Blanket Season

Well it's that time of year again. Blanketing! I ventured into my blanket box to see what I had - what needed to be cleaned, what needed to be repaired, etc. A nice surprise too - I have a blanket for Tuxedo! An extra blanket left over from Katy. It's a 81" so even though Tux measures as an 84" it will still fit him nicely. Good timing too. The big bi-annual tack sale is this weekend (yay! can't wait) so I was planning on finding one for him there. I think now he just needs a neck cover since he'll be fully clipped and maybe a scrim for after workouts... I have a cooler that I use for the other horses, but it's a 75" - a full 9" shorter than his body... haha that would look pretty silly. He has an 78" stable sheet just to keep him clean which exposes about 4" of his hiney, but at least it keeps him clean!

Who knew I had so many blankets... I certainly didn't!

Grady got his light weight turnout sheet on today. I like to keep him blanketed so he doesn't have to expend his energy staying warm and the fall/winter weather has officially arrived... it's been pouring the past couple days. Yuck. Jetta's fly sheet went back into the storage box. I don't think she'll be needing that for the next 10 months, sigh. Her lightweight turnout and stable sheet went into the washing machine a few minutes ago. Now that just leaves Jetta and Grady's mid-weight turnouts and Jetta's mid-weight stable blanket that I have to take to the laundromat's to get washed. Ugh, I hate doing this. I live in perpetual fear of being chased out of the laundromat with a broomstick for bringing in my filthy, hairy horse blankets. But in my defense, I do run a stiff brush over them to get the chunks of mud off and most of the hair off, so...

All prepared for the rainy weather.

In other news, Jazz went to her next lease home. I'm very pleased with the new lessor, she reminds me of the last lessor so I know they'll be a good fit! It's kind of sad, but this time the lease is for 6 months, so if she doesn't renew it, I will have her back in time for summer! Then I can ride her for a while, give lessons and let friends ride too.

Jetta was good today. She's no longer in heat thankfully but the poor girl doesn't have a very good owner. I rode her twice last week maybe after five days off and then give her four more days off. Despite that we managed to get a perfect walk-canter transition today! We did one transition in each direction and then I was going to fine tune it to the left but she ended up getting all anticipatory so we worked on getting her in front of my leg in the walk like I was going to ask for a canter, but then I didn't. Then we had to work on some trot-halt-trots because she kept getting too strong and then ending up on her forehand. She got the message to rebalance and we finished with some haunches-in which are improving a lot. It's hard for her to straighten her neck out and get that little bit of inside bend, but we're getting there. Down the inside long side we had some drama llama going on because the mini in the last stall sometimes has one of those dog fences up so he can see out of his stall and he was poking his tiny pink nose over it and Jetta lost it a bit "OMG what is that thing?!" She feels 17 hands when she puffs herself up like that. It's pretty amusing when a 16.2 hand horse is terrified of something that's barely 42" tall. We had to go make friends afterwards with it and Jetta almost fell over when it whinnied at her. Silly horse.

Overdue Pictures

Finally! Pictures of Tux at the beach are here! I'm sure you were all waiting for them :) I ended up having to order a new cord for my camera since it has such a "special" one. Anyways, here they are:

Blurry one of him cantering nicely through the water

Me and JF

Cute ponyface

Walking through the river

Bravely walking in

I love this boy. And exciting news! He's moving up to the barn close to school with Jetta for one month starting the week of the 23rd. I'm so excited! It'll be a lot of work with two horses, but he needs that consistent time under saddle and it's only for one month. I can't wait!

The Little Things

I am continuing to love my barn! Yes, it takes forever to get out there - a huge chunk of my time is spent on driving there and back, but I love the barn owners, I love that I never have to ride with anyone and I love that Jetta is well taken care of. The BO sends me little updates every so often. Today, since there's some city excavation going on behind the individual paddocks that Jetta usually gets turned out it she got to go in a slightly larger turnout with her "mare friend" Cool. Cool is super cute and adorable but I say "mare friend" instead of "buddy" because her and Jetta tolerate each other but not much more - typical mares, lol. We'll see if this relationship ever makes it to the "buddy" stage.

