The time has come again for real updates. The hardest part of not blogging is that it gets much harder because when you haven't written, it feels like you have so much backstory to catch up on you can't just update on what's new. No more. I am going to update on now, or I'm never going to start again.
Jazz has been doing awesome. I've been riding with an eventing coach since the summer, learning pretty much only dressage so far. I took almost the entire fall off of riding lessons when classes started up. My first semester schedule was a horrible drudgery which left me with basically only time to ride on weekends. I was really struggling through September and most of October, because I couldn't ride enough to keep Jazz fit, so it was conditioning work constantly, and I felt like I never got to do anything actually fun or productive, just fitness and more fitness. I ended up half leasing her out to a girl I rode in my group lesson with in Pony Club. It was perfect because I had seen her ride, I knew her to be at a similar level to me, and her lease horse had gone lame in late August. She also took lessons with my trainer, so I knew Jazz would be being worked in a way I'm comfortable with. It was awesome, Jazz was in the best shape of her life, and I got to just play on the weekends. I even taught my lessee to barrel race on Jazz and I's fourth anniversary (it was a terrible decision in a way since I hadn't been cantering much and my back was killing me for three days after, but it was fun). It worked out perfectly, because just as my schedule opened back up, her lease horse was coming back into work so I got to take Jazz back full time.
Jazz was covered in frost the other day, so after I laughed at how hilarious she looked for about a minute and a half, I had to take about a million photos.
Back to the present, I've been working on dressage and I am RUINED. FOR. LIFE. Oh my god did you know how much crap you have to do to get correct work? And more importantly, HAVE YOU EVER FELT HOW MUCH BETTER CORRECT FEELS? I can sit the trot! Bareback! No stirrups! I was not sitting in the middle of my horse. Ever. Now I can go through a month of lessons without once being corrected to sit in the middle. My legs stay in place! I'm barely losing stirrups once a week when it used to be ten times per ride on a good day. I'm figuring out what previously mysterious phrases like "inside leg to outside hand" and "leg to hand" and "connection" mean. Jazz moves FORWARD. The prancy annoying moving nowhere canter of our past is (almost) completely gone (with occasional reappearance when she's getting tired). Strung out gross crazy trot is also only found when Jazz is tired and frustrated. She's overtracking at the walk and trot! Dressage is the worst kind of drug. I will probably never get to the point where I'm up there at perfect, but I know what's out there. I know better and more precise is attainable.
Frostbeard the pony pirate
Lately, our W/T has been going like gangbusters. Jazz is getting lighter and rounder, and we're learning about connection, there's a lot more forward in our trot, and my hands are getting better. Most lessons I've been taking lately have been a short walk warmup and then an exercise at trot, and a bit of canter at the end. Our work at the trot has really felt like it's progressed almost every single week, and I'm really happy with how it's come along.
What's that? Oh no, I couldn't possibly listen today. My ears are frozen.
The canter is another story. It's really been deteriorating lately. It started with Jazz not being able to pick up the right lead. She was having so much difficulty that my instructor suggested something was probably out so I should get her looked at by a chiropractor. I had her adjusted a few days later. I can't remember if I've mentioned it here before, but Jazz had really uneven shoulders that were causing some difficulty with saddle fit. We figured it was mostly incorrect muscling, and worked on getting her more balanced and even, and I bought a saddle pad with adjustable memory foam shims to help compensate. Since she's been adjusted (and he did work on something near her withers), I found my saddle felt really high on the side with the extra padding. I started taking more and more layers out until it ended up level, and I'm back into regular saddle pads again.
I get to use my cranberry pad again, which is one of my absolute favourites!
I also managed to perfectly capture Jazz's three modes: 1. Perfect statue look how proud and pretty I am
2. Nap time
And my personal favourite, 3. Adorable doof
After her adjustment, the right lead has come much more easily, but now it's the left that's causing issue. Easy come, easy go I guess. In addition to the transitions being harder and harder to get, she's been totally running away with me, and refusing to turn on circles correctly. It's been hard because I essentially can't canter in an acceptable manner at all right now. I actually had a lesson yesterday, and it was going swimmingly, and then I was holding back tears by the end of the canter. It's been hard to put up with, but I'm counting my blessings because Jazz has been a thousand times better behaved in general (canter notwithstanding) than any of the past winters I've owned her.
