Day 179

Happy Halloween everyone! Well, almost Halloween anyways. Harry was sure in the mood today.

We rode for such a long time today. I started off on Brie. I need to work on her flexibility because yesterday when Paco rode her he said that she was very stiff on her turns. This could be something that I had just gotten used to, but I need to work on it. I don't want her to be sore after riding just because she's not flexible. So we did lots of circles, spirals, serpentines and reverses and she was compliant. She had a bit of a fast streak, but she never broke into a canter on the corners, so I was proud of her for that. Apparently she was worse off for my mom later on when we switched, but I think it might've been just that she was angry because she was getting tired.

Before my mom rode her though, my brother and I switched. I just got to walk Nina around, which is all I ever want to do when I ride Nina. She's so laid back and relaxed. I would just bring her out on trails all the time, she's perfect for it. But after a short time on Nina, I switched with my mom who had been working Harry for a good chunk of time.

She's been trying to work on Harry's largo since he paces when he goes too fast because his legs can't keep up with his brain, so he was flying around the arena today. I wanted to get him a little bit more collected so we did our corto and crossed the sounding board and then walked to cool.

While all this is going on, Samantha, this little girl who comes for lessons, was riding Tobacco and Jane was riding Taco, while Kimmy was riding Sadie. Jane insisted that I ride Taco because John was popping in and out through out the day to see how Taco was doing. So I hop on. First thing Taco does is speed away with me and start cantering down the long wall! I try my hardest to remember to not pull on his mouth because he manages to get a hold of the bit between his teeth and pull away with the rider, so I'm quickly pulling and releasing to try to get him to slow down the first lap around the arena and then pull up to Paco, who directs me to pull his head to the wall to get him to slow down until he realizes I mean business.

So after a couple of laps around, I finally settle into Taco and we understand each other. He performs beautifully! This was probably the best ride I've had on him to date. He takes the board perfectly and I'm so glad that John was there to see it. He sent me this picture he took of me and Taco.

I would love to show him for John and Jane. He's so much fun once you know how to handle him. There's a fun show coming up in December and I fully intend on dragging Brie down there to get back in the hang of showing again since we need to beat our nemesis this year!

Day 178

I brought Emily from the Equestrian Team out to the barn today!! It was so nice to have someone else to ride with and teach allllll about my lovely Pasos!

She comes from a polo background, and apparently didn't learn how to actually ride/do all the required horsey things before they set her on a pony and told her to chase that ball! So I got to teach her how to groom and tack up and longe. The tack part might be conflicting with the English tack, but it's similar enough.

I was going to set her on Brie, but Paco got out Extremo and warmed him up for Emily. Emily got on Extremo and oh boy, away they went! I could tell she was freaking out because Extremo kept pulling her into the middle whenever she wanted to go fast. After much instruction from Paco and myself, she finally got him under control though! She even looked like she was enjoying him because she was making the right corrections and handling him very well once she got the hang of it! Now she knows how hard of a transition it is for me from Pasos to hunter/jumpers every week! They're pretty much polar opposites!

At one point, I switched from Brie (who Paco started to ride, lucky her) to Harry. After chasing Extremo and Emily around for a while, Jane asked me if I could ride Taco, and Emily switched onto Nina. While Taco was pulling me around the arena at the start, my mom stayed with Emily and told her how to ride Nina (basically, you just sit on her). Emily liked Nina WAY more than Extremo =] Which makes me happy. My horses are awesome.

Once I got a hold of Taco, Emily offered to get off and let Jane ride Nina because she insisted Nina was so perfect. Jane was a little hesitant, but of course she fell in love with Nina who continuously walked, which is all Jane's looking for!

After that, we all gave the horses baths, mucked and fed, and then we started to barbeque. Ray wasn't there this weekend, which worked out perfectly for bringing Emily and having this little party. We made chicken and steak tacos and mexican rice and had cupcakes and apple pie and pasta salad and potato salad...a true feast! After eating until we exploded, we talked, handed out carrots, we packed up for the ride home, during which Emily, my brother, and I all slept the entire ride home.

So not much training on the home-front today, but it's always good to just get out and share your love of horses with other people!

Equestrian Team Fall - Day 4

(completely forgot to post this so it's gonna be in past tense)

Wednesday I went out to my lesson with more new people, as usual. In fact, Emily has been the only person who I've driven there twice!

So we get out there and tack up and what not. I'm riding Tommy again. I'm not feeling entirely in balance, which my mom later chops up to possibly having my stirrups be too short. So I'm going to lengthen them more and see how that works this week. But anyways, so my trot is good, but I don't practice two-pointing around before I start going into jumps. The pick up on the canter was great, I was really good with my commands on that.

