Videos!

Wow I just realized I hadn't published anything since January (although I had an unfinished draft which I'm publishing today with a fake date) - I knew I was slacking off on the blog but I hadn't realized I was slacking off THAT much.  Here are some videos from last Saturday's lesson with Marina - just to kind of show our progress.  Daniela has me riding with ONE draw / running rein - in case my English equestrian term is off what I'm referring to is a long rein which attaches to the girth between her front legs, then runs up through the bit ring and back to my hands.  This gives lots of leverage and allows me to pretty much force her head down when I want to - for instance if she gets stargazy when her best friend's in the parking lot or for canter departs where she tends to throw her head up, I can bring her head back down.  I know this is not an ideal situation and really hope to be able to get rid of the lot of auxiliar reins soon, but with the videos I've confirmed two things which make me a little bit less apprehensive - for one I'm not riding her behind the vertical except for specific situations (spooks, temper tantrums, etc...) where she herself sucks back and goes behind the bit, and these situations are really not very common at all - I mean this might happen once for a few seconds every three or four rides.  For another, I note that the draw rein is loose a lot of the time, which is what I was going for - to use it only for a few seconds, then drop it again.

The truly important thing that's coming out of all this is not just that Starbuck's learning to carry herself correctly and flex at the poll (although this is pretty awesome), but that I'm learning what it feels like for her to be actively using her hindquarters and "working through the back".  I never really understood this phrase but now I think I'm starting to - there's much more activity (and it's harder to ride!) and I can truly feel the energy coming up from the hind legs, bounding through the back and topline and then cycling back down to my hands through the reins.  And now that I can feel it, I can ask for, identify and reward it promptly and accurately.

And best of all, she's so damn fun to ride these days!  And I really do get the feeling that she herself is enjoying it more now that she's realizing just how strong she is.

A Pretty Boring Update

So since I haven't posted in so long I wanted to at least leave my thoughts on the last few rides I've had with Starbuck, I think we're really making a lot of progress but I'm not 100% comfortable with how we're making it (think auxiliary reins and spurs).  But I've put an expiration date on the auxiliary reins at least (after March I won't use them anymore) and honestly if one month of artificial aids will solve years of incorrect posture, I'll be pleased as pie.  I'm sure that plenty of folks have the talent and experience to show a green horse how to move correctly without any auxiliary reins or whatever, but I'm pretty sure by now I'm not one of them (yet!).

Saturday 07/03: Lesson with Daniela, rode with makeshift chambon and spurs.  Worked on neck flexions, lots of in-hand shoulder in.  Daniela rode Starbuck at trot and walk (afterwards she was a dream to ride!).  Taught Starbuck to lower her head when I flex her head to the inside by turning my hand (think about holding a mug, then turning the mug sideways to look at your nails).  When she lowers her head, I scratch her withers with my index fingers.  Did lots of transitions and really got the idea of how we should be working.  Lots of trot - canter transitions, and towards the end of the session she was cantering with her head held low.  And no spooks!  At the end of the session Dani taught me the aids for in-hand pirouettes.

Sunday 08/03: Rode with Amanda and Virginia, practicing reprise "Alevín Equipos".  Warmed up with in-hand flexions and shoulder in, then put on the chambon thingy and mounted up.  Rode with spurs again.  Spent the first 20 minutes or so working on my own in walk (shoulder in on a circle then leg yielding diagonally in the other direction), trot and canter attempting to repeat the exercises from the previous day and going over some ground poles at the trot.  Then followed Amanda and Virginia riding the reprise - it's funny how Starbuck's got loads of impulsion when she's trying to catch up with other horses!  Trot was a dream, but canter was very bucky as she wanted to turn it into a race.  We managed to make our transitions in the right places though and even rode by the bar several times without any drama.  Cooled down on a short walk outside the stableyard.

Monday 09/03: Got to the barn late after work, longed with only a rope halter focussing on lowering her head, keeping her moving without constant nagging (Parelli circle game), activating her hindquarters and doing lots of transitions.  Did a few rounds over Marina's yellow and blue cushions and then stacked a few up for a really low jump.  Fairly intense longeing session and I ended by trying out her ground-tying skills while returning the cushions to their place but she spooked with the cushion sounds and raced around the arena a couple of times before I could calm her down enough to stop - I think she was a little afraid of the longe line streaming along behind her.  But we just cooled down for a little longer at a walk and she forgot all about it.