I also got instagram so now I can make artsy photos and collages like these:
So here we are! Back again! I've missed updates! I can't wait to stay more current on this blog again.
"...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." -FDR
I have a fear. A paralyzing fear. And I have a fear of that fear. I very rationally should either not be afraid, or I should not do the thing that scares me. This is apparently not my way. I also know the fear is my biggest problem, I tend to throw up my hands (figuratively... most of the time) and kind of try flailingly to somehow make it through.
This is the cause of significant issue due to the fact jumping scares the bajeezes out of me. And right now I'm doing it maybe three times a week (sometimes less). Last week I was in a private lesson where the flat was perfect and literally all of my wheels fell off the second the standards and poles got lugged out. I understand a lot of things in principle. I know you just keep your eyes up, heels down, toes forward, squeeze tight with your lower legs, keep your back straight, follow with your arms, trot in canter out, downward transitions by stopping in your body not with the reins, breathe, blink, etc, etc, etc. I also know I can know these things all I want as I make a decent line at a good forward trot, and proceed to do few (or none) of the above on the actual jumping part. The jumps where I manage to do things kind of right are not based on any actual skill, or timing, or learning. More or less fluke outliers, not worth considering in the scheme of my riding ability.
I had a riding exam about a week and a half ago where I went over maybe six jumps of the smallest possible introductory size. I proceeded to fall off on my first attempt and be jumped way, way out of the tack on every single other. On top of this, I was told what has come to be my all time least favourite (non-life threatening) type of news. Have you guessed it? If you thought, "Your saddle doesn't fit", then DING DING DING, you win! I just got this new saddle. I don't think I've owned it a month. It seems to be twisting. The prospect of saddle shopping is kind of strange in a way, because if I were doing it voluntarily I think it would probably be super rad (I think it would be comparable in excitement to if I were able to buy suuuper nice tall boots). But though saddle shopping means new saddle, it also means trying saddles (literally worse than scrubbing really scummy water troughs). I'm going to talk to some people, see if there's something I can do, maybe get it reflocked or something. That on top of the disaster that was most of the rest of the test, made it not the best day.
Fortunately, I did manage to pass my riding test! (Which qualifies me for a rather exciting event in the fall that I'm hoping to blog about!!!) Each movement of the required elements is scored out of 10, with 10 being excellent, 0 being you literally didn't even try, and 6.5 being sufficient (with a 65% required in order to pass the riding element). My jumping recieved a 5.5. 5 is insufficient, and 6 is almost sufficient, so my jumping overall is almost almost sufficient. I had a good laugh over that. A 3 is rated as bad, so I'd definitely hate to see what a jumping score of 3 is.
I also had another pony club lesson two days later. The exercise set up was two jumps perpendicular to the rail and set off the track at E and B respectively, with one fence set up in the center of the ring on the diagonal. There were three of us riding, and one part of our warmup was a spiral in at the trot until we all ended up in a small circle nose to tail. It was interesting the different challenge of doing the exercise with other people. Then, one at a time we worked over the jumps, starting at E, then the diagonal, then around to B. We started at a trot, and the goal was to get a canter transition over the poles and canter out, transitioning back to the trot between fences. The first couple attempts I only managed to get the canter about a stride after the fence. Then the other girls in my lesson both took a turn and I tried again with more success. I was worrying too much about the fence when all I really needed to do was worry about timing my transition. Really it's no different than working on the flat, trying to get a transition in a particular place like in a dressage test. Tell that to the fear. I also ended up doing the exercise the same, except only trotting to the first fence and cantering the rest. It was a hot mess the first time, but the second I pulled myself together we actually accomplished it quite capably. To go and show what a well behaved, excellent horse I have, she even did a flying change when she picked up the wrong lead after the second pole. Fancy mare.
I also, fortunately, know how to laugh at myself. I was at a charity casino for my local equestrian park recently, and one of the ladies there showed us a video of her daughter's stadium round at a recent event. She's a really great rider, and it sounds like she did really well. I, naturally, responded by pulling up the video of myself at the first jump and showing it around.
(Here, enjoy a terrible quality cell phone video and take a moment to remember it's okay to laugh at yourself... that, and my horse is basically a saint for not completely turfing me).
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!
