Merry Belated Christmas!

I've been a little MIA the last couple of days but Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope that you are all enjoying your holidays with your loved ones like I am!

For Christmas, Walker got himself a cute little quarter sheet and I got a nice pair of Winter breeches. I really like the breeches because they're not as bulky as I thought they would be so I might actually pick myself up another pair.

On Boxing Day I drove back to my apartment to see Walker. It was pretty busy at the barn. I was hoping that I'd get to ride in the afternoon and then go to my lesson that night. Unfortunately, we're getting 30 cm of snow (again!) and so I ended up driving home in the same evening so that I didn't get stuck down there. I originally planned to drive to my friends barn today from my barn to bring the jumps but the storm really threw a wrench in all my plans. :s At least I got a ride in though, even if I didn't get my lesson or I didn't get to meet her new horse yet.

When I got to the barn, I asked if the horses have been turned out and it turns out that they still haven't. I took a walk up to his paddock though and I'm not as mad as I originally was because the path is still super icy despite the storm we got last week. I have no idea what it is about that property or that hill but its pretty much solid ice. But I don't think my barn owner realizes how determined I am to get Walker turned out. I'm pretty much planning to buy half a dozen bags of salt and break up a path through the ice to the paddock if this storm doesn't do it! Luckily, M was lunging him for me over the past couple days, and one of the mothers turned Walker out in the indoor arena for me as well. I especially appreciated that because she knew I wasn't around, and she did it even though no horse is technically allowed to be turned out in there because they make a mess of the hay we store there. It's nice to know people are looking for him while I'm away!

Anyway I tacked up my baby and hopped on in the indoor with the three other girls. Needless to say he was wired. He was hopping around and chomping on the bit like a madman so after 10 minutes of him spooking at nothing and almost running into other horses - even though we were only walking! - I decided I better lunge him. I'm glad I did because he played the part of the wild mustang on the end of the line, bucking and flying four feet off the ground. It was kind of hilarious to watch him get the wiggles out and apparently he gave M quite the show the other day on the lunge line as well. After only about 10 minutes of that, I was able to hop on him and he was back to his sweet self. I didn't actually end up doing more than maybe 20 minutes of mindless riding because I got talking to one of the kids and then they started to feed. Oh well. After his performance on the lunge line, I have no doubt he got his exercise in!

I meant to take cute pictures of him in his quarter sheet but I'm easily distracted when the barn is busy. Oh! And I almost forgot. I also got a cute little video camera for Christmas so that I can actually videotape my rides! Now as long as my computer doesn't die and can actually handle me editing the videos, I should be able to put up videos! I hope that I can tape the clinic!

The Year in Review

2012 was a great year for me to say the least.  I got a horse! And I love him!  And in keeping with everyone else's posts, I decided to do my own little year in review.

I have always wanted a horse, and when I got back into riding again a year or two ago, I had a plan.  I was going to wait until I graduated from law school or maybe even done my articling year before I got a horse.  As time went on, I quickly moved that goal up and ended up with Walker in March, 2012.



My first picture of Walker

 My first impression of Walker was mixed.  When he arrived, he still hadn't been ridden yet by my trainer (of course - I showed up probably 10 minutes after the trailer) and so my barn owner wanted me to wait before I got on him, just in case he turned out to be a nutjob.  But I had brought him carrots and she encouraged me to groom him and get to know him.  As it turns out, Walker hates carrots and is afraid of the plastic bags that I brought them in.  When I whipped out the carrot and the bag crinkled, he leapt back in the stall and nearly hit me in the process.  G-r-e-a-t first impression of my horse.

In many ways, Walker turned out to be pretty difficult.  Within almost 10 minutes, we went from a snaffle double-jointed mouthpiece to a super harsh shank bit with high port.  He was trained Western and he respected big bits and big spurs.  When I hopped on with no spurs, he started his first bad behaviour: body-slamming me into walls.  For a time, I don't think anyone believed me until finally I got my trainer on him and he did it to her - even though she was wearing spurs.  Let's just say that after you've had your leg squeezed up against a wall by a thousand pound animal, you change your tune pretty fast on wearing spurs and being over-gentle.  It didn't take me too long to solve that problem!