Tuesday 10/03: Went to the barn at lunchtime (yay!), did 15 minutes of in-hand warmups with flexions, shoulder in, turn around the shoulders and then worked on pirouettes - got a few solid steps in each direction.  Put on the chambon (no spurs today) and mounted, worked on more flexions (both to the side and vertical) at the halt and then trying to transition to walk without her throwing her head up.  Shoulder in in walk, then transitions to trot once again trying for her not to throw her head up.  A little heavy at the trot today so after a few minutes I rode several trot - canter - trot transitions to wake her up a little, which helped.  Leg yield in trot across the diagonal, not bad to the left but a little more yucky to the right.  Letting the rein out so she can stretch downwards in trot and then transitioning to canter, but after several tries to not go near a certain fencepost followed by a gnarly spook I pushed her into a more powerful and shorter canter for several 20 meter circles followed by a nice strong trot in both directions.  In the end I let the rein out for a little more stretching and cooled down in walk working on the "head down" aid, halt transitions and a few more flexions.

Saturday 14/03: Rode with the chambon and without spurs - probably because we were in a class setting again with other horses ahead of us Starbuck was really moving along without me having to nag much at all.  We did a lot of flexions at the walk and trot in the class, then did some "carrousel" work where I rode side by side with Cinthya and the gelding she was riding.  This is really hard at first because you have to keep the same rhythm as the other horse+human and keep your eye on them the whole time to make sure you start and end exercises at the same time.  But once Starbuck got over having to work right! next! to! another horse (ears pinned, eyes rolling, butt wandering all over the place) and we got into the swing of things we had a really good time.  It was a highly satisfying ride :)

Sunday 15/03: Went on a trail ride with friends Cinthya, Amanda and Virginia - Starbuck really behaved well and didn't spook much more than the other horses.  With Daniela's OK, I took her out without the chambon and she kept her head down most of the time (it helped that she was trying to snag grass and daisies along the way).  We changed position with the rest of the riders pretty constantly and worked on some leg yielding and shoulder-in back and forth across the path along the way.  A couple of almond trees had even left some of their blooms on for us to enjoy.

Monday 16/03: It had rained all morning so I just longed her with only the rope halter in the arena at the top of the parking lot (the sand is more like really fine gravel and doesn't get slippery like the regular arena).  She was really full of beans especially when her friend Coco who was grazing nearby got taken back to her stall.  So lots of bucking and racing and bunny-rabbit galloping until with changes of direction and gait and speed I got her attention back and we could get back to work.  But honestly it just wasn't the right day for "precision" work so mostly just did lots of trot-canter transitions and worked on keeping her attention, then ended with lots of changes of direction (this ends up being like a quarter pirouette if we do it right) and some shoulder-in at the walk.

Today 17/03: Starbuck got shod this morning and I try not to work with her when she's just been shod.  So just went out to the stable on my lunch break, fed the cats and let her graze in a makeshift paddock for a while while I watched her.  What a great way to disconnect from the office.

Got new boots by the way!  They're synthetic, we'll see how they do.  But they were 50% off! :D

Wild Wild West

After getting shod on Tuesday Starbuck was slightly lame and shortstrided for a couple of days - she had some muscle cramps in her left croup probably from either overcompensating for being tenderfooted from the shoeing or possibly thanks to the "airs above the ground" she likes to practice in her paddock (which always remind me of the time I was "dancing" along to the Savannah St. Patrick's Day parade on TV as a child and threw my neck out so bad it got stuck there and my parents had to take me to the emergency room).  Anyhow she had Tuesday off because of her new shoes and then Wednesday when I realized she was lame I put her away without trotting or cantering and Thursday all I did was longe her for five minutes - yep, still lame - and then give her a long massage.

But by Friday I really was jonesing for some Starbuck, so I decided that if she was at all better, I'd try René's western saddle on her and just ride her at a walk.  On the longe she was really much better - hardly any lameness and tracking up much better than earlier in the week.  And when I mentioned my plan to my friend Toñi (short for Antonia), she said she'd been wanting to do the same thing!  So we hauled out René's big old cowboy saddles - boy are they heavy! - and after much puzzling over how to do things like fasten and tighten cinches, shorten stirrups, remove saddlebags and whatnot we finally felt confident enough in our saddling skills to mount up.

Starbuck was a little worried about it for the first 5 minutes but after me getting on and off about 5 times to adjust the cinch and stirrups and then walking around for a while she figured out that in fact the thing on her back wasn't a ravenous puma but basically just me with about 25 extra pounds.  Toñi's horse Twister also had no issues with the saddle, so instead of joining in the lesson, we just practiced "neck reining" around cones and whatnot in the dressage arena - one-handed riding is something we really need to work on.  But since we were only working at a walk, I had put her hackamore on her, and after a while she started catching on.  This is something I need to work on bit by bit when I'm warming up and cooling down, and on trail rides, being able to steer with a bottle of water (or ice cold beer, or wineskin) in your hand is really useful.