The first three months of this year have gone by faster than I could possibly have imagined. I think I may have found the time to grab the occasional breath a handful of times in the first quarter of 2015, but I can't be sure. Without further ado, the overdue analysis of my goals:
Make more horse time. Too many excuses and not enough pony have been happening recently, and I intend to put a stop to it. Success! The lengthening daylight hours especially have been a huge help in completing this goal!
Play with the Horse Ball. Jazz's absolute favourite thing and I'm not even sure I've brought it out more than twice in the last year. Plus a fun thing both on the ground and under saddle. I brought out the ball one day, only to remember why it had been put away in the first place after an immense half-hour struggle to get it inflated enough to be safe.
Put the Western saddle back on occasionally. I kind of miss it. Done and done! I had it on at least twice, one of which was pony sharing with two awesome kids at my barn, and Jazz was an angel for them.
Do something about my tall boots. I need to bathe them in boot stretch or get room put in at the shoe repair place because they are much too tight on my calves. Yes! I bought the most wonderful, most beautiful, bestest imaginable brand spanking new paddock boots and half chaps a few weeks back.
Tack store haul! I also got a new saddle pad and cookies!
Write a product review post or two. Product reviews are the kind of post I will read 100% of the time I see them on my blogger dashboard, but I have yet to write one. This one was a failure. I attempted to write a review of leather care products and was starting to assemble the pieces and then pre-spring break crazy schedule and spring break happened.
My personal favourite picture from leather care product review day.
Think about a bitless bridle option. Since my horse needs her teeth done every 6 months at this point, it might be nice to have an alternative when her mouth hurts. I do own a bitless bridle, but I don't love it and I'm considering a different type of bridle. At no point did I even think about this at all. There were too many other things on both the horsey horizon and the personal one.
Try to talk less in lessons. Pretty self explanatory but a definite bad habit of mine. I definitely made progress, but this is ongoing, so I'll probably repeat it in another quarter.
Show off the horse. I have been telling many, many friends for a long time they can come meet my horse, but I have taken very few people out to the farm. I may end up moving this goal to a different quarter depending on how our winter goes (I probably shouldn't introduce my non-horsey friends who have never ridden a horse to the crazy winter Jazz I know and love). I had a relative come to visit just last week and we went for a farm visit. Plus I shared her with the two kids at my barn mentioned earlier. I like the idea of sharing her, so this will be another repeat goal.
Get better at leg protection. I will divide this one into two parts
a) use the brushing boots and/or open front boots I own much more often
b) polos! I have one set and I am honestly pitiful at wrapping them Truth be told, I didn't do this, but in hindsight the last three months were not a good time for this goal, as we're lucky to be able to do a good flatwork session most days, so it doesn't seem that necessary to do boots. This one will probably be back in the summer.
And because I love sharing him, here's my cat, continuing to be deluded into thinking he's a person.
Goals for the Second Quarter (April-June)
Survive the next month and a half. There are huge time commitments coming up on the personal horizon. May especially will be no doubt roaring along at 1000 miles an hour, and I think it's only fair to myself to acknowledge that fact and try to do my best.
See to it the horse is fed. I think I've mentioned here before that Jazz is prone to bouts of diarrhea that can cause a sore, rubbed bum. I had the vet out on her last episode, and one of the new management protocols we're trying out is more regular doses of her probiotic. At very least every 2-3 days she needs to be fed a dose of it, and luckily C will be able to help on some of the aforementioned crazy weeks.
Get the horse photo ready. Some important photos are being taken with the horse very late May. Make the necessary arrangements (trailer loading practise, thorough grooming the days leading up to photos, cleaning tack, etc.)
Casey is always photo ready.
Try to get pony exercised. I'm actually taking May off of lessons since I physically do not have the time. I have someone in mind who I want to ask if they'd be willing, so if possible, she'll be getting a little training and exercise.
June: Advance. Make some progress with riding. More work in non-lesson rides, less messing around. Get some momentum going heading into our busier riding time in the summer.
Edit: Keep it positive. It's come to my recent attention that I am often not good enough at talking up my pony successes with my real life horsey friends, and I tend to overemphasize our difficulties. Work on that.
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.
