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.

Damn. It.

I'm too tired to write a post about my lesson tonight.  When I got home tonight, Zigs was down in his stall.  He'd finished all of his grain, but he was definitely in distress.  It was pretty easy to get him up, so I got him out of the stall, and let him off the lead.  He pretty much immediately went down again.  He wasn't rolling, so I let him be, and called the Vet's answering service to leave a message for the vet to call me.  Shortly before she called, Ziggy pooped and seem to perk up a bit.  After he pooped, he went over and took a drink of water.  He had gut sounds on both sides, was hydrated, and didn't seem to have an elevated pulse.  So naturally, at this point, I started thinking, "ulcer".  Around this time, the vet called and I talked to her about the symptoms we were seeing and at the end of it, the Vet said that we should just keep an eye on him over night, and if he started to go down and thrash, to call her.

Right Round

So, let's start off with the bad news, and the I can get on to the good stuff.  Today is Monday, and normally I have a riding lesson on Monday nights. Well, as has been the case for the past several Mondays, my corporate overlords mandated that I attend a conference call with my Korean counterparts right smack in the middle of my lesson time. To say that I am furious about this, is something approaching understatement. Yes, I am looking for another job.

Anyhow, that said, after I fulfilled my grim obligation, I got home at about 19:30, and was in serious need of some Hippotherapy. So, I tacked up Zigs, and mounted up. Before I get any further, I'm going to detail the exercise program I'll be using to get Zigs in shape for the horse trial:

• Day 1: Hack around the neighborhood


• Day 2: Dressage, focus on one or two specific items


• Day 3: Trot poles and Two-point


• Day 4: Interval training


• Day 5 Dressage, focus on different item from Day 2

Since I hacked around the neighborhood yesterday, that means today was Dressage. I decided that today, we were going to work on trot circles, as they have always been a big challenge to me, and I've noticed that Ziggy has started majorly cheating on them, and since I would really prefer not to see, "For the love of God, the Dressage test said CIRCLE at A. Not a SQUARE!" written on my Dressage test comments, I think it would probably be a good idea to start working on those again. They went decently well, but I was having a really hard time getting Zigs to bend for the entire circle. I'd get about a quarter to a half of it, and then he'd try to totally straighten out and do this weird counter-flexing thing. I did a bit of spiraling in and out on both reins, but I will freely admit that they were not the roundest circles Dressage has ever seen. I really need to get some cones, and set them up in a 20 meter circle so that I can learn to visualize how big one actually is. Ordinarily, I'm pretty good at judging distances, but for some reason, I suck at eyeballing a 10 meter radius. Part of the problem is that right now, I don't have an arena to ride in, so I don't have the convenient sides to help me see the width. But, I need to be able to see that without an arena for when Psycho Pony shows up in the Cross Country phase, and I need to circle to defuse him.

I've put those on the shopping list, along with a wristwatch with a stopwatch. Right now, I have to take one hand off of the reins and take out my pager to get a look at the time. That works OK when I'm trotting, but once I start doing serious interval training, I really don't like the idea of taking one of my hands off of the reins to check the watch while I'm galloping. What can I say? I'm a bit of a control freak.

Speaking of galloping, once the trot circles were going reasonably well, I did a little bit of canter circles. Those went considerably better. It seems like cantering is easier for him than trotting is, because I had very little trouble getting him to bend on both reins, and my circle was a lot rounder. Of course, that could just be from the practice I did at the trot. ;) Zigs had worked pretty hard by this point, so we took a long walk break. While we were doing that, I practiced shortening and lengthening his stride. It wasn't 100%, but I could definitely feel the difference when I asked him to shorten, and when I asked him to move out. When I could, I closed my eyes as I was giving my cues to help me evaluate my position, and focus on feeling the difference in stride. It worked pretty well, but I think that's something best done on the end of a longe line, where you don't have to worry about your horse suddenly deciding that the right rein is boring, and that it really needs to go to the left. To cap things off, I worked on the cruising canter versus the collecting canter positions. It wasn't 100% successful, but there were very brief moments of brilliance as far as the collecting part goes. The cruising part, he's all about. ;) Which reminds me, a friend of mine linked me to an awesome T-Shirt that I must have.

