GREAT DAY!!

Mo and I had an AMAZING session this afternoon!! I was kind of thinking that because it was really warm out she might be sluggish and not want to play but as soon as were out of the intern cube she was all squeals and offering canter. It was adorable.

I am trying to force myself to play on my 45' more now. Having done abismally in Online testing two or three times... I figured its time to suck it up and git'ur done. We can play on a 22' and do amazing things, or even on 30' of a 45. Its just using the whole thing .. getting her out there, motivating her to keep moving and being effective from that much of a distance without nagging - and THEN dealing with my achy ankle while I walk and try and keep up with her on something like a trotting weave pattern. Ouchy for me. Espcially in the sand.

But anyways! We set up and played with a weave pattern, and Mo was a super pro - she really understood her responsibility to stay on it, and I managed to be effective from a further distance away, though not at the end end of my rope yet. It was definate progress though! I was really proud of her.

Doing auditions here, checking them out and sending out results has been interesting, because I can see the comments diferent instructors are making on different things and one thing that has hit me today and I have been soaking on it for a few days was "make your phase 1 your phase 4" so I was really trying to play with that in mind today - lightness without sacrificing effectiveness or justice and I really think it was working! Mo was all for it and trying her heart out!

When I felt good about the weave [which ended on some excelletn happy enthusiastic trot draw] I changed tactics to the circling game, playing with maintain gait, then transitions [which blew Mo's mind, becuse she was all in the maintain gait zone] and then finally some change of direction. Our change of direction has been semi cracked and broken for the last few weeks so I wanted to see if I could start to patch it up today. Our changes from left to right are decent, I got even a few flying changes, but our right to left ones are still dicey and more often than not result in just a stop or an almost change and then canter off in the same direction.

At the start I was just playing with changing direction but when that wasnt really helping I switched to some backwads S pattern and that seemed to make the difference once she got it. After a really good flying change to the left I called it quits and went to saddle up [ after stuffing copious amounts of cookies into her waiting face, of course!]

After saddling up and bridling [which is getting really great with Mo seeking the bit!] I mounted and headed back to the arena. I started with just some trotting follow the rail and playing with some Game of Contact, which Mo is getting super pro at! I feel like we are starting to play in Stage 3, which feels AMAZING! Mo can have a crazy huge trot that feels more like a warmblood than her little clyde hackney self! It was a cool ride!

When our trot was feeling really good, I picked up the reins some more and went into the most lovely canter! The best thing was how LIGHT Mo was on the bridle! When Pat talks about an ounce on the bit...this is what he must mean! It was solid happy contact, but it was light! I just asked her to carry herself and she said 'yes mam, I will' and carried her own body the way I asked without using me as support to hold her up. What a cool feeling.

We played with canter circles in both directions through a question box pattern and then I got brave... and asked for a flying lead change.... and got HALF! SWEET! The front changed but the back didnt, so we dropped to trot and picked it back up again. She tried so hard! She was on the right track! It was a great feeling! We went through about four of those. We would circle a few times, then think about a flying change and get the front end to change but the back would be crossfiring, so drop to trot and pick it properly again.

AND THEN!

Mo went LIGHTBULB and GOT IT! She gave me two perfect flying changes - one in each direction, back to back and thats when I stopped and jumped off! What a superstar!!! I fed her all the cookies in my pockets, unbridled her and brought her back to the cube tackroom to untack, get a shower and go graze on the fast growing Florida grass for a while!

Thats my excitement for the day :-D My Mo is a SUPER ROCK STAR! Gotta love her!

:-)
S

My Face Hurts!

.... from smiling to much of course!!

Today was a fantastic day with Mo!

I went out to the barn and walked out the back to call Mo and she looked up and came right over! She was halfway to the far corner, so it was a pretty excellent feeling! I love that Mo is so enthusiastic these days! It really makes me feel good about what we are playing with.

We cleaned up and got ready in the barn before heading into the round pen. Once there I unclipped the reins and started with a little hindquarter yeild and sideways. Mo was in a really good mood, and I remembered some little cookies to help motivate her.  Things were going really great! She was very in tune to me, and really sticking with me. She offered me an incredibly soft trotting figure eight that made me squee out loud.... and then she decided that wasnt enough.

I half heartedly asked her to go off on a circle, which she usually squeals off to the fenceline of the round pen and does her laps there, BUT NOT TODAY!

Today, not only did she not squeal off, she left calmly at a trot, and stayed close to me, about a 12' circle and trotted TWO laps that close like she did it every day! HOLY WOW! Thats a first for Mo! I was SO excited, I brought her in before she lost interest and stuffed her face with all the cookies in my pockets while hugging her and scratching all her itchy spots and telling her she was awesome.

