Watch And Learn

We had a little sunshine this afternoon, and I had just enough time to fit in a last minute lesson.

Once again, I was super rushed and didn't have time to bring both girls. Instructor (S) has offered to give me a hand once she has more free time and I'll book an hour and a half lesson where she'll ride too and either warm up Bridget or lunge Ginger for me. We'll just trade off who we each ride partway through. Sounds perfect - trainer rides and lessons for both all in one outing!

B frequently plays dead to avoid work/discourage me from actually wanting to groom and ride her muddy self. This is a post ride reenactment of how I found her pre ride,  the sunbathing was apparently great today:)

Don't go into the light, B. I promise I'll be nicer lol!

For now, as is quickly becoming my habit, Ms Bridget made the trip up the road with me. My last few rides on her have been more bad than good and not overly inspiring to blog about, so I honestly wasn't expecting much. We started with some spirals, alternating bend and counter bend each circle. Pony was generally distracted, bur since this was an ever changing sort of exercise she started paying attention and put in some nice efforts. I need to remember to sit straight and square and not be tempted to 'help' her by leaning! Next, we did some leg yields and some haunches and shoulder in - all pretty good, so we went up into trot and ran through everything again. Pony did alright, although she's still noticably more sticky off my right leg and likes to try to use the increased speed to run out through her shoulder rather than yield her ribcage and haunches. Still, SO much better than the last few rides and lots and lots of really excellent moments - I feel like she was trying today, and I let her know how much I appreciate that!

No action shots today, a pre tacking up shot is as close as it gets

Next up, some canter. It was alright, and miles improved from what it has been. The actual transition is really great, but I still feel like when she breaks and does all the crazy trantering/pony trot stuff I am more just trying to stay with her somewhat quietly and less actually influencing her. When I mentioned that to S, she was quite happy to hop on for a spin. Mental note - I need to ask her to hop on more frequently - somehow I always forget how much can be learned by watching someone else ride your horse! What I saw today was super encouraging - her trot has really come along and is really cute. She's using herself a lot better than the last time I watched and generally just looks a lot farther along - my 'average' mover might even look fancy one of these days! The big lightbulb moment for me was watching her canter. It's unbalanced and on the forehand, yes, but not nearly as tragic looking as it feels. It more looks like a lazy pony wanting to drag herself along on the forehand and use any excuse to break, than the 'I don't actually know how to canter or where my feet are' thing I had thought was going on. S was super happy with how much more responsive and forward Bridget is than her last ride, and is in agreement that she'll have a nice canter once we can convince her that every single rider adjustment doesn't mean 'trot'.

Next up, some trot poles and some baby crossrail grids. On the right rein, pony was a star and was so good and careful! On the left she was a little more wiggly, but still pretty good. I just love that she's figuring out her job and taking me to the jumps more often than not! As a quick recap, we've been setting everything up as trot poles and cavelleti and trotting through our little grids, but S figures we're ready to move things a bit higher and start asking Bridget to canter out. Sounds like we'll have another fun lesson next week!

And...right back to where I found her, There was much rolling and grunting before she was presentable enough to say hi to her friends.

Randomness, Product Review, and Gratitude

I've got a few half posts written, so I'm just going to combine all the little updates and quick things into one (hopefully somewhat) interesting post.

-First off, if you're like me and forget to check the box to get follow up comments sent to you, I'll post here again how incredibly grateful I am, as always, for the advice, support and generally cool comments you guys write! It's so nice to feel like I can be completely honest and transparent about both the good and not so good horsey days I have (and of course how I second guess myself at every turn!)It's nice have a network of people here who've all been there. I've mentioned ad naseum how isolated we are here, so it's a really, really cool feeling to be able to read everyone's blogs and feel like I'm still part of a big, super awesome, barn community.

