Gold Brothers

Dylan is 5. It's fantastic. His owner said he led and lunged, but... not so much. I watched him walking into her space and circling around, no attention to her, and quietly raised an eyebrow. Now I see.

Keno was good today. He's understanding the concept of being pushed together now. By the end, if he got a little strung out, I squeezed my legs and hands, basically a half halt, and he came back together very nicely. I suspect he's breaking at the poll to avoid the bit, so a little more leg is needed than hands. I'll have to ask someone to watch to see how badly he's doing it. We walked through the jump field to cool off. He looooved it because the grass is so high he could walk at the same pace and grab grass without lowering or turning his head. I still think we should take him to a dressage show. He's a crappy looking horse but he's a nice mover, responsive, and will stay sound.

I also rode Reno. We put a leverage bit on him and he basically ignored the whole thing, so today we added a curb chain. That got his attention! Now he neckreins, whoas nicely, and is much less likely to try to just barge through the bit. After a while in the ring to see how he reacted to the bit and to make sure Gillian and Star wouldn't kill each other in the next fifteen minutes, we went out to the back forty. This part is important because I haven't been on the back forty on a horse since the first day I got back on a horse in October (okay more than 100 feet into it). I haven't gone by myself since September before my accident. Reno was a little jiggy, I was a little panicky, but focusing on the ride (and grabbing the horn) worked okay. I've wanted to do this for a while but haven't had a horse I felt comfortable enough on. So that was good.

That was actually all I accomplished today. I had a crappy night* and needed some solid, no problem horse time. Keno needs to get worked pretty hard on about a biweekly/weekly basis for him to stay compliant, so I spent a long time on him, and then got caught in conversation by Cari, so he was thrilled to stand there eating grass while we talked. He also helps me with my position, and he's a horse who basically understands the concepts I'm asking him for. He won't do it, though, unless I ask right, so it's enjoyable to see him improve. He's also getting better about his girthiness, or at least we have an agreement. I put his girth on, stand back and let him dance and back up and express his displeasure at life as long as he does NOT take one step towards me. He stops after a few seconds, I tighten it a hole or two, step back, watch the Keno shuffle, etc. If he had withers I'd cut him some slack because the saddle wouldn't roll, but he's round and so it's necessary.

Geldings are major dorks. It's kind of adorable.

*One of the kittens started coughing up blood last night. A fabulous person drove to the emergency vet. Unfortunately, we lost the kitten to an uncurable, fatal virus. So best case scenario, the other three are magically uninfected. Worst case, we lose them all. As they're acting normal, they're either magic or more likely nonsymptomatic carriers. I don't want anyone to have to go through this, so kittens are under quarantine until they can get tested for FIP at 8 weeks old, if I can finagle a way to keep them that long. It sucks. Very sad, and I didn't get to bed until 4 so I was tired and drained at the barn, then proceeded to have an apple in the morning and nothing else until I was going to work, so I didn't actually feel capable of much work. If kittens are carriers, they can live with other carriers, but are otherwise confined to single catdom. If they get sick, it will probably go fast. If they're healthy, they shouldn't be too difficult to place.

Going to be so very sore tomorrow

I took dylan out again today. Mostly the same behavior as yesterday, but today I focused more of my attention on keeping him out of my space. I'm always cautious about this with green horses because I dont really need him to fear me. Or at least I want him to fear me in a constructive way. He seems to be reasonably fond of people; and in horsey world just because they nip or kick at you, doesnt mean they arent your buddy, they just want you to back off at that moment. So he ran around on a circle for a while. He seemed to be having fun running like a crazy thing, he had happy ears and as soft an eye as a galloping horse can have. The downside to petting him after he does a good circle is that he really wants to be near me so that I'll pet him. He's not listening to me when I say whoa, he just notices me moving towards him and stops to be pet. Next time I think I'm going to be even more insistent that he stay away from me when we're lunging, since he seemed to be perfectly willing to lead after our session today. I dont like the fact that he both enters my space (dangerous) and pulls on me (painful). I think he'll learn pretty soon that he needs to go out on his circle and he needs to listen to me. I wonder how old he is. Based on his behavior I'd say late 2's or maybe 3 but hasnt been handled much.

I fit a bridle to lady and got the fleece stuff on it. She seemed less upset about this bridle but was still a little unhappy about me touching her face with it on. Not quite sure what thats about. She does it to Robert also, which means its not a personality issue. She was lame on her right front today. Not terrible but I make it a policy not to ride lame horses so I put her back when I noticed she was limping at the trot. She was very good, but verry sluggish on the lunge line. I attribute this to her feet hurting her.

Papillon was also lame. This didn't stop her from being obnoxious and hotblooded. She started to canter on her in-hand trot. Idiot.

Star, now star was a fun ride today. Long and exhausting, and the root of most of my anticipated and current soreness. I put a running martingale on her today. To explain briefly: A running martingale is basically two rings each attached to a breastplate via a leather strip. The reins run through the rings (hence the name) up to the bit as usual. With a properly fitted martingale the horse wont notice anything different when their head is where it should be. When they pull their head up, however, instead of feeling pressure on the bit from the hands, they feel it straight down, from the rings. In a snaffle bit this is quite painful, since it causes the bit to flex and the point is now up on the roof of their mouth. The harder they pull, the harder it pushes against their pallate. When they put their head back down, everything is back to normal. This martingale is too big for her. Alyssa pointed out that her head was going to have to be really high before she'll even notice its there.

Let me tell you, she noticed it was there. Star sometimes resents having to slow down. If you use your reins to ask her to slow down, she frequently throws her head up in protest, importantly she also throws her nose up even higher. You should have seen her face. Oooh boy she was pissed. Normally anger causes her to throw her head up and her nose even higher. She threw her head up a second time but let me tell you, not the third time. The other angry thing she does is lift her nose up in the air and tilt her head to the side. I didn't do anything different with my hands, I just let the rings do their job (not that there's much I could do for her really). I'm not positive about this but I think that when she did that she didn't poke herself in the middle of her pallate, I think she got poked in the side, and harder too because its lower. In any case she did not do that twice.

She did everything she could think of. In the course of an hour she had bucked, reared, kicked, stopped, spun, gave a pathetic attempt at bolting, and she tossed her head some more in the beginning. I think she was trying to break it, she broke the really old german martingale, but that was a small D-ring attached with a thin, ageing piece of elastic. Still impressive, especailly since it was on its lowest setting so she really had to throw her head in the air and hard to get much force on it. This running martingale was nothing but brand new leather and stainless steel welded into a ring. No way in hell was she going to break this, which she figured out eventually.

When her buddy left the arena then she was mad about the martingale but also mad about not being out with her buddy horse, so that added a new dynamic. I had a little more bit contact than she usually got, and more than she wanted, which didn't help matters either, but I wanted her to learn that she was going to have some contact from now on. I want to be able to push her into my hands, I can push her no problem, now I need to add the hands. So after an hour of all this she walked past the gate reasonably calmly. Alyssa, the great mediator, pointed out that this was probably good enough for today, and we needed to go feed horses. Its just as well, I was not looking forward to having to keep riding her while all the other horses were being fed and she knew it. We're going to have a few more battles of will, but I always win, and she'll remember that before long. She was definitely more balanced today, which I find encouraging.

It was also encouraging to find that all these shenanigans didn't unseat me or unnerve me to speak of. Its probably good that she didn't bolt too much. Bolting gets me, while rearing, bucking, and whatnot, are not really too bad emotionally. I'm off to the twilight rose parade thing. I hear its a lot of fun.

Dylan, Lady, Reno and Papillon

On paper I guess I had a reasonably productive day. I took Dylan, the pinto looking morgan (a client's horse, not Robert's) out today. I rubbed him all over with the halter, gave him several 'hugs' to get him used to my arm over his neck, and I scratched his poll to get him used to my hands next to his ears. Then I slipped the halter on while he was sniffing it trying to figure out why it smelled so much like him. I clipped the lunge line on him and grabbed my crop. I led him around, he was pleased to be out. While we were leading I stuck my elbow out and every time he ran into it I smacked him on the shoulder with the crop. It took him a while but he eventually figured out the pattern; he still forgets a lot.

Lunging was interesting. The last horse I taught to lunge was Annabelle, who may have had some attempt at lunging before, I'm not sure. Dylan was indeed mystified. I asked him to move forward and generally he wanted to do one of two things, come in and see me or pull vigorously on the line. We had many many round of trying to get him to go in a complete circle, ended the same way every time, him pulling back hard in the direction of the gate. I had an Ian-esque moment when I realized, "Oh right, he's a gelding." Annabelle was a bitchy pony mare who understood quite well the concept of moving when she was asked to and raw intimidation was quite effective. Dylan doesnt get that sort of thing, he just wants to know why you dont love him anymore, so I tried a new tack. First I led him around in a circle over and over and over again. I question the effectiveness of this part of the plan but he needed to calm down anyway and it certainly didn't hurt. I sent him out on a circle and after about a half a circle or so I asked him to whoah, went up to him (I was taught never ever to bring the horse to you, always go to them) pet him, then asked him to walk again. When he paused at the side of the arena closest to the gate I just stood there, I even let him sniff the ground, eventually he started walking on the circle again, and after a moment I stopped him, pet him, repeat. We worked up to a full circle and a half without stopping or flipping out noticeably, and I called that good enough for one day. He definitely was leading better after the lunging session (which is quite typical in my experience.) I think it started to reinforce the concept of personal space. When I led him back to his stall he balked at going in a little but came anyway, then we walked out and walked back in again. The second time he didn't hesitate at all. I think he'll turn out to be a 3 or a 4 on the compliance scale which will be refreshing, especially if he turns out to be more of a 4.