Tomorrow is trot pole work, and it's really late, so I need to wrap this up and get to bed.

Moments of Brilliance

Today, I decided to try something different and ride in the morning, rather than the evening, and by morning, I mean around 11AM.  It wasn't oppressively hot yet, but it was getting there, so it was going to be a short ride.  I wasn't in the mood to do anything particularly "structured", so I decided to go for a ride around the neighborhood.  I did a little bit of spiraling in and out the circle, but I had some trouble getting Zigs to not fall to the outside.  I got a few good circles in, and continued to ride around the neighborhood.  This time, on the recommendation of Saga's mom, I threw in some trotting,  He seemed to like that, but I was having the damndest time keeping him from counter-flexing.  I think that was largely due to the fact that the area to our right was heavily wooded, so he was probably keeping an eye out for predators.  I spent about half the time bending him to the inside, and doing shoulder-ins to get his mind more focused on me rather than potential doom from the terrible death-woods.

He also kept randomly breaking into a trot, but I got him slowed down within 4 strides when he broke. When I did trot sets with him, he was rather forward, but when I sat down, he'd go back to walk eventually.  But, to put the title into context, I actually did have a few times where I sat down, and he immediately went back to walk.  Yay for progress!  Since it was pretty hot by this point, and I'd been in the saddle for 30 minutes, I decided it'd been enough for one day, so we went back home, un-tacked, and I hosed him down.  Of course, immediately after I turned him out into the pasture, he went down and rolled.  Nature abhors a clean horse, I guess. ;)  That's really all I have to report, tomorrow, for the first time in a while, I'll actually be riding in a lesson, so I'm sure I'll have more to talk about then.

Interview with a Psycho Pony

The full moon is over, but I don't think Zigs got the memo.  My plan for tonight was to do  some work on spiraling in and out on a circle, do some turns on the forehand and do some trot and canter to round the ride out.  It all started so well...  I had a couple of very successful spiral ins/spiral outs, and then went to turn on the forehand.  This also went well.  However, Zigs was beginning to protest about being on the bit for too long.  I informed him that that was too bad, and he had to deal.  After a few more good turns on the forehand, and no protesting about being on the bit, I let him stretch down and free walk.  

"This is awesome!"  I thought.  "I should trot!"  Well, Zigs must have read my mind because he immediately started trotting.  He got a pass on that one because I probably did think too strongly, and on a horse like Zigs, sometimes that's all it takes.  I brought him back to walk with the intention of making him wait until he stopped anticipating before I started trotting him.  It worked fantastically well in theory, but my weak link is that this was practice.  Out of nowhere, he'd start trotting on me, and sometimes I would have to resort to yanking teeth to get him back down to walk. He was also rushing like all get out.  These discussions went on for about 20 minutes or so until I finally started getting a sane, consistent trot when I asked for it, and a down transition... sort of when I wanted it, kind of, goddammithorse HO!  Just to round out the ride, I asked for the canter once I had a good trot going.  The good news is that I got canter when I asked, and that my transition was sound.  The bad news is that I asked for canter, and got hand gallop, emphasis more on the gallop.  To make things even more exciting, someone had been kind enough to go in and disengage his brakes.  I tried sitting deep and making my core solid granite.  Nothing.  I tried yanking teeth, nothing.  So, I went to the old standby the one rein stop.  

Did you know that my TB can canter a 5 meter circle?   I didn't.  He can also do a flying change across the diagonal and do a 10 meter circle.  At long last, I put psycho pony back in his box and got a walk.  By this point, I was pretty annoyed, and was thinking I had to do something to salvage this ride.  So, I decided to work on halt from the walk.  It was a little rough at first, because Zigs was really pulling against the reins, and I was having to use far to much rein for my taste to get him to stop.  As an experiment, I let my reins out, picked up a walk, and selected an arbitrary point in the pasture to stop at.  I imagined that when I wanted to slow down, I was shooting grappling hooks into the ground from my heels that Zigs had to pull out before he could move.  They got heavier and heavier until nothing Zigs could do would pull them out.  Lo and behold, IT WORKED!  I didn't even have to pick up the reins.  Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, I tried it twice more, and it worked just as well each time.  After the third successful halt, I decided that was an excellent note to end on, and pulled his tack off and hosed him down, since he'd worked up quite a sweat, and there wasn't enough light left to completely walk him out.  

