Lesson 7/25

July is steaming on and nearly over, and as usual, I have no time to write about anything. Bah! So many things have happened and I can't keep up with any of them. I'll just have to do my best, because as usual, I WANT to keep everything fully updated, but I just... don't... have.... time. Any time. My problem is that I get super behind on everything, start to write, realize how much I have to get down, and get discouraged and stop. That doesn't do anyone any good. I don't know what to do really. Maybe in August I should try to just write a blurb every single day even if it's nothing much? I'm not sure how to do this. Suggestions? I feel like I need to retrain myself to write again. I'm decidedly out of the habit.

I'll do my best though. Mostly, I want to make sure I get my lessons jotted down before I lose them in my mind. They're important, and I want to make sure they're down on paper before I forget them.

Also it's super hot

Tuesday was my latest lesson with Louisa, and as usual it was challenging and informative. I put Dylan back in the double recently, as I felt I was having some trouble in the canter with my changes. He is so powerful and anticipates his changes, so sometimes my halt halts take an exhausting amount of strength to get through. In the double, he is light and the aids can be crystal clear. As I learn more about riding in the double, I can become a lot more isolating in all four of my reins. 

We mostly did canterwork this lesson, which I needed. K and I recently realized that I just need one more score for All Breed Awards - which I stupidly did not sign up for yet - and that in order to not incur any more penalty money than I'm already going to have to pay, I need to get an August show in to try and secure my final Third level score. I mentioned this to Louisa and also that I might like to try 4-1 for the first time at the same show, just to see how it goes. It might be a terrible disaster but it might go ok. 4-1 has a line of three changes in a row, which are not technically tempis even though they kind of are. One on the quarterline, one on the centerline, one on the quarterline - with the same amount of strides between them if you can but not the end of life if you can't. It has no canter pirouettes, just a very collected canter on a 20m circle from quarterline to quarterline. Everything else is virtually the same at 3-3, just with a greater degree of everything required.

Louisa mentioned something to me that really stuck partway through the lesson. She told me "you have a horse that could knock everyone's socks off, so sit up there like a badass and own it." She's right... Dylan is an amazing horse. And pretending like I'm a badass even though I'm really not helps me to sit up there boldly and ride boldly. She explained to me that there are three phases of learning to ride. The first is learning to move with the horse - everyone starts out floppy and bouncing against the motion of the horse. The second is being able to ride without interfering with the horse - being able to go with the motion. The third is actively influencing the motion of the horse to improve it. I'm somewhere floating between these two states. Many years of riding green or sensitive horses has given me a really good ability to be sort of soft and supple, but it's very hard for me to be strong and hard while also staying soft and supple. When we were doing work with the changes, after several of them Dylan broke to the trot because I had dropped him right after the change. Louisa described it like being the mask on a sailing vessel. She said it's almost frustrating to him to feel like his mast - meaning me - is sort of swaying around up there, when what he really needs to be sharp and brilliant is for me to be strong and still. That made so much sense to me, as I know how much the balance of a sailing vessel is altered by something being top heavy or off kilter up high. Once I had these ideas in my head, everything got an awful lot better. I was able to really support him strongly and straight through every corner, and able to straighten him and execute clean and quiet changes. When he's not straight, or I'm not straight, the changes are garbage. He doesn't give any of them away freely - everything has to be perfect. When everything is not perfect, he crossfires at worst, and bounces really hard through them at best. When everything is perfect, you almost can't feel the changes. Louisa set out a cone, and made me work in counter canter through the short sides and then come across the diagonal and perform a change right at the cone. She also had me counter canter down the long side in shoulder fore (which meant to the rail), then straighten and perform the change. It's hard to get my head around the positioning sometimes, but once I get it - I get it, and it's great. 

