We Jumped the Barrel Again :)

Okay, to back up.

Today Jessica tells me, "I've got an exercise he's really going to like today!"

So she has us warm up by trotting circles in all the corners of the ring in both directions. I threw in doing a bit of cantering down the long sides the second time around, then back to trotting for the circles and short sides.

So we started with poles on the ground in a zig-zag pattern, like so:

/
\
/
\

The idea being that you'd come in from the left and after going over the pole, do a circle so you'd come around straight at the next pole, then another circle going the other way so you'd be going straight at the next pole, and so on.

First she had us trot a few times over them. The first trot was fine, okay but just sort of...okay. So Jessica was like, "this time, I want you to get him engaged and really thinking about what we're doing because that time he was totally tuning it out."

And she's right. I mean...I was thinking, "hey, we've done this before, no big deal," and so that's pretty much how Kieran felt about it. So we went through it again and I thought, "we're going to be engaged and paying attention and do it right" and wouldn't you know he was really using his hind end and forward and it was just....lots better. Who knew? LOL

Then she had us do it again but this time she wanted us to do it cantering. So we talked about it because obviously, Kieran doesn't do flying lead changes, so we'd have to trot over the poles themselves to do a simple change and the circles would be a lot bigger than we could do with the trotting. So the idea was that I needed to plan ahead of time how this would go so we could do it.

It...wasn't pretty.

We could do the first circle okayish, but we'd get to the second pole and we'd have to go down to a trot and then I'd be thinking "okay, change the bed, push for another canter but you've got to circle too! omg!" and it would all kind of fall apart.

Didn't help that Kieran kept picking up the left lead coming into the first pole and we were supposed to do a circle to the right. One time I didn't even feel it even did the full circle and Jessica was like, "that was totally on the wrong lead". Usually I can tell, but that one just...felt really put together. Anyway, I ended up switching which side I was coming from and we did it from the top instead and once we got through three poles with no mishap, I skipped the last one, because I didn't want to mess it up so we ended that exercise on a good note. It was really difficult! It's hard because you've got to do the "plan" thing but you can't overthink it (or at least I can't) or it just...doesn't work.

Anyway, so we went back to trotting the poles, but Jessica used my jump blocks to slowly raise them. First they were just low cavaletti, basically, then she made them all half a low crossrail. Then she raised them to very low verticals (or the tall setting for a cavaletti). Then she'd make one side be the tall setting for the jump blocks and the other side be the medium setting but only the ones in the middle. Then she made them all the tall setting, basically 2ft verticals (and added ground poles under them). Theoretically, he could still trot over them but at that point he was more likely to jump them. Here she said if he wanted to canter in or out, I could let him, just...mostly trot.

As they got higher she also said I was really going to have to work at being serious about it (like we talked about with the first exercise) and giving him a boot to push him forward and be like, "yo, they're getting bigger, you've got to give me more effort, dude).

One time she quickly stuck her coat over one to make it more "interesting" and he was like, "oh....she wants me to jump, okay!". LOL So that one got some more effort. That was one about three strides out he started cantering (not rushing, just...cantering) and gave a pretty good jump for.

Anyway, finally we ended up sticking a barrel under one of them (remember we already jumped this last week, just in a different setup) and it was the one we were coming to at the end. (so we came in the top zig zag and jumped the barrel last at the one on the bottom).

Again, about three strides out he cantered but the jump was an "oh, shit!" jump. It wasn't pretty. It threw me out of the tack. If I hadn't thought to grab mane right before I might've actually totally lost it or at least really hung off his mouth and not meant to. But still...he went over. He didn't refuse, he didn't even think about it.

Jessica said the problem was that he made a mistake. He thought he could do that canter thing, but he was really like...two and a half strides away so suddenly he was right on top of it and hence he just had to wing it.

