Days 282 & 283

Saturday

Got out late, so I had even less time to ride. There were also a ton of people at the barn, so I had small space to work in. I managed to force my way in there and longe Brie and work on our flexibility program, which she is getting better at. I think she's getting bored with it now, so I have to figure out something new to add to it.

She was fairly calm while riding, but we're still working on headset. She's gotten really lazy without the pressure to show, so it's taking a lot of work getting her back into show mode.

As show season approaches, I find myself in the same place that I usually end up at this time of year -- wondering if I even want to show. On one hand, it's fun, but it's only fun if you win, which I don't do too often...I can't help but get the feeling that, despite all of my effort, everyone thinks I'm completely incapable of doing anything "right" with horses because I continue to ride horses that don't place firsts while my brother, for example, took over Nina and always wins firsts. It's just very discouraging.

And while I like going to have fun with my horses for the majority of the day and spend all that time with them, I feel like I'd rather be going trail riding or something. I don't know. Since I started riding, I've had this shift in interest from showing to trail riding. It just gets so boring going around in the arena, doing almost the same things every week, constantly trying to make your horse perfect...maybe they just want to relax a bit and go sightseeing.

Sunday

I got to ride Harry today! He was a bundle of anxiety and no matter how many circles I tried to do, he never really calmed down for me...for my mom, he was better, but for me, not too great. He walked really nicely, so I guess that's a plus, since I've struggled with getting him to walk calmly. But he only stayed in gait going over the soundboard and that's just because he's vain.

Brie is putting my patience to the test, once more. Now that I know she knows exactly what I want from her (to stand still at the mounting block), she is seeing if I can keep making her do that. It took at least a few tries to make her stand still at the block, and even then, she wasn't right next to it and I had to scoot it over.

I found out recently that one of my friends got an internship at a barn in Florida. I'm so jealous of her...I wish that I got to go work under a professional and spend my entire day with horses.

I've also decided that, after much thought, I will be ending this blog at Day 300. I was going to do an entire year (365), but after 3 actual years of writing, I've lost a lot of interest in it. I feel my posts getting repetitive lately with no real development happening and want to focus more of my energies into seeing a change in attitude both in myself and in my horses. This blog has really been an inspiration for myself during times where I feel like I'm at a standstill and I'm thankful for it. But with graduation fast approaching and the impending uncertainty of life after college, I don't even know if I'll be able to make  it to 365 days in the near future. So I would rather end on a finite note than to be constantly wondering if I will ever have the time or opportunity to come back to this again.

Days 203 & 204

Saturday

Today we had a huge party in celebration of Paco's birthday tomorrow because not everyone would be here tomorrow. It took away from riding time, but it was super fun. But before the party, I worked with Harry. We were doing the same kind of longeing from last week, using the pole, and it was going pretty well. He wasn't running so hard around the pole, but then he started fishtailing out again and didn't want to move back out...sigh. I really don't know what to do with him or why I suck at this so much. But Paco came over and told me to longe him from the bosal like I was a couple months ago, but he still kept fishtailing out, so Paco took him over.

Harry longed perfectly for Paco. =[ It's things like that that make me feel really bad. I don't know what else I could do to get Harry to work for me without thinking I'm a joke.

We bought bell boots for Harry in hopes that they would help him remember his back legs, but it didn't seem like they really did anything at all. He was just okay to ride, but at least he didn't act up. We put down the poles for the figure 8s and walked over them at the end of our ride. He started to even kind of hop over them and I could tell that he really started to like going over them. That made me happy, because the last time that we worked with the poles, which feels like forever ago, he was scared of them. So progress has been made at least in that department.

Sunday


So, the bell boots aren't really working at all. Oh well. At least the set was only $20.

I let my mom work with Harry today while I worked with Brie. We did a lot of bending and flexing and I started trying to teach her to flex while walking, but she more often than not thought that I wanted her to circle. Just tiny flexes is what I'm going for right now. We largo'd a ton and she was just snorting away out of sheer happiness, so I'm glad that she was at least content with what we were doing today. It was overall just a really relaxing ride and makes me so appreciative of everything we've gone through to get to this point. I never thought that I'd be here with Brie!

