I hope 2024 brings you good health and lots of saddle time with both your HH and real horses!
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I got to ride a horse today!!!
I got my riding lesson on MJ. Starting off he was STIFF, not wanting to move out at all. I got up into 2-point but I was too weak to stay up for long. I apologized to MJ. That did not mean anything to MJ, he was stiff.
So we walked around the ring, nothing fancy today since most of the ride was devoted to get his back âswingingâ, finally that occurred. I was unsteady in the saddle, Debbie kept on getting after me for putting too much weight in my right stirrup. On the other hand she made sure to tell me that as far as hands are concerned I have the best hands in the stable (and she is including herself in that group.)
I got there early and they brought MJ out to the wash stall so I could start doing all my work on him with the Posture Prep. He was OK with the PP on his croup, slightly doubtful of it on his back, did not like it much at all on the top of his neck (under the mane), and finally âtoldâ me "YES, do it HERE when I went down his neck to the triangle based on the scapula where the serratus ventralis cervicis muscles go from the inside top of the scapula bone down to the cervical vertebrae. This was interesting to me, the serratus ventralis muscles are very strong because they have tendons inside the muscles, and help support weight of the neck as it curves down to the front of the spine in front.
I then told Debbie about what I have been reading on here about the C6-C7 malformations of the neck vertebrae, how this had not been researched until THIS CENTURY though it has been affecting horses for many centuries at least. I told her that one of the symptoms of this malformation is that the horse is UNABLE to go âstraightâ, told her my struggles with my first horse and a later mare when I tried to get them STRAIGHT and failing miserably. I thought back then it was because I was not a good enough rider, now I know that these horses were totally unable to go straight because they probably had this malformation (Anglo-Arab gelding, 7/8 Arab/ASB mare), in a milder form. Since I am a Forward Seat rider and the insistence on the horse getting straight is more a concern for dressage horses I just shrugged my shoulders and kept on doing the stuff that the horses were comfortable with.
And you know what? Debbie is now identifying as a Forward Seat rider! This is good, for over a decade I have been teaching Debbie about Forward Seat as a riding and training system, and I have illustrated what I am talking about on her lesson horses. I think the turning point was when I took on riding Bingo, a badly conformed QH (croup high, low set neck, with the thickest âthroatlatchâ area I had ever seen on a horse, worse than a draft horse with a thicker throatlatch, (Bingoâs C1 vertebra, the atlas, had really wide transverse processes.) He was really mad at humans when I started with him, he scowled at everyone, he did not believe in cooperating with us dastardly humans, his mouth felt like it was made of iron, and his favorite resistance was backing up for a long distance (this horse did not like backing up when his rider asked him to.) Inversions, gaping, putting weight on the bit (my poor arms) were his norm.
Until several months of one 30 minute lesson a week where I introduced him to Forward Seat schooling. Then Bingo stopped scowling at us, he started to show pleasure with being groomed, he started voluntarily reaching out for the bit in response to my legs and he softly obeyed my rein aids. When I introduced him to the double bridle most of these problems disappeared, his problem was that no one had ever trained him how to be a good riding horse, no one had trained him how to have a proper relationship with the bit, and no one had trained him to the subtleties inherent in leg aids. The poor guy did not know much at all even though he was in his late 20s.
I transformed Bingo into a decent riding horse that I enjoyed riding by using my Forward Seat training methods, light and responsive hands, and well timed leg aids. I managed to train him to be a decent riding horse in spite of his severe conformational faults.
Now Debbie seems to be a believer in the efficacy of the Forward Seat and Forward Schooling, ala Littauer, that I have been using at her stable during my lessons and homework rides for years. She has started to use the Forward Seat methods in her own riding, training and teaching. She has seen this work with her less than stellar lesson horses when I ride them, she has seen me solve deep-seated problems with her lesson horses, and she has seen me not irritating her horses horribly even though my balance, strength and coordination are truly horrible.
This is good, and her stable is FULL and often has a waiting list. Her lessons tend to be FULL too, again with a waiting list, so her interest in how I ride her horses has not harmed her business at all.
And her 4-H program girls seem to do pretty well at the shows.
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Very interesting! I am so glad you got to ride!
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Youâre valuable to these horses!
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Shannon came by today so I got to ride my HH. Now other people, like my husband can and does help me, but he does not ride horses. Shannon understands what I NEED to accomplish, he just has a rough idea.
