Happy Halloween!

I talked to my barn owner yesterday and she is going to have my trainer hop on Walker for a ride.  As great as it would be to be able to have Walker in full-time training, I just can't afford that.  Besides, as great as my trainer is, she was trained Western Pleasure (as was Walker), and so naturally, she tries to bring out the Western Pleasure horse in him.  This was fine in the summer when I was actually competing in Western Pleasure, but frankly, it's not what my purposes are right now.  I got mad in the summer when she was training him because I specifically asked her to jump him, but she just ignored me and did what she wanted to do.  I like her a lot, and she usually brings out the best in Walker, but I don't want to pay for something that I don't want either.

Patient pony in crossties

That being said, the fact that Walker refuses to pick up his good lead now has begun to worry me slightly.  It happened over night, and even when he was stiff on his other side, he always picked up the correct lead.  He would simply not be able to make turns or full circles because of it.  I'm afraid that he possibly hurt himself, and because my trainer is a really good rider, I imagine that she will be able to help figure this out for me.  If she has problems getting him to canter on the correct lead, then we will know that something is wrong.  If she is able to get him to canter and it feels wrong, we can call the vet and sort it out.  Most likely, he is just being a brat, but I would rather find that out before he gets hurt.

My boots after I cleaned them up - back to brand new!

On that note, my barn owner said that she was watching me up in the arena yesterday.  From her house, she can see part of the arena (and she has cameras so that she can watch out for strangers and accidents).  Anyway, she must not have noticed the part where he was ramming me into fences, but she did say that Walker looked great at the trot.  Apparently he had his head in the perfect position and she said that he reminded her of our prize-winning old timer horse at the barn in his younger years.  I was pretty excited to hear this (even though he was a jerk otherwise) because it just reminds me of his potential.

Having heard that, I started to think again about the disaster bit.  Obviously, that lovely head position would not have been possible without it.  I find in the leverage bits that I often ride him in, his head naturally hangs lower.  Of course, he was taught to hold his head low (and I think he was bred that way also because he does it in the field), but I find that in certain bits, he does it 100% of the time, whereas in the disaster d-ring snaffle bit, his head was flying up more often than not.  Someone once said to me that it was much easier to pull a horse's head up into position than it was to force it down.  But I'm not so sure.  When you have the classic "peanut rolling" Western Pleasure horse whose nose just loves to scrape the ground (and pull you forward in your English bridle), it might be easier to convince him to put it down from a raised position.  Oh well.  In the normal bit that I use, I can attach the reins either to the snaffle part or the leverage part, so maybe I'll play around with the snaffle position and see if I can find the happy Walker medium.

I hope everyone is having a Happy Halloween!  

   

Hurricane Sandy or should I say Hurricane Walker

Walker was horrible today.  Absolutely horrible.

Being cute in the crossties

Although Hurricane Sandy is battering the East Coast, we're really only getting a little rain here.  The outdoor arena was a bit of a mess, so I decided to put off jumping just in case the klutz managed to hurt himself, but I rode outside anyway in between showers.

I rode in the disaster bit again, and I attribute most of his misbehaviour to that. After all, I've ridden Walker in much more hyper states than he was today (even though he didn't get out), but it's been a long time since he has felt the need to SCRAPE me from end to end along the arena fence.  Oh yes, we're back to that.

My boots after the ride - a combination of mud and white fence paint

When I first got him and he realized I was not the super-experienced, strong, aggressive rider that he was used to, he liked to remind me of that by body slamming my leg into the wall.  That's when we decided that riding Walker without spurs was nonsensical.  He is an extremely strong horse, and if you're wondering why I didn't jab my spurs into him to push him away from the wall - well, you obviously can't see the tiny tuft of wet fur hanging off the end of my spur.  When I say Walker is strong, I mean that when he decides that he is going to slam you into a wall, you are going to be slammed into a wall.  And the only decision you have to make is whether you are going to fight it, try to head it off in someway, or give into it completely.

He stopped doing that after a couple months when I stopped passively letting him do it to me.  Also, I normally ride Western and wear bigger, stronger Western spurs (like he was trained in).  He respects them more.  He is pretty much your typical spur-dead Western horse, and evidently, he is also unresponsive to gentle little d-ring bits.

And yes.  They are my good boots

Because I in no way sat by while he attempted to break my leg, I can only assume that I had no control because of the bit.  This was also evidenced when he bolted down the arena, resulting in a few strides of a hand-gallop (oh yes, a gallop), or when it took every effort in my body just to get him to do a simple circle at the trot.

