Taking Steps

Last grain with bute on Monday!!

I don’t necessarily want or need to share intimate details around the mental health stuff I’ve been working on for the past year or so but this post is about some high level mental health stuff that impacts pony things. I do want to share this level because not only is this a journal for myself about horse stuff and this plays into it but also because maybe someone else out there will gain something from this.

Feel free to skip or read.

I’ve always had pretty high anxiety, ok like really high anxiety. My mom does as well so I’m sure that’s probably part of it. It doesn’t have a hugely visible impact on my day to day in that it’s never negatively impacted my performance at work, I rarely (if ever), make decision based on my anxiety, however, it plays into everything, every day of my life. My way of dealing with it, for lack of having any other answer, has typically been to just force it down and ignore it. For most of my life I’ve thought it was just normal nerves of the type that everyone deals with but it’s come to my attention over the past year that it’s way more than what many people deal with. This led me to seek out therapy. The particular therapist that I was seeing wasn’t a great fit so I’m in the process of finding a different therapist right now but I’m looking forward to learning more about how to manage this.

So, anyone may know the answer to this but how does this relate to pony stuff? I’ve never thought of it as an issue with horse stuff. I’ve never had an issue with fear in the bigger ways that some of my friends have. I’ve had lesson anxiety but that normally goes away once I’m in the saddle so I never really worried about it, and I’ve always thought I was managing it pretty well. Two things happened this past week though that made me take a big step back and realize that I’m just not ok continuing on as is.

Today, snow...

First, on Thursday when the vet was out I was having massive anxiety. I felt almost light headed and definitely nauseous (both normal for me with stuff like the vet visit). If I could have curled up in a tiny ball and let someone else deal with the vet I would have done so. Of course it ended up being ok but I was FREAKING out. I had it tamped down pretty well by the time I got to the barn and brought Katai into the cross ties. I wasn’t thinking about it but Katai was escalating, and escalating. I was standing and talking to someone about the weather (or something else inconsequential) and I looked over to Katai trying to alternate rearing in the cross ties and spinning. Her muscles were all tight and her eyes were huge. There was NO reason for her to do so that day, like any other day where she’s falling asleep in the crossties, other than my anxiety. Plus, then when I handed her off to the assistant (and Katai doesn't like strangers) she was back to being her calm, normal self.

Suddenly I realized that if, in a place that both of us feel safe. A place where Katai is normally quiet and half asleep, she was hose show level escalated, it was entirely related to my anxiety. That means that at shows, where I’ve thought I’ve had a training problem I’ve actually had an anxiety problem. I’ve been walking around thinking that Katai has poor training and poor ground handling at shows and confused because she’s SOOOO good at home and feeling sort of powerless to work on it. I’m sure we’ll have some work to do anyway since new environments do that but the silliness that makes her so tough to handle at shows? Entirely my anxiety. Trailering? Same thing. I know some people say that it’s almost always the person that’s the problem, in this case that is absolutely 100% true. Of course, upon more thought, it may feel like I have it tamped down but Katai and I are very connected and of course when I feel internally like I’m going to die Katai picks that up and also feels like she’s going to die. It’s sort of wonderful in a tragic sort of way.

Second, this weekend I was listening to the Oliva Towers podcast with Jane Pike on cultivating a resilient mindset. I’ll be honest that after my recent therapy experience I was wondering if there was anything to be gained by doing therapy. Then I listened to this podcast and learned more than I ever had from my therapist and decided it wasn’t me, and was more of a mismatch between the two of us. I’m going to be working on some of the things that Jane Pike talked about, and, also working hard to find a therapist that works well for me because I want to improve and help Katai feel better so that we can both have fun at shows.

It’s empowering because it means that by working on that anxiety and finding solutions to that I’ll be solving probably 80% of the handling issue we have at shows where Katai seems to revert to being feral. Then we’ll just have 20% of true training to work on to get her used to calmly following directions in strange places. I know it’s going to be hard work but I’m looking forward to it.

