A project for winter

So not sure why the picture is sideways, but this is the project for winter! A big red ball, courtesy of Margie as a Christmas present. Margie and Roberta put the effort into inflating it (which was quite a task in itself), after which we rolled it outside along the gelding paddocks. This was cause for a great deal of excitement! It may not have helped that there was a very frustrated little dog pushing the ball around in the snow barking in frustration as she couldn't pick it up...but the geldings all swarmed like fish as Margie commented, in unified fear of the big red ball. Well, all except for Wolfgang who used the distraction to get a prime spot at the round bale feeder. Even cookies could not entice the horses to come closer!

As you can see, Wiley seems to have made peace with the ball, as has Shawn, but Magnus almost sits down if I roll it by his stall!

I figure step one is to get the horses comfortable having the ball around, and then we will worry about teaching them to push it, then to push it through an obstacle course, with the ultimate goal of teaching them horse soccer. My hope is that this will help certain unbrave equines to learn to face their fears, and also to work on precise steering and body control. Plus, it will be fun I think!

Karen

This week in lessons

This week in lessons I am teaching Monday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, and Wed/Thurs evening, as well as regular lessons on Sat. I am willing to teach during the day on Wednesday as well if anyone is interested.

More work compiling video of position over fences; once I have it all together I will make sure everyone gets a copy for their own use/viewing. This week I will try to set fences that will set you up to take long and short distances, so we can analyse the adaptability of your positions in the air.

I hope everyone is enjoying the warmer weather! The cats were happy to be able to wander about outside yesterday...although Charlie wandered all the way back to the house last night, meaning I had to lug him all the way back to the barn for the night...our black and white house cat really does not like him!

Also wanted to announce the official new addition of Wiley! Margie's new and obnoxious riding partner. He is out with Shawn and Rocket. He is a but of a shark when it comes to cookies, so beware! Magnus was fascinated with him for the first few days, but seems to have relaxed about his presence.

Karen

This week in lessons

By the looks of the weather forecast, this is going to be one nasty week of weather! Hopefully the roads improve so everyone can visit friends and family safely over the Holidays.

For lessons, I will be teaching Monday and Wednesday morning only, and then back to evening lessons on Thursday, although I am open to teaching a daytime lesson on Thursday as well. Let me know if you want to switch your times! It will still be cold during the day, but the sun seems to make it more bearable.

Lessons will be kept simple this week, with a continued focus on position/equitation, and I will be doing more videoing.

I hope everyone has a good Holiday and is able to spend Christmas with people that they care about.

Karen

Big Bang Theory fans?

Apparently the actress who plays "Penny" is quite a good rider and has four of her own horses:

http://www.self.com/healthystars/2013/01/big-bang-theory-kaley-cuoco-slideshow?intcid=homepage1220_2#slide=5

Pretty impressive equitation over a good sized fence!

Lessons and Christmas Break

I have not yet decided what days I will be taking off over the Holidays, so am looking for feedback as to who is away, and who is available to ride during the daytime rather than the evenings. Thought some "horse switching" lessons might be fun over the holidays as well.

This week in lessons we will be continuing to work on position over fences, and I will bring the camera out to get still shots of riders so we can better assess areas of improvement. If you wish to bring your own camera, feel free! Lots of two point to build the base of support as well. I like two point as a riding fitness exercise vs riding without stirrups as I think the latter makes people tight/stiff, which is not what I want.

Not sure if it is sad or funny...

In the last 30 days or so, I was interested in two separate horses, but before the seller had a chance to even show me the horse, the price increased. Now sometimes prices increase because the horse goes to a show, learns a new skill, or shows an aptitude for something of value, but in both these cases the horse hadn't even been ridden between price A and price B.

The interesting thing? Both horses are still for sale.

Both sellers and a potentially interested buyer, got greedy, and now have "must sell!" ads up.

Now the one horse is at a barn with no arena and seller has NO trailer, so when the cold hit, she lost her chance to sell me her horse...and likely anyone else...as who wants to try a horse out in the snow, with the weather we have been having? The other horse is further out, no arena, but seller has a trailer...not really sure why that one hasn't sold, but I have decided to wait until I see if Margie's horse works out, and get Gody sold before I should really shop anymore, so that person lost their window of opportunity to sell to me as well.

Greed doesn't pay. And when someone tells you that your horse is priced to low, offer to let them buy the horse rather than up your price and piss of that ready buyer!

Wow I have been tired...

Not sure if it was the cold, or the clinic, but I have been absolutely exhausted lately. Hoping this week's warmer weather will re-energize me!

