You Forgot Something

Not really, but Katai sure thinks I did.

L has been recommending that I do a walk only ride for a while now. Normally I work her suggestions into my rides the week following my lesson, however, this one has been tough for me. I’ll plan to do a walk only ride and then Katai will be going so well that I decide to just see how she’ll be at the trot, then she’s great at the trot and I’ll decide to just see how she’ll be at the canter.

This week was great though because I’m still slowly working to increase the number of rides I’m putting on her each week but she is still seeming a little tired or sore after a couple of more intense rides back to back. Plus, since I ended up with plans on Tuesday and needed to ride Monday (her normal day off since it’s right after her most intense ride of the week at my lesson) and Monday was spring shots day it was a great day to just stick to walk.

I started Katai off on the lunge and did have her trot a little in each direction since I knew that loosening her up would actually make her feel better. She was noticeably tight going to the left (probably all of those left canter transitions to help her rider) but not bad, just a little muscle sore. Then after a couple of circles in each direction at the trot I unhooked her from the lunge line and mounted up.

She was ready to be resistant to start off. Katai always feels a little icky after shots plus the muscle soreness so she was ready to be fussy if I asked for much but after I changed from loose reins to more contact a couple of times she relaxed and stopped being as sucked back and resistant. I had set up a single ground pole, that was just slightly raised, horizontal to the long side and used that to do some serpentines, 20 meter circles, and an exercise that L had me doing (sans ground pole) where I started about 3 feet from the wall on the long side, walked toward the other long side, halt, turn 180 on the haunches and go back the other way. 

So jealous of you jumpers and your diagrams so I figured I'd make my own.

Adding the ground pole in the center gave her something else to think about and something for me to aim at so that I could keep us going straight. Plus, picking up those sore back legs was a good stretch for her yesterday.

After a couple of those I got cocky and decided to try a walk pirouette. Without eyes on the ground I guess I don’t know for sure but it really felt like we nailed it! She was forward but we made a nice small circle with her haunches and she never got sticky or stuck. I only did a couple and then she got pats and I dismounted.

Where we struggle is her intensity and tension but she more than makes up for that in maneuverability so things like this are just easy for her. Now we just need to do more lateral work! That's where I struggle with my maneuverability...

The Best Teacher: Lesson Recap 4/10

Her tail is finally growing back out after rubbing it out last year.

Not saying that L isn't an amazing teacher but both of us learn so much from Katai. I'm lucky in how honest she is, even when that means bucking, kicking out, not taking the correct lead, bouncing, balking etc. I learn something every time and I love that L takes the time to figure out what she's trying to say rather than just encouraging me to scold her when she's doing something that could be considered naughty.

My lesson started out really nice, Katai was forward but relaxed and listening. After my first walk break though she got really hot when I went back to the trot and I had a run away freight train on my hands. All she wanted to do was canter and she really wasn't listening, L said she looked great but that she also understood what I was feeling. We talked a lot about adding forward but keeping submission but Katai really just didn't want to play today. All she wanted to do was rush.

Then when we started working on a transitioning to a canter on a spiral Katai started bucking, and cross cantering, and doing flying lead changes. At my last lesson I had reason to believe that she was just being naughty when she was bucking and that she had too much energy but when she was only bucking to the left on the spiral out (which was what she was doing last time during my lesson) I asked L about it specifically. Katai literally hadn't bucked once this whole week and now as we're doing the same exercise she starts throwing in the bucks again.

L watched me and said that I was pulling on my inside rein, the left rein. She asked me to cue for the canter again going out on the spiral and again even though I was aware I pulled back on that left rein just as she was going into the transition. After a couple more transitions I finally was able to keep my hand forward (not enough contact but better than pulling back) but it was tough.

As soon as I figured it out though I got a lovely, soft, relaxed transition from Katai and I could almost feel her sigh, like "finally, someone fixed my rider and I can do what I'm supposed to. I actually was wondering if she was waiting to be resistant until I was riding in front of L because she knew that L would help her fix me.

