planBE

It has been a big year, I might even say epic. My first full year of starting a new business, teaching three new graduate courses, launching a Masters program, travelling, riding bareback for the first time in 30 years, living in Budapest for 5 weeks. It has been a year filled with freedom, worry, success and challenges. It has been a year of lessons learned and balance regained. I have also hit 97 blogposts for my first year, and I think that is something to celebrate! It sure is fun to go back and remember the highlights of the year. I can only imagine what that will look like a few years from now. So, as my final blogpost of 2019, here are my lessons learned, but not yet mastered. Lesson #1 - Do the thing. And let go. I should title this "gallop on the buckle". Such a difficult thing to do. My natural M.O. would prefer to "lope on the contact" as it provides some speed with much control. My highlights this year all have bold action in common: cel...

Im no stranger to spurs, whips and nosebands and I understand their purpose. However I have chosen the slower path to training objectives and have foregone all of the above in my work with Q. Which has been working well so far, in part because Q has a lot of try and is very sensitive. Despite the icy trails, I still made the trek to the barn today and was planning on riding in the arena because ... I just realized I havent cantered in 2 weeks! Partly because of poor trail footing, partly because of rambunctious Q, partly because of slower training objectives. Regardless, I woke up this morning with a mission. A canter mission. We were in the arena with two other trainers, one in reining, and the other in dressage. All was good, and it was just about managing traffic and keeping left-to-left despite their circles, spins, canter half passes, and protruding dressage whip, etc. I had a good session with Q and I was really happy with his canter-to-trot transitions from my seat. We...

Teaching my horse how to maneuver a gate is an exercise in patience. This is the first time I teach it from the first steps. Clearly we needed to have a solid sidepass, turn on the haunches/forehand, straight back and forward, baby steps, neck rein, and ability to stop while I lean over to grab the gate, before we could even begin. Its taken me 3 years to get to that point. Lets just say I took the long road. 🤣 Having done this work before I now know that I must proceed very slowly, otherwise the horse starts anticipating and rushing (and the gate falls down, and all the cows run away). And since Q is sensitive with lots of try, I needed to take this even more slowly. Like molasses-dripped-on-a-brutally-cold-winter-day slow. And maybe even slower. So I took advantage of being stuck in the arena while the trails are icy to begin practice. Two jump standards to be the posts. No gate. Gates are a very specific dance move. The standard process with reins in your right hand and gat...

My quest for a good enough bit is still ongoing. I had a great d-ring copper thin snaffle that worked great for 3 years from our early saddle starts to our summer trails of 2019. But then I noticed lip rubs this summer and realized that Q had outgrown his bit. I switched to a hackamore while his lips healed, and then I borrowed BOs eggbutt stainless steel snaffle in a slightly bigger style. Q was ok with it, but he had become quite mouthy, often fussing with it. My guess is that his small sensitive mouth does not handle this thickish snaffle very well. So then I borrowed a myler comfort snaffle. It was ok on trail, and ok in the arena. But he was still fussing when the contact started. And more importantly he stopped wanting to take the bit when I bridled him. Which was outrageous because Q has now learned how to bridle himself and will usually grab the bit on his own. Now, he was spitting it out. I took it as a sign. So we tried a smaller copper snaffle and Q liked th...

The footing outside is frightful, so we all huddled inside for our last drill practice of the year. The start was rough with horses bolting, bucking, rearing ... and much of the culprit was the half open backdoor. My Q was one of the more composed of the eight horses but still had his tense “giraffe-neck” moments every time we passed the backdoor, or whenever one of the other horses would have a bolting fit. It was a tense warm-up. One of the horses, an OTTB-turned-jumper, was particularly anxious that morning. He was literally frazzled by our antics and his sweet rider was terribly tense at being such a bother. So our fearless rider placed her attention on her with some one-on-one coaching and then she barked at the seven of us to get into formation and start trotting while following our formation leader through serpentines, circles, changes in direction on the diagonal and through the center. Within 2 minutes all seven horses (and riders) settled and we passed by that...

We had a mild sunny day yesterday and it was just enough to melt some of the ice and make for a lovely ride. It was a slow roll but a lovely break in the monotony of arena work. I have been worrying about my newest bit lately as Q seems to detest it (constantly mouthing) and Im working in more contact. As those things do not go well together, I was able to borrow another bit from a fellow boarder and it was quickly adopted by Q. It is the Myler comfort snaffle. We did not work with the bit yet, just went for a quiet walking trail on the buckle. But I am looking forward to our Saturday drill practice to see if Q still likes it with contact. He has such a small sensitive mouth with delicate bars and it’s hard to know which type of bit will give him the right relief, me the right brakes, and keep us connected on those few times I ask him to take the contact. Copper, loose ring, thickness, double or triple jointed. Too many choices. Fingers crossed the myler works well in t...

It’s been rough on the trails these last few days, so after our slippery defeat on Saturday where Q for the first time decided we best turn back and go home we have been shut-ins. The good news is that it was the motivation I needed to show up for the weekly drill practice and tidy up my transitions and lines. I have missed drill practice for a few months now, either preferring sleep, breakfast with my husband, or trail rides with my buddy B. So the core group of ladies haven gotten really good since last I joined them. I stayed at the back of the line and followed everyones cue. Easy enough as I am directionally talented, and Q is both a quick study and a precise sensitive partner. But boy did he try to bully everyone around him with his flattened ears and tight expression. He finally settled in to work after 20 minutes without all the opinions. On top of practicing open and closed formations at a walk and trot, we also practiced simultaneous teardrop turns, thread the n...