Explanations and Other Things

Blogging is a wonderful, magical, excellent, and sometimes completely miserably terrible thing to do with one's time. It's very akin to having your own cheering squad and your own execution firing squad all at the same time. I learned long ago when blogging about Gogo that there just are some things you *don't* talk about when blogging. I, for one, will never open my mouth about OTTBs again - I was so thoroughly berated for my views on them that I decided the topic was 100% taboo.  Another topic is breeding. Inevitably, when you talk about breeding, you will get scores of people who are all too happy to tell you what a piece of crap your mare/stallion are, what an irresponsible choice you are making, and what a terrible person you are. Likewise, I also just found out that if you take the resulting baby following such a breeding, and you consider changing your mind and listing it for sale, you will get attacked by that same faction of people.

I did list Pax for sale, tentatively. She has two ads up, neither of which are paid for ads, neither of which are aggressively marketed ads, and neither of which have gotten a single hit. I don't know if I want to sell her, really, but maybe I do. I will explain all my reasons in a minute, but I will also explain what happened when the word got out that I had put her up.

It started out as a well-meaning comment. Someone was curious to know if I had listed her myself or if someone else had stolen her information and listed her without my permission, because they had found the ad and didn't think I had planned on selling her. Unfortunately what happened when people saw that comment was a huge email explosion - people left and right flooding my inbox, telling me I was irresponsible, that I didn't care about my horses, that I was a greedy money-loving hog who was just here to make a buck, that I was a trashy backyard breeder, that my horses were garbage that nobody sane would buy, that I should be ashamed of myself. I'm sorry if I got defensive about it - I was really taken aback, and hurt too. It's literally exactly the same responses (and the same people) as I had berated me before for wanting to breed Gogo back in the day - they are the reason I didn't blog about planning to breed P, and why I probably won't blog much about planning to breed anything in the future if I decide to do so. I know that their from-behind-a-computer-screen opinion doesn't actually affect me in the real world, because they're not the ones here making these decisions, but still. I'm kind of a softie and I don't like getting jumped on for something I had no intention of talking about in the first place.

And yes, I am considering selling Pax, maybe. Did I originally intend to keep her? Of course. Am I still probably going to keep her? Of course. I'm not actively marketing her, and I'm not looking to get rid of her by any means. But, if the right person comes along and says they want her, I will agree to that. Here's why:

I bred her specifically because I wanted a fancy, flashy moving, upright-built dressage-type baby. That's always what I had in mind for her. I spent two years picking a stallion that I thought would stamp her well enough to deliver that. And I did get a beautiful, well put together baby.... who moves like the flattest kneed hunter you ever saw. She screams hunter. I am hoping she gets a bit freer in her shoulder as she gets older, but she may not. As such, perhaps her talents are in that field, and that is not something I am interested in. My hopes if I keep her are to still pair her with O so I can use them as a team together, but she will have to match O's size and movement if that is the case. 

I also may breed P once or twice more before she is fully retired. Dylan is actually the stallion I was going to breed her to before I picked DDM, because I thought he would improve her movement the most - now I have breeding rights on him should I choose to use them. I also am still very strongly considering breeding her to Lasting Impression, who is Gogo's full brother. He is still sound and going in his 20's, and was a GP horse. THAT baby would be the keeper. Absolutely no doubt in my mind. 

I don't take bringing new lives into this world lightly, so I gave P this year off for sure to just rest and work on feeding Pax, while I consider all my options. I'm not here to breed crap and garbage and I'm not here to make money from this. I want to weigh all my options carefully. I want to produce only nice, sound, sane things that can go on to good lengthy careers, either with myself or someone else who loves them just as much as I do. That's all I'm trying to do here. 

So, yeah. Basically that's the story. Please stop sending me emails telling me that I need to kill myself because of what a crappy person I am. 

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Anyway. Back to what we've been up to. 

I set up a schedule for Dylan's October workouts - it's nothing insane at this point, it's mostly just for my benefit so I can strengthen up and be a good solid rider for him. I renewed my membership to WD and plan on trailering him over there 2x a week. I also will hack him here at home 2x a week. Every ride I get a little stronger and it feels so good. My bad ankle/calf is holding up well and my hips are fine. I don't think I will ever regain full flexibility of that leg though... I can't force it to happen any more because there is just a limited length that it stretches. I'll keep working at it, and working at it. But I may have to accept that I might not be able to ever cram it into short stirrups again.

