February recap; March goals

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February:
Weekly mileage is down, as expected, due to some much-needed RAIN coming our way twice this month!  Two fast rides (6.7mph), but mostly around 4-5mph.

March:
– Weather permitting, one 8+ mile ride weekly, aiming for 12-15 twice in March if possible.
– continue experimenting with Myler combination bit
– focus on riding balanced even when fighting her for forwards
– work on Confetti’s confidence when taking 9 out for a solo ride

What was I saying about the rain?  Oh, right.. we’re getting it now.  Not enough to flood the barn, but quite a bit of rain.

My goal for Tuesday was a brisk ride before the rain kicked in the next day, knowing this would probably be our last shot with the dam down.  As luck would have it, my Pony Club friend was willing to head on out, so we did a moderately-fast ride out to the deck (3 miles, 33 minutes, hills!) and a slower ride home (45 minutes – on par with my semi-normal) so the horses could cool off.  Normally her gelding goes even faster, but he’s a bit out of shape and settled for a sedate canter/brisk trot rather than a gallop/fast canter on most of the hills.

I bought a Myler combination bit and new snap-on headstall to go with.  I was reasonably confident my halter-bridle wouldn’t have sufficiently short bit attachments; that was correct.  It’s frustrating feeling that I’m constantly pulling on Confetti; I don’t want to be hauling on her to get half-halts when she’s forwards.  The combination leaves me ever-so-cautiously optimistic that we may have found a compromise.

At one point, this WAS a running braid.  Oh, pony.

I do think I had the rawhide noseband too low in this picture.  More fiddling required.

Also: the bit came without a chinstrap.  Hooray for hoarding tendencies, where I had a pink curb chain that fits nicely!

Since Tuesday, this is what most of our rides have consisted of.  Bareback meanderings around the barn.  Good news: I can sit her trot bareback now!

Expecting similar this week, but we’ll see if I luck out and the rain lets up enough to let the trails dry for a ride.

Why I’m not riding ACTHA

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Barn folks often end up asking me if I’ll be riding in the competitive trail/obstacle events that come up from time to time.  The short answer: no.

There are a few reasons why.

1. Confetti is a wonderful trail horse that finds the best path around/through Real Trail Obstacles.  (See my last post about pointing her at the cliff edge!)  While I do get final say and can overrule her judgment, she’s generally right and that’s a quality I very much appreciate.  She thinks it’s dumb to go through a complicated man-made obstacle when there’s a perfectly lovely empty path right by it.

I can and regularly do ask her to do strange things and go off-trail in bizarre places.  It’s generally pretty clear to her why we’re doing it and she understands that it has a point.  She does not understand the point of bizarre obstacles in an arena.

2. There’s a time limit for how long you get at any given obstacle.  Logistically, I fully understand why this has to be the case.  I don’t want to feel pushed or time-pressured when we really need more time to process what I’m asking of her and why.  It can be very useful for me to sit and wait for her to settle mentally to the point where she’s willing to give me even a little try.  Too much pressure and we both build tension to the point where it fries her brain.  Mine, too.

3. Speed is a reward/mental reset button.  A brisk trot down the trail seems to solve a lot of things.  I swear she understands that her job in life is to trot everything everywhere.  Most (all?) of the events are pretty much all walking.

Also: six miles, you guys.  Six miles.  That’s nothing extraordinary and it feels ridiculous to pay money to ride six miles at a walk.

4. I don’t quite buy into the ‘judged trail’ idea.  Stuff on the trail? I give the pony her head and get out of her way.  Steep downhill?  Same thing.  I don’t micromanage if it’s not absolutely necessary; she gets mad at me if I’m nitpicking at things too much and she feels like she’s doing fine.  I think this goes back to #1 where she doesn’t see the point of man-made obstacles.

