Storms

We survived our first tornado warning early this morning. I had never experienced tornado watches or warnings until Kentucky. During our time here, there have been some severe thunderstorms and tornado watches. But not an actual warning in my county. The wind woke me up and I saw on my phone that I had an email from school that there was a tornado warning and to seek shelter immediately! Yikes!! So I rounded up my pets into the hall bathroom, with my phone and netbook to check out the weather, to wait it out. Not a fun thing a 4:30 am! Especially since I couldn't get one of my cats in the bathroom with us. I think I freaked him out by acting like a maniac, but he stayed right by the door, just wouldn't come in. Dork. Once the warning expired in my county and then in the county where Jay lives, of course I had to put on the news to make sure it didn't touch down anywhere by him. Then I was finally able to sleep and of course over sleep. Oh well, it was scary but not too traumatic.

Not much to report on the riding front, as it has been rainy and cold. But late this afternoon, the sun came out and Jay had some shedding going on when I groomed him. The forecast this week looks good, let's hope it stays that way! Planning to ride before class tomorrow, let's hope the pony remembers his stuff!

Moving right along

Well, things have been progressing as quickly as the weather will allow. Jay has been going across the street both alone and with Salty with no real issues. I am still hand walking him but that's ok. The important part is that we are doing it and he's staying calm. It seems that everytime we go across alone something (or things) scary happen and Jay has taken it all in stride. Our goal is to ride over at SP Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with a hack day on Monday, day off on Wednesday and a lunging day on Thursday. The hack day should help us to eventually ride over and back and the lunge day is just to have him not have 2 days in a row off until it starts to stay light out later. Once we have more daylight on Thursdays it will be a second hack day. This plan is what my schedule allows and I think it should work well for us. Now we just need the weather to cooperate!!

I recently found out that I will be moving to Birmingham in June for my externship, which will be my last year of grad school. I never would have thought that I would go from Long Island to Louisville to Birmingham, but am extremely excited for this new adventure. Fortunately, this postion is paid, which means I will be able to keep Jay-R at a nice facility and start lessons again!! I truly love my little barn that I'm at now but am looking forward to not doing partial self care for a while. It's not the work I mind, it's the time it takes away from riding and "regular" life. There are also many little things that bug the heck out of me there.. if not for B it would be very hard some days. But oh well! Jay is safe and happy and healthy.. and we only have a few more months until we are back in a more training centered atmosphere.

In the meantime, I'll be working to get the pony back in shape and ready to start up the serious stuff again! I'd love to look at doing some small shows this summer/fall at First Level. Totally doable I think. Jay is going to be looking the part as well! He will get a body clip soon, has his mane pulled and got his back shoes put back on. Although tonight he's a muddy mess. Look out Bham! ; )

Breakthroughs

A lot has changed for us in the past month. It got extremely cold the second week of January and Jay made it pretty clear that staying outside all night in the single digit temps was not for him. Since then he has been staying in every night. At first I was going to just keep him in on terribly cold nights, but he has been perfectly content with the routine, so we are sticking to consistency.

Our friend B has an OTTB (Salty) who she has had for about a year. She has done a ton of groundwork with him and has recently started riding him herself consistently (up until now he has been ridden by her trainer, Ry and P but not super consistent recently). B and Salty have no problem with actually getting across to SP, but she was more worried with the actual riding once we got there part. So we decided to do horsey stuff together when we can to help each other out.

Thanks to B, I have had a big mental breakthrough with the whole getting Jay across the street alone thing. We decided to take our boys across the street to graze in the field. Jay was grazing quietly even with loud scary trucks going by. B says lets go past "checkpoint 1". As I ask Jay to walk on, he throws a mini fit. For no reason other than not wanting to move. This is what made me realize how much of our "problem" is Jay's behavior, not him being "scared" or nervous or whatever. He is just being an ass. This is nothing new, Jay needs to be kept in line or he can get pushy and be kind of a jerk. He keeps me on my toes whenever I get too comfortable. As long as I stand my ground and make him behave with little things, he is a pleasure. Even though it's nothing new, we have never had to deal with something like a mile walk in an open field, so I think it just got out of hand.

