Sunday brought a pretty relaxing morning as our first ride wasn't until almost 11, that allowed me to get out of bed at 730a (on a weekend!) and get ready. The bath the previous night stuck around with the sheet and sleezy he was wearing so after a quick rebraiding he was ready to wrap and go. I got the the show in plenty of time and met my cheering section there, they helped me get all tacked up, dressed up and mounted for dressage. During warmup, however, I could tell that schooling cross country the day before was a bad idea. The TWH was uncharacteristically heavy, forward and dull to my aids. I had a hard time riding in the sand warm up area because of a couple of riders who wouldn't look at anything but their horses' ears, we were cut off and blindsided multiple times. We left the level sand and tried to ride off in the grass to settle the TWH down with no success. He was still very heavy and while I was able to bring his canter/trot transitions back, he was fighting me the entire way.
When one of the two troublesome riders left, I went back to the sand arena and worked more on my transitions. While doing so I met a gal who was riding a Rocky Mountain who trotted and paced, how cool! She was having lots of trouble with his canter, unfortunately I couldn't give her much advise as I said the TWH's canter was easy. It was his trot that I had issues with. I hadn't ever met another gaited rider at these events so it was super cool to see one, I hope I see her again.
It was finally our turn to go, the TWH was sooo heavy in the reins and was rushing so much and there wasn't anything I could do to fix it. We had a decent start though the first circle at A was small because he wouldn't listen to my inside leg to move out. Most likely had to do with my smaller arena, he was going at the size we practice at instead of the size I was dictating. The canter transition was really nice and the canter/trot transition was immediate. Success! The freewalk was almost non existent as he decided to almost trot in the middle instead of walking with his head forward and down. I guess I should have practiced that during warmup, I didn't so my bad. The last canter/trot transition went really well too except it felt like I was riding the App instead of the TWH with how much he was pulling on me. As a result we overshot the centerline for our final trot/halt/salute. Dang horse, too bad we couldn't have pulled it together. We were sitting in 6th out of 8.
We went back to the trailer and got him all ready for cross country, I have to say it was cool finally being able to use all the awesome stuff I have for cross country. Most of it I had bought last year and wasn't able to use due to being injured/recovering the entire year. I had a new vest, new jumping boots, new saddle pad, new 5 point breastplate, new breeches, new spurs and straps, I sure looked like I knew what I was doing! Cross country started off with him knocking down a crossrail pole on jump 2. I looked back in amazement because he typically doesn't knock poles so I decided instead of trying to ride to time we were going to ride for clear. As I approached each jump after that I stopped holding him and instead gave him a good solid nudge with my spurs. The rest of the course went smoothly with not a single issue. We came in at 4:37 but clear.
We went back to the trailer and untacked and let him have lunch. He had no interest in the water I brought him but enjoyed the brushing and hay. I chatted with my cheering crowd while I cleaned my tack and finally they announced the placings. Turns out I didn't get 6th. Or 5th. Or even 4th, we ended up 3rd!! Someone the pretty poor dressage score made up for 2 refusals and a fall. Also because it was a cross rail they didn't count the rail at fence 2 against us so we ended up 3rd. Go us! AND we likely wouldn't have gotten 1st or 2nd as our dressage score was a good 10 points higher than 2nd place so it worked out all around. I am so proud of my TWH and plan on giving him several days off as a reward.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Friday, May 10, 2013
Cross country prep
After my return from Rolex I had a lot of work to do, I had almost no time to put finishing touches on things. I had a lesson on Wednesday and H was very pleased with how the TWH had come in his dressage. Our things to work on were the freewalk, getting him to basically flatwalk with a low, forward headset, and our turn up the centerline at the end of our test not becoming a pivot/turn up the centerline. Our canter to trot transitions have come along tremendously and he is picking up the trot almost immediately without a pacing step. Our canter transitions up are amazing with good push and hop.
The lesson went well and H found one of the bigger reasons we were getting a pivot/turn up the centerline instead of a 10m circle was, no big surprise, my body was refusing to put weight in my right stirrup. I was telling it to but my body was refusing to cooperate. Thus we worked on that for about half of the lesson. At the end I asked her opinion of where the thought we could go in the training progression and she made a good point. She wants us to be at Novice level by the end of this year or beginning of next year and she thinks he will make a fantastic Novice level horse. However. She doesn't think he will make a competitive Training level horse because he won't ever be able to make it in dressage. His gaitedness will work against him and he can't help it. It is a little frustrating but I completely understand and agree, he doesn't ever truly connect hind leg to rein through his back because while he looks like he is trotting, he is actually just moving his legs in the trotting motion I asked. Like he learned dance steps and he is performing them. Looks like I will probably be looking for a third horse by the end of the year, we will see I guess.
Saturday was, unfortunately, the only day I had to school the cross country course. I was supposed to school it April 20th and the course was closed due to very wet conditions. It was rescheduled for April 27th however that was when I was down at Rolex and so the May 4th date was the only one I could possibly go to. Not ideal but it was all I could do. Cross country schooling started out with a nice, solid warmup and a nice, solid run out at the first cross country jump I pointed the TWH at. Not the way I wanted to start the day! I gave him several very aggressive pokes with my spurs to let him know it wasn't acceptable and pointed him at the jump again. I kept my reins long and wide, funneling him to the jump as he couldn't turn his head left or right. He tried to dodge to the left, then tried to dodge to the right and then just lept over it. Yay! I made him go over it a couple more times and he gave me no issues so off we went to school the course.