This week in lessons we are going to continue to explore some of the imagery that was touched on at the clinic. When I figure out what seems to help the most people I will write it all out so that everyone knows the new terms and I can add it to my teaching repertoire.

I am also going to try to adapt some of the flat work imagery to jumping, so we will be working on position over fences using a short grid and single fences to focus on details of our riding over jumps.

As you drive in, you may also notice the new horse in the wood pen! That is Margie's potential new horse (here on trial). He is a colour that is new to Hillside! I don't want to go into too much detail about him here in case we don't keep him, but so far so good...although he really doesn't like it when I walk by his pen without feeding him!

Karen

Clinic was good.

Karen is tired.

Roads are crappy.

let me know if you are still planning to ride tonight, otherwise I am fine to reschedule.

Karen

Not horse related...

Good old British humour. My mom forwarded me this link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/U430rpfjIIQ

This week in lessons

This week in lessons we will be continuing to develop the sitting trot, and will continue to use it to aid in smoother transitions. Advanced riders will also work on doing leg yielding in the sitting trot. This requires being aware of which hind leg is moving when, so you can better time your leg aids to be effective. Remember your leg can only effectively engange or move a leg when that leg is about to come off the ground.

Jumping riders will continue to work on counting to the jumps, and we will increase the difficulty by adding arcs and trickier turns.

Remember that there are no lessons this weekend as we are hosting the Team clinic. The schedule for the clinic will be posted in the barn. The arena will be open for riding after 5:30 pm on Saturday, and after 4:30 pm on Sunday.

For those attending, the clinic starts at 9:30 sharp on Saturday, and 8:30 sharp on Sunday for all participants. Please bring a towel...I assume for sitting on.

Karen

this week in lessons

This week in lessons we will be working on sitting trot and on transitions between gaits and within the gaits (longer and shorter steps).

Novice riders or less fit riders will be doing walk to sitting trot transitions, with more advanced riders working on going from sitting, to posting, to two point, to posting, to sitting and so on.

The most important things to remember when sitting are:
1) The horse has two motions you need absorb with your body; the side to side of their hind legs swinging, and the up and down of their back as they take each step of suspension.  The slower the trot, the less suspension and so the less up and down motion!
 - To absorb the side to side motion, the hips need to be able to move side to side. A good exercise for this is to pretend you have a tail, and wag the tail with each step! This is an exaggerated motion but can really loosen things up and get you ready to absorb this motion. Wider horses tend to have more of this side to side motion.
- To absorb the up and down motion you need to use your core muscles...the ones just below your ribs. Doing "Plank" exercises really helps get your ready to sit the trot! The muscles need to contract and relax with each step, not with each stride like when posting up and down. A good way to think of it is to imagine you are  trying to use your seat bones to pull the horse's back higher with each step. You do NOT want to force the sit, so if you start to loose your balance/rhythm, walk or go back to posting. The horses with less suspension (time no legs are on the ground) have the smoother trots to sit.
2) Your weight stays in your stirrups! Some people try to make themselves heavier by pulling their heels up and sitting as if in a chair to force the sit. This just makes you bounce harder! Stay as tall as you can, with the weight of your legs still down in your stirrups. If you look down at your feet, they should be hidden by your knees; if you can see toe, your lower leg has slipped ahead, and you are in a chair seat.
3) Stay centered on your seat bones; you need to feel and be on your seat bones. If you are ahead of your seat bones and so on your pubic bone, you will have three points of contact...and those three points won't allow you the motion needed to absorb the up and down motion with your core. It will also hurt! If you are behind your seatbones you will likely also have an arched back and end up supporting your upper body with your lower back. This can really do damage to your back so you want to always make sure that it is your CORE that is supporting your upper body weight!

Jump riders will be working on counting strides, and on adjusting strides before jumps (to ask for a long or a short distance)

Karen

This week in lessons

This week in lessons we will be working on two things:

1) Connecting your leg set behind the girth to your horse's corresponding hind leg. Our horses all understand the basics of leg, but to have fine control we need to make sure our horse understands the direct connection between our leg and their leg, and we also need to make sure our timing is such that we put out leg on when the horse is actually able to move/activate that leg. The horse can't move a leg if that is the leg that is bearing weight!

Step 1 is feeling what your horse's hind end is doing at the walk, trot, and canter. Your hip will drop on the side that corresponds to the hind leg being off the ground and reaching up and under.

Step 2 is timing your leg aids so that they work effectively.

