Jump School and random gushing

Can't stand the cuteness.  So cute.

Have I mentioned lately how awesome this horse is and how much I wuv wuv wuv him??  :)

Jump school yesterday, he was such a superstar as always (after having been in the ring while another horse ran away with its rider and galloped around out of control...Soonie stood stock still like I asked him too).  He earned some great compliments from the trainer for his progress over fences, and from some folks who had not seen him since he arrived this summer.  They were floored at how quiet he was, and how well he was going.  No surprise to me, but I suppose if they only saw him in those first few days of "Whee!" then it is a pretty dramatic change.

We have a clinic with a BNT next weekend.  It should be a good experience for Bubba, jumping some fancier fences and putting up with some spectators.  I doubt he's going to care, but it's nice to have an opportunity do some extra things in the barn.

Tonight was Trot Night for us, and we had a nice little ride.  Toward the end of the ride, I tried sitting the trot for 3-5 strides with Soon in a deep stretch.  He stayed forward, kept his back up, and stayed in a great stretch while I sat, which is a nice indicator of his progress.  I'll keep the sitting trot to that for the time being, just a couple strides at a time and allow his back to develop even more before I worry about it.  Good, good boy.  :)

I stand by mounting blocks with no encouragement

Never stop learning!

Video from 2011 of George Morris on Catherine Haddad's Grand Prix horse.  This makes me smile because it just proves that good horsemen embrace the idea that they should never stop learning, never stop trying new things, and never stop trying to become better horsemen. What a great and fun video.

And I am having the biggest rush of deja vu writing this right now.  Oh well.  Soonie was fantastic again tonight, despite that we were riding around lessons AGAIN.  We can't seem to catch a break lately, my timing sucks.  First we tried to do our walking warm up around a jumping lesson, then immediately afterwards two horses came in to lunge, so we got full run of the ring for only about five minutes.  We ended up in the far half of the ring, and made the most out of it.  We just focused more on stretching and forward, keeping consistent contact (and loving on that outside rein since we were constantly on a circle), and he had some really lovely moments both in stretch and in a shorter outline in the trot and canter.  Such a great boy.  We managed to be productive despite the circumstances, and I was happy.  I love my man.  :)

Wheee!!! .....? Nah. And 100th post

50 mph winds outside last night and this is exactly what Soonie thought of it:

That was me coaxing his ears up, because he was sleeping.  Yeah.  No "whee."  Just working on a long rein, dodging lesson kids and business as usual.  Such a good boy.  :)

It occurred to me after I posted the picture that this is the 100th post on The OTTB Blog.  I didn't know when I started how in-depth I would get with the posts, or how long I would continue.  I am very happy that I started writing about Soon and our journey together, because had I decided not to, then all those little moments might be lost.  It is very cool to look back on earlier posts and see how far he has come.  Chronicling our training has been extremely rewarding for me from a trainer's perspective.  While I intended for this blog to just be a personal journal to capture Soon's progress, I hope that in our own way, we can contribute to educating others about the Thoroughbred breed.  I have made some posts about my feelings on certain issues plaguing the horse industry and Thoroughbreds in particular (and I'm sure more will be on the way), because I do have strong opinions and perhaps I do like to listen to myself talk (write) on those subjects.  Bloggers do have egos, after all, and those that claim they do not are lying.   ;-)

Hopefully all my rambling and bad pictures offer value to those exploring the possibilities of owning a Thoroughbred, and what it's like to bring one along.  At the end of the day, there are just so many great TBs out there, with so much to offer.  They're just looking for the right person. 

Go Thoroughbreds!

Standardbred Support in AUS

Here's a great story out of Australia, about a Standardbred and his girl's road to one of the country's most prestigious competitions.  What a wonderful thing that she, her family, the harness racing industry supporters are doing in spreading the word about another great breed.  Gorgeous horse, outstanding riding, and a truly remarkable effort to showcase the versatility of racing breeds!

http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2013/s3882770.htm

Friday Flat School

Soonie and I had a great flat school today!  :)   I wanted to focus on the following:

• maintaining more consistent contact with his mouth
• more activity/engagement from behind
• position (head up, shoulders back/chest open, hands up with shorter rein)

As you probably have already guessed, these made a noticeable, positive difference in our ride.  I have probably been placing too much emphasis on the lateral work, and while it will always have a role in our flat schools, I need to keep my focus on the basics.  Soon was stellar - he got great push from behind, maintained a lovely, deep stretch while staying light in front, and overall just felt like he had a whole extra gear tonight!  Trot and canter especially felt huge compared to his average gaits.  He spent probably 90% of the school in stretch (with some stints of a Training level outline), and I was very excited with how he felt.

