Clinic Recap

It has been seriously forever since I have participated in a clinic! I was SO nervous for our clinic on Saturday - worried about riding with a new-to-me clinician, worried about Jetta behaving, worried about whether the money had been well spent, etc.

Luckily, I needn't have worried about any of those things! This was actually my first time auditing JW but I had heard nothing but 100% positive things about her from quite a few people, which I feel is rare in the horse world, so I felt fairly confident diving in without seeing her teach first.

I got to watch the two lessons before me and I thought she was very fair and encouraging. I had heard that she was blunt, which worried me because sometimes people who are "blunt" are actually "mean" but JW was awesome. But I also don't want someone that tells me how amazing my horse is while we're failing around, I really appreciate honesty while at the same time providing structure for how to improve. I've had bad experiences with clinicians who tell me I'm "ruining my horse", but I've had good experiences with very blunt clinicians who will yell at you until you follow their directions, so it can be a mixed bag of what works for me.

I did get a little bit more nervous watching people in front of me because she liked to use a leg yield at the canter to get the hind end more under the horse and engaged, and recently that has been a sure-fire way to get Jetta completely amped up and running away from me. Luckily that wasn't an exercise she had us do.

Anyways, Jetta was on her best behavior. We had a TERRIBLE ride the day before, mainly because I got the idea to try a new bit on her - just a plain loose ring french link that was slightly fatter than her Myler - thinking that maybe she just didn't like how thin the Myler was. Hahaha you would think that I had put the harshest torture bit possible in her mouth. She hated it. She finally got to the point that she could somewhat put in work, but it was not a very good ride as a whole.

At least we were matchy?

And puppy was perfect for her first trip to the barn!

At the clinic we did a brief warm up and she was paying attention to me fairly well. I didn't canter but we did some trotting, counter bending, shoulder-in, and threw in a couple halts. JW called us over and I told her a bit about Jetta - 12 year old Thoroughbred, had almost a year off for a baby, then has been under saddle again for 3 months. Not currently riding with anyone, we've been having trouble with our canter-trot transitions and lengthened trot. Currently riding first level. She's fairly hot, forward, heavy in the bridle and likes to anticipate things and get wound up.

She watched us go for a minute and started right in on our issues. While I normally find it annoying if a clinician gives me the same exercises that we've been doing at home, this time I felt it was more reassuring than anything that I was on the right track with her, plus she did it in such a way that the exercises were building on eachother plus I had a person on the ground to tell me when I was letting Jetta get away with doing stuff only part way.

We did some transitions in the trot - she had me start with a big working trot, only a little bigger than what we'd show with. JW labeled this as a "5" trot, then had me slow her to a 4, 3, 2, 1, keeping her rounded and on the bit. The main thing I've been letting her get away with is not keeping her round on both reins. I have her nicely on my inside rein, but let her drop the outside rein. We kept playing up and down with this scale of trotting, and JW would occasionally call out a number for us to go to or tell us to make a 10 meter circle.

At home, we've been doing lots of 10 meter circles, figure-8's and serpentines. We've also been doing bending and counter bending. This theme was reiterated in our lesson. JW had us exaggerate our inside bend and counter bend, getting Jetta to accept my leg. That's the other thing that we really need to fix is her not accepting my leg, instead she's running away from it. I've been trying to work on it at home, but I guess I haven't been as committed to it as I need to be.

Then we really got to work. Enjoy my artwork of our exercises:

First exercise at the trot

Second exercise with canter-trot transitions

We did these until we were getting more consistent transitions. Still not great by any means, but Jetta was staying rounder, definitely trying to do things correctly, and the quality of her trot had improved quite a bit. JW ended by saying that while I think Jetta likes to come up with avoidance techniques for everything (and while I don't try to let her get away with it, she still does in some capacity), she liked how Jetta wasn't resentful about anything. I'm just needing to expect more from her, focus on keeping her round and on the bit at all times, keep my leg on in transitions and circles (especially my outside leg!).

Some favorite quotes:

• "Good struggle!"
• "Don't fight with them... think of it as a clarification of expectations"
• "Why do you let her do that?" "I don't know" "Well figure it out!"
• "Is she bending on both reins?" "No" "Then why haven't you fixed it already?"

Overall, I enjoyed the lesson. I like that she didn't go easy on us, she seemed to easily pinpoint the two underlying problems we're having. Her exercises made sense to both me and Jetta and didn't make Jetta upset or make things worse. She wasn't mean though and seemed to think that I was competent despite my many failings and that Jetta was a nice horse. I would definitely ride with her again!

Lesson Recap

Long overdue lesson re-cap! After blogger ate my initial post I was kind of huffy about re-writing it all, but I like to have it written down somewhere so I can come back to in eventually if I need to so... here goes again!

I took Misty to have a lesson with KB. It's been soooo long since I had a lesson. Way too long. I had a general idea of things I kind of wanted to work on, but generally just wanted KB to pick us apart. We ended up working on some first level things we're still in the process of learning: leg yields and 10 meter half circles.

First off though was some work in transitions. Misty's transitions have imporoved by leaps and bounds. Initially, she could only do relaxed transitions on a loose rein (a la western mode) and got fussy and tense about doing them on contact. Plus downward transitions were very abrupt and upward transitions tended towards the "too expressive" side. They've become very prompt and on the bit now, no popping her head up or slamming on the brakes.

However, KB noted that there was still some tension in her transitions so we worked on getting Misty to bend deeper to take away that tenseness. We lost some "promptness" but once we get the relaxation we can alternate asking for prompt or relaxed transitions and will eventually put them together. Misty was very confused at first. She has a very vertical headset which is nice because then I don't have to worry about her sucking behind the vertical, but it makes it hard when she gets so confused by me asking for that increased bend through her poll! Eventually she figured it out (she is a smart girl after all) and the transitions were much more relaxed. Additionally, we get more lift through the shoulders and withers instead of just the neck on our upward transitions. Cool!

Next were some leg yields. As I've mentioned, Misty swings through cycles of "I got this! These are easy!" to "Ohmygosh these are so hard! Why are you asking for this?". Of course she was of the latter mindset for our lesson. We worked on getting her haunches over on a circle. KB wanted to see more of her hind legs crossing on our leg yields plus some additional straightness through the neck (I try so hard but I just tend to overbend them in the leg yield which is not conducive to a nice movement!). Once Misty got the hang of haunches out on a circle we did it along the wall with her nose to the wall, then leg yields up the centerline. Had some good moments, but this is something we need to take home and work on.

Lastly were the 10 meter half circles. Interestingly, though Misty has an easier time to the left, her left half circles suck, so I've just had to really ride the half circles and control her shoulders so they don't run out of the circle. KB said this was correct, but gave us something else to help. Working on bend because she's anticipating the change of bend. Why didn't I think of this? I should have thought of this. What we'd do is a half 10 meter circle off the wall to the centerline (to the left let's say) then hold the left bend and continue in a straight line up the centerline, then straighten, then bend right but stay on centerline, then finally a half 10 meter circle to the right. This is really going to help her anticipating and keep her from throwing her shoulders everywhere.

Overall a good lesson! We have plenty of things to work on. I was hoping to debut her at the show this coming weekend First Level but with working full time in addition to my research project and my complete lack of money this month, it sadly isn't going to happen, which I'm really put out about :(

But it's probably for the best. Not a lot of riding has been happening. More on that later! In the meantime, cute photos:

Typical. I call for my girls and Misty looks. Jetta just keeps eating. Fatty.

Lover girls.

All the Jumps

It was definitely the weekend of lessons. KO was also in town, so I signed up for a jumping lesson with her. I haven't ridden with her either since the spring or possibly the winter? Gosh, I've been slacking in that department.