Nick rode Harry a bit today after my mom did. He basically said the same thing that everyone else did: Harry is a highly anxious horse. And Nick's way of dealing with Harry's anxiety is to circle him on the spot until Harry calms down, even if he's whipping around like a tornado until he calms down. I don't really think this is a great idea, because Harry made himself so dizzy once that he stumbled sideways almost into the wall after coming out of a tornado-spin circle. I'd much prefer to stop and let him calm himself down and continue on the ride. By the end of Nick's ride, Harry was black with sweat, and it was relatively warm enough in the barn, so we decided to wash everyone (with soap!) today. Now maybe they won't be so sticky and stinky! Although I'm sure this hope is futile, especially since the first thing Harry did when he got back in his stall was roll a bazillion times.

But as I was washing him, I got to thinking: maybe we should try a supplement on Harry like we did for Brie. We ordered Brie Smart Paks before (I want to say Mare Magic) when we were out of other options training wise and it worked like magic after only a month. We haven't had to order it again because she's so good now. Maybe something like that would be the way to go with Harry. I know that he doesn't have mean intentions and that he really is just a fearful horse. Maybe if he mellowed out he would be able to focus better.

Day 134

Sunday

Today, two things were accomplished:
1. We got Harry in the trailer.
2. We gave Harry a bath.

I spent two hours trying to get him into the trailer.
It started off really hopeful and then we hit a big roadblock. We started out just calmly looking at it, examining the ramp. We played the YoYo game a bit and I got him to come up to the ramp and put one of his feet on it. After that, he kept trying to jump into the trailer, but never actually jumped in.

He kept rearing into the jump and flailing his legs up in the air. I kept trying to get him to just walk into it, but he wasn't having it. He kept rearing up, jumping sideways over the ramp, never onto it. We got the nose chain to wrap over his nose on the leadline so that he would feel something if he tried to rear up again. After an hour and a half, I was still patient, but I knew I was no where near as strong enough to pull him sideways when he goes up to knock him off balance. A couple more rears with the nose chain on and my mom suggested that I give him to Paco, who was watching the whole time (quietly, thankfully. If he had been telling me what to do I probably would've bitten his head off), and grumpily I handed Harry over.

He looked so concerned when I walked away and knew that Paco was there, like, "Oh crap, this is a man." and tried the same thing with Paco, except Paco was able to give him a good yank back down. He got Harry into the trailer, and I was sour that I wasn't the first one to get him in. After a few walks in and out and teaching Harry to not race and rear out of the trailer on his way out, it was my turn.

He was like an angel. Once he knew that he wasn't going to meet his doom if he stepped onto the ramp and sat in the trailer for a while, he was a little cautious, but wasn't scared. We've decided that, no matter how long it'll take, we're going to do this every weekend. It might suck for the next couple weekends, but after that he'll get better and faster at getting in and out, and by show time, it'll be a breeze.

We gave him a good scrubbing and after he smelled like peaches, we put him away with carrots. Brie was pretty happy that we came, didn't ride, and still gave her food. It was the best of both worlds for her! Nina looked a little depressed when we didn't take her out to play, but she was easily satisfied when we gave her carrots.

We're going to go with Jane and Annie to a local show coming up some time. We're going to bring Harry and Brie. Harry for the trailer practice and show exposure and Brie just so she can maybe start getting used to strange horses around her. It'll be good for both of them.

Day 73

I'm going to try to work on those encyclopedias for you, I promise! I've just been so wiped out after work and was not in the condition to sit down and write this afternoon after horse training and while looking forward to Eclipse.

Making good progress Parelli-wise with Harry. He doesn't quite get the Porcupine Game yet, but he's getting really good at the YoYo game. I'm also trying the Friendly Game a little differently. Today I make like a sideways helicopter with the carrot stick and the string and he kind of got nervous hearing the string hitting the ground each time around, but he didn't do anything about it.

Boy was he a pistol lunging today. He keeps fishtailing out on me! I lunged using the pole, but he would still pull back and slam me into it. Everytime he did that, I started snapping the rein that I was lunging him with, making him back up since that's what he was doing. Paco intervened and said that I was just making him angry and "You have to act like the horse is stupid". He went on to lunge Harry pretty well. Harry doesn't like going one direction though, I forgot which right now, and I'm not sure why, but we have to work on getting over that. He rode beautifully after being tired out from an hour of lunging. He sounded phenomenal, like a little wind up train, on the sound board.

