Getting their oats

It's so nasty out there ! Rebecca and I rode late Friday evening and were just eaten alive - Fischer must have had 20 Chinook Heliflies on him at one time - it was horrid. The only good thing about Friday's ride was introducing Rosie and Fish to ginormous whole-town-sized combine harvesters, and their massive dust clouds. 

So today we went back to Baker's Creek, but with ShastaPony instead of Fischer, to reap the rewards of the newly harvested fields. 

(ok so not the immediate field, which was harvested earlier and is now sprouting soy beans, but the far field, the stubbly one, the one that goes on and on and on for mile and leads to a gazillion other stubble fields :D Squeeee !)

So yes, we gallolloped, and gallolloped and gallolloped, until we couldn't gallollop no more. And then we swam, and took pictures, and the ponies just loved pawing the water and churning it all up. And then after a little while we realised why we don't take cameras into the water and had to figure out how to find it again. :| Rosie was a trooper, standing stock still marking the last known sighting of the camera, while I stripped and threw my clothes to Rebecca. Alas, I throw like a girl. And it's not easy to throw stuff while sitting on a silly saddlebred in the middle of the lake. I know, this would have made a great picture, but fortunately for me - no camera, so no pics. 

Except for this one :

Is it true that people start to look like their ponies ? 

So after that, we gallolloped some more and Rosie was so pooped that I could completely let go of the reins and she didn't go anywhere. Then we went back to find ShastaPony's lost Renegade boot and repeated the same no-reins trick. I should probably remember that endurance ponies can find an extra gear from nowhere. I did get her stopped at the end of the field after the field after the field I was supposed to be gallolloping through. 

Ponies enjoying their oats :

In other news : I rode TInyPony in a quite adorable little County Warmblood saddle size #5 !! It is slightly too wide. Phew. That's a wide saddle. Obviously I had to dig out my second best purple half-chaps for this since my main pair are sopping wet still. 

I think I have managed to finish most of the shims and paperwork from the last Nashville trip so those will be on the way to you today.

And I figured out I have an extra week before Mid South Pony club, which is handy since my leather-fixed lady has STILL not put the billets on other KateW's saddle. I am going to have a rethink about this - billets should be done on the spot - not 3 weeks later. Grrrr. 

Elderly Stubbens

Dear Old Stubbens. Built in the 1970s, and going on and on and on ... these things never die. They are really not the best saddles - times have moved on and saddle design has improved over the past 40 years. However, for people first starting out, not sure what direction they are going to end up going, with all the up-front cost of a new horse, you know, there are worse choices. For example, a cheap 'starter set' for $300 complete with stirrups, leathers, saddle-pad, girth, bridle, horse, truck and trailer ... well, you can imagine what part of your $300 is spent on making the saddle - and of that, how much goes to 'quality control'. Not much, I assure you ! I have never seen one of those things that has a straight tree and even panels.

So there's a need for these elderly Stubbens, and you can buy them for $300 - $400. But here's the thing... they're nearly 40 years old and they dearly need a reflock. In order to reflock them, you have to unstitch the pommel, and unstitch the cantle. Having got the thing apart, you pull out the old flocking, and it's basically old sweepings from the floors of carpet factories - short, coloured fibres in all different shades. Then, ideally, you reflock and rebuild. But the kicker, of course, is you never know quite what you're going to find when you take it apart.

Today's shocker was the original Stubben nails. You can see the nailheads on the outside of the saddle, below the Ds at the pommel. They go through the treepoints and are then bent and hammered into place, so that the shank of the nail lies flush with the tree, and therefor harmless.

And not sticking out an inch into your horse's back.

Tuesday 31st August

Thoughts on Pony-Training.

This time two years ago, I'd have been thinking ... WTH ? Seriously, Rosie, you can cope with a two hour trail ride in the middle of nowhere with people you don't even know, and you can't simply walk around your own paddock ???

This year I'm thinking... Alright ! Butterkins ! We've managed the relatively easy task of a two hour trail ride in the middle of nowhere with people you don't even know, so today would be a great day for attempting the considerably harder task of walking three strides out of the roundpen, away from the barn, without rearing over backwards. And she did ! Without having to go back in the roundpen to be chased about a bit and have a rethink. She thought about it, and chose to walk where she was asked to, which resulted in a 30 second trail ride right round the round pen, and finished back at the mounting block (NOT at the barn).

Tuesday night is ACT night, so I dropped joseph and HunnyBunches off at Mccord, and Annie Bailes rode Hunny for me. I came back later to ride joseph. And thought .... aaaarghhh..... didn't Cathy just tell me that ideally we would be dressaging 2-3 times a week ? This is 4 times already within the week, and nother lesson tomorrow :( I hope I haven't soured him. He did well, but was tense, screaming for HunnyPony the whole time.

