Sunday was a gorgeous day, so I went to the barn planning to hack the pony out (his feet are long so we can't do too much with him; he was suppose to get them reset two weeks ago but the farrier is apparently super ill and hasn't been able to make it out yet... super unfortunate) and when I got there my trainer and another lady were getting ready to go out as well. So I followed them out to this little field next to our farm (you have to go by a busy road to get there) and I was so proud of the pony; he was actually wanting to LEAD and investigate everything, which was very unlike him. He's so smart he notices EVERYTHING, but he's usually not too fond of walking right up to it and figuring out what it really is.

BUT THEN WE GOT TO THE DITCH! Mind you, this ditch was about 3 inches deep and 6 inches, if even, across. Clearly absolutely nothing to fuss over. But by God the pony was convinced there were demons hiding in that ditch ready to eat him. So, in my great attempt to try to get him over the damn thing, he threw his head up and whacked me under the right side of my jaw, which in turn sent a splitting pain up to my ear and over my head. I sat there for a second in shock, figured I was a live, jumped off and made him follow me over the ditch back and forth a few times on the ground before we finished our ride up. After which, I had a horrible splitting head ache and spent the next two days struggling to chew and taking lots of tylenol.

But yesterday I felt much better, so I went out to ride again and after a good session in the ring (we're working on canter-trot transitions. He likes to just stick his head up and disengage his hocks when coming down to a trot; so we've been working on keeping the forward energy and roundness into the trot, and we had a lot of good work wednesday!) we went out to the field and found another ditch and this time, I SAT THE HELL BACK, said "pony, you really only have one choice," and basically annoyed the shit out of him and wouldn't let him side pass around it until he FINALLY heaved himself over it, after which I gave him tons of praise and said "GOOD BOY" and the like. We turned around and came back at it, and he surprised me by not hesitating at all, but giving like a four foot jump over that ditch, me barely clinging on, but I managed to go with him and praise him again. And third time was a charm; walked right up to it like pros, took a little hop over it and cantered away easy-breezy. Pony again got lots of praise, and had a little ego-boost on himself, prancing all over the place. :)

I love to see the horses I work with progress and learn and build confidence in themselves and their riders. He was so cute afterwards, we even went through a puddle (total big NO for him; he's so metro, he hates getting dirty) with no fuss, and afterwards he was eating up me loving all over him and let me pull his mane no fuss. He was such a good boy. :) I wish I had the money to make him mine :'(

Lesson # 2 (and its my birthday)

Today was my birthday, hurrah, I don't feel any different at 23 though :\

But anywayz, farrier was sick this week and hasn't gotten out to put new shoes on the pony, and his feet are really long, so we gave him a break and my trainer let me ride her other project Henley. She got him out of a "trash lot"; he's an ex racer who finished his last race so far behind that they didn't even count it as a finish... lol!!

"I do not care about your futile attempts to take a picture- MUST. EAT. CAMERA"

The last time I rode him, there were about five other horses in the arena and I had never ridden him before; I got on and started riding around (after my trainer telling me that he was the sweetest most dead broke horse ever) and suddenly, Mr. Henley, is prancing around getting all hyped up every time a horse passes him. And then before I known it we did this awesome Vienna school maneuver where said horse rears straight up into the air, me holding on the best I can in the saddle and leaning forward so as not encourage any tipping over, and then doing some kind of crazy leap off his back where I land on my two feet with his reins in my hands, ha! Anyway, turns out he just had never been in an arena with that many other horses before and my trainer didn't think about it since he's usually so calm. HE WANTED TO PLAY!! With every horse that passed him by. And he just couldn't control himself, lol!

Well, today went a lot better.

He's also for sale (sad days) but I really enjoyed riding him. It had been so long since I had been on an ACTUAL horse, with you know, HEIGTH! And he has this huge swinging stride, where, I mean its comfortable, but at the same time, with every post you're basically swung into outer space unless you restrain yourself from going there. Complete opposite of the pony, who is basically the easier horse to sit and look pretty on ever.

And, Henley actually required LEG. Which is my weakest link, I hate "kickers." I like sporty things that need gentle leg pressure and a quiet ride into the bridle, where you have all the gas you need. I hate creating energy. But anyway, Henley wasn't that bad, he just wasn't as forward and readily into the bridle as I like. And every time you think your head "man I'm tired" he goes "oh man me too" and breaks down to a walk (ugh! mind readers!).

