Roller Coasters

January 30, 2013 2 Comments

cute jumpYesterday the Chicago area flirted with record high temperatures, reaching 66 degrees.   Wind and lots of rain also visited the area.  But what a difference a day makes.  Right now, temperatures are headed down to 10 degrees, and snow is covering the ground.

The horses have been in for a few days, and between the chaotic weather and being trapped inside, they’re starting to get a little loony. I was traveling Monday and Tuesday, and Derby wasn’t well behaved either day for the girl I had lined up to ride him.  She’s a lovely rider (much better than me,) and normally they have great rides together. However, Monday he would not go forward – refusing to do anything but a shuffling jog, and Tuesday he had a puffy leg and a nick just above an eye, so he just got a hand walk.

This morning I got up early to visit Derby before starting work.  I suspect his puffy ankle is from an aggravated bed sore on the front of the fetlock. He’s sound and there’s no heat.   The eye looks fine too, it’s superficial.  I was relieved.

In anticipation of riding tonight, I put Derby’s boots on for a little early morning exercise.  Once we were in the arena, I set up a little X for him.  He started taking himself over it even before I asked, and had a lot of fun jumping it both ways.  Not wanting to make himself sore, I took the X down before Derby was really ready to be done with it, turning it into trot poles which Derby then trotted and cantered.  Afterwards, he got a long walk, a good currying and some cookies in his haynet to help him pass the time.

When I went to tack him up tonight, however, I noticed that his wither area was a bit sore.  Not super bad, but not great, and given that he’d had some issues over the last few days, I left him in his stall, and went to fetch my good buddy Manny.

During our lesson, Christy noted that my hands were staying nice and quiet, and I told her that I believe I finally have the “feel” for carrying my hands independently.  Riding Tucker a couple weeks ago, I had a bit of an epiphany, and for the first time could really feel what I was doing in terms of following the movement with my seat but keeping my upper body and hands quiet.  Since that ride I’ve been able to replicate it, so I hope this means that it’s officially a new habit.

What produced this epiphany?  It’s hard to nail down.  I have been doing the work, riding different horses and working on my seat, including dropping my stirrups.  And I have been diligent about doing my homework, practicing what we work on in my lessons, and looking to the horse for feedback on how I’m doing.   Ultimately, I think that I’ve become a good student, able to synthesize and apply what I learn from Christy.

So yay.  Progress! Just in time for some wicked cold that is threatening to keep us grounded tomorrow.  We’ll see.

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Tweaks, Adjustments & Redemption

January 17, 2013 3 Comments

1 18 stretch

Last night I had an uncharacteristically bad ride on Manny.  His normal enthusiasm felt more like resistance – I couldn’t get him to soften his braced neck.   We worked half halts and transitions, but I couldn’t get him through.  I was disappointed, and the ride really bugged Christy too.

Tonight I gave it another shot. After I warmed up, things were better but still not great. At Christy’s suggestion, I shortened my stirrups a hole.  Presto.  I felt solid and balanced, and Manny appreciated it.   We got our act together, and I was able to practice riding him out to the contact, while keeping my hands above his wither, where they belonged.

While the ride was going better, my ankles were feeling the effects of the shorter leathers.  My ankles are stiff, and I don’t seem to have much shock-absorbing flexibility in them.  When I’m in two-point, Christy often asks me to relax my ankle downward – and I can’t.  My heel doesn’t go much lower than my irons.  Anyway, I was really feeling the burn, so I dropped my stirrups and took a break.  Then I looped them across Manny’s withers for some no-stirrups torture.  To my delight, I was actually able to hold myself in decent carriage this time around, and I was able to encourage Manny to reach for the bit a little, and round.

I was feeling solid in my position, so I did something that I haven’t done for about 5 years. I cantered with no stirrups!  Christy was sufficiently stunned.  And I’m happy to report that it felt wonderful.

1 18 canterGoing left, we picked it right up.  Going to the right, I had to work a bit more.  Manny’s a bit stickier to that direction, and so am I.  Our first transition didn’t happen – I just got a racing standardbred trot, but I was feeling so good in the saddle that it didn’t bother me at all.  I was able to half halt, put him back together and ask him again.  On the second try, I got the canter, but I didn’t successfully ride it as long as I wanted to, because by this point, I was getting tired.  Manny dropped to a trot before I asked, but at that point, I needed a breather.  We walked a bit, and then gave it another try.  The third time was a charm. The transition was fairly prompt and I held it until I was done.

The tweaks did the trick, and Christy told me we redeemed ourselves from last night’s yukko effort!