The Recipe

I was thinking last night about how to structure my ride today and I realized that I had already found part of our current recipe for success and then promptly forgot about it. Earlier this month (I think it was prior to Katai's mounting flail thing) I was lunging Katai before riding her. Only for a few minutes in each direction but going through walk, trot, canter and really giving her a chance to warm up.

For Katai it's never about getting her bucks out since she is almost subdued on the lunge. Seriously, crazy things can be happening and Katai will just be in listening work mode the whole time. Every once in a while she'll break into a trot before I ask her to but most of the time she listens to everything I ask. I think that for her it's more about warming up, particularly her back, and finding her balance with the neck stretcher before I climb on.

This was working so well for the week that I was doing it but I don't know that I ever put two and two together and for that reason I sort of forgot about it. Today I started her out that way again and again had magical, floaty, dressage-unicorn pony.

She was hot but in this contained fun sort of way where she was lifting up and forward through transitions and it was all coming from behind. She was extremely light and floaty in front and all of her power was coming from behind. It felt like someone had traded my training level pony for a 2nd level pony overnight.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego anyone? 

I was also riding her like I was (closer to?) a 2nd level rider today too. I was able to keep my lower half softer and more relaxed and was posting very consistently so that she had to follow my rhythm rather than the other way around. It was a little more work to keep her connected since she was lighter in front but I never really lost her either at least not for more than a few steps at a time.

I was also able to use both of my hips independently and I don't think I was twisting or collapsing as much after a week of conscious work in sitting straight and working to strengthen and be more aware of that side. It also helped me make my canter transitions better.

I'll find out tomorrow if I'm actually managing to not twist as bad.

Big Girl Trot

Tonight the plan was to just lunge since I'm still working back to 5 rides per week and wanted to make sure that Katai got an easier day. I'd rather go on a trail ride or something but the weather has been horrible for getting a hot young horse outside so since I don't like to die this is the safest option for both of us right now.

I got her groomed and tacked up and I actually had happier ears! She did pin them a few times but over all I think she was more relaxed and seemed less pushy.

This is what a 13.2 hand pony looks like to a short person

Then I put her on the lunge and after a brief warm up where she got to put her head where she wanted I put on the neck stretcher. It's been working really well lately and I'm happy with how she responds to it. As always recently I just sort of try to lunge her effectively but really inside I'm jumping up and down because my pony actually has some suspension! I think I've mentioned this before but I finally got video to prove it! First of all though, some stills :-)

My superstar pony

And now the video!

*I noticed when I was looking at these pictures and video how much her saddle slid forward. I hadn't girthed it very tightly so that's a part of it. It also looks like it's setting pretty high so I'm going to try tacking up without the sheepskin again next time.

No Treat April

We'll get to that in a minute.

In about a month I'll hopefully have new clinic footage!

First of all, I had an EXCELLENT ride tonight. Katai seemed a little crabby when I was tacking up but wasn't sensitive anywhere and wasn't fussed about me tightening her girth. I'm guessing that she's maybe just as sick of the cold rain as I am. At any rate once I climbed up she was amazing.

She was really listening, other than one resistant moment at the beginning, and I was able to get her to go forward or come back as I asked. She was working through fairly well from the beginning and got very connected by the end. I had made it a goal to really use the whole arena so I started off riding her around the outside. A risky endeavor since Katai usually get's quite hot on the long straight lines however, tonight she was great and I was having so much fun that I must have had a big smile on my face for the whole ride.

After a couple of times around in both directions I gave her a walk break. Then when I picked her back up she actually listened and was calm and not rushing. I walked for a bit and then went back to a trot and did some shallow serpentines. I'll be honest, they were more for me than her. She was actually doing really well at changing the bend but I knew that I needed to get my body under control. I'm happy to say that I was already able to do better.

I've been doing stretches and some Yoga since my lesson on Sunday morning and I can tell that my lower back was all tied up. I'm not completely back to myself but I was able to control my left hip better and wasn't collapsing (at least not that I could catch) when I was going to the right. I'm going to keep working on it and see what L thinks on Sunday.

Hopefully both Katai and I can continue in this direction!

