Where We’ve Been

It’s been slow riding for the last two months for several reasons. We spent half of May and most of June without a properly fitting saddle. I rode bareback maybe once a week while we waited for the new one to arrive. Then when it finally did (and boy is it wonderful!), I spent most of the next month traveling.

Now I’m home for a while, and ready to get back in the swing of things. My rides over the last two months have been nice, relaxing, and largely aimless. Since Ace has been out of work, they’ve mostly been geared towards maintaining the basics and keeping his muscles going. He has fallen a bit out of condition, and that right stifle is a little weak.

His feet have been looking the best they’ve ever been. His frogs are thick and healthy, and bear no more signs of the thrush of the last year or the abscess that blew out in the spring. They are ugly and misshapen at the moment, as they decided they couldn’t wait six weeks until the next trim (which is tonight) and started chipping at the toes. They’ve grown really fast and the ground has been very hard, so they really just wore naturally albeit unevenly.

It’s nothing that won’t be fixed with one trimming, but his feet are all uneven and goofy looking, so I’ve had to take it easy over the last week. I’ll try to get some pictures for you pre-trim tonight so you can see what these silly feet did. It made me realize that if left without hoofcare (which won’t happen under my ownership), Ace would never have those crazy-long-elf-toed feet I’ve seen only in pictures.

Where We’re Going

I’ve been feeling rather aimless in our training for the past months. And have enjoyed just going for pleasure rides and doing whatever we felt like doing for the moment.

But now that I’m staying home for the rest of the summer and Ace gets his feet fixed tonight, I’m finding myself feeling motivated to set some goals and make an actual training plan.

Maybe it’s finally hitting up a local show this fall for some flat classes. Maybe it’s what we want to accomplish in training. Maybe it’s both. Here’s what I’m thinking …

I’d like to set three days a week (can always be more) as riding and training days. One would be for dressage/lateral work (which we really need to start but that has been intimidating me). One would be for pole work and jumping. One would be for conditioning and hill work outside in the large field. Then any other rides we fit in during the week could be for whatever we feel like doing … extra jumping, a hack out with friends, an easy 3o minute walk/trot session.

By the end of August, I’d like to have solid leg yields and be jumping small verticals again.

Sound like a good plan? What would you add or subtract? And how on earth do I start teaching him leg yields?

We’ve also been doing some fun ground work – including jumping on the longe and going for trail walks.

On Monday, we went for a short trail hand-walk around the property and through the woods. The bugs, deer flies particularly, were horrible, so we didn’t stay long. But Ace was very brave as we wove between the trees by ourselves without his trail buddy Nikki to protect him.

I decided that since I was on the ground (which makes Ace braver), and happened to be wearing my lovely Dav rain boots, we would go check out the stream and do some schooling through water. It was all of 2 and a half feet wide with a few inches of water, with 2 foot banks on either side. I led Ace up to it, and I walked down and stood in the middle of the water. He took some time to stare at the stream, nibble some grass, and blow at the bank. When I decided he’d checked it out long enough, I gave a few gentle tugs on the lead rope – expecting compliance but prepared for Ace to either resist or go charging through.

I tugged once. Ace looked at me and blinked a few times. I tugged again. He looked at me again. And then proceeded to march calmly down the bank, through the water, and up the other side.

I was impressed, and praised and patted him like crazy (and thanked God he didn’t run me over!). We proceeded to walk  back and forth through the stream several times, stopping once to play in it a bit. He didn’t hesitate at all after his first march through.

And then we left because the deer flies were getting very nasty and I didn’t want my big Thoroughbred baby to have a chance to throw a tantrum.

I was absolutely thrilled with how brave Ace was about the stream, as he tends to get nervous when we try new things. It gave me a huge boost of confidence in his ability to trust me in new situations as well. I’m sure it would have been more of an issue with me on his back, as he is much more confident still when I’m on the ground. Now to get that same trust under saddle…

And on another note, we haven’t had a recurrence of the hives. It definitely wasn’t something he ate in the pasture or my fly spray, as both have been tested and used multiple times now without adverse reaction. My best guess is that it was a reaction to the bugs … as he got the hives the first time they got bad this year. Hopefully it was just an initial reaction and his resistance is building to them.

All in all, we are happy and healthy and having fun together – but getting super anxious for the new saddle to come!