I saddled lady and took her out to lunge. It was going to be a fairly relaxed thing but she kept forgetting and then re-discovering the tractor in the corner. When she was trotting by it going to the left she bolted. One of the stirrups came loose (I dont know how, I wrapped it really well I thought) but it hardly swung at all and didn't bounce noticeably either. I attribute this to her being the worlds smoothest bolter ever. So she ran around, tried to change direction once or twice but nothing too difficult to handle, she ran herself pretty hard but when she was calmer I stopped her and led her past the tractor several times, it was a combination of sacking out and hotwalking. We went around to go look at the tractor from outside the arena. Barely batted an eye at it this time. I let her eat some grass next to it. It took her a while to be willing to let down her guard enough to eat some grass but she did and I figured everything was fine now. I went and got her bridle, and a helmet and my spiffy class three body armour. She hates hates hates that figure eight noseband. I had to take the fleece stuff off the bridle because it changes the fit (well duh, some might say to me, and to them I say: shut up) of the bridle and I didn't feel like re-adjusting it when I probably wasn't going to use it again anyway. Robert came out with me and I got on in the arena. Robert held her until I had gotten both my stirrups and then we walked around a little. She was flipping her head and trotting intermittently for a few minutes. She was very responsive to my seat, which is good because the way she was pissed about that noseband I really didn't feel like doing much with the reins. She calmed down and we changed directions and repeated the process. She calmed down the other direction and I waited until she had her happy ears and then I stopped her and got off. Robert noted that she seems to like me, even thought the figure eight noseband pisses her off. I shared with him Ian's thinking that her dislike of the noseband is evidence that she needs it. We both had a nice time scoffing at this logic. I've got a different bridle ready to go for her. I havent fit it too her yet but its set to be roughly the same as Ian's bridle for her. Some of the hair on her nose rubbed off in that one session, which irks me. Tomorrow I will ride her in the new bridle and maybe for a little longer. We'll probably start trotting next week, and cantering the week after that. Maybe its an overly conservative schedule but she's a tense tense girl sometimes; I want her to get used to the idea that going out to ride needn't mean working your ass off and needn't result in being sore the next day.

I took Reno out and I didn't keep him out long. Something about him ignoring the reins makes me irrationally angry now. He still wanted to pop into the middle of the arena, and he was a little confused as to why he was cropped that one time but he guessed correctly that he should be moving off my leg better. I needed better timing. In addition to him ignoring the bit, and my irrationally adversarial attitude towards him, I realized I didn't know what the hell I was doing with this leverage bit. I asked Robert and he said that typically in western riding the bit is sortof an emergency stop, the horse should be stopping principally off your seat and steering principally off your leg, seat and to a lesser extent, the reins resting on his neck. He confirmed what I was beginning to realize myself, which was that these bits cant really be used to steer.

He promises that the chain on the bit will give us some whoah power. I was thinking about this though, I think that if he's going to be used in the western pleasure show he needs to do dressage first. My understanding is that you dont start out your western horses neck reining and expecting them to work off your seat and whatnot. He understands reins, and thats about all he's really experienced. He needs to connect what he knows already to these relatively new aids. I dont think Carly was riding him for that long and six years is a long time to be not ridden. Ideally I think we would ride him twice a day, school him in dressage in the morning in a snaffle, and then try to do some western pleasure stuff in the afternoon in the curb bit. Maybe keno's bridle will fit him without too much fuss?

We got a huge shipment of hay. I fed the horses. Then I took Papillon out. I put a saddle on her and we worked in the arena because I didn't want a sunburn and I didn't want her to melt. She was not interested in transitions today, and was frequently listening very poorly. When I insisted that she bend correctly and collect at the trot she assumed, as she always always does in this situation, that I was collecting her up so that we could do a nice canter transition. She obliged and off we went. She came back down but I guess I tend to go from canter back down into a walk a little too often because thats what she thought I wanted. When I said no she thought she was mistaken about the down transition (or at least thats how I'm anthropomorphising the behavior) and went back into canter.

I decided that a potential solution to this problem was just to actually ask her to canter for a while, I figured that would take some of the wind out of her sails. She has a really nice canter, which I rather enjoy. She didn't want to move off my inside leg very well but a 20 meter circle really does wonders for her sometimes. She was only mildly subdued by the cantering but I am gun shy now about cantering, I really worry about making her lame that way. She really really wanted to go outside the arena, she kept drifting towards the closed gate. I'm not sure what the plan was there.

If the gate had been open, and I had had some sunscreen, and I weren't so worried about breaking her I would have gone and galloped her down the long side of the field. I dont know why but I feel very comfortable with Papillon. I trust her probably more than she deserves but alas, she's a delicate soul so I guess I'll just have to get Star geared up to go out there and run with me. I've done the run down the field with Colonel and Keno. Its more fun with Colonel, even when it ends badly but its even more fun when it doesnt. I dont know why but both Keno and Reno set me on edge. Maybe I don't like geldings. I dont understand them, not the temperamental ones anyway. I think I'll just have to get over it. I'm starting to feel less unnerved by Keno. Alyssa has done great work with him over the course of the school year. He's a very cooperative boy now. Basically the same agenda tomorrow. Except I'm riding Luca, I guess. Robert's going to drive him first so its not a great test of what his problem is. Still, when he bucks at least then we'll know what his problem isn't. Gotta get myself not to stare at him though. All riding coaching will be gladly accepted, by the way.

so unmotivated

Played with kittens early in morning (they wake me up with mewing), then went to barn. Put bags of bedding in ALL the stalls in the big barn, which killed some time. Sam helped which was awesome. Um, I rode BJ (breeding stock paint gelding, Sam's pony) who was pissed that I was riding him and required hella leg. I may start a quest to convince Sam that he's an English not a Western pony. He's got a fast bouncy trot and a faster canter, no jog or lope.
Then I rode Reno, who was pretty okay. He was definitely relaxing into the trot, and I really like his trot. We played the "CRUSH YOUR SPINE" game where he learned that if he was slow, I was light on his back, and if he was fast I dug my seatbones into the saddle. We put him into a leverage bit, low long port and curved shanks. He barely paid attention, so we're gonna slap a curb chain on it.
Robert took Sam on a drive with Luca, and I rode around on Keno bareback. I was going to ride Luca, but Seabreeze and Pam showed up. Seabreeze was in heat and winking at Keno, so I decided that riding Luca with her there was a bad idea. Last week we got in there and he reared as soon as he saw her, and I didn't feel like redoing that.
Took Dylan the pinto Morgan out to see what he knew. He was completely befuddled over what lunging meant, and we're going to work on leading for a while. He is a pain to lead outside because he jumps into you whenever there's mud or a puddle in front of him. He didn't want to get haltered, and when I tried to put him back in his stall he freaked out because his ears touched the top of the doorway and he thought I was trying to kill him.
Fed a little early so I could go to work. Did Lady and Papillon hooves.

Short day by myself

Despite being there for less time than usual (around 4.5 hrs or so) and it being cold and me feeling listless as a result, I did get some stuff done today. The trick is to not do any one thing for very long I guess. I took Reno out and rode him. He was OK, again. He had his feet trimmed today day so I took it pretty easy on him. He does neck rein when he wants to. This means he's ready for my favorite game, its like simon says except you always do what you're told. Anyway, he's going to start moving off my legs and seat (or Alyssa's leg and seat depending on who gets to him tomorrow) or he's going to get cropped. I played this game with Colonel and ever since he's been very good about moving off leg pressure and whatnot. Or at least last time he was good about anything he was good about that.

I took star out and I long lined her again. She is starting to balance better. I think I might start riding her again a little earlier than would be best because I dont have the attention span for this, and because I'm hoping she'll get better at balancing while we're out remembering how to do trail stuff. She needs to remember how to be a trail horse, and there are always times when I dont really have time to ride but I have time to do groundwork.

