Hard Work: Lesson Recap 5/2

First off, thank you all so much for your help on my last post! I'm going to go ahead and get Katai her HID this year since that doesn't need to be renewed but otherwise  I'm going to stick to opportunity classes. If for some reason she blows me away at these first two shows I may reconsider but otherwise it will be a nice cost savings.

Then, at some point here I may change the lesson recap posts just because there's enough similar information that I might do every other lesson or something. Not sure if people are enjoying reading them but I'm getting bored writing them ;)

At any rate this lesson felt like a lot of work. I'd skipped a couple of weeks of core workouts and then done one the weekend before this lesson. Then Jane had me work a lot on sitting trot and do a lot of canter AND she was making me use my core correctly... I'm pretty sure that's why I was dying by the end of the lesson. Katai also got a good workout and had slightly sweaty ears and some good sweat on her butt muscles.

The themes were that Jane wanted me to keep the bend and roundness really consistent (certainly not my specialty).

SQUIRREL

and make sure that she really stepped and pushed forward with her hind legs. Typically I can do one or the other but not both however in my lesson this week I was actually getting both as long as Jane didn't want me to do anything else.

Jane really pushed me to challenge Katai's balance again. First with much steeper leg yields in sitting trot where we did a zig zag from quarter line to quarter line which meant Katai going very sideways with her short little legs. I messed this one up royally before getting a good one. Then we moved on to shoulder fore and shoulder in. Jane wanted me to really focus on keeping her active in the trot and giving her space to move forward with my reins while keeping her round.

It's really tough with Katai because as soon as I use my legs to ask for something she tightens up through her back and completely loses the roundness which is a tough balancing act for someone who's just learning how to do some of these movements. We're getting there though and I'm still feeling steady improvement with each lesson which makes it fun.

Finally we worked on shallow serpentines at the canter. We've worked up to doing them to the center line rather than just the quarter line and as long as I remember not to cross my inside hand across her withers to "help" her get back to the wall we were doing pretty well. We also worked on trying to get some 10 meter circles at the canter. By the point we got to those Katai was already pretty tired so she struggled a bit but I'm so happy with how much longer she's able to maintain a decent canter!

It was a really good lesson even if I did feel exhausted by the end. It certainly made me realize that it's time for me to keep upping my fitness game and to do the same with Katai. I REALLY need to get her comfortable on the quiet(ish) gravel road so that I can get her out and work up to more trot and canter sets. It would be really good for both of us!

Teach Me Tuesday

Ok kind dressage bloggers (or bloggers with knowledge of dressage shows) I need your help!

I've shown 4 times in my entire life, all schooling shows and two of those were hunter schooling shows when I was a kid so my mom signed me up. I've started looking into what I need to sign up for a rated show and I may as well be reading a college textbook on a topic I know nothing about.

The Facts:

-We certainly won't be qualifying for anything this year so it's not important if I'm eligible
-I've never been a member of any horse/riding related organizations so I believe I'd be eligible for opportunity classes
-I'm willing to join but if these first couple of shows are complete disasters I'm going to probably re-route to just schooling shows and/or other events I can trailer to so I'd rather not spend a ton of money this year

My Questions (I swear I've read through the rules but I can't understand half the terms and would rather ask for help than spend the next couple of weeks trying to figure this out):

-Would opportunity classes make sense this year? Is there anything I'm missing? How long am I eligible? Is it for a length of time or a number of classes? (Looks like my local shows offer training and First 1 for Opportunity classes)
-Would it make more sense to just join USDF and USEF? If so, joining my local GMO would provide me with a group membership for USDF, would that minimally qualify me to show (if I also joined the USEF) or am I missing something?
-If I join do I also need to sign Katai up? Anything to keep in mind there?
-Anything I'm missing?

I'm really not worried about being eligible for qualifying for awards or championships. First I'm sure it won't happen. Second, if by some miracle I were to qualify for championships I wouldn't go since I'd rather save the money and do more clinics this fall so that we'd have a better shot at not failing at such a big show. I do plan to join everything next year when we'll have a better chance (hopefully lol) of getting decent scores.

April Goals Recap and May Goals

Goals for April:

April was so much better for us than March!

