Thankful

I'm thankful for so many things this year. My family, my boyfriend :), my health, my job even though it's driving me crazy, the phone interview I have set up on Monday for a new hopefully better job haha, but one of the things that I'm especially thankful for is my incredible pony. She's been my partner through a job change, a break up, two different apartments, and an insanely horrible instructor. She's always been there for me as one of the constantly awesome parts of my life. 

Finally I'm thankful for Youtube. Yes you heard that right. I'm so thankful for the free information that we have available to us. It's saving me riding wise right now since I took October off of lessons and probably won't take lessons through the rest of December either. I know that I need expert advice but between my budget and the move to a new barn it's just not going to happen for a bit. So I went to Youtube.

For anyone looking for some good instructional classical dressage videos I HIGHLY recommend ArtToRide.

http://youtu.be/o3Sh4ZBeO-M

My Blogger app won't let me post the video so the link will have to work. This is just one good video but there are many more available and thanks to these I've made HUGE progress with Katai.

When I first started consistently riding Katai in June she looked like this.

Yep, unbalanced, inverted, very on the forehand. 

She's always been very tight through the back and shoulder and inverted as these pictures from before I started riding her show.

Very not good right.

She was getting even more like this during the last few months I was riding with J. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately I have no pictures or video from those lessons but after a month of no lessons with me riding her she looks like this.

I'm not an expert, very much need lessons and it's because of what I filtered out of lessons with J that I'm able to get this but J has told me several times whole watching me ride my pony this way that I'm going to ruin her. Doesn't look like that to me. To me she looks like she's stepping under herself, swinging, relaxed, forward, soft, building top line, reaching, etc. Look at just how much more free she is through her shoulder and how her under neck muscle is slowly fading.

So this is my goal for the next couple months. Slow, consistent, relaxed work where I continue to help her find her rhythm and develop the right kind of strength.

I hope all of you have had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Cold Weather Boogie

I give anyone who rides through the winter, or by that matter that extreme summer heat in those areas where that is the toughest time to be outside, a lot of credit. Whether your winters get down to 40 degrees or -40 degrees the extreme difference makes it difficult to want to be outside much less try to handle a horse that wants to bounce off the walls to stay warm. With that being said I do live in an area with extreme cold and after my ride tonight I thought it might be interesting to share some of what I do to make riding through the winter work for me.

I live somewhere in the general vicinity of where the arrow is pointing above. Yes, it's pretty far north and yes it gets extremely cold. At the beginning of November I was really happy that we were still having 40 degree days but last week that changed. Last Monday I was dressing Katai up in her 100 gram blanket and wondering if that was too much but by the end of the week she was in her 300 gram and I was hoping that was enough. Tonight when I rode it was 7 degrees with a windchill below zero.

At the place I am boarding currently there are two extremes. The tacking/grooming area/viewing area (since it's all one room) which is kept at about 60 degrees and outside. The arena is not heated at all so other that being out of the wind it can be quite frigid. To keep Katai heathy and try to keep her from getting injured with the temperature change I bring her in, pull her blanket immediately and groom quickly. I use a quarter sheet and once I get her out to the arena I start getting her moving as quickly as possible. 

To keep myself warm I layer.

I'm wearing two shirts under the hoody. You can't tell from this picture but the breeches are these really thick polar fleece breeches that a friend gave me when she stopped riding and I'm wearing my Under Armor long underwear underneath. The Under Armor is 3/4 length so that it doesn't get too bulky with the socks. 

Don't I look awesome. This is, minus that heavy duty mittens, how I go get my horse. With the jacket I'm wearing four layers, five with the sports bra, on top and two - three on the bottom. I have winter riding boots but tend to do better with thinner socks that give me room to move my toes than if I wear too many sock layers. I pull off the hat, mittens, and sometimes even the jacket while I groom and then put the jacket back on along with riding gloves. My ears do ok while I ride as long as I keep moving and I can ride in summer riding gloves also as long as I keep moving. Then it's back to the warm grooming area as soon as possible and back off with some of the crazy bundled up layers.

All the clothing sucks but it does keep me warm and I always feel so much better after a ride even if I do dread going out in the cold.

Katai also gets bundled up and so far her layers are working. The sheet and 100 gram combo came off to be replaced by the 300 gram early last week after a snow and drop in temperatures so it was covered in icicles and after being consistently worn for a few weeks was ready to be washed. Both the sheet and liner got washed in the machine on cold and hung up to dry. The liner had a small rip in the top right near the tail where I'm sure one of Katai's new and bossier paddock mates got a little over zealous about getting her to mind. I patched it up since I'd rather keep up on these things rather than let them get to the point where they NEED to be patched. The sheet also had a small L shaped tear in the tail flap and other minor signs of war games. 

