Crazy Mare Chronicles

Like I said in the last post, it’s been a really busy week.  I actually had Monday off, but I went in for some of the day anyway. There’s so much to take care of at work!!  Monday, before I went in, I stopped by a few stores to get some groceries and such.  One of the stores I stopped at was my local Jewel.  They had a Wienermobile outside the door and I couldn’t help but go take a look  

There were two girls working inside the thing-I guess they just follow it around everywhere and show it off.  What a job!  I can’t imagine driving around in a big hot dog then standing outside freezing while people stare at it.  But whatever.  To each their own   It was still fun-I went inside and they gave me a weenie whistle to prove I was there. LOL!!!  The inside is pretty cool-there’s several seats in red fleece material with Oscar Mayer’s logo on them, then there’s a bench seat that faces the large door.  When I went in , I could only think of the infamous crashes that these weiners have been involved in-especially the one fairly recently where someone smased one into the side of a house.  That had to be interesting. 

The rest of the week blew by as I worked my butt off.  Daisy and I had several good rides, too.  I learned a lot about my leg position and effective, but not over-, use of my reins.  It’s amazing what you can get out of one little change like using spurs!  She’s been getting a really great rhythm and has been rounding more and more, especially when she’s outside.  I don’t know if she just LIKES to be outside more or if she’s relying on me more as someone to trust so she’s listening more carefully, but it’s a night and day difference sometimes. 

Daisy also got her first haircut!!  I was scared to do it, but her ends were getting really scraggly and it was starting to get to be too much.  I trimmed her up, then I used a feathering technique that I’ve seen my hairstylist use on me   It came out really good!  I didn’t take off too much, but in some spots it was probably a couple inches.  The couple inches were just stray hairs for the most part, though, so no big deal.  Here’s the picture of Daisy’s first haircut (by me anyway):

Not too bad   I might clean it up a bit more, but I figure that in a week, it’ll all be grown out to where you can’t tell the worst areas of it.  Again, I think I like it anyway-I may just leave it.  I cleaned up her tail, too-you can see that in the picture.  It now goes about ankle-length and is more of a straight across cut.  That seems to be what a lot of the fancy dressage horses have.  The longer the better, but that straight across cut is in style.  If I was REALLY going to do that right, I’d have to cut it to about mid leg to hock length and I just can’t do that. 

One other thing, as a stress reliever, I’ve been doing my Tae Bo videos again   I need the exercise anyway.  The first time I did the one, I felt it in my shoulders.  The second time I did it, I was slightly sore for about a half hour then that was it.  I might need to get a better video.  We’ll see how it goes after a few more times.  It might be better to ease back into the aerobic exercise thing again instead of jumping right into something that will make me more sore.  We’ll see how it goes. 

OK-back off to ride Daisy! 

I was watching a video on the internet the other day.  It was for some rein thing they were selling, but regardless, they had some really good points on riding and training in dressage.  One point the person made was that he never starts his young horses out with a whip because you can’t use them in upper levels so you don’t want to develop a dependency with them.  I ride Daisy with a whip almost every time I get on her.  I was thinking about that because I CAN’T use the whip when we compete in finals classes.  I found that out the hard way one year-I rode my first class, then we heard an announcement as a reminder that riders can’t bring whips into the arena for championship rides.  When I rode in that championship class, I just about died trying to get her around, but we still came in third that year   Anyway, I decided that I was going to ride without a whip from now on and use it as it’s supposed to be used-as a reminder if you need it.  Well, I got on yesterday and Daisy immediately realized that there was no whip.  She pretty much took it easy the whole time.  She was much more relaxed, but I could barely make her move.  We trotted around several times to prove to myself that it could be done, then we called it good because she was listening to my aids without a whip at the end.  I went and got on again today.  We went outside and she was all happy because there was no whip and she loves to be outside.  We walked around for about 10 minutes to warm up since she hadn’t been out at all today, and I quickly determined that I needed a whip.  I was laughing about it to Diane and she kind of half kiddingly said “you need spurs!” I said, “You know what?  I do!” 

So I went in my tack box and pulled out a still brand new pair of spurs I bought when I first got Lucky-about 6-7 years ago now.  Still in the package, never used.  Daisy was thinking “Holy crap!  That was the easiest ride of my life!  Walking for 10 minutes then back in for treats!”  We figured out how to get them on me (the straps barely fit me), then we brought Daisy into the indoor arena.  I wasn’t sure what was going to happen because she is pretty obstinant when it comes to new things like this-especially if these new things involve any kind of work on her part.  Diane followed me in.  I think she had a feeling she should probably be there should there be a Daisy revolt.  I hopped on and we started walking around the arena.  I’ve never personally had spurs on before, so they felt a little funny-they push back when you use them, so you can really feel when you do use them.  (for the non-horse people here, you don’t automatically use them when they are on-you position your foot and leg to use them if you need them, but if you have bad leg position like turned out toes or heels up, they’re always on)  I was pleasantly surprised that I was controlling them very well-that meant that I have decent leg position at least   I brushed her sides with them so she knew they were there and I saw flickers of the ears as if to say “hey now, what was that??”

Diane had me pick up a trot.  I had resistance so I spurred her.  She resisted breifly then thought better of it and went into a nice relaxed stretching trot-just like I wanted!  We warmed up for a bit then did some work.  She did beautiful circles, bent very well, and flexed just like she was supposed to.  The back was swinging and free, and she was stepping up great!  She felt a little slow, but it was just because she was so freely moving.  We went in one direction and did some spirals to work on yielding to the leg and bending through the body instead of the neck.  We spiraled the other way.  Compliments were flowing!  Diane kept praising her for doing such a wonderful job.  She was gorgeous. 

I got off and we went back in since she was so good-only a half hour ride but the whole ride felt like we had been going for an hour and were winding down.  Usually after an hour of me trying to get her to listen she will give in and do what I want, but this time she just did it.  She got an hour long massage after that-she enjoyed it so much that she was falling asleep on the crossties.  Her head was down, her eyes were almost closed, and her lip was quivering because it just felt so good.  I’ve been giving her mini massages every day before we ride and a little extra on the weekends and it has really helped her a lot-she steps up more and she doesn’t go off as bad on her back leg. 

Anyway, back to the spur thing-I was thrilled that I could manipulate the spurs correctly and use them without jabbing her constantly (which is what I thought was going to happen).  They made me more aware of where my leg was on her by pushing back at me when they were touching her, so I think they actually improved my position-Diane at one point said that my leg was over the girth where it should be and she seemed happy about that.  Happier than she should be.  Meaning that I have my toes pointed out and my leg back normally.  Now I know it isn’t TOO bad because I’ve seen videos of myself go and the pictures from the show have pretty good position, but I always have room to improve. 

I’m really hoping that this is going to improve us both and make the whip unnecessary until we train new movements.  She seemed very willing to do what she knows-including shoulder fore and haunches in plus leg yields in both directions, so I guess the whip isn’t going to be as necessary as I thought it was!  I’ll have to watch more videos and get more tips since this one worked out so well.

Daisy is always happiest when we go out and just play together.  These are some shots from one of those days in the summer when we were just hanging out.