I am happy to report that I believe Steen has finally (2.5 years after he came into my life) mastered the art of the jog. It's a funny thing, because while the jog isn't necessarily something I strive to teach my horse, and I certainly would never go to great lengths to force a non-jog-inclined horse to poke along as a very low pace, it does seem undeniable that the quarter-horse type is suited to this particular gait and if you get a horse of such breeding relaxed enough, it will default into an uber-smooth shuffle.
Today I rode Steen bareback on the strip, and he was wonderful. His jog was like butter and he gave it to me without any encouragement on my end to slow down. He was really, really listening to my body - to the degree that when I turned my head left, his ears would swivel left and then at the lightest touch of a rein on his neck or my leg on his side, he'd t...
Today Brian and I headed for the barn in the afternoon. Lately Brian's foot has been having issues, so he wanted to try some outdoor bareback work to avoid the stirrup. We set him up with his normal saddle pad underneath the bareback pad we bought a couple years ago and that set-up seemed to work well for him. He mounted from the ground again and proceeded to have a pretty great ride on the strip. He and Bear looked really good - balanced, relaxed and in good communication.
I did use a saddle, and had another very mellow, relaxed ride on Steen. He was again jogging like a western pleasure horse, standing quite willingly and beyond that just being his normal goofy self.
Yesterday Steen and I did our own thing - something we've not actually done in a very long while. I headed out in the chill of the morning only after digging out some of my winter horse-riding gear.
I found Steen in the pasture looking fluffy and comfortable. It was an unusually still day and the wind seems to be a big part of what makes the herd sometimes feel cold. I took him indoors and he was so quiet while I groomed him, he was literally nodding off at times. This is a new thing for him, and definitely something he's learned from Bear.
I tacked up, went outdoors, set up cones on the strip and climbed on. Steen was good from the start. The one thing he wasn't awesome at was standing for long periods of time, but other than that he was spot-on. We worked figure-eights and circles and he was giving me his smoothest little jog almost from the start. He's s...
It's been an interesting week and I'm well behind on the blogging so I'm going go try to catch up in one post. I also have been horrible neglectful with the camera lately, so have no images to go with these reports.
Wednesday: Ride One Steen and I rode with Bear and Brian on the strip. I took it easy again, since my foot was still flared up, and Steen was quiet and mostly willing to walk and stand, giving me some decent figure-eights at the trot towards the end. Bear was actually the worst he's been since we've owned him - sluggish, unresponsive. Just "off" in general. We couldn't identify any particular problem, so after Brian rode for quite a while I offered to ride Bear to see if I could figure out if he was just deciding to give Brian a hard time or if something really was up. So, I climbed onto Bear for the third time eve...
We had a couple of chilly, stormy days so Brian and I found the boys a bit hungry and dirty in the pasture. We decided to let them graze in the airlock while we groomed them.
Steen apparently prefers the grass at the very edge of the fence line.
After we got the worst of the mud off we took them indoors and finished tacking. I put Steen's brand new pad on his back and we retired to the strip. The good news is I think Steen's new pad had a definite positive impact on the ride. He seemed more willing to lift his back up into position and lower his head at the trot. The bad news is my foot was ...
We had a super windy day out here (and Brian and I were both pretty tired anyway), so we opted for a quick indoor bareback ride after work. We fetched our boys and brought them inside. Brian managed to mount from the ground. I had to employ the stepping stool (it's possible I could haul myself up onto Steen's 15.2 back, but I am still not sure how he'd react if I just flung myself at his side.) Once up, we kept things pretty simple. I did a lot of walking interspersed with some trotting towards the end. Steen was good, though Bear was having a "magnet" effect on him. I was constantly correcting little veers towards whatever part of the arena Brian and Bear were hanging out it. His trot was quite relaxed and smooth, though erratic in speed. Still, the whole ride was quite pleasant. There is something enjoyably simplistic about riding indoors without a saddle. Towards the end of t...
This afternoon I should have been working. My "to do" list is so long I can't see the end of it. But when Brian called and told me he was going to stop off to see Bear on his way home from work, I couldn't resist. I met him out there.
For once Steen was up near the barn and I didn't have to hike out to get him. This was particularly nice since my foot is still having issues and walking doesn't help. We all tacked up and retired to the strip and I worked mostly on walking with Steen, with some trotted figure eights and circles thrown in towards the end. He was mostly good, though excitable at times. I had the super soft, fat, hollow-mouth snaffle on him because Brian was using the more solid, thinner snaffle on Bear. The funny thing about Steen lately is he's so unbelievably soft in the mouth but w...
It's a day of haze and fog in Iowa, but luckily Brian and I already had a plan for our barn activities today. We thought another day with both of us focused Bear would be the best, so we decided to leave Steen in the pasture. Amusingly, the fact that I did not halter him did not deter him from walking right at my side back up to the barn.
It actually made me feel oddly guilty to close the gate on him and tell him he couldn't come. We started out with ground-work, not because Bear really needs it but because I wanted to see how he felt about going right without a rider on his back. He was surprisingly jumpy on the line. I have a feeling he's used to be longed in the wide...
The season is just starting to turn definitively towards fall and today we woke up to a storm. The rain passed, however, so we decided to fill the late morning with a barn trip. Our goal for the day was for me to pay close attention to Bear and Brian and try to help facilitate their communication after the challenges of their last ride. We've had Bear for three weeks now and in that time we've changed a lot of things up on him, and I think he's having trouble understanding exactly what we want of him. He's also definitively stiff when turning right, so we're trying to find constructive, non-threatening ways to supple him up. Since it was overcast and we had simple goals, we also took the SLR in order to get some good photos. You ...
Today Brian and I headed out for our (soon to be) traditional Wednesday afternoon at the barn. The weather was again perfect. I had an easy start to the day when I found Steen up by the waterer, so I didn't even have to hike out to the pasture to get him.
The boys were good while we tacked them. Bear doesn't seem sore on his newly bare front feet, so that's a definite plus. We then adjourned to the grassy strip next to the pasture which has been recently mowed and now has the benefit of being wide and grassy and long with good footing. It's a good place for Brian and I to ride together while both doing our own thing.
Brian rode Bear in a snaffle again, and other than letting him mount up first and making sure there were no immediate meltdowns, I mostly left him to his own devices. My goal for today was to make Steen tired. He's been so so so...
