so pretty.

So I know I haven't been posting much progress on my mare lately, but I finally got a lesson in on her today and she has just come so far since I first started working with her. The pictures are a bit blurry, thanks to a wonderfully rainy overcast day, but I think they show so much. Her shape is looking very nice, and she is stretching into the bit, and doesn't seem to have as much of a hiccup about it. She had some amazing trot and walk parts today. Robyn said that her walk is one that most dressage people would die for :D. .. now all Ineed to do is get her very consistant with that walk (and trot) so that by show season next year, we will be ready to get her into atleast some intro classes. I'm not sure if we will be able to get the canter finessed enough to do training level by the spring...but we can hope right? I figure i'd do atleast 4 of the SMDA shows...and maybe the first two be intro...and if i feel like she's ready i can do lower training the second two....So exciting. I'm so proud of her, and me for doing most of this by myself, although robyn gave her a wonderful start.

Figure Eights and Canter Strides

I finally got my husband to come out and take pictures of Miss Jonza, and I think the one above is just soo cool in an artistic way. She is doing really well. A few days ago I asked for the canter and got three decent canter strides out of her before she fell into a pace. On the lunge she is really cantering nicely....even though it does start off with a gallop that she will slow down a bit into a canter. She also changes her leads constantly on the lunge! So we may even be able to utilize that in the future ;). She has a pretty decent little canter. We just need to work on that a bit. I've decided we aren't doing any canter transitions unless I feel she is really with me for that day.

Yesterday was a full out battle the whole ride, today she was completely different. Although she was stiff and resistant today, she finally let go of that by the end of it, and was able to do some decent stretchy trot circles without putting her head as high as it could go and flying around the arena! We are definately progressing. She's getting the leg yeild thing, and the serpentine bend of direction. What she has been having a hard time with is just bending her neck to my toes just to stretch and give....not to move anywhere. I've been trying to get her used to changing bends and have been doing a lot of figure eights and serpentines. I have to read up in some of my training excercises books to find some fresh ideas to keep her entertained. She gets impatient and gets bored easily. C'est la vie ;).

Leg Yeild

So for the last few days we've been working on leg yields with Miss Jonza. She does pretty well with them, although she does get *stuck* and sometimes doesn't realize to just step OVER. Its been helping her to relax and actually be able to bend. I've been doing some turn on the forehands too, which is helping her to utilize her shoulders more. She gets stuck on her left shoulder and its hard for me to get her to move it. I can smack her shoulder with the whip and she'll jump over, but she doesn't get that all I want her to do it just to step over with that shoulder. The leg yeilding is helping, as well as picking a leg to halt with.

Friday, she was wonderful, really starting to connect and be nice and soft. Sunday I rode at night. It was the first time I had her in the Indoor with all the lights on at night, and I had a CD playing pretty loud. It took her a bit to relax with all the *newness*. She seemed to calm down and listen by the end of it....So we ended at a good note....Still just walking and trotting. Today, was SUPER windy, we think its from some remants of the last hurricane in the south. So she couldn't focus at ALL! She wasn't very spooky which I was a bit surprised with. I expected her to be quite a bit crazier. So that was good. All we did was walk though, she was too tense and unfocused to do anything more than that. My goal with her is to keep her calm and focused before we go into a faster gait. She will just become frantic in the trot if she can't be calm and focused leading into it. So thats how we've been going these last few days.

She is doing well. I would like another ride like Friday on her tomorrow. Friday felt great, and if I can get her consistantly like friday than I think I can start working on some canter work :). I'll try to keep her progress posted more frequently.

Reading

So Robyn gave me a copy of Retraining the Harness Racehorse that she co-authored. I have started to go through the book this evening, and today I almost finished reading Basic Training of the Young Horse by Reiner Klimke. For the most part in the latter book I've read all that really pertains to me. Klimke believes you should teach the basics of dressage and jumping to all horses and then decide what their discipline should be considering what they enjoy most. Which is definitely a great thing to do. So I am thinking that I'm going to start putting some cavalletti into our little routine once a week or so. Robyn's book also recommends the usage of ground poles, which are basically the same thing. Also Robyn's book has a few excercises in it with side reins. I found my old side reins and will be bringing them tomorrow and have a session with them on Miss Jonza. So far it seems the only thing that they disagree with is the usage of cavalletti with the canter. Klimke thinks its pointless for dressage, but then again Klimke isn't working with Standardbreds now is he??? HA!

So tomorrow when I work with Miss Jonza we will first do 15-20 minutes on the lunge with the side reins, then 15-20 minutes with me on her, getting her to relax that trot some more :). I rode yesterday and it was horrid...mainly because I am sick...Today my head hurt too badly to even consider getting on her, I kept getting dizzy and light headed *sigh*. But I'll definitely work her tomorrow, with a renewed sense of what to do with her. I'm afraid of boring her to death when all we do is walk and walk and walk then trot some, then walk and stop. But I know that this is exactly what she needs :).

Glo did find another book for me to start looking through. Its Right from the Start by Michael Schaffer. He has a pretty awesome website with some video clips that show exactly what he mean whens when training youngsters. So I'm super excited to be able to read one of his books.

