Only a few more days until we leave for Dayton!  We made  plans for a schedule change, and I am going to drive Blondie Wednesday evening instead of riding her.  I haven’t driven her all year!  This is the last chance, and I didn’t want it to pass me by.

We have been practicing patterns, and Blondie has continued to try her best to do what I ask.  The patterns aren’t pretty, but we are getting them done.  Friday was the best effort, with her trotting a very nice, round circle, and then stepping off into a canter off the rail.  She weaved a little down the line, but things are slowly coming along.  The class at the show is more for a bench marker for us; I want to see how much we improve over the winter and try riding in another adult eq class next summer.

Wednesday was a fun lesson, and we had a new rider join the group.  All of the kids but Amber ditched us, and since Blondie and Nyk had been visited by the chiropractor earlier in the day, the had the night off.  At first I wasn’t very thrilled to ride Harley again, but then I thought that it would be a good opportunity to see if I have progressed since the last time I rode him. 

It was very uplifting to see how much progress I have made at the end of the lesson.  I was able to keep him bridled without pulling on his mouth, but instead by bumping him up with my legs.  Since he travels in slow motion, it is easier to do with him than with other horses.  I actually have time to react and correct, where Blondie and Nyk don’t give me that opportunity. 

Today we ran through Meijer and I picked up snackage for the trip.  I am almost all packed up, but I am still stressing that I will forget something. Ugh.

Today Sarah and I were the barn photographers.  I took pictures of the baby, and Sarah snapped Dee Dee’s first jumping efforts with someone riding her.

I rode Blondie and drove Nyk, and both of them were good little ponies.  Blondie worked so hard on a pattern, and Nyk stayed light in his bridle.  Neither one had awesome headsets, but that wasn’t really the goal for today so all was good.

Zoe rode Dee Dee in the round pen and jumped her over a small jump. Dee Dee took to it like a duck to water.  So much for being a Classic Pleasure horse!

DeeDee

On Thursday at Barn #2, I was in for a treat; I was able to ride a new horse.  Moonshine is a 5, and he is being groomed for his new career as a lesson horse.  I used to meet the prospect of riding a new pony with a certain amount of apprehension, usually in anticipation of the canter.  I guess I must be honest and say that if there is one gait that can cause nightmares, it is the canter.  This is ridiculous, because it is also my favorite gait, other than the rack, but there is that irrational fear that one of these days I’ll get on a horse and it won’t understand the word whoa.

Anyway, both S and Katie told me I needed to be “soft” with Moonshine.  I am not a soft rider – I am loud and demanding, and Moonshine really let me know when I was shouting my cues at him.  He didn’t like it one bit, and he didn’t hesitate to let me know by crow-hopping at the beginning of a canter.  I really like this horse.  He was honest and upfront, and tried to do everything I told him to do.  Even when I told him to fly off like a cannon ball.  How can you not like a pony who only wants to please? 

I have been working very hard to be lighter with my hands.  It is sometimes hard with my horses, because they both tend to have hard mouths, thanks to me riding too much off of my hands and not enough off of my legs.  This was very evident going the second way, because I couldn’t keep Moonshine in the corners.  This was getting me very frustrated, and I kept trying to neck rein.  S kept telling me  I needed to figure it out, and I appreciate that she gives me the opportunity to try to learn from my mistakes.  I knew I wasn’t using enough inside leg to keep him over, but I just couldn’t fix this during the lesson.  We were getting better at the canter cues, though, and overall, it was a good lesson.  It left me with a lot to think about, in terms of being lighter and softer, yet still effectively guiding and steering the horse.

Last night, I rode Nyk for the first time in about two weeks.  He was much lighter in the mouth when we started, but by the end, he was getting heavy again.  But, we worked mainly on keeping him slow, without worrying too much about his head set.  He gets going like a marching soldier, leaning on his bridle, and then I feel like I can’t get him to back off of it. 

Going the second way, I had the same problem that I had the night before; Nyk kept cutting the corners, especially at the far end of the arena.  I tried to work this out by myself, but finally had to ask M for help.  Putting my inside leg on him was only speeding him up.  She gave me a whip, and had me walk him straight down the rail into the wall.  If he veered to the inside, whack him on the shoulder.  My, he didn’t like that one little bit, but it did fix the problem.  He scooted around the corner the next time around  at a canter, and I had to run him into the wall when he wouldn’t stop, and then we had to walk to get him focused back on his manners.  He did stay out of the middle of the ring, though.  I felt that we accomplished a lot in terms of speed control.  Let’s see if this carries over to the next time I ride him.

So, Monday I got Blondie ready and we started working on patterns.  M told me to break them down into parts, and even if we blow a part, there are several sequences to a pattern and to just work harder on the next one.  We worked on trotting down the rail, halting at the midpoint, cantering a serpentine, stop, reverse, show trot out of the ring.  We did it at a trot, then moved up to a canter.  Then we worked briefly on cantering down the centerline with 2 changes of lead.  That didn't go so well, because Blondie was getting really excited about doing all of this strange stuff, so we stopped and I walked her out. 
 
I will admit this about my horse.  She tried very hard to do everything I asked of her.  I just didn't ask her correctly all of the time.  She paid attention the entire time, too.  No falling asleep during the theory portion, either.  Maybe my girl is finally growing up!

The group lesson was mainly rail work, due in part to the high humidity.  Blondie was sweating before I even got her ready, and after the first canter, she was puffing away like crazy.  M asked if I wanted to try to do a pattern, but I decided to wait until Friday.  She was so hot, and she did so well the day before, I didn't want to keep pushing her.  Besides, I was hot, too! 

I am glad we called it quits when we did, because it took forever to dry her off.  Why don’t they make industrial horse size dryers that we could just pop the ponies in for a few minutes, and out they would come, nice, warm, and smelling like the summer breeze?

DeeDee

Sorry for the lack of updates.  I gathered up my mobile blogging unit and took it to Anime Expo the week before last.  The evening before I left, I rode Blondie, and we worked on canter transitions.  That is something that I still need a lot of help with, and if I am going to try to ride in the adult eq class at Dayton, I need to work in all of the practice that I can.

DeeDee

I rode Blondie again on the Tuesday after my return from LA, this time in a show bridle.  Nothing epic with the lesson, just a solid ride for the first time in a week.  On Thursday I headed to Barn #2, and rode Lucky, again in a show bridle.  This was another great lesson, and again, canter transitions were a highlight, and I got most of the right, so there’s improvement.  My legs were very sore afterward, as I haven’t had a lesson there in almost a month, and S shows no mercy. 

Elvis, keeping the ponies awake

That was it for lessons, because the MAM show was this weekend at the State Fairgrounds.  I discovered, much to my dismay, that I could have taken Nyk, since they changed the schedule around at the last minute.  This kind of upset me, because if I had called them up and asked that they rearrange classes for me, they would have laughed and hung up.  I wonder which trainer they did this for, as I try not to seethe with too much resentment.  I got to see the CP Driving championship, and I think that we could have held our own in it. Huge disappointment for me, but I’ll get over it. Eventually.

I was mesmerized by his suit

I did go to watch the last session, and to pig out at the exhibitor party.  It was a lot of fun!  Elvis was even there!  The food was good, too, even if it was catered chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, and green beans. 

Much to my surprise, the trash that had been accumulating for over the past year was even cleaned up.  That makes no sense, since they are going to flatten the site.  Why spend the money to clean it up?  The place is still a total dump, and is an embarrassment compared to other fairgrounds I have be to.