Diary of a Young Horse

OK

2012-01-25T13:33:00.001-08:00

Ok. I have been putting off writing a post for a while, as things haven't really been easy. It must seem like all I ever write about are problems, but that's sort of how it feels at the moment.

The saddle has been...ok. I don't think it's perfect - she has moments where she feels great, and moments where she feels like she is really uncomfortable with it on. Her feet are also ok. Not great yet, but improving - these things take time. And lots of it.

The day before I went up to see my family for Christmas, I rode Echo in the school - we had been doing quite a bit of riding and hacking - mostly in walk, but she had been really good. I rode her in the school on this day and she was great. I was just about to get off, when she shied really violently. I don't know what spooked her, but it got some of the other horses in the fields around too. I let her listen and look for a moment, but it was nothing, so I rode her in a circle, taking her past that place again. She shied even more violently that time and went totally rigid underneath me.

Since I was about to finish anyway and there was a really novice rider in the school, I thought it best to get off. She is normally fine to lead after spooking, so I went to lead her across the school to the gate and she reared, and started bouncing off all four feet at once. Echo has NEVER reared - ever. I stood her still, spoke to her, tried to calm her down, then went to walk off again - and she did it again, then cantered sideways all the way to the gate. I was quite scared to be honest - that was not my horse at all. I got her out of the gate, thinking that she would calm down then, but she did it again, this time rearing at me with her front feet. I had to let go of her, as I only had her reins to hang on to and her feet were coming too close to my face. But then I envisioned her causing havoc on the yard so I launched in and grabbed her reins. A guy at the yard who had just been long-reining his horse ran over and took hold of her, and put a lunge line on her.

She calmed down pretty quickly, but I had been really scared - this really isn't like her at all. I know she's had lots of time off, but the whole time she was out of work when I was living with my parents, I trusted her completely - thought I knew every reaction she has in her - I've had her since she was a yearling for goodness' sake!

The worst thing was that I then had to leave her for over a week and couldn't sort out whatever was wrong.

When I got back, I lunged her a couple of times - the first time she went crazy - probably to be expected, although she's never really been crazy on the lunge before. The second time she was great - really calm - and then the third time she was totally wild and I had to stop, for fear that she would hurt herself.

Despite the fact that her saddle has only just been fitted for her, someone at the yard was a different person out to get their horse a saddle. Although not a saddler, this woman is a BHSI and apparently (according to lots of people, including my farrier) is amazing at fitting saddles. I just asked if she would take a look at Echo's and she immediately said 'well, that doesn't fit at all.' She explained that Echo has quite a shaped back and modern dressage saddles all have flat panels - it will be putting pressure on her lumbar region (where she gets sore) and digging into her shoulders. It does make sense. But I could have cried.

So...she is looking out for a saddle that she thinks will fit her better. In the meantime - I didn't know what to do. I started off not riding, then got a Bowen specialist out to treat Echo's back. This is someone that a good friend of mine has been badgering me to try for a while, and it does seem like it's done something. She was really tight through her lumbar region, but when the Bowen specialist, Teresa, had a look at the saddle - guess what! She didn't think my saddle is that bad a fit.

I decided that if she thinks it's ok, I would start riding her again gently in the saddle that I have and see what happens. If the BHSI finds me a different one, I will happily try it.

After the Bowen therapy, I was advised to only ride her in straight lines for a few days, so no school work. Great - particularly when I have a horse that I have suddenly become rather a lot more nervous of and which hasn't been ridden since before Christmas. But, I didn't want to waste my money by doing the wrong thing, so I dutifully hacked out, on what was possibly the most stressful hack I've ever been on. We saw everything that we could possibly not want to see: a huge field of pigs, all standing right by the track, who decided - all 60 of them - to bolt away from us as we rode past; a giant turf lorry hurtling towards us on the track; a truck pulling a bouncing flat-bed trailer appearing beside us out of nowhere.

Echo was very good, in fairness to her. She was scared of the pigs, but that's understandable. It just wasn't very calm. I then went out with someone else two days later and it was just as eventful; I had to get off her at one point to get her past a huge tap by a reservoir that was hissing madly and spurting out water - she probably would have been ok, but she wanted to give it a wide berth by going onto a turf field - and the farmers charge you by the hoof print for that!

I rode in the school on Sunday, in what can only be described as a gale, and then hacked out today. It was much calmer out - except that Echo felt like a coiled spring and spent the first 20 minutes pretty much passaging along - feeling like she was totally solid through her back and neck and not listening to me at all. She calmed downeventually and we did do some trotting today, so that was really good.

It WAS a really positive ride today, but I am just finding this all so stressful at the moment. I feel like I don't know my horse at the moment and it's making me nervous. I've never been nervous on Echo - not even when I backed her. She's just really unpredictable at the moment and it's really, really upsetting me.

Perhaps it's the saddle. If she is still uncomfortable, that does seem to have a huge impact on her temperament. I know she's had loads of time off and it will take time, but I don't feel like I'm making things any better at the moment and I don't really know what to do.

She's having another Bowen session hopefully at the weekend, which will be interesting, as if she's tight again then I will know that something is wrong - she'll have been ridden about five times since the last treatment by then, so if the tightness has come back then I'm guessing there must be a reason for it.

In the meantime, any words of advice or encouragement would be gratefully received - 'cos I don't really know what the hell I'm doing right now.

Sensitive little soul!

2011-12-03T09:03:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, I picked up my reflocked saddle and was so excited about trying it on Echo. Thursday morning I decided to ride in the school in it, just in walk and a tiny bit of trot - pretty much all that I have been doing bareback - and see how she felt. I was really disappointed. She just didn't feel right in it. She kept stopping and napping, swishing her tail and shaking her head. Now, I know that she's had a long time off work, but this is not like her at all. I encouraged her forward and got her to keep her head carriage low, so that she could stretch under the saddle, but after ten minutes I'd had enough.

There was an instructor just coming into the school and her pupil asked how the saddle was - I briefly said that I wasn't that sure, so the instructor had a quick look. She said she thought it was tipping me forward and that the balance of the saddle was a little low at the front. She recommended that I play around with trying different pads under the saddle, to see if I can raise the front fractionally. With this in mind, I rode her on Friday morning, with a little patch of sheepskin under the front. It was like riding a different horse. She walked on as soon as I mounted, felt relaxed, wasn't pacing at all and was happy to half-halt and take a contact.

It's amazing how sensitive she is (although several people have said to me that cobs often are) but I guess it is a good thing that she is so adament when she is uncomfortable. Once I was happy that she was comfortable, I took her for a walk to the end of the track outside the yard and back. I couldn't go any further than that on my own as there is a lovely big field of pigs just round the corner and she has only seen them once before - and was not impressed! I think we need to meet them again when we have a nice calm friend with us for support.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and it was AMAZING to be out on my beautiful horse again - and here is a view that I cannot tell you how much I have missed!

Things are looking up...hopefully.

2011-11-29T12:37:00.000-08:00

Well I moved her. We're now back at the yard she was at before I took her up to my parents' house last year, and everything is back as it should be. I feel bad, to be honest - I hadn't realised how unhappy Echo was until I got her back here: she is a different horse - she's my horse again.

It's been such a relief to have her back here; this yard suits my lifestyle so much better and evidently it suits Echo too. She's still in a field on her own, but she has a horse on each side and regularly has chats over the fence. We haven't had any stress in the stable, even though she is left in nearly until last every morning, and she has only got through the fence once. If I had written this post last week, I could have said there have been NO breakages whatsoever...but last week she decided to get into her neighbour's field. In fairness to her, the electric fence wasn't on, she had finished her hay and she didn't do anything once she was in there, so it was all OK. And best of all, there was no nastiness from the yard owner - she just said that we need to remember to put the fence on.

So in other news, we are still working on getting her sound and it's taking so long!

In the last four months, Echo has had a saddle on twice. Twice. But I am really really hoping that things are about to start improving. She had the farrier out last week, who said that at last we are starting to see some growth on the outside of her foot - not masses of it, but this is progress. He watched her walk on the hard surface and was happy to see her moving much straighter now too. With any luck, this set of shoes might be the last ones that have to have studs in, as she is starting to level out now.

So following on from this, we had a saddler come out as well. I was convinced that my saddle didn't fit - she had become so sore wearing it back in July when I first moved her down here that I thought it had to be a poor fit. The saddler measured her back and shoulders, drawing diagrams on a piece of paper. She then had a look at my saddle and said that actually she didn't have much of a problem with the way it looked on her back - it needed a bit of work, but was a good width for her right now. Interestingly, she pointed out that it is in fact a wide fit - I thought it was medium-wide. She's always been a MW when in work, so the saddler suggested that it would be worth sticking with what we have for now, as it is possible that she will change shape and need a new one at some point.

So she has totally stripped the saddle out and reflocked it, shaping it much more accurately for her back - she has quite a lot of shape in her back at the moment, and the panels were much too hard and flat for her. Unfortunately the saddler can't come out to look at it again until the middle of December, so I am going to have to pick it up from the shop, try it on her myself and hope that everything is OK.

In the meantime, I have been riding her bareback quite a lot. I was using a polypad with a surcingle, but recently a friend lent me a bareback pad - a lovely suede one that has a western style cinch to fasten it. I tried it on her last week, got on and she hated it. She has got into the habit of stopping dead and refusing to move if she doesn't like the feel of something. While this sounds as if it would be helpful, I do think she milks it a bit...When the saddler came out she tried my saddle on her with a prolite underneath it to soften the feel of the panels. When I first got on, her back came up and she refused to move. I was worried that this meant it didn't fit, but I managed to turn her and push her on and she soon settled down, eventually feeling fine in it.

However, I really hope I'm not ignoring a huge problem here. When the bareback pad made her stop dead, I took it off and put the polypad and surcingle back on - and she was fine - she walked out comfortably. I really just don't know what to think. Probably, the only way I will know is to try the reflocked saddle on her and see how it goes. I suppose it's possible that she is finding the feel of the girth a bit odd, as it has been so long.

So tomorrow I hope to pick up my saddle and I will let you know how it goes. Next on my list of things to do is to get her back and pelvis looked at by a Bowen specialist. But she has cost me a fortune already this month - that might have to wait until after payday!

Livery Nightmare

2011-10-07T15:07:00.000-07:00

Echo and I have been having a bit of a tough time.

Her feet are still pretty bad - she has now been shod twice since we first realised the imbalance, but unfortunately they are still growing extremely unlevel. She has a stud in the outside of each shoe, to provide a 'false level' as my farrier calls it - this seems to really help when she's on hard ground, but it makes little difference on a soft surface as the stud just sinks in.

The farrier says it will take 5 or 6 sets of shoes to get her truly level again - it is so frustrating.

Added to this, I don't even know if her feet are the only problem. She looks really uncomfortable in her hindlegs - not lame, just a bit odd. I know that her feet are a major factor - when Gary trimmed them on Monday he said they had grown to almost an inch out - the outside of the foot is an inch shorter than the inside. All her (considerable!) weight is going through the outside of her foot and crushing it so that it doesn't grow. He trimmed loads from the inside, but nothing from the outside - there was no growth at all there.

So... I haven't been working her. Gary said the worst thing I can do is lunge, as it will put so much pressure on her joints with her feet being unlevel. The problem is, Echo loves to work and becomes really frustrated when she isn't doing anything.

The yard I moved her to is not working out - for this very reason. We tried turning her out with another mare in a field a month or so ago and although she seemed ok at first, she started chasing and kicking the other mare so violently that the other owner (understandably) wanted to take her mare out. Everything was fine for a while and Echo was on her own, but surrounded by other horses. However, a new horse arrived, so the turnout plan was rearranged and Echo got moved to a field in front of the stables. She can't really see other horses from here but there is another horse that's turned out next to her from 7-12 each morning. We started off by turning Echo out at the same time as this horse, then when he went in for the rest of the day, opening the gate through so she could have both fields - the one that she was in for the morning was tiny and had no grass at all.

However. This routine did not suit Echo at all. I don't think she could understand why she was allowed to walk through the gateway at some times of day but not at others. So...she just pushed through the tape gate. She does have a bit of a history of doing this, and we have always solved the problem by putting barrels in front of the gate - the physical barrier tends to put her off. This worked for a few days, but then she managed to find a gap and as the electric fence wasn't on (it never is really) she went straight through. She doesn't do anything when she's on the other side, she just thinks she should be allowed in there.

By this stage I had already decided to move her back to the yard I was at before moving up to my parents last year. However, the owners of the yard I'm at at the moment have got quite nasty and have said that Echo is dangerous and so they won't let her go out in the field until after the other horse comes in at 12. She has to stand in her stable all morning, while every other horse gets to go in the field.

I just find this so unfair. They moved her to a field that she clearly is unhappy in - and yet they are punishing her for behaving in the way she has been. Having already handed in my notice, I received a text message a week later (after the breaking the fence incident) telling me to leave as soon as possible - which I was trying to do anyway.

I have since been told all sorts of things that the owners have said about me - including them being cross because I'm not working her - "If only she would work the bl**dy horse, we might not have a problem" is apparently what was said. Why would I work a horse that is not right?

I am so upset by this - I take it really personally anyway when someone is rude about my horse but what gets to me the most is the fact that they are taking it out on her. She was perfectly fine until they moved her field - and yet she is the one having to stand in her stable all day. And of course when she charges about in her field when she DOES get turned out, it is obviously another sign of her being a 'dangerous' horse.

Well, the farrier suggested I start riding her now - only in straight lines and on a firm surface - so tonight I got on my 'dangerous' horse bareback (as my saddle needs checking and I'm not prepared to cause more problems) and rode her for about 15 minutes - mostly in walk, but with a couple of short trots as well. She was fabulous - and really enjoyed doing something.

As you can probably tell, this has all been getting to me a bit - and I am so so busy with a job and finishing my dissertation, so I could really do without it. I went round to the new/old yard this week to see if there was any way she could squeeze us in before the date I was originally given. Lyn asked how Echo was and I promptly burst into tears (I've been doing this a lot recently!) She took pity on me and has agreed to come and get Echo early next week - this will be before my month's notice is due, but as I was told to leave as soon as possible, I don't think it will be a problem. I did, however, receive a bill for the whole of October yesterday - when I tried to ask the owner about this - querying the fact that, as I handed my notice in in the middle of September, surely I wouldn't have to pay a whole month's livery, he said: "We charge for full months here," and he walked away from me, refusing to discuss it.

I'm not really sure what to do. I want to get out of that place as soon as possible - Echo is miserable and so am I - the best thing we can do is go, but if I am paying for a stable for the whole month, perhaps I could leave some feed bins in there or something. I am very conscious of the fact that they have a waiting list and will be able to fill the space immediately - I think it's unfair if they are just trying to make money from me...what do you think?

My goodness - this was going to be a quick update and it has turned into a full-blown rant! Hopefully, by this time next week, things will be looking a lot more positive and I will have a happier horse on my hands.

Crazy flying circus horse

2011-08-09T03:29:00.000-07:00

My goodness, there is some catching up to do. Every time I think I will have time to get going again, life gets in the way. I have now moved Echo back to where we lived before, although to a different yard, as we are now doing DIY livery. Things are good - I managed to get a horse transport company to move her, relatively cheaply, as I was too stressed out by the idea of hiring a lorry and driving her myself. She travelled really well and arrived relaxed and settled in quickly to her new yard.

And then she came into season.

I have seriously never known her like this. She is in a field on her own, but has three horses on one side and one on the other, so she is far from lonely. Actually, in the field, she is fine. And to be honest, she is fine in her stable too - she just has rather different ideas about when it is time to leave her stable. On Sunday, when I arrived at the yard, they told me she had jumped out of her stable when the horse n ext to her was turned out. Literally, jumped her stable door and galloped off down the track to her field.

Amazingly, there was not a scratch on her, but I was pretty worried. Echo has a bit of a history of getting her legs over the stable door, but she hasn't done it since she was a 2 year old, so although I still have anti-weave bars, I haven't had to use them for so long. They were too big for her stable door, and the guy who was able to cut them down was not at the yard until yesterday, so yesterday morning, she tried again. When the horse next to her was turned out (he has to go first as he's in an adjoining field) she got her legs up over the door and it took two people to wave their arms at her to keep her from jumping out.

The bars have now been fitted, and she is also back on Oestress, a supplement to soothe hormonal mares, but I am a little baffled. I guess as she has been out for a year and not in work for 8 months, she has got a bit used to thinking for herself...and being rather stubborn about getting her own way!

I can't even keep her occupied by working her, as she has to have more time off. I have been riding her in the new saddle - it fits adequately, although when I can ride again I'm going to get a saddler out again to check it. However, I could tell that things were not right with her hindlegs. She started pacing in walk, creating a 2-time gait, and felt uncomfortable behind. She would not half-halt in trot and felt as though she were running onto her forehand all the time. I honestly didn't know what to think - I had had the vet in November, who thought she was a little stiff behind and mentioned the possibility of arthritic changes in her hocks, but I hadn't pursued this any further, as I wanted to see what she was like when she came back into work.

I booked a massage for her, and got my old farrier to come and take a look, thinking that I would be best off starting with her feet. It's a good job I did - her foot balance is so dreadful, after a year with a different farrier, that he said it's a wonder she can walk at all. He showed me her heels and the vast difference in levels: In her left hind, the outside heel is an inch shorter than the inside, and it is similar in her right hind. He explained what this would do to her pelvis and her hind-leg action, then showed me what he meant as she walked away from me. He said it would be at its most pronounced in walk (which it is) and that each time I ride, I will be doing damage.

I am mortified. You put your trust (and money!) into professional people who have passed exams, and then they wreck your horse. He has said that he wants more foot to work with, so I have to wait until her shoes are nearly falling off before he will start working on getting them level again. He said it'll be at least 8 weeks of not riding, but it will be nearly a year before her feet will be truly level.

One of my friends has just qualified as an equine physio, so I got her to have a look at her, the day before her massage was booked for. She watched her on the lunge and said she was obviously uncomfortable, but also that she looked a bit lame on her right hind. Echo has always had strength issues with the right hind, but when she is fit, you hardly notice it. She also said she was really tight through her right side and sore in her lumbar area. When the massage therapist came the next day, she agreed with this, so set about releasing her muscles through her rib-cage and loosening the lumbar region. She was really quite uncomfortable and found it hard to stand still, but she did release through those muscles, and seemed a lot happier afterwards.

My physio friend came to look at her again a couple of days later and said that she was much more sound now - it's amazing what muscle tightness can do! She said the right hind is still weaker, but it could well be the old issue and when she is able to work again, she will give us some exercises to do to work on that weakness.

So...things are not quite as grim as they looked at the beginning of last week, but there is a way to go. First thing is to sort her feet out...and to stop her injuring herself while she's in season! She is hopefully going to be turned out with another horse soon, so perhaps that might take her mind off things.

Experimenting Bareback

2011-06-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

Well...the saddle arrived...and I have no idea whether it fits. You know when someone says 'obviously you'll know whether it basically fits or not'...well I don't. I have always been absolutely useless at judging the fit of saddles, and I have lost all faith in getting a saddle to fit Echo recently. It's so frustrating.

I popped the Ideal Jessica on her the day it arrived, but only literally dropped it on her back to have a look, and my first impressions were pretty positive. I think it looks quite short, but that is the length my saddler told me to go for, as Echo tends to push the saddle forwards onto her shoulders if it's any longer.

I then lunged her in it on Friday and had a proper look at it and...I don't know! I think it needs adjusting, as it seemed to sit a bit high at the back, but I hope that this will be possible. I had a chat with a friend yesterday about it and she was explaining that as Echo has next to no muscle tone at the moment, saddles are not going to fit her that well. As long as it isn't pinching and I can pad it out underneath to fit, then it will give her muscles the space to build up correctly under it.

So, feeling a little despondent about it all, I decided to ride her bareback on Monday. It was the hottest day of the year (so I figured she'd be a little lethargic) and so I just lunged her gently in a polypad and surcingle for 15 minutes. Then I got on! She was a little surprised, and walked fairly hesitantly for a minute or so, stopping regularly to check that I was seriously going to make her walk like this, then I think as I relaxed, she relaxed and she really started to enjoy it. She stretched her neck down and strode out happily.

It was so unbelievably good to be sitting on my horse again - I was grinning from ear to ear and all I was doing was walking! We had a hairy moment near the beginning when she spooked at something in the bushes. Gripping with knees and no saddle equals one very big response from Echo!

I walked her forward on both reins, doing a few circles and just a couple of steps of leg yielding, then had a trot down the long side on each rein. I actually think that if I can be brave enough, I'd be better off cantering, as it would be more comforable for both of us. I don't know if I did the right thing putting the polypad and surcingle on, but it definitely made me feel a little more secure and comfortable.

She was a little reluctant to take a contact to begin with and I couldn't work out why. But then I realised that I have changed her bit since I last rode her - the dentist recommended that I get her a thinner, double jointed bit with a lozenge in the middle. I can imagine this feels quite different, and, although she's used to it on the lunge, she hasn't really ever had any contact on it before.

The saddler is coming out tomorrow to take a look at this saddle and I have absolutely everything crossed that she can make it fit somehow. Echo has put on quite a bit of weight round her shoulders, but this is usually the place she loses it from first, so this makes saddle fitting a little tricky!

I imagine that if she can alter it she will take it away with her, so I expect we will get to have a few more bareback adventures in the next week or so.

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I meant to post yesterday too - as yesterday was Echo's 7th birthday! I know I've posted this pic before, but it's cute enough to look at twice I reckon! This is Echo at a few hours old.

Exciting things

2011-06-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

The last few months have been rather exciting. So although I haven't been riding, the future is starting to take shape. This year I've been doing a Master's degree in journalism, living at home with my parents while doing the course. It has been incredibly hard work - even more than I thought it would be, but also extremely rewarding.

As part of my course, I had to do a 2 week placement at a newspaper or magazine. I sent out loads of emails with my CV, asking if they would take a work experience placement, but had very little success. However, I then sent an email to Horse magazine - one of the national monthly equestrian magazines - and had a reply within about 20 minutes, saying that I could definitely go there and to let them know my dates. It was so exciting - writing for a magazine like that has been a dream for so long!

Horse is based in London, so I had to leave Echo with the person who shares the field. It was the most awesome two weeks ever - I got to write one of the magazine's main news articles on horse passports (on which I am now an expert!) and then do all sorts of interesting things, including interviewing Joanne Eccles, the World champion vaulter, writing an article on building your own stables and writing captions for readers' photos of their horses.

It was tough, particularly writing the news article - I am much more of a features specialist and I found the hard news style quite a challenge, but they were happy with it and it got published in this month's edition, which was unbelievably exciting! I have more things in the issue coming out at the end of this month too, so my name should keep appearing for a while.

I left there on a real high - then a week later, just as I was finishing all my university work, I had an email from the editor, commissioning me to write two more features for them - paid this time - for future issues. How flattering is that?! I was absolutely over the moon. It's come at a pretty tricky time though...I had to finish all the work for last semester; I'm also teaching part time at a local school to earn enough money to live, then I've also been marking exam papers, so time-wise it wasn't great...but I did it! I have now written an article on the information you need if you're considering sharing a horse and one on adults who choose to ride ponies rather than horses. The latter, particularly, was great fun and I got to speak to some really interesting people.

I think the editor was pretty happy with what I wrote, and she's said she'll keep me in mind for future articles - I have also said that I will continue to suggest feature ideas, as it shows enthusiasm and commitment. And NOW...a job has just come up at one of the other national equestrian magazines. But it's in the wrong place in the country. Damn. I think I'm going to apply for it anyway, as the experience of applying is so useful, but seriously - I would LOVE that job.

So with my career looking a little more structured, I can fill you in on what's been happening with Echo. The answer? Not a lot. Her mysterious weight-loss problem disappeared when we moved them onto a field with lots of grass (funny that!) and she is now probably too far the other way. We had our field fertilised and rested for a few weeks, and now they're back on it and looking really well. I now just need to get her back into work!

With the articles done and everything at uni except my final project finished, I can start spending a bit more time with her now. I lunged her yesterday and it was a bit depressing - she was absolutely wild - has forgotten all her manners and didn't seem interested in doing what I wanted her to at all. However, the reason I am all motivated to get her going again is that I have just bought a new saddle! It was a bit of an impulse buy - I saw it on ebay and the auction was ending soon. It was a good price and the style and size that I have been told she needs, so I just went for it! It arrived today and I put it on after lunging her. Now, I don't trust my judgement at all, so I have a saddler coming out next week to look at it, but I think it might fit. She is bound to lose her excess weight when she starts working properly, so there will have to be some adjustment, but it does look like it sits on her quite well.

I will have a proper look at it on Thursday and perhaps lunge her in it. She was much more sane and sensible today, so it seems that she hasn't forgotten everything after all. I absolutely can't wait to get back on - it's been far too long!

The next bit of news is that we're moving back to where we were soon - but I'll write more about that next time. We will be here until the end of July, then moving back to our old area...although not our old yard, as my change of career is going to require DIY livery. And perhaps a sharer, but more about that later too!

Bit of a conundrum!

2011-04-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

You would think that now that the weather is so much nicer and the grass is starting to grow again (at last), that Echo would be putting on weight and I would be struggling to keep her trim. It is therefore a bit of a mystery to me, why she is in fact losing weight. It's really weird and has only really been in the last few weeks. All over the winter she looked pretty good and I was feeling rather smug that I had managed to keep weight on her through all of that snow and freezing temperatures. Now, as far as I am concerned, I haven't been doing anything differently: she is still being fed twice a day (in the last two weeks I have nearly doubled her feed to try to put some weight on her) she is still getting hay at lunchtime and at night (although I don't have anything to do with this - it's given to the three horses by the lady that owns the other two. She has been wormed, had her teeth done only 4 months ago and yet looks terrible.

The lady who shares the field with me has a thermal imaging camera and sent me a text on Thursday to say that she had scanned Echo's head and there was something going on with one of her teeth. I couldn't really see much - there is a little heat spot around one of her teeth -once I can work out a way of getting the scans on to here, you can see what you think. She emailed the scans to the dentist we both use and I had a long chat with her about what she thought. The dentist didn't think that there is a problem with her teeth - she said the heat spot was not pronounced enough to be anything serious - she might just have some forage stuck there and that I should check myself (I'm not sure quite how - I rather value all of my fingers!) I had a look as much as I could and couldn't seem to find anything. The dentist then questioned me about worming and the hay situation - she suggested I check that the horses are having the hay in separate piles that are far enough away from each other - Echo is no longer the dominant horse in the field and gets rather pushed around by Faye's big ex-eventer. I mentioned this to Faye, although it is hard not to sound like I'm being critical - I just really want my horse to put some weight on!!

In the mean time, the dentist suggested that I really try to build up Echo's work load - it's tricky with no saddle (we still haven't found one to fit) but she said that as she starts to build muscle she will put weight on. I know this, but it's hard to motivate myself when I know there is no chance of riding Echo and so we just lunge all the time - that MUST get boring. I will start lunging her with poles etc, and I would love to learn to long-rein her, but I have never long-reined, so am cautious about trying. I have asked a friend of mine to teach me some Parelli games so that I can try to keep Echo's mind busy - it's getting to the time of year when she is in season and escapes from the field - I found her in the back garden on Friday morning, happily mowing the lawn!!

If anyone has any ideas for interesting groundwork to do with her, I would love to hear them! I don't like walking her in hand as if hacking, as she is really spooky in that situation - it's much better when I'm riding her; we are therefore somewhat limited to the school...

