TB in Training

Don't Jinx it

2012-02-19T21:09:00.000-08:00

... but I think I'm slated for our debut into the show ring! There is a really cute little show about a half hour away that's coming up on March 18th. I have to break in my new tall boots before then, but other than that I think I'm going. I'm only going to enter dumb stuff like walk/trot, because I don't think I can take the pressure of trying something challenging for this first show, and I want to make sure that it is a good experience for Bijou first and foremost. The only bad thing is that Open walk/trot is THE. VERY. FIRST. CLASS. This means I'll have very little time to warm up unless I get up practically in the middle of the night...

I'm still really really excited!! Now I just have to practice things as if I were at a show, and clean my tack! And find all my show clothes!

Leaser option number 2 and 3

2012-02-05T22:07:00.000-08:00

Leaser #2 started her riding career many years ago riding english and doing hunter/jumper stuff. Then she up 'n went western and has been working for western pleasure trainers for the last 10 years or so. She's a really good rider, and has a good seat. She struggled for a minute with finding contact with Bijou's mouth again after so long of a loose neck rein, but it came back to her surprisingly quickly with a few pointers. She has a style all her own, not timid, but just... nice. She likes to take things slow and not overwhelm either of them. I don't know how that will play out in the future but it seems to work pretty well. When I think about trying to have a 'nice' ride it usually helps, so that's a good sign.

I have already contacted leaser #1 and told her that she's not quite the right fit for what I was looking for. She'd need quite a few lessons for me to feel comfortable with her riding by herself, and then I'd still be a little worried. Leaser #3 was not that great about getting back to me, and leaser #2 was a really good fit, so I told her that she 'got it' I guess you'd call it... the whole leaser/lessee relationship weirdness topic will have to wait for another day.

So then, I had leaser #3 get back to me. I told her that I'd actually had a lot of interest and that I would like to charge someone a small leasing fee ($75) thinking that it would dissuade her. I guess I was wrong. She was happy to pay a fee, and came out and is also a really good rider but has a much more aggressive attitude. She and Bijou got into a few fights with her mouth, but we were able to talk her back into being good. She has been coming out in the morning to get lessons from me and I think Bijou gets pissed when we take her away from her food, so she's usually in need of a round pen romp before she can be trusted.

Now I've gotten myself into a pickle because with two people riding 3 days a week each, it means that I either have to ride my horse as a second ride for her for the day, or I only get one day a week... Right now I'm going to try to make it work because #3 isn't available on weekends, which is when I really need someone, but I think down the road she's going to be more valuable as a team of people riding Bijou than #2. #2 gets in less fights with Bijou and has a 'better' ride, but she also is very hesitant to do many things like go over poles etc. I like them both, but I can't tell who's going to really end up working out better yet. I've also picked up more hours at work, so if I don't have to go ride it means I can do things like cook or laundry or any of my other life stuff... but I would rather ride than do life stuff! Ugh. Having a horse is hard, but I guess I wouldn't have it any other way :P

Leaser option number 1

2012-01-31T19:15:00.000-08:00

Today I had the first of now three potential leasers come out to try Bijou. I was expecting a ridiculous mess since Bijou really hadn't been worked (other than light lunging to check soundness) in 11 days! It rained, she slipped, and then I've been giving her some time... phew, that's a long time off!

So, #1 is a 4th year college student who hasn't ridden consistently for 5 years but when she stopped, she and her horse were competing at Training Level in 3-Day in Colorado. She is a super cool chick who seems really honest and down to earth. She kept saying how good it felt to be back in the saddle, how pretty/nice/cute/good Bijou was, and how she feels soooo out of shape. From what I saw, there was a rider in there who really knew what she was doing, but is very rusty, which is very understandable. I started off the ride with a bit of a long walk warmup, and then asked Shelly to watch as I picked up a trot. Bijou was a little stiff and protective all over, but I just popped into my two point and let her loosen up. As usual, when I'm expecting to be riding a doofus, I get an angel, and that was the case today too. She was really super good and mellow and just trotted around with a light contact on the bit, and then danced her way into a beautiful canter transition and went once around the ring nice and slow with her head just above vertical. I'm so happy that we seem to have made it over the cantering-is-really-exciting phase and are working towards the being-round-and-cantering phase. I called it good there since I didn't know how much #1 would want to do, and she nervously got on. They walked around for a while, and I left her pretty much alone while she reveled in being in the saddle again. She picked up the trot, her leg fell into chair position, and fumbled she fumbled around getting a little left behind, and then falling a little ahead. I asked her if she wanted me to give her a few tips and she said of course, so I helped her a little bit and saw major improvement in just a few minutes. Then someone tossed their crazy horse in the round pen and of course Bijou thought there was a horse eating dragon thrashing around just barely contained in there and decided to bolt away. #1 stayed on, got quite a bit tense, and then I told her to relax, and she let go of her death grip and Bijou relaxed. I let her work in the other half of the arena because she was definitely shaken up, and we went back to doing some exercises to get her leg under her and have her pick up the right amount of contact. Overall I think she did a good job, she passed the spooking test, and she said she'd love to have me around for the first few times she rode so that she could learn more about her and make sure I was comfortable with her riding on her own.

I really liked #1 just as a person, we hit it off for sure and she seems super cool. Bijou overall seemed to like her and not try to fight with her too much. #1 really liked Bijou, commenting on how responsive she was to the seat and how light she felt in the bridle. The jury's still out until we have seen #2 and #3, but if they royally suck, I think I can make #1 work.

Slippery slope

2012-01-29T19:52:00.000-08:00

I went out to ride on Thursday and something was just not quite right. I ended up picking out two big rocks that got into her feet which I thought might have caused it, but then I got back on and something was still amiss. I ended up asking the girl who was in the arena with me to look at her as I trotted by and she said she looked off behind, which is when she remembered that Bijou had taken a mighty stumble while trying to skid to a halt in 2" deep slick mud while she was feeding over the weekend. I guess she skidded so bad that her hind feet slid in front of her front feet and she toppled over, I know if that were me, I'd be pretty sore. So this week I've been feeding and fattening her up which I think has been helping some. I feel like I've finally reached equilibrium and now I just need to keep it up until the grass starts growing again. I went out again on Friday and she seemed quite a bit better already, so we did a bunch of walking to get her limber and moving and then hand-grazed for a while. There's something so comforting about watching a horse eat... or maybe it's just me :P

I have made appointments with both potential leasers and I'll know after next week if I think either of them will work. I'll just have to double make sure they sign a release since the little Bee will probably be wound up a bit with having almost a week off.

No more lessons

2012-01-24T22:25:00.000-08:00

So I decided to fire my trainer. She's been consistently getting lazier. Like, I say "I want to do more jumping in my lessons" and she proceeds to sit on the mounting block eating her trail mix while I jump the half fallen jumps that were already set up in the arena instead of rearranging them into a specific exercise for us. I also decided that with my paychecks being smaller, I really couldn't afford to be taking lessons unless I felt like I was getting a lot out of them, which I didn't really anymore. She also was seeming to push the spurs/whip thing a lot with me. I don't like riding with spurs or a whip, I would rather rely on other things. I know sometimes they are necessary, but I'd rather try to work around them. Especially when my horse seems to lose her mind when I use a whip on her. She doesn't take punishment very well... better than she used to, but still it can turn her into a crazy horse for a bit if she doesn't understand. When I tried to use my whip on her in my last lesson she just seemed like she didn't get where it came from or why, and ran around in fear for 5 minutes.

Anyhow, long whip/spurs rant over... it rained pretty good over this weekend, so there hasn't been a whole lot of riding going on. I have started to give Bijou two buckets a day now, as her once a day meal of beet pulp and rice bran was exceeding the buckets limit. I also added alfalfa pellets and soybean oil in. So far she seems to like the taste of her feed better with the alfalfa, and the oil hasn't caused any runs yet, and I've already bumped up to 1/2 c. 2x per day. I had the urge to pull out my old Equine Nutrition text books, but then realized that I would probably get bogged down in them and trying to balance a ration. I'd rather spend my days feeding my horse something I know works than in the books trying to make it perfect.

I also put up an ad a while back on Craigslist to see if anyone would want to come out and ride the beast. I don't think I'll charge anything because she's not a schoolmaster who could teach someone a lot, and I'd really appreciate just having someone come out to help me get her out more. So far I have two candidates, after next week I'll have had both of them out so we'll see how that goes.

Keep on Keepin' on

2012-01-04T21:05:00.000-08:00

Nothing all that spectacular to report... but feel like I should report even the little things because I know I like to read them later. Just put Bijou back into work yesterday. She was rushy and fussy and I didn't get the 'refreshed' horse I was looking for, but she wasn't a total spaz case either, so I'll call it a success.

Today we worked a lot on the things that were my homework for last week. We did lots of transitions. Bijou is great at upward transitions as long as she knows they're coming, but when I let her get into a lazy walk and then try to pick things up again she is pretty behind my leg. Cue #2 of our homework, start carrying a dressage whip. This took a little getting used to for both Bijou and I. I haven't carried a crop/whip in a long time, so it took some re-getting used to, and Bijou kept listening to the little thing fluttering at her side. I didn't use the whip, I just held it, because she has been a bit shy of it in the past. We also worked on halting without trying to rip the reins out of my hands, and then knowing the difference between halting and backing, and halting and then going forward again. We did lots of transitions from walk-trot then trot-collected-extended then walk-canter. We did one REALLY great walk/canter transition to the left, and then a few sloppy ones to the right. I also did some pretty tight circles at the canter mostly to slow the beast down without having to rip on her face, but also because I feel like she needs to learn to balance, and circles are a good idea! Then she was still being really rushy at the canter and kinda bolting down the long sides, so I decided to just two-point and get contact and circle until she decided to chill the eff out. Surprisingly, when I picked up into two point, she went round and much much lighter in my hands. She was still fast, but there were good moments of regular canter too. I think she's just not quite fit enough to be expecting real good canter all the time, but I just want to figure out how to get her to stop running away with me. I think I'll try doing lots of two-point canter (which will be good pre-gallop practice for me anyway) which hopefully will help her develop better muscling over time, which will allow her to carry me better in the future.

phew. That felt like it got really long winded, but oh well. I'm still so happy that I can canter without fear of being bucked off. I think I should make another resolution, to be thankful for where we are and reflect on where we've been while striving to be better at the same time, otherwise I can get stuck in the now, and feel like I'm sinking in the issues we're having. Yet another great reason for having a blog, I can look back and reflect on when I couldn't lunge my horse, or when I felt bad for riding her because she was so skinny... don't miss those days!

I've got another lesson on Saturday, so I'll do more practicing tomorrow and Friday :)

Week Offhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

2011-12-30T20:19:00.000-08:00

With the crazy holiday season, and our recent breakthroughs, I feel like this week was a good week to take some time off. Bijou's been getting a bit girthy lately, which I don't think has to do with saddle fit problems, but I'm hoping that giving her a week off will help with her sourness. She was getting the tiniest bit huffy with me when I'd start to ask for real work, and I think that a lot of that has to do with her finally learning to carry herself properly in all 3 gaits and it making her sore.

This week I've only ridden twice, and both times were bareback. First we did just some walking/bending and trotting, then today we tried some walk/canter transitions. These were a little messy since I was off balance and cautious without a saddle, but they worked, which is more than I could say about our walk/canter transitions before, since we couldn't even do them!

I'm using this time off to clean up around the house a little (what? me?! CLEAN!?!?) and reorganize my thoughts about what my goals with Bijou are. This is pretty perfect since we're starting a whole new year, just in time for new years resolutions :)

My horsey resolutions are:

1) Have short, frequent rides. I've learned that Bijou really works best if I just warm her up walking/trotting on a loose rein, and then do about 15 minutes of work-work, rather than futzing around for 45 minutes.

2) I will show this year. I don't care if my tall boots don't fit, or I can't find my hairnet, or we just do a walk/trot class, I will show. I'm not going for rated shows or even recognized shows. Even if I just make it to one show that my barn is hosting, I will call this one good.

3) Keep my tack clean. I'm horrible at this. All the pony clubbers would cringe at the layer of sweaty, grassy, slimy grime on everything.

4) Ride dressage tests. I've had plenty of practice remembering courses, but dressage tests are still really hard for me to remember. I think this will also be good practice for me to ride correct geometry and learn more about dressage in general too.

5) Don't accumulate unnecessary horsey accessories/downsize the current stash. I have 3 brand new bridles sitting in storage because they were such a good deal... but I never use them. I have two lavendar color saddle pads because I want lavendar, black, and white to be my eventing colors... but why two pads (in addition to 4-5 other saddle pads)? I have unidentifyable leather pieces in the bottom of my tack box that could have been reins, side reins, long reins, draw reins, but have lost their pair because I never use them. Maybe I'll sell some of my stuff on here like Eventer76 did over at We are Flying Solo?

I think 5 is a nice round and still manageable number.

Yay we can canter!

2011-12-21T17:56:00.000-08:00

We had our best canter ever this week. I feel like (crossing fingers to not jinx it) we've made a breakthrough. I had a really great lesson with my trainer Melissa. She totally called me on some things that I needed to be called on. It's really great to have her be Bijou's advocate and I'm so happy to have her.

My lessons started off promptly at 9 am, which I think is the earliest I've even been on Bijou. It was foggggy! This, of course, meant that my little mare was shying and spooking at everything... oh dear. After about 10 minutes of bolting giraffe impressions: (see below for example)

Melissa asked if we even had a horse to work with today, and a month ago I would have asked the same, but I know better now. Bijou had this trick. She knew if she was REALLY bad for the first 10 minutes, I would get off, and just lunge her. I think she much preferred running around like a maniac to working hard under saddle, so in essence I was rewarding her. Then I got sick of it, and kicked myself in the butt to just ride it out. Lo and behold just at the point where you're thinking - "great, I'm going to be flung into the air today" all you have to do is make her do some HARD work, and then she settles in. This sometimes means tight trotting circles, counter bent circles at the walk, leg yields, etc. Then all of a sudden there's a horse underneath you instead of a bouncing bunny rabbit.

So, with that taken care of, we did some transitions to warm up. Lots of concerted 'on' with real contact and pushing forward with my seat and then big releases of 'off' to give her a reward. We've been struggling with the canter for a while now. Melissa wanted to get her to canter (not gallop) on a loose rein, so that I could then turn my aids 'on' and ask for collection, and then when she gave it to me turn the aids 'off' for a reward. This. just. wasn't. working. Every time I would let go of the reins (off means on the buckle) Bijou would rev up and get faster. I would get more tense, waiting for her to start misbehaving, she would get faster in response to my tenseness and you see where this was going.

We changed tactics. For the first week I just would randomly ask for a canter, and then as soon as she would get strong/fast, I would halt. This was not always pretty, but it got her to the point that when I half halted, it was strong enough to actually slow her down. This resulted in short spurts of ok canter. It also helped her realize that cantering is not so damn exciting :P

My last lesson, on Sunday, was a bit miraculous. I was supposed to have worked on what Melissa called "shutting her down" in the canter. The only problem is, I didn't get what that meant. I thought it meant some kind of shut the door in front of her, aka pull on her face. She asked me to show her our progress and when we realized we weren't on the same page we had a talk. Basically, I need to make sure that my body energy level meets what I'm doing. When I'm sitting in the middle of the arena chatting is 'shut down'. Armed with this new idea, I picked up a canter (from the walk, mind you :D), picked a spot, and just went into "I'm sitting at a halt" and without touching Bijou's face, we were trotting! It was amazing. I knew it was possible because she does really follow my seat, but I couldn't do it before because I didn't have the right mental image to follow. Hooray!!

This week, I've been really focusing on keeping my energy at a level that matches what I'm doing. I think that's why yesterday we cantered in both directions, with amazingly calm pace, and when I added contact, Bijou dropped her nose and lifted her back - even to the point where she had her head below her knees for a few strides. Needless to say, we called it good after that and I was smiling so much I got tears in my eyes.

I love my pony-mare.

aha moments

2011-12-09T14:51:00.000-08:00

Its days like today and weeks like this week that I'm glad I started a blog to keep track of what I do with Bijou. There are many more things that I get out of using this blog which I didn't think would be so helpful. I get a whole community of horse people to relate to. This community validates so many of my feelings, its supportive, and it keeps me sane sometimes :)

A recent post by eventer79 over at We are Flying Solo totally keyed in to what I've been feeling and dealing with. I've been struggling with feeling like I'm not good enough for Bijou, or that she's too much horse for me. I've started to change this by taking lessons and really working on my confidence (which has been broken since breaking my ankle). So far this has worked out great! In fact, I have a confession to make...

Ever since I bought Bijou, I've had a small thought in the back of my mind that if we didn't get along, if we just couldn't make it work, then I'd sell her, like I've sold so many other 'project horses'. This was my secret thought, because I really wanted to make things work. It would sneak up on me after bad days/weeks when I felt a bit helpless, and then dissipate to just background noise again when things got somewhat better. Now, however, we've been making so much progress that I'm seeing visions of Bijou and I many years down the road, when she'll still be a bit kooky, but we'll have all kinds of shared experiences strengthening the bond between us and hopefully most of our major issues will be out of the way. I don't see her becoming The Perfect Horse, but I can see us continuing to grow together until she's My Perfect Horse, even with all her imperfections.

Ok, now I'll get my head out of the clouds... back on ground level! I'm going to see if I can get a fellow boarder to help me get Bijou out more regularly. Her horses are back home for the winter, and she has no one to ride. Her horse is normally pretty spunky so we are going to see if she likes Bijou and wants to help me with her a few times a week. Here's to hoping :)

Lessonless and still learning

2011-12-05T17:49:00.000-08:00

So my trainer and I have been having quite a hard time actually making it to our scheduled lessons. She picked up a part time job which means that our schedules only have a few overlapping free periods now. At first I was like "ok, time for me to practice all those exercises we were doing" but now that it's been several weeks I'm thinking "hmm... what were those exercises again??"

But I think I've made a few steps forward on my own (which I guess is what I was doing before the trainer came along anyways). I had been kinda cheating. You see, when I haven't gotten my lovely 7 yr old TB mare out in ~4 days, she becomes a crazy hot wild animal. So I lunged, and lunged, and lunged until the poor beast was sweating and puffing, and then I would get on and do some under saddle work that is surprisingly focused and fruitful! I guess some would call this cheating, and some would call it lunging the bucks out, but I know that I was using her being fresh as an excuse to avoid having to talk about her crazyness with her.

I don't really know how much sense that makes, but basically I would lunge my horse until she was a different horse, and then get on to ride my now placid mare. I think I was doing both of us a disservice by skipping over the important conversation that needs to take place between a fractious animal and its rider.

So... after Thanksgiving when the beast hadn't been ridden in like 6 days I just got on. I knew it was going to perhaps be a bit rocky, so I set some simple goals. I wanted to trot without hanging on her face for dear life. At first this started much as I had pictured. Cue giraffe impression. Oh yah, and then bolt half way across the arena a few times. Break to a canter every 10 strides when I try to loosen the death grip. Flip head all over the place whenever a half halt is applied. So I applied a different tactic, which I had not had much success with in the past, but had never tried on Bijou. Every time she started to speed demon, I would lift my inside rein and make a small circle. She knows very well now that pressure on the reins means drop her head, so once she got over practically tripping over herself from trying to circle at full speed, it meant I got a soft and much rounder horse (rather than the giraffe). She tried to cheat a few times by gunning forward when the circle was done, but I'd just keep the bend as much as I could, and she'd realize that she couldn't get away with it and that going slower made it easier. Also, because I wasn't half halting every second, she was much softer in the contact that I did have and we didn't have any head flipping. Hooray!! I trotted her around a whole bunch and called it good.

I've also made progress on the spooking front. I've ridden plenty of spooky horses, but hers just throw me for a loop. It's not that I ever feel insecure like I might fall off, it's just that she's so acrobatic in her spooks that they kinda scare me. I've psyched myself up and made up my mind that when my horse spooks she's going to get to work harder until she settles the hell down. Today she was being all uppity about another rider kissing to her horse. She would only do it when the other horse was behind us, but she would launch into a huge leap and then throw her head/neck all over the place trying to wrench the reins out of my hands. For this she got to disengage her hindquarters and then trot in little circles and figure eights until she was listening to me and only me again. After the third spook (for various reasons) she decided it would be easier to just listen to me, and we finished our ride on 10 minutes of beautiful trot/walk and walk/trot transitions with a lap or two of relatively relaxed canter. Amazing how that works, isn't it?