Ace was on high alert as we rode late Saturday morning, spooking and dancing and generally feeling good. I had actually taken the time to set up three whole jumps in the arena, a small crossrail and two small verticals that were barely 18 inches. Nothing he hasn’t done  many times before with no problem.

We started with the crossrail. He got a little squirrely in front of it at first, making me work to keep him straight, and then he’d take off crowhopping afterwards because he was having fun. Once he settled down a bit, we trotted for one of the straight rails, and he decided to try to run out. He’s a bit nasty about too, and can really pull out to the side hard at the last minute. Fortunately, I stuck with him and got his nose back over the jump, eventually just stepping over it. We didn’t have to circle or come back to it, so at least that was good.

When he did it again a second time, I had my awesome jump crew (aka my lesson student Hannah), put one side down.  The next time he went right over but jumped as if it was 2 feet high instead of just sitting on the ground. We spent the next 45 minutes trotting the fences in both directions until Ace settled down enough to just trot over the fences in a relaxed state. And he eventually did.

The funny thing is, Ace seemed like he enjoyed the whole thing. Besides being on high-alert with everything going on outside the ring, he was happy to be working and jumping.

I’m not a fan of him trying to run out, because he is really quite adamant about it and even when I’m ready and being proactive there’s not a lot I can do to stop it other than getting him back in front of the jump after he’s gone to the side. I don’t want him to learn that anything but “over” is even an option. My plan is just to keep putting him over the little stuff until he hardly notices it and just goes over like it’s the oldest news in the world.

I so badly want to start putting the heights up and really jumping, but I know that Ace needs a whole lot more schooling over the tiny ones to get his confidence up before he’s ready to handle anything bigger. He’s a smart horse, and he genuinely likes to jump, but he gets worried easily and it is just going to take longer with him than with other horses. I just hope that putting in whatever amount of time it takes to build his confidence will eliminate his worrying so that eventually we don’t have issues with runouts. I don’t want to him learn that not going over is even an option and start making a habit of it.

It really was a fun ride, despite the things I worry about afterward. And I must admit, I do really like it when Ace has his thoroughbred days! The energy and the forward are so nice. And to top it off, we went for an easy ride yesterday to stretch his muscles after the hard work, and it was one of the best rides we’ve ever had. It was certainly the nicest he’s ever moved!

I don’t do anything big for horsey birthdays, but I will of course stop out to clean out his foot (abscess is clear and healing nicely, by the way) and spoil him with a few extra cookies than normal.

I’ll also give him some birthday hugs and rubs and boost his confidence by telling him how wonderful the muscles in his neck and topline are looking. All boys like when you admire their muscles, right? Ace may never be a bodybuilder in the horse world, but he’s really developed some lovely lean, strong muscles lately.

With blowing an abscess and me being gone at Equine Affaire last weekend and to a wedding in Florida this weekend (rough, I know), we’ve been getting in very little riding time lately.

I rode Ace on Tuesday for the first time in nearly two weeks, and was pleasantly surprised with how good he was. Well, not so much that he was good because he’s always well behaved, but that he was still rounding up and offering to carry himself nicely. That was a big deal for two reasons:

1. He had nearly two weeks off, and he starts to lose his hindend strength if he goes more than 2 days without being ridden.

2. I was trying him in a new bit, a simple Myler loose ring jointed snaffle.

Ace is a little weak in his right stifle and he needs consistent work to maintain his strength. While he certainly wasn’t moving his best and his stifle was clicking from time to time on the turns, he was still offering to use his hind end and round up. I’m sure a lot of this is because his overall strength and muscle memory has been developing. Jeremy Steinberg talked a lot about this in his dressage clinics at Equine Affaire last weekend. He said that horses can actually get in shape cardiovascularly very quickly – within a week or two – but that it can take them 6 months or a year to build up muscle. And we are just hitting the 6 month mark since we moved to Shooting Star and started riding more and focusing on conditioning and carriage.

I think the Myler loose ring is going to be a good bit change as well. While Ace listened to the old French link eggbutt pretty well, he was a little reluctant to come on the bit and would frequently grind his jaw side to side.

I took it easy with the new bit on Tuesday, doing lots of transitions and turning to see how he’d respond. I know Ace needs some time to get used to it, but he was already seeking the contact more and jawing less. Might just work out well!