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!

Ok, Who Stole My Pony

She's not convinced that it's her color but I always
make her carry my jacket around after we finish.

Recently it sort of felt like someone stole my sweet, angelic pony and left a demon pony in her stall haha. Over the last few days I have even more reason to think that someone replaced Katai with a different pony.

A few days ago I went to spray, leave in conditioner on her mane by putting it on a brush and brushing it through. Anyone who's been following my blog for awhile will know that Katai has ALWAYS been terrified by the spray bottle. I've tried everything I can think of to get her used to it and over the past few months I gave up, deciding that it just wasn't worth the fight anymore.

She's the cutest

This time though when I went to brush the stuff on her mane she didn't react at all. Then I went for it and sprayed more on the brush when I was standing right next to her. Still no reaction, nothing, not even a twitch. I got so far as to spray it right on her tail which I've NEVER been able to do with her before.

Seriously weird.

Then today I tried it again, same thing and still no reaction at all. I again used the brush to put the spray on her but sprayed it right on her tail. I'm planning to work from her and maybe, just maybe, work up to actually spraying the product directly on her. That would be so fantastic!

Relationships

When I read Emma's post and some of the responses to it I knew that I wanted to do a post about this. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot both from the perspective of what I need and how Katai matches that and from the perspective of what I would do differently “next time”.

However, I sat down to type this up and I struggled. I’ve drafted something at least 3-4 times now but it never really captured how I honestly feel about this and that is that Katai is perfect.

Sure I can wish and dream for something “better”, after all the grass is always greener, but ultimately Katai is the perfect horse for me which made this either the longest post or the shortest post. Instead I’ve decided to share a little about how I got here.

 When I chose Katai I was in a very different place. I had found early in life what my limit was and unfortunately ended up with a lot of fear thanks to my first horse. I had conquered maybe 70% of that fear by 2012 when I got my first pony as an adult. Myshla was an incredible pony who was calm, quiet, cute, cuddly, and nearly a perfect kids pony. The only issue is that she was very forward and hadn’t been very well trained so she wasn’t very responsive to halts or half halts which made her feel a bit like a run away. The fact that she was a run away in the body of a small pony/teddy bear made it fun for me to work with her instead of scary.

When I first got her I was finally putting aside peer pressure and getting what I wanted which was a pony. She was the first horse I had after Sora and Sora had taken me on a journey that was way off the beaten path. In many ways Myshla helped me find my way back to riding dressage but even though she did that for me I quickly realized that she wasn’t going to be comfortable as my dressage pony, it just wasn’t her thing and she wasn’t built for it. She was such a perfect kids pony that I decided to find her a home with a kid and find myself a different pony.

 Now (while I wouldn’t change this for the world since it would have meant not finding Katai) I maybe would have done things differently but it felt important to have a dressage pony prospect asap. So with my very tiny budget I started looking. I found Katai’s ad but kept convincing myself to skip over it. I’d had my fill of green horses with Sora and Katai was a bit shorter and possibly not as athletic as I wanted. Now I maybe would have kept Myshla for longer and saved up some additional funds but at that time I decided to go check out Katai.

That’s when something really weird happened, I went to see her and didn’t fall in love with her. I actually felt sort of meh about her and while her size felt better than I thought it would (she was at least a couple inches taller than Myshla) and I liked her brain she was also very resistant, scared, reluctant to be caught or handled, and pretty much feral. Even then I had a pretty good picture of my limits and I just wasn’t confident that I’d be able to successfully train her. I still bought her, or actually traded for her, and after one failure and multiple hours got her on the trailer and home where she proceeded to completely ignore all of the electric fencing and escape to the neighbors.

The first two years where really, really tough and I thought a lot about giving up. Ultimately what made me keep her was that there wasn’t going to be a market for a young, untrained pony and I still saw so much potential in her. My budget was still very low at that point so hiring a professional just wasn’t an option. Eventually I got through the worst of it and was able to move her to a dressage barn (with J) which felt like the right track. Now if I could go back and change anything it would just be to not ever bring her to that barn or take lessons on her with J. I learned from J but it caused issues with Katai that we’re still dealing with to this day. Things went backwards for a bit and then we started to make progress again.

