She goes on and on and on...

I was out yesterday to put to practice what Moon and I learned on our Wednesday lesson, which went surprisingly well. For starters, it took only two tries for him to stand nicely at the mounting block while I got on. Granted, the second time he started to walk off before I even tried to get on, but he did a really nice rein back without me even in the saddle. And then figured out he wasn't going to win this one.

It was followed by the boring (to listen to, not to ride) practice routine which I won't drone on about. I WILL say that our sitting trot is improving in leaps and bounds...or bumps and bounces ; ) And so is his 10 m circles!

I was riding in the arena with a new face, who I learned had just resumed lessons after a 35 year break. Her son is dating one of W's boarders and his girlfriend convinced this individual to pursue her longtime dream of trying english riding. Lo and behold, she is. We stopped and chatted a bit and it was great to meet another avid rider.

In other news, I got two more requests for stall plaques. I tried to be reasonable and priced them at $35 and am a little surprised by how popular they actually are. I've been thinking about it, and have decided that I'm going to use the earnings to fund our show career for next summer. Granted, I probably need to make some 20 or 30 plaques to be realistic, but still. I should be able to make showing a little more economic with a little extra hard work. Plus, the girls (and boys) REALLY love them. Which makes it even more worth it!

The last thing...Do you find yourself WAY more talkative when it comes to horses? During my lesson on Wednesday, I realized that introverted me becomes a total gabber-mouth when it comes to horses and riding. I mean, somedays I'm amazed that W doesn't tell me to be quiet. I ride around just prattling on and on. I yap away in the barn. I talk to my horse when I'm alone! And I talk to EVERYONE. Gone is the reserved me. The quiet me. When it's horses or riding or at the barn, there's just no stopping me!

I actually ANNOYED MYSELF on Wednesday I was yapping so much! A few times I mentally heard myself saying "Be quiet already!" and forced myself to stop talking! It's ridiculous. Then again, when one looks at my blog, it's pretty obvious when it comes to horses, I can go on and on and on... ; )

Perfect Moments

Yesterday when I headed to the barn I was planning on hanging Royal's new stall plaque on his door and waiting for W to notice it. Except when I got to the barn they were leading the horses in for the night and I hadn't a clue which was Royal's stall when he wasn't standing in it!

So I hung it on the tack rack by the cross-ties instead, expecting W to pass by it a few times without noticing.

Man, was I wrong. As soon as she walked in and turned the corner, she yelled "Oh my gawd!" and went running over to it, pony still in hand. I got a hug and much appreciation, and I could tell that it was about to bring tears to her eyes. I know the feeling. There's something about a beautiful plaque proclaiming your best friend your very own that makes your heart swell. I was thrilled that she loved it so much.

It's now hanging in front of Royal's stall, looking just fabulous. And now I can't wait to start working on the next set!

After we finished discussing artistic talent (I was trying to convince W that her horses should start doing those 'animal paintings' like people sell made by monkey's or parrots), it was off to my lesson.

Moon remained pretty stiff to the left, though 'pretty stiff' today is a far cry from what it was 5 months ago. W encouraged me to out-stubborn him when he decided to lift his nose to the sky to avoid having to bend that way, by simple continuing to ask for a bend and lifting a bit with the outside rein to draw him back onto the circle. Surprise, surprise he would eventually concede, drop his head and we'd carry on. Until he'd decide again it was just too hard. He's a stubborn monkey : )

Our 10 m circles, which are meant to lead to our canter work and improve my sitting trot are improving in leaps and bounds. W reminded me that only last week I was going on and on about how great it is to have a horse that improves so visibly. Which means that there's gonna be some pretty ugly moments to start. Yesterday those ugly moments were starting to fade and I actually felt comfortable at times. Added in some sitting straight-aways and was shocked to see that I wasn't bouncing! I'm certainly no pro and Moon'er still struggles to maintain the 10m circles perfectly, but they're really coming along. And I don't doubt that as we continue to practice it'll just keep getting better.

W commented about him looking amazing out in the field that morning, cantering around the paddock in beautiful form. Everyone at the barn has come to discover for a rather unassuming horse, he's a TOTAL flirt. The INSTANT a mare is around he's only got eyes for her and is trying out his finest moves to get her attention. He's known for rubbing his face against other mare's when they pass by the fenceline or casually grooming them. Even when they DO try to rip his face off...