As soon as I let him off the halter, he immediately kicked up his heels, bucked, and went flying around the pasture, so I guess he just wanted to run. ;)  Hopefully my ride tomorrow will go better!

Roads & Tracks

Sometimes, you get the ride you want and the ride you need.  After an abysmal day at work, and an even more awesome conference call, I got home and decided that I really, really needed a nice, quiet, relaxing ride.  So, I decided that instead of "working", Zigs and I would go for a hack around the neighborhood.  No worrying about him being on the bit, getting canter exactly when I ask, or anything like that, just me and my pony exploring the neighborhood.  I took Ziggy out of the gate from the pasture and he gave me a look as if to say, "What's going on, Dad?  There's no trailer here.  You only bring me out when we're going somewh-Oh look, grass!"  After a quick reminder that he was on the clock now, I mounted up and headed out.  Ziggy was very bouncy, and looky, which I expected.  To make sure he kept his mind on the task at had, I made him do lots of leg yields and shoulder ins.   I veered right from my house, and came to a cul de sac, which looked to be about 20m in diameter, and decided that this was the perfect place to do circles.  I started off on the left rein, and got a few good 20m circles in, so then I practiced spiraling out on the circle, which also went really well.  Why I didn't do any spiral in, I don't know.  I blame my fried brain.  I did, however, remember to change rein and do the same thing on the right.

 

Man, I need to work my horse more on the right rein.  He wasn't nearly as good on the right rein as he was the left.  He kept trying to cut off the circles, and I had to give a pretty strong leg aid to get him to spiral out on the circle.  I know that when I ride him in the pasture, I tend to spend a lot of time on the left rein, so I need to make a concerted effort in the future to fix that, because I ride Dressage, not Nascar, and I'm pretty sure that XC requires right turns as well.  Call it a hunch.  At any rate, I kept after him until he was crossing over behind to sprial out, and not just popping his shoulder and walking to the outside, and then resumed exploring the neighborhood.  We did a little bit of trotting, but it was hard ground and he doesn't have back shoes, so I didn't ask for more than 5 or 6 strides before going down to walk.  There's not too much to report about the rest of the ride other than the fact that Zigs was a very good boy, with one caveat.  He has a bad habit of jigging when he knows we're headed back home.  My strategy for dealing with it was to immediately make him circle, do a serpentine, and then point him back home.  Unfortunately, I don't feel like it was spectacularly successful.  But by this time, it was starting to get dark, and I wanted to get him back in before I lost all the light, so I didn't deal with it as thoroughly as I think I should have.  If any of y'all have suggestions on other things to do when he jigs, I'm all ears.  To compensate for that, once we arrived home and I got him back into the pasture, I made him do three trot circles on both reins, so he didn't think that just because we were home, we were done.  I checked my pager after I'd untacked him, and realized I'd ridden him for almost two hours.  He wasn't hot, or blowing, and the only sweat on him was from the saddle blanket. (I use a puffy saddle pad, and a half pad on top of it, so that gets pretty hot.  Especially in the Texas summer.)  I really enjoyed that ride, and I think it's something I'll be doing on a more regular basis.  Zigs seemed to appreciate the change in scenery, too.  I think part of my frustration with riding him right now is due to the fact that he's a very smart horse, and he gets bored just riding around the pasture.  I'm going to see about building myself some caveletti, and getting some cones so that when I do ride him in the pasture, I can give him several different activities to keep his mind engaged.  

 

I'm not sure if I'll be riding tonight, I'd like to, but I need to do some urgent work on one of the websites I maintain, so it all depends on how long that stuff takes me.  If I don't ride tonight, I'll definitely ride tomorrow, and will probably focus on sprialing in and out of circles on the right rein, and turns on the forehand to see if I can't make strides towards loosening up that right side of his.