Didn't get to pay attention to Nina. =[ My mom and brother said she was amazing as well and that her gait is coming along really well. Now if we could only get her to keep her head set without using draw reins when warming up, then we'd be set!

I got really fed up with Brie today. It was definitely the disappointment from showing carrying over. She was going really well in the indoor arena. My mom asked that I stop with the cantering because Brie wasn't wanting to gait for her so I gaited around for a while and went to walking before I tried to get her to canter. She took off galloping so after two laps around the arena of trying to make her slow down I got her back to a walk and attempted to do a slower canter. She did pretty well one direction, I forgot which, and kind of okay in the other going back and forth between gaiting and cantering which isn't that great. I walked her around after that for about 10 minutes before I decided that all I wanted to do to end the day was to walk outside to the round pen and back a couple of times and then call it a day.

She wasn't having it. After trying to crush my leg against the side of the barn, I got off angrily before either one of us got hurt by our rash actions and walked her all along the property by hand. She was perfectly fine! It was about a 20 minute walk and by then my mom and brother were done washing Nina and Harry so they came out to watch. We walked back to the barn, I got on, and immediately she starts crowhopping. All I wanted her to do was calmly do once to the round pen and back before quitting but she would freak on either direction until she melted down. I never kicked her before but after having to kick Jimmy to trot at lessons, I kicked her. She was not moving. My mom had to get her on the pisador and lunge her in order to make her move. I was upset by then and we all called it a day after she lunged.

After crying about how Brie isn't good at showing, trail riding, or even being a pasture pet because she's insulin resistant, my mom starting telling me about diabetics and how they get cranky and how Brie might not even be happy most days. It made me feel even worse. I don't know what to do. We had her on that calming supplement, which helped a lot in the indoor but pretty much no where else, so now we're going to look for some insulin resistant medicine/supplement. I'm so upset because I can't do anything for Brie. I don't know what she's good at or what she likes, still, this far into having her. She hates showing. She hates trail riding. All she really likes to do, or hasn't protested about, is riding around the indoor arena. That's nice and all but...I don't know. I feel like I'm failing her. Mom suggesting jumping. I jumped her a couple of times and she didn't really object...I don't know if that means she likes it or is just going along with it. Maybe I'll build a little X jump for her or two and set them up in the outdoor arena and we'll try it.

I just want to find something she's good at that she enjoys and for her to not be cranky.

Michigan Medallion Show '10

Let me start with the best news.

Nina won 1st place!!

She won with my brother in the Performance Junior Exhibitor class. I'm so proud of her! Everyone was talking up a storm about her, saying how she has so much potential, how she'll just clean up next year at all of the shows once she's settled in. It was fantastic. My mom also won 2nd place in the Performance schooling class and got 4th Championship against older horses, even stallions! She was tired by the end of the day, Saturday, when her showing was over.

Now Brie. I was so excited when I won 4th place on her in the Pleasure Mares class! Right before that class all I did was lunge her and do a couple of figure 8's in the tiny warm up arena. She crowhopped into the arena, but once I passed the horse in front of us I got a huge space all to myself and she calmed down and did really well. I think that one of the big reasons I got 4th place is because of the crowhopping. The steward kept eyeballing us and I just knew he was thinking she was lame. She's not lame! She's just anxious and that's her weird way of showing it. I was super excited because my goal for this show was to not get excused and to not come in last place and so far I was achieving it!

On comes the afternoon classes. I'm going into Pleasure Amateur Owners. I'm excited about it because she got 4th. We go into the class last so I can get spacing. The moment we walked in, it ended. She crowhopped a good majority of the class and I'm surprised I didn't get asked to leave because of it. Thinking back on it...all she did was crowhop. She had a few calm moments but she wanted to corto after the walk-reverses. I didn't place and was "excused" at the end when we lined up.