No one was going to be around, Robert was running errands and no Alyssa today so I didn't ride Lady today. Its probably just as well, I still dont think she's at 100%. I looked at her hooves today and her frogs are in shambles. They look like they've been through an egg slicer that just didn't quite cut all the way through. I've decided I'm not doing hoof stuff in stalls anymore, those girls (Lady and Papillon) are going to have to come to the hay barn where I can see what I'm doing and where they wont get dirty again after I set their hoof back down. I put a dressage saddle on her (Lil's I think, the one with the wider twist) and she was really quite good for the girth. I put a bit in her mouth, a french link I think it was? Anyway, she was fine with that too. I took her out and lunged her. She was willing to trot but not interested, which is strange. She looked stiff at the walk and awkward. I couldnt really tell if she was favoring any particular hoof but really, most of them were pretty bad. I dont know if it actually hurts her, she wasnt bobbing her head at the trot at all, she was just so unenthused... I dont know. We'll look tomorrow.

Anyway I was talking to whats-her-name the red-haired trainer that used to ride her. I was asking about her and she couldnt figure out why I was making such a thing out of this. I tried to explain and realized, its really not. She said she doesnt buck that much, she's really smooth, she said lunge her first and that trotting 20 meter circles calms her down. She made another observation I thought was interesting, Lady has been ridden on and off by a lot of people. She gets ridden for a while and then she can be off for up to a year, and now she's gotten suspicious of new people, 'like a foster kid' is how she summed it up. She told me to brush her down and make sure she liked me and everything would be fine. Check and check, I think, so I'm feeling good about this enterprise.

I took Papillon out. I wanted to get to the bus pretty soon so I just took her out with a bareback pad. Which rolled during my ungraceful mounting. She couldnt figure out why I kept stopping her, throwing myself deliberately off balance and then righting myself, but that turned out to be the easiest way to roll the pad back up and center. Papillon was really good, she was soft and flexible and focused, for the first few minutes. Then she decided it was trotting time and was pissed when I wanted to handle things differently. I started trotting her, she just got jazzed and rushed and it was hard to sit, which pissed her off. So we started trotting the long side and walking the short side, her first few strides of trot were always nice, then she was off again. So we did 20 strides walk, 20 strides trot. Transitions have always been a good way to get her to focus. For many of our trot segments she really did a good job stepping under herself and collecting. Sometimes she didn't. The difference is really amazing. For the same speed she can be incredibly choppy or really smooth to ride depending on where her mind (and her butt) is. I took her outside to cool down. She was willing to walk for a while and then, as before, she decided it was trotting time. The ground was squishy so she was a little more receptive this time. When we went through the tall grass she decided that a walk was a better gait from which to nibble some grass. Even though she's at least 16 hands, the grass was hitting my feet as we went through. She was mostly reasonably good about walking actually, except when she realized she was going home, then she decided if she had to go home she may as well trot home. I brought her back to the hay barn with her chest covered in water and grass seeds. I want to do some more trotting with her, and walking and stopping and circles and really get her working again. I think a saddle will be in order. Also I'll need to set aside more time for her.

Tomorrow at least Lady or Colonel will get done, I'd love to do both but sometimes thats not how it goes. Alyssa and I might have to take shifts lounging Colonel, he's been in his stall for a while now, plenty of energy built up I'm sure.

Kittens!

Top to bottom: 2, 1, 4. To the left is 3.
At least 2 and 3 are eating, everyone is drinking and making a complete mess of their carrier. They're not thrilled about being handled, but will walk up to me once I get them out of their cage. An attempt to let them hang out on my bed failed dramatically. 4 tried to go to my bedside table, but instead fell down to the ground (a fall of at least 4 feet), and was displeased when I removed him from his hiding spot. They all found the spot behind the headboard, which was fine, except 2 and 4 managed to squeeze down between the back of the headboard backing and the wall. Again, displeased yowly kittens. I put 1 and 3, the behaving kittens, back. 2 and 4 had at this point found my desk. Ian's big metal organizing thing was there. They had a ball squeezing their grotesquely giant heads and tiny bodies through there for a while, until I had 1 and 3 safely away. Then they got put back, too. All four spent a while mewing at me after that. I mewed back, so they climbed the wire door and looked at me pitifully.

I have high hopes they will be rehomed easily. If I didn't know I couldn't keep one, I'd be very tempted to keep 3. I have three numbers from the bus ride home of interested parties, though I'd love it if they went to people I knew.

I wonder what their dad thinks about this. He's a tame outdoors cat and loves people. I found him sitting on the pallet where we caught them and started meowing at me-- did he know they were there or did he just find a cat scent and was curious? We brought the kittens out, and they spilled to the front of the cage, mewing frantically and trying to touch him. He was very interested ("What are those things?") but quickly grew more interested in the horizontal position of my legs.

We'll have to livetrap the mother to spay her, and get Gabriel snipped as soon as possible. I'm pretty irritated that Robert's been planning to do this since October, and still hasn't gotten around to it. Livetrapping will probably ruin any chance we have of making her friendly, but at least she won't be making more feral cats.

I didn't really do much yesterday other than kittens. I helped get Reno ready to ride and walked him around for a minute before letting Gillian take over. I watched Lady be lame. I took Nicky for a walk with Gillian and Star. The interesting thing about Nicky seems to be her intense respect for someone attached to her halter. Her owner said she was a wild weanling and it took 3 hours to wrestle a halter onto her, but she's always respected it since. This goes to an impressive level. Yesterday she was acting up a little, but I asked her to trot. She freaked out, went to rear and bolt. I'd basically committed myself to having to let go of the lead rope, but a second after she put pressure on it, she stopped by throwing herself to the ground. Then she got up and stood very calmly. This is the second time she's done this sort of thing, but the first I thought she'd just lost her balance. It genuinely seems to go deep that she must not put pressure on her halter, and it's self-reinforcing when she does this. It's nice when horses teach themselves things so you don't have to. She also was totally fine with everything she hadn't seen for months-- the bridge and the round bales.

I'm happy we have Reno under saddle. I think I'll finally have a trail horse. I haven't been more than 100 feet past the culvert under saddle since the first day I got back on a horse in October. When Nicky gets going, I hope that that will work for trails too.

I don't know what to do with Luca. When he's good, he's absolutely fabulous. When he's bad... well, damn he's bad. I can stay on no problem, but I'd rather be moving forward with our training instead of focusing on why we shouldn't buck whenever we damn well feel like it. Maybe Gillian should get on and see if the same thing happens to her, or if it's a me issue. I'm sick of him trying to kill me, and I want something fun to do. I'd rather have higher aspirations for a show than hoping Luca doesn't hop the chain and kill the judge.

Kitten Picture

Its not horse related (NHR) but here is a picture of the kittens. This is a good picture because you cant tell how filthy they are from a foiled attempt at getting them to eat some milk replacement stuff out of a dish. Every last one of them stepped into the dish repeatedly, many of them fell into the dish at least once, all of them got litter all over themselves when they got put back in the carrier and jumped straight into the litter box. From top to bottom its kittens 2, 3, and 4 I believe, and 1 is facing away. Alyssa should edit this if I'm mistaken.

Derailed by Kittens

So I was going to work on the path today. (really, I was) When I was looking for the clippers, however, I found four feral kittens instead. They're cute, they're fluffy and we spent the morning catching them. Alyssa caught kittens 1, 2, and 3, and I caught 4, the best kitten. We spent some time after that getting them a container set up, handling them, etc. We spent the evening working on kittens also. Eventually, one way or another, they're getting spayed/neutered and sent to homes that are not ours. More on all this will have to come from Alyssa.

We did get some horse stuff done. I rode Reno, which went well, he has a choppy trot which got choppier when Robert left the arena. Reno is very attached to Robert. He'll need to get used to leg pressure again after being a driving horse but really riding him is very very similar to driving him. He doesn't like to bend correctly in the cart either. I took Star on a walk and we crossed the bridge. I think that doing that trailer work got her used to the hollow sound that the bridge and the trailer both make when you step on them. I also took Papillon out for her first hack in a long time. She wanted to trot trot trot, at a minimum. I wanted her to walk. Sometimes the compromise was the worlds smoothest prance, but I think we wound up walking over 50% of the way around, maybe even 75%. Anyway, she'll need to get that out of her system but not overwork her shoulder at the same time. I think she can probably handle a half mile or so of trotting. If I wait for a sunny day (or, rather, the sunny part of a day) that will knock her out more quickly, since she's giant and black.

Tomorrow I'm probably going to ride Lady if nothing happens to dissuade me. Thursday its Colonel's big day. Ai ai ai, hopefully things will get less complicated, someday I'll just pull a horse out and ride it instead of having to plan exactly how everything needs to go down.
Someday....

