen slower. She acknowledged that one of the toughest things we do as riders is to deal with the pendulum of obedience vs. relaxation and that right now we needed more relaxation. She asked me to relax my seat more into transitions vs. making the transition happen. It was tough for both of us and for a while it meant I was walking Katai into walls to teach her what I was looking for. She picked it up really quickly, more so than me, though so that was encouraging. Now I just need to work on it.

Finally we worked on some SI at the sitting trot and here K’s trainer again wanted a bit more relaxation especially through Katai’s pole and jaw. She did say that we were getting a medium trot through it though which made me celebrate since the biggest issue when I was working with Jane was that I was shutting her down with my seat and getting a tiny little trot through it. Cue minor internal celebration. Obviously we’ll need to get it more collected but the bigger looser trot is so much better than the tiny prancy steps we were getting. To help with the relaxation K’s trainer just wanted me to slightly counter flex her and then return to inside flexion to help her relax her pole, jaw, and body a bit. It was hugely helpful when I did this so some homework for us! She also said through the work that she agrees with me that Katai is stretching forward and down really well. We want to keep as much of that as possible, and return there if we lose it obviously, but that it is time to start to ask her to come up during rides.

Overall I felt sort of showered with compliments. K’s trainer was impressed by us and by the work we’d done. She said she wouldn’t have guessed that I was getting busy with my hands because they looked good in this lesson. She also complimented my position a few times which, again, felt really unreal. She also had so many nice things to say about Katai including that I could get a lot of money for her if I ever decided to sell her, especially with her size and that she was “worth her weight in gold”. That felt almost nicer than the compliments about my riding because Katai has certainly not always been a horse that people have said those things about.

I’m normally really uncomfortable about compliments and if they swing too far to just that during lessons I always wonder what I paid for. In this lesson though I got a lot of stuff to work on and I know we’ll build on this when I ride with her in April. In addition, I’ve just had so little motivation, so many doubts, and so little faith in our path this past year that hearing such nice and affirming things about us was just what I needed right now.

After I finished my ride Katai got stuffed with treats as we cooled out and while she was groomed and put away. She was happy to be back outside with her favorite mare bear friend. Then I went back to watch the next couple of lessons.

It turned out that Jo’s niece was getting a lesson with K’s trainer as well so we had a chance to talk while that was going on and we made some plans! Jo used to trailer over to get lessons from K’s trainer every week but it just got to be too much so she stopped. So, with that in mind, we made a plan to trailer over to K’s trainer’s farm (which is about 10 minutes away) monthly for lessons through the summer when K’s trainer isn’t able to make it out to our barn. I’m super pumped because it will not only be great to have regular access to lesson but it will also mean that we can get some good, low key trailering experience with way less pressure! K’s trainer’s farm is also lovely and she has a large heated arena with lovely footing. We’re going to talk with her when she’s here in April and make a plan. Fingers crossed it all works out the way we want it to!

March Goals

I’m not even going to attempt to recap any goals for this year since we basically haven’t accomplished anything in 2019 yet beyond lots of vacation time. However in continuing with the theme of trying to post more positive things, looking ahead to the rest of March, and what I hope to accomplish, feels good.

Blog More:

My hope is that even if the weather continues to be awful I can still do some more blogging. I’m sure I can find things to blog about even if they aren’t substantial riding updates.

I also want to start trying to get more media even if it’s the snow outside our apartment, Katai eating hay in her stall, or Katai being fluffy and rolling in the arena.

Fitness:

My bf (who has a lot of yoga experience) finally convinced me to go to my first yoga class last Saturday. Unfortunately for him this ended up being a way more difficult class than it should have which made me slightly frustrated and left me feeling a little defeated. I HATE group fitness classes of any sort with a passion and while I was really hopeful that yoga would feel different this one didn’t. We went to a Vinyasa 1 class that apparently was more like a difficult Vinyasa 2 class and the class was packed so the yoga teacher wasn’t able to spend much time with anyone.

At any rate my amazing bf persevered and has convinced me to go to a yoga fundamentals class next Thursday. I’m actually looking forward to this one! I do want to do yoga, I just want to gain some understanding of how to do things correctly and then do it on my own at home and maybe just occasionally join him for a class.