The morning started off much better and I even managed to get 6 hours of sleep rather than the 4 I was running on the day before. I was still super grumpy though that early in the morning. Luckily I had packed the trailer and gotten it ready to go so all I had to do was toss Jetta in and go.

Sunrise at home

I did have a super funny panic attack though. I was sitting at a light waiting for it to turn green and I heard pawing come from the trailer. Misty is the horse that likes to paw and she'll do it occasionally in the trailer. Jetta doesn't usually paw in the trailer. I had a legitimate panic attack when I thought that maybe I had grabbed the wrong horse and brought Misty instead of Jetta! Luckily I was able to think back and double check myself that I had actually grabbed Jetta. Lack of sleep, I'm telling you...


The lesson was definitely worth the lack of sleep. When I woke up I was not in a good mood and wondering why I'd decided to do this. After all, it's not like I was probably going to be showing over the winter anyways, so why have a lesson?

Frosty morning. And isn't their barn gorgeous?

Jetta was very good warming up. KO had us leg yield on a straight line both ways (haunches-in and haunches-out on the same straight line) down one long wall, then do actual leg yields to the wall and back over on the other long wall. Jetta was a leg yielding machine. It was awesome. The only thing that KO commented on was me. The usual - sit up, eyes up, shoulders back, sit tall spiel that I always get. I needed that constant reminder after riding by myself for so long!

We moved on to cantering over poles and getting 7 strides or 9 strides. Jetta can package her canter very well, but not when it comes to doing poles. She thinks it's not possible. KO wanted us to do 10, but eventually we settled on a very nice 9 when Jetta decided it was not possible to canter a 10 stride. Mostly by launching over the first pole, then almost slipping and falling on the second pole. Dork. But 9 strides we could do nicely.

I was the only one jumping in our lesson. There was one other girl and she just did pole work. She had a very heavy/strong WB mare that she was riding and it was really interesting to see what she worked on. The mare was going in a double twisted wire full cheek and had absolutely no response to the bit, so they worked on canter-halt-canter transitions, really getting her horse to pick her back up in the halt - thinking of going "up" instead of "out" with the stride so it was easier to control the horses pace. Then they also worked on fitting 8 strides instead of 5 in on the same pole exercise that Jetta and I did by doing 10m circles whenever the horse got too fast, really focusing on turning with the outside rein so that her mare wouldn't swing her haunches out. They looked really good by the end.

Jumping all the jumps!

Anyways, Jetta. The next exercise was a 17' pole to a little jump to another pole set 17' away. The goal was to get one stride in after the first pole and before the jump, then one stride in after the jump and before the second pole. Once we mastered that, she made it even smaller, which Jetta did not like, but after some interesting attempts, we managed to do it twice and got to take a break.

Then we got to do a little jump with a tarp underneath it and panels. I wasn't sure what Jetta would think of it, but she hopped right over it without a second thought. We did that fence on the diagonal with a bending line to an oxer on the wall. We were supposed to go around a cone and get six strides in, but couldn't manage that so we settled for a nice 5. I needed to work on landing straight, looking where I was going and not leaning upon landing. Jetta though the little fence was too little so she was launching over it, part of the reason we were only getting 5 strides in there.

KO bumped the panel fence way up and then had us start doing a course. At this point I was feeling a little bummed out. I was surprised KO wanted us to do a full course when I felt like we couldn't even do one line correctly. I usually never have a bad jumping lesson with KO on Jetta, so I was disappointed especially since Jetta has been awesome jumping on our own. KO put together a huge course (to me) and I was just praying I wouldn't forget it. Penalty for forgetting a course is to do a full lap of the (very large) arena at the posting trot with no stirrups. And I'm very good at forgetting courses and very bad at stirrupless posting trot.

Luckily I didn't forget it though and Jetta was awesome. The course was an outside line, around to the panel/tarp fence on the diagonal/bending line back to the oxer on the wall. Then around to a swedish oxer bending line. Then the outside line on the opposite wall, 5 strides. Then a swedish oxer all by its lonesome on the diagonal, outside line again, finishing with a bending line that went from a fence on the diagonal going to the right to a fence on the diagonal going left. So 13 fences total. Yikes.

The only issue we had was the outside line with 5 strides. I didn't ride the first fence well enough and didn't have my leg on so Jetta kind of looked at it and jumped crooked. We got 6 and a half strides in basically and it wasn't very pretty. The rest of the course was awesome though. We landed straight. I looked where I was going. We got all of our leads. I gave a good release, I sat up. Everything just clicked. We did it once more just to get that 5 strides in on the outside line. Again, everything was perfect. The only complaint KO had was that I pushed Jetta to go too fast for the 5 strides instead of just lengthening the stride. Story of my life.

But it was good! She was super complementary of how I was riding the fences and how Jetta was doing. She asked if I was planning on eventing her and I said yes, that we were going to do Inavale. I thought it was interesting that she said Inavale was the toughest show to do the lower levels at. She recommended that I also do NWEC in May or September and/or the Young Rider show. So we'll see. I'd like to do at least two eventing shows, but that's only if my budget permits and we end up doing enough prep work. One eventing show usually wipes out my horse show money for the summer, so it's only if I plan ahead and set enough aside or get it paid for again by the eventing or dressage team.

Overall, it was a really good horse weekend. I think I got my horse fix to get me through the next couple week of final exams and projects!

Dressagin'

Finally had a dressage lesson, it's been way too long! I can't even remember when we had the last one, probably sometime this past spring? I never got around to hauling out for a dressage lesson over the summer, though I definitely meant to.

I feel like at this point in Jetta's training, we've reached a plateau where she's as far as I can take her. There's a lot of little things we can work on, especially to get her back to how well she was going over the summer, and I can start teaching her the second level movements and building the basics for third level. But that's as far as I can get in dressage with her without some outside help. And if I want to make things really correct and improve our scores at first/second level, then we need a trainer's help.

Anyways, the lesson. I of course thought that it would be a wonderful idea to take the first lesson spot at 7:30am (I was organizing this clinic for the dressage team). I also thought it would be a good idea to commit to volunteering at 9:30am. So I woke up at a gastly time of 4am to drive to the barn, grab the horses and then pick up the girl that would be riding Misty and get to the barn for our lesson. I ended up planning everything perfectly, but geez it was awful. Not to mention, why on earth are there no coffee shops/gas stations open at 4am?! I needed my caffeine badly...

This is what it looked like when I got there for my lesson. Sunshine where are you??

Add in that it was absolutely freezing, a whopping 21 degrees when we pulled into the barn. Having Jetta and Misty together there was interesting... I haven't trailered them together to an event at all and they've gotten pretty attached since they're now pasturing together. Thus, Jetta was not on her best behavior. With not riding her a ton, I knew she wasn't going to be great. But she was also really tense because she was worrying about where Misty was the whole ride.

That said though, she wasn't completely awful. We had a lot of good moments, showed some clear improvements from our last lesson with KB and she tried.

What we worked on:

• Leg yielding on a circle to get her paying attention to me as a warm up when she was really worrying about Misty.
• Leg yielding up the center line, getting her to lower her neck, which is a huge issue for us right now. She has improved a ton since our last lesson, where we also worked on leg yields. She now moves nicely off my leg and doesn't over bend. She's a touch too leading with her haunches, but I'll take it over being sluggish off my leg. Now we just need to work on the neck. KB had me half halt with the outside rein (the theme of our lesson). "Outside rein controls the position of the neck". If Jetta popped her head up, we did a 10m circle and asked for her to lower her neck and tried again. Worked. Like. MAGIC.
• Cantering, we worked on our shallow serpentine. Turns out, while you're required to show bend in the direction of your lead, I'm asking for too much bend which is throwing her off balance (which is why she rushes in the second half) so I need to ask for her to stay straighter in the neck. Big improvement. 
• Lengthen trots. Our homework for improving that is to play around with getting her biggest possible trot on a circle, then coming back to a smaller trot, then bigger again. All while asking her to lift the front and and not fall on her forehand. KB said most horses will "discover" their lengthened trot off of this exercise, so we'll see. She said we're going in the right direction for the moment though. 
• Another tip for the canter was my seat. I have a driving seat, always have and I can't get rid of it. Even if there's some magical way to quiet my seat, I just can't make it work. But instead of making my driving seat quiet and non-existent, KB had me just sit deeper and drive Jetta into longer strides, instead of the short strides that my seat was previously asking for. Also magic improvement.
• Shoulder-ins were good, KB said I was doing a good job teaching/working on those. Sometimes we get a little bit too much angle and sometimes we drift, but we'll work on that. 

