Trail Dressage Mule

I took Jetta on her first trail ride in a very long time. She's been super good all week, so while I didn't ride yesterday I thought she'd be fine. I was a little worried I should have lunged before I left because she was a little antsy for getting her legs wrapped and hoof boots on but I shouldn't have worried. I have the best trail dressage mule! (I think this should be her new title: large ears + riding dressage + trail rides = trail dressage mule)

Are you done taking pictures yet?

We did my favorite little trail and it was perfect. We were having some boot wardrobe malfunctions plus I want to work on building those butt muscles so I made her walk all the way uphill. Finally got the boots all fixed so when we popped out the other side of the hill to the logging trails, I let her trot for quite a ways and even canter. She was pretty much on her best behavior the entire time! She had to do a nice, dressage quality trot the entire time, which at first she resisted with her best llama impression, but soon settled down into a nice soft trot.

We didn't go all the way to the lookout, which I think is about 7-8 miles round trip because I didn't want to make her too sore, but she was raring to go the entire time. I forgot to turn my tracking app on, but I think we went around 4-5 miles. She then proceeded to speed-walk the entire way back down the hill which I must say is incredibly uncomfortable to ride. 

Best thoroughbred mule beast

At the very end as I was untacking her, this older couple came over and the wife asked to pet Jetta. They were super nice, telling me about the history of the area and talking about how she wished she had a horse at my age. The husband proclaimed that he knew Jetta was a "trail horse, trained to cross bridges and things". As they started to walk away, the husband said "Oh! She's got sandals on!" to which I replied that they were her tennis shoes! They thought that was pretty funny.

Trailventures

Two trail rides in the course of two weeks?! It's a miracle. I've decided that since I have half days of school on Fridays that I'm going to try and make trail rides a regular thing. It won't always happen, but I'm hoping for at least 2-3 trail rides a month.

This last week we started at a different trail head. It's one of my favorite sections of trail minus the humongous hill you have to traverse first.

Crossing the bridge at the beginning

Start of the trail

Misty wore her boots again and we had a wardrobe malfunction in the first few minutes of trotting up the hill. When Jetta and I did the LD endurance ride a couple years ago, somehow a metal piece on the hoof boot got bent so it didn't keep the cables in place. I've tried to fix it, but could never get it bent back (even with a hammer). It worked fine for the last ride so I wasn't even paying attention when all of the sudden Misty skittered sideways a couple steps and I realized that her boot had come off and was hanging off of her pastern. I hopped off (luckily she moved away from the cliff to our right) and tried to use a rock to bang the cable back into the bent metal area it was supposed to be. Super redneck feeling, but it actually worked!

Top of the hill/beginning of the cute trail

The rest of the ride was great. We didn't pass a single person the entire time. The hill will be great for Misty's fitness (she begs to differ, she definitely prefers flat ground) but the little trail that winds through the trees at the top of the hill is definitely worth the climb!

Favorite picture from the ride

We ended up riding for just over an hour and did about 4 miles. Misty was nice and dry by the time we got back down the hill (since it's so steep you have to walk the entire way down). I'd like to haul her to Willamette Mission State park since it's my favorite and Misty's never been there, but it's likely that this trail will become a regular.
 

You know you're an eventer when you're disappointed the tree didn't fall across the middle of the trail better

I really think Misty's starting to get at least a little bit fit (she is SO hard to get fitness on) but these hills will help! I want to feel like we are ready for the Inavale HT this summer. I have my sights set on competing at it so hopefully it works out! I can't wait for the xc courses to be open to go schooling, but I'll take the trails for now. Our next dressage show is coming up in a couple weeks, hopefully it will be good. It's not my favorite facility, but one of my favorite judges is there so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we get her and I'm going with friends so it should be fun!

Summer Weather

Today was so summery feeling and tomorrow and Thursday are supposed to be even warmer! I didn't have any work today so I took the opportunity to go for a trail ride. Jetta was such a pain tacking up, stepping on my foot twice and trying to spook into me and trying to whack me with her giant head. We had to do some ground work to get her out of my bubble before loading on the trailer. Luckily, by that point she had decided to cooperate and she loaded herself on the trailer and off we went.

She was absolutely perfect on the trails though! My foot is throbbing a bit (of course it's the same foot that I sprained my ankle on so it's hurting in multiple ways now) but that was the only bad part of our ride. She was a perfect lady for bridling when we got to the trails and we didn't have any bad spooks or misbehavior.

