Had a lesson with my normal instructor today. (And with my friend C, who is going to start taking lessons with me because she, too, just wants to be a better rider. She's pretty cool.) I rode Clipper, the Arab.
I'm getting my hands figured out. They're not perfect, but I'm getting the hang of "light contact" and which way to pull on the reins and how to keep my hands still while my elbows open and close. Unfortunately, this means that everything else is noticeably falling apart!
I cannot ride in a circle. I can ride in weird wobbly egg shapes, and I can ride in diamond shapes, but not circles. Man. I take it all back, all that snarking I used to do about how riding in circles sounded boooooring. It's hard!
In addition, I can't quite figure out what to do with my legs. I'll get my calves wrapped around poor Clipper's ribs so I can keep nudging him to keep trotting for me, but then my heels pop up and my toes start to slip through the stirrups. So I'll wiggle my feet back and concentrate on keeping my heels down as I post, but then I'll either start riding in diamonds again or I'll forget to nudge Clipper and he'll laze on down to a walk. ARGH!
I used to know how to post. I'm positive of that. Last summer I would ride Champ down narrow dirt trails in the forest at a fast trot, posting effortlessly and neckreining to either side of the trees. What happened? Am I overthinking things? Probably. Hmph.
Well, posting in circles was difficult, so I headed out to the field to ride my non-posting horse. Dixie seemed to know it was her turn and came right up to me. She didn't put up a fuss at all when I saddled her, and she opened her mouth for the snaffle bit.
THE SNAFFLE BIT. Yep, I did it. I finally got up the nerve to try Dixie (née Quinn) out in the Infamous French Link Snaffle again. She's been so... you know... calm lately that I figured she might appreciate it. And you know what? She did. She stood really still for me to mount. Then she waited til I asked her to move out. Then she gaited in a circle, then stopped when I said woah and sat back a bit and pulled on the reins a little. Then we went on a very nice trail ride.
The only thing I can credit is letting her live in a herd for three months. She just really needed to unwind and learn to be a horse. And I made friends with her - I kill flies and offer cookies and scratch the itchy spots. But I ride her too, which used to have plenty of negative memories for her!
It really takes my breath away about all the horses, that they'll come up to me and stand quietly for me to saddle them and ride them. The only possible explanation I have is that it must actually be FUN for them. Yay!
Showing posts with label quinn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quinn. Show all posts
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Three awesome rides this weekend!
So I rode Rascal, a dressage schoolmaster, and the spotted mare. Each ride, actually, went amazingly well.
Saturday evening I went trail riding with James. We'd decided to go night riding, so we left about 7:30. I was on his horse Rascal, he was on his cousin's horse Surprise, and Cersei trotted along on foot. See, I wanted to go night riding so we could see some deer. Deer are awesome and it's been way too long since I saw them!
I forgot Rascal is terrified of deer. I forgot it so completely, in fact, that the deer caught me totally flat footed. We were all moseying along at a slow walk, loose rein, horses snagging bites of grass in the overgrown field as the riders stared intently into the gloom looking for the deer. Then the deer who'd been hiding in the brush about five feet away broke for the treeline with a huge crashing rattling explosion. Rascal was sure it was the end of the world, and he snatched his head up while I started to fumble for the reins. He reared, I instinctively leaned forward and got my hands where I wanted, and he turned in midair. As he came down - facing Surprise, who was completely bored by the deer and the stupid gelding - I pulled his head left and kept him turning straight back around to face the deersplosion. I hollered something like "It's a DEER you goddamn idiot, deer don't eat horses!" and then Cersei came crashing clattering thrashing through the weeds straight back toward us. Rascal started to tense up to explode again and I yelled "THAT'S MY DOG! DON'T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" The dog popped out in front of us, Rascal did a little hop to the right, and it was all over.
I kicked Rascal back to a slow walk forward and got a huge case of the giggles.
This is my third autumn. I know that horses are zombies in the heat, and they suddenly come back to life as soon as the weather starts to cool off. My first cool windy ride on Champ, about two weeks after I got him, was such an amazing shock to me that I am still always kind of nervous about that first cool day. It's incredible to me how horses just wake up. Anyway, I always halfway suspect that I have forgotten how to ride. As soon as the weather cools off, the horse is going to snap and kill me, or I'm just going to fall off on my own and the horse will run back to the barn, laughing at the stupid human.
Saturday night, I was completely unready for any kind of action. But I really did do everything right when something did happen, and I wasn't even scared. (Well, to start with, I shouldn't have been gazing off into la-la land with limp reins at night on a dark trail.) I started getting my reins back, stayed balanced through the rear, kept the horse from bolting, and got the horse's mind back on ME.
So, another autumn fear is out of the way.
We saw a muskrat or otter in the pond on the way back, but that was it. There were quite a few four wheelers out nightriding too, and the rest of the deer were ... somewhere else, who knows. Stupid deer, come out and entertain me please!
Sunday morning I went out to the new stable for a dressage lesson, the very first formal riding lesson I've ever had. This first lesson was a chance for them to feel out what I know and where I'm at. First, they asked if I ride with active legs or not so much leg - I thought about it for a while and said I suppose I ride with less leg. Most TWHs are pretty reactive to any kind of leg pressure, so I generally keep my legs off the horse.
The instructor and manager consulted each other, then put me on a grey Arab, a quite kind old schoolmaster who's just a bit too responsive to leg pressure to be perfect for novices. Clipper's barefoot, a very nice weight, with fairly nice hooves, no back soreness, not a great topline but I suspect he's pretty old. Just a touch of that old-horse swayback, yknow.
A digression: All the horses in that barn are in good flesh, well groomed, totally relaxed but not stall-crazy. The stalls are clean and bedded with piles of fluffy chips, and the stalls are actually "horse safe." No nails sticking out, no milk crates nailed to the wall to hold buckets, no extension cords tacked to the wall above the horses' heads... Wow. I've seen fancier barns, on TV or pictures online, but this place is perfectly functional, perfectly safe, and is full of perfectly normal and content horses. It's just dreamy.
Anyway, we headed down to the covered arena (COVERED! and there's RAKED SAND STUFF, not clods of dirt with weeds!). We spent a lot of time talking and did some basic walking and trotting. I got a couple of canters when I only meant to trot - Clipper is in fact very responsive, and I am totally used to riding Champ and just yelling "Trot!" until he trots. Actually politely asking with my calves is new and fun! A lot of new and fun things - keeping my toes pointed straight ahead was amazingly hard, and I never realized how much they pointed out to the sides.
The instructor was quite pleased that I do in fact know how to ride kinda ok and I do in fact have some vague natural balance. I *know* he was expecting the typical gaited horse chair seat. Even when I think I'm sitting straight, my heels aren't actually under my hips, but they're pretty close for a gaited rider. Seriously, this is really exactly how everybody else I know rides.
I left with a bunch of new stuff to think about, and new ways to sit, and old things I'd half-forgotten about to start doing again. It is SO EASY when you're just riding along a trail to quit looking where you want the horse to go and actually look around at the scenery. But yep, a dressage horse really does go where you're looking. I steered a little squiggly s-shape at a walk around the arena just by looking at different points as we walked. Lots of fun.
The first major things I need to work on - heels further back. Toes pointed straight ahead. Keep my hands still. Get that elusive "feel" for asking for a halt with my body - I've been reading about it for years, and I still don't "feel" it. Those are the things I know I "do wrong," and I know I can correct on my own. I can actually glance down and see where my toes have decided to point, or where my heels are wandering off to.
So I'm doing a weekly lesson on Sundays now. I am definitely excited. I am going to LEARN STUFF. I feel like ... like I'm ready to learn stuff without just blindly trusting whatever the instructor tells me? Like the instructor would say "Turn your toes in more toward the horse and it will change how your knees grip" and I'd turn my toes in, think about how it felt, and go "Yep, you're exactly right, it's better this way." I have a base of my own knowledge to compare what I'm being told against.
I'm really proud of what I've done on my own. I am not a perfect rider, not at all, but I've done quite a bit just by reading blogs and books and sites and forums, riding many miles on some very kind patient horses, and THINKING about what's going on. It was really important for me to teach myself to ride, at least somewhat, before I found someone to teach me. I am fairly confident, because I've made a lot of stupid mistakes and made a lot of good decisions and survived them all. I think at this point, as I continue to improve, I'll still be self-confident but the horses and I will all be better off.
And finally, my very own crazy spotted mare.
I think her name is Dixie. I suppose. I reserve the right to change it again if something else feels right - god knows I feel dumb calling my horse Dixie. Every 10th QH and every 4th TWH down here is named Dixie.
Anyway - I rode her Sunday afternoon. I really had a halfass plan when I brought them to Como, I just wasn't sure if it was a good plan so I didn't talk too much about it. Dixie was broke for the show ring by some heavyhanded guy with a whip. She only knew to gait as fast as she possibly could at any time there was someone on her back. And the person I bought her from didn't even try to retrain her - the woman I got her from always has helpers around to hold her horses.
I spent months, off and on, trying to get Dixie to understand that she's actually supposed to stand still long enough for her clumsy human to climb all the way up in the saddle and get both feet in the stirrups before she takes off straight ahead at a fast rack. I'd finally gotten her to stand for mounting, dismounting, and general fidgeting when I moved the horses down.
I never felt like Dixie was calm, though. Never. I'm not sure if she's a nervous horse, a normal young mare, or just a frightened horse. My plan was to just turn her out with my other three relatively normal horses in a big field and leave her alone til she calmed down. If my plan had failed and she'd decided to stay a wild horse forever... well, I'd eventually have caught her and moved her to the new place and tried something else. But it did work, actually.
Honestly, I did not touch Dixie at all for a month. She stayed out of range of me and I just showed up, brushed everybody else, put my hands all over everybody else, and left an extra cup of oats on the ground out where she could get some if she wanted them.
The second month, the flies were terrible so I started putting that fly drop stuff on everybody. I had to get close enough long enough to put three big drops on her, but that was it - I knew she wanted to bolt, so I just walked up calmly with horse cookies and stuffed cookies in her face with one hand while I squirted fly stuff on her with the other. Then I'd walk away.
The last few times I've gone down, even without the oats or cookies or anything, she has been very very curious about me. When I could get a moment alone from Poppy and Champ, she'd come up to me, all snorty and wild eyed, and sniff my hand and let me touch her head, just a bit. And that time when she kicked the fence down and went chasing cows, she was DELIGHTED when I came to rescue her.
Anyway, I'd had such a good wild ride on Rascal and such a good calm ride on Clipper. I really wanted to see how Dixie would do. I parked my truck outside the horses' field and walked in.
Dixie came up and stuck her head in the halter when I called. We walked through the gate, I tied her to my truck and brushed her down, and she was calm. She needed to smell the pad and saddle before I put them on her, but she was ok with it. I put Champ's bridle on her and damn if it wasn't way too long so I had to adjust it three different times to get the length right. She was a-ok with that. She really wanted to dance right off when I moved to her side to mount up, but I just quietly stayed at her flank and told her to whoa and eventually she stood for me. I swung up. She stood stock still.
This is HUGE. She stood for me to mount and she stood when I was getting settled. Huge.
Then I gave her the tiniest nudge and off we went and I felt like the Queen of the World on my amazing showy steppin' fool of a mare.
