Stiff Pony

I could figure eight over the trot set or else do
circles the size of half of the arena

Today Walker and I worked on a combination of things.  I wanted to practice cantering a pole again so I put one on the short end of the arena and really worked at keeping him in the corners without any poles to block off his approach.  But before I got to that, I set up a trot set in the middle of the arena and practiced going over them in small circles and figure eights to really get him bending and picking up his feet.

Turning/bending is our biggest problem by far.  To be honest, it is the foundation of almost all of our problems.  He is not a horse that turns easily, and when he does, he does not like to bend into it.  This makes circles difficult, corners difficult, approaching jumps difficult, etc. It drives me crazy, and unfortunately I find that I am required to use more rein than I think I should be using.  I know it's not 100% his fault, but I think we share the fault pretty evenly.  He is stiff, but in Western Pleasure, you really don't do a lot of circles, bending, etc.  On Wednesday, my instructor had us all do circles that spiraled in smaller and smaller until we were practically walking a circle only a few feet in diameter.  I was able to get Walker to do this pretty well surprisingly, but my instructor was definitely getting frustrated with the performance of one of the other Western-trained horses.  As she says (in her biased opinion, no doubt!), "Western horses: ask them to walk in a circle and they'll just give you a turn on the haunches."  Very true.  Yet, I have no doubt that some of the problem is simply that I need to use even more leg to push him around.

When we were cantering the pole, I had the same problem.  He just wasn't bending enough and some of the corners were a little dicey for us - as in, I feared for the safety of my knees.  On a better note, I was pretty impressed with the nice pace he picked up at the canter - dare I say, a hunter pace...  He did that on Wednesday too, and my instructor really wants me to get used to it.  I'm not adverse to speed, but speed can be a problem when turning is a problem.  I found that we were coming so fast at the pole, and Walker was already so stiff about turning that we simply couldn't do it cleanly.  Oh well.  He felt a little off yesterday and a bit today as well, so it's possible that he's just extra stiff these days.

After that, I set up a crossrail on the long end and left the pole on the short end for approach and exit from the jump.  I figured that it would be a good guideline - something to trot over going in or canter over going out.  His stiffness especially showed up during the jump portion of our ride because I found him almost entirely unwilling to even consider going around the corner.  As in, he wanted to jump, go straight (towards the wall) and stop.  I was literally pulling and kicking to encourage him to keep at it.  He's usually not like that, and I find when he's that defiant, he resists me by turning to the outside or at least not letting me pull him around.  So that confirmed my theory a little more that he was feeling a bit off.

"You didn't need this, did you?"

Despite that, I was pretty happy with him today.  I did a lot of bending exercises throughout the week, and it's more than possible that he's just stiff and sore from all that work.  But not to leave it on that note, I was feeling semi-ambitious after the crossrail, so I put up a vertical (!) of about 1'6".  This might not seem very high to you jumpers out there, but it's only about 6" less than where Walker is expected to cap out (according to my barn owner).  I have only ever trotted a vertical once, and I think I put it up to maybe 1', 1'3" at the max.  When I asked him to trot it, he picked up a nice brisk canter so I said what the hell, and let him do it the first time at the pace.  He was really good about it.  He didn't even nick the pole, but I made him trot it the second time just so that I didn't get him sour on verticals.  I fought my very will power not to make him do it several more times, but I'm trying to be obedient and listen to my instructor who wants me to take things slow with Walker and the jumping.  So far he actually seems to be enjoying it but I could see where he might get sour especially if we go too fast.

After I cooled him off, I hopped down to get a picture of him in front of the vertical for proof that we in fact had a vertical.  When we're done our ride, Walker likes to follow me like a puppy, but instead of walking around the jump, he decided to show me how he could go over it.  Make life difficult for yourself, Walker!

"Look mom, no hands"

All in all, a good day's work.  I will take it easy on him tomorrow and Sunday just in case he is still feeling off.  I don't want him to end up sore on me!

Rainy Daze

Head shot - as requested!

Last night Walker and I had a pretty good ride.  We didn't end up jumping in our lesson though.  We had an extra girl join our lesson who is younger and doesn't jump, which tipped the scales to two vs two on the jumping front.  It was also a little crowded in the arena with four of us.  All the other lessons have four, but the fourth person in our lesson hasn't been able to come for a while because he has a bad back.  Anywho, my instructor promised me that we would jump next week.  There was just too much going on this week to add that in, but I could tell that she was just as disappointed as I was!

