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!

The Week That Wasn't

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!

Ride #29

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!

Auspicious Beginnings

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. 

Coming Along

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!

Smart Cookie

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!

Ride #25

I believe that Wednesday's ride was #25. Yes, I am still counting, and will continue to count for quite a while.

Stitch was super chill while getting tacked up. Barely any pawing. 

I was ready to tackle standing at the mounting block as the day before he had walked away while I was trying to get my leg over, which he hasn't done before. Not sure why, other than maybe because he hadn't been ridden in a week? Although he was lunged the night before, but really lightly, so maybe not enough?

Anyhow, it's something I want to nip in the bud. I'm too old and too stiff to get on via fly-by's these days. And it something that he knows how to do nicely.

He was quite fussy at the block on this day. In the end, I had my mom hold him while I got on, or I wasn't sure I was going to ever get on. So we'll work on that in-hand on my next couple of visits since I don't plan to ride again until Sunday.

Stitch says that cookies will solve the problem. Cookies solve all problems. 

Whether this is linked to the mounting issue or not, Stitch then threw in a couple of half-assed walking bucks in the first circle after getting on. That's new. 

He had a bit of that powder keg feel, not wanting to go forward, but also might explode. So not fun to feel on a greenie. 

I was thinking I might be best to get off and lunge, but wanted to get at least a bit of forward walk first. And once we got that, he was fine. So??

I'm actually wondering if maybe his back is still a bit sore from the bite he came in with on Sunday. He was fine for my Wednesday ride, other than standing at the block, but maybe the second day in a row set it off? I'm definitely giving him the next couple of days off, and will re-evaluate on Sunday. The other reason that I'm wondering if he's still sore is because he seems stiffer bending to the left than usual, and again was maybe worse on Thursday than Wednesday. I'll try some massage and ground exercises and see what I find.

But, since he seemed fine once he started walking forward, we continued with our ride. 

The goal was a figure 8 with circles at each end. And we achieved it! He was a little bobbly across the first diagonal, and we're still figuring out forward and steering at the same time, but it was a good effort. It looks much better on video than it felt! He still feels quite wobbly.

Then I ended the ride with a trot down the long side asking for a forward trot for a few strides, rebalance, and forward again, which he did really nicely. He wasn't as forward during the rest of the trot work as he had been the day before, so I wasn't sure if he would do it, but he nailed it. 

I think we only did about 3 minutes of trot, but as I wasn't sure we were even going to get into a trot when I first hopped on I was quite happy with the ride. The other rider was being kind enough to let me have the right of way, and she was ready to canter her horse and warned me that he might be a bit sassy, so I ended the ride on a good note before things had a chance to fall apart.

So other than the beginning, it was a good ride. 

Oh - and I measured him - he's grown another 1/2" to 15.1 1/2 hh. Maybe just a wee bit taller behind still. He's lost a bit of weight and looks a bit leaner these days, so I'm worried that another growth spurt is coming. (Don't worry - he's far from skinny.)

He's also far from reaching the height of his BFF Simon, who is honestly taller than any horse needs to be.

A Simple Ride

We finally got another ride in. I went out last night to check out the bitey status of Stitch's back, which I was happy to see was zero. I kept my fingers crossed that it would be the same tonight - and it was!

The goal for this ride was to trot a long side, 20-ish meter circle, then down the next long side. I didn't want to have him break a sweat, as it's finally warmed up here so the horses get sweaty pretty easily, but it's also cool enough that I want to make sure he's dry before going out. 

Overall, I was quite happy with the ride. There was someone else riding in the arena who was being kind enough to give me my space, so I would have liked to have done a bit more down the long sides, but didn't want to interfere with her ride either. 

Stitch got to the point where he was starting to look for the shape of the circle. He's a bit sticky in the first part of the circle coming off the wall, but as we crossed the center line and his nose was pointed back to the track I was able to release my inside rein and he continued on the desired path. 

I ended the ride with a bit of gas in his tank still. That's been a challenge, usually he runs out pretty fast and then loses the forward. Not that we did much trot, it was lots of short bits, but that's usually all it takes.

The only thing I didn't like was that he walked forward while I was getting on. He hasn't done that yet, and I don't want it to become a habit. If he does it on the next ride then I'll hop off and try again until he stands still. I might go back to rewarding him with a cookie if he stands for the next little bit too.

He's going to be ridden on Thursday (pending vampire gelding attacks) and I'm interested to see if he'll still be forward after being ridden the day before. Hopefully yes!

Gym Hair

 Pre-exercise bangs:

Post-exercise:

Perfect when you leave the hairdresser, and then you walk outside into wind.