Day 253

Sunday

The farrier came out today and surprisingly he wasn't more than an hour late! While we were waiting for him, we let everyone out in the paddock to play. Harry and I played "I'm gonna get you!", which is basically where I walk around all cool and calm while he's eating, then stop and look at him and he looks up at me, then I crouch down really fast and he takes off. It's really cute, I need to record it. He knows to come by me or not be bothered by me when I'm standing upright, but when I crouch down, he speeds away! It's adorable =]

We only had enough tranquilizer for Nina, so Harry didn't get his shoes back on. I just remembered that I forgot to bring them with to school for luck. I left them at home. I'll have to get them when I go back this weekend. Harry was a little nervous at first and kicked out with his front foot when the farrier was trying to pull the shoe off and he knocked the hoof stand and then got scared because it fell down, but after that I put light pressure over his nose with my hand when he started to get tense and he relaxed into the whole process. After that, there weren't anymore issues.

Kimmy was looking for someone to ride with, since Sadie doesn't like to ride alone, and Brie was already trimmed so I took her for the first ride we've had in a while. I hate getting preoccupied with one horse over another, but it happens. She was so calm today and I think a lot of it has to do with my attitude. I was determined to keep a light rein and steady contact with my legs and seat. I've been trying to rely more on my lower body than my upper body while riding. We walked for a long time, each time she started to speed up I only lifted the reins when she started to jerk forward in anticipation or if she started to steadily start trying to increase, I sank my rear down into the saddle and gently started closing my fingers more tightly around the reins and she would slow back down before I even closed my hands all the way. After much walking to make sure that she got all of the kinks out of her arthritic leg, we sped up for a nice corto and then again for a smooth largo. I could really tell that she was happy with today's work. I also focused more on my legs than my hands for some serpentines and figure 8's throughout the ride.

At the end of the ride I put both reins into one hand and just let it rest on the pommel all while trying to direct her solely from my lower half and she responded wonderfully. She never tried to take off, so eventually I just dropped my stirrups and my rein and let her walk herself around the arena to cool and then gave her a nice warm shower. In all, a great day.

Equestrian Team Spring - Day 1

After not taking lessons for over two months because of my possible stress fracture, today was the first day back with the team.

To say it was terrible would be an understatement.

I was stuck with this little pony, who seemed like she might be annoying based on her ground manners, but I figured I could handle her. I got on, walked around a little bit and then started to ask for a trot.

This demon would NOT move at all. Stacy had me switch crops multiple times during the lesson and even with that, Wonder wouldn't move. She would only swish her tail, flick her ears, and continue on. Kicks, crops, even kisses, she wasn't having any of it. I felt angry when Stacy yelled at me to keep my leg on her because I WAS keeping my leg on her. This horse just would NOT go anywhere!

I literally spent the entire hour trying to get this horse out of a walk. She would only trot if Stacy walked behind us or yelled at me from across the arena, and cantered for half of a lap because Stacy yelled and snapped a longe whip at her.

Basically, I paid $40 for a pony ride.

I felt like crying for the entire second half hour because no matter what I did, it wasn't working.

At the end of the lesson, when everyone came in by Stacy for her little "moral of the lesson" story, her moral today was to believe in yourself and then you'll succeed in getting your horse to do what you want. I can only believe in myself until it's proven otherwise, and it was, so I accepted that this lesson wasn't going anywhere.

Afterwards (in which I untacked and groomed in record time because I was so sick of looking at Wonder), I went to talk to Stacy, and, ultimate insult, she said that I should come back for private lessons instead of group ones for a while. This really knocked me down. Even the girl who doesn't know how to ride, let alone have her own horses to train, was getting her horse to move. I'm trying not to take it as an insult, because I know Stacy didn't mean it that way...she said that she wanted to spend more time trying to fix this problem because my posture is great but it's like my legs aren't effective. She wants to analyze my riding more closely and figure out what I can do to really improve. I guess I should feel honored that she's asking to just spend time teaching me and working on my riding to really be where it looks I should be, both based on my experience with my horses and with my posture. So I have to figure out when I can start private lessons again. I might give next week's group lesson a go and see if it's any better on another horse. If not, I'll do privates for a while. I actually prefer privates.

In other news, I'm pretty sure Stacy is going to come out and ride this month! I'm so excited =] I just know that once she sees me riding my own horses, she'll be able to come up with something to help me better translate that into jumping. I would even love to bring Brie out for a jumping lesson some time, if we have a private lesson, or even a group lesson. I would love it even more if it were a group lesson so I could show everyone what my horses can do, but realistically I'll probably have to have it be private because we'd have to trailer Brie out there.

It can only get better from here, right?

Days 196 & 197

Saturday

You know how things start out cute and then become really annoying?
Well, a couple of weeks back, Harry started pulling all of our zippers on our coats. He would unzip them and we thought it was the cutest thing. This has now evolved into biting whenever he feels like it and it has to stop. He was awful longeing today, but probably the worst part was when he would come in real close to me, take a bite of my jacket and then run back out! We have to start getting after him for the zipper thing now and prevent this from going any further.

So since my mom has been saying that Harry responds better when weight is more back, I tried that today. He wasn't responding very well at all and kept tap dancing. I was trying my hardest to keep my weight back, but he kept throwing me forward and when I started to grip on him with my lower legs to keep balanced he got really upset and started speeding up, so I finally just settled back into a more forward weight and he was much more responsive. Still fast, but more gaited. His board was very powerful and loud. I hope he keeps it up that way! Now only to work on his manners...

