Sometimes the best lessons are self-taught.

It's been a relatively quiet week so far.  I intend to do some productive riding in the morning, but otherwise, I have done 0 real riding this week.  I took Amber on a trail ride Sunday.  The bugs made her absolutely miserable!  Despite spraying her down with plenty of fly spray (which usually works fantastically at home), the bugs literally bit the blood out of her.  She was thoroughly over it by the time we got home.  Now I'm dealing with the aftermath, which quite frankly, I'm not sure what the aftermath is.  She has some little scabs coming up on her legs.  Looks like more like welts from the bug bites, not scratches, but I can't rule out scratches either.  We did walk through a pretty nasty, stagnant area of a pond, and she was wearing open fronts.  They don't hold water, they are neoprene lined, but I'm sure they were at least a little moist on her legs for a while.

Amber was not impressed with the pond.

So I had M help me scrub her legs down tonight and picked all the scabs off and applied some good ol' MTG.  I'm *pretty* sure it's just bug bites.

Speaking of M, she missed her lessons last week, so this week she was all out of sorts.  She really depends on frequent consistency in her riding to thrive.  Yesterday I threw a curve ball at her.  I want her prepared to ride like a big girl this weekend when we go back to try Unicorn, because I want her to jump some little 2' stuff so I can really see how they fare over "real" fences.  So I had her jump a little 18"-2' course with Amber.  That doesn't sound like much of a challenge, but she has not jumped in weeks, and she has not jumped more than a crossrail since early winter of last year!  Add to that the fact that Amber can be careless and a freight train to small fences.  If that's not mean enough for you, I gave her some alfalfa cubes pre-ride and had M ride in Amber's dressage/flatting bit. Lol...

M surprised and horrified me.  As far as navigating the course, keeping Amber light and rhythmic, she did great.  She was even able to adjust her stride to add/take out on the outside line.  Her approach to the first fence?  Like a foreign language.  It was either jackknife turns, or weaving randomly through the other jumps instead of simply riding to the outside.  The rest of the course, beautiful though.  Today I took it back a step, and had her canter a "course" without jumps, to force her to think only about her approach and how she rides between the jumps - and that went very well!  The other thing we are trying to master is graduating to real contact.  I've always had her ride on a loose rein, because Amber is so finicky with her mouth, and her hands just weren't mature enough for that.  Transitioning to taking up contact is really challenging her muscle memory.  I want to get her some rainbow reins, but for now I had her use my web reins so that she can use the bands to "mark" her place.  Problem is, she shortens the reins, but puts her hands farther and farther forward to avoid having contact with Amber.  I am stressing with her that her hands don't really "do" anything - they hold steady while the legs and seat push the body up into them.  The last thing I want her to do is get in the habit of fidgeting with her hands trying to get a headset, forgetting to apply her seat and leg.

Her distraction has also been seen in her tacking up.  Yesterday, she had the bit twisted in Amber's mouth when she came out.  Thankfully, I fixed it before she got on.  But today...today, she learned the hard way.  I'm at the point where I am going to have to start letting her learn some things in that manner.  She comes out to the arena, and I'm already out there fixing the jumps.  I look over, and as she goes to get on, the saddle slides down to Amber's belly, and she plops off to the ground.  Amber, being the saint she is, just stands there with this "seriously, kid?" face on.  I have warned Macy about checking her girth before mounting many, many times.  One time she actually came out of the barn with NO GIRTH!  So at a point, I decided the best way for her to remember to double and triple check her tack, is to let her have an oops moment.  And it was glorious!

It does make me nervous though, all things considered.  Even the most saintly horse is not guaranteed to put up with that crap.  Once she gets her own horse, she will be responsible for remembering these things that she is constantly forgetting.  Maybe not having me as a safety blanket will help her be more conscientious?  I can only hope so.  She will always have adult supervision, but that adult supervision will be her parents who are not horse people.  At least there will be someone if she gets hurt.

We have a unicorn amongst us!

While the sale is still pending a second ride and a vet check, I do think we have found our unicorn!  Due to the owner being out of town next week, we won't go back on Labor Day weekend (what a time, right?) to see him again.  If the parents approve though, we will move forward with the PPE!