By the end of the lesson we were both really tired, and the quality of the work goes rapidly downhill when he's tired. He wants so badly to do his work, so when he's worn out he starts to speed up and rush through everything since he can't quite hold himself in that amount of collection anymore. It was hot and humid out, and the humidity in particular seems to really affect him, so instead of pushing any more we decided to do some walk work to round out the lesson. Louisa handed me the Equicube again, which is exhausting but super effective for me. It really forces me to engage my abs and in particular the group of muscles below my shoulderblades. Louisa wants my lower back to stay as supple as it is, but I need my shoulders to be much stronger and straighter without being tense. The cube helps me because it's super clear immediately if I'm holding the cube with my core, or holding it with my arms. She even stuck a whip behind my elbows at some point, which also made a big difference for me. It's sorting out these small things that will help make big changes in Dylan - and old habits are HARD to break!

Also, not related, having a shiny white horse is so amazingly pretty...

But actually that's almost never the daily reality. Usually he looks like this:

Zorse?

Filth. He does have a collar on in this picture, he's not loose in my yard! I got him a broodmare collar to give him a break from the halter... we will see if we can catch him again....

Tiago Ernesto Clinic 7/8-7/9

Last weekend I headed back down to the Navasota/Brenham area to ride in an invitation-only clinic with Tiago Ernesto, the head trainer at Haras Dos Cavaleiros. If you're at all involved with Iberian horses or working equitation, you know Haras. The clinc itself was at Watts Way Arena, the last place I showed Dylan. The owners of Watts Way have fast become my friends and I was excited to have a chance to ride with someone as talented as Tiago. 

In July in Texas, it's HOT. This year has been especially weird because while temperatures have been slightly lower than usual - staying in the mid to upper 90s - the humidity has been outrageously high. I don't mind it being hot, but the humidity kills me. Remember this because it will come into play later.

Several of the people that were supposed to come to the clinic couldn't, as the original date has been scheduled for June and then later changed. (I originally couldn't go, but when they changed the dates I jumped on it!) There was also a lady who was supposed to bring a couple horses but then had the fuel pump in her truck go out, so all in all there were only about 5 or 6 riders a day. I was slated to ride late afternoon on Saturday, and then morning on Sunday, so that I could trailer in on Sat and then right back out again on Sunday without getting home to late. It's about a 4 hour trailer ride for me one way, if there is no traffic. 

It's hot. Yes that's sweat and dirt on Dylan's back!

I headed out by about 8:30am, only to run into I-35 being shut down not too far into my journey. Some other small bobbles and I arrived at about 1pm or so, with plenty of time to deposit Dylan in his stall, eat some pizza, and have a peach daiquiri. It was unbearably hot and humid in the arena - even though it's covered and the swamp coolers were running full steam, there was no wind at all that day, and therefore no breeze to stir the stifling hot air. The evening before, I had gotten a little heatsick while trying to clean out my trailer tackroom, and while I sat there in the arena sweating and watching the other riders, I started to feel like I was wilting. I drank and drank and drank all the water and Gatorade that I could force myself to down, knowing that my 4pm ride time was coming up. My friend J helped me tack up Dylan, and feeling like I had done all I could do to hydrate myself, I climbed on for my lesson.

What surprised me about Tiago is that he's a young guy. He can't be older than I am, if he's even that old at all. But he's an incredible rider and trainer. He watched Dylan and I warm up, whereupon I just trotted around posting for a bit and doing some stretchy canter to limber him up. For all that I'm excited that I can post again, I still don't seem to be able to do it all that well, and when Tiago came in the ring he told me right away that he thought I had an easier time in the canter than trot. He's not wrong, but I told him it's completely different when I sit versus when I trot, and I showed him that. He had that look on his face of "ah, yes, she's not lying." I told him one of the main problem I have is with changes - either they're fantastic or they're terrible, and there's not a lot of play inbetween. On the short diagonal, Dylan was starting to get flat and rushy into his changes, and I was too hot and tired to be able to keep that under control. So, we played with surprise changes in places he didn't expect them - down the quarterline, in the corners, random places around the arena, which really did help him. When he knows they're coming, he can get quite forward, and it's hard enough to keep him under control when I'm feeling great much less when I'm not.