Regular trail rides for us, actually, cover all of the following:
– uphills, downhills, mounts, dismounts.  Obviously.  Pony moves herself over next to whatever odd thing I’m standing on so I can skip putting my foot in the stirrup on my way over where possible.  Hooray for short horses!
– real river crossing
– bikes, strollers, children, hikers, dogs, and the occasional unicycle, skateboard, or roller-skater
– occasionally open/close gates
– bridge crossings
– downed trees – logs are standard, bushy trees show up occasionally and we walk through some as needed
– wildlife encounters of all sorts
– sidepass/trot weave through trees
It’s not that we’re lacking in skills.  It’s that they’re entirely practical skills and we don’t seem to do well applying them in faked/arena settings.  Deer or bobcat or coyote wandering across the trail in front of us?  Not a problem.  Drag a stuffed animal across the trail in front of us?  Might very well be a problem.

I know there are horses that excel at this sort of thing; I even know a few of them personally.  I think they’re great horses.  I’d ride them in this sort of thing if things fell into place.  I will support anyone that wants to and heck, I’d even give you advice in hopes you do well.

But it’s not what Fetti and I like to do.  Good endurance-trail horse does not equate to good competitive-trail horse.

Wildlife encounters & cliff-walking

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Sometimes, blogging stalls because the rides are all feeling consistent and not-bloggable, nothing particularly exciting.  Sometimes, blogging stalls because I don’t have time to adequately put words to the events.

For once, I had a few days off that coincided with spring break for teachers!  This makes for excellent ride planning.

Tuesday, we saw a coyote, or maybe it was a fox? It didn’t stay still long enough for pictures.  Short hour-ride where no one worked too hard.

Thursday led to hopes of seeing the coyote-maybe-fox again to figure out which it is (and pictures!).  Instead, we happened upon a bobcat.  As any sane people would do, we lowered our voices and pointed the horses after the cat, snapping photos frantically as we went.

Bobcat on the trail in front of us.

It wandered down the trail and around a turn – but no, we didn’t lose it, there it is!
And.. there is a bobcat on the fence.
Just to the right of the fence, not more than ten feet away.

 Ponies got lots of praise for being excellent tripods – I took at least a handful of photos with the reins dropped, leaning forwards out of the saddle and balancing off Confetti’s neck.  She wasn’t even remotely worried about the bobcat.  Screaming children, on the other hand, got an ear flick.  Oh, pony.

We were both pretty impressed with how utterly fearless the cat was – the photos show that pretty well, just chillin’ on the trail next to some horses and humans, whatev’, pause for a photo op, why not?

It pretty well made up for not seeing the fox-maybe-coyote.

Despite fifteen minutes of wildlife photography, there was still time for our seven-mile loop.  Off we went!  It was gorgeous at the top, clear enough to see the beach sand.  Back home and even with a bit of time before it’s properly dark.  Confetti led a lot of the way and we kept a fairly brisk pace.

Friday, we took her out with her sister.  Attentive readers may recall that the last time I took her out with just her sister was the day I got bucked off in December.  There has been a bit of lingering anxiety, absolutely.  The past few weeks have done much to settle that and my rideable horse has returned to normal; I figured it would be fine.

It was a bit surprising when Confetti settled into lazy babysitter mode on Friday.  Normally, a cluck sends her briskly forwards.  Instead, it took four or five asks before she’d head forwards into a slow-to-medium trot.  It was exactly what we needed and while I have no idea how she knew that, there were absolutely no complaints that the pony had things figured out.

Our vague goal for the day was around ten miles or so – out to the Deck, then Buckeye if things were going well.  Things were, indeed, going well, so down the steep singletrack we went!

Buckeye is a trail that’s frequently not maintained much in the winter or spring.  It’s a bit of a pain to get places without a horse, and it’s steep enough that once the rains start, it really is not a useable trail.  Granted, we’re in February now, and we’ve had a bit of rain..  but we were not expecting to find a tree in the way.

  Note that the pony’s nose is just about level with the fallen tree.  Not shown in photo: the tree ends just out of frame on the left.  The side of the trail.. well, gradually falls off at about the same place.

I hopped off, pondered, contemplated, tried it on foot, and wasn’t convinced we could do it.  C did it with slightly more success and thought we could, so I handed Fetti over and told her to go for it (C was already on the other side of the tree, why switch?).