And just because I'm a child of the 90's (well, an adolescent of the '90s) here's some gratuitous Will Smith to go along with this post ;)

Positive

Lately I've been having second thoughts about my relationship with Starbuck.  On the face of it, things seem pretty great - she neighs at me when I get to the stable, she comes when I call, she generally sticks her own head into the halter, she's much more affectionate (well, at least more tolerant of affection) than she was a year ago, she's obviously comfortable with my presence and she generally behaves quite well under saddle.  And I would say that 80% of the time, I'm really proud of what a well-adjusted mare I have.

Of the other 20%, part of that is just basic mare/fillyness like screeching or pinning her ears at other horses when they get in her personal space, which I'm honestly not too worried about - I kind of like her bitchy.  But there's also a residual rebellious streak where she'll just decide to try to do whatever she wants, then I say no, then she says "you're not the boss of me", then I say "wanna bet" and it escalates into a "who's the stubbornest of them all" battle.  For example on the ground when she wants to run around me in the other direction instead of calmly walking by something scary or when there's a yummy looking patch of grass she suddenly veers off towards.  Or while riding - she'll very deliberately cut a corner or go from a canter to a full out gallop interspersed with rodeo bucks or decide that she just doesn't feel like trotting.

But what really lurks in the corner of my mind, slowly eating away at my confidence is her spookiness - it's improved but is still definitely there.  Something I've read again and again about spooky horses is the idea that if they have a good enough leader, they generally trust this person not to put them in dangerous situations and thus don't tend to spook.  If this is the case, I obviously haven't gained Starbuck's unconditional trust yet.  And maybe I never will, and maybe like Marina claims, sometimes she spooks "for fun" or at least as a momentary distraction from the hard work of a lesson.  But I do think that reducing the amount of conflict between us and increasing her trust in me are two things definitely worth working toward.

I was trying to explain the conflict thing to my husband this morning giving the example of me trying to train her not to scratch her neck and chest against the tying post.  At first I just started punishing her ("ssht" noise, then a louder "ssht", then a "ssht" with a slap) every time she scratched herself, which worked OK as long as I was there, but as soon as I walked away she would start scratching herself again.  And of course it makes me the wicked witch of the West - always nagging and saying "no".  But then I thought, instead of telling her NOT to scratch herself, what if I gave her something else TO DO which prevented her from scratching?  So I've been reinforcing her early training of "stand still" and now when I tie her at the posts I back her up a few feet until she can't reach the actual post anymore, and tell her to "stand still".  If she moves forward, I simply back her up and ask her to stand still again, and if she stays where she is I praise her periodically with a "good girl" or by giving her sporadic cookies.  And it's working pretty well - I can now leave the tying post and as long as she knows (or thinks) I'm paying attention to her, she'll stay where I put her.  As soon as I start talking to someone she moves back and starts scratching again, but as far as I can tell this strategy is much more effective than constantly punishing her for something I can't blame her for in the first place (poor thing, being itchy sucks).

So I basically want more of this, which I think will improve our relationship, reduce my "pigheaded frustrated dominant hag" moments and perhaps eventually will even lead to her increasing her trust in me.  The trouble is that it's easier for me to be reactive than proactive and I'm not terribly creative about finding positive ways to structure her behavior, so I got an e-book yesterday called "The Power of Positive Horse Training: Saying "yes" to your horse" by Sarah Blanchard.  So far the theory seems pretty sound and there are a bunch of different exercises to discover the rewards you have to offer your horse (neither food nor clickers are featured which is a plus as far as I'm concerned) and to learn how and when to give them appropriately.  I already have plans to spend some quality time finding which spots she likes to be rubbed on can be reached from the saddle, to be able to give her a good reward while riding.  If I find something which works particularly well, I'll share it here.

By the way we're progressing well on the Spanish Walk front - for a couple of weeks she just picked up her feet but finally she figured out the "striking" motion and we're currently practicing this.  When I can get her to do the striking with just a voice command ("march"), we'll try to add some forward motion.  So one-two-march-march, or if that's too complicated, one-two-three-march.

Also lately I've been riding her with a running martingale so she can't throw her head up and avoid contact with the bit - Marina recommended using one for a few months and like everything else, we'll try it and see how it goes.  Try different things :-)

A Pleasant Surprise

Go ahead girl, you've earned it :)

Yesterday was a fabulous sunny spring day so I was really looking forward to my riding lesson this morning, but when I woke up it was cold, cloudy and really windy!  Now, this week I've had a fair number of social commitments so I hadn't ridden her since Tuesday and I really wasn't in the mood for a stressful ride, but I decided to bite the bullet and ride Starbuck anyway.  And I received an extremely pleasant surprise - she behaved extremely well and we had a really nice lesson!

