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

Post Resolution? Yes, Please!

Ok, so I started out all fresh and new with a New Years Resolution for more posting, and I need to stick with it! I just went through and read all of my old comments from my blogging friends, and I need to keep things updated. I miss hearing your feedback and ideas.

I have a very dear friend who I email most of my horse ideas, thoughts, stories to every day, and I just need to copy them down here.

Here's some upcoming blogging ideas:
- I'm hoping to do a series on western pleasure breeding, some of my ideas regarding pedigrees and up and coming stallions that I think are ones to look out for in the near future.

- I also want to begin looking and reviewing more of the training videos that I've been collecting and some main points, and ideas from those.

- Looking into some patterns I've collected over the years, some horse show checklists, items you can't live without, ect.

- More Bogey stories! Hopefully spring will be on its way - maybe? - and I'll be able to get home to spend some time with him. I will for sure have updates March 12-20 as I'll be home for spring break. Bogey will have his hooves trimmed then and I'll be able to ride in my friend's arena, come on summer!

School's busy, but not unmanageable - now it's just staying ahead of the game and having some fun.

-Amy

New Year 2011

2011 a new year. Once again back to the blogging. 2010 was not as fruitful blogging wise, but I hope this year to be better. Even though my words may seem meaningless, I'm sticking to it.

I'm now fully into my Junior year, only three more semester's left of undergrad. Last semester ended very well. Three A-'s and one A in the following classes: genetics, biochemistry I, intro physics I, and intro to research respectively. Worked once again at the school library and studied with some great friends.

School goals for 2011:
- Actually schedule studying
- To really study in the scheduled time
(I'm really good at just taking tests and I can't ride off that anymore, I can do better!)
- Make more time for friends
- Go to more school functions

Onto the Bogey front. He's fat and happy right now, albeit a little more chilled than in August when I last posted, but still great. He had a few mishaps this past fall during a few storms and jumped a fence, scraping his legs. Those then healed without any lameness just minor swelling and now he found something else to scrape one again over my holiday break. I've been doctoring that. There has been no swelling or lameness on that leg just surface wounds. We'll get over this bump and move onto bigger and greater things.

I've been practicing showmanship with him whenever I go home and he's doing great. He has all of the major cues, pivot, set-up and back and now just needs finesse and consistency.

Bogey Goals for 2011:
- Finish him in Showmanship
I want to create consistency and fluidity in all of the movements, and to successfully compete at a few local open shows. I want him to be able to calmly work a pattern and line-up without overly fidgeting. To place at one open show would also be great!

-Put him into the Bridle
I'm going to be working on getting him to rely more on leg aids and I'd like to finally put him into a bridle so I show western pleasure at the local shows since he's now aged out of the snaffle bit.

-Greater sense of collection/cadence/consistency
I want Bogey to be able to successfully move with a higher degree of collection creating greater cadence and consistency for the western pleasure show pen.

-Figure out perfect supplement plan/feeding plan for optimum performance

- Eradicate any question of lameness/hock soreness and get to the bottom of that question or readdress.
When working in August we found issues with his hocks and did do injections, hopefully those issues will be behind us.

Those are the goals for 2011. Also, I'd love to continue with the blogging venture once again.

Here we go again!
-Amy

Monday Not as Planned

Well Monday was not as planned. The heat index was over 105 degrees and I'm not fighting with Bogey and trying to bring him back in that heat, so he got another day off. On Sunday I did take him out and hand walk him and lunge him a little and I saw some improvement so hopefully it is noticeable and not just me being "Bogey blind".

Today we are going to start riding again, there were thunderstorms this morning and more planned for the evening so hopefully it will cool off a little and I can get out and ride.

At this mornings feeding Bogey did have a little fill in his legs, which I'm thinking might be due to the humidity and weather so I'll walk him out this afternoon and see if it goes away.

That's all on the Bogey front, hopefully riding time today, but I'm not going to push it if the fill does not go away.