Dixie was very very nervous to leave the herd and go off into the distance, so I did a lot of very small circles in and out of her comfort zone. She'd have to go out at my speed and in the direction I wanted, then back over by the other horses (who stood patiently at the fence the whole time, watching us), then she'd get to stand and look at them. When she sighed or relaxed, we'd head out again. I wanted, more than anything, for this ride to be a GOOD experience for her. I think she's had a lot of bad experiences in her life. I think she is finally maybe starting to think about trusting me. I don't want to scare her when I'm just now getting some rapport with her.
When she's not panicking, she's amazingly responsive. I love this horse and I really think she's going to be outstanding as she starts to trust me more and more. I have had some moments (ok, many moments) when I wasn't sure why I'd ever bought her... but I'm so glad I did. She's a challenge but SO MUCH FUN!
This horse has a lovely trot and canter at liberty. She has a lovely RW under saddle, and a clumsy hesitant canter under saddle. I really want to learn enough to start teaching her dressage too. I know for a fact that you don't "ruin" their gait by letting them trot or canter - you just have to establish different cues for "gait please" and "trot please." One day I'll learn enough to teach her that, and we're going to be unstoppably awesome then. :)
Saturday evening I went trail riding with James. We'd decided to go night riding, so we left about 7:30. I was on his horse Rascal, he was on his cousin's horse Surprise, and Cersei trotted along on foot. See, I wanted to go night riding so we could see some deer. Deer are awesome and it's been way too long since I saw them!
I forgot Rascal is terrified of deer. I forgot it so completely, in fact, that the deer caught me totally flat footed. We were all moseying along at a slow walk, loose rein, horses snagging bites of grass in the overgrown field as the riders stared intently into the gloom looking for the deer. Then the deer who'd been hiding in the brush about five feet away broke for the treeline with a huge crashing rattling explosion. Rascal was sure it was the end of the world, and he snatched his head up while I started to fumble for the reins. He reared, I instinctively leaned forward and got my hands where I wanted, and he turned in midair. As he came down - facing Surprise, who was completely bored by the deer and the stupid gelding - I pulled his head left and kept him turning straight back around to face the deersplosion. I hollered something like "It's a DEER you goddamn idiot, deer don't eat horses!" and then Cersei came crashing clattering thrashing through the weeds straight back toward us. Rascal started to tense up to explode again and I yelled "THAT'S MY DOG! DON'T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" The dog popped out in front of us, Rascal did a little hop to the right, and it was all over.
I kicked Rascal back to a slow walk forward and got a huge case of the giggles.
This is my third autumn. I know that horses are zombies in the heat, and they suddenly come back to life as soon as the weather starts to cool off. My first cool windy ride on Champ, about two weeks after I got him, was such an amazing shock to me that I am still always kind of nervous about that first cool day. It's incredible to me how horses just wake up. Anyway, I always halfway suspect that I have forgotten how to ride. As soon as the weather cools off, the horse is going to snap and kill me, or I'm just going to fall off on my own and the horse will run back to the barn, laughing at the stupid human.
Saturday night, I was completely unready for any kind of action. But I really did do everything right when something did happen, and I wasn't even scared. (Well, to start with, I shouldn't have been gazing off into la-la land with limp reins at night on a dark trail.) I started getting my reins back, stayed balanced through the rear, kept the horse from bolting, and got the horse's mind back on ME.
So, another autumn fear is out of the way.
We saw a muskrat or otter in the pond on the way back, but that was it. There were quite a few four wheelers out nightriding too, and the rest of the deer were ... somewhere else, who knows. Stupid deer, come out and entertain me please!
Sunday morning I went out to the new stable for a dressage lesson, the very first formal riding lesson I've ever had. This first lesson was a chance for them to feel out what I know and where I'm at. First, they asked if I ride with active legs or not so much leg - I thought about it for a while and said I suppose I ride with less leg. Most TWHs are pretty reactive to any kind of leg pressure, so I generally keep my legs off the horse.
The instructor and manager consulted each other, then put me on a grey Arab, a quite kind old schoolmaster who's just a bit too responsive to leg pressure to be perfect for novices. Clipper's barefoot, a very nice weight, with fairly nice hooves, no back soreness, not a great topline but I suspect he's pretty old. Just a touch of that old-horse swayback, yknow.
A digression: All the horses in that barn are in good flesh, well groomed, totally relaxed but not stall-crazy. The stalls are clean and bedded with piles of fluffy chips, and the stalls are actually "horse safe." No nails sticking out, no milk crates nailed to the wall to hold buckets, no extension cords tacked to the wall above the horses' heads... Wow. I've seen fancier barns, on TV or pictures online, but this place is perfectly functional, perfectly safe, and is full of perfectly normal and content horses. It's just dreamy.
Anyway, we headed down to the covered arena (COVERED! and there's RAKED SAND STUFF, not clods of dirt with weeds!). We spent a lot of time talking and did some basic walking and trotting. I got a couple of canters when I only meant to trot - Clipper is in fact very responsive, and I am totally used to riding Champ and just yelling "Trot!" until he trots. Actually politely asking with my calves is new and fun! A lot of new and fun things - keeping my toes pointed straight ahead was amazingly hard, and I never realized how much they pointed out to the sides.
The instructor was quite pleased that I do in fact know how to ride kinda ok and I do in fact have some vague natural balance. I *know* he was expecting the typical gaited horse chair seat. Even when I think I'm sitting straight, my heels aren't actually under my hips, but they're pretty close for a gaited rider. Seriously, this is really exactly how everybody else I know rides.
I left with a bunch of new stuff to think about, and new ways to sit, and old things I'd half-forgotten about to start doing again. It is SO EASY when you're just riding along a trail to quit looking where you want the horse to go and actually look around at the scenery. But yep, a dressage horse really does go where you're looking. I steered a little squiggly s-shape at a walk around the arena just by looking at different points as we walked. Lots of fun.
The first major things I need to work on - heels further back. Toes pointed straight ahead. Keep my hands still. Get that elusive "feel" for asking for a halt with my body - I've been reading about it for years, and I still don't "feel" it. Those are the things I know I "do wrong," and I know I can correct on my own. I can actually glance down and see where my toes have decided to point, or where my heels are wandering off to.
So I'm doing a weekly lesson on Sundays now. I am definitely excited. I am going to LEARN STUFF. I feel like ... like I'm ready to learn stuff without just blindly trusting whatever the instructor tells me? Like the instructor would say "Turn your toes in more toward the horse and it will change how your knees grip" and I'd turn my toes in, think about how it felt, and go "Yep, you're exactly right, it's better this way." I have a base of my own knowledge to compare what I'm being told against.
I'm really proud of what I've done on my own. I am not a perfect rider, not at all, but I've done quite a bit just by reading blogs and books and sites and forums, riding many miles on some very kind patient horses, and THINKING about what's going on. It was really important for me to teach myself to ride, at least somewhat, before I found someone to teach me. I am fairly confident, because I've made a lot of stupid mistakes and made a lot of good decisions and survived them all. I think at this point, as I continue to improve, I'll still be self-confident but the horses and I will all be better off.
And finally, my very own crazy spotted mare.
I think her name is Dixie. I suppose. I reserve the right to change it again if something else feels right - god knows I feel dumb calling my horse Dixie. Every 10th QH and every 4th TWH down here is named Dixie.
Anyway - I rode her Sunday afternoon. I really had a halfass plan when I brought them to Como, I just wasn't sure if it was a good plan so I didn't talk too much about it. Dixie was broke for the show ring by some heavyhanded guy with a whip. She only knew to gait as fast as she possibly could at any time there was someone on her back. And the person I bought her from didn't even try to retrain her - the woman I got her from always has helpers around to hold her horses.
I spent months, off and on, trying to get Dixie to understand that she's actually supposed to stand still long enough for her clumsy human to climb all the way up in the saddle and get both feet in the stirrups before she takes off straight ahead at a fast rack. I'd finally gotten her to stand for mounting, dismounting, and general fidgeting when I moved the horses down.
I never felt like Dixie was calm, though. Never. I'm not sure if she's a nervous horse, a normal young mare, or just a frightened horse. My plan was to just turn her out with my other three relatively normal horses in a big field and leave her alone til she calmed down. If my plan had failed and she'd decided to stay a wild horse forever... well, I'd eventually have caught her and moved her to the new place and tried something else. But it did work, actually.
Honestly, I did not touch Dixie at all for a month. She stayed out of range of me and I just showed up, brushed everybody else, put my hands all over everybody else, and left an extra cup of oats on the ground out where she could get some if she wanted them.
The second month, the flies were terrible so I started putting that fly drop stuff on everybody. I had to get close enough long enough to put three big drops on her, but that was it - I knew she wanted to bolt, so I just walked up calmly with horse cookies and stuffed cookies in her face with one hand while I squirted fly stuff on her with the other. Then I'd walk away.
The last few times I've gone down, even without the oats or cookies or anything, she has been very very curious about me. When I could get a moment alone from Poppy and Champ, she'd come up to me, all snorty and wild eyed, and sniff my hand and let me touch her head, just a bit. And that time when she kicked the fence down and went chasing cows, she was DELIGHTED when I came to rescue her.
Anyway, I'd had such a good wild ride on Rascal and such a good calm ride on Clipper. I really wanted to see how Dixie would do. I parked my truck outside the horses' field and walked in.
Dixie came up and stuck her head in the halter when I called. We walked through the gate, I tied her to my truck and brushed her down, and she was calm. She needed to smell the pad and saddle before I put them on her, but she was ok with it. I put Champ's bridle on her and damn if it wasn't way too long so I had to adjust it three different times to get the length right. She was a-ok with that. She really wanted to dance right off when I moved to her side to mount up, but I just quietly stayed at her flank and told her to whoa and eventually she stood for me. I swung up. She stood stock still.
This is HUGE. She stood for me to mount and she stood when I was getting settled. Huge.
Then I gave her the tiniest nudge and off we went and I felt like the Queen of the World on my amazing showy steppin' fool of a mare.
Dixie was very very nervous to leave the herd and go off into the distance, so I did a lot of very small circles in and out of her comfort zone. She'd have to go out at my speed and in the direction I wanted, then back over by the other horses (who stood patiently at the fence the whole time, watching us), then she'd get to stand and look at them. When she sighed or relaxed, we'd head out again. I wanted, more than anything, for this ride to be a GOOD experience for her. I think she's had a lot of bad experiences in her life. I think she is finally maybe starting to think about trusting me. I don't want to scare her when I'm just now getting some rapport with her.
When she's not panicking, she's amazingly responsive. I love this horse and I really think she's going to be outstanding as she starts to trust me more and more. I have had some moments (ok, many moments) when I wasn't sure why I'd ever bought her... but I'm so glad I did. She's a challenge but SO MUCH FUN!
This horse has a lovely trot and canter at liberty. She has a lovely RW under saddle, and a clumsy hesitant canter under saddle. I really want to learn enough to start teaching her dressage too. I know for a fact that you don't "ruin" their gait by letting them trot or canter - you just have to establish different cues for "gait please" and "trot please." One day I'll learn enough to teach her that, and we're going to be unstoppably awesome then. :)
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Jailbreak!
Part one, in which I Am Brilliant.
So Wednesday I took that awesome picture of Cersei on my cell phone. I turned on the bluetooth, uploaded the picture, made a post, and forgot about it. Then Thursday or Friday I remembered the bluetooth broadcasting was still on, draining a little extra battery, so I turned it off.
