Videos, Critiques, and Suggestions!

I'm posting these videos hoping for some positive critiques on what Koda and/or myself can work on.  We're just starting out our season and are not in shape at the moment, so please be kind with your comments!

Starting canter work (left lead)

Trot work to the right.

After watching this I've noticed that Koda is slightly off on the right hind :(
I looked at it the following day after seeing the video, and it seems like he's worked out of it for now at least!  Here's hoping it was just a tweaked muscle caused by coming back into work.

Transition work to the right.

Even though right now it is taking a while for Koda and I to get into work mode, once I have him there he does try his hardest to do what I'm asking.  I got some more video from A over this past week when it felt like he was really reaching under himself and pushing from behind.  In the footing that we have in the arena (EXTREMELY deep), it's a lot of work to get going in it.  I want to do work on the roads to build up our wind and stamina (trot sets anyone?) without a fight on my hands, and then save the arena or the yard for true schooling.  

In other news, does anyone have ideas on how to make boxy solid type jumps on a budget and are light enough to move solo?  I'm thinking something with jump poles as the frame with tarps stapled over them...

Easter Long Weekend = Riding Time!

The weather is really starting to warm up now, and riding has begun in earnest.  I've set out my summer schedule as follows:

June 14-15 Cygnet Dressage Show in Grande Prairie

June 28-29 Valleyview Dressage Show (tentative)

July 5-6 Noel Clark Cross Country Clinic in Grande Prairie (tentative)

August 2-3 Alhambra Clinic in Red Deer

August 15-17 Alhambra Summer Horse Trials in Red Deer (tentative)

August 26-31 South Peace Clinic and Horse Trial in Grande Prairie 

Now, I know I won't be getting to everything, but the idea is to get Koda out there more, but still keep it within a type of budget and my available vacation days.  The plan is to get out as much as we can, get used to hauling and have a set schedule for how we handle our ride prep.  I'm starting to do something new with Koda when I first swing a leg over.  Since Koda works best after he's got his blood pumping and he is focused on what we're doing (or trying to do).  The minute I get myself settled in the saddle, we are off into a nice brisk forward trot.  Toss in a bit of change in rhythm and pace, perhaps a circle or two to bring him back to me if he drifts off, but constantly getting him moving and having him focus on what we're doing and not his surroundings.  

**Video will be posted soon!**

For the past few rides over the long weekend, this warm up has been working beautifully.  After a few laps in either direction, we'll go straight into work, be it transitions, lateral work, circles and serpentines, or whatever.  I'm also tossing in some canter work at the beginning as well to just open him up a bit before getting down to business.  The great thing is, once I have him, he's with me and there.  He'll toss in a bit of attitude with a swish of a tail, or a slight head shake, but with a quick admonishment from me (either voice or quick whip flick), he's back on the job and trying his heart out.  

**Video will be posted soon!**

The plan for the upcoming weeks is to build up our strength by focusing on dressage and road work for Koda, gym time for me.  As long as we don't get any big rain, the snow should be gone and ground should by dry by May which means I'll be able to ride in the yard again.  We'll introduce jumping in May once we get ourselves back into shape.  I've been lucky, Koda has come out of the winter not too out of shape, is just right to start building his muscle back on.  I want to try to keep up with his musculature changes with conformation photos as many of you do already.  

 Thanks to the Fiancé for coming out and taking some video for me.  I find it's the best way for me to critique myself and see what I need to fix in my riding.  After watching these, I NEED to get my lower leg under control and keep my contact consistent, particularly when asking for upward transitions.

Retro-active posting

Hey everyone!

Lately I've fallen off the blogging wagon, but we're back and rarin' to go!  Keep your eyes peeled for some retroactive posts from the past month or so :)

Cheers,

NSRider and Koda

Spring Time Tantrums

Since this winter has been colder and more bitter than most, I haven't had much of a chance to get out and ride, let alone handle, Koda.  He's pretty much been running amok in the herd with minimal handling since the end of November.  Now that it's warm enough to ride and be outside without having your skin freeze, conditioning has begun.  Of course, Koda being the type of gelding he is, is ok with this, but only to a point.  Heaven forbid I stop him from doing something that he is adamant about being 'right' on.  It really started to show when we went down to visit the farrier.  Koda was being a pretty big stink about things over the summer he wouldn't blink an eye at or care.  After talking it over with the farrier, we figured it was due to him not being handled very much in the past few months.