Hocks Are A Go!

Bogey got his hocks done this morning. Dr. Kittleson said that his right hind was very dry and it needed it badly. The left wasn't as dry but she said there might be arthritis starting in the fetlock joint so he's not on a joint supplement as well.

All in all, it wasn't too expensive, only $90 for both of the hocks done. I also had her do shots and float his teeth. He has the softest teeth around, hooks and sharp edges every year to file down. He was fairly well behaved, balked a little at going into the examining room but after that is was fine. She didn't even sedate him for the injections, he just stood there like a champ.

He'll get the rest of today, Saturday and Sunday off to rest and I'll slowly start him back up on Monday.

I don't want to count my chickens before they're hatched, but he looked like he was moving better already - just walking back to the barn! I'm excited to see how great he'll move after this!

Skys the Limit

Tonight I had another video consultation session with Jamie Novak. We only did a half session because we both could see from the video that Bogey was hurting and decided we are taking a short break until his hocks are done on Friday.

Well for some background information on the video. My sister and I shot the video on Sunday late afternoon, it was hot out and Bogey was hurting. I didn't realize/acknowledge the fact until half way through the ride. On Saturday, I took Bogey over to a friend's house to ride and she just had new sand put into her arena, needless to say it was deep and not good for Bogey's already sore hocks.

The ride on Sunday was filled with refusals to go forward, me nit-picking and picking fights, and Bogey not doing his best. For the video it catches a segment in the middle that doesn't look so bad.



Jamie wanted me to go even further and do more of what we are doing, the serpentine and donut shapes at an increased level of headset. She explained what she'd like to see in a super low dressage headset to have him learn to break at his shoulder point and not 12 inches from his poll which he is doing now. This will help him create lift from the shoulders and the rock back.

For me she wanted me to roll my shoulders back and open my rib cage. This has been a problem of mine for years and since I've always ridden young green horses I hunch over just waiting for something to happen - not good. So we'll have to work on that one!

I asked her about his talent level and what caliber horse he is. Now mind you this is the horse I bought off of videos and spent pennies on. She said he was most definitely an amateur breed show level horse and if she got her hands on him for a while she's thinking and open caliber horse! Isn't that exciting! She said he has a lot of talent and she loves his look and his movement. Now I asked her if she was just saying that and she wasn't, she was being totally honest! I think that is amazing - so the sky's the limit where Bogey and I are concerned!

Video Training

For a Christmas present my mother bought a video consultation training series from a trainer I admire, Jamie Novak from Brainerd Minnesota. We have just now gotten started on the consultation series and are doing our second session tomorrow. I will be posting what she says and my videos here to remind myself as well as see what you all think.

For our first session she asked to see him walk, jog and lope both directions and just do a normal training session on him. Here's the video.



Jamie stated that I have wonderful hands and seat. What do you think? Bogey takes a lot of leg to ride so sometimes you can see my legs doing strange things.

On the Bogey front, she feels that he is in need of hock injections. She felt he looked sore and his mouth gaping/refusals were a direct link to the soreness. This makes complete sense, he was campaigned as a lunge liner and futurity horse, so it seems he is just asking for the injections.

She liked his "throughness" and how bridled up he was. She thought he had hollowness issues and his back needed to be lifted as well as taking the neck line down lower.

Jamie doesn't like forehand turns at all, and feels that they are only good for a horsemanship pattern. She stated that they push a horse down onto their forehand too much. I was doing the forehand turns to have him gain awareness of his hindquarters (they are so far away from his brain) and reach. I like to be able to have my horse be very handy and be able to do it all. I'm going to lay off the turns but still keep them in my back pocket, just because I'd like my horse to have the knowledge and abilities.

Some suggestions on tack Jamie gave were to use draw reins on him and a medium twist bit. For the exercises she wanted us to do serpentines, donut shapes and piaffes like movements as well as using walking pivots and some stop pivots.

Well what do you think? What should we work on? Any recommendations, tips or tricks?