Confetti, being the absolutely awesome pony she is, looked at us, looked at the tree, looked at the trail, and only dropped one foot through the underbrush before leaping her way off the cliff and back onto the trail.  Very good pony.

Her sister wasn’t willing to follow me around; I tied her to the tree and switched horses with C to let her do it.  Both ponies successfully around, we hopped back on and proceeded down the trail.  No sense letting a tree get in the way of a good trail ride.

There was one more downed tree later on; luckily it was on the river-beach and not more singletrack, because we were not turning around.  We skirted around that one through the rocks and could have gone over if we had to.  Not bad.

Up the hills, down the hills, next to more cliffs, and up yet more hills where Confetti ran out of energy before her sister, much to my surprise.  She wasn’t done by any means, but didn’t find it necessary to go cantering up the whole hill.  Okay, pony, you’re being polite and calm and mellow?  I’m okay with that.

Three hours, 10.5 miles with a lot of walking.  Good mares!

Due partially to my migraine and partially to two medium-hard rides in a row, my ride Saturday consisted of walk/trot around the barn bareback.

I was pleased to find my forwards horse on Sunday.  I don’t mind the occasional Western-pony ride, but it’s always a bit disconcerting!  Sunday’s ride was notable primarily because of the didgeridoo in the park making funny noises.  I got off and walked her past; I think she would have been fine, but decided it was silly to push my luck.  Nice brisk ride with another friend and her mare.

There’s rain forecast again for this week.  I’d be glad to see it; temperatures have been in the 70s the past few days and that’s just not right for February.  I am absolutely enjoying it, but none of my usual rainy-day tasks are getting done this year.

Surprise!

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On Thursday, a friend and I took back roads out to the park and headed up a particularly hilly section of trail.  Total mileage, counting the road: probably about eight miles.  Back at the barn, we turned the two horses out and they went cantering around the arena with enthusiasm.. not tired at all.  Well then.

I resigned myself to wandering in circles on Saturday.  Almost a mile of walking circles around the barn bareback in a halter, threw a saddle on to work in the round pen, decided we needed a bit for that so went back to add that too.  But hey – I’ve got all the tack on, we can go trot in the back woods!  So we trotted along in repetitive loops and lines for a brisk mile and a half.

A brief but satisfying ride when I looked at our speed.  Last winter, we struggled to get to a 5mph pace on those trails (though granted, we had to walk over/through a fallen tree).  This year?  6.7mph.  Good mare.

Since there were no photos in the last blog of how awful the river crossing looks this time of year, we headed down that way to get some for you folks.  Oddly enough, I couldn’t quite see the river from the top of the trail.  I could have sworn that was my viewpoint earlier in the week, but new trail, maybe I was wrong, fine, head down the hill a bit… and huh, there’s the trail at the bottom of the hill that gets covered when the dam goes up.  They took the dam back down.  They took the dam back down!

One excited (if thoroughly baffled) phone call later, and five verbal notifications that we’re not doomed again yet, the Haffies headed out into the park for a few miles.  Woohoo!

Hello winter!

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While the rest of the US is getting snow and rain and generally miserable cold weather, California’s in a drought.  This past weekend was the first real few days of rain we’ve had this winter.. if not longer!  Good news, since it means we’re now marginally less concerned about the drought (but let’s face it, we’re still pretty low on rainfall here).  Bad news for my riding, since after a few days of rain the dam has gone up just downstream of the barn.  Our river crossing is over for at least a month or two. 

It rained Thursday, just a bit.  I got on bareback, put the halter-bridle all on, and attached the reins to the halter.  I have to keep things interesting somehow, right?  Tree limbs falling had me dismounting fast, but Confetti just flinched and looked hard at the tree.  Bravery was limited and I still had the bit attached, just not to the reins.  We wandered around the barn awhile and didn’t really work, but that was okay.  I got some pretty pictures instead.

This captures her look better than any other photo I’ve taken.

She’s looking pretty good, as long as I stay confident that there won’t be ribs showing again when she sheds out!
The hike was a little bit foggy towards the top.