We also played a bit with passage/piaffe, and whether Dylan knows how to do it. K said he has a bit of both started, and I've certainly sat on him when he was offering piaffe not on purpose, but this was the first time anyone has taken a stick and asked him from the ground to give it a try since I've had him. I'm not sure what Tiago was asking or how, but Dylan was not sure about it and didn't get a step of real piaffe. He did, however, offer something akin to passage and we went with that. I would trot along on the circle, then ask him to come up a bit more in front and almost feel like I'm sucking his back up higher through my thighs. It's a little bit hard to describe, but it came. As I understand it, having almost no experience whatever with it, every horse and rider has an individual way of doing piaffe or passage - installed a little differently, ridden a little differently. All lower level horses might be able to canter from the same cue, but not all upper level horses will learn passage from the same cue. Or something like that. Maybe? I don't know enough about it yet to say, but I hope to learn.

We also worked on bending him at the canter on a 20m circle - bending him to the left, bending him to the right, with no change of lead and no falling in or out. THAT was my undoing. I was already exhausted by this point but determined to carry on, and I don't really remember too much beyond this point because my head got all kinds of fuzzy. I just remember  when we finished, we had some good work, but Dylan was clear about the fact that he was stick-a-fork-in-it-done. He kept breaking to trot over and over, like he just couldn't hold it, and I probably looked like I was going to die myself. We both went to cool out, and both of us were panting exhausted. Dylan looked just as hot and miserable as I was - I stripped him of his tack straight away, and went right to the wash stall to start strip cooling him. Poor guy.... he skidded around in the wash stall three times like he was skating on ice, partly because the washstall was slippery and partly because I think he was just that tired. I felt like I was fully cooked to death, and I hosed myself off too. 

Back at the guest house, after thoroughly cooling Dylan down (although to be honest I don't remember much of what was going on, I think J moved my tack for me but I'm not sure), I flopped down onto the bed in the AC and closed my eyes for a few minutes. I slugged down as much Gatorade and water as I could handle, and eventually the room stopped spinning. A cool shower and some Ibuprofin (and more water) later, and I was feeling a bit more like myself. I checked on Dylan again, and he too was cool and eating and drinking. I felt good enough by that time to go out to Brenham with J and Tiago for some dinner and some ice cream. When we got back to the guest house, the other ladies staying there were all piling into their souped up ATV to go for a drunken midnight offroad adventure, which I of course decided to come along on. We were speeding through the night watching an approaching thunderstorm light the sky up with lightning, and I thought to myself, "I'm going to remember this night."

And apparently everyone in Brenham was also there that night

The next day I woke up fairly early, feeling much more like myself and glad to be riding early. My ride time was scheduled for 10am, which is much more reasonable. It seemed to be less humid too, which also helped. I asked J if we could set up some single slalom and double barrels in the ring, since I've had some trouble with both, and she agreed. Our warmup was a bit quieter than the day before, and Tiago again put us to work with some lead change work and some trot work, alternative between a fairly slow collected trot and some bouncier passage-ier trot.

