Small Wins

Our past two rides have been mostly on the trails, which during a melting humid heat wave is not the worst thing. A fellow boarder basically trapped me into taking her and her stupid, rude horse out because she's afraid to do it herself. It actually really annoyed me when she just showed up expecting an escort, but I'm choosing to find the positives from it.

like how nice early morning light is

Opie has gotten too used to riding out with Momo. Whenever we encounter something he deems scary, we just let Mo come up and lead us over. There's no chance of that riding with this horse. He's a total fruticake with a timid owner. It's made Opie step up to the plate and be the grown up at all times. It also reminds me how good he is on the trails, strolling along on the buckle while the horse behind him jigs and continuously smashes into his rear.

Heading back from today's ride, we had to cross the bridge from a direction he's never done it before. I warned A back from us knowing he was going to take offense to it and try to leave. He went flying backwards twice in a row with my spurs buried in his gut, but that was the extent of it. He knew he wasn't allowed to turn away, and after the second attempt he ended up trotting up to the bridge, carefully walking over, and then standing patiently to wait for A to figure it out. He's also marching right over and through the muddy ditch that used to give him such angst. I love me a strong, independent pony!

SO CUTE IN PURPLE

Yesterday I took my new (to me) western saddle for its first ride. It's a touch wide up front so I ordered a riser pad for it, but other than that it's absolutely perfect for what I'm going to use it for. Nice and roomy for my bum, and no yanking my legs and hips into horrible positions. Plus my new purple saddle pad is amazing.

85* by 8am

This morning we finished our ride in the pond pasture. Lots of big, forward, but balanced trotting which he was super for. I let him wrap it up by cantering over one of the jumps out there which he did on a soft rein with zero input out of the perfect canter to the perfect spot. A very good boy who earned tons of cookies.

So. Maybe not structured schooling, but his brain is being used--and it's being used for good and not evil. I can't wait for this heat spell to snap though!

Sunday Stills: Keuka Lake Outlet Trail

We finally made it down to the Keuka Lake Outlet Trail for the first time, and despite some dubious parking that we may or may not have made up on our own, it did not disappoint!

waiting for farrier to arrive with her horse who is brown
and therefore completely offensive to opie. but also obvi his
new soulmate. 

The intel on this trail was that horses had to be really good about bridges. Momo is our fearless leader over/under/past anything weird or scary so we weren't worried about that, but these bridges were sketchy AF. BM and Farrier actually got off and led over the first one because they didn't want to be on their horses if the thing collapsed. It made all three boys walk in super straight lines though. Because, you know, otherwise they might have fallen through the holes on the side. Fortunately there were only two of them right at the beginning of the trail and the rest of the eight-ish miles we did was easy peasy.

most of the ride was this: the creek on one side and marshy land or a road on the other

With it being the start of Memorial Day weekend, there were a million and a half people out. We got in quite a few good canters (and one bombing, legit as shit, bounding off the ground extended trot that had me squealing like a child and made me so excited to try to recreate for even a couple strides), but we had to keeping moving aside for packs of bikers. Fortunately the pones are pros at trail riding and absolutely nothing fazed them.

waiting for a biker to pass and enjoying the view

There were two gorgeous waterfalls from old abandoned mills. I tried to get a pic of the first one and Opie wanted no part of walking out onto the concrete viewing area over the roaring water. So strange lol. While I was trying to coax him out far enough for a view, BM, who had my phone, was spinning around in circles on Momo who was bored with the pit stop and wanted to keep exploring. Needless to say we were all laughing too hard to get any sort of nice picture.

opie hates me, mo is in motion, and farrier is probably wondering
why she agreed to come with us

Fortunately the second set of falls was much more picturesque.

so pretty, and getting the spray off the water felt nice in 80*

We found one spot to take the boys into the creek and they finally manned up and waded into running water for the first time. They had a good fifteen minute soak and splash party.

the gorge was really pretty but i didn't want to risk dropping
my phone for more pics

Another three hours logged towards my next goal of 100 (only 24 left to go!) spent in great company. Can't wait to do it again!

Dental and Jumping

Yesterday Opie finally had his teeth done. He was a little over a month overdue for his one year routine visit, but with the 'rona it seemed like something that could be pushed back until things started "normalizing" again.

LOL IT WASN'T.

walkabout after our stretchy ride after our dental

Her observations were:

• He's missing two bottom incisors; they never developed. Looking back at the first picture I took when we discovered his retained baby teeth, you can tell he only has four. So why didn't the first dentist I used notice and comment on this, and why didn't his current dentist notice that last year? 
• Because he doesn't have all his teeth down there, his upper teeth are hanging out all by their lonesome with no one to talk to which is causing him to develop an overbite. She was able to remedy this by filing down the front teeth for him and getting a good grind again, but that will have to be done for him with an every-six-months appointment instead of the usual year. 
• That's fine because she'll have to come out on a more regular basis anyway to keep track of:
• The bony lump on one of his bottom incisors that she had never seen before and had no idea what it was, and...
• His obvious onset of EOTRH. AT SEVEN YEARS OLD. 

