Redo

Hi, my name is Katlyn and I haven't been updating my blog regularly.

Luckily I have been riding regularily and spending a lot of time with my pony but between being in a long distance relationship, spending all that time at the barn, and having a hectic work schedule currently I just haven't been doing as much with my blog as I would like. 

As you can see I've redone the layout of my blog since I was having trouble with the other format showing up correctly for me sometimes. I also want to try to be less blathery and give more details of what I'm actually doing and what we are working on. I know thats what I appreciate the most when I read other peoples blogs and of course pictures which I'm going to try to get more of.

I'm still occasionally struggling with having a pony while wanting to seriously pursue dressage. I am absolutely  positive that this is something Katai has some natural talent at but she is tricky. J has said on multiple occasions that I deserve a medal for putting up with her or at she doesn't understand why I keep trying. It's not that Katai does anything dangerous or that she is that resistant, its more that she is extremely intelligent and once she thinks she knows what we want it is tough to get her to go down a different path. 

Today I went out to the barn just after lunch and managed to have the grooming area and the arena completely to myself. She is getting so good and consistent with accepting the bit and being calm and patient for tacking up. Once we got into the indoor I walked her around for a bit, tightened her girth and mounted up. This whole week she's been racing off like a bat out of hell and today was no different. If she walks its at 30 miles an hour, she tries to break into a trot and gets prancy when she can't and once in the trot she can think only of cantering. Today I worked on just maintaining a light, consistent walk and tried really hard to get more relaxation. I was almost able to keep her at a walk just off my core and every time she broke I rode her laterally until she came back to a walk. I was only really able to get about half a circle before she would get prancy and speedy. Today I also tried using smaller circles to make her walk so I was doing many ten meter circles getting her to stretch into contact straight, with her back lifted. 

After about 15 minutes of walk work with some improvement I moved to the trot. I've struggled with the idea of just walking her for our whole ride and have spent some of my schooling sessions doing just that but in the end it doesn't really seem to work. Instead she is often better if she can trot first as if then she isn't anticipating it. Her trot work today was worse than yesterday when she was just about perfect but was better than last week. After a few circles of trot I cued for a canter and got it after a couple strides. She has a beautiful canter and right now I'm trying the concept of cantering her a lot rather than keeping her from doing it. She anticipates cantering soooo much and loves it enough that I think if she could she would only canter. Today after several nice, and controlled circles, she actually thought of slowing down herself so I brought her back to a trot, slowed that down and then back to a walk. She still wanted to jig after that but did settle down more and was better than earlier in our ride.

I'm going to try trotting and cantering more at the beginning of our rides this week and see what happens. At the very least it should be a worthwhile experiment.

After fighting with some concerns this week that some of Katai's behaviors meant that she just wasn't suited for this I reached out to someone on COTH that I'm facebook friends with who also rides a medium pony in dressage. This person is currently starting PSG movements and her pony was never exceptionally tallented or anything she just believed in him and took her time training him and bringing him along. After speaking with her I am again thinking that J just isn't what Katai and I need right now. Unfortunatly there aren't many places around here with the level of care that Katai gets at J's, with the incredible footing that we have, and at the price. I wish I could afford to move her anywhere and to be able to drive anywhere so that I could get exactly the facility and instruction that I want but that just isn't the case right now so I came up with a compromise. I had already taken the month of November off lessons since I need to save some money to get my car fixed but I decided to try just taking one lesson per month for a few months after that. Hopefully that will give me the ability to move a little slower and more gently  which is what I think Katai needs right now, while still having some guidance so that I don't make any huge mistakes. Hopefully she will make progress and be able to chill out a little and let me help her understand what we are trying to do. I'd like it if we could make some slow, relaxed changes over the winter so that going into spring I could take a few more lessons and get ready to go to a couple shows.

Only time will tell!

Two Pony Years

Yesterday Wednesday, October 1st was me and Katai's 2 year anniversary! Very fittingly we had a lesson and even better it was incredibly wonderful but it didn't start out that way. 

It was cold and wet out and Katai was acting like her back was stiff and sore. I warmed her up slowly long and low but she was still cold and that led to a tight hollow back when we did start riding. She was also chilly so she was bouncy and spicy to ride which made dressage tricky.

J fixed things in my riding position and timing and within the first 15 minutes I had a pony that was listening and moving soft, relaxed and through. We had a couple of rough points but the good thing was that she was throwing some things at me that J hasn't seen before so she was able to help and show me how to deal with it. 

Then, at the end of the lesson we cantered. It was brilliant I just gave my vocal cue and she started right off balanced, slow and listened beaultifully. I think J was impressed at how natural and easy it was for her but mostly I'm extremely happy to have passed that hurdle. I have now ridden her at all basic gaits in a lesson!