Saturday afternoon I noticed that I had not, in fact, turned off the bluetooth. I turned off the phone's ability to send and receive calls, which is on the same screen as the bluetooth. My phone had been a PDA-only for a couple of days. Woops. Turned the phone on (and bluetooth off), checked my voice mail, and got a cryptic message from my uncle.
I called their house and my aunt answered. I told her I was planning to come down Sunday on my way to the exam if that was ok? and she said fine. She didn't mention him calling so I figured it wasn't that important.
Part two, in which I Know My Horses When I See Them!
I always go see the horses first, then visit the house on the way back out. I'd dropped Cersei with my parents, so driving out to the horses was a little lonely. I was bouncing through the field adjacent to the horses when I saw a flash of something that looked an awful lot like the spotted mare's flank in the corral by the barn. I briefly thought "Nah, that's just a new cow getting acclimated in the barn" but it just didn't feel right. I know my horses when I see them. Anybody with pets or kids knows what I'm talking about.
I stopped by the gate to the barn area and got out. Sure enough, it was her. She was sticky with sweat and pacing around, but she wasn't dangerously panicked. I petted her nose, shooed her away to watch her move, and looked really carefully all over her. She had two fresh minor cuts on her legs but was otherwise just fine.
I got back in the truck and drove the 200 yards or so to the horse pasture. The other three were standing at the fence, staring at the direction I'd come from. They were obviously looking for the spotted one, but they were a lot calmer than she was. I guess they still had each other and that made it better. I grabbed a halter and lead rope off the gate and walked the 200 or 300 yards back to the barn area.
The mare (who really needs a real name) was very glad to see me come back and actually stuck her nose right in the halter. Then she walked, like a completely angel, the 400 or 500 yards in the 95 degree muggy heat back to her pasture. When we got close enough that the horses could all see each other, she let out an earsplitting shriek of joy and started dancing in circles around me. Champ and others hollered back at her so I took pity on her and unclipped the lead. She broke into a beautiful canter over to the fence and there was the most adorable reunion scene! Everybody nuzzled over the fence and smelled each other and it was just like a picture.
I told her to come here so I could put her back out with them and she let me catch her with zero fuss. (I really think the "go be a horse and see if you're less of a spaz" strategy is paying off.) I walked her over to the gate, shooed the boys off of it, and led her through. I turned around to fasten the gate behind me and by the time I turned around, she was squealing at Poppy. I hollered at them, got the halter off of her, and they moved a few feet away to start squealing and kicking. Ahhh, horses. It took literally 30 seconds for them to go from "OMG so glad you're back!" to "I hate you! Don't touch me."
Part three, in which All Is Revealed.
I went by the house on my way out. Stupid mare had broken the fence Saturday morning and was CHASING CALVES. She's in heat, which is a decent excuse for horse stupidity, but argh. Chasing cows. That's not cool. And double argh, that my stupid phone was off and I didn't get the call to come help fix the fence. That's the first time anybody else has ever fixed a fence for me, and of course it was my 70 year old uncle doing it! Oh well. He's a farmer, so he wasn't mad - livestock break fences; it's a fact of life.
She was locked up by the barn because she is still as wild as a March hare for other people. She wouldn't let my uncle and his hired guy touch her or even get too near her! It was kind of endearing that she let me catch her so easily. :) More proof, I suppose, that my long term strategy with her is paying off. She does like me. Yay!
So Wednesday I took that awesome picture of Cersei on my cell phone. I turned on the bluetooth, uploaded the picture, made a post, and forgot about it. Then Thursday or Friday I remembered the bluetooth broadcasting was still on, draining a little extra battery, so I turned it off.
Saturday afternoon I noticed that I had not, in fact, turned off the bluetooth. I turned off the phone's ability to send and receive calls, which is on the same screen as the bluetooth. My phone had been a PDA-only for a couple of days. Woops. Turned the phone on (and bluetooth off), checked my voice mail, and got a cryptic message from my uncle.
I called their house and my aunt answered. I told her I was planning to come down Sunday on my way to the exam if that was ok? and she said fine. She didn't mention him calling so I figured it wasn't that important.
Part two, in which I Know My Horses When I See Them!
I always go see the horses first, then visit the house on the way back out. I'd dropped Cersei with my parents, so driving out to the horses was a little lonely. I was bouncing through the field adjacent to the horses when I saw a flash of something that looked an awful lot like the spotted mare's flank in the corral by the barn. I briefly thought "Nah, that's just a new cow getting acclimated in the barn" but it just didn't feel right. I know my horses when I see them. Anybody with pets or kids knows what I'm talking about.
I stopped by the gate to the barn area and got out. Sure enough, it was her. She was sticky with sweat and pacing around, but she wasn't dangerously panicked. I petted her nose, shooed her away to watch her move, and looked really carefully all over her. She had two fresh minor cuts on her legs but was otherwise just fine.
I got back in the truck and drove the 200 yards or so to the horse pasture. The other three were standing at the fence, staring at the direction I'd come from. They were obviously looking for the spotted one, but they were a lot calmer than she was. I guess they still had each other and that made it better. I grabbed a halter and lead rope off the gate and walked the 200 or 300 yards back to the barn area.
The mare (who really needs a real name) was very glad to see me come back and actually stuck her nose right in the halter. Then she walked, like a completely angel, the 400 or 500 yards in the 95 degree muggy heat back to her pasture. When we got close enough that the horses could all see each other, she let out an earsplitting shriek of joy and started dancing in circles around me. Champ and others hollered back at her so I took pity on her and unclipped the lead. She broke into a beautiful canter over to the fence and there was the most adorable reunion scene! Everybody nuzzled over the fence and smelled each other and it was just like a picture.
I told her to come here so I could put her back out with them and she let me catch her with zero fuss. (I really think the "go be a horse and see if you're less of a spaz" strategy is paying off.) I walked her over to the gate, shooed the boys off of it, and led her through. I turned around to fasten the gate behind me and by the time I turned around, she was squealing at Poppy. I hollered at them, got the halter off of her, and they moved a few feet away to start squealing and kicking. Ahhh, horses. It took literally 30 seconds for them to go from "OMG so glad you're back!" to "I hate you! Don't touch me."
Part three, in which All Is Revealed.
I went by the house on my way out. Stupid mare had broken the fence Saturday morning and was CHASING CALVES. She's in heat, which is a decent excuse for horse stupidity, but argh. Chasing cows. That's not cool. And double argh, that my stupid phone was off and I didn't get the call to come help fix the fence. That's the first time anybody else has ever fixed a fence for me, and of course it was my 70 year old uncle doing it! Oh well. He's a farmer, so he wasn't mad - livestock break fences; it's a fact of life.
She was locked up by the barn because she is still as wild as a March hare for other people. She wouldn't let my uncle and his hired guy touch her or even get too near her! It was kind of endearing that she let me catch her so easily. :) More proof, I suppose, that my long term strategy with her is paying off. She does like me. Yay!
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Nerd alert - hoof pictures galore.
So I just checked the mail. There was some goofy catalog for clothing and jewelry featuring horses - stuff I'd never buy. (How do these people find me? I haven't ordered ANYTHING at this address.) But anyway, on the cover was a cute paint horse walking through a shallow pond. She had a foot raised to take the next step and the first thing I thought was "talk about underrun heels!" Then I flipped through the catalog to make sure they weren't selling anything useful, like tack, and threw it away.
Anyway, I haven't been trimming my horses. The last time I trimmed was at the end of April. It's a bit of an ongoing experiment - I've checked their hooves every time I've seen them, and if anybody seemed too long or uncomfortable, I would've dragged my rasp and stand down and fixed the problem. But Carmon's horses live on a mountain and self-trim. And there are wild horses in non-rocky areas who self-trim. I wondered how mine would do with a lot of room to roam but only dirt to wear their hooves down.
It's actually a success, as far as I can tell! Champ's feet looked pretty good before, and they look AMAZING now. Here's a blurry pic of his RF in March 07 (barefoot for 3 months, IIRC.)
Here's his LF from last week. The wall looks horrible and ragged, but it's wearing off. Not chipping off nicely into a mustang roll like if he lived on rock, but somehow wearing off nonetheless. And his FROGS! I really had no idea that his frogs could and would expand so much, ever! He wore keg shoes from when he was probably 2 til 13, and he had nice-ish shod feet with puny frogs.
Here's his rear from March 07. His rears have always looked better (most horses' do), even though he wore shoes on the rears too. I thought he had nicer frogs, but high inside heels.
LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE! (Yeah, I know I'm yelling, but I'm a nerd and I get really excited about pretty frogs.) I even think the high inside heel is not as prominent.
At first, when I was looking through the pictures I'd taken, I really thought that was a picture of Poppy's feet. But I *know* I didn't pick up anybody's feet except Champ, and Poppy has a longer thicker tail and hairier fetlocks, so... that must be Champ's foot.
And I didn't pick up Dixie Quinn's feet, but I don't have any old pictures of solar views anyway. We'll compare apples to apples with her. Here's her feet, shortly after I got her. The short back story is that she was a padded show horse for a season, then shod (fronts only) with heavy keg shoes. Her hoof capsules were horribly distorted - padded TWHs are the very definition of long toes / underrun heels. This is about a month after I got her and had her shoes pulled. You can see how much I pulled her toes back.
Here they are today. Down in the grass you can see a tiny bit of ski-tip still growing out, but otherwise, her feet have healed really nicely.
Anyway, I haven't been trimming my horses. The last time I trimmed was at the end of April. It's a bit of an ongoing experiment - I've checked their hooves every time I've seen them, and if anybody seemed too long or uncomfortable, I would've dragged my rasp and stand down and fixed the problem. But Carmon's horses live on a mountain and self-trim. And there are wild horses in non-rocky areas who self-trim. I wondered how mine would do with a lot of room to roam but only dirt to wear their hooves down.
It's actually a success, as far as I can tell! Champ's feet looked pretty good before, and they look AMAZING now. Here's a blurry pic of his RF in March 07 (barefoot for 3 months, IIRC.)
Here's his LF from last week. The wall looks horrible and ragged, but it's wearing off. Not chipping off nicely into a mustang roll like if he lived on rock, but somehow wearing off nonetheless. And his FROGS! I really had no idea that his frogs could and would expand so much, ever! He wore keg shoes from when he was probably 2 til 13, and he had nice-ish shod feet with puny frogs.
Here's his rear from March 07. His rears have always looked better (most horses' do), even though he wore shoes on the rears too. I thought he had nicer frogs, but high inside heels.
LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE! (Yeah, I know I'm yelling, but I'm a nerd and I get really excited about pretty frogs.) I even think the high inside heel is not as prominent.
At first, when I was looking through the pictures I'd taken, I really thought that was a picture of Poppy's feet. But I *know* I didn't pick up anybody's feet except Champ, and Poppy has a longer thicker tail and hairier fetlocks, so... that must be Champ's foot.
And I didn't pick up Dixie Quinn's feet, but I don't have any old pictures of solar views anyway. We'll compare apples to apples with her. Here's her feet, shortly after I got her. The short back story is that she was a padded show horse for a season, then shod (fronts only) with heavy keg shoes. Her hoof capsules were horribly distorted - padded TWHs are the very definition of long toes / underrun heels. This is about a month after I got her and had her shoes pulled. You can see how much I pulled her toes back.
