New footing = sassy Tillie

In my last post, I mentioned the new footing work that was done New Years Day.The goal was to take out a lot of it from the smaller arena with it being too deep, and add it to the larger arena and cover more of the surface. Well apparently with this footing, a little goes a long way...

The large arena was leveled out and not quite finished so the entire right side of the ring and back corners have become a bit too deep. Very surprising considering there wasnt nearly enough footing at first before this work was done.

It is not unrideable at all...but will need to be addressed to prevent any injuries. I am dying to try it in the larger ring, but because that was taking so long, I settled to try the smaller arena.

Tillie loving peppermints and grooming. 

Despite Tillie losing her shoe only a few days after being shod, she seemed fine on it and I had a plan to try some exercises from my new Christmas present: 101 arena exercises. But once we got in the smaller ring it became apparent I would have to do some riding on the fly. The footing was really unlevel and still way too deep at each end of the ring. With this ring being a hair under dressage regulation, it makes trying to avoid those areas pretty tough.

Tillie was a bit pissy to start off, whether it was the odd footing, it being a bit colder or her missing shoe IDK...BUT I just kept her on a circle and tried to get her to relax.

She felt awfully tight and defensive through her whole body. I decided when we first trotted to not touch her face at all and just get her moving to warm up which seemed to help. We had a bit of trouble getting a forward, non-stabby trot I think with her not trusting the footing and her own balance, but eventually she started to figure it wasnt SO bad.

Shes always been funny and choosy about footing....yay for being a cross country horse lol. I wasnt planning on cantering in it until she threw a bit of a hissy and went back to leg means go rather then soften.

Emma hung out for a little bit as I started putting her together. I cant say it felt fabulous, but her and the other onlooker said she looked pretty light and uphill. We were running into more left bend and bridle unsteadiness tracking left, but it didnt seem to be nearly as bad and before. I also realized it is most like my crookedness causing this since the last two rides its apparent tracking left that I twist my body out causing my right leg to go forward and weight placement to be off. I imagine this makes it hard for Tillie to balance properly under me.

ALLLLL the footing

We did some figures of 18 meter circles a A and C crossing the diagonal each time to change the rein.

Once she got a bit more consistent here I worked on the homework from our last dressage lesson with C and worked on rating her trot in the middle of the ring where the footing was the most consistent. She had a bit more trouble with the go, but I attribute that to the small ring size and footing.

I did push into canter both leads a few times just to establish a proper depart and canter to offset her hissy fit earlier in the ride and be clear what the aid for canter is and what the aid for being is. Again it was a push ride in the canter and I think the footing was really making her work.

I didnt dislike it!

I did try for some stretchy trot to really hound relaxing and trusting balance more and once she gave me a little bit of try both directions with that I called it a day.

All this work makes me thirsty! 

Teaching to self load on the trailer

As much as I would like to abide by this:

I am such a worrier as I stated in my Worry Warrior post a few days ago. BUT I am trying!!!

New years day I went out to sneak in a ride on Miss Tillie to find her just a muddy mess. No biggie,
I decided it would be a great day for a spa day and clean out my tack area so it wasnt such a cluster of messiness. Much to my dismay I found Tillie threw a hind shoe after only a few days after being shod.

Oh hey...that expensive shoe is lost in the mud somewhere out there.

It worked out because the new footing we received was getting dragged out and worked on in both rings...which means it finally got put down in our larger ring and spread out! YAY!! For a few weeks it was just sorta in the middle and not quite enough to cover the entire surface, but our smaller arena had WAYYYY too much so they took some from there. They didnt quite finish evening it all out, but it is in much better shape then the small ring. 

BEFORE

AFTER

While waiting, fellow blogger Emma was also hanging out and offered to help me work on my December goal of getting Tillie to self load! I should make these first quarter goals and add to them, but hey we are starting to cross some off!

1. Learn how to ride in double reins in the pelham
2. Ride at least 4x per week despite work being nutty this month
3. Convince Emma to show me how teach me and Tillie to self load
4. Improve auto/crest release 
5. Get Tillie more maneuverable in canter 

I let Emma take over since I havent ever gone through this process before and Tillie was a quick study...She tends to be a bit nervous about the backing out of the trailer, especially with the step, so I opted to use Emmas trailer for this session.

Getting started

First thing was to get her used to the dressage whip since she really isnt a huge fan of whips at all. Just teaching her it wasnt there to hurt her and to move forward when the tapping on her flank happened and to back when tapped on the shoulder. Once that was find Emma got started!

Tillie sniffing everything

We started slow and let her sniff and check things out to set the tone and keep things low key. The goal for today was to get her front feet on and whoa, back off and be able to fully load, fully back out and possibly even back out and whoa with only the front feet on. We knew the backing and waiting would be harder with her dislike for backing out but she moved through everything else so nicely we were able to work on it briefly.

So smart.

The only thing she has a tendency to do, which we think is from nerves, it back out crooked where shell step down and turn her butt to the outside of the trailer. That will need some work, but she was getting much straighter by the end. 

Good mare!

 Finally it was my turn and to try to work on self loading. My biggest issue is getting her to slow down when loading and getting out of the habit of helping her too much. We did it a few times though and called it a day so we didnt fry her brain :)

I got to test out this a bit by saturday which Ill post in a later blog this week!