He was also super hyper in those days.  My barn owner thinks that when the sale went through, the previous owners simply stopped riding him/exercising him, and unfortunately, because he arrived with another horse who had a mysterious runny nose, Walker ended up on quarantine and stuck in his stall for a week or so after arriving.  That means that he had been cooped up for quite some time, and he had A LOT of energy to burn.  For the first several months, I lunged him every time before I rode, and boy did he have energy.  My trainer had to do it too because she found that he behaved better afterwards.  There were times when she would lunge him for 30-40 minutes, ride him for an hour, I would come out later that day and lunge him for 30 - 40 minutes, and ride him for an hour - and he would still be crazy!

After about a month of this, I decided I didn't want to ride him in the crazy bit anymore.  I decided that I did not have quiet enough hands for that, and because of this, "bitting up" had an adverse effect on our relationship.  Even though my barn owner pretty much said that a lesser bit was me taking my own life in my hands, I slowly moved him down to a Kimberwick Uxeter (still a little leverage with a chain under the chin, but not nearly as harsh as the high port and 5"-6" shank they wanted me to ride him in).  I'm now proud to say that I'm almost ready to ride him in a D-ring snaffle (I tried it out a little prematurely in the fall but I think we're ready for that now).  I'm also proud that I've been able to move down to smaller English spurs and that he's way more responsive to the leg than he used to be.

He's also not nearly as crazy, hyper, or misbehaving as he used to be.  After my barn owner told me that he had too much attitude for me and I refused to sell him, I got my trainer to ride him fairly intensively for about a month.  By this point, I had already cured him of the body slamming my leg into the wall thing, and although it helped to have her ride him those days, most of our progression has been because of me working with him.  Even my trainer once said, and I agree with her, that just because she can get him to do something doesn't mean he'll automatically do it for me.  At the end of the day, I have to be able to ride him too.  So although he went through a phase where he bucked once a ride or refused to canter one particular corner of the arena (the dark days, as I think of them), we've now pretty much fixed all those problems with only a few residual issues (mainly, Walker turning into Bruce and bolting during lessons just to piss me off).



I will never stop loving how fun it is to dress
up in crazy Western Pleasure outfits.  Never.

I'm really proud of my progression with Walker.  I tell a lot of crazy stories about him misbehaving, but don't get me wrong.  He's a wildly talented horse, and he's also a smart horse.  He has no intention of doing extra work unless he has to, and I think about some of his disrespectful moments as him being young and cocky.  We just continue to muddle through and I continue to reaffirm to him that I am in fact the boss and yes he does have to listen to me.  And once you have him, you really have him - if you know what I mean.  We did two shows this summer, and although I was a wreck for both of him (and less than impressed with his performance in the second one), I got a lot of compliments about him.  He won Champion Halter Gelding, and the judge pretty much told me that she liked him when she saw him, but the minute I hand-trotted him past her, she didn't even bother looking at the other horses.  Nothing makes a rider beam quite like compliments like that.



"I think I want to learn to jump now."

Finally, towards the end of the year, we started to jump.  It was a slow job because although I know he has dabbled in jumps before and understands how his body is supposed to move, he's simply not built for that.  But the sweet guy has tried his little heart out for me.  I've gotten some great results in the outdoor arena because there's plenty of room to pick up some speed, but unfortunately, Winter came too quickly for me and we had to continue our jumping lessons inside. :S  I had just about given up hope on getting him to canter fast enough to actually propel his body over the jump when Friday on a whim I tried him once again and he did it for me!  I was very proud of him even if we still need serious work!

