Consistency

Okay, so had our lesson. It was really, really good. Kieran was a total superstar. Mostly what we had set up was a jump we were using in the center of the ring. It started out as your basic crossrail with a ground pole on either side set out about 6-12 inches to make it look wider so Kieran couldn't come right up to the base of it and hop over. The jump progressively grew taller and wider, until we were going over about 2'6" high and about that wide as well.

Jessica wanted to do 'wide' to encourage Kieran to stretch out and also so we'd have a bit more 'airtime' so I could have more time to work on my position. Which. Still needs a lot to be desired, I realize, but I see improvement in it even from last week. I think my ride yesterday helped with that and I think in general riding more often will help. Mostly I just tried to remember: weight in heels, calf on, look up!

Also, I'd forgotten my crop in the tack room so Jessica said she'd go back and get it if Kieran got lazy. Well let me just say, he was anything but. He was totally down with the lesson today and rarin' to go. It was really great and I think it helped me since it was one less thing I had to think about keeping track of and let me concentrate more on my legs and less on my hands.

So anyway, below are some screencaps and below that are some videos from today.


One of our first jumps. Look how nice he's going! And remember, most of these he's jumping from a trot and he still looks really good!


This is one that shows how much my form needs work but my actual point here is...this is one we trotted into. Look how nicely he brought his hind legs together, look how he's pulled his knees up!


Seriously, this horse is amazing.


Cantering away like a boss. ;)


Afterward he got an extra-special bran mash as a treat.







I believe this is the one we were actually on the wrong lead the whole time and I remember thinking, "I think he's on the wrong lead" but since he felt pretty balanced and I didn't want to screw up his forward momentum, I didn't want to take him back down to a trot for a simple change.




Just figured we'd hop over some of the other low stuff so we weren't doing the entirely same thing every time.


Last one of the day, figured it was a good note to end on.

Anyway, the title is because, well...Kieran was pretty damn consistent the whole time. Willing to listen and just...jumping pretty nicely over everything I asked him to do. I'm really, really happy with him. I just need to catch up now!

Oh no, I'm getting old!

I have a lesson later this morning I will probably post about tonight but first...

I just realized, the blog is "the trials and jubilations of a twenty-something re-rider" on my signature line in various forums I'm in. That made total sense when I started it several years ago. But. Uhm. I'm 29. So in about eight months I guess it will have to be a "thirty-something" re-rider. Or maybe I should just come up with an entirely different line for that since after riding for several years, should I still be referring to myself as a re-rider? Even if I'm still not a great rider?

Yay, trails!

Had my first trail ride of the year today. Took Kieran out on the trails and it was nice to see they'd been through and cleared them out and everything was nice and open, though the footing wasn't packed down again yet so it was actually a little deepish. (I don't know if the neighbors who own that land dragged it with four wheelers or what. They definitely had been doing some brush burning though as all the brush was cleared out between the trees and there was ash on the ground).

Anyway, we were out for about an hour, mostly walking, but some nice long trots too. I was focusing on keeping my weight in my heels and my calf on and doing two point by closing my hip instead of throwing myself forward (it helped that I reminded myself we were out on the trails and if he tripped or something and I was too far forward, I'd probably come off right over his shoulder, hah).

Did have a nice canter up the hill that's on the way back to the house, then I made Kieran walk back down it and trot up it nicely. It's the only hill of any reasonable size in the area so I figure we should start using it for fitness. I'm sure Kieran will not approve when it's so close to the farm and why can't we just go back, mom?

Then spent a while grooming, got his tail all nice and brushed out and pretty, then let him graze in the arena while I cleaned up my tack. Also mended a couple of jump poles some previous boarder had left (a 2x4 with some lattice stuck to one side, the lattice was falling down so I wrapped some duct tape around it for my ghetto mending) so we can use them for making the jumps more interesting than just the regular poles.

Have a lesson tomorrow!

Jumping again

So had a jumping lesson, my last lesson two weeks ago was entirely on the flat (I forgot to post about it) because I was having a lot of medical things happening at the time and didn't want to stress stuff. But now I more or less have things under control so I told Jessica we could probably go back to jumping again and she said we'd start lower than we were doing since Kieran pretty well knows his job now (go over the jump, don't go through it or around it) and focus back on me and my position instead of just "keep out of his way".

