Letters from home

Dear Mom,

How is school? How are your roommates? Are you studying hard?

I'm having fun out in the pasture at gramma and grampa's house. They still have the old red mare, and she still gets too tired to run around as long as I want to, and she still squeals like and elephant to say hi. They still have the dumb brown fur thing that goes crazy with the barking and runs the fence line incessantly. I some times go poke my nose at it when it settles down to see if it has enough energy to start again, yep! It start back up with the obsessive running up and down the drive way. Its been fun.

But I do have to say that I don't like grampa ANYMORE! He was always my favorite because he'd bring interesting things out to the pasture. He seemed to thing they were parts and tools for fixing fences and stuff, but they were so much fun to pick up and carry away that I think they must have been horsie toys! Plus he'd dangle them off his belt, or leave them sticking out of his pocket then turn his back to me. I think he was offering them to me to take! I really do! But then he'd always chase me down and take them back! Not fair! Anyway, I used to love him coming out to scratch me, but now... I just don't know...

So here's what happened. You remember we took the drive to the stinky place where the lady always pokes me with needles and sends me off to la-la land for a while and this time she took the scratchy itchy thing out from behind my eye ball? Yeah, that was kind of a relief. But THEN grampa kept coming out 3 to 4 times a day to squirt gooey stuff onto the inside of my eye lid! I was NOT a fan! I hope its all over with now. My eye feels better! It really does! Then the lady from the stinky place came out to look at it again, and I didn't even get the dose of la-la land. I hope she told grampa to stop torturing me with eye goop.

I don't know if I'll ever get over this... grampa was always so much fun before... Oh look, here he comes with dinner! I like dinner! I wonder if he'll give me some scratches... I like when he gives me scratches... Gotta go!

Love and horse kisses,

Bear

This is Bear here…

Hey guys…

This is Bear here… everyone else’s mom seems to let them take over the blog once in a while, so I told my mom it was about time that I got to say something! So with my 30 seconds of fame… while I’m standing here on my soap box… now that I’ve got a captive audience… here’s what I have to say to y’all… you gotta help me!!

My foster sis Lola… she’s GOT TO GO! I thought it was a great idea at first. I mean I totally have a thing for red mares you know. Plus she pretty much just follows me around and she’ll do whatever I tell her! It’s been totally fun.

But NOW I hear that she gets to go on some fun vacation to the beach instead of me?!?!?!? That’s just not right… her time is up. Don’t get me wrong, I like the kid and all, but seriously, stealing my vacation? Mom keeps telling me that I wouldn’t like the LONG trailer ride down there. I don’t know what she’s talking about, I LOVE trailer rides! I get to rock out back there creating all sorts of good drum beats on the floor, on the walls, on the divider, even the top when I stretch up and reach it! It’s a blast! I try to entertain her when we stop at traffic lights with the new rhythm I made up. I don’t know why she doesn’t tell me how good a drummer I am… I rock!

So anyway, while Lola gets to go to have the cool ocean breezes all day long, and long gallops on the beach, I have to roast in the NorCal sun. Hmmfff… So here’s my plan, I will take it upon myself to find her a new home! Now it has to be a good one, hear? I do really like the girl, and I want the best for her. Plus I’d really like to be able to see her at some of the shows next year… you know say a friendly hello… catch up on how our winters went… kick her plain red butt in a friendly competition! He he he…

Yep, let’s send her off… I’ll take carrots, oats, apples, and pretty much anything else you want to offer that I can either eat or pick up with my teethies and toss around my pen! My mom might think she’s getting money for my sis, but I know all that is going straight into feed and goodies and giving me new things to destroy.

Well that's all I've got for now... I think its about time for me to kick my bucket around for a bit.