Along with yoga I’m hoping to spend more time in our apartment gym even if that’s just walking on the treadmill and doing core work outs. I really want to get more in shape as I’m increasing my ride frequency.

Bone collection, check
Nap, check

Plan for Shows?:

This one unfortunately is pretty up in the air. I don’t know how I’ll show this year. I’m not sure who I’d trailer with, which trailer I could borrow if any, how much budget I’ll have for showing, or where Katai and I will be riding wise. Right now I’m planning to take things as they come and take opportunities as I can.

I’m very much going to be working to make sure we can show a handful of times this year but if that’s schooling shows this fall that’s ok. For that reason I haven’t paid for any memberships yet but will be proceeding with that if needed. However, I would like to go through and mark some shows that I’m interested in and try to keep those weekends open/start talking with a couple of the people I board with to see if they’d want to join me.

Additional Lessons/Clinic:

I’ve been working with K to do a few weekly lessons (vs. bi-weekly). Unfortunately the weather has been totally derailing this but I’m hoping that the next couple of weeks in March will work for this.

I’ve also signed up for “clinic” with a local, upper level dressage trainer. This person is K’s trainer (KM) and actually the first person I ever took a dressage lesson with way back when. It was supposed to be this past Saturday but, continuing the theme, was canceled based on the weather and was rescheduled for 3/30. My hope is that by then I’ll have had some good rides, a couple lessons at least, and will be feeling more prepared. This person is one option for additional lessons once K moves and I already have tentatively also planned to ride with her on 4/20.

We (the bf, his sister and I) went to Two Cellos
and also got to see Jon McLaughlin who opened for them

Finalize plans for once K is gone:

It’s extremely sad that K is going to be gone the end of this month. I’m going to work hard this month to get as many lesson with her as possible and then finalize plans for once she’s gone. I’ve stepped out of one of my Sunday DnD groups as of last Sunday so I now have more weekend time available which may mean that I can more easily get lessons with K when she’s here. I’m hoping to finalize that within the next couple of weeks.

In addition I’m going to continue to figure out additional options including the following;

• KM may be coming out once per month through summer and will most likely be coming out once per month at least until summer. When I clinic with her at the end of the month I’m planning to talk through plans with her as well as far as when I could get lessons with her.
• The gold medalist instructor who’s lessons I audited this past month also offered a lesson or two on her lesson horses. I may make a plan to do so either this month or next to keep that door open. Of course I also think it would be good for my continuing dressage education to ride a more trained horse and take advantage of any and all lesson opportunities.
• I’m also going to continue to look at other options for moving Katai whether for later this year or in the future just because in continuing to have conversations about it with my support system I think that making sure we have a place to land if/when this place closes is pretty important at this point.

All The Learning

Puppy princess is feeling much better after her spay. She is looking so grown up!

When I decided to move to this barn, which meant no more weekly lessons, I certainly never intended to stop taking advantage of learning opportunities. It was just that I didn't want to continue to do lessons each week every week. That was coming both from a budget perspective and because after all these years of weekly lessons (mostly not riding) I'm just tired of having a weekly commitment every week. On top of that, I learned so much from Jane and then with the winter we had we took a big step back so much of what I'm working on right now is getting her back to where we were.

Of course I booked a couple lessons with S2 right away when I moved and when we decided at the second lesson that I wouldn't be going to the show at the end of May I moved my show budget to lessons and booked three more right away instead. That makes for 5 lessons with S2 in May and 4 of those were within a week. During one of those lessons she told me that Kristi Wysocki was going to be at the barn teaching a clinic and that she'd encourage me to ride with her.

My tack closet at home continues to get more packed.
I can't wait until I can move into a tack locker at the barn!

I'd taken a fair amount of time off work so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get the time off I needed for the clinic but in the end I was able to leave a bit early and do a late ride and while it was a little tight it all ended up working out. I truly wish I had clinic media but unfortunately there wasn't anyone there taking pictures and in the rush to change into barn clothes I left my phone in my car and just didn't think to see if someone could get any media.

