Days 286 & 287

Saturday

Yesterday was Brie's birthday!!! She is now 12 years old. It's incredible to think we've had her since she was 3. She truly is the reason for this blog and is the motivation behind all of my efforts to become a better horse trainer and to help others work with their horses. I've learned so much from her and although I've shed some tears over excusals and bad days, I've gained so much more happiness. She is incredibly smart and loving. I only wish that, when I have my own kids, that I will have a horse as special as Brie for them to learn from.

Enough with that before I cry, haha. For her birthday, we brought her a banana and split up the remainder of those Stud Muffins from Harry's birthday last week. It was only my mom and I today, so we didn't ride Nina. Out of the three of them, Nina is probably the only one who will be totally normal with an extra day off. I brushed her off and longed her for a while. My brother never longes her, just hops on and rides, so she was very hoppy and bouncy! I think it made her happy though =]

I rode Brie while my mom rode Harry. She is coming along better, getting way more relaxed walking. I'm finding that having a deeper seat and keeping my hands low is really effective on keeping her steady and her head collected, although it still could use some more work. I might use the draw reins next weekend and see how that goes, but mostly I just do more flexing and circling, but not too much because she gets dizzy easily.

We got ear poms for Harry. Not entirely sure if they worked, because he is pacing again! =[ I rode him and he paced pretty much the whole way, but kept wanting to bolt and go fast, but then we all know that he will pace in a largo too...We really don't know what to do, and it's awful to leave feeling like a failure, especially when you know he's not doing it out of spite. He genuinely wants to do what you ask him, but he just is not gaiting too well. Only in gait over the sound board, and in Pleasure classes they don't have sound boards, so it doesn't even matter. He will never place if he is so visibly pacing.


Sunday

Getting to the end here. Day 287. 13 days left before I officially close this blog. I don't think that will be  after show season starts, so I might add a Show Season Summary at the end of the summer. I just can't leave this open-ended! Depending on where I end up for law school, if I end up here I might create a "Notes from a Horse-Trainer (In Training) Part 2", but we'll see.

After some research, we found that Harry is pacing because he has a hollow back. This is fixed by having a slightly lower neck position. Right now his neck is pretty high but his head is tucked and collected so he looks fine, but it's affecting his gait. There might also be some muscle tension, but we can't call out a chiropractor or a massage therapist because they're expensive =/ so we might just put lineament on his back and rub him a little and see what that does.

Brie was fantastic today. Near the end of our work, I felt her really suck herself under and collect, raise her back up and it was phenomenal. I tried to notice what I did differently, if I did anything, but it seemed like I was doing the same as usual! Have to keep noticing the little things until I figure it out.

My brother rode Harry and he was a little upset that he couldn't get him to stop pacing either. My mom used the draw reins and said they worked a bit, but my brother couldn't feel it so he took them off and Harry wasn't much better either.

I rode Nina today instead and she was harder to ride this time than last time! It was hard for me to keep her head set. I guess I should probably add in a ride on her at the end of the days so that I know what I'm doing if I get the chance to show her this season!

After all of the disappointment over Harry, it's hard to be sad when you realize how much he loves us. Some people say it's impossible for a horse to love people, because we're people and they're animals, but you can really tell that he loves us. He was still hot when we were going to put him away, so my mom put a rope around his neck and led him into the arena to walk him around just like that. She dropped the rope and kept walking and he followed her along everywhere! My dad has the video, but didn't send it to me, otherwise I would put it on here. After she got tired, I went in and walked around and he followed me too. I could abruptly turn and change directions and do serpentines, make like I was going one way and then go the other, and no matter what, he followed me! He even stopped when I stopped. And just the look on his face while he was following us was so sweet. Yep, he definitely loves us. That makes up for everything.