30 Day Challenge - Five of your favorite flatwork exercises

I need to get back into this and actually finish it!

Ooh, this one really made me think. Here's my top 5 flatwork exercises:

1. Shoulder-in. I really do like doing shoulder-ins. It's a great way to engage the hind end, lighten the front end and get my horse paying attention to me.

2. Canter leg yields. This is definitely geared towards Jetta, since strengthening her canter is something we're constantly working on as it's her "weakest" gait.

3. Transitions within the gait. Especially with Jetta and strengthening her canter, doing a "shorter" strided, almost collected canter for a few strides, then opening to a working canter for a few strides, then doing a lengthened canter. Also helpful for jumping, doing the same exercise with a pair of poles on the ground and changing up the number of strides you get between the poles. 

4. Bending on a straight line. Really helpful with Misty and getting her to listen to my seat when I ask for turns instead of dropping her shoulder. The problem with doing both ranch work type stuff and then dressage is that if you let her, she will completely drop that inside shoulder and turn on a dime. Not quite the objective in dressage. So getting her to wait for the turn by bending her on a straight line, then sometimes turning her and sometimes straightening her out again and getting her to not anticipate.

5. Stopping and backing. It's not something I've seen a whole lot in the dressage/english world but I find it really useful for getting Jetta off her forehand and lighter to my aids when I ask for a halt. Also, super useful for western horses to get their weight settled back to make nicer sliding stops and to prepare them for rollbacks.


In other news, I went to a tack sale over the weekend and managed to find two out of the three items I needed! I got Jetta a neck cover for $30 which was exactly what I wanted to pay, since I can't seem to justify spending more money on the neck cover than I have for any of my blankets. It's a brand new SmartPak brand. It is a size medium, which I was afraid would be too small, but it fits perfectly even with her Weatherbeeta blanket.

Laser-eyed pony

I also found a nice, soft pair of plain brown leather english reins to go on Jetta's new Horze bridle. I don't like breaking in reins in the slightest, so for five bucks I get to skip that step!

Lastly, I didn't find Misty a new medium weight blanket with or without a neck cover so I guess I'm saving up for a new one. She's still rocking the lightweight blanket with a liner but it's annoying and just doesn't fit quite right. Overall a good sale as always!

Best Laid Plans

Well, I meant to post more regularly this month. And I meant to ride Misty lots. And get Jetta back under saddle. Sigh... best laid plans.

It's been crunch time with my research project finishing up collecting data this month. The good news - I'll be done by Thanksgiving! YESSSSSS. The bad news - this past month I have had zero free time. I go to the lab after work to read slides, my days off I spend in the lab collecting samples and running tests. I go to the barn every day to snuggle with the ponies, occasionally lunge, stuff them with treats and clean stalls, but that's it.

I cannot wait to be done with the data collection portion. It kind of makes me want to pull my hair out. I'm sure the writing part won't be very much fun at all either, but maybe I'll have more free time?

In pony land... there's really nada. We had a huge cold snap so I felt bad about clipping the horses. After all, they're not being ridden at the moment. So I decided they could keep their fluff for the time being. Mist has gotten SO fluffy. She definitely didn't get this much hair last year. Both girls have their light-weight blankies on with a liner because I didn't have access to my medium weight blankets. Then I went to get the medium weights and was really confused as to why I could only find Jetta's blanket. Where was Misty's?

Oh. I found it. In a heap of shreds. Still waiting for my aunt (who runs a blanket repair business) to take if for spare pieces.

Remember this lovely event from last year? :

Yeah... That's where that went. So I guess Misty gets to stay with the combo of blankets. So that's about it. Jetta did get a new bridle, so that's something exciting. I couldn't resist it's cheapness and since I didn't want to keep swapping bits on her bridle... Yay new schooling bridle! I'll post more about it once I take pics and use it a few more times, but I'm pretty sure I'm in love with it, lol.

The Great Blanket Massacre

Oh horses. I was cleaning stalls yesterday when my brother, who was driving past the pasture, called to tell me that Misty's blanket was half on/half off of her. I sighed and walked down. Sure enough, she had broken both leg straps and had the blanket up around her neck.

She saw me walking down and walked up to greet me which I thought would make my job of fixing the blanket easier. Then Jetta took off at a gallop from behind Misty, which of course Misty has to follow....

Both horses galloped two laps around the pasture while I watched as Misty's blanket came completely off the back end of her. It's like watching a train wreck in horror... I was sure she was either a) going to catch the blanket on the fence or a tree and hurt herself, b) step on it at a full out gallop - which she did repeatedly - and break her leg, or c) trip and fall over it.

Finally she stepped on it in such a way that she got "stuck" and when I walked up both girls just stood there. Jetta with a totally innocent look on her face as if she didn't instigate this whole thing.

While originally the blanket had been salvageable before she started running, after, both leg straps and surcingle straps were broken and the entire neck region was shredded. Definitely beyond saving. Luckily I got her light weight blanket bag from being cleaned and repaired so I got to put that on. Just what I need to do right now, buy her a new blanket! I guess she wasn't satisfied with her Christmas present and thought she needed something better...