I had been warned that Kristi could be blunt but I do really well with blunt. I like people who tell it like it is even if it's brutal. It's just the way I learn best. However, I never even saw that side of Kristi because she liked both of us and actually had very little feedback about the things we got to during that lesson. Part of that was because Katai was busy being the spookiest pony she's been in a REALLY long time with the sound system on in the arena so Kristi spent too much time helping me work through the spooks and even feeding Katai sugar :)

However, we still did get a lot of riding done including lots of trot, leg yields, canter-trot transitions, half halts work, a bit of work on my position and posting, and on generally slowing down the walk and trot after the canter. I got complements on our leg yields (totally Jane's doing) as well as my geometry which was AWESOME to hear coming from a judge especially since it's going to take good geometry to score really well on an average moving pony.

Off topic but this is maybe Katai's 10 ride ever :)

In all honesty she had very little to say. She wanted me to keep my elbows closer to my sides (yeah I flap when I'm concentrating on things haha), and to pause more at the top of my posting. I also got a couple reminders to look up. When we went to canter it fell a bit more off the rails (other than the spooking which was already solidly off the rails) because once Katai is asked to canter she thinks only canter is a thing. She helped me just slowly work through it but there wasn't anything groundbreaking. Just good solid, patient, riding.

In the end I'm really glad I rode with her and I got some really good feedback but I continue to go back to how incredible Jane is and she charges less than a 7th of that lesson for an hour vs. 45 minutes.

At this point I'm going to take a longer break from lessons. If anything, the lack of anything really ground breaking from that lesson (which again was at least partially caused by Katai's spookiness) really makes me want to continue to push through the things I know we need to work on more before I pay for more lessons. Between the things I learned from Kristi and the things I learned from S2 I have some additional items to work on as well as all of the work that Jane instilled in me so I'm really confident that we can get a ways now ourselves and then hopefully get S2 involved again as we get a bit closer to my next potential show!

Shifts

It has been so long since I've posted, almost a month at this point, so I'm pretty much giving up on my posting goals for this year.  I'm also tired of doing update posts but I also want to share all of the cool things we've been up to recently!

From this past week. I'm a sweaty mess but she's always gorgeous

First off, no I'm not at a show right now unfortunately. We made the call about two weeks ago that while Katai is making huge improvements in her ground work stuff she still isn't at a point where I can get her attention back on me, at least in show appropriate ways, so we want to get that more solidified first. In that vein, a couple of weeks ago when I had the lesson where we made that decision (on a Saturday) I decided to also sign up for as much training as possible and took lessons on Monday and Tuesday that week (which I had off work) and then another lesson this past Saturday.

S2 has been really complimentary of the training I've done with Katai. She was surprised and impressed that Katai had most of the buttons she needed to do the work that S2 has us doing on the ground and really just needed refinement. I also haven't known when to push, what to push for, and when to take all of the pressure off for some of the minor behaviors that Katai has had so we're working on that. Namely Katai always pushing me around with her shoulders. It's slow because it's a pretty well established habit but we are making headway and it's amazing how helping her to soften and bend her ribcage and move her shoulders around on the ground is helping under saddle.

Katai really loves the new arena except for the side door.
That ear needs to aim in that direction to ensure we stay alive

Then again it should be too surprising because S2 has had HUGE success doing this with her horses and client horses and has her silver medal.

From a dressage perspective I do miss Jane. Her instruction was just so fantastic and her way of teaching really resonated with me. I still don't really think that I'll have a chance to regularly lesson with anyone that amazing again. However, S2 is not only a really solid dressage instructor, she also has the show experience that Jane lacked. She's able to identify in each movement exactly what the judges will want to see and what could lose me points and that is something that's really helpful at this point now that I have a baseline to build on thanks to Jane.

