Friday 19 October 2012

Lesson # 13 Canter.. Finally

Last nights lesson was great it was a huge leap forward for me in my confidence with riding G i have so much to write!

My new coach has recommended some tack for us to try to hopefully help us move forward with out training. I was previously riding in a standing martingale because G at one point would get frusterated and turn to tossing his head which i found terrifying so that helped me get passed the head tossing and not cause any further anxiety but we have now outgrown the standing martingale so last night my coach had me ride in a breast plate with a running martingale.


Made a big difference it helped keep G's head night and low and helped to keep him off of my hands as well as keep my jiggling hands somewhat off of his face. Now to come up with $100 to buy one of these bad boys... until i can afford this my trainer is going to let me use hers, i am very happy i can retire the standing martingale. YAY for progress!

She also had me try out a new bit one that would prevent G from grabbing onto the bit and resisiting originally i was riding in a typical Eggbutt Snaffle like this one. (not quite that thin... mine was much thicker than that)


And last night i rode in one that looks like this.

The combination of the change in tack made a huge different in our ride, he felt amazing (not to mention was back to being sound after having his shoes pulled). Our trot work was great it was very forward and he kept his head nice and low as i had mentioned.

Some of the other boarders brought a few horses into the arena that were causing some craziness at one end so Nat had us stay on a circle at one end and work on riding a circle with an inside bend in both directions at a walk and a trot. Then she asked for us to pick up a canter... oh no... this is something that we had done virtually 0 work on because i had such bad anxiety towards it for no apparent reason is started to make excuses for why we should be able to "practice" on the weekend and work on it in our next lesson (thank fully before i started taking lessons i told Nat that i was full of crap and i had no reason for the anxiety and had asked not to buy into my excuses and to make me do it) she gave me a look and told me to canter down the long wall behind the other girl in my lesson. I kissed at G and squeezed and because the horse in front was doing it he started cantering as well we did pretty good werent as unbalance as we usually are.

We came back to the circle and did a little more trot with an inside bend asking with our outside leg to make the circle smaller and smaller. Then Nat asked us to canter on the circle this was something that made me a little nervous because in my head i could see G running away with me over the jumps and what not in the arena but we did it Nat was awesome she kept talking to me and telling me to slow the trot down before asking for the canter and explained we wanted a nice slow trot before the canter to put him on his hind end before asking. The first couple times we cantered on the circle i was really heavy in the saddle and very active with my hands but with each attempt it got a little bit better and i gained a little bit more confidence, there was very little head tossing and that was curbed with the martingale very quickly.

I felt very accomplished after yesterdays ride even though i have the worst cold on the planet im an excited to go out tonight and ride, i am hoping that we will be able to canter again by our selves so we can be ready for next weeks lesson.


Monday 15 October 2012

Weekend recap

G was still a little ouchie on his front feet but doing much better than he was so i didnt do any riding this weekend but we did do a fair bit of lunge work to help continue to get him used to moving in the sand.

When i lunge G i alternate with and without side reins and when i do lunge with side reins i dont lunge for long and they are not very tight i will post a video soon that shows the slack in the side reins but it gets him thinking about how he is moving and were his head is.

Ill get some video this week of both him in side reins and without. Dressage lesson on sunday was canceled, which makes me happy because i didnt have to cancel due to G being ouchie lol.

G also has a new paddock mate so he isnt all alone his new friend is another little Trakehner named Finn ill get some pictures when i am out there next.

Monday-off
Tuesday- lunge
Wednesday-off
Thursday-lesson

Friday 12 October 2012

Lesson #12 Another New Trainer

So now that i am settled into the new barn i have started taking lessons again with a new girl Nat i have watched her ride she is very patient and what she says makes sense i have gotten the opportunity to watch a few of her lessons as well so i figured she would be a great fit... But of course she is an eventer and teases me constantly that my horse would make a great eventer ha ha... we will see....

One down side is i prefer private lessons (i like things to be all about me ;) lol) but i dont like the cost of $50 each but luckily i found a girl that i get along with really well that is fairly close to the same level as i am in my riding so she is jumping into my lessons slot with me and now i only have to pay $30 yay for saving money that means i can now afford a dressage lesson 1x a month!

Anyways, i brought G in from his paddock (loving him being in paddock especially now that he is in there with a little baby Trakehner that he gets along with really well) i didnt notice anything off with him because we were outside but he was very hesitant to walk on the cement in the barn and on the wood around the arena but i tacked him up and let him warm up a bit before lunging him.Nat was in the arena teaching a lesson when i went to lunge him and G was definitely a little sore on his front feet from getting his shoes off he was worse in one direction than the other but as he warmed up he started moving much better still a little short in his reach but better.

I got on after a few minutes of fighting him at the mounting bucket and walked him around the arena to feel how he was moving at the walk he was fine but the trot he didnt want to extend very much but all in all was moving good in the sand so we decided to go forward with the lesson but keep it at a walk.

One of the big things that Nat wants me to work on is my inside bend currently we have none lol G does not like to bend to the left so we spent a good amount of the lesson walking around the arena with me trying to hold an inside bend and not allow him to push through my outside leg then we would do a few circles in this same movement the circles were the worst because G tends to ignore my outside leg.

