Rollbacks & Lengthenings

Today was interesting - our usual mix of good and bad, though overall I would call today a really good ride.

Started off with rollbacks. This is something we had trouble with in our clinic with KO though I don't know why since usually Jetta is usually quite responsive when being asked to make tight turns. I set out some cones just to give myself a marker of where to ask for the turn and how tight it should be. We started out at the trot and as soon as I put my leg on she "had a moment" and turned into my leg and gave a nice big buck/kick at my leg.

Oh just lovely.

I put her in a tight circle so she couldn't kick and just kept my leg on till she accepted it and did that with the other direction too. She was much worse with my left leg. She's not in heat (thank goodness she finally decided it really is winter time and that she can go into anestrus!) so I think maybe it was just my cold boot against her clipped sides since she eventually settled down a bit.

It was freezing today. I'm so glad that I don't live somewhere where it's in the single or negative digits because today with a high of 39 was cold enough and by the time I got to the barn it was 37. Brrr.

Back to our exercise we went, did it at the trot a few times then cantered. We did it a few times in each direction, asking for a simple change in between which she didn't get too upset about. She did so well. I felt like I could almost go run a barrel pattern afterwards, lol. Though I have no idea how I'd get her to stop after we'd run a pattern because we were just cantering and she was getting pretty strong by the end. She thinks it's fun too apparently!

We did have one little bobble in the middle where I went to do a rollback not around the cone so we'd be lined up and on the correct lead to do a rollback around the cone, when she skidded a bit in a slightly wetter part of the arena and she got all upset about that. I put her back in the canter and went to canter past the area she slipped and she spooked at her skid mark, lol. It was pretty funny and after that she kept giving it the hairy eyeball whenever we passed by.

After I'd gotten a near perfect rollback in each direction, where I basically just used my seat and legs to do the turn we went back to trot work. Her trot has just been so nice lately. I feel like we swing between having this lovely, beautiful trot and an ugly, choppy, rushy trot so I'm happy for the time being that we're on the good side of that pendulum.

We worked a little bit on lengthenings today, though mostly on not doing them. As in going across the diagonal and halting in the middle then trotting on again. If she has a bad halt then she gets to back up. This way she won't anticipate them so badly (mares, what can I say? They're too smart for their own good!) and will hopefully listen if I do ask her for a lengthening and she gets going to fast or on her forehand I can sit her back a little more.

"My" cat begging to come home with me!

We did get some lovely lengthenings though. For every ten times we went across the diagonal, I asked for one lengthening and we got at least two awesome ones where I could look down and see her toes flicking out in front of her and I didn't feel like we were running down a hill.

While doing our trot work the barn owner's two dogs were scampering up and down the aisle and for some reason Jetta took exception to them and had two huge spooks where she scooted halfway across the arena. Such a dork, it's not like it's something unusual and they're little dogs! She's not a spooky horse so I'm just attributing it to the cold weather. 

The show we want to go to is in February isn't until the end of the month, but I'm not sure if we'll be ready quite yet to debut our First Level work. I feel like she'll get too excited about the lengthening in the canter and then the rest of our test will just snowball, but I have a few lessons coming up so we'll get some pointers and maybe as the closing date gets closer, we might go for a First Level test!

Cantering Conundrum

Jetta says that she's not bad, just challenging. I always say I enjoy a challenge, right?

Jetta has actually been quite good for our last two rides. I went out in the evening last night and despite a new boarder that rubs me the wrong way we had a nice ride. 

I have nothing against gamers and in fact used to be one, but my pet peeves: horse has no manners and neither does the owner - tying the horse in the arena instead of in the stall or in cross ties? Tying with the lead rope attached to a stud chain? Horse is hyped up and apparently doesn't have a walk gait and jigs around the arena snorting up a storm? Owner sticks her non-horsey boyfriend on said hyped up horse, sans helmet and he basically struggles to control the horse while she goes to clean it's stall, not paying attention or offering guidance. Grrr.