I have a trim and a lesson scheduled for this week. I think I wormed Bijou since the last time I posted too...

catchup

2011-11-15T22:42:00.000-08:00

Not the red kind you but on french fries, but the kind that needs to happen when I haven't blogged in ages...

Quick recap

1) Bijou and I went through a pretty nasty phase where she was being a huge idiot almost every day no matter what I had done with her previously. I put her back on a Vitamin B1 supplement and now we have more of a two way communication and not just me yelling at her at the top of my lungs

2) during that phase we went through total canter meldown. Canter = gallop + head toss + leap sideways + gallop faster. Canter rehab is currently underway with moderate success so far

3) I started taking lessons! I decided that I needed SOMEONE to keep me accountable week by week. This also has the added bonus of someone being on the ground to be eyes and giving suggestions. So far she's not the 'wonder trainer' but has been SUPER helpful and I'm glad I'm back under a watchful eye.

4) I started feeding my horse grain again. I started a bit early this year and just in the nick of time it seems as she's already lost some weight with the pastures dying out.

5) Lunging is my friend. What do you think of lunging?

Bijou's 100th blog post.wmv

2011-11-14T19:18:00.000-08:00

Wow, I know it's been quite a while since I last posted. I figured that I could put off posting until I had something really special to post about, and then I realized that my 2 year anniversary with Bijou was coming up. I figured I'd do a double whammy and have my 100th post be the 2 year post too. It's a little sad since that means I've only averaged 50 posts/year or approximately one post a week. I'm going to make year 3 count and do lots of blogging!

I've read through most of my blog over this last week, from when I first got this little lady all the way until now. I may not be where I thought I would with her, but I also didn't see having two horses for the first few months I had her, or breaking my ankle in the cards for us. We have had our fair share of ups and downs, successes and disappointments, but overall I'm happy to have her.

After years of feeling like the horse world could throw anything my way and I could take it in stride, I've finally found my match. Bijou tests me and challenges me in ways I didn't think were possible. I've learned so much about myself and the way I work with horses because of her. She's taught me quite a few new tricks to put in my training bag, and she's also taught me that sometimes it's alright to ask for help. She's humbled me in many ways, making me think some days that she's too much horse for me, but then I go out the next day and -as if she knows that I'm giving our partnership one more chance- she's turns around and gets her act together again. She's always surprising me, for better and worse. If we've done something all week and I expect her to execute perfectly - she'll throw a wrench in things and make us go back. If I take her somewhere new and scary she acts as if she's been there, done that. Never a dull day with this girl.

So I put together a video of (mostly) pictures and (a few) video clips from when I first bought her to November of last year. Through this period she went through the most dramatic physical transformation since I've had her so it shows up in pictures better. I realized that I don't have a lot of recent pictures or video of her (and trying to organize and find 1 years worth of pics was enough!) so I'll have to get on that to make a 2010-2011 slide show too. I'm hoping to get some video of us this week to give a comparison... we'll see if I can persuade someone to hold the camera :P

I've been a bad blogger

2011-09-04T01:43:00.001-07:00

So... I realized one day that my to-do list was reaching multiple page lengths, so when I re-prioritized I ended up not blogging for like.... ever. This was mostly because I also ended up not riding either. I have a good excuse!! I was getting married! All that planning and scrambling and organizing and nit-picking; lets just say I only plan on doing it once. Now that its all over (it all turned out so perfect!) I plan on getting back to some regularly scheduled programming.

Well, now I've explained myself. I plan on getting back into the blogosphere soon, as I'm DYING to get back in the saddle after MUCH too long. I'll be sure to post new and exciting things (hopefully with pictures) soon. Hopefully things won't get too exciting - seeing as how I'm going to go back to a very very fresh TB who might have forgotten some of her manners and become a wild naughty mare again... maybe she'll surprise me yet again?

beach riding sucess

2011-07-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

I had the greatest time at the beach the other day. It looked a lot like that, but with maybe just a tiny bit more room to run around and play with the ponies. Bijou took everything like a champ (after not having been ridden in like 4 days due to a crazy weekend) and only freaked out when Wyatt left her behind to deal with the big scary flappy umbrella all on her own. We even jumped up and down a small bank and went in the dunes as leader for a while. I love my horse.

Summer time

2011-06-24T13:46:00.001-07:00

Whoever came up with the saying "lazy summer" was wrong. I don't know how, but I've managed to feel busier now that the summer is here and I'm not in classes anymore.

Regardless, I have been riding, although not with the frequency that I like (aka every day) so the beginning of this week was a little interesting. Bijou got put in a new pasture with grass up to my hip and I think that helped with her crazies. I thought I could take her out and just hop on, since she's been so good/lazy lately... boy was I wrong! She was a total nutcase, darting into trot and canter transitions without any influence from me, shaking her head wildly for no good reason, etc.

So I lunged, and then rode again which was much nicer and allowed us to get some work done. Somehow in the process of her head flinging and stuff she must have chewed a hole through her rubber bit, because now it's barely hanging on! Good thing I bought that fat D-ring snaffle a little ways back because I'll have to switch to that until I can get a new one.

The rest of the week we did pretty good work, I've been getting both canter leads pretty consistently and there's been a remarkable lack of bucking! We're still working on getting rid of the giraffe impression at the canter, but I'll take it over bucking any day.

We even ended the week on a nice long ride where we did our first crossrail in ages. She definitely looked at it, but I've learned that she does need a little support from my leg going up to things, and now that we've balanced her hesitation with my push we get over things just fine!

I'm really hoping to show in early July if this EHV thing doesn't stop us, there's a schooling show coming up on the 10th that I might be able to make it to. We would do walk/trot and just have fun, but that means I have to break in my new boots... yikes!!

well that was interesting

2011-06-06T17:07:00.000-07:00

We got an "unseasonable amount of rain" this past weekend, and thusly I have not gotten anything done with the mighty mare, except to blanket her for the unseasonable-ness.

Prior to the rain I had made a decision. I have decided that after the mud dries up I think I am going to put shoes on her for the summer, as it seems that all other soundness issues (I'm saying this at a whisper) are gone! And she's just a tad footsore on the gravely patches of the arena. So here's to hoping we can have a successful summer season, which I'm going to define as lots of riding.

I've also been seriously thinking (aka budget crunching) about doing some lessons this summer. I feel like my form is way out of it, and like Bijou and I could use the push of having someone who's going to critique as motivation through the week. So I'm going to go trainer hunting, which is going to be difficult because I feel like most of the trainers around here aren't respectable enough to earn my respect, which would not lead to a very good trainer/trainee relationship me-thinks.

Oh yes, I tried a figure eight with a metal (regular snaffle d-ring) bit. It was horrible. lots of head tossing and evading the bit and general unpleasantries ensued. I had a couple of hits when I put up an ad looking to try someone's bitless bridle or any other interesting bits they had but no one's gotten back to me after their initial responses.

Giveaway!

2011-05-24T17:54:00.001-07:00

Not one of my own yet... but over at The Process of Learning there's one for a new Showsheen shampoo. I love showsheen stuff, and you should too. Plus, with show season coming up, who doesn't need more awesome grooming stuff right?

In other news, the whole farm decided that gale force winds out at the barn last night meant it was time to run around like crazy. I didn't know this until I found the evidence in the stocking up in Bijou's hind legs this afternoon. I contacted the BM about horsey news and she told me what they had been up to. I buted, linimented, and cold-hosed after walking her around trying to get the swelling down all to no avail. She did look a little funnier to the left when she trotted for a second in the round pen so I'll have to keep an eye on that.

I've been having a thought... well rather a series of thoughts. With Bijou being so short strided lately, and bucking to the right again, I think I'm going to just go all out to make her better. I have a feeling that it's a combination of two things. I hate that it's always a combination of many things because you always have to pay someone to do each thing and each person wants lots of money for doing their thing! I am going to have the chiropractor out again, as he really seemed to do a lot of good, and Wyatt really benefited from a second adjustment, so maybe Bijou will too. I'm also going to put front shoes on. This has really helped in the past, and allowed Bijou and I to get our best work done, I think she's a wet weather kind of horse, as that's when her feet grow the most and look the best. When it gets dryer out, like it has been, her feet just start to crumble away, no matter how much hoof moisturizer I put on them. I doubt its a nutritional thing since she's out on great pasture, so I think it's just genetic and this is the way things are.

Right now I don't have much cash to speak of, and she doesn't have much hoof wall to speak of, and we have to deal with this sore/puffy hind leg thing... so I'm going to save up for a bit while she re-coups and then put my combination approach to the test.

And if all else fails... Well you might be seeing another kind of giveaway (of the equine variety) up on this blog soon! :P

Good rides make the whole world better

2011-05-18T16:58:00.000-07:00

I have had a few major life changes lately, mostly for the worse. Quite a few things were piling up on me and one of the heaviest was having an unsound horse. I know that she just had a night out on the farm and pulled something somewhere, but it wasn't getting better and since she wasn't really ride-able I didn't have my stress relief mare to go to when all else fell apart.

That all changed on Monday. I had the inclination that by Monday she was going to be back to normal after I had lunged her on the weekend (due to time constraints it was all I could do). I decided to put on the saddle and try to really ride again, man am I glad I did! It was much quieter out at the barn since I went earlier in the day before everyone gets out of work/class and Bijou was still finding things to be distracted by, though they were much fewer and farther between. One of Joujou's pasturemates was being trained to ground tie without grazing by her oh-so-evil mom who would flick a lunge whip stick with a scary plastic crinkly thing at the end every time she tried to eat, which Bijou looked at, but did not react to, and got patted every time she trotted past. For some reason, she was just more submissive... I don't know if it's because she's finally feeling better or what, but rather than fight about every little bit of contact that I tried to put on her, she took it and almost asked for more. She wasn't hanging on me, but it was almost like she needed just a constant heavier contact than what I'm used to. We worked on lots of trotting, mostly in straight lines, that was round and collected and forward without being rushy. It was nice to have her in front of my leg without having her rushing around, which is one of her big habits.

We also did some trot poles, which I set purposely close to get her to think about where her feet need to be, rather than just getting over those damn scary things as fast as she possibly can. This resulted in her being VERY bouncy and stepping on a pole or two at first, but then she settled in and took her time over them. I also set up one ground pole to help with our canter transitions. This part might get a little long winded... I've noticed that she is much more sensitive on her left side than she is on her right. This is true when I'm lunging her, riding, or even just handling her. She shies away from the fly spray more on her left side, leg yields away from my left leg better, reacts to smaller movements on the lunge when she's going to the left, etc. This presents an interesting problem when I'm practicing canter transitions, because I use my left leg to cue her into the right lead canter. I don't boot her, or even really nudge at all, I just lay my leg against her, and she leaps and charges into the canter. What's even more confounding is that most of the time she charges into the left lead canter... big no-no, so I quickly get her back to a trot, and set her up again, and cue again. Except now she's in a tizzy waiting for me to use that left leg. She gets nervous in the place where I cued her before and starts tossing her head and bouncing around like an idiot. So to keep her from anticipating I try to catch her off guard which hasn't been working so well.

This is where the pole comes in. I know it is kinda cheating, but I trot her at the single pole and encourage a big bounding trot up to it, and most of the time she comes off of the pole in a canter. I canter her around for a bit, and then go back to trotting the pole at a medium pace so that she doesn't always canter the pole and can't really anticipate any cue from me so she doesn't get all worried. This resulted in some of the nicest canter we've had in a long time. I figure if I get results, then I have to be doing something right, right?

I think for next time (once the weather dries up) I'll try getting her to listen to my seat more and see if that helps. Any other suggestions are welcome too.

Beautiful days should be spent with horses...

2011-05-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

.... whether they are sound or not. So that's what I did today. I've been taking it really easy on the little mare, but I think her sore hip/hind area is maybe maybe finally clearing up. I've been getting on her for a few minutes at a time and just riding around to check her soundness since it's hard to see while lunging... it's gotten to the point that if I wasn't looking for anything, I wouldn't feel it. However, there were a few days when I decided to try really riding (like with a saddle and bridle and everything!) and when I asked for a trot, Bijou literally tip-toed around with the SHORTEST stride ever, which is very unlike her, so I backed it off. The only thing I can afford to do is just wait and see. My vet gets really expensive when I go to him with "she's just not right" because they run every test in the book with inconclusive results.

I've given up on even going to the show this weekend. Oh well. I just get to keep this shiny pony loveliness all to myself :P

lameness is lame

2011-05-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

Bijou and her mare friends (who are all coming into and out of heat) decided to have a girls night out about a week ago... They tore through their electric fence and ran a muck around the property for a night. After this fiasco, she surprisingly (NOT) came up quite sore/off on her left hind. I decided to give her the week off with just little bareback rides to check her progress since it's pretty hard to see on the lunge. On Friday she was pretty darn close to being sound, so my little bareback trot turned into a little bareback buck fest in which Bijou succeeded in bucking me off. I'm relatively unscathed, although realizing that bouncing back up isn't as easy as it might have been back when I first started riding.

I also have a pictures-post coming up soon of when we went to the beach before the girls night out where I feel like we made a breakthrough in the canter. I can't wait until I can look back on the ugly canter phase and realize it was just a phase.... right now it looks more like an epoch...

Also, there is a schooling show coming up on Sunday... which is pretty last minute to begin preparing for it, but I figure if worst comes to worst I'll just bring her a long to get a feel for what she behaves like at a show, just to know what to expect for next time.

Back in business

2011-04-18T20:49:00.001-07:00

I don't want to jinx it, but I'm pretty sure the weekend off made my horse better :D

I tossed her in the round pen to get out all the bucks and squigglies... and she didn't have any. The more miraculous thing is that she didn't have any head bobbing either! We did a bunch of transition work, and then called it good. I still had an hour or so to ride so I tacked her up and hopped on in boots and jeans (still can't decide if I think its tacky to ride in jeans?) since I had left my breeches at home. The BO finally decided to put the grass dressage arena back together so I figured I'd ride out there to get her used to something new, and I've been meaning to work on our 20m circles. I warmed her up in the long and uneven grass, and she was very uneven, but I like working on 'fifth leg' training on uneven ground. We went into the arena and worked on bending into the corners, which really worked when I lifted my inside hand and kept my outside giving but steady. I've also been avoiding cantering a lot lately since every time I ask for it I have to hold on pretty good for the inevitable buck or two that I'll get... except this time! She still has a really hard time picking up the right lead unless I have her really collected and springy and bent correctly in the trot but we got it.

Now I'm tired but ready to do it all again tomorrow!

Trim failure

2011-04-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

Bijou got trimmed two days ago, and went off again two days ago...

She doesn't have huge feet, and they do like to chip and crack, but I asked my farrier and he said that her chipping etc was all normal. He barely clipped anything off, and only rasped enough to get the edges clean and she hadn't been trimmed yet this year (!!!!) I kept putting it off waiting for her to look long and she just never did, so I just did it anyway and now I guess I regret it.

She's mostly sore to the left which is funny because her 'clubby' foot is on the right. I've still been getting her out for short rides because she isn't that sore and I do REALLY want to build on the momentum I've gained in the last couple of weeks. We've had many wet saddle pads (with perfect sweat marks, might I add) and she's finally starting to get the hang of good walk/trot transitions and we've even had our first balanced canter transitions that don't involve rushing. I'd hate to lose all that progress because I got her trimmed, so I might do what I thought I might have to do at this point this year, and just put shoes on her. This happened later in the year last time... she got sore around May/June and I put two sets of shoes on her and then took them off for winter again.

I might see how it pans out and see if she'll grow enough foot while I'm riding to make her happy again, but riding wears feet down so the less I ride the faster she'll theoretically get better... and then have lost some of the fitness etc that we've worked on.

busy day

2011-04-04T21:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the vet came out to float teeth and do spring vaccinations. I figured I'd take the sedated time to do some mane pulling and grooming. This is after said tail banging and mane pulling, tres chic no?

And this is before, but with the new saddle:
Very forward flap and the seat is super comfy. I feel really sticky again like I did in my Bates Event, but without the huge knee rolls etc. And, my legs finally feel like they fit! I'm not hanging over the knee rolls in this one, but rather quite far behind them which makes the fit really secure.

Oh I love that cutie face! I always loved snips and never wanted to buy a horse just because of that, so when she was a good fit and had it I was secretly pleased :P.

Close up of how the panels fit her. I was a little worried at first, but so far the sweat marks (when I can ride long enough to get them) are immaculate and perfectly even. No more dry spots. I even groomed her extra hard today and before the new saddle she always flinched pretty good when I scrubbed on her mid-back with the curry, now with a few days of the new saddle (and a day or two off in there for good measure) she's no longer flinching at all, no matter how hard I rub.

Saddle experiments

2011-04-03T21:17:00.000-07:00

I just submitted my application for Graduate School. A little surreal that I'm preparing to move on to the next step.

Now I can't wait to move on and "graduate" from having an unsound horse! I feel like it's been forever since I've really been able to ride. I'm still waiting on my packages to get here to make me really want to ride all the time, but by then I'll have an inescapable urge to be at the barn all the time since that's already where I want to be.

I did a few interesting experiments recently. So, I got her adjusted by a chiropractor. I also got a saddle on trial. The first time after I had ridden her was when I tried the new saddle. This is not the best way to see if a saddle or the adjustment is really making a difference. Sooo... then it rained for a week, the arena washed away, and just now are we able to start working consistently again. I've also set aside a few hours each day to be just barn time. So far this has been working to get me out to the barn, but not to get my homework done... oops... we'll have to keep working on that.

I rode in my old saddle a few days ago and Bijou was back to bucking and generally being REALLY unhappy. So I borrowed a longer girth from a good friend so I could try my new-saddle-to-be again. She was sore at first, almost to the point that I didn't want to get on. She even nipped at me with her ears pinned when I tightened her girth which she has NEVER done. I was worried about riding her but I figured I'd just get on and keep it slow and not ask her for anything that didn't feel right. Once she had the saddle on she was fine. We only walked and trotted but she was bendable and generally ok, MUCH better than she had been in the other saddle. Today her back was still tender so I just lunged.

I'm a little conflicted about how I'm going to handle her soreness. I want to give her time off to let anything heal, since pain is usually due to inflammation etc... but I want to strengthen her to make her better. I think I'm just going to go painfully slow but be consistent, like how I would need things to be in order to get stronger if I were making new muscles in the gym.

Today I decided to use the new saddle again to see if things would get better. I lunged first to hopefully get some willies out since I want riding to be a calm and work-filled experience... boy am I glad I did! She was still silly in the arena after lunging at mostly a walk and trot for about 10 minutes. I decided since the saddle was fitting, and her adjustment should have had time to set, that she was probably just spazzing out. I started out trying to make things to complicated and asking too much, my bad. I was asking for real bends in the walk and trot and I think those things are still hard for her to keep up for any length of time. Every time I'd try to get a good bend out of her in the trot she'd go into a leaping/bucking fit. So I took a step back... time to pick my battles. I just wanted a quiet posting trot for a few times around the arena in both directions. I changed my tactics and made it black and white. If she was quiet and soft she got to go around with very little input from me, all she had to do was stay straight and quit the bucking thing. If she decided to go nuts on me, she got to run/walk around with her nose on my boot until she quit tossing her head and fighting me. Surprisingly (NOT) this made her want to cooperate for longer periods of time. So after 30 minutes of warm up and fart around, we finally got about 20 minutes of good walk/trot work. Phew!

Now I just have to stay on it for this week. By the way, the sweat marks under the saddle were immaculate again, so I'm really happy that this one might actually fit her (for a little while at least). I'm also going to have her teeth floated and give her spring vacs this week! Yay for getting things done!

So ready to ramp it up!

2011-03-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

So, I've been doing a bit of thinking lately. Well, that and some shopping. I went online to find necessities, like a leadrope that isn't torn into several strings from being repeatedly stepped on. So of course I go looking through the clearance section of all my usual websites, and I end up putting more in my cart than I should. I also end up doing an ebay search for tall boots, Ariat tall boots, just to see what's out there. Somehow I have this crazy luck. I always go looking for tall boots right when mine are about to crap out (or just don't take polish like they used to which makes me want new ones) and I come upon these crazy deals. I found Ariat pull ons, so I don't have to worry about the dumb zipper issues that everyone I know says the zip up ones have, for..... $75...... in my PERFECT size!! So I made a promise to myself, that if I'm going to buy a pair of boots to show in, I have to commit to actually going to some shows this year.

The other stuff I bought is going to come in handy for all the schooling I'm going to need to do to prepare for those shows. So basically I shopped my way into productivity... hopefully.

The arena was being reconstructed after it got washed away AGAIN in this last storm, so hopefully I will ride tomorrow!!!