It's a big love fest

-Next up, Fructis Miraculous Oil. After reading a review  post over at Incidents At Guidance I was intrigued enough to buy some for my ponies on my last trip to the drug store.
Verdict: At first I was unsure - the texture is more like baby oil than the slippery detangler stuff. The results were sort of 'meh' when I first put it in, so I used it pretty sparingly and sort of forgot about it and continued on with life . However, about a week later my horse's manes and tails were still so shiny and tangle free I had to ask the barn owners whether they had brushed them out. Even today, at about 10 days out, my farrier asked if I use Show Sheen. I said no, in fact due to the weather, etc I haven't even been to the barn or groomed since Monday. He was wondering how my horses have such shiny and healthy looking tails and I was like, well, they ARE Welsh Cobs.  So there you have it...my very manly farrier who I've known for over 20 years and NEVER notices or comments on my grooming skillz was admiring my ponies pretty tails today and marvelling over how soft they are. This stuff really must be miraculous because when I got home and started thinking about it that's the only thing it can be...I hadn't even brushed the girls in days. While I don't think it's the best detangler out there, it's really made my horse's manes and tails noticably shiny and soft and I'd recommend it if you're looking for something different to try. I'm sticking with it, it's much cheaper than the Cowboy Magic stuff I normally buy!

Website HERE

-Next, Bridget. I love her. She was fabulous for the farrier this morning and her feet are awesome. She was itching to investigate all the farrier's tools and to introduce herself to everyone there, but still managed to stand and wait patiently for me to stop chatting for a good half hour after her trim. Truly a test for my busy little pony, who thinks she is a rock star and everyone is there to admire and visit with her. It was somewhat comical watching her struggle to contain herself and behave:)

Shiny little rock star

-Real life. Both of our houses (on opposite ends of the city) got flooded, but fingers crossed, the only expensive loss was some laminate flooring I wasn't really a fan of and some perimeter drains that obviously need to be upgraded anyways. A stressful and costly week that involved moving in to our new house as well, but I can't complain as many are much worse off than us. The horses escaped the storm unscathed but I see several of our friends properties are now lakes housing ducks and geese rather than horses, and a lot have tree squished fences to replace.

- I got a part time job, and start Tuesday! It's not in my normal techie realm, but should be a fun diversion and pays decently enough. It will be nice to have that cushion so I don't worry quite so much when the next contract is coming from my 'real' work. Of course, all of it is just more $ for the horses!

I'm hoping to get back on track with riding and horse time this weekend. I can't remember being more overwhelmed than I have been in the last month or so, and I happen to know horse time is a pretty good cure for that!

Audience Part 2

So...that weather warning I was mocking the other day? Yeah, it was actually for real and we're dealing with crazy flooding here - I've been manning the pumps and shop vac all day :( I haven't been able to see the horses since my ride Monday since the highway between me and them is flooded in multiple places, but I'm sure the barn owners have them all tucked in safe and dry. Have I mentioned I'm loving full board?

I'm going to be busy for a few days trying to clean up the mess - all of the properties we own are dealing with some kind of damage as a result of the storms and supposedly there is more bad weather on the way.  We're all safe and sound though, and that's what matters :)

I'm going to leave you with a little queued content for a few days, but I am really enjoying a little escapism and reading everyone's blogs when I have a few minutes!

(Nearly) WW: Audience Pt 2

This is the 'creepy' next door neighbour at the barn. He's usually all sneaky about creeping us, but sometimes you see his ears move above the fence and know he's there watching. Other times, just as we forget he's there, he really lets loose with a crazy donkey bray that scares everyone and effectively reminds us of his presence.

He's super cute! He lives alone next door, but the horses seem to like him and sped time socializing over the fence. I do think they'd thank him though if he refrained from too much donkey chat. Especially during morning siesta :)

Stormy Ride

The nest time I talk about starting a baby horse, you guys slap me upside the head and knock some sense into me, OK? (Yes, kidding, but only sorta) 

As with all bad rides, it's mostly my fault. I haven't ridden in a week, after all, and I seem to easily forget this is a baby pony we're training here, not a been there, done that grown up with pre installed brain and work ethic.