That aside, we've been working on our canter transitions. They're ok now, but I want them to be really good! I want that easy, invisible transition where the horse just steps into the canter. Either I get an enthusiastic leap into the canter or a fairly good transition with ears pinned.

Apparently I can't win.

I've tried different methods of asking her to canter - putting my outside leg back (makes her pissy), not putting my outside leg back, doing a slight haunches-fore into it (then whenever I want her to do haunches-in she gets upset), "picking" her up into the canter (miss the transition 55% of the time), etc. Some trainers have recommended doing transitions over and over again until they're not a big deal, but no matter how many we do, it just amps her up more until I just have to focus her on something else.

This morning I tried to ask as quietly as possible for the canter, though occasionally Jetta would go to canter then immediately drop back to the trot like she wasn't sure I was really asking for it. Again, transitions were all ok today, but I want better.

Plus, all this work on cantering has made her anticipate it so much. We will be trotting along and I won't be doing a single thing to indicate the canter, yet she'll offer it (of course then it's a beautiful transition but I didn't ask for it!). We ran through Training test 1 today for practice and she offered me a canter twice when I wasn't asking. Sigh...

At least instead of returning to a tense, heavy, rushing trot she remained fairly light and springy which was a welcome improvement. Nice not to have a freight train in your hands.

We have a little over a month to sort this out because we're going to a show!!! Finally a league dressage show on February 24th. I'm set on doing this one, though just in case it doesn't work out there is also one March 9-10th. I would love to do both, but I don't know if I can swing it financially, especially if I go to a jumper show on the 9th of February. We shall see...

So, what aids to you use to ask for the canter?

Lesson Love ♥

I LOVE TAKING LESSONS. Seriously, good lessons rock. I hate not taking regular lessons but I just can't afford it every week. But, present to myself, I took another lesson with KB on Tux and it was another great lesson where I learned a lot.

I haven't ridden Tux as much as I would have liked since our last lesson at the beginning of December, but Tux's straightness really has improved despite that, though I was afraid it wouldn't show and we'd have to work on that again :)

When KB asked what I wanted to work on for this lesson I said lengthenings. I just needed some better tools for how to teach him to carry himself as it's pretty hit or miss - half the time he carries him self and has some beautiful reach and loftiness, then the other half he falls on his face.

KB had me work on a large circle so that there would be no corners or places that he had to change his balance. She had me do transitions within the trot going from a shorter, smaller (slightly collected) trot to a working trot to a big trot then back again. This way he learns to power from behind. Tux was really fussy today for some reason. He doesn't root the reins but he drops contact and tosses his head - just his way of voicing his displeasure without being overtly "bad" persay... I think he was just grumpy from having to work so hard since he usually doesn't get so sassy over collecting the trot.

Best moment - when KB commented that he was wanting to offer passage steps coming out of the collected trot and that she could easily see him doing piaffe/passage in his future. Yay! Medium gaits might be more difficult for him because he doesn't have the same suspension as a warmblood but I really think that with the right training he could do moderately well up to third level.

We did the same in the canter though I was slowly losing engine power. Amazing how fast he loses fitness when not being worked. Attitude-wise he's the kind of horse you could leave in the pasture for a month and he'd be exactly the same as you left him a month ago, but fitness-wise he needs a regimen. We got some nice steps of a smaller canter, but I need to ask for fewer big canter strides and in all speeds keep reminding him to carry more weight on his hind end.

After cantering we finished up with some turns on the haunches which he does so well. Just need to focus on short, active walk strides but at this point he had pretty much mentally checked out so he just got some big pats and a scratch from KB.

This weekend - lots of riding for Tux and another body clip! Poor guy was dying in the relative heat of 50 degrees today and there is absolutely no evidence that he has already been clipped once.

