Almost

Almost we got to a show this weekend!  A very small deal close to home but still.  However the matter of trailering proved our downfall, as neither Coach nor I have a rig and so we stay dependent on the generosity of others.  Poor Coach.  I feel very sorry for her; she tried so hard.  She is trying so hard.  I have the most awesome Coach, in case anybody was wondering whether I still think that. :)

Rode Rusty last lesson as he was my second choice for the ended-up-non-existent show.  And I have more or less remembered how to jump, thank goodness!  We weren't flawless and my back still needs serious help but much better than before.  That's a relief! In the meantime I practice sitting and standing correctly.  Sigh, bad posture strikes again.  Anybody who knows how to fix my rounded back please let me know!

Miss Lass was going sound over the weekend!  Yay!  Especially yay because Coach is trying to get us to a show next Sunday and I should feel much better riding Lass than riding Rusty as I haven't had lessons or free rides on Rusty regularly at all.  

A rainy start to the week, so we wait, and hopefully plan out our show for next Sunday! :)

Riding Again

Since we had some torrential rain Monday and Tuesday (especially Monday), went over yesterday to ride instead.  Then discovered that the farrier and the chiropractor had been out and therefore nearly all the rideable horses on the place were in some degree of rest for the next few days.  However since my latest riding buddy wasn't there, I rode her horse Tanner, and we worked on flatwork and a bit of ground poles since the grass was still slippery and Tanner had a scraped-up hock that was making him a little bit sore.  

The better part of the half hour we spent actually riding was transitions--trot-canter, jog-canter, and (we tried anyway) walk-canter.  I came awfully close to getting a walk-canter transition a couple of times, but not quite.  Then after the transition is always interesting since Tanner likes to throw his head around and jerk on the reins and speed up like a wild thing once he gets going!  Haha at least he doesn't buck or really run off...and when I could finally get my position and leg corrected, he did better. 

I've let my leg (and upper body) slide/tip forward lately and even sometimes start gripping with my knees and taking my calves off.  Bad me, bad bad.  I'm going to try a new saddle next time, the one I rode in yesterday is far from comfortable and squinches me everywhere I should be touching something.  Ha.  But really it is mostly my fault and I need to focus on fixing it soon before I start causing more problems for my horses. 

A quick ride and then we took care of Tanner's leg and turned him back out.  And I leave you with this picture until next time... I officially love this picture!  I think I need to blow it up big and stick it somewhere I'll see it every day!

New Ponies

Well I think I said the Fringey is moving on to the junior/beginner riders.  This is good, it's what we wanted, it's what we were heading for (Barn manager still thinks I ought to get her jumping, haha, but she's quite sore at the moment so can't do much in that respect). 

Hoowwwever I miss the little girl!  Lol.  Starting with new horses is exciting but it's not the same as working with one you already know.  Went out to see if I could catch Rhapsody and probably could have caught her right off but decided I was just going to try to build some trust instead.  So focused on coming up, getting grain, petting, more nibbles, more petting, backing off.  Last time I did try to toss the rope around her neck, intending to pull it right off, but I guess I went too quickly on that.  She decided that was a bad idea and spooked away and stayed there.  By then it'd been nearly an hour out in the field with the girls and there was a storm coming in and I was nearly out of goodies, so I just left it as it was.  I'd have liked to end on a better note, but such as we have, we have.  If I had her by herself, or if I could get out there more often than twice a week, I'd probably make better progress.  I don't want to just make her be caught; I can do that.  I want her to be okay with it.  She doesn't have to come running to me, though that would be great.  Just be able for me to walk up--even if I have to bring a treat with me--and stand nicely while I touch her and/or toss the rope around her neck and/or put a halter on (we don't even try for the halter these days though I did have it with me).  Maybe I'll start coming early before lesson and playing with her a bit in the field.

Then another girl had already caught Rusty and ridden him so I took him down to the round pen and did some most basic of groundwork (not even longeing yet, just Friendly and moving off pressure) to try to get a feel for him before it started raining.  (Oh for a covered arena!)  Anyway only spent maybe ten minutes down there but learned he is head/poll-shy and though he will move his hips away from pressure nicely, his front end is a whole different beast.  Also he doesn't like my stick.  So just worked with my hands today.  I wonder if he might be sore somewhere in his wither/shoulder/front area as he wasn't just resisting pressure today, he also jerked his head around as if to nip me when I asked him to yield his shoulder.  But he is a very "closed" horse mentally/emotionally so I don't know what he might do if he doesn't like something.  That is, honestly, what worries me about having the junior riders on him.  He does what you tell him right now, but you wonder what might happen if he reached his threshold.  Well maybe we'll find out.  Or maybe we'll get him to relax.  The latter would be better! 

Tanner Ride

So rode Tanner again yesterday.  Western.  Decided to revisit my roots and see if I remember how to stay in a saddle that won't let me slip every which way. ;)  Well turns out I do, though for the life of me I still can't figure out how to get off gracefully with that crazy horn in the way! Ha. I'm told it went well, really I think it did.  He didn't jerk too often at canter, turned when I asked him to (for better or worse, we had some tight spots due to my asking too early/too much), and generally slowed when I asked him, though he never really does the true Western lope--he prefers to galumph around the arena at the highest speed you'll let him.  Which for me is not too horridly fast--I've been too long schooled in Western Pleasure for that!  Coach says he went well for me which is good. 

