Happy New Year!

I will be out of town as of tomorrow morning, so figured I'd get my Happy New Years in early! I hope everyone has a safe, happy and healthy beginning to 2011. 


We've had quite a cold front since Christmas Day evening. We actually had a hard freeze overnight on Sunday and it's just beginning to stay out of the 30s tonight. While I loved having the cold weather for Christmas, it has been tough being off this week, because it's been too cold to ride. Well, let me clarify...I no longer have the winter riding gear I would need to be warm and not get sick, riding outside in 30-40 degrees. So...unfortunately, Miss Promise was ignored this week. But, supposedly it's going to begin warming up tomorrow, and get somewhat back to normal in the next few days, so maybe next week I'll be able to get back on her again.


In the mean time, I have been looking for boots for her hind legs, because they would offer more consistent support for those tendons the vet was worried about than what I can realistically do with a polo wrap. I really love the Classic Equine Legacy (see photo), in purple of course. They have great reviews and seem to be one of the better "tendon boots" out there from what I've read. Now I just need to come up with the extra money to buy them. That duck really set me back. :(

Merry Christmas!

Finished Product

And here is the finished product...hand-painted frame, and personal photo. My grandmother had better like it!!

I forgot to mention that this photo is Promise sucking up after threatening to buck when I got on her. My mom was with me, to take the photos, and was picking on me for putting my helmet on, when I spent 30 minutes straightening my hair before we left the house (not that you can tell, because despite the cold, it was humid and rain clouds were looming overhead).

I looked at her and said, "Have you met my horse?" Well, good thing I put it on to get on her and let her walk and trot around a bit...because when she had gone about 5 steps from the mounting block, I felt her whole body gather beneath her and she was going to buck. I exhaled, sat deeper and said, "NO."

She listened, but after a couple seconds threatened again, so I firmly said, "No. No. No. Don't you DARE." She relaxed a little. "You can stand here as long as you like," I said, scratching and applying pressure with my knuckles to her withers, "But you are NOT going to act like a 3 year old. You're too old for this crap, cold or not."

So, we stood for a few seconds, I asked for her to release to the bit, by moving it around in her mouth, getting her to focus on something OTHER than her back, and then gently squeezed my legs and asked her to walk. She went a few steps then stopped, feeling less tense, but still thinking about bucking. I'll take standing over bucking, any day. I let her stand, fussed with the bit for a couple of seconds, and then asked her to walk again. Few steps, stop, give, walk. Then she was fine, and started jigging a little, so I let her trot around the ring a few times...after all, I needed her to stand still for pictures, and I needed to be able to take my helmet (and t-shirt covering my dress shirt) off.

I did spend quite a while massaging her before I tacked her up, and she was quite flinchy. I think the next time I go that it is that cold, I will throw a cooler over her while I am grooming and massaging, and give her muscles a little extra time to warm up...because I have a feeling it was mostly stiffness/coldness causing the exaggerated sore reactions, and that I didn't let her back warm up enough on the lunge line before I mounted. But, I will definitely be keeping an eye on it.

Christmas pictures!

What the duck?

My uncle and I took my grandmother to the mall last night to help her finish her Christmas shopping. On our way back, I went through McDonald's and got her a Big Mac meal, since her dinner would have been sitting for at least 45 minutes by that point, if they hadn't already picked it up...and then we drove down the street to bring her back.

I'm driving along, minding my own business, when I see this big Muscovy duck take off from the other side of the road. You know the big ugly fat (and mean) ones? The thing probably weighed 25 lbs easy.



Anyway, I jokingly said, "Don't hit me duck, get some lift!" Thinking I had more than enough room to get by him, and he would want to preserve himself and wouldn't hit me. Yeah. I was very wrong. The stupid duck flew right into the side of my car. He smashed the driver's side mirror, and cracked my window. Thank god I have laminated safety windows (made of the same glass they use for windshields), or it would have shattered and I would have spent the night in the ER.

So, $304.95 later, I at least have a new window (insurance company said I have a $500 deductible). I have to work on getting the mirror fixed, because I didn't realize that even though the casing was fine, the piece that actually attaches the glass to the casing is gone.

I think this qualifies as a "Bah Humbug" moment.