Dylan lunged last Thursday, went for a hack last Friday, trailered to WD on Saturday, and then had his teeth done on Sunday (and had yesterday off because of that). He went out totally alone for his hack - this was a first, and I wasn't sure how it would go. I was prepared for him to be a noodle head, seeing as he was a noodle head the last time B and I rode them out through the neighborhood, but actually he was wonderful. He gets his giant washing-machine walk going, where you feel a bit like your stomach is going to be sloshed right out of your body, but I think complaining about a forward walk is just not something you should ever do. I rode him in the LG too, which is going to be great for trail rides. 

Wild Stallion of the North

I'm also *hoping* I can grow more mane on him than this. It's a bit pathetic! If I'm going to have a hairy horse, then damnit he better be a HAIRY horse.

On Saturday, we went to WD for the first time. I don't have any pictures of that unfortunately, seeing as there were a bunch of people XC schooling and I had a very hot and screaming stallion to deal with. I think this is just kind of the way he is - the first time he goes out somewhere, he has to be all manly and screamy and prancy, and then once he has been there he chills out. He yelled and screamed for all he was worth, but aside from a few dancing prances he was otherwise really very well behaved. He stood tied at the trailer (mostly still), rode quietly (and very well!), and then stood to be hosed off at the end. Every ride gets a little bit better with him - I think I am just sitting straighter and stronger. We weren't doing anything fancy by any means, but had some nice trotwork, a few good mediums, and some flying changes tossed in here and there. When he gets bothered or confused, he gets a sideways piaffe thing going, and he has almost none of that going on that day. Although he did get really hot and bothered by the mirror and tried to inch over there every time we passed it..... ah well.

Sunday the dentist came. She is the one who did P and O last year, and I was really happy with her work. She flies in from up north a few times a year to do the rounds in Texas, so we made sure to get on her list. Both P and O had minor work done - compared to P's MAJOR work done last year. O was a little bit crooked and off, which didn't surprise me - she bends super well one way but not the other. Dylan's incisors were WAY super long, which was taking his molars out of occlusion and giving him very limited lateral movement in his jaw. I figured this would be what we would find, and it was. 

Checking those long snaggletoofs

Following this, O, who is hyperemotional at best, decided that something changed in her life, so she was going to die. I actually posted this status on Facebook the following morning:

"Sorry to my entire neighborhood who had to listen to the operetta happening at my house all night... O is too hyperemotional to eat after she gets worked on in any way (this time, teeth), so all night she kept wandering away up the hill looking for wolves to pick her off because she is convinced she is dying. Which sets Dylan into a total galloping screaming frenzy because she is the only mare he could ever love on this whole planet and she must be convinced of his love so she will come back and not kill herself. 

I know I for one *loved* listening to that all night long..."

When I went out to feed them that morning, O was lying flat out next to Pax, rolling her eyes up at me in despair, playing a Sarah McLachlan album, asking me to read her will and testament. She was *sure* that she was going to die.

Luckily, the second the haybags got filled, she jumped to her feed and started gobbling, all traumas of the previous night forgotten. Mares....

The Shine, An Update

I'm happy to say that my total panic over lack of shine in my horses seems to be a little bit unfounded.

For example, Pmare:

Yeah... that's pretty close to a mirror finish, and she's filthy too.

And while I don't think O looks as good as she should, she's still, you know... not half bad, really. But, she looks completely rough compared to how she *should* be looking. Or maybe I just have really high standards.

 

"Ugh, stop taking pictures, time for food now."

I think I have an idea of what exactly is going on. Apparently, mine is not the only one this is happening to - horses all over Texas are all struggling to produce a nice slick summer coat. They are all hanging onto their ratty old winter hair, and it is making them all look like garbage.We had THE strangest weather this year, complete with completely random freezes all the way into mid-May (after lots of 90 degree days in a row, it was quite shocking).

Luckily for me, this week O has gone through some pretty rapid coat changes. Her yucky, ratty old coat suddenly started standing up at attention, which looked REALLY horrible, and then she started in with a new round of shedding. She is suddenly WAY darker than she was before, which is great. Under the yucky old stuff, there is a whole lot of extremely slick new stuff. 

