3 Rides, 2 Good P's and 1 Great Field Trip

Feeling a lot of mare-love after a super productive weekend with both of the girls. 

Saturday Supermom came up for a visit which means two things 1) I had an excuse to go to my favorite mexican place on a lunch date and 2) I actually have some new pictures of Miss Pia.  Both are very exciting things.

I started the morning on P1, who - as promised is being great under saddle.  Aside from feeling like a small pony and me posting a million miles an hour, she was super enjoyable to ride.  She was forward, incredibly light in the bridle and very positive about her lateral work and canter work.  I've gotten so used to deliberately steering Prairie around every turn and every corner that it is a nice surprise to get on something smaller and feel like she's an agile little moped instead of a big bendy-bus.

P1 - back in action

There were a few moments of stickiness, but no head tossing, chest biting or (brace yourself) kicking out at my leg.  I consider the lack of all three of those things a huge-mother-effing-success.  (yahoo).

Then, we put P1 away and grabbed P2.  S was going to hop on first and work on some flying changes since I had struggled with them a bit the day before in my lesson.  But there was another horse in the ring which is all it takes to make Prairie a bit tense, which in turn is all it takes to make nailing her changes nearly impossible.  Prair really tried though, and when I got on she was still focused and willing to trot around for a few minutes before I excused myself in the name of fajitas.

Sunday was our excursion to a H/J barn about an hour north for one of their schooling days.  The idea was that a full course would be set up and for $25 you had the privilege of some warm up time and four rounds over some nice jumps in a new location.

Prairie walked off the trailer totally quiet and fabulously, which continues to reinforce the benefits of hauling her alone - she relies on me for moral support as opposed to her trailer mate whom she inevitably bonds with during the ride...  We checked in, tacked up and went to go wait for our turn in the ring.

Pro.

 We ended up waiting around for about 20 minutes which was a much needed lesson in patience and not pawing.  As the previous group was finishing up the invited me in so Prairie also had a much needed lesson in sharing her arena with other horses.  The ring was spooky (covered but with lots going on outside the walls) and the added distraction of some hot jumpers scooting around finishing their courses had Prairie pretty amped up.

But - to the mare's credit she held it together and while I could feel scoots brewing, she never actually squirreled out from underneath me (bit improvement).

When the other group cleared out we cantered around briefly in both directions then got to work.  After 5 minutes I felt Prairie soften and relax and I felt the brain gerbils settle down for a nap.  We popped over a few warm up fences on a figure eight and I was pleased to see that not only was Prairie not scooting off after each fence, but she was calm enough that I could soften in every sense of the word about 3 strides out from each fence.  That's something that has just started happening at home - and I was over the moon that we were able to carry it forward in a new place.

S quickly put a course together for us, raised the top rails back up to about 2'6"-3' and off we went.

The Good:
- Prairie got her leads over the fences 80% of the time
- When she missed her leads, she offered a change about 40% of the time
- When we nailed our distance Prairie stayed in a super steady rhythm before and after each fence
- When I buried her to a fence she still (happily) popped over it
- When we left long, instead of a rage-blackout-scoot, we were just a little unbalanced and could recover without a halt.
- For the first time I felt Prairie "lock on" to jumps as we approached.  So cool.
- I felt Prairie back off to a couple jumps the first time we took them, but just a hint of leg and she was forward and honest over them

The We-Can-Still-Work-On-This:
- There were no scoots but we were hardly in a relaxed, easy hunter frame - there's still some tension
- for some reason when we're inside a line Prairie gets REALLY wiggly like she's trying to figure out what's going on, I need to support her more
- In an attempt to keep her packaged, I felt myself fall back on hold-hold-holding her to the base which resulted in a few jumps from a near stand still as I added multiple strides before takeoff...
- My equitation is less than stunning, though I will argue that it's moderately effective in the sense that I kept Prairie balanced and contained, didn't get jumped out of the tack or jab the mare in her mouth.

All in all I was thrilled with our progress.  We got around the courses much smoother than our last show in October, and I can tell that Prairie's balance and use of her body is totally new and improved.  Mostly I could tell the mare was enjoying herself instead of totally just stressing out - and that made it a really rewarding ride.