Pretty much everything revolves around Lola... hope he's not getting a complex

So Lola is for sale, which means I don't feel like I can even skip a day of her schedule. So again, all the action is on her blog. Check it out though! And if any of you know of anyone who wants a fun little eventing prospect, she'll be a blast! I just want to make sure its the right home! I'll even make this easy... http://mytrainingproject.blogspot.com/

Plus there is an awesome little incident with Bear from last weekend's post... craziest thing I've ever had happen to me on the trail! EVER! If I've been riding since 4... that makes just about 24 years of riding trails, most of those being in northern California, and I've NEVER had this happen to me!

Now you're curious, huh? Go look! But then come back and read more about Bear...

So we had a really good ride tonight. He's so SO different from Lola. Body-wise he's much narrower, so its different to sit on him. He's not that much taller, but he sure feels it. He carries himself very differently, and he'll have a whole different set of challenges to learn to really be on the bit. Although he's greener than her in some ways, he's got a personality (and we have a longer relationship) that makes him very easy to just pick him up once a week and still feel like we're getting somewhere. He's physically less mature than her, but he's so naturally athletic that in some ways they're even, in someways he's better, and in someways he's never going to be a long hard journey to be as good as her. Its been a fun experiment to ride the two of them back to back on my lesson days. I try to apply the same lesson on him, only to find that it doesn't really apply! Its either too advanced because I need to introduce steps 1, 2, and 3 first, or its focusing on something that is not a weakness of his, so I don't need to use the creative steps to get to the goal. Its funny. It does give me the chance to put to action the equitation corrections that I've been hearing for the previous hour, and THAT always helps our ride. It gives me a lesson plan to work with so I don't go crazy trying to do too much in one ride. Its been fun.

He's been a blast on the trail lately. We've been going just about once a week, so he's getting slowly put back into shape. He didn't even break a sweat tonight, and I gave him a pretty solid 40 minute ride, so its not like he's outrageously out of shape. But I always think its important to start the conditioning at the walk. So he's been getting nice long walks on the trail. We've got some really good ups and downs to build muscle, and lots of steps and rocks to teach him to be careful and think about where he's putting his feet. Last Saturday we added in some trot and canter to our ride too. He's so happy and relaxed about all of it, its great. He was pretty tired by the end of a 2 hour ride though!

So that the fun we've been up to. I've got high hopes for him next fall! It will be a lot of fun to focus just on him again. He's come a long ways this spring, and he did it without consistent time under saddle. I really think that giving him the spring off was actually a good thing, not intentional, but good none the less. He's come back into work a much more balanced and steady horse than he was last fall. Its amazing what physical maturity can do for a four year old! I'm ok with the time he had off of training because now that I'm starting to push him, he's much more capable to step up to the plate.

The sad thing is that he had just lost so much weight at the last place. He's starting to look a little better, but its been a month already, and he's still got a little bit of ribs showing. I keep telling myself that once he's back up to weight, it will be easier to maintain, and that its just the process of getting him there that makes it feel like he's eating twice as much as the rest of the horses. I think the problem is that Lola eats twice as fast as him and so he gets less food. Starting last week he's getting his supplements separately, so I think just that will make a visible difference. They get three hay meals a day (plus I feed the "sloppy" mix when I'm out there), so I can't ask for much more!

The summer plan for him is 6 weeks of pasture vacation with the old mare. He'll get grass all day, plus hay morning and night in a separate pen where he can take his precious time eating! He's such a silly boy, I can't figure out if he just likes to savor his food, or if he gets too easily distracted. I can give the two horses the same amount of their "sloppy" in two separate tubs and watch Lola finish before Bear makes the halfway point. Crazy. He will have spread it twice as far as Lola though! If he were human, he'd be the kid that painted the dining room table with his spaghetti sauce instead of eating. I love my silly boy.

I feel good that he'll be fat and happy when I get back. I feel really confident now that I can pick up lessons with him in August and have him ready to hit a couple shows before the winter weather hits. That is if I'm back to one horse by then.... I can only hope. I'm exhausted just thinking about still having two horses this fall!