Jumps 1-3 were big crossrails and except for the first jump, I didn't even send him over the jumps a second time. Jump 4 was a nice solid log and I sat back and pushed, pushed, pushed. Not only did the TWH go over it, he didn't even think about refusing! I jumped him over the novice log beside it just for good measure and he was spot on, he jumped it like it was 18". We jumped number 5 which had some hay bales and then pointed ourselves to the novice jump beside it. It was scary looking. I knew he would refuse at it, it was a red jump with dying brush sticking out of the top of it. It was also wide with brush at the bottom of the jump. SO asked if I wanted pictures and I said sure, if nothing else to see what he does when he refuses. I picked up a VERY forward canter and kept long reins to funnel him to the jump. I gave him a huge jab right at the base of the jump and it turned out that I didn't need to. TWH jumped it, no soared over it. No questioning me about out, no spooking at it, just jumped it. OMG I am SO PROUD!!
After playing with more jumps we went to the water, we had the option to just trot in/out of the water OR we could jump a log and land IN the water and trot out. Can you guess what we did? We jumped the log! I say jump loosely, however, because he just took it as a big canter stride and never did tuck up and fully jump it. Haha! We played with jumping in and out of the water and then played with jumping up/down a little back into the water. I then brought him to the 2' bank section of the water and after a couple of nudges of encouragement he jumped up and down the bank. Good cross country horse! To finish I pointed him to the Training level water question, a big ol 3'6" bank up out of the water. I cantered him through the water and after a step of confusion he figured it out what I was asking and jumped up the bank without issues. Yay!!
After the water I ran the entire course to see how he felt and he felt great. The optimum time was 4:58 and we came in right on time with no refusals or even sticky spots. Go us, we are ready for our show!
The lesson went well and H found one of the bigger reasons we were getting a pivot/turn up the centerline instead of a 10m circle was, no big surprise, my body was refusing to put weight in my right stirrup. I was telling it to but my body was refusing to cooperate. Thus we worked on that for about half of the lesson. At the end I asked her opinion of where the thought we could go in the training progression and she made a good point. She wants us to be at Novice level by the end of this year or beginning of next year and she thinks he will make a fantastic Novice level horse. However. She doesn't think he will make a competitive Training level horse because he won't ever be able to make it in dressage. His gaitedness will work against him and he can't help it. It is a little frustrating but I completely understand and agree, he doesn't ever truly connect hind leg to rein through his back because while he looks like he is trotting, he is actually just moving his legs in the trotting motion I asked. Like he learned dance steps and he is performing them. Looks like I will probably be looking for a third horse by the end of the year, we will see I guess.
Saturday was, unfortunately, the only day I had to school the cross country course. I was supposed to school it April 20th and the course was closed due to very wet conditions. It was rescheduled for April 27th however that was when I was down at Rolex and so the May 4th date was the only one I could possibly go to. Not ideal but it was all I could do. Cross country schooling started out with a nice, solid warmup and a nice, solid run out at the first cross country jump I pointed the TWH at. Not the way I wanted to start the day! I gave him several very aggressive pokes with my spurs to let him know it wasn't acceptable and pointed him at the jump again. I kept my reins long and wide, funneling him to the jump as he couldn't turn his head left or right. He tried to dodge to the left, then tried to dodge to the right and then just lept over it. Yay! I made him go over it a couple more times and he gave me no issues so off we went to school the course.
Jumps 1-3 were big crossrails and except for the first jump, I didn't even send him over the jumps a second time. Jump 4 was a nice solid log and I sat back and pushed, pushed, pushed. Not only did the TWH go over it, he didn't even think about refusing! I jumped him over the novice log beside it just for good measure and he was spot on, he jumped it like it was 18". We jumped number 5 which had some hay bales and then pointed ourselves to the novice jump beside it. It was scary looking. I knew he would refuse at it, it was a red jump with dying brush sticking out of the top of it. It was also wide with brush at the bottom of the jump. SO asked if I wanted pictures and I said sure, if nothing else to see what he does when he refuses. I picked up a VERY forward canter and kept long reins to funnel him to the jump. I gave him a huge jab right at the base of the jump and it turned out that I didn't need to. TWH jumped it, no soared over it. No questioning me about out, no spooking at it, just jumped it. OMG I am SO PROUD!!
After playing with more jumps we went to the water, we had the option to just trot in/out of the water OR we could jump a log and land IN the water and trot out. Can you guess what we did? We jumped the log! I say jump loosely, however, because he just took it as a big canter stride and never did tuck up and fully jump it. Haha! We played with jumping in and out of the water and then played with jumping up/down a little back into the water. I then brought him to the 2' bank section of the water and after a couple of nudges of encouragement he jumped up and down the bank. Good cross country horse! To finish I pointed him to the Training level water question, a big ol 3'6" bank up out of the water. I cantered him through the water and after a step of confusion he figured it out what I was asking and jumped up the bank without issues. Yay!!
After the water I ran the entire course to see how he felt and he felt great. The optimum time was 4:58 and we came in right on time with no refusals or even sticky spots. Go us, we are ready for our show!
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Rolex recap
I am such a bad blogger :( Working to try to get caught up on my story now.