Overall it was another 2 years of struggle before things really started to improve significantly with Jane (plus Katai hit that magical age of 8 which I’m sure helped). However, after 4.5 years of blood, sweat, and tears I can say that my pony is perfect for me.

She’s still tricky, she’s still very forward, still gets tense, still frustrates me, still has meltdowns about things that just shouldn’t be a big deal after 4.5 years but I adore her and she’s good for me. Even though I can think/dream about what’s next and I’m sure Katai won’t be my last pony, I also can’t imagine finding any horse or pony that I would enjoy more than I’m enjoying Katai. Plus, she's still more talented at this dressage thing than I am and I'm still learning from her so it doesn't make sense to look elsewhere even if I weren't completely in love with her.

She’s just the perfect mix of bold, funny, spicy, forward, lazy, powerful, intelligent, cute, naughty for me to have fun and feel challenged but not ever feel scared. She also doesn’t have huge movement that makes me feel like I need to spend tons of hours at the gym. I work out to be a better rider for her, but it’s not another full time job. I never climb on her and wonder if she’s going to be naughty but I’m also not bored when I ride and she always challenges me in a good way. I just can't imagine a better pony for me :)

Couples Therapy: Stubborn Together Blog Hop

I’ve had this idea for the past couple of weeks but finally decided that I was curious enough to make it into a blog hop.

Basically, I’m curious what role your trainer/instructor plays in the partnership between you and your horse. I’m not talking about unicorns and the Black Stallion here, just good common sense instruction on how you work with and ride your horse beyond the technical aspects of dressage. Is it something they feel strongly about either way or something that they just don’t work with at all?

My experiences have been very interestingly different. When I started with J (not Jane, past instructor who I dislike) I was surprised at the amount of animosity that she approached riding and coaching with. Anytime the horse wasn’t immediately doing what the rider asked it was “giving them the middle hoof” and was being uncompliant. She used a lot of force and even when I would specifically tell her that I thought something was just physically or mentally tough for Katai or that Katai didn’t understand something she would brush it off and say that my pony did understand and just wasn’t listening.

Then I worked with L who had very similar feelings about that relationship/partnership that I do. At first she made a big impact because I was coming from J’s antagonistic approach but ultimately both L and I were kind and fair but removed from really engaging in that partnership. Both of us have lost animals, and in her case people, that we were very close to and I think it made it tougher for us to really connect and come at this topic from a loving place. Instead it was more of a kind, fair, but casual sort of feeling which is how I’d initially worked with Katai and my past horses.

Now with Jane that’s completely different. She is working a lot with me on the technical pieces but I feel like some of the work she’s doing with me that’s had the biggest impact is on my partnership with Katai and how I function in that partnership. Jane has been doing this for a long time and owned and trained a lot of horses but it doesn’t feel like she treats this like her job. While she’s extremely professional about it, she also acts more like a coach, or as my friend says about her instructor, she’s my Yoda. Everything from the terms that she uses, to the way that she teaches and how she expects me to make changes with Katai is different and I’m learning so much. She uses terms like “hug” when she refers to leg contact, or tells me to take time to get her flexed correctly on the side where it’s tougher for Katai. She also LOVES mares which is nice since I also love them but I’m realizing that I don’t always know the best way to train/ride them.

I can’t believe how much this has all impacted Katai and the way she is to ride. She’s gone from tense and dramatic to loose, stretchy, relaxed and thinking in the time between when I ended with J and now but the biggest change has been in the past month. It’s been an interesting and amazing journey and I can’t wait to see where we are in the next couple of years!

So, how does your current (or past) trainer manage the partnership/relationship between you and your horse(s)?

Humble Pie

I feel like it's always good for people to be able to admit when they are wrong especially when it comes to working with a very sensitive and large prey animal that easily blows things out of all proportion.

