Category: longeing

chores · longeing · winter

Winter Mocks Plans

Amanda6 Comments

First – Hannah put up some terrific photos & video of the GMHA sleigh rally – go and check them out!

After a gorgeous day on Sunday, I arrived at the barn to do chores on Monday morning to find the vilest weather possible: mid-30s and raining. All the snow and slush had frozen solid overnight, and the water was pooling on top of the ice. It was impossible to walk with any speed. The assistant barn manager and I spent nearly an hour chipping gravel from the frozen pile at the back of the barn, shoveling it into a wheelbarrow, and then scattering it in front of the barn to try and create a path with some traction to get to the paddocks. About three quarters of the way through, the rain picked up and started blowing sideways and we reached the joint decision not to turn them out anyway.

But it was a damn fine path nonetheless.

I put Tristan’s waterproof sheet on him, grabbed some hay, and put him out in the shed paddock you can see in that picture anyway. He hung out in the shed, and I checked on him every 20 minutes or so to make sure he wasn’t too cold or wet or generally disgruntled. All the other horses got a turnout rotation in the indoor to stretch their legs while we did their stalls. Tris managed about 2 hours outside before he asked to come in, and he got cozied up with a cooler in his stall with some hay for a little while – and then he got his turn in the indoor to keep the baby company.

SO FLIPPING CUTE.

Baby Greta was so happy to be out of her stall she bucked and farted her way around the indoor, and Tristan even put up some antics, cantering around and following her and making some leaps through the air. I wish I’d thought to get a video of it!

When stalls were done, I settled in with a snack to watch a jumping lesson. Prince heard the crinkle of my cheese & crackers wrapper and opted out of focusing on the job at hand.

Whoops.
Then Tris got longed with his chambon and his rubber butt-thingy. I tightened up the chambon so that it would actually kick in if he flung his head into the air and after some cranky flailing, he settled in to some beautiful stretchy work. I really do like the chambon: it’s the sort of thing that doesn’t trap him into a particular way of going, but reminds him without harshness when he’s dramatically bracing. He was even starting to soften in the canter!
Tonight, the plan was to ride and incorporate poles at walk and trot, but when I checked the weather forecast this morning I discovered that we’re not predicted to get into double digits, and the wind chill is far, far below that. I’m still a bit torn but it looks like the smart thing to do will be to stay home, since it’ll be too dark to hack (my preferred too-cold activity) and we won’t get any productive work done in single digit temperatures. Booo.

farrier · longeing

BEST PONY IN ALL THE LAND.

AmandaLeave a comment

Late Monday, the barn owner checked in with me to ask if I’d talked to the vet about dropping off more ace for Tristan’s farrier appointment on Wednesday. CRAP. I hadn’t. So I called the vet, and she was completely unable to come out in the next few days – was actually indisposed and not working.

(If you’re new-ish to this saga: Tristan has been an utter shit for the farrier for the last 18 months, since the start of his foot drama, up to the point of flinging himself to the ground in the middle of a trim, and has been drugged for every single trim/shoeing since arriving in Vermont.)

Double crap. So I told the barn manager, with profuse apologies, and she said she’d make it work. They’d start on him first and go slowly if need be, and could always hold off for another week or two if necessary.

Yesterday, I sat on pins and needles all day waiting for a text; I didn’t want to bother them, but I wanted desperately to know if it had all gone well. It was a new farrier, too, who wasn’t used to Tristan’s assholery. When I left work, I texted the barn manager to say that I was heading to the barn, and hoping no news was good news. She texted back to give her a call when I got to the barn. I spent the rest of the drive to the barn with a sick pit in my stomach; that couldn’t be good, right?

Arrived at the barn, practically ran down the aisle, threw open the stall door, brought Tristan out…and all four feet were trimmed, with new shoes on the front! So the farrier had managed to get them on, at least. I called the barn manager who reported that he was PERFECT. Not a foot wrong! The barn manager didn’t even have to stand with him, he chilled out in cross ties. The farrier advised one more cycle of shoes and then barefoot again in the spring.

BEST PONY OF ALL TIME EVER. I hugged him and kissed him and very nearly started crying right there in the aisle. WHEW.

I groomed him and did his topline stretches and then we did about 35 minutes of longeing, wtc, setting up a circle of death and elevating them with blocks. He did beautifully at the trot, adjusting his stride to nail them perfectly and stretching out and down, lifting his back. He sort of started to get it at the canter, but never had a really successful circle with them. He did have a couple of nice poles that he took in a lifted stride, though.

