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"If my particular passion ever kills me, it won't be because I was on my horse's back... It will be because I was gaping out of my car window at some horse standing innocently in a field when I was supposed to be paying attention to the road."

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Why?

I would like to know why playin with leads and lead changes WORKS when I ride bareback.. with nothing between me and pony but a savvy string and carrot stick, but not when I have a saddle and bridle or hackamore. More experimenting to be had, but I am thinking that is not a good sign for my saddle? I dont really know. Orr maybe I am just on a massive learning cuve and it will transfer to when I can ride in a saddle again? Who knows!

Obviously Mo and I played again today. We were playing with freestyle because I want to be able to do a re-shoot for my L3 Audition and lead changes were the only thing I wasnt super pleased with in the last attempt. So we have been playing with that. Oh and jumping to. Mo doesnt like jumping, and doesnt do it well, so that makes me minorly hesitant to jump her over things like barrels because she spazzes and I get a little concerned about flying solo... Luckily, Mo seems to have figured herself out finally, and today we jumped the barrels from a walk and trot bareback :-) WHOO! [irony being I have no problem galloping Indy over jumps bareback or otherwise]

It was really interesting playing with leads with Mo. I was able to tell pretty easily when she was on the correct lead because the size of her circles would decrease dramatically [because she was on the right bend!] so that was pretty fun - ALSO! Every time she got the correct lead her head went down, she started blowing, she was just relaxing and balanced and flowy and wonderful!

So we were able to do some loverly flowy simple changes plus one accidental flying change for kicks because I forgot to wait for her to trot... how interesting! GO MO!

On an odd note, it was so surreal to be able to sort of finesse stuff and work on things that werent perfect while at the same time riding bareback and bridless... really really really cool!!

:-)
S

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Dun Da Da DUNNNNN SUPERRRR MO!!!!!

Today was a great day.
A] It was sunny
B] It was warm
C] I got to play with Mo!

Not all day like I would have wanted, but after work, which is better than not at all!! Any is always better than none at all :-)

Lately C and I have been riding together in an attempt to get the ever pudgy pony back into some form of rideable shape. Candy is just ridiculousy overweight right now, to the point that two laps of the ring at a trot put her into a full sweat!  This summer wasnt exactly a riding summer for C & C so their ponies are all out of shape, Candy especially because she is always really prone to ... chunkiness... on a regular basis.

Today when I got there I found out I only had a half hour with C before they were leaving so with a mild timeline, we went out to fetch our ponies - all of who were refusing to come over to the barn, even with much pleading and grain shaking. Oh well. C had to go change for boots, but I started hiking out to get Mo, so that hopefully I could jump on and then go round up ze pony.

Luckily as I started walking Mo did to - she really has a fairness complex! We met at the fallen tree and I jumped on [with help from the tree... not literal jumping] and off we went to round up Candy, who had made it all the way to the back fenceline! Mo and I trotted and cantered our way back there and poor Candy saw us coming! We kind of played cow with her all summer so when she saw us heading her direction she opted to head for C who was calling her name  and offering cookies as a reward.  Candy happily trotted over and was summarily caught.

On our mosey back to the barn C and I talked and she opted to go bareback today, since we had a time limit, and tacking up takes to long. I thought that was really cool ! I took Mo out to the ring while Candy got bridled and played a little at liberty. Wasnt really that long before Candy came out and we both mounted up.

We played with the weave pattern I had set up, walking through it, doing transitions, and doing little bits of trot and helping C stay balanced. It really wasnt long though until she had to go :-( So I lost my riding buddy to there perils of Pork Tenderloin Dinner a La Grammie and Grampie. Cant really compete with that I guess!

Just because she left though didnt mean I was done! I kind of lost my train of thought for a while, and just moseyed around at a walk, but it didnt take long before I was back at the weave pattern trotting it and trying to refine our communication and then finally cantering little parts of it and then cantering the whoel length of it only slowing down on the one end because it was slippery mud.

