Pandora's Box

January Week 5

2010-02-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

Monday 1/25
Longed 20 minutes. Was going to ride, but the lights went out in the barn. The barn owner got it all figured out but not until after we put the horses away.

Tuesday 1/26
Pretty good ride, maybe 45 minutes.

Wednesday 1/27
Lesson with Leslie. Went pretty well. Pandora really wants to lean down and on my inside rein...very difficult to get her to carry herself but I think more lessons will really help.

Thursday 1/28
Rest.

Friday 1/29
Longed. Didn't have time for much else, we had a HM study session for Pony Club. It was a good session, though - did it outside which seemed to help with forward. Her canters were actually nice and light in both directions. It was a good workout and she broke a light sweat.

Saturday 1/30
Pretty good ride - 45 minutes or so. I am not sure if I'm applying what Leslie showed me correctly, but I was focusing really hard on riding straight with my body. It was hard for both of us, but when I asked for a canter transition, it was wonderful. I think this means we're on the right track.
Rode McKinna too. Canters way improving.

Sunday 1/31
Longed for maybe 15 minutes after we finished with stalls and feeding. It was getting dark. Not the best session but I chalked it up to poor visibility and let it go.

January Week 4

2010-01-25T19:54:00.000-08:00

Monday 1/18
Good ride - maybe an hour? Warmed up with a hack down the road. We went down past the driveway then all the way back up, where there are some extremely nice gradual hills. Pandora felt good. Then we rode in the arena, just walk/trot, focusing on getting her to carry herself and soften her jaw. Looking forward to dressage lessons.

Tuesday 1/19
Chiro visit! It went extremely well. He tried a new way of getting at a persistent problem - Pandora's right shoulder - and it made a huge difference. He suggested it could help with the way she wants to hold herself twisted a little bit, swinging her haunches out to the right which we all know is a huge problem.

We tried another new thing too. After I told him how I taught her to back up very well by allowing her to walk straight forward after backing, he said we should try it after adjustments. So every time she successfully completed an adjustment, she got to walk forward a little bit. You could tell it made a big difference! She got extremely cooperative and started walking forward on her own after a good adjustment. If it wasn't successful, she'd just stand there with a very unimpressed look on her face. Silly horse.

Wednesday 1/20

I had a pretty good ride. I wanted to give her plenty of time and space to get used to her just-adjusted body, since she's always a little weird the day after a chiro visit. I longed her with tack first to let her figure things out on her own. She looked pretty good, though still a bit sticky about the canter. I think I will longe her more often to help her develop balance at the canter without the added burden of a rider.

Then I rode for about 45 minutes, just at the walk and trot. Tried some new things, asking her to supple her jaw (like we've been working on in dressage lessons with McKinna) but not lean on me or get fussy. Also working on lightening her to the aids - I shouldn't have to nag to keep her going forward. Looking forward to taking some dressage lessons on her.

The resident trainer was working with a young horse who did some bucking and racing around right after being saddled. She warned us, so I stopped Pandora to let her watch. I don't think she even flicked an ear...definitely not the kind of horse who's fired up by others acting silly!

Thursday 1/21

Longed and rode again, a bit too dark for a hack. 15 longeing, 30 or so riding. Still lots of work to make her canter on the longe but I think if I do it a couple times a week we can make progress and it will translate to improvements under saddle.
Ride was pretty good. Worked on the same stuff, suppling at walk and trot. When I get her going right in terms of softening her jaw and carrying her neck, bend becomes less of an issue (in terms of her wanting to swing her haunches out). This may be the suppling or it may be the chiro adjustment.
Working on having her be light to the aids. Seems to be going well. I will spend more time on this, especially leg-yields at the trot (which I know will get better with strength).
Did a couple canters. It was pretty good, much straighter than it has been, so I think the adjustment did help. She's also much more responsive to trot leg-yields after we've cantered, and I've noticed this in the past.
Have I mentioned that I'm looking forward to dressage lessons??
Pulled a tick off her left hind, near the stifle area. Gross.

Friday 1/22

Our first jumping lesson in what feels like forever, and it went pretty well. Loading in the trailer a bit ugly but we got things worked out - unloading at Poseidon, then the whole trip home was pretty uneventful.
Lesson itself was great. Pandora calm and forward. She's learned the habit I teach her on the ground about spooky things! We walk up to it as she snorts and blows, I kick or pat it so she can hear the sound, and then I say "Say hi!" and she goes up and puts her nose on it to sniff it. Then things are fine. I tried this from the saddle with a Big Scary White Table that was on its side, and she went right up and touched it when I told her to. Very cool.
The jumping was great. Trot fences were very good and I'm going to do lots more of those at home since it doesn't take much room. Cantering a course was a bit haphazard at times, but she did a very good job considering we haven't jumped in THREE MONTHS. My position was a bit terrible - I kept popping up onto my toes and falling forward over the fences, ugh. Time to do some no-stirrups gridwork or something. But, when I did ride correctly, it was great. I got one beautiful half-halt down the middle of a five-stride line. Only happened once, but I can't wait until all my half-halts go through like that.

Saturday 1/23
Long hack. The ride down the road was very nice, except the part where we passed the Llama And Goat Of Doom and we pranced sideways for 100 yards or so. Still, I have to give her credit for going on even in the face of Imminent Death. We'll have to practice that lots as the weather gets nicer.
Then we headed through the front pasture to the cow pasture, which I thought would be drier but wasn't. Pandora REALLY does not like the sloppy grass, it makes her anxious, but she went anyway. Which is good because she's an eventer.
I tried my "say hi!" trick on one of the young cows and she would have done it if he hadn't gotten scared and run away. Cute little bugger.

Sunday 1/24
Rest, with turnout as usual. There's a minor cough going around the barn, ugh, but ours and one other are pretty separate from the rest (they're up in a separate barn) so fingers crossed they stay symptom-free.

January Week 3

2010-01-17T14:12:00.000-08:00

Monday 1/11
Longed 30 minutes, w/t/c. Still spooky at the far rail but not as bad, worked through it.
Would like to build a set of 4 - 5 cavaletti so we can do more work with those; less risk for stepping on/rolling them and you can set them high for canter cavaletti. They are included in our training schedule, anyway.
Called farrier and chiro today, hopefully appointments sometime next week.
Me: 2x15 pushups.

Tuesday 1/12
Good ride, maybe 30 minutes, just walk-trot. Liking the new saddle but Pandora is feeling kind of bleh at the trot. I led her up and down the Scary Aisle before I rode and she was WAY better about that side...just decided to be terrified of the bulldozer and truck sitting just outside the portion of the arena where the upper wall is just open air. She was good about working through it though. I figured it was just another schooling session to learn that the Judge Stand Monster isn't going to eat her.
Tomorrow is dressage lesson on McKinna, then I get to ride Thursday but I'm heading for the ABC retreat on Friday. It seems like we keep taking two steps forward and one step back these days, but I know we'll get there.
Me: 2x15 pushups.

Wednesday 1/13
Lesson on McKinna went well.
I think these frequent lessons are good for both of them in terms of attachment issues. They tend to be a bit herdbound to each other, but neither of them fussed much tonight.

Thursday 1/14
Farrier appointment. Didn't need much taken off and everything looks good.

Friday 11/15 through Sunday 11/17
I was away at the ABC retreat; didn't ride.

January Week 2

2010-01-10T13:56:00.000-08:00

Monday 1/4
Went out at 9AM. Gave 2g bute mixed with applesauce. Pandora not terribly pleased but once I caught her she was fine. Free-longed her around the arena at a trot and she looked great. Wonder if the joint supplement is working already? Brought her into the center and spent some time just rubbing her head and neck. Didn't try to touch the poll but the area behind her ears seems less tender than yesterday - as long as I don't push, she doesn't mind being touched.
Turned the girls out.
Went back out at 4pm to bring in. She was pretty much normal for haltering. She's looking really good lately. Her hooves are holding up to barefoot extremely well and her gaits are getting smoother. Just have to wait for her darn head to heal up.

Tuesday 1/5
Free-longed for 15 minutes with a ground pole on the rail on one side. She was very good. Had to work a bit to make her keep cantering in laps and over the ground pole - it's hard with one person - but she was good about it and was adjusting herself nicely to the pole. Would like to set up a chute and try some free-jumping at some point too, but the arena's a bit hard.
Practiced asking for inside turns, which I think are much smoother and more focused than abrupt outside turns. Did them from the right fine but not from the left. From the left I ended up stopping her, walking up, physically turning her head with my hand, and then asking her to go. After 5 or 6 times, she suddenly understood and voila, inside turns.
Administered ~2g bute in applesauced syringe, probably for the last time. I am able to touch almost everywhere including her poll now. Even pulled a bit of the forelock hairs away but they were a little stuck to the dried blood (!) and she wasn't too thrilled about that.
Normal for haltering again.
Me: ran 1 mile.

Wednesday 1/6
Supposed to ride in a lesson with Leslie Chapman but since I haven't been riding her due to her injury, I took McKinna. Had a great ride on McKinna though!

Thursday 1/7
Free-longed. Inside turns now confirmed.
Me: 2x10 pushups.

Friday 1/8
Didn't go out.

Saturday 1/9
Did a short ride - just attached reins to the halter because I am sick and didn't want to deal with trying to bridle her. Wanted to test out my mom's new dressage saddle, a Kieffer. Fits Pandora nicely and seems to put my legs in a good spot.
Rode McKinna in my new Thornhill dressage saddle and liked it better, more comfortable. Going to try Pandora in the Thornhill and McKinna in the Kieffer next time we ride.
Me: 2x10 pushups.

Sunday 1/10
Bridled and rode in my Thornhill. She was 100% fine for bridling. I like the Thornhill better than the Kieffer - it is softer and I think it has a narrower twist. Not sure if it's too narrow for Pandora or not.

January Week 1

2010-01-04T08:12:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 12/29
5 minute hack outside - cold, dark, rainy. Good uphill but a little sticky downhill. Small spook-scoot when the neighbors fired up the four-wheeler, but fairly controlled and straightforward.
60 minute flatwork session. Lots of trot. Needed a reminder about moving away from leg pressure - leg yields were getting pretty dull. Tried to allow stretching down on big looping figure-8s to get the correct bend; will continue to play with that as it seemed constructive.
Some decent canters. From sitting trot, she actually picks up the correct lead on a straight line very well, and if I insist, she's prompt in her transitions (read: need to insist). Our very very shallow canter 'serpentines' are getting a bit smoother.

Wednesday 12/30
Not the best ride but I suspect it was the saddle - rode in the old jumping saddle. Pandora was unfocused, a bit lazy, and generally not herself. 30 minutes. Not terrible, just not the same horse I have every day.

Thursday 12/31
Really good ride (back in the usual saddle). Long walk warmups are working nicely, especially when working on stretching down while bending. Starts off pretty short-strided but tends to warm up nicely - arena footing may play into this as it's been a bit hard lately, barn owner's tractor out of commission at the moment. Canter still improving, working on spending more time in the canter each ride. Shallow serpentines coming along. Left-lead canter vastly better than right-lead, not entirely sure why - seems to be a function of balance. To the left much smoother, not leaning on hands, don't need to bring her up with the outside rein as much. 50 minutes.

Friday 1/1/10
Rest day.

Saturday 1/2
Free-longed 30 minutes, set a ground pole out on the rail on each side to keep her focused. Pandora worked really nicely. Very relaxed, stretching, smooth gaits, aware and careful of the poles. A very nice focused session. Canter actually looking pretty good. McKinna was in the arena too and the canter work was a bit difficult to coordinate with both of them, so in future will only do free canter work individually.
Washed tail as well as udder area and finished pulling mane.
Started on new joint supplement - liquid Hyaluronic Acid, FlexForce brand. Smells like cherries, not entirely unpleasant. Administered in syringe as this is supposed to have better absorption, but don't know if I want to deal with that every day so may just end up top-dressing feed.

Sunday 1/3
Supposed to be a clinic day, but not so much. Did not unload properly, my fault - opened door before untying. Pandora tried to back out, hit the tie, freaked out, broke halter. Did not flip on the way out and did not bang her legs up but cut her poll. Shallow cut, but she was too sore to let me bridle her so I didn't ride.
Trailered her in the divider on the way home and was a lot more careful. She loaded up nervously but well, and unloading went off well too. Haltering is sketchy but doable, she's pretty head-shy. Administered 2.5g powdered bute, mixed with applesauce in syringe. She seemed bright-eyed and cheerful, ate and drank well, just didn't want me to touch her head.
I designed an extender we'll fabricate for the dividers so she will actually fit.

October Week 2 Review

2009-10-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

Monday 10/5
I took today off because I came down with a cold :(

Tuesday10/6
Excellent ride tonight! Almost an hour. Lots of very good lateral work and canter work. She was carrying herself very well. I've been trying to do more canter work, as I think it's something we've neglected. I think if we focus on balanced canter work where she is CARRYING herself, which has always been the issue, we'll definitely see results in our jumping work.

Wednesday 10/7
Well, I would have ridden tonight but Mom had a lesson over at Robin's so I didn't.

Thursday 10/8
A good, short ride tonight. Rode in the outdoor. I did lots of no-stirrups work at the trot and canter - my sitting trot is getting better but still needs some work. She was very nice and balanced tonight, I even got some improvement on the canter-walks with not as many shuffling steps in between.
The cute horse in the turnout next to the outdoor arena got all excited when I was cantering and it started galloping and bucking. Pandora hardly twitched an ear and I was very pleased!

Friday 10/9
I had an excellent ride - about 50 minutes with a lot of canter work. Like I said, I've come to realize that we need to spend more time in the canter when we school flatwork and I can tell it's hard for her to really maintain her balanced self on a straightaway.
Still I got some very nice work.
Realized that part of our ongoing left bend issue, which is improving with all the lateral work progress we've made, is that I give up my outside rein too easily while going to the left. I think it started as an effort to get her to bend her head and neck to the inside, but I've realized that I'm relying way too much on the inside rein. When I insisted on a firm outside rein, she really straightened through the body but protested by trying to bend to the outside. Still, I made some progress, and I think if I apply this in my schooling it will help us chip away further at that darn left bend.

Saturday 10/10
I gave her the day off today - hard ride yesterday, hard ride tomorrow, bath time tonight! Well, modified bath. I scrubbed her socks to sparkling and washed and banged her tail, but just hot-toweled the rest of her. Kind of an experiment to see if hot-toweling will work to help clean her up for the rating. It's not extremely effective, but it got a lot of the dust out, and I sprayed her down with coat conditioner then covered her with her blanket and a sleazy. Hopefully when I take everything off in the morning she will be clean and shiny!

Sunday 10/11
Very hard clinic. I was sick this week and the clinic was a lot of really hard, intense riding - sometimes, especially on XC, I felt like Pandora needed me to give her a solid ride because she was tired, but I was so exhausted I couldn't ride right. She was so tired she was jumping in very poor form, hanging her knees pretty badly, which she NEVER does. But, I got some useful things out of it - I need to make her carry her head more and insist on a balanced canter, and there's no need to fight about coming back after a fence - just give her time.

October Week 1 Review

2009-10-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

Monday 9/28
I have got to stop putting off writing down what I did. I keep forgetting. I know I rode, but...that's about all I know.

Tuesday 9/29
First day of classes! I had a good ride.

Wednesday 9/30
A very good ride. This is the first time I've noticed her allowing a leg-yield to go through her back instead of resisting in her back and hips, at the walk at least. She's actually crossing under with her hind leg - more when yielding off the right leg, but still she does it off the left.
Worked on getting that release at the trot, too. It's not there all the way, but I can feel definite improvement.

Thursday 10/1
My weekly day off!

Friday 10/2
Uh, so, I took today off too. We went out to the barn anyway, visited with the girls, put their blankets on because it's started getting awfully chilly at night, and got to watch them check out their new paddocks.

Saturday 10/3
I had a short ride. Pretty good - a weird little fit at the beginning, I think she was just confused, but everything went smoothly after. Tried the TOF on a circle and it was MUCH improved, then I got a very nice reinback.

Sunday 10/4
Had a very good longeing session. Lots of hard work - trot-halt and halt-trot work. Not perfect, but better, and she got a very good workout.

September Review

2009-09-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

September Goals: Capable of 60-minute dressage session of mostly trotting and cantering or a 45-minute jumping session.
Completely relaxed about gridwork, including multiple-stride lines, outside. Successful ride at the Brian Sabo clinic, with a well-behaved horse and lots of new tools. Jumping up to 3' at least once, spending most time around 2'6 - 2'9.
Light, balanced leg-yields at walk and trot, further-developed lateral work (TOF, rudimentary TOH, shoulders-in, etc).

Evaluation: Mostly successful. We are indeed capable of a 60-minute dressage ride or 45-minute jumping session. We had a very successful ride at the Brian Sabo clinic, and all lateral work goals have been successfully completed.
I have not jumped up to 3'. I hope to do this at least once before the rating, but it's not a big deal if I don't - 2'9, the height I will jump at the rating, is just not a big deal for either of us at this point.
I also haven't really done a bunch of gridwork. It's terrible, I know. She was totally comfortable with the trot-poles to X one stride to vertical that I had set up in the outdoor, so that's good. My next step is the bane of our existence - a two-stride line. Sometime soon, I believe this coming weekend, we're going to set up some fences out in their pasture. Probably just a two-stride line, but it will start out with only one fence up.
If she can calmly canter a two-stride line outside, I'll know we're completely ready for the rating.

So.

October Goals: Jump 3' at least once before the rating. Capable of cantering a 2-stride line, outside, perfectly calmly, before the rating. Road hacks at least 3x per week after a regular ride.
Successful C-1 rating.
More strengthening lateral work, especially more at the trot. Two-point and sitting work for me, until I can do no-stirrups w/t/c work for 10-15 minutes at a time.

September Week 4 Review

2009-09-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

Monday 9/21
I really had to DRAG myself out to the barn today. Very tired from the rally. But, I did it, and I had a great ride. Pandora was on her best behavior and we rode in the outdoor - it was the absolute PERFECT temperature for riding, and there was a beautiful sunset too.
Again, very responsive to lateral work. We still are just not getting that left bend at the trot - she tilts her face to the outside and leans in over her inside shoulder while swinging her haunches out. I have also noticed that in halt and reinback, she tends to blow through my right leg/rein. So it's all symptoms of the same problem, and I just need to figure out what the problem is. Strength in her hind end, I'm guessing - the right leg since it's the one she ignores, or the left leg since that's the one she swings out to unload? Don't know.
Either way, the more lateral strengthening work we do, the better it will get, I'm sure.
On the plus side, she can hold the correct bend at the walk. So we do a lot of walk-trot transitions on the 20-m circle, trying to hold her in the bend as I transition up. I can actually feel her lean into my inside leg as she makes the upward transition.
She gets excited about the canter transitions too. But, I got some good ones. I am trying everything I can think of to keep her engaged and working hard off her hind end, like a 20-m circle with transitions from trot-canter-trot-canter-trot-walk-canter-trot-canter-walk...etc. It gets her a little riled up, but she carries herself better.
Anyway, lots to work on. There's a nearby dressage trainer I want to try taking lessons with. If all goes well, I'm hoping to take a lesson every other week for several months throughout fall and winter, if I can swing it. We are just at the point where I don't know what to do next, as I've mentioned several times before.
Then, I was thinking about maybe trailering to Inavale for stadium and XC lessons with Brooke as we move from winter to spring, because I could certainly use some of those, and I click really well with Brooke. Brooke is $40/hour for a private lesson, the dressage lady is $35 for a private lesson (don't know how long it is). I think I can do it, it's only an extra $70-80 per month.

Tuesday 9/22
Flatwork. I don't remember how it went - ack! I need to keep up with this more.
After the flatwork, I hacked all down the road. Pandora was very calm and relaxed, even when we got to a little 'bridge' section where it's light grey concrete instead of black asphalt, complete with reflective poles on each side. She gave it the hairy eyeball but went right over - her reward was pieces of the pear I grabbed from a tree next to the road.

Wednesday 9/23
Didn't ride - family visiting.

Thursday 9/24
Had a pretty nice ride. I did some flatwork for awhile but I just wasn't feeling it, so I headed out to the field to do some trotting. We did quite a bit, plus a little cantering. I even tried some canter-walk transitions downhill like Brian suggested, and that went pretty well. Worked up a nice sweat, then hacked up the road and back.

Friday 9/25
Day off, family.

Saturday 9/26
Day off, more family.

Sunday 9/27
Finally, a ride! Just shy of an hour. We started off with flatwork. It's coming along really nicely and she's trying really hard for me. I think I will take my first dressage lesson in the first week of November - too much stuff going on in October.
Rode a lot of trot/canter in two-point. It went very well. She really opens up her stride and trucks along when I chill out in two-point for awhile - may be something to consider for dressage warm up. Then I did some sitting and posting trot with no stirrups, which actually went very well.
Then some walk-canter-walks. They went extremely well. Like I've said before, they're nowhere near dressage-quality (I think they're introduced in 2nd level), but they're responsive and she's doing her best to do what I ask. A couple times, we even cantered, walked, changed bend, then picked up the other lead. She got a little grouchy at that one, and I try not to school the walk-canters too often. I think it's asking a lot of her.
So then we headed out to the field. I asked for a walk-canter and she shook her head and wanted to take off, so I had to do some circling and school the walk-canter a couple times till she settled. Then I did some nice expansion-compression of the canter down the long side of the field. Then I picked up the left lead and had to really fight her tendency to dive on the left shoulder when she gallops - really had to tug on the left rein and boot her off my left leg. I never did get that resolved to my satisfaction, but I got her to move off the leg and do a nice circle.
THEN she wanted to gallop, so I figured, what the heck. I couldn't let her get up to top-top speed because there's a section of the field with footing that it's best to not gallop through. But we still went very fast - I think the fastest we've gone since I let her open up a little at Lily Glen. She's certainly got some power.
Finally, we finished up with a 10-minute hack down the road to cool out. Overall a good workout of a ride.

September Week 3 Review

2009-09-22T08:49:00.001-07:00

Monday 9/14
Day off after a weekend of clinicing and trailer-riding.

Tuesday 9/15
Just a light longeing session to get the gears going again. She was pretty sticky and lazy.

Wednesday 9/16
Good ride. I, um, don't really remember what happened, but I know it was a solid ride.

Thursday 9/17
Another good ride. Nothing's perfect, but over the last month I've really refined Pandora's responses to lateral cues. I know I NEED lessons to progress to the next level, but I've been working hard and it shows: I can move her haunches to the inside or outside of our straight track now. She doesn't maintain inside bend, because that would be haunches-in and that's hard, but she at least understands that inside leg holding at girth + outside leg squeezing behind means to move the butt over. If I relax the inside hind leg and don't exaggerate the outside leg so much, she leg yields.
She'll also do TOH and TOF in motion. I don't know if they are "dressage-correct" but they are responsive. When I start working with a trainer, we can fix the correctness.

Friday 9/18 - Sunday 9/19
I was off at the Event Rally but I was Stable Manager. Pandora got a couple days off, then my mom longed her on Sunday and apparently she was very good.

September Week 2 Review

2009-09-13T22:22:00.000-07:00

Monday 9/7
A good ride today. Short one, just 20 minutes, but I managed to do flatwork, go for a quick gallop, and hop through the grid. She was good and responsive for all three.

Tuesday 9/8
Squeezed in a half hour ride before the farrier appointment today. She was good. The flatwork is good and responsive - need to work on better trot-canter transitions, she tends to hollow and rush and I tend to throw away leg and rein. Need some lessons, but for working on our own we are doing okay.
Had a moment of frustration in the day's ride, but we were able to move past it.

Wednesday 9/9
A pretty good ride. She is a little footsore from the farrier visit yesterday which does NOT please me, she's never been sore before, so I'm wondering if it's just because it had been so dry, then it got really wet, then it all dried out again. Anyway. She was fine walking on smooth ground or pavement, but VERY sore walking across gravel, and she seemed short-strided at the trot to me even in the arena. So we did lots of walking. Walked all around the big field, up and down the hill in it. Then we walked around the pasture that they were in, took a fun trip down through the dry stream bed to this neat little area on the other side. Normally at ditches she stops, blows, inches forward, then leaps over - this one she slowed down to eyeball it then marched right through. Good girl.
She better be less sore tomorrow, or I'm going to start worrying about the clinic. At least we don't ride till Saturday, so that's four more days.

Thursday 9/10
Much better today on the footsoreness. I had a nice ride on the flat - I really feel like we are making some progress on lateral work. Then Mom and I went for a walk out in the field. Pandora was very calm and mellow.

Friday 9/11
Hauled a couple hours to the clinic in Redmond. She was very good for hauling with my friend's young gelding and she settled in nicely, chomping through hay and drinking well. We stabled them pretty far apart so they don't act like idiots this weekend if they have to be separated. The stalls have nice little paddocks off of them, so she can go in and out.

Saturday 9/12
Clinic day one, Stadium Jumping. He gave me tools to help fix the rushing - lengthen, compress, lengthen, compress. My half halts have started going through and she can do a pretty darn nice walk-canter transition. I need to stop allowing her to drop her head after the last fence, and keep my shoulders up and back.
Pandora is still eating and drinking very well. It was a hot hot hot 2.5 hour lesson, and she drank a LOT after we were done.

Sunday 9/13
Clinic day two, XC. She came right into warmup today with an adjustable attitude, whereas on Saturday she wanted to completely tune me out. Had a very good ride - more work on ME in terms of keeping a strong upper body at and over the fence and keeping my left heel down, while just letting her do her thing. We jumped our first down bank into water, no big deal at all.
Not as hot today, still a pretty long ride, she drank lots again.
Long ride home but she was very patient for it and seemed glad to be back in her stall with yet more hay.

September Week 1 Review

2009-09-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 9/1
Had a good, solid flatwork ride. We are plugging away at the lateral work, it is not exceptionally fun and we are not having any big lightbulb moments, but I think we're making progress. A nice canter in each direction.

Wednesday 9/2
Another good ride, this time in the outdoor. Schooling flatwork was fine, but I need to remember to ride with the whip - she was tuning me out big time on some lateral work and forward. Hopped through the beginnings of our grid therapy (trot poles to an X to a landing pole) and she was fine, very calm and relaxed, so called that good. After that, I headed out to the field for a little trot/canter/gallop. Had to remind her not to dive on the inside shoulder with a light pulley rein, but the gears were pretty intact (if a bit rusty). Will practice more, especially with effective half-halts off my body instead of my hands.

Thursday 9/3
Grandparents in town, didn't ride.

Friday 9/4
Fall vet visit today! Pandora had her teeth checked but was in great shape, so she'll get a recheck in the spring. McKinna got hers done. Poor thing, they always look so pathetic when they're sedated.
Both got a 5-way (EEE, WEE, Flu, Rhino, Tetanus) and I bought a tube of Banamine to have on hand.
Didn't ride.

Saturday 9/5
Ugh, three non-riding days in a ROW. That's a new low for me, lately! And probably a bad choice, as Big Clinic is next week. Still, her fitness won't suffer I'm sure. They are out in the pasture anyway, and I'm going to give her a medium-solid workout tomorrow, a light one on Monday, then a real workout on Tuesday. Probably a light ride on Wednesday, then another pretty solid one on Thursday, and Friday she will probably get a light hack after we trailer a few hours to the clinic location.
In all, I feel like she's fit and ready for this clinic. When we did a little fast work outside on Wednesday, she wasn't even winded - I've done my homework and put the time in.

Sunday 9/6
Pretty good ride. Nothing special, nothing bad - just a good solid flatwork session.

August Week 4 and Month Review

2009-09-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

So, um, I didn't really keep up with the last week of August. I rode several times, I had some really good rides, and I had two really bad rides (1 dressage, 1 jumping).

Plan of attack is to be more patient with dressage, using lots of strengthening and suppling exercises to concentrate on building her fitness so she isn't as tempted to evade. For jumping, lots of remedial, calm, slow gridwork, plus reinstallation of half-halts when riding outside.

Here's the month review.

August Goals: Bring Pandora slowly but steadily back into regular work. Include at least once-weekly walk hacks around the conditioning loop. Slowly reintroduce jumping before a lesson on the 17th, where I will tell the instructor that I want to take it pretty easy. By the end of the month, establish a level of fitness where Pandora is capable of a light XC session, a two-mile hack with lots of trotting, or a 50-minute dressage school without feeling tired. Maybe not to the cardiovascular galloping fitness of before, but to a comfortable level.

Evaluation: Success, for sure! She's pretty much back to normal - needs to build up more musculature and suppleness for more difficult work, but a 60-minute dressage school is well within her capabilities, as is a light XC session. She has stayed sound.

September Goals: Capable of 60-minute dressage session of mostly trotting and cantering or a 45-minute jumping session. To accomplish this, we'll split things up: ride for 40 minutes in the indoor, spend 10 minutes doing gridwork in the outdoor, head to the big field for some trotting and cantering, then hop through the grid a few more times.
Completely relaxed about gridwork, including multiple-stride lines, outside. Successful ride at the Brian Sabo clinic, with a well-behaved horse and lots of new tools. Jumping up to 3' at least once, spending most time around 2'6 - 2'9.
Light, balanced leg-yields at walk and trot, further-developed lateral work (TOF, rudimentary TOH, shoulders-in, etc).

August Week 3 Review

2009-08-26T13:06:00.000-07:00

Monday 8/17
I had a lovely ride, 35 minutes. Working really hard on a systematic, clear progression from cue-horse response-reward/discipline. To that end, I make all requests light and soft, as I would expect her to respond to very soft aids; if she responds correctly, I immediately praise or pet her, while if she responds incorrectly, I immediately back up the cue with a stronger aid or correction (voice, tap of the whip, etc).
This has resulted in energetic upwards transitions and the best leg-yields I've ever gotten. It's so much clearer now: when before she'd always rush in trot leg-yields, now she understands exactly what I want. I ask, and if she doesn't do it, I tap behind my leg with the whip. She immediately goes sideways - while quickening her pace - and I relax the aid and praise thoroughly. Next time I ask, she instantly moves over and still quickens, and I praise again. Next time I ask, I remind her gently with my seat and hands to not quicken as she moves over, and voila, a lovely leg yield.
Definitely looking forward to exploring this more. Not all cues are as black-and-white, especially in terms of how to discipline for non-response.

Tuesday 8/18
Hot hot hot day. I gave her the day off.
We picked up a bale of hay from the boarding barn we're moving to, so we can start switching the girls over and avoid digestive upset. Less than two weeks until we move!

Wednesday 8/19
Another day off.

Thursday 8/20
Eh. I had a so-so ride. Rode for about 45, almost 50 minutes. I worked hard on FORWARD when I say, and I tried to work on bending left at the trot, but just...none of it seemed to click. I feel like we're getting somewhere but nothing I try is working on the bend thing and it's frustrating.

Friday 8/21
Okay, this ride makes up for yesterday's ride. 35 minutes and absolutely awesome. I did some "judge box therapy" setting up a chair with cones and flower boxes at the end of the arena, which was really good because Pandora always freaks at judge's booths. But mostly we returned to the concept of yesterday: give a specific cue that has a specific correct answer, then always either reward the right answer or discipline/correct the wrong one. I had to break 'left bend' down into smaller steps, using turn on the forehand, leg yield, and especially get correct bend on a walk circle then pick up the trot for a few strides. By doing this I was able to hold her in the correct bend, long enough to praise her so she knows what I want at least.
Also I realized I tend to lean to the inside when bending left, so being aware of that helped.

Saturday 8/22
Okay ride. 30, 35 minutes or so. Had a 10-minute short session in the arena, w/t/c, which went really well. Her canter is getting better and better. Lots of power, and now she is starting to be able to slow down again!
Then went for a hack outside. She was super fantastic going away from home - not spooky even at the great big pirate flag, trot/canter in the grass with beautiful downward transitions at a gentle half-halt. My mistake was when I asked her to do the same on the way home, where she did not want to listen to a gentle half-halt. It caught me a little off-guard, so I had to get really strong with her and spin her around. Very frustrating - I probably worry too much but I always feel like I'm undoing training when I do that. So I schooled some transitions, both going away from and going towards home, but I never really felt like I got through to her.
Should have known better as she's always rushy when going home. Argh.
Well, I know better for next time. I can trot/canter away from home, then coming back if I want to trot I will make sure to school half-halts first.

Sunday 8/23
Another day off. That's three this week, I know, I know.

August Week 2 Review

2009-08-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

Monday 8/10
Rode for 30 minutes. Lots of walking and trotting - we pulled out a little bridge thing and it was a lot of fun to walk her over it, she was pretty suspicious but willing and got very confident as we continued to ride over it. At the end, I cantered her about one lap in each direction. Pretty uncoordinated, goodness! I just have to remind myself that her trot was like that when I started riding last week, and it should only take a few rides for her lovely canter to come back. I hope so. At any rate, her trot work continues to improve.

Tuesday 8/11
Mom got a lesson tonight so I did not end up riding. I am thinking about taking her to a clinic in Redmond with Brian Sabo in September. It's $100 more than the Inavale camp in September, but from a quick Google, he's pretty much amazing. A friend is going, so I'd have a ride and a buddy. Time to do a quick evaluation of the checking account, but I'm leaning towards yes.

Wednesday 8/12
I had a fantastic ride. I almost have my old girl back! W/t/c, almost 30 minutes all told. Her trot is steadily working its way toward the quality that it was before she went lame, although I can tell she's not in 100% perfect shape because she wants to lean on the forehand and because she seems to be slipping a lot in the hind end - dropping a hind leg here and there on turns smaller than 20m circle. If I put her together and make her work, the slippage goes away more.
Canter work is still fairly rough but a world better than on Monday. She felt like she actually remembered what to do when cantering with a rider up there! Still only did about a lap in each direction but it felt much better, and I got a few strides of her carrying herself without leeeeeeeaning on my hands. Good progress, and I'm pleased.

Thursday 8/13
Another ride. She was very good tonight. Canter much better - I hopped over one little cavaletto a couple times and she was definitely taking me forward to it just like the good girl I know.

Friday 8/14
Free-longed the girls. She got quite the workout, lots of cantering and galloping.

Saturday 8/15
Day off, I was in Seattle.

Sunday 8/16
Jumping lesson, it got moved a day earlier. By normal standards, it was pretty bad: really rushed a 6-stride ground pole line (though we did get one round of a quiet go-through), sorta blew through my hands to the base of every fence. But, it was her first jumping session in about two months, so I'll cut her some slack.
Instructor did show me that instead of sweeping my outside leg back to ask for a lead, which doesn't do much good, I should just turn the toe out and squeeze with the heel. Logically the aid doesn't quite make sense - shouldn't I push her off my inside leg too? - so I will explore it some more, but it worked 4 times in a row for landing on the left lead which she rarely if ever does. So, useful tidbit there.
Guess it's time to practice cantering ground poles again. We were good at it for awhile, and it's a good skill to have.
Need to practice my sitting trot. It was surprisingly good on Pandora considering I've never worked hard on riding her in sitting trot - instructor had me tighten my abs a little instead of allowing my lower back to swing loose, which I always thought you were supposed to do, but maybe I just need a happy medium. It seemed to work pretty well.

August Week 1 Review

2009-08-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

Saturday 8/1
Longed her. I don't know, she seems alright, but just a little off at the canter. Maybe stiffness, who knows.

Sunday 8/2
First ride. Just walk/trot, lasted about 20 minutes. Feels weird to ride her again, very long, she wants to plunk around with her neck telescoped way out and level. I don't know, nice and relaxed I guess. While we're still getting into it, I'm going to let her stay pretty level like that.

Monday 8/3
Longe session. She was really good this time, moving out nicely, she even played a little at the canter. Of course the extent of her playfulness is tossing her head and taking a few leaping strides with a tiny bit of striking out at the canter, all the while maintaining a perfect circle and never tugging on the line. Silly girl. Still, it was heartening - she looked good. 20 minutes total, 2 minutes of cantering each direction, lots of trot and walk work.

Tuesday 8/4
Rode again, close to 30 minutes. Still just w/t. She seems really good. I'm running back into that wall again, feeling lost in dressage-land and wanting some serious lessons for guidance. Then I remember that it's the second time I've ridden her in almost two months, and I should probably chill out a little bit. Sigh.

Wednesday 8/5
Very light ride, just 15 minutes of mostly walk with a little trot.

Thursday 8/6
Good aerobic workout for her today! I free-longed the girls in the arena.

Friday 8/7
Day off - we were camping.

Saturday 8/8
Day off.

Sunday 8/9
Got back from camping and we were pretty tired, so the girls got free-longed again. Good workout though.

Back On Track

2009-08-02T08:12:00.001-07:00

I hate trying to catch up on this thing when I've let it sit for awhile!

Let's see: the last month I completed was June, since she had the entire month of July off. So, first things first, let's do the June evaluation, then make some modifications to the July/August/September goals.

June Outline
More hard work this month. Attending an eventing derby clinic and then an eventing derby at Inavale on the 5th and 6th. Finals week is the 8th – 12th. Lily Glen Eventing Camp is the 18th – 22nd, then Inavale’s annual HT is the 26th – 28th - won't be riding, but I'm grooming. Basically just another month to keep pushing the envelope. We REALLY need to put in some solid dressage schooling.

End-of-month goal: Achieve a good BN-level dressage test away from home - to include good bend, transitions, and gaits. Develop the correct pacing for a smooth stadium round. Further develop towards a soft, adjustable, balanced gallop in the open. Push the height a little bit more, making sure to include lots of Novice-height (2'11) fences in the mix. Restore our ability to bend well. Jump banks into/out of water, given the opportunity.

Evaluation:

Good BN test away from home: eh, not so much. My dressage is by far the weakest link, which bothers me. I have a plan, though. Not complete.
Develop the correct pacing for a smooth stadium round: Hard to say, since I didn't get much chance to do stadium courses. But, she did very well when we coursed at the derby, so I give this one a pass.
Develop towards a soft, adjustable, balanced gallop in the open: oh hell yes, this one is definitely a pass. I love galloping her and though we have a long ways to go, it only keeps getting better.
Push the height, making sure to include N-height fences: again, very much completed. I jumped all kinds of Novice fences at Lily Glen, and Pandora was a rock star.
Restore bendability: again, no pass because I haven't had a chance.
Jump banks/water, given opportunity: no opportunity :(

Okay. So, that's taken care of.

Here were my supposed July and August goals:
July
We will take it a bit easy the first week to give Pandora a break from all our schooling/conditioning/competing. The second week, we’ll pick it back up a bit, because Inavale’s Adult Eventing Camp is the 10th – 12th. Will probably enter at Novice level to help me prepare to compete at Novice in September. At the end of the month is a PC Mega-rating, where I will get my D-3. Considering getting my C-1 at this time as well, but there is another Mega-rating in September, so I may just plan to attend both.
End-of-month-goal: Be a solid D-3 or C-1 and feel prepared to tackle a Novice-level eventing competition. Schooling courses at 3’, beginning to really work on 1st-level dressage, totally comfortable in the open and jumping into/out of water.

August
A bit of breathing room this month before September. There’s a PC Eventing outreach program the first weekend, which will be a good XC schooling opportunity. Too far away to really set good goals!
End-of-month goal: Feel prepared for a Novice-level schooling HT, feel prepared for a C-1 rating if I haven’t taken it already.

So. Let's make a few modifications, since July was spent (hopefully completely) recovering from a lameness, and I'm bringing her gradually into work in August. I did pass my D-3 on McKinna in July, though.

August Goals: Bring Pandora slowly but steadily back into regular work. Include at least once-weekly walk hacks around the conditioning loop. Slowly reintroduce jumping before a lesson on the 17th, where I will tell the instructor that I want to take it pretty easy. By the end of the month, establish a level of fitness where Pandora is capable of a light XC session, a two-mile hack with lots of trotting, or a 50-minute dressage school without feeling tired. Maybe not to the cardiovascular galloping fitness of before, but to a comfortable level.

September Goals: Continue to develop fitness. Do a lot of gridwork, until Pandora is very relaxed about it. May or may not go to the Inavale eventing camp the second week - depends on her fitness and my finances. If she is still sound, we will head for the Mega Rating at the very end of the month and go for my C-1.

Of course, this all depends on her continuing soundness, of which I am far from convinced. I've longed her a few times since her prolonged bute-and-rest, and she seems alright, but yesterday she was just NQR at the canter on the longe. I can't tell if it's lingering lameness or just stiffness, but I'm not getting excited about any goals until I'm confident that she is staying sound.

Anyway, I will get back into my regular riding/training log now.

July Week 1 Review

2009-07-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

Monday 6/29
Longed her. She is head-bobbing lame at the trot. More icing, hosing.

Tuesday 6/30
Pretty much all swelling down, but still lame. Called the vet.

Wednesday 7/1
Left her mostly alone again, still more hosing. Not much in the way of swelling.

Thursday 7/2
Vet visit. The verdict? Her wound on LH is absolutely fine. It's actually her RF that she's lame in. So, so weird. Nerve block shows it's somewhere in her hoof, so two weeks of paddock rest with anti-inflammatories (plus antibiotics to keep the wound healing clean) and then a re-evaluation. Fingers crossed she's not lame, because then we get on with our lives. If she still is, then we go to x-rays.
Needless to say, camp and the rating are off with Pandora. Thankfully I have McKinna as a solid backup and now it's time to get to work.

Friday 7/3
Well, she's not the biggest fan of chilling out. Thank goodness she's allowed to still be in a paddock with McKinna. Anyway, mixing her powdered bute and antibiotics with applesauce didn't work - she wouldn't even eat the applesauce plain - and she wasn't the biggest fan of that mixed with molasses and grain either. So we're going to take the easiest option: mix enough applesauce and molasses to make a paste, put it in an old clean dewormer tube, and give it to her like dewormer. She's always good for that, so hopefully she'll handle two weeks of that treatment.

I guess this will function as a riding log for McKinna for the next few weeks. McKinna was very good tonight. I'm curious to try some positive reinforcement/clicker work with her, as she's incredibly intelligent. I feel like the key I really need is to get her to stretch her head and neck down and get her butt underneath her, instead of elevating her neck from the base and trailing out behind. Silly short Arab-neck. Anyway, I really think if I can just get her to do that, we'll progress in huge leaps and bounds. It will be interesting to try.
My plan of attack is two-fold. First I will try longeing her in vienna side reins, where hopefully she can figure out for herself that stretching down is cool, especially at the canter. Second, I'll do some clicker work in earnest. She's already got a pretty solid grasp of what it means, but I'll spend some time refreshing her memory with targeting work. Then I'm going straight to under saddle. I'll first reinforce putting her head down at the halt -- no matter how relaxed she is at the walk, as soon as she halts, the head pops straight up. Don't think it's anxiety, just habit. If I can break that and get her to remain low with a light contact, I can move it up the gaits.
Don't know how well it will work, but it'll be a nice experiment. Hopefully it goes well.
Oh, and I got a pair of bell boots for her for $4 today - really nice thick rubber ones with good velcro. Awesome.

Saturday 7/4
Fourth of July. Woo.

June Week 4 Review

2009-06-29T21:10:00.000-07:00

Monday 6/22
Day off, of course! She is back to gobbling up her grain like normal, I think she just wasn't all that comfortable at Lily Glen. She was kind of tense all the time, never seemed fully relaxed. Everything was really open there.

Tuesday 6/23
Another day off. Still back to eating grain normally and looking for more when it's done.

Wednesday 6/24
Longe session. She was very nicely behaved and we got a good workout in. Last time I longed her, I decided to give her a peppermint every time she stopped nicely. She clearly remembered this, because she kept offering very nice polite halts when I asked for a walk! From a horse who prefers to take a full circle to come to a ragged halt, it was impressive. I will definitely have to explore this further.

Thursday 6/25
Sigh. I swung by the barn midafternoon to feed the horses, since I was headed up to groom for a couple friends at the Inavale HT. Pandora had blood all spattered down her left hind sock, which freaked me the hell out, since I couldn't see what was going on up on her leg. I got someone to hold her while I hosed it, and it looks like she stomped at a fly or something while backed up to a fence, because it was a slice from the bottom up. It sliced up under a pretty thick flap of skin but didn't take the skin all the way off. No deep puncture wound, so no need to call the vet, and she was walking sound. Not much swelling. Hosed it for about 15 minutes then put furazone on it. Covered with a gauze square, wrapped with gauze, then vetwrap over the top and put her back out.

Dang horse.

Friday 6/26
I was at Inavale all day, so my parents took care of Pandora. Apparently she's pretty stocked up, but still seems to be walking fine.

Saturday 6/27
Yeesh, my parents weren't kidding. I walked out to find a horse with three legs and one stovepipe. We'll definitely do some icing tomorrow! She's not too happy about being treated, keeps hiking her leg up and even acted like she was thinking about kicking me. She got a whack on the butt for that one, but mostly I think she was just nervous. Did the same wrapping deal.

Also were out in the pasture to find a lost flymask, and we found a small (~4ft) section where a gap was closed with barbed wire. NOT cool. I can't believe we've never walked that fenceline, and I can't believe that they actually have barbed wire in there. I don't know if that's where she hurt herself, but either way I'm not okay with it, and I'm going to ask that it be removed ASAP.

Sunday 6/28
More icing, hosing, etc etc.

June Week 3 Review

2009-06-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

I skipped Week 2 because, well, I didn't keep track and I honestly don't remember what it was like.

Oh, wait, now I remember. That was finals week. And I pretty much didn't ride, at all. Except Wednesday night, which went badly because I was tired and she was all tense and spooky. Then I went off to Washington and came back.

Monday 6/15
Free longed her. Girl went bonkers, really just tearing around like a madwoman, worked herself into quite the lather. Jumping around a lot. Went to hose her off and she jumped at everything, she was driving me nuts. After I hosed her down I put her on the longe line and thankfully she quieted down for some calm w/t/c before I put her back in the pasture.

Tuesday 6/16
Longed on the line again. I had a very nice, well-behaved pony.

Wednesday 6/17
Off to Ashland for Pony Club camp! She was very good for the trailer ride, nice and calm. Not particularly thrilled about her new surroundings at camp. Went for a bareback hack and she was good. Played in the water a little, cantered around, almost fell off, etc.
Not too interested in hay or grain or water, but not bad.

