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!

Lesson Recaps

Katai has been perfecting her judgmental expression

Since I haven't posted in awhile but still want to sort of track what I'm learning I thought I'd post a few of the themes that we've been working on and then dig into the specifics as needed later.

Position:

Sit back! Shoulders back but mainly belly button back. I have a fair amount of forward curvature to my spine from my hips to my rib cage so I need to focus on pulling my belly button back and straighten my back more so I can really sit on my seat bones.

I need to carry my hands more forward in front of me. I also need to focus on holding (as needed) with my right hand and releasing (when appropriate) with my left hand since that's opposite what they want to do. I also found out that I also carry my left hand out, off the neck and my right hand against the neck but not enough for correct bend to the left (needs more) and opposite what I should be doing for the correct bend to the right. To correct this (since Katai is white) Jane wants me to think about getting white paint on the hand that's on the outside and keeping the inside hand clean.

I also tend to open my fingers when I want to give forward rather than giving from my elbows.

We've also found that I grip with the back of my calf on my right leg when I use my leg and need to use the inside of my leg instead and keep my toe pointed forward. I've been working on strengthening those muscles so that it's easier. Currently I'm too tired to continue to do this correctly through my entire lesson.

I've always known that I have a tough time sinking my weight through my left stirrup. We've discovered that I'm not weighting my left seat bone equally with the right. This causes me to drop my shoulder when turning/bending Katai to the right since I'm uncomfortable sinking my weight into that seat bone.

Trail walk on a nice sunny day

Movements:

We've added lengthenings and I need to focus on pushing without quickening my posting tempo as well as giving forward from my elbows slightly.

We've also started doing some sitting trot. The main focus here has been on my position (above) and on controlling the bounce to control the temp and "bouncing" straight up and down instead of forward and back.

I'm really excited that we've added shoulder in and that we're doing it at the sitting trot! I mainly can feel this one (it's way easier for me than leg yield) but I need to focus on my position and shoulder vs hip angle. I also need to use my outside rein correctly to keep her moving forward and not let her get the angle too steep. Mainly though I need to sit back and keep my weight on my seat bones.

Canter is still coming along. I haven't been riding enough canter so when I get to my lesson we both get tired out pretty quickly. I mainly need to work on strength so that we can start to do more fun things than 20 meter circles and straight around the track of the arena. My seat continues to get better here and when she's not too tired her transitions from trot and tempo are really good.

First snow this year!

Partnership:

I've seriously learned so much about me and Katai and how we should function as a team from Jane since I've been working with her :) I made an offhand comment about how even though she could be sassy, I loved how steady and un-spookable she was during a ride where the snow was falling off the arena roof. Jane quickly pointed out that she doesn't actually think Katai is sassy. Just that she's a high achiever and when she's confused she lets us know and really wants to get it right. It's crazy how altering my thoughts about Katai and helping me think about her behavior in a different light completely changes how we interact.

I'm continuing to chew on some of this and alter my interactions with her. It's also weird to switch from her being a "baby" horse that doesn't know anything with me as the expert to a true partnership. I'm getting there for the most part but sometimes it's still tough to process.

Me:

I've been feeling a bit better. As the seasonal change has quieted down a bit and I've been more diligent about paying attention to how much vitamin D I'm getting it's been better. I also moved! I'm not sure if I'd previously mentioned this but my grandma moved to an apartment closer to my parents and they offered me a really amazingly low rate of rent to stay at her house and keep an eye on things. It's about 10 minutes closer to the barn and the exact same distance from work plus it's in a nicer neighborhood and I only have one roommate. I think the change in scenery is helping a bit as well. At any rate, it's certainly not hurting.

I'm also participating in the Equestrian Blogger Gift Exchange this year which is really exciting! I've been doing some sleuthing and ordered a couple of things during Black Friday. I'm looking forward to sending it out!

Unfortunately I'm still not feeling 100% and have been having a really tough time staying motivated to ride or blog or do much of anything really. Work is also going to be getting really busy over the next couple of months complete with a couple more trips to WA so I'm still not sure exactly how much I'll be able to post. I'm going to try to have more posts in December but I'll see how things go over the next few weeks.

How I Stumbled Upon My Trainer (and she puts up with me)

The title is a tongue in cheek version of this post at A Enter Spooking.

I’ve been looking for a good instructor for Katai and I for a while now. Unfortunately I’m limited in both budget and in the fact that without a trailer I really need to find a good place to board that also has a good instructor. For a while when I was first starting Katai I was trying to have a local dressage trainer that travels come to me and teach but she can be flaky and, honestly, I’ve studied with her before and just didn’t get that much out of it.