I returned from my trip to New York about two weeks ago. Since then I have had 2845939572943 things that I have fallen behind on, and blogging was honestly not high on my list of things I needed to do. Better late than never I figure, so prepare for a somewhat out-of-date update. I came home to a beautiful pony that I missed very much who was also at least 98% covered with mud.
Naturally I took many pictures.
I have had a few blog-worthy farm visits since then, but since the best one ended with my phone dying, I was unable to take pictures except for that first visit, so please enjoy the remainder of my photos from that day, only usually slightly out of context.
Mmm, fuzzy photos
I got out Sunday after I got back (Feb 22) and lunged, wherein Jazz was a whole week of icy pasture and no exercise worth of crazy. She got super sweaty and worked up, and soaked through both of my coolers. On the bright side, I got to try on my new cooler (scroll down if you don't want to wait to see adorable horse jammies!), and it is smaller than my old cooler, which would not work for a turnout blanket but kinda works for a cooler.
Return of the demon pony eyes
Then, I had a lesson scheduled for Wednesday the 25th, and my trainer asked if I was still up for it due to the cold weather. I debated just skipping it, but decided to go. I got there early, and lunged before my lesson. Jazz was super well behaved on the lunge, so I hopped on to warm up. Once my lesson started, I did the usual kind of warm up, bending and counterbending on the circle at the walk and then the trot.
Heavenly pony sunshine halo
Next order of business was moving to leg yields on the quarter line at walk and trot, and I was super pleased with how well she's starting to listen to the leg. Next she was doing well enough to get to canter! Because she was both out of shape and a tad bit stiff, we ended up cantering whole arena. She was still not super comfortable, so my instructor suggested I try a half seat, and that made a huge improvement. Overall, it was great fun, and there were several moments when we were cantering where we felt really in balance and together, almost like we were one body. I found myself thinking of Saiph and a post she made a few weeks ago about the Centaur principle, basically feeling totally one with the horse.
Sooooooooo muddy
Jazz was so good in fact, that my instructor suggested we try leg yielding off the quarter line at the canter. Jazz was reasonably co-operative, but tends not to make as much progress at the end of the lesson. She is much more easily flustered when she's starting to be done with riding. We decided to turf the canter leg yields for the day, and I hopped off not too long after. Jazz got a nice mineral and probiotic dinner for being the best pony evar, and since it was just us, I closed up the barn doors and let her wander loose around the aisle. It was sweet to watch her chasing the kitties and trying to open a tin of what she believed to be treats (it was stale chocolate chip cookies that I think have been there since Christmas).
This picture weirds me out. Jazz has an infinite neck.
Overall a pretty great ride, especially since I was considering just skipping it. I had another lesson today (March 8), but I'll save that story for another post. Enjoy the following spam of a) mudbeard the pony pirate and b) pyjama Jazz!
Indoor arena lighting + phone flash = ghost horse
Spooky
Happy time change everyone! Enjoy your extra hour of daylight pony time (if you can manage to stay awake, that is)!
Quick preface: I wrote this post on Saturday and it got delayed when my computer utterly refused to acknowledge my phone so no photos. I had an adorable video of Jazz eating her minerals (she loves her noms), but it seems that it will NOT be possible to share.
Three noteworthy rides within the last four days and not a single blog post! Bad blogger! Here's a quick overview and update of all three rides:
Wednesday Lesson
Wednesday Jazz came in feeling a little squirrelly. It's always hard in the winter when she's alone in the arena and it's already dark out. We started work on our trouble spot in the arena. Tracking left, whenever we do 20 meter circles, she bulges way out towards the door on the open end of the circle. In the final quarter of the circle (approaching K), she dives out with her right shoulder, and when I try to push her back in with my leg, she shoots her bum out right, sidepassing quickly until she finally stops completely. And there is nothing that I can really do when she sets her mind to doing it. No amount of leg helps on its own (and I am not afraid to kick her when I need to), and I tried a crop at my last lesson. It did seem to help last time. But, Jazz is definitely not very comfortable with the crop, and honestly neither am I. Not because I have any sort of issue with it, it's just a lot harder to adjust my reins when I'm holding it, and Jazz thinks it means faster, so I need to use more rein... which is harder when I'm holding the crop. It's kind of a vicious cycle. But, nonetheless, she dove out and sidepassed, and I tapped her with the crop. She had an absolute meltdown. She reeled her head up and bumped her nose on the martingale, and threw in a couple little bucks for good measure. Lucky for me (*knock on wood*), Jazz doesn't have much of a buck in her. We slowed things down, and started working on trotting the half of the circle that was against the wall, and then walking the open half, pushing her in to a small circle if she tried to dive out. It worked pretty well, and we worked up from trotting half the circle to two steps into the open side before walking, and got up to three quarters trotting, even trotting through once or twice. It was a mostly successful lesson. It sounds actually quite non-stressful when I write it out. Bear in mind this whole ordeal took about 45 minutes, and it was literally the only thing we did. Jazz was definitely mentally done by the time we were finished. She had been working on a contact for essentially the entire lesson, and was having a hard time even walking the circle quietly by the end, she kept trying to head toss and bumping herself on the martingale. Finally she settled and I immediately hopped off. She was totally done mentally, but I was actually super impressed she had worked that long on a contact. This was my horse! Jazz! She worked on a contact for forty minutes before getting tired of it! That's huge! This is the same horse who I wasn't sure would ever learn to accept a contact she was so sensitive to rein pressure. This is the horse who I had learned the habit of waaaaaay too permissive hands from because too much rein confused and agitated her! Score!