Must Be a Full Moon

Well, last night was quite the ride. I decided that last night, I would take a break from working on brakes, and instead focus on turns on the forehand, and canter transitions. The turns on the forehand didn't go so well. I did ok on turning to the left, but when I tried to do them to the right, Zigs kept doing laterals instead of spinning. I tried in vain to figure out what exactly it was I was doing to cause it, but came up empty. Maybe I wasn't giving a strong enough rein cue? Dunno. I kept at it until I got at least a quarter turn on the right rein, and I decided that that would be good enough for now, and put him on the buckle to let him stretch down, which he did quite nicely.

After a walk break, I warmed him up a bit with some sitting trot, and worked a little bit on getting walk exactly when I wanted it. It's not 100% yet, but it's getting better. Once I was satisfied with the results I was getting, I picked up a trot, and asked for a right lead canter. What I got was a rushing trot, so back to walk we went. I've been told that when that happens, it's because I didn't give the right cue, so I decided to try it again. I put my outside leg back scooped with my inside seat bone, and boom, instant canter. I don't think that walk/canter is easier than trot canter, so assuming that's true, I'm the problem. we cantered around for a bit, and I went back to a trot on the left rein and tried the canter transition again. He rushed into it, a bit, but I still got the canter. I did some circles with him, and went back to walk, which took me far too long to do. One of the next things on the list to work on is my down transitions from canter. After I've been cantering and I transition down, I tend to let my horse trot forever before I try to go back down to walk. I don't know why I do that, I'm certainly not feeling like I'm going to fall off, and it is well within my abilities to get a walk from the trot. So, it's going on The List™ of things to work on.

The last thing I decided to work on was a little canter in two-point. So, I picked up a nice, rolling canter and then I got up into two point. From out of nowhere, Ziggy started BOOKING it across the pasture. we went from Canter to a full on Gallop. I think Ziggy was trying to tell me that we could have run the Belmont. In his defense, I think I might have gone up into the ground-covering gallop position, because I remember my stomach being really close to the horse. I have to admit, it was a lot of fun, but my pasture really isn't big enough for galloping. After reminding Ziggy that we were not in fact at the Belmont stakes, I decided I had had enough excitement for one night, and walked Zigs out. While I was walking out, I was mentally re-playing my ride, and I have to admit, I wasn't very satisfied. I know the things that I need to fix with him, and I'm working on them, but I know I'd be able to make better progress with them if I was able to ride him with a trainer on a more regular basis. When the Oracle was here last, I got a lot out of my lessons with her on him. I'd like to figure out a way to ride him more consistently with my trainer, but right now, that would mean either buying a truck, (Which is the plan, just not until later in the year), or begging the Baron to swing by on his way to lessons with Duchess and Lucky, and get Zigs. I really don't want to do the latter, as it just feels like way too much of an imposition. They're already being nice enough to bring Sonata for me, and I do get a lot out of riding her, so I think the plan is to keep riding her and just quit my whining. ;)

From Little Acorns Do Mighty Oaks Grow

Two posts for the price of one! I love that Blogger allows you to post via email. Shortly after I posted the previous post, I headed home from work, and got home a little after 18:00. Since it was still bloody hot outside, I decided I'd decompress inside for a bit before going out to put my Alfalfa addict to work. After checking email and other various and sundry things on the tubes, I changed into my breeches, and went outside at about 19:30, and the weather was perfect. Ziggy must have been ready to work, because he walked right up to the trailer and waited for me to tack him up.