I lunged her yesterday and took some photos and video. In the back of my mind is the fact that we had all of those soundness issues at the start of the winter, which were never fully resolved - I'm just sort of hoping that all the time off she has had has made them go away. I took several clips of video, and as you can see, she starts off fairly stiff, but looks a lot better by the end. She has lost all of her balance and ability to carry herself, so rushes quite a bit on the lunge, but she hasn't been worked consistently since October, so I'm hoping that this is the reason behind it.

I have been reading an article on straightness that was recommended to me by Wiola - I will post properly about that another time, but I think it is the key to many of our problems.

This first one is just a short clip showing her walking on the right rein. She had already walked and trotted free on the left rein before this, but I hadn't got my act together with the camera!

This next one shows her trotting on the left rein having just had the side reins on - she is a little stiff and resistant at first.

This is a little later on on the left rein - more stretching and submission.

This is moving onto the right rein, still in the side reins - really rushing and not really stretching.

A little later on on the right rein - starting to half halt her a little with my voice and she is relaxing into the side reins a bit more. She's still quite unbalanced here.

Echo's favourite thing - stretching at the end of a lunging session!

Enjoying a bit of grass at the yard before going home.

I need some luck, please!

2011-02-08T12:16:00.000-08:00

What a winter! I definitely spoke too soon in my previous post...the stables were very much NOT finished before the worst weather hit and poor Echo and her two friends were living out through some of the worst snow I have ever seen. We had two feet of snow, followed by temperatures as low as -16! There were some things to be thankful for however - she is just outside my back door, so I didn't have to travel to feed her etc. As well as this, I hadn't clipped her as I had been having so many problems and thought I would wait until I knew what was going to happen - thank goodness! She needed all the warmth she could get!

The stables are still not finished, although the roof is now going on. It's getting to the stage where I don't really need her to be stabled over night, but they will be very useful for feeding and handling purposes. It seems a bit of a shame, as I will be moving by the end of May - we won't have made the most of a really beautiful little yard. Never mind.

Just before the snow arrived, I had a visit from the vet, who looked at Echo on the lunge and confirmed that she was very stiff and uncomfortable in her back and hindlegs. She gave her a course of 10 days of Bute, to see whether she was just holding her back tightly due to past discomfort. Unfortunately, the last of these 10 days was the first day of the snow, so I wasn't able to find out whether it worked. The vet also mentioned the possibility that the problem might be in her hocks rather than originating in her back. She dropped the phrase 'arthritic changes' into the conversation but then said that she thought it was unlikely. I really hope that this is not what is causing Echo's discomfort, but if it is, I would rather know, so that I can do something about it!

For now, I think that as the saddle has been classified as seriously not fitting her, I will try to fix this problem next. That's the difficulty with these discomfort issues - it's impossible to know where to start solving them! I have at last sold my beautiful (but badly fitting) dressage saddle and my saddler thinks that she has something that has just come in that may fit. So...I now have to prepare to get on her back after her having had nearly four months as a field pony!

I lunged her last week and she galloped around wildly for about ten minutes before settling - hard to tell whether she's stiff if she does that! I then lunged her today and things made a much nicer looking picture! She was much calmer and didn't look stiff in her hind legs, although I'm not very good at judging! One thing that was positive, however, was that I put side reins on her for the first time since having her teeth done; last time I used side reins she fought them and rushed, looking dreadfully uncomfortable. Since having the dentist out and getting a new bit, she looks much happier in them. I made them very long today, encouraging her to stretch into them, which she did, so it's looking much more positive.

My plan is to lunge her a bit more this week, then if she is nice and calm, get on her bareback a couple of times before the saddler comes next week. I really really hope that this saddle fits; the lady wants rather a lot of money for it, but I can probably get somewhere close to the price. I am really struggling for money at the moment as I am also trying to buy a car - I wrote mine off when I crashed on the ice just before Christmas - it really hasn't been a very lucky few months, so I'm holding out for my luck to change a bit now!

I will write again after the saddler come on Wednesday - think lucky thoughts, everyone!!

Horses' Backs - pain in the back(side).

2010-11-22T15:40:00.000-08:00

Oh dear…it’s been a while again. Sorry about this. Things should be a little more on track from now on! I have started my Master’s and am absolutely loving it – it’s fabulous to be learning again and having had five years as a teacher, as you can imagine, I have become a real swot! The course is varied and intense but I am still getting plenty of time to spend with Echo, which is great.

Echo has got used to being a field horse – she’s grown a huge furry winter coat and is looking pretty rough around the edges. However, the stables that my parents are building are NEARLY finished and so hopefully she will start coming in at night before the really bad weather kicks in. I am really struggling for money, so hoping to use some really economical bedding, possibly Megazorb, which is supposed to need minimal mucking out on a day to day basis and confines the wet patch to a really small area. We’ll see how this goes!

I think in my last post I may have jinxed things in terms of riding. When I first moved up here, Echo was going fabulously. However, things started to go steadily downhill, mostly in terms of her behaviour – she got a bit nappy – spooking a lot and running away from under me at the slightest thing. I was really confused, as this is not like Echo at all. I always check her over when I groom and tack up, but she started to get more and more difficult about her back. It was odd – to begin with it was barely noticeable, then after a while she was obviously very sore.

The lady who keeps a horse with Echo is a back specialist, so I got her to take a look and she said she was very uncomfortable and it would be worth getting a saddler to look at her saddle. AGAIN!!! After all the stress I went through less than a year ago, the saddle appears to not fit. I found a master saddler and sure enough, she said the saddle doesn’t fit. What is more worrying is that she didn’t see how it could ever have really fitted. It’s apparently too narrow between the panels. Echo has uneven shoulders (so I learnt) and she also has a tendency to push the saddle forwards onto these uneven shoulders. When this happens, the saddle then apparently twists, putting pressure on one side of her back. It also puts added pressure on the back of the saddle, as it is becoming too high in front.

The saddler watched me ride in my saddle and it was awful – Echo was totally lame – she couldn’t even trot. That was the worst she had ever been – I felt I had to promise the saddler that I hadn’t just been riding her like that! She recommended I have her back treated again, then give her a few days off and she would come out again bringing some saddles that she thought would fit. When she did, she pulled out this absolutely beautiful saddle. Typical! It was brand new and I nearly melted over it. Sure enough, she put it on her and it stayed nice and low in front and was held in place by a point strap. When I rode in it, Echo felt soft and forward and lovely. Her neck was able to bend in both directions and I suddenly realised how bad things had got – that’s the problem when you ride a horse all the time – changes happen gradually so that you don’t really notice.

The problem? This saddle is £925. I don’t have £925.

The saddler left me to think about it and I thought a lot. I had pretty much decided to just buy it on my credit card and pay it back when I could, but then I lunged Echo a couple of days later. She looked fine when she was free, but when I put side reins on, she went crazy, running and spooking and getting really upset and unreasonable, rather like she had been the last couple of times I’d ridden her. I didn’t see how it could be her back, as she’d had time off and been treated. Next avenue of thought – teeth. She was due to have her teeth done anyway and my friend suggested that rather than getting a vet as I always have before, to try her horse’s dentist.

I’ll write a separate post about the dentist, as it was a fascinating experience, but the short version is that her teeth had never been properly rasped at the back. Ever. The back teeth were like razor blades and had caused huge amounts of muscle tension in her poll, which is likely to have been causing her a lot of discomfort. Now how bad do I feel!? The dentist recommended that I get a new bit, one with a lozenge in the middle, as she has a fleshy mouth and a big tongue; she thinks that that might help.

So where to go from here? She has had a week off after the dentist, and tomorrow I plan to lunge her very gently in a headcollar to see how she looks. If she still looks uncomfortable, I have a vet coming to vaccinate her on Friday and I may start some investigation into what the problem might be. I will also get the back lady to check her over again and see how her back is doing now that she has had her teeth done and her mouth shouldn’t be as sore. So for the moment, I can’t even think about saddles. I am half looking out for an Ideal Jessica, as the saddler said that was the only other type of saddle that she could see fitting her. Perhaps I should ride her bareback for a while. Any opinions on that? I’m not convinced by riding bareback – does it harm a horse’s back? Would be interested in your views.

A difficult few days.

2010-09-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

Echo and I are beginning to settle. I know that these things take time, particularly when we have been at a nice, well-run livery yard and it now feels like we're 'roughing-it' a bit, but we've had a difficult couple of days.

I went away last weekend for a couple of days and left Echo with the lady who owns Gizmo, the other horse in the field. We had had a good week of riding, and even ventured out for a little hack on Friday, which Echo was brilliant on, so I was feeling really positive about the whole situation. When I arrived back on Monday morning, I found Echo wandering around outside the fenced off section of the field. She hadn't broken the fence, she had just gone through it somehow!

Now, I know that Echo has history with this, but I had really hoped that we could have got this sorted before she started breaking out. That day was a complete nightmare. Every time I put her back in, she got out again within half an hour or so. The worrying thing was that there are no gates at the moment into the garden, where the building work on the stables is still being done. Not only are there so many things for her to injure herself on, she would also destroy my parents' garden!

I was running through so many ideas in my head - moving her to a livery yard...selling her! We decided to see whether we could make the electric fencing any stronger, as it was only giving 3000 volts, which all the websites say is the minimum for horse paddocks - never mind fencing to contain a Houdini-horse! The battery also seemed to be running really slowly, only giving a click every 5 seconds or so. I'm pretty sure Echo was barely being touched by it. The battery had only just been charged, so my dad took the whole lot to the local farm suppliers and asked for their help!

He then bought a new battery - a leisure battery rather than a car battery and a new earthing stake and we had a go with that. I would still like it to have a little more oomph to it's shock - it is now giving off between 4.5 and 5000 volts, which is a big improvement. It is also clicking every 2 seconds, so this should deter her a bit more. It has luckily been very mild and dry for the last few days, so I have been leaving her without a rug on, so that she definitely gets a shock if she tries to go through it, and so far, touch wood, this seems to be working. I am loathe to say that the problem is solved, as that would probably jinx it, but so far so good. Tonight, however, it is puring with rain, so I have put a rug on and am sitting here with my fingers crossed, hoping that she stays put.

There is more grass in the other section of the field, so we are going to fence this, perhaps even this weekend, but I would like to save some grass for the winter time - even if it has little goodness in it, it is still there and they will spend their time eating it!

In contrast to all of my problems, Echo has been absolutely brilliant to ride! Seriously, she's going better than she's ever gone. I now get on by my parents' front gate and ride her round the village to the school; she stands beautifully to wait to cross the road and no longer spooks at every driveway! I've now been out for two hacks on my own, as there is no one to ride with, and she's been far better than she ever was on her own before! She seems to really enjoy being out - we went out for nearly an hour yesterday, going for two really long canters along lovely straight grass tracks that seem to go on forever. Although it's all farmland, it is much less industrial than the farms we rode round in Suffolk, where every field has some kind of machinery or activity going on. She's also so far been very good with the traffic. I have to ride along a fairly main road for a little while in order to get to the path onto the farmland, but there is a concrete path to the side of the road - this is both good and bad - it's good because we are off the road and cars don't have to go round us, but it's bad because that means that cars don't really have to slow down. Most are very courteous and do, but there was a lorry that rattled past us yesterday - she tensed up, but didn't do anything. Clever pony!

She has been going beautifully in the school too - we've been working on lateral work in trot - shoulder in and travers, and learning to do half-pass in walk. I just wish I could get out and do stuff - go to riding club training or go out competing. I need to find someone who has a trailer they aren't using, or someone local who goes to things, but I've been struggling to find anyone at all who does anything! People who have horses don't seem to ride them, or at least don't hack them out and some people have been particularly unfriendly. This is a bit of a pet hate of mine - since moving to the area I have tried to be really friendly - I smile and say hello to everyone I pass in the village - and from the looks I get sometimes, you'd think I had sworn at them or something! I'm a bit stubborn really...and this just makes me more determined to be even more friendly! I WILL make them be civil!

So...there have been some bad things and some very good things. The stables are getting there. The walls are pretty much finished and by the end of the weekend, we should be ready to start concreting - which would be fantastic - at least I will have somewhere to stand her then! She is getting much braver about everything - I brought her right over to the kitchen door today, to take her saddle off as it had begun to rain and I didn't want it to sit out and get wet, and she very nearly walked into the kitchen! Another bad thing...the Red Arrows. I'm sure I'll post more about this in future, but the Red Arrows train over my village, and they fly low. Very low. Echo is getting used to this, and no longer even looks up when she's out in the field, but I'm wary of riding when they're flying, as it's very dangerous. I waited all afternoon for them to stop today. The irony of this? I then ended up riding in a thunderstorm! You can't win.

The end of this post has become very rambling and random, so I will stop now. I will try to post some photos of the stables' progress as they are looking really good now.

The Red Arrows - not horse-friendly!!

Adjusting....

2010-09-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

I've moved, Echo has moved and we are beginning to get sorted. It has been quite a summer; my boyfriend and I moved out of our house at the end of July, so that month was spent moving our furniture into storage and the rest of our stuff into his parents' house. Since then, I've been gradually moving all of my bits and pieces that I'll need for the next year up to my parents', about 3 hours' drive away; lastly, I moved Echo.

The journey was good - she travelled with another horse so she was very calm, although he did eat all of her hay - it's unlike her to let anyone eat anything that she deems 'hers', but she has a particularly soft spot for this horse, as was shown when we hacked out together the day before!! I arrived in Lincoln about an hour before she did, so I just had time to check all the fencing and to check that the other horse, Gizmo, was in the correct part of the field: we decided to keep them separate to begin with, then take the dividing fence down after a day or two. I was impressed with how calm Echo was in her new field - it was blowing a gale and Gizmo was running up and down the fence calling when we arrived. I kept her on a lead rope for a bit and let her graze in hand in her field. To be honest, I think she was so amazed by the sight of so much grass, she didn't care about much else!

I left them to it for a little while, and when I went out later that evening, they were calmly grazing - each of them very close to the fence, so that they were as near as possible. Having them separate made things much easier: Echo is fed twice a day, whereas Gizmo isn't fed, as he isn't worked, so when they were separate I could just put her feed in her field; when I wanted to get her out to work her, as I did on the day after we arrived, I could just take her out of the field calmly. However, whenever I went out they were standing so close to each other that I figured they would probably like to be together. It was the evening after we arrived that I took the dividing fence down. Echo looked exhausted: she was obviously tired from travelling and felt safest sleeping near to him. They were both very calm; I'd been muck-picking the field for a little while and they both seemed chilled, so I quietly removed the fence...and all hell broke loose!

They charged around the field, bucking, leaping and galloping, as if they'd never seen each other before. I do wish I'd had a camera though - what Echo did next was amazing. If any of you have seen Monty Roberts work a horse, you'll know the natural horsemanship way of communicating through body language, to mimic the dominant member of the herd. Echo was performing textbook Monty Roberts stuff. Gizmo came over to her and she moved towards him with her ears back; he didn't listen, so kept coming and she ran a couple of steps; he paused, but kept coming, so she reared vertically, waved her front feet at him and spun round to kick out. That certainly got him to move away from her. For the next five minutes she just kept moving him around - whenever he stopped to graze she'd move him on again. After a few minutes, he was ready to do anything she told him - and even after four days, he still is! When I go to get her out of the field, she sees him coming over and turns to square up to him, so he backs off. When she starts walking towards me again, if he follows she pushes him away again - it's very handy for me - less shooing and chasing him away!

So - other things. I have definitely been spoilt over the last few years with having her on livery. I am finding it pretty hard to adjust. I'm really enjoying doing everything myself, but I'm finding the lack of facilities really tough. My parents are in the process of having stables built and they'll probably be finished in the next 6 weeks, but in the mean time, I have nowhere to take her that is hard for her to stand on and near to my stuff. At the moment, I am getting her out of her field, leading her over to near the house and sort of 'pretending' to tie her to a rather rickety fence, under a tree. I have to lug my saddle and all of my stuff over to there beforehand and then hope that she will stand still to be groomed and tacked up. At the moment, Gizmo still thunders up and down the field, calling wildly to her when I'm doing this. She takes little notice, but today she realised she wasn't tied up and took off across to him, with her lead rope hanging from her headcollar still. She's easy enough to catch, but it is really starting to get to me.

To make things even more difficult, the wind has been ridiculously strong since I arrived. Seriously, it has not let up at all. I know that horses should just 'deal' with this, but it does affect Echo's mood; it was slightly quieter on Sunday and that made a huge difference to her state of mind when I had her 'tied up'. I have to lead her through a back road through the village and across a busy road to get to the school. She is getting better at this, but is still incredibly spooky. Today, what with the wind and the escaping episode, I was feeling a bit rubbish about everything. Then, just as I got to the school, the heavens opened and it tipped down with torrential rain - I have never known water to fall from the sky like this did - it was like being under a power shower. I managed to get her under the over-hang on the livery yard, but she was spooked by the wind, so wouldn't stand still. I got on anyway, and rode in the increasingly water-logged school. She was ok, just not really listening - concentrating more on the wind and the sounds around her. The first half of our session was terrible and I was getting really frustrated, but it started to improve; the weather got a bit better and she began to listen. In fact, she felt quite calm at the end, so I rode her back to the house through the village and she was very very good. I was proud of her for that. And me.

The yard that has the school is tiny, but there is hardly anyone there. In order to solve a few of my problems, I may see if I can arrange to keep my tack there, so that I can lead her round there and deal with her on a proper concrete surface and get out of the rain if necessary. Hopefully the concrete should be down on our yard in the next couple of weeks, so that even though the roof won't be on yet, I'll have somewhere secure to tie her up, out of the field.

I feel like I'm complaining and being very selfish; I know how lucky I am to have my horse at home and to have somewhere to ride. I am just having problems adjusting to it all and finding it all a bit overwhelming at the moment. Hopefully my posts will become a bit more positive over the next few weeks...

My make-shift tack room!

Getting closer!

2010-08-31T01:21:00.001-07:00

Where has the summer gone? This has to have been one of the busiest summers ever, and unfortunately, not so much of it has been Echo-related! What with moving out of my house (into four different places) and trying to organise going on holiday and applying for loans to fund my journalism studies, I have had very little time to do anything else! As you saw in my last post, I've managed to compete a little, but unfortunately I won't be able to do any more competitions now, as we've run out of time!

The next big thing on the horizon is my move up to Lincolnshire. My family have a house with land and have been busily building me a couple of stables and converting a shed into a tack room; I am eternally grateful for this, as although I intend to keep Echo outside for most of the year, if we have another winter like last year, I shall be glad of the stables!!

The plan was to hire a lorry and drive Echo up to Lincolnshire myself this weekend. However, I was then offered a lift from a very kind lady at the yard who is taking her horse up to the national riding club championships in Lincoln and has space in her trailer; I could not believe my luck as this solves a whole host of problems: the stables are not finished and there is no concrete in the yard; the extra time should hopefully mean that they are a little closer to being done. I was terrified about driving the lorry myself; my boyfriend was going to come with me, but that would involve masses of driving; this way, I can drive my car up behind her trailer and then I'll have everything there. It has all worked out pretty perfectly, so we are staying for an extra couple of weeks. Even with an extra week's livery, I still think I will save money as hiring a lorry is bloomin' expensive!

I was on holiday in France for 10 days over the last couple of weeks and Echo has been finding ways to entertain herself. As is usual for her at this time of year, she has taken to climbing out of her field. It all coincides with her being in season, not being worked and probably feeling a bit bored as she is out on her own at the moment. She has geldings on both sides, but none of them pay her the slightest bit of attention! So she gets out and goes to find someone who is interested. I'm hoping that this won't continue to happen when I get her home; she'll be living with a very attractive gelding, so hopefully that should keep her occupied for a while!!

Talking of fencing, I am going up to Lincolnshire again this week to sort out the fencing in my parents' field. At the moment it has sheep wire all the way around, with two strands of barbed wire on top. Obviously, this is unsuitable, but I can't afford to totally re-fence the field yet. What I've decided to do is to get long insulators that hold electric tape about 20cm from the outside fence, and run two lines of this round the perimeter of the field. It isn't perfect, but provided it is on, it should stop her getting close to the nasty barbed wire behind. At some point, when we have a bit more money, I hope to properly re-fence the outside all the way round. For now, this will have to do. The field will be cut in half so that we can rotate the grazing, and to begin with, will be cut in half again so that Echo and Gizmo can be kept separate for a while, just til they get to know each other.

I'm excited and nervous about having Echo at home. It feels like a big responsibility when I've been used to having her on livery, but it also feels 'right' - the 'proper' way to have a horse. I've still got a few more logistical issues to sort out, but I hope we're going to be able to carry on doing things together. I'm hoping to join a local riding club, for example; I don't have transport, but thought that if I join a riding club, someone might be passing my house and able to give me a lift to training or competitions. It's worth a shot, I reckon.

For the next couple of weeks, I'm hoping to get her back to the standard she was schooling at before I went on holiday (it always feels like we've gone back about 3 steps!), do some jumping and go on plenty of hacks. We'll make the most of our extra week in Suffolk!

Competitions and a little catching up to do!

2010-08-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

Goodness - it's been ages! It will take me a long time to bring you all up to date on what Echo and I have been doing so this post will just be a brief overview. We've been having a few lessons with a fantastic Portuguese dressage trainer, we've been hacking and jumping a lot, and we've been competing - yes, proper competing!

I was going to register with British Dressage, but with my up-coming move, I'm not sure how worthwhile it will be, so we've been sticking to unaffiliated competitions for now, but we're having so much fun. There is a lovely and very generous lady at the yard who used to compete at Prix St George with her horse who she has now retired from schooling and only hacks with, and she has now driven me to a couple of shows. One was about a month and a half ago and the other was on Friday.

Echo is so fabulously behaved at shows. I didn't completely expect her to be, but at her first competition, she came off the lorry, had a little look around, then stood tied to the lorry with a haynet until asked to do some work. The competitions we've been to have been in a lovely venue - really well run, with great surfaces; having said that, there are plenty of things there that I would have put money on her spooking at, but she seems to just know what she's there to do, gets her head down and tries her hardest.

At the first show, we won our first prelim class and came fourth in the second - she was a bit tired by the second one as I think I'd worked her in for too long. I also had a few issues with downward transitions and nearly ended up in the judge's box at the end of the second test! On Friday, her second ever show away from home, she was absolutely brilliant. I didn't warm up for too long, so she felt fresh and lively going into the arena. It wasn't a test I'd ridden before, but I could tell it would suit her. We even got a 9 for our centre line entry!!

She was a star - we won the prelim with nearly 79%. Could not have asked for more from her at this stage. Next came our first novice test - not exactly an easy one either - it has two diagonals of medium trot and two long sides of medium canter, as well as a walk to canter transition, so lots of places where things could have gone wrong. A couple of things did - we got the wrong canter lead at one point - rider-error entirely - and we didn't really do any medium strides in trot. I'll post more about my schooling another time, as I have lots to talk about with engaging her more and getting her to carry more weight on her hindlegs. We are certainly getting there - she is much more 'through' than she used to be, but there's always more work to do - that's why I love dressage!

Anyway - we won the novice too! I totally wasn't expecting to, but the judge seemed to really like her and commented on what a super attitude she has. I would have to agree. I'll post the videos here, so you can see how we're getting on. I will be posting a little more regularly soon - I promise!

Changes...

2010-04-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

I've been mentioning for a while that there are big changes on the horizon, but haven't got round to explaining what they are. This week I am heading into my last term at the school I teach at, and in fact, my last term of teaching altogether...for a while at least! In September, I am going back to university to do a Masters degree in journalism. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, but I wanted to feel like I'd given teaching a good go first; that way, I know I can come back to it later if I want to.

I looked into various options - should I stay where I am and do a distance learning course? Should I do a course at all or just try to find a job? But the more I thought about the Masters, the more I really wanted to do it - to get back into studying. I haven't yet decided what area of journalism I want to get into, so hopefully the course will enable me to make lots of contacts and get lots of experience so that I can find a job that I love.

For Echo, this will mean another move of area. I am going to study where my parents live, and it just so happens that they have a big paddock that already has two horses on and they are thinking of building a couple of stables. It needs work before I would put Echo on it (nasty barb wire fencing etc) but it all seems like it will be rather perfect. It was funny - as I thought more about the options, this plan just seemed to slot into place.

The best bit (other than the exciting change of career of course!) is that there is a small DIY livery yard across the road and if the weather gets as bad as it did last winter, I could keep her there for a while instead of her living out; but also, it has an arena with a lovely rubber surface and the owner said that I can pay a small amount each month and use it whenever I like!! It is absolutely perfect, and literally only 100 yards from my house.

I will post a bit more about changes that I'll be making to the paddock, as I don't know a great deal about managing grazing, and would really value some advice from those of you experienced at it. Initial plans are to split the 3 and a half acres in half with electric fencing so that we can rotate it. It needs some sort of treatment as there are buttercups on it at the moment, and I will need to change the top two layers of barbed wire all the way round the outside, which will be pricey, but vital. I will also have to consider muck heap options, as there is a ditch that runs into a stream in the field which I know I must keep away from.

There's a bit of work to do, but I'm just so glad that I don't have to sell Echo or put her out on loan - the fact that I can do the course I want to AND take my horse with me is amazing. Just got to get through this last term now!

Look what we've been doing!!

2010-04-09T06:27:00.000-07:00

We had such a fun morning! We went with a friend who rides her horse western style and just wanted to take him out somewhere. Echo was a star - she jumped everything I asked her to and didn't put a foot wrong - except for a strange little hoppy thing she did after a couple of jumps. She really enjoyed herself, as you can see in the videos. She was absolutely exhausted though!

Really happy with her - she travelled well and was very calm the whole time - what a superstar!

A Short Catch Up...

2010-04-06T06:23:00.000-07:00

I must again apologise for my poor commitment to blogging regularly. It has been such a busy few weeks since I wrote about Wiola's visit. I have been working very hard on my position in the saddle, although probably not doing the 'off the horse' exercises enough. I think I'm much straighter now, and when I recently rode in my old saddle so that I could jump, it didn't slip at all, which would suggest that I'm not leaning to one side nearly as much as I was.

So - the last few weeks have been busy - lots of riding and lots of other things too - more about that to come! Echo and I have been doing lots of schooling, but also some jumping, which was brilliant and lots of hacking. The countryside is not quite as good as at my old yard; I can't complain, as it's all off-road, but it is round farmland and there is a lot of machinery! It's very good for her to learn about tractors and irrigation and spinny spraying things and huge white sheets covering wide expanses of space... but it can be a little hairy when we're out on our own! Luckily, most of the farmers are really nice and if they see you're in trouble they stop and turn off their engines. Some don't. Some even start their particularly loud spinny spraying things just as you ride past. I love those ones.

This week I am hoping to do a little more jumping, then am hopefully going with a friend back to the old yard to use their cross country course. I feel like having a bit of a play over some of the little logs and through the water - I think it'll be good for both of us.

This is a very short post, by my standards, and I have SO much to say, but it'll have to wait for a couple of days so that I have time to tell you ALL my news!

I shall leave you with a few photos of the hacking delights that we go past!

I'm particularly fond of these big sheets when it's really windy - they ripple and then bits of them come loose and flap like a sail!

Position First...

2010-02-18T11:32:00.000-08:00

Echo and I have had a busy few weeks. She's coming back into work fairly consistently now which is very good, and I'm trying to believe that the fact that the saddle doesn't look like it fits her quite as well as it did when I bought her is just a 'settling in' issue. It's only when I first put it on - after I've ridden in it, it looks perfect, so I'm going to ignore it for a little while and hope it goes away!