Managing to have fun with two horses!

So last Saturday I had a friend come out to the ride with me on the trails at the lake! I figured since she was coming out, I would have her test ride Lola since she needs to have some experience of other people on her back. Then I sort of thought, why not have her just ride her once we got out to the trails too? So I got to ride Bear! A nice treat since I'm used to giving him up since I sort of consider him the safe bet. At this point she's come so far that she's probably the nicer ride now!

We had a blast! Much more challenging trail than I had planned, but they both did well. We even convinced them to go into the lake up to their knees! So fun, and I've already booked another friend to come out this Saturday! If I could spend at least one day a week on the trail between now and when I sell Lola, I will count this whole working to keep up two horses thing as worth it!

Tonight we had another good "post lesson" ride. I cantered him, which was a blast because its the thing that he's so good at and I have to work harder with Lola with that (but then again she stops on a dime...) They all have their strengths and weaknesses.... Anyway, it was fun, and I'm exhausted, so it must be time for bed.

Two big new flashes:

His feet seem to be too big for the "most awesome and too damn expensive" easy boot slip on's that I bought him last fall. Grrr.... He did fine on the trail though without them.

I can't see his ribs anymore!!! I realized today, that although I can still feel them, I can't see his ribs! Amazing what two weeks will do! He'll be a whole new horse in another two weeks. He doesn't seem to have any problems with the fact that he's not in pasture... Although now that I think about it, he did buck some good ones on the lunge line... So I'll start over... With regular turn out in the huge outdoor arena where he can play and be silly like he would in pasture, I don't see any drawbacks to having him in a large paddock instead. Let's hope he stays a happy, healthy, sane, fattened up, and un-injured horse for awhile!

Ok, so I'm too excited not to brag...

The dressage schooling show that I went to on Sunday posted the scores today. I got high score of the day!!! Unbelievable! Little ol' me on a mare that I've trained, at her first dressage show, and, get this, MY first dressage show! Ok, so there wasn't a huge turn out of people. But still... I am just blown away, and super proud.

So none of this has anything to do with Bear, and yet has everything to do with Bear. I have so much more confidence and motivation to start getting him out to some shows once I'm back from the summer.

Plus its a huge personal victory.

I'll go back to being humble now...

First real ride in AGES...

Tonight started with my lesson on Lola... (You can see the full description on her blog http://mytrainingproject.blogspot.com/ which might help since I don't want to run through it twice!) I'll be doing Tuesday night lessons with her until she sells, and since its a night I don't see my boyfriend anyway, I have the time to ride Bear afterward. This worked out great tonight since I could take all the exercises I had just been working on with Lola and apply them to where Bear is in his training.

So here's where he's at now:

He's come out of pasture in great shape. His canter looks awesome on the lunge line, nice and uphill and light.

He's focused and responsive to what I'm asking while lunging. He's getting back into the swing of things with the side reins.

The only rides I've done on him for the last two months have been bareback, so we just did circles, steering, little yielding shoulders or haunches, and picking up the trot for 5 to 10 steps then coming back down to the walk.

Here's where he was at this time last year:

Working well at walk, trot, and canter.

Accepting the contact, although never really on the bit.

Usually heavy on the forehand and rushing forward a bit. Needing work on tempo.

If I really held him together, we could for a do steady and reasonably balanced walk, trot, canter on a 20 meter circle with changes in direction from circle to straight.

Tonight:

He really got the concept of accepting the contact and maintaining a bend.

By the end we were able to do a walk-trot-walk transition that was balanced, with a bend to the inside, and with acceptance of the bit.

His tempo is great.

He is happy to be worked again, and it was a total light bulb turning on sort of night!

How it came together:

So we started out with small circles to ask for a lot of bend and encourage him to make contact with the outside rein and then even reach down for the bit. (Again, Lola's blog has got the scoop.) He wasn't really getting it. He was trying, but only succeeding in stiffly turning his head in. I awarded some near success by changing direction or walking off to another part of the arena, then tried again and again. Still not much.