Or maybe I'll just lunge the 6 yr old TB who hasn't been out to do ANYTHING other than eat in the last 10 or so days.

But then I will begin my show training in earnest. I'll post about all my grandiose ideas relating to that next time.

Do March Showers bring April flowers?

2011-03-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

It's been soaking! My arena got washed away again and won't be back in commission until after the next storm. However, I have had a chance to ride in my (potentially) new M. Toulouse Brione saddle, but only once! It was also the first ride after the chiropractor. So far it looks like Dr. L made a world of a difference.

Bijou was not obviously sore the day after, so I went ahead and put her in the round pen to let her move out to make sure I could get an idea of how she was feeling. She was a little frisky, but not too much, just enjoying herself. If anything I might say she was a little short strided in the back, but it was so small that I could have been making things up. We called it quits, and I fed her her lunch. Which is consisting of soaked beet pulp and this great low NSC senior feed that has 5% fat!

I took her out the next day after picking up the new saddle which is wool flocked and will hopefully be able to be fitted to her... I stuck that on her and went for a short ride. To the left she was much the same as before, flexible and quiet, but to the right she finally felt like she was able to bend! Not totally the same on both sides, and not completely better, but she was much more comfortable at the walk and trot and took less pressure from my aids to get a good bend out of her. Then for the real test - the canter. This is where she had been bucking before. I decided I'd leave her alone as much as possible, so I got off her back and picked up a right lead canter. She picked up the right lead on her own, and we went an entire circuit of the arena with no bucking, even in her old favorite corner. I tried putting a little weight back in the saddle and she thought about getting crow-hoppy, thought better of it, and just went around like normal. She did have a few cow kicks when I asked her to bend through the corners more, but it's hard to say if that's due to lack of strength, or because she's still out somewhere.

I'm a believer. I think Chiropractic worked on my horse! Now I'm off to find one for me :P

New Saddle?

2011-03-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

So I stumbled upon this saddle. It's practically brand spanking new, and new they sell for about $1100. The woman will take less than half of that...

It's a medium tree and 17.5 in seat. Wool flocked as far as I know (double checking on that) so I would finally be able to get a fitter out to fit it to her.

I'm picking it up tomorrow, I plan to take lots of pictures and post them for opinions please?!

still crooked

2011-03-11T21:28:00.000-08:00

I have two different horses, one that trots with huge slow stretchy strides at the trot, and canters around on a loose rein to the left, and one that throws her head around, and is stiff as a board at the trot, and bucks in the canter!

I scheduled the chiropractor for 11:30 on Monday. I'm hoping she'll be good and fix everything. The guy I had been talking to flaked out on me, so I saw her at the barn and swooped in to make it happen. I'm crossing my fingers!

I made a pretty tail

2011-03-08T22:00:00.000-08:00

I haven't been a good horse mom lately. I think about doing things with my horse all the time. I think about getting her adjusted and riding and showing and competing and winning and spending lots of hours in the saddle, but it just doesn't happen. I've been so swamped taking 18 units and working 20 hours a week, I hate it!

But today I was a good horse mommy. I washed, repaired, dried and applied my old tail bag. I used a stretch stitch, so now it shouldn't get any holes in it because it will just stretch. I washed Bijou's tail with delicious mane n tails shampoo, and I scrubbed all the way down to her once dandruffy tail bone, which is now almost completely dandruff free. I fed her her grain and brushed out her tail. She got to graze in the sunshine after a good grooming while I waited for her tail to dry, then I braided it all up. When I was washing and brushing I noticed how LONG it has gotten! Her tail DRAGS on the ground, when I got her it was right between her hocks and pasterns.

All together, I spent about an hour at the barn, which is nothing to what I would have liked to spend, but I'm proud that I made time to get it done. I'm going to make appointments for barn time in my schedule for next quarter, because this is ridiculous.

Playing the waiting game

2011-03-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

So a few things have changed, big surprise. That show we were supposed to go to, it rained the whole week before hand, and was supposed to rain the day of, so it got canceled. I was training the week before that, hoping to do really well in W/T and getting some really good work in the walk and trot, but our canter totally fell apart. At first it was just a mild hop through a couple of the corners, but through the week it progressed into a couple of full blown bucks in one specific corner, and only to the right. Her left lead canter is still almost as good as ever, only with maybe a tiny bit more tension. I haven't changed her saddle, bit, bridle, feed, pasture, etc. I can't figure it out. So I began the search for a chiropractor. I found one, but have yet to get him to commit to an appointment so I'm just waiting around. I went out and lunged on Sunday (which was the only day out of the last several that it wasn't pouring/HAILING!!!

Bijou got ahead of me on the shedding front, usually I like to keep up with them as it progresses slowly, but I haven't been able to take her blanket off without her getting soaked in the last several days, let alone brush her. So I left several small fuzzy animals worth of hair laying around the trailer on Sunday, while I spend every spare moment grooming her. She was very easy to lunge, not ripping around like she usually likes to. I was going to go ride today but they fed early and I wouldn't have made it out there with enough time to work her without her losing her dinner.

So now it's time to twiddle my thumbs and see if I can find another chiropractor who will respond to my emails, or wait for this other guy to get back to me. I'm going to wait to ride her until I have this issue mostly ruled out just to avoid teaching any bad behavior.

sputum and other exciting things

2011-02-10T19:06:00.000-08:00

At least this time its MY sputum and not my horse's. I've been sick this last week, first with a fever then a cough. I've been pretty damn busy too, what with it being midterms week and having about a million and a half papers/assignments/quizzes/tests.

But I did ride! I spent as much time as possible out at the barn during the weekend, which turned out to not be that much. I've decided that my grown-up-sane-pony ran away and got replaced with the same pony I had at this time last year. She's not been quite so easy to just hop on after a few days off anymore. If I do, the ride goes something like:

Giraffe impression - 20 minutes,

Trotting Cart horse in the most important race of it's life - 15 minutes,

Bucking bronco practice - 1 minute (I don't put up with that)

and then I end up in the round pen anyways because she doesn't get to behave like that. Then I get back on and she's a lovely hunter daisy cutter for about 5 minutes and I'm exhausted and out of time.

Big news, we've scheduled our first show of the year! I'll be going up to San Miguel to ride in the first annual CloseBy Ranch Schooling series!

It's going to be their first show, so how perfect that it will be ours too! I'm admittedly a little bit nervous to get back to showing, for a few reasons. I always plan to prepare waaaaay ahead of time, and just like always, something has gotten in the way. I really planned on being able to ride this past week, and I've been sick. I also feel a certain kind of pressure since this is the youngest and least started horse I've trained. She's the one that's been the most mine from day one, so that means that her performance (good or bad) is all my fault. I know I've done a good job, but I don't know what the competition day will bring.

I plan on just doing the walk/trot classes, and they also have a ground pole hunter class which I think I'm going to try! S and I might do the pairs class, although we always feel a little foolish when we beat out all the 7 year olds... We're also going to go up the day before to practice, keep them stalled up there overnight and get everyone settled in. I think that will be the perfect way to do our first show, get a really good look at the arena the day before, then show in it.

I'm apprehensively hopeful about the whole thing. I'm not going into this to win every ribbon, or even to ribbon at all. This time around is about showing at a level which is appropriate, gaining experience, and maybe having some fun! I just want to get my feet wet to give me something to really work towards.

We have takeoff

2011-01-29T20:17:00.000-08:00

I officially jumped my first vertical yesterday! It was probably just under 2" but I'm just glad that the change of shape made absolutely no difference in how Bijou jumped. We also have been working on stringing multiple fences together. So far we're pretty good at a 4 stride line, she trots in, canters through and generally waits for me to ask for the right spot for the last jump. I'm thinking at this point I really want to keep her slow. She tends to get a little excited and rushy (which is nice compared to where we were 6 months ago when she just stopped) but I want to make sure I have a hunter that can become a jumper, rather than just a freight train :P

Since her head injury, she has been very sporadically head shy. She only really cares when I first walk out into the pasture, or when I take off her halter and bring the bridle up to her face. I've been working her in the round pen again mostly to take the edge off but also to desensitize her to it. So far it's been working ok. I've also been really diligent about feeding her, and it's paying off. I love the feeling that she's eaten well that day and it's made her ribs stick out less, so I feel like it's definitely working. She also officially started shedding yesterday! I'm excited because it means I'm a little closer to my sleek and shiny pony, but not so excited for all the extra time I'm going to spend grooming her.

We have scheduled our first show of the year for February 27th. I'm more than likely going to just do walk/trot with her since our canter can be a little frantic at times. She's been very easily distracted lately, so I'm going to try her on some B vitamin supplements which have proved to calm her in the past. Speaking of which, I should go order some more. Then I'll review them!

all that worrying for naught

2011-01-23T20:01:00.000-08:00

My horse is better. One solid week and she's feeling fine. I petted all over her head and both ears and there was very little shy-ness at all :D

So of course I tacked up (after not riding for at least a week to let her head heal) and we hopped into the arena. I had forgotten that I changed bits to ride a different horse, so we were back to the french link loose ring snaffle. Bijou was very tense but very responsive to rein aids. She had a few good moments of stretchyness but it was mostly just rushy agitated grrr the whole way (if that makes sense). She would pick a spot in the arena to have a little head tossing fit and then be good the rest of the way around until we got to that spot again, and then she'd toss around etc. She did it in a different spot when we changed direction... go figure. I kept it simple, and just kinda forced her to be good. There were a few times we broke to the canter just out of sheer forward momentum, but overall she was ok. One of the ranch hands decided it would be an awesome idea to drag 3 hog panels at about 15mph behind the quad, I'm just glad it was while we were facing that direction, otherwise we would have gotten a much bigger reaction.

She got all the sweat rinsed off since it was 75 (!!) today. Hopefully I'll get out there tomorrow and ride a more sane pony. Now I have to go study for a midterm :(

Spring Sunshine

2011-01-22T19:28:00.001-08:00

My mood is a lot more up, what with the weather being so delightful lately. I've also started to get the first premiums for some upcoming schooling shows and I think I've finally gotten to the point where I just want to go for it. I'm so excited about showing I can't even stand it! There's a show at the end of February that I'm planning on going to, which means I have to find all my show clothes!! It also means I need to find all my 'hunter' tack again, right now I just have everything in lavender :P

I still haven't gone out to check on the head wound, but I'm ok with that. I would rather give it a full week to get better than try to push it. I am definitely going out there tomorrow morning to do something with her. I'm crossing my fingers that I will RIDE her, but you know what happens when you hope for the best, so I'm also preparing for the worst. Maybe I'll just take more pictures of her muddy self while I wait for her food to soak. I dunno, having low expectations is my goal.

ho hum

2011-01-19T21:41:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how an injured horse can make my attitude so lackluster. I've decided to give her the week off before I go out and try to push anything, that way I won't be tempted. I want to keep things nice and gentle with her so she doesn't get headshy over the whole thing. I'm going to try to head out on Friday to check on her, and then probably won't ride until it's healed. I might try to gerry-rig something to be able to ride her, remove the brow band or something... I dunno.

In other news, I've finally put up my reviews section. It's only just begun, I hope to have a bunch of stuff up there just as a general info type thing. I love getting reviews from people I trust so I figured others must find it helpful too. Please feel free to comment and let me know if you have questions about how I use something or my experiences with anything. I can't say I'm an expert, but most of the knowledge we have in the equine world is anecdotal, and I have a lot of anecdotes :D

bleh

2011-01-17T22:00:00.001-08:00

It was time for a beach ride! I went out to the pasture, walked up to my lovely mare, slipped the noseband of the halter over her nose, and flipped the crownpiece up to her ears when all of a sudden she flinched away from my right hand/the crownpiece and almost knocked me down. Stunned, I walked up to her and tried to just pet her face, when she flinches away again! I begin an investigation only to find that she has about a 1.5 in cut right below her ear. It wasn't bleeding badly, just obviously very sore. I walked her up to the trailer with the lead around her neck (this is through puddles and slippery mud still, good pony for just following me even when she didn't have to) to see if I could get some help.

She won't let me get anywhere near it. So I've decided to give her a few days off. I went to the beach on another mare (my friend is trying to sell her, so it was good for her to get the pictures) who was really good but I'm still disappointed.

Is it just me, or is it just one thing after another. The second day I had her she got a hole in her sinus which took 6 weeks to clear up. Then it was too mucky to do anything with her for another 3 months. Then she was mysteriously lame. Then I broke my ankle. Then I got an almost full time job for the summer and didn't spend nearly enough time with her. Then I had another horse who was the priority because I was trying to sell it. Then the arena washed away due to all the rain. And now I can't get a bridle on her because she has a cut where the crown piece would go.

I see everyone making their new years resolutions and thinking out monthly goals and I desperately want to do the same, but I feel like every time I make a goal it just gets broken by something. I even tried to keep my goals simple, but now I can't even keep the "ride every chance I get" one. When I got her I was hoping to have made a lot more progress in the time I've had. I'm not saying that the progress we've made is nothing, I just was so sure I was capable of so much more with her. I'm just really discouraged. I guess I'll make the best of it and just work a bunch, get caught up on my overdue class readings, and feed her a lot.

Hibernation

2011-01-13T21:09:00.000-08:00

Is finally over!! We had about our whole years worth of rain the last two weeks, which resulted in our arena WASHING AWAY!! It was down to the base in at least 1/2 of the arena a few days ago.

But we have rebuilt. The first day that the email went out relaying the news that the arena was open again I went to try it. I was a little worried because there were already three horses working in there, all of whom hadn't been ridden in over a week and a half, some of whom I'd never seen ridden before that etc. Bijou went for a short romp in the round pen and told me she was done getting out her willies by arching her neck, trotting into the center, nudging me and blowing out a big deep breath of relief at finally being able to stretch her legs again. She went in a little bit quivery, like a horse on a windy day, but came out 10 minutes later as her normal self.

We tacked up and headed into the very busy arena and went right to work. I don't know if it was just because she was unfit or sore from slipping around in the mud for a while, but she was a little tiny bit reluctant to go forward. I wasn't kicking or flapping, but there just wasn't that willingness I've come to get used to. I'm trying not to blow it out of proportion, but I also want to pay attention to see if it's a trend. I did have her shoes pulled for winter, at least, since all the sucking mud would probably pull them for me if I didn't. She was still happy to work into the contact, and even picked up a nice canter on each lead without any fight. The quality of all the gaits was good, it was just the transitions which were a little sticky. Like I said, I'm hoping that's just because she's not been worked much. It was a very uneventful pleasant ride, surprisingly with all the commotion. At one point there were 5 horses in the arena, which is 4 more than normal and she took it all in stride. I think her specialty is to surprise me :)

I'm was going to ride a few times this week, but I've been lured into helping S body clip Wyatt for the last several days. I'm glad its done, and he looks really cute. Now hopefully it's on to riding!

Oh ya, I know it's kinda late, but here are my New Years Resolutions:

1) Ride my horse at every opportunity, even if it just means walking her around. If I can't do that, just go feed her
2) Get straight A's
3) Go to at least one show this season. I don't care what level I compete at, I just want to go.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

2010-12-23T15:51:00.000-08:00

We've recently gotten all the rain my county will get for the next year, a quarter of our arena was washed away to nothing but base, and the barn was inaccessible to cars that don't have four wheel drive for like 3 days because there was so much water. I don't have much to report on Bijou except that she's happy and mostly dry. I checked on her and gave her a good scratch on the withers, but other than that there's no news.

So much for riding a LOT during Christmas break :(

Rain rain go away!

2010-12-18T19:50:00.000-08:00

Hello again! So, updates. I haven't gotten all the cookies packaged yet... but it will happen soon. I'm a little worried because I might not get a chance to go out to the barn since it will be so wet. It's supposed to rain for 7 consecutive days!!! That's a TON of water!

Updates: Thursday I re-clipped the hairy beast because 1) I had a ton of time to play with her, but her shoe was loose so I couldn't ride and 2) because I had finally had a warm day to rinse her off the day before so she was actually VERY clean! I gave her a real trace clip this time, and I think I did an ok job, if I do say so myself. I got a B+ from the CI** rider at my barn... so I think I'm doing ok.

So, she also was unshod and trimmed on Friday. I figured I would keep it easy and de-worm her that day too. She was not stoked about it, but we got it done. I did it with SafeGuard this time. I rode her Friday too. We warmed up at the walk just working on keeping a long low cadenced walk, and then I picked up a trot right as the BM started working putting more sand in the runs for the stalls, which are all along one side of the arena. He was about 6 feet from the arena fence dumping buckets full of sand and we rode calmly past like it was nothing, again after not being ridden in a few days. So we worked at a trot, and I really lifted with my inside hand, but kept it gentle and spongy. She liked this kind of contact and came nicely into the bridle. She's still fussy through transitions, and I didn't work them as much as I should have. She was nice and forward off my leg and felt really good for being just trimmed and unshod. I did a fun little easy exercise. I trotted two large (30 meter?) circles at the end of the arena, one right after the other. Then I would change bend over the center line and ask for a canter. She seemed to really get it and picked up a nice balanced canter both directions! The right lead canter is coming along which I'm really happy about. I was worried I was going to have a big fight on my hands with it, but she seems to be picking it up well.

So then, because all the jumps were at perfect little 18" x-rails, I decided to practice a 'course'! I picked off the second fence of the outside line, and kinda just wandered around picking off fences until I had done each of them at least once. Then I let her walk and gave her a good long pat. She's finally getting brave to the fences. No more almost stopping to look at them before daring to put her feet over. She doesn't rush, just pricks her ears and gets all bouncy! So I picked up my trot and did our first combo, a 4 stride line. She was PERFECT!! trotted in, pick up a nice balanced canter, and got a really nice modest distance to the second fence. I love my little mare! I think I'm going to start working more on combos and pole to fence combos to make sure that she understands what a bounce vs. two stride vs, three stride is etc. I'm also thinking that after the rain clears up I'll put up a vertical! My little baby is growing up! I hope to be jumping 2'-2'3" so that I can show at 18" this show season with confidence. I'd love ideas for gymnastic exercises you've found helpful, or websites with helpful hints or whatever!

Phew that was a long post

Christmas Horse Cookies

2010-12-16T21:24:00.000-08:00

For the past few years I have enjoyed making delicious home made impromptu cookies for all the deserving horses out at whatever barn I happen to be boarding at. It's my way of saying thanks to everyone for catching my horse when she decides to run away, or for yelling out which jumps they were going for, or just for smiling and asking how my ride went. This year I tried to perfect last years recipe. I used only four ingredients:

Oats, molasses, carrots, and water

I kinda just guesstimated but I think it was about 1.5 cups of oats that I put through a food processor to make them more like flour, two whole carrots put through the same process, and probably about .5 cup of molasses. I sprinkled about 2 tablespoons of water in, just enough to get everything moist and mixed together. Then I formed little balls, tiny really... but I like having lots of little treats.

I took these balls and squashed them a bit, then placed on an ungreased baking sheet. I put the oven to 400 at first, but decided that 350 would probably get them drier without burning them. I baked them for quite a while, up to 25 minutes. I like my horse treats crunchy, I think they like them better that way. This was the only way to get them dry enough to feel crispy. This year I used no oil, no flour, just the above ingredients. I used dark corn syrup last year too, they didn't smell like real molasses, probably because they weren't. Overall I'm much happier with my product this year... Roxie (my roomates dog) was a willing tester. She loves carrots and thought they were delicious. Hopefully the horses think the same!

The finished and wrapped product!

The weather outside is... actually beautiful

2010-12-13T21:08:00.000-08:00

Amidst all the postings of frozen ground and infinite inches of show/sleet/hail/other frozen precipitation, I rode yesterday in a tank top... it was 78 degrees. Yay California!!

So now that I'm done bragging (sorry guys! I know winter sucks!) I will tell you about that ride. It was just as pleasant as the weather. I haven't been out to ride since my last post... I know I'm a horrible mom. I had finals to study for, shifts to cover for other people who were studying for finals, and finals to take! This meant that last week was a bust as far as barn time went. Then I had this whole last weekend of my BFF's graduation!! She's so old (but I'm going to be doing the same thing in June, eek!) and it was a lot of exhausting fun. We went out to eat umpteen times, swam in indoor pools, played drinking games, and crashed. So it's been another 10 days. I went out, and feeling brave I just hopped on. I was expecting to just have to get off and lunge due to impeding crazy pony syndrome... but no, I had a sane and reliable mount. She didn't even really mind the large dark drainage ditches they just put in, or the scary picnic table or anything. We had one leap into the air spook when a flock of birds took flight directly behind us, but other than that we had a normal walk/trot/canter ride. I even tossed her over a fallen x-rail (one rail was up, one down) to make her pick up her feet. She was, dare I say, brave to it! She didn't get fast, she just ate the ground up to it like she was excited. No bucking or stupidness afterward, just a nice back to trot transition. She wasn't the absolute antithesis of a giraffe, ok maybe there were some genuine giraffe moments, but she worked on the bit and moved laterally when I asked. I didn't ask for much, suspecting that too much would blow a gasket, and it all turned out perfect. She even picked up perfect controlled canters on the correct lead both directions.

