Today Tia and I worked on the counter canter off of the half turn.  She has been getting anxious about the canter departures because I have been insisting that she do them from the walk.  She gets extremely flustered  and picks up the wrong lead from the walk – which almost never happens from the trot.  This video shows us struggling to pick up the left lead canter – lots of fast trotting and trying to calm her down to start again.  I noticed that my legs are REALLY REALLY far in front of me, my right leg is actually, fully in front of the girth!  This is a big no no.  I feel as though I never had this problem during my junior showing years, and I haven’t had a trainer comment on it when I was showing on the IHSA circuit.  The only thing that has changed recently is the saddle.  I am grateful that the saddle fits Tia so well, but I’m hoping that I will be able to afford one that fits us both once I sell my Beval.

For now I guess I won’t beat myself up about it – because as much as I try to bring my leg back, that spot is the narrowest and it’s where the saddle wants my leg.  I also noticed that my upper body is too far forward in the downward transitions, and my hands are too close to my lap.  Time to shorten those reins a bit!

Once Tia counter cantered around the whole ring in each direction I let her be done and trot out on a long rein.  She did her job well and while it would have been nice to work on the haunches in while she was a little hotter than usual, I wanted her to know that she did the right thing and she was being rewarded for it.  I had a feeling that she would pick up the counter canter quickly – I never guessed that we would be able to do it around the whole ring after only a few times of trying it.

I’m working towards our first event next month.  I have always been a hunter/jumper gal – but I’m willing to try something new, and I think that working on dressage and x-c as well as stadium can only help us towards our long term goals.  The trainer at the eventing barn where I board Tia has suggested that we do the maiden division.  The jumps will be very small (2′ – 2’3″) and the dressage test will be simple so I hope that it will be an easy outing that will give Tia confidence and give us a chance to jump a new course.

**Skip the first minute of the video**

I don’t know why I am having such a hard time with the sitting trot.  I just cannot relax my lower back and seat enough.  I cooled Tia down at the trot while alternating between posting and sitting the trot.  I started the sitting trot by bridging my reins and holding them with one hand, while grabbing the pommel and pulling myself into the saddle.  This definitely seemed to help and once I removed my hand from the pommel I had an easier time sitting deep.

Lately I have been dropping my stirrups at the end of my ride.  I can definitely trot much longer without stirrups, but I think I probably need to take them off my saddle for an entire ride in the near future if I really want to see the benefits from it.

Tia was fantastic last night.  We did some half-turns at the canter and then help the counter-canter to the corner where I brought her back to the trot.  I felt as though we could have gone around the entire ring like that, but I didn’t want to push it.  So far we are on track with the newest training goals.  The only thing that I am still slowly introducing (that isn’t required at this stage) is haunches-in.  Tia learns so quickly that I felt introducing this move would A. Give her something new to think about and work through and B. Give me some control of her haunches.  She was really behind the bit in this movement yesterday and she has to think about what my legs, hands and seat are asking her.  She often will respond more to my outside leg and fall in, than displace her haunches around my inside leg.  I’m not really concerned about her learning this exercise, or doing it well in the near future – it’s just fun to give her something new.

Tonight I will be doing some gymnastics again.  I took an exercise from Peter Leone’s Show Jumping Clinic which I have been reading lately.  It has a lot of basic stuff that is great to review, but it also has some new ideas and exercises.

If you ride horses and would love some advice on your riding photo or video – you need to check out this website!  I’ve been following the site on Facebook for a while where they post links to photos that have been critiqued.  Sometimes I just browse the site also, looking for cool videos or advice that pertains to something I need help with.  But today was the first day that I ever posted something on the site.

Here’s the link to my post.  It’s a still from the video that I am posting later today of Tia and I from last night.  Hopefully someone will comment on it and give me some ideas!  If you haven’t been to the site yet here is a link – you can search for them on Facebook and “Like” them to follow their updates.

This is the photo that I uploaded to their website.

Be forewarned – there are some images that show a little bit of blood and an image of the sarcoid after it has been removed.  There are no close-ups but if you aren’t into this kind of thing then I recommend you skip this post!

For a while Christopher has had a weird lump on his stomach that he didn’t like touched.  He had it for a while and it didn’t seem to bother him (unless you prodded it) so it was left alone.  Then recently another bump appeared right beside it.  Christopher’s owner, Emma, decided to call the vet and ask if she could look at it.  After seeing the bumps the vet suggested removing them and then deciding what it was based on its appearance, if it looked like it would grow back, and if it should be biopsied.

So the vet came out and tried to drug Christopher to lay him down for the procedure.  He had a hissy fit and so the vet decided to wait for another day, have Emma give him a tube of dormosedan gel under his tongue to get him relaxed for the additional shots.  When the vet showed up she was able to administer the extra drugs to sedate him for the procedure.  He started to get really loopy.

And then he started to lay down.

And then he flopped over onto his side.

And then we got to check out his weird lumps – they are the dark spot about the size of a half-dollar on his stomach.

So the vet cleaned his stomach off and then got her surgical kit out.

She cut the weird lumps off of his stomach.

And then he had a little wound on his stomach.

This is the sarcoid.  Don’t be alarmed its just a benign (non-cancerous) skin tumor.  At least that’s what the vet believes it to be.  I’m not a vet, I didn’t make the call on this one.  But she knows what she’s talking about!

Then the vet stitched Christopher up and after another half hour we got Christopher to his feet slowly and walked him to his stall where he finished waking up fully.  He wobbled all over the place and it was really slow going back to his stall.

Now Christopher is blemish free, the vet doesn’t think it will grow back, and we can be relieved that it isn’t cancerous!

A little over a week ago, I was sitting on my computer watching horse training videos and checking Facebook and Twitter for new updates.  I stumbled over a post from SmartPak about a giveaway.  All I had to do was “Pin” the EquiFit open front boots to Pinterest to win!  Somehow I actually was picked and SmartPak sent them to me right away.  Wednesday night I came home to find a SmartPak box!  I spent all night squeezing the memory foam, I told everyone about how much I wanted a pair of shoes that were as comfy as Tia’s new boots!

Now that I have used them a few times I will tell you all about them. Firstly, THEY ARE AWESOME!  Secondly, THEY ARE SO COMFORTABLE!  Thirdly, I DON’T KNOW HOW I SURVIVED BEFORE THESES BOOTS!

Well I guess I actually don’t know how TIA survived without them.  No more hairless spots on the back of her legs from being bit by the poles she so athletically smashes into with her hind legs.  No more having to pull boots off of Tia when she clumsily hits the rail with her front legs.  Now I just need to buy the ankle boots and we will be dressed for success!  That sounds lame…

And this is a weird angle.  Tia looks so long and her head and neck look so big!  She has been really good lately.  I rode her yesterday afternoon and she had the best canter!  It was round, balanced, and therefore very light!  I finished our ride with a few minutes of posting trot without stirrups.  My legs aren’t aching today so I probably should do some more of that.  She’s picking up the idea of shoulder-in really well.  I worked on haunches-in at the walk and I feel it’s going to be a bit more difficult.  I kept noticing that my inside hand was crossing over her neck (clearly we aren’t moving off the leg) and that she became really stuck when she started to perform the movement well.  In the past I have done upward transitions during the movement to encourage the horse to move forward even during lateral exercises.  I won’t push it too much until I can get Tia doing the haunches-in at the walk and trot.  This is the first time Tia has really resisted moving forward during a lateral exercise so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and urge her forward with my legs for now.

Haunches-in and counter canter will be our focus this week during flatwork.  The USHJA manual suggests teaching counter canter from the half-turn and continuing the lead into the new direction.  Considering that I have only worked on flying lead changes a handful of times with her I think she will learn the counter canter pretty easily.  Guess well see!