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.

Wait For It...

I've had a few meh rides lately. After reading about some other bloggers rides it sounds like I'm not alone. I rode last Saturday, this past Monday, and now tonight on Wednesday. Katai was ok on Sunday and felt a little off on Monday. I remembered tonight when I was at the barn that she had gotten her spring shots on Monday so that would explain things. 

I felt bad because normally I would have given her a couple of days off. If she had seemed more off I would have anyway but she just seemed a little stiff and with her new work schedule and being asked to use different muscles it didn't surprise me.

It's not that we haven't been accomplishing anything, it's just that it's slow process and there haven't been any awesome rides. It has, however, been so so nice to trust that what my instructor wants me to work on is what I need to work on. I trust L because I can see exactly what she is aiming for and I agree with her methods so even when things temporarily get rough I'm comfortable pushing through it. Now the only thing I think about/worry about is if I'm pushing her hard enough or too hard. She's been getting at least 48 hours between every ride to recover. I'm going to start to ride two days in a row over the next couple of weeks but I am trying to make sure she has enough recovery time to not dislike the work. Of course at the same time if I don't push her at all she will never get stronger. 

Then tonight's ride was amazing. She started off rough but it didn't take long and she was working through her back better than she has been and was more relaxed at the base of her neck where L points out she holds most of her tension. After a few circles at the trot in the indoor we moved to the outdoor based on an invitation from another rider. She spent a few minutes being tense and rushy but then I got as good of work as we did inside. 

         Shedding season in full swing

I just have to take a moment to say how incredible my pony is. She has such an amazing brain, is so brave, and so intelligent. She makes me look like an incredible trainer :) Tonight was the first time she set hoof in the outdoor arena and she never once spooked. There were plenty of things to look at and she did tip her ear in their direction a couple of times and then she went right into work mode. I'm also extremely proud to say that tonight, for the first time, she licked the bit out of my hand without me having to ask her to take it. This has been a long careful process to get to this point so to see her finally actually do this was amazing and it was just as wonderful as I thought it would be to have her reach down to take it right out of my hand. It's little things like this that make me feel like I'm on the right track with her :)

I could make a new pony, not that I'd want to :)

Book Review: Nature, Nurture and Horses

Time for my first book review!

 

This book starts out by explaining the concept which is that they are going follow four different horses, of Spanish breeding, through their training journey with the goal of all four horses becoming proficient in Dressage. I bought this book about a year ago when Katai was still quite green. I thought it would be an interesting way of looking at different horse learning styles and would give me ideas for how to adapt my training to fit Katai’s learning style. What was most interesting to me is that with the ability to write about these four different horses, all of the same age and very similar breeding, with the same handlers meant that there were very few external influences. It was extremely interesting to see how each horse reacted to each stage of the training.

 

Each section of the book was broken down into four parts, named after each of the horses and each of these parts followed the horses through different stages in their training beginning with their birth and their initial personality and moving on through the training process.

 

The good: Nature, Nurture and Horses is written more like a really good story than an instructional manual. I found it very easy to read and couldn’t put it down. I bought the Kindle version and read most of it on my iPhone but I’ve looked at the book version and it is beautifully put together with many large, gorgeous, full cover pictures, which are in the Kindle version as well. Since I’m a very visual learner this always helps me figure out the concepts that they are writing about in the book. 

 

This book was excellently designed so that you could either go through and read from start to finish about one horse or compare and contrast as you go through, reading about the different learning styles. I especially found it interesting when they adapt their training with one or two horses to slow down or change the order of things. I also found it really interesting and helpful that they followed a colt and three fillies and had some examples of how the genders can differ.

 

The bad: This is not a training manual. I know I picked up ideas for training Katai, especially when she was young and green, but this is really more good story than instructional.

 

Overall: I would give it 4 carrots out of 5 and would definitely buy it again.