Saturday, August 25, 2012

Back to being a terrible blogger, my apologizes. I do have most of the posts written out else where (work can be very boring), now I just have to type them.

Spencer has been really good for me this past while, which is helped by his owner not riding him. Even K knows it and says it. Because W is always ripping on his face he gets backed off and nervous but when she isn't riding (ruining) him, he's fanatastic!

He's still up for sale and it sounds like his owner is hoping he does not sell quickly, but since she's going through with it, I'd rather he just go. To a good home of course, but it sucks. I do now have official permission from K to ride him for me and make him the horse I want him to be (which is also the horse that will sell faster). So that is very exciting, and I have indeed been doing so far.

He was great today and last week, and I do have photos to upload sooner or later too!

We were stuck inside today because of the rain. He did some of the best leg yeilding his ever done today and some of the best upward transitions. C has been riding him with a dressage whip on the flat and he's gone really well, so we decided to give it a go today, and again, he did really really well.

The ferrier was at the barn today, and while I was talking K's horse Dexter back to his friend, he chomped on my thumb! The jerk, just out of no where too.

Better and more frequent posts to come!

Monday, August 6, 2012

First Ride Back

Saturday was my first ride back since BC, and Spencer was great!

He'd had the whole week off because his owner isn't riding him for some reason. We all thought she would be super psyched to ride after getting back from her clinic, I guess not.

I was surprised he wasn't as lazy as I expected and he put in a lot of effort over the canter poles, which he usually doesn't like, so that was exciting!
K had her "hunter queen" out to work with and she's apparently got a very strong dressage back ground so that's what she was doing with him and she used a dressage whip rather than a crop and K said he was just wonderful. How much she used it I don't know, maybe it was just that she had that he was better.

We did a grid and it felt kind of like he'd forgotten how to jump. As each new jump was added he seemed very surprised to see it. He tired though, hard. No running out or stopping, which is hard in a grid, but not impossible for him! Our last time through was perfect and he seemed happy enough to be back at work.
We always trotted into the grid which sometimes feels like a problem because it feels like there's no rhythm and I find that a hard way to start a jump course, he isn't to keen on it either but he has been doing much better when he was and even is able to keep cantering over poles when previously he always dropped to a trot. Over the poles on Saturday he was even doing lead changes, they weren't what was supposed to happen, but the fact he's doing them is amazing.
When i first started riding him, if ever ended up on the wrong lead he immediately did a simple change, but it was really jarring and it took a long time to get him to keep going on the wrong lead but in the end we could do it and now he's trying for lead changes!! I've only ever got about two deliberately with him, so this is great!