It rained Saturday.  Saturday morning I went hiking up north, expecting it to be raining there too.  It wasn’t!  I had a lovely miserable three miles all uphill and a significantly less miserable three miles downhill.  My boots finally started to give me blisters.  I vowed to return them to REI and try something new.  Nine months, a year, fine!  But these boots I’ve had for maybe six or seven months, and that is the absolute fastest I have ever worn out riding/hiking boots.

Drove back over the hill.  Sure enough, still raining.  I got on bareback, put the halter on, and attached the reins to the halter – no bit at all.  It was pouring pretty good on and off.  Pony was a coiled spring of tension ready to explode.  She dutifully tolerated a few laps around the barn to socialize, and then I hopped off and jogged a few laps with her in my not-good-for-running rain boots.  It was raining harder and my new, pink waterproof jacket that I bought specifically for the barn?  Not entirely waterproof.  I was wet.  I put her away and went home.

Sunday I went to REI.  I did not get a new raincoat, but I did get new hiking boots.  Luckily, I found a raincoat in my car.  I don’t particularly like it to ride in, but I knew it was still raining at home.  Plus it cost $0 to find it in my car, and would have cost $100+ to get a raincoat at REI.  And they have a pink shell-only raincoat online for something like $60 anyway.

I went home and went to the barn.  It was still raining.  I was going to get on, but opted to turn her out in the round pen instead.  Pony promptly cantered in circles and threw hissy fits about not having her sister with her.  She riled up several other horses being walked and we eventually just put her sister in so they could both trot/canter around and blow off steam.  I’m guessing she did ten-fifteen minutes of running around by herself and another twenty with the two of them.  The footing was actually rather nice under the puddles.  Put her away, hopped on another Haffie bareback for awhile, and swore we’d get a good ride in on Tuesday.

It did not rain on Tuesday!  I zipped out to the barn, planning to get in a good 8 miles or so.  The river no longer had a viable crossing.  Our path to the highway has various fallen trees that dramatically change the landscape.  It took easily fifteen minutes to find a workable path.  We jogged on the highway for nearly a half-mile to get to the main park entrance and our usual starting point, dodging traffic, RVs, and motorcycles.  There is not much shoulder and drivers may or may not respect that there’s a horse nearly on the road.  It’s one hell of a way to do road sprints though: dash past a bunch of parked cars, wait for a gap in traffic, run like hell to get past the next six cars when there are no cars coming head-on towards you.

Confetti has proven herself to be road-safe and generally okay with anything we encounter.  I don’t ride her on the road and I keep us as out of the way as safely possible, but we’ve had motorcycles go by and she barely blinked.  It’s possible to dodge a lot of the highway by going on side streets.  We’ll do that with horses that don’t like big trucks flying by.  Side streets have houses, though, and turns and smoother asphalt, and roads barely big enough for two cars to pass each other.  The highway is a straight shot down the road to the park.

Road or not, we were going to Do Something and that meant we had to make it to the park, so we did.  I jogged/walked with her a bit, found our way around a particularly large fallen tree, and eventually hopped on.  Pony’s brain stayed intact, which is impressive!  Last year, she never settled much for me to feel very comfortable riding her on the trail alone after coming by 9.  This time, she wasn’t thrilled nor confident.  She didn’t want to go fast.  That was okay; the trails are still muddy enough I wasn’t asking for fast, just forwards.  We trotted some, then turned around towards the end of the flat section and headed home at a walk.  Idiots throwing things near the river made both of us nervous.  I hopped off and walked/jogged with her awhile again.  Confetti was getting the hang of sticking right next to me for our jogs!  I am quite pleased with that and hope it sticks.  Ran back on the highway, wandered around lost in the woods for a few minutes to find the stupid trail, and made it home in one piece.

Four miles, all told.  A very mentally challenging four miles.  How are the rest of you coping with your winters?

Progress!

