Neep! and various
Jul. 17th, 2004 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancinghorseThis has been a surprisingly productive week. Lots of horses worked and pages written and work-type stuff done including--cue Hallelujah Chorus--the frumious tax receipts. Now to hire an accountant and get the damned things filed. I ever so hate doing tax receipts. Makes me feel as if I'm on vacation, now they're done.
I had a most successful hunt on Thursday--went to get my hair cut, and the shop is in the mall, so I cruised a bit and found a lovely white shirt to wear with nice pants and "con jewelry." Will come in handy for things like, oh, World Fantasy. (World Fantasy Convention is in Tempe this year, at the lovely Mission Palms. I have my reservations. Par-teeeeeee!)
This morning, of course, we had lessons. After last week's ghastly hot slot, I didn't even mind getting up before 6 to get the troops fed and keed ready to ride at 7. There was enough overcast to keep it moderately cool, though the humidity was (and is) pretty ghastly. Keed had a most excellent ride with Teacher: working on getting his back up and his hindquarters under. This is hard for him right now because of his very sadly tubular growth phase. He used to have back muscles, really he did. However he managed nicely, and after his ride his back was up so far, he almost didn't have withers. Which takes doing, as he has his mother's big swoopy withers. He worked lots on canter, and on engagement and lightness in walk and trot, and on long and low, at which he's rather good. He looks lovely when he gets it together: light, balanced, and elegant.
An interesting thing about him is that although he's built more like an Arab than a Lipp--longer legs and lighter build overall--and his canter is his best gait, he still has the Lipp obession with balance. He does much better transitions if he's collected first, and he's seriously not keen on the usual young-horse downhill-on-the-level arrangement. At heart, in spite of his speed-horse build, he's a collectamatic.
Capria was my lesson pony for the day. She has a tendency in hot weather not to move around enough, and her right hind sort of doesn't want to work. It's not an unsoundness, it's more that she has a lazy leg. I've noticed this week that she's seriously not using it, so have been working to encourage her to be even behind. Joni, ingenious as ever, decreed that today we would do Pole Work. Capria loves ground poles, also cavalletti--she has major knee action (being a rather old-fashioned sort of Lipp) and can flow over poles of all heights without disturbing her rider in the slightest. When I first got her, we were in an eventer barn, and the trainer would set up complicated arrangements of poles and crossrails just so people could be amazed at how she negotiated them (knees up, back level, steady as she goes).
This was much more basic: six poles, first in walk, then trot--working, slightly lengthened, and slightly collected--and for the last bit, we did a 20m canter circle into trot over poles into 20m trot circle. She was moving well--Joni said as well as she's seen her--and keeping it together beautifully. My hands are steadier, which I'm sure has a lot to do with it, and she's taking my half-halts nicely instead of blowing through them.
And there are people who think dressage is all circles and slog. Poles are fun. We like poles.
Nice to have a schoolmaster to play with, too. I have no idea how I ended up with one--basically Capria was born knowing it, and I'm finally getting a clue. It really helps to do lessons on her at this point, then go to Pook and extrapolate. Very nice for the learning curve. (And he's steadied my hands, partly by being Stinky when they're not steady, and partly by having that wonderful big neck to brace my hands on when they wander. The real secret of the baroque stallion: the infinitely supportive neck. ;> )
I had a most successful hunt on Thursday--went to get my hair cut, and the shop is in the mall, so I cruised a bit and found a lovely white shirt to wear with nice pants and "con jewelry." Will come in handy for things like, oh, World Fantasy. (World Fantasy Convention is in Tempe this year, at the lovely Mission Palms. I have my reservations. Par-teeeeeee!)
This morning, of course, we had lessons. After last week's ghastly hot slot, I didn't even mind getting up before 6 to get the troops fed and keed ready to ride at 7. There was enough overcast to keep it moderately cool, though the humidity was (and is) pretty ghastly. Keed had a most excellent ride with Teacher: working on getting his back up and his hindquarters under. This is hard for him right now because of his very sadly tubular growth phase. He used to have back muscles, really he did. However he managed nicely, and after his ride his back was up so far, he almost didn't have withers. Which takes doing, as he has his mother's big swoopy withers. He worked lots on canter, and on engagement and lightness in walk and trot, and on long and low, at which he's rather good. He looks lovely when he gets it together: light, balanced, and elegant.