Part of this, when working on my own, is self awareness. It's one thing if my instructor tells me that something is wrong but I prefer, whenever possible, to catch it before my lesson. Part of that is that I'd rather not expect my instructor to catch everything and part of it is that I want to feel like I can be productive on my own.

This time what I caught is that I've been choking up on the reins again too much prior to Katai's vacation. The problem is that during some rides Katai rushes so much that we go through this cycle where I get to the point where I'm using every weight and core half halt aid that I have and then I go to the reins. She slows down for a stride or two and then it's back through the same cycle. At some point I get so tired from all those half halt aids that I start relying more on my hands and eventually then even when she's not rushing as much I'm relying on too much rein.

Also, the name stubborn together? Well I seem to get to this point where I'm stubbornly trying to do what I've read in a book and even if it's not working for my pony I persist thinking that she's wrong. Honestly there's no way for her to be wrong, she'll always be honest about how she's feeling. It's my responsibility as the rider to figure out how to fix something so that she makes the change that I'm looking for.

Also, we've been working on getting her really through on the outside rein. She's good going to the right, left rein but doesn't want to take contact at all on the right rein when we're going to the left. Sometimes this requires me shortening up that rein with a nice amount of contact and then slowly working her out. When I'm working with L she can call me on when I'm just holding but when I ride on my own I just keep thinking that I need to keep that contact. Again, this get the reins shorter and shorter.

I had started noticing a few weeks ago that Kati was getting tighter through the shoulders and back and more inverted again. Nothing like before but she wasn't working with a nice long neck and swinging through her back like she had been recently. I kept thinking different things about it but finally diagnosed the above probably along with the soreness that came up in her two appointments. Although of course then I start thinking about whether, like the chicken and the egg, the soreness came first or the postural riding things.

Two weeks ago, with the saddle fitting day, was a little bit of a mixed bag when it came to rides. Since she had worked and gotten a massage on Monday I gave her Tuesday and Wednesday off instead of Monday and Tuesday. Then Thursday was drill team which was sort of when I finally diagnosed what was going on since I had an extremely inverted unhappy pony for the first half and then after making a couple of changes (like actually giving the reins forward a little) she got long and loose and swingy. Then this week of course she's been on a break so just got walked on the long on Wed, Thu, Fri. Had Saturday off and then just a walk ride on Sunday.

I also realized that I need to stop stubbornly trying to warm her up the way that I know works for other horses. She's not other horses, she's Katai and part of why I like sports involving horses is that there's the extra challenge of working with the horse as an individual to get the result you're looking for. In this case I need to stop trying to warm up Katai with more contact and instead, ignore the ugly during the warm up but not give up on bend, push from behind, a longer neck and nice loose back. Once I get her to the place THEN I can have high expectations and start to work on what I want but until then I need to do what it takes to get her there even if it's not by the book. It was this post by SprinklerBandits that made me realize this so thank you for that post SprinklerBandits!

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.

TOABH: Who Trained Your Horse

Last week, we talked about our babies.  This week, let's talk about our greenies.  Who trained your horse?  Is your ponykins still in the process of figuring out this whole monkey-on-my-back thing, did you send off for thirty or sixty or ninety days, or did you buy a horse with all the bells and whistles?  Who has helped your horse become what he or she is today?

That answer is basically me :) I bought Katai completely untrained as a late four year old. She could kind of lead if you could catch her but she had a nasty habit of suddenly rearing, spinning, and bolting backwards away from you whenever you tried to do something she didn't approve of. She certainly didn't know how to tie, was tough to catch, aggressive, had no idea about forward, and had been thoroughly spoiled by her teenage owner. I believe that that girl had sat on her a few times and said that she'd had a saddle on her back but it actually just made things tougher since it had taught her that she didn't need to listen or do what a person wanted since eventually they'd give up. 

This was from before I got her. I can see both fear and some aggression from her in this picture and that's pretty much what I started with. Plus she was extremely obese.