I decided that tonight, I was going to focus on my transitions. Specifically, Canter and stopping, with a heavy focus on stopping. I'm serious about going to the horse trial in October, and right now the thing I view as my number 1 must fix is being able to slow down my horse. If September rolls around and I can't bring Zigs from a canter to a walk in 4 strides, I'm not going to the trial. I do not want the technical delegate walking over to my trainer and asking her, "Why can't your student stop his horse?". I might be being a little too hard on myself as far as this goes, but I have good reason. When I first started riding, I was riding a friend's horse around the arena at the barn, and was having trouble getting him to trot. As we came around the long side of the arena, he decided to teleport sideways over the railroad tie outside of the arena, almost running over one of my other friends, and a girl who was grooming her horse. That's when it really hit home that horses can be dangerous not just to me, but to other people on the ground, and that if I ever lost control, people could get seriously hurt or worse, and it would be my fault. As I'm fond of saying, every horse will teach you something, and that particular horse taught me the importance of remaining in control of your horse at all times. This would be why I'm working so hard on it now so that September comes around, my biggest worry is where I'm going to buy my tall boots, and what color eventing vest I'm going to buy. And as for the canter, there's no deeper reason behind it beyond not wanting to get eliminated in Dressage because I couldn't make my Thoroughbred canter on command. It's a point of pride, or something.

I started out with walk/halt and I'd basically just pick a point and say "hell or high water, his feet will not move past that point." That went pretty well, although I think I'm having to use too much rein for walk/halt. Be that as it may, 95% of the time, Zigs was at a standstill when I reached the point that I'd picked for the halt. The other 5% of the time, he was maybe 2 or 3 strides past it. For now, that's within acceptable tolerances, but by September, I want to have all 4 feet stopped precisely at the point I pick 99.999% of the time. The don't have to be square, just not moving. I'll get stop first, and work on square later. I spent probably 20 minutes working on just walk/halt and after I got three good ones in a row, I put Zigs on the buckle and let him stretch and move out. When I picked him back up again, I did a little bit of on turn on the forehand to give him something for him to think about. I was trying to do the exercise where you walk the short side, turn on the forehand, walk down the short side the opposite direction and turn on the forehand again to go back the way you came, but I can't walk into the turn on the forehand yet. I have to stop, then turn and walk again. If I try to walk into it, Zigs tends to pop his shoulder to the outside and start doing laterals.

Once I was reasonably satisfied with the walking work, I picked up a trot. This time the agenda was trot/walk. I started out by saying, "Ok, I'm going to trot 4 strides, and then walk.". That didn't work so well, as I spent so much time counting my trot strides, I kind of forgot to do things like ride, which made a down transition nigh impossible. So, I went back to picking an arbitrary point in the pasture, and hell or high water, walking once I reached that point. That went considerably better. After several good trot/walk transitions, I upped the ante, and used the same strategy of picking a random point in the pasture, and coming to a complete halt exactly at that point. I'm not gonna lie, the first several were kind of embarrassing. I'd get a halt.... 20' away from where I wanted it, and I had problems with him sneaking forward. Since thinking "halt here" wasn't working so well, I started visualizing imaginary grounding spikes shooting down from my stirrups at the point where I needed to stop, and slowly, things began to improve. After a while, I was trotting him at a pretty good clip the entire length of the pasture, and fairly reliably getting a halt where I wanted it, or at the very least, close. Of the times when my halt did not go as well, I wound up 4-6 strides off of where I wanted. Again, not optimal, but definitely a marked improvement. By this point, I really wanted to work on canter, but I didn't want to move on until I nailed at least one trot/ halt from all the way across the pasture, heading towards the barn. The third attempt was the charm, and I again gave Zigs his head back, and let him walk and stretch.

After a stretch break, I did a bit of shoulder in to get him back into a working frame of mind, and once I felt that he was being responsive enough to leg, I put him back on the bit, and started thinking of my plan of attack for the canter. The most important thing for me as far as today's canter went. was that I got the canter immediately. I started the way we usually do, pick up a trot, and ask for the canter on the circle. I got it, for sufficient values of "immediate". And by "sufficient values", I mean half the circle. I'd ask for canter and get a crazy fast trot. After the third attempt, I got pretty frustrated. I went back to a walk to think for a bit and figure how how to make this exercise easier for Zigs and I both to succeed at. I remembered that while the Oracle was here, she suggested that I do walk/canter transitions, as that would make it easier to make sure my body was in the right position. As I remembered, Ziggy did that transition pretty well when I rode with her, so it was well worth a shot. I'm really glad I decided to do that because on the first time I asked for a canter, I immediately felt what the problem was/is. When I shift my outside leg back for the canter transition, I try to put it way too far back, which throws me out of sync with Zigs, leaving him to say, "Ok, seriously, dude. What the hell?" I then halted for a minute, and practiced feeling the moment when my outside seat bone leaves the saddle, it turns out that it's way earlier than I was thinking. Armed with this new-found knowledge, I immediately tried a canter transition, and got it a couple of strides after I asked. Then it was back down to walk, and another few tries. When the fifth canter transition rolled around, something justt "clicked", and I got it right after I asked for it. Wanting to prove to myself this wasn't just a fluke as well, I switched rein and got the same result on the right side! Of course, tomorrow, I expect to have the same troubles at canter again, because that's just the way these things work.