I think instructors sometimes don't know what to do with us, because I generally come into a lesson going, "I'm having trouble with this thing." The instructor says okay, go do that thing and show me. So we go and do the thing, and it always goes fine, so the instructor then goes, "well... okay, but it's fine?" They also always tell me to go do a thing, and I go and do it, and it goes fine. Not to say that I'm any kind of great rider, but Dylan is a great horse who just does whatever you tell him to do. If I sit up and ride him well, it goes fine. If I ride like a sack of potatoes, it goes poorly of course, but if I can manage not to be too much of a weeble it's fine. Louisa always talks about how it's cool to teach us because she can tell us anything and we can just go out and do it for the most part, but that makes it hard for a new person to come in and teach. There just sort of aren't big huge problems. Or well, my big huge problems are hard to replicate because they usually only show up in competition. Tiago sent me off to work on the single slalom, only not the entire thing. We worked on doing the first pole, and then the last pole. And then adding in a pole, or just doing a single pole. He had me think about just pushing the horse over and changing leads versus doing big loops between the poles, as there isn't really enough room. He told me he thinks the single slalom is the toughest thing to do, and I agreed with him. But what he stressed to me made so much sense, and I just hadn't thought of it that way before - maybe you have to do it a certain way in competition, but in training there are no rules. If you want to do just one with a change, or two with a change, or a couple with changes here and there, you can! You don't have to do it one single way when you're training. You can do whatever you need to do in order to train the horse to change quietly and cleanly where he needs to. We applied the same thing to the double barrels - we made the circles as big as I needed to make them, and put the changes in where I needed to put them in to make them clean. Then we made the circles smaller, and the changes were still clean - so that fixed the issue and there wasn't anything to work on. He felt very strong to me and I didn't feel like I had good control and lightness with my canterwork, but Tiago said it looked just fine, so at least there was that. He's been a little strong in the canterwork in the snaffle, so I may put him back in the double on and off to help regain a little more lightness.


I also put J on him after our lesson was over - she trotted and cantered around on him and had a blast! He was a good boy for her, and she was all smiles. I sat on one of her Nokota horses the day before too, but just walked him, as he was just as sweaty and hot as Dylan was.

Yes, she wasn't minding her melon, but I was so that's what matters. 

It was a fun weekend, but slightly expensive. Worth it to get some good ideas through about training certain difficult obstacles. Changes are hard with Dylan as you need to sit perfectly in order to get them cleanly, and I only sit perfectly about 10% of the time. It's hard!

The heat was the biggest bummer of the weekend. I actually was so heatsick on Friday night that I locked my keys in my truck for the first time in my entire life, and didn't realize it until morning when I couldn't find them. I had to pay some guy a hundred smacks to come out on a Sunday morning and break into my truck for me. That sucked.

Dylan laughing at me

We were supposed to be at Haras this weekend for their Summer Festival show, which is a B-rated WE show. It was going to be really really hot, but J was going to be there, and she encouraged me to come. Unfortunately, due to the heat, the show was cancelled at the last minute. It was a real bummer, but I guess it's not too bad of a thing. It's SO hot, and it's only going to get hotter as we get into the thick of summer.

End of June Analysis; July Goals; Midway Year Goals

Like most people I know - probably everybody - I can't believe half a year has flown by already. It seems like it's going extra fast this year, and I've been going nonstop crazy busy for the entirety of it! I've had so little time to blog all year and lately I've really been missing it. Which is a good thing, really.... when you miss something you make an effort to come back to it. 

This year for the first time I'm also going to check in with my yearly goals, and see where we are on the checklist. Some of these goals will be altered, some added, some deleted, and some of them are of course already completed! So far the year has been really successful, albeit entirely too busy. 

One more thing I'd like to do this next month - interact more with other bloggers. I read a lot of blogs, and do a lot of "oh damn I meant to catch up on this person's stuff", but I rarely comment. I'd like to make that effort, because as a whole bloggers have always been a really supportive, really fun and really interesting group of people. It's good to stay in better touch with the community. Admittedly I'm terrible in real life about keeping up with people I know too, so maybe it's just a general problem that I have. I'm stupidly busy and it leaves me little time for socializing. 

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O-Ren June:

1) Continue being a good momma horse!
Success! She is a great momma horse. The best one I've had.

2) Try and successfully get bred, finally... we are almost out of time for this year. 
Well, we weren't successful here. I should have cultured her at the start of breeding season and for some reason I didn't, probably because of how easy it was to get her to catch last year with no culture needed. As a result, she had a minor uterine infection that needed to be cleared up. She's been back to the vet twice for treatments now, and should be in the clear - but now it's too late to breed. Texas is too hot and it's too hard on both neonates and broodies to have them late in the year. If they're not on the ground by early May, it's just too late in my opinion, unless you have a barn with stalls and a million fans (I do not). But, we'll put her back to work this year, toodle around and maybe do some shows, and then breed again in the spring. With a culture ahead of time, of course.