In other news Katai has been getting very opinionated about treats. I've always used treats with her for training and as rewards for specific things but every once in a while I go a little overboard and then usually catch myself and cut back for awhile. Earlier in the year I cut her down to about four treats per ride. One to catch her, one to put her bridle on, one after a good ride, and one when I put her back out. However, this time that hasn't seemed to make a difference and she's still giving me nasty pinned ear expressions and being pushy in little ways where she thinks she won't get caught.

I'm done with her having her ears pinned every time I look at her so I'm cutting her off entirely for April. My hope is that I can then reintroduce a treat after a good ride but honestly if this works I might just say no more treats for the pony mare.

I honestly think it stresses her out too because she's trying to figure out how to boss me so that I'll give her treats. Take that way and she doesn't need to try to control that anymore.

Lest anyone think I'm being mean, I'm cutting my snacking volume way down for April as well ;-)

Twisted: Lesson Recap 4/3

This week was tough for trying to schedule rides so I ended up with a Tuesday evening, Thursday evening, and Saturday evening. Every other day isn't good for me or for Katai since she always has too much energy when we start our ride and then never really settles in. This week the plan is for five rides (again) and I should be able to stick to it so that should make everything better!

At any rate none of my rides ended up being stellar and Saturday was no exception. Pony was hot and didn't want to settle. She was using any excuse to become extremely offended and then letting off a huge buck. She must have bucked seven times that evening, sometimes little ones, and it just makes me giggle every time. It's frustrating but just not really her fault, she just has energy to burn because I'm not riding enough days in a row and we're both bored of being stuck in the indoor doing circles.

Apparently Myshla taught her a lot about bucking

It actually wasn't a bad ride, I stuck with it long enough to get some great work, unfortunately that meant that Katai was tired for my lesson today and certainly wasn't all there. We did have some great moments and Katai was really through for most of the ride after we convinced her that she did actually need to work. We did get more bucks when I cued for the canter but otherwise we were just trying to take it easy on her.

After lesson tack cleaning with The OC

I think that's why L was paying more attention to me and noticed how horribly I've been twisting my body around. I felt like every time she correct me I could almost feel Katai sigh with relief, no wonder she's been having trouble falling in to the right.

Because no post, including a mention of The OC, when my name is Katlyn and I own a pony is complete without

After I finished riding L and I were talking about how I can work on un-twisting out of the saddle and she mentioned that I haven't been doing this for very long. I guess at first I thought that she was just noticing it for the first time but she thinks that it started right before the Suzanne clinic and after the month break. That does make sense that I lost strength and time in the saddle and then started to compensate.

First Quarter Goal Review

Goals for Katai:

 

Speaking of goals, so proud of how we both look here.

Master our canter transitions

  - Nope, still on the struggle bus with this and I haven't been breaking these out and practicing them the way that I should. Of course it hasn't helped that Katai has had a few health issues already this year and we've lost over a month of riding. Not making excuses, it's just made it tough to make consistent progress. This is one of my main goals for the next couple of months.

Perfect Leg Yield

 - Not enough progress on this either but we have been practicing them more despite them not being perfect and that's a big deal for me. More practice needed!

            

Practice riding through at least two Intro tests and at least two Training Level tests

 - Nope, I have memorized Training 1 so that I can practice riding through it but now that I have an idea of what I'm going to do for the first show in May I'm going to focus on doing Intro A and Intro C to see where we have holes.

Sign up for at least two clinics

 - Done! I've ridden in one with Susanne Winslade and have signed up for a second in May. I have a feeling that I'll add at least one more later in the year so we should knock this one out of the park.

           

Go for a trail ride off farm property

 - Nope but that's the MN weather for you. This will happen multiple times this Summer and I have found someone to trailer me and go on trail rides with so that is some progress on this goal.

            

Attend at least two dressage shows

- Great progress on this one! I'm planning on at least 3 schooling shows and possibly a rated or two. I've got my entry form filled out for one at the end of May and am turning in payment for my stall this weekend.

Goals for Katlyn:

Continue with my own self improvement

- Yep! Great progress here and I've continued to experiment with vegan recipes as well as loosing some more weight and getting out more. 