I had to jump off to lengthen one section a bit though, but that was ok, Mo liked that. The last section was a little smaller than the rest and instead of arguing with Mo when she missed it, I just made it match the others. Easy peasy right? Silly logic.

Once that was done Mo had no problem cantering the whole line. We still had to stop at the end, because now the last one was really in the slippery part, but it was cool. Mo wasnt doing flying changes or anything, but she was cantering really nicely, smoothly and calmly!

Finally we got to the point where we could canter the whole thing, including the one dry turn, and slow down only at the wet end. That was really good for Mo because every time we turn Mo like to slow down. After a couple of really valient tries by Mo, and one slip that turned semi flying change [ and there was much rejoicing] I jumped off again to re-arrange my pattern. I moved it across the ring to the scary side and set it up there instead. Now I had dry turns at both ends!!

 We practiced at the trot again, and Mo was really good, not really thinking about the [non-existent] scary things.  When she started doing the whole pattern with her nose on the ground all flowy and calm I asked her for the canter again. She picked up a lovely slow almost collected canter and wove through the barrels like a pro, went around the turn like a superstar and came back up the line. On the last turn around guess what Mo did?? I asked her to turn around the last barrel and POOF  FLYING CHANGE!!! *squeee!!* Now THAT was a cool feeling! I let her go on a few strides before stopping her and giving her a cookie and letting her think. AND BOY DID SHE THINK! For something like six minutes, she just licked and chewed and yawned and blew out! WHOA!

When she finally came back to earth, we trotted the pattern again and cantered some more, and this time I actually thought about what leads I was getting. It is weird, but I am getting to where I can hear which lead she is on - her feet are oh so ..tiny.. so its easy that way once I figured out what to listen for! I found out we were pretty much always on the left lead. Thats pretty normal for Mo-sy, so I thought about really trying for the right lead instead. I picked up a cirle around the last barrel going to the right and did canter trot transitions until she picked up the right lead then we stopped and she got a cookie. It took a few transitions for her to try the other lead, but she got it and cantered a whole circle without changing back - thats one of her favorites, pick it up and then slip back. Silly girl. We did that a couple times before she got it really feelng good and I jumped off to hug her. She did amazing!

Funny thing I have been wondering for the last week - I hurt my knee somehow [and am relegated to bareback riding as such] and I am finding that I compensate more with my left leg when I am doing things day to day, that I wonder if it will help me get my body aligned for a right lead. Usually it is the oposite, I am compensating for my left foot [born with a clubbed foot, fixed now but still compensate somewhat for no reason] so I naturally get set up for a left lead. I am hoping that this 'injury' of sorts will help me be more balanced. At least thats what I am telling myself to make the best out of a ridiculous knee ouch that I just wish was GONE! 

But anyways, Mo was a superstar and when we went out the gate she was a true lady and waited for me to ask her to go graze please. I got all my grooming things and went out to shiny up my awesome pony. She was perfect about that to. Everytime I asked to see her nose to bush her hair or face she came right up and waited for me to say she could graze again. I love that about Mo!

Mostly, I love everything about Mo :-) She is my superstar! She is filling out all nicely to, getting her topline back [lost on holiday the last month of my externship] and looking super black with her [uhg] winter fluff coming in!

I just hope I can get my L3 auditions filmed before it snows or drowns me in rain... *coughiknowyoureadthismomwhereisyourcrazycamerathingercough*
I did film some earlier this summer, but I feel like we have come so far since then that I want to re-try, just to see what happens :-)

OH! The second best thing that happend today was done by Indy :-) She was standing at the fence watching us play so I rode over and gave her a cookie and went on with Mo. About five minutes later when we were on the other end of the ring she nickered at me, it was so cute! She keeps standing at the fence when me and Mo play, but Mo is always the first to come up, so Indy has to be quicker! She gets jealous, but only to late! HA! Silly pony :-)

:-)
S

Friday, October 16, 2009

Jockey In Training?

