Time to move on

Alex ended up getting two days off instead of the one I had planned, but honestly I was just too worn out yesterday.  Today was another cold dreary day that turned into a cold dreary night.  Despite the weather I was ready to hit the barn tonight after a crazy day at work.  I fully expected Alex to be a little wild, but he surprised me by actually being a little affectionate and sleeping in the cross ties.  Even better surprised me again by being an absolute gentleman for our entire ride!

I raised the cross rail a hole and changed out the poles so he could see something new.  Alex is so enthusiastic about jumping that his first jump over the cross rail is usually his best.  He's such a smarty pants now that he starts jumping lazy if I make him jump back and forth over the cross rail too many times. 

Looks like it's time for a new challenge.  Tomorrow I'll have to start setting out more standards and making it look like a grid.  I'd love to have him started through a grid of cross rails by the end of the weekend :-)

So far, so good :-)

Yesterday Alex went back to work after a well deserved Sunday siesta.  We started out lunging which turned out to be a good thing, because the gremlins in the corner were playing with the curtains and Alex was spooking at it repeatedly.  After about 25 minutes on the lunge, he finally gave up.  I didn't do a ton of flat work since he'd already done a lot of work on the lunge.  He was very good, nice both directions at the trot and really solid canter depart to the left (the right was much better, but still needs work).  I decided not to belabor my point and move on to our cross rail which had been raised a hole since Saturday.  Alex was such a star, we went very forwardly right over, nice and round and even cantered away a few steps.  He's best to the left, but he improved by leaps and bounds to the right which made me very proud.  Alex was proud of himself too, he got so excited in between treks to the jump that he became a little bit of a "hot potato."  I'm fine with that though, because it means he likes jumping :-)

It's hard to explain, but I know you riders will understand, he has such a nice comfortable jump when he hits it right.  Even though he's green, he feels very solid underneath me.  So excited to start adding to our gymnastics.  Tomorrow, I'd like to raise the cross rail maybe one more hole and get him going really forward both directions.  Then it will be time to add another cross rail to the gymnastic.  Don't want to rush him, but I do think he gets bored once he figures something out, so don't want to move along too slowly.

And... JUMP!

I have been so busy over the last few days there has been no time to update the blog. 

Alex had his feet done on Wednesday and my farrier said they looked great which was a huge relief.  Since he had just had his tootsies done, but I didn't want to lose two days in a row, I just lunged him in the surcingle.  Despite his newly minted shoes, he worked completely sound, which was also a relief since he was always a little ouchy after shoeing before the abscesses.

Thursday and Friday we did LOTS of work on the flat (necessary because he was a little wound) and tripped over more tiny small cross rails.  Overall they were very productive rides so I was happy.

Saturday was a big day. I decided it was time to actually jump a real cross rail. The hubby came to take some more video for me and his parents were there to watch which was also a big deal, since my parents-in-law have never seen me ride Alex. I won't go on about it, I'll just let the video speak for itself :-)

Alex was so good, and I think he really enjoyed himself with is fantastic.  I really want him to love jumping  Obviously I'm a nerd for having so much fun with the video editing software, but I was having so much fun!

Tomorrow it's back to work and hopefully more jumps.

Letting go is the hardest part

Yesterday night we had some rain literally "blowing" in so it was quite windy out at the farm.  This made for lots of monsters lurking in the indoor.  Alex's flat work was better in between the moments when he was scooting out from underneath me to escape the monsters. 

In the middle of my ride last night (I'm usually alone, thus time for reflection) I started thinking about how important it is to be able to let go.  Our natural tendency as humans, when we are scared, is to tighten up the reins and turn our legs into a vice grip, holding on for dear life.  Our horses interpret this as "holy sh**! my rider is freaking out, time to flee!"  A panic reaction by the rider does nothing to reassure the horse.  Now instead of looking to you for guidance and reassurance in a scary/unfamiliar situation, they return to their instincts which inevitably tell them to flee/escape at the first sign of trouble.  In order to reassure the horse you have to be able to take a step back, ask for a stretch and let go even if you think he/she might spook again.  I see this as the ultimate balance of trust.  You show the horse there's nothing to be afraid of by letting go and asking for relaxation and the horse shows you he/she trusts you by obliging.  The ability or inability to let go can make or break the rider/horse relationship.

Obviously this is easier said than done.  When Alex is in one of his moods where he's looking for anything to spook at, I even have moments where I think twice about allowing him to fully stretch for fear of losing control.  But if I don't allow him to stretch, he can't relax and so we never correct the problem.  Fortunately, last night even though there were monsters aplenty, I was able to let go and Alex was able to accomplish a fair measure of relaxation in his flat work, even though it wore me out to get him there :-)

We also had another first last night, our first tiny jump.  No I am not kidding, this might have been the world's smallest cross rail.