"The after class grass club"

Of course, there were a couple of spooks but they were prompted by very strong gusts of wind whipping up sand-devils and things like that, and the best thing was that the spooks were controlled - sure she broke into a canter a couple of times but within two or three strides she was back to a trot and focused on the exercise at hand again.  I also felt a lot more secure and able to release through my seat - I read a great post on Horse Listening, one of my favorite horse blogs, the other day about the ability to tell your horse "Yes" or "Good girl" in lots of different ways, and during the spooks I was very concious of trying to release both with my seat and with my hands as soon as Starbuck showed the first sign of getting herself under control.  Very happy about our work today, and feeling like all our hard work is really paying off.

Giant horse-shaped insect?  Medieval battle gear?  Or just Starbuck in her fly mask?

I also got Starbuck a fly mask the other day and tried it on her today, at first I think she thought it was a halter because she stood still for a while like if she were tied to something, but then she seemed fine with it.  Hopefully she'll wait a while before absolutely destroying it, I feel a little bad for making her wear something so goofy looking but she's already starting to get bald spots from scratching her fly bites, and it's not even April.

What's that rectangular black thing you have in your hand?  Can I eat it?

Lastly, I've decided to take some classes at another stable which is really close to mine - I saw that they had a Groupon for 5 classes for 30€ and today I walked over to ask them if I could do the classes with Starbuck and they said yes!  I think it'll be a really great way to introduce Starbuck to the idea of working in another arena, without the stress of a show.  Of course, getting another perspective on my riding will be great as well!  I'm very excited to get started and see how I like the lessons although I'm also a little nervous about Starbuck acting up or having the teacher call me out on my terrible posture.  We'll see how it goes.

Weekly Update

Lots of stuff to catch up on here, I took last Thursday and Friday off and was too lazy all weekend to write any of it down.  So here goes:

I had a nice trail ride last Sunday (not yesterday but a week before), this time neither of Starbuck's "big sisters" (best friend Coco and next-door neighbor Melyne) came along so I was a little worried about how she'd do.  But she really behaved quite well and only got a little out-of-control when we were trotting homewards - I think the adrenaline of trotting plus heading home plus lunchtime plus traffic was a little too exciting for her.  But nothing more challenging than a few more spooks than we had heading out, so I think we're really progressing on the trail rides.  Also without meaning to we ended up wearing parcheesi colored t-shirts, which was fun.

Rode on my own on Monday - Starbuck worked extremely well and was an absolute pleasure to ride.  We did a figure of eight exercise where we cantered around the extremeties and then transitioned to a trot on the diagonal, then back to a canter on the new lead.  It obviously wasn't easy for her but I didn't realize how hard it must have been until afterwards when I realized that she had sweat quite a bit on her hindquarters and not at all anywhere else. So I think this will be a good exercise to add to my toolbox for those days when she has energy to burn, and remember not to do too many repetitions.

Tuesday I had a normal lesson which I don't remember very well what we did, but it went tolerably well.  Wednesday I came down with the cold that ate Chicago and stayed in bed all day, but Thursday I was well enough to get out to the stable in the morning, which was fabulous since Marina had the time and inclination to give me a lunge lesson.

What an incredible lesson - after a few "laps" she told me to close my eyes and tie my reins to the saddle so they wouldn't get in the way and I did the rest of the lesson with no hands.  I've never ridden much without hands - a few canter laps with my arms up like airplane wings going "wheeee" is about the extent of my expertise so this was pretty new for me.  And boy was it a terrific experience!  Without the weight of my arms pulling my shoulders forward I very naturally reverted to the correct "heels - hips - shoulders" vertical position and found myself way more balanced.  And keeping my eyes closed really made me rely on feel alone to stay with Starbuck's movements, although I had to peek from time to time to keep from getting dizzy.  It was really liberating and I was able to "memorize" the sensation so that I can try to duplicate the same position when I'm riding the rest of the time.

Note - this is NOT the position to duplicate ;-}

So we worked on rising trot with "cycling" motion in arms and legs which is awkward at first but really helps you get in touch with the oscillating movement of the horse's back instead of just your standard up-down, sitting trot without stirrups working on letting my hips be carried forward, not backward, by Starbuck's movement and then walk and trot without stirrups letting my legs swing forward and backward once again in reaction to the horse's trunk swinging back and forth.    Finally we did some canter - now with stirrups since at this point I was a little dizzy - but once again it was wonderful to close my eyes, hold out my arms and focus only on following Starbuck's movement.  Imagine that - cantering on my crazy little filly with no hands and eyes closed!  It's the closest I've felt to being a centaur since I've grown up.