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Unfinished business

January 15, 2013 5 Comments

My plans with Derby have come to a halt for the time being, as he’s busy brewing an abscess in his right front.   The hoof is warm, and getting warmer, and it’s clearly tender.  So as that situation resolves, I’ve been riding Manny and Tucker, and they’ve been giving me invaluable feedback on a bad habit of mine – allowing my hands to creep downward and back, instead of keeping them up over the horse’s withers.   It turns out that Manny and Tucker, with their shorter, higher-set necks, are the perfect schoolmasters for this particular problem.  They also helped me do a better job of using my inside leg to ride the horse out into the contact, another sticking point for me.

I started tackling the problem while riding Manny in a lesson.  Christy caught me pulling his head in, instead of riding him out to the contact, so she had me focus on sitting up and carrying my hands correctly, keeping them quiet, while at the same time using my inside leg to encourage Manny to bend and soften.  As I did so, Manny responded positively.  His back came up and he really engaged for me. The lesson for me was “less is more, but ‘less’ has to be correct.”

I also had a very redemptive ride on Tucker recently.   He’s well trained but he is really hard for me to ride.  However, using some of the tactics from my lesson on Manny, I was finally able to have a decent ride on Tucker.   What both rides really showed me is that I am very hands-y, and am over reliant (and flat out incorrect).  I have rides on both slated for later this week – I’d like to get this bad habit fixed for once and for all before I get back on the Derbster.

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Moving forward … literally

January 10, 2013 3 Comments

Enjoying some treats after a good ride tonight

Enjoying some treats after a good ride tonight

It’s been an interesting couple days at the ranch.  Wintec Isabel #5 arrived safe and sound to its new forever home with me.  I swear I will never sell this saddle. I put the medium narrow (green) gullet in, and we had our first ride in it on Sunday.  It was a nice ride with pretty much none of the resistance I had experienced last week.   Great, I thought.  The other saddle didn’t fit well and we’re back in business.

Ha.

Unfortunately the resistance returned in my lesson on Wednesday.  So I had some behavior I had to deal with.  Awesome.

Last night, the ride went well for about 30 minutes until a walk break. When I asked Derby to march forward in a working walk, he resisted, hollowing, throwing his head and even getting a little light in front, like he was thinking about going up. He was so far behind my leg it wasn’t funny, and when your horse won’t go forward, it’s not fun.   I tried to work through it, but simply put, I wasn’t ready to escalate.  I told Christy of my trepidation, and we struck off at the trot.  It’s easier for me to ride assertively at the trot, if only because I have more forward momentum.   Christy had me ride Derby through some tight serpentines, to get his braced neck unlocked and to get more control over his hind legs.  I had to ride it but it worked well – I got him more forward and we did some quality work.   But I left the walk alone, doing breaks and cooling down on the buckle.

I went home and hit the books, which all reinforced what Christy had told me during the ride – that (among other things) I have to keep control over the hind legs, asking the horse to step under himself.   So I resolved to not tolerate the resistance, and to correct it when when it first appeared.

Tonight we had a better ride.  A couple times when Derby thought about throwing his head up, I spun him around, with a strong kick from my inside leg.  His resistance disappeared for the most part.  I got very good contact and he was enthusiastically forward, which was nice because Derby was evading the bit in addition to being behind my leg earlier in the week.  The ride was fun and afterward, Derby got lots of cookies!

This is my creation and my problem to fix.  I think we’re headed in the right direction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cold day, cold back?

January 3, 2013 7 Comments

Really?

Really?

I’ve had a few nice rides on Derby since switching to Christy’s Isabell, good enough for me to pull the trigger when I found one for sale – cheap – online last week.  It arrives tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to putting a medium-narrow gullet in it and seeing how Derby goes, and I hope the results are better than what I experienced today.

Who knows if it was the cold (possible). some sore muscles (unlikely) or (more likely) an attitude issue, but Derby was a bit of a cow today.  He was very resistant, head tossing and inverted.  He *could* go nicely when I really rode him into it, but we spent an inordinate amount of time being ridiculous.   He felt very tense, and a bit explosive – a far cry from the sedate creature of last week.  He was way behind my leg, and unwilling to go forward freely.

At Christy’s suggestion, I hopped up into  a two point, to get off his back.  While we had been working for about a half hour at that point, we hadn’t accomplished much, and he didn’t seem to be improving.

Ridiculous.

Ridiculous.

After about a lap, the quality of the trot started to improve.  Christy reminded me to use my core – even in the two point – to improve my balance, and the horse registered a little approval, relaxing a bit more.  I was able to put him together then, but he still resisted a bit.

It was a bit colder tonight, in the low 20’s by the time I mounted up.  It didn’t feel like cold weather silliness (he’s quite forward in those cases.) This was something different, and I think it was a cold back.  I didn’t detect any soreness after my ride, so who knows.  I’ll put a quarter sheet on him next time, and will do my warm up in two-point to see if that does the trick.

A bit more relaxed.

A bit more relaxed.

 

 

 

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