Good side eye
Mare glare was clearly tired of the mirror selfies

I also had the opportunity to go on a trail ride! I was waiting until I could go out with someone way more experience who knew the way and had a solid trail horse and I got that opportunity finally last week. The trail, within riding distance of the property, was very technical with lots of gain and loss of elevation and we did it all at the walk so it was perfect for her busy brain. At first she was just rushing and not listening. She was also tight over her back and trying to trample the (very, very, experienced and patient) trail horse ahead of us. At one point though we headed down a hill that was covered in pine needles and therefore slightly slippery and she realized that maybe listening to me and my half halts was a good idea. After that she was zoned in and while she still wanted to go she was also really listening. It was also an amazing workout for her and she was nicely sweaty and tired by the time we got back. This sort of slow, hill conditioning, outdoor ride is exactly what I was hoping for since trying to build or maintain fitness at our last barn was nearly impossible.

I'm really hoping to find an opportunity to ride along one of the next times that this person trailers out to a trail ride so that Katai can get more off property experience doing something that she enjoys.

Pre-spay happy puppy :)

In other dressage news I also found out that I won't be able to go to the June show. Unfortunately it happens to fall on the weekend that I'll be in NC with my BF at a wedding. Honestly, if I hadn't already bought plane tickets I may have abandoned him haha but with the tickets I was already at the point of no return. It really sucks that a big part of why I moved was to show and now that's not happening but I am looking forward to the opportunity in the future and by the time it happens I should be that much more well prepared.

I also may be able to ride in a dressage clinic at the end of the week next week so fingers crossed for that!

My rides have been cut down to 4 days per week and this past week I only managed three since I ended up coming down with a really bad cold. I have today off and I'm hoping to ride all four days of this four day weekend but Moshy was spayed on Thursday so part of the plan is to make sure I'm mostly around to keep an eye on her and make sure she's not chewing on her stitches at all. She's doing pretty well but is clearly uncomfortable and I feel bad for her.

Goals, Mid-Year Update

I figured it was a good time to check in on my yearly goals and possible adjust as needed!

Goals for 2017

Increase Blogging Again 

Buy a Trailer

Trailer EVERYWHERE

Ride in Another Dressage Clinic

2nd Level Goals

Ok, so I'm going to keep the goal to increase blogging but that's about it. Honestly these just don't reflect much about what I want to improve this year and since I wasn't able to purchase a trailer a few of these are out.

I had good intentions with the 2nd level goals that were more about understanding and working towards the movements that make up a second level test than actually being able to successfully make it through a second level test in any sort of smooth, ridable sort of way. However, not really sure it's useful at this point at least not this way.

I've also become much better at making goals since my pony is actually rideable and can, you know, actually complete a good 20 meter trot and canter circle. I've spent some time outlining the things I actually feel like we need to work on and rather than keeping them in the background and limping through the rest of the year with these goals I figured it was time to clear the slate and start fresh.

Remainder of 2017 Goals

Build Katai's Strength:

This involves a few things including continuing to challenge Katai's balance with things like counter canter, walk/canter/walk transitions, trot poles, varying terrain, 10 meter canter circles 

Another thing it includes is riding more and longer. I've discovered that I'm only really riding for about 15-(maybe)20ish minutes each time I ride! I had videoed a couple of rides and found that including my walk warmup, walk breaks, and cool down I was in the saddle for about 25-30 minutes typically which just isn't long enough at this point. It's not my physical stamina that makes me cut it that short, it's more mental but I need to figure this out so that I'm riding closer to 40 minutes for at least 1-2 of those rides each week. I've really gotten my consistency up and have been keeping it there but now it's time to increase the duration of my rides.

Speaking of varying terrain I'd REALLY like to make more opportunities to ride outside. Jane has one small hill on her property and if I ride down the road I can ride up and down the banks on each side in some places. At the very least it's a good mental break from the ring but hopefully it's just one more way to strengthen the pony.

Show Experience:

As mentioned previously I'm planing at least two more shows this year. My main goals for these shows are to improve Katai's relaxation and rideability. I want to continue to be able to relax and have more fun, and I'm really hoping that she'll start to calm down more at the trailer and when I handwalk her around.

The smaller part of this goal is that I'd like to continue to practice my grooming and show prep including learning how to braid better and getting Katai more white and clean for the next show. This involves more desensitization to spray bottles and coat "products" for Katai so that she can let me do this especially when we arrive at the show grounds so that I don't just decide to throw up my hands and show with green spots on her legs.