We'll still be doing a fecal and adding alfalfa, but I'm more confident now that this is not a belly/nutrition issue. With a vicious assault with my curry, I seem to have loosened a lot of the old hair, and hopefully it will be gone within short order.

I've been crazy busy all week, but inbetween giant rainstorms and a million clients, I had time to sneak in a nice hour long hack down the road, and two lunge days. There are days when I'd really *like* to ride, but I need to be at XYZ farm and not have disgusting helmet hair, so on those days I opt for a lunge or day off instead. I try not to do *too* much lunging, but sometimes that's just what we gotta do!

As per plan, I tried out hacking in just a halter/Indian bosal, and it went very well. She was uppity to start - this was coming fresh off our extreme WWE Smackdown fight, so I wasn't really surprised - but she settled down shortly.

Pardon the encrusted mud and half-asleep mare. I think she got some mud/dirt in her eyes, they were a bit puffy that day.

We had an exceptionally good lunge today. Our last lunge was a bit productive in the fact that I got irritated with her ignoring of my commands, and instead of letting her fizzle it out, I got after her about it and insisted that she listen. She must have gotten the message, because today she was quiet, responsive, listened to her voice commands, and barely broke a sweat. Good girls only have to do short workouts, which is something I always try to make a point of ("hey you were really good, you're awesome! now we're done!"), so we only lunged for about 15 minutes. both directions included. That's a pretty far cry from two lunges ago, when she cantered for 45 minutes in one direction before she finally decided to play the game. Good girl.

And gahhh is she not gorgeous? 

Tre-il Ride

Tre has been doing really, really well under saddle - she is starting to understand the idea of forward and taking a contract, and she is also starting to ride out away from the barn. Therefore, it was high time to take our first trail ride!

You guys know me - I try to make my horses broke, broke, broke. I want them to go anywhere and do anything, and I want them to be able to physically and mentally take it all in stride. I want them to be confident and careful about their footing. I want them exposed to EVERYTHING, and I want them to learn that they never have to be scared so long as I'm with them. I did the same thing with O, and now she rides anywhere on a long rein at any speed no matter what is going on. I wasn't sure how Tre was going to handle her first ride out, but it was time to give it a go! We opted to go ride out in the big cow pasture instead of down the road, which is a nice place to start them out. (Obstacles to deal with on road: cars, emus, donkeys, running dogs, mailboxes... a lot of things. Obstacles to deal with in the cow pasture: cows, water, scary looking debris... also if she were to freak out and dump me, she wouldn't be loose out on the road!!)

She really surprised me with how bold she was. O is more of a tag-along model - she likes to tailgate the other horses and follow behind the others, she is not really interested in leading. If she is by herself, she's the same (although it took a long time for her to be that way). For as speedy as she is at the trot and canter, she has a pretty slow walk, and usually the other horses outpace her anyway. Tre, on the other hand, totally surprised me by being the immediate leader, barging in front of S's mare and walking along at about 9000 miles an hour with her ears pricked. S's mare is a real hothead, and she couldn't even keep up. She broke to the trot several times - she wanted to go! Despite that, she took all of her half-halts REALLY well, and was easy to maneuver and turn.  

Her old owners told me she had been on a trail ride once, and that the only thing she really didn't like was he water (apparently they had to back her in). There are a LOT of water crossings and puddles out in the pasture, which is good practice! At the first little puddle, she followed S's mare right across. S's mare actually skirted around one side, but Tre just stomped right in! At the next puddle - a BIG LONG puddle - she looked down, paused for a second, and then plowed in. Halfway through, she quit following S's mare and turned of her own accord so that she could stay in the water! She had fun splashing around for a few minutes, and then she started to do that leg-buckling-I'm-about-to-lay-down thing, so we exited with haste. The final water crossing she encountered was pretty scary, complete with muck and moving water. S's mare went first, and with some hesitation, Tre bounded across too. O doesn't like that water either, I can't blame either of them!

