Winter is Here

I did get the third planned ride in on Stitch a couple of weeks ago, but it was rather blah after the previous two rides. He wasn't bad or anything, just may have been feeling the effects of three days in a row. He wasn't as forward or responsive to my leg as he had been. No worries, it's a long process, and over those three days I got done what I wanted to.

Even if I hadn't decided to just do those three days on him, Stitch still wouldn't be getting ridden because it's now winter. 

Like, full on, January temperatures and snow type winter.

Oh, what I wouldn't do for a little global warming at the moment.

Not quite sure if the kid has dark dapples in his coat or not. His face sure gets a lot darker in the winter!

To the surprise of probably no one, my horse is now sporting a mid-weight blanket and hood while grazing from the never-ending hay buffet.

I know, I said I wasn't going to blanket him.  But Saturday we got about 10" of snow, and then temperatures plummeted. I couldn't take the blanket off after wearing it for the snow when it was going to be so cold. I'm talking feels like -28 C temperatures for a couple of nights (that's -18 for you non-metric people). 

That's not usual for this time of year, and the horses don't have their full winter coats yet. That's how I'm justifying it to myself.

On Tuesday night I threw an assortment of blankets and liners into my car in the hopes that some combination would work. The kid has grown (and is still growing) but his chest hasn't filled out yet, so some of the bigger sizes are a little too saggy in the chest - or at least they were the last time I tried them on him.

Phantom's 75" Amigo was what I hoped would fit him, and it was actually pretty good on his chest, so that is the top layer. The hood is a little long, but it's not covering his ears so it's more than doable. 

I was surprised that the Greenhawk 100g liner fit way better in the shoulders than I thought it would. They fit Cisco's broad chest much better than Phantom, so I thought it would be way too big on Stitch. I also tried on a Lemieux liner that I thought would be smaller, but it was actually bigger, so the Greenhawk liner was the winner. The length on all of these was fine - a bit of room to grow, but the next size down might actually be too small.

There's still a couple of inches to fill out before I start panic buying him a new wardrobe.

I'm a little disheartened to say that I think I need to start looking for deals on 78" blankets. I think he's going to outgrow my extensive 75" wardrobe. (How much did your horse's blanket size change after he was 3?)

Stitch is going to be wearing his warm jammies for a few more days. We're supposed to get back to much more normal temperatures next week, at which point he can go out nekkid again.

At least until the next cold spell... 

Breakthrough!

Stitch has had his 20th ride. And it came with a little bit of a breakthrough!

The ride consisted of mostly walk again. The extent of the trot was a long side, big circle at the end, and another long side each way.  Nothing exciting. He felt slightly less downhill than the day before, but he was really stretching his neck out for his balance and felt like he was using too much of his underneck. No need to promote moving in that posture.

What I was excited about, was that this was the first ride where I felt that I was able to apply inside leg on a turn and he was able to stay bent around it and move away from it at the same time. Up until now, he had figured out how to turn off my outside leg, but would fall in if I asked for a bit of inside flexion.

Since he now is starting to understand inside leg, I started asking for the first time for a bit of contact and flexion. Nothing strong, just starting to give him the idea. It was all at the walk and I don't to mess with the forwardness.

Oh - I lied. We did one other thing at the trot. 

After yesterday's eagerness to do some walk/trot transitions, I wanted to see if he understood going forward in the trot off my leg. 

The first long side attempt he kind of went "uh, what?". The second side - he was all "I got this". He increased the pace and kept the rhythm with mostly just my leg (I think I clucked once). That was where we ended the ride. 

The next challenge will be trying to get the same inside leg reaction at the trot. That's going to take forever at the rate at which we are going!

 

Stll Thinking Forward

Okay, I know I said that Stitch was done for this year and was on his winter break.

But I managed to get a rare four days off in a row this week, and last week he was looking pretty balanced again. So I figured I would hop back in the saddle for three or four rides.

Stitch was lunged on the weekend with a saddle on as prep for my mid-week ride. There was a little bit of sass - there was one kick that was definitely aimed at a dangling stirrup, but the butt-tucked-underneath-him-scoot at the canter was probably due to the cool weather. Or so I hoped.

The plan was to take Monday off from the barn as per normal, and then lunge him again and practice at the mounting block on Tuesday so that getting on on Wednesday wouldn't result in any surprises. But that didn't go to plan after I spent an unplanned 12 hours at work o Tuesday on very little sleep and spent the evening clunked out in bed.

Thus, I hadn't put as much prep into Stitch as I had hoped. It's only been a month since he was last ridden, but he's only had a total of 18 rides. Not enough time that everything about being ridden is been there/done that for him.

I'm not that stupid, so before getting on on Wednesday I popped him on the lunge line first for just a few minutes. He was super boring so after a quick trot and canter it was time to hop up.

