Earlier this week I showed the difference that three months has made in Dixie. I would like to show some of the tranformations that these horses go through.

Flint Hill and General Forrest were both 4yr olds and they arrived March 26th, 2007.

The above pics are of Flint Hill one of the first CANTER horses I was involved with. He didn’t pass his first vet check due to weak stifles..not suprising considering the condition he was in. Very fun transformation to watch this horse and I am lucky enough to still see him because my mom bought him and loves him. First pic in March, Second in May, third in June and then October. I just saw him this week and he is a tank! Huge uphill neck with powerful hindquarters. There are people out there who are not trustworthy which is why he ended up so thin. His hair fell out in clumps, wormy belly and he was so thin it was painful for him to be touched.

This is General Forrest very cute and only two months of the track when he arrived with Flint.

I can’t say he ever really got as much weight on him and he was not a fan of the dressage work as much as some of the others This boy was so terrified of jumping when he arrived it took me three months to get him over a pole on the ground. I would have gave him away at that point All of a sudden it clicked and he gained his confidence through walking and trotting over lots of low jumps and then adding in low scary jumps until he was out winning the local shows.

He was sold to a junior rider and is having fun in the hunter ring doing these sort of things

I don’t remember when Klondike arrived but the first set of pics I have were July 15th. He was quiet but hated contact and liked to go around with his mouth open. He loved to hack around but work was not on the top of his list.

Less than a month later he was starting to get the idea.

He had gained a lot of weight and muscle when he tweaked his tendon and went back to CANTER. It was fun for me to watch his journey back to riding with Allie and Kelly. He was the coolest horse in the barn. Every time I turned around he had something in his mouth.

Next came Yellow Tavern. I was more excited than I had been in a long time after riding this horse. I dropped off Klondike at Frying Pan Park and Allie wanted me to get on Tavern and try him out. He had just come off the track and here we were riding out x-country while there was some sort of western competition going and and people here there and everywhere.  Needless to say I was in love

If I look at this picture I wonder what other people must have thought when I said this was a horse who could do the big stuff but if you sat on him you would totally know. He moves so light across the ground and when he jumped you never felt him take off or land. He was just that cool. First ride pics

I have no idea why he looks so different in this next set of pictures because they are only taken five days later but man you can see why I was excited.

I think the next ride I jumped him over everything in my ring and you could have not gotten me to stop smiling. We didn’t get pictures because I assumed there would be plenty of other opportunties but I broke my wrist a few days later and was out for the next several months. I could not hold a lunge line but I did a lot of free lunging and free jumping with tavern to teach him about contact and reform his jumping style. He had been a steeplechaser and although he could jump anything he did have his own style. I simply think he had so much scope he didn’t need to worry about his technique!

It was fun trying to convince my friends to get on all my horses when they hadn’t been ridden for weeks. I kept them in shape with free lunging but for the most part I couldn’t even put on bridles or equipment so they didn’t retain their muscles like they could have. Somehow I don’t think his new owner is having any problems with the water jump because they like to go swimming even with winter blankets on!

Next arrival was Indy’s Wolf. Allie came to pick up Tavern and brought me another to play with. I was still wearing my cast but hoping to ride soon. Here I am riding Indy with my cast on. He hadn’t been ridden in at least a year so my husband was sweating bullets and pissed that I was even considering getting on a horse that I didn’t know. But look at Indy..did he look dangerous??? Nice shirt ripped up the arm to make room for the cast that went up behind my elbow!

Two months later and he wasn’t much more attractive but getting more muscle and weight.

Three months later

I have posted his recent pics and he looks better each day. These are just a few of the horses that I have worked with but I love showing how they change as their training progresses.

I hope these work. I struggle with my video software. I bought a really nice digitial hard drive camera but when I upload to youtube they look horrible. On the camera they look really good so it has to be something during the uploading process that makes the quality poor?

Anyway here is Dixie-

Dewey-

One of my favorite things about working with these horses who come off the track is watching them change shape.  I remember when Dixie arrived and he looked like a yak with all this long hair and he had no muscle at all. His neck was pencil thin and he wasn’t the most attractive horse I had ever seen.

I was browsing through some pictures that we had taken last night and it is so neat to see the amount of muscle he has gained. Check out his neck and look at that hind end! Big difference.

Before

After

We took some video yesterday so hopefully I can get that together tonight and post it. I have to admit I felt like my ride was better than my pictures show. I have been taking lessons with a new instructor who has really helped me out a lot. One thing she stresses is making your ride count. Basically, I am a bit to nice when it comes to the training and although it is good that I ride softly I am not asking for enough. During my last lesson with Dixie she reallys said I need to work harder at passively resisting when he wanted to hollow out and pull. Sit up and add the leg and say no you must come here. He has really come along and I do believe we are doing better but I always see things I can improve on. I suppose that is the purpose of pics and video right ?? For example, in some of the pictures I am sitting up nice and tall and carrying my hands with a bend in my elbow. I can see in others where I am allowing him to get to low and on the forehand and lean on my hands and other pics where I am allowing him to be above and I need to add the leg and get him a bit more supple in the neck.