There are large piles of debris around the old cow shed, and we decided to go check the stuff out (there are many things to make jumps with over there!). Tre wasn't afraid of any of it, but wanted to check it ALL out. She was more than happy to walk back and forth over a giant white plastic pipe (looked a bit like a huge PVC pole), and didn't care about all of the debris around. She is a little too bold for her own good - she walks TOWARDS anything that she isn't sure about! There were even several huge tractor tires piled up next to the trail that she gave a wary eye to, but then decided that she better go check them out. She stepped right up to them, clonked both fronts on them (and didn't care about the noise), and stuck her nose right into the center of one of them!

The last test was the group of cows. The cows see us all the time so they don't care about us, but of course Tre hadn't seen them before. She wasn't completely sure what to think of them, but true to her form she went marching boldly up to them - I had to actually stop her so she wouldn't get too close too fast! She didn't like when they were behind her and walking towards her very much, but she'll get used to that. SERIOUSLY impressed... some horses totally melt down when they see a cow. I suppose she is a QH after all...!

Can't tell you how impressed I am. She led the way, walked boldly up to all the scary things, and kept her cool the whole time. Not bad!!!!

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Both ladies had really great lunges today too. O is back to work, not because her legs are no longer swollen, but because I was getting tired of her sassy crap. She is sound and she is SASSY - her bumps will continue to go away with time, but somebody was going to get creamed if she didn't get back to work. She always comes to me in the pasture, but apparently she won't let S catch her anymore, and the other day when S got her into a corner to bring her in for breakfast, she fired off a couple of double barrels directly at her. NOT okay! She's never done that before - I really didn't think she had it in her, and I'm surprised she did it. Either way, she needed some work before things got any more out of hand. 

When working on the lunge, Tre and O could NOT be more opposite. Tre likes to give her best little low-headed trit-trot and slow pokey canter. You have to really engage and push her up into a proper working gait, and it takes reminders to keep her going forward, especially in the trot. O is her polar opposite - her working gaits are WAY too fast and forward, and she likes to go in a very high-headed, totally inverted way, with her front legs running out in front of her and her hinds flying out the back. I did the same exercises with them both today, but used them for completely different reasons, and had great results with both. 

The exercise just involved the Faux-ssoa and three trot poles. I feel like I lunge these two quite a lot.... I'm normally not a lunger and not a gadget person, but I really like the results I've been getting. I won't use the Faux-ssoa on them forever and I certainly will totally cut out the lunging when they are ready, but it is doing great things for them both right now. 

The three trot poles were spaced so that Tre had to stretch to make them, and O had to compress to make them. Same distance for both, their length of strides is just that different in the trot - and it is totally opposite in the canter, since Tre covers twice the ground that O does in the canter. 

For Tre, we warmed up, and then started trotting over the trot poles. We then did lots of quick transitions, trotting over the poles and then up into the canter, and down into the trot right before the poles came up on the circle, then back up into the canter right after the poles. It really engaged her hind end and stretched her back out, and she really had a great trot going by the end, complete with super soft slobbery mouth. (I lunge them both in a Happy Mouth mullen mouth and just a headstall, no cavesson.) 

For O, I let her roll for a few minutes before getting to work (she was SO FRESH), and then we started doing trot poles. We did LOTS of trot poles before we even thought about the canter. I actually think doing quiet cantering in the lunging system is really going to help her canter under saddle out a lot, since it will help her figure out how to balance herself better and not get so dirt-bikey. The canter started out rushy at first, but what I did was canter for a minute, then go back down to trot and put her right back over the trot poles. When she comes down from the canter, her tendency is to just run as fast as she can out of control in the trot - she has speed in her head after the canter and that's what she wants to do! When she came down out of the canter and had to go right to the stride-regulating trot poles, she had to really adjust herself. It worked really well, and by the end, she too had a super slobber goober mouth!

We started with this...

Hollow back, running, compressed neck, no contact, ticked off.... not good.

Then we did some of this...

Top picture was early in the session, bottom picture was later, as you can tell by the sweat... you can see how she was really starting to use her body as time went on.

Then she offered up some of this on her own....

Stretch that back woman!

And we ended with something more like this:

Loose and swinging, relaxed through her back, taking a contact, much happier, much better rhythm/balance/cadence/speed/everything. 

And a nice goobery mouth to finish on, which she doesn't always have!

She says "phew that was hard." SO glad I clipped her, look at her sweating! 

Catch-Up Post, Part II (Or, Adrift in the Estrogen Ocean)

Continuing with our catch-up!!