Overall, it was a good lesson. I was disappointed that Jetta didn't behave herself (lots of gnashing on the bit and pulling and rushing, etc) but it wasn't a total loss and we got some great exercises. KB said her gaits are looking nicer than last time (when she was behaving herself anyways) and that she's developed some nice upper neck muscles, despite still bracing the underside of her neck.

Then Misty was next! Another girl on the team rode her. She's not a super advanced rider, but she's not a beginner. Misty was okay for her. She tested her a bit and they struggled with some things that I don't have an issue with, but it was just because they didn't know eachother and KF (the girl riding) had no experience with green horses.

I told KB that Misty was just green in the area of dressage, mainly just because of the contact. What I'd been working on with her was just pushing her forward into contact, getting her more round especially through transitions and working on a nice forward, even tempo. So that's what they worked on again, it was nice to see that she did some of the same things I'd been doing with her.

• She had  KF start out with a light contact. Misty was being kind of obnoxious and flipping her head/dropping contact, so eventually she had her pick up more contact and if she flipped her head, she'd bend her to the inside to make her stop.
• When they moved into the trot she had KF really push Misty forward into a really fast trot, just to get her out of the habit of her lazy trot. Misty's auto-trot speed is between a dressage trot and a jog. It's still got nice impulsion and it's pretty, but it's not as fancy as it could be. KF really struggled getting Misty to move forward, which I don't have a problem with, but I think that was just a bit of Misty testing her and KF not knowing exactly how to ask. Misty has some really great looking moments when she was moving out and carrying herself nicely with just the minimum of contact.
• Cantering was lovely, though KF had trouble asking for it just because she doesn't have a completely independent hand/seat connection. So she'd ask for it and Misty would go to canter but she'd get caught in the mouth a little and it would be a little bit awkward transition. Once they got into it though, it looked very nice. 
• Transitions, she had some nice improvement. KB had KF sit deeper and ask, instead of letting her hips go with the motion, that way they were able to eliminate the little baby trot steps that happen in the trot to walk transition, mainly going off the seat instead of the reins so that she wouldn't brace. 

Overall, Misty was really good and I really enjoyed watching her go. Plus, KB LOVED her which was awesome. I love it when other people also love your horse :) She really liked her movement and said that she was going to make a nice dressage prospect! So that was awesome. 

I totally meant to take pictures of Misty getting ridden, but it was so freezing (it warmed up to a balmy 23 degrees at the time), that I didn't want to take my hands out of my pockets, even though I was wearing gloves, and I just chatted with KB while I watched. I love getting to talk training theory with someone who knows what they're doing! It's awesome. So we discussed how to teach the flying changes which was really interesting and now I have a lot to mull over in that department.

After we finished up the lessons, I stuck them in their stalls, dropped KF back at her house and went and did my volunteer project for an hour and a half, then picked the ponies back up and went home. I got home at around 12:30, but it seriously felt like 4pm I was so wiped out. Turned Misty out and got to work clipping Jetta. I've been meaning to do it forever, but I finally got my new blades and having a jumping lesson on Sunday was the perfect motivation to get it over with.

I was going to do the same clip as last year, a blanket clip, but got impatient, so I didn't end up clipping a small amount on her flank/hip, but I don't think it will matter that much since she's really only getting ridden 2-3 times a week. But it will make cooling out SO much better. I love having a clipped horse.

Jetta was great for it. I tied her up to do her neck so she couldn't graze. She loved having her chest area and her throatlatch done. Her eyes got half closed and she stayed very still. Then whenever I stopped she'd wake up and fidget. I untied her to do her belly so she could graze. She also loves having her belly done. She'll stop grazing and her lips will wiggle. I'm so glad she loves it! It makes it that much easier. I definitely didn't do my best clip job because I was super impatient. I just eyeballed the whole thing and got it to be relatively even and straight. As long as it wasn't super embarrassing and it was functional, I couldn't care less!

Half naked pony. Now all we need to do is get her mane under control and she'll be looking good!

Jack of All Trades

My mom always likes to remind me: "Jack of all trades, master of none." I've always enjoyed doing EVERYTHING possible in the horse world, whether it was dressage, eventing, reining, driving, trail, or anything else I could weasel my horse into doing.

I was just thinking about this yesterday as I drove home from a lesson on cows. I simply can't make myself just choose one thing to be really good at and focus on, I want to do it all, even if it might mean sacrificing "greatness" in one area to just be "good" in all areas. It's just too much fun.

I took Misty to JF's to do some cow work since I'm thinking of doing a ranch versatility show on Sunday, but have never actually worked cows in that context. Misty did really good. She's lacking fitness which made it hard, but she tried everything I asked of her and it was fun. She's definitely still very green in pretty much all areas, but she has a really good basic foundation in place now.

We practiced boxing, fence work and circling the cow. Oh my gosh. This is tough! I really am enjoying it though. It's new and different plus it's really challenging. I'm the kind of person that always wants to be challenged, probably part of the reason I can't make myself settle on one discipline. I get bored. But there's so much new stuff to learn about doing cow work. You have to read the cow and know what they're going to do before they do it. You have to get your horse really in tune with your aids so they can go from a halt to a gallop in a second flat, or come to a screeching halt and spin around the other direction. Then you have to put it all together and get it done.

Circling is DEFINITELY the hardest. You have to position the horse on the cow just right so that you can make the cow turn in a circle, without allowing them to turn and spin the other direction or run away from you. The smaller the better, because then your horse doesn't have to run as fast. Basically you're trying to make the cow pivot 360 degrees, then you reverse. You have to keep your horse's nose by the cow's neck to keep them moving forward and turning, if you get too far back by their hip then they'll just run away from you, but if you get up by their head then they'll turn around and go the wrong direction.

Anyways, it was a good lesson. We spent about two hours playing with the cows and I got a lot of great tips and homework. Can't wait to get to work on it!

Here's an example of working cow horse. First they do a reining pattern, then they do the cow work. I thought this horse was quite a nice example of how to get it done (in my very limited experience). Start at the 2:30 mark for the cow stuff. First is boxing, which is just getting the cow to go back and forth, just showing how you can control it. Then they fence the cow, run it all the way down, turn it, run it back, and turn it again. Then circling, when you bring it off the wall and make it circle 360 in each direction. 

Discipline ADD

Gah, there's too many fun disciplines to do and not enough time!

I really would do it all, if I could do everything well and had enough time to fit it all in.

I took Misty to a sorting practice yesterday. Since she's supposedly a ranch horse, I decided that we needed to test this out!

SO. MUCH. FUN.

My trainer JF (well ok, I call her my trainer but I haven't actually taken a lesson with her for almost three years, but she has been my main trainer and greatest support throughout high school) is the one that ran the practice. She's recently really gotten into doing the cow stuff and has a couple herds now. She stayed on the ground and instructed everyone. She told me that I needed to get rid of Misty's dressage saddle and make her my cow horse!