I’m very much looking forward to this weekend in Florida, but boy am I going to be ready for some time at home with my horse!

After three months of consistent, hard work, my handsome boy now:

• walk, trot, canters
• understands leads … most of the time
• does amazing walk to canter transitions, and gets mad if I use more than a little bit of seat and clenching my outside calf muscle to ask for it
• is very forward and responsive to leg aids
• is mostly straight
• bends well from seat and legs
• is a ground pole and cavalleti champ
• trots and canters 18″ jumps
• is learning to collect and round and hold himself in carriage for longer periods of time
• stands still for mounting
• trail rides
• does turns on the forehand, turns on the hindquarters, side passes, and a little bit of leg yielding
• is learning to stop from my seat

On a rider note, I have

• greatly improved core, seat, and leg strength
• gotten much better at riding from my seat and legs and only adding reins when necessary
• gotten better about not constantly fussing at Ace to fix everything all at once
• gained understanding and started to utilize some basic concepts I was missing, like inside leg to outside rein

One of the key issues I continue to work through is that he often drops his shoulders through turns at the canter. We’ve been doing some counter bending exercises to strengthen his body, and I am always sure to support him through the turns to keep that shoulder lifted and the bend correct.

He also has a hard time with picking up the correct lead when I ask for canter on the straight-of-way rather than in a corner. This is primarily a problem in the set up; he likes to pop his shoulders in rather than just his hips. It’s worse to the left than to the right.

I realized yesterday that part of the problem in both these areas is that Ace doesn’t accept the contact with the right rein. It’s that whole inside leg to outside rein thing I’m really starting to get. He’s great about it going to the right when he’s taking contact with the left rein. He avoids it the other direction when he should be taking contact with the right rein.

Anybody have any good exercises that will help me teach Ace to go into the contact with the right rein?

Between that and access to a larger arena in which to work, we’re progressing amazingly.

A year ago, I was lucky if Ace went forward when I squeezed my legs. Now, the slightest closing gets a trot and a little outside heel gets the canter – with the correct lead most of the time! We have straightness. Ace bends well (with a little help). He can do the slightest bit of leg yield. He’s starting to get rounder in his carriage and accept contact. He never hits a ground pole when we trot through. He understands my leg aids and needs very little rein for support.

With all of these developments, I’m finally getting to teach him what I’ve wanted to do from Day One: Jumping!

Ace’s learning personality makes it necessary for me to be very careful and recognize his limits. He’s generally a very willing horse, but tends to get grumpy when I teach him something new. Even as he starts to understand what I’m asking for the first time, he makes faces at me, swishes his tail, and gets balky. And if he trips over a pole, he gets mad and stops. At least he used to. I haven’t seen that attitude in months – but I’m also being careful to avoid it!

In an effort to avoid any incidents in which Ace bungles a jump, and then refuses to go again, I’m going super slow. The last thing I want is a horse who has a tendency to run-out or refuse. So we’ve spent months going over ground and elevated trot poles. These days, Ace loves them. He goes at them with ears up and neck stretched and a great lift in his step.

Then we started trotting over tiny crossrails, and then slightly bigger crossrails. Recently, we’ve been trotting over these:

The first few times he’d actually jump, then he started taking a big trot step. Once he got really comfortable, I started asking him to land cantering. Trotting in and cantering out ensures that he actually jumps. And – he evens picks up the correct lead on the landing!

Last night we moved on to our next stage: cantering a ground pole. And Ace went right over like he’d been doing it his whole life. I’ll probably go ahead and raise it very soon … and we’ll officially be cantering over jumps! Then I can start adding height … and then multiple obstacles … and lines … and gymnastics …

I’m working hard to stay out of his way so that he can figure it out without my interference. I want him to be able to think and adjust himself rather than waiting on me to adjust him. It’s super hard to do; I’ve been jumping for 15 years and it’s second nature to adjust his stride and get involved.

Right now the only thing I’m really asking is that he goes over – and he does! We haven’t had a single run-out or refusal. Ace goes right over without hesitating every time. And he is staying nice and straight on approach.

From what I can feel from his back, Ace uses himself nicely and jumps well. He stretches down his head and neck for balance, picks up his knees, doesn’t twist, and has an overall nice jump. And most importantly – he’s enjoying it too!

