Ride #5

The original plan on Tuesday was to meet my assistant at about 3:30 after her appointments and do a bit more trot on the lunge with Stitch before hopefully trying it loose.  It didn't work that way - my helper's day ran late and she couldn't come until early evening. I had gotten out to the barn at the original time and could have done something useful like clean tack, but instead I sat on my butt and watched the colt starter work on some of her new horses. 

This porcupine was crossing the road on my way home. He plunked his butt down and stared at me and had no inclination to move very fast.

I thought we would be in the clear to get Stitch done before lessons started, but no such luck. That meant that we wouldn't be able to lunge. I wasn't worried about trotting him by myself but figured I would need help with getting him going, and if the arena was too crazy it would still be a good experience for him just to walk around the chaos.

I only had her lead me a few strides away from the mounting block. He steps back a couple of steps when I get on, and I don't love that feeling. I'll work on that in the next few days. 

There were three intermediate riders and a few jumps set up. Stitch walked all the way around the ring like he'd been doing it for years. He steered exactly where I wanted him to go, and other than the fact that he bulged a bit to the inside as we walked down the track you wouldn't think this was only his fifth ride.

When it came time to trotting, we went right first, and I had my helper "lunge" us by waving the lunge whip behind us. We did it about 3 times, getting a bit more trot every time, though as soon as I tried to steer we lost the trot. I was trying really hard to stay off the contact and out of his way, but being a baby he's wobbly and that makes me wobble and I end up pulling on a rein at some point. 

When we swapped to the left, I asked my helper to wait on the whip, I think he has the idea and let me try to ask him to trot first. Sure enough, we got it! The first time took a few steps of revving up into the trot, the second time only took a couple of steps. We managed to get down one long side and most of the way around a turn before we lost it. 

Also, wtf is my left wrist doing? I'm sure it's because my reins are long (and I'm sticking to that story) but I'm gonna have to work on that!

After we trotted, I picked up a light contact at a walk, just enough to keep a feel but not put him in any type of frame. He didn't change his walk at all. Tracking right (the better side for both of us) I was able to keep a right bend shape, going left is going to be our tough side. 

Super happy with the ride. There were jumps to dodge, horses to stay away from, horses all resting in the middle while the baby had to stay out on the rail, horses cantering towards and past us, and he did it all with no concerns on his part.

The only thing he did was a little stumble on a front leg when we were trotting. Not sure if he stepped on something or forgot that he has four feet to figure out. We'll keep an eye on that - I haven't seen him do it to date.

Ride 4

Stitch's fourth ride happened on Monday. My helper was the same person who helped me on ride #2, and she immediately noticed how much his confidence had grown in just two rides.

I had her only lead us around for a half circle before we walked around solo. We used almost the whole arena - there was a coil of white cable that had been left at the far end, I'm assuming for some improvement job, that many horses were convinced was a pile of snakes. Stitch noticed it, but I chose to turn early and not risk finding out what his spook felt like. So we used about 3/4 of the ring.

That was all going well, so it was time to try a trot!

I had my assistant hook us up to a lunge line and out on a circle we went. It took some encouragement from the whip, but the first trot was about 12 steps before I asked him to walk. He just felt a bit unsure, so I wanted to give him lots of praise and tell him how smart he was. We did it again to the right, about another half circle, before changing to the left.

By that point, he had it all figured out. He picked up the trot much quicker, and kept it longer. I was once even able to get him to keep trotting from my leg when he wanted to stall out near the gate where a horse was waiting to come in. 

We left it at that for the day with plans to do more trot the next day. 

There are a couple of things that we'll have to make an effort to work on in the next few rides. First - he's taken a couple of steps backwards at the mounting block after I've gotten on. I think I will need to do a ride where get off and back on 3 or 4 times and see if that fixes it.

Second - stopping to poop. Nothing major, but I'll have to convince that he can walk and poop at the same time.

