Update!! Sherwood is... horrifying in an indoor. After our amazingness on the trailer three weekends ago, we made an appointment to bring her for a lesson in an indoor in the quest to get her off the property and ready for showing this summer. So, two Mondays ago, we loaded her up (without an issue!) and drove her 5 minutes down the road to the H/J barn. They had me "try out" on a young TB lesson horse before they'd allow me to bring Sherwood to their normally busy indoor, in order to gauge my ability to handle a young scared athletic mare. Well, good call, peeps!

This fricking mare was... controlled chaos in motion! She wanted out of that place so bad. Wouldn't stand for the mounting block, trying to run me over everywhere, refusing to turn away from the gate by threatening to rear and shake me off, kicking at the instructor! I'm pretty sure my instructor either thought I was a moron or a pathological liar. All I had to fall back on was that she'd watched me ride the horse she trained (my tryout horse) and do a fair job of it. At the end, she left it at, "Well, you handle her well and you're well matched. She's fast, you're faster, she's tricky, and you've shown up to learn tools. I think you'll be okay with her, but she definitely needs more miles." And then Sherwood tried to kick her. Again. And all I could say, as I'd been saying the entire 45 minute lesson was, "I'm so sorry, she's never done that before." SNAFU, much? LoL

In retrospect, Sherwood was totally manageable- she never reared, she never did anything but shake her head and stomp her feet and slam on the brakes. I've ridden through far FAR worse than that. And by the end, we actually got a full half-round of the arena at a trot. So... progress was made.

AND I dragged her butt onto the trailer this weekend to ride in the outdoor at Bohemia, which was much more slick than I thought it would be, so we didn't do much, but she trailered there very well, she stood for a VERY awkward ground mounting (OMG, if I was her, I'd have run away), and walked and trotted around like a pro. After a minor blow-out in the parking lot about her being ADD and me asking her to pay attention.

Fantastic Miss Mare. We had to cancel our 2nd lesson in the indoor this afternoon due to 7 inches of snow, but we can't wait to get back there ASAP!

So, I'm getting a little obsessed with my Clinton Anderson videos- it's a little amazing how well it works in getting Sherwood to focus, pay attention, and not be so pushy. It's almost amusing how he refers to horses like her as big, dumb, fat, lazy horses- unathletic and old. Have we seen Sherwood? Tall, leggy, fairly successful racehorse... 4 years old? It cracks me up every time he says it.

So, tomorrow we're going to work on yielding her front end, doing 1/2-circles- though I have my doubts about those because she's still young.. Do we want those tight circles on her joints?- and switching sides. These are such interesting videos in that I've been doing a LOT of it on my own since I was a teen. I was missing some basic building blocks, but it makes the reason why I could get some "troubled" horses just... be mine. They were the scared ones; I have issues with asserting myself, so I just stayed away from the pushy ones- which is why Sherwood is so difficult for me to deal with on some levels. I'm so glad I got these videos, they're filling in the gaps of the tools I do have, so I can now tackle pushy horses AND scared ones.

I'm also intrigued by this "rub to a halt" idea. I think it may work with Sherwood, I just need to figure out my timing.

Oh yeah- and trailer work. Woot. Maybe even hop on... Oh my.

Trailer. Check.

So, I've been watching the Clinton Anderson Groundwork series and although I recognized a lot of what we've been working on, they're really helping to kind of help me figure out the... thought process behind the teachings and refine my methods. And we saw some excellent results today!

We worked on flexing her head and neck, disengaging her hindquarters, and backing. Then we worked on one of the missing blocks Michelle hadn't worked with us on- I think she thought Sherwood knew it, since she's generally pretty good about her front feet. I found out she's not. Not really. So... we worked on that.

 The we desensitized her to the rope because I noticed she was getting pretty jumpy around it.

I set up a couple obstacles, one of which was a silver tarp held down on one side but left to flap around the other 3 sides. She's never had an issue with tarps, so I upped the ante by letting it flap around her legs in the wind. I'm pretty sure she laughed at me as she walked and trotted over it.

The next was a small gymnastics set along the fence- a 12" cross rail with a pole 9 feet beyond it, or vice versa. We started just going over the pole, yielding and going the opposite direction, then went over the jump, then over both. Back and forth 3 times each side. Next time, I'm upping that damn fence. I'm pretty sure she wasn't done chuckling from the tarp.

Then the tire, just walk over it once as the last refresher of the day. This one I got her attention with. Oy. In between each of these, we stepped away and did some lunging.

THEN we walked over to the trailer and point and shot on (first time ever!!), she turned around all on her own, and stood looking out. Then we played around the in the trailer- turning around, yielding hinds and fores, backing, and going forward, messing around with the rope, and giving feet. We even got one panicked back off, which promptly landed her in some lunging and yielding, and a rest back on the trailer. Overall, she's doing pretty fricking awesome. We called it a day at that.

It was so cute watching her yawn over and over on the crossties. Stress relief, much?

Winter Wailings

It seems like I always have such good intentions to post on here, but I just never do. Maybe I should make that one of my New Year's resolutions. At the very least, post once per week. We'll work on that.

Sherwood is a trip. The longer I own her, the more I see and realize just how ridiculous she truly is. From picking Dennis's wood blocks out of her water and throwing them at him because she didn't like them, to pulling an attitude because of something I did and going over to threaten Loki, she is just... trippy. I am also re-realizing just how incredibly smart and bored she is- and how important it is so work her more regularly than I've been. Granted, it's been in the teens or below, or raining, or an ice rink here for the past month or so, but... we should work on that. (I'm beginning to see a trend here...)