I know I'm oozing over some pretty simple things, but I just love that I have a sane horse. For a while there I was a little worried that I'd fallen prey to the typical Crazy with a capital C TB mare. *knock on wood* I think I was wrong!

Oh, I finally took her tail out of her tail bag... whoee! It's going to be so thick and delightful come show season. I can't wait!! She also got rinsed off because it was warm.

Stay tuned, next time I think I'm going to make a list of things to do over winter break. Any suggestions? I want to have accomplished some things in the next few months so that I'll be ready for show season. Everyone says that the shows are really won in January, not July.

Wow

2010-12-02T23:21:00.001-08:00

I hadn't ridden my mare in 12 days.... Yah, I was prepared for a mess. I took her into the round pen to see what she would do. She lunged like a normal horse, no tail flagging spiraling out of control, dragon snorting monster that I expected. So I went and put on her bridle and figured I'd cool her out by walking and doing some bending before they decided to feed her way out in her pasture. I hopped on and after being mildly annoyed with bit contact she settled right in. I even did a few really nice trot transitions just to get her thinking forward. I was so pleasantly surprised. I think my little mare might be starting to grow up!

I was worried that after 12 days of not seeing her I would go out and she would be a skeleton horse because I hadn't been out to feed her her extras. Nope. She's just as fat as she was at the beginning of winter, so I'm hoping that she stays a good weight if I feed her when I ride her. I weighed her with the weight tape and she read 1136. I think that's a really decent weight for her. Her feet are getting a little chipped, and that front left(?) crack never fully healed. I'm going to set up a shoeing appointment hopefully. I don't know whether I should pull shoes for winter or not? I just finally got her to keep her shoes... but I would rather let her feet do some natural growth and not spend the extra $30 or whatever.

Her clip is almost non-existent so I'll probably be doing that some time over winter break, depending on how cold it gets. I'm still planning on getting her a blanket liner for the colder days when she is clipped. My pampered little mare :)

I got to ride two horses at the barn back home when I was there for thanksgiving, a horse named Jackson, and a pony named Wall-e so CUTE!!

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

2010-11-24T18:51:00.001-08:00

Well... I'm here to tell myself that I'm a horrible horse mom. I haven't seen my horse in.... 5 days! and I won't see her for 4 more! That's NINE days with no pony. Blah!!! Things just keep popping up out of nowhere, or I'm too cold or too busy or something. I almost want to go out there right now in the dark and snuggle her. I hope she's nice and warm with her new sheet on, but I have no idea! It has been getting really cold (almost 20 degrees!) at night, and I've been looking around for a lining that I can stick in her blanket to keep her warm, but I haven't found anything yet.

It's been so wet so I can't ride, I guess it's just that time of year again. The clip I did is almost invisible now, which I guess is good so she stays warm now that it's finally cold. I'll have to see if it dries up for winter break, I'm really looking forward to it so that I can ride her, but who knows how things will pan out.

The last time I did ride was awesome! I took her out after 4 days of being a pasture puff, and expected her to be a tad frisky. I don't know if it was because we finally had the barn to ourselves or if she just felt good, but she was perfect. No looky loo, no fighting with me for the first ten minutes, just a calm easy going mare. I love her! We worked on a lot of things, and I got her bending really well to the right and left, then we worked on trot transitions, which were pretty awful at first, but she was very responsive to my leg, just tossing her head everywhere. So I went ahead and got her thinking about using herself by doing this little thing I thought up after taking a lesson with a friend. I basically just let whatever cue come into my head, and then do it. This includes turns, leg yields, transitions up or down, etc. I just create this random pattern that has no pattern and it really amps her up. So I tried a walk/canter transition, because I thought, what the heck? It won't hurt anything. It kinda failed. So I kept after her until she really felt like she was waiting and anticipating for me to ask anything of her, and asked again, it went really well!!

There was one x-rail in the arena and we popped over it with no hesitation! I think it's because it's the same one that's been there forever, but I'm still hopeful that she's getting used to the idea of just jumping things that are put in front of her.

I'm getting a kind of cabin fever since I didn't get out to see her today. I was really planning on it but then found out that I'm basically responsible for Thanskgiving dinner.... wooo hooo! I'm excited but scared that things won't go as planned, but oh well. That meant that I needed to do some shopping instead of going to see my beloved. I know she's fine, eating and playing out in pasture, but it doesn't mean I don't want to go see her :(

I'm consoling myself by going back to the barn I rode at in high school, Miwok Livery Stables. I'm so stoked to go back and maybe ride one of their horses. I think I might end up spending the whole day there, just chatting with everyone and petting all the horses again! I have a few favorites who I'm hoping are still around, Oprah the big grey percheron mare, Marker the strong willed and opinionated but very fancy warmblood, Rosebud the quirky paint mare, I can't wait to see them all again!

Late is better than never

2010-11-17T20:31:00.000-08:00

I've been a horrible blogger lately! I can't seem to find time to put down all the things I want to say, and I can't open a new post without fully going through everything that's been happening.

Sunday November 14th was the one year anniversary of this blog, and of my owning Bijou!!! I didn't really have a ton of expectations at the get go, and I liked it that way, but I think I've overcome some huge stuff and I'm really proud of my little mare. My favorite thing about Bijou and I is that I feel like she's MY horse and I'm her one and only person. She really didn't trust me in the beginning, and it took me breaking my ankle, her getting a hole in her head, many days crying, many days laughing, and many more days of work to get her to understand that I'm her mom and she can trust me. I've never really worked with a seriously distrusting horse before. I'm glad I've gotten the experience and I am so much more thankful for the stuff I can do with her. I've just started riding her (halter and blanket as tack :P) back to her pasture. It's really adorable because I pretty much just get on and squeeze and she knows where her buddies are and just marches along, but there've been a few times where something scary comes up and I don't have steering really so I just hold on, and she gets it. She knows when I'm feeling off balance, and her ears flick back to make sure I'm still there, and then we go on our merry little way. I love those moments, because even just 2 months ago I would never have dreamed of doing that, and now it's no big deal.

I'm starting to see all the hard work pay off. This is where I knock on wood because every time I say that I take two steps back but I'm starting to get a horse that I can leave out in pasture for 4 days, pull her out, and have a really productive ride. That's saying something for a 6 yr old TB mare I feel like. It used to be that every new alternative of the same question was too overwhelming, now I can point at a x-rail, and it happens. Today I took her over 5 trot poles and instead of stopping and snorting at them, she processed and daintily tiptoed over them, just as if they were only trot poles, instead of the toe biting brightly colored monsters they were before.

I think another thing she's taught me is to appreciate the little things. I really do appreciate the days when she feels super sound and wants to bend and lift her back for me, even if it's only for a little bit. We don't have to accomplish a huge goal, just something small. Two steps of really good 'back', one really good long side worth of bend, one correct lead.

Then there's the big things, where she just wows me. Like the day I took her to Twin Rivers. That was amazing. I had so much fun and she was SOOO GOOD!!! And it's those days that I look back to when she's rooting her face to the ground only to put on her giraffe impression two seconds later all because I asked her to trot. It isn't perfect, but it's not who won or lost, it's how we play the game right?

Ok, enough self reflection, I want to plan ahead for next year! I want to have some real goals:

1) Compete in at least 3 shows from now until November 2011
2) Start schooling bigger fences, working our way up to 2'-2'6" (???)
3) Work on confronting scary things under saddle (cows, sheep, tarps, waves at the beach, etc)
4) Try Bitless to see what happens
5) Try Chiropractic to see what happens
6) Find a saddle that fits us both! (I'm hoping that my bates will when I find my other gullet... now where did it run off to)

There, better late than never...

New bit plus rain equals...

2010-11-08T19:53:00.001-08:00

So I bought a rubber mullen mouth from Stateline because it was on sale. I've been fooling around with different bits just to see what happens and pretty much I've only found one that she really didn't like, it was this huuuge clunky full cheek snaffle that she couldn't stand. I've been riding her in a loose ring french link, but she liked to hollow out in her back rather than stretch into the contact, so I thought I'd try to give her something easier to grab onto.

So far there's a few differences in it. I certainly feel like I have less control on days when she is extra fresh, but not anything dangerous. I've also gotten my forward horse back. This could be because she has only been getting out once every other day or so or it could be that she was hiding from my other bit. Its hard to know if she's responding to the bit, or to more training, or to not getting out as much, or who knows what.

I found a new tack shop in town! We went to the Equine Expo that one of the vets put on every year, and the woman who owns it was there. Who knew? She has a Dr. Cooks Bitless that she'd be willing to let me buy and bring back if it really doesn't work out. I have to wait until Friday to get to her, because the store's only open until 3 :( I'm still really nervous about riding my 6 yr old TB mare in a bitless bridle, but I'm going to video it at least so that whatever may happen I will have evidence. I'm really a skeptic to the efficacy of something like this, but if it works then I might start using it.

The arena's been closed most days due to rain... which means I get very little riding done. If Jou's been out in the last few days then she's usually sensible enough to be taken out on the track around the property, but if not I'm liable to have a bronc on my hands especially because we have the neighbors sheep running amok around, hiding behind bushes, stampeding at odd intervals, and generally being nuisances.

MM is back this week, so hopefully I'll get some real workouts in with her and Jou. This last week the one time I was able to get out two days in a row I jumped a big (over18") crossrail! We had warmed up, and she was feeling really good off my aids and nice and forward without feeling rushed. I trotted her up to it, she stopped, walked over it, and trotted away. We trotted up again, she picked up a canter two strides out and jumped it like a pro. I was proud of her for finding her distance so nicely and being bold to the fence for once! Next time I jump her I am going to really emphasize that she jump it the first time. I also need to go to the dollar store or something and buy some fake flowers. I want to have her ready for all the little x-rail classes next spring! Speaking of jumping... I know a lot of people limit jump days to once or twice a week. Should that still be the practice with a young fit horse who's only doing 18" max for now? I feel like she needs more practice than that, but I don't want to stress anything too much. I will for sure only jump her once or twice a week once we start jumping over 2' but I'm not sure if limiting is necessary now.

One last thing... I just have to say how crazy it is that just a little less than a year ago my horse couldn't lunge, could barely canter, bending was out of the question, jumping was WAY too intimidating, she was at least 150 lbs lighter, had no idea what contact meant, and could barely stand still while I groomed and tacked her up. Now we've conquered all the above :D I'm going to do a 1 yr anniversary post soon, I can't believe it!

Rockstar should be her new name

2010-10-25T22:54:00.001-07:00

So... about that x-country ride... IT WENT SOOOOOO WELL!!! I am so happy and proud and hopeful for the future. I feel like giving her a report card, so here goes:

Trailer Ride: It has been several months (I'm pretty sure March was the last time) since Bijou's been in a trailer. We walked up to the door after Wyatt had claimed his spot, took a sniff, backed one step, got reprimanded, and jumped right in. She stood quietly the whole ride up, even when us sleepy girls went to grab some coffee :D. All in all I say that deserves a A-

Tacking up: We got out of the trailer, she backed out like a champ, and took one tiny look around before I 'tied' to the trailer. This basically means that I loop the lead rope once through the tie on the trailer and tell her "whoa" in a stern voice. She stood. stock. still. even while girthing! We got all spiffed up, with my lilac bell boots, white splints all around, lilac reins, lilac pad and I wore black... oops oh well. No nervous energy at the trailer, just game for whatever was coming her way. A+

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Have a great ride!: we went out and warmed up in the dressage rings, which was good because Bijou has never seen a judge stand before. She definitely looked at it, but overall wasn't too concerned. We did some circles, etc and then went out in the big open warm up area and I just let her pick up a canter to see how fresh she'd get. She came right back to me after a good hand gallop with only a change in my position. At this point I'm getting a very good feeling about the day :D. So we head out to the course. I love Twin Rivers because they have the big big big stuff, and they also have baby x-rails sized stuff too. So we start off by being Wyatt's decoy. He does this thing where he really doesn't want to go straight out of the box if there's another horse behind him, so S worked on that a lot and I got to teach the Jou Jou about how to stay behind. This was something she used to have a lot of trouble with, but she's mostly gotten over it it seems. A for effort

The Course: I pointed her at the first jump once it was our turn to use the start box, and she didn't even hesitate, just popped right over it. I love how close she gets to the fences, my other mare always took a GIANT leap over everything, so taking the little ones at a close spot again is so nice! We cantered happily away to the next little 18" log and hopped right over that one too. We messed around like this for a bit, until we got to the first water complex. It was really full this time since it had been raining. She didn't like the look of it at first, but with three or four good kicks she finally leapt in. We went sloshing back and forth through it a few times until it only took one good kick to get her in and called that one a success. Next we went over to the banks. S and Wyatt took off up the set of novice obstacles to encourage Jou to follow up, and we took the Beginner Novice bank up along them. She stopped right at the bank, I had a supporting leg, and between her momentum and my leg we jumbled up the thing. Now was the hard part, the down bank, so much fun on a horse that loves it, but very hard on one that doesn't. Again we had Wyatt lead us down a few strides ahead, but Bijou knew just what to do and took a playful leap off the bank with very very little hesitation! Superstar pony! She did the happy headtoss to show how proud of herself she was and we went to do the last big question that I'll probably ever answer on an x-country course, the ditch. S and Wyatt schooled it first, then I walked Bijou up to it. She had her usual reluctance to get close to something that I wanted her to get close to, but got a good look at it without going over. I thought we needed lots more momentum, so I circled around at a trot. She stopped right at the base, I kicked and meant it, and she reared, and somehow got her hind legs across the ditch. At least that's what it felt like. I had grabbed mane, and I was glad, and I cantered away petting her. We did that one a few more times, and then put it together with a few other little baby jumps and called it good. Lastly, S wanted to go do her whole course, just to make sure she was up to it, so I told her I would just canter along behind her and pick off fences here and there. This was the only part that Jou had a problem with. Once Wyatt went out of sight, we had a little neighing melt down. She still got to work, but she seriously refused the ditch when I tried to take it again. I let it go and rode around a bit waiting for them to get back, and then re-schooled the ditch and called it a day. Overall A for answering all the tough questions on her first day out.

I wish I would have taken the day off of work and learned the dressage test because I could have totally kicked butt at the One Day Horse Trials they had the next weekend, but that's what I get for not planning. Next year we will be SO ready! Phew!

In more recent news, the arena's been closed a lot due to rain, Bijou is losing weight :(, I had a lesson with a CCI** rider who boards where I do which went well, aaaaand I've been busy. I bought a pair of clippers, so I'm stoked to clip some horses this winter, and now it's time for bed :D

pictures?

2010-10-21T21:52:00.001-07:00

ahhh, so finally I figured out how to get these darned pictures up. Here's the fun story!

We started out on a lovely warm day, and Bijou had been enjoying working mostly like this:

She's had been very simple with relatively little head tossing, wanting to stretch down, almost plodding along at times?! This was our nice happy pace and she has been happy to take longer and longer stretches to get a really nice trot. It's so much fun to ride, and I have a feeling that it is largely due to the fact that I'm getting her out more with the help of MM.

I just love her little face! And then we started jumping. This was the first time she had approached anything with standards with the intent to go over it in about 7 weeks, due to losing a shoe and my lack of gung-ho-ness to make her do it. So, MM suggests that she would like to see what she does when she jumps so that she'll know what to expect. I told her that she hasn't jumped in a while (not really realizing at the time how long it had been) but we set everything to what I thought would be almost too easy heights and trotted up to the first jump set on a diagonal:

I tried to make a caption "Oh! You want me to JUMP that thing?!" but I think I failed. Next time I'll do it in photoshop instead of being lazy and doing it in paint :P. So ya, I think she just didn't even expect that to show up in front of her. She wasn't totally paying attention, but I gave her enough space to see it, I think she was in denial. Oh well. Despite how off balance I look, I actually stayed on and it didn't ever feel like I was really going to come off, although after looking at the photographic evidence I have to say it looks pretty dramatic. So one dirty refusal down, we go around and take it again, now that we're paying attention:

And we jump it a little big, with a funny spot, which is why I'm perched atop her like a bird. It really does show you how good your position is over fences when the horse has NO CLUE what she's supposed to be doing. I did it a few more times, along with a few other x-rails in the arena, and we called it good on a last good note:

Hooray! that was... 10.8.10 and we're now at 10.21.10 phew. I have taken her around and raised the x-rails to 18" and even cantered one or two when she gave me a beautiful controllable canter. Not bad progress in 2 weeks if I do say so myself. I even trotted her across a 'liverpool' made out of blue astro-turf :P So basically we are learning that things near the feet don't eat the feet, but we have to pick up the feet. I really need to get some flowers and a gate to put up in the arena to get used to how those look too.

In more current news... Phew, there's a lot of that too. I have my first x-country schooling day planned on Sunday!!! I'm nervous but excited but nervous. I've taken Bijou elsewhere than our own property, and she's usually done just fine. I just hope it stays that way. She was also in a lot worse shape physically and I think she didn't have the calories to allow her mind to do that crazy TB thing that TB's just love to do. I'm just going to go into it with the idea that if we walk around on x-country for a bit, look at scary jumps, maybe even touch one?! then we'll consider it a success. It's hard because I'm going with S, who's had her horse for 4 years, and has gone through all this stuff with him. He's always been a super champ about not getting spooked by anything... so she doesn't really get it (or know how to deal with it) when Bijou is. I'm hoping that she'll be understanding but not really expecting the best when I just want to take things slow for my first time out. I've gotten a serious dose of caution since I broke my ankle, I don't want to do something STUPID again and get hurt and hate my life. But I'm still excited and hoping for the best :D

In other recent events, Bijou choked on her beet pulp last night. I went out late after running around finishing up some errands and rode pretty much until dark. I walked her around several times, trying to take extra care to cool down. I guess it wasn't enough, because she was still really hot when I finally felt under her chest. All that hair (even after a low trace clip) is making her retain a ton of heat. I really wanted to try this new calming supplement, its SmartB1 from smartpaks. I thought, oh give her a handful of beet pulp (which I wetted like always) and let her eat it. Well, I don't know if it was because she was hot, or just a fluke, but she got some stuck. It was the strangest thing I've seen in a horse in a while. She picked up her head, did the Flehmen thing where they flip up their upper lip, and then with every muscle in her body she heaved like she was trying to puke, but couldn't. There were two other girls I know out at the barn, so I took her over to them like "what is this?!" and one of the girls used to have her horse at a place they fed cubes, and the horses would choke all the time. So I called the vet out and had him pass a tube to unblock it. She got some anti-inflammatory and antibacterial stuff just in case she aspirated anything and went off to the medical layup pens because she couldn't eat for a few hours. I checked on her today and she's fine. I wish that I would have taken video or something because it was just so weird.

Ok, this post is long enough now I'm going to bed :D

Pictures coming!

2010-10-15T13:28:00.001-07:00

So MM took pictures on her super nice camera, and I'm going to get them tonight! Which means that I'll probably put them up soon. I'll also have lots to update about, but it's more fun with pictures.

Ahhh

2010-10-08T22:14:00.001-07:00

Today was a good day, and I just have that feeling like I can sigh with relief. I only worked a few hours, so that was nice, only had one class, so that was easy, and then I came home and got to get a few things done. I picked out some stuff to donate to goodwill, and that got me thinking about any/all the horse stuff I have to sell. I think I'll be putting some things up on Craigslist soon. Then I headed out to the barn where Mavericks mom was going to meet me. I ended up helping S clip Wyatt and doing a pretty darned good job if I do say so myself. I'm going to have to get pics so you can see just how darn good of a job I did. I can't wait to do Jou because she got SWEATY today. I'm going to save you the story until I get pics, because I'm pretty sure they illustrate things perfectly! Lets just say we ended up cantering our first x-rail!!! Ok, so it was only like 10" tall, but she cantered it in stride and everything! I was really proud of her. Then MM got on and I took pictures of her, but I'll do a discussion of that later, again so I can illustrate with pictures.

I'm feeding beet pulp, MSM, smartjoint thingy maintenance and a vitamin supplement. I'm trying to do that most days I get out there, so that way she gets some in her most days. I'm going to get her some HA for joint health, and some more MTG for the winter season when I plan on putting her tail up for most of the mud. She's also going to get a really spiffy purple plaid blanket to keep her dry and hopefully mostly clean...