Thursday 6/18
XC and pacing lessons. XC was faaaabulous. She was pretty tense and energetic when we got out there, and didn't want to go through the (muddy, deep) water crossing, but once we warmed up she settled right down. Jumped like a rockstar, super forward and well-behaved.
Pacing was fun. I was expecting more instruction, e.g., here's how to help differentiate between a 200 mpm pace and a 350, here's how to help maintain a balanced speed, but basically we went on a random little trail ride and then she showed us the big pacing loop and told us how long it should take us if we rode a certain speed. My friend and I got lost the first time. I wanted to test the gears a little, so I asked how long 350 mpm should take, and she said 2:50. It took me like 2:30, and that was with having to trot the switchbacks in the woods and holding her back when we got to the open areas. Fun fun.
Drinking lots more water, still not particularly interested in grain, but eating most of it and eating decent amounts of hay.

Friday 6/19
Grids and dressage. Grids was absolutely awful. I was having a hard time understanding what the instructor wanted - to me, her instructions were kind of contradictory, but it was probably mutual communication error - and we had pretty much no warmup, which is generally a no-no for Pandora if she's feeling anxious. Which she was.
Tried to put in the requested number of trot steps before a cross-rail, which ended up with Pandora flipping her head and whacking me in the nose with her poll, which hurt a lot and really frustrated me. Spent the rest of the lesson trying to just get her to chill the heck out, which she wouldn't. Jigging, chewing hard at the bit, just WOULD. NOT. SETTLE. DOWN. It drives me crazy STILL thinking about it! I finally got her to walk quietly on a loose rein, when she saw a group of horses wayyyyy across the lake and tweaked out again. I just gave up trying to get her brain back after that, and had to be content with a reasonably controlled horse for the rest of the lesson. Take-away lessons: control pace with seat not hands, don't overreact if she launches a fence, let her learn to trust the contact, and for the love of all things holy do a proper warmup.
Thankfully, the dressage session was way way better. She relaxed, stretched into my hands, and got some really nice work with the help of a spiraling circle.
Still drinking well, eating hay much better, starting to seem interested in grain. She only seems to eat lots overnight and after we come back from a ride.

Saturday 6/20
XC and dressage lessons. Jumping XC was reasonably good, but she was just a nutcase about holding still. From the time I mounted up till the time we got back, she just WOULD NOT hold still, ever, at all. If I tried to make her, she'd flip her head and get all pissy. Ugh. Finally I started spinning her in tiny circles whenever she tried to move or get grumpy about holding still, and when I did that consistently, it seemed to get the message across without causing a fight.
Thankfully she was jumping very well. Super forward and willing. While trying to decide whether to go BN or N for the derby on Sunday, I schooled a LOT of the big Novice fences, and Pandora was awesome. Super forward and willing. I was very pleased.
Dressage was eh. We did some cool reflex/biomechanics work, then each person got some individual work on our test, but she gave us feedback that was more on how to ride the test than how to ride the horse. Which was very very good, because I haven't had that much instruction on how to ride the figures well, but not much to say for the training log. Remember in a large court the 20m circle comes to the line just outside of the letters on either side of E. When turning down the centerline, bend hard, then as you turn apply the outside aids to keep them from falling out.
Course walk was a blast, having decided to do Novice. Got to hang out with some other N riders and had a good time talking as we plotted the best route.
Weather COLD COLD COLD, put her blanket on tonight and was super glad I did. Eating hay and grain much more normally now.

Sunday 6/21
Derby canceled because of too much rain. Sad face. But, at the same time, I was more than ready to go home and so was Pandora. She took the trailer ride well, although she didn't poop in there for the LONGEST time which really freaked me out since she normally poops a lot in the trailer. Two rest stops and a couple hours into the trip, she finally pooped while I was standing there, so I wasn't as concerned anymore, especially since she wasn't sweating and didn't seem uncomfortable.

June Week 1 Review

2009-06-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

Monday 6/1
Day off, ho hum. They went out in the big mare field for the first time today! Just for a few hours but they loved it, they were eating like machines. It was super hot and muggy out.

Tuesday 6/2
Another day off - farrier came out and trimmed her up. She was a little jumpy today, maybe it was the grass? Guess I should have longed her a little to let the steam off. Terry said her feet are holding up really nicely, no chipping or anything. Good stuff.

Wednesday 6/3
Short ride! I had an exhausting day, my 15 page history paper was due and I had a business exam and all sorts of things, but I rode for about 20 minutes. We just walked and I worked really hard on the bending stuff that Biagina had us working on this weekend. It was very enlightening - I could tell it was working, but I could also tell Pandora was resisting quite a bit!
We'll definitely need to put some more time into this, but hopefully we can get a lot more loosened up and supple with some work.

Thursday 6/4
Another night off, terrible I know. There was a HUGE storm today, so they were in their stalls and a bit electrified (pardon the pun). I free longed them in the arena to let them blow off some energy, then tried on her brand new bell boots (!). They seem to fit nicely. Going one size smaller may have worked better for the size of her pasterns, but then I don't think it would have covered as much as it needs to vertically.
We're all packed up and ready to go for the clinic tomorrow!

Friday 6/5
Good clinic at Inavale. Lots of rain lately so the footing was pretty sloppy but Pandora didn't lose too much traction and it didn't seem to bother her. After field-testing the bell boots, unfortunately they don't seem to fit. They are just a tad too large and they would probably work but I hate floppy equipment so I'll have to buy a set of mediums.
Brooke had me really get my shoulders up and back, using my whole body to half-halt instead of just pulling with my hands and arms. I didn't realize how much I was letting Pandora pull me down at the base of the fence, especially over ditches! When I kept my shoulders back, she actually lifted up and jumped over the ditch instead of scooting forward with her nose on her knees.
She was great through the water. I feel like we're learning how to get a good rhythm going while jumping. I don't like pick, pick, picking at her and then throwing it away at the base of the fence, and I think with a little more practice she'll understand that if she just listens to me a few strides out we can continue on our merry little way.

Saturday 6/6
Yum, what an awesome day we had for the event derby.
Dressage was pretty bad. Footing was grass, by the time we rode the 20m circle at A was pretty slippery and muddy. She was nervous as it was - hate the way she warms up beautifully and gets tense when we go in - but once she slipped a time or two, she was done. She still executed all the movements, but her canter was the most tense gait I've ever ridden. Super tight through the back, hardly any motion at all. Definitely worried about slipping. We got a 42.6, not terrible, but not good. One 7 on the free walk, though.
Jumping was AWESOME. I had to ride her a little strongly to the first fence, a stadium vertical, but after that she was a rock star. Over everything smoothly. We only had two ugly fences, both stadium, and both of them I brought her back too much because I was overly cautious so we got nasty distances. She came out of them alright though, and for all the XC fences we had an awesome rhythm going. Over the little mini-trakehner just fine, ditch to a tight turn to a table just fine, everything was awesome. 0 jumping faults and 0 time penalties (we were 1 second under optimum time, without a watch!) meant that we moved up 5 places to take 2nd. :)
I was so proud of her. She was just amazing. Not only was our round clean, it felt good. No fighting and trying to rocket forward during the last few strides before a fence, no trying to rush in the spaces between fences, no diving down at the base. Just a great ride and we were really in sync.

Sunday 6/7
Day off.

May Review, June Outline

2009-06-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

May Outline
Now is the time to truly put everything together, and start thinking about our summer eventing destinations. We are going to go schooling at Inavale, so I will get practice jumping XC and through water and galloping in the open. We need to catch up on the April goals, working in more jumping work: low wide oxers and single fences at 2'9+. We need to get on top of the dressage and really make some progress there.
This is our last month really schooling at home before the summer hits. I've got eventing camps the next two months and then ratings in July and September.

End-of-month goal: Feel prepared to have a solid competition at Beginner Novice -- though I have decided not to attend the HT due to the cost. Easily smooth and controlled w/t/c/g in the open with good half-halts at gallop, smooth and controlled fences at 2’9 or higher (some stadium, but focusing on XC), excellent fitness. Walk, trot, and canter through water. Achieve a reasonable dressage test away from home.

Evaluation:

Prepared to have a solid competition at BN: Yeah, pretty much. We wouldn't win, and our dressage needs some serious work (more on that later). But our stadium is solid and our XC is improving in leaps and bounds. I'm going to call this one successful.
Easily smooth and controlled w/t/c/g with half-halts at g: For the level we are at, yes. I need to practice changing the shape and speed of her gallop at faster speeds, but for BN-level stuff, we are good. Success.
Smooth and controlled fences at 2'9 or higher: They could be smoother, but we're getting there and making progress. After the derbies next weekend I think I'll feel more comfortable with this, too - and we'll just keep building height over the summer. BN is only up to 2'7, and my C1 is up to 2'9, so I'm pretty much in the clear already. Success.
Excellent fitness: Yep, pretty much. There's always more to do, of course, but she came through a 1.5 hour XC lesson and had plenty of go at the end. Success.
W/t/c through water: Most DEFINITELY a success. Not even worried about water anymore - next step will be to practice jumping into it!
Achieve reasonable dressage away from home - well, it depends on how you define reasonable. She does all the gaits and figures when and where I tell her to, and we scored a 40.5 at the CT. We need to improve, but I will call this success.

Woohoo, a whole month of success! May was a good month!

June Outline
More hard work this month. Attending an eventing derby clinic and then an eventing derby at Inavale on the 5th and 6th. Finals week is the 8th – 12th. Lily Glen Eventing Camp is the 18th – 22nd, then Inavale’s annual HT is the 26th – 28th - won't be riding, but I'm grooming. Basically just another month to keep pushing the envelope. We REALLY need to put in some solid dressage schooling.

End-of-month goal: Achieve a good BN-level dressage test away from home - to include good bend, transitions, and gaits. Develop the correct pacing for a smooth stadium round. Further develop towards a soft, adjustable, balanced gallop in the open. Push the height a little bit more, making sure to include lots of Novice-height (2'11) fences in the mix. Restore our ability to bend well. Jump banks into/out of water, given the opportunity.

May Week 4 Review

2009-05-31T10:18:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 5/26
Day off after the hard ride yesterday.

Wednesday 5/27
I had a reasonable ride. It was constructive, and we got some good work done, but she just WILL NOT bend correctly to the left and it's driving me off the wall. She tilts her face to the right and locks up all down her neck and arghhhhhhhhhh.

Thursday 5/28
Chiropractor day! Lots of things to work on but I'm super pleased: he says all her issues now are typical of hard-working eventers - regular hard athletics-induced tweaks, not fundamental problems with how she's carrying herself. Let's look at the sheet...
Lots of 2s and a few 3s - this is on his scale of 5, where 1 is 'nothing wrong' and 5 is 'get some Bute in the horse tonight and I'll come out tomorrow to work this thing out.' She used to get quite a lot of 4s with a few 3s, and he was VERY pleased with her progress.
Minor things in her jaw, neck, a little twist in her back, a little tightness in her tail. She had 3s in elbow/deltoids and triceps area, stifle/bicep area, and some abdominal muscles. He said these are pretty common in eventers - front-end stuff.
Here's his written comments: "Elbow torque with retracted shoulder - slow strong release to straight stride and posture. Minor lumbar and neck - multiplies counter balance."

Friday 5/29
Awesome XC lesson at the Westlake's farm. Lots of uphills, just enough to keep Pandora really nicely balanced and in tune with half-halts. Good variety, some trotting downhill, bigger and smaller fences, good long gallop uphill to a brush fence, one ditch with log in the back, over a water-trough skinny with no troubles. Superstar horse tonight.

Saturday 5/30
Dressage lesson with Biagina. It was awesome! Pandora was not pleased to be pulled out for another lesson after a hard day's work yesterday, but at Lily Glen we'll be riding twice a day for four days in a row, so she'd better get used to it.
She had us working on bend. I didn't realize how resistant Pandora was until Biagina made me do it right! I know what to do now, though - she was having me really just INSIST that Pandora bend, never mind the outside shoulder. When I asked, she said I could ask her to bend properly (without popping out the outside shoulder) once she was willingly and softly bending her neck. Very educational.
She changed the way I hold my hands, asking me to have a little more bend in my wrist. Surprising - I thought wrists were supposed to be straight - but Pandora responded very well.
She insisted that I separate the functions of inside and outside reins. Outside is for speed and asking the head to come down, inside is for bend.
Also suggested longeing in side reins, because at the canter she's pulling me out of a balanced position so I can't ride well. That means I need to acquire a surcingle and side reins - already have the longeing caveson - but it seems like it would be a good long-term investment anyway.
Overall it was a very constructive lesson and I really like her.

Sunday 5/31
Okay, NOW she gets a day off :)

May Week 3 Review

2009-05-26T08:01:00.000-07:00

Monday 5/18
Gave Pandora another day off.

Tuesday 5/19
I had kind of a frustrating ride. She was behaving pretty oddly - rushing (which she rarely does) with short little steps, basically just tuning me out. I kept at it for about a half hour and eventually realized we weren't going to get any productive work done. So I spent 10 minutes or so doing some nice, quiet, polite walk work, then called it a day. You can't win 'em all, right?

Wednesday 5/20
Had a much better ride tonight. Schooled dressage. That dang left bend is coming back to haunt us again, and badly - she simply would not flex her jaw to the left at the trot, nor would she bend politely without swinging her haunches out. I did the best I could to correct it, riding hard, riding soft, flexing at the walk and halt, free trot, but nothing shook it loose. In the end I decided to just ride correctly and ignore it, which confused her a bit I think, but led to some reasonably productive work.
I have a call in to the chiropractor. I understand some of the left bend issue is psychological, but when she's resisting me this strongly, it usually means she's being bothered. Besides, it has been about 2 months since her last appointment, and every 2 months is usually when she starts getting out of whack again.

Thursday 5/21
Nice short hack with my mom and McKinna. Pandora was much better this time than the last time we went out with McKinna, very calm and relaxed. On the way back McKinna was acting terrible and we had a hard spook-session at some trash cans. I made Pandora go up and make friends with the trash can, but couldn't spend too long on it because Mom and McKinna were having some behavioral problems. We were close to home but McKinna was awfully naughty after that, ignoring Mom and spooking and generally misbehaving. Pandora kept her head on straight, so that was good. I guess I need to do some schooling with McKinna out on the roads by herself.

Friday 5/22
Day off. They have been out in paddocks 24/7 so no big deal.

Saturday 5/23
Gallop session! We definitely made some progress. I did one round of 6/3/1 (6 minutes walking, 3 minutes trotting, 1 minute canter/gallop), then did several reps of a walk rest/gallop set. I'm not sure how long those were, but the gallop sets were close to 3 or 4 minutes and the walks were about the same.
She was great. I tried riding with a bridge at the gallop and it seemed to make a big difference - I will have to explore this more. There were times when she listened really well and came back to me the moment I half-halted on a light rein, there were times when she wanted to ignore me completely. We got going pretty fast sometimes and it was very cool. Just as I hoped when I started my galloping practice, I have lost a lot of my fear and am a lot more comfortable letting her open up the gears a little bit.
Also found out she does flying changes on her own. The first time it was an accident, because she picked up the wrong lead and tried to really run for it, so I put her on a small circle. She swapped leads to be on the correct one. So, in my next gallop set, I did a nice big figure-8 through the field and asked her to change. She didn't change exactly when I asked, but a stride or two later. We did it one more time after that. So, I don't have to worry about lead changes on XC!
It was a great experience. We did 4 or maybe 5 gallop sets total. She cooled out really nicely - after about 4 minutes of walking her breathing was pretty much normal. I untacked her, hosed her down with cool water (which she never approves of, but tough luck), scraped her, then put her out in the paddock to get a drink of water and a nice long roll.

Sunday 5/24
Another day off. Hard work yesterday, hard work tomorrow!

Monday 5/25
It was an interesting day. We rode a course of 20 fences, spread all through the derby field and out into the upper field, in randomly drawn pairs. Unfortunately, my partner seemed to have turbo jets, even garnering a warning from the announcer to slow down (the course was not timed). Therefore, the whole ride I was stuck between trying to keep up with her (and thus letting Pandora go a bit faster than I wanted, thus exciting her, thus making me have to floss her teeth every time I wanted her attention) or trying to slow down, which made me fall way behind and get confused about what I was jumping next.
It was frustrating. Pandora was not nearly as responsive as I wanted her to be, at ALL. I think that was the most upsetting part, especially because I think with any other partner it would have gone a lot more smoothly.
We need to do some serious schooling about straightness and steering. It's not that she doesn't really go in the direction I point her, but a lot of times she kinda drifts sideways and ignores my outside rein. Not okay.
On the plus side, Pandora did not spook or try to stop at any fences. And we jumped a bunch of big, solid 2'9 ones. My partner and I ended up taking 3rd place, not too bad.
In the drawing afterwards, I won a free lesson from the trainer at the farm. So, I am going to go out there and take a XC lesson from her sometime soon and we can hopefully work through some of these frustrating problems.
At least I know that next month I have five days at Lily Glen, and that much intensive work should really help me out.

May Progress Check

2009-05-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

End-of-month goal: Feel prepared to have a solid competition at Beginner Novice -- though I have decided not to attend the HT due to the cost. Easily smooth and controlled w/t/c/g in the open with good half-halts at gallop, smooth and controlled fences at 2’9 or higher (some stadium, but focusing on XC), excellent fitness. Walk, trot, and canter through water. Achieve a reasonable dressage test away from home.

I believe I nailed most of these goals yesterday alone!

Prepared to compete at BN - yep. We wouldn't win, but we wouldn't be dead last either. She is forward and willing, and hasn't given me any indication yet that she is scared of any fences. Her dressage is fantastic at home and in warmup, just a little distracted and nervous in the competition arena, which can only be fixed by miles.

Smooth and controlled w/t/c/g in open with half halts at gallop - we're not quite there yet. I have the smooth and controlled w/t/c. Our gallop is smooth and reasonably controlled, but I just don't have the level of half-halts I want. I know what I need to do: spend a whole session just working on half-halts in the open and immediate, prompt responses. We are at a stage where her occasional ignoring of the bit does not mean we need a stronger bit, it just means we need more practice and training.

Smooth and controlled fences at 2'9 or higher (stadium, mostly XC) - definitely yes. I've realized that schooling fences at the boarding barn just doesn't tend to work out, probably because the arena is sloped strangely in odd places and it's a tad small. I will have to see what I can do to minimize this. But, at the Combined Test yesterday, we were smooth and controlled over the stadium fences, and over XC fences that were easily 3'. The only thing we need to do here is learn to take bigger/more forward steps so we quit chipping in at weird distances.

Excellent fitness - sure? I am not sure how to tell, to be honest. Well, I know I need to do a workout and check her t/p/r consistently. Okay, for the last two weeks of May I will be firm with myself and check tpr frequently to at least give myself a baseline.

Walk, trot, canter through water - took care of this one yesterday ;) I don't think my girl has a water 'problem' anymore.

Reasonable dressage test away from home - again, we did this yesterday. It wasn't spectacular, but it was certainly reasonable. Now I know what to improve next time.

Overall, I damn near completed this month's goals in the first couple weeks. Go me!

May Week 2 Review

2009-05-17T05:52:00.000-07:00

Monday 5/11
Had a good ride. Worked on dressage things, she was obedient. Since the weather was nice, we went out to the field and I ran through Beginner Novice Test A, knowing that her attention outside would be more similar to what it'll be like at the show on Saturday. She was 'up' but quite good, we had a beautiful canter transition to the right.

Tuesday 5/12
Day off.

Wednesday 5/13
Good dressage school. I don't really remember what I worked on, but I was pleased with it!

Thursday 5/14
Jump school. Not the best ride I've ever had. The arena was a little crowded, we spent a little too much time on tiny fences, the two-stride was more like 1 and 3/4 strides...just frustrating. Then she wouldn't settle down, especially coming to the 2'9ish diagonal panel fence, which she charged at every time. She jumped a big square oxer nicely though. Frustrating in general.
Went out to the field to cool my temper - the other girls came with, and we ended up having a good time just galloping around the field together. Pandora has found a good cruising pace, no idea how fast it is, but it's steady when I just hang out in 2-point with a light contact. Chased some geese. It was good to get out and run, I think it helped both of us burn off some frustrated energy.

Friday 5/15
Bath time! She is so easy, just hook up this sprayer bottle to the hose, wet her down, spray all over with the soapy stuff, then rinse. The only things you have to do separately are her mane, tail, and tiny little socks. She stood like a champ the whole time and was super shiny and clean.

Saturday 5/16
Wonderful day at the schooling show (combined test), better than I was hoping for. Dressage was very mediocre - judge gave us a 40.5 (eventing score), which I thought was quite generous. That put us tied for 5th.
Stadium was really good. I was on her too long - I think she really prefers about a 10 minute warmup for stadium, just enough to w/t/c and jump a couple fences, she gets cranky if I stay on her for too long. Which I did, since the divisions were running a little late. I hopped off and stood with her, which helped her settle down. Our round was pretty good. She was not spooky at the fences, of which several were set at max height. Pace was steady. We got awkward distances to most things, but she came out of everything fine. I realize every time that to hit the striding, we just need to ride with more pace/a bigger step.
Ended up fourth overall, and I'm quite happy with that!
Went out to school XC after the show was over. It was hot. Jumped a few things, decided to tackle the water, which was decidedly anticlimactic. After about 30 seconds of walking back and forth at water's edge, she walked right in and sploshed through the relatively deep water with no qualms. We trotted and even cantered through, and she was happy as a clam. If we cantered away from a fence toward the water, I had to practically drag her back to the trot, and then she started cantering in the water anyway. Silly horse.
I made up a little course. We jumped a small unrevetted ditch and then one with a log over it. I went over some larger rolltops and coosp, definitely Novice at least. Kept getting tight distances until I let her go a tiny bit more, the last fence was perfect. Need to practice galloping more - steering/not drifting to the outside, and pace regulation. Her rating is not as responsive or prompt as I would like. I'm sure I'll get help with that at my eventing camps this summer.
A fantastic day, overall.

Sunday 5/17
A well-deserved day off :)

May Week 1 Review

2009-05-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Friday May 1
I'm pretty sure I rode, but I actually don't remember :x

Saturday May 2
Awesome dressage lesson with Melinda. Worked on really getting her to carry herself and moving towards real connection -- it's new for both of us and still very hard to feel correctly, so we'll need more lessons. Worked on 20-meter circle almost the whole time, after warmup. Reins much shorter, need to stop throwing her away just when she relaxes into contact. Always always always steady outside rein, outside leg BACK to keep the haunches in line, flex slightly inside with the rein while bending with the inside leg, then release and ask her to soften into the contact.
Interspersed periods of this with free walk or trot or canter. The quality of her gait changed a lot when we went into free motion: swinging, freer, longer steps. I need to maintain this feeling once I connect her again. Melinda says to always give the inside-bend aids before allowing a free rein, to help associate gentle inside softening with total relaxation.

Sunday May 3
Day off. She got free-longed around the round pen, since the OHSET team was using the arena for the whole time we were out there. It was VERY wet in the [outdoor] round pen, and Pandora was not a big fan of all the puddles, but she still went nicely.

