Snow!

We got lots of snow (for us) over the weekend. So, our show was cancelled, and there was no riding going on. I rode Tari for 5 days straight, and she was so good. She deserved this little break for the snow. As soon as the snow melts and the ring dries out, all 3 of my horses are going back into full work. At least 4 days/week for Sundance & Tari, and at least 3 days/week for Spirit.

WOW!!!!

Today, Tari had an epiphany. The light bulb came on. It clicked. After 3 days of working on turning on her rear end, she finally told me she understood.

I started her work out normally. Walking around, then trotting some circles. We were trotting on a large circle in the center of the ring. At one point she started to tip her nose in like she does when she's about to just bring it right to my leg and roll her hip out. But, today, when I picked up my outside rein and gently pressed my outside leg in her side to keep her straight, she turned and trotted in a very small circle. Through the whole circle I felt her inside hind stepping forward. She never once tried to roll her belly in the smaller circle. So, when the circle was done, I let her come out of it and go back to trotting our big circle. After a few rounds, we changed direction. Now, this way she didn't try to stick her hip out, but I tried to do the same thing in this direction to see how she'd turn. I slightly picked up the outside rein and pressed my leg into her side and she moved into a nice small circle, reaching forward with her inside hind. YAY!!!!
That was our first accomplishment of the day.

Then, I decided to try to lope some spiral circles and see if she could hold it together for those. Usually, once the circle gets smaller, she either sticks her hip out, or breaks to a trot. I think she's just not strong enough yet in the rear end to hold it together. So, we've been doing lots of long trotting lately to try to strengthen her hind quarters so this exercise is possible for her.

So, I started loping in the same circle we were previously trotting. Center of the ring, and a big circle at first. We loped, 2 circles, and then I brought her in a bit. Then a bit more, until finally, we were about as small as I was comfortable asking her to go and I asked for her to turn around as if we were turning a barrel and she did it!!! So I let her slowly come out of loping the circle until we were back out to the big circle. The whole time she was loping today she felt so light on her front end. She's finally using that big butt for what it's meant to be used for!

Then, the real test. Would she do this, on the pattern.

I walked her around the pattern. Asked her to stop and back up. Really asked her to pick up her shoulders and come around. She did great. We did it at a trot. Stop, hesitate. Back up, walk around. Then, I asked her to lope the pattern. Very light in the front end again. We get to our pocket, I sit, say whoa, pick up my outside, press my leg into her right side, and she comes around! Oh. My. Gosh. I was so happy. She had perfect turns on her 2nd and 3rd barrel too. Great, great, patterns tonight. Of course, no one was there to see it.

But, later, I took a student on a trail ride, and just before we left, another boarder had come out, and I took her through the pattern again, and asked the boarder to video. She did OK, the two I got on video, but I'll make excuses for her. She had sat at the trailer for about 20 minutes. And I didn't walk or trot the pattern before I did it, I just put her to it. The first one was not as graceful, but still a very big improvement on what she did a week and a half ago when I took her to triplecreek. After the first video, I trotted her through and tuned a bit, then loped again and it was much better.

After today, I feel like she said, "Hey, mom, I get it now. Is this what you want me to do?" I just wish I would have figured it out a few months ago!

Turning around

Today was the 4th day (not in a row) that I've worked on turning around on the fence with Tari. She has this bad habit of continuing to travel forward with her backend and lock up in the front. So, after researching, I really like the idea of helping her learn to turn around by using the fence. I ride along the fence and randomly ask her to turn into it, forcing her to drop her backend and pick up her front end. At first she still just stopped on her front end and whipped her butt around. But she quickly figured it out.

Today, I hopped on and rode her around bareback. I was trying to adjust my seat and my leg pressed against her side. She very quickly turned around. Not being in the saddle I about fell off! I was not expecting that. My first thought was that she was just being touchy. But, after warming her up for a few minutes, I walked around (the puddles of course) and instead of turning on the fence, we were in the middle of the ring. She still turned around really nicely. I was very proud of her. I hope the ring dries out enough by wednesday to get drug so that I can see if she can put those turns into action on the barrel pattern.

Oh, and P/S....I measured her today. She was 13.3 in the fall, and she's 14.1 now! My baby is growing up!

We're BACK!

I was recently informed that I should have better kept up with this blog.

Unfortunately, this year flew by, and I got very busy with CCWHA and showing and getting a 3rd horse, and work and the blog just got put to the side.

