A Change of Scenery: Butterball tries his hooves at hunterland

Looong video filled recap coming with lots of raving about how lovely Butterball is. If I were a better blogger I'd probably trail the media out for longer, but ah well. 

Beginning from the beginning, Thursday PW and I made plans to meet in the hunter ring at the show for some ticketed schooling. I thought we were doing this so much just for fun that we'd ride the course of fancier jumps in the same I'd been riding the jumper jumps. I was wrong. PW started working on our frame, encouraging me to have a more closed hip angle with hands forward, encouraging him to come in front of the vertical. And sloooowww down. In the canter stay in two point and adjust speed while in two point. 

It actually went pretty well. So then we started jumping. "Don't help him!" Get the canter, keep the canter, let him make whatever decision he's going to. It's his responsibility. Okay cool. I could feel Butterball learning I was neither going to fix things nor f- them up for him. He started backing himself off and taking that lovely gappy spot and jumping the snot out of things. The jumps were mostly 2'ish, but he was making a very good effort. 

Then I got dance mom coaching to use the whole stage. Go straight away from the fences, go to the rail, don't ask for the change until you're close to the rail. And wouldn't ya know it, taking my time out in the corners gave me time to check in with three canter, making that same easy pace. 

DH came to watch and we'd gone through what happens when I "jesus take the wheel" before the fence on the drive down. And the first thing is actually the frantic darting eyes then I shove the reins. I was able to mostly avoid that droppping feel by gluing my eyes to the same spot and riding the canter rhythm. Then the pony got it right most of the time. How cool?? 

PW warned me we might not place well because we weren't going to be going on stride. He said "it's training" to keep that same steady pace down the lines and add because that's what his flowing steady stride fits in. 

Friday started quite early. I finally got smart and tied a hay bag in the tree we use as a tie post for bathing. This kept Butterball much happier with his early morning bath. And much more still while I was trying to get his stockings white. 

When we got there I wasn't really sure how to go about learning three courses, but lucky for me the first and third were the same. And really, since there are inside and outside lines, the hunter courses seem a lot easier to learn than jumpers. We warmed up on the flat by ourselves and were ready to jump when PW headed over from the jumper ring. Things went swimmingly off the right lead, but we had a big 'ole right drift off the left lead. Huh. Probably about my turn and weight in my stirrups. 

After a vertical off both leads and then an oxer, we headed in for our first course. The first few jumps I tried so hard not to help him. They were both a bit funky, a gap to the first and a chip to the second. And then we got our flow and the rest of it went pretty smoothly. The outside line by the judges stand was a 5, but we planned on adding to make it 6. The other two lines were 6 and we planned on adding to make them 7. The adds actually felt a bit tight because I was trying to woah while in two point and it while it wasn't incredibly effective it was effective enough to fit in the desired number of strides. 

After the first round, PW went over a few changes. We got tsked at for not making it past the in gate before trotting at the end, oops. PW also wanted me to use my stage better and go straighter after the fences and wait until closer to the rail to ask for the changes. We improved those things a bit for the second round. 

And then the third round we decided to let him flow down the lines to do the on stride. 

PW added us to the under saddle after our third trip, which I hadn't planned on doing, but ended up being a good idea. Our hack could have been MUCH smoother on my part since I have never schooled walk-canter and canter-walk on a loose rein. So there was a lot of trotting between those. But apparently his drool worthy trot is enough to make up for that since we ended up FIRST in pretty good company. Good boy Mr. Fancy Pants. 

We got a fifth, fourth, and second for our over fences trips one through three respectively. The first two trips were much less smooth and we didn't do the on stride in the lines. Then we had a late change behind on the last trip that probably hurt us. He'd been giving me auto changes so I hadn't even needed to think about the changes, but was a bit tired the last trip. He did tidy it up when I used my LEG (wow, look at that, not my hand) to ask him to get his haunches with the program. 

PW, my friends who were cheering us on (and loaned us pad and bridle to look the part), and I were all delighted. PW said "THIS is exactly where he needs to be." I actually LAUGHED during one of my courses. I can't remember the last time I've felt relaxed enough to do that. And Butterball felt SO DARN HAPPY without me micromanaging him. And y'know what? He can make pretty darn good choices without me shoving him at fences. I do think there was a degree of no expectations to the day, so everything felt like a giant win, but even that aside, I agree with PW that for now this is the place we need to be. PW felt like eventually we could step up to the 3' hunters and do the on strides there without a problem too. 