The last weekend in April I went to Rolex and had a great time! The weather was quite nice, the Rolex food was subpar but the area restaurants were great and I had good company. What an awesome trip! It started on Thursday when we left around 1130a. It was a little over a 7 hour trip down there but the time went quickly as I had RB4 to chat with. We made it to our hotel at 730p and for a hotel that we paid $53 a night for we were impressed. We stayed at the Howard Johnson and it was NICE for what we paid. The room was clean, modern and HUGE! It had 2 queen sized beds in it and if you rearranged things you could have fit a third queen size bed in it. The continental breakfast was also pretty good, there was a good selection of bread, bagels, french toast and waffles plus fruit, fruit salad cups and juices. Would highly recommend the hotel!
Friday was dressage day and while I only got to watch a few riders, it was pretty cool to watch. I watched William Fox Pitt ride Chilli Morning and Mary King ride at least. It was interesting to watch them, the upper level horse movements are so much faster than what I school at. A medium canter for them is a super forward canter compared to mine, I keep telling myself that I am on little horses (in comparison) but it was cool to watch the differences. Friday I also went on a coursewalk. Twice actually! The first one was with Peter Atkins of Run Henny Run and it was an awesome coursewalk. If anyone has the chance to do so, I would strongly recommend it. It was very small, only about 50 people and was like a mini lesson. He explained his strategy of approaching the fences and how he routes his entire run because since Henny is not the fastest horse, his goal as a rider is to take as few gallop strides as possible. He is always running to the rope to make the course as short as possible. How cool is that? I got a lot out of his coursewalk and enjoyed going. The second coursewalk was with Jimmy Wofford and it was huge, there were probably 300 people there! It was a pretty good coursewalk but I must have been spoiled because I thought Peter Atkins was much better :)
Saturday was cross country and it was awesome. We started out at the Normady Bank jump and it was quite impressive watching the horses go up and over the bank and jump. We then went to jump 6/9 and watch people jump the double brushes with the false ditch and then come around and jump the combination log, ditch and brush. We watched Peter Atkins jump through the first water complex at number 7 before making our way over to the ditch/wall before the sunken road. It looks like such an "easy" jump as you approach it until you look at it from the side, then it is scary as you can get. The jump isn't even max height but there is a 4 foot drop into water that makes up the jump spread so when looking at it from the side it looks like the horse is jumping closer to 8 feet. Wowsers! We watched the sunken road and then sat at the whiskey barrels after lunch as we had a good view of several jumps. We then meandered over to the double corners and watched Andrew Nicholson and Quimbo go over them. What a great day.
Sunday was stadium jumping and SHOPPING! We didn't know we had to buy seats for it before we got to Rolex so thankfully we found out and were able to buy bleacher seats on Friday. Last time I was there you could sit in the grass and watch, well not anymore! We did some shopping before parking ourselves in a prime position and letting the crowd fill around us. It was awesome watching everyone jump and was cool to see that even top riders don't have perfect equitation over most jumps. I was really happy for Quimbo to go clear, love when a horse other than brown wins! I was also very pleased with Pirate and Henny for placing in the top 10, good for them!!
After some residual shopping we headed back for our 7 hour drive back to Michigan, in which it rained about a third of the way. We finally got back at 11p and crash I went as it was back to work on Monday and a show the following weekend.
The last weekend in April I went to Rolex and had a great time! The weather was quite nice, the Rolex food was subpar but the area restaurants were great and I had good company. What an awesome trip! It started on Thursday when we left around 1130a. It was a little over a 7 hour trip down there but the time went quickly as I had RB4 to chat with. We made it to our hotel at 730p and for a hotel that we paid $53 a night for we were impressed. We stayed at the Howard Johnson and it was NICE for what we paid. The room was clean, modern and HUGE! It had 2 queen sized beds in it and if you rearranged things you could have fit a third queen size bed in it. The continental breakfast was also pretty good, there was a good selection of bread, bagels, french toast and waffles plus fruit, fruit salad cups and juices. Would highly recommend the hotel!
Friday was dressage day and while I only got to watch a few riders, it was pretty cool to watch. I watched William Fox Pitt ride Chilli Morning and Mary King ride at least. It was interesting to watch them, the upper level horse movements are so much faster than what I school at. A medium canter for them is a super forward canter compared to mine, I keep telling myself that I am on little horses (in comparison) but it was cool to watch the differences. Friday I also went on a coursewalk. Twice actually! The first one was with Peter Atkins of Run Henny Run and it was an awesome coursewalk. If anyone has the chance to do so, I would strongly recommend it. It was very small, only about 50 people and was like a mini lesson. He explained his strategy of approaching the fences and how he routes his entire run because since Henny is not the fastest horse, his goal as a rider is to take as few gallop strides as possible. He is always running to the rope to make the course as short as possible. How cool is that? I got a lot out of his coursewalk and enjoyed going. The second coursewalk was with Jimmy Wofford and it was huge, there were probably 300 people there! It was a pretty good coursewalk but I must have been spoiled because I thought Peter Atkins was much better :)
Saturday was cross country and it was awesome. We started out at the Normady Bank jump and it was quite impressive watching the horses go up and over the bank and jump. We then went to jump 6/9 and watch people jump the double brushes with the false ditch and then come around and jump the combination log, ditch and brush. We watched Peter Atkins jump through the first water complex at number 7 before making our way over to the ditch/wall before the sunken road. It looks like such an "easy" jump as you approach it until you look at it from the side, then it is scary as you can get. The jump isn't even max height but there is a 4 foot drop into water that makes up the jump spread so when looking at it from the side it looks like the horse is jumping closer to 8 feet. Wowsers! We watched the sunken road and then sat at the whiskey barrels after lunch as we had a good view of several jumps. We then meandered over to the double corners and watched Andrew Nicholson and Quimbo go over them. What a great day.
