Christmas celebrations

Between eating way too much, being a bad horse mom (so busy!), and everything else that comes with the holidays, it's a miracle I'm posting at all today. But I absolutely HAD to post pictures of my Christmas gift to my 18 month old niece Mahlya. As any good horsewoman would, I purchased her very first horse, a wooden rocker, which she absolutely loves. I took a bunch of pictures, including one where she's giving her new baby doll a ride. Within five minutes, while she wasn't paying attention, she toppled off the back of her noble steed and conked her head on the floor. Of course, as her aunt, I let her cry a little and calm down before I stuck her back on that horsie to make sure she wouldn't be afraid. Needless to say, 15 minutes later (after a cuddle with mom), she was back at her horse asking for help to get on.

Merry Christmas everyone and here's to the next generation of eventers!!

Clipping, Bits, and Lunging

Today Reffy's vacation officially ended! He may get a short one next week due to that Christmas nonsense awesomeness, but he'll be working steadily till then and even more so after. Our session started with a little bit of beauty work. As usual, he was a sensible dude, and allowed me to clip his bridle path, whiskers (until he stuck his nose in a bucket of water and was too wet to continue, doh!), stick the clippers close to his ears to see how that will go, and even clip a bit at the top of his tail where he'll eventually get a fancy dressage tail. My clippers are not so sharp for tail sculpting, so instead I grabbed my pulling comb and got rid of some of those awful dead broken bits. Check out the difference!

His tail when I first brought him home:

His tail after a little pulling and trimming today:

Looks pretty good right?

Then we headed into the indoor to lunge. You would never know he's had a whole week off. I put him in a loose ring, french link snaffle, and though he didn't fuss at all, I think it is too small for his mouth. Tomorrow I'm going to measure him to the best of my ability and then borrow as many different bits as I can until I find one we both like. I'd rather not buy a bunch of bits he's not going to use.

Here are a couple screen shots from his lunging video today.

Once again, I am really awful at holding a whip and line in my left hand and keeping him moving as forward as he should be while video taping. He was definitely much better when I wasn't trying to multi-task. He is also not as bendy and round when he is travelling to the left, so there will be more work in that direction from now on. I just can't wait to get this guy HOME!!! Lol.

We also worked on his habit of turning in every time I ask him to walk or woah.  I think the biggest problem is he doesn't actually woah until he feels like it, no matter what I'm doing on the end of the lunge line. Hopefully if we do a little bit every time and I verbally say woah while I'm riding for a while he'll figure it out. Woah means woah!! ;)

Lastly, I have cracked the awful head tossing, must rub, I'd like to see you try to get my halter on, nonsense after I take his bridle off. Hooray! I tied the lunge line around his neck for something to control him if needed, and just let him stand and settle after his bridle was off. Then I moved and stood in front of him, slipped his halter on, clipped on the cross ties, and viola! no thrashing around AT ALL! Go team!

Tomorrow we'll just continue on with much of the same and I think I'll get on him on Thursday. Stay tuned!

Too Much Excitement

For a Monday!!!!

I had such good intents of going and working Reffy today, but of course, things happen, and I only had time to fit in a quick groom and stuff some treats in his face. And give him cuddles. And take pictures of his Christmas present from Megan. And the chunk of tail he ripped out earlier this week. Gahhhh! As if his tail wasn't already a hot mess. Lol.

Oh well! Back to work tomorrow, and only 2 weeks til he moves home! Yayyyy!!!!!

First Ride!

Ok, so technically it's our second ride, but its the first time I've ridden Reffy since I brought him home. Of course, absentminded as I am, I completely forgot his bridle currently has no reins attached, and all of mine were at home in my trunk of stuff. Awesome. But I am, if anything, resourceful and creative, so after his longe, I buckled the side reins together to make a rein. Not exactly the greatest way to feel his mouth, but they worked in a pinch! All we did was walk, trot, and halt, working on coming back when I squeeze my knees and thighs rather than when I haul on his face. Because we don't haul on faces in dressage. Lol. He definitely is going to need MUCH more work on the longe in side reins and I think a lesson is going to be in order as soon as he moves home. At the end of the month. Woot! I can't wait. Life will be so much easier when I don't have to drive anywhere to ride him.

Back to the riding part. He definitely started to get the whole halt with the squeezing deal, but trot to walk he pretty much blew me off and I was bouncing around like an idiot with my stirrup leather width reins clutched in my hands. Glad no one saw that! He started to get a little fussy over my half halts, possibly from the chunky reins that gave me no feel or from the fact that he doesn't like his bit. Currently I have him in a plain eggbutt snaffle, because it was attached to Megan's bride (which I'm borrowing). I'm gonna hopefully get my hands on a couple double jointed ones with fun center links to see what he likes best.

