Not Wordless Wednesday

My pony is amazing!! 

I've had two rides since she started feeling better after #mareproblems and both times I've gotten some really great work. She's been emotional and a pain to handle on the ground. I'm chocking it up to her being moved to the pasture and all of the horses being out of sorts because their routine is thrown off. Plus the weather has turned and we've been having 40* days and 30* nights.

Of course it doesn't mean it's not frustrating. 

However as soon as I mount up she goes right into work mode. She's been a little up still when we first start out but after just a little lateral work she calms right down and has even been less rushy. I can believe how nice she's been especially with her contact and using her back. Her canter has also really improved!

I'm also excited to say that I've been fixing things. Thanks to that video I was able to identify some of the things I need to fix such as not leaning forward, getting my shoulders back and keeping my elbows more stable. I've also remembered how to post properly and have been getting rid of my hunter posting style that I definitely blame on J.

Of course this has been helping Katai as well so we are really starting to look like a team :) I can't wait for my lesson on Sunday!

Pasture Pony Weekend

The mares finally got moved out to the pasture and thanks to our amazing, resident, photographer I've got a couple of nice pictures of my pony :-)

Look at how white she looks!!

Katai is not happy with the grazing muzzle situation but she's just going to have to live with it since it's the only way to keep her from foundering on the pasture.

Her chaffing was WAY better yesterday otherwise I would have had the vet out today. I talked to a couple of people and they gave me some suggestions for how to avoid this in the future and I'm pretty sure that I'll have stock in Vaseline and Bag Balm soon. I'm so anxious to be able to ride my girl again and the plan is to ride tomorrow as long as she's feeling completely well so look for another update soon.

Videos and #mareproblems

Here are the videos I promised! Please let me know if either of them don't work and I'll work on getting them fixed.

The first video is of our progress from June 2014 - March 2015.

http://youtu.be/HAVpg7B9K2g

The second video is of our most recent lesson. Be gentle please, I know there is a lot of room for improvement but I'm having fun :-)

http://youtu.be/_lMAIfGgHCQ

As far as mares go, I had last been out to the barn on Tuesday evening and didn't make it out on Wednesday or Thursday. Tonight when I went to catch her she seemed off but I couldn't quite tell what was going on. My first thought was that she had been standing at the roundbale for awhile and was stiff but it wasn't getting any better even after we had been walking for awhile. I noticed that her back legs were covered in mare goo, after having just cleaned it off on Tuesday, and when I looked closer I saw that she had a bunch of mare goo everywhere and was really, really chaffed between her back legs. Poor girl, no wonder she didn't want to walk :-(

I just feel like such a bad horse owner. I mean I've heard about mares having this problem but I've never had this issue with her since I keep her pretty clean. If in two days she did this to herself I just don't quite know what to do. I got her kind of cleaned up, she was in enough pain that I was worried I'd get kicked, and put a whole bunch of swat everywhere hoping that it would act as a lubricant. Tomorrow I'm going to pick up some baby wipes and baby rash ointment and hopefully finish cleaning her up and add some more ointment to help heal.

Does anyone who owns a mare, or has owned a mare, have any advice?

Pony Power

Last Sunday I went to see H’s lesson with Bill Solyntjes and I have to say he is incredible! I had heard such great things about him in the past and he really is such a calm, positive, knowledgeable expert on dressage that I’m a bit jealous that H has the opportunity to study with him. Her pony, we think he’s probably a Morgan, has amazing suspension at the trot however he was still struggling at the canter but at her lesson on Sunday she had a breakthrough which was amazing to see and I was so glad to be able to celebrate with her :-) I was also able to return the favor she did me last weekend and take a whole bunch of video of her ride.

 

I also got to meet another resident pony at Bill’s barn who is a 14 hand GRP. She is an amazing little character and is trained to I-1. Her owner was understandably so proud of her and we had a great talk about how incredible ponies are and how none of us would ever own anything else. 

