Great clinic with Walter Zettl!

Yesterday the Old Man and I rode with Walter Zettl and it was amazing.  We mostly worked on straightness and rhythm and tempo.

My favorite parts were when Walter said that my pony is a "spectacular mover" and called the farm owner over to point out to her that he's a spectacular mover.  He's 27 years old, and he's still a spectacular mover!  Walter said over and over what a sweetheart my horse is, which he really is.

I feel so re-energized now..  I'm like, "WANT TO RIDE ALL THE HORSES!"  Which will probably last about 5 minutes, when I realize how much I suck without Walter in my ear telling me what to do, haha. 

Unfortunately there aren't any pictures from the clinic...  *sad face*  But here are a couple of him back home after the clinic:

And here's one of us from a couple months ago. 

 Yup, he's perfect all right!  <3

*squeal* Super exciting news!!!!!

River is getting temporarily neglected.  My wonderful vet called me on Thursday to ask if I want to ride with Walter (Zettl)!!  Holy crap yes!!!!  Lucky for me, both she and another person who ride with Walter whenever he's in town have lame horses, so there was an open slot.  Yay!!!!!

Naturally, I'm riding the Old Man with Walter.. of course, he hasn't been in regular work in a few years, so now we're in boot camp.  Pretty much as soon as I got off the phone with my vet, I went to the barn to ride... 

Thursday he was okay.  He was very excited about the canter.  So our canter work consisted of walk, pick up the canter, after about 2 strides back to a walk, repeat... more than a few strides of canter and he'd try to explode.  Silly boy!

Friday I remembered my dressage whip.. which I promptly had to drop because he would not settle at the walk.  The canter was a little better...  We could hold a canter without running away for more than a few strides, as long as it was on about an 8m circle.

Saturday we did lots of shoulder in, haunches in, and haunches out at the walk, and leg yielding and shoulder in at the trot.  Most impressively, we were able to canter a 20 meter circle!!!  My abs are still sore from the effort of holding him together and keeping him up, but that's okay...

Did I mention he's an OLD MAN?  He's 27 years old!!!  And I'm still trying to work him down to being able to walk-trot-canter like a reasonably broke horse.

He had yesterday off, so today it's back to work!

Do you think his everyday bridle is suitable for our lesson with Walter?

Totally appropriate, right?

I can't stand cribbing.

I hate cribbing.  It's my biggest pet peeve.  The Old Man's barn allows horses to crib completely unrestricted, so I keep a few stirrup leathers in my trunk and as soon as I get to the barn, I put them on the cribbers to prevent them cribbing while I'm there.

As far as I'm concerned, the only things cribbers are good for are target practice and dog food.  A controlled cribber, fine, I can deal with that, but uncontrolled?  No way.  Absolute deal breaker.

And this is what happens when you allow a horse to crib...

Horse 1:

This horse cribs on the metal between the bars on the front of his stall.  You can feel and see the indents in the metal from his teeth.

Horse 2

This is a ~20+ year old horse who is a nonstop cribber.

Horse 3:

This is a ~27 year old pony.

Repulsive, isn't it?  Also worth noting is that all 3 are underweight.  I kept a cribbing collar on #2 all winter and her weight was the best it's ever been.  Now that she's back to cribbing nonstop, she's lost weight again.

Cribbing is so incredibly bad for horses (and barns!).  Don't let your horse crib.  Keep a collar on 24/7. 

Just a picture

Awww, what a pretty princess!

Steroids

Princess is on a course of dexamethasone to deal with his hives.  He started on 10cc/day for 3 days, then 9cc/day for 3 days (because I couldn't remember if I was supposed to go down 1 or 2 cc at a time.. it's 2cc), tomorrow he'll get 7cc for 3 days, then 5, then 3, then 1, then 1 every other day for a little bit.  All this assuming, of course, that the hives don't come back after lowering the dose.

He's driving me nuts!

We're #1!!

Google "how to make a saddle pad".  Or just "make a saddle pad".

Go on, do it.  I'll wait.

Done?

Did you happen to notice what the #1 result is?

 In case it wasn't clear....

ME!

Yeah, that's right, me and River's blog are the top result on Google!  How freaking cool is that??  We're practically famous!  Now where does the "rich" part come in.....?


(I know, the screenshots are probably too big and run off into the sidebar... sorry!  The next size smaller is too small to read easily.)