Super short goals update

I've got ten minutes but I wanted to organize my thoughts on the matter of our immediate goals:

Papillon: Ride and get ready for dressage test

Star: Long line her until she's better balanced

Colonel: Come to Jesus meeting still scheduled for sometime

Reno: Ride and get ready for western pleasure show

Keno: N/A (we need Robert to help with the driving stuff)

Luca: Ride and Drive and get ready for show

Lady: lunge, apply hoof dressing and ride when she's sound again

Path: preliminary cutting of a human trail, to be widened into a horse trail

Cantering

We have got a lot on our plate these days. Yesterday, after the show, I got star out and worked her on the long lines a little. I also loaded her into the trailer and we stood there for a long time. I think that the work on the long lines helped a bit with her balance. I also think that it will help build her topline since she does start to put her head down when I have the reins set low on the surcingle. Although putting her head down isn't the same as collecting, it at least permits her to collect herself a little bit. When she throws her head up in the air she really cant help but hollow her back too. Theres no point in having long-ish pasterns if you're going to hollow your back. I think I'll try to long line her as much as possible, but I would like to get some riding hours on her too. In my copious spare time I think I'll also try to take her out riding, especially outside, get her used to the world again. I have got to work on that bridge crossing if we're going to take her to McIver park.

I rode Keno too, for my psychological benefit mostly. I have this thing about cantering. In and of itself I think it scares me a little. I really like doing it but its also the thing that happens before bad things happen to me or its the thing that causes the bad things to happen in the first place. I havent done it very much out at stoneybrook really. Papillon was rarely sound enough to canter and Keno often wasn't ridden at all because I was working other horses. Star is too unbalanced to do it well so she frequently stops dead and rears up if you ask her to canter. In the canter if you throw her balance off even slightly she stops dead (on her shoulder of course) and rears, frequently she refuses to move for a while after that. Colonel has the opposite reaction to his poor balance, he canters very very fast. It feels even faster if you've mostly been trotting before that.

My two worst spills (both resulting in concussions) were off of bolting horses. The first one I was jumping a horse I really should not have been jumping. It was a cavaletti and the horse had been an A-circuit jumper before this. Supposedly he had been lunged on a regular basis and every day he was getting better and better. Anyway, it was dumb, he rushed the jump, overjumped it, bucked then galloped off with me. I was standing in my stirrups so I couldnt use my seat to stop him, I tried to stop him, the last thing I remember was feeling my knees start to shake, I woke up on the ground and I have no idea how much memory I lost because no one was around. (Also a stupid thing to do, never jump by yourself.)

Getting concussed falling off Colonel didn't help. When I woke up from that I remembered most of what had happened but on the walk back to the barn (stupid thing to do, if you get concussed and wake up on the ground, stay on the ground) I started forgetting things and repeating myself. (And to the peanut gallery I would like to say, I forgot things more and faster than usual and repeated myself more than usual, not just the normal forgetting and repeating.) At least one of the times I was told that I had fallen off after trying to race Colonel against Shaina and Blue (rider and horse, respectively) I thought it was a stupid thing to have done. Having regained all my memory except for a few minutes in the barn talking to Ian I'm not sure that was a fair assessment. Colonel had been behaving well, we started the horses with a pretty good distance between them and I was feeling good. We said go and Blue broke from the "gate" like a proper racehorse. Colonel started bucking. After he had simmered down I figured I'd at least run after her, who knows Colonel is supposed to be pretty fast we could probably come close to catching her and I could try to pass that off as a tie or something. I had run Colonel to catch up to Shaina before, when we were chasing coyotes and that was fine. When I asked him to slow down this time, he pitched a fit. I pulled on the reins one direction, he pulled on the reins the other direction, I got pulled over onto his neck and off I went. Ian claims this isn't possible. I claim he's an idiot when it suits his purposes. I grabbed his mane long enough to get my legs underneath me but I still hit the ground hard enough to whack my head. Ever since then I've had little faith in my ability to determine whether or not a horse was going to stop when I asked him, and once again, any suggestion of excessive speed absolutely terrified me.

Working with a lesson horse at another barn helped a lot but now I need to practice at stoneybrook. The plan is to canter with Keno for a solid 5 minutes every day, gradually increase the time that I spend cantering without stopping to check and make sure that he'll stop, or to make sure that I'm not too tired to keep going without falling off. Yesterday I did 3 minutes each direction.

It was an experience I'm still processing but I did notice a few things. My sense of the passage of time is very poor, three minutes seemed to stretch on forever the first time around. The second time around it came up pretty fast. When I become concerned that we're going too fast, or the thought enters my head that I would like to stop now or that I'm falling off, or anything of the kind, I stiffen almost every relevant muscle in my body, which not only causes the obvious equitation problems, but it also makes me feel very tired. I think its like on your laptop with the estimated battery time. When the screen is bright the estimated time is much smaller than if you dim the screen to use less energy. When I tense up the likelihood of falling off increases; and the time I can spend before I cant keep that all up anymore decreases. So relaxing really helped but it is genuinely the case that it requires a great deal of conscious effort to keep in a balanced position. I can get into a rhythm trotting and then just completely zone out and be fine. I started to get to that point at the other barn, but the amount of time I could canter without too much conscious effort was pretty short. What doesnt help is that when I'm having fun I tend to lean forward. Not just on horseback, but its most noticeable on horseback because leaning forward creates a vicious cycle of leaning forward even more. So I've been using Keno to work on that. Eventually I think Lady and Colonel and maybe Reno will be good to practice with also, but right now Keno is the most reliable/sound horse we've got.

In daily miscellaneous items: I lunged Lady, walk only. She was quite good but still a little lame I think so I put some hoof dressing on her and put her back. For those keeping track we're now up to seven horses to either ride or get ready to ride: Reno, Keno, Colonel, Luca, Lady, Papillon, and Star. Plus the morgan/paint horse is in full training so it needs attention also. I assume its in training to be a driving horse but I havent heard yet. No work on Colonel today. Robert suggests using the western saddle for our come to jessus operation. The two main advantages are 1) we can rule out a saddle fit issue and 2) when it comes to actually riding him if he wants to pitch a fit its pretty easy to deal with. (I make it my policy to fall off a horse once its reared up to a certain height, and I've tested this personally: you can definitely fall backwards out of a western saddle on a rearing 7/8ths arabian mare.) The western saddle has the added bonus in my mind of being heavier than the other saddles, thus more weight to carry, thus less time getting dizzy if/when he decides to pitch a fit. No work on the trail yet either but I'm all set to go out there with some giant clippers and do some preliminary cutting. Also, a picture of Ian's baby horse:

Schooling Show etc.

So I woke up at 4:30 to get to the barn by 7. I'd considered bringing my show clothes the day before, but it was raining, so I set them on the hooks on my bed so I wouldn't forget. Of course, come yesterday at 5, I was frantically rummaging through my closet. After three or four times I remembered that I had put them on the hook, and it wasn't Ian's fault this time.

We get to the barn and Robert went off to get diesel and clean up. So Gillian spent a while fixing the snap on my helmet ("I was right! You DO have to emasculate it!!") and I spent the time being ridiculously nervous. The plan was to ride Luca for a solid hour, trailer him over half an hour before the class, warm up for ten or fifteen minutes, do the test, put him back in the trailer and wait for the scores. He loooooves being in the trailer, he'll actually pull you towards it if the door is open, so this isn't exactly punishment or cruelty. Probably because he was a stallion, we were first so there weren't nearly as many horses around as there would be later.

In actuality! I rode him for maybe five minutes at the barn, decided he was listening, went back and changed, vacuumed the horse, loaded everything, and went off. I went and checked in and got my number. I walked back to see Gillian and Robert trying to tack up Luca while he was being an absolute idiot. Got on, went in the ring to trot around, he took off bucking, no one was harmed and he stopped. I had to dismount to fix his saddle pad and to get my jacket, got back on, trotted again and did transitions, and it was time for our test. I had maybe two minutes to work on him.

I felt we did okay. Luca just wanted to go go go, and he made that clear. On the other hand, it was a show, so he made an effort to contain himself. As soon as we got out of the arena and asked him to stop, he got a little silly with sidestepping and whirling. He was untacked and put back in the trailer with some hay. Robert walked around like a gleeful little boy (which, admittedly, he does most of the time). We placed second in our division, tied for first with points (60.5%). In the comments, it included "horse will be great when he pays more attention."

Good things to come out of this show:
1) my first show in 7 years, first one I trailered too also
2) Robert has finally realized Luca needs major ground manner work
3) hopefully Luca will realize that we're doing this for shows, and his work ethic will improve

We got back after Robert treating us to breakfast, I changed back into my usual persona of barn rat. Robert's given Gillian his blessing to start working with Lady, and he wants to take either her or Papillon to the next dressage show for Gillian.

I rode Papillon, she was sound hooray! but pretty pushy and annoyed when I asked her to collect her walk. Every time we went near the door she started trotting, she was so excited to go outside.