After allowing her to soak on that for a bit, I mounted and off we went on our adventure. I usually mount inside the round pen, since then we have to gates to open before we can be free, and today Mo was really soft and clever about the gates. It was such a treat! She is regularly pretty good, just sometimes gets a little ahead of herself, but today she was spot on and SUPER light!

Once we were on the laneway things were going really well. We passed the place where we had thresholds the other day and made it almost to the big tree before having one. It probably took ten minutes and a whole bunch of thresholds to make it to the 3/4 mark of the laneway, but once we were past it was smooth sailing. We made it all the way to the fresh cut field where the combine was the other day, before having another threshold.

After that one was addressed we trotted off and moseyed around the feild. I didnt really have a plan or a focus, and I think Mo felt that. I was still just flying high from the liberty wowness. Mo was a bit wishy washy at first, wandering this way and that, and feeling like she was getting tighter, so I finally clicked back into the present and did something about it. I put her on a circle, though it was pretty big to navigate in and around the moguls and hills the field was made up of.

She picked up the canter on her own, but I didnt slow her down, just directed her energy to maintain the circle. She got faster in the beginning but then started to level out in speed, and then miraculously her head went down, she started stretching and blowing, moving off my leg without speeding up.... WHOOHOO!!!

By the time we finished, we were bombing around the field doing flying lead changes freestyle and stopping without me even picking up the reins! Overall, pretty successful I think! I was smiling the whole time, and now my face is sore... Completely worth it though! I love Mo!

:-)
S

Whoops!

So I seem to have forgotten about my lonely blog over here... terribly sorry! Life has been busy!

While life has been hectic, its been the good kind, with lots of ponies and teaching.

I just wanted to generally comment and squee about my last ride with Mo. She is making improvements in leaps and bounds!

I played with her on Monday, and it started off really great as she power walked to me from the other side of the muddy spot when I opened the door in the barn. I tidied her up, trying to get the most of her shedding coat out.. but its still there. She looks almost summery though! The fact that it snowed yesterday probably isnt helping my cause very much...

After getting Mo as sparkly as a shedding pony gets, we went out to play in the ring. It has been graced with some ... poop... via our borrowed [I think?] manure spreader so all my obstacles were put away.  Mo and I set about resetting at least some of them - a clover leaf and one line of three barrels in a jump.  It was fun to drag the three barrels, because I threaded my savvy string through all three handles to drag them all at once and Mo was quite surprised with that! By the time we reached their destination though, she was quite pleased with herself and helping me push/pull them along.

We played some small things online. Our circling game is really coming along in terms of maintain gait, which I am proud of. Mo has lately been offering me two or three canter laps without breaking! Impressive for dear sometime-introvert! We have also been playing with Zone 5 driving, with stopping and backing by the tail for brakes. That has been fantastic so far. It just feels like everything is adding up right these days!

It really wasnt long before Mo felt good to get on, so I did, bareback and just left the halter on but unclipped the 22' and put my savvy string around her neck. Armed with a carrot stick, we set off on our cloverleaf. Im not sure if it was me that was off or just the two of us werent meshing right, but after a few minutes of trying different things, it just wasnt feeling right. So what do we do when it doesnt work at liberty? We go back online! I grabbed my finesse reins and clipped them on the halter to see if a little extra support would help.

I didnt really end up using the reins, they were just there, but it helps Mo and me to I suppose. Still something wasnt quite right, although this time I KNEW it was me! Why, you ask? Well! Mo was giving me this LOVELY round collected through canter that was so powerful through her back, that I couldnt be fluid enough to ride it bareback without getting in her way!

So I jumped off and made another change. We saddled up! I re-mounted and played with some transtitions and had a lot of saddle-slipping-forward syndrome... so I jumped off AGAIN! This time I altered my shim pattern down to just one thick shim [it was two thick and a thin] to test that and it was PERFECT!

So perfect in fact, that Mo decided today was the day she would grant me my wildest dream - FLYING LEAD CHANGES! She just did them like nothing, on a figure eight around the ring... *poof* change *poof* change... like it was that easy the whole time...! WOW! I was so so so happy and excited and proud of Mo that I littlerally jumped off of her to hug her and tell her how amazing she was.

I have always had some trouble determining what lead I was on, or asking for a specific lead since I never really studied that in my youthful trail-bombing experiences, and then my first horse was a one lead wonder for any rider, so that didnt help. For a long time Mo was too, until I figured it out in my body and now look where we are! I really didnt know if I would ever get to this point. Flying changes have always been on my dream list, but felt slightly unobtainable. I cant even express my joy about getting them!!!!

So thats my story.... 

I will try to post more often!

:-)
S

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