Cantering Pictures...

Oh boy, you guys are in for it. The rest of the pictures, all of the cantering pictures. Fun, fun, fun.

First, our canter transition, the first one and it was wonderful. It may not look wonderful, but, all I had to do was sit deep, slide my left leg back and poof, canter, it was the next stride and I didn't have to kiss. She came a little above the bit, but is normally much worse.

Of course, this was us just a few strides later...

And then, just some more cantering pictures. Obviously I have a much bigger problem with riding defensively when cantering. Next time I ride I'm definitely trying to sit up more. I do have a shoulders back device that I might try strapping on too, lol.




***********************Begin Canter Sequence***********************
In this canter sequence you can see the problems we have with BTV at the canter. I guess my problem is that I don't push her forward enough and maintain the right jump at the canter, but honestly, it feels plenty forward to me when we're riding! I'll probably hold off on doing a lot of canter work. I might do some work on transitions if we get too bored, but that's it.











***********************End Canter Sequence***********************

Even More Pictures of Our Ride...

First, the trot pictures taken after we cantered. I think she looks better in these pictures, but maybe that's just becacuse she is in more of a dressage frame? I'm still not very good at judging correctness from pictures, other than BTV and the like. I know that my reins were shorter after we cantered than they were before we cantered. Part of my fear with lessons is that I may be keeping the reins too short and holding the horse in a frame. I do release the inside rein a lot, but I don't know if it's enough. So should I ride with my reins this length more of the time or the longer length I had in the beginning trot pictures? Like I said, right now Sophie pretty much fills up whatever rein length I use (within reason), but I'd like to keep that, unlike my retired horse who went great on one length but didn't adapt to longer reins very well.
Giving the inside rein...


Here she was asking to stretch, she was definitely in stretchy circle mode when I shortened the reins a little in preparation to canter (we cantered to the right first, so these trot pictures were before we cantered to the left).

And this sequence is a demonstration of going into Sophie's problem corner of the day. These and the following sequences are trot pictures taken before we cantered, which is why they look different, lol.
Starting to realize we're coming up to the corner...
Aack, the corner! No idea what the problem is, but for the first half of the ride she does this in the same spot of the arena (it moves about from ride to ride)...this is about the worst she would do with me and you can see that it's more of a gradual raising of the head, not a serious head flip at least...
Coming into the corner again...
Still coming into the corner...
Uh oh, getting closer!
This one wasn't nearly so bad, I think I nipped it in the bud earlier as well, you can see me squeezing her over with my inside leg, too bad I can't do it without turning my toe out...
Still inside legging it and moving on from the problem area...
Look, a new corner, straight ahead!
Grrrrr...
That didn't take too long to "fix"...
It's like nothing happened...

I don't know, maybe I should get after her more when she does the head raising and tensing up bit. I mainly tend to ride her forward, using a lot of inside leg to push her over and inside rein to ask her to soften. When she acts as though she's going to rear I push my hands forward so that she has no contact and a wide open door, push her forward, and within a couple of strides she was trotting like you see in these pictures. Once she's trotting I ride as though she didn't just think about rearing, but just like we're on a regular ride and nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But does that mean she doesn't learn trying to rear is bad? And it's not an issue solely because the inclination doesn't come up in her head again, not because she knows better? I just don't know.

Sophie Pictures...

Here are some of the pictures my wonderful husband took yesterday when I rode Sophie. She was only BTV at the trot in a couple of the pictures and BTV in the canter for a stride and then good for a few and then BTV again. It does look like her neck is bent incorrectly in a lot of the pictures though, and I am also slouching terribly in a lot of them. So I'll try sitting up straighter and pushing her forward and seeing if that helps. I do have a lesson on Thursday, I'll be riding, and it will be a full lesson, but I think we're better off doing a full lesson once a week than two short lessons twice a week.

First, some trot pictures. These were taken at various points during the ride, before we cantered. They are generally the better trot pictures. I have a couple of sequence shots where you can see her approach the "bad" section of the arena and make her way through it. Generally during our rides she kind of picks a spot in the arena (other than the scary end) that she loses her balance in and pops her head up a bit for a couple of strides before going back to goodness.

Regular walk...not this nice until after we've been trotting for a while...





And our free walk...





So, what do you guys think? Any tips or advice? She wasn't flipping her head really at all for the ride, and was overall pretty good (at least to me), though *I* need a lot of work. Oh, and are my hands too low???

One Year Ago Today...

