Rethinking our Saturday plans

So its raining... its been raining for what seems like decades, and it is going to rain all the way up until the show on Saturday. While part of the classes are in the indoor arena, the two that were my bare minimums (the ones I felt I could do even if he was wild and crazy) will be outside in the slop and muck. I haven't been able to ride much because of the weather, so Bear is not as far along in his steering control at the trot as I hoped. He also has been penned up in the mud so he's got way more energy than usual. Put these two together and I can't in any good conscience put him in a walk-trot class where children might be present! So the classes in the indoor are out, and I just can't muster up the courage to brave the chance of the round pen being to slick to lunge in, the parking lot too wet to pull out of, and Bear being too overwhelmed for us to enjoy ourselves all to just to slop around in the mud for the two solo classes. So I think I'd rather use the first dry day to just get some good training time in.

The plan is to trailer out to the big arena, where even if its wet, its not that bad of footing. That way he can have a good lunge session, and we can get some big trots in without dodging other horses. I'm hoping to get some pictures even though I'm not showing. I'll be glad when things dry out and I won't always have to trailer out in order to do anything but walk.

Class was good tonight. We had two less horses, so it was a little easier to get some work in. Bear is still very distracted by the other horses, and want to get up close and personal in order to check them out! He started to veer towards another horse that we were meant to be trotting by, so I gave him a tiny swat when he didn't keep moving forward and he just about jumped out of his skin. He jumped forward (which was fine since that was what I was asking) but then did a little half buck and tried breaking into the canter. We trotted on, nice and forward and pretended that he hadn't just had a silly fit. He was very over dramatic tonight and felt the need to leap over pee spots, dodge shadows, and in general find reasons to be silly. It will be nice when he's back in pasture full time. He's coming along slowly, but regular work would make everything nicer for both of us.

We'll see if there are any breaks in the rain to get out tomorrow and at least get a walk in. He literally planted his feet and slid down the slope from the pen to the paved driveway when I pulled him out today. I think he's been practicing ice skating through the mud!
TOO MUCH RAIN!

Little steps toward the big goal

Poor Bear has been all wet and soggy for awhile, and we've not been getting much training time in. Last Tuesday the 17th he didn't even get to go to class since there was no way I was going to be able to get the truck into the muddy pasture to get the trailer out. Luckily due to the cold miserable weather riding that night was optional, and everyone else opted to go home! So we didn't end up missing anything.

I snuck out of the office on Wednesday to ride during lunch break, but just got on the old mare and ponied him. It was too wet in the pasture, and he was feeling oh so frisky with no outlet for his energy for so long. So instead of risking a wild ride on the roads, we opted for the chicken workout. But he did get a good hour of power walking alongside the mare, and that was much better than being stuck in the slick pasture.The rest of the week got busy, and I couldn't get out to see him at all.

Saturday morning I went out just long enough to get the stupid trailer out of the pasture and onto the paved driveway before the major rains hit again. Even though it was REALLY slick in the pasture still it was going to be one of the few clear days so the horses were turned out to get some grass and frolicking. As soon as I took Bear's blanket off he decided it was time for his rodeo, mud or no mud. I'm sure this is how he injured himself originally, and through his recovery he would often slip again and be sore for the day, so I was watching with some concern as he galloped recklessly around the pasture! I'm sure I could have grabbed a bucket of feed and occupied his mind with eating instead of running, but what's the point? If he wasn't running now, he'd be running later, and at least I could observe it. More important is that he learns some sense! He was really booking it around the pasture, but he kept his balance and his feet underneath him the whole time. His sliding stops up to the fence line made me nervous every time, but he never took even one off step, so that's a huge improvement! He is still at a very awkward stage and still seems to be figuring out what to do with his body, but I hope that by learning to gallop and maneuver in the slippery muck he will better keep his balance under saddle on grass jumping field or cross country course.