Wednesday: 

On Wednesday, I trailered over to WD for some jumpy jump time!! I hadn't jumped her since our last schooling at Greenwood a few weeks ago, so I was definitely excited to get back to it. I set up a varied assortment of little crossrails and verticals, a one stride line, and a three stride line, just in case we decided to go for just a little bit more. 

Our little playground:

Everything except that one jump with the filler in it that has fallen over - it was just a little bit too big for her. Not included was a Pepto-bismol pink vertical off-screen... I wasn't sure how she would take it, since it has Bloks as filler and it was BRIGHT pink. I guess you just have to sit up and find out, right?

She was GREAT. Hot, a little bargy, but great. She did everything, and did it consecutively as well, even the lines and the one-stride! The one-stride I set a little too long for her considering the small size of the jumps (guess I'm still used to setting them for Gogo's gigantic stride), but she managed very well and stretched out to handle it just fine. She even cantered a few crossrails! She is NOT ready for cantering fences regularly - that whole pesky occasional no brakes thing, you know - but it is good to get her going in a rhythm and maintain it properly. Her biggest issue is that she relies on speed when she gets out of balance, and the faster she goes, the more off balance she gets. She is slowly learning how to quietly stay balanced and use her little engine to propel herself forward instead of fall on her forehand and bear down on the bit as she snowballs forward faster and faster.... it just takes time. 

We went and played in the water after she was done.... she LOVES going through the water and practically drags me in every time! That particular eventer prerequisite: check. ;)

Thursday:

Thursday was supposed to be the barrel race that S and I were going to go to (not to run, just to school there while S ran), but I managed the afternoon before to get ahold of trusty Dr. H, who told me to swing by in the late afternoon with O on Thurs instread. O had literally just finished her cycle, so we figured it was a good time to scan her and see what exactly was going on in there. We gave her some light sedation, and Dr. H got out the ultrasound machine. What we found surprised us - both ovaries are grapefruit sized (that's huge!!) and both are LOADED with tons of huge follicles! Basically what this means is that she is more or less one big walking estrogen cesspool, and even though she's not currently in heat, that amount of circulating estrogen definitely affects her (hmmm I wonder why she's always a little herdbound?). The plan for this month is to give her a shot or two of Altenogest (progesterone) to keep her tempered down through this month's shows, and then when she comes back into full-on raging heat, we'll try to either supplement her with oxytocin  (which, instead of suppressing estrus with progesterone, will help prolong the life of her CL after she ovulates and keep it producing it's own progesterone - basically her body will temporarily think it is pregnant), or induce an anovulatory follicle, which will delay a return to estrus. Both of these things are cheap and work with the mare's system instead of against it (like Regumate or Altenogest both do), so they're worth a try. Dr. H, you think of everything! 

Sure does explain a lot of her wacky behavior, doesn't it? I dunno about you, but I know I am a raging you-know-what when I get hormonal... kind of can't blame her there!

Friday:

It was blazing hot on Friday - 107 without the heat index by the time I was done working - so I decided to call it an early afternoon and go on a date with Future Hubs instead of ride. O got her usual grooming and pampering session, but that was all I was physically up for. We've been battling an itchy tail and mane lately (and itchy everything, honestly.... so many bugs, so much sweat!), and up until this point Listerine has been working well. It seems to have stopped though, and she was back to itching as of yesterday, so I put some MTG on instead. The MTG hadn't been working before, but it seems to help... but she was back to itching today. Half her tail is gone, I am pulling my hair out! We've tried everything else: bug sprays, feed throughs, every oil and itchy product I have in my current arsenal, washing under her tail and udders, and she is up to date on deworming with a negative fecal.... ugh! I think it is time to try the high acclaimed Zephyr's Garden Stop The Itch spray.... I LOVE LOVE LOVE their thrush spray, so I am willing to bet that the itchy spray helps as well. 

Saturday:

Today was supposed to be a nice hack day, but of course, O had some other ideas partway through our ride! We walked out for about an hour down the road, and then trotted all the way back, and she was fantastic save for being a little too forward and a bit disconnected at times. When we got back, I kept trotting around in the big mowed field, and O's boyfriend also went trotting past her. She WIGGED when she went across the field... ooookay, so much for finishing on a quiet note. After riding her down for another half-hour (and I had places to be, so I was on a limited schedule!), I got her to a point where I was pretty happy with her balance and willingness. She is slowly figuring out how to balance better from front to back, and to release her back and stretch her nose out to find the contact instead of curl up behind it and run. I have a little quickie slow-motion video of it - when slowed down, you can clearly see when she curls up a little and when she stretches out and takes her contact back. Note the change in her expression as well, from a bit surly to ears pricked as she goes back and forth!