If you don't know what sorting is, it's where you basically have two round pens that are connected in the middle, kind of like a figure 8. You have a herd of cows numbered 0-9 with two unmarked cows (the "dirty" ones). You and a partner go in the pen and start out in the middle (the "hole"), all the cows are in one of the two pens. The judge will call out a number. You go get that cow while your partner keeps all the other cows out of the other pen. Once you get your cow into the other pen, your partner goes and gets the next cow. For instance if 4 was the number you were supposed to get first, then the next cow would be 5. You do this as fast as possible since you only have 60 seconds to get as many cows in the correct order as possible. The goal is to get all of them, but to keep the dirty cows out. If the dirty cows get through the middle, then you're done.

Bringing the cows up to the arena from the pasture.

Misty was awesome. She's definitely cowy. She listened well and got a little aggressive (in a good way). By the end, she definitely knew her job - cut out the cow I told her to, then run it back to the middle, stop and spin and defend the hole!

It's not the first time I've done it since I've done it with Jazz a couple times and I've ridden JF's husband's horse Calvin who by the way is SUPER fun. But it was awesome to have such a cowy horse that was mine and I can't wait to do it again. And I learned a few new things:

• Don't stand right in the hole, come out further so you have more room to defend the hole
• Stare at the cows you don't want when you're in the hole. If you look at the cow that's supposed to be coming through, chances are he'll turn back. Kind of the same idea that your horse will refuse a jump if you stare at it.
• Keep your horse's hip straight. If they're not straight, cows know that you won't be able to move quickly enough to keep them out of the hole.
• If you're going after a certain cow that is glued in the middle of a pack of three, don't wait for them to separate, charge in there and get it done!

 A bunch of them are doing a ranch versatility show this weekend and tried to get me to come with. While it would have been perfect since Jetta is temporarily out of commission (I was planning on going to a one day horse trial), I decided that we're just plain not ready. But, I plan on going to watch so I can figure out how it works and cheer on everyone I know!

There's 4 divisions: western pleasure, reining, trail and cows. Misty isn't really finished in ANY of those areas so I don't want to go and fail miserably. But that being said, a friend of mine is riding his mule through... While Bailiff is an AWESOME mule, he isn't exactly quick on his feet though he does try. So we certainly wouldn't be the worst there ;) Though I could take Jazz because she is finished in all of those areas... However, I would like to do a ranch versatility competition with Misty someday though, so here's what we need to work on for it.

• Reining: 
• Flying changes - I don't know if she does these because I've never asked, but I doubt it, so they need to be installed. 
•  Stops - she needs to learn to tuck her butt and stop without flinging her head
• Roll backs - non-existant
• Spins - kind of sort of? She gets upset then gets discombobulated when I ask her to increase her speed

• Western pleasure - this is a pattern class
• Head set - low neck, but not quite as low as "real" western pleasure. More natural
• Jog trot
• Work on transitions between collected and extended gaits
• Lope - non-existant

•  Trail
• Make it look "pretty", still rough around the edges at this point
• Get it so we can do things on a loose rein
• Sidepassing logs

•  Cows
• Basically everything. While I have a general idea of how to fence, box and circle a cow, I have absolutely zero practical experience. I'm sure we could get it done semi-well, but I'm sure there's a lot of little things I need to learn in order to do it correctly. 

So yeah, that's what you have to look forward to reading about! I think I'm going to go again next Wednesday to the sorting practice. Maybe we'll get a chance sometime to work cows outside the sorting pen and learn this whole fence-work-boxing-circling thing. And I'm planning on taking Misty cross country schooling sometime in the next week or so. Then next weekend is the second trail competition!

Boost

I had my lesson with KB today which actually went really well! I was preparing myself for another lesson of the same as last time since she was such a brat and I barely rode her this week (plus our week did NOT start out on a good note with rearing and such...)

Anyways, I had a perfect time for a lesson today at 2:30 so I got to go out to breakfast with a friend, then leisurely made my way to the barn where I already had the truck and trailer hooked up and ready to go. Jetta was pretty much all groomed, I just made some finishing touches to her mane. We had a semi-spa week in that I pulled her mane, trimmed her fetlocks and whiskers off, and banged her tail so she looks pretty spiffy if I do say so myself!

I lunged Jetta in side reins at the barn before loading up. Made it to KB's barn in plenty time so I watched the lesson before me. Jetta was very good about standing quietly in the trailer while we waited since the BO doesn't want horses tied to trailers on the concrete. Yes, I did say "quietly" and "Jetta" in the same sentence, lol.

When it was our turn to warm up I made sure to actually RIDE which I always have problems with in lessons. Sometimes I just end up sitting there waiting for them to tell me what to do instead of actually riding my horse and having them help me. Jetta was so much better than last time in terms of rooting.

Last time she was so obnoxious - pulling me out of my seat then tossing her head when I tried to get her more on the bit. It was a pain. No pulling for the most part this time! KB did say that she was "stiff" in the bridle but that it was oodles better than last time. She was only stiff occasionally though, and I need to remember to use a half halt from inside leg to outside rein to "unlock" her.

We worked on leg yields again which I've been working on since last time we saw KB - getting her neck straighter. They were near perfect to the left (just need to half halt on the right rein to get her to not brace), but to the right Jetta was anticipating the canter and over-bending. KB had me ask for her shoulders only so that she wouldn't get all upset and I found if I kept her neck straight, almost counter bent, and only used a tiny bit of leg then we'd get an acceptable leg yield without Jetta getting upset.

Canter transitions were better so I was glad we didn't continue to pick at those. We tried to work on Jetta's canter quality.

I feel like it's mostly because of how hard the ground is in that arena - it is an all-weather outdoor type of footing even though it's inside and pretty much rock hard - that Jetta just doesn't like it and isn't willing to move nicely on it. Anyways, she does need to improve the canter and she basically had us do exactly what we've been doing - counter canter loops and collecting/extending. It definitely works, but we knew that already :) Now to just practice it more! KB said that with Jetta's walk being a "9", her canter should be a "9" too, but right now (at her arena) it's more like a 6... Her trot is a 7 with moments of 8, but that will develop as her training progresses. I totally agree though and she said there's no reason she can't have a "9" canter too, we just have to work on developing it.

I think the only bad thing Jetta did in our lesson was for some reason to the left she was determined to run me into the wall. She just would not get off my right leg. Finally I turned her into the wall so she'd snub her own nose instead of squashing my leg and her front foot hit the wall, she spooked and ended up about 10 feet from the wall, staring at it like it had jumped up and bit her. Such a dork sometimes.

It was funny, KB asked if I had body clipped Jetta since she had seen her and I said no, but that she'd had her mane and whiskers done and she commented that Jetta looked "svelte". Haha, made me glad that after putting in all that work someone noticed! KB said she really likes Jetta and how could you not? Besides being a monster pony half the time, she does know how to look pretty adorable and kept giving KB cookie faces.

I was exhausted after our lesson with still being sick, but I survived. It's funny how that lesson - while there certainly wasn't anything spectacular about it - gave me such a boost. I CAN ride my horse and even after having some bad rides we can pull through with a good one. And it's making me look forward so much to our show at the end of the month! It might not be very good, but it will be fun!

Sorry for no pics, but there will be more tomorrow of her pretty face (minus the goat beard!) and if this post sounds a bit rambling... well, my excuse is that I might still be slightly feverish!

That After Lesson High

Jetta was great for our lesson with TS yesterday! I was very pleased with her :)

I had been working a lot on our "homework" which was keeping her inside hind leg active through our leg yields, asking for a lower headset at the trot so that she came over her back properly and slowing our tempo, as well as trying to smooth out our canter transitions. I'm happy to say that our work did not go unnoticed and like last time TS was very complimentary of Jetta! She kept saying that she was going to be my FEI horse :) That just sends me over the moon, I'm going to enjoy the journey of getting Jetta working through the levels!