Cregga June:
1) Continue learning about leading, brushing, feet handling, bathing, and clipping!
Success! She's a great little babe. Kind of obnoxious with her mouth and not very fond of water, but she stands reasonably well for trimming, grooming, and flyspray. She also has had her mane clipped and did great, leads super well, and has been trailered several times now with mom to the vet. She still is weird about loading with the ramp - she always creeps to the side and jumps onto the trailer instead of walking up the ramp, I have no idea why though as she is happy to walk off the ramp! - but she gets on and rides well.

2) Send in registration papers
Success! She was also microchipped this month by the vet (which she was a pill about, but only for the tiny little needle with the local block). She no longer fits into the foal stocks at the vet (!!), so now she gets to go in the adult stocks. But anyway, the papers have been sent in and the microchip papers have been sent back - now we are just waiting for DNA paperwork to get here so we can pluck a few hairs. I also have to send some pictures of her to them, and maybe harass them some more about the DNA stuff which isn't here yet.



Dylan June:

1) More lessons! Both dressage and WE!
Success! The weather has been ridiculously uncooperative this month, with rain literally every weekend (in June... in Texas... wtf), but I was able to get in two lessons with Louisa and one with Tarrin. I'd like to take a lesson every other week with Louisa, and always am happy to get in with Tarrin ANY time she comes up this way, so this was a great month for me.

2) Continue working on pirouettes and 4-tempis - working towards 4th level!
We're getting there! Quarter pirouettes are no problem but I'm still learning about how to perfect the halves. 4-1 does not have any pirouettes in it, so if I don't get there quite yet that's not a big deal. 4-2 has quarter pirouettes, and 4-3 has half ones - it's actually a really cool progression in the tests. I'm confident in doing 5's, and sometimes I can bang out a couple 4's, but I'm really not solid in these yet because I get scrambled in my counting. Dylan also tends to get to the third change and wants to get fast and flat - not sure if this is him or me. I'm pretty confident I could go out and do 4-1 right now and not make a total embarrassment of myself. K reminded me a few days ago that he isn't nominated for All Breed Awards but he SHOULD be, and all I need is one more score at 3-3 to get nominated. The cut off date is Aug 1, but if you pay a late fee you can submit scores through the end of Aug (and Sept, but for even more $$). So, probably what I will do is do another dressage show at the end of Aug and do 3-3 and try 4-1!

3) Compete in the Decatur WE show!
Well we would have, and we were ready to go - but it was cancelled due to weather! Oh well. It was rescheduled for November so we'll just go then!

Pangea/Frank June:

1) Pony some babies - maybe! 
Frank ponied Pax once this month - and it went great. If the weather stays nice he'll keep dragging babies! Not P though... she's looking pretty rough this summer. We'll see what happens with her.

2) Frank especially - head out for more trails! If it's not too hot!
It's too hot! 

Pax/Uma June:

1) Grooming/trimming every 2 weeks 
Success! But that's a pretty easy goal to meet!

Zu June:

1) Go off property with Dylan for lessons
He hasn't been yet, but only because I pulled the divider out of my trailer due to having to take O and Cregga back and forth to the vet so many times. Dylan has been riding in the trailer without the divider and does fine, but I can't really take anyone with him until I put it back in. I'll make Future Hubs help me with that since it's a heavy and super annoying task.

2) Lunging with harness
Success! Mostly he's been going with a surcingle, but it's fine, because he lunges fine with either.

3) Wearing bridle
Success! Everybody likes that little thin mullen mouth I have. He still needs to wear it more until he's *really* used to it but he's doing super well.

