Jazz got a new saddle! Her old one wasn't fitting right, so I finally found something that works! Unfortunately it's not exactly what I would have wanted, since it's a black synthetic, but the important thing is that it fits, so I can stand black tack for a while (can you say new bridle?).
I mean, more awkward pictures of horses probably exist.
Snapchats feat. one of the failed trial saddles.
I worked at an undisclosed location for a couple of weeks. It was a lot of long days, and a lot of missing my horse, but the paycheck sure didn't hurt.
Mmm. Sideways spoilers.
I also celebrated my birthday the best way I could think of, by trying to give Jazz a beverage I am now able to legally consume (but wouldn't). I poured Jazz a Keystone light that was kicking around in the fridge, and she promptly swished it all over the place (and all over me) and then refused to go back near it (sadly, no photographic evidence).
I also got bucked off a couple weeks back in a Pony Club lesson. The worst part was no one got video.
Plus another event that I think warrants its own post. Stay tuned!
After six weeks off, I had not one but two lessons last week, and two more this week! (and then I left this post behind in the drafts and so this was written some weeks ago in Mid-June. I decided to post it and then work on a more concise wrap up of my last couple months during my blogging hiatus.)
My usual trainer was riding Jazz for me while I was busy in May, working on w/t/c, a bit of contact and leg yielding to build up the muscles in her back. She said it was probably good for her to have ridden Jazz herself, because she got a lot better sense of how Jazz feels and reacts to things. We spent the entire lesson at the walk, working mostly on contact and some leg yields. It's been really interesting seeing how Jazz is just starting to get the idea of contact. She's taking baby steps with little tiny neck curls. It's super weird to think this is the same horse who would lose her entire mind if there was even a teeny tiny little pull on the opposite rein when I tried to turn back when I was very first riding her. Now she's doing cute little tiny neck curls. It was a tough lesson for me, using a lot of riding muscles that were not impressed with me on their sudden work request. I had a very looong hot bath with epsom salts (10/10 would recommend, epsom salts help draw lactic acid from your muscles).
Then, I drug my still sore self to my first Pony Club lesson on Jazz. I've taken other Pony Club lessons, but back before I rode Jazz English, on another horse. Now that we have our trailer, I finally got to go. We also hauled for another girl from my barn who I hadn't met yet, and both her and her horse are really nice. The instructor we have is a local eventing coach who has a great reputation. It was really interesting to work with her, especially learning some more dressage-y approaches to doing things. I personally blame Jen at Wyvern Oaks, and Karen at Bakersfield Dressage for my obsession with the idea of dressage. I learned a lot, and we worked on a bit of w/t/c, and turns on the forehand. I ended up getting a really nice couple of turns on the forehand once the new trainer explained how I needed to adjust to be clearer. Jazz tends to throw her shoulders around a lot, so once she tried moving her shoulder, and then backing up, and then a perfect step. The trainer also had a lot of nice things to say about my horse, such as "nice little mare", and "pretty", and "well balanced", and "she really thinks about things". I always like to hear compliments about my horse. Unfortunately, she also told me my saddle doesn't seem to fit correctly. Sigh. It's been lots of trips to the local consignment shop since then.
The following week I had another lesson with my usual trainer at home, where the main order of the day was spiraling in and out of circles, doing lots of the same work on contact and strengthening her back.
Pony club alternates lesson weeks between flatwork and jumping, so my second Pony Club lesson was jumping week. After a good warmup and some refreshers on my position, we started with work on a trot fence. Jazz has a really short stride, so we did a lot of work on getting her to really engage and get moving forward. Her canter runs at about 8 feet on average, so we also worked on extending her canter to something closer to the 12 feet I will be dealing with at shows someday. Then it got raised to a little baby cross rail, and we went over it a few times, before working our way up to a small grid. It involved trotting over a ground pole, then trotting in and cantering out to a small cross rail, and finally cantering a third fence. I had never actually cantered a fence before, so it was really awesome to get to try it! Jazz was awesome, but my two point is just slightly shy of abysmal, so the instructor gave me some exercises to work on at home to strengthen my muscles and develop more correct muscle memory. The big one was rising canter, working on staying up for multiple strides, and then standing and sitting alternate strides. It's also good for developing better rhythm. I felt much more in control working from a rising canter, and as a nice side note, Jazz picked up the correct lead after the fence every single time, and in all the rides I've had since. What a smart mare!