Winds of Change

2010-10-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

So... I'm not moving barns like everyone else seems to be doing, but I feel other momentous things moving. Most of this has to do with me being almost a big girl in the big girl world and figuring out how to get a big girl job. Some of it has to do with a change in who I'll be riding since I finally sold my other mare! This means I can focus on Bijou and her progress. I'm also going to be getting help from one of my good friends who I met my first week in college. Her horse Maverick popped a rear splint and will be rehabbing for two months and she needs a way to stay fit so that she can deal with her crazy pony when he's ready to be dealt with again :D

She came out today to try her out and had all sorts of positive things to say about her! She couldn't stop talking about how cute she was, how well put together she was, how much of a big mover she is... etc. It's nice because I haven't exactly been getting the most positive of comments about her and was starting to feel down on her in general. Bijou was AWESOME today. She hasn't been ridden since Thursday, when I just did a light ride in the dressage arena. I took her out, tacked her up, and lunged her for about 4 times around at a trot and 4 times around at a canter. She was really good, not a lot of head tossing or anything, and then hopped on. It was WINDY!!! and she didn't care one bit that stuff was blowing around (mostly huge dust clouds and debris, not like jumps falling over or anything) or that all the horses in the vicinity were playing/bucking/galloping around the pastures. She didn't bat an eye. I kept her mostly in circles and we trotted/cantered around for a bit to show Mavericks mom how she ticks, and then she hopped on, Bijou went right into a nice (if very inconsistent) 'frame' type thing, where she started lifting in her back and using herself. It was so nice to see someone else riding my pony mare, she looks so big from the ground! Mavericks mom looked small on her! But I guess that's good because it means I probably look pretty normal :D. She also did a really good job working with a young TB, which is so nice. I just love people who can ride!

I've been really busy with homework. I'll be glad when all my English classes have a check mark next to them because all this reading just takes too much time! Blogging is not higher on my list than homework, so I might get a little sporadic. I'll try to keep up :)

Drumroll please.....

2010-09-22T19:02:00.001-07:00

The verdict is in, well sort of. I called the vet yesterday on one of my rare moments not diligently taking notes in class or working hard for my money and he had some... ambiguous things to say.

We took more rads of Bijou's RF hoof this time. He said that he does see some things that are suspicious, such as some remodeling of the coffin bone to give it a little lip at the toe (I have yet to see the films, so I don't know how much we're talking about) which could have happened recently, or could have happened as a youngster. He also saw some slight navicular changes, mostly because that foot is more upright, and he thinks that all the tendons/ligaments working around that area might have pulled a few things slightly off kilter. He also said that her pastern bone doesn't sit as nicely in dead center of the joint as he'd like to see. So... what does this all mean? Not a whole heck of a lot since when we nerve blocked out those areas, she was still mostly off. That's when a whole picture type thing really comes in handy. I'm glad we did the blocks first, because now we know that all of that might just be 'normal' for her. Some horses have bone chips that never bother them, some have calcifications that should cause pain but just don't manifest as painful in some horses. Right now I'm not sure how much of this I need to worry about.

I had to rush through my conversation in order to get to my next class on time, so I had to cut short all the burning questions these findings brought up. What he did suggest as a plan of action was to shoe her like I had before (which made her sound) and until that wasn't working, we could continue like that. I'm a big believer in preventative medicine, so I'm already looking into getting some generic Adequan and/or some oral joint supplements to stave off any potential degradation of those joints. I have a friend who might be able to get me some of the generic at cost, so it might not even be thaaaat expensive.

Then I have thoughts like, if my young 6 yr old horse can't even stay sound barefoot, on really great footing, doing flat work, how is she ever going to stay sound enough to event no matter what I do with her feet?

I really love this mare. She's got the cutest personality, loves to be loved on, wants to please. I went out today and 'rode' her around bareback with her halter in her pasture (ok, so maybe we walked in like, 1/2 a circle a few times and I just laid there the rest of the time). That's the kind of thing I've always wanted to be able to do with my horses. I just met a girl the other day who wishes desperately that she could just go hop on her guy and wander around in a bridle, but can't because he's just not that kind of horse. I know that's not an amazing aspiration to have (and I've always been pushed to have aspirations) but is there really something wrong with that? I've really gained a trusting bond with this mare, she followed me around jumping little 6" cavalletti today and it was so cute because she would jump them just as high as I did. If I ran at them and JUMPED over, she would do the same, or if I just walked over them calmly, she'd follow along with her nose on the ground.

I'm at so many crossroads, my last year in college, what do I want to do as a profession, what do I want the rest of my equine career to look like, will I move? Where? Everything's up in the air and I guess I'll just keep taking things one day at a time.

Please, learn from my mistakes. Even if the horse is free (which Bijou was not), get rads and a soundness done, because this is no fun.

not much, but some

2010-09-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

I've barely touched Bijou in the last week. I took her out for our vet visit, but I haven't wanted to do anything with her since we didn't get anything conclusive.

I've been doing lots of online 'stalking' instead. Watching tons of youtube videos and finding some amazing stuff. Some of the things have challenged the way I think about riding horses. I've found that some people ride in nothing but a string around their horses neck. That's taking bitless to the extreme! I have no idea how, but I want to start playing around with the idea.

I've also been hearing a lot about clicker training and playing with horses. I'll post more details later, but some of the video's are amazing. I started a little bit of play with Bijou today. I figure the basic thing is that I have to get her to want to follow me. I went out to her, stood a few feet away, and talked to her. She came right over to be scratched on. I obliged happily for a little bit, but then I stepped a few more feet away. I wanted to see if she'd follow me for a scratch, and she did, slowly but surely. We did this a few times until I had to go. I don't really know what I'm planning on doing with this, but the urge to get a bitless bridle (or heck, a shoe string around the neck) is getting stronger and stronger. I think I can do it. I've never spent that much on a single tack item other than a saddle, I know, I'm a cheapskate. I'm going to look into return policies just in case I need one to try but it ends up fitting badly, or not being the right bitless for Bijou and I.

I have my second vet visit on tomorrow, we'll see how it goes. Keep your fingers crossed!

Vet Visit, still pending

2010-09-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

The Dr. was in today, finally. He called me around 3 to let me know he was only running late, not standing me up again. He showed up, I explained that she's been on again off again for a while, and I think I was just chocking it up to her being unbalanced/unfit and young. Well now she's plenty fit and not that unbalanced but still off. So he has me run her up and down, nothing there, we go find a tough spot of ground and sure enough she's way off on her right foot. So we block the navicular. I'm cringing as I send her out to trot around hoping desperately that she's still off... and she is! PHEW! So it's not a navicular thing. We add more carbocaine to block the pastern, trot around, still off. More, to the fetlock, and she's not miraculously better, but much more so. We take like 5 views of her fetlock on x-ray and off he goes to run them through the developer. I won't hear back from him until tomorrow some time, hopefully.

He says it could be that she has a little bit of a lack of cartilage around the joint, or something else, he's not sure what. Hopefully the x-rays show something, because I want to know what it is! I guess I should count myself lucky that I can just slap plain ole front shoes on and have her be sound, but I want to make sure I'm not doing anything to her that I shouldn't.

Also, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but my little 6 yr old mare has been pin-fired. No one really knows why the race track trainers do this, but they do. I have no clue if this has anything to do with her soreness but ya...

*Update*
I called the vet today (after not posting this post late last night for some reason which I forget) and he says that her x-rays show.... nothing! I don't know if that is good or bad at this point. The Dr. wants to come back out to do some more lower limb pictures (why he didn't already is beyond me) just to rule out anything down there. Those were the ones I wanted anyway, so yay! Or boo, considering I have to pay for them. Let the diagnostics continue!

Will anything ever go as planned?

2010-09-07T20:25:00.000-07:00

My vet called me at about 3 today saying that they would not be able to make it out for my appointment at four basically because everyone else was more important. Someone had a bunch of horses they weren't prepared for about a 30 minute drive north, so the vet needed extra time there, and they were going to skip me in order to get him back to the clinic for his clinic appointments. I have another appointment for Thursday at 3, let's see if this works out. The thing that bugs me is that they have a 24 hr cancellation policy, if you cancel you get charged like $25. I want to have them take that off my bill because they canceled on me! If I didn't have to wait for the vet I could have gone to school Twin Rivers on my other mare.... URGH!

Hurry up and wait

2010-09-02T19:42:00.000-07:00

I made an appointment with the vet today for Tuesday the 7th at 4pm. That's five days away. That's a long time to formulate really crazy worst case scenarios. I think I'm just going to stick to walking her around, maybe some lateral work and lots of stretching with no thinking allowed on my part. I don't know how sane she'll stay if she doesn't get the chance to get sweaty, or how sane I'll stay until the vet gets here. I'm a worry wort, can you tell?

I'm off to fight the urge to google lamenesses..... wish me luck!

Not a good day

2010-09-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

Where to begin. I started today, the first day of September, by realizing that I have only 19 days left until I begin the rat race of trying to obtain a degree. The degree, I have discovered at the end of my third year, that will get me nowhere I want to go. So, I guess you could say that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Went to work, where I got my first evaluation ever. There were 5-6 categories, and I only got "excellent" on one. I thought I was valued a little more than that. So not only am I working hard at a degree that doesn't get me anywhere, but I'm working my butt of at work to not be fully appreciated.

Went to the barn after paying out the nose when I dropped off rent and board. Not a particularly good feeling. Went to get Bijou and began my grooming. She was a little antsy which is just annoying since I know she knows better by now. I picked her four feet, and realized on the last one that she had thrown a shoe. Oh boy... I had decided that after my last scare of not knowing what was wrong with her feet to make her sore enough to need shoes, that the next time I needed to swap out shoes I would get some radiographs just to rule out anything that radiographs would show. I had also planned on saving up for the ensuing vet bill over the next 6-8 weeks, hopefully giving me enough to feel comfortable spending that. Well, since she lost the one shoe today, I put in the call to the vet to see if they could come out sooner rather than later. The only problem is that I'm not quite comfortable with paying for it yet. I did get one piece of good news, the farrier used a different shoe that's softer and he's also been having problems with them coming off. He's decided to re-do the shoes for free with his standard shoes because he feels like it's his fault. I don't know for sure either way, but it's really nice of him.

After all this, I feel like giving up. If Bijou has something wrong with her that won't let her jump... I dunno if I will keep her. I hate that, but it's not fair to either of us. Of course I would disclose everything to any potential owner, but I really like her! I don't want to sell her, I don't want to buy another horse. If she doesn't work out... I just don't know how I will keep doing this whole owning horses thing. I know I can't keep two horses, I just don't have time for two personal horses. I learned that when I was (am) trying to do my other mare along with Bijou. I just hate this. I don't care if everything doesn't work out perfectly, that's fine, but when it all comes crashing down around you over and over again? I guess I shouldn't say that yet, but I'm preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

I know I'm probably being way over-dramatic... but I just don't deal with not knowing very well. Everything should turn out just fine, and I'm just going to try to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

In other news, I pulled the wild beasts mane today. It went from probably 8-12 in long to only about 4-6. She was a pretty big snot about it, but I think it's because I only walked her around rather than work her before hand. I'll try to get some pics of that just because I like them.

how hard to push?

2010-08-31T21:21:00.001-07:00

I've recently been getting more of a chance at getting Bijou out. The other mare had a really promising sale prospect that fell through because of nothing but the 'mistake' of her gender. I hate it when people are so stereotypical. I love my mare because she is so not mare-ish. Yes, I would probably have had a problem if she were, but some are not. Don't turn down the perfect horse just because of it's gender.

Anyways... I've been focusing on my girly more. This means crossrails!!! I've really been working a lot on her trot, getting her to relax into a collected, ok maybe lazy, trot and canter. I've been working on getting her round through her transitions to the trot. I think today was the first day she didn't throw her head up into the trot for only one transition, but it was there! We also sneaked into a very very nice slow canter to the left.

There's a really cool woman out at the barn who owns 3-4 TB's and understands a lot of my issues raising a TB. She's always really helpful and SOOO knowledgeable. She walked by today and asked "when is she going to start jumping?" and I thought... oh ya! I'm supposed to be working on that! So I put down a line to just poles, had her trot towards them. She stopped right at the base of the poles, I squeezed, and she walked over them. The next time through I kept my eyes extra up, and put leg ON over the poles and she went right through. I did this from both directions 5-6 times, then put up the smallest x-rail I could at about 8 in in the center. We did this and the first time she stopped, I squeezed, and she walked over. I went back around and put leg on and she jumped it and came right back to a little trot. We did this in both directions until it was no big deal and she wasn't trying to be squirmy towards it and called it a day.

I am just not sure how hard I should push it. When is the point that I just start putting the jumps up? I know I just need to work her over poles and x-rails all day long every day in order to get her used to them but I want to make sure I don't over-face her and turn jumping into a big fight.

I guess I'll just keep on keepin' on. I also tried to do a BN USEA test B 2010 and got video... it was... interesting. I'll have to steal the vid from my friends camera so that I can post it on youtube :D

Pictures!

2010-08-23T20:03:00.001-07:00

The long awaited pictures:

A nice easy canter

"ugh, mom this putting my head down thing sucks!"

Mostly just us trotting around in various forms of frame/impulsion/etc but pictures nonetheless. I haven't been riding Bijou much thanks to my other mare's sales prospects looking up. A catch 22 if you ask me. Ride the other mare more so she stays 'tuned up' and hope for the best, or just know that people can't read/understand my ads and ride Bijou like I want to and when the sale falls through I won't have lost all that time with her. She's happy standing out in her pasture I'm sure.

2010-08-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

I've been learning a lot this week. I took three lessons, and came away from all of them with the same basic things. I guess that's good that horsepeople can at least be consistent.

1) Sit up tall, let go of some classic hunter equitation, soften through my back, and don't get in front of the motion
2) REWARD for good behavior (in Bijou's case anything that isn't her best giraffe impression)
3) Slow down a bit, what feels like a big happy stride, looks like she's running away with me.
4) Circles and transitions are my bestest friends.

So with those things in mind, I've tried to change a few of the ways I do things. I'm no longer riding around like I'm the Queen of England. I try to sit perfectly vertical (which feels like I'm practically laying over my horses butt) and plug my seat-bones more forward than backward. I've tried to get rid of the arch in my back, but that one's slower to go. I do a lot of "goooooood giiiiiiirl!" and baby talk when JouJou is being good in addition to scratching withers a bit. She seems to really get it when I make sure to praise her in a way she understands. We get more done when she's not breaking from walk to trot or trot to canter every time around and circles make sure that I'm sitting up straight, and that she's bending. Bending and lateral softening at the poll are hard, but getting there.

I finally feel like I have an idea of what 'things' to do, what steps to take, in order to get to a more round, forward, gorgeous horse. We're still not having tons of fun going over poles/x-rails etc just because I want to make sure our groundwork is fully operational.

I had one big mishap that was no fun. I was trying to circle in one of the corners of the arena and when we hit the rail again JouJou wanted to make a 1/2 circle in reverse, rather than a full circle. I put on the breaks and tried to correct, which sent her head up, which brought her feet off the ground. Rearing is one of my least favorite behaviors and one of the hardest for me to stay on. Needless to say I freaked a smidgen, and came down with her in an over protective crouch. She decided that one rear wasn't enough but that two would suffice. Unfortunately the second time my face was in the way :( This resulted in a very sore nose. I teared up a little from the sting of it, and made her get her butt back to work. Since then there has been no incident.

For record keeping's sake, I weighed her, she's right at the 1150 mark. It's hard to believe that there's only an extra 150 lbs on her since when I got her, but I think she looks great :D

Also, I wormed her on the 19th of August with Fenbendazole this time.

As far as the soundness goes... she's been TOTALLY sound for the last few days, but today might have stepped on a rock or something? She took a few off steps. I'm starting to look into this homeopathic remedy for strong bones/hooves... it's called "silver lining" but it's like $55 for a 60 day supply. Everyone I know that's used it says it works wonders, but I just can't really afford it if it doesn't! I'll have to see what my work schedule looks like for the next few weeks to see if I can splurge a little.

And that's horses for you!

2010-08-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

Somehow cosmically the world of horses is all about irony. Here I am at my wits end trying to think of what could be wrong, how hard it will be to fix, and how wrong horseshoes feel. Well, as it turns out the fix was quite simply to shoe the horse.

She worked sound the day after her shoes were put on, and I swear it was like having a different horse. I don't think anyone realized how much pain she was in. She went from being slightly rushy (I think trying to get off her sore feet faster) and disconnected all around to lighter, brighter and so steady! All the hippity hops and wobbles were her trying to stay off her front feet, because it's like my horse has whole new gaits.

So I've been riding a lot. She feels amazing. And all the desensitizing stuff has TOTALLY paid off. She's now trotting/cantering past packs of dogs playing fetch with running yelling children, not worried about poles in the arena or standards outside the arena, all the little things that used to make her flinch away have become non-issues.

I also got reacquainted with an old friend that used to teach lessons at a summer camp I worked for. We'll call her Kevin (it's a long story) She's an amazing rider and has this amazingly well trained Appendix gelding and she events ** level and wow... So today she decided to let me borrow one of her bits and give me a few pointers. I got a long lesson in a circle about how to get Bijou to stretch down and into contact. It was awesome to have someone on the ground to say yes when we were doing well, no when we weren't, and give suggestions for when something needed to be changed. I think she really enjoyed having me as a student because I understood what she wanted me to do and got it done for the most part. She kept having me slow the rhythm with my posting and I could feel the difference when she mentioned it and it was so intuitive for me but I just needed someone to tell me which pieces to put together. Overall, this week has been awesome.

I also started a new job that sounds really fun and pays well too. No I'm not licking envelopes or doing online marketing from home, I'm working as a hostess for a portable photo-booth. I get paid to enjoy someones wedding and entertain the guests :D

This summer is coming together nicely!

Stay tuned for the next episode featuring....................... Photos of Bijou WITH ME ON HER!!! never before seen!

The Truth Is....

2010-08-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a lot of stream-of-consciousness without a heck of a lot of structure so be forewarned.

I put shoes on Bijou yesterday. I don't really know why. I know that is dumb but I did it any way. Probably as some sort of coping/denial mechanism.

I have an off horse. She's been a grade 1-1.5 for the last three weeks since I've been paying attention. I was riding and S says to me, "you are going to hate me for this, but she doesn't look perfectly sound" and I think, "Deny deny deny!" only to have 5 other respected horse people tell me that she looks off to them too.

Now's the part I feel bad about. I was just chalking it all up to the fact that she's been young and wiggly and hard to tell if she's bobbing her head a little because she's stretching, or because she's scooting away from something or because I asked her to turn when she didn't want to, or any number of other things. I know she's been iffy lately, but that's the thing about a grade 1, they sneak up on you. The other thing about it is that because it's not acute but probably chronic, it means that I'm not going to fix it tomorrow.

WHY ME?! I've had a mysteriously lame horse already!! Didn't I pay my horseloving penance? I keep thinking to myself, it couldn't have happened to me AGAIN, but it has.

So I had the farrier look at her. He hoof tested the crap out of it with nothing. I don't really know what that means. I think hoof testers are a bunch of bull since they can only put so much pressure compared to when a whole horse lands on that spot, but if farriers use them, then they must be worth something. So at this point I'm freaking out. I just want to know what it is so that I can prepare myself. I hope it's not navicular, because that gets really annoying/expensive really fast! I hope it's not degeneration of her coffin bone, because that's not reversible. At this point I still have no idea what it is. Farrier tells me that shoes aren't going to be the Panacea I was hoping for. So I gave it a few days, took a few more poll respondents and then ended up picking the most popular answer. "Just put shoes on her" they say... so I do.

I hate shoes, I think they are archaic and probably not very scientific, but at this point, if they work, then I'll be happy. I would totally do the barefoot thing, but I don't know enough about it to do it myself, and I don't know anyone I would trust to do something radical with my mares feet. No hoof, no horse!

I'm going out today to ride her and give her a thorough check over to see what the heck I think of these things stapled to her feet. I don't know what to say other than I'm trying to make her comfortable enough to ride her without hurting her feet.

I haven't blogged lately as an additional form of denial. Once I put it on the WWW for the whole world to see then it must be true! So here it is, truth. I have a lame horse.

I'm going out right now to trot her in circles to see if I can catch anything. Here's to hoping.

Give-away!!!

