Updates and good lessons

Last week: Had two very good rides on Radar.  He really makes you ride every. single. step. which is challenging in a way but also good feedback because it's what a rider should be doing on every horse.  He's in a really good place, and we had some fun with cantering and that sort of stuff - things that were quite difficult last year when he was in his pain cycle.

Today's lesson: Indy's back in action! Had a good lesson after some initial weirdness of going from a 14hh to 16hh horse!  Worked on really bending him and getting his hind end moving.  He's interesting because he's subtler than Radar in his evasions - he'll hollow or brace, but he will still keep going forward (just not as well).  It's easier to get complacent, which we definitely can't have!  But by the end of the lesson I got some great trot work in almost a training level frame... for me, that's a great accomplishment.  So I'm sore but it was worth it.

Lesson horses: the good and the bad

The bad: Indy is still off.  The abscess might need further draining.

The good: Radar is doing excellent and we had another great lesson with good canter work at the end!  Riding other people's horses is hard.  Radar can get into pain cycles (like he was in last spring/summer) that make him really heavy and difficult for me to ride.  Right now, between his management and the other riders who ride him, he's in a great place and is pretty willing and able.  Started out really sore from my last ride but worked through it, then went on to some basic bending, sitting trot, and canter work!  Cantered both directions multiple times and actually made it more than one time around the circle.  Sadly enough, on Radar this is an accomplishment!  Overall, a very fun lesson.

Of abscesses and trail rides

Abscesses: poor Indy turned up dead lame yesterday with an abscess.  Luckily the vet was able to find it pretty fast, but the poor guy looked pretty miserable today.  This is actually good news because he's been doing this weird hopping thing in the short ends over the last few weeks and we were worried it was more serious - hopefully it was abscess-related only.  So he was obviously out of commission today.

Trail rides: actually more like a country road ride, but same idea.  Rode Radar up and down the road today for something different.  It was actually good because I hurt my foot taking a walk yesterday (seriously, only I will do that!) and it was a light ride.  For as much as some of Radar's qualities in the arena are sometimes frustrating (such as being rather sluggish and dead to the aids) those qualities make him a great trail horse for a chicken rider like me.  You have to love it when a huge truck comes by and you spend more time making sure the pony doesn't sneak some grass than concerned about the truck!  This convinced me that I think Radar will be my first foray into Briones in about 4 years this year.  Hopefully there will be room for me in the trailers when I'm still inspired!

Pony funny of the day:
Poor Radar is not the brightest pony in the world, to say the least.  I was coming around the back of the run out for his stall, and went ahead and put an apple into his stall.  He didn't move an inch.  I could not get his attention at all (meanwhile the horse next to him is throwing a fit at said lonely apple).  So I give up, go around the barn, retrieve apple from the floor, show it to him, and place it in his feed bucket.  He STILL doesn't move an inch.  We try not to hand feed in general, but as my instructor is watching this all go down she determines that I should just give the poor pony his apple by hand.  Pony gets apple right in front of his face, eats, is happy.  Who said ponies were so smart?

Expectations of Obedience

So today Mia had me working a lot on changing my mindset when it comes to how I ride.  Coming from 15 years of riding predominately school horses, you tend to get a bit lax about things. (I said trot. How about a trot? Five strides later... you finally get the trot you asked for) But that isn't how it's supposed to work and I'm a decent enough rider that I can expect my horse to respond to my aids and get after him when he doesn't.  He's a lot happier, too, when it's clear what exactly he's supposed to be doing!

After that little discussion, we worked on some circles/turning them into serpentines whenever possible.  Our arena isn't huge, so it involves a fairly quick change of bend between half-circles which sometimes proved difficult but by the end of the ride I managed to get him moving and changing nicely.  Definitely ended on a good note.

And apparently his owner dropped by for a surprise visit/check after Mia had made the offer... and was so happy to see how well he's doing that she cried.  I'm glad our appreciation and admiration for him shows.