Such grubby legs for this show!

"Fix" the Walk:

All I want is for Katai to relax in the walk. It's my fault that she's tense since she doesn't realize that walk is anything other than a way to get to trot. I just haven't practiced a medium or working walk enough so she's either on a loose rein or I'm just shortening the reins to trot. 

More consistency with riding a medium walk and practicing other movements at the walk should be all we need here. Now I just need to do it (see also, riding more and longer above)

Honest Connection to the Outside Rein:

We're pretty much there with the left rein but not with the right. She's starting to get it at the trot but at the canter if I put any contact on the right rein she trots. Again, I just need to practice and actually do it. This is sort of also connected to my loose hip on the right which means my leg turns out from the hip so my knee points out which also contributes to her bulging out through that shoulder. 

Latteral Work:

As mentioned I struggle with this but instead of practicing I just give up. I need to just practice, practice, practice. (see also, riding more and longer above)

Change it Up:

Originally part of what I loved about ponies was their accessibility and wanted/planned to do more different things. Without a trailer I'm certainly limited in what I can do beyond dressage right now but I have been spending more time riding outside and want more practice riding down the road. 

My Turn

Now it's my turn to be off only for me it's the form of a very bad cold. I don't get sick very often and normally when I do it's not bad. This time though I really feel like crap.

I was feeling lucky that I returned from my work trip without being sick but on Wednesday I started to wonder, on Thursday in the evening I was really tired and starting to feel sick, Friday was rough and now today has been really rough. I've been sitting/laying in bed cuddling with my poor bored puppy and watching bad tv.

Although I really wanted to just lay here I needed to ride today to make sure that we're at least slightly prepared for the clinic on Tuesday. After a couple of spirited rides on Wednesday and Thursday I knew that I really needed a good one so I dragged myself out of bed and made it to the barn. Luckily with lots of good cold and sinus drugs I was able to make sure I was feeling half way decent by the time I got to the barn and seeing Katai made me feel better as always.



Just because it's adorable

I lunged first because all the horses were high as kites and but as usual on the lunge there were no fire works. When I climbed on, however, she was pretty up and for some reason was really worried about the horse that was, very calmly, being lunged at the other end of the ring. I started working on occupying her mind right away and after lots of small figures where I really concentrated on getting a correct change of the bend and keeping her shoulders up we got some good work.

Really good work actually, better than we've had since I started riding again. I got a couple of comments that she was looking good again and she sure felt good. After I climbed out of the saddle I just about hit the ground and it was everything I could do to keep myself upright. My poor tack didn't get cleaned but Katai got the good grooming that she had earned. I got home and immediately collapsed in bed.

Cue more bad tv.

I'm getting as much rest and vitamin C as possible today so that I can manage my lesson tomorrow. I've got my fingers crossed that I feel better by Tuesday so that I can enjoy the clinic. I took the whole day off so that I can audit the other riders and just not have to feel rushed with getting ready for my ride. I also got some amazing news! H was able to take some time off so she'll be able to watch me ride in the clinic and hopefully get some video!

Until then there likely won't be much blog content so I apologize in advance.

Grounded

I went to the barn Wednesday last week all happy and excited thinking that Katai would finally be comfortable and ready for a nice stretchy workout. Unfortunately that was not the case. Based on the timeline I constructed in my head, after a major internal freak out that my pony was never going to be sound, I think that this is what happened.  

January 22^nd – Pony gets a massage where someone pokes at her back and makes it angry (which will eventually be a good thing)

February 2^nd – Pony gets her hooves trimmed and chiropractic. More poking at her back, plus her right shoulder, plus her left hind so now lots of angry (will also eventually be a good thing)

February 3^rd – Hand walking day, pony is footsore on concrete from her trim (normal) and stiff

February 4^th – Hand walking day, pony is footsore on concrete from her trim (normal) and stiff

February 5^th – Hand walking day, pony is footsore on concrete from her trim (normal) – Five ladies from the barn are watching Katai be footsore on concrete which makes me feel like a bad horse owner. I go to the local farm supply store and buy Magic cushion, put diaper/duct tape booties on all four feet and feel better because I did something about it. Still stiff

February 6^th – I don’t go to the barn to give Katai a chance to heal

February 7^th – Pony looks pretty dang sound. Barn worker had removed the remainders of booties (thank goodness for amazing barn workers) so I rode her at a walk for 15-20 minutes. Less stiff!!

