So Alike... and so Close!

 Today I finished early enough to sneak in a ride! Extra yay because I have a feeling I won't get to ride tomorrow, as tomorrow is "get ALL the supplies for the bathroom" day. I ended up riding at home for time saving. Plus, my arena really is better after a hard rain. We had a good ride! We had some legit cross over on the canter half pass!!! I have to really use my weight and seat aids... not as much leg. We also had some good canter to walks both directions. And he was making me giggle because he got all fired up. And then he was acting like he wanted to do a change! I decided to try one over a pole. And he got it!!!!! And it was right to left too, which I believe is the hard direction!! So then we tried again and didn't get it. And he was getting frustrated. So we did some other things and I told him how amazing he was. And then he was still all fired up and so we jumped through the grid twice. Then he finally took a breath and settled. I told him how amazing he was and he we were so close to getting the change and not to worry or stress about it. Heck, we didn't even need it til after Kentucky! So hopefully he won't be like me... stressing over making every little thing perfect, frustrated when he doesn't get it right, annoyed that it's taking longer than he thinks, mad that he can't do what he wants to do. I told him it was my fault and I was throwing his body off, so... cut me some slack and we'd figure it out soon! hee hee.

Then we went on a walk about around the bottom of Jean's property and the side of Eddie's and then the gate to the dog pen pasture was open since Mike was mowing, so we walked around there a little bit. 

Good pony!

Almost rained out!

 

Today was a stressful day. It was supposed to be my day off, although I suppose I only worked today because I took another work day off to show. ;) But... I had to drive to Suwanee for two horses. Luckily I acupunctured them too, so it was more worth the drive. Then I had to get home in time to meet Taylor so she could trim Fleck and Funny. Poor Funny.. she was lame again today. Now the left front. Sigh.... Not sure if she has a bruise or another abscess??? Anyways... once Taylor left, it was so hot and miserable that I hosed all the horses off. I did Fleck first as he was still out. Then I did Dan, so he could dry while I was doing Funny and then we could ride. Well... he went and immediately rolled. So... I did Funny, and then hosed him again. But this time I put him in the cross ties. I went in and changed and then came out and tacked him up. We had someone scheduled to come give us an estimate on our bathroom and they postponed me for two days and chose this evening to show up. Mike came home from work and pulled in right as I hopped on. He was all grumpy about me "playing instead of adulting" and... pissed me off. So... I got annoyed and got off and untacked Dan to go inside and get the house clean... for the construction workers??? He doesn't even help me clean it when his Mom comes. Argh! I was so annoyed. But... basically as soon as I walked in the house... out of nowhere a huge storm blew up. It was getting dark and the wind had picked up a little but... it pounced!! Massive thunder booms and lots of lightning. It was actually borderline scary. I was reluctantly grateful that I had gotten off because we probably would have been at the top of the pasture in the arena when it hit! Sigh... so much for riding. 

 

But then.... after the construction guys left... the storm rolled out pretty quick. I checked radar and it was clear, so... I went back out and grabbed Dan (still clean this time!) and we got back on. We ended up having a pretty darn good ride! My arena is actually nicer when it's wet... it's not as deep. I guess the sand packs a little better. We had some good work. Our transitions are getting smoother and my legs were drapier today. We got some good canter to walks to canters. We got our left lead every time. We had a good counter canter. Our canter half pass was still a little sketchy, but...   We also had some nice trot half pass and leg yields and lengthenings. And then we worked on our halt through the walk with the mirrors. OH! That's handy! I could see that he was square and straight... And then I saw that while he trotted straight, and halted straight... when we did the downward to the walk, he shot right. I could keep him straight when i was trotting to walking to trotting to walking... but somehow not when I was trotting to walking to halting. I don't know how he knew the difference? We'd still halt straight though. But something we can easily work on and fix (hopefully) before AEC's to help boost our score. 

So yeah... Yay for getting it done and actually having a good ride too! And then he got a third rinse for the day. :) 

 

 

Stormy Weather

 Today was a bad weather day. It was my day off too. Oh well. It was sort of nice.. in theory. ;) I didn't sleep great because of the dogs and the weather. And I woke up early despite not having any reason to get up. Sigh. Oh well. It finally quit raining for a brief moment so I decided to bed stalls since they've been peeing so much I was running low on shavings. So I did that. Then I spent the morning doing work paperwork. And it kept drizzling on and off. Argh! Supposedly it was supposed to clear out by 1ish... So I was hoping. Well, at noon, it was still raining so I ran some errands. I got home at 3...still raining, but radar showed NOTHING else. So... I decided to give it a try. I went and fetched Dan and then noticed that the skies were blue behind him, but black in front of him. Argh!!! Now what?!? I debated not going.... so I took a minute and put him in the roundpen for a minute. We worked on our "calm down button". He's much better yielding to the left than the right. And he got a little sassy and up, but the wind was also whipping and Funny was being silly. So... we did a little bit of a work and then I decided the sky looked better, so off we went.