But all of that aside; I had a really great lesson. He really made me work on keeping him bent with my outside hand firm (I'm a cheater and have a bad habit of over-use my inside hand), and made me work on sitting upright and controlling my body. (The pony is a different kind of control; he's super sensitive but you have to have a lighter more forward seat, since I'm so much bigger than him. Its not as easy for him for me to sit deeper like I normally would. Even when I do "sit deep," its more like just a really deep two point, not a true three point.) So the point was, it was nice to work on my actual "three point" seat, sitting up, sitting tall, shoulders back, controlling the horse with my tummy and thighs and half-halts and all of that good jazz. And Henley is a little sloppy into the canter, so he really made me ask precisely and correctly. The first few times we just did this horrible running trot into a canter, but determined to get it right, I focused on sitting back and allowing the canter with my seat and hands (but keeping him in his frame and bent) and asking correctly and precisely with my legs, and we got the canter really well in both directions after that.

But that was fun, hopefully I'll get to ride him again. :)

Pretty v. Effective

So for the past couple of months I've basically be in charge of riding my trainer's pony. He's an Oldenberg/Welsh cross.

I mean, why yes, he is hella adorable. We took him to his first jumping show a few weeks ago and he was a blast. I get to take him cross country schooling next Saturday so I'm super excited! Unfortunately, he's for sale. :( But until then he's adorable and I loves him. 

But he hasn't quite figured out yet about landing on the correct lead off of a jump, and Wednesday we were working on that. He naturally likes to pick up the left lead, so we were schooling a cross rail in a circle to the right, trying to keep him bent correctly up to and over and after the jump. 

Well, that's a whole lot harder than it sounds. Especially because, probably due to my equestrian/hunter background, I have a tendency to either a) just perch and look pretty or b) worry so much about my position being technically correct that I become too tense and then I actually get knocked out of position because my body doesn't "flow" with the horse. [My old instructor use to tell me it was like a door hinge; if you were too tight, you couldn't move properly, and if you were too loose, you couldn't move properly. You needed the right amount of strength and giving. Of course, easier said than done.]

Point being; sometimes my desire to just look so damn perfectly pretty and correct on a horse gets in my way. Okay, no, actually, it always gets in my way. I'm a perfectionist, but sometimes I'm so worried about LOOKING good I forget to actually RIDE. So after about the third time of jumping this damn jump and not getting the right lead (but hey, I look so pretty over the jump, right??.... which of course means nothing if you're not EFFECTIVE!) I finally gritted my teeth, sat up a little taller, actually put my inside leg on and kept it there (I have a horrible habit of letting my leg pressure loosen up right before a jump) and was giving with my reins but firm, and lo and behold, we actually kept a bend, jumped the jump, and got a right lead three times in the row. Now did I look like a little hunter princess over the jump? No. But the horse said "oh yeah okay THIS I get it!" because I had to over exaggerate just a bit to show him what I really wanted. As he gets it more, of course, the goal is to lessen and lessen the exaggeration until the cues are invisible. 

Well, its a start. :)

Oh, and did I mention, he's adorable?!?! 

"yay you came to feed me!" 

The best horse a girl could ask for

It's late, and I'm tired, so super quick intro (in pictures!) of my riding history:

No pictures for this one, but I was born crawling on my hands and knees whinnying and my first word was "horse," true story. Every four-legged creature in a field was a "horse" to me. When I got a little older, I started over-turning laundry baskets in the door ways between rooms to act as "jumps" and "galloped" around my house performing my Olympic course flawlessly.

Of course this was all well and good for a little while, but needless to say didn't sustain me for long.

My precious grandfather bought a huge 17hh beastly giant of a horse for my 7th birthday, a freckled white I-have-no-idea-what-breed mare. He had me convinced he was building a barn for a mule, but no! I was ecstatic! And then quickly bored when her speed maxed out at about 5mph. Not too long after, he also bought a pony. A little mean evil paint racking pony who bit and once chased and pinned my aunt against the back of the house; but I loved her. I was the only one who would ride her, and I spent my early years racing her around my grandfather's five acres, pretending I was a medeival knight or an adventurous indian.

Finally, my mom started getting me lessons, and I eventually ended up at a small AQHA focused barn, where I went to my first 4-H show on a 24 year-old appaloosa gelding, Apache. The owners of said barn taught me a lot about horse care and responsibility, making me do all the horse care on my own before and after lessons. This was a big help. But as I got older, Apache just wasn't cutting it and the little backyard trail horses my grandfather bought weren't going to do much in a show ring either, so I started my search for a horse...

