Wolfgang, You Are NOT a Giraffe (Max. Frustration)

Making another attempt to start blogging regularly again, hopefully it will help keep track of the progress (or lack of) that Wolf and I make during our time together.

Wolfgang is about 19 now, and it's very important that he learns to collect/go on the bit consistantly and actually use his back end, not just hold his neck and head nicely. Unfortunatly, his tiny frontal lobes don't understand my rational exlpantations of this, nor does he like listening when being asked to collect. Grrr. It's very frustrating. Quite frankly, he should have learned this a long time ago, and I think he did, but then being a bit of a lesson horse for less experienced people, he got a way without doing it. And it's not like collection is something important to chuck wagon horses, which is what he was before. He can get it at the walk with just the slightest request and go quite nicely, even the sitting trot he is fairly consistant, which is great. The problem is the worst at the posting trot and the canter. In my last lesson two weeks ago, we put him on a small cirlce with outside leg and rein to balance and inside leg to push is body out and lots of inside rein to basically pull his head around to the inside, until he gave in an dropped his head and then he was asked to go forward and large around the ring with consistant contact. It worked, but was frustrating for the both of us, he responded much better on my lease ride after this lesson, he really seemed to figure out what to do after a few intense circles, he would go very well, lose it and then if he didn't collect again when asked, and I went to go put him back on a small cirlce, he would drop his head and collect properly right away. Too bad it didn't work very well at all this past Sunday. Although I'm not totally surprised by this, I missed my lesson before this ride (thank you university) and consistancy is key. I literally tired everything I could think of to get him to drop his head and tuck his nose, but he just wouldn't for more than a few steps after a circle. I had trot poles out, we did lots of those, lots of upward and downward transitions and no luck at all. Even asking him to trot with next to no contact, my hands were literally at the buckle of the reins, obviously this didn't work at all, he just rushed around on the forehand, so that didn't last very long, but I had been hoping with a longer rein he would be more keen to drop down his head. Even if I was off his back in the two point he wouldn't. UGH. But, I have a make up lesson tonight, thank god, so hopefully K will have some good advice to help us out.

And when he won't collect it has an impact on everything else that  I had been hoping to work on with him. Mainly collection, and then really good quality transitions of all kinds. Trot to canter is a big one for us to work on, I've actually got him doing some very good walk to canter transitions but this has resulted in negelecting our trot/canter ones and the past while he has been getting a very rushy trot before cantering and this is no good because you arent very likely to get a nice canter out of a shitty trot. Then we also work on canter/walk, he can get them, but they aren't yet consistant. What we do is get a nice canter and then get on a small, balanced cirlce and keeping on leg, ask him to walk, sometimes I even say "walk" out loud and he gets lots of praise for getting close and a nice long walk on a loose rein if he gets it! It's so exciting when he does get them, I'm looking forward to being able to practice canter/walk on a larger cirlce or in the corners of the ring eventually! On Sunday we also got some very nice trot/halt transitions, but they all would have been so, so much better if he had had a more balanced and uphill movement.

But hopefully todays lesson will help us both out!

Ow!

Had a jumping lesson yesterday, we were practicing bounces. Wolf and I don't have a very good record if bounces. I'm pretty sure the first time I fell off him was over a bounce too. The video is actually pretty funny. Unfortunately, I pulled my groin and hurt my knee! Hopefully it heels enough to be able to ride in the clinic this weekend! 

Besides that things with wolf are going well, we've been working on haunches in and counter canter. His right counter canter is really good, but the left needs work. It takes him to long to listen and I don't get his butt to the wall enough. So that's something else to work on during free rides. I hope I can ride more in the summer, it's really crappy only having on extra ride a week and trying to fit in all the things I want to work on! 

Sort of Something New

Well, I guess I won't be switching straight to dressage. At least not any time soon, which I'm kind of disappointed about actually. What we are going to do is keep jumping, but when the other lady I ride with can't make the lesson we will do dressage. But I want to do real dressage, not just English equitation. 

Yesterday's lesson was jumping and it went pretty good, we didn't do as much flat work as we had on Tuesday. Although the course went better. This week we were practicing a hunter equitation style course. 

For flat work on Tuesday we did some no stirrups flat work, including posting trot, which I've been working on lease rides and there has been significant improvement in how long I can post without stirrups for! Finally, progress in something! Eventually we will get to two point without stirrups...eventually. We also cantered over a small cavalletti with no stirrups, again something Wolf and I have worked on before, so it went quite well. Go us! The worst part by far was doing flat work with only the left stirrup. Going in the straight edges was fine, but corners and circles, not so much. I have to work on my core... Luckily we didn't have to jump like that. 

The hunter course was pretty good, we picked up the canter from the sitting trot well, got the tight inside turn and even got the slice to the oxer a couple times. Other times I chickened out and followed a bending line. It would be ridden as a bending in a regular hunter course but you get more points for doing more difficult lines in equitation, so riding a bending straight would be what you'd probably want to do. As for leads, sometimes we'd get them and sometimes we wouldn't which was frustrating but mostly my fault for not looking in the air. 