Dixie has a very good natural balance but he needs to become a bit more supple laterally which will allow him to come across his back better. I have been working on a lot of lateral work via leg yeilds, shoulder in, haunches in and more. I like using the circles and switching back between shoulder in and haunches in or just overbend slightly and then counterbend. He gets a bit frustrated because it is hard work but it makes a big difference.

One difference I notice is he is becoming more supple on that right side. This had improved his canter and we can now canter a circle right without feeling like we are going to tip over. Sometimes it is easy to forget that he only has a few months of training on him because he is further along that some of the young horses would be at this point.

I have started to be stricter on myself about incorporating jumping into every ride. Like many others I often do not have any help in setting fences so it is a major pain to get off and fix fences multiple times. I like to start him off low and get his confidence up and then build up the height. When I don’t do this it can back him off but that is normal for a young horse. For example, last night I did have help so I warmed up over a few x-rails and then a vertical. Then we slowly built up a small oxer to a bigger oxer to make sure he was comfortable with each step of the process. He is very relaxed about the jumps and never in a hurry but he tends to be slow off the ground which illustrates my bad habit of wanting to over fold. I end up jumping ahead because he leaves the ground slower than most of my horses. Ha, this will fix that habit!

Here are some more pictures of him for last nights ride.

Allie brought me a new horse to work with two weeks ago. His name is City by the Sea and we call him Dewey (a beach town here in Delaware). He is a 3yr tb who never made it to the track. He paddles slightly but enough that he interfered when galloping so they decided not to push it. Apparently, this guy had a lot of training in preparation of going to the track and it shows. He is just as quiet as can be and very well trained for his age. Great balance on both sides with a nice soft mouth. He moves softly away from your legs and is more than willing to do anything you ask. He has been out trail riding and doing some light ring work. He loves the trails and is braver than he should be at his age Just trucks through anything including water and ditches. When the other horses spook he just keeps on going. He is such a sweetie in the barn too. I have taught him to come up to get hosed off when I am watering the troughs and he will just stand there waiting for me to squirt him off. He is a bit of a wuss in the field but is starting to fit in better now. At first he didn’t want to come into his stall but now I can’t get him out from under his fan. They are not spoiled at my place..really the treats in the tack room that they all sneak in for are just for show

Here are some pictures of the cutie with my friend Tara riding. We are just letting him go around as he pleases right now until he builds some muscle and then I will start asking for a bit more. He is a baby so I take my time.

He is for sale if you know anybody looking for a quiet horse to bring along. I think he is going to make a great lower level horse and he obviously has shown he loves to trail ride.

Indy is just too cute for words. Indy gets rather excited about new things. We did our warm up and melissa’s young horse was showing his excitement at having new horses at his home. Indy was unaffected by his antics and instead was looking here there and everywhere taking in the sights. Indy likes to give his fences more effort because he must find ways to impress you.

We finished up without doing the banks. It was so hot and Indy was lathered. He is fit but they are all still adjusting to this weather so no reason to push it. He was a good boy!

Indy likes the bigger fences!

Today Dixe and Indy got to go visit with my friend Melissa and her two horses. Melissa has a really cute 20 acre farm and she has built a mini-course all around and recently added some smaller jumps for the greenies. She has lots of logs, a coop, a water crossing, a bank, ditch and more that run along the hay field and through the woods. She lives 40min away but I need to get over more often!

Dixie- Wow, really I know I talk about him all the time but he just always amazes me. Melissa, my mom and I headed out around the farm to warm up. We all trotted around on loose reins just enjoying the early morning. Dixie gave a few jumps the evil eye as we rode by Despite trailering over to a new place with a screaming buddy he was relaxed as could be. Too relaxed? Not sure if there is such a thing but Dixie is totally unimpressed by little jumps. How insulting that I make him go over such baby jumps. I will just trot and canter over them in stride. Did I mention he didn’t even peek at them? Cool horse!

I had to hold him back here he was getting so rank

He loves water

This one impressed him slightly..very slight!

I like his wild looking hair

I walked him over to show him the bank. It was a bigger bank than I would have liked to try for my first time doing a bank with him. I am standing there talking to my mom who is above the hill and all of a sudden he jumped right up the bank Um, great but I was not ready for that!

Going down he was very unsure. He started to go but then slithered half down and pulled himself up. I hate that but sometimes it happens when they are learning. Instead of panicking I let him stand and think about it. My mom dropped of next to him to sorta show him. Then I walked forward and he calmly jumped right off. Good boy! He is so trusting and always stops to think about something which I just love about a horse. Most of the time when they slither and scare themselves they just mentally shut down. He was willing to think through what I was asking for me.

