And Let Summer Begin!

My summer goal is to blog more often, and hopefully it will be mostly about horses. Lots have happened since my last post. To start off, I have completed my junior year of college. Though it's weird to say that I'll be a senior next year, because I won't be graduating in the spring but instead the fall of the year after. This doesn't upset me by any means, if I could make a living out of going to school I would do it in a heartbeat (as long as there were still interesting classes to take). I am not an A student, but I do love learning new things.

Healthwise things are starting to look up. Since warmer weather is now upon us my aches and pains are a lot less. About a month ago I ended up in the Er with pericarditis (inflammation of the sac around your heart). Actually it was 2 ER visits, and one was via ambulance. I had gone to express care (which is like the ER but without the crazy bills) and saw a nurse who asked me what was going on. I told her that I believed I had pulled a muscle in my back (which can affect your diaphragm) and was having trouble breathing and I just wanted to make sure it was a pulled muscle and nothing more. The nurse then looked at me and said "it doesn't look like you are short of breath". I was appalled! I almost told her it was because I had to take a pain med so I would stop gasping for breath, but she seemed like she was in a bad mood so I let it go. They proceeded to do an EKG and the doctor then listened to my heart. She then walks out of the room and someone else comes in and listens to my heart. A total of TEN PEOPLE (no exaggeration) listened to my heart while I was there. One nurse then said "Wow you only read about this in textbooks". I'm no sissy but I finally spoke up and asked what the heck was going on. The original doctor came back in and said I had a rub, which means that the heart was rubbing against the sac which was causing the pain. From what I understood is that you can only hear the rub in a small window of opportunity. I asked if I could listen and even to my untrained ear I could hear it, IT WAS SO COOL! It was then they said that they had to call an ambulance to bring me to the ER. I insisted that my Grandfather would drive me (the ER is only 2 miles away) but nooooo I needed an ambulance ride. Got to the ER, confirmed it was pericarditis, was sent home on enough pain meds for a horse (800mg ibuprophen 3 times a day, and .6 mg of a drug they use to treat gout 2 times a day). Went home, and about 6 hours later the pain meds they gave me wore off and was on the kitchen floor gasping for air when Mom took me back to the ER. Long story short, I'm all better now! My regular doctor thinks it was caused by the mysterious auto immune disease that I have. Can I please be on "Mystery Diagnosis"?!

Okay so I'm healthier, and I now have a new job at McDonalds. I had to stop my old job because my body was rejecting the whole working in the cold for 8 hours deal. Which stinks, I loved my job, I have always loved working outdoors. I would rather do labor intensive work than mental work any day. 

On the horses note, I have found a new eventing barn to ride at which I am super excited! If things work out they do half leases for $175 a month, or you can lease a horse a day for $20. Group lessons are $20 and private lessons are $30. This is great, although I have loved all the dressage training I have received my ultimate goal is to event and you aren't going to get that kind of training at a dressage barn.

Well that's all folks! Thanks for reading :)

March 30th Ride

This weekend was the first dressage show for the club of the year. The show took place at the University of New Hampshire. Unfortunately I stayed behind to work. I wasn't chosen to ride on the team for this show so instead of tagging along I knew that getting a full days work in at the barn was a better option. Since everyone was gone the barn was super quiet which was HEAVEN! I love it when you sweep the barn isle and it actually stays clean, nothing more frustrating than sweeping and then having people bring in horses and making a mess. But it's a horse barn so it's bound to happen.

Chores were done by 12:30 and I had about 3 hours to ride. My plan was to ride Fiona and then groom a couple horses in preparation for our home show this weekend coming up. But because my plans never going accordingly, I ended up riding and groomed Fiona for 45 minutes. She is shedding like a beast and I knew she would enjoy a good grooming. I really wish I had a camera or could send picture messages from my phone without it costing me anything because the amount of hair was unbelievable. People would walk by and say "Did Fiona get clipped?" "Nope, just groomed" haha it was great and she looked great afterwards. I feel that grooming a horse well before and after riding is a way of being appreciative to the horse (and of course the horse's owners if you are not the owner). Like everyone there are days when I am in a rush but this was not one of them. 

The ride on Fiona went pretty well. I am still working on trying to get her round at the trot. Since I am able to get her round at the walk we worked on staying round during halt/walk transitions and she did great! I also attempted to do some cantering serpentines with some simple changes through the trot when crossing the middle of the arena but the transitions always seemed rushed and very much unbalanced so we didn't do that for long. 

While cooling down Fiona worked on being on a long rein without yanking the reins out of my hands. This is a problem we have during our tests at the free walk and when riding it is just annoying. I feel like she has all the reins she wants, she doesn't need to be trying to yank you forward. I attempted to fix this by starting off with short reins (not ridiculously short) and letting them out smoothly a little bit at a time. Every time she tried to yank the reins were shortened again and we started all over. Fiona caught on quick until I was holding onto the buckle, we had to repeat the shortening and lengthening at least 20 times, but she ended up making the connection and was able to walk around on a long rein without any yanking. 

Overall it was a great ride with minimal frustration. I try not to be frustrated when riding because if the horse isn't doing what I want I know by now that I'm usually not asking correctly. When this happens I attempt the task a handful of times and if I am not making progress I move onto something else.

Well that's my weekend in a snap shot. I hope everyone had a great Easter! Hopefully my next post will be full of pictures and congratulating the team on the kick ass show!

