First Lesson!

Last night I had my first lesson with the trainer the UW equestrian team is working with, Deb. And it was amazing. I haven't really experienced what a real trainer should be like (because I may or may not have ridden with a crappy one my whole life) and she was really an ideal one. She pointed out flaws, explained the corrections she wanted you to make, and overall was the epitome of constructive criticism. Nothing she explained was necessarily incredibly new news to me, but it was all stuff I was rusty on (like.. a lot..) and needed to be pushed on. She also walked us all through some concepts that I knew in practice but not in theory, which was really cool.

Another girl from the team, not me, but this is Mr. Ducati!

I rode an adorable old man horse named Ducati, which is kind of an awesome name. He reminded me of Brownie in a lot of ways, the first being the droopy lower lip that just hangs because why not. He required A LOT of leg (more than I have, and getting him in a frame was something I gave up on at the walk because I just don't have the leg for it), had a big swinging bouncy trot, and a rolling canter that he got strung out through very easily.

Biggest things pointed out that I need to work on: I ride like a dressage rider with my seat, so I need to close my hip angle more and sit on my seat bones for hunt seat. I need to keep my hands up and reins short so they don't get in my lap. Even if I'm not riding in a frame keep my horse upright and pulled together with a more upright hand. Keep hands together! I spread them out way too much.

We did some trot and canter lengthening and then collection, which was actually surprisingly difficult although it seems to basic. Ducati was willing enough to move forward, but he would get heavy on his forehand and strung out and required me to pick up him and add leg to get an actual decent canter lengthening. He was super sensitive when I sat down for collection, but I had to keep keep keep that leg on because he definitely transitioned downward a couple times instead of just collecting.. oops!

We worked on going over a little crosspole on a trot circle to finish up. This was surprisingly difficult, as everything I ever learned flew out the window and I probably looked quite foolish. The first time around I was so focused on just keeping Ducati forward enough to actually get over the jump that I forgot about everything else (ie turning) and we almost ran into the wall afterwards. Oops. It took a couple more tries before I was able to split my attention between keeping enough impulsion and actually focusing on where we were going. Once Deb got after me about not keeping his bend through the circle I got my act together. Oh, you mean that if I make him bend to the left and then look left before and over the jump he'll go left afterwards? Okay!

I think most of it is me being on a completely new horse and not really having any idea what kind of ride it needs. But it's good that I'm getting this practice, because that's what happens at IHSA shows and I need to be able to look pretty while riding a new and potentially difficult horse. I'm really going to have to get my act into gear and strengthen up these legs though, because man all these other horses are just destroying me. After cantering around and then coming into the center while Deb focused on one of the other girls I made a remark to the assistant trainer about how I didn't have enough leg for this. And then she said, "Has it been a while since you rode last?". Yeah.. about 24 hours. Talk about embarrassing.

Let's Bounce!

Yesterday was a pleasantly chilly day, in that I wore three layers of clothes and did not take them off to ride. It was gratefully sunny all day so I didn't have to worry about riding in the rain, since Rush has taken a disliking to the indoor ring and every time I ride in there it turns out.. interesting.. to say the least.

I was really pleased with how our ride went; I feel like we made some good progress and worked through some things. I have a tendency of avoiding problems and ignoring them instead of working through them because working through them is boring and takes patience, but I've gotten better at making myself slow things down and focus on getting her to respond well regardless of what we're actually doing. In this case she got a little hyped up cantering and was very tense trying to anticipate my canter cues, so we slowed things down and worked on her waiting for my actual cues at the walk and trot, then worked back up to the canter.

I did some no-stirrup work at the beginning of the ride, as per No Stirrup November, and my legs are still pretty pathetic but I think I'm getting better. Usually I do posting trot without stirrups to warm her up without asking anything demanding so I can focus on myself. This time I interspersed it with sitting trot whenever I thought I couldn't post anymore, and really focused on staying centered. I don't usually take the time to catalog where my body weight is shifting but noting all my imbalances and trying to fix them was a super cool feeling and I'm definitely going to start coaching myself more through my rides.

I didn't want to do too much jumping because I didn't have much time to cool her down, so we went through a little gymnastic set up at the bottom of the ring. It was a bounce of a pole to an xrail to a low vertical. The first few times we went through she was a speed demon and it took her a long time to settle after running through but she progressively slowed down and came back faster until I was really satisfied with how she was going through it. We ran through a couple times after that so I could focus on me; I really aimed for staying soft and upright up to the first jump, then staying up and out of her way over the bounce, and gathering myself and her back quickly afterwards. All in all I'm really proud her and I think we're figuring out the whole bounce thing!

First Frost

The girl who usually drives me out of the barn on the weekends flew home for her birthday, and it's a three day weekend and I couldn't justify not going to see my pony so I reserved a zipcar for this morning (and tomorrow morning!). I was a little apprehensive about driving cause the roads around here can be kinda crazy and confusing and I haven't driven in a while so I'm a bit rusty, but it was early enough in the morning that there was pretty much no traffic and it was a lovely drive and made me realize I actually really miss driving! It's super relaxing and also coincidentally the only time I can crank up the music obnoxiously loud and sing in my incredibly horrific voice without worrying that I'm bothering other people (re: anybody who lives on my floor because these walls are paper thin).

It was actually ridiculously cold this morning and I'm really glad I put on a last-minute third layer before going out, because I definitely needed it! I usually take off my layers while riding because I get too hot, but I kept everything on today and then some and was still a little frozen by the end. There was frost EVERYWHERE and even some icicles hanging off of jumps! This was my first riding experience in actual coldness and I have a lot to learn, like how to tack up without killing my fingers on cold metal.

Anywho, I ended up taking Rush out on a trail to warm up at the walk cause I actually had time to explore. It ended up being a really long gravelly road that crossed actual roads through some housing developments, so not really the type of trail I'd typically choose, but now I know what's down that direction and can explore the others.. which reminds me, I need to do some aerial recon to hopefully figure out the trail system a bit better. She was a little spooky at the road crossings, but it was just balkiness and some looking and nothing worse than that and we worked through it with some firm squeezes and maybe some teasing about scary landscaping rocks.

We probably trailed for a little under half an hour and then came back to the outdoor arena to get some real work done. I got some nice consistent trotting in, where she was solid and steady in the bridle instead of ducking under it like she's prone to do when she has energy. She started off a little fast and hollow but relaxed after I did some wacky patterns and serpentines to get her listening a little better.