In posting trot it is easy, as if you are posting on the "correct" diagonal to the left, then your outside leg will be set to cue the outside hind each time you go down in your post. This is why we swap to the other diagonal to leg yield to the wall. (When you are up, and on the way down in your post, is the same time you are best able to squeeze, and this is the time the horse's leg is leaving the ground. At the walk and sitting trot, your outside hip will drop as your horse's outside hind leg comes forward, so you should press with your leg AS you feel the hip dropping. This means when your outside hip is up, you should be ready with the leg! At the canter, the outside hind is ready to come up after the final phase of the canter (when the inside front reaches forward).

Step 3 will be using these skills for a new exercise I shall call the "Turn on the Forehand Square of Fun". This simply involves you riding a square, with the corners being something resembling a turn on the forehand (we will maintain forward momentum). You can also think of it as tell the horse to swing wide on the turns with its hind end.

Basically you will walk (or trot/canter) for a few strides to get the timing, then you will pulse with your inside leg behind the girth to push your horse's hind end around the turn until the horse has made a 90 degree turn...at which point you will again go straight until you get to the next corner. It will be important to have a balanced gait as you approach the corners as this would be very difficult if the horse is going too quickly.

The inside rein needs to be OFF the neck for this exercise as  the horse needs to be flexed into the turn even though the inside leg is back to move the hip over. If that inside leg is NOT off the neck, then the horse will think you want to counter bend the turn, and that is not what we are looking for; I want to the horse's hind end clearly moving laterally around the front end.

The purpose of this exercise is: 1) to work on controlling the horse's hind end, 2) to see how pushing the hind end around affects the front end, and 3) to develop the horse's hind end strength (as the inside hind will be asked to work harder laterally on the turns). I have also founds this very useful to get deeper corners when riding a spooky bay horse with big ears.... It should also help with horses that want to drop their shoulders in the corners as the act of pushing their hips out will have an effect on the balance of the front end, and should help get those horses off their inside shoulder.

2) In jumping we will use the above exercise with our warm up to see if we can use it to get better corners...which of course means corner jumps! Yeah! Corner jumps! Or end jumps. Maybe end jumps. I guess it will be a surprise on Tuesday! Corner jumps or end jumps also lend themselves well to lessons on using your eyes AND on using the inside rein off the horse's neck in the air (or shortly thereafter). Be able to steer n the air is the lead up to having a following release for those of you still working on one.

The tensor bandage will also be ready at ringside to help with wayward rider elbows, as will the bailing twine be ready for legs that want to come too far back.

Karen

Road Report

A few brave souls have made it to the barn this week; the highway is still not the best, so be prepared to rattle the last 10 minutes to get here...it should make those of you from Saskatchewan and Manitoba get nostalgic...  It is supposed to warm up, so hopefully we can get back to regular lessons!

Karen

Dale Irwin Anyone?

Dale Irwin has confirmed that he is available to come to Hillside in March and/or April if I can garner the interest!

I have ridden with him before, as has Lindsey. He is patient, willing/able to deal with horses of various training levels and breeds, AND he is skilled at teaching both dressage and jumping! He usually comes up in the spring to teach for the eventing club, but apparently this year they are not holding their Easter clinic.

He would likely fly up Friday, and fly home Sunday, so some lessons could be taught Friday late afternoon and early evening, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning/early afternoon. Students could take dressage lessons, jumping, or one of each! Dressage lessons can be private or semi private. Jumping lessons can be semi-private or group, with the bigger classes being longer in duration. Riders could ride all three days, two days, or just one. Rates will depend on interest...as you can imagine, getting a trainer of this caliber in, as well as paying for flights, food and lodgings, isn't cheap, but my hope is we can get enough interest to make the cost reasonable.

Possible dates: March 1-3, March 8-12, April 5-7 and/or April 12,14.

The clinic will be available to ALL Hillside clients, and also to haul ins if interested, although I cannot promise any overnight stabling.

Please check out his bio and let me know if you would be interested in attending, and which dates would/wouldn't work for you.

Karen

Well it snowed. Lots. Lots and lots of wet snow. And of course it was farrier day, so that made it extra fun out here! Horses seem happy enough, but I am still giving them an extra serving of hay during the day just in case they are having trouble adapting to the change in weather.

It is almost worse that it was so warm yesterday as the snow would melt on the horses then run under their blankets so blankets got damp around the shoulders. When I brought horses in for the evening I had to warm up more than one buckle in my hands to get it undone, and Wolfgang's front straps were frozen in position so I gave up and just pulled the thing over his head! Many puddles were created as the blankets shed their snow and icicles.

Rob did plow the driveway last night, so things are not too bad here, but the roads are still icy all around us. I have heard them out with the graders and sanders, but still not sure how the drive out will be for lessons; text me so I know if I should not expect you.

Please drive slow in the yard as it will be slippery, and we do have four legged friends we would rather not have squished.

