Back in the Saddle again... plus more history of Jazz

I am long overdue on this post (both in the writing of it and the events it entails), and I don't want to put it off any longer.

As the title suggests, I finally, Finally got back on my horse.  A real ride and everything.  I had a lesson on Sunday, and I told my trainer that I was really wanting to start riding again.  Jazz was ready to start working under saddle again. I intend to keep working on strengthening her groundwork, but not full time. It's time for us to start working back up to regular riding again as an added challenge on top of her ever-improving ground manners.

So, that's exactly what we did! We started with a quick drive/lunge/whatever-I-ought-to-call-it like I've been working on and Jazz was much more attentive right off the bat when I started her.  The last few weeks whenever I've first started with that exercise she's been pretty inattentive and bent away when we start out, with occasional shenanigans and rearing in there to spice things up, but with a few quick reminders from the rope, she found her manners again.  Then the usual quick work through of shoulders and backing straight, and after that we quickly moved on to lateral flexion with both the bridle and the halter to help with linking them.  Then we tied the rope around into reins and I hopped on.  Jazz did awesome!

It occurs to me that I mostly started writing this blog after my last ride on Jazz, so I haven't really talked much about where we are or were at in terms of progress and goals with riding.  Jazz has a solid w/t/c, she's nice and soft on her mouth, and she's fairly responsive to leg and seat aids.  However, she's pretty straight, and has yet to grasp the concept of contact on the bit.  Our lessons up until around mid-November resolved around primarily exercises at the walk and trot to encourage her to bend more, and some walk/trot transition work.  She has an okay canter, but it's not particularly balanced or collected, and she generally can't turn well at the lope, so we did the vast majority of our work at the trot in hopes of eventually fixing that.

You may notice I said mid November, and that's because in late November or so, I started having a bit more trouble with Jazz.  She had long had a habit before of... I'm hesitant to describe it as head tossing, because that really isn't what it was, but head tossing.  She would just start wanting to run, but she wasn't being particularly rude about it.  She'd sort of try to break into a slow lope, but wasn't able to really break forwards because I was usually ready for her, and the result was a fairly up very funny dressage-y sort of lope for about a stride and a half before I could bring her back, and the way she did it always made her head sort of pop.  She just was very excited to run, but generally easy to bring back. She had for the most part gotten past that late last year, and it was never a major or serious issue.

Anyway, in late November, she started actually head tossing.  And trying to turn right pretty abruptly when we were circling left at the wall after the open side of the circle.  We also did a lot of work on spiraling in and out of circles at the trot, and she was getting more and more resistant and head-tossing, especially to the left. As time went on, it seemed to be escalating, to the point were we were doing one rein-stops almost every five minutes, and even those weren't helping really much at all.  The last lesson I had in November I just got off, because even in the one rein stop I felt very close to being separated from my horse at any minute. Her head tossing and evasions were just getting worse and worse, until I started wondering if it wasn't just resistance.

I had her vetted as soon after that as I could arrange, and she had big hooks on her teeth, which were worst on the left side.  I had her floated, and she was an absolute champion (a relatively heavily sedated champion, but a champion nonetheless).  The vet said that she had some lacerations on the inside of her left cheeks, so it would probably heal totally in the next two weeks.  The difference in her after the floating was huge.  She was practically a new horse, almost completely back to her old self.  I had a few good, gentle rides on her at the beginning of December, and then went away over Christmas to see family.  By the time I got back, she was acting out a bit, and I started up on our groundwork re-start.

Back to Sunday, I got back on, using both the reins and the rope-reins.  I did what my trainer calls follow-your-nose circles, which are basically just very tight circles until she really bends nicely around my leg.  Those went really well, and then we worked on yielding her hindquarters, which was a little sticky (which was somewhat expected based on her last experience doing so under saddle), and rollbacks against the wall.  We had been working on those a lot last year, but she just never really had that breakthrough.  Now, since we've been working so much on them from the ground, there was a very modest improvement.  My trainer suggested we might try to get her to use her shoulders by having me in the saddle cuing and someone on the ground cuing at the same time, and I think that might work well for her.  The best part was her backing.  She moved nice and soft and straight! Yay! She used to be very huffy whenever I asked her to back straight, and my trainer told me that she had never worked with any Arab or part-Arab that would back straight without significant work.

Blog Hop! What's in your name?

I found this fabulous blog hop from Viva Carlos, and it's just perfect because I was going to plan to do a post explaining my url at some point anyhow!

What is the story behind your blogname/url?

The story for my blog title, The Fabled Christmas Pony, is not a long one.  I was in some sort of class or another, and we were doing one of those exercises where everyone goes around and says their name and something of interest about themselves (you know, those ones that make you immediately forget everything of interest that has ever happened to you?).  Needless to say the only thing that came to mind was horses, and I told them about how I was the little girl who actually got a pony from Santa on Christmas.  So, my title is essentially me saying that but attempting to sound fancy in my wording of it.  

My url is a little bit more of a story, but not by much.  Jazz is grade, so she isn't really registerable (I'm sure I could find a way if I were really determined to get her registered, but I see no need), and I come from a family of baseball fans, more specifically the blue jays.  I have a brother who is a particularly big baseball guy, and not exactly 'horsey'. He has taken to referring to Jazz as Colby Jazzmus. 

