groundwork day

I worked three horses today.

I got Tilly out and we talked about how a broken fence board does not mean she is free to gallop around like a lunatic. She wasn't the easiest horse to calm down but, I'm suitably pleased with her.

Colonel was quite good. We worked on transitions between trot and canter. Especially transitions that involve no death trotting or head flipping.

I put long lines on Libby. What a mess. She has a neck like a bull and she knows it. She got away from me and ran off to eat grass and pester Tessa. I put a crupper on the surcingle (I had neglected to do this earlier) and then ran the reins through the bit and back to the surcingle. "Power steering" is what Robert calls it. When Libby discovered that pulling on my hands caused pulling on the underside of her tail, she was pissed. Eventually though I had her minding her P's and Q's like a lady.

Rode Colonel

I rode Colonel yesterday at Roberts request. There is someone who might lease him. I gave him a good lunge going mostly to the right. Lots of transitions and cantering until he quit acting like an idiot. It actually went really well. Then the time came to hop on him. I have to say I felt sick. This was faster than I had planned on starting him but I needed to know how he'd be to canter. I can't say he wasn't a jerk, but I also can't say it was especially terrifying. Scary, yes, but terrifying, no. I only cantered him under saddle to the left. It was like riding one of those pennies that you set rolling down those funnel shaped plastic things at the mall. Kept falling further and further in, round and round we went. He was leaning so badly that I couldn't stay in the center of the saddle and still stay straight up and down. I thought I must have rolled the saddle putting too much weight in one stirrup. Nope, he and the saddle were still perfectly in line, just happened to be most of the way sideways. I'm actually pretty pleased with how upright I managed to stay, not that pleased with my inability to feel where the horse is relative to the saddle but hey, it scared me into keeping off the stirrups like a good girl. Not that those stirrups were of much help anyway. I left them quite long.

In the end, he really only threw one buck, and basically didn't flip his head or do that weird cock your head to the side and stick it up in the air at the same time thing. He did pull but not all that violently. He did try to run us into a wall but didn't quite manage it. He was tense and downhill and a little rough to ride but I always had the sense that we could stop if I wanted to, and he wasn't going anywhere near the kind of speeds I know he's capable of, possibly because we just did circles and he didn't get a chance to go straight down the arena.

He didn't break a sweat.

Star is making progress stretching the right hind leg in the trot. I had a huge fight with her about trotting to the right and she cantered an absurdly tiny circle and refused to break back into the trot. I think it goes without saying that she cantered this circle with her head and tail so high in the air they were practically touching. After I won the fight we did some good work and I'm pleased with her progress so far.

I took Tilly out too. The arena was crowded so I just walked her around and reminded her about where she needs to be relative to my shoulder. It was good practice. The other horses were very distracting/upsetting for her but in the end we reached an understanding.

Lame-o trots

Worked Star and Papillon today. Star's trot is terrible. I knew that already, I suppose, but watching from the ground really gave me new insight. Her right hind is so weak its amazing. I try to ask her and bend and use it more and she looks almost lame. I'm going to continue the lunge work to focus on that leg, and continue lots of walking to build the muscle. I've been just getting on her with just her halter (and Alyssa's reins clipped to the bottom of it) after I finish the lunge work and we walk around while I listen to music. This is Star's kind of work out. Minus the trotting on the lunge of course.

I walked Papillon in-hand for 20 minutes and did another 30+ minutes of walking. She wasn't really sound to trot. I'm not that worried about it. This is only the second week of having her out and she'll get stronger.

I need to get Lady and Colonel into the mix somehow. Too bad I cant pony Lady off of Papillon or visa versa.

Banishing the blahs

Ok, I'm starting to feel pretty good about how things are going. I'm still sore from riding a few to many horses. Funny how we'll take care to keep the horses from getting too sore but ourselves, meh. Anyway, Star is slowly slowly starting to straighten out at the trot. She is one crooked horse. Even her fat distribution is crooked. Papillon is getting stronger I think, but I'm taking it slow with lots of hand walking before riding. Colonel and Lady still need more attention. Lady is ready to start her strength training too. Lots and lots of walking. Probably warm her up with handwalking also. It really helps when they start feeling good and therefore start feeling like trotting, if I'm on the ground I can put a swift stop to it without causing any trouble with their mouth.

Groundwork, fitness and a case of the blahs

I think I want to go back to posting regularly on this blog. I need something to help me track my progress.
As the title implies, I'm on kind of a groudwork kick right now. I'm following the instructions in the book "Horse training in hand: A modern guide to training in hand." I want all my horses to be reaching under themselves and really lifting their backs with their inside hind leg when we're on a circle. Eventually I'm going to be working everyone on their lateral work too. I'm trying to be very patient and not skip any steps. Right now Lady, Colonel, and Star are working on their proper walk.

I walk beside them by their shoulder with a dressage whip and my leading hand extended. If they aren't bending right I put my driving hand on their neck or shoulder and vibrate the line to invite their head in. All three horses are wanting to swing their hips out instead of bending. I'm trying to be persistent and not let up with the pressure on their neck/shoulder until they bend for me and then I release the pressure. Eventually I need to be able to just vibrate the line and point at their shoulder and they need to respond by bending nicely.

The idea is that then when we go to our lunge line work, I can signal them to do the right thing without having to shrink my circle again. Furthermore, if they get the idea at the walk, I can use the same signal for the trot and eventually the canter.