So let me preface this by saying that I did reeeeally bad this week. I was having a bit of a rough week school-wise, and my dog injured himself in the middle of the night Monday, so I just..didn't really ride. Which is bad! Next month is going to be a huge month for me, and I have a Combined Test next weekend (dressage and stadium jumping) that's going to be just awful if I don't get some riding time in. So next week I need to really buckle down.

Monday May 4
Free-longed.

Tuesday May 5
Free-longed.

Wednesday May 6
Free-longed. Seeing a pattern yet?

Thursday May 7
Had a great ride tonight. I rode with a friend around the 2-mile loop. We went through a lot of water-filled ditches today, which I would say was a mediocre success. She always took a flying leap the first time. Twice we stopped to school it. The first time it was pretty long, and very shallow, and a bit running, so it was like a small little stream. She actually would walk through it, but just did not like having her feet in the water. The next time was a much larger, deeper pond-type thing, but not too deep. We leapt over it the first time (probably 6 feet?) and when I tried to get her to go through it, she just would not budge. I felt bad, but I didn't want to just leave it. So I got off and tried to lead her through. She disapproved, but went through once. The next time, she finally seemed to give in: she paused, very deliberately took a step into the water, and walked/trotted through without leaping or running me over. I called that good.
Doing this is actually much harder than it's going to be on an XC course, for now at least -- the water complexes we'll see are very inviting, with really good footing, and not at the bottom of a [shallow] ditch. Still, it is good practice, and I can still feel definite improvement. We are not going to go to Inavale this weekend because it rained all week, so hopefully we'll get to go week after next.

Oh, we also took a detour on our loop. There's a dead-end with a big hill that we walked up - and it was a beast! Pretty steep and long. Pandora really powered up, taking big huge walk steps, but I could tell it was really hard for her. By the end she was tiring out, and I think the steepness worried her a little. I will be careful about how often I ride it, and if we always go all the way up to the top. The rest of the ride was uneventful, though we did get a little impromptu passage when a herd of young horses galloped up to their fence and then away again. :)

Friday May 8
Pandora just stayed in the field, and they were out overnight too, finally. I had a Biology field trip to Fall Creek from 1 - 7pm, which was actually pretty fun. I can now identify lots of common native plants, and we got to go on an hourlong hike along the creek, which was really nice. The weather was perfect.

Saturday May 9
Left 'em out in the pasture. Did I mention that I have a huge history project due on Monday?

Sunday May 10
My mom and I had a nice mother's day ride today. I worked on some of the stuff I learned last week in the Melinda lesson. It went okay, I think? It's so hard to tell since she's had me working on such subtle stuff that even when she was right there guiding me, it was hard to feel exactly what was going on. Oh well - it felt like a good solid workout, and I feel like we made some progress.

Free trot to the left not good, she wants to bend to the outside and cut in and increase tempo. I know that means I'm not doing it right before I stretch her, but I'm not sure what to do, and by this time in the ride she was getting a little resistant. I guess I just need to keep trying.

The free canter was nice.

April Review, May Outline

2009-05-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

April Outline: Time to start thinking about XC as soon as the weather turns and courses are open for schooling. This will be the month for putting miles on Pandora: lots and lots of trail rides and road riding. We need to get over her fear of water ASAP so I don’t have to worry about it later in the season. Also need to find out if she’s controllable at speed in the open.
All our long slow distance should really help with conditioning for the upcoming months too.
I want to spend time jumping low, wide oxers and really adding frightening decorations to fences.
Finally, keep up with dressage. School some tests to troubleshoot difficult movements, and school them. I have let this slack off now that I've got a solid w/t/c with some lateral, so I need to push us in this area.

End-of-month goal: Schooling consistently over 2'9+, riding calmly in the open at w/t/c (gallop if we can find the space). Willingly walk through water. Create passable dressage tests at Training level.

Evaluation:

Schooling consistently over 2'9+ - almost. We've ridden over that easily XC, but that doesn't quite count. It's just that our arena doesn't work so well for doing bigger jumps and courses. But, like I said at the midmonth progress report, I'm not too concerned about height right now. It will get there.

Riding calmly in the open at w/t/c/g - definitely accomplished. Galloping out in the field I've done twice: once was pretty terrible, and the second time was a wild success. I'm a lot more comfortable galloping, she's a lot more comfortable galloping with me; we can steer and slow down and go towards home without going into warp speed. We will need to explore this more, but I'm very pleased. Also, we've gone on several 2-mile hacks around the loop, walking and trotting, and she's been quite calm. The conditioning is very good for her. After the 2-mile walk she's not breathing hard but she does get quite warm, so I'm glad the conditioning is helping. Eventually I'll walk the 2-mile loop, then up and back down another big hill-road, which will add another mile onto the ride.

Willingly walk through water - well, we just haven't had the chance to practice this. But on our hacks around the loop, there are many ditches in the side of the road, some which occasionally get pretty sloppy in the bottom. She doesn't like it, but most importantly, she goes forward when I ask her to. Right now I don't care if forward means 'walk through' or 'take flying leap over,' because forward is always the right answer. We are trailering to Inavale this coming weekend, which will put us miles ahead in the water issue as I'll be able to practice in their water complex.

Create passable dressage tests at T-level - um...not quite. Like I've mentioned, I've been feeling really stuck in my dressage lately. I have a dressage lesson on Saturday May 2nd, so that should help a lot.

Overall, this month was pretty successful. We made steady progress, and the only goal we truly failed was the last one, which will be remedied ASAP because of dressage lessons.

May Outline
Now is the time to truly put everything together, and start thinking about our summer eventing destinations. We are going to go schooling at Inavale, so I will get practice jumping XC and through water and galloping in the open. We need to catch up on the April goals, working in more jumping work: low wide oxers and single fences at 2'9+. We need to get on top of the dressage and really make some progress there.
This is our last month really schooling at home before the summer hits. I've got eventing camps the next two months and then ratings in July and September.

End-of-month goal: Feel prepared to have a solid competition at Beginner Novice -- though I have decided not to attend the HT due to the cost. Easily smooth and controlled w/t/c/g in the open with good half-halts at gallop, smooth and controlled fences at 2’9 or higher (some stadium, but focusing on XC), excellent fitness. Walk, trot, and canter through water. Achieve a reasonable dressage test away from home.

May Activities
May 2, Melinda Lesson - dressage
May 9, Schooling at Inavale - gallop and XC work, schooling through water
May 16, Combined Test at Inavale - dressage and stadium. Will be a great schooling show and chance to get Pandora competing at Inavale.
May 17, Melinda Lesson - dressage
Then the last two weeks of May I will be working on my own.

It should be a good month!

April Week 4 Review

2009-05-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

Monday 4/27
Just longed her today. Unfortunately, it's started raining, so they're stuck in stalls again, and Pandora is clearly not happy. She behaved well on the longe -- cantering is so, so much easier for her now than it used to be!
Still wants to ignore the halt command on the longe. Listened well enough, but not as prompt as I would like.

Tuesday 4/28
Free longed the girls today to let them blow off some steam. Looks like they'll be stuck inside for awhile, though it's supposed to be nice on Thursday.
She was strangely jumpy today. When I put her in her stall, I saw her walk over to her water bucket, stretch her neck towards it, then touch the rim of it and jump as if shocked. She went away to her hay. I came in and sat next to her water bucket. She slowly approached, retreated, approached again, and touched the rim firmly several times with her muzzle. Then, like a horse following its owner as far into a trailer as possible without actually setting foot into it, she stood underneath herself with her hind legs, stretched out her neck, and drank a huge amount. Maybe a couple gallons? I stroked her as she drank, and when she was finished, she withdrew quickly though not violently so. After going back to her hay, she jumped at a noise.
Strange how she was acting almost afraid of her water bucket. The level was lower than yesterday, so I know she drank today, but I wonder what happened to make her nervous of her water bucket?? I'll have to keep a close eye on her and make sure she's drinking well.

Wednesday 4/29
Well, I just had a frustrating ride in general today. I was tired and a little grumpy, which is probably most of it. We had to hurry because the OHSET team was going to have practice at 6:30, so it didn't help that I was a little rushed. I dropped my stirrups and did some trotting and cantering, and saying it was mediocre is being kind. Ugh. I really need to practice no-stirrups work. Maybe I will have my mom longe me on her so I can practice without worrying about slowing her down.
Left bend issues came back with a vengeance. I've noticed them slightly, but tonight they were pretty bad. Couldn't do anything about it.
On the plus side, I set up some slightly raised walk cavaletti and she managed to go through them decently. It felt like her walk got a little nicer too.

Thursday 4/30
My mom free longed the girls tonight, because I was off seeing Spamalot with my dad! :)

April Week 3 Review

2009-04-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

Monday 4/20
My girl got a well-deserved day off! They have been turned out in paddocks 24/7 for the last four days or so, it's been SO nice and you can tell the horses really appreciate it.

Tuesday 4/21
Light riding day. A friend came out and got to ride, so Pandora just carted her around at the walk for a bit. Nice and easy.

Wednesday 4/22
Day off. They've still been out all day every day.

Thursday 4/23
A solid dressage schooling. Worked on bending and obedience to the leg. She was very good, and I can get some good work when I sit back. Practiced cantering slightly shoulder-fore -- very hard for her and I think it will be good to practice. Should have Mom videotape from front and behind so I can see what she's doing.
Still, I'm getting frustrated. Because Pandora's so good, we've hit the limit of what I know and can teach. I've never ridden at a higher level than we're at right now, so I don't know what to do and what to work on and what is the 'right answer' from her. So I really need to take some lessons. Once I get a few lessons and get pointed in the right direction, I'll feel better. I feel like we could really start progressing towards 1st level, if someone would just help me understand how to get her really swinging through her back and reaching into the contact.

Friday 4/24
Rode the 2-mile road loop with a friend. We spent most of the ride in the grass beside the road, so not much actual road work, but it was a fantastic workout. We trotted quite a bit, through/over many ditches (if we come up with some momentum, she goes through without hesitating, though she still wants to leap!), even through a little water. Although it was more like OVER the water, which was probably a 5-foot leap. But at least she went forward, and to me, forward is the right answer whether she's jumping it or going through it.
The rest we walked. We had a mildly hairy moment when we were about 5 feet from a fenceline that a herd of about 6 horses came galloping up to, but we got across the road before anybody had a meltdown.
Even though we spent most of it walking, Pandora was lightly sweaty when we got back. It was a great ride, beautiful outside.

Saturday 4/25
Gallop work in the field! SO much fun. I really needed to practice this, because I just don't really have any experience riding at speed, and it still freaks me out a little. I tend to want 100% adjustability all the time, and while that's good to strive for, I know that I have to let Pandora go a little bit in order to have her willing to come back to me when I ask.
We were both pretty nervous the first time, but I pushed my comfort zone and really made myself test the gears. Once we did it a couple more times, both of us relaxed a lot more. I was able to ask her to open up, and when I asked her to come back, she would. It took a much stronger half-halt than I want -- ideally, I could just open up my hip angle and close my fingers firmly on the reins -- but it's a definite start, and I didn't have to be harsh with the bit, just a few gentle tugs upward on one rein.
By the end, we could do large circles, going up to a pretty quick pace and then coming back. We even galloped a pretty long straight line back towards the barn. Before, she would really try to dig in and take off when we were facing home -- this time, she kept a steady pace and turned away when I asked her to. Good progress.
We have a long way to go, and I definitely need to learn how to tell what pace I'm going, but it felt great to get out there and practice. We have plans to do it again next Friday.

Sunday 4/26
Rest day. Still turned out.

April Progress Check

2009-04-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

End-of-month goal: Schooling consistently over 2'9+, riding calmly in the open at w/t/c (gallop if we can find the space). Willingly walk through water. Create passable dressage tests at Training level.

We're getting there. I don't think I'm going to be able to school water by the end of April, unfortunately. I will get to it ASAP but I have a feeling it won't happen until mid-May. Perhaps I can get a couple fellow Pony Club girls to trailer to Mt. Pisgah for a trail ride with some relaxed water opportunities?

I haven't schooled anything big at home, but some of the fences I jumped at the eventing derby were easily bigger than 2'9. This weekend I will do my best to set up a grid and set the last fence at about 3', but I'm a little less concerned about height than I was. Maybe I'll set up a chute and do more free jumping?

Riding in the open we have done, two weekends in a row now. I would like to be able to have a day where I can ride in a big field and do nothing but gallop work, because I'm realizing that I am definitely not 100% comfortable riding at speed. Still, we did w/t/forward canter the past two weekends and she was very controlled, so I'm feeling like we did a good job on that this month.

As for dressage...well, I've done some good work, but not enough. I got some good ideas and exercises from the clinic I rode in on Sunday, so I will focus really hard on dressage for the rest of the week and try to make some improvement.

In all, I think I'm reasonably on track for the month, maybe a little bit behind. Some things are unavoidable though, like the water issue.

April Week 2 Review

2009-04-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

Monday April 13
Sometime around the time it started hailing profusely during the day, I decided I didn't want to ride tonight.

Tuesday April 14
I actually had a quite nice ride. She was a little hot, and the pouring rain on the roof didn't help, but I took the energy and pushed it into some really good forward work. We did lots of transitions within the trot, forward then slower, bending, shoulders-in. When I warmed up I did serpentines and really focused on keeping her STRAIGHT when we changed direction. At first it was really hard - felt like she was bouncing between the reins and my legs, one direction, then the other! - but after a few times she understood, and stayed dead straight. It was a good exercise and I think it set a good tone for our ride.
With the extra power she had, I got a beautiful canter transition to the right: immediate and smooth. Not as much to the left, but I think I need to consider 'forward' a little more. I know that I tend to slow her down too much just because I can, but I think a more forward trot (as long as it's controlled) would be a good idea.

Wednesday April 15
Day off.

Thursday April 16
Another day off! Shame on me, I know. But they were turned out.

Friday April 17
Hacking day! They'd been stuck inside all day while most of the others were out, so Pandora was pretty much breathing fire by the time I took her out. Put them in the arena for a little while to let them burn off some steam, then tacked up and headed out for a lovely ride down the road. She behaved absolutely wonderfully. At one point, we were riding in the grass beside the road, and as we rode a ditch was on the left that had some water in it. We came to a ditch in front of us with water in it.

Uh oh!

I sat patiently, kept her nose pointing mostly forward, and let her make the decisions. I didn't harass her when she backed up; every now and then I'd suggest forward with a little squeeze, but didn't get insistent. We had a LOT of 'approach and retreat' going on, let me tell you! But each time, she got a little closer. Once we got close, she was adorable. She'd suddenly walk forward to the edge of the (shallow, with not very much water) ditch, gather her self, then lose her nerve and back a few steps. "I can do it I can do it.....oh no I can't do it!" I couldn't help but laugh. Eventually she gathered courage enough and took a flying leap over. I just grabbed mane, patted her on the other side, and we went on our merry little way.

Total distance was almost 1 mile. Just a short ride, but a very pleasant one, and she was more relaxed than the first time. Progress!

Saturday April 18
Day off.

Sunday April 19
Eventing clinic - flatwork, a little gridwork, AND cross-country. A mix of frustrating and insightful: the clinician was demanding but had good points. For flatwork, I need to keep my elbows more bent and my hands closer to me, while for jumping I need to sit up and bring them up more. She really got after me to keep Pandora moving FORWARD with the hind end, otherwise we're not going to build the fitness and balance we need.
XC was fun and I learned a lot. We were both tired but the clinician pushed us hard. I discovered that if I ride Pandora right, I can keep her up off her forehand and jump in balance even though we're both worn out. She was fantastic over the fences, didn't look or anything. We had one stop at the very very end -- I made my corner too tight and I was just so tired that I didn't ride it strong enough. When I set her up better, we went just fine.
Overall, a tough but really educational clinic. Biggest things: I need to sit back and wait for EVERY. SINGLE. FENCE. I cannot throw her away at the very last second or let her pull me down into looking at the fence too. It's hard, but I could feel it getting better.

April Week 1 Review

2009-04-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

Wednesday April 1
Day off.

Thursday April 2
Nice dressage school. Good solid workout - w/t/some canter, really working on staying forward and getting nice bend.
I really need to take some real dressage lessons. I have never really ridden anywhere above the level I'm at right now, so I lack the practical experience. I would like to ride beyond Training Level at some point in my life, for goodness' sake.
Anyway. She was a good girl tonight.

Friday April 3
Good ride.

Saturday April 4
Betsy clinic!! I had a great time, and it was beautiful outside.
Surprisingly, this clinic wasn't as earth-shatteringly insightful as they have been in the past, perhaps because I'm at a much better place for myself this time around.
I picked up some really useful exercises. In particular, she had two sets of trot poles set up down a long side: one for a very very short, bouncy stride, and one for a more regular stride. First we did short to long, which was easy (my good girl got it the first try, woohoo!), but then we did long to short, which was hard. I'm going to practice at home.
Pandora was an absolute star. Wonderful for the canter poles. When we did our warmup fence, she was just perfect: steady trot pace, relaxed, easy, smooth jumping. I love this mare.
We cantered a course twice. The first time, I did not ride very well, sigh. Just because I can hold her back, I tend to do it too much, then we get kinda nasty distances, especially since I tend to see a long spot and freak out about adding a stride. After a gentle scolding, I rode much better the second time. I kept a medium canter going, allowed her to flow up to the base of the fence instead of picking, and we had a beautiful course.
Have I mentioned that I love this horse?

Sunday April 5
I was helping out at our second PC fund raising show - decided not to ride since I rode in the clinic yesterday and I knew I'd be tired. Which I was, since I just woke up from an hour-long nap!
We had beautiful weather - the horses were outside all day, turnout for the show was awesome, and life is good.

Monday April 6
Rode outside to enjoy the vestiges of the weekend's weather. We actually were able to ride in the mare pasture (~8 acres), and I was really hoping to get some galloping practice in, but it was just a little too squishy. I did some trotting and cantering. When we rounded a corner, Pandora did try to take off once - not too badly, but I had to floss her teeth a little to get her to come back. After that, we did some very quiet schooling up and down the long fenceline. Every time she went up to the next gait without me telling her to, I made her halt and stand for a second, after a quiet half-halt warning. Eventually she got to where she'd hold her gait nicely on a relaxed rein, even cantering, so we called it good.
All in all - considering this is the first time I've ridden her in the open (other than roads), ever - it was not bad. I don't blame her for being a little nervous, especially given the almost-questionable footing. We will get plenty more chances to practice galloping on much bigger and solid-er fields, so I'm not worried.

Tuesday April 7
I had an awesome schooling ride. I tried McKinna's jumping saddle on her, the much nicer one, and she's built up so much topline that it actually almost fits! So I rode in it.
I set up four cavaletti down the centerline, 4'6" apart, a normal horse-sized trot stride, which tends to challenge her a little. Why? Well, because they're raised a few inches off the ground which makes her take bigger steps, and because she tends to want to be a little short-strided at the trot.
After some warmup, we did a modified four-leaf clover exercise. The arena's too narrow, so we basically went down the centerline, turned right, turned right, turned right, and back down the centerline - like a big oval down at each end. She started off rushing through the cavaletti when she was taking bigger steps to make it through, but by the end she would relax the speed of her stride and get some bouncy air-time between each step. Cool feeling. I need to do this more often.

Wednesday April 8
Day off - relatives in town. They got free-longed.

Thursday April 9
Aaaaaand another day off. They were outside and it was POURING DOWN RAIN. Like it can only in the Northwest, I'm telling you. They were dirty and wet and had a fantastic time tearing loose around the arena. It's been a long time since I've seen them run that fast!

Friday April 10
Woohoo, I had a great ride! Though, as my mom asked when I said this, what else is new?
I set up two sets of cavaletti. Four cavaletti set about 11' apart (canter distance) and on the other side five trot poles (4'6 apart) with alternating ends raised about 6 inches. The canter cavaletti were set at their highest setting, which I think is about a foot high, so they were very challenging.
She was a bit uncoordinated about the raised trot poles, so I will have to reintroduce that slowly. I think I'll start with just raising one at a time. She went over them, though.
The canter cavaletti was magnificent to ride. I will definitely do that exercise again. She nailed them every time, except the time where I told her to add before going over and she didn't. Even that she made it out of fine. I think I will do this exercise again, perhaps set a little closer together - she had to really reach, so while she was forced to expand her stride in all directions (up and forward), she tended to rush through it. Next time if they're set a little closer together, I'm hoping it will help her rock back on her hind end and get some good steady strides in.

Saturday April 11
OMG. The Eventing Derby was SO. MUCH. FUN.

I can't even begin to describe it. I'll write a post over on the main blog in a little while.

Sunday April 12
Family here -- Pandora gave some pony rides. She was very good and patient, if sometimes a little confused :)

March Review, April Outline

2009-04-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

March Outline: Continue working on our jumping skills, but don't neglect the flatwork.
I will be focusing on some flatwork aspects as they apply to jumping: smooth balanced turns, rating and adjustability at all three gaits, obedience to the leg.
Since I did not complete my gridwork and single fence goals last month, I will make it a priority to set up a grid at least once a week, and jump single fences at least once a week as well.

End-of-month goal: Coursing smoothly over 2'6 with a calm, smooth, and balanced w/t/c. We should be able to significantly control our rating at all 3 gaits.

Evaluation: We are certainly getting somewhere. I have ridden a course set at 2'3 to 2'6 pretty smoothly and am developing an understanding of what it takes to maintain a smooth, steady pace around course. Rating at the walk and trot is there, and I can FEEL the beginnings of canter adjustability. We can do a tiny bit of lengthening and shortening without falling on the forehand or breaking gait. I have a tiny half-halt ability at the canter without breaking gait. It just needs to be developed!
I spent more time working with grids this month, and jumped single fences.
She was fantastic at the Rally and proved to me that she will jump scary fences even when she is frightened, AND that she's willing to put the effort out when I ask her to push her comfort zones in terms of speed and tight turns.

Overall, I think I can declare this month a success.

April Outline: Time to start thinking about XC as soon as the weather turns and courses are open for schooling. This will be the month for putting miles on Pandora: lots and lots of trail rides and road riding. We need to get over her fear of water ASAP so I don’t have to worry about it later in the season. Also need to find out if she’s controllable at speed in the open.
All our long slow distance should really help with conditioning for the upcoming months too.
I want to spend time jumping low, wide oxers and really adding frightening decorations to fences.
Finally, keep up with dressage. School some tests to troubleshoot difficult movements, and school them. I have let this slack off now that I've got a solid w/t/c with some lateral, so I need to push us in this area.
End-of-month goal: Schooling consistently over 2'9+, riding calmly in the open at w/t/c (gallop if we can find the space). Willingly walk through water. Create passable dressage tests at Training level.

April Activities: April 4, Betsy Clinic - Jumping (the woman is fantastic, I love her)
April 11, Eventing Derby - this will be the first real XC-type experience I have with Pandora, not to mention our first dressage test in quite some time!
April 17, Christy Lesson

So not much officially going on this month, though I'd like to do lots of outside riding. I'm looking forward to this, because it means I can really focus on my "homework," working hard on the things I've learned recently.

March Week 4 Review

2009-03-31T22:08:00.000-07:00

Monday 3/23
Flatwork school. Good ride. Worked on bend and figures, overall just a solid work.

