Sue – How Do You Do at being an Onion?

September 27, 2008Posted inSue - How Do You Do!
Round pen canter success!  It took poles in the round pen.  I had them about 2" off the ground.  We clattered thru the poles at a pace and that undefined gait, we gaited horse people just love...the anti-rythym gait. We had some actual canter steps and we stopped before she broke out of the canter. I fed her a big Winnie's cookie crumb every time she cantered. Then I decided perhaps we could go for half a circle at the canter.  It took a while for us to canter at…

Sue How Do You Do trying to Canter!

September 24, 2008Posted inSue - How Do You Do!
The problem is that when I ask Sue to speed up enough to canter, she tightens her body in fear and we go into that wonderful gait that only gaited horse people know...the gait where every leg is out of sync with all the other legs.  It's called anti-rhythm. "Transitions," I thought.  We are having a hard time with transitions...even when I ask her to speed up just with a faint higher level of energy. First I thought that asking Sue to canter in the round pen would be the…

Nova’s Notebook – The Hat

September 23, 2008Posted inNOVA
What a good time I had tonight.  I rode two horses at Pine Dell tonight.  That means I got up early enough that I could work 8 hours and still have time to trailer my horses to Pine Dell and ride. That's a big day for me. Good times with good people! I came home so happy, whipped up my gormet peanut butter sandwich..after tearing the moldy corner off the bread.  I mixed the dog's fasttrak supplement in my water bottle and had a great meal.  But enough of my great…

Sue – How Do You Do -Still trying to Canter

September 14, 2008Posted inSue - How Do You Do!
The round pen has fairly deep sandy footing.  That's why Sue canters in there so well. Sue doesn't canter in the arena with me riding.  Oh maybe a step or two now and then when I have a pole for her to lift up her front end. When I ride her, she is still nervous when I put pressure on her to go faster.  If we are trotting and I put pressure on her to go faster, we disintegrate.  (Sue does a lot of disintegrating.) Occasionally I'll get a couple of canter…

Sue – How Do You Do with Doggies?

September 7, 2008Posted inSue - How Do You Do!
Dogs are nothing to worry about. We are used to dogs. I rode Sue today at home. We went further than we ever have before.  We were accompanied by our nice Lena dog. She's a senior German Shepherd.  Sue and I were doing our ground games when I noticed that Lena was trying to herd Sue.  Lena has never done that before.  I yelled at her and she slunk away. Sue and I were at the furtherest away from home than we ever have been. Lena was right besides us, circulating amoung…

Sue – How Do You Do “Tuck and Spurt”?

August 20, 2008Posted inSue - How Do You Do!
Tuck and Spurt is a new term I came up with tonight to describe something Sue does. When she gets nervous or fearful, she tenses, her rear end tucks in and she spurts forward.  This isn't a good thing.  It would be a good thing if we were in a starting gate ready to chase down a cow.  As we are riding along and I ask her to go forward, I might "overask" and she'll tense all up...tuck and spurt.  You might imagine this just destroys the transition that I am asking for. …