I (and the Coach) found a great deal lacking in my posture however so now I am focusing on torturing myself by insisting that I keep a decent sitting position, especially at work.  :)  That should help matters.  And my core strength...sigh...well I work on it and it is better, I have to keep reminding myself. 

On Friday the grandparents are coming!  And I have no clue what to do with them!  Haha.  They've asked to see Fringe so we will go out like usual and I'll ride her if I can find a fuzzy girth (or if the Coach is there and I can persuade her to let me steal one of her rope girths), or do groundwork if I can't.  Annnd after that I have no idea.  Rusty is closer in a smaller pasture now and has a catch halter, so I just may go out after him.  Maybe I'll get the new project pony if the grandparents head home early and I feel like a long walk.  Or perhaps if I'm feeling very brave I shall hop on one of the team horses that's apparently been bucking lately.  Ha, the Coach might well spank me if she found that out, though she hasn't explicitly told me not to ride him.  Maybe I won't do that. 

Canter & Round Robin Lesson

Rode three horses yesterday in two hours, the Fringey and two others.  What happens when the Coach decides to play round robin with horses.  :)  I feel terrible though, Fringe was bolting off for no apparent reason towards the end of the ride but I discovered when I untacked her that she had girth sores on both sides, and one starting under the belly.  If that wasn't causing her behavior, it certainly wasn't helping it.  Ugh now I feel like a horrible person.  :-/  What I get for tacking up in a dark stall; next time I'll tie up at the hitching rack out in front where at least I can see even if it is 90-some-odd degrees.  Or at least stop at said hitching rack and give her a thorough once-over before going into the stall. 

Well we live and learn.  Cantered for the first time today and she did really well; had a little trouble with taking the wrong lead, but posting on the wrong diagonal up to the transition, and asking in the corners, got us back on the right track.  She has a quite nice canter.  Also the girl I was riding with got on Fringe toward the end and she was good for her also.  Apparently Fringe is becoming something of a favorite with the kids; all the better for her.  I guess people assumed if I could ride her, she must not be too bad.  Lol.  Though I will miss working with her all the time, I can still ride her if she hasn't been worked too much, and can do groundwork with her whenever I want.  I would like to get her started over poles and baby jumps on the long line but we'll see what Friday brings.  I now have about a million (okay, a dozen or so) horses I can work with, plus a new "project pony," so I have to choose my priorities more carefully! 

Also rode Tazz, an Arab gelding, and Tanner, another (suspected) Quarter Horse.  Tanner is a nice Western horse that gave me flashbacks to my three years in Michigan with trainer D.!  Except he jerks hard on the reins in canter if you're not careful.  Which me, being small and with not the best core strength in the world (though it is improving!), does not like.  But we worked with it and had a good ride.  Tazz I have ridden before and though he was being a bit more of a spoiled brat than before (i.e. kicking out whenever a request cut across his line of inclination), a bit of hard forward trot work with lots of patterns and variety got him thinking more along the lines of listening to me than of kicking out.  He could also use some back-to-basics work; however the equestrian team are the only ones supposed to be riding him.  I snuck on today by virtue of the round-robin nature of the lesson.  ;)

Planning for Friday groundwork and maybe a ride depending on how I'm feeling, who's there, and what's going on.  We'll see!

Sore Mouth & Another Horse

Yawn.  Man my back.  I joke that I need to find a chiropractor who will sponsor my 1,000-pound-college-backpack-carrying, desk-chair-sitting, awkward-jumping-horse-riding, sore-back-creating life.  Haven't found one yet.  Sadness.  But really? I canter (on the flat) a horse with a rocking sort of gait, and my back kills me the next day?  Something wrong with this. 

The Fringe has a sore mouth for some unexplainable reason (hopefully just a missing/loose tooth), so we rode yesterday in a hackamore.  Which was interesting.  She was really quite sensitive to it, which I'd much prefer to trying to pull through it, but bending/turning she didn't really get the idea too well.  Good thing she's starting to move off the leg.  But that meant we didn't canter as neither of us was extremely secure with this new-to-us contraption.  However, had a very nice groundwork session.

So instead at the end I traded horses with my riding lesson partner and rode Rusty, a big (okay, big compared to the little Arabs I've been riding) Paint Quarter Horse (well he looks like a QH anyway, I'm guessing).  Ha, obviously I don't know much about the critter.  In a dressage saddle.  Which was also interesting as though I've learned some basic dressage movements, I don't think I've ever done anything in a proper dressage saddle.  But.  He was pretty nice, very stiff though, something like a robot.  Did everything I asked (except canter on the correct lead unless I insisted) but didn't exactly have any sort of relaxation or flexibility.  Plus he is quite spooky on the ground.  I got permission to ride him too for free rides/groundwork.  I'd like to do some groundwork with him and see if I can persuade him that people on the ground are no worse than people in the saddle.  We'll see, I know there's at least one other student riding him regularly so I don't want to overwork him.  Presumably he's also quite hard to catch (what is this with giving me all the hard-to-catch horses to free ride?!  Does the Coach think I need more exercise? lol) but there are worse things in life.  The Coach will be gone Friday for a clinic, so I may or may not be riding the end of this week.