Trailer Loading Practice: Pretty much every day that I've been able to (not raining and I'm at the barn with some daylight) I've been working on trailer loading and it's been paying off. She's been on and off quite a few times and while she's still anxious she's not freaking out quite as bad and is calming down quicker after.

Practice Riding the Lateral Work: Again, I'm doing a much better job at practicing this and we've been doing more lateral work in my lessons as well.

Structure Rides More Carefully: Meh, I have been feeling better about this and about how I'm structuring my weeks in general between lunging, riding, and trailer loading.

Trail Ride: Nope, I didn't get this accomplished but I'm happy enough with the trailer loading practice and once the ground dries out (crazy rain!!!!!!) I'll spend more time riding outside.

Goals for May:

I'm so looking forward to May :)

More Trailer Loading Practice: All of the trailer loading practice! I'm going to fully take advantage of the next month or so to do as much of this as possible.

More Consistency: With this I just want to continue to keep things like roundness or bend more consistently through the ride and not lose it for as long as I am now. I've already made lots of progress on this but I need to keep pushing and not just maintain what I've got right now.

Have a Successful Show: This is a two parter for me. Success will mean Katai being more relaxed, less frantic, and thus the ability for us to have more fun. I realize this is a tall order since it will only be her second show (and third time she's trailered off property for an event) but I'll be happy with even small progress.
The second is my goal. Horse shows don't make me competitive, lesson environments do, shows don't. Who knows maybe my mom was competitive enough for both of us at competitions ;) or maybe I just don't care. The more I've thought about our show last year the more I think that part of our extremely low score was that I didn't care enough. I got into the ring with a very relaxed attitude and only got tense/worried when Katai was threatening to blow up. I sort of think that if I'd gone in the ring with more of a plan or goal I'd have ridden rather than just letting her do her thing and would have gotten a better ride. So, my goal this year is to win our Intro C class. Yep, it's a tall order and could be impossible but there's my goal :)
Wether we win or not I'm not going to be upset or anything other than proud at both of us for doing it. However, I am going to push myself this year to do better than just be present and while a score of 40% would technically be an improvement I'm sure we can do better than that.

Horse Expo Haul and Video

I had a great time this weekend! 

First, the horse expo on Friday was fun. Last year I had high expectations and was disappointed with how little there was to do or shop for now that I have more specialized tack and the expo is at least 80% western focused. This year I had lower expectations and therefore more fun. I also ran into a friend (my landlord from back when I first got Katai), ate some kettle corn, and bought some great stuff at the tack swap.

Other than the kettle corn this is the extent of my shopping this year
 $16 for the whole pile of books :)

I believe I've mentioned that I've been trying to collect the library books that I read as a kid. Unfortunately most of them are out of print so even if I knew the names of the books or the authors it still may be tough to find them but since I don't even know that my best bet has been searching through used book stores or (especially) picking up books at this tack swap.

A few years ago at this swap I found my "holly grail".

Complete with dust cover, I have SOOO many amazing memories
of reading through this book as a kid and dreaming of having my own horse some day

Plus it's got a couple really old photos of George Morris!! Pretty cool :)

This time I found the other book I'd been looking for. This was my other favorite when I was growing up. It's back in print but I really wanted the old hard cover version and even better, this was once a library book which makes it even sweeter!

I loved all of the Billy and Blaze books but this is my favorite.

I also had great rides on Friday and Saturday and today Katai got an easier work out on the lunge. She's been very slightly short on her right front. Both Jane and I think it's more muscle soreness (and possibly a bit of Thrush) and nothing more serious and you can see here that it comes and goes a bit but she did pick up the incorrect (left) lead twice and she NEVER does that. Because of that she might get a quiet day or a day off tomorrow rather than another ride.

Otherwise I've been doing a great job with riding at least 4 times a week and have been to the barn 5-6 times a week :)

This video is of Katai lunging and our trailer loading improvement from a couple of weeks ago. This is just a small clip and she was in an out a bunch more times that day. We've practiced once since that day and I'm hoping to put in some more practice this next week as well.

The Importance of a Name

Names are extremely important to me. I love picking then out and always want them to have meaning for me as well as being unique, pretty, and not too difficult to spell or say. When I first got Katai she was a project so I didn't use the names I was saving for MY horse at that point, instead I had my mom help.

