I really haven't been paying attention to any of my blogs. Except the
photography blog I started on my website. Watch, that one will last all
of a month before I forget about it too. I can't even recall the last
time I updated this...and I am SO lazy, that I didn't even care to look
and find out.
ANYWAY. So, here's my Gertie update for those of you I haven't blasted with it yet.
Breakdown:
January: really great progress, but still carrying herself on the forehand. Learned flying lead changes in November/December as if they're nothing and started doing them automatically on her own.
February: did a front somersault in the large roundpen at the barn. No, seriously it was an actual somersault. She sprinted off in a run but her left front buckled when she landed on it, went down on it, scuffed her knee a little bit, hit her face in the dirt and flipped over and landed on her right side and rear pretty damn hard. She was off and incredibly sore for 3 weeks following that. About three days after the accident, she had a massage to help with the soreness, then it was cold hosing and hand-walking twice a day for three weeks plus liniment/icy hot mixed with a little bit of DMSO...and she was fine. I was going to have a chiropractor work on her too, just in case, but she seems to maybe have kinked herself back into place with her fall.
March: Worked slowly for about 3 weeks to work out the soreness and get the muscles working again. Then started back into medium work to get that topline built back up again. It's crazy how fast they lose it and how long it takes to rebuild. Figures! Most of March was spent just getting her back into better working condition.
April: She has been a PISTOL since getting back into shape. At least it's her way of telling me she's feeling great, so I try not to complain too much. We got the cover over the arena finished and have started working in there. The new footing was rather deep, so she struggled a bit in there. We've really been working on getting her to work more off of her hind-end and she really started to pick up on that. It's a WHOLE different feeling with her and I love it! She's learned it so fast and can hold herself up longer than before. We worked on it a lot on our own and Denise had us work on it some more as well. I'm always so proud of her, even on the days I want to kill her. We actually had a lesson back in November and it was awesome. We recently had one last week and we worked on getting her to bend more on a circle from her ribcage. She fought with me a little bit (more-so when she saw my friend's trailer pull in that was hauling her bestest friend Tori--a Holsteiner mare owned by my friend. It's hilarious how my horse knows Hillary's trailer!), but did really well. Denise also had us work on teaching her to pick up her canter leads properly instead of letting her pick it up on the forehand as she was used to. She's athletic and smart enough to start learning it now and she did fantastic. Me, not so much at first, hahaha, but Gert had her lightbulb moments and now picks up the canter on her hardside lead every time. But, then on my own, I started having trouble getting her to pick the right lead up on the good side! It was my fault and after two days of schooling, I figured out what I was doing wrong: putting too much weight on my inside seat bone. Figures, those little things. Mare is pretty sensitive about many things, which I need to remember sometimes. Riding and training a horse from foal to riding and being the only person to do the work has been tough. I'm thankful I have Denise to help me brush up on my basics and fine tune myself of the things I have forgotten...those little beginner things you tend to throw out the window when training a young horse. They're important, but it's hard for me to remember sometimes.
Anyway, during our lesson.. my idiotic mare decided out of NOWHERE (she really gave NO indication or warning sign) that she wanted to roll in a softspot of the new footing. Just dropped to her knees so fast I had no idea it was coming; had no choice but to hop off. No amount of tugging, smacking, kicking, or yelling would get her to get up. She would not get up until she had a good roll.. ON MY SADDLE. She's such an asshole, seriously. Funny, as I was telling her what an asshole she was, another trainer that was in the arena...was laughing, and came up to tell me, "Your horse is such an asshole today!" TRUTH! LOL She's a really nice lady, and was 100% correct. Denise and my friends were all standing near the jump that Denise had been setting up while I was letting G catch her breath... staring and saying, "Is this really happening right now?" Oh Gertie...
At least she had the decency to make it up to me. She did her first jumping line ever. Normally she's gone over a cross-rail fence or two, but not in a line. At first she was a bit squirrelly between the jumps until she figured it out. She also jumped a small gate for her first time EVER as if she's been doing it forever. SO proud of her. Alana and Jennifer happened to get some fabulous photos that I will share here.
We have a few more lessons scheduled to get me un-rusty and to get her thinking more. I want to get her a good foundation that we can work off of on our own with some lessons in-between..here and there. I would really like to take her to a few shows this year. I recently found out I need braces, SO we will see how the showing will go, lololol. If anything, my boarding facility is hosting 4 Tucson Hunter-Jumper Association shows, so I can enter her in a class or two then. She'll absolutely be ready by then.
So, pictures. Hopefully I'll continue to update this thing. Maybe my friends should nag me.