I was running out of daylight, but things had been going so well as far as the downward transitions, I wanted to at least try canter to halt. This was a big challenge, as once Zigs starts cantering, he really doesn't see a reason to stop unless forced to. He also tends to have a nice rhythm for the first few strides, and then he tries to rush. I had to resort to yanking teeth amore than a few times, and I was starting to worry that I'd just ruined my ride. With daylight fading, I set a very simple goal. I was going to get a canter, canter a quarter of a circle, and halt before I made half the circle. On the second try, I got exactly that, and immediately decided to quit there. I still have quite a ways to go as far as improving my brakes, but I feel like I made several good strides in that direction, and I hope to continue my work this weekend. I probably won't ride tomorrow, but I'll definitely ride Saturday and Sunday. More then!

The Rein of Duchess

So, to continue where I left off last night: I arrived at Duchess & Lucky's house at around 19:00 last night with the intent of putting Sonata through her paces. As Duchess' mom and I were tacking up, Sonata was doing her usual "wake me when it's time to ride", but something seemed different about her. I can't quite put my finger on what it was, she didn't seem to be in any distress, she just seemed to be tired. Duchess' mom informed me that she had been to see the vet that day, and had her teeth floated, so that may have been it. At any rate, Duchess' mom suggested that we take it real easy on her and just walk her around the arena. It was funny she said that, because when she mentioned it, I was just about to suggest the same thing. I don't know why, but something in Sonata's demeanor made it clear to me that she needed to get a pass for the night, and if there's one thing I have learned about horses, it's that you should always trust your instincts. I've only ignored mine twice, and wouldn't you know it, both of those times resulted in a trip to the ER.



But anyway, back to last night. We finished tacking up, and just before we walked down into the arena, I reminded Duchess' mom that she wanted to work with me on longing. So we slipped Sonata's halter over her bridle, and tied her to a pole while I worked with Duchess. Longing went pretty well, except for some reason, I can't make my voice have a rising intonation when I give the trot command. Walk and Canter are no problem, though. The most difficult part of the whole process was managing taking in and letting out slack in the longe line in the same hand I hold the whip in. Cash, the first horse I learned how to longe, didn't need a whip to longe, so I was used to having two hands to manage the longe line. The intent behind this exercise is to get me able to longe Ziggy, but Ziggy's going to be a bit more of a challenge as he really doesn't respond to voice cues, and has a habit of walking around for half a circle, stopping and turning in, which I hate. If I'm longing a horse, the last thing I want is them in the habit of turning in to face me. I know that a lot of people see that as a sign of respect, but if the horse gets a wild hair, and decides to take off, they're pointed right at you! Duchess' mom gave me a few things to work on with Zigs at home, so I'll be trying to set aside at least one day a week to only work on Longing. The longe line I have now isn't exactly ideal, its one of the ones that has a length of chain attached to the clip. I know, I know. I bought it when I didn't know any better. I'll replace it as soon as I have moneys. I promise. I really want to be able to longe Ziggy so that on the days he's feeling fat and sassy, I can get it out of him on the longe line before I get in the saddle, which is quite appealing. It's also another method I can use to condition him on days when I don't feel up to riding, or don't have the time to ride, but still want to work him. Plus, I kind of like being able to stand on the ground and watch a horse move. All of these are wonderful goals, and I will work towards them in the ensuing days, but for now, I'd like to return to last night's narrative.