Because of things like the above and a couple of red flags at the barn I had planned on moving to I decided to stay. I did have legitimate reasons to want to move but I was able to get through to J finally about two weeks ago and things have continued to get better. I'm sure I'm going to have to address it again in the future but when I did talk to J about moving she even agreed to put up another line of fencing to keep her in the pasture next year. The two things I'm really missing out on are the heated arena and the trails as well as the ground work type training from an instructor. Haley has agreed to help me with things like the clippers and trailer loading and I can figure out a way to do more trail riding even if it is just riding around the property. I can handle not having the heated arena and it wasn't like that was the main reason I was moving. 

I'm actually really happy and relieved to have made this decision because J really is one of the best instructors in the area and her students have proven this time and time again. I really didn't want to move, I was hoping to stay right here for as long as possible but more than anything else I NEED to take lessons with someone who has at least a small amount of respect for both myself and Katai and who will listen to me when I seriously raise an objection about what we are doing especially when it relates to my horse's welfare. I'm still not sure what the future is going to bring but I want to stick this out a little longer.

First Show

Well we did WAY better than I thought we would! 

I would have honestly been happy to not get sixth, there were six people in the class, so second was unbelievably cool! I feel like the whole show was very fairly and accurately judged. Some scores were in the 50s and two people got 70s but otherwise it was mostly spread through the 60s. Katai and I got a 61.25% which I feel was pretty much how our test went. She's been WAY better in lessons of course but because it was intro it was actually below her current schooling ability and we mainly lost points for tension which is the biggest battle with her. I'm so freaking happy about how everything went for her first show!

Haley and I are talking about a doing a schooling show in a few weeks but we need to iron out the details.

Stay tuned!

Credit

I try really hard to give credit when credit is due and it is time for me to give a little more credit to J. I’m not sure if she was just having a bad month or if all of her other students just happened to have the same struggle at the same time but suddenly most of the horses at the barn that were traveling hollow and tense are moving much better. She has them doing more long and low from what I’ve seen and they all seem to be much improved.

 

I also finally got through to her and it didn’t cause her to stop instructing me! I truly don’t feel I am an expert and there was just one main thing bothering me and that was asking Katai to try to carry weight on her hind and slow down into a more collected trot for the whole half hour lesson or even for ten or more minutes at a time. That was causing sooooo much tension from Katai which meant that sometimes she was almost gaiting and was always moving very hollow. Last week at my lesson J and I had an argument for the whole half hour which was even tougher because we had about seven spectators but I did it! I stayed reasonably calm and impartial and didn’t get angry, I just kept making my point and what I was comfortable with and not and she listened. She gave me homework to work more long and low and let Katai go forward but to bring her back for a few strides at a time. She also had me tweak some position things and gave me some help with a couple of other problems I’ve been having.

I was concerned that even with that progress the lesson on Wednesday and my make up yesterday would be exactly the same but it wasn’t! I know that I am no expert and I’m completely incapable of teaching someone else but I’m not a complete beginner and I have good feel especially with Katai who I’ve trained completely so far. For all of her faults Katai really tries hard to understand things and really dislikes correction. Normally if I can just slow things down a little and show her the steps involved she picks it up really quick and once she has something she has it! Even the smallest glimmer of understanding and if I reward it it seems to be habit by the next time I ride her. This is part of what makes her so completely rewarding to ride. I have probably never worked with an animal, of any species that learned so quickly and completely and I know part of it is the way that I have taught her so far. At any rate my lesson yesterday was so wonderful! J asked at the beginning of the lesson for me to show her what we’ve been working on. I think she’s been seeing me ride while she teaches other lessons and has noticed that I’ve been doing my homework and while Katai isn’t great at things yet she is figuring out how to slow down and shift more weight back plus she’s reaching into contact, lifting her back and is so much more relaxed and it’s all because I’m doing everything J is telling me to do with the small modification of asking for only a few strides at a time.

 

Katai was especially stiff and hollow to start out and J was extremely helpful reminding me to bend her which immediately meant that I had a much softer and more compliant horse. J also worked a lot more on my position including putting my stirrups down two holes on one side and three on the other. I told her that I felt like I was riding in the twilight zone but that it felt better overall and I was interested to work that way and figure things out. It did improve my posting considerably. Then we went to a free walk and J was impressed! I’ve got Katai stretching consistently just about as low as she can go and I’ve been getting her back if she starts to lift her head. J reminded me to not nag and once I had the walk I wanted to just let her be. It was really nice to hear that she is happy with the work I am doing.

 

It is making it tougher to move. The move started out partially because she wouldn’t listen to me and I didn’t want to feel powerless as she “made” me do things in my lesson that I was uncomfortable with. It was also because of her attitude about Katai but that seems to have changed as well.

Speaking of giving credit, on Monday this week I was riding while J was teaching a lesson at the other end of the arena. One of her students, who is a retired woman that has no filter, came in to watch the lesson. This woman, I will call her M, always sort of teases me about Katai and we have this dialogue where she calls Katai a baby horse or little horse and tells her horse, a large black thoroughbred, not to step on my pony. I’m used to that type of teasing, about when will I get a “real” horse, and just blow it off at this point. At some point during the lesson J started talking to the student about how she needed to get her on a taller horse and M points to me and says, very loudly, “She’s the one that needs a taller horse!” Without missing a beat J says “Actually Kate’s pretty short.” This is about as incredible of praise for me riding Katai from J as I can imagine. As I’ve mentioned before J had told me that Katai was too small and that I needed to consider getting a different horse. As I’ve persevered with Katai she has slowly seemed to have more respect for her and treats her less and less like a rock stuck in her shoe and more like a legitimate dressage horse but she still could have used that opening to push me again towards a bigger horse. The fact that she didn’t impressed me.