This year has been fantastic for me, if not what I had in mind.  I imagined buying a horse that would be, well, more complacent.  I expected that I would have progressed much farther than I admittedly have, but the progress I have made with Walker has been more worthwhile.  I took a horse that my barn owner and trainer both agreed was "too much attitude for me" and stuck with it until we were a mean lean kinda-jumping machine.  I'm a better rider, a more confident rider, and ready to take on 2013 with all the enthusiasm and perseverence that 2012 has taught me.

I love Walker and I wouldn't trade him for the world.

Jumps and Jumping



Yep.  I think the coast is clear

After our crazy snowstorm, I finally made it to the barn on Friday. Imagine my surprise to find that Walker still hasn't been turned out (we're going on 2 weeks now). I'm slightly bitter about it mainly because I was told that some snow to cover the ice was all we needed. Well, we got like 30 cm of it so put my horse out! Some of the other horses are out because of the location of their paddocks closer to the barn but of course Walker's paddock is way at the back of the property up a hill. I should've taken a walk up there to see if it was still really slippery under the snow but I hope this just isn't because my trainer isn't really going to put them out much this Winter. Even though I go to the barn quite regularly to exercise him, he LOVES his turnout. He's such a sociable horse and I know he relishes his time in the fields with the ladies.

Anyway, rant aside, I had another great ride. After four horrible days of no turnout OR exercise by me, I was expecting a fire breathing maniac but he was actually really well behaved (and even slightly sluggish). AND we cantered our first crossrail!!! I was ecstatic. Nothing better could have happened to end this year off right. Mind you, it wasn't pretty. In fact, I actually didn't think he would go through with it so I ended up getting left behind. Luckily, I know I didn't catch him in the mouth because I rode him into the jump with lots (read:way too much) rein. Oh well, we'll work on technique later! We cantered it a couple times, trotted it a couple times, and then I called it a day. And you can be sure that the lazy pony was sweating after that!



Our jumps!

I left for home shortly after that and will see him again on Boxing Day. In the meantime, my friend A and I built her horse some jumps yesterday and today! Just two sets with standards no higher than 4 feet - but her horse is 14.3 hands and is bred for cow penning and barrels. Needless to say, we'll be teaching her the ropes of jumping as well! Her barn is primarily Western so she didn't even have any poles so we made those too. My father got us the lumber and his friends trickled in and out of the garage throughout the day lending a hand. My fathers friends are great. One of them built the standards for us and also went into the woods and cut us down some trees to use for poles. We were going to leave them covered in bark, but one thing led to another and another one of his friends showed up with some special blade thing to strip the bark. An hour later, we had a planer (something to help smooth them) and then a handsander to finish the job! We painted the standards white to keep it classy and we had great intentions to paint our beautiful poles white and purple, but the men convinced us that the wood was simply too wet for that. Oh well, we're super proud of our jump sets and we even took pictures of us jumping a huge crossrail. Needless to say, after a few jumps over that I can start to relate to how Walker feels about jumping!


The difference in the poles from bark to stripped and sanded (probably the most work)



And of course I couldn't resist giving it a whirl!



Lesson Cancelled

We're in the middle of a snowstorm here so my lesson ended up getting cancelled tonight. We're getting 30-40 cm of snow (I think that is about a foot of snow?). Anyway, I feel bad for Walker because now he's going to get 4 days without turnout or exercise. I intended to go to the barn Monday but I went on Sunday so that I could finish studying for my last exam on Monday. I didn't think it would be a big deal because although I knew this storm was coming, I figured that I'd get out to the barn tonight either way. Unfortunately my barn owner tells me that the roads aren't great out there and she didn't think I should risk it. Since Walker wasn't able to be turned out on the crazy ice (for a week and a half!), he hasn't had exercise since Sunday. I can't go to the barn tomorrow either because I have an appointment and somewhere I have to be in the evening. :( so Friday will be my next ride and also my last one until I go home for the holidays. Luckily M has agreed to lunge him for me over Christmas, and I should get back to see him for the day at least on Boxing Day. I had such high hopes for a fun and productive holiday season at the barn but I guess that has all fallen apart. I haven't even had time to work on our jumping (such as it is). Hopefully in the new year, we'll start doing it in our group lessons.