In our last installment, Jazz was fresh off a great lesson. I promised a story about a lesson which was now almost a month ago. Oops. I'm going to go ahead and make this the last time for now that I make excuses and cite my insane schedule, blah blah blah. From now on, I'm just gonna write about what I want to write about and get back to basics.
No farm visit pictures, so here's my cat, Casey!
I had a lesson waaaaaaay back on March 8 I want to talk about. I arrived a little late, and didn't end up having time to lunge beforehand, the first time I had not lunged before riding since I started doing so a couple of weeks before. Started with all the standard exercises, but the real showpiece was the canter. Right lead was business as usual, but left lead quickly became World War III. Jazz was having absolutely none of it, pulling on her martingale, popping mini-rears, the works. I had so much trouble, my instructor popped a lungeline on her. After she got a canter on the lungeline, I got back on and tried to get a canter on the line. Jazz had a couple fits and ultimately ended up bucking me off. She threw a couple crow hops and I ended up with my left foot out of the stirrup and over Jazz's right hip, and Jazz pretty much stopped there, so I just slid off the right side. Luckily for me, Jazz really doesn't have much of a buck, I just consider it a side effect of the martingale (she'd rather be rearing), and she doesn't appear to want to throw me, just teeter me off balance enough that I stop pestering her. After that episode, my trainer got on and had just as much trouble with her attitude as I was having, but eventually she did coax a left lead canter out of her. I have to admit that I felt a little better seeing my trainer having as much trouble with my horse as I was having.
He's a very talented cat, capable of being a lump and coveting your dinner at the same time.
I had one other lesson before I went away for spring break on the 18th which went different than I expected. I had another commitment that ran long, so I was running very late to my lesson. Luckily my trainer is awesome, so she had my horse caught and in the barn for me when I got there. We got her groomed and tacked quickly between the both of us, and I got to do the majority of my lesson. We spent the bulk of my shortened lesson working on leg yields off the quarter line at the walk and trot. It was mostly okay, but Jazz was getting lazy, especially towards the end. Jazz likes to shut down and turn everything into a fight as soon as she decides that she's done. I ended up getting the crop out to encourage the forward a little, and Jazz started doing little rears. I brought her into a tight circle every time, and we eventually got a little co-operation out of her (luckily right at the time my lesson was supposed to end). As a really great bonus to a successful lesson, my trainer even said it was the best she's seen me ride yet.
It's a day exactly like this one where I understand how people like winter. It is far from my own favourite season, and Jazz seems to feel the same way more often than not. But today, when it's not too cold at -5, sunny with not a cloud in the sky, and not a breath of wind, I get it. It was a truly gorgeous day, and a wonderful reminder of how lucky I am to have the horse I have and so many other little things.
Jazz was fairly easy to catch today. I had her new halter from my recent tack shop stop (review coming soon I just need some pictures), and I noticed the tag on it said full. I thought that was odd, because I could have sworn I'd bought a cob halter. It was the same brand as my pastel purple halter (which is cob sized), so I knew it would fit, and I specifically remembered the girl at the tack shop asking to make sure we knew it was cob sized. So, when I got to the fence, I yelled over to C (who had been with me when I bought it) to see if I was crazy or if the halter was actually supposed to be cob sized. She recalled that the tag that had said cob had been the sale tag, so it must have been mislabled. As we were talking over the fence, Jazz started nuzzling my shoulder and giving me little kisses. It was so sweet, and she's only done that maybe twice before. I tried to get C to take a picture, but Jazz stopped by the time she got her phone out. She did get a few cute shots, though.
I love this one. She almost looks like she's smiling.
As I was walking back from the pasture, I noticed how gorgeous of a day it was, and asked C to take some more pictures. Two of the barn cats even came out to greet us.
Just look at that sky! It was really perfect
I picked up one of the cats and put her in my coat, and Jazz happily snuffled her. She loves the cats, but usually she scares them off. Today she was just sniffing and snuffling the kitten so gently she didn't even squirm.
We got this adorable but sadly fuzzy picture of it
Soon the other cat caught her attention, and we captured a couple photos of Jazz's fascination with the cats.
I got a few nice pictures in the sun near the back paddocks (the ones in the far background of the above photos)
One of my absolute favourites
This one turned out really nice of me and the cat
See? Cat and I are cute, pony looks like she's plotting something.