AnnieBailes meantime, had been Most Excellent with HunnyPony. This is the second time she has ridden her, and we put her in my Pessoa saddle. It didn't slide forward. Hurrah ! And they didn't fall on their forehand and careen about the arena flat out in canter. Hurrah ! All this work is on flexibility and balance is paying off with Hunny. And she is really piling on the pounds now. I can see noticeable differences in her weight week to week. As soon as I figure out how to post pics, I will show her progress. She is still getting HUGE amounts of feed, and is on major expensive gastric support supplements and ulcer meds to keep her eating. But at least I can see results.


Ride Log :

Butterkins - 3 minute trail ride in paddock

Joseph - 40 minutes dressage at Mccord

HunnyBunches - 1 hour lesson with Annie Bailes and Sarah.

Monday 30th August

Long trail ride at Baker's Creek with Loni. Loni is my endurance friend - she used to do a lot of endurance racing with her best friend. Then her friend got sick, and died :( So Loni's mares were on the backburner while her friend was sick, and since then she's had nobody to ride with. Today she brought out Velvet who is not a young mare, probably 10 or 11, but of course, her training under saddle coincided exactly with Loni's having to stop riding. She's very green in other words. So I took ButterKins McKinley. Who is also Very Green :o

They both did fine. Velvet is really into doing big flighty arab spooks, and Butter is really into doing stroppy little quarter pony sull-ups and refusals to go forward. Between the two of them we had Fun. Ahaha. No, they were fine, really. Loni's horses are also unshod and by the end, Vlevet was beginning to get a little sensitive to the terrain.

Ride Log : Came home and napped and then went to teach Pre-calculus, so everybody else got a day off.

Sunday August 29th

More Cindy Sydnor. This ride was MUCH better. I took joeP out in the outdoor jumping arena to warm up early, rather than just wandering about passively waiting for the lesson to start like I did yesterday. I rode like Cathy Fox was on my shoulder and got him forward. The lesson went brilliantly. I'd taken some time overnight to rebalance the saddle - an ancient little County Competitor. Cindy had commented that it was more of an 'All Purpose' saddle than a dressage ... which it isn't ! So I concluded that it must be sitting with the flaps sloping forward far too much, rather than vertical down to the ground. I confirmed this on the flat, and then added a little more along the panels both sides to give a little more support under my seatbones. I was careful not to overstuff the back, because it has those upswept panels at the cantle and they can get very hard and bouncy if overstuffed, so I added along the base and left it light at the back. Hopefully, the new flocking can move back a bit if it wants to.

My position was better ! Not perfect, but better. I persisted with the stirrups one hole longer than they had been, and by the end they were fine ! Joseph showed off his new-found trot-lengthening very enthusiastically, and was overall A Good Boy.

Ride Log :
HunnyPony - lots of flexing, bending, softness exercises on the single line in the round pen. Lots of trot-canter-trot transitions.

ButterPony - more roundpen work on the line and off. Simple trit-trot round the pen under saddle

RosiePony - trail ride at Mccord. Silly mare. She was really quite sweet - fast, but kind, jumped lots of little logs at Candy Mountain.

TinyPony - trail ride at Mccord. Since AnnieBailes had fun with TinyPony last week, the first time she'd ever ridden her, and jumped a course without even thinking about it ( :) ) we figured she was ready to take her on a trail ride. TP didn't put a foot wrong and the pair of them were jumping little logs and cantering about on little trails, both with big grins. And TP went for a paddle while her Big Sis stood about on the bank snorting like a saddlebred. (Wonder where she gets that from ???)

Cindy Sydnor Clinic ... joePony went to Penrose to ride with Cindy and it was fine. We shared a lesson with Julie Noe, and worked on my position, which was a little boring for Julie, and then lots of slow walk-trot, walk-halt transitions, which we both needed. I was in a horrific chair seat and my leg is horrible. I look like I'm on a 5 hour trail ride on a bracy saddlebred. Now, where could I have picked up that stance ?

Butter and HunnyPony both did some short time in the round pen.

DC got her saddle back... waiting to see if she's happy with it. She's suffering back pain at the moment, from too much riding, so we're on hold.

Ride Log : Friday 27th August

ButterKins McKinley : Round pen. 20 minutes. She did really well. Lots of enthusiasm and petting her. Worked on backing up, haunches over, lateral flexion, walk towards me. Sent her over a teeny tiny trot jump. Saddle and halter - round the barrels in walk, turning using leg aids, trit-trotting round a 20m circle.

HunnyBunches : Round Pen. 20 Minutes. HunnyPony is working on bending, balancing, working from behind. The more little bits of work she can do in the day, the better her appetite gets. She seems to be looking fatter today than ever before since she's been worked most days for the past two weeks. Today she did Lunging for Respect 1, and started on 2, College Leading (walk, trot, halt and started half-halt), walking and trotting round the barrels, backing up under saddle, turn on the haunches and turn on the forehand. She already knows both of the turns. Needs to work on 'drop your head' from the ground.

Saddles : took DC's Rembrandt apart again at the back and added. Restitched back of Stubben-19-30.5 for HR to try.