Wooly and showing his hay belly

Cue the start of reminding Koda of his manners

Later that week, it really started to really warm up and the road leading to the barn finally cleared up enough to ride on.  I tacked up and planned on doing some walk-trot work down the road, not too far (don't want another hissy fit scenario like last year) but enough to get a good workout.  Well, apparently Koda was okay with this except for the last bit.  We were having issues with trotting straight when heading away from home, so we would head away then head home, away, and home, etc.  He finally had some nice straight work heading away and I decided to end the ride there on a good note.  When I halted him to dismount, Koda starts flinging his head all around, letting me know of his general pissed off feelings.  He's gone up on me in the past, so I was not having any of that.  Since I was already dismounted, I decided to handle it from the ground.  Every time he flung his head around, mr. attitude had to back up away from home.  We went about with this for several minutes until he finally settled.  I popped back up in the saddle and we had a nice and easy walk back to the yard.

Silly pony.

For the next few rides I'm going to have to be hyper-vigilant on how I allow Koda to act while I am handling him.  I know he has a slightly passive aggressive personality, kind of a lazy dominant attitude, but I need to keep start up bad behaviour in check before it can grow into something more dangerous.

This past morning, we went to the arena and lucky for us, the Ag. Society kept the round pen up so that we could use it that morning.  I haven't round penned Koda yet, so I thought it was a perfect time to get his feet moving and to re-establish some manners.  As expected, Koda was a bit slow to start, reluctant to move out and throwing some 'tude.  Now, I don't really round pen as some would use the term.  When I round pen, I'm essentially loose lunging my horse, seeing him move off my physical cues from the ground.  While we worked through walk and trot work, Koda was great, no fireworks.  When I pushed him up into the canter, he threw in a few crow hops towards me, and I was having NONE of that.  He received some big pressure to move his arse around that pen (got to love the trusty cowboy rope) until I said stop.

At the end of it, I was extremely pleased with Koda, and he seemed to think that I was okay too (personification, I know).  Since we both worked up a sweat, I decided to ride Koda bareback to cool out.  He was pretty good considering he hasn't had that done in a very long time.  I want to start riding him like that more often.  When I had Dillon, I would sometimes school him bareback.  It was a GREAT time, although he was a bit more like riding a couch than a two by four.

Friends again

  

And So It Begins...

Old man winter is finally heading out of here and I can start getting Koda and I back into riding fit!  Living up here, we really don't get a spring at all, it's more of a thaw.  It starts slowly in March when the weather decides that staying below -20C isn't the best thing to do in the world, so it warms up.  Of course it's still snowy as heck, with more than 4' in some places, but it's starting to melt.  It's a beautiful day when we don't have to plug in our vehicles to ensure that they'll be warm enough to start the next day.

Of course, during this season we have to contend with the ice and the slush.  It warms up during the day to above freezing, then turns everything into an ice rink over night.  The worst part of it is that one of the lower parts of the pasture is right by the water tank, which makes it treacherous to get to for 2- and 4-leggeds alike.  We've tossed some straw down to help give them some traction in the area, but it won't get any better until the temperatures really start to rise and the ground isn't frozen. 

Koda and I have started doing some simple easy rides in the yard.  Since the yard was only ploughed for what was needed, we have some different terrain to ride through from packed down snow (slippery!) or deep snow that goes up to his hocks.  Its kind of like a mini terrain park where I just take him around in different areas, playing with a little lateral work (leg yields, turns on haunches and forehand), backing up, and being very specific to where his feet fall. 

We had a moment the other day where backing up was the hardest thing in the world, especially going straight instead of curling around to the left.  Our exercise was to march forward 10-15 strides, back 5.  The conversation went something like this:

Me: Back, Koda
Koda: Okay!  (starts backing around in a circle to the left)
Me: No, straight back (left leg cue to move haunches over)
Koda: .....
Me: Koda, move your haunches over! (more insistent cue with left leg)
Koda:....
Me: GET YOUR BUTT OVER!!

Koda: OMG YOU'RE EVIL!!!!  WHAT DO YOU WANT?!

....

Koda moves a touch to the right with his haunches.

I checked myself to make sure I wasn't giving mixed cues, moved to a different section of the yard and went at it again.

