Gotcha Day

I'm super behind in posting about my last couple of rides (I don't want to have to edit video), but yesterday was Stitch's 1-year Gotcha Day!

Of course, I totally forgot about it until I was turning him out, and as soon as he realized that the candy machine was out of candy he wandered away from me and I couldn't get any pics.

It's been a year of new beginnings - a new horse who I'm starting from scratch, first rides, and a new barn that we call home.

The baby horse on the day I went out to view him.

Stitch has been a pleasure to work with - other than that one weekend in February we don't talk about. 

The first new blanket that I bought for him. It's a 69" that was done up as small as I could make it. He still can wear it, done up as big as I can make it - his butt peeks out a bit but I'm determined to get my money out of it! 

He has proven to be a willing, smart, and sweet horse who is constantly complimented by everyone at the barn. 

First time lunged with a saddle in August 2024.

I've learned that food is his favourite thing - any and all food - and that getting fed appears to be the highlight of his day. It is also likely the reason that he paws (which has gotten significantly better, but it's still there). His second favourite thing these days appears to be the black barn cat Dexter, who has been in the arena quite a bit recently and Stitch goes all stalker mode when he sees him.

October 2024, when I decided it was time to give him the winter off to grow since his butt had shot up.

So far, the only things I know he dislikes are puddles, getting hosed off, and having his temperature taken. He was good with that one last summer but not so good after his strangles vaccines in December. I'm waiting for a much warmer day to tackle the wash rack at the new barn.

First ride out of the arena in September 2024.

This is hopefully the first of many years in our journey together, with many more firsts to experience together.

Stitch today, taken out in the field while waiting for the vet to show up to give him his vaccination. Can't wait until his red summer coat is back.

Baby Brain Blown

With spring now being here (this week, at least), a big priority has been to get Stitch out of the arena. There aren't as many trail areas as I had hoped at the new barn, but there are a couple of empty fields that horses will move to for the summer that we can ride in until then, and a bigger field at the back that might get cows on it to graze it down. Then, in the fall once the crops are off, the neighbour gives us access to his fields. 

We are also about a seven-minute drive from a place that has a cross-country course that we could pay to ride around, and a half-hour drive to a shared use recreation area that has trails for horses. 

Before I make any plans to take my horse off the property, I'd like to be fairly confident of not dying on the property. 

It cools off quite quickly in the evenings at this time of year, so a beautiful sunny day does not mean you'll be able to skip the winter coat after dinner, and all too often mid-day plans of riding outside are changed by the time I actually get on the horse in the evening.

Stitch is currently in his moth-eaten shedding stage of spring while his dark winter hair slowly give way to his red summer hair.

Wednesday worked out though!

I started the ride in the arena, which was its own challenge - the overhead door was open. Not at the end, but half-way down one side. Stitch gawked at the outside every time we passed it, but surprisingly didn't really try to exit. He also didn't come close to scraping my leg off on the kick boards after the open area of the door, which I was quite concerned would be a problem.

We did a bit of trot in a busy arena (3 riders) with me trying to find some spaces to do some turning. He was a little looky about the horse that was doing a bunch of cantering, but with everything going on he wasn't too bad.  

Eventually, we wandered out, keeping to the paths around the turnout areas and driveways. 

I have done a bunch of leading Stitch all over the yard in-hand without issue, but apparently it's a different story when Mommy isn't in front. The good news is that he's more of the stop and stare kind of horse, and if I give him a moment he'll keep going. 

I was suprised at how looky he was for the first bit. He stopped a couple of times by the bleachers for the outdoor ring, though I wasn't really sure what he was looking at. 

The first baby brain explosion happened when we were headed towards the pond (once it dries up we are able to ride around it in summer, but we were nowhere near the side of it on this day) and some ducks came in for a landing. That was a stop and stare in llama mode. When I finally got him to start moving his feet again, he turned into a giant puddle - it was a whole two hooves wide - that he was all oh no about. This horse is not going to be an eventer - he has hated puddles since the day I got him.

Got past that, then went down the lane between some turnouts. The horse I knew could be silly wasn't in his paddock, so I thought it would be smooth sailing, but nope, Stitch saw something else move and spun to the right, towards another lane of turnouts, but also into some muddy footing, which he instantly regretted. He was very much "I don't know where to go".