Next we started the never ending trot circle. This is something that we did in the very first lesson with Lola. Focusing on tempo and rhythm and maintaining a steady contact even when they are resisting. He did that a ton... giraffe trotting around like I'm tearing at his face. I kept up the patiently keeping a light but steady contact no matter where he put his head, and he started, just a little to accept it. Still no bend, still no reaching for the bit. Again I rewarded the tiniest effort, but no real break through.

Back to walk circle exercise, and FLASH! The light bulb goes on. He suddenly gets round in his neck, bends both directions when asked, maintained a slight bend along the straight parts, AND started stretching his nose to the ground when I fed out the reins while pushing him along with my legs. What a difference!

So we tried it at the trot to the left. Start him bending and push him into the trot while keeping that bend. Magic! He's suddenly trotting so much better! Unbelievable difference from the resistance before. I even sort of thought it was a fluke. Like he was better on his left, and it was his right that caused the problem. So back to the right, and he was just as a amazing! He just plain got it. Of course he's not perfectly steady about the contact, and once he got it both directions so well I was so floored that I hopped off and gave him a big hug! He's taken the big step of understanding what I'm asking, now we just need the time to build up the consistency.

I'm really looking forward to getting him back into training mode. As much as I love Lola, somehow Bear is just more of my type of horse. I just feel better on him, which is good, since he's the one I'm keeping! I am going to make the most out of my lessons by applying the week's homework to both horses, and I really think he'll catch up to her in no time.

It felt so good to really be back at it.

Oh good boy Bear!!!

I'm slowly but surely getting Bear back into the swing of things. I hopped on him bareback on Friday, just because I had so little time. I had turned him out in the big arena to run around and buck while I lunged Lola. She didn't get ridden because we were going to have back to back shows this weekend. So then I let her go and threw a bridle on him and hopped on with the bareback pad. He was great. We worked on lots of big circles, and then small circles, keeping a bend. We worked on walk halt transitions, since he's pretending to forget this one, he stops, just not perfectly. It doesn't help that I'm comparing him to Lola who has stopped on a dime since the day I got on her!

Then today after the show with Lola, I got Bear out to work. I threw the western saddle on him since we'll be starting up teaching my boyfriend how to work and ride him, and we'll be going out for lots of trail rides with friends now that the weather is awesome. Once I had it all cinched down, I realized there was not clearance at his withers! The saddle just doesn't fit anymore! Its so frustrating because this is the saddle I broke him in! It should fit! Why doesn't it fit? He lost so much weight at the other boarding place... I haven't had it on him since January when I was using him to pony Lola. Then he started loosing weight because it was a cold hard winter, but he never gained it back despite 15 acres of green spring grass. Hopefully we're back on our way to being up to weight.

I lunged him in the saddle anyway, but he twisted and kicked out with front and back feet when he picked up the canter like it was pinching him. He got over it quick, so I don't think it was all that bad. Still, once I finished lunging him with the sided reins I took the saddle off and threw it on the fence and got on bareback instead. He's such a good boy. We did lots of walk work, circles, halts, moving his shoulders or haunches around, then halts. We even did some little walk-jog-walk transitions, keeping it really slow so that I didn't get bounced right off! I want him to be very cautious about his rider being secure on his back when my boyfriend gets on him, so bareback is a good warm up for that.

Watching him canter on the lunge line makes me realize how much he's matured since last spring. He's so light and graceful on the lunge line! I just love watching him!

Still most of the big new is over on Lola's blog. We had our first dressage show today! Video and everything! Check it out. http://mytrainingproject.blogspot.com I'm just beaming I'm so proud! Now that I've broken into the world of dressage shows (or I should say small community of local dressage schooling shows) I feel a whole lot more confident about getting out there and doing it! I hope to have Bear doing Training level tests this fall once I'm back from the summer.