After an uneventful, if 'looky' hack, it became apparent after I got Ms Bridget to the ring that she was feeling SUPER good. But as is the way with Bridget, super good doesn't equate to moving out and forward and easily burning off a little steam. It equates to giraffe impersonations, spooking, bucking and being counter bent despite all the best efforts of the rider. Super good also equates to giving the rider the pony middle finger and generally doing the opposite of what's expected. The only thing you know for sure is she's not moving forward reliably since that's just plain old hard work. Honestly, if it was any other horse I would have got off and lunged a little until the brain returned to the same general zip code. Since this is Bridget, I just stayed where I was in the saddle and made the pony move forward. 

The good news? We cantered, and cantered some more, and even had enough gas in the tank to practice trot/canter transitions.  Did I have to "cowgirl up" to make it happen? Yes, yes I did. Since pony was in a mood all I wanted was forward. Was it pretty? No, not overly. I didn't care about leads, bend, straightness, contact, any of it, just getting her moving her feet forward and getting to work. Was pony pleased? No, not at all, but it happened anyways. I am getting really good at a well timed spank with the crop mid buck. I don't like using my crop, but bucking as an evasion to not go forward is really stupid and not a habit we need to establish - in my opinion it's worthy of a spanking, even though I end up feeling guilty about it later. Anyways,  I win round 1 since we had some unexpectedly excellent canter work after a few minutes and I ended it there.

Round two was won by Bridget. Banana giraffes only bend to the outside of the circle, didn't you know? It was made obvious I really, really like to weight my outside stirrup on the circle when baby pony had a dramatic spook to the inside of the circle and, oops...that saddle really wasn't tight at all. Sigh. Pony wins because we had to stop and unattach the saddle from her side, and put it back to it's proper home over the center of her back. Double win because my ineffectiveness at getting her to focus on our direction of travel led to her finding monsters in the bushes outside the ring to spook at, leading to our saddle malfunction and pony getting a nice relaxing break. Predictably, she thought some more dramatics in that corner would equal another time out, but no such luck so I guess I get an honorable mention :)

Time out in the corner. There are monsters in those bushes, stoopid human

After that fun, I put her back to work on circles, spirals, and figure eights, with random transitions thrown in. Bridget was not impressed at all, and I'd love to say it got better and we found a good note to end on, but we didn't really. All I wanted was ONE nice circle, but it was proving very difficult indeed when the hamsters are absent from the wheel. I finally got a mostly nice circle on a proper bend followed by a halt where she didn't completely plow through me and called it good. She must have been as relieved as me, because surprisingly she was really stretching down and enjoying a little cool down walk. On the way home though, there was much dramatic spooking and general silliness, leaving me feeling like I managed to actually make things worse over the course of the ride. I was reminded of my coach's comments about how she's just going through a stage in training and like any smart horse asking "why should I?" and trying out her options. She's also a lot fitter than she was and feeling good. True enough, but I do feel I could have been more tactful today and redirected things better rather than picking fights and having to follow through. 

Yay for stretchy walk to finish!

The good? Even on her worst day ever, I'm not worried or nervous of her behavior and am always thinking of ways to work through it - I never feel over faced or unsure about what to do next. The bad? I can't seem to leave the expectations at the door and still end up feeling disappointed and taking it personally when things don't go to plan. Ponies certainly have a way of keeping me humble!

"Incredible", "Intense", "Bombarding"...even the poor person writing the weather warnings this morning was feeling extra dramatic!

TOA Blog Hop: History of The Horse

It's been an exceptionally slow week in cob land, partly due to my Month of Sloth No Goal December non goals, and partly due to real life and our unpredictable winter weather. Both ponies have had almost a week off, but it's well deserved time and I think we're all happy with the situation. We have a 'big' clinic upcoming in mid January, so we'll get back to training in the next week or so in order to be at our best and hopefully learn as much as possible.

As always, I'm really loving the blog hops, particularly because everyone always comes up with such excellent topics!

Beka from The Owls Approve asks: Before you met, where was your horse?  Who bred him/her?  What do you know about his sire and his dam?  What do you know where he came from?  Tell me about the time before he had a trainer.