I am also angry because I have officially decided that his left lead is no longer his bad lead.  Today, he would not pick up the right lead at all at the canter, even though we were outside and even though I never had this problem with him the whole 7 months I've had him.  In all the time we've been together, he's always picked up the correct lead; it's just that oftentimes he would have a hard time making a full circle because he was more stiff on one side than the other or he would resist making a circle for that reason.  In those glorious days, I was angry because I couldn't lope frantic corner.  Now, I simply can't lope on his right lead AT ALL.  

I do not blame him for all of his issues.  For instance, he likes to drop his head below the bit while we canter.  This is probably partially my fault because, as I've said time and time again, I just don't have quiet hands at the canter.  In fact, I don't know if I ever explained how I'm using the elastics.  I have attached them to the d-ring on the saddle and looped them through my wrists.  This way, you get the give of the elastic in case you get into an argument, but you feel it every time your hands go out of place.  Needless to say, today I broke the elastics.  Thank god I bought in bulk!

"Time for supper"

Procrastinator

While I was in the middle of a take-home midterm yesterday, I got bored of working and decided instead to go to the barn.  I decided to ride bareback because I knew that I would get exhausted faster and then I could go home and continue to study.

It was a great experience actually.  I've ridden Walker bareback before but I was pretty proud of how much stronger I am.  When I first rode Walker bareback, I could barely stay on for longer than 10 minutes, but yesterday I was on for 30 minutes before I decided to call it a day.  Riding him bareback is particularly a lot of work not just because you're using more leg muscles all around, but because he's hard to get to do certain things when you're in a saddle (let alone without one!).  For instance, I cantered him bareback for the first time yesterday, but it was only for the length of one wall.  Getting him to make the turns in a saddle is really hard and requires a lot of leg and kicking, and I just didn't have the strength to hold myself on him and kick with all my might without falling off.

I do think that the next time I ride him bareback though I will ride him without spurs.  I have a feeling I may have jabbed him with my English spurs a couple of times because he didn't seem impressed with me, and one time he gave a little squeal.  My legs are pretty long and so I need to physically hold them up in position, so it's more than possible that they slipped low and I caught him somewhere I shouldn't have.  If I'm going to put myself through the physical pain of riding bareback, I might as well put myself through more pain by riding without spurs.  Needless to say, I don't think I've ever gotten him to lope without spurs, so it should be an interesting experience.

Speaking of pain, I was in a lot of it yesterday after riding and today as well.  When I hopped off, I felt like I had 95 year old knees.  I must have been gripping so hard with them to keep my legs up and myself balanced.  I wanted to try posting (or even two-point) but I could not get myself up.  I'm thinking that momentum probably helps and Walker was just doing his Western Pleasure jog (which is pretty comfy for bareback).  A couple of weeks ago when my instructor was telling me about the correct position on a horse, she said that your pelvis will naturally be in the correct position when you ride bareback.  Well, apparently she is correct because this morning when I got up, my seat bones were so sore from sitting on him that I could barely sit on a chair!

the other man in my life - he likes to chew on bridles and expensive things

Other than that, I have been thinking a lot about my weekly schedule.  I like consistency, and my instructor always talks a lot about making sure to do lots of different types of exercises to have a happy, healthy horse. I am enjoying learning to jump, but I really don't want to overdo it with him.  I've come up with the following schedule:

Monday: day off (for both of us)

Tuesday: jump

Wednesday: lesson (which means lots of turns, lateral movements, and exercises that I often leave out of our routine)

Thursday: jump

Friday: work on W/T/C (but mostly canter)

Saturday: turns, laterals, playing well with others

Sunday: bareback ride

When I say Tuesday and Thursday I will jump, I really mean that there will be jumps in the arena, and I will work them into our ride.  Obviously, I won't overdo it with him, and when I start jumping in my Wednesday night lessons, this will probably change the dynamic of the week.  On Friday, I have the barn to myself for the entire afternoon, so I like to work on our cantering issues - getting him to turn, do patterns or circles, etc.  On Saturday and Sunday, the barn is always packed, so on Saturday he needs to learn to work with other horses in the arena (and not bolt).  It's a good day to do the boring stuff I never want to do (turns, laterals, etc.) that we do in lessons because I often don't canter him in the arena with other horses (or at least not on purpose or for a long time).  Sunday, I would like to do some bareback riding, and although I may ride him under saddle first (or ride him bareback on other days), I think it's obviously going to be key to my posture and strength to do some of that regularly.  Sunday is a good day for that because Sunday is a lazy day anyway, and then I have Monday to rest my weary bones!  