An interesting thing about him is that although he's built more like an Arab than a Lipp--longer legs and lighter build overall--and his canter is his best gait, he still has the Lipp obession with balance. He does much better transitions if he's collected first, and he's seriously not keen on the usual young-horse downhill-on-the-level arrangement. At heart, in spite of his speed-horse build, he's a collectamatic.
Capria was my lesson pony for the day. She has a tendency in hot weather not to move around enough, and her right hind sort of doesn't want to work. It's not an unsoundness, it's more that she has a lazy leg. I've noticed this week that she's seriously not using it, so have been working to encourage her to be even behind. Joni, ingenious as ever, decreed that today we would do Pole Work. Capria loves ground poles, also cavalletti--she has major knee action (being a rather old-fashioned sort of Lipp) and can flow over poles of all heights without disturbing her rider in the slightest. When I first got her, we were in an eventer barn, and the trainer would set up complicated arrangements of poles and crossrails just so people could be amazed at how she negotiated them (knees up, back level, steady as she goes).
This was much more basic: six poles, first in walk, then trot--working, slightly lengthened, and slightly collected--and for the last bit, we did a 20m canter circle into trot over poles into 20m trot circle. She was moving well--Joni said as well as she's seen her--and keeping it together beautifully. My hands are steadier, which I'm sure has a lot to do with it, and she's taking my half-halts nicely instead of blowing through them.
And there are people who think dressage is all circles and slog. Poles are fun. We like poles.
Nice to have a schoolmaster to play with, too. I have no idea how I ended up with one--basically Capria was born knowing it, and I'm finally getting a clue. It really helps to do lessons on her at this point, then go to Pook and extrapolate. Very nice for the learning curve. (And he's steadied my hands, partly by being Stinky when they're not steady, and partly by having that wonderful big neck to brace my hands on when they wander. The real secret of the baroque stallion: the infinitely supportive neck. ;> )
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-17 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-18 10:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-17 05:35 pm (UTC)I forget how old you said da keed was, but do you notice with your younger Lips that they don't canter until they're older? I can remember having a conversation with Kit Knotts about this a looong time ago, when I was having mucho trouble with Sonny just totally falling apart when we'd canter, and then getting into the habit of grabbing the bit and just... running, he was so out of balance. Kit told me not to ask him to canter (well) until he was at least 10. Well... as you know. I'm sure, my training has been very sporadic at best, due to a number of reasons over the years, but something wonderful has happened in the past three to four years. Sonny is fifteen now, but a couple years ago I learned that suddenly, even after the "lack of" work he's received, I could throw tack on him and all of a sudden... he could canter. Heh, the first time we did that, I was in complete awe, that he rocked back on his haunches and just... cantered. It was unbelievable. And still, I have hardly done anything with him (and I hope that's going to change, now that he'll be once again at a nice boarding facility by August due to the sale of my farm), but I can just throw a bridle on him and canter away, mouth light as a feather, and that natural balance that he could not find before, it's just... there! :) This has really made me look hard at the methods we use to train these horses, and understand that they really do come into their own around the age of 10.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-18 11:01 am (UTC)Capria is 16. Her canter finally started showing up reliably a couple of years ago. At this point I'm the problem, and I'm working on that--but she has a nice canter on her own and is better balanced overall.
It is interesting how they don't follow the standard timeline, isn't it? If I were a much better trainer, like, say, a rider at the SRS, I'm sure I could get them going between 4 and 6, but I'm finding they aren't really ready to do anything before they turn 5, then it's another two or three years before they amount to much. Pushing them doesn't seem to help. They just get pissy or arrange to have injuries. Along about age 6 or 7 they seem to grow an extra brain cell, then around 9 or 10, as you say, they're ready to rumble. Keed woke up to dressage in the past year, and Pook at 7 is just really getting comfortable with the idea of being ridden. With a better rider he'd be a year ahead, probably, but I don't think he'd be much more than that. As it is, he won't let anyone else ride him, and I'd rather take it slow and steady than speed up and screw up.
Can you imagine trying to shoehorn Lipps into the European young-horse circuit? Yikes. Extra crispy, anyone?
no subject
Date: 2004-07-18 01:04 pm (UTC)And went forward. Bitching all the way, mind you, but FORWARD. (In the "front" direction, too, as opposed to Forward in Reverse, which she's perfectly capable of doing. It's a Baroque thing...)
no subject
Date: 2004-07-17 08:07 pm (UTC)Damn.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-18 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-18 03:54 pm (UTC)I am really going to try to get to Arizona in January. Early in the month.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-20 12:13 am (UTC)