2010-07-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

Well, not my own yet... but Ashley over at A Process of Learning is having a giveaway for a blog makeover! Hers is really adorable, so I'm blogging to see if I can get double entries and to let everyone know!

On the horsey news front: We did crossrails today!!! I just set up the second smallest crossrail we could do and did it. Well, I walked her over it first, but there was no stopping or even a big hesitation. I think it's finally starting to click.

There were all sorts of fun things to play around with since my barn had a desensitization clinic recently. The funniest part was that the brush they set up with scary tarps etc was not nearly as scary as the seating area for Bijou. She really doesn't like lawn chairs. I got her to let me put one on her back last time I worked her, but she still shied away. I let (or maybe made) her walk up to anything scary, sniff it for a sec, and then it was time to forget about it. For the most part it would work. She would start to fixate on the scary thing as we approached, and I would leg on with my inside leg to correct her counter bend. She would flick an ear back toward my leg as if to say "oh ya, you're over there and I'm supposed to be working" and by the time she thought that we were past whatever it was that was so scary to begin with.

I also started bareback 'training' with her today. I like riding them from the pasture up to the trailer bareback, but I haven't really had the guts or trust to do so yet. She was really cuddly today when I went to get her, so I thought I'd try it out. I scritched on her really well and then just hopped up and down next to her a bit. When I first got her that would have been impossible! Now she doesn't even raise her head or flick an ear. She's too tall to just pop up onto, so I tried taking a step back in order to get some momentum. That's the part she wasn't too fond of. I made her settle back down and did it a few more times til I found a gopher mound that I could use for a stepladder. That worked out just great! I laid across her for a second or two til I started slipping and called it good. I'm really impressed with her, I think that she really trusts me now and we're going to go far as long as I can keep her that way :D

I've got quite a few days off this week, so hopefully we'll get lots of practice in!

big girl steps, here we come!

2010-07-08T14:02:00.000-07:00

So a few posts ago I was bemoaning my baby steps. I've finished moving, figured out a schedule at least for the next week, and now we're taking big girl steps!!

Well, ok. Maybe like 10-15 big girl steps at a time. We've gotten to half circles of good trot and canter, and we're working on going over raised poles and dealing with all the scary things in the big arena. Everyone whines about scary indoor arenas, but I have a scary outdoor one. There's construction in one corner, a high walled roundpen in the other that makes interesting noises, and a whole barn full of horses waiting to spook, or snort, or something along a whole long side. Most of this isn't really that scary, until it is!

I'm just so happy to be on my beautiful mare

My ankle is almost back to normal, we're w/t/c/ and over poles again. Everything is looking up. Now hopefully I haven't jinxed myself for my ride today. I'm going to think about trying crossrails again! Maybe I'll be ready for the x-rail class in the August show my barn is hosting?!

two steps forward, one step back

2010-07-03T09:46:00.000-07:00

I've been moving! We moved into this awesome large farmhouse tucked away in a little valley just outside of 'town' without really being that far away from town. It has a huge yard for the dog, a whole shed for the bunnies, and lots of gardening space and FREE water!!

This means that for whatever reason (usually because I tell myself that I should be unpacking) I haven't been out to the barn in oh.... a long time. It feels so miserable because I finally got to the place where I was taking Bijou out enough that I didn't have a ticking time bomb on my hands and I could work on new things because there wasn't a crazy pent up sugar high horse meeting me at the fence every day (or at least holding still so I could catch her:D).

I almost don't even want to go out and make that effort now because I know something else will catch up with me and take me away. I have a job pending and they're very mysterious about what kind of hours I will be needed for so I can't even really fathom planning what the next few weeks will look like as far as barn time. I also picked up a few odds and ends jobs that schedule on a weekly basis. I want to get in as many hours as I can working to pay for the horse, but at the same time I need to make sure I can get out to DO STUFF with her! I'm ranting... it's not really helping...

So. I am going to take the time I have and use it to prioritize and then get things done.

1) Unpack some crap, or at least stack ALL my stuff in my room somewhere so that I can still open/close the door so that I stop getting the stink eye from my room-mates.
2) Figure out the job thing, seriously. All I have to do is ask when/if they want me scheduled and let them know that I need to know, right?
3) Get out to the barn. Do something with the crazy ponies. Period.

Summer is here

2010-06-23T23:19:00.000-07:00

The flies are out, the grass is growing, and the ponies are fat, shiny and happy!

And I also finally have time to do things like... you know... RIDE!! including getting Bijou out almost every day over the last week or two (time has a different meaning during summer, days of the week are unimportant, weeks and months are way too complicated).

We've been taking baby steps. I've done a lot of research over the last few weeks of being laid up and I'm trying to use what I've found and move forward. I tried side reins, partially because that's what I have, and partially because that's what I've always done. She really didn't seem to figure it out. She'll put her head down for half a second as more of a 'shoo fly' movement to rid herself of the pressure than actually stretch into the contact. I'm afraid if I make them any shorter she'll just end up behind the bit, and that's not a habit (or muscles) that I want to be developing.

I feel like my baby steps are so small compared to what I'm reading about on other blogs (for example, the whole bitless journey at Science Vs. Tradition or the path to barefooted-ness with Andrea) but I know that when I was looking for blogs I loved to hear about all those people who were right where I was, or one or two steps ahead so I'll continue on for you phantom readers. The normal day consists of walking the eight million miles to the FURTHEST pasture they could put my horse in (but whatever, she's on grass 24/7 so I'm ok with it) and walking up to her as she walks up to me - Improvement #1 - since it used to take me 20 minutes to catch her. I can't tell if the carrots or the neck and belly scritches did it.

I have been working on dragging her over to the trailer. She's pretty not enthusiastic about leaving her friends to go hang out with me, to the tune of tiptoeing her way slowly forward as I keep even pressure on the lead... not ok. Today I stood only at her shoulder, didn't let her get behind, and every time she'd get extra sluggish I'd take the end of the lead and flick it at her rump. Boy did that speed her up! All of a sudden she's so much happier to be following along :D. Then I park her near the trailer somewhere, tell her to "whoa!" and brush off the dusty dirties. She gets her saddle pad, with no flinching now, and her saddle, with only one or two steps to the sides rather than 10-15 like it used to be. Improvement #2 - I can tack up my horse without fearing a loss of toe, finger or both!

Depending on if she's been out the day before, I'll lunge or not lunge. Usually over a pole in the small arena. I don't know why but she does better in smaller spaces. Or maybe I'm just a wounded shrimp who's lost all her chutzpa? The big arena still scares me/us. We're putting that on the to-do list for a day I feel brave, in addition to walking the outer loop around the pastures where there are stinky cows! Lunging has become a non-ordeal - Improvement #3 - I can lunge in many surroundings and over obstacles!

Riding consists of a lot of head in the air and impressions of a giraffe. She'll happily walk over poles, although with much care taken to EXACTLY where she puts her feet. I'm glad she's careful because hopefully that translates to clean jumper rounds long down the road? My current sequence of thought goes something like:

"squeeze for a walk, Good girlie! now sponge the inside hand, hold outside steady. Use alternating leg taps to swing the barrel and keep her forward, sponge more inside hand, more more more there! Good GIRL!!"

"squeeze.... squuuueeeeze...... trot yay! keep hands steady against all the jostling around between her imbalance and mine, no really, steady hands! ok yay there was a moment of give at the poll! sponge inside hand, both hands steady, inside leg, inside leg, inside reign, outside rein supporting... awesome giraffe impression... then two steps of brilliance"

"sit, outside leg to canter, bumpity along for a moment while she thinks about which direction and hopefully picks up the right lead?! yay we have the right lead! Light in the saddle, following motion with the hands, must steady that lower leg that's swinging everywhere, little more contact, beautiful!!"

reverse, rinse, repeat. Her canter work is somehow stronger than trot work? She seems to get the being on the bit more. I'm wondering if it's a contact thing, I can keep contact better at a canter.

Overall, many important improvements with only more to come! I'd really love to hear what people are thinking the moment they ask for a trot, or when they finally get roundness from their horse. I feel like the thought process will give me clues to the series of perfect cues I'm supposed to be giving.

I'm happy with baby steps for now, its tough because I want to be progressing so fast, but muscles don't grow in a day, and neither does either of our patience. I'm happy it's summer time and I get to spend all the time in the world (after I'm off work of course :P) loving on my beautiful girl!

Back in the saddle again

2010-06-09T17:41:00.001-07:00

I got on the other (slightly more sane) mare that I have access to today for the first time in 6 weeks!! She was only slightly naughty, but being able to figure it out gave me the sense that I could still hold my own even against a silly moment or two. I think Bijou would actually be easy compared to her because this mare is so bouncy and flighty. Bijou would be harder because she is more liable to spook, but less likely to take off. At least with the other mare I knew when she was going to get uppity.

Bijou did the sweetest, kindest, lovingest thing today. I went out into the pasture to grab the other mare, but I thought I'd get some scritchin' in on Joujou first. I walked about 30 ft into the pasture and Bijou met me halfway! Today is the first day she's walked up to me (other than the one day after I thought I'd ruined her face) since I've got her. She walked right up, and presented her shoulder (one of her most favorite itchy spots) and I gladly obliged. It's days like today when I feel like she and I will make progress eventually. I'm jealous of all those people who's horses are naturally just easy going, but I know that I need a little pep for when I get where I want to go: the eventing world.

Speaking of eventing... I need to buy new reins... and Doversaddlery.com has these adorable 'ice lavender' reins for a really good deal. They're rubber reins, which I like for x-country anyway, but then I got looking and they have the same brand bell boots, and the same color saddle pad!!! I'm such a dork, especially because I know that my eventing days are going to be a long ways from now (I'm still debating on whether I'll be able to do w/t and 18" in October at Twin Rivers) but I could be SO SPIFFY if I went all decked out.... We'll see.

It feels a little useless going out to lunge and only lunge, but I keep telling myself that it's good for us to build a bond (which definitely has grown) and that she needs to get out somehow. The trainer that I had coming out to ride had an old injury flare up, so she's out of the picture for probably as long as I am.

Lately I've been using lots of ground poles. It worries me that every day the ground pole is still something to be startled by. She's gotten better, but I'm worried about when I take her somewhere new and she has never seen the fences before and we're expected to have no refusals. It's so hard to think about jumping her because I know I'm a long way off from it, and especially from training a youngster because my left leg will just get run through every time. I try to set up interesting distances to make her think about her feet, and she's gotten pretty good at it. I think she's got a nice balance between getting excited over fences, and just lolligagging around them. I still want to set up some bigger stuff, but I don't think it'll really work out in the small round pen. Anyone have any good ideas of teaching them to jump stuff... even when you can't be on them?

Goals: get to the gym because I'm out of shape! Ride the other mare more to get my equine legs back, brush out the snarly tail...

Sanity

2010-05-31T00:04:00.000-07:00

It is amazing the difference in a horse when she's been worked the day before. I goes from overreacting to everything, jumping many feet in any direction at the
slightest provocation, walking over her human for no good reason, shivering when the saddle is placed on her back, CAREENING around the round pen, and totally forgetting that she knows some english words (like eeeeaaasssyyy troooot, and WHOA!) to a calm and well mannered mare.

We had a good day, lots of arena stuff, had her following hand signals and voice commands. She really didn't want to jump over the pole but oh well. Got a few nice shots of her oh-so-green pasture with her buddies that she's all to familiar with. I think she knew I had carrots, that's why I got happy pointy ears instead of a big fat butt like I did yesterday when I showed up. She and I are really so lucky to be living somewhere so beautiful. Overall I'm really happy with her sane-ness after being worked only one day. It seems to really make a difference for her, and if that's all it takes then that is what I'll have to do. I did take some more time to braid her tail back up and put some moisturizer on her feet. I still haven't located my MTG, but I found my purple bucket, so one piece of the puzzle is in place. She does need her feet trimmed, so I'm going to try to have the kindly BM rasp her down a bit to minimize chipping (I thought she was supposed to be getting all the nutrients she needs for good feet?)

My ankle is not exactly happy about the whole process. I'm not super sure I should be trekking out into the very uneven pasture, but if that's what it takes then that's what I'll do. It keeps me sane too!

Here's more pics from work time:

yes, I think that's called suspension - no feet on the ground! Hope she keeps that up for when I'm sitting up there :D

Tomorrow is one month

2010-05-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

from the break, and today I got Bijou out! I had a trainer who I trust come out to try to get some work done on her until I feel secure enough in the saddle to make sure I'm not going to come off/re-injure myself.

The bad:
- It took Shelly and the trainer 25 minutes to catch her :/ that's embarrassing. I think I'm making a pit stop for carrots for next time. I will get that horse to WANT to come to me. I think I'll practice by chasing her in the roundpen and then turning away to make her follow and 'catching' her and feeding her a carrot. Anyone got any suggestions? I know she's not afraid, but just likes to play that game.
- She snatched away from me just after I had gotten her bridle on and ran off with her reins dangling. I am going to brush up on all my pony club procedures because I know there are precautions for these kinds of horrific experiences (she didn't hurt herself, but the reins died) and I've just gotten lax with all my well trained mounts. And now those days are behind me, and it's time to take the dang precautions!
- Her feet are cracking, so I oiled them up. I thought being on fresh pasture she should be getting exactly what she needs for good feet, but I guess not. I'll have to have the BM, who's also a farrier, trim her up a smidge. (Sydney, I'd appreciate your input on this one, how do you get a horses feet strong?)

The Good:
- The trainer got on her with very little incident, but only walked around because she didn't want to get into a fight she couldn't win. Understandably, Bijou was a little hot.
- she's fat! And she's got so much shine to her it still shone through several coats of dust.
- She trotted out REAL big for me, and even paid attention to voice commands after over a month of not practicing. Took a few body language reminders, but we got them back after about 5 minutes.

I also found that I was capable of handling her, so I think we're going to be spending lots and lots of time in the roundpen. The only thing is I have to do a lot of stuff with her 'free' because I can't be tugged around.

I do have a Dr's appointment tomorrow, hopefully he gives me the go ahead to start hanging out with her, otherwise I'll probably do it anyway. I've missed my pony soooo much!!!

I also have someone who's not really a trainer, but just a rider who wants to exercise horses. She should be coming out Sunday, so we'll see. That way if she rides a few days a week, I lunge once or twice, and the trainer comes once a week, Bijou should mellow out really nicely and get some miles under her belt.

Goals: Check saddle fit now that we're fat, Shop for new reins, figure out the feet thing, and finish healing up!

Bad ideas that somehow never seem to go badly

2010-05-19T23:06:00.000-07:00

I rode today. I hopped on Wyatt when Shelly was taking him back to his pasture. Couldn't help myself. I got a few funny looks, but there's no horse (or person) I would've trusted more to walk across the flat green grass with me in my broken state. It felt so good be up there again. Can't wait til next time.

I'm Broken

2010-05-05T22:17:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I finished up my ride on my other mare, and 'cantered' on foot (goofing off as usual) back into the arena to get my jacket with my barn buddy. We both decided to jump in tandem over one of the large cross rails on the way to get our stuff, only she jumped forward and to the left, and I jumped forward and to the right. To avoid totally knocking her over, I twisted midair. When I landed, still in twisted fashion, the twist transferred itself down to my ankle, where I popped the knob on the inside of it off.

I've broken my other ankle in this same place, only I fell from about 10 ft because I was jumping on a trampoline. This time the jump was only from about 3 ft, so I didn't tear or do any severe damage to the tendons or ligaments (hopefully). This is only a fracture, with a smooth joint surface and only one real fragment, which includes basically that whole knob. I've been on crutches for the last few days and at least my upper body is getting a workout. If all looks good, I should get a walking boot on Friday.

I'm considering putting Bijou in some kind of training in order to keep her going while I'm out of commission. It would be at the same facility that I keep her at, and only probably 1x or 2x a week. I don't really like putting her in training with someone else, because I want the 'bond' to form between us, and because I like being there for the 'aha' moments (and I like being able to say I did it all myself).

I know she can't just sit in pasture for 6 wks (OMG 6 wks!?!?!) so I'll do it anyway, but I'm just overall super bummed.

Anyone got any great time killing activities that don't involve walking/getting off your butt?

Following the leader!

2010-04-26T21:42:00.001-07:00

Is what we played on Friday.

It all started with the trip to the trailer to tack up. We got to the last gate (after an arduous journey out through two rows of gopher-hole-ridden pasture) and all of a sudden all the slack goes out of my rope. I look back to find a Jou Jou with her head up in Giraffe imitation, nostrils flared and ears pricked so far forward that they point inward (which I find ADORABLE). Turns out she was oogling the newly constructed x-country fences in our mock course. The nearest one was a few barrels turned over that were new and scary.

I've been worried that her reactive nature will make it hard to go somewhere new and get her over a set of fences that she's never seen before, so I took this opportunity to test her. I got her to walk up to the barrels, let her realize they were just going to stand there, and then I hopped over them, and tugged along for her to follow me. She wasn't super game at first, but after another tug or two she came leaping over them after me. We went around the whole field playing follow the leader like this. She jumped almost everything both directions as long as I was paying attention and not letting her duck out.

Then I tried to 'lunge' her over things. This was really hard for a few reasons:

1) I was on the end of a 10 ft lead, so when she did jump it was hard to reward her by not pulling on her, although I did get the hang of it.
2) We'd never done this before
3) She's not so sure about what the concept of a circle looks like sometimes, even when there's nothing in her way.

But in the end I got her to jump the biggest scariest black irrigation pipe twice in a row. We were both sweaty from running around the field, so I walked her around and made up her grain.

All in all a fun day, and I hope with many more of these experiences I'll start to gain some real trust and respect that I'm not going to put her in a situation where she'll get eaten.

Goals: as always, ride more. We'll see with the dang on again off again rain

Reflections

2010-04-15T23:54:00.001-07:00

Looking back on the last 5 months (to the day) with Bijou:

1) She's gained SOOO much weight! Happy!! In addition to just weight, she's got muscle now. That's from lots of lunging after realizing that part of the 'calm and cool' attitude she had was due to her lack of excess energy in the form of food.

2) Not as many riding goals as I'd like to report. It's been tough since I really couldn't do anything with her at my old barn because it was just so damn muddy there ALL the time. I do miss the privacy. There are some days I don't want to use the arena because all the girls on their pro-trained, jumping 3'9", 3rd level horses wouldn't be too appreciative that I can't quite guarantee that I won't spook into them or randomly lose steering and run into them.

2a) She's gotten so much better about lunging, voice commands - check, on a lunge line - check.

3) Just so I have a measurement I took my fingers and wrapped around just under the base of the tail to see how thick it was. I can get my thumb just to the first knuckle of my index finger in an O around it. I put her tail in a tailbag again, and I have to find my MTG because it went missing o_O

4) We're forming a bond. It's not as strong as it could/should be, but it's getting there. Today I did a bunch of 'scary' stuff with her, and she really is paying attention and listening. She learns fast, I just have to use my instincts (huh! what a concept?!) and somehow we figure each other out.

5) I hope that after moving to this facility I will make more progress in the next 6 months than I have in the last 5. I'm really hoping to make it to the Twin Rivers w/t and x-rails division by the end of October... we'll see!

It stuck

2010-04-15T00:28:00.001-07:00

So I went out today for the first time in a week, and went over all the stuff we did last time, and apparently it stuck :D

I also had a big scare, when she smacked her head on the pole it made her shake her head around really erratically at times. I came home all worried about headshaking syndrome, did all this research, and life kept me from going out to the barn to test all these things on her. Well... today, after what I'm sure is a reasonable amount of time for her mouth to heal, she had no headshaking symptoms. I'm still going to keep an eye out just in case... I'm such a paranoid mommy.

Oh, and to make my day after the bad catching experience last time I went out to get her in pasture and she came nickering up to me right when I whistled for her. It was a great way to come back to the barn :] It really felt like a "hey, it's ok I know you don't want to hurt me, and I might even kinda like you" for the first time. Aaaaand she gobbled up her new grain/supplement mix. I've got her on some cheap alfalfa pellets with a little bit of corn and molasses in them, rice bran, and a maintenance joint, vitamin, and digestive supplement. She was literally licking her pan clean.

Good times, can't wait to go back tomorrow :D

Disheartening

2010-04-08T23:31:00.000-07:00

I had the trainer out today. Turns out she's exactly what I expected, much the same as I am, with the same kinds of ideas, none of which is a real goal oriented list type problem solving fixer upper... which is disheartening. I was hoping someone would come out and be like "I had a horse that did that exact thing and here's how I fixed it" but no. Now I'm out some $$$ and still in the same boat. Trainer did say that her body language was off and that her reaction made her think that there may have been something traumatic while tied in the past. The thing that gets me is that she trailers great, will stand tied forever until confronted with something scary. Its at that point that all hell breaks loose. I hate that I did this, but I'll confess it so that I know never to do it again......