Which, apparently when I start thinking about what I'm doing instead of just doing it ....it's pretty terrible. There's one picture that I'm not going to share here but I basically am laying practically totally horizontal over Kieran, I'm not even sure how I managed to get back in the saddle afterward (go me?) but it was pretty fail.

Mostly though, it was a lot of "throwing myself forward" (because we were talking about crest releases and getting my elbows down near his neck which apparently translated in my subconscious to "throw yourself forward!") up onto his neck and standing in the stirrups. :/ Are there any sort of exercises you can do to get the muscle memory built up for "get out of the saddle but stick your butt out so you're actually balanced over the saddle"? Or is that just a "do it for a while going around and around in the ring" thing?

Also I noticed when I really think hard about pushing my heels down and getting out of the saddle...I actually push my feet outward so my calf is no longer on the horse. I sort of noticed it in the past, but it was really apparent today for some reason and I'm not entirely sure how to fix that either, except to think inward thoughts. :/

Anyway, here are some screencaps:


An example of what I'm talking about.


He gave me a nice forward trot today though. I told Jessica it was a nice hunter-y trot. Forward but not too big.


Not bad, even though we're taking off a bit long.


Hovering between ground poles!


I just think he looks good here.

Anyway, what I ended up saying about this lesson was how exceptionally agreeable he was. I mean, he usually is, but sometimes he sort of gets into a "no, I know how to do this, not listening to you" frame of mind. Today it was like, "listening to everything you say, even the wrong stuff!" which was actually nice because we were on the same wavelength but embarrassing when I came off a jump and was thinking about how we had to turn to the left but needed to go straight for a couple more strides and he started going left because that's what my body was telling him to do. Oops.

Anyway, I want to go out tomorrow and just ride around the farm and not do 'work' but get out anyway. And practice doing two point where I'm not standing in the stirrups.

Visual Aids

So there's the one screencapture I made of one of the videos and below are some of the videos of my lesson today (that the post just before this one talks about).



This one is entirely included because of the way he trotted over that vertical and didn't even bother trying to jump. :)



   

So, after watching these, I have to say I'm kind of horrified at how my hands are moving around as I post, I thought I'd mostly licked that problem already (of course, that was before I had two months off of riding) and I've always had a bit of a chair seat problem but I thought that was improving too...apparently not. So it's likely a good thing we're going to work on focusing on me and my equitation for a while because I think it needs a lot of work. I foresee lots of riding with no stirrups in my future. :)

Most Amazing

I don't know if Kieran just felt particularly 'on' today or it was because I chose to warm up by walking and trotting outside of the ring instead of inside the ring but whatever it was...well, he was really 'on' today and stayed interested in what we were doing right up until the end.

Basically, Jessica set up a course for us to trot or canter through, whichever we felt comfortable, and mostly I was supposed to decide what our path would be and how to get there (and when my path didn't always work out the way I intended, we spent some time talking about what happened and how I could improve it. Mostly we got hung up at the bending line pair of jumps she put in the middle of the ring).

It looked something like this:

Basically, along the left side was a combination of three jumps. It was something like the two on top were one stride away and then it was two strides to the one in the corner (and the one on top started out as a crossrail, that's what the red line is for).

The two jumps in the middle were on a bending line (started as crosses and then became verticals later) and were probably the most difficult part for us because we kept swinging a bit too wide most of the time. The vertical line in between them was a vertical jump she made using two barrels and there red lines show poles Jessica put up near the end of the lesson to 'funnel' us toward the middle of the jump and encourage Kieran to really pick his front feet up.

The thick line on the right side was a vertical the whole time and the thinner line was a ground pole set out a couple of strides. They were not all this close together but as usual, this is not to scale.

Anyway, it ended up being a fun lesson and it was nice how even in the beginning for the little crossrails, Kieran jumped over everything. Sometimes with crossrails, he just trots over and is like, "seriously? this is boring yo". Though once near the end of the lesson he totally just trotted over the vertical on the right even though it was like two feet.