More excitingly, we had a lesson at the beginning of this week with Wiola, whose blog I have been reading for the last 2 and a half years. It was a really interesting lesson; we've been having real problems with crookedness recently. Well, I say WE, but in fact I'm really the one with the crookedness - Echo can't hope to be straight if I'm not! Wiola came over for the day to see if we could sort out what my problems are.

It was a really interesting lesson, as it made me really think about the way I sit and what I do with my seat. One of the interesting things we worked on was using my seatbones to straighten Echo. I have always used my weight to push her away - if I sit heavier on the left seat bone, I expected her to move away to the right, away from the weight. However, Wiola got me to use it to get her to bring her own weight under me. So that if I put more weight in my left seatbone, she will move her body under that weight. I need to think this through and have a bit more of an experiment with it, but it really did seem to work.

The other really interesting thing that we worked on was in my posture. I have always looked down when I ride - it is a problem I have had ever since I learned that a horse should 'arch' its neck when it is moving (i.e. - since a LONG time ago!) Every instructor I have ever had has tried to get me to look up, but Wiola was the first person who made me realise why I need to keep my head up. I know that it makes her go on the forehand if I look down - but she explained that I need to be able to feel the movement of the horse right up into my neck - if I look down and break the straight line through my body, I can't feel the movement properly. She said also that if I look rather than feel the movement of the horse, then I will be reacting too late to things that need to be corrected. I will be a much more sensitive rider if I rely more on my feel.

Wiola rode Echo during the session and it was really good to see her work with her - she was able to explain to me exactly what she was feeling and what she was doing to correct it - and as I know Echo so well, I was able to immediately understand what she meant. Wiola has written about the lesson here and it makes a really interesting read; you can also see some video of me cantering. What's interesting is that in the video I felt as if I was almost leaning back I was sitting up so straight - in reality, it looks fairly normal - I have definitely got some work to do on this!

In addition to this lesson, I'm hoping that Wiola is going to be able to come out again to continue working with us on the straightness issue; I really feel that there is little point in spending lots of money on lessons that only work on the horse, until I have sorted my own problems out first. The lady that owns the yard I keep Echo at was really impressed by how well Echo was moving during the lesson - and we were barely concentrating on her - it just shows how vital it is to make sure you are sitting right in order to make the horse go well.

In light of this, I am also planning on having a lesson here, with a lady called Becky Chapman. Se has a mechanical horse that apparently feels exactly like riding a real horse. The benefit of this is that the horse can be trotting, but the instructor can be manipulating your body into the way you should sit while you are actually moving. It also prints out lots of graphs for you to see what the eveness is like in your seat and in your rein contact. I don't know much about it yet, but everything I have heard is incredibly positive. I'll keep you posted on this!

See what you think...

2010-02-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

These are both of the same saddle - she's rushing a bit, but I think the saddle is staying pretty still... see what you think.

The Saddle

2010-01-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

I've ridden a few times in the saddle now and I am pretty happy with it. I had a very experienced lady watch me ride in it yesterday and she didn't think it moved at all on her back. My friends videoed me in it today (I'll put that on here tomorrow) and I took several photos from different angles. I would welcome any suggestions/thoughts on the fit of it, although I appreciate that you can't tell that much from still photos.

Before riding, the saddle sat like this:

After riding, the saddle sat like this:

This is me having just got on:

This is after riding her for 20 minutes...

What I have realised from these photos and what is likely to be glaringly obvious to you all, is HOW WONKY I AM!!!!!!!!! I am so far over to the right - I can't believe it! In these photos I was convinced I was sitting straight. The result of this is a decision - Wiola I need you!!

Got one!!

2010-01-26T15:11:00.001-08:00

Exciting stuff: the saddler came out much sooner than expected, last night in fact, and brought with him a whole array of beautiful dressage saddles for me to try. He first had a look at my wintec, and couldn’t really see why it was slipping, but accepted that something obviously happens when I ride in it. He said that once a customer has lost faith in a saddle, it’s usually best to just ‘bite the bullet’ and get a different one. I am really starting to agree with this idea now.

He must have tried about 10 saddles on her, ranging from medium width to wide, but in the end, only one fitted perfectly – a Black Country dressage saddle in medium/wide. It is so beautiful! We took her up to the school in it, so I could try it out for a bit. Several things were against us: I had clipped her on Sunday and lo and behold, it turned FREEZING cold yesterday, so she was a little bit fresh; it was dark and last time I rode in the school with the lights on I had to work very hard to convince her that there were in fact no monsters lurking in the trees. Also, there was a little pressure to get on with it, rather than take quite as long as I usually do on a free rein, as I didn’t want to bore the poor man! Oh – and of course there was the fact that she was wearing a leather dressage saddle for the first time in her life, with no numnah and it must have felt very weird!

She was very good, given the circumstances. She was a little tense and unsure of the feel of the saddle, but she felt nice and free through the shoulders and moved nicely in it. It felt incredible – it felt like I’d come home, as I originally trained only in dressage saddles. We walked, trotted and cantered on both reins, with only a little bit of spooking and a bit of bucking when I first asked for a canter on the right rein. When I came to a halt, the saddle settled in a central position (unlike the wintec last time I rode in it) but he said that because of the poor light, he couldn’t see whether it was moving at all as I was riding. Obviously, this is very important, but the floodlights in the school are not very powerful.

What he has decided to do is leave the saddle with me for the rest of the week so that I can ride in it a few times and see how she goes. This is really helpful – I don’t think you can tell from one session. He also said that I should ride in the daylight at the weekend with some ‘knowledgeable’ people with me, so that they can see if it moves at all.

I don’t know much about buying saddles, but this seems like a really good service: I’ve not paid him anything yet and he’s said that I can make him an offer for it at the end of the week, or I can give it back if I don’t like it. I am really trying not to get too excited, as if it isn’t perfect, I’m not going to spend a fortune on it, but I can’t wait to ride her again tomorrow! Fingers crossed! I’ll take some photos at the weekend and see what you think!

Saddles

2010-01-23T11:57:00.000-08:00

So the saddle saga continues...
I have not been happy with my saddle for a while now. We had problems months ago, so my saddler came out and changed the gullet from a wide fit to a medium, so as to make it sit higher in front and then not move around behind. This worked for about a month, but she suddenly became very sore and would not go forward - this is not like Echo at all, so I rang the saddler and he suggested changing the gullet back to a wide and using a thicker numnah for a while - just to see what happened. This felt better, but I wasn;t happy about how much it moved at the back.

I rode Echo yesterday and she was great and moved beautifully; however, when I got off, I noticed that the saddle was sitting quite a long way to the right. When I tacked her up today, I made sure that it was totally central. However, she felt very uncomfortable when on the left rein. She wouldn't leg-yield to the right (with left bend) and nearly reared when I asked her to shoulder-in left. I rode back to the yard and asked one of the ladies there to have a look from behind (she's a very knowledgable dressagey-type - very useful to have around!) and she said it was sitting so far to the right that the left panel was nearly on her spine. No wonder she didn't like me asking for left bend or sitting heavier on my left seat-bone!

The lady then asked whether I would like to try her dressage saddle on her - just to see whether it is Echo's back that makes the saddle sit badly, or whether it is my saddle. The answer: it's my saddle. The moment we placed the dressage saddle on her back, it slipped beautifully into place and looked as if it had been made to measure. I groaned inwardly, realising this was going to get expensive... I had a sit in the saddle and it stayed central; I rode some circles in it...and it stayed bang in the centre. Damn it - why do horses have to be so expensive?!

I rang my saddler there and then and explained the situation. He's away this weekend but is going to give me a ring on Monday to arrange an appointment next week. He said he'll bring a range of second hand leather GP and dressage saddles for me to try. The one that I put on her today is a KN - I thought I'd do some research online about them - and found their retail price is £1500!! I did, however, find a rather nice one on ebay for £400 though... I will wait to see what the saddler comes with.

What I now can't decide is whether to get a dressage saddle or a GP. I think, if I'm spending a lot of money (and £500 is a lot of money to me!) then I would like to go with the dressage. I have always thought that one day I would buy her a lovely leather dressage saddle; I just hadn't planned on it right now! However, I would still like to jump every now and then. It's a tricky one. I did wonder whether the saddler might be able to make my Wintec fit enough for me to jump in it occasionally...but then I don't want to ride her in a saddle that doesn't fit. We'll have to see what happens.

In the meantime, lovely, lovely lady at the yard has said that I can borrow her super duper saddle whenever she isn't using it. Such a kind person. The only request was that I use my own numnah, as Echo is moulting long white hairs right now! Talking of which, I'm going to clip her again tomorrow. Bring on the work!!

What have Echo and I been doing? Nothing.

2010-01-13T11:17:00.000-08:00

And this is why:

It seems to be slowly melting, so as soon as the school can be ridden in, I will be back to normal...hopefully!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-02T10:07:00.000-08:00

A new year brings lots of new plans. I promise I will let you know what they are soon, but I don't want to jinx anything so am holding my tongue for now! In the mean time - I thought you might like to know about our progress at the new yard - or really lack of it, due to irritating white stuff that we in England are not very used to dealing with.

The end of term was really busy, so not much time for riding. I put the wider gullet into my saddle and Echo has seemed much happier with that, so I'll ride in it like that for a while and see how we get on. We broke up for the Christmas holidays and it snowed that night. Now, I'm not talking about the little sprinkle that we often get that settles for a few minutes...this was bucket loads of the stuff - I got snowed in!! Couldn't get the car out for days; so much for my plan to do loads of riding - I couldn't even get to the yard! When I did manage to get there, the school was out of use due to the snow and the horses were all hobbling round on stilts as it was balling into ice in their feet.

My boyfriend and I went on a mammoth road trip over Christmas, seeing all the families and doing the Christmas thing, which was really lovely, but meant that that was another week off riding. I got back on Tuesday and was desperate to ride - so after a day's lunging (always a good idea - increased food means increased bucking!) I rode her a couple of times this week. However...on new year's eve it decided to snow again - nowhere near as much as last time, but enough to freeze everything and make the school unrideable again. I had a hack planned for this morning - the first one since we arrived at the new yard - and I was a little concerned. I didn't get to ride yesterday so she was nice and fresh, then I couldn't go and take the edge off in the school first; I couldn't even get on her in the yard as it was so icy - we had to go and get on out on the sand track.

I went out with a lady who owns a creollo pony that she rides western style and a girl who was walking her dressage horse out in hand as he is super clumsy apparently and would fall over in the snow and ice. We went out of the gate and I got on - you go straight out onto a farm track that runs parallel to the yard and parallel to an enormous turf field - big wide spaces that must shell shock the horses. Echo was blowing and snorting as I got on, and proceeded to passage down the track - I had trouble doing my girth up, but after about 5 minutes she really settled - we tucked in behind the dressage horse's bum and Echo must have thought he was rather lovely, as she was on best behaviour after that. She must have been in a bit of shock as she didn't even look at some enormous farm machinery - huge rolls of irrigation pipes that would normally have hidden horse-eating monsters. She may also have been concentrating on the footing as it was quite slippery in places.

It was a really beautiful sunny morning, and with the fields covered in snow too it was beautiful. I was very proud of her as she didn't put a foot wrong. More of that to come - hopefully. The dressage horse is a good match for her in terms of pace in the walk and is very very calm - I think we're going to have fun hacking with them. It was nice to be out with the creollo pony too - he's very sure-footed as he came over from South America and used to be a trail horse.

Things are all going well at the new yard - Echo is very happy there, and is now out with my friends' horse that we moved here with. They aren't too fussed about each other, but it's nice that they have each other for company if they want it. There is also a lovely big chestnut horse in the field next door, which Echo was very taken with; indeed, she came into season within a few days of being there and was flirting outrageously - as you can see in the photo below. The only downside to the yard (and it isn't really a downside...) is that as she's being fed so much more and more regularly, her feet have grown at double rate! She was shod about 4 and a half weeks ago and her feet look long and need trimming. She normally gets done every 6 weeks, and even then barely needs anything to be taken off! I hope it slows down a little, as she'll cost me a fortune!

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks. I still have a post about my lesson with Andrew Day to come and some photos and a video of that.
All ready to go:

In her brand new pyjamas:

Bad, bad blogger.

2009-12-09T08:19:00.000-08:00

I can only apologise. I am thoroughly useless and I don't mean to be, but my life is rather insanely busy at the moment. It is no excuse, and I shall endeavour to do better, as I have SO MUCH to tell you all. Lots and lots of things have changed!

Having had the saddle refitted, everything was going well and Echo was coming back to her previous form. I had an awesome lesson with Andrew Day, a dressage rider and trainer who comes regularly to a nearby yard. It was Echo's first experience of working away from home and she was an absolute angel. The lesson was truly inspiring and in more ways than one; it was at a yard that I was at years ago, and I decided while I was there that it would be a perfect place for me to keep Echo now. So I moved her! It sounds like a rash decision, but I was becoming increasingly frustrated by the state of the surfaces in the arenas at the place she was at before. The indoor was too hard and dusty, the outdoor too wet in winter and too hard in the summer; the woodchip was too boggy in winter and the small sand school completely unrideable due to its depth. I found I was not allowed to ride in any of the fields and was finding it difficult to find anywhere to school her at all. Since dressage is my main interest, it seemed ridiculous to pay so much money to have a horse in a place where I could not ride easily.

The new yard is very different; there is a 60 x 20 sand and rubber all weather arena with floodlights, she is in a 12 x 12 stable with ad lib hay and 3 feeds a day and she has individual turnout, with hay provided in the field. She has been there for just a week and a half and I am already noticing some changes in her. Not all of these changes are good, I have to add, as due to further saddle issues (I'll say mroe about that later) I have not been able to ride her since she moved and so this added to the increase in feed and decrease in turnout time is making her a bit ratty! However, some interesting changes have occurred. She always used to have filled legs at the old yard if she had not been ridden for a day or two. I was alarmed at first, but they went down completely after exercise, so I came to accept it. However, since moving, her legs have not been filled at all, despite not being worked for over a week. I have no idea why this would be. Any ideas?

The other change is in her body shape, which I think must be due to the increase in feed. She has never wintered very well and is prone to losing weight over the colder months; though it might make her a little more lively, which I discovered by the enormous buck she performed on the lunge yesterday, she looks extremely healthy and I look forward to a winter where she does not have to be on Blue Chip.

However, the saddle is a nightmare. I had the gullet changed from a wide to a medium, as it was too low on her withers before and the saddler wanted it to sit higher. This worked for a while, but then she started doing something really odd with her back when I got on, as if she could barely move her hindlegs. She would loosen up enough for me to ride her eventually, but she was uncomfortable, so I got off. I had her back checked and there was nothing muscular wrong at all. She is sound on the lunge and happy to work long and low and in side reins. What was also interesting was that when I was riding her, she seemed most uncomfortable in a higher carriage; when she was long and low, she felt as if she could move through her back but as soon as her head came up, she was unhappy. This seems to suggest a saddle issue, so I have been in touch with my saddler again.

The saddler has suggested that I should change the gullet back to the wide and use a thick numnah again, to see whether this works. If she is still unhappy, he will come out and bring a medium/wide gullet and a few saddles, so we can work out what's wrong. It is mighty infurating. If I had ever ridden her bareback, I would do that for a bit now, but having never got her used to it before, the size of that buck yesterday somewhat stops me wanting to try it for the first time right now!

There are other big and exciting plans on the horizon, which I will tell you about as soon as things are confirmed, but they involve a rather dramatic change in lifestyle for both Echo and me... but more about that another time!

p.s. - more on the Andrew Day lesson to follow too.

Goals for October

2009-10-05T05:45:00.000-07:00

I have been inspired by various bloggers to also use this blog to help me keep a check on how things are going. I love reading back over some of the earlier posts and looking at the earlier photos and videos, thinking about how far we’ve come. But as well as this, it would be good to be able to set out goals and assess them at the end of each month, keeping a record of our progress.
So – here goes.
• Bring Echo back into regular work
• One more massage session
• Lunge her at least once a week in the chambon to work on her stretching, particularly on the right rein
• Work at least 15 minutes in each session long and low, between periods of greater collection – not including the free walk for 10 minutes at the beginning and end of each session
• Work on ‘uphill’ upward transitions form walk to trot and trot to canter
• Spend at least 5 minutes of each session concentrating on my position and flexibility in the saddle
• Do at least one session of pole work to engage her hind legs
• Hack out – in company and alone
• Have a lesson
• One session of jumping – working on getting a good stride in approach

Obviously, some of the more athletic exercises here will need to be later on in the month, as she has lost some fitness in the last few weeks. As I write this, I’ve realised that this is more of a training plan than a set of goals. Perhaps that is one of my problems – maybe I am too focussed on WHAT I will be doing rather than what I want to ACHIEVE… Perhaps I need to concentrate on what my training objectives are first, then come up with the exercises afterwards. This is something I was taught very early on when training to be a teacher – I guess it follows that it would apply to teaching my horse too. Definitely worth thinking about.

Where we are

2009-10-04T07:24:00.000-07:00

I don’t think I ever showed you this picture – it was taken when I was warming up for the final dressage competition in the series. A friend of mine had got her husband to come and take some photos of her riding her new horse, and she leant him to me for a few minutes. I fell in love with this photo when I saw it – Echo looks like she is really stretching and it’s like she’s floating. It has however, made me think about how much work we need to do to get back to where we were before the soreness. It’s a good job I love schooling so much!

The saddler came out today and now, at last, I can ride my horse again – AND it didn’t cost me a fortune. He had a look at the saddle on her back with no numnah, and thought that it didn’t look too bad. However, he agreed that the muscle wastage behind the right wither is most probably due to the saddle pinching and making her unable to move that shoulder properly. He said that the saddle was not sitting correctly at the back, and was probably moving around too much, making her back sore. He also said that when it was up at the back, it would be too low at the front, causing it to pinch her. He changed the gullet from a ‘wide’ red gullet to a ‘medium’ black one. This means that it sits higher at the front and therefore sits level on her back.

I rode her in walk and trot with no numnah and he was happy that the saddle was no longer moving about. He also complimented her lovely forward-going paces, so that made me very happy. He said that she certainly isn’t lame now, and that I should ride her with a much thinner numnah now that the gullet is narrower. This has now been arranged, so when he left I was able to ride her properly – for the first time in a month!

I’ve been lunging her in a chambon for the last couple of days and been noticing some interesting things. On the left rein, she responds well to the chambon, lowering her head correctly in walk and trot, and a little in canter. However, on the right rein, while she’ll lower her head in walk, she really fights the chambon in trot, as if she is really not able to stretch her back and topline in that direction. It is interesting, as that’s the rein that she struggles to take a contact properly on when ridden. Even though I can ride her again now, I think I’m going to do some work on lunging in the chambon still, as I think it would be really good for her to work on stretching those muscles. I also alternated today when I was riding, between asking her to carry herself normally and asking her to work long and low. She is better at doing it when ridden on the right rein.

I am going to keep this stretching work going for a little while, and gradually build up to asking her to carry herself higher in front. I am also going to get her massaged again next weekend, just to iron out any stiffness as she comes back into work.

I was certainly relieved that a simple change of gullet was all that was needed this time round – I had nasty visions of having to fork out for a new saddle or, even worse, the saddler not having anything suitable and having to think again. Fingers crossed, it’s now sorted and we can get back to having fun again!

One step at a time...

2009-10-01T08:21:00.001-07:00

We are half-way there...I hope. Last week, Echo had a sports massage and Clare found that she was very tight in her shoulders and as a result has become quite tight in the under side of her neck. At first I thought this was a bit odd - she always works in an 'outline' (for want of a better word!), and I couldn't understand where this muscle has come from. However, if she's uncomfortable all the time in her shoulders and withers, then she would be holding her head up a little just to prevent stretching that muscle. She's done no work for several weeks now, so all I can assume is that it's from general discomfort in the field.

The sports massage looked amazing - I was, in fact, rather jealous. I have experimented with Bowen and McTimoney specialists in the past, but I really don't think there's any substitute for good old-fashioned massaging of the muscles. If I had a tight back or neck, I would want someone to properly manipulate the muscles, hands-on, releasing the tension and freeing up the movement. I'm sure that the more alternative methods work for some people, but I kinda like to see what I'm paying for!! Echo absolutely loves it too - she blows her nose, lowers her head and blinks a lot, apparently all signs that she is releasing the tension and build up of toxins in the muscles.

Clare agreed that all the signs in her muscles are that the saddle has been pinching her, so I am really hoping, with everything crossed, that this was the cause of her not feeling right when I last rode her. She has had the last few weeks completely off and I have just managed to get my hands on a chambon, so I can get her to stretch on the lunge. It will also mean that I can lunge her for a day or two before the saddler comes on Saturday expecting me to get on this wild beast! She has been extremely bored recently and thunders across her field, bucking and squealing whenever I turn her out. She has definitely developed a good height to that buck of hers, so I think some lunging before mounting will certainly be in order!

My only worry is that in not working for the last few weeks, she will have lost some of the muscle that was causing the problems with the saddle - but I guess we'll just have to see with that. I can't wait to ride her again - it's been too long! If all goes well, I'm hoping the saddler will be able to just change the gullet in my wintec saddle and all will be lovely and rosy. I am very much hoping that what looked wrong in her hindlegs was simply a result of the tension in her back and that there isn't any other issue to deal with.

Saddler comes on Saturday, so fingers crossed!

Some time out...

2009-09-14T06:04:00.000-07:00

There really is nothing like horses for bringing you back to earth with a thump. I had a fantastic summer - both travelling and then with Echo, winning the dressage series, competing in our first tiny showjumping competition, and gaining a lot of confidence hacking out together on our own. I have many plans for the autumn and winter - a dressage lesson with a Portuguese rider, cross country schooling, perhaps a couple of winter dressage competitions... But Echo isn't quite right.

She had just under a week off while I went back to school and was insanely busy - then when I rode her next time she just felt a little odd. She still worked hard, but didn't feel as if she had the power in her back end at all and i couldn't get her to lift her front end whatsoever. We had been getting much much better at this, so I was a little surprised. When I asked her to leg yield on the right rein, she dropped my contact, contracted her neck and found it really difficult to move sideways. Not good.

I got off and lunged her, so that I could have a decent look at how she was moving. I couldn't really see anything wrong in her movement, but she was having trouble pushing off into trot from her left hind. The yard manager had a look at her back and thought it felt rather sore, but he was really digging, and when I ran my hand along her back she didn't react at all. He also pointed out that the grease on her numnah was rather unevenly distributed. I had been planning to get the saddler out for a while, so this made sense.

I gave her a week off, just in the field, hoping that this would help, then got my instructor, John, to have a look at her on Friday. I explained the transition thing in the left hind, but...as you'd expect...she didn't really do it then! He said that she looked fine behind, but was very tight high up in her left shoulder, and this is preventing her from moving correctly. He felt up and down her back and shoulders and said that her shoulder was rock solid and that was causing tension and soreness further down the back. He said that I should get her treated by a physio, then get her saddle checked. In the mean time, he suggested that I lunge her in a chambon for a few days, then ride her with more bulk under the saddle.

I don't have a chambon, so I decided to lunge her on Saturday just to have another look. It seemed to me that she was struggling with the left hind again. So difficult!! With my very limited knowledge of the horse's anatomy, it seems as if there is something not right in the stifle. However, it doesn't seem to bother her except for the transition into trot. I have no idea whether this might be being caused by the saddle and the shoulder tightness, or whether it's something different altogether.

It does make sense that her shoulders would be sore - I have been asking her to carry herself in a much more uphill position, and if her saddle is tight at the front, which the grease marks would suggest it is, then this would probably accentuate the problem. Also, we have been jumping more, which is probably putting more pressure on this part of the saddle. She has had that saddle for a year now, and has definitely changed shape, so the chances are that this is causing her some pain. It's infuriating that you have to wait until your horse is in pain to know these things though. The saddle looks to me like a pretty good fit, but then I have always been bad at judging this!

So - where to go next? I am going to rest her for another week, as I can't get the sports massage therapist that I use out for a few days. I will get her treated and those muscles eased off, then get the saddler to come and look at the fit of her saddle (fingers crossed it just needs a few adjustments...) and if she still doesn't look right behind, after all that, I will get a vet and see if we can look into the problem a little more closely. Since it doesn't seem to be causing her pain in general, and it is possible that its related to the saddle, I think its best that I get these things sorted first - sort of trial and error I suppose!

In a selfish way, it's much better that it is happening now, as I'm back at school and I have very little time during the week to ride. It is, however, very annoying, as we were just getting going after the long break at the beginning of the summer.

Fingers crossed that it will all be sorted by a massage and a saddle tweak - I'll keep you posted about how we get on!

Clear Round!

2009-08-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

We went clear! Had two gos at it and second time we went clear. She was so bold and forward going - couldn't have asked for more. Just trying to remember when I last jumped a whole course of jumps and I think I was 15. That's 12 years ago. Plenty more to come - how exciting.

A few things...

2009-08-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we jump. Only a little clear round course of about 18 inches-2ft, but it's a start. It is therefore very likely that my next post will be dominated by that and I won't get a chance or have the inclination to write about how well Echo is going on the flat at the moment - actually, just in general really.

After my lesson on Tuesday, I schooled her for all of ten minutes the next day. It was absolutely scorching weather, but she felt soft, willing and light in my hands. We walked, trotted and cantered on both reins, then I decided to go for a hack. We haven't hacked out for months, but I think she was so unbelievably grateful to not be working hard in the school, that she didn't even think of messing around. We went out onto the heath and got into the shade of the forest, where we were able to have a lovely long canter. I'm usually a real wuss about cantering her out on my own, but she was a star and seemed to really enjoy it.

Yesterday was a schooling day, so we worked hard at getting her to carry more weight behind and lift her forehand. I have noticed a real improvement in this - possibly because she has grown a little and is no longer quite so croup high. As John was so complimentary of our improved canter, I thought I would start challenging her a little in this pace, so yesterday I introduced a little counter canter. She did it fairly well, although every stride it felt as if she was asking me, 'Are you sure? You really want me to canter on the wrong leg?' It was quite hard to keep her going, but the balance began to improve. What I did find, however, was that her trot after the counter canter felt quite long and stretched out. I remember from the pony that I used to compete, that counter canter always improved his trot, making it much more through and springy. Maybe Echo just isn't balanced enough at the end of the canter, through the transition.

Today, I couldn't quite decide what to do. I am trying to vary her work as much as possible, but as I had jumped Tuesday, hacked Wednesday, schooled Thursday, and am jumping tomorrow, I was at a bit of a loss. The decision was somewhat made for me, as it was very windy, therefore no hacking, there were lessons in the woodchip, therefore no jumping, so schooling it was. I'm glad I did actually, as she felt really good. I worked on some leg-yielding in trot for a while, then worked for a while on some walk to canter transitions, then lengthening and shortening the canter strides. I asked for walk to canter at one end of the school, cantered a collected(ish) circle, then asked for more lengthened strides down the long side, before asking for her to collect again at the other end. I find it quite hard to get her back from a more medium canter to a collected, as she naturally wants to fall into trot. It felt like quite a useful exercise, though, so I may practise that a few times.

As the jumping tomorrow is in the showjumping field with the posh showjumps, I thought I had better walk Echo round it a few times, just to make sure there were no monsters lurking behind the jumps. She was very quiet actually, and as there was a very small jump in there, I popped over it a couple of times. She cleared it both times, but I didn't manage to get a great stride into it on either approach. Determined to end things on a good note, I took her into the woodchip, which is the warm up area tomorrow, and there was a nice little straight bar of about 2ft 3 set up. We cantered up to it and about 3 strides away I knew that we were spot on - see - I'm learning! It felt great, so I stopped there. I'm now very excited.

