Mireya takes the reins

Today was huge.

Mireya rode Cody BY HER SELF. No one holding the lead rope. The trainer, D, gave her her first real lesson. She took the reins and RODE. I tell you, she was over the moon.

We both were.

She can't wait to get back out again.

Anyone got a kids saddle for sale? Cheap? :)

I'll have a longer post with pictures later. Just too excited to wait...

Shopping, posting and flexing

I'm still saddle shopping and I think I'm inappropriately in love. It's an off brand saddle and I probably won't bid on it because I can't find anything about the brand anywhere online. You can find it here.



I love the shape and color and simplicity (no tooling) and love that it has a short skirt too. But I'm pretty paranoid about off brands. So I probably won't bid. probably. (come one, someone talk me into it! lol)

Today we took another set of lessons from the trainer. I have more to work on and overall everything went great. Adam even learned to bit Lily.

Now Lily will take a bit readily - if you know what you're doing. I never realized I was just doing it for everyone and never forcing them to do it. This is why I wouldn't make a good teacher. I'm too focused on accomplishing the task rather than teaching the task.

It took Sierra 30 minutes to get her bitted and pretty much the same for Adam.

Lily is such a good teacher, she really is. She won't do it unless you have some ability to figure it out.



Cibolo got a bit irritated with the repeated flexing we were doing and when I got off him I could tell he was just bummed. But he's very forgiving and he eventually started palling around again.

The thing about Cibolo is that he seems somewhat resentful of repetition. So while I listen to the trainer and flexed over and over on my lesson, I want to make sure to reward and stop the first time he does it correctly. As long as his turns get more curvy, I think we're good.

Plus there's this weird thing about flexing.

By flexing I mean the kind when you turn your horses head to your stirrup. I do it on the ground, but never did it much in the saddle. I've done plenty of hindquarter one rein stops (Canyon flashback here). But she wanted Cibolo to float to a circular stop. To give to the rein and curve his body because he's a little stiff. So she wanted more flexing at a stop and all the way to the stirrup.
So here's the weird thing about flexing this way. John Lyons is sort of in a different camp about flexing to your stirrup (and I'm walking a line between my 3 favs: Parelli, Lyons, and Rashid. hopefully they don't all show up at my door at once and ask me to choose!). John's like "look, when you pick up that rein, your horse should do something. stop pulling his head around. It's not doing anything."

Yea. Me and John. We are on a first name basis around here. Ha!

Anyway, I sort of lean this way. But I don't know much about riding, I'm very much learning. So I'm trying to figure out what works well. I know part of why she wants me to work on this this way is because he noses out so much, he needs more discipline there. And she's a Parelli based trainer, mostly.

Thoughts?

Anyway, I think I know how Cibolo would vote. Flex schlex. where's the cookies?


Oh. And I'm really figuring out how to post. I'd say I'm at 60% on take off and 80% once we're going. It lasts a little longer too, breaking down at every other turn (which is a massive improvement, trust me).

I'm probably on the wrong shoulder or what ever, but I can feel the rhythm. Cibolo is doing better at keeping the trot going, which helps (I guess he's better since I'm not like some crazy monkey on his back, right?).

And here is this week's gratuitous ear shot:


Isn't he handsome?

Curves, Rhythm, Saddles, and getting paranoid.

My dance partner.


Today was our second day of posting practice. Cibolo is being a very patient instructor, now staying in a slow jog trot which I'm finding easier to match rhythmically. I'm not by any means on beat every time, but it's so much better. Plus I find he stays in the trot when I'm in rhythm which I find to be very reinforcing. I swear i feel like he's saying "there you go, you got it."

He also didn't nose out today, and I was able to avoid trying to adjust his head as I was trying to stay in rhythm, keep track of my leg pressure, sit straight, blah, blah, blah. Yesh. Was I even riding before?

