Jumping Ponies!

Yes that's right I jumped for the first time since Erie!  Woohoo!!!  We'll get to the details in just a minute.

As you can probably tell by the lack of updates, this holiday season has been a little on the rough side for me.  It's been really hard on me realizing that my brother's not here this year.  Not to mention the insane amount of hours I'm working each week between the two jobs.  So sorry for the lack of updates.

So let's jump into what is sure to be a massive post here.  Well several weeks ago, we had a big milestone where the Boy and the ponies met for the first time.  That meeting went pretty well I think.  The Boy is still not real sure about horses, but he's trying.  So that gets him a ton of bonus points right there.

As far as the riding goes, I've really been focusing on my dressage lately.  Actually since Erie basically.  But it's paying off.  I switched to the big boys spurs for Bugsy a couple weeks ago and it's really made a difference.  Of course Bugs isn't so thrilled with the switch but he's moving off my leg a lot easier and our laterals are so much better!  We've been working on adding movements to our repertoire.  Or well I have as Bugsy already has them down pat.  We've gotten some pretty decent shoulder ins, and a couple of passable half passes.  I've started working on the extended trot and dabbled with haunches in.  I'm still struggling on the haunches in, but we'll get there.  I've also had some really good dressage rides on Airy.  I was really pleased with the good shoulder ins and half passes I got from her.  She's not nearly as well trained on them as Bugsy, and actually Bonnie hasn't done any of that with her in a long time.  So it was pretty impressive how well we did.

And then the week before Thanksgiving I jumped again!  Astrid decided she was ready to jump a little and so we all moved a couple sets of standards into the arena.  After some dressage with Bugs I decided to tack up Airy in my jumping saddle and I'd join the kids in their lesson.  Well after I blew all the dust off my saddle and got Airy tacked up we headed out to join Carlee, Ari and Astrid.  I'll admit after so much time spent in the dressage saddle being back in the jumping one felt a little weird.  We warmed up on the flat first and then Bonnie had us all head towards a small cross bar.  Airy was not exactly impressed with it.  But she hopped over.  Then the next time around, just as we lined up for the fence she tried to take off, gave a little buck and next thing I knew I was eating dirt.  Silly mare.  Got back in the saddle and we did it again, this time I was prepared for anything she might so.  We ended up jumping a few low fences, but called it quits after not too long.  She didn't try bucking again, but she did give me some pretty wild rides over some of the fences.

After we all finished jumping the kids all took their turns cantering and then Bonnie asked if I wanted to take Kaye over some fences!  Like I would say no to that.  And that's when I realized that the last time I even sat on Kaye was at South Farm in early June!  Crazy to think it had been so long.  So Carlee and I switched horses and Bonnie put the fences up a bit.  Nothing to drastic, just beginner novice height or so.  Kaye had a blast jumping the (slightly) bigger fences!  We had three fences set up, one in the center and then one off to either side at a slight angle.  We jumped them all going both directions, then I decided to do a little course.  Started out over the center fence, off to the one on the left, half circle to the other and then back over the center.  Turned around at the other end of the arena and did the whole thing in the opposite direction.  Toward the end Kaye was really getting in to jump off mode!  I let her keep going in a (controlled) canter, but she was cutting her corners to shave time and everything.  The one fence she cut so close my leg actually brushed the standard.  But she was having fun and I was having just as much fun with her.  I'm really enjoying the opportunity to learn from Bugsy and work with the all the other horses.  But I do miss riding Kaye and just getting to have fun!

Thanksgiving weekend I had a wild ride on Buggers.  Bonnie and Astrid were heading down to Maryland to pick up Buddy and Little Cuddles.  I headed out to the barn in the morning and tacked up to ride with Ari, Maggie and Tricia.  I made my first mistake by forgetting to lunge Bugs before I got on.  We warmed up beautifully at the walk, moved forward into a nice trot and then started with some pretty good laterals.  We had a couple great leg yields and then a very nice shoulder in.  Then coming out of that Bugsy spotted the super scary, horse eating...orange cone laying on it's side.  And he took off bucking.  Really Buggers?  The orange comes that have been in the arena for years?  The orange cones that you have jumped over, ridden around and played with?  So when he finally settled down I hopped off and hooked him up to the lunge line.  Lunged the pony for about 10 minutes or so and then hopped back on.  Ahh, so much better now!  He settled down and worked really well for me, even though he was very confused when I tried to show the two point position to Maggie.  He could not figure out why I was doing that in the wrong saddle!  So things went smoothly until we got to the canter.  I picked up the canter and first asked for a lot of canter-halt-reverse-canter transitions.  Canter a circle, halt, reverse, canter two circles.  Then maybe half a circle.  And so forth.  Then I asked him to do a three loop serpentine of the arena with a simple change for every loop and then do a three loop serpentine back in a counter canter.  Halt at the gate, turn on the haunches and do the same thing off the other lead.  First time down and back was great.  Then on the second time as we were completing the third loop down he tripped.  And came up bucking.  And I'm talking big, snap his back type bucks.  I sat up, dug my back into him, dug my spurs into him (and remember I was wearing the big boy spurs, so he felt them!) and made him move forward.  Once he stopped bucking we finished the exercise and then I made him to it again.  He was a sweaty Bugsy afterwards!  Oh well, I think I made my point.  Hopefully. 

So it's been a good couple of weeks with the ponies.  Lots of other stuff happening on the non-pony front.  But I think I'll save that for a separate post.

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Moving On

Well, I had plans to write this big catch up post but time has just gotten away from me.  And quite frankly I just can't think of everything that's happened.  So we're just starting fresh.