Anyway, she gave me the option of ending there because...hey, he did what we asked, even though it wasn't pretty, he didn't even touch the jump despite the awkwardness. Or she said, we could do it again. Not the whole thing, just the last bit with the barrel.

I really had to think about it. On the one hand, it wasn't a bad spot to end on, again...he did exactly what I asked him to do. On the other, he's got a history of the first time we do something newish tends to be awkward and then the second time through he's figured it out and it tends to be better. So it really came down to me thinking I might mess it up and then if we did it "wrong" that would be a bad note to leave it at.

Well, I just decided we wouldn't do it wrong. That I'd be with him and we'd go again. Heck, I even asked him, "are you ready?" and I could feel him kind of push forward a bit like he does when he's excited about something. Might be in my head but I took that as a yes. So we trotted another circle like we were coming out of hopping over the previous pole and I thought, "look ahead, keep your leg on, stay with him!" and we cantered the last few strides up to it and he jumped over the dang thing like he was at a show and about to win a blue ribbon. No lie, I almost cried afterward because it was pretty much perfect.

Jessica said he looked good, knees tucked up to his chin, and I looked good right there with him and if we jumped like that every time, we'd be winning in shows, no question.

I only wish there was a picture, but hey, I know how it felt. Jessica also said he might be ready then, considering today, to start cantering jumps more instead of trotting them and that we'll likely find it easier.

I'm pretty excited. :)

I haz a shiny!

So when I went to the MD Horse Expo last month, I ordered a bracelet to be made from some of Kieran's tail hair by Tara's Equine Designs. It took me a bit to get around to sending the hair and then it took a couple weeks to be made and sent back to me so I just got it in the mail today. I think it's pretty shiny. :) I didn't get anything really "extra" done with it, it's just a five-strand flat braid, but I like that it's simple.

Making things Interesting

Kieran's getting bored with little, cavaletti-style jumps. But we're not really ready for anything much bigger (I know I'm not, at least in terms of my position and my riding). So today we tried to make things more interesting. Jessica ended up dragging over some lattice things that someone had once used for jumps for one of them because it looked "scary" compared to regular poles...then she hung her jacket over one of the other ones...then finally she had us jump over one of the barrels on its side.

But before that...warmup!

Part of our warmup after walking and trotting is to do some short "handgallops" I've mentioned before, I think.



Then, we did some trotting spirals, both directions.



Then, Jessica had us canter, then make a circle cantering and as we came out of it, to come to a halt. And she wanted it to be a nice halt, not a "fall forward on your face halt". So the idea being that I had to think ahead about what I wanted and prepare him properly so we could actually do it.



Then, since we've only been hopping over single fences, she had set up three in the center of the ring. First time, she had us trot over the middle one, down to the fence, then turn right and come back for the fence on the left (it was slightly catty corner so coming out of the corner meant we were on a straight line for it).



So Jessica progressively made the jumps more interesting (but not too much higher) with what we had on hand because Kieran was not really impressed with them, mostly. So we ended by going over the center one (now a vertical across the "tall" setting for the blocks), then came back around to do the lattice jump, then around for the barrel on the far side. :)



Looking at the videos, I know I need to have quieter hands and really work more again on using my legs. My toes are sticking waaaaaaay out and I suspect my stirrups are too long since in a lot of places when I'm getting out of the saddle, my leg is almost totally straight. (I need to punch holes, those stirrups are as short as they can go without me wrapping them around the irons)

Anyway, what do you think?

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I'll have stuff to talk about regarding Mr. Kieran soon too, I'm sure. I have another saddle to try out on him after all, anyway, but it isn't here yet.

But in the mean time!

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Let's March!

Got back out on the trails today for the first time since we had to stop for hunting season. It was nice to get off the farm and I think Kieran must've thought so too because he sure did do a lot of marching everywhere, LOL. We got in some nice little trots and one stretch of cantering too (so I got to practice my two point).