What a mess. She hinted x-rays in the fall would probably be in order to see how far the EOTRH has progressed, but she still has twenty horses left in the barn to get to, so if she thinks he's looking worse in a hurry, we'll do those sooner. 

same, bro

The good news is, he's eating great, he's not bothered by his bits, and--most importantly--he can eat his carrots without trouble. 

Speaking of bits, I put his slow twist back on his figure eight, finally replaced my missing rein stops so I can use my running again, and saddled Sir Psycho Pants for a jump school this afternoon. I kept everything super small again--mostly 2' with a couple 2'3"--in case we had to have another rage monster showdown.

As soon as I asked him to pick up the trot, he shot off in the grossest, speediest sewing machine trot with his head in the air. Nah, sir. You're schooling Third. You can trot like a Training level horse to warm up. A quick CTJ when he tried to disagree, and we set off into some big figure eights before settling.

"IT'S JOMPIES TIME, BITCHES"

The first jump he was behind my leg, chose an awful distance, and launched. I backed him up and came around again with more leg. Much better.

The next few jumps were kind of the same while we figured each other out again. We finally got on the same page--if you're soft, I'm soft. You want to blow through my half half and charge the fence where you make a terrible distance choice and jump like a fucktard? I will rip your face off. Most of the work was really good for coming back into it though. I was able to ride forward and trust him to stay soft. No thoughts of stopping at the dreaded green rails. Some fun jumper turns and related lines. 

We both got tired in a hurry though. Going from rainy and windy 60* to full sun and no breeze 80* overnight isn't fun for anyone. Getting tired made him start chipping and jumping awful, so we rallied and I got him cruising to finish on a line with two good efforts. 

The best part was my leg didn't budge an inch the whole time. I'm glad that seems to have been a one time occurrence.

glad you're back on the bandwagon, traitorous lower leg.

Hopefully we get to do some trail riding this weekend if the weather doesn't storm on us. I got my very own western saddle today so we can do some barrels otherwise. I can't want to park my ass in a seat that my ass actually fits in. Not gonna miss ya, Hubby's saddle.

Redeemed. Mostly.

Ooh, #childsatan was still around for our trail ride on Saturday! Sir Shit for Brains needs to do some serious solo hacking because he relies way too heavily on Momo for a crutch when they're together, and his brain cannot when asked to do something "hard" or "spooky" as our always chosen fearless leader (because his walk step is about 18'). But we all survived, logged a couple more hours in, and no one lost their shit when they realized we were parked next to a yak--which kept hiding behind trees when I tried to get its picture.

usually the best trail boi, but sometimes a twig will offend
him and he'll whip around and slam me into BM/Mo/a tree

We've spent the past two days working in the double because Otto means flying changes!

hello otto

He's been great warming up in the trot and canter work. He decided he knows how to do renvers easy peasy which is fantastic because it always gave Bobby and I a collective brain melt. The half pass is flowing more forward although could still use more bend. He tried to get out of working his booty in the leg yield zig zag by acting like he was SUPER ANNOYED with his bits when I asked him to actually step under like a grown up. Completely ignoring the redirect to his face, I gave him a couple extra boots to the ribs and he got over it.

And then the changes!

The L-R is pretty solidly confirmed now. He still sometimes gets a little exuberant afterwards, and the change itself involves a great big old jump to the new lead, but it's a hundred percent clean. I hit it once, call it good with tons of praise and a victory lap, and then we leave that one alone.

The R-L on the other hand, is a great big old mess. To be fair, it is getting there. He reliably changes in the front on cue, and by the end of today's ride, he was swapping behind within a few strides. But it takes a lot of bolting--often, amazingly, while switching back to the wrong lead and then bolting in the counter canter on a 10m circle which is true talent.

It's just another step in the training process though, and I'm actually really happy with how he's developing. He finds being uphill not a chore anymore, and he's getting a lot more honest with using his body correctly without me policing him every step.

He'll get tomorrow off, and then we'll spend the rest of the week doing something else and not worrying about changes. He's not going to see Third until next year (provided a pandemic doesn't shut everything down again), so no rush.

Is that you, #childsatan?

BM wimped out from the cold Wednesday so we ended up back at the park. (It took me a long time to figure out what day that was even though it's only Saturday. Time is irrelevant at this point.) It was still a fun ride with lots of good gallops, even if I did lead us up a goat trail and Momo nearly led BM right off the side of the cliff.

honkers everywhere

including baby honkers!

Opie got Thursday off, and then I dragged out ten million poles and standards for some grid work on Friday. I needn't have bothered going through all the effort because I ended up dismantling half my work by the end.

I had a line of three big bounces along one long side (which is the only thing he did do really well), and a vertical one stride to oxer one stride to vertical across the diagonal. By the time we were done, I had the three bounces as half Xes, a crossrail on the diagonal, and another half X on the other long side.

