Bandon's Ride

Bandon is cementing his place around here, getting along with all the horses and people. He enjoys being with me in the pasture no matter what I'm there to do. He's a good guy.

When I went this morning to try him under saddle the first time I didn't have any nervousness about trusting him. Unfortunately, once I got him to the barn and he realized the other 2 horses were still out, he was unsettled. To his credit he didn't panic, instead he pawed, weaved, and called nervously.

After he was tacked I walked him out and down to the arena, his head dropped and started nudging me along, following like a puppy. Bandon was a dream to ride. He has a lot of  power and a tiny squeeze or cluck will send him forward but he isn't just rushing around panicked or lost. He's responsive on the bit and has an enormous stride that's a lot of fun.

He spooked once as a vehicle with no muffler went barreling down the highway that's just through the trees. Hollowing out his back, he pulls his front up, and just needs to go forward. Exactly like Whisper's spook. Huge relief to get that out of the way and know what his is like.

The only quirky thing I can say about the boy is that he kept his tongue out while warming-up. I know dental issues were a problem in his past, we'll keep an eye on it and work to keep my hands soft. I'm riding him in a loose ring french link so the bit is super mild in his mouth.

Back up to the barn to untack I let him stand at the main gate instead of asking him to stand inside the barn so he could relax. I couldn't stop squishing him, he was just completely good!

After an afternoon playing outside with my kids, I wanted to get in a ride on Whisper today too. Though Whisper is a challenge that sometimes I'm tired of facing. She broke her halter last week on the crossties with my farrier and today she broke another one on a single tie with me. She just panics until something snaps every so often. Once she's loose she careens around the barn kicking, squealing, and popping little half rears threatening to strike anyone near her. After a minute or two she starts bobbing her head, blowing hard, and allows me to catch her again.

Finally tacked-up, I took her out and she did okay with groundwork, I hopped on. She bolted. One-rein stop pulled her up for her to curl up trying to go again. I saved my neck and worked her on the longe instead. It is so completely frustrating to be back at square one, the same as the day she came off the trailer from the track, two years later. Some days I think she has some sort of imbalance.

So, I licked my wounds and went for a short ride on Bandon again (grooming and tacking him outside the barn which he tolerated better). He was a gentlemen on a very loose rein working at the trot, by the end of our ride I was riding with my hands at the buckle, and I ended the day brushing everyone down in their stalls while they munched on dinner. This end of day grooming is where Spotlight excels, being the perfect size to groom and then love all over while he heaves tolerant sighs. The boys more than made up for Whisper's standoffish behavior.

I feel my heart healing with our little herd.

"Again the early-morning sun was generous with its warmth. All the sounds dear to a horseman were around me - the snort of the horses as they cleared their throats, the gentle swish of their tails, the tinkle of the irons as we flung the saddles over their backs - little sounds of no importance, but they stay in the unconscious library of memory." - Wynford Vaughan Thomas

Cold Mash & Cold Pizza

After a nice afternoon hanging out with Whisper thinking about all the wonderful lengths of training we were through and how close we were now...

it was time to go for a ride in my newly gated arena. I left Ben in his stall and Whisper and I walked off down the hill alone. No problems until we were within feet of the arena, Ben began screaming from the barn and kicking the stall walls. This created a monster at the end of my reins.

Whisper flew backwards popping rears each time she got her feet under her enough. By the third rear she had enough stability and speed to yank the reins out of my hands. As she came down I saw in horror that a front leg stepped perfectly through the loop in the now loose reins.

She took off until she felt the pull on the bit her leg was creating. I was afraid I was about to watch my horse snap her own leg. She fought the leg, did a short jack rabbit bucking session, then I was caught up to her and she just kept running backwards facing me.

What felt like 5 minutes later, between my horror watching her and Ben's screams calling to her, she stopped and I got to her to unbuckle the reins and free her from her own leg. She looked resigned to what happened and we walked slowly back up to the barn to let Ben out to be with us while I walked her a little while.

I guess with 2 horses it's pretty much impossible to avoid a herd bound situation. Ben is attached to her so severely that I can't let the kids do anything with him right now either. One afternoon, he tossed me in efforts to get back to her and I just can't risk him hurting a kid.