We were talking to Robert, and I mentioned showing Keno, since he'd be fine and his owner would get a major kick out of it. This happened to trigger a thought in Robert's brain, and he said "no, you know who we should get riding? Reno." Reno's a palomino paint, Keno's full brother, and he's the other major driving horse. There's a benefit show coming up June 6th that Robert is taking Reno and Luca to. Luca is doing halter, riding, and driving, and Reno was just driving. BUT, now Robert wants him to do western pleasure. He's been ridden, but not extensively and not for several years. This, however, has given me the excuse I needed to buy cowboy boots, and Gillian found a marvelously tacky shirt to go along with them. I am pleased, I suspect Ian will be mildly outraged.

to introduce Ian- he is my boyfriend. He showed for several years on the A-circuit, hunter-jumpers, and is an excellent rider. He's also a tad snobby, a little opinionated, and basically thinks that anything we do to have fun with our horses means we aren't serious riders. He used to ride Lady, but seeing as he's come out a maximum of four times this last semester, he's forfeited his right to her. You'll probably be hearing more about him next month when he comes back to Oregon.

Day before the schooling show

Tomorrow is the little show. Alyssa and Luca will be doing the dressage test described earlier. For reasons that are unclear to me Robert decided that today we needed to clean the hay barn. It looks very nice but we spent a long time on it so we didn't get as much done as we could have otherwise. The hay barn looks good though, at least for now.

I loaded Star into the trailer. She got no grass this time for just her front feet and she caught on pretty quickly to the idea that she needed all four feet in the trailer. The second time in she was pretty nervous about Robert and Chuck (Roberts brother) and was seriously considering attempting to bolt out. I decided to make her stay in, she needs to learn to stay in the trailer even when scary stuff is happening. I loaded her up twice, and as before, made her leave before she was done eating grass.

I took lady out and brushed her down thoroughly, leaving large clumps of white winter hair on the ground. Lady has been rubbing the hair off a spot on her chest but other than that she looked pretty good. Because she has some girthing issues from her past I decided to put a surcingle on her to practice for when I need to put a saddle on her. I tightened it ever so very slowly. Mostly it went well. Twice she started fussing a lot, tossing her head, walking forward into the crossties and so on. The first time it happened as I was tightening her girth the second time I remember I wasnt tightening her girth but I dont remember exactly what I was doing. So I'm not sure if both times she was fussing because of the girth or because she was angry that Keno was getting out and working and she wasnt, or just because. Who knows with these horses sometimes?

The actual lungeing went well enough. We had to re-visit the concept of moving out on the circle when asked. We also had a couple of attempts to switch directions on me and to take a different gait than the one I wanted but she cooled down and toed the line pretty quickly. Sometime I think I'll have to post the story of our first lungeing experience together. She short version is that she tried to kill me and after an hour and a half or so of battling it out I won and after that she was pretty happy to see me whenever I walked by her run. So we just had a little refresher.

Although when Alyssa says a horse looks lame I'm usually skeptical she did indeed catch a problem both Robert and I missed on our first look but eventually noticed. She was limping on her right foreleg because her frog had a crack in it. Robert prescribed this black goopey stuff to paint on to her hoof which should help keep her frogs from drying out and cracking and should help them heal. She never seemed like she was in any pain, she was really happy to be out and doing things, I think. I put some fuzzy stuff on her bridle so that it wont rub off her hair this year. Last summer those bridle shaped bald spots on her face made me crazy. I also switched her back to her old halter, which actually fits. I conditioned it and now the only problem with it is that it has a plate with her registered name on it (La Grande Dame) rather than a plate commemorating Ian's winning some show at the Columbia equestrian center or something. Ian will get over it and Lady will have a halter that fits and a bridle that doesnt cause cosmetic damage to her face.

Star is now using a cob bridle borrowed from Alyssa. Its not a good color for her but unlike her previous bridle, its all one color and not made from pieces of three different bridles. Plus it fits, unlike her old bridle which had extra holes punched in it just to get close. She had a gash in her lip that I cant explain and that didn't seem to bother her at all. So I put a saddle on her (thanks to Alyssa for that excellent suggestion btw) and rode her for a while. She was OK, she made her transitions much better today because I remembered that half-halts should precede transitions. (Thanks to Captain Should-have-been-obvious-by-now for that excellent suggestion.) She was woefully unbalanced though. She cant use her hind end and she can't balance and she's spooky and suspicious and stubborn, randomly head shy and assorted other oh so desirable qualities. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a lost cause. She and I rode around outside a little. That could have gone worse, but I've definitely had better ideas. At one point she spooked and I lost both my stirrups due to an attempt by my subconscious to curl me up into a fetal ball. Fortunately once I didn't have any stirrups I proceded to do the right thing: stretch my legs down as far as they go, sit up straight and tall, and then get her back under control.

I dont think I can do anything with her really until her balance is fixed. I could take her outside more but I think I'll wait for a sunny hot day. When its hot she gets tired faster, plus there are no puddles for us to fight over. (I think they're safe, she things they're bottomless pits disguised as puddles.) Robert reccomends a long line exercise for balance correction. Basically you send her in a circle and at random intervals change the circle direction, which forces them to balance themselves for the turn. For extra fun, instead of making the circling random, watch them and every time they get off balance, turn them. I did this with Keno a lot. He was displeased but I think Alyssa will testify that his balance is reasonably good these days, except for the shoulder dropping thing. We'll work on that at some point.

I picked Papillons hoves, did absolutely nothing with Colonel, and Alyssa rode Luca. We've got a new pinto-morgan thing in training. Should be fun. That means we'll have seven horses to work. If you don't count Imp, or Reno. Plans for the near future (besides job hunting in the non-horsey world) include:

• Long line Star to try to teach her to balance
• Lunge Lady and practice putting the surcigle on her again
• Ride Papillon!
• The previously described come-to-Jesus meeting with Colonel

If I have a good day on the lunge line with Lady I think I'll try putting a saddle and bridle on her and walking around a little. Loose rein, keeping it short and inside the indoor arena, walk only. The last thing I want is for her to get tense and/or hyped up.

I have no idea how long I'm going to be long lining Star. Teaching Colonel to pick up the right lead canter took almost a month on the long lines last summer. I think Lady will get going fairly quickly and I think the same thing about Colonel still. Poor Papillon keeps getting pushed to the back burner.

I'm supposed to be out the door by 6:00 am tomorrow in order to get to the barn by 7 so I guess I'll be off to bed now.

Star, plus the rest of the day

I rode Star after lunch. I'm glad I decided to put a saddle on her because she was not quite behaving herself the way she should. It really wasnt so bad though. I walked her around the arena a few times because there was that backhoe parked at the other end. She was displeased by this, also the barrels as always and Imp being out there pulling the cart was a touch offensive also. She stood for mounting pretty nicely but the started walking off before I managed to reach for my other stirrup. She did a little bit of head in the air pissed off sideways trot that she does sometimes. I stopped her and got my stirrup and off we went. I spent most of the time practicing some of the mental exercises from the centered riding book I just got. Staying aware of my peripherial vision (a.k.a. "soft eyes") and letting my attention continue moving over all the different things she talks about, relaxed hips, relaxed ankles, stretching up tall, breathing from the diaphram, etc. etc. That was helpful and star was mostly pretty good. When she did break into the pissy sideways head up trot or variations thereon, she came down pretty fast and I sat it pretty well. Her pissed off trot is very smooth. As is her calm trot. After walking around for a good long while doing some circles and serpentines we did a little trot.

The first trot transition I asked for was a mess, she stopped and reared up and cocked her head really far to the side. So I asked her to walk again and then I just focused on being super relaxed and stable and centered and just asked with my voice for the trot. Simmillar pissy reaction but then I squeezed with my legs a little and we were off. It was a bouncy, rushed trot that I stopped after like 15 strides to practice the transition a little bit more. Again, center, relax ask with the voice then the leg, it was a little better transition but still very fast. I think she's just not good at transitions and so when she does it on her own terms its when she happens to be ready for it but she doesn't know how to get herself ready to trot when I ask her to. Many lunge line transitions and long line transitions, plus some trot poles maybe? I'm not sure why I think trot poles will help, but I do. I need to teach her how to use that hind end of hers. I worked with her outside for a while trying to get her to walk around the outdoor arena. She balked and backed up so I wound up backing her all the way to the end of the arena and then walking around from there. After doing that two or three times she was willing to walk around it. I was going to do it the other direction but the girth I was using was comandeered.

Alyssa and Luca were nice to watch. Since Alyssa wanted some feedback and Robert didn't seem interested in critiquing I tried my hand at it. It was a strange process because most of the things I saw were subtle or only fairly small things but I said them anyway. It was kindof an experiment for me because I had some theories about what small things might be out of place, I wasnt sure but I went for it and then I tried to see if Luca behaved any better as a result. The only thing that I really clearly helped with was reminding Alyssa to sit back. Luca really can pull from what I could see and that pulled her forward, not much but enough. When you're a little bit forward then it encourages the horse to pull and its harder to resist the pull so a little bit of sitting up goes a long way. Everything else, stretching tall, relax this joint, relax that, stretch down, wrists firm, etc. at the very least I think served to improve focus a little bit even if the content of the comment itself wasnt actually of much use. I haven't tested this yet but I think it will be helpfull for my own riding to spend time looking at someone elses riding and being able to comment and see the resulting changes in horse and rider. One thing it's really impressed upon me is the importance of relaxation. And I've started to think about my own riding differently. I feel like I have an easier time seeing it in the third person and thinking about my position in a more formal way. Plus my sense of cause and effect, which can really take a beating riding green horses, has been strengthened. So its working out well for me anyway. ;)

In misc. news: Robert is looking for a bow saw for me but I have some pretty heavy duty clippers and the next time its convenient I'm going to go out and do some clipping! We have the green light to ride Lady. I think some lungeing first will be in order. Papillon was really annoying about standing still for having her hooves picked. I think I'll need to help with the feed and then after everyone is fed, tie her and pick her hooves. I found a big sharp rock in her shoe though so I at least feel like I did something helpful. Her right frog is re-growing nicely but her left one is still nearly non-existant. Show time is nearly upon us (Saturday) and its pretty exciting.

