By the end of last year Savvy's training was really coming along. We had W/T/C installed and even started working on walk to canter transitions and it felt like we moved from 'green horse' to 'just about broke'.
Enter winter and very little opportunity to keep that ball rolling and I am a few steps back. I have a feeling we will catch up quickly though, once I am able to ride more than once a week. At the moment I have a wiggly out-of-shape pony who desperately wants the feral life. C'est la vie!
Pro style canter transitions: We know we are fancy.
No jumping happened this past lesson, but we dug in to some very good exercises that really got me paying attention to all the body parts and settled Savvy into a very good working forward mind. We used four poles on a circle and changed up our target on each pole while also changing up what I was doing, i.e. posting to sitting to two-point.
We finished on canter work that was far less dramatic than last week's lesson (just a few funny hops here and there and virtually no ninja kicks fortunately) and left the lesson exhausted (both of us) and super pleased with all of it.
Well deserved roll for sweaty pony :)
My farm has been pretty much a skating rink since February, but warmer temps are in the forecast so I am starting to get hopeful of being able to ride at home again!
My riding arena right now. Kids are the best at making lemonade from lemons!
There is just so much to look forward to this year. I have a jump clinic April 9, then my first show of the year on April 22, and the following month is an eventing clinic.
I'm starting to get so excited!
Operation JumpAllTheFences (aka teach Savvy and myself how to jump and start eventing this summer) is officially under way with my first lesson of the year.
Ready to ride!
I was scheduled to start last Thursday, but weather kiboshed my plans with a super fun wind/snow storm. This Thursday however, offered up a perfect sunshiny day with warm temps to boot.
Just a typical Manitoba morning...where no horse gets ridden. :(
It turns out a few months off from heading anywhere with my horse was enough to bring on some serious nerves, but the whole trip there went just fine and I didn't even hurt myself this entire outing! Gold star for me!
Although there was one casualty - one of my winter riding boot soles came right off (luckily at the end of my lesson though).
I arrived well before my lesson and had a lot of time to lunge her around the massive arena (which I had all to myself!) and show her all the mirrors/giant advertisement signs and see what kind of horse she would be after so much time off.
She spooked once when she kicked some sand against the wall and then again at an advertisement with a large horse picture on it. She had to sniff the pic right on the horse's nose a few times before she was sure it wasn't a real horse.
I knew keeping Savvy from getting too hot would be a major issue with this plan. It was great for me to be in a heated arena, but the fluffbum was already sweaty before I even got on. Once the coach arrived, I explained I would be fine with a really easy-on-the-horse type lesson so Savvy wouldn't get too hot. So two-point torture would be my fate. Maybe I should have told her I was also just getting back into work as well and shouldn't over-do it?
Wonder pony was pretty sceptical about this whole back to lessons thing.
As the lesson progressed, the arena went from empty to horse after horse coming in which was great practise dealing with the automatic overhead door opening again and again and keeping Savvy focused on task no matter what cute gelding had just come in.
And she was great! Not perfect obviously - there was a lot of head bobbing as per usual, some serious side eye every time we passed a horse and a bit of jumpiness at random noises (like snow sliding off the roof), but I was happy with the level of relaxation in her walk and trot and it felt quite enjoyable to ride.
As for all the two-point practise, I will not be walking tomorrow.
Next week I will head back and work on all the positional stuff we covered today, and moving forward, I think I will stick with the bi-weekly lessons at least until this whole winter/can't ride at home issue clears up.
It is amazing just how good I feel now. It was so great to get back to riding! Anyone else find nothing beats a good ride for your mood? Or is any kind of horse time do the trick?
Following Sunday's accident, I really was not sure about how I would manage my Thursday lesson. We all know when something scary happens, the sooner we get back at it (whether that be driving after an accident, riding after a fall or trailer off-loading after getting kicked in the face) the better.
These things can wiggle their way into your subconscious and make easy stuff so, so hard.
So I set to planning (something I LOVE to do) and tried to create for myself a step-by-step plan for safety, just to get me through the worst of it which to me was the idea of heading back to the same place so soon in the same trailer with the same horse.
Standing still pre-lesson - too unsure to move
First I parked the truck and trailer in my barn yard and started ground work with Savvy in the arena, just to relax us both and make sure she was listening and yielding well in all directions. Then I moved to loading her in the trailer with the idea being that the trailer would be her rest place from working. She is really good about going in, but wants to come out immediately and fast. I would let her come out, but without hesitation, just send her right back in. We did this over and over until finally she was willingly starting to spend more time standing still on her own. At this point, I started to ask for a back-up cue. I decided to use pulling gently on her tail along with the verbal cue of 'back'. She really started to get the hang of it after many, many repetitions.
This was going very well so the next step was to close the door, give her a minute and then at a moment that she is behaving well, open the door, make her wait and then give the backup cue.
After two days (of many hours spent) on this, she still wasn't at a place in my mind I would call safe. Sure, she was doing all the things I asked but even after all of the practice, she was still acting fearful despite me remaining calm, methodical and rewarding her with tons of praise and cookies for her efforts. But it was progress.
By the middle of Wednesday I decided to remove the centre divider. I knew I was being quite stubborn in my head about not doing this earlier. I really wanted her to learn the straight load because I liked the peace of mind of her not being able to leap around when I am driving (like she used to do in my previous stock trailer).
I am glad I did. She was immediately much calmer. I could load her in, close the door and then go up to the front and safely tie her. I was able to walk away and let her stand in the trailer like this with no fuss. Then off-loading was easier because I could put her lead rope on and unhook her from the front tie, then she could turn around and I could get hold of her lead rope by opening the top half of the back door. Then I could open the door and easily make her stand quietly and not come out until I asked her.
With all our practicing I noticed the rubber floor mats that came with the trailer were actually slippery for Savvy. They had horizontal lines in the rubber, that although great for sweeping them clean, made it easy for her hooves to slide. So, I grabbed my large mat out of the tack shed which had tiny bumps instead of lines in the rubber and this stopped her sliding completely.
There was nothing else I could do to prepare, I just now had to do it.
It all went perfectly well! Savvy surprisingly travelled pretty quiet and off-loaded really well. Teaching her the wait after I opened the back door still worked even with the excitement of being somewhere unfamiliar.
And the lesson was a blast! We toodled all over the place and introduced her to jumps with flower baskets. We 'jumped' (stepped over) cross rails and I was so pleased with Savvy's level-headedness throughout it all.
Standing still post-lesson - too tired to move!
When ever she was unsure, she would slow down or even stop and then step over despite my best pony club kicks. It was too funny to get frustrated. She was really trying and I know from our dressage work, when she is struggling mentally with a challenge she will slow down or stop. It wasn't about refusing; she just wasn't sure about jumping flowers. Once she learned she could safely step over, she really got into it and by the end, she actually tried to jump a little. Also, once coach moved the flowers away from the middle, Savvy really seemed to be much more forward and confident. I loved how we did because no matter how unsure Savvy was about something, she would really try to sort out how to do it and never felt scared or unsafe; just confused!