I married my best friend, the love of my life, and the most caring, generous man I've ever met. This last year has been wonderful, better than I could have ever imagined, and I can't wait to see what the future brings!

And on another note, I have Sophie pictures almost ready, I might get them up today, or I'll get them up tomorrow. Craig took 360 pictures and I've fixed up 56!

And the Verdict Is...

Well, I don't know. I rode today. Sophie was good, very good. I have pictures, though I don't know if they turned out, I haven't looked at them yet. She wasn't flinging her head like the ride with my instructor. She did almost go up on me. Let me start from the beginning though.

I didn't ride Friday/Saturday because Craig and I went to my parents house for my grandma's birthday. Plus I thought it would be good for Sophie to have a couple of days to "forget". I knew I had to ride today though, because I did want to get a lesson in this week and didn't want Sophie going into a lesson cold. I was pretty nervous though. So I talked my husband into going to the barn with me under the guise of taking pictures and putting the new sticker on the trailer plates.

So he went with me and put a new smack light in the trailer and the sticker on the plates while I got Sophie ready. He also played with the barn kittens and seriously fought the urge to take one home. He opened the arena door for me (the scary one) and got ready to take pictures while I walked Sophie around. We try to do a lot of walking warm up, asking her to lower her head and reach for the bit rather than keep her nose in the air. However, toward the beginning of the warm up the new boarder and her husband headed off on a trail or road ride, right past the open arena door and Sophie *did not* like that. We were just walking and her front feet left the ground a couple of times in protest before I got her up into a trot. It was the biggest rear she's done with me (though she did much worse of Friday, and for longer during one fit). As soon as we were trotting she was great though, on the bit and calm, trotting forward but not rushing.

Craig started taking pictures once we were trotting and she was great, we did some spiral circles but mainly just worked on a big 20 meter circle, looking for consistency in the bridle and in bend. She only whinnied once in the beginning (when she almost did her full blown rear) and otherwise would just come above the bit when the new pony that is in isolation would whinny. She wouldn't do it every time and it wasn't as bad of a head flip as what she was doing on Friday, and it was really in one spot on the circle in both directions. She tends to pick a spot and that's where she falls apart momentarily and then allows herself to be put back together just a step after that spot.

There was another moment when she lost momentum and that was when we were walking over to talk to Craig when he was on his way to change lenses and at that time we hadn't been working long and the pony whinnied and Sophie whinnied and got a little distracted and got stuck in stop/hop but went into a trot right away when I asked.

We did a little work on large figure eights and after 3 circles in the scary end of the arena there was almost no change between her before and during the going past the open door. Even after we figure 8ed back and forth again. So I was proud of her for that. Then we had another walk break (with no issues) and tried cantering in each direction. The first time she was flawless in her transition, as far as cantering, she did raise her head a bit, but all I had to do was sit and squeeze and she picked it up. The next direction she took a few more strides but wasn't too bad.

Then we were done, walked a bit, and I scrubbed down her legs and she got lots of treats. She has some weird kind of fungus on her legs so I've been scrubbing them with Iodine solution every time I'm out. I think it's getting better, but it's not gone yet. Overall I thought she was a very good girl today. Other than the two incidents she was very good and I think she's getting a lot more consistent in not coming above the bit as often. She does seem to come behind the bit a little in the canter though, I'll be able to tell better in the pictures, but I think that I probably get nervous when she canters because she has a nice canter, but it's very forward and can sometimes have a lot of jump to it. She has bucked once, but only once in the canter so I just need to trust her (and myself more) and push her forward.

I do try to give the inside rein a lot, which I think helps too. So, that's my update, I'll try to post pictures tomorrow if any of them turned out, unfortunately the new camera is smarter than me and my husband in the indoor right now, so there may not be many good pictures. And I have a feeling I was probably leaning foward too much, riding defensively after the way she was behaving last time she was ridden. I doubt that helps her keep off the forehand when cantering either.

Barn Blindness...

That's what it's called, right? When you can't see your horse as anything but perfect? I'm trying to decide if I have that. I don't think I do, I mean, I don't think Sophie is perfect by any means, but sometimes my feelings get really hurt when at the barn. Like today. Today was Sophie's big lesson with Kim. Our last lesson went so well I thought that it'd be even better to have Kim ride Sophie for a lesson period so that I could watch and actually *see* what she was telling me to do.

Well, it was a disaster.

A complete and utter disaster. At some points I wanted to cry.