I know that Miss Jonza isn't a baby, but obviously since she's never been through the steps she needs to do it now, even if she is a bit older. Its good for her, and I get to have a horse to train all by myself, now that I have a clue of what to do ;). Yeah for books. They are like mini clinics in your hands.

circles

So I rode in the indoor today, and I dragged my leg on the wall on purpose a few times. Miss Jonza is such a spaze about noises and *new* things I try to do something every so often like that so she can realize she is not going to die, no matter how *scarey* it sounds/looks/etc. She seemed pretty relaxed overall, and didn't react too badly to the sudden noises.

She did feel a bit heavy and downhill today...sorta plodding along. I think I'm going to work on some ground poles with her to get her to pick up her feet. I need to do *something* for her to pick up her feet. I'd like to get some side reins too and lunge her a bit in them. Help to build up her neck muscles in the right places.

Yeah for arenas

So I've moved Jonza back to Robyn's farm so I can utilize an indoor/outdoor arena :). After a month of solid rain and clay based footing, I couldn't work her at all! She would slip way to much just walking! And that was without me even on her back. So unfortunately she has had the last month off. Now that I am boarding her I have been able to really get back into the routine that she (and I!) needs. Last week I started working her back up to being ridden again every day. Last Wednesday I lunged her to get her to move off pressure, etc. from the ground. She did very well. Then Thursday I got on her and walked for about 30 minutes, we did serpentines and lots of changes of direction. Friday I worked her another 30 minutes with about 2 minutes of trotting *if* that. Then she had the weekend off (had a LOT of stuff to do with getting back from camp, cleaning, etc.). Yesterday and Today we were doing about 20 minutes of walking and 10 minutes of trotting. Yesterday was great, she was really soft and willing. Today she was a bit resistant and didn't want to work, but by the end of the ride she finally gave in a bit...although she was really heavy and not really happy with giving in I figured it was a good stopping point and got off.

Right now all I am really working on is for her to be calm and consistant at the walk and trot, once I get her reliable on those terms, then we will work on collecting the walk and trot more and really fine tuning her. After these areas are complete I will begin the canter work. I don't want to stress her out too much or push her too quickly. She fries her brain all to easily, so slow and steady we will be :). I hope that by next year I can do a decent lower training level test. Now that I have her at a facility where I can really work with her, I plan to update her progress more often :)

Pictures to break up monotony

What a handsome boy I have :)

And the bratty but cute...Miss Jonza :) Here you can tell she's saying I really *am* a good girl :) Now "Where are my COOKIES!"

relaxed trotting

So for the last few sessions we've been working on Jonza trotting peacefully and relaxed, not all jazzed up, head in the air with a crazed look in her eye. It seems to help her tremendously if we do some inhand trot work before I get on. So I get her all tacked up and lunge her. We do a LOT of walk/halt transitions with changes of directions...ie: walk five steps, halt, walk 3 steps, halt, change direction walk 8 steps, halt, walk 2 steps halt, walk 4 steps, halt, change, etc. So that she never knows when I am asking her to halt, or turn. So she walks very calmly completely focused on me to get her cues. You can see her thinking with each foot forward...do we stop yet??? Then after a couple of minutes of that we do some trot/walk transitions...trot a few steps walk a few steps, trot, walk and throw in a halt here and there. I try to make it so that she doesnt expect when the transition is coming. Otherwise she will do it before you ask. She is very good at figuring out what you want next. The hole process has been taking us anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes. The first time it was about an hour! but now she is really getting into the hang of it. That all I want is her complete attention. Once she's really listening and being calm then I get on.

When I get on we walk around the paddock (my arena for the time being) doing little circles and going this direction and that, changing bends and such, reinforcing the calm. We halt every so often and change direction often. Then when I ask her to trot she is usually pretty relaxed. So we trot and if she gets tense I try to slow her with my seat. If she ignores that, I really put my seat on, and we stop dead in our tracks, wait a few seconds and walk on. We walk till she's calm again, then ask for the trot....this has been what we've been working on for the last week or so.

Its been going really well. She has really calmed down a lot from the first session. Her trotting is fluid and relaxed. Today she even had some *together* moments. I wish I could have seen her going today. It was nice to have her moving so well. Towards the end of todays session she did trip pretty badly :(. She fell down on both front knees. She seems ok though, tomorrow I will check her thoroughly for soreness, she didnt seem to have any today. Her feet look to be at a normal length....I'm finding out when the last time she saw the ferrier. I may have one come out (I need to find one sooner or later) and do a trim just to make sure. She is barefoot, but I don't think that has anything to do with the tripping. She does trip here and there, and its normally when she's not paying attention or just being lazy and not picking up her feet.

So I am thinking I will try to see what I can find as far as ground poles are concerned....Have her go over a few of those, and see if that helps her to pick up her feet more. Oh and Glo thought it would be helpful to do some reinbacks and teaching her to pick up her feet in hand. So we will work on those tomorrow too. I am pretty confident that she can do the reinbacks...we've done a lot of backing up and such in hand. So anyways that is my update...I'll post again tomorrow with the next step of her lessons....picking up those feet!