Here she is about five months after I got her. She's standing tied, although there was still a lot of dancing and behaving like an idiot, and wearing a bit for probably the fifth time.

Wearing a blanket like a big girl. It only took me about 15 minutes to get it on. She was still wearing a safety halter since she was tough to catch.

More big girl things, wearing four boots, a surcingle and a bit and this was just before I started ground driving her. She looks so shaggy, undeveloped, and babyish here. I also think it's interesting that at this point her mane fell to the left and now it falls to the right. Apparently it has to do with the development of muscles.

Wearing her first dressage saddle. Such a baby!

First time on her back!!

This was right after one of our first real "rides" up until here we were either in a small enclosed space or mostly just doing mounting practice. At this point we were still just sticking to a walk. You can see though how much different her expression and posture are. She is calm and quiet and there is some trust there.

Working her at the first real boarding barn I kept her at and in her first indoor arena. This is where we went from just walking to doing trot and canter.

First real trail ride outside of any type of fence and down the road.

I don't have many pictures in between because I was always at the barn by myself and it was tough to get any plus I mostly worked on trot and canter over the winter when it was extremely cold and It was tough to have enough motivation to take off my gloves to use my iPhone camera.

And finally from October. I'm hoping to get more pictures soon!

I had such a great ride tonight. She is really starting to understand the lateral work and I'm getting a nice, relaxed, balanced response on a loose rein. Currently I'm focusing on leg yields to the wall and shoulders in. Haunches in used to freak her out and was a great way to get her to rear but she completely didn't understand shoulders in. Now she does well with haunches in and is finally starting to get haunches in along the wall :) Even better she is doing it on a soft feel and maintaining her balance, not sticking her head up in the air and getting hollow. 

I've also been focusing more on the canter. I think I'm going to need to go back to getting the transition nicely on the lunge. She used to pick it up immediately when I gave a specific vocal cue but now she just puts her ears back and races forward at the trot. I'm trying to figure out if it is me or if she just needs a reminder about what the canter cue means. 

Something to work on for next time!

My Crazy Weekend

My barn was having a schooling show this Saturday. I hadn't planned on entering but at the last minute J told me that there would be a sport horse In hand class and I REALLY wanted to show Katai. There were a few problems including that I have a white pony who is still pretty sure that the hose is going to eat her so a real bath would be tricky, I have no idea how to do sport horse in hand, plus I haven't ever made Katai trot next to me and even if I could get her to it certainly wouldn't show off her trot very well. I hate being unprepared so I decided to skip it this time but on Friday evening J asked if I would scribe and I jumped at the chance.

It really was great to scribe and get a feel for what the judge was looking for. This was my first time and I was a little nervous but the judge was very patient and helpful and I feel like its a good life skill. I was glad it was a schooling show and that no one showed over 1st level since those tests were already difficult enough.

It was great to spectate and help out, and I would certainly scribe again in a heartbeat, but hopefully I can ride in the next one!

Then on Saturday I ran my first 5K, not an event just on my own, with only one short 15 second walk in the middle! It was my first time running over two miles and I hadn't done that since last year. Tonight I ran another 5K and cut off 3 minutes :)

I'm really glad that I'm making some improvement because I'm entered in a Ragnar in August https://www.ragnarrelay.com. I'm excited but extremely nervous because this will be the first sporting event that I've ever been a part of. I never did any sports as a kid other than riding and even with riding I never had lessons or anyone to push me so I sort of putzed along and just had fun, which is great don't get me wrong but it doesn't encourage any type of fitness. I was certainly never an athletic kid and while my family did lots of hiking and we would sometimes go on long bike rides it was never easy or especially fun for me. I was never thin but going through college and grad school I was starting to get a bit tubby. It's not something that I've ever really brought up on this blog but it was seeing a picture of myself riding Myshla that made me decide I had to change something. 

