Sunday, September 20, 2009

Trotting Trio

Three Horses Of Follywoods

A little warm today but not hot. The humidity is a thing of the past, for the most part.

After church, I went to lunch with the choir friends, so I wasn't home until well into the afternoon. And I am working on a story for Halloween, so I spent some time writing...more on that in a later post.

I finally went out as evening crept in..still slowly this time of year and it takes a while for the sun to slip below the horizon. I ended up with the lunge line in hand, gathering horses one at a time.

Chance was first. His hind leg looked fine. But that's the leg he sometimes is a little short in, so I had to watch closely. I didn't see a limp at all, but I still think he is a little weaker on that side. The goal is to get him really fit to see if it makes a difference. We are not there yet, but I would say he was sound and ready to go back to work. I gave him a nice workout, but didn't ask for anything special.

Then I took Tucker out. He will just jog around on the lunge on a lazy little trot if I let him. But once I pushed him on, he started to gather some enthusiasm. We did a pretty active session and then I set up about a 2'3" jump along the rail. After finishing up a nice little warm up, I sent him over the jump a number of times on each rein. He is figuring out how to take off on his own, judging both impulsion and distance quite nicely. However, on the left rein, he landed on his left lead and kept cantering. On the right, he looked to land on the left lead again, but it was hard to tell as he acutally landed on a trot stride and just kept on trotting.

I don't know if this is a "I'm left handed" consequence, or if he is a little reluctant to land on his right front. That is the hoof where he pulled the shoe, the leg that had the club foot surgery, and the leg that had the ankle injury when I first got him. Any one of the three reasons might make him a bit "left hoofed" either at the moment or out of habit. Again, no big deal, but worth and observational note here.

I sneaked in on Toby in the stall and took him out last. He looks wonderful out there. Not only does he stride out soundly, but there is a decided spring in his step. Since he hasn't done much work at all in the last few months, I kept his session short, just warming him up with some trot and canter work on each rein before sending him over a lowered jump for some fun.

I say "fun" because he really does "get into" the jumping with definite interest. He tends to get a little extra forward energy into his fences, but as long as he's having a good time, it's fine with me. He always has shown quite a talent for jumping and if he had not been such a chicken about approaching new obstacles--he'd either run out badly, spook, or stop the first time we'd head for a new fence--I might have done some little competitive jumping with him. I did compete him once or twice over fences and, if I recall, he was second in his very first class, won another time, and then was dead last with a rather dreadful effort in a class that required just two "test jumps,"--handy hunter. Frankly, the worst thing for me is a horse that stops/spooks/runs out at fences. I used to be able to sit a bad jump, but those last minute quits were never any fun at all. Thus, I never pursued jumping with him and lost my taste for it.

Too bad, as I've said before, because I think Tucker would be good at it. PJ was for sure, with a bold, almost too daring attitude about it. Tucker, so far just heads for the fence, but I don't know what he would do about jumps with flowers, decorations, etc. That, I think, would just be a matter of acclimation and some training.

But, not for me. I'll pop over something little now and then, but my jumping days are over. The ground's too hard for a fall.

Stacie is looking at two horses closer to home this weekend. I've seen pictures of both and standing there, they look like nice possibilities. I hope I'll hear something good soon.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:56 PM

    Hope Stacie has some luck with her looking. Both Maisie and Dawn are very sour on jumping, so I don't do much with it any more. Now Lily, there was a jumper, who would carry you to anything and jump it well - she just loved jumping and nothing else - absolutely hated flat work of any kind.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They all sound like they had a good time today. I've got to say all my horses love jumping and so do I but I won't do any big jumps now. I'm just glad I can still ride so I'm not going to push it, just a few pop overs now and again.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i'm with you on the not jumping thing ..although i never did, never having learnt as a youngster myself...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey... I got my KK, but the gullet doesn't really clear her spine. I blogged about it, but do you have any help here? Is that ok? It didn't seem to bother her, but I don't want to create a problem down the road.

    Thanks!
    Aimee

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jean,

    Is the trauma system important? I'm hoping not, as I don't exactly have the $850 to replace it right now.

    I don't have a gullet pad. I'm not seeing them on the ansur website. Is there a different seller?

    I also don't have a DS pad and the pictures on the website are hard to see. It looks like it creates a gullet (yeah, obvious), but I don't know if that's important. It would, however, get the gullet up off her back, which I think would be useful. (Maybe?)

    So... any advice? I don't need the saddle to feel one way or another. I can get used to either. Is there an advantage to the DS over the gullet pad or visa versa?

    Thanks,
    Aimee

    ReplyDelete
  6. And a further question:

    What if I used a wither relief half pad option? I'm looking at the fleeceworks perfect balance with front shims... a little more expensive, but I prefer the look of a white fluffy pad to a black one.

    So sorry to hijack your comments... thanks for the input, though.

    ReplyDelete