I still remember sitting at the MN Renaissance Festival with my mom and having her give me the name of a character in a book by Jim Butcher that she had just read. She spelled it out for me, as Katai, on a small piece of paper and I liked the way it looked and sounded as well as the information she gave me about the character. To my mom's credit, she told me to check the spelling but I didn't and just went ahead with that name.

Awhile later when I read the book I realized that my mom had misspelled it and it was actually spelled Kitai. At that point I looked up the meaning of both words.

Well yeah, I probably would have chosen the second but at that point Katai was stubborn and it was so completely adorably cute that my mom had mistakenly named my pony stubborn that I stuck with the spelling she'd given me.

Then as Katai started to improve I started to look forward to coming up with a show name for her. I've always loved the idea of a show name and barn name and the beautiful thing about an unregistered horse was that I'd get to pick out whatever I wanted. I let it go for quite awhile since I wasn't showing but now that I'm at a place where I was ready to come up with something it almost felt too late. I care so much about it since I love Katai so much and wanted something absolutely perfect so it was starting to feel like I couldn't possibly come up with anything good enough for her. 

Won't be long and we'll be back here, this time hopefully with a bit more  relaxation :)

However, this past week I got the idea to crowd source it! I posted on a pony group that I'm part of on Facebook. One of my online friends posted the name Kaida which means little dragon. I ABSOLUTELY loved it but it was so similar and just as short that I decided it wouldn't work. So, now that's a name that I want for my next pony :) Kaida and Katai would be pretty cute (and so adorably confusing haha)

Then another person posted the name Kireina Katai. I loved that it had her name as part of it and since Kireina means beautiful it's sort of like she's named beautifully stubborn which is completely perfect for both of us. I also love the way it sounds kee-ray-nuh kah-ty which is a good bonus. So I'm going with that! I know that the announcer may struggle with it but honestly they might struggle with any name and I'll just spell it phonetically to make it as easy as possible.

I can't wait to send in the entry form with her new show name and at some point get her a new halter plate for her show halter.

A Rolex(ish) Weekend

My last visit to the KY Horse Park featured slightly smaller equines 

I had really wanted to go to Rolex this year but when I had the opportunity to pay off some credit cards (and save some money to do some more dressage shows this year) I decided to do that instead. However, I didn't give up completely and decided to plan a fun weekend at home.

Rolex weekend happens to occur during the same weekend of our local horse expo so I'd taken Friday off at the beginning of the year and have had fun planning some other fun things over the past few weeks.

For Friday I'm planning to go to the horse expo and shop the tack swap. It may not be Rolex shopping but it is cheap! I found my Baker show sheet there for $15 and a pair of pony sized no-bows for $3. Mostly it's just sort of fun to dig through piles and piles of tack for pony sized deals. I'm also getting my tack locker dropped off here by my dad which means that I'll be able to work on that this weekend!

This could be fun to watch at the expo

Some of the other things I'm planning to do are;

• buy vegan versions of my favorite fair foods and make them at home
• shop for some of the things that I need to finish my tack locker
• shop at my favorite local tack shop which won't be at the expo but will be having a 20% off expo sale
• ride and spend a lot of time at the barn :)
• watch as much expo footage as possible
• work on memorizing my dressage tests for the show at the end of May
• possibly do some online shopping for a few things I need 

It may not be Rolex but it's going to be a really fun weekend!

More Bend: Lesson Recap 4/25

No new media so you get some classic dressage photos

I had a GREAT lesson yesterday. It was really cool to hear Jane feels we're ready for more and that she was really putting more pressure on me to really get more, more trot, more bend, more straight etc. Just doing this stuff isn't enough anymore, now she wants us to do it better :)

The main themes were getting Katai more forward and more bent and round. We started at the walk and Jane wouldn't let us trot until we nailed the transition. Then we worked on serpentines and really focused on getting Katai more in front of my leg with bigger, more forward strides but needed to really nail the bend The. Whole. Time.

and I think keeping the bend with both legs is hard

It was so tough!

