Lessons, Lessons, Lessons!

I haven't had much free time to just sit and write lately! As some of you may know I was continuing to work my other job two mornings a week until they found a replacement for my territory. Well that has finally happened and I am now ONLY at KL instead of all over the place ;) Yay!

The last few weeks we have gotten a few more horses going and a new one has arrived (Star). We have been trialing him as a lesson prospect and will see what happens. He is quite the handsome dude.

Buzz is now regularly being used for lessons and he seems to be a hit. His walk, trot and canter are doing well and he is jumping cross rails more enthusiastically by the day!  Our only complaint is that he is a bit lazy and usually requires a crop, but that we can deal with :-)

Oliver has been used a few times and still gets a bit strong at the canter for the smaller riders. I have been riding him a good bit. We are working on getting him to push out from behind and not lean in to the bit on the forehand. He is slowly beginning to re muscle that upside down neck of his. His main issue is that all the muscling is on the under side of his neck (due to carrying his head way up in the air and leaning forward) rather then the muscling being on the crest (top part) of his neck. With correct work he will re muscle the top and the muscles on the under side will diminish.

Gracie has been coming along. Jess rode her in a trial lesson of sorts this past weekend and she did everything we asked of her. She tends to get a bit quick starting out but not strong. If you talk to her and tell her its ok and just soothe her a bit she relaxes and comes right back. I get the feeling that where ever she came from she always felt like she was in trouble. When you reassure her she relaxes and goes quite nicely! She is jumping cross rails and small verticals. Last week I had her out in the cross country field and she jumped all of the medium sized fences without a second glance.

Star has been with us for about two weeks now. He is doing flat work just fine but needs a bit of pushing to get in to the canter in the ring. Has jumped some cross rails nicely and was out on the track and XC field, always with a great attitude about everything! He seems to have lots of promise.

We have so much going on! Lots and lots of lessons and riding for me the last few weeks. I am loving it!  I had a lesson of my own yesterday on my own horse, Mikey. We are gearing up for this Spring and plan to do the event at Plantation Field in mid May. We'll do Novice again this year to start out since we did not make many outings at all last year (buying a house really effects riding activities! :) ). It was a Dressage lesson and we sorely needed it! Lots of transition work and riding forward to keep him packaged together. I felt like a hot mess half of the lesson but really felt as though things were coming together at the end. Mikey was trying hard but near the middle had a bit of a melt down where he was definitely saying "NO, I don't really feel like doing this right now". We got it back together and kept pushing forward. It's hard starting back after a long winter, for horses and riders both!

One of our very first Dressage tests (at an event years ago). It was pouring rain and super cold. We have come such a long way! The key is to always work hard and improve no matter what discipline or level you are riding :)

Newbies

Another successful weekend! We had a busy Saturday booked straight through with lessons again. It was a little easier getting to see faces for a second time ;) And I got to meet a few more new ones!

Buzz had his first lesson as part of the program in the very first lesson of the morning. He went really well! Some of you can definitely expect to ride him in the near future. His walk, trot and canter are right on and he does ground poles well. He is just learning to jump but doing pretty well and picking it up quickly. He is a bit of a cautious dude when you first meet him but if you give him lots of pets and talk to him he warms right up! Give him a treat... and he's your friend for life ;)

Oliver went mid day and was pretty good. I think this new bit is going to work out for him. He still likes to get a bit strong at the canter but if you ride him right and work hard he goes just fine and listens well.. he doesn't get fast at all, just tends to lean a bit on the bit when starting the canter.  He is definitely one of my favorites to ride! I had him out on the track and in the cross country field earlier in the week and he was absolutely perfect.

Gracie had her teeth done on Thursday, which included having her wolf teeth pulled (which means she probably never had her teeth done before now), so she has been on a mini vacation since then. I have plans to start her back on Tuesday (weather permitting) and hopefully she'll be a lot more comfortable now that her mouth is all fixed up. She is the cutest thing and really looks for attention when you walk by her stall.

I had off today and got a chance to ride my guy Mikey. He has done a lot of hanging out this winter and we are just beginning to start back in to work. It felt very strange getting on him after riding ponies all week! :) A friend just gave me the disc with some photos from an event we did a few years ago so I thought I would share some of them! We did pretty well in Dressage (for us) with a 38 I think it was and one rail in Stadium (first fence of the in and out) and then XC 2  fences from home Mikey decided we weren't doing the water complex that day! He finally did go through but we were already through the maximum number of refusals and had to retire from the course.

First weekend

Well, I made it through the first weekend full of lessons and riding! :)

I got to meet a bunch of you and in some cases, your horses too. I think everything went great, minus the cold! I am hoping for some warmer weather very, very soon.

I didn't get to ride any of the projects on Saturday since we had a booked solid day of lessons from 9-5! On Sunday I rode our new friend Buzz for the first time. He is a kick on kind of ride, has a nice walk and trot but you really have to work for his canter. He trotted over a little cross rail and some ground poles, but doesn't seem to know too much about what jumping is all about, the important thing is that he's willing.  I'll be schooling him and getting him moving in the next few weeks. He needs his teeth done and then hopefully we'll be integrating him in to the lesson schedule sometime soon!

 Next, I got on Gracie. This was my third ride on her (more then any of the others so far!). I get the feeling she was a western pony before she came to Knights Landing. She seems very stiff through the body and doesn't know about bending at all. She is however, pretty honest and has a nice trot, pretty decent transitions and a good stop. She popped over a few little cross rails and we are working on getting a better canter transition. She also has a good stop when you say "whoa" and prefers a light contact with the bit. Also needs her teeth done and then we'll see what she gives us in the next month or so.

Had my second ride on Oliver. I just changed his bit to something a bit stronger to see if this would enable us to be able to put him to use in lessons. I think this did the trick and he'll hopefully be on the schedule in the next weeks! He is a pretty cool dude. Nice walk and trot, gets a little strong at the canter but not fast and has good transitions. He is a fantastic little jumper. I had a lot of fun schooling him around everything in the ring. I will continue to school him in a snaffle to try to get him using himself correctly and hopefully we can go back to a snaffle for lessons in the future. I think he's going to be a lot of fun!

Toward the end of the day, Doug and I got together to look over Callies tack and then I had a nice ride on her. She really likes a nice soft contact with quiet hands and seat. We worked on transitions and lengthening/shortening her stride within the trot. Her transition down to halt got better from all gaits throughout the ride. Near the end of the ride she really started to frame up and settle in. She is actually quite nice and is definitely coming along!

We'll see how the weather cooperates the rest of this week, hopefully we get minimal snow!