The plan is to ride Stitch three times a week, but I don't think we've managed to hit that goal yet.
We got two rides in last week - Tuesday's ride was really good in learning how to rebalance the trot, which was the goal, but we lost our ability to do a circle. There was another person riding with us, which hasn't happened a lot so far this year, and there were moments that Stitch was definitely distracted by the pinto dressage pony, but overall I was really happy with how he listened to my aids.
And then I woke up on Saturday morning with the plague. I finally succumbed to one of the many bugs going around, and it took until Thursday to feel mostly human. Just in time for a spring snowstorm that is continuing through Friday morning, when I am supposed to be at the barn for my farrier appointment at 8am.
My farrier had messaged me Thursday morning to confirm we were still a go and I said yes unless I end up in a ditch and she said we can reschedule if the roads are terrible in the morning. I stressed about it all evening after reading about how bad the roads were for peoples drives home from work (and about whether my car would get stuck in my alley before even making it to the main road) and sent her a message to reschedule before I went to bed. Stitch is only on six weeks so I have a little bit of leeway.
I'm betting the cobra chickens are regretting coming north so soon.
Sadly, the snow is going to stick around for a few days since the temperatures are going to be below freezing until Monday.
Back to a heavyweight blanket for a night.
We'll see what roads are like over the weekend and hopefully manage to finally get three rides in next week.
In the meantime, Stitch got his first taste of a donut (vanilla icing with sprinkles and strawberry filling). Guess what he's getting for his birthday!
I didn't ride all week, due to feeling crappy for a couple of days followed by snow/freezing temperatures. Stitch was bundled up again in his warm jammies for a couple of days, but will hopefully be able to be nekkid on Monday or Tuesday. We're not out of the woods for snow - my birthday is early in April and we always have snow after my birthday, but that should be the last of the stupid cold for the season. Fingers crossed.
When I went out on Wednesday night to bring him in and put his snowsuit on, he was happily playing bitey face with his BFF out in the field, which was followed by galloping off with bucks and farts, then the stare into the distance with his tail up in the air and the dragon snort.
I thought he might be a twit to bring in, but he surprised me and walked very calmly next to me. We went straight into the arena as it was empty and he was given a chance to get the last of his sillies out before I put him in the crossties. He is playing much more in the arena when given the chance, lots of bucks and farts and diving into a change of direction last minute.
Which he did none of on Friday night when I brought him in. I was planning to ride on Saturday and didn't want to die, so he got let loose on Friday, but it only took a couple of minutes to get the little bit of sass out of him.
And then Saturday came, and it was cold, and I had family dinner plans, and I didn't want to feel chilled all evening, so I didn't get out to the barn. Which meant that on Sunday, when I did ride, I wasn't too sure what I was going to get.
The sass was definitely in there. Stitch was a little looky at a couple of corners that to me didn't seem to have changed when we walked in the beginning - by which I mean he took a good look at them but kept walking past them. But that was about the extent of it.
For this ride, he was forward at the trot right off the bat. He wasn't, however, feeling very balanced. So I actually slowed him down a bit in order to gain some balance. For the most part he was thinking forward though, not asking to slow down so much, mostly when we had steering issues.
Our 20m circles were terrible - a week off did nothing initially for our steering. So it's the perfect time to try a 3 loop serpentine, right?
The first go ended up being a figure 8 - the two circles kind. I tried to turn and when we ended up heading towards E I knew I couldn't save it for the serpentine. So we did a couple of figure 8's first, which worked out quite nicely. Stitch was listening and waiting for my input as to where we were going. I also changed how I asked him to turn, using an indirect rein instead of an open rein - and what do you know, he bent nicely and stayed much better on the desired path.
On the next serpentine attempt, I figured that I would have to think about turning much earlier to make it happen. Again, I kept my hands close together and used an indirect rein before turning, and ended up having some lovely turns. Guess it's time to start riding him like he's a big boy now!
Stitch also gave me a lovely feeling as we started the serpentine of balancing the trot coming out of the corner at C. He responds well to me closing my thighs to slow down, but it's been more slam on the brakes kind of slowing down. This time, I put my lower leg on at the same time, and he responded by rebalancing himself and still going forward, and it set us up for a great turn off of the wall.
So, yeah, it looks like I have to remember how to ride properly again!
Adjusting the balance in the trot will be our goal for the next few rides. By no means am I asking for anything crazy - no collection here - just to be able to rebalance before turns and transitions. Exercises like the serpentines will help with this quite a bit, I just have to remember to ask for it!
Well, my visit to the barn on Sunday didn't start very well.
Parked, got my stuff out of the car and walked to the barn, pause - what is that sound?
Oh, that's the sound of all the air escaping my tire.
I think I see the problem.
I really do have bad luck with tires. Which means I'm well versed on how to remove a tire and don't get stressed over it anymore. It could have been worse - it was only snowing/sleeting a little bit, but right around freezing. I'd rather that than having to do it (again) in -25 weather.
So that got dealt with, then I trudged out to the furthest corner of the field to catch my horse. Like, 10 feet away from the fence line, where the horses haven't been all winter so there is still a whole bunch of snow that doesn't have any path going through it. Snow that is slightly deeper than ankle height, which I had to trudge through in my ankle-height boots. My feet were damp for the rest of the night.