Tuesday 3/24
Fantastic lesson. Really, really awesome - one of the best rides I've had on her. Hung out at around 2'3 for the fences, maybe closer to 2'6. Pandora was 'on' the whole time. Practiced lengthening and shortening at the canter, and actually got noticeable responses. Jumped the scary boxes and the big brush fence, neither of which she's seen/jumped before, and she didn't even hesitate. I made some big improvements on: 1. avoiding jumping ahead with my upper body, while 2. still releasing, while 3. not dropping her at the base of the fence by taking away leg and hand. Once I figured that one out, she was great.
Asked her to really move out down one long side because our 'jump-off' course had a looong track around the outside. Boy, was she excited about that! She really dug in and gave me a gallop. Surprised me and took me longer to bring her back than I expected, but she wasn't trying to run away, and she came back to a nice soft canter after one circle. Oops.

On the other hand, big accident when we got home. In the arena, Mom was taking her blanket off - got all the straps undone and then Pandora took off. Blanket slipped obviously, she freaked herself out, galloped all around, tore the blanket to absolute shreds. It was terrifying. Once she ripped the blanket all the way off, she stopped, hot and sweaty and shaking. Walked her out, hosed her chest and neck a little and she calmed down a lot. Wasn't lame but got a big ol' swelling on her right gaskin. Very liquidy and soft, not hot. Under a small abrasion. Gave 2.5 grams of bute, cold-hosed, walked to make sure she wasn't sore. Normal vitals. Came back at 8pm to ice and walk again, swelling down a little but more stiff.

Wednesday 3/25
Made an AM visit. Swelling down a lot (yay!) but area is hot, no sign of stiffness, w/t/c happily loose in the arena. Iced for 10 minutes, gave 2 grams of bute.

Evening visit, free longed for maybe 15 minutes, worked up a good sweat. Fine at all gaits in both directions. Swelling WAY down, hardly noticeable, still warm but not hot. Cold-hosed for 10 minutes, put a little Furazone on the scrape. I think at this point we're more traumatized than she is.

Thursday 3/26
She was feeling great. Free longed nicely in both directions, worked up a decent sweat with no noticeable stiffness. The farrier came out, told me I was being a tad bit paranoid and they didn't need to be trimmed for another few weeks (oops :).
Then came the test. I haven't ridden her since Tuesday before she injured herself, and I needed to see if she was going to stay sound with me in the saddle. So we set up 3 canter cavaletti at bounce distance (around 11' for Pandora) and a 2'6 vertical, tacked up, and went for it. I was really worried that she was going to favor the injured leg with me on board, but w/t/c both directions was just fine. We cantered the cavaletti several times in both directions and she was fantastic, nailed it every time and went through with enthusiasm. We jumped the vertical with no issues, made it a square oxer (a rather wide square oxer) and though we kept missing the distance for takeoff, she felt totally normal beneath me and showed no signs of soreness after jumping it several times.
That's way bigger than she'll have to do at rally, so I'm very very happy and feeling optimistic for this weekend. She'll have 3 rounds with 20 minutes of warmup each, so that's only a little more than an hour of riding total. I think we'll be just fine.

We cold-hosed again for about 5 - 10 minutes, which she stood very politely for, and dosed with 2.5 grams of bute. Now that I know she's sound with no bute in her system (hadn't been dosed since yesterday morning), I think we will continue with the bute through tomorrow just to help make sure all inflammation is going away.

Whew. Crisis averted.

Friday 3/27
Bathing day! We spent four hours out at the barn washing buckets and horses, and in general just making sure all our rally stuff was loaded up and ready to go. Pandora is now very very clean and shiny - not that she wasn't shiny before - and all ready for showing! I'll make sure to do some serious de-hairing in a good grooming session before we leave tomorrow.

Saturday 3/28
Rally day! Free longed the girls in the morning. She's totally sound and you can only tell she injured that hind leg if you touch the area, because then she'll move away. Loaded everything up, stuffed their hay bags with hay, booted up, and headed out! Settled in nicely, with some screaming for McKinna, and jogged out perfectly sound. Excited for tomorrow.

Sunday 3/29
Woohoo! We had an AWESOME day at the rally. Full report here. No refusals, no rails. She was nervous but got better every round and she has mountains of try. I love it. I'm very proud of her.

Monday 3/30
A well-deserved day off. They got to be outside all day for the first time in a long time.

Tuesday 3/31
An easy ride, but very promising. I hopped on and went for a short hack down the road, by ourselves for the first time. I planned on making it very short, taking her just past her comfort zone and allowing a little grazing before heading home.
Well, she impressed me. She marched right off down the road with nary a spook or scoot - only got a little bug-eyed when a horse in a field galloped up to us. So we picked up a merry little trot for a minute or so, went up a little hill, then walked back. She wanted to jig on the way back, probably because it was a cool windy day and she had yesterday off, but she walked when I asked her to.
Such a pleasant ride, and I'm pleased that she's sensible about going out by herself. This will make conditioning hacks very easy.
I'm looking forward to it. Plus, I like to sing to give us a rhythm and calm her down, so I get to work my way through my repertoire of old camp songs ;)

March Week 3 Review and Week 4 Outline

2009-03-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

Monday 3/16
I had a history final from 6-8. No riding for me!

Tuesday 3/17
Had a great ride. Schooled flatwork and really worked on moving off the leg, and bending. We did some bow-tie figures which went pretty well. I practiced a little bit of spiraling circles with her - I can tell those will be fantastic schooling figures, because they were super hard for her! It's hard for her to hold a smaller circle, but she spirals nicely out when I ask her to.
We got some pretty good canter work, although she was a little sticky in her transitions.
I am working on asking her to carry herself up, then stretch down to follow the bit. This is a hole in our dressage. She will lower her head to stretch out if you give her a loose rein at the walk, but that's not following the contact down, and at the trot she either won't do it at all or she speeds up a lot. I practiced a little at the trot, and seemed to make some progress, so I will make sure to work on this more in the future.
Still not flexing to the left. I believe she is locked up somewhere in her upper neck/poll/jaw - she won't turn her face, she just tilts her head and shoulder, whereas to the right she rotates that face easily. Chiro coming out on Thursday should fix that!
Mom hopped on to cool her out. This is part of our plan to get her used to other riders, since she tends to get anxious. I will probably also have Christy (lady who gives the Friday lessons) school her once or twice, since she is a very very good and soft rider who I bet will help Pandora's confidence in strangers.

Wednesday 3/18
Jumping lesson at Robin's. Pandora did great, was way calmer than last time we were over there! It definitely helped that we rode in a lesson with McKinna and her rider too. She was just lovely, alert and sometimes looking at stuff outside the arena but very responsive and mellow. We got some very nice jumping in, and I am working on all the things I need to remember over the fence - sit up, stretch up tall, wait for the fence, but release! I got it together a few times.
We jumped over a few spooky fences - even got a refusal, but it was downhill to a scary box fence off a tight diagonal turn, so I don't blame her at all. She jumped it fine the second time, and we schooled it about four times until I could get her to relax enough to take off from a reasonable distance instead of super far away. Not that I don't appreciate the athleticism inherent in taking the long spot!
Anyway - a very successful lesson!

Thursday 3/19
Kind-of day off - longed her, then she got worked on by the chiro. I was definitely right about the left flexion. On the left side, she needed adjustments high in the neck, low in the neck, a little in the shoulder, and a lot in the elbow. Some slightly lesser stuff down the right side. Quite a bit of pelvic rotation, and quite a bit of stickiness in the stifles. He also worked her tail a little bit because I mentioned that it's still asymetrically muscled underneath the dock, and afterwards she was so relaxed back there! I've never been able to touch the point of her butt without her tensing up, but now it's nice and soft. I was glad he came out.

Friday 3/20
Lesson at Poseidon. A bit of a frustrating one! For the flatwork, Pandora was extremely inconsistent. Perfectly understandable - she was trying to figure out how to move after being adjusted yesterday - but still very frustrating, when I'm used to such a steady horse. I didn't discipline her for it, since I knew what was going on. The canter was a little better. Also, hallelujah, we have developed a tiny bit of a half-halt at the canter! If I close my outside hand and add a little lower leg, I can actually feel a response. Not very much of one, and not too consistent, and sometimes I don't use enough leg so she breaks to the trot, but it's THERE and we've never had it before. It's very exciting. A huge step in the right direction.
Jumping was also a bit frustrating. Once again we did nothing but tiny fences for the majority of the ride. I only got to do some set at around 2'3 on my very last few rounds. I understand the necessity to do well over smaller fences, I really do. But when my horse is getting lazy and sloppy and isn't really learning anything over the small fences, I think it's time to move on.
THEN, she started charging down this one six-stride line. Really taking off. Don't get me wrong, I love that she builds energy when she locks onto a fence. But this was totally ignoring my half-halts. So, after checking with the instructor, I got the go-ahead to do a little teeth-flossing with the bit down the line to get my message across. I hate doing it, but it worked. I got hard in her face, she was totally surprised and backed off for the last few strides, then halted reasonably nicely. The next time we went through, she started to launch, but backed off at a strong half-halt. Since she clearly understood the point, we called it good.
An educational but frustrating ride, I suppose. I understand why it went the way it did, though, and it wasn't Pandora's fault. I am looking forward to doing some schooling on my own for awhile with the tools I have picked up recently.

Saturday 3/21
Day off. Free-longed the girls.

Sunday 3/22
Day off again.

Week 4 Outline

Monday 3/23
Solid dressage workout. Get some good forward canter work, practice adjustability at all three gaits. Practice canter cavaletti.

Tuesday 3/24
Rally prep lesson at Poseidon. I am sure we will school lots of fences, practice jog-outs (which I've already practiced!), and the like.

Wednesday 3/25
Get in another good flatwork school, this time in the jumping saddle. Practice lots of canter cavaletti.

Thursday 3/26
The tack-cleaning day...oi. But, I should still ride. Maybe a light jumping school, easy and relaxed.

Friday 3/27
Day off and free-longe. Today is the day we'll wash McKinna to prepare for Rally, and trust me, you don't want to plan anything else on the same day! It's an exhausting enterprise.

Saturday 3/28
Longe the girls, load everything up into the trailer, and head off to Ridgefield, WA for the rally!

Sunday 3/29
Compete in the rally. 3 rounds, with 20 minutes of warmup each - not bad. Hopefully we will come home feeling happy and successful!

March Week 2 Review and Week 3 Outline

2009-03-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

Monday 3/9
Ended up talking myself out of riding. I will end up riding a lot more next week - this is dead week so lots of studying to do. Free longed the girls, they had a good time running.

Tuesday 3/10
Day off. Free longed.

Wednesday 3/11
Flatwork schooling in the dressage saddle. The ride started off really nicely, nice and forward, just took her through everything at the walk (serpentines, circles, leg-yields, shoulders-in and out) then the same at trot. But somewhere along the way she got anxious and I got frustrated, and she was racing a lot. We managed to end on a good note. I think my stirrups were too long, and I wasn't using the ThinLine like normal under the saddle - wonder if that makes a difference?

Still resisting bend to the left, always. Very frustrating. I can get her to move off my leg, but she just will not take up the bend through her whole body with one smooth curve from head to tail. Chiro is coming out in a week so hopefully that will help fix things.

Thursday 3/12
Jumped with two of the girls at the barn. Pandora did very nicely over the low stuff, finding good distances, even volunteered the left lead on a pretty regular basis when going to the left. She did want to rush around when on the left lead sometimes, but I think that had more to do with cantering over a two-stride cavaletti line (all she has to do is yank her feet up, so she gets quick and careless).

Still, was resisting the left bend hardcore. Grrrr. I am patient with it -- Rome wasn't built in a day -- but it gets very frustrating when nothing I do can stop her from leaning over the left shoulder. At least she will take her left lead and canter nicely.

When we raised the jumps, she was just lovely. We had a vertical set on the diagonal and a single oxer. By the end, the oxer was just a hair shy of 2'9, with two barrels beneath, and the vertical was 2'6. Pandora did very nicely, considering I don't school her over these heights often. She tends to want to ignore my half-halts coming up to the fence, so perhaps I should set up some grids that encourage her to settle back. She's comfortable taking the short distance, and manages to suck herself up enough when she takes off super close, which is nice to know. I'd like to get some video of me jumping her over these - it feels like she is just tucking her legs up instead of rounding her back, but she may just not do that until the fences get a little bigger.

All in all, despite a few issues, I was very pleased.

Friday 3/13
Lesson at Poseidon. It ended up as a two-person lesson, as the third girl ended up sick. This actually turned out to be for the better, because our horses are very similarly-strided, so we got to do some gridwork!
We ended up schooling over a three-fence grid set up almost straight down the centerline, on a one-stride distance. She set the grid up a little bit short, because both horses need to practice rocking back and waiting instead of getting long and strung-out.
Eventually we had the grid set with a takeoff pole, then poles between each of the fences. So essentially it was five bounces, just that every other one was a pole. This was very helpful for Pandora, who needs to practice not getting all strung-out or diving down on her nose.
She did very nicely. I managed to push the height issue a little bit, and she raised the fences a little more than she normally does for me. I think I will have to either be very insistent about it, or just accept that I'll school higher fences at home! Or both, of course.
In any case, I felt like the grid work was very beneficial. I plan to set up some canter cavaletti at bounce distance for practice.

Saturday 3/14
Day off.

Sunday 3/15
Another day off. Finals studying!

Week 3 Outline

For all [riding] days this week, if the weather is nice, we'll make a short pilgrimage out the front gate. I plan to work extensively on Pandora's ability to go out on the roads alone (she will follow another horse, but freaks out by herself). Not only will road work help conditioning-wise, the confidence she gets from learning to go out by herself should make XC a piece of cake.

Monday 3/16
No ride - I have a final from 6 - 8PM, ugh. But then it's spring break, woohoo!

Tuesday 3/17
Solid flatwork schooling. Working on flexibility all through the body, lengthening/shortening the pace at the trot, and plenty of cantering.

Wednesday 3/18
Lesson across the street at Robin's, jumping.

Thursday 3/19
Chiro appointment, finally! She will get free-longed beforehand.

Friday 3/20
Jumping lesson at Poseidon.

Saturday 3/21
Light flatwork schooling. Practice ring figures, perhaps over poles: figure-8s, half-turns back to the rail, spiraling circles.

Sunday 3/22
Jumping school. Set up canter-bounce cavaletti on an 11' stride, practice steady cantering. Start with three and maybe go up to five. Practice trotting a low, wide oxer with a placing and landing pole.

March Week 1 Review and Week 2 Outline

2009-03-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

Monday 3/2
Did not ride. Lots of homework to do!

Tuesday 3/3
Another homework night. She got free longed both nights, though, so she got to work off some energy.

Wednesday 3/4
Sigh, another free-longeing night....because I rode McKinna! A girl in our Pony Club may use McKinna for the SJ rally, because her horse is working through some training issues and they don't want any setbacks. She is trying her out tomorrow night, so I hopped on to make sure she hasn't forgotten how to work ;) She did great. We did w/t/c both directions, and I set up a zigzag pole rollback exercise. We walked and trotted over it (our arena's too tight to expect her to canter it), but then as we were cantering, I'd change directions across one pole and ask for a flying change. The first time I didn't set her up right, but then we got two in a row! Impressive considering we never worked on flying changes...

Thursday 3/5
Finally rode tonight. I had a very good ride! We did a lot of cantering over a low cavaletto, a 2' ish vertical, and then a 2'3 ish narrow fence with bright yellow and red planks. Pandora was just lovely. I am REALLY getting somewhere now that I sit up and carry my hands all the way to the base of the fence - she holds a steady pace, I can half halt, her shoulders are higher, everything's good.
She still will not land on the left lead. I got her to do it once, by really asking hard. I have a call in to the chiropractor, but in the mean time I will just keep doing lots of bending and stretching as I ride. She picks up the lead fine and canters well (not as well as to the right), so it's not drastic, but still.

Friday 3/6
Christy lesson. Pandora did pretty well. I spent most of the lesson focusing on McKinna - the girl rode her tonight and they looked fantastic together! I'm excited.
Anyway - my ride was okay. She is doing very nicely at the canter. I have to work hard still to hold it together, but it's a huge amount better than when we first started. Her transitions to the right are turning into a thing of beauty! Light, fluffy, balanced, everything a canter transition should be.
The jumping just wasn't my favorite. She goes better when I ride better, of course. She had a very brief meltdown about a car driving past outside [in the dark], and I was pleased that she came back to me and began focusing after only a few minutes of acting silly. Still, the jumping just wasn't as good as I'd like it to be. I guess we just weren't 'on' tonight. We got some nice fences and some not-as-nice fences. I feel like she would do better if the jumps were just a little higher, but I'm also uncomfortable suggesting that because there's a pretty big ideal that 'if you aren't doing well over lower things, don't move them up.' I believe in this - I do, I do. It's just, she really DOES tend to do better over bigger things!
Still, before I say something, I need to do more homework over high and low fences. We will see how next week goes.

Saturday 3/7
Free-longed. I was very tired from last night. I will set up a short grid tomorrow to ride through.

Sunday 3/8
Set up a simple grid - just 4 trot poles 4'6" apart, then 9' to a low X. I figure I will slowly build up the complexity of our grids, since she seems to get anxious when she encounters them. She was lovely through it. Just a short ride, but it was productive, and we both enjoy rides like that sometimes where we don't spend a long time working on our issues but correct a few things and call it good.
Still doesn't want to land on the left lead unless I exaggerate the cue ridiculously. We will keep playing with this, but hopefully it goes away when the chiro visits!

Week 2 Outline

Monday 3/9
Flatwork schooling. Toss the dressage saddle on, grab the dressage whip, and work hard! We will practice leg-yield, correct shoulder-in (need to make sure Mom can be eyes-on-the-ground and maybe do some filming), and we will reeeeeeeeally practice our transitions.
I also need to regain a bit of the sharpness of my half-halts.

Tuesday 3/10
Jump some single fences. I will set up a low, wide oxer and a single, taller vertical. I'll do regular w/t/c schooling, focusing on getting that left bend without leaning over the left shoulder, and sprinkle jumps in here and there.

Wednesday 3/11
Night off - free longe and lots of love!

Thursday 3/12
Set up a simple grid. 3 trot poles 4'6 apart, 9 feet to a biggish Swedish oxer.

Friday 3/13
Jumping lesson.

Saturday 3/14
Day off.

Sunday 3/15
Light flatwork school.

February Week 4 and Review

2009-03-05T21:04:00.000-08:00

I haven't kept up with this at all lately - but if I don't jump straight back in, I'll never get back on track!

Clinic Overview 2/21
I had a great clinic. She really focused on my position and FINALLY fixed my biggest position flaw: my lower legs were always too far forward. She helped me figure out how to fix that without messing up the rest of my position. It's really painful to maintain right now, but I'm sure that will get easier as I build up the right muscles!
Pandora did really well. She certainly moves out a lot more when I ride like that - I need to make sure not to stifle her "free forward movement," as I tend to want to half-halt more than is necessary and the clinician told me to watch that I don't slow her down too much. Her jumping was nice. Clinician reinforced that I should let Pandora make her own mistakes so she learns from them, especially turning after fences if she is unbalanced to force her to get herself organized. Also watch out for diving on the takeoff side of tight fences - only did it on one fence but still a big flaw.

Monday 2/23
Had a good ride. A really solid workout - for me, more than her! Maintaining the new (correct) leg position is hard. But we'll get there. Now that I know what the Correct Place For My Leg is, I can do stirrupless riding that is actually constructive.
We keep running again and again into issues with left flexion. I am pretty sure that it's not all in my head, or at least I hope not! It seems like she's unwilling to soften her jaw to the inside and relax her neck, so perhaps it's time to have some body work done again. This is a consistent problem I have been running into, and I need to be careful not to get into fights with Pandora about it. I can't just keep insisting that she bend, because she just stiffens more and gets upset.
It seems to help when I bring her back to a halt and ask her to flex a little, then do flexions at the walk (big circle, ask her to really bend on a small circle, then back out to the big circle) but I just can't get her to do it at the trot.
I have also noticed that she tends to favor her right lead over her left, so I'm definitely thinking we've got a body issue here. I will continue to work on asking her to soften so that we hopefully get it worked out through schooling, but I'd still like to have her worked on before the show jumping rally in late March.

Tuesday 2/24
Had a pretty good ride tonight. We kept it short, because another girl was going to have a lesson this evening. I carried the dressage whip because we've been having quite a bit of flexion issues lately, as I mentioned. It definitely improved things, but not all the way.
In any case, we got some very nice relaxed canter work on a large circle. I need to sharpen those transitions though - and make sure I'm asking right, because sometimes I forget to really keep her bent around that inside leg, and she hollows out and bends to the outside and rushes the transition.
I am still working on that damned leg position change. It hurts!

Wednesday 2/25
Don't remember...I think I took the night off.

Thursday 2/26
Free jumping. I set up a chute - a simple crossrail, one stride to a vertical. She was NOT a big fan of it at first, very nervous, but settled down after quite awhile. I think it would help to have my mom there to help me line her up and set up/rearrange the chute, as well.

Our final height on the vertical was 3'3". She looked pretty good :-) Next time I think I will set up a two-stride to an oxer. Maybe I will make it two X's set at bounce distance, then 2 strides to the oxer, but I'm not sure if the bounce will rob her of the momentum she'll need to get to a big fat oxer. We'll see - I'll probably just do the one X to start with. Simple is better!

Friday 2/27
Went to a lesson at Poseidon. Pandora was great! Christy said she could really notice a difference in terms of Pandora's muscling and ability to carry herself. We worked on asking her to really move forward without falling down on her nose, and got some super nice trot work. The canter is coming along splendidly. We did some nice jumping around a course - and once, after cantering to a panel jump around a short corner, Pandora got a wee bit excited and really powered over it. I wanted her to remember that I get to call the shots, so I directed her into a pretty sharp circle right after the fence to remind her that she can't just build up steam and roar forward - she did a lovely flying change into the circle :-) Nice and balanced and clean. Woohoo!
I REALLY learned that I need to wait for the fences. I tend to see (or not see) a distance, get a little nervous, and lean forward or drop the reins too soon. When Christy pointed that out, I made it a point to just sit and let the fence come to me. It worked nicely, and my distances turned out a lot better.

Saturday 2/28
Quiz rally!

Sunday 3/1
Dressage lesson at Poseidon. Pandora did fantastically here, too. She was nice and mellow, and when we did a little quadrille, the 'everyone canter on a circle' movement was great! I love that her canter is balanced enough now that we can ride on a circle without running everyone over.

So, here was the February goal: Be going smoothly through grids, jumping single fences easily at 2'9", and developing a steady canter.

Wellll....not so much. February was a pretty hectic month, as I'm sure you could tell by my lack of progress reports. Part of the problem is that we're working so hard on putting together smooth, steady fences that my instructors don't usually bump up the height. It's a bit of a paradox. I understand she should be going well over small fences before we bump it up, but she really does better over fences that are 2' to 2'3" in height at the absolute minimum. She's totally fine with crossrails, but they don't make her think at all, and she gets lazy and bored I think.

Anyway.

We have not practiced any grid jumping. Shock, horror. I am going to make this a priority next month, as grids will really help her figure things out for herself. As well as push the height.