Jetta was much better this lesson than our last one. Mostly because I actually rode her better. I'm always afraid of messing up in front of a trainer so I have a tendency to freeze up, but I got my act together this time. TS said that I was a very instinctual rider and when she asked who I had trained with before, she was surprised that I hadn't ridden with any "big name trainers" just little backwoods ones :) But my trainers were awesome anyways and she said it showed in my equitation. Yay! That's been a tough one with Jetta because I feel off balance a lot of times either with Jetta trying to pull me out of the saddle or her disliking it when I try to sit deeper on her. TS said I had done a good job with her training so far and that we obviously had a good relationship, which was really nice, especially because there are several things that if I could start all over again with her training, I would definitely change. But regardless, it was a productive lesson.

This time we worked on haunches-in. Something I had only slightly introduced to Jetta before and we haven't worked on it in a long time. Jetta was pretty good, though that'll be our "homework" for this time. I may have to bring out the baby spurs to get her off my outside leg because she just doesn't really get it at this point. But at least she tried. Then we worked more on our canter transitions. Getting her to transition slower. TS had me keep her in a slow trot and keep her from rushing into the canter, even though it felt like I was restricting her. By the end we got some great upward transitions so I'm excited to play with that. Another great tip was that if Jetta breaks from the canter to the trot, don't slow her down, but make her work in almost a medium trot, so that she knows that if she breaks, she still has to work hard, but at the same time, don't rush her and still insist on coming over the back and not laying on the reins.

We also played a bit with the lengthened trot which I've been trying to work on a little bit without making Jetta too excited about it. I found that by posting higher I can get that longer stride with out the faster tempo. 

I found out TS actually lives where I grew up (from here on out referred to as town A and where I live now as town B). Basically she lives about 5 minutes from my house which I thought was awesome. She wants to continue to give ML and me lessons throughout the summer in town A, and while I can't afford weekly lessons with her, I definitely plan on having her out a couple times since she'll come to where I live.

The dressage team isn't going to have another lesson with her for at least another month or two, but we are going to have two more lessons this school year, so I'm really looking forward to it. Especially since I know everyone else on the team is really improving too!

Unfortunately I think this week is going to be rather horseless since I have a major project or final exam every day of the week, but hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in a ride or two. I'M SO EXCITED TO BE DONE WITH THIS TERM!! In case that wasn't obvious ;)

Slightly Backwards

Today was a very interesting day.

I went and rode with Dr. P, a vet who just joined the practice that I work at. She had me ride her 5 year old Friesian cross, Sander, at the barn she boards at. She trains with a dressage trainer, though she has an eventing background. I've ridden with the trainer before, last year the dressage team organized a lesson with him. I don't dislike him, he's just very different from what I'm used to, though at the time, Jetta had just been started under saddle so I got some great, helpful tips that I was able to use.

I was a little bit tentative about riding this horse because everyone was watching and trying to tell me how to ride him and I didn't want to mess up! I love riding new and different horses and this horse was definitely different! Since he is a part-Friesian, he loves to carry his neck up high and not come over his topline and use his hind end. I actually ended up riding him for almost two hours!

The first hour, his owner was just trying to direct me aboard him. She had me do lots of transitions and half-halts to get him engaged and moving with energy but not rushing. After we got started and did some serpentines and circles, he really started to loosen up and accept my half-halts. I got him to carry his head lower (which I thought was the goal of what his owner was asking me to do) and he felt more engaged. I got a couple ok canters, though he tends to be disconnected with his long back and often fell out of the canter.

Then the trainer came out and gave me basically a free lesson, which is pretty awesome since he charges $75! That is when everything fell apart. I felt like a completely inadequate and ineffective rider. I do NOT like feeling like that, it's just not a good feeling. He had me curl my hands around so that my pinkies were pointing inside, towards the horse. He corrected my whip position and had me tap with the whip on top of the croup. He drastically changed the way that I half-halt. Not to mention my shoulder-in. That was the weirdest* thing of all and I just can't get over how off it felt.

He had me get Sanders lighter on the forehand by using my hands in an upward motion, he said he was too much downwards with his head and neck and while he didn't need to have his head in the clouds, he did need to lift the base of his neck and round his back.

For the shoulder-in, he had me place my outside hand with the whip on Sander's withers and maintain a strong outside rein. The inside rein, with my hand upside down was pulled towards the inside and I used my ring finger to get Sander to flex and come on the bit. Then my legs. This was the weird part for me. He had me place my inside leg at the girth and my outside leg back to do a shoulder-in. Usually I do the exact opposite, because then you are making sure that the hip stays on the wall and you push the shoulder into the inside of the arena. Cray-zee. I just could not manage the shoulder-in at all. Thus the feeling of complete inadequacy.

My half-halts were also slightly weird feeling for me too, usually I close my leg and my hand and think "up" so that the horse is ready for either an upward or downward transition or is simply more balanced. This trainer had me (with my upside down hands) flex the wrists instead of using the whole arm. He said that it allowed for a more stable core and eventually smaller cues. My whole body of course was going "No No No!!! Must have hands in correct position!!" I did get a very nice canter out of Sanders by the end - I was able to get him "packaged" so that he was moving over his back with an engaged hind end, but then came the working on the shoulder-in that completely threw me off.

By the end I was exhausted, though Sanders was not even breathing hard. I was the one who got a workout! We all ended up going to lunch - the trainer, Dr. P and her husband, two of the girls who were at the barn and me. It was really nice. They have a very close-knit barn that does a lot of things together. They often hang out at eachother's houses, go to lunch/dinner together, lots of trail rides and in the summer they even go waterskiing together! It was super fun and I wish I was a part of something like that! Afterwards I got to meet the rest of Dr. P's animals, she has quite an assortment!

It was really a fun day and I look forward to riding more with her. I'll have to continue to mull over my lesson as I'm still utterly confused, but I hope I can take something away from it that will prove useful to me. I ended up titling this post Slightly Backwards because it all felt so completely opposite to me and I hate feeling so ineffective! I'm sure the trainer was glad that I don't normally ride for him because I could barely even do a shoulder-in or trot-canter transition. Ugh.

As a sidenote: Does anyone else do a shoulder-in like that? I have always been taught the opposite of what he was trying to get me to do and by always I mean my whole life with multiple trainers. I can't quite wrap my head around it.

*I mean all of this in the nicest possible sense, of course :)

Cold and In Control

I had a great lesson last night! But it was freezing cold. 30 degrees F during my lesson. Brrr. All of my extremities felt ready to fall off. 7pm is just too late for a lesson in winter - summer I would be game, but I was just frozen last night.

The topic for the lesson was control. We warmed up doing leg yeilds and walk-canter-walk transitions. There were quite a few people in this lesson, 6 all together which is about the max that the arena can hold. One exercise was to canter a small circle and the girl whose circle was right next to me didn't really get the whole "small-ness" of it, so I had to make Jetta's circle even smaller to avoid collision, lol.

I was pleasantly suprised when Jetta was so good about doing that small circle, she did pin her ears a bit to let me know that she did not like it, but she still did it very well - tight circle, light on the forehand, not too fast either.

Then we jumped. We trotted in, halted, backed up (if they didn't halt nicely) then trotted the next jump. Jetta of course instantly did her best diving impression but a few tweaks to my position really helped. Sitting up over the jump, legs farther forward up near the girth and planning in the air for a halt made a world of difference.

Eventually we put together a course with three lines and two oxers. Jetta did super good. We trotted into the lines and cantered through, counting strides, then trotting again into the next line. Multi-tasking for the win! I was able to do it even counting strides correctly, which has always been difficult for me.

I was so happy to end on a good note and hurry home to defrost!

We might be getting good...