 

Here's a video of her http://youtu.be/Znn6P6btRmw

The barn was bustling the entire time I was there with people tacking, untacking, and grooming/working with their horses. Everyone of them rides dressage at various, but mainly upper levels, and I have to admit that I’m a bit jealous about that too. Add to that the fact that H got to audit a Janet Foy clinic and I'm slowly turning green haha. Pretty much the only thing I miss from J’s barn was that there were ALWAYS multiple people riding and all of them rode dressage. It created such a wonderful atmosphere to be able to talk dressage and horses with like minded people as well as being able to look up to them and motivate me to make progress so I could ride that way. Now at my current barn, which I do really love, the majority of the riders are western and while there are 6-7 people there that are pretty serious about dressage my schedule never seems to put me at the barn the same time they’re there. The barn is also spread apart enough that even if there is someone else there I may never see them. Again, I’m not complaining since it is an amazing facility but I have to admit that I’m beginning to wish that I were located on the other side of the twin cities so that I could have the possibility of boarding at the barn H is at since it is such an amazing dressage barn and I'd love to be able to work with such an incredible dressage trainer.

 

As far as my pony goes, this week our weather has turned and we are back to barely getting above 50 degrees. I had to focus on some stuff at my apartment last night so I didn’t get a ride in but now tonight I rode again and Katai was really tense and rushy again. I'm proud to say though that we worked through it together as a team and got to a point where we were getting some decent work. It certainly wasn't the best she's been but it was a huge improvement over the start of the ride. I'm going to try to increase my rides to 4-5 per week and see if I can handle that addition to my schedule because I think it would be a huge benefit to both of us.

I'll leave you with a post bath picture of my pony. I had to document how white she was since it will be awhile before I see her like this again :) 

Badly Needed Update

So much has happened since my last real blog update that I think it’s time to do some catching up. I am starting to feel better but this cold is still hanging on and I’ve had way too little energy for all the commitments I have. Being an adult sucks sometimes!

 

Katai has been awesome. She is really maturing into a nice pony and just over the past couple of months has matured to the point where I don’t worry about leaving her cross tied while I’m getting tack or when a horse leaves her by herself. She deals with our slightly claustrophobic gate situation in the paddocks without batting an eye and goes right into work mode 80%-90% of the time when we enter the arena.

 

Prior to getting so sick I did get a nice lesson in with L and although she is out of town next week we decided that after that I will take weekly lessons! I’m so excited that I’m able to, and that she thinks we’re at a point where that will benefit us, because I’m sure we will make much more steady process that way. I am going to have to change my budget a bit but I think it is worth it. The lesson on Sunday went really well and it was awesome to have H there videotaping it. I have to admit I was shocked and slightly disgusted with my riding which is exactly why it’s good to have video of myself. I have unfortunately picked up some bad habits from J who encouraged a very forward, hunter style, posting trot as well as a chair seat and slouchy shoulders.  Who knows why really but now I’m paying the price L (Not that I was perfect before by any means but this has just increased the number of bad habits that I have to deal with.)

 

Katai is still quite rushy but we are starting to make progress there and her contact has gotten so, so much better. It’s both more steady and she gets it earlier in the ride rather than needing to work almost half an hour to really get her on the bit it’s now down to a few minutes. She is also starting to have relaxed moments at the trot even though they are few and far between. The most frustrating thing for me is when she gets tense and rushy and then starts blowing me off. It’s like her brain is a million miles away and I’m trying to yell at her but she’s not hearing me. Those are the moments when I start to get frustrated but I feel like everything else is a positive, if slow, work in progress.

 

I am going to share some videos, one from right when I first started riding at J’s and the other from this last lesson. I’m honestly terrified to share because it doesn’t seem like we’ve made enough progress but then I remind myself that for the 6 months we were with J we were actually going backwards and the progress we’ve made has pretty much been from December – April and I feel a bit better. My instinct is only to show the pretty moments but then this wouldn’t be a true journal of our progress and I’ve been realizing that I wish I had more video of when things were falling apart with J so that I could really see how much progress we’ve made now without her. That made me decide that it’s time to post some of these things. However, I need to get them all to the same place, like YouTube and do some editing just for length before I post and with how busy I’ve been lately I’m not sure when that will be but you can look forward to cringing at my riding sometime soon.