We have not jumped single fences at 2'9" (exception: schooling show at the VERY beginning of the month). This I'm not too concerned about, because I know she can jump them - but, jumping single fences is very good practice, especially trotting them. It's not hard to set up a single fence that I jump occasionally while schooling flatwork (as long as I'm flatting in my jumping saddle!), so this will be easy to do next month.

We have been developing a steady canter. The more I carry my hands, the less she leans down on me while jumping, and the easier it is for me to keep her from revving up her engine too much as we approach a fence. So, we can consider one goal successful!

March goal: Continue working on our jumping skills, but don't neglect the flatwork. I will go to three jumping lessons at Poseidon, a rally prep lesson which will involve jumping, and finally the Show Jumping rally the last weekend in March (what a perfect way to check my progress!).

I will be focusing on some flatwork aspects as they apply to jumping: smooth balanced turns, rating and adjustability at all three gaits, obedience to the leg.

Since I did not complete my gridwork and single fence goals last month, I will make it a priority to set up a grid at least once a week, and jump single fences at least once a week as well.

By the end of March, I want to be coursing smoothly over 2'6 with a calm, smooth, and balanced w/t/c. We should be able to significantly control our rating at all 3 gaits. I want to set up a 5-stride line and be able to alternate between getting 4, 5, and 6 strides nicely.

I am very interested to see how Pandora does at the Show Jumping rally, which is in Washington. We are entered in the 2' to 2'3 division, which means that I won't have to worry about height at all - just about remembering my course! I am curious to see how she responds to a totally new environment. From my limited travel with her, she's given every indication that she can be nervous in new environments but she doesn't lose her head. Most importantly, she has never offered to stop or even look at a new, scary fence. If she again does not offer to stop or peek at the SJ rally, then I will be very happy!

January Review

2009-02-17T14:04:00.001-08:00

Haven't been keeping up with this - I'll try to go sort out the backlog and remember when I rode.

Here was the January goal: Develop a steady and relaxed w/t/c with some degree of push from behind. Also establish and maintain smooth bend, shoulder-in, and correct leg yields.

First part: success! We have a steady and relaxed w/t/c. We occasionally get glimpses of that coveted hind-end push, but most importantly we are coming up off the forehand.

I haven't spent much time on lateral work, but she does maintain smooth bend. I need a pair of eyes on the ground to check my leg-yield and shoulder-in, so maybe I should check that this month.

February: Jumping month - we're really working on getting ready for the Show Jumping Rally at the end of March. We're halfway through the month and she's doing very well! Schooling at home, she finds her distances very nicely and canters fences easily. She seems to know her leads - but I need to spend more time making sure I prepare her correctly and ask her for them over the fence. We went to a jumping schooling show, and she was fantastic in the 2'3" jumper courses. Cantered the whole thing, did not even think about looking at the fences. Awesome.

Need to set up some grids to work on at home this month.

We are going to a clinic and rating assessment this Saturday which will help with analyzing our jumping strengths and weaknesses.

I can't find where I set exactly where I want to be at the end of February, so I'll update this post with that specific goal when I find it. I think I wanted to be coursing 2'9 smoothly.

This is all for now. Will do my best to get back on track with a regular riding log.

January Week 4 Review and February Plans

2009-01-21T19:31:00.000-08:00

1/19/09
I meant to school today, but it was so nice outside that I wanted to ride out around the roads -- so, we compromised. After convincing Pandora to at least do a little arena work,we hit the trails, if by trails you mean roads (and I do). The arena work was okay. Nothing spectacular, she was feeling really forward and didn't want to slow down much, but we got some nice shoulder-fore done.
She did not want to do shoulder-fore to the right. Need to make sure she's bending okay that direction since it is her stiffer way.
Riding outside was lovely, though it got super cold before long and my hands were totally numb by the end of the hour-long ride. It's a nice big loop, the roads are well-paved but pretty quiet (without many blind curves, which is nice!), and it's a fantastic mental exercise for the horses. Walking past unfamiliar houses, dogs, people, flapping flags, etc was certainly a mental workout for Pandora. She behaved herself well - several in-place spooks (you know, where all of a sudden the saddle drops two inches but nothing else changes). We spent a lot of time riding next to the road where there's nice grassy areas, and got a lot of practice going over ditches that way. She tends to want to leap, I'm sure she'll be great on XC!

1/20/09
Our arena schooling session tonight definitely made up for our lack of one last night. I rode for almost an hour. We practiced lots of shoulder-fore (less stiff to the right tonight, but still a little more resistant to bend this way), and I got some really nice work for her. I'd like to have my mom take some video from directly in front and behind so I can get a visual on what we're doing.
Canter work was a little rough. For whatever reason, I have a super hard time finding a good seat in that dressage saddle - I really need to try a little riser pad in the back, I think it's just a little bit off.
But still, we got some very nice work done. Lots of nice walk/trot transitions. She is really getting good at those.

1/21/09
I almost rode tonight, despite it being a day off...but then I didn't. ;-) They were outside today, so I don't feel too guilty.

January Week 3 Review and Week 4 Outline

2009-01-18T22:03:00.000-08:00

1/12/09
Day off!

1/13/09
I had an okay ride. I've been working hard on getting her to transition down off of my seat and legs more than my hands, since she tends to get anxious and tuck when I get in her face. Still, it wasn't the most productive overall. Towards the end, she wanted to rush and was just getting anxious, and I was a bit distracted. A solid workout but nothing spectacular.

1/14/09
Tonight was fun! There were seven people in the arena. It seems crowded sometimes when there's four! So we had a nice and relaxed ride, just walking, trotting, and cantering around with the other horses. Pandora was nice and mellow, and we got some good canter work in.

1/15/09
Tonight was a really, really good ride. I decided to try switching her back to the metal eggbutt lozenge bit I'd had her in at first. She was definitely quieter in it - going to keep it for awhile. She still slobbers some (which is nice!) and gets a nice "lipstick" foam going on, but she's not drooling all over the place from so much mouthing on the bit.
I just worked on a lot of transitions. She's REALLY understanding downward transitions off my seat and legs now - I just sit up, close my thighs and calves, stop my back, and close my fingers, and she transitions nicely. We're still working on remaining off the forehand when we do this, but it's definitely coming along.
She's also settled quite a bit about her canter transitions. In the lesson on the 7th, she got very anxious about all the canter departs. This time, I made sure to sit up (NOT duck forward), and just quietly ask. She was slow to transition the first several times, wanting to move into a rushing trot before picking it up, but before long she was prompt and compliant with the transitions. She remained calm the whole time.
We definitely have some work to do on our canter-trot transitions! I have to be so careful to keep her going at the canter (if I relax too much she instantly breaks) that when I ask her to transition down, she just THROWS herself forward into the trot and onto the forehand. This will improve with time, but it's definitely a weak spot.

16 - 18, I was at a PC retreat and I learned so much. I got some great ideas for exercises to do with her, too. I'll write a post about it over on my other blog soon.

Okay! The week didn't start off that spectacularly, but I got a really good ride in on Thursday and was very pleased with the progress we've made. The mares have been able to go out several times this week, which makes me utterly pleased and less stressed that she just got three days off. My mom did longe her for me, though.

In any case, this week should be a good one. I'm going to be working hard over the next couple months to prepare for the PC Show Jumping Rally in March. After jumping 2'9 in the clinic last week (!!!), I'm excited to see what the future brings!

Monday 1/19/09
Ride. I'm going to try an exercise we learned at the ABC retreat this weekend to help straighten your horse. You ride (assuming tracking right) shoulder-fore right for 1/4 the arena, shoulder-fore left for 1/4, then repeat. Shoulder-fore is like a pintsize shoulder-in (which is traveling on three tracks, shoulders set to the inside - the three tracks are inside fore, then outside fore/inside hind line up, then outside hind). You just shift the shoulders ever so slightly to the inside, and then the outside, and so on. This helps get control of the shoulders laterally so you can straighten, since most horses travel naturally with their haunches to the inside.

Tuesday 1/20/09
Ride again! Work on my position this time, using another exercise we learned (it is apparently from Sally Swift's Centered Riding, which I plan to get soon). At the trot you sit for 8, post for 8, 2-point for 8, post for 8, sit for 8, etc. When done properly, the horse should not change at all when you change your position. Once you master 8, you go to 4, then 2, then 1! This goes for all 3 gaits; you simply use a half-seat instead of posting for walk and canter.

Wednesday 1/21/09
Day off. Free longe the horses around the arena.

Thursday 1/22/09
Longe and ride. I will set up some cavaletti to longe over, probably just trot poles, and then leave them up while I ride. Spend lots of time switching between 2-point and sitting today, work on transitions.

Friday 1/23/09
Ride. I think I will go to a PC lesson this week. The Pony Club show is next week, so it might be a good idea to get some instruction. Since this will be the first Christy lesson since I discovered at the clinic that the mare can actually jump (and oh goodness she tucked her knees up and rounded her back!), I'm curious to see what she'll have us do. It will be nice to find out how well Pandora goes around a course, you know? She seems to know her leads well - I have not been asking her for them over fences, but then again I've only just started going over things that aren't X-rails. I don't feel she's balanced enough for flying changes, but simple changes should be fine.

Saturday 1/24/09
Light ride. Chew over what I learned at the lesson, stretch out the muscles we worked yesterday, switch ourselves from H/J to a dressage frame of mind (which means transitions, transitions, transitions, and probably more shoulder-fore work).

Sunday 1/25/09
Dressage lesson with Melinda. The lesson with her was I think the first lesson I took Pandora to. It was before we'd made some good progress, so I'm eager to find out what she thinks of the changes we've made. I am sure she will have plenty more for us to work on! I feel that I'm a lot more focused now - I've really established my goals and am consciously finding exercises to help me get to them. I've got a much clearer picture in my head of what I want and what I'm doing to get there.

January Week 2 Review and Week 3 Outline

2009-01-05T20:06:00.000-08:00

1/5/09
The arena was in use so I longed her on the line instead of letting her run loose. She was good - the dragon peeked its head out a few times when she wanted to dig in and run, but she certainly didn't go bonkers. Had her hop over some cavaletti a few times. Smooth and easy, though I did have to convince her that yes, she really did have to go over them (they weren't exactly set up for longeing so it took some careful aiming).
I want winter to be over so my ponies can get some turnout!!

1/6/09
Had a decent ride tonight. One of those sessions where I can tell we're still doing constructive work, and we're slowly but surely working towards our goal...there were just no 'lightbulb' moments. Still, it was a solid ride, and we're making progress.

1/7/09
Lesson night. Pandora did pretty well. Lots of transitions to help keep her up off the forehand. When she had us do a lot of trot-canter transitions in a row, Pandora got really anxious - it was too much for her to handle at that time, and was making her more upset than it was worth. After I called a stop to that and we did some quiet work, she came back to me mentally. However, I really see the value of transition work in keeping her moving forward from her hind end, so I'll experiment with this.
We then spent awhile over trot poles, low X-rails, and a cavaletto. Pandora was fine, wanted to rush through the trot poles a little. Picks up her leads beautifully over the cavaletto, no matter which way we come in or turn out. When I wait for her and keep my shoulders up and back, she's great.

1/8/09
Chiro visit. Last time she was lots of 3s and 4s all over - most of that was gone this time, yay! A 3 in her right pelvis - there'd been some rotation but it released pretty quickly. 2's everywhere else - a little shift in the jaw, a little compensation in her neck, hip, and poll. Her only major issue (and it was pretty major - a 4 on his scale) was in her right shoulder. Something was locked up really deep in there, and it took him ages to get her to work it out. He speculated that since it was so deep and hard to release, it was probably a long-term issue that was present at the first visit, just masked by all the other issues.
In any case, she'd held her adjustment very well. The pelvis, shoulder, and slight shift in the jaw were the only returning issues - everything else was minor compensation for those. He was impressed with her condition and noted that her topline looks way better than last time he saw her.

1/9/09
Night off. I'd planned to ride, but I knew I'd ride hard in the clinic on Saturday, so I just let them run in the arena.

1/10/09
AWESOME CLINIC. Full report here.

1/11/09
Day off again - let them run in the arena. Getting tired of no turnout, but you get what you get in the Willamette Valley. Sigh.

This next week it's time for me to apply what I've learned. I've taken so many lessons in the past couple weeks that I'm looking forward to doing some work on my own.

Monday 1/12/09
Day off - I switched to feeding Monday nights.

Tuesday 1/13/09
Ride. Flatwork - work on my position and walk/trot transitions.

Wednesday 1/14/09
Ride. Same as Tuesday - position, transitions, spend some time cantering.

Thursday 1/15/09
Ride. Do some Thursday Torture - spend time in two point, stirrupless riding, and so on.

Friday through Sunday I will be at a Pony Club retreat in Corvallis. They're going over advanced horse management topics for upper-level PCers plus older members. I'm really looking forward to it, but there will be no riding over this time.

January Week 1 Review and Week 2 Outline

2009-01-01T23:07:00.000-08:00

12/31/08(!)
Rode for 30 minutes. Focused on what I learned in the dressage lesson - keep the outside rein firm, sit up, keep the forward but lose the on-the-forehand. In all it went very well, got some really nice trot work and the canter is getting better. Some clumsy steps behind, but she's due for a farrier appointment tomorrow so that may be part of it. 30 minutes riding time total, each of us broke a nice sweat. Good ride.

1/1/09(!!!)
If everything in 2009 goes the way this ride did, things will be swell! We clicked really well tonight. I think she knows more than I've assumed (the whole time I've treated her as a mostly green horse), and now that I'm asking her for it, she's delivering. Much less leaning-on-the-forehand tonight, and here and there we got some steps where she was really pushing from behind. She gave me one beautiful canter depart, which is a Pretty Big Deal since previously her canter departs have been pretty rough. A much smoother canter today too, easier to ride, probably cause she's not pounding around on her forehand as badly. Again 30 minutes, nice light sweat, just a good solid ride. She felt really "together" tonight - we were just in sync. Moved off my legs nicely too. I'm excited for the lesson tomorrow!

1/2/09
Good lesson! We had an unmounted session beforehand focusing on conformation and how it affects movement. Quite enlightening, especially since we did some switch riding to find out how other horses moved and if our conformational predictions were correct. Interesting note - horses with training or condition issues didn't always move true to their conformation, i.e., Pandora tends to travel very heavily on her forehand even though her conformation doesn't necessarily predispose her to it, because she wants to snatch at the bit. The horses who have been consistently trained under the same rider and are in good condition tend to move exactly like their conformation suggests - interesting.
Pandora did quite well. A little anxious during the switch ride, but she still behaved, and gave her some nice lateral work. Take-home message: since she knows leg-yield and shoulder-in very well, use them to help her stay off the forehand. Need to half-halt with the seat more and the hands less to help her balance and stay. off. the. forehand.
Hopped around a small course of X's twice. She's calm and steady, locks on to the fences and doesn't hesitate. She'll be very fun to jump. I'm trying to get used to the feel of her still, and it was hard to keep her off her forehand, so there was some diving involved on the back side of the jump. Prescription: canter cavaletti/bounces and fences with landing poles.
Overall a great lesson, I was pleased with her and came home with some new ideas.

1/3/09
Lesson again, flat. I'll give you one guess as to what we worked on....staying off the forehand! We really got into it and I have a much better understanding of what to do now. She had me slow down Pandora's trot - get Pandora balanced and carrying herself first, then add some leg. A few times I was able to get some strides of light, springy trot after adding leg to a balanced trot, so I know we're getting there.
Stop worrying about contact/on the bit - don't let her tuck behind the vertical or dive down, but other than that, focus on self-carriage. LOTS of half-halts with the seat to ask her to not lean on the bit, then relax and allow her to push forward once we're there. Sort of like riding a teeter totter: slow with the half-halt till we're balanced, then move forward, then rebalance, then add leg...
She wanted to ignore my half halts and hands toward the end of the lesson, but it was an hour-long lesson and she'd been ridden four days in a row, so I think she was ready for a mental break! We made some good progress though, and I know what to work on. Ellen says that if we work on those half-halts and balance for a week or so, we should get to where we can add some leg and keep the balance in a bigger trot.

1/4/09
Finally, a break for the ponies. They got to go out in the round pen for about an hour while we mucked. Sadly, this is the extent of turnout lately - don't get me started. I hate winter. I love that she can behave while cooped up in a stall all the time, yes...but now that she's proven it, can we have turnout? Just a little?
Unfortunately the fields would be utter chaos if that were to happen while it's this wet. We just have to survive a couple more months, then they'll get to start going out again.
She'll get tomorrow off too, just some light longeing - Mondays are a long school day for me, and classes start again tomorrow. Woe.

This week will be much of the same: work on staying off the forehand, get a couple lessons, keep on truckin'.

Monday 1/5/09
Day off again. Free longe the ponies, let them spend as much time loose in the arena as possible.

Tuesday 1/6/09
Ride. Work on half-halts with the seat, staying in balance, neither tucking nor diving. Figure-8s are helpful!

Wednesday 1/7/09
Robin comes to give a group lesson at the barn. Not sure what she'll have us work on - probably lots of flatwork with a little jumping. I'll let her know what we're working on and hopefully we can just get some guided insight to more of the same.

Thursday 1/8/09
Longe and ride. I'll probably do some longeing over canter ground poles to help her with rocking back and forth, as was suggested to me in the Friday lesson. Then I'll ride doing much of the same: off the forehand, relax, off the forehand, balance, add leg, don't dive, don't tuck behind the vertical, balance....

Friday 1/9/09
Light flat ride, since I have a clinic the next day. Same thing.

Saturday 1/10/09
Clinic. It's an all-day affair: flatwork, a long lunch break, and then over fences work. I'm a little concerned about over-facing her, since she's not *super* fit, but I think if I let the clinician know what we're working on, she won't push harder than is fair.

Sunday 1/11/09
Day off. Free longe/turnout as much as possible, maybe some clicker work if I'm feeling creative.

This week will be a true test of my riding schedule. Can I keep up with this and school at the same time? We'll see!

January: Outline, and Week 1

2008-12-30T13:21:00.000-08:00

Did a little more clicker work last night. The light bulb's flickering, but it's not on yet. I think I will go back to target work with her in her stall, which is open across most of the top half. That way she can reach over easily to target and receive treats, but she can't get distracted or crowd me. When I tried it the other day it seemed to work very well to keep her focused. Lack of light bulb aside, she's still intrigued by the concept.

Here's my outline for January: as I mentioned, this is Dressage month.

January goal: Develop a steady and relaxed w/t/c with some degree of push from behind. Also establish and maintain smooth bend, shoulder-in, and correct leg yields.

I've mapped out the month and designated riding days and so on, to hopefully keep me on track (I am awful about actually getting my butt in the saddle in the winter). So here's Week 1:

Today 12/30
Free longe. I've a friend coming over, so not much time for riding.

Wednesday 12/31
Ride. Keep her off the forehand by keeping my upper body back and legs beneath me, and be firm with the outside rein. Don't rely too much on inside rein. INSIDE LEG TO OUTSIDE REIN. INSIDE LEG TO OUTSIDE REIN. Alternate between carrying and stretching, do plenty of circles.

Thursday 1/1
Clicker work (10 - 15 mins of target work in stall), then ride. Much of the same: stay off the forehand. Lots of circles and serpentines.

Friday 1/2
PC lesson. She'll focus mostly on flatwork with some light jumping at the end, which is perfect. AVOID THE CHAIR SEAT. Keep shoulders up and back.

Saturday 1/3
Ellen lesson! This will be flatwork at our own barn. Get more evaluation and assessment to figure out what to work on, though it will probably be much of the same: relax, stay off the forehand.

Sunday 1/4
Either a light, short ride or just a longeing session. Probably the latter, since I'll have to be preparing for school to start the next day - boo.

So there we have it! I'll check in with a lesson report later, then report back at the end of the week for a review and an outline of Week 2.

2009 Goals

2008-12-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

Time to plan some things out for 2009. I do things best by working backwards -- deciding where I want to be at the end of my time with Pandora and then figuring out what I need to do to get there. So I just mapped out a basic calendar for 2009 with a couple key eventing stops along the way, though it'll get filled in more as I find out when shows and things are.

January
Dressage to the max! January will be the month of flatwork, flatwork, flatwork. Time to get the girl up off her forehand and really working from behind.

This will be a month of working intensively on things at home. I'll haul out for a couple lessons, but the focus will be on making lots of progress in our own arena. I also plan to spend a lot of time exploring clicker work and seeing how I can use it to resolve issues we come up against.

However, the main focus will always be dressage this month.

There's a Pony Club show on the 31st that we will attend.

February
The month to ramp up our jumping skills. I have several books that are full of grids, patterns, and exercises, so it's time to start using them. We'll do some free-jumping, do lots of gridwork, and practice smooth courses.

I plan to take her to one or two PC jumping lessons. I would like to haul her somewhere to practice some jumping schooling on my own, but there are several PC clinics this month, so that may not be feasible.

There is also another PC dressage lesson which we'll go to, just to make sure our flatwork is still up to par.

March
A return to flatwork! There's a PC dressage lesson on the 1st and another PC show midmonth, which will be a good place to check progress. This month I will be focusing on flatwork as it specifically applies to jumping: smooth balanced turns, rating at all three gaits, obedience to the leg. In general, I want to spend this month truly sharpening her response to the aids -- clicker work may come in very handy here.

There's also a Showjumping Rally late in the month - definitely a possibility, but we'll see how things are going.

April
Time to start thinking about XC, as soon as the weather turns and courses are open for schooling. This will be the month for putting miles on Pandora: lots and lots of riding down quiet roads in the area, trailering to places for real trail rides, and just getting out of the arena.

Since May is when things start heating up, we might relax a little more this month, too. This would be a good time to really shore up weak areas in Pandora's training and behavior if she has any, especially with clicker work. April would be a good month for playing with obstacle courses and similar things, as well.

May
I plan to ride in a Combined Test at Inavale. Things should be going smoothly by this point. This month will probably have an emphasis on lessons -- I'll take advantage of the weekly PC jumping lessons offered. Can't forget the flatwork, of course.

It's a bit hard to know exactly what I'll do this month since it's so far out! Since June is such a big month, we'll probably just work on whatever it is that needs an extra boost.

June
June is competition month! Inavale will have Eventing Derbies on the 6th and 7th, though I may not make it to them because this is right around the end of school and I remember being very busy around this time last year.

However, Inavale's annual Horse Trials is the 26th through the 28th. This is my major focus point for the year. It's most likely that we'll run Beginner Novice, but if we blaze through the year and I manage to put a ton of riding time in, it's possible that we could go Novice.

According to my Pony Club's website, there's an Eventing camp from the 17th through the 20th. Dunno anything about it, but if it's local and not too expensive, that would be an excellent way to prepare for the Recognized HT.

So basically, June will be focused around these things!

July
It's likely that sometime in June it will be time to start preparing to sell Pandora. Therefore, I'm pretty unsure what July will hold. Taking her to a show or two, if I can find them. Advertising, advertising, advertising. It really all depends on how the rest of the year goes.

August
Ideally, Pandora will be happy and competing in a new home by this time!

The later it gets in this calendar, the less sure I am of things, of course. These are more like guidelines -- and they're pretty ambitious guidelines -- but it gives me something to work off of.

