That view though!!!

Tonight we had a good dressage school and a nice short hack. :) We ran through our intro C test and had quite a nice go. :) And then the view was amazing for our hack. :)

Hopefully we won't melt tomorrow.
Our practice test

Cross Country Lesson Fun

We had a great lesson with Kelly today. Danny was so rowdy the day before that I took him off the red cell. :) And today he was a bit of a lazy bum. He's got two speeds.... intermediate eventer/racehorse and... lazy bum school horse. ;) Today we got lazy bum school horse. Although not really... He is happy to go along politely and he's got enough for beginner novice. It's just not as forward as I want. But it's better than being bolted with. ;) Maybe.... hee hee....

 

 

 Anyways... it was a fun lesson. We started off warming up and then Kelly asked what I wanted to work on. I told her that we tended to be fine with a few fences but as we started to do more we sometimes got a little carried away. So she said we would start with a course and just go right to it. She made me a course of about 12 fences. We started off with the three baby logs on the ground. Then we looped around to the 3 small coops and cabins, and then back around to the bigger rolltop on the hill, and then back down the 3 middle cabins. 

And he was just about perfect! I even did well with my "landing gear". Not perfect, but better.  So then she had us do a similar course but we did the bigger fences on the outside of the line. Maybe the "training" level fences??? He rapped one of them, but jumped the others quite nicely. We also jumped the dog house with the open holes in the bottom that is a little spooky. He jumped it before but only once or twice. And this time he just jumped over it without even blinking. 
  

We also came down to the bigger roll top and because it was on a slight angle, I didn't quite prepare him well. But he took care of me and just loped on over it. :)

So then we went to the banks and worked on my position. He was so good. He even got to the edge on a half stride at one point and just skipped in the air and loped on down. He's such a good kid. Then we went to the water and worked on coming down the banks. He was awesome. So we quit with that. 

 

Well, not quite. We were lessoning with Caroline and her awesome little guy. We used Dan as a lead over the ditches. And he was perfect. He just walked over like he's been doing it his whole life. Which he has.... ;) 
 
 So... hopefully we'll have a great outing on Sunday at the horse show. :) Tadpole 3 phase. If this goes well I think we'll try to find a BN 3 phase to go to soon. 


Here's videos!
Down bank to water
Good Save! Baby horse has a 5th leg 
Log to Down Bank to Water 
 More down banks
Up bank! 

Getting our rowdy on!

Back from Kansas! Danny and I had a good lesson with Cindy. He was quite a good boy.

Then today we snuck in a short quick hack. I knew I was running out of daylight so I just brushed off his back and threw on the tack. And off we went. He was great as we started off and relaxed and happy. We stopped at the lake to take pictures and stare at the deer. It was a big buck. And so there we were, staring at the lake... with the weird misty swirl on it... and suddenly Dan went straight up in the air! He actually knocked my helmet brim with his head. Dingbat. And then he came back down and was fine. I have no idea what spooked him.. or if anything spooked him. 

 So we carried on. And then we hit the trail and I could tell that he was itching to go. Good news is that I was too!

 So he behaved and kept it together around the creek and smaller path. And then as soon as we hit the uphill, he knew it was on! He leapt into a gallop, let out a few bucks first, and then... we were off!!! HOLY MOLY!!! We were FLYING!!! Like... super super fast! It was terrifying and exhilirating! His legs were flying. And he's getting athletic in it now. We were cruising. And then he opened up another notch. Zoooommm! It was a little scary going around those turns.  

I managed to get him back before we hit the downhill, although he did attempt to buck once or twice going downhill. We were both itching to go again so I told him if he behaved the way around, we could go again. And he did! We walked and trotted politely around to the bottom of the hill again, and... again we were off! I kept him a little bit contained as it was getting dark.... but we still hit 26 mph. (It didn't measure the first time, but I swear we must have hit 40 mph!). Wheeeeee....