I started running last year but never made it over two miles and only did that a few times. This winter I didn't run at all because I didn't have access to a treadmill so this year I had to start all over and I am so glad that I did! I'm actually starting to enjoy it and I can tell how much more fit I am just since I got back to it at the beginning of May. Since I started working on my diet and exercise about three years ago I've lost over 40 pounds and my goal is to lose about 15-20 more. Training for the Ragnar this summer will certainly help! 

Finally on Sunday my sister came to visit and came with me to the barn. I was able to convince her to take some pictures. She rocks! They are a little blurry but they are also almost the only pictures I have of me riding Katai so I don't even care.

Can you tell how much I love this pony :-)

Please forgive the wonky elbows and hands. Between the green baby pony things, the fact that J wants my hands a little low and wide right now to help her stretch down, and the fact that I haven't really ridden much at all for the last month since Katai got to the barn my position has certainly been better. Now that I finally have a saddle that fits and a pony that behaves I can start to do the work to bring it together.

Saddle Fitting Purgatory

We haven't killed each other yet. In fact things are going pretty darn well with both the crossties and training. I've had two lessons with J where we worked with Katai now and I've been extremely proud of my pony. The gaps in training that she's found are things that I guess I knew I was being lazy about and just needed a third party to remind me of. One of those is that Katai is horrible, and has been horrible, about standing still. Trying to do anything like tighten a girth, or adjust a bridle is almost impossible and frustrating and while I tried for awhile to correct that I think I finally just sort of gave up on it. I've been reinforcing that she needs to STAND still now though and it is getting better.

In our first lesson we worked on leading as a step towards properly lunging which is something I've never been taught. I just copied what I saw people doing when they lunged their horse and eventually figured it out through trial and error. J had me start by leading, while facing out, Katai around the track of the arena. Every time she tried to budge her shoulder in or leave the track she got a correction and as long as she was walking nicely on the track we left her alone. As J mentioned several times she is extremely smart and figured it out pretty quick so at my next lesson we progressed to lunging her with sidereins. Again I was so proud of my pony! J was expecting to have trouble with her but she was a little saint and did it just like I'd taught her to listening to voice commands and our body positioning.

Other than the fact that I really did need to learn this and have already seen differences in Katai since J started teaching me how to work with her correctly, I haven't been riding because J pronounced both of my saddles "hopeless, don't even try to ride in them. Put them up for sale immediately." I was pretty sure that was going to be the case so I was prepared but what I wasn't prepared for was that she said I needed to start looking at close contact saddles. It was honestly kind of a painfull thing for me to hear. I LIKE dressage saddles. They are comfortable and put you in the correct place for dressage. However, I have spent more of my time riding in a close contact saddle than a dressage saddle and I've actually been wanting one again for going out on hacks since I like to be able to get off of my horse's back when cantering and like being able to vary my position more than you can in a dressage saddle. I didn't want to have one as my main saddle. The more I thought about it though the more I realized that I'm not only lucky to have an instructor that puts Katai's comfort above all else but that she is comfortable and flexible enough to go with a close contact when a dressage saddle isn't working. Mostly I was happy to finally have someone tell me what I needed so that it wouldn't all be on my shoulders and I was looking forward to finally being out a saddle fitting purgatory.

I am so lucky to have a great local tack shop that's only about 15 minutes away from my house that has an excellent saddle trial program as well as TONS of saddles! Over the past couple of days I picked up and tried over 8 saddles to finally end up with these.

The dressage saddle at the end is one of mine that is for sale but the other three are a Collegiate Event, a Beval, and an Albion. They will be coming with to my lesson on Thursday for saddle tryouts with J. It is really very odd to see all those CCs and APs in my apartment when its normally all dressage saddles. We are going to be stylin too with our pink lined black bridle, black stirrup leathers, black stirrups and brown saddle :-)

I've riden her now in both the Albion, on Saturday, and the Beval, on Sunday, and while I prefer the Beval I do really like both of them. It is so weird to be riding in a CC again though! 

The Breakdown

 

 

To accomplish the big goals I need to lay out smaller items to fix, improve and correct. The following are my goals for the rest of February.