From then on "checkpoints" didn't exist anymore. Jay has to be tuned in and listening and I have to chill out and stop worrying about spooking and "checkpoints". The next day we hand walked them, and made them MARCH, to the SP driveway and back (about halfway to the arenas). Good behavior for both boys. B wasn't able to be there with us the next day, so I hand walked Jay to the SP driveway again, alone this time, and he was very good again. No spooks. Then B and I decide to just bring them over and ride. They were both perfectly behaved. That was on Saturday. The most surprising part for me was that we went first thing in the morning. Jay hadn't been turned out yet and with him having been on pasture board for so long I thought he'd be a little up. Not the case, I lunged him quickly to check before we went and he was calm as can be.

So on Sunday we are on our own again. I tacked him up and threw on his halter over his bridle. I like having a longer than my reins lead so that if he acts up I have more room without worrying about him getting away from me. Off we went. It was warmish out but a bit windy. Jay was very well behaved on the way over and he was made to march the whole way.. no ambling (amazing how this translated once I got on! duh!). While I was riding him he tried to pull 2 "bolt and bucks" that were so half-assed that I don't know why he bothered (first time he got about 4 strides in slo mo, second time didn't even really count). Otherwise he was nicely forward and relaxed into my contact. On the way back, he had some tense moments. Whenever he felt tense I realized that I was also tense, and relaxing my own arm immediately relaxed him. He did not have one spook and didn't try to run home.

The one time I thought for sure we were going to have a spook was as we were heading home and approaching the "scary trees". There were 2 big ole geese about 15 feet in front of us on the path. Not really anyway to go around them. At first they weren't moving but suddenly they spread their big ugly wings and flew off. How on earth this did not scare my horse, I have no idea... but it made for a very proud mom!!

So our plan for now is to get over to SP whenever the weather and daylight allows. Mondays are our hack days and yesterday we just walked up and down our driveway keeping him responsive to my leg (and not his herd). Today was pouring so all we did was a blanket change.

Jay really seems to be happy to finally be doing something again. Even though every time I bring him in from the pasture, he gets worked and then put in his stall, he usually comes right up to me when he sees me walking to the gate. If I happen to get there later than usual, he trots to me and does that deep voice nicker. If that doesn't make me feel good, I don't know what can!! Must be doing something right!

So my goal for February is just to get into a consistent work schedule. Once we get that down, more specific goals will come. Maybe if I blog more often, they won't end up so long. Hopefully that will be easier now that we are finally working again.

Back to blogging

Well it has been about a year since I last updated, but it's time to start up again. After quite a few bobbles in the road, Jay and I are on track again and need something to keep us there even if it is just our blog. A lot has changed since last year and this is going to be long.

We were completely aware that the horses were not in the best shape when we first moved to the new barn last January. As spring came, this became even more obvious. Jay had some mysterious skin conditions going on under his winter coat, we had a few strange narcoleptic episodes and he just wouldn't shed out. I body clippped him, and with the grass starting to come in he finally started to fatten up.

Getting him back into work has also been interesting. Our biggest problem is that mentally we are a First pushing Second Level team. Physically we are a couple of fatties. I have to remember that even though we were at a great place before moving to KY, we have to gain back our fitness before working there again. Now the great thing is that Jay really does remember what he is supposed to be doing, I just have to not push him before he is physically ready. That was one of our biggest problems. We moved too fast and he started to get work sour... backing up on the mile hack across the street, stopping and backing up on the way into the ring. He has NEVER done that before.

Then Ryan and Aidyn moved to NC. This left us to going across the street alone. No problem right? I mean we have done this 100 times it's fine. WRONG! Enter work sour, body sore, herd bound Jay-R. I could somewhat drag him across the street handwalking him, but the walk back was just him plowing me over to get home. Which brings us to where we are now.

