"Incidents"

Nothing of massive note happened yesterday.  The ring got dragged and I was too lazy to haul poles around so we had a boring straight forward ride.  What was funny is that when I pulled up two horses were being lunged. The first horse is a girl at the barn's "move up" warmblood who is sweet as can be, but currently ignores her very tiny rider about 1/3 of the time.  Not in a bad way, just in a slow, deliberate, I-steer-like-a-cow way.  It's cute, mostly.

The other horse is a lanky TB owned by another young student who is currently forbidden from riding him.  Apparently he's "dangerous." Mind you, a month ago I saw her going around 3'6" jumps no problem, but apparently he's learned how to rear, and while he won't pull any crap with any of the trainers, he's learned to take advantage of his cute owner and is a total nitwit.  He is now for sale.

ANYWAY, the move-up-warmblood belongs to the girl who's mom said that Pia was a "liability" in the ring and referred to my unfortuante "dismount" a few weeks ago as an "incident."

So, while I was tacking up I was chatting with said mom (she's a nice lady), and she was mentioning the incidents leading up to Nitwit TB being put up for sale.  I was distracted, mostly because I've never heard the word incident used so many times (it was sort of like counting how often a girl says like).  Buuuut, I tacked up, took P to the ring and got ready to lunge.  Meanwhile steer-like-a-cow is trotting round and round, turning sometimes when asked, but often encroaching our lunge circle (mind you, this ring is HUGE, space is not an issue...).

I get on, start doing our long low loose walk, when steer-like-a-cow gets put away and the girls old pony gets brought out. Ahem, the girls bratty pony gets brought out.  The pony is cute, but she's a pony, and she's bratty, and she also hadn't been ridden in about 4 days, so she's extra bratty. 

I was eyeing her just a little bit, since I wasn't sure how bratty the pony was going to be, and I really just wanted to not be worrying about any other horses and just focus on P, but it took about 5 minutes to realize that was not going to happen.  Bratty pony walked nicely for the first 4.5 minutes before promptly beginning a series of bucks, hops, spooks and small rears. 

I'll give her little rider some credit, she stuck on, and aside from being a little timid about sending the pony FORWARD to get out of it, she did well.  But her outburst meant that I stopped riding, and coached cute girl and bratty pony for 20 minutes while P chewed on her bit and waited somewhat impatiently to do something.

Moral of the story, I was kinda smirking about the fact that the mom got to watch P sit quietly and amble around the ring while her daughter fought the pony in fits and spurts attempting to get a consistent forward trot and canter out of her..

Point, Carie. 

It seems like the emphasis on my "incident" is going away, since every other horse in the barn is behaving like a lunatic. So that's nice.  It's also a little validating. 

Anyway. Pia was pretty good. nice loose walk, that weird trot/canter trot again (better by the end) and some minimal canter work.  We also worked on baby leg yields down the long side - getting her off my leg a little.  She's starting to get it. Tried to do it on a loose rein so as just to have her listen to my leg and not get her panties in a bunch...

Today we have a lesson (S is apparently up and about a little bit), so we'll see what's in store... fun times.

Free Lunging

I have mixed feelings on lunging.  I like it to let horses loosen up and get warm, but keeping any horse on a small circle for more than 10 minutes makes me fear for their joints.  I've often used lunging to let my horses warm up for a few minutes before I get on, but I cringe when I see people send their poor horses careening around a 15 meter circle for 45 minutes before their lesson/hunter under saddle class/whatever.  I've seen a couple horses with stifle issues and other strains that just worsened and worsened due in part to their oweners endless lunging.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think lunging is creul, or useless or without purpose, but I am hyper sensitive to both the size of the circle and the amount of time I spend with a horse on the end of a lunge line.
My preferred solution to this problem is to teach horses how to be super comfortable free lunging, so that i can send them down the long side, open up the circle a little more, and in general let them balance themselves better.

Free lunging isn't always possible since I need the ring to myself to do it, but our barn isn't too busy (especially in the middle of the day) so S has been experimenting with free lunging Pia in order to get a few more bucks out and make sure she gets plenty of "room to play" while she's turned out.  

I hadn't witnessed P free lunging until this weekend when I rolled myself out there on Saturday only slightly loopy from DayQuil.  I wasn't sure if I would be riding or not, so I grabbed P, groomed her, booted her up and took her to the ring. unhooked her and preparing to chase her around the ring to get her bucks out.  Instead, what I got was a nice little mare who put herself on a 25-ish meter circle and lunged PERFECTLY even though she was totally detached.


Really, mare?

She would stop and change direction every once in a while, but for the most part she worked perfectly on a nice big circle, and every once in a while I would push her down the long side just to make her straighten out.  She'd go, loop around and then circle up again around me.  what a cutie.  I started playing with transitions just to see how well she was listening, and she was right with me. Walk, trot, canter, trot, halt, trot? She nailed 'em.  She broke into the canter a bit especially on the "downhill" side of the ring, but that's ok.