Saturday we entered the 2'6" hunter derby. We had a real world HJ moment when PW was supposed to be in the jumper ring taking 2 horses around the 1.15m while I was supposed to be warming up for the derby. He conferred with both in gates and ended up heading over to jumper land. I had not brought my phone with me (rookie mistake) and didn't find the shade for a while, so we roasted for a bit while waiting. Butterball was a very good sport and cuddled for a bit, napped, tried to eat the railing, and tried to say hello to any horse that came near us. 

Once PW came back over we popped over a few fences and then headed in. 

My brain wasn't totally engaged, it was 6 strides from 2-3 which we did swimmingly. But when I came up the diagonal from 6-7 I COMPLETELY forgot to kick a bit the first two strides to make it an easy 7. So instead we had 7.5. Oops. The rest of the round was pretty decent though. We took the high options each time. 

We got a 70 on this round. 

Then we went back in for the derby. Again, brain wasn't completely engaged and when PW told me canter for four strides after 7 then trot, I cantered for 4 strides and then started thinking about trotting. So we didn't actually trot the trot fence, we just slow cantered it. We ended with a score of 60. This put us in second of two. But y'know what's cool?? They still handed out prize money! So BB and I won $110 in the class! And the course was probably the smoothest I've ever done. 

Photo by ESI

I may go put all his ribbons up on his reins at some point, it is definitely the most we've gotten from one show. But I wasn't willing to try too hard to get a good picture when he'd been such a champ, tacked up for about three hours at this point. 

He got hosed off and put away for a bit with a fresh flake of orchard grass hay. Then it was time to get ready for the costume relay class. Teams consisted of three members - each did 5 jumps. The first 5 at 0.6m, the second 5 at 0.9m, and the last 5 at 1m. Our team was the Wizard of Oz (there was a second Wizard of Oz themed team too). 

The program said baton pass, but fortunately someone had decided that wasn't going to be a good plan. They changed it to the next rider starts from by the last fence of the rider before as soon as the feet touch down. So we got our positions planned and got to it. He motored right down the lines on stride again even though the fences were little. He also is pretty darn careful when ridden this way, which meant my fear of being the sole member of our team to have a rail wasn't realized, thank goodness. We finished up second place in the relay and won some money there too!! 

Overall this was the most fun I've had at a horse show since Kentucky last year. I don't know if that means we need to go back to eventing or if it means our place is in the hunters, but I'm embracing it whatever it is. I do find it funny that my childish view of hunter riders just "doing nothing" is kinda sorta true with this horse. But the backwards rationalization part of my brain thinks about how much training we've put in and how much work we've done with his canter to get him balanced so that I can just keep light contact and let him sort it out. I gotta say though, he makes far better decisions than I do most of the time. Giving him that responsibility and having him do such a good job feels pretty cool. 

Being Intentional with Fitness

Now that we have carte blanche for a full work load, I put some thought into how best to get pony pants fit again. A thoroughbred he is NOT, and he doesn't hold onto a base level of fitness that would allow us to easily lope around a novice course just by existing in his field.  

Favorite activities: standing

And eating

He has successfully lost some weight this fall, a combination of grass slowing down and increased workload. The fat pads on his barrel are smaller (but not non-existent). 

One of the mainstays of our fitness prep for the novice three day last fall was a walk loop before or after most rides. In my mind, this is also good conditioning for putting strength and flexibility back into that tendon. 

Proprioception exercises

And more 

The roads are pretty sandy right now, that deep, shifting kind of footing that is hard on tendons and ligaments. So I let him choose where to walk - he often does opt for the deeper sand rather than the firm shoulder. I assume he knows what he is doing and *hope* that this is strengthening his tendons. 

That walk loop before or after a ride also means that our rides are coming out to a total of an hour most days. Some days I am still setting my 8 min x 3 timers with 2 min breaks in between to make sure that we're doing a decent quantity of trot and canter work. Other days I do now feel the freedom to get some really nice quality work and then reward him by heading out for a hack after. He's also doing his raised poles in hand 3-4 days a week, 5 poles, 10 times back and forth. Two of the poles are on jump standards right now and are pretty darn high. I'm close to flipping the blocks up to the highest setting as well (they're on the middle setting right now). 

We also have gone back to our 5+ mile walk/trot/canter rides out. 

All booted up and ready to go - I added pastern straps back in and saved myself from having to fetch a front boot multiple times. Took me more than one ride to remember those straps existed, oops. 

