I'd been busy with finals all week but went out late Friday to grab my riding stuff at the least. I chatted with Robert for a while. He suggested turning ponies out in the arena to stretch their legs.

So I grabbed Reno and we death marched to the arena. He got the saddest look on his face when we stepped into the slush, dropped his head down, and trudged. Poor pony. He couldn't believe EVERYTHING was wet.

I turned him out and he was pretty cute. There was the normal galloping up and down, a little bucking, and then.... cantering. He did very cute twenty meter canter circles down at the western end of the arena for probably ten minutes, very nice bend around the open side. When he had walked for a few minutes and stopped huffing and puffing, I went out to go catch him. He started up his canter circles for a while, getting smaller and smaller as I got closer, then bolted "past" me to the gate. He stood there in the corner til I came up to halter him. He looked a little uneasy, but he figured he had trapped himself in a corner and if I was gonna eat him, so be it. He was really full of himself walking back, he barely noticed the snow.

Next up was Keno. He came in without me having to go in the mud (yay!) and threw a bit of attitude in the arena at first. I'm not dumb, I grabbed a lunge whip before I let him go. He was lazier than his brother but did some galloping up and down. He started to charge me once but quickly decided that would end worse for him than for me. So he contented himself with cantering into the gate corner, stopping, trotting out of it, cantering back in, etc. There was a mounting block in the way, so instead of avoiding it he would swing his legs around it. Predictably, he wasn't paying attention when he was cantering out of the corner, smacked his legs on the block, and tripped. He was pretty sure it was my fault.

When I caught him we did a little mounting block work and he was fine. It's probably different when he has tack on and thinks he might get ridden, so I should do that someday when it's warmer.

At this point I was unconvinced I still had feet or hands, so I put him back and went into the trailer for a while. I came out when Robert came back with bedding and swept the aisle, then helped him unload the bedding. We had a bit of time before we fed and turned Luca out.

That pony is an athletic little thing. Watching some of the bucks he threw, I think he was being kind to me when we were riding. His movement's gorgeous, he put in some nice rollbacks too. Robert was tossing cones at him to get him to run a little more, which Luca was thrilled with. I really want to ride him again. There's a saddle fitting at Mt. Hood at the end of January that we're going to go to, and at least get an idea of what size saddle he needs so we can restart him. The other option is driving him hard earlier that day, then riding bareback later, which I'm not opposed to. He's got a big barrel so I can grab on, and he's also not very far from the ground (shh. Don't tell him that.).

Robert tried to catch Luca and Luca ran. I cheated: Luca went to the manure bucket and started sniffing, so I walked up and grabbed his halter, then walked over to Robert with him. Robert said it figures he'd let a girl catch him. I think Luca was just playing with Robert. That pony and I get along pretty well generally, though, so who knows.

I've been having a strange urge to just hop on ponies in the arena, with or without a lead rope attached to them. It's a dumb urge and other than Star I've managed to resist, but holy crap is it ever powerful. You have no idea how much I wanted to do that when I caught Luca. We could go galloping from one end of the arena to the other, and then I could go headfirst into the wall when we did a sliding stop. It'd be awesome.

Late post from a cold cold day

So we were out Saturday at the barn (a week ago?). The big driving trials had been canceled due to the weather. Robert decided it was too cold to do anything, so he stayed inside. As a result Alyssa and I had the place all to ourselves. It was very cold though, so we were disinclined to do much. Alyssa decided to turn Star out in the arena, I went to take Colonel on another one of our walks. As I approached the arena I heard hoofbeats and flying sand. Colonel was getting a little nervous (shocking!) but he basically kept to the rules (non-sarcastically shocking.) We came around the corner to see Star blowing and snorting her head high in the air, her tail curled up and over like a Husky's tail. She was prancing as though restrained by her interest in Colonel. Momentarily Colonel had calmed down when he saw all the commotion was from a horse, then he panicked again when he saw it was from a crazy horse. Star's interest in Colonel could no longer hold her and she galloped at full speed down the arena, bucking occasionally as she went. We watched her run crazily around the arena for a while and then Colonel and I moved on. Apparently turning your back on a crazy horse is a no no in Colonels mind. When Star came galloping up in our direction still blowing and snorting Colonel threw his head up in the air and started to bolt, then he stopped, it looked as though he had run into a wall (and I know what that looks like I've seen him do it.) I'm thinking maybe I had just witnessed self restraint, because in my book bolting away from Gillian is a serious, line snapping offense. In some ways I think that bolting is one of the most severely punished crimes Colonel ever commits. Not strictly by design (although its way way up there, a notch down from rearing, right around there with biting.) When he bolts though, I snap the line hard, and his running off provides a lot of the force. So there was that progress anyway.