But of course I couldn't keep my big mouth closed during the lesson, and I had to bring up that I wanted to start cantering crossrails although we've only just officially had one trot lesson over rails.  I'm impatient, and Walker and I have been practicing trotting (and cantering) them for awhile now.  Anyway, one thing led to another, and my instructor, who is thankfully the most thorough instructor in the world, insisted that we learn to canter as many poles as possible first so that we will get used to distances.  Cantering the pole is not the problem, I explained.  It's getting him deep enough into the corners in our tiny arena so that I can come at the pole straight.  What I didn't tell her was that last week when I was cantering crossrails by myself, I could not achieve a straight approach every one time and so Walker, surprisingly willing, jumped it an angle... towards the wall.

So, my instructor decided to put down a few poles to create a barrier to keep him straight.  She started with this.  The red line is the pole we are actually trying to canter.  The blue lines are the other poles intended to be barriers.

Walker was still able to cut off the corners though so she added more:

But you see, Walker is a master of getting around my instructor's traps, and he is very resistant to my inside leg when he wants to be.  He also wanted to be with his friends who were watching this hilarious show from the middle of the arena.  So by the end of the performance, my instructor built a race track of sorts to force us to stay on the rail.  

No, I am not kidding.  This is what it has come to.

Did we stay outside the blue poles and come at the canter pole straight?  Of course not.  He happily clambered over all the poles while my instructor screamed "INSIDE LEG" and I kicked with all my might in those stupid little English spurs.  For the record, I am more than capable of keeping him on the rail in Western spurs.  Sigh.  Lazy pony.  But we did do it correctly enough times to make my instructor happy.

Dirty pony.

Needless to say,  when I got to the barn today, I worked on pushing him into the corners!  I only actually set up two poles diagonally in the corners at the top of the arena where he tends to cut the most, but I made it very clear to him that cutting them was not an option.  Of course he's lazy, but he's also more willing to oblige when he doesn't have three horses to show off in front of!  I kid you not. He did it every time for me, the little bugger.  But no, not when people are watching.

Other than that, I threw in a little stirrupless trotting, some turns on the haunches and forehand, and some canter departs from a halt.  Just a mishmash of different activities.  Tomorrow we will trot some crossrails, and probably practice cantering some poles (and staying in those corners!).

Walker attacking the crossties.
For the record, he is normally very quiet on crossties.
He just likes to aggravate me.

New Horses

My barn owner got a new load of horses today, so although I did get a little bit of work done with Walker, I was mostly distracted by the cute new arrivals.  My barn owner finally decided to bring in a couple of ranch horses instead of the show horses she normally brings in.  They're quarter horses, but they're not the big quarter horses she usually buys.  Oftentimes, those horses turn out to be too much for the little kids to handle, and she needs more beginner-friendly horses.  These are the smaller type of quarter horse.  They've been roped off of, ridden by lots of different people, and are supposedly bombproof.  I guess two of them also came from a First Nations community somewhere in the States.  She has a bay, a black, and a fleabitten grey.  When she put the little bay pony in his stall, he wasn't in there for more than two seconds before he ripped his bucket of its hook and threw it across the stall.  My barn owner exclaimed, "Oh no!  Walker Junior!"

pony love

Walker was out again today, but I don't think he'll get out for the rest of the week.  The paddocks already look a little icey, and we're expecting a lot of rain tomorrow and the next day.  When the temperature goes below freezing again, the paddocks will be skating rinks.

As you can see from the picture to my right, Walker was spreading his love around the field today again.  It's nice to know that he doesn't discriminate because today he was cozying up to another gelding.  All the mares were in another paddock!  It never ceases to amaze me that he is able to get right in other horses' faces (or other parts of their bodies!) and they never kick him or squeal or make a fuss.  I don't know how he does it!

That being said, he was protective of me for the first time today.  When I was leading Walker out of the paddock, another more ill-mannered and pushy gelding tried to ram through the gate.  I had my hand between the gate and the post, so it was potentially a broken hand, but before I had a chance to act, Walker whirled around and sent the other horse flying.  I was such a proud mama.

Polo pony - blue is definitely his colour

Other than that, our ride was pretty bland.  I am happy with our accomplishments though.  We worked on some halt to canter transitions, and we also did some stirrupless work since I fell off the stirrupless wagon a couple weeks ago when I got busy.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to do too much of the latter because the new horses arrived shortly after I started that, and my barn owner needed me to move my car for the plow to come in.  Once I got back into the arena, Walker had a mini spook because the plow (which was immediately on the other side of the wall to the arena) was crashing around and scraping along the ice.  Walker was fine, but I decided to just put my stirrups back down and cool him off.  After all, I had kept him 40 minutes from his supper as it was, and I was anxious to see the new horses.