Sunday

I rode Brie today and let my mom have Harry since I rode him yesterday. Today just felt like it wasn't going to be a very good day for me and it was threatening to remain that way. Brie was fighting the bit the entire time and kept trying to run out on me when I started trying to use a light leg contact. I just kept getting aggravated and she just kept going faster until finally I just stopped, removed contact, and rode normally. I was ready to start crying when I decided I had better get off. I keep getting upset because I just have these grand visions of her as a dressage horse, but clearly I don't know how to train her to be one and when I get some tidbit of advice and it doesn't work, I just feel awful about it...I guess I can't really blame myself since I don't know anything about dressage really...so maybe we'll just focus on being Paso Finos...we could always do trail class, I'm sure that desensitizing is a fantastic thing for Brie to learn to keep her brain from turning to mush.

On a non-horsey related note, we went sledding today at the barn! Trust me when I tell you there's no sledding like tractor sledding! And by that I mean being pulled on a sled by a tractor. It's the most fun thing ever! I had such a blast, even though I couldn't feel my hands for a solid 10 minutes afterwards and fell off the sled multiple times going down hills. It was totally worth it though!

Days 188 + 189

Saturday

Worked with Harry again today. I noticed that he had a crack in his hoof...maybe we're making them too hard? We've been using Tuff Stuff on them and since we started using it, he's been cracking. We're going to switch back to Rain Maker tomorrow. I didn't know, but Paco longed him during the week. He was much relaxed when I longed him and only stopped on me twice. Major improvements!

He was good in the gait and even went pretty fast for largo! I'm super proud of him, he's really coming along now that I'm not trying to do everything for him. I know it's only been a weekend, but he seems happier.

Brie was giving Mom a hard time today. She kept hopping and skipping and overall being Brie. I'll get some sense into her tomorrow.

Sunday

Mom rode Harry first and I rode Brie first. We don't know if she's still kicking the stall. I do know that I want to make her a salad for Christmas! I've looked it up and it's not bad for them as long as you don't give them a lot. So I'm going to make them all a small salad with apples and carrots. I hope they like it!

Paco cut off the chip in Harry's hoof today. The farrier's not coming back out until January, so we'll have to make sure it doesn't crack any further up his hoof.

Mom said that Harry was being an angel! I'm so glad that he's getting better, it's like he's growing up. She worked him longer on the barbada rein than I usually do, but she said that when she switched over to the bit rein, he was "as smooth as glass"! He sounded awesome on the board too, so mission accomplished!

Brie was really pulling, maybe because she was a bit confused. I wanted to work on leg contact, since it's something we never do and I figured that since I've only been trying to teach her to canter FOREVER it would be a good idea to get her used to since she jumps in reaction to when I ask her with my leg as opposed to just loosening the reins. If I ever want to teach her flying lead changes, she'd need the leg contact part, not just the reins, so I want to do it the right way. So we worked on maintaining a good speed while I kept contact in the walk and corto. She largo'd a bit, but only after a long time of working at a corto. When I did start asking her at the very end for canter, my main goal was not only keeping it at a sane speed, but picking it up right away instead of pacing and then getting the lead. Every time she'd start pacing to pick it up, I'd slow her back down into a corto and try again at the next corner. She was eventually getting it, but then lost the canter halfway down the long wall, but as long as she's picking it up, our goal was accomplished! I only hope she doesn't think that means to charge the corners from now on, as we've been working so hard to stop from doing that.

I was amazed that it was warm out, well, warm enough out, so we gave them all a hose down. Next time we see them will be Christmas Eve! I can't wait to give them their salads!

Equestrian Team Summer - Day 7 (Final day!)

Friday

Today was my final lesson of the summer with Stacy. I thought I'd have the last one next week, but she's going to a regional dressage show with one of her other clients, so the next time I'll have a lesson it'll be with the team!

I think that maybe I needed to fall off. I was being pushed around and walked on like a doormat by these school horses, scared I'd do something wrong, and today's ride was spectacular simply because I had one goal in mind: DON'T FALL OFF AGAIN and did everything to prevent it.

First of all, I finally settled with the idea of correcting them. I feel scared correcting other people's horses because they're not mine, but when it comes between falling off and staying on, it doesn't matter to me anymore if I have to correct them, I'll do it! Also because I was scared of falling off again, my leg contact was phenomenal. To feel that contact and balance and be able to ride with one hand on the reins, one hand on my head, while in a two-point felt awesome.

I did so well today that we started going over jumps again. Having leg contact also made landing the jumps SO MUCH EASIER. I used to tend to forget to have contact over the jump and kind of just let the horse do his thing then try to recover afterwards, but not wanting to fall off has paid off in that aspect too. I did four jumps, and landed 2 of them soundly, with the first one me forgetting to sit the canter instead of stand which I immediately fixed a couple strides into it and the second one coming off on the wrong lead. The last two felt amazing, like I was flying without fear of going over the top.

I was also very strong in getting him into a canter and back into one after he broke into a trot a couple of times. (I was riding Tommy, btw). I feel very confident about moving up. If I don't move up a level this year, at least I feel like I'll place a lot in the shows and be able to move up the jumping for my senior year. By then I feel like I would know enough to jump in small shows if I got my own jumper (unlikely, but still). I just feel bitter about not having this kind of starting point last year with Nell...if I had had Stacy for an instructor last year, I might've been jumping for shows this year. Oh well, I can only move forward!