And keeping with the theme of lessons. We have one possible one with KO (eventing trainer) this weekend, but I'm not 100% sure yet, one with TS (my other favorite dressage person) on the 20th, another with KB on the 26th, then in February one on the 10th with KB. All of these will be with Jetta and the dressage ones are all paid by the dressage team, yipee!!!

Back to School

Today was the first day back to school for me and while I was not looking forward to it, I was in a surprisingly happy mood despite the rain and class!

This term I'm taking Animal Nutrition: Feed & Ration Formulation which I feel kind of split about. Part of it is identifying feeds which I will have no problem with, the other part is using equations and computer software to calculate feed rations which sounds rather boring. This is mostly geared towards meat animals/chickens so it's not as interesting as it could be if it were horses, but at the same time I had the possibility of taking an Equine Nutrition course this term and 1) I don't like the professor and 2) I have a lot of experience with basic equine nutrition so this class also sounded rather boring especially since it also uses the same computer software as the other class.

The class I'm really excited for is Equine Reproduction, my first 400 level class! I'm thinking this is something I might really want to do as a vet. I'm actually thinking this will be a rather easy class. I took the general animal reproduction that's required for animal science (316) and then also applied repro (317)  last term and it was very difficult, but fun, and I passed it with an A. This will be much simpler because it's everything that I've already done, just with one species. Plus, this class has open note/book tests! Basically awesome. Although, I will admit that horses are weird so I'll have to learn the differences between horses and every other animal out there.  There is a lot of out of class work, but that's the trade off I guess.

I'm taking a fiction writing class just to fulfill a requirement, so that should be interesting... then there's Biochemistry. Another 400 level class and it's supposed to be really, really hard. Harder than Microbiology which was one of the hardest classes I've ever taken. Add in the fact that I'm taking it online and this term may really suck.

But back to horses. I moved Jetta up yesterday without any problems and was excited to ride today. So nice to have an indoor arena, I miss it when I go home! I do feel bad about rudely taking Jetta from her big pasture and buddies and sticking her in a stall for my own pleasure though. Her neck bump is almost completely gone so I'm thinking her and Tux just got into a kicking match (oh ponies...) so I rode today. It's been about a week since her last ride so I was expecting some resistance but she was mostly good.

Adorable picture I got of three of my favorite ponies at home.

We did some long and low work as per our first lesson with KO. She loves it. She was a bit sticky as if she was going to throw her trademark "I don't want to work" tantrum, but she didn't so I was happy. To the left she was really good and even gave me some really nice canter transitions which is something we really, really need to work on. As KO stated "If you make sure that every canter transition is perfect, then they will be perfect every time". If she tries to rush or toss her head into the transition, then we start over. To the right was not as good. She didn't want to hold contact with the bit and actually kicked up when I asked for the canter, then was tense and rushy when we went back to the trot to try again so we started all over again building up from the walk on a loose rein, to a trot on a loose rein, to gradually more and more contact at the trot until she was ready to try to canter again. We finally got a respectable canter transition, then finished with some of the best trot serpentine's we've probably ever had. Both directions we got some very nice leg yields despite my lack of spurs or a whip which is quite amazing for us.

It's nice to be back at school (for now at least!) but I'm already missing Tux. I liked having him up here, just wish I could afford to board two horses! To make up for it though, since I don't have class tomorrow I'm going to take a lesson with KB again on him which will be fun.

2013 Goals

I've kind of stopped making goals this past year or so because I felt like I never met them. I used to make monthly goals on the blog to keep me focused, but it just seemed like something always happened to prevent us from meeting all of them. However, I was kind of disappointed in this year, I was really hoping to do a lot more over the summer, show-wise and that never happened plus I feel like we're at kind of a stalemate point in our training.