The other day I finally got this wonderful oppurtunity to gallop one of the horses at work. Boy was it FUN! And boy was I unimpressed when my body flipped me off and said "You arent fit enough to do this!". On galloping days [not to be confused with fast work days] they trot two laps and turn around and gallop two more. Well, after one lap my body summarily gave out and I had to stop. Well, my legs did anyways. I was so dissapointed in myself for that! Pretty much anything that I am physically incapable of doing with ponies frustrates me. Things that I know are relationship based etc, like awesome liberty, I know I just need to keep playing with, but when my body says no, then I look to what I can do to fix that.

I am not incredibly unfit or anything, I work on a horse farm every day all day and ride fairly regularly, so by default I am semi fit, Just not in top shape like I need to be for this particular endeavour. SO! My plan, is to practice and practice and practice standing and trotting or cantering or galloping - whatever my ponies choose to give me - on MY ponies around the pasture. I figure I pretty much have all winter to get this solid before spring, when race training really picks up again and the chance to be employed as a ride might come up again. The minor fault in this line of thinking, is that it is kind of hard to ride with short short stirrups in my regular saddle. Do-able, just not ideal. Oh well. I am doing it anyways!

Today was my first chance to practice, since Tuesday was the day I rode, and then I had things to do each night after that until today. It was really nice to be able to see both girls on my birthday! I played with Indy on the 22'for a bit, just checking out her mood and seeing what she was interested in doing today. She was pretty go-y but paying attention really nicely. She even stopped midway over the barrels the first time I asked - that was a treat!

She was great when I saddled her up, and stood nicely while I fussed with getting my stirrups to go short enough - accomplished with one wrap and the highest hole! When I finally climbed aboard - with help from the water trough, it was really .... odd.... feeling to have such short stirrups in a regualr saddle! A racing saddle has a long seat and not much else to it, so when your knees are up, you dont really notice that it is an otherwise awkward position in another saddle. Oh well, I am determined to practice this so off we went.

I am not really sure what Indy thought of it. Her ears were semi back at first, but when we got trotting she was pretty content. She trots with her head up, so that helped because I could stand and grab mane if I had to, to keep balance. Her follow the rail was pretty good, and she was still listening to my leg even though it was unusally high for her! So that was great :-)

My dearling extrovert soon caught on that I was experimenting with myself and just giving her a job to keep up and kept her job up admirably. She followed the rail, she trotted, or broke to a canter/gallop on occaision, but it wasnt so much about gait, so I wasnt overly worried. She stopped when I asked her to so I could take breaks and just let my feet down! We continued this pattern for a while I had enough for the day and then I put my stirrups down and we played cutting geese for a bit. I tried to convince Trixie to play, but she said no. Crystal was right out dead asleep with her nose resting on the ground so she didnt want to play either. That was ok though, we just walked around and then went back into the barn to unsaddle. Afterwards Indy got to hang out in the backyard and have grass.

While Indy got her fill of the last grasses of the year [tear!] I got Mo out of her stall [she insisted she come in to when I brought Indy in] and played around a little bit and went outside, although only on our 12'line. I really dont know what my intention was. I think it was to play liberty but then there were ponies in the ring and I *just in case* I didnt want her playing escapee and harassing anyone.  So instead, we had this really cool, pseudo liberty, ultra intense session on our 12'line! It was super neat!

We played with all of the same things that I have been doing at liberty, and just shining them up a little more. Getting out canter stick to me even closer, our trot/walk/halt/backing together even better, and going over jumps instead of *around* them - Mo's specialty! I even finally got her to understand the jump halfway over and stop idea that Indy picked up a while ago. Jumping really isnt Mo's thing, so anything to do with it and she kind of says "thanks, but no thanks"and moves on. She was really intrigued today though and that was just fabulous!

