New Experiences Are Not Always Good!

Bad new experience!

(And a very long post in which I try to sort out my brain!)

Today, a ride with A-Horse-I-Will-Not-Name (in interests of privacy) introduced me to one of the few horsey things I had really hoped not to experience--and that I hadn't experienced before today! (Let's just say it was not the Rhapsody girl, in case anyone is worried!)

I got reared with. Not just once, twice. With another half-hearted attempt thrown in for good measure.

Said horse also bit at my leg and bucked pretty good, at different times.

I did not come off, or at any point feel like I was going to come off, for which I am rather proud of myself, and we finished in the round pen with two steps of decent walk and a stop that I asked for. I did get a little freaked out though as I did not want said horse to flip over. It wasn't going up that high, but not knowing what was causing this issue, and knowing it hasn't reared under saddle in the past, I was afraid it might end up getting unbalanced up there and cause us all some major grief.

I am greatly puzzled though. I was not holding said horse's mouth. Once or twice I forgot and pulled on the reins to slow down, but overall I had either a slight loop or a very, very light contact. And I know Horse is used to a stronger contact, so I doubt it was my holding its face that was bothering it. I didn't have a martingale or any sort of gadget on it. When I felt that "lightness" in the forehand preceding the rear, I really threw the reins at it.

I was also very much encouraging forward, even though we were only walking when all of this occurred (we only walked for the whole ride). Horse was very "stuck" behind my leg though, and extremely resentful of leg cues (hence biting), as well as taps on the shoulder. I felt like the rearing/etc. was more of a response to my aids for forward than anything. But we had no trouble with girthing or with hand pressure where my heels would have been (on the ground), so I doubt ulcers or colic or some such thing.

I did put Horse in a different bit. I don't know what kind it was. Ha I am terrible at remembering bit names. It was like this only a full-cheek. But perhaps it was too much bit? It isn't supposed to be harsh though. But I will definitely go back to my standby simple full-cheek snaffle for our next ride. Still it is a scary response.

I did get unbalanced just prior to the bucking fit (which preceded the really-refusing-to-go-forward and the rearing). It was a quick collapse forward that I fixed quickly. So I didn't get after Horse for the bucking as I felt it was more than half my fault. Perhaps I should have. Either way, I didn't.

I did get off the first time it reared, as I didn't want to make things worse and didn't want to endanger myself or other people. We went straight into groundwork and longe work though. The second/third time I stayed on till I felt we were pretty well on earth, then got off and did groundwork and longe work, then got back on. Rinse and repeat about 2 more times and finally we got that walk and stop when I asked and at that I praised extravagantly and got off.

Horse worked okay on the longe. Moved forward w/t/c with some encouragement. Some sassiness and attitude but not much. Is it my hands? Or is it that my balance is not 100%? But my balance is not that bad. I mean I can stay on a great many things and not get unbalanced. Was I nagging with my legs? Either way I am not happy with this method of expressing unhappiness!

Baffled. Need ideas. I will be asking people-who-know, but in the meantime thoughts? :)

Horse Nerd on Finals Week

Notes on my sticky go as follows:

WG study for final
dressage test

Me sees note as follows:

WEG Dressage 

And thinks...World Equestrian Games dressage?!! I'm going to see it?!?!! AWESOME!!!!

Uh no Bri, it means study your World Geography and learn that dressage test.

Oh. Well forget that...

Dose of Cuteness

Since I haven't had any pictures in close to forever, I thought I would give you this barrage of pictures of the Rhapsody.

Being scared someone would buy her, I took lots of pictures last week. Some of them actually turned out.

Practicing the cross-ties. "WHAT are you doing?!?"

Oh look, the ears DO come up!

"Umm...this isn't normal groundwork..."

Yawn

YAAWWWNNNN

 She is the most "yawn-ie" horse I have ever met!

"Who, me? I'm just Miss Adorable..."

THAT FACE!! Adfawelafjsdk I love this horse. I should stop putting up all these pictures. Somebody's going to buy her, and my heart's just going to get torn out. I keep scheming ways to make her seem terrible so nobody else will want her, but I'm coming up with fewer and fewer as time goes on! Two years. Two more years and I can buy her myself, hypothetically. Suppose I can keep her in training that long? Unlikely to say the least, I know...