Third - parking. There were a couple of times in this ride where I stopped to sort something out, and though he initially stood still, he got a bit antsy pretty quickly. He kind of does this unmounted as well, he loses patience and then wants me to play with him. We'll work on it as much as his 3 year old brain can manage.

It's been a good start to the week!

Ride #3

 On Sunday I had to get up bright and early (which sucks on your vacation) to be at the barn for Stitch to get his pedicure. Our appointment was originally scheduled for later in the week, but my farrier had a last-minute opportunity to take a trip to Norway so she asked to reschedule.

She's happy with how his feet are doing and said he's got good sole depth, which I noticed as he hasn't been ouchy whenever we've gone for a walk down the road. First time in a while that I haven't had to baby my horse when walking across gravel! It also hopefully means I can keep him barefoot for a long time to come.

I finagled someone to help me with my ride I tacked up right after Stitch's trim. It was early on a brisk morning and Stitch was being a little restless in the barn, so I wasn't sure if that was going to affect him in the arena. I did a minute or two of hand-walking just to be safe before hopping on. 

His first step was sketchy - it felt like his butt got high for one step, so I quickly grabbed the neck strap just in case, but my assistant kept walking and that was the only blip. Not sure what it was.

I had her lead us around one circle each way before unclipping the lead.

Stitch was much more forward than the previous day, with fewer sticky moments. His sticky spot changed to near the gate though. 

We did a bit more steering than the previous day and was mostly able to stay on my chosen path - I'm not going to call it a circle by any means.

Before hopping off we did a couple of short walk/halt/walk transitions, which he did promptly from light leg/seat aids and my voice. His brakes are fabulous.

It was still just a 10 minute ride. The plan will be to walk a little further around the arena on the next ride, and maybe introduce the trot on the lunge if everything feels good.

A very boring video - don't feel bad about fast forwarding or watching only a few seconds!

Ride #2

After sitting on Stitch for the first time I had a bit of a busy week during which I didn't really do anything with him other than hand-walking. I am now freshly re-certified in first aid, but please - don't trust that I can do anything other than call 911 for you!

This weekend I started my final vacation week of the year, so it's officially time to get Stitch going!

Ride #2 was on Saturday. 

I had someone lead us around for a couple of circles each direction, with some walk/halt transitions mixed in. Then we were unclipped and let loose!

We were on the left rein first, which is Stitch's least favorite side. When loose in the arena he always wants to go right, his left lead is the trickier one, and steering left when ground driving has been the side with the stickier turns. (Sadly, this is also my tougher side, so that's gonna suck.)

He got a bit sticky about going forward along the wall opposite the gate on the left rein, stopped a couple of times after a couple of steps, but nothing abnormal for a first time.

He started off a bit stuck on the open part of the circle on the right rein, but once we got along the wall he relaxed, and across the short side he dropped his head, lengthen his neck, and just marched along. Totally felt like an "I got this" moment.

Was it heading towards the gate? Most definitely.  Did I care? Nope, I'll take what I can get. Did I hop off right after that and shovel cookies in his mouth? You betcha!

Total saddle time was about 10 minutes. Again, there was a Pivo fail right at the end when he gave me the great walk. I really must put it in a different spot next time.

I'm On!

I did it! I got on my baby horse!

On Saturday I finagled one of the barn rats to hold Stitch for me while I again put weight in the saddle, and hopefully swung a leg over. Just like last time, he was far more concerned about the speed at which the cookies were being doled out than what was happening on his back.

The first time that my butt sat in the saddle he kind of went "huh... that's new... where's my cookie?". So we just walked a couple of steps to clear the mounting block and I slid off. 

The next time we walked about 10 steps before I got off, and the third time we did about 1/3 of a circle with a couple of walk/halt transitions.

I was led the whole time and did my best to just stay balanced and relaxed in the saddle. I have no impression as to how he feels other than narrow and wobbly - the baby horse is going to take a bit to get used to!

We did some ground driving the day before and he did a pretty good job of steering - just not very good about straight lines. I guess he can't always be perfect.