1. Lots of Miles – Both of us need time together mostly riding. She is weak, I’m still weak and I’m getting used to her movement and figuring out the communication between us. My goal is to ride her 4 times per week through the end of February.

2. Strength – I need to specifically address her weaknesses which will require more than just time in the saddle. For the rest of February my goal is to do carrot stretches before and after each ride and to introduce more cavaletti work.

3. Communication – Katai is doing really well and figuring out some of the more refined cues at this point, at least refined for a green horse :P, but I need to do more to introduce lateral movements since everything is built on that. My goal is to introduce some lateral work to every ride as well as doing some work on the ground to help her figure this out and figure out how to move laterally without a rider on the days that I don’t ride.

4. Trail Riding – I would LOVE to have nice enough weather to get her out of the arena occasionally in February. If we have reasonable weather my goal is to get her out at least once a week for a quick ride down the road.

During my ride on Sunday I really felt like I’m starting to trust her. She still has spurts of naughty behavior but I know exactly how far they will go at this point and I’m comfortable with how to correct her and move on. I feel like we are starting to become a team and that she is becoming a riding horse rather than just a baby/green horse. I think the main difference for me is knowing that I can do what I need to when I need to rather than needing to change my routine or actions to accommodate a green baby horse and it is a wonderful feeling.

My Thanksgiving

I think that oddly enough this will be one of the first posts with pictures of me in it! Its tough when you aren't around people when you work your horse to get any pictures but today my dad came up to my new apartment for our Thanksgiving meal and I took him out to the barn to show him where Katai is now being boarded.

The meal was roast chicken, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes and gravy. It was just right for two people and extremely tasty, I know I'm looking forward to leftovers! After dinner we had a chance to talk and then he mentioned that he wanted to get some pie so I suggested that we go check out the barn and then stop at a local diner for homemade pie, since that is one thing I have not mastered.

I so love this arena! My dad was very impressed with the whole set up and it was the first time that he had met Katai in person.

I think she won him over :-)

I had planned on riding but after the large meal I just felt more like a nap and I didn't want my dad to have to wait too long so I just lunged and fed her her grain.

 

Love this one!

I feel like a marshmallow in this coat but at least its warm. Katai is partial to the nice large "treat" pockets.

Oh Well

It seems that I lost the video :( I can view it on my phone but not upload it so it certainly isn't going to work for my blog.

So, I will summarize.

I was very proud of her at the beginning and the end. At the beginning when I was lunging her she released on her stuff side and lowered her head as she trotted and it was AWESOME! I was truly thrilled and it shows what some correct work can do.

Towards the end of when I was riding her she was calm and relaxed and listening to me really well. I rode for quite awhile and she did very well overall.

It was the moment about two minutes into our ride that wasn't pretty. It was partially my fault because I could tell she was getting a little crabby but I didn't do enough to change that. She had her ears back and then reared up and spun in a complete 360. She didn't rear very high and when she came down she just stood like she was surprised either that I was still on or that she was facing back in the same direction that we started in. Then the thoroughbreds took off right past the arena. She actually was pretty much holding it together but after her behavior I just didn't want to risk it so I dismounted, calmed her down a minute and then led her back to the mounting block. We were both pretty tense for awhile but relaxed and eventually got some good work done.

As I said in an earlier post there was more good than bad but it had a rough start and then with her behavior in the barn it ended fairly rough as well.

I was very proud of her yesterday though. I worked her on the lunge in side reins with them short enough to count for the first time and she was great! They were still nowhere near tight but they did encourage her to lower her head and she was starting to work through her back a bit when I decided to stop on a good note.

Today I fully intended to work with her all day but I was so stressed at work and had so much to do that I stayed late and when I got home I just felt like taking a nap. Instead I groomed her and we spent some quality time grazing together. Tomorrow I have a party after work so I won't have a chance to work with her but this weekend I'm hoping to ride again.

Hopefully this time we can keep all four feet on the ground :)