Thursday, March 24, 2011

Oh, no! :D

I have found the most useful way to waste away my college horseless-ness. I found my new horse lifeblood.

Netflix for horses! It's called GiddyUpFlix.com. Let me tell you it is amazing!

For only $10 a month I have unlimited access to top trainers via their training videos.

I was so excited to sign up for this that there are now about 30 videos in my queue. I also wasted a ton of time selecting and searching their site for these DVD's, while I should have been studying for my Human Physiology exam tomorrow. Well, the night is still young enough and there's always tomorrow... right?!?

I can't wait to get my first DVD! I'll definitely let you all in on some reviews, tips and tricks!

The finally for the Spring break postings will probably be tomorrow. Don't get too excited, it probably won't be that interesting! :D

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Spring Break Part 2

Part one can be seen here: Spring Break Part 1.

Bogey started to feel better around Wednesday, but there is always that question every horse owner has, "Is He/She still lame?" It's almost if we look hard enough we can still see a little limp or a strange turn of the hoof. Finally on Thursday, I felt as if I was making up a bit of the soreness and called my BHF for some riding time.

My BHF has the ultimate horse playground. She has the coolest indoor arena. It is gorgeous inside and has a great sound system, lights, motivational posters/paintings and the coolest ground equipment to work with. She has giant horse balls, a wooden bridge, a trail gate made out of PVC, (How inventive of her husband!), and ground poles abound. It is so much fun to do groundwork there, ride and have fun.

I took Bogey over to her house on Friday afternoon and he was feeling good. She said that she thought he looked so good, he's a little portly, but when you are almost 16.3 and such a long bodied horse a little weight on you makes you look less like an gangly two year old. Bogey by the way is a fit/thinner 1313 lbs. I wonder what he is at right now with his minor hay belly and chub.

Bogey and I went into her arena and did a bit of lunging as he was a bit amp-ed up. I follow Clinton Anderson's methods of lunging for respect as I don't like to make Bogey do mindless circles over and over again, as he was a lunge liner as a yearling and does have some arthritis and degeneration in his hocks and rear pasterns.

After the lunging my BHF came out with her new gelding Truman. (He is a baby-doll faced 4 year old AQHA that is the sweetest boy ever.) She did the same lunge work with him and then showed me her groundwork that she does.

She puts Truman into small trot circles. She has him do this quite close to her as she can bump up his momentum, his belly and work on his face. Truman has a tendency to lower his head way too much and become heavy on the forehand. The groundwork exercise is a simple way to manuver his body and control all of his body parts as a great warm up. It also doesn't take much space, so if you are pressed for location (or have too much mud around! ;D) you can still do the exercise at a slow controlled pace. She does this both directions and then moves him up to a controlled lope. While doing the circles if he is looking like he is holding himself up and moving correctly she lets out the line and allows him to move into a larger/straighter circle. This exercise helps with lift and some drive, but mostly with control of the feet and strength in crossing over and deepening the hock. Also, this exercise can easily be modified to your desire.

I'll see if I can get a video of Bogey and I showing this exercise sometime this summer. (I need to invest in a good video camera).

I'll go through our riding exercises and fun in the next post. :D

-Amy

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Spring Break Part 1

Since my horses are over two hours away, my spring break was a joyful time of reconnecting and re-establishing manners. Bogey was a saint for most of the break and Nancy was a little more naughty than usual, but overall they both were great.

The first day of my break I had my farrier KH out to trim Bogey's hooves. They had gotten quite long as KH wanted to give Bogey a longer interval to see how his feet naturally progress. Bogey is a high/low horse with a negative planar hoof and one that has correctly positioned coffin bone. This makes one hoof stack up tall with a large quantity of heel and the other to splay out forward with low heels. Both very difficult to work with and remedy. The splayed out hoof also is slightly pigeon toed and he paddle foots with that one when it is too long.

KH took this interval to see where we've progressed and how Bogey naturally works his own feet. My farrier believes in a natural balance hoof trimming with modification. He's not afraid to put a package of shoes on, but prefers to see where the horse naturally do best, whether with shoes or without.

After the trim, Bogey was a bit sore and landed a bit toe first on his splayed right fore hoof, which was not fun. We called it good as he was sound enough and KH told me to take it easy for the next couple of days and give him a two day rest. Not a fun way to start out my break, but all for the Bogey horse.

The two day break turned into five day break and my spring break was almost over. During Bogey's slightly off period we did work showmanship set-ups and I have to say he is doing famously. He understands clearly which hoof I am asking him to move and is stacking up fairly correctly every time. I'm very excited about that!

During his break I did give him some bute and found out that he has an unusual response to the drug. Bogey completely mellows out and takes a nap. All of the other horses I've worked with become completely bonkers after having some bute. It's nice to know that my horse is such a light weight. Or as my BHF (Best Horse Friend) states, "He's a cheap date." Good gracious Bogey, what shall we do with you!?!

I'm going to have to put these postings into a series of Spring Break horse fun, as I can't use up all my good material in just one. :D

I also have some additional ideas and backtracking to do and look into. <--- Note to self.

-Amy

Spring Break Part 2