Here they are today. Down in the grass you can see a tiny bit of ski-tip still growing out, but otherwise, her feet have healed really nicely.
Monday, April 28, 2008
The end is in sight!
Ok, I've taken three finals and I have one more, plus a paper to edit and turn in, and then I'll be DONE FOREVER with law school. (Unless I failed a class and have to take summer school, oh god please no pleasepleaseplease...)
I'm aiming to get my paper finished and emailed in tomorrow. Then Wednesday I'll learn Family Law, Thursday I take the last exam, Friday I move the horses and Graham comes to town, and Sunday I graduate. The funny thing? I'm really not looking forward to moving the horses. I'm going to miss them. Going to feed has been the one constant in my life for almost two years. They'll be having the times of their lives, in a lovely pasture full of grass. They aren't really far away, as these things go - an hour isn't a big deal. But it's not something I can do every day.
And they're all going to Como. Today Jody told me (in front of witnesses!) that I can take Quinn with the others. I almost cried, I was so shocked and overjoyed. I still owe money on her and I didn't think Jody would want me taking her to another state... but she's gonna let me. I'm giving the papers (which aren't in my name yet anyway) back along with a signed agreement, and I get to take her!
It's definitely best for the horse. I was so sad about having to leave Quinn in Memphis, because she's just now really becoming part of the herd. If she stayed in Memphis, she'd be on the outside of Jen's herd for a couple of months, then have to leave them and come back to me and learn to get along with my hateful bunch again.
Surely tomorrow I'll remember to take pics. Quinn's bay flank spots are like 50% roan - she's a gorgeous mare. And Poppy's big and black, Champ's fugly, and Silky is old but elegant.
I took Fugly and Cersei for a short ride today. The horses are fighting off a nasty upper respiratory thing that's ripping through the barn, so I didn't go far or fast. Mainly we'd wander 50 yards, then graze, then wander, then graze. I let Champ canter on the way back, just a bit, just because cantering on a sunny day in a green field is like flying.
I'm aiming to get my paper finished and emailed in tomorrow. Then Wednesday I'll learn Family Law, Thursday I take the last exam, Friday I move the horses and Graham comes to town, and Sunday I graduate. The funny thing? I'm really not looking forward to moving the horses. I'm going to miss them. Going to feed has been the one constant in my life for almost two years. They'll be having the times of their lives, in a lovely pasture full of grass. They aren't really far away, as these things go - an hour isn't a big deal. But it's not something I can do every day.
And they're all going to Como. Today Jody told me (in front of witnesses!) that I can take Quinn with the others. I almost cried, I was so shocked and overjoyed. I still owe money on her and I didn't think Jody would want me taking her to another state... but she's gonna let me. I'm giving the papers (which aren't in my name yet anyway) back along with a signed agreement, and I get to take her!
It's definitely best for the horse. I was so sad about having to leave Quinn in Memphis, because she's just now really becoming part of the herd. If she stayed in Memphis, she'd be on the outside of Jen's herd for a couple of months, then have to leave them and come back to me and learn to get along with my hateful bunch again.
Surely tomorrow I'll remember to take pics. Quinn's bay flank spots are like 50% roan - she's a gorgeous mare. And Poppy's big and black, Champ's fugly, and Silky is old but elegant.
I took Fugly and Cersei for a short ride today. The horses are fighting off a nasty upper respiratory thing that's ripping through the barn, so I didn't go far or fast. Mainly we'd wander 50 yards, then graze, then wander, then graze. I let Champ canter on the way back, just a bit, just because cantering on a sunny day in a green field is like flying.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Too many, too much?
I'm broke. Money is *so* tight right now. I'm so broke that if I thought it was going to go on like this I'd sell at least two of my horses. But the thing is, it's not going to go on like this. In less than a month I'll have graduated law school. (Now that's a scary thought - both for the exams that are coming up, and the thought of me as an almost-lawyer!) Anyway, it's a bit of an ethical quandary. Or at least a thought exercise in ethics!
Every horse hoarder you see on FHOTD has thought "I can take better care of my horses than anybody else." Hell, every responsible horse owner has thought the same. (Or maybe that's just me, because I'm surrounded by crazies who feed bread to their horses?) The point is that we all think we're doing the right thing, and sometimes we're not.
I honestly think I'm still ok. Still have to make my April stall rent, but I'm getting there. And the end is in sight, it really is. One more month of stall rent on four horses and hay for four horses, then I'm moving the three dark ones to Como for the summer. They'll have acres of grass to play on, and I'll visit them a couple of times a week. The spotted one stays in Frayser, where Jen will feed her (hay and grain only, no bread thank you) and I'll come up on the weekends and ride her.
Speaking of the spotted one... Yesterday I went out to brush some more winter fuzz off of the beasties. They were playing musical hay piles, so I actually got to brush whichever horse I wanted to brush. (If there's no food to distract him, Poppy will follow me around and beg to be brushed. He's such a hedonist - food, scritches, food, scritches.) I brushed Champ for a long time, then tried to brush Quinn.
I always try to brush her at liberty when I'm brushing the rest of them - I walk up and she's sort of excited but nervous to see me. I touch her neck, then gently swipe her a few times with the brush, then she gets nervous and backs away. I always let her go, because it's not a big deal. If she's not enjoying it, I'm not enjoying it.
So yesterday I brushed Champ, then tried to brush Quinn and she moved away. I went and brushed Silky for a long time, then Poppy for a bit. Quinn was so busy staring at me that she was barely eating. Ears forward, wouldn't stop looking at me, but couldn't come over because I was too near another horse. I went back to her and scritched the crest of her neck, then slowly started brushing her. She dropped her nose and started eating hay again, so I kept brushing! All over! Her shoulders, her back, her flanks, her butt! It was a big breakthrough for us. She's never let me brush anything except her neck and shoulders at liberty. We made a blizzard of white hair.
I need to take new pictures of everybody. Quinn's roaning out a lot. She's mostly white, but the bay parts are very typically roan. Chocolate colored head and chest, some white in her shoulder spots, 50% white on her flank spots. Poppy is a giant black monster. Silky looks great for her age, and Champ is, of course, ribby. (I suspect he is ribby just to piss me off.)
Silky still hates Quinn, and Champ is accepting but ambivalent. But Poppy has decided to be her friend! Last week I turned everybody out in the big pasture. Champ and Silky went off together, and Poppy stuck with Quinn. Buck the proud-cut Icelandic gelding (whose nickname rhymes with "buck") came sniffing up to Quinn, who was in heat. POPPY ALMOST KICKED BUCK IN THE HEAD! I'm so proud! XD If only he were faster...
Every horse hoarder you see on FHOTD has thought "I can take better care of my horses than anybody else." Hell, every responsible horse owner has thought the same. (Or maybe that's just me, because I'm surrounded by crazies who feed bread to their horses?) The point is that we all think we're doing the right thing, and sometimes we're not.
I honestly think I'm still ok. Still have to make my April stall rent, but I'm getting there. And the end is in sight, it really is. One more month of stall rent on four horses and hay for four horses, then I'm moving the three dark ones to Como for the summer. They'll have acres of grass to play on, and I'll visit them a couple of times a week. The spotted one stays in Frayser, where Jen will feed her (hay and grain only, no bread thank you) and I'll come up on the weekends and ride her.
Speaking of the spotted one... Yesterday I went out to brush some more winter fuzz off of the beasties. They were playing musical hay piles, so I actually got to brush whichever horse I wanted to brush. (If there's no food to distract him, Poppy will follow me around and beg to be brushed. He's such a hedonist - food, scritches, food, scritches.) I brushed Champ for a long time, then tried to brush Quinn.
I always try to brush her at liberty when I'm brushing the rest of them - I walk up and she's sort of excited but nervous to see me. I touch her neck, then gently swipe her a few times with the brush, then she gets nervous and backs away. I always let her go, because it's not a big deal. If she's not enjoying it, I'm not enjoying it.
So yesterday I brushed Champ, then tried to brush Quinn and she moved away. I went and brushed Silky for a long time, then Poppy for a bit. Quinn was so busy staring at me that she was barely eating. Ears forward, wouldn't stop looking at me, but couldn't come over because I was too near another horse. I went back to her and scritched the crest of her neck, then slowly started brushing her. She dropped her nose and started eating hay again, so I kept brushing! All over! Her shoulders, her back, her flanks, her butt! It was a big breakthrough for us. She's never let me brush anything except her neck and shoulders at liberty. We made a blizzard of white hair.
I need to take new pictures of everybody. Quinn's roaning out a lot. She's mostly white, but the bay parts are very typically roan. Chocolate colored head and chest, some white in her shoulder spots, 50% white on her flank spots. Poppy is a giant black monster. Silky looks great for her age, and Champ is, of course, ribby. (I suspect he is ribby just to piss me off.)
Silky still hates Quinn, and Champ is accepting but ambivalent. But Poppy has decided to be her friend! Last week I turned everybody out in the big pasture. Champ and Silky went off together, and Poppy stuck with Quinn. Buck the proud-cut Icelandic gelding (whose nickname rhymes with "buck") came sniffing up to Quinn, who was in heat. POPPY ALMOST KICKED BUCK IN THE HEAD! I'm so proud! XD If only he were faster...
Thursday, April 3, 2008
She *is* a show horse!
My very own Eagle Eyes Miss Dixie was at the GCHS last year. (Halfway down the page, class 272 SSH Open Shod.) That's kind of trippy.
Of course, 4th out of 4 isn't really a testament to her stunning natural gait or anything.
I dug her pedigree out of my files. On her dam's side, she doesn't go back to any "famous" gaited horse names (a 5th generation Black Sun daughter, woo!) but on her sire's side she's a granddaughter of The Pusher, a great-granddaughter of Delight of Pride, and a great-great of Mack K's Handshaker. I looked up her famous ancestors on Walker's West, but it depresses me to see all those padded, probably sored baby horses being ridden too hard. And wtf is with the gaited show horse seat? Why are all those guys ... craning their necks forward? Here, look at the '86 or the '87 WGC. Gaited show horse riders all - down to my crappy little local level - tend to ride hunched over with their heads craned forward. I'm not sure what the point is, or why they all seem to stare at their hands. My hands generally do what my brain tells them to do, regardless of whether or not I'm watching them. But that's just me, and I'm obviously not a show rider. :rolleyes:
Of course, 4th out of 4 isn't really a testament to her stunning natural gait or anything.
I dug her pedigree out of my files. On her dam's side, she doesn't go back to any "famous" gaited horse names (a 5th generation Black Sun daughter, woo!) but on her sire's side she's a granddaughter of The Pusher, a great-granddaughter of Delight of Pride, and a great-great of Mack K's Handshaker. I looked up her famous ancestors on Walker's West, but it depresses me to see all those padded, probably sored baby horses being ridden too hard. And wtf is with the gaited show horse seat? Why are all those guys ... craning their necks forward? Here, look at the '86 or the '87 WGC. Gaited show horse riders all - down to my crappy little local level - tend to ride hunched over with their heads craned forward. I'm not sure what the point is, or why they all seem to stare at their hands. My hands generally do what my brain tells them to do, regardless of whether or not I'm watching them. But that's just me, and I'm obviously not a show rider. :rolleyes:
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The invisible floods - part one, Friday and Saturday
It's been a long time since I updated, but I had a hell of a week last week...