The problem right off the bat was that I switched out his slow twist dee jumping bit for a french link eggbutt. He was tossing his head a few strides away the last time we jumped, and I do like to keep a feel of his mouth when jumping, so I thought it was me and I'd do him a solid by switching to something gentler.

Instead I think that's just him, and he took advantage by completely blowing through the bit unless I somehow managed to rip his head to the side and circle him in the middle of a bolt to the fence. Because if I didn't pull him right off of it, he had no problem crashing through the fence with his head pointed at the ceiling in a flat out run.

He's also apparently denoted the green striped poles his bugaboo and once again slammed on the brakes and refused to go near them until I made them an X.

I knocked everything down to idiot level pretty much immediately when I realized I had no brakes. I'm not particularly brave with stadium jumps on a good day, so I certainly wasn't going to mess around schooling my drama llama out of control horse over them in this weird world we're living in.

Even so, we spent a solid twenty minutes cantering over essentially elevated ground poles until I got it into his demonic brain that we do not bolt, rear, dirty stop, or go crashy crashies.

tbh i think the only reason we were able to end on a good note
was that it was 80* and he was exhausted. at least he got a good
bath out of the whole thing.

Needless to say, the slow twist is going back on. He also gets his teeth done Thursday, but in the end I think we're just going to have to repeat this exercise a few more times before jumping becomes blase again. This is only the second time he's jumped since quarantine went into effect so it's still VERY EXCITING.

The good news is, our barn has implemented a soft opening as of TODAY! Still tons and tons of rules and stipulations, but the big news is boarders no longer have to schedule times to come to the barn. We're still limited to number of riders in the ring at once, but not having to schedule personal horse time makes me feel so much less anxious.

he's so fit and strong (and clean) right now. hopefully he
goes back to using his powers for good.

BM and I head out to Oatka this afternoon where we might actually get to trail ride in warmth for once!

Basics

Last week's trail ride at the park was much needed. Both because it reminded Dopie that standing tied to the trailer is a thing--something he conveniently likes to forget when he hasn't been anywhere for awhile which causes him to set back, but my knotted halter showed him Truth--and because the boys were so happy to be out and about again. There was lots of soaking in the pond and enough gallops to satisfy everyone.

ground tied, ready to go home after almost breaking my ramp latch.
#childsatan 

We've had a couple of super easy, basic flat rides since then. It's been nice to be able to work solely on myself in the sitting trot. Opie has been forward and soft, so I pretty much just put him on autopilot while I try to correct bad habits.

• He's super in tune to my seat and as I've written before, I think this is where quite a bit of his back tightness comes from in the sitting trot. Definitely tension plays into it, but I've been getting him cruising in the posting trot and then quietly slipping into sitting while focusing on keeping my butt like jelly, my shoulders back and down, and tightening my core instead. A novel idea, I know.
• His canter is back to being loose and jumpy and wonderful. I don't know why he vacillates between that and gross four beated nonsense with nothing in between, but I'm going to ride the floaty train while it's around.
• He is understanding the medium trot. He. Is. Getting. It. It still needs to be bigger and bouncier always, but the concept has finally clicked in his giant head.

powered by candy

Tomorrow we head out to explore a new trail since going to the park can get boring in a hurry. Hopefully we don't get lost!

trail bros 

Quick catch up

Despite the amount of time between posts, I actually haven't had that many rides. I've been keeping to only one extra day outside of my three that I'm there to feed except for last week where I pulled in at six in the morning to ride in solitude.

up early for dressage shenanigans 

We ended up putting shoes back on Dopie after...three weeks? He was chewing up his feet too much and, while sound on bute, I wasn't going to make him mince around miserably for no reason. He's had two rides since then including a jump school and he feels so much happier with his sneaks back on.

getting them jumps with that uphill canter

We did a simple flat ride in the Micklem this morning where we schooled the trot half pass--it's getting there. The canter was good, the rest of good enough although he's really starting to get the medium trot. Finally.

On Friday I had him in the double again. We finished up with the basics quickly so I wanted to get a little more done. I decided we'd work on the changes. It was a rodeo. I mean, kind of a sort of fun rodeo, but a rodeo nonetheless. He tried his very hardest to yank me over his head with all his tiny might, but I just kept sitting in the saddle and kicking over and over and over until voila! Clean, crisp, sane changes both ways.

Yesterday I set up a short and simple jump course. We haven't had a real jump school in forever and a day so I didn't set anything above 2'6". With his shoes back on, he was feeling himself and launching over everything--once we got our canter sorted out.

There were several awkward AF distances, and I felt looser in the saddle than I usually do. I should have put my stirrups up a hole, but it's been so long since I've even sat in a jump saddle that I was just rolling with whatever I could get.

I did, however, rock that auto release every time we got into an awkward spot. Yay for not hitting him in the mouth!

no mouth yankies!

He took great offense to the green ascending oxer and slammed on the brakes twice in a row before I dropped one side of the back rail.

"no."

"i said fuck no."

"ok fine."

Tomorrow BM and I are getting brave and taking the boys to the park. Hopefully the cooler weather and the weekday morning keeps most of the populous away.