Ace has had one week and one day in his new home and is doing exceptionally well. We even went on our very first trail ride last Friday!

Moving Day

Moving day dawned cold, windy, rainy, and dropping in temperature. While it was gross for loading up my jump equipment and horse, it fit the mood as we prepared to leave our former home. The new barn owner and I took her trailer to get Ace, and after visiting with my friends for a while, it was time to head out.

We didn’t have far to go, but I wrapped Ace’s legs anyways because as any one who has read for a while knows, he’s a bit accident prone. He walked right onto the trailer and was patient as I shoved him in and closed the divider (he’s so long he barely fit). He behaved himself the whole way. When we arrived, I opened up the trailer door and then the divider, and Ace immediately started to back out … before I could unclip him. To my great happiness, our tie training paid off and as soon as he felt the pressure from the trailer tie he stepped forward again instead of fighting. Once he was unclipped and I got the lead attached, he backed himself right off and took a good look around his new home. We walked around the arena a few times with just a little blowing as he checked out the surroundings. Then I took him to his new stall … he got one of the double stalls that is 10×20 feet! With a flake of hay and lots of room, he settled right in.

Settling In

Ace settled into the new routine very quickly. Because being in a smaller space and with bossy horses, stresses him out, he gets turned out daily with the “babies.” He quickly made himself king of his little 4-horse herd. His new buddies are Mister, a colt foaled last spring; Mo, a very timid 3-year-old; and Tie, who is 2-years-old and the pushiest of the bunch. After receiving two small warning kicks from Ace, Tie quickly relinquished leadership. They all get along well and mostly stay out of each other’s way.

Ace seems quite happy with his new routine of being stalled overnight and out during the day. He’s been very relaxed and cooperative all week. Some of his spooky and other bad behaviors that appeared with the cold fall weather have disappeared.

Working Hard

I immediately took advantage of our new 60×150 foot arena and put Ace to work. We went from only riding once a week to 5 rides in one week! We’ve mostly been doing walk/trot to get him re-conditioned, with a little canter work and some trot poles thrown in. He feels so much better with the extra room. Although, he did have to re-learn not to over-bend and bulge through the turns.

And the best ride so far was going for our first trail on Friday with our friends Pam and her Appy mare Nikki. We went out for a little over an hour and Ace was fantastic! He was pretty relaxed the whole time. Every once in a while he’d go on alert and look around, but mostly he just followed Nikki and seemed to enjoy a nice afternoon out. I think it might just have been the most pleasant trail ride I have ever been on. Pam, Nikki, Ace and I have scheduled a recurring trail date for Friday afternoons.

I might just have my eventing horse after all!

After 3 good rides and an hour on the trails, Ace was worn out! He was happy to stand in the aisle outside his stall and let the cross ties hold his head up for him.

When my mom and I showed up Saturday for yet another the ride, the look on his face very clearly said, “You’re kidding me, right?”

He’s getting Sunday and Monday off, and then we’ll be back to work with these Jane Savoie exercises tomorrow.

We’ve been walking and trotting over this tiny crossrail with no  hesitation (and only lacking a little in grace). I’ve also lunged him at a trot over a crossrail with the blocks on their highest setting. He just takes a big trot step over this little thing, but actually has to make a slight jumping effort over the taller size.

He’s a little clumsy with his back legs, and gets mad if he knocks it over. But we haven’t had any inkling of a refusal, he goes at it with his ears perked and happy, and its been a good experience for him so far.

I need to keep lunging him over the obstacles that require an actual jump a little more before I ask him to do it with me on his back. His attitude is great and he likes doing it, but he’s still learning what to do with his feet.

In the midst of all this, I have been checking on Ace nearly every day, even if I just stop out for three minutes to pick his feet.

Back In His Old Digs

Ace is a happy boy these days. Dave and Tracie have a new permanent addition to their personal herd, bringing their total back up to four. Poke is a great little chesnut quarter horse; he was boarded with us for a while, and was recently given to Dave and Tracie. I rode him a bit when he was here before, and really liked him.

We have two main stabling areas at the barn. The first consists of four stalls in the end of the indoor arena, where Dave and Tracie’s horses live. They go in their stalls morning and evening to eat, and are loose in the arena during the day and night. When we had to put Classic down last December, Ace moved into her stall in the arena.