We had fun. We did some fitness work... hills, a 10 minute trot, followed by two 3 minute canters. And he opened up. He didn't gallop, or drop a gear like he did the other day, but he definitely opened up and put in a fast canter. Then we went for a long hack, with some more trotting. It was fun. And the weather was pretty amazing. For as rainy of a day it was, it got beautiful and the sun came out. Ahhhh... I'm glad we came. I think Dan is too. 

Also... it felt a bit like Fall today. Still humid, but way better... much cooler temps... a brisk chilly breeze, falling leaves.... YES!!!!

Weird Day....

 So...today was annoying... then sad... then happy... then hot and exhausting.... and all over weird. I woke up early and was still super tired, but... I had to get up early to ride before going to Mom's for swimming and hanging out with Mike. So I got up. And it was nice and cool with overcast skies and a chill breeze. I debated taking Dan for a fitness ride... maybe a little jumping...  especially with the nicer chillier weather. But then it had rained too so I wasn't sure what the footing would be like. And I had decided last night that I would take Funny with us so they could splash in the lake and play. So... I couldn't make up my mind. I ended up taking Funny. Which was apparently the wrong choice. But before we left Mike said that he wasn't feeling well and with the storms coming in this afternoon, he had cancelled going to his Mom's. So... I didn't have to get up that early but since I was already up... So I loaded the two ponies up and off we went. And we had a good hack. But Dan was in a mood. He was power walking and almost irritated. I wasn't sure if he was mad that Funny came along... if he was super anxious to get a big trot and canter and even gallop... if he was in a mood because I was in a mood.... ??? Funny was fairly oblivious and just trekked along, although she was struggling a little to keep up with Dan's motoring. Dan didn't even want to really play in the lake. Which made me sad. And then I was sad that maybe he was cranky because I was cranky? So I tried to not be, but... people are mean and stupid and I am feeling hurt. For stupid reasons.... apparently some random person complained about having to wait a month or more for an appointment for their horse yet I seemed to be spending a lot of time riding my horse. Sigh. I know. It's stupid. They don't know that I am working my tail off... 10-14 hour days, yeah, only 3 days a week, but... those other days are jam packed too. They don't know that I don't eat dinner til 9 pm, and that I literally don't stop... ever... that I fall asleep while driving all the time because I'm so exhausted... that I have migraines.... They are just annoyed that their horse has to wait. So why am I so upset about it? Because.... deep down... I feel like I don't work enough. Deep down I feel like I'm a slacker... I'm not putting enough effort into being a vet.... and so it hurts. But that's not Dan's fault. And it doesn't have anything to do with him. So I tried... I tried to see if I could change my mind and mentation and if he would improve. Meh?? Not really. He settled a tiny bit but still seemed annoyed that he had to bring Sissy along, which... is not normal. He LOVES sissy! Oh well. We had a good ride and hit some hills and did get in some fitness. 

 

But then this afternoon.... while it got hot.. it never stormed... and the sky was bright blue and the clouds light and fluffy... and there was an occasional lovely breeze... and I really wanted to jump. So... I set the jumps up in the arena and decided to just hop on at home. It wasn't the same as a long fitness set at Ashland and we couldn't gallop, but considering it would be ride number 2 and I didn't need to spend that much time away again... it was worth it. So I tacked up and took him into the pasture. We trotted and cantered a little bit to warm up. Funny joined us briefly. :) Then we went in and jumped. It was pretty much a very quick jump school. We didn't mess around. We warmed up over the giant X and the smallest fence in there and then off we went. He was super! And man oh man, is he sensitive to my shoulders. If I keep them back, he's brilliant. If I tip the teeniest bit... he goes but he's heavy on the forehand. But we managed to be good. Both of us. We jumped some bigger fences.. the liver pool, the grid, and even the barrel. We jumped it once with one wing pole and then... he knocked it, so I tried just jumping it as the single barrel. The first time he squirted around it, but the second time, he jumped it straight on! Granted he got deep and knocked it, but... he jumped the barrel! Whoo hooo! We jumped the oxer once more to get a better jump to end on and then we were done. I think it was a total of like...11 minutes jumping. Hee hee. He was puffing but within 2 minutes he wasn't. Then we got a drink out of the automatic waterers and I giggled because it looks like he's drinking from a giant toilet bowl. eeeewwww. :) 

Good pony. I think maybe he felt a little better too. I know I did. I think we both like "accomplishing things" a little too much. Sigh... 

