LET'ER BUCK!

DH and I love rodeos! We have an entire row for 2 days running at St. Paul. We usually always make an appearance at Molalla. We think the Canby rodeo is great! We've been to Ellensburg and danced in the arena with the Native Americans. We've done the Grandaddy of them all (Cheyenne Frontier Days) more than once. Every November we go to the Columbia Circuit Finals in Redmond Oregon. We have tickets for 4 every day of the Roundup! We usually try to go to a new one every year. I have Chief Joseph Days on my radar and the Calgary Stampede is a long held dream of mine, but my favorite rodeo by far is the Pendleton Roundup.

This year is the 100th anniversay of the Roundup. DH has been monitoring the progress of the new grandstands. While perusing the website he came across a souvenir that we just couldn't pass up. It arrived a few days ago.

LET'ER BUCK!

Want to make God laugh?

Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans! I've heard that before and boy is it ever true. My last 2 posts have been about planning my rides and what I intended to work on. I decided last night that I would longe Boo in side reins today. I've found he's better about giving to the bit when I do that regularly. He respects me more in the saddle when I work him from the ground, and I think it's good for his topline. We do walk, trot, and canter. We work on transitions between the gaits. We make the circle smaller and then larger so he gets his hind leg crossing under him in both directions. He works up a sweat. It only takes about 20 minutes.

As soon as I walked into the barn I knew my plans were in jeopardy. Bay was standing in the cross-ties and there were about 6 people gathered around him. The first thing they said was "we just called your husband!" No one knows how he did it but Bay had knocked one of his teeth sideways. It was sticking out of the side of his mouth like a teensy tiny elephant tusk. He let me look inside his mouth and the tooth was very loose and there was congealed blood around it.

As soon as I saw it I knew it was something the vet would have to see. It was so loose that one would be tempted to just pull it out, but then again I didn't know if it had long roots. It might be a lot harder than it looked. Who knew if it had broken off and the part I was seeing was only the top part?

So I called my hubby and he just happened to be on the phone with the vet. Hubby really had no idea what this looked like. He was under the impression it was just loose. I set him straight with my description and within about an hour the vet arrived. He pulled the sideways tooth and the one in front of it too. By this time Boo had chowed down on his dinner and I decided it wasn't a great idea to longe him on a full belly. Not to mention that I had been out there in the cold long enough to get that bone cold you get. The kind where you really need a hot shower to warm up.

I'll be going to the barn every day this week. Some of the days I will be going twice. I have to flush his mouth out with warm salt water and an antibiotic 2 times a day. No riding (of course) for at least 5 days. Luckily the mouth usually heals fairly quickly what with the wonderful blood supply it has. I'm thinking he'll be much better by this time next week.

So I guess I'll use all that barn time to take care of Bay and to ride and longe Boo. At least I plan too...hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Sunday Stills

The assignment for this week was texture. I had fun with this one!

Saddle Success

Much better ride on Boo today!!! That is the beauty of riding. One day it's frustrating and feels difficult and the next it's completely different. This was my first ride since I had the shims put in my saddle. I worried it was going to feel wrong, but it never did...and the best part? No backache. Now things weren't perfect. We had to work at round but we did have some nice moments and I felt much more patient. That's always a good thing. I think some of my problem is my inconsistency with working Boo. I let the summer and how busy we were interfere and I still haven't gotten back to my old routine. I need to commit! I have a clinic with Trainer Tracey in a couple of weeks and another clinic with Bernadine at the end of February. I'm committing myself to working hard between now and those clinics. I want them to see progress! I'm going to sit down tomorrow and outline a plan for my rides this coming week. I want to get in at least 4 rides a week with the hope that I'll get in 5. I'm going to work on specific things each ride and use all those lovely books I have on my bookshelf to help me decide what exercises will help me accomplish my goals for each day. My ultimate goal is to increase the communication and harmony between myself and Boo to the extent that I can start riding in some dressage schooling shows. I am scared to death of showing, so that will be a bit of a challenge for me which I think is a good thing.

