Feel the burn

Another day of horse subduing heat!

Colonel is now officially too skinny to ride. We dont have a saddle that sufficiently clears his withers. Robert says they've got him back on his grain, so hopefully we'll be back to riding soon.

Anyway, I decided not to waste a day of training with him, and I got out the surcingle and crupper. Colonel wasn't exactly thrilled. Out on the long lines we practiced our follow your nose routine. I gave him some pressure on the inside rein, as soon as he stepped with his inside leg, release, when he kept turning after the release, outside rein to straighten him out. After a while he got a bit sour on his turns, but he eventually figured out that if he went straight when I released the pressure then he didn't get any outside rein. We zig-zagged all over the arena like this.

We also practiced driving in squares and triangles. Let me tell you, that is very difficult work. Poor Colonel, every time he started anticipating a particular shape, I switched it on him. His desire to do what he's told is admirable. His inability to wait until he's told what to do is annoying, and frustrating for both of us. I'm thinking that if I can get it into his head that he should follow his nose then he can do that without being asked and everyone will be happy. Right? I can dream, anyway.

Next thing we did was something from a book I have. I took the inside rein out of the surcingle so there was just a straight line between my hand and the bit. My theory is that this better simulates and opening rein. Colonel has a nasty habit of massively over doing his turns if you ask with the leading rein, as I've discussed before. We did more squares and triangles, and then I added a spiral in spiral out exercise. Really it was more like a spiral in, walk straight out exercise. He followed his nose in pretty nicely. He still wanted to circle a little, just out of habit, when I straightened him out, but it wasn't bad.

It could easily be my imagination, but he seemed to be getting it. At least, he seemed to be getting the idea that a short pull means a shallow turn while a longer pull means a sharper turn.

After talking with Robert for a while it was time to get Star out. Basically the plan was to do the same things we did on Saturday.

She was a little more reactive to everything than usual. I attributed this to the fact that today we were working her bad direction. She bolted past the hay monster right off the bat, no stopping and staring. (Improvement? Dunno.) It took two loops around but we got a nice comfy trot going. I was very much enjoying myself.

We picked up our canter a little after passing the hay monster, and quickly sped up to a hand gallop towards the barn. I asked her with my voice to take it easy. She basically ignored me. She gave me two slower strides and then was right back up. I decided this was fine anyway. It was smooth and straight and I felt secure. I felt so secure in fact, that we galloped around the turn and all the way past the culvert. The instant we passed the culvert we went from a hand gallop to a relatively relaxed (but still extended) canter. I decided we may as well keep going up the long/scary side. I decided to avoid the gate so that Star wouldn't fuss about it and break gait. Bad move. She remembered it was there and was somewhat alarmed that I was keeping my distance this time. Give 'em an inch... but actually it was only a brief trot interlude before we were back to cantering, and I brought us back to the fence. She was expecting to stop before the curves so gave her a push to let her know we were going to keep going.

I let her avoid the spot she hates through the first turn. I pushed her through the former mud puddle and into the second turn. We finished the second turn but I decided we'd quit before going past the hay monster. As we both caught our breath I looked down and saw that she had worked up a nice little lather on her neck and around her saddle pad. That didn't stop her from bolting past the hay monster. It didn't matter. We had gone 3/4 of the way around the field. At least. I wasn't feeling especially wiped out. (I would have gone around again if Star had been up to it.) My longtime goal of circumnavigating the field at a canter is within my grasp.

I probably would not have been so bold if I had realized at the time that Star was massively massively in heat. I first noticed the evidence when I was rinsing her off. After her bath I led her out to the pasture and she and Luka were both having conniption fits as she passed by his stall. She did all the classic she-whore stuff on our way out to graze, very scandalous.

Niki pitched a fit so I brought her out too. Later she didn't want to be caught, the little vixen, so I chased her around with a rope. Eventually she decided she didn't want to do that anymore. When I went to get Star, she was no trouble at all. She'd done all the running that day that she stand.