We have a new boarder in the barn, Courtney.  She just moved here from Texas to work as an engineer at Shell in Cranberry.  Very, very nice.  And she has two very cool horses.  Bucky is her BIG (17.3 h) Dutch Warmblood gelding.  She has shown him through Intermediare and is school Prix St. Georges so it's really neat to watch her work him.  I want to take Twinkie out with him someday and just let her watch.  Maybe she'll learn a thing or two.  :)  Courtney's other horse is her young pony mare, Kiwi.  Kiwi's just been under saddle for about 7 months, so she's still just learning, but oh so cute to watch.  It's nice because Courtney will come out in the evenings after work, so I've been getting in a few extra rides on my days off with her.

I'm starting to get out to the barn super early on Saturdays so I can find time to ride all the horses that Bonnie keeps adding to my string.  I haven't been on Kaye since the combined test at South Farm two months ago, and actually I'm okay with that.  I've got so many other great rides that I don't mind giving her a break from me.  She does enough with all the little kids, especially in this heat.  I'm still riding Bugsy every chance I get.  And after our success at the Boyd Martin clinic I've decided to enter him at Erie Hunt and Saddle Club Horse Trials on August 20th.  Erie is a great local event and I really encourage everyone to support EHSC.  We've been in the process of changing out the arena footing the last couple of weeks.  The new footing is all in now, but we haven't moved the jumps back yet.  We'd like to get them washed before we do that, so it's been a lot of dressage work.  Which I don't mind in the least.  I know Bugsy will jump everything, that's not a problem.  And water will be an option so I won't even attempt that.  And I know that if I can just get a good dressage ride, we have a chance at doing really well this weekend.  I had some real break through moments with Bugsy and I'm really pleased with how well he's going for me.  It's kinda funny actually.  He's really rather agreeable to working for me.  I certainly don't make him do it.  But I bribe him with lots of treats.  I and ride him enough like he likes, as in I know what I'm doing and I know how to ask for it.  But on the other hand I don't have enough leg on him to annoy him, and I don't pick on him, so he likes that.  So he's agreeable to working.  Plus I think he realizes that if I wasn't riding him, no one would be.  And Bugs is not one that enjoys hanging around without a job to do. 

The other horse Bonnie had recently added to my string is none other than Scarey Airy!  I had tried riding Airy in the past and it just wasn't a good match at the time.  I still had the tendency to grab with my legs and of course Airy took that to mean take off.  On the flat it wasn't too bad, but try and jump and she just bolted into the fences.  Fast forward a few years and lots of lunge lessons later, and low and behold, I can actually ride her.  And pretty well too if I do say so myself!  I got on her again for the first time a few weeks ago, originally only intending to ride her on the flat.  But after some good flatwork Bonnie suggested trying her over a couple fences.  We had been getting along well so I figured "why not?"  And Airy was a gem!  No rushing, just nice and easy over the fences.  She's such a change when jumping from Kaye and Bugsy. Both of them are so powerful over a fence, you really feel them sit back and push off into the jump.  With Airy though, you could close your eyes and honestly you wouldn't able to tell when she jumps, she's that smooth.  No less powerful than Bugs or Kaye, she's just a warmblood and jumps like one.

I've also started working with Twinkie a little bit again. She has been her usual good self.  I lunged her a bit before I got on her the first time, of course it was completely unnecessary.  I got on her and she was so good for me.  She's still a wiggle worm under saddle, we haven't quite figured out how to move off my leg yet, but she's getting there.  And she's very willing at both the walk and trot.  She really needs her feet done and shoes on the front so we haven't done too much with her yet.  But Ari did get on her and walk her a bit the one day and they got along well.

Let's see, what else has been happening?  Well X decided to scare the crap out of me a couple weeks ago.  It was Saturday and Jim was coming to put hay up in the loft.  So Bonnie, Katie, Victoria and I were upstairs doing that.  While waiting for Jim between bales I poked my head down the trap door into X's stall to say hi and he was laying flat out in his stall.  Very much not like him to do when there are people in the barn.  I called down to him and he lifted his head to look up at me but made no move to get up.  At this point I wasn't too concerned, it was super hot and he was in an inside stall, so I just thought he was stressing because he was overheated.  By the time I got downstairs he was working on getting up, so I snapped on a lead shank and took him out to the arena to hose him off and cool him down.  We go through the whole hose and scrape routine a couple times and I take him into the barn and clip him in the crossties where he can get the cross breeze.  I ask the kids to start working on his stall for me, and then Sarah comes over and tells me there's blood in his stall.  It's a tiny little bit, maybe like an inch in diameter.  I noticed he had a few places where he had rubbed on like his hip so I figured that's what it came from.  But I checked him over again just to be safe.  As I knelt down to feel his legs, I looked up and saw this:

You can imagine the panic I went through.  Well Bonnie managed to get me calmed down and she and Katie took him out to the ring to wash him well while I called Dr. Maro.  He didn't think it was too serious, it wasn't bleeding much and it didn't seem to bother him at all.  Keep it clean and moist and he would be out in the afternoon to stitch him up.   Needless to say it ended up being a long day for me.  Dr. Maro didn't make it out until about 5, and well, the location of the cut made it somewhat difficult to stitch.  But he was taken care of, he'll probably have a scar I'm sure, but he's okay and in one piece, so for that I am grateful.

Buppi is a lightweight!

After the stitches

Other than that it's just been a lot of working at both jobs.  I'm so ready for a break from that, let me tell you.  Erie's coming up this week, so I should have more to report soon!

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