BUT I hope to correct that and work on keeping a better log of my riding journey.
So here we go...can I at least to start update ONCE a week???
So life is a bit different than my last post. For one Gracie and I now live in the Atlanta area of GA. She is at a great barn just a ways away from my house. And she loves it! I have never seen her so happy before. She has a great group of horses she gets turned out with and everyone gets along quite well.
As far as riding goes there has been a very sporadic attempt on my part to keep her in work. Mainly it came down to my job kicking my butt with long hours and little energy left at the end of the day. So for the last year things have been a bit hard to get good solid work in. I am determined that 2012 will be different though. For one I left my old job as a vet tech and I am now in massage therapy school. (LOVING IT BTW!!)
I am about a month or so into the program and so far I have been able to increase my times per week of getting to ride Gracie.
The average last year was once every two week. Boo.
Now it is about twice a week which is a lot better. I would LOVE to get up to about four days a week but that may have to wait until I am done with school in November.
Who can resist that face?!
So as you can see she is happy. Funny thing is she has turned really spooky almost overnight. The sucking back and getting behind your leg finally went away (yay for betting EPM!) and turned into "omg! I am a TB and should go faassstttt!" I can deal with that and channel that energy to good use. But the random spooky nervous behavior was a big much. Especially when she started to do it also on the ground. After talking to some people I started her on raspberry leaves but wasn't really sold on the fact they would work. I even had the Smartpaks Ultra Calm sitting in the cart ready to buy I was so sure the other wouldn't work. I am amazed when three days into the leaves I noticed a difference in her attitude, and since then she has totally stopped the unnecessary spooking. Sometimes the natural remedies do work....
So the addition of the raspberry leaves has really helped our ring work come along in the last month. The other thing that has helped a lot is I have been doing a good bit of massage work on her. Gracie is prone to getting tight in her right hindleg/lumbar area which is probably all residual from the EPM. But I have noticed a good bit of change under saddle in many ways.
Main objective for us right now is the canter work. That gait was so overlooked for so many years due to all her health problems I have a lot of catching up to do. Right now lots of transitions into and out of the canter, and getting her to carry herself. It is getting better each ride. And I will thank the trainer I have been riding with Pam Kimble for most of it. The depart into the canter was really bad and she spotted the reason quickly so that we have moved past that. Basically Gracie needed a bit more freedom in the reins to figure out how to get herself into the canter...so I had to trust her and let the reins go a notch when we worked on the canter. I can now keep the same contact for all the gaits so improvement has been made at least right?
Working on sitting trot last week.
For myself I need to get my torso straight with my shoulders back. I did learn this week that the muscles on my chest/shoulders where so tight there was no way I could force them to be where they need to be. So I am getting some bodywork done myself to correct this issue. Cannot wait to see that bad habit go out the window!
Today Gracie was awesome. Very light in the contact and willing to work. It was such a good ride I kept it short and sweet cause damn she was really good. I hope to be back out on Sunday for a more intense ride for us both.