I didn't let her do her big trot or do any galloping because she got too strong on our last ride, but this time she was great. She kept a nice, reasonable trot the whole time. I put a running martingale on her for the first time ever to see how it helped us out because on the trails, her reaction to me asking her to slow down is to throw her head in the area and continue at the same speed all llama-esque. In the arena however, her reaction to this same request is usually to pull down and try to fall on her forehand. I felt like the martingale helped a lot. It came into play a few times and made it a lot easier for me to remind her to trot like a normal horse instead of a lot of bickering between the two of us on how to trot.

I was super excited to finally find a lookout point that you can see out over the town. So pretty.

I live in such a seriously beautiful place

Future cross country jump?? Branch was about 3' off the ground

We stopped for a bit to take some pictures and as we turned to go came across the first person on the trails of the day, a mountain biker. He made some small talk and then mentioned that a bunch of bikers were coming up the hill. I thanked him for telling me, then headed down, thinking it'd just be a handful or so of other bikers.

Ha. It was more like a herd of mountain bikers. I think it was a class from the university. Jetta can handle a single biker at a time, but never has there been 20 or so bikers heading straight towards her on the trail. But she completely kept her cool. I just clucked to her and she walked past the first half to a little trail on the side where we could stand out of the way until everyone passed. I was super happy with her. See, she can sometimes be a good pony!

Overall, a super good day! Tomorrow I might try to do a jump school on one or both girls and then they're getting baths! They're going to be all shiny squeaky clean.

Gross, sweaty pony after our ride.

Sore and Not-So-Sore

I had a lovely ride on Tuesday with monster pony. I was waffling back and forth on whether or not I wanted to ride her on the trails, especially as I still hadn't changed out the flat tire on the trailer. Finally, I decided that I'd just go for a quick one hour ride as I wouldn't have a chance later this week. I'm glad I did!

First off, change flat tire. That was interesting. Getting the trailer up on the trailer-aid block was easy, getting the actual tire off was not. The lug nuts just would not loosen. I'm not a strong person so eventually I ended up sitting on the ground with both hands on one part of the tire iron and a foot on the other, using all my strength to get the stupid things undone. Whew. It was a workout. But I did it! And all by myself too. I felt so accomplished.

Very flat

Spare tire on!

Cleaned stalls super quick and since Jetta just got her feet done I put her boots on. Her hind feet have to be freshly trimmed to fit in the easyboots so they were perfect and she got to wear all four! Loaded up and off we went.

The clouds were rolled out on our drive over to the trailhead and it wasn't looking very inviting. Kind of like it might rain. But we went for it anyways. I didn't see a single soul out on the trails. Not a one. We had them all to ourselves. Jetta was very good, we went at a much quicker pace this time, covering the same amount of ground (about 7 miles) but this time in an hour rather than an hour and a half. I was worried about her back so I ended up doing a lot of two-point when she had her big trot going (which is near impossible to softly post to).

I was glad I got to go though since the rest of this week is not going to have any pony time in it.

Can never have too much of this view

Today, when I went to clean stalls I palpated her back and she showed hardly any signs of soreness at all, which I was super relieved to find. I had checked the saddle fit on her the other day after she was super sore last week and didn't find anything different and her sweat marks have been even so I think it's just a strength issue/how I was riding. I'm not the most fit at the moment.

Me on the other hand, I am SORE. I couldn't figure out why I was so sore today. I didn't do anything different... no different mileage, I've been riding regularly, maybe I slept funky which made my back hurt? Oh, that's right. I basically did two-point for the better part of an hour. Dang, that's why I hurt! Hopefully all this two-point though will help get me ready for doing some jumping soon!

Springy

Today ended up being fantastic weather. I woke up and was super disappointed to find that it was foggy and cool out... even at 10 when I headed to the barn it was still not encouraging looking out so I was kind of bummed because I'd been looking forward to this day for a while with the weather forecast being so nice.

Luckily by the time I finished cleaning stalls the sun finally peeked out and I lunged Jetta then loaded her up for a trail ride. It was a great ride. Sunny and warm. I LOVE spring.

Jetta was pretty great to. I was slightly worried once I got on that maybe this wasn't the best idea. My ankle is way better but I still don't have full use of it. So basically I had no left leg to use if she got spooky or stubborn somewhere on the trail. Hmm.

Mostly though she was great. A few small spooks here and there. She thoughts some fallen trees were terrifying and through a little tantrum about that but quickly worked out of it. She bravely passed a biker, walked over a small log and through a puddle. Only tried to kill us once when she spooked at something on the right side (so I had no left leg to hold her over) and went sideways towards the cliff at the edge of the trail. Geez mare, can we please spook in less destructive ways?