Tuesday night, back to class! Yeah! We spent a good amount of time lunging off his excess energy. He wasn't all that naughty considering! He shook his head and half bucked once, and kicked out about the sand hitting the arena wall, but compared to the airs above ground he's done when I lunge him in the pasture it was quite tame. (I think he knows I'll chase him forward and really work him when he's in the arena like that.)I put the dressage saddle on, since I was planning on starting back into a little trotting this week. I guess I sort of thought twice about it, but mainly I would just be embarrassed that if I fell off people would say "That's why you should ride colts in a western saddle!" But I'm so much more comfortable in the dressage saddle! When we got on he was fine, and stood quietly. When we walked off we only made it halfway down the rail before he took a bug-eyed look at the "scary" corner, and spun completely around! I sat it just fine, in fact maybe even better than in a western saddle! But the spook was a indicator of our evening. He wasn't bad, he was just not great. It’s been a solid two weeks without riding, and he's had such a big break in his training anyway, that I shouldn't expect more until I can put the time in. He had one more incident when another horse spooked and bolted off right in front of Bear which of course made him follow suit! But I turned him into the wall and he stopped just fine. While that horse was off dumping his rider, Bear was dancing around a bit, but settle down pretty well. We did get a little bit of trotting in both ways, but he needs a lot more work with regularity of gait, and it was hard to get that worked on when I was dodging 6 other green horses! The lesson for the day way pivoting on the haunches starting with forward movement. Bear moves away from pressure alright since we started the process of moving his shoulder versus moving his haunches a while back, but he wasn't really getting the idea of stopping the forward motion. So that's what we'll be working on for a while, but it was a great start. Little steps...

Today, Wednesday, I went out to see Bear over lunch break since it sounds like the rain is coming back and my weekend is pretty full. We had another first! With all the hand walking I was doing in January, I've taken him out away from the house alone several times in hand, but today was his first trail ride ALONE! We walked to where the dirt road started, and I got on there. He was fine for about 20 feet, and then it suddenly hit him that he couldn't hide behind me if something scary came up! I was hiding behind him!!! So he sort of staggered back and forth across the trail thinking about turning to go home, but he got over it pretty quick when he remembered that the back roads are fun, and the pasture is muddy and boring! Then I got off again at the big hill. I figure I'm out of shape and need the exercise, and I know he's out of shape and wanted to make this an easy work out. Then we continued on under saddle for the flat stretch. He hardly spooked at all when the ducks took off from the pond, which they do EVERYTIME we pass. In fact he let out a big sigh of relief afterwards like the anticipation was just killing him! Over all it was great and he never felt like a danger. He does, however, have a major problem with wiggling all over the place instead of walking a straight line! I guess he's always following the mare, and taking his direction from her. So we need to work on him taking his direction from me more.

The big goal is a show March 7th, only two weeks away. It’s the same one that will have the in hand trail class, and I'm hoping to do one or two walk-trot classes just to get him in the show arena. That is, as long as I feel confident he won't run down small children on ponies! We have physically conditioning to do, and a bit of work on a consistent trot rate before we'll be ready! We'll see...

Happy Birthday Bear!

Today, my baby is 3 years old!!! Which makes him seem much more like a horse, and a lot less like a baby...

Not up to much...

With the rain and being sick for a whole week, after that Sunday trail ride Bear and I haven't been up to much lately. We had to skip Tuesday class because I was sick and never got out after that. My last post said we were preparing for a schooling show, but when Saturday came I just couldn't muster up the energy. He hadn't been worked with since the Sunday before, I knew he'd be a mud ball, and I was going to have to get up really early since it was one of the first classes. When the alarm went off it was cold outside, I could be dealing with a potentially explosive horse being that it was his first show and he had a week's worth of pent up energy, and I had to go through all the hassle of hooking up the trailer, blah, blah, blah... or I could let the dog out and go back to bed for a few hours! Clearly the bed was the best choice.