Mo was just ON today. She was a bit spooksy because it was windy and she is goofy that way, but she was really paying attention and really amping up her try and energy. She even trotted backwards once when I asked for more energy in a yo-yo! We also got trot and canter draw, and happy 12'canter circles! Mo was collecting ALL BY HERSELF! It was SO pretty! Just GOR-GY-OUS!  Loves my ponies! 

We only really played online, in that really ultra intense way. I didnt ride Mo today. Tomorrow probably though, since this semi-ever-present rain is supposed to be gone for a few days! It was really really cool to be able to turn up the intesity and be ever so subtle and get such dramatic things done! WAY TO GO MO!

I really do need to film my L3 stuff.... silly procrastinator!

:-)
S

Saturday, October 10, 2009

She CANTERED To Me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was finally a sunny day today. I woke up this morning and was perplexed by the shiny yellow orb in the sky, as I have not seen it in so long! Heartened by the sunshinyness of the day, I bundled up in a zillion layers - it was chilly and windy - and headed out to visit my ponies!

Once again they were all in the way far corner, but today they were sun bathing and dozing so I wasnt to offended when no one came over. Technically I didnt even call them, since I didnt want to distrub anyones precious naptime. I wandered over, got about three quarters of the way there before Mo saw me. When she did she started walking over, which was really nice. Tripp and Trixie also came with her, which was cute to, she has a posse.

When she came over we snuggled a little bit, I grifted her body heat and she frisked me for cookies. It was a great trade off. After the usual look over, trying to peer through her mud caked fur, I halter m'dear and plunked my self in zone three and off we went to the barn me-and-my-shadow style. It was good fun.

In the barn I spiffed her up, back to her regular shiny self, braided her forelock so she could SEE [I am sure she can, but I wonder sometimes] and off we went out to play. I just kept my 12' on, because I wanted to play some more at Liberty, to see if we can amp it up even more. I also grabbed the bridle, as I planned to ride bareback after, due to some girth rubs on poor Mo.

Our ring is ... well, about half of it is a lake. So that limited our play area, but we still had a ball. Mo was in great form, squeeing and pretending to take off but only galavanting a step before checking in and seeing what the next game was. It was adorable. We even did a little cutting game and Mo was right into it, throwing her front end up and over, jumping around and having a ball.

At one point she even offered me several half circles really close to me, which was amazingly fabulous! Her sideways away was SUPER soft and collected, it was gorgeous. AND HER DRAW!! OMG WOW! The whole title of this blog entry is based on her INCREDIBLE draw today! Everytime she came back to me it was at a trot. One time she was coming I asked for a little extra oomph and there it was... CANTER DRAW!!! HOLY COW!! I about had an aneurysm I was so excited and proud of Mo. [insert lots of cookies here]

She was just so ON today. It was ridiculous! Anything I asked her, there it was. Back by the tail? No problem. Circles, done. Sideways, total pro. CANTER DRAW - ACCOMPLISHED!!! That has always been one of the things I see other people doing and wish I could have that kind of draw... liberty has always been my weakest Savvy I think, and now things are just coming together!!

At one point Mo got a little to "I like my idea better" so I just went back online, did a little more online and swithced back to liberty and everything was fabulous again! YEY MO!!!!

We rode a little bit, a little finesse practice. Transitions, lightness and sideways. It went great. Very proud of Mo. I wasnt being very good at being creative though and Mo was getting bored, and so was I so I jumped off again and we played some more at liberty... which was crazy fun! At one point I sent Mo on a circle around me and she went on a BIG circle of the whole arena and stopped at the gate. I kind of thought I had lost her, but she looked at me when I called her name and then SHE CANTERED TO ME ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE RING!!! *squees*

Needless to say, on that fabulous note, I stopped and let her graze for a good long while in the back yard. WHAT A STAR!!! And she loved every second of it!

I cant believe how fast and how well our liberty is coming. I cant remember why I put off playing with it now!
Mo rocks my socks.

:-)
S

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Sometimes I Wonder...