Nat pointed out that i take up so much of my reins which isnt a bad thing but currently where we are at in our riding i want to be promoting him to stretch long and low and to allow for him to reach for the bit. She had me go to the buckle and try to same exercise and it helped a little.

The lesson went really well i am really excited to continue with her consistantly, she suggested moving G into a rolling snaffle to help stop him from grabbing the bit (she hopped on G for a couple minutes after my ride to help her determine were to go from here kind of thing) She also suggested draw reins to help teach him that being a Giraffe is not pretty in an event horse or a dressage horse. So now i am going to troll my barn to see if anyone will lend me a rolling snaffle before i go out to buy one. The girl i ride with in my lessons said she has a set of draw reins that she will lend me to try out before i go and buy some as well.

Friday-day off (i work both jobs and G needs to feel better)
Saturday-lunge in side reins and ride to work on what we learned
Sunday-possibly a dressage lesson if i can make it work with my 2nd job

Have a great weekend everyone :)

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Ferrier day

New ferriers are my favorite part of new barns every barn has a hot ferrier and my barn is no exception.

G had his shoes off and will remain barefoot now for the remainder of the winter. He was  bit of a brat for the ferrier but everything was great with his feet. The ferrier did mention however that the crack in G's hoof that i was concerned about a while back was because the prior ferrier was not beveling the top of his hoof enough and basically G's hoof was cavng in on itself.... kinda glad we fixed that one early on... and now i have 2 horse shoes that i need to figure out something sentimental to do with them...

Question: What have you done with your horses first set of shoes?

Anyways -

Thursday night-Lesson
Friday-day off
Saturday- ride
Sunday- dressage lesson

Life is good :)

Weekend Woes

Im typing this on probably the smallest computer ever so hopefully i manage to catch all my typo's so i apologise in advance.

This weekend was interesting i went out friday night to ride and had a great ride G is really starting to get used to the sand arena which is great he was very hot however and saucy but it was forward so i cannot complain to much.

I went out saturday to ride brought my room  mate to see the barn since she is considering possibly moving barns. I brought G into the arena to lunge him and sure enough he was stocked up in his hind right leg so i took all his tack off and lunged him and he was definitely off. So we put him in a stall for the day and night after cold hosing a few times for 10 minutes each time.

Sunday i went out to check on my boy and sure enough stocked up in both legs but he lunged really well so we decided to put him in a paddock after cold hosing him again.

Monday he was fine both legs looked great and by Tuesday he was lunging out properly again but i have decided that pasture is probably a bad idea especially now that we have gotten snow so my boy will be in a paddock to prevent further injuries.

Friday 5 October 2012

Lesson canceled

I went out to the barn last night and brought G in to have him stand in the cross ties for a bit next to other horses while i watched the lessons that were going on. I cant wait to be able to ride like some of these girls cantering around in 2 point i was very envious. I love this barn the atmosphere is amazing everyone is very friendly and actually loves and cares about their horses.

There was 2 young kids riding in a lesson on some lesson horses so i figured i would sneak in and have a quick ride. I didnt lunge G because these kids were still learning the basics of steering and i didnt want to cause a disaster so i just hopped on. His mounting skills are spectacular i can use anything a bucket or a jump and at the moment he is standing still relaxed waiting for me to get on and once i am on he does not walk off he waits until i am ready and settled... not to sure what happened to change this because we really havnt done much work on it but i am definitely not going to complain.

We did some walk work pushing him into the corners of the arena, trotted different directions walked and trotted over some rails and once the kids were done there lesson we did some more trot work with the lengthening and shortening of his stride. For a little bit i dropped my stirrups and did some laps like that at the trot then came back to the walk for a cool down where i was finally able to get him on the bit again so since he offered we did a little more trot on the bit and then finished our cool down.

My new trainer was in the arena so i had an opportunity to talk to her about where i wanted to be and where im at, some of my mental issues that have hindered my riding and i am really excited to start with her next week. I was suppose to start last night but unfortunatly i didnt have the funds to be able to do it.

Today G is getting an assessment done by a massage therapist to check and see if he could benefit from massage therapy or by seeing the Chiropractor. He has a bit of a click in his hips at a walk so i wanted to get it looked at and see if maybe it has something to do with our straightness issues and above all i want him to be comfortable.

No riding tonight since i have a dinner to go to but i will be out tomorrow to ride and spoil my boy. Next wweek is lesson and ferrier day.

Happy Thanks Giving everyone (Canada)

Monday 1 October 2012

Big Weekend Move

Over the weekend we did our clear out of the old barn and moved into our new barn. G wont be in a stall for the winter which sucks but i cant afford to keep him in a stall at the new barn right now maybe in the future just somthing my princess horse will need to get used too. So we have our lessons booked 1 lesson a week. 3 lessons will be with an Eventing coach (to work on basics and dressage) then 1 lesson a month will be with a dressage coach.

I was worried about G loading since he didnt do to great when i bought him but he did great right up and onto the trailer. I was even able to ride him at the new barn with no major issues other than he cant figure out how to back into the cross ties.

The sand arena was amazing but very different for G he was very sweaty after about 30 mins of riding. Anyways here are a few pictures for everyone, expect many more pictures because i went out and bought an iphone *sigh* so i can actually take great photos.

Hi mom!

i dunno mom new barns are scary

new cross ties after 20 minutes of coaxing

were we going mom?

checkin out the new feild mates

bye bye old stall #6