There was a crosspole line set up down one side of the ring, and since I'm focusing on slow and consistent solid jumping I took her through the line at the trot a couple times before cantering. She was a trooper at the trot and didn't pull any shenanigans, although I did need to straighten her out a couple times. I really focused on pulling her together after each jump, since my bad habit is to throw everything away after a jump and praise her for just getting over it. I have to keep reminding myself that this is BAD and she needs to know that just jumping it isn't enough anymore, she has to keep listening afterwards.

Anyways, we trotted through it each direction a few times then cantered through it both ways. She was super responsive about waiting for the short spots and slowing down through the line. I have to be careful about asking for a longer spot because she shoots off after the jump. The first few times through cantering were a little iffy but each time through we focused on refining one more aspect (first time: wait for the short spot, second time: stay straight through the line, third time: stay slow after the second jump) and at the end she was cruising through pretty well :)

At this point I decided to make it more 'course like' and did some continuous jumping at the canter to work on staying in one rhythm without freaking out after each jump. She did pretty well until I asked her for a long spot over a downhill jump and then we became a freight train, but after I halted and made her turn around, trot over it, then canter back down in she settled back down. This is actually kinda huge because usually when she gets in trouble for something she freaks out and gets really hollow and anxious and ignored everything, so us being able to work through that was awesome.

I'm definitely going to start working on lead changes, but I have to figure out a plan of attack for them before I start because last time things didn't go too well and I ended up creating another problem even though she did start executing lead changes.

Moving: Complete

Rush got shuffled over to her new pasture yesterday, and I went out today to finish the move by trucking my stuff across the street into the tack room over there. Many thanks to the groom (Elio? Edilio? I can't remember his name :/ ) who helped me move my tack trunk, cause it started pouring while I was trying to move and if he hadn't put the trunk in his little golf cart thingie I would have gotten drenched trying to drag it over. As is I got pretty soaked.

I'm pretty unimpressed with the pasture. It's got more grass than her old one, so she can spend all day grazing, but a large chunk of it is just straight up mud and apparently they use it to dump manure in, because there are a bunch of piles down towards the bottom. The electric fence is sagging on one side so it only comes up to maybe 2.5 feet.. good thing Rush isn't adventurous! Those two trees are the only ones in the pasture to provide shelter from the rain, and they don't do a great job at that. Not that Rush is smart enough to stand under them anyways; she's the one in the blue blanket off in the distance getting dumped on.

Pros to the move: tack room has electricity! And also windows that actually close! I'm hoping it'll be a little more temperature controlled in there so that my things aren't /always/ damp. Soggy helmet=gross. Seriously.

The little mini barn is pretty nice, and the stalls are decently roomy. The one thing I'm confused about is the shavings.. they literally use a light dusting to cover the stall (barely!). Why even bother?

I brought Rush in out of the rain and let her chill in a stall as I moved everything over/got everything organized, then gave her a quick grooming and tossed her back outside. Right now I'm super confused about the pasture situation; from my talk with the BO I was under the impression that having her brought in at night/during rough weather was an option on the table but one that I had to pay more for. Then today I got a text saying they brought the horses in for the night cause it was raining pretty hard. I'll have to talk to her and get that sorted out; ideally Rush would come in at night because her coat's still pretty thin and her blanket, although waterproof, is getting pretty wet from the constant downpour. If she was brought in at night I could have them switch off her waterproof blanket for the non-waterproof one, and then the waterproof one would get a chance to dry off and it would be great.

I Love(d) My Pony

This was going to be a post about how much I love Rush and how fantastic our ride was yesterday. Yes, was. Because right now I'm not too thrilled with her.

Today I got a missed call from the BO during lecture and she left a voicemail (so obv I was freaking out for the half hour it took for lecture to finish). Turns out Rush has been chewing on the fences, so now she has to get moved to a different pasture with electric tape instead of wooden posts. Unfortunately, the new pasture doesn’t have a stall/really any shelter at all besides a few trees, and now I’ll have to pay $100 extra a month if I want her to get stalled for the night instead of staying out in the cold. I am so not amused right now.

Plus I'm gonna have to lug all my heavy ass tack across the street into a new tack room. I'll probably spend my time tomorrow doing that/settling in to the new tack room, and won't have time to ride.

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS RUSH

THIS IS WHY

Trail in the Rain

I had trekked over to her stall in a light drizzle. The outdoor ring was a mess; not only was it a swamp but piles of slippery leaves were scattered across it. Definitely not riding in there today. I had trekked over in a light drizzle.. it definitely wasn't lightly drizzling anymore. The second I took her blanket off and started going at her with a curry comb the soft mist turned into a pretty significant downpour.

Whoops! My inclination to ride went out the window. I had been a smarty pants and not brought any sort of waterproof jacket, so my options of getting to the indoor ring were a) let my saddle die in the rain or b) look ridiculous by throwing her blanket on over my tack and then awkwardly hang it up while I ride. Neither option was super appealing, and I also didn't really want to walk all the way over there in the pouring rain. But I was at the barn, and my opportunities to ride are few and far between.

My solution ended up being a bareback ride in the rain down a gravel road that supposedly looped back around to Rush's paddock. I left her blanket on, because she is a princess and hates getting wet, and also because a little bit of padding would help with the whole dear god why is your spine right there thing. So I threw her blanket back on, put on a bridle (I'm not /that/ ambitious) and awkwardly mounted off a not-quite-tall-enough bucket. Rush was an angel standing still while I awkwardly hung off her side and it took me a couple times to get on board, but in the end it happened and all I have to say is I'm glad nobody was there to see that.

So off we went into the wilderness. Rush was crunching gravel all over the place with her new shiny shoes and didn't mind the footing at all, so I nudged her into a slow trot and she gave me a comfortable, ambling jog. Her trot was something I usually had to work for 20 minutes in the ring to achieve- soft, supple, superb, supremely awesome.. okay, I ran out of S words, but you get the picture.

And then I got this crazy idea of, hey, maybe we'll canter. So we did. And somehow, it was the most freeing experience I've had. Just me and her, charging down this street in the pouring rain. It felt good to let go of worries and expectations that come with arena riding- is she engaging? why can't I get that bend? and just connect with her.

The gravel road we adventured on, but in the sun this time :)

Snapshot 1

When I got the the stables today, Rush was hanging out in her stall like the little sheltered show pony she is. I stuck my head in through the window to say hi to her and she came over for some scratches, then I walked around the outside of the shelter to get into the tack room. I heard her walking out of the stall and turned around, ready to feel loved because she was coming out to visit me.. nope! She saw her neighbor over at the fence, got really excited, and shot off towards the fenceline. Unfortunately she hasn't quite gotten used to the uneven ground, so there was some hilarious feet shuffling and she ended up verrry slowly trotting over to the fence. Live and learn, Rush.