Sure I can handwalk him over and back... dragging him on the way there and hanging on for dear life on the way back, but let's be honest, that SUCKS. So my plan is to attack all 3 of these issues as once. He got about a month off between finals and winter break. He also is staying outside 24/7 at this point (except in terrible weather). He comes into his stall for his meals then goes back out. This should help him menatally and physically. I am also changing my focus from needing to get to SP to work, to having him relax and enjoy the mile walk there and back... horses are supposed to like trail rides right??? Once he is ok with that and we are getting all the way to SP, it will be slow going to get us back in shape properly.

When I got back from break, I was slightly worried about getting on him after his break. That worry was completely gone after he stood like an angel for the farrier (longer than usual due to snowball pads and ice studs) after being a "wild mustang" for a month.

From now on, no excuses!

So back to work we go:

Friday: I tacked up and handwalked him to "checkpoint 1" (we have 4, the 4th being SP). A little looky towards the end but fine. He walked back calmly. Once at the gate, I got on him and walked some circles and serpentines for about 20 minutes between the gate and "checkpoint 1". Complete success! He behaved lovely.

Saturday: Got to the barn and got my tack out. Turns out we were getting a hay delivery and the truck takes up the whole barn. Wouldn't be a problem except I wouldn't be able to get my pup Rosie into her kennel before I went across the street so I ended up helping with the hay.

Sunday: Left early to get to the barn to do the morning feeding and then ride. Of course my car starts having problems on the way to the barn. Since I needed to get it to the shop asap, I compromised and took a 20 min ride just walking up and down our driveway. Figured it was better than nothing.

Monday: It was freezing and windy with a snowstorm on the way. Tacked up and got on right across the street with plans to ride to "Checkpoint 2". Well things don't always go as planned and Jay saw demons at "Checkpoint 1". He has jumping around and spooking so we just worked on calming down and walked back and forth doing circles and serpentines. Even though we didn't get as far as I had planned, I felt good about it. A few months ago, if Jay had been spooked I would have been freaked and he wouldn't have calmed down. This time I managed to stay calm and keep working him. After every spook he calmed back down and he never tried to run home. So I'll call it a success.

Tuesday: Usually I will be riding on Tuesday mornings, but they were not able to work on my car on Sunday and I needed it all day Monday, so I had to bring it in Tuesday morning. By the time I got to the barn after class on Tuesday, it was starting to get dark and was FREEZING and windy. So brought Jay in and groomed him, gave him a warm mash and decided to leave him in over night since he did NOT seem happy being out when I got there.

We will see what we end up doing today, I am hoping to get on and see how he acts before deciding how far we will go. The main thing right now is to stay positive. Sure it stinks that we have to hack a mile just to get to a ring and then a mile back. But at least I have a great place to board him where he is happy and healthy, and I am SO lucky to be able to even have my boy during grad school. The things we will be working on will only help us in the long run.

Jumps, Clean Tack and Rain Boots!

Well last Saturday we had decided to school over some small jumps as a way to change things up. Jay has recently really seemed to enjoy jumping again and with Ryan to help us, it's a good addition to our dressage training routine. The problems occur in our confidence.

There were some jumps set up in the indoor arena where we have been riding but a lesson started and the jumps got taken down for ground poles. So we headed to the outdoor for the first time. One loop around the arena at a walk and Jay was over looking at the sights. My biggest problem as we cantered over crossrails and the flower box (with no pole over it) was keeping my security in that flat, hard saddle. Now my dressage saddle (which I love almost as much as I love my horse) is an older Passier which can be considered pretty close contact when compared with the newer dressage saddles that are around these days. It took a very long time to find a saddle that fit both myself and Jay-R and we definately hit the jackpot with this one.

My jumping saddle on the other hand is completely close contact. It is an older Crump. Great for Eq riders on their comfy, flat jumping, trained horses (no offense intended). Not so great on a round, green over fences horse who is so in-tune to me that my confidence is key. When he is unsure of a spot, he will back off. I need to be able to ride forward and confidently and then he is fine. Not so easy in a saddle that I feel I might come out of. This saddle is also a bit too small for me and doesnt fit him as well as it should. SO... my old Crump has left the barn and come home to be sold. I am hoping that the sale of this saddle, a pair of full chaps, a synthetic dressage girth, a martingale and a D-ring bit will bring me enough money to buy a used Ovation Show Jumper saddle. In the meantime we will either just do poles and raised poles in our Passier or borrow Ry's saddle for jumping.