Fun in the sun

Saturday Robert told me to have a fun day after moving all that hay before. In direct defiance of his orders, I went and got Colonel. In his stall he was looking almost too skinny to ride, but I took him out and looked him over in the light, and in more uniform shade, and actually he was looking slightly better than previously, so I forged on. He was calm enough warming up, even with the gigantic wagon the shires were pulling out in the field. We worked on steering. Particularly we worked on keeping his nose and his feet on the same track. It was a massive fail. I'd tip his nose for a 20 m circle and I'd get 8 m from his nose and bigger from his shoulders and even bigger from his hips. Alternatively, I'd try to tip his nose and all I'd get was a braced neck and a shoulder moving on too tight a circle with his hips falling in to the circle.

Whats more, he was really pissed that we were doing all these tight circles. You would think that in defiance of these tight circles he'd, oh I dont know, make bigger ones to make his life easier? Did he do anything to try to make his life easier? No. He just got pissed. He'd start cantering on these little circles so I'd push him on cantering in these little circles which really really pissed him off.

To be honest, when he gets angry it scares me. When he bucks and pulls I become very uncomfortably aware of how much bigger and stronger and stupider he is. I really resent being scared of him. So basically after a while we were both pissed. I was ready to quit for the day, but I couldn't really justify it. I got off him and lunged him.

You should have seen his face when I ran the lunge line through his bit. He was so sure he was done. I lunged him until his coat was slick. I hate to do that to a thin horse, but I couldn't think of anything better to do. When I was feeling less vengeful I got back on him to cool him out. He was doing the same sort of shitty stuff, weaving around when he's supposed to go straight, bracing his neck, or over turning, as I described before. Still, it was a calm walk so after a good go around the arena I brought him back to the barn. He sat in the cross ties for a long time before being put back. I'm pretty sure he learned absolutely nothing from that ride. I, however, did learn from that ride. I learned that I need a more detailed plan than just sitting there being pissed. So, more scheming is in order.

After hanging around in the heat I finally went and got Star. It was time to have fun.

We walked around the field once. Very long negotiations regarding the hay monster in the burn pile. I practiced not taking my legs off her when she's misbehaving. Bad habit. Bad. I was pretty pleased with my progress when she finally bolted past the hay and my legs were wrapped around her just fine.

Next we worked on getting a calm, pleasant trot in the field. Thats not really her strong suit but when I was satisfied then we went for a run. I had sortof forgotten that we hadn't cantered/galloped towards home on the scary side yet. I started with that. It was scary, but in a good way. We were doing a pretty good gallop, the wind felt really good rushing past my face. Star travels very straight and smooth when we're galloping, and I had my legs streched down and wrapped around her nice and tight so I felt secure. Plus, Star cant really go that fast compared to, say, Colonel. When we got down to the tracktor equipment I sat deeper in the saddle and within three strides we were walking again. Thats the thing that makes me feel the safest of all. I can stop Star with my voice, my seat or my reins even when we're galloping towards the barn. No fuss, no nothing. Can I slow her down within a gait? Thats a little trickier, but still.

We cantered up the other side, Star was a little sluggish. We walked through the turns and then galloped most of the way back home. I cooled her out in the arena. She was very subdued in the cross ties, barely raised her head when I took off her bridle.

Bath time was a little less relaxed. She was good for the first side, but she refused to turn around in the wash rack. We spent a long long time arguing about that. I spent an irritating portion of that time getting the whip untangled from her tail, but I basically won the argument and for a little while Star was clean. When I scraped the water off her, it did not resemble mud, very cool.

Star was unimpressed.

After a month haitus...

A lot has happened in the last month. I havent been blogging it. I wish I had now, so I'm picking up again on the blogging. I cant really summarize what's happened so I'll try to summarize where I think I am with the horseys.
Lady:
I was doing really well riding her every time I was at the barn. I dropped the habit after a last minute trip to CA so I want to pick it back up again. Sometimes we really get in sync and its very good.

Star:
Star is rounding her back at the trot! Its really nice. Next up, canter. Her canter in the arena lacks impulsion. Her departures are reluctant. She is always poised to stop if she feels like she's loosing her balance. On the adgenda is to teach her better transitions; that its not acceptable to just stop cantering; and also, that she can keep herself balanced and not feel the need to stop.

Colonel:
Colonel is doing pretty well at remaining calm. He's even doing a little better at calming down after something hypes him up. He is still: leaning on the reins during transitions; throwing his shoulder out around the bend; reluctant to pick up the canter on command; falling in like crazy at the canter. On the adgenda is: teach him a reasonably nice stop, teach him to follow his nose, teach him balance at the canter.

anyone learn anything? maybe?