After "flying the wild mare", Duchess' mom asked me if I would like to ride Duchess, since I did the work of longing, and she'd just walk Sonata around for a while. I believe my answer was something between "Hell yes," and "I'd love to!". I hopped up on her, and immediately the first thing I noticed is that she has a lot of head action when she walks. I also found her to be a bit resistant to bending and flexing, but I largely chalk that up to the fact that I'd never ridden her before, and she was testing me out. She was very comfortable to ride at the walk, and while I was tooling around getting used to her, Duchess' mom teased me, "Isn't it your mission to ride all of our friends' horses?" I informed her that yes, yes it is. Every horse will teach you something different, and plus, I just plain like riding horses. I'll hop up on just about any mount offered me as long as I believe it's within my skill level. Up until that point, I'd ridden Cash, Lucky, Red, Taran, Sonata and Saga, so Duchess completed the set, at least until Zhizhu gets a horse, or the Baron gets a new one. ;) When I went to trot Duchess, I was reminded to give her a steady outside rein so that she wouldn't rush. I took what I thought was a steady outside rein, asked for a trot, and wouldn't you know it, she rushed. It was then that I realized she requires more contact than Zigs does. It took a couple of laps around the arena, but I eventually got a nice sane trot, which was quite good, but would have been lovely if I could have gotten her to put her head down. As a test, I sat back down and asked for a walk, and if I'm honest, it took a bit of doing. I was rather happy about that, because one of the other reasons I like riding other people's horses whenever I can is that I make sure to try out things that I have trouble with on my own horse to see if I have the same amount trouble on the new horse, and see if I can fix it. Or at the very least, get better about whatever my problem is. Obviously downward transitions are something I need a lot of work on, so I worked on those, and made some improvements. Once we sorted out walk/trot and trot/walk, I was asked if I'd like to try to canter her.



It may shock and amaze you, but again the answer was yes. I knew from watching Duchess in action that she has a really nice canter, so I was eager to try it for myself. I was also eager to see if the work I've been doing on my canter transitions has paid off, as it is another area where I am currently struggling. The first trot/canter was a bit rough, but after dropping back down to trot and trying it again a few more times, I was able to pretty much get canter on demand. By that point, the sun was going down, so I walked Duchess out and we untacked. I really like Duchess, and I think if I was 5 years ahead in my riding skill, I would be a lot better with her. I don't think I did that bad, but there were points where I was calling over my shoulder to Duchess' mom, "I can ride, I promise!". On the flip side, there were also fleeting moments of brilliance. Of course, that pretty accurately describes my state of riding now on any horse I ride. Fleeting moments of brilliance punctuated by long stretches of, "I can ride, I promise! ". Some days it's more "I can ride, I promise!", but horsemanship is a journey, not a destination.

ZOMG Sparkly Pony!

Yet another "I'm really tired and it's late, but I want to put some thoughts to keyboard before I fall asleep" entry today, I'm afraid.  In the interest of not walking in to work tomorrow with QWERTY embossed on my forehead, I'll get right to it, if you don't mind.

Actually, since I'm typing this with my eyes closed already, I'm thinking that even an abbreviated blog post isn't going to happen tonight. So, instead, I'll note the key points of the evening, and write a more detailed post during my lunch break. Fortunately, Blogger's post by email tool works like a champ, so I'll use that for the time being. anyway, the main point of the evening is that instead of riding Sonata, like I'd planned, I wound up riding Duchess. More on it tomorrow. The short version is: She's a neat horse, and I enjoyed it. Interested readers may tune in tomorrow. Uninterested readers mayalso tune in tomorrow, but I think they may find the subject matter unappealing. Off to collapse with me.

Must be something in the air...

(Trying out Blogger's post by email function, so if the formatting on this post is weird, that's what's going on.)

Well, it's Tuesday, and since Ziggy got two days off after XC schooling at Pine Hill, I figured it was time to pull him out of his stall and put him through his paces.  Tonight, I decided the ride would be about two-point, up transitions, and practicing the "cruising gallop" versus the collected gallop positions.  I am happy to report that the up transitions went very well.  I had to work a little bit to get the right lead canter, but that's not too much of a surprise, as that's his weaker side.  I was able to pick up the left lead like clockwork, so maybe my problems with the canter transition are behind me??  I can but hope.