Ginger was bred at a place called Sugarlane Welsh near Vancouver BC, then was sold to another breeder called Carrick Farm located in the interior of the province. She then made the big trip to where I was working in Saskatchewan as a just turned 4 year old and was trained by myself (with much help!) It's funny to me that in all our travels we've both returned to home to the coast BC where we're from. I never met Ginger's sire or dam, and know very little about her early days, beyond a few pictures. I know Ginger's dam has been a career broodmare, with several offspring all over North America. Her sire is less well known, but I like his breeding being somewhat familiar with his sire (Ginger's grandsire). The only other things I know for sure is that Ginger's always been very spooky and suspicious of people, and it sounds like she had a very natural upbringing, basically hanging out in a field and getting some basic ground manners before she came to me.

Ginger's pedigree.

Ginger and her momma. Still a bit hard to believe that little chestnut filly turned into my big bay mare!

Ginger's brother (same dam)

Ginger's momma again - they sure look alike!

Bridget was born and raised at Carrick Farm. I have to admit she was there the couple of times I visited Ginger and I never gave her a second look, thinking she was quite small and plain! I'm familiar with her dam as she was a Ginger look alike and was for sale at the same time as Ginger. Her name was Lindy and I was equally interested in her and Ginger, but Lindy was sold before I got anything organized and let's face it, Ginger was meant to end up here with me anyways. Bridget's sire is also a cob I am familiar with as I met him this past summer as a shiny, happy gelding :) Bridget comes by her good nature naturally, having inherited it from her mom. Bridget had a really great, natural upbringing, then a little bit of driving training before she came to me, the rest is documented on this blog.
Bridget's pedigree.

Grandma that Bridget and Ginger share

Bridget's sire

Bridget's "Gotcha" day this past August. I need to ask whether they have any baby pics of her!

ETA: I was showing G the above picture of Ginger as a foal and he was like "When did Ginger have a baby?!" (Like I super sneakily had her bred in the last year or so lol) I explained "The baby IS Ginger". G: "No it's not, the big one is!!" (Again, sure that I'm misleading him and Ginger has a new baby apparently). "The little one is colored like a camel, horses don't change that much!" I had to show him the markings and remind him someone did name her "Gingersnap" which is not exactly the first name that comes to mind for a bay! He seems disappointed...maybe breeding Ginger isn't quite out of the question at the moment after all?

Equestrian Journey Blog Hop

A few days ago, achieve1dream at Equestrian Journey asked: What will you NOT do?

Such a great question, and I really had to think about this for a few days, because honestly I've done more than a few stupid things with horses. In many cases, I know what I'm doing is technically not the safest way, but the tradeoff of saved time or convenience seems to be worth the risk. Other stuff, like basic care is common sense and things no one should mess with. Here's my list of potentially grey area things I've never done, or would never, ever do again:

(Items in red are the ones learned the hard way):

- Test ride someone's horse if I've never seen it ridden before.

- Teach tricks, rearing in particular

- Ride without a helmet

- Pull a trailer too heavy for my truck

- Ride in potentially icy conditions

- Discipline wise? Most rodeo events. also western pleasure. Sorry rodeo people and WP people, just not something I want to do, and not discplines really suited to the horses I tend to own anyways. Also I prefer not to wear spandex, sequins, or sparkles, so...yeah, I just cheer my friends on instead.

- Sign up for a clinic without auditing first or at least seeing online videos. Too much $ to potentially waste otherwise.

- Tie without a quick release or suitable object to tie to

- Take a horse sight unseen based on the seller's word. Even if that seller is a friend.

- Keep a horse without turnout. This one is just personal preference and I guess I feel pretty strongly about it. I know I can't ride/exercise every day so it seems doubly unfair.