The next day I'll be at the barn will be on Tuesday and I have plans to set up two crossrails for a change.  I also want to try cantering one of them (maybe even both) and see how he behaves when he has to pay attention enough to me to do a mini-course (if you could call two jumps in a giant arena a course).

Grand Prix Jumper

Since I'm super busy with school, I will simply re-paste my Facebook status as quick and dirty way of explaining my ride this morning:

I have found the perfect formula for jumping your horse. First, start with a horse that is so uncharacteristically hyper that he attempts to break the cross-ties while you are tacking him up. Be sure to turn out all of his friends in front of him so that he knows that they are having fun, and he is not. Then, put a brand new bit in his mouth - make sure it's gentle and something you won't be able to control him in. Take him to the top of the arena and ask him to run down towards the gate. The jump, you see, will be in the middle of your path. As he picks up the speed to something seemingly dangerous, feel free to yell "Whoa!" and flail around - this will encourage him to ignore you. Then jump. Don't forget to swear and look wide-eyed in terror as you soar over the jump. Voila! You're a jumper.

That pretty much sums it up.  Other than that, Walker was being a pretty big jerk.  I think the D-ring snaffle bit (which, from now on, I will refer to as the disaster bit) is not strong enough for him.  I realize that it shouldn't make a difference, but if he's going to be that strong in that bit, I would need to life weights to even get his head down, let alone control him.

Oh, and he managed to electrocute himself.  He kept trying to run into corners where he could see his friends in their pasture.  He stuck his head over the arena fence and rubbed his nose by accident along the electric fence.  I would feel bad except I'm hoping he associates the spark with me punishing him! At least I would have gotten some of the upper hand.

I think I would have been mad about my ride except, frankly, jumping him like that was fun. I was all by myself in the arena so there was really no harm to be done, and I had a friend there grazing her horse (who is a nurse and could presumably resuscitate me if Walker made it over the jump and I didn't).  All in all a success to compare with my disastrous day yesterday!

Roller Coaster Ride of Emotions

The last 24 hours has been a roller coaster ride of emotions.  I really should've written about the happy things before the bad things happened, because now I am not in the super fantastic mood I was originally.

It all starts with my lesson on Wednesday night.  If I had've written this post last night, I would've told you how proud I was of myself.  I managed to keep myself from getting too anxious before my lesson, and then when I got to the barn, I took on a devil-may-care attitude that meant that it didn't matter what Walker did.  Unfortunately, I'm not in the same great mood I was last night, so I will only give the cliff notes version.  Walker bolted like he always does, but instead of pulling him back and then not letting him pick up any speed again for the rest of the lesson, I just let him canter to wherever he wanted to, and then I just cantered or trotted him back to the spot where he bolted to pick up what we were doing like nothing was wrong.  Of course, I've always known that this was the way to deal with Walker, but whenever other people are around, I don't think straight.

There were only two moments that Walker's bolting really bothered me.  One time, he bucked while he was bolting and almost kicked one of the other horses.  I had to yell, "Watch out", and I ended up ruining the other person's attempt at a pattern.  The second time was when he was on one of the other horse's tails.  I had a tight grip on the reins, and he was getting agitated.  He dropped his head to get behind the bit, I wrenched it up like my instructor kept telling me to do all night, he let out a squeal and then proceeded to do his own personal bucking bronco moves.  It was surreal.  He's never done anything like that before and I actually even grabbed onto the horn (for whatever peace of mind that gave me).  I didn't feel like I was going to fall off or anything, but I was not a fan of the mini temper tantrum.

On the way down to the barn, I was asking my instructor lots of questions about jumping, at which point she said, "You know, Natalie, if you ever want to jump in a lesson, just throw on your English tack and we can do that."  I was really excited because I have been waiting a long time to get the green light from her to jump.  She has strict requirements about what someone has to be able to do before she will teach them to jump, so I was flattered and thrilled that I finally qualified.  Now, three out of four of us ride English in our lesson (or at least I intend to switch over during Winter), so I suggested (and my instructor agreed), that we should make that our little Winter project.

Wednesday = Success.