Now, if I could get her to look like that ALL the time, and in all three gaits, we'd be golden!

Craniosacral Therapy!

I am a firm believer in preventative therapies before rehabilitative therapies. Body work, massage, chiro, craniosacral work, acupuncture or pressure, aquatherapy, and all manner of other therapies are all ones I stand behind in order to keep an athlete in top shape as well as halt or heal issues before they become real problems. I had some really good luck with craniosacral work for Immy, and decided O would benefit from some as well when I was poking around her SI area the other week - one side of her pelvis is very slightly higher than the other, despite there being no asymmetry in her movement, and I wanted to have it looked at by someone who specializes in that particular area. 

As predicted, O was kind of all wrapped up in knots, although there was nothing extremely serious to be worried about. She does have some minor TMJ issues - the next time the proper dentist comes around, the really good one, we'll use her instead. She also has that slight asymmetry in her pelvis, which might have been from some sort of old trauma. She does have some very exciting scars on her hind legs - maybe she got caught up in a fence somewhere and yoinked herself around. Either way, it's not anticipated to be a problem.... hell, if yours truly wasn't such a neurotic sharp-eyed groom it probably would have never been noticed by anybody. 

Most noticeable to me is the release through her neck, as well as her improved stance behind. I know it's a little bit hard to tell, since her head is turned in the first shot, but I can tell the difference. After the appointment, I also gave her a light trim, which included knocking back her toes a bit - it was high time to do it. She wandered away from her appointment looking a bit loosey-goosey in her back end - like she had suddenly become aware of the fact that she had a butt after all! I have some stretches and massages to do, and I'm excited to see if she feels any looser or better under saddle. 

Just as a comparison, here's one of her old photos I found from a few years ago, and her cranio photo: 

First photo was from before she got messed up by the trail rider, so I figure that's a good sign - standing more like her 'old' self, I suppose!

Before our appointment on Monday, we also went for a conditioning hack:

Faithful Monster Dog, always leading the way. 

I shortened up our conditioning hacks to just be an hour's worth of walking up and down the street, and instead of adding incremental walk and trot time I think we'll just stick to an hour's worth of walking for now. That said, I kind of want to do some LD endurance rides with her at some point... so I might consider taking some time out to figure out a way to use our conditioning hack days as something to gear towards that. (And maybe use our gallop days to do more patterning on the barrels..... there's so many things I want to do with this mare! She'd be fun to break to drive too, but I think we'll save that for when she's a little more broke... can you just see us in a cart park trotting past your house, me hanging on for dear life and waving hello? Nice to see you today, we're just on our way to match against the Standardbreds, love to chat longer but I have no brakes!!)

She had two days off and a light lunge following her therapy. I saw no difference in her movement, but maybe we I get back on her tonight I'll feel something different. I hope to get up to WD, but it might be too late in the day to try.... either way, a hack or flatwork ride is in store!

Welcome To Kindergarten

If there is one lesson to be learned in training and retraining horses, it is this: a horse cannot be expected to be able to form words and phrases without knowing all the letters of the alphabet first. 

What is the alphabet? It starts out simple. A horse must learn to carry a rider, stop, go, and turn. The horse learns about the inside leg, the outside leg, the weight of the seat, the contact, and going forward in a quiet and steady rhythm. The horse learns about half-halts, learns about adjusting his stride, learns about bending, learns about stretching, learns about compressing. The horse, in essence, learns her general alphabet as the basic training from backing to Training level dressage. She learns, in essence, to balance and respond appropriately to all leg, seat, and rein aids. If there is a set of letters missing from this very basic alphabet - if the horse doesn't respond to half-halts, if the horse rushes, if the horse takes an inappropriate contact, if the horse doesn't steer well, if the horse responds incorrectly to leg aids, if the horse is crooked, etc - there will be NO correct progression from then on. You will always have holes in your training, and until you go back and fill in the blanks, you'll get nowhere. It's the set of basics ALL horses must have - without it, your eventer will rush and crash around jumps, your barrel horse will run away with you, and your trail horse will not listen at obstacles. When people have problems with training, they need to go back to the beginning and find out what exactly is missing in the first place. Chances are, if a horse is having issues, it is missing a critical piece of the very basic equation.