Trainer requested that I show her how she reacts to being confronted with scary somethings while tied... so I rustled a baggie, trying to get her to react and pull just a little. Well turns out plastic baggies are TERRIFYING and she had the worst freakout yet, which bore forth her first tying related injury that I'm aware of. She struggled so badly that she gave herself a bloody fat lip on something. All I saw at first was that she pulled back and her mouth was bleeding. I knew this before, but I know even more now that I cannot tie her until we get her seriously de-stressed about all this stuff. I feel like a terrible mom, and it was a total mistake to provoke a reaction, I just didn't know how to accurately describe what she did and how she acted without triggering some kind of response for Trainer to see. I realize now that Trainer suggesting this in the first place should have sent off red flags, but I'm so desperate for a solution at this point that I just want to do whatever it takes to figure it out.

So for now I'm going to put a hiatus on the riding thing, work her butt so she's tired by lunging, and do lots of groundwork. Trust building exercise ideas? Give me your best shot. I'm going to go on a treasure hunt through the house and make up some really fun ways to desensitize/build trust. So far my ideas range from tying a bunch of plastic bags onto a yarn or twine string and putting them up across the top of the round pen/laying them all over her, get the tarp out, filling old water bottles with pebbles, water balloons, yard chairs, I really want to do confetti, the sparkly kind, but that would make a bigger mess than I'm willing to clean up. I might try to create some kind of headdress from those shiny twirly-gigs:

just to be extra creative. Please let me know if you have any other ideas for potentially scary things. Also, if you know of a good brand of rope burn proof gloves that I can pick up online somewhere, that'd be helpful. I'm going to try the cheap method of a 'blocker' tie, where you just wrap the lead around the tie post once to give you a little more pressure control. I also found that there are two nice high (taller than withers) tie horseshoes in the round-pen which I will utilize eventually. I'm going to try to get her to stop pulling back on the ground, so that she realizes that running away isn't going to solve anything.

I am just really disappointed about today. I was hoping for a concrete "do this and she'll tie" solution, even if it meant lots of time, effort, whatever. I'm still up in the air with what the right thing to do is. All I know is I can't tie her.

Goals: channel my inner monk to gain the patience needed for this ordeal.

A brand New Horse

2010-04-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

I have a fat horse, a brand new shiny penny of a gorgeous horse. I desperately want to post pictures, but have no camera :( I'll have to steal a friends because I need to document this.

Unfortunately, I do not have a new horse brain. Maybe I need to get her on some kind of calming supplement because the green grass makes her higher than a kite if I haven't gotten her out in a few days. Today for example:

I lunge, in side reins for the first time!! She was admittedly less than happy and tossed her head some, but eventually accepted the pressure. She's got a really great nice carriage with her poll up high and her little nose tucked in, but only for moments. I got her sweaty, which is my general indication that she's done some work, hopefully enough to burn off the initial sugar high, and I can get on her and not get bucked around. Well.... that's the assumption anyway.

She doesn't like it when the dog waits for her at the fence, and then races after her once she's gone past, or how the round pen makes noise with another horse in it because the sand flies up and hits the walls, or how the drag marks in the arena are shadowed and look like she might have to jump them, or how I keep contact on her face, or how I expect her not to crash into things, or how I expect her to be able to hold still when I want to mount/dismount. But I can guarantee that by Friday, she'll have forgotten all these problems, because she'll be less full of it. So I'll just keep looking forward to Friday.

Also, tomorrow I have a 'trainer' coming out to help with the tying thing. I'm hoping that she'll be worth the money and really help solve the issue.

More for my own records than anything else, I lunged, she was sound, I hopped on in the small arena and she was DEAD lame on the right fore? but only around half the arena. I think the footing was just really hard in there from the rain, cus I went into the other arena and she was fine. I checked all feet/tendons and she just seemed to have broken off some hoof. No cracks or anything, but little chinks missing. I'm guessing toe bruises from running like an idiot in her pasture, we'll see next time we have the farrier out, which is when I'll probably have to do full shoes. I'll look into a hoof supplement too, although she's on a multivitamin which should cover everything right?

Most Exciting!

2010-04-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

I found my tailbag!!! This is after 2 weeks of rummaging through the long grass in any number of pastures that she's been in before I noticed it was missing. I'm going to use this and an amazing product called MTG on a photo documentary of the adventures of Bijou's tail, and it's journey to infamy.

ok, so maybe that isn't the most exciting news of the week, but it's all I've got. Now my question to you... any good ways to keep conditioning fun? I feel like it's all just lather, rinse, repeat (to use a saying from another blogger).

On another note, I feel like I've turned Bijou out for a week (while I was prepping another horse for a show) and I went out today to get up close and personal and work her, and she's a new horse! Fatter, healthy, stronger, and shedding out so nice!! Such a cool surprise!

Also, I've noticed that show season is ramping up. I'm getting emails from local barns announcing all their schooling shows, and it makes me wonder what I'll be able to accomplish this year. I think I'm gunning for a W/T class soon, and by fall I hope to be showing over cross-rails. Is that realistic? These are all just local schooling hunter/jumper shows so I don't have to be perfect to place, but I think one season should be enough to get a horse ready for their cross-rails debut. Let me know if I'm on track or off my rocker on this one?

Goals for this week: Lunge in side reins, even if it has to be free lunging in the round pen. Ride over lots of trot poles to get the long and low thing going.

Busy, big surprise

2010-03-31T23:15:00.000-07:00

I hate how this always happens. I always go into the quarter with these high expectations of having plenty of time to play with my horses, and somehow the stars align against me.

I've been working with the project mare to prep her (and I) for the one day horse trials. That's taken up ALL of my time. I think I groomed and lunged Bijou twice last week, that's it. I'm going to make her a big priority next week, because there are a few local schooling shows that have walk trot equitation classes! I think I could be ready for that, or maybe even a hunter under saddle class, if I really work at it. That's my goal, is to do one WTC flat class this show season. Maybe maybe a cross rails course in the fall, depending on how busy I get over summer.

I shopped online and bought a few things, smartpaks full of delicious (well hopefully) nutrition to make sure we're getting off to a good start from the ground up. I got something with Omega 3's, pro-biotic, joint maintenance, and an overall vitamin. I also bought some fly spray, grooming tools, and other goodies that needed to be replaced. I lost my saddle soap! So I obviously needed another one... my boots and saddles look VERY neglected right now.

Goals:

1. Gather up all my junk, sell off stuff I don't need, and organize the rest. (find missing items?)
2. Buy feed that Bijou will eat, so that when the supplements get here I have something to put them in
3. Get on Bijou at least 2x next week

Long Time No See

2010-03-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

Phew, finals are over, spring break is here in all it's sunny glory! Time to work some horses.

Tying:

It's an issue. I've contacted a few local trainers for an evaluation type thing, have to see how that pans out. She got away from me by wrenching my arm out of the socket when I was looking for a lunge line in the tack room and went galloping all the way back to her buddies. Frustrating.

Riding:

Has been getting better. She's stronger and more fluid in her trot work now, it used to be so unbalanced and she'd just... wiggle! There was no straight line anywhere, and the tempo/pace was all over the place. She's still got some buddy issues, and it shows when we head in the direction of the pastures. Every time we go down that side facing her pasture mates, she wants to pick up the next gait. It helps when I'm looking for a transition, but really annoying when I'm not. She's also really started to get the one leg means move over, two means go forward thing. I can gently pat her left side, and she'll move right, and vice versa. It usually takes a few efforts, and she does a really funny over-reaction when she doesn't want to pay attention. I'll nudge her side and without any warning, all of a sudden she blows this huuuuge kick with which ever hind foot is closest to the cue. I'm working with getting her attention first, then cueing, which seems to help most of the time.

De-sensitizing:

We had some fun with balloons. I got a few for my b-day and immediately thought "ooh what fun to make the ponies play with them!" I know, I enjoy this too much.

Before:

You want me to get near those things?!?

"But won't it eat me?"

After:

"Oh, I guess not... Well aren't I silly :D"

And then we went and had a bath. She's really not this glossy, it's just I'm too lazy to wait until she's dry to take pictures. I think she's gained weight, not enough, but some. I think that little bit of grass has been helping, don't you? :D

F.I.N.A.L.S.

2010-03-17T23:18:00.000-07:00

F$%& I Never Actually Learned This S!@%

I really want to post, but I will delay until tomorrow. I just can't post when I should be doing my reading. Wish me luck!

Pulling back

2010-03-14T20:25:00.000-07:00

I knew we had a problem before, but it's just gotten worse. The last few days I've gone out, I've tied Bijou up to solid tie rails with good footing around them (short grass or rubber mats/dirt). She's wearing a triple thick nylon halter, I've done up the buckle so it can't break, and now she's ripping through 8 ft cotton leads like floss.

Today I 'triggered' her by walking up, picking up a curry, patting her on the neck, and beginning to curry. I got to a spot on her ribs, where I've brushed a hundred times before, no signs of discomfort or anything, and all of a sudden she's ripped through the lead rope and gone spinning the other direction. I calmly go grab her, tie the lead back together, and re-tie her.

Second time, I pull the saddle out of the tack room, walk over and set it on the tie rail about 3-4 ft away from her. She's fine with that part mostly, a little put off by it, I can tell because she leans back and gives it a little of an 'eye' and I stand there and make reassuring sounds at her. The reassuring sounds somehow don't do it for her, she hits the end of the lead, feels trapped? and then YANK off she goes with the other half of the lead dangling. This time she got so caught on her hind end, that when she snapped the lead sideways she slowly fell on her side, sat there for a second like "wow" and then got back up and started eating.

There've been a few times where she didn't pull hard enough to snap anything and ended up finally releasing and 'getting it' that if she just quit there was nothing to be afraid of. I've tried working on the 'head-down' cue but she's really tough. It takes me wrapping the lead under a leg and leaning on it in order for her to respond the first few times. Then she'll do it a few times, and all of a sudden we're back to square one. I release the second she gives in every time, but with this she's just not clueing in.

I'm really worried about this! I don't want to hurt her, or have her hurt herself. I try to give her the best footing I can so she won't flip, fall, slip etc. I don't like using methods that let them get away so I don't want to use baling twine. I've thought about getting a blocker type tie ring, but they're expensive and I don't know if it would work. I'm doing some research, any tips would be great.

New Barn New Barn New Barn!!!

2010-03-03T14:23:00.000-08:00

We moved the horses to the new barn on the 27th, they went out into a halfway pasture with their pasture mates next door to socialize safely with a fence in between them. This pasture was one the other horses had already grazed too, so there was less grass for them to pig out on so there's less chance of laminitis/founder. They're still getting fed oat/alfalfa hay once a day too (and might I add LOTS of it, Bijou had 4 flakes waiting for her after her ride such a nice change!!) so they're getting plenty to eat.

Everyone seemed to take to the pasture just fine and Bijou buddied up with the other mare out there right away. Monday we went out to do our first ride, our tack is still all in the trailer until everything dries out a bit.

Apparently our tying issues expand to cross ties as well. There were three very open nice cross ties which we hooked the horses up to, I went to get my tack from the car and came back. While I was brushing off mudd on Bijou's belly, she tried to kick at the brush under her belly. I gave her a verbal no-no signal, and tapped the brush on her back leg, trying to tell her that was not an acceptable response, she way overreacted, pulled back, and wrenched her neck around until the velcro cross ties gave up. She turned around and munched on some grass while I grabbed her leadrope. I don't know what to do other than find a tree to tie her to.

After that, we had a very eventless lunging session, followed by a nice wtc over poles and tiiiiny crossrails lesson. She's learned that jumping isn't always necessary and that trotting over the crossrails is definitely easier. I don't know if I should be letting her just trot things, or encouraging her to always jump. I like that she's calming down and just picking up her feet, and that 18" obstacles are not intimidating to her, but I don't want her to get lazy when I show her 18". Any opinions anyone? I'll have to do more research into creating an eventing/hunter horse and see what I can find.

On a seperate note, everyone's been doing the beautiful blogger award and telling 7 things about themselves, and I've been anonymously tagged, so here goes:

1. I've been riding since before I was born :P . My mom rode in a few 3'6" jumpers classes when she was 6 mo pregnant with me. Secretly I know this is why my love of jumping comes from :P

2. Bijou's name was Jane (seajanequickly is her registered name) before I got her. I couldn't stand having a bay tb mare with a plain name like Jane so I found the most unique one I could.

3. I've lived in NC, FL, and all up and down CA. I don't have a favorite place but NC has special memories because I bred Quarter horses and gained a lot of my horse skills there.

4. I love the sound of horses eating, I used to sit backwards draped over my quarter horse mare Heather's rump just to spend time listening to her eating.

5. I knit things. And Crochet things. It's been a while, but I might get back into it soon. I love fiber arts.

6. I have a problem with deals. If I think that something is an incredible steal, I buy it. This is how I ended up with two 'free' horses.

7. I'm in the process of trying a few new more natural ways of doing things, like barefoot/bitless/and full turn out. I love to hear everyone's thoughts on these new technologies (or anti-technologies?) so if you have a blog that talks about them, let me know.

phew!

2010-02-21T16:49:00.001-08:00

This week was busy busy and productive finally!

Some accomplishments:

Worked on trot transitions, got from leg on = toss head, swish tail, generall fussyness to leg on = walk faster/trot

I found out that our left lead is most certainly our preffered lead but the right is no where near impossible (takes about 3 tries on average) and that my horse is much more manageable when she's been out to do something at least 2 days consecutively prior. We started with barely being sane enough to listen for downward cues on the lunge, to being reluctant (but still capable) of trotting off in a timely manner when given the upward cue.

We had some serious bridling issues combined with serious tying issues. We were tied up at the trailer, which we've been tying to for as long as she's been with me, and I took out the saddle pad after grooming her and she decided that it was NOT allowed to touch her. She didn't even want to SMELL the thing. Got to the point where when I forced the issue and tried to approach her with the blanket she pulled back and ripped my lead rope. She ended up pulling back several times with different lead ropes and wouldn't stop unless I told her to. Then, I untied her and chased her around with the saddle pad. The second it actually came in contact with her it no longer was a terrifying monster. wtf? I could flop it all over her within seconds of her realization, over her head, ears, swing it under her belly, back legs, all without so much as a blink. I've not seen this kind of fear->no fear reaction so quickly before. There wasn't even a wuffing at it or anything...

Then we moved on to bridling. Putting the reins over the head was a big deal. I'm pretty sure that this has a lot to do with the headshy-ness she's developed since she got the hole in her head which by the way is almost almost almost totally healed. I tried to swing the reins over her head which triggered another blow up/pull back which we worked on. Then un-bridling that day we had another moment which I already talked about. All this has been worked out, bridling issues are a thing of the past! I love her cus she's just so darn smart! The saddle pad thing is still a small issue but I just plan ahead for it now by untying her until I can fully desensitize her. I curry her, go through the saddle pad freakout, brush her, go through the saddle pad freakout, and pick her feat, repeat and usually by the third time she just gives it an eye as it comes out from it's lair again... maybe she's not that smart?

Another issue has come to my attention. She's still not gaining the weight I'd like to see her gain. She's on as much feed as the other horses of the same size (but heavier) out in her pasture, but she may have lost some weight. I fed her two bales worth of extras as a lunch time deal over about a 1.25 month period along with two baggies of rice bran + flax + vitamins + MSM a day and she gained something, but it wasn't enough. I guess all I can do is wait til we move to our 24/7 grassy pasture supplemented with hay in the winter and she how she does on that. I was going to get her corn oil, then read about it and found out that it has lots of Omega-3's but almost no Omea-6's and if the balance is off it can cause inflammation to flare up. So that's a no. I don't know what other ways I can feasably get more calories into her. I've wormed her with ivermectin twice since she's been mine and I know that ivermectin doesn't do it all, but I don't know which ones of the other wormers should be the first to try. She's got plenty of appetite, and her teeth are good so I don't know what else it could be.

But I almost forgot! We jumped our first jump! Here's how it went:

Bijou: "uhhh, mom, there's something in the way"

Me: "its ok, right?"

Bijou: "ya, fine by me, just wanted to make sure you were ok with it, ok here goes *jump* wheeee that was FUN!!"

and we went around the other way, and then we walked over a ground pole covered in fluffy flowers from the flower boxes which wasn't really that scary, just enough to look at a little bit.

I'm so proud of my little trinket :D

progress!

2010-02-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

I rode my horse! She was really good! No bucks even after a whole month of not riding and we did some walk and trot and canter! Trot work over poles with one raised cavaletti and we did a lot of trotting over poles between standards.

We did have major issues bridling. She flipped out when I tried to put the reins over her head, ended up pulling back on the trailer a few times, yay for a good halter and a quick release knot. I let her pull it til she gave up, then untied her and made her stand next to the trailer while I worked with her. She really had a hard time with it going over the off ear unless I petted her with my hand first. Then unbridling she flipped as I was pulling the headstall (my brand new 'eventing' headstall!!) off and swung it around by the reins still around her neck as she careened around. All I could see was it catching on her front legs and snapping in a million pieces. Thankfully she kept shying away from it and I caught her. She thumped her teeth with the bit pretty bad and I just didn't have time to get the bridle back on her and take it off a bunch of times. I don't really even know how to accomplish this without the danger that she'll knock her teeth again either. I'll have to work more on desensitizing her face since the whole hole in her head thing's made her headshy, obviously.

Lots more to work on, but definitely some progress. I was expecting a nutso horse and I got a very rideable and under control mare... nice surprises are nice sometimes!

Goals: Ride every possible moment! More work on the anti-headshy front, maybe plastic baggies?

Happy Valentines day

2010-02-14T10:36:00.000-08:00

So I really have nothing to update about the Valentines day yet, I've yet to get out to the barn so hopefully the pony's head hasn't fallen off or exploded or gotten yet another hole in it.

*Edit* the hole in the ponys head is almost almost gone! It's no longer oozing any type of fluid and the hairs grown back!

I had an interesting idea last night. I hope you all remember my amazing good deals from my tack shop goes out of business sale, including specifically my fluffy merino sheepskin pad! I've yet to find a baby pad to fit underneath it so it doesn't ruin it's spiffy whiteness. I was pondering this dilemma as the beginning of March gets nearer and in my ever resourcefull do-it-yourself attitude I started wondering if I could make my own. I have a sewing machine, and know how to use it, I could find the cloth and batting to make it work, but I always have this vision of baby pads binding awkwardly under the saddle.

This plus one other tid-bit got me thinking. When I was shopping for my fluffy sheepskin pad there was another version (much more expensive so I didn't get it) that had elastic inserts along the spine to allow for stretching as the horse moved. I thought that this was very interesting. It's the first time I've ever seen a pad with elastic in it, but it made total sense.

I knit, I've made mittens and beanies, and random video game characters out of yarn. Knitting provides a very stretchy and possibly thick cushy product that seems like it would make a pretty neat baby pad. And it's got the added do-it-yourself bonus!

I just don't know if it would work. I'd appreciate any input on your ideas of pads and comments on stretchiness.

Goals: Build a time machine to get to March faster. Lunge whenever possible, maybe introduce side reins if we chill out. Desensitize face and ears after last weeks stitch removal.

Rain Rain, Go away!

2010-02-09T22:25:00.000-08:00

Still no updates. Still no goals. I might be a little absent until march when we move to.... the most wonderful place on earth, no, not Disneyland, but Buckley Stables! Sand arena with full set of standards and standard size poles and it dries in a day or two and a round pen and a warmup arena and a hotwalker and GRASS YEAR ROUND in pasture with supplements in winter and shows held on the grounds and a small turf x-country course behind the trailer parking in the summer and.... *breath* can you tell I'm excited just a little bit?

But until then, unless some miraculous dry spell shows up or another tack shop goes out of business (I hope not, I spent a LOT of money already), this blog may go a tiny bit stale. My camera is completely dead (strangely enough, another thing the rain ruined) so I'm trying to figure out how to get pictures off my phone but until then I might not even get pics of the Disgusting in it's wet and sloppy glory.

SPIFFY!!

2010-02-06T20:49:00.000-08:00

Oh boy! The local tack shop is going out of business. This means all sorts of things for REALLY GOOD DEALS!!