 

In other news I’ve gone Vegan, for health and diet reasons primarily although animal rights and environmental benefits are an added bonus, and I’m really enjoying it. I’m discovering foods and flavors that I’d forgotten or never knew existed which is fun. I will be sharing some food stuff both with recipes and meals that I’m eating etc because I think it’s really interesting and fun. The reason I bring it up here is that during my foray into natural horsemanship previously some of the people I spent time with were vegetarian or vegan and said that their horses treated them different. I can only imagine that to an animal with such an advanced sense of smell the difference between an animal that eats meat vs one that eats only plant based food would be extremely huge. I’d, however, never really thought it was true but I’ve noticed a HUGE difference in Katai’s behavior with me recently. She keeps wanting to rest her nose against me, share breath, cuddle, and she’s much quieter when I’m handling her doing things that previously were scary like clipping or spraying her with flyspray. I can imagine that it would be the difference between a predator and a pasture mate. Of course this is all just speculation but I do find it interesting!

 

I also, back to dressage related topics, officially ordered my saddle! I mailed the tracings on Monday April 20^thbut they probably didn’t get there until closer to the 24^thso I’m starting my countdown on April 27^th which means that I’m about two weeks in at this point. The estimate would have been 4-6 weeks but because of the redesigned block he said it would take more time so I’m estimating 8 weeks which would be sometime around the end of June. I’m so so so so so excited and to prepare have been slowly working on deciding which pieces of tack to purchase so that everything will be Havana and therefore match.

 

Thanks to all of your suggestions I decided on a Micklem for Katai’s bridle and I picked one up from our local tack store last night! I was little concerned about how she would deal with the chin strap since I’ve never ridden her in a flash but she was extremely quiet. She didn’t fuss at all when I bridled her and she was also quieter as I was riding. It wasn’t a 180* change but she was at least a bit softer on the contact and at least slightly less fussy. I’m interested to see how she goes this weekend!

 

Pony didn’t want to stand still for pictures.

 Of course, since I don’t like the thick rubber reins that came with it, that meant that last night I rode with a black saddle, brown girth, black reins, and brown bridle so now I just need to find brown reins that I like and pick up some brown stirrup leathers and then we will be all set!

Just because I love this photo

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

I’ve been absent because I picked up a bad cold last Thursday, summer colds suck, and then ended up with either heat stroke or food poisoning on Sunday which led to me spending about 7 hours throwing up and generally miserable while still dealing with this dratted cold. Now I'm just still trying to recover and catch up with life.

Luckily I got my lesson in on Sunday before I got sick and thanks to H I now have some lovely video stills to share :-)

The Expo

I swear this is my favorite event that I get to go to on a regular basis. I usually put the Friday of the expo on my calendar almost a year in advance and go at least two days out of the three that it is held. This event is held at our state fairgrounds and the turnout is amazing! They have great fair food, the first opportunity of the year to get a corndog, and so many vendor booths as well as presentations. They also have the parade of breeds and there is usually a pretty good representation of some fairly rare breeds so that makes it really fun to watch. 

This year I got there right around noon on Friday and after grabbing something to eat I did some shopping! Anymore I have such specialized tack that I rarely need things (or find things) like bridles, bits, girths etc. This event also tends to cater to more western riders so there is just less English tack in general however, they do have a huge used tack sale and that was the first place I headed. I did have a few things on my list including a Micklem bridle, Havana reins, hoof boots, nice brushes, saddle cover (I’d like a nice zip up one to protect my new saddle), and boot bag plus I always love looking at the used books.

 

I figured out pretty quickly that there wasn’t any chance I was going to find a Micklem, especially not in the correct size, so I moved on to looking at saddle covers. There were a few options but most were pretty worn and/or they were just priced too high for me to not want to get a nice embroidered one at our local tack shop instead. However, they were located right next to the horse blankets and when I saw a Baker poking out of the pile I had to look. It’s not that Katai needs another sheet since she’s got two already but Baker blankets are just so amazing that every time I see one at one of these sales I have to look. Unfortunately they are usually too large and/or too expensive but this time I hit the jackpot and the one I pulled out was a 66” and only $30! I checked to make sure it would fit later when I was at the barn and it is nearly perfect :-)

                  I found this picture to demonstrate but now I really want to get mine monogrammed!