Things I learned during this lesson which are important to remember in the future:

• I have a lot more innate balance than I thought I did.
• The weight in my arms draws my shoulders forward.  If I keep my elbows parallel to my body, I will naturally sit up straighter than if I move them farther forward.
• If I allow Starbuck's movement to push my hips forward naturally instead of pushing them back, she moves better and I stay in balance more easily.
• I could tell when I was on the right diagonal at a rising trot going to the right with my eyes closed, but going to the left I wasn't able to feel it as easily.
• Going to the left at a sitting trot, where I felt more comfortable and safer, Marina pointed out that I wasn't letting my inside hip swing forward as loosely as going to the right, where I felt a little bouncy and off-balance.

Then fairly successful lessons on Friday and Saturday - Friday we had a bit of a runaway moment where I lost my stirrups, kept jabbing Starbuck in the side when trying to recover them and finally figured out that since obviously I had been cantering around without stirrups for a while, that stopping, not getting my stirrups back, was the # 1 priority.  Another lesson for the future.  I also got a new bridle on Friday - the one I've been using is the perfect length for the hackamore but a little too short for the bits.  It was 40% off at a tack store which is closing and is real pretty - black with white stitching.  Also, this way I don't have to change from bit to hackamore every other time I ride ;-)

Saturday was kind of rainy and windy and all of the horses, not just Starbuck, were kind of antsy.  She was definitely rarin' to go - I had to throw my crop away after a few minutes - and wasn't completely comfortable with her new bridle (it has a noseband, which I've never used in the past) but I did my best to keep her attention on me and in comparison with some of the other horses, she was actually pretty calm.  Even so, I was surprised when one of the other students mentioned how well Starbuck was behaving - I guess we must be doing something right if we at least look like we have things under control.

Which brings us to yesterday, which was superwindy.  What with the wind and me not feeling like getting into a fight with Starbuck, I decided not to ride.  You gotta pick your battles.  Anyhow after cleaning her paddock we spent an hour "sharing territory" while I re-read part of an Aubrey-Maturin novel, then I longed her for a while on the scary side of the arena working on lots of transitions.  These are things I always say I'll do when I have some free time and I think it's good for her to have some exercise without me weighing her down from time to time.  Sometimes it's hard to believe that we've finally reached the point where we do much more ridden work and have to make time for groundwork - even a year ago I wasn't sure we'd ever reach that goal.  Yay progress!

Out and about - again!

Nice face, Jose Luis...

That's better! 

So for the past two weeks Starbuck's been recovering from a slight lameness she had in one leg - I noticed that she would lie down and roll around in the dirt on one side, but on the other side she didn't want to.  But after a couple of days rest, she started to get better, so I just let her have a week and a half off.  On Friday I rode her and apart from some skittishness and a few characteristic not-looking-where-she's-going stumbles she was absolutely recovered.  Friday and Saturday we had really nice lessons - Friday after she settled down she worked very well and we did a very low jumping laboratory a few times where we were very fluid and forward, which was a nice surprise.  And Saturday we did an exercise cantering in a small circle (around 15 meters) over ground poles using our outside leg instead of the reins to stay on the circle, which also went much better than I expected.  

Also I ended up getting Starbuck a butterfly bit, which is generally used as a driving bit but which my instructor Marina favors over the Pelham since it can be used as a snaffle or with a little more leverage and is a little less severe.  So here she is modelling it - she really is much easier to ride in it.  Maybe in a few weeks I'll try the hackamore again to see if she responds just as well.  I think she looks really pretty here, but that might be just me ;-)

In other news, next Sunday there's what's called a "social" in Mallorcan horsey lingo - an informal show given by a stable which may or may not include people from other stables.  Ours doesn't include outsiders and since there's less pressure I think it's a perfect opportunity for Starbuck and my show debut.  So hopefully this time next week we'll have completed a 60 cm show jumping course in front of an audience without too much incident.

Today we went on a trail ride with Marina and some other folks, it went really well - Starbuck only gave a few spooks in places where it would be unrealistic NOT to expect her to spook like on a 15 foot wide road lined with yards filled with barking dogs on either side and motorcycles and cars passing us, or when another horse spooked and suddenly broke into a full gallop behind us.  She behaved really well when there were only a few isolated cars passing us and when we went by some other stables which have been iffy in the past.  So very very pleased with a fabulous weekend!

Leaps and Bounds

Look at those pricked ears!  We sure do love being out and about :-)

Rode Starbuck again on Wednesday and it went just as well as Tuesday, we did some exercises attempting to lengthen / shorten strides at the canter between two ground poles.  So if you have two poles about 15-20 yards apart, and you canter between them counting strides and you end up with say 5, then the next time you try to squeeze 6 in, or you can lengthen your stride to try to get 4.  I find this exercise really difficult, especially since with the bit I was hesitant to use the reins as much as I normally would.  But I really enjoy it because it forces me to be rhythmic (we count the strides out loud and it seems silly but you pay way more attention to rhythm that way) and to really think hard about and try to visualize what I want Starbuck to do.