I also noticed the last time I was at the barn that my stirrup leathers are super worn from rubbing up against my boots. I've only had them for a year (and have probably only used then for half that time). I know that they were cheap but now I feel like I should replace them. That and my computer which, according to the technical people in my life, "is in its final death throws." I would much rather put $1000 towards a new saddle so I think I'm going to give it a chance to actually die first. My computer has been flashing a warning message for a year and a half now that the hard drive is going to fail, which apparently doesn't happen - they normally just die, not warn you they're going to. My computer is now making creepy metal clicking sounds. It is a lot like the hero in the movie that just refuses to die. I have faith that it will persevere.

Since I have failed on the photo front (and the seeing my pony front), I leave you with my other guy, who has singlehanded destroyed my Christmas tree in true Christmas spirit.

Almost the Holidays

Although I doubted that I'd have time, I made it out to the barn last night, but unfortunately I didn't bother taking any pictures. It was -11 degrees Celsius here (12 degrees Fahrenheit) and so I was more anxious to just get the ride over with. However once I got started, I quickly warmed up.

Yesterday Walker and I worked on only a couple things. He was feeling slightly defiant and so I was working on keeping him in a nice frame. For myself, I was working on keeping my shoulders back. No matter how straight I sit in the saddle, my blasted shoulders are never back! :s other than a couple leg yields and a few turns, that was pretty much it. Just a quick ride to get the blood flowing.

Although he wasn't sweating and our barn is heated, I threw his cooler on him while I puttered around anyway. Boy those things heat up! I stuck my hand under it after a few minutes, and it was like a furnace under there. I'm noticing that Walker hasn't really been sweating that much lately. I don't know if its because he hasn't been working hard enough or if he just doesn't sweat in the cold as much. In the summer, he was always dripping with sweat no matter what we did, but so far this winter, the only times he has been sweaty has been when he was feeling forward and we cantered cantered cantered around the ring like maniacs. And even then, he only sweat on his neck. It really doesn't worry me or anything. The only reason I bring it up is because I always feel better when he's sweating because I know he was working!

Other than that, I rebraided Walkers tail the other day. He has a tail bag to keep it clean for Winter and so I braid and rebraid it every week or so. Every month I take a comb and detangler to it to make sure it's still clean. And I have to say, my horse is gifted with some luscious locks. His tail is already so long that it drags behind him a couple inches, and it will soon need a trim. He also has a super thick mane. I wish I had hair like that! The nice thing about braiding his tail and using a tail bag is that I really give it a chance to grow because he can't step on it. He is very egotistical about his tail. He always tries to wrench it out of my hands and walk away from me if we're in his stall. I guess I'd do the same if I had hair like him!

Day off today to study (although I may change my mind) and out to the barn Monday. We may do some jumping, and I may incorporate a crop for the first time ever. I doubt he will like that much, and I also doubt that I am coordinated enough to successfully use one so we shall see how that goes!

Icy Days

Walker didn't get turned out again today but some of the horses did. It was fairly treacherous. I helped my trainer bring them in and all I could think was that either me or the horse was going to slip on the ice, and neither scenario boded well for me! As much as I want Walker turned out, I also don't want him to end up with cuts on his legs from going through ice or slipping and breaking a leg. He's not exactly the most graceful pony.

My ride today wasn't too bad. He was feeling a little lazy (as was I), and so I worked on some conditioning exercises (probably more for me than him, but they were equally beneficial for us both). After a quick warmup, I started trotting two circles, loping a circle, walking a circle, turn on the haunches to change directions and repeat. After awhile I had to start switching up the amount of circles (sometimes two circles at the lope or one circle of trot, sometimes no walk) because Walker is good at patterns and he started slamming on the brakes after his designated one circle of lope. What a lazy bugger! We did this for probably the equivalent of 20 or more circles at the lope, but it was good for me because I find I get so winded trying to keep him going for several circles in a row in my English spurs. So clearly we could both use the exercise.

