Kholo - Day 3

Today, we skipped the arena and rode around my 35 acres. Kendall came along on Rain and we rode the perimeter, went over jumps a little and played on the playground. Kholo and I focused on transitions, backing and isolation. His turn on the fore is pretty sticky and heavy and surprisingly his turn on the hind has some lightness. He's very tuned in to my seat, so if my seat says trot he trots and when I down transition, he does as well. His backup was much nicer today - not quite gliding and smooth yet, but much improved. I expected him to be more forward outside the arena and he really wasn't. We'll take to the trail next week and see what we've got.

Kendall and Rain looked great!! Kendall wanted to jump and jump. Rain is a gaited horse and jumping is certainly not her talent, but Kendall was having a lot of fun! As Kendall grows, she looks better and better on Rain - less like a peanut and more like a real rider on that 16hh horse.

I bought a Barefoot saddle and it arrived today. I've been wanting to get a lighter weight saddle for endurance and I pulled Z out to see if she had any issues with it. It needs a few things, but it's got a great feel for my butt and only miles will tell me if Z likes it too. It came with an interesting saddle pad, but I think I'll be using my CSI. Looking forward to trying it out!

Starlet's wound is healing so rapidly. She could really get back to training with me at this point. I'd like to bring her along as a dressage horse and transfer everything I learn on Gem to her as well. She has more elevation and energy than Gem, so it will be a nice contrast for me as a competitor.

Going Aussie, mate?

I've been doing lots of research on saddles and I really want a lighter weight saddle for endurance. I'm using my western which is about 30 lbs and covers more of her back than I'd like (traps in heat). I know I'll need to spend about $1k to get something that will work for well - you get what you pay for with saddles. Tonight, I decided to pull out some old saddles I bought years ago for endurance and see if there's any chance I could make them work.

The horse that matters is Zarah. I have an Aussie endurance saddle that is lightweight and secure so I tried it on Z. It fit ok, maybe just a slight bit tight in the shoulders. I added my CSI pad and tried it out. She has plenty of should room with the pad and she seemed comfortable in it. We rode around the property a bit and I felt positive that I could make it work. I'll need a breast collar and a seat saver, but I think we could make it work. Otherwise, maybe I could get a few hundred bucks for it and put it towards an Ortho-flex or Timberline or Desoto.

A few miles will tell the story...

Frustrating, but still horse time

Left work early and was furiously trying to make my way to the barn. My daughter said to me, "Mommy, I want to ride too!". I love to hear this! I always ask her to ride with me and she typically turns me down lately. But today, it was her idea - how could I refuse her?

But, I really wanted to... I had a plan to get 3 horses moving and an 8-yr old joining me means not a lot will get done. I tried to just hurry.

I have a new saddle pad I'm trying so I started with Z. I tacked her up and we headed for the arena. I tacked up Rain for KK and she planned to ride around with me. I wanted to play with FLR and transitions. KK decided to just hang around and ride Rain without using her reins. That means Rain was right on our heels the entire time. That's just fine with me - I know KK is safe on Rain. Meanwhile, all the horses were out today and they were hanging around outside the arena. Deuce was barking, Kahli was barking, Oscar was annoying the cat, the cat was trying to follow us around in the arena... Aye yi yi...

I tucked the dogs into the barn and got back to it. Z was fantastic!! Our Spanish walk looks great! The spin is coming along and she's ready for full time liberty with that move! (so cool...) Her down transitions are getting light and easy - we worked on canter to walk and trot to walk. She seemed really, really happy in the new pad. It's the CSI saddlepad - showcut and it's perfect! (Thanks, Kim!). I've finally found the pad for us. The shims are great wtih velcro attached to stop any movement or slipping. Her hairs were perfectly flat and showed no signs of friction when I untacked her. I didn't ride her hard enough for a sweat since the nights are cold and I didn't want her wet. But I'm pretty sure sweat patterns are going to show uniformity when I ride her hard enough.

A good time with my daughter, a trial in a great new saddle pad, and some good training time. I spent a few minutes with KK on ground work to help her learn to be safer leading these big horses around (Rain is 16hh and KK is a little 8 yr old).

Trying to make my way back out there for some young horse training yet tonight.

Riding in the CSI Pad

I finally got a chance to try my new pad. I rode Z in the arena with my Parelli saddle. I bought the sportcut pad, thinking I could maybe use it for both my english and western saddles. It's slightly small for the western saddle, though. I'm not crazy about it for the western riding and I may need to swap it for a full size western pad.

Z did ok, but I was hoping she'd feel better in the CSI pad than normal. We cantered quite a bit and she seemed fine, but still not quite what I was hoping for. Her canter strides were choppy and I believe the saddle was too tight at the withers and over her shoulders. I'll try it again with shims and lift up the front some. I was also feeling downhill and felt my weight go forward quite a bit.

I'll try some things and see if I can make it work.

Lesson with Kime

Had another great lesson with Kime. We started out with my saddle and did a saddle fitting. She changed my shim setup and added a 3rd set to the pad. My saddle was then a little higher in the front and Z had more room for her shoulders. We also talked about riding without the wool pad underneath the Theraflex. I use the wool pad because of the rubbing the Therflex was doing on her sides. I'm going to use the wool pad only intermittently for a while so that I can watch for even sweat patterns. After the lesson, we checked out her back closely for signs of tightness in my body while riding. We found that there were some ruffled hairs directly under my seat, meaning my middle back is tight while riding. I'm not surprised.

We focused on freestyle riding. We used the figure 8 pattern and I played with transitioning up and down without reins. Our stop is getting much better and I'm learning how to be truly consistent with Z. We talked a lot about where I look while riding and where I want to look for turning. For now, I'm over-exaggerating where my eyes look because my head needs to be higher and I tend to look down. I've known that I needed to fix that, but it's the first time I've focused on that with an instructor.

Later, I practiced riding with 1 carrot stick only and transitioning through halt, walk and trot on the figure 8 pattern. Our transitions are so much nicer and Z really moves out with a tremendously better attitude. I'm simply bringing my life up to ask her to up transition and bringing my life down to transition down. I learned that pointing my toes up high helps me to bring my life down.

For the next 2 weeks, I'll practice the bridleless riding, turning with my body and good focus, transitioning up and down and transitioning while turning (wow, that's hard!!).

We talked about Cowboy and some things to work on with him to help him improve. She highly recommended passenger riding regularly. That's where we'll go next.