Brandi Ride

Rode Brandi on Monday. She was overall quite good, though it becomes even more obvious that she really prefers the left lead. We had one right-lead canter in the whole hour we rode (and we stopped on that note as a walk/stop break is a big reward for her). Left lead, though, she picked up right away every time.

We worked on sustaining gait. She has a million and twenty-nine evasions but they're all mostly variations on a theme (I will bob my head! I will throw my head around like a ninny! I will wiggle around like a worm! I will bob my head, throw my head around like a ninny, wiggle, and dive into the center ALL at the same time!), and not too bad to ride. I just brought the jumping crop this time but next time I think I'll bring the dressage whip and really work on moving off fairly light cues. Right now I have to kick pretty good from time to time to get/keep her going, and I don't like that. I do think she will make a great kids' horse someday--she has just that touch of stubborn and smart I like to see for kids, and she's not very spooky even though she's so young and inexperienced--so I don't want to get her too sharp off the leg, but she's got to be better than she is.

Funny girl has already learned where the gate is, and that center = stop (not in my book, but when she's been ridden by others), and after I stopped once to get a drink, she offered to stand at my water bottle every time we passed it on the rail! Haha goose.

But we did get a nice sustained left-lead canter, and that one right-lead canter for a few strides. I think groundwork is in order to teach her to move off the leg, so I can make it easier for her to figure out what lead to take. As soon as I get out of school I want to set aside all Friday afternoon as "groundwork day" for everyone. I'll ride after work on the other days, but that way everybody will get the groundwork they need!

One Less Pony

Well Fringe sold yesterday! Pretty excited that my first project now has a home of her own!

The folks who bought her were supposed to look at Rhapsody too, but apparently they didn't end up looking at her at all, they were taken enough with Fringe. I've no problem with that. ;)
Instructor D says that they had Rhapsody tied up at the barn for three hours during a very busy lesson time, though, and she was apparently fantastic with the kids and the bustle and everything. Yay yay girly!

Apparently she was hard to catch though. Bad girl. But I am not sure what to do with that as she is stuck like glue to me all the time. She whinnies and heads over to the gate as soon as she sees me approach the pasture. Sooo I don't know how to fix her catching issues myself. At least she is catchable.

And I still have this face to see :D

So now I have only three project horses instead of four. Whew, that's a bit of a relief. Rhapsody will start over poles and little jumps soon, but I'll need to take it slow so as not to overface her. Same with Brandi, but I won't be jumping her much as she's still quite young. Surge just needs more saddle time. Good luck to the Fringey and her new owners! I wish you happy trails! :)

Grumpy Bri

I feel like Grumpy Cat.

Actually I'm in a really good mood but nobody would ever guess it.

It's the week before dead week and my little world-of-people are obsessed with trying to minimize the impact of a semester's worth of procrastination. So it's all "let's get together and do this! let's get together and do that!"

Not that I don't have stuff to get done, but some things take precedence.

Like horses, and...um...
horses, and...
oh I suppose school...

I don't get to ride this week though because of the weather. Oh spring thunderstorms. I took Rhapsody on a trail ride last Friday, all by her lonesome, and she was great. Such a good girl! Next week I'll be back to normal!

Untitled Post :)

Nothing incredibly new on the horse front. :) Apparently instructor D either forgot or decided not to watch us ride on Wednesday, so the girls and I were all by ourselves while her lessons worked in the big pasture and the jump arena. So I put in 45 minutes on Rhapsody, with a nice long walk warm up, a lot of trot, and some canter transitions. I started letting her reach down a fair ways, then gently holding the reins with an elastic contact, and frequently she stayed there "on" the bit (not really on the bit, but accepting it nicely) for several strides. Also discovered that her canter is "lofty" and free-moving enough that I may have been accidentally letting her canter on the wrong lead--just glancing down, you see front hooves on both sides! Oops! Of course I should be able to just feel for the leads, but I can't always. I make excuses that she's too unbalanced, and that's true, but still. I need to improve my feel for both diagonals and leads. But, first of all, make sure she's going on the right lead to begin with! We don't want to start bad habits on both our parts!