Sunday was stadium jumping and SHOPPING! We didn't know we had to buy seats for it before we got to Rolex so thankfully we found out and were able to buy bleacher seats on Friday. Last time I was there you could sit in the grass and watch, well not anymore! We did some shopping before parking ourselves in a prime position and letting the crowd fill around us. It was awesome watching everyone jump and was cool to see that even top riders don't have perfect equitation over most jumps. I was really happy for Quimbo to go clear, love when a horse other than brown wins! I was also very pleased with Pirate and Henny for placing in the top 10, good for them!!
After some residual shopping we headed back for our 7 hour drive back to Michigan, in which it rained about a third of the way. We finally got back at 11p and crash I went as it was back to work on Monday and a show the following weekend.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Quick update - show prepping!!
Sorry for the lack of posting, have been pretty busy around here. Combine that with work and I just haven't had time to blog much. Hopefully that will change, I will at least aim to post about my trip next weekend and my show the weekend following. What is next weekend you ask? I am going to ROLEX!!!! It has been 10 years since I was able to go and am very excited to finally make it this year. Is anyone else going? If so let me know and we can plan on meeting up!
What have I been doing these past 2 weeks? Riding. A lot of riding. Working a lot on dressage to get the TWH show ready. Mix in a good amount of fitness so that he can canter 4-5 minutes without being completely out of breath and it adds up to a lot of riding. We are getting there fitness wise, he can do 3 minutes of a nice FORWARD canter without sounding like he is ready to pass out so we are progressing. The collected canters are easy, it is the forward, faster ones that drain the TWH's gas tank.
I think when I blogged last I was talking about my pending jumping lesson. How did that go you ask? Pretty well I would say! The TWH did really well in the bigger arena and while he technically refused one fence, H said it was a miscommunication as he thought we were going around it instead so I shouldn't get after him too badly. I did kick and kick and kick and kick, put him a tight circle and had him jump the little 2' jump from almost a standstill before I moved on and he gave no more refusals the rest of the day. He handled all of the jumps really well, even when going in the more forward canter. Here are some small video clips of it too!! (note due to my extremely slow internet and video taking forever to upload, these are small snippets)
Our dressage is coming along, we are working really hard on 3 items right now. Our canter to trot transition on a straight line, 10m circles (to head up the centerline) and our freewalk. Since the beginner novice dressage test has you turn the corner, trot before the middle of the arena and then turn in a 10m circle up the centerline at the end of the arena, we don't have a lot of time to perfect the trot before we have a new move. Who am I kidding, there is no time! Thus the 2-4 shuffle steps he has been taking really need to disappear and I am pretty confident they won't appear in our test with the progress we have made.
The 10m circles are getting a good bit better, I worked on them tonight actually. The TWH likes to do one of two things, push off and pivot around the corner, almost like shying away from the corner, or he will break gait as he makes the turn. Since neither are an ideal scenario it has required a good bit of work to fix and it is getting there. He is no longer pivoting, who am I kidding-just not doing it most of the time, and as long as he isn't tired he is keeping his gait. Hopefully we will get there!
Finally is the freewalk, the freewalk is actually a really good gait for him because of his nice swingy, overreaching flatwalk. The issue is that I need him to stretch forward and downward while he does it which is the opposite of what he likes to do in the flatwalk. Ugh horse! This is actually the one piece I am not sure how well we will fix before the show, I can get the walk, I can get the forward and I can get the downward. I just can't get all three of them at once. We are still working on it however, I think if I can get the walk and the forward stretch it should be sufficient enough. I hope.
Hopefully I will find time to post a about my Rolex trip next Monday or Tuesday, I am really looking forward to the vacation. If not you may just get a condensed version and then have a post about cross country schooling on the 4th and the show on the 5th. Wish me luck!
What have I been doing these past 2 weeks? Riding. A lot of riding. Working a lot on dressage to get the TWH show ready. Mix in a good amount of fitness so that he can canter 4-5 minutes without being completely out of breath and it adds up to a lot of riding. We are getting there fitness wise, he can do 3 minutes of a nice FORWARD canter without sounding like he is ready to pass out so we are progressing. The collected canters are easy, it is the forward, faster ones that drain the TWH's gas tank.
I think when I blogged last I was talking about my pending jumping lesson. How did that go you ask? Pretty well I would say! The TWH did really well in the bigger arena and while he technically refused one fence, H said it was a miscommunication as he thought we were going around it instead so I shouldn't get after him too badly. I did kick and kick and kick and kick, put him a tight circle and had him jump the little 2' jump from almost a standstill before I moved on and he gave no more refusals the rest of the day. He handled all of the jumps really well, even when going in the more forward canter. Here are some small video clips of it too!! (note due to my extremely slow internet and video taking forever to upload, these are small snippets)
Our dressage is coming along, we are working really hard on 3 items right now. Our canter to trot transition on a straight line, 10m circles (to head up the centerline) and our freewalk. Since the beginner novice dressage test has you turn the corner, trot before the middle of the arena and then turn in a 10m circle up the centerline at the end of the arena, we don't have a lot of time to perfect the trot before we have a new move. Who am I kidding, there is no time! Thus the 2-4 shuffle steps he has been taking really need to disappear and I am pretty confident they won't appear in our test with the progress we have made.