Poor S was trying to coach me while taking some video, which makes for less than perfect, already crappy iphone video, but at least there's some record:





I think I could summarize it by saying that I would have been thrilled with our ride if we were at home - so to be able to say that about an outing to a totally new facility with a lot of distracting sights and sounds is awesome.

Our leads still aren't there, but they'll come - and when they do - watch out Working Hunters we're going to blow it up.

The only sub par aspect of the weekend was spending a couple hours picking Scratches off both mares' hind legs.  Ew and Gross is all I can say, but we live in Washington and there is mud for days in Washington and I won't coop horses up in stalls for all of fall/winter/spring to avoid it.

The Good Sister.

I'm pretty sure that you're supposed to love pets/children/family members unconditionally and not have favorites, but right now - I'm a bad mother. 

I think it's just the culmination of a few weeks of Perfect-Prairie and Pissed-Off-Pia, but secretly, when I'm handing out treats, Prairie gets all the big pieces of carrot.

The irony is that Pia's been great under saddle.  Her lateral work is going well, she's responsive and soft in the bridle and has even been executing some polite lead changes.  Sadly, Pia gets no emotional credit from me for that since I'm only on her about once a week. 

Instead all the time I spend with P1 is on the ground - and on the ground she is winning awards for being supremely obnoxious. 

If she's not bulldozing over me at the paddock gate in an attempt to follow Prairie out, she's biting people in her stall, baring her teeth at passers by or screaming INCESSANTLY for Prairie while we work.  I used to be able to leave Pia out in her paddock while Prairie was worked, but in recent weeks she's been working herself into such a steaming lather that I opt instead to bring her in where the confines of her stall limits her ability to freak out.  Don't get me wrong, she still screams her head off and throws a tizzy, but it's less extreme than if she has a fence line to run (and run. and run... and run...)

I'm not sure what's behind the increased separation anxiety but it's fostering not so nice feelings toward the mare.  When Prairie comes in, Pia still has their other pasture mate to keep her company, not to mention the other thirty horses turned out within eyesight.  I also tried riding outside while Pia was still turned out to see if being able to see Prairie go round and round the arena would be reassuring, but no.  Just as torturous, as though every long side away from the pastures could be Prairie's last and she might just trot off into the sunset instead of looping back around toward home again.. ugh. we'll work on it.

I really don't want to just separate the two permanently because I have a crazy belief that herd animals are in fact happier when they have a "herd" or at least a few friends they can form bonds with.  But something has got to give.  Pia is more flexible than this. I know she is.

Anyway - Back to the good sister. 

Perfect Prairie is a bit of a misnomer since she of course isn't totally perfect.  But she has been totally calm, focused and reasonable.  Sure there's things we've been schooling that wouldn't get a "10" from even the most lax judge, or even an 8 - but the huge success is in how coachable and relaxed she has been for the last 3 weeks.   We haven't had a single big scoot, or gerbil-rage-blackout.  Instead she's been calm, adjustable and responsive to corrections.

I don't know where this mare came from, but I like her and I want her to stay.

Last weekend S set a small course in the indoor that consisted of one cavaletti and three other fences about 2'6".  Not big by any means, but big enough that missing our distance would worry Prairie and send her careening around the corner. 

So, after careful warmup, I picked up a tiny-teacup-canter and popped over the cavaletti.  Without any fuss or tension.  So we did the 3 stride line, and easily added for four strides... we did some roll backs, with a nicely contained shoulder, and we even got a few lead changes.   S had me run through a course that started with a rollback to a bending line, to a single to the outside line.  Prairie not only landed on all the right leads, she waited to the base of every jump and stayed soft and light in the bridle the entire time. 

 (WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT).

obligatory scribble of our course

Mind you this was our first course in a few months so I was braced for full gerbil-explosion-impact.  But it never came.  It's like all of our flat work and cavaletti exercises have been paying off.  Miracles. 

The next day the sun graced us with its presence so I rode outside and Prairie was the fussiest she's been in weeks.  She was very distracted by a cute pony jumping around, but even in all of her anxiety she stayed with me (mostly) and still managed calm, controlled canter work and spiraling in and out at the trot. 

Then the beast mare got two days off for the New Year because I was lazy.  And then we hauled out for another lesson down at Brass Ring.  Two days off isn't exactly the most responsible way to prepare for a field trip of any sort, but it happened and I fully expected to pay the consequences in the form of a hot, antsy mare for most of the lesson. 