Gain Strength

 - Another yep! I've continued with my work out at home and now I'm going to focus on getting a gym membership and doing more strength training. I'm also planning to do more running this year.   

     

Blog more often

- Meh - My goal is to average 15 posts per month and I just squeaked in 15 in March with way fewer in January and February. I'm going to keep working on this and hopefully do better for the rest of the year.

Better pictures and video both for blog posts and just for myself!

 - I think this is getting a little better. Still no high quality photos but we've also been stuck in the indoor so far with poor lighting. I'm pleased that I got some photos of the clinic and with more posts I've also been able to share more photos. This is another big goal for the rest of the year though. 

Purchase a set of show clothes and tack

- Almost complete! I've got a decent set of schooling show/clinic appropriate attire now. I'd like to add another pair of white breeches but that's not needed for schooling shows so it's not a big deal. 

Finish building tack locker with my dad

- Made great progress so far. Unfortunately my dad's been unavailable on weekends because my poor grandma feel and hurt her knee. He and my family are working on moving her to an apartment nearer to where my parents live so our next few weekends will be focused on that rather than tack trunk building. Priority on family always.

           

Throw Back Thursday

Throw way back, before I was born back.

I grew up on a farm that has been in my parent's family for over one hundred years. I knew that they had grazed cows in the field that I had goats and then horses in and I knew that there was a horse or two there at one point. However, I had no idea that this had happened.

Just look at all those horses and ponies!! My great uncle is in there and this is the exact same space that my family had horses when I was growing up.

You can kind of see the field from a slightly different angle here where my high school friend is in the front and I'm in the back on the pony. You can even see the same two wooden posts in the background if you look closely.

So cool!!

Wordless Wednesdays

Love this!!

My Bestie

Easter Coffee, yes this is actually coffee that I bought on Saturday from my local, vegan coffee shop

I went out to see Katai on Easter Sunday morning. It wasn’t necessary because I was that dedicated, more because I hadn’t been able to make it on Saturday and wanted to make sure to check on her owie. However, the barn time turned out to be the best part of my day. It was quiet at the barn and Katai was her new normal, sensible self in the barn even though she was in there by herself.

Her wound is looking almost completely healed. The compresses hopefully helped with expelling whatever was stuck under her skin there and now all that’s left is a small pink spot with a clear small hole in the center. On Sunday it was still covered in crystalized gunk and had clearly been trying to expel something and since the swelling is completely gone and it doesn’t seem tender anymore I think it succeeded J I put a little antibiotic gunk on it just to be sure there’s no infection and that it’s able to heal up cleanly and then I got her boots and bridle on so that I could lunge.

The barn I board at is so beautiful and my pony has one of the nicest spots

I had been planning to hop on bareback but when I pulled her out of the pasture she was bucking and racing and bouncing so I had decided not to. However, she lunged (as usual) so calmly and was so keyed in to what I was asking that I decided to try it anyway. I’ve been on her bareback maybe 3-4 times in her entire life and only ever rode her at the walk. I also used to be really good at riding bareback since I did that a lot when I was growing up. Now that’s not the case and the only recent time I climbed on her bareback I felt tippy and insecure.

I rode her around at the walk a little and tried to re-balance myself and find that consistent center. At some point she was being such a good and obliging girl that I decided it would be a shame to not try some trot. She actually had a great transition and then really pushed forward from behind into a nice, big girl trot. She had pinned ears because I was all over the place and had to hold her mane to keep from balancing on her mouth but she didn’t try anything silly. She did a nice 20 meter circle for me and after a couple of circles I called it quits before I made her sore.

Not Katai's hair but it could have been this weekend! Pony was shedding

She got handfuls of treats for babysitting me and being so sane and because it was Easter and then I turned her out again. When I let her loose she immediately started bouncing and bucking again. I think that the barn staff wonder how I survive sometimes and they’re always telling me how crazy she is in turnout. I’m glad that she takes advantage of it actually, she should go out there and bounce around and burn off steam. She’s very careful with herself so I’m not worried about injury and it’s good for her body and her mind to be able to play and bounce like that. It also makes me exceptionally proud that she doesn’t try that stuff under saddle.