 

After snatching that up I was in such a good shopping mood that I looked around at everything else but other than three used fiction horse books I didn’t find anything else to spend money on so I moved on to the vendors (after buying a delicious bag of kettle corn). I was again looking for items on my list but I knew they would be tough to find since this even is so western focused. I did find some lovely brushes and got a soft rubber brush like this for her face,

 I also bought one of these.

 

I got this one since it was cute and the bristle stiffness seemed nice and it is amazing!!!

 And a really, really soft larger brush that isn’t a specific brand. I also tried this one with Katai at the barn on Sunday and it was amazing as well and really made her shine. After that I dropped my purchases off at my car and then went to see some demonstrations. First I watched some of the Parelli demonstration and was again impressed with his horsemanship but his salesmanship annoys the heck out of me so I didn’t stay for the whole thing.

 I also watched some of the parade of breeds and saw the donkeys, American Warmbloods, Miniatures, Dakota horses, Appaloosas, and Arabian crosses. I’m always impressed at how well some of these horses, who I know just got pulled out of a field after winter, handle our huge stadium and loud crowds.

 Finally I went to see the only presenter that I really planned to watch and it was easily the highlight of my day. Jec Aristotle Ballou

I LOVED her presentation, in fact I loved it so much that I paid to get back in again on Sunday so that I could watch another one.

She did a few things so well. One was that she had three very different horse and rider combinations. In the above photo you can see an Icelandic in the background and he happened to be very much like Katai. She also gave a scientific explanation for everything and yet kept it simple enough that it didn't go over anyone's head.

I could rave on and on about her but since this post is long enough already I'll do a review on her book in an upcoming post and share more about what I learned and have tried so far!

Gaining Perspective

Over the last couple of weeks rides with Katai have not been going well. I’ve blamed it on inconsistency, her being in heat, and possibly some body issues since one week she got adjusted and the next week she got the rest of her spring shots. I’ve been trying to ride consistently but because of the weather and giving her time off to recover from her chiro appointment and shots we’ve been averaging less than three rides per week which is just not acceptable at this point.

 

Because of that, I’ll admit that at first I was dreading my lesson. You see, for the majority of my life (20 years) I’ve taken weekly or twice weekly music lessons from some of the most amazing musicians in the world.  I started with the piano when I was five and the cello when I was twelve and received my bachelors degree in music. It was enforced from a really young age by both my parents and my teachers that I needed to be at my best for lessons and that if I hadn’t worked extremely hard over the week to bring my best I was failing. 

 

You have to remember that I was on a path to become a professional musician which only about 2%-5% of people who play music are able to be successful at. Because of that there was a lot of pressure to be at excellent all the time and I spent A LOT of time every day (something like 3-5 hours) practicing my butt off. In school I decided that I just didn’t want to give up everything else to pursue that life and went into a business field as well so that I could afford horses and to have a life outside of my career.

 

Of course my perspective of riding lessons really was the same as it was with my music lessons. I have always felt, even though I’ve realized from the beginning that I’m doing this for fun, that I need to be at my absolute best in a riding lesson, and that I need to be prepared and great at everything the trainer gave me as homework at the last lesson. Because of this I’ve put a TON of pressure on myself and Katai and that’s not something that Katai takes well. Like me she is an over achiever and as soon as we try something that she doesn’t quite get she gets really frustrated. It was only in the last week or so that I was finally able to start letting that go. On my drive home from the barn one night last week I realized that I’m an adult, I’m choosing to pay someone who is an expert to help me, not to judge me and while I would never want to “waste her time” there’s a big gap between wasting her time and trying to only ever bring my best to every lesson.

 

Instead of needing to be successful before the lesson I’ve started to change my mindset to trying to do my best during the week but bring the things I’m having issues with to my lesson in a humble way so that I can be successful by the end of the lesson. Even if that success is small and not complete I’m starting to feel like I’ll have won if I’m able to use those lesson to help me and Katai. L is a big part of the solution to this mindset since she is more like a yoga coach than the disciplinarians that I’ve worked within the past. She is so calm and so wonderful at seeing what I’m doing and knowing how and what and when to give me advice.