A brief interlude from today's events to summarize our lesson from this past Wednesday that I neglected to blog about. Something I don't appreciate often enough about my trainer is the confidence I feel when I ride with her. My last ride before my lesson I didn't ride above a walk because I didn't feel safe. I cantered on Wednesday, because I am confident my trainer knows enough to tell me how best to keep my occasionally frazzled horse (and self) under control, and I also know she will listen when something just isn't working. In December, a lesson I didn't blog about didn't happen because I got onto a horse I wasn't sure about, and when Jazz felt much closer to rearing than I wanted to touch with a ten foot pole, I told my instructor I wasn't comfortable and hopped off (and she also didn't let me pay her for the lesson I didn't take). So on Wednesday, I got on to a fussed sort of Jazz that I probably wouldn't have even trotted if I was alone at the barn. I had bought a standing martingale at the tack shop the previous weekend, but hadn't actually had time to put it on yet. I asked my trainer if she wanted me to try it, and she helped me put it on and adjust it correctly. We went quickly back into some trot work, and Jazz bumped herself in the nose a few times. The difference was immediately obvious to me. She's head tossed a bit for some time now, but it finally felt like I could ride it out safely again. We did a lovely canter on her better right lead, and tried her left, but with little success. She's much duller to the right leg, and she will run sideways on the circle when tracking left sometimes, even stopping sometimes. It's very difficult for me to try to control, and has been a source of most of my frustration with riding over the last three or four months. When I had been having no success for a few minutes of working on it, and as I was starting to get frustrated, I did something I'd been meaning to do every time we'd had this problem for the last few months. I asked my trainer if there was some other way (any other way) we could possibly work this out. She said a crop was an option, and retrieved one from the whip bucket. She explained how to use it, and we worked on small circles where she wasn't squirreling off sideways on me. It took about two sharp pops with the crop behind my leg, and four or five gentle taps before she was much improved (and a million miles an hour, but I wasn't going to pull on her after giving her such a strong foward cue, that would just be confusing).
Coming back to today, we even squeezed in some work after the photoshoot, . I taught C a little basic groundwork, and Jazz was a rockstar. I groomed her and tacked up with our other purchase from last week's tack shopping, a standing martingale. I walked her for a bit, and she was listening the best right off the bat she has in months. She's always been very eager to go when I get on, and I sometimes have issue getting her to stand at the mounting block for me to get my reins and stirrups organized. Today she stood well, and started off at a good walk, but listening nicely to halts and half halts (another thing that she usually has to warm up to in the winter). We trotted early on, and I worked on doing ovals tracking left at the trot. She was actually getting off my outside leg on the open (non-walled) end of our oval, and I didn't need to fetch the crop to get her to listen. We even cantered a bit on her good right lead. There were two other horses in the arena trotting and cantering, which made Jazz want to speed up, so we had a fairly zippy but controlled canter. I just focused on her being quiet and listening, and did a bit of leg yielding on the quarter line intermittently throughout the ride. I even worked a bit at two pointing at the trot, which made Jazz happily zip around in a fast trot. I pulled out two ground poles to trot over, and even commented to C that if she did well over the poles, I might pop over a cavaletti. That goes to show how confident I was feeling in her, because I would never jump outside of a lesson unless I knew Jazz was doing well.
Unfortunately, just as I was getting ready to start work over the poles, Jazz had a big spook. She reeled up her head and bumped herself on the martingale, and took off, nearly tripping herself over the pole, and doing a little dolphin buck over it. I yelled at C to move because I wasn't feeling confident about my steering, and veered right. She came back to reality quickly, with the whole spook maybe lasting four seconds. I'm not sure exactly what set her off, but the other people in the arena had dismounted and were doing a little de-spooking with the flag (aka Jazz's number one fear) on the far end of the arena, so that may have factored in. I've found Jazz isn't usually a horse that will spook at something that startles her unless two or more things happen at once. For example, she'll sometimes startle at the sound of people rattling the chains on gates just outside the arena walls, or snow falling off the roof, or a car door slamming, but she'll rarely spook at these types of things unless at least two of them are happening at once, or one happens while I'm cueing for an upward transition. I put the poles away and basically worked on getting her calmed and releasing her tension.