Besides turns on the haunches, we also switched it up and did some turns on the forehand. Not surprisingly, Walker was much better in one direction than the other, and turning to the left on the haunches is a mess - something between a side pass and a turn on the forehand. Ugh. I like doing turning exercises in my English spurs because I find it easier to keep contact on and use both legs to facilitate the turns, but he moves so much better off the Western spurs. I know he's stiff so we'll just keep working on it. I know he can do them - he's a Western horse. He's all about those lovely spins.

Can't make it to the barn tomorrow. I still have one more exam on Tuesday, and I think I'm being too cocky to think that I can prepare all my notes AND go to the barn everyday. Maybe if I was more of a morning person, but gale force winds can't get me up in the morning. Tonight I'm off to see the Hobbit on opening night so its been a nice couple days of relaxation before the work begins again.

I've been debating about what to get Walker for Christmas, and I was wondering what you guys planned to get your horses. I don't really want to buy him a Likit or something like that because all I can think about is giving a child a big bag of candy and saying, "now you can treat yourself whenever you want." Not the best idea for Mr. Gorby Guts. My only other idea is to give him my unconditional love but he already gets that every day!

Skillz

I just wanted to write a quick post after my lesson tonight and also to show you my amazing skillz at taking videos of my rides.  This is a screen shot from the ride I taped on Monday, and as you can see from the picture, the whole video was super helpful.  *rolls eyes*  I guess I should try my other camera next time. :S

As you can see, the video isn't blurry at all :P

In Wednesday night lesson news, Walker was pretty good.  There was a brief appearance from Bruce at the beginning of the lesson who threw a mini temper tantrum, but then he got over himself and let Walker come back.  We worked a lot on bending to the inside and pushing Walker into corners, which I will admit, I tend to let go a lot when I'm riding alone.  This is especially true at the canter, and I really had to work at moving him into the corners instead of making the circle smaller and smaller like he wants to do.  It helped that I rode in my Western saddle and my Western spurs.  Other than that, my form wasn't as good as it has been lately. I was definitely leaning back in my saddle at the lope and also to the inside.  I don't know why but that seems to be my reaction these days when Walker decides to be more forward.  I also tend to fall apart more during lessons than when I ride myself.  I'm sure it comes from wanting to please my instructor and instead doing worse. :S  I can't say that I was upset with the night though because, as you may have figured out, Wednesday night lessons are normally a disaster for me.  I have faith that now that we're in the indoor arena for good, things may start to look up again.  One of the other horses, Ash, also had a mini meltdown but he was freaking out because the cars were crunching over the ice/snow outside of the door which resulted in a little bit of wild and frantic cantering near the door.  Other than that, I can't complain!

The only downside to the snowstorm we got on Monday is that it was followed by freezing rain.  This means that the snow has a level of ice over top of it, and everywhere is treacherous.  In fact, there are normally four people in our lesson, but for the past few months, there has only been three of us.  This is because the fourth person is an older man (not really old, but older than the rest of us), and he has back problems.  After several months off because of pain, he arrived at the barn tonight with the intention of riding, put his foot out of the car door, slipped on the ice and fell on his back.  Now who knows when he will be able to ride again. :(  Needless to say, the horses haven't been outside because it's way too icy to even get them to their paddocks.  According to my instructor, at this point, it either needs to snow or melt, and it doesn't really look like either are going to happen for about a week.  I think Walker would have more of a chance of being turned out if his field wasn't at the very back and my trainer didn't have to walk up a hill (that is literally just ice) to get them there.  I can only pray that the weather won't be like that for the two weeks that I'm barely riding - you know, those two weeks before I do the clinic. :S  I'm sure Bruce will be out in full force if that's the case!

Luckily, I'm done my first two exams and my next one isn't until next Tuesday.  I will be able to get out to the barn quite often over the next week, I'm hoping.  He will get lots of exercise, if I have anything to say about it!

On a final note, check out this super cool video someone posted on my Facebook wall.  It's impressive and awesome: