The day was beautiful out, not even a cloud in the sky, with that blue light that seems to come with fall. Looking out the sliding glass doors to the patio, it looked like it should be cold outside. Not quite, but there's hope now! It was a perfect day for trail riding, but I had decided that I really, really want to take Lily to a dressage show at the end of October, so I wanted to work a little on our arena skills.
It was a fairly long ride, but it was what I call a "proper" ride, with a long warm-up and a long cool-down. I find that, in general, horses do need at least 10 minutes of walking, first free walking and then a collected forward walk with circles and bending, to BEGIN to warm up properly. I like to follow this with a forward trot on a loose rein in both directions around the arena, then doing large circles on a loose rein at the trot, and THEN we really get to work. We did a trot set of 10 minutes, with 20 meter circles, serpentines, and changes of direction across the diagonal. Lily was a bit stiff still but relaxed, willing and paying attention-her head was swinging gently at the trot the way it does when she is happy. I have to get video-I find this adorable! She is great with straight lines, but her diagonal lines suck-she doesn't quite understand, and will try to circle or cut across the arena and go straight. Lots of leg to keep her straight in a diagonal line. Today was better than she's ever been. I then had her walk on a loose rein for a few minutes, walked over to the hose (I had hung the nozzle over the fence) and hosed her down while still on her. She loves this little routine and will stand stock-still while I hose her down from above. I then walked her a little more and prepared to canter.
The first few times cantering Lily, when she first arrived, she would sometimes have little crowhopping fits when I asked her to canter. I figured out that this was my own fault because I was asking her to canter with really strong aids; I think it reminded her of the cowboy. It would scare me, though, because she will put her head forward, her withers come up, and she hops several steps, all 4 feet coming off the ground. It is super cute to watch from the ground (she does it when I haven't longed her in awhile or doesn't agree with what I'm asking her to do) but not so much fun to ride when you realize how much air she's getting between her hooves and the ground!! It's one of those things where you laugh after the fact, not during. Have you heard the song "Bumpy Ride" by Mohombi and Pitbull?
I wanna boom bang bang with your body yo
Were gonna rough it up before we take it slow
Girl lemme rock you rock you like a rodeo
(Its gonna be a bumpy ride)
Yeah. Well that song first came out when Lily arrived at the barn. For awhile I thought her show name would have to be Bumpy Ride. We worked through the bucking and she was cantering beautifully, but then my horse at the time fell with me on him and broke one of my big toes (my foot got caught underneath him), and I couldn't ride for a month. The first time back to riding, I asked her to canter and she crowhopped. I saw stars-I must've clenched the toe or something, because it hurt like crazy afterwards. We didn't canter again for awhile after that.
Well, today I asked her to canter, "Lily, UP", and she immediately picked up the canter on the correct lead like a good girl. I canter her in 2-point to stay off of her back, and she seems to really enjoy that. This time, however, she kept breaking to a trot as we circled around. I was squeezing her forward and she was still coming down from the canter. I brought her to a walk and regrouped. Her ears were tense, and I realized that I was tense too-I was expecting her to be naughty, and she was saying, "You don't really want me to canter, so I'll just trot for you." I patted her on the neck for taking care of me, "let go" (this involves a change of mental state-you relax your mind and the body follows), and asked her to canter again. She picked up the correct lead right off the bat again, and did not break the canter this time. I had not changed anything I was doing, except I stopped expecting her to be bad. She snorted happily with each stride, and I smiled from ear to ear. I love my mare.
We walked, changed directions, and did it again to the other side. We were doing circles at the canter, 40-meter circles taking up half the arena, something which is new to her. She handled it beautifully. It was one of those times when riding is effortless-my hands followed the movement of her head, and she turned smoothly in response to the guidance of the reins. Smooth as glass. Her circles were still more egg-shaped than round, especially when going to the right (her weaker side), but she did excellent considering this was the first time we worked on circles at a canter. After this, I hosed her off again and we went back to working at a trot for another 10 minutes. NOW she was ready to really work-her entire back and neck relaxed, and she started to drop her head for a couple of strides at a time, reaching for the bit. I was working correctly, too-having been a jumper rider for so, so many years, I have a bad habit of riding with my upper body tilted forward. This looks pretty silly when you're in a dressage saddle. I worked on keeping my body straight, and using my abs to create impulsion for Lily. (Thank you, Judy, for teaching me this!) It worked. Lily was going around in 20 meter circles, soft and truly relaxed, almost on the bit. Her trot becomes swingy when she uses her body correctly; it's wonderful to ride. After that, I walked her for a bit in the arena, hosed her down again, and took her down to the field at a walk to finish cooling off. She was back to her normal self, not skittish. Coming back, she went into a power walk as we got close to the barn entrance, so I made her continue. She turned her head a couple of times as if saying, "But Mo-om! We were supposed to go back that way!" I laughed and made her continue walking. And then we reached the Deadly Orange Sand in the Middle of the Road. There was a large patch of bright orange sand right on the line dividing the lanes on the street. Lily came to an abrupt stop in front of it and tried to turn around. "No Lily, it won't eat you, and you're not going to fall in it." I had her stand and look at it. She dropped her head to study it closer, and gave a big snort. She brought her head back up and just stood looking into the distance. I had her try to walk over it. She danced around the sand giving it the one-ear-one-eye look (no cars coming-I was checking. This road is a dead-end country road-only horse people or the landscaping workers drive down here; everyone knows to drive slowly. If a car had been coming, we would've moved, of course) and I got her to step on it one time wiht a hind foot. I gave her a big pat on the neck and made her stand in front of it again. Then I tried to get her to cross in a straight line over it. She dropped her head and I saw her nuzzling the sand with her upper lip! This cracked me up, but after that, she did walk over it, stepping in the sand.
Then we proceeded to study the trash on the side of the road (somebody moved out of the employee apartment at another of the barns, and there was a bunch of old furniture in front of their property). I was tickled pink when Lily walked herself over to the trash to take a closer look. I like confident horses. :) She tried to convince me she that since she had passed the trash test, we should turn around and go back home. That's when I saw the rubber mat. Someone had tossed a stall mat next to the furniture. I made a note to let the barn manager know-we can always use another mat! I made Lily continue on down the road a bit before returning to our barn.
Back at the barn, I gave her a liniment bath and set her loose to graze. I work tomorrow and Saturday, so she gets 2 days off in a row.
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| She's really starting to look good; her shoulders and hips are filling out |
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| She's also just starting to get a topline, too |
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| Time to just be a horse :) |
Diane arrived at the barn around that time and we were talking about my ride. I mentioned the rubber mat, and her eyes lit up. "Really? I need another mat!" So we went to get it in my truck. It was interesting trying to roll it up and lift it onto the truck, as those mats weigh a good 80 lbs minimum and are cumbersome, but we did it. At the barn, we unloaded it into Diane and Mark's tack area; she'd get it in Pink's stall during the weekend. We were laughing about the things we crazy horse people are willing to do to save money. Those mats are $50 a pop at the feed store!
Leaving the barn, it was still a gorgeous day.
Except for this. Maybe smoke? Not normal rain clouds-they had a yellow/orange hue that you can't really see in this photo. They seemed to be coming from the Everglades. Another thing they don't tell you about South Florida-when it doesn't rain in the summer, there are often fires. It gets so freaking hot that any little piece of glass or aluminum in the grass can ignite.
2 hours later, when I left the house with Charles, that cloud was over us. It was strange. It turned the light yellow, and looked like smoke, but it did not smell like anything was burning, like it usually does when there is a fire in the area. 3 or 4 years ago we had a drought during the summer (hard to believe but true!) to the point where water restrictions were being enforced. There was HUUUGE fire in the Everglades that lasted a good 2 weeks (the whole swamp was dry-firefighters couldn't control it; it kept spreading)-we could smell the burning grass at our apartment at the time, despite the fire being way out in the middle of nowhere. On some days you'd walk out of the house to discover your car covered in a very fine layer of ash.
Charles and I went to Lowe's to buy wood and PVC pipes for making jumps. The barn manager gave me the money for it when I proposed the idea. We have several people interested in jumping at the barn, but no real jumps, just 4 cavaletti. This was kind of an adventure for us. Charles kept questioning me on the total amount it was adding up to, and wouldn't believe me when I kept telling him that we were still under $100 budget. I do suck at math, which is why I'm a vet tech and not a vet, but I actually did it so that we were under the budget-Charles only believed me when he saw the numbers at the register. We loaded up the truck with all the wood and PVC pipes, then realized we would need a red flag to mark the pipes, as they stuck out a good 2 feet out the back of the truck. We both briefly considered not bothering with the flag (neither one of us voiced the thought at the time, however), as we were close to the barn, but I made us go back inside to ask if they had these markers. The girl at the register told us to check the gardening center. There was no one at the register, but there was an unmarked box full of scraps of red plastic bag on the floor by the exit. I was supposed to be back at the barn by 4:30 and was already running late; we were in a hurry. We took 3 scraps, and looked around, but no one was around to ask, so we kind of shrugged and walked out. Some employees were working outside the garden center; we walked past them and no one said anything about the plastic scraps, so I guess they really were free. Carlos was teasing me, calling me a klepto (I'm pretty straight-edge about stuff, to the point where I'll correct a cashier if I'm undercharged for something. I actually went up to professors in school and pointed out if a wrong question had been marked as correct. Yeah, my species is in danger of extinction, I know.)
The scraps of red plastic were tied to the pipes, and of course, 2 lights down, we noticed there was a police car behind us. We started laughing-this was when we realized we had both considered at the same time, not bothering with the stupid marker. We sooo would've gotten a ticket! Thank God.
We unloaded the wood and PVC at the barn, and Charles went grocery shopping while I stayed to longe Bella. (Isn't my husband awsome?? The BEST horse husband, I tell you :) ) A lady named Sally was coming out to try out horses to lease. She was a Grand Prix jumper rider in England when she was young. Sally used to own a Saddlebred named Rebel. She purchased Rebel on the internet, based on a video, without going out to see the horse in person. The horse she was sent was a different horse from the one she had seen online and bought. She paid for a 6 year old Standardbred, and she got a 3 year old Saddlebred that she couldn't ride-he was very high-strung and nervous, and she was injured badly in a fall that destroyed her confidence as a rider. She was able to sell him, and was just now, 9 months later, trying to get back into riding.
Bella was great on the longe-calm, a little lazy, not spooking at the dreaded wall. I worked her for 10 minutes and put her back in her stall when I saw that she was going to be good. As it turned out, she did GREAT with Sally! I gave her tips on how to get her going. Bella tossed her head when asked to canter. "Don't give up!" I yelled, "Keep trying and she'll get it!" Sally didn't let herself get intimidated by Bella's antics, and she gave her another kick. Bella tossed her head hard, and broke into her happy little canter. Sally was very impressed with her, and got off later to lead her grandchildren around the arena on the pony. They wanted lessons, but I told my barn manager again that though I would like to give lessons, I am terrified of being sued if something happens to a child while riding under my instruction. I can't afford my own liability insurance-I checked and it is VERY expensive. The barn manager's insurance can get suspended if they hear about an uninsured independent trainer teaching on her property. She understood, to my relief, and was just as happy at the thought that Bella might finally get leased. She needs a person to ride her and enjoy her. She's a fun pony and she's starved for attention. I'm crossing my fingers until the lease agreement gets signed!
At the barn, everyone was talking about the big orange cloud. As it turns out, it WAS a brush fire. Read about it here.
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