This "thinking" thing is a concept Marina introduced me to and that seemed like a bunch of hippie bunk at first but I find really works.  She regularly tells students on nervous horses "don't give any leg aids, just think "canter".  And I remember I was trotting with Starbuck for the second or third time and she said "think about her hind legs, visualize them coming further forward".  And what do you know, she started tracking up!  There was a horse at the beginning of the 19th century called "Clever Hans" who could do math - I mean pretty complicated arithmetic.  His handler would ask him say "What is six times seven divided by three" and Hans would tap his hoof 14 times.  And it wasn't just his handler - other people could ask him and damned if he didn't get the answers right something like 90% of the time.  So there were a bunch of trials and finally figured out that if the handler knew the answer to a question, so did Hans.  But if the handler didn't know the answer, Hans didn't either.  He was watching for the near invisible building up of tension in his handler as he tapped and its involuntary release when he reached the right number.  I think that horses are so sensitive to body language that they can really tell when we think "whoa", "canter" or even "make your stride go upwards instead of forwards".

But all this is easy to forget, especially when you're busy thinking "heels down, shoulders back, hips forward, hands still, thumbs up, shit someone's coming out of the bar, knees open, calm down Starbuck, breathe deep...".  And this exercise gives you 20 yards to put your full attention on "ONE, upwards, TWO, slower, THREE, upwards, FOUR, don't trot, don't trot!, FIVE, oh shit the pole".  And OK, we're not very good at it and we didn't ACTUALLY work in 6 canter strides without a stray trot stride, but we very nearly did and we both felt at the end of the class like we'd really worked hard and accomplished something.

Friday I lent Starbuck to my friend Virginia whose mare Coco is recovering from a booboo and can't be ridden at anything but a walk, and I rode Marina's lesson pony Vent ("Wind" in Mallorquín) without any stirrups for the whole lesson to work on my seat.  Which went very well except for the very end when I decided to try a jump - between the no stirrups thing and the fact that we took the jump from way too far off (still not very good at judging distances) I ended up making a crash landing.  But still proud of making it through the whole hour of walk - trot - canter without stirrups.  Virginia had a little trouble at the canter with Starbuck (I'm used to riding with very little contact and Virginia as an experienced dressage rider is used to using more) but schooled her very nicely in the lateral movements which is a huge help to me - I'm still not 100% sure when she's really crossing her legs or just scrunching her neck around and faking it.

And today we had a lovely morning lesson with markedly improved shoulder-ins and leg yielding and some very nice, fluid jumping from Starbuck, followed by an even lovelier hack out through the blossoming almond tree groves.  Starbuck for the most part behaved very well and only got a little worried a couple of times (mostly about the footing since the land had just been plowed and was very soft) and I was able to ride her along the tiny (like 300 yards) stretch of rural highway we have to go along and across, which is great because the last time I had to get off and walk with her.

The only negative issue to report is that I noticed this morning after our ride that the bit is apparently pinching the corners of her mouth because she had some sore spots there, so I'm going to add some bit guards and see if that helps things.

So all in all a terrific week filled with progress, fun and an object lesson in not being so reckless just to prove to myself and others I'm no chicken.

Back in the Saddle

I rode Starbuck yesterday for the first time since last week's disaster and it went really well!  I was a little (ok, a lot) apprehensive for two reasons - first she was pretty crazy when I longed her on Monday and second I was trying out the new bit (a mullen-mouthed pelham) my instructor Marina suggested to me.  I hadn't ridden Starbuck with a bit since we had that longeing incident a year and a half ago, and the pelham can be a lot more severe than the D-ring snaffle I started her in, not to mention the little hackamore I usually use.  So I wasn't sure whether to expect better responsiveness, a bucking bronco display or anything else in between, but I guess I got lucky because I ended up with a focused, thinking mare who consistently responded very well to even the lightest rein aids.

Before I go into details let me get my guilt and feelings of inadequacy as an owner-trainer out of the way.  I'm not terribly happy about the fact that I've changed bits instead of working through the bolting issues Starbuck's been starting to have lately.  I realize that the pelham can cause a great deal of pain if I'm not very, very careful.  And I'm well aware that her problems are in fact caused by my problems.  But I've become a little more skeptical of hackamores since Starbuck's "learned how" to set her head and "flip" one side so it doesn't affect her at all and a friend's hackamore (same model as mine, and newer) basically came apart while she was riding the other day.  And my goal is to use the pelham for a couple of months as a tool to accustom Starbuck once again to listen to really light rein aids even when freaking out, so we can safely return to the hackamore and even eventually be able to ride her in nothing more than a halter (right now she runs right through the halter).  So keeping in mind that right now I really want to keep riding her (safely) as often as I can, that I (and my instructor) consider myself to have pretty soft hands and above all that Marina knows WAY more about horses than I do, it's something I'm on board with.