It started out ok, walking around and working on paying attention and focusing. They did lots of walking and giving and getting a better walk. Then they started trotting, and Sophie started flipping her head. Constantly. Flipping her head and trotting with her nose way high in the air. I don't know if Kim was just asking for more than I do or what, but Sophie was like a different horse. She's never been that bad for me, other than that very first lesson when she was in heat and not happy being in the indoor. She was flipping her head and hopping on her hind feet a little. It was awful. I'm still not sure what went wrong.

They did have a few good moments, but overall we had a nicer ride in my last lesson as far as doing nice circles. We leg yielded nicely then as well and worked on turns across the diagonal. Today they did circles and a little baby shoulder in. I was impressed with how well she did the baby shoulder in, but part of the problem was trying it to the right. To the left it was awesome, to the right it was harder, and she got frustrated and then another fight followed. Ugh.

And then listening to the lecture for 10 minutes after about how horrible Sophie is and how bad her attitude is and how mean she is and evil. How she's awful on the ground and is willing to do anything possible to get out of work. The only problem is, I don't have those problems with her. On the ground she has never tried to run me over or paw at me or been otherwise bad. Under saddle she has had a couple of bad moments where she would flip her head up fast, but I would sit deep, drive her forward with my legs and seat and then she'd be fine. It wouldn't be constant like it was today. It was hard to listen to, because on one hand, she was being bad today, I'm not sure why, but she was. But she isn't like that with me, but what can I say? So I mainly listened since there wasn't anything else I could do.

Ugh. Poor Sophie was sooooo sweaty and bewildered by the end of the ride. Kim wasn't mean or anything, never jerked on her or smacked her out of anger or anything like that. But she was very hard on Sophie as far as expectations and results and I just think it was a little too much for Sophie. It will be interesting to see how she is tomorrow. I hosed her off and rubbed liniment on her neck, she seemed content by the time I was done with her. I felt so torn. I've never felt so torn. I wish I knew what had happened.

And another thing that was mentioned that I thought was odd was that Kim said that once Sophie was "finished" she would be very soft mouthed and light to the hand and that it would make her harder to sell. Not that I have any intention of selling her, but I just thought it was odd that being responsive would make a horse *harder* to sell, you'd think it'd be the opposite! At least I would. I guess another part of what bothered me about today was that I pointed out that Sophie doesn't act that bad with me and Kim said that she has stronger legs/seat and I couldn't help but wonder, why she would ride Sophie like she would ride one of her horses and expect her to react the same. Maybe I'm just off base, but I would think it'd be best to ride the horse in a way that gets the reaction you want, not ride the horse with the aids you think it should take and then make her give the reaction you want. But I don't know, I've only been taking lessons regularly for four months last year and then a handful this year. Maybe I'm just too nice. I do know that I could never be a horse trainer based on today's experience. Ugh, that's all I can really say.

Caved in Neck...

Someone asked what I meant about Sophie's neck, so I thought a picture would help. Sophie is developing this lovely muscling along the top of her neck and the bottom muscle is no longer obscenely huge. But the middle muscling is lacking. You can see it pretty well in this picture. I drew little dots around the caved in area.

This picture kind of shows what I mean about how being on the bit helps. Except she obviously isn't on the bit here, but you can see how the caved in part looks more filled. It's even better when she's actually moving and coming through and working over her back. She also is lifting more from the base of her neck when moving and her nose is further in front of the vertical when actually moving as well.

I tried figuring out which muscle it is, but couldn't. It's not her cervical trapezius though, that seems to be the muscle that *is* getting developed. I'm a little nervous for Sophie tomorrow because I know that Kim demands more than I do, but I think she'll be fine, plus it's a short lesson.

I suck...

Finals week kicked my butt and I have just recovered. I had two lessons on Sophie, one Friday and one Monday. We made great progress and I got over my fear of deep and got Sophie moving into the bridle and carrying herself with her neck straight. Don't get me wrong, I'm not riding her deep, but without Kim pushing from the ground and the mirror to verify for myself I would have thought she was BTV or very close to it. But she's not, instead she's tracking up, pushing from behind, her neck is straight (she has a bad habit of bending her neck and not through the ribcage, she can also kind of make her neck look like an S, she's very talented!).

I discovered that I need to tighten up a *lot* with the outside rein to keep her neck from getting wormy. But we made a lot of progress in our last lesson and that hollow between her crest and the underside of her neck will start to fill in with more consistent work. Kim was very impressed by the end of our lesson and Sophie was going like a superstar! We're just doing 30 minutes lessons at a discounted price so we can do 2 per week. Our next lesson is Thursday and this one Kim is going to ride her for that lesson so that I can *see* what she's talking about.

