Ride 44

I rode right around dusk, so no pictures unfortunately!  Here's an old one from when we first moved just so you don't forget how handsome the boys are.  :D

Hubby and Jackal went along for the ride out in the pasture because Jackal is on a new exercise program to lose some weight (you can read more about it in a recent post on my other blog myfarmerlife.blogspot.com).  Jackal has to stay off of the asphalt roads, so he's going to spend some time out in the pasture following me and Chrome around hehe.  That will get the weight off of him.  :D

I rode bareback for twenty minutes.  I really wanted to use the saddle, but I was fast losing daylight so I'll use it next time.  I went to a dressage clinic over the weekend (one reason I didn't ride and also because it was COLD) and it was soooooooo nice being around horse people again.  Man I miss it out there (I used to work and take lessons at that dressage stable).  One of my friends has a six year old Haflinger mare (she is GORGEOUS!) that was used as a trail horse and driving horse, so she's new to dressage.  The cool thing is everything they worked on was SO relevant to me and Chrome, so I learned a lot.  :D

The number one thing I need to work on with Chrome is FORWARD!!!  He is so lazy.  The crazy thing is he's super eager to pick up a trot, but he doesn't know how to move more forward within the gaits and his walk is super lazy.  I didn't work on that much tonight though because I was bareback and it is muddy (very slick) outside.

What I did realize is that I'm still riding him like a baby horse!!  When the clinician said to ride a baby horse like a grown horse it just clicked for me.  One of the biggest things is steering.  I've still been riding Chrome with a open, leading rein instead of just squeezing my fist like with a trained dressage horse.  I never even gave him the chance to see if he would respond to the more refined cue.  Not to mention the open leading rein has my elbows a mile from my side and my hand turning flat instead of thumbs up.  Yeah I have some bad habits to break asap!!

So for this ride I picked up a little more contact than I normally use with him and worked on keeping my elbows glued to my side and my thumbs up.  I also worked on sitting tall and engaging my core so I don't fall forward if he trips or stops suddenly (that was a reoccurring theme in the clinic hehe).  He responded SO well to the quieter cues to turn, even responding just to a squeeze from my fist.  Sometimes when he would get locked in his jaw or neck I would have to bring his head around too far, but I tried to do it without moving my hand two feet out to the side.  It worked great.  We obviously need a lot more work and I think having a more active walk will help us a lot with our steering.  The other thing I realized is that the open leading rein was causing him to fall out through his outside shoulder really bad!  So I did some practice catching his shoulder with the outside rein and a couple of times he got it right.  I was so excited!  We need a lot more work moving those shoulders around, but he really showed me tonight that he's super, super, super smart and will learn this stuff really quick I think.  :D  Obviously I'm going to take it slow so I don't overwhelm his baby brain..... wait he turns five in May.... I guess he isn't really a baby anymore lol.  I have to start thinking of him as an adult horse, but it's so hard!

Anyway I only trotted a couple of times just to see how he was responding (immediately off of a light calf squeeze and vocal cue yay!!), but mostly kept everything at a walk since it is very slick out.  Along with the walking I also worked on him stopping and standing still.  He ACED that!  Lazy boy lol.  I'm looking forward to working on grown up dressage horse stuff with him hehe.  Let's all keep our fingers for spring weather and no more of this freezing cold, super windy crap we've been having.  Night guys!

Ride 43

I'm in a hurry so I have to make this short, but I want to record it to keep track of his rides.  I rode Chrome again today, bareback for just under 20 minutes.  I took him out on the road and my husband went, but he was walking Jackal on a leash so we didn't take any pictures.  Sorry!

Chrome was excited as we left the property, but very hesitant about the direction we chose (which he's been down several times and nothing has ever happened).  He kept wanting to stop and look around.  The wind was blowing pretty hard and I think he was smelling the neighbor's horses.  When he wanted to stop I would let him look around for a minute before asking him to continue.  Each time we stopped my hubby and Jackal kept walking and it was so funny because when I'd ask Chrome to walk on he wanted to trot to catch up.  I made him walk because letting him get away with that would lead to the jigging I hate.  We went a short distance and then turned around because the neighbor dogs were being OBNOXIOUS with Jackal there.

As soon as we turned around Chrome extended his walk, lowered his head and snorted three or four times in a row.  He was definitely tense!  So I was a little disappointed because I thought he was walking fast because we were headed back in the direction of home.  So as a test when we approached the driveway I just sat there and did nothing.  He kept walking straight!!  He never looked at the driveway and never slowed down.  In the other direction he was still looking around (the neighbor on that side has a really trashy house and property), but he was doing his fast walk, so I was happy.  He was eager to keep going, he just didn't like the other direction for some reason.  We went a short ways and turned back before we got to the other neighbor with obnoxious dogs (ahhhh why don't they build fences around here????).  He continued his big walk all the way back to the house.