I wonder a lot of things... like how much hay needs to be washed out of my hair before the drain clogs... but tonight I am wondering a specific thing. I am wondering about my sanity.. or lack thereof!

As today is Sunday, I spent my dreary rainy day at work, which is completely ok with me. Being Sunday also means that tonight was the season premiere of Heartland, a delightfully horsey show that is among my guilty pleasures. Since it was such a moist damp cool day I came straight home [it was raining anyways] and jumped right into a wonderfull hot shower and plunked down for some down time. Havent had to much of that lately. I am not big on sitting still, it kind of irks me. I fidget, I invent things needing to be done, places to go, all that. I just dont like stopping because then I crash, and we all know thats no fun what so ever!

Due to the glory of time shifting I got to watch my delightful premier at 6 instead of 7 and after watching the Sunday movie which was the Pacifer, with Vin Diesel who always makes me giggle. Come 6pm I gte my loverly horsey-on-tv addiction fix ... and then its over. AND THEN I wonder why I havent seen my ponies today. And how I really want to go see them NOW. Even though its dark, even though its later, even though its raining. Hmm. I really wanted to be able to walk out my back door and see them, but alas they are not back there! I *almost* just sucked it up and said oh well, but then my conicous kicked itself and said THEY ARE ONLY FOUR KILOMETERS AWAY - GO!!! At least is isnt -3279857432985 degrees out yet!

So I did :-) And I spent a wonderful hour with BOTH of my ponies in the barn - the wonderful barn-with-lights - brushing them, hugging them, smelling them [horse people get this] playing with Mo's bows and playing hide and seek in the stalls. I love my horses. OH SO MUCH.  I miss them when I dont see them for 24 hours, sometimes even after just an hour or two. I am well and truly addicted to my horses, and it is definately a habit I am not interested in kicking!! Even if all I got today was an hour, spent in my pj pants and rubber boots, loving on them, it was enough. It was enough to lift my mood, make me smile and make everything ok again. Not that anything was wrong, just... I dont know, the world looks better after pony time.

Even better, Ajax was waiting for me at home and he was all happy and cuddley. AND Cairo seems to like me again as he is trying to post his own message to his not-so-secret-kitty-army.. so if there are typos, I blame him today! So its all good. Mo is happy, Indy is happy, Ajax is happy, Cairo is happy and all of that comes together to make me happy!

But like I said. I wonder sometimes, about the sanity of it all.

:-)
S


PS: fhiporengtres <-- Cairo says hi... I think. ?

Thursday, October 1, 2009

FINALLY!

SHEESH! Well finally after nigh on a week without so much as SEEING my ponies I made the rain stop for ten seconds so I could get the gumption to go out in the cold and actually lay eyes on my lovlies. It has been raining basically non stop since Sunday, and since I am a wuss about cold, I wasnt to sorely tempted to go play in the rain and the cold. Until today.

You see, I have been suffering from withdrawl, and today I finally broke and decided I would go see Mo and Indy no matter if it was a freaking Ice Storm the second! I went straight from work becuase I knew if I so much as sat down in my warm cozy house I would never leave. Plus, once you already have a zillion layers on, taking them off and re-donning them is really a pain in the bum.

I wouldnt say my horsey withrawl has been completely sated, but enough that I was able to come home tonight! It is so not the same seeing other peoples horses [namely the ones at work] compared to my own. I loves mine the best... obviously. And they are MINE. ALL MINE MUAHAHHAHHA. Erm. Ignore that. My brain still tends towards that of ten year old me who owned no ponies and wanted one desperately. NOW I HAVE TWO! BWAHAHAH.... *cough*

SO ANYWAYS!

I went out today. It was raining. It stopped for two minutes for me to call and badger and knock gae chains enough to get the horses attention and have them come over from waaaaaayyyy in the very farthest corner from the barn. YEY. Saves me a gazillion steps! It was so cute because Mo didnt really realize it was me calling them all in [usually its Aunty] and so she was just poking along, "Yep, Im coming" and when I noticed that I called her name and her head just went ZING up and her ears perked forwards and she just power trotted all the way over to me, through the other horses [big deal for her] and just gave me the best OH BOY YOU ARE HERE LETS PLAY look. Priceless! Love Mo!