He got hosed off and went out to hang out to have some grass. Indy is up next.

Saturday was lesson day! I have recently started taking lessons with Mogie Bearden-Muller who moved to our area from California.  She comes to my barn where a group of us get together for a day of lessons. 

 It was lightly raining but as I rode down to the ring on Dixie it had started to thunder and lightning was off in the distance. Did I mention how sensible Dixie is??? Massive storm with wind and sideways rain and he is just going along like he could care less.

She watched me warm him up in w/t/c and then brought me in to talk about him. She liked his balance and remarked that he was forward without rushing and for his limited training he already had a great way of carrying himself but we needed to again work on more connection. Of course the bend to the right is an issue so we were going to address that as well.

We started out walking a circle to the left and once again she talked about how I was a very soft rider but could really improve all my horses by taking a bit more connection and starting to establish a more uphill balance (I had been working on teaching dixie to stretch long and low across the back to open his stride). She is a believer in focusing on the hind end to create the larger stride and once you get the hind end working the back is going to have to work. Okay..different method but I am open to learning. Shorten the reins and add the leg. To the left he wants to over-bend so watch that with little half halts on the outside rein. Be careful to not let him walk out of the contact..meaning let them rush in the walk to evade having to come from behind. He was a bit pissy about the contact.  I didn’t feel like I was at all tight but he was saying nope don’t understand. I was just patiently asking with the leg for him to step into the contact. He is smart and started to understand that I wasn’t going to let go and he then marched right into the contact. Of course we had to revisit the concept often but she was really tough on me to passively resist when he tried to yank me (one of his favorite evasions is to pull up with his mouth open) and just close the leg and a little sponge on the inside rein to ask for a bit of flexion. I find Dixie to be very mannerly when he is confused. I can almost feel him thinking and trying to figure out what I am asking him to do.

We basically did the same thing at the trot. By the time we started trotting it was pouring. Mogie was covered in a rain sheet and I had water just pouring off me. Dixie was just working like he had been doing this forever. Meanwhile, it’s thundering and we can still see the lighting in the distance. While going right he was very resistant to moving over in a bit of a leg yeild away from the inside leg. He wanted to throw his head up and say nope can’t move over. Can’t bend right. I kept asking and we got some really nice moments and some very soft bend.

Next we went to work on some jumping. She laid down 4 ground poles and we walked and then trotted through those just working on staying slow and relaxed. Then a 9ft pole, x-rail and I forget what the distance on the landing pole was. She wanted him to trot in and land cantering out stretching to meet the pole. He wants to be a bit short in the canter so that was the point of the pole was to stretch him out upon landing.

He does not really know where to put his parts yet so the focus was on me staying in the middle. I tend to jump ahead expecting a big jump when there isn’t one. Keep the trot nice and slow and do not do anything but just support with the leg off the ground and land centered and in balance. Despite the rain and slick ground he was 100% focused on the jumps and handled himself so well. We were all very impressed with how nice he is and how well he handles himself. She noticed something funny with his shoe and he had twisted his shoe. Oh well..it was a great lesson. Walked him back and got to use my shoe pulling tools again. Dixie got lots of treats

Dixie is for sale (although I admit I have not marketed him yet) so if anybody is looking for a super nice horse I believe he has great basics and is ready to move on now. I enjoy him so much I keep wanting to do more and more with him instead of selling him but the point of the program is to re-home the horses we have trained so we can have the funds to do the same thing for the rest of the horses who are donated to CANTER.

Dixie had a busy weekend. He was napping in the field when I woke up this morning until the neighbors started weedwhacking and then he jumped up and threw in a couple of bucks letting them know how pissed he was to be disturbed. At noon, I loaded Dixie and Charlie up for a trip to my mom’s house. I noticed Dixie had lost another shoe..man those bell boots don’t do their job. It probably was when he jumped up and threw in those bucks We got to the farm and I unloaded them and gave dixie the ghetto foot wrap. Exhibit one-

My mom was bringing her horse, Flint Hill, the former CANTER MA owned horse that I had restarted. He was excited about heading out on a trail ride

We headed off into the open fields and started with a trot. All was well until Dixie kicked a beer can scaring Flint. Flint jumped up in the air with all fours off the ground and dixie sorta stopped and then ran sideways. Too funny! We got that all sorted out and continued to trot along to let them stretch out. One thing I find with young Tb’s is that they don’t have a lot of patience in the beginning of a ride. A good trot to clear the pipes or even a little canter will let them relax and you will have a much better ride Both of these guys are lovely on the trail but they still wanted to do that initial trot.

We did a bit of walking and then picked up a canter and I had to pass Flint because he is just to darn slow. Dixie couldn’t get collected enough to canter behind him so I just came alongside him and man it was great to just canter along on a big balanced tb who was light and soft in the bridle.