I did well today, I made it 16 minutes in the saddle. I put my feet in the stirrups immediately (after moving the saddle back some) and I noticed something, when Shannon said that I was balanced side to side my right foot did not feel as much pressure from the stirrup. That was why I was leaning to the right during my lesson, my body was trying to equalize the pressure in the stirrups, and since my legs are around 1/2" different in length this happens all the time. So I got the feeling of the left stirrup supporting my weight when my right stirrup felt like I was barely touching it.
I tried posting with my feet in the stirrups and I could barely get my seat bones out of the saddle. When I dropped my stirrups I had no problems posting. My HH was mimicking a slow motion bucking bronco when I posted with stirrups, the bronco disappeared when my feet were on the platform. With my feet in the stirrups it was all I could do to get up to 10 posts, with my feet on the platform I got up to 20 posts before I got too tired to continue. I REALLY miss having a horseâs barrel between my legs.
At least I got to be in a saddle twice this week.
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I hope you get on a horse this week!
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SNIFF!!!
We are supposed to get 2" to 4" of rain on Tuesday, plus thunderstorms and high winds.
Even if by some miracle the riding ring drained immediately (not going to happen) I am sure that both MJ and I will have really achy joints. The price of being old.
At least I have my HH so I WILL be able to get into a saddle on Wednesday, barring any major weather disaster right here where I live.
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This week has so crazy weather patterns.
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It rained here, then it rained some more, then the wind gusted, then it rained more. In Charlotte it rained 2.5" yesterday.
I went ahead and called Debbie on Monday cancelling my lesson today. I KNEW that the ring would be swamped so I saved her having to call me.
So I rode my Home Horse this morning with my DH as my spotter. I only lasted 10 minutes but I was pretty active those 10 minutes. After a minute of balancing with my feet on the platform I picked up the stirrups. I did 2-point, both balancing and also âwalkingâ. I posted 10x while trying to keep my lower leg from swinging through the air. I sat, then I did more 2-point. I got tired.
With my feet flat on the platform I did a lot of balancing, âwalkingâ, posting and 2-point both balancing and âwalkingâ. I did two sessions of 20 posts. I would need to rest, sit down, and in a little bit of time my body got BORED so I went back to being active again in the saddle.
I wish I could have ridden MJ. Since next week it will be 23 F at dawn on Wednesday morning I face another week of not riding a horse. I really hope the weather improves after that.
I am SO GLAD I can ride something when I cannot get up on a horse. At least I feel pretty well exercised right now.
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Good job on the exercising! In winter it can be hard to find the motivation.
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Shannon came over yesterday so I could ride my Home Horse. My ride lasted 14 minutes.
For just about the first time she said that both my side-to-side balance AND my front-to-back balance were good, at the same time. The HH is really helping my body to regain at least some sense of balance.
I did not pick up my stirrups or reins yesterday. I posted 20 times (got tired), 2-pointed both at a standstill and âwalkingâ, and I did a good bit of âwalkingâ while sitting down in my saddle.
At the end I did a clockwise circle, not out to the rim but I did use my butt and gut muscles to move my seat around. This got me even more tired. Even so I did not need help getting my right leg over the cantle when I dismounted.
This morning I overslept a full hour. I just did not have the energy to get out of bed.
Wednesday morning it will be cold, low 20s F, and all the rain that is supposed to fall on Tuesday will freeze, tuning the riding ring into a rather lumpy ice skating rink. I will not be having my riding lesson so my DH will spot me on my HH. Next weekend it will get brutally cold overnight, brutally cold for us that is. One night the low will be 19 F. I hope we have electricity through the cold.
I have been coloring in muscles in 5 of my horse anatomy books. Would you believe that I get a little tired when I color in one muscle in the 5 books, if I color in 2 muscles in all 5 books it gets me exhausted. Who knew that coloring a small part of a picture would be so darn exhausting?
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You are going to be the expert on horse muscles! Stay warm during this cold snap!
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The last few weeks have been iffy for me. The extreme cold affected me even though we have heat (heat pump) and I stayed inside.
Then 6 days ago I had to have 2 fillings on the teeth that had the root canals. Not that difficult in itself but in addition to my cataract surgeries and my root canals it proved to be TOO MUCH for me. The tendon of my gripping muscle on my left leg, right up by my crotch, felt like I had strained it sort of badly. I HAD TO use at least one cane to walk through my house, sometimes I needed 2 canes. Normally within my house I do not need to use my canes to walk. My left leg hurt so bad that I was babying that tendon, I changed how I sat, I changed where I eat so I could be in a real chair, and I had to change how I slept. I wore a lot of the Far Infra-red radiation gear, multiple layers of the BOT, Fenwick and some Incrediwear stuff, on my head, neck, hips and arm joints. I used my Posture Prep on my left leg. I have not touched my wonderful horse anatomy books because all the extra heat of all those far-infrared stuff negatively affected my ability to think and remember stuff. Forget about coloring muscles in the horse anatomy books, I just did not have enough fine control over my body.