See I may be new at needing and picking out a dressage instructor but I’m not new to this type of instruction (weekly lessons) in general. When I was five years old I started weekly piano lessons and when I was twelve I added cello lessons. For those years (from 12 through 23) I took at least weekly lessons on two instruments from two different teachers. I also went through several teachers sometimes moving on as I advanced, sometimes switching when my previous instructor moved or became unavailable, and sometimes just needing a change. During this time I discovered a few things about me and the way I learn and those are things that I now look for in anyone who will be instructing me.

– I’m an active learner and need to be able to ask questions/sometimes challenge what I’m being told. I rarely get argumentative, I did with J but that was when I realized I needed to move on, but some instructors take questions (especially asking why) as arguments and I don’t tend to do well with that type of person as an instructor.

– Because I don’t have your typical Warmblood, Thoroughbred, Morgan etc. I need an instructor who respects my right to ride what I want to ride and who isn’t constantly trying to talk me into something "better". I learn quickly and while I’m not a beautiful rider or an advanced rider by any means I think that the instructors that I’ve ridden with in the past have seen potential and to them I think that often means that I should get a more competitive horse. Unfortunately for them that is not what I want and I’m extremely stubborn. This doesn’t mean that I need someone to praise Katai or gush over her, I realize she’s not an upper level prospect and doesn’t possess loads of talent but to me dressage is for every horse so I should choose the horse I want to ride every day and the instructor should work with me to help me minimize my horse’s challenges and increase my horse’s strengths. Not spend their time telling me to get a different horse, of course unless I were crippling her or something.

– Flexibility is important to me as well. As an adult amateur I have a full time job and many demands on my time. I’m also not training for the Olympics so there will occasionally be days where I’m sick or have a headache and I’m just not willing to "push through the pain" to ride. I need someone who recognizes that and doesn’t get bent out of shape. (Of course these aren't that often, any more and I’d feel like a flake.)

– I will not EVER put up with someone that yells or swears again. I’ve had music teachers do this and I dealt with it and was sometimes even motivated by it but at the time I was taking those lessons that was going to be my profession. If I was being lazy, doing something wrong, creating a new habit etc. it was directly tied to my livelihood and a kick up the ass was warranted. With dressage instruction though it’s clearly not. As I said earlier, I’m not training for the Olympics and this is supposed to be fun. I will not go to lessons that give me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and there’s just no reason to yell or swear when I’m very clearly trying to learn and improve.

– I will also NEVER put up with someone who talks my horse down or insults her. If there is a soundness issue just tell me like a human being and be supportive. I won’t put up with an instructor telling me that my horse is worthless and I should sell her on a meat truck because she’s not who they’d choose to ride.

What I did to choose my current instructor was have someone at the barn recommend her and schedule a lesson with her. That was it. In the future I’ll plan on auditing first probably but I had done that with J and it didn’t help. At the time that I was having L recommended to me I was actually considering a different instructor that is fairly well known in the area. She does more classical dressage and has an almost cult-like following. I had audited two lessons with her and was impressed enough that I planned on working with her. When I mentioned this to one of the more advanced dressage riders at the barn though she gave me sort of a soft warning, a "maybe you should consider L instead" sort of warning and since L charges half of what that instructor charges I figured I’d go ahead and try a lesson with her. I’m so glad I did!

I think it just goes to show that there’s no "right" way to find an instructor. It maybe also shows that I have no idea what I’m looking for yet but that’s a different story.

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!

On Hold

                                          How dressage makes Katai feel

Right now my lessons are on hold because L is in Sweden with a sick family member. While she is gone I’m doing the best I can on my own to continue to build Katai’s strength. We had a really wonderful ride on Saturday where everything just went perfectly. Katai was doing this nice forward, slow tempo, not rushy trot and was really getting the bend figured out. She felt strong, confident and was really understanding everything I asked her for. It was one of those rides where I really feel like she has it in her to be an amazing dressage horse.

 

Then on Monday we had a not as great ride where she refused to bend to the left and was much more rushy. I had noticed that the undermuscle on the right side of her neck seemed tight and slightly large so I’m wondering if she was bitten by another horse and maybe was a little stiff and sore. I still insisted but was a little more lenient about it than I have been because of that concern about her neck. I’ll see how she is during our ride tonight and if she is still just a stubborn we’ll have a good conversation about it J I know that we will have rides like this as she continues to gain needed strength since it’s hard and sometimes she’s probably sore and doesn’t think she should have to work like this without a good reason. 