I went out on Saturday afternoon, which was beautiful and sunny, and Stitch and two other bay boys were all lined up having a snooze in the sun.
They did an excellent job of lining up in a straight line.
The plan for this ride was to do a little trot course of poles. Stitch really likes doing poles, and we did it a few times in the fall at the old barn. I was hoping that this would give him some incentive to really trot forward.
First of all, let me say how hard 8' poles are with a greenie! They don't give you much wiggle room when your steering isn't perfect. I had to really think about starting my turn early, especially down the long sides, or he could dodge a pole pretty easily.
I got on and was immediately "something's not right". My stirrups felt really short, jump length short. Now, I had cleaned my saddle the day before, so I figured I had just put them on the wrong hole, although I was pretty sure that I had made sure to note what hole they were on before moving the buckle. And then I realized that the buckle (webber style) was digging into my right calf, which it never did.
I think that what I did was put the leathers on the wrong stirrup bar. My saddle has two options for stirrup bars, the forward one is generally for jump styles of saddles and the rear one is for dressage. I know I put them on the back one, and I realized that they should have been on the front one. Oops. The front one also sits lower, so that would be why my stirrups felt shorter although they were on the right hole.
Oh well, I wasn't changing it at that point, although we'll see if I regret that decision if I end up with a bruise on my calf. Although I did eventually drop the stirrups down by a hole, but not before I trotted a lap with the buckle releasing on my left stirrup and it getting longer and longer. I thought it felt weird but couldn't figure out what had changed.
After all that, my horse was wonderful and I had a really good ride. I was right about the poles - they really helped with the forward. It appears that Stitch's favourite things are diagonal lines and poles, so put them together and that's where he really picked up the forward.
He still asked to stop somewhere on the course on every course, but once I said no he kept going.
The last course had the best feeling at the end of the course. We came across the diagonal and maintained the forward around the short end - that is the trot I am looking for. That is the trot that felt like he was taking me somewhere, and he pushed into the contact with my hands softly.
This was also the first ride since we got going again where he was starting to feel steady under me and not so wibbly wobbly. Being more forward probably helped.
Super happy with this ride, and we'll definitely have to repeat using poles on a regular basis.
Tuesday's ride was about continuing to encourage Stitch to come forward through turn. He's now looking for the turns, so that's helping a lot.
First full circle in the middle of the arena. He fell in a little bit after crossing the center line because he knew where he was going, so I didn't complain about it.
To me, he's still not carrying us as forward as I would like, but it's getting closer. He gave me a figure 8 that he just dialed in on when we turned off the track that felt wonderful - locked on to the spot we were returning to on the track, and a steady, strong forward. That's the feeling that I'm aiming for.
Stitch was all "I got this".
Part of the lack of forward is totally related to fitness. I still want to keep the rides short and not drilling, but we need to start increasing the amount of trot we do in a ride. I'm aiming for 5 minutes in the next few rides and working up to 10 (currently averaging 3-something). As he starts getting tired the forwardness definitely decreases. It would also help if he didn't do things right so fast!
Like this first attempt at head-to-the-wall leg yield off my right leg. He definitely got a cookie for it!
On Saturday, I took Stitch into the arena in a halter and worked on the mounting block. He was, of course, pretty well perfect about it. I took the opportunity to reward him with a click and a couple of cookies, in the hopes that it would set up a willing horse for my ride on Sunday.
He was better about it once it was time to get on, not perfect - a couple of times when I put a bit of weight in the stirrup he moved away, but I took my time and looked for reasons to reward him and when I did get on he stood rock still.
Thankfully, he was forward right off the bat and there were no attempts at the walking bucks like there were on the last ride.
The goal for this ride was just to continue some steering at the trot and let Stitch get more comfortable and confident with it so that he stayed forward through the turns. I think that's going to be the focus for the next few rides.
Please ignore the huffing and puffing on my end. Breathing is hard when your nose is full of snot because it's a bit chilly out.
And he was! Again, not perfect, but a definite improvement over the last couple of rides. The circles were feeling a lot rounder, and the diagonals a lot straighter.
After the trot work, I decided to try a bit of head-to-the-wall leg yielding and see what I got. We've been working on it in-hand, and he's got the idea of it with me using my dressage whip laid across his side to ask him to move laterally. We'd give it a shot and see what happens.
I asked for it off my left leg. Of course, I got nothing for the first few steps, but I moved my leg back a bit and he moved his bum over and gave me a couple of steps for a good first effort. I clicked, he got a cookie. We went again, and kind of the same - nothing for a couple of steps, then move the bum over. Again, click and reward.
Across to the other side of the arena we went. As we approached the wall, I slowed the walk, Stitch stopped for a step, then very deliberately moved himself sideways. Click and reward. Asked him to walk on - he walked sideways away from my left leg.
I may have created a leg-yielding monster.
We only did it off the left leg, I'll ask with the right leg next time, once I've made sure I have pre-loaded enough cookies in my pockets.
I was really happy with how he thought about what I was asking. This can be an exercise where some horses really lose their brain when asked to move sideways with a barrier in front of them, but Stitch kept his cool and took his time thinking through the question.
Once again, I am amazed at how fast horses learn when positive reinforcement is used. Not that I should be that surprised - I'd figure things out pretty fast if cookies were involved too!