The Gymnasium of the Horse...

I mentioned that I read this book on the way to/from Portland. I've also been taking notes and thought I'd share some here in my blog. Quotes/notes from the book will be in white. My comments will be in purple!

The Gymnasium of the Horse
by: Gustav Steinbrecht

(pg 2)
"Whoever understands that beauty and lightness of seat do not depend only on the posture of the rider, but just as much on the correct carriage and the regular gaits of the horse, will find it quite natural that I recommend directing the student, as soon as he has become somewhat secure, to work on his horse's carriage, although this might once in a while occur at the expense of his normal position."

"There can be nothing worse than to put a beginning rider on a worn-out or poorly trained horse"
(I thought that this was a very important quote, as I have seen many riders struggling with unsuitable horses. Yes, the regular type of horse that destroys a rider's confidence. But even horses that are dead sided and hard mouthed wreak havoc on a rider's learning. So much that they don't realize the horse is dead sided/hard mouthed. Take Jessie for example, we could canter from a walk, side pass, turn on the forehand, etc. But he was dead sided. He could give at the poll with the best of them, but he was hard mouthed. Amazing. I never would have believed it if you told me until I really started riding him and we got to the point where he wasn't dead sided or hard mouthed)

(pg 9)
There are 3 types of aids-driving aids, restraining aids, and supporting aids.

Driving aids-those given with the lower leg are of greatest importance because they are the most effective and most natural

Aids from the lower leg-are given with the spurs, calves, and knees
(My biggest struggle here is remember the knees. I tend to grip with them and have made an effort to relax, especially since starting this book. When I started dressage lessons I had the bad habit of cueing with the *back* of my calf, instead of the inside. I've gotten better, but I'm still not there yet)

Aids given with the spurs-aid the activity of the hindquarters which gives a stimulating, electrifying effect

• Jab-given as punishment
• Prick-"serves as a reminder"
• Flat Touch-uses the side of the spur
• Spur Pressure-a "prick" used with a restraining hand

(I'm reading all of the spur information especially closely, because while I've ridden in them, they were just kind of thrown on, and I'd like to know as much as I can about their use before putting them on again.)

The lighter the touch of the spur the more support needed from the stirrup

(I found this statement very interesting, because as I strive to educate myself further in dressage I mainly get the impression that stirrups=evil; if we want to be true horsemen we would never ride with stirrups. Steinbrecht does say that it's good to do stirrupless work, but also emphasizes the importance of stirrups and the role they play in supporting the rider.)

Calf Aids-steady barriers within which the hindquarters must work; this contact will establish itself naturally

Florida, Here We Come?

Craig and I need to fill our our ADP, basically our wishlist of bases we want to go to next, in order. We were doing some research on what to do for our back up bases, since we already knew we wanted to go to Virginia (Langley AFB). I even found a stable I wanted to train out of (though she didn't anticipate having any openings, lol). Then Craig brought up Patrick AFB. It's in Florida, 2 hours from Wellington, 2 hours from Orlando, and 2 hours from Ocala. Hmmm. Looks like there are a lot of dressage barns in the area of the base. Hmmm. There is a college fund program for Florida residents to lock in a price at any state Florida college or community college where you pay by the month pretty much from your child's birth until it's time for him/her to enter college. Hmmm. So we started leaning toward Florida.

Craig contacted the person that decides our assignments. She said that Langley is overbooked...pretty much no way of getting there. She'd have to check on the other choices he mentioned, but, Patrick...well...Patrick she had openings at right now, we can get orders (aka our assignment locked in) within a week or two. Hmmm....

So, chances are very strong that we may be headed to Florida after we're done in Ohio next spring. Still not sure how I feel about it, since I've never considered living in Florida before now.

I went to the barn to see Sophie today, she had rubbed her tail a bit since my last visit, not surprisingly, her udder was very dirty. I stopped at the feed store on the way home and bought some liniment as well. I was thinking that since her neck seems to get so sore after just a couple of rides that it'd help if I put something like Ben Gay on it, to help her muscles recover more quickly.

There's an open show in a couple of weekends that I was considering going to, just for the exposure. And then of course a dressage show October 6th that I'd really like to enter. I plan on riding tomorrow, hopefully my ankle will hold up to it. It has been extremely hot here the last couple of days. We'll see if tomorrow is any better!

Kitty is Crazy Smart...or...Why We're Lucky Cats Don't Have Opposable Thumbs...

