Put the Relationship First!

Man I love horses! 

Paris has been awesome! I have made some changes to his diet and his trimming, and I have had a lot of help with my riding from Gabi. She showed me how to help Paris find balance in his canter, especially in the transitions from and into the trot. Paris has learned the half jump online but I have stopped playing with it after he hurt a leg doing it one time. I have decided that as he is not getting younger and the weather is getting colder his joints need a better warm up before ask him for things like that. So instead I have been playing with his stretching and transitions on a circle and asking him to do walk figure eights. The difference between this and the ones I did in our level one days is that I am now asking him to do it at the end of a 22 foot featherline and I am trying to not have to do anything.  We are not where I want to be yet but it is a nice gentle warm up that gets him bending nicely as his brain becomes engaged with the pattern and it helps him find calm and relaxation. He still gets excited when we do figure eights at the trot but after a while of doing the walk we can find a nice trot where he can still think of the pattern as an “8” rather than two exciting changes of direction close to each other! When I get on we do some follow the rail and clover leaf pattern with moments of me standing in the stirrups to improve my lower leg position and balance. I don’t use the reins and throw circles in on the follow the rail to keep him following my focus and especially to bring him back to a calm balanced trot. On the clover leaf I add a lot of transitions in corners, halts and forequarter yields and yoyos to have Paris follow my focus and seat rather than just running on the pattern and making assumptions.  I then pick up a light contact on the reins and use a suspension rein to ask Paris to tip his nose in the correct direction as I use the inside leg outside rein to help him find the correct bend.  We do this until he starts to stretch and bend and move forward more from behind. It’s going well and has helped tremendously in preparing him for balanced canter transitions. Once we had it going strong with the reins, I moved to doing it freestyle and using the neckstring to half halt and rebalance him. He is doing really well with it. The latest manoeuvre I have been practising with him is to have him set up in a shoulder in on the circle and when it is going well to ask for some canter and then bring him back to a walk and go straight into a shoulder in on the circle again. For the first time ever I’ve been able to get canter to walk transitions!

Riva is also going really well. We’ve also benefited from Gabi’s help. She has been very strict on making me not use my reins with Riva anymore unless I am asking for stretching. We have been very firm and clear with her to let her know what we want but really acknowledge and reward her when she does make an effort and now she’s trying her heart out, giving me way more than I would have expected and has a fantastic attitude with it! She can maintain her canter now, and I have more steering even though I’m only using my seat and the carrot stick. I want to get a video of me playing with and riding her. Unfortunately Riva is for sale and at present I can’t see that I will be able to afford to buy her. I would also love to buy Touria but as I have to pay off the externship and other debts, get a place to live and pay for a wedding my finances for the not so near future do not look “second horse friendly”. Let alone third horse! Who knows how things will pan out in the long term? But whoever does have her as their life partner will be very lucky, she is awesome! We have been making videos to put on the website to advertise all the youngsters and I feel both proud and sad as I showcase what Riva and I have achieved together.

Poor Touria and Seth were two of the youngsters worst affected by a skin condition that caused them to have scabs like armour plating all over their backs. I had to wash them every three days, then remove as much of the scabs as I could before putting an essential oil mixture onto the remaining scabs. Seth was not as bad as Touria and his scabs have cleared up nicely but Touria’s took longer and then as the scabs on her back and butt went away they started appearing on her chest, down her legs, on her stomach and girth area. The poor girl had them on her face and ears too.  She now only has a few on her belly and girth area. I have stopped washing her but am keeping up with the oil treatment. I hadn’t played with Touria much since the last post. I had one session online trying to teach her to stretch but I wasn’t sure if she got it. Then I had less time and energy for playing with her as her scab washing became more intensive and as I threw myself into riding Riva and Paris. So two days ago I had my first online session with her in a month! And it did not take nearly so long to have her stretching and this time she really did seem to understand what it was I wanted. And yesterday we tried for a 3^rd time and she had it almost straight away! She is so smart! I’m really happy because she always goes around with her head up and she is capable of moving very well but as she holds herself wrong she is not developing any topline. I think she will soon realise that it is more comfortable and easier to perform when she stretches across her topline. She is also doing canter stick to me at liberty now. She really is a funny horse. Her extroverted side is coming out more and more now as she nudges me for treats and starts licking me. She was always so reserved and delicate with her nose before!

Unfortunately Seth went lame from abscesses again. So I have returned to the working team. We really don’t know what the physical cause of his abscesses are because, on outside appearances, he has some of the best hooves in the youngster herd! So I have not been playing with him and have instead returned to the work team in the mornings. I hope this can change because otherwise I can’t see us getting much more progress made before I leave.

We have a couple of new working students. Joke arrived a month ago. She is awesome, very funny and sweet. I really like her. She has a fjord called Hellaba who is very left brained and very pretty. And this week Jana arrived. She is sharing my room with me, which has been somewhat of an adjustment for me. I did share my room for a month with Joe France and two months with Helene but I’m used to having it to myself. Jana is also nice and we are doing quite well with the language barrier between the two of us. Her English is not the strongest although it is much better than my French. I’m sure she’ll be fluent in English by the time she finishes her time here!

Hanne is going home soon. She realised what she really wants in life and has made a change with her studies and got accepted on a course that starts in two weeks. I’m really happy for her, she has come a long way in a short amount of time, but I will be very sad to see her leave. She has been a good friend and a lot of fun to have around. I will miss my buddy, sitting on the sofa next to me, equally hooked on Heroes and eating food whilst on our lap tops. And laughing at my inability to multitask.

My externship plans have been coming together. I have found a group of other students to share a condo in Pagosa with. We will also share a car and I have a cool lease horse. He’s a LBI quarter horse called Boaz. I’m looking forward to meeting him. I will be going to his home in Wyoming for two weeks before the externship so that I can start to form a relationship with him before we go to Colorado. His owner Lynette is a very kind woman and I’m looking forward to getting to know her in real life too. She has told me that it would be best if I could take a superwide fluidity saddle to use on him if I can. I am trying to find one I can borrow for the externship but have also decided to measure Paris up because if the saddle will fit them both it might be worth working out how I can increase my debt and get a saddle of my own. At least then I’ll also have a saddle that works on Paris for when I’m home after the externship. At the moment I ride him in Marie-Claire’s fluidity saddle because Paris doesn’t like his Kieffer Dressage Saddle. It restricts his shoulder and his back always looks more dipped after I’ve ridden him in it. 

And as for my non-horsey life... apart from watching Being Erica and Heroes with the girls I’m not really the most sociable person in the house. I think we’re all tired most evenings and we get on really well but life is pretty routine for us here. And I miss home. I had some sad news the other day when I found out that my cousin had passed away unexpectedly. It really made me realise how far away I am from home. I found out via Facebook because I can’t be called on the phone easily at all. I am very grateful that I have been allowed to go home to attend the funeral. I want to pay my respects, but more than anything I want to be there to support and comfort my mum and aunt. I also look forward to enjoying just being back with my family, Will and Summer again. I miss them all so much all the time. The other night Summer was on Skype singing Gangnam style and playing with her Phantom of the Opera dolls! She will be with us for the weekend that I am in the UK so I will get to play with her again. 

I will try to blog more often but knowing what I’m like I’ll wish you all a Merry Christmas and I hope you all really cherish your time with the ones you love!