Rain, rain, go away

On Friday afternoon, I spent my Christmas bonus with Promise. Sounds weird, right? I work for a not-for-profit, so my Christmas bonus was a half day. My raise is the week after Christmas off. It'll do, I guess. :)

I headed straight to the barn, excited to have the place to myself on a perfect day. It was cool, but no wind to add to the chill, and when the sun came out, it was just amazing. I dressed Miss Promise, and away we went. I decided to lunge her for a couple of minutes because it had been a week, and the temperature had dropped considerably in that time. She only bucked once, lol. So, about 10 minutes later, I hopped on, and away we went.

I decided to continue working on straightness -- I was also trying to discern whether I was sitting straight in the saddle, was the saddle straight, etc. because when my chiropractor adjusted me last week, she said my tailbone was out, plus my left hip was out again. So, my homework was to check the straightness of the saddle and my body. It felt pretty straight, but without eyes on the ground, or mirrors, it's hard to know for sure. I will have my mom check it out next weekend when we go to take some Christmas photos for my grandmother. 

Anyway, we did a lot of walking and changes of direction, and then I started adding in big looping serpentines to build suppleness. Bear in mind, I am not asking for collection or really even to fully use her hind end at this point, she's not fit enough. But, I do ask her to maintain a soft contact with the bit, and to be giving -- then I try to remember to ride her into my hands. The rest will follow in time. 

I forgot to put my watch on, so I am not sure how long we walked, but I would guess about 20 minutes. And then I asked her to trot on a straight away. My goal with the trotting was to keep my reins short (I tend to let them go when she's being good) and to maintain a firm, but soft contact with her mouth while encouraging her into the bit with my seat and legs. She wasn't a fan at first, and had a temper tantrum (...in each direction!), which included tossing her head, trying to stop, and pretty sure she threw in a kick or two also. Geez, barn owner wasn't kidding when she said Promise was definitely doing better, because her attitude was back! lol. She didn't do anything awful...and mostly stopped when I told her to quit and squeezed her forward. When she settled into the contact and stopped fidgeting with the bit, I praised her and released for a few seconds. We went around more to the right than the left, because she was worse in that direction and it took longer to get her to settle, then she'd break the contact to toss her head and we'd have to basically start over to end the trotting on a good note.

Note to self, I have to work on my downward transitions, I cannot stand it when her response to slowing down is to throw her nose out in front of her and fall on the forehand. I know, partially me, partially her strength. We'll work on it.

After walking around for another 10 minutes or so, I went to halt by our stuff so we could call it a day. But, she gave me one too many nose-out-halts for my liking, and I decided to push the issue a little. After all, we were walking. So, we did half the arena and worked on halting without looking like a giraffe. She didn't have to be perfect, just soft -- no pulling, etc. I used the fence to help me...mean mom. After 5 or 6 tries, she stopped without grabbing the bit or having an attitude, so I made a huge deal out of it, dismounted, untacked her and let her roll in the arena while I went to go put her stuff away. Maybe she got the hint. :)

~*~

Since it started pouring buckets when I was about 10 miles away from the barn, I wasn't able to ride yesterday. So, instead, I hung her stocking so Santa Pony would fill it and then I spent quite a while currying and using my hard brush on her to really try to get the dirt out of her coat. (I won't be able to give her a bath before the aforementioned photo shoot, as it will be too cold. So, I'm making do and starting early!) Then I sprayed her neck, legs, hindquarters, mane and tail with ShowSheen and wiped the hair flat with my hands before turning to my next task while waiting for it to dry: a massage!

Her back was pretty good, actually, not too much flinching or moving away from the pressure of my fingers when I checked for soreness. Still, I held the muscles away from her spine for a minute and then began to work through them with my little golf ball massager tool from the chiropractor. 

On the left side, I went down from where the saddle would sit, to where her shoulder meets her belly, and she flinched, and pinned her ears and swished her tail. Now, I'm not certified -- although I have been considering it recently -- but, I am pretty confident in listening to my horse. So, I figured what the hell. And, I gently felt around a little, trying to pinpoint the exact area of discomfort. She was pretty clear about it, and when I began working the spot with my tool, she tensed at first, but when the muscle started to loosen, she slowly began to relax, stopped swishing her tail, etc. I worked it for a minute or so, and then went back to her back for a bit. She would turn and nudge me like, "But, mom...that spot still hurts!" I massaged both areas alternately, working down to her hip, and around her ribs, also, until she finally heaved a big sigh and started licking and chewing. Then, I checked for soreness again. Still a little flinchy, so rinse and repeat until the flinching diminished even more.