So, to help all of that along... Goals for 2013!! I'm keeping them pretty simple, but here's what I would like to achieve:

• Compete in a 3' class - hunters or jumpers and I'd just like to have a clear round!
• Compete in  one recognized and  two league dressage shows
• Ride a first level test at a show and score at least a 65%
• Compete at the recognized Inavale HT - I don't care whether it's at Novice or Beginner Novice I just want to ride in it!
• Ride in a schooling HT and not get eliminated
• Try to get Jetta inspected by a warmblood registry, probably RPSI or Oldenburg

That's pretty much it! Of course I want to improve both our skills along the way and have fun, but these are just going to be the "measures" of our success. 

Road Ride and a Bump

Just got back from Vancouver, BC and the weather was gorgeous at home so I couldn't wait to ride!

A nice, sunny day is such a nice break from nonstop rain and coldness...

First up was Tux. He hasn't been ridden in quite a while so he was a tad bit hyper but very good. We warmed up in our neighbor's arena and then hit the road! I've never ridden him down the road though I have ponied him and he was very good.

He thinks barking dogs are something to play with (he perks his ears and wants to trot over and play. I swear he thinks he's a dog!) and bikes are funky to look at but he had no problems. We had to cross over some water which he had to stare pretty hard at and he didn't quite like it, especially when something, possibly a river otter? leaped into the stream with a splash and gave him a bit of a scare. But he got over it and it was a fun ride. I miss trail riding in the winter so this makes up for it a bit :)

Skeptical ears with the water

Steamy boy

Then I went to ride Jetta - I was super excited to work on some of the stuff that we'd done with KO. She walked up to me and was all snuggly - something I love about this horse. She loves (or at least tolerates) me hugging her head and smooching her nose. I went to pet her on the neck and she stiffened then turned tail and ran a few strides away then stopped and stared at me. That was odd, so I followed her and went to pet her again but she wouldn't let me touch her neck. I moved her mane away and she had a large bump that was obviously very painful to the touch no matter how lightly I tried to touch it. So odd! Last night it was about the size of my fist and a couple centimeters tall.

This morning I went out to do a full check and her temp was normal and she has full range of motion in her neck. She let me touch it and it's sort of soft to the touch. Still tender at the top, but it kind of migrated south and that's not tender at all. It is now about the size of my hand.... So weird. I'm thinking she got kicked in the neck, but I called and left our vet friend a message and I think I'll try to get her to come out and take a look anyways just to be safe, I wouldn't want it to be a strange sort of abscess (no wound at all on her neck though). So no ride this weekend, I'd prefer this bump to go away first!

You can faintly see the lump...

Jumper Mode

Jetta was so good for our jumping lessons! I was very proud of her.

On Friday we did grid work. It was great because I haven't done a lot of grid work with Jetta and she did really well with it. It was nice to just be able to basically sit there and have her figure out the line. And it was quite the line! A vertical with two strides to three bounces then two strides to another three bounces and then two strides to a final oxer. Very happy that she didn't try to refuse at all though the last oxer had a scary panel so it required quite a bit of leg. The new bit worked out SO WELL. It was amazing. I didn't have to deal with Jetta pulling my arms out of their sockets and she wasn't out of control. KO even commented that she was being really good.

We did such a fun exercise that was to go through the line and then turn left or right depending on the lead you landed  on, then go over a skinny roll top and do a tight rollback towards the wall and then come around to the other side of the line and do the other skinny roll top and another tight roll back. Jetta was much better about turning to the left but it's something we really need to work on - turning from the outside aids.

Jetta was awesome because she was in the jumping mode - a couple times I tried to circle before the first jump and she'd "lock" onto the jump and try to take it sideways, lol.

On Saturday we did course work and it wasn't quite as wonderful as the day before because *I* had to actually do something rather than just sit there. I've got a lot of work to do... Jetta was quite good, she only refused a fence twice which is a huge improvement. KO had me work on giving a good release over the jump because I still don't trust her very much so I tend to not give her a generous enough release so I ended up catching her in the mouth. Bad, bad, bad. It was fun though, but I hurt my back unfortunately so I've been hobbling around all day today. All the horses get the week off because I'm off to Vancouver, BC for a couple days with friends! And then it's back to school...