The 10m circles are getting a good bit better, I worked on them tonight actually. The TWH likes to do one of two things, push off and pivot around the corner, almost like shying away from the corner, or he will break gait as he makes the turn. Since neither are an ideal scenario it has required a good bit of work to fix and it is getting there. He is no longer pivoting, who am I kidding-just not doing it most of the time, and as long as he isn't tired he is keeping his gait. Hopefully we will get there!
Finally is the freewalk, the freewalk is actually a really good gait for him because of his nice swingy, overreaching flatwalk. The issue is that I need him to stretch forward and downward while he does it which is the opposite of what he likes to do in the flatwalk. Ugh horse! This is actually the one piece I am not sure how well we will fix before the show, I can get the walk, I can get the forward and I can get the downward. I just can't get all three of them at once. We are still working on it however, I think if I can get the walk and the forward stretch it should be sufficient enough. I hope.
Hopefully I will find time to post a about my Rolex trip next Monday or Tuesday, I am really looking forward to the vacation. If not you may just get a condensed version and then have a post about cross country schooling on the 4th and the show on the 5th. Wish me luck!
Friday, April 5, 2013
Some announcements and going for a walk
Unfortunately there has been precious little riding since my lesson thanks to the holiday weekend, busy schedules and an extremely dusty arena. It is now very obvious that the flooding that I have had over this past winter has washed away most of my arena treatment as I tried to ride on Monday and it was simply too dusty to anything more than walk. How frustrating! My tentative plan is to throw down some more treatment on Saturday and see how it does.
I have delayed posting about this but I figure I need to share that Daisy is now living with alpacas and is not our babysitter. She has become increasingly noisy in her protest that she is turned out separately from the boys in the morning. Since the hay I secured for the boys last year is mostly alfalfa, she can't have it so she has to have breakfast separately and wait for the boys to finish eating. Around lunch I go outside and let her in with the boys. The issue is her braying at least every hour because she is separated and then when I turn her out with the boys, she immediately goes over and eats as much of the alfalfa chafing as she can. She has become lame a couple of times, has been ouchy on her feet and the farrier agreed it is likely her alfalfa chafing consumption. On top of this, she decided that she didn't want to be caught at night unless boys had already left. She could be standing at the gate, when I walk to the gate to get everyone she would turn, walk away and refuse to come up to me if I called. Half of the time if I then walked over to her she would walk away. BUT as soon as I took the boys out of the pasture, even if they were just on the other side of the gate, she come right up to the gate waiting for me to bring her out and I would then have no problems catching her. I tried round penning her (which she did really well at but didn't fix the issue outside of the round pen), treats, ear scratches and chasing when she walked away and she kept up her behavior for 3 weeks.
Eventually I posted on a forum asking for ideas and someone that is about 45 mins away said they were looking for a friendly guard donkey for their alpacas. They had just started an alpaca farm and this was their first birthing season, they wanted something to guard the babies. I met them and really liked the couple, they met Daisy and fell in LOVE. I brought her down to their farm and Daisy hopped off of the trailer and walked through the yard like she owned the place. She didn't spook at anything and was very interested in everything. When she was put in with the alpacas, she immediately walked over to them and chased them off of a flake of hay on the ground. I have kept in touch with the people and Daisy is doing great. The alpacas decided she wasn't evil after 2 days and Daisy has stopped braying every day. They even have pics of their young grandson sitting on Daisy. She seems very happy. Chippy wasn't happy though, he stared at the trailer when we brought it home and looked for Daisy for a full 2 days before settling down. Thankfully he got over his heartbreak and he is now fine with having the TWH to buddy with.
Last weekend the vet was out for spring shots, he drew blood on the App for his yearly CBC and said his levels are the same where the were last year, yay! He has some kidney disease so I am glad it isn't getting worse. He did say, however, that he is glad I retired the App from jumping last year. Apparently when in bright sunlight, and his pupil is small, the App about 75% blind. *sniff* That makes me really sad, I guess I can't just pull the App out of retirement if the TWH can't do eventing : ( I guess he is going to have to be happy as a lesson horse and slowly adjust to life with limited-to-no visibility.
Since I haven't been able to ride, and I am trying to get back into a shape that isn't round, I have started walking. Taking a tip from the NuzzMuzz book I took the boys on a walk. I don't have any awesome trails to walk on but I did walk almost 1.5 miles last night on our quiet little road and it went really well! I expected the App to jig and rush like he can under saddle but he was an angel, they both were. They stopped when I did, backed up when I did and I held both of them on a very loose lead line. Walking win!
I have delayed posting about this but I figure I need to share that Daisy is now living with alpacas and is not our babysitter. She has become increasingly noisy in her protest that she is turned out separately from the boys in the morning. Since the hay I secured for the boys last year is mostly alfalfa, she can't have it so she has to have breakfast separately and wait for the boys to finish eating. Around lunch I go outside and let her in with the boys. The issue is her braying at least every hour because she is separated and then when I turn her out with the boys, she immediately goes over and eats as much of the alfalfa chafing as she can. She has become lame a couple of times, has been ouchy on her feet and the farrier agreed it is likely her alfalfa chafing consumption. On top of this, she decided that she didn't want to be caught at night unless boys had already left. She could be standing at the gate, when I walk to the gate to get everyone she would turn, walk away and refuse to come up to me if I called. Half of the time if I then walked over to her she would walk away. BUT as soon as I took the boys out of the pasture, even if they were just on the other side of the gate, she come right up to the gate waiting for me to bring her out and I would then have no problems catching her. I tried round penning her (which she did really well at but didn't fix the issue outside of the round pen), treats, ear scratches and chasing when she walked away and she kept up her behavior for 3 weeks.