After we got that Jane had me do a spiral in and out on a 20 meter circle at the trot and really focus on maintaining the bend. Katai is so quick and wiggly that it's easy for me to lose the bend at multiple points around the circle and that's not really doing anything for either of us. She told me not to let Katai "evict" my inside leg and that it needed to find home (bend) and stay there even if the pressure of "there" varied.

We did a bit of lateral work and I got the alignment on the leg yields better but this time we were also really focusing on maintaining the roundness so that she needed to use her back appropriately.

Then we worked on the canter. Since this was Katai's third day in a row she was a little tired and sore so the canter didn't have as much oomf as it has. She was extremely willing though which was really nice. We did some shoulder in, across the diagonal and then picked up the canter. I only got the wrong lead once and that was completely my fault for not preparing her correctly. We also did some shallow serpentine counter canter work but since she was tired we only got a couple in each direction before she ran out of gas.

Finally after one last walk break we worked on some haunches in. It took a couple of times but we finally got a couple of really good ones in each direction with the proper bend, coming through her rib cage. After that we did a couple of lengthening across the diagonal and because of the looseness she'd gained through the shoulder it was pretty fancy. I was so proud of both of us!

We also talked a little about the show at the end of May and the plan right now is for me to do Intro C and a Training level test. I'm really excited to try this again and to be even thinking about doing Training at our first show of the year. I also can't wait to get a redo on intro C and hopefully score above 35% lol.

Princess and The P(olos)

She's just the cutest princess ever :)

Katai is most certainly a princess and most certainly very, very clear about when she doesn't like something. When she was younger I mostly just made her deal with it and she got lots of tough love. However, as she's grown and developed into a really well behaved riding pony who pretty much deals with everything I throw at her I've started to take a softer stance on the things that she still doesn't like. For fly spray I just spray it on a mitt and rub it on her (which she still objects to but not as much) and there isn't much else she doesn't like.

However, she was occasionally objecting to her PoH dressage boots. I always figured it was more due to them meaning she was going to be doing work or that she was too hormonal to handle them. When I started using the Hufglocken boots she clearly wasn't a fan and would pick up her feet or move away like she used to with the PoH boots, however she did that every time I put them on rather than more randomly like she was. I kept on using them figuring she'd get over it but her behavior kept getting worse to the point where she was nipping at me and pinning her ears.

Exactly how I feel after a big meal

I finally wised up, took the hint and stopped using them. In fact, I don't think I'll be able to continue to use them with her so I'll probably need to find them a new home which is so sad because they are so cute!! Since that point I was so sick of dealing with her being unhappy about her boots that I've started to use polos with her and it's made a HUGE difference. She's entirely stopped objecting to me putting them on and her riding is calmer as well. Every once in awhile when we transitions to canter she used to leap forward or kick out, probably because she caught the boot on her other hind leg or something (sounds like something I'd do when I'm running really) but now thats stopped. I will still use the PoH boots but mostly I'm going to be using polos with her since that's clearly what she prefers.

Then there is the whole sensitive princess ulcer thing.

*Public Service Announcement* I realize that she's not being a sensitive princess and that she was hurting. The thought of that hurts me. I'm really glad I figured it out (finally) and am doing something about it so please don't take this the wrong way. *Public Service Announcement Over*

The ulcer meds have been making a HUGE difference. Katai has been completely back to her sweet self and the constantly pinned ears, reactivity to being touched, and general crabbiness is gone. Or was until tonight however I'm pretty sure that she was both in heat and maybe feeling like this was going to be a lot of work since this was her third ridden day in a row. Yay for goals!

I'm hoping that she's back to being her happy perky eared self for my ride on Thursday.

Weekend Update

Well, I feel like I haven't blogged in awhile now but I don't have any good excuse. On Saturday I attended the MN March for Science.

The turnout was great, it was fun, and the weather was AMAZING!!

Unfortunately I ended up with a headache and so I didn't go to the barn that day and instead ended up laying around on the couch watching NCIS.

On Sunday I went to the barn in the morning and had a great ride. Jane had moved a couple of horses to a pen at the end of the arena and had the sliding door open so Katai was quite keyed up. I used it to my advantage to test our improved relationship and my new skills. By keeping her really bent and moving off my leg at that end I had a very ridable pony. In fact it was fun because she was more forward and up in front of me. I had memorized first level test 1 the previous evening so I played with bits of that test, cuing for the canter at C for example. Unfortunately now that we've been working so much on the canter and canter transitions Katai is throwing that transition in when I want her to lengthen her trot across the diagonal. Oh well, something to work on.