This might not have affected me as much if I had not been wearing the BOT and Fenwick stuff 24-7 all over my body during the bitter cold when the air over the North Pole came to visit. All of this meant that I could not handle riding my Home Horse when it was too cold to go to the stable. Iâd look at it then my left thigh went NO!, NO!, NO!!!
Today they predicted rain. It was not raining when Debbie called me to make sure that I was coming out, but it started sprinkling when we turned on the road to the barn. I shrugged, I am a hunt seat rider and I do not melt in the rain (if I were a cowboy Iâd have the same reaction.)
I managed to do a little bit of grooming, taking good care of my left leg. I used the Posture Prep on his back, in front of his shoulder and in the hollow of his neck on both sides, got the dried mud off of his head and brushed his mane. Then I collapsed and let Debbie do everything else.
I managed to walk to the riding ring, and I managed to mount MJ. Then we just walked, and at first I just could not stay up in 2-point for longer than a second, so warming up MJ took longer than usual. During this the rain got harder. MJ did not want to do our usual sort of gradual turns, it was turns on the hindquarters or nothing for MJ today. When my legs warmed up Debbie had me get up in 2-point to help MJ and I managed that for a few minutes. Near the end MJ did let me keep contact with just the curb bit so I could have been much worse.
I was not riding well today. Debbie said my lower legs were wandering and that I looked rather iffy in the saddle. MJ just went on putting one foot in front of the other at his normal sort of slow lesson walk. I had to have Debbie press my left knee into the saddle so I could get off at the end.
My right leg hurts a little bit more, when I am riding I do not wear any of the far-infrared gear myself though MJ got to wear his Fenwick saddle pad, BOT butt blanket, Incrediwear hoof socks that we can get up over his hurting kness, and his BOT and Fenwick hats. Of course all of this got wet, as did my coat and breeches, they are all draped over the back of my couches drying out.
After I got home and changed out of my wet clothes and put my Fenwick and BOT gear on. I started being able to walk around the house without any canes, a big relief to me. I used my canes so much the last 8 days that the palms of my hands are hurting, so I am glad that I can walk some without a cane.
At least I got to ride a horse today!!! JOY!
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You are so tough! Riding in the rain and in winter!
Stay strong!
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AgreedâŠ.impressive! Iâm a pansy.
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Proof that 1. every day improves once you get on a horse.
And 2. teeth issues are a demoralizing misery.
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Shannon came by today.
Trying to not hurt my upper left gripping muscle/tendon I took my saddle off the Home Horse so I would not have to raise my leg as much to clear the cantle. This did work, thank goodness.
No saddle of course means no stirrups. That is fine, since I do not have a horseâs barrel between my legs it feels like my lower legs are super insecure. Instead of a saddle I found an old double thick form fitting pad which gave my seat bones enough padding for comfort and did not interfere with me riding.
I made it 17 minutes today. I posted, instead of being able to do 20 posts at a time I had to stop at 10 posts, so I rested and went back to doing another 10 posts. I worked on 2-point, âwalkingâ and I even tried to do the circular motion with my pelvis in both directions. Of course I got tired.
Then Shannon mounted and rode the HH some, working on her gut muscles.
After our rides Shannon dove into my new anatomy book, the very expensive âClinical Anatomy of the Horseâ by Hilary M. Clayton, Peter F. Flood and Diana S. Rosenstein. Shannon was impressed with the book, and looked closely at the rather gory photographs of the dissection (gory as in I start feeling nauseous looking at them if I am eating.) I can eat and look at the anatomical line drawings without problem, but the photographs of fresh dissected tissue does does encourage retching.
I know it is rather late in my riding career to come to the realization that if I had started a deep study of horse anatomy over 50 years ago I might have become a better rider. Of course back then I was limited to the books I could find in bookstores and horse anatomy is nowhere as popular as equitation. I bought what I could but the way I learn I need to look at a LOT of separate resources before it all sinks into my brain. My great comfort is that the school of riding I follow, Forward Seat, was developed by Federico Caprilli who spent YEARS listening to the horses, experimenting with how he rode the horses, until he came up with his system wherein the horses were more comfortable and moved freely.