 Then we walked politely back the rest of the way. :)  I love this kid!
And.. I did NOT give him the redcell tonight. ;) 

 

Manning up!

Poor Danaroo! He went from 3 rides in 3 weeks, to 3 lessons in 1 week. But he's thriving on it. :) Even without the double dose red cell. ;) ha!

I was hoping to take him for a nice enjoyable hack over the weekend to let him have a chill ride, but I ended up studying, doing barn stuff, and then going to the lake with Mike. (Ahhh... to be a real person again doing stuff, not just working!) So instead of a chill ride, he just got two days off. Today was our lesson with Cindy and now I'm back in Kansas for acupuncture school round 3. So he gets another 5 days off, but then back to work.

Anyways, clearly he is feeling fit and good. He walked to the arena on the buckle like a good kid and was even pretty chill in the arena at first. Then they started lunging this cute little appy pony and then Portia left the arena. So Dan had to be rowdy. We started with some little bucks and scoots and shoulder drops and crow hops. It wasn't too bad but he was catty today and twice almost unseated me. hee heee. But then he settled and was brilliant. I LOVE sassy Dan. :) We got some really nice trot work out of him today. 

And guess what?!?! We got NO lead changes :) :) We held the right lead for a shallow serpentine, then a serpentine to X, and then... even a 3 loop canter serpentine!! Granted I made the first two loops tight, and left the counter canter one very shallow, but he held it. And we had a fairly decent canter too. Whoo hooo!!! 

We had some pretty lovely trot work. I'm actually starting to feel it to and being able to ride him more effectively. He was pretty stiff to the right today, as usual, but I was better able to feel that the right side was way too long and shorten it and use that outside rein to get him into the contact.

 It was a fun day. :) I may have to outwit his rowdyness with counter canters and leg yields at Chatt for our Tadpole test... hee hee. But that's okay. :) 

Dan's reward for his hard work today 

Stadium with Beth

Dannys jump lesson

better course

Getting it!

I had a great lesson with Beth! We discussed what we needed to work on and she decided to put placing poles out so that Dan would start to get the hang of where he was supposed to take off. My job was to get him in a nice energetic but rocked back canter that was slow and maintain the rhythm and get him TO the placing pole. :) 

When I rode TO the placing pole, and kept my canter, as opposed to just keeping the canter, we had a most lovely ride. Of course once she pulled the camera out, it started to fall apart. Sigh. ;) Of course. 

But really, it was a very helpful lesson. We both got something out of it and I think that I am getting better at riding my big boy horse now instead of just letting him lope around on the buckle like he's still 3. 

Fun!!! 

Too much Red Cell!

Hee hee... I wanted some energy and I got some energy! Silly Danimal. Today was my lesson with Kelly in the XC field. He was sooo sluggish the other day that I was worried about him. So I started to up his red cell to twice a day thinking that might help. Well, it did! He was fresh today. :) But it was fun. And he wasn't really that bad. 

We warmed up and Kelly told me that I was going to start working on putting a half halt on Dan. She said that she wanted me to start sitting up and deep in my body to ask him to half-halt with my position, not my hand. That way, as we're galloping up to our big huge intermediate fences, I can just sit up and back and he'll rev that engine and bring his butt underneath himself without me having to get in his face and slow him down or fight with him. She said that by starting out by changing my body, then going to the hand to half halt, I would eventually teach him to do it without the hand. He's a smarty pants and was already starting to pick up on it. :) At least on the flat. Once we got jumping, he was a bit more of a hand ride. ;) Somebody got a little riled up!