After that we worked on the trailer again. This is our 4th or 5th time now, I've sort of lost track. At any rate last time we practiced things really clicked and Katai did an AMAZING job. This time Jane had moved the trailer to right in front of the barn, had it hooked up to the truck, and had removed the divider so it's completely open. With those changes (and Jane and her SO working nearby) I kind of thought she might regress a bit. However, she walked right in at least 5-6 times and although she was dancey (she was actually doing a bit of Piaffe) she wasn't as nervous as she has been in the past. At one point I heard Jane's SO yell "See! She's ready for I-2". I giggled but Jane was studying Katai and nodding her head so it must have been a decent, if very trailer induced piaffe. Then Katai threw in some Levade for good measure. She was definitely more stressed on the trailer with everything going on but she would immediately calm down once I took her out so that's huge progress.

After that I went to my parents and my dad and I finished up this!

It is so, so cool and I can't wait to load it with all my tack. It still needs to be sanded and finished but my dad will be bringing it to my place on Friday and then I'll be able to work on it whenever I like rather than making the 1.5 hour drive to my parent's place. 

It's only been about a year and a half in the making :) It's been an amazing project with my dad and now I'm trying to figure out what else I can work on with him.

With my sister and dad for scale, it's big!

Simple: Lesson Recap 4/19

Apparently I had some sort of weird premonition about working on the simple changes through trot on the diagonal because that's one of the things that we worked on with Katai in my lesson this week.

All our crazy weather caused this
humidity cloud inside the arena the other night

We started off with a slightly stiff pony so our main priority was getting her loosened up through her shoulders. We did some leg yield at the walk (I'm STILL on the struggle bus with these) and then did some work at the trot. We didn't do much before we went to canter since we're still trying to mix things up with Katai and the last couple of times we've ended with canter.

We did a lot of canter in this lesson and Katai just kept right on going! She only broke once and then when I cued for her to pick it back up she went right into it. We started with some 20 meter circles and spirals in. Then Jane had me do some simple changes (very simple ;) since we trotted almost all the way across the diagonal).

On our way to this ;)

Katai did SOOO well! I was able to get her to pick up the canter at the letter Jane wanted with very few extra trot steps and she never once got sassy or picked up the wrong lead. She did get more forward and started rushing a bit but with some help from Jane and better riding from me we got it contained and just had more energy which was good. Then we went straight to counter canter and again Katai kept right on going and let me figure things out without ever saying no or putting a foot wrong. We did some shallow serpentines in each direction, I did better going to the right so I have my homework, and then she got a well deserved walk break.

My tiny dog is even cuter when he's sun bathing

I was already SOOO proud of her but then we went to sitting trot and did some shoulder in. We finally NAILED it in both directions. We had everything right, she wasn't fighting me, I kept her round and forward, and didn't flop all over the place. IT WAS AWESOME.

Finally we did some stretchy trot and quit. It was a fairly short lesson since we spent so much time at the canter and knew that she'd be a tired pony but it felt great.

Of Questionable Taste

I thought I'd share a few of the things that have caught my eye over the last couple of months including a few things that I'd actually buy ;)

I'm going to start with the things that I'll admire from afar and get to the things that I'm actually kind of interested in.

Things that would cause Jane to disown me:

I have to admit that I'd want to be friends with anyone wearing this
but I'm not quite confident enough to pull it off

I've shared these before but just a bit too blingy for me

Yep, that's a huge cartoon unicorn head on a cooler

Things that would only give Jane a minor heart attack:

This is all perfect but my favorite are the polkadot bell boots! 

This only comes in horse size, I did actually check because I'd probably get one otherwise

Things that I might be able to fly under Jane's hunter ring radar : 

I really actually want to do this!! I've wanted boots like this
for a long time and the matching
baby pink polos and  adorable bell boots are perfect

This C4 belt would be perfect ;) for schooling shows

I am actually planning to get one of these in hot pink from Swanky Saddle for my tack locker