 

On Friday I have chiropractic scheduled for her and I’m anxious to see how that goes. It will be her first time so I’m sure she’s going to be a little touchy about it but I really think it’s important since we are starting to ask so much more of her. My goal is to do this twice per year and then to add, hopefully, more frequent massage since that seems to be almost more important from a maintenance perspective. After her appointment this Friday she’ll get at least 3-4 days completely off and then I’m thinking that I’ll do a lunging day to make sure she is loose and comfortable before I ride again.

Moving Barns

So unfortunatly I've moved barns a few times. I thought it would be interesting to share the basics of each set up, the main reason I moved each time and what I am doing to get ready for my next, and final!, move.

Barn One:

In my backyard! The woman I was renting a room from at the time actually allowed me to keep Katai there for free. It was nice to have her out there but there was no safe place to ride, it was kind of junky, and I bought my own hay which added stress every winter as we tried to keep track of who had bought what.

When I moved into a new apartment I needed to move her since the woman I had been renting from wasn't interested in boarding so then I moved to...

Barn Two:

This place was really nice! The guy fed supplements twice per day, that I provided, fly sprayed them twice per day and as you can possibly see in the back of the photo above there was even a fan when it got hot. There was also a stall available if I had wanted to stall her. This was for the price of $150 per month during the summer and $200 during the winter with hay provided.

The main reason I moved was the lack of safe space to ride, no space to ride in winter if it were slippery, and no one to ride with. So then it was on to the...

Third Barn:

This place was good initially but not only did Katai loose gads of weight over the first winter, and she's a chubby pony!, but the footing was almost worse than riding on gravel and it was so dusty that people had to wear masks when they rode. It cost $200 per month with hay included. 

It was so nice to have a covered arena, people to ride with, and the price was reasonable but nothing else was great including the 45 minute drive. On top of that the owner was speaking about selling in the next year so it was time to move on. Right to the...

Fourth Barn:

I LOVED this place and still miss it. Boarding there was the most fun I've had with horses and horse people in a long time. Everything about it was great from the people, to the footing in both arenas, to the tacking space to the incredible pasture management. At $300 a month the board was really reasonable as well and lesson packages were extremely reasonable with a huge savings over paying per lesson.

I felt like both Katai and I were improving in leaps and bounds at first but then I started to see how cruel the owner/trainer was and knew that I had to leave quickly despite how much I loved everything else. So then it was on to the...

Fifth Barn:

I really do like this place. It's huge and there are a lot of people but they've all been great. The arena isn't bad but the footing isn't always looked after and in the evenings there are so many people riding that it's easy to get in traffic jams especially with a greenie that still occasionally loses steering. I've decided that I love stall board and the set up with tack lockers in the stalls is amazing. There is also amazing access to trails and three outdoor arenas that would be awesome in the summer however this was always a short term solution while I looked for a really great dressage instructor and now that I found one at an amazing barn I just can't wait to move there and stay there! The stall board here is $315 per month and I pay extra for a shared paddock so $340. 

In preparation for the move I've started putting some things together for the new barn. At the previous barn we had tiny lockers plus a space to store a saddle. At the current barn we've got nice big tack lockers with space for two saddles, a shelf and tons of hooks. Now at the new barn there's a smallish shared tack room and I'm guessing that space is at a premium so I've put some things together that I feel are the most necessary, at least outside of regular tack items like saddle and bridle.

I narrowed it down to two small storage containers.

The current barn isn't heated so I can't leave any type of liquid but this new place is so I can finally leave those things at the barn. I've got first aid stuff, grooming things, boots, and some odds and ends. Now I just need to figure out how much space I have for things like blankets and extra saddle pads and then I'll get those things figured out and packed.

I've also got two other exciting pieces of news but those will have to wait until my next post!

Two Pony Years

Yesterday Wednesday, October 1st was me and Katai's 2 year anniversary! Very fittingly we had a lesson and even better it was incredibly wonderful but it didn't start out that way. 

It was cold and wet out and Katai was acting like her back was stiff and sore. I warmed her up slowly long and low but she was still cold and that led to a tight hollow back when we did start riding. She was also chilly so she was bouncy and spicy to ride which made dressage tricky.

J fixed things in my riding position and timing and within the first 15 minutes I had a pony that was listening and moving soft, relaxed and through. We had a couple of rough points but the good thing was that she was throwing some things at me that J hasn't seen before so she was able to help and show me how to deal with it. 

Then, at the end of the lesson we cantered. It was brilliant I just gave my vocal cue and she started right off balanced, slow and listened beaultifully. I think J was impressed at how natural and easy it was for her but mostly I'm extremely happy to have passed that hurdle. I have now ridden her at all basic gaits in a lesson!

