The Heat is On

Both literally and figuratively! I’m sort of considering this one long off season right now so that we can get stronger and better and be back to showing next year and boy do we ever need it. Both of us are out of shape and a bit fluffier than I’d like (more so me than Katai). Unfortunately it’s also the hottest part of summer and I don’t deal with heat well so that adds some complication, however, I’ve been really solution focused recently so with that here are a few things we’re doing.

Fitness:
For me mostly I’m trying to just get more movement in every day. With my mental health struggles over the past year and being sick so much I went from decently fit to absolute couch potato. Picking back up running was just way too much to face right away so I’m trying to do smaller things like going for a walk on my work breaks. Just going to the barn more is helping since even doing simple tasks like grooming and lunging are better than sitting on the couch watching Netflix :) Even better is when I ride. I’ve also started to do core work outs on a regular basis. I’m hoping to get to a point where once it cools off I can get back into running this fall and then carry it through on the treadmill this winter.

For Katai I had a great step by step plan but then she blew that up when she decided to be a right twat about lunging and then about being ridden and then about lunging and riding. Instead of a couple of easy stretchy days with a slightly harder cardio day she ended up doing an hour ride, then a long mostly canter lunge, and then a 45 minute ride/lunge. Pony mares….

At any rate she got a few days off that turned into several days off with the heat. As soon as I’m not worried that I’ll get heat stroke again (I’ve already had it twice this year) I’ll be getting back to the step by step work outs.

Miss Puppy got stuck and couldn't turn around

Training:
There are a bunch of things that I’ve wanted to do but that I’ve been throwing up barriers about. One is the wash “stall” at this barn. It’s outdoors, near the house so that it can share hot water, and is a concrete slab with a wooden fence on three sides. I like this set up except the wooden fence is SUPER rotted and I absolutely guarantee you that if I tie Katai to it she’ll pull at least hard enough to take down part of the fence (since I can move it around without much effort). Since I can’t have that risk it’s meant that it’s really tough to spray her off or bathe her since she’s really water averse.

However, since it’s hot and she’s getting sweaty I’ve needed to spray her off and I’ve been working on getting her to just relax and not mind so much. She’s still not a huge fan but I’m now able to spray off every part of her while she stands still with her head down on a loose lead. It’s HUGE progress for us and I’m proud of both of us for sticking with it. The real test will come this week when I give her a full bath.

The other is riding outside. Part of the issue is that I’ve boarded places that didn’t have safe space to ride outside or safe trail access. Now that I have that I’ve been working this summer to get her comfortable riding outside. We were doing REALLY well and doing mini trail rides around the property and longer trail rides with a calm friend (the horse not the person since both of us riders have anxiety lol). In the midst of that I started acclimating her to her easy boot gloves since I did some research and found that I could actually use them in an arena setting!! I had been worried about the added bulk but it turns out that barrel racers use these and if they can do those sharp turns at speed it’s probably ok for me to occasionally ride my pony in the arena on 20 meter circles and straight at w/t/c.

I started acclimating her to them on a walking trail ride and then hand walking her in the arena. She had been super calm about riding and working outside (which was frankly kind of shocking after her past behavior) so then I planned a light ride outside. Amazingly there were a couple of people working on dressage at the lower arena so I “joined” them and brought her down there. She was slightly tight when I mounted but after some work on walking and halting she breathed out and was perfect. I planned another longer ride out there, not thinking much about it, and she had a total meltdown. I was proud of myself that I put my trainer hat on and we worked for about an hour mostly riding but with some ground work as well. I was very patient and giving except when she was trying to rear because that is just not allowed. She was REALLY wound up though so ending on a good note meant just getting a decent, but very tight, trot and then a walk that wasn’t jigging as much.

