Okay, going to TRY to keep this brief!

Let's see..

Wednesday night, I spent in the gym. Cardio on a killer elliptical, about 45 minutes of strength/ weight training, and then a yoga class. Good times :)

Thursday night, I went out to the barn kind of late, around 7pm, because I had taken my time with dinner lol. Henry was a peach as I lunged first, then got on to work on my homework (yes I did everything on the list!). Then I spent some quality time cleaning his stall, scrubbed out his water bucket and put some warm water in, etc. By the time I left it was 9:30!

Last night I taught another college lesson. Out of four originally expected students, one had dropped the class, and another never showed. This was an ABSOLUTE beginner class, which was easy to tell when the first comment in the barn was "Oh! It smells in here!" They were sweet though. We worked on grooming and learning how to tack up, as well as general rules for the barn and how to act around equines. They suggested at the end of the lesson that they'd like to switch to Wednesday nights, which would be nice so that I could teach M, T, W and then have the rest of the week to myself. I will have to check with the barn owner to make sure that's ok. My boyfriend, who comes home on the weekends from school, decided he wanted to clean Henry's stall (!!!) and so I let him do it while I scrubbed the water bucket. He's a keeper ;)

Today I went to the barn and rode Henry, really working on leg-yields from the wall, quarter lines, and center line, as well as getting that awesome uphill canter more consistently. He got his lead (true or counter) every time except once, and by the end of the ride was holding himself up for longer and longer stretches.

Unfortunately I was witness to some nasty bad-mouthing at the barn today; I hate to even be around that sort of drama but as we all know it is unavoidable. It was a woman who was actually sh*t talking the barn owner! Who is a glorious and wonderful older woman, and deserves to be sainted. I was shocked by this boarder's negative comments, but even more shocked that she would just spout it in the tack room with plenty of people around. That's bold. I left the tack room as quick as I could.

Also unfortunate is that our resident farrier seems to have forgotten about Henry. I have been using his bell boots during rides lately because he's getting pretty long, and I have heard him step on himself more than once. I think the next time I see my trainer I will ask her advice on this. The last thing I want is another episode like I had two years ago, when Henry got a sole bruise because his angles were off. Six weeks of handwalking in the middle of summer is frustrating, but it was worse since that was preventable. Hmmm...

Tonight I am attending and helping out at our GMO's annual Awards Dinner & Silent Auction. Last year I ended up spending about $100 on auction items... I might have to leave the checkbook at home this time! I also won a year-end championship last year, so keep your fingers crossed for a repeat for me and Henry!!!

Icy outside, but very cool in the ring!

What can I say? I am so lucky to have such a great horse. As I was mucking his stall post-lesson tonight, I kept hearing Martina McBride singing "Blessed" in my head (cheesy, yes, but oh well!).

When I got to the barn, there were some younger girls in the tack room (they help out with the barn chores, sometimes teach lessons, etc and board their horses there). As one exclaimed, "I love these boots, they were $75!!!" I figured it would be a frustrating night. The woman whose lesson is right before mine has a beautiful upper level horse, who gets all the fanciest gear you could imagine. I heard the two girls mocking her for using a quarter sheet - "It's just a little piece of fleece, it's not going to keep him warm!" "So and so has one too" "Yeah she has a PINK ONE! *snort*" (the last comment made right before one girl pulled a HOT PINK brush out of her tack box, which the other girl complimented...) - and then put them out of my mind as I brought out MY quarter sheet and started grooming Henry.

He was a little upset (again) that I was disturbing him right when he should be forehead deep in hay, and once again, the 4pm lesson mom put carrots in his feed bin without asking. I sighed, brushed out his mane and put his saddle on. We warmed up walking and trotting a bit before my trainer was finished with the other lesson, and when she was ready to start we picked up a trot and worked on leg yields, shoulder-in, and small circles for a few minutes. The trot he gave me, right off the bat (with the quarter sheet on) was amazing. It's like he KNOWS when we're about to have a lesson and just turns on the charm. I worked on bending his ribcage with my inside leg, fingers, and leg, and worked on something I read on some blog or forum somewhere - stepping into my inside stirrup and lengthening my body on the outside (from hip to shoulder) to help him lengthen on the outside. He was phenomenal.

After a walk break, we did some collected walk-canter-walk transitions. He is getting better every day and his canter is so uphill, floating, and light I feel like we're not even touching the ground. Down transitions still need work, but he is building his strength and stamina every ride. A few times he picked up a counter canter but hey, nobody's perfect, and his counter canter is super comfy! He's going to dominate at 2nd level... erm... someday!

After what was perhaps one or two circles too many, we took another walk break. My trainer and I agreed that we have to be careful not to work him too hard, which is difficult because he tries so hard that it's almost impossible to know when he's getting tired. He will go until he just can't hold himself together, instead of gradually trying to tell me 'Oh hey, I'll be getting tired soon... hmm, I'm sort of tired... still only kind of tired, check back later... okay I guess I'm tired now'. Plus his canter is so cool to ride (and watch, apparently - my trainer dropped the T word - THIRD level quality) that it's tempting to savor it. However, the reason it's so great is because he tries with all he's got every time I ask, and then suddenly he realizes, 'Oof, I actually need to take a break!' so I will be extra vigilant not to do too much. He's a quick learner too, so drilling is boring and counter productive. Lucky me :) Anyway she said that with this quality of canter, and striving towards 2nd/ 3rd level movements, it would get me great scores at 1st level, and would keep his mind engaged. He needs work, wants to work for me, and this type of horse would get cranky if I didn't challenge him.

After the walk we took a large circle in the trot and worked on shortening and lengthening his stride - not by much, but enough to get him started thinking about lengthenings. My trainer explained that I should treat them like transitions, not gradual changes, and expect an immediate response from him. What that got me was quite a few lovely canter transitions, and several almost-halts, but hey, I can't blame him for trying to do what he thought I wanted! So this week I will be working on this more. My trainer said to expect similar results for the next few months, but we'll see ;)

So, homework:

• still working on my position! ("much better" this week but I'm not going to get complacent!)
• 1st & 2nd level movements (shoulder-in, leg-yield, and new! turn on the haunches) with an emphasis on good bending through his ribcage
• trot shortening (gathering energy) and lengthening (a few strides) and working on prompt responses - treating them like transitions
• working a little bit on collected walk-canter-collected walk transitions, always maintaining the lovely uphill canter that we know he can do (and LOVES to do) to build strength
  

I think this week I will also try to do one fun/cross-train day, like grooming, ground manners, & longing, or working over ground poles and crossrails or something, just so that he knows sometimes we can loosen up and not worry about all the hard work we've been doing in the ring. The weather will probably not cooperate enough to get us outside any time soon (like, in the next 4-5 months) so I'll try to find something we can do indoors. Not even snarky teenagers or mountains of manure can change the deep-down grateful feeling I get when I'm working with Henry. I really have been blessed!

Here comes the flood!

Yesterday the weather was quite warm, into the mid 50s I believe. This meant that I wouldn't have to deal with Henry's scooty-OMG it's cold attitude. Yay! However, there was also a great deal of precipitation yesterday. Hmm...

When I got to the barn there was a jumping lesson again. I heard the trainer talking to the boarder afterward and she's a lot younger than I thought! She's looking for high schools! It's hard to tell when some young riders are so dedicated, and so quiet, but I suppose I was like that when I was her age as well (only sans horse).

Henry made some faces at me as I was tacking up, probably because it was shortly after he had been fed and he wanted to keep eating his hay. Oh well. My limited schedule becomes your inconvenience, buddy! There was another boarder there whose horse is in the stall next to Henry and she too was tacking up, but got into the ring before me (I waited until the jumping lesson was over, so as not to get in the way of the HUGE WB careening around and hurdling over things.

As I was getting ready to get on, I noticed something shiny in the ring footing - turns out it was someone's pocketknife (thankfully closed)!!! Then I started to walk around on the buckle and hmmm... what's that noise? Above the din of the rain on the metal roof, I heard an engine. I looked out the end door and there was a tractor, lights on, idling in the mud. Apparently there would have been a deluge followed by a very muddy ring if not for the impromptu ditches being dug. Henry was a little wary of all these shenanigans but after a couple of laps around the ring he settled down quite a bit. The only thing left to deal with was my neighbor-boarder, who apparently thought it was quite alright to practically run into Henry on her way around the ring. Um, what? Good thing he's not a kicker!

I warmed up with some shoulder-in at the walk, as well as some small circles and halts. His trot work was pretty great, though halfway into my ride there was another lesson starting (2 riders) so I mainly stayed on a large 20(ish) meter circle at A. Thankfully the instructor of that lesson made a point of asking neighbor-boarder not to follow too closely, saving me the trouble. I tried to work on some canter-walk transitions when I had a clear path, which was a little difficult, but towards the end we were doing quite a bit better than last week.

I hate sitting at a desk all day, and I really need to get back to the gym, because my position is one of the most important things I need to work on. How can I expect Henry to work and be his best when I'm tipping forward or being inconsistent with my aids? I'm not being fair. It's just so tempting to sleep as late as I can in the morning, hit the barn right after work, and not even think about the gym, but the consequences are *ahem* starting to show. I'm REALLY not a morning person but I might have to try to muster the motivation to get up and work out BEFORE work, because there's really no other time in the day I have free, but winter weather makes it oh-so-nice to stay under all my blankets when I wake up...

These time (and motivtion) limitations will certainly be exacerbated next month, when I will be taking a class (or two) at the community college, working full-time, trying to move my horse up to 1st level & taking lessons, and teaching a lesson at the barn... the BO asked me if I would be interested in teaching a beginner level weekly night lesson - um, YES!?! I taught a few private lessons there before I left for college, usually small kids getting acclimated before joining a group lesson. The lesson I would be teaching next month would be a beginner-level group lesson of college students (they get a PE credit - how cool is that?) and would involve teaching grooming, tack, anatomy, safety, basic riding technique, position, etc; a lot of what I've done at summer camp in years past, only with people whose attention span is longer than 15 minutes. I'm excited to hone my skills and I am finding more and more how much I love meeting new people, so hooray!

I have my own lesson tonight, and I can't wait to find out what we'll be working on. I will be using my quarter sheet to warm up with (I am keeping it in my locker, under my saddle as I read on COTH that the wooden rack could damage the flocking) because it has suddenly gone from 55 yesterday to... 30 degrees out today. Blech.

No, my horse isn't that chubby... YET!

Source


First things first - Henry is getting spoiled. He moved from the far end of the barn to a stall that is across from the tack room door. When I got to the barn last night, there was a young girl stroking his neck through the grate while he was trying to eat dinner... obviously not very safe, so thank goodness he's a kind soul and not aggressive about eating. Then, as I was grooming him, a woman (I presume the mother of one of the students in a lesson that had just wrapped up) walked by his stall, told him he was a good boy, and dumped carrots in his feed bin.

This is a little disconcerting because I believe it is common courtesy to ASK before you pet or feed someone else's horse. Maybe I'm too uptight, but I might have to follow suit with a few of the other boarders and put up signs asking people not to feed my horse. Who knows what kind of crap people might feed him? I know people who feed treats are well-intentioned, and possibly don't know any better, but I really don't like the thought of my horse getting nippy, rude about treats, or overfed. I mentioned it to another boarder and she was shocked, pointing out that it's one thing if just one person does it, but if it's five people a day thinking "oh what a lovely horse, he deserves a treat!" there is a distinct possibility that Henry might pick up some of the aggressive habits some other horses have. I didn't say anything to the girl or to the woman, as I don't want them to think I'm just mean or that I don't want my horse to have pets and treats. He IS a good boy, after all. Maybe I'll put up a sign asking not to feed him because he's watching his figure...

However, most of the people at the barn are great! There is a holiday party coming up and always friendly faces around. It's so nice to feel like there is a barn community again, after several teeny tiny barns with hardly any people, or REALLY stuck-up people, or whatever. I realize there is never a drama-free barn, but so far, so good with this one (this time - there was TONS of drama when I rode here pre-college)... I've got my fingers crossed and I'm knocking on wood that things will stay nice here.

Reeeeeally looking forward to tomorrow...

Henry was a peach tonight. Despite the two other riders in the ring who couldn't be bothered to steer - or be polite about sharing the ring (one almost ran into me twice and then muttered something about "target practice"!!! - these are students, not boarders, but common courtesy at this barn is, as far as I know, to use the "short arena" space for lessons and leave at least a 20 meter circle at A for other riders... or at least pass left-to-left!) he really did try.

I was feeling a little sore and that wasn't helping, either; my shoulders got sloppy and I ended up not sitting as deeply as I should have...grrr. After a little trot warm-up, I went right in for some serious leg-yield practice. Inside track, quarter line, center line, you name it. There is SOMETHING I just don't get going to the right (that is, going left, but leg-yielding right). If I am too soft with the outside rein his shoulder pops out and he scoots over to the side. When I half-halt and take a stronger feel of the outside rein, he stops moving off my inside leg. Just goes straight ahead, and just scoots if I give him a nudge or a tap. He was also being a dork about bending left - especially at the spoooooky end door. It was a totally clear night, by the way. No rain, no snow, no horse-eating boogeymen waiting to jump out of the shadows (I don't think...). I must be doing something with my position that is too dramatic on that side, but I can't see or feel it. When I was younger, I know that I was always too strong in the right rein - maybe that's coming back, or maybe I'm overcompensating by being to weak? That nagging thought, coupled with the thoughtlessness of other riders, and a good helping of sore, tired muscles to boot (thanks, uterus!) made for a less happy than normal ride.

HOWEVER! The Syracuse men's basketball team is 7-0 after steamrolling Colgate (I usually end up driving around in circles to get it on the radio - no TV!), I have a lesson tomorrow night wherein hopefully my leg-yield issues will get sorted out, my horse is as cute as a button, even when he's drooling in my helmet (thinks there's cookies in there - they've got to be somewhere!), my board bill was cheaper than I thought it was going to be, and now I have a hot shower and Moby Dick to look forward to. It's things like this that make me happy to be alive :)