We went into the woods and let them walk to cool down and then came back out for more trotting and cantering. We came across some men doing soil tests in the fields on a four wheeler and Flint was not to sure about them but Dixie let him know he was being a big baby and pushed right on past him. One short canter to head back to the trailers and then a walk to cool down.

Wow, Dixie is just too cool. Of course I already loved him but now he has packed around my husband on the trails and was a total gentleman in this huge open fields where he had every opportunity to be silly if he wanted to be. I was trotting and cantering on a soft rein with just baby squeezes here and there to regulate speed. He really is super with listenting to your body so you don’t even have to touch the reins. He has a great balance and is so smooth to ride. It was effortless.

Back on the trailer to ride back to the farm. Unload and get a bath and hang out in the stall while I ride my other horse. Back on the trailer to head back to the farm and finally unload and get his dinner. It was a big day for Dixie and Charlie. I am blessed to have such nice horses.

Dixie has been a busy horse lately. His flatwork is coming along very well and now that it has finally stopped raining we have gotten to do more jumping. I got around to making my mini x-country course in our field with the pond. I have a black pipe, a coops, some barrels and a jump coming out of the water.

Even though he lives in that field it is different being ridden around there. I w/t/c him around. Then I walked him down the natural ditch across the water (basically it’s a big slop with 3ft of water in the bottom and then slopes up on the other side). He was not sure of this especially with all the tadpoles swimming around but I let him stand and think about it. He is very funny and you can actually feel him thinking. Then he calmly walked through..didn’t even jump across like I was expecting him to do. I was asking him to just step through but I had my hands in the mane, heels down just in case

Then we jumped back and forth over the black pipe which was about 2′3″. He did stop the first time but it was an honest what in the heck am I supposed to do type of stop. I let him get a look and reapproached and he went right over. Good boy! He is just so smart about the way he thinks about new things.

Today was his first trip off the farm to go trail riding. I manage to convince my husband to do crazy things all the time. I am lucky he trusts me so much! We pull up to the parking lot where the trails are. There is one trailer of horses who have finished and we are talking to them. Did I mention both of the horses have never been trail riding off the farm before and Dixie was scared to back off the trailer so he scared himself and got off shaking. Both horses are big! Charlie is 4yr and already 16.2 and Dixie is a solid 16.2. Most of the local riders ride western on smaller quarter horses and I know they were thinking we were crazy. Those women gave us the funniest looks probably thinking we were heading out for a death mission Of course my husband is nervous too. He doesn’t ride all that often and has never ridden Dixie before. I am going to ride Charlie who is very young and does not have a lot of trail experience to begin with. Deep down I know he trusts me but looking at his face I know he is worried especially since Dixie’s eyes are popping out of his head. I forget what it is like to be nervous because I ride these greenies all the time. I am cautious but not necessarily nervous. I always do my homework before going out on the trails and Dixie has been out alone and in groups at the farm so I was sure he was going to be fine. Charlie..well that was a bit of an unknown but he has a great brain and although young he has always processed new things well.

Within five minutes of getting off the trailer both horses were falling asleep.

Kurt gets on and I am trying to get pictures for the blog He is a bit worried because Dixie doesn’t want to stand still but I let him know that is normal. Dixie isn’t much for standing around in the beginning of a ride. Kurt walks a few circles and tests out his steering and brakes. He is used to riding my older tb who is a lot like Dixie with a very soft mouth.

Both horses were excellent! The did a lot of looking at the various tree stumps, the puddles and some branches but did not spook. We walked and trotted for about 30 minutes. Kurt loved Dixie! (I knew he would) Thought he was really smooth and listened very well. He looked but didn’t react to anything which is good for Kurt who only rides once in a while.

We loaded the boys back up and brought them back to my own farm to spend the night. Dixie unloaded perfectly this time. Now I am looking out my window watching them walk around and eat grass. I will take them back to the barn tomorrow and Dixie is going to go over to my mom’s farm for another outing.

Young horses are all about repetition and having short consistent rides to keep them working within the program. Dixie came out today and automatically remembered that leg meant move over and not go faster.

I worked much better at keeping my posting low and slow which allowed him to come through with his hind end and step under so he could come across his back. We only did 15 min of flat work and then played around over the new course I made. Lots of turns and jumps coming off the short diagonals. Part of my course is still under water and of course it was all the scary stuff that was dry so no time like the present to introduce some new jumps.

Tarp produced no reaction

How about this ugly green pipe..nope still not looking

He seems to have figured out the oxer is fun

His form is nothing special right now but like most young horses learning to jump he is still figuring out where all his parts are. I love how honest he is to jumps that most young horses who don’t have much jumping experience would find scary. We are mostly trotting with a bit of cantering. He lands very softly and canters away just as happy as can be.