Later that night, the "Frankenstorm" of 2012 making headlines everywhere was treating us with strong wind gusts, black clouds, and freezing temps. I brought hot water out to the barn to make a mash for the horses. After mulling over how Whisper handled that afternoon, I decided it would be a good idea to start haltering the horses and walking them in instead of letting them just run in the barn from the pasture.

Maybe it would give me a little more importance in their lives and help the herd include me more.

Ben walked right up to be haltered, blanketed, and dove into his warm mash. Whisper took one look at me with her halter and took off. For 55 minutes I tried to catch her, in terrible gusting winds way past the kind of darkness you get when the sun is gone and the sky is completely full of black cloud cover, past the ability to feel my own hands, she ran full speed away from me. What the heck?!?! That mare...  I called her a lot of names tonight as her tail went spinning away from me over and over again.

Her warm mash was long cold by the time she allowed me to approach and halter her, as was my dinner. I glanced at my phone alerts to see a lot of my friends had loved the picture of Whisper laying down next to me today and how sweet it was that we were that close. Horses. Ugh.

"It's easiest to eat crow warm, the colder it gets the harder it is to swallow"

Predictability And The Female

Whisper has no pattern. None. I wasted a lot of hours that first year trying to figure out why she did what she did, the only real answer I have most times is because she's a great big nutty mare with moments of complete glory mixed in with others that only serve her purposes to keep me humble.

She may be cool and calm in the crossties, nodding off or lightly playing with me while I groom, then 10 minutes later under saddle I've got a freight train on full speed.

Then there's days like today. From the back porch I watched her run the full length of the pasture snorting and blowing so loud we could hear her from across 6 acres. Ben tried to keep up and looked pretty running with her until even he shook his head and walked off to graze.

I had planned to ride before she did her show, after watching it I was hoping that she'd burned off some crazy even if history has shown that isn't always the case.

About an hour later I went through the pasture to go up to the barn. Here they came, full gallop straight toward me, they circled me once and then Whisper bucked and headed up the hill. When she got to the top she tried to rear but slipped (it had rained the day before) and went down hard on her hip. She came up okay, shook, and went off trotting again.

Chris came running out of the house asking if she was okay, she seemed like she was, so I put her in the crossties to groom. There she gave me another red flag, a full rear in the ties. I have absolutely no idea why. Nothing moved, nothing made a noise, I wasn't doing anything but currying her big grass-fed rear (not the one she fell on) when she spooked straight up.

A logical person would probably have stopped there. Those who follow Whisper's story know I'm not one who's ever been accused of being laden with excessive logic, I'm more of a head-in-the-clouds daydreamer type and I was ready if a crazy ride was in store.

She rode perfectly. Even down to into my arena for leg yields, trotting serpentines, and then back along the woods for some trail riding through the pasture. She rode steady and sure like an endurance horse used to miles on the changing terrain without a foot placed wrong. When I asked her to slow she did and when I asked her to move out it was there with a little cluck. Heaven on horseback.

Mares.

There are two theories to arguin' with a woman and neither one of 'em works :  old cowboy saying

Settling

Life on our new little farm is settling into a rhythm that's predictable for the horses so Whisper has begun to relax. Really really relax.

Losing evening light when Chris is home from work, there's not much time for me to ride Whisper. Instead, Ben gets all the attention while I have the kids solo.

When I sneak off to ride, Whisper's been pretty good when the train whistle isn't blowing a few miles away. How strange it is to walk up a hill to go ride, then simply walk back to my house. Wonderful doesn't quite cover it.

A horse can lend its rider the speed and strength he or she lacks, but the rider who is wise remembers that it is no more than a loan - Pam Brown

July Strides

A year has been spent working "whoa" and "easy" so lately I've changed my riding focus because frankly we are both sick of it. Post injury Whisper has taken to hitting a trot the second I'm in the saddle, we collect, and then we just go.

Working corners, bending, leg pressures, releases, collection, and I'm not focused what the pace is (though I'm encouraging her to slow by getting behind the motion). Riding her at a full gallop doesn't even make my heart race anymore. It's just her and she's with me and we are together. Still singing to stay in the impulsion of the moment instead of letting over-thinking get in the way.

She's going to have to learn more of the finer points of collection as we advance, okay okay... I am going to have to learn a lot more about the finer points of collection too... chicken arms and forward shoulders sabotage me every time. My dreams are leaning heavily towards seeing what this mare can do jumping to give her a direction and solid job. 