Colonel

So today was a productive day, with a healthy mix of progress, frustration, education and exercise. The first horse I got out was Colonel. He was so good yesterday, and I was feeling pretty good so I figured I'd hop on him and see how he does. I was brushing him down and I was doing a fairly slow careful job because I had gotten lax about this in the past so I wanted to start off on the right foot. All of the sudden he starts shaking his head, violently. I figure that something is bothering him or he wants attention or something so I ignore it and finish up my grooming. I go to put the saddle on and he's still doing it, and he's doing it worse, so I decide to take a different approach. I smacked him on the shoulder every time he shook his head like that. It was having a small effect and I grabbed a crop so that I could swat him more effectively. I got the saddle on and he had calmed down but I couldn't find the bridle.

So we walked over to the other barn, he led quite well, and I tied him in that barn and he was fine, still no bridle. I just held him and poked my head into the tack room in the main barn, still nothing. So I go back to the hay barn and as soon as we set foot in it he starts shaking his head again. I put him in the cross ties and he's still shaking his head and it was hard to clip the cross ties on him. I smacked him in the shoulder again and he quieted down long enough for me to put the clips on him. Then she's shaking his head again, flipping it up in the air, swinging it from side to side the works. I thought, since he had been good in the other barn and the problem started up again the instant we came into this barn, maybe it's too dusty in there so I walked him out a few feet to put the bridle on him (it was in Robert's tack room the whole time, of course.)

No sooner had I got the bridle on him he was back to shaking his head but this time he was also spinning around, I think he was whacking his head into me on purpose, he pushed me with his shoulder, (I hate it when he does that) and I had to knee him in the barrel to keep him away from me. I thought maybe the noseband was too tight, it was already done up when I put it on him and I handn't checked, the way he was freaking out it seemed like something was hurting him so I tried to get the bridle off him. He wouldnt let me touch is face, and he flipped out when I touched the nose band. I finally managed to get him to hold still just long enough to undo it and then off he goes again, running in circles, I think he had started bucking by that point. I'm holding the reins because I dont have a halter on him. I've got it in my hand and I'm trying to get it on him and he throws his head away from me so suddenly and so forcefully that I lose my grip on the reins and off he goes. Nothing seems to be bothering him while he's munching on grass outside the barn and I walk up to get him and he starts to trot into the barn but he stops to look back and I grabbed him. He tried to pull me over to where he wanted to go but God knows I've spent enough time being pulled by Colonel to know what it takes to beat him. I bent my knees, rocked back on my heels and pulled on him and he stopped walking but again with the head shaking. I managed to get the halter on, dont remember how, I know he was shaking his head the whole time but I just got it around his nose and pulled until I could get the buckle closed over his poll. I started to lead him to the arena to get some help/diagnostics from Robert, he crashed his shoulder into me and I smacked him with the end of the lead rope and sent him flying around in circles. More bucking ensued and around and around he went. He actually led reasonably well up to the barn, some head tossing but not that bad. Robert asked me how he's doing and I was still breathing pretty hard from fighting with him and just so frustrated I felt like I could scream.

Robert took him, Jade left the arena because they were finished with their lesson. Jerry was getting Imp out to get his lesson. So Robert tells me, oh, you don't want the halter to be on like this and takes off the halter and starts to take of the bridle so he can put the halter back on. But he didn't keep the halter around Colonel's neck so when Colonel sees that he's free he starts to back away from Robert and make a run for the gate. Robert cut him off and I sprinted for the gate. Robert was clutching Colonels nose still and had pinned him against the fence and was getting the halter back on. Once it was back on Colonel was still tossing his head. Every time he tossed his head Robert jerked on the lead line and backed him up and glared at him a little bit. He said that there was no reason for him to be doing that, that Colonel smelled sweaty and that he didn't like the way his eyes were looking either. I asked if it could be the saddle bothering him. The girth was loose but we decided to test it anyway. We took it off and for a few seconds he was calm, but then violent head tossing again. Robert checked him all over for soreness and found none. We got a lunge line and Robert lunged him a little bit. He was mediocre and Robert told me to long line him for about 10 minutes and then put him back.

I got the long lines all set up. Colonel is perfectly calm in the cross ties at the main barn, bits well, stands for everything and I lead him out to the arena. When we stop in the arena he doesnt stop straight but instead whirls around in front of me. I straighten him out and get myself set up to drive. He is absolutely terrible on the long lines. He tosses his head and he pulls and pulls on me. One thing I like about the long lines is that when there's too much rein contact I know exactly who's fault it is and its not mine. He doesnt want to walk on a straight track away from the wall but I do my best. After a few minutes he wants to trot which is annoying. He also wants to stop and start a lot. We get a few decent runs around the arena without too much fuss so I put him back, frustrated and confused. (I am anyway; Colonel, who knows?.) Robert asks me how he was and I told him I was out of my dept with him. He said "you're better than you think" I replied "That could but but I think he's worse than you think." Robert thinks I was doing the same thing he would be doing but agreed to take him out while I watched. He'll decide what he thinks needs to be done, I'd decide if I think I can do it. The working theory is that he's just being a bastard and the way to punish him is to lunge him until he's tired when he starts acting up.

The question is, how do you set it up so that you can lunge him in response to him doing something stupid, and what stupid thing he does do you want to punish him for? You can take him out on a lunge line and he's pretty much fine. I think the trouble probably starts when you give him the impression he's going to be ridden. I think he has a problem with bits. He likes to lean on them and he's offended when they restrain him. I don't get it. Robert says there are no sores in his mouth so thats not the problem. At a minimum I think I'll need to put a saddle on him for this operation. What I'm leaning towards right now is putting a saddle on him, leading him out to the arena on a lunge line, bridle in hand. If he starts fussing for that part, great, send him out and lunge him for that. I wish there was a good way we could warm him up for this maybe I'll take him straight out to the arena, lunge him at a walk, then take him back and put a saddle on him. Then he'll be warmed up and I can send him off galloping/bucking without too much concern. I dont want him to pull something. Anyway, assuming he'll fuss once the saddle is on, when do I start with the lunging? When he starts tossing his head? Should I wait until it gets sufficiently violent? I want to make sure he knows what he did wrong besides just generally pissing me off. If he doesnt lead right, and starts prancing and/or tossing his head that would definitely be a good lunging moment. Ultimately I'll probably just go out there and when the moment feels right I'll send him out there and make him wish he hadn't messed with me but I'd like to have some thoughts beforehand about what I'm looking for.

Whether or not he fusses with the saddle I want to put the bridle on him and lead him around with that on. If/when he fusses over that: again, out on the circle, working hard until he really wishes he wasnt. Once there is no fuss with the bridle I want to get on him. I'll have the halter on under the bridle and if he gives me any fuss I'll hop off him and lunge him. He aught to be damn tired/docile by that point so I dont think it will be a problem but I dont want to do this on multiple days because he will be sore, I dont want to take him out sore and I'm curious how he will behave the following day. This will be a come-to-Jesus type operation. We'll have to walk him out a lot after all this. Under saddle wont do it either, he'll need to be hot walked but I think he'll probably be seeing the light at this point and should lead pretty well. And if he doesn't .... :)
The next day he'll need to be hot walked too. Just walking around no likely amount of soreness will excuse/explain misbehaving and I might send him out on another round of run-till-you-wish-you-weren't but I want to decisively deal with this, the leading, the head tossing, the generally pissyness, all of it. A serious attitude adjustment is what I hope this will accomplish.

Home

I have returned from Colorado! I took two lessons at a fancy H-J barn, which prompted a couple thoughts. One, I have forgotten how to jump. Two, I've forgotten even worse how to jump at a canter. Three, 2' jumps shouldn't be terrifying, even if they are oxers. Four, how the hell do they tell those horses apart? They're all bay. Seriously. I had to go get my mare from turnout, so Ian went with me because he's seen Abby more than I have. At least they're turned out separately, but damn. I assessed her on the facts that she was a mare, the approximately correct shade of bay, had a big star, and had saddle marks from being ridden yesterday. Luckily I was right.

My shoulder's still a little iffy from falling off Keno, but that doesn't seem to impact riding. My goals for tomorrow are probably just to ride Luca and Keno, and not fail miserably at either. I got a few minutes of a bending lesson which I can implement for Keno right away, though I may wait for Luca til after the show so I don't blow his conniving little mind.