The other thing that I accomplished today was wrapping Walker's legs in polos.  Thanks to everyone who responded to my last post about boots.  When I wrote the post, I pretty much had one pair of open front boots picked out, and I was hoping that a sensible voice would convince me that I probably didn't need them.  Now I have two or three different kinds of boots picked out!  Oh joy!  If only I had the money...

I probably could have done a better job wrapping his legs.  I can see where it is a little uneven/loose, but I'm still practicing.  I only wrapped his front legs today because I'm pretty sure he's never worn polos before so I wanted to make sure he wouldn't trip all over himself while we were riding.  Ironically, he tripped in the deep sand and his whole hind end slipped out from underneath him (this is not the first time...), so he probably could have benefited from a little a back leg protection!  Next time maybe.

Chester in his new kitty tent - he had to be encouraged to go in here,
or rather discouraged so he thought it was his idea

Question Period

I've been bored the past few days, and ever since buying polos and learning how to wrap them, I've been researching boots instead.  Because frankly, while wrapping polos is a lovely skill to know, that just seems time consuming and unlikely to occur!

Encouraged even more by similar recent posts from Pia & Prairie's Parade and SprinklerBandits, I have a few questions about boots for you hunter/jumpers out there.  For starters, I have never used polos or boots on my Western Pleasure horse.  Frankly, very few people use boots at our barn at all, whether they ride English or Western.  Now that we are "jumping" (I use the quotations intentionally there), I want to know our options.

Open Front Boots: I realize that open front boots are common for jumping because the open front allows the horse to feel if he knocks the poles.  However, that begs the question (for me at least), why one would bother using the boots at all.  I realize that they are for interference in general, but Walker doesn't overreach (he's too lazy for that) and he'll never be jumping anything too high (if that matters...).  Just what kind of interference should I be wary about here?

Hind Boots: The same question applies to boots for back legs.  If he's not the type of horse to interfere with himself, are they necessary?

Other Types of Front Boots: I'm curious if anyone uses anything other than open front boots for jumping.  I've done some research and know that there are cross-country boots that are closed at the front.  Walker and I don't really have anywhere to practice cross country jumping, but I'm hoping to do a little more trail riding in the summer.  I don't want him to hurt himself jumping logs/brush/etc just because he's too lazy to lift his feet up.  Honestly, if I could only get one of the videos up of us jumping, you would understand why I am so concerned about his lack of natural talent and need for protection!

What kinds of boots do you own? Do you have different pairs that you use for different occasions (shows, schooling, trails, cross-country, etc.), and what do you suggest?  

I'm really enjoying our foray into the land of jumping, but my barn owner is pretty sure that Walker is going to max out at about 2 feet, maybe a few inches higher than that. Whenever that happens, I'm sure I'll start taking jumping lessons on a real jumper, but until then, I want to make sure my little QH is well protected.

The "Player"

This is the text I got from my barn owner when I work up this morning:

Your horse is a "player".  Yesterday he was loving Sizzle but today he loves Starr!! "MEN" hahahaha.  He truly does have quite a personality!!!

Don't I know it.

Modelling his rainsheet - the sun is directly in the way, of course

When I got out to the barn, I was happy to discover that Walker was turned out yesterday and today, and it is finally getting warm again.  There was actually snow melting off the roof!  Yay!  I also felt like an idiot because apparently D blanketed Walker for me this morning when they were putting them out since it was a little chilly this morning.  Blanketing isn't included in our board so if you want them blanketed, you have to do it yourself.  It was so nice of D to do that for me, but it was also the first time that Walker has worn his blanket all Winter long.  In fact, it's not even his Winter blanket - it's his rainsheet!  But he doesn't really need his winter blanket so this works fine.  However, when I went out to the paddock to look for him, I couldn't find him because I wasn't used to looking for my blanketed horse!  At one point, I was actually like, "Who is this horse in the plaid blanket that keeps getting in my way?  OH!  It's Walker!"

Anyway, Sunday is our easy ride today.  As in, we should be ashamed of how little we do on Sundays!  But everyone should have a lazy day.  Walker and I rode with the little girl on the pony that we did the clinic with, and nope, he still hasn't gotten over his pure disdain for ponies.  I'm pretty sure that the little girl's grandmother is worried that Walker is going to take the pony out or something because he is definitely a cranky camper when that pony is around.