I did drag myself out on Sunday to sneak some time in so that he wasn't a complete disaster at class Tuesday. We started with the lunging/driving system. Its really kind of fun since we use more area, go over the poles, up and down the hill, and he doesn't get bored and think about bucking to spice things up. He did really well and got a decent workout, so when I got on I really only planned to spend 5-10 minutes on his back and call it a day. He was so light and responsive and was doing so well that I probably only was on for 5 minutes! It was so great. He is not always responsive to a whoa, so last class we had been working on responding to voice and seat command only. But that had been almost two weeks before, and he was really paying attention and stopping every time I asked! It felt so nice. So we reviewed the other task from class which was leg yielding in and out to make the circles bigger and smaller. He did great on that too, so we just ended!

Tuesday night wasn't quite the miraculous revelation like Sunday was, but he was at least well behaved. I was able to use the arena to lunge and he looked great walk, trot, canter! Yeah for three weeks of being sound! We warmed up walking around with the group, and we worked on a ton of circles and leg yielding on and off the rail. Then the exercise for the night was to go around a grid of cones that made up four boxes. So by keeping the cones always on your left and crossing through the middle each time you would make all left turns and complete four boxes before stopping in the middle cone again. Then of course we did all right turns. The idea was to do it at the jog, but I feel like he hasn't been worked enough lately to justify moving back up to trotting, and SINCE we haven't trotted under saddle for almost two solid months, it didn't make sense to try to do something so complicated. So we walked it, but it was still a very good exercise.

The rain started up again that night (I almost didn't get the trailer back in the pasture!) so I haven't been out since, and don't see getting a whole lot done this weekend. We'll see how Sunday goes.

What we've been up to...

Still sound, still going strong!

So Friday's work out was very similar to Wednesdays, lopsided lunging to jog along the dry flat easy parts of the pasture, and using the hill to walk up. I actually wasn't planning on going out at all since I had so much to do at work, but my day had been so stressful that by 3:00 I was going start yelling at people if I didn't get out into the sunshine for a little break! So I kept my time out there short and sweet. I did get about 15 minutes of trot work when I added it all up, and at least as much walking. Then we worked on the trail course a bit: turns on the haunches, stopping over the poles, and backing a circle (I'm hoping this will help him back straighter in the long run). Called it a day, and rushed back to work.

Saturday was an unexpected blessing. I scheduled myself to go into the office for a few hours to train interns (it always sounds good when I'm in work mode, but then I'm always mad that I gave up even 15 minutes of a sacred Saturday when I start getting ready to go), then I also had commitments that night. Luckily I was able to sneak out of work earlier than planned, and the night stuff was pushed back to much later. So I got out right at the warmest part of the afternoon which and I was able to ride in a T-shirt the last day of January! When I got there Bear was already sweaty from chasing the mare around, and then had rolled in the muddiest part left of the pasture. So I figured I would use the sunshine to my advantage. I saddled up the old mare and ponied Bear around the pasture and we used the gentle hill for some trot workout. We went up about four times, then just trotted some big circles around the upper pasture for about 10 minutes with a breather in between. He did great! He hasn't always been a big fan of trotting alongside the other horse, and used to get lazy and fall behind, but he kept right up and wanted to trot faster. So I used the sun and warm horse to do a quick rinse down to get the sweat and mud off. After a quick scrape, I hopped back on the mare and we ponied him down the back roads until he was totally dry. We made it all the way to the llamas again! MUCH better this time. It really helped that the horse across the street was only standing quietly instead of pounding against the fence and bolting off! So we were able to calmly face the llamas, and walk past them, then turn and head home without any drama. I'm so glad he gets over things fast.

Sunday afternoon I skipped all super bowl parties and went out to see my horses! My sis and I hooked up the trailer and took the two out to the easy flat trails. I walked along behind for about 15 minutes until he was nice and warmed up, then hopped on for the 15 minutes back. So only the second ride since the injury, but still very slow and limited. He was fine! Its also our first time riding out there, but he's walked it so many times now he's really comfortable. He tried jogging a couple times to catch up with the mare's super walk (I still swear she was an accident and her daddy was actually a Tenn. Walker!), but he was responsive to me when I asked him to walk instead. The best part: the few times he did jog, he didn't feel off at all! I am pretty good at feeling anything funny, better than seeing it, so it was a good test.

