Hi all!
I am alive I promise! The past week has been crazy and any
spare time Jenny & I have had we spent at the gym!
Day 35 Thursday
February 7th 2013
During my lesson we worked on lateral work, basically just
getting comfortable with it. We didn’t work on much in the canter due to the
quantity and quality of the trot work. Halfway through my ride Lendon asked
Molly to teach me a bit, she had me work on transitions in the shoulder-in and such
to make the movements more ride able and adjustable.
At noon we had a eat and learn lecture with a woman from
Adequan at the jumper show grounds, then at 3 we had a discussion with one of the
local fire fighters on fire safety.
Day 36 Friday February
8th 2013
Friday was a hack day but I gave Tee the day off to rest. I
scribed for some judges that were practice judging at the Jim Brandon show
grounds. I’m pretty sure it is safe to say that I am now a professional scribe
:-P
We had 2 discussions, one was with 18 year old Olympic show
jumper Reed Kessler and the other was current events with Theresa. In the
evening a few of us WITees went to a local paintball field and let loose!!
Day 37 Saturday
February 9th 2013
Again we worked on the lateral again, getting it quite and consistent.
Did A LOT of counter canter so that we
could get more confident and comfortable with it. Tee is becoming more
noticeably off behind, nothing major but it shows up most in lengthening and
canter transitions where he really has to sit on his hind end. Lendon
recommended buteing him as an experiment to see if it was joint soundness or
more muscular tiredness.
Scribed at Jim Brandon again for the I1 and Grand Prix tests,
the Grand Prix tests were pretty hard to keep up with but luckily I had an
amazing judge!
Day 38 Sunday
February 10th 2013
Tee was sore to the touch all over his body today, even
kicked me while grooming which is defiantly out of character for him. I walked
him for about 15 minutes before our lesson then once we got to work he was SO
stiff and avoided stepping under with his right hind. Due to the severity of
his soreness I just stretched him for 10ish minutes at the walk and trot then
quit and gave him a nice bath in liniment. At 3PM the group had a test on
anatomy of the horse including bones, tendons, joints and ligaments.
Day 39 Monday
February 11th 2013
Worked at Mica’s for most of the afternoon taking care of
her client’s 2 ponies and her 2 horses, I basically just had to do feeding,
stalls, turnout, hand walking etc.
Day 40 Tuesday
February 12th 2013
Our morning consisted of watching 2 Spanish Olympians ride:
Juan Manuel and Daniel Martin. They flew over to the states for the PRE party
that I will talk more about later.
Before my lesson I noticed Tee’s stifles looked a little
swollen, after some investigation I discovered that that is where his pain was
mostly coming from. I spoke with Lendon and she said that stifle issues are
majority of the time just a strength issue so we would watch him closely to see
if they get progressively worse. Although he did start off really well soreness
wise during our ride about halfway through he began being slightly balky when I
would sit the trot. Lendon recommended that I try riding in a “real” saddle.
After switching saddles and giving him a few minutes to warm up to the new
saddle he was so much better!
In the afternoon we had sort of a question and answer time
with Juan Manuel and Daniel Martin about their life in Spain and Olympic experience.
Day 41 Wednesday
February 13th 2013
Some of the WITees were able to ride with the Spaniards in
the morning so I was able to audit. Their teaching styles were pretty unique so
it was fun to watch.
Had a pretty great lesson with Lendon, worked on lateral,
counter canter and improving the FORWARD. All of this was done stirrup-less
which was pretty rough considering I had never seriously ridden without
stirrups before. Worked on the canter transitions and slightly opening my
fingers during it so that I wouldn’t tighten y hand and pull on Tee’s face. Also
started to school some turns on the haunches.
In the evening we were invited to go to the PRE party at the
global dressage show grounds. The goal of the evening was to educate and bring
awareness to the Spanish horses. The night was filled with demo rides, great Spanish
food and some Spanish dancers from a local elementary school. I think everyone
enjoyed being “transported” to a different culture/country for the evening!
Day 42 Thursday
February 14th 2013
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I hope everyone had a
fantastic day with their loved ones or for those of you that are single I hope
you enjoyed the freedom of being single on such an obnoxious “holiday”!
For the first time since arriving here we had our very first
day of pouring rain (I’m not complaining!) So as you can guess we wasted no
time getting down to business during our lesson. Today was another torturous
day of no stirrups during lateral, canter and lengthening work J Lendon helped us with
the timing of the canter-walk. Tee was fantastic and felt great!!
In the afternoon we were able to go and watch the grand prix
class at the global dressage showgrounds.
Day 43 Friday
February 15th 2013
After chores and feeding we started our day off correctly
with a workout with Andrea Landis. Then we went to the global to watch some
tests of the level we are schooling so that we could kinda see what our tests
should look like and mistakes others make. While at global we met in the VIP
tent for a lecture with Jenny van Wieren about USEF high performance. Later at the barn I went on a hack with my roommate
then off to the gym we went!
Day 44 Saturday
February 16th 2013
In the morning we went back to global to watch some of the
WIT girls that were showing. Congrats to everyone on the fantastic job they all
did!!
In the afternoon I rode with Andrea. We mostly worked on
going consistently forward and having Tee accept a heavier contact.
Day 45 Sunday
February 17th 2013
Twas the day of arctic weather in Wellington, Florida! It
got down to a whopping 45* for 2 nights straight which is un-fun when you haven’t
packed any winter clothing! All of us
WITees stood in the frigid cold ( :-P ) while watching a few of the other WITs
show again in the international show ring!
During our lesson we worked on little lengthenings in the
canter, mostly just going forward and coming back. He was really tough on my
hand and pretty fussy. When I asked Lendon about this she told me I was
expecting more out of him and he didn’t like it very much, so I back off and as
advised by Lendon took the degree of expectancy back to what it was a week ago and
Tee settled down nicely. Once he was settled I was able to build him back up to
more difficult counter canters and improving the canter within the true canter
and the counter canter. Also started to incorporate turns on the haunches and
walk to canters.
At 4PM we had a discussion with Lendon about double bridles.
Then Lendon asked Nick if I could ride his horse which he agreed to. She wanted
me to ride something with bigger movement than Tee to see how a fancier horse
feels. I had a lot of fun and did learn quite a bit! Thanks Nick!
Day 46 Monday
February 18th 2013
I worked for Mica again today. Not much to write about, it
was a pretty low key day! Although our group potluck was pretty exciting, it
was breakfast for dinner night! Pjs were mandatory J
Day 47 Tuesday
February 19th 2013
I had a lesson with Koryn Staehling who is Courtney King-Dye’s
assistant. She was a fantastic teacher and I feel like we really got somewhere
in our lesson. We worked on keeping a lot of bend so that the right amount of
bend is easy, changes of bend through a 3 loop serpentine to help Tee settle
then we worked on the canter. We worked on getting Tee to go absolutely forward
from the very beginning of the transition. I think our big breakthrough was when
she encouraged me to keep pushing him even through his little buck fits, after
that it was miraculous how steady he got and how willing he was to go forward
and even lengthen! It made since to think of it as he was carrying me forward
instead of in an upwards direction. She also had me try a different way of
picking him up from the free walk to medium walk: bending him slightly right
then slightly left, slowly and gradually so that he accepts the contact and
bend and doesn’t really notice the change.
In the afternoon we had a lecture with Betsy LaBelle from
dressage daily on media training! We had a sort of mock media conference with
made up scenarios to test are ability to come up with positive answers on the
spot and our stock answers.
So sorry for not updating in like 12 days! I hope this post
makes up for it! On word its 4 full pages and 1,700 words.
I promise I won’t ever go this long without posting again!
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