To cool Echo off, I walked her through the cross country course, although I couldn't resist galloping up our usual steep hill - it was just too inviting! I must walk up it a couple of times soon though, as she is starting to anticipate the gallop.

I'm having such fun with my awesome horse at the moment - I don't want the summer holidays to end now! Only one more week of freedom... :(

Jumping

2009-08-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

Had a lesson with John today - at last! It's been rather a long time. I was really pleased with how Echo went and as usual, it left me with plenty to think about. I wanted to jump, so we just got warmed up on the flat to begin with. He thinks her canter has improved, so that's good news and he also said it looks like she's starting to think about lifting her front end and I must really encourage that. He said I mustn't become 'outline-obsessed' and see it as more important that she lifts herself up off the forehand at the moment - if I concentrate too much on her being round, she'll go too low. I was pretty happy with some of her flat work today.

I like the trot in this picture - the carriage is really starting to improve:

I also like how bouncy the canter looks here:

We started the jumping with just a little cross pole in trot:

although he quickly said that trot is not the best pace for her to jump from - she's actually much more balanced in the canter. He soon established what my main problem is. I find it impossible to tell what a good stride into the jump is. I literally have no idea whether we will get over the jump properly until I am one stride away - sometimes not even then. He said that I can't expect to be able to do this, as I've never done it before. However, I have to do something about the stride on the way in, that way I will learn. Apparently!

He also said that I don't actually look AT the jump - I only look in the DIRECTION of it - very different things. On the way into the jump, I look at the line that I think I should ride - looking into my corner first, then making sure I'm heading straight to the fence. He said I must absolutely not do this - if I focus closely on the jump, I will ride the best line to it naturally. If I fix my eyes on the jump, looking at it, I can then adjust the stride to what I see. I absolutely whole-heartedly believe him, but years of riding school lessons teaching me to ride into the corner and go straight to the jump are quite hard to un-learn. I found myself naturally looking at my line rather than at the jump, then just riding forwards in the hope that Echo would sort herself out over it. Didn't work. Here is John despairing of one attempt:

We had a little chat and he reminded AGAIN what I needed to do:

However, when I did get it right, it felt great. I felt like I was able to change her stride and get her to lengthen into the jump so that we hit it correctly. It was about 50% of the time that I managed this. It is something that I really need to work on.

I did, however, ask John whether he thought it was a totally ridiculous idea for me to attempt the clear round at the tiny showjumping competition on Saturday. He said it was a good idea and that I should do it. Eek! Part of me was hoping he'd say, 'No - you're nowhere near ready for that!' Well - I'll have a go; it'll just be to get her some experience and it might even be fun!

We Won!!

2009-08-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

Right - so Echo is back in work at last, after having the best part of 6 weeks off, and today we won the last of the dressage tests in the in-house series! I am very proud of her, as we were very rusty when we started again. I had about a week to ride her, then I went on holiday again and we've just had the last couple of days to prepare.

Backtracking a little, I have been a little busy over the last few months! As most of you know, I am a teacher and this year I marked GCSE exams on top of my normal workload. When everyone else was winding down for the summer, I was slogging away, trying to get my quota done each day. It wasn't particularly fun, but it paid pretty well and meant that I could then go and do what I had been planning for months - a cycling trip across Spain. My boyfriend and I flew with our bikes to Bilbao, then cycled across the north of the country, arriving in Santiago de Compostela. It was a tough journey and definitely more of an adventure than a holiday, but it was absolutely amazing.

When I got back from Spain, I took part in the London Triathlon - again - an amazing experience. I used to run a lot, but since getting an injury a year ago, I haven't been able to run nearly as much as I wanted to, and as my boyfrined is a cyclist, I got into doing a bit of both. The swim was rather unpleasant - 750m in the Thames, but I loved the whole thing and am definitely going to do another one. So - since then, I have been able to ride Echo (except for the week on holiday - almost entirely relaxing, I promise!) and try to remind her what this dressage thing is all about. It took a couple of days, but she got the hang of it quite quickly. While I was away, a girl from the yard rode her. She's a very good rider and will have made her go nicely, although I had to remind her of a few manners when I got on again!

I feel as if we have gone back a step to some extent, as I was really working at getting her to lift her forehand before I went away and now it's more about getting a decent bend and getting her soft through her body. There is certainly some improvement here, but she was going extremely well before and it's a little frustrating to be back a step or two. However, she was great today and tried very hard. She was quite stiff to begin with in the warm up, and was being quite resistant on the left rein - I had to do lots of lateral work and loads of transitions to get her beding round my leg and using her back end. It was extremely hot and she felt a bit sluggish - she moved off my leg, but she just felt heavy. I don't blame her - it was boiling!

We had to wait a little while before going in as it was 'open order' and lots of people were ready all at once. The other thing is that it was in the indoor school and you have to trot straight in onto the centre line and start the test - going from the light to the dark makes Echo really back off my leg and she tensed up immediately when we went in. The test was fine - it was BE 102 and has a few odd moments, such as giving and taking the inside rein for 3-5 steps in the canter. It also gets you to make a transition to walk for 3-5 steps across a diagonal. I got a bit confused and walked for 3 strides, which is apparently different to 3 steps. Oops... She broke into trot on the first canter when I half-halted - I hadn't realised quite how responsive she'd be heading towards the door! Other than that, I was pretty happy. She was quite tense and it certainly wasn't our best example of what we can do, but all things considered, I was very pleased with her.

The dressage competition was marked on the best three tests over the series, so some people have done them all, whereas I have only done three. We won all three, meaning that I won overall and we also won 'best turned-out' which was very nice! We got a pretty red rosette and a free lesson with John - so that's awesome! I actually have a lesson with John on Tuesday and thought we might jump in that. I have a slightly crazy idea that I may do a clear round class at a competition being held at the yard on Saturday...but I'll see how the lesson goes first! I really wanted to do one this summer and the clear round is absolutely tiny - we could easily trot them if necessary. I'll see... I'm also planning to have a cross country lesson at some point. I'm not going to neglect the dressage, but I want to make use of the good weather and the light evenings while we have them! Plenty of time for dressage when we are confined to the school over the winter.

Anyway - here are some pictures from the last couple of days and some of the show today. If I can upload it, there is also a bit of video of the end of our test. You'll see what I mean - it's not BAD, just could be better!!

...months...

2009-07-28T02:43:00.000-07:00

Woah - it's been months. If anyone still comes here to check if I have finally got my ass in gear and written something, I am terribly sorry for the long wait.

What have I been doing? Not riding - that's what! After the two dressage competitions, I had to put the riding on hold a little, as I was examining GCSEs and then cycling across Spain! Echo also had a bit of an accident in a thunder storm, breaking through her fence and cutting her face quite badly above her eye. She had to have stitches, but it's almost healed now. She has to wear one of those funny fly masks in the field, but she's got used to that now.

She's back to her summer escape routine too - they've had to secure her field with more electric fencing and she stands by the fence looking cross that she can't work out how to get through it!

I lunged her yesterday after nearly 5 weeks of no exercise and she was great - I was expecting all sorts of handstands, but I think she was just so relieved to be doing something that she was on her best behaviour. She responded to every voice command and was an angel!

I am helping my parents in the chaos of their house-move for a couple of days, then I should be able to get going with the riding again. Except for a week in Cornwall! We have a dressage competition at the end of August, so we're going to have to get some serious work done - it's the last one of the series and we've won two so far - if we win a third, I think we'll have won overall. Very exciting!

Will be back to proper posting soon I promise.

Win Number Two!

2009-05-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

Echo was awesome on Sunday - really really good - and we won!! Monday was a little more tense, but she still behaved beautifully and we came 6th in a bigger competition, against stiffer opposition and in a new place. So impressed with her - clever pony. Yay!!! Will post properly about it asap.

If it works, here is the video of Sunday

Practice makes...perfect?

2009-05-20T08:17:00.001-07:00

I have two dressage competitions this weekend. I wouldn't normally do two shows in two days, but as they're both being held where I keep Echo and chances to compete are few and far between, I thought it probably wouldn't hurt.

We are desperately practising being precise now - I find it really hard to ride her well in a test, maintaining her way of going and getting her best movement, partly, I think, because I don't usually ride to markers. I make a transition when I have achieved what I wanted to in the previous pace - for example, I would never make a transition to canter if the trot wasn't going forward and supple first. In a test, however, you've just got to do it, and it can feel horrible at times.

I also find that she gets really heavy in my hand during a test, going onto her forehand. How I tried to get around this yesterday was to ride a couple of movements from the test, then get her back up again by riding on a circle. I don't really know how to fix it when in the middle of a test.

Being prelim tests, they are not particularly difficult, but I am finding the precision really challenging - it's definitely something I need to work on. This evening when I ride her, I will practise making transitions at particular markers and changing the rein when I have to, not just when she's ready. I don't want to practise my tests too frequently, but I need to get my accuracy problems sorted.

On a completely different note, I am really suffering with my back at the moment. I find that after doing any work on collection with Echo, my lower back really hurts. I'm sure my position is not what it should be. My best friend is a physio and she suggested that I might be tilting my pelvis too far forward and I should think about keeping it in balance when I ride, but it is really quite sore today. No sitting trot for me this evening!

Question: What's the difference between John Whitaker and me?

2009-05-11T05:52:00.000-07:00

Answer: Nothing.
Not a joke - this is what John (my trainer, not Whitaker - now that really would be a compliment!) said to me in my lesson on Saturday. It made a lot more sense than it would at first appear, and I shall try to explain what he meant!

I really wanted a jumping lesson on Saturday, as we had had a few problems last time we jumped, mainly because I panic two strides out from a jump and lose faith in my striding. I do the worst possible thing, which is to totally drop Echo and hope that she sorts it out for herself. I know it's not an intelligent thing to do, but I find it really hard to stop.

There was a competition going on in the woodchip arena, and it was too hard to jump anywhere else, so we had to make do with the outdoor school. I told John that I'd been hoping to jump and I explained my problem and he made it all sound very simple.
John: How many steps do you walk up and down in a day?
Me: Lots - probably about 200 (I'm a teacher and there are lots of stairs...)
John: Right - and how many of those to you trip over?
Me: None (usually)
John: Okay - so you don't have a problem seeing a stride - you just aren't sure that you can adjust HER stride in order to get onto the right stride.
Me: Oh.

He went on to explain that people are always taught to jump, being told that ordinary people will never be able to see a stride. This makes people believe that only the best riders can see strides into a jump. He said that there is absolutely no reason why John Whitaker can see a stride into a jump and I can't - we are both human and will have similar level of intellect (he even went on to say that mine is probably higher as I am a teacher, but I'm not convinced!) If he can learn to see a stride, then so can I. Apparently, what I need to do is be confident that I can adjust Echo's stride length in order to get onto that perfect stride.

So, armed with the knowledge that I can be like John Whitaker, we began to work on lengthening Echo's canter stride - and promptly realised that I am not very good at collecting the canter - so I won't be able to lengthen it. What followed was a lesson in bringing her shoulders up and engaging the hindlegs properly. We started in the canter and then progressed into the trot. My problem was that I use too much inside rein, and so I get too much bend, rather than enough engagement of the inside hind. She did show moments of lifting the front, but I was rather slow at responding to it and giving accordingly, which was very frustrating.

We moved into sitting trot and worked on the same thing. It was absolutely exhausting - I was bright red and puffing at the end, but I really felt like we were starting to push for the next level, which was a good feeling. I worked on the same principles yesterday when I rode, and the canter was starting to feel really good - she felt like she was really pushing upwards - only for a few strides, but it was something. I was also really working on making sure that I reward her properly when she does what I want, as she is very quick to learn things - including the wrong things!

What I hope to be able to do this week, is start to change the length of her stride. I was doing it in the walk yesterday, shortening the stride but keeping the rhythm, then pushing for extended walk in the same rhythm. This was very effective - I just need to work on it in the trot and canter, as unfortunately we can't jump from walk! It's an ongoing process - and a very interesting one at that.

Back in the game

2009-05-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the length of time it has taken me to write about the dressage competition – and thank you for all of your lovely messages of congratulations. I was so impressed with Echo that day.

She was great to plait – I think she just fell asleep – and I managed to get my number of plaits down from 33 last time to 17, without them looking like golf balls – so I was happy! I didn’t wash her again, as I did all of that a couple of days before. As you can see from the photos, she wasn’t spotless, but she looked very smart.

I got on to warm up about 45 minutes before my test time, as I like to work in walk for at least 20 minutes at the beginning of a session – if not more – as it gets her much more obedient to my aids. I worked her as I normally would, but I was obviously a but more tense than usual. Still, she warmed up well and felt like she was bending nicely to the right, which always feels like an achievement!

When I went up to go in, at the time I was supposed to, I found that they were running late and I had about 15 more minutes. No!!! Nothing like timing your working in perfectly, then having to hang around spoiling it all for ages! The area they had assigned to working in was far too deep, so I didn’t go in there. Instead, I went up into a field to do a few more transitions. Echo’s never been ridden in there, so was on her toes, but I was single-mindedly bent on getting her hind-legs active and nothing else, so she had no choice but to behave!

The annoying thing about the test was the fact that I had to trot through the doors of the indoor school and go straight onto the centre line – she had no chance to have a trot round the edge to get used to it in there first. Bless her, her centre line was lovely – very straight and we got an 8 for it. Her track left was also really good, as she bent beautifully and felt very powerful. In fact the first third of the test felt great and we got mostly 7s with a couple of 8s. All good.

Started to a go a little wrong when we did our first canter. The transition and the 20 metre circle were great, but as I came out of the circle and had to canter to the corner, towards the (open!) door, she spooked at some sun beams making patterns on the floor. She jumped away from the track and so to correct it, I clamped my inside leg on. I managed to stop her coming off the track too far, but she shot off down the track and there was no way we were going to get a nice transition to trot in the corner. I finally hauled her back into trot at A, (where I was supposed to walk) and finally got walk in the next corner, where I had to start my free walk to B. Threw the reins at her and got a half-decent free walk – thank goodness. I was able to get my act together after that and rode the rest of the test correctly, albeit a little rushed after that. I did have a few issues getting a halt transition at G – thought she was going to trot right into the judges!

Given the circumstances, she was brilliant and it was great experience. I need to practise riding a little more precisely and getting my turns sorted in a small space. I also need to remember to not get flustered and mess up the rest of a test after something goes wrong. So easy to say, but SO difficult to do! We got 68%, which I was delighted with. But no rosette!!! I couldn’t believe it. They are giving rosettes to the overall placings at the end of the series of competitions. Talking of which, the next one is 24th May, so I had better get practising. I’m having a lesson with John on Saturday, which I really looking forward to – feels like I haven’t had a lesson for ages.

Well look who went and won!!

2009-04-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

Proper post about the competition will follow, as I am in a real hurry, but Echo was a star and she won!!! Not by loads, but we had a few 'interesting moments' so I was impressed that we came first! Here are some of the pictures. The screen on the camera was broken, so they were taken without the person being able to see anything on the screen, but they are ok. Also, the light in the indoor was awful and the door was open (one of the causes of the 'interesting moments'!) so the quality is not great. My friend took a video of the test, so I hope I'll be able to upload that when I get it.

Proud of my pretty pony today - she was awesome.

Dressage - at last!

2009-04-23T05:31:00.000-07:00

Well, Echo and I are taking part in our first dressage competition on Sunday and...I'm really nervous! I'm also really looking forward to it, but it's so long since I've ridden a dressage test and so I'm bound to be a bit rusty.

I've practised it a couple of times and there's nothing difficult in it. In fact, that's almost the problem - there's a lot of trotting round the outside of the arena and we don't tend to do much of this in our schooling. When I was practising it, I found Echo wanted to do shoulder-in or leg-yielding or something - she isn't used to having to trot the length of the arena just...straight! So we've been working on this, and we've been working on changing the rein through two half 20 metre circles. Unfortunately, the test asks for it from the left rein to the right rein(our more difficult rein...) and so getting the right bend is a little tricky, but we'll be ok!

I rode her last night and she went really well. It was interesting actually - she had been going quite averagely for the first 20minutes or so - not doing anything wrong, just not bending that well and not really using herself. Then she just suddenly seemed to click. I did one halt to trot transition and she was like "Oh...I get it - weight on the hind legs - why didn't you say so!?" Technically, I think I had been saying so.

She suddenly became flexible in her bend - she felt like plasticine - it felt as if I could have coiled her round my inside leg if I wanted to. She remained quite heavy in my hands, so I constantly had to remind her to keep her carriage up, but through her body felt fantastic. I've been doing quite a bit of sitting trot recently and it seems to have really helped with engaging her hind legs. I can't decide whether or not to do sitting trot in the test on Sunday. Really, at prelim level, I would expect to do it in rising trot, but I definitely get a more uphill, powerful, connected trot when I'm sitting. I guess I'll see how she feels when I warm up.

One last thing - as I'm hoping to do a few shows this summer, I thought it was about time I got my lovely riding boots fixed. They've been sitting in a cupboard with broken zips for the last year, but I have now had them mended and I rode in them last night. It doesn't make sense to me that a pair of boots can make a difference to the way one rides, but I could put money on the fact that I rode better last night in my Cavallos than I do in my yard boots and chaps. I really don't know why this would be though.

Wish us luck for Sunday - I can't ride on Saturday, which is annoying, but it might mean she's fresher. Sunday morning will be spent washing, trimming, plaiting and generally getting organised. I shall endeavour to take some photos of the day too - and if at all possible, I'll hijack someone with a video camera for the actual test.

Look what we jumped!!!

2009-04-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

May not look huge, but definitely the biggest we've ever jumped. And it was a straight bar - only jumped cross poles so far. Felt lovely. Proper post to follow - moving house - all very hectic!!!

Exciting Stuff!!

2009-04-04T12:15:00.001-07:00

Echo went beautifully today - I was so impressed. I had to ride really early as I had a busy day planned, and I can conclude that Echo is most definitely a morning person. We did lots of work on being bendy and that seems to be really helping, as I am able to ride her much straighter as a result. I need to do some work on her right rein canter transitions, as these were a little scrappy, but she had a lovely contact in my left rein after a while and was really bending through her body. My only criticism is that she got quite deep in her carriage through the session - I was able to bring her front end up most of the time, but I think she just got tired and couldn't maintain it after a while.

There are some exciting things happening. Having decided that my summer goal would be to compete in a little showjumping competition, today I saw that the yard where I keep her is going to start a summer dressage series, having monthly competitions ending in a championship that takes your best 3 scores through the series. It's only 'in-house' so it won't be a big thing, but we have lots of liveries now, so should be fun. The other thing is that it is the British eventing tests, which I don't know, but I'm sure they must be fairly similar to the British Dressage tests. I guess to do a prelim level I would have to do an Intro level BE test - not really sure yet. Anyway - it's a chance to dress up, practise our test-riding and have some fun, without the stress of travelling to a show yet, so I think it's a very good thing.

So lots to look forward to! I'm going away next week, taking a school trip to Ireland, so won't be able to ride Monday to Friday. I have been very brave and said that a friend can hack Echo out a couple of times if she wants. I 'ummed and aahed' about it for ages, but she's a very considerate and experienced rider, and has just had to retire her horse, so has no one to ride. She has trained young horses, so knows all their quirks, and is much braver than me out hacking! I think they should have some fun. I am trying not to be too much of a neurotic mother about the whole thing, so have only given her a few instructions - like keeping her off her forehand in trot and not allowing her to rush. It'll be good for Echo to have another rider on her and I think my friend will really enjoy her. She's had an ancient riding school pony on loan for the last year and, though lovely, she is an ancient riding school pony nonetheless and I think Echo will be a bit of a treat!

I've been consulting my favourite training book and I think it's time we did a bit of gymnastic jumping. I think it would really help her strength and agility to do a few short grids, and also help my ability to ride her positively towards a fence. It will also be the beginnings of riding a course, so is a step (or a jump! oh dear...) in the right direction. I thin next time John is around, I will see if we can do a bit of this in my lesson. Don't think I've jumped a grid since I was about 12, so I'll need a bit of reminding!

I'm SO excited about my horse right now!!!!!

Back to it

2009-03-31T13:12:00.000-07:00

Well, Echo came back into work on Sunday after over three weeks off. I knew that she would be a little rusty, but it's always a shock to get on after a break and find that a) I no longer know how to ride and b) that my horse has forgotten what it feels like to carry a rider. I don't know what happened, but when I got on on Sunday, she did this weird humpy thing with her back, bringing it right up and hopping with her back legs. I got off and lunged her but she did the same thing in trot on the lunge too. My friend suggested I checked her back for any soreness, but there was nothing. So, having trotted and cantered on both reins on the lunge, I got on again. She still felt a bit odd, but certainly wasn't lame, so I worked her through it and she seemed fine after a while.

I don't really know what happened - possibly it's due to not being ridden for a few weeks and she was feeling a little cold backed; or there is the fact that she is coming into season and could have been feeling a little sensitive; or my horse is just odd! Either way, we eventually got there in the end, as to begin with she was completely ignorant to my aids. She seemed to have forgotten what my weight aids were and she had also forgotten that I had a left leg - she was all over the place - falling out to the left and was about as straight as a banana. Oh the joys of horses having time off!

However, yesterday she was great and she started getting much straighter. She is actually much better in my left hand than she was before the time off, so that's been a good thing. She started to feel really good in trot today and I was really pleased with how she was going. Today, my friend brought one of her horses over to the yard and we went out for a hack. I was a little apprehensive, as her horse can be a little crazy, and as Echo hasn't hacked out for over a month, I was worried that they'd be hooligans together. However, I couldn't have been more wrong - Echo's behaviour was absolutely exemplary. She led most of the way, only going behind when we trotted and cantered, as my friend was worried that her horse would buck and prat around behind her scaring her otherwise. This worked really well, as both horses were obedient and steady. It was really nice actually - a lot of the horses at our yard tend to race off in canter, meaning that Echo gets all on her forehand when she's out with them. Because my friend is really conscious of her horse's legs (just recovering from an operation) she was lovely and steady and I could keep Echo up in front. My kinda canter!

She was pretty tired at the end - we were out for well over an hour and I had schooled her first. It'll do her good though - she loves being in work and is at her happiest when being worked hard. At the end of our ride, I took Echo up to my friend's lorry while she was untacking her horse and getting him ready. While she was doing her stuff, we had a little play, going up and down the ramp and eating polos (Echo - not me!) at the top. It was really relaxed, so will have done her lots of good. Overall, I was really impressed with her today - proud of my little horse!

She's going to have tomorrow off, then I hope to jump on Thursday - I have set myself a little goal to do a clear round jumping class at one of the shows held by my stables by the end of the summer. I'm hoping to do some dressage too of course, but that is very dependent on other people and their transport, so it's a bit out of my hands. Jumping, however, there is lots of, so this can be my short term goal. I'm looking forward to it. We have, of course, only ever jumped a single fence, so we have some work to do.

Update

2009-03-24T01:46:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts recently - work has been pretty crazy, but fun! Echo is fine, just a bit bored as I haven't been riding her enough. However, I break up from school at the end of this week and intend to do lots and lots of riding.

Something a bit exciting - I may have sorted a way to get us out into the big wide world soon. I don't want to say anything definite yet, as I know from experience that I can't bank on these things happening, but it is a distinct possibility. Woohoo - dressage here we come!

Easter will be pretty hectic, as I'm taking a school trip away and am moving house (which is very exciting!!) so getting Echo out to places may not happen just yet, but things are all starting to slot into place.

Normal blogging will resume as soon as possible!

Yay!!!!

2009-02-22T15:27:00.000-08:00

I had a lesson with John today. For a change, I was actually well organised and well warmed up by the time of the lesson, so we could get straight on. He watched us walk and trot on both reins and then do a walk to canter transition on each rein. He didn't actually say very much, which is usually quite a good sign! He seemed pretty impressed with how she's improved, particularly on the right rein.

He did notice that in our canter transitions, she tends to fall to the inside, sort of jumping inwards into canter, rather than pushing out into the outside rein. To work on this, he got me to work in trot and come down the three-quarter line, leg-yielding towards the track. When I got to about half way between the 3/4 line and the track, I had to ask for canter, while still leg-yielding to the wall. It didn't sound that hard - I've often leg yielded in trot to the wall and then cantered on the track - how hard could it be? Very hard! I was so mal-coordinated! It's one thing being able to use the wall to help, but asking for canter while still leg-yielding was really really difficult! I also realised that it is probably me that makes her throw her weight to the inside in the transitions, as when I was asking for them in the leg-yield, that was exactly what I was doing with my body - it was more exaggerated as she was moving sideways. When I actually sat up and asked for the canter transition up from my inside seatbone and held it in the outside rein, it was lovely!

What I then found difficult, particularly on the right rein, was maintaining the sideways movement in the canter. The first step was nice, then she would fall right again. It took all my powers of coordination to really keep my inside leg on to keep her travelling sideways. He definitely knows how to get me using my little brain. However, the really good bit was the trot after I had done this exercise. Because I had actually used my inside leg and my outside rein properly through the movement, I had this lovely, powerful, swinging trot and I just wanted to hang on to it for dear life!!

Then the even better bit was what John said at the end. For quite a while, my goal has been to start taking Echo to some dressage shows in the Spring. Today, at the end of my lesson, John said that we are ready to do our first test now. I was so chuffed - having got to know him a little over the last year of having lessons with him, I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't say that lightly. It feels like when we get it right, we can really get it right and it's so much fun! I came out of the lesson beaming. I don't yet have a show to go to - in fact, there's an awful lot of preparation work to do first, as she hasn't ever been ridden away from home. However - that little comment just gave me the confidence and boost to the self-esteem that I really needed. I can't wait!!!

Blast from the past

2009-02-19T12:08:00.000-08:00

The lady that I bought Echo from came to see her earlier this week. I have difficulty explaining who she is, as she didn't exactly breed her - at least, not on purpose! She bought her horse, Pebble, a lovely coloured cob-type mare, then found out several months later that she was in foal. Echo was born a month or so later and I bought her as a yearling. The last time she had seen Echo, it was as a rather scared little yearling climbing anxiously onto a trailer. She has of course seen photos and been kept up to date with our progress, but I knew that it would be very different for her to actually see her in person.

It was quite emotional actually - she seemed very happy with how Echo has turned out and was struck by how similar she is to her mother. Her mother has more white on her face, but other than that, their heads are almost identical. Pebble is a little lighter in her colour and very slightly heavier in her build, but the likeness is uncanny - part of the reason why she named her Echo in the first place, I think!

I rode her for a little while at first; the indoor was being used, so I had to go in the woodchip arena, which is not very easy to ride in, being on a slope. She had gone so beautifully the day before, but then seemed to have forgotten it all again when I got on that day. It's so annoying when that happens! She went quite nicely - she wasn't bending as well to the right as she has been the last couple of times, and she was a little sharp as she always is in that arena, but she didn't put a foot wrong really (I'm just a perfectionist!!).

Sue then rode her, which was so lovely to see - I genuinely don't think I've ever seen someone so thrilled to be on a horse before! Echo went really nicely and I was extra proud of her, as she has only ever had one other person sit on her once before. She dealt with it very well and trotted around beautifully - very clever pony.

I'm having a lesson with John on Sunday, so I will report back soon! I might have a little jump tomorrow - I haven't jumped since my last lesson and I feel like a change - it's so nice to be able to mix things up like this now!

Ouch!

2009-02-14T10:40:00.000-08:00

I worked myself super hard today. And Echo, come to think of it! It was such a beautiful day and I really wanted to go for a hack, but there was no one around to hack out with, so I went in the indoor school. I decided to mostly focus on myself for a change, making sure that my position was right and that I was sitting straight. I get slack with these things, having lessons so infrequently.