I can't detail everything we did at this point but generally it was nice to see that we were working together well and that, for the most part, as long as I didn't focus too much on the "omg that's crazy" (which is what I did when Jessica made the "funnel" jump the first time and then lost my focus on what path we were doing), we could get through a 'course' fairly decently. And Jessica says now that Kieran seems to know what his job is, we're going to work more on focusing on my equitation over fences since it's kind of...well, at least I stay out of his way mostly? :)

There should be video soon, Jessica took some  with her iphone, I just have to wait for her to send it to me. I am hoping after Christmas I will have a new camera again.

Back in the saddle!

So after about two months of no riding, I got back on (finally!) on Sunday. I admit, I was a little afraid, even though I hadn't injured myself in a fall off my horse. Just...I kept thinking, "but he hasn't been in work at all and what if he's all wiggy and stupid and I fall and break my collarbone even worse or something OMG maybe I shouldn't."

Still, I had scheduled Sunday as a lesson so with Jessica there keeping an eye on us, I got on and we actually had a nice ride. Just walking and trotting and going over poles but it was good and Kieran was very careful with me, if a bit lazy, actually. We're definitely both out of shape though!

Our ring looked something like this:

Basically, the ones in the upper left corner we were supposed to do on a circle (and as the lesson went on, Jessica began raising the poles so alternate sides were lifted), the ones in the middle were spaced kind of weird so Kieran had to really pay attention to where he put his feet (like, short short short trot, long long, short short), and then the ones on the right were to start with, they were spaced pretty much perfectly for his usual trot stride.

So after we warmed up, she had us go over the poles on the right, then a few times through the ones in the middle. Kieran never had a problem with them, hah. Then we started doing the stuff in the corner and it was like, she had us start by circling around the outside of the poles, not going over them, until I had him in a really good trot and on a good bend, and then I could push him over into a smaller circle to go over the poles. He was generally pretty good and i was really pleased. It turned out to be a really good "return to riding" after our long break. :)

However, we've decided for at least the forseeable future, to try to go to doing two lessons a week instead of just one, so we can get back in the groove again. As such, we had another lesson tonight.

The poles were more or less set up the same way as above, except the ones on the right were spaced as canter poles and the ones in the middle were spaced so that the lower ones were spaced for trotting and the last three were spaced for cantering. We didn't use the ones in the corner.

So I got there early and spent about fifteen minutes getting warmed up and ready, we did a lot of walking (chicken!) and some trotting, mostly weaving around the poles and things in the arena and circles and things like that and really focusing on staying on the rail when we were out there because he likes to drift inward as we get closer to the corners so he can cut them.

When Jessica got there, she had us start by trotting through the poles and even spaced out as they were, Kieran went through like no big deal. After doing that a couple times, she moved into the canter part of the lesson (and I must've asked her like three times, "you're really going to have us canter?". i just had visions of sliding off his side or him getting humpy from the non-work and grouchy about cantering and doom but of course he was a gentleman the whole time). I don't remember exactly what came first, either she had us canter both ways around the ring with me in two point or she first had us do the right-pole exercise of cantering over them. Probably we did the flat canter first, then did the poles, but I'm seriously drawing a blank.

Anyway, he cantered over those poles just like he'd trotted over everything, no big deal. So we started on the middle exercise...

Basically, he was to trot in to the trot poles, and then in the middle where the distance shifts, I was to have him canter out. This is something where we'd have to be really on the aids and I'd have to be thinking ahead and preparing before we actually get to the point of "okay, you should canter now!" or it'd all fall apart. Anyway, we got it just about perfect on the first try. Both Jessica and I were shocked, but Kieran got tons of praise. I still remember the feeling of him immediately picking up the canter where I asked him to. :)

After that, he got a bit of a walk break and then Jessica had us come in to the middle pole exercise from the other side. This way, we have to canter in, then go down to a trot in the middle. This is difficult because once K figures we're doing "cantering through the poles!" he thinks he's figured it out and tends to just...do what he thinks we're supposed to do instead of listening to me. :|

And indeed, a couple times through and that's basically what he did, "hey, we canter over these poles right? OKAY I'LL CANTER OVER ALL OF THEM." And the jerk didn't even touch any of the trot-spaced poles as he cantered through them, LOL.

So we went back to doing a bunch of trot and canter circles in the corner until I finally, finally felt him really listen to me and kind of get light in my hands and I rode him in to the poles and, well, it wasn't perfect, but he really did listen and did the transition when I asked him for it instead of continuing to canter through. So even though the lesson still had 10-15 minutes left, we more or less ended on that note, and just spent a while walking around and making sure he was all cooled out since it's chilly tonight.