All in all, just a nice ride. :)

Getting some Air

I don't have anything I can make a free-jumping chute with here and the arena is too big (and grassy) to just free lunge him around like I used to do at my old barn (they had a smaller indoor ring), he'd just trot off to the other end and start grazing probably, LOL. Hence the lunge line in the picture.

CHECK OUT ALL THE PROGRESS (videospam)

So I guess...for comparison...this is us riding in a schooling show in May 2010:



Here's some videos from today:








Don't worry, the very first video is only actually about 2 minutes long for the meat of it, hah. And the last four are all really short.

Anyway, I see today some nice transitions; a relaxed, listening horse, and I think I'm a lot more still in the saddle too.

And here's some screencaps:




THIS TROT, OMG



There was a time I never would have imagined getting that out of him, LOL.


Hard work!

I'm so proud of him, I can't wait for our lesson tomorrow. :D

New Year's Day? Lesson! :)

Just a couple of short clips from today. The whole lesson was really a lot of hard work. We started by doing figure 8's in each half of the ring (so figure 8's on the top half, then figure 8's on the bottom half) at a trot. Which was harder than I thought, to really get the circles round and not make one small and the other big (i wanted to do a long diagonal between them instead of making them circles that happen to touch). After that, Jessica had use the whole ring to do canter figure 8s (with a few trot strides in the middle, we don't do flying changes yet!) and that was even harder because I really had to plan how I was going to make my canter turns and when to trot in the middle and ask for the other lead canter. That's our homework for the week.

Then she had us canter over some canter poles, down to the fence, come back to a (forward) trot and around over a crossrail with the idea that the canter poles would remind Kieran to pay attention to his feet (we don't keep cantering because she doesn't want us cantering into fences yet). That crossrail he doesn't really like though because it's pretty airy and bare (balanced on a couple of traffic cones, I can't wait until my jump blocks get here!) so he never puts in much effort over it. The other crossrail where we use barrels laying on the ground as "standards" he tends to actually jump (instead of trotting over and hanging his feet) because it looks more solid.

So then we had to canter around down to the barrel crossrail and all I was supposed to focus on was encouraging him forward (she stresses "allowing" and not pushing, because we can't make him think this is a fun thing to do) and just staying straight and getting out of his way when we go over.


That was one of the first times over the barrel jump. Then we had a couple of awkward tries and then we ended on this note:


Ignore Jessica's screaming, LOL.

Riding with Tracey

One of the other boarders and I both rode today. She was trying out an English saddle she'd just gotten (she's ridden Western for years) and I was just toodling around with Kieran. :)


I think my position has improved light years from what it used to be.


I didn't expect him to actually jump this but I think I managed to get properly out of his way.


Good pony!


Yes, we briefly switched horses :)


Canter departure


Hopping over the crossrail. Ignore us dorking out about it afterward, LOL.


Longer video, just riding around. There's a nice canter departure at about 2:33

It's like he's a different horse!

It's just that...in the past couple of lessons....Kieran's been really forward and happy about working. He's always been fairly agreeable, but sometimes it could be grudging. He'd trudge around and I'd coax a nice trot or canter out of him but lately it's just been... I mount up and we walk off from the mounting block with a nice forward walk and even later in the lesson when we have walk breaks he doesn't drop back into the trudge mode. I ask for trots and canters and he gives me nice transitions and moves out and I don't have to spend the whole time pushing forward. Sometimes I even have to ask him to come back a little. It's exciting! :)

Anyway, that's been the big goal we've been working on. Give Kieran A Work Ethic. And now he's actually interested in what we're doing and ready to really learn so we can start doing fun stuff.

Not only that, but I feel like I'm more "with" him than I ever used to be. Like we're on the same wavelength now more times than not, instead of slightly out of sync. And I actually feel like that whole "independent seat" thing is developing and like I can really follow with my body and not feel like I have to hold on for dear life with my hands because my body can't do it.

I'm just really excited about where we're going and I'm glad I found Jessica to help us get there. :)