Anyway, last weekend I rode like mad. On Friday, Stephen had to go to Arkansas for that silly artist lady, so I had the day off work. I wanted to take Quinn - of course she was a beast about standing still. I asked James to help and he spent about 15 minutes working with her (doing the exact same thing I'd been doing!) and somehow she learned that we want her to stand still for the clumsy human to climb on. That man's a horse whisperer. Robert Redford has nothing on him. Anyway, after he got her to stand, I was able to get her to stand and climb on and off we went! We just rode around the bean field. The path by the little lake is entirely too flooded, and I was scared to ride her across the highway on a Friday afternoon. Then we went back and swapped horses.
I took Champ and James took Handyman, and we crossed the highway and rode down Millington Road. There's a little gravel road that leads, in a roundabout way, from Millington back to the trails, but it's usually blocked off by a gate at Millington. (And they're serious about it too - it's a gate with a fence on either side, not just the usual "gate with some posts on either side to stop 4-wheelers") The gate was open! We rode past it, to our usual turn-in, and went exploring. The water was higher than the week before, but still quite passable in the big fields. We ended up on some little trail-loops that we don't usually go down because they don't go very far.
Last Saturday I took Quinn out. She stood for me to get on! Pretty well! I did get off and back on once at the beginning of the ride, and about five times after we got back. Anyway, it was Saturday morning and not much traffic on the highway, so we headed across the street. Quinn did not bolt or back into traffic, and we did not die, which was a huge relief. The gate I mentioned before was still open! We went past it to our usual entrance.
The usual entrance is at a sharp bend in the road. I think it's where Millington stops and Overton Crossing begins. There's a pretty obvious old road bed running north - back when Millington Road would take you to Millington - but the paved road turns 90 degrees and heads back east. The 4-wheelers also use the old road bed to access the trails, so somebody sank a bunch of those steel-and-concrete posts to stop them. Posts stop 4-wheelers, but they only slow down horses. We have to dismount and lead the horses through the gap (it's just wide enough for a horse, not a horse plus a pair of legs) but we can still get through.
I'm usually pretty observant, but I didn't notice the fresh 4-wheeler tracks. James did, and he was the one who realized that there had to be another way in or out. Turns out an intrepid four wheeler guy had carved a new path through the dormant kudzu about 50 feet to the north of the usual path. Yay, no more dismounting!
Anyway, the 4-wheeler guy didn't get very far. The water was halfway up the first field. We had a nice slow long ride anyway, slogging through water that didn't get much deeper than 2 feet. Honestly, I can't remember exactly where we went, because it's been a week and it must not have been that memorable. Unlike Sunday!
Anyway, last weekend I rode like mad. On Friday, Stephen had to go to Arkansas for that silly artist lady, so I had the day off work. I wanted to take Quinn - of course she was a beast about standing still. I asked James to help and he spent about 15 minutes working with her (doing the exact same thing I'd been doing!) and somehow she learned that we want her to stand still for the clumsy human to climb on. That man's a horse whisperer. Robert Redford has nothing on him. Anyway, after he got her to stand, I was able to get her to stand and climb on and off we went! We just rode around the bean field. The path by the little lake is entirely too flooded, and I was scared to ride her across the highway on a Friday afternoon. Then we went back and swapped horses.
I took Champ and James took Handyman, and we crossed the highway and rode down Millington Road. There's a little gravel road that leads, in a roundabout way, from Millington back to the trails, but it's usually blocked off by a gate at Millington. (And they're serious about it too - it's a gate with a fence on either side, not just the usual "gate with some posts on either side to stop 4-wheelers") The gate was open! We rode past it, to our usual turn-in, and went exploring. The water was higher than the week before, but still quite passable in the big fields. We ended up on some little trail-loops that we don't usually go down because they don't go very far.
Last Saturday I took Quinn out. She stood for me to get on! Pretty well! I did get off and back on once at the beginning of the ride, and about five times after we got back. Anyway, it was Saturday morning and not much traffic on the highway, so we headed across the street. Quinn did not bolt or back into traffic, and we did not die, which was a huge relief. The gate I mentioned before was still open! We went past it to our usual entrance.
The usual entrance is at a sharp bend in the road. I think it's where Millington stops and Overton Crossing begins. There's a pretty obvious old road bed running north - back when Millington Road would take you to Millington - but the paved road turns 90 degrees and heads back east. The 4-wheelers also use the old road bed to access the trails, so somebody sank a bunch of those steel-and-concrete posts to stop them. Posts stop 4-wheelers, but they only slow down horses. We have to dismount and lead the horses through the gap (it's just wide enough for a horse, not a horse plus a pair of legs) but we can still get through.
I'm usually pretty observant, but I didn't notice the fresh 4-wheeler tracks. James did, and he was the one who realized that there had to be another way in or out. Turns out an intrepid four wheeler guy had carved a new path through the dormant kudzu about 50 feet to the north of the usual path. Yay, no more dismounting!
Anyway, the 4-wheeler guy didn't get very far. The water was halfway up the first field. We had a nice slow long ride anyway, slogging through water that didn't get much deeper than 2 feet. Honestly, I can't remember exactly where we went, because it's been a week and it must not have been that memorable. Unlike Sunday!
Saturday, March 15, 2008
What a blissful spring day!
Finally, I had one of those days that makes it all worthwhile. James and I rode all day!
We started with Champ and Handyman, so I could take Cersei. I won't take a chance on her getting squished, so I hop off and leash her and walk her across every road we cross. Champ is always good (well, as good as Champ ever is) about letting me get off and back on, so he's my Cersei-buddy. We've gotten a lot of rain lately and most of the trails are underwater, so we had to take an unusual route to get to the river. As it turned out, it was the only route.
We usually go up OK Robertson to the football field, then through the soybean field and north along Thomas to that green thing (it's a seasonal lake), then under the highway and due east on that dirt road (which has an anhydrous ammonia pipeline under it, eek), then north on the pipeline road to the river. Well, the green lake is flooded and the pipeline road is under water, so that was right out. We went across the soybean field, walked the beasties across Thomas, rode up Millington, led everybody through a very small gap in a fence, and we were finally on the "trail."
There's a little stream with a bridge over it. The bank is usually about 6' high - but the stream was brim-full. Wow. Then as we rode up the field, the trail got soggier and soggier til the horses were knee-deep. We finally made it to the river - the banks there are usually 15-20' above the water, and the river was full to the brim too. We stopped and just stared at it for a while, watching the huge logs ripping downstream and the whirlpools at the banks.
The trail in the forest wasn't too bad, and the horses were pretty cool about going under the train bridge - even though there was a train on it. Then we headed back down the pipeline road to go home our usual way, but the water just got deeper and deeper. Cersei was swimming, poor girl, and the horses were up to their chests. We stopped and watched catfish (!) swimming on the road(!!!) and decided there was just no way to get under the bridge. The horses could swim, and they were willing to swim because they knew they were headed home, but there's too many branches and pieces of rebar and junk that none of us would be able to see.
So we turned around and went halfway back, then tried to cut under the RR tracks at a different point that would've saved about 2 miles. No dice - I tried to ride alongside where the trail usually is, but we got to a point where the bottom dropped off deeper than Champ could feel and he refused to step off the edge. I asked him and tried to coax him, because I knew it was only a few feet of really deep water, but he was NOT having it and I wasn't going to force him to do something that dangerous. So back north to the river, back under the train tracks, then south along the tracks. There's another little bridge we had to cross, and this one was mostly underwater. We could see it, and the horses were blase about all this stupid water, so it wasn't a problem.
Champ gaited or walked almost the whole way. He actually picked his feet up and stepped pretty where it wasn't muddy (on the blacktop and gravel parts), all on his own. I let him canter back across the bean field on the way home, but that wasn't a great idea. Of course he wanted to RUN LIKE THE WIND because he's really a racehorse (:rolleyes:), and I was trying to keep him pulled back to a canter, keep from dropping the lead rope / dog leash draped across my lap, keep an elbow on my pistol so it didn't fall out of the holster and kill us all, check to make sure my wallet wasn't going to escape my back pocket, and watch out for the puppy. Nothing terrible happened, but it wasn't as blissful as our runs usually are!
When we got back, I put Cersei in the truck to nap and got Quinn. She was a wild monster when I first got on, as usual, but then she... settled down. She alternated walking and gaiting, she steered, she stopped. She listened to me. It was very weird, even though it's what I've been waiting for for months. James was riding Rascal, and we did a much easier ride. I didn't really trust Quinn to cross the highway without freaking out and getting us smeared by a semi, so we just did three laps in the soybean field, then a big circle around the football arena, then down the median on Watkins to the next barn down the street. She kept listening. She kept doing what I asked. It was amazing!
When we got back, I thought I'd really push my luck and try to trim her. Yep, got her trimmed. Well, kind of - she didn't need anything except some excess toe knocked off. I got about 1/4 or 1/2" taken off her front toes and called her done.
The paddock was a minefield of mud, so I put everybody up tonight. I brushed the mud off of everybody and really went to town on Champ and Silky getting some of the loose hair off. Tomorrow I'll ride Quinn again and maybe get on the Appy for a while.
We started with Champ and Handyman, so I could take Cersei. I won't take a chance on her getting squished, so I hop off and leash her and walk her across every road we cross. Champ is always good (well, as good as Champ ever is) about letting me get off and back on, so he's my Cersei-buddy. We've gotten a lot of rain lately and most of the trails are underwater, so we had to take an unusual route to get to the river. As it turned out, it was the only route.
We usually go up OK Robertson to the football field, then through the soybean field and north along Thomas to that green thing (it's a seasonal lake), then under the highway and due east on that dirt road (which has an anhydrous ammonia pipeline under it, eek), then north on the pipeline road to the river. Well, the green lake is flooded and the pipeline road is under water, so that was right out. We went across the soybean field, walked the beasties across Thomas, rode up Millington, led everybody through a very small gap in a fence, and we were finally on the "trail."
There's a little stream with a bridge over it. The bank is usually about 6' high - but the stream was brim-full. Wow. Then as we rode up the field, the trail got soggier and soggier til the horses were knee-deep. We finally made it to the river - the banks there are usually 15-20' above the water, and the river was full to the brim too. We stopped and just stared at it for a while, watching the huge logs ripping downstream and the whirlpools at the banks.
The trail in the forest wasn't too bad, and the horses were pretty cool about going under the train bridge - even though there was a train on it. Then we headed back down the pipeline road to go home our usual way, but the water just got deeper and deeper. Cersei was swimming, poor girl, and the horses were up to their chests. We stopped and watched catfish (!) swimming on the road(!!!) and decided there was just no way to get under the bridge. The horses could swim, and they were willing to swim because they knew they were headed home, but there's too many branches and pieces of rebar and junk that none of us would be able to see.
So we turned around and went halfway back, then tried to cut under the RR tracks at a different point that would've saved about 2 miles. No dice - I tried to ride alongside where the trail usually is, but we got to a point where the bottom dropped off deeper than Champ could feel and he refused to step off the edge. I asked him and tried to coax him, because I knew it was only a few feet of really deep water, but he was NOT having it and I wasn't going to force him to do something that dangerous. So back north to the river, back under the train tracks, then south along the tracks. There's another little bridge we had to cross, and this one was mostly underwater. We could see it, and the horses were blase about all this stupid water, so it wasn't a problem.
