Ride 62 - Can't Canter?

Chrome loves his salt block!

Good news!! My camera still works!!!!!! Yay! However I'm not using it while riding anymore so you get crappy cell phone pictures instead lol.

The heat stress index was under 150 today so I had to ride! Huge difference from yesterday. Our weather is so bipolar. When I went out to get Chrome he was sound asleep in the barn. Poor guy! He even fell asleep while I was tacking up.

Asleep.

Isn't he cute??

 Zzzz....

 Look at those dapples!!!!!

So anyway while warming up I practiced halt transitions.... He needed practice!! He wanted to totally ignore me at first. I concentrated really hard on the order of my cues. Vocal cue, stop following with my body and last was closing my hands on the reins. I think only once did I have to pull back. It didn't take long to get him to stop on the vocal cue only. After practicing that a few more times I will practice leaving out the vocal cue until I have him stopping from my seat alone. It's definitely something we need to and can practice.

Once he was warmed up I practiced walk, trot, halt transitions. Finally I decided to try cantering because it's been a while and I wanted to make sure he (we) still could... I tried four times.... The first time he picked it up fairly quick but only did one stride before falling back into a trot. The second time he fast trotted into it and only held it one stride. The third time he didn't canter at all. The fourth time he fast trotted into it for one stride and I felt his stifle give out as he fell into the trot again......

So... It could be several things. His stifles. I had to use his fleece saddle pad because I haven't cleaned my quilted pad since he dunked me in the pond. He doesn't seem to like that pad as much. We were also on the driveway going toward the gate and I think he didn't feel like he had enough room compared to when we cantered in the pasture. In the pasture he had great motivation since we were going toward the gate to the yard where he grazes and gets fed. On the driveway he was obviously hesitant going away from home. It could also have been his hooves still being soft from the rain since we were on rocks.

So my plan... For his stifles I'm going to start doing his exercises again (bad me for slacking off). I'll clean his favorite saddle pad. Next time I try I'll do it in the pasture where he has more room. For his hooves I'm going to treat him for thrush to see if that helps with the tenderness. It might also help with the toe first landings.  The reason I'm not overly worried is because he's a young, green, out of shape horse and when I took him out into the pasture I turned him loose and got my longe whip. He trotted, cantered and galloped all over the pasture. He picked up both leads easily, maintained the canter for long distance and in turns and I never saw his stifles give. So I'm just going to follow my plan and not over think it. :-)

We only rode thirty minutes. When we were on the driveway after our last canter I heard a motorcycle coming. It was one of those really loud, whining dirt bikes and I didn't know how he would react so I dismounted. It turned around before it got to us, but better safe than sorry.

 Needs a haircut.

I hope everyone is having nice weather and great rides!!

P.S. if there are any weird mistakes in this post it's because I'm using my tablet. It has autocorrect like a cell phone and it's different so I'm having to figure it out.  I can blue tooth my cell phone pictures to my tablet so that's why I'm using it instead of my computer.

Too Hot!

First off these are old photos since my camera is out of commission (obviously since he has no mane now).  Second I really wanted to ride or do something with Chrome, but with a heat index of 129F today I decided not to.... yes it felt like ONE HUNDRED TWENTY NINE degrees outside today!  It's miserable!  You sweat instantly when you walk outside, but it doesn't evaporate so you just get hotter and hotter and stickier and stickier.  I felt dizzy just being outside for ten minutes or so!!

So all I did was feed Chrome and let him and Zep graze in the yard all day.  When they are out grazing I occasionally go look out all of my windows until I spot them to make sure they aren't traipsing through the woods (holes) or being naughty.  After a few hours Zep was spotted being naughty!!  I looked out my French doors and the silly donkey had dragged a bag out of the carport where I had left it after cleaning out the storage building.  He had opened the bag and pulled out Chrome's baby blanket and was shaking it all around like he wanted to kill it..... thanks donkey!!  Teach me to leave something out thinking I was going to go back for it to clean it lol.  

Chrome's baby blanket.

So I put Zep back in the pasture, but I left Chrome out since he was being good.  Then I noticed he was covered in sweat... seriously he looked like the picture at the top of this post where I had just given him a bath.  He's been sweating everyday just standing around in the pasture, but he isn't normally soaked in sweat.  He was also just standing in the driveway, not grazing, playing, sniffing, nothing.  I felt of his chest and he was warm, but not super hot or anything.  So I dragged out the hose, put his halter on and grabbed my sweat scraper.  

I started with just spraying his front legs because I know how shocking the cold well water can be.  He flinched and danced around a bit, but didn't try to walk away so I threw his rope over his neck so my hands would be free.  Eventually I worked up to his shoulders.  I would spray a minute, then sweat scrape, then spray, then scrape, etc.  The rope kept getting in the way of scraping so I finally took it off and threw it aside.  He still didn't walk away.  I knew he was enjoying it because normally he doesn't care to be sprayed and will walk away if not held or tied up.  I tried spraying his body, but he kept moving his haunches away and flinching telling me it was still too cold, so I finally sprayed it up in the air over us and let it come down like rain.  He was surprised at first, but he was fine so I did that for a minute, the scraped, then sprayed, etc.  I kept doing that until the water I scraped off was cool instead of warm.  He played in the water with his mouth, holding it in his mouth and pushing his nose against it so it sprayed back in my face and made me squeal.  :D  Finally he walked away and started grazing, so I knew he was cool enough.  I turned off the hose and scraped him one last time and then left him to graze.

A bit later when I went over to my parent's house (same property) my dad told me that Chrome and Zep were galloping all over the yard and playing......... so THAT'S why he was so hot!!  I felt so bad about how hot it was I didn't want to work him and then he goes and does that lol.  Silly boy!  My parents said they enjoyed watching them play and Chrome licked on the deer salt block again.  :)

So when I was researching if it was too hot to ride I found something interesting.  It's called the Heat Stress Index.  Basically all you do is add together the temperature with the humidity.  If the number is below 120 it's all good, if it's over 150 especially if over 50% is humidity it is getting harder for the horse to cool himself and you have to be very careful, if it's over 170 you don't ride!!  Ours added together was 160 so I chose not to ride (mainly because it was making me dizzy, but also because I didn't want to hurt Chrome).

Anyway I'm going to test out the camera tomorrow and see if it's working.  It's supposed to be cooler this week and I want to get pictures of Chrome's hooves since it's been a while and a friend of mine wants to see how they're doing.  :)  Stay cool everyone!

VCMBH: Chock Full of Advice

L. from Viva Carlos asked us:  What is the best advice you've ever received from a trainer or another rider? What is the worse advice you've received from a trainer or another rider?

It took me a while to come up with an answer for this one.  The best advice is easy because I listened and used it, but the worst advice took a while because I discard stupid stuff and forget about it.  I did finally think of something.

Best Advice:  "Break things down into small pieces!"  I am goal oriented, but I get so hung up on the final big picture that I lose the details sometimes (other times I can get so caught up in details I get nowhere).  Clicker training has helped me a LOT with breaking things down for the horse and for myself! It saves us both a lot of confusion and frustration.  It's also a great way to make sure there are no holes in my basics. :D

Worst Advice:  "Teach a foal how to lead by putting a halter and lead on it, then tying the lead to the saddle horn while you ride the mother around, dragging the foal by it's head".... yeah that's not advice I'll ever use!!!!