I lunged her the next day and she was still really up but better so I planned another outdoor ride. The day before I’d had food poisoning and still wasn’t feeling 100% but I was just planning on a nice easy ride doing some walk, a little trot, and focusing on relaxation. That was not what Katai had in mind. She had another melt down which resulted in 45 minutes of work some lunging and mostly riding. I also overdid it and then ended up with mild heat stroke for the second time this year :(

At any rate I still had my trainer hat on and we did make progress. That was last weekend and this past week with the heat I didn’t make it out a ton and when I did I was being conservative with my rides. I decided to ride in the indoor to see if she was still as reactive since that might point to pain or discomfort. She hasn’t been uclery and after the first bad ride I palpated her back and couldn’t get a reaction but I figured it was still a good check point. However, we had an excellent, relaxed, flowing ride in the indoor so I’m 100% sure that in the outdoor it’s behavior related. I did a light halter lunge down there a couple of days ago and she was nice and relaxed and much less spooky and reactive so fingers crossed we’re headed in the right direction. At least with the easy boots I’m able to work on this!

I have high hopes that I’ll be able to finish up addressing this major tantrum behavior over the next week as I have time and then we can go back to productive rides that slowly ramp up fitness!

Another Clinic Recap!

Bad media > no media?

I mean I should probably not actually call these clinic. Really they're more like monthly lessons with my trainer's trainer but for right now clinic works and it's easier to type! This was almost a week ago at this point but still important to recap.

This one was similar to the last one but a bit tougher in a few ways. First, K's trainer had identified our ability level so she was more picky, as I'd suspected she would be, and second, we cantered early on and then Katai lost her marbles a little.

We started out warming up the walk and trot and K's trainer commented that she seemed way more relaxed and rather than just posing and going she was actually softer. Yay! success.

We cantered as part of warm up and it actually went really well. Katai went right into it and let me bring her back calmly. We cantered in each direction and then went back to working on walk. Katai was UP at that point and was not going to be told to go slower than a full hand gallop. With K's trainer's influence we were able to keep everything pretty calm and were focusing and trying to help her relax with lots of pets and verbal rewards when she was trying. we were working on getting her to listen mainly to my seat but she didn't want to listen to us at all in any way at that point.

Not sure why but clean buckets seem to be a point of contention at this barn.
They scrub them everyday and they're always super clean.

To her credit she never once pulled any real crap. No throwing down a halt, no bucking, no bolting, and no rearing. About the worst she did was walk through my aids, try to trot, or jig a little so really nothing bad at all.

It was tough though to just keep asking calmly for over 20 minutes just for her to slow down and relax when she wasn't listening at all. We did have a few break through moments and, the next day, it was clear that progress had been made so that was good. That day though was tough especially since I had a pretty bad headache which had been made worse by wearing my helmet and the relative heat after our cool spring.

Oh well, that's horses.

Our homework is all about relaxation. I'm taking it one step further though. Katai (and myself) have always been impatient. She had me pretty well trained to let her just push forward anytime things started to go south since not allowing her to go forward resulted in her going up or striking out.

Me grazing Connor while he dried from his bath
I can't believe this was over a week ago now.

Since the first clinic I've been doing a lot of groundwork just working on patience. I don't know where I read it but a trainer I was following somewhere wrote about that having a horse take a step and halt and stand, rinse and repeat, was really helpful in helping them calm down. Therefore I've been working on a lot of groundwork asking for one step at a time with lots and lots of standing. Really, tons of standing. Katai hates it and is trying to figure out why this game is so boring, but, it's been helping.

Of course spring and mare hormones have been making this worse but this week on Tuesday we worked on trailer loading. She was SUPER anxious to hop on the trailer, hop off and be done with things and got angry when I wouldn't even let her on the trailer until she stood calmly. She was trying so hard to tell me that I was wrong and didn't understand but we ended with zero escalation and zero argument with her (relatively) calmly climbing on and off just because I literally stood there and ignored her for at least 30 minutes. We're going to do this a ton more and in the meantime I'm finding all the things I can think of that usually cause her to escalate and we're going to do calm, stubborn and patient on my part, patience training.

Under saddle I'm working on mentally taking the pressure off myself and her. We're doing easy work, lunging in a halter, and spending some additional time doing stretchy forward rides with just a bit more collection. We'll see what the result of all of this is but she's been really chill recently. This weekend I plan to do a bit more collection work with lots of interspersed relaxation to see if we're able to maintain. Things have been promising so far!