At jumping! Yes, it's true. Jetta has been super good the past few days. On Sunday after the Steffan Peters clinic I went to ride. Even though I was super tired (that whole time change thing was not really working for me) I really wanted to ride because I was feeling "inspired". Of course I rather would have ridden dressage, but since I had a lesson on Monday, I wanted to pop over a jump a few times to make sure Jetta was going to behave herself. Of course it was hard jumping when there's two other girls riding around, and not in a discernible pattern, lol. But I got to jump her several times both ways at the trot and at the canter and she was perfect! Didn't rush, didn't refuse. She came back to me so easily too, a lot of the time she rushes off after the jump, but I was able to bring her back to the trot or a collected canter with no issues. Yay! This seemed to bode well for our lesson the next day...

The next day was of course rushed. I had class until 2:30 and we needed to leave at 3:30 to get to the lesson at 5pm. ML was coming with me, which I was very grateful for. It's twice as much fun with a buddy! I got to the barn, unattached the truck and got gas. The gas station of course was very busy so it took forever. Then came back and hooked it up to CL's trailer. (ML is half-leasing CL's horse Tanq). We had to use CL's fancy trailer because Tanq is so big and the trailer is extra tall. I ♥ her trailer so much! I may just take it for a "lesson" and not come back :)

Anyways, finally got everything loaded and horses groomed. Buuuuut, Tanq had a farrier appointment at 3:15. Sigh. Of course. And the farrier was just a few minutes late. But the good news was that we got out of there at 3:45, so we weren't too late. We were just about on time for our lesson, it's a good thing Karen isn't a super stickler for being on time. We tacked up in lightening speed and warmed up.

We had a good lesson! Here's what we did:

The first exercise was just to pop over the four jumps in the circle. Started with the two ones on the rail, then added in all four. Of course the first time through Jetta had to be a brat and refuse one. So we trotted the circle several times. Way to make me feel good Jetta, while everyone else gets to canter and work on their striding. The second time through though in the opposite direction, Jetta got it together and it was rather nice, if I do say so myself. But we just worked on getting her over the fences with her head up, not diving down.

Then came the really fun part. Jump the whole course. You started out jumping the circle, then went from the vertical on the wall, bendy line to the oxer, then on the diagonal line to the vertical, half circle to the other vertical, diagonal to the oxer and then finished with the bendy line to the vertical on the wall that was part of the jump circle. Jetta did very well on this, and she even got the proper 5-6 striding on all the jumps, though the focus was still on the whole going over the jump thing. Can I just say that it was so nice to actually get to jump a course? It was so nice!

I was very proud of my girl and happy with the progress we've made since the last lesson where she was a complete, utter brat. I hope this positive trend will continue!

To Ride or Not to Ride

To ride or not to ride? Usually a straight forward question - DUH, ride! But to ride in a lesson or not to ride in a lesson? Hmmm...

Karen O'Neal is available for a lesson again next weekend. On Wednesday. At first I was like, yes! Wednesday's are a good day for me because I get out of class at noon. But. I am still volunteering at the vet hospital for another two weeks. So I wouldn't be done until 4pm. That means that the earliest I could be at a lesson without rushing around like a crazy person is 7pm. Which then means that I wouldn't be home until 10pm after putting Jetta away. Karen mentioned that "usually" she'd be out at the barn until 8pm, so if there are other people that want to have a lesson at 7pm too, I wouldn't feel bad about being there so late. But do I really want to be there that late? That is the question. Jetta and I really need the practice of jumping and I like Karen a lot, so...

I'm thinking I'll just email and see if a 7pm lesson is possible in the first place. After all, I don't have to get up for class until noon the next day. We shall see. If I continue to take lessons with Karen, next year at Inavale I could go with her barn which would be super nice cause then I wouldn't be all alone!

Karen O'Neal riding TC Royale

Finally a lesson!

Guess what we did yesterday?? A jumping lesson! It was completely last minute and totally unexpected, but I'm glad we were able to do it.

An eventing stable about an hour away was having Karen O'Neal out for lessons. I was really bummed about not making it to the clinic and derby last weekend so here was my redemption! It was the last lesson before they put away/covered the cross country jumps so it really was a last chance kind of deal. I didn't even really know I was going to go until noon and my lesson was at 5pm. But I'm a last minute kind of person really, so it wasn't anything new.

Of course I just like to make everything crazy so an hour before I needed to leave I went out to the barn and unloaded the trailer of everything I didn't need and loaded it with what I did need. Then 30 minutes prior to leaving... I realized I didn't have my cross country vest. They usually require it when you jump cross country. I thought it was in the trailer or my tack box, but it of course wasn't in either. So I zoomed back to my apartment aaaand it wasn't there either. So it must be back at my parent's house. But that would mean a 45 minute detour and I needed to leave in 30 minutes. So no eventing vest and since I had went to look for it, I now had no time to groom or lunge Jetta. Sigh. But such is my life.

Jetta loaded up and we headed off for our lesson. Mapquest promised that it only took an hour and five minutes (lies!), but we pulled into the barn an hour and 20 minutes later, so everyone else in the lesson was already tacked up and on their horses in the field. Great first impression I'm sure. But except for my vest, I had at least remembered all of my other tack.

As soon as Jetta stepped off the trailer I could tell she was hyper. My nervous energy transfered to her having obnoxious energy so I knew I was in for a fun ride! She was pretty much a brat the whole time, but I was still glad I had a lesson.

We warmed up in a section of the pasture with stadium jumps. Jetta was very forward and wanting to rush so we did some circling and leg yeilds, which helped, but still not enough. We started with an itty-bitty little cross rail set up over a picket fence panel. And what does Jetta do? She stops and refuses the jump. Well, first time it's ok - the jumps are way different from anything we have at the barn. She sniffs the jump and then touches the corn stalks to the side of the jump and leaps away when they move. Silly horse. With that out of the way, we trot towards the jump and she stops again. Naughty pony. Eventually she was going over it nicely and we change direction and then add in a three jump bounce. And Jetta refuses again, trying to run out to the right. One I finally get her over the first fence, she refuses the second jump. What a bad horse! She hasn't refused a jump in weeks! And these are miniscule - maybe 18" to 2' tall. After a bit of a discussion, we jump through all three jumps. Mainly it's an experience thing - we haven't done a whole lot of jumping, but then the other half is me - one stride out from the jump I basically stop riding, I really need to follow through and keep leg on, but still stay off her back and not trying to jump ahead. With Jazz I could trust her to take care of me even if I stopped riding, but not so with Jetta!

We put together a course of the first X plus the bounces and then three more jumps. Jetta refused the jump with the box, but leaped it from a halt so we came back and took it again, then we made it over the mini-oxer and a striped panel with no refusals! There's my girl!

Other things I need to remember:

• Cross country = defensive position, Karen is very specific with this
• I need to sit back, turn from the waist, no leaning! And toes out to the side a bit more - I took this as a compliment since I've been working so hard at correcting my feet for dressage!
• Since Jetta refused so much = leg on!
• When Jetta leans on my hands, bump her in the mouth and with legs too, then release so we don't get in the vicious cycle of she leans, so I pull which makes her lean more, which makes me pull more and so on.

Karen made the observation that with show jumping, we need to work on bravery and with cross country we need to work on control. Very true. Cross country was not very good, but I don't think Karen noticed me careening around out of control for the most part, which was good! Lol. And another success was that we jumped a bank!

Last time she wouldn't do it, so we had to follow Jazzy up the bank and still barely made it. But we did it from a trot this time, so I was happy with that. Overall, a good lesson. I'm so incredible sore today! Jetta got the day off and got a bath and I cleaned tack.

Here's the naughty pony after our ride last night:

Jumping Around

I got a lesson today! Finally! ML and I went over to a barn down the street (ok, it was about 15 minutes away) and had a lesson with BP.