Checking out the creek

I'm trying to figure out the trail system better back there. The trails in that area are huge. You could go for miles and miles and miles. I will have no problem conditioning up there! I think I found the trail that leads to my friend's barn so I'm going to try and explore that next time.

Still keeping it fairly short and slow, we did 7.5 miles in an hour and a half mostly just because we had to mosey down the hills.

Overall, a good day :)

SUNSHINE!

It's so sunny out! I LOVE IT. I'm so incredibly happy when it's nice and sunny out. The only downside being that I don't want to go to class or stay inside and study, I just want to go outside and ride!

Tuesday I planned a trail ride with the monster pony. I woke up and it was foggy and cold outside but luckily by the time that I got to the barn and cleaned, it was all burned off and absolutely gorgeous out. We went solo, which is usually fine for Miss Monster.

She was actually good! She was quite snorty and prancy all the way to and on the trailer. I put her hind hoof boots on because last time the farrier was out she said her hind hooves were getting too worn down from trail riding in only front boots. Of course the boots I bought for her back hooves wouldn't fit because she's due for a trim, so I put the front boots on the back hooves and they magically fit! Luckily she was very sound with her fronts on the gravel too, so I didn't have to worry about that.

The main issue I had with her was pretty much just having her stand tied at the trailer while I put her polo wraps on. She was being such a brat about getting her hind legs wrapped... Eventually I got them all done and we headed out. She was fine over the bridge and immediately wanted to trot so I didn't bicker with her and just let her go and pick her pace. She picked out such an amazing extended trot. Geez, I wish I could figure out how to get that in the show arena! Eventually she decided that "Hmm, trotting like this uphill is really hard... maybe I should slow down?" And settled into a nice easy trot on a loose rein. I'm liking this!

We reached the narrow trail that winds up the hill in about 10 minutes or less, when it usually takes us 30 minutes at the walk on Misty. We walked past the point where we normally stop and found this really neat trail that wound through the trees. No one was out, which was surprising because even on a weekday morning we usually run into a mountain biker or dog walker or two. The downside of the little trail was super steep but the nice thing about Jetta is that she's very careful downhill.

We popped out of the trees onto a main road so we turned around and retraced our steps. I let Jetta pick her pace again and she decided that a canter was what she wanted to do... up the crazy steep and switch-back trail. I let her go, ready to ask her to slow to a more reasonable speed if necessary.

I always say this horse will never make a pole bender due to her tendency to run through the trees, but geeze she sure can get down and around those tight turns on the trail! She was really digging in and making those turns even without my input. I was impressed!

Eventually we did lose a boot in the mud (I was not surprised and couldn't really blame the boot) so I had to get off and fix it. She was good standing while I put it back on, despite trying to kick me (I mean, you can't be completely obedient all the time, right?) and we walked the rest of the way back to the trailer. Well, save for jumping a big log that was blocking a trail off limits. I just had to pop over that a couple times, which she did without a second thought! And this is the horse that thinks logs are scary.

Just a beautiful day

So that was really nice to have a good ride on Jetta. She's been absolutely atrocious in the arena so maybe we need some more outside time before we focus on doing dressage.

Also, some adorable pictures of Misty. She has decided that around noon is her naptime and she is not pleased when you interrupt her nap. So grumpy.

Just as I went to clean her stall, she lays down.

"I'm sleeping!"

I just love annoying her :)

She's so cute when she's mad!

Hill Climb

First off I want to thank everyone who sent conformation pictures to me yesterday. I'm so excited to get to work on them! I've got all sorts of neat horses, all different breeds and types. So thank you!!

Perfect pony day yesterday!

Started off the day fairly early and cleaned stalls. Had a major wipeout when I went to dump manure, which was probably the only downside to the day. I fell flat on my back and got soaked with nasty manure water. Ewwww. At that point I was about ready to give up on our trail ride and just go home, but AC convinced me otherwise since the weather was PERFECT for our ride (a little bit of sun and most importantly no rain) and who knows if we'd have another day like this.

I'm really glad we went through with it. The trails were only 20 minutes from our barn and we decided on a short uphill ride to start some muscle building in their backs, butt and abs. It was a good ride. 30 minutes up and 30 minutes down. The horses were puffing pretty hard by the top and sweaty. We just made them walk on a light contact on the bit up the hill and I let Misty out on a loose rein the way down. Pretty much all cooled out by the time we got back to the trailer.

Both horses were great. Crossing the bridge is snort worthy, but tramping through the random piles of snow and going through standing water and over fallen branches was no big deal. I think this is going to be an awesome addition to our rides! I think we might go again on Sunday if the weather is actually dry like it says it will be. Maybe if Jetta's sound I'll take her instead of Misty because I don't want to do too much too fast with her because she's so out of shape.