Then today my class was cancelled and I was able to devote some time this morning to working on a midterm.  As I've mentioned before, I'm swamped with my school work these days, and I will have very little time this weekend to go to the barn.  So I was happy that I could get some work done this morning. About 10 minutes before I had to go school, someone buzzed me from the front door.  And it turned out to be my bridle!  Never was there a happier person than me this morning as I gingerly felt the nice leather and BEAUTIFUL soft grip rubber reins. Believe me, it took every ounce of energy I had to force myself to go to class after that arrived!

The bridle before I put it together - the picture doesn't do it justice

When my class was done, I excitedly ran home, put the bridle together and hopped in the car to go to the barn.  This is the descent part of the roller coaster (in case you're keeping track).  

I arrive at the barn and there is a random giant dog wandering around the yard.  He didn't look particularly mean, but he was not you're friendly golden retriever type.  He was more like a rottweiler kind of dog, and I was afraid that if he ran out in the arena while I was riding Walker, he might scare him (or me).  So I spent the next few minutes trying to shoo him away from the yard.  I eventually succeeded.

I go into the barn and I'm subsequently greeted by a horse... wandering the halls.  She has dropkicked opened her door, breaking the latch and god knows how long she was just wandering around the yard.  Because her door was broken, I had to put her in another stall, but I knew that this was only a temporary fix since we barely have enough stalls for all the horses we have already.  I tried calling up to my barn owner but I got no answer.  

Up I went next to the outdoor arena where I wanted to set up my crossrail.  I was so excited all week because I decided that today was the day that Walker and I were going to canter it.  I had been dreaming about it for days.  When I got to the outdoor arena, however, the foal and one of the ponies was out there.  Sometimes horses get turned out in the arenas when their paddocks are a mess, which I find very annoying for this particular reason.  I grabbed a lead line, and proceeded to spend 20 minutes trying to catch them.  The pony is extremely bad, and the foal is just recently weaned so that means that when the pony was galloping (and I do mean galloping) around the arena at top speed, the foal was chasing after him to stay as close as possible.  When I FINALLY managed to catch the pony (who tried to bolt out of the gate when I opened it), the foal started to freak out.  He didn`t want to be left alone, and he almost broke his leg trying to crawl through the fence after the pony.  Obviously I knew this wouldn`t do, and I also knew that I couldn`t lead them both at the same time (bad foal; recently weaned pony - one of either side of me).  

So that was the end of the outdoor arena, and subsequently my cantering of a crossrail as there is not enough room in the indoor for that.  At this point, my rollercoaster is in steady decline, and to add to the situation, I had wasted a lot of time dealing with all of this.  On Thursdays after class, I barely have a window of an hour to ride, and usually end up only riding for a half hour before the girl who feeds arrives and starts bringing in the horses.

Tacking up Walker usually takes no time, but because the bridle was brand new, I spent another 10 minutes trying to adjust it (including the tight buckles).  By the time I even got into the indoor arena, the girl had already arrived to start feeding (which inevitably meant a distracted horse).

But I started riding and videotaping my ride.  Now the exercise that I had wanted to do for quiet hands was to strap my hands to the saddle.  I know this sounds crazy but I read online that you can attach elastics to the d-rings on the English saddle and put your wrists through them.  This way, your hands have enough flexibility to move, but you feel the pull every time your hands go a little crazy.  I wanted to videotape my ride because I wanted to see how much of a difference it made for me.

The cherry on top of this lovely day was that Walker decided to be bad as well.  Mind you, he wasn`t any more bad than usual in the indoor arena; it`s just that I had already had such a hard time up until this moment, my time was running out, and I knew that I wouldn`t make it back to the barn again until Saturday (hopefully!).  He was doing all his crazy indoor cantering tricks - running into corners, trying to turn instead of canter, and also cantering on the wrong lead on his good side.  This is my new frantic corner-esque annoyance.  It drives me crazy because it`s his good lead for god`s sake!  I`d understand if he was picking up his good lead on his bad side.  I could almost justify it.  But he`s picking up his bad lead on his good side!  And either it`s a disaster, or else he will simply counter canter the entire arena.  Once again, I couldn`t once get him to pick up the correct lead on that side (a problem that I clearly need to work on in a maximum of three weeks before we get stuck in there for 6-7 months).  