It's beyond cute. He's a little stud boy. Yesterday someone called him gorgeous. I almost started laughing. Um, Moon'er? They went on about his lovely TB features, and W chimed in that he looks more warmblood then QH when moving around his paddock. I proclaimed them both crazy. Moon'er will ALWAYS be in my eyes, that horse I first saw at T's. Dipped back, big ol'hay belly, quiet and kind eye and a little bit of stiff sassy resistance. When people point out his growing topline, easily traceable muscle lines, filled hindquarters and elegant movement, I have to take a step back and realize he's not the horse I spent less then a slaughter-house price on. He's a pretty fine specimen of horse even if he'll always just be my tubby little pasture buddy. He stole my heart not with his looks or moves, but with his wonderfully "Moon'er"-like personality. I don't need him to be anything more then that to keep loving him.

Which saddens me. Here's a horse that's fabulous. Inside and out. I'm not saying he's perfect, I'd be the last to make that proclamation. But he's still an amazing horse, even removing my bias. He's well-bred, relatively attractive, hardy and progressing well through his training. By next fall, I think he'll be a skilled riding horse with some show hours under his belt, hopefully to training level. A horse probably worth 3 or 4 times what I paid for him. Thankfully he was never at risk of going to slaughter (bless T's heart), but his last owner before her called him 'uncontrollable'. If it wasn't for T, I would suspect he would have bounced from home to home and perhaps wound up on someone's dinner plate or craft project.

WHY are so many awesome horses lost this way?! I just wish people wouldn't discount a horse because he's less then perfect at first glance. You'll be amazed what they can grow into.

And every one of them deserves their own little stall plaque, pronouncing the never ending love of their forever owner.

Gift Horse? Nope, Horse Gift.

With our furnace on the fritz (so glad we paid all that money for an ultra high efficient one) and the repair part somewhere on a plane overhead, I was too cold yesterday to find the motivation to leave the house. Granted, the house itself was freezing.

Instead I thought it was the PERFECT time to start working on those stall plaques I had promised a bunch of girls at the barn. Since the last time I was out I got yet another request, I knew if I had any hope of getting them completed by Christmas, I'd best get on it.

I spent an hour messing around with fonts and layout on my computer before I finally opted to start with "Royal Blue" of W's. I wanted to give it to her as a thank-you for the last month of awesome horse care.

There is little doubt in my mind that Mr. MoonSox is living the good life right now. Probably the best he ever has, and it shows. When I pop in at night, he's hanging his head over the stall door, happily munching on a mouthful of sweet smelling hay, watching the world go by. It's amusing. Most of the other horses eat their hay where it lies, stop, look out their door, and then return to eating.

Not Moon'er. He's like a kid at the movies; his hay is his popcorn, the movie is the horses in the barn around him. He's warm and cozy, deeply bedded in straw in a 12x12 box stall, his own little water bucket, a couple of carrots stuffed in his jolly ball, and friend in the stall beside him. He's fit, healthy, shining, solid hoofed and just happy. He gets more riding time then ever before, he gets loved up every morning by W's dad who thinks he's the best horse in the barn and I don't skimp on the grooming sessions neither.

He's happy. And it makes me happy.

So I started wood burning. I pretended that the smoke was from a fire and actually warming up the house. Thankfully, the heat from the wood-burning tool DID keep my hands warm, which was a nice improvement.

By 10 pm it was complete and ready for a coat of lacquer. Standing back, I think it looked pretty good. Tonight I'm gonna add a ribbon to hang it from and sneak it into the barn to put up before W shows up for our lesson. I hope she likes it too. It's the least I can do for all the riches that have been given to Moon'er.

Friendly Inspiration

Just wanted to give props to a friend who went to her first horse show, with her teenage pony who hadn't been trailered out, never mind been to a show in a number of years. She's worked hard all summer long, and you can tell she's proud of the results of their hard work. They had a peaceful, uneventful (in a good way) show and all-around success!So congrats (you know who you are) and thanks for the inspiration! We can't wait to show up and cheer you on next summer! : )

Learning Patience

Moon and I both need to learn some patience. He doesn't stand well at the mounting block because he's impatient to start moving. I don't correct him very well because I'm impatient for him to stand.

Today I headed to the barn mentally prepped to spend as long as I needed to get him to stand properly for mounting. As Edward has commented in yesterday's post, he's developed a lot of muscle and has more energy to burn. Even if it's on silly things.