Keeping his head in is tough for me because I really want to not be heavy handed, especially knowing this bit is more leverage than I'm used to. But I stayed on the lower ring all day today because he was so inconsistent on Monday's ride. I decided I'd work hard to keep my hands neutral.

We worked on floating around curves, doing the bullseye exercise and some in saddle bends. I'm gaining confidence. All I want to do is spend time out there, neglect my work, let the dishes sit, never buy groceries. Just family and horses.

Suggestions?

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These days I'm in the market for a saddle because the aussie i have is just not feeling right... I tried a Tucker that's for sale at the barn (isn't it gorgeous?), but it's too large and so new that it squeaks like a cheap box spring. Why is it that every listing I see for a Tucker says "Ridden only 3 times" or "Only on a horse a handful of times"? How can people pay that much for a saddle then not ride in it?

I am in love with a Martha Josey Circle Y that's on ebay. I don't barrel race but I like the deep seat. Still I'm trying to widen my horizons beyond circle Y and big horn.

What's your favorite brand?

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I'm getting a little paranoid. We have a nice little trail ride planned for the 26th and my trail companion's steady eddy horse spooked and she's banged up (although she's still determined to go). When I tried to get together with some blogging riders, there was a fire and then a horse injury that required girth area stitches!

Seriously. Is it me?


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Here's my horse responding to my request for him to pose for a picture (the first picture on this post was about 2 seconds before this one). Nice ear, right? lol He has no understanding of focal length.

Trailer, posting and just connecting

Today was my first lesson with Cibolo. I decided that since Cibolo has felt a little distant that before the lesson, I'd do a focus exercise. 

Usually I do two things I learned from a woman who almost bought Canyon from me over a year ago. I really picked up some good tips from her - she is a trainer that works with kids mostly, but is really keyed in with horses. She never uses bits and does amazing things on horseback. Here's her website.

Anyway, she told me to check your horses brakes and willingness with two tests. One, take a fingertip and pull down on your horse's halter below their head, near the lead rope. Your horse should easily lower it's head to just the slightest pressure . Do it from each side.

Second, back your horse from the ground with a fingertip to the chest/front shoulder. You should be able back the horse by only pointing to the chest.

So I always, always, do both tests on any horse I ride. I've found that sometimes it's clear that my horse isn't very responsive and needs some ground work before moving on.

But sometimes groundwork isn't quite the right thing. Sometimes its something else. The only way I can explain it is that the connection is just missing. And ordering Cibolo around in circles doesn't always bring the connection. 

But so far, the focus exercise does bring him around. Today I tried the same thing I did yesterday.  Just a little wiggle.  It took far less to regain and retain his focus. And when I got it back, it was amazing. I felt that connection again. In my mind I think "When you look at me, there is peace."

It works.  He actually ends up dropping his head into my lap, practically.

So it was a great time for my first lesson.

We worked on a few things on my list. One was working on turns. I couldn't tell how I was messing up my signals to Cibolo, but something was definitely off. He kept side passing. Which is darn ironic, don't you think? 

So for an hour the trainer helped me figure out what was going wrong. As it always is, I was missing one cue to keep him from side passing - a little bump on the outside leg. 

It was great - he was flexing into the turns. It went so well I decided to try this exercise from John Lyons.  It was fantastic. Cibolo floated his hindquarters over as I worked on "steering the tail."

Then it was time from my nemesis. POSTING. 

I can't two step and I can't post. 

But I did today. 

Okay, it was twice and for about 15 "posts" total.  But I finally felt what it's suppose to feel like. I think I can find the rhythm again with practice.

Then, to top it all off, Sierra and I loaded both Cibolo AND Lily. By our selves.

I loaded Cibolo fine, but I wasn't really up to trying  Lily. But the trainer insisted. Darn trainers. They take this whole "teaching" thing a little serious, you know?

:)

With Sierra at the window and with some persistent tapping Lily was in. And then I closed the door!

I almost passed out I was so amazed.

For my next trick I'm winning the lottery.  :)