So, now hopefully, we'll be posting more updates on my little girl. She's doing great by the way!

This past year Tari was getting adjusted to going to CCWHA shows and we did well in Egg & Spoon. That's my favorite class, and we actually won a few times! I would enter her in some classes at the shows, and we got enough points in each class to get a trophy for each. I was very impressed with her! We also won reserve high point in the Adult gaming division. She made her momma proud for our first year together!

Over the year she's done well in the barrel & Pole classes. I think she's gonna be the only one of my 3 that is better at barrels than poles. But, we shall see. She still has time to improve.

All year she has been trying her hardest, and I think she really does enjoy her job. She is extremely smart and picks up new things quickly. I'm also really glad she has yet to become "marish". She definitely has her moments, but she still acts a bit like a baby. She loves to snuggle with me. She does act slightly like a child though. She'll hold a grudge in a heartbeat and she will let you know when you've hurt her feelings! I do love her though!

Ok...anyway...So her biggest issue with barrels this year has been turning. GO figure! She doesn't keep her butt under her coming out of the turn. She swaps leads in the back and counter canters to the next barrel. Besides being uncomfortable for me to ride, it causes her turns to be less tight, and essentially time consuming. SOO.... yesterday we did some exercises to get her working on her back end to strengthen it up and teach her to automatically stay on her back end in her turns.

First we did some work on the fence. I would turn her into the fence and ask her to do a 180 in the other direction. We'd go a few steps and turn into the fence in the other direction. She picked up quickly how to turn quickly, but she wasn't quite turning completely on her back end. She'd finish the turn on her front end, somehow. So then we just went to walking counter-arc circles. We'd walk in a circle with her nose tipped slightly to the outside to help push her hip to the inside to keep her back inside hind reaching forward. This worked well, for a little while, but I could tell she was getting frustrated. However, I knew as smart as she was, she got the idea of the exercises. So, I decided to just ask her to turn and we'd turn until she turned on her backend. If she would do that, I'd let her walk out of the turn. She liked this exercise, and I was right. She did this the best. After only a few minutes of wandering and randomly asking for a change of direction with my legs, she was sitting and turning. I wanted to make a correlation between turning randomly in the arena to turning around the barrel, so we walked the pattern once and I asked for her to turn, just like I had while we were wandering. She turned beautifully, so I let it go at that.

She gets the day off today, so we'll see if she remembers it on Wednesday.

A Big Night for Tari

Tonight I headed out the the barn at 630PM to attempt to ride. At first I thought I was crazy because it was already dark. There is one street light that casts enough light over one corner of the ring that makes riding visable, but thats about it.

The rest of the ring is pretty dark and only lit by moonlight, and there are shadows of the jumps, barrels and poles all over the place.

I got Tari out, and tied her to the trailer and she whinnied to her pasture mates, only once though. Probably because they didn't respond.

I got her out and walked her around the lit end of the ring in big weaving circles.

My goal for the last few weeks have been to get her to stop pulling on my hands which she is better about and to stop sticking her shoulder out when I ask her to turn or bend while we are walking/trotting.

While I'm warming her up I do lots of figure 8 serpentine like things using my legs and trying to "neck rein" her around. I really want her moving off my leg, but I first ask with my leg, then that side rein, then I 'pull' her around if she still hasn't gotten it. She has gotten VERY good about moving over when I put my leg on her. Tonight I barely had to pick up the direct rein to get her turning as sharp as I wanted.

After I warmed her up, I trotted her in big circles trying to get her to bend on a left circle. She doesn't really like going to the left, she is better to the right. After I trotted her in circles and she was bending really well I decided I'd go see what she thought of the dark scary side of the ring. She didn't care. I walked her a few times around the ring and she didn't care about the shadows and she didn't think the jumps stands and ground poles had suddenly appeared to come eat her. Sundance would NOT have been good to ride in the dark tonight.

Another small, less important goal at the moment is getting her to lope. She gets real lazy and stops when she feels like it. The best thing about her loping is that she does usually pick up the correct lead as long as I use my legs. (YAY!) So since she wasn't afraid of the dark end, I decided to try and lope her around the ring. And I did. She did great. She went two WHOLE times around the ring in both directions without stopping. She was pooped when she got done, but she did it!

