A Huge Improvement

Since I am human, I never make stupid mistakes. I would never, ever set my camera on the dining room table and forget to bring it to the barn. I'm just not capable of that sort of negligence. 

Yeah, I left the camera at home. Thankfully, I have many old pictures to make up for it. That doesn't make it any less disappointing. The lighting was absolutely gorgeous. The sun was going down; everything was golden; and there was a wonderful sunset. The best part was the slight breeze. I think this is the first non-windy day in weeks! And it showed, Gambler was exceptionally good yesterday. 

I started up with the same warm up I've been using for a couple of days: longe walk/trot over ground poles in both directions for a few minutes and then canter over one pole on the ground. When Gambler is circling to the left, he tends to break gait at the poles, but he'll figure it out with time. 

Once he was warmed up I put on the saddle. This time he stood ground tied for me to put the saddle  on. Of course, I still had to hold him to tighten the cinch. I always tighten it in three stages, very slowly, but he still reacts strongly. Yesterday he was grunting again and throwing his head up. I thought maybe it was hurting him, but then he went back to normal. I'm convinced that the bugger is too smart for his own good. 

When saddle was on I longed him at the walk in both directions, then tightened the cinch. I trotted him in both directions and then tightened it again. The last time I cantered Gambler in the saddle he had a little bucking fit, so when I asked for the canter I was expecting a buck or two. He of course jumped into the canter and bucked a little. Gambler is the stop-and-buck type, as opposed to the run-and-crow-hop type, so when he stopped to buck I just asked him to keep going. After that he cantered with the saddle without a problem. I even added in the canter pole, but he took it like a pro.

I almost got on him yesterday. I did some mounting prep, but Gambler was pretty nervous. I'm going to spend some time standing on things waving my arms over his head and jumping around next to him until he learns to relax. I'm kinda glad that I didn't mount him, because I really want pictures, and as I mentioned before, somebody left the camera at home. 

1 Day-2 Posts (Part 2)

Today is a an absolutely gorgeous fall day. Remember that post about how much I love fall? Well today is one of those fall days I was talking about. The air is crisp, the leaves are starting to change, the wind is blowing . . .oh. The wind. Gambler's favorite weather in the world world-not!

I was sure I'd have a spastic-crazy horse today. In fact, I was tempted to put off the western saddle another day, but the truth is: if you wait for the right conditions, you'll never get anything done. I'm not sure where I saw that, maybe on Pinterest somewhere. The point is I just have to keep moving forward with Gambler's training, regardless of the inconveniences.

So my mom and I brought in the horses, fed them, and then set up the arena. Since I didn't have anyone to fix jumps/poles for me (usually my brother does that), I had to set everything up in different places. Instead of longeing Gambler in one place and switching out the poles/jumps I set up jumps in different places so that all I had to do was move the circle. The system worked exceptionally well.

I warmed Gambler up by walking and trotting him over poles. I also cantered him over a single pole-an exercise to prepare him for cantering over jumps. So far I have only trotted him over jumps, but I want to try them at the canter soon. When I first got Gamby, I thought that I wouldn't be able to do any training until I could ride him. How wrong I was! I already have a good foundation of dressage and jumping, before ever getting on him. He always picks up his leads, he is exceptional at bending in circles and figure eights, and he is figuring out his balance over jumps too. That being said, I need to stop procrastinating and focus on the riding part of training him.

Once he was supple and listening to me, I groomed him and put on the western saddle. As I tightened the girth, he grunted and my heart dropped. That is what he did when he colicked a few weeks ago. However, he was acting like his cheerful self and had just pooped in his stall, so it was unlikely that he was colicky. My conclusion is that he wanted to see if I would take the saddle off. I finished tightening the girth without any more grunting, which affirmed my conclusion.

Once the saddle was on, I walked and trotted him over a pole in both directions. He was a little racey per usual, but he didn't buck once! The trot pole and jumping work has really paid off, he didn't throw his head up ewe-neck style today. I saw a lot of licking and chewing too, which shows me that he is starting to relax and accept the saddle. I had to go earlier than I would have liked, but overall I am very pleased with his performance today. Even though it was an incredibly windy day--even by my standards--Gambler was calm, relaxed, and responsive!

1 Day-2 Posts (Part 1)

Yes, I am a lazy blogger who didn't post an update on Thursday like I should have. In my defense, I've been trying to get to bed early which reduces the amount of free time I have in the afternoons. Today I will make up for my lack of content by posting two updates. Right now I'm going to fill everyone in on Thursday, then I'm going out to see Gambler and I'll post again sometime this afternoon.

On Thursday Kezi was still in heat and Gambley was still being a hyper-energetic dork, so I decided to continue channeling his energy into jumping and trot poles. He did a much better job of trotting over the trot poles instead of jumping them.

After Gambler started to slow down, lower his head, and pick up his feet, I added the small cross rail that he jumped last time I was playing with him. He mostly trotted over it (my horse is so confused), but partially jumped it a couple of times. 

He really didn't want to jump over the jump because it was so small, so I used the buckets to make a vertical. It worked pretty well, except the pole kept falling off  the buckets if the wind blew too hard or he brushed them at all. Here is a video of him knocking over the vertical.

 Since the buckets weren't working so well, I set up a much bigger cross rail with two barrels. Gambler had no problem with this jump. Here is a video of the barrel cross rail. 

To finish off the day, I did a little of the circling game and discovered that if I give the right cues, Gambler has an adorable slow trot. I can't wait to ride it! Here is a quick video.