Here’s some comparison photos.

Taken 12/16/13 for comparison.

Post-trim, taken 12/18/13. SO AWESOME.

conditioning · longeing · topline

Tristan’s new least favorite torture device

AmandaLeave a comment

I mentioned once before that I have a new technique for making Tristan work harder. I’m really pleased with the way it turned out, actually: it does exactly what I hoped it would, and it will be a great tool for those winter days where it’s too flipping cold to work for a full hour.

When I was first putting it together, the barn manager walked by and I explained it to her and she exclaimed “It’s like a redneck Pessoa system!” Well, sort of. It has more in common with a TTouch bandage wrap. I like to think it combines the best of both. In essentials: it’s a resistance band that loops around his hind quarters and attaches to a surcingle, making him work twice as hard with every step, strengthening his hind end, stifles, and lower back.

I can’t necessarily take credit for this. I read that someone on the COTH forums had tried it and loved the idea immediately, found it was quick, easy, and inexpensive to put together, and worked exactly as advertised. Ready?

Step 1: Two carabiners, purchased at the hardware store downtown. My hand will show you their approximate size. They’re not large, nor are they mountain-ready, but they did the trick nicely. $1.49 each.
Step 2: 8 feet of surgical tubing, purchased at a local medical supply store. (And if I have a local medical supply store in freaking Vermont, you have one nearby you too.) There were two widths; I went with this one, which is about 1/2″ in diameter. $14.00.
Step 3: Tie the surgical tubing to the end of the carabiner. Get a nice, tight knot. Pull the surgical tubing around the hind end, under the tail, tucked in that groove just above the hocks, and around to the other side. It helps if you have it attached to a surcingle or girth already for this step. I pulled until it was fairly snug, and it took a bit of muscle to pull it back, but it wasn’t so tight that it was hard to pull. More like, I could just feel resistance. I tied it off on a carabiner attached to the other side, and had about 1 foot of tubing left. (So I’d recommend closer to 10 feet for a larger horse; Tris is right on the line between cob and horse sized for many tack fitting things.)
Step 4: Torture your pony. When I longe him in this, he oversteps 2-3X more than he does without it. He also gets tired much faster, so I limit the use of this to 10 minutes, max, and only 5 of that in the trot. 
I am still feeling out when I think it is most useful; I tend to use either this OR the chambon, because I don’t think it’s fair to isolate two muscle groups at once right now. If he were more muscled up, or in better shape, sure, I’d double up. I wouldn’t use either until he’s warmed up, but that’s my own personal neurosis.
I’ve used it both in longeing and under saddle and I almost like it better under saddle, because I can direct that hind end push more effectively. He is a more forward horse on the longe line, and that’s when I tend to use the chambon to help him reach and develop back muscles without interference from the saddle.

longeing · topline

More Longeing & Topline Photos

AmandaLeave a comment

Longed again today. He’s starting to really stretch out nicely and get the hang of it. I punched about 5 more holes in the chambon…and it’s still too long. Whoops. Punched three more after the session and hopefully next time it will actually kick in.

We did: 3 minutes walk both directions; 3 minutes trot both directions; 3 minutes trot both directions over cavaletti (set up in alternating half-heights, about 6″ up, 4 poles in a row), then put the chambon on and did 4 minutes in each direction: 1 minute walk, 2 minutes trot, 1 minute canter.

He was definitely getting a little tired by the last session but still did nicely. A little warm, but thankfully not sweaty – but then again it had just hit 20 as our high of the day when I got to the barn, so there wasn’t much heat transference going on.

My sad moment for the day was when I took a step back while longeing and felt a crunch on my boot…and realized my camera had fallen out of my pocket and in the whole entire indoor, I put my foot on top of it at that moment. I loved that camera. I took it by the computer repair place on the way home and got a repair estimate…that was 2X what a new, nicer camera would cost. Ugh.

Before longeing, though, I finally got topline photos, so here’s my baseline for comparison.

You can see the white spot from the saddle rub here. 😦

longeing

Home again, home again

AmandaLeave a comment

Got back into Vermont late Sunday night, and after a staff meeting first thing, I headed over to the barn to see Tris.