February 8^th – Pony had the day off

February 9^th – Pony is dead lame on concrete (not normal). I feel like a bad horse owner and wrap both front feet in booties (her normal sore feet). On the drive home I remember that on the 7^th barn worker told me that Katai was doing a lot of bucking and bouncing in turnout. On the hard, frozen ground it doesn’t surprise me that she bruised her feet. Less stiff and her back feels great!

February 10^th – Hoping that the magic cushion worked again I drove out to the barn hopeful that I’d be able to ride at a walk again. Nope, pony is dead lame on concrete again. I checked to make sure that it’s her feet (it is, as soon as she’s in the cushy arena footing she’s fine and on the more firm arena footing she’s tender) and feel like an idiot because it’s clearly her back feet. I wrap her back feet this time in magic cushion booties and cross my fingers.

Fast forward to today and unfortunately although she's been getting better she's still been sore. Yesterday I hauled ass to get to the barn by 4:00, leaving work early and dealing with rush hour traffic, to meet my trimmer to look her over. After agreeing with my prognosis (she was as surprised as me that it was Katai's back feet) the trimmer fitted her for boots. I'm going to go ahead and just get her boots for all four so that I don't have to deal with this again, hopefully, anytime soon.

It sounds like the boots should be here next week sometime while I'm out of town and I'm not holding out much hope that Katai will be ride-able this week before I leave. Depending on how she is feeling on Friday and Saturday I may still see if L can ride her but if not, I'll just have to hope that one week of consistent riding will be enough before I ride in the clinic on 3/7 and 3/8.

Training Ride and Clinic Update

Lately I've been taking both Monday and Tuesday off and riding four days per week. I keep meaning to add a fifth ride but honestly she's going so well right now that I hate to change things up and am going to stick with what works.

That means that today was my first ride after my lesson on Sunday and for the first time I was struggling a little with what to work on. I decided to start working on lateral stuff which is something I haven't done on my own much. It's definitely something that I've worried about breaking but I also know that it will never get better without practice so it's time to start working on it.

I still feel like I have to get more help with how to connect the different parts of my body together but I was getting some really decent leg yields. It just never really felt like it clicked. I also ended up realizing after doing a leg yield in each direction that she was running from my leg so I slowed it down to walk and kept my leg on, appropriately, through a couple of small tantrums until she wasn't over reacting again and then went back to the leg yields and made more progress. I feel like slowly I'm starting to figure out how and when to stop why I'm trying, fix something with my tools, and then go back to it rather than just doing the same thing over and over and getting frustrated. It feels great!

While I was cooling out one of the resident trainers was just warming up and asked me if I would be interested in riding in a clinic with Susanne Winslade at the beginning of March. I said absolutely and signed up for two rides. I've written about her clinic that I audited where I was a little lukewarm but I think that between L's support of her and the fact that everyone at the barn rides with here when she's here and I'm thinking I missed something or was just feeling a little negative those days when I was auditing. At any rate, I'm extremely excited and I think the timing will be great for us this year and help with prep for our first show season!!!

Lesson Recap: First at the New Barn

My - Pony - Is - A - Superstar!

Me....not so much. (Photos are from Wednesday night)

But really, we had an amazing lesson. Katai is getting better so much more consistently and she has given up the worst of her fight and is just staying so much more relaxed. She's also understanding contact better and not getting back to that sewing machine trot that was haunting us for so long.

L is impressed and that makes me happy because she is someone who is tough to impress.

