Canter Training and Rope Halters

     My horse has such heart. She is one of those horses they will try just about anything for you. Not that she succeeds in everything, but at least she tries. Mya is also the kind of horse that learns quickly. It does not take her long to catch on to something. Sometimes she just makes me proud. :)

     We were out in my roundpen practicing lunging. I have worked with Mya a lot on the lunge line to get her to stay calm and collected. A lot of horses, read Lady, do not want to canter. This is not the case with my feisty bay. She absolutely loves cantering. So her big training was actually getting her to walk and trot calmly. I'm proud to say that with a little work we have accomplished that goal. Now the goal is to teach her to canter with control. I don't want her to madly gallop around the place. I want to her to learn to canter calm and collective. None of this race-horse-nose-up-in-the-air stuff. Mya is getting tons better though and I am quite happy with her progress. The last time I lunged her we worked on transitions from trot to canter and canter to trot. What I think is awesome about this horse is that to get her to canter you only have to say the word. "Canter" and she is off. Mya is nice about paying attention to you when you work her.

      I was never really a fan of rope halters before, but now they are kind of starting to grow on me. I'm thinking about buying a couple more. I'd really like to get one specifically for Lady. Anyone have suggestions for colors? I was thinking either light blue for Mya and pink for Lady or the other way around. I found this website for rope halters which seemed to have a pretty good selection and I liked the variety of colors. Hey color is important, right? 

If there was one picture that described Lady's personality it would be this. lol. Typical mare.

     Anyways, Mya is still a little tender in her right front hoof, so I haven't ridden her recently. But I'm hoping that by next week she'll be doing better and we can put in some serious work.

My Racehorse Wannabe

   
     Thought I'd do a quick post. :) I worked with Mya a bit today. Decided to put the saddle on her and then lunge her. She was feeling pretty feisty and had lots of energy. Which is kinda funny to watch when it comes to Mya. She was feeling pretty good. I ended up working her at the walk, trot, and canter. (at the canter she pretended she was a racehorse) She did really well on her transitions. Both her upward transitions and her downward transitions. I was impressed; she has really improved a lot. Even though she cantered like a racehorse at least she wasn't out of control. So I was happy with that.

The Queen

     Finally some good news. After a week of Lady hopping around on three feet it looks like she is finally on the mend. She's still limping pretty bad but she is at least putting weight on her foot now. Before she wasn't even doing that. She also has her spunky spirit back. Lady is living up to her name and behaving like a queen. (Maybe I should have named her Queenie? But that would have a dog named Princess soooo) I think its pretty cute. I like this pony. Anyways, I am really glad she is starting to feel better. You have no idea how glad I am! I'm hoping that she be feeling better enough tomorrow to let her out into the small pasture next to her paddock. I'm sure she'd be happy to be let out into the pasture again. I've had her up in the stall for the past week because she hasn't been very mobile. I didn't want her to have to move around to eat. So she's got the special treatment has been enjoying food delivery. (aka hay) But, yes, I am happy she is taking a turn for the better. Hoof problems are not fun at all.

10 Questions

     I saw this list of questions over on Cash's Steppin' Up blog and I thought I would do them as well. I thought it looked like fun! So here are the first 10 questions,

1. Is your horse spooky or bombproof? 
     Mya isn't bombproof but she isn't "spooky" either. She's pretty spirited when you ride her and can sometimes be jumping about stuff. Lady is more bombproof. Probably not all the way there but pretty close.

2. Does your horse have a long or short stride?
     Mya has a long stride. She basically eats up the ground. Lady stride is so short its almost comical. She's so cute when she trots.

3. Describe your current barn in 3 words? 
     Where I live.

4. If you could switch barns, would you?
     Since I keep my horses at home, no. I mean I'd certainly love to have an actual riding arena, but there is nothing quite like being able to look out your window and admire your horses.


5. What is your favorite brand of breeches?
     I don't think I have a favorite. I'm not really into clothing brand stuff. I just wear whatever is comfortable.

 6. How many blue ribbons do you have? (Red if you live in Canada or Britain).
     Blue ribbons? If we're talking just blue ribbons, I have one. I  have a few of other colors though.

 7. How many saddle pads do you own?
     I have several western pads but I really only use one. I have three english saddle pads.

 8. Is your horse your phone background/lock screen?
     Not at the moment. (its actually Captain America's shield right now. lol)

 9. Do you go trail riding often? (weather permitting)?
     Sometimes. I'd rather ride in the arena though. I don't really have a variety of trails, so I get bored with them easily. Now I'd absolutely love to trailer out to some state park and go trail riding there. That would be fun!

 10. Favorite horsey movie? 
     Probably War Horse. Though Hidalgo is a close second. 

The Good and The Bad

     I guess horse ownership has its ups and downs. Honestly, at the moment I'm pretty frustrated. Lady is pretty lame right now. Its frustrating because I have down so much in the way of hoof care for my horses and yet both of them have gone lame in the past month. At least Mya is doing better now. But Lady is really sore on her left front hoof. I think she have a stone bruise, which might have turned into an abscess. My farrier recommended soaking her hoof in warm water with epsom salts so that is what I did. She is so sore she didn't even want to move around her pasture so I put her up in the corral/paddock area (where the stall is) and gave her some hay. At least she's happy about hay. When I left she was happily munching away. I just wish she wasn't lame in the first place, and its not from lack of trying on my part. At this point I am pretty sick of hoof care. Next horse I buy is going to have perfect feet. I love my horses dearly but I just wish they didn't have so many problems with their hooves.

Lady Learns

  
 
     I feel like nowadays the majority of my time with the horses is spent working on their feet. How is it possible that I ended up with two horses who both have terrible hooves! Lady, due to the fact that she'd been foundered by previous owners, has to be shod on all four feet. Particularly the front hooves. Mya is only shod on the front, and that is because she's had trouble with white line and cracking. Two years ago Mya had large cracks running up the middle of her front hooves, but with lots of attention and care her left front is now completely solid. The right, well, was. That is until she somehow manage to throw a shoe and take a chunk out of it. Which wouldn't have been so bad except that it got fungus of some kind in it. The farrier then had to cut away a lot of the hoof wall to expose the fungus. Now I regularly have to soak her right front hoof in a solution and then put medicine on it. I'm really hoping the fungus is dead and it will stay dead. I'd love to be doing other things than constant hoof care! But I don have to say I've spent some good quality time with the ponies because of this and I have learned a ton.


     I've made some breakthroughs with Lady's training recently. As you probably know, when I got Lady back in May one of the biggest things missing from her training was lunging. She had absolutely no concept of how to do it. She pretty much didn't know groundwork in general. So since I have had her that is one of the things we have worked on a lot. The other day I had her out in the round pen and we were doing the regular free lunging work when suddenly it seemed like something just clicked in Lady's brain. She started paying attention and actually listening. Before she was just trying to avoid me or halfheartedly obeying. But this time I could tell she was fully listening to me. She picked up the trot with just me saying the word and clicking. That was the first time she had responded like that. Before I always had to bring up the lunge whip to reinforce the command. But this time she didn't need it. She knew what I wanted without me having to make exaggerated motions. I have to admit I got really excited. It was so cool! That was also the first time she really did "join-up". She was following me around like a puppy dog. It was really amazing. Its like Lady finally accepted that we should work together.

In other news, she now lunges beautifully. (Though we're still working on the canter. She still needs a lot of work with that gait.)