Time for Trailer Practice

Random pictures today, sorry for the lack of media!

This empty room is becoming the man cave
he even had his rawhide in there for awhile

My plan for Sunday was to take it a little easier from a dressage work perspective and to work Katai outside and lunge her. However, it ended up being a cold dreary and windy day so Katai was pretty amped up and I decided to ride instead.

My parent's barn has been steadily falling down over the past few years

 I had a great, if short, ride and the resident trainer (not Jane but the person who rides her young horse) was there and riding one of the training horses so it was great practice for Katai. At the last barn there were routinely other horses in the arena with us but here there aren’t so she was a little excited about it. I was able to keep her attention though with my new riding skills and she was really a good girl and didn’t have any tantrums to speak of.

You can still see a cross tie hanging there :)

Then Monday ended up being beautifully warm and sunny with temperatures in the upper 50s. It was SO NICE!! I decided to use it to my advantage and took Katai for a walk around the trailers. It’s pretty muddy out and the trailer wasn’t hooked up or in a particularly good place so I didn’t even open the door the full way, just got Katai walking around outside.

 We had some hairy moments.

Katai is much fitter than she was so between the passage, rearing, and (this is new) striking out it was like trying to handle a very fuzzy white dragon but I was really proud of how I handled it. I was able to stay really calm and soft and gentle with her but was very firm about keeping her out of my space and not letting her just barge ahead. We had a couple of discussions but they were “quieter” than they would have been in the past. I also stuck with it longer and walked her around a few times and stuck it out by the trailers for a while. We ended with a pony that was stilled amped but quieter and listening.

My amazing fellow boarder printed out this
calendar and marked the shows she's thinking about on it!

Frankly, it’s the first time she’s been out there since December so I don’t blame her for being feisty about it. My goal for the next month or so is just to get her lots of exposure to the outdoors as well as to the trailer. Before I even start working on loading again I want her to be calm near the back of the trailer with the doors open as normally that’s been getting her so freaked out that even thinking about trying to get her loaded is silly. If we can at least get there then I’m not as worried about actually getting her loaded.

Sound Decisions: Lesson Recap 4/17

First of all I have to report that I still didn’t really work Katai 5 days this week. I started off strong with a walk ride on Monday because I had plans on Tuesday evening. Then on Wednesday I took Katai to the outdoor arena where she crazily lunged herself. On Thursday I had a great ride with no attitude where we accomplished a lot and then on Friday I went out to the barn because Katai was having her feet trimmed by the new farrier.

I love him!

It’s one of those "hindsight is always perfect" moments where I wonder why I didn’t switch farriers earlier. He and I laughed a bit at how it looked like she was standing on peg legs (gallows humor) and then he gave her a great, balanced, reasonable trim. I thought he might bring up shoeing her but he didn’t. I had my fingers crossed that she wouldn’t be too sore.

Katai's feet have been like B and now both are more like A.

On Saturday I went out to the barn mainly so that I could cancel with L if she was really bad and was extremely pleased (really that doesn’t even capture how ecstatic I was) when she was able to walk on concrete! I could tell that she was just slightly hesitant but compared to her last few trims it was a HUGE improvement. However, the farrier had changed her angles enough, especially on her right front, that I didn’t want to push her and risk injuring her. Instead she got pampered and then we went for a trail walk around the outdoor pastures and paddocks with a little hand grazing for good measure. It still felt productive since I’m hoping to start riding out her there again soon and she behaved really well.

Based on how sound she was I decided to go ahead with my lesson but to take things a little easy.

On Sunday she was just very, very slightly puffy right above her fetlock joint on her right front. You couldn’t see it but I know her legs really well and I could feel it. I mentioned it to L off the bat and she agreed that Katai was just very slightly hesitant on that leg. Because of that we did a lot of walk and then decided to try a little trot where L pronounced her "sounder than at the walk". Along with her new angles we’ve had a crazy temperature switch. Last week it was averaging in the mid 40s and this week it’s been averaging in the mid 70s. That’s a huge difference for the horses and they’ve all been sluggish and hot. On top of that we’ve been getting air pollutant warnings so L was having all of her students take it a little easy. With that in mind we did some trot work on shallow serpentines (I needed more work than Katai did) and after a few amazing accomplishments in each direction and lots of walk breaks we called it after about 30 minutes of a normally 45 minute lesson.

Making show plans...

Katai was an ANGEL the whole time. Even with the heat and everything else she had to be fussy about she just did exactly what we asked which made it an even better idea to quit early. She seriously gave me everything I asked for and never once said no which is such an amazing thing for this pony. I’m still walking on air today about how well this weekend went and I can’t wait to ride tomorrow!