I even rode around with my whip behind my back, threaded through my elbows, like the picture of Pippa Funnell on her book about flatwork! It was good actually - I had Echo on the right rein, to try to get maximum benefit for her out of the exercises too. After warming her up, I took my stirrups away and rode the rest of the session without them - It really makes me think about the flexibility in my hips abd lower back, riding without stirrups - it's so good for you!! She felt amazing: she was bending really well to the right, although I was having to really work with my legs and my seat to hold that bend. My right leg tends to come forward so that when I ride her to the right, she then hangs on my right side, as it is so stiff. As soon as I started to loosen my right hip, she found it much easier to bend to the right.

I then practised some walk to canter transitions - also on the right rein. We kept getting the wrong lead, but by really concentrating on my position and how much leg I was using and in what places, I was able to get some good ones in the end. Not having stirrups meant that I was able to get her really 'through' in the canter, and she felt like her whole neck came up by about 6 inches. When I get it right, she feels like she has so much potential - I think I should try to get it right a little more often!

We were both exhausted at the end, so rather than walk her in the school, I thought I'd go for a little walk out on the heath. It was the first time I'd been out since getting scared a couple of weeks ago, so I'm really glad I did it. Because I had been riding her so strongly forward from my leg in the school, I continued to use my legs a lot out in the open too, so she was a lot more relaxed. I've found that this is the case recently; I need to ride her in the school for a bit, in order for me to really ride her. When we go straight out on a hack, I find that I tend to sit there like a lemon, which means that she takes charge more and ignores me - as you'd expect - with a lemon for a rider!

Got back to the yard and went to get off and realised that I might have overdone the whole sitting trot with no stirrups thing - my back feels like I've been doing back flips. It's a good feeling though, when you ache after something has gone well - rubbish when you ache and haven't even achieved anything!

Fear

2009-02-03T15:33:00.000-08:00

I was never a particularly fearful child. I loved exciting rides at the fair, I loved my dad driving fast, the feeling of nearly being out of control was exhilarating and liberating. When I got into riding, I loved to go fast. In fact, the memory that prevails of my riding experience is the time that I went on a beach ride with my riding school. It was an evening ride and there seemed to be loads of us. We travelled down to Littlehampton to ride along the beach and my mount was to be a little dark bay mare called Cadbury, who I had never even sat on. It didn't bother me; I have never forgotten the wild, intense joy that felt as if my chest would burst, as I thundered across the open sand. There was no fear of not stopping - the ponies would tire long before the end of the beach and I can honestly say, no feeling has ever come close to rivalling that adrenaline rush.

Summer days were spent working endlessly at a local riding school, loving the ponies as if they were my own, riding bareback to the field, boasting of heroic acts of horsemanship required to stay on the 'ginormous' buck that a particular pony had put in; I used to jump without stirrups, without reins, holding a cup of water in each hand and with my eyes shut; I would vault on a pony while it was cantering and leap from my mount in order to win a race of some sort. I have nothing but fond memories from this time.

I can tell you the exact day that this changed. I had never had a pony of my own and had instead relied on free rides provided in return for long hours as a helper at a local riding school. However, when I was about fourteen, my parents had a little more money; they were certainly not rich, but had a little more than when I was a small child. To this day, I don't know how I managed it, but I eventually persuaded my dad that he should buy me a horse and that I had found a horse that I liked. I think by actually saying HERE is a horse I want to buy rather than the hypothetical 'can I have a horse?' was what worked. Essentially, I put him on the spot. I tried this horse out a few times and was adamant that I wanted her. Within a few weeks, she was mine.

I don't think I could have picked a more unsuitable partner if I had tried. I was a confident rider, but I rode Fell ponies and Section Ds, not six year old flighty thoroughbreds. I should have bought myself a sturdy pony with a leg in each corner, but I ended up with a mare with serious and dangerous psychological problems. I bought her from a dealer that my friend worked for, thinking that it would be OK, because I sort of knew him. It wasn't. The first time I rode my beloved new horse, she planted herself solidly in the arena and refused to move. It was the strangest experience - she actually didn't seem able to move. Here I was, proudly mounted on my brand new horse, the envy of all the helpers at the yard, and she was planted - rooted to the spot. We tried everything - I coaxed, I kicked, I got someone to lead her, I got her fieldmate out to lead her in front, but nothing worked. She wasn't going anywhere. Getting upset by this point, I kicked again and smacked her a few times. The rest is a bit of a blur. I remember her running backwards, I sort of remember her rearing and I remember hitting the floor, with my horse falling on top of me.

I won't go into the rest of the details, as the 'Hattie experience' could fill a whole post of its own, but it was on that day that I realised that, no matter how good a rider you are, no matter how well you can stay on to 'ginormous' bucks, the horse can always win. The horse is always stronger and if he really wants to, he will get you off. This was a devastating revelation; my first moment of understanding that I was not invincible and that riding was a dangerous game. The next time I rode her, with the dealer there who had sold her to me, sealed my fears. I was so tense that I must have clamped up the moment I got on. Hattie proceeded to gallop flat out around the school, feeling very much as though she were going to jump the fence at the end and take off down the road. I had no idea what this crazy animal would do and that has ingrained in me a deep-rooted feeling that I can never know what these animals will do.

When I worked for David for two years, you would think that riding every day as my job would cure me of my fears; in fact, I think it ingrained them even deeper. I was desperate to be fearless, but every time something scary happened, I felt this wash of terror and it was totally irrational. When I became a better rider, I started to get offered the ride on some of David's better horses, but I couldn't do it. I rode one of them once - one that David has since competed to advanced level. It would have been a fantastic opportunity, but I was utterly rigid; the moment I got on him and couldn't do anything. My body went into meltdown and I was terrified. I couldn't even have told you what I was scared of happening. For me, my fear is not that easy to pinpoint - it's more of an instinct that I can't control.

David found it funny. I was labelled a 'wimp' and he just let me get on with it. His wife, Serena, took a slightly more philosophical approach and told me not to be ashamed of it, and that I should just do what I'm comfortable with. If I don't like riding hot horses, then I shouldn't ride hot horses - simple as that. But there was a part of me that still couldn't help feeling embarrassed by my inability to conquer my nerves.

When I bought Echo, I had really mixed feelings. I had been given a coloured cob to train by David and Serena, and we had done very well. When I am confident, I am capable of riding reasonably effectively. I bought Echo because I had loved this cob so much and thought that she was the type of horse I could train myself. Interestingly, I had never been too worried about backing the young horses at David's. This could be because I only ever had to do the initial work - the backing and first riding. There was very little expected of me, other than to do what I was told. I also found that horses, when started correctly, are usually very obliging in the first few rides. If they are going to act up, it is usually when they have worked out what is going on and I rarely kept the horse for that long.

When it came to teaching Echo to be lunged at David's, I was really nervous. She was my responsibility. The future of my riding career rested on what I taught her then and that thought terrified me. David saw me with her on the first day there and said, 'You'll never ride that horse.' This had a strange effect on me: on the one hand, I was crushed - perhaps he was right... But on the other, I was incensed. I WOULD prove him wrong - no matter what!

Again, the first few times riding Echo I was fine - I knew the processes, I had someone helping me and I felt safe. What terrified me was the next stage - the riding free - the combating of any problems I was faced with. Was I up to it? What would happen if I mucked it up? This was my horse - I would have to deal with it. None of these were gripping fears, but were certainly concerns at the back of my mind.

So this post is about fear. About my fear that engulfs me at certain moments when I am on a horse. Ever since Hattie I have been nervous of hacking; nothing specifically happened with her out hacking, but it goes back to that feeling that ultimately, no person can ever be totally in control of a horse. It all seems more real and worrying when out in the open countryside. I am a self-confessed control freak and I don't always know what my horse will do.

Last week, I took Echo out for a wander around the cross country course to cool down after a particularly intense schooling session. She had not gone well and I was feeling angry - not at her, but at myself. We got into the woods at the end of the main route in and Echo was striding out nicely. Starting to relax, I began to enjoy myself and forget the irritation of the schooling. We had just turned a corner, when I felt Echo go rigid and shoot forwards from under me. I took a stronger contact instinctively, and tensed up myself. I turned round to see what it was and realised that a big German Shepherd (belonging to the yard owner) was wandering around in the trees. I relaxed; of course this would scare her. However, she didn't relax - she got even more tense, feeling like a coiled spring beneath me. I turned her, so that she could look and see the dog, but she obviously couldn't - she could only hear him rustling.

It's at moments like these that I realise that my horse doesn't totally trust me. All those lovely idealistic perfect horsemanship books say that the horse turns to you to be the leader at these moments, but nothing I could do would get through to her. When I turned her back to the track to walk on, she had wound herself up so tightly that she felt as if she was going to explode. This is when the wall comes down. I freeze - I don't know what I'm scared of - it's probably a combination of things, but my vision goes blurry and my heart races. I become utterly focused on what the rigid quivering horse underneath me is thinking and I can't make myself ride through it. So I jumped off.

The moment my feet touched the floor, I was deeply ashamed of myself and thoroughly angry and my complete ineptitude. Furious, I tried to lead her forward, but she was now even more wound up than before. Believing that I had been wrong to admit defeat, I went about trying to mount again, but she was now spinning round in circles, probably trying to get away from this crazy woman clinging to her side! I had just got into the saddle, when I realised that in front of us was a big group of people cross-country schooling, going fast up a hill and over a jump. By this point I couldn't cope. Anticipating her reaction, I jumped off again and led her back the way we had come. She pranced at my side like a stallion (although I couldn't help but admire the elevation in her hock action!!) and I raged silently to myself. Why was I so stupid? Normal people wouldn't have got scared. I am such an idiot.

By the time I got back on, halfway back to the yard, I was in despair. Perhaps I didn't deserve a horse like Echo if I couldn't even stay on her when I got tense. How will I ever take her to a show if I can't ride the moment she gets upset? Theses were the thoughts running through my head as I returned to her stable.

It was interesting, then, to listen to John talking to one of his students about fear at the weekend. He claims that he is not naturally the bravest rider, though he has competed in major 4* events. I asked him how he managed it and he said by working at it. He said something that I have been thinking about ever since: a brave rider is not one that doesn't see the danger. I can't remember the exact wording of the second half of the sentence, but it was something along the lines of 'it is somebody that works to get around that danger'. He said that it isn't wrong to be scared. He also said that I shouldn't be angry with myself if I have to get off - if that is what I need to do in that situation.

I really don't know. I look back with such fondness at the time when I was a gutsy kid, up for anything, but when this fear hits me, it is as if a cloud has descended and I lose control of my limbs and my breathing. It doesn't happen often, but fear is a funny thing and I wonder whether there really is any way of combating it, or whether I will be haunted by it for life.

No negativity here, thank you!

2009-01-31T07:18:00.000-08:00

I went out last night. Now, I'm not a big drinker, but I had a couple - enough to make me a little on the groggy side this morning. Then I got a phone call asking if I wanted to take someone's slot and have a lesson with John and I said yes, probably unwisely! It didn't give me a great deal of time, as I had a couple of things to do beforehand. I got to the yard about 20 minutes before my lesson was due to start - had to groom, tack up and warm up in that time. It was never really going to happen.

I rushed to get ready, rushed to get on and rushed down to the arena. I wasn't able to ride indoors, as I had hoped, because there was a riding school lesson in there, so I had to go in the woodchip arena. This is surrounded by horses being turned out and is exposed, so the freezing wind was whipping across it. Nice. It was OK, I was on and there just as the previous lesson was finished, but I didn't have my head on or my thoughts in place, added to the slightly shaky feeling from last night.

Because I was on edge, Echo didn't really settle and I wasn't any good at sorting it out. I had a real strop, stopped and said, "I can't ride today!" Oops - wrong thing to say, and I knew it as soon as I said it! He told me that it was pointless to have that kind of attitude - it doesn't get you anywhere. He said that if I tell myself I can't ride today, then I won't be able to ride today - simple as that. He said that any negative statement must have a comma at the end and be followed by a solution. He's said it before to me: "There are no problems - only solutions." That's all very well, but I couldn't think of any solutions today. She wasn't actually going that badly - I just couldn't get her going any better.

John seemed to sense that half an hour was not going to be time to get things going in the direction they should, so changed the tactics. He put three poles together on the floor between a pair of wings and got me to trot over them. It was strange - she kept jumping them from miles away, leaving me behind and launching herself over them. He put it up to a cross pole fence and asked me to still trot into the jump, without thinking about jumping it. The problem was, two strides out from the jump, I froze and stopped riding. This was throwing her, as she didn't know what to do. Once I started actually keeping her together and riding through the fence, forgetting it was there, she was great.

He then got me to come over it in canter and we both find this much easier. John said that she was poking her nose out a bit on the approach and that I should hold her together right up to the fence. It was great on both reins and we stopped there. He seemed quite impressed with her attitude to it. She is absolutely one of the nicest horses to jump that I have ever known - she doesn't rush into the fence and she doesn't rush away from it - it is as if she is cantering a 20 metre circle that happens to have a jump in the middle - I love it! When we had finished he pointed out that I have to stop making excuses for myself; by telling everyone that I'm rubbish at jumping, I am making it much harder for myself. I'm not experienced at jumping, but I can do it, and he even said that she's a natural. I feel like I should whisper that, in case it isn't true, but actually she really does enjoy it and so do I. Never thought I'd say that!

After my lesson, I watched a couple of others. It was really interesting to see how negativity seems to blight so many peoples' aspirations. One girl is going to an indoor eventing competition tomorrow and the fear of going is making her physically sick. She doesn't think that she will be able to 'support' her horse in the ring, as she will be so nervous. Thinking like that is definitely not going to help. Funny that I can immediately recognise it in others, but still do it myself. Another rider who is incredibly talented in lots of ways, has told himself that he can't do flatwork. He can't tell which trot diagonal he is on and refuses to believe that he could learn to. It was only when John explained to him how important it is for the horse's well being that we trot on the correct diagonal, that he started to consider it. He seems to have a block in place with his flatwork that makes him believe that he can't do it.

So the lesson to be learnt from today is that I can do it. I can get Echo to bend correctly to the right, I can get a good left rein contact, I can get her weight onto her hindlegs and her forehand up, and goddammit I can jump too! Feeeeell the positivity!

Much better

2009-01-25T08:00:00.001-08:00

She wouldn't look at the camera though - something was obviously much more interesting at the other end of the yard!

While I'm adding photos - thought you might like to see Echo's little brother Jeff in his smart new Christmas jumper that stops him gettting chilly and wet at the yard.

Cruelty

2009-01-25T02:09:00.000-08:00

Echo didn't go so well yesterday and I ended up feeling really angry with myself - I will write about this another time, as it requires some thought and some soul-searching. However, I wonder whether I am too mean to my horse...

She was stubborn and difficult to ride yesterday. I don't think it was me, as I actually started out feeling really positive and calm. She is a mare, however, and is prone to stroppy days every now and again! She was quite hot when I finished, and as we are soon to be visited by the lady that bred her, she is in need of some tidying up. So...I pulled her mane when I got back. I find it really hard to bring myself to pull her mane - she doesn't particularly mind it, but something of the silly sentimental passive animal-lover in me niggles at the back of my mind telling me it's cruel. I need to toughen up! I would never have thought that when I was working with dressage horses!

Usually, she has gone so well, that I think it would be mean to repay her with a mane-pulling session - yesterday, I wasn't feeling so compassionate! She fidgeted for a little while, and she doesn't much like it being pulled at the top, by her ears, but she now looks a hell of a lot better. I know there are all sorts of more 'humane' methods of tidying a horse's mane, but you must understand, my lovely horse has a big chunk of cob blood in her, therefore has a mane that somewhat resembles a Thelwell pony when it's natural! I hope to go to some shows in the spring, so for the purposes of plaiting, had to do something to thin it and shorten it.

I feel like perhaps I am trying to convince myself here, that I did it for her own good rather than to get her back for being naughty. I hope you don't think I am too mean to my horse! I will post a photo of my efforts soon, to show the improvement.

Counter-bend and Caprioles!

2009-01-14T08:15:00.000-08:00

I chickened out! I didn't have the jumping lesson in the end, but I did tell John at the end of my lesson that I would like some help with the jumping, but that I'm not interested in jumping enormous fences or anything; I really just want to be able to pop over a few jumps every now and then and for it to build Echo's strength and suppleness. It also provides a relief from the schooling, without having to go out for a hack. It has been decided that we will spend ten minutes or so at the end of my next lesson on jumping. I have warned him of my lack of natural ability!

My lesson was good - it felt positive and John said her walk had improved and that her carriage was much better. Good news. He watched me walk, trot and canter on both reins and said that the bend is definitely improving to the right. However, we worked for a while on the left rein, which I found really useful. He asked me what her inside hind felt like. I had to think about this, as I confess that I'm not always 100% tuned in to every part of my horse's body! Once I'd got my head round it, I realised that she didn't feel like she was totally engaging the left hind. John pointed out that she is hitting the floor with her foot as it is travelling backwards rather than as it's coming forward. If I can get her taking the step right as she's reaching forward, her hindlegs will carry the weight much more successfully - at the moment they are a little out behind her. Interesting, but quite hard to fix. I realised that I needed to use a lot more energy in the trot, really asking her to reach under and carry herself. The trot definitely improved.

We went onto the right rein and worked on getting a good right bend - he actually pointed out that I am asking for too much bend. I have it in my head that I have to bend her to the right, and then I get too much, so she's bound to fall out through the left shoulder. When I corrected this with my left hand, I was then able to put my inside leg on and push her into the left contact a little more. It really was only a little more - the problem is not yet fixed, but it was a start. He also got me to trot her on the right rein, but with a left bend. I found it much easier doing it this time, than when he made me do it before, as I have taught her to be more obedient to my directional aids from my legs and seat. She finds it really hard maintaining the bend, but then, when I put my inside leg on and ask for the right bend, she does it correctly and it feels like such a relief!

The canter work was quite brief, but wonderfully self-explanatory. I did a rubbish transition first of all - and guess what? I got a rubbish canter! He made me slow down the process of the transition, by establishing the sitting trot first, then ensuring that I have a good outside contact and am not in the middle of a turn, then asking for the canter from my seat. Abracadabra - a good canter is the result. It's irritating when the answer (and the mistake) is so simple! In the theme of transitions, he also got me to work on my walk to trot transitions. She often jumps into trot from walk - particularly on the lunge - and I always assumed it was to do with her being weak behind. However, he got me to really think about my timing in the transition - and to ask her with my seat and support her with my legs to get her hindquarters really engaged. It isn't perfect every time, but it definitely reduces the jump up into trot.

Since the lesson I have been hacking a couple of times and Echo has seemed to enjoy herself. The cold weather has made the ground pretty hard, but there are still sandy tracks in the forest which you can trot and canter on. Echo rather disgraced herself on one of the occasions though. I took a friend hacking who has not ridden for many years. She borrowed one of the riding school horses and we went off for an hour's wander on the heath. It was a very cold day, and I half thought about riding Echo in the school for a few minutes first, just to take the edge off her, but she had been so good last time I went, that I thought it was probably unnecessary. Bad decision. She was on her toes the whole time; spooking, jumping, grabbing the bit in trot and refusing to slow down... not really the Echo that we all know and love. She settled eventually and I suggested that we have a little canter up a short slope - that way, I thought, if my friend was unhappy cantering, it would be over very soon and being on a hill it wouldn't be too fast. The opposite in fact! Echo started to canter, then started doing a sort of rocking horse canter, then she stopped dead and bucked. Poor girl, my friend nearly ran into the back of me, got very close to Echo's back feet when she was bucking, and generally didn't know what the hell had gone on!

It's so weird - she has these funny episodes in canter when out hacking - it's as if she gets herself in a tangle and just strops because she can't do it! Holding my head in shame, I apologised to traumatised unhorsey friend and arranged to go out for a long hack the following Sunday with my usual hacking buddy, to dust off the cobwebs and find some tracks for some good long stretches. She was an angel for most of the ride - it was a beautiful (but freeezing) day and I had ridden Echo in walk, trot and canter on both reins before setting out, so she felt relaxed and confident. We led the whole way, as my friend's horse was feeling particularly ploddy that day, but she strode out and was calm. She was, however, very ignorant to my half-halts, so I made the most of my friend falling behind, by regularly stopping her and then walking on again. Eventually, she came back to my aids and was then much more relaxed in trot, as I actually had control of the pace in trot. We had a couple of long canters - the first was awesome - up a hill, steady, powerful, calm...the second started off like that, but I don't know what happened halfway through. I think she might have heard the other horse's hoof beats a bit louder behind her, but she suddenly leaped into the air (doing a good impression of a capriole!) and shot off for a few strides! Echo never does this! She is obviously feeling very well at the moment.

I wasn't particularly worried by that behaviour - I would rather she leaped and ran for a few strides than she stopped dead. I have always preferred a horse that bucks to one that backs off or rears - always best to keep the forward momentum, I reckon! We haven't had another chance to hack recently, but the schooling has been going nicely! Talking of which, I should go and ride now...

Tiny...but it's a start!

2008-12-31T11:21:00.000-08:00

I always seem to add blurry pictures, and this video is no exception! It is quite hard to see, but since I have it, I thought I'd put it on here. Now, this may be a tiny weeny little jump, but it's the first obstacle we've jumped since...July? She felt pretty good actually - particularly the second time, when I approached in canter. The stride was good and she seemed to really enjoy it. I have a lesson with John on Saturday and I'm tempted to ask him to help me with my jumping. Thing is...I'm RUBBISH at jumping and I know he'll pull me to pieces. I'll see how resilient I am feeling on the day I think!

Don't criticise the horse!

2008-12-02T06:16:00.000-08:00

Woohoo! - they've finally let me get onto my blog at school. I'm a busy girl and have lots of work to do when I'm here, but I also live in a house with two other girls and only one computer with Internet access, so it was a struggle to get anything posted.

I had a surprise lesson with John last week. I've been meaning to write about it for a few days now, but I've had to think quite carefully about the things he said and how it made me feel. I had warmed up before he arrived and so was ready to start immediately. He asked how I was getting on and I told him that I though things were improving - particularly Echo's straightness. The last time he saw us we were having real issues with the left shoulder and left contact, as she wasn't taking the contact forward into my left hand at all. In this lesson, however, she was really starting to straighten, and I'm sure it has something to do with me learning to use my left leg.

What I have been doing is trying to control her left shoulder with my left leg. I've found that this does work to some extent - it has definitely helped so far, but John pointed out that I still haven't got enough contact in my left hand. He said that I should control her left shoulder with my left rein rather than my left leg, as I need my left leg to move her quarters around. I played about a bit with this during the lesson and felt much more positive - I can take a contact with my left hand - I just don't!!

In the way all good instructors do, he called me over to go through some things and while I was talking to him he asked me what my long term goal is with Echo. I have never really attempted to define this; I feel that you have to just see how a horse goes - otherwise you let yourself open to disappointment and won't appreciate your horse. When I broke her in, my goal was simply that she be a well-rounded, well-behaved, pleasurable ride. She is this. Obviously, as you make progress, goals change and now I am pretty sure that we can compete in a bit of dressage. In order to give John a tangible goal, I said that I would like her to eventually, at the peak of her career, be able to perform a decent Medium test. I am under no illusions that she is going to be a world-beater, but I believe that any horse, with the right training and dedication, is capable of doing this, if you are prepared to work hard enough. All of the movements for a medium test are only extensions of the exercises I do now anyway.

John was slightly taken aback, but said that if this was the case, I would have to start working towards it now, not leave it until later. He said that the movements in any test are only schooling exercises, not performances, so I should begin to use them in my training, using them to develop her, rather than seeing them as an end product. All of this makes perfect sense; I have started to work at my shoulder in and in fact, we went on to practise this in the rest of the lesson and it was really successful. However, he then said something which has bugged me ever since. He said, "I often sit there wondering why you've taken such a difficult route." By this, he meant why I have chosen a horse of Echo's type, if I want to be a dressage rider.

I was quick to defend her. I know that what we lack in natural ability and flashy paces, we will have to make up for in accuracy and suppleness - John has always said this, and I trained a pony far more stocky and 'unsuitable' than Echo to quite a high standard before. However, I was really surprised by the 'I'm not sure why you're bothering' subtext to his comment. The dressage riders that I worked for before becoming a teacher had competed internationally at grand prix, yet they encouraged me to take on a 14.2hh gypsy cob type and work hard on him. They were of the opinion that it was just as worthwhile making an 'ordinary' horse go very well, as one that is flashy. Indeed, without wishing to blow my own trumpet, I used to beat a lot of under-schooled flashy horses on my accurate and obedient gypsy cob.

I know what he meant. I would get a lot further in dressage if I had a horse with more natural ability, however, I wanted a horse like Echo. I have had her since she was a yearling. Apart from the early handling and halter training she received, which set her up to be extremely obedient, everything that Echo can do is down to me. I broke her in with very little help, I hacked her out for the first time (and believe me, I am NOT a brave rider by any means), I jumped her for the first time (and I don't jump!) and I would never have had the guts to do any of these things, had Echo not been the character that she is. I am phenomenally grateful to my wonderful horse for being so patient with me, for looking after me and for teaching me so much. I could never be disappointed with her, because she has already exceeded my expectations. But, I'm a perfectionist and once something has been achieved, I want new goals to work for and I think this will always be the case.

Though I know that he didn't intend to offend me, and he didn't really, I felt a need to justify myself and my horse. He then remarked that when he first started in a racing yard, an old jockey told him, 'you can criticise and owner's wife, but whatever you do, don't criticise an owner's horse!' I think there is some truth in that.

Freeeeeezing!

2008-11-22T13:53:00.000-08:00

It's been so cold today - I rode this evening in the indoor school and the snow was blowing in through the door - it was funny actually - Echo kept spooking at the patches of white on the floor! Infuriatingly, I had to wait for ages after riding her before turning her out, as she was so sweaty (really got to clip her soon...!) and I then felt pretty bad putting her in the field when it's supposed to be -4 degrees tonight! But she was tucked up in two rugs and the field has now been extended into some trees, so she'll have plenty of shelter. I kind of have to remember that she is a horse sometimes!!

She went well this evening, actually. We had a bit of a fight on Wednesday, and I wasn't planning to school her tonight. I just could not get control of her left shoulder that night- no matter what I tried. It was frustrating and pointless, as we both just got stressed. Tonight, as it was so cold, I decided to warm her up really well before asking her to work hard. I did my usual walking holding the buckle, turning her in serpentines and circles, then had only a really light contact and a very long rein and trotted her quite strongly forward - not asking for an outline, but asking for a bend with my legs. I then cantered her with the same length of rein and took a forward seat and pushed her really forward down the long sides. It was really beneficial, as when I went back to do some exercises like leg-yielding and shoulder in in walk, she felt much more supple. She felt much more solid in my left hand too - hadn't expected that, so that was a bonus!

I've started to do a little work without stirrups recently - I'm determined to improve my position. I imagine Johnny Depp riding a horse in front of me to stop me looking down and really use the mirrors to look at my position! The sitting trot is improving again slowly... I spent so long when I worked in the dressage yard improving my seat and getting supple enough hips to really sit still in sitting trot - it's a little frustrating that I seem to have lost this, but... I'd be bored if I had nothing to work on!! I've found that is a good motto to live by when it comes to horses!

I have requested a set of travel boots for Christmas and this is going to force me to get organised and start taking Echo to places. I want to start competing in the spring, so I need to take her out a couple of times just to work her and then go home. Every time she's been on a lorry in her life, she's ended up moving house. She needs to get used to going somewhere to work, rather than seeing it as an exciting new adventure where she'll get to run in a new field with new friends.