Me: Back, Koda
Koda: ABSOLUTELY NOT (head in air, drama llama style)
Me: Koda, back up
Koda: NO!!!!! (more drama llama)
Me: *double check all cues, all seems correct* BACK!
Koda: Not. Moving.
Me: FINE, move your haunches then
Koda: sure (does a lovely half turn on the haunches)

After that point, we did some work on doing smaller back steps, emphasis on straightness and not asking for too much at a time.  Once Koda had his feet moving again, and I was asking for less steps back, we were fine.  Note to self: Bring Koda back slowly into work, he will shut down if I push him too fast, or will give me a temper tantrum.

Oh the temper tantrums...

Northern Living

When I moved up north I knew that the way of living would be different, but I didn't realize how much different it would be.  Living where I did before on the east coast and growing up in the shadow of the largest city in Canada, I was used to certain things being a given, particularly in my horse life.  Before, we always had a warm dry place to tack up and ride if we wanted, never had to worry about wind chill or ice on the ground since we always had a place to spend time with our horses out of the elements.  There was no worry at all about blanketing or if my horse was going to grow enough winter coat for the winter!  This is a true worry with Koda up here, he doesn't grow much winter coat.  This year I kept his blanket off for as long as possible, and still he didn't fluff up half as much as the other horses were.  So, Koda got to be babied all winter long and wear his blankies.  (As an aside:  between the Original Rambo and Smartex Bucas, the Bucas wins hands down).

On the way to the barn

Up here, we have winter from November until the middle or end of April depending on what you call the end of winter.  If to you that means there is no snow on the ground, then we're going into May. That is a solid six months of winter weather where the high is around -10 to -25 degrees Celsius.  Also, during that time the sun is staying down longer and the shortest days give you about 4-5 hours of week sunlight.  On top of that, we have icy roads and, in some cases, blocked roads that even if you have 4x4 you may not get through since the snow removal isn't always on time.

Ice bridge!

Keeping horses up in this area is a delicate balance between the absolute needs and the time for luxuries.  If you tried to keep horses up here like most barns that are more southern, you wouldn't really have time to work or you have a ton of money to spend to do it!  I'm so glad I found a solid and reliable place to board my horse, where the necessities (food, shelter, fresh water, safe fencing, adequate space for all the animals) are covered.  It may not be the most glamorous place to keep him, but it's safe and secure which makes me happy. 

The biggest thing I've had to get used to living up here in my horse life is that for most of the winter, it is too cold or too icy to ride outside, or it is too icy or too cold to haul to the indoor arena.  For four months during the winter, the only way I would spend time with Koda is to bundle up for -20 or lower, get in the truck and drive the 25 minutes to the barn to give him scritches and love for a few minutes before my fingers go numb and then drive home.  Last year, with all the drama surrounding the EIA situation, I almost went crazy not being able to go out and see him (at the same time our truck had died and the car wouldn't be able to handle the roads).  This winter has been better since I was out there more often, either just giving scritches, doing blanket changes when A wasn't home, or doing barn checks. 

Barn driveway

We're finally past the point of no return and things are starting to warm-up here!  People are saying we may have a gradual warm-up this spring which will be nice so that we won't get swamped or flooded like last year.  Cannot WAIT to pull the trailer out and get into conditioning mode :)

Back from the Abyss!

I have been a bad, neglectful blogger!  Sorry for falling off the face of the earth, all is well here, have just had not much to blog about when it comes to Koda or equestrian pursuits as other things have been happening up here.  The Fiance and I just got back from a mini vacation and things are starting to settle down a bit more, so there will definitely more blogging to come.  Between the past blog and this one, I've finally broken the ice and got back in the saddle in 2014.

EARS!

Hello handsome

Koda is not impressed with your selfie skills

Since it's still all ice and snow up here, Koda and I just played around a bit in the plowed and unplowed part of the yard, doing lateral work and making our way through the deep snow.  It was great getting back up in the irons and I'm happy we can still just go out and do these small things this early in the season.

Fingers crossed for the weather to keep warming up!

As I'm sure none of you know, I am a HARD CORE fan of the Olympics.  Yes, I know they have all of their issues, corruption, etc., but that still doesn't tarnish what these athletes are doing.  The drive, passion, and absolute determination these athletes show is inspiring and I can't wait for the weather to clear up to really get into schooling and training.  In the mean time, it's all about getting myself physically ready (darn winter flub...).  Hello cardio and core, how I need to do more of you.

Anyways, that's really all we have here for now, looks like this long weekend is going to be a super warm one, so I'll be spending more time out in the saddle. Stay tuned!