When the wounds are 100% healed starts the time to work sequences of low cross bars with ground poles between. Here we are 9 weeks out, crossing fingers time will eliminate the need for flesh to be removed. She's carrying herself well though she falls in (probably due a lot to lack of muscle) when arching to that side so we've limited rides to short sessions to gradually bring her back.

Whisper's getting through the unrelenting heat with cold hose soaks, watermelon snacks, stall fan during the day turnout at night, and gatorade dumped in her dinner. When she's worried about me she is kind enough to shake water in my direction like a thousand pound dog. She's also perfected angling her head just right so her body completely deflects the hose back into my boots, is proficient at making a breeze for me by spooking and running by, and once she stepped on the hose where I couldn't see and then she moved just as I went to check it... if all else fails to cool me off there's the good old fashioned surprise horsey sneeze in the face. She's a thoughtful beast.

"If the world were truly a rational place, men would ride side-saddle" Rita Mae Brown

JOY!

After two training evenings with a little longe work and a little long reining, the farrier finally gave us the all-clear to start riding again. The hoof is growing down and there's a ton of scar tissue between two parts of healthy hoof growing, but she's running and bucking every night feeling just fine.

Part of me was super excited and another part of me saw her gallop, squealing and bucking, each night and wondered how well a rested Whisper was going to do starting back after 7 weeks off.

Let's go!

She was super hyped up and I didn't have a whole lot of say in what speed we went, just direction.

Second ride went smoother since she was just coming in off turn-out. Large circles at a trot turned into canter pretty quick but she let me bring her back down each time. Canter was completely inconsistent, mostly me saying "easy" over and over as she got faster and faster, a special sort of air conditioning on a hot summer day that only Whisper can generate. 

So much fun! Not just because I was getting to ride my horse again, SHE loved it. She was so happy to be working, it just radiated off of her. When we were done she stretched out long and low and gave me a little grin. Back to work feels great. 

Tank Top Tan Lines

Whisper has been riding incredible. I didn't want to post about it and jinx it, we're now on 9 consecutive rides where she's made strides of improvement each and every ride so it may be safe to say out-loud.

We've ridden with different horses in the ring, trotting past them, being passed by them at a canter and a trot, passing them at a trot, and cooling out walking side to side on a loose rein with other horses. We've jumped a tiny crossrail with other horses being ridden in the ring.

We've ridden in the rain (she was a little high that ride but it was also the first time we held a trot circle while another horse cantered a circle that put us side-by-side), in the full sun, and late into the cool evening.

We've started working canter and I've trotted her laps with completely slack reins yielding leg pressures and improving my upper body from the above picture.

By God a riding horse is starting to emerge...

Ride On

Working working working. Riding and working horses every single moment I get.

I'm riding Whisper as of our last lesson, 98% of the time at a trot. We've worked small circles into larger ones while she learns the difference between leg pressure that bends and leg pressure that asks for more speed.

Riding this horse where she is instead of trying to jam her into the mold of what she should be, I've taken to singing, encouraging my middle to relax and breathe.

Working working working

Do Work

We are doing the work. Working hard, every day, often until there's no sunlight left to work in.

Her longe skills are coming along, this morning it was time again for a lesson with Katie where Whisper was ridiculous. Worst case possible, she was completely high.

Once I longed her and got on, she exploded and we had some rearing and spooking. Trying to get a maintained walk and for both of us to settle down, Katie says she wishes she could just longe both of us for 20 minutes to chill us out. Too bad I'm not a runner.

"These horses are mystical in their beauty; I cannot help noting how much, despite their tails, they resemble enormous deer. Every motion of their limbs is a kind of flickering, so that one blinks and expects them to vanish."  John Jeremiah Sullivan, The Bloodhorse

That That Don't Kill Me

It's easy to read someone's account of horse training and give advice.

Hard is having a horse run away from every thing you do and you don't know in her panic when or how it will end. Hard is getting back on that horse, feeling her go back into preparation for take off, and breathing.

I had another lesson with Katie today, the first riding lesson on Whisper ever. She had improved over last week's session with the training time I put in on her this past week. Started by longeing and working verbal cues, it was time to get on. Whisper wasn't in a great head space, she wasn't relaxed, typical her the longe work jacked her up, but she was responding (not that there was another choice) to me.

Once I got on she gave me worst case Whisper, a good thing with a trainer standing right there. We worked half-halts and dead stops when Whisper began to speed up.

I know that relaxing myself when riding her is mandatory, that being relaxed and in control is an absolute requirement. Sitting on a horse who radiates speed, flight, and power who curls her body up to run. Makes her spine rigid. Her nose to the sky. A halt producing either backwards, forward, or sideways movement.... this is up there with some of the hardest, maybe THE hardest thing I've ever had to do mentally.

We did do it and we ended with a few laps where I could feel Whisper's large stride walk (her most relaxed walk), her back loose and moving with her motion, her head dropping down.

Pushing through where I don't want to go, where everything in me says "This isn't worth it, I don't want to, I want to stop"  beyond the edges of what feels right and into the dark parts of things that are broken and unpredictable... dangerous. I can only be better for it.

"A horse is the projection of peoples' dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful - and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence." Pam Brown

Whisper VS Trainer

At Amazing Grace, Erin rode Whisper a few times for me as I worked through some dangerous bolting. From her I learned ground driving/long lining and the circles to slow her without throwing her off balance too badly.

Katie worked Whisper today and gave me more perspective, I have a riding lesson set-up with her on Whisper starting next week and for the foreseeable future. Whisper was a little nutty, she charged through the gate just leaving the barn to go up to the ring a dozen times before she finally walked like a polite horse, then proceeded to back up the hill to the ring.

Katie started by longing her.

Then she took her for a ride.

Her impressions are that Whisper is a difficult horse, no sugar coating that. She also feels that Whisper was trained and raced for so long that it is unlikely now that she will ever change.

In a way, that's a relief. That mountain of a problem I've been scaling and slipping, and scaling again, isn't possible to surmount. It is her. She's a permanent 2 year-old brain in a 10 year-old body. We'll just see what we can do with it.

Spring Training

Between riding Whisper and putting miles on Scooter to have him fit for me to ride in an upcoming Hunter
Pace, the longer daylight hours each evening are getting sucked dry.

Whisper and I've had some great rides, using the whole ring, all 3 gaits, basically enjoying a near normal riding horse. We've had some terrible rides. Spooking, jigging, not even slowing when I use a one rein but spinning out like a reining horse going even faster. Oblivious to me, neck jacked up, nothing works when she gets like this.

Longing, circling, using my seat and weight way back, leg pressure, nada. It's infurating at times. To go from so high with some success to back to square one is defeating and I'm worn out from the constant defeat of riding Whisper.

There's no rhyme or reason. No pattern with heat cycles, feed issues, turn out issues, nothing. I've stayed up nights thinking of anything I'm missing and it comes back to sometimes she's great, sometimes she's dangerous, and the rest of the time she's somewhere in the middle going between the two in the same session.

New training I've tried is the "release rein pressure and use your seat to push your weight as far back as possible, leaning even to encourage your horse to walk. Walking engages the front, trot and jig engage the rear. Putting your weight rear will convince her to engage her front."

Nope. Chris laughed and said that I didn't weigh enough for her to care. All I know is I tried really putting my weight back and NOT taking hold of her face and she bolted from the trot straight into a gallop. When I sat WAY back, she bucked and I almost ate dirt. After that I choked back tears, and got off.

I made her work more on the ground so that she wasn't getting off the hook or anything. But is this what riding is supposed to be? 3 sessions of WOW! Fun! and then  4 weeks of misery?

I can't throw money at this problem so I've got to be selective and I'm getting at my wits end. I adore the horse, duh, but this is supposed to be a fun pastime, not an exercise in cheating death. I've hired Katie to ride Whisper on Monday morning to give her opinion. I'm hoping that Whisper gives her medium to bad and not one of her fabulous days so we can see some roots of the problem.

Up and Over!

Riding has been going well. We've both sort of put our nose to the grindstone and decided to wear some use into the saddle, that sums up my training motto lately. My goal is to put hours in.

We've had to change bits again, from happy mouth back to a french link. I met a lady getting out of horses who was selling off everything beyond reasonably priced, right about the time Whisper managed to bite that happy mouth a few times hard enough to crack and split the whole thing. I like my french link so I went ahead and picked up a thicker french link at the bargain sale of the century in this lady's tack room.