 

For example, I warned her at the beginning of my lesson on Sunday that Katai was blowing off my aids and being really rushy and tense. She had been tight and hollow through her back and wouldn’t stop trying to canter all of the time. L told me to go ahead and see what we had and luckily Katai started out just as tense and unhappy as she has been. However, within about 5 minutes L had us right back to where we were a few weeks ago with a nice, slow, pushy trot by just changing a few things I was doing. Beyond that L taught me some more exercises and by the end of our lesson, despite Katai being quite tired thanks to her owner not following a strict enough conditioning program, my pony was using herself amazingly well! We had steady even contact, she was pushing into the bit, asking to stretch down, swinging through her back and on and on with the amazing things.

 

My main take homes from this lesson were;

 

-          Use walk/trot transitions when she is blowing through my aids to slow her trot. It’s ok to pull on the reins a bit to reinforce the transition if she isn’t listening to my seat.

 

-          I need to take up a better contact with my left hand all the time otherwise to the right she pops her shoulder out and to the left she doesn’t take enough of a bend.

 

-          I need to “lean off the inside of my horse” and step in the inside stirrup to actually be straight and to get Katai to straighten out. This is much tougher for me to the left since it is my weak side.

 

-          To NOT let Katai get rushy, she needs to listen to my aids and maintain a slow but forward trot.

 

Fan Girl

So, I have to admit that I love watching horse vlogs on YouTube.

 

The same way that my generation is into blogging seems to be how teenagers are currently into vloging and for some reason I find them fun to watch. Something about watching someone else explain what’s in their grooming bag, or what their favorite polo wraps are is both enjoyable and educational and it is how I find a lot of my favorite tack.

 

Unfortunately most of the vlogs I watch are from people that live in either Europe or Australia so the tack they have available isn’t always available over here and since I love the look of European tack I normally fall in love with something only to realize that I could never afford shipping. Every once in awhile, however, I find something available in the states that I love and so when I found a Schockemohle halter at a tack store last weekend I had to get it for her.

 

Look at how cute she is!!

 

My two weaknesses are halters and saddle pads and although I’ve already got a couple of halters I didn’t have a breakaway halter so this will work perfectly to fill that spot. In these pictures I haven't put the leather crownpiece on yet.

 

Now I just need to find a way to get my hands on some of these…

More updates about my lesson today will be coming up soon!

Pony Measuring

To continue with my goal of beating my goals :-)  I measured Katai tonight for her new saddle! I’m not sure if anyone reading this blog has ever gone through this process before but I was really surprised at how simple it was. I had done my research and found some really great videos on how to do a saddle tracing and my favorite is this one.

 

https://youtu.be/mOMTBgmKjBw

 

After watching this video I went and purchased the following items;

 

Flexible Curve

Narrow green painters tape

Permanent marker (ok, this one I already had)

Large portfolio paper

Measuring tape (more to take some measurements of my current saddle than to use for the new saddle)

Lip Balm (because let’s face it, the weather has been dry and I need it for my chapped lips plus for the saddle measurement so I can’t lose  :-) )

I put the above things together and brought them out to the barn. I decided to measure the pony after my ride so that she would be more likely to stand still. I was a little concerned that if her back was tired it wouldn’t be a completely accurate measurement but decided to just do a little shorter ride since standing still is a big thing for her sometimes.

 

The first thing I did was to find the place for the first piece of tape. Then three fingers back from that another piece of tape that was my first measurement. I formed the flexi curve to her back at this point just like the video instructs and then traced that on the piece of paper.

 

Next I used the lip balm to find the low point on her back and placed the third piece of tape and second measurement. Again I formed the flexi curve to her back and traced it on the piece of paper.

 

Finally I found her last rib or T18 and placed a piece of tape there. Then I took the final measurement of the curve of her back, marking where T18 was on the flexi curve and traced that on the piece of paper.

 

Then it was time for pictures. The first task was to take a picture from the side of where the pieces of tape were placed. I already sent this to the saddler who can verify that I got the tape in the correct places before I mail the packet with the tracings to the UK. 

 

Then I needed to take a picture from above which I forgot...

Oh well, I'll be back at the barn tomorrow or Friday.

 

 

The finished product!

 

Once I hear back from the saddler that my tape spots were right (or if I need to make changes I will make those and then) I will mail the packet with the tracings and a ghetto picture of the saddle with my changes to Heritage Saddlery.

