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!