So, I sit here - tucked up in my warm house with central heating, desperately trying not to think about my poor horse in a freezing cold field. Oh well - knowing England, the temperature will be back in the teens by next week!

As requested...

2008-10-31T15:44:00.000-07:00

Very blurry and not looking our best, but thought I'd share a photo which, I think, shows that Echo has a little more power than she did before. The surface was dreadful in the school today, due to all the rain, but she felt good in trot. This is the right rein too ;) I will ensure some good quality photographic evidence of our progress soon, I promise.

And anyone who can recommend a way to stop me looking down all the time, I will love forever!

Catch Up Time!

2008-10-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

OK. I hold my hands up. I have been thoroughly useless at blogging in the last couple of months. I could bore you with reasons, but they have mostly involved work (lots and lots of it), a bit of travelling (not enough of it), and a lovely new boyfriend (!!). I also obviously had all the problems with my saddle, so after the sores on her back cleared up and I got a brand spanking new saddle, it took a little while to get back to where we were.

The saddle is lovely - it's still a Wintec - I don't have the funds for a nice leather saddle yet, and as she keeps changing shape it wouldn't be worth it. It is, however, one step closer to a dressage saddle, as it is a VSD cut and therefore has straighter panels, but will still enable me to jump. It's so comfortable; compared to my old one, which was far too small for me, it resembles an armchair - I could canter in it all day. I wouldn't though...obviously!

It took some getting used to, but the last lesson I had with John, he commented that she was moving really well - without me even telling him that I'd got a new saddle. Once he knew, he said that she looked much more level behind now. This is fantastic - we obviously still have the problems with the right hind, but knowing that she is now comfortable makes a big difference.

Last week I was very brave: I actually let somebody else ride Echo. Now, I am something of a neurotic mother when it comes to my animals, and I would not have handed Echo over to just anyone. However, my best friend is an awesome rider and I trust her more than anyone in the world with my horse, and as her horse is lame at the moment and she was at a bit of a loose end, I thought it would be nice if she had a little sit on her.

Ella was there when I first broke Echo in - in fact, she led me around on her when I was lying across her in a very ungainly manner, so she has been a big part of the process - including all those lengthy phone calls about the specific nature of her right hind leg in trot (you can't beat friends for that!) I rode Echo for about fifteen minutes, then Ella got on and rode her quite a lot in walk to begin with. She immediately felt my problems with the right bend - she is very heavy in your right hand and then won't let you take anything in the left hand. I have written extensively about this in the past, so I won't go into too many details now, but I was glad that finally somebody could actually feel what I feel.

She worked hard to get her responding to the leg aids - particularly getting her to keep her left shoulder engaged. She actually found that once she completely had control over the left shoulder, she could use a lot more inside leg and then she became soft in the right hand on the right rein. She is much more skilled at this than I am - probably because she has spent years working on her horse, who has a similar problem!

In addition to this, Echo looked absolutely amazing. Because she had control over her shoulders, she was much more forward moving and her trot was stunning. I had that funny mixed sensation - a teensy bit jealous because I know that I can't quite ride her like that, but totally in love with my beautiful horse and excited about her potential. The latter was definitely the prevalent emotion - thank goodness!

Yesterday, I had a big breakthrough. I had struggled to achieve what Ella had managed in the following days, but yesterday I felt like I finally had my head in gear. I managed not to ride like a moron and actually got what I was after. While I was walking her on a loose rein at the beginning, I decided to try to steer her a bit using just my legs and seat. I held the buckle, so that I couldn't cheat at all and use my hands, and forced myself to turn her in complicated turns and circles on both reins. I found that through this I was able to move that troublesome left shoulder around effectively and she was much more responsive.

When I finally did take a contact, I made a real concerted effort to have an entirely equal contact in both reins, and I carried on riding just as strongly with my legs in order to keep hold of the shoulder and create the bend with my inside leg. I found that she was much softer in my hands and I was able to get a bend with a completely even contact. It was exhausting - both mentally and physically, but she felt brilliant. She was soft, forward and rhythmical. A definite breakthrough - I just hope I can recreate it!

In fact, I decided not to try today! It poured with rain all morning and I was all set for an indoor school session - which seems such a shame while it's half-term and I still have some light! However, it cleared up and I decided to venture out on my own. We haven't hacked out for months - actually, since I noticed the sores on her back - let alone gone out on our own, so I must have just had a moment of bravery! I went out through the cross country course to see how she felt and she was a little bit tense at first, but she settled into a nice rhythm after a while.

Feeling that I wanted to go out for longer, I took her out onto the heath. It was really soggy underfoot, so we had to mostly stay in walk, but for the first time, she wasn't a quivering wreck by herself. She usually gets herself so tense that she feels like a coiled spring and winds herself up, jumping at shadows and terrifying herself. It's not much fun to ride her when she's like this, but today she just seemed to really enjoy being out and about. We came across several huge herds of deer, but she is so used to my dog racing out of bushes unexpectedly, that sudden movement doesn't faze her too much.

It was a really lovely ride and she was so relaxed, it felt like my baby is starting to grow up!

Saddles

2008-09-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last couple of weeks. After my excellent lesson with John, we had a small setback in the form of a sore back. I went out for a lovely long hack a couple of days after my lesson and when I was brushing her the next day, I noticed a small lump on her back and she was very tender under it. On closer inspection, the lump had formed into a little scab, and then I noticed that there was a symmetrical one the other side. This made it pretty clear that it was the saddle. I just lunged her that day, but she didn’t look terribly comfortable, so I stopped and realised I would need to give her some time off to heal the bruised part of her back.

I felt so awful. She definitely hadn’t been sore before that, as I check her back every day, so I guess she’s probably grown a bit and with the added element of a long hack, probably just tipped it over the edge. Luckily, a saddler was coming out the next day, so I arranged for him to check the fit of Echo’s saddle too.

Now, I know very little about saddle-fitting. I’m ashamed to admit this, but it’s true – just like I know very little about farriery and veterinary science. When this is the case, one puts a great deal of faith in professionals that are trained in these areas. Bearing in mind that Echo’s saddle was fitted a year ago and has been checked three times since then, the last time being about 3 months ago, I didn’t expect to be told on Monday that the saddle did not fit her at all. If she had grown a little and it wasn’t quite sitting correctly any more, then I would understand, but it didn’t fit AT ALL.

The new saddler said that it’s very short for her, meaning that the surface area is not very big, causing it to put pressure on her back in the wrong place. He also pointed out that it’s far too small for me, and therefore it puts me at the back of it, meaning that there is extra pressure at that point. He also said that it is too narrow for her. Great. I have been making my horse uncomfortable. He couldn’t fit a new one to her, as her back was so sore, but he did place another saddle on her back and it was two inches longer than mine – he said that she can easily carry an 18” saddle and that this would fit me much better. It’s a Wintec VSD, so has a slightly straighter cut than my old one, but can still be used for jumping.

Several girls at my yard have had to get new saddles because the ones fitted by the other guy have made their horses lame. I know professionals exist on their reputations, so I don’t want to be too outspoken about this, but I was so annoyed. I know Echo has grown, but it seems very unlikely that it fitted properly in the first place.

So, for the last two weeks I have been bathing the scabs daily in hibiscrub, coating her back in arnica and doing no riding. At last, the tenderness has completely gone and I was able to lunge her on Tuesday. She looked so much more comfortable. The new saddler is coming out on Monday (my bank account is not going to like it…) and hopefully then we should be back on track again.

Lessons to be learned: gain as much knowledge as you can yourself – you can’t put complete trust in professionals. Poor Echo.

Quarters In

2008-08-29T14:31:00.000-07:00

I had a lesson with John on Wednesday and decided to get him to help me with teaching Echo quarters in. I had tried to start teaching her the day before, but we just got in a real tangle. She expects the outside leg back to mean canter and I couldn't persuade her that it could mean something else, as she kept running through my contact. I gave up, as she was getting in more and more of a strop and I knew I needed help.

The reason I wanted to teach it to her was because she has such difficulties with her hindlegs - I thought that if I could move them laterally, then it would get her to engage them more easily. John agreed that this was a good idea and I explained my problem to him. To begin with, he got me doing turn on the forehand, so that she got the hang of moving just her hindlegs away from my leg going back. First we did turn on the forehand from halt, then from walk. Once she stopped running through my hand (John told me I had to 'close the door' in front and to tell her off if she ignored that) she was very good at this. He then told me to come round onto the short side of the arena and put my outside leg back to ask for the quarters to come in slightly.

She didn't understand at all and kept speeding up and bracing against my hand, but after a few attempts, she did move her quarters in ever so slightly, which was enough to begin with. We did it on both reins and got a small movement each time. It was at this point that John reminded me of the reason I was attempting the exercise - because she has difficulties with her hindlegs - therefore of course she's going to find it difficult. But the process of asking for it made her walk so much better, and particularly her right bend improved and she was taking a decent contact in my left rein.

After getting a small movement in walk, John then got me to try it in trot. Again, the movement was marginal, but it was something at least. He then told me to do the same in canter, asking for quarters in on one side of the arena and shoulder in on the other. This was quite interesting, as when I asked for shoulders in, I lost the outside contact and she fell out through that shoulder, meaning that she rushed onto her forehand. When I asked for quarters in, although I didn't get much angle, the canter became much more active and uphill. I wouldn't normally encourage too much quarters in in canter, but particularly on the right rein (my bad rein) the added outside leg really engaged her hindlegs and got her moving.

It was a really good lesson, as we achieved something that I wanted to. We started out not being able to do something, and made positive steps towards achieving it by the end. My friend videoed the lesson (although her camera doesn't have the technology to put it on the computer unfortunately) and although Echo looked great, it was a bit of a wake up call for me to sort out my position. I had a pretty good seat when I used to work for David and I was a bit appalled by my posture and flexibility on the video. I concentrated pretty hard on that this evening when I schooling Echo, but I could do with someone shouting at me like the good old days!!

John also talked to me at the end of my lesson about rein back and the aids for collection and I am rather confused about these. When I have got them sorted in my head I will post about them, as I would love to know what other people think.

A horse-owner's guilt!

2008-08-20T06:18:00.001-07:00

Through various sources recently, I have started to feel awful about the rein contact I take when I school Echo. I know that comments weren't intended as criticism and it has been from reading other posts on the matter of 'light contact' that I have started to feel this as well, so none of the material has been specifically aimed at me, but I think contact is a real issue with most dressage riders.

I am, officially, my own biggest critic. When I was working for David Pincus, he used to get hold of the other end of the reins and make me take a contact on his hands, so he could feel what I was doing to the horse's mouth. He usually said that I was not taking enough of a consistent contact - that I was dropping the contact at the wrong moment, and that in fact, giving with the rein is definitely not the same as dropping the contact. You should always be able to feel the horse's mouth, even when you have given in your rein contact. My instructor, John, has reiterated this recently - I need to have a more consistent contact - not stronger or lighter, but just clearer to the horse.

I have started to really think about the type of contact I take on Echo. JME made a very interesting point in a comment on my post Needs Must, which brought to my attention whether my rein aid was behind or in front of the wither. Also, when I watched the demonstration by Emile Faurie, he said that you should only ever use your wrist when asking for bend, as any more than this will make the horse over bent and fall out. I think I was doing both of these things too much - I was using more than my wrist to ask for the bend, and the aid was in front of the wither, meaning that she reacted in the wrong way to it.

When I was thinking about all of this and reading about the ideal 'feather-light' contact that JME says is possible on most horses, I started to feel the horse-owner's guilt. That sinking, deep-down feeling that you have done something dreadful and are not worthy of riding your poor horse, as you make such a terrible job of it. When I got on Echo yesterday in order to school her, I rode for the first 10 minutes in walk on a loose rein, completely unsure of what I should do. Then I sorted myself out.

I rode as I usually do - albeit with a sharper focus on what I was doing with my hands - and I remembered that I am capable of riding my horse. She is a cob, who is very young and naturally on the forehand, so she is not going to be uphill and featherlight just yet. She needs to learn about balance and subtlety and carrying herself, so I have to show her at the moment what I want. When she trots around, she always has her ears either forwards or sideways, tuned into me - she doesn't come behind the bit and she tries her hardest to do what I ask of her. I don't think she is uncomfortable.

I don't ride with a strong contact - I sometimes have to take a stronger contact, in order to create the frame where she will carry me in the easiest way for her - but when she gives in her poll and her jaw, then I lighten it. Surely that is the point of schooling - lightness is the end product, with harmony and balance achieved by working at it - especially when your horse is not ideally built for it! Lightness is what I obviously want to have with my horse - in all respects, but that cannot be reached (at least in my experience - except with a horse that is built naturally 'on the bit') without establishing a clear contact first.

I sound like I am ranting, and I think I probably am but mainly at myself. I always doubt my own abilities and get the 'guilt' but I have a happy horse who is willing to work for me, which I think has got to say something to me. I have to remind myself every now and again that schooling is a process developed throughout the horse's life - I can't expect it to be perfect immediately - she's only four!

The Arte y pico award

2008-08-16T04:50:00.000-07:00

A belated but huge thank you to Dressage Mom for this blogging award. The orgin of the award can be found at http://arteypico.blogspot.com/ and I am really honoured that Dressage Mom thought of me for this. I am supposed to pass this on to five more inspirational bloggers, but many of the blogs I read have already received it. I will therefore only pass it on to the following three blogs that I read regularly.

Barokko's Diary - a fellow young horse trainer with a coloured horse - girl after my own heart!

Odin's Diary - learning to ride as an adult can'tbe easy, but Maat has a wonderful horse to learn with.

Little Miss Rachel - not a horsey blog, but entertaining and personal.

Needs Must!

2008-08-16T03:20:00.000-07:00

Despite continued improvements in Echo's responsiveness, thanks to my last lesson with John, I have still been having huge issues with her taking the contact in the left rein. The right has always been her worse rein, but it was getting ridiculous last week. My problem was that every time I took any sort of contact in the left rein, she would turn her nose to the left. To compensate for this I would have to take a stronger contact in the right rein, meaning that I was having to pull her head to the right, which didn't feel good. When I put my right leg on to continue to ask for the bend, she would escape out through the left shoulder, because I didn't have a true contact in that rein. If I put my left leg on to catch her, she sped up, so we ended up zooming round in a wooden, unpleasant fashion. Not so good.

A couple of influences encouraged me to change tactics. I was reading a blog a couple of weeks ago (I can't remember for the life of me whose blog it was, but if I do, I'll be sure to credit them appropriately!) about working from the ground. The writer was talking about doing leg-yielding and shoulder-in on the ground, which I had never really thought of doing. I also watched a demonstration with Emile Faurie on Horse&Country TV (!!) where he was showing his work with a four year-old stallion he is training. He was saying that everything must be explained to the horse. So many problems come from a breakdown in communication between horse and rider: all it requires is that the horse understands. This got me thinking. I knew that Echo just didn't understand about the left contact, but I really had no idea how to tell it to her in a way that she would understand. Every suggestion people had given me hadn't worked - probably because I was explaining it wrong.

So - I came up with my own method, combining my two inspirations. I decided to lunge her for a couple of days and followed our usual method of lunging - free on both reins in walk, trot and canter, then with side reins on both, working on transitions. I then put her on the right rein and shortened her left side-rein a little more, so that they were uneven. It wasn't by lots, but enough for that left contact to take a hold when she was bending on the lunge circle. I was able to keep the right bend using the lunge rein, and I varied the size of the circle, all the time watching to see how she was reacting to the tighter left rein. When she accepted it, she actually moved much better and her canter transitions were much improved.

At the end of the session, rather than immediately taking the side reins off and letting her walk free for a few minutes as usual, I kept the side-reins on and walked her in-hand around the arena. Using my hand on her side where my inside leg would be, I asked her to move from the three-quarter line to the track in leg-yielding. As the left side-rein was still shorter, it kept that contact through the movement. We did this a few times, then I took the side-reins off and let her relax.

I know it probably isn't the most orthodox of techniques, but I thought it would probably explain it to her in a much clearer way than I can do when I am riding her. In fact, when I rode her yesterday, she was a lot better. I felt that for the first time in weeks...even probably months, I could have an even contact in both reins, with her maintaining the correct bend. Particularly in canter, where she usually falls out through the left shoulder quite dramatically, my left leg did not cause her to speed up - instead, she kept herself straight and cantered beautifully. It was so nice to not be fighting her on the right rein. I hope that she felt that too, and now is starting to understand about the contact. I would be interested to know what all of my wise blogging friends think about my method, as I know it isn't ideal, but she does seem a happier horse as a result

After she had gone so well, I popped her a couple of times over a little cross pole that was set up in the arena. I have got a friend to come down with me next weekend to help me with poles and jumps. I can't wait!!!

The Seat

2008-08-05T01:58:00.000-07:00

I had a lesson with John on Friday, which, as usual, has given me so much to think about. He was running a little late, so I warmed up for quite a long time before he arrived, meaning that for a change, we were actually ready to get going immediately. She had warmed up quite well and was going very nicely on the left rein. The right rein is improving, but she is still not taking my contact in the left rein, and so it is a little tense on that side. I manage to combat this to some extent by really using my outside leg. This stops her falling out through that shoulder but also encourages her to stretch that side. It doesn't work completely yet, but she is starting to understand.

The last lesson we had, we had been working on canter transitions. I thought these had been really improving, so was keen to see what he thought. He pointed out that although it was better, I was not using my seat to ask her to canter. He said that I put my legs on, then my seat waits for her to canter before it follows. He said that I need to use my seat to actually ASK for the canter. I had a think about this, then admitted, somewhat reluctantly, that I didn't really know what he meant, and that I wasn't sure how to use my seat to ask for a transition. To be honest, I thought that the seat was meant to follow. He gave me an understanding smile, sighed, and said we'd go back to the beginning. Oops...!

He asked me to walk and told me to really feel the movement of the walk in my seat. He then pointed out that I was not using my seat evenly in walk - that I was doing one full stride, then a half one, and he warned that this is how horses get a 'Newmarket walk'. As soon as I started making sure that my seat was moving evenly, the rhythm of her walk really improved. At that point, I knew it was going to be a valuable lesson. Once I had sorted this, and really felt the movement, he told me to halt, and then walk on using only my seat. I had to start the movement that I had in my seat in walk, in order to create the walk transition. It worked!!! So clever... So then, following this, I had to go into sitting trot and feel the trot movement in my seat. From walk, I then had to ask for the trot by starting to move my seat in the trot movement. It worked too! The hardest one was canter. Because the trot is bouncy, I don't really have the strength in my hips to force my seat into the canter movement. I found that I had to use my legs at the same time.

John's reasoning for me only using my seat is that before, I was putting my leg on and therefore the trot was getting faster before I cantered, meaning that the canter was too fast before I'd even started. This way, my legs can support and straighten, rather than asking for the initial transition. He said that if my legs were in use to create the movement, then how would I straighten her or control the movement? This made a lot of sense, particularly as the canter really improved when I stopped using my legs so much in the transition. He said that I should place them in the correct position, but not use them to create the transition.

He also told me off for looking down all the time. This has always been a huge problem for me, even when I was working in the dressage yard. He did point out, however, that Echo copies my position, so if my head is tilted down, she can't do anything except be on the forehand. He was however, reasonably positive about how she is progressing. She is much more supple than she was in the last lesson and is starting to swing in her back and be relaxed. I am really glad that things are going in the right direction. I practised what we had done in the lesson on Sunday, and it was really starting to improve. I was trying to make sure that every transition I made, up and down, was only created through my seat. It is making her far more responsive to my half-halt as well as making her softer in my hand and sharper off my leg. I find it amazing how subtle the seat aids can be - I had always used my seat, but I had no idea how much of an influence it is.

Pesky flies

2008-07-26T03:41:00.000-07:00

I've been extremely busy recently so not really had much time to post - although I have been riding quite a lot - I love my long summer holidays! I jumped Echo again the other day - she was very good, although she took off quite early and I had to do my best to stay with her. Took her out for a hack on her own yesterday, a bit further than usual, and off the property of the place where I keep her. She was better than usual, as she didn't shout her head off all the way round, like she normally does when she's out alone, so she must be feeling a little more confident, but she kept getting spooked by things. The thing with Echo is that once something spooks her, she gets tense and then more and more things start to scare her, so by the end of the hack she's jumping out of her skin when she sees a rabbit! We will just have to build it up gradually I think - yesterday was definitely progress though.

I have found a solution to the nasty flies that are around. No amount of fly spray can keep them away from her ears when I'm riding, so I have invested in a fly hat for her. She does look somewhat like a new recruit for the KKK, but it is doing its job very effectively and she seems much happier being worked when she's wearing it.

WE JUMPED!!!

2008-07-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

OK, so it was only a tiny weeny midget cross pole, that she could have stepped over, and it was barely a foot high, but WE JUMPED IT!!!!

We had been doing some trotting poles, as a friend was there to help me (Echo is not all that coordinated and tends to kick them all over the place). I had never done more than two together, and that was months and months ago, so she had to really think about them. We started off with one, then two together, then three. I was working on keeping her supple and trotting as normal, just going over the poles when I asked her to. She was actually really good. When it got to doing three, I could tell that she was really concentrating. She was all wiggly going up to the poles, and my friend said that you could see her thinking. We then did four in a row on each rein and called it a day, as it had been mentally quite taxing for her.

I had a quick canter on each rein (she hadn't been as flexible to the right today, but then I suppose I was thinking more about the poles!!) and she was pretty responsive to my half-halt, so I went out for a walk to cool off. I had every intention of just walking a circuit of the cross country course, but as I was heading out, I noticed that there were a couple of jumps set up in the wood-chip arena. This is pretty common, as the surface is good in there for jumping, but this is the first time I've seen such a tiny jump - one that even I could manage!!

I saw it and thought about what to do. What was the worst that could happen? She could refuse - no great loss, I'd just pretend I'd never asked and come back later, better equipped - like I did when she first refused to go in the water jump. She could do a huge cat-leap - that wouldn't be too bad; I have a reasonably secure seat and a neck strap. She could take off afterwards, but I was fairly sure she wouldn't (Echo doesn't usually expend more energy than she has to!) Or she might just pop over it happily - and that's exactly what she did! I went into the wood chip arena and trotted a couple of circles, then pointed her at the jump and trotted purposefully and rhythmically up to it. She popped over and carried on trotting, as if to say, 'yeah - what about it?'

I was grinning from ear to ear. Although I know it was such a tiny jump that it was physically barely more than a trotting pole for her, mentally it was the equivalent of a 3 foot spread for me. I now know that she can do it and this will give me so much confidence. I have no desire to do loads and loads of jumping with her, but recently I have been really itching to have a go. Dressage is most definitely my thing, but I do get a real buzz from jumping and I think we are going to have lots of fun. I went straight out on the rest of my walk and couldn't stop smiling.

My Horse is Awesome!

2008-07-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

Now, this might be stating the obvious, because she's mine and I love her, but today I was just so over the moon with her.

The last few days I have been doing a bit of schooling, which has been going OK, although she's still been really heavy in my right hand, and we've also been hacking a bit too. We went out on our own for quite a long time earlier in the week, which was amazing. I cantered her all the way down this huge field and she was light and didn't pull at all. We even explored some paths we haven't been on before, which was really rewarding, as she wasn't as spooky as usual. We then went out with a friend yesterday, whose horse is quite reluctant to go in front, so Echo and I led all the way! We didn't canter, but I felt that we could have done and she would have been fine. I was so impressed with how much braver she is getting. And me!

Today I didn't ride til quite late in the evening and I had to go and get her from the field, as they'd already turned her out. As I walked down the track, she came over to the fence and wickered to me. Now, this probably has more to do with the fact that I always give her an apple or something when I first arrive, but the fact that she came over and seemed pleased to see me made me go all tingly!

It's weird, but the weather has been quite close today and when I first got on I felt quite light-headed. I had to really force myself to concentrate and I don't think I was riding as effectively as I could have been. However, I had worked very hard a couple of days ago on the right rein, really asking her to bend properly. I read an article by Carl Hester which said that you should spend 75% of your schooling time working on the side that your horse is stiff on - not always on that rein, but counter-flexing sometimes on the other rein. I made an effort to do this last time I schooled her and today I could really feel the difference. She was pretty good on the left rein (which I started on) but when I moved onto the right, she immediately felt more supple than she has done recently. When I put my inside leg on she didn't rush away from it - she felt fantastic, because when I put my inside leg on today, she really bent herself around it and this is the first time I've achieved this feeling from her.

Her right canter was really good too. I have been working on the things we did in our lesson with John last week, on really riding the canter and asking for connection using half-halts. She was really listening to me and not falling out through her outside shoulder. I ended up not schooling her for that long, as she went so well. I took her out for a walk round the cross country course to relax.

I am being a very good girl and making sure that I canter up hills as regularly as possible, to improve the strength in her right stifle. I cantered slowly up quite a long, gentle hill today, then decided to canter up my usual very steep, short one as well. The track is sand, so it's good in any weather and it really is steep. The first few times I could barely get her to trot up it; I used to have to really kick her on up it to get a canter. Not today though. As soon as I turned her to go up it and shortened my reins, she absolutely exploded. She took off at a hundred miles an hour! It's hard to tell whether I should let her do that. She's very good in that she stops as soon as we get to the top, with the lightest of aids, but she is obviously anticipating it now! I kind of think that she's enjoying herself and as she doesn't take off like that anywhere else when we canter, I can let her have her fun. Perhaps I will get her to walk up it a couple of times just to remind her that I dictate the pace! It's impressive how much stronger she has got recently though - she felt very powerful today.

I apologise for how gushing this post has been today, but I couldn't resist sharing how awesome my horse is!

Better

2008-07-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

I rode Echo yesterday, for the first time since she had her wolf tooth taken out. I didn't push her too hard, but asked for correct bend in walk and trot - and it was so much easier!

She felt soft and easy in her mouth and didn't feel like she was fighting me. She was still a little more stiff to the right, but we are still dealing with the problems with her right stifle, so I was never expecting miracles. The good thing is that we are making progress. And she'd had a week off but was still sane and willing to cooperate. Maybe the stroppy mare potion is working...

I've also been riding her with a gel-pad under her saddle when I have a thinner numnah on - she seems to go better in this. This is the summer of BIG improvements!

Toothless

2008-07-03T01:56:00.000-07:00

Echo had her wolf tooth out yesterday! I was a real squeamish idiot and couldn't be anywhere near when the vet did it - I'm awful with teeth - I'm bad enough when I'm going to the dentist, let alone watching my horse have a tooth pulled out!

She's never been sedated before and she looked so sweet - her chin was nearly on the floor, her front legs wide apart and her back legs wobbling. The tooth was bigger than the vet had first thought, but it came out very easily apparently and he then rasped the edges of the teeth around it, while she was sedated, so he could get to them properly. She spent the next twenty minutes propping herself up with her head on the stable door, but then suddenly perked up and started to eat, which I thought was a pretty good sign that it was all feeling ok.

I turned her out and have been told to give her about three days for the gum to heal, then I can ride her again. From the size of the tooth, I am not surprised it was getting in the way of the bit - I'm pretty sure that it was this that she was flicking the bit over in her mouth, so we shall see whether it makes a difference to her left contact.

Definite Progress

2008-06-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

I had such a useful lesson with John today. I explained about the wolf tooth and that it isn’t being removed until Wednesday, so he said that we wouldn’t make an issue out of the contact on the left. We started working on the right rein (the difficult one) and actually John said that it was a lot better. She is bending to the right now; I still feel like I’m having to use my inside hand too much, but at least it is not one sided now – she does actually take the contact in the left rein and feels as if she is working from my inside leg into my outside hand.