Champ gaited or walked almost the whole way. He actually picked his feet up and stepped pretty where it wasn't muddy (on the blacktop and gravel parts), all on his own. I let him canter back across the bean field on the way home, but that wasn't a great idea. Of course he wanted to RUN LIKE THE WIND because he's really a racehorse (:rolleyes:), and I was trying to keep him pulled back to a canter, keep from dropping the lead rope / dog leash draped across my lap, keep an elbow on my pistol so it didn't fall out of the holster and kill us all, check to make sure my wallet wasn't going to escape my back pocket, and watch out for the puppy. Nothing terrible happened, but it wasn't as blissful as our runs usually are!
When we got back, I put Cersei in the truck to nap and got Quinn. She was a wild monster when I first got on, as usual, but then she... settled down. She alternated walking and gaiting, she steered, she stopped. She listened to me. It was very weird, even though it's what I've been waiting for for months. James was riding Rascal, and we did a much easier ride. I didn't really trust Quinn to cross the highway without freaking out and getting us smeared by a semi, so we just did three laps in the soybean field, then a big circle around the football arena, then down the median on Watkins to the next barn down the street. She kept listening. She kept doing what I asked. It was amazing!
When we got back, I thought I'd really push my luck and try to trim her. Yep, got her trimmed. Well, kind of - she didn't need anything except some excess toe knocked off. I got about 1/4 or 1/2" taken off her front toes and called her done.
The paddock was a minefield of mud, so I put everybody up tonight. I brushed the mud off of everybody and really went to town on Champ and Silky getting some of the loose hair off. Tomorrow I'll ride Quinn again and maybe get on the Appy for a while.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Yesterday
Thought I should post some of my rides yesterday.
Champ was a total monster. I tooled around the barn on him for a while in the late morning and he wanted to leap sideways and take off running constantly. He's a fun bastard horse.
Emily, the app, is a good little horse who's been half ruined (or spoiled, maybe) by a terrible former owner. He let her get away with a lot of stuff. She's had at least two good owners before him, so I knew she knew what to do. She just didn't want to do it.
She gave me a lot of shit right off the bat about turning. I asked for a few circles and she gaped her jaw open, yanked against the bit, sidestepped as fast as she could in her chosen direction, tried to run us into stationary objects, and was a general bitch. But she didn't buck, so I figured we'd get along eventually.
I decided I wanted one good lap down the property fence line at a nice gait (RW or rack or whatever she wanted to give me). It took me 30 minutes to get that one nice lap. I wasn't being mean, either - I could tell that she was still just trying to make me give up. She'd gait for a few steps then try to break into a canter and when I'd "nnnt-nnnt" and pull her back down she'd pace. Hard. I mean that mare's picture is shown in the dictionary next to the definition of hard pace. So I'd pull her down from the pace, let her walk for a few strides, then kick her back up. And we'd do it again.
Eventually, she realized I wasn't going to fall off or give up and she gave me my one good lap. Then I stripped her tack, walked her down, and put her back up in her stall. Hopefully next time I ride her it'll go better.
Talking about her later, I learned that her last owner used to fall off when she paced. She'd pace, he'd fall off, and he'd cuss her and put her back up. That's why she kept trying the pace.
I rode Quinn too. I took her across the street by herself. She was a maniac too. I worked on a canter with her a little. Down here everybody thinks if you canter your gaited horse then you'll ruin the gait, but I just don't believe that. I like for my horses to do all their gaits, on cue. So I did the first steps of teaching her to canter on cue. I cue Champ to run by dropping / shaking the reins, leaning forward, and telling him to "GO!" I did the same with her a few times and got a very nice canter. Better than Champ's. More collected, maybe? It's hard to be self-taught cause I don't have much to compare with. Anyway, we tooled up and down the soybean field three times doing all the fast gaits. RW, rack, canter. I don't know how to cue the rack, but she does it on her own sometimes. Another guy, Mike, came up on his cute little green QH and we went off down a trail a little way, but it got too muddy and rutted for those horses so we turned around pretty quickly.
The only other highlight was coaxing the horses past a horse-eating monster, namely, a piece of concrete drainage pipe. That was a lot of fun. Quinn was in a full-of-herself spooky mood and it was neat to work with her to get her past it. She kept trying to sidestep away or just spin and bolt, and I kept checking her back and keeping her moving towards the monster. When she quit trying to run, I let her stand and look at it while I talked to her. When she let out that big whrrrrooof sigh, I knew we'd beaten the monster and I just squeezed and she walked very carefully past it. Yay! Mike's horse Boomer was more scared of losing Quinn than of the pipe, so he had it pretty easy.
More people came out to the field, so Mike headed off with them and we went back home. She left the other horses without a bit of fuss. Such a good girl.
Champ was a total monster. I tooled around the barn on him for a while in the late morning and he wanted to leap sideways and take off running constantly. He's a fun bastard horse.
Emily, the app, is a good little horse who's been half ruined (or spoiled, maybe) by a terrible former owner. He let her get away with a lot of stuff. She's had at least two good owners before him, so I knew she knew what to do. She just didn't want to do it.
She gave me a lot of shit right off the bat about turning. I asked for a few circles and she gaped her jaw open, yanked against the bit, sidestepped as fast as she could in her chosen direction, tried to run us into stationary objects, and was a general bitch. But she didn't buck, so I figured we'd get along eventually.
I decided I wanted one good lap down the property fence line at a nice gait (RW or rack or whatever she wanted to give me). It took me 30 minutes to get that one nice lap. I wasn't being mean, either - I could tell that she was still just trying to make me give up. She'd gait for a few steps then try to break into a canter and when I'd "nnnt-nnnt" and pull her back down she'd pace. Hard. I mean that mare's picture is shown in the dictionary next to the definition of hard pace. So I'd pull her down from the pace, let her walk for a few strides, then kick her back up. And we'd do it again.
Eventually, she realized I wasn't going to fall off or give up and she gave me my one good lap. Then I stripped her tack, walked her down, and put her back up in her stall. Hopefully next time I ride her it'll go better.
Talking about her later, I learned that her last owner used to fall off when she paced. She'd pace, he'd fall off, and he'd cuss her and put her back up. That's why she kept trying the pace.
I rode Quinn too. I took her across the street by herself. She was a maniac too. I worked on a canter with her a little. Down here everybody thinks if you canter your gaited horse then you'll ruin the gait, but I just don't believe that. I like for my horses to do all their gaits, on cue. So I did the first steps of teaching her to canter on cue. I cue Champ to run by dropping / shaking the reins, leaning forward, and telling him to "GO!" I did the same with her a few times and got a very nice canter. Better than Champ's. More collected, maybe? It's hard to be self-taught cause I don't have much to compare with. Anyway, we tooled up and down the soybean field three times doing all the fast gaits. RW, rack, canter. I don't know how to cue the rack, but she does it on her own sometimes. Another guy, Mike, came up on his cute little green QH and we went off down a trail a little way, but it got too muddy and rutted for those horses so we turned around pretty quickly.
The only other highlight was coaxing the horses past a horse-eating monster, namely, a piece of concrete drainage pipe. That was a lot of fun. Quinn was in a full-of-herself spooky mood and it was neat to work with her to get her past it. She kept trying to sidestep away or just spin and bolt, and I kept checking her back and keeping her moving towards the monster. When she quit trying to run, I let her stand and look at it while I talked to her. When she let out that big whrrrrooof sigh, I knew we'd beaten the monster and I just squeezed and she walked very carefully past it. Yay! Mike's horse Boomer was more scared of losing Quinn than of the pipe, so he had it pretty easy.
More people came out to the field, so Mike headed off with them and we went back home. She left the other horses without a bit of fuss. Such a good girl.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Internet versus Reality
It's funny how what you read - in books or on the Internet - can be so different from reality.
Last night I rode Quinn in her new snaffle bit. It's a French link, supposed to be very comfy for the horse. Now, I've always heard that you've got no brakes in a snaffle, but hell, I had no breaks in a double twisted wire curb last time I rode her, so I figured it couldn't be much worse. And I've always read (and it makes sense to me) that a snaffle is a better tool to teach a horse to bend correctly in turns. That's why I wanted to put her in a snaffle - poor girl doesn't turn well at all. Honestly, she gaits naturally and she doesn't buck, but other than that, she doesn't know anything.
I'm no trainer, but I'm taking good care of her and I'm trying to teach her kindly, which is better than most people around here do. So she's stuck with me.
First, we went through the mounting block dance again. This time I moved up to a slightly higher level of correction to get her to stand still. Last time was strictly positive - I let her move away from me and the block as much as she wanted. I just kept moving with her, and when she stopped moving I'd reward her by scritching her neck. This time I got frustrated with her and stepped it up one notch. Instead of letting her dance all over the place, I made her move where I wanted. I'd ask her to stand, and if she moved off I'd back her up, walk her forward, back her up, etc, and finally ask her to stand again. My idea is to make standing still more appealing than endlessly backing up in circles.
Eventually, I got a good stand out of Quinn and mounted up. Wow. They're serious when they say you have no brakes in a snaffle. I steered her into the arena, barely, at a fast RW, then we galloped top speed in circles for 10 minutes. I had a serious "what the fuck have I done" moment, then I decided that either I'd fall off in the mud or she'd get tired. And I didn't fall off, and she eventually got tired. I tried to get her used to the snaffle and work on turns a bit, but I don't know if she learned anything.
She's very spooky. I suspect she got whacked upside the head a great deal when her first owners broke her. If I move my hands at all from their default position, she LEAPS and tries to run away. I think more riding time will cure that - she's spent a great deal more time with me on the ground than in the saddle, and she's already calmed down a lot on the ground.
Anyway, I rode and didn't fall off. Cooled her down and brushed her off again, and picked all four feet. I'd read about some calming acupressure point located just above the chestnut on a horse's leg, and I tried that. Definitely something there - as soon as I started massaging above her chestnuts, she started licking and relaxed a bit. Neat.
I'm hoping to brush her tail this week. She actually likes me just fine when I'm up by her head, but she gets more nervous the further back I go. I've gotten to where I can touch up and down her back legs and not spook her - hopefully she'll let me start untangling that awful tail soon!
And I need to ride somebody else! Poppy, maybe, or Silky for a turn around the arena anyway. Sunday I'm planning on a big trail ride on Champ, then a second ride probably on Quinn. But I've got a little time in the evenings to ride around the property, and I should quit focusing exclusively on Quinn.
The lady who sold me Quinn wants me to ride her foxtrotter again this weekend. That'll be fun.
I'm going to the barn while it's still light so I can actually take some pictures of the herd.
Last night I rode Quinn in her new snaffle bit. It's a French link, supposed to be very comfy for the horse. Now, I've always heard that you've got no brakes in a snaffle, but hell, I had no breaks in a double twisted wire curb last time I rode her, so I figured it couldn't be much worse. And I've always read (and it makes sense to me) that a snaffle is a better tool to teach a horse to bend correctly in turns. That's why I wanted to put her in a snaffle - poor girl doesn't turn well at all. Honestly, she gaits naturally and she doesn't buck, but other than that, she doesn't know anything.
I'm no trainer, but I'm taking good care of her and I'm trying to teach her kindly, which is better than most people around here do. So she's stuck with me.