 

I’m getting so close!

Badly Needed Update

On Saturday we had a fairly bad ride. I’m usually a glass half full sort of person and some good things came out of it but both Katai and I were feeling weak and floppy and having a tough time concentrating. When one teammate feels that way it’s one thing but when both do it’s a recipe for a bad ride. 

 

I could tell going into it that we weren’t firing on all cylinders so I kept it short and sweet. I worked on making nice 20 meter circles at the walk and trot and tried to slow her temp down again since it seems like she was getting quick, probably because I didn’t ride her consistently last week L, and by the end had her trot resembling something more dressage-ee. I also worked on her canter in both directions and this made her spaz out. When I’m working her all the time she remembers that canter is just another gait and one that is tiring but when I haven’t worked her in awhile it’s all about the CANTER and she just can’t help herself she wants to canter so bad. That was the pony I was dealing with on Saturday which meant that we had some of our worst transitions to date. I’m really ready for another lesson next Sunday so that L can help me sort this out!

 

Then on Sunday we did baby’s first real trail ride!! I’m lucky enough to live right down the road from a HUGE trail system but because it is right near a large metro area there are things/people on the trail that horses normally don’t have to deal with. Also, since I hadn’t been on these trails before I really had no idea how to even find them. On Saturday one of the other people who does chores (we’ll call her A) invited me on a trail ride and it was the perfect situation since the other person she was riding with could only walk.

 

Sunday ended up being really windy and there was a storm rolling in so I almost lost my nerve especially when people at the barn who found out it was going to be her first real trail ride were telling me that there was going to be a record number of bikes/rollerbladers/runners/dog walkers on the trail. However, I really, really, really want Katai to be a good trail pony and eventually I want to be able to go out there and do canter sets by our self. That’s going to take time and miles and since this was the perfect first trail ride opportunity I decided to buck up and do it.

 

A actually boards at the neighboring barn but rode partway out to babysit Katai back to the barn she boards at where the other trail rider was getting ready. Katai got to hang out in a strange place with strange horses and a pile of hay. Everyone fed her treats and she was certainly the center of attention but most importantly she was awesome!!! She never called, she didn’t get prancy, and she stood still and polite while we waited for the other rider to get tacked up and mounted. I climbed off for awhile and then when it was time to mount back up she stood still at a strange mounting block for me.

 

I was soooo proud!

 

Then it was time to tackle the trails but we had set it up perfectly for a young horse since A’s horse is a big, calm, experienced babysitter. To her credit Katai dealt with about 100 bikes without ever spooking and although she got a bit up at some rollerbladers and a bike pulling one of those kid trailers she never really had a big spook and certainly never thought of bolting. When we did turn around to head back the other horse we were out with freaked out briefly and she jumped a little but then calmed right back down. I actually rode her on the buckle for a large part of the ride back and she even took the lead briefly when the babysitter horse was concerned about some random branches that were down next to the trail. She really is a brave little toaster :-)

 

Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures from our trail ride because I didn’t have any hands free to take pictures and I ended up not having a good place to put my phone. I recently upgraded to the iphone 6 plus and have no clue how I’m going to carry that with on rides. I could attach it to the saddle somewhere but then, of course, if we got separated I would be in trouble. I’m going to have to figure something out before we head out on the trail on our own.

 

On the way back A walked us to the driveway of our barn and Katai had been a little up, I think she was getting tired and had finally hit the point where all the stimulus was just getting to be too much. Then when we separated and A went back Katai lost it and got really prancy. I just handled it and didn’t get after her at all because she had been such a good girl. I was also proud that in the small tantrum that followed she never once tried to run into me or over me which is HUGE progress from even last year. I led her prancy self back to the barn where she had another small tantrum when I tied her up outside, near another horse. There was no way at that point that I would have trusted her in cross ties. It was tough for me to see her that way again since she used to be like that all the time and the progress that we’ve made just in these last few months has been so, so nice. However, she is still a baby in training if not in years, and I know that she will still have her moments.

 

I’m also feeling really confident about doing more trail riding with her since she just has such a nice, calm, brave mind. I’m hoping that we can do a few more walk only trail rides before we start going faster so that she doesn’t think it’s all about running.