I especially love her dragon breath in this picture
Once I was off, I took off her bridle and looped the martingale strap through the neck loop so it wouldn't drag. Just then, two scary sounds at the same time = another spook. Jazz startled and reeled away from the viewing area (where the halter had been sitting, and I was standing next to the rail) and away about five steps. She stopped quickly, and I had to laugh at her a little bit. She couldn't have picked a better time to spook, with her bridle off and no worrying about her catching her bit. Her girth was still tightened, so her saddle didn't move an inch, and she had respectfully not so much as grazed me. I did two fast groundwork moves to get her brain back, and untacked for good.
I've really learned something this week, and I hope it's something I remember next time I'm in a similar situation. I have had a very natural horsemanship kind of 'upbringing', and I've been committed to a gadgets are bad kind of mentality. I was first told by my trainer that I should consider a martingale/tie-down in June, and I bought one last Saturday. The result was an immediate feeling that I had returned to safety upon first use, and a horse who didn't catch herself on the martingale once (with the exception of a spook, of course) the second time she had ever had a martingale. My trainer commented to me when I asked about another method to deal with Jazz running sideways at the trot, that a crop or spurs would help, though she knew I didn't usually like that kind of thing. I've actually had the thought cross my mind a few times that a crop might have been the answer to my outside leg problem when she really isn't listening the way she was. I've actually used a crop before. It helped take us from here:
"Pleeeeeeease trot? Pretty please?"
to here:
You can actually see the crop in the video too.
So the moral of the story is a piece of advice I've heard from one of my horsey mentors (paraphrased) "You are going to hear a million opinions from horse people. You can't ever do that, horses should never do this, etc. The important thing is for you to figure out what feels right to you, and to do that."
So, readers, remember that no matter what, what matters is that you have a horse you can be proud of, and a method that you can feel good about.
Jazz is not so much a horse as a deceptively simple puzzle. What I'm trying to say, is that I have recently come to believe that somewhere in her unregistered grade horse ancestry, there was a Rubik's cube in there. It seems easy, and there's certainly lots of people out there that could have her lined up and working beautifully with a few twists, spins, and algorithms that look so simple when they do it. I know I've not hesitated to ask a few experienced horse people to help sort her and me (mostly me) out in the past, with great results.
Pictured above: Jazz when someone who knows what they're doing has a look at her.
Also, continuing my rubik's cube analogy, nearly any idiot can solve one side of a Rubik's cube. You can make it look real nice from one angle, but try to do anything but that one thing you do well, or try to make multiple sides match up, and it gets not so nice and pretty pretty fast. Again, much like Jazz. Nearly anything and everything an amateur like me can ask Jazz to do on a loose rein, she can do like gangbusters, but try to do those same things with a little contact, and suddenly all the wheels fall off and she won't listen to anything and none of those buttons you installed on a loose rein work properly anymore.
Pictured above: Jazz on the average day before I ask her to do something she considers work.
A brief break from the hypotheticals here to do a little catch up on recent events. July 1st I got on a horse that could accurately be described with phrases like "wound up" or "not quite listening" or "completely crazytown bananapants get off her now before someone dies or gets flattened". Looking at all the factors, I decided that there were WAY too many factors to have even a clue where to start finding solutions. On a hunch, I took a little bit of a risk and decided to subtract as much of the complication as possible. So, naturally, two days after jumping off of my horse trying not to A) tremble B) fear for my life and C) take it out on the horse instead of correcting properly, I decided to hop on bareback in just a rope halter with the lead line tied around for reins (I never claimed to be bright).
My suspicions were confirmed when I got on a totally chill horse who, granted, has gotten a bit dull on leg aids (so many things to do), but was very reasonable. I did a very gradual warmup, with minimal leg and both hands on the reins, but also sitting on her neck. Totally chill. I did some turning and circling and worked on the scary side of the arena a little (the side where the back yard of the farm house is. Jazz hates the dogs and I've seen them really spook her a few times). Totally chill. I took a little contact on my rope reins. Totally chill. I did the exact bending exercise to the best of my ability that I had done in our recent off the rails lesson . Chill, chill, chill.
The. Exact. Same. Exercise.
So chill.
Chill chill chill.
I rode again mid-week when I had a couple hours off from work (aka the one time in the week I had a couple hours off from work). I started much the same, bareback with the halter, nice slow introduction. I decided to test her out adding the bridle after our halter warmup. She was totally fine. I did some contact and more of the bending exercise from the lesson with no major issue.
