Happy Trails

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

Interpretive Dressage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roundness

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

Magic Trainer Dust plzkthxbai!

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

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

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

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

Think instead about where you are going.

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

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

Ponies 4 eva!

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

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

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

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

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

Jerk.

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

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

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

Look Ma, No Stirrups!

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

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

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


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


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

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

As Seen on Facebook

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

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