Monday I never made it out because I was already taking off early from work for an appointment, and then we didn't go to class tonight since I'm feeling really sick and can't quite muster up the energy to deal with hooking up the trailer, the occasionally wild horse, and standing around in the cold. What I normally love seemed like a huge hassle tonight.

I'm still not ready to trot him under saddle until I feel that he's really been conditioned back up to it, so the real test is still a couple weeks out. Its been 5 weeks since the injury, and the last 2 weeks have been progressive conditioning without any limping. I'm figuring on another two weeks of creative conditioning: longer trotting sets, hills, tons of backing up, before I can finally sigh a HUGE sigh of relief that we're done with all this! Everything from there will but common sense for his age. Because he's only 3 I'm not going to be jumping, galloping, spinning, sliding or really doing ANYTHING too long or too hard that would really be taxing on his body or joints. So I figure the rest of the rehab conditioning and restrictions that I would do over the next month or so with an older horse, falls into his training plan for the spring anyways. That's the good thing about him being young, there is no hurry to get him doing anything very hard. I'm looking forward to a Spring of walking lazily down the trails, and starting some walk-trot classes at the schooling shows, and progressing to W/T/C classes by early summer.

So far he loves being handled and loves to go for rides. I think a horse's attitude is a real indicator of when they are being pushed too hard either mentally or physically. Here's to a spring of sound mind and body for BOTH of us!

Training for what we CAN do

So it’s Wednesday, and even though I just posted the week update last night, I’m not sure I’ll have a chance to post again until next week so I figured I’d journal on today.

It was still too wet to do much at the trot in the pasture without being very careful to pick our spots. So I got creative! We lunged at the walk for a few circles and then I started driving him along the long side of the pasture down the fence. It tends to be dryer there and I thought if he could get the hang of it we could trot it. He questioned the shape of our lunge circles at first but got the hang of it. Then we changed the location a bit and I drove him up the slope on a similar elongated circle. Which was good for getting some of his hill walking done. So I was able to pretty much chose the driest, flattest, straightest paths, it wasn’t a crisp and clean process, but it was a success in safe and controlled trotting! This was a really good lesson on transitions since I was asking him to pick up the trot for only 5-10 strides then come back down to a walk. Plus it made him pay a lot more attention to me, so he was keeping to a slower pace than usual too.

After he got some trot exercise in for the day, we tackled the ground poles. I’ve got them set up in different spots in the pasture going different directions, and there are a variety of shapes and sizes so he doesn’t get bored of them very easily. Then we went back up to the upper pasture and got to work on the trail course set up there. There is a schooling show in a week and a half that is very close. I’ve been wanting to take him to a show just to have the crazy show grounds experience and this one has a in-hand trail class. Since most of the shows limit the in-hand classes to under 3, this may be one of our last chances to try it. (That and I’m sure I won’t care much about an in-hand trail class when I can RIDE a trail class instead!) So taking out the days where I won’t be able to get out to see him, I’ve got days of training to prepare.

Although he knows how to pivot and back and side pass from the ground I am guilty of not cueing very subtly. This week we will definitely be working on him responding to just my body instead of taps, pokes, and rope swings. The other goal is getting him to stand square. This problem is totally my fault. I am pretty sure the breeder made him square up whenever she stopped him because he seemed to know it when I got him. Of course as we started working on bigger and better things I got sloppy about enforcing this. Then with the injury and all the hand walking we re-evaluated his manners while leading in general, but I wasn’t about make him stand on all four feet when one hurt. So now that he’s standing on all feet again it is time to start asking for square halts again, but it is SO tedious. Ugh.

It is fun to have a goal though, it keeps me more accountable try to improve everything he does and not just maintain the level of “he sort of does it”! At the very minimum it will give me an arena to lunge in, and a whole new experience for him. Who knows, maybe we’ll even place, it’s not a very big show! ;)

Sometimes "Not Limping" does not equal sound, but today it does!