First day back

Ok, it was my first day back on the farm and I managed to make it a fairly productive one I think. Robert and I worked Luca, Imp and Reno in the cart. I practiced loading Star into the trailer. I lunged Colonel, and I scouted out the hill a little bit and generated some new thoughts about the hill path.
While we were getting out Luca and getting him ready to go I worked on convincing Robert of two things. 1) He needs to be giving better feedback about Alyssa's riding and 2) Luca really really needs to have better manners enforced more often. He definitely agreed with item two, but I think it will take a little more shaming into it. One thing that I think will help is that one of Luca's little 'excursions' wound up running him into the bridle-cleaning hook, this got snagged on his bridle. He wouldn't step forward when I asked him to and instead he backed up, pulled the bridle off his head and put a cut right down his nose. The cut is long but not wide. Robert's reaction was the usual "its far from his heart" but also more amusing to me, "I'll have to move that hook." Yep, that's clearly the solution just move everything out of the way so that when he goes wandering around in the cross ties he wont bump into anything and then refuse to follow instructions to help get him out of whatever mess he manages to find. The drive itself was quite nice and uneventful.

I did some trailer loading with star a couple of times. The first time I just let her sniff it, I had her with me while I was opening it up and locking the door open, which startled her frequently but she got over it as quickly as always. I grabbed some grass and led her up to the trailer. She was pretty happy to put her front feet up on the trailer in exchange for grass or even just release of pressure on the lead rope. Whenever something unexpected happened she got down off the trailer in a hurry. I let her get down but I didn't let her get very far away from the trailer; I always made her get back up again afterward. I put her back briefly because I decided that the thing to do was to stockpile grass instead of getting grass, bringing her to the trailer, getting her front hooves up on the trailer, feeding her the grass, backing her up off the trailer and then repeating this process again. After a little bit of coaxing and a lot of standing around cultivating an air of boredom and disinterest she decided to get in the trailer. I got her in twice, then Robert came and we took out Luca. Then, after Luca was done with and Imp (who bucked and reared when we were out with him) was done, I got the machete and cut a lot more grass and we loaded up again. By the fourth time in the trailer she was getting in pretty quickly. It still took some coaxing but it was a lot faster. I made her stay in the trailer a while, she at some grass but before she finished the grass I backed her out of the trailer. When I led her away she was looking wistfully at the grass in the back of the trailer. I hope that impression of wanting to get back in the trailer will stick in her mind and I'll see if Robert will pull the trailer up again for us sometime.

I took Colonel out to lunge. He was really quite good. We did a long warm up at the walk and he was his old calm, lazy self. He also did his usual western pleasure trot (a.k.a. twinkle toes trot) Most of our work was done over the pole, everything except for warming up and cooling down, actually. We did lots of walk trot transitions and then lots of trot canter transitions. The walk trot transitions were good. He was generally pretty good about picking up his feet over the pole at the walk and trot. He didn't do as good a job at the canter.

Going to the right he would pick up the left lead canter every time he crossed the pole, but he was quite obliging about switching, after a while he did it without being asked. I was pleased about this. To the right though he was actually better about his pace and his transitions but not about picking up his feet. At one point he managed to step on the pole with his front feet, sending it shooting backwards and then he stepped on it with his back feet. He was unhappy about this and the next time around he jumped the pole, but he landed on the right lead so that's good right? Achem.

Going to the left he was a little bit more rambunctious. Robert and I independently came to the conclusion that he's a little more off balance going to the left. I guess I neglected the left lead canter a little too much last summer. That should be a quick fix though. It wast too bad all and all. He bucked a little, threw his head in the air a little, and he was a little too fast. After doing some canter-trot transitions he calmed down at the canter. I think he stepped under himself better after doing some transitions and I think knowing it was coming led him to believe that a saner canter would be the easiest option for him if he wanted to get back to his twinkle toes trot. In both directions though I was unsatisfied with his competence at setting himself up for the pole and, more importantly, picking up his damn feet! I thought about getting on him, since he had been so good, but I was tired and hungry after scouting out the trail so I didn't, but I definitely will tomorrow. I definitely see a lot a lot a lot of trot poles in that boy's future.

Scouting out the trail was interesting. I was wrong in thinking that a machete to clear the brush would be sufficient. That trail will need to be cut with a chainsaw, not a machete. The problem is that there are all these little clumps of tree-like things. The way they grow they'll just have to be cut at the base I think, in order to clear enough head space for a horse and rider to go through. The grade is a little too steep to go straight up, but the soil is about right for the retaining wall idea. There's plenty of space though for a nice conditioning trail. I'll have to get over my fear of chainsaws and its going to be slow going. I'll need Robert to help me plan the trail. I want to go in with stakes and some bright ribbon to mark out the proposed trail that way I can just go in and cut. I think it will take most of the summer to build it but I still want to try.

Robert things that McIver park is more like 30 minutes away and with a horse trailer that might be right but he's still willing to take us sometime. I forgot to ask him about riding Lady, and I'll need to talk to him more about the trail and about chainsaws. Those things really scare me but I think I'll just have to buck up and be careful. In other barn improvement news, they're still cutting hay in the fields but they've got the section between the first creek and the gazebo done. Robert says we can set up some jumps there. I think we'll have Colonel jumping out there before you know it. Although I guess we'll start in the arena. ;) Robert claims that the main thing keeping them from moving into the new house is he needs to find out where the sheet rockers damaged the wiring to the dishwasher. Once he finds it and fixes it they're moving in or so he claims. Oh, and also we got a new horse in today. Its a breeding stock paint, which apparently is a paint horse that isn't color but that can produce color. 14'2 or shorter. I think she (he?) is pretty cute. The owner is a nice girl I only interacted with her briefly. The horse is one that likes to walk under the rope. Didn't even wait for me to walk off before starting to slip under that rope across his door, as though that was what he was supposed to do and there was no reason to hide it. So now we're up to four horses that need their doors closed at all times during feeding. Super. Last news-ish item: I've shed the title of working student and adopted the title of intern.

Goals for tomorrow:
Ride Colonel
Dressage Lesson for Luca
Load star again?
Ride Papillon and ask her to frame up at the walk a little.
Take Lady out and brush her.
Ride star, or lunge her over a pole like I did with Colonel.

McIver State Park

Ever since I've been out at the barn I keep hearing people talk about going riding out at Miguiver park. People have even said "oh, you should come with me next time I go down." Well it all just came together now. The title of the post ruins the punchline but its McIver state park. And its a 15 minute drive from the barn right down the highway. Its right along the river and it has horse trails. I think I'm going to add to my list of goals, for both Star and Colonel (and maybe Lady) we need to take them to the park and bring them back alive and sound, etc.

We'll need to practice loading Star. I'm going to take Robert's advice and just bring some food into the trailer, tie her to the trailer, sit down with a good book and wait for her to get hungry enough to walk in. I think I'll work with her first though. Get her stepping through the water, stepping over the bridge (preferably without lots of balking and head shaking) walking through those giant scary hay bales, etc. I wonder if Colonel loads well already. He probably hasnt been loaded into a trailer in years. Same goes for Papillon and Lady. I think the thing to do for the first trip is to take papillon out with one of them at a time. She's reasonably calm around strange stuff like this. She might get a little hyped up but by the time we're attempting all this hopefully she will have figured out that she gets to work after, and not before, warming up. Maybe we should take Papillon and Keno out first to scout the trails so we have a better idea what we're dealing with. Actually its only 7 miles of trail, we could do it on foot too. Anyway, its another project I'm exited about.

Family trip to the barn II

So I think things went well. It was too hot to hike out and see the stream and whatnot. Robert wasn't there so no carriage rides either. We pet all the horses (except Luca, of course). Colonel and Reno came when called. Star came when I walked out and then walked back. Papillon came after I threw a rope around her neck and then she had no problem. Everyone was good with people except Lady. Lady looked at my sister Becca, who reached out to pet her. Lady swung her head away, straight into me, startled herself and retreated back into her stall. I'll grant you that normally one doesn't start out touching a strange horse right on the face but still. I claim this is further evidence that she needs to get out more often, interact with more people, etc.

I got Papillon out and hopped on her for a photo op. She was pretty good. Mostly because for mounting and dismounting I let her eat grass. Plus it was a really hot day and she was sweaty under her mane and around her ears. Not that this stopped her from trying to trot off, or from gazing wistfully off into the distance. Maybe when she gets in better shape she'll be sound more often and she'll be able to do more and stay sound at the same time. Its just painful somtimes to see how much she wants to go out there and run and jump and she can't.

Abby wanted to know (with a raised eyebrow) how often we cleaned these horses. Colonel had been rolling, evidently. My grandmother was a little put off by Luca kicking at his stall. He started when we were looking at Lady and Papillon. Then he started again when we walked away. All in all, a good trip. I lied about the pictures though. I forgot and left my camera in the car.