This horse is SO cool.  Super cute mover that would do well in the dressage or hunter ring (M has expressed interest in dressage, but I think that is a ways off for her!).  He has loads of personality, and that's a huge factor in a horse in my opinion.  I feel like you can communicate and bond with horses better if they are inquisitive and social with their humans.  He seems to have a lot of "buttons", but this is actually a good thing for two reasons.  One, M is used to a lot of buttons, due to Amber.  It's more familiar to her than your run of the mill lesson horse who's sides are dead to the world thanks to beginners or uneducated riders flopping around for years.  Two, it will, I hope, help push her to be a better rider and pay more attention.  For a while I thought I was looking for a robot, but I have come to a lot of realizations during my hunt.  Getting a horse that is dead to the world, but knows it's job and does it for the rider, will not further her.  She will have fun and probably win more ribbons, but it will not help her down the road.  Strangely though, it has kind of dawned upon me that she really HAS made a lot of improvements as a rider since the last time I was horse hunting for her.  She is actually using her aids a lot more than she once did - she needs something that will understand those aids.

I can't lie, it's nice to feel like I've *almost* got this in the bag for her.  Still quite a bit to do, but finding the horse is really the biggest hurdle.

As for red pony, she is doing better and better.  This week I amped up her workouts a little more and she has handled it well.  The heat is miserable though, even in the late evenings.  Overall though, she seems happy to be back into work.  I think the DMG supplement is already starting to help her with muscle soreness.  I've also tried to take extra time warming up and cooling down.

Nothing tames this mane except when her neck cover smooshes it in the winter.

She could still stand to drop a few pounds.  I was hoping she wouldn't be quite so...volumptuous...after being back in work for a few weeks now.  My girth was getting worn out, so I ordered her a new one in the same size.  I suppose that my old girth stretched quite a bit over time, because the new one wouldn't even reach the billets.  Hopefully she will slim down a bit when fall comes and the grass isn't so plentiful.

The third time is *not* the charm.

Horse #3 did not go much better than horse #1 and #2.  Like #1, it was shorter than I was told.  I didn't stick 3, because I could look at it and say with certainty it wasn't even the minimum requirement for M.  And like in the case of #2, the tack we used was ill-fitting, and as with both 1 and 2, the feet needed to be done yesterday.

 But, she was super sweet, very tolerant.  Highly uncomfortable gaits though, and I was never even able to get her to pick up her right lead.  That was the real deal breaker for me, because M doesn't need anything that she will have to fight for the leads on.  Another horse I didn't even bother to jump because it was already a total no on the flat.  On the bright side, unlike 1 & 2, she did steer and move off my leg wonderfully.  I can honestly say that with some weight and muscle, she would probably make a cute eventer or dressage critter.

I'm not looking for a project though.  I think people are misunderstanding what I'm looking for, honestly.  Everything I have seen has a quiet, sweet personality, but they need miles.  They're all super kid-safe, but not even close to show ready, and M is not capable of training anything to be show ready even through her lessons.  Every single one I've seen so far has a lot of potential, but they really had no idea what I was asking of them, let alone how to do it on their own with minimal rider input.

There is a silver lining to this cloud though.  I have a prospective horse to check out next week, and this one has lots of show miles, and comes from a reputable owner that I've known for years.  I'm really hoping that M and 4 will click.  If not, I have a couple of others to try from another friend of mine.  At least these next few are all from people I know are credible and are aware of what I'm really looking for in a horse for M.

On the Amber front, she's doing great.  Getting back into shape was the toughest on her the first couple of weeks I think.  The hind end is definitely getting stronger now, but I ordered her some DMG to throw in her feed to help with the muscle discomfort I'm sure she's experiencing.  She is much, much happier in comparison to last week.  She was particularly unamused with our lunging session last Saturday - apparently, she forgot that lunging was a thing.  If I didn't know her so well, her facial expression would have had me worried that she was going to charge me and stomp me into the sand.  She has been a trooper though.  Getting back into shape sucks, plain and simple.  I am feeling it myself, actually, now that I'm riding more again.  Tomorrow morning, I'm going to do some light jumping.  Last Thursday was our first "real" jumps since March.  She zoomed around like we never took a break, but despite the energy she showed, her lack of fitness was still apparent.

Hopefully the progression will continue, for both unicorn hunting and Amber's fitness.

The unicorn hunt is on!

My student who funds my showing habit is looking for her very first horse.  I, as her instructor, have been set on the task of test driving these critters and deciding who is worth her going out to see.

