Sit the Trot

After last weekends show I went home and as we probably all do, spent some of the evening looking back and our performance, and what we can improve upon for next time. I know Axel wasn't right this last weekend and whether it was behavioral or physical I needed to find a way to help us improve moving forwards. So begins a process of elimination with horses, rule out pain before considering behavior. So, where to start. Firstly the horse looks sound, no lameness at all. Secondly he has recently had a lot of time spent on saddle fit and thirdly he has recently had his neck injections. So that at least rules a few things out. Next I looked at what I have been feeling on my boy. Slight balking every now and again at going forwards under saddle at home but usually worked out of. He is so much worse at shows or in stressful environments.  In the back of my mind I started to wonder if his ulcers had returned, or never really healed in the first place and the more I thought about i...

So, there has been a delay in postings due to us taking off to sunny Mehico and drinking our bodyweight in Pina Coladas. It was tough but someone had to do it... On our return I had a few rides on my ginger one before heading off to a show an hour into the Mountains in Pine, Colorado. The weather was warm but not boiling hot and we had a chance to warm up in the little indoor before we went in, he warmed up great and we headed off to the beautiful outdoor in the middle of the forest glade! As soon as we got near the arena I could feel he was really worried, the flies were crazy and he felt pretty tense. Regardless we went in and rode the test as best we could. He tried his little heart out but really felt tight and I didn't feel that I got him to relax at all through the test, he wanted to be with me and wanted to listen, but he struggled with the atmosphere and ended up side stepping out the arena oops! Our second test and he was still dealing with some tension and nerves. Oh,...

Last weekend we headed off to Boulder Valley dressage show with a small team of Saras students. The show was around an hour and forty five mins away with a trailer so we decided to stay over, as driving back and forth was going to end up pretty exhausting! The initial plan was to head up on Friday afternoon so that we were ready for Saturday mornings competing. However mid week we got ride times, and I found out that Axels was competing Saturday evening, like 7.30 & 8.30pm! After I got over the initial shock of such late rides, I chatted with Sara and we decided we would head up Saturday morning instead, her first student wasn't riding until around 10:30am so we had plenty of time to get up there before she had to coach. It was my first experience of Axel going in the trailer alone and he was as always, good as gold. We loaded the huge amounts of luggage: rolling tack box, chairs, boots, saddles, overnight bags, snacks, fans, hay, feed, water buckets and so forth and set of...