Except she wasn't.  The only hint of tension was some very noisy pawing in the trailer as we pulled out, which I attribute to Pia's terrified, omg-I'm-being-eaten-by-wolves, screams from her stall.

Prairie walked off the trailer like a champ and settled in to sniffing around her stall and munching on some hay.  She's really calmed down a ton with basic things like tacking up.  Whereas before I needed help in keeping her legs still for wrapping, I took off her standing wraps, re-wrapped with polos and tacked up without even tying her head in the stall.  She walked into the ring like she owned it and went right to work. 


I opted to put her in the pelham, but more for easier balancing than as a tool for brakes (we work hard at these lessons and I liked to avoid getting my arms pulled out by a big tired horse).  We warmed up similarly to previous lessons, haunches-in down one long side, leg yield down the other.  In the canter we repeated the same haunches in/leg yield pattern and we got comments that Prairie seemed to be stepping much more underneath herself as well as my leg was much more effective (yay!). 

Then it was the moment of truth.  We were to circle a cavaletti at the canter. 

Prairie was great and stayed contained and balanced.  I worked on trying to see my spot sooner and asking Prairie to move up to it instead of resorting to my default setting of hold-hold-holding her to the base.  Not surprisingly, even when backing her off, if I mentally committed to asking Prairie to move up during the last stride, it resulted in a rounder, softer "jump" over the cavaletti. 

Then we moved onto some simple courses over very small (like 2') jumps.  We only worked single fences in the typical line-diagonal-line-diagonal fashion.  Nothing complicated, but it was a larger ring so we didn't have the visual confines of our tiny indoor to help keep us balanced and tidy. 

So I gathered Prairie up and set off.  She nailed all of her leads (except for one diagonal fence where she swapped on her own before the jump) and stayed at the same rhythm pretty much the whole time.  No fussiness, no tension.  We were a bit wiggly to one fence on the quarter line but that was the biggest issue. 

When we finished we got the expected comments of "wiggly to fence on quarter line" and "maybe try to save the lead change for after the fence" along with some great praise about her overall improvement.  But then a surprise came at the end with "Lets do that one more time, but not so collected, ask her to move out a bit more."

excuse me.  Did I just hear that Prairie was too collected.  I didn't honestly know that was possible.  Too collected has not been an issue for us. Ever. Under any circumstance, and certainly never when jumping.

I was a bit nervous to open her up (even to a normal working canter) worried that without my little teacup stride all hell would break loose - but we were fine!  We predictably missed our left-to-right lead changes but I didn't care.  We made it around the entire ring calmly and without any motorcycling around the turns. 

Finally we finished up with testing our lead changes a bit by cantering down the long side, rolling back in a pirouette type turn, leg yielding back to the rail in counter canter then asking for the change.  Prairie always swapped her fronts, but I couldn't quite get her to step up and change behind. 

Before she could anticipate and get tense we switched gears to some turns on the forehand which highlighted a possible issue - namely that Prairie doesn't like to turn on the forehand.  The whole yielding-her-haunch thing wasn't particularly crisp or clean or even responsive.  Seems like we might need to clean that up before I expect her to really mobilize her butt for changes. 

I also think that this might be more my issue than Prairie's.  S can get a clean change on Prairie 80-90% of the time.  By no means is the mare "confirmed" but clearly I'm bracing my hand or sitting crooked or something that inhibits Prairie's best effort.

All in all we made it home with some great progress and a few good things to work on.  This weekend one of the bigger barns in the area is setting up a "schooling day." where for $25 you can ride four rounds in a new place over some nice jumps (I hope).  The fun part is you can set the fences to whatever height you want and your trainer can coach a bit between rounds.  So really it's just an excuse to haul somewhere new, warm up in a slightly crowded ring and get some courses in without any pressure.  I think it'll be a good outing, though I'm a little worried it might cut into watching my Seahawks playoff game.... 

Priorities priorities...

The Holidays- such as they were....

*** Apparently this already posted, but I didn't notice. Oops.  Slightly enhanced version with pics now... ***

I love the holidays.  love them.  I've always loved them.  They haven't always been perfect or stress free but I absolute adore (modestly) decorating the house and spending evening after evening with traveling family and friends with good wine, lots of cheese and plenty of fires in the fireplace.