Then I start going into the jumps. I'm not sure why, but I just get this feeling of huge dread in my chest. I was thinking, "Why am I ready to freaking cry, I couldn't wait to jump!" So I go over the first one and he rushed over it and in my attempt to slow him down and balance the two point, we pop over it. So I tell Stacy I'm going to take a walk around before I start again because at this point in my head I'm ready to burst into tears (I don't know why I was super emotional that day).

After our walk around, now I'm determined. Control the horse, chest up, ribs down, go WITH Tommy over the fence. It was okay, but my position wasn't as straight as I wanted it to be. I was too focused on keeping my heels down. Last time over, my position was awesome, but I stood on my toes. I balanced, but I know that's the wrong thing to do so even though I felt steady as a rock with an awesome torso, I still felt horrible at the end of the lesson because I stood on my toes instead of sinking into my heels.

Good thing I'm not jumping this weekend. I was so eager to start, but after crying to my mom about it afterwards and hearing the advice about the stirrups, I'm okay with waiting a while. I'd rather not jump, even maybe waiting to enter jumping classes until after I graduate and am off the team because I'd rather have a super solid foundation and not cut corners so that way when I get my own jumper I can actually win.

I just really need to win the flat class!!

Equestrian Team Fall - Day 3

I'd just like you to know that there's a small hurricane going on outside my window over Lake Michigan right now. That is all.

As for my lesson, I'm so angry at myself! The flat was absolute perfection. Even though I had to fight a bit at the beginning with my new horse Sunny to get a canter as opposed to a fast trot, it was SO GOOD.

Then comes the jumping. I'm always getting left behind now! I think it's because of my fear that I'll go over the top and fall off by anticipating the jump, but I almost fell off from being left behind tonight =[ Stacy really tried to explain it in every way that she could to make me go WITH Sunny over the jump, but it just wasn't happening. Maybe I was thinking about it too much? What do you think I should do to help?

Also, I'd just like to say that after riding Paso Finos for so long and now trying to go back to hunt seat is ridiculously hard for me to conceptualize the correct leg position. I'm so not used to having my leg so far back, it feels like I'm going to topple over. I don't really understand how that's going to help me keep my balance...but I'll try.

Next week Stacy's promised Emily and I to do all no-stirrup work. Whoopee. =/

Day 177

I hate when my farrier is late.
I mean, I do enjoy that he takes his time when he gets to our barn, but that means also waiting around while he takes his time on other people's horses at their barns before he gets to ours. Which sometimes means showing up at 5pm instead of noon.

We didn't get to stick around to see Nina being trimmed because I had to get back to school, but we tranq'd her and Paco was going to be there to help out.

On the other hand, after my mom rode Harry today, we found out that he severely cracked his hoof just from being on the rocks for a second on his way out the arena into the grass. I had a picture, but I can't get it off my phone right now. So the farrier tried to fix it and basically told us we can't ride Harry until Thanksgiving now because he had to take off a big piece to fix the chunk that happened with the crack. =[ This makes me beyond depressed.

I rode Brie today. She was really good, but stocked up again. We're thinking maybe it's time for another cortisone shot for her arthritis again, because when she's warmed up and ready to start going faster, she snorts, and it took her a long time for her to snort today before she was warmed up. We're going good with the largo, we only break in the corners now in the counter clockwise direction, but we'll be able to fix that by Spring. There might be a local fun show coming up in November, so I'm hoping we can take Brie to that to get her used to being back out in the show ring!

Today, I also rode Kimmy's horse, Sadie. She's an Icelandic Pony/Foxtrotter who was trained for barrel racing...which is an interesting mix. O.o Anyways, Jane, who's Kimmy's grandma, said that Sadie could use all the practice she could get since Kimmy's having trouble with her doing anything really because Sadie hasn't been ridden too often for over a year now. Boy, was that horse snotty! She almost ran over everyone standing by the arena door at least 4 times trying to get back to her stall and tried a couple of little rear/jumps on me too until my mom had to lead me away from everyone for their safety and stand by the pole and make me do circle work. Then Sadie started to calm down. Apparently, she never gaits, but Sadie was gaiting when I was really looking forward to doing some extra trot/canter transitions. In all, Kimmy has a lot of work a head of her, but I'll take the chance to ride any horse I can get! Especially now that Harry's out for the next month =[

I was proud at the end though. Paco congratulated me on riding Sadie so well because apparently she gave Kimmy a really hard time last weekend and Kimmy got off crying. So that made me happy =]

Day 176

It was just me and my mom today! When we arrived, Paco said he had a surprise for us and it turned out that surprise was he had been riding Nina all week. That's great and all, but I wish he would've told us beforehand. The farrier last week said to lay off her because her hooves are going over her shoes and she couldn't be tranq'd last week to do her shoes so we have to wait until tomorrow. So on top of that, Paco had been using a different, hugely different bit on her all week and trying to make her extend while we've been trying to make her collect. While I generally don't condone my brother talking back to people, I hope he says something to Paco. I mean, it's a nice thought, but when her hooves aren't done and you're using this big bit on her that's completely different from everything we've used and are teaching her to do something different than we want, it's kind of a problem.