Which, of course comes from this gentleman, Blue Jays center fielder Colby Rasmus

Introducing... Me!

As is bound to come out at some point, I was greener than grass when I got my horse.  Essentially all of my horse experience before Jazz was from four years attending week-long summer horse camp (and one more summer after I had Jazz). I absolutely loved this camp.  It was a long-awaited seven days for the rest of the year.   One of my favorite things about the camp was the fact that we got to brush and tack up our own horse (with lots of checks from the counselors for safety, of course).

My first year at camp, I didn't even know how to post, and had never gone any faster than a walk on a horse... at least not intentionally.  I spent the first year in an introductory group, where I had posting pounded into my brain and my body for five straight days of riding.  My horse was a short black and white tobiano named Rockinstraw (Rock, for short) who liked eating grass much more than listening to her rider who barely knew how to ride.  Needless to say she wasn't exactly my favorite, but hey, you don't have to like everyone, right?

My second year I got put into the intermediate group.  I had another black and white tobiano named Checkers (she had a marking the exact shape of Africa on her bum).  I got along much better with this horse, with the only drawback being the colt she had at her side, who I had been warned might kick, and needless to say little horse-inexperienced me stayed far away, which hampered progress some.  That year I learned to lope midway through the week, and upon reflection, I think learning the way I did is one of the best ways to get a very basic (not necessarily proper, but functional) seat.  The camp was a western trail riding sort of camp, and it was a nose-to-tail sort of affair.  (read: no steering or real riding ability required.  just stay on and let your horse follow the one in front of him).  During my english group lessons this past summer (on a lesson horse), there was a girl in the group who had never cantered, and when she tried, there was a lot of vertical movement as she tried to manage steering, pace, sitting the gait and breathing all at the same time.  All I'd had to do was hold on.

Third year was fairly unremarkable.  I was placed again in the intermediate group, and rode (surprise, surprise) a short tobiano (this one was brown and white though).  The main thing that sticks out in my mind that year wasn't the actual riding, but the horse.  Her name was Imp, which was short for Imperial Enchantress.  She had a reputation for being a bit short of enchanting, but I loved her.  She was simply gorgeous, with a long, flowing two-colored mane and the most beautiful eyes.  She was definitely a little sassy, but that's part of what I love about mares.

The fourth year I was given a big, huge, adorable, sorrel gelding named Slim.  He was the absolute biggest sweetheart, and he would put up with absolutely anything (seriously. a mare kicked him one ride, and another horse just came up and started licking him, and he didn't even flinch).  I started out in intermediate, but asked to move up to the more advanced group, and switched midweek.  Much loping ensued.

For some reason every single picture was slanted and made Slim look like he had crazy eyes.  Too bad I couldn't find any of my other pictures.  

Of course, that was the last year before I got Jazz, and I didn't really work with any other horses until I started volunteering at the rescue, but I'll get to that later.

Jazz- the time before me

So I've been thinking a lot about how I want to do the introductions and background information about myself and my horse, and I've settled on a method.  I plan to write a series of posts giving a brief overview of how I got to where I am now, spaced out between regular updates.

I'll start with the basic facts.  My horse's name is Jazz.  She is approximately 14.2 hands high and five and a half years old.  I believe she is a QH/Arab cross, but will probably never know for sure since she's not papered (as if I need a breed registry to tell me I have an amazing horse).

We strongly suspect that Jazz was a PMU foal, and she was rescued from an auction as a yearling.  At the time, half her face was paralyzed.  There are varying theories on how exactly it happened, but the only fact on the matter is that something hit directly on the nerve, and she froze up. It came loose on its own six months later, and has caused hardly another issue since.  She lived at the rescue for about three years, where she learned all sorts of ground manners and how to carry the saddle and bridle.  Several different people worked with her because she was reliable and could be trusted not to do anything too far out of line with inexperienced people. The owner of the rescue told me quite a few times when I started working with her that she was amazed Jazz was still there; that she hadn't been snapped up already.

This was her sale photo.  It is currently her sold photo, which still makes me very happy.  

  

The horse under the tree

I am the person they tell you not to be in every horse book you have ever read.  Everyone in the horse world is familiar with the old saying, "green and green makes black and blue".  Leave it to horse crazy but essentially clueless me to fall completely head-over-heels in love with an adorable unbroke 3-year old.  I was the very first person to ride her, and I did essentially all of her training myself.  That's not to say that I went it alone, I had tons of help from several different trainers and friends, and I spent hours reading books, watching videos, attending clinics, and doing other research.  But, as of two years ago this Christmas, I became the person who opened up a Pony from Santa (not technically a Pony, she's a horse and she is taller than 14.2, although not by a whole lot).

So now, slightly more than two years since I met her, I sometimes find it hard to believe she's the same horse. I've had a few people get very surprised when they found out her age,  and heard quite a bit of backpedaling following comments about young horses and green riders.

But even so I have the most amazing,  gentle,  responsive,  fun to ride horse that I could ever ask for,  and I am so lucky to have her.