Anyhow, it was ultimately a lesson that was both good and necessary, but I ended the night a little bummed. It was just hard to spend that long on just the one thing. Even though I knew it was important progress, it wasn't 100% an easy pill to swallow.
Thursday Ride
I came back the next day and brought Jazz in for a ride. It was super busy in the barn because someone's farrier was there, and two or three horses were waiting to have their feet done. I ended up heading into the arena to groom, and it was empty. Jazz was a little off just because she was alone, but right when I was ready to get on, another boarder came in with her horse to ride. I immediately tested her on the circle we'd done in the lesson (with no crop), and she did well. I worked up from a walking circle to a half walk/half trot circle to a full trot circle, and then didn't touch it again. Jazz, like all horses, does really well when given a little time to hang out in the pasture with her friends and be a horse between rides to let things sink in. She did totally awesome trotting her trouble circle, and I immediately moved to tracking right and doing other exercises that didn't involve her sticky spot. I had her canter for the second time since she's been wearing the martingale, and it was AMAZING. She just stepped right up into it when I asked for her transition, and did several circles well balanced, not too fast, and listening to my leg. It was awesome! I couldn't stop smiling. She was doing so well, I even pulled out some trot poles and did some trotting around over them, working on turns and pace. Just before I was done riding, the other horse left, and she started to get wound up a little. I decided best to end as well as possible, so I put the poles away and did a nice cool down before untacking and heading to the barn to feed her her minerals and probiotic.
Saturday
I headed to the barn to meet up with a friend to do some groundwork with her horse. I showed up an hour early to ride, and it turned out she had the same idea. Her and her two daughters came early to ride another boarder's horse who they ride in lessons. I ended up tacking Jazz up in the western saddle, and returned to my truck to discover that somehow I had taken both my english and western bridles out and left them at home. Oops. I dug out my rope halter and lead and figured that if she wouldn't co-operate to be ridden I could always do groundwork. Granted, she wasn't as responsive as with the bit, but she almost never works in the halter anymore, so expecting her to be would be ridiculous. I did a little walking and trotting, mostly reveling in how weird it felt to be back in the western saddle. I like the seat and how it feels to sit in it, but it weirds me out how the stirrups don't move. Since I wasn't looking to accomplish much with that ride, I decided to hop off and offer to share. Both of my friend's daughters rode Jazz, and all three looked happy as clams. I think Jazz likes being a kid's horse because kids don't make her work as hard as I do. I ended the day with a little barebacking and a demo of some groundwork with Jazz. We never ended up getting the other horse to work with because we were having too much fun riding. I was very proud of how quiet and awesome Jazz was for her young riders!
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.
Last year, my New Year's resolution was to keep up this blog with at least one post per week. Though I did get less consistent with my timing, and I did fall behind occasionally, I would say I kept my resolution. This year, I decided to try to stick to the same resolution, because I have really come to love blogging. However, I feel like I've been missing out on a big part of what seems a common aspect of the blogging experience: GOALS.