After working on the ground over poles and slightly elevated poles, Whisper's confidence came up. With her it is all about success. If I push her too much too soon she gets terrified of the whole thing and it all collapses. Last time we began jump training, and the last time I have tried to really jump her, I thought I was going slow, it just wasn't slow enough.

We jumped a pole braced slightly off the ground with me trotting beside her after riding one evening. If you think about it, the act of jumping is the hardest part. Once she gets the stride and the form, the jumping itself will flow through higher and higher set bars until we see where her proficiency is. That first folding to jump must be the hardest. So we did it together and she gained confidence by the fourth and fifth times.

That went well enough that next ride we did it under saddle. Ground poles first. Then a slightly elevated pole. Crossrails used to scare her a lot, straight bar seemed like a good choice.

No idea if she was going to freak, buck, bolt, I had to check my adrenaline levels a few times. She did take off at landing and the more we jumped the faster the take off was once she touched the ground. Maybe some ground poles after the jump next time to keep her focus will help.

Equitation

Defined as "the skill and theory of riding horses", equitation also refers to a rider's body position when mounted.

Bottom line, coming from a loooooong ago Dressage background, I knew my equitation (or EQ) wasn't close to what it once was. I also remembered the blisters, sweat, and muscle pain it took to get my previously good eq, when I was younger and bounced back from things more quickly than I do now. 

That little voice in the back of my mind kept chirping at me to fix my foundation before what I was doing now became such a strong habit that it was even harder to fix. This voice was small enough to snuff out with a little effort until I knew I was going to ride in front of people at the IEA show last month. Then I wanted perfection that there was no way to get in the time frame I had. 

I can crucify myself in all the photos of me riding in the blog to this point. 

It was time to do the work. Katie Miller is a trainer and riding coach at Lonestar who excels in horsemanship, equitation for older riders, and handling problematic horses. Once I knew she was a trainer I could trust with me and with Whisper, I signed up for a lesson and prepared for the worst. Unfortunately, Whisper's leg injury became full blown right about then and there was no way to use her. I had the pleasure of riding Scooter again instead and did my very best to try and take in all Katie was teaching me. I knew what she was saying was right, I was completely prepared to feel awkward and stiff, but I had underestimated my overall lack of muscle tone in the correct areas. It also brought back some deep back pain I had back when I gave up riding all together.

When I stand normally (my normal position is my hips sort of angled with my belly button forward and my rear pushed back) my spine pushes through my skin like this at my last few ribs.

Feel your own back and you'll notice a lovely indentation that does not exist in me since my eventing fall and subsequent back injuries as a teen. When I tuck my hips under, straightening the back line and opening the hips to a correct EQ position, this is more pronounced and I feel like there's nothing supporting my upper body.

Frankly, that pisses me off, especially since it's what made me quit, and I'm determined now to find some muscle groups I can focus on to compensate and hopefully ease the lasting pain after a ride where I hold correct position. From that lesson until today, I've worked on my position driving the car, exercising the dogs, and even prepping dinner. Patience is not my virtue and I'm hoping to change the habit of poor form as fast as possible. 

It does feel really great when you get it just right, one jump with Scooter in our lesson I nailed position and it was like sailing a boot on a glass lake. 

Whisper's leg is healing up nicely with one tiny exception. It's bald. All of that rinsing to flush the wound + all the rain we've had almost daily for weeks now + thick winter hair on her legs not allowing rapid drying = rain rot. Treating that and it should be gone or well on it's way out.

We've ridden twice this week and she's riding well. I'm so focused on my seat position and feeling the bones and angles correctly that I don't care if she avoids an entire half of the ring. She's happy about that.

As I hear the wind outside tonight it's clear that the spring storm season is upon us and it'll soon be time to pack up horse clothing and bring out fly gear. I'll close today with a look back at Whisper's fashion from the 2011 season. : My husband has 2 jackets and a shirt that match Whisper's main blanket, of course he was the one who picked out the blanket, hmmm...  

Quote for the day from the birthday boy, Dr Seuss : "Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting... so get on your way!"

Do something, anything, today to bring you one step (even a small one, no leaping required) closer to what you want to achieve.