Mares...

I also brought all my leather tack home for a good cleaning and was admiring my new girth.

Isn't it gorgeous! I actually like that it doesn't match and with the extremely worn saddle seat it actually sort of fits in. H was slightly horrified that I didn't get black to match my saddle but I've never been that into matching things like that. I'd rather have things that complement each other and I think this color girth with this saddle looks incredible. I'm going to try to do a review of the girth and how it works but Katai is SOOO fuzzy that the girth just sort of dissapears so you won't really be able to see how it fits. I'll still see what I can do though because it is awesome and what a difference it is to not have her saddle pulled forward and, most importantly for my little monster, to finally have her elbows clear.

More to come on our amazing progress!

Barn Update and Blanket Followup

So the new barn is awesome, like really really awesome.

                 The barn she'll be in

The atmosphere is so different than my current barn with everyone smiling and welcoming me and enjoying the fact that I own a pony. The owner was accommodating about not feeding her grain (she owns ponies and understands the risk of founder) and we even agreed on a discount since I provide my own supplements with a little grain included to keep Katai happy.

I set up the tour thinking that there were two 10x10 stalls available which is smaller than I would like but for a 13.2 hand pony probably wouldn’t be too bad. However, I found out that one of the 10x12s (which have their own private tack lockers) had JUST opened up so I took that one instead. I also discovered that during the summer the horses only come in for their meals and are outside the rest of the time which is even better than I thought it would be.

   The other heated barn with attached heated arena :)

Stall board will be a huge adjustment for me. The most I’ve ever kept a horse in a stall before was during the night time on the most frigid days of the winter when with the wind chill it was close to -30 degrees. That was only a few days a year and only overnight. I’ve always felt that horses are healthier and happier when they get to be outside all the time but there are a few things that have been making rethink that idea.

One issue I’ve been having with pasture board is the lack of supplementation by the barn owner/staff. I’ve been managing but as much as I would like to I just can’t make it to the barn everyday and there is absolutely no way I can make it to the barn twice a day. When I can get there consistently 4-5 days a week it’s not too bad and at least she is getting the majority of her weekly amount. The problem is with weeks like this one where I planned on going out Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday but now we are getting dumped on with snow both today and Tuesday so I doubt I’ll make it out. That cuts the days she is getting supplements down to 2-3 and that’s just not enough especially with the huge difference in her when she doesn’t receive her supplements.

The other issue is blanketing. I work really, really hard to make sure she has the appropriate blanket on at the appropriate time and always make an extra trip to remove wet blankets but it is extremely tough sometimes. Again, on days like today when there is a huge snowstorm I just can’t always drive out there and risk my safety to check if her blanket is getting wet and the barn owner certainly won’t check. Stall board will fix this as although they won’t blanket her they will remove a wet blanket which is really the bigger concern at this point.

I really think this is a great opportunity for both of us and I’m looking forward to feeling like a “real” boarder!

In other news my blanket system is working great. She’s been wearing the 100 gram for a while now and I ordered the 200 gram last week. It’s supposed to get here today just in time for the colder weather, we are supposed to have lows in the single digits this week. I also ordered two bridle tags, one that says 100 gram and one that says 200 gram to attach to the liners so that I can keep track.

Pony is going to be cozy AND styling and, really, what more could any girl want :-)

Shout Out

Just a quick post to give a shout out to the blog Pony Eventer. Go subscribe and watch as Sinead Halpin and Forrest Nymph take over the world! 

Er, compete in eventing in a spectacular, pony fashion :-)

Take Your Vitamins

When I have an issue or something I’m unhappy with I tend to research and read everything I can get my hands on. This is true with everything in my life but especially with my horse so when I noticed a few concerning things with Katai I went to the internet.

Katai has always had really tight muscles. When she is nervous she literally turns to stone and the same happens when she is resisting. She is fairly tight through the back as well and would react strongly to minor things. While doing some searching on COTH I stumbled across some information on Magnesium and Magnesium deficiencies. Most of the things on that list applied to my pony including the metabolism things and the hoof health. Magnesium isn’t an especially expensive supplement and it’s not something that will hurt them if they get it when they don’t need it, you just won’t see a difference in that case.