Saturday I got Colonel out and lunged him. Alyssa was working with Luca and trot poles that later became canter poles. I lunged colonel over those. He got a little hyped up at times, especially the canter poles, but he stayed manageable and I put him back. The thought was that this would bring his mind back into the work zone without me having to get on him while he's all fresh and whatnot.
I got Star out for a brief go. We started out in the arena but Jade was going to be pulling the tire in there and I decided I'd pass on that little experience. We worked in the outdoor arena at Alyssa's suggestion. Star was not going as straight as I wanted so I did some little circles in the same and in the opposite direction we were going. Not sure how much that helped.
Alyssa was curious about "something" and wanted to hop on her. I was interested to hear what Alyssa had to say, but also quite pleased that she was going to finally get on her. Alyssa has been avoiding this. I've only been prodding gently but Alyssa insists that she doesn't like riding Star, and these days she can afford to be picky. :/
It was also gratifying to note that the tiny tiny posting that Alyssa usually does was absent on Star. Confirming what I occasionally try to tell myself, namely, Star moves differently than Keno and Luca and the posting wont necessarily be the same height. Not that it wasn't subtle, just more detectable to the human eye. I was also happy to see that Alyssa revised her opinion of Star at least slightly.

The advice I got was this: long thighs + insufficiently large saddle = seat pushed towards the cantle + leaning forward to compensate for seat= unhappy, high headed horse.

So I'm looking into buying a bigger saddle, but, that all being said, I've been riding Star in this saddle for a long time. I know she can do better with it than she was doing on Saturday. So there's still a discipline component I can work on in the mean time.

Today I technically worked 4.2 horses. The decimal is the small amount of time I spent long lining Spirit. I only got roped into that because I found Niki cast in her stall. She was lying with her hooves facing the wall. There were lots of scratch marks on the wall, which she added to when she saw me peering in and tried to get up. She made an even more vigorous attempt when I opened the door. She settled down in between attempts but she was still panting and you could see the whites of her eyes a little.

Robert was in a lesson with Spirit so I got stuck with Spirit while Robert and Chris went off to free Niki. Spirit was good, especially considering it was his first time long lining. Niki finally managed to push herself away from the wall when she saw that Robert was planning on intervening. I guess I'm just not scary enough to get the job done.

I worked with Star on staying straight in her corners. I worked with me on just experimenting with my position in the saddle. I spent some time neck reining Star and gripping the pommel with my other hand to hold myself in the middle of the saddle. Seeing what it takes to hold the same position without the pommel. I was much more able to get my back straight/ shoulders back when I was right in the middle. This lends even more evidence to support Alyssa's theory that I'm leaning forward to compensate for my seat being too far back. I also fidgeted with my feet a little but I didn't have a whole lot of luck there. Plus Star eventually reached a point where she wasn't interested in putting up with my antics.

On the Star front I think we made some progress. When she cut her corners and counterbent through her corners I spun her pretty hard in the direction opposite the one we were going. When she started anticipating the spin to the outside I just applied my inside bending aids and she was relieved not to have to do the spin and she went nice and straight. We'll have to practice this more at the trot. She'll be a little ball of unholy fury if/when I try to do this at a canter.

We did a little canter around the arena at the end, just for my entertainment. I'm paying for my tendency to let Star walk or stop after we canter. Now she doesn't like the idea of going down to a trot, more importantly, an energetic trot. She feels entitled to a very lazy walk. I think that should be easy to fix though. Maybe not fast, but easy. I'll just make her do it until she gets used to it.

I got Colonel out and we did lots and lots of transitions. Basically I decided we'd do under saddle what I had started on the long lines. His walk to trot transitions got a lot better. When I did my little half halts he picked his head up, rocked a perceptible amount of weight back to his hind end and then went off my leg pretty nicely. His trot to walk and his walk to halt are still basically shit.

He wants to lean on my hands. For the halt my solution to this was to ask for my halt right before a wall. That got some semi-reasonable stops out of him. When they weren't reasonable I made him do a turn on the forehand to get us pointed the right way. When they were good enough he got to just walk forward and turn like a normal horsey. Don't know if that message got to his little walnut-sized brain or not.

