The Repurposed Horse

Mud. My life this week is mud.  They actually do have grass, it's just not visible in this picture Missouri has been in a drought for a while, and this week has provided some much-needed rain...Which means that my barn life is now covered in mud. It's everywhere My horse is also covered in mud. His flashy white legs are now brown, and then I groom them and then he goes back out and somehow they're worse the next day. Of course, since we actually really *need* this rain, we're all trying not to complain too much.  Snacks? And the ponies, naturally, are enjoying it to the fullest! How's the weather where you are?

I haven't had much to write about lately - things are pretty steady right now, with moments of progress.  We're working on walking with contact, walking in general, and paying attention to leg at the moment.  Leo tends to completely overreact to outside leg (it means go faster, right?!), and completely ignore inside leg (think repeated pony-club kicks before he starts to actually move off it).  Focusing on leg reactivity means spending more days in the saddle than doing groundwork, which has been really nice these last few weeks as we've been lucky enough to have some pretty gorgeous weather.  It's resulted in some moments of brilliance - moments where Leo actually starts to stretch down and seek contact, and moments where he finally, finally begins to bend.  It's also led to one hilarious moment of panic - all of the work we've done has been at the walk and trot but on Monday, he was being so good that I decided to see what would happen at the canter...and...

I literally had no idea what I was going to post about today - life has been pretty boring this past week, horse-wise - and I was SO GLAD to see all of the EVENTING BINGO posts popping up when I logged in today; I completely forgot about Emma's awesome contest !  So, here is my contribution/entry.  I was assigned cards C and M. This post comes from the second vertical row of Card M.   Cleared the standards Got lost in the woods Finished last place Mud EVERYWHERE Passed another horse XC It was a cold and rainy day.  Despite my best attempts to bathe, groom, and show-sheen the crap out of Leo the night before the mini event, he had other plans involving his personal hygiene.  As in, when I arrived at the barn at the glorious hour of 4:30 AM, he was completely and totally covered in mud.  Like, there was mud EVERYWHERE .  How does a horse get mud inside of their ears?!  Leo, being the chromed out beast that he is, was looking decidedl...

When I first got Leo, I worked him almost every day.  He got 6 days on, 1 day off, for probably a month before he entered partial training with Trainer K.  When he was in training with her, he had 3 days with her and then 2 days of ground work with me, and that worked pretty well.  Then, when he graduated from training, we tried to go back to the 6:1 system that we had used before. Side note: this was originally going to be a confo shot//progress post, but ~someone~ wasn't cooperating, so you guys get to see some bloopers. Since then, it's been a struggle to work him 6 days a week - over the winter months I was juggling a full-time overnight job and a close-to-full-time schedule working at the barn , and trying to make time for my boyfriend and my dog and my sanity.  Then, Leo's eye issues  led to him getting several weeks off.  And it was during that time off that I made a pretty important discovery about my horse. my very, very cute horse. ...

To everyone's surprise and delight (NOT), this week is Trainer K's most favorite week of all - the week in which she removed all stirrups from all saddles, and then has us carry on with our lessons as usual. Pictured: a clean saddle sans stirrups No-stirrup work is a regular part of each lesson with Trainer K, but typically it doesn't last for more than 5-10 minutes on the flat // one or two jumps.  It's definitely something that Leo and I struggle with; for one thing, stirrups against his sides freaks him out a little, and for another, I have a hard time balancing without them. I tend to balance with my hands, which turns him into a giraffe, which makes me hold on tighter, which makes him run... cycle, cycle, cycle. So, removing the stirrups completely definitely helped with the panic-about-them-touching-him part, but not at all with the holding on too much part.  Still not sure how I got so far ahead without stirrups. By the end of our flatwork, we were in...

I forgot to mention - at the show, we met someone who had baby Leo pictures!!! When I first got Leo, he saw the chiropractor regularly. He was fairly unbalanced from left to right, had a hard time maintaining the canter when tracking left, and was generally body sore due to his major lifestyle change (going from a pasture puff//bi-weekly trail horse to being in partial training and learning to jump was a big transition).  In October, though, he "graduated" from regular visits, with the chiro telling me to sign him up again in the future if I noticed any changes in behavior or physicality. Although I haven't noticed anything major or particularly alarming, in the past few weeks there have been a few small changes in Leo's demeanor that together prompted me to sign him up for a visit with the chiro.  These include an occasional increase in irritability when I first put on a girth, and an occasional refusal to stand still near the mounting block when I go to g...

All media in this post comes from  Leah  (aka the most awesome person ever, who came and hung out with us and took pictures because she's awesome) unless otherwise noted. I have been avoiding writing this post for the past few days for several reasons.  For one thing, I have had the past few days off work, which is when I usually take the time to blog.  And for another thing, the show...didn't particularly go well.  It's not something that I have really felt like talking about, both in person and online.  But.  If I only wrote about the good, this blog would be kind of pointless.  So here we go. one of the only photos I took - note the sweatmarks. Saturday was a cold (compared to the weather we've been having lately), sunny day.  I got to the barn around 4:45 am to help feed and move horses.  Thanks to the temperature drop, Leo had been blanketed after his bath on Friday, so he was still shiny and clean.  We started loading ...