Karen

Snow and Ice and Mud! The perfect trifecta!

It is lovely here. The paddocks are mud, the driveway by the house is ice, and the snow is sliding/melting off the roof in loud kerchunks. Make sure you leave enough time to brush your ponies for lessons!

This week in lessons we will continue with the bondage, but this time focusing on the upper body to raise awareness of how much or how little you are moving your elbows away from your side. We will be using tensor bandages and not binder twine in case you are worrying... :)

Flat work will focus on some leg yielding to direct the horse from one pole to a slightly offset pole, with the tensor there to make sure you aren't trying to use your hands to do your legs job! Some riders may also have to carry a stick between their hands to maintain proper hand spacing and stability.

For jumping, our course will again have a bending S, only in reverse from last week. Sorry Steph.

Karen

I hate "Fall Back" Daylight Savings...

Did you all remember to change your clock?

I hear so often how people love this time of year as they get an extra hour of sleep. They must not have horses...or cats.

I tried to acclimatize the horses starting yesterday as I didn't want the inside boarded horses to have  to spend an extra hour in their stalls, yet I still wanted to sleep in a little (otherwise today would have been REALLY long!). I gave them extra hay during the day, and brought them in a half hour late. I fed them 40 minutes late last night, and figured that bought me 30-40 minutes more of sleep Saturday night.

Wrong on so many levels.

First, my brain kept me up all night worrying about over sleeping (like that would be the end of the world), so I would wake up, check my clock, and then try to do the math as to what time it really was...which is complicated when you are semi-awake. Then there was the worry as to if my cell phone had changed to the new time, or was still on the old time (it has my alarm). What I forgot I could count on though...was the CAT alarm. The round and heavy, and very aloud alarm cat who sat on my chest at the "new" 5:45, as that is what time she thought I should be up.

Wacking the cat alarm on the head doesn't stop the alarm, and the only snooze button I could find involved petting.

But I managed to stay in bed until the blissful hour of 6:30...only to face the reproach of 4 mares. The geldings seemed fine with me showing up late, but the mares? Sheesh. You would think they were starved and stir crazy. Coregel and Brassy bounced all the way to their pen.

Now to try to stay awake for what will seem like an extra long day.

I much prefer the leap ahead time change...yeah, for some of you that means one hour less sleep, but to me it means a day one hour shorter with an early bed time :) Ah, yes...I am old...

Karen

Snow! White and flakey snow!

Although I am aware most of you commuters are likely cursing the stuff, I love how white and crisp this dusting of flakes has given the farm! It makes night chores much easier with it being so much brighter out! Also no mud!

Kitten is not impressed by both the cold stuff on the ground, and the fact the barn doors are kept closed. Charlie is also already going a little crazy from being confined to the barn...so be on the watch when riding!

This week in lessons, we will be continuing to work on looking and using the eyes and upper body appropriately to prepare our horse for an upcoming turn or obstacle. This time instead of pylons though, I think there will be jumps. Tricky jumps. Riders who felt benefit from having their stirrups tied can once again enjoy the assistance that bondage can bring. Limiting the range of motion available to your feet has two main benefits; it keeps your body more stable, and it forces riders to be more insistent  that their horse listens to correct and subtle aids.

I would also like to remind boarders that this Wednesday is the end of the month, so board is due! If you haven't already paid me the $20 for deworming please do. The fall is a tricky month as we tend to stock up on hay and shavings for the winter, so we would really appreciate prompt payment (as always!).

Finally, I want to remind riders of the TTeam clinic coming up on Dec 1 and 2. There are riding and non riding spots still available. If the clinic is not filled internally by November 10, I will be opening it up to outside riders/haul ins, so if you are planning to attend, please don't wait until the last minute to let me know!

Karen

Ahh classic kijiji!

"willing to lease my horse for breeding. She produces beautiful fools you do not want to miss out on her.

text or call for info"

Then there is this silly person who forgot to put the bridle on her horse for the second photo:
Jumping horse

Power was out at the farm for over 2 hours. BRRR..derailed my ambition to be productive this afternoon so took a nap with the cats.

Lessons this week;

As promised, there will be some tying of stirrups to girths to help remind riders where their leg should be, and to let you feel when it leaves that zone. This also makes riders use their leg properly, and then use a crop if needed rather than bring heels up or get kicky.

I am also working on some exercises to work on getting riders to use their eyes better. Main issue is with people wanting to look down when thinking. It really helps if you can look where you are going through a tricky transition or over a jump!

As I am going to try to work on a sales video for Gody, I will have some fancier than usual jumps set too; a line that looks like real hunter jumps with fill, some jumper stuff...it will be great!

Karen