Autonomy

The last night at the old barn. New barn updates soon!

One of the things about the new barn that I'm honestly looking forward to at this point is actually taking a break from lessons. As a background I've taken weekly music lessons since I was 5, had a brief break when I wasn't taking music lessons or riding lessons and then started riding lessons a few years ago.

I'm absolutely a student and certainly no expert. I will be taking as many lessons as I can afford with S2 (goal is at least monthly if not bi-weekly) and hopefully do a clinic or two but I'll also be spending a lot of time working through things on my own. I'm confident that at the least I know when to involve expert help and at the most that with all of the resources I have at my disposal I'll still make decent progress.

moved the pony and then flew to OH
for work the beginning of this week.

What's funny is that with my history of taking lessons and the way I grew up where learning from experts was the only way we did things, I feel a little like I need an adult to make this decision. Then I realize that I'm an adult and if I don't have weekly lessons in the budget and also just want to have more time to work on homework between lessons that's completely up to me.

This could absolutely still change. I may assess and decide that I really need to prioritize weekly lessons over other items and go back to having them. I'll also hopefully have some eyes on the ground from my friend M between lessons.

Also, right at this moment Katai has more buttons than she has strength. We have a technically correct leg yield, shoulder in, haunches in, walk/canter transition, counter canter, lengthening, etc. but need to practice all of the above and gain strength in all of the above. Of course they can always be improved and I don't want to practice them incorrectly but there are just so many things to practice and get back right now. Especially after this really inconsistent winter I feel like I've got mounds of homework and not enough time to just work on it and practice the things.

Veggie with his favorite
crew/puppy sitter while I'm gone.

I also want to incorporate more downtime days doing ground work, riding on trails, potentially doing trailer practice etc. and with limited time at the barn (hopefully I can still make it out 5 days a week) I really want to be able to do those things and still make some dressage progress between lessons rather than not doing the fun downtime things because I feel like I don't have enough time between lessons.

I'm excited to take this step and whether it works long term or not it will be fun to not have that weekly commitment for awhile.

Experimentation

Let me out or feed me treats!
Jane and partner spent the past few weekends installing new
bars on the stall doors in the main barn and they look soooo good!

A while ago, before I was derailed by farrier drama and sending my saddle away, I was going to share a bit about a supplement update. In the meantime I’ve had something else come up so I figured I could share both now.

Back when I “self” diagnosed Katai with Ulcers I did a round of treatment with UlcerGuard and started Katai on G.U.T. for maintenance. After the treatment with UlcerGuard all of Katai’s ulcer-like symptoms went away and stayed away but I wasn’t sure if they stayed away because of or despite the G.U.T. since I started that at the same time. My plan in the first place with starting her on the maintenance supplement was to wean her off going into winter (when I felt like there would be less stress) and then put her back on in the spring.

 

Little tough to tell past the cute pony tongue
but this is what they looked like before.

So, the supplement ran out and I didn’t immediately replace it despite it still sort of being summer. I figured I’d experiment and see if her symptoms came back or stayed away. Like a lot of those things they sort of crept back slowly so I wasn’t aware right away but just prior to the show Katai was back to being girthy, sensitive to touch, and just seemed less like her normal self. Once I realized the pattern (when she almost nipped me as I fastened her girth) I felt so bad! Here I’d found something that worked and then took her off it just to see if it stopped working which made poor Katai uncomfortable.

The good thing is that I know now that I need to keep her on it. I just felt bad that I’d given her the chance to feel icky in the meantime.

The other thing I’ve been experimenting with is my lunging set up.

For a long time I’d used just plain side reins with a stretchy insert. After moving to my previous barn I started to experiment with a neck stretcher since everyone there used one. With normal side reins Katai would always get above the contact and get hollow. She was also clearly tight just in front of the withers and the neck stretcher did WONDERS for that. However, once I started working with Jane she was very against the neck stretcher (and I don’t disagree) so I started looking for something that would provide similar benefit and stumbled upon Vienna reins. They’re said to be really good for horses, like Katai, that get tight in front of their withers. Plus, it didn’t have the poll pressure that Jane disliked.

I loved how they worked with Katai and have used them exclusively for lunging for almost the past year. Just about two months ago I decided to try out side reins again and it didn’t work. Katai went right back to getting above the contact and got really hollow through her back. I put them away and went back to the Vienna reins.

Not sure if I've shown this before but this magnet lives on Katai's stall :)

 Then, fast forward to a couple of weekends ago. Since I don’t have a saddle I decided to lunge. Recently (as many of you have probably noticed) Katai has started to duck slightly behind the contact a bit in tense situations. She isn’t doing this at home but the lack of forward combined with the extra tension at a show or when I'm at the neighbor's arena causes her to go btv which we're actively working to "fix". In the Vienna reins she can go behind the vertical because of the way the action works, however, she really hasn't done that at all. It's something I've watched for because I knew it was a risk but so far she hadn't ever gone btv when I lunged. However, with her tendency to do so under saddle recently increasing I wanted to cut out any chance of that happening when I lunge so I went back to the side reins. 

Low and behold they worked! She was PERFECT and never got tight or above the side reins. She also pushed forward into them, unless I let her get lazy, and just worked so so so well. Really, it's just crazy how quickly they can change and learn things after years of having pretty consistent behaviors.