My eq was not so great either, I've shortened my stirrups so maybe that will help, but holy crap, my lower leg just will not stay still, it's ridiculous!! I hate watching videos of myself riding because that's all I see. No one else I ride with seems to have that problem, it's also frustrating that dispit all my no stirrup work, that hasn't improved. 

I don't know what else to do to help fix it though. I ride with my heels down well on the flat but not so much over jumps :(

Such A Coward?!

Yes, I'm still here and still riding Wolfgang. We've been doing quite well. At the start of January I had what I initially considered a "therapeutic" fall off Java, it had helped with these strange nerves I've been having when it comes to jumping and I have to constantly tell myself things like "they aren't that high" (seriously, they're like 2'6" maybe 2'9") or "you've jumped way higher". Like it don't understand what my problem is?! Maybe Wolf just doesn't inspire confidence they way Java and Pony do because with them it's like you're going over no matter what. But that makes it sound like he's a dirty stopper, which he certainly isn't. So I don't know.

I just texted K earlier today to ask about trying dressage for a while. Just to switch things up and try something different. She said we can try it tomorrow, if the other lady doesn't make it to our lesson, otherwise she'll keep the jumps lower. My god that is so pathetic. 

But yeah, that's all that's new right now.

Fix Your Position

For the past two lessons K has filmed the jumping for some of us, which is great because I don't often get to see what I look like when I ride. I'm a bit disappointed by it to be honest, so I'm not going to post any of it. I must be pinching with my knees and not realizing it because my lower leg doesn't stay still over the jumps, it swings forward and back. K hasn't said anything about it, so I'm going to ask her if there's things I can do during lease rides to work on it.
You would surely think, after so many years jumping the same heights, I would have a decent leg?

The other thing we have to work on is getting him on the bridle at the trot, because he often gets inverted/carries his head like a giraffe, not quite as bad as Zander though. He gets it every once in a while but doesn't carry it for very long.

Our next lesson is scheduled for Saturday morning provided the weather and work don't ruin it.

Saturday Lesson

Wolfgang doesn't seem to be much of a morning horse, when you go to catch him out in the fields he will run away unless you bring cookies. Which I've done for the past few weeks but forgot this time, luckily he was expecting them and came over so I didn't have to wade through the snow after him. Even though he got a few as soon as we got in the barn he will probably remember that I forgot last time and run off again. It's so much nicer to go in the evening when he's inside already. He won't usually avoid being caught in the afternoons.

He was pretty good for the most part, he went on the bridle decently going to the right but we will definitely have to work on going to the left.
A lot of what we need to work on is over fences, such as me keeping my eyes up properly and not looking at the ground over his ears and really keeping my shoulders back because I seem to hunch them a bit when jumping.
The other thing I really, really need to work on is my back strength because I've not got very much (!!!) so that will mean a few planks and super mans everyday to get on top of that. It's easy to feel when jumping long courses, practicing holding the two point around the ring or doing things like up-up-down trotting.

Unfortunately, the roads are terrible tonight so I didn't get to go to the barn, we've got at least a foot of snow today. Hopefully I'll be able to make it out on Wednesday though.

K pointed out that Wolf tends to get a bit "luggy" when going on the flat so setting up trot and canter poles might be a good exercise for us to do on lease rides. As well as doing short hand gallops and bringing him back to a nice canter because that turned out to be really helpful doing the line on Saturday, it was a two-to-a-two with the middle jump being the largest one. We did pretty good, definitely better than last week when we were trotting into a grid that was made up out of a bounce, a one stride to a two stride. I think that exercise could have gone a lot better if we had been able to canter in because it just doesn't feel like there's enough power and momentum at the trot, but we did it decently a couple times.

Can I eat that?

Tongue!

Pet me!!!

I Swear I am Actually Back This Time [pictures!]

I have set my goal that I will post something with two days of a ride. Preferably sooner because otherwise I'll forget what I wanted to say.

I'm still riding Wolfgang and he continues to be perfect! Some more of his back story:
He used to be a chuck wagon race horse and when he was twelve his current owner (at least I think it was her) started jumping him.

So with him there is really no major thing that needs to be worked on, so I've been a bit lazy with our lease rides. Like we do more than just bum around but I haven't been actively trying to plan what we are going to do. We have done a couple no stirrup rides which have actually gone quite well, I try to do a bit every other lease ride, I don't want to hurt his back or anything and to much could probably do more harm than good to my position as well! When we've done no stirrup work in lessons K always said my leg looked great, so that is exciting! I guess with him most of our work would be to help my position over jumps as well as getting him on the bridle. He does it really well sometimes, he was great to the right at the trot on Saturday but not so much to the left. Transitions and things like turns on the forehand. Canter poles were also a suggestion from K but there hasn't really been anything in a lesson that she's really said "you need to work on that during a free ride". I should ask her...

Look at that face! He's so cute I can't stand it

Trying to eat the camera...

These are from our first trail ride in September or late August, he was actually really good but he started to get a bit prancy on the way home. He was better the second time when we were with two other people but he kept trying to kick out at J's horse Duncan if he was ever behind us. They're pasture mates and turns out Duncan is kind of an ass hole, so  that probably had something to do with it. But once Wolfie was in the back he was fine.