Back in the Saddle and Feeding the Fish

I have not ridden in three weeks due to a lack of time and some physical restrictions. I had to have a very minor surgery a couple of weeks ago and riding was on the 'no' list for a couple of weeks although after a couple of days I could do all of my usual farm work. The week before that I was busy finishing up the last couple of days of dental appointments and just generally busy. I was very happy to get back in the saddle today. It was another gorgeous day today and perfect for enjoying the horses. I hopped on Sky for a few minutes and of course had very low expectations after three weeks off. I was only on her for 15 minutes total.


Too my great surprise I had one of my best rides yet on her. She remembered everything we had been working on as far as contact, pushing from behind, lifting her back, being on the bit, it was like we had not missed a day. I mostly walked with a few minutes of trotting and two 20 meter canter circles. I was expecting we would regress in our progress so I was very pleasantly surprised. She had lots of patting and heard "good girl!" over and over. Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to ride both Sky and Bonnie. We all know Bonnie does best with consistent work, but maybe Sky has set the tone and Bonnie will give me a pleasant surprise as well.

Sky lifted her head from grazing for a moment when I took her picture

Things have been pleasantly routine around the farm the last few days. In an interesting herd dynamic note MyLight has become the definite boss mare in her group. The mares and Cuffie are always an interesting and entertaining group, you will recall the pony wars they had a couple of months ago! Anyway, in a gradual transition over a few weeks MyLight emerged as the alpha mare and has remained solidly in that position for a few weeks now. It was not a dramatic change but rather a gradual shift. The only real difference is that she gets fed first, and on the rare occasion that she pins her ears at one of the others they get out her way pronto. I definitely wasn't expecting this as MyLight has typically been towards the bottom of the order in the past according to her mom.

The weather has been pretty spectacular the last few days. It has been great to have normal October weather again, 70's and sunny. I spent a pleasant 20 minutes or so at the pond yesterday afternoon feeding the fish. My dad keeps the pond stocked and feeds the fish regularly so they are trained to come up to the surface to get the food. When you start throwing the food in all of a sudden it looks like a tidal wave heading for you as the fish charge their way to the food. The fish actually know the sound of his Gator and head over to the spillway when they hear him coming!

Not much else to report here so it is time to sign off.

These pictures of the fish with their mouths open makes me hear the music from Jaws playing in the background.

Cuffie, Missy and Lily grazing quietly

I love this picture of Apollo; he is a great horse with a kind personality and I think it comes through in this picture

Levendi's totally adorable face

MyLight and Buffy

Teddy, Lucky and Mr. O'Reilly

Trillion and Winston are buddies

This isn't the picture I was going for; B-Rad was resting his head on Ogie's back but he moved just as I took the picture

Faune and Sebastian can often be seen right next to each other

Enjoying retirement

Riding Sky and Overprotective Parenting

Sky and I are finally starting to get to know each other under saddle. I took it pretty easy on her the first week and didn't really do anything but walk under saddle, but we've had a few nice rides now. Hard to believe she hasn't even been here two weeks yet! You will noticed that I've dropped the second y from the end of her name. I'm not in love with the name Sky but everyone, including me, thinks of her as Sky now so I guess the name is here to stay! The name is starting to grow on me though, just like she is.


Sky is what I would describe as 'hunter' broke. She will trot and canter around in a nice rhythm all day with no real contact on the reins. She seems to have been ridden with more of a headset in mind than actual, true throughness and softness and thus no real elasticity and lifting in her topline. So especially at the walk and trot I've been trying to get her to start stretching down and reaching for the contact. At the canter I'm still just cantering in hunter mode, up out of the saddle in a half seat with light contact. She is a fantastic mover, even better than what I was expecting from her sales video, so I'm excited to see how much improvement we'll see in her gaits as we start developing her flatwork better.


By the way this was pretty much what I was expecting as far as where she would be in her training. Sky has never really had her own person and her own program. She was one of many foals at the large breeding facility where she was born, and then was backed and imported by a jumper barn in Ocala, FL and taken straight into the jumper ring when she was four. It doesn't surprise me that it quickly became apparent that Sky was NOT destined to be a big time jumper. She would be fine as a children's/adult jumper (3'6") but I wouldn't see her progressing up the ranks from there. Sky is definitely more of a hunter and nice horse to do dressage on at the lower levels, and I'm hoping she'll be game to jump around some cross country courses as well. Since she was in a strictly jumper barn she was turned back out after a couple of shows and sat in a pasture for over a year doing nothing. She was purchased by the wonderful people I bought her from a few months ago and was in sporadic work while waiting for a buyer. Sky is six this year.

I plan to do a lot of long and low work at the walk, trot and canter in the next few weeks and work on asking her to relax through her back and stretch into an active, soft contact. After just a few rides she is already starting to get the concept at the walk and trot. I won't push for it at the canter until she's really getting it at the walk and trot. She is also clearly not used to someone truly sitting the canter and is very used to more of a half seat, hunter type ride at the canter. With the incredibly willing attitude and quick learning she's shown me in our first three real rides together it looks like it will be fun to really develop her flatwork. I've already started to incorporate lots of poles in our flatwork and will pop her over a few low fences sometime soon.

Just as she needs some gymnasticizing on the flat I'm sure our jumping will consist of mainly gymnastics at first also. Every Saturday in August our local pony club chapter will have the cross country course used for the Middle Tennessee Pony Club Horse Trials open for schooling. The MTPC Horse Trials is actually the oldest consecutively run recognized horse trial in the country. Hopefully I'll have time to take her over there and we can cruise around, go up and down the bank, through the water jump and take in all the sights. She's never seen a cross country course before but she is so sweet and quiet I'm thinking she'll take it well!