That being said, our annual parade of family feasts and parties was (rudely) interrupted this year by whatever hellish one day flu seems to be swirling around Seattle with a vengeance.  Almost every friend of my reported at least one family member being taken down with a charmingly violent illness, and in our household we were lucky enough to have two!  (me and The Boy).  Charming.

My flu hit just in time to totally miss our annual ravioli feast with his family... while his delayed was a day and managed to land squarely on Christmas.  Oops.  I felt moderately bad about infecting him, and even worse that my favorite few days of lazying around the house together were not quite as enjoyable as they usually are..

On top of that the damned sickness totally screwed with my carefully planned schedule that allowed for several holiday visits to the ponies with carrots and bran mashes galore.

As it stands the mares were unceremoniously given their gifts three days late and and the barn staff didn't get their cards/tips until the New Year...

Misty P2 waiting for Santa

 The illness also robbed me of any photos of the events.  None of our family, none of hilarious holiday cooking time.  No holiday pictures of the mares... nothing.

Oh well.
I'll just leave it at the fact that Pia got a pretty new sparkly brow band and Prairie got a brand new Happy Mouth Pelham and new curb reins (since I ripped the stitching out of my old curb reins with a soft tug...). 
sexy eh?

ohhhh sparkles

tasty pelham and new reins

The gifts belie the girls' general obedience.  If anything, right now Pia deserves the "new bit" for her recent objections to outside leg (again) and Prairie has been a fabulous gem who deserves gold stars and stickers.

Bah Humbug.

Yesterday, I hauled Prairie out for another lesson down at Brass Ring.  I was a tad skeptical as to how it would go given two days off in a row and crisp, scoot inducing temperatures but she was beyond exceptional.  A recap of that outing to come....

2012 - The Year of the Mares.

2012 has been a wild ride.  Quite literally.  But it's been a pretty fun one, and I'm happy with where I'm at with both of the girls and what we've managed to check off our list this year.  Let's have a bit of a recap, shall we?

January

Admittedly, our wedding sorta ate up January (whoops).  But Prairie was still down at the barn I bought her at, and Pia was still at Summer Camp.
I trekked down to P2 a couple of times for some rides on my own, and even a few lessons before the wedding.

Pia was totally ignored, but totally furry and adorable for January.

February

February had a great visit to P1 where we rode in a cold sunshine on a mountain, took cool thermal images, saw her poor blown out abscess and saw where we still had work on her back to get her comfortable.

I nearly died from muscle soreness after a weekend of lessons with P2 wherein I learned how many more muscles it was going to take for me to stay attached to the saddle on that big girl and then we promptly flew off to Africa for our honeymoon.  Sorry ponies.

March

The girls were good.  P and I had fun at Summer Camp (still) and Prairie and I had more lessons.  I made arrangements to bring Prairie home in April which meant we needed a trailer.

So we found the deal of the century on a still new 2009 and brought it home.

Yummy

April

April was a huge month.  We brought Prairie home, bought a saddle, had sexy photos taken by Supermom, then took both the mares down to Oregon for some Mountain Trail fun and started to get a routine going... whew.

Supermom photos!

Both P's on a field trip

Pia rocking it

Hacking at home

May

May was fun. S and I took P2 and gelding to the park for a field trip.  P2 was reasonably brave and we managed to have a productive hack.  Good omens for a possible show season.
I got called out on using my inside rein (a lot) and my horrid, horrid wrists.  Both things I've always struggled with.

Prairie started playing with more ground pole exercises and S even ventured to see what she looked like in Hunter tack.  Pia went on night rides and found a new boyfriend.  I lost my totally inspiring grandmother and took off with the family to reconnect and relax.

field trip!

June

June started with another field trip for some schooling and trail rides.  Prairie had her biggest scoot ever and The Boy helpfully videoed all of it.  It was a good lesson in figuring out how much to trust the mare (at that point) and a great chance to practice our first dressage tests in a new location

Then we went to our first show where we rode Training 2 and Training 3.  We won our first (small) blue ribbon and managed to stay in the arena.  Something I wasn't totally sure we'd pull off.  Technically I excused myself from our second test, but that was a smart decision. 