 

Great Day!

 Ahhhh, Saturday! I slept in a tiny bit and got the animals fed. Then Dan and I headed out to Ashland for a ride. The jumper show was happening so he started out a little distracted, but settled quite nicely. We had a pretty good ride. We did the same stuff we did Thursday and had similar results. Lots of really good moments, including one amazing medium trot across the diagonal. Kelli said it looked superb and was our best one yet! Yahoo!! We also had some really good 3 loop serpentines with him staying collected and balanced and even able to change the bend but not motorcyling or swapping! Although the very last one... he might... might... might... have swapped super clean and quick from the right to the left lead. Which would be the hard way I think. He was going nicely and all of a sudden I was like "Did you swap?" and about 4 strides after I thought that, he broke to a very balanced trot. So... hmmmm. Oh well. We did some semi-decent trot and canter half passes too and some good stretchy walk. 

Then we went on a shortish hack with Kelli and Marvin. They splashed in the lake a bit. And then we came across Indi so Dan got in a minute or two of bitey face with him. As we were finishing up our hack... Kelli asked if I wanted to take Dan for a gallop. She said that she knew her "nephew" was itching for it. I giggled and agreed. I actually was going to let him have a lap at the halfshire hay field but we got distracted talking and I forgot. So, we did. We did two little burn outs in the XC field. Much harder to do in a dressage saddle! But Dan and I both had fun. He dropped a gear and went super fast. :) Not just a canter, but a legit gallop. Yay! Fun! And after... despite doing a 45 min hard dressage school, hacking for another 45 min to an hour, and two quck pipe openers... he wasn't even breathing heavy. :) I mean.. he was after dressage but that was due to the heat and he was working hard. Yay for fitness.

Then we hosed off and headed to Taylors farm for his massage with Kathleen. He was super. He's getting into his bodywork. Much less fidgety and much more cooperative and he is definitely enjoying it. Kathleen is so good with him too! And for him! She said he felt and looked amazing. I agree!! :) Yay! The weird new tension she felt last time was gone too! 

Then we came home and he enjoyed the rest of the day while I went and unloaded 60 bales of hay with Peri and then raced home to unload my 50 bales of alfalfa, which unfortunately... most got wet. So they are in the barn aisle hopefully drying out. 

 

Tomorrow I plan to get up and go hack... a nice w/t/c through the woods in the jump saddle day. :) I'm soooooo tempted to take Funny. We'll see. She's so bored. I just don't want him to get super attached before AEC's, but.. maybe I will. We've got three weeks still til AEC's. EEEEEEKKKKKKKSSS! Still... as fabulous as he was today.. I"m getting excited. Although it's a shame we won't be able to show off our 3 loop serpentine or our medium trot. ha ha!

Good Ride.... changing aids???

 So... yesterday I adjusted and acupunctured Dan and he was super! He was so good and non-fidgety. And he wasn't sore!!! Yahoo! So today... I'm not sure if he was straight and I was crooked... or if he's just changing the rules? Or if I was just not paying as much attention to my body awareness, paying too much attention, or.. just I have no idea. Anyways.. hang on.

 

He got shod this morning and was a good boy for Freddie and then we went to Ashland to meet Kelli for dressage and hacking. He was a good boy in our ride. We worked on our transitions and that was tough, but we made progress. Then we did some canter work and holy moly!!! We had a super fancy 3 loop counter canter serpentine! No flailing, no rushing, no falling onto a shoulder. We even changed the flexion and didn't lose anything! Heck yeah!! Then we had some decent canter half pass, and while we didn't necessarily leg yield back to the rail, we did go straight, shoulder in and then sort of glide/leg yield around the turn. ha ha! Again though, huge progress compared to our lesson! We had some nice trot half pass and some nice trot too! BUT.... somehow... now outside leg doesn't mean canter. Well, it does going right, but not going left. He must have picked up the right lead tracking left about half the time. I think maybe I was trying too hard to get his head untwisted, so I was sitting weird. Because once I paid attention to lifting my inside seatbone, he got it. Argh. But... still, we got nice canters and nice transitions once I figured that out. Oh, and in the beginning of our ride... while I was trotting and cantering on the buckle... I literally dropped him to the buckle and was trying to steer using my seat and legs only. It kind of worked. :) We finished our ride with a nice medium trot to collected trot down centerline to a pretty decent halt!

Then I swapped to the bareback pad and we went to the lake and splashed. We didn't swim, but he circled around and was deep enough that my waist got wet. Then we did a short hack and then Kelli tidied his mane. 

Hopefully we'll have a good ride Saturday and then I'll probably jump a little at home Sunday.