Cool weather

This is the result of cool weather and not enough outdoor time!

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Lilo Fore Clinic - Update

Quick update... Today was the deadline to apply for the Lilo Fore Clinic. After many, many obstacles, I shot off an email (application attached) to the organizer with a link to a crappy video. And let me tell ya, it is CRAPPY. I have jeans on. In my defense, I swear, I tried a half dozen times to capture us on video in our best attire and neatly braided with utterly no luck. So screw it. This is what I've got with the resources I have available. About an hour after emailing the organizer, she emailed back saying that the app looked good and she'll be sending it to the selection committee for review (next week since it's Friday today). Frankly, I didnt expect to hear anything back. Or if I did, it'd just be the word's "hahaha, you hick!" Anyway, application is in, no more getting angry about failed video attempts, and the best part... If I don't get selected I can blame it on the jeans and tank top and not my piss poor riding skills. I love s...
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Issues & tension

I've been having problems with Ava for the last week. I need a lesson so badly! It's so frustrating not being able to fix whatever is wrong. Bern, you're going to be so pissed when I come back in October! We were going so well when we left the barn just a month ago. *sigh* Until then, I have to find a way to fix this. Here's what's going on.... We walk out to the mowed area behind the house at 5:30-6:00. She's fine on the walk out, leg yields softly both ways, calm, relaxed. We step into the mowed area and she turns into a board. She braces against the bit, doesn't really listen to the seat, kicks out at the leg when I put it in, gets really tense. Walk back to the barn and she's relaxed and calm, leg yields easily and softly. She always goes out to pasture after our ride. I'm not sure if she's in pain from the saddle, anxious about being turned free for the night, upset with the footing in the "arena", or if I'm tensing and caus...
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Positive Reinforcement

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It's common knowledge that most managers are stingy with their praise, but as the managing partner of your equine team, do you praise often enough? Lately, I've been stumbling on numerous forum posts and articles related to "lazy" horses. In my experience, most so called "lazy" horses are created by riders teaching the horse to ignore the aids. However, a rider with more refined aids (on the less than energetic horse) needs to be conscientious in praising the horse's effort to give us what we want (even if the horse has no clue why we care about some of this stuff). Using positive reinforcement to solidify the horse's desire to work goes much farther than negatively reinforcing the "lazy" horse. To illustrate this point I'll give a totally hypothetical, entirely made up situation. Let's say "my friend" (Okay, fine.. it's me.) feels her horse's canter departs need improvement and sets out to work on them during a...
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