He said that we would work on canter transitions, and the first few that I did were pretty dreadful. There is often this period of scurrying between trot and canter, where I lose all ability to ride altogether! My body tips forward and I feel like a complete beginner. Not good. He got me to think about not altering the ground speed at all when moving from trot to canter – keep the contact, sit up and ask for an upward movement, not a faster movement. Once we had established better transitions, he then said that the best strides of canter were the first two and the last two, and that I lost it in the middle. He got me to work on slowing the canter down and really riding it. It felt lovely and her trot started to really swing afterwards.

After practising this on both reins, he told me to ride a figure of 8 in canter, only trotting for 3 strides in the middle. I knew this was going to be next to impossible. We started off on the right rein, as she finds the transition easier on the left, so I could guarantee that one of them would be OK! With the exception of a couple of half-decent transitions, the whole exercise was out of control and scrappy. However, it did teach me some useful lessons. I am far too dependent on my safety net of doing transitions on the fence; I am also nowhere near quick enough to respond to Echo when she asks me questions. I felt like my brain was a couple of seconds behind the action when I was trying to do the figure of 8 –need to get my act together! It also taught me that I need to be far clearer with my aids and responses. She is not quick enough to respond with her hind legs – there are all sorts of reasons for this, not least the problems with her stifle; however, I need to sharpen her responses by making sure that I am focused and determined when asking her to do something. John said that I shouldn’t be afraid of teaching her what I want her to do.

I feel like we are starting to get somewhere now. I have stopped getting so frustrated when I school her and have definitely chilled out about the schooling. We have seen a big improvement in the last week, and that’s with only schooling at most 3 times. The rest has been hacking, which I think is really good for us. I am determined to teach her to jump this summer – I very nearly tried popping her over a tiny little jump on the cross country course when I was hacking yesterday, but she really needs to loose jump one more time before I face her with something like this. Also, I was on my own and I think it might be sensible to either be in the school when I first jump her, or at least follow the lead of another, quiet horse the first few times. I’m getting pretty excited – I haven’t jumped for years! I think I’ll have a lesson on one of the school horses to reacquaint myself with it.

Happy Birthday, Echo!

2008-06-28T03:36:00.000-07:00

It is Echo's 4th birthday today and the lady that bred her has very kindly sent me some photos of the day she was born and the following few days. The first two show her at 5 hours old!

Fort Knox

2008-06-26T23:58:00.000-07:00

This is, so far, the only field that we can keep Echo in - she jumps over or breaks through everything else! It has 3 layers of electric tape and this seems to revent her thinking she can squeeze between the tapes. All this houdini behaviour has not made me very popular at the yard...!

She's standing in her cute baby stance here - I have photos from when she was a yearling standing in exactly this pose, with her front legs splayed apart. I'll try to find one.

Wolf Teeth

2008-06-24T13:30:00.000-07:00

Echo apparently has a small wolf tooth on her left side of her jaw. This is the side that I have been having problems getting a good contact on. This has improved since her teeth were rasped, but since we have been having problems, I'm guessing I should probably have it removed. I don't really know much about the process of removing wolf teeth or in fact anything about wolf teeth at all. Someone told me that there is no anaesthetic - they just pull it out - that sounds awful! I don't want to hurt her... but I don't want the bit to hurt her either so guess it'll have to be done.

We had fun today, going fast up steep hills to try to build up her muscles around her stifle. I think she's going to enjoy this fittening process - reckon I might too!

Hacking in a Gale!

2008-06-22T06:44:00.000-07:00

I went for a lovely hack today. It was blowing a gale, but Echo was actually really quiet. In fact, the only time she spooked was when I sneezed very loudly! We did some good long trots and lots of walking. At one point, my friend suggested we start off trotting up a track, then as her horse (who can be very strong) wasn't pulling too much, we decided to canter the rest of the way. I haven't cantered Echo on a hack for months, so was prepared for some bucking, but she was actually very good. She was steady and balanced - I think she might have enjoyed it as much as I did! I was taking silly pictures on my phone - I love the fact that Echo's ears are poking into the photo here! I really enjoyed myself today. Lots more hacking for us.

2008-06-21T11:35:00.001-07:00

Oh and I forgot to add that, in order to show willing, I have bought Echo some 'hormonal mare' supplement. She has now broken the fence in 3 of the fields and they are having problems keeping her in any of the paddocks, as she just jumps out or breaks the fence. She has even been known to give the battery for the electric fence a good boot and break it, then duck under the not-so-electric-anymore tape. I am rather embarrassed by this behaviour, and although the yard owner is lovely and says that it's just 'horses', I felt I ought to try something. We'll see how it goes. It might also help towards solving her stiffness - you never know!

Another interesting lesson...

2008-06-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

It was really interesting to watch the massage therapist with Echo last weekend. I made a decision at the time, that even if the massage didn't have any obvious physical effects afterward, I would try to get her to treat Echo occasionally anyway, as she seemed to enjoy it so much! She started off by her poll and loosened up her whole neck, then worked over her shoulders and down towards her quarters. She did lots of stretching, encouraging Echo to stretch the muscles herself once the leg was put in a certain place. I have never seen her look so relaxed. The last thing she did was some massage of the tail and as she moved it gently from side to side, her whole body wiggled right through to her nose. She can sometimes drag me a bit on the way to the field, but when I led her out afterwards, she looked half asleep, bottom lip hanging and strolled along at my side!

In terms of the physical problems, she had a look at her on the lunge and agreed that something odd is going on with her right hind leg. She couldn't find anything terribly wrong, but did say that she's a little stiffer on the right. She got me a little scared, as her horse has recently been diagnosed with juvenile arthritis at 5 years old, and suggested that I have her x-rayed if I can't find anything. Also, when she relaxed and started chewing, Claire noticed that her teeth were grinding a little and suggested that I get them seen to.

She then had a couple of days off, and Claire told me just to hack her the first day I rode her, so on Wednesday I arranged to go out for a gentle hack with a friend. It was very windy and quite late in the day and when I got on she tensed up and her back contracted. When I asked her to move forwards, she hopped with her back legs and seemed really uncomfortable. Getting very concerned, I jumped off and took her in the school to lunge her for a little while. She was very fired up, which didn't help, but she did look quite free. I think she must have just been a bit stiff after the massage and the days off. When I got on, she was fine, but still couldn't bend at all to the right - she just wouldn't take the contact in the left rein at all. I would be using my right leg and trying to push her into my left hand, but as soon as I touched the left rein, she would turn her head to the left and run forwards. I was getting really frustrated again, so I gave up and did some trotting over poles to take both of our minds off it!

I had the vet to rasp her teeth on Friday, which helped with the left contact issue, and then had a lesson with John today. As usual, it was pretty enlightening. I was glad, actually, that he saw her at her worst, as he was able to give me some useful advice. She was awkward in her head and wouldn't bend today. He had a look at her and felt down her quarters carefully. He said that she is very loose in her stifles, but particularly loose in the right stifle, meaning that she is finding the engaging work quite hard. He said that this partly her age, but that I have got to get her fitter, using lots of hill-work to really build up the ligaments around the stifle. He also said that you can get medication to strengthen the ligaments, but that this would require a very specialist vet, probably at Newmarket, and therefore we should see how we get on with the fittening work. I also asked him whether it would help her to do some jumping and he thought it probably would - anything that will get her to really bend her hind legs - even raised trotting poles.

After this, he got me to go back on to the right rein and noticed immediately the problem I was having with the left rein contact. He said that I'm putting my inside leg on and holding her with the outside rein, but as soon as she tries to bend to the left, I try to sort it out and take my inside leg off as she is rushing through it. He said that I am giving her really mixed messages and have got to be a lot firmer with her. He asked me to ride her on a really small circle around him and really pull her head to the right, whilst keeping a good contact on the left. The small circle stopped her rushing and also forced her to bend more effectively. At one stage, he got hold of her reins and walked around holding onto her bit, asking her to soften to the right. She did eventually do it, although she was trying to do everything she could in order to get out of it. We were only walking and all I wanted her to do was to bend herself to the right. He pointed out that this is not difficult for her, but she has worked out how to not have to do it. The leg-yielding was the worst, as when I put my right leg on she rushed away from it and I was having to rely entirely on the right rein - which is completely the wrong thing to do!

It is so frustrating when you know that the problem is you as a rider, but it's so hard to fix! I am going to do some really short schooling sessions, to try to get around this problem. John has lots of funny sayings and today they were useful. He said, "Rome wasn't built in a day, but parts of it were." He emphasised that I have to get what I want, but I must have small, achievable targets, rather than just wanting her to 'go well'. We will also do lots of hacking and maybe even a little jumping, to try to get her back legs stronger and keep her interested. I received lot of very helpful comments on my last post, most of them mentioning her age and that perhaps I am overdoing it with her. It's really difficult to judge, as she has been broken in for 10 months now, although she has had periods of that off for various reasons. She is very clever and learns quickly; I have got to keep her interested, but not over-tax her. It is a difficult line to draw.

I will continue to work hard in the school, but will make sure that I just have a couple of goals, maybe even just one, that I focus on and achieve. I will then try to build up the hacking and loose-jump her a couple more times, before attempting our first jump with rider (!!!).

Hind-leg Dilemma

2008-06-15T01:34:00.000-07:00

After my lesson, I continued to work on the things John had told me to: engaging and motivating the hind legs by practising shoulder-in and walk to canter. I also started some halt-trot transitions as they seemed to get her moving a bit more powerfully. She was amazing for the first few days. She was really using herself and the walk to canter transitions were coming along really well.

However, towards the end of last week, she became much more resistant to the exercises. She started getting really tense and stressed by the transitions and started to run through me. The worse rein was definitely the right, as she seemed to not want to take a contact on the left. As soon as I touched the left rein, she would turn her head to the left or bend to the left. I ended up having such fights with her, as she was hanging persistently on my right rein and refused to take the contact on the left. It got to the stage where every day I was having a huge battle with her and not winning!

After a few days of this, I decided to give her Thursday off, while I got my head together. On the Wednesday she seemed to find it absolutely impossible to bend to the right. She was also struggling with leg-yield left, so I think we may have problems with that right hind again. John pointed out in my lesson that the right hind is the less-engaged of the two, as she tends to step inside with it, rather than straight. On Friday, I decided to lunge her so that I could see what was going on from the ground. She looked pretty stiff behind when she started. She was hardly bringing her hind-legs under her at all. After a bit of a warm-up, I put the side-reins on and asked for some canter transitions. This did seems to loosen her a little and she looked pretty comfortable in her hind legs.

It's just so difficult to know what to do. I don't know whether she's sore and really can't engage them properly, or whether she just finds it easier to drag herself along from the front and is being difficult. I put her on a really small circle on the lunge, so that I could almost flick her with the end of the string on the lunge-whip, and asked her to trot. This made her really bring her hind-legs under and was particularly effective on the right rein. It also made her bend, and subsequently made her take the contact in the left side-rein. Keeping her on the tight circle, I asked her to canter and then trot again. When I pushed her out onto the larger circle again, she looked much more engaged; she was really pushing from behind, rather than dragging from in front.

I decided to do the same exercise yesterday, and she started off looking just as stiff behind. Again, the exercises were successful, although she didn't bend very well to the left. I did, however, spend some time feeling along her back yesterday. She doesn't seem to be sore in her back, but when I pushed hard and ran my hand from her pelvis over the top of her quarters on the right, she raised her back right up and didn't seem comfortable. I have a massage therapist coming to see her today, so I'm hoping she can shed some light on that.

I find it hard to believe that she's sore in some ways, as she has been a nightmare in the field recently: she keeps jumping out! I can't believe that a horse that's having trouble engaging the hind legs in trot can find it comfortable to jump over a fence that's at least 3 ft high! She has been in season (hence the escaping into a field with the boys!) and I haven't yet tried the hormone supplement that her old owner has said works well with her mother. Her mother also gets stiff in her pelvic muscles on the right hand side, so this might be the answer. I will see what the massage therapist says today and then possibly try that next.

I really thought we were back on track when I started riding her again recently. Never mind - we have plenty of time. She has not even had her fourth birthday yet - it's in a couple of weeks time.

Weekend silliness

2008-06-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

Well, after my successful lesson on Friday, I have had to give Echo the weekend off as I have come home to see my parents. With any luck she will be thinking over the things we learned the other day and will have decided that it is a good idea to fully engage the hindquarters. One can always hope...

My brother is a keen film maker - he's only 15 but has just made his fourth feature film. A little sickening. Anyway, when he is around, a camera is never far away. We were messing around with my dog in the garden, getting him to catch balls and jump over stuff, and Nicholas made a lovely video of him. With the lack of anything horsey to blog about, I thought I'd share this with you. I am already trying to arrange for him to come and visit over the summer and make a really nice video of Echo. I had better not sing his praises too much though, or he'll start charging.

This is my beautiful black and white dog, Jeff - one half of my little black and white family!

Piaffe! Well...nearly!

2008-05-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

My lesson with John was as useful as I expected! Having not had a lesson since January, we had a lot to work on. I expressed my concerns about her back end not feeling like it was connected to the front and he agreed that she wasn't really using her hind legs at all - particularly not her right hind. She doesn't seem to be sore, so it is possible that she has just got into bad habits. I also had an interesting email from the lady that bred her, who said that Echo's mother also gets tight pelvic muscles on the right hand side when she is in season. This is definitely something to consider, as I may try her on some kind of supplement - her old owner said that 'Magic' is working well with Echo's mother.

I was a little alarmed that John said he thought she has got worse since last time he saw her, but I guess with all the time off, that is really to be expected. I also knew that really, as I could feel that things were not quite right. However, he said that he would watch me have a canter on each rein and then we would come up with a strategy for engaging the hind legs. After a canter on both reins he pointed out that my best strides of canter on each rein were along the fence, clearly indicating that there is a lack of support on the outside. He said that I need to ride the outside of her more strongly, stopping her shoulder from falling out. In addition to this, he recommended that I really work on my walk to canter transitions. We had a couple of (pretty disastrous) attempts at these, where she kept getting the wrong canter lead. He said that I was dropping my inside shoulder too much and letting go of her outside rein at the crucial moment. He got me to bend her slightly to the outside ad ask for the canter on a straight line rather than in the corner. This sounds strange, even when writing it here, but it was to stop the outside shoulder from falling out and encourage her to strike off on the correct leg. He said that I must put my outside leg as far back as I can a few strides before the transition, so as to prepare her, but also then be prepared to really hold her back if she tries to trot off at that point. What I found difficult with that, was keeping my weight on my inside seat bone and still asking for the canter with my inside leg. It all felt very clumsy, but we shall certainly work on it. In fact, when we finally got the correct canter lead, the canter was miles better than it had been to begin with.

As well as the walk to canter transitions, he said I must teacher her to do shoulder-in. He says that I need to motivate her back end and this will come through being asked to use it in a way that will interest her. She is quite a clever horse and learns very quickly. Making her interested in the work will encourage her to bend her hind legs properly. We then got talking about in-hand work. When I worked at Sheepcote we used to do lots of in-hand work with all of the horses, starting off with the four year olds, who would just do a few half steps, right up to David's grand prix horse, Wurlitzer, who used to practise his piaffe from the ground. Although Echo will never be a rand prix dressage horse, I really think this might help her and John was very keen for me to try it. Knowing Echo, she will have a huge strop and a tantrum, then she will suddenly get it and think it's fun. I will try to get someone to take some pictures at some point, as it might be an interesting training diary. For now, there's quite a good example of what I will be trying to do here. I will probably have side-reins on Echo, in order to have rather more control, but this is the general idea.

Thanks to Wiola, I have now learned how to put a video on here! I prefer the video I have linked to above, but this is an example of passage in-hand. I'm not a huge fan of Andalucians' movement, but you'll get the general idea. It's surprisingly hard to find good examples of piaffe in-hand. There are some pretty shocking examples of it - one horse was even cross-tied and being hit with the whip - I was so shocked. The horse has to be able to move forward - you can't tie it to the spot.

So...a successful lesson. I have, as usual, got lots to think about and lots to practise - I really should have lessons more often!

Getting back to it

2008-05-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

I have been so useless at posting recently - I shall endeavour to do better from now on. As some of you may know, things have not been terribly easy over the last few months, but I have now moved into a new house with a friend and am having a really good time. In addition to this, Echo had over a month off with a bad back and has only recently come back into work, so things have been pretty quiet with her for a while.

However...things are getting hugely better - Echo is now sound and back in work, so I am getting to ride a lot more regularly and we are getting back somewhere near to where we were before it all went a bit wrong! Even when I first started riding her again, it was rather sporadic and I was finding that every time I got on she was ridiculously tense and felt as if she was going to explode. I am starting to get used to this feeling and not be worried by it - instead I just ride her forwards and wait for her to relax! I have been able to ride her much more regularly recently so she is starting to really get back into it now, and we have less of the explosive tendencies!

I even felt secure enough to hack her out yesterday, which is quite brave for me, considering she is hyperactive at the moment and hasn't hacked out since February! She has been ridden every day this week, and has been going really well; I rode her on a little loop round the cross country course on her own after a schooling session on Saturday and she was fine, so I decided to just go for it! We went out with a horse that we haven't hacked with before, but is reasonably old and knows what he's doing. He likes to lead, so that suited us well. I only really wanted a slow hack, as she hasn't been out for so long, but in the end it was so wet that we couldn't do more than walk and trot anyway. It was a very successful outing; she was spooky on the way out of the yard - the wheelie-bins were obviously housing some very scary monsters, but when we got going she was fine. The trots felt...powerful. I wouldn't have wanted to canter that day, as she wasn't really taking a contact and was pinging forwards very boldly. I think a canter might have somewhat blown her brains...but next time, definitely!

Schooling wise, she is going pretty well. I am having issues getting her to take weight on her hind legs, but can't remember if it is any more of a problem than before she had her back problems. Her hind legs just feel really weak - I can't really describe it better than that. I suppose she has had a lot of time off and has grown a bit too, so there are bound to be some changes, but I have been working quite hard to get her to use her back end. I've been doing lots of transitions to lighten her forehand and have been asking for some steps of leg-yielding. It does seem to be improving, as I lunged her last week and her transitions looked much stronger than they had done a couple of weeks previously.

My other niggle is with her outside contact on the right rein. I have real problems riding her from inside leg to outside rein when on the right. This seems to be a left side problem, as she is reluctant to take the contact forward on the inside when on the left rein too. I don't really know why this is. The leg-yielding has been helping, but I find that when I change the rein I lose all ability to bend her correctly! I think it will be something that comes with time. I am also having a lesson with John tomorrow, so it is highly likely that he will point out the problem within a minute or two, and make me feel thoroughly stupid for not realising what it was, as it was so glaringly obvious! That's what usually happens, anyway! We haven't had a lesson since January, so I am a little apprehensive, but very excited at the same time!

My lessons always leave me with LOTS to think about, so I will no doubt voice my thoughts on here tomorrow!

The joys of spring!

2008-04-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

After last week's success, I ended up having to give Echo a few days off at the beginning of this week, so when it came to riding her on Wednesday, I wasn't sure what she would do. She had felt so tense and exuberant last week, that I knew there was something of a storm brewing inside that 'butter wouldn't melt' expression!

I decided to wimp out and lunge her instead of riding. I am so glad that I did! As soon as she got out onto the circle, she absolutely exploded. She bucked and leaped and twisted and cantered, all in a jumble. She is not balanced enough to canter and buck, so she has to jump about on the spot. I pushed her forward and she thundered round for about five minutes, looking as if she was thoroughly enjoying herself! When she finally came back to a steady trot, I have never seen such a contented expression on her face. It was as if she were saying, 'Thanks Mum - I needed that!'

I rode her very briefly yesterday, but there was so much going on that I couldn't stay in the school for very long, so only wandered around for about ten minutes. Today, I wasn't taking any chances, so I lunged before riding her. I expected a repeat of Wednesday's performance, but on the left rein she seemed quite calm. I decided just to get on and not bother lunging on the right rein. I don't want her to get too much into the habit of being lunged before riding, as we both might become a little dependent on it. Once I was on board, she was very good. She has to be reminded to concentrate, but after lots of half halts, she was listening fairly attentively.

Her trot has improved so much since she had her back done. She is much less on her forehand and is lovely and soft in the contact. I worked on getting her to stretch, then changed the rein. The right has become a bit more difficult. I am finding it tough to control her outside shoulder, hence steering is a little erratic! Once she was feeling more under control, I asked for canter in the corner. Little madam leaped in the air, stopped dead and stood there bucking her little heart out! She is so funny when she does this! I am amazed by how confident I feel riding her through these little outbursts, but I don't feel unseated (touch wood!) - it just feels...funny!

I pushed her into trot again, and went back onto the left rein. Once the trot was established, I asked for the canter again - I had already cantered her on the lunge on the left rein, so thought this might be fine. She was perfect - the canter was steady and relaxed. Thinking that this might have improved the situation, I changed the rein again and asked for canter to the right. It wasn't exactly great, but it would do! She kept striking off on the wrong leg, but she didn't buck, which at that particular moment, was what I was most interested in! I decided not to persist with the transitions, as I had achieved what I wanted to!

It was such a beautiful day. She got very hot when I was riding, so I gave her a bath and shampooed her mane - it has been couped up under a neck rug all winter, so was quite greasy and horrid. Just as I was about to tie her in the yard to dry off, the horse that lives in her field in the day time came in and she was able to be turned out. I led her down to the field and she was behaving very strangely! I didn't put a rug on, as she was wet and it is supposed to be a warm night. We were about ten yards from the gate of her field and her knees wobbled and buckled, and she got down and rolled! Right in the middle of the path, in the sand. Lovely - wet horse rolling in sand... might take me a while to groom her! I love that though, seeing her having a good scratch. We don't give them enough chances to be completely natural.

My little coiled spring!

2008-04-19T05:24:00.001-07:00

After a couple of days of walking (albeit not in the prescribed straight lines) I decided to ride Echo for a bit longer yesterday. She had been feeling quite tense when I was walking her. She didn't do anything silly, but it felt as if she were just humouring me really, and what she'd really like to do would be have a huge bug and race around. I'm quite glad she didn't!

It was very windy yesterday, so I rode her in the indoor school, which is great, but rattles a lot in the wind and she was already quite twitchy! I rode her in walk for a long time, trying to get her to take the contact forwards. The best way that I can describe the sensation she gave me, is like a coiled spring. She felt as if she had a lot of pent up energy. It was in danger of becoming a bit of a vicious circle: I didn't feel comfortable asking her to trot, because she hasn't trotted with a rider for a month and a half, but if I didn't trot, I was just prolonging the inevitable, and she would just have more energy!

I picked a calmer moment and asked her to trot. Needn't have worried (as usual!) as she was very good. The trot felt amazing. Her head carriage was good and she felt powerful and impressive. We had a couple of slight issues about speed, but she was obedient to my half-halts and I didn't feel unsafe. After a few torts on each rein, she still felt a little explosive and I knew that I was going to have the same mental issues about canter. I'm not technically supposed to be cantering yet, but I needed to just do a few strides, to reassure myself that she wouldn't do anything stupid. I asked her to canter and it was a messy transition (more out of Echo's surprise than anything, I think!) but successful. She did a funny leap in to canter and I think that if she had been a bit stronger she probably would have bucked!However, we kept the canter for a side of the arena, then she came obediently back to trot.

I feel like we are making a bit of progress now. She needs to build a lot of strength, as she has had a lot of time off. This doesn't seem to have done her any harm at all, other than a few issues in-hand. She has started being quite naughty to lead. Her field is very close to her stable, so she doesn't have to be led very far at all, in comparison to a few months ago, when she was a good ten minute walk from the yard. At the slightest distraction, she has started rearing and spinning around. It's funny - she doesn't pull on the lead rope at all - she doesn't seem to have any desire to get away from me, she is just full of herself. I think perhaps I need to do some ground work with her and re-establish a little respect. This is most unlike Echo, as she is normally so calm and well-behaved. Perhaps she is feeling like a true teenager!

About time!

2008-04-17T05:30:00.000-07:00

After well over a month of not being able to ride my horse, including two weeks of not even being able to touch her, it was so nice to go down to the yard last night. Echo has somewhat forgotten her manners, as she hasn't been handled at all, other than to change her rugs and turn her out or bring her in. She has become a little more pushy in the stable, but nothing that can't be dealt with!

I had to brush her for over half an hour, as no grooming during the season where she sheds the most coat, is not particularly helpful! I could have knitted a jumper with the hair that came off. I wouldn't though, as that's gross (there was a random thing on the news about that recently - another story though!) She seemed genuinely happy that I was around again, which was really rewarding.

I tacked her up, thinking that I may well not ride; she's had a long time off and I would have ideally liked to lunge her first. However, the back lady said I wasn't allowed to lunge, so, I took her to the indoor school and just...got on! Back lady also said that I should walk her out in straight lines the first few days, but with a 3 year old who's had a month off, I wasn't going hacking!

She was beautifully behaved. Again, some of the manners have escaped her, but she was willing and forward going (I was a little worried, as she has been rearing in-hand recently). I walked her round the school for a few minutes on each rein, then called it a day. She did feel a bit different. She felt lovely on the right rein, but a little awkward on the left. I think that her stiffness has been making me compensate in my position, so I am sitting slightly crooked. I must correct this, as I don't want to make things worse. As soon as she is properly back in work, I will have another lesson with John.

So, fingers crossed that the back is sorted now - I will get Jan to come and check her in about a month's time, just to make sure that things are all as they should be. For now - it's just brilliant to be riding her again.

Look, but don't touch!

2008-04-03T04:30:00.000-07:00

The Bowen back specialist came out to treat Echo yesterday and confirmed what the saddler had said. She is sore across her back, from the 'point' of the hip on each side, across the top. She said that this seems to be reasonably recent, as she has not started to compensate elsewhere in her body. She said that if this were the case, she would have problems in other muscle groups as well.

It was a strange session to watch; she worked her muscles with her hands for about a minute, then would leave about a two minute gap and then work them again. She didn't seem to be pressing very hard or manipulating as such, just carefully working up her back. Echo seemed to quite enjoy the treatment and particularly when it got to her neck, she looked as if she might fall asleep! Jan advises that the horse be turned out immediately after she ha treated them, but Echo couldn't go out at that point, so she told me to walk her in-hand for twenty minutes, to disperse any toxins that had been released. I don't think she and Echo had quite the same thing in mind!

She walked calmly for about five minutes, until something spooked her and she jumped a foot in the air, then reared. Great. She then proceeded to prance the whole of the rest of the walk, with such vigour at one stage, that I had to put the rope over her nose! I really hope that this has not undone the work on her back. Jan was very particular about how little I can do with her for the next two weeks. Yesterday, I was not allowed to touch her at all, except to put her rugs on. For the rest of the week, I can only touch her head and pick her feet out (as near to the ground as possible). She will then be treated again on Wednesday and will have another week of the same.

It is frustrating, as I have this time off but can't ride; however, I have so much to organise with moving house, that it is not the end of the world. I have also been able to go and visit friends around the country and not felt like I'm missing any riding! Ever cloud...and all that! The only really irritating thing is that the weather is beautiful today and I would love to go out for a long, relaxing hack. Never mind - we'll have the summer for that.

Great Timing!

