Arya: First half of May Summary

I'm going to try to keep my Arya posts in a more concise format, so here we go! I'll post this after a few more rides so I don't cover my blog with in depth analysis of every ride :) 

Friday 5/4- Arya was obedient for walk and trot and good on the ground. I rode her after Bailey which seemed pretty positive, though she continues to open her mouth whenever I pick up any thought of contact.

Monday 5/7 - Ground work was obedient, but lackluster. She spooked hard at a duck spooking out of the pond and got a bit more "awake" than I prefer, but was pretty obedient doing up and down transitions of gait on the line. We tried out the eggbutt french link snaffle which went over like a lead balloon. She evaded by turning her head strongly out several times, and seemed less offended when I switched her bit back to the "magic" $12 snaffle, but still resistant. She was very wobbly/inconsistent this ride; she wanted to bend out, and was "self punishing" when she got too quick/tried to canter and would crank herself around nose-to-tail before I could initiate shutting her down myself. She also had some leapy/naughty moments but I tried to shut her down with my voice vs my reins, which actually worked; I used the same scold I use when I can see she's thinking about ignoring my direction on the ground and we didn't have any moments that were too hair raising.

Post ride, she had a bath (she doesn't care about baths, which makes her easy, she just mows the grass) and had lots of lovely wild romps after her multiple rolls. She bucked, did Lipizzaner impressions, galloped around farting and bucking, and reared at lot... I guess she needs more work!

Saturday 5/11 - I switched it up and put Arya in the lunging rig with the neck stretcher as "side reins" instead of riding her. I wanted to see how she handled the relatively elastic connection the neck stretcher gave her, and it's clear that she doesn't really get the whole giving to the bit thing yet. She wanted to canter a lot (perhaps running away from the pressure?) and I let her, and while she didn't really get the neck stretcher like I had hoped, I was able to lunge her with the lunge line as an inside rein (run through the bit to her girth) and felt that she was bending and giving more positively.

Wednesday 5/16 - So Arya hasn't gotten a lot of work because I've been super busy with photo work, but I did finally get her out with a whole new outfit. She was wearing a Courbette Galant close contact saddle vs my normal Courbette Vision, and was also wearing her Eponia bridle with a Myler Level 1 Dee vs Bailey's fake Micklem with a $12 weighted loose ring snaffle. I tried the Myler on Bailey first, to get a feel for it, and had a very nice jump session with her. Arya lunged and I felt a bit nervous getting on her after some meh/distracted ground work and having to scoop grain to get her caught (I fed her 1 scoop of her usual 4 when she appeared at the gate after I scooped and dumped the donkey's grain).

Under saddle, I felt like I had a couple of things changing positively - I felt like I could really have the contact discussion with her and I also felt like I was able to get a bit of lateral flexion through her body by applying my calf and thigh. The saddle rode really comfortably - it's not as forward as my vision, but is larger in the seat, and I felt like I had a really comfortable balance point in it. She wasn't perfect, in any way, but I felt secure and felt like I could actually keep communicating with her when she tried to counter bend, jet off of the circle or get quick. The dee was well received and I was actually able to push the envelope without feeling like she got fried - we worked on giving to the bit with pressure and release, and while she did feel very stuck towards the end and didn't want to go forward (either we trot/canter in a tea cup or we get silly, taking longer steps is FAKE NEWS!) she was still having a good conversation with my hands, especially for her. I may try adding sealtex if she continues to be fussy, but so far... this is a really good bit for her, for ride 1 at least. She had really lovely even sweat marks under the saddle and I'm excited to ride again on Friday!

So it's been half a month... now to do more riding!

Farm Updates: Spring Time

Things are greening up nicely here on the farm, finally, though a month ago I was posting about the feet of snow we were getting!

I'm becoming less and less apprehensive about my slowly dwindling hay supply; the pastures were planted late last year, and the unexpected drop back into winter with all of the snow we still had a few weeks ago left me very worried. Since then we've had lots of warm sun, and honestly, could do with a bit more rain, but the pastures are greening up and evening out (the new planting was done by a local farmer, who, apparently, has no idea what the heck he's doing. We have bald spots all over the hay field and pasture plantings that are NOT winter kill -_-). Over the last week I've been doing some seeding, and as I mentioned in another post, knocking down gopher mounds left in the only pre-existing pasture we have left. 

While I work, the horses nap.

I've also been scheming out the pasture fence, and we have plans to do most of the work Memorial day weekend. I'm still not sure how I feel about the polywire I found as a less-likely-to-cause-rope-burn-or-de-glove-legs alternative to the weirdly expensive polyrope. Most of my fence is a mix of electrobraid (nicer rope type stuff) and polyrope (nasty plastic rope) and I've found it kind of annoying so far; the fence materials are older and thus it's hard to get the charge flowing around all of the pasture and paddock, and they don't seem to stay taught when spliced. If I use splicing hardware, the hardware seems to slip no matter how tight I make it, while if I knot it, it arcs and scorches the braid around it. Clearly we have some fence issues to fix, but I am hoping I am making a decent choice. Polywire doesn't seem any harder to see than the wire and wood post fences my previous boarding barn had, so I am hoping that with a polytape top strand, the fence will be very visible for the horses in the dark and safe for them to go enjoy their grass. As much as I would love to invest in some of the fancier fencing I've found in my searching, cost is a factor so, if anything, we can look into replacing the polywire strands in a few years if it doesn't work well. 