ANYWAY. So, here's my Gertie update for those of you I haven't blasted with it yet.
Breakdown:
January: really great progress, but still carrying herself on the forehand. Learned flying lead changes in November/December as if they're nothing and started doing them automatically on her own.
February: did a front somersault in the large roundpen at the barn. No, seriously it was an actual somersault. She sprinted off in a run but her left front buckled when she landed on it, went down on it, scuffed her knee a little bit, hit her face in the dirt and flipped over and landed on her right side and rear pretty damn hard. She was off and incredibly sore for 3 weeks following that. About three days after the accident, she had a massage to help with the soreness, then it was cold hosing and hand-walking twice a day for three weeks plus liniment/icy hot mixed with a little bit of DMSO...and she was fine. I was going to have a chiropractor work on her too, just in case, but she seems to maybe have kinked herself back into place with her fall.
March: Worked slowly for about 3 weeks to work out the soreness and get the muscles working again. Then started back into medium work to get that topline built back up again. It's crazy how fast they lose it and how long it takes to rebuild. Figures! Most of March was spent just getting her back into better working condition.
April: She has been a PISTOL since getting back into shape. At least it's her way of telling me she's feeling great, so I try not to complain too much. We got the cover over the arena finished and have started working in there. The new footing was rather deep, so she struggled a bit in there. We've really been working on getting her to work more off of her hind-end and she really started to pick up on that. It's a WHOLE different feeling with her and I love it! She's learned it so fast and can hold herself up longer than before. We worked on it a lot on our own and Denise had us work on it some more as well. I'm always so proud of her, even on the days I want to kill her. We actually had a lesson back in November and it was awesome. We recently had one last week and we worked on getting her to bend more on a circle from her ribcage. She fought with me a little bit (more-so when she saw my friend's trailer pull in that was hauling her bestest friend Tori--a Holsteiner mare owned by my friend. It's hilarious how my horse knows Hillary's trailer!), but did really well. Denise also had us work on teaching her to pick up her canter leads properly instead of letting her pick it up on the forehand as she was used to. She's athletic and smart enough to start learning it now and she did fantastic. Me, not so much at first, hahaha, but Gert had her lightbulb moments and now picks up the canter on her hardside lead every time. But, then on my own, I started having trouble getting her to pick the right lead up on the good side! It was my fault and after two days of schooling, I figured out what I was doing wrong: putting too much weight on my inside seat bone. Figures, those little things. Mare is pretty sensitive about many things, which I need to remember sometimes. Riding and training a horse from foal to riding and being the only person to do the work has been tough. I'm thankful I have Denise to help me brush up on my basics and fine tune myself of the things I have forgotten...those little beginner things you tend to throw out the window when training a young horse. They're important, but it's hard for me to remember sometimes.
Anyway, during our lesson.. my idiotic mare decided out of NOWHERE (she really gave NO indication or warning sign) that she wanted to roll in a softspot of the new footing. Just dropped to her knees so fast I had no idea it was coming; had no choice but to hop off. No amount of tugging, smacking, kicking, or yelling would get her to get up. She would not get up until she had a good roll.. ON MY SADDLE. She's such an asshole, seriously. Funny, as I was telling her what an asshole she was, another trainer that was in the arena...was laughing, and came up to tell me, "Your horse is such an asshole today!" TRUTH! LOL She's a really nice lady, and was 100% correct. Denise and my friends were all standing near the jump that Denise had been setting up while I was letting G catch her breath... staring and saying, "Is this really happening right now?" Oh Gertie...
At least she had the decency to make it up to me. She did her first jumping line ever. Normally she's gone over a cross-rail fence or two, but not in a line. At first she was a bit squirrelly between the jumps until she figured it out. She also jumped a small gate for her first time EVER as if she's been doing it forever. SO proud of her. Alana and Jennifer happened to get some fabulous photos that I will share here.
We have a few more lessons scheduled to get me un-rusty and to get her thinking more. I want to get her a good foundation that we can work off of on our own with some lessons in-between..here and there. I would really like to take her to a few shows this year. I recently found out I need braces, SO we will see how the showing will go, lololol. If anything, my boarding facility is hosting 4 Tucson Hunter-Jumper Association shows, so I can enter her in a class or two then. She'll absolutely be ready by then.
So, pictures. Hopefully I'll continue to update this thing. Maybe my friends should nag me.
There are a crapload of photos below, so just keep scrolling.
YAY !! I will definitely hound you.. I love reading blogs! Sorry to hear Gert had a fall.. somehow I missed that. She looks pretty fancy in some of those photos!! So happy to see your jumping dreams coming true ♥. Proud of you and how far she's come.
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