Report back from the barn manager was that he had been an exemplary lesson pony, if a bit tired at the 40 minute mark. I’ve been focusing on getting a good ride and then being done, so rarely went beyond 40 minutes. It was good for him to work that hard, I’m sure.
While I was away, I stopped at Dover Saddlery and picked up a new sheepskin half pad. It fits his back nicely and I think it will do the job. It’s got plenty of padding, for all that it was one of the less expensive on the list.
I put on his bridle sans reins, his surcingle over his new half pad, and unpacked the chambon that arrived in the mail while I was gone.
We longed on a similar schedule as last time: 3 minutes each side, warming up at the walk and then trot, then a bit of canter, without poles. Then I attached the chambon and asked him again for walk and trot both direction, and a bit of canter.
On the plus side: he was going really well! He was moving out, stretching down, chewing, and engaging. On the minus side…none of that was due to the chambon, which needs about eleventy billion more holes to be adjusted for his weird size. So mostly today served to get him used to wearing it, without it ever engaging.
I was really happy with the way he worked, overall, and very glad to see him again.

eta: I am an idiot who totally forgot to add in the most fun part of longeing today, which was that after we finished our circles I trotted him over a very small 2′ vertical that was set up from a previous lesson in the ring. As soon as he saw the jump he locked on, went straight for it, and jumped it beautifully. We did twice in each direction, and it was amazing to watch him hunt out the jumps and hold a beautiful canter after them. Tiny baby steps!

longeing · massage

Discouraging Developments

Amanda3 Comments

Tristan has been chuffing right along, but this week we were greeted with a setback. After some lovely long road hacks and some good flat work, two things happened nearly at the same time.

The first is that I pulled off his saddle and finally, sinkingly, acknowledged that the white spot on his wither was not just an artifact of his winter coloring (which does in fact change from season to season) but an actual saddle rub/pressure point. Neither saddle interferes too much, and in fact both fit him well, but with the lack of muscling on his back (still, ugh) saddle pads are slipping down and pushing tight against his withers by midway through the ride.

Soon after that, he got a massage in which we confirmed that he was pretty tight and awful through his left side, in a triangle out from that pressure point, and his muscling is lopsided. My friend, his massage therapist, looked at saddles with me and agreed that they are both essentially good fits – the jump saddle perhaps a bit less so – but that saddle pads almost instantly want to slide back and down.

So a solution, in two parts:

1) A fleece half pad, to be his only saddle pad for a period of time. The idea is the fleece will be forgiving and cushioning and I’ll just have to stay on top of brushing it off/cleaning it regularly.

2) Longeing in a regular program. In an ideal world, this would be in side reins. In Tristan-world, this is simply not an option if I want him to develop proper muscles. He has never, ever, ever softened into side reins, and I made another attempt at it a few weeks ago and still he braced and flailed and fought through every stride. They don’t have the responsive give that he needs and also he’s kind of a jerk and stiff through the jaw anyway, and side reins are just not the right tool for him.

So for now, longeing nekkid, 2x a week, for 20 minutes at a time, 3 minutes per side. Friday night I brought him out and warmed him up at the walk and trot, then set out poles in a circle of death exercise. He started off tripping over them every time, but eventually softened into taking them in stride and doing some stretching over his back.

Here’s step 1, at the walk and trot (please ignore my sad pathetic graphic skills):

Then we picked up a canter and he bucked and farted and kicked in and generally was an ass and scared the small child on a pony at the other end of the ring. But he settled down for step 2 at the canter:
Then back to the walk and trot for step 3:
By step 3, he was really hunting out the poles, and with voluminous praise for a) going forward and b) taking the poles in stride, it was kind of fun to see him realize that it could be a game.
Step 1 was 3 minutes to each side, walk and trot, so 12 minutes total; step 2 was 2 minutes to each side (1 at trot and 1 at canter) so 4 minutes total, and step 3 was 3 minutes to each side (1 walk and 2 trot) so 6 minutes, for 22 minutes total. He was a bit warm and clearly a bit tired by the end from all the lifting over the poles and from the concentrated work, but he also responded really well to the exercise.
We’ll continue variations on this though probably only once a week because for now it is hard work. On non-pole days I’m going to do some experimenting: I’ve ordered a chambon from SmartPak after much researching and thinking and deliberating. I think it will help him reach in the right way to build his back, and it has the right give to reward him. We’ll only use it on the longe and only for short periods, but I’ll report back on progress.