Went out to ride yesterday and was greeted by angelfaceponyboy again.... god I love when that horse appears!
"I can lope the pole pattern in one direction now - I am a monster beast at being awesome!"
We rode with Brigitte and Mac, and Brigitte lets Mac roll after sweaty workouts. I wondered if Jingle would roll too (I've never even seen him roll in his stall or during turn-out), and so I took off his tack and these two videos are the results of what happened... (please pardon how lame I am, these videos also ft. the fact that I "talk" for horses always)
Video 1: Mac showing Jingle how to roll, and Jingle casually following me around like a big scared puppy
Video 2: Jingle kinda sorta figuring out this rolling thing...
Please notice that my horse has yet to figure out how to shake off the arena dirt after he rolls, resulting in dirtiest paint pony of the year award...
Look at that face.... haha, that is a horse that feels accomplished in his rolling and getting dirty abilities. I swear he looked proud yesterday.
It was also Mac's two month anniversary at the barn yesterday, so we had to celebrate that aswell! It's pretty crazy to me that Jingle is coming up to being at the barn for 5 months - time flies.
This girl is excited about 2 months!
As I have noted in my blog, I often use my horse as a couch.... We're in training to be a trick riding show.
(mostly because I'm procrastinating my life away during finals)
but when I saw this I had to post it...
It's Shawn Flarida, who is a $4 million dollar reiner, on the horse "Yankee Gun" at this year's NHRA Futurity that just ended two days ago. They gave him a go-pro camera, so you get to watch his run from his point of view....
Unreal how you can hear the air wizzing past him, and the spins?! Crazy! So cool.
& then, coincidentally, this video popped up on my Facebook newsfeed, of the champion run in the National Trail Challenge with rider Ali McLeod and her horse, Sweets...
HOW do you remember a course like that? Absolutely INSANE. Backing up into the water, all the dips and dives? I think Jingle and I need to try something like this!
I really like these go-pro camera horse/rider videos, it gives you such a different perspective on the ride itself.
"Well I'd like to live an out-of-door life, and ride horses..."
"& after all, if you do really like what your doing, it doesn't matter what it is, you will eventually become a master of it."
Yes, yes, and yes again.
I need to remember this, whenever someone asks me what I want to do with my life, since I am in my final year of university, and I reply that it has nothing to do with my degree (anthropology) and everything to do with horses, they always give me this "look".
Money is no object; passion is everything.
Why not give it a shot, while your young and you can?
It has been forever and a day since I wrote my last "Riding Diary", so without further ado...
Horse: Quiz! (aka princessbabymarefacecutie)
Time: 1 Hr
Ride: So, this was the first time i've ever ridden in our outdoor arena, in 25 c weather, at 630 at night - NO LESS. How awesome! Aside from the thumb sized mosquitos that are already plaguing us, and our horses, what a wonderful day to be riding! I was in a t-shirt, I could feel sun on my face.. life was good.
My ride predominately went really well, I've pretty much been "off" of riding this month, other than a couple little rides here and there, and a pretty disastrous lesson at the beginning of the month, so I was a little worried. Compound that with Quiz's (thought-to-be) mini abscess last week, and the fact my muscles, especially tummy, are all jiggly balls of goo, I expected it to be a bit of a train-wreck.
Maybe the Sun-gods were on my side.. who knows. Warm up went well, they were excavating a pond in the back pasture by the arena, so there were bob-cats, quads and tractors, and although Quiz's ears were a little like "uhm, what is that?" she sailed on through. Plus, I've noticed I'm becoming more and more natural in my posting trot. I think I'm becoming more aware of the big picture of rider + horse.
We started at a jog, and moved into the lope. My trainer commented that Quiz was settling down and not trying to break/push as much as she used it. It all kind of clicked yesterday, like the ride just felt really, really good. I had her on a loose rein for the majority of the ride - we even jogged on at the loosest possible rein - one handed, and for the most part she kept up a nice, slow, jog. Perfect!
My trainer had me working on rollbacks in a circle, so she would get me to lope, stop me wherever, get me to rollback, etc. etc. My rollbacks are a little iffy at times, Quiz was walking out on them quite a bit at the beginning, I just need to focus on really guiding with my rein hand and physically looking where I want her to turn. By the end we got a couple good rollbacks in there.
Then we moved on to loping around two barrels, she had me circling a barrel, coming out of it at a wide circle and then moving into the second barrel, circling it, and then again coming out wide. For this exercise I need to focus on keeping my hand closest to the barrel wide and open, but not dropping my hand. I also need to keep my back straight and really sit in those turns, only cueing Quiz with my leg when she begins to break down.
All and all I had a really good ride, and walked away with some concrete stuff to work on. Good lesson all around.
Next Time: Rollbacks - guide more with my body and don't expect her just to plant her back feet because I think she will. Think of a rollback as more of a fluid motion.
Barrel Exercise - Keep my hand closest to the barrel wide, open and up, don't drop the hand, thus allowing her to drop her shoulder. Only cue with my leg when she needs it, otherwise she'll just speed through the turn. Watch my shoulders - keep my body upright and slightly back through turns and while cueing for speed.
& now, because I never remember to take photos, or have anyone to take photo of video of me, I took a little video of Quiz post-workout. I was told by her owner that the second she got in the arena she would roll, well two videos later she had yet to roll. Hence my over eagerness when she actually did..
Quiz is so cute, my dorky self is not. I hate listening to myself over video. haha