 

 

He tried to stop at it once and got a spanking then tripped over and banged it a few times, next decided he would just pick his feet up higher, but still treat it like a trot-pole and finally jumped it, letting out an unceremonious groan on the landing.  Overall considering the start to our ride, he really was pretty good about it and I was very pleased.  Next time I think we'll go up a hole and see if we can't get a little more "jump" going. 

 

It's been so  many months since I jumped anything, this is very exciting!

 

 

Alex had today off and tomorrow he gets his feet done, so we'll just work on the lunge.  Back in the saddle Thursday, we'll see how the jumping goes :-)

Weekend rides

Saturday I had high hopes for our ride, even brought my friend out to see Alex's progress.  Since he'd had a day off and it was only about 30 degrees, I decided to lunge him just to be safe.  Jeez were my instincts dead on!  Alex showed off his wild side on the lunge, bucking, spooking at the noises made by dirt hitting the wall.  It was quite a show after three weeks of near perfect behavior.  The ride was "rushy," but I wanted to keep the progress going so we continued with Exercise #6 - A Grid of Trot-Poles  and moved on to Exercise #16 - Trot-Poles on the Circle



The exercises went well with the exception of one time when he stepped around one of the poles on the circle because I wasn't paying attention.  Oops!  So the ride wasn't terrible, he just was not quiet.  It was bound to happen, he is a TB after all.

Sundays are usually an off day for Alex, but since there was so much "exuberance" on Saturday, I thought it might be a good idea if we had another day of work.  Although it was still a cold day, it was a better ride, not so much rushing and he only tried to run away from gremlins twice.  Our major accomplishment for the day was adding jump standards to the grid of trot-poles.  Of course in his natural fashion of always surprising me, he could have cared less about the standards.  Go figure.  Here's a link to the video,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TxqJrJS0Aw

when it actually shows up in the YouTube/Blogger search, I'll have it right here on the page.
Hope everyone had a great weekend :-)



Equine Valentine

Alex after tonight's ride

 



Hubs and I had agreed to have our Valentine's Day dinner tomorrow when we could cook and enjoy without work the next day.  So I spent some quality time with my equine Valentine tonight :-)

Unfortunately the arena had just been watered (read over watered), but not dragged, so it was a little slick.  I knew this would mean we couldn't do any canter work, since he has just barely started to balance himself when the footing is good.  But I was antsy to move on a little bit and decided we'd just go straight to four trot-poles and see what happened.

Alex started off a little wild... hoping around and being fussy, so I had to work him through that and remind him that I'm in charge.  Once he gave up trying to run the show, it was time to move on to the trot-poles.  There were a few stumbles, a little rushing, but no hesitation and he finally figured it out in both directions.  I know everyone says this about their horses, but he is so darn smart!  Hopefully this will transfer to jumping.... fingers crossed.

After the poles I went back and did a little more trot work, which was really very good.  I would even say there were a few moments of "on the bit."  It was a little bit of a rough start, but the ending more than made up for it!

Tomorrow Alex will have another day off.  Saturday I want to try the trot-poles again and maybe another exercise.  It's supposed to be quite cold here, which will make me want to hibernate, but hopefully we can still get some things accomplished.

Happy Valentine's Day! 

The buck stops here

I love this cartoon... I try REALLY hard not to do that to Alex.  I am seriously cold natured, but I fight my urges.  Today we had a couple hours of snow, and I have to admit I was fretting a little bit about the fact that Alex only had on is turn-out sheet.  He does have his full coat (this being his first winter north of Florida I didn't think it was fair to clip him and he's really not shaggy), so he was fine :-)  After the snow, it warmed up 10 degrees and everything melted.  Welcome to Kentucky!

Last night we started our ride pretty well.  He was a lot less amped than he had been Tuesday night which was a plus and there weren't quite as many gremlins.  What was really awesome was the canter work.  No bucks!  This isn't a first, but it is a first since we started back into work and it was so nice.  His balance was also better which is another big plus. 

After the flat-work, we moved on to Exercise #6 - A Grid of Trot-Poles





The book suggests that you start with poles A & D and then add poles B & C once the horse is comfortable.  Since Alex had already trotted confidently over poles A & B when I set them up to make the chute for Exercise #1, I decided to set up poles A, B & C.  He did them really confidently, no hesitation, but he did tap/step on the third pole at least once in both directions.  This may have been my fault, the distances might have been a little tight, we'll adjust next time.  It will take some time for me to gauge his natural stride.  Overall I'm happy with how he handled the new challenge.  Soon it will be time to start him over jumps.  I hope that he's going to like jumping just as much :-)

Tonight was Alex's night off, and we will go back to work on Thursday.  I think we will stick with three poles again and I will try to get the distance right.  If that goes well, we'll move on to four poles.  I have to admit I'm a little excited about that... who would have ever thought I'd be excited about trot-poles?!