Highs and Lows

This weekend has felt a bit bipolar in both my personal and my horse life. I shipped the Vegetable off with my dad yesterday since I'll be traveling this upcoming week so it's been quiet and weird at home without him. I've also started packing and am still doing my best to deal with the stress of this not completely positive last minute trip which will now, most likely, be Tuesday-Friday.

With Mother's Day today I'm sad to not be seeing my mom (other plans, travel, etc.) and since I'll never be a mom to small humans would like to celebrate with my four legged kids. However, with Veggie gone it already feels weird and then I had a scare with Katai yesterday.

So I've mentioned previously that Katai has had some shortness in her right shoulder. It's been off and on and she's always held tension there and she does a really good impression of the Zanyeta stomp when I take up contact if she's tense. Most of the time though she's even and if she's even on the contact and working without tension she's perfect on various footing. However, if there's even a small amount of tension or if we're asking her to take more contact on the right rein she'll have a slight hitch to her gait.

Jane and I did a full lesson where Jane had me work through a few different exercises including counter bending her and changing the bend a lot and she was perfectly even for almost the entire ride. It started cropping up now that Jane's helping me get more even contact on both reins. There's no heat, no swelling, no "off-ness" to any part of her leg or shoulder but she starts to move that way when there's any tension. You can probably see it in the trotting GIF I shared in my last post. When I originally created it I was paying more attention to how active her hind legs were but when I saw how noticeable it is there I thought about pulling it. However, it's an accurate representation of where we are right now.

I want to assure you that I'm not neglecting getting a vet to look at her, if this doesn't resolve itself soon or if it changes, or starts to be more prevalent I'll of course call out the vet and do whatever they think is needed. I have the funds set aside to do it so it's not a big deal but after extensively looking at it Jane and I both feel that it's more of a "rein lameness" than anything else.

With that being said I took her over to the other barn yesterday with just a lunge line and rope halter. This barn is a PERFECT desensitization opportunity. The women who owns it has a pet potbelly pig right up against the arena along with two mini ponies in the next pen over. She's also got three, large rambunctious dogs, a rambunctious kid, multiple other horses, and jumps and standards all over in and near the arena. Basically a whole lot of things that Katai has no familiarity with.

When I got Katai there, while I was incredibly impressed at how well she was handling it, as you can imagine there was A LOT of tension. I just asked for a bit of lunging with lots of changes of direction but she was clearly uneven and this is the first time that I've lunged her where it was noticeable without side reins. I didn't do much and then took her back to our barn. Groomed her, left her, and spent the rest of the evening freaking out. Everything from retirement, to shoulder x-rays, to minor muscle tension, to calling the chiro ran through my head for about 5 hours.

I finally talked myself off the ledge and decided to have Jane look at her this morning prior to heading back over to the other arena for a ride. If Jane thought that anything was wrong I'd call off the ride and figure out with her what to do. If not, I'd go ahead and ride.

I got there and saw that Jane was videotaping her (AMAZING) young horse who was having a trainer ride outside. I watched (with my jaw hanging open) for a few minutes and let her know that I'd like to have her watch the pony trot on a lunge. She agreed but also told me that she still didn't think Katai was off. Apparently she'd been running around and Jane has already diagnosed that tension is what's causing the unevenness and she already knew that Katai was tense when I was at the neighbors.

I got Katai out (honestly all ready to prove her wrong and send us into emergency lame horse crisis mode) and brought her into the arena and started trotting her on the lunge and couldn't find even a speck of lameness. None, zilch, and I was LOOKING for it. I was so ready for her to be off that I changed directions with her a few times and even had her canter just to try to prompt it but still nothing. Then Jane showed up, also pronounced her completely sound (probably feeling like I'm some sort of hypochondriac) and reminded me how that tension would have caused her to be off just as we've talked about in the past.

I was SOOO relieved and tacked the pony up to head over to the other barn. I crossed my fingers that I'd make it out alive but I also had so much hope that she'd be good after all of our recent practice.

