Warm Weather

Worked with Bogey a little yesterday and today, but today was way too warm. Heat index of 105 - not going to ride in that weather just yet.

Both yesterday and today I did a little ground work with Bogey. Working on flexing, side-passing/moving ribs on the ground, moving hindquarters, pivots, and large and small lunge circles. Both days ending with some minor showmanship exercises - set-ups, pivots, backing.

Bogey was pretty pushy yesterday, so more backing up was ordered and today the pushiness was gone - great! But, he did pretend to try to bite me while I was asking him to move his hips over, that resulted in a slight come to Jesus back up session and he and I both forgot about it. Sometimes it's really nice having a smart horse, other times not so much - you really have to be on your toes, but you only have to correct them once.

With the heat index as it is, the groundwork sessions were conducted in the pole barn, and I hosed both Bogey and Nancy off at noon and then late afternoon after his work out. They both received their breakfast and supper a la' soup, soaked in water and they both loved it!

On not related to horse news, I did take my clippers out and shaved a couple long haired kittens. They are grateful now, but that was a different story when I was clipping them. Good thing they are so very tame. The weather is supposed to be a little cooler out tomorrow, hopefully I'll be able to take Bogey up to the arena and ride.

Riding with the Sister

Today, Bogey showed no sign of the hesitation or lameness so we may be clear on that front. This morning I did some light groundwork with him loosening up his shoulders, hindquarters and beginning to teach him to bend and maneuver his ribs. This afternoon my sister and I went riding up town at the fairgrounds.

It was a very nice day, the only issue was the bugs - but that was remedied with a heavy dosing of fly spray. My sister took her pony, Nancy, out and lunged her then got on and rode around.

On the Bogey front I got on and worked on bending at the poll and bringing his break over rearwards and finally worked on forward and maintaining the lope. Bogey's bad habit is breaking down on me while loping, which is a combination of him looking for every excuse for "whoa" and the lack of stamina to lope throughout a show class. To remedy this I simply asked Bogey to lope and cruised around the arena. I let him go wherever he wanted, with the only requirement to continue loping. I think we made significant progress in this area and there were only minor breakdowns.

Hopefully, that issue will also be behind us, but I'm going to have to continue that exercise to insure that "forward" is maintained in-spite of the collection exercises. He's too smart that he looks for every excuse to be lazy, and this is his biggest excuse.

Busy Weekend!

This past weekend was fairly busy but still fun (with one not so fun component). Saturday was the second clinic my BHF (best horse friend) performed for the county 4-H horse group and this one consisted of warm-ups, groundwork, minor showmanship review, western pleasure, horsemanship and some minor playing around with a few trail obstacles. There were four girls for the majority of the clinic and six in the beginning, a small but good sized group to get a lot of work done.

My BHF emphasized the warm-ups and groundwork heavily. She has a routine of flexing, lunging, and maneuvering the fore-hand, ribs, and hips. It's a very systematic approach to see where your horse is at and how it is responding to you. The kids worked on that and then we moved onto the showmanship review which simply consisted of a pattern to practice since all of the girls were there for the Wednesday session.

I brought Bogey along and participated in the groundwork, warm-up exercises thinking that once it came time for the riding my BHF would want to use Bogey and not tire out her three year old. Nope, it ended up being me riding the Bogey horse and she rode her horse the entire time. It was unexpected but fun to work on my own horse and help out.

The group of 4-H'ers were clearly divided into a more advanced group and and younger group just learning the basics of showing. BHF took the more advanced group and worked on collection and advanced maneuvers to enhance their pleasure horses and I got to work with the younger girls! It was so much fun teaching the lesson. I do wish I could have heard all that BHF said to the others as she has great ideas that she sometimes forgets to tell me since we spend so much horse time together, but it was really fun working with the two girls and their ponies.

We first worked on hand position, body position and queuing for the western pleasure class. Then we moved onto riding our horses gaits, one had a pony with a bouncy trot and we remedied her seat by sitting deeper, bringing her legs beneath her and not "chair sitting" and counting with the rhythm of her horse's gait. There was immediate progress with both girls and you could see their ponies relax and slow down when they sat properly, that was so much fun to see and be a part of! We also played a variation of red-light/green-light to work on transitions, did a few horsemanship patterns and critiqued each-other (the two are sisters so it was handy for them to learn that skill to help each other out), and finally played a little follow the leader.

The two girls had the most adorable western pleasure ponies. One was about 12 hands the other just under 14 and they had the prettiest lopes I have ever seen on a pony! It was amazing! Their parents really hit a jackpot with those well broke, beautiful moving ponies!

At the end of the pleasure/horsemanship clinic my girls challenged the older girls to a horsemanship pattern and they won! They did the pattern so beautifully and had great position! That was so much fun to see!

After the clinic I rode Bogey around a little more since most of what he did was just stand there with me on his back and I found him to be very hesitant to lope off. He was not lame but was very uncomfortable going into the lope and would not hold it. Oh, no - here we go again with the leg issues! BHF saw the issue too so it was not all in my head. After the clinic I took him home and washed him, banded him and buted him. He's so funny with the bute - he gets so sleepy. I've never had a horse react like that, they always hype up - but he takes a nap!

Sunday was our second horse show and I was planning on simply doing showmanship and going home because of the leg issues. He was completely sound at the trot just hesitant at the lope and seemed ouchy. The pattern was the old school way of doing a showmanship class with a very old-fashioned judge. We lined up and one by one he asked us to walk forward, set-up, pivot and trot back to the line-up. So boring, and does not show anything or clearly define the class. He also wanted a snappy set up and perfect placement of the hooves. Well, that's Bogey's weakest part, the set up. He has the nasty habit of cocking a hind foot (it is getting better) and setting up a little slower. Well, the Bogey horse was especially slow because of the bute and his busy previous week making him extra tired, and he cocked a foot for half of the set-up for inspection. I did fix it, but we blew the simple pattern. Our pivots and trot offs are always rocking though so that was nice!

We got fifth place out of five, so we did take home a ribbon and had our names called, but it's just fun being out there and all dressed up. Speaking of dressed up, as I was getting Bogey ready by the trailer some tourists came by (our fairgrounds doubles as a camping ground) and asked if they could take a picture of him since he was the most beautiful horse they had ever seen. How cute is that! He stood all proud with his ears up for the picture - it was pretty cute! Bonus points for my show grooming routine!

Today, I did worked with Bogey a bit to see if the hesitation was still there and it was only slightly. We did some groundwork, desensitization and then showmanship work. I cold hosed his legs off afterward and we'll see how they look tomorrow. He is on a joint supplement, but I'm going to look into some alternative therapies such as the Back on Track leg wraps and maybe even magnetic therapy.

My BHF also suggested he might have been sore from his pull back episode from Wednesday, so hopefully the issue is behind us since it was not as bad today. (He always is a little hesitant on his left lead lope since his right hind has more arthritic changes and degeneration.) Oh, horses!

Final happy plug, Bogey and I are listed on the qualifying website for our 2nd place showmanship win in our open show series! Yay, Bogey aka "A Chip Off the Tee"!

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