Ohhh yea!!

That's the best way to describe my lesson with Amy Barrington today! I haven't had a lesson or jumped Black since Windridge so I wanted to squeeze in a lesson before I left for home. Black normally has a good rest after horse trials and I normally only jump him every week to every other week to save his legs. His flat work needs the most work anyway! When we jump alone, it's normally just for me to see if his flat work is headed in the right direction so I normally keep it small and simple with an exercise Amy has me do a lot so I know the right feeling when I do get it. I don't trust myself to not screw something up! Anyway, Black's flat schools have been super productive this week so I was hoping that would carry on to our lesson today and it definitely did! Black warmed up really well and it was pretty short considering Amy normally kills us to get us where we need to be to jump. But today it didn't take us long and Amy even clapped at the end of our warm up hahaha! With how rough our spring's been, I'll take it!! He jumped well in the beginning but after riding Elliot this weekend, I needed a reminder to stay off my seat bones and release so I don't get caught in the back seat. Once I get stiff and left behind so does Black so I have to stay as soft as I can so that he will stay soft in front of the fence. Seems like an easy concept, yea not much for us! Amy set up a tough course for us with a lot of turns and angled jumps and most of it at Prelim height. And Black jumped it pretty well the first time but the second time I thought I had gotten the wrong horse out of the field! He was a totally different horse! I saw a short spot to an oxer but he was s

What a cute drugged pony!

uper strung out so I half halted hard about 3 strides out and he brought his hind end underneath of them and then I softened about a stride out so DID HE and he left the ground perfectly! That was a spot that a few months ago he would have stopped at because he would have stayed braced against me. It might have just been one jump but eventually it will be all of them! Amy also commented on how he looked like a different horse and that could not have made me happier! With horses it's the little things! :)

Oh and since Black decided to through me (and himself) against the stall wall last time I tried to pull his mane, he got some happy juice this time around! I did get smart this time and pulled it super short so we won't have to do this again for a while and since I really don't like giving him anything he doesn't really need. Black is also a serious lightweight so a little goes a long way,  Here's a picture of him using the cross ties to his advantage!

Headed In the Right Direction

The last jump!

WE DID IT! :D

It's only been about 2 weeks since my last post but I have so much to tell y'all!
First off- Black and I's first Prelim was a success! Black went to Amy Barrington's for a little boot camp and his whole attitude had changed. Mhm imagine that! haha He was much more willing to work and cooperate with me instead of fighting me. I also switched his bit back into his elevator because he wasn't hearing my half halts again. We had a great lesson on Wednesday before Windridge and I was really excited for the weekend. Dressage went okay. I warmed him up too long which was a shame because the beginning of our warmup was pretty great. But we got through it! Stadium was in the grass which was probably good because it gets us thinking more forward. And that he was! I was nervous so I threw him at a couple fences which gave us 2 rails and I kept adding a stride that wasn't there that gave us a stop. BUT... we got through it haha. My new motto! As long as we still got to do xc on Sunday I was happy!! This was my first time at Windridge and I was super impressed by their xc course. The first few fences really get the horses into a nice rythmic gallop and the entire course is extremly inviting. Absolutly perfect for our first Prelim! Amy Barrington had me warm up a little bit differently than I normally do. She had me continue to canter around the start box right up until I had to go in the box. I was a little stressed in the process but it really helped Black to stay connected. Black blasted out of the start box connected AND forward! He jumped the first one right out stride and dug in on the landing. By the 4th fence he had jumped everything out of stride and I knew we had it! I have never ridden a more perfect xc round in my life! It was truly unbelievable. He did not miss a distance to a single fence and came back to me and moved up every time I asked! I moved his rein down to the actual elevator ring and that seemed to help with bringing him back too. I was so proud of us! Black listened so well and I know he was happy to be back out on an upper level course because instead of looking for things to lock onto, he already found them! That xc round made all the stress and battling of this spring worth it. To say that I am thrilled with him is an understatement! I am so blessed to call this awesome horse mine!

Elliot and I in SJ

While I was at Windridge, Janna Ritacco asked if I would take her horse Elliot to Eventing Rally the next weekend! I was super excited to be able to spend some time with the Pony Club girls that I have become so close with. I was able to fit in a couple lessons with Janna this week and lesson with Carolyn West and off we went! Elliot was great for dressage and super in SJ but had other plans for XC on Sunday haha! But I learned so much about Elliot and riding horses like him as well about my own riding so I am extremely grateful for the opportunity! Elliot is a 17.2h Belgian/TB cross so quite a difference than Black haha! It was such a fun weekend and Elliot was a ton of fun to ride. I really do enjoy the team aspect of Pony Club, it's such a unique thing that you don't get to experience at regular horse trials.

AND Black decided to start the week off to a great start with a great ride today! Janna and Carolyn let me jump on Sunny for a few minutes after Janna's lesson last Thursday. Sunny is 3rd level dressage horse who was in training with Carolyn and he was just generously donated to Pony Club and is at Janna's in transit to a dressage 'A' candidate! Well that horse is pretty dang awesome to say the least... I did a couple lead changes on him and applied what I learned to Black. What an unbelievable difference! Our changes have been something that have been developing with our canter but today I got FOUR clean, on time changes while staying connected and through! I learned the key is to slow his canter (almost thinking walk) before I ask for the change of bend that way Black has a chance to get his haunches underneath him. Unbelievable what a 5 minute ride on an upper level dressage horse can teach you!

It's been a pretty cool past couple weeks and I hope we can keep progressing! I am going home for my 21st birthday and then I'm thinking we'll go to Full Gallop next.

Just Suck It Up and Do It!

Story of my life right about now... I'm so burnt out from school but I'm determined to graduate on time. So even though I never want to look at a textbook again (or at least until August) I'm taking summer classes so that I can graduate on time. This leaves less time for riding which we all know will make any equestrian squeamish.
And then there's Black. I won't lie, he's been in the dog house a bit for the last couple weeks because he has been less than cooperative in our rides. I love this horse too much for him to be in trouble for too long but Black can be like a 2 year old when they first learn they can use the word "no". Black insists that he knows better and uses the word "no" whenever he thinks he is working to hard. Except unlike a 2 year old, Black is 1200lbs and when he says no he is much more convincing! But like a 2 year old when I insist that in fact HE does have to work that hard, he begins to throw a temper tamptrum that includes half rears and recently, bucks. Now, he has recently had his hocks injected, recently been adjusted and he just got scoped for ulcers. He is sound and healthy! So that brings on more questions haha. I had a lesson with Carolyn West on Wednesday and she really helped to shed some light on our issues. Carolyn explained that when I give away my left rain for a milisecond he takes it and literally runs with it. It seems that because I am asking him to work harder than he has in a while, Black is managing to find anyway he can to get out of it. So, if I give him an inch on that left rein he is literally going to take a mile. And once he escapes from that rein, it is really hard to rein him back in. Carolyn had me do leg yields from one end of the ring to another in the very beginning of our ride to test his connection in both reins. Of course, the first couple times we did it, Black threw up his head and was stiff and tight in the leg yield. But by the end of the lesson he had some pretty incredible leg yields that did not take much work on my part. Pretty cool! Carolyn told me to attack the problem head on instead of walking on egg shells being afraid of when he might explode. She told me to do the exercises that I knew he might explode FIRST in our ride so that I can fix the problem immediately. This was something I certainly did not think of doing but made complete sense to both Black and I.
So Thursday I set out to work on these issues first thing. And Black softened into the contact on only the second leg yield in both directions! That was pretty dang exciting considering I've been fighting with Black for every thing I asked of him the past couple months. He felt awesome for the first time in a long time! He did everything I asked with only one explosion, which was my fault because I dropped my left hand. We even worked on our counter canters. Since he was being so good, I decided to push him just a little but more and asked for a change across the diagonal and he swapped PERFECTLY! I've worked on lead changes but not anything extreme, mostly because I know I didn't have the canter to ask for them. And he normally throws his head up and is a big drama queen about it but on Thursday he did TWO changes without any protest or explosion! I was so excited I was smiling from ear to ear after that ride! I haven't had a ride that awesome in forever! It was pretty cool.
So Friday, Black needed a jump school and I decided to switch him back into his bubble bit as my half halts have become more of a suggestion than a requirement. I set up a 3'ish verticle with poles on either side 9ft apart. Amy Barrington likes to torture us with this simple exercise everytime we go up there so I try and work on it before we go up for a lesson haha! I like it because it makes it difficult for Black to flatten before and or after the fence. (It's also an exercise that is easy to set up when I'm by myself.) I have to keep his canter round and bouncy all the way there and after. Black was super and we had NO explosions and he jumped like the gentlemen I know he is! He was adjustable (who knew!) and took off where I told him and was okay with taking the shorter distance. I was a happy camper!
On Saturday Black headed to Amy Barrington's for a few days of boot camp! But before that, we needed to fit in a conditioning set so we headed to Stoneridge on the windiest day we could find (HA). Black was great and really tried hard to work over his back and stay supple while the scary cross country fences tried to kill him. When we did our canter sets, I quickly found we had no brakes! My arms felt like jelly 2 minutes into our canter set so I knew I was probably going to die if I didn't fix something! So I put the rein on my bubble down and suddenly we had brakes AND manners! Black got pissy if I held too long but it took ONE half halt to get his attention and balance his canter which is sort of a small miracle. At FENCE, I had to rip his face off to even get his attention, so this was a nice change.
That brings me to the next thing in my life that I'm just going to suck it up and do it: my first Prelim. We're doing Windridge next weekend and a good friend told me that I just have to suck it up and get the first one over with! Wise words but certainly easier said than done! I'm excited but nervous because this has been a rough season for us. But I think Black and I are better than ever and I'm looking forward to this new challenge. If nothing else, Windridge will tell me exactly where we are and what we need to work on for the next horse trial. Black is at Amy's until Wednesday and I'll have a lesson and have a better feeling of where we are! But I think we are as ready as we'll ever be for our first Prelim. So here's to hoping that we have a fun weekend and we're able to learn something in the process!

P.S.I don't normally post day by day synopsis' of our rides but this week was a huge break through for us so I thought I would share!