Chains of Love and more music video rambles

I was absentmindedly singing along to this song:


So I'm singing along and laughing cause my horse's name is Prisoner, but I got to thinking that if this is really how your horse makes you feel you might want a different one.  Just saying.  Moving on.

Next, because once I watch one music video it is a strange journey into youtube land, I present you with this:


This is Bridger in a nutshell, a whole lot of WTF, an obsession with Diva leaving, complete with a catchy undertone.

Keeping with the boy band theme I have going tonight:


These guys sing that Amnesia song that was super popular on the radio, I liked the song, little did I know they looked like they were in middle school.  A little research proved they are in fact college age, apparently I am closer to 30 than 20 these days.  Either way, this one is for all our sweet and perfect ponykins that destroy blankets, eat fence, get mysteriously lame, etc, etc, etc. "Good girls are only bad girls that haven't been found"

Finally I leave you with some inspiration.  This is one of my favorite bands and I love this song, they added a tear jerker story with this video.  Prepare to watch and then be ready to get up really do something.

Lesson time

On Friday Jim and I hauled to Steph's to do a lesson with one of her assistant trainers and a long term friend of mine.  There were four of us in the lesson and it was a blast.  The other horses were all more experienced than Prisoner, but winter break is the great equalizer.

Post lesson group shot

Louie (horse I have done catch ride jumping on several times) is on the left, Zida, Prisoner, and then Moses on the right.

Sweet drawing skillz

This was our course, it was a great footwork lesson.  The all started as poles on the ground, both were a one stride to a one stride.  I needed to the stay to the inside of the turns to make the strides on my tiny boy until the jumps went up and then the middle rode fine.  I would say the curves were around equal to a 30 meter circle.

Such cute

The left line had standards, the right line had blocks for standards.  We started by cantering the standard line off the left lead, coming back to the trot and trotting the block line on a right bend.  Then they all went up to half crossrails and we cantered the whole thing with a change of lead between the lines, or within the line.  Finally the Standard line went to a crossrail, vertical, crossrail, and the block line went to a tiny vertical, larger vertical, tiny vertical.  We swapped between starting with the left lead over the standard line going to the right lead over the block line, and the left lead on the block line going to right lead on the standard line.

Whee!

The first time through the poles on the ground Prisoner was like, 'these are three feet tall, leap, leap, leap!'  That said, he landed in balance and was immediately listening to me again, which is a huge improvement for him.  We continued looping around the two lines until things were not so exciting and then the jumps started going up.  He was spot on and very game.  He was landing in the lead we needed or putting in very tidy lead changes.

Nice and quiet

We ended by working an exercise over the standard line only.  We would canter through and then turn back to catch the second two elements and turn back again to catch the other second two elements.  Confused?  No worries I have video!


Believe it or not he was foot perfect the first time through this, but alas it is not on video.  A big thing while I am riding him is to help him along, but not micro manage every step, he needs to figure stuff out for himself as well.  So sometimes we counter canter and once we cross cantered, but the best thing is he doesn't typically do it again, he really seems to have a mind for figuring out what needs done.  Our ugly jumps came from not having enough pace and Prisoner not always choosing to really rock on his haunches, but again we worked though it and he finished strong.

figuring out a deep spot

Um ok horse

He looks good, not liking how perched I am

The biggest takeaways were to make sure we are actually moving forward and not just up and down.  He is good at 'looking pretty' but I need to be sure he is actually using his body.  I have been really working on this on the flat at home, but apparently decided it would be best to forget about it as soon as there were jumps.  I also need to actually sit down in the saddle, I get into my cruising gallop position which is completely useless and ineffective in course work.  Also, apparently I like to have my foot way home in the stirrup, no clue why that started, but I need to fix it asap.  I can't exactly have a solid lower leg over jumps if my foot is so far home I can't get my heel down.  Over all I was very pleased with the ride and it gave me lots of things to work on which is the whole reason we go!

Videos!

As promised I have videos for you.
This first one is of Trep and I doing a simple grid several times.  He is huge and I feel like a total shrimp on him, but is was really fun to ride a well trained horse and work on me.  Needless to say I was rather rusty after a winter off from jumping.


Next up is Prisoner and I schooling over a single cross rail.  Thrilling I know.  Either way he stayed very calm and rideable and it was fun to feel his progress on the flat translate to the jumps.


Our final video today is Prisoner and I doing a simple grid and then looping over a single fence.  He got just a bit rushy at the single fence, but was spot on through the grid.  He also throws in a few lovely lead changes and some fails at lead changes.  Overall it was great session, he was confident and jumping well.  I talk about this jump session here: Wings

FOO Blog Hop: Day in the life

I actually compete open and am not eligible for amateur status, but for posterity's sake I would like to write about my typical day before I join the 'real' working world.  Winter is freaking all over the place so I will go through a typical summer day.
Between 4:45 and 5:30 Alarm goes off
10 minutes later I actually get out of bed and start the coffee (Breakfast? Hah yeah right)
Get dressed, curse coffee maker for being slow, bathroom stuff, thank God that coffee is done.
Between 5:15 and 5:45 run to car with coffee, purse, bag of clothes, bag of washed polos and saddle towels, etc etc.

Early morning driving makes for great pictures

6:00 get to the track, before this I have often taken care of my own horses or horses I am house sitting for, also I have picked up our exercise rider at his house.

ZoomZoom

6:00-9:30 groom, gallop, clean stalls, drink coffee, etc etc.  Pretty much do whatever needs done.

10:00 Get to first barn, change into breeches and ride two or three.  Drink Coffee.  Later in the summer this included Prisoner, yay!