To finish, here's a few non-time-specific goals for the year:

Get Pandora accustomed to many different riders, so that after a brief adjustment period she is comfortable under a strange rider. This should be pretty easy to accomplish in Pony Club, since catch riding is an important part of things anyway.
Use clicker work to establish a wicked solid "come" command. I mean, really. Who doesn't want a horse that gallops up and stops politely in front of you from a whistle??
Develop an "old hat" personality about shows -- I think that without too much work, Pandora can easily become a "been there, done that" relaxed type of horse.

So there we have it. Let's see how things turn out.

Dressage Lesson 12/28

2008-12-28T14:09:00.000-08:00

Took Pandora to a PC dressage lesson today. She was anxious at first but settled down pretty well, no major spooks or anything. The lesson gave me some very solid ideas of areas to work on with her -- so far I've just been kind of puttering around, trying to figure her out and help her figure me out.

The trainer wants me to work on getting her off her forehand. Since she tucked behind the vertical so much when I first got her, I'd been encouraging leaning forward into my hands. Which helped get rid of her anxious tucking....but led to leaning and running on the forehand!

So we worked a lot on bringing my upper body back so I don't add my weight to her forehand. I also need to stop letting her take the reins and lean on them; she told me to really be steady and solid with my outside rein to keep her from leaning on the forehand, then ask her to bend with my inside rein but then relax so she doesn't curl her nose, all while using my inside leg to support.

It certainly made her anxious and a little frustrated -- she's a bit of a perfectionist and tends to get nervous when she's not sure what we're doing -- but we made some progress and I could feel her starting to understand what I was asking.

I liked that the trainer had plenty of balance between asking for her to come up off her forehand and allowing her to stretch in a free walk or trot. As she pointed out, it's the "carry, relax, carry, relax" that will help Pandora to become supple and strong.

I felt like it was a very constructive lesson.

Pandora's been having a little loose stool lately - not every pile is loose, but some are. I think it's because she accidentally got some alfalfa yesterday, so I'll keep an eye on her, but she seems to be feeling fine.

Haven't had a chance to play with the clicker again yet. I'm going to go make a new and improved target now (we have a dog ball-throwing stick that got pretty beat up, so I'm going to duct tape a dead tennis ball to the end) and do another 20-minute session with her tomorrow. She responded so well the first time that I think we'll be able to take this pretty far.

Plans

2008-12-26T14:19:00.000-08:00

Started doing some clicker work today -- I've been meaning to do it forever.

I'm interested to see how this goes, because I feel like she's the perfect horse to do this work with. Very intelligent, eager to please, but sometimes gets a bit anxious about doing the right thing. I really feel that the positive reinforcement and mental engagement will work well with her.

I started with targeting, as is pretty typical for doing this with horses. Worked for maybe 20 minutes total, split up into 3 or 4 sessions. For lack of a more convenient object I used an orange traffic cone, but I've got plans for a less unwieldy target next time.

By the end of the whole session she knew exactly what she was doing and would stretch high or low to touch the cone for her reward. I left her hungry for more! Next time we'll spend more time targeting and start increasing the time she must touch it before getting a click/treat.

No pictures with the cone, unfortunately, but I'll get some tomorrow.

I'm going to take this as far as she tells me she wants to go. She really enjoyed it today (she got loads of treats for touching a big orange cone, who wouldn't enjoy it?!) and I think clicker work will provide a fun break from schooling under saddle.

Brief outline of the main areas I want to address with the clicker as we go along.

The first one is to help her develop a solid understanding of what it is that we're doing by picking easy and relaxed behaviors to reinforce.
Understanding/Relaxation

Targeting
Relaxing while hooves are handled (she's still a little tense about the hind legs)
Head Down
Carrot stretches

Then we'll move to ground manners. After doing in-hand obstacle relay with McKinna, I will never underestimate the value of a supremely obedient horse. Pandora leads well, but I want to really fine-tune her ground work.
Ground Work

Leading on the off side (she leads, but not confidently)
Turn on the forehand (already does pretty well)
Turn on the haunches (knows, but not well)
Sidepass
Backing (she is slow and slightly resistant to backing up)

Then we'll move to playing with spooky things just for the fun of it.
Spooky Things

Tarps
Plastic bags, plus cans inside later
Balloons
Costume (I have my Batman horse/rider costume still!)
Ropes/restraint (staying calm about ropes around legs, etc)

Then, if we get through all of that and it's still going well, I'd like to add in clicker work under saddle, probably beginning with sharpening transitions and gait quality.

These are more like ideas I've set down for myself -- just areas of interest to explore with her. To me, clicker training is just another tool to have in the toolbox, and I want to try it on Pandora.

I'm taking Pandora to a Pony Club dressage lesson on Sunday, which should be fun. It's at the same place as the very first schooling show we went to, so I'm not worried about spookiness at all. She's much more fit these days, thanks partly to frequent free-longing in the arena (not much turnout lately, sigh) so we should be able to get a lot out of the lesson.

Update 12/16

2008-12-16T14:14:00.000-08:00

I know, I know - it's been ages. College does that to a girl.

Talked about the chiro work over on my main blog.

It really worked wonders for her. She's smoother, more relaxed, doesn't clamp her tail whenever you touch her hind end. Her canter has improved massively as well. It's actually about time to have him out again, I'm starting to see a little stiffness in her hind end again -- she's just not reaching under herself as far as she has been. Doesn't concern me much, as she still had so many issues last time that I figured it would take another session or two until she's 100% on track.

Her weight is excellent. She's getting six [big] flakes of hay per day (I really need to weigh one to get an idea of how much they weigh), Ultium, vitamins, and a little beet pulp. She's shiny, soft, and happy.

Awhile back I bought a 5" D-ring Happy Mouth Mullen Mouth bit. (Say that five times fast.) She really seems to prefer it over the double-jointed french link I used earlier. Her head fussing has faded a lot with me, to where she gives me a lovely contact most of the time. She fusses when she gets nervous, but it's far less pronounced, and to be fair I've only ridden her maybe ten or twelve times in the past couple months. When my mom got on her the other day, the mouthing was more pronounced, which tells me that I need to get more riders on her so she's comfortable with more than just me.

Weather permitting, I should be taking a lesson on her tomorrow evening. I feel like she's fit enough that a lesson won't be asking too much, and I feel like she's ready to try a little low-level jumping just so we can see what we have to work with.

In short, all is going well. Weight is excellent, temperament is mind-bogglingly good considering she's been stuck inside for more than a week, under-saddle work is improving. Hooves are great, stiffness fades as I work her more consistently but I think I'll aim for a chiro visit sometime next month. She's been a pleasure to work with, and I'm really impressed that she's stayed so calm while being cooped up. You can tell she wants so badly to get out and run (and she does, when we let them loose in the arena) but she is never pushy. Definite plus.

I'm going to try some clicker work with her tonight, probably on backing up since she dislikes backing. I'm curious to see her reaction when she catches on.

Updates 10/26

2008-10-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

Here's an update copied from my main blog:

"Pandora is still doing very well. Her weight-gain has kind of stalled a bit -- grr -- but I think it's because the barn owner ran out of orchard grass and switched to (not the nicest) grass hay. It's a constant battle - that horse could probably put down 3x as much hay as she's getting, and she's getting like 8 flakes a day. I realize the barn owner can't afford to feed her as much as she can eat, which would probably amount to a bale of hay per day. So we added some beet pulp to get some more fiber into her.

At this point I'm considering just buying some of our own hay. Unfortunately that would add up really fast. But if I have to do it, I have to do it. What would be nice is if we could arrange for her and McKinna to be in a paddock (there's a big one out front that's got jumps in it now) with round bales that we pay for, but unfortunately McKinna would probably become a big fatty on that much hay. Not to mention that I think most of the paddocked horses come in during the winter anyway.

Sigh.

I know we can put more weight on by adding more concentrates like grain, or adding alfalfa or oil. But it's very very hard for me to do that when I know that she needs more hay and would put more weight on if she had as much as she could eat.

I should figure out if it would be more cost-effective to feed her lots of beet pulp, or to just buy hay. Is beet pulp comparable to hay in terms of fiber benefits? I know a lot of people feed it as main fiber source to older horses without much in the way of teeth. I could go to hay cubes, but I imagine that would be more expensive than hay itself.

Argh. Okay, maybe I will just talk to the barn owner. I know she will suggest adding more beet pulp, but Pandora finishes her hay within a couple hours of feeding time, and that's just not good enough for me. When she was getting 3 flakes of orchard grass, they were BIG flakes and they took her a long time to work through. Plus it was super nice green stuff."

That's basically all I've been up to with her. I haven't been riding much because I want the chiropractor to come out first -- he's going to be out on Tuesday, so it's not that much longer to wait. In the interim we've been round-penning her quite a lot, which has been very good for her. This way we can do a lot of canter work, which she needs. As she warms up she really moves out nicely, and it seems like she can canter forever without getting sweaty. Typical TB blood, I suppose.

After she's adjusted, I'm going to start riding her fairly intensively -- we need to get a lot of training and schooling done over the winter so we can hit spring and summer shows with a bang. Once she's built up a little more fitness I'll start taking her to the Friday lessons for Pony Club. She's just not fit enough for a 2-hour lesson right now, but once she's adjusted I will feel comfortable asking her to work harder and longer to improve her fitness.

She's still as polite and sweet-natured as ever. Pokes her head out her stall window whenever you walk by, always happy to come out of her stall or out of the pasture or wherever you want to go. I've noticed that she doesn't take a sore step on gravel at all anymore, so her trim seems to be holding up super well. She's still a little tender riding over gravel but judging by her improvement in walking over it, I think that may go away with time.

Overall things are going well, if a little slowly. But we have all winter to work hard, so another few days won't hurt anything.

Schooling Show II

2008-10-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

Pandora did awesome today. Two trot-a-pole hunter classes. 6th in the first class, 1st in the second. First class was nervous, champing at the bit, reverting a bit to the head-tucking behavior (to be expected since pretty much all horses have a 'fallback behavior' that they go to when they're stressed out), rushing, pushing against my leg. Second class was way better - steady, smooth, calm. I was quite pleased!

Overall she behaved herself very well. Once her turn was done and I was riding McKinna, Pandora just stood quietly at the trailer and chowed through her flakes of hay, then proceeded to eat almost all of McKinna's too! She was quite calm.

She has put on a lot of weight and is looking SO much better. She's all shiny and wonderful, you can hardly see a shadow of her ribs, and her topline/hip area has way filled out. I will do a picture-only post of her soon, I have a bunch of pictures saved that I need to upload.

Whew!

2008-10-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

I know, it's been quite awhile since an update. It's been pretty hard to muster up the energy to do homework after a full day of school and barn, let alone post!

All is well in Pandora-land. The head-fussing nonsense is almost completely gone at all three gaits, which pleases me very much.

She had a vet checkup yesterday --- kind of the vet-check-we-didn't-get-before-we-bought-her. I'm happy to say that she passed with flying colors!

All vitals normal (HR 28 RR 10 GI normal). "Excellent feet. No abnormalities of limbs noted." (Except a small old splint on her left hind, which she said could be years old and neither bothers her nor will bother her). "Moves stiff on RH in round pen - not lame, just stiff." She also said that she thinks the stiffness would probably go away with more fitness across her back and butt muscles, especially since the stiffness goes almost all the way away after warming up.

Negative flexions (woohoo!). Very good thing.

Has had recent, good quality dentistry.

She recommended some chiropractic work (which I was already going to do) and highly approved of the guy I'm going to call. Going along Pandora with her fingers, she showed me how she's got a lot of pain up in her neck/head area -- hardly surprising considering her history -- especially right behind her poll and in her upper neck. She has one spot on her back that's a little sore. Oh, and she pointed out to me how Pandora's jaw seems slightly out of alignment: her teeth, instead of meeting up straight, are a little off sideways (top jaw closes slightly to the right of straight-on). In addition, the muscle on her right forehead is slightly bigger than on her left. She said this also indicates a misalignment that could be fixed with chiropractic work.

I noted her hind-end tenseness to the vet. She just tends to travel like she's got her butt tucked, and she's always got her tail clamped. The vet said that it could simply be the way she travels but that too would probably resolve with chiropractic work.

Eyes were fine, feet great, everything good, and Pandora was wonderfully polite all throughout the process (even through mouth inspection and tongue-grabbing!). She got a booster for her spring shots and was good to go!

Oh, and the vet also endorsed the farrier we were thinking about calling (we're out of our old farrier's range now, sad face) and said he does very nicely with feet.

So everything is all set! I'm going to make the chiro appointment today, call the farrier this evening, and all should be well. After the chiropractic work, I will feel just fine about really asking Pandora to ramp up the workload - I have issues with asking horses to work hard when I KNOW that they're in pain, you know? I know she'll do it, and it's not like I'll stop working her, but I have a hard time convincing myself to truly work on her fitness when the whole thing would be a lot more pleasant for her after an adjustment. Not to mention that if she's compensating for something, she might not build fitness correctly.

That's all for this update!

First Jumps

2008-10-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

Took Pandora over a couple fences last night. Nothing big -- very low-key, just hopped on her at the end of my schooling session with McKinna since we were out in the front paddock with fences.

To be honest, hopping over three fences in a relatively small paddock with small rocks here and there in the footing is not the most accurate way to assess a horse's jumping ability!

She was fine, though. Hopped over the first time, kinda dodged out the second but it was my fault for dumping the reins. She jumps smoothly. Really rounds her back as she goes over. Her canter WILL be smooth once she is more fit, but I can definitely tell that she needs some canter fitness.

Pandora has settled in nicely to her day-turnout, night-stall situation. I think she enjoys having her food all to herself in her stall! I am hoping to see some noticeable weight gain by the end of the week.

Not much else to report. Going to do a schooling ride tonight.

Updates 10/7

2008-10-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

Everything is going super well!

Starting last night, Pandora is staying in overnight and going back out to pasture in the morning. She is also getting an extra flake of orchard grass AM and PM, bumping up the total to 6 (big) flakes per day. Will add another 2 if necessary. Since she's getting grain in two feedings now instead of one, she's also getting 6 scoops/day instead of 4. REALLY need to weigh out the grain to figure out exact poundage.

All of that combined should help her gain some weight.

Took her to the dressage schooling show on Sunday as detailed over on my regular blog. She was fantastic! Totally relaxed, very easygoing, moseyed through our Intro A test for a respectable 62.5%, blue ribbon, hi-point Intro level, hi-point Junior. Not bad :)

Her and McK got along great at the show. A few nasty faces made here and there when they were sharing each other's hay bags (don't ask me why the OTHER hay bag always tastes better) but no true badness.

She is looking a little off to me - Mom thinks it is footsoreness. I can't tell if it's her hooves or maybe a stiffness in the shoulders. Either way it's pretty minor and you probably wouldn't notice it if you didn't think about the fact that she should move out more willingly and freely. Have a call in to a new farrier (since we are now outside of our old one's range), so perhaps we will go to shoes next trim. Argh. Also going to call a chiro soon and set up an appt to make sure all is still going well with her physically, so between those two we should have it covered.

I figured out the behind the vertical thing!

Since it's a lengthy topic I think I will write about it on my main blog -- will link to it once it's posted. To summarize, I was reading and thinking about being quiet and responding to the slightest try when riding. I was extra steady and quiet with my hands, looked up instead of at her head, and rewarded the slightest try (e.g. forward response when I squeeze) by cessation of the aids. The head-fussing was gone and remained gone. She's still prone to tucking, of course, and it will take lots of work before it's gone completely, but we have reached a new stage of communication.

10/3

2008-10-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

Eurgh, frustrating ride tonight. Due to a lot of factors, I suppose.

Weather was cold and rainy, so all the horses were very on edge, even McKinna who is usually pretty mellow. I longed Pandora a little just to settle her down, so after some trotting and cantering she chilled out a little. Tacked her up and rode.

Nothing horrible, just more bit-mouthing and chin-tucking nonsense. Just needs patient, forward riding with steady hands, that's all. But it does get frustrating when I constantly see that little arch in the top of her neck where she's tucking her jaw and dropping her poll below the whatever vertebrae they are.

Sigh. Time and patience, time and patience.

On the plus side, her bending is nice and I got some nice cantering. We'll work through the BTV silliness eventually, I know. She just needs to learn what I want.

She's going to start staying in overnight starting Monday. Her hay will increase 2 flakes/day so that she gets 3 flakes (and they are big flakes) AM and PM, and her grain will get split up into two feedings. Hopefully this will kickstart some weight gain, otherwise it's increased grain and/or added fat to the diet. We will see!

10/1

2008-10-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

Rode Pandora last night. I can feel my ankle getting stronger but I still can't handle much flexion in it -- thus I ride with really long stirrups, which certainly isn't doing any wonders for my leg position. Nevertheless, I can actually feel my right calf muscle when I poke it and I can ride somewhat effectively.

Pandora was quite good. It was our first real schooling ride, lasted about 20 minutes. Her walk is coming along very nicely, she's taking up a light contact without overbending, her poll is at the highest point, etc. She's willing to move off the leg in leg yields but sometimes resists on turns and circles if I'm not paying attention.

At the trot is where we get most of the behind-the-vertical nonsense. I'm very patient with her, because it's incredibly clear that this is what she thinks I want. Therefore, I just keep her moving forward, bend through serpentines and circles, and ride her steadily. I don't think fussing with my hands is going to do much good, so other than pushing my hands forward when she really tucks back, I'm not fiddling with the reins much.

I rode her canter for the first time. She is definitely more fit than when we went to look at her -- that day, she took a lot of convincing (at a very quick trot) to pick up a canter, and it was hard for her to hold it. Last night, she picked up each lead the instant I asked, and didn't seem to have any issues holding the gait. She's got a really nice forward canter, very smooth, which will be nice for jumping. Definitely a sense of power. Will obviously need to work on getting her together, because she's quite strung out, especially to the left. Stiffer to the right as could be expected.

Nonetheless it's great raw material from which to work. She will have a beautiful canter in no time. I love it when they make my job easy!

Will continue with the light schooling rides for awhile as I build up my strength and position. Also need to continue longeing her over cavaletti and possibly start some free jumping.

She's still looking skinnier than I'd like. Nothing too bad, but still needs some more over her ribs and topline. The mares in the pasture are on orchardgrass hay as of last night, so that may help. Don't want to increase her grain until she's in for the night and gets 2 feedings. We're pondering what to do. We could buy a bale of alfalfa and feed her some when she's in for her grain, or add a little oil to the Ultium. I have a feeling that by the end of the month they'll be staying in overnight, and then it won't be such an issue.

She's getting the night off tonight, or I may longe her over cavaletti if we have time.

Schooling show on Sunday (not Saturday, my bad!) so I'm excited for that. I have a feeling she will be pretty looky and possibly do a really good giraffe imitation, but other than that I think she will probably put in a pretty good ride for me. The only way to know is to find out, I suppose!

Updates

2008-09-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

Some updates -- I've been busy lately, starting college and whatnot of course.

Went on a trail ride Saturday. Our friend took us on a longer ride than I'd like; it was about an hour and a half, but there were some pretty big hills and Pandora's just not in that kind of shape. She was completely willing, though, and never seemed tired or sore. A little touchy riding over gravel. She was perfectly comfortable with hills, trotting up and walking down. Fine with pretty rough terrain. Fine on the road. A little freaked out by a nearby donkey when he came running up to the fenceline braying! There was no naughty behavior though, just a very tense horse with body language screaming Get Me Out Of Here. I just asked her to walk away onto the road and she did so -- she seems to get more nervous when forced to stand still, but when provided with an outlet (walking forward) she relaxes instantly. Good pony.

She wasn't sore or anything the next day, so no harm done I suppose. Still cheerful as ever to come in and get her Ultium.

Farrier came out today and gave her a much-needed trim. I'll take pictures tomorrow. She was a dream for him, stood very nicely still, patient on the hoof stand, very polite (except for drooling a little on his back when he trimmed her fronts!). Walked off sound and straight, and appears to have more of a heel-first landing now that she's been trimmed. Her feet look good.

Her mane is being unruly again, drat it. I'll need to do more pulling on the floppiest section and then I may have to braid that piece down again. Ah well.

Haven't ridden her since Saturday. Will probably ride tomorrow.

I like working with this horse. She's always looking for the right answer. I think as we progress further in my riding with her, the experience will offer a very interesting dialogue between us. Her personality truly invites thoughtful, subtle interaction.

Our vet is coming out on the 15th to give her a general checkup and float her teeth if necessary. She dribbles some grain when she eats, but I'm not sure if she needs floating or is just a little sloppy. Previous owner said she was floated recently, so we'll see.

Off to do the calculus homework.

Longeing Over Cavaletti

2008-09-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

9/19
Didn't have much time tonight (went straight from work to barn then home to change and go to a high school football game. I wanted to see the band play, and it was very cool, although rather strange to be in the stands instead of on the field or the podium!). Longed her over one low cavaletto.

I liked the way she focused on it as soon as she came into the arena. Warmed up without it, then did some walk and trot over it. Don't know if she's ever been asked to do cavaletti before? She seems to want to jump it, especially at the trot. On the plus side, when she did jump it from the trot, she looked very elegant and graceful, can't wait until we start jumping her.

After a few passes she figured it out, walked and trotted over it just fine. Didn't canter her over it because Mom rode her too. She's doing wonderfully at the walk, but the tucking-behind-vertical/leaning on the bit is still there at the trot. Seems to respond well to pushing her forward into a steady outside rein, lots of loops/serpentines/circles to keep her body moving, and simply ignoring the head-fussing and steadily resisting the pulling when there is some.

Ugh, can't wait until I can get on and do some serious schooling at the trot!

9/20
Spent some time with a little groundwork, working with feet, and a little massage. She seemed to enjoy it. Considering doing a little clicker work with her back feet. Practiced pulling her forelegs out forward and holding them, like a hoof stand would -- she was totally fine with it. She should be fine for that part of her trim, then, which is nice.

Then brought her in to longe over a cavaletto again. Walk and trot was much better over it, so after a bit I cantered her over it both directions. Beautiful, she was really just lovely. Nailed the distance every single time -- she is going to be a dream to canter fences. She just looked elegant, it was really nice.

I like this horse :)

9/17

2008-09-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

All has been going well in Pandora-land. We tried the flat, no-copper-lozenge french link and she didn't seem to prefer it any more or less than the copper lozenge one, so we just left it on the bridle.

Longeing has improved exponentially. She understands that I am asking for deceleration (or negative acceleration, ugh physics) when I send a ripple through the line. She can halt, facing either direction, without turning in, or walking for two full circles first! It's wonderful. Still a little touch-and-go with the halting, sometimes she gets it better than others, but she improves every time. It's becoming much easier to have her hold the canter, as well. Also I can adjust her trot speed with my body language: very cool. By moving her out and then backing her off, it's helping her adjustability, and I notice a definite difference in stride length and smoothness after I bring her forward and back a few times.

Since longeing is going so well, I think it will be time to start introducing cavaletti on the longe. Will probably do that tomorrow.

I think she's gaining weight. It's hard to tell when we've only had her for a couple weeks.

Consistently moving up the pecking order in the herd. She is definitely in the upper half of the mares now. Chases off ponies, Delilah (young draft X mare), McKinna (who is displeased about that situation), Bree (who ranks above McKinna), and maybe one other. So she's, I don't know, in the top 5 maybe? I don't really care where she is -- she is high enough up that she will never have to worry about getting the last hay pile or always being chased off, which is all I care about.