Mud wise, we're basically dried up; the gate area still looks a bit rough despite dragging the paddock and arena last night, but on the whole, it's gone. For those of you who don't remember my rants, the paddock and barn were built on the flow path between two pre-existing ponds, which means that shit tons of water flow across my paddock every spring and after every heavy rain. Last spring I was nearly killing myself trying to wade through knee deep sucking mud to get the horses fed, which resulted in us putting in 150' of drain tile. We still got mud from all the water flowing - which got worse when the water stopped flowing and started sitting - but it was a thousand times better than last year and I think it will only get better as we figure out how to shape the paddock's contour to hurry the water on it's way. 

We have mud and dust at the same time. Yay farm!

I'm also hoping we will be able to get our tractor starting happily again after some maintenance tonight; it was struggling late last fall to start and then the weather went to shit, so we never got the problems fully looked into. We're doing lots of fluid and filter changes and a new battery tonight, to hopefully get the Baby Deere back to work. Hubby and I discussed building compost bins last night, and I'd love to get rid of my manure pile, so fingers crossed! I tidied up the barn some over the weekend, so hopefully the spring cleaning can continue!

Arya: Another Ride

Hopefully all of this Arya-centric content isn't getting old - if so, I promise I'll have something else to talk about soon! Yesterday was Arya's 3rd ride back, after a few days off due to busy work weeks. I gave her the rest of the "overnight" tube of Perfect Prep yesterday morning before turning the horses out, and went out after work and dinner to get a ride in before chores. She was a bit of a challenge to catch this time; I stood and scratched and loved on Bailey for quite a while after I ran out of peppermints, and finally was able to work my way down Bailey's body to where Arya had crept up to hide behind her butt, and was able to reach and grab her halter without her trying to leave/flinch/etc. She was a bit sticky to lead and didn't want to cross the remaining mud between the paddock and the gate, but those two things are kind of the norm here, lately.

She stood pretty nicely, and seemed to enjoy being groomed. I also got the clippers out and did her bridle path and neatened up her mane a bit before tacking up. The vet is coming in a few weeks and I'd like her and Bailey to not look homeless in their coggins photos. I still haven't decided what to do with Arya's mane; part of me wants to take it really short, as a) she has a gorgeous hunk of neck and b) she rubs her mane in the same spot as her blanket (and probably her fly sheet) has, and the hair there is super short and sticks up:

WHY

Anyways, she tacked up pretty nicely, and I made one change to her set up after our last ride, and used Bailey's (fake) micklem and simple 14mm single link loose ring instead of Arya's bulkier Eponia bridle, which currently has a fatter copper alloy french link loose ring on it. 

Ground work went really well - she was obedient, and stretched and returned to more relaxed postures more often than she has previously. We did some more standing in our own space vs drawing and pets/treats for breaks, and she seemed to want to be with me a little more than she did last weekend and tried to creep in towards me a few times. She also showed some unprecedented willingness to do walk/trot transitions on the line - I had a "walk" command vs "woah = stop and turn in" command, so I worked on installing some woah/walk voice cues with those transitions. 

Under saddle she still seemed a bit... hesitant? to walk off from the mounting block, but followed her nose when I turned her right away from it and settled in to walking pretty quickly. She tried to rush off a little less -perhaps because I'm starting to relax and not unconsciously death-grip her barrel with my leg. I also felt more confident letting her hang out on a long rein and stretch. We did some trot transitions; to the left she was much more balanced and obedient, while to the right, a trend I noticed a bit last ride, she tends to trip/get unbalanced and then run a bit. I tried to just open my inside hand, drop my outside rein and wait for her to subside while saying "woah" and "walk" vs escalating with her. She has spun down pretty easy, and I get a clear feeling of her downshifting. When she does finally downshift towards the walk, I usually throw the contact at her and try to encourage stretching, and to show her that I'm not going to pull on her face.

Two things that really got me with the ride last night were:

1) that the bending/head turning I noticed last ride seems to be the riding manifestation of her looking away from me when overwhelmed. It was much better in the Micklem - not sure if that was a bit or a contact thing...

and 2) Arya is super sensitive, and quite smart. I continue to be able to throw the contact at her while she downshifts without feeling like I'm going to die (YAY!) and I noticed that I'd start thinking about trotting, picking a spot to ask, balancing, etc and she'd pick up the trot. Clearly she's very aware of my body and the way I telegraph what I'm thinking, which is super cool and also a bit scary, because sometimes I get scared....

But the takeaways from last night were, overall, super positive. I did some saddle measuring and I'm not convinced my vision is comfortable for her, but I'm monitoring the situation and trying to figure out the best way to move forward with saddling her on an extreme budget. I also want to swap her into the micklem, which I think is nice to use because a) it's super easy to put on over a rope halter and b) it's a "quiet" bridle vs my snaffle bridle with a lot of pieces, and it supports the bit in her mouth.

The only question is, what bit to put her into? I feel like the thin weighted snaffle she wore yesterday may have too much motion for her, and want to try something soft and quiet for her - I'm not sure if her tollerance for contact was better yesterday because of mileage, the bit, or the supportive nose band of the bridle.... I have a french link eggbutt snaffle, a fat single link eggbutt, a single link D, a Dr. Bristol (not rotated) baucher and a fulmar single link snaffle.... any thoughts on where you would go from a loose ring?

Mahm you are the most boring