2008-03-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

Echo has had the last couple of weeks off for various reasons, and to be honest she hasn't worked consistently for a couple of months now. I'm not worried about this, as she is young and growing at a rate of knots, so the time off will not do her any harm. However, I lunged her last week and she didn't look quite right in her hind legs. She didn't look lame, but there was a definite 'not quite right' thing going on. I'm sure that phrase is becoming a technical term among horse owners! I couldn't really put my finger on it, so I trotted her up for the yard manager and he said she did look a bit stiff in her hind legs, possibly through her back a bit too. He suggested that it might be from having lots of time off and only sporadic work, so he suggested I should ride her and see. I didn't end up riding that week for various reasons, then was away all weekend.

I lunged her again yesterday, thinking that a week off might have rested anything that was sore, and to begin with she did look slightly better, but she was doing something very odd in her walk-trot transitions. Rather than push off her left hind, she would do a strange sort of jump in front, then would use the left hind properly once she was trotting. I had a close look at this, by timing the transition just at the moment where she should have to use the left hind to propel her into trot, but she wouldn't use it. I trotted her up again afterwards, but no one could see anything conclusive.

Today I had the saddler check the fit of her saddle and was thinking that I would see how she felt with me on her, but when I mentioned to the saddler that I thought she had a sore back, he ran his hand down her back, behind the saddle. It was amazing - when I have done this, she hasn't flinched at all - I must not be pressing hard enough. When he did it, she nearly fell over! He said that she has a very sore back, but that it is too far back to have been caused by the saddle (and luckily for my bank balance, the saddle still fits fine!) and must be due to something she's done on her own. It has been so wet recently, that it is quite possible she's slipped in the field. Her front end is also rapidly shooting up to reach the height of her back end, so this could be tweaking something. What is good to know is that it is predominantly on the left side, which would explain the problem with the left hind.

I have contacted the Bowen back specialist and she is going to treat her on Wednesday. She will have to have two weeks off while she is treated over a five day period, and that is just typical, as I am on my school Easter holidays right now. How do horses manage to time things just perfectly? However, at least the clocks change this weekend, so it will be lighter after work and we won't always have to go in the school in the evenings. I will update once the back lady has seen her next week. Fingers crossed!

Sorry for the absence!

2008-03-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

I am so sorry for my lack of posting over the last couple of weeks - I don't have access to the internet in the house I am temporarily staying in, and work is so busy that finding time there is tricky. However, I am moving house very soon, and so shyould have lots of time to blog! I will also be on my Easter holidays soon, which will mean lots of time for riding Echo. It's been a bit erratic up to the end of this term, but she is going well when I do get to ride. I will post more information VERY soon.

Bending!

2008-03-04T01:32:00.000-08:00

Echo has been going really well this week. I have only been riding her for about half an hour each time I’ve ridden, but this is plenty, as she is still a bit lacking in strength through being young and having had a holiday. I have been feeling very emotional towards the end of the week (it’s up and down!) and felt that I needed something specific to work on with Echo, to keep me focussed and sane. My theme for this week has been working on getting her to work into the outside contact. I felt that I was using too much inside rein and decided to do something about it!

Working in walk a lot to begin with, I started by asking her to flex her neck dramatically to the inside, while still walking in a straight line. Once she worked out what to do, she immediately felt more flexible through her body. I then started to ask for leg yielding from the three-quarter line to the track. She knows what to do with this, but is sometimes keen to not take the outside contact. I find myself over-using the inside rein, which is not good.

I then started to ask her to leg yield along the track. When I came round the corner before the long side, I asked her to bring her hind-quarters in and leg-yield along the track. She finds this difficult, but I find it a more successful way of getting her to work into the outside rein (albeit the ‘wrong’ outside rein each time!) I then started to ask for these movements in trot, which she finds easier in some ways, but does then have a tendency to rush. I worked hard at using half-halts in the leg-yielding to control the pace, which in turn got her to work more into the outside rein.

We are making small steps with this, but I feel that she is starting to understand what I am asking her to do. The other interesting thing with all of this is that on Sunday I managed to get a walk to canter transition for the first time – and on the left rein, which is notoriously our worst for striking off on the correct leg. I was really pushing her into the corner in walk, asking her to really reach in to the outside rein and step under with her inside hind, and on a whim, I decided to ask for the canter transition, as she felt very connected. She just sort of popped up through the transition and the actual canter then felt amazing and balanced. What a result! John tried to get us to do walk to canter in our last lesson and we didn’t manage it, so I am really seeing progress now.

It isn’t that I want her to be able to do this all the time, but it is a great way of balancing the transitions and stopping her falling onto her forehand when going into canter. The other thing I felt able to do on Sunday was actually ask a bit more of her in the canter. I was able to sit up and really ride, using my inside leg to engage her. This is a good step forward, as previously I have been satisfied with just getting into canter in the first place. I now need to work on the downward transitions. She still really falls into trot and then runs along on her forehand, so I have decided not to trot after cantering at the moment. I bring her back to a walk straight from canter, which I am hoping will instil a desire to balance herself after the downward transition. I am not sure on this point though, so any ideas would be appreciated!

Happy Horse!

2008-02-28T01:31:00.000-08:00

This is a little out of date, as I don't have internet access where I am living at the moment, and so am writing on my computer at home, then bringing it in to work to put on my blog. All a bit confusing!

I had such a lovely weekend of riding – this is what owning a horse is all about. On Saturday I went for a hack with my friend and her ex-racehorse. It’s such a shame – she has come to the end of her tether with the standard of care at the yard and is moving her horse at the end of this week. Just as I have come back! I totally sympathise with her though; you have to do what is right for you in terms of livery yards. It was a beautiful day yesterday: the sun was shining and it wasn’t too cold. It was a little windy while we were out, but Echo isn’t really affected by the wind thank goodness!

She felt really pleased to be out again – we haven’t hacked for about a month now, so she was alert and interested. My friend and I had a lot of catching up and gossiping to do, so we spent a good half an hour just in walk, but when we trotted Echo felt balanced and forward-going, which was fantastic. At one point we decided to have a canter and Mojo cantered off from walk. I should have thought about this, as Echo has had some time off and has lost some strength, so is finding her canter transitions a little tricky again. She seems to get worried when the horse in front canters off and she gets stuck in the transition. To combat this, she stands still, puts her head between her legs and bounces repeatedly on the spot!

In the past when this has happened, it worried me and I thought there was something wrong. However, I am starting to see a pattern and have realised that it tends to happen when we don’t trot for a period before going into canter. She gets stuck in a walk/canter transition and so just bucks! It’s as if she can’t get her legs in the right order and she gets in a tangle! My friend stopped and we decided to just trot up the hill. However, once Echo was trotting forward (and as we always get left behind because Mojo’s huge) I decided to ask for the canter transition – she was fine, so I called to my friend and we cantered the rest of the way up the hill!

On Sunday, I rode her in the school and she went really well. It was warm and sunny, which always makes me feel more positive, and it was a joy to be riding my beautiful horse. We worked a lot on the left rein, as she felt a little stiff to begin with. After some walk and trot, I asked her for a canter transition and she struck off on the wrong leg. This hasn’t happened for a while, and I knew exactly what the problem was: I didn’t have enough contact in my right rein, and was relying too much on the inside rein for the bend. Not good! We probably did about 8 incorrect transitions, with me really working on getting her into my right hand in between. In fact, although we kept getting the wrong canter lead, the trot in-between started to feel amazing. Finally, I got her properly working from my inside leg to outside rein, and we got the correct lead. I was exhausted! We did a little work on the right rein, but she was tired and so was I, so I called it a day.
It was such a nice day that I decided to graze her by the school for a while and watch some lessons going on. It was nice for her to get some sun on her back, and some grass, as there is none in her field. She gets a huge mound of hay each night, but she always loves to get some good old-fashioned grass! She seems so relaxed at the yard – I definitely made the right decision moving her back. I am able to go down there and ride, spend some time with her, then go home and get on with other things; it’s making a big difference to my state of mind. She is also loving being back in work again – I think she got bored when I wasn’t riding her – she just generally seems very content with life at the moment.

Horse/Life Balance

2008-02-21T07:24:00.000-08:00

I have now moved Echo back to the yard she was at before and am so relieved. I just couldn't get my head around sorting the mess out in my life, as well as having her on DIY livery. The last few weeks have been very tough emotionally, but I am feeling much more philosophical about things now. I am still hurting a lot and I don't think that will go away for a long time, but I am able at least to think straight now, and I realised that the yard she is at now is where she should be. I liked the DIY place, but I just didn't have the emotional energy to devote to her there, and I realised very quickly that I definitely do not want Echo to rule my life.

I met several people at the yard who are all lovely and admirable, but their lives revolve entirely around their horses. They can't go on holiday, they can't go out for a whole day, they can't have a normal job, all because they have to be there at certain times of day to deal with their horse. If this is what makes them happy, then I admire them whole-heartedly for being able to do it. However, all of this has made me realise that I want Echo to be a part of my life, not the centre of it. She is my horse, who I love and enjoy riding and caring for, but I have a life away from her too. Having her on DIY livery was going to distort that unrecognisably.

I am delighted to report that I am now riding her again. While she was at the DIY yard I only rode her twice, as I didn't have the energy to do it. She was never very settled there, and the thought of her being on edge and shying constantly and it all being a battle was just too much to face. Back where we are now, I lunged her on Sunday, then rode her Tuesday and yesterday, and she was brilliant. She is a little rusty (as am I!) but we have not lost anything due to the time off, and this has been a huge relief.

I am being much stricter with myself now. On evenings when I don't plan to ride, I am not going to go down to the yard. I was going every evening before, which was unnecessary. I pay livery so that I don't have to do that. I am also making sure that I don't spend ridiculous amounts of time at the stables - I love being with Echo, but it is also important that I get my work done and that I have a social life too, so I am limiting myself time-wise as much as possible.

I'm going hacking this weekend, which I'm really looking forward to - I have missed it so much! She has lost a fair amount of strength and fitness, so it will only be short, but I so appreciate the facilities that I have now. I (almost) vow to never whinge about anything ever again.

Horses that have meant a lot to me.

2008-02-14T04:55:00.000-08:00

Part 3

I had been working at Sheepcote for about a year by the time Joe came into my life. Serena had bought him for her daughter, as she had had a coloured cob on loan and been devastated when she had to go back. Joe was designed to soften the blow. However, as the child was only about 9 and Joe was nearly 14.2hh and VERY wide, he was a little too much for her to begin with. For the first few weeks he was ridden by a very novice working pupil in our daily lessons. He had been in a riding school for a couple of years and had probably come over from Ireland before that. He was opinionated and very strong, but he had a lovely eye and a very generous temperament. He couldn't canter in balance and used to poke his nose out in a typical riding school fashion.

When the girl who was riding him left, Joe was passed to me. The idea had apparently always been for me to school him, as a kind of project. The yard was amazing, but there weren't going to be many chances for me to compete, as the schoolmasters were too old and I wasn't really brave enough to ride and compete the youngsters. Joe was the perfect solution. The first time I rode him I couldn't believe how wide he was. I couldn't use my legs! However, I managed to ride him really forwards in trot, and by the end, we had managed an outline (of sorts!) At that point, I realised we were going to have a lot of fun!

I started riding Joe in September 2004 and in December, we went to our first show. He was beautifully behaved, but it was my first real experience of competing and I didn't have a great deal of 'ring-craft'. We came out of it with a 2nd and a 6th - I was absolutely thrilled. We competed through the winter, doing pretty well and qualified for a riding club championships held in August 05. I stopped working at Sheepcote in order to go and train to be a teacher, but David and Serena were very kind and allowed me to keep riding Joe, as they were quite short-staffed and didn't need him for the lessons. By the time of the championships, Joe and I were schooling at roughly medium level, perfecting our canter half-passes and starting to work on changes. I am absolutely convinced that if I had asked him to stand on his head, he would have tried. He put absolutely everything into his work and was desperate to please me. I will never forget our partnership.

When we went to the championships, I was confident that we could do well. I was doing a test before the championship one and this did not go terribly well. Joe was not very enthusiastic and I couldn't get him off my leg. However, we came out of it with a decent percentage and I realised that we could do so much better than that. Before the championship test, Serena helped me warm up, then told me to gallop him round the outside of the arena before going in. I was worried that this would blow his brains, but it was the perfect thing to do. He trotted down the centre line with determination and impulsion, and the rest of the test was brilliant. I came out of the arena knowing that we couldn't have done much better. It was agonaising watching the score board while the next 6 or 7 riders went. However, I won the class with 70% and I have never been so proud. The photos of the day do not show how smart he looked - I hadn't realised there was a mounted prize-giving and so had taken his plaits out. However, we got to do a lap of honour, and since all Joe had really done was an extended canter for the last year, the chance of a proper burn around the field was very exciting. He set off at a collected canter, then suddenly realised that he was allowed to go. With a buck and a squeal, we set off at top speed - it felt fantastic!

When I started my teacher training, Sheepcote got more staff and so they needed Joe for the lessons. I also then bought my yearling and so I stopped seeing so much of him. The following spring, Serena phoned me and told me Joe had suddenly gone down with acute laminitis. I was devastated and went to see him immediately. He was in a lot of pain and the vet didn't really know whether anything could be done. It seemed that the laminitis had probably been caused by something in his past - possibly ragwort poisoning or worm-damage. Either way, he was past help. He stopped eating and had lost the will to carry on. I will never forget the phone call when Serena told me that he had died. I missed him so much.

I have such fantastic memories of Joe. He was the most honest, hard-working and generous horse I have ever met in my life and he will always hold a special place in my heart.

Horses that have meant a lot to me

2008-02-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

Part 1

Part 2

When I moved up to Lincoln, I was desperate to find a riding school to help out in. The prices were noticeably cheaper there than in Surrey, so my parents were able to afford for me to have lessons. I started at one yard, but it really wasn't for me. Without wishing to offend anyone, it was very 'BHS' and far too concerned about health and safety for my liking, even in those days. I soon moved on and found a yard that was much more suitable. There were only about 15 horses there, but it was fun and there were kids my age helping out and looking after the ponies, so I thought it would be good.

I rode there for about a year, helping out at weekends and then the following summer, had the most fantastic holiday. There were about 6 of us, all about the same age, all with the same passion for horses. As you would expect, we each had a different 'favourite' pony, and heaven forbid anyone would ever have the same favourite as you. In our eyes, they were OUR ponies. My favourite was a little Fell pony called Dalmore. She was only about 13.2hh but was stocky, so I didn't look enormous. In my eyes, she was perfect. I would have spent every minute with her if I could. What I loved about her, probably more than anything else, was that other people didn't like her. She was awkward to ride and used to jog persistently out on hacks. She wouldn't jump unless she felt like it, and she generally didn't!

In those days, my confidence was sky-high and I would have done anything on Dalmore. We had jumping lessons bareback, with no reins and holding cups of water in both hands, we rode bareback in a headcollar down to the field, we took part in gymkhanas and little local shows and we went on endless hacks around the local common. What I learned from her has stayed with me ever since. When other people used to ride her, she would get excited on hacks and start jogging. As a result, the rider would then shorten the reins and tense up. She would then shorten her neck and jog more, followed by more jogging and more tension. This is why no one really liked her. I dodn't mind her jogging. In fact, being a teenager, I thought it made me look pretty 'cool' as my horse was 'feisty'! Because I didn't shorten my reins and tense up, Dalmore stopped jogging.

I used to ride her all round the common and by the river holding the buckle of the reins. People were amazed that she didn't jog with me, and this was my little secret! It taught me very early on that we often blame horses for problems we have caused ourselves. If you don't react to something, the horse forgets it quickly. If you tense up, they think there is something to be worried about. I had to show Dalmore that I wasn't tense, which meant that she had no reason to be either.

It was on Dalmore that I had my first experience of competing. OK, they were only tiny local shows, but she was brilliant. Or terrible, depending on her mood. There were a couple of times where she ran backwards out of the ring, mowing down the steward, or where she would dig her heels in at the first fence. I soon learned that if she jumped the first fence, we would have a clear round. Otherwise, there was not a chance that she would go over anything!

As far as I know, Dalmore is still in the riding school - she must be well into her twenties now. I saw her a few years ago when walking my dog on the common. She was jogging away as usual, but looked happy and healthy and I very much hope she still is. She gave me so many good experiences and so much of what I want from Echo stems from what I got from Dalmore. I have only just realised that all but one of these profiles/stories are about mares. That probably says something about me, but I'm not sure what!

Horses that have meant a lot to me.

2008-02-11T06:32:00.001-08:00

Part One

Picasso hadn't been at the stables for long when I first met her. She was a huge (or at least seemed huge to a 12 year old me) tri-coloured mare who was about 5 years old. I rode her a couple of times in my weekly riding lessons, and wasn't overly struck by her really; I had another favourite pony that I begged to ride each week. I used to help out at the local stables all day every Saturday, and in return, I got a free riding lesson each week. My parents couldn't afford to pay for lessons, but this way I learnt lots and got to be one of the official 'helpers', a title much sought after amongst the ordinary 'lesson kids'. I felt very important. However, as a treat one summer, my mum offered for me to have a horse on loan for the week, meaning that I would be there every day and ride as much as I liked. I was desperate to have the favourite pony, but the owners of the stables needed him for lessons (I clearly wasn't the only one that loved him!) They offered me Picasso, and I decided that she would be better than nothing.

Within a week, she had become the most important thing in my life. What had seemed like a boring, big cob, started to whinny at me when she saw me, fell asleep when I was grooming her and took enormous care of me when hacking out in the forest on my own. She never shied or bucked, even though I was totally inexperienced and a pretty shocking rider, having only ridden for less than a year. Looking back, I'm amazed that the owners let me do so much with her, after all, she was quite a young horse and they hadn't had her long. After my week was up, I would see her every day. However, my parents moved the whole family away from the area at the end of that summer, and I was devastated to leave Picasso. In my spare time I would draw pictures of her (I still have lots of these) and write stories about us winning shows together. When we were in the car I would imagine I was galloping her along the verges and fields, jumping all the hedges. I came up with every scam I could to try to buy her. My parents were not in a position for me to have a horse, but I used to write daily schedules to show that I would have enough time to do it all myself.

Picasso began my love of coloured horses. I had no idea that a horse could bond so quickly with a person and that someone's life could be entirely dominated by thoughts of one animal. I still think about her. She developed a back problem and started to buck people off, so the riding school sold her to a dealer. This broke my heart, as she was so very special. I hope that she found someone to care for her - she could have made someone incredibly happy.

Me, myself and I!

2008-02-10T01:47:00.000-08:00

I got tagged by Dressage Mom This is a new one for me, and I decided that I'd do it.

The rules are...

You must post the rules before you give your answers.

After you've been tagged, you need to update your blog with your middle name and answers.

You must list one fact about yourself for each letter of your middle name.

Each fact must begin with that letter.

If you don't have a middle name, just use your maiden name/last name.

At the end of your post, you need to tag one person for each letter of your middle name. (Be sure to leave them a comment telling them they've been tagged and need to read your blog for details).

Here are my answers -

E - Emotional

V - Versatile (nearly went with verbose ... Tried to steer clear of violent and vindictive!!!)

E - Enthusiastic (Again, some inappropriate ones came to mind... elephantine?)

This was really hard! I could think of adjectives for pretty much every other letter...

I tag: Rachel-Catherine
Grey Horse Matters
Barrokko

Dressage Mom also wrote profiles of 8 school horses from when she was younger. I will have a think, as I would like to do my favourite horses justice and be able to describe them clearly. I will post about it shortly.

For those of you who left lovely comments on my previous post, offering support and advice, I am so grateful. I am feeling a little better and starting to get things organised. Echo is almost certainly going back to the old yard for a while - two lovely people from the present yard have been looking after her this weekend for me, so that I could come home and get myself together. I'll get there!

Sad and scared

2008-02-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, as this is Echo's blog really and I don't like to bore people with my personal life, I will keep this short. I'm going through a bit of a rough time at the moment, as of yesterday, when my boyfriend decided to break up with me. This is a little difficult, as I have obviously just moved Echo to her new yard and neither of us have really settled in yet. My immediate thought was that I have to get Echo back to her old yard for a bit, just so I have some stability and can go away for a couple of days if I need to. It would also enable me to take my dog to the yard with me as his daily exercise, rather than having to walk him separately, as the new yard doesn't allow dogs anymore.

The problem (there are lots of them) is clearly money. I moved her in the first place because I couldn't afford it there. Now that I am facing it all on my own, I don't know if I can do DIY at the moment. I'm just not sure that I can do everything and piece back together the shattered bits of my life. For example, I really just want to go home and see my Mum for a couple of days as soon as I break up for half term, but because of Echo being on DIY that is going to be so hard to arrange - if possible at all.

A couple of friends have offered to pay for her to be at the old yard for a couple of months, until I get myself sorted out, but I don't know about after that. I don't know if it's massively unfair to Echo to keep lugging her about, disrupting her routine. She doesn't feel settled yet and I am definitely not settled at the new yard yet. I'm sure it would get better, but right now, when I'm trying to organise moving out and finding somewhere new to live and getting myself together, I could really do with at least Echo being secure and settled.

I really don't know what to do...about anyhing. Obviously I'm still feeling emotional and hurt by it all, so should not rush into big decisions, but the thought of teaching all week, and doing Echo on my own and organising moving, is very scary right now. So if I don't post for a little while- it's not that I've forgotten you all!

I've been tagged!

2008-01-29T12:23:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged by Regarding Horses and from what I can gather, I have to write seven facts that people might not already know about me. Here goes!

1) I have never ridden a complete cross-country round. I have jumped individual fences, even a couple in a row, but the only two times I have tried to ride a whole round, I have fallen off. One time breaking two ribs, and the other breaking lots of confidence! I am hoping that this will prove to be third time lucky, as one day I would love to take Echo cross-country. That's a long way off yet though.

2) I LOVE plaiting. Weird, I know. My friend used to pay me to plait her horse before competitions and be really apologetic about it, but I absolutely love it. Sometimes, when I was working or my old boss, I would have to get up as early as 4.30am to get his horses plaited for a show - but I didn't mind - it's great. Those of you that saw the photos of Echo at her first show will realise now why she had so many plaits - because I find it so therapeutic!

3) My first experience of horse-ownership was a complete and utter disaster. I bought a flighty thoroughbred when I was fourteen and had only ever ridden cobs and ponies before. Hattie was completely unsuitable and in addition, had some kind of mental problem which caused her to have panic attacks and throw herself onto the floor. I never really recovered my full confidence after that. I don't think I have ever truly trusted a horse 101% again.

4) I am completely addicted to soap operas. I don't have time to watch them, but if I did I would watch them all. In fact, much of my English teaching is able to be related back to soaps - there's nothing quite like Eastenders for teaching dramatic irony! If I could only watch one, it would have to be Home and Away - I even went specially to visit the beach when I was in Australia!

5) The most amazing feeling I have ever experienced in my entire life was, without doubt, galloping flat out on a beach when I was thirteen years old. Nothing has ever matched that. Something about the speed and the power, with the sight of miles of open sand in front of me was simply mind-blowing. I never wanted to stop galloping. Second to this, in horsey terms (as other experiences have seconded it in other ways) was my first experience of riding piaffe on an ex-Grand Prix dressage stallion. For so long, I had watched horses do this and longed to see what it was like, and when I did finally get to try it, it made a dream come true. I have to point out that I had absolutely nothing to do with creating it - this horse had a very clear button to press. I couldn't make him do a working trot at that stage, but I could make him piaffe!

6) When I was little I had a recurring dream that I had a huge dapple-grey horse called Pebbles, that I used to ride everywhere - including to school (too much reading 'Jinny' books I think.) I never considered getting a dapple grey, as I knew that I wanted a coloured horse, but I thought that it must be fate (or coincidence??) that Echo's mother is called Pebble. It was obviously meant to be!

7)I still cry, without fail, EVERY time I watch Black Beauty. There is something about that moment, when Black Beauty is close to death's door at the sales, emaciated and resigned to his fate, then he hears Joe's voice and it wakes something inside him and he starts whinnying madly. There is a few seconds when you think that Joe won't recognise him, then something clicks and the two are reunited. He pushes aside his bedraggled forelock and sees that white star, and that's it - I am in floods of tears. In fact, just thinking about it now is making me emotional. Everything about that film gets me - even just hearing the music.

Well - I'm not sure how interesting those facts were, but I had fun trying to think of them. I will have a go at tagging some people, although I'm not really sure how to do it.

Wiola - Freelance Instructor's Diary (although I think she may have done this before!)
Odin's Diary
Barokko's Diary
Rachel-Catherine - now I know she's done it before, but tough - do it again!!!

Talkative baby!

2008-01-29T11:47:00.000-08:00

Well, Echo has been at the new yard for two days now, and things are starting to get settled. She is very relaxed and happy in her stable. She walks in happily and looks very comfortable in there. She is lying down a lot, which she always does after she has had a traumatic move, but at least she feels happy enough to do so.

When I arrived at the yard yesterday afternoon she had already been brought in by the girl who I'm going to pay to help me out a little bit. As I was walking over to her stable, she put her head over the door and wickered to me - I was really touched! She doesn't normally do this, so she is obviously depending on me a bit while she is feeling unsettled. I grabbed my lunging stuff and set to it, as I didn't have a lot of light left. She was very spooky when I led her into the school and was snorting and taking little baby steps. I led her round the outside a few times to get her to settle, but she was still like a coiled spring.

I put her on the circle at one end of the school and she shot off in trot, head up like a giraffe. Nothing I could say or do would make her slow down, so I just let her run for a bit. She started to lower her head after a few minutes, so I brought her to a halt and put the side reins on. This made her angry! She was not at all in the mood to work. The left rein was tense and hurried, but the right rein was considerably better. She cantered for a while, but it was balanced and calm. When she was listening properly to my voice aids and seemed to have chilled a little, I called it a day. Added to this, I could by this point only see her white patches trotting round - the lights weren't working!

I got her in from the field today and she was very fired up on the way down to the yard. She pranced sideways all the way. I've got no idea what the problem was - she seemed really worried about something. She visibly relaxed when she got into her stable, which I think is really good at this stage. I lunged her again this afternoon and she was much better. Someone was muck-picking on the other side of the trees, which she could hear but not see. This made her a little tense at first, and when I put her onto the circle she thundered round in canter for several circles. She did, however, settle much quicker tonight, so I put the side-reins on and then she was immediately prepared to work. The left rein was still more tense, but canter transitions were good on both reins and she was obedient to my voice aids at all times.

It's a real shame that I have a staff meeting tomorrow and will not be at the yard until late. I would have liked to ride her tomorrow; she was just starting to look relaxed enough at the end of today's session. However, on Thursday I will lunge her in her tack and see what she looks like. There is no point getting on her while she is tense and worried, as this will just add to her problems! Hopefully, she will be more settled in herself by then and will realise that the same things still happen each day, just in a different place!

She is being very loving to handle at the moment. Every time I go into her stable she wickers softly at me - admittedly, she probably realises that I am the one doing all the feeding now, but even after she has eaten she does it, so I don't think it's all due to food. I suppose it could also be that she is missing proper company - although she can talk to another horse over the fence, she is in a field on her own. I don't really like this set-up for a youngster, but there is nothing I can do about it. I'm making sure that I take proper time to groom her and give her scratches. She really enjoys this, and I suppose she doesn't get it from the others now.

It is really nice being able to care for her properly. I mucked out mostly with her in her stable this morning, as she was eating her breakfast. I'm finding the rubber mats and shavings combination really good, although I am fully aware that she isn't being her usual dirty self yet. She is a little dehydrated (always happens when she moves) and so is not peeing as much as usual. I am trying to get around the problem by making her feed as wet as I can, and actually the exercise really helps, as both days she has come in and straightaway had a drink. These things will all settle down in time I'm sure. As for me, I am having to go to bed super early to cope with the 5.45am starts. What we do for our horses!