Eventually I posted on a forum asking for ideas and someone that is about 45 mins away said they were looking for a friendly guard donkey for their alpacas. They had just started an alpaca farm and this was their first birthing season, they wanted something to guard the babies. I met them and really liked the couple, they met Daisy and fell in LOVE. I brought her down to their farm and Daisy hopped off of the trailer and walked through the yard like she owned the place. She didn't spook at anything and was very interested in everything. When she was put in with the alpacas, she immediately walked over to them and chased them off of a flake of hay on the ground. I have kept in touch with the people and Daisy is doing great. The alpacas decided she wasn't evil after 2 days and Daisy has stopped braying every day. They even have pics of their young grandson sitting on Daisy. She seems very happy. Chippy wasn't happy though, he stared at the trailer when we brought it home and looked for Daisy for a full 2 days before settling down. Thankfully he got over his heartbreak and he is now fine with having the TWH to buddy with.
Last weekend the vet was out for spring shots, he drew blood on the App for his yearly CBC and said his levels are the same where the were last year, yay! He has some kidney disease so I am glad it isn't getting worse. He did say, however, that he is glad I retired the App from jumping last year. Apparently when in bright sunlight, and his pupil is small, the App about 75% blind. *sniff* That makes me really sad, I guess I can't just pull the App out of retirement if the TWH can't do eventing : ( I guess he is going to have to be happy as a lesson horse and slowly adjust to life with limited-to-no visibility.
Since I haven't been able to ride, and I am trying to get back into a shape that isn't round, I have started walking. Taking a tip from the NuzzMuzz book I took the boys on a walk. I don't have any awesome trails to walk on but I did walk almost 1.5 miles last night on our quiet little road and it went really well! I expected the App to jig and rush like he can under saddle but he was an angel, they both were. They stopped when I did, backed up when I did and I held both of them on a very loose lead line. Walking win!
Friday, March 29, 2013
When just going isn't enough
Last night I had my first jumping lesson since last April, I was so excited and I think it paid off. The main goal of the lesson was to see where I was jumping wise, to see what H thought of the TWH's jumping and what she thought a good plan for our TWH would be.
I have been jumping him in a simple gymnastic grid, with trot poles to a jump to a one stride, I like it as it is a good training jump that encourages the horse to learn how to approach a jump and is a good foundation of learning. H said since we had jumped it for 3 days it was time to mix it up so she immediately took the entire thing down and moved it to be 3 individual, free standing jumps. She kept one jump on the long side, one jump on the diagonal and one jump on the short side.
After a good warm up, which she said she liked my two point position and was happy that I was equally weighting my stirrups (Yay!), she had me pop over a tiny 18" crossrail down the long side. She then had me do it second time, but this time to push the TWH at the jump and don't let him just hop over it so I did. That set the tone for the rest of the lesson. Forward. She raised it to a 2' crossrail and we repeated the exercise and with a good squeeze, he sailed over it without any issues. H raised the crossrail to a 2' vertical and put the jump on the diagonal as a 2' vertical and had us jump them together and as long as I stayed engaged and pushed him, he soared over the jump. As soon as I sat back as a passenger and gave him the responsibility of figuring it out, he would slow down to a collected canter and usually knock the pole with his hind end.
She then set the jump on the short side at 2'3" and put a barrel under it and had us come at it. The TWH cantered to it nicely but had a momentary lapse of thinking, almost stopped and then leapt over the whole thing. As a result I was been thrown forward from the abrupt tempo change and on the landing I tried really, really hard to fall off. With a pretty impressive effort, however, I grabbed some mane and hauled myself back into the saddle, letting gravity lick it's wounds from the defeat of my fall. H even said it was an impressive save and had me come back at it again but this time use even MORE leg and a good strong kick if needed. This time around I sat way back and drove him to the fence and despite being a little wonky at the takeoff, he jumped it nicely. H and I can only assume his first reaction was due to a weird shadow that was at the base of the left hand side jump but hey. At least he didn't refuse!
We played with the long side and diagonal jumps a bit more before finally bumping the long side up to a 2'6" ascending oxer. No big deal since we jumped 2'9" on Wednesday, but she made the jump almost 4 feet wide! I am a person for punishment and while I mentioned it was a bit wider then we have jumped, maybe ever?, I was game for it and the TWH soared over it. And I do mean soared, H said he cleared it easily with another 6 inches to spare in height and it was impressive the push he gave to clear the width.
The results of the lesson? I need to work on myself more, no big surprise there. While I have good equitation, I didn't pull his mouth at all and my lower leg is quiet over most of the jumps, when we go faster AND bigger my lower leg becomes unsteady. Not a lot, but enough that I notice and it isn't acceptable. I need to fix that. Why? Because H says the TWH needs to jump at a pretty steady medium canter, not the nice collected canter I have been jumping him in. I need to easily go 3mph faster in the canter to give him the impulsion to clear the fences with his hind end and to keep him at a jumping pace he is more comfortable in. Yikes! We have work to do.