Jumping!

I was a daredevil and popped Rush over a little crosspole today, and it felt awesome. Probably the first time I’ve jumped in 4 months? Maybe? She was a champ up to it and didn’t try to pull anything, god bless her, even though she hasn’t been pointed at a jump in at least 6 months. It’s sooo tempting to start jumping her again but I’m waiting until she gets her feet done and some shoes and pads get put on those front feet so that nothing goes wrong that can be prevented. Her front feet are honestly starting to scare me and the farrier can’t come too soon. I had no idea feet could go downhill so fast!

Trail Ride

I'm trying something new, called writing about myself/Rush from a more fictional approach. This is the result. It was a lot easier to write than being straightforward, and also a lot more fun, so I think I might stick with it.

 

"Really? I mean, really? It's a little mini pony, Rush. It's not going to eat you." I twisted my lips together in an annoyed grimace, turned her around, and walked past the miniature horse for the 16th time. Like all the others, she shied sideways and kept a nervous eye on it well after we had passed the pony.

Obviously we were getting nowhere. I couldn't continue riding because the pasture the pony was in shared a fence with the outdoor arena, and she was focusing on everything but me. This was not how I had wanted my first ride in three days to go.

Frustrated, I gave her a loose rein and walked out of the ring, up towards the barn. We had only been hacking for 15 minutes, not nearly enough time to hop off and call it quits if I wanted her to stay in relatively good shape. I tossed the idea of going on a trail through my mind. She hadn't been on one before, not a real one, and she could be spooky at times. But on the other hand she was always more relaxed wandering around the property than in the ring.

Hoping I hadn't made some giant mistake, I turned her down the trail head and we marched off through the forested tunnel. I had no idea where we were going, I figured that once we hit a fork in the trail I'd just turn around and come straight back.

Cobwebs were strewn across the trail at my height; obviously nobody had ridden this trail in a while. The first time I ran into one I did a panicky dance, scrambling to brush the elusive web off of my face. Rush stopped after I dropped the reins and craned her head around to watch me as I fidgeted. "Sorry girl," I laughed, then took to riding with one arm stretched out in front of my face.

We wandered down the path for a few minutes; Rush was relaxed, I was a little less so. The worst thing she did was keep stopping to smell poop. I ended up having to do some interesting acrobatic contortions to avoid thorny blackberry brambles dangling dangerously from overhead. When it became obvious that Rush could care less about being out on the trail, I slid the reins through my hands and let her walk on the buckle.

My stomach growled, and I was instantly reminded that I hadn't eaten since breakfast. It was at least three by now. I glanced surreptitiously around, then halted Rush and reached out to pick a blackberry. It was tart and firm, warm from sitting in the sun. At first there was a flash of guilt; these haven't been washed! Who knows what you're eating? But I pushed it aside quickly, and greedily grabbed more from the brambles. Rush fidgeted anxiously, taking a few steps backwards before I cued her forward.

The rest of the trail was a repeat of the first five minutes, with me stopping every minute or so to madly brush cobwebs from my face or to pop a few blackberries in my mouth. Rush was obviously not concerned with the fact that we were on a trail; she was alert but relaxed and walked with a swaying tempo down the trail. A fallen branch lay across the path; she knocked her back legs into it and snorted in annoyance, but didn't scoot off. In the ring she would have had a fit.

The trail dumped us out onto a crossroads of gravel pathways extending in all directions. She had been tender footed on the gravel earlier in the week, stumbling and daintily picking her way through, so I was apprehensive about continuing onward. While I deliberated she took matters into her own hands and marched forward. I figured if she started having problems we'd just turn around.

She picked her way through, sounder than before but not entirely comfortable. We walked for a minute or two until we reached a housing development and the gravel road turned into pavement. Walking on pavement, potentially getting lost, and having only the scenery of a housing development? No thanks. I turned her around and we marched back to our forested trail. The way back was much smoother, mainly in part to me having already collected all the spiderwebs.

Jordan had finished with her lesson by the time I got back on the property, and we chatted briefly as I walked back to Rush's pasture. At first I felt self-conscious- had she seen Rush spooking at the mini? Did she think I was a bad rider? Our conversation quieted, but did not quell, those deep-seated fears.

"How was your ride?" was her innocuous conversation starter, the go to question in the horse world when you don't know someone very well.

"It was good! She doesn't like that mini down by the ring very much, though." I didn't mention that we hadn't worked through it as thoroughly as I would have liked.

"A lot of horses don't like her, must be something about the size. I had a mare once who was terrified of her- wouldn't go within a 20 foot radius. Then one day she got over it and started treating the mini as a foal. I guess it brought out her protective instinct."

This made me feel a little better. Rush had always been nervous around minis, but there had never been one on the same property as her so it had never been an issue. Maybe she would grow out of it. Maybe one day in the far off future I could ride in the outdoor ring without having my horse leap sideways because DEAR LORD IT MIGHT EAT ME. That must be what they think, right? I can't imagine them being afraid of miniature horses because minis might, I don't know, walk under them. That doesn't seem very frightening.

Empty

Still hard to believe I'm not going to get up tomorrow morning and go ride my pony here. I will get to visit one last time though, to pick up the return check for the security deposit.

Away to WA

 Well, today was the day. I headed off to the barn around 6:30 and got there a little before 7. I hung out with Rush for a bit, giving her one last brushing and feeding her treats before I went to pack up the last crumbs wandering around. I found the mane and tail brush, miraculously, and had to re-open the tack trunk in order to cram it in.. that was fun. It involved lots of grunting and straining and wondering why the heck they designed the locking mechanism for the trunk that way. I wrapped her legs before heading into the lounge to wait for the trailer, and good lordy those were some finicky  wraps! I have two sets of two different wraps. One of the sets was stiffer than the other and I had a hard time wrapping her leg without the end sticking out oddly; it refused to be tucked down and basically made my life really difficult for like ten minutes. Eventually I got a decent job done. Around 7:30 Bob Hubbard called and said they would be there shortly, so I dragged my trunk out and snapped some last minute pics of my pony before taking her out to the trailer. She was an angel loading, never even hesitated and marched right on, which was a relief since I didn't actually know if she got fiesty loading or not. After a couple minutes of packing up they were driving down the street, headed to Washington!

Busy Busy Bee

Rush is scheduled to leave tomorrow morning, and I'm kinda freaking out because man, it's SO CLOSE! I had my last ride at the barn and it was so bittersweet; I'm really sad to see this chapter of my horse life close because it's been so good to me. I really could not have asked for better care, and everyone there is so friendly and welcoming that I felt like I belonged there even though I was easily 10 years younger than the next youngest person there. The facilities are top notch and it really just opened my eyes to just how badly neglected my last barn had been.

The Coggins paperwork was finally tracked down, thank goodness, so that's all taken care of. I've packed my tack trunk chock full, barely managing to squeeze everything in. It's definitely a tight fit. I'm leaving a saddle and bridle behind, as well as some spare legwraps and a saddle pad or two.. but otherwise pretty much everything is coming with. Just remembered, I forgot the treats. Oops. I don't really have room for them, so I guess I'll leave them behind as well.

Rush got a nice bareback hack today, then a fungus back to get her scrubbed clean. I'll be back in a few hours to give her some time in the turn out and brush her more, as well as finish the packing aka lock everything in the trunk and label it. I express mailed the deposit to her new place yesterday to make sure that it would get there before she did, so I'm relieved that everything's taken care of on that end at least. I'm really having a hard time realizing this is it.. no more late night chats with Sue, no more treat assembly lines down her row.

I'm supposed to be packing for myself too, but there hasn't really been any motivation. Mostly all I've done is cleaned up my room and done a ridiculous amount of laundry. After Rush leaves I'll really need to kick my butt into gear and get going!

Precision Planning

Rush is not amused.

Oh god I am so relieved/ecstatic/overwhelmed by joy. Pretty much everything's set in place for Rush, and I don't have to worry about her getting stuck down here without me because something fell through. Her Coggins and Health Certificate were done today, vaccinations are happening tomorrow because of my lovely barn owner who I cannot thank enough for being so on top of everything, and the trailering service has Rush penciled in on their next northbound trip.

I spoke to the BO of the place we're moving too, and she was so nice and friendly and enthusiastic and helpful it was all I could do to not break down in happy giggles while talking to her on the phone. The pasture is a one acre lot with a cute little one stall stone barn that has a tack room in it too. It's fenced in by these gorgeous carved wooden rails (fingers crossed Rush doesn't decide to become a chewer) and is the closest pasture to the main barn. It just sounds so perfect and idyllic and gah, if that is what I'm moving to it won't be so hard to leave the place I'm currently at.

All I have to do is mail the deposit and everything's golden!

Lazy Few Days

The past two days have been pretty laid back. Yesterday the vet was supposed to come to pull blood for a Coggins test and do a health certificate, but I guess there were some emergencies and he ended up rescheduling. Unfortunately he didn't make that call until I had waited for three hours at the barn.. oh well. Today it was ridiculously hot and humid, so I walked around bareback for ~20 minutes until she was sweating and breathing heavily, then tossed her in the turnout for a few hours.

Friday we had an AMAZING ride. I opted for a saddle since my bum was getting a little sore, and Rush just buckled down and went to work. It was awesome. She was steady and relaxed into the contact, and her focus was on and everything felt great. We had some wonderful trot work and some lovely canter work, and it's rides like these where I wish we could start jumping! I don't want to push her too fast, though, and she still has balance issues that have manifested in straightness issues that I want to work out before we move up.

Hopefully tomorrow it will cool down some, so that I can actually ride!

2 For 2

We had another lovely ride today, although this one was more in the pattern of our typical rides. I hopped right on bareback, no warm up in the round pen, and set her out to work. I read this wonderful article in Dressage Today that had some great exercises in it, so we worked on one of them (the simplest one) at the beginning. It was basically making 20-meter circles at A, B, and C, then changing direction down the diagonal and repeating the exercise. I got pretty much the best walk I've ever experienced on her, which was awesome and it's good to know she can actually walk like a normal horse, reaching down into the contact and marching forward instead of doing her slow meandering crawl.

Our trot work was not the best we've ever had, and she put up a lot of resistance whenever I tried to get her in a frame, so we focused more on keeping an even tempo instead. Later into our trot work I got a couple stretches of her starting to hold herself together more, but they never lasted long. Cantering was, in a word, awesome. I had the best left canter work to date today, and it felt amazing. She was calm and balanced and steady and it was awesome. We scrambled around the corners a bit, but towards the end she figured out that speeding up through the corners in fact made it harder to go through them and after that she settled down and was practically perfect.

We ended on a slow trot with a semi-loose rein. She thinks that once we canter, everything afterwards will be cantering too and gets really antsy when you want to walk or trot only, so we're working on decompressing. She was a little bracing at the beginning and I was half-halting almost every step, but she figured it out eventually and we had some nice cruise control moments.

 There are some more exercises I'm itching to try out but whenever I try to plan out a ride things go to crap and we never accomplish anything, so I'm going to try the go with the flow technique.

Bareback Mountain

Ahhhh I love my pony so much! Days like these are what I live for. I almost didn't get out to the barn today, but fate was in my favor and a car was available, so I sped off at 6:00 to ride before the sun was gone. Rush had been really frustrating the day before, to the point where I got off and did round pen work instead because she just wasn't paying attention to me and I didn't want things to escalate. Today I decided to start off in the round pen, and then do a bareback hack and see how it went.

Well first off let me say I'm really proud of her, because she has the change of direction thing down pat BOTH ways now, without me having to drill it into her some more. She's also balancing herself up a lot more and can canter like a normal horse in the round pen, instead of scrambling madly with legs flying everywhere trying to stay upright. She usually starts off fast after the transition and settles down within a stride or two. She had some trouble crossfiring to the left, but overall did really well balancing herself up. To the right she was perfect, as usual. One day we will balance those sides out.. one day..

Anywho, I hopped on bareback and hoped that I wouldn't make a fool of myself and end up in the dirt. I mean, I've ridden bareback before, but on her I've only walked around because her transitions are so jarring and her canter was the worst thing ever and I didn't want to subject myself to that. We started off doing a few walking laps of walk/halt transitions (oh, btw, she was in the D-ring today) which went really well. Then I took a deep breath and cued her for trot, and we kinda muddled around the ring figuring things out. The first few laps was me figuring out my balance, and then I started focusing on keeping my hands up and elbows elastic and really pushing her forward. We got some pretty decent trot work in; I think I was so focused on keeping myself on that I softened up and stopped nitpicking about things like where her head was and how fast we were going, and she started to trust my hands a little more.

Canter work.. was awesome. The transitions were a little icky, but they usually are bareback. Again, I was so focused on staying on (she's quite slippery!) that I stopped fussing over things like how fast we're going and just rode her forward into my contact. I think she has somewhat of an idea that I wasn't 100% secure on top of her and she made sure she didn't pull anything that would unseat me. We had some awesome work to the right, including some breaks that were my fault that she bounced back into the canter from as if they were nothing. Things started a little dicier to the left, but we figured things out and a really good rhythm going. I know what you're thinking. Rush, rhythm? Yes, it happened!

All in all I am over the moon about our ride, so much that I think I'm going to dedicate this week to bareback rides. 

Transitions

Not quite here.. but close

FINALLY a good ride! Wowza that was definitely needed. I put Rushie back in the pelham in anticipation of needing more leverage for our transition work, and it worked like a charm. We rode in the dressage ring and I used the letter markers to distance my transitions. We walked twice each direction, stopping at every letter. It took her a few times to figure out that the whole pulling back on the reins thing actually meant stop, and no, you can't ignore it, but after that she was stopping on a dime and it was lovely.

I started the trotwork on a circle at the top of the ring, stopping on the short side of the ring then proceeding to do a slow trot around the circle. I cannot stress how amazingly low key she was through all of this- usually transitions fire her up and stoke her fightin' attitude, but she was mellow and placid and it was so wonderful I just wanted to hug her all the time, forever and ever. After doing a couple circles each direction I let her trot around the ring a few times, giving her the option to frame up but not pushing it. She stretched down and worked into the frame a couple of times, but mostly stayed above it.

I'll admit, I was a little apprehensive to start the canter work. That's usually when everything goes to shit and the ride goes downhill. I started to the left, her bad direction. I would trot, cue for the canter, and let her canter either a) until I felt her start getting fast or b) until we cantered down one side of the ring, and then asked for a halt. Shout out to Rush, she had those halts DOWN. I was really proud/impressed. Then we did trot/halt transitions until she settled down and stopped trying to leap into the canter again, and I would cue for the canter again. She did really great with this and although she got amped up after the canter/halt transitions, she did settle down without blocking me out, which was great. We switched direction, went right (she was awesome this way) and I ended to the left with a nice full lap around the ring at the canter.

Focus

This week is dedicated to taking a whack at focus, something which Rush has a lot of- it's just not usually directed at me. For instance, the staring at herself in the mirror and forgetting to turn and almost falling on her face every. single. time. we go through that corner.

Two days ago we had another sloppy ride, because I decided hey maybe we should have some brakes! and she definitely did not agree with that. Cue instant drama and scrambling around and pretending like we have no idea what stop or turn means. This revelation was brought on when we attempted to canter, and picked up the wrong lead. This was, admittedly, my fault- I keep forgetting to set her up for it because I'm focusing on smoothing the transition, and since she's usually bending herself in the wrong direction, she picks up the wrong lead. What happened after was not my fault- her freaking out when I asked her to come back down to a trot, bracing against the bit, and taking off down the ring. There were some interesting maneuvers on my part to get her to stop.

So yeah, that ride was crap and we didn't really have brakes ever, even after lots of walk-trot transitions to get her paying attention (really it just amped her up :/) so I quit after a relatively not running off lap around the ring.

Yesterday I felt lazy and was not really up to fighting with her, so we did some round pen work instead. I worked a lot on engaging her attention and keeping her focused on me, which involved lots of changes of direction. She learned pretty quickly to turn facing me going to the right, but to the left there seems to be a lot of hesitation and stickiness even though she did it successfully and was praised for it. So we'll keep working on that. She started keying in on my body language pretty well walk/trot, but is still spacing once she gets to RUNFREE aka canter, so that also needs to be addressed. Today I'll ride, cause I've been a bad mom this week and have neglected her terribly, opting to stay inside and have the sniffles instead.

Fingers crossed for a good ride today! We're going to work on transitions again; I think I'll be putting her in the pelham for this because the D-ring was definitely not cutting it.

Amounting Issues

Ugh. Rides like these make me want to scream and cry and pound at something. I'm so frustrated right now I don't really know what to do with myself. I knew this was coming; it's been building up in the past few weeks but it doesn't make easier to take. I feel so unfulfilled from this ride.

It's really nothing new. It's happened before. I know it'll happen again. But really, Rush? All I was asking for was a little straightness. You didn't have to freak just because my inside leg swung back a few inches to straighten you out. I even gave you time to decompress, but nooo apparently once I've committed the biggest sin ever of actually putting my leg on your side everything is ruined and gone to shit and the whole world has to pay because of me.

I just.. ugh. It feels better to rant about it a bit, but honestly having a bad ride is the perfect way to ruin the day and it's really hard to just boost yourself out of the "well gee that was crap" mood. I tried to end on a good note.. and kept trying.. for like half an hour, until I decided I best stop before we try to kill each other. I walked her out bareback because I was so frustrated I knew she would try to jig if I kept the saddle on.

This sort of behavior /should/ be unacceptable. She should know that it's not okay to blow up and get indignant every time I ask her for something she doesn't want to do. But I don't know how to push through it. She's not reacting maliciously or stubbornly, and once she gets set off it's near impossible to work her back down to rideable.

To top it all off, we're still having issues at the mounting block. 

We did not look like this today.

Hill Work

Today we tackled the aforementioned hill work. It was a pretty good ride, except for Rush's momentary regression in which she decided that standing still for mounting was too difficult and she was just going to run off before I was all the way in the saddle. I put a stop to that lickety split- we turned right around and stood by the mounting block, then I dismounted and remounted until she stood the entire time. It took two tries after the initial mounting before she settled down and found her brain again.

mirrors!

Then we toddled down to the dressage ring to warm up. Everyone else is at a show today, so the ring was still freshly dragged from this morning. I love having a tabula rasa to ride in; I get to see how crooked and wiggly Rush is when we do things like change direction or trot down the diagonal (very). We did light walk and trot work- she gets very antsy if you pick up the reins at the walk, so I'm getting her used to treating the walk as an actual gait and part of the ride instead of the pace where she gets to do whatever she wants. Our trot work was average, nothing special but nothing horrible. She got pretty distracted looking at herself in the mirrors and tripped over herself a couple times coming around the corner.

Then we went up behind the barn to the long incline. There are two other hills on the property we could have used- one is medium length but pretty steep, and one is a more sloping incline but is pretty short. The one I chose is a medium grade and about the length of the barn, so that's.. probably 120ish feet. We did 5 sets, so 5 times up and 5 times down. She seemed to enjoy it; she definitely wanted to keep exploring once we got to the top of the hill the first time.

Ride at Dusk

My ride today was pretty great. Actually, I'm writing this.. 10 or so minutes after I hopped off, and Rush is chilling in her sun pen as we speak. I dragged out three cavalettis and set them up as trot poles down the side of the ring. They were set at like 6'', so she had to pay attention and pick up her feet a little more than usual. The first few times were laughably disastrous- feet flying everywhere and awkward leaps- but after she figured it out she was a champ. We spent most of the trot work focusing on going through those calmly until she figured out that her feet were supposed to go in between the poles every time, then moved on to canter work.

This is the first time I cantered her in the jumping ring without doing some canter work in the dressage ring first, and she by far surpassed my expectations. To the right her canter was a little more up&down than I would have liked, but I got her to settle into a more forward rolling pace by really sitting back, spreading my hands, and encouraging her to open up her stride a little. She never ever got fast, which was awesome awesome awesome because that used to be a big problem that we never completely surmounted. To the left, her transitions are a bit rougher and she starts out like a banshee booking it but once I settle her she's a little lady again. She was even better to the left than to the right (when does that EVER happen???) and through the turns she offered some great bending and stretching, really reaching down for the bit and balancing herself.

Tomorrow I'm thinking we finally buckle down and do some hill work. Her topline is starting to bulk up a bit, hooray, and I'd like to keep mixing it up for her so she doesn't get too bored with all this flatwork.

Mixed Signals

The past few days have been a little frustrating. Rush seems to have so much energy at the beginning of the ride that she's incapable of focusing on anything, and if I ask for anything she doesn't like, such as slowing down.. or looking less like a llama.. or traveling in a straight line.. shit blows up and she's throwing one of her hissy fits. Yesterday I worked through it, kinda, by cantering on a circle. Today.. yeah, not so much. I was so tired of dealing with this ridiculous behavior that I went to the zone of: I'm hot, sweaty, and tired. You're being a brat. If you want to trot like you're in a harness race, fine.

So then I bullied her around the ring, making her TROTFAST while keeping her head down, and if she wanted to canter? No beans, you'll just have to go in a tiny circle until you trot again. I'm not exactly proud of this method, but it worked. So there's that. After I deemed her tired, we had a walking break to separate that work out from the actual one, and then went on to have a lovely ride. We did more work on bending, then did some solid cantering that was pretty impressive. Her canter has been the best surprise of bringing her back into work so far. When I first started riding her, it was like a jackhammer. You could two point, lifting yourself as far out of the saddle as possible, and still have your butt smack the saddle every stride. Now? Her canter is wonderful and rolling and forward; she seems to have lost the up-down motion that was so horrific to ride.

We finished up the ride with some wonderful relaxed cantering in the jumping arena, which was awesome. I was worried she'd get fast because there was more space to accelerate in, but she stayed nice and relaxed and just rolled around the ring like a doll. So it was, all in all, actually a good ride- but the way it started out was godawful. And it seems to be a trend, so I need to find a solution, fast.

Splish Splash

In preparation for.. something, the water complex in the jumping ring was filled up this week. Given Rush's obsession with water, I had been praying that it would be filled at some point during our stay. I had actually come up pretty late to ride, due to extreme heat and social obligations, and was just doing a light 10 min walk/trot hack to let her stretch out but didn't really have time for anything more. And then I saw this. So that ride was mostly us tromping around in the water, nose to the ground, splashing water. I vowed to come up really early the next morning to let her play more, since I didn't know how fast the water would dissipate.

Bright and early, 7:00 the next morning we were tramping back down to the ring for more play time. I had suited up in some rain boots my sister left me, since my old ones are for 7 year olds and come up to my mid-calf. I led her into the water.. and water promplty seeped into my right boot. Eeps. I sucked it up and let her have her splishy splashy time, which she loved, and we wandered into the water during our ride as well. Whenever I rode on the buckle and let her decide where to go, we ended up back in the water.. Hmm..

Today there was still some water in there, so after our awful/wonderful ride we practiced walking, trotting, and cantering into the water. No hesitation. My pony is awesome. I think she liked cantering the best because it makes the biggest splashes..

Rambunctious in the Round Pen

Not actually from today. Details.

Today was Rush's big day.. CANTER TIME! We've been walk/trotting under saddle for two weeks now, and she's gotten a hecka ton better. At first we weren't so much for the trotting at a reasonable pace or bending or even going in a straight line, but those issues are smoothing out and she's gained back some muscle tone so we decided to start tackling the canter. It's gonna be a looooong haul.

I went in the evening today, since I had plans this morning and it's been so godawfully hot that it would have been unfair to ask her to do anything between the hours of 9-5. Tossed her in the round pen (the awesome round pen that gets dragged/raked every day and it has sprinklers what.) and we did walk/trot in each direction very belligerently, since apparently having a nekked face makes us very opinionated on what we should be doing. 

And then crazy whee! fun happened. Basically it was chaos happening and I couldn't really control much so I just tried to keep her from breaking when she was cantering properly and not cross-firing. I also worked on pushing her to the outside of the round pen, since she likes to cut in when she's being naughty. I let her stop in each direction after she had made it one time around without breaking/cross-firing.. honestly she barely cantered at all. And guess what? DRENCHED in sweat by the end. Sweat was literally dripping off her. I felt really bad so I sacrificed myself and hopped on bareback to walk her out, and we tooled around in the dressage ring (which is COVERED, did I mention that?). 

After she was reasonably cooled down, but not any drier than previously, I took her up and hosed all the sweat off of her. She managed to nick herself on her back right, just above the coronet band, but it's nothing serious. I just scrubbed it with Betadine and slathered some Corona on it, much to her dismay. She hates Corona for some reason. If you try to put it on her when she's in her stall, she literally runs to the opposite corner, naughty thing. So I sprayed her off, inventoried all one of her scrapes and took care of it, then gave her a Sore No More rinse and let her chill in a sun pen for an hour or so. Which she probably hated.

Tomorrow I'll probably stretchy walk/trot to see how she's feeling, if she isn't too sore/tired we'll work on flexion and bending in the dressage ring. If she's not feeling 100% she can have some time in the sun pen and get the rest of the day off, and we'll start work up the next day.

I'm thinking a 3-day cycling pattern in regards of her getting fit at the canter, since I don't want to overdo it or make her do the same thing every day.

Day 1: barebalk walk to warm-up, then round pen work on cantering

Day 2: walk/trot hack working on bending, keep it pretty brief

Day 3: walk/trot hack to warm up and then hill work at the walk

Rinse and repeat!

Life Goes On

Where did we leave of? With the mystery lameness, I think. A quick update, then, to get us all caught up. I had another vet out for a second opinion because I was seriously considering buying Rush. He basically did the same tests as the first- nerve block on the pastern, she trotted out sound, then x-rays. Except this time, the x-rays revealed something! She has a 'significant bone spur' in her coffin joint. The vet was confident it was treatable and that she had a very reasonable chance of being sound, so I went ahead.. and bought her! We injected the coffin joint, gave her two days of handwalking, and voila.. sound horsie. He also recommended 2º wedges on her front feet, which hasn't happened yet but I'm working on finding a farrier.

I moved barns in a very dramatic and traumatic situation, which I'll blog about some day when I can write about it without getting upset. As of August 1 we are now at a new place with state-of-the-art accommodations and basically everything you could ever want. It's a Dressage/Eventing barn, and whilst we are Hunters, right now we're just doing walk/trot flatwork building up conditioning again.

Rush is blossoming; she loves it at the new place. It's pretty low-key there, there are only 7 horses on the property right now and I am definitely the youngest person there. The horses there are all huge goofy warmblood geldings, so obviously Rush is the princess of the place and everyone loves her. There's so much to talk about that I couldn't possibly cover it in one post, so I'll leave you with a picture of her in her wonderful new stall :)

Vet Visit

Well, we have a not-so-definitive answer for the lameness. The vet came out on Monday (after lots of drama with the BO) to look at Rush and see if we could pin point her lameness.

Her awkward stance since going lame

He trotted her in our ring, then on harder ground to assess lameness and pinpointed it to right front. He nerve blocked the lower pastern and she trotted out completely sound (it was glorious), so we know it's something down low in the right front. Then came the x-rays and ultrasound (and the noise of my bank account shrinking). Nothing abnormal showed up on either, so the final verdict was that it's most likely soft tissue damage somewhere too low/deep for the ultrasound to read. Right now it's handwalking for 15 minutes and stall rest for several months.

Unfortunately, Not Better News

After the advice from the farrier last week, I talked to the BO about what to do with Rush. She's one of those ridiculously hard to talk to people and tramples all over whatever you try to say, insisting that her opinion is the only right one and that anything else is absolutely ridiculous. So instead of y'know, fixing the cause and changing Rush's feed, we put her on 2 scoops of bute for 5 days (because it's an anti-inflammatory). So she got 2 scoops for five days. I took her out on the third, I think, and had one of the minions trot her a couple steps, but she looked pretty uncomfortable so I put her home and didn't take her out again until today. Her 5 days ended on Monday, she didn't have bute Tues/Wed, and I started it up again today after re-evaluating on the lunge line.

As you can see, definitely not sound. In fact, I would say less sound than when she first started going off. There was a lot of rambunction in there due to the fact that she's been in prison for about three weeks now. After this rather disappointing but not surprising result of 5 days of bute, which is obviously not working (not that I expected it to) I left the BO a message telling her that I was not happy with the way things are going and that I want to be more proactive about fixing the problem. We tried her way, it didn't work, and I'm going to be more forceful about getting the feed changed. The BO's reasoning for not changing the feed was "she's been on cubes her whole life!" but, well, things change. She was a racehorse then a broodmare then a pasture puff, and now she's doing arena work. Those all demand very different diets.

Some Answers

 

One of the more experienced farriers that does horses at my barn came out this morning and I nabbed the chance to have him look at Rush. I had been hypothesizing that she was footsore because she seemed about 40% better after having her feet trimmed, and perhaps the workload was getting to the point where she needed shows put back on. He took one look at her front left, cut away a bit of the hoof to get a closer look, and then immediately concluded that her feed was too rich and her laminae was inflamed- he didn't say laminitis, but that's basically the diagnosis.

I was silly and didn't get pictures, so I'll take some tomorrow, but the clue was some black discoloration in her laminae- perpendicular lines that looked kind of like crosshatching (see random internet picture) . I had noticed them after she was trimmed but thought it was some weird pattern left behind by the rasp- now I know better! Now I just have to convince the BO that it is not her hock sore bothering her and she needs to be put on something other than alfalfa cubes.. sounds like a simple conversation ("Hey, BO, Rush needs to be put on Timothy for one feeding because the alfalfa cubes are too rich for her and she's getting laminitis. Thanks!") but it'll probably blow up into this huge thing and there's a 70% chance the BO will refuse to change her feed. So that'll be fun.

See the black lines at the top? Those.

I also had Experienced Farrier look at Willie's feet, since he's gone like.. 9 weeks without being trimmed and a big crack was forming. The crack was done away with, mostly, and he didn't seem too concerned about the big hole in Willie's RF from where an abscess blew, so I guess it just looks really scary but in actuality is nothing to worry about. He's been doing really well after those two months on abscessy fun, and even took care of a Little on Saturday. So proud. Although he was angry with me yesterday for leaving him in the turnout for hours and decided to forget what lead changes were...

More Rain

More rain came over the weekend, making the ring unusable, so there's no fun exciting happy news of joy. Rush is still lame, so no news on that end either. In the mean time.. cute pictures of her looking bored over a jump!

Mystery Lameness

We had a ton of rain last weekend, but the ring dried out pretty quickly and was usable within a day or so. My sister came back into town for a few days and wanted to see all the progress Rush and I have made since winter break, so I hopped on on Monday. The footing in the ring was kind of hard; the dirt was pretty packed down from being poured on and the ring hadn't been dragged yet. It wasn't slushy or wet, though (except for a large puddle that Rush loved to stand in- while warming up at the walk she kept taking me over to it and then parking herself in it and refusing to move) so we went through the paces and did some jumping.

Come Tuesday, sister gets on to evaluate Rush's weirdness to the left and see if it's a problem with my riding or it Rush. Cue hind end lameness.. ugh. She's been so bombproof that I really had my fingers crossed for her to bypass the lameness issues all the horses I ride seem to have, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I mean, she's climbed THROUGH a fence before and got off with only minor scrapes. True story- I parked her up to a 2'6 jump once so that I could adjust my stirrups. While I had the reins looped through my elbow, one stirrup, and was leaning down to the right she decided that she was going to channel her inner dog and jump from a stand still. She ended up trashing the picket, but I miraculously stayed on (don't ask me how, I have no idea)

The BO thinks it's because of her hock sore, which she's had forever and I can't seem to make disappear, but I disagree. Because I think that's a ridiculous diagnosis. If it was infected that would be a different story- but it's just a small, occasionally scabby occasionally open wound. I'm giving her a couple days of stall rest, then I'm going to pull her out tomorrow and evaluate.

AHHHH!!!

Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. I have been waiting for this letter all week, and it finally came today in that smug little gold envelope. I just about cried in relief when I saw it was gold, not white.

Ick

 

This picture never fails to make me laugh.

Smooth Sailing.. Kinda

While we're doing pretty well right now, I'm kind of at a loss with how to proceed. As long as I don't ask her for something unexpected or change up the routine too much, everything is fine. The minute I ask her for something she doesn't want to do, we hit a snag. I haven't figured out how to approach cantering to the left, since whenever I attempt to work through it frustrations just escalate until we end up angry with each other. I know I need to tackle this issue and get it eradicated but I think I'm going to ask around for opinions before I try to tackle it again, since nothing I'm doing seems to be having a (positive) effect.

So while that's a bit annoying, she's a perfect angel when I don't canter left first. The needlepoint exercise I've been doing is really helping her with switching her bend, and her flying changes have been getting a lot better because of it. She still tend to get stuck in sharp corners, so I'm thinking of upping the circles and direction changes at the trot this next week, then introducing some serpentine patterns at the canter to get her more agile. She /can/ make sharp turns, but she really bulges out with her outside shoulder and I have to heavily correct her with outside aids to complete the turn.

This weekend we had two very nice rides. Saturday she was very relaxed and we had a low-key ride, where we basically warmed up with the needlepoint, chugged around the ring at the canter a couple times, then hopped over a cross pole and low vertical a couple times. We finished out over a hogsback made from three cavalettis, which there is a picture of but I haven't received it yet.

Sunday I demanded a little more of her. We did have a minor tantrum when I corrected her after she started charging at the warmup fences. She gets worked up and starts throwing herself at them sometimes, so we take it back to the basics and trot the fence several times, then canter it until we get a nice slow approach. It takes a couple tries at the canter, but I just hold her to the fence and let her bury herself at the base of it until she realizes she can either wait and get a decent spot or run at it and have to jump from a very short and uncomfortable spot. I also had to correct her when she starting running into the canter again after I would do a downward transition; it's nice that she knows that I usually want her to take a few trot steps and then pick up the correct lead if I bring her down to a trot after a jump, but sometimes she jumps the gun and runs back into the canter before I ask which is not okay.

After our jump warmup we tackled a triple, which was essentially up a diagonal line of a cross pole, two strides, 2'6 picket, four strides, out over another cross pole. She kept going sideways after the first fence which screwed up the striding (we ran out of it the first time because she literally went sideways and would've jumped the standard), so we trotted in a couple times until she was relatively straight after it before going for the two strides. We probably went through it a good 10-15 times, but the last time through was slow and straight with the correct striding, so I was really happy with that and proud of her for being so gung-ho about something she's never done before.

Time Waster

Let me just say, I am never riding in a lesson again. Or at least, never riding Rush in a lesson again. COMPLETE waste of time! I love my barn, and the people at it, but the BO is just.. useless. It started out promising- she noticed Rush's tendency to over bend to the inside and told me to emphasize outside rein and leg. Promising, right?

It all went downhill from there. We trotted maybe 2 minutes, then started cantering. We cantered right first, which was good, but then she had me switch direction after only one or two laps, which is definitely not enough time for Rush to acclimate. Then Rush spooked from a horse coming up behind her, and things kind of fell apart. I got her back, started walking around until she stopped jigging, and then did circles on the inside at the trot until I could feel her relaxing a little more. BO, meanwhile, was shouting at me to take her over the pole that was in the middle of the ring. In whose mind is that a good idea?!?!?! Then she made me go straight to jumping- after probably 5 minutes of flatting total, and kept telling me to SLOW DOWN.. so it got to the point where Rush could barely make it over the jumps without a huge effort. Rush was a champ, of course, because she knows how to jump, but I just wanted to strangle the BO. At the end she had be trot a figure eight, and kept telling me to half halt. COME ON! It's not like we're speeding around the ring. It's a nice, quiet, pleasant working trot. Just because you think my horse is out of control doesn't mean she is- and if I wanted her to slow down, all I would have to do is close my inner thighs because she's listening to me, not running around willy nilly.

Ugh. So that was.. not worth it. On the upside, I had some great rides over the weekend and her flying changes are really coming along!

Friday Frolicks

I dug up a book I got a while ago, 101 Dressage Exercises. I don't ride dressage, but I was looking for some way to shake up the same-old same-old hacking on the flat. I browsed through the first couple of pages a few nights ago, which happened to be on warming up your horse. After properly color-coding them so it didn't look like a swarm of black dots and dashes, I figured out the gist of them and decided to start implementing them during the next few weeks while I focus on flatwork.

Today we did some lengthening/shortening at the trot; it was interesting to say the least. She gets very tense when I ask for a slow sitting trot; her head comes up and she fights the contact until I push her forward enough that she submits to the contact. From there she is less abrasive, but starts to duck behind the vertical which is a big no-no. So the sitting trot is pretty rusty at the moment and needs a lot of fine-tuning. When I asked for a lengthening (really just a regular working trot, I wanted her to have an opportunity to decompress between the sitting trots) she would sit on my leg, then jump forward into a faster trot. So that needs a little more work as well; hopefully we'll be transitioning and adjusting like pros soon! I did some circles at the trot as well to work on bending. She's slowly becoming more supple, but she still has a hard time bending throughout her body. She likes to turn with her body straight, or thrust her haunches in while shoving her shoulders out. After a couple of minor spooks most likely caused by another horse coming straight at her (it's hypothesized that she was run in to on the track, since she freaks out whenever another horse comes at her) she was agitated and unresponsive, and had become stiff throughout her body. To remedy this I did the 'needlepoint' exercise from the book; we had some motorcycle turns at first but she settled down and started listening to my leg again. So yay exercises!

Her canter work was, in a word, beautiful. She's usually very upright at the canter- in a frame, but a very high frame. Today she really stretched down (which helped my hand position SO MUCH!) and was relaxed from the moment we began cantering. One thing I did notice is that she tended to begin leaning on her forehand in the lower frame, but I remedied that easily by picking her up and reminding her to use her hind end. We did lots of circles at the canter, since she's come to anticipate lead changes and get really frantic and scrambly whenever we take a turn through the center. After one or two she settled down; began listening to my leg when I asked her to bend correctly, and really settled beautifully. Then we executed a perfect lead change, cantered left, and basically repeated what had happened to the right. It's odd; she bends correctly going left but gets fast through circles, whereas to the right she maintains her pace but can't bend as well.

All in all, today was a very successful ride. I should really listen to myself more often; I'm quite smart ;)