I was pretty nervous because I haven't had a jumping lesson in forever and I didn't want Jetta to be an idiot.

I had three goals today: 1) Show that I am actually a competent rider, despite how my horse sometimes acts otherwise, 2) not have Jetta act up too terribly, and 3) actually get something to take home with me to help improve my riding at home.

I rode Jetta for quite a while last night. She didn't get ridden on Saturday or Sunday so she was pretty dang hyper. I'm still a little put out that I didn't ride in the show, it would have been a perfect day/place to show :( Anyways, it was an interesting ride. Jetta was quite explosive but we still got some good work done. I've been doing lots of leg yeilds and shoulders in to help acclimate her to my leg and not get these touchy canter transitions. Ugh. Anyways, our canter, while not as good as it was a few weeks ago, is slowly coming back up to normal. I have to have the perfect balance of just enough leg on her to keep her round, but not let her take off galloping. Mares...

Since I rode her so hard last night, I hoped she was going to be good for the lesson. I lunged her a lot beforehand to get some energy out. We found the barn fine, luckily, since the last time ML and I went someplace we didn't know we ended up getting insanely lost. The barn was very interesting. We were thinking about possibly getting on the waiting list to board there next year, but I don't know. There's two parts to the barn, so everything is divided in half. There's the arabian side and the sporthorse side. BP is buying out the arabian side, so I wonder if all the arabian boarders will stay there. Anyways, the arena is even divided in half. There's a half-wall running across the center of the arena. If there wasn't a wall, then the arena would be a pretty good size, but divided in half it's tiny. There's several medium sized paddocks, but I don't think they use them in the winter. There are a lot of horses there and many college-age and younger girls. ML made the comment, "I'm not sure I want to go through that again, so much drama!" Which is definitely true in most cases :) But one thing I really liked was that they have grooming stalls! I hate having to ask 3 people to unclip the cross ties and move over so that I can get to the arena. Might sound silly, but I want them, haha.

Ok, so the lesson. We warmed up on the flat and she had us do some interesting exercises, leg yields down the wall, shortening and lengthening their stride and counter-bending and using the outside leg to ask the shoulder to move over. She said this was to teach the horses to use their whole body and get their hind end working under themself. Then we started the real work, starting with ground poles, then X's and then verticals. Jetta was a brat and kept trying to rush and kept running out on the second fence, grr. Eventually she was doing better, but geez, what a workout! I'm going to be a little sore tomorrow. Now I know that I really need to step up my game on teaching her to respond better to half-halts. I think I'd like to go back and take some more lessons, but we'll see. At least I finally achieved my goal of taking a jumping lesson!

Kathy Casey Clinic

Well the video refuses to be loaded. I'll put it up eventually because it's a great comparison to see how much she has improved since the last video that I posted and you can hear some of what Kathy was working on with me.

I really enjoyed the clinic, it was very helpful. I'm not sure that Kathy really liked me, she was pretty strict and severe in her judgements on me, but I liked her. I've gotten used to dressage trainers being really strict. I think the only really "nice" dressage trainer that I've worked with is Clay Wright and I just love his teaching style.

I've ridden under Kathy several times for shows and she was really lenient in her scores (first time I got a 70% at a recognized show!) and gave great feedback that was effective and clear.

Anways she commented (well, a better description was that she complained) that I was being too nice to Jetta and was riding in a manner like "Oh I don't want to get in your way or make you upset." So I need to start demanding more of her and now that she's coming five we get to work on the "real" stuff, especially making her do an actual working walk, trot and canter.

She had us warm up by doing leg yields with the nose to the wall. Then she had me shorten my reins waaayy up to force her to work in a rounder frame so that she could lift her back and develop better muscling and she wouldn't have her hind end trailing. She wanted the neck to drop slightly and for her head to hang straight down from the poll. I could definitely feel when Jetta was doing it correctly because her back came up, she didn't lay on my hands and I could feel her stride become freer and more swingy.

She really picked apart my position, for which I was really glad, but she hated how I rode. I needed to have my elbows back by my side (funny story there, I know that I need to work on keeping my elbows closer to my body. Two years ago working with Clay he actually ended up duct taping my elbows around my waist. He recommended I polo wrap them to myself in order to help myself remember where they need to be. Maybe it's time to break out the polos again...) I also needed to "drape" my leg around the horse, turning my heels out and stop squeezing with my heels, which by the way was super hard for me because Jetta was getting really tired by the end. She lamented my hunter position (which funnily enough my jumping trainer complains about my position in that I'm not riding huntery enough) and had me really thrust my hips forward and shoulders back which felt super odd, but I'm sure I was sitting straight when I did it. I also needed to really sit up and back for the canter in order to keep Jetta from falling on her forehand.

Kathy said that Jetta was really cantering on her forehand which "wasn't natural for a Thoroughbred and should have been prevented much earlier in her training because it's easier to prevent than fix later on" though I must say it's been an uphill battle ever since I started cantering her to get her off the forehand so I'm not sure how I could have prevented it. It would be something good to know I'm sure.

One thing that bugged me a little was her comments on my bit. I've heard Mylers being referred to as severe by dressagy people simply because they are a little thin but she was kind of passive aggressive about it, saying at a rest when she was rubbing Jetta's forehead "I know baby, I'm sorry, that bit is just so severe for you, poor thing." Umm, really? That's pretty rude. And I could have picked a bit that was way more severe. I mean, it's an average diameter, the most common bits that I see are that size and it has the comfort barrel in the middle so at least it doesn't collapse on her bars in the way a single joint would do with the "nutcracker effect". I'm perfectly happy to try another bit, I do have a hollow mouth french link I've been meaning to try out. At least I didn't have a twisted snaffle or anything right?! Oh and she didn't comment on anyone else's bits even thought they were all the same size as mine... Humph.

At least she seemed ok with my saddle. We had lessons in pairs and the other girl riding with me had a close contact saddle that Kathy didn't like because it put her in a bad chair seat position and didn't allow her to ride effectively in a dressage position.

I think the reason she was so hard on me was because I had a young horse. She wanted to help me train her correctly so I can see where she was coming from. She did apologize afterwards for being so harsh, saying that she only had an hour with me and she just wanted to try to fix everything that she could in that short time period. Overall it was an enjoyable and educational experience. Jetta tried really hard and behaved very well. I hope to be able to clinic with her again, maybe by that time Jetta will be more developed and we can give her a better impression!

Oh and a great quote from her, "Where are your spurs? You're not riding with enough weapons!" Which makes me laugh every time I hear it. I think the first time I heard it was from the Dressage through the Levels clinic with Debbie McDonald and Janet Foy...

So because there are no pictures, I'll just leave you with the gorgeous sunset that we've been having every night.

Can't Wait for the Weekend!

This is going to be a busy, hopefully fun, weekend. On Saturday I have a lesson with Kathy Casey, provided by the dressage club that I'm in (aka free!). Then I'm trying to decide if I want to go to a reining clinic with my horse Jazz. We'll see because that means a lot of driving back and forth.

Then on Sunday, ML and I are riding in a jumping show. I just hope Jetta and I don't embarass ourselves. Other than that, I could care less how we do, I just want to get her out and exposed to new stuff. We're doing the trot a pole, trot an X, trot a course, canter a course and a flat class. The course will be around 12" so I'm definitely not worried about her going over it, just the steering and stopping... Anyways, hopefully I'll get some videos and pictures that I can post!

It's only Tuesday, but I can't wait for it!

Your First Horse: Part 2

I remember my first horse. My parents bought a feed store after my dad's work closed resulting in him getting laid off. My dad had always wanted to own a retail store - his dad had owned a hardware store. Working at the feed store always results in meeting a ton of interesting people. One person we met was a horse trainer, I'll call her DVO.