The BO works hard to make the barn environment welcome, whenever there's a new boarder coming in there's a nice little note on the board welcoming them in. Today there was a notice to start getting their blankets ready if you want them to start putting them on - and I love that they don't mind taking it on and off with no charge! The barn I first boarded at 2 years ago charged $5 per put on/take off. Ridiculous. I love riding before the horse's dinner because the radio plays all day over the speakers in the arena. Another major plus? The food! There's a mini fridge in the "rider's room" with waters for people, a box with random snack food and today there was a box of donuts and some grapes next to the bucket of apples for the horses with a note above them to help yourself! Food is always a good thing :)

Noms

Just all these little things add up and make me love this place. And the fact that Jetta continues to do well under saddle means a lot too. Today she was much more mare-ish, still in heat, sigh. A mare's heat (estrus) is 5 to 7 days instead of a lot of farm animals which is only a couple days (fact brought to you courtesy of my repro class!) so we may have a few more days of this considering I noticed on Monday that she was in heat, a very obvious fact when she's peeing everywhere. Overall though, she was very relaxed, wasn't rushing or falling on her forehand, had a really lovely trot and wasn't bearing down on the bit so I was happy. Had to work a lot on getting her to respond to my legs to get her to lift her inside shoulder - she didn't want to listen to it and if I pushed the issue she'd want to kick. Unfortunately typical for when she's in heat but we worked through it and got some nice shoulder-in work and some better haunches-in than last time.

Happy pony waiting for her apple

The BO and I have also decided to have an eventing trainer come out - I'll take lessons maybe every other week and she'll put her horse in training three days a week. I've never heard of this trainer so we'll see how it goes. Basically, I just want someone who will push me to do the things I always put off for another time (*cough*stirrup-less riding*cough*) and will be the eyes on the ground to remind me to sit up straight, back flat over the jumps, more/less release, heels down, leg on, etc. As long as she doesn't interfere with how I want Jetta's training to be and Jetta doesn't get any worse under her instruction I'll be happy, even if she ends up being a "mediocre" instructor. We'll just have to see once November rolls around!

Making Progress

I love my horses! Both Tux and Jetta have been improving in leaps and bounds.

Yesterday I had a great ride on Tux. At the beach we were able to canter lots and lots with all that wide open space and not having to worry about staying within the boundaries of a small arena so by the end he was cantering right out when I gave the cue and not getting as tense and worried. We continued on the theme yesterday and cantered a bunch. He's much more relaxed so he doesn't get that odd "bunny hop" canter and I'm able to get him on the bit fairly well. Steering is still a little negotiable (corners? what corners?) but overall not bad. He picked up both his leads with a little coaxing. He needs extra help preventing his shoulder from falling out so that he can pick up the correct lead, but not bad for a baby. We also played on my neighbors itty bitty trail course. She has some little cavalettis, poles to walk over and back through and a tarp. Tux was so cute. He marched up to the tarp with his ears glued forward and head down, snorting at it. He didn't hesitate one bit but stomped on the tarp with one foot then started pawing at it with the other. No big deal. I think he kind of likes the sound it makes because whenever I walked him across it he'd stomp extra hard on it. I even trotted him over the little cavalettis. Our work with the leg yields is interesting... he does them fairly well in both directions but now we need to work on straightness. He's far too wiggly. It cracks me up seeing our tracks in the arena zig-zagging down the wall.