Hello cow

This road has great shoulders for a little trot and canter. We also met baby squirrels figuring out life in the middle of the road. BB was adorably snuffling one when the little rat bit him on the nose! It left a tiny mark, but his feelings were hurt. Poor sweet pony! (I realize he was terrifying the squirrel, but my sympathies lie with him still)

Prior to remembering the pastern straps

Hello beautiful cow 

He's got the best ear tips ever 

He's also working 5-6 days a week now, usually with a rest day after a jump lesson. And, knock on wood, the tendon feels great and he feels great. I do think that the canter/gallop sets are also beneficial to him, especially if we plan on eventing again, but so far I haven't added those back in. The vet who treated him said that the SDFT lesion was either from knocking himself or a high speed injury. Given that he likes to fancy prance and doesn't particularly like to gallop I'm guessing it was a wayward foot striking himself there, although that's a bit weird given that it was on the lateral aspect of the tendon. But we hadn't done any galloping around the time the injury occurred. But in my mind that also means that the "high speed" work should be added back in last. I'm thinking mid-November, a full 6 months post-injury. 

The Basics

Super short blog post, but some notes I wanted to  hold onto. And it's my blog, so I'll make posts whatever length I want, yes? 

Butterball and I had our fourth jump lesson last Friday. I had done our homework pole-54 feet to cavaletti- 54 feet to pole two different times since our last lesson. We only focused on the five strides though, so in the lesson PW wanted us to work on opening his stride back up some to the 12' show stride. 

We started with a pole 5 or 6 strides to a crossrail. We really struggle to get going to the first fence. He's much easier to ride fences 2 through whatever on and is much more motivated, but getting going for the first fence is always a challenge. During the lesson we started most of our courses with the pole to crossrail and that was a test of whether or not I had gotten the canter correct BEFORE starting the course. Five easy strides meant we had our "show canter" going. Then it was just a matter of keeping it flowing around the turns to get the strides down the lines. And y'know what? We DID! Including a gappy spot to the out fence that was definitely the biggest thing we've jumped since we've been back at it this fall. 

I did still let him lengthen past the distance a few times to the single fences in the course. Irritating to have to learn that lesson every.single.lesson. Adult ammy for sure. But otherwise things went pretty well. 

I've been playing with the canter with my hands UP higher than I typically want to hold them and hearing PW's "BOP!" in my head every time the contact drops. I think gradually BB is trusting that I'll be more consistent and not start trying to force his head down into a (false) frame. Also keeping my hands UP really, really helps with the left hand turns. Turns out (ha) that outside rein is essential to good quality turns. 

So, to sum it up, get a quality canter of the stride length you want for your course BEFORE you start your course. Then check in during the course to make sure the canter is still balanced. Fix it BEFORE the fences. Then maintain that same canter up to the fence, not letting it change. Easy peasy, right? 

No lesson media, enjoy the pre-lesson dapples

Foto Friday - The VERY GOOD Version of Charlie

 

Existing near the trailer. Man is it easy to see how breaking this down makes it much better. He had a lot of anxiety about even touching his nose to the ramp. I wasn't asking him to touch it at all, but curiosity was motivating him, which was pretty cute. With absolutely no pressure from me he was exploring on his own.  

Suspicious ear still on trailer

Must be a pony thing to eat while you pee

He was being so cute and cuddly and was choosing to come hang out with me after our "training" session 

CHARLES!!!

Charlie thought that since kicking the dog worked so well to make it go away, he might try the same tactic on me. Ouch. Learning curve for both of us. This meltdown was about trying to exist farther away from Bubby and the barn than he had been before. Once again, he led the way there, but then got panicky and then mad when I wouldn't let him run home. On my part, I was not nearly aware enough of keeping the KICKING end away from me when navigating NOT letting him run home. Welp, lesson learned. 

He had a mini version of this on Wednesday when we were moseying about prior to the farrier arriving. He didn't get me, but he did a mini bolt towards the barn and swung his butt at me at the same time. I corrected before it turned into a kick, and I think he maybe remembered that kicking me wasn't a good idea. 

This was his first time getting trimmed by his new farrier. He DEFINITELY had some stranger danger and just barely held it together at times, but it was a positive experience overall. The farrier complimented his feet too, yay! 

Once again, I know how human parents feel. Is this not the tiniest, most perfect hoof?? 

Friday we regrouped on leading lessons/exploration and took a more structured approach to things. We walked in wide circles, first with his brave eye (right eye, in case you were wondering) towards the outside. After each successfully completed circle he got to graze while I walked with him. He loves a specific type of weed and seeks it out, so that was his reward. 

Also loves oak leaves

Once we were doing the wide circles at a reasonable pace and without needing to make tiny circles to enforce not walking ahead of me, we switched directions. This got us out to the scene of the crime with no drama. It also got us pretty close to the horse trailer. Success! 

Then we did a baby intro to the hose. 

Unsure ears 

Hrmmm

Success! Wet front tootsies 

Next was a "tying" lesson while he got groomed. Lead rope wrapped around solid post. Enough friction to teach him to yield to pressure, but not actually immovable. 

Then I unsuccessfully tried to find a substance to help introduce the idea of oral meds. He didn't love molasses or applesauce. 