I would love to hear about your favorite exercises for relaxing and stretching the topline and teaching them to have true contact. I plan on doing lots of leg yields, spiraling in and out on a circle, changes of direction, etc. Pretty much the usual, basic things. I'm trying to focus on having soft hands and showing her a very inviting contact that she would like to accept. I'm pretty rusty since I've been mostly out of the saddle the last few years so any exercises and tips are welcome. It is amazing all of the things you forget when you aren't using them. I also plan on taking dressage lessons as well after we've gotten to know each other more. I'm lucky to have Tami Crawford, an excellent Grand Prix dressage rider and trainer, just seven miles away from me. Tami qualified for the Olympic selection trials on one of her horses a few years ago so I'm excited to take some lessons from her.

In addition to my first rides on Sky our excitement last week was our concern over Jo's weight. Jo is one of our two fainting goats and as I mentioned in my last post we were weighing her in a cooler - and she got nervous, fainted, and fell out the first time! That was traumatizing for Jason and I but she seemed fine with it. Jo is used to being a fainting goat but we still aren't always used to the fainting ourselves!

Anyway, the vet was out to see Jo on Friday. We put Mina and Jo in their stall and she examined both of them for a couple of minutes. Then she looked at us and said "I'm not sure why I'm here. These two goats look amazing. Their coats have a gorgeous shine, their gum tissue and soft tissue around the eyes have perfect color and their weight is excellent." We reiterated to her that Jo had dropped a decent amount of weight and we weren't sure if it was a growth spurt, parasites, or what and that even Mina had dropped a little weight. Well, she said Mina didn't need to get any heavier or she would be really fat (good thing she didn't see her a couple of weeks ago!!!) and that Jo was in perfect weight. As it turns out Jason and I had fat goats that dropped down to a better weight. Oops. What can I say, this isn't the place to be if you want to be a skinny, sad looking animal! We were happy that we had the vet out for absolutely nothing, a much better outcome than it being something!

Christmas in July - NEW HORSE!!

It still hasn't really sunk in yet but I have a NEW HORSE! To put it mildly my riding life has sucked the last few years. Let's see, both of my show horses were retired within a couple of years of each other. I had two very nice youngsters (Bonnie and Lexi) that I had bred to be their replacements but of course for awhile they weren't old even enough to even be backed yet. They were backed during their three year old year then turned back out to grow more. We started them up again in the spring of their four year old year (last year) and things seemed like they might finally be going my way.

Skyy

Then I had the trailer incident coming back from a cross country school which put us out of commission again . . . and the depressing saga of my riding (or should I say non-riding?) life continued on. Bonnie especially does not do well with this whole stop then start program, a consistent program is her friend. Of course a consistent program is best for any extremely green horse! Then of course you have to add my busy schedule on top of everything - I run a farm as you know! I've brought along a lot of green horses throughout the years, but I have learned there is a huge difference between a green horse and a horse that isn't started at all.

My very first glimpse of Skyy in person

Jason, world's greatest husband, finally got sick of it all. Sick of me not riding, sick of me complaining about not riding, then sick of me lamenting about how hard it is to bring along two completely green bean horses when you aren't working with them consistently. One day he looked at me and said "Why don't you just go buy a horse with more training and have fun with it?" I didn't think he really meant it at first, plus I felt guilty just thinking about getting another horse.

She has a very soft eye

But he kept saying that so I started kind of half -heartedly looking around. Yeah, you know how the rest of this story goes! Before I knew it I had seen Skyy's picture, then her video and then - voila! - I had bought her. Yes, you read that right. I bought her without ever seeing her in person or riding her. I did everything you aren't supposed to do when buying a horse! I did of course have a thorough pre-purchase exam done.

Meeting Norman. Norman has become our resident "barn pony" and is free to roam around certain areas of the farm. He comes in the barn to go in his stall and get a drink of water and check things out a few times a day. He usually ignores any other horses in the barn but he is pretty infatuated with Skyy. He stopped by to see her several times today.

The day I wired the money for her I called my favorite east coast shipper, Tapp Horse Transportation, to have her shipped to me (she was in Northern Virginia). They said they would be able to get her scheduled within a week. Then the next day they called and said they had a cancellation on one of their trucks that day and the truck was in Northern Virginia. So they picked her up, shipped her to their facility in Kentucky where she spent two days, and then brought her to my farm today.

Skyy realizing that she has hit the jackpot (in my humble opinion!) of horse homes!

So today I welcomed Skyy, my new horse! Skyy is six years old and is a Swedish Warmblood. She is nicely broke on the flat and although still green to the fences she will happily jump around a small course. Her lead change is even about 80% there already. She needs to do some more poles, cavaletti and gymnastic exercises but if I had the desire I could take her to a show tomorrow as is. I plan to do a bit of everything with her, some low level dressage (I do some training/first level dressage with all of my horses), some hunter shows and some low level eventing. I hope to do some foxhunting with her as well. She has a great brain and is the type that is game to do whatever you ask of her. The best part is she is fancy enough to be competitive at all of these things, yay me!

Like all of our new arrivals she found the goats to be of great interest

Happily grazing this afternoon

I hopped on her briefly today because I just couldn't stand to wait any longer. She was a good girl although Jason made me get off after just a couple of minutes. He said I needed to give the poor horse a day or two to rest and settle in and of course he is right. I can't wait to get to know her better. I have to say I'm not in love with her name but it would feel odd to call her something else at this point. How do you feel about changing a horse's name? In the end it is the package that matters though, not the name!

On a funny note I have been learning about what it means to own a gray horse. As I mentioned in my "name that gray" post I've never had a gray. I've always ended up with either bays or chestnuts. When Skyy was out this afternoon the first thought that went through my mind as she laid down to roll was "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" My new horse already has grass stains on her. Quick Silver here I come!

Welcome Skyy!!