I was so frustrated. I spent the entire period from that class until my next and final class, Pleasure Youth, in the warm up trying to make her walk and reversing and just trying to get her to listen to me and calm down and ignore the huge Saddlebreds around her (because she was watching them nervously). Near the end of that session she tried to bolt for the barns and that was enough. I was done playing nice. Before she wanted to bolt for the barn I was going to drop my class because I figured she worked enough outside after she got excused, but she was not getting away with that! I went into that class with only one other rider and got second place. It makes a good picture if you don't know I was the only other rider. But the point was that she got through the class without any acting up, barely any crowhopping and I was proud of her (although it was overshadowed by my disappointment with the prior class). Before we left, I was suppost to meet Jenny over at The Joy of Horses, but we couldn't manage it. =[ Maybe next year...

I don't understand Brie.  I've worked with her for the past 9 months, she's on calming supplement, she performs wonderfully at home...does she just not like showing? I can't tell. She does fantastically when she's in her own space like in the Pleasure Mares class or when we do Costume class and I'm the only one there. Is she not comfortable around horses she doesn't know? 

I won't stop showing her. I'm just going to take her out of the PFHA show circuit for a while and focus on Harry's career. I'll take her to some fun shows where there are bound to be more horses and try to get her used to the idea of walking in front of and behind stranger-horses. If she does well enough then maybe I'll put her back into the PFHA circuit.

After all, I never said she had to win a blue ribbon in a class of 10 or more in a PFHA class. =]

 

Day 53

Rode outside today again. Everyone was getting ready to go to the show next weekend which we are not going to.
Harry was significantly better today. When we started off he didn't want to throw me off first thing. We were pretty relaxed the entire time. The only thing that might have bothered him was the large gusts of wind that happened every so often, but we were good.
I'm assuming Nina worked well too. I was too busy at that point trying to stay on Brie. I supposed everyone has their off days. We've only ridden outside about a bazillion times but she's still uncomfortable riding like this. Any suggestions? She kept hopping like she wanted to rear. How do you make a horse comfortable riding outside?

We hit up a fun show at a stable down the street. It was cute! I wish we could've put Brie in it. It would've been good experience for her.

We also "ran into" Chris there, another trainer, and the owners he works for who own the other Paso stable in that same general area. We were arranging some training (grr), but I liked him the most so far in his philosophy. It was similar to Andre's except he seems like he knows better ways, and has more time, to implement it. One thing that I really loved that came out of his mouth: "I want to train the horse, teach the client how to handle the horse, and then let them go. I'm not afraid of losing clients because having amateur owners being able to handle their horses, even babies riding the stallions I train, speaks volumes for my reputation". Not a bad choice of words, Chris.

As of this moment, the owner is supposed to be getting back to us within a few days about pricing and accommodating us because his board is about double what we pay at the stable we're at now. Still being significantly more expensive, we would only train one horse at a time. I believe we would finish up Nina first since she has such a small window of opportunity since she's already been in training. She's been dropped for months once already and we're all not sure what would happen if she was out of training for that long again. She has amazing potential and we don't want that to go to waste.

I think we can handle the basics with Harry for a while.
Looking forward to my last day of riding this weekend. Hope it's a good birthday ride!

Day 52

Officially the first day of FINALLY having no trainer. For any of the horses.

I worked with Harry first. I worked on lunging him. He likes to run really fast and angled so he almost falls over, so that was a little bit scary. I didn't want him to get hurt. I have to work on that. I worked more with some Parelli stuff. He's still scared of the string on the end of the carrot stick so I want to get him acclimated to that before I start any other games. I want to have his complete trust, or at least most of his trust before I go and try to experiment with anything else.

I only have one goal with Harry, which seems to be his major problem:

I want him to calm down.

He is so uptight. He did rear a little bit when I first got on, but I walked him for about 30 minutes and he was relaxed by the end of it and he wasn't hot at all, which is the first I've ever seen him not all sweaty and gross after working.

While I was brushing down Harry, my brother worked with Nina. Her head was set beautifully. I wish I got pictures of that!
At the very end, I rode Brie outside. I didn't warm her up inside or anything. I lunged her outside and walked around the round pen that my brother was in, attempting to get her to that Quarter Horse walk. No luck.
I did ride her around the back pretty successfully though.

All in all, it was a wonderful day and I can't wait to work more next weekend. I'll leave you with this beautiful picture of Harry I took on Saturday.