The second area is a small pole barn just in front of the arena where Ace lived when I first got him. It has two stalls and storage for hay. It has access from the stalls to a large paddock area that goes around the arena. Lately, Dave has had some horses in for training for a month or two at a time. They stay in the small barn and paddock, which makes management easy.

Now that Poke has come home and there’s a sixth horse in the mix, it made a lot more sense for Poke to live with Dave and Tracie’s other three horses in the arena and for Ace to go back to the small barn. Instead of sharing the paddock with the horses who cycle in and out, Dave split the paddock in two so each horse has his own space.

Ace seems quite happy with the new situation. He’s outside all the time, moves around quite a bit, and is even building up some muscle in his butt since his part of the paddock has a big hill. He doesn’t mind a bit being separated from his herd, but does still get some pasture time with them. I like having him out there where he has constant access to outside (which also solves my blanketing problem for this winter!).

Ace’s Elephant Memory

To my very great happiness, Ace has been 100% sound for nearly a month now. He got his feet trimmed last week, so they are starting to look much better and the bad frog has healed and grown back significantly.

Now that I’m starting to settle into the new house and schedule, I can start working my horse again. I started with some ground work over the weekend, to renew our communication skills and see how much he remembered after 6 weeks off.

It was like he had been worked yesterday.

He remembered how to do everything I asked, except to stop and disengage his hindquarters when circling. (and I can’t really complain about having issues stopping rather than going, for a change, can I?). Actually, he was doing the groundwork better than he had. We’ve honed some of our skills under saddle, so he moves his shoulders and does sideways much better on the ground now than he ever did.

This is the second injury that has sidelined Ace for at least a month, and both times he’s started right back up where we left off. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen another horse handle it quite that well.

Mostly, I now need to work on re-conditioning him. I think he’s still weak in that right stifle, because although he’s sound, it sometimes makes that popping noise if he’s not using himself well.

I’m going to lunge him over the next week, and then get back in the saddle with long walks and slowly building up the trot and canter work. I hope this nice weather holds out a while longer so I can ride outside and get him back in shape before we are confined to the arena for the winter!

My younger sisters are identical twins, and are just 20 months younger than I am. Mom had them on horses from the time they were young also. We grew up riding together, and even managed to compete against each other with good attitudes. Unfortunately, the horse bug didn’t quite bite them the way it did me. While they aren’t riding regularly, they do get into the saddle every once in a while and are still very nice riders.

Sheryl (on the right) moved to Oklahoma last summer (quite a trek from PA and OH where the rest of us are) and thus had never met her new nephew Ace. She’s been home for a few weeks, and one of her to-do’s was to come meet him! So last night she and mom drove over for a visit.

Ace was a little less than his typically social self when we first arrived at the barn because he was busy with his hay. But we brushed him up, threw on some tack, and took him out to the pasture for some riding.

I’m not sure what I was thinking, but for some reason I went and told Sheryl that I would even let her get on Ace if she wanted! I was a little nervous about it because I’m the only one who rides him. I didn’t know how he would do! Since I’ve had him, my mom rode him a bit  once and Dave walked him once way back last fall. It’s taken a lot of work for me to teach Ace to listen to me, and I had no idea how well he would respect someone else.

I hopped on first to get him started, and then turned him over to my mom. He was very good for her, other than one good spook when the neighbor dog ran at him barking (when Ace spooks, he drops and goes sideways, blows a bit, and then moves off like nothing happened. Mom liked that response!).

I knew Ace would listen to my mom pretty well. She taught me most of what I know, so for him it was like having a shorter version of me on his back.

Sheryl was up next. I was so pleased that Ace took great care of her and even listened to  her pretty well. He did test her a little bit because she was a tad more tentative about it. He took a little more coaxing to go forward, and tried to do his “stop and visit” thing when she rode him by once. But she was able to get him forward without too much trouble and enjoyed her time on him. I was a slightly nervous but very proud mother!

It was a good chance for me to watch Ace move under saddle, especially with his stifle issues of late. He didn’t look great, but he didn’t look bad either. His stiffness was more pronounced if we posted on the left diagonal than on the right. And the better he moved the better he looked.

Despite the lameness issue, it was really fun to watch Ace go under saddle! And I was thrilled with how well he responded to several different riders. Thanks for helping me with Ace’s training guys!