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Sixteen miles today.  16.1 miles in about 3h45min.  I am very pleased with Fetti’s progress!
The last time we went out and did approximately this trail was seven months ago, June 2013.  We went a bit further, but for purposes of comparison they’re reasonably similar when you take that into account – I just couldn’t justify asking her to go another two miles today.  In June, we did 18.0 miles in 4h40 minutes.
Today, we trotted through a lot more of Pogonip.  She wasn’t necessarily happy or offering it, but when I asked, she generally went.  That perpetual uphill was what worried me the most about Fireworks in July; I’m feeling much better about it now.

Pretty awesome artwork on the trail.

When she got tired/bored today, it was a very flat, strung-out trot.  Nothing I did convinced her to actually engage behind and use her hindquarters, so she felt like she was pulling herself along in front.  Looking at it now, she was still keeping a 4-5mph trot, but it was incredibly frustrating to ride.  Her heart rate was fine.  Maybe she had to pee and wouldn’t do it on the trail.  She just wouldn’t get in front of my leg and do a proper trot.

To be fair, we did today’s ride completely barefoot.  I went to put her front boots on this morning and pretty well concluded that the right front doesn’t fit.  I didn’t bother trying the left front since we wouldn’t go with just one!  We’re five weeks post-trim.  I need to remeasure this weekend, I have photos from Tuesday, and with the measurements + photos combined I will stall until her next trim and re-evaluate immediately afterwards.  The boots were never easy to get on.  Today it was difficult enough I decided they were too tight to even get the hoof fully in the boot.  Once we hit spring, Fetti will go back on a 6-week trimming schedule; right now we’re at 8-or-so.  I know the boots have always been a tight fit weeks 5-6, but at the same time, I ordered a size that in theory should fit all through the trim.
The hundred-dollar question: have her feet actually gotten bigger, or is it just flares?  If they’re bigger, I may be looking seriously at new boots for her.  If it’s flares, I may be looking seriously at learning to maintain between trims.  I may write a whole post on feet and post pictures later…

The combination of barefoot + unenthusiastic flat trot were most of what led me to turn around a mile earlier this time around.  Fetti is still ouchy on gravel.  She’ll trot, but too many steps in a row that hurt and she breaks to a walk.  That’s fine.  She picks the less rocky trail where it’s an option.  I know the remaining mile is fairly gravelly; it was a fairly warm day in January with her full winter coat just starting to shed, her trot was atrocious, we had nothing to prove.  We turned around.

Uphill trotting had gone remarkably well heading out.  I had high hopes for keeping a solid speed on the way home.  I forgot to account for all the downhill.

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll mention it again: Fetti is not a great downhill horse.  Unfortunately, I mentioned in my lesson post that my saddle was tipping me slightly forwards?  I hadn’t dealt with that yet.  The end result was me sitting in somewhat of a chair seat, bracing my legs in front of me and leaning back, for pretty much all of our downhill trotting.  I’m sore in my inner thighs and knees and am confident that’s the reason for it.  Pony was willing enough to trot sections as long as her rider was out of the way!  Good news: we switched to the thickest fitting pads for the saddle after my ride today, and that looks like it should be better.

Oddly enough, our ride home was slower than the ride out.  Sure, we walked various sections and didn’t gallop up some of her usual speed-hills.. but I really did push her in both directions to see where we were at in terms of fitness.  Apparently I did not push quite enough: two large spooks in the last three miles home: one at a hiker sitting on a fallen tree who moved his hiking sticks, one when a bike came flying down the road from behind.. not very far away from us.  In almost the same spot as Tuesday, and practically the same spook.  Oh, pony.. not setting a great pattern there.

Aside from a few minor discussions (no, you may NOT turn around here!) she was really quite excellent and gave me everything I asked for.  Very, very pleased with the pony.

Share your barn blog hop!

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Joining in on this..

1. A view of the barn

I wasn’t really sure what photos to take.  When you drive in.. this is what you see.  Arena visible on the right, stalls everywhere else.

Another view of the arena.  It’s quite a large arena, I just don’t spend very much time in there these days.