We successfully did trot to canter transitions tonight as well!  I have skipped them on him and done walk/canter transitions only, because trot/canter transitions were proving a little rough for him.  He tended to get strung out, and I decided to work on walk/canter (which helps him stay under himself more) while I worked on his trot, particularly the stretch trot.  With yesterday's video feedback, I decided the trot/canter transitions were worth trying.  We did left lead first, then right lead.  Very well done both times, and we nailed the right lead on the first try (trot to right lead canter had been disastrous in the past)!  Going from the stretch into the canter seems very useful for him, so we'll be working on that more.  I got a lovely, stretchy canter and a huge, open stride, and got to shorten his outline in the canter for a bit, then let him back down.  Again, he felt fantastic.  Back up, big push from behind, and we were eating up ground.  Just amazing.  :)

Can you imagine this guy
being mean? ;)

I will note that Soonie really hates horses in his working space.  He gets along great outside in the big herd, seems to play really well with others, but get him in a ring with other horses, and he turns into Boss Mare.  Seriously.  It's like his personal bubble is half of the ring, and if you're in his half of the ring while he's focusing on work, well then screw you.  Ears flat back, making awful faces, and then he's stretchy happy self as soon as we go by the other horse.  Crabby Pants.  He's really happy in his work, and when he's alone that's the only thing I see (happy relaxed horse), but around others it's always happy relaxed horse with moments of "AHH I'M GONNA EAT YOUR WHOLE FACE" as he passes others.  You can see it in the video (somewhat mild), and tonight it was hysterically mean.  I was almost falling off laughing at one point because his faces are ridiculous.  We had to ride around one lesson, then the next one came in with three horses, so lots of face making.  Thankfully though, I was able to find enough space for us to focus and really get some great work done. 

Overall, an incredibly productive night with some real progress.  I feel like we have a new focus and we're on the right track to achieving some wonderful things.  :)

Show jumping 1990's style

I'm not sure I'm okay with show jumping footage from the 1990's being considered "old" or "retro."  But having said that, this clip brings back some great memories!  I love the footage of the 21 year old For The Moment (aka "Fred"), the American Thoroughbred.  I loved watching him go.  Also, I could watch Michael Matz ride all day. 

Flat work video

Today's video revealed a couple of things: 

• I hate riding around lessons because they lead to unplanned downward transitions
• George Morris would probably say I ride like a monkey with broken arms
• Computers f*cking suck.

Yeah, it has been a nonstop struggle since about 4pm this afternoon to get the video from the camera, load it, edit it, convince my video-editing computer not to have a seizure, and upload it on YouTube.  I don't know if my computers are telling me that people shouldn't see this video or they both decided today was a great day for anarchy, but seriously...eff you guys (the computers, not my awesome two followers).

Even when I think I'm carrying my hands I'm not actually carrying my hands.  My reins need to be shorter and I need to be taller through the shoulder.  My back was/is legitimately killing me, so that wasn't helping.  Other than that, Soonie is looking good, and most of the video is long and low work to engage/lift his back.  I was focusing on keeping his hind end active, and its a big improvement over our first video from September 2013.  He's been absolutely fantastic and I'm very happy with his progress and attitude, as always. 

Posting this because it's the only thing that's made me laugh this evening.  Pretty much sums up how I feel about technology:

Other great animal videos

First off, this is one smart Beagle!

I saw this posted on Facebook, and yes I definitely teared up a couple of times.  Just about lost it when the handler was getting emotional.  Very moving:

Sustainable Dressage

  Sustainable Dressage is a great resource for classical dressage foundation training.  I really love her bit on Work and Stretch. 

Horse terms that make me punch kittens

So there was a thread on the COTH forums about equine terms that made people crazy, and after about two seconds of reflection, I knew what mine were.

"Equestrian"  -  I can't help it, this word makes me want to punch something adorable and furry.  I seem to only hear it from decidedly NON-horsey people.  Horse folks I know never use it willingly, especially when speaking to other horse folk, and I know that I don't use it with other horse people.  When normal people ask me what I do, I tell them "I ride horses."  That immediately sparks that look of intelligence and they fire back, "Oh you're an EQUESTRIAN!!" (*dumb smile*) or "Oh you do EQUESTRIAN!"  Yeah.   This makes me think of the summer Olympics, where all the riding events (which we horsey types would refer to as "Show Jumping," "Eventing," and "Dressage") are all lumped in as "Equestrian!!1!"  It doesn't help that the word sparks visions of hundreds of women from the city dressing up in bad tweed, beige tights and faux riding boots in order to attend the hunt races.  Like they thought it was some type of requirement to look like an equestrian in order to watch our sports.  Sure.  Ridiculous.  I call myself a Rider.  We go riding.

"OTTB" - Before you ask, YES, I see the irony in me saying this word drives me crazy given the fact that I named my blog with it (my bad).  I wasn't very active in the online horse community when I started this blog last summer, and having spent a few months on large discussion forums, I finally realize how completely overused the OTTB term is.  Holy cow.  It is literally getting to a point where people use it almost as a breed itself.  They're Thoroughbreds!  TBs!  You probably don't need to refer to your 15 year old TB (who came off the track at 3 years old having started a couple of races and has been a hunter superstar since then) as an OTTB.  But I guess that's just a matter of opinion.  I'm trying to do my best to refer to Soon as a TB when I describe him online so that I don't add to my own frustration.  Nothing else to say except I kind of wish maybe I had thought out this whole title/web address thing a little better.  Oh well.

"Head Set" -   Holy shit.

^ That GIF just about sums up my reaction.  Get off the head set obsession people!  Drop the gadgets and learn some "back to front" riding.  Make your horse happy and you can be happy too.



And now for today's funny, this is probably going to be a fantastic dressage horse: