Panic!

Oi vey... what a night. So, I get home after a full day building stuff at SCARE for a CURE to find that half of my pasture fence has been taken out by a flash flood, and I can't see any of our critters. as I'm sure you can imagine, my heart plunged into the stomach, and I hauled ass into the pasture. Much to my relief, Zigs, Marie, Tesla and Kanemura were all standing by the dog pen. The goats had made their way through the part of the down fence at the back of the pasture, so I put Zigs in his stall, got some grain and called the goats and donkeys into the goat pen.

I then called The Baron and my Dad, and immediately set to work repairing the fence. It was about 1800 at this point, so daylight was fading fast. The Baron and Dad showed up shortly after I started working, and we made pretty quick work of the fence. I'm keeping the critters in tonight so that I can wake up in the morning and give the fence a once over before turning them loose, since it was about 21:00 when I came in from fixing the fence. Now, I'm just trying to get my blood pressure to return to normal!!

Happy Trails

You may have noticed that there hasn't been much activity on this thing lately. THat's largely due to the fact that for the past two weeks my pasture has been a giant mud pit. Not that I'm complaining, mind, I actually have grass now, but I really couldn't do much riding. Yesterday and today, I gott desperate, and tacked Ziggy up and went for a hack around the neighborhood. Since he's been off for quite some time, I just walked him on a long rein, and let him stretch out. We seem to have lost our clearance with the neighborhood dogs, as it was pretty much impossible to ride past somebody's yard without a welcoming committee. To his credit, Zigs largely ignored them and sauntered on. The only real problem I had with him was keeping him from counter-flexing to the outside to get a look at the wide new world, which was pretty easily fixed by taking up contact and asking him to look to the inside. I'll be riding him again tomorrow around the neighborhood. Hopefully, if it stays dry over the next week, I'll be able to ride in my pasture, and as a result, have a more interesting blog post to write. :)

Interpretive Dressage

It was quite the horsy weekend!  I know I haven't been posting much as of late, but I've had a pretty good reason.  Zigs has been off for several weeks.  I of course took him to Elgin and had a lameness eval done.  Thankfully, the vet didn't discover anything more serious than a twisted right front shoe.  Ed came out, and after another week or so off, I pressed my Alfalfa addict back into service.  As is to be expected, the ride was a bit rough, but I stayed in the saddle, and Ziggy didn't go lame again.  I was just glad to have my horse back.  Saturday, I spent the day out atSCARE for a CURE, moving all of our stuff to our as-yet unannounced new site.  But, anybody who knows anything can probably figure out where it is.  I'm dying for them to officially announce the site, so that I can start talking about it.  Anyhow, this is a blog about ponies, so I will try to keep the Haunted House chatter to a minimum.

However, I love doing Haunted Houses almost as much as I love riding horses, so I make absolutely no guarantees. Especially the closer it gets to October. Anyway, my intention was to ride when I got back home Saturday, but after moving flats all day, I bravely sat on my couch, and passed out. At some point Saturday night, Fuzzy Pony called and asked Zhi and I if we wanted to tag along with her and Saga's mom to visit Tango and Cash. Since I even brought it up, you may safely make the assumption we said yes.

While Zhi and I were getting ready Sunday morning, Saga's mom called and mentioned that there was actually a horse at the barn Tango is staying at whose owner was looking to free lease to somebody while she goes to California. Since the horse sounded like it might be a good fit for Zhi, we went ahead and got together our riding stuff, and met Fuzzy Pony and Saga's mom at Saga's mom's house. Now, you might be thinking, "I've never even heard you mention this Tango horse before. Who is he, and why were you so excited about going to see him?" Well, wonder no longer! A couple of weeks back, Zhi found a Dutch Warmblood in the San Antonio Craigslist for sale for $2500. We went out to see him, and the poor guy was seriously overweight, his feet hadn't been seen in 6 months, and to top it off, he was all alone in the pasture, and had become a little neurotic. To make a long story short, and not steal Zhi's thunder, Zhi was able to help orchestrate his rescue, and he is now being rehabilitated with the intention of becoming The Oracle's new riding horse. There is, of course, a lot more to that story, but it's Zhi's to tell, and I'm not about to steal her Thunder. ;)

I'm happy to report that when we got to the barn where Tango is currently staying, I almost didn't even recognize him! His feet have been seen, and he's trimmed down a good bit. His overall affect was much calmer and he seemed like an entirely different horse! After taking a quick look at him in his stall, we left him to munch on his hay while we checked out the horse that we might be free-leasing for Zhi. His name is Sahani, and he's a very cute Medicine Hat Paint, that looks a lot like Cash. After we watched the barn's trainer ride him, I hopped on, and I must admit, I rather liked him. I had to use a whip to wake him up a bit, but that's largely due to him being used to packing around little kids who can't kick as hard as I can. Once I'd determined that he wasn't going to do anything stupid, (and by that I mean, "I realized that I should actually let my wife ride the horse that we'd be getting for her"), I let Zhi hop up on him. From where I was standing, they looked good together, and it certainly looked like Zhi was enjoying herself. I'm hoping we're able to make the deal and bring this guy home for a couple of months, as it'd be really nice to be able to go riding with my sweetie.

Once we were done with Sahani, The Oracle's daughter pulled Tango out into the round pen so we could see him go. And boy, did he go. It was really nice to see him in so much better shape. I hope I get a horse that moves like him when I grow up. ;)

After taking a few good pictures of Tango, we loaded up in the car once again and headed out to Paige to see Cash. This was the first time I'd ever been to Paint Creek Farms, and wow, what a place! Forget retiring my horse there, I want to retire there. The place is every horse owner's wet dream. Gorgeous, rolling pastures full of lush coastal grass, a large clean barn with stalls that have partially covered runs, Saga's mom warned us on the way that since he's been at this place, Cash had gotten more aloof, and I can't say I blame him. Now that he's living in Pony paradise, what good are us humans? Oh, right, we bring carrots. We pulled Cash in from the pasture, and gave him a bath. In the process, Zhi and I took some mane and tail hairs for a sooper seekrit project whose results will be shown at an undetermined date in the future.

While he was drying out, Saga's mom was nice enough to let Zhi and I up on Cash bareback. One at a time, thank-you-very-much. There will be no FHotD-worthy shenanigans on my watch. (or on any of ours, I think it's safe to say.) Once Zhi and I had had our turns, Saga's mom hopped up on him, and reminded him and us that he was at one point a show horse. He looked really good, too. Hopefully, one day I'll be able to get Shoulder ins, leg yields and half-passes bareback and in a halter. After more carrots and scritches, we put him back in his pasture and headed home for the night.

Which brings us to yesterday. After riding Saga, Saga's mom was nice enough to come over and work with Zigs and I. Although I typically like to work on jumping when she comes over, Zigs is a bit out of shape after his time off, so we did flatwork instead. Which was good, because she was actually able to help me out with several problems I've been having. We started off by walking, trotting and cantering on a loose rein in both directions, which is how I'll do my warmups from now on. After letting him go on a loose rein and stretch what he needed to, I found it a lot easier to collect him up and put him on the bit. Once we'd warmed up, we started working on circles. Saga's mom identified several problems I have that I need to work on.

On the right:
1. My right leg tends to drift backward.
2. On the top half of the circle, I tend to lose the rhythm.

On the Left:
1. If I let him go straight, I lose the rhythm. I need to keep him bent the entire circle.
2. I tend to over-bend.

In general:
1. I need to keep my outside rein steady. One of the problems I've been having that Saga's mom helped me fix is that Zigs would evade by cocking his head to the side. The reason it's happening is because I have too much inside rein and I let my outside rein cross over his neck.
2. I still have a habit of pushing with my seat when I'm trying to get him to walk out more. I need to rely more on my inside leg to get the job done,

That being said, I have actually improved my downward transitions. When I was coming down from trot to walk, Saga's mom told me to sit a halt transition. I did, and wouldn't you know it, I got a walk when I asked for one. I've got lots to work on, and now that Zigs is sound again, you can bet I'll be working on it! Hopefully, I'll be able to find a new job soon so that I can get back into consistent lessons!

Roundness

It's been a bad day, and I'm not much in the mood for clever grammar, witty quips, or italics, so this is going to be short, and to the point. I rode Ziggy today, and in my warmup, something just didn't seem right. So, I called Zhizhu to come out and watch Ziggy for a while. Long story short, he was off. Of course, I immediately dismounted, untacked and cold hosed all 4 legs. It looks like it's something in his back end. He does have two little cuts just below his fetlock on each leg that are swollen, which might be the problem, but I'll be setting up an appointment with the vet.

Magic Trainer Dust plzkthxbai!

If you are reading this, that means that you are reading the second post of the day. Let it never be said that I am not a man of my word! But why two posts, where one would suffice? Especially when I have chronicled the events of three days in one post several times before? Well, yesterday was a really good day as far as riding, and horsy activities go. Today was different story. Not that today was necessarily bad, rather, it was what I refer to as sub-optimal In the spirit of maintaining a positive outlook, the good news is that I A) Kept Zigs between me and the ground, B) Zigs didn't seem off at all, and C) There is more progress on the job front. More on that as it develops.

For tonight's ride, it was my intention to continue to build upon yesterday's progress, which didn't go the way I planned. For one, I was very tense, which was making it nigh impossible for Zigs to relax, so it was quite the vicious circle. I found Zigs to be very heavy on the forehand tonight, and he kept drifting WAY to the outside on my circles. On top of that, I was transfixed on his head, because I'm telling you, if I do not look at it, it will disappear. It happened to my sister, once! Really! Well, ok, it wasn't actually her it was more like a friend of hers, and by friend I mean acquaintance, and by acquaintance I mean some guy she met at school, and, well, Ok, fine, that's not true.

So, to go down the list of problems and analyze them, I'll start with Zigs being heavy on the forehand. After talking to Saga's mom about it, and reviewing it in my head, I realize that I was not sitting up straight, which made it nigh on impossible for me to sit on Ziggy's butt and get him to step under himself and come through. I quite handily compounded this problem, by wondering why Zigs wasn't doing what I was wanting, when I should have been thinking about myself, because after all, Zigs' behaviour is a mirror of my own. So I don't forget, I'm pasting the advice Saga's mom gave me below:

"When you feel like things are going all to hell, stop thinking about your horse.

Think instead about where you are going.

10 m circle here, trot transition here, walk here, another 10 m circle, halt, change direction, figure 8, serpentine, ANYTHING to get you thinking aout something other than the horse. You'll start to relax and so will your horse, and before you know it, he'll be going beautifully"

As far as drifting to the outside goes, that one's easy. I didn't have my outside leg on him, and my outside rein didn't have enough contact. Really what tonight boils down to is that I was so nervous about the prospect of him being "off" (he was fine by the way, he actually flat out galloped over to his stall when I fed him after), that I pretty much just didn't ride. Of course, the usual work stress and being tired from this weekend were probably also contributing factors. I'll be trying again tomorrow, and hopefully, I'll actually be able to add pictures. That is, assuming that my computer finishes importing them . There's over 1000 pictures on the card in the camera. Unsurprisingly, it's taking a while to download them all. I should probably do a more in depth analysis of tonight's ride, but I'm literally falling asleep at my keybarod, and since I don't want to arrive to work tomorrow with a case of QWERTYitis, I'm going to go ahead and go to bed.

Ponies 4 eva!

Today, good readers, you will receive not one, but two posts! Yes, I am in a very generous mood today. Well, that and I utterly failed to post yesterday's events immediately after they occurred. Therefore, today you will profit from my laziness! Or my generosity. Either way, you get two posts, and who could complain about that.

Oh yeah, the people who hate me or this blog. Although, if either of the previous statements appropriately describe your feelings, my question to you is, why are you still reading this?! That being said, I'll leave you to ponder your existential crisis, and return my attention to the people who actually like reading this. Or they tolerate it. Or they do it just because they're bored. Either way, they don't throw things at me and hurt my feelings, which I appreciate."That's all well and good," you say, "but GET ON WITH IT!"

Your wish is my command. Yesterday morning, Saga's mom came out to help me out with Zigs. The original intentions were for her to hop up on Zigs and see if she could figure out why he's been blowing off my half-halts at the trot, and to work on jumping. As I expected, he behaved just fine for her, and very obediently half-halted when asked. I was very happy to see that because it let me know, yes, he does know how, and will do it when asked appropriately. After trying both reins, Saga's mom commented that Zigs felt a bit un-even to her. And asked me to get back on him to see if I felt it. I think she said a few more things as well, but as soon as I heard uneven, I sort of tuned out, and immediately started paying very close attention to how Zigs was going. I couldn't really feel anything out of place, but just to be on the safe side, we decided to just work on walk/trot, and trot/walk transitions and leave jumping for another day. One of the first things that was made apparent was that I wasn't waiting until I had a good walk to cue for trot. Hence, crappy walk led to crappy trot. So, we worked for while on when to judge a good walk when I had it. I discovered that I've actually been going past "forward" and into "rushing", because when Zigs is through and round, the pace of the walk is slower, but he feels light in my hands.

The other thing that was made apparent is that I have a nasty tendency to let Ziggy "dribble" on both up and down transitions. On my up transitions, I'm not giving a clear enough cue, and on my down transitions, I'm not riding him "up" into the transitions. I'll be honest in that when Saga's mom first told me that, I totally didn't get it. The whole idea of a down transition is to go slower and-- actually, strike previous. A downward transition isn't necessarily a change of speed, although it often is. It's always a change of rhythm. I think that internally, I realized that when I was riding yesterday, but it just became obvious to my conscious mind. Anyways, now that I've noted that epiphany before it escaped me, allow me to go back to my original train of thought. (Coherent narrative, just another service I provide!). After thinking about what it meant to ride "up" into the downward transition, I realized that it meant I needed impulsion from behind so that when he settled into the walking, he was already stepping under himself from the trot that he'd have a much firmer stance in order to keep driving his hind end up to his front.

Now, as far as the trot goes, the lion's share of the trot is coming up to it from a good walk, and within the first 3 strides, riding the rhythm that I want. One of the things that I'm still bad about is forgetting to ride as soon as I get the transition. For some reason, the whole of my thought process is, "Yay! I got a trot!" and shortly after that gripping insight, my brain vaults out of my left ear, and happily sponges its way off to its vacation home in Tahiti. It never lets me come along, either.

Jerk.

I showed him, though. After a few decent transitions leading to some sub-optimal trots, I finally locked the wayward grey matter into my skull and actually began riding the trot I wanted after I got the transition. Once that was sorted, I had a lot of good moments. Zhi was kind enough to take pictures, and had I actually charged my camera battery last night, I'd include them here. But, alas, they are importing into iPhoto as we speak. In short, I felt like the ride went fantastically well, and I learned a lot. I didn't even care that I didn't jump.

Now, before I leave you to write the next post, there is one last thing I need to share: I am terrible about KEEPING MY FINGERS CLOSED around my reins. I shall endeavor to fix this going forward.

**Addendum**
I also accompanied Duchess' Mom, Saga's mom and Fuzzy Pony down to Dripping Springs to watch Saga and Duchess go in a jumping lesson. My initial intent was to take pictures for the two of them, I was cleverly thwarted by my camera, whose battery I heroically neglected to charge yesterday because I took a nap. You can read all about the lesson over at Saga's blog, but I will say that I was very impressed with Paige, and I would definitely be interested in taking a lesson from her. My number one take-home watching the lesson was Paige's comments about "waiting" for the fence. Saga, Duchess and Zigs are very willing and game jumpers, and they'll jump anything we point them at. So, our challenge is not to push them forward to the fence, but to keep them up and forward and ensure a good approach. That being said, now I'm going to bed for real.

Look Ma, No Stirrups!

I think I have finally discovered a formula that works well for riding on the week nights.  When I get home, I'm usually pretty tired, and it's still rather hot, so I sit around on the computer for a while until it cools down.  Tonight, instead of doing that, I curled up on the couch and took a brief nap.  Wouldn't you know it, when I woke up, I wasn't tired any more.  I went out and saddled up Zigs not quite sure what I was going to work on. I toyed around with the idea of setting up a few jumps or trot poles, but since Saga's mom might be coming over this weekend, and since I'm still pretty green at jumping, I like to do it when there's somebody more experienced to watch me and let me know if I'm doing something wrong. So I opted for flat work. I spent most of my warm up trying to figure out what I wanted to concentrate on, and I finally decided that I'd work on sitting trot without stirrups, since it's been a while since I last worked on it.

It went pretty well, although not in the ways you may think. For the most part, I kept my position, and was able to stay with him, although by sitting the trot, I was able to discover a couple of subtle problems I've probably been having for quite some time now, but didn't really notice since I'd spent so much time doing posting trot.

1. Zigs has a nasty habit of speeding up when I point him back towards the trailer


2. My half halts in sitting trot aren't very effective. No, I have no idea why.


3. I'm doing something that causes me to occasionally bounce out of the saddle to the outside.

That being said, I have made significant progress since the last time I performed this particular exercise. I can sit a much bigger, bouncier trot than I used to be able to, and I was able to maintain my position. It went so well, in fact that I decided to do a few trot/canter transitions without stirrups. Those went considerably rougher. I started out on the left rein, since that's Zigs' easier lead. For reasons I can't figure out, when I gave my canter transition, I got a really fast trot that I had some trouble bringing back down. But rather than get frustrated, I kept working at it. Eventually, when I finally stopped thinking about it, and just did it, I got a good canter depart. Ziggy made it clear that he wanted to go off to the races, but I half-halted for everything I was worth, and managed to keep him in a forward, but sane working canter. After a few canter circles, I dropped backdown to walk and changed reins. My downward transitions from canter still suck. I keep totally forgetting to ride once I get the trot transition. Let's call that item #273 on the list of things to fix. ;) The right rein went pretty much exactly the same way. I kept at it until I got a nice canter transition, and walked Zigs out. All in all, it was a good ride, and it was nice to see some progress in the sitting trot. To be honest, I've lately been feeling sort of stagnant as far as my riding progress goes. But hopefully, by the end of the year I'll have a new job, so I'll be back in lessons. Until then, I'll just need to be patient.

As Seen on Facebook

Just a quick note before I dash back off to work. A friend of mine posted a Facebook status update stating that she believed the Triple Crown was a more significant sporting achievement than winning the Super Bowl. Being a horse person, I must say that I agree. Although another friend of hers stated that Horse Racing isn't a Sport, it's an activity and that, "being small and able to hold on to something as it bounces you up and down is not a sport". I mean, all we have to do is just sit there, right?

Although winning the Triple Crown is a really Big Deal™, I think I'd much rather win The Grand Slam of Eventing. And yes, I'd totally hawk the Rolex I won at Rolex. That's like two years worth of grain and hay! I'd be very interested to learn what Ms. Funnell did with hers... ;)

Special Guest Rider!

Well, as alluded to in the previous post, tonight, Zhi rode Zigs. It was really interesting watching my horse go with somebody else at the reins. One of the things I immediately noticed was at the walk, he seems to no longer be brushing his fetlocks, which is very good. I must also brag on my boy. (Oh come on, you knew this was coming.) Zigs was a fantastic boy for Zhi, and he took really good care of her. I'm sure you can read a full writeup on her blog, but I must also report that the lion's share of the time at the walk, Zhi had him nice and round and on the bit. One other thing I found interesting was that Zhi had a bit of difficulty getting him to trot. I was a bit concerned that he may be off or something, so I hopped up on him real quick and asked for trot. Sure enough, I got it, and Zigs wasn't off at all, so I let Zhi back on, and she tried again. It took a bit for them to calibrate, but Zhi eventually got him to trot off. Zhi seemed to enjoy her ride, Zigs carted her around like a champ, and I enjoyed watching my horse go. In short, everybody wins!

Pferd und Reiter

I had quite the busy weekend, and rather than blogging the day's events that night, I very heroically fell asleep on the Soporific Couch™. I of course also rode yesterday. Since there are events aplenty to cover, I'll get right down to it.

Saturday, Zhi's trainer invited us to a clinic at her ranch. I can't for the life of me remember the clinician's name, but he was a Bereiter(Germany's equivalent of a BHS Certified Dressage instructor. Read: Awesome) from Germany(of course.). Unfortunately, I had stayed up until 0300 Friday, and as a result, I didn't get nearly as early a start Saturday as I would have liked. But, undeterred, after feeding Zigs, I headed out to Cadence Ranch to find the clinic already in progress. When I got there, Christine was riding a very nice Hanoverian mare, and since she was the only person there that I knew, I sat by my car and watched. I must say that I was very impressed with the clinician. He had the best explanation of "forward" that I've ever heard. He said, "Forward does not mean rushing. Forward means hind legs are active, and rhythmic." I really liked the way he worked with the horses, and hopefully, I'll be able to ride with him the next time he's in town. I must admit that I really can't remember much more about the clinic than that, as it was pretty hard to hear the clinician from where I was sitting, and I spent most of the time looking at all the fancy Warmbloods that kept getting loaded and unloaded from trailers. Maybe one day I'll be able to have a horse like that when I grow up. Of course, I want to event, so more likely there are more Thoroughbreds in my future. Which I suppose is just as well, as I've become rather a fan of the breed. Anyway, I stayed for lunch with the clinician, and met several people named Linda (seriously), one of whom told me that the local Pony Club was connected with one of the local Fox hunts. In yet another demonstration why I need to WRITE MY BLOG IMMEDIATELY AFTER I LEARN INFORMATION LIKE THIS, Linda told me the name of the hunt. I guess I'll have to ask Google to find them. Surely, they have a website. Armed with that piece of useless information, I ran home to get ready for the next horsy activity of the day: trying out a prospect for Zhi.

The horse's name was Sirus, and he was a 16hh Appaloosa. As we drove down to the facility he was boarded at, Zhi filled me in on the details. As the story goes, he was sired by a fairly impressive Stallion up in Washington, but for some reason, his breeder was unsatisfied with him and was going to euth him. His current owner convinced them to instead hand the horse over to her, and she then spent the next few years breaking him to ride with the help of her trainer. As the years went on, though, she found herself less and less interested in horse stuff, and deceided to put him on the market up in Washington. As the story goes, her mom convinced her not to do that, that instead when she moved down to Texas, her mom would start working with him. Long story short, she brought the horse down here and he's pretty much been a pasture ornament.

When I hopped up on him to ride him, I found him to be still very Green. he didn't really respond well to my outside leg, and was difficult to steer. He seemed to have a good brain in there, but he was a little too lazy for my tastes. We thanked the seller for her time, and went on our way, which brings us to Sunday.

I woke up early on Sunday to go and take pictures for my Trainer, Fuzzy Pony and Saga's Mom at anotherclinic. This one was with my trainer's trainer, Bobbie Paulk. You can see my video handiwork over at Saga's blog, and you can see my still photo work here. I was so busy taking pictures and video and trying to figure out the best place to stand so that I got decent shots of everybody that I really didn't get to absorb much of what I heard. I did learn what a volte is, as well as a technique for asking your horse to come round. The "push the saddle forward" visual was an interesting visual, and I'll be experimenting with it on subsequent rides. Shortly after Fuzzy Pony and Saga's mom's rides, I dashed off to meet a friend who came in from out of town, during which absolutely nothing of horsy consequence occurred.

The same can be said for the hours of Monday, until about 1930, at which point I went and saddled up Zigs for a ride around the neighborhood. Since I had a lot going on in my mind, I really wasn't working on anything, I just walked him around the neighborhood. Apparently, our clearance from the neighborhood dogs had lapsed, as we were once again the scourge of subdivision. To his credit, Zigs was a very good boy about it all. He did spook once, though, when a huge Pit Bull came charging the fence out of nowhere at us. I sat it, and got him calmed down while the dog's owner called off Cujo and apologized profusely. Other than that, it was a nice, relaxing ride around the neighborhood, and when we got back into the pasture, I did a little bit of two-point work. I can definitely tell that my balace at two-point is improving, because I don't have to brace my hands on Zigs' neck nearly as much anymore. I'm still not convinced I'm in 100% the correct position, but there's a chance Saga's mom will be able to come over this weekend, I'm sure she'd be willing to tell me.

So what's on tap for tonight? Well, Zhi is getting changed now to ride Zigs. I'll definitely let y'all know how that one goes!

So That's Where the Eggs Have Been

I have been lax in my blogging duties of late. I rode yesterday, and didn't blog about it. Without further ado, I shall make amends for this transgression. After a very good phone interview(I have another one with the same company tomorrow), I ran outside and tacked Ziggy up. Since I was in such a good mood, I decided that I'd do some jumping. Like I usually do, I set up one jump on a flat approach and another one on an uphill approach.

For a warmup, I took Zigs for a quick walk around the neighborhood. I guess our clearances came through when I wasn't paying attention, because the dogs in the neighborhood were nice enough to allow us to pass by without challenge. The only thing I had trouble with while we were out in the neighborhood is that Zigs always wants to counter-flex, and keep an eye on what's going on on the other side of us. Fortunately, that was pretty easily solved with some half-halts. I'm getting really good at those at the walk. He still blows them off at the trot and canter. I'm not sure how much of that is him, and how much is me. At the canter, I'm almost positive it's my fault. At the trot, I think it's probably a bit 50/50. Once I can afford to take lessons again, that's one of the first things on my list to work on/figure out.

At any rate, after warming up around the neighborhood, I went back into my pasture to start jumping. Before I actually started going over jumps, I trotted around the pasture in two-point, so that Zigs could get a look at everything. Not that I thought he was going to spook or refuse or anything like that, I just always like to give him an idea of what we're about to go do. Of course, I'm not completely sure of the wisdom on that, as some day, when I start doing Horse Trials, he's going to have to jump courses cold. But for now, I'll keep doing it my way. I mis-judged my positioning of the first jump, which made the approach a bit difficult, since it was at a weird angle. It took a lot of doing to come at it straight from one direction. While I was riding, I was cursing my self for that one, but after talking to Saga's mom about it, she informed me that I had inadvertently created a unique training opportunity for improving my approach to jumps! It was very nice of her to salvage my feelings like that. ;) Outside of a tricky approach on one of the jumps, the rest of it actually went pretty well, although Ziggy likes to try to jump fences right of center. Either that or I set him up right of center. I think I had him going in straight. The next time Saga's mom comes over, I'll try to remember to have her look for that. I also don't feel like I was closing my angles enough over the jumps, which I'm pretty sure is due to the fact that I'm not relaxing my hips enough.

That being said, Ziggy was very happy to be jumping, and took to it with great gusto. I am also glad to report that I didn't catch him in the mouth, which is my #1 no no when I'm jumping. I can be out of balance, and look like crap over the fence, but I'd better not catch my horse in the mouth. Anyway, after several good jumps, it was getting pretty hot, so I called it a day and un-tacked. All in all, it was a good ride, and capped the day nicely.

Today was Dressage, and on the docket was canter, and some more work in two-point. I began my warmup by walking on a long rein, getting Zigs to really stretch out and step under himself. After doing that on both reins, I picked him up and started doing an exercise that Duchess' mom taught me. I think I've mentioned it before, but in case I haven't, this is how it works. you walk 10' diagonally, stop, turn on the forehand, and walk the opposite diagonal for 10', and lather, rinse, repeat. Ziggy keeps trying to go behind the bit on my turns on the forehand, and I haven't really been able to figure out why. He does it on both reins, so I'm not sure what's going on. In the meantime, I'll keep working on it, but the next time the Oracle is here, I'll ask her to work with me on it. After walking, I moved to trot in two-point, and did my penance to Epona. I still feel like I'm staying way too upright in two point, but my legs were absorbing the shock like they were supposed to, and I felt pretty in balance, so I guess I was doing it right. After I finished the Dressage test in two-point, I did some cantering in two-point. It went pretty well, at the very least Zigs seemed to rather enjoy himself.

I took a walk break and then proceeded to canter, which still needs a lot of work. I still need to fix my transition, I have a habit of trying to lean back like I'm in a recliner. I did manage to get one up transition without doing canter by Laz-E-Boy, so that's progress, I guess. The other big problem I keep having with canter is that I lose my stirrups. Fortunately, I spend a lot of time riding without stirrups, so when I lose them, it's not a total disaster. Although, I suppose that sort of also works to my detriment, since because I can keep my balance at the canter without stirrups, I'm not terribly worried about keeping them when I go in to canter. This is probably also something I should fix before I show. The only problem is, I can't really figure out why I lose my stirrups. Maybe I'm not keeping my heels down? The next time I ride, I might have Zhi watch me and see if she can see something that I'm missing. After cantering on both reins, I decided to call it a night.

I have another interview tomorrow, and I'll probably go ride after that. Although, it'll be 15:00 by the time I'm done with it, so that might be a little hot. I probably won't ride very long. I might wake up early enough to ride in the morning, but let's be realistic. I'm on vacation. Riding tomorrow night won't work, as Zhi and I are headed over to her trainer's place for a lesson for Zhi. More about that, later!

I Hope You Like Rhymed Couplets

Tonight I embarked on a ride of relaxation,
In an attempt to forget yesterdays vexation.

To work on Two Point and transitions was my objective,
In hopes it would not involve use of invective.

So off to the pasture I went with excitement,
With carrot in hand as enticement.

It was merrily accepted, and grooming proceeded,
Although continued pleas for a second went unheeded.

Grooming finished, and saddle installed,
I mounted and cued "Forward!", leaving Ziggy quite appalled.

"Jog on, you nonce! I'm on vacation!", he objected,
a grievous assumption, which was quickly corrected.

Today would be forward, I would not accept no,
for he is a Thoroughbred, and bred to go.

Our tempo agreed, and walking quite quite sorted,
Up in Two-Point I went, and with trot I courted.

Happy to oblige, my Thoroughbred complied,
Lightly and roundly, in the rhythm I implied.

Onward we trotted, left rein and right,
quite happy he'd of been trot into the night.

But enough was enough, back to walk we must go,
For there's much more than trotting if we are to show.

A walk on a loose rein is what was required,
So that both horse and rider were not over tired.

For the next task was much more demanding,
To canter, in balance would be quite outstanding.

As twilight approached, and light grew dim,
I asked Zigs to canter and left the speed up to him.

Perhaps not the wisest, it must be confess't
As when I asked for a walk, there was protest.

Thoroughbreds have run, since time immemorial,
to have to slow down, Ziggy thought, "Dictatorial!"

His objection was noted, though I made it quite clear,
Exactly who the master was here.

A walk break followed and a rein change ensued,
and what could be on my horse's mind, but food?

By his stall he took me, and it was quite clever,
he stuck his nose in his bucket to make his point for good measure.

A cooling out, and a bath soon transpired,
and I admit now that it was truly inspired.

He got both his run and nightly grain,
Knowing tomorrow he would get both again.

Sleep tight buddy, and think you most kindly,
For a ride so good, and in harmony so slightly.

Problem Exists Between Saddle and Reins

Yesterday, for the first time in a week, I was able to ride. My intention was to work on sitting trot without stirrups, however, Ziggy seemed to have other plans. First, I couldn't get him to walk out at above a meander, and then, I couldn't get him to listen to my half halts. So, I gave up on my original plan, and just rode him around, not really working on anything outside of trying to get him to put his head down at the trot, and just sort of getting the wiggles out. To be fair to Zigs, he's essentially been on vacation for two weeks, and I was probably expecting a little much from him. I'll be riding him again tonight, and this time, I'm going to just work on getting transitions precisely when I want them. I realize this is a pretty short entry, but I really don't have too much to say about yesterday's ride. Hopefully tonight's will find me more chatty.

Fatigue

Sadly, I have not yet managed to ride this week, yet. I've been heads down in release hell for a Big Giant Project™ that mercifully was released today. What follows is an accounting of my ride on Sunday. I had to work Sunday morning, and I finally left the office around 1700 or so. I almost didn't ride, because I was thoroughly spent, but I looked out in the pasture, and Zigs popped his head up over the round bale and pricked his ears. I rolled my save versus cute, failed, changed and went to tack him up.

For the past couple of Sundays, I've been working on jumping. I rather like this arrangement, and plan to continue it, however this past Sunday, I didn't feel up to jumping so I decided that I'd work on Two-Point instead. after warming up, I got up in two-point, and rode the entire Intro A dressage test. Yes, that includes transitions. As an entirely random side note, I have decided to call the preceding exercise "Penance to Epona". Anyway, it felt like I did a pretty good job of keeping my heels down and my shoulders back, but I think I wasn't relaxing my hip enough, because I didn't really feel my hip angle closing. My knees were definitely working properly though. Transition-wise, I actually had more trouble with trot/Canter than I did Canter/Trot. I'm guessing that's probably because Zigs is used to having my seat bones as a cue. He doesn't really know the word, which is something that I should work on. Or, at least, I'm pretty sure he doesn't know "Canter". The handful of times I've tried longing him, whenever I've told him to canter, that apparently meant, "stop what you're doing and turn around to look at me". Silly Thoroughbred.

After Penance to Epona, I cantered around in two-point, which Ziggy thought was fantastic fun. I must say, for this segment, I really wasn't paying attention to my form. After the week I'd had, I just wanted to feel the wind in my hair, and not think about anything. I am happy to report that the desired effect was achieved. I only wish that my pasture was slightly bigger so that I had more room to run Zigs before having to turn him. But, it's more room than I had at the place I boarded him. I finished up the ride by doing an exercise that Duchess' mom taught me. you start out pointed at an angle, walk 10 meters, turn on the forehand, walk the opposite 10 meters, and repeat until you reach the opposite end of the arena.

It went pretty well for the first few turns on the forehand, but as time went on, Zigs started going way behind the bit, and nothing I did seemed to put him back on it. I thought at first I may have been using too much rein, so I let it out until I had loops, and he was still going behind the bit, so I tried pushing him more forward, which didn't help either. The only way I could get him to take his chin out of his chest was to put him on the buckle. I'm guessing it was because his lesson timer went off, but I'll try it again on my next ride when he's fresh and see if I get the same results.

My plan is to ride tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty puny, so it will probably be a more relaxed ride. The weeks of stress have caught up with me, and I think I might be fighting off a little bug. I suppose it would also help if I stopped writing this, and went to bed, so I think that's what I'll do.

Zebra Oscar Golf Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Bravo Bravo Quebec

So, shortly after I wrote the last entry, I took a quick nap and went out to tack up Zigs for a hack around the neighborhood. My intention was to have a nice relaxing ride, but apparently, the dogs in the neighborhood didn't get the memo. Ordinarily, one or two of them will look up from their bone, and toss a few lazy barks our direction. Today, we were apparently storming the gates of their respective strongholds, and were to be told, in no uncertain terms, to back. the. fuck. off. To his credit, Zigs was a very good boy about it. But I wouldn't exactly call the hack relaxing. I spent most of my time half halting, and reminding him that he needed to listen to me, and not the canine aggressors.

After walking around the neighborhood for a while, I came back to the pasture to do some canter work, and by canter work, I mean bucking and full gallop. In Zigs' defense, he hasn't been ridden in over a week, and he is a Thoroughbred. He wasn't trying to get me to come off, he was just excited to be ridden again. I have to work tomorrow (Yay!), but I'm planning on doing some trot pole and two-point work before I go in, or after I get home. I still owe Epona her penance. All in all, I call it a good ride. I felt a lot better when I dismounted, at any rate. Tomorrow, I plan on doing some trot pole and two point work., before I have to go into the office.

Yes, I'm working on a Sunday. I am not happy about this, but it was either that, or start strangling my co-workers on a Friday night. I figured working on a Sunday was a better alternative to homicide. ;) (Note to self: Blogging after several shots of rum: probably not a good idea.) I will definitely let you know how tomorrow's ride goes.

The Best Laid Plans

First of all, I'd like to make a request.  Can 2009 be over? Like right now? I'm just throwing that out there. Not that I think a new year would necessarily make anything better, but it would at least be a new year. And that counts for something, I guess. Anyway, as you have likely surmised, it's been a rough couple of weeks. The long story short is that events have occurred (as I suppose events are wont to do), and these events have simultaneously brought to my attention several personal shortcomings, as well as precluding my participation at the October Horse Trial. On top of that, work has been a particularly tasty pile of suck for the past few weeks.

Fortunately, things are on the horizon that can improve the situation, if they come to fruition. Cross your fingers for me, would you?

Now that that personal stuff is out of the way, let's get to horses, shall we? There's not really much to report on the horse front, as I really haven't been able to ride all week. I will be fixing that this evening once it cools down. I think tonight, we'll go for a hack around the neighborhood, and I might do some cantering around the yard. I'm not going to work on anything in particular, I just need some relaxing time with my horse... More later.

Texas Warmbloods and Korean Overlords

If I'm honest, things did not go quite the way I planned. My plan was to wake up around 07:00, ride Ziggy for the first time this week, run out to the barn, ride Saga, and then drive down to Houston and check out a horse for Zhizhu. Well, I made it home at 0200 from work Friday, and more or less just collapsed into bed. I regained consciousness at 10:00, at which point Zigs was going, "DUDE. W.T.F. WHERE IS MY BREAKFAST!" I shambled outside and fed him, came in and changed clothes to go ride Saga, deciding to ride Ziggy this evening.

That was the plan anyway. I made it to the barn and pulled Saga out of his stall and he was like, "Who are you?", until he realized that I bore carrots, then he wouldn't leave me alone, which reminds me a lot of Zigs. I had to remind him that was stay still when we are groomed once or twice, but other than that I groomed him without incident. Putting the saddle on took a bit, however. His saddle has these little panels the come forward of the pommel, which made it a bit difficult for me to tell when I had the saddle in the right position. I wound up taking it off and putting it back on several times before I was satisfied that it was in the right place. To his credit, Saga was very patient with me, although I could tell he was thinking, "Are you sure you know how to ride horses? Because you certainly can't put on a saddle!". That sounded like a challenge, so I got his bridle on him, and off we went into the arena.

When JJ asked me if I could ride him this weekend, she recommended that I just do walk/trot, and work on forward. I started out walking him around to get a feel for him, and two things were readily apparent: 1) He is a big boy. 2) He has a lot of action in his walk. A lot more than Zigs does. Once I'd walked him around the arena for a bit, I decided to ride around the property at the barn. As I expected, he was very well behaved. After walking him for a while, I was satisfied that I was well in control of him, and started trotting. Now, when JJ asked me to ride him while she was out of town this weekend, she told me two things:

• His canter is sub-optimal, don't bother.


• Work on forward.

Now, allow me to preface the following by saying, any time I ride a horse that I'm unfamiliar with, I take really light rein contact, and I give cues like I'm riding a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse. That said, when I asked for trot, forward wasn't an issue. I immediately got a very forward, rhythmic trot when I asked. He was a bit hollow, but he's still getting used to this whole Dressage thing, so I didn't worry too much about it. I did ask him to come round, and much to my surprise, I actually got it for a few strides. To be clear, I was surprised I was able to give him the right cues to get the desired result. Not that he was capable of going round. As I told him, "You're JJ's horse. I know that you can come round."

After doing a few trot/walk transitions and taking a walk break, I decided to see if I could sit his trot. I started off by posting to make sure I got a good rhythm, and once I liked what I had, I sat down. Remember when I said that JJ told me not to bother with the canter? I don't think Saga got that particular memo. pretty much as soon as I sat down, he cantered. From where I was sitting, it actually felt like a pretty nice canter, but since JJ told me to stick to walk/trot, I put him back down into trot. Ever since JJ came over that one weekend to help me with my brakes, I feel like my down transitions have improved leaps and bounds, and all it took was to just keep my shoulders back. I tried sitting trot again, and this time, we stayed at trot, and I was actually able to sit it pretty well. There's really not too much more to report about the rest of the ride outside of that it was a lot of fun, and very relaxing. I'll be riding my horse tomorrow, and I think I'll do a trail ride, and maybe a tiny bit of two-point work and jumping. More tomorrow!

In Which it is Discovered that Horses Have Fashion Sense

At long last, I will now relay the events of Monday's lesson, as best I can remember them. Which is to say: not very well. I suppose that is to be expected when one comes into work on a Tuesday morning and learns that the deadline on the Big Giant Project™ they are working on has been pulled in by a week, and proceeds to stay at the office until 0100 crunching trying to finish the work that he thought he had an entire week and a half to complete. Not that I'm upset about this, of course.

No, actually, that's a lie.

At any rate, before I begin, there is an anecdote that must be shared. This morning, I was running late to work due to having overslept. I fed Ziggy, and went in to take a shower and get ready. Once I'd dressed for work, I went to let Zigs out of his stall, just like I usually do. Most days, I'll open the gate and he'll mosey on out, sniff noses with the donkeys, take a drink of water and park in front of the round bale. Today, I opened up the gate, he surveyed his domain and decided, "Ooh, look! I have alfalfa molecules in here!" and then proceeded to clean the alfalfa molecules up. I really didn't want to go to work today, but my over-developed sense of duty kicked in, so I walked into the stall and said, "Come on Ziggy, I'm running late for work." He picked his head up, thought about it for a moment, turned towards me and sneezed on me, getting horse snot all over the shirt I was wearing. The really funny part? I was wearing a Samsung T-Shirt. Efficient, and insightful. I knew my horse was German. The Thoroughbred has spoken, it is time for a new job.

So, here's what I can remember of the lesson: I got the canter pretty much immediately when I asked for it, and I'm beginning to not have to lean back like I'm sitting in a recliner to get it. After cantering, we did shoulder-fore. Although, if I'm being honest, the other riders in the lesson did shoulder in and Sonata and I did, "Shoulder-fore is hard, I'm gonna pop my shoulder and just walk out of it. K?" I know Sonata knows how to do it, and will do it if asked properly, but at that point, my legs were totally shot, so I really couldn't say, "No, mare, I said, lateral. Oh! And, I didn't wind up owing Duchess' mom another breakaway halter. ;)

Tonight, I went out to Zhizhu's lesson and took pictures. It looked to me like she had a great lesson, but I'm sure you can read more about it over on her blog

Horse Math is Hard. Let's Go To the Feed Store!

Yes, I am aware that I'm running behind on this.  I will detail the events of Monday's lesson later today.  That is, of course assuming I don't come home from work and immediately collapse.  Long story short, they yanked the rug out from under me on a deadline, and I'll be doing good to get out of here before 20:00 tonight.  At any rate, something amusing happened last night that I have to share.  As is usual for Tuesday evenings, I went to the gym to work out with my friend Edolnx (which is pronounced "eedolinx", in case you were wondering), and during a break between sets, he asked me what I'm up to, outside of slaving under the watchful eyes of my diabolical overlords.  I suppose it should come to no surprise that my answer was quite simple:

 

Preparing for the Horse Trial.

 

I told him that I'd completely cleared my calendar for October to make sure I'd be ready for this.  For those who may not know me very well, this is a big deal for me.  For the past 15 years, I've been heavily involved in several different Halloween shows, and until I set my mind to Pine Hill, my involvement in them was sacrosanct.  To say Halloween is my favorite holiday would convey a vague approximation of how much I enjoy it.  But, I digress.  Edolnx asked me what all was involved in a Horse Trial, and listened very politely while I tried for 15 minutes to explain Dressage, followed by 10 more minutes of me explaining the XC and Show Jumping tests, and how the penalty point system worked.  After he'd digested that, he asked what kind of horse you needed for that.  I told him that just about any horse was capable of the level I'll be competing at, but before the recent trend towards Warmbloods, Thoroughbreds were the breed of choice.  To which he queried, "Those are ex-racehorses, right?  Aren't those expensive??".   I told him that in general, a TB will sell for a ridiculous amount of money when it's a yearling, but 3 or 4 years later, you can get the horse for like $200 - $300.  Even horses that won a decent amount of money.  This apparently completely blew his mind, and the only thing he could manage was, "Horse math is hard.  Let's go shopping!  Or, should that be: Horse math is hard, let's go to the feed store!".  I nodded knowingly, and told him that the latter statement is correct.

Ja! Mein leapen!

No, that's not actually real German. I chose that title because it is silly. I will pause for a moment to allow the shock to wear off.

Are we good?

Groovy. As alluded to on Saga's mom's blog, Saga's mom came over Sunday afternoon to help me with jumping. It was pretty hot, so we didn't work for a terribly long time. We started with trot poles up to a small X as a warmup. I need to work on closing my hip angles more, but I was doing a much better job of keeping my shoulders back and my legs where they need to be. Matter of fact, Saga's mom commented to me that my leg position looked really good, and that whatever I did to fix it, I should continue doing. I think the big thing that fixed everything was keeping my shoulders back. Anyhow, after a while going over the X, Saga's mom set up another fence on the edge of what would be a tank, but due to the fact that it won't hold water to save its life, it is merely a dip in the ground with delusions.

At any rate, I now had a bank up. and a bank down. with a hill coming into it. The fence wasn't big at all, but it was very challenging, because I had to balance Ziggy back, and make sure that he came into the fence properly. I can't say that every fence was roses, I had several bad ones, but when they happened, I was pretty good about riding what I had over the fence.

All in all, it was a wonderful day jumping, even if it was scorching out. I'm starting to feel more and more confident about Pine Hill! More to come tomorrow, when I can write a better post, because this one is not up to my standards.

On the Road Again

It's been quite the horsy weekend so far!  I had a Friday off of work, so I went with my Sweetie to check out several prospects down in the Houston area.  First up was a cute little Strawberry Roan Mare down in Sugarland.   Zhizhu and I were a bit uncertain about this mare going in, because a day before, we received a call from one of the other trainers whose horses we were due to look at that day saying that the mare in Sugarland's owner had called her asking her if she could come and fix some of the mare's problems.  

..Problems!?

According to the trainer who called us, the mare had reared when the girl first got her, and at the right lead canter would turn and go to the center of the arena, completely blowing off her rider.  After hearing this, Zhizhu and I almost called and canceled our appointment to see the mare, but after talking to Zhizhu's trainer and Saga's mom, we decided to go ahead and keep the appointment. The ad had her as 15.2hh, but she was maybe 14.2. That was a bit shorter than Zhizhu would have preferred, but not necessarily a deal breaker. I was going to look pretty silly on her, but she'd suit Zhizhu's height ok. After grooming her, and picking out her feet, Zhizhu and the seller went and took her into the round pen to see her move, since the seller had apparently rolled her ankle and wasn't in condition to ride. I never like it when I go to look at a horse and there's no one there to ride it before I hop on, so I usually ask if I can watch the horse move in the round pen. It won't necessarily let me know if the horse is going to be a complete lunatic under saddle, but it will tell me if they're a complete lunatic. At least, that's the theory. At any rate, while Zhizhu watched the mare in the round pen, I switched out my saddle's gullet to fit the mare. Almost on cue, as soon as I was done with the gullet Zhi was walking back to me. Reading her body language, I determined that nothing crazy had happened in the round pen, so we saddled the mare up.

Out of force of habit, we asked if there was a mounting block we could use, before I realized that I could quite easily mount from the ground. I hopped up in the saddle and off we went. Since she was so short, her movement was drastically different than what I was used to. I really don't know how to qualify it other than that she just felt weird. She really didn't listen to seat commands and tried to rush at the trot. She also didn't understand how to round, which I found kind of strange, considering she came from a Hunter background. Of course, it's possible the hunters use different cues than I'm used to. Sort of as a last ditch effort, I shortened my stirrups to jumping length, and trotted and cantered her in two-point. Once I went up into two point, she seemed to go, "Oh! I know what we're doing now!", and listened a bit better. I didn't have any of the problems with her that the seller had mentioned to the trainer, and decided that she was just fine for Zhi to try out.

As I'd sort of expected Zhi didn't like her much. She wasn't really a bad mare but, neither Zhi nor I clicked with her. So, it was onto the next batch. The next batch was a pair of ex-racehorses. One of which was grey, the other was a bay. In the videos we saw, the grey looked nice and quiet, and the bay looked a little hot. As it turns out, the truth was the complete opposite. Not that I'd necessarily call the bay quiet per se... I'd consider him to be more responsive. He took really really light cues and he stumbled and bucked with me. The buck wasn't a "get off me.", it was him spooking from me coming unbalanced. Zhi really liked the bay, and if I'm honest, I did rather like him to, but I'm seriously concerned about my wife having a horse that sensitive. Let me be clear though, it's not that I doubt Zhi's capabilities, its just that although the horse is 9, he really doesn't have much life experiences. I let Zhi up on the bay, and I'll admit that he took good care of her. He acted like a totally different horse while she was riding him. Which is certainly very positive, and indicative of a good mind, but I think at this point, before making the decision to buy this horse, I want to take along somebody with more experience to ride him and tell us what they think, because I feel like this horse falls into a gray area that at my current level of experience, it would be unwise of me to make a decision.

Last up was yet another ex-racehorse that Zhi's trainer passed on. To cut a long story short, this guy was what most people think when they hear "ex racehorse". He was hotter than the sun, and spooky as all get out. I rode him all of 5 minutes before deciding there was no way in hell I was letting Zhi up on him. Hell, Zhi didn't even want me to get up on him. In the future, I'll listen when she says that. Now, before y'all get up in arm's, Zhi's trainer hadn't gone out to see the horse yet, she had simply seen the ad and talked to the seller over the phone, and the horse sounded good on the phone. I can't really fault her for that, I lost count of all the horses I went to look at that sounded great on the phone, but were a totally different story in person. Tune in next week, where the search will continue! :)

Tempis Fugit

So, exactly one year ago yesterday, I bought Ziggy for $20.  After all we've been through, it's hard to believe that it's only been a year!  Over the time I've had him, Ziggy has turned into a completely different horse (For the better!), and I'm a completely different rider, and horseman.  Here's what Ziggy looked like when I first unloaded him from the trailer July 4, 2008:







And this is him one year later:





Here's to one year of owning Ziggy, and hopefully there are many more to come!

Are You There Epona? It's me, Foxfire

Bless me Epona, for I have sinned. It has been 7 Months, 11 days, 5 hours, 17 minutes, 31 seconds and 1259 nanoseconds since my last confession. I have coveted horses out of my price range, I have eaten before feeding my horse and I have neglected to give my horse treats when he commands. All of these are grievous sins to be sure, but I fear today, I must confess to a far greater transgression. I hate to mention it, but I must.

I have attempted to hose off a horse's head while it was tied.

A most serious transgression indeed. And what possessed you to commit such an act?

Well... I did it to Zigs while he was--

Stop right there.

But, I didn't think th--

Exactly.

But...

SILENCE MORTAL! Lest I smite your ruin upon the GAG course!

Please don't.

That depends. Will you do it again?

Hell no.

Alright, no smiting for you. This time.

Thank you Epona.

Do not thank me yet, mortal. You have yet to hear your penance.

*gulp*

I demand the following: 10 minutes of sitting trot without stirrups every ride for a week. The training level A and B Dressage tests ridden entirely in Two-Point once per week. And there is one final thing.

Name it, your ladyship.

Clean your horse's sheath. I swear, you men ar--

Not a problem,

..What? No squirming? Not even a flinch??

Already have the Excalibur.

I see.

Um... can I go now? I need to turn Ziggy out for the night.

Run along.

In seriousness, Sonata was wearing a breakaway halter, and neither she nor I were hurt. I feel really stupid for doing that, and I know how lucky I am that was the case. You can rest assured I won't be doing that again.

Now that that's taken care of, I can actually discuss my lesson this evening. It started out a little rough, and I was really having to push her forward off my leg. but that's sort of par for the course. At the walk, we practiced getting our horses to stretch down. Due to the way Sonata was trained, there was only so much I was going to get, and she made me work for every inch I got. ;) The trotting went pretty well, and I think I'm getting a lot better at my half halts and keeping my heel down when I have to give strong leg cues. Canter was also quite good, I got it every time I asked, and I did a much better job at immediately fixing the trot and getting her balanced, rather than what I usually do, which is trot around in a hot mess and try to get a walk.;)

For the last part of the lesson, we did leg yields. I think they went OK, but I think that I was letting Sonata pop her shoulder and just walk to the rail rather than cross over. I do, however, have an epiphany to report. One of the things my trainer is constantly saying to me when I'm doing laterals is to "half halt with the outside rein to fix her outside shoulder". It finally made sense today. I don't quite know how to explain what I did, but I sort of thought of building a wall with my outside leg and rein, and using my inside leg to move her hindquarters over to catch up. Tomorrow, I'm headed down to the Houston area to look at a few horses for Zhizhu... It should be interesting. Of course I will make a full report tomorrow.

Guns & Horse Tack

I needed a diversion at lunch today, so I decided to go to The Leading Rein and find out what sizes I need for my eventing vest and tall boots.  I suppose I could have gone to the Tack Shop of Austin, but I'd never been to the Leading Rein before, and it it's closer to my office.  It's kind of tucked away on a country road, and I was thinking I missed it until I saw two big signs, one of which said, "Guns", the other of which said "Horse Tack".  

 

I love Texas.  

 

Anyway, I turned in and as it turns out the Gun shop opens into the tack store.  Come for the Bates Isabelle, stay for the .45 Desert Eagle.  The Leading Rein is a bit smaller than Austin Tack Shop, but they've got quite a good selection.  I told the sales clerk I was looking to get sized for an XC vest, and show boots.  She took me back to where the boots were, and there was a green Tipperary Eventer hanging up next to the shelf with the boots.  I put it on, and what do you know, it fit!!  That went considerably faster than I was expecting it to.  She had it on sale for $150 or something like that, but it was the wrong color.  My eventing colors are Purple and Black.  Saga's mom already has a lock on Green, and it'd be awfully tacky of me to go with green as well, non? ;) With the vest size settled, that left only the boots.  I told her that I wear a 10.5 in men's shoes, but my feet are pretty narrow, so I switched to women's for my paddock boots.  She nodded and handed me a pair of boots and told me to put them on.  I did, and what do you know, they were also a perfect fit!  For those of you keeping track at at home, the tally is thus:

• Tipperary Eventer: Medium Tall
• Tall Boots: 11.5 W Bucke Downs

Since she'd been so helpful and it didn't feel right to just leave without making it worth her while, I bought some new bell boots for Zigs, and a tub of Horse treats.  Now that I know my sizes, I'll be scouring every tack store, online shop, catalog and EBay for the cheapest price on the above two items that I can find, which will probably be about $200.00 each.  I'm so glad I picked an inexpensive hobby.

Ym

Just wanted to make a quick note to preserve a realization I came to while working out at the gym last night. As I mentioned previously, I have a habit of collapsing my right side when I'm going on the right rein. Last night, I think I figured out why. I was doing side planks, which for those of you unfamiliar with the exercise, look like this:

Looks pretty easy, right? Now hold that for a minute. Anyway, when I did the plank on my left side, I had no problems keeping completely still for the full minute. When I switched to my right side, however, about 30 seconds in, I was starting to get a little shaky. Clearly, my right abdominals are weaker than the left, which is probably the reason I'm so bad about collapsing to the right. I sense a lot more abdominal work in my Gym future...

Why yes, I do wear women's clothing,

But only to ride horses. Since men's breeches are almost twice the price of ladies' (Why??) and I desperately need some summer-weight breeches, my ever-resourceful wife found a pair of summer weight riding tights by Kerrits in black for a really good price. The only catch was that they were women's. Having been in theater pretty much all my life, and having had to perform in all sorts of *cough* costumes, this wasn't really all that big a deal, so I told Zhizhu to go ahead and order them.

Belatedly, a thought occurred to me. Men's hips are shaped rather differently than women's. You would think that being married, and, well, a red blooded straight male, I would have noticed this fact. My chief concern was that the tights were probably going to be tights. Well, I am proud to report that they arrived today, and they are indeed tights. Now, I'll go on stage in anything, but the idea of wearing these tights and a tucked in form fitting shirt is torquing at the scattered, misplaced ashes of the remains of my modesty. At least, it will until the first time I ride in them in the heat. Amazing how personal comfort can trump concerns about your appearance in tight clothing!

Vet Day

I took the morning off today to be on hand to wrangle Zigs and the Donkeys for Dr. Arlitt. Today's dockett included a teeth float and annual vacs for Zigs, brain surgery and a booster for Kanny, and an anti-pregnancy shot for Marie. We're pretty sure Kanny didn't manage to breed her, but the shot is all of $15.00, and I think that my peace of mind is worth that. Our pasture is a bit crowded at this point, and if we're going to add another equine to it, I want it to be Zhizhu's horse. We're also in the process of selling off more of our goat herd to free up some more room. We've already sold a couple, and we have some people interested in a few more. Anyway, Kanemura was a very good boy about his brain surgery. Of course from the looks of it, the only real tricky part about brain surgery is getting the sedation in, and making sure they go down easy, but he was a pretty good boy about that as well.

Zigs was a bit difficult about getting his teeth floated, since we did it in his stall and not at the stockade in the vet clinic, so the vet tech had to do a little more work to keep his head still. But other than that, it was a supremely uneventful vet visit. I asked Dr. Arlitt about Zig's body condition, and she said he looked pretty good now. I also told her that I'd like to put about 50 more pounds on him, and she said that he was doing ok, and that in this heat it's going to be very difficult to put more weight on him, and since he is in fairly good form, not to worry too much about it until it got a little warmer. I won't be riding him tonight, I figure between the two awesome rides we had this weekend, and the vet checkup today that he's earned a day off. He'll return to service tomorrow.

Boing!

I'm probably going to fall asleep writing this post, but we'll see how far I get. Before I go into today's horsy activities, there's two quick additions /corrections to yesterday's entry. They are enumerated below, for simplicity:

1. I tend to drop my right hand so that it is not level with my left. This must end.


2. I am not so much leaning to the inside as I am collapsing my right side. I only do this on the right rein. This must also end.

Now that that's taken care of, on to today. As promised yesterday, Saga's Mom came over to help me out with jumping. I will, of course, go into more detail, but I would like to start things off by saying it was a significant improvement over Pine Hill. Not that Pine Hill was bad, oh no, Pine Hill went quite well! Perhaps that what I should say is that today, Saga's mom was able to help me fix the problems I was having at Pine Hill. To review, they are also presented in a numbered list, for simplicity and consistency.

1. Not being able to rate Ziggy to the jump.


2. Not being able to bring him back down to a trot after the jump


3. My Two-point was weak

Defying conventional chronology, I'm going to cover the problems in reverse order. As it turns out, my two point was weak because while my back was straight, I was rolling my shoulders forward. As soon as I straightened those out, my back instantly felt better, stronger, and straighter. The next revelation was with my legs. I don't want to say I was gripping with my knees, but I was doing something with them that was causing them to become pivot points to throw me forward. Saga's Mom told me that my base of support should be my calf, and that, combined with fixing my shoulders completely changed things. I felt significantly more secure, and the next couple of fences I took him over, it was a lot easier. I wasn't having to work nearly as hard to stay with him. I'd have to check my jumping pictures to be sure, but I think I had been having a pretty bad problem about getting left behind on the jumps.

Fortunately, I never was bad about catching Zigs in the mouth, which reminds me of the of the other problem with my two-point. Because I am so concerned about catching him in the mouth, I tended to throw my upper body forward over the jump, which to a TB (well, any horse, but TBs in particular) means "Run! For the love of God, RUN!". It turns out that all I needed to do was to move my hands forward, and leave my upper body where it is.

The last problem with my two-point form is my heels. As with most new jumpers, I have a habit of letting my heels come up when I'm coming in to the jump. This largely seemed to fix itself after I fixed my knees, but I still had to think about it a little bit, since it had sort of become a habit. Once I had all these things right, going over the jumps felt so much easier. I don't quite know how explain how it felt previously other than that going over the fence was hard. I felt out of balance, and was really having to work to keep everything where I thought it should be. Once I fixed all my positional problems, going over the fences felt like I was just sort of floating. I think that's because I wasn't putting my hands down on Zig's withers to try and balance, and because since my knee was relaxed, I could let my angles close and open back up the way they're supposed to. I wish i had some pictures so that I could go back and review them, but maybe next time. Now that I have jump standards and some landscape timbers I'll be able to get a lot more jumping practice in. (Only once a week, though!)

Now that we have covered the jumps, let's move on to the exits of the jump. I didn't have any trouble whatsoever bringing him back down to the trot. I think this is due to several things:

1. I was no longer leaning forward after the jump, so I wasn't encouraging him to run.


2. My reins were an appropriate length, so when i made it over the jump, I hadn't pitched him away.


3. After fixing my position in two-point, I was in a balanced position, so I was able to give more effective cues

I'm sort of running short on time now, as the vet's due to arrive any time now for Kanemura's brain surgery and Ziggy's annuals, so I'm going to have to shorten up the rest of the post. Regarding being able to rate Zigs to the jumps, I think that I was successful at it for the same reasons above. Another thing I'm getting better at is judging when I've done all I can, and I just have to ride what I've got over the fence and fix it on the other side. The thing is, during my un-lesson, I really didn't think "Oop. This is as good as it's gonna be, just ride.". It just happened instinctually. It may be that I've just gotten better at knowing how many strides out from a jump I am. At any rate, Sunday went a long way towards convincing me that going GAG at Pine Hill is indeed possible, if I can keep riding like that.

Later in the evening, Zhizhu and I drove down to Canyon Lake to check out a horse for her. He was a really pretty, big TB, but he was hotter than the sun, and not for a beginning rider. That's really all I have time to write now, I need to go corral the critters before the vet gets here.

Head up, Shoulders back, Elbows In

I am very happy with how today went.  Saga's mom came over this morning to see if she couldn't help me get to the bottom of my little braking problem.  We started off with walk circles and spiraling in and out.  As I usually do, I had trouble estimating the distance.  So, in a fit of obvious brilliance, Saga's mom put down markers on the 4 quarters of the circle. The concept that I could actually use fixed objects to denote reference points at precise distances was rather revolutionary. I plan to adapt this radical new technology and use it as my own. In addition to exposing me to the latest advancement in spatial relations, Saga's mom also told me something that completely changed the way I thought about circles. What I've been doing pretty much my entire riding career is visualizing that I'm putting my horse on a circular railroad track. What Saga's mom told me was, "I'm not really riding a circle, I'm riding a straight line with my horse bent to the inside." That, in and of itself was a huge eye-opener, but she then continued to tell me that I spend way too much time fixating on one of the quarter points of the circle. By the time I'm 2 or 3 strides out from the quarter point, that quarter's over, and I need to focus on the next one.

As soon as I processed and applied that, my circles improved 100%.So, yay! once I got that down, we moved to trot, and my problems became apparent. They are as follows:

1. I need to keep my shoulders back. They tend to come forward.


2. I need to keep my head up.


3. I'm not keeping my elbows at my sides

I think there's a few more that I'm forgetting, but those are the the main ones that are sticking with me. With my shoulders forward and my elbows not at my sides, it's very easy for Zigs to pull against me and unseat me, essentially making my downward transition useless. When I made a concerted effort to fix all of those things before asking for my downward transition, it was like flipping a switch. As I suspected, the problem was me. Now I just need to commit those things to muscle memory.

That sorted, or at the very least, with those problems identified, we moved on to the canter, where I discovered a new problem. I have the tendency to sit way to the inside, which causes Zigs to fall on the forehand. That one's going to take a while to fix, and I might need to ask Zhizhu to put me on the end of a longe line for a while to get that sorted out. This is true for canter both directions, although I'm guilty of it a bit more on the right lead. I also figured out another one of my problems with my canter transition (outside of the shoulders forward). Yet again, the problem was with imagery. What I had been visualizing is riding the horses hindquarters flat into the canter. I realized that was flawed when I asked for a canter, and I felt Zigs' front lift up to go into the canter and Saga's mom said, "YES!". The next few canter transitions I tried, I thought of getting him to lift his forehand up, and drive from behind, and that went considerably better.

at this point, it's pretty late, and Saga's mom will be coming over early tomorrow morning to do some jumping, so I'l elaborate more on today's rides tomorrow. Till then, I will go to sleep.

Riding Exactly the Same Way the Spanish Riding School Doesn't

Yeah... I'm not sure what to say about last night. Perhaps the best description is that last night's ride was everything that Monday's ride wasn't. I got home earlier than usual from work, and as I was debating on what to do for my ride, I had sort of decided on doing another ride around the neighborhood. Things probably would have worked out better if I'd actually done that. But, after getting home and taking a short nap, I got up and decided that I should do Dressage instead.

Should have gone with the trail ride. I was a total mess, Ziggy kept hollowing and rushing, and because my position was crap, I couldn't make him round up or go on the bit. The good news is that I was able to get canter exactly when I wanted it. So, yay. That's really all the coverage I feel last night's ride needs. Over the weekend a friend is coming over to help me out, so that should help things significantly.

A Good Day in the Saddle is Better Than a Bad Day at Work

For the second time in as many weeks, my soulless Korean overlords saw fit to release me from my toils at a reasonable hour, so that I could attend yet another riding lesson. Twice in a row is nice, but it will take three to make a habit, and I have confidence that even now, my overlords conspire against such an event coming to pass. But, the diabolical machinations of a soulless corporation will not sully the triumph of today! No sir! Onward!

As with just about every lesson I take, I once again climbed aboard Sonata. In the warm up, she was taking a lot of leg, and wasn't very round. But today, I would not be deterred. Instead of continually using my legs, I went to my whip a lot quicker, and that seemed to yield significantly better results. I founder her a lot more responsive to the leg, and it was a lot easier to get her round. The primary focus of the lesson tonight was to work on trot transitions. All of us had a different goal, and mine was to keep Sonata round when we transitioned up, and when we were trotting. I had a lot of success getting her to come round once we were trotting, I did have to have some discussions with her about actually going to the corner and staying on the rail, though. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, however. I used all of the techniques that I learned last Thursday,( opening my rein far out while supporting it with my leg, posting my inside hip to her outside shoulder) AND THEY WORKED! Sonata dropped her head, went round, and moved where I wanted her to go. The one nit I can pick is that my heel kept coming up when I was having to put my leg on strongly. Once I noticed it, I started making a concerted effort to keep my leg long, even if I was having to really use it strongly.

Of course, this was about the time that my trainer started yelling at me for over posting. ;) I attempted to focus on doing both things, and I actually was able to do both at the same time a few times. I took special care to try and remember the sensation so that I'll hopefully speed its storage into my muscle memory. To cap off the trot, we did 20 meter circles on each rein, (long my achilles heel), and, while not circles per se, they were at least evocative of a circular shape. Plus, I was able to actually keep her out at 20 meters, which was a marked improvement from Thursday.

At long last, I come to the coup de grace. The Canter. I've made no secret of the fact that my canter transition is a source of continual frustration. I am happy to report that tonight was a notable exception. We started on the left lead, and when I first tried to sit for the canter, I basically forgot to ride, and got a really nasty fast trot. So, I re-balanced, and sat again. This time I actually remembered to ride and got a nice canter. I took the whole arena, and as an added bonus, when I went down to trot, Sonata didn't try to stop. I was pretty happy with that, but I had the right rein to contend with, which is typically the one that always gives me fits, even on Zigs. I switched reins across the diagonal, and in the second corner, i sat, asked, and immediately got canter. I was over the moon. I took her around the arena once, and let her quit on that.

As though it wasn't patently obvious, I am quite satisfied with both my and Sonata's performance tonight. Hopefully, my rides will continue moving in this direction. It would certainly make me more confident about doing the horse trial in October!! No riding tomorrow, sadly, as I'll be going to the Gym to start with a new personal trainer. (My Gym buddy's co-worker is actually a personal trainer and has volunteered to help us out.) Wednesday, however, will bring the Alfalfa addict back into service. More then.

Looks like it was my turn to colic.

Just a quick note about my ride yesterday on Sonata. My intention was to work on round circles and canter, but I was having pretty bad stomach pain, so I eventually decided just to walk her around. My brain really wasn't working at all, and unfortunately, I kept getting in everybody's way. Tonight, my overlords have granted me temporary reprieve from my conference call, so I will be taking a lesson tonight. Hopefully, it will go better than last Thursday did. Of course, I will report on it in full and exhaustive detail here later tonight. For now, I'm getting back to work. Here's to hoping I'm more awake/competent in my lesson tonight than I am right now.

Christmas is Saved

So, I stayed up until about 2:30 checking on Zigs periodically last night. Right after I wrote the post below, I went to check on him, and he was actually up, walking around and took a long drink from the water trough. He still looked like he was still in a bit of pain, but unfortunately, I didn't have any Banamine to give him. I called my vet this morning, and when I take him in for his annuals, she's going to teach me how to give injections, and give me a vial of Banamine to keep in case this happens again. Zhizhu was nice enough to stay awake the rest of the night and keep an eye on him. I feel kind of bad for having to ask her to do that, but I had to come in to work today.

Anyhow, when Zhizhu woke me up this morning, she told me that Ziggy continued to improve throughout the rest of the night, and he was actually grazing at the round bale, and looked like he felt right as rain. I threw on some clothes and went out to check on him, and when I did, he was standing outside his stall waiting for his breakfast. I scooped out about half his normal grain ration, put it in his bucket, and let him in the stall. He happily trotted in and started chowing down. I went back inside and called work explaining that I was going to be late, and laid back down in bed to get some more sleep. At about 08:00, I rolled out of bed and took a shower and then got dressed for work. Once I was dressed, I put on my boots and went out to turn out Zigs. Much to my delight, he had finished all his grain, and was eating his alfalfa from last night. In short, he was acting like his old self. He walked right out of his stall, took a drink, and went to hang out with the donkies. From the looks of it, it seems like it was just a case of us upping his feed too quickly, and giving him a tummy ache. He'll get tonight and tomorrow off, and I'll pick him back up one either Sunday or Monday and see how he's doing. One of the other things I'll be doing is getting him some better alfalfa. The stuff we had to buy the last time around are these little tiny compressed bales, and are very stemmy, and not very green at all. Of course, I'll be keeping a close eye on him in the coming days, (a huge benefit of having my horse at home!) and seeing how things go.

Hopefully, that will be the extent of my excitement for the summer as far as his stomach issues. What I am hoping for, however, is plenty of excitement as far as improving my riding goes! Speaking of which, I seem to remember that I owe you, dear reader, not one, but two rides to document. May it never be said that I do not honor my debts! I shall use conventional chronology, and report the events of my ride on Wednesday, proceeding on to releate the details of my lesson yesterday, finally detailing my plans for my rides this weekend and beyond. I do hope that you will find said chronology an acceptable vehicle for narrative. Is everybody with me? Splendid. Let's begin, shall we?

Wednesday, as prognosticated in Tuesday's post, I resolved to work on my two-point. Before I dove into that, however, I worked on doing round trot and canter circles. On the left rein, they went quite well, I found Ziggy relaxed, forward, and fairly nicely bent. I did notice that I have a habit of wanting to overbend my horses, so I tried to make sure that I wasn't doing that. Satisfied with my progress, I switched to the right rein, and while the circles did not go nearly as well, there was indeed progress. The main problem I had was that Zigs would try to fall to his outside shoulder and try to cut the circle off. Well, I suppose in the interest of not embellishing the truth, one should omit the word "try" from the previous sentence when reading. My other issue, which I am fairly convinced was due to my position, was that my half-halts weren't really all that effective in getting him to round up. But, as mentioned previously, I was getting a shape that was something approaching round in its concept though not necessarily so in its execution. While not precisely my stated goal, I am prepared to call it progress. Since the trot went so well, I decided to try some canter circles in as well. I am pleased to report that I not only managed to get my up transition within a stride or two of when I asked for it, but Zigs was also doing significantly rounder circles at the canter than he was at the trot. I think that as far as Zigs is concerned, it's easier for him to canter than trot. The down transitions were... rough, but for this ride, the objective was two-point, so I didn't sweat it much.

I gave Zigs a walk break so we could both re-organize and re-group, and I then gathered up my reins, and asked him to trot on, going up into two-point. In the spirit of continuing honestly, and constructive self-criticism, I must report that I do not feel like my form was correct. I am fairly sure that I should have been feeling more weight in my heels, and that I shouldn't have been resting my hands quite so heavily on his neck. I also think that I did not have my back in the correct position, as after a while, my lower back began to hurt. All was not lost, however. I did notice that I was allowing my knees an hips to flex and bend to compensate for Zig's movement, and all things considered, I did feel fairly comfortable up there. Although, if I could get someone willing to put me on the end of a longe line, and critique my form, I would certainly not turn that down. Not that I am dropping hints, or anything like that, though.;)

Feeling a little adventurous, I decided to try two-point in the canter as well. It started out well enough, but as I headed towards the gate, he cut a really sharp right turn. If I had my heels down and my weight up off of my horse, this would not have been a problem. Since none of the above was true, my right foot popped out of my stirrup and I nearly pitched myself off over his shoulder. By some miracle, I managed to regain my balance, but I was then in the realm of Cross Country Attack Pony. Eventually, he and I negotiated an armistice, and I decided to work on lengthening and shortening his stride at the walk to finish out the ride.

Those are the events of Wednesday, digitally logged for your entertainment, my entertainment, and future reminiscence. Moving forward in our chronology, we inevitably come to the day known as Thursday by the Gregorian reckoning. Taking cues from Wednesday, Thursday proved to also be an interesting ride. At long last, I was able to take a lesson on Sonata. Since it had been a month since last I had a lesson, I was sort of expecting sub-optimal performance on my part. Sonata had just recently seen the chiropractor and gotten her hips injected, and I must say, she was moving quite nicely. She had a lot more swing in her walk, bounce in her trot, and was a lot more willing to canter on both leads. That being said, I completely lacked the ability to get her to go round,or get her to circle. It was one of those rides where you're telling your training, "I can ride, really! I promise!!" In order to get her to go out to a 20 meter circle, I was having to open my outside rein to well past my knee, turn my upper body completely to the outside of the circle, put my inside leg on strong, and post my inside hip past her outside shoulder.

By the time we stopped for water, my legs had the consistency of something between Cool Whip and Jello, and I hadn't even cantered yet. Fortunately, I got to rest my legs for a bit while my trainer talked. After a drink of water, I went up to canter. First was the left lead. I got the canter pretty much immediately, which was good, but the problem was getting her to do a 20 meter circle. I kept overshooting one set of cones, and undershooting the other. Again, I was having to haul on my inside and outside reins to get her where I needed her to go. I eventually got it on the left rein, so we switched to the right rein. That went considerably less optimally. In the interest of efficiency, the right rein can be summed up in the final 2 minutes of it, during which my trainer was yelling, "I DON'T CARE IF IT'S NOT PRETTY, MAKE THAT MARE CIRCLE! COWBOY HER IF YOU HAVE TO!" It was most certainly not pretty, but I did make her do 3 20 meter circles. After the third one, my trainer told me that was good and we were done, which was good, because at that point, I didn't have any legs left, so you can imagine my shock when I dismounted, and two objects below my waist supported my weight.

I will be riding Sonata again Sunday morning, before heading out to my Dad's ranch for father's day festivities. With any luck, I will keep my legs after the ride is over.