Yep, occasionally I do western too

Dressaging

12:30 Next barn, ride one or two more.
On lighter days I go back to the track around 12:00 or 1 and help with lunch chores and then go to lunch with the Hubby.

Time to rake

Somewhere in here I run home to let Charlie run around and probably get more clothes.
3:00 Head out to the 100 acres where Diva and Bridger live and ride them if it isn't too hot.

Too smokey

4:00 Either still riding or doing PM chores so I can run back to the track.  Drink more coffee.
5:00 back at the track, races start at 5:30.  Change back into jeans, cowboy boots, and a cute shirt. Help bathe horses for the later races, tack horses up, lead horses to races, cool out horses, help friends with their horses if we don't have anything in.

You know we are in Charge

Waiting for the call to the paddock

Seriously makes all the hard long days worth it when you have friends like this

Apparently I had a good story to tell

Test barn when Waffles won

Good times winning with Yuma

9 or 9:30 go out to dinner with friends who help with the horses
10:30 get home

Charlie has kitty friends to hang out with

11:00 Pass out face down in my pillow

SFTS Blog Hop: three little words

Jenn is doing another fun blog hop, what three words would you use to describe your horse?

I love words and I love my horse so choosing is going to be hard.

Adorable.

Squeee!

Serendipitous.

Always a smirk

Quintessential.

Dream horse

This horse is the answer to prayers I didn't know I had.  He has rekindled long dormant dreams.  He is sometimes cantankerous, he sometimes doesn't want caught or brushed or kissed, but is always ready to listen.  He listens when I ride, when I cry, when I laugh.  He is always ready for a hug.  He thinks, he contemplates, he is genuine.  Yes, I know I'm totally anthropomorphizing, but we are all horse people here and that is what we do.  I look at courses that intimidated in the past and I dream of doing them with him, we are going places.  If I'm dreaming don't wake me up.

Partners.

Wings

This is of course going to be more yelling from the rooftops about my horse, no shame.  

I'm thrilled with his use of his head and neck!

First, so that y'all don't kill me I will tell you about the two minor naughty things he did.  I got to the barn just as morning turnout was occurring and he didn't seem to take exception to that.  I put him in the crossties and removed his blanket, then he went poo.  So I scooped it up and then had to go in the paddock behind him to get the last bit.  Of course he then decides that the other horses in turnout were really exciting so he ran to the front of his crossties and stepped all over his boots, dumped the brush bucket out and was generally a nuisance.  I came back around, deposited the manure and decided that I would throw him in the turnout for a moment, he attempted to run me over so first we did some backing up and such.  Mr. Prisoner thought that he shouldn't have to listen and reared straight in the air, we just kept backing up.  A much more polite horse followed me politely to his pasture and then after I told him he could he took a calm canter around and then rolled in the mud.  I'm pretty sure that the crosstie shenanigans were just a plot to gain access to mud rolling sans blanket.

From the other day, much more speed involved

Well I caught him up again and he was perfect until after our ride.  I opened the gate from his back so we could go for a walk around and he thought that the moment I started to push the gate open that he should bolt through it, about taking my leg off in the process.  Some one reined stops and bending solved that.

Warm enough to sponge off!

OK, back to how great he is.  We did a small gymnastic, xrail, one stride, xrail.  After I had gone through it the BO came and set it up higher and took video!  The first element remained an xrail, but the second jump went to a vertical, then a vertical with a gate under it, and finally an oxer.  P-Diddy didn't blink and eye and only rubbed one jump one time.  At the very end we did the gymnastic and then looped back over a singer vertical a couple of times.  We had some very clean lead changes and some not so clean changes, but he has been getting the correct lead pretty much ever single time I ask for it from the trot.

Not even a peak at the gate

He was perfect through the gymnastic and just a little rushy to the single jump out of the canter.  Currently the jumps we trot there is zero rushing!  I've got video that I will share from this day, I still need to upload video from the other day when we hauled out, there is proof of cantering jumps without rushing, win!  

What am I even doing here!?

Over all I was very happy with the ride.  My position is decent, I would like to see my leg a little tighter and my upper-body/release more consistent.  The more I can keep myself from moving the more he can stay quiet to the jumps.  I also want to start adding some narrower jumps and 'looky' things so that I know we are going to be well prepared at shows.  I'm not making a show schedule until I have an official job, that way I know what I can budget for shows and memberships and such.  Ideally I would get to a couple USEA events towards the end of summer with some clinics and schooling shows this spring. 

Ok video is taking tooooooo loooonnngggg, I will do a video post with all of them at once soon.

Dressage king

Yes, I am referring to Prisoner.  I rode him the other day and we could have gone to a dressage show, ok not quite.  First he did this when I went to catch him.

vroom

After a couple minutes he stopped, walked towards me, and licked and chewed, apparently he just needed a good run around.  He napped while I tacked him up, per usual.

Charlie says hi

Then I got on and our trot started out with him stretching down for laps both ways around the arena.  We had transitions in between gaits and with in gaits.  We could transition from stretching to coming up and back again.  Then the creme de la creme we cantered, we stretched down at the canter, then we transitioned down to the trot and then the walk all the while stretching down!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This can be a big challenge for a lot of ottb's (not all obviously, but many).  I was laughing with my BO about how many ways can I say I love my horse, he's the best.  She responded that I could add that he did all that in howling wind.  That is the truth, he did.  I didn't get any pictures of that particular ride, but just know that he was great.

The skies were amazing that day

Yesterday someone came to look at Diva, they really seemed to get along great!  Keep your fingers crossed that her conversation with her hubby goes well and she buys my beautiful girl!

Incredible morning skies