Now we're really ready for work to start next week!

Getting Closer...

The plan is to start riding Stitch on my next week of vacation - which starts next Friday. We still have some prep to do before I think he's ready.

On Monday, we did our second attempt at ground driving off the bit. This time we used the full arena, which had some construction going on at the time. Stitch stopped a couple of times to stare, but I just let him have a moment and then asked him to walk again so there was no drama.

He did really well with the steering, mostly staying soft. There were a bunch of ground poles scattered around, and they gave us something to steer over and around.

I noticed that he was a wee bit harder to turn to the left. Whenever I let him loose in the arena he wants to spend 95% of the time tracking right. So, I'm guessing that left will be his tougher side, which sucks because that is also my tougher side.

On Wednesday I enlisted the friend who is going to help me with Stitch's first few days under saddle to hold him while I put full weight in the saddle. I've leant over his back lots, but when I tried to put my full weight over him without a saddle last week he kept stepping away from the mounting block. I'm too short (too fat, too stiff, too chicken) to not use the mounting block, so I waited until I could have a helper to try again.

I did the whole build up from just putting a little bit of weight in a stirrup to full weight in the stirrup to lying on my stomach across his back. Stitch was super about all of it, and was far more concerned about when the next treat was going to appear than what was happening on his back. The first time we asked him to take a few steps he was a little tentative, totally to be expected, the next time he took 6 or 7 steps that felt forward and confident so that's where I left him.

One day I'll figure out how to set up my new Pivo properly.

I'm sure I could have slid my leg over and he would have been fine with it, but I'm in no rush. The plan is to do it again on Friday, and if all goes well I might try it that day.

Over the next ten or so days I want to do more ground driving to make sure the steering is good, some lunging to make sure the voice aid to trot is prompt (it mostly is), and some ground work that will have him move away from my hand when it's where my leg will be. Then I will be much more confident when it's time to be let loose.

What We Did Last Week

How last week went:

Monday - I took Stitch into the round pen to try ground driving off the bit for the first time. We just walked, and he was very good and softly turned when asked - once I picked up a whip and got his ass in gear. This horse definitely has more whoa than go.

One problem with the lack of throatlatch on the PS of Sweden bridle - no where to twist your reins out of the way when lunging (or ground driving ).

Tuesday - Stitch wore his rainsheet overnight as the forecast was for a bunch of wind and rain. This is the same rainsheet that I made adjustments to to fit him back in May. He's grown enough over the last couple of months that I had to let the chest straps out by a couple of holes and it fits perfectly at the butt end. He still doesn't have enough cleavage that I can let out the darts I put in the neckline though.

Wednesday - we went for another walk down the road. This time, he was able to ignore the neighbours guard boulders, and only briefly glanced at the screaming stud pony.

Captured in the evening sun.

Thursday - Stitch went for a car ride.

He was a little bit sweaty so there were some nerves.

It was his first time being done up in my straight-load trailer. Getting him locked in was no problem, getting him out took a few minutes as he kept sitting on the butt bar and I couldn't get it dropped. I ended up putting the lead rope around the front of the head divider to give me a way to pull him forward while I was at his butt, and that helped. He wasn't being panicky about it, he just didn't understand that he didn't need to step back when I was back there. We'll work on it this fall. (Still way better than Cisco ever was.)

Saturday - I swear that anytime I skip a day this horse grows. Took his blanket off and it looks like his withers have popped up and his front is almost level with his back. I measured him at 15.1hh at the withers. He can stop getting taller anytime - he better not hit 16hh! My short little legs will have problems reaching that high to get on!

Walking the Oversized Dog

I woke up early on Sunday morning and headed into work - only to discover that I didn't work that day because I had agreed to take someone's Saturday shift the following weekend. D'oh!

So off to the barn I went.

It was a perfect summer morning. It had rained overnight and the temperature was cool enough that you wanted to do something outside but didn't have to wear a sweater.