I figure, if he follows true to form, if we try that exercise again this weekend, he'll have it down pat. He's not a horse that really does well in endless drilling, I've found. He gets bored. And if he does it mostly right one time and you tell him what a good boy he is, he'll get it even better when you go back to it later. I think he needs to let things percolate around in his little brainz for a day or two to get them. :)

And on that note, one more thing that needed percolating was lateral movement, apparently. Or, well, before our break, we'd been having hit or miss with me getting him to side-pass. A lot of times, it would be like, "you want me to forward, right? back? what the heck lady?" and finally he'd do like one step to the side and sort of crossing over and we'd be like, "that was it! good boy!" and have to end there lest we both continue to get frustrated with each other.

Anyway, while we were warming up, I asked him to step over to the left a few steps and it was like, an immediate sideways movement instead of the backward/forward dance we used to do before. It was beautiful. So after the lesson, I showed Jessica (didn't want to do it in the middle in case it was a fluke and messing up the good vibe we had going). So I first showed her going to the left, then I came back around to her and halted him and was going to ask him to go to the right but he started stepping over to the left again without any direction from me. This horse really does figure stuff out and think he knows what I want and try to give it to me before I ask for it. Which is, you know, both a good thing (yay, he's interested and learning things) and a bad thing (boo, he's anticipating and gets frustrated when his "right answer" isn't actually the right answer). Anyway, I just stopped him like it was no big deal and asked for the step over to the right and got a few.

Was it perfect? Nope, but it was light years better than it used to be, I'm so proud of him. :)

Anyway, I'm just really excited to be back riding again and I can't wait to see where things go!

Just a little pony time

So, I haven't made it out to the barn a lot lately due to a combination of being unable to do a lot of activity anyhow because of the whole collarbone issue (for a while I didn't have much mobility in my arm and I'm still restricted on lifting weight/putting pressure on it). Still, I've been missing being with my horse and today was really nice weather so I pushed myself into going.

Plus, I needed to take down his supplements and retrieve his grazing muzzle since he broke the clasp. Anybody know where to get clasps like the one on here? I figure there must be a place to get them so I don't have to replace the entire thing.

Anyhow, it was nice just to go out and see him, I have to say. Like, I didn't realize how much I was missing 'horsey time' until I got out there. So I led him into the barn to do some grooming (he's gotten quite fuzzy as the weather's cooling off and the days are getting shorter!). His tail was kind of a mess but we got that taken care of too. I'm glad to see his hooves look to be in pretty good shape, though he's due for the farrier soon.

In the barn, he was kind of wiggly and snorty. I think a combination of not having been taken out of the field in a while and having to just stand and be still and the barn owners had their truck and trailer outside with the engine going as they got ready to take their horses somewhere. Still, I just ignored it and acted like the activity outside was no big deal.

Then I took him over to the round pen for some free longing. I can't ride yet (and I don't want to make my first ride back after he's not been ridden for about six weeks and I'm still kind of healing to be done more or less alone so....there's that) but I figure it's about time to start working him on the ground at least and getting him back into the idea that he has to listen. ;)

Wouldn't you know that he started trotting nicely when I asked him to, cantering same way, came back down easily, and so on. All the transitions up and down were pretty good. A couple times on the "waaaaaalk" ones were iffy but he's always been a bit iffy there and I think it's because when he was trained to do this they didn't have him walk so it doesn't actually make sense to him and we don't actually do this sort of thing enough for it to really stick.

So I didn't do that for long as I figured there was no point today. Think I'll go back a few times at least to do it again for a more significant period of time just to get him moving and such before we start riding again.

And that's it! :) All in all, it was a good day.

Wow

I was almost going to post that the vet told me I'm not cleared for riding for another 2-3 weeks.

Uh, the doctor did. LOL. Unfortunately. :(

And then I woke up not feeling well this morning so called out from work. Looks like my plan to go out and see the big pony will have to wait until tomorrow, alas.

So....

I broke my collarbone last week. Not because of anything having to do with Kieran but...it does mean I won't be riding for a while, so you guys probably won't be seeing any updates from me for a few weeks. Sorry!