An InLinkz Link-up

OCD Pony

My farrier has (half jokingly) decided Ginger is OCD partly because Ginger has a preference for the order in which you pick up her feet. She picks them up and holds them for you, and I guess has trained me to just follow along since I never really noticed that there is a particular order and always just thought she was just being silly if she got funny about it. She actually only gets confused and upset if she has to pick up a foot again that is already 'done' or is out of the order she prefers. Farrier figured that out in about one session, where I was just clueless. Heaven forbid you look at a front foot and don't proceed to the rear foot on the same side, poor Ginger's mind is blown! I love her farrier though, since she always just laughs and starts at foot #1, tells her what a genius pony she is and continues on til she's at the foot she actually wants to look at.

Random Ginger pics to break up the wall of text

When I start thinking bigger picture I realize there are a lot of things she's equally funny about. I know the vast majority of horses thrive on routine, but Ginger's a bit excessive about it really.

Save me from myself!

Our rides are best if they are structured the same way. She prefers to have only one rider. She would ideally like only one handler. She dislikes new coaches. She dislikes it if you do anything on the 'wrong' side. This includes mane trimming and even posting diagonals. She gets super uptight if she doesn't know the other horses in the ring. On our trail rides, she's fine with normal vehicles. Vehicles with trailers are death though. She hates new barns. She dislikes meeting new horses. The list goes on, and on, and on. I make a point of being slightly unpredictable so it's not like she's never been blanketed from her off side. She's moved barns plenty. She's had other people ride her and I've had a few different coaches. I certainly mess up my diagonals now and then. I don't always use the same halter or fly spray. As a result, her panic response is pretty much gone, but she's still quite happy to let you know she's not impressed with such deviations from the 'right' or usual way.  If you had have asked me a few months ago whether I make any concessions, I would have said no, but now that I have easy going Bridget I notice all the little things I do without thinking, in an attempt to keep the peace I guess. In recent months, Ginger has reminded me that I must always unbuckle my reins rather than tossing them over her head, I usually groom starting on the near side. I always use a step stool, but not a chair, to trim her bridle path (again on the near side apparently). I use Cowboy Magic Detangler. The other stuff smells weird and is not acceptable. I always catch her by putting the lead rope around her neck first. If you just leave it hanging off the halter while walking towards her it's scary. She thinks she is supposed to stop moving while I play with my phone. And apparently I always pick her hooves in the same order. All stuff I honest to goodness would have never noticed I did until I changed it slightly and Ginger called me out on it.

She knows me better than I know myself, obviously. And I'd like to think she still likes me in spite of it all :)

Also, from yesterdays photo shoot, I came across evidence  that like me, she does not appreciate Bridget's tendency to photo bomb.

Frozen

We're still enjoying a little too much ice and frozen ground to make me feel totally comfortable heading out on a ride. The majprity of our snow has melted, but in the shady areas it's still intact and icy (ie all the trails I ride!) I know lots of you readers are braver than me about such things, but this seriously only happens for a few days every winter here and I usually just opt to give the ponies a mini break and play it safe. 

So, instead of a ride, yesterday Ginger enjoyed a spa day. Here's a few cute pics:

Weird iPhone rather than my grooming made her glow, but I like it

This is the suspicious look. I was talking to her and I guess she didn't like what I had to say

Making progress with that tail!

And mane...the sweet itch is gone, thank goodness and the hair is growing back

My favorite one from yesterday. Love her winter beard ha ha

We're supposed to be back to warmer temps tomorrow, which is good because I have a lesson!

(Nearly) WW: View From The Top

I was sorting pictures the other day and realized it can be very difficult for even me to differentiate which horse I'm riding when the picture is taken from the saddle.  Identical crazy manes? Check! Bay with lighter brown nose? Check! Black tips on the ears? Check! It seems a little weird to not be able to tell when they are such wildly different ponies to ride - their height, width, and attitude are so very different! They are at opposite ends of the spectrum when you're in the saddle, Ginger is so hot, sensitive, and willing, while Bridget is so sensible and lazy, and with a definite mare attitude!

Bridget. The angle of this one makes it pretty easy to see.

Ginger. Again not a bad angle to see.

Getting tougher to guess. Ginger. I can tell from the bridle

Bridget. I remember taking her for this ride!

These ones are anyone's guess. I'm putting it in the Bridget file because there are pictures of Bridget on either side of the sequence this came from

Ginger. Can tell from the date of the photo.