I had been asking for a horse for years. I wanted to take lessons and I used to count horses that we passed while on road trips. Eventually my wish was granted. I could get a horse and take lessons with DVO. I only followed a small amount of my own rules when I got my first horse. DVO was going to take us to visit several horses and the first one we visited I fell in love with (don't do that. Look around at multiple horses before you settle on one). I rode him around the pasture walk, trot, and barely a canter and I wanted him. Sure it took an hour to catch him, he veered off towards his buddy when I rode and he would only canter a few strides. I didn't care, he was the one. He was a 16 year-old QH gelding, 15.3 hh and I would say he was about green broke.

He didn't want to canter, then when he did he wouldn't stop, he wouldn't bend, didn't know how to lunge and refused to be caught. Oh and he bucked and tried to rub me off on fences. But he was perfect in my eyes. Luckily DVO was a fantastic trainer and she helped me to reform my wily horse. He was not a beginner's horse, but he turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. I would never, ever recommend that anyone get a horse like Grady. He was a brat to say the least. But I was a fearless child who tried my hardest. It didn't matter how many times I fell off or got bucked off, I would get back on. I learned quickly, took weekly lessons and rode almost every day, practicing what I learned. I had a great trainer, a place to ride at home, always wore a helmet and my parent's were willing to cart me around to lessons and 4-H.

Today Grady is a very well mannered old man that I will own forever. He taught me so much about perseverance and training. He made me want to learn more about training horses, not just riding. He is still a brat when other people ride him and still has the occasional buck left in him but he is a totally new horse.

My lovely boy :)

I'll use one of my lesson kids as an example for what can go wrong when buying a horse. She took lessons from me for two years - she rode english and was interested in learning how to jump. She had taken lessons at a fancy hunter barn before meeting me through my parent's feed store. They were planning on buying a horse. They had plenty of money (illustrated by their beautiful brand new Pessoa saddle and girth that they brought to use for every lesson) so I envisioned a dead broke, fancy Appendix QH to learn to jump on and show english pleasure. I advised them to take a horse trainer along with them when looking at horses. They ignored my advice. Things got busy for them when school started again and I never heard from them again. Talking to someone else, I learned that they went out and bought a cutting horse. It was a very nice horse from what I heard, but do you know their reason for buying it? Well, the daughter complained about a horse that they tryed out because it wouldn't do what she wanted and she blamed it based on the fact that it was a western horse. So the mom, to teach her a lesson that it was the daughter's problem, not western horses, bought her a cutting horse. The horse is super hot, way too much so for a first horse so they have invested a lot of time and money in taking lessons and putting the horse into training so it can become a quieter horse. The daughter has found that she enjoys chasing cows, but the horse is still too much for her. The horse is now for sale. 

So yeah, please don't follow either my example or my student's example unless you are one of those people who is not afraid of horses and will work your hardest every single day of the week to make things week. But even then, sometimes (make that all of the time) a well-trained, well-suited horse is worth every penny.

Your First Horse: Part 1

I saw this topic on another blog today and it's one that I'm really interested in.

I give riding and horsemanship lessons to kids during the summertime and parents always say "We're considering getting a horse, do you have any advice?" And the answer is always yes. Yes I have a lot of advice.

My advice, in its longest form, would take several pages. I have actually written up kind of a pamphlet for parents on what to do/expect when getting a horse. Here is the shortened version:

• First rule: always take an experienced horse person with you when you go to look at a horse and you can never get too many second opinions. You do not want to end up with a horse unsuited to you.
• Lease a horse first! That is one of the best pieces of advice ever. Then you know what owning a horse is like, but at the end of your contract you get to give the horse back if it's not for you.
• Never get a horse that is young or green broke. I would probably place a minimum age at 5 or 6 for a well-trained horse. I really hate it when people say that their child and horse can "learn together" because 99% of the time it doesn't work out.
• Take lessons. I don't care if you used to own horses when you were 20. You can always learn more and even professionals take lessons.
• I highly recommend a vet check. You never know what might be wrong with a horse and you certainly don't want to buy a horse to later have it die on you.
• Know what discipline you want to ride in and buy an appropriate horse. If you want to ride trails, don't buy a show horse that's never been out of an arena. If you want to barrel race, don't buy a gaited Paso Fino.
• Be fully equipped to handle a horse before you buy one. Have a stall and pasture with safe fences or a boarding barn lined up, know how much tack and feed costs and where to get it.
• Don't buy a $200 horse and expect it to be a great kids horse to show in 4-H or open shows. Chances are a horse that cheap has something wrong with it. Spending slightly more for a horse than you want to will result in a higher quality horse that will incure less training and upkeep expenses than the foundered bratty pony you got for free.
• A good rule of thumb when buying a horse for a kid is that the child's age plus the age of the horse should add up to at least 20.
• If you have kids, consider getting involved in 4-H or Pony Club. They will make a lot of friends and learn a lot. It is totally worth it.
• Also know that if you buy a horse for your kid, you have to get involved. You can't just leave them to their own devices. Also ask yourself if your child is responsible enough to handle a horse and if they really actually want a horse, not just the idea of a horse.
• Be safe! Don't get a horse with bad habits unless you are a determined and good rider with a great trainer. Always wear a helmet and boots. Don't skimp on safety! If you "don't want to spend the money" on riding equipment so your daughter can take lessons, then you are not read to buy.

I highly, highly recommend 4-H and/or Pony club in addition to lessons. Also, read up before you consider getting a horse! There are many, many great books, such as Horses for Dummies or others such as this one:



Fantastic, complete and full of information.
Favorite new horse person book!

There will be a Part 2...

Lesson

So I hauled the monster pony home for a lesson today which was helpful. It wasn't fun driving an hour up to get her and an hour back down to have a lesson, then up and back again. But at least it was worth it. JF helped with Jetta's heaviness on the bit.

Basically, here is what she told me. When Jetta leans on the bit and rushes, hold her (don't pull) and close your leg to send her forward. If she doesn't lighten on your hands, then give her a little bump to let her know that you're serious. Don't do any upward or downward transitions until she is light on her forehand and in your hands. In the canter (where she's super heavy) hold her and sit really deep in the saddle and think of picking up her forehand, almost thinking "backward" like you are asking to back up. As soon as you get the feel you're looking for, ask to transition down. If she doesn't listen, bump her again. Always insist that she does what you want immediately. When you ask to collect at the walk, she can't lean on you for three strides until she lightens, she has to be soft immediately. Same with upward transitions, when you go from trot to canter, make sure she transitions when you ask, not later, if she fast trots too much, slow down and start again.

Another option if she's leaning and not listening to your cues (body then seat then hands) reach down and bend her quickly until she's light and then immediately go off again, making sure she's using her whole body. If she goes too fast and doesn't slow down, instead curling behind the vertical, bump on one side or the other to get her uncurled.

Jetta was ok. She wasn't a star pupil or anything. She was pretty sticky when we were warming up with our shoulder-ins which was a little disappointing cause they were so good! Overall it was a beneficial lesson. A lot of the tips I was already using, so basically it was a refresher and it helped show me that Jetta's not a baby any more so she needs to start doing things like a grown-up ;)

I also need to work on her being more responsive to my leg at the walk and turn (she's already super sensitive at the trot and canter) because she can be a little non-responsive. I think our next ride is just going to be ground work. After our lesson, I rode one of JF's horses in exchange for my lesson. He was such as cutey! She bought him as a resale prospect - he's a little 14.1hh quarter horse. He seems so tiny compared to Jetta! He's super sensitive but I like him. I felt like my legs couldn't touch him he was so short. There was a moment where he was like "OMG where did those legs come from?!" But he was pretty good. It makes me want a young western prospect to train for reining and trail. Sigh.. Maybe someday. Today has given me a lot of motivation to keep working with Jetta so I can't wait to ride her again soon!