On to the right side. The soreness seemed to be in adjacent spots, which is a good thing. I haven't noticed any patchy sweat marks when I take the saddle off, or any real resistance from her when I am on her (I don't think her temper tantrum counts, in this instance, it was more of an "I don't WANT to!"), so I think it fits well still. I repeated the same process on the right, until she stop flinching. And when the flinching stopped, the yawning and stretching started --- she would stretch her neck as far as it would go and would yawn for several seconds, then shake her head around -- she did this many times. Yay, for a relaxed horse!

When I had finished massaging those areas on both sides, I brushed her with the soft brush to remove the dirt I had stirred up. I stood behind her, and asked her to lift her back three times, which got a huge sigh and she began stretching her nose down to the ground to continue the stretch through her spine. Good mare! And then went on to her hindquarters to continue my massage. Then she started doing this:

She hasn't done this in years -- used to do it all the time on the crossties. But, unless my memory fails me completely, she hasn't done it since before we moved to Florida. Today, I'm pretty sure this was her way of thanking me for the massage!

I ended by stretching her legs when I picked out her feet, and then spent a while longer brushing her entire body with the soft brush before doing her carrot stretches. She seemed to enjoy it all. :)

What a day! She was phenomenal!

Some people would think, wow, you got on your horse and all you did was walk for 15 minutes and trot for 5, and you're all excited? Why?! Well, because it's been at least 8 months since I could even get on her, I would tell them with a big grin.


I wrapped all 4 legs, to offer the tendons in that left hind some extra support, and then let her do her carrot stretches so she'd have a chance to adjust to having her hind legs wrapped for the first time in ages (I usually only do the fronts). Then I massaged her back and started tacking her up. 


Miss Piggy needed the girth extender again, but just barely. I probably could have forced it to go, but didn't want to cause any trouble...especially since the barn's "Winter Festival" was going on today and there were a bazillion people there. (I haven't been getting their newsletters, so didn't know about it!) Really, she was about 1 hole short of it being comfortable without the extender, so a couple of weeks and we shouldn't need it. 


I did toss her on the lunge line for a few minutes to let her warm up, get any sillies out, etc., and she looked great to the right and a bit sticky to the left...and surprisingly enough, had no sillies! I blamed the stickiness on the circle and decided I was getting on her anyway, damnit. 


I couldn't find the plastic mounting block anywhere, so had to try to get on from the 4 stair wood monstrosity that doesn't move. True to form, she kept swinging her butt away from me...it's really hard to try to convince a horse to move their butt back toward the mounting block you're already standing on. Boo. I tried a few times and decided that rather than continue to fight with her, since I couldn't move the block, I would just bring one of the jump standards over, to block her butt in. Success. She knew I wasn't playing around anymore and stood like a perfect angel (ha, I know the truth!). She walked off calm and relaxed, only tensed up once a few steps out, but when I told her she was fine and rubbed her neck, she sighed and continued on her way.


We walked...and walked...and walked...and walked some more, changing directions often with long diagonal lines. She felt amazing. She was soft and giving with her mouth, tracking under herself reasonably well, and moving through the hips with a nice swinging back. I alternated from asking for some connection through the bit and dropping my stirrups to stretch my legs down, to giving her the reins on the buckle and asking her to stretch and relax, while I worked on keeping my knees in, with feet in the stirrups. 


All in all, we did nothing exciting at the walk, but it felt fantastic to be back in the saddle again! I had planned to only trot her on the straight sides, but the arena is relatively short and so by the time I got her to walk again, I figured we'd already be halfway through the short end. So, instead, I tried to make the short end as long as possible, didn't ask for any bend at all, but just focused on keeping her as straight as possible all the way around. We did twice in each direction, then walked one more time around before calling it a day. 


She felt a little sticky and slightly off in both directions at the trot, but her ears were forward, her tail was swinging, she was relaxed and forward, and she was having a great time, so I told myself to ignore it unless it suddenly started to feel worse. When she'd gone about halfway through her first lap in each direction, she started to feel looser, almost like she had to change the way she was moving to accommodate the extra weight of me and the saddle, and once she did, that slight gimp she'd had before started to work itself out. 


Years ago, if she'd had this much time off, she would have been an absolute demon and I wouldn't even have considered getting back on her without lunging for at least 30 minutes. I think I lunged her for maybe 10 minutes today and she was just so laid back (even with the cooler weather we're having!). Since I want to minimize circles, I can probably get away with skipping the lunging altogether and just do a few laps around the arena to let her back warm up or longline/drive her before I ride if I can find another lunge line or borrow one. We'll see. But, I think it's safe to say she's old enough and broke enough that she's probably not going to try to kill me anymore!! :-D