And finally, the last 'great accomplishment' of the night was that I felt for the first time like she's starting to 'get' the pattern. I've been walking her to the barrel stopping and backing since I got her going good under saddle about a month ago. And another gripe I've had with her is that I get so frustrated that she doesn't walk straight to anything, she zig zags. BUT, tonight, she stopped on her own at all the barrels. She was super light and easy to turn around the barrels and after I got her pointed to the next barrel, she walked straight to her pocket like she KNEW she was going there! WOOHOO!

I was so very very pleased with her tonight. I feel like we are accomplishing big things each and every time we ride now. Its starting to click in her head.

Have I said how much I love this mare?

Ring work yesterday, Trail Riding today

Yesterday I rode Tari in the ring. I have been trying to use very little of my hands with her, but she has started this pulling thing. I won't even put any pressure on the reins at all and she will just stick her nose out and start playing with the bit, the reins, everything. Its slightly aggravating. So, when she does that, I'll get the reins out of her mouth, wiggle her around until she isn't pulling on me, and then let her be again. She lasts all of about 2 minutes before she's back to doing the same thing.

I think she is the type of horse that constantly needs to be busy. She wants to do something all the time.

Also, we do lots of walking zigzags all over the ring. I really like a horse that moves very well off of your leg, and I think its a great thing to teach at such a young age. So, when I'm warming her up and cooling her down, we will walk all over the ring turning in circles, moving off the rail, on the rail, away from objects, up to objects, stopping, backing up, turning 1/4 turn and walking off. She is getting very good at it, but once she gets bored of it, she decides that my legs no longer mean turn, they mean go faster. What a toddler!

After I got off of her I unsaddled her and went to put her back in the pasture. She just moved into a new pasture that was just fenced - and hasn't ever had horses on it. Well, I think the BO underestimated the muddiness of snow and rain, because right in front of the gate to the pasture is about a 20x20 plot of mud that this princess didn't think she had to go through. She didn't want to go back in the pasture because she would have to step in the mud! What a Diva. So, we went round and round and I finally got her back in the pasture after several attempts on her part to swing her butt into me and the gate.

Today was such a beautiful day I couldn't let it go to waste. It is only February after all and who knows how long this wonderful weather is going to stick around. So, I went out to the barn, rode my gelding English, gave him a bath and then my friend Sandy came out and we went on a trail ride. Tari is such a good girl on the trail. She isn't afraid of much of anything. We walked through a big open field and we had to have constant discussions about no you can't eat, and just because you can't eat doesn't mean you can trot all the way across the field. So, as we were walking through the field the first time, she is trying to eat and trot. Then, we get to the end where we turn around, but there is this plastic bag, that Sandy's horse Bettis isn't too keen on. Tari doesn't even notice it, but she does, she realizes she wants to know whats in it. She never once hesitated to go up to it, and once she got to it, she stuck her face right in it! Mind you, this horse hasn't ever seen a plastic bag just a blowin in the wind.

So after she investigated the bag and told Big Bad Bettis that it wasn't as scary as he thought, we turn around to head back across the pasture and back to the barn. So, this time through the pasture we do trot across it. And Tari is just happy as a pig in mud to get to trot through the pasture. Shes got such a smooth trot.

We get back to the barn, untack, and get back in our pasture (this time, no issue with the mud - silly little princess) safe and sound. Hopefully I'll get to go on another trail ride this coming week with her.

I love my pony!

Another day of riding...

This past Sunday I loaded up Tari and took her down to the arena I do most of my showing at. Its deeper, and bigger to allow her more room to move. I've been doing very little, but some loping with her. I only ask her to go a few strides, maybe one whole circle. She is picking it up very quickly. She already responds quickly to my cue to lope (a kiss) and naturally picks up the correct lead 95% of the time.



After we rode at that ring, I took her to her new barn and let her settle in. I had a minute before I had to go home and decided I'd try riding her bareback again. The first time I rode her bareback wasn't eventful, but I didn't ask her to do much. Now, she knows how to trot off, and bend and give to me and turn when I ask and such, so there was a bit more "work" involved in this bareback session. So anyway, a few hours after she was settled in at the barn, I pull her out, put on her bridle and walked her out to the ring and mounted from the mounting block. She did great. I walked her around and she wasn't doing her normal baby "Bob and weave" shenanigans. :) Then after about 15 minutes of walking around and stepping all over the stuff in the ring (a few ground poles) I asked her to trot a slow large circle and she did great. She is doing SOOOO well!

Thanks for reading!