Moving off again we walked over the bridge, he was pretty receptive to moving back when I wiggled the line, so we didn't have to stop, I could correct him en route. Then we turned back around and did the familiar dance, step, Colonel rushes forward and is stopped, Colonel is backed up and is displeased, Colonel has to stand there until he lowers his head and/or sighs, repeat.

It gets a little tiny tiny bit better every day.

As we were walking back I saw Alyssa sitting on Star and was extremely pleased that this was working OK, and wanted her to quit before I was given a reason to be unhappy with Star.

We turned out the old girls and they behaved as they usually do. Then I suggested that this would be a good day to give Mike (alyssa can provide background) his first riding lesson. I suggested Star because she likes to pack around the arena, and she'd already run around plenty today. I rode her around a few times on a loose rein and she was going pretty well so I hopped up and, having been given the usual first ride talk, he got up into the saddle. I walked along with Star but she was doing her ground-covering walk and didn't feel like slowing down for me, so I took the inside track and walked along. Mike is a pretty good natural rider. He's very athletic and he also keeps his joints relaxed and his posture is great. A good combination.

They had been going around quite nicely when Star started to cheat in to the inside of the arena going towards Alyssa, then trotted, then cantered off at a pretty good pace deaf to our calls to slow down to a walk. No obvious reason. Mike held on admirably, I was kicking myself for not teaching him a one rein stop, but, eh. Eventually he came off, did a nice roll when he hit the ground and claimed to feel fine. Probably true.

So now it was punishment time. We tightened up the cinch on the saddle (western for a beginning rider) and after two laps of long trot we cantered. And we cantered. And we cantered some more. Star wanted to stop pretty quickly so I kept my leg on her. We went for quite a while, and it was actually really fun. I havent really had a reason to force myself to canter for a long time and Star is a really fun ride once she's going. One thing that was very comforting was the certainty that if I asked her to stop she would stop. No fussing or anything. Eventually she got tired and refused to canter anymore. I whomped on her with my legs, she reared and bucked trying to get out of it. I won a few more canter strides and then decided she'd had enough. I wish I had had a crop because she's not stupid, she knows that quitting time was heavily influenced by when she started to fuss. I'll have to fix that at some point.

I gave her back to Mike and Alyssa walked around on an inside track. Even huffing and puffing she still has a huge stride. Mike seemed to be un-traumatized and after about three laps each way he got off and we put her back. She had traces of sweat by her ears and girth so I was pleased with myself. Its not every dry, cold day that I can do that to her.

I'm hoping that she learned something from this session. Certainly I learned that she should be worked pretty hard and then given to the beginner, even though she's a good packer for me and Alyssa. Mike was very gracious and said he had fun. I'm thinking Star should be his mount again for his next lesson. We'll do walk-halt transitions. She stops quite nicely, as I said.

I wont have a lot of barn time for a while, Jesse and I are getting a dog, we have one picked out and its young so I want to give it some time to make sure its housebroken and whatnot. Eventually I would like to take it to the barn and do some agility stuff over the various jumps out there, plus its a nice place to walk a dog. Maybe someday it will get barn dog status and he can run around on his own. Papillon and I could chase him ;) (kidding, of course, mostly.) Maybe I could have him run along with me and Keno (or Star someday?) Fun stuff but it will be a while before he's mature enough to handle it. I might just stash him in an empty stall some days, or leave him with Mike in the trailer.

Right, this thing....

Keno's been doing pretty well. We went to a dressage show and did wonderfully in the warm up arena. The first test, Intro B, we got a 45%. He was really nervous and hollow and did NOT like the bleachers. We managed to school in the show arena before our Training test and pulled a slightly more respectable 49%. We would have done much better if the following things had happened:
a) I'd remembered the test and picked up the canter between H and C instead of C and M
b) Keno hadn't tried to take off bucking around the right lead canter circle, and
c) I'd remembered we wanted to trot the last quarter of the circle, leading us to fight a bit

But, we got around the whole thing without any major incidents. Keno was very worried while we were hanging out and left him in his stall. Lots of whinnying and kicking. Oh well, I was pretty pleased that he only reverted to his Keno-ness once while we were riding, and no spooks.

After that we started doing mostly bareback riding because I decided my seat was terrible. He'd been bucking right lead canter for a while, but I'm pretty sure it was because the farrier had had to miss a cycle. They normally get trimmed every 6 weeks, but this rotation it ended up being 9. The day after the trim he threw in a buck or two, and then quit it entirely.