4) Start back with long lining, small amounts, if lunging is going well
Haven't done this yet but honestly I think I need a handler to help me really connect the dots in his head, and unless I can talk Future Hubs into it, it may not happen just yet. 

Sriracha June:

1) Lunging - walk and trot
Success! And we did a bit of free jumping with her and Zoodle too, sort of.

2) Wearing bridle
Success! She too likes the little mullen mouth more than anything else.

3) Wearing harness

She's been wearing a surcingle but not a harness - because my mini harness is a moldy old partly broken piece of crap. 

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O-Ren July:

1) Continue being a good momma horse!
2) Get back to work.... start riding again! And driving again? Depending on the tiny brat child and how unhelpful she is... I don't need the kid climbing into my carriage. 

Cregga July:
1) Continue learning about leading, brushing, feet handling, bathing, and clipping!
2) Finalize registration papers - if the stuff ever gets here...
3) Learn a bit more about walking/trotting in hand and standing still, like she would need to do for a show


Dylan July:

1) Regular lessons and clinics! Both dressage and WE!

2) Continue working on pirouettes and 4-tempis as usual

3) Compete in the Haras summer show... as a prep for the actual Haras Cup!! 
4) Ride in a clinic with Tiago Ernesto!

Frank July:

1) Pony some babies - maybe! Trails if it's not too hot!

Pangea/Pax/Uma July:

1) Grooming/trimming every 2 weeks 

Zu July:

1) Go off property with Dylan for lessons
2) Lunging with harness
3) Wearing bridle

Sriracha July:

1) Lunging - walk and trot
2) Wearing bridle
3) Wearing harness

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~ 2017 Goals! Midway Year Review ~

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Dylan 2017 Goals:

1) Compete 3rd/4th level on Dylan (USDF)
- So far - have competed at 3rd and have qualified for SW Championships and Regionals as well as secured Bronze scores at 3rd!

2) Compete at Intermediate level in Working Equitation
- Intermediate B to be more precise - and have been very successful so far!

3) Compete at the Haras Cup
- This is in October and we're planning to be there!

4) MAYBE - IALHA Nationals
- Probably not, since Regional are literally wrapping up the day before Nationals starts... but I MAY take Cregga to Nationals instead!

5) MAYBE - Andalusian World Cup

- This one is going to be a definite no. With a brand new truck to pay for as well as alllll this other stuff going on.... too far and too expensive. Maybe next year! Or maybe in the future with Cregga.



REVISED MIDYEAR GOALS:

1) Compete 3rd/4th level (USDF)

2) Compete at Intermediate B level in Working Equitation

3) Compete at the Haras Cup
4) Attend Southwest Dressage Championships, and Region 9 Regionals
5) Compete in and complete 4 of the 5 Heart of Texas WE Series Shows

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O-Ren 2017 Goals:

1) Have a happy, healthy, bouncing baby!
- A huge success! What a nice baby too.

2) Consider whether or not we are breeding her back for a second time
- Well, we tried but did not succeed.... but we will plan on breeding her back next year.



REVISED MIDYEAR GOALS:
1) Have a happy, healthy, bouncing baby!
2) Put her back to work! Under saddle and in harness
3) Maybe show in a Games Day show? Or play around with some WE?

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Pax 2017 Goals:
1) Continue baby school - wearing a bridle, being ponied on the trails, etc.
- Pax is doing great, right where I want her to be for her age. She is ponying better than she ever has, which means come winter she'll be more than ready to go off property for ponies. She wears a bridle and has worn a saddle too.

2) Show in the FEH at Meadowcreek (and maybe some other small in-hand shows for fun?)
- Success! She also showed in the Texas Rose FEH and was 2nd (out of two... but whatever.) She was dead last at Meadowcreek but I knew she would be... she's not exactly Rolex quality. What was more important was getting her off property by herself and having to do something. It did really make a difference for her!