Because he was also distracted by the horses getting fed, by the end of it, he wouldn`t even canter at all, and we were getting into some major battles.  I was kicking the bejesus out of him, turning him in little circles, forcing him to back up, etc.  I was so angry, and I know that I was aggressive with him (hopefully not overly so, but I wouldn`t put it past myself...).  To make matters worse (or yes, they can always be worse), I stupidly changed his bit when I put together his new bridle.  I have been curious what he would be like in a simple d-ring snaffle bit, even though when we first got him, we immediately concluded that it was a horrible bit for such a strong horse.  Lately, I`ve gotten much stronger though, and I thought that if I switched to the gentler bit, especially when we move indoors for the Winter, I might be able to soften us both up a little bit.  I haven`t completely given up on the idea of the bit yet, but it was definitely a disaster of an idea for today.

Walker`s new bit - fool that I am

So now, despite the fact that I was pretty much bouncing off the walls when my new bridle arrived, I`m quite deflated about my entire ride - my entire day at the barn (all one hour and a half of it).  And of course, my camera didn`t work so it didn`t videotape more than a few minutes of my ride.

Walker modelling the new bridle - bad quality photo, but it does look nice on him

Massage

I love my massage therapist.  She is so helpful.  I have really bad back problems and she goes in and fixes me up on a regular basis.  She's also very helpful with my riding, surprisingly enough, because although she knows nothing about horses, she knows a lot about posture.  I tell her my problems - specifically, not keeping my shoulders back, my pelvis tipping forward, my unquiet hands - and she gives me exercises to fix them.  She also tells me why it is that my body works the way it does.  According to her, I hyperextend my knees when I stand which means that my pelvis tips forward.  I let my shoulders go forward and I'm really tense in that area so my shoulders are unable to move freely and independently.  Because of this, my hands move with my torso instead of staying independent and steady.

She suggested a myriad of exercises.  To fix my pelvis, she said that I first needed to fix my knees.  If I make a point to have a bend in my knees, my pelvis should tip back to neutral automatically.  She also suggested that I try tipping my pelvis backward to help strengthen the muscles.  With my shoulders, she gets me to put my arms out at a 90 degree angle from my body (thumbs pointed downward) and push back, making sure to keep the arms at that angle.  Another thing I do is push my head forward so she wants me to push my head back.  If I combine all these exercises and do them on a regular basis, I should be able to improve my overall posture on a day-to-day basis and hopefully it will translate into my riding.

In the meantime, I'm gearing up for my exercise to get steady hands - or at least the activity that I think will help me see what I'm doing and help me to fix it.  Here is the ingredient (but more on that to come, hopefully on Thursday although I'm stressing out about my school work...):

Horrible News

So I just found out some bad news.  There is this adorable little grey pony at our barn that is a sweetheart.  She came in on the shipment with Walker, but some of the kids became convinced that she was pregnant.  Our barn owner kept laughing it off and I did at first too, but after awhile, I would take a look at her and think, "That's one fat little pony" - especially considering how she was carrying her weight.  Walker is pretty hefty these days, and she definitely had a belly - in a different way.

Well, apparently, one of the girls came into the barn last Sunday to do chores and found a dead premature foal in the stall with her.  And then this girl (who is only 14 years old by the way) had to help my barn owner's husband dispose of the body.

I feel so bad for the little pony.  Like I said, she is such a sweet pony.  It would be one thing if no one had any suspicions that she was pregnant, but everyone thought so.  This shouldn't have happened.  I don't want to judge my barn owner because I don't know the whole story, but I wonder why she never got her tested.  I heard rumblings that she was thinking about having her tested (and maybe she did plan for an appointment in the end, I don't really know), but I'm sure this could have easily been prevented.

All that being said, I also heard that my barn owner suspects that the pony was bred (probably by accident) to a horse, and the baby would have been too huge for her to carry to term safely anyway.  That makes me feel a little better about this tragedy, and I do realize that things like this happen, but it still makes me feel really sad.

Unfortunately, I was unable to go to the barn today like I planned to, and I won't get there until Wednesday. Ugh!  I'm so swamped with work and all I want to do is see my own big baby.  I have a new plan for teaching my hands to be quiet which I'm excited to enact (more details to come when I actually do it), and I'm also thinking about cantering Walker over the crossrail since he did so well on Sunday.  Hopefully I will get the chance to do all this soon.  In the meantime, I'm in the middle of paper research, discussion preparation, a midterm assignment, and preparations for a second midterm.  Is it Christmas yet?