Boy Can I Relate...

Sophie was in heat today. I thought something was up when I went to get her in her stall. Normally she turns toward the back of the stall when I get the halter off the hook, and then I walk into the stall where she stands and waits while I halter her. Today she didn't wait, she moved away, and away, and away. Hayley said that she thinks Sophie's in heat about that time, as she was walking down the aisle, and that Sophie had been pushy while being led the last couple of days.

She was very dirty, mainly just very dusty as we don't have any mud right now but she's getting her winter coat which of course holds in more dust. She did give me a wild eyed look when I went to saddle her, but otherwise, was just about normaly for tacking up. I walked her around longer than normal before mounting. I was a little worried about the ride because maybe she was so bad for my instructor due to being in heat. The timing would be right. I even left her mane unbraided so that I would have something to grab onto if I needed it.

I warmed Sophie up at the walk, just trying to keep a steady contact without her raising her head and keeping my elbows "loose" and allowing my hands to follow her mouth. To my surprise, she was fine, just walking around, looking at stuff a bit. It wasn't terribly pretty, but there were no tantrums. We picked up the trot and I was working on some baby spiral circles on a long rein when my instructor finished up watering and started the lesson.

We worked on a 20 meter circle to begin with and then changed direction. Sophie was definitely more head tossy than normal, but not nearly as bad as when my instructor rode her a few weeks ago. And there was no rearing, or stopping of forward motion. After we were sufficiently warmed up we tried going large and leg yielding on the long sides. It went ok, but not as good as she can do, she would start out against my leg and get rushy and braced. So we went back to a 20 meter circle and did spiral circles, trying to focus on leg yielding out evenly, not leading too much with the shoulders. That worked a lot better, but it still wasn't terrific and she was throwing a bit of a tantrum at one spot on the circle every time around.

So Kim set up a little pattern for us with 2 cones and 2 barrels. Once again I was surprised by how much Sophie looked at the barrels, Jessie never looked at everything like that, unless it was *really* different. But it's just something I have to get used to with a new horse, especially when she is in heat. The obstacles were to give us focus points on where to circle and leg yield to, without depending on the wall for it. And to give Sophie a focal point (in the form of barrels). I'll try to draw it up to explain with pictures.

I had to sit the trot for most of the lesson, I'm weird in that sitting is easier for me than posting. I'm sure that's due to some flaw in me, but I find it much harder to time my aids when I'm posting too. We had some great leg yields going to the left, the right was much tougher, though we did go straight sideways at canter speed for one of them, I almost fell off she scooted sideways so quickly.

We cantered twice, and it was nice. I worked on relaxing and following with my seat and sitting up and not staring at her head. It is still hard to develop contact with her at the canter, so I do lots of giving the inside rein to reward her for not fling her head in the air. I was also concentrating on sitting up for the actual transition, I think it went really well. After our last canter we did a stretchy circle and Sophie was trotting along with her nose practically on the ground.

One cool thing Kim said during the lesson, while we were going to the right even, was that we're lucky that I have good hands and a good seat, because if Sophie was owned by someone that didn't it'd be a disaster. So I took that as a compliment on me and not an insult toward Sophie, lol. I think she was impressed by how well Sophie did inspite of being in heat. She was definitely more reactive when I really sat deep on her, but she was very tolerant of the couple of times I accidentally tapped her with the whip. The worst she did was swish her tail fortunately.

Oh, one thing that we noticed was that as we got into the obstacle exercise Sophie became much more responsive to my outside aids. Her trot became a lot nicer once she started really listening to me as well. I need to find the chiropractor's number because I think she will benefit from a check up. She doesn't seem sore, but with the obvious difference between left and right when she's in heat I just want to check. I'm also going to start her on Mare Magic or some other mare supplement to see if that helps with her heat cycles. She's very quiet when in heat, but her behavior when handled is definitely different.