I never made goals before because I have an extremely busy schedule outside of my horsey life, and it just didn't seem realistic for me to be making progress in that way. Sometimes life gets crazy and its a week or more between barn visits, and sometimes (coughwintercough) Jazz is not feeling this whole 'moving forward' nonsense and, not entirely by choice, we have a groundwork foundation day.
However, I've been thinking about what I want to write, and I consider what I like to read. Probably some of my favourite posts to read on other's blogs are goals. So, I'm going to try it. I don't think monthly will probably be ideal for me or my horse, so I'm going to make some quarterly goals.
Goals for the First Quarter (Jan-March)
Make more horse time. Too many excuses and not enough pony have been happening recently, and I intend to put a stop to it.
Play with the Horse Ball. Jazz's absolute favourite thing and I'm not even sure I've brought it out more than twice in the last year. Plus a fun thing both on the ground and under saddle.
Put the Western saddle back on occasionally. I kind of miss it.
Do something about my tall boots. I need to bathe them in boot stretch or get room put in at the shoe repair place because they are much too tight on my calves.
Write a product review post or two. Product reviews are the kind of post I will read 100% of the time I see them on my blogger dashboard, but I have yet to write one.
Think about a bitless bridle option. Since my horse needs her teeth done every 6 months at this point, it might be nice to have an alternative when her mouth hurts. I do own a bitless bridle, but I don't love it and I'm considering a different type of bridle.
Try to talk less in lessons. Pretty self explanatory but a definite bad habit of mine.
Show off the horse. I have been telling many, many friends for a long time they can come meet my horse, but I have taken very few people out to the farm. I may end up moving this goal to a different quarter depending on how our winter goes (I probably shouldn't introduce my non-horsey friends who have never ridden a horse to the crazy winter Jazz I know and love).
Get better at leg protection. I will divide this one into two parts
a) use the brushing boots and/or open front boots I own much more often
b) polos! I have one set and I am honestly pitiful at wrapping them
Okay, I admit it. I've been holding out on you guys.
Majorly holding out.
For longer than was probably fair. Dedicated readers (by which I mean me rereading and overanalyzing all my old posts) may have noted the updates on what I've been doing with Jazz getting vaguer and farther apart since July or so. The main reason being my aversion to figuring out how to put videos on my blog. My phone is very annoying to move photos and videos off of, and I wasn't sure I wanted a youtube channel (what seemed like the easiest way to get them onto my blog). Needless to say, it has been a looong while since I've been wholly... comprehensive, shall we say.
Then I decided to write this post and set the record straight, and ran into yet more video troubles and shelved it again. I could ramble on and on forever about my horse (as my non-horsey friends will testify), but the hardest part of blogging for me is just getting pictures and videos taken and onto my computer.
Either way, the torture is almost over. Here's the first teaser of things to come.
That small, grainy cell phone video was the very first time jumping for both of us, and that video was taken August 6th. So, I definitely have a lot of catching up to do still.
I seem to have gotten out of the habit of blogging. Free time apparently equals both lots of horsey time both in the saddle and cuddles, but conversely causes zero blogging motivation.
There's been some lessons, with more progress than frustration/confusion on my part, so I'd say that's a good index for measuring how things are going. We've been doing lots of trotting and canterwork, I've been learning the finer points of two-point, and Jazz has been more awesome than I could have hoped at a few points this year (like this one and this one and a few I chose to exclude from the blog). I mean, she's still my Jazz. She still avoids using her muscles properly by taking wide turns and slowing down, she still occasionally goes into a strung out gross trot that drives me absolutely INSANE faster than any other behavior she has when I ask for a canter transition, and the occasional head toss gets thrown into the mix. But, I tend to exaggerate the negatives of Jazz a little. I have a horsey friend that is horse-poor who, not so long ago, mentioned in passing that she was going to a friend's farm to ride their horse. I told her that she could come ride Jazz anytime, to which she responded "No. No offence, but your horse sounds too crazy." I promise you, she is definitely a wild thing.
I mean,
would you just look at all this well documented,
rowdy,
ridiculous,
uncouth,
behavior? It's no wonder!
This is the average day with Jazz, pre-ride. I ground tie her on the grass by the arena, and she naps heavily until I force her to 'be awake' and 'open for the bit' and 'move with energy'. It's a wonder she puts up with such nonsense interrupting her sleep.