The rest of this week I probably won't be able to get to the barn with everything going on right now (drs appointments, parties, etc). But next week I'll be back on track and hopefully making some progress. Yay new horse fun!

Fun with Side Reins!

Oh hey! I forgot about this blogging thing that I was doing. Just kidding, it's only been 5 days. But I have been slacking a tad. So here's what you've missed!

Last Thursday Ref had his first lesson in lunging with side reins. The ever fabulous Megan came out in the cold and dark to make sure I wasn't doing anything that would screw him up. What a smart cookie he is! He has obviously never been worked in side reins, and was a little tentative going forward the first time they were attached. But no meltdowns, hooray!

Friday Shoshana came to meet him for the first time so he just had a little free lunge in the indoor while we cooed over how stinking adorable he is.

Fast forward through the weekend where I tried to pretend I have a life other than horses (ha!) and was an awful, neglectful mom, to today, Monday! I lunged him in side reins again, going up a couple holes after he was nice and warmed up and remembered what he was supposed to do. He looks so fancy when he gets his nose out of the sky and carries himself! I'm still blown away by how QUIET he is. Granted he wasn't excessively hot when I tried him the first time, but he's pretty unflappable. And he prefers to put forth as little effort on the lunge line as possible. Apparently I need to strengthen my whip cracking muscles (or figure out some other way to get him to move out of his stilted short stride). I tried to take some video but it's really difficult to hold a lunge line and whip in one hand and video with the other. The picture is the only decent still from the video I could find, but he was much rounder when I wasn't trying to finagle everything at once.

Also, Reffy will be coming home at the end of the month. Woo hoooo! I can't wait. Then I'll have to invent reasons to leave the farm. Haha. Such a hard life!

My horse is adorable....

When dressed in dressage tack. Just sayin!

<3 him :)

Scraggly Tail Syndrome

I have always had the pleasure of owning and riding horses with exceptional tails. Dusty's was ridiculously thick and grew like a weed. One winter I kept it bagged and by summer he had 4 or 5 inches that drug on the ground. Theo was the same. Beautiful, full tails all around.

Reffy, on the other hand, is not so lucky in the tail department. His is fairly long, skims the ground when wet, but he has some unfortunate fried and bleached layers in the top half of his tail. His tail bone also brags an abundance of flakey, itchy skin. Poor guy.

Today started his, probably weekly, ritual of tail management. After washing as much as I could dunk in a bucket full of water with some Mane and Tail 2 in 1 anti-dandruff shampoo and conditioner, we set out on the fabulously tedious task of detangling his tail. By hand. While rubbing copious amounts of MTG into the tail bone. And spraying the entire length with a lanolin based hair moisturizer. Lol. The whole process took about an hour, and man was he a champ. He stood, and by stood I mean napped with a hind propped, in the cross ties the whole time.

I didn't have enough time to work him today, but I'll have plenty tomorrow. I think maybe he'll get all fancied up in dressage tack for his lunge. ;) Onward!!!!

Reffy comes home!

Yesterday (Sunday), Jeff, Ashley's dad and the owner of the farm where I work/live, and I drove out to Midatlantic Horse Rescue with his trailer to pick up my boy, Reformation. He loaded like a champ and made the 2 hour trip to his new temporary home like it was nothing. Of course, you can't bring home a new horse without some kind of excitement, and ours came with unloading. Reffy had a bit of a meltdown coming off the trailer and bonked his head pretty good on the step down :( Poor kid! No bumps or boo boos between his ears, but he did manage to scrape some hair off his nose. No more excitement please!

After that, he settle right into his stall, realized his straw bedding was NOT for eating, and got down to business munching some hay. Sadly, I had to go home and clean stalls and feed horses before I could come back and play with him. We had a good romp in the indoor, along with a nice roll in the sand before he was tucked in for the night.

Today, I got to come out to the barn around noon, now that I'm only working at home. Woo hoooo! My intentions were to see if he cross ties and lunges, and if he doesn't, start teaching him. Well, what do you know, the boy does both! He gets a little antsy in the cross ties, but didn't try and set back on them or walk through (I had the front and back doors closed, effectively boxing him in if that had happened). He definitely needs a little refresher for lunging, he gets confused when I ask him to slow his gait and stops and turns in on me or tries to change direction. We'll fix that in no time!

The rest of the week will be more of the same. Grooming in cross ties, lunging with and without tack, before Megan comes on Thursday or Friday to give us a lesson in proper lunging with side reins so I know I'm not doing it wrong. Wooo hoooo! I just love this horse :-D

Pictures are:

Cute nose speckles ;)
Grazing after lunging
Cross tied!
Hanging out in his stall.