First, we went through the mounting block dance again. This time I moved up to a slightly higher level of correction to get her to stand still. Last time was strictly positive - I let her move away from me and the block as much as she wanted. I just kept moving with her, and when she stopped moving I'd reward her by scritching her neck. This time I got frustrated with her and stepped it up one notch. Instead of letting her dance all over the place, I made her move where I wanted. I'd ask her to stand, and if she moved off I'd back her up, walk her forward, back her up, etc, and finally ask her to stand again. My idea is to make standing still more appealing than endlessly backing up in circles.
Eventually, I got a good stand out of Quinn and mounted up. Wow. They're serious when they say you have no brakes in a snaffle. I steered her into the arena, barely, at a fast RW, then we galloped top speed in circles for 10 minutes. I had a serious "what the fuck have I done" moment, then I decided that either I'd fall off in the mud or she'd get tired. And I didn't fall off, and she eventually got tired. I tried to get her used to the snaffle and work on turns a bit, but I don't know if she learned anything.
She's very spooky. I suspect she got whacked upside the head a great deal when her first owners broke her. If I move my hands at all from their default position, she LEAPS and tries to run away. I think more riding time will cure that - she's spent a great deal more time with me on the ground than in the saddle, and she's already calmed down a lot on the ground.
Anyway, I rode and didn't fall off. Cooled her down and brushed her off again, and picked all four feet. I'd read about some calming acupressure point located just above the chestnut on a horse's leg, and I tried that. Definitely something there - as soon as I started massaging above her chestnuts, she started licking and relaxed a bit. Neat.
I'm hoping to brush her tail this week. She actually likes me just fine when I'm up by her head, but she gets more nervous the further back I go. I've gotten to where I can touch up and down her back legs and not spook her - hopefully she'll let me start untangling that awful tail soon!
And I need to ride somebody else! Poppy, maybe, or Silky for a turn around the arena anyway. Sunday I'm planning on a big trail ride on Champ, then a second ride probably on Quinn. But I've got a little time in the evenings to ride around the property, and I should quit focusing exclusively on Quinn.
The lady who sold me Quinn wants me to ride her foxtrotter again this weekend. That'll be fun.
I'm going to the barn while it's still light so I can actually take some pictures of the herd.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Progress!
Yesterday I got to the barn about 4, after a big thunderstorm and cold front had moved in. (Cold = 50s instead of 70s. Love our climate.) I was determined to work with Quinn, so I spent three hours down there, mostly messing with her.
I'd gone by Home Depot and gotten some rope and clips, and I installed my very own set of crossties in front of my tack room. There's three other sets of crossties in my barn, but neither the horses nor I like them. Our aisle is maaaaybe six feet wide - a cooperative horse can turn around in the aisle, but just barely. And the other crossties are all in front of other horses' stalls, who can make nasty faces and lean out and try to bite my horses. So I wanted my very own crossties.
Anyway, I put Quinn in the new crossties and brushed her down. Then Ibrutally attacked her sprayed Show Sheen in her mane. But she was very clear that it was a brutal and unjustified attack. I got a good 2/3ds of her amazingly long silky mane very gently untangled and combed out, and she calmed down and seemed to enjoy it. Eventually, we were both bored with the mane thing and moved on to saddle work.
I tried about half of my amazing collection of random bits, but none of them seemed to suit her as well as the bit she's used to (double twisted wire curb wrapped in vetwrap). So I put the normal tack on and led her out into the dark and windy night to practice being calm. We spent about 15 frustrating minutes getting her to stand still for me to stand on my milk crate and mount up, then we did one lap around the arena and one lap up and down the driveway. Then I got back off, scritched her mane for a minute, and started trying to get her to stand again.
Eventually (I'm slow sometimes) I realized that Quinn did not know what I wanted. No one had ever taught her to stand to be mounted. She was most comfortable with me at her head, and not very happy about letting me stand at the stirrup - she wanted to turn and face me, or back up to put me near her head. But once I realize she just didn't know, things got a lot easier. I rewarded every little half-second of being still by scritching her mane, and immediately stopped scritching as soon as she moved. She was still very nervous about the whole thing, but she started displaying the nervousness by trying to stick her face between my arm and my torso, instead of trying to back away. I spent a while getting her to stand with me at her stirrup, then a while longer getting her to stand with me on my milk crate by her stirrup. Eventually, I mounted up and we did one more lap around the arena and then called it a night. It wasn't much of a workout, but we both learned a lot and we seemed to bond quite well.
This evening I spent three hours mucking two stalls. I proclaim the Stall Experiment to be finished. It's just way too much trouble for me to lock them up and ruin their feet. Tomorrow I'll get the other two stalls stripped and re-bedded, and I'll go back to only stalling them when it's very cold and raining.
This weekend I need to pick a horse and touch up its feet. I'm planning on getting back on the "one horse every Sunday" trimming schedule. Going to keep working with Quinn, both on the ground and in the saddle. I hope she calms down about me touching her soon so I can start trying to untangle her amazingly long silky tail. It's kind of fun having a beautiful horse with that picturesque flowing mane and tail, but it's kind of an awful lot of work too.
I am completely exhausted, and the kitten just knocked over a houseplant. Dirt everywhere in the kitchen. The poor plant (a pineapple plant that I grew from a fruit top) was half-dead from neglect anyway, so I suppose I'll just vacuum up the dirt and throw the plant out. Sigh. He has come to apologize by laying on my chest and purring, so I'm not too mad at him.
I'd gone by Home Depot and gotten some rope and clips, and I installed my very own set of crossties in front of my tack room. There's three other sets of crossties in my barn, but neither the horses nor I like them. Our aisle is maaaaybe six feet wide - a cooperative horse can turn around in the aisle, but just barely. And the other crossties are all in front of other horses' stalls, who can make nasty faces and lean out and try to bite my horses. So I wanted my very own crossties.
Anyway, I put Quinn in the new crossties and brushed her down. Then I
I tried about half of my amazing collection of random bits, but none of them seemed to suit her as well as the bit she's used to (double twisted wire curb wrapped in vetwrap). So I put the normal tack on and led her out into the dark and windy night to practice being calm. We spent about 15 frustrating minutes getting her to stand still for me to stand on my milk crate and mount up, then we did one lap around the arena and one lap up and down the driveway. Then I got back off, scritched her mane for a minute, and started trying to get her to stand again.
Eventually (I'm slow sometimes) I realized that Quinn did not know what I wanted. No one had ever taught her to stand to be mounted. She was most comfortable with me at her head, and not very happy about letting me stand at the stirrup - she wanted to turn and face me, or back up to put me near her head. But once I realize she just didn't know, things got a lot easier. I rewarded every little half-second of being still by scritching her mane, and immediately stopped scritching as soon as she moved. She was still very nervous about the whole thing, but she started displaying the nervousness by trying to stick her face between my arm and my torso, instead of trying to back away. I spent a while getting her to stand with me at her stirrup, then a while longer getting her to stand with me on my milk crate by her stirrup. Eventually, I mounted up and we did one more lap around the arena and then called it a night. It wasn't much of a workout, but we both learned a lot and we seemed to bond quite well.
This evening I spent three hours mucking two stalls. I proclaim the Stall Experiment to be finished. It's just way too much trouble for me to lock them up and ruin their feet. Tomorrow I'll get the other two stalls stripped and re-bedded, and I'll go back to only stalling them when it's very cold and raining.
This weekend I need to pick a horse and touch up its feet. I'm planning on getting back on the "one horse every Sunday" trimming schedule. Going to keep working with Quinn, both on the ground and in the saddle. I hope she calms down about me touching her soon so I can start trying to untangle her amazingly long silky tail. It's kind of fun having a beautiful horse with that picturesque flowing mane and tail, but it's kind of an awful lot of work too.
I am completely exhausted, and the kitten just knocked over a houseplant. Dirt everywhere in the kitchen. The poor plant (a pineapple plant that I grew from a fruit top) was half-dead from neglect anyway, so I suppose I'll just vacuum up the dirt and throw the plant out. Sigh. He has come to apologize by laying on my chest and purring, so I'm not too mad at him.
Monday, January 7, 2008
...and the FUN stuff
Well, before I trimmed feet yesterday, I rode my paint mare. For complicated and stupid reasons, she hadn't been out of her stall for several days. And she hadn't been ridden in at least three weeks - she pulled a shoe in December and I didn't get the farrier out til late last week to pull the other and trim her. It was in the 60s and very windy yesterday, so it was a perfect day to ride and a terrible day to ride a half-wild horse.
I pulled Quinn out, brushed her down, and tacked her up with no problem. Then we went off to the "mounting block" (i.e. a milk crate turned upside down.) She's 16 hh, I don't want to stress her back hauling my heavy self up there, and I think training a horse for a mounting block is always a good idea. But there were two issues to deal with.
First, Quinn has a weird takeoff. It's her worst habit, probably. You have about 2 seconds from the time you swing your right leg over her back until the time she's charging off full speed ahead. She bows up her back exactly like she's going to buck, but she doesn't buck, she just takes off at top speed for about 15 feet. After that, she'll stop, turn, slow down - generally listen to you. But not for that first few seconds.
Second, the redneck chaos at my barn was in full swing. The big family was out there with all five kids running around, some of their friends and kids were out there, and a few real horsepeople were out. One of my friends was tooling around on her paint QH, and my buddy James was on his gaited mare waiting for me so we could hit the trails.
I led Quinn right over into the thick of things and started trying to get her to stand still and let me climb aboard. A couple of the real horsepeople offered to come hold her head, but I declined - I don't want to get in the habit of having people hold her head. I want a horse that I can mount with no help, not one that refuses to stand still without two assistants. She's not an OTTB and there's no reason for her not to learn to behave.
It took at least five minutes for me to get on her back. She danced and pranced in circles. She stood still, but only til I moved back near the stirrup. She walked away from the crate, and on top of the crate. She lined up a couple of times facing the wrong way. When she started acting a fool, I just looked at her and told her that I had all day to play her games, but she was going to stand still and let me on her back eventually. I didn't discipline her for any of her antics, except once when she started pawing. I generally don't let my horses paw, so I whacked her shoulder and told her to knock that off. Eventually, she realized that I wasn't going to beat her, I wasn't going to get anybody else to hold her head, and I was going to get on her back.
I swung up, got my right foot in the stirrup on the first try, and we were OFF. I knew she'd need at least a lap around the arena to get some of the crazies out of her, but it took way more than that. She charged off in a straight line, as usual. We were headed toward another barn, and there was a BLUE CHAIR in front of it. Obviously it was going to eat her, because she seriously thought about rearing up and running away from it. I got her steered around the evil chair, turned around the back side of the arena, and realized that she was seriously insane. Whenever I tried to give her an inch of rein, she'd try to break into a buck/canter. Whenever I tried to bump the reins to slow her down, she'd bow her head down and tense her back up and threaten to buck. We made it around the back side of the arena and I took her straight inside to let her do whatever it was she wanted to do so badly.
Our arena is horrible at the best of times. The owners don't have a tractor and they don't want to pay anybody to disc it, so it's overgrown with knee-high grass and weeds. It's been raining off and on for a week so at least it was a weedy swamp, instead of hard dirt with weeds. Well, I figured the mud would slow her down and wear her out a bit, and I'd rather fall off in the mud than on something hard, so off we went!