2. Your horse’s living space


The barn has two large 12-stall pipe corral ‘barns’ (6 on each side, aisle down the middle), three 6-stall mare motels (3 on each side, aisle down the middle), and various other stall setups around the outside edges of the barn.  Here you can see tack rooms and tie rails on the left and stalls on the right.

Fetti has a 12×36 pipe corral stall; standard is 12×24.  It makes me feel slightly better about not getting her out daily.  Walls left/right extend 12′, as does the roof.  She’s a tough pony so I don’t bother with shavings in the stall since she seems to do just fine without.

No turnout, but when the arena’s open we are allowed to let horses loose in there.  We’ll send the Haffies in there to run off steam and for some herd-time when we can.

3. In the tack room

I almost cleaned it up some before I took the picture, but let’s face it: this is a pretty standard state of my tack room.  Three saddle racks I installed when I moved stalls/tack rooms, various hooks and nails and shelves elsewhere, saddle pads both on saddles and in chaos on top of mostly-unused stuff towards the back.  Blankets live in a box under the saddles, bridles on the left with one spare on the right.. supplements, Renegade boots, fitting shims, and just about everything else I might use frequently lives on the shelves in front.  Organized chaos, but it’s working pretty well for me – although after seeing the picture, a few things definitely need to get moved!

I have a separate tack room for hay.  I pay a bit extra for that, but it means I get more working space in the tack room, I’m not trying to negotiate around hay bales all the time, and I can fit more than one or two in.  Friends can pick up several bales for me at a time (or I can order several at a time).  No truck means I can’t just go off and easily pick up a bale or two.. I much prefer not living bale-to-bale.

4. Where you ride

The barn has a big arena and two round pens, but most of my riding is on the trails.

  Back woods, sometime last spring.

We go across a river – yes, the photo was taken IN the river! – and come up the bank on the other side.  The river goes up to her belly and generally just below my feet.

This is the headed-home view – cross the road and head back towards the river.  (Note the deer.)  It’s less than ten minutes walking home from this point forwards.

5. My favorite feature: trail access, easily.

All of these are within a 9-mile round trip, no trailering required!  (Very important, given my lack of truck or trailer.)  I could do 25 miles from the barn, more if we chose to and had time.  There isn’t much in the way of flat trails, but we have plenty of hills and a variety of microclimates in the parks.

Lesson recap

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I love my trainer.  I’m lucky she likes me and is willing to drive an hour or two for me on occasion!

She rode Fetti while I rode Fetti’s mom on a 4.5-mile trail ride in slightly under an hour.  Pushed Fetti’s brain a few times, but generally the pony displayed her usual behaviors.  Excellent.

I was happy to find that many of her behaviors appear to be consistent between riders, and are not specifically caused by something I’m doing, although I’m likely to attribute their root cause to something I’ve done – the joy of being the horse’s primary-and-almost-only rider.

After the hour on the trail, we spent probably another 20 minutes in the back woods pushing a few more buttons (no pony, you don’t get to turn for home yet! yep, that’s the hissy fit I usually get), and then headed to the arena where we switched horses for another 45 minutes or so and focused more on my position.  I know my posture is flawed in various ways, but rarely know enough to fix it.  Some days I wish for mirrors by the arena.  Trainer worked with me previously, knows some of my flaws, and is absolutely amazing at not only pinpointing what’s wrong, but giving me a way to fix it that works for me.

Various notes and points of interest:
– Fetti is behind the leg headed away from the barn.  Probably not going to get that fixed anytime soon.  Still should keep working on it.
– Trainer rode with slightly shorter reins than I usually do.  Result: pony was rounder and somewhat less strung out.
– Saddle tips the rider slightly forwards.  I’ll be having a friend help me re-evaluate saddle fit and consider shims this weekend.
– Her Really Big Trot is just a single gear down from her canter.  I don’t think it’s really an extended trot; it’s just really powerful and she actually uses her hind end properly.
– I am all sorts of discombobulated at the canter.  Exercise: reins in one hand, other arm behind back, reminds lower back to not curl out and instead to stay straight and engage core.
– I lean back too much at walk/trot; think sit straighter, tip pelvis, really feel seatbones.  Mental image: you have ten pennies. How many are under each seatbone?  Especially careful to recheck my side-to-side balance through corners and turns.
– Shorter reins.  Shorter reins.  Shorter reins.  If I give her lots of rein, she’s not going to balance back; she’ll balance up to the very-forwards rein.
– Excessive forwards? Ask for lateral work.  Not allowed to go forwards or up, so give her somewhere to go with it – sideways.  Trainer rode out several hissy fits when I trotted on a ways ahead and Fetti was not permitted to keep up/instantly catch up.  I found it comforting that there was no bucking involved.
– Only bucking in the whole ride, in fact, was more likely a ‘yay I can go!’ playful buck when asked for a canter in the back woods.
– Keep the contact in the canter.  Balance her back; don’t let her get strung out.
– Think collarbones forwards, keep hands low
– For arena work, if she starts falling forwards with her balance, use leg rather than hand to correct.  (Hauling her nose up on trail is acceptable when concerned she might take advantage and buck.)
– Keep unlearning the habit of using the indirect rein all the time.
– Try to do a trail ride and then work in the arena, so I can keep some of that forwards energy from the trail and still have a productive schooling ride.  Extra bonus Fig-thought: maybe this will help convince her she doesn’t need to rush home?

On a side note.. it is incredibly, incredibly awesome to have a trainer finally understand that her mediocre arena trot is really quite unacceptable.  It’s not a horrible trot, if considered by itself, but there is so much more trot that she could offer.

One post-lesson trail ride later, I need to find a balance between ‘shorter reins’ and ‘hauling on her face’.  I do think part of the problem today was that the entire ride was slower than we usually care to go and I never let to get her move out.  We’ll see how that goes tomorrow, where she can move out at a trot and I want shorter (than usual) reins with minimal contact needed to slow her down.  Lateral work was very successful in stalling the hissy fits when I let the other horses get slightly ahead; I think, again, she was upset about not getting to move out *at all* so I didn’t push the issue too much.  Today I was also much more conscious of where my balance and seat were.  The challenge is going to be maintaining that consciousness the next month or two!

Mundane ride updates and bonus train!

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New goal: one arena/round-pen session weekly!

Hannah had some excellent suggestions after my last post, namely going back to dressage basics to make Fetti more rideable.  That is, after all, what all my problems come from – not just the excessive forwards, but also the lack of forwards, comes from a lack of responsiveness and commitment to listen to the aids.

Pony is not a fancy dressage horse.  I don’t know how to consciously ask for things with my seat.  We spend a third of our casual rides on a loose rein letting her figure things out.  However, I need to have that ‘override’ ability when we disagree, and that’s lacking in effectiveness right now.

Last Tuesday, we worked in the round pen on transitions.  Trot-canter, canter-trot, asking for promptness and consistency.  End result: clearly, we need some work.  Walk-trot is fine, trot-walk is fine but we lose our impulsion at the walk (also true on the trail).  Trot-canter is inconsistent and I’m inclined to blame my position.  If I’m not sitting right, she won’t give it to me.  Trot-canter also resulted in her offering a canter when I was not asking for it, which I promptly brought back down.. repeatedly.  Canter-trot is fine in the round pen.

Thursday was a short, brisk ride where I focused on leg yields and responsiveness to transitions.

Saturday was a moderately short ride in the evening.  One set of deer antlers, one rabbit, one deer, a gorgeous full moon, and a fully-lit holiday train.  We ride under the trestle in one spot on the trail.  Fetti was in front – it was dark, we lead the way home – and I heard a weird generator noise, happened to see lights in the distance, and promptly leaped off the horse, probably setting my shoulder back a week.  Oops!  My riding partner was baffled until I finally got my words together enough for “TRAIN!” and parked the pony behind her mother.  To Confetti’s credit, she clearly wanted to bolt but never pulled the reins to run.  Pony has excellent ground manners.  She circled several times, I let the circles take us slightly away as long as she ended facing towards them, and everyone survived.  Can’t complain too much there.