Stitch was greatly enjoying his morning nap when I drove in. He is very much a kid who sleeps hard and does not want to get out of bed when mom says it's time to get up.

Flat out in his circus tent pj's.

I decided that Stitch and I would go for a walk down the road. I wanted to do something with him away from the arena, and since it had rained the gravel road was softer and would be easier on his toes.

So off we went.

This was the first time I had taken Stitch away from the barn and away from his fellow equids. I wasn't sure how he would behave, but didn't think there would be any issues.

Just walking the oversized dog.

I was right. He was a superstar.

He was very brave and defended me from the trained guard boulders that popped up after the tall ditch grass next to the neighbours driveway. He maintained eye contact with the leader, the biggest one, as we passed, and that boulder learned it's lesson and gave us no troubles on the return trip home.

They were very menacing in person.

Another two doors down lives a pony, quite possibly an ungelded one, who to my knowledge lives by himself, and thus gets very excited whenever another horse walks down the road. There is a line of trees between his fence and the road, so we can hear him galloping and screaming, but you can't really see him between the trees. He can cause a bit of excitement as we walk past him.

He's starting to figure out how to pose for pictures.

Stitch saw and heard him, stopped, got taller, and then walked quietly past. I didn't even have to give a yank on the lead at any time.

Work it, baby.

On the way home he called out to his friends a couple of times just to make sure they were still within earshot, but that was the only stress reaction he gave. We had lots of relaxed snorts and sighs, so he seemed to enjoy going out to explore.

Stitch's talking face.

It was a good first time going away from home experience that we will have to repeat again through the fall. I'm hoping that I will have him going enough to be comfortable to take him out into the crop field in October for a hack, but we'll see. It's too hard to walk around it on foot, I would only do it if we can ride it. 

Very Demure. Very Mindful.

On Friday Stitch saw the vet to get his teeth floated. It was the first time that he's been sedated since I've had him, also probably the first time since he lost his testicles. I am happy to say that he is a cheap drunk and it only took the initial dose of sedative to get the job done. The two grey ponies, especially Phantom, were notorious for needing extra sedation on dental days - Phantom's record was three top-up's after the initial dose at a cost of $125 for just the sedation. Stitch's sedation came to $40. Very demure. Very mindful.

The vet didn't have any concerns about his mouth. He had some sharp edges where caps had come off, but his bite and alignment were good. She recommended that he get done in another six months after he's lost more caps. That will tie in nicely with getting it done around the time that I plan to start him again after his winter break.

Stitch was even polite enough to stand quietly in a stall while he came back to full consciousness. I don't know if he's ever been stalled before. Again, a change from the grey mare who got angry at being in jail and would bang the crap out of the stall door.

I also took the opportunity for a quick bean check - didn't find anything. Didn't get my head kicked in either.

Now, if I can ever get over the lingering phlegm and snot from last week's Covid, we will be ready to get to proper work. 

Stitch's First Rider

Stitch has had his first rider onboard!

This giant unicorn and a rainbow balloon has been hanging out in one stall of my horse trailer since last summer when I had set them up for Phantom and Cisco's birthdays. They didn't deflate that much (just filled with air) and I kept them around in case I wanted to use them in the future.

Well, the time had come for them to die - I wanted the space back in the trailer. But I might as well introduce Stitch to them first! 

The kid noticed them immediately when we entered the arena, but he wandered over and gave the unicorn a sniff. No big concern, not even when the rainbow, which was slightly softer than the unicorn and didn't really want to stand up, slowly slid down to the ground in front of Stitch and softly touched his toe. He stood perfectly still, gave it the hairy eyeball, made sure it was dead, and then walked right past it without a care.

The balloons got dragged behind me as I led him around, and then the rainbow was thrown over his back. Meh.

So I popped the unicorn aboard, since it would stand upright and be a bit more imposing  above him.

The only reaction I got was a big "I guess this is my life now" sigh.

I hope I get the same sigh in a few weeks when it's me up there!