Quinn was on the absolute edge of out-of-control for a good ten minutes. For some reason, I wasn't scared at all. I had a good deep seat, with calm legs and enough energy in my core to keep me perfectly balanced. I had no brakes and very little steering, but I knew that she wasn't actually retarded enough to run us into the fence so I figured I'd just ride it out. And I did! She kept wanting to buck, and wanting to canter, but I just kept her barely in gait and let her slog through the swamp til she got sweaty. Then I asked for a halt, and she halted. I asked her to turn, and she turned. We went two laps in the opposite direction, stopped and turned again, and she was finally ok. I walked her out of the arena, over to James, and said "Let's roll."
We went on a medium-length trail ride - I didn't check the distance on Google Earth, but we probably rode 3-4 miles. I made her lead the whole way, and I made her do what I wanted. James and I usually have the greenest horse lead the way, so the new horse will get used to seeing the sights, not seeing a more experienced horse's tail. I stayed very attentive to how Quinn was feeling physically - if she wanted to speed up, we'd gait for a while. When she wanted to slow back down, I'd make her gait just a little farther - another 20 yards or so at a RW - then I'd ask her to slow down and cool off again.
One of my biggest mistakes with Champ was letting him set his own speed. Now he's incredibly stubborn and absolutely refuses to gait unless he wants to. If I insist that he goes faster when he doesn't want to go faster, he trots. Sigh. He's lucky that I adore him so much. But anyway, that's one of the things I'm trying to avoid with Quinn - I'm not going to push her too hard, but she is going to learn to gait until I ask her to slow down.
We went past a few scary monsters - some big sewer pipes sticking up out of a field, some four-wheelers, and a couple of logs.* She was pretty reluctant to cross the first bridge that we came to, but I insisted and it didn't eat her after all. The return part of the loop takes us back over a different bridge, and she didn't mind that one at all. We detoured back to the first bridge and I made Quinn cross it one more time before we headed for home - she did fine the last few times.
*What on earth is it with mares and logs? Both of my mares are seriously terrified of logs. Dead trees lying beside the trail, stumps near the trail, cut up sections of logs - they're both convinced that Log Monsters are going to kill them. It's pretty annoying... but I guess it's made me a better rider. Last summer Silky would jump sideways every time we saw a scary log, and we would see at least 20 scary logs on a given ride. I got so used to it eventually that I wouldn't even lose my balance. Now the new mare has decided that logs are monsters too! Arrrgh!
Anyway, Quinn was pretty seriously worn out by the time we got home. It was still quite warm, so I was able to hose the worst of the mud off of her legs and belly and check to make sure she hadn't pulled any muscles. Then I turned her out for a well deserved roll, and she ended up dirtier than ever. I'm a little conflicted - I feel like I overrode her a bit yesterday, but I also feel like she brought it on herself. If she hadn't acted so insane when I first got on her, we wouldn't have had to cavort around the swamp-arena and she wouldn't have been so tired later.
It was one of those "maybe I should've lunged her first" days. But it's like the mounting block thing - I don't want a horse that needs its head held for me to mount, and I don't want a horse that has to be lunged before I can get on it.
Tomorrow it's going to rain, but I'm going to ride her again anyway. Maybe 30 minutes working around the property. I want to try out my huge collection of bits on her and see what she prefers. I'd love to get her back in a snaffle and start to develop some flexibility. She's what I call show-broke - get on, kick, and hang on to the reins as hard as you can. Pull hard enough on the curb bit to get her head turned to the side, and she'll go in that direction. But I've got a lot of hope for her. When she was calm and working well on the trail, she figured out my more subtle cues pretty quickly.
I teach neck-reining and leg cues by a really exaggerated and obvious method. If we're tooling along headed straight for a tree, and I want to pass on the right, I pick up the left rein and lay it along her neck. Then I press with my right leg behind the girth, and my left leg ahead of the girth, and finally I increase my contact with the right rein. It seems easier for both me and the horse that way, out on the trail where there's an obvious reason for me to be doing weird things with my legs and hands. I don't have the patience or the skill to teach a horse my particular cues while doing pointless circles and serpentines in the arena. If there's a big friggin tree in our way, and I do weird things with my legs and arms before I do the direct rein cue, the horse seems to catch on to the more subtle cues more quickly.
In other news - I dewormed the other three with pyrantel yesterday, then dewormed Quinn with the same today. I should worm them again around Valentine's Day, I suppose.
I pulled Quinn out, brushed her down, and tacked her up with no problem. Then we went off to the "mounting block" (i.e. a milk crate turned upside down.) She's 16 hh, I don't want to stress her back hauling my heavy self up there, and I think training a horse for a mounting block is always a good idea. But there were two issues to deal with.
First, Quinn has a weird takeoff. It's her worst habit, probably. You have about 2 seconds from the time you swing your right leg over her back until the time she's charging off full speed ahead. She bows up her back exactly like she's going to buck, but she doesn't buck, she just takes off at top speed for about 15 feet. After that, she'll stop, turn, slow down - generally listen to you. But not for that first few seconds.
Second, the redneck chaos at my barn was in full swing. The big family was out there with all five kids running around, some of their friends and kids were out there, and a few real horsepeople were out. One of my friends was tooling around on her paint QH, and my buddy James was on his gaited mare waiting for me so we could hit the trails.
I led Quinn right over into the thick of things and started trying to get her to stand still and let me climb aboard. A couple of the real horsepeople offered to come hold her head, but I declined - I don't want to get in the habit of having people hold her head. I want a horse that I can mount with no help, not one that refuses to stand still without two assistants. She's not an OTTB and there's no reason for her not to learn to behave.
It took at least five minutes for me to get on her back. She danced and pranced in circles. She stood still, but only til I moved back near the stirrup. She walked away from the crate, and on top of the crate. She lined up a couple of times facing the wrong way. When she started acting a fool, I just looked at her and told her that I had all day to play her games, but she was going to stand still and let me on her back eventually. I didn't discipline her for any of her antics, except once when she started pawing. I generally don't let my horses paw, so I whacked her shoulder and told her to knock that off. Eventually, she realized that I wasn't going to beat her, I wasn't going to get anybody else to hold her head, and I was going to get on her back.
I swung up, got my right foot in the stirrup on the first try, and we were OFF. I knew she'd need at least a lap around the arena to get some of the crazies out of her, but it took way more than that. She charged off in a straight line, as usual. We were headed toward another barn, and there was a BLUE CHAIR in front of it. Obviously it was going to eat her, because she seriously thought about rearing up and running away from it. I got her steered around the evil chair, turned around the back side of the arena, and realized that she was seriously insane. Whenever I tried to give her an inch of rein, she'd try to break into a buck/canter. Whenever I tried to bump the reins to slow her down, she'd bow her head down and tense her back up and threaten to buck. We made it around the back side of the arena and I took her straight inside to let her do whatever it was she wanted to do so badly.
Our arena is horrible at the best of times. The owners don't have a tractor and they don't want to pay anybody to disc it, so it's overgrown with knee-high grass and weeds. It's been raining off and on for a week so at least it was a weedy swamp, instead of hard dirt with weeds. Well, I figured the mud would slow her down and wear her out a bit, and I'd rather fall off in the mud than on something hard, so off we went!
Quinn was on the absolute edge of out-of-control for a good ten minutes. For some reason, I wasn't scared at all. I had a good deep seat, with calm legs and enough energy in my core to keep me perfectly balanced. I had no brakes and very little steering, but I knew that she wasn't actually retarded enough to run us into the fence so I figured I'd just ride it out. And I did! She kept wanting to buck, and wanting to canter, but I just kept her barely in gait and let her slog through the swamp til she got sweaty. Then I asked for a halt, and she halted. I asked her to turn, and she turned. We went two laps in the opposite direction, stopped and turned again, and she was finally ok. I walked her out of the arena, over to James, and said "Let's roll."
We went on a medium-length trail ride - I didn't check the distance on Google Earth, but we probably rode 3-4 miles. I made her lead the whole way, and I made her do what I wanted. James and I usually have the greenest horse lead the way, so the new horse will get used to seeing the sights, not seeing a more experienced horse's tail. I stayed very attentive to how Quinn was feeling physically - if she wanted to speed up, we'd gait for a while. When she wanted to slow back down, I'd make her gait just a little farther - another 20 yards or so at a RW - then I'd ask her to slow down and cool off again.
One of my biggest mistakes with Champ was letting him set his own speed. Now he's incredibly stubborn and absolutely refuses to gait unless he wants to. If I insist that he goes faster when he doesn't want to go faster, he trots. Sigh. He's lucky that I adore him so much. But anyway, that's one of the things I'm trying to avoid with Quinn - I'm not going to push her too hard, but she is going to learn to gait until I ask her to slow down.
We went past a few scary monsters - some big sewer pipes sticking up out of a field, some four-wheelers, and a couple of logs.* She was pretty reluctant to cross the first bridge that we came to, but I insisted and it didn't eat her after all. The return part of the loop takes us back over a different bridge, and she didn't mind that one at all. We detoured back to the first bridge and I made Quinn cross it one more time before we headed for home - she did fine the last few times.
*What on earth is it with mares and logs? Both of my mares are seriously terrified of logs. Dead trees lying beside the trail, stumps near the trail, cut up sections of logs - they're both convinced that Log Monsters are going to kill them. It's pretty annoying... but I guess it's made me a better rider. Last summer Silky would jump sideways every time we saw a scary log, and we would see at least 20 scary logs on a given ride. I got so used to it eventually that I wouldn't even lose my balance. Now the new mare has decided that logs are monsters too! Arrrgh!
Anyway, Quinn was pretty seriously worn out by the time we got home. It was still quite warm, so I was able to hose the worst of the mud off of her legs and belly and check to make sure she hadn't pulled any muscles. Then I turned her out for a well deserved roll, and she ended up dirtier than ever. I'm a little conflicted - I feel like I overrode her a bit yesterday, but I also feel like she brought it on herself. If she hadn't acted so insane when I first got on her, we wouldn't have had to cavort around the swamp-arena and she wouldn't have been so tired later.
It was one of those "maybe I should've lunged her first" days. But it's like the mounting block thing - I don't want a horse that needs its head held for me to mount, and I don't want a horse that has to be lunged before I can get on it.
Tomorrow it's going to rain, but I'm going to ride her again anyway. Maybe 30 minutes working around the property. I want to try out my huge collection of bits on her and see what she prefers. I'd love to get her back in a snaffle and start to develop some flexibility. She's what I call show-broke - get on, kick, and hang on to the reins as hard as you can. Pull hard enough on the curb bit to get her head turned to the side, and she'll go in that direction. But I've got a lot of hope for her. When she was calm and working well on the trail, she figured out my more subtle cues pretty quickly.
I teach neck-reining and leg cues by a really exaggerated and obvious method. If we're tooling along headed straight for a tree, and I want to pass on the right, I pick up the left rein and lay it along her neck. Then I press with my right leg behind the girth, and my left leg ahead of the girth, and finally I increase my contact with the right rein. It seems easier for both me and the horse that way, out on the trail where there's an obvious reason for me to be doing weird things with my legs and hands. I don't have the patience or the skill to teach a horse my particular cues while doing pointless circles and serpentines in the arena. If there's a big friggin tree in our way, and I do weird things with my legs and arms before I do the direct rein cue, the horse seems to catch on to the more subtle cues more quickly.
In other news - I dewormed the other three with pyrantel yesterday, then dewormed Quinn with the same today. I should worm them again around Valentine's Day, I suppose.
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