As dvm2012 pointed out to me in the last post, a horse is not sound unless he's sound at all gaits. So after my video from last Monday of him demonstrating the crazy manoeuvers that made me second guess allowing him to be turned out, he was "not limping" at the walk. Which is not sound, I know, but even though he had run slipped enough to make himself sore he was trotting out so nicely the next day that you couldn't notice a problem unless you knew where to look for it. So barring anymore crazy slips or antics in the pasture, he's officially on the mend! Here's his progress for the week:

Thursday, Friday, Saturday rain rain RAIN!

Sunday, was clear finally but still very wet all around. I picked the driest flattest spot in the pasture and trotted him out to see how he was doing... not limping! So off to a good start. I went ahead and tacked up both horses and I rode the old mare and ponied him all tacked-up. He was certainly walking out big today with all his pent up energy after three days of rain. We went down the back roads for just over and hour. He did really well passing the two goofy pet cows that always charge past bucking and kicking whenever they see us (first obstacle), he did spook slightly at the horses on the dirt road (second obstacle) which is something he's fine with normally but one of them shot out of his stall into his run when he heard us coming, so that's fair enough. We got through the gate perfectly (third obstacle and one that I'm very proud to say I do on a regular basis, I can open the gate and get the two through without getting off!) We passed by the less friendly cows and crazy donkey pasture (fourth and usually final obstacle) and he was just fine. Then we came to the point where I normally turn around. Bear has seen the llamas once before, and he wasn't a big fan! So I was cautious approaching the first llama gate. They were really far off so we missed the two in the south pasture, but the majority of them are in the north pasture and we'd see them 1/4 mile later when we got all the way around the property. On the way we came across 6 arabs turned out in a pasture on the other side, and the all ran around like crazy! He did well, he just got a little quick and excited. Then came the llamas!!! He might have been fine to stop and stare at them if it hadn't been for the fact that another horse came galloping up to the fence line on the other side of the road. So we were sandwiched in between the terrible long necked creatures and the crazy bucking horse that kept hitting the fence and spooking him! Then my old mare starts squealing! Yep, she's one of those menopausal mares that has weird emotional heat cycles with no reason. But after circling a few times the other horse stopped harassing us so we could get down to some good staring! So we past them a few times, then turned around to go back. Final test was stopping and having to stand quietly so I could talk to a neighbor for 10 minutes while his dogs ran all around. Bear had no problem, but the old mare kept reminding me it was time to go home! We passed everything just fine the second time, and made it home safe and sound. I love having this route when its wet because after the 100ft of main road (which is still a rural road), I turn down a side road its totally safe and very remote roads after that. Plus from a conditioning stand point there are some pretty good hills.

Monday, took him for a walk in-hand for about an hour. We pretty much did the an abbrieviated version of the route we did on Sunday due to time. He walks quite a bit faster when he has to keep up with the mare, so the half hour mark came up fast and we ended up stopping before the llamas. He was very well behaved today, and only spooked at the flock of ducks taking off from the pond. So over all great! Still trotting out fine for the little "tester trot" at the beginning and end of our workout. Its just still too wet to trot him out for any sort of exercise.

Tuesday, off to class! I tacked him up and lunged him walk-trot-canter and he looked great! Not just not limping... he was sound! Hurray! So I at least got on him and walked him around for a bit then got off. He felt just fine. Of course we're not ready to start trotting again or anything like that, but the soft indoor arena was going to be the best place to get on again, so we went for it. The great thing was that despite the fact that he's not been ridden for a month, and really he's had less than 30 rides on him total, he was better behaved and more in control than half the horses in there! It is a training class, and I shouldn't compare him, but he is awesome.

Well tomorrow I plan on either lunging if its dry enough, or ponying off the old mare. I figure I don't want to push my luck by riding on uneven or slippery surfaces just yet. So I might try it again Saturday, but most likely will end up waiting to get on again until next Tuesday at class, till then we're back to the regular schedule!