I have been jumping him in a simple gymnastic grid, with trot poles to a jump to a one stride, I like it as it is a good training jump that encourages the horse to learn how to approach a jump and is a good foundation of learning. H said since we had jumped it for 3 days it was time to mix it up so she immediately took the entire thing down and moved it to be 3 individual, free standing jumps. She kept one jump on the long side, one jump on the diagonal and one jump on the short side.
After a good warm up, which she said she liked my two point position and was happy that I was equally weighting my stirrups (Yay!), she had me pop over a tiny 18" crossrail down the long side. She then had me do it second time, but this time to push the TWH at the jump and don't let him just hop over it so I did. That set the tone for the rest of the lesson. Forward. She raised it to a 2' crossrail and we repeated the exercise and with a good squeeze, he sailed over it without any issues. H raised the crossrail to a 2' vertical and put the jump on the diagonal as a 2' vertical and had us jump them together and as long as I stayed engaged and pushed him, he soared over the jump. As soon as I sat back as a passenger and gave him the responsibility of figuring it out, he would slow down to a collected canter and usually knock the pole with his hind end.
She then set the jump on the short side at 2'3" and put a barrel under it and had us come at it. The TWH cantered to it nicely but had a momentary lapse of thinking, almost stopped and then leapt over the whole thing. As a result I was been thrown forward from the abrupt tempo change and on the landing I tried really, really hard to fall off. With a pretty impressive effort, however, I grabbed some mane and hauled myself back into the saddle, letting gravity lick it's wounds from the defeat of my fall. H even said it was an impressive save and had me come back at it again but this time use even MORE leg and a good strong kick if needed. This time around I sat way back and drove him to the fence and despite being a little wonky at the takeoff, he jumped it nicely. H and I can only assume his first reaction was due to a weird shadow that was at the base of the left hand side jump but hey. At least he didn't refuse!
We played with the long side and diagonal jumps a bit more before finally bumping the long side up to a 2'6" ascending oxer. No big deal since we jumped 2'9" on Wednesday, but she made the jump almost 4 feet wide! I am a person for punishment and while I mentioned it was a bit wider then we have jumped, maybe ever?, I was game for it and the TWH soared over it. And I do mean soared, H said he cleared it easily with another 6 inches to spare in height and it was impressive the push he gave to clear the width.
The results of the lesson? I need to work on myself more, no big surprise there. While I have good equitation, I didn't pull his mouth at all and my lower leg is quiet over most of the jumps, when we go faster AND bigger my lower leg becomes unsteady. Not a lot, but enough that I notice and it isn't acceptable. I need to fix that. Why? Because H says the TWH needs to jump at a pretty steady medium canter, not the nice collected canter I have been jumping him in. I need to easily go 3mph faster in the canter to give him the impulsion to clear the fences with his hind end and to keep him at a jumping pace he is more comfortable in. Yikes! We have work to do.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
If you are happy and you know it, jump around
Last night was my first jumping session since my failed attempt in November, where my knee blew up to the size of my thigh, and only second session since my surgery last year. I can say it was not only successful but I have recovered today without being any worse-for-wear. Yay!!
Unfortunately my arena is currently a collection of mishaps which results in an an area of 50x50 that I can use instead of the full 50x100. An almost 15x5 foot section in the front of my arena has had the base be washed away by the multiple floods so there is a sinkhole that is soft and unrideable and in the rear about 15 feet is taken up by hay and miscellaneous farm equipment. The farm equipment typically isn't bad to work around however since the hay is taking up the 3/4 of the back wall where the equipment normally lives, the equipment is now in a rectangle away from the wall that blocks more of the arena. Ugh! After jumping last night, however, I am more determined to resolve this so I moved a good bit of hay and at lunch will move the hay fencing to free up about third of the area that is currently taken. I just don't have room!! Hopefully in the next weekend or two I can fix my sinkhole and have even more of my arena back.
I am currently scheduled to have a lesson with H on Thursday. Since I am now satisfied with my two point I needed to start jumping so I would look like I kind of knew what I was doing again. Jumping was really hard to work on thanks to my arena predicament however I was able to squeeze (really squeeze) a simple gymnastic with 2 trot poles to a jump to a one stride. The TWH did really well trotting over the poles on the ground and didn't even blink when I raised jump 1 up to a measly 18". Yay TWH!!! I went over it several times before raising it up to 2' and he was meeting the jump well. At this point we had a couple of issues with the approach, he would try to canter into it instead of trotting but a very stern halt/back/kick forward fixed his approach. My position certainly isn't BAD but I don't think it is certainly GOOD at this point either, which showed later on. More homework!
I bumped jump 2 up to 18" and we worked on the two jumps for a little while, mostly for me to stay back and remember to close my hip angle over the jumps, and the TWH did well. He met the first jump well and was confidently stepping over the second jump so I bumped the second jump up to 2' as an oxer instead of a vertical. He tried rushing into the trot poles at a canter a few more times so we had the halt/back/kick discussion again, it also resulted in me having to hop down to reposition trot poles. Twice. After the third disobedience he seemed to decide it was easier to do as asked and trotted into the poles the rest of the ride without an issue. Sheesh.