Okay, Jazz technically was drugged in two of those photos (don't worry, it's all on the level), but she really is an awesome chill horse. I forget to appreciate that sometimes. I recently played with two other horses who, not to disparage perfectly fine, lovely horses, were NOT Jazz. They had absolutely no ground manners, my biggest pet peeve with any horse. It's not their fault, they were just never taught boundaries, but one of them couldn't stay out of my space for longer than two seconds without trying to step forward into me. Talk about pushy! I get so spoiled with Miss Jazz, who even when she isn't listening I can push her in a lot of directions from the ground. I mean, she won't move properly and with respect, but by God, she'll move without significant pulling or pushing (though there is occasional rope swinging, tapping, and interjections of "you better move or else"). She leads so well I can't even describe it. On a good day, it's essentially like walking around a balloon on a string. I mean, any decent horse with regular work leads well, but spending time around other's young(er) horses and working with them really brings appreciation to a horse that is well halterbroke. And she ground ties. Can we take a minute to appreciate that? I can lead her to a patch of grass. Let me say that again. Grass. As in, pretty much all she eats, and I can let go of her. I can have no immediate contact with her and she will neither wander off, nor eat the main staple of her diet that is three feet below her face. How amazing is that! And she does that every day I see her. Every one! And more often than not, she falls asleep. Takes a nice nap right there, completely unrestrained, free to go wherever her little horsey brain tells her, and she stays where I want her and naps. Horses, right?
Anyways, I'm not going to go into real specific details about our riding recently in this post. Its been a lot of the boring stuff as I work to improve my balance, seat, muscles, legs, hands, heels, eye line, and a whole multitude of other things. Instead, I'm going to recap some of our recent purchases.
The first, and the one I was pretty excited about at the time of purchase was a pair of Cavallo Simples. I'm not happy with Jazz's feet over gravel and hard surfaces, but I'm not interested in shoes, so hoof boots were the obvious solution.
That said, my love for the idea of the Cavallos and what I'd read and seen so far, was not met with abject love to match when I put them on my horse. According to the Cavallo website, if they're hard to get on, they're too small, and if they rotate all the way around, they're too big. Simple right? I wish. I put them on, and they did go on easily. Not too small? Check. I checked and tried to rotate them, and they did turn. Not too big? Um. But, they didn't rotate all the way around like the website said they're not supposed to. But, they did rotate about a quarter turn either way. But, the fitting guide said some movement side to side is fine because the hoof expands in motion. But, it said nothing about the amount of rotation acceptable. Um. They were also kind of flopping around and clippy-cloppy when she walked, and I just wasn't sure at all. They were also quite wide around the tops, I suspect just because Jazz doesn't have a lot of bone. I was the least worried about that, because there are a bajillion options for wraps and whatnot that I could put around her fetlocks if I'm really that worried about the gap. I decided I felt unsure enough about them that I couldn't have my horse wearing them on the trails and me being relaxed about it, so I traded them in for a smaller size. No dice. The smaller ones wouldn't even go on. I'm considering the Cavallo simples, which have a different shape and may fit differently or better. I'm also considering trying other boots possibly, it's not certain right now. I'd like to learn a little more about boots before going shopping for alternatives since my first attempt didn't take. Oh well.
The Cavallos on. Muy suave, no?
This picture better shows the gap around the top.
I also picked up some thinning shears and a thinning comb to help even out Jazz's mane and tail. I'm not quite willing to go for the pulled mane and banged tail look yet, though I do admire how clean it looks. That being said, there were some weird, scraggly long hairs in her mane that I found annoying. Her tail was also getting long and considering it was already relatively thin, I worried about her stepping on it and making it thinner, so I wanted it shorter, but I learned in attempting to do so I was not born to be a hairdresser. I mean, I was using my curved fetlock shears, which didn't help. I was hoping to make it shorter but still natural looking, though it still looks semi-banged. At least it's not too long!
This picture I posted recently kind of shows my attempt at fixing Jazz's tail. If I remember I'll get a better picture, since I messed around with it some more since this was taken.
Last but not least I bough a pretty purple saddle pad!
Why, yes, this picture is nearly identical to the one above, but it's not the same one I swear!
I think purple's her color! I'm thinking maybe I'll do a product review of the saddle pad and girth I bough to try with my new English saddle once I get a few better pictures of both of them.
