Video of the week!

I got this fantastic video that just blew my mind this week and thought I would share it.  It’s a camel. Doing. Dressage.  It does  one tempis down the center line.  Freakin amazing and puts my riding and training skills to shame! Enjoy!

Camel Pas De Deux

Where Anger Starts, Riding Ends

I’m usually a calm, collected rider. I often almost slip into a zen like state of mind. I lose track of time, of who is around me and if I don’t wear gloves I even sometimes ride to the point that my fingers start to get blisters and I never even feel it until I get off the horse.  

That’s what usually happens. Today though, not so much.  I was riding in a lesson with Sparky. Trying to get him to stay light instead of hanging on my hands.  He gets so heavy, especially to the left, that I can do a big half halt on my inside rein and there’s no response at all from him.  His head doesnt’ even move. It’s like his mouth is hard rubber. I can feel the bit on his tongue and bars and when I pull on the rein, I can feel a slight give on his tongue, but that’s it.  His head doesn’t turn, he doesn’t move his head, heck, his ears don’t even flick back towards me.  

It drives me nuts. Just pushes my buttons.  I feel like he’s just ignoring me and I have no control.  He’s not taking off or anything scary, except he kind of is because I can’t slow him down in any normal fashion.  He just ignores me

Today when he did this rather strongly at a trot and I couldn’t get him to respond to anything I did with my hands I mirrored his hardness with my hands and made them super strong.  While this did bring him to a screaming stop it wasn’t a particularly good idea. Certainly it stopped him and I almost had a feeling of “winning”, of making him give in to what I was asking for instead of him ignoring me.  

The thing is, though that riding shouldn’t be about “winning” against your horse.  It should be about working in harmony with your horse NOT fighting with him or her. When I let myself get angry and frustrated with him, I stopped thinking of other ways to get through to him besides what I was already doing (half halting on inside and outside reins while working on a circle).  Instead when he pulled and wouldn’t soften I PULLED back slamming him to a halt and undoing all the work we had been doing on suppling and softening and relaxing.  

I’m riding again tomorrow and I’m sure we’ll end up in the same situation with him heavy and hanging on me.  Hopefully I’ll be more able to think things through and not just pull back on him. Maybe I’ll do a small circle or serpentine or something that gets him doing something different that was my idea but not a big huge disturbing change.  We’ll see! Riding is humbling, but so rewarding. 

Happy (and thoughtful) Riding!

Weekend Link RoundUp: Winter Riding - Don’t forget the chisel!

Winter has finally arrived in California.  For much of the country, winter means cold and ice, but out here in the San Francisco Area, it just means rain, rain and more rain.   When I lived in Sweden for a few years, my California winters left me completely unprepared for dealing with ice and snow.

Imagine my shock when, as I prepared to go on my first snow-filled winter ride, my barn manager handed me a small hammer and chisel saying “oh! Don’t forget these! You’re going to need them!”.  As I sat scratching my head with a befuddled look on my face she tried to explain by adding “For the snowballs of course!”

This raised some very concerning questions in my mind - Was I going to be using them to bat away snowballs thrown at me by pedestrians as I rode by.  Why were people going to be pegging snowballs at me and my poor horse? Was this some ancient Swedish tradition? Couldn’t I have a tennis racket instead of a chisel?  

Turns out, when you walk a horse through snow, it gathers in their shoes in these ginormous balls so that after only a few minutes of walking, your horse is wobbling around on snow stilts. Barring a portable, battery operated hair dryer, the only effective tool for removing these stilts is a chisel and it’s accompanying hammer.  You can put special shoes on them or vaseline on the bottoms of their feet but for going out in the snow before you can get the farrier out or find a thing of vaseline, don’t forget your hammer and chisel!   

In honor of winter finally arriving, here are some great links for tips on real winter riding and horsecare:

Winter Riding Tips
Maintain A Winter Riding Program
When to Blanket Your Horse
Managing and Preventing Winter Skin and Respiratory Conditions

Happy Riding!