New Setting

I finally got permission to ride at HRK's facilities - although they haven't billed me yet :P They have 2 indoor arenas (20*60 and 20*40), a longing rotunde, 3 outdoor dressage arenas and 2 outdoor jumping arenas - a little fancier than the non-standard size, poorly lit, sloping dirt arena we have at AG ;)

I rode up there last weekend, but their outdoor show had been moved inside because of rain, so I wasn't able to ride in the indoor. I went out to the outdoor arena the show was supposed to have been at, it was marked out with letters and judges booths, and took the opportunity to desensitize him a bit to riding in an unfamiliar arena. He was quite tense, and I wasn't able to get much work out of him, but I rode him around in walk and trot until he relaxed, gave him a good at and then rode home again.

I tried again Thursday morning. There were a handful of other riders in the large arenas, seemed to be the bereiters and bereiter students training their dressage horses, and awful lot of piaff-passage-pirouettes-flying changes etc being trained - and there I was on my long-haired, feathered pinto, just trying to get him to relax and stretch FDO :P

He was more tense than at home of course, but still very rideable, didn't shy at anything. It probably helped that there were other horses there. He did catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror at one point, where he stopped, stared, and whinnied - I guess he's missed being able to see himself LOL

I was able to ride much more focussed in the indoor than at home, no footing issues to consider, mirrors to check my position and check his straightness etc, plus being the worst rider in the arena was a big motivational factor :D It'll be really good to have the facilities available through the fall/winter months, I'll probably ride there 2-3 times a week. It takes about 20 mins to walk there from the barn, so that's a good warm-up.

Picture overload :)

"Oh, hi mom, you're here to bring me in and groom me? Hang on a sec while I roll first - and check out my totally cool hairdo!" :P



I love the cute little white spot on his chin!



Messily eating beet pulp while I groomed:



Close up of one of his braids against his "black" coat:



Shoulders back and look up! Working on bending to the left (the harder side):



and to the right (easier to acheive bend while stretching FDO):



Notice his feathers - last time I clipped them was in mid-Febuary, and they're still not completely re-grown yet!



A little spook - it wasn't quite as scary as my facial expression makes it look like ;)



Working on shoulder-in:



and haunches-in, a little more tense. Usually, he's more relaxed in HI than SI, but not today:

Truck = Horse

The other day a truck came into the yard while I was grooming Barokko. He tensed up quite a bit, which I thought was wierd, he's usually very relaxed about cars & traffic. He kept trying to turn and look at the truck, which was tricky, as he was tied with his head in the other direction. When it parked, and opened the back doors, he lifted his head up high and belted out a welcoming whinny - apparently he was expecting there to be a horse in there :) Truck in the barn yard = horse transporter.

Went on a long trail ride this evening with one of the other boarders. We weren't planning on anything special, just rode out and enjoyed a beautiful evening, ended up being out for 2 1/4 hours, stepping into the yard in the bright pink light of sunset :)

I've brought him in from the big pasture, he's back in the regular herd, turned out about 8 hours daily instead of 24-7, plus I've upped his oil to give him more accessible energy, and it seems like a good decision, his canter today felt strong and powerful, and his trot big and bouncy :)

He got chased through the fence again today :( Luckily, he came through it OK, one shallow cut on the right thigh, and welts on both fores and across the hindquarters. We'll split up the herd during the weekend, and try to put Barokko and the alpha (who chased him) together again on Monday when we're both there to keep an eye on them.

A little jump

A little jump, originally uploaded by somebear.