(Halting on the "lunge." I could see her little brain trying to decide 

if she was supposed to be listening to me or not...)

I was so impressed! and when I asked her to halt and called her to me, she just came right into the center, totally calm, not all hyped up even though she had been charging around.  What a good mare!

 (Cute mare comes when called)

Anyway, she was so great that I had to get on and play around a little, even if my sense of balance was totally wacko. Our ride was fine. Nothing spectacular, nothing bad.  P was stuck behind my leg a little, and whenever I tried to send her forward she did this half trot/half canter thing that was fairly obnoxious and hard to prevent without bringing her totally back.

But we did poles, and transitions, and a little bit more canter work, no big arguments, no fusses.  So I'll call that a good ride.

Sunday, I felt a little worse so I just went out and free lunged again. No ride. But she did get fluffed and buffed and a little bit of a mane trim to keep us looking tidy.  She had dropped a little weight her first week at the barn, which was probably a combo of stress, hay she didn't love and getting ridden 6 days a week by an excited new owner, but she has PACKED it back on.  She looks great. Might actually have to cut her rice bran down a little to keep us from getting chubby, but I'm glad that it didn't take long to get the weight back.  I'm a little obsessive when it comes to keep horses at weight so I think I notice small changes before most people and adjust feed accordingly, but what's wrong with that?

I tried my best to get a cute clip of Pia lunging herself, but it was a little difficult to watch the horse, use the whip and attempt to film with a steady hand.  Just a slight warning that this might make you dizzy :)



Cuter! right?

Rock. Star.

Quick update before I run out the door to the weekend (with my freshly arrived cold... stupid sick boyfriend..).

Hit the barn yesterday before all the evening lessons started so that I would have the ring to myself for some more pole work.  The wind was blowing all OVER the place, so the horses were spunky and Miss P was no exception, so I wasn't sure how she was going to ride... but she was fantastic.  Warmed up long and low, big loose walk on the buckle.  I think this will be our new thing for at least 10 min. It totally seems to get her off to the right start, and seems to translate into her trot work nicely. 

We trotted both ways.  She was forward and responsive and didn't balk at ALL to my very present leg contact which was great.  Then we added in our single poles, then spaced poles, then 4 in a row again and she was a stud.  about 20min round and round both ways, then a big walk break. 

Since she's been a twit about going back to work after breaks, I threw in lots of walk/trot/halt/trot/walk/trot transitions.  We only fought the first couple times before she was pushing off into her transitions and completely left the hunchyback/sucked in trot behind.  (LOVE IT!)

We finished with a touch of canter both ways, with a little pole work after to bring her back and make her refocus/balance. 

We worked for about 40 min total, and only one small buck in the canter! what a rock star!

Of course, when the kiddies flooded the ring just as we were finishing one of them was throwing crops around so P did a nice little side step/spook, but that was it.

I was proud.  Plus one of the mom's who has "concerns" about Pia and the safety of others riding at the same time as me was watching her daughter get ready for her lesson.  I couldn't help the smug "that's right, my horse is pretty, and cute, and a ROCK STAR" look as I walked by.

In reality I just said "hi" but I'm sure she got the full meaning.

Anyway, today is absolutely DISMAL outside, so I'm giving Pia the day off while I stuff myself full of airborne and sudafed. My plan is to be "all better" by tomorrow. And maybe, just maybe if I'm feeling wealthy I'll swing by the tack store to eyeball saddles... we'll see.  S has been generous in letting us ride in her close contact, but a) my ass is having a very hard time with the (very sturdy) seat of a 1970 Hermes. and b) I don't want to be responsible for ruining a collector's item :)
plus, c) P should have a saddle that is her very own. right?

I've decided to part with my Ainsley Pro National to offset the cost.  Something tells me that its going to be a very long time before I need its ridiculously forward seat and thigh blocks.  :) something a little more neutral might be in store for us. 

Happy Weekend!

Always Something..

When horses are involved, it's always something, right?

Yesterday I forgot my video camera, which bummed me out since a) Pia did RAD over lots of poles. single poles, 3 poles, 4 poles, poles with standards on the sides. she's a ground pole machine.   and b) she pulled her "i'm done" trick again, which was quickly and repeatedly remedied with a swift pop with a crop, which was fun watching her figure out.

All in all it was a good lesson. Walk, trot, canter, poles, bending, very little in the way of arguments. Also, she spent almost the entire lesson in front of my leg which felt GREAT.  No more sucking back, we've got a solid feel of our aids now... woo-hoo!

I'm all set to go out again today, but the lesson has been postponed since S is currently reattaching two ends of her collarbone that have split up after an unfortunate run in with a car.  WTF.  I'm thankful its a collarbone and not a spinal cord, but still not fun for her. :(

SO, we'll see. I'll hack the Piasaur today, give her tomorrow off, then play all weekend with the beast.  Hopefully S is feeling better and put us back under her watchful eye soon. :)

But till then we'll keep ourselves busy, and hopefully well behaved....

giddyup!