We weren't riding for very long when T came in and asked if she could lunge Ella, otherwise known as the nutjob mare.  Ella is only 5 years old and is quite the handful.  We originally gave her half the ring, but when Ella started freaking out, we had to stop while she tried to get a handle on her.  Then my barn owner came into the arena.  I don't know if I've ever said much about my barn owner but she is about 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, and every single horse in our barn is terrified of her.  She gives off this No Tolerance attitude and they quiver around her.  Anyway, she took over the lunging, and we actually had to leave the arena because it was that much of a performance.  I was so excited to see the show that I trotted Walker down the hall, ripped off his bridle, threw him in his stall, and ran into our viewing lounge still holding the bridle so that I could watch. Needless to say, Ella got a much-needed attitude adjustment, and she was a million times better for T to ride afterwards.

I actually felt a little bad for T because Ella doesn't belong to her.  She's our barn owner's horse, and as T said to me, it's hard to know how far to take it with someone else's horse.  She doesn't want to be responsible if Ella goes crazy and gets hurt.  I definitely wouldn't have done some of the things that our barn owner did with someone else's horse either, but now T knows what she can and can't do so I guess that's solved.

After that performance, the little girl and I came back into the arena and finished off our ride.  We just cantered a few circles in each direction and chitchatted with T, and then I called it a day.  Helped out with barn chores, sat around and talked to people, and came home for a cozy Sunday night.  Not a bad day at all, if I do say so myself.

Equine Nutrition

I just wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know that I stumbled upon this free online course starting Monday that deals with equine nutrition and feeding. I've never taken any online courses from this place before, but it seems legit and it can't hurt to get a little more info on anything horse-related. I believe it's only a one hour lecture a week with readings, but since you're not paying for it or getting credit, I guess it's up to you what you put into it. Anyway, I just thought I would pass the link along. Walker is currently on a generic feed, so I would definitely be interested in learning more about how I could enhance his diet.

The link to the course is: University of Edinburgh Equine Nutrition Course

Give Head a Shake

So you know how sometimes you have those mediocre types of rides where nothing exciting happens either good or bad?  Well today, I had kind of the opposite - Walker was both really good and really bad, with no mediocre stroke inbetween.  It's kind of hard to explain other than that I was jumping him over some crossrails, and he was being super willing to participate.  I usually have a hard time convincing him that he is in fact capable of cantering a crossrail, but today he was breaking into a canter all the time and jumping really nicely, if I do say so myself. 

However, at the same time, he was being, well, Walker.  When I was going around the circle on his stiff side and jumping the crossrail, he would come barrelling out of it sometimes towards the hay mound, where a horse currently has a makeshift stall.  The horse, Sizzle, was less than impressed to have Walker bounding towards her little stall, and he was being a jerk about actually turning and continuing on the circle.  In fact, at one point, I asked him to canter towards the jump, and he took off like a rocketship so uncharacteristically fast that I knew he was up to something.  Sure enough, he leapt over the jump and ran right into her stall.  I kid you not.  He literally slammed his body into it.  I realize that he has maybe less than 2 - 3 strides to turn coming out of the jump, but I'm pretty sure that my outside leg jammed into his side and my hand tearing his head to the correct direction should have been warning enough!

Then I set up two crossrails.  One on either long end so we could just keep going around the circle and jumping.  When we would canter over one of them, I would feel really good about my position, his position, etc., but then he would decide to cut the corners despite me obviously trying to stop him from cutting the corners and we would come into the second jump like a hot mess.  I know that my barn owner likes to watch people riding on the security cameras on our arena a lot, so I'm sure that she broke out her popcorn for the show that was Walker and me.  Of course, all the wonderful beautiful jumping took place in the blind spot where she would never be able to see, whereas all the major arguments and knocking rails down happened straight ahead of the cameras.  :S

Really, I must have been having an off day or something, because I also almost fell out of the saddle like 3 times.  I wish I could say that they were times when Walker and I were fighting, but no, not even remotely.  At one point, he was happily and patiently cantering along, and I managed to lose my stirrup. The next thing I know, I'm hanging diagonally off of him while he continues to patiently canter but is clearly concerned that he has a monkey on his back.  This happened several more times, and I lost my stirrup several times too.  I'll admit, I'm not always the best about keeping my heels down while cantering, but falling off and losing my balance?  I'd like to think that I can canter a straight line on a good day without falling off!

So who knows.  Maybe Walker and I were both just really good and really bad today.  I'm sure we'll both appreciate the day off tomorrow.