3) Keep growing up and being a horse! 
- Success! And she'll keep on doing just that until next year.



REVISED MIDYEAR GOALS:
1) Continue baby school - wearing a bridle, being ponied on the trails, etc.
2) Show in the FEH at Meadowcreek (and maybe some other small in-hand shows for fun?)
3) Keep growing up and being a horse! 

Pax has met all of her yearly goals!


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P 2017 Goals:

1) Go on some trail rides! 
- She's been on two and that's the end of that. She's sort of dwindling towards the afterlife at the moment so I don't expect I'll be back on her ever again, save for maybe one more ride before she leaves the planet, whenever that is. She's not doing so great as we come to the midway point of the year... so we'll just see.

2) Continue being the resident baby-dragger
- Frank is the resident baby-dragger now!



REVISED MIDYEAR GOALS:
1) Hang in there until she's not ready to hang in there any more.


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Lendri 2017 Goals:

1) Continue trying to make her a driving moole!
- Even though I hitched Lendri a few times, I had that bad gut feeling that it was not a good idea and that I shouldn't do it any more. So... I stopped. And in March Lendri went to a client's house to keep her foundered horse company! It was a great thing - she and the horse love each other, and the people love her, and I get to see her every 3 weeks and keep an eye on her. It couldn't have been a better arrangement. They renamed her Clementina and they're in love with her.



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Zoodle 2017 Goals:

1) Continue to solidify lunging
- Goal in progress. He continues to get better and better at this!

2) Teach long lining and long line all over the place!
- Haven't done this yet... but I need to!

3) Take him off property for lots of exposure and despooking!
- Still haven't done this yet... but again, I need to!

4) Later in the year - learn about drag shafts and dragging small objects
- Need to get goals 2-3 better accomplished first!



REVISED MIDYEAR GOALS:
1) Continue to solidify lunging
2) Teach long lining and long line all over the place!
3) Take him off property for lots of exposure and despooking!
4) Later in the year - learn about drag shafts and dragging small objects


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Sriracha 2017 Goals:

1) Continue regular handling as usual
- Success - but she always needs more. The more time I put into her the better she is.

2) Continue learning to lunge
- Success! And she is still learning!

3) Teach to long line
- Not yet.., and I think she will be a little while before she ever does. Lunging to her sometimes still means "running away from the person in the middle, in a circle."

4) Maybe later in the year - learn about drag shafts and dragging small objects
- We will see how far we get with this one! She's a tough little booger and she lives up to her name for sure!



REVISED MIDYEAR GOALS:
1) Continue regular handling as usual
2) Continue learning to lunge
3) Teach to long line
4) Maybe later in the year - learn about drag shafts and dragging small objects


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Uma 2017 Goals:
1) Continue growing up and being a moole!
- Uma is Pax's age so she has a lot of growing up left to do before we decide if she's big enough to drive or not!

2) Continue regular handling - and later in the year, start introducing simple concepts of lunging and wearing harness
- Haven't done this yet but I think she will handle it pretty well! She does wear boots and that's just fine.


REVISED MIDYEAR GOALS:
1) Continue growing up and being a moole!
2) Continue regular handling - and later in the year, start introducing simple concepts of lunging and wearing harness


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Big Frank 2017 Goals:

1) Go on some trail rides!
- Haven't trailered him anywhere but he's been ridden all over the neighborhood and is great! He doesn't love being ridden alone but he's happy to go with a baby in tow.

2) Teach him to pony? 
- Now he ponies like a champ! He's great at it because he's so big he can just plod along and drag them as he needs to.


REVISED MIDYEAR GOALS:
1) Go on some off property trail rides! With babies in tow!


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What I wrote in January at the end of the post:

"I think it's going to be a good one. My biggest focus this year is going to of course be Dylan, but I also want to prep and show Pax in the FEH (and maybe some schooling shows in hand?), and I want to make sure Zoodle gets the exposure he needs. I have a lot of hopes for show season, we're getting married this year (finally after being engaged for like four years), I hope to buy a new truck this year, and of course O's foal is coming. There are other things too which are just as exciting but less relevant to the blog. I'm not quite sure which direction our country is heading in at the moment, but I fully intend on making the best of it either way."