Thank you for reading :)

3/26 Lesson

Oh gosh I have finally had a lesson! It has been weeks since I have had a lesson (which is a bad thing since I'm on the dressage team and we are suppose to have 1 lesson a week!) Life has just been ridiculously busy with my sister opening up her new grooming business (which is THRIVING already) and my grandmother getting sick, though she is better now.

I went to the barn around 12:30, though my lesson wasn't until 2. I had planned on doing a fantastic grooming job today before and after my lesson. I asked Bryn who I was going to ride and she was saying that Fiona hadn't been worked yet. Becky then mentioned that Asti hadn't been ridden either, and then Jax was brought up. I spoke up and said how it would be great to ride Jax, so that is who I rode today!

For those who aren't familiar, Jax is a dapple grey QH X Percheron cross. I have mixed feelings about this guy, mostly because sometimes his ground manners aren't up to par but I had seen Bryn ride him before and from what I saw he looked like he had potential.

So I grabbed Jax, spent a good 45 minutes grooming him, and then tacked up. I was warned not to over do the warm up because Jax is out of shape and will fry out before my lesson if I work him to hard in the warm up. At first it was really difficult to get him round, but mostly because I didn't realize how much arm strength Jax needed, especially when trying to supple him up, but once Bryn showed me how much weight I would need to carry I was able to get him round and he looked GREAT! For me the best part was when I was able to get Jax to canter by just using my seat and a little swing of my outside leg. Jax tried really hard in our lesson today and I was very proud of him, and my abs were very sore after.

The one thing that is coming along very well in my riding is my ability to use my seat efficiently, and also my lower leg. There is no more kicking from this girl to get a horse to be more forward! Instead now I turn to my seat and then an encouraging squeeze if needed. 90% of the time the seat does the trick (especially if I make sure that I am not tight in my thighs or lower back), but then a squeeze really gets the energy flowing if needed!

Thank you for reading :)

2/22 and 2/23 Rides

Well her goes my first detailed post for the Dressage club! Though I am tempted to just write "I rode this horse today" I am going to make an honest attempt to actually say what I learned, and eventually I can do it in a timely manner instead of almost a week after!

So last Friday I had a lesson at 2, though I went to the barn early. It was a great day out and so I texted my boss to see if there was anything around the barn that needed to be done. Being such a nice day there was no way I was going to stay cooped up inside until my lesson. Boss told me to text my other boss, and which I did, and I ended up going to the barn around 1 to groom some horses for her to ride before my lesson. Getting a couple horses ready for her made me remember of the days I wanted to be a working student. I would still love to have the oppertunity to do so, but my dreams of becoming a vet take priority right now.

I rode Fiona for my lesson that day (no surprise there!) and we ran through our tests before our first dressage show of the IDA season. This semester I am riding the intro B test (my goal is to be in training level by the fall time or this time next year). The biggest problems that I have to work on are my hands and trying not to arch my back. My back has been my riding nemesis since day one and I still struggle with correcting myself. I guess at this point arching my back feels normal that when it isn't arched I feel like I am slouching. Before this lesson I believed that my hands were my best attribute. I tend to have really soft hands and over time I have learned to keep my fingers closed while still being soft. When I was riding my test my instructor told me that my hands were spread to far apart which the judge would interpret as a false sense of contact (whoops!) So at this point during my practice rides fixing my hands is the number one thing on my mind. I ran through my test twice and the second test was much better than the first test. My instructor also mentioned that I sometimes use spurs when I don't have to, which has always been my biggest 'fear' when using spurs. I have seen people ride with spurs who constantly have them dug into the horse's sides and I do not want to become that kind of rider.

The next day I did my required practice ride on Fiona. I didn't bring any riding pants so my boss said that I could ride bare back. I was super excited about this because the last time I had rode bareback was when I was in Minnesota and riding Mr. P and back then my balance was crap. After giving Fiona a nice groom I hoped on and tried to relax and really focus on my hands. It was nice to feel like I had some balance (though Fiona is kind of wide so it makes it kind of nice). I also really focused on my feet and trying to get my toes turned in (I still don't believe my feet can bend that way!) I always joke when my instructor tells me to turn my toes in and say that I should have never let Dr. K shorten the tendons in my ankle. Fiona really didn't get much of a work out since I was working on my position at the walk and trot but I feel like she enjoyed the ride. She really had her ears forward and was offering to go forward without me wearing any spurs or using a whip. I think I am going to ride without spurs for a while and see if we can keep this up! I did try cantering a couple times and it was great, though it felt SO WEIRD. I loved being able to feel Fiona's back and it was easy to tell when she was tense or relaxed.

Well I'm off to class and then heading home for spring break!

Thanks for reading :)

Hiatus BE GONE!

Well I think I have taken off enough time from blogging. I really wish there was 50 hours in a day, I love to blog but when school gets into full swing I just never seem to find the time.

My biggest reason to begin blogging again is because I made the Dressage Club at the University (YAYA!) and we need to have a lesson and a practice ride once a week.

SO, last week (2/11) I had a lesson on Majik, and I had a practice ride on 2/10.
This week I missed my lesson (blonde moment on my part) but I did do a practice ride ride on 2/16.

Because it's already 10 PM I'm going to type out details on a later date.

I have a ton to share and cannot, the toughest part will be finding a place to start!

Thanks for reading :)