Cat walking is still going well. Someone had asked earlier, cat walking is just to give them a chance to be outside and experience nature. They're never going to be allowed outside by themselves because we move so much (every 3-4 years) that I don't want them in the habit of roaming the neighborhood here, where it's safe, only to move to a place with a busier road or is otherwise unsafe. Kitty is still loving it. And she is crazy smart, case in point...

She knows what her collar/harness mean! If I go to the toy basket, where the collars/harnesses are kept and pick them up she comes running, meowing the whole time, and stands close to me and really still while I put her harness and collar on her. She's very polite about going outside, won't go out the door by herself generally (I have to pick her up). Once outside she mainly stays on her stake. When we were finishing up the front garden we staked her out front with us becacuse she was being a pain inside the house, and she was great, even though out front is a lot scarier than our fenced back yard.

She's still a bit of a monster when she comes in if she didn't choose to come in. She knows what door knobs/handles are and does her best to use them. That just means jumping at the handle and trying to hang on to it. She does this while crying very loudly if we're working outside and she's inside. She's only volunteered to come inside once on her own, and that was after she was out for 2 hours. Generally we take her out for 45-60 minutes and that is definitely not long enough for Her Highness.

Elphie still freaks out on the leash, so for now she wears her collar with her information on it and gets to be loose in the backyard. So far she just hangs around the house (and wants back in the house every 20 minutes). If she were to try to escape or start investigating more than the wall of the house she probably won't be allowed out unless someone is holding on to her leash, which means she won't get out as much as Kitty, because I can read while Kitty is out, but not if I'm following Elphie and trying to keep slack in the leash at all times.

Did You Miss Me?

I have felt so guilty for not blogging these last days, but I've been busy and wasn't permitting myself to go to the barn or blog until I was caught up with my thesis. Which I am now, yay! Still got a long way to go, but I have a good start. Plus, Craig's parents came to visit this weekend so we were trying to get the front yard finished up plus do some cleaning and schoolwork.

I did go see Sophie last Tuesday, and rode. She was great. We're past the point of needing to trot right away in order to keep her moving, so we did a lot of walk work. Specifically small serpentines what were pretty much continuous 10 meter circles. It helped her come onto the bit because she still tends to brace at the walk until we do trot work to get her supple and giving. Plus I'd like to extend our rides past the 25 minute mark and thought it'd help to begin with adding more walk work. (Plus I tend to forget to work on stuff at the walk). We also worked on shoulder in a little, it wasn't great, but a good start I think.

The rest of our ride was spent imitating dressage tests. I'm thinking of entering a show October 6th, so we mainly worked on 20 meter circles and straight lines along the sides. We get great work by doing spiral circles and the like, but if we only practice spiral circles we're going to be screwed when it comes time to do a test that's nothing but huge circles and straight lines. I was also careful to do as many circles in the scary end of the arena as the not scary (as well as the center) and I'm happy to say that the scary end of the arena is almost not scary at all now!

One problem we did have in the ride was working on the canter. I wanted to work on making the transition crisper, so after a couple of ok ones, tapped her with the whip right after asking and she cantered, but it was fast and rushed and not balanced. Then our trot work wasn't very good, a little rushed, so we worked on that until it was calm and then cantering a couple more times. It took three tries before she was calm and balanced at the canter again. So I think I'll leave our canter transitions alone and not use the whip if she takes a couple of strides until we've done it more and had a lesson on it.

I still haven't had a lesson yet. I can't ride right now because I scraped my ankly up pretty good on our fancy schmancy new blocks and it will hurt like heck to put a boot on right now.

One final thing, Sophie's breeder is awesome!!!! She sent me pictures of Sophie as a baby, her mom, a full sister, and her sire. They arrived in the mail yesterday and I'm thrilled. I need to get them scanned and uploaded. One of the pictures of Sophie as a yearling shows some nice airtime at the trot even. I'm at school right now, but I'll get caught up with what everyone has been doing today at some point!

I'm a Bad Horse Mommy...

Craig and I spent the weekend in Portland, it was a whirlwind trip. We left Thursday and got back Monday morning (at 6:30 am, ouch...we live in Ohio). We got home home at 8 and went to bed. Craig went to class and I slept until 5:30, so I didn't make it to the barn, even though I wanted to go ride today after missing the last five days. So, that's where I've been. I should make it out tomorrow, I might try to get some pictures as well. I'll also start posting my notes from The Gymnasium of the Horse at some point, though that pesky thesis I'm supposed to be working on for my masters might get in the way a bit. Anyway, I'm off to catch up on what everyone else has been doing!