The Proof Is In The Pudding

Pony Beast Mode Activated!!
She's fit and getting some muscles. Plus look at how uphill she's gotten!

It's so tough to get confirmation photos by myself since she doesn't want to stand still but today she stood herself up in the cross ties fairly well. I haven't been able to capture a picture of how much taller she's gotten in front/how her withers have come up but this represents it pretty well.

Unfortunately the angle still isn't good and she's standing pretty far under herself in front which isn't doing her shoulder any favors but still, not bad at all!

Worse angle but cuter since you can see her head

 Both Jane and I are so happy with her weight and now just want to make sure that she keeps getting enough groceries to keep putting muscle on. She's completely on alfalfa rather than grass hay right now and getting quite a bit of it to keep up with her workload. She's also on no grass, or no more than she can pick at in her small paddock and what she gets when I hand graze her. We may actually end up adding a bit more grain here at some point if we continue to increase her workload so that she can actually keep at least this much body condition.

It continues to amaze me how much the work we do with them effects their body.

She was so cresty and fat here!

Fall 2016 right before moving to Jane's barn.
Yes, there really has been that much of a change to her withers

Back to Work: Lesson Recap 3/21

Just something a little different until I can get more riding footage

After missing two lessons I’ll admit to having a bit of anxiety as I drove to the barn for my lesson this Tuesday. Partially that was just the fact that when I mounted up on Saturday for my first ride back it felt pretty foreign after two weeks off. Part of it was also just not feeling especially confident about how Katai would behave after the time off and the cold front we were dealing with that day.

 At any rate when I got to the barn she was quiet and easy to get groomed and tacked up. I later learned that she’d been a hellion for Jane when Jane led her back to the barn but she really behaved well in the barn and also for my lesson so maybe she got rid of all of the shenanigans on her own. 

Jane’s early assessment was that between the cold and the time off Katai needed a long warmup and lots of work to get her bending. We had a REALLY nice warmup with her and she was on the bit right away and stretching down and forward rather than doing a giraffe impression. After a fairly long walk warmup we went to trot and Jane wanted me to really focus on getting the contact on both reins and really using my outside rein appropriately. I think we both expected some fireworks because contact on both reins can put so much pressure on pony mare brains but she was right with us the whole time. She never once got upset and, while I needed to keep the contact fairly active at first to show her what I wanted, we got to a place pretty quickly where she was consistently on both reins. It was a great feeling!

 After that we did some leg yields but Jane wanted more crossover than we were getting. I think Katai was slightly stiff and after running around like a goofball all day probably just didn’t feel like using herself. We switched to head to the wall leg yields to help with the crossover. I really struggled but then once I got it at the walk Jane had us do it at the trot. That was way too tough for my brain so after a few good moments (that were really total mistakes on my part since I still couldn’t quite figure out what I was doing) we took a walk break and then went to canter.

We worked on spirals at the canter again and Jane really had me focus on getting my body to bend/turn the correct way and not to collapse or lean. Katai did REALLY well with these! I really think the work with the Vienna reins has been paying off and, of course, all of our ridden canter work is paying off as well. Our transitions were all pretty good, I was able to keep my position pretty well, especially to the left, and overall this exercise went way better on Tuesday than it has in the past. It’s still a bit of a struggle for me but practice makes perfect :)

I have some great homework to work on, including more of those leg yields along the wall, but tonight will be another night off and then I'll ride/lunge/do a spa day Thursday-Sunday. I've got a make up lesson on Saturday so I'll have another recap this weekend!

I’ve also got an exciting announcement to share soon!

Bad Influence

Or actually a good influence. After reading a few of Sprinklerbandit's posts about using Vienna reins with Courage I wanted to try them with Katai. I figured that my neck stretcher could probably play double duty and work for Vienna reins as well and I was right, at least for the most part.

Next time I want to add something to make them at least a few inches longer but I went with it this time since they weren't horrible. I was even able to get some video and I think she's looking really good.

Enjoy some Prairie Home Companion in the background because that's how we roll :)

Do Less, Ask for More

My camera randomly captured this when I was trying to set it up to take video.
Unfortunately it's all the media that I have from Thursday 

I feel like this summer has been more about figuring out myself, motivation, and how to train my horse than it's been about actually training my horse. With this being said I feel like we've been making lots of progress.

I've been slowly chipping away at my position and how it's effecting Katai. I've also been figuring out some of the small evasions that she's been throwing at me that I couldn't originally identify when I didn't have as much dressage riding knowledge. More importantly I've been figuring out how to deal with the correctly rather than just operating on feel alone where sometimes I make the problem worse.

The problem is that sometimes this has been feeling more philosophical than actually like something I can take action on. Thursday felt like the first time in awhile that I put the knowledge and skills I've been learning to use, on my own, and worked through a tough situation to end up some place good.

I also learned a few things. One is that I need to go back to 5 rides per week, at least, Katai just has too much energy and isn't getting enough work right now. 4 rides or 5 casual rides just isn't enough for her current fitness level. I'm going to plan to do at least three, working dressage rides, a trail ride, a lunge, and then if she's still feeling hot or if one of our dressage rides ended up being a bit lighter I'm going to add a cavalletti day. the main thing for me is to make sure that during our dressage rides I can concentrate and really ride, and more importantly THINK the way that I know I can. If that means changing a dressage ride into a trail ride or lunge I'm going to do that. Riding dressage and then not really putting much into it or not concentrating is not gaining me anything.

The other thing is that I need to make a couple of things a priority in my rides, getting Katai in front of my leg and making her deal with a normal, light, leg pressure and not taking the pressure off when she over reacts and gives herself the tizzies.

Finally no treats again. Over the past few weeks I'd snuck her one very randomly and during the hunter pace she got a lot. For special occasions away from home I'll still give her some but she's started pinning her ears and giving me dirty looks in the crossties again so no more treats at the barn anymore. I had hoped that making them rare and random would be ok, but no.

My ride on Thursday was really great. I worked on things and was actually able to make progress without L there which has been really hit or miss lately (more miss than hit). I had identified a few things to work on and then I stuck to it. One of those was, as mentioned above, getting her in front of my leg. We ended in a better place but its something that still needs more work. I also really worked on getting her to still accept leg pressure. She has trouble figuring out the difference between the two which is totally on me but now it's time to start fixing it. We had some really good work and ended in a really nice place. It was also my first full ride in the trial saddle and after a few minor tweaks it still slid forward but less. I'm really falling in love with this saddle so I'm very hopefully that L will have some more ideas on how to girth it up that will fix the slipping issue entirely so that I can get it!