Rhapsody did, however, get a nice compliment from my friend R, who although two years younger than me, is a much better rider (or I think he is anyway), and a trainer in his own right. So I was pleased with that. I'm tickled to bits with her progress, but it's nice to hear that other people can see it too! I wonder if that trot will ever get old. I suppose when we "harness" her canter, that will be pretty amazing too, but right now it's a ways from getting harnessed in any way. ;) Think warhorse Arabian thundering across desert sands--flagging tail and all. Hehe silly goose. For now we ride it, and play with half-halts. Happily she just likes to go, and so we have almost no problems with bucking or otherwise goofing off in canter.

Surge got some groundwork and was very good until she spooked and then decided to put on her best snorty-fiery-halter-horse impersonation. Heh. So I turned her loose in the empty arena and told her to get it out of her system. She gallumphed around a bit, snorting at me whenever she stopped (why at me, silly girl, I'm not the one who spooked you!) and then I caught her and we did a bit more groundwork and went up to the barn without running over anyone. I'm still on the fence about how to best get her to calm down--whether to encourage her to run and goof off and get it out of her system (when possible of course), or to focus on calm, steady, "staying-still" work. I'll just have to experiment with it I guess. Probably some of both and I'll just have to figure out how much is too much on either count. Finding things to really keep her mind busy would help too I think.

New Challenge

Instructor D said that she would like to see me ride Rhapsody and Surge on Wednesday, and possibly take some pictures for Rhapsody's sale ads. (Boo... :'( lol) Me being me, I promptly freaked out that the girls would turn into crazy monsters on Wednesday, so yesterday (Monday) I did a "dry run," pulling them both out and hopping on without groundwork or any other such thing besides a thorough grooming.

Rhapsody lived up to her recent loveliness and was a star. We had a nice relaxed walk and quite a lot of stretchy"ish" trot. I'm going to have to start picking her nose up a little before she rubs it raw dragging it in the dirt! ;) Canter is still a work in progress; she knows not to scoot into it like she's leaving the starting gate, but she doesn't know how to transition to canter without scooting. So right now she trots incredibly fast for a long, long time, and then canters rather awkwardly and can't sustain it. Lol. We'll be working on those trot-canter transitions a lot more now that her trot is solid and relaxed. Also I need to work on giving to the bit and backing up. She doesn't back much and I think that's an important skill every horse should be able to do some at least. And she needs to learn to change "gears" in canter, instead of just going as fast as she possibly can. So lots to work on, but she is being really lovely about it.

Surge however is going to be my new challenge. :) She was okay at walk and trot--not relaxed per se, but not scooty or spooky--so I asked for a canter. She transitioned, took about two strides, and promptly bucked. Then she threw her head down, snaked it around, and kicked out/bucked some more before I grabbed her and informed her no mas of that.  (Prior to that I was focused on staying on! lol) I brought her down to a trot, waited till she was a bit more relaxed, and tried again--same result. So I hopped off and lunged her to see if it was me doing something--nope, same thing. And I remembered that she'd done the same things without any tack on, so it wasn't a tack fit issue. Well well fun times. I got back on and did some more walk/trot without too much of an incident (just snaking her head around once or twice) and called it a day. Decided if instructor D wants to see her cantered on Wednesday, I can lunge her or D is quite welcome to canter her herself! ;)

Still pondering the best way to respond to that. A martingale of course is a quick fix for the head tossing, and I may yet do that just to help me stay on. But really she is just "pushing" me in all kinds of ways, in the saddle and out, so I think I need to do a lot more groundwork and walk/trot and work on respecting me. And forward work. She was occasionally balking at moving out even in trot. So we'll see just how to implement those ideas.  Thoughts welcome. :) For myself, my stupid lower leg was all over the place yesterday. Argh! I tend to lean towards a "chair seat" and my leg has a mind of its own I believe. I need some good two-point, standing in the stirrups, and no-stirrups posting trot to get it back in control!