We started out working on a nice quiet calm tempo and me focusing on my position. The first few little fences were very sedate and normal. So then Kelly sent us over some bigger stuff.  And then it started to get fun. We did the line up the hill towards the parking area and the first two fences were good but when we hit the third fence a fire breathing dragon came out! The first time we did the third fence, Dan took the bit 3 strides out and catapulted to it and flung himself over it and then put his head between his legs and took off bucking. Dingbat! It was a wee bit terrifying at first but then I had to giggle. Kelly was like "so.. you had a nice lovely BN tempo over fence 1 and 2, and then suddenly you were running intermediate over fence 3.. so yeah.... ". hee hee. Settle down Danimal! Good grief. So we continued to go uphill to help settle him down/tire him out. I managed to keep him to a dull roar for the rest and we had no more terrifying bolts at the fences. But I did have to keep him on a tighter rein than I'm used to. Which was quite nice honestly. I think it helped him jump better as he wasn't long and flat and lopey. There was a few times I started to water ski though as I got left behind. And I got stuck hanging on him some. So then Kelly reminded me about alternating half halts. Aha! It's hard because he's not consistent yet, so I'm not sure what he's going to do. So trying to pay attention to him and focus on fixing my problems is tough. Especially when he keeps changing tactics. But I did manage to finally fix my landing gear some of the time. 

We worked on kicking my feet in front of me on landing over the fences. We even jumped the middle cabin and roll top in the lines. Even the bigger scarier one with the holes in it next to the prelim bench! Danny was funny because I thought he might get a little backed off it as it has those scary holes. He was going to it all happy and brave and then as he jumped it, he sort of spooked and looked as he went over. Eeeks. :) Hee hee. 

So then after he settled and I was able to ride him a bit more effectively (ie... ride him like a horse, not a baby on a long rein, ride the rhythm in the canter and alternating half halts as needed) and we had some decent fences, we moved onto the ditches. Of course he was great over those. We did the scary ramp jump again! He wasn't looky this time. Then we headed to the water and did the up bank and down bank. Again I focused on the out and rode straight and it went better. Going to the up bank Kelly told me to just wait for him. He was sort of waiting on me and I was sort of anticipating and throwing him off. So I just waited to move til he moved and it worked well. He took a much more specific step up rather than sort of clambering up. Then we worked on the down. Kelly said that I was still going into two point too much. She wanted me to try a slightly bigger drop so that I could feel it better. She had me trot him out and up over the bank with the log laying on it. He was so funny. We trotted in the water and as soon as he realized I was aiming for that log, he stopped and was like "Wait, what?!?". I walked him forward to it and he sniffed it, walked another step and let him sniff the grass on the top, and then he almost walked up from there. I turned him around and we trotted back into the water and I knew he was going. He was like "Oh... why didn't you say so!? I've sooo got this Mom"! He's such a cutie. So we trotted up happily and then turned and trotted down. We finally got it right when I figured out to grab my breastplate strap. Kelly wanted me to keep my hands low and down but and pushing down, as well as pushing my feet down and forward, but without throwing my shoulders down. I couldn't figure out how to do that... My arms are too short or something. But then when we went down the big one the first time, he stopped at the top. I grabbed the saddle in case he leapt off. He didn't. He stopped, sniffed, and then calmly and quietly dropped off. :) Kelly said that's how she wanted my hands. So then my brain clicked and went OH!!! I can grab the breast plate strap at the base of his neck, rather than aiming for slightly higher up his neck. For whatever dumb reason in my brain, that worked so much better for being able to extend my arms and keep my shoulders up instead of falling down. So yay! We did it a few times and Dan was awesome. He kept trucking through and let me figure it out. And I did! Then Kelly said that I was staying in the saddle too long now. Sigh. Argh! So we did it twice more and she had me come out of two point as soon as his front feet landed. I got it!! I got the hang of it. :) Finally!!

Now to make sure I can keep it up. :) But it was a super fun lesson and Danny was a blast. I like him a little extra frisky, so maybe he can stay on the twice daily red He is getting fitter too because while it was warm out and he sweated, he wasn't dripping and he wasn't panting nearly as much, despite being a bit quick and working pretty hard. Yay. I rewarded him by letting him go splash in the lake. He loved it and was quite vigorous in his splashings. 

Good day!!