The two-point went decently.  I'm still not 100% convinced I have the right form at two-point, and I feel like I'm having to put way too much weight on my hands on the horse's neck.  I'm also having a difficult time reconciling that with the critique I got when we were schooling this past weekend that I hold my hands up too high.  I suppose I could do something radical and ask my trainer: When is it OK to rest your hands on the horse, and when do they need to be off the horse?  Of course, if any of you reading this would like to chime in, feel free.  One of the other things I'd like to do is take a longe line lesson.  I'll probably try to set one of those up next month, as there's several things I'd like to work on without reins or stirrups.  Not that I'm expecting to fix everything in one lesson, but I'm hoping to at least be told what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, and what I can do to fix my inconsistencies.  

The cruising galloping position vs. the collected galloping position really didn't work at all.  There were moments this weekend when I could feel it, but today, it just wasn't happening.  Of course, this is something that's apparently three levels above me, so I'm not expecting great strides of progress in it just yet.  I'll keep working at it, and hopefully as I approach that level, I'll get closer and closer to being able to make the switch successfully and consistently between those two positions.  

So, why all of the sudden intense focus on my jumping position?  Thought you'd never ask.  My goal for the summer is to improve my riding to the point to where I would be able to ride GAG at a horse trial, and not embarrass myself, or my trainer.  I looked up the GAG Dressage test, and I think I can do it.  It won't be a sub-30 penalty test or anything like that, but I feel like I can get through it cleanly, and not have people watching saying to each other, "What in the hell is he doing here?".  As far as XC goes, I can make it over all of the GAG fences on the Pine Hill course with one leg on each side, and myself in the middle.  Well, I can make it over the fences one at a time.  I have yet to actually string them together and jump one after the other.  I feel like I need a *lot* of work on both myself and my horse to make sure I can jump XC safely and cleanly.  As far as stadium goes, I've not seen a GAG stadium course, so I'm not sure whether I'd be up to that one as well.  But, at any rate, I will spend the summer practicing as hard as I can, and we'll see where I am come September.  Hopefully, I'll be able to twist Saga's mom's arm into hauling Zigs and I out for another XC schooling sometime soon.I'm falling asleep as I write this, so I think I'm going to go to bed.  Tomorrow I'm heading over to Duchess' house to go ride Sonata.  I was supposed to ride today, but Duchess' mom and I decided that tomorrow would work better for the two of us, so tomorrow it is.  Until then!

Suck it, Korea

Just a short post tonight, as not too much horsy went on.  I was supposed to ride in a jumping lesson tonight, but my Korean overlords issued a diaboic edict, mandating that I was to attend a conference call at 18:30 tonight. I was... unhappy. At any rate, I got out of my conference call, and booked it out to the barn. Happily, I made it at the halfway point of the lesson. If I couldn't ride, I could at least watch and try and see the comments my trainer was making on everyone's form, and mentally apply them to the areas where I'm lacking. I don't know if that will actually help at all, but it certainly can't hurt.

Anyway, as the lesson wound down, one of the women I ride with from time to time asked me if I would like to hop up on her gray Hanoverian, and pop over a few Xs. I must have been looking rather wistful. This horse is a gorgeous Gray gelding, but sometimes he can be a bit of a goof to fences, so I'll admit I was rather surprised that she was allowing me up on him. She's a really good rider, and as stated before, he can be a bit of a goof. I asked my trainer if it was ok, (Read: Vanessa, am I really skilled enough for this horse?) She said, "wear a helmet". So, I borrowed Gusty's mom's helmet, and went ahead and hopped over a few fences. It was a lot of fun, and he was a very good boy. Just what I needed. I hopped off and tanked her profusely, belatedly realizing that I was still in my work clothes. She told me that I was very nice to watch, and I looked great on him. I'm sure that was just her being polite, but it was nice to hear just the same. ;) Tomorrow, I should be heading over to Duchess' house, and putting Sonata through her paces. Expect a post with more actual substance tomorrow.