More Happy Trails!

I didn't get to ride all week! That's what I get for having a job in healthcare.... alot of late hours and long weeks.

On Saturday the saddle fitter was scheduled to come out because my trainer had said she thought my saddle was too small for my horse. But, as luck would have it, the saddle fitter said it was fine and I could save my money unless I just WANTED a new saddle. Umm... thanks but I think I'll save that $1500!

After she had watched me ride in my saddle and I had paid her, a new friend at the new barn asked if I wanted to go out on the trail with her. It was a great ride. Mostly just a walk, but we explored alot more of the trails than I had been able to up until now. Secret actually broke a sweat a little!

Don't get much more free than that!

Happy Trails!

Today my husband wanted to trail ride with me! That's is highly unusual so I jump at the opportunity everytime he asks. Besides that, Secret needed to get out on the trail to avoid arena burn out.

So, I asked the girls at the barn if there was a lesson horse he could ride. "Sure!" they said, "Take Dixie, she's great!" Then I spent half an hour catching her... heffer! Then she laid her ears back and played the fool when I cinched her up. So, I decided to get on her first to make sure she wouldn't kill him as I've gotten rather attached to him. She was GREAT under saddle. I'd heard about horses like that and now I will thank god every day that I don't own one!

During all of this, my husband is laughing at me and telling me that HE is obviously the better horseman as he just walked up to Secret, put her halter on, and walked her quietly to the barn.

Well we finally got out onto the trail and my husband only walks (no cantering, no trotting), which was fine on the way out, but once they figured out we were on the way back to the barn, Secret and I had to have a moment about our speed. She calmed down pretty quickly though.

Overall it was a short but relaxing ride.

A lack of communication

I was really looking forward to my lesson today... even though it's REALLY cold out for Atlanta. I got to the barn, saddled up, and lunged her to check that limp. It was there, but not as bad as Wednesday and she warmed out of it a bit. So I thought we were in for a great lesson!

Not so much... as it turns out. There were alot of great things about it! My legs are in much better position, Secret is trotting the ground poles in a much better rhythm, I'm not overthinking them and letting her figure it out, my two-point is much better, and we are finally learning to lengthen stride at the walk/trot to a more forward gait. The monkey wrench in the gears was that there was one corner that I just couldn't get her into. So my trainer tells me to stop dropping my outside hand, to push with my inside leg, and pick up my inside hand. I kinda got the last two, but I'm dropping my outside hand. AND, Secret never did get into that corner, although my trainer assures me that we got closer each time. It just frustrated me SO much! She is so good and she tries so hard that I just HATE it when I can't communicate what I want clearly. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!

So, the things I have to work on this week: keeping my reins even, not dropping my hands around turns, and looking UP. Here we go!

Bump in the road.

Literally... that's what it felt like at the trot last night.

I went out after work to ride. I had this great plan for working on gait cadence, transitions, and freeing her movement. I get on, I ask for the trot, and she's off in the back! Poor thing.

She's had a slight limp in her back left for awhile now. I had the vet look at her and we both think its her hock, but can't really nail it down. It doesn't really seem to bother her too much. Even last night she didn't refuse to trot or canter or anything that I asked of her. But, I could feel that she was off. The vet had recommended putting front shoes on her, which I've done and that's seemed to really help alot. But, she's two weeks overdue for a new set due to some unavoidable circumstances and I think that may be contributing. I think she's also a bit sore because she hasn't been ridden this consistently in a year or so.

I gave her some bute when I put her away last night and I'm going to rest her today and tomorrow so that hopefully she will be good for our lesson on Saturday.

Sometimes you have to go through some ugly stuff to get to the good stuff.

The title is a Clinton Anderson quote and I take no credit for it!

But, I will say that its very true. After a very ugly lesson on Sunday, I was determined to work on some stuff on Monday (especially since it was a holiday!). It was pretty quiet at the barn and I had the arena to myself so I set up my ground poles then went to get my horse. After tacking up I lunged her to look for any soreness from the day before then I worked with her on side-passing again before mounting up.

During the exercise we worked on my posting, my two-point, the ground poles, tight corners, and side-passing.
--> There is not a whole of progress on the posting front, but I think my legs are slowly getting better. It's just going to be a slow process.
--> My two-point came a little easier than the day before though its still not pretty.
--> The ground-pole exercise saw alot of progress. Secret figured out alot quicker where to put her feet so she could trot through, I was able to reliquish some control and trying to micro-manage every step, I was able to keep my eyes up and ahead, and overall the two of us were looking pretty good over those poles towards the end!
--> The tight corners still need ALOT of work, I'm thinking we may have to put some cones down.
--> The side-passing surprised the hell out of me. This was the first time we'd tried it from the saddle. I took her back to the same wall where I'd asked on the ground, I put my leg on and laid the rein on her neck and, once again, that heffer side-passed like it was no big deal! Meanwhile I was jumping up and down screeching on the inside.

Once again, there remains alot to work on, but with progress and positive reinforcement like that it really motivates me to put in the extra effort to ride after work during the week. I'm actually excited about schooling my horse again and it feels great!

What happens when you don't ride between lessons.

So, along comes Sunday and my lesson and I STILL haven't ridden since the last one. My trainer calls and says she wants 6-8 ground poles in the arena to use during the lesson. Well, we had had an ice-storm the week before and the ground is still slick. So I have to move the ground poles from the outdoor arena to the covered arena. This sounds simple enough, but after I had moved four of them it proved to me alot more work than I had anticipated. There I am again, standing in the arena panting for breath trying to find the energy to groom and tack my horse. Not a good omen.