For the trot to walk, my idea was that a good transition got some rest at the walk, a crappy one got sent back into a trot. He started getting kindof balky about the trot-walk transition because he wasn't doing it well enough often enough to avoid having to do another up transition after two strides or so. Still pondering options for that one.

I got a good halt out of him without using the rail so I hopped off him and I hope maybe some twinkle of that lesson reached his walnut brain. Hard to tell.

I got Lady out and walked her around some, trotted her around some, mostly walked her around some. Robert has been expressing some interest in riding her again, and he shouldn't have to waste time re-conditioning her so I think I'll try to pitch in with Alyssa to get her going. Plus, Papillon was looking pretty lame. Lady was definitely trotting asymmetrically, but she is by her nature a profoundly asymmetrical horse. She was happy enough so my plan is to see if riding her like this leads to a worse trot because of damage or a better trot because of muscle development capable of correcting the trot.

I watched her all summer of '07 and Ian was jumping her. I rarely saw her trot get especially worse. Usually when it got worse it was from taking her on excessively hard ground, or working her beyond what she's capable of. So we shall see.

I also rode Keno bareback for like, ten minutes and then decided it was too much effort to either hold my calves against his sides without a saddle to boost me up, or to go get a saddle so I put him back. He has a fun little tiny trot. I didn't think he could effectively pick up a canter with it, but he picked it up a lot better with his tiny slow trot than with his faster but less focused trot. I need to strengthen my hold-calves-against-sides-of-too-short-horsey muscles.

I felt really productive on Thursday. Showed up at 10 and swept/turned Lady and Papillon out in the pasture. Colonel absolutely flipped out at that. He was screaming for them, screaming and staring at me, running in and out of his stall, and banging on the door to try and open it. Poor guy hasn't really been eating, but it's showing up in his mental state rather than his physical. Lady and Papillon kicked it up a little bit but mostly stuffed their faces.

Brought them. Tessa's mom was out of town and asked Robert to lunge her, so he asked me to lunge her. She was extremely mistrustful of me haltering her, but she's pretty calm and quiet. Didn't want to walk at first so we did some trotting, and then she relaxed. She knows ropework better than lunging, I think, but I did a little of that with Claire so it worked out just fine. Put her back just in time to help Jerry unharness Imp. Once that was done I grabbed Luca and harnessed him up to go out in the field. We had a nice drive with Robert, he was pretty full of himself but well behaved overall. He is standing so much better, it's unbelievable. Rinsed him off and went to lunch. Robert took a long lunch. I turned out Colonel and Libby while I ate.

So I got dressed and rode Niki. She was, well, pretty terrible at first, but improved by leaps and bounds (occasionally literally, but not the "improving" part). Jessi and Bella and their entourage came in at one point and she was very upset about that. Our circles got much worse. So I pulled her off of the rail, because that's where she's been going crooked, and we did a 10-15m circle at the far end of the arena for a long time. We worked on bending and following her head, and not popping her shoulder out. She actually got pretty good at that, did a brief spook when Bella left, but kept working just fine. I rode her back to the crossties and Jessi asked if I was going out in the field. Um, no. Two green horses, a green rider, and a rider who's nervous about riding in the field is NOT a good combination. Plus I had a lesson with Robert anyways.

We did the trot and canter poles again. He's definitely getting the idea, but still wants to cut in and drop his shoulder. We did 10m canter circles whenever he wanted to do that, and he started getting nice and balanced. He picked up the wrong lead a lot, though. We need to work on bending. Robert was pleased by his progress but I was insanely frustrated (largely from not drinking any water and going straight from Niki to Luca). He made up for it by being cute. I was trying to demonstrate to Robert that while I was holding Luca towards the rail after the canter poles, it was because I was trying to make him go straight, and if I let him go he would drop his shoulder and run towards the gate. Instead, we cantered over the poles, he dropped his shoulder and cut the corner (it was UGLY), and aimed straight for the trot poles and cantered over those. That restored my good humor immediately. He's just a weird guy.