For the finale I bumped jump 2 up to 2'6", this is what I consider our base schooling height. It is the max height for Beginner Novice, back in 2011 it was what I schooled over regularly. I pushed the TWH through the course for the first time and he seemed a little surprised but jumped it nicely. The second time we went through is when he started struggling. I didn't have anyone there to tell me what he was doing or to give input but it felt like he jumped the first jump, slammed on the brakes in the one stride and then leapt over the second jump. This is where my subpar position came into play and I *just about* came off. Geez horse, I thought we were past that part in our relationship!?! I went through again and was prepared so I didn't try to fall off, but the TWH repeated his behavior and I wasn't as balanced as I should have been. To my credit, however, I didn't touch his mouth and instead grabbed his long, thick mane to rebalance. Something I can't do with my poor App as he has no mane haha!
Since it felt like he was slamming on the brakes, thus throwing me way forward, before leaping, the next time through as soon as he landed over the first jump I give him a good hard kick and he soared over jump 2 without the abruptness. Success! We went through one more time with a good solid, hard kick to remind him to stay forward and when he jumped the second jump correctly I gave him a short rest. I can only think he started to panic and since it was big (scary?), he forgot how to properly jump it so he was leaping over it. I do remember a very vivid picture of seeing his knees coming up, which wouldn't be that impressive except I wasn't looking down and still saw them in my peripheral vision. I wish I would have gotten that on video, I am curious just how high he was bringing his knees those first few times!!
To finish I put him through the course 5 more times to really reinforce how to do it and to see if he would make the braking mistake again but he was a good boy and we ended on a really good note. I am hopeful for company tonight when I jump but if not then it isn't that bad because I have my lesson with H on Thursday. We are on our way to being real eventers!
Unfortunately my arena is currently a collection of mishaps which results in an an area of 50x50 that I can use instead of the full 50x100. An almost 15x5 foot section in the front of my arena has had the base be washed away by the multiple floods so there is a sinkhole that is soft and unrideable and in the rear about 15 feet is taken up by hay and miscellaneous farm equipment. The farm equipment typically isn't bad to work around however since the hay is taking up the 3/4 of the back wall where the equipment normally lives, the equipment is now in a rectangle away from the wall that blocks more of the arena. Ugh! After jumping last night, however, I am more determined to resolve this so I moved a good bit of hay and at lunch will move the hay fencing to free up about third of the area that is currently taken. I just don't have room!! Hopefully in the next weekend or two I can fix my sinkhole and have even more of my arena back.
I am currently scheduled to have a lesson with H on Thursday. Since I am now satisfied with my two point I needed to start jumping so I would look like I kind of knew what I was doing again. Jumping was really hard to work on thanks to my arena predicament however I was able to squeeze (really squeeze) a simple gymnastic with 2 trot poles to a jump to a one stride. The TWH did really well trotting over the poles on the ground and didn't even blink when I raised jump 1 up to a measly 18". Yay TWH!!! I went over it several times before raising it up to 2' and he was meeting the jump well. At this point we had a couple of issues with the approach, he would try to canter into it instead of trotting but a very stern halt/back/kick forward fixed his approach. My position certainly isn't BAD but I don't think it is certainly GOOD at this point either, which showed later on. More homework!
I bumped jump 2 up to 18" and we worked on the two jumps for a little while, mostly for me to stay back and remember to close my hip angle over the jumps, and the TWH did well. He met the first jump well and was confidently stepping over the second jump so I bumped the second jump up to 2' as an oxer instead of a vertical. He tried rushing into the trot poles at a canter a few more times so we had the halt/back/kick discussion again, it also resulted in me having to hop down to reposition trot poles. Twice. After the third disobedience he seemed to decide it was easier to do as asked and trotted into the poles the rest of the ride without an issue. Sheesh.
For the finale I bumped jump 2 up to 2'6", this is what I consider our base schooling height. It is the max height for Beginner Novice, back in 2011 it was what I schooled over regularly. I pushed the TWH through the course for the first time and he seemed a little surprised but jumped it nicely. The second time we went through is when he started struggling. I didn't have anyone there to tell me what he was doing or to give input but it felt like he jumped the first jump, slammed on the brakes in the one stride and then leapt over the second jump. This is where my subpar position came into play and I *just about* came off. Geez horse, I thought we were past that part in our relationship!?! I went through again and was prepared so I didn't try to fall off, but the TWH repeated his behavior and I wasn't as balanced as I should have been. To my credit, however, I didn't touch his mouth and instead grabbed his long, thick mane to rebalance. Something I can't do with my poor App as he has no mane haha!
Since it felt like he was slamming on the brakes, thus throwing me way forward, before leaping, the next time through as soon as he landed over the first jump I give him a good hard kick and he soared over jump 2 without the abruptness. Success! We went through one more time with a good solid, hard kick to remind him to stay forward and when he jumped the second jump correctly I gave him a short rest. I can only think he started to panic and since it was big (scary?), he forgot how to properly jump it so he was leaping over it. I do remember a very vivid picture of seeing his knees coming up, which wouldn't be that impressive except I wasn't looking down and still saw them in my peripheral vision. I wish I would have gotten that on video, I am curious just how high he was bringing his knees those first few times!!
To finish I put him through the course 5 more times to really reinforce how to do it and to see if he would make the braking mistake again but he was a good boy and we ended on a really good note. I am hopeful for company tonight when I jump but if not then it isn't that bad because I have my lesson with H on Thursday. We are on our way to being real eventers!
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