Fortunately for me, a little girl taking her lesson ahead of me arrived 30 minutes late and started her lesson 45 minutes late. So, when my trainer arrived and I wasn't ready, I blamed the 7yr old! :-) It also bought me 30 minutes to catch my breath!

When I first started taking lessons and was riding school horses I had done some ground pole work. BUT, my horse, my green horse, had never laid eyes on such before. Being the trail horse that she is, she wasn't afraid and was more than happy to walk over them. It wasn't until she had to trot over them that there turned out be a problem. Baby girl didn't know where to put her feet!

Then, with her starting and stopping and stumbling it became even harder for me to post. I also have a control problem, so my trainer was hoarse from yelling at me to look ahead and not down at the poles. As if all that weren't enough, then she wanted me to work on my two-point position. That was going OK, not great just OK, until she told me that my abdominal muscles should hold my body upright and not my spine. Ummmm... just FYI, a horse trainer should not argue muscle physiology with a muscle physiologist. God knows I love my trainer and she is a scary smart woman. She knows her horses and understands alot of the physics behind the movement. BUT, when it comes to muscle physiology I will always have a deeper understanding because I spent six years of my life getting a damn PhD! So, I get what she's trying to tell me, but in the heat of the moment I really need a better metaphor, otherwise the scientist in me rears its ugly head.

So, up-side of this lesson is that I know what two-point is supposed to fee like so I can practice it, my horse gets that she needs to figure out the poles on her own and is happily working on it, and my legs were better than last time. The down-side, I really NEED to PRACTICE two-point even though I feel silly doing it, I still need to work on my legs, and I need to make a committment to riding between lessons. Again, another successful lesson!

Side-passing.... the adventure!

My first lesson was on a Saturday and my next one was scheduled for the following Sunday. By the next Saturday, I still hadn't ridden to practice anything we had worked on. My farrier was coming to I decided that I would only do ground work while I waited for him to show up because I didn't want him to get there and then have to wait while I untacked.

I lunged her for a bit doing some "natural horsemanship" techniques... alot of directional changes, transitioning between all three gaits, sending her between me and a scary object (a nippy austrailian shepherd), etc. Then I decided it was time we learned something new. It was no coincidence that I had watched Clinton Anderson on RFD-TV the day before as he was demonstrating teaching a horse to side-pass. I had paid close attention and was really to follow his instructions properly.

I brought her up so that she was right up against and facing the fence. Then I used my hands to move her front end over, then I used the stick to ask her to move her back end over. Now, this didn't exactly come out of nowhere! We've done alot of yeilding of the hind quarters with the stick and she does it beautifully. But, this time she kept sitting down on her haunches and popping her front end up. The more pressure I put on with the stick, the deeper she'd sit. Well, now I'm scratching my head thinking, "Why is she acting stupid?" and she's staring at me like, "I'm trying! Stop hitting me!" Then it hits me! She's gonna jump this fence! Well, she was gonna try... but she is too close and the fence is too tall and I've got her on a short lead so it's gonna be a disaster!

So, I take the coward's way out. I back her off the fence and I find an actual WALL that she couldn't jump if she had wings. Then, instead of giving her indirect pressure by waving the stick, I laid the stick against her girth-line and the lead rope on her neck like a rein and clucked to her. That heffer side passed down that wall like she'd been doing it her whole life! Not exactly Clinton's method... but I've been a scientist long enough to know if it ain't broke, don't fix it! I did, however, take Clinton's advice to stop when you feel like you want to do more. So, I ended right there on a good note (I did do both sides though).

Back in the Saddle

For reasons that I will never be able to explain, I purchased my first horse while in graduate school. As if this wasn't bad enough, said horse was a 3yr old QH/Arab. Fortunately, I got lucky with her because she has been dead quiet since day 1. Unfortunately, being a graduate student I obviously had no money and boarding was a nightmare. I spent my first three years with her at two "barns" that were basically in someone's back yard. This meant no arena to work or school my young horse in, so we've spent three years riding on relatively flat pieces of pasture -- I would not recommend this to any one.

Then, FINALLY, I graduated. I got a fellowship and, although I am still incredibly poor, can now afford to board her at a nice place with an arena (TWO in fact, one with cover and lights!). So I am back on the lesson schedule and back in the saddle. What follows (hopefully) is a diary of working with a now 6yr old, and still green, mare and a 27yr old, and still green, rider. This should be fun!

So, our first lesson at the new place was basically me trying to post again. Since I had been doing almost exclusively trail riding for months, I had let my stirrups WAY WAY down to be more comfortable on long trail rides. The result of that, as it turns out, is that my seat developed beautifully but my legs are now way out in front like a chair seat. UGH! So, there I am trotting around the arena with my legs flapping almost uncontrollably (and probably very comically to anyone watching) and panting for breath. My horse, who was also panting for breath, was too busy looking around at all the new surroundings and activities to be bothered to trot a straight line.

After about 45 minutes of berating me for how awful my legs are, my trainer suggests that we let out the stirrups and check out the canter. A year ago that statement would have scared the bejeezus outta me. But, in the intervening time I had pulled a trick on my trainer... and myself. I had gotten used to riding with really long stirrups and cantering down a twisty trail, dodging trees. So I let my stirrups out, asked for the canter, and off we went! My mare on the correct lead and me with my legs back and my hands down. My trainer's jaw it the dirt and her eyes were about as big as dinner plates. Kinda surprised me too, but there it was nonetheless.

The up-side of this lesson was that at the canter my previously, grossly unbalanced mare, who loved nothing better than to cross-fire, was able to pick up the correct lead reliably in both directions and I was able to actually keep my back-side in the saddle and not yank on her face. The down-side of this lesson was that the posting trot really needs work and my mare is still not really straight. So, we had some stuff to celebrate and lots to work on... a successful lesson!