I can’t believe that only about a year and a half ago I was thinking about listing Katai for sale. Our partnership has come such a long way and now we are actually working as a team and seem to have more mutual respect for each other. It’s been a real shift for me to start thinking of her as a more accomplished and capable athlete rather than a baby horse in training but we’re finally getting there. Her ability to just go to work and leave the silliness behind is amazing to me as is her lack of spookiness. There are still people at this new barn (which is new to everyone) that can’t get their horses to the far end of the arena. I’ve been in their shoes many times with different horses so I’m not trying to imply that they’re doing anything wrong. It’s just helped me realize that I get to have so much fun riding (since I’m not an adrenaline junky ;-) because I don’t have a spooky horse and we’re able to make so much progress because I don’t have to also deal with desensitizing. It’s one of the big reasons why I will now always own ponies. Don’t get me wrong, we each have our thing and I certainly know that not everyone wants to give up amazing movement, or size, or breeding, or many of the other things that go into each person’s favorite horse. I’m just happy that I’m finally grown up enough to recognize what that thing is for me.

And The Award Goes To...

If it’s not one thing it’s another :( Poor Katai has had more health related issues over the past couple of months than during the entire time I’ve owned her.

The face I get for taking picture and not feeding treats

First was the sore back muscle on the left side which meant a week off. Then the tender feet (I’ve now found spots on her left hind foot where she blew an abscess) for the whole month of February. Next she had the painful ovaries and reactive flail when mounting thing that mean about 4 days off and now, last night she was dripping blood, Luckily it’s not quite as bad as it sounds.

I had noticed on Wednesday that Katai had a small, hard, lump right behind her right leg in her armpit. It’s not under the girth or touched directly by the girth but when she moves it gets pushed back and runs into the girth. On Tuesday she wasn’t uncomfortable at all and it didn’t seem to affect her being ridden. Then on Thursday for drill team I glanced at it, thought it seemed the same as before, and went on with tacking up and riding. This thing was smaller than a penny and just seemed like a small scabbed over scratch or something. Horses get these types of things all the time and I usually don’t worry much about them. I had concerns about the girth but after the successful ride on Tuesday I sort of wrote it off.

For drill team I hopped on and proceeded to warm up first at the walk. Katai seemed like she was a little short in front and I wondered right away about her hooves. We’ve still been having crazy weather and I still wouldn’t be surprised if she abscesses again so I was a little worried. However, she often comes out a little stiff especially since the weather got really cold overnight so I decided to stick with it a little and see how she was doing. I did some trot work with her and she was great! Forward but listening and balancing back on her hind legs rather than running through her front. L even mentioned how good she looked but then I went back to the walk and got the same small steps so I rode over to L and asked her to diagnose what she was seeing. As I rode directly toward her she was watching Katai closely but then I turned to the left and she gasped, you’re pony is bleeding! She said "there’s a lot of blood and it’s dripping.

I freaked out and jumped off and low and behold it’s coming out of the little bump which was now more swollen. I felt like that guy who gallops Black Beauty and ruins her knees in that moment, like I deserve the bad horse owner award. I was horrified and pulled her tack off the second I got her out of the ring. She’d bloodied up her girth fairly well in that area and was fairly bloody. The wound wasn’t actively bleeding though and I’m still not exactly sure what it is. A couple of people from the barn are thinking that she may have a little piece of shavings or hay or something in there and it’s trying to come out, I would agree with the way it looks. I did a hot compress for about 5 minutes last night and Katai was leaning into it so it must have felt good. I also cleaned it up and put antibiotic ointment on it.

Ouch

Tonight I’m going back to check on her and doctor it again. L suggested that I lunge but since it’s near the girth it’s going to need some time to heal before I ride with the saddle again. Depending on how she’s doing tonight I may do some bareback rides but that could be entertaining since it’s been a LONG time since I’ve really ridden bareback and I’m not quite sure what Katai will think since I’ve only ever ridden her bareback at the walk.