Today was another great ride on Jetta. It felt very productive. Jetta seemed fidgety in the cross ties so I thought she'd be hyper but was actually a little bit of the opposite. I brought out some poles to trot over and she was great, a lot of times she's lock her jaw and won't soften over the poles, but today she was soft and responsive. Down one long wall I'd ask her to do shoulders-in or haunches-in then on the other wall she'd trot over the poles. To the left she was great, but the right is definitely harder. We had to break the haunches-in down to the walk, but she's getting it. The walk-canter transitions are coming along. We got one perfect one today. It was actually a halt-canter after I was backing her up. It's much easier for her then because she's already got her weight off her shoulders and onto her haunches for the transition. Still needs more work there, especially in making it a prettier, less crabby transition, but it's coming. Same with the canter-halt transition. Coming along, but still needs work. Overall I was really pleased with her today. My measure of success in making Jetta work hard? She had sweat on her belly meaning she was using those abdominal muscles today! I made sure she got her apple today for all that hard work.

I think it may be time for a new fly mask...

                      

I got to meet the other half of the barn owner pair today - RB. He's super nice and we chatted a bit. He came out while I was riding to feed the horses lunch. He commented that Jetta has such a nice personality - I'm so glad she's behaving! I worry about that because I know she can be a brat. In fact today she is in heat so there was a lot of ear pinning in our ride today, but no kicking so I did give her a little slack for that since I know she's feeling a little sore in her hind end right now. Afterwards when I was picking up poles he came and helped me put them away, thanking me because he said "I think you're the only one who actually puts them away". I don't mind though, it's a fairly small arena so it gets in the way.

Now let's hope this post doesn't jinx anything about these great rides I've been having...

Neglected Pony & Some Lovin's

Poor Jetta. She's been totally neglected for the past week. I finally went and rode her last night after her having a whole 5 days off. She was super good even with all of the time off and after my lesson with Jazz and TS I'm determined to actually start moving forward in our training since I feel like we've been stuck in a rut of just working on getting her round and not hanging on the bit or rushing. Boring. Anyways, we worked on some walk canter transitions which were much better than last week's attempt although not great yet. Worked on making her more adjustable in the canter and working on canter-walk and canter-halt transitions. She was a hard worker :)

Tired ponyy

Today I went to see her immediately after class because I was having such a rotten day and spent some much needed pony time just loving on her, grooming her really well and stuffing her face with apples from the tree outside the barn. Then the barn kitty made an appearance and I snuggled with him some and enjoyed watching him and Jetta interact. I felt better already :)

Hmm, I can get closer to the human if I'm up here...

What is this fluff ball?

Just chillin

Okay, now I can't get down.

Birthday Beach Ride

Yesterday was my birthday, and contrary to the usual, it was actually a great day! I don't usually look forwards to my birthday because I don't ever feel like it's that's special and last year actually took the cake for being the most awful birthday ever. So, I wasn't all excited this year. But, the day before my bday, JF invited me to go on a beach ride with her. Perfect!

I decided to take Tux just because this might be his only chance to go to the beach before I get him sold. It was quite the interesting day. First I had class at 9am until 10am. Then I squeezed in an interview to be a student speaker at a fancy dinner (why I do these things I have no idea - speaking in front of 300 people? Yikes!) Then I sped home to get Tux. I basically threw all his tack on and ran down to the bottom of the driveway to get picked up. We have a small driveway with no real turn around area and JF has a big gooseneck so this is our usual thing since normally I take Jazz and she'll self load in anything. I was a tad worried that Tux wouldn't be quite so good but he just snorted and stepped into the trailer like a good boy.

We picked up DC on the way out to the beach. We were the only ones there (of course, it being a Wednesday) and it was actually kind of warm which is very, very unusual. There's a reason that most people call it the coast, not the beach. Tux was very good, leading the way though snorting at every shadow and pile of rocks. We got over the dunes and most horses stop and stare at the water but I don't think Tux even noticed it until we got right up to it.

It's always interesting seeing how different horses react to the water. Katy didn't care one bit, Jetta was skeptical but ok, Grady didn't care, Jazz is tolerant but would much rather keep her hooves dry. At first Tux was quite terrified. He almost fell over more than once. Quite amusing. The first reaction was the "fly backwards into the deep sand until you can't move any more and are basically sitting on your butt". That was fun. Then there's the "fly sideways until you almost get your legs so tangled that you fall over" or the "moving so fast sideways that you almost end up sideways on the ground". But once he got in the waves and I made him stay still, he got used to the feeling of the waves crashing around his legs and we were no longer about to die.