Bubby did though!

I fetched their ball from the back of the pasture after that and Bubby was please. Charlie is no longer afraid of it and seems to think it is kinda fun too, so that's progress. 

A few random shots to round out the post

Loves chewing on fly mask and it isn't even ON someone's face. That's not a good sign LOL 

Hmmm... 

A few days after kicking me, Charlie got his grain before his hay and bolted it and choked. My friend called me to have me drive down to help her tube him. Fortunately he cleared it himself before I got there. It was a few days of really loving my life choices re horses though. 

But now we're back to cuddly ponies and rainbows and sunshine! 

One Year Ago

The trip of a lifetime with the pony of a lifetime 

Best picture we got with our completion ribbon. LOL. Pony tried his heart out for me the whole week and was DONE. 

All riding photos by xpressfoto

You Said Woah...

Butterball and I had jump lesson number two on Saturday. I don't know if pony is just excited to jump again or if all the soft leg means go flatwork is paying off. However, the forward tends to be a bit downhill, which JV would say is better than no reaction, but still not what we're going for. Anyways, most of this lesson was about woah meaning woah. 

Per my request that we do either hunter or equitation classes at a show at the end of the month, we did a loopy inside-outside-inside-outside course for the whole lesson. After a few embarrassingly bad crossrails, PW put the jumps up to something that made the pony at least vaguely pay attention. 

Dissecting course by course: 

First course, 0:00-1:10, we started to get a little quick and long coming into the outside five stride line. It is a five stride line when the jumps are 1.10m plus, so getting down it in 5.5 showed how long strided we'd gotten. It wasn't really a problem until the diagonal skinny where he left long. If the fences were bigger, that might've been a time where he didn't leave because he didn't feel like he had the power to get off the ground carefully. 

He's SO CUTE 

Second course, 1:10-1:57, we did a better job down the outside line, doing it in a pleasant six. But then I didn't ask him to come back until about four strides before the skinny on the diagonal and so we had a bit of a pop chip because I didn't "get my work done early". 

Those ears as he locks onto the fence! 

Third course, 1:57-2:44, this one went pretty well. 

Fourth course, 2:44-4:00 we started out okay on this one, but then it kinda fell apart. I softened the reins at him to the diagonal skinny again (problem child solo vertical it seems) and he lengthened into the pop chip. Then down the outside line I kept my hands a bit high as I tried to woah and pony objected to the feel on his mouth and did a hideous leap out. This discombobulation continued through cross cantering through the turn. He's much more apt to miss the R -> L change, I think it is just a strength issue. 

Final lines, 4:02-end, we improved upon the previous oops on the diagonal skinny and got the five done much smoother, hoorah! He also got a nice right to left change after the skinny because of the better canter. 

Since I took so long to write this recap that we've actually had another jump lesson in the interim, let's go ahead and launch into that. It is completely without media, sorry, but it was the same vertical and two poles, so just imagine that. 

PW asked if I wanted to work on anything. I told him our left hand turns kinda sucked and I wanted to strengthen those. We started with a bit of a dressage lesson with instructions NOT to soften the reins at the horse at any point. You're not being soft, you're letting him fall on his face and have inconsistent contact. Heard. PW would go "BOP" every time he bopped up off the contact. Eventually he had me try lifting my hands a bit since having them closer to the mane led to pony face burying behind the contact a bit. To start in the canter he had me going pretty slowly then only allowing forward once his back was moving and accessible. 

Then we took a short break and started jumping. We did a pole - 54 feet (show 4 stride) - vertical - 54 feet - pole. Over and over again. We were to do the waiting 5 strides. We were inclined to lengthen to the 4 after the fence, so I had to do a good bit of WOAHing with body, hands, and voice. Once Butterball got what we were going for he was landing much softer and smoother. The part where I struggled was NOT pushing him after the first pole. If the canter was decent then the five strides should just flow and I should trust the canter. The funny part was that when I FINALLY managed to start doing that, Butterball got much straighter over the vertical without me having to kick or pull him straight (not that pulling him straight ever works, but that's my inclination). Not pushing him gave him a bit more space to the fence and a much better jump. I could FEEL when I had little moments of "not trusting the canter" and tried to do too much. 

I was given homework of setting up that line with a cavaletti. The goal is to eventually do 4 to a 5 or even 6. They should be THAT adjustable. It also really helped me to feel what canter we landed in on the backside. The pony is clever so once he knows what we're going for he just kinda does it. But I could feel the difference between the easy 5 and what was going to be a fight to squeeze in 5. Now to bring that assessment to every part of the course...

One tired pony post-lesson

First clip. I waited too long, but man was it satisfying