I'm thinking a long and low workout for Misty today just in case she's sore to get her all stretched out, then a dressage ride on Saturday and either another climb Sunday or she'll get the day off! 

Trails and Stuff

After our cross country ride on Wednesday, both girls got Thursday off and then I rode them both Friday. In the aftermath of my fall on Wednesday my butt still really hurts from where she whacked me with her leg, but there's no amazing bruise to show for it. There's just a tiny one. But it HURTS. Luckily it doesn't interfere with riding though.

Jetta was a NIGHTMARE. Oh my goodness, it was ridiculous. I'm not sure that there was anything positive about our ride, except for the walk-canter transitions because she was so hyper. I guess she was still in "go go go" mode from schooling cross country and she was mad that I didn't allow her to run.

We even had a buck/rear in the middle of our ride which was just SO naughty. With the exception of the rear on Wednesday, we've virtually eliminated that sort of naughtiness from our rides so she was being exceptionally awful. So basically that ride was a total scrap. She was just super amped up so everything was awful and I didn't even want to ride Queenie afterwards.

Luckily I sucked it up and had one of the best rides on Queenie ever. She just keeps getting better and better. I didn't want to ride her so I just got on bareback and with her rope halter. It took a couple minutes to agree on a form of communication with only one rein (she's still figuring out the whole neck reining thing so it wasn't really working for us in the halter). But we figured it out and walked and trotted around the arena in both directions even with the arena door open and the stallion hollering at Queenie.

Bonus of riding bareback when it's hot out = sweat makes you more sticky, lol.

Saturday was a trail ride day for Jetta. We went to the same place as last time since there's plenty of room to condition for our endurance ride. Jetta was very well behaved, for which I was greatfull because the park was super busy.

I knew it was going to busy since I was going on a weekend and the weather was beautiful, but there was a ginormous group doing a ride together plus other random riders. Luckily I didn't really run into anyone on my ride, save for one endurance rider. I kept running into him and after about the fourth time when I popped out of the forest and his horse spooked, we stopped and chatted and let the horses graze. We talked about different places to ride on the trails and some good rides that I should go to, then talked about our horses. He used to ride a TB in endurance and now has an Anglo-Arab. But the horse he was on was a little gray Arab. He commented that Jetta looked fit which made me happy, I hope that she won't have any problems with the 25 miles!

Today we did almost 11 miles in an hour and fourty minutes which I was happy with. We only walked in the areas that were a little more rocky, but I think we cantered less this time. Jetta was super happy just cruising at her massive trot. She was definitely a trotting Standardbred in her past life, lol. She was great about rating at the trot for the most part, even when she rolled into a canter I was able to bring her back to a trot with a little half halt.

We got back to the parking lot, untacked and let Jetta drink and sponged her off. I took her heart rate and she was at 48bpm which I was surprised at, since I barely let her walk on the way back to the trailer, maybe just the half mile before the parking lot. I trotted her out and took her heart rate again and it was still 48bpm so that was a good sign! I plan on doing one more long ride, hopefully closer to to 20 miles just to see how it goes on Wednesday, then we'll stick to dressage stuff until the ride. Can't wait!

I rode Queenie around a bit after we got back and rode over to the weigh station and found a little trail and creek. I was pretty sure we were trespassing obviously though it was unmarked so we just meandered in then hightailed it out, just in case. 

Overall, I'm just loving this amazingly beautiful weather we've been having though it makes studying very hard :)

Onion Breath

First trail ride of the year for Jetta! The weather this week is AMAZING. It's supposed to be in the 70's all week and for our trail ride today it was a perfect 72 degrees. Love it.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a trail ride so I asked my BO where some good trails were that are close and she recommended this place that was 30 minutes away.

It reminds me a lot of Elijah Bristow where I took Queenie a couple weeks ago, it's also a state park on a river. It ended up taking me 50 minutes to get there because I took the long way, but only 40 minutes on the way back so I feel like Elijah Bristow is worth going to instead just because it takes the same amount of time, the drive is easier and you don't have to pay a day fee.

With that said though, it was a nice park and I had fun. It's good to try someplace new. Two other places we're going to try in the near future: a BLM property that's supposedly 5 min from our barn but starts out rocky, and Silver Creek Falls which, obviously, has waterfalls!!

Jetta was great. She's usually pretty spooky in the spring after getting shut inside all winter but she was barely spooky and was quite the good girl. I was proud!