Thankfully, he heeded my guidance and we didn't end up in the ditch. We then went down the driveway towards the road, and he finally started to relax. From there we back-tracked the first part of the ride (he still stared at the ducks), and continued past the field that he lives in. By this point he was able to march along with a long low neck, though I definitely wasn't given him overly long reins!

I honestly didn't think he'd be as spooky as he was, but overall he settled quickly, so it was still a win in my book. The first ride outside of the season for any horse tends to be more exciting than it should, whether they are a baby or not. 

I think they got the outdoor arenas harrowed, so hopefully we'll be able to get outside for a proper ride soon - but the snow and rain needs to stay away!

The Circle of Ease

On Sunday night I had the arena to myself and I really wanted to be able to focus on working on steering. 

I set up the classic exercise of 2 poles on a circle (at E & B) and pylons along the center line. I knew that Stitch really likes doing poles, but I didn't realize how much he likes pylons - by which I mean he likes to eat them. As soon as I would put one down, he'd have it in his mouth. He even tried to reach down and snatch one the first time we walked through them under saddle.

The stretch goal for the ride was to be able to do the poles/pylon circle at a trot. I honestly didn't think we'd manage it and had plans to just use the poles/pylons individually as something to aim for in our turns. 

Once Stitch got going, which took a couple of minutes because he had to deal with the justifiable distraction of his favourite kitty walking through the arena, his steering felt pretty good. It usually gets better as the ride progresses, but this night it felt good from the get-go.

When you are so distracted by the kitty that you forget you have feet.

So we tried the exercise. And in what I'm learning to be Stitch fashion, he nailed it.

Yes, I had to use a bit more inside rein than ideal. He isn't looking for the circle yet, and doesn't move reliably off my legs, so I had way more feel than I'd like to have on my inside rein. It doesn't look that bad on the video though - by no means was his nose cranked around the turns. 

I think the exercise worked well for him in that he seemed to start to look ahead in the turns and get the idea of continuing on the circle. We'll definitely revisit it soon!

We just did it once each way, because when you do it that well the first time, there's no need at this age to drill it. It was also the first warm day of the year and homeboy was already pretty sweaty after a little bit of work. 

I'm going to have to start going through some books and finding some new exercises to try!

Ride #31

I was finally feeling better after the previous week's head cold so I prepped Stitch for his first ride in almost two weeks (which was planned to be on Monday) by letting him loose in the arena on Sunday to get those crazy young horse antics out of his system.

He just wanted to stand and cuddle a kitty.

My kind of guy.

Dexter, the black panther barn kitty, was hanging out on one of the kickwalls in the arena when we went in. Stitch immediately noticed him and took every opportunity he could to just hang out with him. Dexter doesn't really love the horses, but does love being held by a human, and he was a little put out with the fact that Stitch kept parking himself between the kitty and the human and was making it difficult for the kitty to get into a position that he could be picked up.

Dexter was desperately trying to figure out how to get to me on the other side of the horse. He refused to go over the horse. 

Stitch did have to go for a couple of canters, but they weren't particularly energetic, so I gave up sooner than planned. Would that come back to bite me in the butt once said butt was in the saddle the next day?

Initially, I wasn't quite sure. 

Stitch was a little sticky about walking forward when I first hopped on. It was probably something that you wouldn't see, but I definitely felt. The arena was the busiest it's been on my ride since last fall, with three other horses in the arena. One was finishing her lesson so left soon after I got on, which left one person having a flat lesson and another person riding her rather hot TB.

It took a good seven or eight minutes before Stitch started to walk forward and relax. There were a couple of moments when a horse passed him and I felt him gather himself up like he was thinking of going with them, but it never went beyond that.

In trying to stay out of the way of the person having the lesson, I didn't get to do as much steering off the track as I would have liked. We had a couple of icky circles at the beginning of the trot, and then a couple of better ones as he got going. Those were probably all that we did for circles. But we did try some baby leg yields at the trot - and he got them! Just a couple of steps towards the track, really good off the left leg, a little less good off the right one. We ended the ride there. 

There is a possibility that Stitch is going through another growth spurt. He's lost a little bit of weight over the last couple of weeks, which seems to be the precursor to his butt shooting up, and after taking his blanket off this weekend, yeah, I think his butt shot up. If it seems to affect his balance he'll go on vacation again for a few weeks. I'm going to have to measure his butt - I can't see over the top of it anymore!