I was so proud of him, especially since he didn't spook when there was a bunch of rustling in the brush beside the road.  :D  In fact he never spooked once, he was just tense.  I'm not bothered by the fact that he was tense going in the first direction.  Either he knew something I didn't or he just wasn't ready to go there after such an extended break.  I'm willing to listen to him.  We can conquer it another (less windy) day.  Anyway I gotta go.  Later!

P.S.  I finally used the mark all as read button in my blog reader.  I hated to do it but with 1300+ blog posts to read there was no way I would ever catch up!  I hope I haven't missed anything important.  If I have you can leave a comment and I'll try to check it out.  Sorry guys.  I hope all is well with you.

Ride 42 & a Haircut

I have been out of town for a few days.  I needed to get away so I went back to my old town where we moved from and stayed with my best friend.  It helped a lot to get away from the memories, but dang I missed my boys!  I think they missed me too.  :)

First up I gave Chrome a haircut.  His mohawk is gone!  The last time we had snow and ice he had icicles hanging from his mane and the poor thing never did stand back up, so I just cut it all back off to start over again.  Check out this picture below.

Handsome isn't he?

I have to get used to the naked look again lol!!  I can tell you after spending an hour helping my best friend groom her Friesian and untangle her mane and tail I'm kind of liking Chrome's low maintenance haircut.  Notice he's wearing his old rope halter again?  Yeah he broke his pretty blue halter.  He had his head over the fence and I put the halter on him, but the clip on the throatlatch caught on the fence.  I saw it happen and freaked out, so he freaked out and pulled back and it snapped.  Luckily the clip is easy to replace and nobody was hurt.  I'll just use his rope halter for now.  After his haircut we went for a short walk on the road.

Is there a car coming mom?

He was being so goofy and full of himself!  He even spooked once, but all he did was bounce forward a couple of strides, then stopped and looked back.  I don't think he even put pressure on the lead rope, but I don't remember for sure.  If he did, it wasn't enough for me to notice.  We walked a short distance and then met the mail lady at our mailbox.  Chrome wanted to play Pony Express.  Since I wasn't on him I let him carry it...

Carrying it in his mouth wasn't working because he was shredding it (it was a junk magazine so I didn't care) and when he'd drop it he would lose interest in it.  You can kind of see it in his mouth in the above picture.  If you enlarge the picture you can kind of see his dapples on his chest!!  They don't show up in pictures very well, but they are definitely there.  I'm so, so, so excited that he's going to dapple out.  :D

 So then I let him carry some other junk mail on his haunches.  He didn't even notice it.

And then I got really clever and let him carry it in his halter.... see it in his noseband against his forehead in the picture above?  Hehehe.  Once again he didn't care.  He's such an easy going guy.  :D  After we played with the mail we walked back up the driveway with my mom.  I was talking to her so I was walking kind of slower than I normally do and he wanted to go, so I tossed his rope over his back and let him go.  He marched off and after a second he realized I wasn't coming with him so he took off in his HUGE ground eating, floaty trot halfway down our driveway, then he took the split off that is my grandparent's driveway, trotted allllll the way down it, between the two houses and out to the backyard to graze.  It was hilarious.  I had my camera with me, but I couldn't get it turned on fast enough to get a picture before there were trees between us.... *pout*

After that, since he was feeling so sparky I decided to ride (okay, okay I had already planned on riding, but it was even more exciting when I saw how good he felt).  I rode bareback for twenty minutes in the yard.  At one point I saw my dad driving up the road, so we trotted up the driveway to meet him.  When Chrome saw his big white van he hesitated.  I let him stop and stand, staring at it, for a minute until he realized it wasn't a horse eating monster.  Then, without so much as a sound or cue from me, he eagerly trotted the rest of the way up the driveway to where his van was parked just inside the gate.  I said hi to dad, then moved him off the driveway so he could drive up to the house.  When dad drove by, Chrome started to take off after him!!!  He wanted to chase the van sooooo bad!  I don't want him to learn to do that without waiting for a cue from me (since I plan to ride him on roads), so I corrected him (with a verbal reprimand and holding him back with the reins... I didn't hit him or anything) and he calmly walked up the driveway.  He had his bouncy walk going because he was excited, but he was not jigging.  I LOVE that he does not jig.  That is one of the most annoying habits I've ever come across (not counting dangerous ones like bucking, rearing, spinning or bolting, those are obviously way more annoying) and I hope he never learns to do that.

Anyway, I'm sooooooo happy the weather is warming up and I'm soooooooooo happy that daylight savings time has finally arrived.  :D  I can't wait to start riding more!