The trailer issues are working themselves out! Yesterday, we worked on some groundwork in the morning, then came back and did an actual trailer session in the afternoon. It only took about 15 minutes and a monsoon, but she got in, turned around, and stood in the trailer with me for about 5 minutes while we waited for the rain to stop. The attitude she got when the rain really started coming down and she realized we weren't heading back to the barn or stopping was pretty hilarious. She went from working but getting kind of bored to PISSED!! in a matter of seconds. About 5 minutes later, she got in the trailer. haha All I needed was a little help from God. Who says he doesn't answer prayers?

We're going to work on that again today, and tomorrow take her to the local riding center where we had an epic failure last time and see if we can get her worked and reloaded in a reasonable time frame. Wish me luck!

Big Doings!

Haven't had time to post in a while. Been working 7 hour shifts at a peds office and running to the barn in any spare time because it's beautiful out! Sherwood was lame for a week with what I thought was a stone bruise and now know to be a skillful faking-lame act.

Dennis and I got her on a trailer and buckled in, now we need to do it again.

I found her a trainer! One i can afford to have come by and ride more than once a week... And be a friend. NICOLE!! We went for our first trail ride today and she was fantastic. We encountered deer, other riders on horses, walkers, dogs behind fences, and there was some snorting, some head-tossing, so jigging, but... No spooking, bolting, bucking, rearing, etc. She was a dream! Love my mare!

It's been insane- just finished up a 4-week whirlwind in the Brooklyn Emergency Department and although I'm excited to get back to a schedule where I Can get to the barn on a regular basis, it's a little sad to leave behind all the new people I've met. C'est la vie...

In light of the insane schedule I was keeping, Sherwood has actually been sitting around and I've seen the full extent of... Bored Mare Behavior. I hopped on after a week or so of not getting there and should have known better from the antics in the aisle and on the lunge. We're still lunging for 15 minutes before every ride, but I think she may be getting balanced enough to hold a controlled canter in both directions under saddle! So, next ride, I will update you on that. I was going to try on Sunday, but between the Car Show down the street- think loudspeakers, blaring carnival rides, and growling muscle car engines- and the Bouncy House for a Christening party next door, I figured maybe we'd wait.

Her topline is really starting to fill out, and although she's still not engaged on the bit even half the time, steering and halting has become much more dependable (always a good thing!). She's even starting to get the idea of bending around corners and going long and low at the trot- on the straightaway OR with direction changes.

She is truly a great mare- every day I deal with her, I thank the Big Guy in the Sky for watching out for me because she is just fantastic. The bouncy House? One look and it's not a big deal. The muscle cars burning rubber down the street? A quick flinch but then onto other work. I don't know many four year olds who are as relaxed as she is. I just bought my trail and ring pass to Bohemia!! So now, as soon as I figure out how to get her to walk on and stay on a trailer (she gets on fine but backs right off immediately... grr), we can go play in the park! Which is really exciting because I've been getting trailer driving lessons and have use of a truck and trailer when I need it. So... yay for fall trail rides!

Sherwood has been coming along nicely! I even managed to get some glamour shots of my lovely girl after her bath. It was getting later in the day, but she'd had a hard workout and received a lovely bath, and was all squeaky clean and shiny. Perfect time to hang around and get some pretty sweet shots in an ugly barnyard.

I've been riding her about 2-3 times a week and working on the lunge the other 1-2 times. She hasn't had one act-up under saddle (knock on wood, KNOCK ON WOOD!!), but we haven't progressed to a canter yet. I figure, if it's not steady on the lunge, it's not ready under saddle. Not in a rocky, uneven arena filled with stuff that... should I hit it, it's going to leave a mark. No bueno. We have been doing lots of circles, figure-8s, serpentines, patterns, and we're starting over cavalettis. We're now up to stride poles followed by a double stride. I think we're going to work on 2 and 3-stride combinations tomorrow... Depending on how she is after today and yesterday's days off.

The schedule we'd finally worked out through this past 7 weeks of my Internal Medicine rotation was to go T, W, F, S, Sun. Lunge on T/F and Ride W/S/Sun, when I have the time and energy to be more patient and cognizant of her shortcomings and areas she needs to work on. Most of the time on the lunge is review work- H<-->W<-->T transitions, pick up the canter, let her sort through her balance, do a couple T<-->C transitions, change direction and do it all over again, then slip on the side reins and do it all over again in both directions. Overall about a 30 minute workout, maybe 45 if I get involved in something, with lots of walking breaks and halt transitions because... she sucks at them. I can't seem to figure out how to teach her to halt gently- ask her nicely, she blows right through it. Ask her more forcefully and the head comes up, the back drops, and it's a super awkward, uglyness. Bah.


Loki wanted to do his part in supporting the team effort, so he offered to wear team colors. Sadly, they were a bit large for him.
And he looked like Frankenstein when he tried to walk... slash hobble.
















We did not make it to the Young Horse Show, but our in-hand work was pretty sweet by the time we figured out we weren't going to make it. I spoke to the JC this week about sorting out her ownership transfer. It turns out that since her old owner could care less about me getting her papers at this point, I need to apply for a duplicate foal registration and get a notary to sign off on my reason that her papers were lost in shipping. Lovely, right? So, we're working on that while we also work on all the stuff necessary for the end of this clinical- next Thursday is my last day! AHH! Then we got to Brookdale. And get scared of gunshot wounds and knife stabbings. A far shot from the opulent north shore office I've been in... Wish me luck!!