I kinda bought:

an entire lifetime supply of breeches, in my most favoritest style of the TuffRider brand. I bought a crop as a threatening device so that when Bijou learns to jump, she'll never have the option of learning that it doesn't suck to not jump (and probably causing me to gain a better seat by practice riding bucks), a big huge bottle of iodine scrub so I can scrub Bijou's face in the healing process, a nice stiff plastic bristle brush to use while bathing (and getting the clay like mud off of her), some hair nets, a pair of cheapy gloves to use while teaching Bijou to lunge, a saddle cover, and my two big purchase items were:

A Padded Event Bridle:

and a fluffy merino sheepskin half pad:

Which normally I would think is totally unnecessary, but it was just such a good deal and I have a feeling it will come in handy when I need to look the part more than I feel the part of being an eventer.

I've now accumulated a bunch more stuff I need to get out there and USE but can't because it's been raining so darn much. Just gives me motivation that once it does start drying up I'm going to be out there in a heartbeat.

On another note, I was talking with this girl as I was working at Starbucks last week (she came in twice) and I noticed she was wearing a Ram Tap sweatshirt. I oggled her chest awkwardly and asked "did you compete at Ram Tap?" to which she replied "yah!" I told her about my one and only event (walk trot and crossrails combined with an ~ 10 effort x-country course of no more than 18") but that I was so excited to get into it. She was so encouraging about everything and asked about Bijou and told me about her horse. It got me thinking about the whole thing. I've been trained as a H/J my whole life, I love the H/J world but I'd way rather have an all around horse, I've been interested in dressage for a while and cross country in Ireland got me hooked. I don't try to pretend that I'm good at this yet (especially in dressage) but I'm always looking for more information. Please let me know about any tips for an eventing beginner!

Happy February!

2010-02-01T22:48:00.000-08:00

Well, not really.... but I have to rejoice in the small things. February means we're one step closer to being done with winter and into spring.

On a good note, I was finally able to do something mildly constructive today! Hooray! The very center of the arena finally dried up enough to work in. I took little Ms. High-as-a-Kite out and had a good lunging lesson. She slipped up a few times on the worst patches, but only when she started taking off bucking. I was very proud that she retained a LOT of what we'd worked on before the rain when we were practicing being a well mannered horse while lunging. She didn't try to wheel around on me even once, although she did all of a sudden turn to face me without being asked to. Instead of getting all confused when I tugged to one side and stepped to the other (trying to push her in whichever direction) she only had to take a second to process, and then realized she knew what I was talking about and started off in the suggested direction.

Talk about being greatful for the small things. I know I'm practically gushing about the fact that my horse understands one very small facet of one very small part of being a well mannered horse, but with the recent lack of ANY PROGRESS AT ALL due to the weather, I feel like any step forward is a huge leap for horsewoman-kind.

Hopefully this lack of progress will be remedied since we found a new affordable barn! Huge grassy pastures, a sand arena with a full complement of jumps, lighted arenas for night time riding in the winter, dog friendly, hotwalker equipped, and a group of people with whom I'm already familiar with, all for an affordable rate! I just hope I don't wake up tomorrow and realize it was all too good to be true.

Goals: lunge more if possible, still working on the anti-rain dance since that's what the forecast says to expect... :(

Still too Wet

2010-01-31T19:13:00.001-08:00

I went out yesterday and today just to breathe in the horsey smells and maybe see if the arena was in any shape to have horses turned out in. Well, the only smells I got were of wet horses, mud, mud and too much mud to turn out in.

I couldn't stand it any longer, so I decided I'd take Bijou the one place on earth where she wouldn't sink 6"+ into the ground, which was down the dirt road. I had envisioned us taking a few balking steps as she realized she was getting further away from her other horsey friends and then taking a few uneventful walks up and down the road, maybe trotting a few times just to do something. Well, she was not very worried about getting back to the other ponies until we hit the section of the fence where the big bad booming barking pitbul lives. He picked up his refrain and Bijou tried to wheel around and head for home, all but forgetting that she had me attached to her. We sat there for a while until she could take a few nervous bites of grass without another attempt at tally-ing ho toward home. Then I turned her around and tried to make my way back. The whole way back she shoved her shoulder into me, to the point that snatching down on the halter did nothing but pull her closer, so I had to resort to whapping her on the shoulder with her (very heavy and wet) leadrope. The first few times she was so offended that I had treated her with such brutality that she full on reared and somehow simultaneously ended up about 6' away from me (my secret goal).

I couldn't get her blanket off even after we'd gotten home because the clay and mud has infiltrated the buckles to the point that they no longer open. So I didn't even get a chance to brush her, and fluffy shedding pony she would remain. I made up more rice bran (got a new bag yesterday) baggies and fed her an extra flake as it got dark.

Today was slightly more successful, I got the blanket (that she tore a huge hole in the shoulder of) off after about 15 minutes of painful struggling so I at least got to pull big hunks of winter coat off of her. I'm really hoping that I didn't clip off the top of her summer coat when I clipped her earlier this month, but it's going to make shedding her out so much easier. I didn't attempt to take her down the road again but she ended up running from the imagined monsters when I turned her out to eat some grass. She's got quite the headset to her when she wants it (and is high as a kite). Another few flakes of hay and some beetpulp and we called it a day.

Here's to hoping next time I can run her around a bit.

No news is bad news

2010-01-26T18:54:00.000-08:00

Lack of posts due to lack of an arena that isn't one giant puddle. I'm working on getting the pics from my phone cus they will eventually be hilarious. Now I'm just super bummed because all the training I want to do for this summer is not getting done.

Bijou did get a few little weensy bone fragments pulled from her head recently, she should be ready to have stitches out by the 6th, and then be all healed up by the 20th. That is unless she has MORE weensy bone fragments floating around in her oh so lovely Frankenstein-ian wound. She's officially started shedding, and with a vengeance. All that fluff will be gone soon enough, and it looks like she won't be just a bag of bones underneath it any more! I pulled her blanket off and this time had the 'voila!!' moment I had been waiting for. She's been on about a scoop of rice bran a day, with big flakes of alfalfa and oat morning and night, and then I sneak out there and feed her from her own personal supply at least 4 times a week. Usually those days she gets about 2 extra flakes. It's finally started to pay off.

She definitely seems a little hotter lately. I tried to put her blanket back on after aforementioned voila moment and she drug me about 15 ft just playing really. I am thinking I might try jogging down the road and back with her, it's the only place that is dry enough that she won't slip and fall, and it will mean that she has to spend some time getting used to being away from the other horses that she loves so dearly.

Goals: meh, I'll start this up when I have an arena again.

Could these be called puddles?

2010-01-18T23:55:00.000-08:00

It's begun another bout of serious raining. I didn't think we got that much, but after going out to the barn today I re-evaluated. Our 2' coop was only about 4" tall because it was in that much water. This is INSIDE the arena where we are supposed to ride eventually. Once again, I was all ready to rock and roll with my new training schedule, and the weather had to go and ruin it. I'm guessing it will take until next monday before we can hope to ride in the arena :(

On that vein, S and I went around to the local barns inquiring about prices and taking a look at the facilities on what we've agreed was the wettest day ever. Buckley may be an option if pasture is available, but they charge extra for trailer parking :( There was this other place full of arabians that had a covered arena with no arena under the cover, just a bull pen and a hot-walker! They had a nice big outdoor arena, but why would you choose to put the arena outside?! I'm hoping we sell Lady so I can afford to board somewhere with a covered arena for the rest of the winter. We shall see.

Goals: Figure out an anti-rain dance.

Photo updates!!

2010-01-12T21:21:00.001-08:00

I thought with our two month anniversary approaching I should take a few quick snapshots to remember the moment.

Above: Bijou patiently drying looking really dark and scraggly

Above: After the clippers had done their magic.

This side turned out better. Still looks like a racing-fit TB to me, I hope she fills out to be a warmblood-typey TB instead!

Just as a reminder, I'll put up some of the 'before' pictures. I'd like to note the dark shadow behind where the saddle pad lays, that's because her rib cage actually stuck out that much from where her sunken in hips were. Also note the gaskin and forearm muscling (or lack thereof) I know she hasn't made huge progress in the last two months, but slow and steady wins the race right?

In other news, today went really well. We had our first w/t/c lunge session where she didn't try to duck around the other way even once. She's still having a tough time with the trot/walk transition, but she gets there eventually. That's something to work on. She followed me over some of the fences that were up (again just to get her thinking about that sort of thing) and I trotted her over some poles.

I lunged and rode yesterday, S had Wyatt turned out in the grassy area and was chasing him cracking the whip. The whip wasn't a problem, but when Wyatt went charging across the area Bijou couldn't quite help herself and just needed to take off a little bit with him. She ended up with her front feet in the air after I gave a pretty firm halt. We walked it off and ended on a good note, did a bunch of trotting poles between standards before that. She likes to break into a nice little canter every so often when we're trotting. I like it because it means she's thinking forward, and I try not to tug on her to slow back down, but I don't want her to think that she's picking the pace. We're also having a hard time staying stationary at the mounting block. She doesn't take off or anything, just a few steps, but I love love love having a horse that will stand stock still while you get on, makes everything so much easier. I think we'll just have to keep having serious conversations every time she moves away and hope that consistency will win the day. I'm going to miss her for the next few days plus it will be raining. I really want to be consistent, but it's next to impossible with an outdoor arena in the wet winter.

Goals: Wash and repair tail bag to re-do tail. Buy shampoo to re-do tail. Keep working on lunging so I can feel safe putting more gear on her to get rid of the slight ewe neck forming.

Progress

2010-01-10T21:16:00.000-08:00

This weekend was full of mostly realized promise. I wanted to ride, check; Clip the beastly mongrel, check; Even jump the squirrely mongrel, check!

I lunged again yesterday, which was quite fun for Ms. Jou jou especially because she got to barrel around with her buddy Jack. Of course, after about 10 mintues of that she came up all in a lather, I'm talking rivulets of sweat between her eyes, down her nose, off her pointy shoulders, etc. So today I decided it was time for a clip. I did just a bare neck/most of shoulders clip and left her hind end all fluffy because both she and I were getting tired of dealing with the hair flying everywhere. S was kind enough to let me borrow her clippers, which tend to leave the coat quite long, but took off enough for Bijou to feel more comfortable for her lunge today.

She was feeling so comfortable in fact that I think she wanted to make today a challenge. She gets the whole go-around-in-a-circle thing, but every once and a while when I have to tug on her to get her to stay in a round circle she all of a sudden turns in and tries to flip the other way. Unacceptable. So I end up having to have this huge argument with her. She still got all sweaty, I popped a saddle on her (almost forgot the stirrups) and just rode around to cool her off, well except for the jumping part.

I had to poke and prod her to get her away from the other two spectating horses, and when she realized that something solid was coming her way (the red and white striped candy cane x-rail) she just wasn't having any of it, so I stopped her, and just walked her over it in the other direction. For some reason this was still very exciting, and we ended up doing a walk/canter transition over the fence and cantering/bucking around half the arena after the fence. That was enough for me, I just wanted to get her thinking about these things.

I am still at a loss on how to really get her to show some serious progress, or I guess the issue is really more about the pace. I have a hard time knowing if she's at the point where I should be just lunging her with tack/side reins, or if I should be riding her, or if I should be doing full sets of W/T/C every day, or if I should be taking her over our little 2' coops just for the heck of it. I don't know where the boundary lies between babying her and pushing her. I feel like if I take it slow I won't ever really know when she's ready to go from one to the next, and I don't like doing things sequentially, I like being able to switch it up a bit and master more things slower? I dunno.

With that in mind, I am going to start putting in a little more focus on her now that I feel like she's taking in the necessary calories to deal with a significant workload. Plan is as follows:

Since I can't get out to the barn from Wednesday-Friday my 'week' will start on Saturday

Saturday: Turn out in the arena, work on transitions, voice cues, have her follow me over obstacles. If she starts to mellow out, long lunge sessions on these days, lots of trot work, maybe adding in side reins

Sunday: Lunge to warm up, Ride with lots of stretches, neck bending exercises, free walking, long and low, over poles, between standards (which means I WILL take down jumps even if it's a pain) do some walk/trot pole courses. Work on slowing down and controlling the canter. Lots of transitions using my seat. Attempts at lateral work.

Monday: Work on an under saddle issue that was frustrating/puzzling/difficult from Sunday or do more transitions, bending, circles.

Tuesday: Do at least 1 trust building exercise, desensitize to something, whatever. I'll have to keep thinking up new things for this, baggies, balloons (I could even POP them!), tarps, buckets, etc. Go down the road away from the other horses and graze or some other trick I hope to find to get a horse to give up their buddy-sourness. Re-do tail with MTG and tail bag. I'll need to buy some shampoo.

Goals: stick to the program!

Groceries!!!

2010-01-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

Bijou finally got hay!!! Two big bales of decent alfalfa all for her to have her lunches. She's getting double what she used to. Now hopefully I'll start to see some of that ribbyness go away. She's also still on tons of beetpulp, almost a whole bucket full after it's soaked. I made up more baggies of rice bran plus her vitamins/flax seed/MSM so that they get fed every day. Every day I go out there she gets to be out in the grassy area for the whole time (up to 5 hrs on weekends) while I work other horses. She usually exercises herself by spurting across the row of stalls and kicking up her heels a few times. I'll have to see if I can get a picture of it soon.

I'm still really concerned about how thin she is (weight tape still comes in at 1080lbs). I want to take a bunch of pictures to catalogue this time with her, but I am embarrassed to have people see her like this. I feel like I'm doing everything in my power to get her fatter. I will go price out some corn oil at Costco and after that I think I will just have to sit back and let all the calories work their magic. She's definitely showing that she has more energy to burn, which is good because I think she used to be so skinny that she was lethargic to an extent :( I think it doesn't help to see her all wet and mucky from the rain all the time either, and she was allowed to grow a HUGE winter coat that will be tons of fun trying to get off her for shedding time but which makes her seem more scraggly than she probably really is. I'm going to post pictures of her anyway and that way I'll have a reference when I look back and say "wow, she's come so far!"

Goals: Corn oil, Riding now that the arena isn't soaked, Bath (maybe after tuesday when it's supposed to rain again anyway.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T13:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we did our first real lunging lesson. The arena was kinda mucky, and I just wanted to goof around a bit. I took Bijou out with just a halter and tried to instill in her the move forward cue. Eventually we got it going pretty good with her walking and trotting on the end of her lead rope around me. Then I added in a small jump to see what she would do. She was cautious at first, but once I walked over it with her she popped right over it, sometimes getting too forward and dragging me away from it rather than stay on a circle.

That's all we've really been able to do since the weather continues to be disgusting. I can't wait to get her all cleaned up and have her STAY that way. Right now there's a considerable amount of mud stuck to her belly, neck, and face that won't come off without water and it's been too cold for that.

Goals: none... doesn't make sense with no arenas to work in, no truck to get hay, no one to deliver hay, feeding as per usual, etc.

...

2009-12-29T19:09:00.000-08:00

I have an appointment to call Dr. W for Bijou on Monday. This will hopefully produce some bone fragment from her head that, once removed, will speed up the last bits of the healing process. If I were a better blogger, I would have taken before and after pictures, but I'm not.

Lunged today, just enough to get the willies out. The round pen was really nice, soft and not too deep. Being in a small space really made her move from underneath herself. Can't wait to get some side reins on her in there. For today I thought I'd work on just getting her to stay going one direction. Worked pretty well except once. She was bucking and kicking up a storm when I turned her out in the grassy area. Weighed again, still no change, although the cleft between her hip bones (for some reason that bothers me SO much) has begun to be just a little indentation. Her ribs don't stick out so far from her hips either. Point of shoulder is still there just under the skin though.

Goals: GET HAY!!!

The Search is Over

2009-12-26T21:33:00.000-08:00

Coincidentally, S's Circuit fits Bijou perfectly. Or at least as much as I can tell so far. I rode her at the beach in it and there were two large dry patches of equal size etc on her which I hope will fill out with more weight as time progresses.

I was griping about how hard it was to find a good saddle, and there one was, sitting right beneath my nose. I feel foolish.

On another note, We had lots of fun at the beach for our second time. My favorite part was when we ascended the dunes and got our first look at the ocean. Bijou was in front and her head popped up into the llama pose, her ears pointed forward so much they were almost touching, and I could hear her thoughts as clear as day: "What the HECK is all that swirly blue and white stuff!!!" but we walked on down the dunes and eventually made our way into the water, although reluctantly. We almost raced Wyatt and S. Wyatt has been trained by his previous beach buddies (all TB's with the need for serious speed) that he must take off at the first sign of a spirited canter. Bijou was obviously not meant for a race horse. She saw Wyatt jump off in front of her, and rather than tucking her hind end in and racing, she slowly lengthened her stride to catch up. I think she would have been one of the TB's that started in the back of the pack and worked her way up. She just doesn't have the quickness. That comes in handy when she's trying to skitter away from the water. Sometimes it just caught up to her and there was nothing she could do about it.

I also rode her in the arena the one day it was dry enough (mostly). In the slippery patches she thought it would be funny to pick up a canter and buck around a bit. Her idea of misbehavior is quite understated for a 5 yr old TB. It was more head shaking than anything else.

Goals: Buy some hay, ride more.

Oh the Joys of Saddle Fitting

2009-12-22T10:48:00.001-08:00

S has been having a ridiculous time figuring out a saddle that fits for Wyatt. I think some of it (if only a small case of the TB-with-high-withers) has rubbed off on me. I have ridden in my Bates Caprilli Eventing saddle:

for the only few times that I have ridden her, but I am afraid that even with the medium narrow tree it is still sitting on her withers once it is girthed and has my weight on it. This has led me to search for more wither friendly saddles. Unfortunately I don't like the price tags, although the saddles are very pretty. There are so many saddles out there that it makes it near impossible to choose. I really like the stubbens, but I have never heard of them being particularly good for a horse with slightly higher than normal withers.

I rode her in my bates yesterday, did mostly walking and some trotting. Just enough to get her warm and make her think, but not enough to tucker her out. She's very wobbly in her steering, I'm trying to help her a lot with my leg and really 'open the door' for her around the turns but I think she's just not really balanced. It didn't help that the arena was slippery in patches. I think she got scared when her feet slipped, and she would take off and throw a little fit. This was expected since she hadn't really been worked in about 3 weeks. She will throw her head around when I first ask for her face, and then she'll just walk out in a nice little frame for a while, and then she'll throw her head around again. I think it's the lack of ride time, but I hope I'll be able to get more consistent after all this darned rain quits.

When I was at Farm Supply, I found they had the probiotic supplement I was looking at online for a fairly decent price. I think I'll get some of that for when she gets off the antibiotics to prevent her from losing more weight because her gut bacteria isn't there to help her out. I've been trying to figure out a way to go pick up some nice alfalfa/grass hay to free feed her for the remainder of her stall stay, but I can't seem to locate a willing truck lender. This is when it would have been really nice to have gotten one myself, but I still love my little Gizmo.

Goals: ride more, weather permitting.

If you want something done right...

2009-12-16T14:38:00.000-08:00

For the first few days of Bijou's antibiotics, someone was forgetting to give them to her at least once a day, so very little progress was made. Now she's getting them properly (I need to go out and make more baggies today) and looking quite a bit better.

Bijou's been under a blanket for almost a week and I had been feverishly hoping that when I took it off there would be some semblance of weight gain but I'm afraid not. She looks just the same, and when I measured her with the weight tape, it confirmed this. I am thinking about adding corn oil to try to get her to beef up and I will de-worm her again just to make sure that there's none of that going on. I've started her back on the beet pulp, so we'll work that up in volume again. She hasn't been doing really any work at all, and I turn her out to eat the extra grass in the arena a lot. I don't know what else to do but give her time...

Shelly and I went to check out Barbi Breen-Gurley's facility, and had a really good time. Depending on what the lessons are for price, we'll probably take some. I don't know how it will go with Wyatt and Bijou on such different levels, but we'll try to work something out. I would love to get things off on the right track, and hopefully under Barbi's tutelage we will have some serious success.

Goals: Research probiotics, Get Bijou fatter.

No Rest for the Weary

2009-12-08T21:38:00.000-08:00

So I finally picked up the antibiotics (Today was day one of SMZ's), and amidst all the finals stress I found my way out to the barn and got all muddy so that Bijou can have her BID SMZ's. Hopefully all the feeder people will catch on so we can get this stuff dealt with.

It's been rainy, so no riding. Probably won't be very much riding considering the weather report... ugh. Winter time is no fun! I really wanted to get training started in earnest over winter break, but it's going to be so nasty for the whole first week I doubt it will dry up in time.

Talked to a woman down in AG with a saddle that looks like it may fit, but she hasn't gotten back to me with tree size or seat size, so I can't even say if it's worth going down there to look at it or not.

Goals: stay dry