His canter balance is getting better. We got some nice walk-canter transitions from a slight outside leg and a kiss, but he ends up getting hyped up. He also decides, after we canter, that trotting is for losers and keeps trying to pop up into the canter. It's pretty cute, I'm not gonna lie, and he's definitely using his back end to transition so I don't want to hinder that, per se, but it's not a good habit for us so I can't encourage it.

Recently he's decided to be a jerk about mounting. The only logic I can provide for this, is that he's used to being a jerk about the girth, and since there hasn't been any girth, he has to be a jerk about SOMETHING. It doesn't show any signs of being a pain issue, since he's pretty perfect when you're on him, so we need to get the idea through his skull that this is the wrong thing to do.

I'm hoping to start doing little jumps with him. I'll be thrilled if we can canter a course of any jumps, and ecstatic if we can do up to about 2' without any drama.

BUT, I don't know much else to teach Keno. I can ask for lateral movements, and kind-hearted horses who are well schooled will do them decently. But I don't know how to teach them, and I'm not precise enough in my aids to feel comfortable trying. So that's 25% of why I want to teach Keno jumping, the other 75% is because I really miss jumping.

Gillian is pushing me to take Star on next. I probably should, especially since she's not getting out much lately.

I turned out Star yesterday in the arena and watched her run around reasonably unlike an idiot for a while. Then I decided I wanted to sit on her. So, of course, I caught her (she walked up to me), clipped the lead line to the ring under her chin, flipped the line over her neck and ran the end through the clasp of the line. It stuck well enough that if Star was responsive to rein aids she'd turn fine, but I couldn't actually pull or I'd be screwed. Meh, I said to myself, and hopped on. No helmet, of course, seeing as I was just turning a horse out in the arena.

The first few seconds of being on Star are always terrifying for me, because she feels so unbalanced. Keno's a solid citizen, not to mention much wider, and can handle the weight. Star's more erratic and just plain hot. When Keno walks off I sigh and stop him because it's the thing to do, not because I feel unbalanced or uncertain. With Star, because I'm used to Keno, I feel like she's about to either fall over or take off.

That said, nothing really happened. She didn't turn well, unsurprisingly, but she was fine with it all. I'd tell her to whoa and she'd stop pretty promptly. Gillian, holding Colonel outside the arena, told me I was smart. I shrugged. We walked around a little more and then I hopped off and we went back to the barn.

So that went well enough that I could probably handle riding her more frequently, maybe even going outside. I just need to figure out exactly how to get her head down and her back muscles engaged. It's an entirely different problem than with Keno. Keno had the head down conformation and training from his Western days- the whole problem revolved around acceptance of the bit and dropping his shoulder.

For that, the solution was lots of open reining and circles, though the big difference came when I started using inside leg and outside rein. Which, yes, is how you're supposed to do it, but I'd never had a sufficiently schooled horse who knew that was the way it was done. I guess there's a reason for why things are done that way- maybe because they work.

I guess I'll start off with that- lots of circles, but I'll have to keep higher hands to do the straight line from the bit to the elbow. Add in trot poles until she'd rather jump than do another trot pole. Long-lining until I'd rather jump her than put a surcingle on her again. If I don't see anything by, say, a month after starting, I'll re-evaluate.

I'll have to ask Claire while I'm home, what she would do. I'll listen to the parts that don't involve draw reins, because I feel really uncomfortable using them. On some level I understand I'm a decent rider, but anything anyone says needs an experienced rider I instantly believe I don't have the abilities.

Here's a picture from the warm-up arena at the show. Look how not-broken-at-the-3rd-vertebrae we are! Please don't look at how low my hands are. Thanks.

Pas de deux - cancelled

We had to cancel our pas de deux because Reno was lame. I didn't notice it while we were walking around, but he was massively flipping out all the time. This wasn't helpful for Keno's mood either. Vicky pointed out that he was limping on his right hind sometimes, and indeed it was really hurting him. I guess it should have been a clue that he wouldn't take a treat this morning without it practicaly being forcefed to him. Anyway, the recital was fun to watch, the baked good were excellent and I got a picture of me in a doctor's buggy.

Its not as though we had actually practiced our routine anyway. So maybe it was a good thing. All I know is that I shudder to think what Reno would have done when we trotted through an 150 degree turn to the right. Or through that canter serpentine.

I guess its back to business. Colonel has been ever so slowly improving on leading around outside. I still want to hitch Star to a singletree next time I get the chance. That will be thursday I think. It feels strange to be doing so much groundwork again. Especially the leading outside work, how long has it been now since I last did that? Two years? Maybe it would be fun to teach Colonel to drive, or rather, fun to have him for a driving horse. I could tire the crap out of him on a regular basis without feeling bad for having to keep him in a circle all the time. Pipe dreams are fun.