We started out the lesson a bit early since her previous lesson was getting worn out because her horse was not reacting to the new arena well (she also just moved to this barn) so L and I started talking while I warmed up. I brought up that I'd really like to start showing next year and L is thankfully on board. She actually brought up rated shows, when I was just thinking schooling, and didn't want to commit to me starting in intro level!!! She said that we should see how things go over the winter, reminded me that we have eight months, and said that we should see where we are before we start talking about which level to start at. It's so encouraging to me when the expert seems to think that we may not need to start at ground zero based on our progress this winter.

Lookit how much better her underneck is!!

Then we got into the meat of the lesson and started working at the trot. L was happy with how she was to start off today which I think is a first! It certainly helps that I've been riding more consistently lately but I think Katai is also finally starting to understand her job. I think that the improvement in our relationship is a huge part of this too since I'm not picking fights with her and she's starting to realize that I'm not going to. I'm also focusing on rewarding her more which is really, really helping more than I ever would have thought it would. She is a bit of a diva and really likes the verbal praise more than any horse I've ever worked with in the past so that's working for us as well.

After a really decent set of trot circles and some of the most balanced changes of direction that we've done we took a walk break and then when we went back to a trot L added something new. She said that she wanted to work on our transitions. I think this was partially based on our conversation from earlier but it could have been on the docket anyway. She said that it's time to start working on balance in those transitions which will help keep her from throwing her head in the air and getting bent out of shape about them. To work on this she had me make a 20 meter circle and then make a really small (smaller than 10 meter circle in this case since I have a small pony) against a wall and as we were heading towards the wall either make the transition up or down.

Why you no pet me humon?

After the first couple of times I realized that I always throw the transition at her and hope for the best and really just stop riding entirely until we are back at a comfortable rhythm. This made me really stop and think and make sure I was riding her in a nice, consistent bend and asking her inside leg to really come up under her body for the transition. We started with her less balanced side so she got a little bent out of shape initially but after a brief break we tried again and had some really nice moments. On the other side she did even better so eventually L had me try a transition on a more normal 20 meter circle and it was great! She wants me to do more sitting trot in and out of the transitions so that I have more tools to actually ride them rather than throwing them at Katai.

Then, after another nice walk break we went to the canter. I had told L that I think I finally figured out my canter transition cue because Katai has been taking the correct lead in both directions and just doing a much better transition. She wanted to watch and see what she could add to it. I did the first one and it was a little rough but she took the correct lead and the rest of the transitions we did were excellent!! I told her that I was doing exactly what she had been telling me but that I had read it in a book and the way they described it finally clicked :-)

Speaking of that we also talked about clinics and clinicians while I walked Katai out and it sounds like there's a really good one coming to our barn either later this winter or early in the spring. L encouraged me to audit and see if I'd like to take a lesson with  her the next time she's out here and I'm really excited to do so!

Starting to feel like home

Finally, can I just rave about my new barn for a minute! It is so amazing and the people are just so nice. Katai is finally getting the level of care that I've been wanting and that's basically just someone taking her best interest in mind and doing the little things. I had noticed on Saturday when I rode that her left eye was slightly goopy. I cleaned it off, thinking she just got some dust in it, and when it didn't look swollen or like she was squinty or anything I just went ahead and turned her back out after our ride. When I got there today though someone had been wonderful enough to put a mask on her. That would never have happened at the last barn and it was just so thoughtful. Then when I saw the owner and thanked her I also asked her opinion about next steps since her eye was more goopy today rather than less. I grew up on a farm so my tendency is to wait fairly long to call the vet and as the new person at the barn the last thing I want is to have someone think that I'm not providing my horse with good care. She also felt that it made sense to wait a bit longer but said that she had some ointment and then not only found it for me but got it into Katai's eye with minimal fuss despite Katai not being easy about it. She was kind and gentle but firm with her and it makes me so confident to know that she is caring for my horse. I've really never had a BM before that is like this.

I'll try to get more barn pictures soon but they are still in the moving in process so there are some areas that are still kind of a disaster and I don't want to share until things are going more normally so that it is a better representation of the type of care that the BM is providing :-)

There is also a wonderful community there and when I stayed to watch another of L's lessons, which I've never been able to do before, one of her students had me in stiches as she pretended to coach L who had climbed up on the student's horse since he was being naughty.

I'm sooooo happy that I made the decision to move here!