It took four tries before he stood properly. I mounted and we warmed up, and I was surprised by how supple he was right out of the gate. He would probably say the same thing about me. We're a pair him and I, such that it's often hard to tell who is screwing things up first (yes, I'll accept the comments that point out the faults are likely mine ; ) ).

Lately we're had a weird 'issue' that I'm not sure is good or bad. Often when we ride a 20m circle, on the open end I'll turn it into a three loop serpentine. So instead of continuing left on the circle, I'll bend right and serpentine into the arena. When we first started riding together he would wiggle a bit when changing his bend and then we'd continue on. Then later in our riding he would change his bend nicely when I asked for it.

Now before I've even ASKED him to change his bend and serpentine, he's done it. In my head I've been thinking he should wait until I instruct him to, not just do it on his own accord. So I've suddenly made him continue on the circle instead. At which point he gives me a bit of a temper tantrum.

For the last week we've had the same battle where he auto-serpentines. Disagreement after disagreement until today I realized he probably had EVERY right to get pissed at me. Why? Because if I'm coming through the circle and thinking to myself "Okay, I'm gonna serpentine here", chances are even if I don't realize it, my body is indicating my intention to Moon. My weight shifts, my hips turn, I'm looking right, and then at the last second like a jerk, I'm say to him "Nope, left".

? It's like some guy with his right turn signal on and then he pulls left. And chances are this isn't an 'auto-chage' in bend. This is Moon picking up the subtle clues I'm giving him. And here I am frustrated that he still doesn't need me messing around with him to get it!!! : O Bang head on barn-door moment for me folks. Wow.

So in today's ride, I stopped staring at his face and ears. I worked with a little more patience. He gave me a lot more patience. Not starting the ride with the battle to mount, meant we were both calm and relaxed from the OUTSET of the ride. Which meant he loosened up faster and in turn, I stayed loose.

We tried some more sitting trot. Guess what? Because we were both loose and relaxed, we had some success. I could detect when he was uncomfortable and switch to posting. He was more willing to let me bounce around for a bit, I think because we weren't fighting. We actually had some really fluid and soft moments where I could even use some leg to guide him. And now flopping hands or bouncing out of the saddle.

We practiced mounting a few times at the end of the ride too. Perfect gentleman. I was proud. Sometimes when your horse and you are too alike in personality, it causes friction. Sometimes though, when you learn to appreciate it, you get smoothness.

And W, who was instructing another student while I was practicing, gave me a huge compliment by saying that Moon now has a 'frame' and stays in it when moving. And she too noticed my sitting trot had improved from last week's lesson. : ) I swear, there's something about her in the arena that reminds me to have a few extra minutes of patience with the Mr. Moon. And yes, I love him dearly, even if he drives me crazy somedays!

P.S. What Halloween costume do you think would best suit your horse?

For Moon, it would be Eeyore. He has the same personality. "Oooookay. I'll trot arroooound. But don't expect tooo muuuuch of mee." : P

Props to Etsy for the picture.

Stubborn...meet...Stubborn

The unfortunate truth is that my horse and I both suffer from the same mentality: passive aggressive stubborness.

It causes us a lot of trouble while practicing and training, one which W never hestitates to remind me could be rectified if I simply relaxed, unbraced and remained fluid. We get a lot of nice rides when this happens, and these rides most often occur during lessons. Why? Because W is there to chastise me into behaving myself!

So Saturday I was back at the barn doing some work with Moon and it started out rough as it had the last two rides. With Moon refusing to stand at the mounting block. Now I will conceed that I lack a great deal of patience. The first time he misbehaves I'm fine being gentle and re-asking. The second time, I'm frustrated. The third time, I'm just mad. It's odd since I'm normally not an 'angry person', but he just knows how to try my patience. Yesterday when he acted like the mounting block would eat him (as another very talented rider was trotting around, certainly watching our antics) I told myself to take a breath and keep asking.

We circled the mounting block 6 times before he finally stood and let me get on. By this point, the other girl had unmounted and left the ring!

He started off rushing, and I again, was so tired of him starting every ride like that. I turned him right into the arena wall. You wanna go, well then go. Right through the wall. He's not stupid. He stopped and we continued on with him moving a lot better.

