The four-legged kids.
Sunday morning was the weekly riding lesson. My last riding lesson was last Sunday and it went well. Unfortunately, my back hurt so much the morning after I had to stay home from work. Last night, I went to the company holiday party. Three hours of walking around in heels plus moving boxes out of…
The vet saw Kasane today at lunch. The good news is that the way we were treating her foot let her actually heal more. She may have had some thrush, but that appears to be mostly gone. The vet ended up cutting away a good part of Kasane’s frog on her front left foot. We…
A lot has happened in the past few weeks. I’ll write some posts to catch up. Here’s the brief list: New horse: Kasane is the primary reason why I have not been posting much on here. I’ll write a long post about here with pictures. Stella: She has been fighting a urinary tract infection and…
Last Saturday, Horsemasters sponsored a clinic at Rivendell Farm for rating for a Bronze or Silver Mounted and Unmounted tests (specific to Pony Club). Isis and I went to the clinic with Max (horse) and Ro (owner). Isis loaded beautifully. She walked on without any trouble and stood next to Max in the trailer quietly….
I ordered a new blanket from Dover Saddlery for Isis in case the weather in NC turns nasty (think winter ice storms). I wanted something that was water proof and could adjust to different temperatures. After reading through a bunch of pages from the regular catalog and from the clearance pages, I ordered a Tuff…
I got out of work later than I wanted and went to the barn. First time I was able to ride this week. (First week after daylight savings time.) Something about working hard to leave at 4:30 and then getting out and realizing it’s actually 6:00 pm… and I only had 30 minutes to tack…
I rode twice over the weekend in the Courbette Magic dressage saddle. Both times, Isis and I had really good, productive rides. She is more responsive to my leg (longer stirrups, legs in right place… yup). The more I ride in it, the more I like it. One of the ladies at the barn mentioned…
After the riding lesson on Tuesday, I scheduled an extra lesson to fit the dressage saddles I’d located. I want to make sure whichever saddle I choose fits not only me, but also Isis. A new (or used) saddle is a big investment (“cheap” means under $500). Arabians are notoriously hard to fit in saddles…
During my riding lesson on Tuesday, I did an experiment: I dropped my stirrup and rode as if I was in a dressage saddle. Big different on how Isis responded. When you ride dressage, your seat is different then when you ride hunt seat. In dressage, you ride in a “balanced” seat: you sit back…
Isis and I had a riding lesson this afternoon/evening. I hadn’t been able to ride on Monday. I had to make up time from Friday when I left early to take Stella to the vet’s. My instructor asked me what I would like to work on. This was the perfect opportunity to work on problems…
Back from the show and man was I tired! I had been worried the show would be cancelled because of the rain we’ve had (plus the forecast). The show was on, luckily. I felt really good about our preparation for the dressage portion of the test. I was very nervous about the cross country part….
Well it poured last night. As far as I know, the horse show (Fossils over Fences) has not been cancelled. This is Isis’ and my first combined training show: dressage, stadium jumping, and cross country. We’re showing in the lowest level class, which means the jumps are options, the stadium course can be more like…
Isis was *great*. I mean GREAT. We were relaxed and rode the dressage test twice. She did very well. She’s learned where to stop and could probably ride the pattern by herself (even though we have only ridden it like five times). She stopped square and stood quietly. Only pulled on me once. Big improvement….
I had a riding lesson today with Isis that went surprisingly well. We rode her first dressage test today (Introductory Test B, a simple walk-trot test). Last time I had ridden something like that was in college (been a looong time). We rode the test three times. The first time was just trying to get…
I met the farrier at the barn this morning. Overall, Isis’ feet look good: reasonable growth and plenty of sole and hoof wall. However, she has some bruising in the white line and the white line appears to be thicker. The white line is actually the growth of the lamina, the part of the hoof…