This kid needs a mythical creature.  She's a good rider, in the sense that she has good equitation and her seat is pretty decent.  But she's passive.  She does very little except vaguely suggest direction.  I need a packer supreme.

I'm going to try to give as little detail as possible in posts discussing the horses I try, because what I pass on, they are still trying to sell.  And I don't even want to come off like I am bashing these horses either.  Sometimes they are just not what I expected...

Horse #1 from a couple of weeks ago was a total bust.  It was three inches shorter than originally described.  It was actually not a bad mover, but there was a lot of stumbling going on, likely due to the fact that it was due for a trim (which the owner acknowledged, not sure why they didn't have me wait til after the farrier came).  She was also extremely unbalanced and under-muscled.  Steering was almost non-existent, no brakes, but that probably had some to do with her being unbalanced.  Just a lot of stuff going on there with that one.  Did refuse a jump but did fine after that.  Honestly, a lot of potential in that one for someone who could take the time...but I need something that's ready to go for this kid.

Horse #2 today was more her speed, but also needed feet done and there is a significant crack in one of the front feet that concerns me.  Same issues, steering was not a thing for this horse, and pretty unbalanced to boot.  Again, probably a lot to do with the feet needing done - in fact, I didn't even feel comfortable jumping they were so bad.  At least the height was right this time, but on the opposite end of things - almost bigger than we really need.  He could easily use his size against her if she started letting him get away with things.  A little dead to the aids, which is a concern, because she is already such a passive rider.  Not sure she will be able to make #2 do anything, because I practically begged for every step.  Again, #2 could use it's size against her if it decided to just not do anything.  Even the owner mentioned this.

But, I'm willing to go back with my student, who we will call "M" for the sake of her privacy (I don't really like identifying/discussing other people's kids so much online...).  Tomorrow I'm heading to try horse #3.  We will see what happens!

Getting the introductions out of the way!

Many moons ago I kept a blog off and on about my horse Amber.  Actually, it all started with a blog I kept about the pony I leased before I bought Amber.  Over time I lost interest in my blogging, but here lately I've been inspired to start sharing our tales once again.

A little bit about us.  As for me, I'm a 26-year-old pre-radiography student, working as a kennel tech at a small animal clinic.  In order to fund my horse addiction, I also teach lessons to a 12-year-old, as well as giving pony rides to a group of mentally handicapped adults once a week.  If that doesn't sound busy enough to you, I'm also a wife and mom of 3 dogs!

The star of the show is Amber, my 13-year-old Quarter Horse mare.  Primarily a competitive jumper, she is really a jack of all trades.  I came across Amber in a hunter barn in December 2010 after my lease ended on my dressage pony, also the time which I cut ties with the dressage trainer I had been riding with.  I still wanted to do dressage, but things just were not working for me anymore in that situation, so I ventured out on my own to find my very own unicorn.  I hoped to find a new dressage trainer to ride with once I found said unicorn.  Truth be told, I really did not have the riding/horse ownership experience I really needed to be horse shopping.  At the time, I had a lot of riding related confidence issues (stories for another day!), and very little real experience with horse ownership.  My riding lessons were very basic as a child, and the one horse I had owned as a 13-year-old had all her care managed by the owner of the barn I boarded at.  And again, there were all my confidence issues - I was barely comfortable cantering.  Amber was 6 at the time, but her papers were not found until the day I handed over the check for her, so up until this point I had been told she was about 9.  I was on my own with a young horse.  I was never able to afford to ride with actual decent dressage trainers, so I ended up riding with several wackos, before getting fed up with dressage and actually going back to the trainer who sold Amber to me.  It was there we attempted to be hunters for a couple of years.  Both Amber and myself were green with jumping.  Amber had been started over fences for 3 months before I bought her, and my own experience was non-existent.  She was very strong to fences, so progress was slow.  My confidence issues were still an issue for me, and her enthusiasm for jumping was intimidating.  Eventually, we did take steps forward though.  My confidence and experience increased.  However, the more I learned, the more I realized that Amber was better suited for jumpers than hunters.  I took a chance and sought out a trainer with experience in jumpers, and the rest is history.

I'll mostly be covering my adventures with Amber here, but I'll be throwing a little bit of everything in.  My student's progress, my dogs' shenanigans, daily life, etc.  A product review here and there, perhaps.