3'3" and an oxer...together :)

Lauren and Lucy over a 3'3" oxer yesterday.

It has been easy for me to forget lately that Lucy is only 5. She's been acting very grown-up this summer and she's been enjoying all the new fun things we've been doing. Her knees are closed per my vet (or she wouldn't be jumping) and I think she's just about done growing. She's still young, though, and I don't want to fry her body or her mind. Do you have any specific rules for your horse as far as how many days a week he or she is worked, and how hard? Do you only jump x number of days a week? Do you never jump more than one day in a row? If you jump one day, does the horse get the next off or do you just hack around and have an "easy" ride?

I am asking because I tend to have a "no jumping two days in a row" rule, but this week was an exception. I jumped on Tuesday, and then Lauren jumped on Wednesday. Lauren jumped the 3'3" oxer just twice and a few of the other, much smaller jumps a couple times each. Lucy was hardly even sweaty at the end of the ride and Lauren said she planned on a light hack today. Lucy also got her legs hosed off thoroughly with cold water and then a brace/liniment applied up through her hocks and knees, just as a preventative measure. She seemed no worse for the wear this afternoon when I brought her in. Still, I don't plan on making that a regular thing.

When I introduce new things to a young horse or a green horse, I want to challenge them and get them interested, but I do not want to over-face them or make them doubt that they can do whatever I'm asking of them. I think I've done a good job of this so far, because Lu hasn't shown any hesitation at all. She's jumped everything confidently and willingly. Ideally from here, we'll start upping the complexity of the courses so that they include rollbacks, inside turns, broken/bending lines, and other challenging things. I would also like to start simulating some XC jumps in the ring (more on that in a future post). I am not eager to increase the height she's jumping right now. She's shown she has plenty of athletic ability and she certainly has the propensity to jump big. What I'd really like to know is if she's cat-like enough even as a big horse to get around a jumper course with the aforementioned challenges.

So this is what we'll be working on in the near future :)

In other news, this blog has reached almost 100 subscribers! I am planning on doing a giveaway contest for one of my painted saddle pads, a $45 value, once we hit triple digits.

Resolutions for Lucy

Happy New Year!

Kenny and I spent some time last night coming up with resolutions for 2010. Personally I hate resolutions; I feel like it's my responsibility to continually improve myself, not wait for a calendar date and then madly scribble a bunch of stuff on a piece of paper that I'll lose in the next ten minutes.

That being said, 2010 is going to be a huge year for us. In September, we will be married. We have also talked about buying a house. In addition, Lucy will be turning four and hopefully moving along in her training. For these reasons, I agreed to write down my goals for the coming year.

Naturally, some of my resolutions were horsey related :)

1. First and foremost, Lucy needs to be fat and shiny by the time she sheds out in the spring. I feel like we are on the right track with this, but seriously, nothing will make me happier than seeing lots of dapples and zero ribs.
2. I want to conquer the canter (hehe).
3. I want to take L on trail rides once hunting season is over, because I'd prefer not to get shot this year.
4. I'd really like to start her over fences.
5. Once the spring rolls around, I want to put her in a little green horse walk/trot (or if I'm feeling brave, wtc) class at the barn across the street from mine, which is unfortunately a rather large fancy hunter barn and has hosts large and fancy shows. I'd prefer to go to a small, low-key schooling show where people would probably be more patient and understanding than they might be at a rated hunter show, but we'll take what we can get. We're lucky to have a barn that hosts shows literally across the street from us, so I don't have to pay a shipper to truck L all around Rhode Island.

Today I started the year off right with a fabulous ride. My friend Samera, one of my gorgeous bridesmaids, came and took some video for me. I laughed when I watched the video because I talk through the entire thing! So if you watch it, please ignore my incessant chatter.

Lucy has discovered that she looooves stretching. She loves it so much that she has started asking for it, constantly. Today she almost got a little bit demanding about it. I'm torn as to what to do about this. Normally I'd be like, ohhh good horsie! because I want her to stretch through her back. but at one point she pulled so hard that she almost pulled me right out of the saddle! After that, she got her stretching privileges taken away, and any time she pulled against me, I planted my hands and let her pull against herself. I will have to ask G about this next time I see her...actually, what I really need is to set up another lesson!

We did get some great leg-yields in both directions, some of which you'll see in the video. After Samera stopped recording, we also had a very nice canter to the left and a messy canter to the right.

After I was satisfied, Samera got on Lucy and walked her around to cool out, which was awesome! She has ridden Lucy once before, but doesn't ride on a regular basis. I walked beside them around the ring once, and then let Samera go. She had Lucy walking, halting, circling, and looked awesome through the whole thing. She is my bravest friend!

Here is the video that Samera took.