Need to talk to barn owner about possibly buying hay a la carte (ha!). Boarding contract provides for 4 flakes of hay per day (very nice hay), but I think I want to give her more over the winter, so I want to see if she'd be willing to charge me a little extra for an extra flake or two of hay per day. We'll see.

Need to start working a little more intensively with the hooves. I want her to be 100% solid when the farrier comes in a couple weeks. She pickes up each foot well, but takes some time to relax with the hind legs, and I have no idea how patient she is on the hoof stand.

Mom's been riding her once or twice a week and it is going well. She wants to tuck back behind the vertical still. At the walk, much of that has gone away. At the trot, she alternates between wanting to suck behind the vertical, and wanting to lean very hard on your hands -- Mom is having a bit of a hard time dealing with all of that while still pushing Pandora forward/not tensing her upper body/holding her balance and everything. I think most of the trot-fixing-work will have to happen once I'm in the saddle. I'll be lacking the leg strength (obviously) but I've dealt with a lot of stuff, so I'm comfortable multi-tasking that much.

It really does seem to be an anxiety issue rather than a stubbornness one. She's such a fast learner that I'm not worried about it at all, I just want to get riding right now to fix it! Oh well -- only about a week more (!!!!) and I get my walking boot off. I'll be back riding again ASAP :)

9/10

2008-09-10T07:13:00.000-07:00

Mom rode Pandora again last night. Went very well -- she gets some really nice forward walks out of her, with nose firmly in front of the vertical. Every once in awhile, usually when she gets anxious, Pandora starts tucking her nose and chewing nervously. I'm not sure exactly what to do to fix it, I think only time and relaxed riding will really take care of it, the same as horses that go above the bit. I've just been having Mom push her into a forward walk and don't worry about the reins.

Since we've only ridden her twice, it's too soon to tell how deep of a habit it is. I still want to try our other french link; I was thinking that since she usually has such a wet mouth (tends to have wet, slightly foamy lips even after just eating grain or some hay), perhaps the copper centerpiece is too much for her in the bit we're using now. I need to remember to change it out for the next time she's ridden.

We've decided to take her to the dressage schooling show on October 5th. I'll be riding by then, but I won't ride her in a test. We're taking both horses. I'm just going to hack Pandora around and ride in the warmup ring while Mom's doing her test on McKinna, and then if Pandora is doing well and nice and relaxed, then Mom will just ride her in an Intro test. It should be a fun, low-key first outing, as the barn it's at is very well-run and has a nice big outdoor warmup arena.

Two weeks and a day until I get my walking boot off!

9/8

2008-09-08T22:14:00.000-07:00

I finally got to longe Pandora today -- till now, Mom's been doing it, but I'm walking well enough on my boot that I decided to do it.

She was great. With a bit of work, I think I got her to better understand the concept of halting, out at the end of the longe line, even facing to the right! It's very strange, and sometimes the halt is hit-or-miss. I find it odd. Sometimes she'll walk a circle or two without stopping, despite repeated commands and jerks on the line. Stepping in front of her path does nothing but confuse her and make her nervous.

It will take time and time only, I think. With most horses, I would get after them and either drive them forward or back them up when they went so long without executing the command, but I really feel like that's counterproductive with her. I'll have to experiment. For the most part, she seems to get very upset and nervous when you respond with quick discipline, such as driving her into a canter for not halting. She doesn't mind a swish of the whip. What seems to work best for discipline is when you only need to do it once to illustrate your point -- for example, she didn't pick up a trot right away when I asked, so I stepped at her aggressively and flicked the whip at her haunches. She scooted right forward into the trot, and every time thereafter she was prompt in her response.

Will definitely have to work on it more, but she is still improving. The halt will drive me crazy until it's fixed, but I think it's an understanding issue, not a stubbornness one.

Her stiffness is all but gone. Her walk starts out with a nice overstride, even before she's warmed up. She doesn't track up all the way in the trot at the beginning, but I wasn't paying much attention to how it was after a warmup. I think I'll start her over some walk cavaletti to help build some strength.

Started giving her and McKinna SandClear (psyllium) yesterday, just because they eat off the ground so much in the pasture. We'll do the recommended one-week-per-month dosage, though next time we may check her manure to see if it actually has any sand in it.

Trying to pick her hooves while she was eating her grain was a pain. She was fine for the fronts, but couldn't be bothered to pick up the backs. Eventually I got her to give each hind leg to me several times, but it took quite a bit of convincing on my part. I think she just didn't want to be bothered with it while she was eating, since she doesn't have an issue in the cross ties. Note to self - pick her feet before you put her in the stall to eat!

We've decided to take her to a dressage schooling show on October 5th. I won't have been riding for long, so Mom is going to ride her in one Intro test and I'll just hack her around and warm her up beforehand.

Still no signs of the killer-rearing-horse. Sweet as a pie, willing to please as a Golden Retriever, and getting better every day. So far, signs indicate that she's a remarkably quick learner, though it'll take more time to really determine.

That's all for the night. I'm pleased with her longeing progress.

Bath Time

2008-09-06T21:27:00.001-07:00

Today was a fussy grooming day.

Pandora got washed all over, her mane rebraided, and her tail braided and bagged.

Did I mention that I like this mare more and more every day?

Started hosing her legs carefully because I remembered her dancing around the first day we got her when my parents hosed her scrape. She raised her head high, snorted, wanted to move around but Mom held her.

Within five minutes, she was standing still and relaxed as I ran the hose full-blast across her whole body. We got the shampoo where you attach the bottle to the hose and it just goes through, EQSolutions I think it's called. It's awesome and way less work than we're used to. With McKinna we'll still have to use QuikSilver to get her super white, but for a dirt-colored bay? MAN baths are gonna be so easy.

Did her whole body, washed her mane really well, cleaned her udder since it was rather nasty (she was totally fine with this too), washed her tail very very well, and cleaned the dock area as well. Other than tucking her butt way under when I washed her tail (poor girl, the water was probably a little cold for those parts even though it was a good 85 degrees outside), she stood totally still and was an absolute rock star.

I was very impressed.

Brushed her tail out to braid and bag it. It's actually pretty nice, rather long, a little scraggly at the end. Mom redid her mane as well, I think this is the last time we'll braid it over because it seems to be staying on one side nicely.

She dried so nice and soft!

Let her eat some hay for awhile as she dried off and put her back out in the pasture. She's settled in much better now, by the way. It's often hard to tell which one she is until I get out in the pasture, because there's so many bays and now I can't pick her out because she doesn't stand all by herself ;)

She's getting better and better about her feet, too. Just run your hand down her front legs and she'll pick it up and hold it for you; the hinds she's still a little jumpy, but if you start up on her butt and ask politely, she'll pick it up and relax quickly as you hold her hoof. I'm pleased she's calmed down about it so quickly.

Honestly, if Pandora has good athletic ability (hard to tell as I haven't ridden her much/jumped her/anything) and she's not spooky at shows, she is going to be one KILLER horse. She's very very intelligent and always ready to please, and it's amazing how fast she learns. I can't wait to see how she turns out.

Pictures

2008-09-05T22:30:00.000-07:00

Here's the picture post, with pictures from my day of riding.

Didn't go out to the barn tonight -- my dad took me and the boy out to the rifle range to learn how to shoot. Or, in better terms, we Went Shootin'. It was an interesting experience and actually pretty fun.

Anyway -- pictures! Do give me a break, I'm riding without stirrups (you can see the boot on my right leg!) and just trying to evaluate the mare, not win any contests for pretty riding ;)

A nice, relaxed walk.

More nice walk. I was experimenting with rein length, trying to see what prompted the headsetting and what didn't.

Mom riding! She got on first, and she's the only one that did any trotting as I'd rather not flop around like a dead fish on Pandora's back. Balance? Not so much. Strength in my thighs? Lord I can't wait until that comes back. No stirrup-less trotting for me.

A little close-up. See how her mane's all on the other side now?

In that last picture you can see what I'm talking about with the headset. I wasn't even touching the reins and she was wanting to tuck. I do have a picture where I asked for a little contact and she took her nose way back behind the vertical, but I decided not to post it!

An issue that will be fixed with time, patience, and forward riding, as so many issues are. She's a good horse with a willing, sensitive mind -- the biggest obstacles will be getting her to chill out a little and stop worrying, not getting her to listen! I'm really looking forward to training her in earnest once I'm out of my boot. She's a very intelligent mare and she thinks a lot, you can tell.

I have a feeling it will be a very intellectually challenging training project.

First Ride!

2008-09-04T22:17:00.001-07:00

Things with Pandora have been going absolutely swimmingly. Tonight my mom rode her for the first time since we went to look at her, and she threatened to steal her from me ;)

Still has that worried expression a lot of the time. Never spooks, just often looks askance at things and blows a little. It's almost cute, actually. Nevertheless, it seems to be duly fading as she settles in. I have to keep reminding myself that we haven't even had her for a week.

Getting much better about hoof-picking, though today as I was picking a front hoof she started to do that sink-back-ready-to-go-down thing, and managed to yank the leg away. I hollered at her that no, I did not appreciate having to hold her up. I picked up the foot again and she started to do it again, but I yelled and she stopped. Didn't have any trouble with any of the other feet and she stopped after the second try. On the plus side, she's almost 100% calm with picking up forelegs now, and her hind legs are getting there.

Her mane is all trained nice and pretty to one side now, except for a little chunk at the bottom that we were too lazy to do. This weekend we will probably take everything out, pull a little, and rebraid to make sure it stays on one side. I do so love primping my horses! She'll also get her tail washed. She seems to rub it, not sure if she still does or if it was in the past, but a good washing should help if she does still rub. Then we'll braid and bag the tail.

Continues to understand longeing better. Still, for whatever reason, only halts to the left. If she's walking to the right and is asked to halt, she'll turn in and face left, then halt. Bizarre. Oh well, we'll get her to understand it.

Perfect gentlewoman for tacking up. Mom rode first, declared that she has a wonderful smooth walk. Compared to McKinna the short-backed almost-pony, it's...well, not much of a comparison! But she did walking and some trotting, and Pandora was just great.

I hopped on for a little walking. She's definitely a very sensitive horse, and is thoroughly concerned about what I want her to do. You know the kind of dog whose eyes never leave you, because it wants to do exactly what you want it to, the instant you say so? That's kinda what riding her feels like. Very anxious to understand what I wanted. I kept it nice and low-key.

Moves off the leg nicely, definitely looks for the support of outside aids which is nice. Tends to mouth the bit a lot when she gets anxious, will have to see if that fades. Will try the plain french-link next, instead of the one we're using now with a copper center lozenge -- just to see if she likes the plain link better. Doubt it, but it's worth a shot. Don't think it's a bit issue.

The biggest thing is that I can feel her wanting to tuck her nose behind the vertical. Suspect that, at some point in the past, she was asked for a headset instead of working into the bit. She'll take contact, but it's too floaty and tucked-back for my taste. There were, however, some steps of nice contact without head-ducking -- perhaps the tucking is a reaction when she's feeling nervous? In any case, we'll definitely start out focusing on forward and relaxed and very much In Front Of The Vertical. She's quite happy to stretch down when you give her the reins, which is good. I have a feeling that trail rides will be very, very good for her peace of mind.

Her walk is, well, pleasant. She's much more forward than I was expecting (as I keep mentioning, her stiffness fades by the day). It's got a nice forward-back motion and almost a side-to-side sway with each step, not sure how to describe it. Nothing particularly weird, just a different walk than McKinna I suppose.

Speaking of walk, I've been watching her carefully and I am undecided. When she's walking in from the pasture with me, it often seems that she has a toe-first landing, but I'm also walking in short halting steps and she may be just going with me. On the longe I don't see quite the toe-first stabbing landing, and certainly not at the trot. So perhaps I'm just being overly concerned.

She was trimmed right before we got her, but it seems to me that she needs a trim soon anyway. Her hooves are a bit pancaked-out. I think.

Argh, I wish I was better educated about hooves. I know what looks good for the most part, and I know what looks bad for the most part, but I also can't tell exactly what is bad, or what is good. Does that make sense? I am also always worried that their hooves aren't good enough. I wonder, for example, if Pandora has a mild case of thrush. I see some black in the collateral grooves, but it doesn't smell bad, and it's not all mushy. A little soft. I don't know.

Clearly it's too late. This is a training log, not a reflection on how I feel about horse hooves!

Will post a picture-only post tomorrow from us riding today.

I'm out for the night.

More Updates

2008-09-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

I round-penned Pandora briefly yesterday to celebrate my discovery that I can walk on the boot without crutches. It's a limping awful gait and I can't move quickly, but I can do it well enough to turn in a circle in the middle of a sand pen. She did pretty well, though I can tell the concept of reversing is mostly lost on her. She'll do it, but only if I'm almost directly in her path. Ah, well -- something to work on.

She did pick up a nice canter for me in each direction in the round pen, a good sign. It's not terribly small, but it's small enough that it makes horses work hard to keep up a nice canter, and she was reaching under herself very well with her inside hind. Stiffness continues to fade.

She's a little wary of fly spray but doesn't mind it. She is also getting better about her hooves by the day, especially her fronts. I'm not worried about having her rock-solid by the time the farrier comes on the 30th, I think she'll be totally fine.

Today she gets the night off, and tomorrow Mom is going to ride her.

We've braided her mane all over to one side, and so far the braids are staying. Her mane will be an easy one to keep tame, I think. Sometime soon we'll wash her, if not her whole body then at least her tail. We're going to braid it and keep it bagged. If there's one thing we're good at, it's at helping the horses grow nice pretty full tails ;)

That's all I've got for the night. She continues to be light and responsive. Nervous, but not spooky, and she never reacts irrationally to whatever makes her nervous. I think it may just take her some time to settle in -- really, we've only had her for about 5 days, so I think it's to be expected.

Oh, and the blanket and boots I bought at the tack sale fit her perfectly, as does Bailey's old winter blanket, which means all I need to buy is a lightweight blanket. Score!

Longeing

2008-09-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

Past two days we've worked quite a bit on longeing Pandora. From what it appears, she was longed in the past, but not particularly well. She can walk trot and canter, but she often forgets to stay out on a large circle, and her concept of halt is sorely lacking. She'll stop, sometimes, going to the left, after several jerks on the longe line. On the plus side, she learns very very fast, and shows improvement daily. I'm not worried about it at all -- she's already learned to stay out on the circle, and it won't be long before she figures out 'ho' too.

Much to my happiness, her stiffness appears to be fading more each day. Whether it's the fact that she's being worked daily, her 24/7 turnout with horses that are only too happy to make her move her butt around, or some other reason, I'm pleased. She tracks up better at the beginning of her workouts and still improves as she warms up. Here's hoping that it continues to go away!

She's learning to love her Ultium when she comes in each day. Today she was in the cross-ties, which are directly across from her stall, when Mom put her meal in her grain bucket -- she got the wide-eyed, nickery, "I AM STARVING!" look and fidgeted until she was allowed to go in. Cute.

I think we may encounter some separation anxiety issues, will have to be very careful about that. She doesn't mind being alone, but if she is in the cross-tie area with McKinna and we take McKinna away, she gets nervous, dances around a little, and sometimes will call for her. Definitely not a huge issue, but I will be keeping a close eye on it. Horses that can't stand to be by themselves drive me crazy. Especially at shows.

She's settling in more and more every day in the mare pasture. Still gets run off by just about anybody when they decide to run her off, but she won't leave until they pin their ears and really get after her. She's comfortable wandering into the herd to eat instead of hanging at the outskirts.

Found a little thing up on the inside of her thigh which I'm pretty sure is a sarcoid. Doesn't seem to bother her at all -- will have the vet check it out when she comes out for a general checkup.

Pleased with her progress so far, and her attitude continues to be pleasant and willing. Will probably give her a break tomorrow, just a little trot around the round pen. I think Mom will hop on her for a ride sometime this week.

She's home!

2008-08-30T15:04:00.001-07:00

We actually ended up bringing Pandora home yesterday -- my dad wanted to go golfing today, apparently, so he suggested that we go get her a day early. I wasn't going to argue!

She is wonderful to catch. My dad wandered out into the pasture she was in and she came walking right up, then hung out with him while he gave her some love. She loads just fine; a little nervous unloading when we asked her to back out, I think turning around may be what she's used to. Nicked her right hind leg on the trailer somehow, not sure where, but she gave herself a little scrape.

Very very polite and patient. She was nervous in the barn aisle (new place, ya?) but even when Dad turned her towards him to go the other direction, she was careful to not run him over. Introduced her and McKinna and all was fine, no squealing or anything. Pandora seemed more interested in making friends than McKinna.

Put them out in the mare pasture where Pandora seemed quite timid. She sort of wandered out to the outskirts and kept her distance, got chased off by everyone a few times but we talked to the barn owner this morning and apparently she was chasing off the ponies earlier today -- a good sign, so hopefully the timidity will fade as she settles in.

Today Rose wanted to ride her. Pandora was great coming in from the pasture -- we put her in a stall to eat some hay while we got stuff out and she was a little nervous but settled down quickly to eat. We longed her and while she was a bit confused at the start, by the end she'd figured it out. Was wonderful for tacking up, the dressage saddle fits her nearly perfectly (which means, of course, that once she gains weight it won't). Rose took her to the arena and they stood for awhile while she waited for a release form to sign.

Again I was struck by how patient she is. She stood next to the mounting block for probably almost 5 minutes, totally relaxed (in an arena she's never been in before), just chilling. Didn't fidget, didn't try to walk around in circles. Just stood there. Very cool.

She was equally as good for the ride. At first she was sticking her tongue all the way out of her mouth and lolling it around -- I'm going oh awesome, she's a tongue-sticker-outer, dressage judges love that SO much -- but then I realized that when they had put the bridle on, they hadn't adjusted the fit, and the bit was hanging down wayyyy low in her mouth. After shortening it a few holes until it just touched the corners of her mouth, no more tongue lolling, thank goodness.

Still a little stiff at walk and trot. Will definitely have to start massage and stretching. On the other hand, by the end of the ride, Rose got her to do some really nice trot and walk where she was tracking up and moving pretty nicely.

Throughout the whole ride she was quiet and willing. No resistance, no rushing, just a little reluctance to move forward which I suspect is related to the stiffness. Very much hoping this is muscle related and not joint related, but she's only six, so I think it's more likely to be muscle. There's also a chance that she's footsore, as she's barefoot and her heels look awfully low to me. Will discuss with the farrier when he comes out at the end of the month.

Barn owners spread a round bale out in the mare pasture today -- YAY! Having free choice hay (for the four days that it takes the mares to chow through one, anyway) will certainly help Pandora gain some weight. We've started her on a little Ultium, and will gradually increase it till she's where she needs to be, but I'd always rather have her eat as much hay as possible.

She is a good pony :)

Getting Organized!

2008-08-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

Bringing Pandora home in two (!!!) days.

Have started to get organized. After discussing with Mom, here's the feeding arrangements: start with small scoop (~1/4 lb) of Ultium + vitamins + raspberry leaf (we buy in bulk, so it's cheap and it sure works on McKinna). Will gradually increase the Ultium until she's at an ideal weight, then hold it there.

Last night, we started to put together a binder for each horse for their records. It's a requirement of Pony Club later in the ratings, but we already kept a calendar for McKinna, so we decided to get organized and keep detailed books for each horse. It will have a calendar for noting vet/farrier/vaccinations/clinics/shows/whatever, a folder for keeping receipts or other important data, and note paper with dividers for different sections. There will most definitely be a training/clinic notes section, which will probably get typed straight into this blog for training notes! It will also have places for detailed notes on vet or farrier visits, condition/ feeding program, exercise schedule, and whatnot.

As a person that can easily get messy but absolutely loves being ridiculously organized, I'm very excited for this.

Thankfully Pandora rides in a 5" bit, which means we don't have to go out and buy new bits - McKinna has a few extras we can use. Bailey's old dressage bridle should fit her, and from our quick test, our dressage saddle fits her (hopefully the jumping saddle will too). It would be nice to have a brown schooling bridle, but those are fairly easy to find inexpensively. Other than that, the only thing I should need to buy for her are a few blankets for the winter.

Two more days, can't wait :)

Getting Started

2008-08-24T17:13:00.001-07:00

Just a place to keep training logs and notes for the new girl, Pandora.

Initial assessment:

6 year old 15.2ish bay Appendix mare (unregistered, unfortunately).

Soft eye, intelligent and sensitive. Nicely muscled through shoulder and butt, but needs some weight on ribs and topline. A little nervous, but not spooky. Perfectly calm for grooming and tacking. A little squiggly in the cross ties, jumpy about hind feet but I bet that'll improve with consistent handling. Looks kinda funny right in front of the point of her croup -- have a feeling that has to do with musculature being underdeveloped because of the chiropractic issues.

Was worked by chiropractor approximately 1 month ago. Was severely out through hip, pulling spine off all up through withers. Jaw was out about 3/4 inch.

Went in a 5" single-jointed eggbutt snaffle, will switch her to a french link when she's home.

Stiff in the hind end, improves with warming up. Will work on slow conditioning, stretching & massage, and steady warmups to help her with this.

Currently on just grass hay, will start her on a little Strategy when she's home.

With previous owner (PO), story is that she randomly freaked out and reared up while hacking out at a horse trials. Subsequently she began rearing when PO attempted to mount. PO says unpredictable, puts her up on Dreamhorse; free to a good home (I believe) or she goes to OSU vet school for animal research for a term and then euthanasia. Seller says no no, I will take her, goes and picks her up; has chiropractic work done, teeth floated, feet trimmed; no issues for the 1 month Seller owns her.

Pandora was Eventing at Novice level. No idea how solidly, but she readily takes contact and stretches down on the flat. When she was shown to us, she was very calm to the fence, working out her own distances at the canter without panicking even from a long or short spot. No idea how much scope she has.

She wiggled around quite a bit for mounting when Seller mounted from the ground, but held quite still when Mom got a leg up from Dad -- suspect that mounting from the ground pulls on her back and hurts. Since we usually mount from a mounting block, shouldn't be a problem. Nevertheless, will be sure to establish politeness for mounting.

The Plan:

Bring her home, put in arena with McKinna for brief introductions, then put the two out with the Mare Herd. Put her on a pound or so of Strategy per day. Spend plenty of time grooming, fussing, and generally bonding; also take plenty of time to establish really solid ground manners now so it's not an issue later.

Start with short longeing sessions with lots of walk, a little trot, and maybe a bit of canter. Gradually build those up. Each day, spend at least 10 minutes massaging and stretching. Check tying ability; if impatient, tie her to the tie ring in the arena while McKinna is being worked and let her figure things out for herself.

Call chiropractor and find out when she'll need more work. Call farrier to let him know we have a second horse; check patience for standing and having hooves messed with. Slowly introduce riding work, short walks at first.

Work on desensitizing on the ground to build trust. Check calmness for bath, clippers, fly spray, rope swinging, tarps, ground driving. Round-pen to further establish bond and respect. Establish all in-hand skills: turns on forehand and haunches, back up, stop, trot, lead from off side, sidepass.

Train mane over to correct side and pull. Braid and bag tail.

And away we go :)