Family trip to the barn

So I'm taking some family members on a trip out to the barn. No one will be there but me so I'm not sure what to show them. If Robert were here we'd probably take a horse out for a drive. As it is I think I might take them on the farm all purpose vehicle, the cushman to see the property. Plus petting the horses. I feel like I should take at least one horse out and maybe do something but I dont know what exactly. I guess I could take Papillon out and jump on her and see if I can get her to do a little collected walk or something. I could jump either star or colonel in hand, thats sortof impressive but its a little risky since I havent handled either of them in a while and I'm not sure how well they're doing that sort of thing these days. Maybe the cushman tour will be plenty. One thing is certain, I can get some pictures of the barn in spring to post, if I remember to bring my camera.

The path

Sometimes I get it into my head that this one thing is going to fix all my problems if I can just get it set up right. Right now that thing is working horses on a sloping path. It's supposed to be great for building up a hind end and for muscle and coordination in general. Papillon needs to build up muscle again, and her hind end is pretty deficient right now and walking on a slope would be great. Colonel needs to learn to balance and to not work on the forehand so much. Going up will force him to use his hind end and going down hills will motivate him to focus on what he is doing because there's nothing I can do to keep him from falling on his face. Star has a very strong shoulder, but she hasn't really developed or learned to engage her hind end and she has no topline. People think she's ewe necked because her underline is so much more developed than her topline.

The problem is: stoneybrook is flat. Very flat, I think a small glacier flattened it out a while ago. I should say though, most of stoney brook is flat. The valley ends and there is a pretty good hill at the end of the property. The problem is that right at the base of the hill the trails stop. So the whole thing is covered in brambles, blackberries, and generally thick underbrush plus trees. Currently absolutely impassable. I asked a friend of mine who also works there sometimes to clear a path. He was excited about it too; Lady is his big project and her hind end needs developing too if she is going to get back to jumping. He was always clearing brush anyway with that machete. I am a little scared of them. I can very easily envision chopping my own head off with one. Anyway, no path was built, so now its up to me.

People keep telling me that machetes are not really so bad and that it will be fine. So I've decided to do it. But I realized after scouting the place out that its not so obvious where to put the path, what grade it needs to be, how much the footing is going to need to be reenforced, where exactly the property line is, etc. etc. So I've been reading about trail design and the needs of horses in particular. I suspect I'm going to have to build some retaining walls, just simple ones, but I dont know yet. On my first mission, almost a year ago now, I didn't really get into the thick of it very far. I thought I had successfully delegated this task. Now that I finally have the opportunity to get back to the barn on a regular basis its gone and gotten intensely hot and I think this is a mission requireing long sleeved clothing, and I'm a little worried about ticks, so maybe a hood? Evidently I've signed myself up for a trip out there very early in the morning. But, its going to be a great project.

Diagram

Just call me the master of procrastination. In lieu of homework this morning, I have made this spiffy diagram of the dressage test. Next up, biochemistry, hooray! Note, there is a line missing because it had a spiffy color gradient signifying the transition from trot to walk. Sometimes strange things happen when I make these and then change formats. Other note: I dont claim this is exactly right, I just did my best. Final note: Red=working trot Dark blue: medium walk Light blue: free walk or whatever they call it

Dressage test!

So I have this test on the 24th. And I don't know it yet.
A: enter working trot rising.
X: halt through medium walk.
Salute - Proceed medium walk
C: track right medium walk.
M: working trot rising
B: circle right 20m, working trot rising.
straight ahead
Between B and F: medium walk
K-X-M: Free walk.
M: medium walk.
C: Working trot rising.
E: circle left 20m, WTR.
straight ahead
A: down centerline
X: halt through medium walk. Salute.
leave arena in free long rein walk, exit at A

Assuming we get our long walk down and better circles (which are my fault), and Luca doesn't decide to bowl over the judge when I ask for a trot at C, I think we'll be okay. I know the pattern, now I just need to remember the gaits. Poor Keno and Papillon will see a lot of Intro A tests in their near future.

Goals II

I dont feel like working right this moment so I'm also going to do a goals post.
I second everything said about luca, keno, and Papillon, but I'd like to expand on Colonel.

Colonel: Its hard to know exactly what needs to be done without figuring out where he is right now. At the end of the summer he was cantering in a balanced fashion, mostly, and we were starting him over small jumps. At the trot he was reasonably good about calmly taking the fences. At a canter he was convinced that he needed to go very fast in order to get over. Watching him jump on the lunge line at the canter makes me think this might actually be true. When he came up to it calmly and tried to jump the small rail, he knocked it over. When he sped up to get over it, he didnt have too much trouble. I agree that more practice would proabably help, but I think this is an issue that could better be solved with more flatwork. He needs to learn to actually collect himself at the canter. Without leaning on anyones hands, I might add. I suspect that a lot of his more mentally based issues would get better with consistent work. So in summation my goals for him are:

• diagnostics to see what we're dealing with
• calmer behavior in general and particularly outdoors
• a collected canter
• jumping at the trot in a calm fashion
• jumping at the canter both calmly and correctly (ie, clearing the jump)

Star,
I'm was pretty happy with her walk and trot and the end of the summer. She was yielding to leg pressure, stopping, and generally pretty calm. She did have/develop a fear of logs which definitely needs fixing. She picked up the canter only when she was well set up with the corrrect bend, usually from a circle was easyest. She needs more practice with her canter transitions so that she'll be more balanced for the transition. She needs to be more balanced at the canter in general so that she doesnt feel the need to stop and rear or balk so much. At least I think thats the problem. Her headset is aweful. Really just terrible. It doesnt help her balance any. Plus she'll never be able to jump anything well if she doesnt develop a topline and learn to collect herself. She doesnt exactly scream jumping prospect but if she could jump an 18" crosrail she would be much more valuable, which is important if she's sold someday. Along with headest goes collection. She needs it. Also I'd like her to stop shying from the barrels in the arena, thats annoying. In summation my goals for star are:
Bring her back to a more calm state of mind by getting her in work

• Get her in a little better shape since she's been off work so much
• Get her to set her head properly
• Get her collected at the w/t/c
• Get her balanced at the canter
• Get her to be more calm around logs
• Get her to accept things moving around by her feet
• Maybe start working her over jumps again if she can get the above stuff down
• Get her to stop attacking other horses
  
• Get her to stop shying at the barrels at the end of the arena
  

As a side note, I'd like to make sure lady is ridden consistently. She deserves that. And try to get her a little calmer just walking around.

Also, for the barn, I'd like to clear a path up that hill. It would be nice to have a sloping path to walk up. Either get Ian to do it or just go out there and do it myself (or with help?). I just dont want to kill anyone, or myself, with that machete but it might be the fastest way to go. We'll see.

Shopping

The problem when I start shopping is that I cant stop. Haven't bought anything but I've spent over an hour tracking down all the things I might want to buy. I have this thought "if I buy them all at once then I dont have to pay more shipping charges, so I'm saving money right?" I made a list:
Boots:

40$ back zip leather
http://www.horseloverz.com/GATSBY-Ladies-Back-Zip-Jod-Boots-pr-276765.html

40$ elastic leather
http://www.horseloverz.com/GATSBY-Ladies-Elastic-Side-Jod-Boots-pr-289063.html

Breeches:

19.20$ black and grey low waist
http://www.horseloverz.com/Ovation-Fine-Line-Low-Rider-K-P-Breech-pr-189649.html

cob bridle 19$:
http://www.horseloverz.com/Hampton-Court-Square-Raised-Bridle-Havanna-Cob-pr-125120.html

saddle pads:
15$
http://www.horseloverz.com/Horseware-Amigo-Square-Saddle-Pad-pr-187976.html

9$
http://www.horseloverz.com/--CLOSEOUT-SPECIAL-ONLY-$8.95-CLASSIC-Square-Saddles-Pads-Assorted-pr-226072.html

protective pad 12$
http://www.horseloverz.com/QUALITY-&-PRICE!!-Henri-de-Rivel-Fleece-Wither-Pad-White-Full-pr-290160.html

white square pad 8.3$
http://www.horseloverz.com/EPONA-Square-Quilted-Saddle-Pad-pr-169582.html

fleece saddle pad 19$
http://www.horseloverz.com/Fleece-English-Saddle-Pad-All-Purpose-white-See-description-pr-148580.html

running breastplate attachment 8$:
http://www.horseloverz.com/EquiRoyal-Running-Breastplate-Attachment-Brown-pr-291758.html

cob size running martingale 15$
http://www.horseloverz.com/Silver-Fox-Running-Martingale-pr-296060.html

nylon full size running martingale 15$:
http://www.horseloverz.com/Performers-1st-Choice-Adjustable-Nylon-Martingale-Brown-pr-292988.html

german martingale leather 27$
http://www.horseloverz.com/Performers-1st-Choice-German-Martingale-Rein-Set-Brown-pr-292862.html