Back to our lesson yesterday  - she first realized something was very different when we were warming up at a walk and she reached her nose down to rub it on her leg and bumped herself with the bit, at which she instantly shot her head back up and then did a little lick and chew.  Maybe this is too much anthropomorphism but I think it makes a huge amount of difference that this "initiation" was completely on her part, like walking into an electric fence, instead of it being "my fault" by pulling on the reins or similar.  I think that this may have been enough to give her a healthy respect for the bit, because she didn't pull or lean on my hands at all and consistently responded when I simply closed my fingers to ask her to slow down or stop.  The only difference I noticed from her normal behavior was more of a tendency to stop when doing sitting trot, although the fact that we were leading the class instead of following other horses may have had something to do with it.  During our first canter she definitely did a little head shaking and bit chomping, but I focussed on keeping my hands still and low and using only the lightest contact and she settled right down.  I actually think having something new inside her mouth kept her thinking and paying attention to me much more than she normally does, and a quick squeeze and release of the inside hand was enough to keep her from her normal "looking outside the ring for tigers" antics.  And when we could have had a spook (kids playing around near the bar with the pigs squealing for their supper) and she jumped in place, when I closed my fingers she just gave a lazy little piaffe for a few steps and then dropped her head like "OK, no problem".

Anyhow, after a decent warm-up we did an exercise where we first walked and then trotted over some ground poles while leg yielding, then we did an exercise where we had to leg yield from a cone to the other side of a pole, then walk straight along the pole, then leg yield in the other direction to another pole, walk straight along the other pole and then leg yield back around a final cone. Think dot space dash space dash space dot, zigzagging laterally between each one.  We did this in walk and trot and finally canter, and surprisingly she did really well at all except when cantering on the right lead which is always tricky for her.  And at the very end of the lesson I felt comfortable enough to do a little jump, just to prove to ourselves that it's no big deal.

So firmly back in the saddle and confident about our progress, even if by using a bit we have to take a few steps back to take one step forward.

Back to Business

Wow, I can't believe it's been nearly two months since I last checked in here!  Between my frustration with Starbuck's lameness and injuries (more on that in a minute), my determination to spend every waking moment at the stable once she was better and my husband giving me a Kindle as an anniversary gift, I think I've cracked open my laptop maybe 5 times in all that time.  Anyhow I'm back and though I imagine I'll be a little more sporadic in my updates than before I owe it to myself and to Starbuck to keep up our journal.  So here's a brief re-cap of what we've been up to.

After several weeks of on-again off-again lameness, Starbuck finally seemed to be somewhat recovered so one fine day I tacked her up and took her out to the arena to longe her with her saddle and bridle on in hopes of riding her that day or the next.  After a few minutes of longeing I could see that she was moving really well and I brought her in to the middle of the circle for a rest and a head rub.  So she was standing there resting, then she put her head down to rub her leg with her muzzle, then she stepped in a loop of the longe line and before I could get her foot out of the loop something happened to majorly spook her (who knows what), her head went up and away she ran.  Since her leg was caught in the line I had to let her go and pray for the best, but the arena gate was open and she ended up running all the way to her paddock, where I found her grazing nervously.  But when I checked her out I saw that at some point the bit had gotten pulled against her cheek, giving her a nasty cut about an inch from the bars of her mouth.  And when I opened her mouth to take her bridle off I saw that the bit had also ripped nearly halfway through her tongue.

I can't even begin to tell you how bad I felt.  Here I have this creature who I'm trying to build up a foundation of trust with and the very equipment I'm using not only brings discomfort and pain, but actual injury.  I felt like I wasn't worthy of the responsability of even having a horse, not to mention training one.  I wrapped my arms around her neck and sobbed my apologies into her mane.  I came back to reality when she started nuzzling my pockets looking for cookies and realized that as serious as the problem was, she seemed to be holding it together better than I was.  So I wiped my face and called the vet, who calmed me down by telling me it wasn't an uncommon injury or even a particularly serious one and that the mouth heals much more quickly than other parts of the body, then prescribed a change in diet (no grain or anything with small particles which could get stuck in the wound) and daily rinses with medicated mouthwash until the wound closed.

So Starbuck was on soaked pellet food, straight up straw without any seed heads, alfalfa and bran mashes and had the best-smelling breath at the stable for a month (the vet was right, she healed up way faster than I expected).  She also got a good two weeks more of rest before I even tried to longe her again, so I spent lots of time grooming her and taking lessons on some of Marina's horses.  Finally, I got rid of the bit in lieu of a hackamore and worked her from the ground for about a week before saddling her up and seeing whether she would let me ride her for the first time in two months.  And guess what?  It took a few minutes to review the basic cues and aids and I could definitely tell that she'd lost some conditioning, but she didn't act up at all and even seemed to be happy to have me riding her again.  I honestly think she missed having a routine and being able to work off some steam without having to go into panic mode to do so.

Anyhow about two weeks have gone by since that first ride and I'm starting to think that Starbuck made some kind of seminal change over her "summer vacation".  She's calmer, more focused, more relaxed and overall tends to behave like a total professional both on the ground and under saddle.  Since we've been back on track, we've ridden in the wind and rain, started working trotting poles into almost every class, habitually ride on the scary side of the arena, are starting some lateral work (leg yielding along the arena wall) and have even gotten to canter (on purpose) a couple of times.  We've only had one "electrical" day brought on by some sudden chilly and windy weather, but even then her spooks were highly controllable and I was more worried about her posture (that head kept going up) than me falling off.  I know we'll still have our bad moments, but I think we've scaled another plateau - one where I feel safe riding her no matter what the weather or her mood is like and where we can work on figuring out a training routine which is enjoyable and productive for both of us.

So here's to giving your horse (and yourself) a break every now and then, to bitless bridles and to more conscious groundwork.  And maybe to writing just a little more often.

Photoshoot

Since Starbuck has been trying on some new tack lately I took some photos to show it all off - we have a new halter, leadrope, fringed headband for the bridle and of course my new and improved saddle with less filling and D-rings on the back!

The fringed headband is ostensibly to keep flies out of her eyes but is also terribly Spanish-y, don't you think?

She's been an absolute martyr to flies lately, I think she must be allergic to the bites because she gets huge bumps where they bite her, then scratches herself against her stall until she has big bald spots all up and down her neck and chest.  She also rubs her face on anything with an edge and has a couple of sores where she's rubbed herself raw... it's superfrustrating because I'm already showering her more often, spraying her with flyspray twice a day and being really concientious about getting all the poop out of her paddock every day, but the two paddocks on either side of hers don't get cleaned out regularly and the flies seem to go straight to her.  And to make matters worse, everyone who sees her looks at me like I'm somehow abusing her and doesn't seem to believe me when I say it's the flies.  My next step is to nuke her entire paddock with industrial strength flyspray to see if that helps and if the bald spots haven't gone away by a week from now I'm going to call the vet.

Anyhow at least she's gotten used to the flyspray, at first it was really really scary and she's still not totally cool with it, but she at least mostly stays still while I'm spraying her.

Tack Locker!

I finally found a second-hand cabinet which was deep enough for my saddle to fit into for only 30€ and the guy selling it was even willing to bring it to the stable!  So they delivered it today and Mario, the Portuguese handyman at my barn, helped me attach the saddle rack and a couple of hooks for bridles, halters, etc... I'm superpleased with it - there's room for absolutely everything and I won't need to wedge my saddle under the shelf in the corner of the tack room anymore!  Just need to bring a padlock tomorrow and I'll be set!

In other news, Virginia's and my Parelli big green ball arrived and we've been slowly getting Coco and Starbuck used to it... so you can look forward to the videos soon!  Also today I started supplementing Starbuck's midday grain ration with paprika to see if her coat stays darker - hope it works!

Lazy Day Photos

Yesterday we had a lazy day at the barn at lunchtime, these bi-weekly pilates classes are really kicking my ass.  So Virginia and I just set the two girls loose in a makeshift paddock and let them graze for a while and I felt inspired to take some pictures... so here goes!

This is my tack "flocker" (fake locker) made of a plastic trunk someone threw away which I stood on one side and keep closed with some hooks and a hair tie-- on Sunday I was feelin' handy and organized it with some more hooks, some plastic boxes and a nasty old board with some tetanus nails sticking out of it for a shelf to put my shoes and helmet on.  I think it's turned out real nice as we say in the South and all in all it's cost me about 8 euros.  Score!

Here's Starbuck looking particularly fuzzy next to her fabulous shed!

Grazing with the daisies...

Checkin' out the sights-- it's so nice to be able to put up a makeshift paddock with electrical tape wherever there are a few conveniently placed trees... even if we don't connect the tape to any current they still respect it as long as you don't leave them for more than a couple of hours.  This is one of the things I love about this barn is how laid back they are about stuff like this as long as everyone more or less respects everyone else.