This has largely held up to all be true. Dylan has been and continues to be my main focus - the mules have gotten less work than I expected because I've been too busy focusing on Dylan, but that's all right. Pax has competed in two FEH classes and not killed anybody. Zoodle should be starting to travel off property within short order. The wedding planning is well underway but of course not anywhere near done!! I did buy a new truck and I love it, although the truck payment sucks and it did take a big dent out of my show fund. O's foal is of course here and every bit at awesome as I had hoped.




So far, a pretty successful and awesome year, I'd say. Here's to the next 6 months! This is when it's going to get REEEEEALLY crazy!

Riding Riding Riding

It seems so weird and exciting to say this, but I've been riding a LOT lately, and not just on Dylan. I have been riding him of course, obviously, but I also have been riding Frank,and the other day I had a wild hair and decided to saddle up O herself and see what happened. Yes, O!

Dylan is a good boy

I've been feeling really physically good lately, like my leg is mostly functional and mostly pain free. I know this sounds completely stupid, but I've been able to post lately... post! Posting is a big deal. I haven't been able to post at all in maybe 3 YEARS because it would leave me completely crippled. When you can post, you can deal with greener horses. I could get around it before with Dylan because I could warmup in walk and canter, and then move to sit the trot, but it's only because he's advanced enough for that. (Now that I can post though, our warmups are so much better because I can really get him stretching and loose.) But I've been sort of thinking about O and wanting to get her back into a bit of work without the risk of having a baby jumping into a carriage with us - and maybe wanting to try some WE with her too. I've thought about it in the past and she might not handle it well, but Intro level is pretty simple walk and trot stuff. Maybe we could give it a try!

O has not been ridden in nearly 3 years though, save for one or two hacks here and there. She was actively driving up until June last year, but hasn't been in work at all since then. Dylan and Cregga FREAKED when I pulled her out, and she did wiggle and scream for them some, but she also ate from her haybag and stood to be groomed and tacked. I picked the trusty ol' bloo bit for her, took her back out to the field, and hopped on. 

And she was perfect. I feel like my defensive habit of getting stuck in chair seat with my lower leg pushed forward has been steadily evaporating, and she was happy to let me put my leg on her. She's so NARROW compared to Dylan... like riding a wobbly broomstick versus a thick sturdy sequoia. Riding him has made me so very aware of every little movement. 

I think it's time to put her back to work. 

Cregga not happy that mom was out and about... here she is about to run into the water trough

Y U TAKE AWAY MAM

I've also been back on Frank after a hiatus off of him. I hadn't ridden him all last month just because I've been too busy, and it's been raining constantly. I hopped on him the other day and took Pax for a drag around - the first time I had done something with her since her last show in April.

GOOGLE EYES

Despite what that last picture suggest, she was amazing. She was still very jiggy and hot and spooky the last time I took her out, but her two in hand shows really seem to have made an impression on her. She was completely cool and calm. And since she felt so collected and Frank felt so good, I think it's entirely possible that when the weather cooperates they'll be more than ready to go on off property trails together. 

And last but certainly not least, Dylan has been going great under saddle. Here's a clip from our latest lesson with Louisa - the exercise we were doing was renvers to a 10m circle to shoulder in down the long side, then medium across the diagonal, to really activate the hind end. As you can see it pretty clearly worked!

When he's not in lessons, he goes for hacks...

That mane.... :/

And rides at WD of course.

Tiiiiiired

He's going great. I'm feeling better and better, and starting to ride less like a weeble and more like a proper person again. It takes so much time and effort, but I am getting there. I am getting there!

Since I decided I should give WE a try with O, I decided I should also break Dylan to drive. What do you think?