He was still calling. I've noticed that this only happens during our daytime rides...when all the horses are out on pasture...and I noticed the last two times, it wasn't Mr. Moon doing the first call. It's his girlfriend. She runs the fenceline and their paddock is right next to the indoor ring. When she calls, he calls back. And then we get into an argument about behavior. W had suggested bringing Ebony into the barn so she wouldn't be running around frantic, but I think that's just feeding the herd-bound behavior. I won't do that. They NEED seperation. Technically, I think I need to get on him and ride him down the street a couple times. This is why I HATE keeping just 2 horses together. They more frequently become inseperable.

Regardless, we had some lovely movements at a walk. Soft and supple. At a trot we were doing well all things considered, and I (again, losing patience) started to actually give him a kick when he swung his butt out on the circle. He KNOWS better. But he can be soo stubborn!

Then I went to practice my sitting trot. W started me working on a small circle to develop my sitting trot and I thought I'd use the same routine, but without stirrups so I wouldn't be able to cheat and start posting.

Let me say it's a battle of wills.

The sitting trot is crazy hard for me. It requires you to relax through the hips and swing freely. I pinch at the knees when riding normally, never mind when being bounced off a horse.

Our attempts at sitting trot go like this:

Ask Moon for trot. Trots off beautifully.
I sit a few strides decently, but still bouncy.
Moon thinks I'm bouncing too much and shortens his strides 'cause I'm thumping on his poor back.
I'm now bouncing worse b/c he's short strided. So I clutch his sides with my knees.
He thinks it's getting worse and begins throwing his head in the air and moving with his neck twisted.
Now I'm bouncing clear out of the saddle, clining with my knees, slapping his mouth since my hands are flapping in the air and he's upset about the whole thing and trying to rush off out from under me, because I'm now a bouncing sack of rocks on his back that's pinching his sides and smashing his mouth.

Yip. And every time it fell apart, I halted, walked off again and asked for another circle.

After 15 minutes of this, I think we were ready to kill each other. I'm embarrassed to admit I was actually snapping outloud: "Well if you'd just trot nice and slow I wouldn't bounce so dang much! It's your own dang fault!".

And yes, there were people in the barn. I think they were likely pissing themselves laughing. Seriously, it's not like Moon understood and the truth is, if I could sit the trot he wouldn't be trotting so stupid!

We finished the ride with a bit of serpentines and I asked him to give me 3 nice 20m posting trot circles without falling out or taking away the bend. He did it. End on a positive note.

Stubborn (and always needing to win) I made him stand while I mounted a few times. I jumped on the mounting block while he stood still. I jumped on and off of it. I bounced in the stirrup. I bounced on his back (poor bugger), and I got on, asked for a few steps, dismounted and then did it all again. He didn't move an inch unless asked.

Someone tell me why he can't START a ride this way!!!

P.S. I rubbed the sides of my knees raw from pinching. Seriously. : P

The Best Kind of Injury

Being the boss this week and having all my staff off for the day, I made the verdict that I might as well go home early...I mean, how often do I have the chance to give myself permission to do so?

I, being the weiner I am, still let my director (my boss' boss) know where I was off to and make sure there was nothing he needed done before I went. To which he responded "You don't get a lot of nice days like this come winter; get going and have fun!". I swear, I've got an awesome director.

So off I went to the barn and was pleased to find that I was all alone. I brought Moon'er in and started grooming him. When I got to his hind leg, I freaked out.

He had a divot and swelling on the front of his hind leg at the top of his gaskin (? I'm bad with body parts) or stifle joint. I mean, it was HUGE! I panicked. OMG, he's got to be dead lame on that. I mean, the swelling was huge and the whole joint just looked abnormal!

I rushed around to the other side to see how it looked. EXACTLY the same! My heart beats faster. I can barely reach out and touch the massive swelling...and when I do...

I realize it's not a swelling. It's not even an injury. It's...

Muscle. He's lost so much fat and trimmed and toned up so much in the last month, that muscle I didn't even know should be there, IS there! Even as he puts on his fuzzy winter coat! I went out and compared it to W's trained horses and surprise, surprise, same lump. Muscle. From proper workouts and intensive routines. Wow.

I know I haven't noticed it lately because I've been rushed when I get to the barn and the place is busy. I brush him quickly in his stall (which doesn't have its own lighting) and then dash into the arena to warm up. And when I'm done, it's run a brush over him and get back home to shower and sleep (bad, bad owner).

And when I finally have a chance to stand back and look at him, there it is. A sign of hard work. Muscle. I'll try and get a picture for you guys...I'm pretty proud. : )

It really was, the best kind of injury. A non-injury!