Help me?

Such a bad pony... Though I mostly blame Jetta on this one.

Speaking of Christmas, the girls got some hot bran mash for Christmas. I always make it for Christmas and Birthdays, it makes me feel good and the horses love it :) Well, at least Jetta does.

Misty actually rather liked it, but she didn't even finish it before turning to her hay, so I had to give her feed pan to Jetta who licked both bowls clean. Jetta LOVES her mash, she got excited when I let her in her stall and she could smell it on me.

apples

Wheat bran

some molasses

and combine!

"Hm, I guess this stuff is good"

"Omnomnom, this is the best stuff ever!"

My Picks: Turnout Blankets

Since I just purchased a new turnout blanket myself and it happens to be quite cold outside right at the moment, I thought I'd talk about my favorites.

The good ones:

Weatherbeeta Landa Original Turnout blanket:

This is what Jetta has now, as well as all of my other horses. Weatherbeeta is a pretty affordable blanket that is of good quality and will last for quite a while. Grady and Jazz are on the third year for their blankets, but of course they are easy on their blankets. Jetta's already has a small tear, but I've found that no matter the blanket, if they're going to rip it, they'll find a way! It's a basic blanket with a good fit. These blankets fit well and come with two buckles on front, cross surcingles and leg straps. If there was anything I would change, is that I would prefer snaps on the front since they are easier.

Rambo Wug: I must admit that I have never owned this blanket. Mostly this is because it comes with a hefty $300 price tag. But it is pretty nice, just not in my budget. It has the high neck that I like as well as a unique front closure that looks like it would eliminate the rubbing that occurs with many blankets. It has three belly straps as well as leg arches. The neatest thing is that it comes with a three-year warantee. So if you typically dole out $100 a year for a blanket, this might be a better alternative because you know that it will last at least three years!

 

Weatherbeeta High Neck Orican: This blanket it one that I've had my eye on for a while, but it's a little more spendy than the basic Landa style. It has a higher neck to provide that little bit extra coverage and also it has extra padding. There's the chance that a high neck could rub more than a standard neck, but this has extra padding over the withers and on the underside of the neck to prevent rubs. It also has the nicer buckles on the front. Checkmark115 did a good review on her Orican blanket here.

Saxon 1200D Turnout: This is the blanket that I almost bought for Jetta. It is a very affordable blanket, priced around $70. It has all the necessary items: double buckle front, criss-cross surcingle, leg straps and tail strap. Also, it has a higher denier (1200) which means that it should be harder to tear than one with a lower denier.

 

TuffRider Stretch turnout sheet: This is a really nice brand - it's affordable and tries hard to have neat features that the consumers want. I have a TuffRider Thermo Manager quilted blanket to go under Jetta's lightweight turnout sheet and I really like it. The only downside is that it has a tail cord and not leg straps. Tail cords, IMHO, are pretty worthless. The turnout blanket, however, does have leg straps. But they are well made and not expensive. This blanket does an almost copy of the Wug front closure (though the straps in the picture should be crossed!).

The bad ones:

 Weatherbeeta Taka Freestyle: I really like 99% of Weatherbeeta's blankets, but definitely not this one. Worst blanket I have every owned, besides that canvas one I had when I first bought Grady. It was pretty and had snaps on the front, a belly warmer (which I now avoid buying) and leg straps but it had the most atrocious fit. My horses are easy to fit (and are definitely not the same shape). They are by no means a hard-to-fit, funny shape. This blanket must have been made for the narrowest, narrow of horses. It rubbed their shoulders, it rubbed their withers and it rubbed their hips. It fit so badly that both horses had scabs on their withers. Needless to say I got rid of them real quick and I would highly recommend that if you find one of these blankets, don't buy it. Unless your horse is build like the narrow edge of a 2 x 4.

 Combo blanket: This one isn't specific to Weatherbeeta, lots of companies make combo blankets with the built it neck cover. But for most horses it doesn't work very well. The neck is usually much too short, so while grazing it doesn't cover at least 6" of their neck, which kind of defeats the purpose of this blanket. The other thing is that the neck cover causes the blanket to rub the withers a lot because of how it's attached to the blanket. It causes a pressure point when the horse's neck it down. A better option would be to buy a blanket with detachable neck cover. That way it won't create a pressure point on the withers are they are more often made large enough to actually cover the neck!

JT Supply Blankets: These blankets are super cheap, which could be good if you have a small budget. But you do get what you pay for. I have one of these for Jetta that I won, and it has held up pretty well though the waterproofing didn't last long and has had to be redone three times, but that's not a very large expense. But they tear pretty easily (Katy ripped hers to shreds) and I've had buckles break or randomly pop off. This company makes several different lines, so be sure to get one with the two surcingles (not one, it doesn't hold the blanket it place very well) and the higher the denier the better. They make them up to 1200 denier but also as low as 200 denier.