I went to Hillsboro today to have the shims put into my saddle which Bernadine recommended at our last clinic. I'm looking forward to riding in the saddle to see how it works for me. It will probably feel wrong at first, but I am sure I will get use to it. While I was there I looked for a loose-ring snaffle bit also recommended by Bernadine. Since they didn't have one in my size I ended up ordering one. I got a KK Herm Sprenger Aurigan. Spendy bit, but I think it's going to work out well. I ended up getting a new pair of black reins too. Tack shops are dangerous places for me to be spending my time as you can see.

Tuesday I had the equine chiropractor come out to work on both horses. I use to be a bit of a sceptic when it came to chiropractors. A few years ago Bay had some problems and our trainer at the time recommended Mark. That man worked wonders with Bay. I'm not kidding. I have been a believer ever since. I don't have Boo worked on as often as I'd like, but he gets a couple of spa days a year and Tuesday was the first one for 2010.

Before Mark got there I had a ride on Boo. We were working on our homework from the Bernadine clinic. Sigh...sometimes it just seems so hard. My legs were so tired from asking. We finally got the forward I needed but only after I had to smack him with my dressage whip (He bucked. He always bucks when I have to use the dressage whip for more than just a tap tap tap). Once he did what I'd been asking him to do I called it a day and took him outside to walk through the big puddle. We warmed up on a couple of small ones first. I walked over to the big puddle. He stopped. I gave him a long rein. He sniffed at the water. I gave him a nudge with my overly tired legs. He walked through the water like it was no big deal!!! I don't know if he's finally getting over his resistance to water or if the memory of the dressage whip was still fresh in his mind. I don't care. I'm just glad we didn't have to fight about it. It's not always like this. In fact most of the time we really have fun. Maybe we're coming up on a break through. Yeah! That's it! We are gonna take a giant leap in our riding relationship any day now. I just know it ;)

Wordless Wednesday

Bernadine Clinic Part II

Once I had all my tack adjusted properly I was asked to take Boo on a circle at the walk to see how he would behave with the martingale adjustment...we then went into a trot. He seemed to be okay with it. No head in the rafters like I usually get, but then again he wasn't entirely martingale free either. Boo is essentially a lazy boy, and going forward in a relaxed frame is something that takes a lot of work to get him to do. Sometimes it feels like he's just chugging along and other times it takes a lot of leg to get him there. It's exhausting! Bernadine told me not to nag. I'm to ask once with a light leg aide. If he does not respond with a surge of energy into what I'm asking for, be it a lengthening or a gait change, I am to kick him hard enough to put him into the next gait up then bring him back down and ask again. I'm to keep doing this until he is awake, listening, and responsive to my cues. I could use a dressage whip if I didn't want to kick but I have found that whip equals buck, so I usually opt for the kick. Of course when I kicked him he would jump into the next gait with his head in the air and trot or canter around indignantly. I praised him for the attention I was being given and brought him back and asked again with a light leg aid. He's a quick study and it didn't take him long to figure out that he should not tune me out.

Once we had him tuned in to me on the circle at trot and canter we went on to lateral work. I would trot around the arena turn up the quarter line and ask for a leg yield to the wall. We found that Boo was ignoring me in this movement too. Bernadine had me stop each time I asked for leg yield but didn't get it and sidepass him to the wall. I was essentially saying to him rather forcefully "I said go sideways!" This took a bit longer than the work on the circle but eventually Boo started moving over at a crisp pace without lollygagging around. One thing he did try to do before we got to that point was try to speed up rather than go sideways. When he did that we stopped and sidepassed again. After all Bernadine had said to leg yield not go faster.

It was one of those lightbulb moments for me. I realized that I had to know exactly what I was asking for when I asked my horse to do something. I had to know exactly how to ask him, and I had to know exactly what I was going to do if he didn't respond in the way I wanted him to. In other words if I wanted an obedient, light, responsive horse I had to ride with a plan and be consistent. I had been saying Boo was lazy and that was true, but apparently so was I. When I bought Boo he was a well-trained horse. I had inadvertantly retrained him through my inexperience. I had retrained him not to stay attentive and respond on a dime. I had deprived him of a leader. No wonder I he acted like a spooky pony.

I know this won't be easy (retraining myself) but I at least recognize now that I need to do it. I am going to be a horse trainer. Something I should have been all along.