He was actually really fun to ride on the beach. A lot of people are afraid of it because there's so much open space that if your horse wants to run, you can't stop them, but for me I love it. Tux proved to be very adjustable in the trot - we did lots of extended trot and then back to a really bouncy, balanced collected trot. Like I said - dressage horse potential!!! We cantered a bunch and by the end I could almost get him round and he'd move off immediately into the canter when I asked.

He crossed the river with no problem and went up and down the banks quite politely. No launching here (takes too much effort I'm sure). By the end, he was cantering through the waves with no problem! Have I mentioned that I don't want to sell him?

The only "bad" part of the whole day is that we got incredibly lost. I have never, ever gotten that lost at the beach. I mean, usually it's difficult to find the trail through the dunes back to the parking lot, but never that difficult. We went up and down the beach several times looking for it and even went up the dunes a couple times to see if we could see the parking lot. Nothing. Finally we picked a spot and went off roading down the side of the dune and found a trail on the backside. We followed this forever, weaving though all these overgrown bushes and trees, several times having to walk on the very steep edge of a dune when the trail disappeared. It took ages until we finally caught sight of the top of our trailer and got reunited with the trail back to the parking lot. I ended up being super late for dinner, but I was just glad we didn't get stranded on the beach! :)

I did get some pictures, though they aren't that great. But, you'll have to wait for them anyways since I can't find the "special" cord that goes with that specific camera.

Delicious cake one of my roommates made me ♥

On the Road Again

Wow, I feel like I was on the road all day yesterday. I only have one class in the morning on Mondays, so of course I have to add a ton of stuff to make up for the lack of time I'm spending in class, right? Well I signed up for a lesson with TS. I ended up riding Jazz because it would have been too difficult to bring Jetta down, though I probably would have gotten more out of it if I had. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun.

There were four other ladies that rode plus my neighbor who also rode. She made lunch too so it was kind of a fun "lesson party". I was actually really nervous about riding Jazz because I wanted a lesson in the double bridle and I was afraid that TS would think I was silly for wanting to ride a 22 year old QH in a double, or that Jazz would misbehave. I legitimately had nightmares, lol.

But I didn't need to worry. TS loved Jazz and was very complimentary of her movement, her temperament, her conformation and the shape she was in at her age. Basically she loved her so I was glad! Jazz is one of my babies :) TS actually asked me if Jazz had had any foals and said it was a pity that she didn't since she was such a nice horse - my thoughts exactly! I've always regretted not breeding her because she's got the brains, the beauty, the heart, the temperament and the performance to put into a great foal.

Jazz worked super hard for me though not without some sassiness. Canter transitions are interesting but she improved pretty much immediately once we started the lesson. Trying to make a liar out of me I see :) We played with some shoulder-ins and haunches-in, worked in all the gaits and then worked with some flying changes. Jazz was quite enthusiastic about them, even doing one tempi change when she wasn't supposed to. It was quite entertaining and I was happy with how well she was remembering stuff, if trying a little too hard.

Here are some pictures from yesterday. My mom actually offered to come take pics (!) though unfortunately they didn't turn out as well as Tuxedo's, though still quite awesome.

I think this one is my favorite

Love how uphill she is here

Showing her sassiness with the changes, haha.

After my lesson I went to visit the barn of a woman who wants to lease Jazz. She's pretty much the same situation as her last lessor - an older woman wanting to get back into riding - so of course Jazz will be perfect for her. The barn was cute and tidy so she is going to come pick Jazz up in 2 weeks. So sad! I always have so much fun with her, but I hate her just sitting in the pasture, so as long as she's taken care of properly, I'll be happy.