After studying anatomy there is no way in Hades that I am going to ride any other system. I donât care that those riders can make the horses they ride do things that I cannot get the horse to do, the comfort of the horse I ride is of paramount importance to me. Yep, to me a quiet, free swinging and calm walk is infinitely more important that being able to do passage or piaffe.
The horses seem to agree with me, and when my riding teachers see my results from riding their often elderly lesson horses, my riding teachers seem to end up agreeing with me. Of course this may take a decade, but eventually they tell me that they have changed their riding to reflect the information I give them as to how and why I ride their horses like I do and the results I am aiming for.
Even at this late date the horses I ride will benefit from me studying anatomy. Iâve noticed that I feel more confident when I explain what I am doing and why I am doing it with my new equine anatomical knowledge. Even though it is VERY TIRING for me to ride Forward all the time the results I get from these elderly, aching, and often rather badly trained horses that get dumped at Debbieâs stable just tells me I am on the right path to having the horses be at least somewhat willing to carry me around 30 minutes a week. This makes riding these horse SO MUCH SAFER for me as they are not trying to escape pain, they may still hurt but they hurt a lot less than they do under her other students, as proven by cessation of resistances and evasive behaviors.
Thank you all for reading my rather repetitive posts!
Studying horse anatomy is not a waste of time for serious riders.
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I donât think I could look at the dissection photos. It is important to know the anatomy though.
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Last night I looked at the forecast. It predicted rain for later in the day today.
I got my saddle, pads, girth, butt blankets (if there is a cold breeze I use two, the horses agree with this), and my grooming tools on my wheeled walker and put it all in my living room. I was pretty determined to get up on a horse today.
I got up this morning, the first radar I looked at did not look terrible. But when I went to the radar from the local TV station it looked pretty bad. My joints were aching, my right leg gripping muscle tendon was acting up, my body is a pretty good barometer nowadays. After I got dressed I opened my front door, and it was raining and my front yard was full of puddles.
I called Debbie. She was very sympathetic since there was nothing we could do to stop the rain so I could ride, plus it was a cold rain. She did say for the first time that she was really happy I have the Home Horse since I could ride on something all these days my lesson gets rained out/frozen out/or humans getting sick out. I am glad I have the HH too for days like today but darn it, I want to ride a real live horse!
So my DH helped me ride my HH. I only lasted 12 min. 31 seconds today, I was just too tired to do any more. I got busy right after mounting, I 2-pointed, âwalkedâ in 2-point, and I balanced in 2-point. I then did several sessions of posting 10 times with a few minutes of resting between each session but I was not idle when resting, I was back to walking while I was in 3-point. Then half way through I was so bored I picked up the reins and practiced keeping contact at the âwalkâ and while posting (remembering to open and close my elbows when posting.) Again it is better when riding a real horse but at least I get some practice with the reins and contact. I just have to remember to keep opening and closing my elbows, I have seem to many experienced horse-people who end up forgetting to open and close their elbows while posting. Usually I am the only one who will point it out, no one else dares to mention such a tiny detail to these experienced riders.
As a substitution for having fun on horseback I got back into coloring the muscles in 5 of my horse anatomy books, today I did the rhomboid muscle on the neck. This is one of the muscles that prevents the front limbs from falling off the horse, along with the trapezius, both of which are firmly attached to the scapula, the rhomboid attaches on the interior surface of the scapular cartilage and the trapezius attaching to the spine of the scapula on the exterior surface of the scapula and both are attached to the nuchal ligament on top. Of course coloring in this muscle got me even more tired but someday I will finally finish with the muscles on the scapula and then it will be on to the humerus!
I notice that spending time coloring in the muscles helps my mood, I guess all the colors cheer me up. Maybe doctors should prescribe coloring books when a patient starts getting depressive instead of immediately writing a prescription for the medicines. As far as I can tell coloring has no bad side effects while ALL the anti-depressive medications give me bad side effects eventually.
I NEED at least a month of weekly riding lessons to get my body back to being all right. On the HH my balance has improved greatly, and while my balance while walking is still bad at least I can tell when I start falling to one side and catch myself before I get too out of line.
Maybe next week the Universe will be kind to me and give me weather I can ride in. I am not that picky, over 25 F and I can ride while it is drizzling all through my lesson.
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Tell that groundhog we need a prediction of an early Spring!
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