Sunday we went out with our Fjord friend in the morning, albeit not nearly as quickly as I’d hoped.  It was a decent trotting pace on the way out, but then I chickened out with the wind and heading home, so I hiked the next three miles and got on for the last half-mile or so, just walking.  I know I should ride her through it and face the fears.. but I know she picks up on the Fjord’s energy and that still scares me going home.  I can’t afford to come off again (yet).

Sunday ride #2: turned around almost immediately upon arriving to the barn and went out with the other Haffies for another six miles!  Moderate pace, trotted out and back since I could keep Fetti in back.

It, then, should not have surprised me that I had a lot of horse yesterday evening.  The plan was to get a short trail ride in and then a short arena or round pen session after.  Seventeen minutes and two miles later, I was pretty well out of sunlight.  Trot/canter transitions on the way out, big endurance motoring trot on the way home.  I love the feeling of her really engaging behind and dropping her head to move out, even as it is exactly that feeling that terrifies me with another horse because I’m not entirely in control of how fast we’re going.  8-10mph trot, yikes!  There is so much potential with this horse that I cannot touch yet because I can’t just push that ‘forwards’ button and find her extra gears when I want them.

Lesson tomorrow, so hopefully some of our issues can get addressed and the fear can be mostly-conquered.

Fear and training gaps

Topaz Dreams Posted on by

Things have been quiet around here lately.  I came off Confetti, I rode her 35 miles the following week and a half, and then I left the state for a week on a previously planned trip.  Luckily, a teen at the barn likes my horse and is competent enough to not only ride her while I was gone, but enjoy it!  I do think a week of doing (quite literally) nothing but a flight or two of stairs a day was probably good for my shoulder.  It was awful for my mental state and I’m glad to be home where the weather is above freezing.

This is the weather we’ve been having, while the rest of the US is getting snowstorms.

Shoulder likely has a mild separation.  Two and a half weeks post-fall, it’s settled into mildly annoying.  I can’t do all the things I normally would.  I’m not working through the pain; I’m backing off when it hurts.  This was without a doubt the worst fall I’ve had (and it really wasn’t all that bad!) and the only one to really remind me that I cannot stick everything.

Confetti scares me a bit in the arena.  I know she’s reactive and I know I cannot predict which way she’ll spook.  I don’t ride with enough consistency or purpose within the arbitrary figures of an arena to give her enough confidence and guidance when she loses it.  Until a few weeks ago, she had never scared me on the trail.  Sure, I’ve ridden a few bolts.  I won’t let her trot down the biggest hill after I came off there, but that one is very location-specific and rooted in reality: it IS a big, steep hill.

I don’t like fear.  It’s no fun to deal with.  My usual reaction is to simply not deal with it.  Arena rides are few and far between.  Partly it’s that we both find them boring; partly it’s that I’ve come off several times in the arena and I don’t trust her to keep her brain together.  I love our trail rides, though!  So I’m going to have to get over and and deal with the fear that she’ll do this again.

Fetti bucked me off because she didn’t want to rate politely.  I’ve spent so much time asking for forwards, and not enough asking her to slow down.  By ourselves, I don’t ask as hard.  With a horse behind us, she feels their energy and wants to move more, and I feel the combined energy and want her moving less.  If we’re behind another horse, she’ll rate at their speed, occasionally a bit less but rarely for long.

I do not know how to teach that.  How do I take that energetic forwards and explain, politely, that I’d like a little less when I ask for it?  How do I balance the need for that forwards (which is not nearly the speed she gives me at rides) and conditioning with the ability to rate?

The pony and I get along in part because I can read her so clearly and because I am willing to compromise on my requests and not pick fights.  This is one we need to have.  She didn’t rate well at Quicksilver.  If she doesn’t rate well at home, it’s not fair to expect that at rides.

I’m not sure how we’ll manage it yet, but as soon as my shoulder heals enough I’m willing to take another fall, I anticipate a major pony-battle.  I have a note in to my trainer in hopes that she can come out and give me some ideas to work with (or better yet, hope on the pony herself).