But I still didn't feel accomplished. So I asked Robert to look out for just one of us coming back, and rode Luca out in the field. We just walked around one circuit, but he was really good. We crossed the bridge across the creek, which I was a little nervous about (do not want to get dunked in beaver water), even though he's done it a billion times. Halfway across his head came up and he did a plant-all-four-feet spook. Wonderful! I saw the deer bounding away from us. I thought that was a pretty fair call on his part, especially as he moved on calmly. He also did a little sidesteppy trotty thing when something moved in the bushes next to us, but again, fair call. We did the water crossing too, and once I reminded him he wasn't supposed to trot up it he was fine.

I rode Keno with a saddle. That was mediocre. He gets weird cantering in the arena. He's much better in the little dressage one outside. He was busy eyeing Sunny and sticking his head up in the air as much as his short little neck will allow. We got a nice trot though, once we went over the trot poles. I guess I should hop on him more often and give him a real work.

Four horses worked, one of them twice, and four horses turned out. Woohoo!

Rode Luca again. He was an absolute jerk to lunge- taking off, bucking, tried pulling the lunge out of my hands once. We did a bunch of transitions up and down and suddenly he remembered his job. He was a fun ride. We set up three poles at E and B, first at trotting length, then lengthened one set to canter strides. I'm not convinced we got the striding right, at all, but he was definitely balancing himself better. We did some 10m canter circles (because he wouldn't bend otherwise) and oh, oh, we stayed cantering through them, and I didn't need to balance like a barrel racer to stay straight on the horse! It was lovely.

Robert has been redoing all the doors to runs in the hay barn so they're on the inside of the barn, rather than the outside. We reached another crucial step in the "girls and powertools" stage when he told me to use the drill to disassemble an outer door he'd taken down. And went over and showed me the bit I would need to use, where the charged battery was, and how to take the battery out of the drill (which I failed at- need less fingernail, more finger strength), which were all critical parts of the process, it turns out, and things I didn't know. He also showed me how to change the bit, which, whatevs, that's fine. And then he left to go teach a lesson! I ran in briefly to have him open the drill to take the battery out, but that was that- I took the door apart and stacked the wood and we didn't have another conversation about it. It was fantastic.

Less fantastic was not doing anything the rest of the day. Chuck is trying to sell Niki, and wanted to know how she was doing/when I'd be around so he could take pictures of me riding her. And I mean, I don't want to buy her, but I really do like riding her, and she's the first horse I've really had control over her training-- I didn't start her from the ground up, but I've done *everything* with her after longlining in the riding process. And I think I figured I'd have more time with her. I could have had a lot more done with her if I hadn't been so lazy, so it's not like it wasn't my fault, but it's still a little upsetting. Robert and Chuck keep telling me that once Niki is sold, Jewel (his new horse) will get brought down here and I can ride her all I want. Jewel is apparently a real nice quarter horse, trained for cutting but not good enough to be in the money, and I guess can do a decent reining pattern. Which makes me immediately think of mugwump, of course. It'll be fun, but I like taking a green horse and showing them something, and having them realize what you want and be happy to do it. Niki and Will were both a lot of fun that way.

I guess one of these days I'll buy a horse, and then regret not being able to hand it back to an owner when I don't want to deal with it anymore. Bleh. At least Keno is somewhat desperate for attention, whickering wildly whenever I walk by. It's a little pathetic.

Saturday went much better than Thursday did, though it was pretty unhorsey. I came in just as Rose, Julie, and Buzz were leaving. Ate lunch and hopped on Keno bareback. As usual, I wasn't planning on working him very hard, but we got into a groove with our figure eight canters. He was doing much better about trotting through the middle. He's a tad reluctant to pick up his right lead, but that's because he gets excited and high headed about it and doesn't want to drop left lead first. We did get a nice transition, right lead, one trot step, left lead.

Next I worked on fences for a long time. I hate fences. If I had more upper body strength I think I wouldn't hate them nearly as much. But I got Niki and Star's fence up, and Bella and Tillie's fence too. I tried fixing Lady and Papillon's run but settled for mediocrity.

Instead of working Luca, Robert and I unloaded approximately 80 bales of hay from the yellow truck and his truck. Buzz had baled them yesterday, and it was scheduled to rain, so Robert loaded them all up in the trucks and drove them indoors. I was on the truck and Robert was stacking them. He looked appropriately mortified when I teased him about sending the girl scared of heights up on the truck, until I told him it was just a ladder thing.