Here are your complimentary ears photos:

Starting out

Jetta says "I iz not water pony" notice the tell tale ear flicked back

I made her walk through a puddle, oh the horrors

Shaking it off after our ride

My "endurance pony" after our ride

I set my run keeper app to track the ride, my first time using it and I really liked it. We went 7.5 miles in about an hour and forty minutes. We slowly walked the last two miles behind another pair of riders which was okay since Jetta needs to learn that it's ok to walk slowly behind others, lol.

But this marked our first conditioning ride for endurance! Supposedly you're able to just take any horse out of the pasture to do a limited distance ride, but I'd like to make sure Jetta's in tip-top shape even if it's unnecessary since it will help with cross country too. We mostly trotted with a couple canters thrown in and then spaced each trot set out with some walking. Jetta was very well behaved with just her Myler snaffle which I had been worried about, thinking that I might want to put in her cross country bit just for a little bit extra security but we probably won't end up needing it.

The dressage saddle and pad configuration worked out perfectly. The only thing to do before our first ride on May 25th is to swap out my regular irons with my MDC ones since my knees were aching towards the end of the ride. Then I would also like to find a cushy neoprene girth instead of the fleece one since the current one soaks up moisture like a sponge. 

So basically a perfect way to spend the afternoon! Oh and the title refers to Jetta grabbing a mouthful of onion grass when we were back at the trailer. Apparently she thought they tasted good even through in large amounts they're toxic to horses apparently. After loading her in the trailer she gave a big sigh and she smelled like she had been nomming on some onions.

Yoga for Equestrians

In school, we're required to take one physical activity course (PAC) so I chose Yoga. I thought it would be a good, slow kind of introduction into actually exercising. Ahaha. I was expecting something easy and relaxing... how wrong was I! But I actually am really enjoying this class and I think I would like to join one of the free classes at the gym next term.

It's pretty incredible watching how flexible and strong my teacher is. She can do the splits, completely fold over at the waist, do a headstand, and hold herself an inch from the ground with her arms for ages (think hold a push up for thirty seconds with your chest an inch above the ground). It's really tough, especially when you see a lot of guys really struggling to hold a position! It makes me feel a little bit better about myself :)



There's all sorts of things for horses + yoga
This is a picture from a cowgirl's retreat


 I have really tight hamstrings and old injuries meaning that my knees can't bend all the way, but all of these problems have improved over the past few weeks along with core strength. I hadn't worked a lot on two-point in a while but the other day I decided to do some sitting trot and two-point work and it felt so easy. No wonder that yoga has become so popular for equestrians!

In my Equine Science, we had a massage therapist come and show us what she does as well as some stretches for what she calls "horse yoga". Really, it was just some basic stretches for the horse, so not all that new and exciting, lol. But it makes you think about how much yoga is helping you, why could some stretches not help your horse? Two things that the massage therapist stressed - one was that the horse must already be warmed up prior to stretching and two that you must also be relaxed while doing the stretches so the horse doesn't feed off your tension.



Might be good book to read.



Yoga for equestrians has become increasing popular in recent years, with books, dvds, classes and retreats all focused around yoga for people who ride horses. I have to say that I am really enjoying my class and it's one of the classes that I look forward to every day. It lets me get rid of a little bit of tension by trying these difficult positions, plus I get to laugh at myself when I tie myself into a knot trying to do the Eagle position and then fall over because I'm stuck or I get to laugh at the "fire breathing" because it sounds like when my mom's dog has a reverse sneeze going on!

Recently I heard of several barns (not local unfortunately) that are hosting a weekly session of yoga at the barn for people that want to participate. How cool is that?! I'd be all over that in a second.

If you are interested in improving your core strength out of the saddle, I would highly recommend you try yoga!







Conditioning

I received my conditioning book and I have to say that I really enjoy it! My one complaint (and it's barely a complaint) is that I wish it was a little more specific/technical on why exercises work and what they are doing exactly to the horse's body. But really, this book is easy to read, complete, full of information and has great exercises.

It has great illustrations and the feature with the removeable cards in the back with exercises is really smart. There are also lists of recommended exercises to do together, or you can mix and match to your liking.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone. It is very informative and will help at any level of training, whether it's for dressage, jumping or eventing and more. There are stretches on the ground, in-hand exercises, exercises to do outside and on the trail, arena flat work, and gymnastic work. This book was very well thought out and I am glad I bought it!

I've already started integrating a lot of the exercises into my training, many of them are things that I commonly used, so it's great to see that they have a use not just in training the horse's mind and improving performance, but also works well on their muscles and helps get them truly fit. Two hooves up!