I took Prairie over our first jump together and discovered a whole new world for us to explore.

I had some great rides on P out at Summer Camp and summer was off to a great start.

Oh yeah - and The Boy upped his Horse Husband skills which I decided to capture in a lovely pic of him from wine tasting... ;)

July

The fun continued.  Prairie and snagged a 10 at our second show together. Which might mean that we've peaked too soon. (whoops).

Prairie made it very clear that she preferred just rocket launching herself over fences, which would give us plenty of things to work on.

Supermom joined me for a trip to Summer Camp and P overcame her fears of llamas.

Also, Supermom got a killer shot of P out in front of the herd.  Pia finally has herself totally integrated into the group...

Finally I caved in and got Prairie her own Hunter Outfit and we went to a tiny little show where she dominated the groundpole and crossrail division.  Nothing like stealing ribbons from 5 year olds on ponies... (eeeesh)

Also, I finally took some trimming lessons from my vet and stumbled my way through my first trim on Prairie.  Thank god she has straight forward, solid hooves.

August

With Summer in full swing somehow I managed to ride both mares in one day, in spite of a 3 hour drive between the barns (extra daylight, what!)
Pia continued to be a star at Summer Camp and was cute as a button

Prairie and I had a... crappy show which resulted in a dismal 55% at FL1 but 62% on our first ride of FL2.  My comment said "brave riding" and at one point the judge actually shouted out to make sure I was ok.  I shouted back that I was. :)

I'm okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy

We had more success over fences. The mare and I tackled a 3'9" vertical But S took her all the way to 4'.

Also, I had another great ride on Pia out at camp and made plans to bring her home (eventually).

September

September started out with an insane tack locker makeover to boost my spirits since the Big Mare was off.  We finally figured out that P2 was basically rein lame from holding herself funny to escape real work.

But we trudged on, and hit our first rated show as a pair which happened to be in Hunter Land.

Priarie settled in well and had some big successes, along with some very frustrating moments (mostly in warm up).  But for her first real show with a lot of atmosphere I was thrilled.

A few weeks later we spent a weekend at Summer Camp with both mares and had a blast.  Pia was a stud and hopped over cavaletti without any halter/bridle/whatever.  Prairie had a few lessons in manners and grew up a little.

Our final show of the year was canceled due to wildfires and I caved in and got a jump saddle for the first time since 1996.

October

October was a slow and easy month.  Pia played with gymnastics out at Camp. And Prairie played with Gymnastics at home.  My saddle (!!!) finally arrived, and I remembered what sitting in a balanced seat felt like.

Prairie and made strides with our collection and balance and then lost it all.  But we got it back with some tight, technical courses in the indoor.
We found one final show to go to and Prairie was a star.  Our changes are still not there, but she was calm, balanced and adjustable through our courses.  We had our first ever HUS class without a blue ribbon (sad), but it was a great outing (without any pictures).

Also we ventured to Brass Ring Farm for a lesson and had a blast.

November

Prairie and I ventured out for our first trail ride together which was an unexpected success.

Also, Pia came home and that was fabulous as well.  The mares are cute together.

we spent a couple weeks of weeks on the ground with the red mare before getting back in the saddle and she has been a happy, relaxed girl for all of it.

Well.  Most of it.  Both the mares were crazy and impossible for a few days which nearly had me convinced they should be released in the wild.  But they recovered and so did my affection for them. 
My wonderful old pony Star finally moved on to greener pastures and I cried about it.  A lot.

Finally, Prairie and I had another field trip for a lesson and it feels like I'm finally getting a partnership with this mare going.  Just in time for the holidays to throw a wrench in our routine...

our respectable canter

December

A scattered riding schedule has made everything a little less regular than I would like, but it's been a fun few weeks with the ladies.  Pia totally outshone Prairie when I tried to ride them in the rain (Priarie protested loudly) and I remembered that P1 really has grown up a lot in the last 18 months.  I experimented with a Pelham in Prairie's mouth and found it to be a great once-a-week tool to push our collection and balance.

The Boy totally spoiled me with a new truck that I can use anytime I want to take the girls on trips.  So I did.  We got a fun field trip back to Summer Camp where we worked on hooves and the girls had a brief ground work session