New Look

So to continue the update that I didn't quite finish in the last 2 posts, Lily's body has changed tremendously in the last month. Not only because of the new haircut - after the clinic, we arrived home and I took her mane off. Why? Well, during dinner with Manuel the clinician, the subject of Lusitano mares' traditional roached manes came up.

Iberian-type mare, with the traditional roached mane and shaved tail.

Judy in particular doesn't like this look on mares, but Miguel was saying that you can shape a roached mane to create the ilusion of a false crest.

I've always liked roached manes, but found it inconvenient when riding jumpers, especially if you rode horses that wanted to fly across the course, making rollbacks and tight turns a feat-sometimes you really need some mane to grab in those instances! However, since we're just doing dressage, I proceeded to take Lily's mane off. This is the result:

The long tuft of hair? Yes, I left it on purpose. It's called an "oh shit handle."

I LOVE the look on her. It makes her look very Spanish, and less Thoroughbred-y. I shaped it so that the highest part of the curve is even with the slight dip in her neck (you can really see what I mean in angle of the second picture above). By the end of the first week of the new haircut, Judy admitted to me that though she hates roached manes, she really does like the look on Lily. She's feminine enough to be able to pull it off.

Her body is rounder, her withers appear higher, and she's developing more muscle in the little triangle between her shoulder blade, withers and beginning of the top of her neck.

The few of you who read this blog will have noticed that I changed the blog banner photo, because I finally have a good enough pic of Lily and me together. That photo was taken 2 weeks ago by Judy, the day after one of our best lessons yet. These are my 2 favorites:

Totally looking like a Spanish horse!

Love this photo. Her left hind is almost even with her girth, and her front end is UP! My butt is out of the saddle, but I promise I was not bouncing. Please see video below.

This video of her in one of her most collected canters so far was taken on the same day:

The head tossing has almost completely disappeared after purchasing a curb chain cover. We're still working on that inside bend on this side-her right lead canter is her weakest point of all. But still, HUUUUGE improvement from just a month ago!

A video of her trot, also that same day:

She does get on the forehand in the corner, and tries to get quick coming down the long side of the arena towards Charles (who was taking the video), but you can see the overall improvement in her carriage, especially when compared to this, taken September of last year.

I think pictures speak louder than words. :) We have been doing more shoulder-ins, practicing the counted walk (she still gets very impatient with this and wants to walk sideways like a crab-it's very hard for her to go straight and slow!) and a lot of circles at a walk using the outside rein only as part of our warm-up and cool-down. She'll also do a turn on the haunches with no reins, which I discovered pretty much by accident, but she'll do it in both directions! Other than that, we've been working on short collected canter sessions with a correct bend, and on really extending her trot for short periods of time. I started all of these exercises initially in her turnout, which is about half the size of the arena, so she wouldn't try to escape the bit by bolting if she became scared with the new cues and equipment. This idea worked-during a 2-week period, she attempted to escape only once, and I was able to bring her to an immediate stop and then continue working as if nothing had happened, thanks to the reduced work space. For the last 3 weeks, we've been back in the arena, and this week I started taking her out again-I don't want her getting ring-sour with too much arena work, and I think working in the park is essential to her conditioning. Plus, it's breezier in the park than in the barn arena.

While it never truly got what I would call "cool" this winter, temperatures were tolerable for the most part if you rode before 10:00 am or after 3pm. As of May, we are officially back to hot, muggy Florida summer weather, with temps already hitting the 90's this week. If you want to ride, you have to do it in the early morning, at 8:00 am or earlier, ideally, or in the late afternoon after 6:00 pm. That is, if it's not pouring. It rained every single day for most of last month-it was starting to feel like we live in the Pacific Northwest... I've said it before, and I'll say it again: whoever called this the Sunshine State definetely did NOT live here year-round! It is normal to get afternoon thunderstorms in the summer, and since summer here starts in April and ends in November, that's pretty much 8 months of rainy season.

The start of Florida monsoon season. "Sunshine State" my @#$...

Despite the warm winter, the experts keep saying it's going to be a less active than usual hurricane season, which has everyone perplexed. See the Accuweather report here. The reader comments at the bottom of the page following the report totally cracked me up, because it was exactly what I was thinking as I read it. What will keep hurricanes from forming if the Atlantic water temps between Africa and the US east coast never went below 80 degrees this winter? We've already had 2 tropical storms form-Alberto and Beryl, both in May. Hurricane season officially started on June 1st, and we're already starting on the letter "C" for storm names... Thankfully, our barn is hurricane-proof up to category 3 or 4, and it doesn't flood; Judy just has to implement a system for boarding up the walkout entrances, and we're good to go. Hopefully that happens within the next month or so.

Ahh...the joys of living in the tropics...