Happy Wednesday everyone :)

No Goal December

After the great ideas of 2 Pointober and No Stirrup November, I'm officially implementing my own brand of rider improvement: No Goal December.

I could brand it all fancy and promote it to the cool kids, but let's face it, that's too much like work.

I either just scraped through or failed the majority of my November goals. I won't depress myself further with a recap - let's just say November was all about real life problems and it wasn't my month to shine on the horsey front. 

How I feel too - Bridget being so tired she can't even hold  her own head up :) 

This morning, I had about a million things to do before my lesson, and I was getting STRESSED because I had set a goal to bring Ginger and I was late and had no time to prep and the roads were icy making me second guess whether riding and ponying a second horse on them up to the ring really was a smart idea anyway and what if the ring was covered in snow and slippery, oh shoot I forgot to drive by and check first and maybe I should have bought a membership to the indoor arena but then I'd have to borrow a trailer and I feel like that's a big favour to keep asking  but I'm not sure I want to buy my own yet and what if I suck at pulling a trailer and never use it anyway.... (yes it seriously went like that...just one big panicky run on sentence going through my head). I've also had  multiple frustrating rides on Bridget mare and that's not how my plan is supposed to go and what if I'm ruining her or what if she's sore somewhere and maybe I'm doing something wrong or maybe we both need a better fitness program. and and and! 

Deep breaths! Smile. Horses live in the moment and don't care about plans and schedules and goals or what happened last ride, remember? This is supposed to be fun, right? And then I had the most brilliant idea of all: No Goal December, where the only plan is to enjoy my horse time and for everyone to survive intact. January is only a month away and is all about goals and resolutions anyways, right?

Ginger is always smart enough to come right up to the barn AFTER it's apparent Bridget is the one being captured.

So, I tacked up Bridget, because she came up to the barn when I called. I walked her up the road because it was icy. We made it just in time for our lesson, but when I got to the ring I saw it was still covered in snow. I tried to think about how fun riding in the snow would be, and then it was fun. Funny how that works. We worked on walk/trot spirals, leg yields, counterbending, and halt/trot transitions on about a 15m circle where the ground had thawed a bit. Then we did turns on the forehand and haunches. We didn't try to use up the whole hour. We had fun. Bridget pony got a lot of 'good girls' and scratches. I checked all my mental stress baggage at the door, and she tried her heart out and marched out of there afterwards like she was the best pony ever. Which of course she is (tied with Ginger, naturally ;)

And then I went back to the barn and played Princess Ponies and brushed and detangled Bridget's tail in the sunshine for a really long time. Because that's just fun.

Spirit of The Season Contest (And Quick Farrier Update)

Ginger had her feet done this morning, without any drama other than her eyes and ears trying to convey to everyone her sadness at being so violated by an almost stranger. This is a huge victory in pony land, but I'll spare you the detailed recap. After all, she did nothing wrong, stood quietly. and her feet are looking great. I didn't tempt fate by taking any pictures of her crazy eyes, you'll just have to trust me that they were...expressive :) Other than that, a normal, boring, non blog worthy farrier visit for Ginger? Yep, we just had one. Yeah! Win for Ginger, and a win for the vet's magical hoof dressing. Many celebratory treats were consumed by all.

In more exciting news, KateRose at Peace and Carrots is having a giveaway everyone should enter. Entries are gained by either donating or volunteering to a great cause this holiday season. Check out her (wonderful) blog for all the details HERE

I was going to be all grinchy and angry about some politics with our local riding club and not volunteer this season, but her kindhearted gesture made me feel super guilty and I baked a bunch of cookies and squares yesterday for the club to sell for their annual Christmas craft and baking fundraiser. I'm not going to enter KateRose's contest since I suspect Ginger's fat head is too large for the halter she's giving away, but I do think everyone else should get out there and overwhelm her with entries :)

It snowed slightly this morning, which is a rare thing here and is getting everyone into the Christmas spirit! (Except the ponies, they're just sleepy apparently)