Long story short it went SO well! I was able to get some video which I've posted below! I pretty much just cut out mounting (and a bit of the end after I dismounted since I was trying to get a melted peppermint out of a wrapper and even I lost patience watching it) although I wish it had been in frame.

This arena belongs to the women on the right with the exceptionally tall horse and her mounting block reflects that. I had to slowly lower myself onto my pony's back since the top of the mounting block was higher than the bottom of my saddle flap #ponyproblems.

As you can see in the video she still is tight in that shoulder at points, however, for her first ride in a new space I feel like she did well and it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. She'll get four days off next week while I'm out of town so I'm curious to see if that changes anything. If it really is just her holding tension it shouldn't but I'm curious. We really did ride for just about 10 minutes since my boy doesn't do well with quick temperature changes and this was the first 80 degree day we've had. Even with this I had a headache but much more and I would have ended up with an all day migraine. I'm planning to ride over there again next weekend so I'll work more then. Also, yeah I know that I mirrored our test and went right instead of left. I started off without room to go left when I started and since it was more about being able to cue for things at specific points I just went with it.

Finally, once I got back today I finally got to see Jane ride. Normally our schedules don't align so while I've known she's an accomplished rider I haven't quite known what to expect. Some people are better teachers than riders but I was blown away today watching Jane ride. She's not a young women and her horse is in her 20s and a true definition of a school master (at one point the mare decided to try to take over and do a canter pirouette :) and Jane rides like this.

Alois Podhajsky

and reminded me of this book

It was amazing to watch, like watching a true master. The amount of core strength and how invisible her aids are were just outstanding to me. I've seen some amazing riders but never expected to find that in my instructor and because she hasn't shown much, there aren't many scores out there for her so I just had no idea really. It totally impressed and blew me away and while I've clearly always had so much respect and trust in Jane seeing her ride herself just brought it to the next level.

We also rescheduled my Tuesday lesson to Monday so I'll have more to share soon!

Crabby

Photos from our less than stellar ride tonight

Recently Katai has been crabbier than normal. Maybe not even crabbier as much as more consistently crabby. When I was riding a lot earlier in the year I was contributing it to the increase in her workload and likely some sore muscles. Then we had #mareproblems so she had that reason and a week off, then a week off when I traveled for work, Then almost a week off when I was in Omaha, and now less work since I've been having trouble getting to the barn.

Last Saturday she got shots so I knew she wouldn't be feeling her best, then she got a massage which could have made her feel a bit tender, and finally got her hooves trimmed so that could have made her feel a bit off as well. She got a quiet week but I rode (just a nice light training ride) yesterday and today (slightly more work but still I kept it short).

Pretty cool that this is now a less than stellar ride. Also, you can clearly tell that
she's thinner than she's been recently. Not unhealthy skinny,
I can just barely feel her last two ribs, but still it's a big change from before.

I was hoping she'd feel different, and there are some differences, but she pretty much seems to be sensitive in the same places. Namely she's been crabby, not as forward as normal, doesn't want me to touch her near her flank, has become girthy, and has actually lost weight to the point that she is right on the edge of her ideal weight. This is a BIG change since she's always been an extremely easy keeper and she's certainly getting enough hay and the hay is great quality. She has been getting worked more so I'm thinking of adding some additional calories but it also could be a symptom

Tonight I did some digging/research and I'm fairly certain that she's got ulcers. The statistics would support it with 60%-90% of performance horses having ulcers. Also, I've always sort of wondered since she's just a horse that stresses easily and likes her routine. Now she's also living in a stall and has her own private paddock so she's not around other horses much and doesn't get much movement. In addition, all that time where I wasn't working here meant she was moving even less than normal, we gave her some bute after she had her shots, and she had a crazy week this past week where we certainly weren't letting her follow her normal routine so her stomach might really be bothering her.

She really just wanted to retract her neck but
I'm really happy with the amount of crossover that we've been getting!

At this point with all of this adding up I've gone ahead and ordered some UlcerGuard. I'm going to give her that over the four days and if I notice a difference I'm going to add a supplement to support her gut. If I don't notice a difference I'm going to call the vet and have her tested for Lyme disease since that's the other most likely option.

