Still Here, Official Hiatus

So I discover that if I'm not riding, I have time for blogging. If I'm riding, no blog time! ;)

We are still alive and River is making great progress. He has figured out his stretchy trot (love it when that happens) and figuring that out has seemed to make a big difference with his trot/walk transitions--they're much much better now! One of these days perhaps we'll even get a walk/halt transition, who knows?!

He's also putting on some weight, which is very exciting! On Friday they go out to the "real" grass pastures, so hopefully that goes well.

However, since I'd rather be riding than sitting here typing on the computer, I'm taking an official blog hiatus for a while. I'll still be posting now and again but not holding myself to any notions of posting regularly. Hopefully we'll come back with even more progress to report! Happy Spring!

Back At It

Well since the dear Beastie broke my reins last time we rode, and my local stores don't have any English anything, we were stuck waiting and doing groundwork (he learned to walk over the bridge this week, good boy!) till the ones I ordered could get here. They finally did today! Yay! So we had a quick ride.

He was very very good actually, super stretchy stretchy even at the trot--which he's never done before. Good boy! Now hopefully he doesn't get "stuck" down there because he still doesn't really understand how to pick himself up, so while long and low is definitely a good stretch exercise for him, I don't want to spend the whole riding time just doing that. Nevertheless he was super good and transitioning up and down with barely a thought and a half-halt from my seat, so we cut it short and gave him lots of pets and goodies and his grain.

It probably helped that I felt like I was actually riding somewhat effectively for once--I'm always better after a break it seems!

I also ordered a new helmet and I'm super happy with it so far, so one of these days I'll do a review. :) Good weekend all!

Face-plant!

Friday we were going to have a nice bareback trail ride and try out our new bareback pad, that I got over Christmas and haven't tried out since. I even figured out how to attach the camera to the pad, and took some nice pretty ear pictures to show you, like this:

and this...

...and this! Can you tell I was having fun with ear pictures?? ;)

Pony has crazy mane.

He was being pretty feisty and full of himself, but not too bad, so we kept on into the woods. Then I had to get off in the woods to adjust the bareback pad (which will need some serious renovations before it's really usable, it slips awfully. Not impressed so far), and get back on. Getting back on a 16+ hh dinosaur when you're only 5'3 on a good day is not fun. I vaulted up on my stomach, got half over--and he started moving off. Except then he decided he didn't like this awkward weight on his back and started trotting...then he started cantering...then I decided that despite my distaste for bailing, I was going to come off sooner or later and I'd better get off before he started bucking or tripped or was otherwise stupid. So I bailed. :( And face-planted into the dirt, haha it was not the most graceful dismount!

Then my dearly helpful horse decided he'd had enough of me and marched off down the trail on his own. I got up (after making sure I was all in one piece) and followed but he broke into a trot and disappeared. So I had a nice walk through the woods practicing my tracking skills till I finally got down to his pasture and met the volunteer kids getting ready to feed--they saw him over by his buddies' fence before I did, and caught him for me, while kindly making sure I was okay.

Update as of yesterday's lunge is that the pony is much sounder than the person, haha. He is perfectly fine, while I am sore from my torso all the way down my right leg. We would ride today anyway except that he broke my only pair of reins, so I'm stuck unless I want to go all ghetto and get some rope reins from TSC to use while my order from Smartpak or Dover comes through (which I might just do, we are not against being ghetto over here, haha)!

Because I really still want to get some canter video!!

All in all, a good reminder not to do stupid things even when it is my horse. I get lazy and this is what happens. Now the pony is going to get boot camp when it comes to mounting, and maybe we'll have a lesson to help instill the stop button. He has a perfectly fine gas pedal (sometimes too fine), it's the brakes we struggle with!

Can-TER!

So Thursday we cantered in the arena, on purpose and for a reasonable time, for the first time!

River was feeling good and I had set myself a goal to canter in the arena before spring break was out, so I asked for it and he happily (and reasonably smoothly) popped up into his amazing "third gear."

No seriously, it is probably the most amazing canter I've ever ridden. He has a massive stride and it's just unreal. I just want to ride it again and again and again! The one small detail is that I'm apparently unable to sit it to save my life; I have to two-point or half-seat. Haha! I'm hoping to get some video on Sunday so I can figure out exactly why (maybe also a lesson soon); all I can say right now is that I'm apparently totally out of sync with whatever's going on in his hind end because it just springs me right up out of the saddle. Ha. Hopefully we'll figure out why fairly soon! In the meantime, two-point it is.

We didn't do a lot at a time; I let him tell me when he wanted to transition down and we did. Very nice ride though and I can't wait to feel it again! It's addictive! ;)

Stay tuned for what happened today! Hint: It involves getting up close and personal with some good old Southern red clay dirt...but no one's hurt!

Zoomies

Not much riding last week, Wednesday was a great teaching day but I was wiped out afterwards, then Thursday was my huge-ginormous midterm test and by the time I got done with that (found out today that I aced it, yay me) I didn't want to do much. Friday River got his spring shots and a new Coggins pulled, so I gave him that day off plus his normal Saturday. Now this week it's spring break, yay!

So today our first day back and it was super windy, very warm but definite weather change coming. So all the horses were a bit wired, River included. Went out on a half-hour trail ride to warm up and he was very looky but very good. Then we came back and worked in the outdoor, since it has finally dried up enough to ride in! Started out pretty good, then he got a serious case of the zoomies and was whipping around at a mach-10 trot. Haha. Tried slowing down and no such luck. So I just let him go, he had to keep moving though, none of this trot-real-fast-toward-the-barn-then-be-a-pokey-western-pleasure-pony-going-away-from-it kind of nonsense. He tripped a little bit a couple of times, felt a little tired/weak in the hind end, he always gets anxious after he trips but he is learning to get over it. Not too surprised since we did some fairly steep hill climbs on our trail work, he should be a little tired.

Eventually got a bit more under control, and he was getting sweaty with all that hair, so we stopped and cooled out. Probably in an ideal world I would've tossed him in the round pen and let him get all the zoomies out there, but needed to put on his sheet tonight to keep him dry for a quick couple days of blanketing this week, so didn't want to work him too hard. Besides he's not in shape for such things, haha.

Hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday, whenever we ride next, he'll be a bit saner and we'll go in the covered and work on some more productive stuff! ;)