 

Along with that she’s been treating her well in other ways. On Monday this week I had a scare that Katai was having a laminitic episode. She seemed off, not lame but sensitive and too quiet, and we’ve been having unusually cold weather so I know the grass is stressed and has higher sugar content. Along with that she’s gained a little weight since while I was off on vacation she wasn’t ridden as regularly. That evening I emailed J to ask if she would leave Katai in the dry lot and she wrote right back that she could certainly do that. Even better, when I got there on Tuesday evening to ride she said that she’d brought Katai up to the barn to have the farrier, who’s always there on Tuesdays, check her and he didn’t find anything. She also asked the resident vet tech, whose daughter is a student, to check Katai’s digital pulse. The vet tech agreed with me that Katai’s feet felt a little warm but didn’t find anything else concerning. J then left Katai in on Wednesday and was going to fit her up with one of her own grazing muzzles so she could go out the next day. I was able to leave her my own pony sized grazing muzzle but I was completely impressed with the care she was giving my pony which is way over and beyond anything I’ve ever experience with pasture board.

 

I’m not quite sure how I feel about moving at this point. It should still be good in many ways and some of the help I can get there with trailer loading and the available trails and heated arena will be incredible but I KNOW the care here is excellent and now that I’ve been more comfortable in my lessons it is making it tougher for me to be excited about this move.

Surprise

I'm showing tomorrow!!

It's just a small schooling show at my current barn and I'm only riding Into A but I'm actually pretty thrilled :) I've been wanting to begin exposing Katai to some shows even though I knew we weren't necessarily going to be competitive and what better way to get her used to the idea than a show in her normal arena.

It looks like there will be five people riding in the class and while I'm happy to just be attempting a test at a show I'm really hoping that I can do better than fifth. How's that for a goal!

Chubby pony playing queen of the mountain.

The Dragon Awakes

The fire breathing pony dragon that is. Between being gone for vacation, pony not getting her supplements, and the suddenly cool weather Katai has been a bit hot to say the least :)

I got her back on her supplements right away and after a really rough ride on Thursday she was pretty good Monday (I just did ground work on Saturday) but pretty tough again today. She is figuring things out she's just so hot that all she wants to do is run and she doesn't think before she reacts. Hopefully more supplements and a few more rides and she'll be back to herself.

The rest of my vacation was great! I watched more of the Dressage Pony Cup on Sunday and then on Monday we went to a Keenland yearling sale! I got to see a yearling filly sell for 1.1 million and a colt go for 1.95 million although I later found out that that one didn't make his reserve.

Keenland bathrooms. Yes, I was impressed...

In other news the move is official! I'm moving Katai to a great facility that's only about 10 minutes further away. The instructor teaches more different things including useful stuff like trailer loading and it positive and happy. She approaches her lessons with a sense of fun which is exactly what I'm looking for. On top of that the arena is heated! The facility is very similar otherwise and I can't wait to move in and make it home :-) I move Katai on 10/8. 

I have a lesson tomorrow and hopefully she will be calm and happy so that we can have fun!

Vacation Saturday

Finally I got to see pony Dressage which was the main reason I went on this vacation! I got so many pictures and got to see so many beautiful and cute ponies that I'm just going to share my favorites.

This was Castleberry's Delight which I believe is related to Connor from Cob Jocky. He was brilliant and his owner was grinning from ear to ear for her whole ride :)

My favorite pony of the weekend! This was B's Lunar Eclipse. He is a 12.3 hand Welsh Stallion that was winning after his ride on Saturday.

This little lady was adorable. She wasn't being ridden by her regular rider, who's shorter so this wonderful rider stepped up. She was at least 6' and gave the pony a very good ride.

Cuteness overload!

Audrey Maschue was here with three of her ponies including Kabam, Bulgari Boy and Frodo Baggins. All of her ponies were gorgeous and Bulgari Boy's temperament during the test was just so sweet and calm that if I were ever to breed Katai I would seriously consider breeding her to him.

After we had watched the show for a few hours we went through the Kentucky Horse Park Museum.

It was immense and we actually skipped part so that we could go on a barn tour.

We stopped part way for some Burbon Ball icecream!

Vacation Friday

Friday started out with some boutique and antique shopping.

I found a couple of pretty horse head hooks and a riding shirt.

We got some Chinese food and then headed out to drive on some of the small historic roads.

In the evening we went to Churchill Downs to see some racing! I wasn't sure that we would be able to make it to Churchill for a race but our timing was perfect and last night was the first live racing of the season.

Today is the first day of Pony Dressage!!