Sunday brought wind and rain and a couple of stressed, cranky riders. So instead trudging to the in indoor we sat in the tack room and cleaned our tack (as we will do every Sunday). Ry also helped me consolidate my 2 trunks into 1 which makes the tack room look much neater.

For quite awhile now, my paddock boots and half chaps have been on their way to retirement. My paddock boots, which I have had for a LONG time now, have 2-3 large holes in each one. This makes for an awful lot of muddy water making its way onto my socks everyday. My parents are bringing me new boots and half chaps for my birthday in a few weeks (YAY) and I certainly don't want those exposed to the muddiness! SO Ryan and I decided we needed muck boots, aka rain boots from target. We went to Target Monday and Ry got mine for me as an early birthday present to keep my poor feet dry! So excited! Now the mud can just be hosed off instead of following us everywhere we go!

Hopefully some pictures to come next time!

The snow has melted and the ground has thawed! Of course that makes for some awfully muddy ground... but that hasn't stopped us from hacking through the muck to work our boys. We seemed to have gotten off track for a few days almost immediately after getting back on track. That definately won't happen again. It's like starting from scratch again!

Jay-R sure has grown up recently, or maybe I've just begun to notice it. He basically falls asleep everytime he's in the cross-ties and walks across the road, through the field and up the driveway like he's been doing this his entire life. Luckily once we get to the arena he doesn't mind going right to work!

My goal had been to get him moving nice and forward and round. Now that we've been there for a bit, it's time to get put back together. I have to remember that he needs strong aids all around to convince him that I mean business. Hopefully my strength is beginning to come back so I will become quieter and help him out more. Time to do a ton of work without stirrups!!

Today during our ride we took a little break to hop over a couple of crossrails. He went right over them with no hesitation, even the scary striped one that almost bit him last week! Tomorrow we are going to head over decked out in our jumping gear and play hunter pony for the day. His mane got pulled today (poor Jay was NOT happy about this) and tomorrow his face will get clipped and his tail banged.

Good thing he will look the part of a good dressage horse because it's still a few weeks before I get my new non-holey boots and half chaps!

New Beginnings

Well the boys have been at the new barn for about a week now. The move was uneventful, they both jumped right on the trailer and settled in quickly once we got there! They now have an amazing, huge grass paddock with plenty of hay and new friends. It is SO nice for them to be able to move around outside instead of being stuck inside all day, bored, because its to "muddy/cold/frozen/raining".

The day after we moved them, we just couldn't wait to ride at our gorgeous new facilities... which we have to hack over to use. So we tacked up these two horses that have not been worked in 2 weeks (christmas vacation), on a cold blustery, flurrying day, and rode them across a road, an unfamiliar open field (well I handwalked Jay on the way there, rode on the way back) and up the driveway. They were champs and acted like it was all no big deal. Once we got to the indoor I was sure the mirrors on all 4 walls would cause a stir. Nope. Jay informed me that he remembers all about mirrors from a former barn we were at and Aidyn just pinned his ears at that other horse trotting alongside him. The hack back to our barn was just fine, except for that strange animal making honking noises at us from "Henry's Ark". But of course the boys didn't seem to notice it.

Unfortunately the below freezing temps and the snow that won't stop falling have prevented further adventures this week. But our tack is clean and the ponies are happy!

Things to work on:

Jay: Basically just getting him back into working shape. Lot's of big round trot work to build muscle back up these next few weeks.

Myself: Remember that pushing him forward is always the answer! Make him pay attention to work and try to trust him a little bit. Take my stirrups away and get myself back into working shape as well... Jay is not the only one who needs to build muscle back up. Hands down and head up!