Friday, June 14, 2013

Awkward Ride

So today was my first no so good ride on Brantley. I blame myself... I was lazy and didn't want to pick up the piles of ground poles and move the jumps off the rail. I was thinking to myself we could maneuver. Man I was wrong. Head comes up, but goes under, canter canter canter! Pops off the rail and over a pile of ground poles, spooks to the side, fall on his neck, I'm going to die. Guess what this wonderful pony did, NOTHING! It was great. I tried to get him moving again but he was popping on and off the rail and I was thinking about just getting off and riding tomorrow. No Maddy, you're going to pull through, get your seat back (I was all over the place) and kick it.

I jumped off B, moved the poles and standards off the rail (there was probably 3 feet between them and the wall, thanks guys!), and got back on. Right away he wanted to lope off so I let him. If that's where he's comfortable, I won't complain. He has LB's lope (when he wasn't in OTTB mode) and I get all warm and fuzzy inside. He kept his head up more than usual and was really fast at first. With the "old" Brantley I'd bring him down and try again, but with new Brantley I just grabbed the horn and rode. He finally dropped his head a little and relax after 3-4x on both leads. We did some simple changes and I asked him to come down to a trot. The transition was pretty rough and he picked up his head so I loped him off again until he wanted to stop but made him keep going. I'd rather have a lazy, tired horse than a spaz. He's more together and balanced at the lope anyway. He finally slowed down, did some pea-rolling on the ground, and I brought him down to a trot.

We had a good working trot going around and he finally, on his own, used the WHOLE ring. I did very very minimal slide down, point, back to the rail. I used a little more leg on him to move him over and wasn't afraid to get after him. He did really well going to the right, but was not interested in going left, go figure. Circle, circle, circle, jolt forward, fine we'll lope again. Lope, lope, lope, trot, trot, trot, lope, simple change, lope, simple change, halt, flex, dismount. A ride that could've gone really really bad went really really well. With these fancy lead changes I don't know whether I have a barrel horse or a jumper right now but I'll take our nice little rides as of this moment.

It's going to be a crazy busy weekend, especially tomorrow. House-sitting all week with 2 ponies, 1 cat, and 1 dog. Sunday is Father's Day, mine's coming back from a work trip tomorrow so I cleaned. What a good daughter... I try. And there's a barrel race for the RI NBHA at Cherry Croft. Gigi's mom wants me to come back and ride her which I'm excited for. Nice little buckskin that one is!

posted by Madeline C. @ 10:05 AM   3 Comments

3 Comments:

At June 14, 2013 at 11:42 AM , Blogger Kate said...

Don't worry, that is not an awkward ride, I'd call that a very successful ride! A bit of a hiccup at the beginning, sure, but it didn't get anyone killed, and it didn't ruin the whole ride. In fact I think you'll have more confidence in him now than you did before, because you know he's not going to take off like a wild banshee at the first sign of distress. Good job to both of you :)

 
At June 14, 2013 at 12:50 PM , Blogger Madeline C. said...

Thanks :) I'm definitely a lot more confident than I was and I think I'm just happy to have him home and be able to get on him that I'm really not worried. What's the worse that's going to happen? He goes psycho again? It's fixable and I have more of an understanding on what works for him and what works for me. Plus, I have a life-line now and support of so many amazing people... Like yourself <3

 
At June 19, 2013 at 2:54 PM , Blogger S. Lauren said...

The picture with the bathtub is cute!

P.S. I nominated your blog for the Liebster Blog Award. :-)

 

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http://www.controlhaltdelete.com/ Tear Drop Winken: Awkward Ride

Awkward Ride

So today was my first no so good ride on Brantley. I blame myself... I was lazy and didn't want to pick up the piles of ground poles and move the jumps off the rail. I was thinking to myself we could maneuver. Man I was wrong. Head comes up, but goes under, canter canter canter! Pops off the rail and over a pile of ground poles, spooks to the side, fall on his neck, I'm going to die. Guess what this wonderful pony did, NOTHING! It was great. I tried to get him moving again but he was popping on and off the rail and I was thinking about just getting off and riding tomorrow. No Maddy, you're going to pull through, get your seat back (I was all over the place) and kick it.

I jumped off B, moved the poles and standards off the rail (there was probably 3 feet between them and the wall, thanks guys!), and got back on. Right away he wanted to lope off so I let him. If that's where he's comfortable, I won't complain. He has LB's lope (when he wasn't in OTTB mode) and I get all warm and fuzzy inside. He kept his head up more than usual and was really fast at first. With the "old" Brantley I'd bring him down and try again, but with new Brantley I just grabbed the horn and rode. He finally dropped his head a little and relax after 3-4x on both leads. We did some simple changes and I asked him to come down to a trot. The transition was pretty rough and he picked up his head so I loped him off again until he wanted to stop but made him keep going. I'd rather have a lazy, tired horse than a spaz. He's more together and balanced at the lope anyway. He finally slowed down, did some pea-rolling on the ground, and I brought him down to a trot.

We had a good working trot going around and he finally, on his own, used the WHOLE ring. I did very very minimal slide down, point, back to the rail. I used a little more leg on him to move him over and wasn't afraid to get after him. He did really well going to the right, but was not interested in going left, go figure. Circle, circle, circle, jolt forward, fine we'll lope again. Lope, lope, lope, trot, trot, trot, lope, simple change, lope, simple change, halt, flex, dismount. A ride that could've gone really really bad went really really well. With these fancy lead changes I don't know whether I have a barrel horse or a jumper right now but I'll take our nice little rides as of this moment.

It's going to be a crazy busy weekend, especially tomorrow. House-sitting all week with 2 ponies, 1 cat, and 1 dog. Sunday is Father's Day, mine's coming back from a work trip tomorrow so I cleaned. What a good daughter... I try. And there's a barrel race for the RI NBHA at Cherry Croft. Gigi's mom wants me to come back and ride her which I'm excited for. Nice little buckskin that one is!