When it rains, it pours

When I get sick, do I ever. It started off as the sniffles and progressed to a sore throat, by the time I was teaching my last weekend lessons on Sunday, I sounded like Darth Vader, sipping hot chocolate of course! I am still not back to normal after hours of sleep and missed work, but I will be heading to the barn tomorrow.

This past weekend was a mixed bag for both horses and riders. The long run of crazy progress seems to have come to an end (it was a good run). As students work at their new harder levels, some frustrations flared up, for the most part we were able to work through it but it can be hard succeeding constantly at a lower level then in the move up find a little wall that must be worked through on the way to advancement. I was not the only one sick over the weekend and this played a part for sure.

A theme for the weekend was forward and straight, let the jump hold the horse. I set up several canter poles in a row, up to 5 at one point, that had guiding poles to keep the horse and rider straight. Success was only found with a good turn keeping the outside shoulder straight, pace held so the canter hit the poles and the horse gave a little jump over each in rhythm. Much harder than you would think. Was surprised to see how hard Spiderman was working on this exercise, it also showed how every little move of our body changes the horse both positive and negative.

A recent change to a higher protein grain left my two steady boys wild and galloping around the farm, luckily no one was hurt and the boys are back on a lower protein grain and their lovely personalities have resumed. Knock on wood everyone else seems to be fine on the new grain, but I will be keeping a close watch!

I have been enjoying the weather, if only every December could be like this! The horses spent a few nights outside this past weekend, even with mid-20 temperatures they were happy to munch on their hay snug in their blankets. Now that the rain is upon us everyone is back inside at night, but it looks like another glorious weekend. How long will it last, I can only hope. I have started to think about what we will work on over the winter, once we are forced inside. There will be a lot of position work in dressage, lunge lessons with no stirrups and trotting single fences to work on rider form and recognizing the “right” pace.

I am starting to think about my 2012 goals both for the horses and personally, stay tuned as I find making these things public adds some accountability to the mix that I think many miss when they make these silent pacts with themselves.