So he rode Nina saying she looked so much better and she really looked the same. I started and rode Harry today while my mom walked around Brie. Brie had quite a bit of stocking up in her arthritic leg and it took a while for the swelling to go down. Harry was good but seemed kind of sleepy. Nevertheless, I'm proud that he didn't skip a beat on the board and his largo was very low in the amount of pacing. Tomorrow he'll be even better!

What I'm trying to work on Brie is the speed of her largo without breaking into a canter. She's going super fast but still breaks in the corners sometimes, so we need to find a speed that's still fast but so that she doesn't break.

The farrier's coming back out tomorrow to do Nina, as I said. Hopefully it'll be 1 2 3 done!

Equestrian Team Fall - Day 2

It was just me and another new girl, Layla, tonight! I hope my lesson isn't always half empty. On one hand it's nice to get more attention, but then it's not as fun driving there and back!

So while Stacy figured out where Layla was in her riding abilities, she let me start jumping again this week. I feel like for the most part my flat work is solid. My leg strength in picking up a canter is getting better and resulting in a quicker transition, but the downward transition can still use some more work. Nothing I won't be able to fix in time for Notre Dame in 3 more weeks though! I can't believe competition is coming up this fast. Then we have a huge break until about March when it picks back up for I think 3 more shows.

Working on my jumping position tonight, I really need to strengthen my back and core. Every jump I felt like I was getting left behind, and then when I started to think about it, I started hunching over again. It wasn't until the last jump that I got my position perfectly, but I'm still glad I got it! Now I know what it's supposed to feel like and can aim for that and perfect it until I can point up into the jumping classes, which hopefully happens by the end of the school year. I'd be really bummed if I had to show all flat classes senior year. Then I would just have to buy my own jumper to be able to show and as a recent college grad I certainly wouldn't be able to afford that!

Equestrian Team Fall - Day 1

Tonight was my first lesson with the team since I got back to school. The team was at a show last weekend and I'm proud to say that they did super well! No blue ribbons, but we got some red ones and other nice placings =] There was never a class we didn't place in, so I take that as a victory!

I was the only driver tonight and there was only one other girl in my lesson, Emily. She's super nice and a senior, so I'm kind of bummed she won't be here riding next year! But she's a beginner, even though she played polo in England. I didn't know this, but apparently playing polo doesn't require much skill other than staying on, going fast, and neck reining other than trying to hit the ball. It was nice being the more experienced hunter/jumper in the lesson for once though =]

I rode Tommy again tonight and she rode Chris (it's so weird when horses are named after people...). Tommy was being a little bratty, so I had to use a crop. But Stacy told me I did a fantastic job tonight. My upwards transitions are great, but I need to work on the downward from canter to trot. Apparently I stick my legs out in front of my like I'm trying to skid to a stop while on the horse when I make that downward transition, so I need to fix this, obviously. No jumping today because Stacy was trying to figure out where Emily is in experience, but next week I will be jumping again. Hopefully we get more people in our lesson too!

I just am so thrilled that Stacy kept telling me at the end of the lesson how great I rode. It makes me feel super awesome, like I'm gonna kick butt at the show at Notre Dame next month. I can't wait until next week's lesson!

I'm bummed that I won't be out riding this week, and next weekend they're getting shoes put on, so I'll only get one day of riding. =[ I'm gonna miss my horsies this weekend.

Day 175

Didn't go out yesterday because I went to our rivalry football game. We lost =[

Yesterday, though, my mom told me that Harry was working super well next to Brie in the arena and that he's finally getting his speed and coordination down in his largo. My mom wanted to warm him up today, so I rode Brie, who is getting along just fine. She really does hate the double reins though -- she thinks they're for babies!

When I got on Harry, he tried to take off. There were a couple other horses in the arena, so I was not having that. Suddenly he got scared of the sunshine, that goof. So after a couple of halts, circles, and tugs, he calmed down and settled into a really collected corto. It was magnificent to ride. It could almost be Fino, but he could never compete against, say, the stallion who just won Nationals. I would put up a video, but it's not on YouTube yet. He was mindblowing. But to compete up here in shows, Harry would be great in Fino. And when we let loose into a largo, he never tap danced! I'm so happy with him and how my mom's been working him to get him like that. Now if we could just keep this up until the Spring when showing starts again!

What I thought was really cute was that he really wanted to go outside. After we went across the board indoor and outdoor and came back in to cool, he stopped in front of the door and looked outside all sad-like. So my mom hopped on Brie and my dad got on Nina (!!!) and we went out into the trails in back of the property. My dad's starting to ride, since he really doesn't, and I think it's great!