success :)

More to come :)

trial run with the dress!

The photoshoot is tomorrow and after preparing Lucy all week, I decided I'd be doing myself a favour by at least introducing her to the dress.

She was awesome!! I hope she's as good tomorow!

aftermath of the last bath of the season

videos from my lesson yesterday

SO. MUCH. TROTTING.

I am actually a bit sore today! Wahoo!!

Video #1

Video #2

Video #3

I feel like in some ways we have regressed, but on a positive note, she was "under" me much more than she was in front of my leg yesterday, which is a huge improvement. She does love to chug along around the ring and it is getting more and more easy to bring her back. She was also only marginally fresh yesterday, yay!!

I like how my instructor encourages me to be a little bit demanding of her. She knows what I am asking but blatantly chooses to ignore me, especially when going from the trot to the walk. You'll see I am not exactly pretty in asking her for the walk at times, but that's because she is taking half the ring to stop jigging. That's really annoying! I also like that my instructor makes me sit up and open my hip angle. Those two adjustments by themselves make so much of a difference.

Our wedding dress photoshoot is coming up on Saturday so the rest of the week will be spent bathing her if we get a nice day, making sure she's as tired as possible (which is laughable...this horse does not get tired!) and then I'll braid her on Saturday morning.

back in business (maybe)

I actually had a half decent ride yesterday, and in the indoor to boot. I knew Lucy was feeling better when I got there because she greeted me with soft eyes and pricked ears, not crazy dragon eyes and pinned ears. She was still kind of a maniac under saddle but it wasn't homicidal, more "I feel GREAT and I just want to bop around and PLAY!" I got nice work from her both directions and then let her go over the teeniest of tiny crossrails, maybe 6" off the ground. We even walked over it in both directions first. Upon our first trot-in approach, she did what I like to call a "lock and load" about three strides out and tucked her butt under herself and RAN at the jump. I was like, good lord, someone put this horse in jumpers, but preferably not me!!! haha.

Of course that meant that we had to go back and learn how to not jump a 6" crossrail at mach 3. She just gets so excited, it's ridiculous, and then once she's on the other side it's instant softness, arched neck, and she's so proud of herself. The last time I jumped her was ages ago and we ended on a really nice soft and rhythmic approach to another tiny crossrail but evidently she has forgotten all about softness and rhythm. We jumped it five times and on the last try she actually waited, so we ended on that. I cooled her out and untacked her in the indoor and immediately she took off bucking and playing around the ring, which continued for about ten minutes as I was putting everything away in the barn. I would be walking to the tack room to put something away and all of a sudden a freight train, aka Lucy , would thunder past in the indoor, and then there would be a second of silence as she flew through the air doing some wild and crazy maneuver, and then thunder again as she landed. She is NUTS but I do appreciate that she held all of that nonsense back while I was riding her...

And then it took me close to an hour to cool her out from that little extravaganza (I am really thinking about clipping her this winter, at least a trace clip, because spending an hour cooling her out every time I ride is getting old fast). We did some carrot stretches and called it a night.

why did I get a mare?

Lucy has been AWFUL this week. I was supposed to have a lesson on Wednesday and after warming her up, we decided to try again next week. She bucked, she reared, and she cavorted. She has never reared undersaddle until that ride...she was clearly saying GET OFF OF ME!

I have never had a mare before and this was one aspect of mare ownership I hoped I'd luck out with, but it appears that she is very uncomfortable when in heat. I feel kind of bad for her, actually. My barn owner said she's been hollering in her paddock all day long, and the lovely gelding in the next stall over whom she usually shares her hay with almost got his head bitten off last night.

I hope she is feeling better by the weekend because I'd really like to ride!

So now I am researching supplements for mares. So far I've gotten mixed reviews on Mare Magic (raspberry leaves). Smart Calm Ultra seems to be getting the best reviews but it's about $45/month and that is pretty pricey. Any thoughts?

take the good with the bad.

My good friend C came to ride Lucy today. I warmed Lucy up so she could see what we've been working on since she last came to ride, and then C got on. C is much more diligent than I am and she is a really nice rider.

Lucy started out very tight and bitchy, then relaxed and gave C some nice work, then had a moment of rebellion and was a giant PITA, and then resigned herself to actually do some work and C got some REALLY nice trot and canter from her. It was a crazy ride.

and this is why she gets play time before I ride

a little something to take the edge off(?)

The wedding dress photo shoot starring Lucy is scheduled for October 30th and now that I have a target date, I am trying to figure out how best to prepare my lovely mare for her stint as a model.

She has no problems wearing a tarp on her back or even her head, so I am hoping she'll accept carrying me around in a wedding dress just as easily :) To me a tarp is more scary than a wedding dress because it's crinkly, but a wedding dress is fuller and it's bright white. I just hope she can keep the aerobatics to a minimum!!

Speaking of that, another boarder said "well maybe you can give her a bit of sedative to take the edge off". I have never ridden a horse after it had been given a sedative but in theory this would be nice. I have a tube of Ace (paste) but have no idea how much of it I would give to just tone her down a bit, but obviously I don't want her to be stumbling around and she needs to look somewhat alert for the pictures. Is this a terrible idea?

sad Cairo

Cairo was spayed this week and though she was a model patient for the first two days, she is really having a tough time with the "no running and jumping" rules of her recovery.

Here she is looking very sad about not being able to play like every other seven month old puppy!