O's issues on the flat are pretty multifaceted due to her spree of bad un-training by the idiot trail rider. She understandably has major contact issues - she ducks behind the bit, grabs it and hauls on her rider, and raises her head and tenses her back, all in a relatively constant cycle of one right after the other. On the lunge, she no longer does ANY of these things, so I figure it's just a matter of time and giving her a quiet and consistent contact to bounce around against until she decides to explore it and stretch into it appropriately. Before a horse can do that, they need to have the rest of their aids in place, which she does not. (That said, she has already come a WORLD away from where she was - more on that shortly.)

What else doesn't she have in place? She started out very, very unbalanced on turns (drops her shoulder and motorbikes at high speed instead of bending her body around the arc of the circle) as well as on downhill slopes, with not much much in the way of bending or sideways signals. She also had no concept of half-halts or seat aids, and would just NOT stop half of the time. She would respond inappropriately to leg aids by hollowing her back, slowing down, sulling up, and making faces, in a very "don't want to you can't make me" kind of way. She also was always on the brink of running off at every gait - not bolting or running away out of control, per se, but whenever she liked she would grab and bear down on the bit, and zoom off at whatever speed she felt like going, with no brakes and no steering. She did it at every gait - yes, your horse can run away with you at the walk! - and there wasn't really any rhyme or reason to it. Basically, she spent the first two months of her time with me trying every trick in the book for getting away with doing absolutely everything except accepting the contact and going nicely forward with a steady and straight rhythm.

Now, this is all changing. She is slowly, slowly starting to put the pieces together, although it is a work in progress. It is going to take a very long time to get her to the point of putting an acceptable Training level test together, but we will get there.

Our ride on Monday of this week was out at a local covered arena, due to a TOTALLY random rainstorm (seriously. it rained for four days here, with temps in the 60's.... yes, in July in Texas!). The last time I went by this place, I checked in on the footing and it was great. (It used to be notoriously bad.) I thought to myself, yay! I can use it now! Unfortunately, when I went over there with O, the footing was complete trash. The outside of the ring were bone-dry and dusty, and the middle part was insanely deep, mucky, soggy and rutted, pockmarked with holes from the horses who had been running barrels on it before. (I'm pretty sure even barrel people don't like their arenas that deep and mucky and full of holes). I did the best I could, but she wasn't particularly on her best behavior - I can't really blame her for that, seeing as she spent half her time struggling to maintain her balance. I tried to lunge her before I got on, but there was really no point to it, so I just quit and got on. At one point, she fizzed up and I really needed to get up off her back and let her canter around for a few minutes, but I just didn't safely have that option. I managed to get her to move out a little (without being too much), and stretch out some, and I called it quits with that. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it's better to end on a high note than a low one.

Tuesday, I managed to sneak out between rainstorms for an hour long hack down the road, complete with 5 minutes of trotting up the road on a loose rein. It is truly remarkable how much she has transformed on the trail - she used to be completely freaked out, jigging and tossing her head, spooking and scooting sideways, completely incapable of dealing with all the stimuli of the outside world. (I'm not really sure if she ever had any trail experience before I got her or not.) Now, she hacks out on a loose rein, completely quiet and interested in her surroundings. NOTHING scares her. I know, I keep trying to! On Tuesday she walked past big overturned garbage cans banging around in the wind, rattling mailboxes, honking semis, barking dogs, and jogging neighbors without so much as a misstep. (Well, she WAS inches away from a mailbox at one point and a grasshopper flew up and hit it with a loud and resounding crunch... then she was interested.)

She was SO encrusted with black gumbo mud that I literally only managed to get her saddle area clean before I gave up!

Wednesday was a total blowout - it poured and raged ALL day long, and I ended up just cuddling up with a bunch of pets and letting her have the day off instead of going with our planned dressage day.

There is more to catch up on concerning the rest of the week... but this kid needs some rest. I am POOPED. More later!