Wheeeee!

My inner little horsecrazy girl came out today in a major way and I just had to write a little about it...

I rode Starbuck both yesterday and today after fairly short groundwork sessions beforehand (well, about 20 minutes which is short for me).  We rode both times in the big arena and both times with a fair amount of folks in the arena including a jumping class yesterday and some girls practicing jumps on their own today.  So she's really learning to focus on me and my requests instead of whatever the other horses are doing or anything scary outside the arena.  It helps that with her winter coat, I think she's too hot to want to misbehave very actively.

Yesterday she was majorly in heat, and I mean full on embarrassing, slutty (sorry peeps but that's the way it is), rump swinging, flehmen facey, butt tucky, pee-drippy heat.  And there were not one but two stallions in the arena with us, and every time one of them passed she let loose a little squeal.  But no bucks, no rearing, no sidesteps, it just never escalated beyond that - just a little squeal and tension and then two seconds later a release and she'd walk on.  So I steered her away from the stallions and that was that, we even walked all the way around the arena a couple of times with horses cantering right by us.  I think I was more nervous than she was, she did so well!

Today she was less slutty but one of her friends was in the arena and she kept wanting to go play... but again, we steered away and I tried to keep her busy with lots of circles, cloverleaves, serpentines, transitions, etc... which worked like a charm.  It really does keep her mind off monsters or playmates and get her focussing on me!  She did so well I decided to up the anty and ride her at the top of the arena for the first time.

I should explain here, sand in the Balearics is a surprisingly difficult commodity to come by (for environmental reasons) but my stable's arena is HUGE.  Like maybe 100 yards square.  So only half of the arena has sand put down and this is the half that's used for lessons.  The other half is basically red clay dirt with some scrubby plants and is mostly only used by folks who want to get away from the lessons - the footing's not as good and there are some menacing orange trees and carniverous horse-eating sparrows, but it's completely rideable.  I wasn't sure how Starbuck would do there and at first she was a little pissed that I wouldn't let her eat the scrubby plants, but then she took it all in stride and walked and trotted there like she'd been doing it all along.

I really think I'll be able to take her out on a trail ride before too long, she's coming along so well, and since the top of the arena is much less arena-like (lined with orange trees and birds flitting about and plants everywhere and the mountains in the background) I had so much fun riding there today... that was my little girl moment!  I've had a HUGE smile plastered across my face ever since...  I have videos to upload too, of the big green Parelli ball and of our ride yesterday, but I left the videocamera in the car so I'll have to post them tomorrow.  On my way home I decided to stop to watch the sun set on this first day of European daylight savings time... what a weekend!

This week...

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been busy busy busy with my newest horsey iniciative lately - www.puntoecuestre.com, which is a Craigslist type classified ads site specifically for horse stuff in the Balearic Islands.  My friends Belén, Ivón, Virginia and I hope that it proves useful to folks here and if we get really lucky we might even make back what we've spent on it so far in publicity.  Apart from free ads, it has an equestrian map of the Balearics, a forum, a photo gallery, an equine contacts (veterinarians, farriers, etc...) page and of course a blog (featuring exclusive translations of the fabulous Lorraine Jennings' School Your Horse articles, no less!).

So needless to say I haven't had a lot of time for this blog, but I at least wanted to record our progress this week.  Especially since the farrier Xisco came yesterday and far from having to leave one hoof undone like the last time, actually complimented me on her training and was able to finish her trim in just about 30 minutes this time!  But I was able to see how much better she responds to me than to others, so I'll have to bribe some of the kids at the stable into working with her every now and then so she respects all humans and not just me.  Luckily they're pretty easy to convince.  Anyhow he says her hoovsies are superhealthy and fast-growing and that I don't need to worry about anything until I start riding her outside the stableyard pretty regularly.

And today we played with the big green Parelli ball again (videos are on the way!), as long as I have her on line she chases, rolls, kicks and trys to bite it although as soon as I unsnapped the lead rope she booked it towards the grassy side of the arena and completely lost interest.  But I'm trying to work on establishing a "roll it" cue and her topline is incredible when she chases the ball - nice and rounded.  I think it's just a question of practice...

Rewinding back in time, we had a couple of rainy days at the beginning of the week and I've been crazy at work besides, so didn't do much during the week, but on Sunday we had a absolutely cowboy-fugly longeing session.  I don't know if she could feel the rain coming or if it was equine PMS (oh, yeah, she's in heat AGAIN) or what, but she was way spooky and crazy - rearing, bucking and bolting all over the place for a long time before I finally got her halfway focussed and even then I was too scaredy to ride her.  Which I'm not sure if it's a good thing and a sign of my maturity and responsability or just a sign of me being a scaredy cat.  Jury's still out.

But last Saturday we had a lovely and solid groundwork session in the big arena and then I rode her in the roundpen and she was so very very good... we'll see if I'm so lucky tomorrow.  The good news is that the bad days are fewer and farther between, and the good days are becoming the rule instead of the exception.

Photo Shoot

Thanks to my husband the fabulous photographer who came with me to the stable today, we have yet more fabulous pictures!  Today Starbuck and I did about 45 minutes of groundwork and then I rode her for maybe 20 minutes in the roundpen since there were a bunch of beginners in the big arena, working a lot more on her trot today and on her keeping a steady walk.  She's really doing very well and I think we'll try a little canter any day now...

I'm superbusy with a side project (www.puntoecuestre.com) which I'll write more about at some point but is currently hogging my blog time... Anyhow in the meanwhile I hope you enjoy the photos!

This is her putting her own halter on by the way...