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. :)

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!

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.

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.

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.