Day 49

We were supposed to go out on Saturday, but a wind storm knocked over my tree and we had to get rid of it, as it was laying on the power lines. Not good.

We went out Sunday. I'm just gonna write it in present tense at times, it's easier to remember things.
First thing we see as we drive up to the stable are people outside! Yay! I was mega excited to be able to use the outdoor arena for the first time since winter, it was beautiful out. Ray approaches us and says for us to not ride Harry and Nina because since he's not training next month he wanted to show us what he's been doing with them. So we just brush them off, Brie was SOOO DUSTY by the way, and get Nina first. He has this really rough looking jaquima on her, at least the underpart (I forgot whether it's bosal or barbada, but the part that goes under the chin). He told us that she might get scratched up today but that he doesn't use it all the time. He also was using a different bit on her. He worked Nina really well outside and she had her head set really nicely.
Then I noticed that she was bleeding under the chin from the bosal/barbada. My brother rode her, she was okay, then I rode her. Obviously I didn't want to move my hands or do anything really because all I could think about was that she was bleeding so she wasn't that great.
Ray got Harry next and worked with him. Harry was a little wild, he reminds me a lot of Brie. I rode him really well though, maybe because of Brie, and Ray even gave me compliments on him.
Ray also did this really backwards apology type thing which resulted in my parents considering keeping him as a trainer up until May. We're going to start Harry on the same calming supplement that Brie is on and see if it makes a difference.
Brie was FANTASTIC! Well I mean, she still didn't want me to take her out of the stall, but we rode outside in the arena and she had fun, I think. She didn't want to walk, but I managed to get her to a slow corto. We cantered! It was probably the best cantering experience with her so far because I know what I'm doing now!

Show Update!
Memphis: Week of April 19th
I don't think we're going to bring Nina or Harry to this one. If anything, I'll convince my parents to trailer Brie down there and I'll show her. Otherwise we'll just go and be spectators, which might be kind of fun. I don't know yet.

Spectrum- Miami: Memorial Day Weekend
I'm super looking forward to this one! It's bigger than Nationals, almost as big as the bi-yearly Mundial. Horses are coming in from Puerto Rico and Colombia to compete. Naturally, we'd go as spectators, but it would be one hell of a weekend! I can't wait for this, especially because when we get bored of the show, we can go lay out on South Beach. =]

Brilliance

Brilliance. An intense brightness of light.
This is an odd name choice for a black horse.

Brillante - Brilliance in English - is my black Paso Fino mare. For 5 years, I've bonded with this perplexing animal with a mind like no other I've come across. She's earned a reputation wherever she goes as "the crazy horse", but she will never miss a beat (a quality all Pasos want!) and will take care of kids.
She's been excused from show arenas for stopping and refusing to move, even when *sniff* I had to kick her. She's been placed last because she tried to run over a judge (you'd think we'd get excused for that too, right?). She's reared, almost kicked me in the chest, bucked plenty of times, and I love her to death. Why? Because I finally understand her.

It was at the point where my trainer, Andre, had given up on her. She was just "not a show horse, but would make a good trail horse". Hardly. She hates being away from the barn, a result of being acutely barn-sour. So, after a clinic with famous Dominic, I learned that she's just a very anxious soul, and like a human, needs to be dealt with in the appropriate way.

This all happened before I started this blog by the way.

Dominic told me that I should spend at least a half hour making her walk around, for at least a few months, and make this routine until I can feel her relaxed under me. I was vigilant about this, and come the show season...well we got excused from a couple of classes, but not as many as I expected! She's been doing really well with everything I've asked of her because I've taken the time to try to understand her, not to just force her into doing what I want her to, because oh boy, will she fight back.

And yet, despite all of my efforts, people still refer to her as "the crazy horse" which isn't exactly fair. Especially since I took third place at the last show of the season.

And still, despite these efforts, my parents still want to hire a trainer, a TRAINER! A "professional predator", someone who won't take the time to understand her mind and just throw a harsher bit in her mouth, tie her head down, and put on the spurs.
I won't allow that to happen.

My goal with Brie, the entire reason I'm writing this blog, is to get a blue ribbon, a first place, in a class of at least 10 horses. Only then will she show her true brilliance.