Had another lesson on Wednesday, with my instructor Jessica. I wish I could afford to have more than one lesson a week. Jessica has done so much to teach, encourage, support and push me and my mare into a better safer, and more confident relationship. Oh, we still have a long way to go, but we have also come very far in such a short time, too. Just think. Before the beginning of July I hadn’t ridden my mare for a year because of my fear caused by last summer’s kicking incidents. And after just one lesson with Jessica, a week later I was riding my mare on a 7 mile ACTHA CTC ride! And now, just a month later, I’m preparing myself and my mare for back-to-back ACTHA CTC rides up in Santa Fe next weekend. This just confirms to me that it’s never too late to move forward with your goals and dreams if you have the right support, tenacity, encouragement, and training.
I also have my friend Roni to thank, too. (this is starting to sound like an Acceptance Speech. lol!) She is a good mentor for me and is also encouraging and supportive. We have similar goals in that we both want to ride in as many ACTHA CTC rides as we can, and we both enjoy riding out on the trails. Roni has also been kind enough to always be willing to come over and load up my mare in her trailer while our ranch truck has been in Phoenix with Ranchman John for his job. It’s great that we live only 5 minutes, and just over the ridge, from each other, too.
So with those two fantastic ladies to thank, I am able to continue on my horse journey once again.
(How old do I look? My birthday is this Sunday. And I’m hoping I look younger than my real age.)
I apologize for not having any photos from the lesson in this post. Apache and I were very focused and working hard during our lesson and I didn’t even have a second to pull out my camera and the thought didn’t even occur to me.
On Wednesday, Roni came over in the morning to pick up Apache and I. The previous week I had set up a private lesson with Jessica and asked if Roni could come, too, and also get a private lesson. I like how Jessica does private lessons with friends. Instead of working with each person individually for one hour, with the other person waiting for their lesson to begin, she combines the lessons into one two hour lesson with lots of individual instruction and plenty of time to practice and work with your horse with what she just taught. And then she comes over to review, assist and give pointers. It works out really well and I never feel neglected or that I’m not getting my money’s worth. Plus it’s a full 2 hour of riding time and exercise in a professional arena. Can’t beat that.
Anyway, I had a lot I wanted to work on to prepare for the following weekend’s ACTHA CTCs in Santa Fe and I had bought a bunch of new tack that I wanted to try out first before we left.
After realizing that Apache’s pony-sized pad, while perfect in length for her back, was not wide enough over her barrel and caused a small swelling from her saddle’s metal cinch loop because of all the squeezing and kicking I had to do to get her to move faster, during our last ACTHA CTC. I could have just wrapped the metal in some fleece, but I also wanted a thicker pad to protect her back, too. So I ordered a Toklat Cool Back Orthopedic pad through the Long Riders Gear website, and it finally arrived 4 weeks later, the day before my private lesson. I immediately washed it as per the instructions, and tossed in the dryer, but the suede leathers were still damp when I placed it on her back in the morning. I am happy with the fit, but the extra thickness under the saddle took some getting used to and the longer width required me to shorten the cinch on the off side because the buckle sat in a weird a half-on/half-off the pad location. I think Apache appreciates the thicker fleece of the pad, though and Toklat advises that the more often you wash the pad, the softer and fluffier it will get.
(Photo was taken after yesterday’s lesson, just before she was loaded onto the trailer. I had rubbed some SWAT on her legs and belly before the lesson and it really picked up the dust. But you can see that Apache was one tired pony!)
I bought a new set of black cotton trail reins from Chick's Saddlery, too. My other set of favorite reins are also black cotton, but they are split reins. These new trail reins are the looped, barrel style, but are 10’ long. This is something I’ve looked around for a long time after I used a comfortable pair of Parelli cotton reins last year, while riding Rosie and Etta Bay out on the trails. I don’t mind the split reins when just riding normally, but have found that with my slowpoke mare, trying to stay coordinated while steering Apache and swinging the poppers at the end of the split reins, over her withers, can be a challenge. The ends of the reins tend to get tangled up underneath my horn bag and the saddle pad, and I keep getting distracted while searching for and extracting the ends of my split reins. These new cotton trail reins are very comfortable in the hands and much easier for me to use.
Which leads me to my last piece of tack. Because I have the new looped reins, I don’t have the leather poppers to swing over Apache’s withers or smack her rump to get her moving. So I bought a Western-style leather Quirt.
I had seen old time photos of quirts being used by cowboys/vaqueros, but I didn’t know any modern era folks who had used one themselves, until one of my favorite blogs My Country Genes, posted excitedly about her new “Magic Quirt” that she bought for her slowpoke Fjord mare, Lew.
So, I figured if it worked for her, then maybe I should try it, too.
So I ordered my quirt from Chick's Saddlery for just $8.00. And after deeply oiling it to make it more supple and soft, I just have to say that Deanna is right! I introduced my quirt to Apache during Wednesday’s lesson and I can attest that quirts are easy to use and very effective. Quirts truly are magic!
But it was time for the lesson……
Apache was eager and quick to step right up and load into Roni’s 2-horse bumper pull horse trailer. My mare seems much happier when she has a job to do and somewhere to go.
Jessica had her arena set up with a few ACTHA obstacles and the plan was to work on some of them, including 1)opening a rope gate, 2)lifting a board off one barrel and moving your horse in a circle around the two barrels to place the board back onto the same barrel, and 3)backing up/side-passing, and maneuvering through a maze of cavalettis. I was looking forward to practicing on all of them because they are obstacles we’ve either not learned how to do yet or that we’ve not done well with during an ACTHA CTC. Unfortunately, Apache and I only worked on the cavaletti maze, because Jessica recognized that was something we needed to focus on.
After we attempted two sections of the cavaletti maze that was set up into an “H” shape. We backed up straight, then turned right, then bended slightly right, straightened up and then backed out. We didn’t do too bad until after we bended to the right, and then I was having problems getting Apache straight and we kept clipping or stepping over the cavaletti on the right side, instead of backing completely out of the maze. Jessica noticed that Apache wasn’t being as soft as she could with me, even though she was trying hard to give me what I asked for. And instead of moving away from the pressure of my legs, she tended to move into it.
Jessica had me get to work on flexing Apache’s neck, disengaging Apache’s hips, doing turns on the forehand, and side passing. We had a lot of work to do. And it was already a hot day in the mid-90’s, but we were determined.
The softening work was quite challenging because Apache’s neck is pretty stiff and she tends to get bracey during steering sometimes. She tried a number of evasive techniques at first, including pulling her nose down as low as she could get away with and trying to turn her head upside down. I discovered that she really liked having me pet her head, scratch her cheeks and rub around her eyes when she flexed her neck. I think it was an incentive for her to become soft.
When I finally got her soft and flexing willingly, we naturally moved right into disengaging Apache’s hips and doing turns on the forehand. I noticed that in the beginning Apache and I were both struggling and very confused. But once I learned how to communicate what I wanted with Apache then a light seemed to go on in Apache’s brain and she began to comply while licking and chewing. As we continued to practice, she became softer and more willing and quicker to comply with my requests. She’s a horse that thrives on positive encouragement and the more I rubbed her neck, scratched her butt, and told her “Good Girl!”, she seemed more eager to give me what I asked for.
But side-passing was a much bigger challenge…..
(Because this post is already way too long, I’ll continue this story in another post.)