I'm really hoping it's not Lyme but I also think it's unlikely. Not that it couldn't happen but I've NEVER pulled a single tick off of her. In addition I've seen horses with Lyme and they are extremely sensitive to being touched to the point of kicking their people, rearing, biting, and flipping out completely. Katai is a very sensitive flower so if she were feeling anything like that she likely wouldn't even be letting me touch her but she's been enjoying her grooming on most of her body.

Bit of a head tilt here, mare was definitely still a bit stiff.
Chiro may also be in order

I found some additional info on Vitamin E deficiency and Selenium deficiency but neither of those match as closely and when I checked her vitamin supplement it actually contains a decent amount of both so I think that's unlikely.

She's also due to be dewormed and apparently that's something that can occasionally cause similar symptoms so I'm going to get that taken care of as well.

At any rate, I've ordered UlcerGuard, a supplement that supports gut health, and some dewormer for this year and I'll post an update once I receive it later this week and have a chance to try it out.

Attack of the GIFs

I really enjoy seeing everyone’s GIFs and it’s such a nice way to see clips of a ride without needing to watch through a whole video so I decided to make some of my own. Not the best video but hopefully you can kind of see what's going on.


via GIPHY

 On Thursday I had a ride planned with Katai and initially planned to work on reinforcing my forward cues. Katai moves off one leg or the other very well but ever since we started to introduce the concept of lateral work she is extremely resistant to my leg cues to go forward. This results in lots of giraffe-ing, sometimes bucking, and my favorite *dripping sarcasm* when she just completely stops and refuses to move.

We’ve tried being firm, we’ve tried being gentle, we’ve tried whip reinforcement, etc. but nothing has really worked. I think it’s a combination of pony stubbornness, feeling overwhelmed with pressure (asking to go forward into a giving hand with both legs rather than one apparently fries pony brains), and sometimes maybe a little muscle soreness/tiredness. Just the day before I’d watched this video and there were two big things that stuck out to me.



One was, although I know this and we’ve tried it, the insistence that the horse listen to forward. Ultimately I shouldn’t feel bad about it, she just needs to go when I ask for it. It doesn’t need to be pretty she just needs to go. The other was the concept of still concentrating on the outside rein even to the direction that the horse has a tougher time bending to. This is what Jane is coaching but in a slightly different format and I’ve probably still been asking for too much inside bend to the left. This helped me realize that I need to focus more on the shoulder and not losing it to the outside rather than having an equal bend to the inside as what I have to the right.

At any rate I planned to work on reinforcing forward during my ride on Thursday. I knew that she’d be a tired from our lesson on Tuesday so I kind of thought she’d be in full on refusal mode which would likely have the most impact. I was going to throw the reins at her completely, ask gently, and then quickly escalate my aids until I got a nice forward reaction. Then, a missing piece, I was going to practice it a lot during that ride and not give up. I also carried a dressage whip so that just in case she completely ignored my strong kicks (it’s happened in the past) I could reinforce with the dressage whip as well. After all of that, I cued for the trot and got this.


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No fireworks, no giraffe-ing. Even better, I got the same reaction twice and during the entire ride I never got a no reaction. A couple of things were different including the completely loose rein. She’s great with her transitions in side reins on the lunge so clearly I’m doing something (or she just doesn’t feel like I can reinforce my aids from the saddle, the bugger). I also was working on changes within the walk and asking for a larger walk, I’m wondering if maybe she sometimes just feels surprised by my forward cues but because I’d set her up better this time she was more willing.

Things to think about anyway!

Then later I got this sort of cute "no" response to cantering. Poor pony was tired. If there were volume you'd hear me giggling at her :)


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We went right back to canter after that and had a good canter in both directions but she needed to express her dislike of the situation. Pony was clearly tired though so we kept it pretty short.


via GIPHY

Weekend Rides Recap

First of all you guys I'm doing it!!! I was at the barn 6 days this past week and rode 4 times, lunged once, and did a spa day last Sunday. I can certainly refine it but I'm really happy that I did it, especially since I really didn't want to go to the barn on Friday but was able to pick myself up and go after, again, reminding myself that I never regret going.

Based on my mental ability that night and the fact that Katai felt a little tired I just did an easy stretchy ride. I did get a video which I took by balancing my new iPhone 7 on a jump standard in the middle of the arena. Not ideal, but you can see our most recent stretchy work as well as a decent halt :) There's also some pony cuddles at the end if you make it that far.

Then on Saturday I had an AMAZING ride! Katai was nice and relaxed (stretchy work ftw) but more forward than on Friday. We started with some walk work and did some leg yields, halts, and 10 meter circles while concentrating on controlling her body parts appropriately.

Then we went to trot and other than needing to have a couple of firm discussions about the requirement of flexion and connection she was really feeling good. Nice and relaxed with nice suspension. We did a little lateral work but mostly just focused on the quality of the trot and getting her in front of my leg without getting racy.

Then we did some canter. She was still stiff and struggling a little. After a bit she gave a couple snorts and seemed to really loosen up as we went. I really think she's just adjusting to our tougher work load so I'm making sure to be really understanding while still asking for just a bit more than she wants to give. With that being said her canter is still feeling stronger and stronger, she's just not as relaxed and balanced on days like this as she is when she's really feeling good. Plus she broke to trot a few times. We've been working on doing smaller circles at the canter and I was able to get a couple of good circles in either direction.

Walkies after Saturday's ride.
I always prefer to dismount and walk her out since it's good for me too :)

Finally, after a walk break, we did some of our best recent transition work. It's been a balancing act of working on walk/trot transitions without blowing her mind about them. Tonight I did them in sitting trot just asking with my seat and she was AMAZING!! She wasn't throwing her head around, was going from walk to trot off my seat, and really maintaining a nice rhythm. I also made it tricky for her by doing shoulder or haunches in between transitions.

Finally we ended with a couple of halts. These keep getting better and better! The only thing that's been tough is that now, since she knows she get's lots of praise for a good halt, she keeps trying to throw them in during our walk work. Poor overachieving pony doesn't like when I gently tell her that it's not always what I want haha.

Then today, Sunday, I had planned to do a quiet toodle day or another Sunday Spa day but I woke up feeling like I was coming down with a cold. I try hard to listen to my body so instead of doing anything I stayed home and have pretty much been napping on the couch all day. It's really ok, Katai had two good work days so she had an easier day coming. I would have worked on trailer loading but it's colder out again than it was so I knew she'd be especially hot and spicy and that's the last thing I need right now.

Oh well, I'm feeling ok after a relaxed day so I'm planning to be back at the barn tomorrow!

Ride Recap

Katai and I had a great ride tonight but both of us worked pretty hard. She was full of energy (my fault) and spring sass (not my fault) so I started her off on the lunge. I had her do a good amount of trot and canter in both directions and at first she wasn't listening to me AT ALL which is unique to her mood with our spring weather. She bucked, kicked out, and spooked a few times but mostly was just really good.

CRAZY weather for February in MN!!

She did enough work that I didn't plan to do much with her under saddle but once I hopped on she still seemed ready to burst at the seams with energy so we ended up doing ALOT of trotting. She was really moving nicely and was really being good, she just needed to move.

I did ask her for a bit of lateral work but she was so fizzed up that it was tough to get her to sit back and do it right. I got a good try in either direction and called it. It's almost always worth giving her the benefit of the doubt rather than pushing her and this is so unusual for her recently that I just put the blame on the excess energy and rewarded her for the try.

He played like this for a few minutes :)

We also did a few rounds through the cavalettis and I was impressed that she did them nicely since sometimes running for her means lots of very small quick steps which don't go well with cavalettis set for a lengthened stride :)

After LOTS of trotting (with a walk break in-between) I asked for a canter transition and got a decently calm one. I did a minimal amount of canter and then tried the other direction and again got almost no drama. More trot, more fizzy pony and then I called it. She'd done a really good job and I certainly didn't want to run her into the ground, just drain some energy.