Which ended up with Dino the wonder horse, who I found abandoned at a farm (coincidentally only five minutes down the road from my current residence); apparently a cowboy had seen him at a farm as a baby, where they had let his halter grow into his face from neglect (they left him in his stall and did nothing with him; he always had a weird indention on his face where the halter had grown into his bone :( so sad), traded a saddle for him, chased him into a trailer, and somehow transformed him into a champion heeler and trick horse for charity. (Dino "talked" and picked up coke cans, but apparently he use to know how to bow and do all sorts of other tricks...!) Unfortunately, this gentleman passed away and left Dino to his daughter, who played around on him a little bit and then left him at this farm, not paying her bills, never coming back to see him... so I got him dirt cheap!

Me on new said horse:

Well, the short story of this is; Dino was the best horse a girl could ever ask for. He suffered the general abuse of the AQHA circuit for three years until I finally figured out that there was a bigger, smarter, more humane world out there than trying to shove your horse's head into an unnaturally low position, completely disregarding any true notions about balance and roundness. A lot of people told me I needed to sell dino, but I staunchly refused. I started teaching him "dressage" (I didn't know that much, but we worked on it) and was scoffed at when I actually, OMG, put my horse into a FRAME, you know, ON THE BIT, where he actually learned to collect and extend and do all sorts of fun things!? The result being, we did a little better in AQHA, and we racked up at every 4H show we went to, and I eventually beat my trainer's daughter with her 20,000 horse, and that pissed her off pretty badly.

And then I was through with all of that sillyness and started getting actual lessons from an actual trainer, who I to this day love to death. Leslie Smith was amazing, and she still teaches, but unfortunately moved two hours away. :( 

Lessons with Leslie:

This was before I had any notion of proper equestrian fashion (see below for improvement); furthermore, I'd only been jumping like a year or two, so yes, horrible position, I get that. Dino is just trudging along, putting up with my silliness.

So Dino and I end up competing in all sorts of local jumper shows, and we won, a lot. And I got to give him a new show name (his AQHA name was horrible): RENEGADE! I thought it was fitting for him as a kid. I still have his leather halter engraved with his show name hanging on the back of my bedroom door... :( 

But the best thing about jumper shows? None of this silly equitation stuff, just get over the jump ;P (ha, just kidding, equitation is important). My first 3'3" class: (yes, horrible, horrible form, I'm just glad to be getting over it.)

Leslie told me repeatedly I needed to event Dino, but because of money I never pursue this. Which is a shame, because Dino would have been an awesome, AWESOME, eventer. Here's the closest we ever got to eventing:

Anyway, we do a lot of local cheaper shows. We get better. Here:

(still no fashion sense, but a pretty decent trot!)

(George Morris would more approve this form; possibly slightly jumping ahead, but back flat, eyes looking ahead, heels down, outside branch of stirrup iron leading inside slightly, leg at girth, but then he'd give me hell for my release and tell me to move hands down... and he'd hate my fuzzy girth... and say my horse's knees are even but he doesn't tuck... oh well, he DOES tuck, just not over this tiny non-consequential thing, haha.)

(leading to muchos ribbons; I have boxes and boxes in my house. If I ever run out of firewood...)

(His last "retirement" show; he was 22 in this picture. I mean, what a freaking gorgeous boy. We were doing smaller jumps just for his age and because he was starting to develop a little arthritis.)

Dino spent the rest of his life in a paddock with two other horses, and I'd visit him on weekends to pet him and feed him treats. One day I got a call that he couldn't walk right, so we called out the vet and there was no good news; he had some arthritis problems, but nothing unmanageable, and I had noticed some slight lameness a few days before, but suddenly he couldn't walk right at all, and he had lost a bunch of weight, and wouldn't put any of his weight on his back right leg and spun in circles just trying to get comfortable. It was really horrible to see. And there was nothing they could do about it, so we had to put him down at the ripe old age of 25 :( He was like that though; a fighter, if something was wrong he'd try to hide it and push through it. But he was pretty sound and healthy up until the last few days of his life, which is a good way to live if you're a horse. And he was always, always loved in his last twelve years. 

He taught me so much, and I often wish I could have him now, being the rider I am today, knowing that together we would accomplish SO much; especially as an eventer. Man he was BORN for that. He was so brave, and he could jump anything, and collect and trot/canter circles? No problem, he'd do that all day. I taught him to trot in place and side pass and half pass and he was positively the most willing horse I've ever had. He spent a few years at the college where I was involved with IHSA and they used him as a lesson horse some; everyone who loved rode him loved him; when they drew him at the shows, they won. 

I just hope I can do him justice in the future, with the next horse I own. I know he'll never replace Dino, but I hope I can take everything I learned from him and give the next horse that steals my heart a successful career and a joyful life.