I started Katai on a loading dose of Magnesium last fall/winter and OMG what a difference. She went from tight reactive pony with muscles of stone to relaxed quiet, almost to the point of seeming sedated pony and was much softer. At that point I went to the maintenance dose and continued to see incredible things. She’ll still spook and she still resists and is her normal self it’s just that it takes the edge off and she doesn’t fly off the handle at small things. She is also more able to concentrate on me and so our communication is worlds better. Since then I’ve kept her on it and the couple times I’ve not been able to give it to her for awhile, such as when I went to KY, she went back to being tight and reactive. I’ve had several other supplements suggested to me since then, such as Mare Magic, but all of them are basically a form of Magnesium. Right now she is getting Magnesium 5,000 in pellets that I ordered from Smartpak in the 80 day bucket.

I also ordered some Omega treats awhile ago and although she won’t eat the treats whole she will eat them if I cut them up into her grain. Once they are gone, hopefully sooner than later because have you ever tried cutting up horse treats, I plan on purchasing a powdered form to add to her grain instead.

Finally, and most recently, I added DMG  http://www.vitaflex.com/res_growdmga.php .It is supposed to help with horses that are muscle sore and particularly horses with PSSM. It also has a form of Magnesium in it so I reduce the dose of straight magnesium she receives. It is also a cheap supplement and I am still just trying it out to see if it works. I ordered it from Smartpak in the 28 day bucket for about $10 so I can see if it works at all. I do have to say that last night when I massaged her, and just working with her in general, she seemed WAY different and looser. She is certainly not diagnosed as PSSM, although I may have the vet test next time he is here, but with her muscle tightness and some of her resistances I guess it wouldn’t surprise me. Hopefully the DMG will help with her tightness since it is certainly something I can afford to keep her on.

The current barn actually grains pasture boarded horses but since they are all loose together and there is no guarantee who will eat out of which bucket they can’t do supplements. Because of this I make up baggies with about a cup of Senior horse feed from Purina and the three supplements listed. There are far better grains for easy keeper horses but they are tough to get in this area so for now this system is working out ok. The main problem with the current way I do things is that she only gets her supplements when I’m at the barn. Each baggie has the amount of supplement she should get for one day but I can only make it to the barn around four days per week so she is still always short. This would be one good reason to switch to stall board and something I am taking into account as I make the decision.

More news about the new barn possibility to follow!

 

Blanket Management

After reading Jen’s post over at Cob Jockey I wanted to answer her question in a post of my own. Growing up with horses I never blanketed unless it was going to be below zero and even then we only blanketed two of our horses, one who had trouble keeping weight on and one that didn’t grow a great coat.  I started really blanketing when I got Sora who not only dropped weight but also didn’t grow much of a coat. She was also a freeze baby and would stand outside of the shelter shaking and looking miserable at 40 degrees or below. I never rode much over the winter so I wasn’t concerned with keeping a horse comfortable in work.

Katai now is a different story. She is a fluffy pony that has no trouble maintaining weight and who would grow an incredibly fluffy coat if allowed. Last winter I blanketed her pretty regularly through the beginning of winter to keep her coat a little less dense since I did plan on riding through the winter. At that point I had a sheet with no fill, a medium weight blanket with 200 fill, and a heavy blanket with 300 fill. I did pretty well for most of the year but around the middle of winter when it was apparent that it was going to be extremely cold and long I wasn’t riding as much I slowly transferred her to being without and she developed a great coat midyear.

The problem with having a horse that does grow such a warm coat is that if I do want to ride, which despite what J might think I really do, she will sweat like mad and I will never, ever, ever get her dry. I’ve already begun blanketing to try to keep things reasonable and in the next month or so I plan to clip. Clipping her is made trickier by the fact that after last year’s attempt to desensitize her failed I waited until the last month to begin again. Luckily she is taking to it really will with some help from H and is already close to the point where I could start soon. When I get to that point I want to make sure I have what I need to keep her warm.

To handle the cold and give myself as much flexibility as possible I, like Jen, have decided to go with the Rambo liners. Currently I only have the 100 weight but I plan on getting the 200 weight as well. Katai is amazingly good with blankets and her main sheet only has one small snag on the tail flap after being used consistently for two winters now. That sheet is a Saxon that I bought on clearance from State Line Tack at the amazing price of $45. 

           The sheet in it's first year

I will be able to put the 100 and 200 gram liners under it which will be awesome! I also have a 300 gram blanket from Just For Ponies that cost me about $125. The beauty of this is that since I could also put the 100 and 200 gram liners under that it gives me every weight from 0 – 500 or even 600 all for about $290. That is basically six or seven blankets for the price of one :-)

I will do a more in depth review once I have had longer to try this system out but at this point after wearing her cheap sheet with the 100 gram liner under it for about a week she has kept everything in excellent condition and both the sheet and liner have stayed nicely in place.