Because of things like the above and a couple of red flags at the barn I had planned on moving to I decided to stay. I did have legitimate reasons to want to move but I was able to get through to J finally about two weeks ago and things have continued to get better. I'm sure I'm going to have to address it again in the future but when I did talk to J about moving she even agreed to put up another line of fencing to keep her in the pasture next year. The two things I'm really missing out on are the heated arena and the trails as well as the ground work type training from an instructor. Haley has agreed to help me with things like the clippers and trailer loading and I can figure out a way to do more trail riding even if it is just riding around the property. I can handle not having the heated arena and it wasn't like that was the main reason I was moving. 

I'm actually really happy and relieved to have made this decision because J really is one of the best instructors in the area and her students have proven this time and time again. I really didn't want to move, I was hoping to stay right here for as long as possible but more than anything else I NEED to take lessons with someone who has at least a small amount of respect for both myself and Katai and who will listen to me when I seriously raise an objection about what we are doing especially when it relates to my horse's welfare. I'm still not sure what the future is going to bring but I want to stick this out a little longer.

Moving Day!

Finally, finally, finally it was time to move Katai. I woke up at 7:45am since I specifically set my alarm close to the time I needed to leave so that I wouldn't have much time to sit around and get nervous. I really don't know what it is about trailering that freaks me out but it's bad.

I got to the barn right around 8:40am after a quick stop for breakfast and to fill up my car's tank with gas. The horse's were still on the round bale and Christina, the wonderful person who had agreed to haul Katai for me, was still in the house. I grabbed Katai's halter and waded through the thick mud to catch her and bring her into the barn. I put her halter pads on and fitted her out with a cooler. I also scraped some of the muck off of her legs and then led her outside. It was windy and cool and I had changed the routine so Katai was already a little keyed up and as soon as Christina opened the trailer door you would have thought she'd opened the gates to hell. Katai started bouncing up on her hind legs and running her shoulder in to me. Yes, of course it is partially my fault for being keyed up and nervous but it's something I'm working on.

I reminded her that she needed to listen to me and not trample me and she started to obey again. Once I led her up to the trailer she climbed right in, I tied her and we were off. I led the way in my car since Christina didn't know where we were going so I didn't get any "pony in trailer" pictures but here is one from last time we moved her with the same trailer so you get the idea.

 

It was a short and uneventful trip and then we were there!!

 

I got her unloaded without a fuss and was walking her around trying to figure out how to get J involved and figure out where to put her when J herself stuck her head out the door of the indoor arena and yelled where to put her. Gotta love barn owners with mind reading capabilities!

 

 Everything is just so dry and free of mud. It's so completely wonderful not having to wear thigh high boots to survive a simple task like catching my horse. Katai was well behaved and really very quiet. She patiently waited to be led to her pen and then after briefly sniffing noses with the horse next door, a fancy and gorgeous warmblood from CA that looks twice as tall as my pony, she went and tucked into her hay. I don't blame her, that hay looks so good I'd like to eat it and she's got a pile in front of her that will last her until feeding time tomorrow. Since she is a little thin right now coming out of winter, I could say more about that but for now I'm just glad I'm at a different barn, I'm really happy that she can stuff her face.

After seeing that she was just going to calmly eat hay I went up to the barn to unpack my car and get my locker sorted out.

This is inside the heated tackroom/viewing area/grooming area looking at my locker and the one way mirror that makes up the viewing area window.

My nicely stuffed locker :-)

Looking into the grooming area, bathroom on the left and the indoor arena to the right. My locker is behind me to the right.

In the grooming area. There are three indoor grooming bays and one outdoor. This morning when I was there they were all full all the time. These pictures are from when I went back this evening to check to make sure Katai is settling in (she was). I'm so excited to have people to ride with!

Outdoor grooming space.

Finally the cross country course and some of the expansive pastures :)

So there we go. I am completely happy and relieved that it finally happened. When I went back in the evening Katai was calm and relaxed and after I scratched her for a little while and made sure she was ok I went home. Tomorrow I am going to the horse expo again with Lisa and will be there for most of the day. In the evening we are both going out to the barn to visit Katai and I'm going to stick around and work with her.

My hope is that Sunday evening will be pretty quiet so that I'll have the arena and grooming area to myself the first time or two. I'd like to give us both a couple of days of practice with cross ties and the indoor without bothering anyone else with her antics. Its really an unfounded concern since she's not bad, just a horse and no worse, or better, than any of the other horses here but she just hasn't been exposed to any of this stuff and I plan on doing my homework and not burdening anyone else with our inexperience.