Again, I wasn't stupid, and had my mom there to hold him at the mounting block. I wasn't sure how easily Stitch would come to the block as the last couple of rides before we stopped he was a bit fussy about it and I haven't practiced it since. To my surprise he eagerly lined himself up, so eagerly that he stumbled over top of it, knocking me off and moving the block about 10 inches. He gets an A for enthusiasm.

He stood perfectly still and relaxed for me to get on. I had my mom lead him the first few steps, but having a leader and me on his back trying to steer seemed to confuse him so I quickly had her unclip the lead and let us free.

I couldn't get any post-ride pics with his ears forward. Guess he wasn't impressed about being back under saddle.

I had absolutely no agenda for this ride. If we only walked, I was going to be perfectly happy.

For the first couple of minutes, Stitch felt a little unsure about the weight on his back, but it didn't take too long before he relaxed and started to wak more forward. 

I decided to try a trot. I gave a little nudge with my heels and clucked - and Stitch slammed on the brakes. Oh no.

I tried again on the long side heading towards the gate and he picked it up right away. He trotted nicely forward and we did a whole lap before I asked him to walk. And then we went the other way and did an even better lap.

I was happy to leave the trot there because homeboy is feeling rather downhill at the moment. He didn't feel this way in September, so yeah, I'm pretty sure he's bum high again.

But Stitch had other ideas and broke into the trot when I asked him to walk forard. I didn't want to squelch his desire to go forward so we did some walk/ trot transitions with him going from a lighter and lighter aid. I added a quick turn on the forehand off both legs, and ended the ride.

All in all, I was super happy with him. My hope was that he would continue the forward thinking that we had been getting on the last few rides , and happily he did.

The plan is to do two more rides this week. They will probably be just as short and sweet since he's feeling so downhill, but that doesn't bother me. Then, depending on how high his butt is at Christmas, I might do a few more days in the saddle when I have some time off again. Provided it's not freezing cold, of course!

Catching Up

 I fell off the blogging wagon again, because, well, nothing's been happening.

In what seemed to be just a couple of days, Stitch had another growth spurt in mid-October. On the Wednesday my mom and I both looked at him before I tacked up and said that he was looking pretty level, by Saturday his butt was noticeably higher.

Definitely bum high.

I rode on the next Tuesday. His first trot felt a bit discombobulated and he stumbled a couple of times, which he hasn't done since the first couple of rides. (This could have also been because the other horses left the ring and he had some feelings about that.)

I was kind of thinking that maybe it would be best to start his winter break early, and when I wentout on Friday to ride I looked at his back and the way it was swooping up to his much higher butt and said, nah, he's done for the season. 

In case you missed it in the first pic.

However, I allowed myself to have one more ride around the field the next day if someone was around to go with me. It was supposed to be a beautiful day, quite possibley the last of the season. 

Sure enough, I woke up in the morning with a text from someone asking if I wanted to head out after my lessons were done for the day. Of course I said yes.

So off we went, on what turned out to be a somewhat overcast and gloomy afternoon. Very much not what was forecasted.

Stitch had only been ridden once that week, so he definitely had a bit of sass in his step. Not fancy prancing horse sass, but I knew there was something in there.

I also figured out why he always has a dorky center part in his forelock - he has a giant cowlick at the base. His forelock is never going to lay flat without assistance.

What was different on this ride from our previous jaunts around the field was that the other rider's dog was accompanying us. He was full of energy and was running everywhere, including into the ditches, which then meant popping back into the field from behind the tall grass along the edge. 

I'm sure you can guess where this is going. 

Stitch was fine along the first side of the field, although he was keeping a close eye on the spaniel.

As we turned the corner I moved him a little closer to the edge of the field and onto the packed road. We weren't there for long before the dog popped out of the grass, and Stitch showed me just what his big spooks were going to look like.

He spun to the left. Very quickly. Pretty sure his front end dropped pretty good too, but it was so fast I really don't know. 

The good news is that we had our first canter, and it was on the left lead that will be his tougher one to get!

The spin threw me out of position - I lost my left stirrup, the saddle slid quite a bit to the right, my reins were long so my hands were way up in the air (but not that long because I was kind of anticipating something was going to happen). As I was starting to look for a soft landing place, I realized my dressage whip was flapping around way up in the air which probably wasn't helping things. 

I thought to myself if he's going to buck, this is where it's going to happen. 

But he didn't.

And I got myself somewhat organized and just rode the canter out. Stitch came back to walk, gave that dog a dirty look, and we continued. 

I mean, I wasn't crazy enough to really tempt fate and go back to the edge of the field. We stayed more so in the middle and ended the ride much earlier than planned. The other rider is of the nervous sort so she was also a little traumatized by my spook and was quite happy to change the plan up.

I still call the ride a success. Something happened, we survived, and we continued on. It didn't go the way I wanted it to, being the last ride that we were going to have for a while, but, hey, it made a good story.