Bits and Bobs
Kelhan is starting to float on his own in his swim lessons. Tomorrow I get to be in the pool with him to work on his skills and be able to do some practice at home.
Wednesday I had some cancellations so I worked E-va and Tue-D. E-va is starting to show quite a bit of extra energy. I need to measure her tomorrow and see what type of progress she is making. Marty says her apetite is growing and she is it really well. In another couple weeks she gets a blood draw and we can see if her bloodwork has leveled out with all of the drugs out of her system.
I got Tru-D trotting in hand. She was very confused to start, but figured it out pretty quick. She is quite smart I think. Galen dropped by today to see how she was doing as he was in the area. He gave her a scratch and seemed pleased at how far she's come in the short time. He also asked if I knew of anyone interested in her half-brother that he still has for sale. He said he has a picture of her sire and should be abke to get me her sire's name. I am curious to know what line he is from.
I have done two of the three videos I need for my recertification. I also finished one of the two tests (outside of some minor editing). Three weeks left holy cow! I may see about redoing the driving video, perhaps going down to Horseshoe for smoother ground so we aren't rattling on the bumpy ground so much.
Today I took Kitt to training for the last time until my schedule calms down. While money is fine for it I want to take Kelhan to as many of his lessons as possible and I barely have the time between lessons to do that most days and trying to squeeze in the time to drive over (even if it is just six miles round trip) and take lessons just isn't happening right now.
The lase session was pretty bad. She refused a ton and doged out of the jumps. My speculation was some possible soreness from the spring shots a few days before. A couple of the horses had some visible swelling from it and Kitt had a decent knot still when I palpated her neck afterwards.
Michelle suggested Kitt was running through the bitless bridle so this time we tried something. I put the bitless on her and then her normal bitted bridle with the French link over it. This was my first experience working with two sets of reins and it wasn't quite as crazy as I was expecting. I treated the snaffle rein like you would a curb, coming out below my pinky and setting the rein to the side out the top of my hand and held the bitless rein like one would the snaffle, coming between my pinky and ring finger and up the hand with the thumb pressed on it dor security. It worked quite well as light engagement would only work the cross-under straps and greater engagement would put the bit into play, which I didn't have to do too much, but it was nice having that extra reinforcement when she got a little strong (i.e. set in what she thought she was going to do, not necessarily fast and rushing, she is a Fjord after all).
She got better and better as we worked and we ended on the three jump line with with two single stride distances. She did goober about the poles on the ground we started with, which was ridiculous after she went over the double bounce of cavelletti so nicely. I think last session did a combination of overfacing her and souring her to the specific line a bit.
I did get video of it all and plan on sharing when I have the time to cut it to a reasonable length (hahaha).
Our thoughts going forward are when I come back to it getting some consistent sessions in so we can see if the weirdness we had last time was just an anomaly, especially since the time before that she did absolutely fabulous.
Kitt is getting a hair cut tomorrow. Her mop of hair must go for the Summer. That and I couldn't see her ears through it while jumping today and she does not have small ears.
Did I mention Tru-D got her first bath last week?
Her coat was so nice and soft after it dried. She did pretty well with it, just ran around a little bit not sure of the wetness before settling in.
The program for her thusfar includes more walking in hand and maybe thinking about introducing the surcingle in the next few weeks. Asking her to start walking over, around, and on through/between things is in the works too.
In property news we have all the thorny desert trees gone. I need to take a moment to call someone about getting a shipping container to use as a tack room and lay out the water line next. Getting there! Hopefully it won't be too long before I am shifting the stuff over there and get to leave my jumps set up and don't have to put them up and tear them down after each use and also no more dodging pee spots and all that other good stuff. The only downside will be getting students adjusted to the bigger space (and not run over my dressage arena fence every few minutes).
Wednesday I had some cancellations so I worked E-va and Tue-D. E-va is starting to show quite a bit of extra energy. I need to measure her tomorrow and see what type of progress she is making. Marty says her apetite is growing and she is it really well. In another couple weeks she gets a blood draw and we can see if her bloodwork has leveled out with all of the drugs out of her system.
I got Tru-D trotting in hand. She was very confused to start, but figured it out pretty quick. She is quite smart I think. Galen dropped by today to see how she was doing as he was in the area. He gave her a scratch and seemed pleased at how far she's come in the short time. He also asked if I knew of anyone interested in her half-brother that he still has for sale. He said he has a picture of her sire and should be abke to get me her sire's name. I am curious to know what line he is from.
I have done two of the three videos I need for my recertification. I also finished one of the two tests (outside of some minor editing). Three weeks left holy cow! I may see about redoing the driving video, perhaps going down to Horseshoe for smoother ground so we aren't rattling on the bumpy ground so much.
Today I took Kitt to training for the last time until my schedule calms down. While money is fine for it I want to take Kelhan to as many of his lessons as possible and I barely have the time between lessons to do that most days and trying to squeeze in the time to drive over (even if it is just six miles round trip) and take lessons just isn't happening right now.
The lase session was pretty bad. She refused a ton and doged out of the jumps. My speculation was some possible soreness from the spring shots a few days before. A couple of the horses had some visible swelling from it and Kitt had a decent knot still when I palpated her neck afterwards.
Michelle suggested Kitt was running through the bitless bridle so this time we tried something. I put the bitless on her and then her normal bitted bridle with the French link over it. This was my first experience working with two sets of reins and it wasn't quite as crazy as I was expecting. I treated the snaffle rein like you would a curb, coming out below my pinky and setting the rein to the side out the top of my hand and held the bitless rein like one would the snaffle, coming between my pinky and ring finger and up the hand with the thumb pressed on it dor security. It worked quite well as light engagement would only work the cross-under straps and greater engagement would put the bit into play, which I didn't have to do too much, but it was nice having that extra reinforcement when she got a little strong (i.e. set in what she thought she was going to do, not necessarily fast and rushing, she is a Fjord after all).
She got better and better as we worked and we ended on the three jump line with with two single stride distances. She did goober about the poles on the ground we started with, which was ridiculous after she went over the double bounce of cavelletti so nicely. I think last session did a combination of overfacing her and souring her to the specific line a bit.
I did get video of it all and plan on sharing when I have the time to cut it to a reasonable length (hahaha).
Our thoughts going forward are when I come back to it getting some consistent sessions in so we can see if the weirdness we had last time was just an anomaly, especially since the time before that she did absolutely fabulous.
Kitt is getting a hair cut tomorrow. Her mop of hair must go for the Summer. That and I couldn't see her ears through it while jumping today and she does not have small ears.
Did I mention Tru-D got her first bath last week?
Her coat was so nice and soft after it dried. She did pretty well with it, just ran around a little bit not sure of the wetness before settling in.
The program for her thusfar includes more walking in hand and maybe thinking about introducing the surcingle in the next few weeks. Asking her to start walking over, around, and on through/between things is in the works too.
In property news we have all the thorny desert trees gone. I need to take a moment to call someone about getting a shipping container to use as a tack room and lay out the water line next. Getting there! Hopefully it won't be too long before I am shifting the stuff over there and get to leave my jumps set up and don't have to put them up and tear them down after each use and also no more dodging pee spots and all that other good stuff. The only downside will be getting students adjusted to the bigger space (and not run over my dressage arena fence every few minutes).