I opened the gate right quick because Indy was hot on her trail and the two together make lots of nice kicking fights... better to get Mo out of the way! With Mo in the barn safely, the drizzle re-started and I went on with loving on my Mo. Who I adore. Did I mention that? We played with some bowing things, I am trying to get her to understand it without me leading her nose down and it is *almost* at the point where I can just point at either front leg and she at least thinks down and back, which is cool. She usually half does it and goes "See?? I did it! Cookies?" Which I can assure you is super adorable.

I started grooming her, since all those zillions of hairs take uber upkeep or turn into dreads, and her *sniffle* winter coat is coming in and shedding out her summer one.. *cries*  At one point one of the lights flickered and snapped and scared poor Mo who turned tail for the gate, but I turned of the line of lights it was in and she came back and relaxed right away.

I saddled her up with out new shim set up - I havent ridden her since I put the biggest gullet in the saddle. We played some more little fun things in the barn and then headed out the back. This is my new brilliant plan you see. Stealing from the racetrack training! When I have ridden we do jog laps. 2 in each direction. Well, I figure that the pasture is roughly the same circumfrence as the track [verrry roughly] so me and Mo, and eventually Indy to, can do trotting laps. This A] works on maintain gait, B] Follow the rail pattern and C] WORKS OFF FLUBBER from both of us! HAHA My ponies both had ... good summers. Neither are hurting for food going into winter. So with my new plan, we headed out and right at the beginning of my track there is a gate that goes out onto the laneway. Well darn if Mo doesnt just go crazy and freak out! One rein stop time!

I waited and waited with her until she actually checked in and licked my boot - thats pretty key with Mo, wait until she comes back to being curious and playful, not just stopped. Otherwise she just spins off again... We played some squeeze game with the spooksyness and moved on to our laps. Interestingly, keeping her trotting was not an issue. At all. Way to go responsibility number two! WHOO! She just trotted and trotted like a little energizer bunny. She sped up and slowed down a lot at first, and I also had to put her back on the rail a whole bunch, but by the second lap she was really getting the picture.

We changed direction after two laps and went two in the other direction, a lot less corrections! Still some, but she was really figuring out the pattern, which is what I wanted to see. It was also a lot easier to put her back on the rail, much more soft and supple instead of bracy and confused. After two trotting laps in the second way [this makes four total] I asked for a canter and we did 3/4 of a lap cantering. This was a little trickier, but not by much. We had pretty much established the Follow the Rail concept, so it was just gait I was being picky with now. Maintain the canter is usually a little less reliable with Mo because she likes stopping AND she is a trotting breed mix. So even though she has a loverly canter, its not so much her thing. She is comfy in the trot and can trot up a storm! You should see her play out in the feild! WHOA! GO PONY! Her "I think I am a hackney" days are a hoot!

Point being, the maintain gait responsibilty became a little fuzzy a few times. I think it was about four.. ish. I didnt count exactly. I should, I will next time. She always picked it right back up though AND the last time she dropped to a trot for two strides and checked herself back into a canter which was fabulous!

On the last line back to the barn we dropped to a walk, kept following the rail and walked right past the scary place with barely a glance. JOY!

Back into the barn, I untacked Mo and under her saddle was hardly even damp. HA. Have to wonder how much of the sweat off the thoroughbreds is from effort and how much is from being held back and them pulling so strongly.... I did my ride completely freestyle in the hackamore...  how interesting.

Anywyas, Mo and I played some more in the barn, I stretched her out on both sides bowing and then said goodnight and thank you. Indy was actually at the back gate too when I turned Mo out, which was nice.  I hope I can be brave enough tomorrow to go out in the yuck again, I want to experiment more with my plan!

:-)
S