Causation

Whatever’s not working at the current barn has become irrelevant because it is clear to me after my ride last night that I need to leave. I’ve been questioning if it is J’s teaching style, my riding style, the pony, or the other people but it just doesn’t matter because it isn’t working. 

Last night, after giving Katai a week off, I went out to ride her and I was able to relax because I didn’t have to worry about my lesson on Wednesday and the complete disaster that they have become. I had been toying again with the idea that maybe this just isn’t what Katai wants to do and had thought about possibly finding her another home with a kid but when I saw her pretty face and fuzzy ears last night I was strongly reminded that it doesn’t matter. I’m with her through whatever happens and we are going to be a team for a good long while. 

I brought her in and took my time grooming her. She’s been blanketed so she wasn’t dirty but she was enjoying being brushed since I’m sure she was itchy under her blanket. Her feet have also been concerning me and showing signs of Thrush again, probably because she stands in manure at the round bale all day and never moves around enough to dislodge the crap in her hooves. I cleaned them out as well as I could but I’m going to wash them out tonight and get them really disinfected and clean.

I tacked her up and went to the arena but there were two lessons so I took my time just walking around with her and showing her things that she’s been squeamish about. I tried to spend some time just hanging out with her and took my time tightening up the girth. 

After about 10 minutes one of the lesson people left so I brought Katai over to the mounting block and climbed up. She was initially a little tense and quick. I just rode her long and low with loose reins but expecting her to be reasonably straight and to listen to my leg cues. She did relax a lot and I was doing ten meter circles off my seat and legs with my reins on the buckle.

Eventually I did some trotting in both directions and since this is where J’s been putting the most pressure on us I knew she would lose it but actually after just a couple circles in each direction where I didn’t demand anything she relaxed enough to reach down into contact and even slowed just off my weight cue. I decided to quit on that positive note.

I brought her back into the crossties, got her untacked and was actually doing some clipper desensitization when this is where the story gets really good. I was just putting her blanket back on when J comes out if the arena and marches right over to me. She said, “I noticed you were working her in hand a lot tonight.” I kind of paused and said, “Nope, I was just hanging out waiting for the arena to clear out a little.” J then says, “Well if she’s that against you maybe you should take a driving lesson with me.”

I went

First, why is there nothing between me riding my horse in a third level frame which causes her to fight me and deciding that driving is just better? Did she not see that when she was ridden low, loose and relaxed tonight she was great? Again, Katai is an intro/training level horse and at this point I am an intro/training level rider which to me means we should be working on intro/training level things such as relaxation, rhythm, going different speeds within the gait, stretching, long and low, and working on other things like desensitization to clippers and riding on the trail. NOT transferring most of her weight to her hind end and trying to work on half pass or only allowing her to go forward when she is straight. Second, I know J probably knows how to drive but that doesn’t mean that I would go right into taking lessons with her and finally if there was ever a time to say green on green equals black and blue this is it! An instructor who doesn’t regularly drive teaching me, who has never driven a horse, to drive my young admittedly difficult horse just seems like an extremely horrible idea that is fraught with peril. Add to that the fact that I’m sure we don’t have any equipment that would fit her, I’m not sure that driving is something I’ll ever be comfortable after seeing my sister in a driving accident that resulted in three broken ribs, and the fact that I certainly can’t afford to go buy a bunch of driving equipment.  Finally, even if she is just talking ground driving its silly because Katai is the ground driving queen! I did a ton of this before I ever climbed on her back and she does it just as well, or poorly, as she rides at this point. Since I’m not scared of falling off or getting hurt when I ride her I guess I just don’t know what that will accomplish in the long run.

At any rate I’m going to stop my whining. I am really looking forward to this new opportunity and think I have a couple of barns picked out. I boarded Sora at one previously and the other I’ve heard great things about. That one I’m going to go tour on Friday and I can’t wait to look around! They have only stall board available and while it’s not something I ever thought I would do I also think it would be a great opportunity.

I typed up this post at work today on my lunch but need to add a postscript. I went to the barn right after work to see H ride in her lesson since its been awhile. She was doing really well! Afterward though when I told J that I needed to give my 30 day notice she fought me and declared, after I stubbornly refused to listen to her trying to get me to dump my pony at an auction, "You're going to regret this, that pony will never be worth anything."

Yep, I made the right decision to get out of there.

More positive and wonderful posts to follow including pictures of the new place as soon as I can get them!

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.