I was almost convinced she was 100% fine, and as long as I could sort myself out in terms of what I was asking, we'd be moving back along like gangbusters again. Almost.
I had the same intentions today, but because I'd brought it home to punch holes, forgot my bridle. No problem. I didn't have big goals today anyway, just another short bareback, and the halter would do for that. So, I did my groundwork warmup.
Pictured above: Jazz after a groundwork warmup
I tied up my rope reins and hopped on. I had some slightly unfortunate timing in that a pasture mate of Jazz's (her pasture is about five meters away from the arena at its closest point) was being let go, and she was whinnying at her, which worked her up a little, but nothing unmanageable.
I had some really unfortunate timing in that the barn cat had come in and was wandering around in the far side of the arena, or, as the cat must see it, her giant sandy litter box. The cat itself wouldn't be a problem, but there are some truly horrid magpies at my farm.
No picture exists where magpies don't look like they're plotting to steal candy from babies, because magpies are evil, and they look evil 100% of the time.
The cat must have been threatening the nest or something, because the freaking magpies would NOT shut up. Jazz totally lost it and did a weird crow hop (oh the irony), wherein I was totally convinced I would be having a bareback bronc ride for the next however long it would take Jazz to buck me off (aka not long). Luckily, she did not buck me off. Unluckily, she took off. The rocket horse that was threatening to rear its ugly head not so long ago took this opportunity to blast off. I wound up trotting mach 8 along the rail with a horse completely blind to aids of any kind. She headed directly for C, who was sitting on the mounting block in the corner of the arena. I blurted out an eloquent "stop her, stop her, Stop Her, STOP HER!", as my breaks continued to fail and Jazz kept on heading for C. Luckily, she did stop once she reached her, and I hopped off to lunge her a little and get her mind down from the level 10 AB-SOLUTELY THIS IS GONNA BE HOW I DIE threat level she was at down to something rational. C went over to see what she could do about shutting up or chasing off the magpie. I did eventually get her brain back (but only after the crazy magpie was gone), and she did some really lovely work with ground poles with me on the ground. Sigh. Maybe I should just make her a halter horse and be done with it.
Pictured above: Jazz today.
Of course, I'm not being serious when I say that. We'll have to find a way. I haven't the faintest clue what that will be, but come what may, we will find a way.
At least I finally remembered to take a picture of her dapples.
So this weekend was supposed to be pretty Full of non- horse - related stuff but Much to my surprise and delight, my out of town weekend lines up perfectly with the Saskatchewan equine expo!
I was able to catch the last day of the expo today and arrived in time to watch the exciting tail end of one of the sessions of the trainer's challenge. For anyone who isn't familiar with them, the trainers challenges are 3 day events where 3 professional trainers are given young horses that are essentially untouched. I believe they're halter broke but I think that's the extent of what they know. Anyway, the three trainers draw a 'colt ' (they call them all colts even though at most of the trainers challenges I've seen its been all fillies) and get one hour to with with the horse each day for three days and at the end of the third day, there's a final competition in which the trainers demonstrate various compulsory skills that they have hopefully taught their horse over the three days.
I arrived for the last twenty minutes or so of one of the trainers' final sessions with his horse, a beautiful palomino filly. He was riding her walk/trot/lope and working on backing. After a few minutes of that he hopped off and started swinging a rope around (one of the final compulsories is swinging a rope and dragging a log), before untacking and jumping on bareback. He rode around about a minute and then the horse reared and bucked in quite an exciting fashion. The trainer actually stayed on pretty well until he didn't. He would have given anyone a run for their money if it had been a bareback bronc riding competition and not a trainer's challenge. Nonetheless, in the true cowboy spirit, he just grinned and said that was the most fun he'd had in a long time and jumped right back up just so he could end his session on a good note.
A truly horrendous phone picture of the trainer's challenge
Much to my delight, there was also a clinic from one of my favorite trainers, Jonathan Fields. He was giving a clinic on bend and balance and I learned a ton of new stuff that will be really useful once I start riding again.
Jonathan Fields, not that you can really tell from the picture
Plus I got a new halter and some English riding clothes for super cheap at the trade show. Just what i needed after these last couple weeks, shopping!