Soft Kitty

 After staying home for two days wallowing in my covid-induced misery, I felt a bit better on Friday. I was able to mask up to hit the feed store and the tack store that was having a sale.

I went in with the intent of not spending much money, and I managed to stick to it. The planned purchases were Vetrap and horse cookies, and potentially a glittery saddle pad that I had seen previously and was on sale for only $30.

This wasn't the first time I considered buying this pad. The glitter doesn't come through well in the picture, but trust me, it's there.

In browsing through the store, making sure that I really didn't need anything else, I saw the Hands On grooming gloves. I have a pair but the rubber nubby bits on some of the fingers are falling off. The gloves were about the same price as the saddlepad, so I told myself I can get one or the other.

I'm sure that the saddlepad would look great on Stitch, in it's dark blue all-over glittery glory. But he really seems to like a good scrubby grooming, often swinging his butt towards me when I get to his hind end with the curry.

The gloves came home with me. I might forever lament the lack of glitter in my saddle pad collection, but watching Stitch's upper lip stretch while he got scrubbed with my gloved hands confirmed that I made the right decision. 

After hitting those two stores I had just enough energy in me to head out to the barn. I popped Stitch into the arena for a play. He's still learning that free arena time is play time, but tonight was the first time he had any sass in him. Enough that he even let out a few bucks. That was the first time I'd seen him do that.

Good news - he did not miss his calling as a bronc horse. His back end got sufficiently high, but his front end didn't get very low. His neck kind of stayed level and long, it should be easy to sit if he ever tries it under saddle. 

Didn't get any video of it because, well, didn't expect it.

But I did get lots of pictures of Stitch checking out Jerry, one of the barn cats. He's seldom in the arena, but for some reason this night he meowed his way into the middle of the ring. 

Forget about the glitter. Enjoy the cute.

I'm Blaming the Oncoming Sickness

It's a good thing that I lunged Stitch on back-to-back days Monday and Tuesday this week, because not only did the wildfire smoke come in at hazardous air quality levels, after 4 1/2 years of avoiding it, I finally succumbed to Covid on Wednesday. Mid-way through my week of vacation.

That's a definite positive.

So far, I'm either too hot or chilled, have a cough, and all my joints and problem areas ache. It's only been about 30 hours so who knows how the next few days will go. I've had four vaccinations so hopefully they work their magic and keep the symptoms minimal.

Anyhow, on the Tuesday I tried to capture the lunging using my new Pivo Pod X. This is the one that I Kickstarted back in October 2021 and it finally shipped this spring. After I didn't have a horse to ride, of course. 

I tried it once just after it arrived without reading the instructions and didn't have much luck. I thought I'd try it again, knowing that lunging wasn't going to be the best option to test it.

The Pivo Pod X is the one that moves on an x and a y axis. Meaning that it can tip up and down as well as go sideways to keep the selected item in focus.

I'm currently 0/2 on using it.

The first problem is that I didn't put my phone in landscape mode, which is required for horse tracking. If I had bothered to check it after a couple of minutes I would have seen the message saying so, but I did not.

When I put my phone onto the holder in portrait mode, it was angled up towards the rafters. I thought that once it found the horse it would self-adjust, but for 80% of the video the top 3/4 of the screen is rafters. For some reason it did adjust down towards the end, so I've got the couple of circles seen here.

I don't think lunging is easy for the Pivo to keep the horse on the screen as it has to be set up outside the the circle. I'll try it again though, and see if the problems were all user error.

I also realized I can try the Pixio. If I attach the tracker to the saddle then it should track the horse while on the lunge. I can pop it in a case of some sort before clipping to a d-ring.

So, here's a whole 40-some seconds of Stitch on the lunge.

His left lead is the stickier one, and this might be the best transition he's done so far. He's starting to find some balance at the canter and I'm happy with how quickly he relaxed into it.

He wants to fall out to the right when tracking left so I try to use the walls to encourage him to stay straighter. The sessions are very short because homeboy has zero fitness. Not necessarily bad for a baby horse for the first few rides!