Lady also needs a little help extending her inside hind. This is simpler to accomplish. I just have to give that leg a little tap just as the outside fore is about to lift off the ground. Sometimes Lady prefers to trot rather than extend, but she's getting over it.

Papillon apparently already walks like I want her to, so she'll be moving on to lunge work. Papillon will need conditioning as much as anything else.

After the lunge work is done with Colonel and Star, they'll be lunged in side reins. At first very loose and gradually shorter as they gain their balance back at each new length. I'm feeling impatient to get to this step, but I'm committed to doing this right and building the neccessary muscles before moving to the next step.

In theory all these ground work exercises can be used just to warm up before a ride. I have been feeling very blah about riding lately. I'm waiting for that to pass but if it doesn't pass soon I'll have to force the issue.

Only managed to get around to riding today by 1 pm. No shock there I
guess, but I really should try to find a way to get to the barn
earlier in the day.

Anyway, I finished warming up star right at the stroke of 1, which is
perfect for my new mission. (Nobody roll their eyes now.) I need to
stop riding for such short periods of time, so I'm trying to keep
track of how long I've actually been riding, rather than how long it
feels like. So I'm implementing kindof a parelli thing (again people,
no eye rolling) where we start our post warm-up with incrementally
more amd more continuous trotting. We're working up to 30 minutes in
five minute intervals. Turns out my attention span is about ten
minutes, so today we did fifteen. In theory you go straight from your
trot to whatever your real work is that day. Transitions, cantering,
circles, patterns, lead changes, whatever. I'm not totally clear on
the specifics.

So for us today we did our fifteen minutes one way, then we just did
fifteen minutes the other way and then quit. I vow to go longer in the
future, but I'm pleading sleep deprivation on this one. There was,
however, a little twist on all this trotting. We did all of it in the
field on the west side of the indoor arena. Turns out, that field has
a non-negligible slope to it. Definitely enough to be beneficial to
muscle development. It took quite a while to convince star that we
werent planning on doing the jumps in the field there. She did
eventually calm down and switch over to the project of trying to
convince me that a nice lazy pony ride was the way to go.

Still, I think I managed to get some good work out of her. Especially
when we were headed up the slope.

I hand walked Papillon around the field. Sleepwalked is more like it.
She loosened up by the end but I didnt ride her.

I took Libby out to lunge and she tried once to change directions and
she pulled more than I like and rushed more than I like but mostly she
was fine. After a short lunge we worked on mounting block standing. We
walked around the block and sniffed the block, and then came the
exciting part. I started scratching her whither and then stepped up to
the first step, then the second. She was too engrossed in expressing
her enjoyment of the scratching to notice. I stepped off and stopped
the scratching. I stepped back up and she shied away, but I reached
out to scratch her anyway. Stepped down, moved mounting block, she stood there suspicious but anticipating her scratchies.

I went to put the mounting block away and I stood on it one last time so she could look at me, but she walked over and presented her whithers for scratching. Score. I knew I was going to like training an itchy horse.

Brrrr

Tuesday it was cold, very cold, but I pressed on. I took Libby out, because I could take her out with my coat still on. :) She was hot but reasonable for walk and trot. I decided to ask for some canter, which she dropped after less than a minute. I didn't have a lunge whip on me, and in the process of chasing her around like an idiot trying to get her to pick up the canter she pulled me over and I scraped my knee. It was a nice little reminder that I was being an idiot and should stop. So I stopped. Libby looked pleased with herself, or was it my imagination? Anyway, she was less pleased when I got the lunge whip out, and we did a little canter. She really doesn't know how to canter on a lunge line very well. Kinda sad really.

Speaking of cantering poorly. I took Star out after Libby, and continued to fight my impulse to declare us "done for the day" after only ten or fifteen minutes. We practiced cantering Star's bad direction. In the northwest corner of the arena she consistently decided to stop and rear rather than take the turn. Eventually I got her to stop doing that by make sure we did a big easy turn there. The little rat picked up on my habit of quitting after overcoming something like that and wanted to stop on the long stretch. So we kept going until I couldn't stand it anymore. This didn't take long, but instead of stopping and walking, we trotted. This was displeasing to her but she did it. I found I can catch my breath just fine sitting the trot. Particularly since her trot was a little lethargic after cantering around. So we cantered and then trotted and then cantered again several times.

There were traces of sweat on her neck and obvious sweat around her ears and under the saddle pad when we quit. I'm trying to make a point of quitting only when she's actually sweating, so I succeeded in that, at least. I think that maybe I need to get Alyssa to lunge us at the canter to help her get used to actually cantering on turns and help me get used to compensating for her leaning into the turns. We might also spend some time just working on canter transitions off of a kiss. I need some split reins with a knot, so I can whack her with them without hitting her with a buckle.

I hand walked Papillon for ten minutes and then later on I rode her. She was quite stiff. I never really got a good trot out of her. When she was engaging her hindquarters properly her walk smoothed out, but that was it. Worrisome.

Colonel is looking less lame now, and slightly less skinny. The farrier dug out an abscess in his right rear hoof and he's walking on it now. Still wont stand on it, but thats OK. His weight is getting better thanks to lots of sweet feed. When I fed him he dug through his regular grain to get to the sugary stuff. Picky little goof ball. Star is going to get me a better seat and improve my endurance so by the time Colonel is back on all four feet I'm going to kick his butt on a regular basis until he behaves himself like a good citizen. Thats the plan, anyway.